Agree to with the others, and I'll add:
I feel like Pathfinder is also a mark of experience. A leader. Someone who has done a lot, made tough choices, and has been against the wall while others depended on them. Understanding that would make you really not be all that impressed with Scott/Sara.
Ryder's dad was an N7. Had lots of influence. Knew how to create an AI (despite that being his drumming out of N7). He also had a lot of political ties in the Milky way. Hell, him and Shepard probably had drinks together at some point.
So in my opinion, I don't think there was any official Training. It was more about who the person was that was selected. Cora, being next in line, has years of combat training and expirence as a leader under Ryder's dad. (hehehe) Young Ryder was thrown into the mix out of desperation and has to rise to the challenge. I feel like comparing young Ryder to Shepard can't be done... as Shepard was N7 from the start... and became Specter with everyone full trust.
The real question... What does being an N7 mean?
hmmm.... I need to play ME1-3 now/again. 😃
@Kaddris wrote:
Nevertheless, it seems to stretch things a bit that 'because daddy said so' is enough reason to get the entire Andromeda initiative leadership to risk their few resources on someone with basically no field experience.
Apparently, it was on the whim of necessity, the fact that he was close to his son. Would SAM be able to be transferred suddenly to Cora even when she was not there? Was there more to it than just a whim of fatherly love?
If we're talking about why he transfers Pathfinder to you, yes and no on the fatherly love thing being why. I think the reason why had to do with his memories. Not sure why going to certain spots he's never been (and likely had no idea about) would unlock them but there it is.
Why people would trust you anyway... well perhaps they're actually trusting your AI? Makes you wonder if another race's Pathfinder had shown up, would they reacted similarly or did they know your father's AI was the most advanced of all the SAMs.
Like I said, a lot of this doesn't make sense to me. If their dialogue was along the lines of questioning my experience and only that, I would have had no issue, but they reference me lacking Pathfinder training more than anything.
Also keep in mind, there had to be other N7 level people who came on this journey. The Benefactor would have made sure of that possibly handpicking hundreds of people over the course of years.
But everyone seems desperate for a Pathfinder like they would know what to do. Seems odd so I was hoping someone could make sense of it.
The sense might be on family.
The fact that their mother is there, to be cured, and she's basically one that make it possible to work with SAM, there might have a lot hidden there. And having SAM tied to someone who would not have the 'love' factor, the will to go after their secrets (or the understanding), the same motivation to help their mother. Maybe Alec's reasoning involves that, even if his own demise was not planned, but he trusted his sons because they were reliable, genuinely good (as we can perceive because they rarely have a 'screw you' dialog) and they loved their mother.
Just speculation, of course, for the sake of conversation, hohoho.
@PandaTar wrote:
@Kaddris wrote:
Nevertheless, it seems to stretch things a bit that 'because daddy said so' is enough reason to get the entire Andromeda initiative leadership to risk their few resources on someone with basically no field experience.Apparently, it was on the whim of necessity, the fact that he was close to his son. Would SAM be able to be transferred suddenly to Cora even when she was not there? Was there more to it than just a whim of fatherly love?
Alec Ryder did everything, his sole purpose from what was being portrayed, is his wife. Saved his kid cause of his wife(didnt want her to be unhappy), transferred SAM to kid cause of his wife(so even if Cora is standing beside him, he would still have transferred SAM to his kid cause he kept his wife in cryo and this secret needs to eventually be passed down to one of his kids. In fact he join the andromeda initiative cause of his wife... Reminds me a little of Liara when she's obsessed lol. No wonder they are friends.
@PandaTar wrote:
@Kaddris wrote:
Nevertheless, it seems to stretch things a bit that 'because daddy said so' is enough reason to get the entire Andromeda initiative leadership to risk their few resources on someone with basically no field experience.Apparently, it was on the whim of necessity, the fact that he was close to his son. Would SAM be able to be transferred suddenly to Cora even when she was not there? Was there more to it than just a whim of fatherly love?
How was it necessary? Alec wasn't dying. His helmet wasn't cracked. He could just have easily stood there and not saved Sara, he did it because he loved his kid and couldn't stand by and watch them die.
Also if you listen to the dialogue - the ryder family SAM is different to the others. It intergrates more completely with its host. Transfering that SAM to someone else would likely kill Sara/Scott if you listen to Lexi's dialogue. That SAM was designed to try and cure Ellen.
What SAM does is provide pretty much everything, including the seperate combat profiles which allows the pathfinder to be more efficient in combat. It translates. It reads alien dialect, cracks encryptions, tracks signals and a whole bunch of other useful stuff on the field, far quicker than a person could.
As for Pathfinder training.. experience, combat, leadership, first contact, all of that training would have been included in Pathfinder training. They also would have been trained in recognizing worlds that are surviable, not golden worlds but any kind of environment and with SAMs help finding the best outpost locations.
The Asari pathfinder was a well known and respected commando. Alec Ryder was N7 trained, the salarian Pathfinder would have been special forces trained although i don't think they specified - she was clearly very capable.
I dunno abot Scott but Sara had done little more than crawl around Prothean ruins as a peacekeeper / protector so she had some combat experience but clearly nothing like Alec. Cora with her Asari commando training tbh should have been more visibly ahead of the Ryders in combat skills.
You're right about the human SAM being an upgraded version. We know that it's upgraded, but there's very little reason why anyone else in Andromeda would automatically buy that and not see a young Ryder promoted decades too soon to the Executive level of galactic exploration. Even if others are told or have the intellectual knowledge, they're still ordinary characters who wouldn't necessarily get that rules were broken to develop a sentient AI of uncertain and unquantifiable ability.
I think the problem could mostly be solved in the early storyline, involving a few key individuals on the Nexus who would be aware of the human SAM's advanced status and thus be more naturally inclined to support him, despite his other apparently short personal resume.
