The Tempest thread (confirmed 100% weaponry free)

The focus is exploration is real, I think. What I think is, however, that the Initiative is a mixture of propaganda and possible a not efficient organization, that lead to problems as we reach Andromeda. We do already know some of this is true since the situation is far different then expected and there are quite a number of dissidents that left the station, possibly because of the false promises made. The Tempest being weaponless, as well as possible most/the whole project might be related to the problems with the Initiative.

The only other explanation I can come up with is that they thought of building up warships as they reach Andromeda. I guess I'll wait and see until they reveal more to know what is really going on.

Do I sense a little of Stellaris friendships?

You could make an argument that if you're potentially - indeed, probably - trespassing in other peoples territory, then having an unarmed starship is a way of showing good intentions.

If you've got guns, then the other guys have a pretty hood case that your "exploration" is more of an invasion. And if your ship uses those guns to fight, then you've got a good chance of starting a shooting war which the Andromeda Initiative would almost inevitably lose.

But I don't really buy that. Carrying some basic weaponry would make sense, though I can see keeping it very limited. And it would definitely be one of the first upgrades you'd make once you realised that the pathfinder was going to be facing a bunch of armed resistance.

Maybe. As I said in another post, we do know there are problems as we arrived in andromeda, more then the initiative expected, that lead to dissidents leaving the Nexus. I think the problems might be more related to the ineptitude of the leaders, and not just to the different situation we found in the new galaxy.
I don't completely understand why they'd have went this route either. Maybe they want to make us comfortable of being in a Mass Effect game by having the leaders being clueless and inept.

That's actually a plot point they hinted at. The initiative, as we saw in the briefings, told the volunteers the galaxy is rich of resources, and probably they didn't expect to have the troubles we're having now. The trailers hint at that the situation being far different then expected.
So yeah, they lack of weapons might be an intentional, wrong choice they made. Or maybe they expected it'd be easy to build up warships as soon as they reach the galaxy.

The situation is separate though. The fear to reach the galaxy is tremedous and requires vast resources and talent, as well as preparation. But we do know they made mistakes, because they didn't expect the problems we have as we reach Andromeda, as well as not being as resource heavy as expected. The lack of weapons might be another mistake.

I'm not saying it makes completely sense, or that I like. It's just a vibe I get from the informations they released so far with the briefings and the little glimpses of the problems found in Andromeda.

Even today's reconnaissance / scout vehicles have mounted heavy weapon systems in case they get ambushed or involved in a firefight were small arms are not enough. Their primary role is to gather information and intelligence about the terrain, enemy troop movements etc. and support fighting troops when the crap hits the fan. Even though their primary use is not active combat military tacticians understand that even scout squads need some heavy weapon systems so they can defend themselves and retreat safely if something goes really wrong.

May I present to you, the LAV25, which is officially called an amphibious reconnaissance vehicle.
It features a turret with a 25mm cannon and a 7.62 machine gun. Thats enough to take care of lightly armored vehicles and decimate enemies hiding behind cover like brick walls. Keep their heads pinned down with cover fire from the cannon and de-ass the area.  

As I said in another post, the lack of weapons on the Nomad is just plain silly and I agree with the principles you described here.
The lack of weapons on the Tempest could only be justified IF both Apex Forces and Ark+Nexus are armed to the fucking teeth, and only stretching suspension of disbelief quite much.

You hit the nail on the head. Requires. Preparation. How do you go from that to "they made mistakes, it's ok". Not you personally, I'm talking about the writers. How do you "prepare" for something so ambitious and fraught with so much danger, where literally missing a decimal point in your calculations can lead to complete mission failure* and then forget something so basic as "hey what if there's hostiles in this strange new galaxy we have precious little intel on?" The more prepared you have to be for something, the more inexcusable it is when you forget something, especially something so vast and obvious. Say you need to go to the corner store. Requires almost zero planning. You step outside and suddenly realize "shit it's cold, I should've brought a jacket". On the one hand, duh, it's January. But meh, no big deal both from a planning perspective (going to the store doesn't require much thought) and from a fixing it perspective (you can just go back inside and get a coat). Now say you needed to build a spacecraft. So you plan and sketch and calculate and build. You launch your spacecraft, achieve orbit and then realize you forgot to account for radiation. Forget making sense, does that even seem possible?

No, this is about as strong an indication as any that this idea is doomed. They could've had something great. But again, they failed. Personally what was starting to draw me back was seeing how they did it. How the ark worked, how they built it, how they accounted for the various factors, what it made it work etc. Then when you got to Andromeda, how they'd go about exploring, managing their resources etc. The tech of it all, the sci in sci fi. Instead it seems that not only will they gloss over that but they're actively making it impossible, illogical and flat out retarded.





*Ever see the movie Sunshine? Things go tits up when they have to do a risky turn and the guy calculating the math of it forgets to account for a variable. Literally he makes a math mistake that results in everything going wrong. Now imagine the outfitters of that mission had forgotten to pack calculators. Everyone on set, actors, camera people, the fucking caterers should've just walked away right then and there if something like that had happened.

Ah, that explains it. I stopped watching Simpsons years ago.

Exactly.  I really think you're onto something about where Bioware may be taking their story line.  I keep thinking about how one group of my ancestors were seriously lied to about what they might expect when coming to the New World and about how they brought with them crop seeds that were totally unsuited to the environment that they were dropped off in (Venezuela).  How that colony failed completely within 2 years and how, destitute and starving, they were "saved" and brought to Canada by an individual with connections to the then head of the Canada Company.  It's a big part of the history of Guelph, Ontario.

I'm going to wait to see what Bioware's story actually is and what "plot device" this might be before I'm going to say that this is detracting from it.

Well, imo is not believable civilians could ever be that careless. And AI member are scientists and military or ex military (As the human pathfinder shows, being an N7). Also, keep in mind most of the time civilians are way more paranoid or trigger happy than soldier in dangerous situation: reason is, mainly, they lack the experience to correctly judge how dangerous is the situation they are in.
So, AI being a defenceless collection of farm ships would have zero sense for a 2.5 million light years away trip.
Peaceful first contact protocol? Sure.
Peaceful intention? Also ok.
Zero meanings to defend the entire initiative personnel and then some from at least a menace comparable in size and firepower with the Citadel fleet? No way…