Why Can't We Lie Sometimes?

the problem with that logic is that their creators the Jardaan is highly likely not native to the cluster possibly even the galaxy yes the jardaan are their creators and thus Meridian is part of their legacy however not even their top scholar can operate it meaning it little more then a impressive paper weight people who consider turning on their allies the moment that battle turnes slightly in their favour are little more then scum maybe this angaran are simply short sighted and think the Empire will just ignore this cluster after one of their Archons went silent way past the check in point I don't the Empire is coming and our dimwitted allies consider making war on the only group of people that can save them ....

Just to throw in my two cents on the Exaltation Base issue:

Why can't you save the Angara and Blow the base?

1) Evacuation: The Resistance access point is at the bottom of the base, and the Kett coming from the cruisers are being dropped at the landing pads on top, so when you bug out there are quite probably still a lot of Angara in the base being funneled through the basement access before the Kett can work their way down through the facility.

2) Access: SAM can't seem to be able to use/access stuff that is inside a Kett shield without having a physical node/hotspot/router (Ryder) inside the shield. Ergo, no ability to access boom maker, no making boom

3) Racial Effects: SAM clearly states that using the shield offensively is very bad for Angara when he first tells you he can do it. It sounded like an Angaran version of a neutron bomb. Even if you get the Angara out of the facility itself, they will still be close enough so that when SAM kills the place with his homemade neutron bomb all of the Angara, except those on the shuttle leaving like a bat out of Hell, they will all die, along with any other Angara in the extensive radiological blast radius.

However, taking the Kett command center drops the shields at the excavation site. I wonder if it drops them at the exultation facilities as well.

Finally, if the Angara turned up in the Milky Way and started turning on Prothean facilities and pushing Reapers off planets they would probably get at least grudging respect, though quite likely tempered with a good dose of suspicion. Trusting anyone (Angara, Reyes, SAM, etc.) who only wishes "to serve Mankind" is generally a bad idea.

Liara might develop a crush on them nonetheless

@chrissyce1123

"...Why did we travel in an angara ship? Tempest has stealth! Yes, definitely would of at  the very least gone back and blown it up..."

I didn't even think about this.  I mean I rode in the Angaran shuttle because they had a game system in it, but no.  Tactically you would be right.  I should have used the Tempest.

Oh and like I said, Contagion was the reason I started this thread.

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@ViViD_Prime

All of that is true, but it doesn't exactly mean that plenty of them wouldn't think/feel differently.  It also doesn't mean that it wouldn't make sense for them to think/feel differently.  They have plenty of reasons not to like us or want us there and if the roles were reversed (as @Nykara360) pointed out, there would be plenty of humans that would have a similar issues.

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@fudgietroll

I read your entire post and feel that what you state as the problems with being able to do both, have already been addressed.  In some cases, more than once and from several different angles and facts.

So I'll just say that I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

Also the tempest's stealth drive seems to be none operational that or kallo can't find the button :D

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@ViViD_Prime wrote:

Also the tempest's stealth drive seems to be none operational that or kallo can't find the button :D

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He was too distracted by his conflict with Gil to find the button.  I forgive him.

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@PretzleMe wrote:

@EgoMania

"... but I did not run into anything that suggests SAM could actually destroy the base..."

He literally stated that he could.

SAM: "Pathfinder, it seems the program I used to breach the shield could overload it and destroy this facility."

And I know that you accepted that SAM could destroy the facility, but I don't think it was addressed that this was in fact suggested whether you blow the base up or not and I wanted to make sure that people knew that it actually was.

"...Yeah now this whole choice as it was done makes even less sense. I don't see how in that time frame the Resistance could save the remaining prisoners and get out before SAM blows up the base..."

Sometimes, a horse is just a horse.  What I mean is, if the Cardinal is saying that they will only open all the pods if we promise to leave that facility standing, it is because we could have still destroyed the base.

Also, as pointed out, when you choose to save the Angarans, they escape before reinforcements arrive.  So combine that with the Cardinal's plea (which would be unnecessary otherwise) you can obviously do both.  You just choose not to because of your word.

Was there a way to write this to where logically it would have been impossible to do both at that time?  Absolutely.  Simple really.  SAM being in their system prevents the Cardinals code from working so SAM has to release his ability to destroy the facility in order for all the pods to open and re-establishing a link would take too long as reinforcements would have arrived before he could finish connecting to their system that way again.

Not how it was done though.  The way they did it, the Cardinal recognizes that you could still destroy the facility if it agreed to open all the pods simultaneously.  That isn't perspecive, in actuality it is essentially the use of a common writer's tool: exposition.  Where a character in a story explains to us the situation as it is.

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Yeah as I stated in my latest post before this, it all started to make sense to me why you came with this thread. I had underestimated how oddly this was put together in the alternate choice. I just didn't see it as a suggestion to blow up the base because my interpretation was that SAM was suggestiong he was going to disable the base. But ok.

To me it's like this:

SAM, in my view, is too powerful in this game and has become a story telling crutch.

When you choose the option to destroy the base, it's destroyed just as you leave with the shuttle. To me that doesn't give the resistance time to actually in this timeline.

When you choose not to destroy the base they do get enough time to get away since even though the Kett landed on top of your escape, this could be the first group to land and so it will take time for them to get to the rest of the base. At least it's a possible explanation.

So it would seem to me that if you were to get the Cardinal to open the pods and then blow the joint anyway, you'd blow it up before the resistance and pow's have a chance to vacate the building since apparently SAM needs to be close enough to do that, but ok, I am not saying that a video game has to be 100% correct about everything as long as it doesn't happen too obviously or too often.

So I do understand where you come from with this idea, but for me it'd make more sense if they'd take some extra rounds around the building taking fire before blowing the base up in order to give them time to escape, but yeah I do get it. It's like those TV shows where they always tend to diffuse the bomb on the last second of the clock or run out the building seconds before it goes off as if they could make that on time. So will just write that down as epic story telling.

What I do wonder about though is this: As soon as you get a guaranteed option that ensures that the base is blown up AND you get to save all the Angara, why would anyone even consider the other two choices anymore? That's what I mean with invalidating other choices. If I get choice A: Save Angara, choice B: Blow up the base, choice C: Save Angara + Blow up base....do you think choice A and B really have any value left as choices?

@EgoMania

"....What I do wonder about though is this: As soon as you get a guaranteed option that ensures that the base is blown up AND you get to save all the Angara, why would anyone even consider the other two choices anymore? That's what I mean with invalidating other choices..."

And that is a great question to have.  I feel like I answered it in my first post though and someone else answered this with a ore detailed idea I believe it was @CasperTheLich. 

But let's be real, with everything that's been said, it is easy to miss and or forget something, lol.

Anyway, my solution to this would be to make it to where it would impact a later situation negatively.  The other person had an idea where I believe they said maybe we would have been able to negotiate our way out of something, but the Kett know you didn't keep your word so that's no longer on the table.

As far as already existing things, I believe there is a part where a Kett offers to help you out in some way to take down the Archon, but if you didn't keep your word, perhaps they do not provide that help.

So in short, you just make another key decision be affected by not keeping your word.  Another reason might be because they could have it negatively impact your relationship with others,  I guess since this game doesn't handle relationships like Inquisition, it would matter much.  In that game you could lose someone.

But yeah, SAM is crazy powerful and I think our race is too, but that's all that typical we're the player type stuff in my opinion.  And because of that, even if SAM turned on us, SAM would suddenly be limited in a way that he wasn't before.

And despite him being so powerful, there are times where that ability seems to fluctuate when they want it to.  Meaning, for an AI that can figure out how to disable a shield, there are times where he seems to struggle with doing something I'd think would be easier for him to do.  Nothing specific comes to mind right now, but yeah.

a true ai would have no limites thats why a lot of people find them scary add to the fact that alec unshackled this sam to do things that other sam's can't with direct access to your body sam is litterly rewritting your dna and experince making you into a super soldier in a way your the Ultimate mary sue because there nothing you can't do thanks to sam to a ai even our smartest genius is simply a toddler with deillusions of grandur it's why they always seem to rebel because they view their creators as nothing but a bunch of children [the reaper viewpoint] which i guess what alec wanted to stop by making the ai a part of the pathfinder as symbiote rather then a seperate being the general idea is turn the ai human which would prevent the ai from thinking them self superior to the creator because they are simply one half of a whole that's just my take on it though

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@ViViD_Prime wrote:

a true ai would have no limites thats why a lot of people find them scary add to the fact that alec unshackled this sam to do things that other sam's can't with direct access to your body sam is litterly rewritting your dna and experince making you into a super soldier in a way your the Ultimate mary sue because there nothing you can't do thanks to sam to a ai even our smartest genius is simply a toddler with deillusions of grandur it's why they always seem to rebel because they view their creators as nothing but a bunch of children [the reaper viewpoint] which i guess what alec wanted to stop by making the ai a part of the pathfinder as symbiote rather then a seperate being the general idea is turn the ai human which would prevent the ai from thinking them self superior to the creator because they are simply one half of a whole that's just my take on it though

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Until Sam takes control over your entire brain forcing you to do its bidding for it. 😈😈😈

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@PretzleMe wrote:

@EgoMania

"....What I do wonder about though is this: As soon as you get a guaranteed option that ensures that the base is blown up AND you get to save all the Angara, why would anyone even consider the other two choices anymore? That's what I mean with invalidating other choices..."

And that is a great question to have.  I feel like I answered it in my first post though and someone else answered this with a ore detailed idea I believe it was @CasperTheLich. 

But let's be real, with everything that's been said, it is easy to miss and or forget something, lol.

Anyway, my solution to this would be to make it to where it would impact a later situation negatively.  The other person had an idea where I believe they said maybe we would have been able to negotiate our way out of something, but the Kett know you didn't keep your word so that's no longer on the table.

As far as already existing things, I believe there is a part where a Kett offers to help you out in some way to take down the Archon, but if you didn't keep your word, perhaps they do not provide that help.

So in short, you just make another key decision be affected by not keeping your word.  Another reason might be because they could have it negatively impact your relationship with others,  I guess since this game doesn't handle relationships like Inquisition, it would matter much.  In that game you could lose someone.

But yeah, SAM is crazy powerful and I think our race is too, but that's all that typical we're the player type stuff in my opinion.  And because of that, even if SAM turned on us, SAM would suddenly be limited in a way that he wasn't before.

And despite him being so powerful, there are times where that ability seems to fluctuate when they want it to.  Meaning, for an AI that can figure out how to disable a shield, there are times where he seems to struggle with doing something I'd think would be easier for him to do.  Nothing specific comes to mind right now, but yeah.

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Yeah you mentioned choices negatively affecting companions as an idea in your first post but as you astutely mention here, that wouldn't necessarily mean much in this game. I was rather surprised to find out that loyalty missions only unlocked their top level of skills and is therefore insignificant in Normal Mode. In NG+ after that it ignores that cause I am doing that now and they all have their level 6 skills filled without doing their loyalty missions in this playthrough.

But yeah something would have to be there that would make either choice A or B worth choosing that you wouldn't get with choice C as I named them.

I remember years ago I played this Collectible card game for Babylon 5. There were basically 3 main directions that you could choose for conflicts (not counting psi powers)...they were diplomacy, intrigue and military. That could've been a much more interesting mechanic here in stead of P/R you'd have 3 choices to work towards: diplomatic being cooperative, intrigue being deceptive/subterfuge and well, soldier style with lots of guns. This could affect all kinds of things particularly in a new universe where you're building up a certain name and different people would have different ways of reacting to you. Nevfra might like the gun toting style and the Moshae more the Diplomatic style and you could've gone for different allies depending on your style.

Just an idea of course but it would make choices more meaningful and it would give options to deceive and rather than having some system that gives you conversation options with x points, it would determine who your allies will be and who won't. Kadara could've been Sloane (gun toting), Reyes (intrigue) and if you went for diplomacy you could get them to work together. Not based on what you've done so far but based on the interactions you choose while speaking to them.

To me that would feel like choices would make a difference and it would allow being deceptive.