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monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013
The reason the liveships are there is to force the choice at Rannoch: if you choose the Geth, the Quarians are wiped out. Also so the pacifist Quarian admiral plays a stronger role (otherwise he'd be somewhere else and nobody would really care what he'd say during the choice bit.) Otherwise there'd have to be some choice where you'd get to save the Geth and most Quarians (except the militants who decided to start a war during a Reaper invasion) which I dare say most people would take if they didn't have the golden choice of saving both, and even then they may tell Xen/Han'Gerrel to enjoy being spaced.

Of course the Geth were equally stupid in trying to build a Dyson sphere around Rannoch which they knew would provoke the Quarians, instead of some other star system, not to mention asking the drat Reapers for help.

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Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Presumably the Geth were already invested in their construction project before they felt they had enough forces to risk evacuating Rannoch and being destroyed by Council races. I imagine evacuating the planet of all Geth hardware and software would be a pretty monumental undertaking even if they just torch their hardware and upload to spaceships and they don't want to leave anything behind in case the Quarians try and use it in their unrelenting quest for genocide.

The Geth didn't just spring into being at their full power, their present power level is directly due to years of explosive growth and scientific study while being mostly ignored by the rest of the galaxy.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
they've been working on the megastructure for the past 294 years. Also building it around rannoch or even as a real dyson sphere (I.E. a sphere with a radius of 1AU) would have left substantial debris in near rannoch orbit, which isn't something that we see here. So I think it was being built elsewhere.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
294 years to build a dyson sphere is nothing. Given that it was finished during that time it must have been pretty goddamn small.

monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013

Neruz posted:

294 years to build a dyson sphere is nothing. Given that it was finished during that time it must have been pretty goddamn small.

It wasn't finished, and where in the game did they say they had been working on it for 294 years?

Also geth are software, you don't have to move hardware, just build new servers and FTP them over.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
I thought it was finished, then the Quarians broke it.


If it wasn't finished then 294 years is nothing and there's no likelihood that more than even a small moon or two has been consumed in construction yet.

TheCosmicMuffet
Jun 21, 2009

by Shine

monster on a stick posted:

The reason the liveships are there is to force the choice at Rannoch: if you choose the Geth, the Quarians are wiped out.

This might even be a historical callback.
http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-41-thors-angels/

That's a long history podcast about the various german groups (which includes people who became the english, french, and germans--and possibly the scandinavians). One of the interesting things mentioned is that the germans were respectful of their women, and were cheered on in battle by their women and children who would attend the event. It was in part designed to say 'look, you have to do your best, because if you don't, we're all right here, and it will all be over'.

There's something to that, I think. The history of war is kind of interesting. There are countless cases of groups who win because they have discipline or just intimidate their way into a victory. Smaller groups have subdued larger ones because there is a huge gap between extermination and winning a battle. Until the modern era, it was extremely difficult and time consuming to depopulate an area. So you could fight battles and then, immediately after, be in no better position. You have to fight all over again because there are roughly just as many people and nothing meaningful about the political situation changed.

When you're 'fixing' (or permanently reinforcing) the krogan genophage, krogan women are extremely present in that narrative. They aren't actors, but they represent, physically, the mortal danger to the krogans and the pressure to survive that they're under. When you meet Wrex, he's just a bachelor. The survival of his race is an abstract idea. When you meet grunt, it's the same thing. In a way, their existence means nothing. They just fight and have nothing to accomplish, except to enjoy themselves in war. The point of violence (one would think) isn't just self-gratification--the reason males (or females) are violent and competitive is because it contributes to the survival of their species by increasing selection pressure and promoting the maintenance of stronger members who can fight off predators or survive hardship. Heavily communal organisms like ants, have strains of ant who's purpose is to be heavy hitters with big heads and jaws; unnecessary to get food and make nests, but useful to kill dangerous insects. Even within an organism, like us, the immune system has a similar division of labor with cells like Macrophages and T-cells, where one is a powerful digestive attacker, and the other is a recognizer and promoter of useful cellular behavior.

In the metaphor of the Quarians, it's not like the Krogans where it's wall-to-wall dudes being manly--so the sudden appearance of quarian women doesn't mean the same thing in the story. For the quarians, the men and women seem to fight and govern together, and have similarly broad opinions and attitudes. When they bring all their soft ships to the front, their resonance with the germans, historically, and their resonance with the personal nature of fighting in most community organisms with a 'fighting' sex (apes, monkeys, herd animals like elk/deer, wolves etc) becomes part of their narrative. Fighting in front of people who are the reason you fight at all is an incredibly visceral experience. It's not like being carted off to war in another country, or even miles away and being focused on your own survival and situation. It's like a mother defending her cubs. Only she brought her cubs to the lion's den in order to make sure she fought as hard as she could.

It's a manipulation that governments, societies, and organisms have used to force a decisive outcome. It's an interesting contrast to the krogans. We never know if the krogans (as the child side arc) will really be fixed or survive or integrate into galactic society. They may *seem* doomed, but it's open to interpretation and clearly outside the bounds of the story. The Quarians, though, are going to go home or die. There isn't going to be some lingering doubt about whether they're still out there, somewhere, quarianing around.

How does tali's sweat taste? Bittersweet.

tadashi
Feb 20, 2006

FullLeatherJacket posted:

Quarian admiralty and commandeer their fleet (or at least scream and throw chairs around the war room) it becomes really obvious that you're just doing poo poo for the sake of having it there to do.

Why would they let him tell them what to do with their fleet or not throw him out an airlock if he did that? I don't understand how negotiating with a sovereign group is just doing poo poo?

FullLeatherJacket
Dec 30, 2004

Chiunque puņ essere Luther Blissett, semplicemente adottando il nome Luther Blissett

tadashi posted:

Why would they let him tell them what to do with their fleet or not throw him out an airlock if he did that? I don't understand how negotiating with a sovereign group is just doing poo poo?

All five of the Quarian Admirality Board are just hanging out squabbling and making decisions in the war room on the Normandy, with no escort or any form of military protection (because coding a whole actual new room to do this in, like in ME2, would take time and effort).

I'm not seriously suggesting that there should be an option to kill them all, dress Liara up as Admiral Xan and hijack Quarian politics for yourself, but you'd think someone on the Normandy would at least take action to prevent someone ordering their fleet to fire on the commander of the ship they're currently flying on. The admirals really are just there as sock puppets, to put across four one-dimensional views and nothing more. As background characters in ME2, that's fine. As a key plot driver in ME3, they're just clownish.

Geostomp
Oct 22, 2008

Unite: MASH!!
~They've got the bad guys on the run!~

FullLeatherJacket posted:

All five of the Quarian Admirality Board are just hanging out squabbling and making decisions in the war room on the Normandy, with no escort or any form of military protection (because coding a whole actual new room to do this in, like in ME2, would take time and effort).

I'm not seriously suggesting that there should be an option to kill them all, dress Liara up as Admiral Xan and hijack Quarian politics for yourself, but you'd think someone on the Normandy would at least take action to prevent someone ordering their fleet to fire on the commander of the ship they're currently flying on. The admirals really are just there as sock puppets, to put across four one-dimensional views and nothing more. As background characters in ME2, that's fine. As a key plot driver in ME3, they're just clownish.

Since when have any government officials in this series who aren't promoted military types been shown as people with more than one dimension? The series, like many similar ones with military focus, has a hard time giving proper value to people who aren't either fighting or supporting those who do fight. Anybody else comes off as either a helpless victim, naive fool, or impediment. The admirals happened to end up on "impediment" so we could be forced to "finish" the quarian/geth conflict (with quarians coming off as worse because the writers weren't sure that we'd support the geth without more hamfisted nonsense). It's lazy writing with unfortunate semi-fascist overtones, but that's the genre convention.

The whole thing could have been redeemed if they'd just given the quarians some actual reason to attack now or had it start with some attempt at negotiation subverted by Reaper indoctrination or viruses. Anything to make the war seem like an act of desperation rather than selfish stupidity.

Sneaky Fast
Apr 24, 2013

Lt. Danger posted:

Thanks buddy. :)

Which game are you talking about? Yeah, sure, you can justify the genophage easily, but I'm not talking about it as an ethical dilemma in a vacuum. What I'm talking about is how it's presented to us across the series, and in ME3 you've really got to work at it to get a 'balanced' scenario, let alone a case where the genophage is clearly the correct option. Very different to ME2.

Indeed i was commenting more on the first and second games. Even though the ME3 presents curing the genophage as the "idealistic and heroic" path having played the first two games and seeing how lovely tuchanka is and heard the stories of their barbarism in colonizing other worlds, i couldn't just forget that suff despite the shift in ME3. Ultimately i agree with your assessment though it is a much clearer arc then the Quarian/Geth.

Another thing i thought interesting, you felt that Mass Effect was underwritten? If i recall correctly you stated ME2 was ME3 closly behind that?

In the case of almost all trilogies the first of the three is by its nature simplistic. It has a job, which is to introduce you to the characters, make you like them and illustrate how the world your new chums are strolling around in operates and what rules and regulations must they abide. Often the good guys will destroy a bad guy/bad thing and save the day only for the evil to return later in the series in a much more menacing way.

Think of A New Hope, it is by far the most simplistic of the 3 good star wars movies. The course of the movie is to have you meet the gang (like them... Han is just so cool!), explain the force, show the evil of the empire and place them squarely in the tumult of the rebellion against said evil dicks. All of this is a setup for the deeper and darker Empire Strikes Back.

The second act of a trilogy is the heavy lifter, because we know everybody and the circumstances of the setting. The artist can begin to extrapolate on the world without fear of losing the person consuming the stories interest in the characters because you already liked and invested in them enough to come back a second time. That why we can have the shocking revelation that Vader is Luke's father and we care because A.N.H established that we liked good ol' Lukey and hated evil Vader.

The main exposition of any trilogy is gonna be done primarily here in the middle. In ME2 we learn so much about Shepard, the alliance and the politics of the reaper invasion during because we already have established facts and a deep connection to the Commander so we are on his side even when he works for an evil organization. We will stay with him as he battles out where he and his talents belong in this conflict. I understand why people like second acts a lot in general. It's the act of a trilogy that has the most tension, there is the most change and often things look the most bleak. I feel ME2 did this part all very well! However, I didn't care for the illusion of choice i felt in the later games.

My mom used to do this thing when I was yougin', it would be time to go outside and she didn't want to just tell me to do it because i would rebel against that. So, she would ask me if i wanted to wear my blue jacket or my green one when we went outside.The real decision had been made. I had no real power. Only the facade of choice to distract me from that fact. I understand the main story arc sorta has to be that way, but all the other quests being stripped down to simply paragon renegade choices really irked me. I missed quests where every choice wasn't Red button or Blue button. I missed quests like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4B34fJNfuI

Sneaky Fast fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Nov 6, 2014

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

It was a Dyson swarm. Much easier to build.

monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013

Geostomp posted:

Since when have any government officials in this series who aren't promoted military types been shown as people with more than one dimension? The series, like many similar ones with military focus, has a hard time giving proper value to people who aren't either fighting or supporting those who do fight. Anybody else comes off as either a helpless victim, naive fool, or impediment. The admirals happened to end up on "impediment" so we could be forced to "finish" the quarian/geth conflict (with quarians coming off as worse because the writers weren't sure that we'd support the geth without more hamfisted nonsense). It's lazy writing with unfortunate semi-fascist overtones, but that's the genre convention.

It's not fascist at all. The leadership may not really listen to Shepard all that much about the impending invasion, but that goes whether they are civilian or military. The Turian Hierarchy is basically a military-run government and they only listened to Garrus because he had connections and even then gave him a token task force. The Quarians are similarly run by admirals who (except for Zaal'Koris and maybe Tali) are all about attacking the Geth. Wreav is much more hardcore than Wrex and he is portrayed as a clown who will get his species into even more trouble. Even the Earth military higher-ups are all "what do we do :ohno:" at the beginning of ME3. And of course, there's Cerberus which is paramilitary, not to mention all the mercenary Blackwater-types in ME2.

It's actually the more diplomatic types that are portrayed well, especially in ME3 - Wrex/Baraka who want to not repeat the mistakes of the past by going :black101: on the galaxy, Mordin for abandoning his governments anti-Krogan position, Tali and Legion working together to bring the Geth and Quarians together, etc.

It's really more anti-establishment.

StrifeHira
Nov 7, 2012

I'll remind you that I have a very large stick.

Arglebargle III posted:

It was a Dyson swarm. Much easier to build.

Basically yes, this. At the very most, a relatively small Dyson bubble. To help clarify, the megastructure was actually a gigantic satellite network around the star, not a solid object. It was still a massive undertaking that very well could have eaten a small moon or two, but not some sort of solid Ringworld structure or something you'd see in Star Trek. Made easier since the geth are software, and therefore able to survive in much smaller spaces and with far fewer resources than organics; more of them can be devoted to construction materials. Which is why, when the Fire Nationquarians attacked, it was at least supposed to come off as a morally repugnant act of aggression.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

But the key thing about a Dyson swarm is that it's just a whole bunch of artificial satellites. We could start building one now with modern technology we'd just never finish. You just put things in orbit of the sun and they stay there. A solid megastructure presents the problems that need magic technology to solve.

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Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Presumably that's why the Geth settled for a Dyson Swarm then, and yeah the Quarians destroying the Swarm was basically analogous to destroying civilian cities; the majority of the Geth were uploaded to the Swarm living in Geth luxury.

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