116 réponses à ce sujet

[Lyrandori]

I'll say it again, I said it before.



ME2 was written by a different lead writer, unfortunately Drew Karpyshyn, the original writer of Mass Effect did not, for some reason, wrote ME2, he only "co-wrote" it, and how much of it was written by him is entirely unknown, but from what I can see and understand of ME2's story, it looks like he didn't have much to do with it. It was instead lead-written by Mac Walters, who also happen to be the lead writer of Mass Effect: Redemption. I do not know how much of the ME universe Mac understands from what Drew probably had to explain to him, but he has a very different writing style and story-telling method, I think that Drew Karpyshyn was and still is currently busy with writing The Old Republic, but why exactly BioWare thought it was a good idea to ask him to go write for that game instead of resuming on ME2 as the lead writer isn't known and quite frankly, at this point, I don't care to know since it's already too late, the damage has been done.



The saving grace for the trilogy would be having Drew come back as the lead writer for Mass Effect 3 and somehow fix the plot holes that Mac apparently had no idea that he was creating. It happened on many occasions, sadly, throughout the entertainment media history, but because it hits our beloved ME universe we're a bit shocked, but the thing is that it pretty much happens regularly, that the original writer/author/creator of a story is then eventually replaced by someone else for "some reason" that only the company's rep(s) know about (probably related to deadlines and money, as usual) and then the story in question goes either one way or another, namely either goes better than originally anticipated, or goes down the drain, there's really no middle ground there in my opinion, it's just one extreme out of two, and despite the fact that I like the "action" and the "game-play" in ME2 I still think that its story in general is much inferior to that of ME1.



I still have hope however, maybe that even if Mac ends up lead-writing ME3 then Drew will give him a couple of friendly slaps to the face just to wake him up.

[stillnotking]

Moleculor wrote...

... which is what you stopped them from doing in ME1. Or did you forget that?

Let me put this more politely than you deserve: please reread the initial post in the thread.

[Computron2000]

stillnotking wrote...
Plan B was to send an indoctrinated agent through the Conduit to open the mass relay when the keepers failed.  OK, makes a bit less sense (it's unclear why the Conduit is needed since it wouldn't exactly be difficult for a mind-controlled Spectre to infiltrate the Citadel, but whatever).  Still, suspension of disbelief goes a long way.

Looking at ME1, plan B was to get the agent to ensure the arms remained open until Sovereign docked, followed by closing the arms to prevent pursuit and finally shut down all defensive devices/turrets on the CItadel. basically it was to ensure Sovereign was unmolested while attempting to open the relay.

stillnotking wrote...
Plan C was, apparently, to abduct a few billion colonists and sneakily construct a human Reaper in a secret base in the galactic core. 

As mentioned in ME1, the reapers remain in minimal energy state and are situated outside the galaxy. The distances involved are massive. Also a head on attack removes the greatest advantage of surprise and leadership decapitation.

As you noted Plans B and C are seperate. You would not want to tip your hand if there was a chance plan B worked. As noted, creating the reaper is a massive and time consuming undertaking. if the collectors were involved in Plan B and plan B failed, who would execute plan C?

The reapers are relatively stupid given their contingency planning leaves much to be desired. This may be due to their part mechanical nature. My first guess is that the correct plan for a reaper extinction would be
i) Enter citadel, kill everyone
ii) Lock down mass relays
iii) indoctrinate and send in native species as saboteurs and spies
iv) Create new Reaper from valid species. Choose from viable races.

Plans B and C would then be steps 3 and 4 advanced to a early timetable.

[nisallik]

Admoniter wrote...

Yeah only a few million not like that would involve going anywhere heavily defended. First of all I doubt the Terminus has many populous human colonies, so I would hazard a guess that they would have to go into Citadel space to gather all the humans they need. Now while the Alliance and the Citadel may have a hands off policy with people in the Terminus I highly doubt they'd just sit there going "ah yes Collectors" while Colonies start disappearing. Also as we have seen despite being a massive rocket with an equally massive gun the Collector ship can't even hold its own against a stock SR-2 which has at best has cruiser level firepower.

I just can't see the Collectors being able to finish their little experiment without getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, in this case human colonies in Citadel space... at which point they would pretty much be instagibed.

I'm pretty sure they had some type of plan for that, as they were using some interesting technology/strategy to kidnap the colonist.  Those could of just been test runs to see how effective their operations were after all.  I wouldn't underestimate Harbinger, especially since the Alliance didn't seem too concerned with what was happening.

[Skilled Seeker]

Sareth Cousland wrote...

druidofwarp wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Talogrungi wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

If the collectors decided on which race was to become a reaper, Sovereign is redundant. His signal may also have been sent by the collectors. I sincerely hope that the collectors have been repurposed for one of two things:
1) they are simply the newest generation of collectors that the reapers have always been using
2) they are conducting their experiments to find out how to become a prothean reaper in the end

I misspoke; I'm sure that the decision on which race was "worthy" was made by the Reapers based on the information that the Collecters had, erm .. collected.

Still, that would make Sovereign redundant He wakes up every 50.000 years to check on life in the galaxy. If the collectors collected that data, it might as well have been Harbinger who woke up every 50.000 years and have the collectors send a signal to the Citadel if the time was right. Would be convenient - no reaper in the galaxy, no evidence, and no one to survive a jump through the omega relay to find out what was going on.

I really hope the collectors' research had to do with something else (themselves, probably... remember the talk about human genetic versatility and the fact that the collectors experimented on one of their own?).

Maybe they do scout for life and wake up Sovereign when they find it is advanced enough. Then Sovereign goes and opens the CItadel Relay, makes sense imo.

I would definitely scratch my head at the thought of a powerful reaper serving no other purpose than to be a giant beacon. In that case, they could have installed an actual beacon to send the signal at the collector base. Subjective, of course, but I think if they don't explain the collectors in more detail, ME2 is rather silly. I still have hope though.

What don't you get? The Keepers were supposed to open the relay linking to darkspace but they were sabotaged by the Protheans. Therefore it was up to Sovereign to find a suitable indoctrinated candidate to open up the system allowing Sovereign to dock and open the relay manually. This didn't work because Shepard kills Saren and this also leads to Sovereign's shields going down allowing for it to get destroyed.

Now the Collecters were there to study the organics in greater detail in order to see which species were best for making more Reapers and which were better for being repurposed like themselves. However Sovereign failed to open the Relay meaning the Reaper fleet is stuck in darkspace. So now the Collecters had to make another Reaper for the same purpose. Had they continued to kidnap humans from colonies eventually they would have had enough people. They did not need to attack Earth to do so, they might do this after the Reaper is completed in order to make another one but they couldn't do it alone with their single ship.

I honestly don't see what the big fuss is over ME2's plot.

[Admoniter]

Marta Rio wrote...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that sort of what they were doing?  Sure, they sent Ash/Kaiden to help install defenses, but wasn't the reason that Cerberus got involved precisely because of the Alliance/Citadel council's lack of action?

Well from what I have gathered from ME1 the Citadel species choose to keep a hands off policy regarding the Terminus because any military vessel present there might provoke a war between the Terminus and Citadel. But yes that is why Cerberus helps because the alliance won't do anything.

I do agree that it seems illogical for the Collectors to have gone forward with the project and hope that no one would notice, or if they did notice, assume that they wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.  But maybe the whole thing is a little bit like Luke vs. the death star?  The collectors were arrogant about their defenses, and TIM/Shepard found a way to exploit their defenses by attacking with a small team rather than a large fleet.

Now while I have no massive problems with ME2, it just seems that the number of humans needed to complete the human-reaper was just used for emphasis. Now everytime I here that line I imagine Harbringer putting his pinkie to his mouth and in Dr. Evils voice "We needa bajimillion more humans muahahaha".

[Taggart_KT]

stillnotking wrote...

Talogrungi wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Still, that would make Sovereign redundant He wakes up every 50.000 years to check on life in the galaxy. If the collectors collected that data, it might as well have been Harbinger who woke up every 50.000 years and have the collectors send a signal to the Citadel if the time was right. Would be convenient - no reaper in the galaxy, no evidence, and no one to survive a jump through the omega relay to find out what was going on.

I really hope the collectors' research had to do with something else (themselves, probably... remember the talk about human genetic versatility and the fact that the collectors experimented on one of their own?).

Nono .. Sovereign was necessary to open the Relay to Darkspace.

The Reapers send the signal to the Citadel keepers to seize control of the Mass Relays to prevent organised resistance, then Sovereign toddles along to the Citadel, wipes out the feeble defense, docks with the Citadel tower and then opens the Darkspace Relay allowing the rest of the Reapers to come through.

If a Reaper has to be physically present to open the Citadel relay, then the events of the game would make more sense.  It still doesn't explain why Harbinger thought he'd be able to abduct billions of humans (and IIRC that is the number that would be required) without sparking a reprisal with which the Collectors were clearly unable to cope, but it certainly helps.

I'm wondering how you know that a Reaper has to be within X distance of the relay to open it, however.  I don't remember that being said anywhere, and I can't think of a logical reason why that would be the case.  My understanding of the ending of ME1 was that Saren was the one opening the relay, and Sovereign was just creating a distraction while he did it.

I though Saren was unlocking the controls of the citadel so Sovereign could hack it, to undo what ever the prothean scientists did. Saren needed the geth to be able to take control of the citadel so that no-one would of been able to stop him taking control of the citadel. As I am guessing it would take sovereign time to take control of the rely network so he would need to be protected by having the citadel arms closed around him. If Sovereign just turned up without Saren beign in control, the citadel controllers would of just closed its arms and sovereign would remain locked out and vulnerable to the defence fleet.

[Moleculor]

stillnotking wrote...

Moleculor wrote...

... which is what you stopped them from doing in ME1. Or did you forget that?

Let me put this more politely than you deserve: please reread the initial post in the thread.

Not seeing anything in it that blows holes in the plot, nor illustrates how the Reaper fleet could have shown up in the galaxy as plan C.

Signal to keepers didn't work, so Sovereign has been trying for the last umpteen years to find a way to get close enough to the Citadel to open it up the relay manually.

He failed, and died in the latest attempt.

If the Reapers could just 'show up' at any point in the last 1500 years by automagically activating the relay, don't you think they would have done that? How does Sovereign dying in the attempt to activate it suddenly automagically give them the ability to do so?

[Admoniter]

nisallik wrote...
I'm pretty sure they had some type of plan for that, as they were using some interesting technology/strategy to kidnap the colonist.  Those could of just been test runs to see how effective their operations were after all.  I wouldn't underestimate Harbinger, especially since the Alliance didn't seem too concerned with what was happening.

Yes but that attitude would only fly in the Terminus where it makes sense to ignore what going on over there. But as soon as a colony goes dark in Citadel space I would imagine the closest Alliance fleet would jump in and wtf-pwn the Collectors. As we have seen the Collector ship despite lloking like one mean mother is actually pretty weak especially during a head to head fight. Interesting technology or not, I just can't see them suceeding.

[Sharn01]

The alliance and council not being concerned was one of the biggest plot holes in the game. Unable to act in the Terminus system's for threat of starting a war I could see, that is why there are Spectre's after all, to do where fleet's can not. Of course ME2 portrayed the Council, the Alliance, and Spectre's in general as completely impotent despite following a game where they where some of the most important factor's in holding the galaxy together.



Of course all this is tossed aside in favor of the lets kill Shepard and resurrect him/her in the employ of terrorist's responsible for more human death's then the collector's Shepard is being resurrected to fight.



Granted is was probably some strange elaborate plan by TIM to get reaper tech, there where just so many better way's to write a story and tie everything together, Shepard is completely out of character with the ME1 persona.

[Lucy Glitter]

I have to agree with the OP. I am sure the writers had good intentions but it felt like a "shock horror moment" wouldn't it have been better to make a Reaper that looked like a human? Rather than a... giant... terminator? That part seems to be a design fault, though.



The whole plot itself felt strange when I looked at it in hindsight. We spent 90 percent of the game recruiting people... I think the end mission needed a lot more, "oompf" because it fell flat with me. It just ended and I went, "okay... yeah..." and went and got dinner, not really feeling dazzled like I did in ME1 (not my favourite game, but the ending held power. I respect that.)



What about Harbinger? At the end all it was, was the holder of funniest in game quotes. I liked how it was killed, it almost hinted that it became sentient, but we needed more with this guy.



It was a very lacking ending, really.

[Talogrungi]

Lucy_Glitter wrote...

What about Harbinger? At the end all it was, was the holder of funniest in game quotes. I liked how it was killed, it almost hinted that it became sentient, but we needed more with this guy.

Harbinger didn't die. Harbinger is the Reaper that had ASSUMED DIRECT CONTROL of the Collector General.

[nisallik]

Admoniter wrote...

Yes but that attitude would only fly in the Terminus where it makes sense to ignore what going on over there. But as soon as a colony goes dark in Citadel space I would imagine the closest Alliance fleet would jump in and wtf-pwn the Collectors. As we have seen the Collector ship despite lloking like one mean mother is actually pretty weak especially during a head to head fight. Interesting technology or not, I just can't see them suceeding.

What if several planets go dark?  They could just sneak in to one city, harvest, and run away.  They don't have to fight... =)

[stillnotking]

Taggart_KT wrote...
I though Saren was unlocking the controls of the citadel so Sovereign could hack it, to undo what ever the prothean scientists did. Saren needed the geth to be able to take control of the citadel so that no-one would of been able to stop him taking control of the citadel. As I am guessing it would take sovereign time to take control of the rely network so he would need to be protected by having the citadel arms closed around him. If Sovereign just turned up without Saren beign in control, the citadel controllers would of just closed its arms and sovereign would remain locked out and vulnerable to the defence fleet.

OK... well if that's the case then Plan C would boil down to "make a new Reaper to replace Sovereign, and try again".  That is at least internally consistent -- if still revealing colossal bad planning on the Reapers' part, but that's explainable as arrogance or force of habit.  It's really hard to imagine Plan C actually succeeding (Harbinger couldn't know that the Council would be as blind and useless as they turned out to be, and it would take years of uninterrupted harvesting of human colonists to build the new Reaper).

So with that in mind, I think I'll withdraw my big objections.  The plot makes more sense than I realized.  Thanks to the posters here for constructively pointing some of this out.

[Daerog]

Lucy_Glitter wrote...

I have to agree with the OP. I am sure the writers had good intentions but it felt like a "shock horror moment" wouldn't it have been better to make a Reaper that looked like a human? Rather than a... giant... terminator? That part seems to be a design fault, though.

The whole plot itself felt strange when I looked at it in hindsight. We spent 90 percent of the game recruiting people... I think the end mission needed a lot more, "oompf" because it fell flat with me. It just ended and I went, "okay... yeah..." and went and got dinner, not really feeling dazzled like I did in ME1 (not my favourite game, but the ending held power. I respect that.)

What about Harbinger? At the end all it was, was the holder of funniest in game quotes. I liked how it was killed, it almost hinted that it became sentient, but we needed more with this guy.

It was a very lacking ending, really.

Was ME1's plot more... errmmm, how should i put it, magical? Yes, it was. ME2, while I still highly enjoyed it, was more like "Meanwhile, in the Terminus Systems this happens, enjoy the interlude between 1 and 3." All 2 did was set up 3, and add in many great characters and delve into the cultures of ME a bit more. Still like both games, though, not bashing 2, it did its job.

Also, Harbinger didn't die. The collector general who was being mind controlled by Harbinger was killed. Harbinger was that Reaper that was seen at the end on the datapad and leading the Reapers to the galaxy.

[Leather_Rebel90]

Just_mike wrote...

Ya...The game has a lot of plot holes when you look at it that way. I just hope you dont have to read a bunch of books just to get the story like Bungie did with Halo. The story has to be in the game or else it's just jibberish to the less-than obsessed players.

Not necessarily, The Witcher did a good job blending new story elements with old story elements from the novels.

[Admoniter]

nisallik wrote...
What if several planets go dark?  They could just sneak in to one city, harvest, and run away.  They don't have to fight... =)

And how would they do that, don't get me wrong I want the Collectors to be a legitimate threat but I just don't see it.

[Sharn01]

Its kind of funny, had the OP made this thread over a week ago, he would have been torn apart with few people to agree with him. Now it is more of a debate between two faction's instead. As the newness of ME2 wears off and people have more time to think about the main plot, the more they start to question it.

[nisallik]

I'm not sure if they explained this or maybe I misunderstood something, but weren't the Collectors disabling communication for a while before they attacked? I could of swore Ash was talking about this before the Collectors attacked.

[nitefyre410]

Sharn01 wrote...

The alliance and council not being concerned was one of the biggest plot holes in the game. Unable to act in the Terminus system's for threat of starting a war I could see, that is why there are Spectre's after all, to do where fleet's can not. Of course ME2 portrayed the Council, the Alliance, and Spectre's in general as completely impotent despite following a game where they where some of the most important factor's in holding the galaxy together.

Of course all this is tossed aside in favor of the lets kill Shepard and resurrect him/her in the employ of terrorist's responsible for more human death's then the collector's Shepard is being resurrected to fight.

Granted is was probably some strange elaborate plan by TIM to get reaper tech, there where just so many better way's to write a story and tie everything together, Shepard is completely out of character with the ME1 persona.

 


Politics... its politically  better for them to blame  the attack on the Geth a enemy everyone knows than to announce and acknowledge the existence of an  eons old  that is coming to wipe out  all life.     The Spectres while Elite are few maybe a couple  hundred at best.   The Alliance is not concerned because of the cost, they playing the "Well its the dangerous Terminus Systems they new the Risk"  Remember it was fringe colonies that were disappearing. The Alliance  and Council not acting is all about politics thats why neither side is acting. 

[Fjordgnu]

This complaint about the human reaper seems to ignore the possibility of reapers acting independently of one-another. The Collectors always struck me as zealots whose plan is as much religious as it is practical, their purpose most likely being to destroy humanity using a human reaper, for some reason understandable only to themselves. But that's just the means. Why they - and the Reapers - would want to destroy humanity, seems fairly obvious to me.



As for the Council being unwilling to act - honestly, look at the politics of the real world. It's obviously black and white when you're playing the character responsible for stopping Sovereign, but why would anyone believe, without evidence, that Sovereign was anything but a Geth warship? It's a lot easier to accept, for one thing. It would not surprise me in the least if the public was intentionally kept in the dark, though that is, obviously, speculation on my part, and we'll have to wait until the next game to see.



Most of these complaints seem to be about unresolved questions that could, are even likely to be resolved in the next game.



It also helps to appreciate the incredible distances involved. If Sovereign was needed to allow the Reapers through the Citadel relay, then why would they not try to construct another Reaper to do the same? It would be faster than traveling from outside the galaxy, that's for sure.

[Talogrungi]

yfhfrg wrote...

One thing that confused me the most was, how do the reapers know that the galaxy is at the stage where it's time to be wiped out? Wasn't that the whole point of ME1? Only 1 reaper knew it was time to start the cycle again and we killed it before he could tell the others. If they all know now, can't they just head over and start killing everything?

Harbinger can control the Collector General over the distance between Dark Space and the galaxy; no reason to think that the other Reapers wouldn't be aware of the situation in our galaxy.

Remember, Sovereigns job wasn't to merely signal the Reapers, it was to open the portal to Dark Space to allow them to enter galactic space.

[nitefyre410]

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Skilled Seeker wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

druidofwarp wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

Talogrungi wrote...

Sareth Cousland wrote...

If the collectors decided on which race was to become a reaper, Sovereign is redundant. His signal may also have been sent by the collectors. I sincerely hope that the collectors have been repurposed for one of two things:
1) they are simply the newest generation of collectors that the reapers have always been using
2) they are conducting their experiments to find out how to become a prothean reaper in the end

I misspoke; I'm sure that the decision on which race was "worthy" was made by the Reapers based on the information that the Collecters had, erm .. collected.

Still, that would make Sovereign redundant He wakes up every 50.000 years to check on life in the galaxy. If the collectors collected that data, it might as well have been Harbinger who woke up every 50.000 years and have the collectors send a signal to the Citadel if the time was right. Would be convenient - no reaper in the galaxy, no evidence, and no one to survive a jump through the omega relay to find out what was going on.

I really hope the collectors' research had to do with something else (themselves, probably... remember the talk about human genetic versatility and the fact that the collectors experimented on one of their own?).

Maybe they do scout for life and wake up Sovereign when they find it is advanced enough. Then Sovereign goes and opens the CItadel Relay, makes sense imo.

I would definitely scratch my head at the thought of a powerful reaper serving no other purpose than to be a giant beacon. In that case, they could have installed an actual beacon to send the signal at the collector base. Subjective, of course, but I think if they don't explain the collectors in more detail, ME2 is rather silly. I still have hope though.

What don't you get? The Keepers were supposed to open the relay linking to darkspace but they were sabotaged by the Protheans. Therefore it was up to Sovereign to find a suitable indoctrinated candidate to open up the system allowing Sovereign to dock and open the relay manually. This didn't work because Shepard kills Saren and this also leads to Sovereign's shields going down allowing for it to get destroyed.

Now the Collecters were there to study the organics in greater detail in order to see which species were best for making more Reapers and which were better for being repurposed like themselves. However Sovereign failed to open the Relay meaning the Reaper fleet is stuck in darkspace. So now the Collecters had to make another Reaper for the same purpose. Had they continued to kidnap humans from colonies eventually they would have had enough people. They did not need to attack Earth to do so, they might do this after the Reaper is completed in order to make another one but they couldn't do it alone with their single ship.

I honestly don't see what the big fuss is over ME2's plot.

Useless to get any more into detail... many people don't see plot holes in ME2, while obviously many others do. Concerning ME1, I know no one who complained of plot holes, mainly because there weren't any.

Plot holes are used rather loosely on these forums, though... what is often meant is a "stretch" that damages credibility and story coherence for some people, but is not noticed by / does not bother others. Useless to discuss different perspectives, though.

  

I Think most people through   the term Plot hole around  when they come across a story element that makes no sense to them.    ME 2 plot at least for me is pretty to the point considering that the games focus was on building the characters around shepherd  more than anything  else.   

What do know is that  the Collectors were in operation long  before  ME 1 it just that they  staying  under the radar for the most part buying off of Slavers.  So  I can take  educated guess is the the Reapers where researching through the Collectors on the next species to "Ascend" into being Reapers. They happened to pick humans, picking the colonies in the Terminus means that they can pretty much operate under  radar because neither the Alliance or the Council are not going  act with overwhelming force about colonies that disappear in systems where it happens all the time.