Re: (XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV!

by RavenEyry Wed Oct 01, 2014 9:16 pm

ZerebusPrime wrote:

2. Meer is fine. So are CANADIANS. IN. SPACE!!!!! Hell, watch India get a manned mission to Mars done before anyone else. And I will applaud them. In the meantime, we need more accented heroes. Colony Shepard could easily have come from a colony funded by Australia, for instance.

Moar canadians in space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Y1YF5R76o

by **spotlessvoid** Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:00 pm

trolling, me? I prefer the term "mocking" but whatever you say. Tell us more about accents, would you?

by vlad78 Thu Oct 02, 2014 1:43 am

smash016 wrote:
vlad78 wrote:I like Meer.

You have much to learn.

As promised, the comparison video.

A fine example of his accent can be heard at 0:26-0:30 -- "We'll be ready for them, tew."

Well, I'm not going to tell you my thoughts on this comparison. Already made it clear where I stand.

Also, for what it's worth, TVTropes says this under "Ooh Me Accent's Slipping":

Mark Meer (the voice actor for male Shepard) is Canadian. He does his best to sound completely neutral in regards to accent, but it does slip through from time to time (most noticeably when saying "been" with a long E sound.

Everyone satisfied now? Then let's move on.

Meer was in a hurry, it was late , he had to go home. Very Happy

Well, maleshep persuasion power doesn't come from the tone of his voice. So what?
I have to say, Meer is much better in ME2 and ME3.

by Hanako Ikezawa Thu Oct 02, 2014 1:46 am

Another thing to worry about on Earth is the dead Reaper hulls falling to Earth. As we have seen in Mass Effect 2, it takes tremendous pressure to destroy a Reaper hull, requiring Brown Dwarf atmospheric pressures to do it. Earth doesn't have that so it is likely that the majority of the Reaper hulls would make it to the ground. So that is several 2 kilometer and many 160 meter objects falling to Earth. To show the damage that would cause, we only need to look at Meteor Crater in Arizona.

(XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV! - Page 10 METCRAX_crater

(XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV! - Page 10 METCRAX_crater

That crater was caused by a meteorite that was 50 meters across, so slightly less than one third the size of a Reaper Destroyer. While the meteorite would be travelling more rapidly than the Reaper corpses when they fall to the ground, the increased size and mass(since the Reapers are massive enough that they cannot get off the ground without powerful Mass Effect drives) would very possibly create similar results. And that is just the Reaper Destroyers. The destruction caused by a Reaper Dreadnaught falling to Earth would be exponentially worse.

by ZerebusPrime Thu Oct 02, 2014 2:40 am

Yep yep yep. Next thing you know, Earth has "rings" made up entirely of wrecked space ships and Reaper hulks in precariously stable orbits.

by Eryri Thu Oct 02, 2014 3:06 am

vlad78 wrote:

Meer was in a hurry, it was late , he had to go home.

Well, maleshep persuasion power doesn't come from the tone of his voice. So what?
I have to say, Meer is much better in ME2 and ME3.

Agreed. He definitely grows into the role. Imagine how good he'd be in ME4 (eh Bioware? Eh? Hint, hint.)

And regarding "Accentgate", I wouldn't say his accent ever "slips" into Canadian. It's always Canadian, which is no bad thing. In real life the Canadian accent sounds 90% the same as a US one to me, just with the occasional quirk. Like the classic "aboot". Plus, if Alliance HQ is in Vancouver then it makes sense that Shepard might have picked up a bit of an accent during training. Or that standard pronunciation might have shifted in the course of just under two hundred years of linguistic evolution. Either way, his accent was never an issue for me.

by Rifneno Thu Oct 02, 2014 4:31 am

Hanako Ikezawa wrote:Another thing to worry about on Earth is the dead Reaper hulls falling to Earth. As we have seen in Mass Effect 2, it takes tremendous pressure to destroy a Reaper hull, requiring Brown Dwarf atmospheric pressures to do it. Earth doesn't have that so it is likely that the majority of the Reaper hulls would make it to the ground. So that is several 2 kilometer and many 160 meter objects falling to Earth. To show the damage that would cause, we only need to look at Meteor Crater in Arizona.

That crater was caused by a meteorite that was 50 meters across, so slightly less than one third the size of a Reaper Destroyer. While the meteorite would be travelling more rapidly than the Reaper corpses when they fall to the ground, the increased size and mass(since the Reapers are massive enough that they cannot get off the ground without powerful Mass Effect drives) would very possibly create similar results. And that is just the Reaper Destroyers. The destruction caused by a Reaper Dreadnaught falling to Earth would be exponentially worse.

This is another good point. And one of my favorite parts of the ending being silly and unreal because I almost never see anyone else point it out even though it's one of the first things that struck me. When the Reapers drop dead in destroy, the physics make it look like they're made of jell-o. They actually sort of bounce after impact, and the impact itself is nothing.

Meanwhile, look at the damage to the surrounding area where the then World Trade Centers collapsed. Now consider that both of those towers combined probably have less mass than a single tentacle/leg of a capital ship. Not the entire Reaper, just one limb. And there we see two Reaper capital ships fall in close proximity and there's not even a cloud of dust. Bioware, plz.

>Meer

Agreed with everyone pretty much everyone except smash said. Like I said initially, Meer was a little green in ME1. He did a damn fine job for a rookie though. ME2 and ME3 were a different story though. He was every bit as good as Hale in those games.

by Eryri Thu Oct 02, 2014 5:43 am

Don't Reapers also have enormous eezo cores? You'd expect at least a few of them to rupture on impact, which would 1) let off a hell of a bang, and 2) pollute the planet with carcinogenic eezo fallout. So Earth would generally not be a healthy place to be even in a best case scenario.

And the rubbery way they flopped to the ground bothered me too. You'd think they'd just shatter from the sheer forces involved.

by Guest Thu Oct 02, 2014 5:52 am

Hale started off better than Meer, then didn't significantly improve by the en of the trilogy, imo. She just did her thing.
Meer started out poor, then got gradually better to the point of being at least slightly better than Hale in ME3 IMO IMO IMO (any more IMOs I need to say?). I feel that he had to put more effort into it over time, possibly due to fan feedback.

~~~

And yeah I've actually laughed a little seeing how Reapers just flop on the ground in Destroy. Impossible. We've already had it established that even just a regular landing *should* be quite destructive, yet we see none of this in Vancouver, London, etc.

EDIT: Post edited slightly for better wording.

by Rifneno Thu Oct 02, 2014 6:04 am

Eryri wrote:Don't Reapers also have enormous eezo cores? You'd expect at least a few of them to rupture on impact, which would 1) let off a hell of a bang, and 2) pollute the planet with carcinogenic eezo fallout. So Earth would generally not be a healthy place to be even in a best case scenario.

You are correct. I'm sure someone will bring up the ME2 Derelict Reaper and its oddly small core, but I'd say that was more a lore break (due to lazyness - they obviously just copy and pasted the Normandy's eezo core) than the setting of the lore. I imagine the explanation they'll give for the lazyness is that "the Reaper's eezo core is really far away and it's much bigger than it looks."

Also, antimatter is definitely a thing in Mass Effect. As I mentioned a few pages ago, Noveria has antimatter warheads and the Legion destroys the heretic station by unbottling its antimatter reserves. While we don't have any confirmation of antimatter being used as a power source, antimatter reactors are just about the most powerful type of reactor humans have theorized so it's reasonable to assume there's a very good chance that Reapers have antimatter reactors. Especially since Reapers' power reactors have been shown to make organic races' cold fusion reactors look like a joke. The point of this paragraph is that it's highly probably there's a significant amount of antimatter on board a Reaper - and that antimatter is incredibly dangerous as an explosive. There were a lot of ships firing at Sovereign after his shields went down, but only the Normandy's javelin disruptor torpedo tore it to shreds. A likely scenario is that the Normandy's torpedo hit either its eezo core or its antimatter reactor. Either would cause a massive explosion.

Goddamn I love Mass Effect's lore. I really just love these conversations.

On a side note, now that I think about it, it's almost certain that the Collector Base was using an antimatter reactor. They specifically mentioned that they used the reactor to cause that incredible explosion. A cold fusion reactor would not cause such an explosion. If a fission reactor goes bad, it pukes out radiation. If a fusion reactor goes bad, it just stops working. If an antimatter reactor goes bad... epic boom.

But in the end... honestly, if that's how it has to be, that's how it has to be. We've all agreed that if the geth need to die to stop the Reapers, then that price should be paid without hestitation. I say the same goes for Earth. No matter what the cost, the Reapers must be destroyed.

And the rubbery way they flopped to the ground bothered me too. You'd think they'd just shatter from the sheer forces involved.

The soldiers celebrating and everything around them would get tossed like a ragdoll just from the shockwave. I can't even imagine what the weight of a Reaper is - especially since if they're dead, they've stopped using their mass effect fields and are at full mass.

by RavenEyry Thu Oct 02, 2014 7:29 am

You're all fools. CLEARLY the magic red light that selectively irrecoverably shuts off sentient machines also deletes all eezo to prevent ruptures and in the process makes the targets mass negligeble so they can fall over like they were made from styrofoam.

by smash016 Thu Oct 02, 2014 7:49 am

spotlessvoid wrote:trolling, me? I prefer the term "mocking" but whatever you say. Tell us more about accents, would you?

At least Rif knows when to stop. And has a sense of humor.

Seriously, buddy. This exchange is over. And your words are as empty as your future, tew.

by Hanako Ikezawa Thu Oct 02, 2014 8:44 am

Rifneno wrote:You are correct. I'm sure someone will bring up the ME2 Derelict Reaper and its oddly small core, but I'd say that was more a lore break (due to lazyness - they obviously just copy and pasted the Normandy's eezo core) than the setting of the lore. I imagine the explanation they'll give for the lazyness is that "the Reaper's eezo core is really far away and it's much bigger than it looks."

Personally, I always headcanoned that what we do is somewhat like what Luke Skywalker did to the Death Star. The eezo core we destroyed was only something like an access or venting port, since even Reapers need to refuel. To use human anatomy as a comparison, it would be like the blood vessels that connect the heart to the lungs so the heart has access to oxygenated blood and can get rid of the waste. And when we destroyed that, it set off a chain reaction that led to the actual core and destroyed it at least enough to lose power long enough for us to escape and it fall far enough to be crushed by the atmospheric pressure of the brown dwarf.

Rifneno wrote: Also, antimatter is definitely a thing in Mass Effect. As I mentioned a few pages ago, Noveria has antimatter warheads and the Legion destroys the heretic station by unbottling its antimatter reserves. While we don't have any confirmation of antimatter being used as a power source, antimatter reactors are just about the most powerful type of reactor humans have theorized so it's reasonable to assume there's a very good chance that Reapers have antimatter reactors. Especially since Reapers' power reactors have been shown to make organic races' cold fusion reactors look like a joke. The point of this paragraph is that it's highly probably there's a significant amount of antimatter on board a Reaper - and that antimatter is incredibly dangerous as an explosive. There were a lot of ships firing at Sovereign after his shields went down, but only the Normandy's javelin disruptor torpedo tore it to shreds. A likely scenario is that the Normandy's torpedo hit either its eezo core or its antimatter reactor. Either would cause a massive explosion.

Goddamn I love Mass Effect's lore. I really just love these conversations.

On a side note, now that I think about it, it's almost certain that the Collector Base was using an antimatter reactor. They specifically mentioned that they used the reactor to cause that incredible explosion. A cold fusion reactor would not cause such an explosion. If a fission reactor goes bad, it pukes out radiation. If a fusion reactor goes bad, it just stops working. If an antimatter reactor goes bad... epic boom.

I agree that the Reapers could very well use antimatter as a power source. After all their cores are able to create enough shielding to protect everything inside an installation from all the radiation and forces that come with being within visible range of a black hole. Even nuclear fusion wouldn't be able to do that because stars, the biggest and most powerful nuclear fusion reactors in the galaxy, can't even do what the tiny in comparison Collector Base did.

Rifneno wrote:
But in the end... honestly, if that's how it has to be, that's how it has to be. We've all agreed that if the geth need to die to stop the Reapers, then that price should be paid without hestitation. I say the same goes for Earth. No matter what the cost, the Reapers must be destroyed.

Especially since unlike the Geth the Earth, while sentimentally precious to humans due to being our homeworld, is not a living thing. And the sentimental part can be explained away the same way Legion does about Rannoch and the Quarians:

"'Home' is recognized patterns. Known spaces. Familiar thought processes of fellow sapients. It is belonging. A planet is an amount of material massive enough to collapse into a spherical volume. Rock, ice, and gases are not 'home'. The home of the creators is where the creators are. Their place of origin is not relevant -- only where they choose to go together."

So with the only reason to save it explained away, there is no real reason that the lose of a planet is worth risking the loss of the galaxy. It is lost either way and there are no ethical or moral dilemmas to worry about.

by Guest Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:09 am

RavenEyry wrote:You're all fools. CLEARLY the magic red light that selectively irrecoverably shuts off sentient machines also deletes all eezo to prevent ruptures and in the process makes the targets mass negligeble so they can fall over like they were made from styrofoam.

Considering all the wacky weird 'science' in the Crucible War Assets text..

maybe?

by Hanako Ikezawa Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:25 am

Rifneno wrote:This is another good point. And one of my favorite parts of the ending being silly and unreal because I almost never see anyone else point it out even though it's one of the first things that struck me. When the Reapers drop dead in destroy, the physics make it look like they're made of jell-o. They actually sort of bounce after impact, and the impact itself is nothing.

Meanwhile, look at the damage to the surrounding area where the then World Trade Centers collapsed. Now consider that both of those towers combined probably have less mass than a single tentacle/leg of a capital ship. Not the entire Reaper, just one limb. And there we see two Reaper capital ships fall in close proximity and there's not even a cloud of dust. Bioware, plz.

The thing that bugged me about that scene was how fast the Reapers fell to the ground. Those are two kilometers tall and they go from standing to completely on the ground within a few seconds. So let's be generous and say it took three seconds, since that is long the Youtube videos have them in the scene they fall and the soldiers cheer. That completely goes against our laws of physics which after running calculations says that the Reapers should have taken slightly over 20 seconds to fall to the ground. But ignoring the fact it goes against the laws of physics fora moment, any real example of damage we use has to be increased exponentially by how much more quickly they fall to the ground. And as you said, this is without even knowing the mass of the Reapers and thus how that would apply to the calculations. So overall at that speed with that mass, London would quite likely be a flattened wasteland just from the Reapers on the surface falling over onto the ground.

SwobyJ wrote:And yeah I've actually laughed a little seeing how Reapers just flop on the ground in Destroy. Impossible. We've already had it established that even just a regular landing *should* be quite destructive, yet we see none of this in Vancouver, London, etc.

Well, Vancouver can be explained as simply a result of the Mass Effect drives doing their job to lighten the Reaper enough to function on a planet. The only time a Reaper has left damage on a planet's surface before then was Sovereign on Eden Prime, and that destruction was more likely caused by it taking off rather than landing.

Rifneno wrote:
The soldiers celebrating and everything around them would get tossed like a ragdoll just from the shockwave. I can't even imagine what the weight of a Reaper is - especially since if they're dead, they've stopped using their mass effect fields and are at full mass.

Well, we know they are massive enough that a piece falling to the ground caused enough damage to a Citadel arm that even two years later power hasn't even been restored.

by dorktainian Thu Oct 02, 2014 12:27 pm

Boom!!

by vlad78 Thu Oct 02, 2014 2:52 pm

Rifneno wrote:
Also, antimatter is definitely a thing in Mass Effect. As I mentioned a few pages ago, Noveria has antimatter warheads and the Legion destroys the heretic station by unbottling its antimatter reserves. While we don't have any confirmation of antimatter being used as a power source, antimatter reactors are just about the most powerful type of reactor humans have theorized so it's reasonable to assume there's a very good chance that Reapers have antimatter reactors. Especially since Reapers' power reactors have been shown to make organic races' cold fusion reactors look like a joke. The point of this paragraph is that it's highly probably there's a significant amount of antimatter on board a Reaper - and that antimatter is incredibly dangerous as an explosive. There were a lot of ships firing at Sovereign after his shields went down, but only the Normandy's javelin disruptor torpedo tore it to shreds. A likely scenario is that the Normandy's torpedo hit either its eezo core or its antimatter reactor. Either would cause a massive explosion.

Goddamn I love Mass Effect's lore. I really just love these conversations.

One important thing here imho lies with the fact that Sovereign's shields are totally impervious to any damage done by alliance weapons during the whole battle.
Only when Sovereign incarnated in Saren and was killed did the shields fail and red lightnings appear which indicates (still imho) that it was already dead at that point. (see every reaper death in ME3, red lightnings do appear when the eezo core is breached)
I think the Normandy torpedo did not kill Sovereign, the feedback of Saren's death did.

Furthermore, those lightnings and reaper lasers are reminiscent of the fuel reactor N7 mission on Cyone.

But it does not rule out your theory about Sovereigns explosion being triggered by antimatter.

by ZerebusPrime Thu Oct 02, 2014 3:58 pm

RavenEyry wrote:You're all fools. CLEARLY the magic red light that selectively irrecoverably shuts off sentient machines also deletes all eezo to prevent ruptures and in the process makes the targets mass negligeble so they can fall over like they were made from styrofoam.

Not as crazy as you might think. More like just regularly nutzoid. EDI and Joker have a moment where they were theorizing if it would be possible to reach a reality/universe where the mass effect was not a part of the basic laws of physics. EDI further hypothesized that it would take a tremendous amount of energy to do so. Given that the crucible is basically a giant generator, Destroy may function by, however temporarily, "turning off" mass effect physics and negating every element zero power source within its blast radii. Basically the Crucible in this example would "boost" everything in reach into a new frame of physics where fundamental laws of force are abnormal. All Reapers run on mass effect drives; this would be an unusual shared "weakness" across all Reaper tech. The Geth also run on miniature element zero cores, IIRC. Thus the destroy function would kill them both.

There is absolutely no way to confirm such a supposition without a sequel game. And no, I don't think this particular outcome is likely; it's much too literalist. Also, in order to keep the galaxy safe from Reapers outside the galaxy or in far corners that the Crucible blasts missed, the altered reality effect would have to be either permanent or sustained over the long term. That means no mass effect travel. That means no FTL for most current starships. Implied holocosts follow. Fun for everybody!

EDIT: Still doesn't explain the lack of shockwaves after the Reapers fall over.

by TurianRebel212 Fri Oct 03, 2014 12:30 am

Mass Effect only has ONE rule.......

The Rule of Cool.

(XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV! - Page 10 Mass-Effect-фэндомы-Shepard-gif-819678

(XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV! - Page 10 Mass-Effect-фэндомы-Shepard-gif-819678

by Guest Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:28 am

vlad78 wrote:
One important thing here imho lies with the fact that Sovereign's shields are totally impervious to any damage done by alliance weapons during the whole battle. Only when Sovereign incarnated in Saren and was killed did the shields fail and red lightnings appear which indicates (still imho) that it was already dead at that point. (see every reaper death in ME3, red lightnings do appear when the eezo core is breached). I think the Normandy torpedo did not kill Sovereign, the feedback of Saren's death did.

I thought about this before at some point when ME3 first came out. It's interesting that Sovereign makes one final attempt to kill Shepard via controlling (what was left of) Saren's physical form, and then once that physical form is defeated, Sovereign falls. Like you said, it seems like the feedback of Saren's death is what paves the way for Sovereign's destruction. You can think of the Destroy ending in a similar way: the Catalyst/collective reaper conscience takes the form of a child/one of Shepard's memories and, when you choose Destroy, the reapers fall. It's different on several levels, an obvious one being that Saren's confrontation was largely physical (i.e., it seemed to be a deliberate intention to physically kill Shepard) whereas the Catalyst's confrontation seems more psychological, but the idea of "a final attempt to defeat Shepard by taking the form of a non-reaper entity" seems similar. Even if they weren't intended to be related (and I'm completely grasping at straws), it's kind of cool to see both endings as somewhat parallel in that way.

by Rifneno Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:26 am

Hanako Ikezawa wrote:Especially since unlike the Geth the Earth, while sentimentally precious to humans due to being our homeworld, is not a living thing. And the sentimental part can be explained away the same way Legion does about Rannoch and the Quarians

Well it's not so much the planet itself as the people on it. The Reapers killed millions, but there's still billions alive.

The thing that bugged me about that scene was how fast the Reapers fell to the ground. Those are two kilometers tall and they go from standing to completely on the ground within a few seconds. So let's be generous and say it took three seconds, since that is long the Youtube videos have them in the scene they fall and the soldiers cheer. That completely goes against our laws of physics which after running calculations says that the Reapers should have taken slightly over 20 seconds to fall to the ground.

Oh my god. I've never even considered that. Or heard anyone else mention it. Bravo.

vlad78 wrote:One important thing here imho lies with the fact that Sovereign's shields are totally impervious to any damage done by alliance weapons during the whole battle.

"You develop along the paths we desire." A large part of that is warships using mass accelerators for weapons and mass effect shields for defense. Reapers' mass effect engines are far more powerful and much of their weaponry is heat-based which mass effect fields do little to defend against. So when the Reapers invade, our ships are designed so that their weapons are what the Reapers are strongest against and our defenses are what the Reapers' are best at penetrating. The Reapers' trap is so may layers thick, it's incredible.

by dorktainian Fri Oct 03, 2014 8:26 am

in other words everything you see is a part of a trap. Everything has happened because the reapers have allowed it. Pretty much what sovereign said in ME1.

by smash016 Fri Oct 03, 2014 9:24 am

Honest, noncondescending question: do you guys think BW put so much thought in it? I mean, in terms of physics and shit.

(edit) Perhaps related, as early as ME1 the Thorian is pooping asari getups and shotguns just like that.

by dorktainian Fri Oct 03, 2014 9:46 am

The reapers are controlling the whole shebang. Everything.

Evolution = Reapers
Government = Reapers
Technological advancement = Reapers.

Therefore..

Space travel = Reapers.
Weaponry = Reapers.
Defence Systems = Reapers.
Thought itself = Reapers.

Therefore we evolve along the paths they desire. We carry Weaponry which cannot hurt them. We fly in ships which are far inferior to theirs. We are outmatched and outgunned.

As Vigil states, Shepard must understand why the Protheans lost to the reapers or everything will happen in exactly the same way. Isn't the main way to understand the conflict, to understand that conventional thinking is not going to destroy the reapers?

Someone puts an 'I WIN' mechanism in front of you it is one thing and one thing only.

A Trap. Or is it?

Therefore how do you approach the conflict in a way that has not been anticipated by the reapers?

Indoctrination is a finely honed method of control. A way to prevent us from destroying our overlords. How do you stop the idea of killing the reapers? Kill the idea. Not in a physical way, but through indoctrination.

Safety First.

The very thing they do not bank on is someone having the mental fortitude to resist indoctrination because nobody ever has before. It's (almost) a perfect safeguard for them.

Just shoot the tube godammitttttttttt!!!!!

Maybe shooting the tube kills the idea? The idea being their anchor in this plane of existance? Shep wakes up and the reapers are gone. Thats it? Kill the idea and Stop the reapers? Maybe it really is that simple?

by Rifneno Fri Oct 03, 2014 11:44 am

dorktainian wrote:Maybe shooting the tube kills the idea? The idea being their anchor in this plane of existance? Shep wakes up and the reapers are gone. Thats it? Kill the idea and Stop the reapers? Maybe it really is that simple?

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