Have the Asari gone for the classic honeypot espionage tactic yet? They don't need to beat Shepard if they can subvert us.
Alternatively, assassination while in bed.
Shepard Quest Mk VI, Technological Revolution
- Thread starter Hoyr
- Start date
Alternatively, assassination while in bed.
I am now imagining Benezia trying to instruct archeology-nerd Liara in Femme Fatale 101, and it is glorious.
HanEmpire
Delicious
This is a very real threat, one that will only grow as PI branches out. So far our most advanced product has been the Arc-Reactor, which out-performs everything else on the market to such an extent that energy corporations have just abandoned the sector rather than fight us. But if we continue to produce revolutionary products in other sectors too, the competitors will have nowhere to run to, which is when they'll try to kill PI. I can only imagine how ugly things will get when we start to mass-manufacture synthetic eezo. That alone has the potential to collapse entire economies, with mining colonies, refining industries, and secondary business around them all being rendered obsolete at once.
Last edited:
Artificial eezo is way up on our tech tree, and we're likely not going to want to even bother manufacturing it in bulk; the main reason to bother with artificial eezo production would be to counter Aria and other eezo tychoons from trying to use monopoly tactics of their own against us, or later on shortening supply lines when the Reapers come calling.
- Location
- Australia
Please keep in mind that if/when this quest starts again, we're going to need to keep our technology close to our chest until the Reapers arrive, otherwise they'll steal and improve on everything we have so much that we'd be lucky to have the canon-level amount of disadvantage.
- Location
- The word mines
Which is mainly why we were rushing towards the highest tier of copy-protection. Alas, that particular horse has already bolted, as there were hints that the Reapers would have had husks with built-in Arc Reactors, copied when our early tech was wide-open. The only thing the obfuscation would protect now is all the current stuff.
Darik29
Verified Delicious
Well, one of the things I Desperately want when this starts up is for us to Finally fucking research the Iron Man suit.
People are using our barebones, not really upgraded 1.75b Legionary suit.
It's bulky, and not as good as the Iron Man suit could be.
I just want to start actually going down the Iron Man tech tree!
I also want to get at least the first level in Giant Mecha, because that's basically Hulk Buster suit. And Everyone loves the stompy robots!
People are using our barebones, not really upgraded 1.75b Legionary suit.
It's bulky, and not as good as the Iron Man suit could be.
I just want to start actually going down the Iron Man tech tree!
I also want to get at least the first level in Giant Mecha, because that's basically Hulk Buster suit. And Everyone loves the stompy robots!
- Location
- United states
There is an issue with hoarding tech in that by putting off releasing the good stuff to the public the rest of humanity won't be able to field the tech that would let us match the Reapers as quickly if we just sent them out in the last five minutes. And as someone mentioned we already picked up the blackboxing tech and are only missing the out of context research which might not even be possible. Still IIRC our blackboxing is good enough that we shouldn't be seeing any problems until the rest of the Reapers show up since it's going to take a lot of focus for just a few Reapers to go through a few tech.
Agree on the Iron Man suit, just because we have spaceships doesn't mean that people are going to be using spaceships for every damn mission, especially if people don't won't to cause insane amounts of colloteral. The Iron Man suit is actually insanely versatile for a lot of situations since it works as not just infrantry but as tanks, anti-tanks, aircraft and spacecraft while being man sized weapons of mass destruction that can also manage to severely limit colloteral damage. It also comes with the benefit in that we can add even more advanced biotic amps to it.
The giant robots can also be practical in that we can add biotics enhancements to them.
We don't need giant mechs until we pick up artificial biotics, but IIRC we did vote for the Mark II this quarter because it gives us extra customization options that we couldn't cram into the 1.75b, like ground-up Superalloy integration, quick assembly, and fast swapping of mission loads. There just wasn't a need for it until we accumulated enough techs to install in it.
Last edited:
Darik29
Verified Delicious
I couldn't care less about biotic god machines. All I wanted was the damn Hulk Buster, to make Krogan weep with envy at how awesome we were while wearing said suit.
Also, Kasumi could finally fall us a Mad Scientist without any exaggeration once we built that thing. And I actually Liked all the little character pieces in between the researching and business stuff.
Especially since if I'm not mistaken Revy was going to adopt Jack the upcoming turn that was never finished. I'm honestly sad that hasn't happened yet, and would love to see it occur now.
Bonus points to see how Indigo would act in that particular instance!
IDK I figure we'd probably be mass producing eezo to further cut down the cost of ships. IIRC part of the reason PI ships are dirt cheap is that normal ships have half their cost in Eezo and that our Repulsors provide 2x speed boost and our improved FTL Drives 2x speed boost so we can slash the Eezo budge in half (75% normal ship cost) and still be twice as fast (30LY/day) or to a quarter (62.5% normal ship cost) and still be normal speed (15LY/day).
If we can cheaply produce Eezo we can pump the quantities of Eezo in our starships back up to 'normal' levels and at least double their speed.
On one hand, you're right that there's money to be made; on the other hand with Arc Reactors and the best armor, tanks, and ships in the galaxy in our pocket we can print money to scale, constrained almost entirely by our access to factories and production capacity. I'm concerned that actually letting eezo production off the chain is essentially declaring war on the entire basis of the galactic economy, and even PI can't stand against the entire galaxy declaring war on it.
This has a chance to revive? I am glad. I was here for science, and plot, and unconventional paths, where economics and logistics, rather than literal face punching by single individuals win interstellar wars. And for plot, obviously, and character interaction. Also, for a rare chance to read a story where technological and scientific progression are a driving force that shape the world of the story, and have a meaningful visible impact, as the world changes.
If the galactic society is, basically, industrial, with eezo taking place of oil / gold / whatever cornerstone of economy you want to name, then solving material shortages simply moves the economy to post-industrial stage. I expect some economists in-story (and, given the fandom, out of story) to write papers on cycles of industrial-based-on-resource-group-X to post-industrial to industrial with a new resource group.
As to challenges - as others said, Revy being a unique super genius is not a large problems, as others can provide credible challenges through different angles, such as politics, economics of scale, demographics (personally, I expect that, once aging is solved, Vorcha will quickly boom economically, becoming a galactic superpower). And, well, heroes must be allowed to win, in my opinion.
The world will adjust. For one, I expect digital economy, service economy and all other areas not directly dependent on the resources to boom.
If the galactic society is, basically, industrial, with eezo taking place of oil / gold / whatever cornerstone of economy you want to name, then solving material shortages simply moves the economy to post-industrial stage. I expect some economists in-story (and, given the fandom, out of story) to write papers on cycles of industrial-based-on-resource-group-X to post-industrial to industrial with a new resource group.
As to challenges - as others said, Revy being a unique super genius is not a large problems, as others can provide credible challenges through different angles, such as politics, economics of scale, demographics (personally, I expect that, once aging is solved, Vorcha will quickly boom economically, becoming a galactic superpower). And, well, heroes must be allowed to win, in my opinion.
Personally I was really excited for Shepard to finish her super-soldier program she signed herself up for. In broad strokes I was interested in everything, but that particular plot point stuck with me. I hope the continuation will keep that part.
While I get what you're saying, and agree that in the long run it's for the best, In the short and medium term there's going to be a lot of pain as tens of billions of jobs evaporate around the galaxy. We need to have a solid plan for how to protect Revy and PI from that backlash, or else, well, we're sort of seeing a smaller scale version of the mess that can result without proper planning in RL.
I am not so sure about that. Let's think about it. What jobs will we be obsoleting by creating artificial eezo?
1) Eezo mining. That's mostly, as I understand it, asteroid mining in potentially high radiation environment. They could shift relatively easily into asteroid mining in general, though, I agree, that there a lot of difference (small amounts of highly volatile stuff vs. large quantities of relatively low value stuff). Probably also space construction and exploration (for finding eezo in the first place). Exploration will be booming with no-discharge drives, and space construction with all other goodies we will be introducing (and downing comprehension that planets cannot be defended at all). General space engineering will, I think, be a net benefit.
2) Eezo refining. That's probably high energy physics, maybe exotic chemistry. Fairly sure many of those jobs will be needed in artificial eezo production.
After eezo is refined, I am fairly sure no one cares where it comes from as far as jobs go.
- Location
- Leeds
Most of that was probably automated anyway.
I think the largest long term social impact we will have on the job market is obsoleting geriatric and general long term medical care. When we solve aging, and most medical conditions, we'll be obsoleting the need for people caring for old people. And that should probably be a big industry that is hard to completely automate, even if VI assistants likely play a large part in it. Some of the people involved will probably retrain into nannies / governesses / the like, but it general I expect this to be a problem. Especially because the skillset involved (taking care of someone with mental and physical issues) is both extensive and specialized.
Probably less than most would think. I suspect that most eezo mining is done out in the Terminus, where laws and regulations are more lax (ie nonexistant), and automation will be kept as low as possible to prevent theft.
Yo're also missing the biggest incumbent industry:
3) Rent seekers and eezo tychoons. In particular, Aria's source of support in the Council is heavily implied to be due to her massive strategic eezo stockpile; threaten incumbent players in the market with massive amounts of wealth tied up in stocks which PI is going to be cutting in value to half, a quarter, or one tenth of their value and you're going to see a vast array of very well-heeled groups out for Revy's head.
Hence why we're investing so heavily into ParSec and diving head first into the Alliance-Batarian war; it gives us a security force prepared to handle any sort of pirate or mercenary group.
Also another group who would be pissed at us; almost everyone involved in the Eezo futures market. As I understand it generally mining companies don't tend to make use of futures that much, instead preferring to ride the waves of the market, groups that depend heavily and predictably upon commodities, like airlines, tend to get heavily invested in futures. So I would fully expect that most major shipyards make use of futures to pre-purchase their Eezo supplies at a fixed rate. They would lose out big time when artificial Eezo hits the market. This would mean that Eezo refineries and such would avoid the worst of the initial impact since they could coast on their futures contracts but miners would definitely be hit hard with the price crash.
Or at least that is my late night speculation on the topic.
Those are few people with a lot of money, not many people doing a lot of work.
But continuing the economic impact, we might also strongly affect asari colonization and food industries. Assuming Ansari don't synthesize it, they have to get eezo into their systems somehow during pregnancies, and possibly regularly until they are fully adult. This means either some manner of supplements, or food containing it. As I understand it, Thessia is rather unique in its abundance of eezo containing organisms. And in available eezo in general. This likely means that Thessia-forming biomes is prohibitively expensive right now. Not so with artificial eezo, potentially.
This probably strongly reshapes pharmacology food supplements, food transport industries of asari, and possibly strongly negatively affects their economy in general if Thessia is a major eezo source.
But continuing the economic impact, we might also strongly affect asari colonization and food industries. Assuming Ansari don't synthesize it, they have to get eezo into their systems somehow during pregnancies, and possibly regularly until they are fully adult. This means either some manner of supplements, or food containing it. As I understand it, Thessia is rather unique in its abundance of eezo containing organisms. And in available eezo in general. This likely means that Thessia-forming biomes is prohibitively expensive right now. Not so with artificial eezo, potentially.
This probably strongly reshapes pharmacology food supplements, food transport industries of asari, and possibly strongly negatively affects their economy in general if Thessia is a major eezo source.
- Location
- Leeds
You mean the laws that protect robots from working 24 hour shifts in 'hazardous' enviroments for no pay?
When will government regulation stop crushing the little mining tycoon?
Besides if you're worried about theft try running your operation somewhere goverments have the multi-system power and juristiction to actually fight against pirates and systems aren't run by corrupt warlords.
Also rent seekers aren't actually a big industry of job creation, which is what the comment was about.
- Location
- Море песка, солнце огня и множество злых сарацин
...Um, I'm not really familiar with ME lore (or with ME anything at all, to be honest), but if their biology is that dependent on eezo, why would those subsequent generations be born at all?
Asari lifespans being what they are, I don't expect them to have especially high birth rates anyway.