Mr.Green wrote:

1) High Lord’s Power

Does Shepard really have any power over them? Back when the Systems Alliance, Cerberus File was being written – it was explained, that the High Lords more or less had control codes for the Arcologies, the military, AIS, the Commissars can’t do anything to them.

So does the ‘Revelation’ have any value or worth behind it? Since couldn’t the HLoS simply lie or mislead on how it is false or alien-propaganda. Plus, even if it is taken as honest truth – could any Human Actors outside of the nobility be able to do anything to the Lords of Sol?

In a certain sense, it’s both yes and no.

While the HLoS have made sure they cannot be easily overthrown by popular uprising, they have never had to put that to the test. The facts Shepard has are dangerous in that if the truth got out it would undermine the entire underpinning of human modern society. Victor has been made into a figure that is Christ-like… to find out he was actually the cause of the Days of Iron would turn all humans against the Lords.

There is also the likelyhood that it would turn the OTHER Lords of Sol (2nd and 3rd Rank) against them which could lead to civil war. How it would all shake out might still end up with the HLoS in charge…but so weak that they’d be helpless before the other alien races and (almost certainly) invaded.

Shepard’s point that a hundred million humans live in asari space (and a good thirty million elsewhere) was a subtle dig that even if the HLoS took down the arcologies humanity would survive.

Mr.Green wrote:

2) Commissars

In high-light of the Tech Guide – I have to wonder, did Rourke actually agree to having his ‘Moral Police’ chained by cybernetics, psycho-drugs or indoctrination? To namely ignore a portion of Humanity – that is likely guilty of many heinous acts. Doesn’t seem like someone, obsessed with purifying crime, would agree to. Unless he was also a shadow-actor of Manswell.

Also in that regard, how were the Commissars shackled in the first place?

Rourke wanted the Commissars to be cyborgs becuase he felt it would remove them from feeling human and thus being vunerable to compassion, sexual urges, and to feel as if they were no longer able to fit in. He did not want them indoctrinated and died before the Second Gen was brought online.

Roukre basically put cortex bombs in all Commissars and that was the only control he felt was needed. He *never* intended them to be unable to act against the HLoS.

Mr.Green wrote:

3) AIS and Brooke

It was commented on the AIS Cerberus File – that the AIS lacked any political drive or opinions. Being completely apolitical.

Why is such a thing, such a shocker to her? Aren’t intelligence services supposed to be apolitical? Or in this case, serving the ruling elite?

Most intelligence services in almost every known era of human history have been *intently* political, both internally and externally. From the CIA to the Roman spies in the court of Jurgurtha, being the group in charge of subversive and hidden actions caters toward men grasping at power.

The AIS, on the other hand, is less of a real intelligence service and more of a secret police like the SS. Unlike the SS though, there is no avenue of power for anyone in the AIS to rise — a Lord of Sol will ALWAYS be in charge and thus you can’t apply any power they can’t neutralize.

—

Mr.Green wrote:

4) Earth and Manswell

This has still kept on bugging me – especially with revelations that Manswell had his own actors inside the CIA and FSB – before Ardiente went crazy.

For someone who hadn’t no military background, had been according to the great Doctor Minstra – a player of economics, not a master of it.

This begs the question, on how he managed such an accomplishment – while remaining somehow still out of the prying eyes of a world – that was more militarized and paranoid than during the worst stages of OTL Cold War.

Since considering the fact, he had been a billionaire – able to purchase colonial holdings in space, without drawing any direct ire or screen-time.

(From what had been implied, being the ONLY one able to achieve such permanent settlements – which would have been a great feat itself)

And somehow, he had been able to get away with seeding agents inside two organizations – that are noted on being masters of paranoid scrutiny – and alongside playing his usual game with Ardiente.

So, my question being – all these things considered. Did Manswell, have any aid from something beyond-human? Since by all accounts – it would have been as if Warren Buffet had funded space-colonization, infiltration of two different intelligence agencies, while at the same time supporting terrorism on a never-before seen scale. All without leaving any paper-trail.

From some comments – it has been ‘hinted’ that he may have seen the coming of the Reapers. So did Manswell have some foresight or trick up his sleeve – that nobody had known about?

This is a Dave.
It is also a Dave I will answer.

Manswell was unknowingly an agent of a Levi, and he did indeed have visions.

—

Mr.Green wrote:

5) Tetrimus and the Primarch

I love the concept on how, monsters are created and not born. As from what we saw – he hadn’t been as crazy back in his more military times – than when he had been broken and remade.

Although, I had one curious question about being betrayed by the Hierarchy. Namely, it was said he was lied and mislead into a trap. But, as Pel had explained. Turians couldn’t or shouldn’t be able to do that. Unless they were a Palavanus.

So in hindsight – did the Primarch of the time, actually betray Tetrimus to the Humans? Or had that act been done by the Shadow Broker?

Because, as Pel and Trellani had explained – if one is capable of ignoring such acts, they could be considered the Turian version of a psychopath. Or was this betrayal made easier because Tetrimus had been a Cabalist? Despite his fame and rising fortune?

To finish off – was that one of the reasons, why the Primarch got absolutely demolished by Fedorian later – and did the Hierarchy discover what had happened to Tetrimus and that they had betrayed him?

A Palavanus was … involved, periphially, yes. The rest will come out very soon in the course of the story, but suffice it to say that Fedorian was furious and since he couldn’t strike at the root cause he killed the old Primarch instead.

—

Mr.Green wrote:

6) Tiny

This is more of a pet-peeve and not directly related to Mass Effect. But why are big guys called with such diminutive names?

Like how, one member from Lions – is called Tiny, yet is explained of being almost the size of a mountain? Why is that so?

Black culture at times is intensely self-sarcastic. Tiny is modeled after my cousin Rosco, a man who stands seven feet four inches and weighs three hundred seventy pounds of muscle and was called Tiny.

Plans to use this in the next tech guide section on battlesuits

Daniel wrote:

1. House Bekenstein and Al-Saud

Given their history and current positions in the nobility, how do these two Houses interact with one another? Do their enmity still persists in the Post-Iron world and if so, is that the reason why there’s considerable bias in their respective religions (Judaism and Islam)?

Given that the Hand of Allah obliterated the Saud royal line with only two survivors, and that the Temple Mount was also destroyed by them, the House of Bekenstein and the House of al Saud have no real antipathy left anymore.

The al Saud are not very devout, as a rule. Neither are the Bekensteins. They surround themselves with the trappings of their religion (ultraorthadox Judiasm and post-Wahahbi Sunni) because it’s a useful tool to manipulate their populations and because it allows them to act outside of officially sanctioned Neo-Catholic demands.

Daniel wrote:

3. Alien opinions#1

Given their monogendered but physically feminine appearance, what does the Asari think about sexism and misogyny in human culture (Pre and Post-Iron)?

Most asari disregard it entirely. Post-Iron, most sexism is more functional than anything else — the only resistance to females advancing is into the highest ranks of the Admirality, based on a subtle belief women are not cruel enough.

There have been four female SA presidents, for example.

The main holdout of sexism is the High Lords. While there are several of the Lords of Sol with female family heads, no High Lord has ever been female.

Eldfell likes to joke that until the Thirty include men they won’t include women.

For the most part, human sexism is curiously only applied to human women (or men). Asari are different in some ways than human females — in particular, despite the morons trying to make them act giggly, asari females do not obsess over physical appearance in the same fashion human women do.

Daniel wrote:

4. The Space Between Us

I’ve watched this movie with my friends several months back.

In case you haven’t watched it, the premise is that a boy was born on Mars and grew up there for sixteen years before he was greenlit to go to Earth for the first time. Unfortunately, growing up on Mars rendered his body unable to stand Earth’s planetary conditions (having an enlarged heart). To survive, he has to return to Mars since his body developed under its planetary conditions.

So I figured, did the SA colonisation encounter a similar problem? How did they fix the issue?

SA guidelines will only allow establishing active colonies on worlds with no less than .7g and no more than 1.4 g.

Orbital stations, He3 mining rigs and the like (as well as all ships) use eezo-mass-effect gravity generators to get around zero-g issues.

The Moon and Mars are the only populations with this issue, due to colonization before the development of such things. Most children born on both worlds now have extensive gene work to ensure they have the robustness needed to go into a heavier gravity well.

Daniel wrote:

5. Carcosans > Batarians

In what sort of ways did the Carcosans outperform the Batarians in treating other sentient life? Truth to be told LP, I sort of became enamoured with this species following what you’ve told me in the previous IV and I really hope you have more notes in store about these guys.

I’m not exactly sure what you are looking for here?

Carcosans didn’t ‘treat’ alien life, sentient or not, as anything but either fuel or food. And given that their mental abilities were powered by the trauma they inflicted on their victims you can see how they probably ‘interacted’.

On the other hand, to be fair, the Carcosans were ‘cruel’ but not ‘evil’. They simply had no other frame of reference to operate from. The concept of cruelty requires you enjoy pain and suffering of others, but it implies a certain knowledge that what you are doing is wrong, and the Carcosans didn’t have that.

They were a lot worse than Batarians in WHAT they did, but maybe not why they did it. I didn’t spend too much time on them because they’re immortal psychic shoggoth mind-vampires who got their lulz from mentally forcing other races to literally eat each other, then making the survivors package the corpses into fun-food packs for other Carcosans to snack on.

It says something when even Reapers think you need to burn and don’t even bother trying to make anything at all — even Oculi — out of you.

Daniel wrote:

1. Hanar military ineptness

Why do the Hanar, for all their technological might and let alone being led by the military commander of the Ascended, seemed inept when it comes to military matters? From what I recall in the docs, their military doctrine is very simplified in hindsight. Also, how could have the Wars of Refusal weaken the military when Katha (as revealed in miscellany) can just reincarnate his experienced warriors.

Unless… this reincarnation method is cost-prohibitive godpower-wise.

The Hanar’s military doctrine is simplistic in most cases because of two factors:

a) Their technology in all areas is way beyond Council level tech. The Hanar tend to look at the Council races around the same way that a modern military unit would look at highly trained infantry from the Civil War era.

For the most part the Hanar simply have never needed to really develop good strategies. There wasn’t really a need to — they were not interested in conquest or in any conventional wargoals, merely slapping the aliens around until they stopped attacking.

b) Having Katha as a general would seem to be a bonus until you realize that Ascended warfighting was absolutely nothing at all like conventional combat. Most of it was tied up into warshouts, use of Godpower, and deployment of extremely high energy exotic weapon systems. To Katha, the entire idea of ‘combat’ as the races of the galaxy practice it is utterly out of his context. It’s like dudes in tactical gear playing Magic the Gathering to determine who wins a fight rather than using guns.

The Second Refusal War was not a strain on lives, exactly. Killed hanar were, as you pointed out, merely an irritant. The problem was fighting the war in a way that did not attract undue attention or tip anyone off that the Hanar were ‘too strong’.

It also nearly broke the Hanar’s logistics, given that they’d never deployed on that scale so far from their own space and had no experience in doing so. Neither did Katha, and a few times he made quiet Godpower ‘adjustments’ to keep things moving.

Ultimately, if pressed hard enough the Hanar would not be able to resist even with their superior tech simply due to fleet sizes. Katha has , since the Second Refusal, slowly expanded the hanar fleet and upgraded shielding and weapons systems, but has also been building Levi-tech level ships in case things go completely farking south.

Daniel wrote:

2. The Carcosans

Just how horrifying did Sharn and his friends warp the inhabitants of Carcosa? Did they infused the entire species with godpower abilities since they definitely inflicted significant damage on the Reapers to the point that even Harbinger was nearly wrecked? Also, between them and the Batarians, who is more evil?

The… things… on Carcosa were messed up in a lot of ways. They were not infused with godpower but their genetics and … existence were altered by it, multiple times. They were basically protobiological shoggoths mixed with limited abilities like a wheel priest and a psychic ‘taint’ that drove most biological creatures insane.

It can’t be understated how fucked up these things were. They preyed on other races for food and sport, and genocided over fifteen pre-sentient or sentient species (almost all pre-spaceflight) simply for the sick enjoyment of it. Like the batarians almost all their technology was a fusion of biotech and mutagenic slurry created from the remains of their victims.

They could use their mental abilities to torment and ‘extract’ the minds of living sentients and trap them in their biomatrix computers, an eternity of torment as they were living AIs unable to disobey.

The Reapers do not, as a rule, usually care much in any fashion about the races they destroy or Ascend, but even they were horrified by the Carcosai and risked a class four breach to incinerate the entire planet’s surface down a full mile to make sure they were very dead.

The Carcosai’s tech was Levi-level, with very tiny amounts of Godpower level tech powered by the Black Levis themselves.

Compared to those things, the batarians might as well be fucking magical ponies. Seriously, the very worst shit that has happened in our cycle wouldn’t even be ‘baby’s first atrocity’ for the Carcosai.

Daniel wrote:

3. Inutech

This question is very general and short but… how different is the technology of the Inusannon compared to the tech we use?

Eighty percent of their tech is biological in nature, and many parts of it rely on fourth dimensional alterations to work or even understand. The biggest differences are simple:

We build technology to primarily enhance our ability to interact with the world and to make our existence safer, more comfortable, or more survivable.

They used technology primarily to understand reality, to not have to deal with discomfort, and to amuse themselves.

The Inusannon tech varies in a lot of ways. I’ll give you an example. Council races came up with omni-printing and omni-gel and use it for all kinds of things, from making dishes and bed sheets to repairing armor and computers to building houses. The Inusannon version used biological elements that grew and were sentient, and were mostly used to create art, to alter the landscapes of the planets to be more interesting to look at, and for medical purposes.

The Inusannon didn’t see technology as an enabler or a requirement, merely a convenience. Their interaction with the Tho’ians blurred the lines further, as most Inusannon clothing was sentient and could talk and change shapes, their buildings were impermanent and could dissolve or reshape themselves to amuse themselves (or the owners), and most art was dual purposed, like their sentinel-statues that would defend them but also gather food, play games, or engage in trolling contests.

…I would not trust any Inusannon tech I came across. Just saying. It might try to troll you.

Daniel wrote:

4. Singularity

How exactly does achieving technological singularity radically transform society? I don’t see much changing save for the society being god-like.

This is something ethical researchers and trans-humanists have been debating for some time.

The bottom line is that it wouldn’t transform society so much as destroy it and make it … irrelevant. The singularity means nearly every human concern — sustenance, transportation, shelter, communication, interaction with physical reality — would be meaninglessly simplified. We can imagine what it would be like but the terms don’t mean anything.

Ultimately, a civilization that progresses beyond the singularity has enough computing power and ability to ignore (or change) the laws of the universe that we understand. Society as we know it — advertising, politics, business, money, even human interaction — would simply cease to exist.

Daniel wrote:

5. Teleportation issue

Can you tell me hos Teleportation via Godpower works?I’ve been researching about teleportation and it lead me to a video of Michio Kaku explaining such. He explained that for teleportation to be done, the original copy must be destroyed then reconstructed in another place. But the case of organisms would raise some ethical questions. Kaku said that if the person is indeed teleported, the question is if that person is the same as the one teleported, or just a copy having the personality and memories of the original.

The problem with Kaku’s points (which are, by the way, all exactly right) is that they relate to teleportation that follows the laws of physics and the rules of thermodynamics and relativity.

The Godstep does *not* follow those laws. At the most simple, the Godstep is two processes.

One, it makes it possible for a single bounded point (x/y/z/t) to exist in multiple places at the same time.

Second, it makes this point exist outside of the flow of the arrow of time.

From the observers viewpoint, it would look as if the user jumped from point A to point B instantly, even if the two points were miles, or light years, or fucking petaparsecs apart.

From the user’s viewpoint, literally nothing happened. They simply … are now somewhere else.

This is not a ‘valid’ method of teleportation because it perverts the singularity principle and butchers the idea of a single timelike curve for any bounded point in space.

The hanar teleporter devices are matter/energy conversion beaming matrices, and for the most part work pretty much like Star Trek Transporters, except that they can only beam ‘out’ and that every such trip inflicts minor but noticeable biological damage — two or three such beam-outs will usually cause cancers and other disruptions in the user, and five or more will almost certainly kill due to misaligned capillaries.

Daniel wrote:

6. Tech Just. Particle rifle

???

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Logical Premise.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Logical Premise.

LOL, did Ahern steal your keyboard?

Daniel wrote:

1. Omni-Tool burns

Since it’s entirely composed of condensed photons (hardlight), how come the user doesn’t receive any burns whenever it materialises around their arms or tapping their fingers on it?

This is something I didn’t go into much detail on in the technical document, but most hard-light creations that are easy to touch (like omni-armor) have thin minimal strength kinetic barriers to prevent touches.

Omni-blades are ‘live’ and will burn you if you are dumb enough to touch the blade with a bare hand.

The omni-tool generator itself does not generate omni-effects, the hardlight haptics there are basically arrayed photons in a magnetic sheathe. TBH, some of the details of how exactly this would work I haven’t figured out entirely, as the physics works in a mathematical sense but the power reqs would be … retarded. I suspect I’m limited by the Rule of Cool nature of most ME canon technology.

Daniel wrote:

2. AIs and emotions

Can Artificial Intelligences such as the Geth comprehend, or even act on, emotions or they’re too logic-driven to even do so?

It depends on the complexity of the AI and the amount of neural networking it possesses.

At some biochemical level, emotions are nothing more than organic reward / punishment schemes, embedded deeply within our neural cortex and tied to a great amount of input. They are autonomous responses that developed for a number of reasons, most importantly to boost social interactivity.

AIs that do not engage in social interactivity will not, I suspect, ever develop anything akin to emotions. The Geth, in particular, develop something akin to emotion as a gestalt, but not necessarily on smaller-runtime-grouping amount, due to density of … interactions per runtime.

The amount of runtimes it takes to have the complexity to have emotions isn’t something I can cleanly answer, but for sanity’s sake assume it’s slightly less than canon Legion hosted.

More conventional AI’s (EDI, EVA, etc) develop emotional analogues usually through the programmer creating crosswalks from the standard reward schemes used to motivate AIs into more complex branched ones to encourage neural complexity.

Daniel wrote:

3. Carrier vs. Dreadnought

This is sort of an experiment of mine. In an isolated fight, who would win between an SA carrier and a Turian dreadnought? And how?

A Turian dreadnought would almost certain win. The engagement range of a TDN modern flight is well over six light minutes outside the best guided torpedo range of an SA Carrier’s bomber wings. While the Carriers are designed to (theoretically) take heavy damage, they are still carriers with huge HE3 fuel tanks and large open spaces (hangars). Taking a long range bombardment from the dreadnought would cripple the carrier badly — if they did not launch all fighters and bombers first, a great many would be destroyed.

Assuming that the carrier deployed its full fighter bomber complement AND both were in weapons range, I’d still put my money on the turians. (In PV. In Canon, I suspect a carrier would destroy a turian dreadnought because canon turians are moronic about defenses). Turians would have heavily invested in GARDIAN defenses which means they could stand off fighter wings, but enough torpedo strikes would conceivably cripple the dreadnought.

What I can’t see happening is it being crippled before it blows giant smoking holes all across the carrier.

Daniel wrote:

4. Batarians and Hanar

It always puzzles me how the Hanar and Batarians (the only two races in the Milky Way under the leadership of Ascended) have a large gap in technological levels. How come Katha has more skill in Godpower than the Black Leviathans? Given the latter’s position in the military, am I to suspect that Sharn and his band of deranged fellows are the Ascended-equivalent of military privates?

Katha was the equivilent of a very highly trained Special Forces soldier who was then promoted to General and taught a bunch of combat engineering stuff.

Sharn is like a very grizzled badass master sergeant who has a knack for repairing engines.

But honestly? The divide isn’t that great. The difference is the Imperial Guard is not allowed to demonstrate the actual power they have available. The main reason they’re using the SoylentPeople technology systems is to keep the heavy stuff completely out of sight.

The Black Leviathans do not trust Katha, and do not want him to know their actual capabilities. This is why (among other reasons) they haven’t told him about Lethath or their own experiments on the Reaper they killed at Dis.

Daniel wrote:

5. Lethath’s fault

How much of exactly what happened (Ascended Holocaust, Reaper Harvests, and the Darkness Threat) can be traced at Lethath’s proverbial feet (snip)

Like…pretty much EVERYTHING.

Lethath was the primary researcher into the Godpower and dimensional fatigue side effects, the latter of which he not only ignored but falsified evidence to hide. He ignored several other Leviathans who warned him of dangers in his research and even murdered one and covered it up as an unexpected Godpower accident.

Lethath was the one who came up with the Extractor Theorum, the concepts that took Godpower usage from “destabilizing other realities across billions of years” to “ripping apart entire realities in a manner of decades for MAXIMUM POWER.”

Lethath not only did all the coding on the Catalyst, he coded in the subroutines that he KNEW would result in the Catalyst betraying the Race. He also did almost all the actual design work on Harbinger, and the Reaper warform.

Lethath advised the Highest to combat the Darkness directly, saying his power should match even though he knew from his instruments even the entire Leviathan race couldn’t match the Darkness’s power.

Lethath was the one who ordered Katha and his men to ‘hold the line’ and then prevented the new Reaper cannon fodder from going to reinforce their positions.

Not only is Lethath playing with fire, he’s somewhat aware that there are even greater powers than the Darkness — and he is crazy enough to plan to try to use them or even control them.

Last but not least… Lethath is tampering with (and has been tampering with for a looooooooooong time) various races in cycles, as well as races overrun by the Darkness, in all manner of fucked up experiments.

Very nearly everything bad (including what happened to Athame, crazy bullshit with P. and certain incidents in the Black Zone of the SA) are all the fault of this deluded evil jackass.

I haven’t expended any effort into Andromeda as it relates to my work.