I can accept the fact that my writing is bad and needs more care....
but if youre going to go "well fuck this! I ain't taking your shit seriously" over my spelling than why bother? Ive seen the other argument, if you were that reasonable with me then we wouldnt be at the tangent we are on now
because whatever we were origianlly arguing has been lost in me pointing out where I think youve been unfair
[quote/]Except, and this is kind of where you got into trouble, you tried to answer those questions by justifying the writing. Honest to god, if a piece of writing is good, genuinely good, you don't need to defend it. It will hold up on it's own. You can lash out at it, but it doesn't need a non-textual defense. What you offered veered off of the actual content of the game into speculation. It's not a defense of the writing, it's rewriting reality in order to make the story make sense. That's the other thing, bad writing [/quote]
were those questions intended to be answered? no ,right? because they seemed like pretty obvious questions to me, which I answered, I knwo you don't like my answer because you think it veers off into "making shit up" I think at least some of my points were valid
[quote/]See, here's the thing about the internet, you can't tell if I'm writing this in a rage, in tears, or with a look of sadistic glee on my face. If you want to say, "hey, I don't know this" or, "I'm not sure", you need to indicate it in your text. If you're not sure about what Deus Ex Machina meant, you should have said something along the lines of "as I recall, Deus Ex Machina is X" or, "isn't that when X". [/quote]
right...says the guy who outright states I was going about things with a sense of "supiriority" who decideds to just fuck around rather than be straight with me...
mabye I do need to make myself more clear but the fact that YOU are telling ME that...
[quote/]Look up. [/quote]
are you refering to how you described your point in youre discussion with Mortai?
because I'm sorry to say it, but thats kind of a dick move.You've made the concious choice NOT to tell me (as in this is what I was asking for several posts ago)...as If whatever you have to say isnt worth saying to me, if this were a real life conversation you would be ignoring me by now and talking to him expecting me to listen in while the "big people" talk.....and this doesnt look like a simple case of saving time/effort (that I can get), it looks like a real example of disrespect
No, they aren't inclined to side with one, but circumstances simply made it the best way to go towards their goal. Losing the ship and any other resources that the Illusive Man had when no one else would be likely to take the Collectors quite as seriously as he was wouldn't be very helpful, to say the least.
Except, as we know from the second game, the collectors were being taken very seriously by some people in the Alliance. They just didn't have enough information yet to go after them.
Didn't seem like it was as seriously as the Illusive Man was taking it. And note that the resources the Illusive Man had included the information that the Alliance lacked. It would be kind of hard to cut him out of it. And he'd still be missing the new Normandy because until EDI was unshackled after the attack on the Normandy I do believe she was still reporting to the Illusive Man. Oh and there's EDI down too.
Timmy actually leads to a rather annoying Paradox, and unfortunately this involves late game ME3 spoilers, sorry.
TIM claims to have access to information the Alliance lacks on the collector attacks. He then chooses to withhold the information from the Alliance, and pursues it on his own.
Now, this raises a question, is the lack of Alliance involvement because TIM is keeping information from them?
We know they immediately send the Vermire survivor on recon the instant they have any information. And we know that Timmy leaked that to them. That suggests a pretty substantial commitment, in the absence of intelligence.
Well either way, the lack of involvement is the problem itself. It's not as if Shepard jumping ship will make the Illusive man hand over the information. It sure seems like the entire time he has the ulterior motive of getting technology to study the Reapers and that would completely ruin his goal there. Though you're right, they are fairly committed to it and that makes sense considering entire colonies are vanishing.
Beyond that, and this is mostly a quick aside, Cerberus' strongest assets on the ship are (reasonably) Miranda and EDI. Miranda's loyalty not withstanding, she doesn't have the capacity to go toe to toe with multiple Spectres, or probably even just Shepard, to say nothing of an Alliance N7 team, or company of Alliance Marines. EDI, if we're talking about at the beginning of the game, is still quite shackled, and would be completely unable to put up a fight. She could protest, but that would only work up to the point that said marines or Spectres pulled her quantum box from the ship and wandered off with it.
As to the rest of the crew, most of them are established as either loyal to Shepard, the mission, or (in the case of Jacob), just getting shit done.
When I said crew I meant the people generally manning the ship, not your squad. And as for EDI, while she couldn't put up a fight, I'm pretty sure that she would report immediately to the Illusive Man who would of course want to recover both EDI and the ship. Which would be a rather annoying issue. Besides the the side Cerberus has shown in ME2 wasn't so bad that I'd think Shepard wouldn't feel at least somewhat uneasy about just up and stealing their ship.
Yeah, even then... Honestly the analogy that keeps coming to mind, is Jack Bauer being brought back from the dead and working with terrorists. Nevermind that 24 actually used both halves of that plot a couple times. It still doesn't make any sense to me outside of shock value.
You are right, by the way, they did try to reconcile Cerberus of 1 and 2 in 3, which ironically makes Shepard look even more incompetent and naive. "Hey, you remember this lair of supervillains you signed up with, because you thought they weren't so bad? Turns out they really were so bad." D'oh!
Mortai Gravesend said:
The only way this starts to make sense is if Timmy's indoctrination occurs before the events of ME3. Though, without checking, I think that's supposed to happen sometime after Shepard blows the collector base. (Based on other videos that pop up in the lab.)
It also raises more questions, like, why would Timmy send you after the reapers, why complete Lazarus, instead of handing Shepard over to the reapers.
Why would it only make sense if that happened before ME3? Pretty sure it would happen between the two since there didn't seem to be significant enough contact prior to the end of ME2.
If he's holding information back from the Alliance it only serves to weaken their position. To deliberately do so would make sense if he was indoctrinated, and was trying to horde the findings for himself.
I suppose, it's possible that he was just a selfish bastard all along, and wanted the private glory, or that he was already somewhat indoctrinated through contact with... I don't know, reaper fragments from the Citadel? Exposure to Dragons Teeth, when Cerberus was trying to reverse engineer them? (IIRC we run into Husks at a couple Cerberus posts in 1)... I suppose he could be Jack Hargreave in space, convinced he's the only competent human being in the galaxy...
Otherwise he's deliberately withholding information from the Alliance, that could save lives so he can send his own private investigators off to play cowboy all over the galaxy.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Honestly, though, all of this is somewhat speculation.
Well when it comes to trying to figure out whether it is in character, speculating on alternate possibilities seems to be the only way to figure things out.
Which is a pretty serious indictment of Mass Effect's writing, which is, ironically enough, where this started.
Mortai Gravesend said:
The problem is, ultimately, the reason TIM is the only one going after the collectors is because Shepard always suffers from the "no one believes me" BS, and TIM is presented as a character who uses him to get what they want. The Alliance and Council are ignoring the attacks because it would undermine the idea of Shepard as a "rogue cop on the edge".
I really don't see that as the only reason the Council is ignoring the attacks. It's only the humans in a region of space they knew was dangerous anyway and that they're skeptical about ancient machines that plan to destroy civilization is understandable.
And the Alliance simply didn't know as much as the Illusive Man did. Now that might be to push Shepard into a particular situation, but that's generally what a plot involves.
And if the Alliance didn't know as much as TIM, who's fault is that? Sorry, we keep coming back to that issue.
A good plot should not be predicated on multiple (allegedly) intelligent and competent characters behaving like idiots in order to engineer an otherwise implausible situation.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Especially when the attacks on the human colonies seemed to be happening at a decent pace. The Council would likely not be interested.
No, The Council doesn't give a shit, either before or after. Though, if this was justification for tossing in with terrorists, Shepard should have been signing on with Timmy way back in the first game. When he actually had no standing with the Council, the Alliance, and lacked any resources, and had only personal exposure to Saren and his master plan.
No, that wasn't enough justification in and of itself. But it contributes. And you're completely ignoring that the Illusive Man made no offer towards Shepard in the first game, and even when he didn't have the Council on his side then he had Anderson helping him and he had the Normandy. How exactly can you expect him to sign on with them when there was no offer?
I'm not ignoring that he didn't make the offer, I'm ignoring that he (rather implausibly) did not exist in the first game at all. But, for the moment, that's tangential.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Further there's the show of good will that they extend by resurrecting him, which ought to show their willingness to work with him beyond what they could have shown in the first game. You know, I don't even know if the Illusive Man would have believed him in the first game anyway.
Resurrecting Shepard really doesn't make a lot of sense, on any front. Then again, killing off Shepard doesn't really make any narrative sense, so we come full circle, I guess.
Again, though, the point I'm trying to illustrate is that Cerberus basically gets completely retconned between the games, and that the only way to reconcile the first and second games (in a larger context) is to assume they are actually occurring in separate distinct universes.
The excuse we get for Cerberus' behavior in the second game is that "those were rogue operations", but in the first and second game combined we literally run into a single non-rogue op (not counting the Normandy, for obvious reasons). At some point the plausibility part of plausible dependability has to be dragged out behind the woodshed.
Okay yeah, killing him was bizarre, and resurrecting him for that much money really doesn't make sense. That part was sloppy.
But I don't think they really get retconned so much
In ME3 it's pretty clear that they're the same organization they were in the first game. I may be remembering it wrong, but on the fake colony where the experiments were taking place, didn't something more or less suggest that TIM and Cerberus were trying to look nicer right there for Shepard to work with them? Which would make sense, Cerberus would want to act differently when they're trying to get Shepard to do a job for them and would of course deny their unethical activities.
Yeah, I'd literally forgotten this, sorry. Though, as I mentioned above, it actually serves to undermine Shepard even further. Somehow the only analogy that comes to mind is Darth Vader recruiting the rebels by saying "no, really, I'm not a bad guy," and then cackling manically afterwards.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Oh and as for running into a single non-rogue op, presumably there wouldn't be much of a reason to run into non-rogue ops if they weren't playing mad scientist in those ones. Of course you'd only encounter the bad ones, the tolerable ones wouldn't need your attention.
The non-rogue op is the derelict. With Lazarus being nominally non-rogue, until the collector base. When every other action they took in both games gets pawned off as "a rogue op", it gets a bit hard to take that claim seriously.
The issue isn't that non-rogue ops aren't a problem, it's that there is no such thing. Somehow now I've got the line from Kohaku stuck in my head, "they've gone completely rogue", which ironically sums up the stupidity of their later claims.
Now, I'm not saying there wasn't room for a Section 31 type of NOC Intelligence agency in Mass Effect, just the presentation of them in the first game pushes them from the range of principled operatives into mustache twirling supervillains.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
They didn't care much about what happened to Eden Prime. So providing the level of resources needed would be unlikely. Alliance? Shepard lacks special authority with them, and no doubt they'd wouldn't be ready to immediately throw Shepard back into the fight after supposedly dying and being resurrected by a terrorist organization.
The problem is of course, that the Alliance already was investigating the colony attacks. If I recall correctly, it's even hinted that Cerberus has actually undermined the Alliance investigation at previous sites.
Additionally, Shepard does have special standing in the Alliance, even before the events of the first game. Remember, Shepard was an N7 operative before the first game began. It doesn't lend them special autonomy, but that autonomy isn't needed to carry out investigations.
Note that the problems I listed with the Alliance in that section had nothing to do with their willingness to investigate the attacks on the colonies. It had to do with the fact that Shepard was supposedly dead, is now suddenly alive again, and apparently this is due to an incredibly expensive secret project by a terrorist organization. Would it really make sense to think they would immediately put Shepard on the job with a bunch of people who are not from the Alliance? And he'd need a new ship capable of standing up to the Collectors. As far as I know they didn't go and build a new Normandy.
Depending on player actions in the first game, they actually did. Two of them if I recall correctly. The only way for more Normandy class ships to be built, is if Shepard passes snap inspection in the first game using all persuade options (it might even have to be matched persuade options, all charm or all intimidate, I really don't remember). Do that, and you'll get a news flash on Omega in 2 talking about one of the ships conducting a mission, and in 3 it will be added to your War Assets page after completing The Archives.
I guess I completely missed that then. Okay, so the resources do become more plausible, though Cerberus' version is upgraded over the old one I thought. And I would think the others would probably already be in use on what would presumably be important missions since they wouldn't want to waste them. But that is a fair point, especially considering they ought to find the Collector problem to be worth using such a ship on.
To be fair, it's an easy one to miss. And it is actually somewhat tricky to "get it right" outside of a new game + play through. Though, in this case, I'd have to check, my recollection is at least one of the ships was basically being tasked with a publicity mission. Either way it wasn't tasked to a long term assignment, the way the Normandy had been, and if we learned anything from the first game, it's that those ships can go all over the damn place.
Additionally, they knew the collectors had targeted one before, and demonstrated the ability to see through it's stealth system (IIRC), meaning the collectors should have been a priority for the two years Shepard was down. Remember, the destruction of the Normandy wasn't as huge a mystery as the colonies disappearing. And while they may not have had full telemetry, they reasonably would have wanted to figure out what happened to the ship.
I think this got hand waved as a coverup, no one wanted to hear how their top flight recon ship got torn apart. Really?
Mortai Gravesend said:
As to Shepard being dead... I'm not going to pass up another opportunity to say that from a narrative standpoint that was really stupid.
Yeah, but ignoring that, it does make it harder for Shepard to be accepted back by the Alliance. Sure one stupid point, but once it's been established, it does make it harder for him to work with the Alliance again.
Yeah, all I've got here is pointing at it and saying, "WTF were the writers thinking?" Of course the answer to that was probably "mmm bacon" or something similar, but oh well.
Mortai Gravesend said:
But, anyway, and... yes, again, we do know that the Alliance was investigating the collector attacks.
Putting forth what they think is their best candidate for a position with huge political implications is something I think they'd do regardless of N7 status though. I'm pretty sure they thought he was their best shot at it, so that's not going to be treated the same as usual.
From what little we know about N7s in game, it seems that the things Shepard was doing in the first game are right in line with standard N7 operations. Catch is of course "seems", we don't have hard and fast, but the point is the Alliance does have people who carry out these kinds of investigations.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Your complaint is that it doesn't fit Shepard's personality to work with them, yes? She provided an explanation for how it fits. If all you can do is repeat your idea that it is simply forced(which duh the story is trying to go along those lines) well that's not much of an argument for how it fails to fit.
The player is forced to side with Cerberus through the events of ME2, even though, and I mean this, even though there is literally no narrative reason Shepard couldn't ditch Cerberus and make nice to the Alliance or Council again, more likely the Council, the first chance they get.
And again, it's not like Shepard's obsession with the reapers was ever a breaking point for the Council. Also, don't forget Turian "we have dismissed that claim" Councilor's comment accepting the existence of the reapers in the paragon pre-credits sequence in ME1.
No, it wasn't a breaking point in regards to his status as a Spectre, but that doesn't mean they will fund it. As for the Turian, I actually forgot that at the end of ME1. But assuming you remember it better than I do, well... that is a retcon problem. They clearly failed to plan properly for what they wanted to occur in ME2. Which is a strike against them, though considering it was a comment at the end of the game I can't say it seems too serious.
Ironically, as near as I can tell, everything after the "Shepard gets crushed under ruble and climbs out" scene seems to be non-cannon. Well, really everything after the endgame save is generated, but it's about the same thing.
In this case that includes the decision to promote Anderson or Udina to the Council. The reason the second game asks you which candidate you chose is because it literally does not know.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Finally, just throwing this out there, but by the time ME2 rolls around, the humans are a council species, the collectors are a known race, not some space boogieman myth, increased aggression by them against any council race would certainly justify some investigation, given the risk that the collectors have an unknown new plan that could threaten council space.
Put another way, the collectors are behaving in an abnormal way, and if there's anything that freaks out bureaucracies of any stripe, it's abnormal behavior.
Additionally, we know that Spectres are dispatched into the Terminus systems from time to time. They have no official authority there, but they do it anyway.
But the evidence pointing at the Collectors is evidence from Cerberus and is accompanied by the talk about Reapers that they don't seem to like. Cerberus, for obvious reasons, would be a pretty bad person to say you got the evidence from. And as for it being a threat to council space, don't the Collectors stick outside of council space usually? Sure it could be a plot to threaten council space, but given their previous behavior I doubt the council would think it was likely.
Which is exactly why the Council has the Spectres, and for that matter what they use the salarian STGs for. Saying they wouldn't investigate a threat, any threat, seems a bit odd. Especially given the salarian Spectre in 3 that admits some of the Spectres thought Shepard was on to something.
Going back and looking at Saren's behavior, it becomes really implausible to say a Spectre couldn't go into the Terminus systems to investigate the threat on their own volition.
Mortai Gravesend said:
As for the abnormal behavior, again that depends on them trusting evidence given by Cerberus, and Shepard who disappeared and mysteriously reappeared working for Cerberus by all appearances.
Terminus systems? True, they were dispatched occasionally. I'm not sure I ever remember hearing just how serious it would have to be to get that to happen though. And I think that humans would likely have the least influence on the council so their needs would have the least interested parties backing a search there.
Honestly, I fucked up, I addressed this in the previous cluster... >.<
The fact remains, the Spectres have their own resources, independent of the council, and the willingness to defend the council whatever the cost. For Spectres not to investigate the attacks, they would have to have been specifically instructed not to by the Council, which also makes no sense. Remember, the Council doesn't even want to know what the Spectres are doing most of the time.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
The best I can give you on that is that it's plausible Shepard would take the Normandy 2 and book. There isn't even, really, a time constraint issue, as the set time frame for ME2 covers an entire year, (with some of the DLC scattered over an additional year beyond that). By the time you finish Lair of the Shadowbroker (canonically) it's been between one and a half to two years since Shepard woke up in the tutorial. Not exactly the definition of, "I can't turn myself in because they'd lock me up, and I need to save the world right now."
How's Shepard going to take the Normandy 2 with EDI there still working for the Illusive Man? She had certain constraints until Joker released her, yeah? IIRC they even mention in 3 that she helped stop the Illusive Man from tracking the Normandy later. And most of the crew was Cerberus except for some of your squad, Chakwas, and Joker.
Hmm. I did not know about the time frame. Still, pretty sure they were trying to go as fast as they could. I doubt the time taken was just due to being lazy or something.
You mean you didn't stop and strip mine half the galaxy in search of enough Platinum for that one more shotgun upgrade, or to find that mission with the busted solar arrays?
Again, addressing the above issues, the crew's loyalty is pretty irrelevant when you can dock at the citadel whenever you please.
Eh, I just wrote those excursions off as the silly kind of thing that happens in games with regards to time. The only time it ever ended up mattering was when you had to hurry to rescue your crew from the Collectors pretty quickly without running around doing silly things. Something I learned the hard way the first time I played.
Hmmm. I suppose docking at the Citadel would be a good time to betray them and they'd be unable to escape. Though that seems kind of out of character for Shepard, doesn't it? So fair enough, Shepard probably could grab the ship, though I'd still think hidden tracking devices and so on would be a pain to deal with.
Kinda depends on the iteration of Shepard. If we're talking Ruthless or Sole Survivor, it's entirely in character. War Hero is a bit iffier, even then, it does make sense, especially if Anderson is on the council.
It may not be in Shepard's character to turn over a crew that trusts them, but a ship full of terrorists? That's a no brainer.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Looking over the whole conversation, following that particular point, you've really given no real indication what you're talking about.
The collectors are targeting human colonies because, humans are the most genetically diverse species in the galaxy...
Right...
Okay, first thing wrong with that statement, your cats are more genetically diverse than you are.
Humans aren't particularly genetically diverse, and I say that from a general standpoint. Current research suggests that we recovered from a near extinction event sometime recently (20-40k years ago), and we still haven't rebuilt our diversity up from that. It's part of why boinking your cousin is a bad idea.
And, when you get right down to it, there isn't actually a hell of a lot of genetic diversity on this planet. This isn't an ecology rant about extinction, it's simply there isn't.
This is opposite a species that fucks other species to reproduce. Which should indicate a slightly higher degree of diversity. This got retconned into they use their partner's DNA to randomize their own. But it would still predispose them towards more genetic diversity, as they're actually randomizing their genome, and not limited to the available genomes for their species.
A species that reproduces in clutches of thousands, and considers irradiation a good way to stay warm... Yeah, with those population numbers alone, they'd have to have RNA of goddamn lead not to mutate on a fairly regular basis.
A species that has a generational cycle of 10 years, and also produces in abnormally large numbers.
That is a good point. Have to admit, that does make it look like incredibly sloppy writing on that point. Should have come up with a better reason for it. Though I think cats wouldn't count since they'd probably prefer or even require a sentient species. But the point about the other sentient species is a good one.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
Now I know in you're head you're oh so great and have a clear idea of what you're talking about, but you've been pretty terrible at communicating it.
Yup, wouldn't be the first time I've been rude. Here's a truth, I'm not the nicest guy out there. I tend to speak my mind. I tend to be up front about things. And if someone says something that is catastrophically stupid, I'll usually call them out for it.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Mortai Gravesend said:
So far the clue is that it is a part where the science is bad and it is a plot point somewhere in the series. You can just say what it is instead of not saying it for the purposes of ego masturbation.
It's not masturbatory, to be sure. Vault is evoking some really... pronounced fanwank logic, and wrapping it in an air of superiority, which is, as I said, annoying me.
Erm, between the two of you you're the one that seems like they're deliberately trying to sound superior. Constant phrases thrown in just to attack her personally and all.
Between the two of us, I'm also the one with more consistent spelling skills. It's not that spelling, punctuation, and grammar equal authority when it comes to a debate... no, wait, yes, it really kinda is.
I try not to. In retrospect, looking back on my discourse with Vault, it's been mostly retributive. He flips out at me, I return the favor with restraint. It's not a moral high ground, but, it keeps me sharp.
]I try not to. In retrospect, looking back on my discourse with Vault, it's been mostly retributive. He flips out at me, I return the favor with restraint. It's not a moral high ground, but, it keeps me sharp.
see what your doing there? discussing the charachters and such in a perectly civil manner?
thats all I wanted to do, and I didn't want to get dragged off into some tanget about who was being a bigger dick to who, part of that was probably my fault by calling you out on that rather than getting back to the original point,
so I "fliped out?" I didn't think my reactions were that extreme, if you think I did It was because I was frustrated because to me you simply were not making yourself clear
but fine, have it your way...talk to Morti, he's pretty much said it all for me anyway
TBH I think you had me labeled "retard fanboy" from the start
I can accept the fact that my writing is bad and needs more care....
but if youre going to go "well fuck this! I ain't taking your shit seriously" over my spelling than why bother? Ive seen the other argument, if you were that reasonable with me then we wouldnt be at the tangent we are on now
because whatever we were origianlly arguing has been lost in me pointing out where I think youve been unfair
It's very possible I've been unfair to you. You set the situation in motion with a couple of poorly timed flake outs, and adopted a hostile position first. Yes, that is a "but, he did it first" argument. Is it fair to you? Probably not, is it what resulted? Yes. If your tone was not meant to be hostile, than that's unfortunate, because that's what you presented.
Did I pass you up for Mortai because he can spell? No. I passed you up for him because, unlike you, he was making coherent arguments that went a few steps beyond "nuh-uh, you're wrong". In an argument, there's room for discussion on points, specifics, details. Simply saying "I disagree" isn't an argument. It's not an articulated position. It's just there. And, as an opinion, without merit.
Vault101 said:
[quote/]Except, and this is kind of where you got into trouble, you tried to answer those questions by justifying the writing. Honest to god, if a piece of writing is good, genuinely good, you don't need to defend it. It will hold up on it's own. You can lash out at it, but it doesn't need a non-textual defense. What you offered veered off of the actual content of the game into speculation. It's not a defense of the writing, it's rewriting reality in order to make the story make sense. That's the other thing, bad writing
were those questions intended to be answered? no ,right? because they seemed like pretty obvious questions to me, which I answered, I knwo you don't like my answer because you think it veers off into "making shit up" I think at least some of my points were valid[/quote]Then we should revisit them, in a slightly more coherent fashion.
Vault101 said:
[quote/]See, here's the thing about the internet, you can't tell if I'm writing this in a rage, in tears, or with a look of sadistic glee on my face. If you want to say, "hey, I don't know this" or, "I'm not sure", you need to indicate it in your text. If you're not sure about what Deus Ex Machina meant, you should have said something along the lines of "as I recall, Deus Ex Machina is X" or, "isn't that when X".
right...says the guy who outright states I was going about things with a sense of "supiriority" who decideds to just fuck around rather than be straight with me...
mabye I do need to make myself more clear but the fact that YOU are telling ME that...
[quote/]Look up. [/quote]
are you refering to how you described your point in youre discussion with Mortai?
because I'm sorry to say it, but thats kind of a dick move.You've made the concious choice NOT to tell me (as in this is what I was asking for several posts ago)...as If whatever you have to say isnt worth saying to me, if this were a real life conversation you would be ignoring me by now and talking to him expecting me to listen in while the "big people" talk.....and this doesnt look like a simple case of saving time/effort (that I can get), it looks like a real example of disrespect[/quote]Remember that blow off line a while back "spelling and whatnot don't equal the value of your argument on the internet"? That's kinda not true. And by "kinda" I mean "almost completely".
If you find I'm not parsing through your arguments as coherently as I am with Mortai, or we're not staying on topic, or I don't seem to be giving your arguments as much legitimacy. It's because, due to writing issues, they're not as clear and not as coherent. And, intentionally or not, I'm not as inclined to give your comments as much credence. I'm not terribly inclined to take the time and energy to parse your posts back out, analyze your response, and post a reply, when I need to take additional time, and make additional effort to understand what you really meant. This isn't a classroom, and I'm not being graded on what this person really meant, and when all's said and done, you're here to defend your work.
The dick move would be to just say "learn to write better," and leave it at that. What you need to do is work on organizing your thoughts more clearly. Keep them in discrete paragraphs, keep a paragraph to a subject, double space between them. Keep track of capitalization, at least at the beginning of sentences. Use a spellchecker, there should be one built into whatever browser you're using.
Try those things, and try to keep your temper on a shorter leash. I don't want to say "it's the internet, deal with it", but it is the internet, try to keep things in perspective.
True, it does stretch belief, but I think that really depends on the circumstances whether Shepard would work with them.
And also true that it does look kind of bad for Shepard that he'd trust them. I'll admit I personally couldn't see how he could trust them considering what they did in ME1. But they did clean up the image they showed in ME2, so that is something. And it would be a factor that goes in addition to circumstances. Shepard does quit at the end once the mission is done, so clearly he found working with them to not be his favorite option.
Which of course comes after the, apparently, actually trusting them part.
For some reason, I'm actually now thinking back to the collector ship betrayal... and remembering Shepard's idiotic defense of Timmy after that... Though that brings up a whole host of other issues, I'll come back to that in a minute.
Mortai Gravesend said:
I'd go with the idea that he's the only one who thinks he can get things right. I'd certainly think that he wanted, and planned beforehand, to collect the technology and information that he could from the Collectors and giving the information over to the Alliance would make it so that wasn't feasible for him. And by ME3 he clearly thinks he knows better than everyone else and is ready to take risks to put his vision for the galaxy into place. I'd say it seems like thinks the Alliance and Shepard are short sighted and scared of doing what he thinks needs to be done. So I think he definitely has the arrogance to believe that it is important he be in control of this.
Well when it comes to trying to figure out whether it is in character, speculating on alternate possibilities seems to be the only way to figure things out.
Maybe I missed this before, or forgot I read it, but your point is kind of along the lines that it should be clear enough we don't even need to speculate why exactly Shepard would be willing to work with Cerberus?
It wasn't a statement about Cerberus. It was that that Mass Effect's writing, as a whole, is pretty shaky at best, and downright gawdawful most of the time.
That we're having to extract alternate possibilities to explain character behavior is, well, it's bad writing. I'm not adverse to a bit of ambiguity, or some unexplained puzzles, but Mass Effect 2 ratchets that up into some really inexplicable behavior on rails.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Yeah, it does go back to that issue and I'd defend it saying that it does seem to fit TIM's personality to not want to hand it over to the Alliance despite his intelligence. Unsure exactly which other characters you are saying behaved like idiots though. Council? Personally I thought they were raving idiots in the first game and it's always had me wanting to kill them at the end of the game.
Yeah, the Council is an issue of inexplicable stupidity all their own...
It's still simply shifting blame, and requiring someone to be the designated idiot, though it might adequately explain Timmy's refusal to play ball if not for the Spectres... *sticks a pin in and moves on*
Mortai Gravesend said:
Hmmmmmm. Well the thing is Shepard really didn't know much about Cerberus' internal organization, so he couldn't be all that sure that TIM was lying. Though considering TIM's apparently controlling personality it does become hard to believe. Then again, the work he does for TIM is clearly not the unethical or problematic sort. If it were I'm sure he would refuse or leave. And TIM's goal *is* to help humanity, it's not as if Shepard was working with the Reapers or something. They would be more akin to Darth Vader in this scenario.
In the words of Shamus, Tim's interested in "putting humanity first, like hors d'oeuvres."
Everything Shepard runs across regarding Cerberus in the first game is psychopathic kill crazy. So TIM's claim that he's working for the betterment of mankind sounds pretty hollow.
Mortai Gravesend said:
My point about the non-rogue ops is that there's no reason for Shepard to know about most of them. It's a kind of bias of a sort that Shepard would only really have a reason to notice the rogue ones. Like a cop will tend to meet the worst kinds of people. Things that go smoothly for Cerberus don't need Shepard's attention and would likely stay hidden as part of going smoothly.
Though yes, ME1 did make me end up viewing them as mad scientists pretty much, if not mustache twirling supervillains. I have to admit the shift from ME1 to ME2 was a bit far. If they hadn't set up TIM to be such a clear and controlling leader it might have been more permissible to try to sell the idea that he didn't know what was going on. But when he's the leader of the entire organization and has the resources he does... yeah.
Okay, I get what you mean. It still leaves us in a place where the only time we find these guys, shit's gone seriously off the rails in one way or another. Especially when we have TIM leave Shepard to die, and then, when Shepard survives his poorly disguised death trap, he goes, "I meant to do that, it was a covert op." *facepalm*
Sorry, now I'm forming this weird interpretation in my head where TIM is deliberately trying to kill Shepard in increasingly implausible deathtraps.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Those are all very good points I have to admit. Though I don't remember if they were able to easily identify the ship as being a Collector ship. I forget the point in the game that we first hear that it was the Collectors who did that. And if they didn't by that point that would the Collectors wouldn't be the priority. But they definitely would care that something was able to destroy their top of the line recon ship with such ease.
We don't have the ship identified as collector. But, Joker (or EDI) is able to positively match the collector ship you board to the one that destroyed the original Normandy. Which means that data had to exist somewhere.
For the Alliance to not have this information, it would mean Cerberus had to have been on sight first, and stolen the Normandy's flight recorder... or, whatever, before the Alliance got there, but after the Shadowbroker stole Shepard's body...
...though not Shepard's head... since we find the helmet on the surface below, meaning Shepard's brain must have melted, and now it all makes sense!
But, in all seriousness, everything up to the bit about Shepard's head.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Really should have come up with something better. But I do have to admit that I agree that killing Shepard off like that was far from my favorite bit of writing in the games.
Yeah, but the downside is, you can kinda get away with that once. And really only once. They set up killing off Shepard, "for realz" three times, and have a few non-death fakeouts. To really make it work, the Shepard dead Lazarus thing should have waited for the end of 2, it's a suicide mission, Shepard died, with ME3 starting with Lazarus, waking up in a galaxy the Reapers have overrun.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Were they? Well throwing in the fact that the Alliance does have people who carry out those kinds of investigations it wouldn't be a stretch to figure that they'd want to put some N7s on the job so you have a point. Still... it does seem to be asking a lot to give him the same level of control and resources.
To be fair, I doubt the N7s are given as much autonomy as the Spectres. But, the general idea of sending a captain out to investigate the disappearances isn't true autonomy, they'd still be reporting in.
This actually reminds me of an unrelated nitpick. Mass Effect is usually pretty good about military protocol, but one thing they continually fuck up. Naval protocol, the CO of a ship is it's Captain, and is referred to by that title, by their subordinates, regardless of the CO's rank. Shepard's a LtCmdr, referred to as "Commander" by everyone, and actually corrects a quarian that uses the correct terminology on the flotilla, but claims to be a full Commander... arrgh
Mortai Gravesend said:
Yeah, and he worked for them while they were giving them to him. The question is whether they would back him up in the second game, and I given their attitude I really don't think they would have.
It's kinda contextual based on what Shepard did in the first game. If he saved the council, and is tracking down missing colonies? Why wouldn't they provide him with intel? Especially given that it could be a prelude to a legitimate threat from the Terminus systems.
Again, not investigating doesn't make any kind of sense from any perspective. I can see not sending in Shepard, sending in someone even more low key, but who would be lower profile than a Spectre who's officially dead?
Mortai Gravesend said:
Wait, really? I may have missed it but I didn't think it asked me which person I had promoted.
Miranda asks it in the Shuttle ride to meet Timmy for the first time. She asks you about your preservice background (IIRC), your Vermire kill, and then asks you who you assigned to the Council. The former it has stored in the save file, so it tells you who you killed and asks you why, or how you felt, something along those lines, then it asks you who you promoted.
Mortai Gravesend said:
That is something I forgot, that the Salarian Spectre in ME3 said that. Still not particularly sure the Council would have even considered it a threat worth investigation.
Saren was kind of an anomaly wasn't he? When he went to Eden Prime he was clearly off whatever job he Council had for him.
No, or at least, Saren wasn't what I was thinking about. Throughout the first game the Council gets downright pissy with you if you give them too much information about where you're going or what you intend to do. The Assari Councilor says something to the effect of "we want you to keep us in the dark as much as possible". It's presented as a deniability thing. Further from Jenkins and Anderson we're told that Spectres have, and exercise a lot of autonomy in their operations.
The short answer was that the Spectres basically go where they want, when they want, and do what they want. So long as it's in the name of protecting the Council, they're doing their job.
Yeah... just noticing, again, that there's a weird inconsistency in this conversation with transposing Shepard and first person pronouns... I'm just going to leave that there.
Mortai Gravesend said:
I thought the Council had to at least provide certain resources. I mean, you can get reinstated as a Spectre in ME2 can't you? But you still don't get anything from it because the Council... I forget what exactly they said honestly.
That they're unable to provide Shepard with support "obviously". One of them basically says this is because Shepard is working for Timmy and too dumb to tender a resignation.
Mortai Gravesend said:
Well the crew didn't really act very much like terrorists. They weren't exactly the worst Cerberus had to offer, more like the ones that would seem easiest for Shepard to work alongside.
And, sorry, I'm probably sounding like a broken record here, but really, the biggest problem for me is that about 33% of the Shepards out there should have a pathological hatred of Cerberus. This is the part that really starts ringing hollow.
And of course we're still reliant on Shepard being dumb enough to accept Timmy's version of who Cerberus really is. There's probably some amusing satire to be had pointing out how all the crew members spout off very specific details about how their family or relatives were taken by the collectors in attacks. The rational explanation is that Timmy recruited victims, the satirical is to suggest these are hardened killers and pirates who read from the script whenever their CO randomly barges into their quarters at 3am, or wanders past on his way to annoy Joker.
Mortai Gravesend said:
I don't really think she was trying to flip out at you or anything, though probably was annoyed by your responses.
And, sorry, I'm probably sounding like a broken record here, but really, the biggest problem for me is that about 33% of the Shepards out there should have a pathological hatred of Cerberus. This is the part that really starts ringing hollow.
And of course we're still reliant on Shepard being dumb enough to accept Timmy's version of who Cerberus really is. There's probably some amusing satire to be had pointing out how all the crew members spout off very specific details about how their family or relatives were taken by the collectors in attacks. The rational explanation is that Timmy recruited victims, the satirical is to suggest these are hardened killers and pirates who read from the script whenever their CO randomly barges into their quarters at 3am, or wanders past on his way to annoy Joker.
Although shepard doesnt have as much room for "role play" as alot of other games...I still think a fair portion of what goes on in shepards head is up to the player (at least in the first two)
second point, yeah I was also under the impression that the whole crew were recruited specifically for the normandy and was probably full of well meaning but misguided people, fed the same story that cerberus was "totally cool"
Just have to point out a couple of things here. Firstly trying to argue the biology of fictional species is always a bit of a mess, but here we go.
Starke said:
The collectors are targeting human colonies because, humans are the most genetically diverse species in the galaxy...
Right...
Okay, first thing wrong with that statement, your cats are more genetically diverse than you are.
Humans aren't particularly genetically diverse, and I say that from a general standpoint. Current research suggests that we recovered from a near extinction event sometime recently (20-40k years ago), and we still haven't rebuilt our diversity up from that. It's part of why boinking your cousin is a bad idea.
And, when you get right down to it, there isn't actually a hell of a lot of genetic diversity on this planet. This isn't an ecology rant about extinction, it's simply there isn't.
A hell of a lot compared to what? This is the only planet we've got data on. What's so bad about Earth's genetic diversity being above the norm?
This is opposite a species that fucks other species to reproduce. Which should indicate a slightly higher degree of diversity. This got retconned into they use their partner's DNA to randomize their own. But it would still predispose them towards more genetic diversity, as they're actually randomizing their genome, and not limited to the available genomes for their species.
This retcon actually makes asari reproduction a bit more sensible, as it avoids the whole genetic compatibility between two alein species thing that a lot of science fiction just ignores. Also, given the lifespan of asari, I'd assume they have a seriously robust set of DNA repair machinery, so that they avoid the acculmulation of harmful mutations that affects humans.
A species that reproduces in clutches of thousands, and considers irradiation a good way to stay warm... Yeah, with those population numbers alone, they'd have to have RNA of goddamn lead not to mutate on a fairly regular basis.
Yes they would, but we're talking about what are essentially camel-lizards with an entire suite of redundant organs, who also have potentially thousand year lifespans. Why wouldn't they be signicantly more resistant to mutation than humans?
A species that has a generational cycle of 10 years, and also produces in abnormally large numbers.
Salarians right? Here I'd say they could actually have less effective set of DNA repair. Say instead of the group of DNA repair mecahisms we have, they have one "master system". This works pretty well preventing mutation of their genome, but if it aquires a loss of function mutation itself, then harmful mutants quickly acculmulate, leading to death.
This is just me making shit up as I type, but the point I guess is the whole human diversity thing isn't really a big problem to the plot. It's just the way they chose to construct the setting, and is far from the worst biological thing they did (that would be the amino acid chirality).
Just have to point out a couple of things here. Firstly trying to argue the biology of fictional species is always a bit of a mess, but here we go.
Starke said:
The collectors are targeting human colonies because, humans are the most genetically diverse species in the galaxy...
Right...
Okay, first thing wrong with that statement, your cats are more genetically diverse than you are.
Humans aren't particularly genetically diverse, and I say that from a general standpoint. Current research suggests that we recovered from a near extinction event sometime recently (20-40k years ago), and we still haven't rebuilt our diversity up from that. It's part of why boinking your cousin is a bad idea.
And, when you get right down to it, there isn't actually a hell of a lot of genetic diversity on this planet. This isn't an ecology rant about extinction, it's simply there isn't.
If Earth's genetic diversity was above the norm, no other species in the galaxy would be able to procreate with anything.
I can't remember the specific number, but everything on the planet shares something like 93-97% of the same genetic material. That's including junk data. And I'm not talking about you and that cute girl you met in the bar. I'm talking about you, that cute girl who happens to be your second cousin, the worm in the bottle of tequila, and the agave that went into the juice.
The thing is, lack of genetic diversity is a problem we face on a regular basis, and why making out with your cousin is usually considered a really bad idea.
Even if the galactic norm were 95% shared genetic data, which is certainly possible, humans are at the low end of that spectrum.
Megalodon said:
This is opposite a species that fucks other species to reproduce. Which should indicate a slightly higher degree of diversity. This got retconned into they use their partner's DNA to randomize their own. But it would still predispose them towards more genetic diversity, as they're actually randomizing their genome, and not limited to the available genomes for their species.
This retcon actually makes asari reproduction a bit more sensible, as it avoids the whole genetic compatibility between two alein species thing that a lot of science fiction just ignores. Also, given the lifespan of asari, I'd assume they have a seriously robust set of DNA repair machinery, so that they avoid the acculmulation of harmful mutations that affects humans.
The term you're looking for is RNA. Still, post retcon, the asari are working off a non-derivative genetic system. That is to say, outside of a replication error, any genetic material you have comes from your parents. But, for the asari, if they don't take genetic material from their parents, they're drawing in new genetic data from somewhere (or, more accurately, nowhere).
To say this would not lead to substantial diversity of some sort seems rather illogical.
Now, baring some other genetic function we've never seen or had hinted at, the asari must be diverse, or a clonal colony. We can actually dispense with the clonal colony suggestion, as it would have been brought up at the time, but instead Mordin tells us they're "less diverse", not that they have almost no diversity.
Megalodon said:
A species that reproduces in clutches of thousands, and considers irradiation a good way to stay warm... Yeah, with those population numbers alone, they'd have to have RNA of goddamn lead not to mutate on a fairly regular basis.
Yes they would, but we're talking about what are essentially camel-lizards with an entire suite of redundant organs, who also have potentially thousand year lifespans. Why wouldn't they be signicantly more resistant to mutation than humans?
Sure. But we're not talking about single case mutation. If you sample a single krogan, it's reasonable to assume it has better safeguards against mutation. But krogen reproduce by the thousand, humans don't. Even if they mutate at a lower frequency than humans (which is a reasonable assumption), they still have many more opportunities to do so than humans. Remember, they overrun planets in decades to centuries, and pose a real risk to galactic stability due to their birth rate.
Megalodon said:
A species that has a generational cycle of 10 years, and also produces in abnormally large numbers.
Salarians right? Here I'd say they could actually have less effective set of DNA repair. Say instead of the group of DNA repair mecahisms we have, they have one "master system". This works pretty well preventing mutation of their genome, but if it aquires a loss of function mutation itself, then harmful mutants quickly acculmulate, leading to death.
The problem with the salarians isn't their DNA repair capabilities, again, we're talking RNA, usually. It's that they've been an interstellar civilization for over millennia. In human terms this would be the equivalent of 2k - 10k years of space flight (yes, I'm using the dog years thing). Salarians reproduce generationally about every 10 years. On it's own this wouldn't mean much, but we know that life on this planet adapts to new biomes within a couple generations (based partially on the way protein replicates), resulting in some genetic variance. The salarians have had extrasolar colonies since at least ~700CE.
Now, we're getting into slightly looser theory here, but the suspicion is that long term extrasolar colonies will result in evolutionary adaptation in the colonists. We're talking about humans here, but the underlying science is fairly sound. The salarians have had extrasolar colonies for... and, I'm going roughly here, but at least 150 generations, meaning there has been ample time for such adaptations to occur.
This is before we remember that the salarians practice genetic engineering. This one cuts both ways, on one hand it does mean that all salarians could potentially share very similar genetic code in the form of some genetically engineered "vaccines", it would also mean that there is a very real potential of individual (or pockets of individual) salarians with radically different synthesized genetic code.
Further, even if we assume that the standard issue genes do undermine their diversity, we know that humans in the Alliance military undergo extensive gene therapy.
Megalodon said:
This is just me making shit up as I type, but the point I guess is the whole human diversity thing isn't really a big problem to the plot. It's just the way they chose to construct the setting, and is far from the worst biological thing they did (that would be the amino acid chirality).
While you're right, there are much bigger issues. It isn't really a valid argument to say, "no, wait, this plot critical fuckup isn't important because they fucked up even more over here!"
The chirality thing only comes up in background and flavor. On the other hand, "genetic diversity" is the entire reason the events of the second game occur.
Although shepard doesnt have as much room for "role play" as alot of other games...I still think a fair portion of what goes on in shepards head is up to the player (at least in the first two)
Not when we have enough textual evidence to establish the character. The character does exist in a Schrodinger's state, but this only means we need to account for alternate possibilities in alternate texts, not that we can "make shit up, because we wish this made sense."
Vault101 said:
second point, yeah I was also under the impression that the whole crew were recruited specifically for the normandy and was probably full of well meaning but misguided people, fed the same story that cerberus was "totally cool"
If Earth's genetic diversity was above the norm, no other species in the galaxy would be able to procreate with anything.
I can't remember the specific number, but everything on the planet shares something like 93-97% of the same genetic material. That's including junk data. And I'm not talking about you and that cute girl you met in the bar. I'm talking about you, that cute girl who happens to be your second cousin, the worm in the bottle of tequila, and the agave that went into the juice.
The thing is, lack of genetic diversity is a problem we face on a regular basis, and why making out with your cousin is usually considered a really bad idea.
Even if the galactic norm were 95% shared genetic data, which is certainly possible, humans are at the low end of that spectrum.
It's a lot less than that across the whole planet, 97-8% or so of our DNA is shared with Chimps, then it gets less, to about 50% we share with bananas (that's always the example used).
Megalodon said:
This retcon actually makes asari reproduction a bit more sensible, as it avoids the whole genetic compatibility between two alein species thing that a lot of science fiction just ignores. Also, given the lifespan of asari, I'd assume they have a seriously robust set of DNA repair machinery, so that they avoid the acculmulation of harmful mutations that affects humans.
The term you're looking for is RNA. Still, post retcon, the asari are working off a non-derivative genetic system. That is to say, outside of a replication error, any genetic material you have comes from your parents. But, for the asari, if they don't take genetic material from their parents, they're drawing in new genetic data from somewhere (or, more accurately, nowhere).
To say this would not lead to substantial diversity of some sort seems rather illogical.
Now, baring some other genetic function we've never seen or had hinted at, the asari must be diverse, or a clonal colony. We can actually dispense with the clonal colony suggestion, as it would have been brought up at the time, but instead Mordin tells us they're "less diverse", not that they have almost no diversity.
No, I did mean DNA, thinking of stuff like base excision repair enzymes and photolases, with repair mutagenic DNA damage. Defects in RNA production tend to result in more acute diseases then the age-related ones I was refering to. I'd also point out that Asari have dramatically longer lifespans than humans, yet in the games seem to have a similar number of children to humans, so the opposite of the Salarian situation would likely occur, significantly fewer generations/indivduals so less divergence among the population. However, trying to use real world ideas in explaining Asari biology is tricky to say the least.
Megalodon said:
A species that reproduces in clutches of thousands, and considers irradiation a good way to stay warm... Yeah, with those population numbers alone, they'd have to have RNA of goddamn lead not to mutate on a fairly regular basis.
Yes they would, but we're talking about what are essentially camel-lizards with an entire suite of redundant organs, who also have potentially thousand year lifespans. Why wouldn't they be signicantly more resistant to mutation than humans?
Sure. But we're not talking about single case mutation. If you sample a single krogan, it's reasonable to assume it has better safeguards against mutation. But krogen reproduce by the thousand, humans don't. Even if they mutate at a lower frequency than humans (which is a reasonable assumption), they still have many more opportunities to do so than humans. Remember, they overrun planets in decades to centuries, and pose a real risk to galactic stability due to their birth rate.
True enough, the only rebuttal I've got to this is the sheer alien nature of the Krogan, we have no way of knowing that they don't have some highly effective mutation-repair/proofreading mechanism that doesn't exist in Earth-based life.
Megalodon said:
Salarians right? Here I'd say they could actually have less effective set of DNA repair. Say instead of the group of DNA repair mecahisms we have, they have one "master system". This works pretty well preventing mutation of their genome, but if it aquires a loss of function mutation itself, then harmful mutants quickly acculmulate, leading to death.
The problem with the salarians isn't their DNA repair capabilities, again, we're talking RNA, usually. It's that they've been an interstellar civilization for over millennia. In human terms this would be the equivalent of 2k - 10k years of space flight (yes, I'm using the dog years thing). Salarians reproduce generationally about every 10 years. On it's own this wouldn't mean much, but we know that life on this planet adapts to new biomes within a couple generations (based partially on the way protein replicates), resulting in some genetic variance. The salarians have had extrasolar colonies since at least ~700CE.
Now, we're getting into slightly looser theory here, but the suspicion is that long term extrasolar colonies will result in evolutionary adaptation in the colonists. We're talking about humans here, but the underlying science is fairly sound. The salarians have had extrasolar colonies for... and, I'm going roughly here, but at least 150 generations, meaning there has been ample time for such adaptations to occur.
Doesn't that assume colonies existing in isolation? Otherwise, not sure why you think RNA is the principal molecule in this, a bit of clarification would be helpful.
This is before we remember that the salarians practice genetic engineering. This one cuts both ways, on one hand it does mean that all salarians could potentially share very similar genetic code in the form of some genetically engineered "vaccines", it would also mean that there is a very real potential of individual (or pockets of individual) salarians with radically different synthesized genetic code.
This is very true, however I'd say the former is more likely, with Salarians actively trying to maintain specific genes at the expense of mutagenic potential. Admittedly this is based on the idea that Salarians are less gentically diverse than humans, plus the point of eugenics, which is what the Salarians practice, is to propgate specific "superior" gentic traits. Given how long they've been at it, the Salarians could have enforced a great dealof gentic conformity on their population by the events of the ME games.
Further, even if we assume that the standard issue genes do undermine their diversity, we know that humans in the Alliance military undergo extensive gene therapy.
Have we been given any information about the genetic modifications the Alliance gives its recruits? My understanding was they were effectively slight increases reflexes, strength, more effecient oxygen transport/metabolism. But for all we know, these mods take the form of additional genes added to the subjects, similar in theory to the sort of thing we do to yeast and bacteria today. I fail to see how this would undermine genetic diversity, espcially given the low proportion of humanity that serves in the Alliance.
While you're right, there are much bigger issues. It isn't really a valid argument to say, "no, wait, this plot critical fuckup isn't important because they fucked up even more over here!"
I didn't make myself particularly clear here. I was trying to say that the "genetic diversity" thing is one of the acceptable breaks from reality we have to accept if we're dealing with science fiction. I'd also say say that it is far from the worst, as I can at least have a go at explaining them (unlike the chirality thing, which just makes no sense).
I'm just playing Devil's advocate here, trying to point out that the "gentic diversity" claims of ME2 are not neccessarily as farfetched as you were saying. It is possible to give handwave explanations, which is what I've been trying to do.
Between the two of us, I'm also the one with more consistent spelling skills. It's not that spelling, punctuation, and grammar equal authority when it comes to a debate... no, wait, yes, it really kinda is.
... I'm just gonna throw this out there, personal attacks like that reek of inseurity. If you have so much confidnce in you logic you shouldn't need to get personal.
If Earth's genetic diversity was above the norm, no other species in the galaxy would be able to procreate with anything.
I can't remember the specific number, but everything on the planet shares something like 93-97% of the same genetic material. That's including junk data. And I'm not talking about you and that cute girl you met in the bar. I'm talking about you, that cute girl who happens to be your second cousin, the worm in the bottle of tequila, and the agave that went into the juice.
The thing is, lack of genetic diversity is a problem we face on a regular basis, and why making out with your cousin is usually considered a really bad idea.
Even if the galactic norm were 95% shared genetic data, which is certainly possible, humans are at the low end of that spectrum.
It's a lot less than that across the whole planet, 97-8% or so of our DNA is shared with Chimps, then it gets less, to about 50% we share with bananas (that's always the example used).
Then I've been remembering the wrong statistic all these years... sorry.
Anyway, we're still setting human diversity at around 1% variance. And, while that's still a lot of data, as an overarching level, it's still not terribly encouraging as a statistical value.
Megalodon said:
Megalodon said:
This retcon actually makes asari reproduction a bit more sensible, as it avoids the whole genetic compatibility between two alein species thing that a lot of science fiction just ignores. Also, given the lifespan of asari, I'd assume they have a seriously robust set of DNA repair machinery, so that they avoid the acculmulation of harmful mutations that affects humans.
The term you're looking for is RNA. Still, post retcon, the asari are working off a non-derivative genetic system. That is to say, outside of a replication error, any genetic material you have comes from your parents. But, for the asari, if they don't take genetic material from their parents, they're drawing in new genetic data from somewhere (or, more accurately, nowhere).
To say this would not lead to substantial diversity of some sort seems rather illogical.
Now, baring some other genetic function we've never seen or had hinted at, the asari must be diverse, or a clonal colony. We can actually dispense with the clonal colony suggestion, as it would have been brought up at the time, but instead Mordin tells us they're "less diverse", not that they have almost no diversity.
No, I did mean DNA, thinking of stuff like base excision repair enzymes and photolases, with repair mutagenic DNA damage. Defects in RNA production tend to result in more acute diseases then the age-related ones I was refering to. I'd also point out that Asari have dramatically longer lifespans than humans, yet in the games seem to have a similar number of children to humans, so the opposite of the Salarian situation would likely occur, significantly fewer generations/indivduals so less divergence among the population. However, trying to use real world ideas in explaining Asari biology is tricky to say the least.
Yeah, the asari pose a few non-plot related specific problems, such as, if they reproduce as quickly as they seem to, how can they not overrun planets over the course of a few centuries? But there we're just guessing.
Actually, I'm going to stick a pin in something with the asari that's really starting to bother me and come back to it in a minute.
Megalodon said:
Megalodon said:
A species that reproduces in clutches of thousands, and considers irradiation a good way to stay warm... Yeah, with those population numbers alone, they'd have to have RNA of goddamn lead not to mutate on a fairly regular basis.
Yes they would, but we're talking about what are essentially camel-lizards with an entire suite of redundant organs, who also have potentially thousand year lifespans. Why wouldn't they be signicantly more resistant to mutation than humans?
Sure. But we're not talking about single case mutation. If you sample a single krogan, it's reasonable to assume it has better safeguards against mutation. But krogen reproduce by the thousand, humans don't. Even if they mutate at a lower frequency than humans (which is a reasonable assumption), they still have many more opportunities to do so than humans. Remember, they overrun planets in decades to centuries, and pose a real risk to galactic stability due to their birth rate.
True enough, the only rebuttal I've got to this is the sheer alien nature of the Krogan, we have no way of knowing that they don't have some highly effective mutation-repair/proofreading mechanism that doesn't exist in Earth-based life.
Yeah, unfortunately, that's not really a genuine rebuttal. If we're assuming new material to explain things, outside of the game, we're not really looking at the problem.
Megalodon said:
Megalodon said:
Salarians right? Here I'd say they could actually have less effective set of DNA repair. Say instead of the group of DNA repair mecahisms we have, they have one "master system". This works pretty well preventing mutation of their genome, but if it aquires a loss of function mutation itself, then harmful mutants quickly acculmulate, leading to death.
The problem with the salarians isn't their DNA repair capabilities, again, we're talking RNA, usually. It's that they've been an interstellar civilization for over millennia. In human terms this would be the equivalent of 2k - 10k years of space flight (yes, I'm using the dog years thing). Salarians reproduce generationally about every 10 years. On it's own this wouldn't mean much, but we know that life on this planet adapts to new biomes within a couple generations (based partially on the way protein replicates), resulting in some genetic variance. The salarians have had extrasolar colonies since at least ~700CE.
Now, we're getting into slightly looser theory here, but the suspicion is that long term extrasolar colonies will result in evolutionary adaptation in the colonists. We're talking about humans here, but the underlying science is fairly sound. The salarians have had extrasolar colonies for... and, I'm going roughly here, but at least 150 generations, meaning there has been ample time for such adaptations to occur.
Doesn't that assume colonies existing in isolation? Otherwise, not sure why you think RNA is the principal molecule in this, a bit of clarification would be helpful.
The RNA thing was in replication, for some reason I was remembering it as an error checking stage in DNA replication. Anyway...
It does assume the colonies exist in the absence of FTL technology, but it also assumes that the result will be full divergence into a new sub-species. If we're only looking for some divergence, from environmental adaptation, then all you need are a few generations being born off world, and for not everyone to pick up and migrate every generation, which I think we can call reasonable assumptions.
Megalodon said:
This is before we remember that the salarians practice genetic engineering. This one cuts both ways, on one hand it does mean that all salarians could potentially share very similar genetic code in the form of some genetically engineered "vaccines", it would also mean that there is a very real potential of individual (or pockets of individual) salarians with radically different synthesized genetic code.
This is very true, however I'd say the former is more likely, with Salarians actively trying to maintain specific genes at the expense of mutagenic potential. Admittedly this is based on the idea that Salarians are less gentically diverse than humans, plus the point of eugenics, which is what the Salarians practice, is to propgate specific "superior" gentic traits. Given how long they've been at it, the Salarians could have enforced a great dealof gentic conformity on their population by the events of the ME games.
Yeah, the salarian breeding program could indicate they have far less diversity than they "should." However, without knowing what factors specifically influence breeding contracts, it doesn't do much positive or negative to the general diversity. If it's truly about eugenics, then you're right, it would probably result in lower diversity, barring of course environmental adaptation, on the other hand, if it's mostly socioeconomic in nature (which is suggested), the effect would probably be, some kind of stratification of certain genetic traits.
EDIT 2: I'm also apparently too bleary to write coherently at the moment, I'll probably have to make another pass at this after I've gotten some sleep.
Megalodon said:
Further, even if we assume that the standard issue genes do undermine their diversity, we know that humans in the Alliance military undergo extensive gene therapy.
Have we been given any information about the genetic modifications the Alliance gives its recruits? My understanding was they were effectively slight increases reflexes, strength, more effecient oxygen transport/metabolism. But for all we know, these mods take the form of additional genes added to the subjects, similar in theory to the sort of thing we do to yeast and bacteria today. I fail to see how this would undermine genetic diversity, espcially given the low proportion of humanity that serves in the Alliance.
I'm not sure it's a legitimate factor either. There's a bit of information on it in the first game's codex, and some in dialog on Noveria. But, at the same time I didn't want to completely rule it out and ignore it. We also don't know that those modifications are congenital, and every reason to assume they're not from a modern day business stance.
Megalodon said:
While you're right, there are much bigger issues. It isn't really a valid argument to say, "no, wait, this plot critical fuckup isn't important because they fucked up even more over here!"
I didn't make myself particularly clear here. I was trying to say that the "genetic diversity" thing is one of the acceptable breaks from reality we have to accept if we're dealing with science fiction. I'd also say say that it is far from the worst, as I can at least have a go at explaining them (unlike the chirality thing, which just makes no sense).
I'm just playing Devil's advocate here, trying to point out that the "gentic diversity" claims of ME2 are not neccessarily as farfetched as you were saying. It is possible to give handwave explanations, which is what I've been trying to do.
Honestly, it finally clicked why this one drives me batshit. There are a lot of handwaves, and if someone can rationally explain the quarrian immune system without suffering a fatal aneurism, or pulling in a lot of random fanwank bullshit, I will be genuinely shocked...
The issue is the racism element. I don't mean fantastic racism, I mean it borrows part of it's argument, intentionally or not, from eugenics.
Mordin claims the evidence of human diversity includes personality, intelligence, and other factors. I'm fine with intelligence, but the personality bit... that one's personality is derived from their genetics sounds disturbingly like some of the stuff that phrenology and eugenics claimed. Moreover, we're repeatedly presented with asari that have personalities which are "influenced" by their father. The krogen matriarch on Illium for instance. If one's personality is indeed set by their genetics, then that really shouldn't have happened. Now that I've noticed that, it's really bugging me. The bit where he mentioned personality bugged me at the time, and probably got me looking at this initially, but... yeah... I think this is a legitimate Godwin invocation.
Between the two of us, I'm also the one with more consistent spelling skills. It's not that spelling, punctuation, and grammar equal authority when it comes to a debate... no, wait, yes, it really kinda is.
... I'm just gonna throw this out there, personal attacks like that reek of inseurity. If you have so much confidnce in you logic you shouldn't need to get personal.
Between the two of us, I'm also the one with more consistent spelling skills. It's not that spelling, punctuation, and grammar equal authority when it comes to a debate... no, wait, yes, it really kinda is.
... I'm just gonna throw this out there, personal attacks like that reek of inseurity. If you have so much confidnce in you logic you shouldn't need to get personal.
Completly ignoring my point and taking a jab at my spelling instead. Well, you proved me wrong, you don't need to take jabs at others to make yourself feel better, your logic is all you need (sarcasm)
Between the two of us, I'm also the one with more consistent spelling skills. It's not that spelling, punctuation, and grammar equal authority when it comes to a debate... no, wait, yes, it really kinda is.
... I'm just gonna throw this out there, personal attacks like that reek of inseurity. If you have so much confidnce in you logic you shouldn't need to get personal.
Completly ignoring my point and taking a jab at my spelling instead. Well, you proved me wrong, you don't need to take jabs at others to make yourself feel better, your logic is all you need (sarcasm)
No, I assumed that was intentional, and actually quite clever of you.
Look, here's the thing, if you're presenting an argument, on the internet, then you're basically going to be writing it up, well, typing it up, but anyway, you need to write as clearly and concisely as you can. That's the real issue.
If you have spelling problems, spellcheckers exist to clear that up. If you have grammar issues, that you simply need to learn your way around. If English is your second language, I can understand completely if your spellchecker doesn't include English, and I can certainly understand if you have trouble with grammar. But, neither of those seem to be the issue here.
A failure to capitalize sentences, and the failure to punctuate one's sentences lends a post a sloppy appearance, compound that with spelling errors, and poorly thought out paragraphs, or worse, no paragraphs, and you've got an unreadable mess.
In such a case, telling someone "hey, work on this" isn't a personal attack, at least not in the offing. If someone chooses to take it as such, it may be a sign of other problems, unrelated to their communication skill.
Do they have to like this? No, no one likes being told "hey, you can't do this, work harder", no one wants to hear that. But, when it's true? It's not a personal attack by any stretch of the imagination. It's at worst unsolicited advice, and more often something they need to hear, now, when the stakes are really low, lest they take their writing skills someplace else, where they need to be professional.
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