Andromeda Initiatives Purpose - Why the hate?

There's that "prematureness" again that permeates this entire discussion.  We'll find out when the sales figures come in and not a moment before.

True.  However, the 600 year trip does make the journey considerably more risky, and also increases the "costs" - anything you're leaving behind is irretrievably lost, including friends and family - for the people travelling, so it still seems to offer a considerably worse proposition than real life colonisation efforts to the participants.  Particularly since the Citadel species are generally supposed to enjoy a notably high standard of living.

Also, it seems to me like the Andromeda Initiative would need outside backers beyond the 100,000 colonists.  I struggle to believe that they'd be able to finance this from their own resources - particularly since joining the mission looks such a poor deal for people with whose lives aren't a total mess in the Milky Way.

Even if there is a secret reason, most of the colonists presumably don't know about it.  So it wouldn't "fix" everything, though it'd help explain where they got the funding

What must the colonist know? They picked up 100k people in total for the Initiative. Not hard to convince that few people (on the scale of a galaxy, mind) to jump ship on an unprecedented scientific and technological endeavor. Even now there are people who have signed up on a one-way trip to Mars. While I think getting the funding and ressources for mere exploration is far-fetched, getting the people isn't. There are always adventurers, explorers, people looking for a new start.

"Gah I hate complainers complaining about the game so I'm gonna complain about them complaining about the game. That'll show those darn complainers."

Great. You've said exactly nothing.

And then that 'threat' at the end, lol. We are very, very done here.

So, predicting that a franchise might be dropped, should the next entry following a critically acclaimed series under perform, is a "threat" now... yea, we've been done pages ago. 

I have to say that for as much love as Drew gets as a writer of the earlier games, I maintain that the plot of the first Mass Effect game makes absolutely no sense and the actions of the villains seem to only be as stupid as they are because if they had applied any amount of intelligence they would have won in about 10 minutes and then we wouldn't have had a game.

BioWare's stories have always had a case of "It only works if you don't stop to think about it for too long", but since Mac has the whole ME3 ending thing hanging over his head I suspect people will be much harsher on him for any writing that makes no sense in ME:A.

We see the cracks because we're omniscient observers. We've basically seen the future of the AI already, we know it's going to go tits-up because frankly we wouldn't have a game if it didn't. 

If, in-universe, you're a scientist in search of ground-breaking discoveries? An explorer in search of sights never seen before? An adventurer tired of his 8 to 5 job in a space office building? A warrior like Drack who's kinda just in it just to meet new people and kill them? Why not? It's not like we had no instances of people leaving their life behind to go into the unknown in our own history. Most of the Americas were built that way, and human history is also rife with far-reaching adventurers, from Carthaginian and Greek colonists to Norman conquerors establishing kingdoms very far away from home, never to return.

Plus, maybe, as you said, there were dredges. Maybe that's why there was an uprising and there are raiders in Andromeda. Nothing in the marketing so far indicates to me that the Initiative was perfectly planned and is going swimmingly. Wouldn't be much room for drama and space adventures if it did. It's not a perfect plan, I fully agree, but it's not supposed to be. I'll wait to play the game in order see if my judgement of ''imperfect plan'' turns into ''stupid plan''.

Even though you're wording this as though it's a predictions, it's the one comment in this whole thread that isn't one.  It's a fact.  People are already being harsher on Mac and they have been harsher on Mac for a long, long time (because of the ME3 endings) than they ever were of Drew.  I agree.

Another fact is that - There is no way for Bioware to come up with any explanation that has any chance at all of meeting the satisfaction of this group.  Anything they come up with:

1) won't have been included in the lore of the ME Trilogy (so one won't find newscasts about it in the Trilogy)
2) has to have been developed in too short a period to be realistic (because of the botched timeline from ME1 that had humans involved in those event a mere 30 years after making first contact)
3) isn't going to be scientifically realistic... because nothing Mass Effect is based on is really scientifically realistic
4) isn't going to financially realistic... because nothing Mass Effect is based on is really financially realistic (i.e it was ridiculous the lengths Shepard had to go to find resources to just upgrade his own guns in ME2 or like Shepard's really going to be able to deplete entire planets just by sending down a few probes from orbit or Shepard would need to scrounge enginners from all over an entire galalxy of 60 billion or so just to find enough to construct one lousy Prothean weapon in ME3... any concept of a galactic economy has always been a mess and not proportionate to anything
5) isn't going to be politically realistic... because nothing in the political sphere of ME is realistic (like it's really feasible for a 3 or 4-person council to effectively govern an entire galaxy of 60 or so BILLION people)... again... nothing proportionately realistic.

We can go all around and around the barn on this one (and we have again and again over the past several months)... but the conclusion is always going to be the same... the AI makes no sense, but we're doing it anyway.

To play a bit of devil's advocate her: I've seen a fair few posts say it's illogical to go to Andromeda when (according to the Codex), we've explored 1% of the MW Galaxy. However, to compare to our current Earth, why are we pouring so much time and money into space exploration (both government agencies and private companies) and Mars projects when only 5% of our oceans are explored?

To run with the comparison, isn't it easier to help a group if they're in the ocean depths compared to if they're on their way to Mars? So, why strive for Mars over the oceans?

To the few folk I know involved in space exploration (engineering types mainly), JFK's Moon Speech comes back as a reference point for their reason:

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.



There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?



We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Tim

Caveat: I'm not a fan of ME suddenly pulling out the AI as a hand wave to continue the franchise, but given that they painted themselves into a corner for their 'artistic vision' in ME3, I'm willing to accept it, assuming they give us a good explanation.