Mass Effect question- Biotics

[Darth Ruinus]

I've always wondered about biotics in Mass Effect. With element zero imbedded in their nervous system they can manipulate dark energy and throw people around, generate shields around themselves or hold people in place. The process to turn someone into a biotic is long and slow, it requires someone to have been exposed to element zero while in utero (and even then, I think the Codex says something like 1 in 10 exposures are actually successful) and then training is required to develop those talents to any useful extent.

What I'm wondering is, why are biotics used at all when element zero, dark energy and mass effect fields can be artificially generated? It seems like it'd be much easier to simply produce the throw, lift, shockwave, stasis effects from the hardsuits soldiers wear themselves than wait around until someone develops biotics naturally. For instance, a Geth throwing people around with Push, or one of those LOKI drones hitting someone with Lift. Yet this doesn't happen, why? Is there an actual in universe explanation to this and I simply missed it, did something like the examples above occur in one of the books? Or is it possible and it's not done because Bioware is treating biotics like magic?

[adam_grif]

Short answer:
Biotics are just magic.

Long answer:
The biggest lore related problem with biotics is that they shouldn't be able to exist given Eezo physics, but they do. Essentially, Eezo creates a field immediately around itself, i.e. it's local. Therefore any biotic ability should only be creating effects that are centralized in that persons brain, because that's where the Eezo is. Somehow, they are able to generate remote fields, and how this is possible is never explained or even acknowledged. We have exactly one instance of artificial Eezo fields being generated remotely, and that is the SR1/SR2's Tantalus drive core, which complements the Internal Emissions Sink magitech stealth system. It switches into Reactionless Propulsion mode whenever the stealth systems are engaged so the thrusters don't give the Normandy's position away. It does this by "generating high mass concentrations in front of the vessel for the ship to 'fall into'". How this is possible is never explained.

However, this is an exclusively codex thing that is never mentioned elsewhere. By any reasoning, "biotic guns" should be possible that contain a whole bunch of Eezo and can remotely generate fields that no natural biotic could even dream of, since the "massive" quantity of Eezo in the SR1 is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand (it's that tiny little blue ball in the centre of the engine room in ME1). Given that the drive core of the SR2 apparently can generate remote fields like that, Geth or any other robot or synthetic should absolutely be able to use biotics under this (admittedly vague) understanding of element zero and biotics. They don't because something something organics.

The second biggest lore related problem is that Biotics can be genetic. The codex mentions that Asari are all naturally biotic, somehow this is related to their "unified nervous system" (the Asari make me so goddamn angry because of how stupid their design is, and this is a huge part of it). We also know that Miranda was genetically engineered to be Biotic, and so was her genetically identical sister. This contradicts the notion of Biotics as something that requires Eezo nodules in the brain, and makes them seem like generic psychic powers that you can also happen to get by being exposed to dust form eezo as a baby.

[Ford Prefect]

Therefore any biotic ability should only be creating effects that are centralized in that persons brain, because that's where the Eezo is.

Pretty sure you're wrong here, and that eezo ends up in deposits all around the body.

[adam_grif]

Never heard of that, but even if that's true it's not really helping to explain much of anything.

[Xon]

It's only throught all the codex's in both game dealing with biotics.

The genetic inheritance part comes from the fact that Eezo is highly carcinogenic and it takes spesific adaptions for the host to survive and more for enough nerve impluse control to cause eezo to be activated by electrical current to generate a useful mass effect field. Eezo mass effect fields are already being capable of being projected. That's how the freaking kinetic barriers and FTL works.

[adam_grif]

The genetic inheritance part comes from the fact that Eezo is highly carcinogenic and it takes spesific adaptions for the host to survive and more for enough nerve impluse control to cause eezo to be activated by electrical current to generate a useful mass effect field.

So how does that explain every single Asari innately having biotics without eezo exposure again?

That's how the freaking kinetic barriers and FTL works.

Err, how does raising or lowering the mass in a region of space time make a repulsive field? Barriers also require your suit to be completely covered head to toe in emmiters for it, which "emit" the shield like four centimeters in front of you. The codex doesn't explain how element zero produces barriers, all it says is "something something repulsive mass effect field". The entry on Cyclonic Barrier Technology in ME2 makes it sound as though each "emitter" is actually a tiny eezo, as opposed to this being channeled from some kind of central core. The key difference with the SR2's upgraded ones was that they spin constantly instead of being stationary.

The FTL works by lowering the mass of the ship, something that happens to everything around the core, and is a field radiated around in all directions. The more current you pump into it the larger the field is. What this doesn't explain is how you can generate a field 20 meters away while generating nothing around the element zero itself.

So to repeat what I said in my post:

- The entry on Eezo doesn't account for the behavior of biotics or other pieces of equipment
- Since that shit exists, yeah, synthetics should be able to have biotics and you should be able to build biotic guns and shit.

I felt the need to repeat that because you were acting like I was denying that this stuff exists, when I was actually just saying that it doesn't make sense given what we know about eezo, but it obviously does exist.

[Xon]

So how does that explain every single Asari innately having biotics without eezo exposure again?

You can only have biotics with eezo, and an organic system capable of no dieing from cancer caused by eezo exposure. And in case you missed it, the fucking horrible mining mini-game easily had a dozen or so lifebearing planets with sizable quantities of eezo on it. Given that exposure of less than a cargo hold dumped into a planet's atmosphere of the shit can make humans into very weak biotics what do you think an entire species evolving with the stuff pervasively in the ecosystem will do?

I felt the need to repeat that because you were acting like I was denying that this stuff exists, when I was actually just saying that it doesn't make sense given what we know about eezo, but it obviously does exist.

Except you are rejecting every showing that a mass effect field can be directed, and then screaming it doesn't make sense. All we are told is that Eezo permits the manipulation of 'dark energy" which can generate what amounts to gravity fields, but one thing is very clear is it isn't a simple point radiator source.

Your points are ultimately completely bullshit once you get over they can somehow affect/direct how the mass effect field propagates. And that the control systems have only been showing to work on very small concentrations and energy densities and that the ME races can't scale thier control systems up to except for very simple effects.

The Cyclonic Barrier Technology in ME2 is a very simple concept, but is explicitly stated it's a breakthrough in the control systems which permitted it and that any battle damage forces it to degrade to the vastly simplier traditional kinetic barrier technology.

[Xon]

Mass effect codex entry form a wiki

Significant drawbacks to current CBT configuration prevent its use on anything other than frigates and fighters. Its many high-frequency sensors and emitters require frequent maintenance and replacement. A partially damaged CBT can endanger its operator, who is surrounded by rotating mass effect fields skewing in unpredictable directions

CBT requires a shitload more complex control system. And hey look, they can rotate/direct a mass effect field!

[sirocco]

Mass effect codex entry form a wiki

Significant drawbacks to current CBT configuration prevent its use on anything other than frigates and fighters. Its many high-frequency sensors and emitters require frequent maintenance and replacement. A partially damaged CBT can endanger its operator, who is surrounded by rotating mass effect fields skewing in unpredictable directions

CBT requires a shitload more complex control system. And hey look, they can rotate/direct a mass effect field!

So short answer: the body naturally process eezo but no one has understood the process sufficiently to adapt to human size machines?

May explain why the Reapers are so infatuated with organic life

[Darth Ruinus]

So short answer: the body naturally process eezo but no one has understood the process sufficiently to adapt to human size machines?

May explain why the Reapers are so infatuated with organic life

I dunno, I mean, their combat suits and weapons all use element zero. Later on in the second game, during the mission on Purgatory there are some machines that encase two inmates in mass effect fields. Those things were pretty large and bulky (about the size of a refrigerator?) but those also seemed to function as shield generators in case of riots, so they may be big because they need alot of power.

Unless of course, the actual process that makes throw, lift, shockwave, singularity and warp aren't understood and can only be created by biotics.

[Ford Prefect]

Unless of course, the actual process that makes throw, lift, shockwave, singularity and warp aren't understood and can only be created by biotics

Something like the 'Singularity' power can, and actually is replicated technologically. Though not identical, disruptor torpedoes and the Blackstorm projector essentially replicate the ability, only better.

[Darth Ruinus]

Something like the 'Singularity' power can, and actually is replicated technologically. Though not identical, disruptor torpedoes and the Blackstorm projector essentially replicate the ability, only better.

Oh, I didn't get the game pre-ordered, so that explains why I missed this weapon. So that's some guns recreating biotics, that's cool. It just seems to me that having Lift built into your suits would be great in a combat scenario, since you could just pull enemies out of cover.

[Akhlut]

Something like the 'Singularity' power can, and actually is replicated technologically. Though not identical, disruptor torpedoes and the Blackstorm projector essentially replicate the ability, only better.

Oh, I didn't get the game pre-ordered, so that explains why I missed this weapon. So that's some guns recreating biotics, that's cool. It just seems to me that having Lift built into your suits would be great in a combat scenario, since you could just pull enemies out of cover.

There's also the question of cost and what a nation would prefer to use it for. Now, having ships with warp drives might simply be more economical and useful for nearly everyone and just relying on the odd combat biotic in a squad to lift people from cover, rather then depriving potentially dozens of ships of adequate eezo to make warp drives.

[open_sketchbook]

Perhaps what makes biotics specifically useful is the level of fine control they can develop? Sure, a technological version could be more powerful or do a prearranged action more precisely, but with the eezo directly embedded in the nervous system, a biotic might eventually develop enough precision and flexibility to use their powers in creative ways. With AIs being banned in Citadel space, you'd need an organic mind and skillset behind the biotics to do something such as, for example, plucking a moving target out from behind cover in a combat situation, hitting a guy around a corner, or pulling the pins on somebody's grenades from across the room.