The Tempest thread (confirmed 100% weaponry free)

Aw shucks, Fred is soo cute

And wowzers that was a lot of catching up there. All caught up now

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one funny fact while Tempest is unarmed Enterprises from Star Trek armed Enterprise crew is much less armed then Tempest crew

OMG - another Reboot fan??!!! Extra likes for you today!

That struck me as lame in that show too, the lack of weaponry. But at least there it does make sense, if they're trying not to attract official attention. They still could've done some hidden upgrades along those lines I bet but whatever. For only 13 episodes and a movie, I'll leave it alone.

My comparation is primary related to NX Enterprise which is similar in size to Tempest. but Federation away teams mostly use Phaser pistols rifle carry rarely only when threat is high...

^ Some people have far too much time on their hands, and too big an axe to grind.

Alright... against all odds, I may have a way to explain the no weapons things without it being 100% retarded. Well, credit to an RL friend of mine who stumbled on this idea when we were discussing it. Now it still requires a few odd to logic breaking things to happen and it's based on a few assumptions I'm not sure about so feel free to point out if any of this doesn't follow.

Assumptions (this must be the case for this to work):
-Rich eccentric asshole(s) part of the AI leadership and on the Hyperion
-Said asshole partially funded the project and/or had enough say to bring a personal vessel onboard the Hyperion
-Hyperion encounters some shenanigans enroute that cause it to arrive late or arrive way off the mark in a "lost in space" scenario. It's also a bit damaged, specifically in key hangar bay areas. This was gleaned from a leak or a trailer yes? This is why you become the Pathfinder and why your sis/bro stays on the ship?
-Tempest designed as overly opulent and decidedly civilian and not a designated scout vessel (there's been some discussion of this re the Captain's quarters and other areas that seem more motivated to "look pretty" rather than be functional/secure).

All that leads to this idea: the Tempest is not the original Pathfinder ship. It was meant to be a pleasure liner/entirely civilian vessel for the rich eccentric asshole (the idea here being why waste precious resources bringing along a luxury ship- some rich asshole managed to get it in). When the Hyperion recovers from whatever disaster it went through to arrive the Pathfinder has to go out and find the rest of the expedition/find a world to colonize and otherwise get back on track. But if said Pathfinder was meant to be DadRyder and DadRyder is out of the running for some reason, why couldn't his ship be totaled as well? The new Pathfinder has to make do with a) what they can spare and what has the best reasonable chance to succeed. Now yes, you could still question how the reasonable best chance to succeed includes a weaponless ship and why they wouldn't have backups or other ships that can do the job, but depending on the extent of the damage to Hyperion you may have the wiggle room you need to get away with it. It may come down to the remainder of the armed ships being too slow/bulky or needed for defense of the ark itself. So yes Ryder's going out in a subpar ship but due to unforeseen circumstances it's the best they can do.

The Nomad could fall under the same sort of umbrella, being the rich eccentric asshole's personal dunebuggy as opposed to the original more sensible armed vehicle. Here though there's less of a chance they can't spare another armed vehicle so this one's still up in the air.

So... yeah. I've been pretty adamant this is a lost cause but here you go. The one way it could possibly work. Still doesn't alleviate my worries as this is a pretty specific chain of events and given precedent they totally could go with "nope we just come in peace lol". If they don't do it this way, i don't see how it can possibly work, leading to you guessed it, more Bad Writing™

Smudboy or whatever is usually quick to point out anything he thinks is an issue without putting in any thought to the issue.  Some have perfectly reasonable explanations, but he never stops to consider that.  THe CinemaSins guy (Jeremy I think) is absolutely hilarious and insightful.  Smudboy is just angry.  You know he is unreasonable because he states repeatedly in various videos that Bioware owes the fans an apology for the ME3 endings.  I don't see that as true at all, but some other angry people who feel the same way flock to his certain style of cynicism and hate-mongering.

Damn, so much for that idea. Looks like we're back on square one.

Send the scout you could potentially be basing your entire survival on out there with nothing but harsh language. Good job, AI (and by AI I mean BioWare). At this point I wish they did just go full satire/parody of the series. Then at least we could all have a good laugh about it.

I don't really have a problem with it. People seem to think the Tempest is just going to be showing up where there are massive battle fleets. Remember that there are no Relays so everywhere they go it's in FTL. Patrolling in the OT works because ships entering a system always do it at a Relay and can't go to FTL right away so they can be detected. In MEA they will be coming in from any possible direction, so detection is very unlikely. Especially for a small ship with stealth systems.

Where they go they will detect threats first. And their goal is to find an uninhabited planet for humanity. So they don't need to go to battle. They have a specific objective. There is nothing to say that other ships in the AI fleet don't have weapons. It makes sense to keep those around the Arks to protect them rather than send them off. Remember resources are scarce.

People seem to assume the Tempest could do everything it is meant to (explore, be super-stealthy, etc) and also have guns big enough to defend it. But because it's an exploration vessel it shouldn't really be in a position to defend a colony persay. That's for the defense ships. So if there is nothing to defend then running and hiding is an option.

There are just so many reasonable arguments for not having weapons. There are also reasonable arguments for having weapons. This means both are reasonable decisions and thus the AI choosing one doesn't make it dumb. It's like choosing Pepsi or Coke. I think choosing Pepsi is stupid, but it's still a valid choice.

Bioware loves contrails so much that even horses have them!