How long could Mass Effect last against the Federation?

[Junghalli]

Can you provide an example of transporters separating material on the level of durability as the mass relays?

A) Is there any reason to think the entire thing is made out of the same material as the supposedly supernova-proof shell?

B) It's a teleporter, not a knife. Is there any reason to think that the "durability" of a material has anything to do with how easy it teleports?

C) They don't necessarily have to beam stuff out of it - what about beaming some of the antimatter their ships carry in large quantities in?

Would've been nice to use against the Planet Killer.

Maybe the Doomsday Machine had those transport inhibitors from Insurrection. Maybe it had shields. Maybe the magic signal couldn't get through its neutronium hull. Is there any particular reason to think the same factors would be present with the relays?

[adam_grif]

What about the eezo core that's out in the open? One would think that if there's an exploitable weakness in mass relays it would be that. Eventually those cores have to be replaced or refueled.

It might be an exploitable weakness, but they haven't been replaced or refueled any time in the last 50,000 years. Eezo doesn't "Run out" as you use it. In terms of generating the electricity needed to run through it, probably solar powered since nothing else has been mentioned regarding their operation.

[Stark]

Their size could hide any of a thousand solutions to the power problem, since you can make a functional relay way, way smaller (and work through walls). Since we have no idea what happened in the 'supernova' event and the Council is too dumb to study relays, we could just as easily say it used shields or transformed into defence mode or whatever.

[CSJM]

First of all, let's remember that the scenario already implies an abnormal Federation - since it wants to attack and conquer another universe, I'd say it's the Mirror Federation, as seen in "In a Mirror Darkly". Presuming they find out what the mass relays do, and don't find a way to turn an active relay to their own profit, they may go for entirely unconventional measures in regards to destroying it. Like, setting something common like an Akira class on autopilot, and have it ram the relay at full warp. Yes, I know the manuever is not canon (from a novel or something), but it is technically feasible. Failing that, just transporting a few dozen photon torpedoes into the eezo core could pretty much disintegrate the whole thing.

[Stark]

Since they don't need it dismantling it to learn about the technology behind it seems more likely. Actually, given how much element zero is in a structure of that size they could instantly have more of it than the entire Council.

[adam_grif]

The goddamn relay probably just saw the star was going to go supernova and moved out of the way. Mass effect cores can and are used for reactionless propulsion; the SR1/2's stealth systems can only work because they don't need to fire up the main drive to alter their velocity.

Relays have the largest Eezo cores in the known galaxy, so...

We don't even know if the relay took any of the hit. Nobody saw it when it happened, and all we know is that it was eventually moving through interstellar space.

[CSJM]

I thought of another explanation to how a Relay could have ended up far away from a supernova, undamaged. These things were built to last quite a massive amount of time, likely including the capability to survive in the inevitable novae and supernovae. With a massive amount of element zero on board, the station could include a "feather in the wind" mechanism as a safety measure. The best way not to get fried by a supernova is to get the hell away from it as fast as possible. The fastest way to do so, for a relay not capable of FTL travel by itself, would be to momentarily set its mass to some horrendously low fraction of what it normally has, and get blown away by the particle cloud.

I don't know whether or not it makes sense, but it's an option.

Also, however tough the material making up the Citadel is, a relatively small starship fragment was able to quite effectively punch through the wall of the chamber (I forget what that chamber actually was... some kind of control room?) during the finale.

[GrandAdmiralSeerdon]

I think the "feather in the wind" hypothesis has merit. It would be logical to assume that the Reapers, assuming they are the ones who actually built the mass relays and aren't merely claiming it's their technology, would build some sort of failsafe into the relays to prevent their destruction.

Oh and during the finale, it was a piece of Sovereign that crashed through a large window in the citadel tower, the council chamber to be specific, if I'm not mistaken. It's likely that the outer shell of the citadel, particularily when it closes up, is probably stronger than that.

[Star Wars 888]

I think the "feather in the wind" hypothesis has merit. It would be logical to assume that the Reapers, assuming they are the ones who actually built the mass relays and aren't merely claiming it's their technology, would build some sort of failsafe into the relays to prevent their destruction.

To be honest, that's speculation. It would be logical for the Council to listen to Shepard who saved the galaxy in Mass Effect 1.

Oh and during the finale, it was a piece of Sovereign that crashed through a large window in the citadel tower, the council chamber to be specific, if I'm not mistaken. It's likely that the outer shell of the citadel, particularily when it closes up, is probably stronger than that.

It's a window, which is a structural weakness. Going back to the logical statement, it would be logical for them to shut and reinforce the windows during combat, especially one outside the council chambers.

Although IDK if it would be a bad thing if the Mass Effect 1 council died.

[keen320]

It would be logical for the Council to listen to Shepard who saved the galaxy in Mass Effect 1.

Like they listened to him about the threat the Reapers represent?
Why would the council be more disposed to listen to the idea of an extra dimensional advanced civilization attacking them through a wormhole than they would be to believe there is a massive fleet of robo-ships outside the galaxy? Especially when one of those ships WIPED OUT much of their fleet and almost killed them all. The council is probably just humoring Sheperd, while privately thinking he's getting worked up about "one lone nut."

[Star Wars 888]

It would be logical for the Council to listen to Shepard who saved the galaxy in Mass Effect 1.

Like they listened to him about the threat the Reapers represent?
Why would the council be more disposed to listen to the idea of an extra dimensional advanced civilization attacking them through a wormhole than they would be to believe there is a massive fleet of robo-ships outside the galaxy? Especially when one of those ships WIPED OUT much of their fleet and almost killed them all. The council is probably just humoring Sheperd, while privately thinking he's getting worked up about "one lone nut."

You misunderstood my sentence. I was explaining how he mAss Effect leadership often times makes irrational choices.

[Omeganian]

It would be logical for the Council to listen to Shepard who saved the galaxy in Mass Effect 1.

Like they listened to him about the threat the Reapers represent?
Why would the council be more disposed to listen to the idea of an extra dimensional advanced civilization attacking them through a wormhole than they would be to believe there is a massive fleet of robo-ships outside the galaxy? Especially when one of those ships WIPED OUT much of their fleet and almost killed them all. The council is probably just humoring Sheperd, while privately thinking he's getting worked up about "one lone nut."

You misunderstood my sentence. I was explaining how he mAss Effect leadership often times makes irrational choices.

Never happened in Star Trek?

[keen320]

You misunderstood my sentence. I was explaining how he mAss Effect leadership often times makes irrational choices.

Maybe I did.

Never happened in Star Trek?

Good point, but the Federation usually has an enterprising ship captain willing to disobey orders to save their sorry hides (and they usually thank him properly afterwords). The council has Shepard, but I find it hard to believe he could single handedley save them from the Federation. The Federation's main fighting strength is ships, and Shepard is a commando. He would find it much harder to beat them with a few ground operations.

[Omeganian]

The Federation's main fighting strength is ships.

You mean that little ship vs ship action was seen in the ME.

[keen320]

The Federation's main fighting strength is ships.

You mean that little ship vs ship action was seen in the ME.

I was talking about how the Federation has ship captains to fix their irrational choices instead of a commando. My point was that the Fed irrational choices (like randomly attacking ME universe) are partially corrected by their captains, where as Mass Effect just has Shepard. Since the first and biggest point of contact here is ships, and the Federation has better ones, independently minded ship Captains are better in this situation than one Super Commando and co.

Also, it occurred to me that the Federation would probably find out how to use Mass Relays pretty fast, due to half their ships doubling as science vessels and the power of technobabble. And universal translators could solve the problem of the Prothean language. If the ship that found one had some legendary crew, like the Enterprise, they could probably figure it out in a matter of hours (minutes, if you account for editing out the boring bits). After all, they seem to do stuff like that every Wednesday.

[Star Wars 888]

The Federation's main fighting strength is ships.

You mean that little ship vs ship action was seen in the ME.

I was talking about how the Federation has ship captains to fix their irrational choices instead of a commando. My point was that the Fed irrational choices (like randomly attacking ME universe) are partially corrected by their captains, where as Mass Effect just has Shepard. Since the first and biggest point of contact here is ships, and the Federation has better ones, independently minded ship Captains are better in this situation than one Super Commando and co.

IDK about that...both Mass Effect and Star Trek have some stupid leaders.

Also, it occurred to me that the Federation would probably find out how to use Mass Relays pretty fast, due to half their ships doubling as science vessels and the power of technobabble.

IDK though if warp and relays are compatible. Somebody here said that the FTL travel and the relays are separate. If so, then warp drive wouldn't even be needed, but it could be that Mass Effect version FTL travel is needed to use the mass relays.

And universal translators could solve the problem of the Prothean language.

How will they translate a language that they haven't encountered before and don't have data stored on it?

If the ship that found one had some legendary crew, like the Enterprise, they could probably figure it out in a matter of hours (minutes, if you account for editing out the boring bits). After all, they seem to do stuff like that every Wednesday.

That's actually an interesting debate; The Normandy and its crew vs The Enterprise and its crew.

[Omeganian]

My point was that the Fed irrational choices (like randomly attacking ME universe) are partially corrected by their captains, where as Mass Effect just has Shepard.

Shepard is a ship captain who corrected a bad choice by the Council. Anderson is another captain who helped him. What's the difference? Only the bonus of them both being excellent in ground operations.

Since the first and biggest point of contact here is ships, and the Federation has better ones

How are they better? Because of the fact that a single hit of a ME capital ship will rip them to shreds?

independently minded ship Captains are better in this situation than one Super Commando and co.

We saw Shepard, we saw Anderson, both were quite capable of breaking the rules.

[Imperial528]

How will they translate a language that they haven't encountered before and don't have data stored on it?

The do it in *cringe* Voyager on a near-daily basis, and IIRC have done it in TNG as well.

[CSJM]

There would be no point in calling a translator "universal" if it wasn't, you know, universal. Most of the time, they only had problems with languages they couldn't make sense of rather than understand - such as that "Darmok" episode.