DDL on 12/3/2012 at 13:30
Hah. Yes. And if you take it to mean "sentient life" (because can you really see reapers chasing around after a few stray extremophile archaea?), then you run into even more problems: checking once every 50000 years is really obsessive-compulsive for 99.9% of the time, yet leaves enough of a window to totally miss the show for the remaining 0.1% of the time.
But then, sci-fi has always had problems with timescale. "Forgotten civilisation wiped out by a mystery force" makes more sense in a fantasy context where a civilisation could be wiped out before living memory yet still leave detectable remains to be discovered by a plucky hero. When you have to deal with a universe where sentient life can take billions of years to develop from scratch, then wipe itself out in the space of a couple thousand years, you're gonna have all kinds of sampling errors if you try to treat it realistically.
I'll just chalk it up to "something something element zero", methinks.
(also, starting sentences with "but!" -minus grammer points for me)
van HellSing on 12/3/2012 at 13:59
It's even more specific than sentient life: it's only spacefaring civilisations who discovered the mass relays.
DDL on 12/3/2012 at 14:10
Of course then you run into an inverse fermi paradox: if you've got a good twenty different spacefaring races all cropping up at more or less the same time, then even assuming the slate gets wiped once every 50000 years, the rate of 'sentient life development' must be sky high. You're looking at a galaxy that must be utterly RAMMED with life, in which case the reapers are kinda fighting a losing battle.
Still: element zero!
Phatose on 12/3/2012 at 14:56
Something else occurred to me.
There's a point where you get a panicked call from command to the effect of "Oh NOES! A bunch of capital class reapers are after you Shepard, including Harbinger! RUN"
Really, you should've been able to call up command and go "Command, how the fuck do you know which one is Harbinger? These things got fucking name tags on em?"
Gah. Fridge Logic.
DDL on 12/3/2012 at 15:13
It's probably the only one shouting THIS HURTS YOU as it shoots.:p
van HellSing on 12/3/2012 at 15:13
The main Reapers are all supposed to be unique, and Shepard saw a hologram of Harbinger earlier, and I think the data Kasumi had included something oh Harbinger as well. So, it's possible they were able to recognize the shape. Also, considering Harbinger's penchant for chewing scenery, it may very well be that he introduced himself :p
Roses are red
Violets are blue
ASSUMING CONTROL
THIS HURTS YOU
EDIT: One glaring error I spotted was the whole Ardat-Yakshi monastery bit. In ME2, Samara said there were only three living Ardat-Yakshi known at that time (her daughters). The monastery obviously housed a few more.
Boxsmith on 12/3/2012 at 16:25
Quote Posted by van HellSing
EDIT: One glaring error I spotted was the whole Ardat-Yakshi monastery bit. In ME2, Samara said there were only three living Ardat-Yakshi known at that time (her daughters). The monastery obviously housed a few more.
It can't have been just a few more, because Banshees are made from Ardat-Yakshi (and you get to kill a whole lot of Banshees).
Avalon on 13/3/2012 at 17:24
Just finished the game.
Why even bother having multiple ending choices? All 3 of them play basically the same cinematic, but with different colors for the beam and maybe very slightly different after effects for literally 5 seconds of the movie. Furthermore, the ending didn't reveal anything about the outcome of your choices and seemed like a "Well shit, how do we end this game? Let's not even bother and just say we're done."
I'd have been happier if they stuck with one ending, and actually put some effort and story into it.
icemann on 14/3/2012 at 03:07
All they needed to do was do things Fallout style and have an ending which shows the repercussions and effects of the players actions going from race to race and then touching on how the players actions had effected the friends the squad mates he had had on the Normandy. Easy. Would have been a perfectly fine ending if they'd done it that way.
Dresden on 14/3/2012 at 17:35
Quote Posted by Avalon
Just finished the game.
Why even bother having multiple ending choices? All 3 of them play basically the same cinematic, but with different colors for the beam and maybe very slightly different after effects for literally 5 seconds of the movie. Furthermore, the ending didn't reveal anything about the outcome of your choices and seemed like a "Well shit, how do we end this game? Let's not even bother and just say we're done."
I'd have been happier if they stuck with one ending, and actually put some effort and story into it.Yeah they should have just stuck with
Shepard sitting there, looking at the battle and crawling up to the console to turn the weapon on with his last dying breath. Then it sends out some signal through the relays causing all of the Reapers in the galaxy to explode/self-destruct/whatever. The End.