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Post by QuizzyBunny on Nov 18, 2021 12:44:29 GMT
I always assumed humanity was given all of these distinctions by the counsel simply because what's actually valued is military might. The Volus is a client race of the Turians and have no real military of their own, and the Elcors don't have much on that front either. The Quarians have a big military, and used to be a counsel race, but after the Geth debacle they were thrown out. Meanwhile the humans fought the Turians to a standstill (not surprising, if there's anything we've perfected on Earth it's the art of killing). I can't really think of any other MW race not already in the counsel with a military might to rival these. Drell? Don't even have a homeworld proper anymore. Hanar? Yeah, they use Drell assassins instead of an army. Krogans? They have military and it was considered, but then the Krogan rebellion happened. Batarians? Don't belong to the MW (also know for being very unreliable).
Personally I don't find this particularly strange. It's the counsel's way of placating a new potentially dangerous race and bringing them into the fold in an orderly way.
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Post by Vortex13 on Nov 18, 2021 13:29:25 GMT
Races like the Elcor or Volus fail to be given their own separate ambassadorial space despite being part of said community for over 300 years but humanity is not only given that, as well as consideration for Spectre status, but This one always stings. The volus created a unified currency system for the galaxy, but somehow that achievement wasn't enough to earm them their own embassy. What's even more ridiculous about this is that despite creating the economy that the galaxy runs on, and for being the leaders of economic power for thousands of years they are usurped practically overnight by humanity. Three of the richest corporations in council space by the time of ME 2 are all human run. Even Cerberus, who's monetary income comes from dummy corporations, apparently has more GDP than most major species combined.
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Post by Vortex13 on Nov 18, 2021 14:03:29 GMT
I always assumed humanity was given all of these distinctions by the counsel simply because what's actually valued is military might. The Volus is a client race of the Turians and have no real military of their own, and the Elcors don't have much on that front either. The Quarians have a big military, and used to be a counsel race, but after the Geth debacle they were thrown out. Meanwhile the humans fought the Turians to a standstill (not surprising, if there's anything we've perfected on Earth it's the art of killing). I can't really think of any other MW race not already in the counsel with a military might to rival these. Drell? Don't even have a homeworld proper anymore. Hanar? Yeah, they use Drell assassins instead of an army. Krogans? They have military and it was considered, but then the Krogan rebellion happened. Batarians? Don't belong to the MW (also know for being very unreliable). Personally I don't find this particularly strange. It's the counsel's way of placating a new potentially dangerous race and bringing them into the fold in an orderly way. That could very well be the reason why they are more open to elevating humanity in regards to diplomacy and political power, though I do have to wonder why the Council deemed humans worthy of being allowed to continue to dabble in and profit from AI research and genetic modification when not even founding members like the Turians or Salarians are given permission to pursue such knowledge. Plus, the whole concept of medigel is a whole other can of worms when it comes to human 'special-ness'. It is rather facepalm worthy how 'innovative' the writers try to make the Alliance out to be with military naval technology in order to prop up humans too. Apparently, in the thousands of years of interstellar conflict, not one species in the entire galaxy conceived of putting small, fast ships inside bigger ships and using them to attack targets. Really that's it. The thing that makes the Turians wary of plucky humanity is the fact that we have carriers in our fleets.
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Post by Hier0phant on Nov 18, 2021 15:52:44 GMT
This one always stings. The volus created a unified currency system for the galaxy, but somehow that achievement wasn't enough to earm them their own embassy. What's even more ridiculous about this is that despite creating the economy that the galaxy runs on, and for being the leaders of economic power for thousands of years they are usurped practically overnight by humanity. Three of the richest corporations in council space by the time of ME 2 are all human run. Even Cerberus, who's monetary income comes from dummy corporations, apparently has more GDP than most major species combined. Humanity somehow achieved this feat in only one generation since the war with the Turians, a conflict the latter should have completely dominated.
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Post by dmc1001 on Nov 18, 2021 21:23:50 GMT
A galactic newcomer who's been a part of interstellar society that has existed for thousands of years for less than 30 is somehow the golden child of all the other species. Council member races like the Salarians or Turians are disbarred from experimenting in both AI and genetic modification research yet somehow this new kid gets the blessings of the galactic government. They didn't get a blessing for this. In the first ME book (blanking on the name), we learn that humanity is secretly working on an AI project but it never takes off. Alec Ryder lost his N7 status for working on SAM. Proto-EDI was done on the sly, whether by a rogue black ops program (the initial interpretation of Cerberus) or by an independent Cerberus. In no case were they granted any authority to work on AI.
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Post by dmc1001 on Nov 18, 2021 21:40:04 GMT
Races like the Elcor or Volus fail to be given their own separate ambassadorial space despite being part of said community for over 300 years but humanity is not only given that, as well as consideration for Spectre status, but This one always stings. The volus created a unified currency system for the galaxy, but somehow that achievement wasn't enough to earn them their own embassy. I'm not clear on why humanity got an independent embassy ahead of the other races but I do know why the rest happened. Anderson was pushing things on the timeline but Shepard was extraordinary. In at least 2 of the 3 backgrounds (Elysium and Torfan), Shepard did amazing feats. Shepard proved able to do what the average person could not do. That is exactly the kind of person who would be chosen to be a Spectre candidate. Due to Shepard's successes, and leading the charge against Earth's forces against Sovereign, they proved they were capable of defending the galaxy. That was crucial in the decision. There are other possible factors. Humanity found and opened a mass effect relay on its own. It had at least a partial fleet. No one uplifted humanity into galactic society. Maybe it's not fair, but the elcor only found a relay after encountering the the asari. The krogan were uplifted entirely but I don't think they had the needed diplomatic skills to sit on the Council. This was more or less confirmed in what led to the Krogan Rebellions. The volus actually predated the turians in galactic society, but I think the following quote says it all for all races who don't sit on the Council. "Despite their important contributions to the Citadel and galactic society, they have never been offered a seat on the Council. This is a source of anger for some volus, particularly the volus ambassador Din Korlack. Council races need to have provided some extraordinary service to the Citadel, such as the turians' military support during the Krogan Rebellions. Council races also need to provide fleets, resources, and economic aid in case of disaster, none of which the volus can currently supply." It's not as arbitrary as it might seem as to why humanity got a Council seat so quickly. It was probably also along the road to joining the Council due to its willingness to found colonies in the Attican Traverse, which was desired by the Council, when others weren't so capable. The resources fleets, resources and economy of humans was growing quickly. If you want to take a stab at how humanity did this - especially Cerberus - I'm certainly not going to argue. Or why did a race with so much wealth - the volus - not use its money to build a fleet to become major defenders of the galaxy? These things are bad writing but that's a separate issue as to worthiness based on what was presented to us.
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Post by Vortex13 on Nov 18, 2021 22:05:51 GMT
A galactic newcomer who's been a part of interstellar society that has existed for thousands of years for less than 30 is somehow the golden child of all the other species. Council member races like the Salarians or Turians are disbarred from experimenting in both AI and genetic modification research yet somehow this new kid gets the blessings of the galactic government. They didn't get a blessing for this. In the first ME book (blanking on the name), we learn that humanity is secretly working on an AI project but it never takes off. Alec Ryder lost his N7 status for working on SAM. Proto-EDI was done on the sly, whether by a rogue black ops program (the initial interpretation of Cerberus) or by an independent Cerberus. In no case were they granted any authority to work on AI. And yet despite this humanity comes away with little more than a finger wag by the Council with "Hey! Stop, or I'll say hey again!" as the whole shtick. Anyone else found out working on AI in such a flagrant disregard of Citadel law brings the organizations of government, most of them military, converging on the perpetrator and put a stop to any and all such research. And Alec loses his N7 status sure, but it's not like he's particularly devastated by that fact and, most importantly, he still keeps working on his pet AI project. The Quarians had their embassy disbarred from the Citadel and massive sanctions placed on them for accidentally creating the Geth, meanwhile daddy Ryder is getting winks and nods from government officials who were all eager to kick the Quarians out of interstellar society. What's more, when the Initiative approaches Alec about developing SAM for them; which really shows how out in the open he was with his AI research if a civilian enterprise gets word of it; none of the aliens have any particular issue with plugging hereto untested AIs into their most capable personals' brains. The disconnect here, is very jarring.
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Post by Hier0phant on Nov 19, 2021 0:06:41 GMT
This one always stings. The volus created a unified currency system for the galaxy, but somehow that achievement wasn't enough to earn them their own embassy. Council races need to have provided some extraordinary service to the Citadel, such as the turians' military support during the Krogan Rebellions. Council races also need to provide fleets, resources, and economic aid in case of disaster, none of which the volus can currently supply." The bolded would be a nightmare to bankroll without a system of unified currency. and the volus probably averted countless economic related conflicts across the galaxy, and in between the council member races too. It's one thing to provide military aid in times of conflict but creating a system that diminishes the chances of war from occurring should have at the minimum earned the volus a separate embassy despite them not being granted the rank of master - i mean council member.
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Post by dmc1001 on Nov 19, 2021 20:13:05 GMT
And yet despite this humanity comes away with little more than a finger wag by the Council with "Hey! Stop, or I'll say hey again!" as the whole shtick. Anyone else found out working on AI in such a flagrant disregard of Citadel law brings the organizations of government, most of them military, converging on the perpetrator and put a stop to any and all such research. I'm not sure there was open knowledge about the AI project. And Alec loses his N7 status sure, but it's not like he's particularly devastated by that fact and, most importantly, he still keeps working on his pet AI project. The Quarians had their embassy disbarred from the Citadel and massive sanctions placed on them for accidentally creating the Geth, meanwhile daddy Ryder is getting winks and nods from government officials who were all eager to kick the Quarians out of interstellar society. Ryder was a person rather than a government. I agree that they shouldn't have handwaved it. The quarians, though? The geth slaughtered a huge proportion of the quarian race and there was no reason to think they wouldn't attempt to expand. I can imagine them losing their embassy. It's worth noting that they were not barred from Citadel space, or the Citadel itself. Further on Alec, the Andromeda Initiative didn't have to know he was still working on SAM. What they did know was that he could create AI that would be very useful in Andromeda. Moreover, SAM was given to Pathfinders of all races. We also don't know the identity of the MB (and, perhaps, we never will) or what kind of resources he or she brought to the table. If they were substantial as it seems, they could accomplish plenty without governments knowing. Just look at Cerberus.
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Post by dmc1001 on Nov 19, 2021 20:18:01 GMT
Council races need to have provided some extraordinary service to the Citadel, such as the turians' military support during the Krogan Rebellions. Council races also need to provide fleets, resources, and economic aid in case of disaster, none of which the volus can currently supply." The bolded would be a nightmare to bankroll without a system of unified currency. and the volus probably averted countless economic related conflicts across the galaxy, and in between the council member races too. It's one thing to provide military aid in times of conflict but creating a system that diminishes the chances of war from occurring should have at the minimum earned the volus a separate embassy despite them not being granted the rank of master - i mean council member. I agree. Even if they didn't get a Council seat for those things mentioned, they still deserved their own embassy. They are probably the most important race in keeping the ships being built and maintained. We see Earth moving faster in all areas, without the volus money. Still building ships, still contributing money, still colonizing worlds on the fringes of Council space and still able to intercede when disaster strikes. In terms of the game, it makes sense, but it's really bad writing.
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Post by garrusfan1 on Nov 19, 2021 20:41:38 GMT
The bolded would be a nightmare to bankroll without a system of unified currency. and the volus probably averted countless economic related conflicts across the galaxy, and in between the council member races too. It's one thing to provide military aid in times of conflict but creating a system that diminishes the chances of war from occurring should have at the minimum earned the volus a separate embassy despite them not being granted the rank of master - i mean council member. I agree. Even if they didn't get a Council seat for those things mentioned, they still deserved their own embassy. They are probably the most important race in keeping the ships being built and maintained. We see Earth moving faster in all areas, without the volus money. Still building ships, still contributing money, still colonizing worlds on the fringes of Council space and still able to intercede when disaster strikes. In terms of the game, it makes sense, but it's really bad writing. I will not argue the writers supercharged humanity, would we even be able to create an alliance since if you take one look around the world the major countries are only kept from killing eachother because they all have nukes. So from the start it is pretty uncrealistic on humanity. As for why the humans rose through the ranks so quickly was because humans were incredibly agressive and fought for it giving the Turians a bloody nose although they would have dominated us if it came to war, and we took on the batarians and beat them pretty easily. In the end the humans rose through the ranks because they broke through them. I would give real world examples but I don't want to start a fight. Plus the volus are not willing to use their power to extract favors from the council. They control the economy then if they really wanted to they could use that to force the council to recognize them more and more. The ugly truth is that if your willing to take risks and throw your weight around you will get farther. You may get alot of people hurt and may get hurt yourself but if your successful then what does it matter if people got hurt. That is what humanity was doing in the ME universe. Again the writers supercharged humanity and took away the fact that earth would not be in good enough shape in a hundred years to house ten billion people. In reality there would be some humans who would sell everyone else out so they could get personal power and we would have been owned by the batarians for that reason.
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Post by midnightwolf on Nov 20, 2021 2:56:26 GMT
NO. There are more negatives than positives when it comes to playing Alien. And I will keep saying NO NO NO!
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Post by Vortex13 on Nov 22, 2021 14:34:55 GMT
And yet despite this humanity comes away with little more than a finger wag by the Council with "Hey! Stop, or I'll say hey again!" as the whole shtick. Anyone else found out working on AI in such a flagrant disregard of Citadel law brings the organizations of government, most of them military, converging on the perpetrator and put a stop to any and all such research. I'm not sure there was open knowledge about the AI project. And Alec loses his N7 status sure, but it's not like he's particularly devastated by that fact and, most importantly, he still keeps working on his pet AI project. The Quarians had their embassy disbarred from the Citadel and massive sanctions placed on them for accidentally creating the Geth, meanwhile daddy Ryder is getting winks and nods from government officials who were all eager to kick the Quarians out of interstellar society. Ryder was a person rather than a government. I agree that they shouldn't have handwaved it. The quarians, though? The geth slaughtered a huge proportion of the quarian race and there was no reason to think they wouldn't attempt to expand. I can imagine them losing their embassy. It's worth noting that they were not barred from Citadel space, or the Citadel itself. Further on Alec, the Andromeda Initiative didn't have to know he was still working on SAM. What they did know was that he could create AI that would be very useful in Andromeda. Moreover, SAM was given to Pathfinders of all races. We also don't know the identity of the MB (and, perhaps, we never will) or what kind of resources he or she brought to the table. If they were substantial as it seems, they could accomplish plenty without governments knowing. Just look at Cerberus. They found out about it, and they were preparing to levy massive sanctions on the Alliance, a la the Quarians, but our diplomats apparently were able to convince the galactic government to let the infraction slide. You had the Alliance embassy threatening reprisals should the Council come down on humans and so they backed off... because reasons. Gotta love those cheat codes in the form of god-genes we have in this setting. This would be like El Salvador threatening the rest of world with military action should they try and stop them shielding an open nuclear reactor with nothing but duct-tape and the all the superpowers backing down with little more than a warning to not do it again. And the Council didn't ban the Quarians per-say, but they did effectively relegate them to second-class citizens and they did threaten the flotilla with violence when the Quarians tried to settle an uninhabited world. Which again kinda flies in the face of the established setting when it comes to any other species except for humanity. Everyone high up in the Initiative was totally on board with Alec developing full blown AI that would not only plug into the brains of their Pathfinders but would also manage all of the colonists during cryo-sleep. The 'protests' we see in Andromeda against SAM are more crazy fringe flat-earthers rather than the very legitimate and rightfully cautious take the races of the galaxy take when it comes to any other iteration of AI development.
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Post by dmc1001 on Nov 22, 2021 21:58:37 GMT
They found out about it, and they were preparing to levy massive sanctions on the Alliance, a la the Quarians, but our diplomats apparently were able to convince the galactic government to let the infraction slide. You had the Alliance embassy threatening reprisals should the Council come down on humans and so they backed off... because reasons. Gotta love those cheat codes in the form of god-genes we have in this setting. Probably because, while the Council races would win, it would be a costly war. It's not like putting down the krogan for overt attacks on other Council races. By this point humanity had already proven that it was strong. It was therefore better to back off than to fight. As for El Salvador, I think you have the wrong comparison. It's like the 13 colonies in the pre-United States vs the British Empire. Seems like the British could squash the colonies like bugs, right? They didn't. And the Council didn't ban the Quarians per-say, but they did effectively relegate them to second-class citizens and they did threaten the flotilla with violence when the Quarians tried to settle an uninhabited world. True. Forgot about that and it was nonsensical. Nevertheless, the quarians weren't strong enough at this point to defend themselves. Humanity was. Which again kinda flies in the face of the established setting when it comes to any other species except for humanity. Everyone high up in the Initiative was totally on board with Alec developing full blown AI that would not only plug into the brains of their Pathfinders but would also manage all of the colonists during cryo-sleep. The 'protests' we see in Andromeda against SAM are more crazy fringe flat-earthers rather than the very legitimate and rightfully cautious take the races of the galaxy take when it comes to any other iteration of AI development. There was a prohibition against AI, sure, but that doesn't mean everyone was on board with it. Someone had to let the LOKI mechs on board the Citadel when they attempted to meet with the Council. It was just that C-SEC was trigger happy and so that particular AI race died. I'm not sure, tbh, that stuff the salarians do with uplifting isn't just as dangerous as AI. They get a pass. Asari hoard Prothean tech and get a pass. I think the turians are fairly clean. Point is, it's not jus humanity.
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Post by garrusfan1 on Nov 22, 2021 22:46:45 GMT
They found out about it, and they were preparing to levy massive sanctions on the Alliance, a la the Quarians, but our diplomats apparently were able to convince the galactic government to let the infraction slide. You had the Alliance embassy threatening reprisals should the Council come down on humans and so they backed off... because reasons. Gotta love those cheat codes in the form of god-genes we have in this setting. Probably because, while the Council races would win, it would be a costly war. It's not like putting down the krogan for overt attacks on other Council races. By this point humanity had already proven that it was strong. It was therefore better to back off than to fight. As for El Salvador, I think you have the wrong comparison. It's like the 13 colonies in the pre-United States vs the British Empire. Seems like the British could squash the colonies like bugs, right? They didn't. And the Council didn't ban the Quarians per-say, but they did effectively relegate them to second-class citizens and they did threaten the flotilla with violence when the Quarians tried to settle an uninhabited world. True. Forgot about that and it was nonsensical. Nevertheless, the quarians weren't strong enough at this point to defend themselves. Humanity was. Which again kinda flies in the face of the established setting when it comes to any other species except for humanity. Everyone high up in the Initiative was totally on board with Alec developing full blown AI that would not only plug into the brains of their Pathfinders but would also manage all of the colonists during cryo-sleep. The 'protests' we see in Andromeda against SAM are more crazy fringe flat-earthers rather than the very legitimate and rightfully cautious take the races of the galaxy take when it comes to any other iteration of AI development. There was a prohibition against AI, sure, but that doesn't mean everyone was on board with it. Someone had to let the LOKI mechs on board the Citadel when they attempted to meet with the Council. It was just that C-SEC was trigger happy and so that particular AI race died. I'm not sure, tbh, that stuff the salarians do with uplifting isn't just as dangerous as AI. They get a pass. Asari hoard Prothean tech and get a pass. I think the turians are fairly clean. Point is, it's not jus humanity. I don't think anyone knew that the Asari were hoarding prothean tech. It was on their homeworld and the asari councilor had to tell us about it which told me very very few people knew about it. I also didn't think about them not going after the alliance because it would have been a fight. Basically noone wanted to go to war over it so humanity got a pass.
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Post by garrusfan1 on Nov 22, 2021 22:52:29 GMT
I always assumed humanity was given all of these distinctions by the counsel simply because what's actually valued is military might. The Volus is a client race of the Turians and have no real military of their own, and the Elcors don't have much on that front either. The Quarians have a big military, and used to be a counsel race, but after the Geth debacle they were thrown out. Meanwhile the humans fought the Turians to a standstill (not surprising, if there's anything we've perfected on Earth it's the art of killing). I can't really think of any other MW race not already in the counsel with a military might to rival these. Drell? Don't even have a homeworld proper anymore. Hanar? Yeah, they use Drell assassins instead of an army. Krogans? They have military and it was considered, but then the Krogan rebellion happened. Batarians? Don't belong to the MW (also know for being very unreliable). Personally I don't find this particularly strange. It's the counsel's way of placating a new potentially dangerous race and bringing them into the fold in an orderly way. The batarians aren't part of council space anymore but they are in the milky way. I got what you meant but just wanted to clarify. Also humanity didn't fight the turians to a stand still in truth. We won a battle and then while the turians gathered a fleet to attack, the rest of the council stepped in to calm things down. Otherwise the turians would have killed humanity. They had better tech and a massive fleet that even in ME1 humanity couldn't match in size. Still it would be enough to make the council not want to fight humanity over something relatively small that caused no harm.
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Post by Vortex13 on Nov 23, 2021 13:39:55 GMT
I always assumed humanity was given all of these distinctions by the counsel simply because what's actually valued is military might. The Volus is a client race of the Turians and have no real military of their own, and the Elcors don't have much on that front either. The Quarians have a big military, and used to be a counsel race, but after the Geth debacle they were thrown out. Meanwhile the humans fought the Turians to a standstill (not surprising, if there's anything we've perfected on Earth it's the art of killing). I can't really think of any other MW race not already in the counsel with a military might to rival these. Drell? Don't even have a homeworld proper anymore. Hanar? Yeah, they use Drell assassins instead of an army. Krogans? They have military and it was considered, but then the Krogan rebellion happened. Batarians? Don't belong to the MW (also know for being very unreliable). Personally I don't find this particularly strange. It's the counsel's way of placating a new potentially dangerous race and bringing them into the fold in an orderly way. The batarians aren't part of council space anymore but they are in the milky way. I got what you meant but just wanted to clarify. Also humanity didn't fight the turians to a stand still in truth. We won a battle and then while the turians gathered a fleet to attack, the rest of the council stepped in to calm things down. Otherwise the turians would have killed humanity. They had better tech and a massive fleet that even in ME1 humanity couldn't match in size. Still it would be enough to make the council not want to fight humanity over something relatively small that caused no harm. I still find it ridiculous that the edge humanity had on the other races with our naval fleets was that we were the only species, apparently, to conceive of the concept of carriers. An interstellar society that has existed from before humans even crossed the Atlantic, one that has fought several large galaxy-spanning conflicts, and not one person thought during all that time to put smaller attack craft inside a larger one. It's one of those things that the writers included to try and prop up humans but wound up making the rest of the setting look stupid in comparison.
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dmc1001
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Post by dmc1001 on Nov 24, 2021 3:33:50 GMT
The batarians aren't part of council space anymore but they are in the milky way. I got what you meant but just wanted to clarify. Also humanity didn't fight the turians to a stand still in truth. We won a battle and then while the turians gathered a fleet to attack, the rest of the council stepped in to calm things down. Otherwise the turians would have killed humanity. They had better tech and a massive fleet that even in ME1 humanity couldn't match in size. Still it would be enough to make the council not want to fight humanity over something relatively small that caused no harm. My personal opinion is that it would have made for a better story had the turians won and made them a client race. A couple of centuries later we basically get the ME1 story. Shepard becomes a Spectre and the events of the story get humanity a Council seat. More believable and less Humans Are Special.
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Post by alephthirteen on Dec 7, 2021 4:45:31 GMT
ME is the story of both. The other races can't do it without humanity and humanity can't do it without the other races. If you think about the resolution in ME3, humans both are and aren't the key race. Shepard is human and POV character, but his/her mission is to get alien support without which humanity is doomed. I don't think it's accidental that ME3's missions are a who's who of the other races...it's the story of humanity needing help. Both fanbases are there. The Humanity F*ck Yeah fanbase co-exists with alien fanbases in the Mass Effect fandom. It's one of the more amazing things about us! Garrus's fanbase was a significant enough fanbase that they made him romanceable in the ME2 era when they were so scared of Fox News they made Jack straight when she explicitly says she's not. Think about that. Think about what that says about priorities. They didn't make Garrus romanceable for giggles. Budget meetings were probably had. Human woman=bridge too far. Spiky dinosaur-cat=goals. Tali was added in ME2 as well, although she's less incongruous visually. That says something. They became romanceable where they weren't before. The demand for those two aliens who don't look 100% human to be on romance parity with the conventionally attractive humans or Liara indicates that Bioware knew their fans well enough to know they'd want the alien[bleep] portion of the fanbase accounted for. BW doesn't put out LI-related statistics but they do put out squadmate statistics, which is at least a loose relation (picked for banter, among other factors). Based on Bioware's statistics after ME3 and for MELE, the four alien squad-mates are the 1st through 4th most popular squadmates to bring along in ME1 and they're all weakest as characters in that game (even Liara is more infodump than character), but are still more interesting to bring along. What I find most interesting are the shifts over the 9 years. Comparing the 2012 statistics to the 2021 statistics still has Liara and Garrus as #1 and #2 most popular squadmate, and soldier remains the most popular class. But look at the shifts. Nearly double the numbers of people are playing FShep (18% to 32%), Ensuring the genophage cure goes from 92% to 96%. Quarian-Geth peace goes from 36% of the time to 80% of the time. IRL politics discussions aside, the player base as an aggregate is making more inclusive, more feminist, and more alien-friendly choices in their uploaded save files. The fanbase is getting more paragon, if you will
That is 100% your choice. You can rest easy. There's no way one of the options in ME5 won't be "human male". But if there are no other options, the game's not going to succeed financially. Commercially speaking, Bioware would also be wise not to design protags based entirely on your point of view. The fanbase is going the other way (see linked infographics at the bottom) towards wanting a choice. They will need more varied protags over time, given things like the statistics about Quarian-Geth peace, the popularity of alien squad members, the surge in FemShep fans, etc. The demand for those things is going up, not down. Making the best male protagonist they can won't cut it given fan trends. Making a non-human protag would be a good moonshot for a studio that needs to do something interesting this time around. You're choosing to take this personally. I never said anything about you; gender, life stage, education level. Numbers matter. There are a lot of younger male gamers, often on console. Their tastes--or rather, what seems safest based on executives guessing their tastes--define AAA gaming. That's why shooters rarely lean into PC capabilities like mice or keyboards while some more niche genres like strategy are almost forever-indie: Civilization 6 isn't sold on bluray discs at Best Buy. Something is an indie game almost automatically if the main character doesn't use a gun or sword on every problem, or has mental health issues or is anything less than an Early-1980s action movie star physically. That video game market and the protagonists they write for them are the microwave popcorn/vanilla ice cream/fast food cheeseburger: Unoriginal, but profitable. Fratboys are relevant to the discussion as we imagine Bioware and EA negotiating the game's broad details. I'm not going to pretend they're not. My point about fratboys was not directed at any one person, but rather marketing demographics as EA heads probably see them: He is the "default gamer" in executive's heads. He's who they sell a barely different Call of Duty to each year. ShooterGame(tm) 2021 Edition does not require a deep artistic touch or any sort of narrative. After all, Call of Duty still being made! He is also the "default pizza buyer" for Domino's, the "default red bull buyer"...so there's no need to be defensive when we're talking about marketing trends. So console gamers who aren't Mass Effect fans but are "shooter fans" are the bread and butter. Mass Effect fans who actually care about the dialog sections of gameplay are probably not even 50% of the copies sold, we're just the interesting bunch.
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Post by masseffectfanforlife on Dec 7, 2021 5:46:55 GMT
82% played as Male Shep & only 18% for FemShep? Sad. Very sad. Some players being macho about the whole thing, right? Hale's voice is more appealing in my opinion.
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Post by alephthirteen on Dec 7, 2021 14:49:55 GMT
82% played as Male Shep & only 18% for FemShep? Sad. Very sad. Some players being macho about the whole thing, right? Hale's voice is more appealing in my opinion. In stats released in 2012, yes. In the Legendary stats, 32% played as FemShep. The long arc of history and all that...
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Post by masseffectfanforlife on Dec 7, 2021 15:43:26 GMT
82% played as Male Shep & only 18% for FemShep? Sad. Very sad. Some players being macho about the whole thing, right? Hale's voice is more appealing in my opinion. In stats released in 2012, yes. In the Legendary stats, 32% played as FemShep. The long arc of history and all that... Looking back, it's a little f**ked up how FemShep was overshadowed in marketing. They didn't even have a proper face to represent her until ME3. In the end, "Bro" Shep is just your typical looking video game lead with a buzz cut from the early 2000's-2010's.
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Post by dmc1001 on Dec 7, 2021 21:35:18 GMT
ME is the story of both. The other races can't do it without humanity and humanity can't do it without the other races. So what you're saying is that the new kid on the block was essential for the ancient races to survive. Shepard was essential. The Council had their heads up their asses but Shepard and Cerberus did the impossible.
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Post by ahglock on Dec 8, 2021 7:05:51 GMT
They didn't get a blessing for this. In the first ME book (blanking on the name), we learn that humanity is secretly working on an AI project but it never takes off. Alec Ryder lost his N7 status for working on SAM. Proto-EDI was done on the sly, whether by a rogue black ops program (the initial interpretation of Cerberus) or by an independent Cerberus. In no case were they granted any authority to work on AI. And yet despite this humanity comes away with little more than a finger wag by the Council with "Hey! Stop, or I'll say hey again!" as the whole shtick. Anyone else found out working on AI in such a flagrant disregard of Citadel law brings the organizations of government, most of them military, converging on the perpetrator and put a stop to any and all such research. And Alec loses his N7 status sure, but it's not like he's particularly devastated by that fact and, most importantly, he still keeps working on his pet AI project. The Quarians had their embassy disbarred from the Citadel and massive sanctions placed on them for accidentally creating the Geth, meanwhile daddy Ryder is getting winks and nods from government officials who were all eager to kick the Quarians out of interstellar society. What's more, when the Initiative approaches Alec about developing SAM for them; which really shows how out in the open he was with his AI research if a civilian enterprise gets word of it; none of the aliens have any particular issue with plugging hereto untested AIs into their most capable personals' brains. The disconnect here, is very jarring.
Eh that was sort of retconned in, so it not fitting the trilogies story arcs is not surprising. Pre MEA there was no humanity researching AI, they had some VIs but stayed away from AI. They wanted to shoe horn in their philosophy hard so forced in SAM and some dumb I made AI in sort of secret story. Alec goes from N7 operative to one of the best scientists in the galaxy at the speed of plot.
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Post by ahglock on Dec 8, 2021 7:11:11 GMT
82% played as Male Shep & only 18% for FemShep? Sad. Very sad. Some players being macho about the whole thing, right? Hale's voice is more appealing in my opinion. 82% made the correct choice.
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