What Mass Effect Tells us about Aliens and the Galaxy we Live in

Et's exist, for me there is no doubt!
UFO's though are all covert black projects and mis-identification.

Might play mass effect though. if i can be bothered to reinstall windows!

probs can't though Ubnutu is just too good

Originally posted by yuppa

Originally posted by Vardoger
The story, is awesome....through all three....until the last 5 mins, which is one of the biggest flops/degassing/stupid, endings ever.

What does it tell us about the universe? Maybe that no matter how much time and effort nor how much you enjoy your journey, the ending is going to suck. period.

edit on 3-4-2012 by Vardoger because: (no reason given)

OH but wait!! do i hear fan outrage has made the developers re think th eending a bit. A new ending is scheduled to come out within a month or so,and should be included in new pressings of the game. Then 6 months later a special edetion will come out i bet.

Yea I know, but I don't know if I'm going to play through it again. Especially if they make it DLC. The ending just left a huge sour taste that makes me make sour face whenever I play it now.

Its cool to find another ME fan - but i disagree with the claim tht evolution path will be the same. In video games it is cheaper to create Humanoid character that can be based on movements of the actors (which are Human... I hope...) then to go for completely alien computer model that is much more time consuming to create.
Evolution though is not based on budget or deadlines. It is depending on chemical/physical conditions of planet and of chance.
I see no objection to carbon life on planet with 4g , average temperature of 2 degrees Celsius and moderatly different atmosphere. It would result in different forms and paths though. Als i see no reason for only carbon-based evolution so the result could be a mass of gue or a transparent space kid.
If one states that there are lots and lots and lots of billions of planets out there so statistically there should be alien life despite the fact that we did not encounter one yet and know only about our planet, then the same can be claimed for variations of those life forms - we know only carbon based one but statistically there could be other paths..
Sadly i cannot see the video of the professor - youtube gives me an error. But i disagree nevertheless .

Saren is still the best.

Naturally if organisms evolve under the same or very similar conditions as us they shouldn't deviate too much.

But I also think there is life out there that is truly "alien" and we can't even imagine what it looks like, nor for that matter be able to recognize it as life if we saw it.

The beauty about the Universe is it's big enough to accommodate both theories

reply to post by LeaderofLostSouls

It is a loaded and debatable topic; what defines life?

I'm not going into archives to explicitly define life but there are common denominators by those who try to define what life is. Lets try to reach a core basal composition of defining life.

Life can be looked at from numerous perspectives, all of which would contain a physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, intellectual or social aspect.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com...

Does that define a plant to you? A plant IS life, and it is believed that talking to a plant enhances its growth, only arousing caution if said plant answers. I rule out language to define life, a paramecium has never answered any of my questions, maybe it just didn't understand them>?!

So said example of a plant should also rule out deliberate locomotion, the plant stays where I put it, and it doesn't get all emotional about it, well, at least it doesn't communicate its distress to me (outside of my own observations of ill health of said plant). Out goes the emotional aspect to define life. Does the plant believe in God? Does it use reverse psychology to teach its siblings, wow all of the sudden that above description isn't holding much water, at least a paramecium does that!

Intellect is not a requirement for life unless you think a virus thinks, me thinks it reacts to chemical stimuli, nothing more, but it is alive. Gosh all we have left from above requirements is a social life, I suppose said author never interviewed a polar bear. Strike out.

Deliberate locomotion is out, (I'm overlooking metaphysical stuff OK?), not a requirement, All we have left is physical, but most agree reproduction is a basal requirement to define life, after all if you die with no kids your legacy life is over.

So a physical entity that can reproduce, or propagate is what I have left, and stars do that.

They come into existence, create life, (or are life we don't understand), they die and new stars form from their debris. Is that life? Meets the basal requirements does it not? It eats, it excretes, it creates life, it lives (mutates elemental ingestion into a different expulsion) and moves and dies and reproduces. Life!?

One exploration of defining the animate and the inanimate is exactly as I just stated by a child prodigy in the William Sidis archives. If you are interested in exploring what life can be defined as this is an interesting take of describing the basal requirements and gives a sense of elapsed time in observation of suspected life to consider why we may not recognize life as being alive due to a different time frame of said existences comparatively.

Interestingly enough at the time Sidis was living the sciences were but in infancy, but he tried to define life as an entity that can exert more than it consumes, and considered chemical involuntary reactions as being a simulation of that, when one considers nitro glycerin. LOL!

Why consider what defines life? I don't know, I'm more interested if said life can paint my house, but strangely curious if it can't.

(enthusiasm) I love mass effect too though I am still not done with 2.

(mild excitement) I wouldn't be surprised if life out there is like this as star systems closer to the milky way center have billions of years on us.

(happiness) Gotta love the Elcor

reply to post by gortex


I really do believe that aliens will be very similar to us. I believe that most, if not all, intelligent species in the universe will be bipedal. I just dont know why another species would look so much different than us just because they are from another galaxy.

What amazes me is how birds, mammals and insects all developed flight capabilities in their own individual way. I agree with the OP, but the diversity of life just on our own planet does hurt the argument. Then again, maybe a bipedal, dual eyed, humanoid species is the best configuration for intelligence to develop to a point that would enable interplanetary travel?

i m sure xcom is way better

has sectoids and lobstermen and aquatoids and all that stuff.great game really.

the skeptics gonna have a field day with this thread.

reply to post by gortex


You guys are smoking way to much of that legalized stuf.. oh wait before you get all sensative about this.. your just the latest thing on the books, yes i said books.. guess what your just a #ing number.. know why.. cause you aintno better.. you want legal mary jane marriages and stuff as well.. come on WAKE TFU. all of you im not picking on anyone in particular, IM SAYING your all lulled to sleep by boring intellect.. LOL yea thats what i said. Think you smart..? Prove it.

reply to post by traqer


That incoherency addon you got for your browser is working.

reply to post by gortex


Yeah awesome game... I really like the cooperation with the different species , And I think if there is such kind of cooperation in the universe, they are all on the same tech level. And class civilizations who are more god like creatures will ignore the lower classes, indirectly the lower classes will work for higher classes,or have to submit by intergalactic laws.

By the way will the higher evolved classes also interfere on earth To balance chaos.... happy end?

I put my money on the Geth, Cylons, or Borg as being the most likely "lifeform" that we first encounter...if they come here....if we do the traveling then maybe we would find younger and still environmentally fragile life.

....I couldn't think of a benevolent synthetic group of beings...but the Geth and Cylons weren't all bad, all the time.

Maybe it's just me, but I thought the ending was intelligently created (ME3), and your choice DOES matter. Each outcome leads to a different life for the galaxy.

Originally posted by IMSAM
i m sure xcom is way better

has sectoids and lobstermen and aquatoids and all that stuff.great game really.

the skeptics gonna have a field day with this thread.

For people of a certain age xcom evokes great memories. :-)

I'm still waiting from somebody to port that to IOs or Android. Its not exactly a resource hog and theres a built in fan base of old timers.

Can you imagine human looking space people with blonde hair are walking around Reptilians, Insectiods, and tall white Greys performing tasks on the large UFOs and helping with abductions in some cases?

I just cannot imagine it.

If a reptilian or Insectiod, or tall grey race engineered the space alien grey that was depicted in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) then if would be more likely to me that people who have seen human Nordic type aliens that was actually a screen field around the insectiod or reptilian.

Greetings,


I disagree with the notion that ET life will be similar to us........... it may be humanoid but similar is very very rare.... Because for such an event to occur..... the condition on the planet which these aliens develop should have identical environment...... not only in terms of biosphere and evolutionary path but also in terms of cosmic exposure(ie cosmic ray and light particles that fall on a planet from the neighboring stars and other heavenly bodies) they face....

Even if you consider Earth....... same species in different areas show different characters....... though they might be genetically same........ but physically,morphologically,even psychologically differ a lot........ some sub-species may differ physiologically........ though it is very rare but has been seen......

Recently NASA scientist have found organism which uses Arsenic as one of its constituent in its genetic material....... So carbon based life forms are not the only options......... Scientist have also found many chimeric multi cellular organisms....... that hunt,moves and when required they produce food from photo synthesis.......

So you can see how diversified life is........ and now think of all the permutations and combinations for lifeforms in the galaxy..........

I can predict this that should human race ever leave earth and colonize other planets in the galaxy(s)...... w/o proper safeguards to protect genetic makeup and evolution of humans........ we can see development of various Human sub-species.......... which will not be good.........


Proud to be Human.........


Have Fun,
Primus

I have thought a lot about this over the course of my playing ME, particularly about the turians.



For the less nerdy, this be a turian. They evolved from their planet's equivalent of birds; they are avian creatures. In order to survive and thrive in the radiation-bombarded environment of their planet (weak magnetosphere), their skins evolved to have specialized plates which nullify the effects of radiation on their bodies by simple absorption and deflection. And, as if they weren't alien enough, their DNA and other life-essential molecules are dextro chiral, instead of our more familiar levo chirality. (Basically, righty loosey lefty tighty, instead of yknow, what we're all mostly familiar with.)

They are probably the most alien of all the aliens in Mass Effect, even more than the jellyfish-esque Hanar or the Volus, because they are so very different.

And in a way, they are more like what I would expect sapient extraterrestrial beings to be like. Not like I expect them to be bizarre, radiation-resistant birdmen with blue blood and DNA that is 100% incompatible with ours, but the ideas behind those things. They are written as a product of their planet, just as we are in reality a product of Earth. They are vastly different from human beings physically, culturally, and probably mentally, and yet also very similar. They have families, lovers, hopes, dreams, fears, psychological scars, spiritual and philosophical leanings, likes, dislikes, and everything else that seems to come with being sapient beings. (They also tried to wipe humanity off the face of the galaxy when humankind made first contact with the galactic community... but that's a different story.)

The point I guess I'm trying to make is that, even if we do meet aliens at some point, and they are different from us on every physical level, if they're sapient, they're going to probably feel things and think things a lot like we do. And even though Mass Effect occurs in a wonderfully fictitious universe, I think the part about them all being remarkably "human" beings is probably not too far off the mark.