108 réponses à ce sujet

[Moleculor]

I'm fairly confident that any useful data is already obtained and saved by EDI, as she hacked into the Collector Base for a long while. The base represents TECHNOLOGY. Tools. And what is that tool? A blender designed to to puree sentient beings and create Reapers out of them.



That's not a tool I need in my arsenal.



I suspect that the issue here is that Bioware dropped the ball when it came to explaining that. The writing fell down at the last bit. Instead of it being a decision between "Keep the blender" or "Destroy the blender", it was broadened to a decision between "Keep advanced technology" or "Destroy that which we don't understand". And I don't think that was the decision that was intended at all. I think it was meant to be "Keep the blender" or "Destroy the blender", which fits better with the paragon/renegade points you're awarded.

[Daerog]

Giving the base to the Alliance will also be giving it to Cerberus. You do know that Cerberus is all over the Alliance, right?

[Vaenier]

Meltagunner wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

Its a no brainer. SAVE THE BASE. What self centered idiot would destroy the only answer to finding the enemies weakness?

You assume that's the only answer, though a viable assumption if you ignore the entire Mass Effect story presented so far.

One reaper that is in so many peices, even the collective scientific minds of the citadel could not tell it was even a Reaper, or was it the one that imploded in the gas giant and is now 3 feet long... Maybe the blank VI of Illios? Ooh, how about the research base on Virmire?

So many options to choose from... [/sarcasm]
What havent we destroyed... *facepalm*

[Dishwasher64]

UnAffectedFiddle wrote...

As I said, your shiny new Normandy cannon is based off Reaper tech right? So all you nay sayers, did you still buy this tech even though it may be "tainted".

I'll also point out that while the Reapers say they left their technology to dictate how races evolve, I doubt they figured you would be taking over their bases because two years ago the cycle should have been restarted.

This. When Nazara/Sovereign said that bit about "you use our technology, thus you develop along the paths we desire" he was pretty clearly referring specifically to the mass relays, which the Reapers intentionally left for us to use. We're dependent on them, which is what they want. Any technology you get from the Collector base would be technology you took by force (thus earned, in a sense, if you must look at it that way), and probably technology that the Reapers never predicted you would be able to get your hands on. After all, they've repeated the cycle of extinction for millions of years without a hitch, and no one ever stole their technology before.

And in my mind the indoctrination threat is a bit of a reach. Plus, how much of a threat is it REALLY? It would be like that leftover indoctrination effect on the derelict Reaper, which isn't really mind CONTROL, it's just something that screws with people's heads. In any case, if there's something to it, it just adds to the chance that Cerberus won't be able to do anything with the base after all, so no harm done.

Edit: Just because the Reapers are doing something awful by grinding up humans into paste, are we supposed to just blind ourselves to it, refuse to acknowledge what happened? "This place was the site of a terrible tragedy. Just get rid of it. I don't want to look at it anymore." That sounds a bit like what everyone so hates the Council for doing. Plus, knowing more about the process of making a Reaper is still helpful, even if you don't plan on making one.

Modifié par Dishwasher64, 19 février 2010 - 01:47 .

[Meltagunner]

contown wrote...

The choice was incredibly black and white, and it made no sense. Also, it left out a critical option: keep the base, but GIVE IT TO THE ALLIANCE/COUNCIL. Why can't we do that? It would let us get a good understanding of reaper tech, keep it out of cerberus' hands, and, most importantly, show undeniable proof that the reapers exist. That would get the council and alliance to finally side with Shepard in the war against the reapers.

It was easily the most laughably bad moment in the game.

I think two unspoken factors went into not yielding a third option, Shepard maybe didn't believe he could hold the base down before the Illusive man's forces could move in, considering the Normandy was a mess. The second second factor might be more of an emotional response to the notion that he or she didn't trust even the Citadel government with the technology. Anderson is one of four, and half the Council held an natural disappointment with the Thorian's demise. As for the Alliance, it was already proven that it had be compromised by the Illusive man at key positions.

[RhythmlessNinja]

Did anyone even have the thought that the place can have an indoctrination effect if you stay there too long? I mean they were building a reaper, and it's the collector base...just throwing that out there.

[Meltagunner]

Vaenier wrote...

One reaper that is in so many peices, even the collective scientific minds of the citadel could not tell it was even a Reaper, or was it the one that imploded in the gas giant and is now 3 feet long... Maybe the blank VI of Illios? Ooh, how about the research base on Virmire?

So many options to choose from... [/sarcasm]
What havent we destroyed... *facepalm*

That would be an overly rash stance. The one Reaper in pieces, yielded an in-game cannon tech provided by a regenade Turian drawning from his personal memory. That does not prove or negate a concusion to the entire yield of the on-going savage efforts on Sovereign. Also technology may give you a tactical advantage or open up strategic options, but centering your entire game plan on the possibility of a magic key tech appearing is bad planning with grand strategy. Remember then though the US built the Atomic bomb(s) there were still plans to finish the war on different terms. Oh and before you state that the atomic bomb saved more lives then without it, there were 14 days in 1962 when the bomb being a factor wasn't a good thing, ironically we're able arguing now on the internet because of a diplomatic solution was aquired. Now don't jump to the conclusion that I'd refuse better guns, armour or 4C system, but it shouldn't be the sole keystone to a strategy.

Anyways, the point is you're just thinking on technology being the key solution to the big end-game. Bioware thoughout the entire story has dropped clues that technology is not the -only- factor to the end-game.

Modifié par Meltagunner, 19 février 2010 - 02:19 .

[Vaenier]

What I would have done:

I would save the base. Then when talking to TIM, I would tell him its time to clean up his act, and he had the choice of either doing things right, or me taking him down. Either way, I would gain control of Cerberus (in hole or atleast oversight to TIMs actions) and use all its resources to study the collector base.

Main areas of research would be:

First, if active indoctrination effect is present and learning how to stop it or shield it.

Once secured, I would then begin learning how Reapers are built, specificaly where its weakspot is. [Death Star vent]

Additionally, I would learn how their shielding and weapons systems work in order to design shields and weapons that make theirs useless against me.

Side projects would include the study of collector physiology and possible genetic and cybernetic upgrades for my soldiers.

When enough research has been learned, I would shift a magority of resources to the construction of an anti reaper dreadnought.

With all of this, victory would be almost guaranteed. After the reapers are dealt with, i would sell off large amounts of this tech in order to fund research into magnetic based shielding and hyper-drive systems that did not rely on relays or eezo. Plasma weapons would also be extremely high on the list.



I like to plan ahead ^.=.^

[Bigdoser]

Meltagunner wrote...

The end-choice may seem black and white but it is only a small factor in the total formula. Honestly some people see only the tree and miss the forest. The collector's base was just that, a collector's base with housing for an embryo humanoid reaper. Any hope for an advanced super-weapon or key weakness on the make-up of the reaper gained from the base is supposition at this time. The only advanced technological evidence shown from the reaper base was nano-tech that broke down the colonists and devices that used the organic material to make the reaper's super-structure. Any assumptions on finding a key data-cache from the base is just an assumption, the reapers have already shown that they treat the base like a dummy-terminal through Harbringer's control of the Collectors so critical secret technology can be applied on demand with no need to keep data caches. Remember Reapers are good at leaving no traces of themselves. If you wanted to study Reapers you're going to need an actual Reaper, a live one would be best but the study of even a comatose reaper proved unviable. The next best thing would be then a corpse of a Reaper and the Citadel government already has one, Sovereign!

Suppositions aside and given the encountered evidence, the Collector base would have provided knowledge of Swarm bugs, random collector weapons, collector bodies, advanced nano-tech, receivers for Reaper communications, magnetic lifts, and organic-synthetic alloys. Of those techs, only the advanced nano-tech and Reaper comm-receivers would be lost in a big nuclear bast, the mess left on Horizon would make up for a lot of the Collector bits and Mordin had analysised a live Swarm bug.

But that's just the tree in my analogy.

Here's the forest. If you didn't get it in Mass Effect 1, the principle goal for Shepard wasn't to become the first human Spectre or even to stop Saren. In my opinion that was all a secondary area, the primary goal in the first few moves was to set up the pieces for a united front - galaxy. Saren even tried it but he got trapped within Sovereign's influence. Vigil on Ilos confirmed my suspicions and Mass Effect 2 reaffirmed it. On Ilos, Vigil laid out the Reapers' methods of operations: herd technological development (success), centralise dominating civilisation(s) operations (Citadel, success), kill the leader-ship (possible null), divide galaxy in managable pockets and over-whelm. After that Vigil notes that the Reapers harvest the galaxy of any new tech?! This might imply the Reapers have no creativity like a certain StarTrek antagonist.

Anyways, keeping the Reaper base would be a political nightmare and act as a dividing force. While the base itself is a secret, the technology it yield would have a huge blow-back effect. Also imagine the Citadel races as the principle community, humanity would be the new immigrants; humans are taking jobs, filling the police force, filling political offices, etc. All of a sudden the humans gain super nano-tech that the Citadel Intel groups didn't know of before, the Citadel hard-liners would start to gain massive amount credentials and when ever hard-liners gain massive political power things go down hill quickly. As it is already, conservative Citadel members are starting to polarise against human intergration and the last time a race (Krogan) started to dominate the Citadel, they stunted their baby-making ability.

Keeping the base was very much a renegade action as it lead to a potential break down of unity and seems to be based on a very short term gain; unity seems to a key part of the bigger solution as Bioware seems to be leaving a lot of opportunities to develop or lose large scale allies and a lot of the missions seem to hint in both Mass Effect games on the subtle political forces being set up for something bigger.

READ THIS PEOPLE. Also i agree

[Beechwell]

Dishwasher64 wrote...
Edit: Just because the Reapers are doing something awful by grinding up humans into paste, are we supposed to just blind ourselves to it, refuse to acknowledge what happened? "This place was the site of a terrible tragedy. Just get rid of it. I don't want to look at it anymore." That sounds a bit like what everyone so hates the Council for doing. Plus, knowing more about the process of making a Reaper is still helpful, even if you don't plan on making one.

The objections against keeping the base aren't about what happened there, but what may happen in the future if we keep the base. The most obvious thing for Cerberus to do would be to try to build their own Reapers, which would require lots of sentient beings to be destroyed in the process. If you are ok with that in order to take the galaxy, fine, but it is clearly a Renegade choice.
If you want to keep it in hopes of finding valuable information about how to combat the Reapers there (which is in no way guaranteed) then it is a gamble against the possibility of abuse by Cerberus (or even other factions). I'd say it is a risky gamble (for reasons I and others have explained earlier), which is why I tend to destroy that base. But I can understand why some think the gamble is worth taking.

[Zack Ross]

I'm going to laugh when everyone that chose to give him that base gets screwed over in Mass Effect 3. My bet is for starters you WILL die in ME3 regardless of what you try to do if you gave him that ship. That ship SHOULD be destroyed, and even my Renegade Shep chose to destroy it. There's no way I can rationalize giving that ship to him, he's evil. He is trying to save HUMANITY. If Asari settlements were disappearing, you wouldn't be able to get a hold of Cerberus. He cares because humanity is threatened by the Reapers, he could careless if they culled every other alien race and THEN got owned by Humanity.



I ally my Shepard with him because sometimes only the evil people are willing to get things done, but once the threat Humanity's extinction is gone I kicked Cerberus to the curb. We'll beat the Reapers, but as Shepard said without sacrificing the soul of our species.

[SCass2009]

No one else think the "you develop along our lines" thing might come into play? I mean, I may be reading into it a bit too much, but maybe the reapers want you to discover their technology, try to make a reaper and have it wipe everyone out even quicker.... i mean, 50,000 years is a long time to wait don't ya think?

hell thats prob the renegade ending for ME3 - you saveed the base, destroyed the reapers but since the technology exists somewhere down the line they're gonna start up again, whereas if you destroyed the base the reapers are either stopped entirely or it'll take so long to create them again its not worth worrying about til sat, mass effect 9?

Modifié par SCass2009, 19 février 2010 - 02:48 .

[rabbitchannel]

RhythmlessNinja wrote...

Did anyone even have the thought that the place can have an indoctrination effect if you stay there too long? I mean they were building a reaper, and it's the collector base...just throwing that out there.

I actually addressed that in a previous post.

Zack Ross wrote...

I'm going to laugh when everyone that chose to give him that base gets screwed over in Mass Effect 3. My bet is for starters you WILL die in ME3 regardless of what you try to do if you gave him that ship. That ship SHOULD be destroyed, and even my Renegade Shep chose to destroy it. There's no way I can rationalize giving that ship to him, he's evil. He is trying to save HUMANITY. If Asari settlements were disappearing, you wouldn't be able to get a hold of Cerberus. He cares because humanity is threatened by the Reapers, he could careless if they culled every other alien race and THEN got owned by Humanity. 



I ally my Shepard with him because sometimes only the evil people are willing to get things done, but once the threat Humanity's extinction is gone I kicked Cerberus to the curb. We'll beat the Reapers, but as Shepard said without sacrificing the soul of our species.

Nah. I suspect a lot of people are like me and have several saves with different choices. 

Paragon, No cure for Genophage, Re-wrote Geth, Saved base
Paragon, Cure for Genophage, Re-wrote Geth, Saved base
Paragon, Cure for Genophage, Re-wrote Geth, Destroyed base

etc, etc.

[MutantSpleen]

Gavinthelocust wrote...

You would have thought that Miranda may have a problem with destroying the thing but she is all happy about betraying her boss and organization.

Yeah that still makes me mad, wth Miranda, you never showed an ounce of hestiation about Cerberus before and now after its over your all "Cerberus is evil."  Miranda was indoctrinated on the Collector base I think.

I just finished by 'main" playthough tonight. I saved the base. Its just too valuable to lose. I don't even hate TIM not sure why everyone does, he seems like the only practical person around half the time.  He used you yes, but I think he is entitled to use you when he invests billions of dollars to bring you back from the dead and outfit you with the best equipment in the galaxy. Nobody would do that and expect nothing in return.

[this isnt my name]

Well he made it pretty clear he will grow his own reaper...Yeah I can see this going downhill already.

[Ajspeed]

Well ME2 is really the middle ground, it Stands between the introduction of a near unstoppable threat too the yet to be know ME3 i guess thats really what ME2 is about, just Setting up an awesome Amount of consequences/reunions and what not

[MutantSpleen]

this isnt my name wrote...

Well he made it pretty clear he will grow his own reaper...Yeah I can see this going downhill already.

When did he make that clear?  I heard talk of the tech giving us an advantage, securing our dominance as a species.  Never heard, "I can't wait to make a new Reaper." or "Let's make a human smoothie"

[ItsFreakinJesus]

KainrycKarr wrote...

Answer me this; what has happened every time someone has tried to study/use Reaper tech and tech that is connected with 'em?

Here's a hint. Ask Saren, Benezia, and the Cerberus team on the Derelict reaper.

Combine that with TIM's whole "CERBERUS IS HUMANITY" line and..

Well come on now.

IF indoctrination was not a threat, then maybe.

IF the person you're handing that kind of technology is NOT one step away from referring to himself as an entity/semi-deity

Then sure. There are merits. But in context? Hell to the nizzaw. It's like asking yourself "Hmm, what if i stuck this fork in the electrical socket..."

The Turians that reverse engineered Soverign's main weapon sure as hell weren't indoctrinated. 

[MutantSpleen]

scyphozoa wrote...

its clearly the wrong choice because of the level of indoctrination we've seen. if the dead reaper can indoctrinate the cerberus science team, the collector base can absolutely indoctrinate TIM. its not even up for debate, if TIM isn't already indoctrinated, then he would be.

That's retarded.  TIM is not indoctrinated. OH yes let me go through all this crap to stop the Reapers plans becasue I am actually working for the Reapers.....<_<

If anyone is indoctrinated its the Council, who did absolutely nothing. 

Ah yes "Reapers.."

[Ehlisuun]

This is just a really sad sad forum. OP isn't the first to float this, it continues to turn up because the question has never been discussed. Too many morons spam posting their insipid moral whining, none of them realizing how many crimes their complete and total ignorance makes them complicit with. Unfortunately, Bioware too it seems has fallen prey to the fashion of making a moral argument through their medium before developing a consistent philosophy. A moral point cannot be made unless the petitioner's morality itself is consistent.

[full_metal_zombie]

When a big time plot decision such as this one comes along, I always just think to myself; WWBMD?

And in this situation, I can tell you one thing: Batman would definately not save that ship just to have an edge over the enemy. There's always another way. The right path is not always the easiest.

Modifié par cyberwaste13, 19 février 2010 - 06:15 .

[Mars Nova]

MutantSpleen wrote...



We know how they are built (that's the datapad that Joker hands Shepard at the end of the game)

No we don't.  We know that the datapad has information on Reapers, but we don't know exactly what that information is.

I'd have to say no it's not black and white.  On my first playthrough I blew the place to hell, but I can see the value and risk in both keeping and destroying the station.  Not sure which I'm going to do when it comes time for my definitive playthrough.

[Jimbe2693]

On my first playthrough I kept the base, it seemed logical to use any useful technology there. Then I had second thoughts about TIM's motives so I destroy it from now on.

[DuffyMJ]

Dishwasher64 wrote...

UnAffectedFiddle wrote...

As I said, your shiny new Normandy cannon is based off Reaper tech right? So all you nay sayers, did you still buy this tech even though it may be "tainted".

I'll also point out that while the Reapers say they left their technology to dictate how races evolve, I doubt they figured you would be taking over their bases because two years ago the cycle should have been restarted.

This. When Nazara/Sovereign said that bit about "you use our technology, thus you develop along the paths we desire" he was pretty clearly referring specifically to the mass relays, which the Reapers intentionally left for us to use. We're dependent on them, which is what they want. Any technology you get from the Collector base would be technology you took by force (thus earned, in a sense, if you must look at it that way), and probably technology that the Reapers never predicted you would be able to get your hands on. After all, they've repeated the cycle of extinction for millions of years without a hitch, and no one ever stole their technology before.

And in my mind the indoctrination threat is a bit of a reach. Plus, how much of a threat is it REALLY? It would be like that leftover indoctrination effect on the derelict Reaper, which isn't really mind CONTROL, it's just something that screws with people's heads. In any case, if there's something to it, it just adds to the chance that Cerberus won't be able to do anything with the base after all, so no harm done.

Edit: Just because the Reapers are doing something awful by grinding up humans into paste, are we supposed to just blind ourselves to it, refuse to acknowledge what happened? "This place was the site of a terrible tragedy. Just get rid of it. I don't want to look at it anymore." That sounds a bit like what everyone so hates the Council for doing. Plus, knowing more about the process of making a Reaper is still helpful, even if you don't plan on making one.

Using human research conducted by ****'s is illegal and considered unethical even though it actually rendered some useful applications (useful design for extreme cold weather clothing survivability for high altitude fliers is one example)... Basically, if you support keeping the Collector base, you also supported the US bringing **** scientists to America, giving them free houses and cars and comfortable life in Florida, and paying them to develop rockets for the space race.  Personally, I find that disgusting and woefully amoral, but to each their own I guess.