OH GOD BIOWARE WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Marc v4.0

That wasn't the Protheans. TIM notes to you that the technology was either Millions or Billions, can't recall which, years old and irreparably damaged anyway.

Oh, well you've got me there then.
Still though, must've been a bigassed fucking gun.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Edit: ME1 needed a response at the end that was just "Anyone but Udina, this guy is just fucking shit at his job."

This. Udina would get a pass for the horrible things his politing forces him to do, except he's exactly as fucking terrible at politician stuff as he is at not doing stupid shit.

Would that sort of thing even fly anywhere else? Do the Turians get to say "Oop sorry but fuck you you're not going anywhere" Every now and then?
Although I guess most SPECTRES don't get their ships from a military?
...But then, where do they get them? Does the council provide them?

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by "Half Assed" Karesh

They'd fought civilizations that were suffering under the disadvantages of being completely surprised and still did more damage than the entirety of the Citadel defense fleets were currently capable of. Considering the Asari put their absolute best battleship on defending the Citadel I think it's a pretty safe bet the other races followed foot. The Protheans killed at least one Reaper with a very large mass driver. I don't think anything the Civilizations of the galaxy pre-sovereign attack could have one shotted a Reaper. Ever.

That was a pre-prothean civilization. There were lots before them.

I think there were several years between him discovering the problem with the Citadel and the actual events of Mass Effect, so shouldn't they have at least tried to help?

What would they have done to help? It was a covert assignment, they are giant fuck you robot space ships.

Having more than one flitting about would just make Sovereign's job of fixing the citadel before the attack harder.

As for Harbinger/the collectors, the collectors had what? One ship? And a base? Pretty much a drop in the bucket compared to the Geth.

Which is why I think it was ridiculous of Sovereign to risk detection so casually. If he was worried that the Galaxy would become aware of his existence and do something about it then it was weird of him to personally arrive on Eden Prime and start screwing stuff up. He apparently had enough awareness that nobody would do anything about an Earth colony being attacked, but had no idea that the Galaxy would collectively shove its fingers in its ears and go lalala.

He was one ship they had never heard of before and did nothing 'personally' that couldn't be attributed to just a flag ship. His cover was being Saren's flagship.

There was no risk of detection as what he was, there. No one is going to see a massive ship shooting death beams and assume super advanced AI death bot. They're going to assume massive ship shooting death beams.

I'm not so sure about that though. Sovereign doesn't seem to even have a problem in the battle against the Earth Fleet. He absolutely wrecks them until his direct link to Saren is destroyed and he loses concentration or whatever the hell happened. While arguably in a battle against the entirety of the galaxy he might have been in trouble, Sovereign camped on top of the Citadel control tower, stationary, and blasted everything that came near him without ever feeling threatened or any need to dodge.

You mean the battle where he charged directly into the citadel's arms and had them close on him almost immediately to avoid as much fire power as possible while still getting into position?

He didn't sit there stationary taking everything the fifth fleet could dish out. He charged through as quickly as he could while maintaining fine control, and used the citadel as cover.

There's nothing to suggest he couldn't have been taken out by their combined firepower, and considering they're apparently going to die in the next game combined with the fact that he DID try to avoid most of the heavy fire by hiding behind civilians, EVERYTHING to suggest he could have.

Why does it have to be one Reaper per cycle? With the Prothean cycle there was only one race, but with the new species of the Citadel we have dozens and dozens of densely populated civilizations.

They don't seem to make reapers out of every species. Just the ones they feel are worthy of it, and who biologically mesh well with the production methods (non-insectoid, apparently). Humans are only being made into one because of the trouble Shepard caused.

Also, I think I read somewhere that 'Prothean' was the name for the galactic civilization at the time, not that it was just one species. But don't quote me on that.

I don't see why having the entirety of the Reaper fleet attack at once removes the possibility of them from trying this though. During the years Sovereign was travelling about looking to fix the problem they could have moved into a reasonable distance to be of aid to him when he needed it.

Who's to say this didn't happen?

They were only what? A couple years out after ME2? They could have been parked at that distance the whole time, and only not popped in to help with the citadel because there was no reason to suspect they'd be needed, plus that'd be another couple years to wait. Or maybe they were still in transit the whole time and Sovereign just figured he could pull it off. The plan would have worked fine if Sovereign hadn't jacked Saren directly/if he wouldn't have had to because of Shepard. The arms would have finished closing, no one could have attacked him without destroying the citadel arms/killing thousands upon thousands of civilians and he would have shut everything down and turned on the mass relays.

It's a pretty big THING in ME2 that the Reapers don't get how Shepard was able to do that and wanted to study his body and make a reaper out of humans purely because Shepard denied all their expectations.

If Sovereign could not fix the problem with the Citadel, then the Reapers would have to attack anyway.

Except they already had a plan B in place and rushing in to attack as soon as Sovereign failed (which I already covered above why they wouldn't help him right away) would ruin plan B.

The big advantage of having the attack begin at the Citadel was the destruction of the center of Government, and the control over the intersection of many different Relay routes. Launching their attack from there and then sorting their problem with controling the relays out would have been a much smarter move.

Nope. It's not control over an intersection of many different relay routes. The Citadel is an 'off' button for EVERY Mass Relay. They shut that shit off and only activate the specific ones they're using at any given time. It has nothing to do with being at an intersection of relay routes, and the center of government thing is really unnecessary and basically a fringe benefit at that point.

Which is why it's no longer target one after their off button was disabled. It no longer really matters that much.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Also, I think I read somewhere that 'Prothean' was the name for the galactic civilization at the time, not that it was just one species. But don't quote me on that.

Gonna go lie in bed and watch some TV before sleep, but real quick: I think the Protheans are mentioned as being a one species that spread throughout the galaxy from a single world.

[EVILNess]

Originally Posted by Azisien

That crushing feel when you know you won't have time to play through ME1 and ME2 again before ME3 is out so you'll have to fall back on old saves you've kind of forgotten about.

Don't feel too bad. I still haven't finished ME1. In-between recovering from computer failure, then switching to a new computer, to having tried to play the game as an Engineer... means that I have restarted 4 times.

Interestingly enough, by answering the dialog choices that I have seen with how I would normally react I end up about 60/40 Paragon/Renegade. Which stems almost entirely from the fact that I don't like being talked down on. I love how you can do this in Mass Effect, and be more of a grey dynamic character, and not be locked out of the cool super-powers like in most games.

[Ramary]

Originally Posted by "Half Assed" Karesh

Gonna go lie in bed and watch some TV before sleep, but real quick: I think the Protheans are mentioned as being a one species that spread throughout the galaxy from a single world.

Originally Posted by Da ME Wiki

The Protheans are an extinct alien race which mysteriously vanished over 50,000 years ago. The only known space-faring species of their time, the Protheans arose from a single planet and developed an immense galaxy-wide empire. Not much is known about them, but many of their artifacts, ruins and technology have apparently survived the ages.

So there is that. It also points out that the codex entry in ME2 does show them looking like the statues on Ilos, so I still say the design of the DLC guy is a retcon, since designing a new model would be far too much work for a JUST a DLC guy.

[Melfice]

Originally Posted by Ramary

So there is that. It also points out that the codex entry in ME2 does show them looking like the statues on Ilos, so I still say the design of the DLC guy is a retcon, since designing a new model would be far too much work for a JUST a DLC guy.

Despite what the collective races know, the Protheans are still an enigma, as far as I remember.
And the statues on Ilos could still be true. Do all human males look like this?

EDIT: Also:

The Protheans are an extinct alien race which mysteriously vanished over 50,000 years ago. The only known space-faring species of their time, the Protheans arose from a single planet and developed an immense galaxy-wide empire. Not much is known about them, but many of their artifacts, ruins and technology have apparently survived the ages.

Emphasis and double emphasis mine.

[Azisien]

Oooh I got it a week early. Too bad it's tied to Origin and has a release date check.

At least I have a sleeping companion!

[Ramary]

Originally Posted by Melfice

And the statues on Ilos could still be true. Do all human males look like this?

Oh you got a point man, after all I can totally see this...


And this


Being the EXACT SAME SPECIES.

You got me.

[Marc v4.0]

Maybe it's just weird fucking art?

No, really. Bioware has pretty much straight-up said they didn't know what they were going to end up going with for Protheans, so the differences in the statues and the actual race are going to be covered by retcon.

My money is either on the Protheans having specific castes with varying morphology, or the statues having something to do with their religion or mythologies.