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[Jebel Krong]

jtav wrote...

To me, the most telling line in the romance is Shepard's "What? Are you afraid you might actually start caring for someone?" I think she is terrified. Every person she cares for is someone who can hurt her. If she does fall for She[, she's virtually guaranteed to give her heart away only to see it broken when he dies in a few weeks. And yet, "it's worth it." Sap that I am, I would have moved that exchange to just before the Omega-4 relay.

aye. but it's perfect where it is - moving it later would lessen the impact because it would be that then straight through the relay... i actually ran through that scene yesterday, and surprisingly, the renegade options in some of the conversations are more revealing (given their teasing nature) - like how she considers shepard superior despite her genetic advantages etc. and of course the first kiss, which is awesome.

[Ieldra]

Nightwriter wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Breakdown Boy wrote...
I am busy with the Miri special for Vanity Fair, looking for the right font, but I should have something decent by tomorow. I love working with GIMP, it's much better than Photo shop!

Looking forward to that one, Breakdown Boy.

@all:
Good morning!

Just finished reading ME:Ascension, after a first try a few weeks ago I aborted because I was getting bored by the clumsily presented exposition I already knew. It didn't get much better. Grayson had promise - I can only wonder what a more competent writer would've done with him. In Karpyshyn's hands he seemed like a patchwork character, pieced together from parts that didn't quite integrate into a believable whole. I don't think I need to repeat details about the atrocious worldbuilding - not much SF atmosphere there. It feels like a present-day scenario clumsily transferred to an SF universe.

Cerberus comes across as quite a bit more "evil" than in ME2. I've always thought they could be subtle, and they'd prefer to be as a rule, being a secret organization. This brutal direct approach to things seems unnecessarily cruel as well as risky to the point of stupidity. It's also stereotypical villain behaviour, something I don't like to associate with an organization Miranda works for. I can't help thinking she would have approached the same objectives more elegantly. On the other side, TIM wouldn't have assigned Gillian to her, knowing she'd probably have more empathy for Gillian because of her own childhood.

BTW:
What's this here? A posting frenzy after a slow but intense weekend?

I've never read Ascension, but I do know that arguing about the possible merits or justifications of Cerberus and its actions is a whole other ball game when you're talking to someone who's read Ascension. You might as well give up trying to convince them Cerberus could ever be good, ever.

It's like Ascension contains some kind of irrefutable proof. Not that I would ever try to convince someone Cerberus was good.

No, but if you take ME2 on its own, you'll not be able to say whether they're human supremacists or simply want more power for humanity, and how far atrocities like on Akuze or Pragia belong to their standard repertoire. I like that ambiguity because it lets you interpret your own actions differently if you happen to agree with a kind of "human advancement" project that doesn't include treating other species as subhuman. Because it's quite natural and not evil in itself to want more power for a group you identify with. Cerberus as presented in Ascension is a human supremacist group with no regard at all for non-human intelligent life and pretty much irredeemable. It makes me wonder if we're all victims of an elaborate deception in ME2 (including the whole crew of the Normandy SR2), or if Cerberus as in ME2, for whatever mysterious reason, isn't quite as bad as presented in Ascension. If you haven't read Ascension, there are Akuze and Pragia as unjustifiable atrocities, but everything else is not so clear-cut. 

As it is, I prefer the more ambiguous picture presented in ME2. It also makes it more credible that someone like Miranda is working for them. Miranda's no angel, but I can't see her act like Pel, or even Grayson at times.  Ah, and even TIM expresses stereotypical villain behaviour in Ascension,
which is completely unconvincing from a leader of a secret organization of Cerberus' calibre.

[Jebel Krong]

Nightwriter wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Breakdown Boy wrote...
I am busy with the Miri special for Vanity Fair, looking for the right font, but I should have something decent by tomorow. I love working with GIMP, it's much better than Photo shop!

Looking forward to that one, Breakdown Boy.

@all:
Good morning!

Just finished reading ME:Ascension, after a first try a few weeks ago I aborted because I was getting bored by the clumsily presented exposition I already knew. It didn't get much better. Grayson had promise - I can only wonder what a more competent writer would've done with him. In Karpyshyn's hands he seemed like a patchwork character, pieced together from parts that didn't quite integrate into a believable whole. I don't think I need to repeat details about the atrocious worldbuilding - not much SF atmosphere there. It feels like a present-day scenario clumsily transferred to an SF universe.

Cerberus comes across as quite a bit more "evil" than in ME2. I've always thought they could be subtle, and they'd prefer to be as a rule, being a secret organization. This brutal direct approach to things seems unnecessarily cruel as well as risky to the point of stupidity. It's also stereotypical villain behaviour, something I don't like to associate with an organization Miranda works for. I can't help thinking she would have approached the same objectives more elegantly. On the other side, TIM wouldn't have assigned Gillian to her, knowing she'd probably have more empathy for Gillian because of her own childhood.

BTW:
What's this here? A posting frenzy after a slow but intense weekend?

I've never read Ascension, but I do know that arguing about the possible merits or justifications of Cerberus and its actions is a whole other ball game when you're talking to someone who's read Ascension. You might as well give up trying to convince them Cerberus could ever be good, ever.

It's like Ascension contains some kind of irrefutable proof. Not that I would ever try to convince someone Cerberus was good.

karpyshyn is very heavy-handed and i don't think he knows the word subtle. sadly the next book looks like continuing the tradition...

[Jebel Krong]

Ieldra2 wrote...

No, but if you take ME2 on its own, you'll not be able to say whether they're human supremacists or simply want more power for humanity, and how far atrocities like on Akuze or Pragia belong to their standard repertoire. I like that ambiguity because it lets you interpret your own actions differently if you happen to agree with a kind of "human advancement" project that doesn't include treating other species as subhuman. Because it's quite natural and not evil in itself to want more power for a group you identify with. Cerberus as presented in Ascension is a human supremacist group with no regard at all for non-human intelligent life and pretty much irredeemable. It makes me wonder if we're all victims of an elaborate deception in ME2 (including the whole crew of the Normandy SR2), or if Cerberus as in ME2, for whatever mysterious reason, isn't quite as bad as presented in Ascension. If you haven't read Ascension, there are Akuze and Pragia as unjustifiable atrocities, but everything else is not so clear-cut. 

As it is, I prefer the more ambiguous picture presented in ME2. It also makes it more credible that someone like Miranda is working for them. Miranda's no angel, but I can't see her act like Pel, or even Grayson at times.  Ah, and even TIM expresses stereotypical villain behaviour in Ascension,
which is completely unconvincing from a leader of a secret organization of Cerberus' calibre.

totally agree that the more ambiguous cerberus is better: pantomine totally evil villains/organisations aren't nearly as compelling as complex ones.

btw i disagree with you that legion is unlikely to come back in some form - the way it's set up the resolution of the geth/quarian conflict is going to play a major part in events going forward... and the best thing about legion is that he can always be restored, even if he *died*. besides he's such a cool character. i do think mordin maybe unlikely, which is a damn shame as he is probably the best character in me2.

Modifié par Jebel Krong, 19 avril 2010 - 09:05 .

[Ieldra]

kraidy1117 wrote...

Collider wrote...

Part of the reason why Cerberus/TIM are good antagonists are because they are pretty vile yet were integral to reviving Shepard and taking down the collectors. And part of what makes some villains great are when they have good points that make you doubt yourself.

"We both want the same thing, we just have diffrent methods" TIM

That remains to be seen. Do they want the same things?

I can also go with TIM's reasoning, agreeing that more important ends justify more extreme methods, but only to a point, and only if there is no other way. Where's the point to stop on the way from "I'll do nothing remotely immoral for whichever reason", and "I'll do anything for the cause"? Miranda, from what we see of her in ME2 and assuming she had in Akuze, is closer to a line I could agree with than any other Cerberus member we're presented with in any depth.

[Ieldra]

Jebel Krong wrote...
btw i disagree with you that legion is unlikely to come back in some form - the way it's set up the resolution of the geth/quarian conflict is going to play a major part in events going forward... and the best thing about legion is that he can always be restored, even if he *died*. besides he's such a cool character. i do think mordin maybe unlikely, which is a damn shame as he is probably the best character in me2.

Uh.....where did you get that from? I recall posting, yesterday, that Legion is set to represent the geth in ME3 and will possibly have a significant role in its main plot.

[Ieldra]

Jebel Krong wrote...
karpyshyn is very heavy-handed and i don't think he knows the word subtle. sadly the next book looks like continuing the tradition...

Yeah. And not very creative either. Tali's pass-phrase in ME2 is about 100 times more poetic than anything that comes up in Ascension. At least a minute of thought for something that shouldn't look like a random phrase from an unremarkable speech would've been appropriate. 

I can only say I consider it very fortunate that he doesn't write about Miranda. That would be a disaster of epic proportion.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 avril 2010 - 09:22 .

[Jebel Krong]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Jebel Krong wrote...
btw i disagree with you that legion is unlikely to come back in some form - the way it's set up the resolution of the geth/quarian conflict is going to play a major part in events going forward... and the best thing about legion is that he can always be restored, even if he *died*. besides he's such a cool character. i do think mordin maybe unlikely, which is a damn shame as he is probably the best character in me2.

Uh.....where did you get that from? I recall posting, yesterday, that Legion is set to represent the geth in ME3 and will possibly have a significant role in its main plot.

it was in your list of people likely to return from yesterday(?) - sorry i was just reading what i's missed and that jumped out at me.

[Jebel Krong]

Ieldra2 wrote...

kraidy1117 wrote...

Collider wrote...

Part of the reason why Cerberus/TIM are good antagonists are because they are pretty vile yet were integral to reviving Shepard and taking down the collectors. And part of what makes some villains great are when they have good points that make you doubt yourself.

"We both want the same thing, we just have diffrent methods" TIM

That remains to be seen. Do they want the same things?

I can also go with TIM's reasoning, agreeing that more important ends justify more extreme methods, but only to a point, and only if there is no other way. Where's the point to stop on the way from "I'll do nothing remotely immoral for whichever reason", and "I'll do anything for the cause"? Miranda, from what we see of her in ME2 and assuming she had in Akuze, is closer to a line I could agree with than any other Cerberus member we're presented with in any depth.

well, faced with an extinction-event, extreme methods are very likely. not talking about me1 cerberus projects, but let's take the events of me2 - cerberus having an ai, then working with aliens (as mordin points out). even at the end the decision on whether to keep the station or not - that is still the one i agonise over again and again, despite everyone's misgivings (for the sake of the arbitrary paragon/renegade endings, imo) - taking the technology would only promote you so far - it's not "cornucopia" tech so you would still be pushing your limits and growing evern after, so i really can't see what the fuss is about - technology itself isn't dangerous - the beings that use it are. slightly off my orignal point - excuse me - but throughout me2 cerberus acts pretty much rationally, whatever their history. i do wonder if you're only given a more favourable side to make working with them more palatable, though, apart from miranda, only the mess sergeant seemed a big cerberus fan, everyone else joined because of *you*. perhaps me3 will show their true colours, once and for all, and better or worse. if they are the equivalent of the asari commandos and salarian special task force, then they won't be "villians" in the third.

Modifié par Jebel Krong, 19 avril 2010 - 09:34 .

[Ieldra]

Jebel Krong wrote...
it was in your list of people likely to return from yesterday(?) - sorry i was just reading what i's missed and that jumped out at me.

If I may quote myself:

Miranda - Cerberus. Available as an ally after either killing TIM and putting Miranda in his place, or coming to an arrangement with him. The ME2 decision about the base may come in here.
Ashley/Kaidan - Alliance. Available as an ally if either Miranda heads Cerberus, or Cerberus is destroyed.
Legion - Geth. Available as an ally if you rewrote the heretic faction in ME2 *and* persuade the quarians to call
off their war. Otherwise either not strong enough to matter or occupied with other things..
Tali - Quarians. Available as an ally if after persuading them to call off their war with the geth.
Wrex - Krogans. Available as an ally if Wrex was not killed in ME1 and perhaps some other decisions.

To get the context correct: this is the list of characters I can see returning for the reason of possibly having a significant role in the main plot, should it be about collecting allies against the Reapers.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 avril 2010 - 09:47 .

[Jebel Krong]

yvonne strahovski is in a new film called Matching Jack, with Richard Roxburgh (mission: impossible 2, steven sommer's awful Van Helsing):

[Jebel Krong]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Jebel Krong wrote...
it was in your list of people likely to return from yesterday(?) - sorry i was just reading what i's missed and that jumped out at me.

If I may quote myself:

Miranda - Cerberus. Available as an ally after either killing TIM and putting Miranda in his place, or coming to an arrangement with him. The ME2 decision about the base may come in here.
Ashley/Kaidan - Alliance. Available as an ally if either Miranda heads Cerberus, or Cerberus is destroyed.
Legion - Geth. Available as an ally if you rewrote the heretic faction in ME2 *and* persuade the quarians to call
off their war. Otherwise either not strong enough to matter or occupied with other things..
Tali - Quarians. Available as an ally if after persuading them to call off their war with the geth.
Wrex - Krogans. Available as an ally if Wrex was not killed in ME1 and perhaps some other decisions.

To get the context correct: this is the list of characters I can see returning for the reason of possibly a significant role in the main plot, should it be about collecting allies against the Reapers.

yes, that was it, particularly the bolded part. i don't see why the re-write/destroy geth faction would be important as to his return or not, tbh. given the geth/tali connection is easily one of the strongest characters to bring back - casey has stated before that the geth are one of the most recognisable elements of the universe...

i don't see wrex coming back (shame - he is awesome), i'm not sure even grunt will, though he is pretty loyal compared to most characters, especially if you do his loyalty mission. ashley/kaiden, i just don't see you going back to the council/cerberus or the alliance, really (again shame, i really liked being a spectre), the way me2 played out and going forward i can't see any of them being a major part of how you will beat the reapers. i don't necessarily agree with how BW handled it so far, but it will be interesting to see how they resolve it; anyway, so i can't see ash/kaiden necessarily coming back in a big way, either. same goes for liara as the broker (i think it's more likely she'll be an information source and odd-mission giver).

[Ieldra]

@Jebel Krong:

I can see your points. But:



Regarding Legion, either you mis-interpreted me or I said it the wrong way: what I meant is, for instance, Legion will be back because he might be the connection to the geth in order to get them as allies. He will come back unconditionally if he survives, but whether or not you can get the geth as allies through him, that depends on decisions made in ME2.



As for the others, which faction will be Shepard's prime support in ME3? In ME1 it was the Alliance, in ME2 it was Cerberus. He certainly can't do things completely without support, even if it's only for supplies, and I also cannot imagine a game where no human faction will support him. Another new powerful human faction makes no sense - where have they been in the past? So which will it be?

[Jebel Krong]

regarding legion, perhaps a bit of both, then, i certainly didn't get what you explained from waht you originally said.



regarding me3 factions, i do think you'll be "the grand uniter" rather than be allied to any one faction - resolving the quarian/geth conflict is just one aspect of this. i also think cerberus will be relegated to more of an enemy/connected to the alliance role - a la me1, but hopefully less cardboard cut-out bases/villains.



still the thing about the reapers is that they are like the machines in the matrix - they have been doing what they do for at least 37 million years, so even uniting the galaxy won't make a difference, militarily.

[Ieldra]

Jebel Krong wrote...
still the thing about the reapers is that they are like the machines in the matrix - they have been doing what they do for at least 37 million years, so even uniting the galaxy won't make a difference, militarily.

Yes, I've been thinking about that as well. Sovereign was only defeated because too much of its consciousness was bound in "undead Saren", and even that is a stretch of the imagination considering the kind of complexity you can expect in a Reaper. Then there's the impression you get on the derelict Reaper in ME2 - they seem to be pretty much out of anyone's league. I wonder if they can be rewritten. Or if there's a renegade Reaper around to help with that. I can only hope that whatever BW comes up with will be remotely plausible - ME2's human Reaper isn't exactly promising in that regard.

[Jebel Krong]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Jebel Krong wrote...
still the thing about the reapers is that they are like the machines in the matrix - they have been doing what they do for at least 37 million years, so even uniting the galaxy won't make a difference, militarily.

Yes, I've been thinking about that as well. Sovereign was only defeated because too much of its consciousness was bound in "undead Saren", and even that is a stretch of the imagination considering the kind of complexity you can expect in a Reaper. Then there's the impression you get on the derelict Reaper in ME2 - they seem to be pretty much out of anyone's league. I wonder if they can be rewritten. Or if there's a renegade Reaper around to help with that. I can only hope that whatever BW comes up with will be remotely plausible - ME2's human Reaper isn't exactly promising in that regard.

regarding sovereign - that was plausible because it was part of it's consciousness that was killed in saren, the alliance fleet then finished it off before it could recover - that is believable - if you lost part of your mind suddenly even as a reaper you wouldn't adapt that quickly.

i do hope there isn't a deus-ex machine get-out, like the halo rings or something, i believe BW can come up with something better... although the ret-con into bio-synthetic constructs from tru ai in the first wasn't a promising sign.

[Ieldra]

Jebel Krong wrote...
Even at the end the decision on whether to keep the station or not - that is still the one i agonise over again
and again, despite everyone's misgivings (for the sake of the arbitrary paragon/renegade endings, imo) - taking the technology would only promote you so far - it's not "cornucopia" tech so you would still be pushing your limits and growing evern after, so i really can't see what the fuss is about - technology itself isn't dangerous - the beings that use it are.

Actually, technology *is* dangerous. What it is not is evil. It is dangerous because it can change humans and their societies, and that's the question here. Every technology is both a means of increased control over your environment and a possible dependency. Even today: remove all cars and there would be perhaps millions of deaths of starvation because food can't be distributed effectively any more. What would happen if the civilizations of ME2 acquired the technological knowledge bound up in the Reapers? Would there be some effect akin to that after the krogan uplifting? Mordin says something about advancement coming too early to a civilization, and he might even have the tools to make scientifically-grounded predictions. I would trust *his* judgment on the matter.

How ME2 treats these matters at the end is different. There, it's all presented as a moral question, which I dislike very much. The Reapers and their technology need to be divested of their Cthulhu-esque myth. Moral intuitions about technology, regardless of the justifications given, are usually bound up in the fear of societal disruption and discontinuity, and - from a viewpoint of evolutionary psychology - they wouldn't exist if they didn't occasionally have a point. On the other side, if things are bound up in tradition they tend to become irrational, genuine concern becomes ingrained fear. At this point, especially from the viewpoint of an armchair revolutionary like me who always questions tradition, the disruptive effects might even be desirable in order to bring on something new.   

What I wish for is that ME3 treats the question about what to do with Reaper technology with scientific detachment. It should be about how we'd like humanity to advance, and which risks we'd be willing to take for that advancement. I can see the arguments for both ways, but it is definitely not about a "sense of betrayal" or the mythical "soul of the species". Geh....how I hate that dialogue at the end.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 avril 2010 - 12:17 .

[MrNose]

Jebel Krong wrote...

yvonne strahovski is in a new film called Matching Jack, with Richard Roxburgh (mission: impossible 2, steven sommer's awful Van Helsing):

I feel uncomfortable on Yvonne's behalf...

Yes, I've been thinking
about that as well. Sovereign was only defeated because too much of its
consciousness was bound in "undead Saren", and even that is a stretch
of the imagination considering the kind of complexity you can expect in
a Reaper. Then there's the impression you get on the derelict Reaper in
ME2 - they seem to be pretty much out of anyone's league. I wonder if they can
be rewritten. Or if there's a renegade Reaper around to help with that.
I can only hope that whatever BW comes up with will be remotely
plausible - ME2's human Reaper isn't exactly promising in that regard.

I didn't have an issue with the human reaper.  It does seem like taking out the consciousness when it's in humanoid form is a valid takedown method.  Harbinger abandons his collector drone for a reason.

Modifié par MrNose, 19 avril 2010 - 12:35 .

[Breakdown Boy]

As I promised.....

[Ieldra]

Breakdown Boy wrote...

As I promised.....

:wub:
Beautiful.

Your attention to detail is awesome. I take it you even calculated the issue number correctly?

[Ieldra]

MrNose wrote...
I didn't have an issue with the human reaper.

No? So you think that the necessity to grind millions of humans to paste in order to create a Reaper that looks - unlike all other Reapers from what we've seen - like a human is remotely plausible? Well, not only is it complete nonsense from any remotely scientific point of view (see various threads for details), this...thing only exists for the shock value of, well, grinding millions of humans into paste. Too bad - didn't work for me. I don't like to quote someone like Stalin, but "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic" has a point - the latter overstrains our capacity for empathy. Maybe it would have worked if it'd taken me more more than 10 seconds to come up with a process to create that thing more effectively - and in complete secrecy.

[jtav]

Morning all.

Regarding Ascension: I think it's very difficult to argue for any sort of "gray" Cerberus once you take it into account. I already despised Cerberus, so it didn't bother me much. It just confirmed my take on Miranda as someone who's sheltered from the worst atrocities and somewhat in denial that she's a member of a terrorist organization. I actually wished I'd read the book before writing my fanfic. I would have made her the one who developed Gillians drugs, and she even sent memos that it shouldn't be used on autism-spectrum subjects. Finding out the truth would devastate her. Ah, well.

Great Vanity Fair cover.

[Andysilv]

Breakdown Boy wrote...

As I promised.....

Amazing!

[Breakdown Boy]

@Ieldra: Yep



I struggled the most with the background as VF use a full image as a cover and not a blank background liek this, but the original background of this Miri image was too narrow and I just ended up with a greyish thing that ended up looking allright. Repairing the title font was also dificult as it is a unique font only used by VF.



But is was fun and I am glady ou guys like it.



Leaving work now, so see you guys later.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
Regarding Ascension: I think it's very difficult to argue for any sort of "gray" Cerberus once you take it into account.

Yes...that's why I don't want to take it into account. ME3 will tell, in time. I'll deal with the truth then.

But I'm wondering what reading Ascension does to your scenario of Miranda making something more palatable out of Cerberus. If the picture painted in Ascension is mosly true, I can't see much useful institutional or personal continuity there. If Miranda wanted to create something like humanity's equivalent of the salarian STG from what remains after cleaning up, the reputation also wouldn't help. Or perhaps it would? Don't know. 

I already despised Cerberus, so it didn't bother me much. It just confirmed my take on Miranda as someone who's sheltered from the worst atrocities and somewhat in denial that she's a member of a terrorist organization.

If Ascension shows Cerberus' true face, then how sheltered must you be not to see this? I find it not quite convincing, considering Miranda's intelligence. And if there are enough accceptable things to do for her within Cerberus and she can be sheltered from the rest - and she isn't exactly a bureaucrat with no direct experience of things - then Ascension maybe doesn't show Cerberus' true face.

Ah well. We'll see how it goes in ME3.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 avril 2010 - 02:14 .