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WCSII said:
... Which, technically does mean, that if anyone can avoid Reaper tech when they find eezo tech... that it is theoretically possible to push it along further. But a large portion of the trap is a working example that is easy to reproduce and exposure to Reaper technology, such as, oh... Mass Relays, to begin indoctrination.
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It could be that there is a physical limitation on how much you can get out of Eezo tech. If you want more power out of a given amount of eezo it seems that you have to increase current flow (from what I understand from the games). Well electrical losses increase with the square of the current so that would lead to a hard upper limit on how much you can get out of an amount of eezo, otherwise you don't have an eezo core you have electrically charged eezo gas. If you want a bigger/stronger field you have to increase the size of the core, no way around it.

In the other direction you also have a hard limit, if you want to precisely control a mass effect field you have only current flow to do that with and a single electron moving is the absolute lowest amount of current you can have. You can decrease the amount of eezo being affected but for a complex field you either need a complex flow of current or a simple flow but a complex array of eezo and this again imposes hard limits to how small and precise you can make the field.

Meanwhile we regular humans have thus far found out how to manipulate the uncertainty principle to get measurements more precise than is possible (just saw a YouTube video about it) simply by massaging physics until we get a new toy and we have plans for stuff that should be buildable with current tech that would make the council crap a brick wall. For us the problem with solar system scale tech isn't the tech it's the size of our economy.

Eezo might make it easy to get into space but it is a trap entirely due to that ease. Who would devote resources to basic research in a field where magic space rocks already lets you do so much more than what that basic research hints at even if it could lead to something better? It's sort of like how we have been with fusion these last 5 decades, why spend 30 billion dollars and get fusion in ten years (1980s) when we already have fission. We could have had fusion today if we just spent the money but nobody would fund it at that level so we still don't have it.
 
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TheBeardedOne said:
Repeat once more with significantly larger capsule and you get a portal a hundred meters across, large enough for small spacecraft to traverse.
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I'd hardly call a ship as wide as a Caldwell-class destroyer was long 'small'. I mean, sure it's no Executor-class Star Dreadnought, but that's still bigger than a Nimitz-class fleet carrier.
 
cryptoam said:
Why are there no mentions of ezoo plasma tubes in use or attempted then?
Another missed potential innovation.
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If eezo interacts with electricity what would happen if it is in gas form and you introduce a current through the gas? A solid is nice and static, it doesn't change much which lets you predict and precisely control the output. Gasses are anything but stable, they are in constant motion and it would be next to impossible to predict what that electric current would make it do. Consider a Jacobs ladder and try to predict how high the arc will go next...

Since current flowing in different directions (I'm guessing here since there doesn't seem to an explanation ingame) causes eezo to either make things lighter or heavier I would guess that a current flowing through gaseous eezo would just be chaos. Might actually be how those disruptor torpedoes work, discharge an enormous current through a tiny amount of eezo and let the chaotic mass effect field tear anything caught in the effect apart.
 
There's also the explosion factor. Lore entries mention that there are no alternate uses for Eezo beyond "reduce mass" because it causes explosions when they tried doing other things.
 
Czlyydwr Llrngwl said:
Oh please, if I've learned anything from Star Trek it's that Physics is a total switch who may start out playing at being all authoritative, but actually loves being defied, dominated, and forced to obey.
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*DIES GIGGLING!*

OH GOD, CAN I PLEEEEEEASE SIG THIS?!

I've been a Trekker since 1988 and the first epixode of TNG. THIS IS SO GODDAMN TRUE!

E M Berner said:
If eezo interacts with electricity what would happen if it is in gas form and you introduce a current through the gas? A solid is nice and static, it doesn't change much which lets you predict and precisely control the output. Gasses are anything but stable, they are in constant motion and it would be next to impossible to predict what that electric current would make it do. Consider a Jacobs ladder and try to predict how high the arc will go next...

Since current flowing in different directions (I'm guessing here since there doesn't seem to an explanation ingame) causes eezo to either make things lighter or heavier I would guess that a current flowing through gaseous eezo would just be chaos. Might actually be how those disruptor torpedoes work, discharge an enormous current through a tiny amount of eezo and let the chaotic mass effect field tear anything caught in the effect apart.
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What you would most likely get by passing an electrical current through gaseous Eezo would be a wildly chaotic and rapidly-shifting wet of mass effect fields. Kinda like what the Disruptor Torpedoes are supposed to produce. Huh, I think we just found out how those things work.
 
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Derek M said:
Who would win in a fight? Scion or the Reaper armada? (My suspicion is that it depends entirely upon how quickly the Reapers figure out Scion's true nature.)
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Scion, because without the ability to locate and attack his true form across universes, attrition would eventually give it to the Entity
FaerieKnight79 said:
Let's be fair here. Star Trek uses Space Magic disguised as tech, same as Star Wars. It's not hard science, it's science fantasy.
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yes, but at least the engineers/scientists in the Star Trek/Star Wars universe understand how their technology works.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
Let's be fair here. Star Trek uses Space Magic disguised as tech, same as Star Wars. It's not hard science, it's science fantasy.
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Other way around.

Star Trek is basically space magic. It's relationship to science is only in so much as it attempts to be internally consistent, but its functions aren't just orders of magnitude off, they invent their own scales.

Star Wars by contrast is extremly well grounded in reality (minus the Force), fusion engines, lazer/plasma weapons, none of the things they do would make any of our PHD's angry, unlike Star Trek.

Star Trek is Science Fiction, Star Wars is a Space Western.
 
I'm just saying, this is a fic already heavily involving multiverse stuff, there's one obvious solution to having your cake and eating it too in regards to integrating omakes.

On the big 3 races + batties; Just because their leaders is assholes doesn't mean the billions of powerless masses are anything other than victims just like the Quarians are. Or at least, not all of them. I mean there are probably a few asshole Quarians, they just arn't as clearly in charge. Besides, if you're judging entire species like that, it'd be hypocrisy of the highest degree not to exterminate humanity both IRL and the Worm version.

On taylors reaction to Eezo; It's used badly, but it's still useful stuff. She'll obviously *reverse engineer* it and then build a *better version*, as well as a macchine to easily manufacture said better version from normal hydrogen. And what already exists can be disassembled for raw materials.
 
The issue is that in ME the exceptions do in fact prove the rule. Every species you encounter are, with a few notable exceptions, all a stereotype. Asari are all special forces vetrens and master politicians, with a few exceptions. Turians are ruthless "shoot first don't bother asking questions later" soldiers one and all, with a few exceptions. Even Garius had to learn to not be that type of person. Salarians are all ego driven scientists with little regard to morals and who are always right. Wait, not actually sure if there are exceptions to this stereotype. The ones you meet and interact with all fit within it to one degree or another. It takes a lot of effort to convince Mordin that his work on strengthening the genophage might have been wrong. Hanar are all simple minded religious nuts in the Cult of the Enkindlers. Volus are all merchants, and proud to be merchants while being perfectly happy as a "client" race. Batarians are all ruthless slavers and hate filled pirates. Vorcha are all barely sentient thugs. You get the idea.
 
mp3.1415player said:
Most inhabited worlds in Council space didn't simultaneously extend from below the freezing point of carbon dioxide to two thirds of the way to the boiling point of water,
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...Gotta admit, that seems an absurd claim to make, planetologically speaking, just based on my high school "how do planet form" knowledge.

Seasons are likely rarer, compared to just the sheer "okay the poles are cold and the equator is hot" thing.
 
TheBiggerFish said:
...Gotta admit, that seems an absurd claim to make, planetologically speaking, just based on my high school "how do planet form" knowledge.

Seasons are likely rarer, compared to just the sheer "okay the poles are cold and the equator is hot" thing.
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Could be that Council races are a bunch of wusses and are really picky about what constitutes as 'livable' planets. That and I bet Tali doesn't spend much time on planets, so she only knows what the cities in the nicer parts of the planets are like. I'm guessing geography, climatology, and meteorology aren't priorities for a quarian to learn in school.
 
E M Berner said:
It could be that there is a physical limitation on how much you can get out of Eezo tech. If you want more power out of a given amount of eezo it seems that you have to increase current flow (from what I understand from the games). Well electrical losses increase with the square of the current so that would lead to a hard upper limit on how much you can get out of an amount of eezo, otherwise you don't have an eezo core you have electrically charged eezo gas. If you want a bigger/stronger field you have to increase the size of the core, no way around it.
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This is honestly how I always assumed it worked, or at least something along those lines.
 
Norgarth said:
Scion, because without the ability to locate and attack his true form across universes, attrition would eventually give it to the Entity
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Yeah I dont even see how this is in question. Scion was literally capable of shattering the whole of Great Britain with a single blast. The Reapers don't demonstrate anywhere near that level of firepower. Worse, Scion can just ambush them from other dimensions.

Which means they'd never see him coming, and he could kill dozens if not hundreds of them in a single attack if he wanted.

Oh, sure, I actually suspect they'd pop his avatar a couple times at first, probably because he just started off attacking head-first like he does in Worm, but he'd adapt right quick — again, just lime in canon.

Still though, even with all that we're still only talking conventional firepower. He could start busting out stasis-lock and time loop shenanigans if he wanted, and he's obviously going to be immune to indoctrination himself, so he's got other options.

Hell, the Reapers might not be immune to mind / technokinesis control powers.
 
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Reapers could potentially win if they have enough time to work out what they're dealing with. It'd cost them VERY heavily though, and depends on just how much of their Armada they're willing to sacrifice.
 
I like this story (and the growing spinoff) a lot for what it is... but I do somewhat feel like the titular premise is a bit wasted.

Prime Asset Taylor made probably the most important breakthrough before she could pick up the Alien Learning Channel. I think the only point in the plot where the distance learning actually seemed to be important was giving her the first bits of gravitational tech so she had something to present to kick off the DARPA/Gravitech setup. Since then, as far as I can remember nothing's been specified as coming from the aliens rather than Taylor's own genius. It seems like you could write the distance learning out of the story and barely have to change anything.
TypoNinja said:
Star Wars by contrast is extremly well grounded in reality (minus the Force), fusion engines, lazer/plasma weapons, none of the things they do would make any of our PHD's angry, unlike Star Trek.
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They mostly probably don't, because they're used to nonsense in soft science fiction and as a bonus Star Wars doesn't pretend it's doing science. Star Wars may have slightly more technobabble that superficially resembles actual physics than Trek, maybe. But that's at best name deep. Spacecraft don't act anything like fusion rockets, guns don't act like either actual lasers or like anything you could plausibly make plasma do. Plus all the FTL and antigravity and so on.

What it is largely tech-wise is a space opera reskin of WWII movies.
 
Aineko said:
They mostly probably don't, because they're used to nonsense in soft science fiction and as a bonus Star Wars doesn't pretend it's doing science. Star Wars may have slightly more technobabble that superficially resembles actual physics than Trek, maybe. But that's at best name deep. Spacecraft don't act anything like fusion rockets, guns don't act like either actual lasers or like anything you could plausibly make plasma do. Plus all the FTL and antigravity and so on.

What it is largely tech-wise is a space opera reskin of WWII movies.
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Largely agreed. The only real fiction tech is stuff like the hyper drive and the artificial gravity. Everything else is pretty grounded in physics. A blaster bolt is a plasma charge carried by a laser, starship shields are electromagnetic barriers that will catch the incoming plasma charge. All their stuff is fusion generated. It's trying very hard to be plausible and possible so that the audience doesn't pay attention to it. If you had unlimited money nothing really stops you from building your own X wing, there's not really any magic tech in it, other than miniaturization we can't do yet, but miniaturization is a problem solved by enough money. We're good at shrinking our tech. 60 years ago your cellphone wouldn't fit in a building. Now its in your pocket.

Unlike Trek, which has 100% efficent A/M reactors, combat shields are gravity distortions that bend space so that a straight line for the attack no longer passes through the ship, and revving the engines while the ship is in neutral lowers the gravitational constant.

Star Wars tries to respect the laws of physics. Star Trek makes the laws of physics go hide under the bed and cry.
 
TypoNinja said:
Largely agreed. The only real fiction tech is stuff like the hyper drive and the artificial gravity. Everything else is pretty grounded in physics. A blaster bolt is a plasma charge carried by a laser, starship shields are electromagnetic barriers that will catch the incoming plasma charge. All their stuff is fusion generated. It's trying very hard to be plausible and possible so that the audience doesn't pay attention to it. If you had unlimited money nothing really stops you from building your own X wing, there's not really any magic tech in it, other than miniaturization we can't do yet, but miniaturization is a problem solved by enough money. We're good at shrinking our tech. 60 years ago your cellphone wouldn't fit in a building. Now its in your pocket.

Unlike Trek, which has 100% efficent A/M reactors, combat shields are gravity distortions that bend space so that a straight line for the attack no longer passes through the ship, and revving the engines while the ship is in neutral lowers the gravitational constant.

Star Wars tries to respect the laws of physics. Star Trek makes the laws of physics go hide under the bed and cry.
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That's not even close to agreement.

"a plasma charge carried by a laser" is almost word salad, not a physics-grounded description. "electromagnetic barriers" might turn a "plasma charge" whatever one actually is, but that doesn't much resemble most depiction of shields in Star Wars. Physics might allow you to make something shaped like an X-wing and propelled by fusion rockets, but it wouldn't behave even slightly like an X-wing.

Star Wars doesn't care in the slightest about the laws of physics. It cares about space Hellcats going woosh in space and shooting space tracers at space Zeros. It knows the audience doesn't give a fig whether anything on the screen is really possible.
 
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