|
Halloween Jack posted:The thing is, a species like this, even if they developed high-level intelligence in the first place, would probably never develop an advanced civilization. But if a more advanced race just gave them that technology for their own purposes... Is easy to imagine a race of self-aware tiger people. Very smart, maybe much more than us. Humans are playful, we descend from the monkeys, and monkeys are lazy poo poo that all they do is chill around, have sex and eat. Tiger people would be serious business and sociopath. You know how cats are sociopath that sometimes they kill something because it moves. You don't see this in krogan. The murderous of a cat, that want to murder somebody because they like to murder. Krogan are described in ME, I think, more like traditional warriors that are into warfare mostly because culture and a small temporal thing. They are not murders and are show in a very positive light.
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 06:42 |
|
|
Cythereal posted:Uh, if you read the codex the elcor and hanar are exactly this - the hanar "language" is patterns of flashes from their natural bioluminescence, and the elcor language involves subtle body language and pheromones. They've simply programmed their translators to recognize that stuff and translate it into speech. The hanar in particular, when you hear them talk you're not actually hearing the hanar - they have no vocal chords at all. You're just hearing their translator interpret their bioluminescent language into speech. Yeah, I know that already. It's why the elcor need a clarification of tone/intent at the beginning of the sentence. Universal translators are lazy and bad.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:10
|
|
|
Serf posted:The game would've been better if you have a colonist on the Nexus who is forced to choose sides during the uprising. No Pathfinder or chosen one stuff. A small-scale RPG set entirely on the Nexus where you deal with the factions and get caught up in the rebellion would've ruled. That would have run the gambit of being another Hawk and DA 2 if designed by any iteration of bioware, but I guess you could always do that with another game. I mean, there are so many characters that you'll never meet because their story was done a whole year before you and somehow there are planets that are already settled and failed or gone rogue. It really would have been interesting to have a game where you're the not so well planned space colonization effort and you got to tell the rich people in charge they're assholes or whatever before they just died in Scourge impact and never mattered ever again or met the Salarian that was going to muscle his way into dictatorship and maybe influenced the effort from the very beginning.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:12
|
|
|
Crabtree posted:That would have run the gambit of being another Hawk and DA 2 if designed by any iteration of bioware, but I guess you could always do that with another game. I mean, there are so many characters that you'll never meet because their story was done a whole year before you and somehow there are planets that are already settled. It really would have been interesting to have a game where you're the not so well planned space colonization effort and you got to tell the rich people in charge they're assholes or whatever before they just died in Scourge impact and never mattered ever again or met the Salarian that was going to muscle his way into dictatorship.  DA2 was the best Dragon Age.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:13
|
|
|
Neddy Seagoon posted:
This was incredibly dumb and could have been resolved with one or two lines of SAM going "I'm analyzing their language -- they seem to also have translators and I will be able to interface with them shortly" and then you keep hearing more and more English until you reach Resistance HQ and you can finally converse fully Instead they just ignored it. It's such a strange oversight.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:13
|
|
. I idly suspect there's a mismatch of script drafts between the initial setup and what occurs inside the HQ.
|
Serf posted:
Good intention, horrible execution. Which is why I say not Bioware, I didn't say not ever. Which is why we have the problem of The Pathfinder. One of Bioware's incarnations go burned with a sort of not chosen one once and now cannot stop doing a chosen prophet of Hero Man. OH GREAT AND GLORIOUS PATHFINDER, MAN OR WOMAN WITH AI IN THEIR BRAIN. SAVE US! Crabtree fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Apr 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:15
|
|
|
Tei posted:Is easy to imagine a race of self-aware tiger people. Very smart, maybe much more than us. The Vorcha are almost like this, though they remind me more of jackals than tigers.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:17
|
|
|
BrianWilly posted:Indoctrination theory was more interesting than the ME3 ending, but that didn't stop it from a butt-pull that gained traction from pure internet hearsay. In the galaxy of bad and stupid ideas that the ME3 ending brought, that was the worst and dumbest.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:17
|
|
|
Pattonesque posted:This was incredibly dumb and could have been resolved with one or two lines of SAM going "I'm analyzing their language -- they seem to also have translators and I will be able to interface with them shortly" and then you keep hearing more and more English until you reach Resistance HQ and you can finally converse fully That would've been perfect and completely plausible. But nope, gotta kill the magic of meeting a new alien race in another galaxy in favour of handing out a fetch quest with an attitude like you're the fourth human he's met today and this is a slow Tuesday for him.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:17
|
|
|
Neddy Seagoon posted:. According to the Codex (I think in the first game) it's a common education thing that most people learn at least one or two alien languages, even with universal translators being a thing. Yes, if America and England have taught us anything, people love learning foreign languages when they don't have to.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:19
|
|
|
Tei posted:Is easy to imagine a race of self-aware tiger people. Very smart, maybe much more than us. Isn't this just those cat people from Wing Commander?
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:21
|
|
|
ashpanash posted:I thought Arrival was ok. The stuff involving the aliens and language was interesting (but more interesting as a metaphor for conversing with other human cultures than an actual alien encounter.) The "sci-fi" concept that if you understand their language, you can see your entire timeline, future and past all at once, and thus your past self can have access to future memories is just absurd. This is an arrival spoiler. Their language turns your life into a book that you can see every page of. It's not that absurd. It's based on the concept of language as a field from which your ideas grow, that your ideas can only be what they are because of how you speak. Sci-fi exploring human concepts and all that. I think what Andromeda lacks that ME1 had is history. It felt like there's a huge galaxy out there where tonnes of things had been happening and you're learning about them as you go. Here it's starting from scratch with far less around. And then they screw it up even more by having one of the best planets being entirely populated by humans/turians/salarians/asari instead of something different and more interesting. I wish the Angara had been insect people. Or something. Something minor that'd at least be interesting to see. quote:Isn't this just those cat people from Wing Commander? Or Ringworld. It's strange posting in a thread where people haven't got Tei on ignore yet.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:22
|
|
|
Maybe Angarans just speak English and the dock/landing control people only spoke Angaran cause they didn't know you were human. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:27
|
|
|
Taear posted:I think what Andromeda lacks that ME1 had is history. It felt like there's a huge galaxy out there where tonnes of things had been happening and you're learning about them as you go. Here it's starting from scratch with far less around. And then they screw it up even more by having one of the best planets being entirely populated by humans/turians/salarians/asari instead of something different and more interesting. I've mentioned this before but zero of the planets you scan in ME:A have cool descriptions like the ones in ME/2/3. You'd come across fascinating stuff like the planet that was a Jupiter Brain or the one that got hit by a huge mass driver (that was a plot point in ME2) and in ME:A the best they can manage is "well this one is unusually cold or whatever, gently caress" in the grand scheme of things it seems like a easy way to add flavor and weight to the universe and they didn't do it
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:26
|
|
|
Neddy Seagoon posted:The problem with Andromeda's first encounter with the Angara is it has a fantastic setup of being prodded through the Aya marketplace with no idea who or what these people are or what they're saying, and the moment you enter the Resistance Headquarters... they suddenly start talking in English with no buildup and knowing who and what you are Wait, that happened to you? In my playthrough they were talking in English the entire time. I think there are like two lines of dialogue in space gibberish when you're stepping off the ship, then immediately all the Angara are fully intelligible. Neddy Seagoon posted:That would've been perfect and completely plausible. But nope, gotta kill the magic of meeting a new alien race in another galaxy in favour of handing out a fetch quest with an attitude like you're the fourth human he's met today and this is a slow Tuesday for him. But yeah, this is exactly it. Like, holy poo poo, this angara guy just met an alien species for the first time, and his reaction is, "hey, maybe we can give it a quest. We have some stuff needs doing so maybe the alien wants to do a quest." Like, there's no better way to suck the wonder and interest out of the concept of first contact with a new species. Android Blues fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Apr 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:27
|
|
|
Tei posted:Is easy to imagine a race of self-aware tiger people. Very smart, maybe much more than us. What most very intelligent animal species have in common is that they're omnivorous and highly social. Monkeys spend their "chilling around" time playing, poking around, experimenting with stuff. A solitary predator species has relatively little environmental pressure to evolve intelligence. Which makes you wonder about the Milky Way's Science Frogs.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:35
|
|
|
Android Blues posted:Wait, that happened to you? In my playthrough they were talking in English the entire time. I think there are like two lines of dialogue in space gibberish when you're stepping off the ship, then immediately all the Angara are fully intelligible. It's not first contact between the Milky Way and Angara, which is probably a big part of the problem with the whole situation.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:36
|
|
|
Easy fix. Have SAM throw out a line about trying to decode their language, and have their dialog suddenly switch from their language to English halfway through a line as SAM figures it out.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:37
|
|
|
Charles Get-Out posted:It's not first contact between the Milky Way and Angara, which is probably a big part of the problem with the whole situation. I'm aware, but also it feels like the game itself is mixed up on this point. It refers to it as first contact multiple times, despite the fact that it obviously isn't. It's definitely one of the more trainwreck-y parts of the writing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:38
|
|
|
Android Blues posted:I'm aware, but also it feels like the game itself is mixed up on this point. It refers to it as first contact multiple times, despite the fact that it obviously isn't. It's definitely one of the more trainwreck-y parts of the writing. Nah, the Initiative refers to it as first contact. Which it is, for them, but not for the outcasts/exiles and not for the Angara. The Angara are just like "yeah we know" and the townspeople are surprised cause they've never had an alien on Aya and likely the Aya people haven't seen an alien aside from the Kett. edit: thinking about it, the Angara and Milky Way have a pretty similar set up where a central location is really isolated and a big part of the group is out foraging and fighting Kett. Kinda weird. Nancy fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Apr 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:39
|
|
|
fruit on the bottom posted:Easy fix. Have SAM throw out a line about trying to decode their language, and have their dialog suddenly switch from their language to English halfway through a line as SAM figures it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIbVYXHnaBU
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:40
|
|
|
Mass Effect Andromeda: To Boldly Go Where Plenty of People Have Gone Before
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:42
|
|
|
Serf posted:Mass Effect Andromeda: To Boldly Go Where Plenty of People Have Gone Before Hey, you gotta admit, it's a real good way to suck a lot of the tension out of a setting. edit: I think you could argue that a big theme of the game is playing second string to all of those that do important poo poo or the ones who were originally intended to do important poo poo. Nancy fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Apr 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:43
|
|
|
BrianWilly posted:I'm not knocking the actual speculation and guesswork here -- I'd love to hear more thoughts on the whole Jardaan/Opposition thing they set up -- but the page after page of CIA-documentation "Oh god is that really what they're doing??? LOL BIOWARE" freakouts here are super annoying. I'm just spoilering it because I have no idea what the spoiler policy in this thread is so I'm tossing anything related to an endgame reveal into black bars.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:47
|
|
|
Charles Get-Out posted:Nah, the Initiative refers to it as first contact. Which it is, for them, but not for the outcasts/exiles and not for the Angara. The Angara are just like "yeah we know" and the townspeople are surprised cause they've never had an alien on Aya and likely the Aya people haven't seen an alien aside from the Kett. Even then, it's weird because the Angara don't make it clear to you that they've met Milky Way species before, and Ryder doesn't ask, so you literally just have to pick it up from inference (and it only becomes clear when you visit other, later planets). The only line to that effect during the Aya scenario is, "yes, you came here from dark space", which sounds more like they observed your ships entering Heleus with scanning instruments than, "yes, we know all about you and your various alien pals".
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:47
|
|
|
Charles Get-Out posted:Hey, you gotta admit, it's a real good way to suck a lot of the tension out of a setting. Which s the one thing you should never ever do in a game about exploring an unknown galaxy.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:49
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:Which makes you wonder about the Milky Way's Science Frogs. If you're referring to the krogan, the krogan were actually a prey species on Tuchanka until they developed gunpowder. The salarians, on the other hand, naturally can outbreed the krogan - they almost destroyed Sur'Kesh completely from overpopulation leading to overconsumption and pollution. The elaborate social hierarchy and breeding controls you see in modern salarian society are the result of the salarians' work to stop their overpopulation problem through purely social means. It's mentioned in the codex throughout the series that Sur'Kesh being a lush jungle world is a pretty recent development and the result of centuries of hard work from the salarians to restore their homeworld from the toxic industrial wasteland they turned it into.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:51
|
|
|
Or what you did, as long as you love me.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:53
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:If you're referring to the krogan, the krogan were actually a prey species on Tuchanka until they developed gunpowder. Specifically with help from Raeka, recently.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:53
|
|
|
Android Blues posted:Even then, it's weird because the Angara don't make it clear to you that they've met Milky Way species before, and Ryder doesn't ask, so you literally just have to pick it up from inference (and it only becomes clear when you visit other, later planets). The only line to that effect during the Aya scenario is, "yes, you came here from dark space", which sounds more like they observed your ships entering Helius with scanning instruments than, "yes, we know all about you and your various alien pals". Ryder meeting the Angara is definitely not written well or in a compelling way, and I don't think the writing crew invested a lot of time thinking about how the info is presented. (The greeting you get after landing on Aya is "yes, you crossed dark space. I've heard of your journey," though still not super concrete) You can contrast this to games like Horizon where there is a ton of info not explicitly stated, but it's presented in a way that the player can reasonably connect the dots without needing to analyze every poorly written bit. Nancy fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Apr 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:55
|
|
|
Neddy Seagoon posted:Which s the one thing you should never ever do in a game about exploring an unknown galaxy. Right, which is exactly what I'm implying and something I've identified as "a big problem with the situation"?
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 17:58
|
|
|
Taear posted:This is an arrival spoiler. I totally don't want to threadjack with Arrival talk but I feel like I have to respond with a major plot element was that Amy Adams was able to save the day by telling the Chinese military man something that she would only learn in the future due to a conversation so she effectively got the information in the past via time travel. I dunno, maybe it was different in the short story, I never read that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:05
|
|
|
ashpanash posted:I totally don't want to threadjack with Arrival talk but I feel like I have to respond with a major plot element was that Amy Adams was able to save the day by telling the Chinese military man something that she would only learn in the future due to a conversation so she effectively got the information in the past via time travel. I dunno, maybe it was different in the short story, I never read that. It wasn't really time travel, it was more being able to experience the dimension of "Time" in a non-linear way. Think of things like flatland and how a being who exists in 3 dimensions would perceive those living in 2 dimensions. Nancy fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:07
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:Contact, Interstellar, Arrival, these hard sci fi movies always have an ending where the character discovers, like, time travel or God or that the fourth dimension is love or something like that. Kubrick went for a hard sci-fi ending that wasn't a traditional storytelling ending and people hated it. I'm kinda iffy on whether a hard sci-fi ending would really work in a medium where connection with your audience is of paramount importance. I don't think 2001's ending is bad conceptually, but it's kind of a lovely end to the movie.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:12
|
|
|
I don't think that Interstellar, the movie where they travel through a wormhole or some poo poo, is hard sci-fi. I haven't seen Arrival yet, but I'm gonna go ahead and disqualify it on account of aliens.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:13
|
|
|
Charles Get-Out posted:It wasn't really time travel, it was more being able to experience the dimension of "Time" in a non-linear way. Yeah, I get it, all I'm saying is that this is really a bunch of bullshit magic, not hard sci-fi. Learning a language will not give you the power to transcend the fourth dimension, period.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:17
|
|
|
Serf posted:Yeah, I know that already. It's why the elcor need a clarification of tone/intent at the beginning of the sentence.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:21
|
|
|
ashpanash posted:Yeah, I get it, all I'm saying is that this is really a bunch of bullshit magic, not hard sci-fi. Learning a language will not give you the power to transcend the fourth dimension, period. We don't know though, really. It's a language built upon an entirely different evolutionary perspective, and we have documented moments in history where language has developed in correlation with perception of other senses like color. Language is an integral part of the way a thinking creature perceives and responds to it's environment. I agree it's fantastical for a creature evolved on certain perceptions of the universe to be able to perceive time, but language is a very good vehicle for speculation given it's close ties to brain structure and thought. I don't think Arrival is hard sci-fi fwiw Nancy fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Apr 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:23
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:OTOH, nobody actually wants to play a video game about trying to figure out how to talk to giant mollusks that communicate by peeing or whatever. Speak for yourself, buddy.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 06:42 |
|
|
ashpanash posted:Yeah, I get it, all I'm saying is that this is really a bunch of bullshit magic, not hard sci-fi. Learning a language will not give you the power to transcend the fourth dimension, period. It's very well explained in the short story. It is still pretty implausible, but it's a deeply compelling concept. I haven't seen the movie so I don't know how well it's presented there (it does feel weird talking in spoilers for the premise of a short story that came out in 1998, but I get it). The concept is that the heptapods' language is a form of highly complex symbolic calligraphy that requires you to know how you're going to end your "sentence" before you start it, since specific elaborate patterns can only be reproduced when drawn in specific orders. We know in real life science that language plays a ginormous role in the development of cognitive function - children who grow up without language tend to be permanently developmentally handicapped, often to the level of simple animal intelligence - so the idea is that a sufficiently complex and yet understandable language which relies on huge amounts of predictive thinking could have an even more intellectually nourishing effect, and could train its users to predict deterministic outcomes. Is it plausible? Not incredibly. Is it an interesting, scientifically grounded premise that fits well with what we know about the real science of language development and its massive effects on the brain? Absolutely. It's a hell of a good story, even if it is a bit wobbly believability-wise.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2017 18:27
|
|