Vhalidictes
(Verified Demon)
- Location
- Las Vegas
I would like to see Mordin's reaction to a young human that's smarter than him.
Also, I agree that the ME chapters should be upgraded from Omake to Side Story.
Distance Learning for fun and profit...
- Thread starter mp3.1415player
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm
Also, I agree that the ME chapters should be upgraded from Omake to Side Story.
go into an empty office, let loose a blood curdling scream of frustration, and chuck the chair through a couple walls.
Further along, she seems to be pushing in a way the government wont like, and so will soon meet either the same Scary Red-Haired Agent that scared Kaiser straight, or the Nice Men With Guns.
I strongly suspect that certain relevant agencies are already well aware of the director's dual identities, and aren't that far away from the Cauldron connection if they really decided to dig into things.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
"Greetings! I'm Taylor, can I interest you in the exciting possibilities of combining SCIENCE with ETHICS?"
Council member: "Who and what is that?! How did they get in here?!
Arterius: "See! I told you! It's humans! It's always humans!"
Krogans on Earth Bet? Why can I see one wanting to challenge or befriend a certain Collateral Damage Barbie if they see her living up to that nickname.
I know it wouldn't happen outside of crack, but it would be hilarious if one got a crush on her and started following her around trying to figure out how to woo her. In that case, poor Dean. Lol
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
Remember that this Tali is NOT from the Mass Effect Prime (ME') universe, as humans there apparently never activated the Charon Relay for whatever reason.
GS 2596.2 (February, 2195 CE)
STG Survey Vessel Neheldri
Eight years ago, a general message intended for all Quarians had been distributed over the Extranet.
"Ancestors Return."
Every Quarian who had received it had then made their way back to the Migrant Fleet by whatever means possible. Shortly after that, all traces of them had simply vanished. They had last been seen using the Exodus Cluster Relay to an uninhabited system that was a dead end link on the Network. It was a mystery that, by and large, nobody was really interested in solving.
Mordin Solus was not one to give up so easily. He had spent a great deal of his life pondering the problem, and now, in his old age, had finally managed to arrange for a survey of possible inhabitable planets within reasonable FTL range of the K1.5III red giant the ship now orbited. 23 potential systems within 40 light years. A mission that would last 3 months at a minimum. One last puzzle for him to solve.
GS 2596.4 (April, 2195 CE)
This was the twelfth star on the plotted course. A fairly mundane G2V star by all accounts just over three days standard FTL travel from the Relay. The telescope array was getting wonderful information though. 8 planets, three of which were in the star's potential habitable zone.
The sensors then reported the distinct eezo signature of a dormant Relay at the edge of the system, followed by a large number of smaller traces in proximity to the third planet. Spectral analysis showed that planet had a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. But...
High amounts of radiation was present as well. Another mystery?
Closer examination revealed the truth. This world had BEEN a Garden World. Based on the decay products in the atmosphere though, there had been a very large scale nuclear exchange on the planet roughly 200 years ago. With the biosphere devastated, whatever species had lived there was almost certainly long dead. The place was a worse hellhole than Tuchanka.
Though why the Migrant Fleet had apparently abandoned their ships here was the greater enigma.
This is obviously a poorly rehashed 'The Vanishing' omake from Incompatible System. In this Mass Effect universe though, WWIII wiped us out back in the 80's
Would the Quarians be willing to say 'Fuck the Council' and dimensionally emigrate to Earth Bet?
Would the US/World be willing to take in 50 million alien refugees? Earth Bet is pretty bad, but the Quarians are probably able to undo a lot the damage that Cauldron has allowed to occur. Scion and the Endbringers shouldn't be an issue, Taylor's got that handled.
Would the Quarians be willing to say 'Fuck the Council' and dimensionally emigrate to Earth Bet?
Would the US/World be willing to take in 50 million alien refugees? Earth Bet is pretty bad, but the Quarians are probably able to undo a lot the damage that Cauldron has allowed to occur. Scion and the Endbringers shouldn't be an issue, Taylor's got that handled.
Last edited:
- Location
- US
Yes this all of this. I love this and I'm glad O'make came back for another round of Helping.
Let's just hope he comes back for a third round.
Edit: Also don't know how to snip but awesome continuation @YuffieK
Last edited:
- Location
- Here
The peel may ne delicious and nutritious, but the pith is so bitter that most can't eat it without significant processing, often destroying it's nutritional value.
... a "Kill" star? That isn't ominous in the least....
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
I've never actually played Mass Effect.
I keep meaning to, I understand its quite good, but every time I think about it my brain goes "ohh shiny" off in another direction before I get around to it again. (like say reading a few million words of fan fic back to back here, no joke I'm straight binging this place.)
Some aspects of the universe are of course impossible to remain ignorant of (for example a friend of mine linked me the scientist solarian song), just cause the internet likes it enough (also, whoooo Jennifer Hale!) but I remain ignorant of all but the most broad strokes of cannon.
"Don't be ridiculous. At least half the time it's those weird lizards."
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
The games are very good. Kind of nonsensical if you think too hard about it, but good. First one especially so. I'm not really a fan of how they swapped to a limited ammo (sorry, disposable heat sink) system in Mass Effect 2 and 3, but 2 is still a good game from what I've played. Only half way though, and meaning to go back at some point. I've only played a little of ME3 since I want to beat ME2 first. But what I've seen is good too.
A lot of people hated the ending of ME3, but personally I don't find it as offensive as most apparently do. I can understand it, but don't agree with it. After all, it's not like the previous games had dozens upon dozens of possible ways the game could end either. They had 2 or 3 endings as well, depending on choices made late in the game. All the "your choices affect the story" stuff mostly impacts events (to an extent) in future games.
A lot of people hated the ending of ME3, but personally I don't find it as offensive as most apparently do. I can understand it, but don't agree with it. After all, it's not like the previous games had dozens upon dozens of possible ways the game could end either. They had 2 or 3 endings as well, depending on choices made late in the game. All the "your choices affect the story" stuff mostly impacts events (to an extent) in future games.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Is that the science of ethics or the ethics of science?
Why Bet and not a nice empty one without humans running around?
Last edited:
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
Taylor doesn't (yet) have the dimensional coordinates to find other Earths.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Using ETHICS while doing SCIENCE. Such as "don't default to creating sterility plagues then sabotage all attempts to undo the warcrime your race helped commit upon another race when it's quite possible that diplomacy could actually be the solution.
Think about it. Krogen come from a Hell World where an insanely high birth rate was a survival trait. The Council basically uplifted them after sparking a war with a new species (the Rachni) which the Council races were losing. That's unethical to begin with. They then, without any real thought on the matter, gave several garden worlds to the krogen. Naturally, this proved insufficient to house a race that evolved specifically to survive a hell world. So equally naturally the warrior species that were uplifted to fight a war defaulted to the only thing they knew... they waged a war to try getting more worlds to spread out onto. The solution the Council came to? "Let's recruit another warlike race, and have them solve our Krogen problem". This ended up being the genophage being commissioned when the turians realized they couldn't win a war against a species which could get MASSIVE reinforcements every decade or two, which the Turians were quite happy to use despite the salarians intending it as a deterrent type weapon. I think Wreks mentions at one point in ME1 that only one in 1000 or so babies are not stillborn. At the start of Mass Effect 1 the krogen species is dying out due to the genophage. This is the most glaring, but by no means only example of ethics being completely abandoned in ME by various races.
Hell, the S.P.E.C.T.E.R.s are another example of this. No checks, no balances, no real oversight, and it requires extensive and incontrovertible proof of betrayal in order to get S.P.E.C.T.E.R. status revoked. So long as they destroy any hard evidence (such as recordings of you working with a known enemy to betray the Council) they can do anything they want, commit any warcrimes they want, and nothing will be done about it. It's implied that the Council's constant checking up on Shepard in ME1 is not standard practice when it comes to a S.P.E.C.T.E.R. on a mission. It's also implied that these 'outside the law' agents can set their own mission objectives.
Note, at no point according to the lore do the council races ever try diplomacy. Instead they merely order the krogen to return back to their granted worlds.
- Location
- Somewhere and Nowhere in a state of super-position
Or they are so simple that they've become a lowest common denominator - the habitat would have to become outright alien for it to not thrive.
- Location
- Somewhere, Maybe
Point: the term "Spectre" in Mass Effect stands for "SPECial Tactics and REconaissance". it's not a full acronym, where each letter stands for a word, just a milspeak contraction.
From what I've gleaned about the Krogan and the Genophage, the krogan aren't in danger of actually going extinct, their viable birth rate has just been lowered to produce enough individuals so that the rate of natural increase matches that of the rest of the species in the galaxy. However, this was done by the Salarians, who apparently lay eggs, and some of those eggs are nonviable, as oppose to krogan who apparently give live birth.
The salarians drastically misunderstood krogan psychology. They didn't realize how much of the krogan psyche was bound up in the idea that the Horde would always be there. Their recklessness was the result of them -knowing- that there would be 10 more warriors for each that fell. And that krogan connect to their children in a deep and complex way. Salarians don't form those types attachments, their familial connections are much more distant. They're more loyal to their families as a whole, rather than to their specific biological mothers and fathers. Krogan share a much deeper and closer-knit bond with their children, and the way the genophage lowered fertility made for hundreds of stillborns.
A single stillborn child can end a marriage and devastate the lives of a human couple. Imagine knowing that out of every thousand children you bear, only ten of them might survive. That is a -crushing- mental blow, and the Salarians entirely failed to see how devastating their genophage would be, not just to the krogan population numbers, but to the collective psyche of the entire species.
This isn't killing them through reducing their population. This is killing their -spirit-, their -culture-. Krogan -believe- they are going extinct, so most of them don't bother breeding anymore, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The mountains of stillborn kroglings stand as mute and damning testament to the 'efficiency' of the Genophage. The numbers of krogran would steadily and slowly increase were they as engaged in breeding as they used to be during the Krogan Rebellions, matching the rest of the galaxy. But because the Genophage broke their spirit, they don't bother to breed as much anymore, giving rise to the myth of the genophage as the cause of the incoming krogan extinction.
And yes, I am bitter about what the Salarians did way back when. However, I don't blame Mordin for his part in perpetuating the Genophage. I do agree with his statement: "Save galaxy from Krogan. Save Krogan from Galaxy. Genophage or genocide." But that's a naive view of the situation. Killing someone's spirit is just as fatal as putting a bullet through their head. They just wander around a bit first.
Mordin's sacrifice will not go unremembered.
Last edited:
Don't forget that they now coddle any children who are born, meaning that those who would previously have died from being too weak to survive on Tuchanka will survive into adulthood. (Which would — presumably — cause a jump in the Krogan population, as they go from "2-in-5 infants don't survive" to "almost every infant is ushered through to adulthood". I bet that terrified the Council.)
So, you have a dwindling pool of DNA, and non-fit individuals surviving to pass on their genes by way of their birth rather than their actions/appearance/capabilities. This is not a viable situation.
Last edited:
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Er, one out of 1000 children surviving to be born and most females of the species being incapable of ever giving birth to a live child... Yeah, that's a death sentence. Especially since the turians then did their best to wipe out most of the population, leaving (as far as I know) the remaining population on their home world. Which is a hell world that had required such a high birth rate for the species to be viable. Their race is dying as of the start of ME1. Slowly, but surely. And as a people they are well aware of this fact, thus why they are so damn fearless in battle. After all, what have you got to lose if your chance of seeing your line continue is virtually non-existent? Yes, it could be halted. But that would require a complete societal shift. Something which Wrex and a few others are attempting to do during ME2, but it's not working due to having to change an entire society all at once.
And of course the salarians keep sabotaging any attempts to mitigate the damage. Yes, that includes krogen naturally developing a resistance to the genophage as well as attempts to find a cure.
The problem is, of course, the same one that every invasive species causes. To fight the rachni, the council decided to uplift a war-like species they found on a hell world. A species with a very high birth rate, which was considered a benefit due to it meaning a continuous supply of fodder (assuming the war lasted a long time). Oh, hey, it worked! And now there was a war-like species that had been transplanted to places that lacked the harsh environment and many excessively lethal predators required to keep the population in check. Predictable results are predictable. Oh, and now you're trying to order back to their token reward planets the very species you needed to fight your war for you? A species of war-like beings that only respect strength? Yeah, that's not going to go well.
EDIT: Actually, it's kind of surprising that adding the turians didn't backfire spectacularly as well. Oh, wait. It did. This other war-like species that was brought in to fight the krogen... started another war by attacking and wiping out a colony a previously never encountered species had founded. Isn't that pretty much how the rachni war occurred too? You know, "they're just mindless beasts... oh gods oh gods, they're intelligent and curb stomping us"?
Yeah, the Council in Mass Effect really need to be hit with a clue by 4 or ten, as well as taught what ethics are.
And of course the salarians keep sabotaging any attempts to mitigate the damage. Yes, that includes krogen naturally developing a resistance to the genophage as well as attempts to find a cure.
The problem is, of course, the same one that every invasive species causes. To fight the rachni, the council decided to uplift a war-like species they found on a hell world. A species with a very high birth rate, which was considered a benefit due to it meaning a continuous supply of fodder (assuming the war lasted a long time). Oh, hey, it worked! And now there was a war-like species that had been transplanted to places that lacked the harsh environment and many excessively lethal predators required to keep the population in check. Predictable results are predictable. Oh, and now you're trying to order back to their token reward planets the very species you needed to fight your war for you? A species of war-like beings that only respect strength? Yeah, that's not going to go well.
EDIT: Actually, it's kind of surprising that adding the turians didn't backfire spectacularly as well. Oh, wait. It did. This other war-like species that was brought in to fight the krogen... started another war by attacking and wiping out a colony a previously never encountered species had founded. Isn't that pretty much how the rachni war occurred too? You know, "they're just mindless beasts... oh gods oh gods, they're intelligent and curb stomping us"?
Yeah, the Council in Mass Effect really need to be hit with a clue by 4 or ten, as well as taught what ethics are.
Last edited:
Jadesteele
Out of my Mind - Back in 5 Minutes
- Location
- half-way between 'Crazy' And 'Eccentric'
'Maybe just barely understand it, but that's a foothold into the realm of SCIENCE.'
FTFY
And Occasionally it's those Frelling TANKS!
The Silerians in Particuler seem to think "Can we do this?" Rather then "SHOULD we do this?"
In the case of that Baka Sparatus, I'd Prefer something a bit more... Heavy - like a Ymer Mech.
- Location
- USA
One of my Jumpchain fics had my Jumper, after replacing the Shadow Broker and going through his files, come to the realization that the plot made far more sense if you assumed that the Council was simply a bunch of evil imperialist bastards from the jump and all appearances of being a republic were just to lull the crowd.
The short version is that (at least in my story) all the nonsense surrounding Shepard's mission in ME1 was because she wasn't actually intended to succeed, just as the Skyllian Blitz had originally been intended to break the nascent Alliance's military power and leave them unable to resist cultural annexation by the Council. Sadly, humanity defied the odds both times. The full version of my anti-Council conspiracy theory is here if you're interested.
So yeah, I have headcanons.
Last edited:
- Location
- uk
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They're hardly alone in following the "Can we do x? Dunno? Let's find out." track. This is why ethics committees exist in most scientific establishments on earth. Then you have scientists like Alfred Bernhard Nobel who invent something to make life easier and safer for people, and other people come along and go "I wonder what this would do to people"
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ, USA
When talking about leadership and getting to the top of and in control of society.
The Seven Virtues: Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, Humility.
The Seven Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride.
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD, What they call Sociopaths and Psychopaths now days.):Superior Intelligence, Lack of Empathy, Cold-Heartedness, Calculating Behaviors, Pathological Lying, Manipulation, Lack of Morality, Rule Breaking, Secretive Tendencies, Charm, Narcissism, False Superiority Complex, Sensitivity to Criticism, Gaslighting, Psychological Bullying, Lack of Contrition, Self-Serving Victim hood, Addictive Behaviors.
Not asking how we would like the world to be, only asking who would most likely get to the leadership positions and stay there?
Remind you of anyone?
Edit: When you think about it, this explains a lot of how the world works.
The Seven Virtues: Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, Humility.
The Seven Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride.
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD, What they call Sociopaths and Psychopaths now days.):Superior Intelligence, Lack of Empathy, Cold-Heartedness, Calculating Behaviors, Pathological Lying, Manipulation, Lack of Morality, Rule Breaking, Secretive Tendencies, Charm, Narcissism, False Superiority Complex, Sensitivity to Criticism, Gaslighting, Psychological Bullying, Lack of Contrition, Self-Serving Victim hood, Addictive Behaviors.
Not asking how we would like the world to be, only asking who would most likely get to the leadership positions and stay there?
Remind you of anyone?
Edit: When you think about it, this explains a lot of how the world works.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nope. As you asked for any ONE ...
Norr
Misophist
- Location
- Any chair
Insufficiently understood technology is indistinguishable from magic.