How long could Mass Effect last against the Federation?

[Stargazer]

Holy shit dude can you edit out the lifeless poser model if you're going to post stuff like that. Ugh.

And the quote a) doesn't tell you anything about the infrastructure required and b) isn't relevant militarily, because the xyz system fleet will take decades to reach the abc system without relays. It comes right back to the point that if the Fed are superior in space they can easily conquer whatever planets are in range.

Given the ME forces' massive stupidity, this really shouldn't be surprising.

She says "like a day's cruise", and earlier said that her posting and the planet her family was on was in the same star cluster. This suggests just using a ship's regular FTL, rather than going through a relay. She also likely used a civilian transport, which are slower than military vessels- civilian ships use ion drives and fusion torches, while military ships use antiproton thrusters.

Mass Effect ships can go between star systems in a single cluster relatively easily and quickly. The Normandy is portrayed as going between systems on regular FTL, and the games certainly don't stretch over years, or even months. The main limiting factor on FTL is not simply speed, but drive charge. Mass Effect ships can only go FTL for around 50 hours before an electrical charge in the ship builds to dangerous levels. They then need to discharge into the magnetosphere of a planet. It's hard to find a sufficiently strong magnetic field between star clusters, thus limiting the range of deep space expeditions.

Infrastructure doesn't mean 'special vessel'. Being 'routine' doesn't answer what level of support is required, either.

And no shit, idiot. ME systems are spread out over the entire galaxy, so once someone camps the relays or destroys them, the fleets from one system will take forever to reach another system.

I've played ME and ME space accuracy and tactics are so stupid Sovereign literally drove through a fleet too stupid to camp the node. Let's not talk about who is worse.

"Camp the node"? Let's recall that at that moment the Citadel had just opened up, so the turian ships had no more time to get to the node than Sovereign did. And they probably weren't expecting Sovereign's kinetic barriers to be powerful enough to plow right through their ships.

Also, the Feds are emphatically NOT destroying the mass relays, unless they suddenly have firepower comparable to a supernova. Mass relays are known to survive those without damage.

[Stofsk]

In ME2, two recruits were told that every shot of a dreadnought must hit the target, lest it hits something else, say, a civilian. That's from thousands of kilometers away. Meaning that the targeting systems could ensure a hit from such distance. Star Trek ships miss from far less.

Jesus Christ we've been over this. 1) ME ships have sensors that are limited by light speed lag. 2) Trek has warp drive that allows them to take advantage of this. 3) Trek ships have accurately hit ships from tens of thousands of kilometres away ('Journey to Babel' and 'The Changeling') and their weapons are of the sort that ME's defences won't do shit to stop.

I think space superiority will be problematic. Especially considering how easily Fed ships are destroyed by kinetic impacts.

trek sux hurhurhur

Space superiority will be trivially easy for Trek to enjoy when Mass Effect's ships literally cannot target them in order to hit them with their weapons.

[Stark]

She says "like a day's cruise", and earlier said that her posting and the planet her family was on was in the same star cluster. This suggests just using a ship's regular FTL, rather than going through a relay. She also likely used a civilian transport, which are slower than military vessels- civilian ships use ion drives and fusion torches, while military ships use antiproton thrusters.

Mass Effect ships can go between star systems in a single cluster relatively easily and quickly. The Normandy is portrayed as going between systems on regular FTL, and the games certainly don't stretch over years, or even months. The main limiting factor on FTL is not simply speed, but drive charge. Mass Effect ships can only go FTL for around 50 hours before an electrical charge in the ship builds to dangerous levels. They then need to discharge into the magnetosphere of a planet. It's hard to find a sufficiently strong magnetic field between star clusters, thus limiting the range of deep space expeditions.

PS, this doesn't tell us anything about the infrastructure requirements. Ships in 1905 could go 20 knots, but it still took a massive arrangement of fuelling and maintenance to go around the world.

The situation isn't as simplistic as you think.

"Camp the node"?

PS if they'd camped the node they'd have been at optimal range and aspect to engage instead of lurking at the Citadel out of LOS of the node like morons and get run over.

Let's recall that at that moment the Citadel had just opened up, so the turian ships had no more time to get to the node than Sovereign did. And they probably weren't expecting Sovereign's kinetic barriers to be powerful enough to plow right through their ships.

So ME tactics are generally to sit in front of a speeding ship because ... surely they wouldn't ram you? Bear in mind Turians are the ME tactical geniuses, and I personally am smarter than their greatest fleet admiral.

For christsake, they were too stupid to LEAVE A SPACE CAMERA AT THE NODE for advanced warning.

Also, the Feds are emphatically NOT destroying the mass relays, unless they suddenly have firepower comparable to a supernova. Mass relays are known to survive those without damage.

So fucking what? Unless the relays are near a star, a supernova doesn't deliver much energy to it. Did you even think about that?

[Stargazer]

PS, this doesn't tell us anything about the infrastructure requirements. Ships in 1905 could go 20 knots, but it still took a massive arrangement of fuelling and maintenance to go around the world.

The situation isn't as simplistic as you think.

What infrastructure are you expecting there to be between systems? There's never any indication of fueling stations being built in deep space between star systems. Your analogy fails because Ashley says it's a day's cruise. Circumnavigating the globe at 20 knots would still take 45 days at the equator, not accounting for navigating around intervening geography. That would be more comparable to a trip around the galaxy in Mass Effect (mass relays included)- but I'm not talking about that. Just a simple trip between two star systems in the same star cluster.

PS if they'd camped the node they'd have been at optimal range and aspect to engage instead of lurking at the Citadel out of LOS of the node like morons and get run over.

So ME tactics are generally to sit in front of a speeding ship because ... surely they wouldn't ram you? Bear in mind Turians are the ME tactical geniuses, and I personally am smarter than their greatest fleet admiral.

For christsake, they were too stupid to LEAVE A SPACE CAMERA AT THE NODE for advanced warning.

Hang on- you're talking about the mass relay that Sovereign and the geth used to get to the Citadel? The Citadel is the very center of the whole mass relay network. Dozens of relays connect into it. It would be impossible to guard every single relay.

As for guarding the Citadel's relay itself, again, there are multiple relays around the Citadel. Secondly, mass relays randomly place objects hunreds to millions of kilometers away from the target relay. There's no way to predict where the incoming fleet will appear. And what would be the point of a space camera? The Council fleet was prepared for an attack on the Citadel. Thermographic sensors could inform them of when and where an enemy fleet jumped in.

So fucking what? Unless the relays are near a star, a supernova doesn't deliver much energy to it. Did you even think about that?

Said supernova was enough to propel the relay out of the system to the point that it could not be found afterward, except by extremely systematic searching by the rachni.

[Stark]

Oh man, you're pretty funny. Protip - if a plane can go from London to Paris in an hour, can it go from London to New York and how long does it take? Think carefully.

Its sad that they even said they were locking down the nodes with ships in the game but actually didn't, but that's what happened. They didn't even have alarm systems. Since they were so poorly informed they got maybe thirty seconds warning and the attackers instantly blew past their defense line, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it needs improvement.

Man, it'd be pretty hard to find Voyager II as well. Nobody goes on about Voyager's INVINCIBLE DRIVE PLATES.

[Stargazer]

Oh man, you're pretty funny. Protip - if a plane can go from London to Paris in an hour, can it go from London to New York and how long does it take? Think carefully.

Of course, why not get onto a completely different topic! It's not like this has anything to do with proving Mass Effect ships have and need refueling stations in deep space between star systems for just a day's cruise.

Its sad that they even said they were locking down the nodes with ships in the game but actually didn't, but that's what happened. They didn't even have alarm systems. Since they were so poorly informed they got maybe thirty seconds warning and the attackers instantly blew past their defense line, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it needs improvement.

Or... Sovereign's fleet just destroyed any fleet at the node, and BioWare didn't want to spend the extra money on showing that battle.

*snip off-topic inanity*

[Stark]

You really are an idiot.

Just to explain it to you so that my time hasn't been entirely wasted, if a liner can cruise 12ly in a day, this tells us nothing about military ships deploying over hundreds or thousands of ly, because the ship may well have needed to be refueled or require other support (like an airport) that isn't present if they need to resort entirely to it. It's not as simple as 'roffle they go 12ly/day without relays'.

I thought you said camping nodes didn't work? If they fought at the node, why didn't they phone the fleet to clue them in (and mention the 'get run over' manouvre)? Despite what Human Admiral says, there's no evidence Sov fought anyone before he raped the Turian Moron Fleet around Citadel, which was caught entirely by surprise. So yeah, ME tactically, not so great.

Again, I guess you're too stupid to work this out, but moving and being lost doesn't actually mean something was hit with high energy. Regardless, you don't have to DESTROY relays; simply moving or turning them would probably disable them, and waving a buzzsaw around inside probably wouldn't help either.

[Stargazer]

You really are an idiot.

Just to explain it to you so that my time hasn't been entirely wasted, if a liner can cruise 12ly in a day, this tells us nothing about military ships deploying over hundreds or thousands of ly, because the ship may well have needed to be refueled or require other support (like an airport) that isn't present if they need to resort entirely to it. It's not as simple as 'roffle they go 12ly/day without relays'.

Ok, yeah. I already noted a 50 hour drive charge limit on the ships. Sure, for multi-day trips, other factors need to be considered. However, inter-cluster trips aren't going to be much greater than what Ashley talked about, and trans-cluster trips have the mass relays.

I thought you said camping nodes didn't work? If they fought at the node, why didn't they phone the fleet to clue them in (and mention the 'get run over' manouvre)? Despite what Human Admiral says, there's no evidence Sov fought anyone before he raped the Turian Moron Fleet around Citadel, which was caught entirely by surprise. So yeah, ME tactically, not so great.

We don't know if they did or not. Our view of the battle starts when Sovereign & co. jump over to the Citadel. We don't know what kind of warning the Citadel fleet had. Also, Sovereign may have taken out the FTL comm relay, thus making such a warning impossible. There's no reason to jump to the conclusion that the Citadel fleet was just plain stupid.

Again, I guess you're too stupid to work this out, but moving and being lost doesn't actually mean something was hit with high energy. Regardless, you don't have to DESTROY relays; simply moving or turning them would probably disable them, and waving a buzzsaw around inside probably wouldn't help either.

It was knocked out of the system. That's a big "move". And again, the very same relay disproves the idea that moving or turning them disables them. It was still working. Think before you post, will you?

[Stark]

So the whole point of talking about ME sans relays just sailed over your head? I guess you're just a stupid cunt.

It's blindingly obvious the Citadel fleet was totally unprepared. It was out of position, the Turians were paralysed by surprise, and they were easily sidelined by the geth. Whinging about cutscenes is useless because all Human Admiral had to do was say 'we've got reports of Sovereign engaging our picket fleets' or 'defence fleets are going dark, heading this way'.

Uh, you know teh Federation can literally just move them to another star system? They're not stargates. But whatever, you're a hilarious Bioware fanboy, continue. A supernova pushing a rock somewhere = OMG ROCK INVINCIBLEZ. Maybe it was a special FTL supernova? lol

[Stargazer]

So the whole point of talking about ME sans relays just sailed over your head? I guess you're just a stupid cunt.

No, you were claiming it took decades for ME ships just to get between star systems. That is emphatically WRONG. I wasn't claiming anything beyond the ability of ships to get between star systems within the same star cluster in a couple days or less on normal FTL.

It's blindingly obvious the Citadel fleet was totally unprepared. It was out of position, the Turians were paralysed by surprise, and they were easily sidelined by the geth. Whinging about cutscenes is useless because all Human Admiral had to do was say 'we've got reports of Sovereign engaging our picket fleets' or 'defence fleets are going dark, heading this way'.

A. Defensive positioning was next to impossible, relays can drop objects millions of kilometers away from the target relay.
B. "Easily sidelined" just means that the geth and Sovereign were that much more powerful than the turian ships.
C. Human admiral? What does Admiral Hackett have to do with anything?

Uh, you know teh Federation can literally just move them to another star system? They're not stargates. But whatever, you're a hilarious Bioware fanboy, continue. A supernova pushing a rock somewhere = OMG ROCK INVINCIBLEZ. Maybe it was a special FTL supernova? lol

Ok...moving that far STILL won't make them not work. Normal mass relays can connect with any relay for hundreds of lightyears around. I'm not aware of any ST ability to tractor a single object 15 km in length over that long of a distance. Long-range relays connect two relays exclusively over thousands of lightyears, often transporting ships between galactic arms.

If a 15 km rock got pushed out of a star system by a supernova without any kind of fragmenting, burning, melting, scarring, etc.? Then yes, as you say, OMG ROCK INVINCIBLEZ.

[Stark]

No, it really isn't, but you seem intent on failing to learn, so let's move on.

And frankly, if a ship can go 12ly in a day and then needs 2 days to refuel, that's kind of important. Let's ignore that too.

It's nice you've basically admitted it'll be impossible for ME to dictate a fight, though; their tactics are defensive, unimaginative, and slow to react to changes. The geth ships obviously didn't outclass the Turians that badly, since they were still going nearly half an hour later; the Turians were just easily distracted by a sideshow. Millions of kilometers is hilarious when the Turians didn't engage until they were a few hundred thousand clicks from... the centre of their entire nation.

As far as I remember, the Human Admiral (ps, not Hackett) was the only person who ever referred to any military preparation for Sov's attack; none of it is ever mentioned again. I guess a line of dialogue was too expensive for Bio 'we don't even watch our cutscenes until its too late' Ware.

[Stargazer]

No, it really isn't, but you seem intent on failing to learn, so let's move on.

And frankly, if a ship can go 12ly in a day and then needs 2 days to refuel, that's kind of important. Let's ignore that too.

Let's just ignore that you have no evidence upon which to make such an assumption.

It's nice you've basically admitted it'll be impossible for ME to dictate a fight, though; their tactics are defensive, unimaginative, and slow to react to changes. The geth ships obviously didn't outclass the Turians that badly, since they were still going nearly half an hour later; the Turians were just easily distracted by a sideshow. Millions of kilometers is hilarious when the Turians didn't engage until they were a few hundred thousand clicks from... the centre of their entire nation.

As for how the battle was portrayed, need I bring up that the battle has been specifically said by the developers to not line up with how battles are fought in ME, because the codex hadn't been finalized when the battle was animated? And said developers then gave the codex a higher priority.

Appealing to the visuals of the battle holds no weight, and the events leading up to the battle can't be used because, well, we don't know what happened leading up to the battle one way or the other.

As far as I remember, the Human Admiral (ps, not Hackett) was the only person who ever referred to any military preparation for Sov's attack; none of it is ever mentioned again. I guess a line of dialogue was too expensive for Bio 'we don't even watch our cutscenes until its too late' Ware.

Ambassador Udina? (not an admiral) I don't think he had much to do with strategy. The asari and turian councilors, however, did say they would take preparatory action.

See here.

[Star Wars 888]

Most of the Mass Effect leadership is a joke - especially the council (except for Anderson if you put him in the council), which dismisses almost every major threat as a myth. That may be a detriment to Mass Effect in this scenario.

Oh, and in Mass Effect 1 when you have to choose whether or not to kill the queen Rachni, the Turian councilor gets angry at you regardless of whichever option you pick.



Still though, I doubt that the Federation would have enough manpower to take control of the Mass Effect civilizations. They'd still have to keep forces back in the Federation for protection and order.

[Stargazer]

The aliens on the Council, and Ambassador Udina, are indeed idiotic. That's kind of the point. Anderson, and Admiral Hackett, are just fine though.

[Stargazer]

Also, just to pick at Stark's claim of the battle continuing "nearly half an hour"...

The battle starts as you approach the Conduit on Ilos. After it starts, you go through the Conduit, and then walk a few dozen meters into the Citadel Tower elevator. Then the cutscene for Sovereign plowing through a turian ship happens.

Hardly sounds like "nearly a half hour" to me. Unless Stark is a really sucky video gamer and took a long time to kill the couple Husks between the Conduit and the elevator. What could be a half hour later- when the Alliance fleet comes in- the only surviving ship that we see from the defenders is the Destiny Ascension.

[Stargazer]

I'm convinced that Stark is hellbent on portraying Mass Effect in the worst light possible. I guess this is what you get when a Mass Effect fan and a lewd BioWare hater clash...a shitstorm.

[adam_grif]

It's blindingly obvious the Citadel fleet was totally unprepared. It was out of position, the Turians were paralysed by surprise, and they were easily sidelined by the geth.

This bit is debatable. Characters in the game say that the Citadel defense fleet is on high alert, and that they would be camping the relay. The cutscenes suggest that they were actually nowhere near the relay, instead being right on top of the citadel (presumably where they normally are anyway).

Although there is no official canon policy that we are aware of, disregarding the final cutscene from ME1 as a bad dream is fairly logical given how fucking awful it is with respect to shitting over in-game dialogue and the codex.

[Junghalli]

If a 15 km rock got pushed out of a star system by a supernova without any kind of fragmenting, burning, melting, scarring, etc.? Then yes, as you say, OMG ROCK INVINCIBLEZ.

It is possible to tentatively quantify this.

If we assume the relay was pushed out of the system by light pressure then light pressure propulsion requires about 150 megawatts per newton (6.7 newtons per gigawatt). Escape velocity from the solar system starting in Earth's orbit is ~40 km/s. The kind of star that can go supernova would logically have a higher escape velocity, but the relay could have been orbiting farther out (meaning escape velocity from that orbit would be lower). Let's use it for an order of magnitude estimate.

The ancient Chinese recorded what is believed to have possibly been the Crab Nebula supernova as lasting around a year (link), so that gives us an estimate for required acceleration time from which we can derive a minimum thrust.

40,000 / # of second in a year = ~.0013 m/s^2

I have no idea what the mass is supposed to be but if we assume something comparable to a medium-sized asteroid (couple of billion tons) we're looking at about 3.9 X 10^17 watts, equivalent to about 100 megatons per second.

Assuming the object was headed straight away from the sun at an average velocity of 20 km/s over a year it would travel around 4 AU, so assuming it started at 1 AU energy at the beginning would be about 16X as intense as at the end. Deriving maximum energy from this and an average of 3.9 X 10^17 watts is left as an exercise to the reader because I don't know how to do it and don't feel like trying. At any rate it gives an upper limit of ~6 X 10^18 watts.

Mind you, this is assuming acceleration entirely by light pressure, which is extremely inefficient. If, for example, the heat of the supernova created a rocket effect by vaporizing the material on the near side of the structure, much less energy might have been required to accelerate it.

[Omeganian]

The supernova occurred 4 000 years ago. During their exploration - so, most probably, before the Rachni Wars, less than two thousand years later, the rachni found it, and it was enveloped in the nebula. Since the Crab Nebula has only expanded 5.5 LY away from the starting position over the course of an entire millennium, the Mu Relay was likely within 10 LY of the supernova. Meaning it received a blast of radiation in the megaton range without damaging any of the inner circuitry.

[Omeganian]

Also, if the Mass Relay was near another star, it could have been about as massive as the Sun. And the Charon relay, I believe, is around 40 AU from the Sun. For two billion tons, that's about 4.6*10^19 J GPE. Ten gigatons.

[Junghalli]

The supernova occurred 4 000 years ago. During their exploration - so, most probably, before the Rachni Wars, less than two thousand years later, the rachni found it, and it was enveloped in the nebula. Since the Crab Nebula has only expanded 5.5 LY away from the starting position over the course of an entire millennium, the Mu Relay was likely within 10 LY of the supernova. Meaning it received a blast of radiation in the megaton range without damaging any of the inner circuitry.

I tried calculating supernova intensity at 1 light year, based on the estimate here of a highball of 5 billion times solar intensity, I got 2 kW/m^2, less than twice the amount of sunlight present at Earth. However, the kinetic energy of the escaping matter should be 100 times as much, from the same source (200 kW/m^2). If it was within a few dozen AU of the star, of course, it would have gotten a lot more energy. For a 40 AU orbit I got about 2.5 million times more energy; 5 GW/m^2 and 500 GW/m^2 for light and kinetic energy components respectively.

As far as energy consumed if we assume that evaporation from the sunward side of the structure created a rocket effect, a lower limit can be reached by simple kinetic energy calculation. I got a lower limit of 12 kilotons assuming 1 year acceleration. Assuming acceleration was purely by light pressure is pretty generous (as far as estimated durability of the structure goes).

[CSJM]

But that's ten gigatons total power applied to the entire profile of the thing, over time. If Trek ships concentrate fire on a small area, they would be able to breach its hull. Not to mention taking it on tow and throwing it into a nearby sun.

Also, some things not taken into account by the above calculations is that if a star goes supernova, then in addition to sheer force of the event acting on the orbiting object, the fact that a lot of the mass of the star is now spread out over a massive area of space or got radiated away as energy will naturally mean that the object's own orbital velocity will make it drift away from the star, reducing the energy required to push it away by a not-insignificant amount.

[Omeganian]

As far as energy consumed if we assume that evaporation from the sunward side of the structure created a rocket effect,

No damage visible.

But that's ten gigatons total power applied to the entire profile of the thing, over time. If Trek ships concentrate fire on a small area, they would be able to breach its hull.

We have a lower limit which may not be as large as thought. But we still have no upper limit.

Not to mention taking it on tow and throwing it into a nearby sun.

The momentum of a few billion tons is no small thing. Besides, judging from the fact the Charon Relay somehow shifted Pluto's orbit once activated and made it circular, the relays have orbital stabilizers of considerable power to maintain a fixed distance. Even without them, it will take hours if not days (well, nearly six light hours to the sun for the Charon relay), meaning a large Federation force will have to stay for awhile to ensure the effect... presenting a very tempting target.

Also, some things not taken into account by the above calculations is that if a star goes supernova, then in addition to sheer force of the event acting on the orbiting object, the fact that a lot of the mass of the star is now spread out over a massive area of space or got radiated away as energy will naturally mean that the object's own orbital velocity will make it drift away from the star, reducing the energy required to push it away by a not-insignificant amount.

A typical remnant (a neutron star, that is) has a mass still above that of Sol.

[CSJM]

A typical remnant (a neutron star, that is) has a mass still above that of Sol.

But the point is that there is now significantly less mass than there was before the event. It's not instant of course, but there're all sorts of things that can go wrong with a piece of equipment in a supernova. If it has orbital stabilizers, it would remain in place even during the supernova - since it didn't, it either has none or the supernova rendered what sensors it had for measuring distance to the star useless. If the orbital stabilizers did go haywire, for example reading the expanding cloud of the supernova as the relay falling into the star, they may have pushed the thing away themselves.

I just wanted to say that the distance a relay was thrown by a supernova isn't indicative of the actual force exerted upon it. Btw, do relays have kinetic barriers? Because those would probably stop a lot of what could damage the relay during the event - specifically, charged particles. This may account for the "no visible damage", but since it still survived being heated to hell-knows-how-many-degrees and the effects of hard radiation for quite a long time, I suppose you can call the relays "ungodly durable" anyway.

Still, my guess is photon torpedoes can break it. Not sure about whether or not taking down kinetic barriers is within the feds' ability, but an antimatter warhead would still cause damage, regardless of material - annihilation, and all that. Tiny chunk by tiny chunk, if the Feds can shove enough photorps into one spot with pinpoint accuracy, they'll eventually destroy the relay, or at least render it inoperable.

[Stargazer]

No, mass relays are not known to have kinetic barriers. Even if they did, it wouldn't indicate anything, because barriers don't protect from radiation anyways.