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Post by Shockmatter on Aug 17, 2012 2:13:10 GMT
I know for a fact a lot of ME lovers are Halo lovers as well. So here's something to talk about, which universe do you think is better? Feel free to explain why as well.
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Post by Emberblaque on Aug 17, 2012 4:44:27 GMT
I think they evoke very different feelings. When I play Mass Effect it reminds me of the modern age, but instead of globalization it's like galacticization. Tons of cultures are interacting that never have before, and it's a galactic community. Travel and communication have become instantaneous. It's nice, it's a rosy image of the future and strikes some of the same important themes as Star Trek: sexuality, international (interstellar) relations, social consequences of new technology, etc.
Halo on the other hand has that feel that worlds are distant, everywhere is remote and authority is questionable. It's more like colonial times, in a way. The Insurrectionists challenge UNSC rule, and the threat of Covenant invasion leaves the UNSC's control of any world tenuous at best. Out in the vacuum, it's just a cyborg and his starship, no phoning home instantaneously, and it takes weeks to travel between the stars. You feel stranded or disconnected on a Halo. Even if you have a spaceship there's a constant risk of it being destroyed by the Covenant, and you're not going anywhere soon even if you can use it. But still the Chief and the rest of the UNSC just waltz around the galaxy taking names. It's everything wonderful about a camping trip with explosions.
I would say ME takes the cake in terms of narrative quality however, save for that final blunder. Halo is infamous for continuity errors.
Very different, both are wonderful, IMO.
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Post by Reaper_Armada on Aug 17, 2012 12:57:56 GMT
One word. Space Nazi's. Just watched Iron Sky. It was very entertaining. But in Mass Effect I feel like a galactic hero against an unsurmountable unstopable space monster force while in Halo I feel like the saviour of humanity and the inheritor of an ancient race and warrior Gods.
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Post by Wolfrahm on Aug 17, 2012 15:47:14 GMT
I've only ever actually played the first one and couldn't get over the lack of realism. Mass Effect, I feel is much more realistic, Immersive and has a better storyline (except when considering Mass Effect 3's ending). Halo seems, to me, to always have been a cashcow.
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Post by Emberblaque on Aug 18, 2012 0:09:21 GMT
I've never found element zero and mass effect fields any more realistic than slipspace. I mean if that's the way in which Halo's more unrealistic.
The one thing that makes little sense to me in Halo is humanity's slow development, it's the 26th century and barely anything has changed.
Also definitely a cash cow. I don't remember games getting the same release hype as movies until after Halo 2's disturbingly large marketing campaign. I'm not sure, but I also don't remember a viral marketing campaign for a video game before Halo 2's I Love Bees, unless you count the Cortana Letters during Halo: Combat Evolved's production.
Leave it to Microsoft.
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Post by cowgirl on Aug 18, 2012 3:34:06 GMT
Neither is 'better', it all comes down to personal preference. I love both universes, they are filled with rich lore and a lot of things going on.
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Post by Wolfrahm on Aug 18, 2012 9:53:44 GMT
Element Zero is a brilliant idea which even could exist (before hydrogen on the periodic table. an element without Protons could have unknown capabilities) and would allow the possibility of FTL travel. Element Zero is the most brilliant concept I have ever heard of in a sci-fi game,book and certainly movie. A positive electrical current (positrons) causes a increasing mass effect field, negative (electrons) a decreasing mass effect field. That concept is the most perfected idea I've ever heard in the sci-fi scene and is totally plausible. Element Zero doesn't disobey many scientific laws, if I was told it actually existed I wouldn't be suprised. Next stop Element Negative One  . |
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Post by Wolfrahm on Aug 18, 2012 10:01:16 GMT
The one thing that makes little sense to me in Halo is humanity's slow development, it's the 26th century and barely anything has changed. I can certainly agree on that point. Humanity went from barely being a solar empire to becoming a galactic empire in less than a five years. Mass Effect Relays effectively allowed us to explore the galaxy before we even developed technology to leave the solar system. I can't but help compare this to giving nuclear weapons to a stone age civilization. |
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Post by Emberblaque on Aug 19, 2012 0:39:58 GMT
Element Zero is a brilliant idea which even could exist (before hydrogen on the periodic table. an element without Protons could have unknown capabilities) and would allow the possibility of FTL travel. Element Zero is the most brilliant concept I have ever heard of in a sci-fi game,book and certainly movie. A positive electrical current (positrons) causes a increasing mass effect field, negative (electrons) a decreasing mass effect field. That concept is the most perfected idea I've ever heard in the sci-fi scene and is totally plausible. Element Zero doesn't disobey many scientific laws, if I was told it actually existed I wouldn't be suprised. Next stop Element Negative One . Scientific inquiries into such a substance call it "neutronium", and its most remarkable property would be its density. Because there are only nuclear strong forces to bond the neutrons and no charged particles with electromagnetic forces to repulse one another, the neutrons can exist very closely to one another. How such a material would have unusual electrical properties, or how unusual electrical properties would affect gravity in any way, is unclear. I understand you call them mass effect fields, but everything they're capable of is consistent with spacetime distortion, like an Alcubierre drive or Krasnikov tube, something affected by gravity. Anything professing the manipulation of gravity through electrical circuits is generally quackery. All to say that BioWare's explanation is really as weightless as Bungie's black box that is the slipspace drive. I mean the explanation they give is a non sequitur in and of itself. They explain that Element Zero has no protons, then they start talking about how electrons make negative mass effect fields, and positrons make positive mass effect fields. Even though there's no clear logical relationship between those statements. It's not clear why they brought up Element Zero in the first place. And it all implies a terrible misunderstanding of what electricity is. You know electrons orbit atomic nuclei. Imagine a line of atomic nuclei, when an electrical current is flowing. The electrons move along to the next nucleus in the chain. They're bound there by the electromagnetic attraction to the protons in the nucleus. But imagine a positron. It has a positive charge, as does the proton. This means the two particles electromagnetically repulse one another. So there's no force keeping the positron near the nuclei, which means it cannot flow as electrons do. To do this, a negatively charged nucleus would be necessary, an antiproton. A "positronic circuit" conducting "positricity" would need to be composed of antimatter. This implies many more difficulties. Any contact between matter and antimatter components of the system would result in annihilation. And if the circuits are somehow composed of "element zero" they would attract neither electrons nor positrons, unable to conduct electricity, or "positricity," at all. |
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Post by cowgirl on Aug 19, 2012 4:09:15 GMT
Element Zero is a brilliant idea which even could exist (before hydrogen on the periodic table. an element without Protons could have unknown capabilities) and would allow the possibility of FTL travel. Element Zero is the most brilliant concept I have ever heard of in a sci-fi game,book and certainly movie. A positive electrical current (positrons) causes a increasing mass effect field, negative (electrons) a decreasing mass effect field. That concept is the most perfected idea I've ever heard in the sci-fi scene and is totally plausible. Element Zero doesn't disobey many scientific laws, if I was told it actually existed I wouldn't be suprised. Next stop Element Negative One . Scientific inquiries into such a substance call it "neutronium", and its most remarkable property would be its density. Because there are only nuclear strong forces to bond the neutrons and no charged particles with electromagnetic forces to repulse one another, the neutrons can exist very closely to one another. How such a material would have unusual electrical properties, or how unusual electrical properties would affect gravity in any way, is unclear. I understand you call them mass effect fields, but everything they're capable of is consistent with spacetime distortion, like an Alcubierre drive or Krasnikov tube, something affected by gravity. Anything professing the manipulation of gravity through electrical circuits is generally quackery. All to say that BioWare's explanation is really as weightless as Bungie's black box that is the slipspace drive. I mean the explanation they give is a non sequitur in and of itself. They explain that Element Zero has no protons, then they start talking about how electrons make negative mass effect fields, and positrons make positive mass effect fields. Even though there's no clear logical relationship between those statements. It's not clear why they brought up Element Zero in the first place. And it all implies a terrible misunderstanding of what electricity is. You know electrons orbit atomic nuclei. Imagine a line of atomic nuclei, when an electrical current is flowing. The electrons move along to the next nucleus in the chain. They're bound there by the electromagnetic attraction to the protons in the nucleus. But imagine a positron. It has a positive charge, as does the proton. This means the two particles electromagnetically repulse one another. So there's no force keeping the positron near the nuclei, which means it cannot flow as electrons do. To do this, a negatively charged nucleus would be necessary, an antiproton. A "positronic circuit" conducting "positricity" would need to be composed of antimatter. This implies many more difficulties. Any contact between matter and antimatter components of the system would result in annihilation. And if the circuits are somehow composed of "element zero" they would attract neither electrons nor positrons, unable to conduct electricity, or "positricity," at all. ಠ_ಠ I looked at that for about 5 minuiets before giving up...so many big words... ಠ_ಠ |
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Post by Emberblaque on Aug 19, 2012 4:29:56 GMT
ಠ_ಠ I looked at that for about 5 minuiets before giving up...so many big words... ಠ_ಠ The high price of accuracy. It just felt like Mass Effect fields were being sold as science. |
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Post by Wolfrahm on Aug 19, 2012 9:21:13 GMT
Scientific inquiries into such a substance call it "neutronium", and its most remarkable property would be its density. Because there are only nuclear strong forces to bond the neutrons and no charged particles with electromagnetic forces to repulse one another, the neutrons can exist very closely to one another. How such a material would have unusual electrical properties, or how unusual electrical properties would affect gravity in any way, is unclear. I understand you call them mass effect fields, but everything they're capable of is consistent with spacetime distortion, like an Alcubierre drive or Krasnikov tube, something affected by gravity. Anything professing the manipulation of gravity through electrical circuits is generally quackery. All to say that BioWare's explanation is really as weightless as Bungie's black box that is the slipspace drive. I mean the explanation they give is a non sequitur in and of itself. They explain that Element Zero has no protons, then they start talking about how electrons make negative mass effect fields, and positrons make positive mass effect fields. Even though there's no clear logical relationship between those statements. It's not clear why they brought up Element Zero in the first place. And it all implies a terrible misunderstanding of what electricity is. You know electrons orbit atomic nuclei. Imagine a line of atomic nuclei, when an electrical current is flowing. The electrons move along to the next nucleus in the chain. They're bound there by the electromagnetic attraction to the protons in the nucleus. But imagine a positron. It has a positive charge, as does the proton. This means the two particles electromagnetically repulse one another. So there's no force keeping the positron near the nuclei, which means it cannot flow as electrons do. To do this, a negatively charged nucleus would be necessary, an antiproton. A "positronic circuit" conducting "positricity" would need to be composed of antimatter. This implies many more difficulties. Any contact between matter and antimatter components of the system would result in annihilation. And if the circuits are somehow composed of "element zero" they would attract neither electrons nor positrons, unable to conduct electricity, or "positricity," at all. Your explanation is brilliant. You're able to explain things in a much more logical sequence than I can. Most of what you explained makes more sense to me now. I admit to needing to look up non sequitur, and it defines my trains of thought exactly. I was just fantasizing about a substance that could make possible many of the impossibilities of this universe. There is inconsistency in your explanation. If Element zero is just an element consisting of neutrons there wouldn't be any Protons to repel the positrons (or any to attract the electrons, and so no orbitals). My theory was that gravity is a negative energy (which sounds crazy) and so electrons, which are negative, transform into non-neutral-gravitons/dark-gravitons which are also negative (similar to the reasoning behind the creation of photo-electrons from which I assume light is also negative). Gravity, I find, is the most confusing constant known. Gravitons must be present in all particles except maybe in Neutrinos and Higgs boson etc. Element zero deposits in the nervous system would effectively allow manipulation of gravity (how we are able to generate "positricity" in our nervous system didn't make sense though) through the generation of gravitons and non-neutral-gravitons/dark-gravitons or possibly just gravitons and anti-gravitons/itself. I'm obviously not as well versed as you are. I know of all these things of which you speak but you obviously have a much better comprehension of them. Would you mind me asking you what is the best sci-fi book, or series of books, you have ever read, in your opinion, as I wish to read it. |
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Post by Wolfrahm on Aug 19, 2012 9:26:19 GMT
It just felt like Mass Effect fields were being sold as science. Sorry about that, it wasn't my intention. I'm all lateral-thinking without the logic part, if you know what I mean. |
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Post by Reaper_Armada on Aug 19, 2012 14:02:25 GMT
Science is irrelevant when all you need to know is that your brief existence and your galactic civilisations will be extinguished.
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Post by Wolfrahm on Aug 19, 2012 15:24:43 GMT
You are correct but your opinion is irrelevant. All you need to know is that in your brief existence you and your forum civilisation will be extinguished. I er... WE are the virtual Reapers!
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