116 réponses à ce sujet

[timedrake32]

CardonT wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

The_mango55 wrote...

Who says Earth wasn't colonized before?

That's the wrong question.  The right one is: what evidence says it was?

Assassins Creed! Waitaminute...

 
ahhahhhhah LOL...
if the two worlds where real that mean the the Protheans where HUGE ALIIENS!!!!!!

[Archereon]

Zacarius2 wrote...

One can also assume given that with the Council being founded by the Asari and the Salarians (both very intellectual races on the whole) that there is more than likely very strictly enforced galactic laws about colonizing the home world of sentiant species. Especially under developed (pre-FTL) species. What with them believing diversity leading to enlightenment and all.

Exactly.  If there isn't a prime Directive in Mass Effect, than the sheer size of the galaxy would have prevented the discovery of Earth.

[Cyadina]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

As I already pointed out, they did not need to use the mass relay to get to earth, and so the mass relay may have been encased in ice and inoperable for millions of years for all we know.  The protheans could have easily come across earth using ftl drives, noted that the mass relay was frozen but decided to leave it as they only needed to put a small research colony there and so never bothered to fix it (possibly to avoid affecting humanity's development).  Since space is, as already mentioned, big, it is also not unreasonable to assume they were the only species to find earth in all the time the relay was encased. 

I've been trying to think of a way to argue against this, and I really can't.  I can only assume it is possible they used conventional FTL and stumbled across Earth.

The only counter arguement I can make is that it seems extremely unlikely that a structure the size of the mass relay could naturally be encased in ice, making it likely it was done by another species, possibly the protheans in an attempt to save humanity, or by a previous species for some unknown reason.  Basically to be covered in Ice it would have had to be struck by an enormous comet, likely knocking it out of orbit or some such. 

didymos1120 wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

yfhfrg wrote...
Why
are you throwing this idea out? The game says this is exactly what the
reapers do. They destroy every shred of evidence that an advanced
civilization existed before they disappear.

That's
not even close to what the game says, which is that the Reapers take
out the relay-using civilizations, and basically ignore everyone
else...until they start using mass relays and build another galactic
civilization.

Actually, the game does say that
the reapers wipe out evidence that previous civilisations existed to
avoid later races finding out what happened.  It tells us this
repeatedly.

Which is why I didn't dispute that. Here's the post prior to the one I answered:

Cyadina wrote...
Earth WAS colonized, but during the
repear clean up they actually managed to remove all evidence...?
riiiight.

That's
what  "The game says this is exactly what the reapers do" referred to. 
The Reaper clean-up was only barely relevant to the argument, and
basically just being cited as an excuse for there being nothing to
support the actual idea under discussion. 

The only reason I threw out the idea of the reapers managing to wipe out every shred of evidence is that, bear with me, its unrealistic.  Even if they did there would be evidence that they did.  Clearly the reapers aren't particularly careful to wipe out everything.  All over the galaxy are bits and pieces of past civilizations they left behind.  In fact in the lore on indoctrination they basically say the reapers leave all their slaves behind to die.  That must leave some pretty interesting fossil evidence on those planets where they do get left behind.

Feros for example is a world completely covered in Prothean ruins, no effort was made to wipe that planet clean despite it being a garden world.  The reapers harvest the aliens and any useful resources or technology and leave the rest.  Frankly, they could probably care less if past civilizations find the remains of the previous because it is just more reinforcement to follow the past timelines.

Archereon wrote...

Zacarius2 wrote...

One
can also assume given that with the Council being founded by the Asari
and the Salarians (both very intellectual races on the whole) that
there is more than likely very strictly enforced galactic laws about
colonizing the home world of sentiant species. Especially under
developed (pre-FTL) species. What with them believing diversity leading
to enlightenment and all.

Exactly.  If there isn't a
prime Directive in Mass Effect, than the sheer size of the galaxy would
have prevented the discovery of Earth.

The council only matters in the present cycle.  Intelligent life on earth is extremely recent, millions of years ago there wouldn't have been a reason not to colonize a perfect garden world.  Also, while I respect the size of the galaxy arguement the mass relays basically say go to these places because this is the easiest and fastest route.  Its like off roading a thousand miles over mountains taking weeks when you can take the road that goes right there and takes only hours. The mass relay in the local cluster suggest other arguements, some of which are quite decent posted in previous pages.

Modifié par Cyadina, 23 février 2010 - 07:34 .

[jimmyjoefro]

Maybe whatever sentient species that may have developed on Mars before it died encased it in ice?

[didymos1120]

Cyadina wrote...
The only reason I threw out the idea of the reapers managing to wipe out every shred of evidence is that, bear with me, its unrealistic. 

No, I know you weren't taking it seriously, but yfhfrgo was seizing on the notion as potentially being some sort of valid justification and worth considering. 

[Punahedan]

Does anyone remember the trinket the Consort gives Shepard when you complete her quest? That goes into this spherical thing on an uncharted planet that gives you access (for a few seconds, at least) to the memories of a human before we became homosapiens, can't remember if it they said cro-magnon or whatnot. The spherical thing was a Prothean artifact. The Protheans had examined us; my guess is that they didn't want to mess with natural evolution cycle and colonizing would have meant we eventually interacted. Meanwhile, others before them may not have wanted to go into a relay with no known destination, or there are simply too many relays to be able to find them all. There's no guarantee that anyone other than the Protheans and the current cycle even developed here - the Reapers may have relays all over a bunch of galaxies, not just the Milky Way. How come the Rachni homeworld was never colonized? They were found recently, as well.



Also, for large chunks of Earth's history, it's been pretty much covered in ice. If someone came across us then, Earth may not have been very enticing.

[jimmyjoefro]

It was the memory of a Cro-Magnon man. They were ****** sapien. All that did was prove that the Protheans studied humans.

[Cyadina]

didymos1120 wrote...

Cyadina wrote...
The only reason I threw out the idea of the reapers managing to wipe out every shred of evidence is that, bear with me, its unrealistic. 

No, I know you weren't taking it seriously, but yfhfrgo was seizing on the notion as potentially being some sort of valid justification and worth considering. 

Fair enough, but in my defense I did list it as a potential thought, it is valid to a point but considering the evidence across the galaxy of the reaper's lack of care, it just struck me as odd that they managed to get it perfect down to the fossil record on earth.

[Eternz]

The reapers harvested advance life, they very well may have visited earth but what would they have found? Mildly intelligent monkey people with enough intelligence to make a pointed stick. 50,000 years ago we wouldve barely registered as above primitive animals to the reapers so they just flat out ignored us tbh

[Hyper Cutter]

Two words: Permian extinction. If somebody colonized Earth and the Reapers got 'em, it was then.

[Vaenier]

Simple probability. In a parallel universe, earth was colonized. It just happens that in the ME universe, it wasn't. Metaverse theory makes everything easy

[Fallout_IX]

Didnt Humans first discover Prothean ruins on mars? So that would mean the reapers visited our solar system to exterminate the Protheans there?

[Daewan]

Wait, wasn't the whole point of the periodic Reaper extinction to remove all traces of any advanced civilization and force the cycle to begin again? I seem to recall Liara mentioning that her research had barely uncovered any evidence of those who came before the Protheans, and there are a few worlds that indicate some tiny traces of pre-Prothean civilization, but on the whole, the Reapers were amazingly effective at removing everything.



Does your dinner plate still have traces of yesterday's meal? No, because you washed it clean. So do the Reapers. Well, maybe that one with the tomato sauce stain on it, but that's not that much to go on, now is it?

[MrBeardface]

The current estimate is that the Milky Way has 30 billion 'Jupiters', or gas giants, and likely even larger number of rocky planets. So let's say 60 billion planets as a conservative estimate - is it so hard to believe one habitable planet [and, mind you, not habitable for ALL the species] would be overlooked?

[wizardryforever]

Another possibility that hasn't been thrown out there yet: how do we know that our planet was habitable to the life that came before the protheans?  Maybe they were like the volus, where our atmosphere was poisonous, or the pressure was too much or too little?  Maybe it was too hot or too cold for them?  Maybe the gravity was either crushing or too light?  Or maybe they were like the quarians, with weak immune systems that wouldn't have stood up to all the hostile micro-organisms here.  We have NO data on what the life before the protheans was like.

All of this in addition to what has been said.

[GnusmasTHX]

Probably the same way HUNDREDS of worlds within the Relay Network with a similar composition to Earth are not/have not been colonized.

[didymos1120]

Fallout_IX wrote...

Didnt Humans first discover Prothean ruins on mars? So that would mean the reapers visited our solar system to exterminate the Protheans there?

No, it just means that they had a small research base there, and no trace of the actual occupants remained.  I imagine when the reaping started, a process that took at least a century or two, the staff got recalled and they didn't bother to tidy up after themselves.  Or it was just unstaffed at that time for whatever reason.  Or they got stuck there, died, and failed to fossilize.  Or, yes, the Reapers did it.  Basically, what I'm saying is we really have no idea what happened and not a whole lot to go on.

[Kenshen]

First off has there been any proof other than what a reapers tells us that they are indeed that old? I don't buy that they have been around as long as they claim but then I have no proof either. Now about Earth, the dawn of modern ****** sapiens occurred in Africa between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. In 2004 we found carbonized plants with a bunch of other artifacts that dated back about 50,000 years ago in America which was a huge surprise since it was thought that man didn't come to America until the last ice age 20,000 years ago to which we are actually in still least the end of it. So depending on the reaper schedule they could have past us over twice. Also it shows that in the ME world the rest of the galaxy left us alone to develop on our own which would be surprising I think cause yeah our planet is rather rare so that would make it very valuable.

[jimmyjoefro]

I'm pretty sure the derelict Reaper has been proven to be millions of years old.

[Kenshen]

But how did they prove that? I only remember TIM and the videos on the reaper speculating that it was that old. It really doesn't matter just something I have a hard time believing.

[wizardryforever]

aryon69 wrote...

But how did they prove that? I only remember TIM and the videos on the reaper speculating that it was that old. It really doesn't matter just something I have a hard time believing.

TIM references the planet Klendagon, which you can visit in both this game and the first one.  The planet was devastated by a mass accelerator weapon that was big enough to leave a huge canyon.  They did routine carbon dating and discovered that the canyon was blasted out 37 million years ago, and they traced the shot back to its origin to find the weapon and the derelict Reaper nearby.  That's how they know that the Reapers are at least that old.

[Cyadina]

Daewan wrote...

Wait, wasn't the whole point of the periodic Reaper extinction to remove all traces of any advanced civilization and force the cycle to begin again? I seem to recall Liara mentioning that her research had barely uncovered any evidence of those who came before the Protheans, and there are a few worlds that indicate some tiny traces of pre-Prothean civilization, but on the whole, the Reapers were amazingly effective at removing everything.

Does your dinner plate still have traces of yesterday's meal? No, because you washed it clean. So do the Reapers. Well, maybe that one with the tomato sauce stain on it, but that's not that much to go on, now is it?

I'm not saying that it isn't possible, I'm saying its unlikely that there wouldn't be evidence that suggested such a cataclysmic event.  Using your plate example, with enough analysis you could find evidence that it did at one point contain food, baring that you could find evidence that it was cleaned, indicating some need for it to be cleaned implying that it at one point held something. 

I agree that the reapers *could* be amazingly effective, but there's enough evidence such as feros where they clearly didn't care at all that there was a whole planet full of buildings.  They took what they wanted and left.  Now its also clearly possible to hide things from the reapers, Ilos for example, and other insignificant outposts like the small base on Mars.  Age tends to suggest that those ruins were completely destroy in previous cycles, or destroyed by excavation by later civilizations and consumed in the reaper clean up. 

MrBeardface wrote...

The current estimate is that the Milky Way has 30 billion 'Jupiters', or gas giants, and likely even larger number of rocky planets. So let's say 60 billion planets as a conservative estimate - is it so hard to believe one habitable planet [and, mind you, not habitable for ALL the species] would be overlooked?

The relays make this kind of a tangential argument.  Yes the galaxy is large.  The current cycle has explored only 1%, the 1% they've explored is all linked by mass relays.  Now that either means there are a crazy amount of dormant relays that we haven't been told about, or most relays get charted and explored and you still only explore a small percentage of the galaxy.  That implies that every space faring race explores the same paths as the previous because the relays get them there. 

wizardryforever wrote...

Another possibility that hasn't been thrown out there yet: how do we know that our planet was habitable
to the life that came before the protheans?  Maybe they were like the volus, where our atmosphere was poisonous, or the pressure was too much or too little?  Maybe it was too hot or too cold for them?  Maybe the
gravity was either crushing or too light?  Or maybe they were like the quarians, with weak immune systems that wouldn't have stood up to all the hostile micro-organisms here.  We have NO data on what the life before the protheans was like.

All of this in addition to what has been said.

This IS a possibility, but so far life as we know it evolves organically, there might be a ton of rocks out there, but the ones that have complex life formed in the habitable zone around stars on garden planets.  The Volus are considered sort of an outlier in the current cycle.  The protheans obviously colonized garden worlds.  It stands to reason that most organic life has probably followed this pattern.  It is also pretty clear that even in our cycle that there are several species that aren't quite as frail as the rest, despite them not making it to the stars on their own, the Krogan and Vorcha are both capable of living in extremely brutal conditions.  For all we know the current state of fragile species is below average on survivability.  Extensive genetic modification is possible, but frowned upon in this cycle, this might be entirely opposite of the view of previous civilizations making earth perfectly colonizable even if it weren't ideal. 

wizardryforever wrote...

aryon69 wrote...

But how did they prove that? I only remember TIM and the videos on the reaper speculating that it was that old. It really doesn't matter just something I have a hard time believing.

TIM references the planet Klendagon, which you can visit in both this game and the first one.  The planet was devastated by a mass accelerator weapon that was big enough to leave a huge canyon.  They did routine carbon dating and discovered that the canyon was blasted out 37 million years ago, and they traced the shot back to its origin to find the weapon and the derelict Reaper nearby.  That's how they know that the Reapers are at least that old.

Thank you for confirming that, knew I read something to that effect but couldn't recall the precise bit of lore.

Modifié par Cyadina, 24 février 2010 - 12:14 .

[Aurailious]

Why were the Protheans the *only* race to find us and why was the relay encased in ice ( not many others are that we know of ). I would like to believe that these two points are related.



Perhaps the Protheans were the most advanced race ever in the galaxy, they obviously did a lot to affect the cycle, and because of this advancement were the only ones capable of finding Earth. This would be because early on Charon was encased in ice, and because of that was impossible to connect to from the other side. The distance, being great, was never crossed from the other relay through standard FTL. Until the Protheans.



But than why would the relay remain encased when they found it? I could understand that the Protheans, being noble and all, wouldn't colonize and just examine. Perhaps they wanted to just watch, and when us humans were getting more and more advanced, would retreat back and wait for us to get through the relay as a kind of test into acceptance. Like how Warp technology in Star Trek.



And perhaps the other time a race found us was during the dinosaurs. Their extinction was caused by a battle with the Reapers, this perhaps being the end of the line so to speak. The last place to make a stand. And further speculating would than lead to the thought that this caused the relay to be encased in ice. Perhaps a by product or an event of said battle. Perhaps a countermeasure, a way to try and slow or stop the Reapers from getting to them, block the passage. But as we see, the Reapers are more than capable of traveling without the relays.



Though this is all just speculation and assumptions.

[MrBeardface]

@Cyadina

There's several requirements that would have to be satisfied before an alien race would colonize Earth:

1) They would have to discover that one particular mass relay. I think it's fair to assume not every space-faring civilisation would discover it - I mean, it was relatively recently that the Rachni relay was discovered, for one.

2) They would need to be able to benefit from Earth's conditions - it's perfectly plausible that for some species our atmosphere would either be inhospitable or downright toxic.

3) They would have to be in need of another planet to colonize. Easy if the Galaxy has several advanced species, yes. But at the time where only one civilisation is capable of space travel, as [presuambly] at the time of the Protheans? The number of available planets will be greater than the need for them, especially if you species has a slow reproductive cycle.

4) They would have to either arrive at a time when modern humans weren't yet evolved or significantly on their way to becoming modern humans, or be 'renegade' enough not to give a damn.

It's easy for those advanced civilisations to miss at least one of those four points. Protheans might have ticked the first three, but it's likely the had a 'hands off' approach to development of new sentient species.

Modifié par MrBeardface, 24 février 2010 - 01:24 .

[Cyadina]

Aurailious wrote...

And perhaps the other time a race found us was during the dinosaurs. Their extinction was caused by a battle with the Reapers, this perhaps being the end of the line so to speak. The last place to make a stand. And further speculating would than lead to the thought that this caused the relay to be encased in ice. Perhaps a by product or an event of said battle. Perhaps a countermeasure, a way to try and slow or stop the Reapers from getting to them, block the passage. But as we see, the Reapers are more than capable of traveling without the relays.

This is possible, if you go back far enough you simply lose details no matter how good your analysis might be.  The extinction event could have been the reapers harvesting some unknown civilization.  However the timeline gets a little funny.  We know the reapers are old, but the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago.  If the reapers existed that long ago, and the relay would have to exist that long ago then the number of potential species in the potential cycles is extremely high, making my argument of why it was never recolonized even stronger.

Who knows though, if the relay was encased in ice then its plausible why earth was never recolonized, but doesn't explain how the protheans found it without the mass relay being active, unless we could slide blind luck in there conveniently. 

MrBeardface wrote...

1)
They would have to discover that one particular mass relay. I think
it's fair to assume not every space-faring civilisation would discover
it - I mean, it was relatively recently that the Rachni relay was
discovered, for one.

Sure I could buy that, but we're talking thousands of potential space faring races, who are limited to travelling the mass relays which only likely go so many places.

MrBeardface wrote...

2) They would need to be able to benefit
from Earth's conditions - it's perfectly plausible that for some
species our atmosphere would either be inhospitable or downright toxic.

I could buy this too, but if we use the protheans and the current cycle that's at least 10 species, not including quarians and volus who would find earth quite nice.  Synthetic species would also find the extremely hospitable environment easy to mine the planet for resources as well.  Its not just a matter of wanting to live there, most of the planets in the "known" galaxy have some sort of structure to exploit the resources of that planet, even if it wasn't a full scale colony earth has plenty of easy to access resources compared to say mining the core of a gas giant.

MrBeardface wrote...

3)
They would have to be in need of another planet to colonize. Easy if
the Galaxy has several advanced species, yes. But at the time where
only one civilisation is capable of space travel, as [presuambly] at
the time of the Protheans? The number of available planets will be
greater than the need for them, especially if you species has a slow
reproductive cycle.

Logical, but so far evidence in this game suggests every garden world would be hit with at least a small colony. A garden planet with earth's potential would be a very prime target for colonization.  The protheans may be an outlier in many respects, benevolence, single species cycle etc.  So far all we know is that species we know of want to explore, and the species we know of want to colonize. 

MrBeardface wrote...

4) They would have to either arrive at a
time when modern humans weren't yet evolved or significantly on their
way to becoming modern humans, or be 'renegade' enough not to give a
damn.

It's easy for those advanced civilisations to miss at
least one of those four points. Protheans might have ticked the first
three, but it's likely the had a 'hands off' approach to development of
new sentient species.

Intelligent beings on this planet are extremely recent, it would be no more crude than for us to settle on a planet with Pyjaks except in maybe the last two cycles.  The protheans may have been unusually benevolent regardless. Even so, the number of humans would have been extremely small, an advanced colony need not have displaced or eliminated our ancestors to co-exist. 

For what its worth MrBeardFace you make some excellent points here, simply debating, not necessarily disagreeing.

Modifié par Cyadina, 24 février 2010 - 01:44 .