Shepard Quest Mk VI, Technological Revolution

[Darik29]

It was in one of the actual chapters right as we finished researching AI preparation I think? There are two laws on the books regarding AI thanks to the Geth Rebellion.

First law has it that Sapient AI can't be enslaved.

After Mourning War, new law says that it is illegal to... actually I have to recheck. I think it might actually be it's illegal to Create AI.

Gimme a minute.


Edit: Found it!

[X] AI License Preparation [800] - 90d10+360 (97.92% chance of completion)
90D10+360 → 839 =839/800 Finished! Overflow+39/2=29.5
Preparing to research AI is a subject with several elements. Surprisingly, the increased security is the least of the problems. Specialized VI programs are run with a massive hardware advantage to simulate an AI attack. Additional cut offs, both manual and automatic, and specialized hardware environments are developed.

The other issues are moral and legal. Morally speaking the creation of a new sapient or sentient entity is a complex issue, not to mention one of the requirements for an AI license is having produced a work on this subject. To consider this issue, you have collected your scientists to discuss the issue and review all previous work on the subject. Hopefully, you can assemble a consistent moral and ethical framework to use.

The legal issue is the oddest. In your review of previous AI works you find A History of AI Research by Basen Vel. In it, you learn about a very interesting legal mess caused by the Geth Rebellion. Prior to the Geth Rebellion, the enslavement of AI was made illegal and there were small numbers of free AI running around Citadel space. The Asari author specifically mentions that the latter fact is often forgotten, sarcastically pointing out "It was only 300 years ago." After the Geth Rebellion free AI were also made illegal in general and the creation of AI without a license was banned. Both sets of laws remain on the books.

Legally this means that any AI produced needs to be sub-sapient, going much beyond that risks triggering one law or another. The entire thing is extremely awkward.

Of course you still actually need to get a license.

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So basically, Ensalving AI is illegal, but free AI are also illegal and creating AI without a license is super duper illegal.

 

[Stroth]

She made video games for her 40k addiction.

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The fact that every time she gets drunk she wakes up next to a bolter built out of whatever she had on hand suggests that wasn't enough to scratch her itch.

So basically, Ensalving AI is illegal, but free AI are also illegal and creating AI without a license is super duper illegal.

Click to shrink...

As such, so long as you have a license you are allowed to create AIs, but they have to be sub-sapient.

 

[Red Bovine]

1) Reapers will not be "holding back". And yes, the weight of bodies is going to be an issue. Reapers capturing our technology, capturing our infrastructure is worse than them destroying it. And that's assuming it's easy to destroy it. Because, again, a ship in FTL transit is invulnerable. To make a habitat perfectly invulnerable you just need to put it into FTL transit at low velocity (something like 1.00000(0)1 C) with somewhat randomized flight path. Bam! No one can do anything to it.

2) Everyone in the setting avoids doing it because garden worlds are a rare premium. Thus reinforcing my point that space habitats are the logical next step.

3) And you understatement what kind of damage a non-core world colony can sustain.

4) I don't remember those complains, but, even giving this to you, and even conceding drell, we are still left with elcor (require high gravity planets), volus (require high pressure ammonia-based biospheres), hanar (require aquatic planets)

5) Habitats are more optimal, and, in the mass implementation, economic, for everyone, than planets. I fully expect planets to remain the main center of population for the next several centuries, but I also very much want to push for further colonization using space habitats, and to encourage emigration from planets to habitats.

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1) Going to say no it's not prefferable to just have the stations carrying populations to just be destroyed. Considering that these stations are going to be common and share the same exact tech between all of them realistcally the Reapers just need to capture a few stations to gain the tech found on them and afterwards the rest of the stations wouldn't have anything to offer except people and the Reapers would probably not see it as worth leaving them to be destroyed. Also the Reapers have been doing the cycle thing for literally millions of years, don't you think that someone would have suggested the FTL thing and considering that doesnt' seem to be an effective tactic shouldn't that say something?

2) They are rare but again not that rare considering that again humanity managed to colonize dozens of worlds over a few decades and said worlds are nowhere near thee capacity limit. The Batarians just complained that humanity ended up taking the planets they wanted in the future which implies that the Batarians just haven't gotten around to colonizing them because they likely still had tons of room on the planets they already had.

The no doing permanent damage to garden worlds was likely due to the practial reasoning in that if that was allowed a galactic war could have as example say have the Turians lose half their worlds due to the level of destruction leading to a ton of long term problems on a galactic level and that's only on their side while the other side could have ended up losing even more planet. What makes it a horrible loss is that the number of habitable worlds lost could go up a lot more in future wars. Hence why people are really not thrilled to make planets un-inhabitable.

3) And you underestimate how much damage the Reapers could do if they are really motivated to destroy something. Especially since they got buffed for the quest.

4) For the Hanar think they actually have the least issues in regards this kind of thing since having underwater homes means they have way, way more space compared to everyone else. Hell, they don't really need a whole water world exactly since a world with oceans would likely be enough. So that would just leave the Volus and Elcor so again, kind of proves my point that only a very small number of races would find them actually essential.

5) Honestly I imagine that after beating the Reapers afterwards in a few hundred years the galaxy would have likely reached post scarcity thanks to Revy seriously upteching the galaxy. At which point people wouldn't really have much reason to want to live in a station unless they were running ouf of space and I dont' see that happening for maybe thousands of years and I think that may be a pessimistic estimate.

 

[GhostKing 666]

I think that Project Lazarus would also be considered illegal enhancement technology, but I'm not really sure about that one.

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Nope, technically genetic augmentation that adds capabilities not already present in humanity(rather then augmentation) is illegal in Systems Alliance space(the Citadel couldn't care less, they only care that you don't create sentient life), but there are no known laws against cybernetic augmentation. Especially since TIM decided not to screw around with Shepard's brain.

 

[Dark as Silver]

1) Reapers will not be "holding back". And yes, the weight of bodies is going to be an issue. Reapers capturing our technology, capturing our infrastructure is worse than them destroying it. And that's assuming it's easy to destroy it. Because, again, a ship in FTL transit is invulnerable. To make a habitat perfectly invulnerable you just need to put it into FTL transit at low velocity (something like 1.00000(0)1 C) with somewhat randomized flight path. Bam! No one can do anything to it.

Click to shrink...

I'm sorry can you justify that? Because that seems way too easy to stop the reapers.

 

[Red Bovine]

I'm sorry can you justify that? Because that seems way too easy to stop the reapers.

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Just pointed that out, if in between the the tens of millions of years of people fighting the Reapers no one has tried that then I doubt it would actually work. And no, I seriously doubt Shepards time is the only time anyone ever stopped the Reapers from activating the protocols for shutting down all Mass Effect relays. I also find it extremely hard to believe that the Reapers between all that time hadn't considered that possibility and prepared for it.

 

[Yog]

I'm sorry can you justify that? Because that seems way too easy to stop the reapers.

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No FTL weapons exist in Mass Effect, and space is big. Currently, there are no FTL sensors (I am not sure - are gravity wave detectors treated as such in the quest?), so you can't see the object in FTL - you can only see where it has been previously. Using randomization to constantly alter the flight trajectory prevents anyone from arranging anything short of a megastructure to be on a collision course with an FTL object. Aside from putting something on a collision course, you are left with attacking the FTL object directly. And, outside of nova induction, which is only applicable in solar systems, and not all of them at that, the area of effect is far less than a light second for everything we saw.

So, how to make a habitat invulnerable to attack in case of Reaper invasion? Take it to deep interstellar space (under TIR cloak), then set it to constant slow FTL on random paths within, say, 1x1x1 lighthour area of space.

Why wasn't it used in canon (watsonian reasons only)?
1) Discharge problems - you have to discharge eezo cores periodically, and for that you need discharge stations which are large (normally, planets are used). Only Reapers, as far as we know, have solved discharge problem. We will be able to do it too.
2) Energy - you need fuel to run your space habitat's reactors. Only Reapers as far as we know have solved perpetual motion in canon. Except we have arc reactors.
3) Supplies - you need to supply your habitat with food and. Except with free energy and advanced technology you can make it perfectly self-sufficient.
4) Stealth. TIR is stealth in space and is OCP.

Just pointed that out, if in between the the tens of millions of years of people fighting the Reapers no one has tried that then I doubt it would actually work. And no, I seriously doubt Shepards time is the only time anyone ever stopped the Reapers from activating the protocols for shutting down all Mass Effect relays. I also find it extremely hard to believe that the Reapers between all that time hadn't considered that possibility and prepared for it.

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To do this you need:
1) TIR to hide where you are going
2) Multi-core drives to keep in constant perpetual FTL
3) Arc reactors or some other manner of effective perpetual energy generation

Having heat annihilation would also be nice, if not completely required. All of those are Reaper and/or PI exclusive technologies.

Also, if possible, I'd like to hear a more substantiated argument than "Reapers have completely unrevealed abilities that deal with this otherwise completely unbeatable strategy". If you think this strategy can be beaten, please, help me improve it by explaining how you think it can be beaten. Only this way will we be able to work out if it really works in its current form, if it can be made to work with improvements, or if it can't work at all.

 

[Dark as Silver]

1) Discharge problems - you have to discharge eezo cores periodically, and for that you need discharge stations which are large (normally, planets are used). Only Reapers, as far as we know, have solved discharge problem. We will be able to do it too.

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And I suppose we also have the energy destruction engine thingy as well to stop the spaceships overheating, alright I'll accept this justification for why it hasn't worked for anyone before.

 

[Yog]

And I suppose we also have the energy destruction engine thingy as well to stop the spaceships overheating, alright I'll accept this justification for why it hasn't worked for anyone before.

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It's basically the same tactic as Reapers themselves use - hiding in dark space. Only potentially more effective, as I don't think they employ TIR (most likely because of Doylist reasons).

 

[Dark as Silver]

It's basically the same tactic as Reapers themselves use - hiding in dark space. Only potentially more effective, as I don't think they employ TIR (most likely because of Doylist reasons).

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More likely because nobody at Bioware wrote your paper and realised that that would happen.
Or possibly it was never relevant/ be very difficult to explain to a player. For a lot of people its easier to understand that we can't see the space squid because they're really far away than, space is big and it would actually be a much stranger coincidence to run into the relatively tiny, kilometers long, Mass Effect field of a super light speed reaper dashing around and then realizing that its there.

 

[Red Bovine]

No FTL weapons exist in Mass Effect, and space is big. Currently, there are no FTL sensors (I am not sure - are gravity wave detectors treated as such in the quest?), so you can't see the object in FTL - you can only see where it has been previously. Using randomization to constantly alter the flight trajectory prevents anyone from arranging anything short of a megastructure to be on a collision course with an FTL object. Aside from putting something on a collision course, you are left with attacking the FTL object directly. And, outside of nova induction, which is only applicable in solar systems, and not all of them at that, the area of effect is far less than a light second for everything we saw.

So, how to make a habitat invulnerable to attack in case of Reaper invasion? Take it to deep interstellar space (under TIR cloak), then set it to constant slow FTL on random paths within, say, 1x1x1 lighthour area of space.

Why wasn't it used in canon (watsonian reasons only)?
1) Discharge problems - you have to discharge eezo cores periodically, and for that you need discharge stations which are large (normally, planets are used). Only Reapers, as far as we know, have solved discharge problem. We will be able to do it too.
2) Energy - you need fuel to run your space habitat's reactors. Only Reapers as far as we know have solved perpetual motion in canon. Except we have arc reactors.
3) Supplies - you need to supply your habitat with food and. Except with free energy and advanced technology you can make it perfectly self-sufficient.
4) Stealth. TIR is stealth in space and is OCP.

To do this you need:
1) TIR to hide where you are going
2) Multi-core drives to keep in constant perpetual FTL
3) Arc reactors or some other manner of effective perpetual energy generation

Having heat annihilation would also be nice, if not completely required. All of those are Reaper and/or PI exclusive technologies.

Also, if possible, I'd like to hear a more substantiated argument than "Reapers have completely unrevealed abilities that deal with this otherwise completely unbeatable strategy". If you think this strategy can be beaten, please, help me improve it by explaining how you think it can be beaten. Only this way will we be able to work out if it really works in its current form, if it can be made to work with improvements, or if it can't work at all.

Click to shrink...

To make it clear your basically running on the assumption that literally no one has ever done something like that in the tens of millions of years that there have been harvests yet you who are a random guy on the internet somehow managed to figure out something that no one over millions of years in-story have figured out despite how simple the idea is and them having literally years to come up with an idea like that when their lives depended on it. That and you make the baffling assumption that literally no one of the races from the last tens of millions of years have figured out anything like multi eezo cores despite us not knowing more than a few races that went through a cycle. You are quite literally stating that not only were thousands of races were so stupid that they couldn't come up with a strategy that some random guy figured out randomly but that literally no one could have possible come up with tech that would make that possible.

You are pretty much wanking humanity to an insane level and making countless races come across as retards for not coming up with it along with literally no one else being able to come up with tech like that just because we haven't seen the races that could have. I'm sorry but that's immensely unrealistic as hell which is rich considering the number of people pushing for realism.

So I would say yes, it would make more sense for the Reapers to have tech or abilities that would make that kind of tactic not work to fit in with established canon and to explain why the hell there aren't more races that could have survived the Reapers.

 

[meianmaru]

*Eyes glaze over for most of the current discussion*

Jeez, I had forgotten how "hard sci-fi" the in-thread discussion were in this quest. Well, most of the stuff this brings inspiration to different researchable techs and I do like hard(-ish) scif-fi myself, but I'd still like us to have some elbow room for pure technobabble when needed. Mind you, I would like it to be logical and internally consistent technobabble, but writing something like that is somewhat difficult. I'm just saying that the story, gameplay-balance and player-enjoyment should probably be weighted against realism at least slightly in favor of the first three.

 

[TheEyes]

5) Habitats are more optimal, and, in the mass implementation, economic, for everyone, than planets. I fully expect planets to remain the main center of population for the next several centuries, but I also very much want to push for further colonization using space habitats, and to encourage emigration from planets to habitats.

Click to shrink...

I think this is the part that @Red Bovine isn't quite internalizing; the goal of a hyper-mobile, space-born population is aspirational, not a complete proscription against living on a planet. Also it's a hedge against a total wipe of garden worlds, either through mass-proliferation of thresher maws, Reapers, or some moron implementing Project Veto.

@Yog, I'm also not sure there's anything further that needs to be done in this area. The Appia and Virgo instant space station products went live last quarter, for immediate use in encouraging more mining startups and securing the long-term availability of palladium for our Arc Reactors, and Project Via, the long-term evolutionary roadmap started by those products, goes live this quarter (or is it next? Have to check). What else is there to do? You can't force people to shape their lives around making it easier to relocate; you need to incentivize it, and I can't think of a better way to incentivize people than giving them good, high-paying jobs off-planet and letting them basically one-click email their own houses and all their stuff to the new job site.

 

[Dark as Silver]

To make it clear your basically running on the assumption that literally no one has ever done something like that in the tens of millions of years that there have been harvests yet you who are a random guy on the internet somehow managed to figure out something that no one over millions of years in-story have figured out despite how simple the idea is and them having literally years to come up with an idea like that when their lives depended on it. That and you make the baffling assumption that literally no one of the races from the last tens of millions of years have figured out anything like multi eezo cores despite us not knowing more than a few races that went through a cycle. You are quite literally stating that not only were thousands of races were so stupid that they couldn't come up with a strategy that some random guy figured out randomly but that literally no one could have possible come up with tech that would make that possible.

You are pretty much wanking humanity to an insane level and making countless races come across as retards for not coming up with it along with literally no one else being able to come up with tech like that just because we haven't seen the races that could have. I'm sorry but that's immensely unrealistic as hell which is rich considering the number of people pushing for realism.

So I would say yes, it would make more sense for the Reapers to have tech or abilities that would make that kind of tactic not work to fit in with established canon and to explain why the hell there aren't more races that could have survived the Reapers.

Click to shrink...

No discharge and the need to refuel are actually an extremely strong arguments.
Remember that the Prothean extinction actually occurred over the course of centuries. Yog is assuming that this occurred as FTL ships had to drop out of FTL to refuel or discharge and the Reapers found and caught them before they were unable to get back into FTL.
Since we would only need to do that to replace Paladium in arc reactors it would potentially be millenia before the Reapers get to actually do that. Since its so much harder to mine and refine Paladium than simply extract Hydrogen, by the time the Reapers show up to reap the people in the ship said people would probably be dead by their life support shutting down.
Larger vessels with the ability to mine and manufacture on board would be able to drop out of FTL grab an Asteroid and then jump back into FTL. In this case the only way that Reapers would be able to attack them would be in system when the ship drops out of FTL.
Theres still the possibility of bad luck causing malfunctions, critical skills being lost because people died, ect however if theres a sufficient mass of fleet its possible that they just do a quarian migration indefinitely.

 

[MTB]

To make it clear your basically running on the assumption that literally no one has ever done something like that in the tens of millions of years that there have been harvests yet you who are a random guy on the internet somehow managed to figure out something that no one over millions of years in-story have figured out despite how simple the idea is and them having literally years to come up with an idea like that when their lives depended on it. That and you make the baffling assumption that literally no one of the races from the last tens of millions of years have figured out anything like multi eezo cores despite us not knowing more than a few races that went through a cycle. You are quite literally stating that not only were thousands of races were so stupid that they couldn't come up with a strategy that some random guy figured out randomly but that literally no one could have possible come up with tech that would make that possible.

Click to shrink...

So, you are asking to take canon, and stop thinking about solutions. Because if the ME authors didn't come up with a solution or didn't bother to think about an aspect of their haphazard worldbuilding, we shouldn't either.
That makes this quest rather complicated.

 

[Yog]

To make it clear your basically running on the assumption that literally no one has ever done something like that in the tens of millions of years that there have been harvests yet you who are a random guy on the internet somehow managed to figure out something that no one over millions of years in-story have figured out despite how simple the idea is and them having literally years to come up with an idea like that when their lives depended on it. That and you make the baffling assumption that literally no one of the races from the last tens of millions of years have figured out anything like multi eezo cores despite us not knowing more than a few races that went through a cycle. You are quite literally stating that not only were thousands of races were so stupid that they couldn't come up with a strategy that some random guy figured out randomly but that literally no one could have possible come up with tech that would make that possible.

You are pretty much wanking humanity to an insane level and making countless races come across as retards for not coming up with it along with literally no one else being able to come up with tech like that just because we haven't seen the races that could have. I'm sorry but that's immensely unrealistic as hell which is rich considering the number of people pushing for realism.

So I would say yes, it would make more sense for the Reapers to have tech or abilities that would make that kind of tactic not work to fit in with established canon and to explain why the hell there aren't more races that could have survived the Reapers.

Click to shrink...

The entirely Canon counter argument to this is "Reapers rely on a less sophisticated version of this".

Edit: on a phone. Longer comment in several hours.

 

[DakkaMania]

An interesting part about the running away option is that it works somewhat like the Scattering in Dune.

There are just so goddamn many places they could go to that any attempt to track it all by governments is an exercise in futility unless the migrant habitats cooperate. They won't when the Citadel falls.

And even the high-end estimates for reaper numbers means they will have a devil of a time pinning a hab down long enough to destroy it.

Even mining is hard to find out as they'd have to create a dense sensor network in every system in the galaxy on the off chance that a hab sneaks in and mines.

And that doesn't even get into nebulae and similar.

Or some just buggering off to other galaxies.

We wouldn't win in such a scenario, but we wouldn't lose either.

Moreover, the Reapers would lose more as they couldn't pursue their agenda anymore.

 

[Yog]

I think this is the part that @Red Bovine isn't quite internalizing; the goal of a hyper-mobile, space-born population is aspirational, not a complete proscription against living on a planet. Also it's a hedge against a total wipe of garden worlds, either through mass-proliferation of thresher maws, Reapers, or some moron implementing Project Veto.

@Yog, I'm also not sure there's anything further that needs to be done in this area. The Appia and Virgo instant space station products went live last quarter, for immediate use in encouraging more mining startups and securing the long-term availability of palladium for our Arc Reactors, and Project Via, the long-term evolutionary roadmap started by those products, goes live this quarter (or is it next? Have to check). What else is there to do? You can't force people to shape their lives around making it easier to relocate; you need to incentivize it, and I can't think of a better way to incentivize people than giving them good, high-paying jobs off-planet and letting them basically one-click email their own houses and all their stuff to the new job site.

Click to shrink...

Well, my thoughts were centered on media and public opinion manipulation.

We can push space habitat creation and colonization through three main avenues: benefits of space habitats, downsides of planets and advantages of habitats over planets.

Benefits of space habitats are:
1) Fully modifiable environment that can be made to order
2) Inbuilt infrastructure - and if we also couple building space habitats with developing a mass transport system for people to move between them that would add to the idea
3) Similarity to living on the Citadel, which is a seat of government power for the galaxy, and the center for the commerce
4) Mobility of the community - this would be especially valuable

Downsides to living on planets:
1) uncontrollable climate and hard to control environment
2) Various, often unknown dangers like wildlife, typhoons and such
3) Lack of community mobility

Advantages of space colonization vs planetary colonization:
1) Security and privacy
2) Mobility
3) Ecological and historical preservation - if you are using space habitats, you are not settling in priceless prothean ruins (where ancient plant monsters will mind control you), ruining them in the process
4) Ability to make settlements to order

We can push all those and probably more; make some of our own habitats, with ship building industries, research towns centered around labs, exploration community vessels. Offer to build trading stations at a discount. Get the ball rolling.

 

[wakshazi]

Eh, space colonies have a big disadvantage, your need to carry your future materials with you. On a planet air and basic bio-matter is free. On a space habitat you need to recycle it all for at least a decent period of time.

If you periodically go to a garden world to get stuff it can work, but long term food logistics would be at the very least would require a considerable amount of space and mass just so we could cycle bio matter through, and that inst talking about possible population increase.

 

[Silver719]

Eh, space colonies have a big disadvantage, your need to carry your future materials with you. On a planet air and basic bio-matter is free. On a space habitat you need to recycle it all for at least a decent period of time.

If you periodically go to a garden world to get stuff it can work, but long term food logistics would be at the very least would require a considerable amount of space and mass just so we could cycle bio matter through, and that inst talking about possible population increase.

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What we need is reliable and cost-efficient Energy-Matter conversion. Will probably also need some M A S S I V E L Y more powerful Reactors to do that with, too.

 

[wakshazi]

I don't think that is on the tech tree at all. I admit it would be the ideal solution, but not likely to happen at all.

 

[Silver719]

I don't think that is on the tech tree at all. I admit it would be the ideal solution, but not likely to happen at all.

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It should be. Eezo production is on the tech tree, as is Anti-matter production. No reason Matter generation utilizing a Zero-Point Energy Tap can't be there as well.

It'll eat into energy production like fucking crazy, but then we just build better reactors.

 

[DakkaMania]

It should be. Eezo production is on the tech tree, as is Anti-matter production. No reason Matter generation utilizing a Zero-Point Energy Tap can't be there as well.

It'll eat into energy production like fucking crazy, but then we just build better reactors.

Click to shrink...

Direct Energy to Matter conversion is stupidly wasteful for our needs. High-level recycling already recovers all the basic matter we need and organic matter in general is easy to get. Water and carbon are dirt common and with the tech available reasonably easy to reprocess into anything else we need.

The rest can be mined and if we want to, use fusion to synthesize the isotopes we desire. Much easier than trying to make a replicator work.

As for making mobile habitats attractive, just use them ourselves in mining operations or similar.

We can even sell it to the military. They can carry significant industrial assets with them to cover immediate frontline needs and have housing for the troops without the inherent vulnerability of planetside bases in case orbital control is lost. If shit hits the fan, your supply lines and hospitals can just run away on a moments notice.

 

[GhostKing 666]

It should be. Eezo production is on the tech tree, as is Anti-matter production. No reason Matter generation utilizing a Zero-Point Energy Tap can't be there as well.

It'll eat into energy production like fucking crazy, but then we just build better reactors.

Click to shrink...

Antimatter production already exists actually. What's on the tech tree is Revy buying/designing her own antimatter production arrays, or possibly inventing a more productive method then the massive solar arrays used by everyone.

 

[newwriter]

Question for everyone.

In regard to powered armor, is it correct to say that the Systems Alliance currently has the advantage? How does Legionnaire armor compare to other factions' powered armor such as the Tuirans, Asari, and the Salarians? Does the SA outnumber everyone else in the number of troops operating in powered armor?