Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[Anarion]

And this leaves Earth and the area around it to become the next Byzantium, the remains of the old Empire in full-glory. But the best minds are there, not at Thessia, Palavan, Omega, Illium etc, which are all also burning embers. The other thing is I went with post roman Europe because of the slow decline in power and technology that lead to and followed the end of the empire. It may take a generation but earth can bounce back, its going to be a crummy generation though. However Illium on the far side of the galaxy cut off from the trade routes it had as its economic underpinnings and the poorer living conditions at its surface means its harsher rebuilding. Then think of Horizon having to become completely self-sufficient will have a much harder time than earth because the military and all the brightest minds are on the far side of the galaxy. The rebuilding and spread of Civilization will take more than a visit from a fast ship but a reformation of all space going vessels. And in the interim you will see new political systems arise in the cut off worlds colonies may squabble and fight over shared resources in neighboring systems triggering resource wars. The loss of stability of a central authority makes everything else a bigger struggle.

Okay, let me see if I've got this right. You're saying that the issue is that Earth will be fine barring some initial damage and post-reaper cleanup. Other remote areas of the galaxy will suffer more, and over a generation (that's about 25 years, yes?) humanity and the other races will slowly rebuild. But, over somewhere in the range of 25-100 years, the galaxy will slowly degrade due to lack of a central authority. It's further your position that this will happen not only to humans, but to Krogan, Asari, Turian, Salarian, Volus, Elcor, Batarian, and Hannar in equal measure on a galaxy-wide scale?

Is that right?

[Derthric]

Okay, let me see if I've got this right. You're saying that the issue is that Earth will be fine barring some initial damage and post-reaper cleanup. Other remote areas of the galaxy will suffer more, and over a generation (that's about 25 years, yes?) humanity and the other races will slowly rebuild. But, over somewhere in the range of 25-100 years, the galaxy will slowly degrade due to lack of a central authority. It's further your position that this will happen not only to humans, but to Krogan, Asari, Turian, Salarian, Volus, Elcor, Batarian, and Hannar in equal measure on a galaxy-wide scale?

Is that right?

I am not sure what you are asking but I will try to answer. You made the point that the crucible project is now at earth, its brain power can be used to fix the problems. This is a plus for the reconstruction of earth. It helps make Earth's reconstruction easier since they have the experts to oversee the reclamation and refinement of needed tech. but it will still be hard to do. From Liara's emails we see that at times they had trouble gathering resources but through bringing in the resources from out of system via the relay network they got it going. Without the network they are forced to rely upon whats in the Sol system. A system that has been stripped of its industry and its primary world under constant occupation, bombardment, and culling for months. Its going to take time to rebuild. The crucible project means that Earth has the best chance of any world to rebuild but that Palavan, Thessia, Kar'shan etc do not have those resources and will not for potentially years or decades and even then the scale of access will be limited by the slow flow of goods and information without the ability to use the relays to reduce the delay to nil. This creates a power vacuum elsewhere in the galaxy and that leads to the degradation of the political state.

The new states will evolve starting from day 1 its that by the time everyone starts to reconnect too much time will have passed. And given the isolation of some places they may lose access to the ability to maintain their tech which means overtime it will break down. Illium, though we don't know the extent of its damage, will not be reconnected to Thessia anytime soon and will have to either rebuild on its own or fall into anarchy and ruin. There are too many variables for each colony to know for sure what will happen. But needing so much to go right Murphy's Law will make sure it won't in many places.

I use the generational term not as a hard one but as a projected date that seemed reasonable for some semblance of start of a return to normalcy. Some races may fare better, for example the Turians probably won't give into disorder but we saw the Asari basically shut down as a civilization at the loss of their basic life standards in the initial attack. But its about economic resources and politics. The loss of the relays is an upheaval that will mean everything must change. Transitional periods are never smoothly executed, this is another reason why I went with the post roman example. It was a time of transition from Roman central authority and identity to a new order and it took several centuries before even the semblance of permanent order came to be.

So in short it wont be rebuild then fall apart, its that the rebuilding is so massive and too much pressure on already devastated resources that it won't keep up with the falling apart.

[Name_Here]

Question. How many people here would be having issues with food or other doomsday scenarios if the mass relays had been destroyed, but Shephard had lived and been shown with his crew afterwards in a rebuilding galaxy?

I'm not "having issues" with the fact that disease and starvation would kill millions throughout the galaxy. A huge war was just fought disease and starvation follow war.

What I don't like is the way that Bioware just waved their hand and went "You know all that terrible stuff that happened after every other war in history? *poof* Never happened after this war." It's absurd.

Now had I liked the ending I could have let the hand waving slide. Same way I would have let the final choice slide had I found the ending satisfying. But I didn't find the ending satisfying thus I'll call them on the absurd handwaving they are doing about nobody starving.

[Landis963]

Y'know, if there was some sort of game-wide galaxy map (one that showed every star cluster and/or relay path available throughout all 3 games, I mean) that would make assessing possible new trade routes much, much easier. I mean, we only saw Thessia's star cluster (and Sur'kesh's, and Palaven's, for that matter) in ME3, but we saw many more clusters in Thessia's area of the Terminus systems in ME2. It's annoying when you go to google "Mass Effect Galaxy Map" and get a bunch of two-year-old shots of the ME1 galaxy map, which just so happen to focus on Alliance territory and the Attican Traverse, useless for our purposes when Council space is in the whole other direction. Of course, the wiki could finally get around to making composites of all the clusters and mass relays for ME2 and ME3 as well, but that's probably too much to hope for.

[Derthric]

I know this is just ME2 but it helps fill in the gaps for the Terminus and Traverse which are not on the ME1 map.

http://dwebart.deviantart.com/art/Ma...-2-0-198340809

[Landis963]

I know this is just ME2 but it helps fill in the gaps for the Terminus and Traverse which are not on the ME1 map.

http://dwebart.deviantart.com/art/Ma...-2-0-198340809

Thanks for this, I'm downloading it @ full res right now.

Few thoughts: I'd forgotten that Bekenstein's system was in the Serpent Nebula, and that therefore there was a point to going there other than the Citadel. Of course, I didn't care enough about Mrs. Butterface in Starboard Cargo in order to unlock that convo, so there you are.

Also, why isn't Aratoht (Viper Nebula, Bahak) closer to batarian space again? I mean according to this map, any hypothetical batarian army in that cluster were literally a mass relay jump from a full invasion of Earth. And you'd think the Skyllian Verge would be more human-dense. I mean, one colony was successfully defended against a batarian attack (Elysium) and another planet was systematically wiped of batarian presence (Torfan).

Is the Crescent Nebula visible from Earth? If so, could we figure out how long a relief operation to Illium would take?

EDIT: Here is the ME3 version of that same galaxy map. Hopefully that makes our speculations much easier.

[Derthric]

The problem with using real world references is that they are moved around for the setting. For example the Eagle Nebula is 6,500 LY from Earth. However that would place the galaxy at 20k LY across based on the maps in game which is obviously not accurate. The Milky way is estimated to be 100,000 to 120,00 LY across.

Also the Omega Nebula is visible from Earth, however in game it is on the opposite end of the Galactic core. Which IIRC from my one astronomy elective is so full of radio, gamma, and other natural pollution we don't know what is directly on the other side. And according to this diagram is true, but its wikipedia.

But to answer your question the Crescent Nebula is approximately 5k LY.

Edit: looking at that map it brings something odd to mind. Most of the known species come from the galactic southwest of the map(which is the Alpha Quandrant in ST terms). Turians, Asari, Elcor, Volus, Salarians, Krogan and Humans. The Batarians are not too far from them either. Only the Quarians and Rachni have known homeworlds anywhere else. But we dont know for sure where the Hanar, Vor'cha, Yahg, Raloi or Drell come from for sure but its a weird thing to think most of the life comes from one corner.

Maybe because they stopped opening relays there are more out there flying around ignorant like the Humans were pre-Shanxi.

[Zorg]

On the subject of people thinking the writers intended a "Galactic Dark Age": in the Final Hours app there is a flowchart shown where they intended for the Prothean VI to tell Shepard that using the Crucible would cause a "Galactic Dark Age".
Might have something to do with people thinking using the Cruicible causes a Galactic Dark Age...

[Landis963]

Also the Omega Nebula is visible from Earth, however in game it is on the opposite end of the Galactic core. Which IIRC from my one astronomy elective is so full of radio, gamma, and other natural pollution we don't know what is directly on the other side. And according to this diagram is true, but its wikipedia.

In that second map, the line of sight from the Local Cluster to the Omega Nebula actually skirts the majority of the visible stuff in the galactic core. However, I'm not sure if that "skirting" is far enough away to nudge out of that "shadow" as shown in that diagram.

But to answer your question the Crescent Nebula is approximately 5k LY.

hm. Far too long a distance for conventional FTL from Earth, even jumping between known star systems. Maybe for longer-term trips, or maybe Thessia or someplace can get there faster. However, I'm pretty sure we can write off the entire Terminus as a loss.

Edit: looking at that map it brings something odd to mind. Most of the known species come from the galactic southwest of the map(which is the Alpha Quandrant in ST terms). Turians, Asari, Elcor, Volus, Salarians, Krogan and Humans. The Batarians are not too far from them either. Only the Quarians and Rachni have known homeworlds anywhere else. But we dont know for sure where the Hanar, Vor'cha, Yahg, Raloi or Drell come from for sure but its a weird thing to think most of the life comes from one corner.

Maybe because they stopped opening relays there are more out there flying around ignorant like the Humans were pre-Shanxi.

It seems possible. However, I wouldn't discount the possibility that the vorcha homeworld is in the Terminus or that Kahje and/or Rakhana are in the Attican Traverse. It would be nice if we were able to see their systems in-game, but there you are. No idea about where Parkash or Turvess are, though. Also, it's so *great* they handwaved the raloi away by saying they retreated and dismantled all their spaceflight capability, so they didn't need to write Turvess into the map. [/sarcasm]

[Derthric]

It seems possible. However, I wouldn't discount the possibility that the vorcha homeworld is in the Terminus or that Kahje and/or Rakhana are in the Attican Traverse. It would be nice if we were able to see their systems in-game, but there you are. No idea about where Parkash or Turvess are, though. Also, it's so *great* they handwaved the raloi away by saying they retreated and dismantled all their spaceflight capability, so they didn't need to write Turvess into the map. [/sarcasm]

Kahje is appearently in Inner Council Space. But that still leaves the Yahg, Vorcha, and Raloi to plant. Maybe the Protheans did more uplifting elsewhere and didn't have time to hit this part of the galaxy before Sovy and Habry rained on their parade.

Zorg:
Do you have anyway of posting a screenie of that flowchart?

[Trazoi]

Let me ask a more direct question then - what is there to be gained by assuming apocalypse? What does assuming mass destruction, death and starvation in the wake of a galactic war get us?

Closure.

One of the many reasons why the ending is broken is the complete change in Mass Effect's tone - that there's always hope, and Shepard's determination can win through over any odds. The end has the designers hamfistedly turn that on its head, forcing a crappy ending on the player. It strongly feels like the designers are trying to torch everything - bam, outta nowhere, Shepard has to die, the Citadel is toast, the mass relays are gone - so the speculators are drawing that out to the logical conclusion. Burn it all to the ground.

Question. How many people here would be having issues with food or other doomsday scenarios if the mass relays had been destroyed, but Shephard had lived and been shown with his crew afterwards in a rebuilding galaxy?

Yes, but not nearly as much. I don't think there would be as much ire about the ending if it didn't force Shepard's death in such a blatant way. Starkid might as well have been screaming "BIOWARE DEMANDS A SACRIFICE TO MAKE THE GAME DEEP AND MEANINGFUL!"

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay, further follow up question because now I'm confused.

Are the people who think that a galaxy-wide disaster happened saying that

1. There must have been a galaxy-wide disaster of some scale (mass starvation and deprivation or worse) and any alternative is the authors lying to us about the setting

They're talking cobblers. One way or another.

If the galaxy can recover from preportedly the most intense and destructive conflict in fifty thousand years, followed by the destruction of previously stated most important aspect of space-travel with nary a break in step, then are ONLY four options.

1) The catastrophy of the Reapers just wasn't really all the damaging at all, in the grand scheme of things, and that we probably saw more or less the entire scope of their damage, and there are hundreds if not thousands of worlds completely untouched by the Reapers.

2) Everyone in the entire galaxy for the past thirty-seven million years, from Anderson to Zaeed, is pants-on-head, willfully stupid for relying on the relay network when it isn't necessary.

3) All the previously established codex data we've been fed over the last three games is flat-out wrong.

4) Bioware are talking out of their arses.

Which is the most likely case, since like pretty much the whole trilogy has shown that there just isn't that kind of infrastructure there in the FIRST PLACE. How many planets have we seen where people are barely surviving on a subsitance level? Not mission planets, but those in the system maps? Places where it wasn't cost-effective to keep things going, or after a mineral-rush or whatnot?

Bioware saying that all those places - the ones that weren't outright pulversied by the Reapers - are going to be perfectly fine and that everyone in the entire galaxy is going to have a nice happy ending (except Shepard and the Geth), without any the serious rebuilding efforts priorly seen in the trilogy from smaller conflicts is just flat-out offensive.

It's stupid from a logistical perspective; it's mean-spirited from the narrative perspective ("screw you player, everyone has a happy ending but your character!"), it even manages to undermine the minimal impact of the ending by saying basically everything you did or saw really means nothing in the long run, because there are no lasting consequences; it's insulting to the entire rest of the game's priorly established tone and setting - i.e. gritty and where lots of places are poor and barely hanging on, and where a lot of the wealth lies in the big worlds, not too mention that most of the mineral resources canonically now come from mining worlds (which are either now dead or isolated).

Will there be a "dark age?" No, though I guess that depends on your definition of "dark age." Are lots of people in the smaller, isolated colonies going to be reduced to third-world levels of disease and starvation before the months or years pass it takes the galaxy to become operational enough to be able to start sending out relief (if indeed, they can be pursuaded to CARE, lowest bidder and all that)? Absolutely YES, and Bioware sticking their fingers in their their ears and going "yeah, but, no, because Art" merely makes them come across as obstreperously assinine.



And to re-iterate another point: the council refused to let people blindly activate the relays to avoid a repeat of the Rachni incident - but now the galaxy will have to travel across the other more-than 99% of the galaxy and hope to frag they don't run into somebody else who were either a) in their own section of the relay network and just didn't happen to meet the Citidel species or b) never found a relay and thus have their empire set up on non-Relay FTL (which is likely to already be better than the Citidel races since an relay-independant race would have been consistently imporving FTL tech), because if they do and they happen to be hostile, the Citidel species are BUGGERED.

[Psyren]

It's not a pure assumption, it's an extrapolation of what we know of the setting.

There is some evidence. It took the hanar 10 years to transport 375,000 drell off their homeworld. Domed, climate controlled cities had to be built for the drell, and even so, kepral's syndrome is still the leading cause of death for them. Now, the end of me3 isn't exactly analogous, but I think it suggests things will be difficult, even with most/all the races of the galaxy working together.

Ok, no. The Rakhana-Kahje situation is hardly analagous.

First off, the refugees from Earth/Palaven/Thessia/etc. didn't need any "domed, climate-controlled cities." They were even able to sleep in cramped docks on a space station. They weren't being evacuated to a world that was 99% water, nor were they expected to live away from their worlds long-term. The level of infrastructure you need for temporary housing and the level you need for migrating an entire population are incomparable.

Second, let's look at some counterexamples: In the middle of a war, millions of civilians were evacuated from Palaven, Thessia, and even Earth in a matter of days. And those that stayed behind and kept to the undeveloped areas, were largely overlooked by the Reapers, at least on Earth. Those won't need to evacuated now that Reaper forces have been kiboshed.

Third, what the Hanar did is impossible by today's standards, so anything they did manage to do is progress, plain and simple. Getting 300k+ people from one planet to another? Going from "totally impossible" to "takes 10 years" is advancement, and THAT is extrapolation. Not to mention, Rakhana had zero resources to assist with the evacuation effort - they hadn't even developed mass effect drive, so they had no ships of their own and very likely no eezo even. The Hanar would have been airlifting throngs of Drell using solely their own resources... and it might not even have been all the Hanar on board with the idea. Would every government on Earth have been in favor of a mission like that? To airlift in a bunch of immigrants/refugees from another planet and spend considerable resources housing them on our planet? I'd like to think so, but realistically - probably not.

The amount of ash and dust that would be kicked up are equivalent to supervolcano scenarios.

"disaster relief" for this kind of scenario is along the lines of "evacuate your remaining population and wait for the ice age to finish.

If there is as much ash and wasteland as you claim, why is it that people in London - the heart of Reaper-controlled territory (the site of the Conduit) were running around without breathers or environment suits? And how were the Reapers maintaining their internment camps and indoctrinating governments? Wouldn't all those people have suffocated and died?

Closure.

One of the many reasons why the ending is broken is the complete change in Mass Effect's tone - that there's always hope, and Shepard's determination can win through over any odds. The end has the designers hamfistedly turn that on its head, forcing a crappy ending on the player. It strongly feels like the designers are trying to torch everything - bam, outta nowhere, Shepard has to die, the Citadel is toast, the mass relays are gone - so the speculators are drawing that out to the logical conclusion. Burn it all to the ground.

That right there is the difference between us - I went into ME3 expecting Shepard to self-sacrifice, or only to live if I sacrificed something just as big (Renegade.) Thus I got exactly what I expected.

I also knew the Citadel would be fine during that cinematic - only the Presidium blew up. Weekes' confirmation of this was no surprise.

I didn't expect the Relays to go, but the minute I saw it happen my first thought was "good thing we have all those Reapers around" (I picked Synthesis first.) Then I thought about Destroy and wondered how much we could salvage from their corpses. In short, I was already thinking of ways out, not writing off the setting immediately and hunting for my sackcloth+ashes.

[Anarion]

They're talking cobblers. One way or another.

If the galaxy can recover from preportedly the most intense and destructive conflict in fifty thousand years, followed by the destruction of previously stated most important aspect of space-travel with nary a break in step, then are ONLY four options.

1) The catastrophy of the Reapers just wasn't really all the damaging at all, in the grand scheme of things, and that we probably saw more or less the entire scope of their damage, and there are hundreds if not thousands of worlds completely untouched by the Reapers.

2) Everyone in the entire galaxy for the past thirty-seven million years, from Anderson to Zaeed, is pants-on-head, willfully stupid for relying on the relay network when it isn't necessary.

3) All the previously established codex data we've been fed over the last three games is flat-out wrong.

4) Bioware are talking out of their arses.

Which is the most likely case, since like pretty much the whole trilogy has shown that there just isn't that kind of infrastructure there in the FIRST PLACE. How many planets have we seen where people are barely surviving on a subsitance level? Not mission planets, but those in the system maps? Places where it wasn't cost-effective to keep things going, or after a mineral-rush or whatnot?

Bioware saying that all those places - the ones that weren't outright pulversied by the Reapers - are going to be perfectly fine and that everyone in the entire galaxy is going to have a nice happy ending (except Shepard and the Geth), without any the serious rebuilding efforts priorly seen in the trilogy from smaller conflicts is just flat-out offensive.

It's stupid from a logistical perspective; it's mean-spirited from the narrative perspective ("screw you player, everyone has a happy ending but your character!"), it even manages to undermine the minimal impact of the ending by saying basically everything you did or saw really means nothing in the long run, because there are no lasting consequences; it's insulting to the entire rest of the game's priorly established tone and setting - i.e. gritty and where lots of places are poor and barely hanging on, and where a lot of the wealth lies in the big worlds, not too mention that most of the mineral resources canonically now come from mining worlds (which are either now dead or isolated).

Will there be a "dark age?" No, though I guess that depends on your definition of "dark age." Are lots of people in the smaller, isolated colonies going to be reduced to third-world levels of disease and starvation before the months or years pass it takes the galaxy to become operational enough to be able to start sending out relief (if indeed, they can be pursuaded to CARE, lowest bidder and all that)? Absolutely YES, and Bioware sticking their fingers in their their ears and going "yeah, but, no, because Art" merely makes them come across as obstreperously assinine.



And to re-iterate another point: the council refused to let people blindly activate the relays to avoid a repeat of the Rachni incident - but now the galaxy will have to travel across the other more-than 99% of the galaxy and hope to frag they don't run into somebody else who were either a) in their own section of the relay network and just didn't happen to meet the Citidel species or b) never found a relay and thus have their empire set up on non-Relay FTL (which is likely to already be better than the Citidel races since an relay-independant race would have been consistently imporving FTL tech), because if they do and they happen to be hostile, the Citidel species are BUGGERED.

I never claimed that nobody would die (or if I did, I retract the statement). In fact, that's why I asked people what kind of numbers they were talking about in my edit on the last page. 7.5% of the world dying out in real history is considered one of the worst disasters ever to befall humanity.

But I'm hearing all kinds of different arguments going on, many of which I think don't make much sense. Also AOTRS I'm not responding to you specifically, you just happen to phrase things really well.

Hear are the different versions I think I've read in this thread.

1. widespread death and extinction, many planets will die out entirely because they can't support themselves. There is no alternative.

Answer: I don't agree. This isn't impossible given what we've seen of the ending, but it's not required either. I consider the availability of reaper tech and the general belief in the ingenuity of people (especially with their backs to the wall) adequate to justify technology that would at least stabilize most planets at a lower maximum carrying capacity even when cut off from the citadel.

2. Long-term political turmoil, degradation of the whole galaxy, improved travel takes hundreds of years to create.

Answer: I also don't agree here. Again, the availability of reaper tech, the prothean VI, and the concentration of scientific talent makes me think that tech will advance faster than this. Humanity had been able to activate their own mass relay using only their own tech and resources available in the Sol system and they didn't get annihilated by the Turian military in the aftermath, so just the Sol system has adequate resources to support a fairly good level of tech. With FTL to nearby stars as well as the whole fleet, I think there is at least enough to get research going and come up with better FTL within a few years. This doesn't address immediate starvation, but I don't see the galaxy falling into a bunch of tiny islands for centuries either, but rather slowly reestablishing itself over a generation.

3. Over 50% of the population dies immediately, or within a year

Answer: I don't see it. This isn't like the real world losing all access to oil where suddenly some places truly couldn't get food. They can grow food in vats, they have heavy tech on nearly all colonies. The black plague sweeping Europe in the middle ages didn't kill this high a percentage of the population.

4. ~10% of the galaxy dies immediately or within a year.

Answer: yeah, this could happen. In fact, it would go down in history as one of the worst disasters ever. It probably wouldn't be evenly distributed, so one could imagine some relatively poor planets dying out while ones with a better environment could become able to feed themselves independently with minimal loss. Overall ability to salvage and use reaper tech, prothean tech, and destroyed industry would matter a lot here as to how much damage occurred.

5. ~2% of the galaxy dies immediately or within a year

Answer: This may well already be happening. Thessia was ruined, Earth was invaded, the Turian fleet was smashed. Many people were indoctrinated or turned into husks, and certainly some will be unable to recover in the wake of the carnage. A 2% loss to the whole galaxy plus massive infrastructure damage would still go down as one of the worst disasters to befall the galaxy, but would be in the range that could be more quickly recovered from.

[Landis963]

Also the Omega Nebula is visible from Earth, however in game it is on the opposite end of the Galactic core. Which IIRC from my one astronomy elective is so full of radio, gamma, and other natural pollution we don't know what is directly on the other side. And according to this diagram is true, but its wikipedia.

In that second map, the line of sight from the Local Cluster to the Omega Nebula actually skirts the majority of the visible stuff in the galactic core. However, I'm not sure if that "skirting" is far enough away to nudge out of that "shadow" as shown in that diagram.

But to answer your question the Crescent Nebula is approximately 5k LY.

hm. Far too long a distance for conventional FTL from Earth, even jumping between known star systems. Maybe for longer-term trips, or maybe Thessia or someplace can get there faster. However, I'm pretty sure we can write off the entire Terminus as a loss.

Edit: looking at that map it brings something odd to mind. Most of the known species come from the galactic southwest of the map(which is the Alpha Quandrant in ST terms). Turians, Asari, Elcor, Volus, Salarians, Krogan and Humans. The Batarians are not too far from them either. Only the Quarians and Rachni have known homeworlds anywhere else. But we dont know for sure where the Hanar, Vor'cha, Yahg, Raloi or Drell come from for sure but its a weird thing to think most of the life comes from one corner.

Maybe because they stopped opening relays there are more out there flying around ignorant like the Humans were pre-Shanxi.

It seems possible. However, I wouldn't discount the possibility that the vorcha homeworld is in the Terminus or that Kahje and/or Rakhana are in the Attican Traverse. It would be nice if we were able to see their systems in-game, but there you are. No idea about where Parkash or Turvess are, though. Also, it's so *great* they handwaved the raloi away by saying they retreated and dismantled all their spaceflight capability, so they didn't need to write Turvess into the map. [/sarcasm]

[Aotrs Commander]

I never claimed that nobody would die (or if I did, I retract the statement). In fact, that's why I asked people what kind of numbers they were talking about in my edit on the last page. 7.5% of the world dying out in real history is considered one of the worst disasters ever to befall humanity.

But I'm hearing all kinds of different arguments going on, many of which I think don't make much sense. Also AOTRS I'm not responding to you specifically, you just happen to phrase things really well.

Heh. (And also you know by now that my rant is worse than my ire, or something...!)

Hear are the different versions I think I've read in this thread.
4. ~10% of the galaxy dies immediately or within a year.

Answer: yeah, this could happen. In fact, it would go down in history as one of the worst disasters ever. It probably wouldn't be evenly distributed, so one could imagine some relatively poor planets dying out while ones with a better environment could become able to feed themselves independently with minimal loss. Overall ability to salvage and use reaper tech, prothean tech, and destroyed industry would matter a lot here as to how much damage occurred.

I think something of this order of magnitude is most likely - though I'd be loathe to give a gross percentage of casualties across the galaxy, without a good idea of what the population distribution is like.

What I do expect is a potentially very high level (up to 100% in some really bad cases - the Reapers have already caused quite a few of those themselves, of course) of casualties in the smaller, poorer and generally lower priority colonies, those that are most isolated or in hostile environments - the ones that were bottom of the council's priority list to start with. I can see alot of them going dark. Less losses (probably a lot less) in area like the capitals, were at least food (in not supplies, due to the sudden cut of imported materials, as the older worlds and systems have used most of their own already) would be readily available. (I.e., the use a modern analogue, the "third-world" colonies would suffer extremely badly, while the "developed country" worlds and systems would be the first to recover and suffer the least.

I wouldn't expect communications to be disrupted, though I'm not sure if that used the relays or not (is they did, then it might be hampered or even drastially cut if there's a range limitation the relays migitated).

On reflection - and calculations - while the Quarians and Turian fleets might have to make a dash for a suitable system, they are likely to have a fair derth of supplies for the immediate moment.

(Where was the Crucible constructed? I have a vague feeling it was at the extremites of Sol or somewhere relatively close by or something, wasn't it? That would probably have a lot of stuff left over, that would give Earth a headstart in getting the infrastructure back up. Or maybe re-assembling the Citidel bits, at any rate.

...

Huh, Earth is inadvertently going to be the new galactic centre, since if the wards of the Citidel survived mostly intact as advertised - which to be fair to Bioware, I will concede to - and I doubt anyone is going to try and move it out system when it's fixed...!)

Of course, if the Citidel races run into somebody new on the way back, that casualty rate could rise dramatically if the new race is in a position to take advantage of the disarray.

[Name_Here]

@ Anarion

I had thought that you were backing the Bioware statement of "Nobody starves" which is just an absolutely absurdity. But if your opinion is that it's rough but they make it through then we are in agreement.

Personally I would put the death toll somewhere around 15% galaxy wide. The infrastructure of the entire galaxy has been burned nearly to the bedrock. I think it'll be at least two decades before they reach the sort of tech and industry even needed to even start reestablishing galactic order.

@ everybody arguing that vat grown meat is the end all to the hunger problems.

Meat in all forms is the most inefficient form of food. Vat grown meat is much more efficient than the type grown on cows but it is still far far less efficient than crops.

This is because you can't just put the stem cells of the meat into a vat of water and come back in a couple hours to smear it on a sheet and have meat. No you need to start growing them in a nutrient broth then the cells will grow and multiply but they will be restrained by the amount of nutrients that you can add to keep them growing. They will also need to be kept at a constant temperature. Heating them up too much will damage the protiens slowing growth or killing the cells and too low of a temperature will cause them to die off or slow their growth.

This is a terribly inefficient system because
1. You still need nutrients not as much as with a cow but still a great deal of nutrients that could be better put to use on the inside of a human or Krogan.
2. You need the industry to produce the vats, the heaters, the buildings in which these vats are to be housed.

3. There needs to be a booming biotech industry in order to produce the chemicals needed to clean the vats as well as the nutrient broth with hormones and other steroids to make the cells propagate quickly enough to be be commercially viable.

It was probably much more viable during the setting because humans love meat and the demand was so high that Earth couldn't supply the meat in the traditional grow on the animal way. So they went with vat grown to maximize output of meat. In the situation that the Galaxy is in at the end of ME3 vat grown meat wouldn't even begin to solve the problem.

[Grif]

@ everybody arguing that vat grown meat is the end all to the hunger problems.

Meat in all forms is the most inefficient form of food. Vat grown meat is much more efficient than the type grown on cows but it is still far far less efficient than crops.

This is because you can't just put the stem cells of the meat into a vat of water and come back in a couple hours to smear it on a sheet and have meat. No you need to start growing them in a nutrient broth then the cells will grow and multiply but they will be restrained by the amount of nutrients that you can add to keep them growing. They will also need to be kept at a constant temperature. Heating them up too much will damage the protiens slowing growth or killing the cells and too low of a temperature will cause them to die off or slow their growth.

This is a terribly inefficient system because
1. You still need nutrients not as much as with a cow but still a great deal of nutrients that could be better put to use on the inside of a human or Krogan.
2. You need the industry to produce the vats, the heaters, the buildings in which these vats are to be housed.

3. There needs to be a booming biotech industry in order to produce the chemicals needed to clean the vats as well as the nutrient broth with hormones and other steroids to make the cells propagate quickly enough to be be commercially viable.

It was probably much more viable during the setting because humans love meat and the demand was so high that Earth couldn't supply the meat in the traditional grow on the animal way. So they went with vat grown to maximize output of meat. In the situation that the Galaxy is in at the end of ME3 vat grown meat wouldn't even begin to solve the problem.

I would say that the galaxy would have to resort vat-grown fungi/plankton/plants for quite a bit before they can even dream of luxuries such as meat.

[Aotrs Commander]

I would say that the galaxy would have to resort vat-grown fungi/plankton/plants for quite a bit before they can even dream of luxuries such as meat.

I would say the galaxy would have to resort to MREs for quite a bit before they can even dream of luxuries such as fungi...!

Wait, do MREs actually count as food?

[ShinyRocks]

In my headcanon, the problems with interstellar communication (not travel) are solved in about two weeks by Comms Super Genius Samantha Traynor.

Who ... wasn't on the Normandy at the point it crashed on that planet and Joker and Edi became a weird Adam and Eve analogue. Because, erm, when Liara somehow teleported from the foot of the Citadel beam on Earth back onto the Normandy, she swapped places with Traynor because teleportation in the ME-verse follows Discworld rules.

Yep. That's what happened.

[Name_Here]

I would say that the galaxy would have to resort vat-grown fungi/plankton/plants for quite a bit before they can even dream of luxuries such as meat.

Well there are reasons why we don't really grow plants in vats... Might be able to grow algea and then use... some process to make it palatable to humans assuming Salarians don't go ape for the unprossesed stuff.

But yeah my basic point was that meat no matter how it grows is a luxury thank you for pointing that out.

[chiasaur11]

In my headcanon, the problems with interstellar communication (not travel) are solved in about two weeks by Comms Super Genius Samantha Traynor.

Who ... wasn't on the Normandy at the point it crashed on that planet and Joker and Edi became a weird Adam and Eve analogue. Because, erm, when Liara somehow teleported from the foot of the Citadel beam on Earth back onto the Normandy, she swapped places with Traynor because teleportation in the ME-verse follows Discworld rules.

Yep. That's what happened.

She could do it from the Normandy. It has QEC systems set up, which mean easy realtime communication with Earth. (And, for the Normandy, a lot of other places)

So, assuming the planet has food and no vicious murderbeasts, she could tell Hackett how to invent amazing new comtech in between time lazing on a tropical beach drinking the last of the space margaritas until the fleet arrives.

[Morty]

...
Goddammit. I respecialized my Shepard and picked the Sentinel skill option giving less Paragon/Renegade bonus points. And now I'm screwed because I didn't manage to get my Renegade bonus to 100% before the argument before Tali and Legion. I honestly meant you don't need to have a full bar. I can't respecialize again, because the cutscene triggers right after coming back to the Normandy... great.
EDIT: I managed to solve this issue by adding the last couple of Renegade points via save editor. Now I'm thinking if I couldn't edit it so the Rachnii queen counts as having been killed... but I'm worried it might mess up the game a bit more. But then, I could make a backup save and then start messing around.

[chiasaur11]

...
Goddammit. I respecialized my Shepard and picked the Sentinel skill option giving less Paragon/Renegade bonus points. And now I'm screwed because I didn't manage to get my Renegade bonus to 100% before the argument before Tali and Legion. I honestly meant you don't need to have a full bar. I can't respecialize again, because the cutscene triggers right after coming back to the Normandy... great.
What's the maximum value for Paragon/Renegade points? I think I'm going to use a save editor because otherwise I'm boned.

Not boned. After the argument, you can talk to them in their rooms and get another go at persuading. Respec for the bonus again and you should be fine.

[Morty]

Well, too late. Like I mentioned in the edit, I went to the save editor and simply bumped my Renegade score up a notch. It was almost 100% anyway, just not quite 100%.
Right now I'm wondering whether or not I want to save the Collector base after all... it is a pragmatic and Renegade thing to do. The problem is that handing TIM a new toy is simply a stupid thing to do. It's a bit annoying that in ME2, Renegade means "perfectly OK to work with Cerberus".

[Psyren]

@ everybody arguing that vat grown meat is the end all to the hunger problems.

Meat in all forms is the most inefficient form of food. Vat grown meat is much more efficient than the type grown on cows but it is still far far less efficient than crops.

*snip*

Then they grow something more efficient in the vats first. The point is that they don't need actual pastures or farms just yet, which means the state of the planet is less of a worry.

Hell, the Turian shelters in ME2 fed folks with "nutrient paste" - I would imagine levo- and dextro- versions of this would be pretty effiicient to produce and store even if it wasn't the most luxurious thing in the world to eat.

As long as nobody starves, we can work our way back up to the good stuff.

In my headcanon, the problems with interstellar communication (not travel) are solved in about two weeks by Comms Super Genius Samantha Traynor.

Who ... wasn't on the Normandy at the point it crashed on that planet and Joker and Edi became a weird Adam and Eve analogue. Because, erm, when Liara somehow teleported from the foot of the Citadel beam on Earth back onto the Normandy, she swapped places with Traynor because teleportation in the ME-verse follows Discworld rules.

Yep. That's what happened.

Traynor is indeed on the Normandy - she steps out if you romanced her (as does Cortez if you romanced him.)

[Joran]

I had thought that you were backing the Bioware statement of "Nobody starves" which is just an absolutely absurdity.

I keep seeing this come up. What statements have the writers made? I know there's the:

1) Better FTL drives are invented.
2) Not everybody died in the Reaper invasion of the Citadel, they are in kinetic shelters (I would have preferred a "Citadel fleet fights a delaying action giving civilian ships enough time to evacuate", instead of requiring a previously unknown part of the Citadel.)

[Psyren]

I keep seeing this come up. What statements have the writers made? I know there's the:

1) Better FTL drives are invented.
2) Not everybody died in the Reaper invasion of the Citadel, they are in kinetic shelters (I would have preferred a "Citadel fleet fights a delaying action giving civilian ships enough time to evacuate", instead of requiring a previously unknown part of the Citadel.)

Jessica Merizen, right after EC was announced, tweeted: "Spoiler Alert: No one starves to death :)" to one questioning fan.

Weekes later confirmed that nobody would starve, mentioning the Citadel food stores (Ward arms are intact and protected in all three endings) and of course the FTL stuff being within reach.

[Grif]

I would say the galaxy would have to resort to MREs for quite a bit before they can even dream of luxuries such as fungi...!

Wait, do MREs actually count as food?

When you're hungry, even MREs are considered food!

I do wonder how are they going to scavenge for water on Earth, though I bet a fair few of the ships have efficient recycling systems. (The cutscene shows Earth's atmosphere and by extension, the land, to be pretty fouled up by all the Reapers.)

[Psyren]

I do wonder how are they going to scavenge for water on Earth, though I bet a fair few of the ships have efficient recycling systems. (The cutscene shows Earth's atmosphere and by extension, the land, to be pretty fouled up by all the Reapers.)

They recycle all the water on the Citadel and it doesn't even rain there; I figured that particular hurdle had been dealt with long ago.