My story begins like this: I'm discussing the ending of Mass Effect 3 with a friend of mine when the topic of Shepard surviving Harbingers beam attack comes up. I explained in exquisit detail exactly why Shepard should have died, The reasons of which go like thus (skip this part if you want to):
-There is no reason to think that Harbinger will miss a human sized target with his beam given he was vaporizing Marines with precision shots the entire way down the hill.
-The beam is composed of liquid Tungston, Iron, & Uranium. the Melting point of tungston is 3400 degrees celcius (hoe hot would it have to be to be glowing white hot?) and the combustion point of human of human flesh is only 750 degrees celcius (acording to the internet). Getting anywere close to that beam would result in Shepards skin catching fire almost instantly (think about what liquid Uranium would do to human skin...*shudder*).
-The precision beams that harbinger is firing are hitting the Mako's with enough for to send them flying, flipping and doing cartwheels. the bare minimum amount for for necesary to cause a mako to perform a 180 degree flip in one second (go watch the endings you see a mako near shepard doing this) is about 5.7 kg of tnt. Not exceptionally relavant considering shepard gets hit with a prologed beam for harbinger but...
-The prolonged beams fired by the reapers kill dreadnoughts. in the games opening in vancouver that droudnought gets hit with a prologed reaper beam attack (not to mention the end of mass effect 1 were alliance cruises are getting ripped out of the sky by Sovereign with blasts that are as long or shorter then the one that was fired at shepard).
-The fact that reaper weaponry in the series has a 100% hit-to-kill ratio (meaning anything that gets hit with a reaper beam dies). This includes the soldiers that are killed by the Reaper Destroyer just prior to the missile battery scene (In the flash before we cut back to Shepard at the battery we see fully armoured soldiers getting vaporized by a glancing blow from a Reaper Destroyer, which given its size should probably have a less powerful main gun the Harbinger), all the way up to Dreadnoughts, the badess of assess in space.
I could probably go on but I won't. The point is Shepard should be dead, Given all the information we see in the game regarding Reapers & there weapons, all the things we can read about the Reapers in the codex and the scene itself were we see all of hammer force get wiped out by the Reapers, there is just no way that Shepard should be alive.
Except (according to my friend) Shepard's kinetic barriers would protect him from the heat from the blast so he would be ok.
Now I tried to explain to him that, and im quoting the codex here: "The shielding afforded by kinetic barriers does not protect against extremes of temperature, toxins, or radiation".
What follows is his actually defence of the sheilds protect against heat arguement: "Well sheilds stop incendiary ammo, so they stop protect against heat, the codex is wrong".
I tried to explain that incendiary ammo works by the round being stamped with a small amount of phospherous, and that the projectile would boince off the sheilds as usually regardless of whether or not the bullet has flaming phospherous stamped onto it.
"So why don't the flames skip jump off of the bullet through the air and onto the person if the sheilds are stoping the bullet and not the fire?"
Escapist, I'm at witts end here and need help. How do I explain to my friend that Sheilds don't protect against Extreme temperature (and therefore Shepard should have died for all the reasons stated above) given that he won't accept the codex as an answer and that he will fall back on the incendiary ammo thing everytime?
-There is no reason to think that Harbinger will miss a human sized target with his beam given he was vaporizing Marines with precision shots the entire way down the hill.
-The beam is composed of liquid Tungston, Iron, & Uranium. the Melting point of tungston is 3400 degrees celcius (hoe hot would it have to be to be glowing white hot?) and the combustion point of human of human flesh is only 750 degrees celcius (acording to the internet). Getting anywere close to that beam would result in Shepards skin catching fire almost instantly (think about what liquid Uranium would do to human skin...*shudder*).
-The precision beams that harbinger is firing are hitting the Mako's with enough for to send them flying, flipping and doing cartwheels. the bare minimum amount for for necesary to cause a mako to perform a 180 degree flip in one second (go watch the endings you see a mako near shepard doing this) is about 5.7 kg of tnt. Not exceptionally relavant considering shepard gets hit with a prologed beam for harbinger but...
-The prolonged beams fired by the reapers kill dreadnoughts. in the games opening in vancouver that droudnought gets hit with a prologed reaper beam attack (not to mention the end of mass effect 1 were alliance cruises are getting ripped out of the sky by Sovereign with blasts that are as long or shorter then the one that was fired at shepard).
-The fact that reaper weaponry in the series has a 100% hit-to-kill ratio (meaning anything that gets hit with a reaper beam dies). This includes the soldiers that are killed by the Reaper Destroyer just prior to the missile battery scene (In the flash before we cut back to Shepard at the battery we see fully armoured soldiers getting vaporized by a glancing blow from a Reaper Destroyer, which given its size should probably have a less powerful main gun the Harbinger), all the way up to Dreadnoughts, the badess of assess in space.
I could probably go on but I won't. The point is Shepard should be dead, Given all the information we see in the game regarding Reapers & there weapons, all the things we can read about the Reapers in the codex and the scene itself were we see all of hammer force get wiped out by the Reapers, there is just no way that Shepard should be alive.
Except (according to my friend) Shepard's kinetic barriers would protect him from the heat from the blast so he would be ok.
Now I tried to explain to him that, and im quoting the codex here: "The shielding afforded by kinetic barriers does not protect against extremes of temperature, toxins, or radiation".
What follows is his actually defence of the sheilds protect against heat arguement: "Well sheilds stop incendiary ammo, so they stop protect against heat, the codex is wrong".
I tried to explain that incendiary ammo works by the round being stamped with a small amount of phospherous, and that the projectile would boince off the sheilds as usually regardless of whether or not the bullet has flaming phospherous stamped onto it.
"So why don't the flames skip jump off of the bullet through the air and onto the person if the sheilds are stoping the bullet and not the fire?"
Escapist, I'm at witts end here and need help. How do I explain to my friend that Sheilds don't protect against Extreme temperature (and therefore Shepard should have died for all the reasons stated above) given that he won't accept the codex as an answer and that he will fall back on the incendiary ammo thing everytime?
