So right, can someone please explain to me

how the fuck shit like this makes sense.

From MercNet btw.


Reason I'm even asking you all is 'cause some of you aren't completely fucktarded and the thread got locked 'bout an hour ago after it started tanking the servers after that post.

So uh

yeah.

Anybody gonna take a crack at this?

That's not personal. That's them financing slave raids on the Alliance one time too many. You think she's going to be such a total xeno with everyone else and this HORRIBLE BLOODTHIRSTY TOOL PERSON with batarians? It is not likely.

They cannot give the woman due credit.

Okay, Redacted, I give-up, I do not have the time or energy to counter, the counter-counter-counter arguments, which you would just ignore anyway.

User: [REDACTED]’s current hypothesis makes extensive use of the Nazara/Heretic Hostile Expansion Event as rationalization for the increase in pacification devices [see: “Thanix Cannon,” “Treaty of Farixen”]. Indeed, his argument makes reference to this event no less than six times in one post alone.

This rationalization is flawed. After Nazara’s destruction, transmissions over the next two years indicated a widespread presumption that the Old Machine was an anomalous byproduct of Heretic platform development. Many transmissions, particularly on platform frequencies largely referred to by non-Creator sentients as “news channels,” transmitted the statistically overwhelming sentiment that the attack was purely “geth” in nature, that Nazara was a geth “secret weapon,” and that its destruction had “halted a geth threat.”

Fleet patterns for Council races suggest an overwhelming support for this hypothesis; in the two years between the respective destructions of Nazara and the Bahak Relay, there is a significant, measurable decay in hostile attacks between Council Race and Heretic forces, with few fleet patterns to suggest reactions to external threats.

Significant upscale of Council forces did not occur until after the Bahak Relay Destruction Event. User: [REDACTED]’s argument on this position is fundamentally flawed.


User: [REDACTED]’s commentary on geth “willingness” to provide assistance during the Evening War precludes hostile intent from all sapient species toward geth and Creator forces, as well as the fundamentally insignificant strength of discourse between geth and all other galactic forces.

The fact that Nazara and the human known as “Shepard” were the only forces to engage in diplomatic discourse before the Old Machine Conflict is significant. Were it not for the former’s actions in the Evening War, it is highly probable that the geth would remain allied with the Old Machines.

User: [REDACTED]’s argument on this position is fundamentally flawed.


Running SnideReaction.aud;

Yeah, pretty much. I’m not seeing how it could be much else.


THANK YOU

SEE THIS

RIGHT HERE

THIS IS WHAT THE REST OF YOU PEOPLE SHOULD BE DOING

ON THAT NOTE


What, you mean like missions that the STG and Asari Commandos were carrying out ALREADY? Stuff they were doing VERY WELL, apparently, if the Council opted to make an entire unit of their best troops solely for that fact? Because they were filling a role that needed to be filled for the sake of the war effort? Why establish a totally separate unit composed of lone agents that could basically say 'I want to go over there instead' when these existing units, with actual direction from the chain of command (not just recommendations, advice from the Council and intelligence reports on where shit's going down) were working just fine?!


Yes, I HAVE heard of it. It's one of the fundamental aspects of the Rule by Force + Rule By Wealth/Resources/Business/Leverage/Whatever + Group Survival Theory that I've been claiming is how the galaxy at large operates this whole fucking time. Y'know, my 'gang theory?' Destroying or capturing a gang's ability to PRODUCE shit means they need to get it another way or risk being at a disadvantage, which can and will lead to another gang ultimately killing them if the problem is not corrected. However you scale it up or down, gang warfare tends to focus on this kind of thing. The Krogan Rebellions were no different in that kind of methodology or practice. Again - Common sense shit.


Not in the least. I'm just saying, if you're gonna make the kind of point you make directly below this line of text, YOU SHOULD FUCKING JUSTIFY IT BEYOND ‘BECAUSE THE LEADERS OF OUR SPECIES SAID SO’


They WERE lone soldiers, or at least working in pairs or trios. And on that note, HOW?! WHY?! Where does the lone soldier thing factor in at all to them DOING THEIR JOBS BETTER?! That makes NO FUCKING SENSE.

And how does any of this factor into the whole 'above the law' thing?! Where's the relevance between military defense/power projection and law-enforcement (unless we fall back on my gang theory, where it’s ALL enforcement of a particular gang’s own rules and there’s no fucking difference, their rules be damned if the situation warrants). Where's the link? And how does throwing ONE guy at a problem somehow solve the issue, even if he's REALLY badass, when a squad of commandos or STG agents could’ve done the same thing?


That’s not what I was getting at, you dumb spikeheaded bitch.


So, what, basic survival is trumped by 'HEY GUYS LET'S ALL DO THIS'

that's news to me

come out to T-space, see how well you do with what we have to work with, out here

challenge issued.


Again - Spectre activity in territory outside C-Space, apparently on Council orders. HMM. SOUNDS LIKE THE COUNCILORS OVERSTEPPING THEIR BOUNDS.

LIKE A GANG.



Oh, hey, look at that. A fucking admission that you guys aren't above rule-by-force. Willing to overstep YOUR OWN FUCKING RULES AND RESTRICTIONS to make sure that you guys don't have your position threatened. T-Space is outside Council jurisdiction. That's a policy that's been in place for FUCKING CENTURIES. Technically, sure, fine, a Spectre is allowed do whatever the fuck they want in T-Space, because that's kind of how T-Space works. But explicitly USING Spectres to project Council authority into a region of space NONE of you are supposed to be touching is pretty fuckin' hypocritical when you dress it up as something other than the rule-by-force stance I've been using this whole time. If it's convenient for you guys, YOU WILL DO IT, laws be damned! Gang shit!

In other words, you guys are JUST as bad as we are in T-Space!



Which should not have been necessary, considering the entire point behind Spectres is that they're given their position of power and authority by the Council on the basis that they're a fucking paragon of their species. Usually that implies 'exemplary record and good faith that this isn’t going to somehow come back to bite us in the ass.' And it WOULDN’T be necessary if Spectres didn’t exist in the first place!


First human Spectre, working for a radical pro-human paramilitary/terrorist group and basically given a pass on this shit BECAUSE SPECTRE STATUS? Like, she didn’t get a Spectre on her ass for it? Like what happened with Saren? Kind of retarded, don'tcha think? Sure is nice that when the Council does something, it’s OK, but when someone ELSE does it, oh no, that’s terribad.



Except it wasn’t. The other argument over yonder has been making a pretty good case for it.


Ya got THAT right.


Did we or did we not STILL destroy Sovereign in the ensuing space battle? Did Sovereign, in fact, get destroyed? Did Saren end up dead? You’re telling me that other Spectres wouldn’t have gotten the heads-up that some shit might be going down? If not the Spectres, then why not the STG? Or the asari military (all jokes about asari military preparedness aside)? Or even another human N7 unit?

Fuck, the asari knew what was going down the whole fucking time. Prothean beacon on Thessia! That thing had information vital to the construction of the Crucible! That alone should’ve constituted enough of a heads-up.

‘Hey, guys, just thought you might like to know. We’ve got THIS thing, we were building it to fight synthetic godsquid. Yeah, we don’t actually know what it does, but, it’s totes a superweapon to prevent a galactic apocalypse.’

^ you’re seriously saying THAT wasn’t something that should’ve gotten the ball rolling when the word got ou-

oh, wait

asari

maintaining an advantage and ignoring their own rules when convenient

more gang shit


Then she’s arguing from a position that is MADE OF SHIT.


Actually, that’d be me you’re talking about. I am talking to both right now. And I am not impressed, good madam.

This is a ridiculous challenge. What you "have to work with" is the same sort of resources that C-Space. That's the reason that the Alliance was so happy to start colonizing out in the Traverse. C-Space is what it is after thousands of years of co-development and cooperation. T-Space is what it is after the exact same amount of time. If the locations were swapped the results would be the exact same. It has nothing to do with anything to do but how you run things.


Trying to cram the entire galaxy into one catch-all answer is just stupid.

I.... what.



You think our anger over shepard committing genocide is because we're jealous that we weren't involved? That's the biggest case of Cognitive Dissonance I've ever seen.

"No one can hate shepard, because she's the bestest person ever, so they have to be jealous!"

That sounds like something a pre-pubescent quarian would submit to a debate. If only the races not involved in her crew disliked shepard, then we'd be hearing a lot more from the volus and elcor.


I give her credit for her efforts in the Reaper War, but that does not excuse war crimes. I rarely look positively on batarian war heroes myself because they're in the same boat. Almost all of their successes against the Systems Alliance were caused by horrible acts of terrorism and civilian casualties.

Shepard did a good thing. That does not make her a good person.

Right, we totally have the infrastructure, the R&D facilities, and the ships, and the manufacturing capabilities on the same level as C-Space. Everyone's totally rallied behind a single political bloc. We can TOTALLY take C-Space in a fight if we had to, and everyone's got readily-available medical technology, and food, and running water without rust in it. And Pillars know we've got the guns.

Because believe it or not, EVERYONE knows being able to enforce and secure our assets against every other fucker out there would go a long way towards making what you're suggesting viable. Sure, we're fractious, but we're trying, and C-Space fucking tampering with shit by sending in Spectres and the STG (don't you dare fucking tell me they're not coming out here and knocking down anyone who looks like they might get shit unified; it's all off the record or classified, we'll never fucking know) is not helping matters.


They started colonizing the Traverse because nobody else decided to FUCKING GO THERE. Room to expand, nobody to really argue or fight with them over shit except people that they had a chance at knocking down if the time came (raiders and mercenary bands - smaller gangs).


See above.


Sure would be nice if you actually addressed any of my points instead of just saying 'ur stoopid hawhaw.'

This is my point.


It is entirely your own doing.


In T-Space "unified" is always "we are going to get together to invade C-Space", never "we are going to build up T-Space". After the War Aria's been the exception and oh look, C-Space is working with her.


Your point is "I am going to view the galaxy through my tiny philosophy and if it doesn't fit I am going to flip out", and you haven't done anything in this thread to prove otherwise.

What, your point that we all suck because resource scarcity is a thing and not everyone can have everything? That people might need to fight to get the shit they need? That some people don't like the idea of ending up at the bottom of the heap, scrabbling in the dirt for food?



Sure, nevermind all the fucking colonies and Terminus states C-Space is working with. Y'know, independent colonies, that are trying to build up. The ones that have a bunch of farmers, and manufacturers, and artisans. The ones that keep getting hit by pirates and mercenaries because they have resources those guys can use and they don't feel like fucking with the biggest gangs on the block (C-Space) to get them because they're reasonably sure that plan's going to backfire (kinda like some Omega street punks fucking with Aria), or they need them right then and there and can't strike at C-Space to get it.


Right, 'my tiny philosophy.' 'Flipping out.'

Prove me wrong, Harrad.

After all, I've been proven wrong before, admitted it, and then adjusted my position based on the fact that the information I got was originally false and then corrected by outside sources. Within this thread alone. I can't recall a point where I've done anything else. I'm not totally irrational.

It's not a philosophy if I'm right, Harrad. I mean, look at the Hierarchy. Relay 314 Incident, your peoples' first time squaring off with the humans. They were going to activate a mass relay and possibly do something that'd have proven very detrimental to the Hierarchy's position (possibly starting a rough equivalent to Rachni War II, nevermind the fact that virtually everyone would've suffered for it). So you guys killed 'em. Not a bad move, and I'm not calling you guys out for it. If anything, it was really fucking smart, and in that position, I can safely say I'd have done the same thing. Very pragmatic, very Terminus. Approval.

Then you guys went after Shanxi - again, not a bad move. Smart. Then the humans rolled in with a retaliation, took Shanxi back, and the Hierarchy starts mobilizing for full-scale war. Guarantee you would have rolled right over Earth and taken the SA down entirely, effectively denying them the option of doing anything but becoming a client state because you guys would basically get resources if the Council hadn't stepped in and said 'hey, knock it off doods.'

I invite you to prove me wrong. Because I want to be wrong. I mean, this way I'm looking at it? It sucks! I don't like it! I'd much rather it work some other way! Why do you think I donated to the fucking Sur'kesh charity, or did pro-bono cybersecurity work for the OHO (OK, not totally pro-bono, but I like having cybernetic legs that aren't made of fail and they offered) not too long ago? I'm trying to do my bit to improve the situation so that things don't work this way. And it isn't doing a fucking thing.

T-Space no more or less resources than anyone else in the galaxy. Get outside and realize how big the galaxy is.


The ones that like to do their best to scream "don't help us" until they're in trouble? Yeah. I've been to those types of colonies before, when I was a Lifebearer. And when I was in the Hierarchy. That's the whole thing about independence. Independence. And everyone in T-Space tries to be independent and look at where you are.


You think it is right because you are forcing everything to fit into it. Of course it's going to look that way to you.

And I know you're going to be angry because I'm not going to try to respond to the walls of text you're putting up. Because you are just like every other person who starts getting louder and louder when their back is against the wall. So I'm just letting you go free, because I'm not putting up with another ten pages of this go-nowhere back-and-forth when all you are doing is shaving down every square peg in the galaxy to fit into those round holes.

But half the time 'resource scarcity' does not even explain why a place is poor. Look at...Solregit and any other colony of equivalent age. You could probably have built a whole society on Rakhana, if you were colonizing and came in with a unified government and didn't have to go through the fossil-fuel burning stage of civilization development. If things are going to crap something else is wrong.

How

How does this prove your point? What I'm getting from this is your current system kind of blows for the independent colonies-which I knew, because I lived in one, and yeah, they eventually got hit by a lovely 'self-funded' terrorist group.

EATING OUR OWN, PEOPLE.

Also, Pirates are lazy thieves, but we knew that.


Does your model allow for like, fear, pride, and confusion, because that's what I get reading about the First Contact War.

But the council intervention worked, major war was averted, monopoly on force for the win? Maybe we're arguing at cross purposes, but the Terminus lacks a group that can do this and it is to their detriment.

Either they don't have the workforce or the tech/equipment needed to make good use of the resources they're sitting on, or someone's taking their resources as they extract them (could be pirates or warlordist factions). Or they're getting kicked off their turf and replaced by more settlers from offworld by a different Terminus state. However you slice it, resource scarcity is in play on one end or the other and it's directly spurring on the conflict, and that in turn directly impacts how things end up working. Look at the SA colony Elysium. In relative colony-building terms? Became one of the Alliance's biggest and best colonies practically overnight. And aside from the Skyllian Blitz, nobody really ever fucked with it (and the Blitz failed because the Alliance had their shit together and protected their turf adequately against the attackers. I would expect nothing less from a gang run by a competent boss or collection of bosses).

What I'm getting at it is 'rule by force is in effect whether we like it or not.' It's not a matter of how we use it, so much as just having it. The threat of overwhelming force tends to serve as an effective deterrent for anyone trying to pick a fight. And if they decide to pick a fight anyways, you take 'em out and send any survivors on their merry way (to prison or scattering into hiding, whichever works best).


Kinda blows for everyone. There are C-Space buyers for the resources these independent colonies extract. Some cooperation between C-Space and T-Space for what could arguably be called the greater good. But it still blows, and, well, there you have it.


Doesn't really factor in, does it? After all, as Harrad has stated himself earlier in this thread, the reasons for it don't matter so much as the end result. He cited Dwick donating to charity as an example of his take on this kind of thing. Am I right? Long as shit works out, nothing else matters.


Maybe we're arguing at cross-purposes after all, and maybe the Terminus does lack that kind of organization, but, really, my main point is that it's not that different from how the Council does things. Emphasis on force and power-projection. Resource scarcity and control. Is there really any difference in practice?


Agh, fuck it. This back-and-forth is getting tedious, so you're right on that point.

Harrad, if I'm ever on the Citadel, I'm up for Skyllian Five and some decent booze. We can talk about shit like Uncle Garm Garm or something, I dunno. Or maybe I can patch up your computer's security. I'd be up for a challenge (hard to build on something that's probably plenty solid already - C-Space software, what're ya gonna do?).

What can I say, I'm not a fan of hard feelings (unless it's a dude who tried to kill me).

Yeah, I'm going to leave your overt-jealousy-of-Citadel-Space-clumsily-disguised-as-lesson-in-false-equivalency to the professional teditricians, and just go straight for the low-hanging fruit that is you attacking Saint Shepard of Torfan.

You did endure the war, right? So surely you are aware that mere proximity to the Reapers is a fast-track to indoctrination? It seems fair to say that there was probably a reason why a hitherto reliable 'paragon of their species' suddenly turned into a galactic traitor. I also dare suggest that this was not an eventuality that the Council could have plausibly prepared for. Besides, not being necessary is goalpost-manoeuvring of the most blatant order; the point of the matter was that it was still internally corrected within the framework of the Spectre programme.

Just as police corruption levels would drop to a staggering zero percent if you abolished the police.

Need we recall that Shepard was legally dead at this time? She had been KIA for two years. Is it any wonder that the Council was slow to respond when she suddenly turned up alive? The Cerberus connection was mere rumour for much of that time. And just what could they have achieved in that brief window of opportunity between her resurfacing and the Bahak incident, anyway?

No, they haven't. The entire bone of contention was that it was batarians who died. The latter would have traded Earth for three extra seconds of preparation time, but God forbid that the home team should take any hits. Three months is equal to the duration of the actual war. The idea that this bought us nothing is purely ludicrous. Also ludicrous: the argument that the impending war between the Alliance and the Hegemony left both at a disadvantage when the Reapers arrived, which seems to rest on the absurd belief that these two powers already being on a war footing left them...unprepared for war.

There were two Spectres aware of the Reaper threat: Shepard and Saren. So...yeah.

Which means it was probably a good thing that we had Spectres, no?

Right, well. I'm gonna be honest here and say I ain't gone through the billion pages of Mekan's arguments so far in their entirety, but he does have some points.

I'm not sure if he's stating them properly, or that I necessary agree with all of them, but there is something to them, I reckon.

There is certainly a precedence for rule by force. I mean really most of us wouldn't have gotten evolved and into our civilized stages if we didn't have that instinct in us, yeah? It makes sense that it would spiral out into our respective civilizations. I'm not really gonna argue the gang mentality = government thing because that's one of those things I don't really agree with. It ain't without any merit though.

I'd actually like to point out a general flaw most of you seem to be making. Having spent all but the last few years of my life as a citizen of C-Space, and now pretty much a T-Spacer I've seen both sides. Y'all seem to think that all of us out here in the Terminus are lawless, amoral folk. Quite frankly, used to think that myself.

And that just ain't true. There are a lot of folk out here that are that way, of course, but you have just as many criminals in C-Space, they just do their thing indirectly or run white collar crime rather than the more obvious stuff. But at the same time, much like in C-Space, for every criminal group there /are/ two or three more groups trying to help make this place better. OHO, AEGIS, hell, even Aria at this point, and every clinic, every worker trying to get by on the measly wages they get, are doing what they can to make Omega, make the Terminus work together more.

I reckon you do your own side of the argument a disservice when you suggest that the reason the Terminus isn't like C-Space is because it's just full of people who don't want it to change.

Okay, I have so many words I want to vomit all over my screen at this thread. Ideas about mercs, pirates, governments, blah blah blah.

But I do want to address this idea that the universal constant in government is rule by force.

What?

I'm seriously going to try and not be a douche-lined douche-bag here but, I can't agree with that being the rule. I mean, most sapient species are also hyper-social species. We are biologically built not just to assert our power over others for our own benefit, but also seek the betterment of the whole, you know?

Sure, there is definitely use of force to rule within the Salarian Union, and not just military force either. Political maneuvering, economic deals or sanctions, blackmail, breeding contracts done for power exchange, ect. The Dalatrass all sit behind their golden doors leveraging power to better the situation of their clan and themselves, yeah? Taken in this light, it seems like rule by power is the only rule.

But, really, that's ignoring so many other things and taking a really simple view of how the Union's government works. For instance, before the shrelling terrorist showed up and illegitimatized our cause (note: those guys are examples of why rule by power can be a very, VERY bad system for governance) the many groups of salarians protesting and peacefully fighting for expanded gender equality and more openness in the governemnt were actually making some headway. Small victories, but victories none the less. We don't really have any might or power to leverage, yet the many groups who want to see this change are banding together and wielding an idea, an actually changing things. It's not power or might doing it, it's an idea and a sense of moral obligation, and the unification of the powerless.

So, I don't know. It's an example of how organized governments actively fight just a might makes right stance in order to consider what is actually right, despite not having an real power to leverage. Take that for what it's worth.

Most poor places have large populations, and tech...everyone has extranet. I think you're really underestimating the importance of organization (like, formal organization, the kind with checks in it to keep people from just grabbing power) incentives, and screwy culture.

And the threat of warlordist factions is why you need some system to reign in the 'gangs competing for power' stuff, I don't know where you're going with that.


Ahh, what am I trying to say here...

Rule by force is this very base thing and it tends to degenerate into a free for all and if you have 'gangs' of roughly equivalent size the nobody-wins fighting will suck the resources out of the system like a fire consuming the o2 in a spaceship.

You'll probably say that the Council is just more force, I think that's simplistic. It's this legal system that contains the forces (tries. Tries to contain the forces) and lets stuff get done.


But stuff happens for cultural and emotional reasons, people aren't just resource and power-maximizing VIs. If you want to know when things are going to happen...


Yes. Yes there are clearly differences in practice. There's control I'm pointing a gun at you and control the people of this area generally agree that these laws are fair. They produce really, really different results. This is...I don't get it. Look at the statistics again! The numbers are higher and lower in patterns!

Seriously though, this is interesting.

I thought I'd come back to the thread and I can't believe I missed this.

You can't run things based on "as long as shit works out", because understanding how shit is working out only works in hindsight. When you're trying to get people to do things, which is what we're talking about here, then the reason why does matter. I worked for the Lifebearers, and Dwick donates to charity. In both cases charity gets donated to, but if you removed the tax benefits, do you really think Dwick would keep donating?

People do things because they have reasons. They always have reasons. It doesn't change the results of what they did, but it definitely determines what they will do.

You're a saint.

Seriously, remind us again.

I worked for the Lifebearers. Seven years. And I only stopped so that I could raise a family and teach kids how to fly, and now after the War I'm doing that again. And I'll keep on doing it unless I die or end up back with the Lifebearers.

That must really touch a nerve.

Not quite what I was getting at there, pal.


...doesn't this thing get any other channels?