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Post by burningcherry on Jan 26, 2020 1:32:33 GMT
The final evolution of life is also referred to as the pinnacle of evolution, which the Reapers consider themselves to be. SAM has nothing to do with that. If it makes it better, the “final evolution of life” is a top-to-bottom dumbass idea anyway. Anyone who tries to push it without some tongue-in-cheek sense of irony is clearly broken and needs to be put on time out. That's why the Collectors became so laughable when their general spoke for the first time.
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Post by Iakus on Jan 26, 2020 2:08:41 GMT
It is presumed that given the Andromeda Initiative was founded and funded by humans, they were the driving force behind the ODSY drive. Since without that, the entire project was a colossal waste of time. Clearly Jien Garson had an idea as to how to get to Andromeda from the start. And comparing the Tantalus to the ODSY is like comparing a paper boat to a cruise ship. Yeah the Tantalus drive can run longer than most other drive cores, but the ODSY is the next best thing to a perpetual motion machine. It renders the ENTIRE Reaper trap completely irrelevant. And in a billion years or more of harvests, however many thousands, perhaps millions of sapient species that have arisen in all those eons, it's only NOW that such a drive is developed? Oh, and those Prothean scientists didn't develop the mini-relay in isolation, the Protheans had already managed to reverse-engineer the relays and were in the process of building their first prototype when the invasion came. in other words, the relay was already there. Hey, if it means anything, it only gets worse when you consider how the framework of the trilogy’s internal logic really works against the reaper trap itself. The fact that the reapers are not really totally invulnerable should have doomed them eons before this cycle, but the past cycles’ civilizations fail due to plot constraints. Of course, this argument works primarily on the assumption that something like the ODSY drive simply never existed in the past, or at least wasn’t on the cusp of being implemented in a practical way before that cycle’s people were obliterated by the reapers. Looking at all the ways Mass Effect played fast and loose with technology and biology throughout the trilogy, I can honestly say that the ODSY drive is probably one of the lowest tiers of offenses from a wider perspective. I'm fine with playing fast and loose with science, as long as it's done in a consistent manner. Stick to your own rules, as it were. Magic space rocks make FTL travel possible? Fine. But if said magic rocks make your ship explode if you can't discharge every couple of days, expect me to have a problem with suddenly introducing an engine that runs on said rocks that can run flawlessly for several centuries whiteout a break. Because that's NOT how your made-up rules are said t work.
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Post by slimgrin727 on Jan 26, 2020 2:21:27 GMT
Let's go back to the Milky Way and pretend Andromeda never happened.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 4:11:04 GMT
It's a superiority thing. The Reapers think they are superior to everyone, as if they are Gods. They want everyone to accept their ideas, become a part-Reaper, or be annihilated.
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Post by KaiserShep on Jan 26, 2020 6:35:44 GMT
Hey, if it means anything, it only gets worse when you consider how the framework of the trilogy’s internal logic really works against the reaper trap itself. The fact that the reapers are not really totally invulnerable should have doomed them eons before this cycle, but the past cycles’ civilizations fail due to plot constraints. Of course, this argument works primarily on the assumption that something like the ODSY drive simply never existed in the past, or at least wasn’t on the cusp of being implemented in a practical way before that cycle’s people were obliterated by the reapers. Looking at all the ways Mass Effect played fast and loose with technology and biology throughout the trilogy, I can honestly say that the ODSY drive is probably one of the lowest tiers of offenses from a wider perspective. I'm fine with playing fast and loose with science, as long as it's done in a consistent manner. Stick to your own rules, as it were. Magic space rocks make FTL travel possible? Fine. But if said magic rocks make your ship explode if you can't discharge every couple of days, expect me to have a problem with suddenly introducing an engine that runs on said rocks that can run flawlessly for several centuries whiteout a break. Because that's NOT how your made-up rules are said t work. I honestly think that the only real failing on the part of the ODSY’s part in the story is that it isn’t given the attention for whatever massive complicated process would entail in rectifying the static discharge requirement of normal FTL drives. However, the fact that the reapers are somehow able to do this already shows that there is SOME way to get around it, obviously ill-defined since it’s all fantastical tech anyway. Regardless, the precedence is there. I wouldn’t say it really breaks any rules, as the rule itself doesn’t necessarily preclude any improvements to FTL that get around this, just something that may be too costly to implement in a practical way in the present. I think it’s a pretty minor thing that doesn’t harm the setting nearly as much as other bits from the original trilogy (I’d argue that it doesn’t really harm the setting at all). It at least does actively address the problem it’s supposed to solve in-universe, rather than straight up pretending the limitation never existed in the first place. As for tech being able to just run for such long periods on end, isn’t that already what most tech in Mass Effect does? If Prothean technology can somehow retain enough power and integrity that digital files are at all usable after tens of thousands of years of prolonged exposure to the elements, spaceships functioning for a mere fraction of that time in space is not that much of a stretch.
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Post by shermos on Jan 26, 2020 8:30:11 GMT
EDI says in the Leviathan DLC that element zero decays after several centuries of active use. That means the ODSY drive would need to be replenished at least once during the journey to Andromeda. Not saying that's impossible to explain, but it's another lore issue which seems to have been ignored.
There's a similar debate about lore going on with the Star Trek universe at the moment. One side saying "Trek needs to be modernised, screw your nostalgia", the other saying "but lore/canon should be respected". Not dissimilar to the debate going on here. We're talking about large corporations with a tonne of funding and able to employ hundreds of people on a single project running these franchises. We're just nerds thinking about, in our free time, how a sci-fi universe can continue while still respecting what came before and satisfying as much of the fanbase as possible. There's a problem when we can do a better job than these big corps, whether it's laziness, penny pinching, big heads not listening to criticism, or some combination thereof. Can't they employ a few people to be walking encyclopedias on lore for the writing team to check their ideas with? Star Wars has this with the Lucasfilm story group, and they've been pretty good at avoiding these kinds of problems apart from the sequel trilogy.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 8:47:52 GMT
EDI says in the Leviathan DLC that element zero decays after several centuries of active use. That means the ODSY drive would need to be replenished at least once during the journey to Andromeda. Not saying that's impossible to explain, but it's another lore issue which seems to have been ignored. There's a similar debate about lore going on with the Star Trek universe at the moment. One side saying "Trek needs to be modernised, screw your nostalgia", the other saying "but lore/canon should be respected". Not dissimilar to the debate going on here. We're talking about large corporations with a tonne of funding and able to employ hundreds of people on a single project running these franchises. We're just nerds thinking about, in our free time, how a sci-fi universe can continue while still respecting what came before and satisfying as much of the fanbase as possible. There's a problem when we can do a better job than these big corps, whether it's laziness, penny pinching, big heads not listening to criticism, or some combination thereof. Can't they employ a few people to be walking encyclopedias on lore for the writing team to check their ideas with? Star Wars has this with the Lucasfilm story group, and they've been pretty good at avoiding these kinds of problems apart from the sequel trilogy. Define "several" though. Six centuries qualifies, so does seven, eight... Just because eezo needs to be replenished once in "several" centuries does not mean that the ODSY drive would have to be replenished once in 634 years. The replenishment may not be needed for 100 or 200 years after arrival in Andromeda.
Leviathan was many more than 500 centuries old. There is no indication given how many times it had to replenish its Eezo supply in all those millennia. I would say EDI's use of the term "several" is questionable since, if Leviathan and all those "legion" of Reapers needed to resupply themselves with Eezo every 600 years and given how quickly Shepard depletes entire planets of it in ME2, there would have been no eezo left in the galaxy long before the current cycle even began.
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 26, 2020 9:14:40 GMT
Hey, if it means anything, it only gets worse when you consider how the framework of the trilogy’s internal logic really works against the reaper trap itself. The fact that the reapers are not really totally invulnerable should have doomed them eons before this cycle, but the past cycles’ civilizations fail due to plot constraints. Of course, this argument works primarily on the assumption that something like the ODSY drive simply never existed in the past, or at least wasn’t on the cusp of being implemented in a practical way before that cycle’s people were obliterated by the reapers. Looking at all the ways Mass Effect played fast and loose with technology and biology throughout the trilogy, I can honestly say that the ODSY drive is probably one of the lowest tiers of offenses from a wider perspective. I'm fine with playing fast and loose with science, as long as it's done in a consistent manner. Stick to your own rules, as it were. Magic space rocks make FTL travel possible? Fine. But if said magic rocks make your ship explode if you can't discharge every couple of days, expect me to have a problem with suddenly introducing an engine that runs on said rocks that can run flawlessly for several centuries whiteout a break. Because that's NOT how your made-up rules are said t work. But since the Reapers didn't have those problems, those can't actually be rules.
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Post by shermos on Jan 26, 2020 9:22:47 GMT
EDI says in the Leviathan DLC that element zero decays after several centuries of active use. That means the ODSY drive would need to be replenished at least once during the journey to Andromeda. Not saying that's impossible to explain, but it's another lore issue which seems to have been ignored. There's a similar debate about lore going on with the Star Trek universe at the moment. One side saying "Trek needs to be modernised, screw your nostalgia", the other saying "but lore/canon should be respected". Not dissimilar to the debate going on here. We're talking about large corporations with a tonne of funding and able to employ hundreds of people on a single project running these franchises. We're just nerds thinking about, in our free time, how a sci-fi universe can continue while still respecting what came before and satisfying as much of the fanbase as possible. There's a problem when we can do a better job than these big corps, whether it's laziness, penny pinching, big heads not listening to criticism, or some combination thereof. Can't they employ a few people to be walking encyclopedias on lore for the writing team to check their ideas with? Star Wars has this with the Lucasfilm story group, and they've been pretty good at avoiding these kinds of problems apart from the sequel trilogy. Define "several" though. Six centuries qualifies, so does seven, eight... Just because eezo needs to be replenished once in "several" centuries does not mean that the ODSY drive would have to be replenished once in 634 years. The replenishment may not be needed for 100 or 200 years after arrival in Andromeda.
Leviathan was many more than 500 centuries old. There is no indication given how many times it had to replenish its Eezo supply in all those millennia. I would say EDI's use of the term "several" is questionable since, if Leviathan and all those "legion" of Reapers needed to resupply themselves with Eezo every 600 years and given how quickly Shepard depletes entire planets of it in ME2, there would have been no eezo left in the galaxy long before the current cycle even began.
Several centuries of active use. The Reapers go into hibernation between cycles, They could easily resupply at the end of each cycle to be ready for the next. There's nothing to suggest the Leviathan don't hibernate as well and can't mine more Eezo when the Reapers aren't looking. Chances are their own planet has Eezo under the sea bed.
That resource gathering mechanic in ME2 is pretty stupid. Nothing else in the lore suggests Eezo is so finite. I'd say all that planet scanning is looking for resources which are easily available to collect (or steal), and shouldn't be taken as an indication of how much eezo is actually available to be mined. Also remember that only 2% of the galaxy had been explored by ME3. That implies a LOT of eezo the Reapers and Leviathan would be aware exists which the citadel races have no knowledge of.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 9:27:08 GMT
If the AI takes the Ilos relay to Andromeda, I see no reason really that it could not be activated there and used to get to the MW Citadel from Andromeda. The only issue possibly stopping it would be the length of the jump... but that little relay is already shown to us to be capable of making longer jumps than any other relay in the Milky Way. It's really not that big a stretch. Of course, it means that whoever leaves Andromeda for the Milky Way can't get back to Andromeda since the mini-relays, we have been told, only work in one direction.
Would it even work now that the Citadel has moved?
It would if Bioware wants it to work. When they invented the thing, the broke the rules they had made up about Mass Relays with such a long jump going through the galactic core and the "pair" only working in one direction. When the Citadel moved in ME3, it didn't stop it from functioning... and its stated function was as a massive Mass Relay (although that never really came to fruition since all we got was "mini-me." Wasn't the Mu Relay lost because it was moved by a supernova explosion?... but it still functioned.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 9:31:12 GMT
Define "several" though. Six centuries qualifies, so does seven, eight... Just because eezo needs to be replenished once in "several" centuries does not mean that the ODSY drive would have to be replenished once in 634 years. The replenishment may not be needed for 100 or 200 years after arrival in Andromeda.
Leviathan was many more than 500 centuries old. There is no indication given how many times it had to replenish its Eezo supply in all those millennia. I would say EDI's use of the term "several" is questionable since, if Leviathan and all those "legion" of Reapers needed to resupply themselves with Eezo every 600 years and given how quickly Shepard depletes entire planets of it in ME2, there would have been no eezo left in the galaxy long before the current cycle even began.
Several centuries of active use. The Reapers go into hibernation between cycles, They could easily resupply at the end of each cycle to be ready for the next. There's nothing to suggest the Leviathan don't hibernate as well and can't mine more Eezo when the Reapers aren't looking. Chances are their own planet has Eezo under the sea bed.
That resource gathering mechanic in ME2 is pretty stupid. Nothing else in the lore suggests Eezo is so finite. I'd say all that planet scanning is looking for resources which are easily available to collect (or steal), and shouldn't be taken as an indication of how much eezo is actually available to be mined. Also remember that only 2% of the galaxy had been explored by ME3. That implies a LOT of eezo the Reapers and Leviathan would be aware exists which the citadel races have no knowledge of.
Even once per cycle, every 50,000 years over a billion multiplied by 'legions" of Reapers... adding in what each cycle itself uses supplying all its ships and everything down to toothbrushes... unless it either lasts forever or is a renewable resource, the galaxy would be depleted of it long before the current cycle.
The hibernation aspect is an assumption made by Vigil. The Protheans were never in a position to know for sure what the Reapers did between cycles out in dark space. We are also told in game that the "Reaper never sleep" and would never rest until the cycle was harvested. It also takes "more than a thousand years (millennia)" to complete a harvest... and there is no indication that the Reapers take a break to refuel during a harvest.
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Post by shermos on Jan 26, 2020 9:48:38 GMT
Hibernation is a pretty good assumption. Let's say the average harvest takes 600 years. The strongest resistance is put down pretty quickly once the Citadel trap is sprung and relay travel shut off (excepting to Reaper IFFs). There would be plenty of opportunity to resupply in between harvesting clusters. I also bet each Reaper would have a supply of unused eezo on board which could be swapped out when needed. That would be how I would explain the ODSY drive being able to make the journey to Andromeda. It's just a shame MEA's writers didn't think about these things.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 11:39:21 GMT
Hibernation is a pretty good assumption. Let's say the average harvest takes 600 years. The strongest resistance is put down pretty quickly once the Citadel trap is sprung and relay travel shut off (excepting to Reaper IFFs). There would be plenty of opportunity to resupply in between harvesting clusters. I also bet each Reaper would have a supply of unused eezo on board which could be swapped out when needed. That would be how I would explain the ODSY drive being able to make the journey to Andromeda. It's just a shame MEA's writers didn't think about these things. Let's say the harvest takes a thousand years - which is what we are outright told that it takes. You're pulling the 600-year figure out of your butt only because you want to assume the AI needed to restock on Eezo before getting to Andromeda rather than acknowledging that "several" can easily mean more than six.
Literally "several means more than two but fewer than many in number or in kind" (ref: Merriam-Webster). "Many" is defined as "a large number of."
Seven centuries would still easily be "a few" (definition "a small number of" and that would handily get the AI to Andromeda without needed to restock.
Here's an interesting answer on Quora about comparing the terms:
It puts the term "several" at more than a dozen and less than 20.
... and also points out that I should have used "some" rather than "few" in my statement above.
ETA: We are also told in ME2 that the Derelict Reaper in ME2 (where we get the IFF) has been maintaining a Mass Effect field for 37 million years in order to keep itself from falling into the planet. It's only when Shepard destroys the Mass Effect core than the Reaper falls into the planet. There is no mention of the Reaper having to restock on eezo over even that length of time.
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Post by sjsharp2010 on Jan 26, 2020 13:51:56 GMT
I'm fine with playing fast and loose with science, as long as it's done in a consistent manner. Stick to your own rules, as it were. Magic space rocks make FTL travel possible? Fine. But if said magic rocks make your ship explode if you can't discharge every couple of days, expect me to have a problem with suddenly introducing an engine that runs on said rocks that can run flawlessly for several centuries whiteout a break. Because that's NOT how your made-up rules are said t work. I honestly think that the only real failing on the part of the ODSY’s part in the story is that it isn’t given the attention for whatever massive complicated process would entail in rectifying the static discharge requirement of normal FTL drives. However, the fact that the reapers are somehow able to do this already shows that there is SOME way to get around it, obviously ill-defined since it’s all fantastical tech anyway. Regardless, the precedence is there. I wouldn’t say it really breaks any rules, as the rule itself doesn’t necessarily preclude any improvements to FTL that get around this, just something that may be too costly to implement in a practical way in the present. I think it’s a pretty minor thing that doesn’t harm the setting nearly as much as other bits from the original trilogy (I’d argue that it doesn’t really harm the setting at all). It at least does actively address the problem it’s supposed to solve in-universe, rather than straight up pretending the limitation never existed in the first place. As for tech being able to just run for such long periods on end, isn’t that already what most tech in Mass Effect does? If Prothean technology can somehow retain enough power and integrity that digital files are at all usable after tens of thousands of years of prolonged exposure to the elements, spaceships functioning for a mere fraction of that time in space is not that much of a stretch. One thing I do remember is Kallo does say that the ODSY drive is also capable of being an independent power supply so maybe it uses the discharges that normal FTL drives have to do this. I can't say for certain of course but it is a possible explanation. So instead of discharging it puts that discharged energy back into the ship thereby keeping everything powered. Of course as I siad I could be wrong but it's a feasible explanation. It probably wasn't spread out because they knwe a war was coming and because it would take a while to fit the drives onto other ships combined with the fact tha tthe drive was highly experimental is probably why the rest of the galaxy never used it. Besides we know from Alec's logs already that they only really got out of the galaxy just in time.
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Post by Polka Dot on Jan 26, 2020 14:39:10 GMT
I'm fine with playing fast and loose with science, as long as it's done in a consistent manner. Stick to your own rules, as it were. Magic space rocks make FTL travel possible? Fine. But if said magic rocks make your ship explode if you can't discharge every couple of days, expect me to have a problem with suddenly introducing an engine that runs on said rocks that can run flawlessly for several centuries whiteout a break. Because that's NOT how your made-up rules are said t work. But since the Reapers didn't have those problems, those can't actually be rules. Bingo. Some of the things folks are carping about aren't actual limits in the technology itself, just the applications in common use by the current cycle. The Citadel can discharge docked ships as can other space stations, which means there must be ways to collect/relieve the static charge without needing to be within a planet's magnetic field. Mass relays have massive eezo cores that don't appear to require discharge or replacement despite operating for cycles of 50K plus years. It's possible, I suppose that the relays have their own keeper crews that maintain them.
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Post by shermos on Jan 26, 2020 16:15:36 GMT
Hibernation is a pretty good assumption. Let's say the average harvest takes 600 years. The strongest resistance is put down pretty quickly once the Citadel trap is sprung and relay travel shut off (excepting to Reaper IFFs). There would be plenty of opportunity to resupply in between harvesting clusters. I also bet each Reaper would have a supply of unused eezo on board which could be swapped out when needed. That would be how I would explain the ODSY drive being able to make the journey to Andromeda. It's just a shame MEA's writers didn't think about these things. Let's say the harvest takes a thousand years - which is what we are outright told that it takes. You're pulling the 600-year figure out of your butt only because you want to assume the AI needed to restock on Eezo before getting to Andromeda rather than acknowledging that "several" can easily mean more than six.
Literally "several means more than two but fewer than many in number or in kind" (ref: Merriam-Webster). "Many" is defined as "a large number of."
Seven centuries would still easily be "a few" (definition "a small number of" and that would handily get the AI to Andromeda without needed to restock.
Here's an interesting answer on Quora about comparing the terms:
It puts the term "several" at more than a dozen and less than 20.
... and also points out that I should have used "some" rather than "few" in my statement above.
ETA: We are also told in ME2 that the Derelict Reaper in ME2 (where we get the IFF) has been maintaining a Mass Effect field for 37 million years in order to keep itself from falling into the planet. It's only when Shepard destroys the Mass Effect core than the Reaper falls into the planet. There is no mention of the Reaper having to restock on eezo over even that length of time.
I'm not sure where you're getting that thousand year figure from. Liara seems to think the Reapers would need 100 years to harvest the Citadel races saying "we're not quite as widespread [as the Protheans were]". 600 years seems like a pretty generous average to me.
The dictionary definition of several is more than two, but fewer than many, so I'll concede it's a bit ambiguous. That means my assumption is as good as yours.
As for ME2, fair call, but I'd bet the Reapers can use Eezo much more efficiently than Citadel tech (which is what EDI has knowledge of). That derelict Reaper was also functioning in a very minimal state. Running an ftl drive for centuries without a break is surely more demanding.
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Jan 26, 2020 16:19:20 GMT
EDI says in the Leviathan DLC that element zero decays after several centuries of active use. That means the ODSY drive would need to be replenished at least once during the journey to Andromeda. Not saying that's impossible to explain, but it's another lore issue which seems to have been ignored. Have multiple "tanks" of Eezo to use. Use one until it decays, then jettison it and swap to an unused one. We have cars that can do that now.
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Post by Iakus on Jan 26, 2020 17:16:00 GMT
I honestly think that the only real failing on the part of the ODSY’s part in the story is that it isn’t given the attention for whatever massive complicated process would entail in rectifying the static discharge requirement of normal FTL drives. However, the fact that the reapers are somehow able to do this already shows that there is SOME way to get around it, obviously ill-defined since it’s all fantastical tech anyway. Regardless, the precedence is there. I wouldn’t say it really breaks any rules, as the rule itself doesn’t necessarily preclude any improvements to FTL that get around this, just something that may be too costly to implement in a practical way in the present. I think it’s a pretty minor thing that doesn’t harm the setting nearly as much as other bits from the original trilogy (I’d argue that it doesn’t really harm the setting at all). It at least does actively address the problem it’s supposed to solve in-universe, rather than straight up pretending the limitation never existed in the first place. As for tech being able to just run for such long periods on end, isn’t that already what most tech in Mass Effect does? If Prothean technology can somehow retain enough power and integrity that digital files are at all usable after tens of thousands of years of prolonged exposure to the elements, spaceships functioning for a mere fraction of that time in space is not that much of a stretch. One thing I do remember is Kallo does say that the ODSY drive is also capable of being an independent power supply so maybe it uses the discharges that normal FTL drives have to do this. I can't say for certain of course but it is a possible explanation. So instead of discharging it puts that discharged energy back into the ship thereby keeping everything powered. Of course as I siad I could be wrong but it's a feasible explanation. It probably wasn't spread out because they knwe a war was coming and because it would take a while to fit the drives onto other ships combined with the fact tha tthe drive was highly experimental is probably why the rest of the galaxy never used it. Besides we know from Alec's logs already that they only really got out of the galaxy just in time. Even that is problematic, as that only reinforces the ODSY drive being a perpetual motion machine: a source of limitless power. There has to be SOME loss as energy is used to power systems. I can get the engine being a more efficient one than standard eezo drives, but daaaaaaamn!!!
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Post by Iakus on Jan 26, 2020 17:22:09 GMT
I'm fine with playing fast and loose with science, as long as it's done in a consistent manner. Stick to your own rules, as it were. Magic space rocks make FTL travel possible? Fine. But if said magic rocks make your ship explode if you can't discharge every couple of days, expect me to have a problem with suddenly introducing an engine that runs on said rocks that can run flawlessly for several centuries whiteout a break. Because that's NOT how your made-up rules are said t work. But since the Reapers didn't have those problems, those can't actually be rules. Problems here: Reapers were portrayed as Sufficiently Advanced Space Cthulhu millions of years more advanced than the Citadel races. Sayin it's reasonable for humanity to develop their version, or even their equivalent of a drive is like saying it's perfectly reasonably for australopithecines to develop internal combustion engines. Not to mention this breakthrough gets developed within thirty years of humanity even figuring out how to get out of their own solar system!
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Post by sjsharp2010 on Jan 26, 2020 17:44:13 GMT
One thing I do remember is Kallo does say that the ODSY drive is also capable of being an independent power supply so maybe it uses the discharges that normal FTL drives have to do this. I can't say for certain of course but it is a possible explanation. So instead of discharging it puts that discharged energy back into the ship thereby keeping everything powered. Of course as I siad I could be wrong but it's a feasible explanation. It probably wasn't spread out because they knwe a war was coming and because it would take a while to fit the drives onto other ships combined with the fact tha tthe drive was highly experimental is probably why the rest of the galaxy never used it. Besides we know from Alec's logs already that they only really got out of the galaxy just in time. Even that is problematic, as that only reinforces the ODSY drive being a perpetual motion machine: a source of limitless power. There has to be SOME loss as energy is used to power systems. I can get the engine being a more efficient one than standard eezo drives, but daaaaaaamn!!! Well it would obviously need to have som esort of fuel yes but not necessarily as much or need to dicsharge or do anything like that so often. But the tech is there for it After all we even have technology today that can in a sense develop it's own power source s F1 cars use a type of tech like that. Because in F1 ever since 2011 they've been using a similar sort of system to initially encourage moer overtaking though nowadays it's used moer for powering the car itself. Here's a vid of F1 driver Sebastian Vettel explaining how the F1 system works.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2020 17:50:12 GMT
Let's say the harvest takes a thousand years - which is what we are outright told that it takes. You're pulling the 600-year figure out of your butt only because you want to assume the AI needed to restock on Eezo before getting to Andromeda rather than acknowledging that "several" can easily mean more than six.
Literally "several means more than two but fewer than many in number or in kind" (ref: Merriam-Webster). "Many" is defined as "a large number of."
Seven centuries would still easily be "a few" (definition "a small number of" and that would handily get the AI to Andromeda without needed to restock.
Here's an interesting answer on Quora about comparing the terms:
It puts the term "several" at more than a dozen and less than 20.
... and also points out that I should have used "some" rather than "few" in my statement above.
ETA: We are also told in ME2 that the Derelict Reaper in ME2 (where we get the IFF) has been maintaining a Mass Effect field for 37 million years in order to keep itself from falling into the planet. It's only when Shepard destroys the Mass Effect core than the Reaper falls into the planet. There is no mention of the Reaper having to restock on eezo over even that length of time.
I'm not sure where you're getting that thousand year figure from. Liara seems to think the Reapers would need 100 years to harvest the Citadel races saying "we're not quite as widespread [as the Protheans were]". 600 years seems like a pretty generous average to me.
The dictionary definition of several is more than two, but fewer than many, so I'll concede it's a bit ambiguous. That means my assumption is as good as yours.
As for ME2, fair call, but I'd bet the Reapers can use Eezo much more efficiently than Citadel tech (which is what EDI has knowledge of). That derelict Reaper was also functioning in a very minimal state. Running an ftl drive for centuries without a break is surely more demanding.
Sure, your guess is as good as mine... but it is still a guess. Since the AI got to Andromeda and there is no indication that they needed to stop to replenish Eezo, I think my guess fits better than yours... that by "several cnturies," Bioware meant a duration longer than 634 years and the AI did not have to replenish eezo along the way... something more than 1200 years, but less than 2000 years... which would mean the Reapers could also harvest without restocking their eezo.
Discharge issues developed by the OT was a problem solved by the ODSY drive. Precisely how is unexplained at this point... just as it is currently unexplained how the mini-me relay was able to avoid thousands of km of drift over a jump much longer than any other (and light years longer than the jump described at the start of ME1 where 1,400 km was, according to Joker, better than just "good.". The mine-relay jump is across the galaxy and through the galactic core to drop a vehicle not equipped to navigate through space and without any sort of pilot at the wheel, dropping it within mere meters directly onto a space station (i.e. not like the ships which rematerialized in space and then had to navigate manually towards their target destination).
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 26, 2020 18:21:37 GMT
I don't see why a Reaper drive would be any more magically incomprehensible than a mass relay. One can be developed by organics, but not the other?
And how come the reasons for objecting to the drive keep shifting.
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Post by Iakus on Jan 26, 2020 18:34:28 GMT
I don't see why a Reaper drive would be any more magically incomprehensible than a mass relay. One can be developed by organics, but not the other? And how come the reasons for objecting to the drive keep shifting. The council races have known about mass relays for thousands of years. How many have they built? The Andromeda Initiative DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THE REAPERS EXISTED when they started. And even after Sovereign's attack on the Citadel, only a few senior members had a clue about them. In ME3 it's outright stated that the Reapers seem to break the laws of physics. Even knowing something is theoretically possible doesn't mean you automatically know how to do it. There is absolutely no indication that the AI should be able to make this massive technological leap, or that the rest of the galaxy wouldn't be absolutely stupefied at the revelation of such a leap.
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Post by melbella on Jan 26, 2020 19:10:25 GMT
There is absolutely no indication that the AI should be able to make this massive technological leap, or that the rest of the galaxy wouldn't be absolutely stupefied at the revelation of such a leap.
Without knowing who the Benefactor is, we can't really know what kind of tech the AI had access to. We know they had access to geth tech. Why not Reaper tech as well? Not to mention, all the SAMs as well as Alec's more advanced SAM.
There's also the Shadow Broker who we know dealt with the Collectors and was gathering data on the Reapers. Alec got tech from him to help in SAM's construction. Who knows what else he might have had access to that he'd be willing to sell to the highest bidder. The Benefactor, whoever it is, doesn't seem to lack for funds.
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Post by Iakus on Jan 26, 2020 19:31:16 GMT
There is absolutely no indication that the AI should be able to make this massive technological leap, or that the rest of the galaxy wouldn't be absolutely stupefied at the revelation of such a leap.
Without knowing who the Benefactor is, we can't really know what kind of tech the AI had access to. We know they had access to geth tech. Why not Reaper tech as well? Not to mention, all the SAMs as well as Alec's more advanced SAM.
There's also the Shadow Broker who we know dealt with the Collectors and was gathering data on the Reapers. Alec got tech from him to help in SAM's construction. Who knows what else he might have had access to that he'd be willing to sell to the highest bidder. The Benefactor, whoever it is, doesn't seem to lack for funds.
Highly unlikely. The Reaper's "purpose" is to harvest the species of the Milky Way. This drive renders that purpose futile. The relay trap is rendered ineffective. No way they would allow that kind of tech to get away from them. And the Shadow Broker would not have had access to Reaper data prior to the Battle of the Citadel: a full seven years after the Andromeda Initiative was founded. And only two years before the arks launched. Besides which, it still doesn't explain the complete lack of reaction from the galaxy as a who at the development of ships that can literally go anywhere without the need for a relay.
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