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Post by jklinders on Aug 28, 2010 15:32:00 GMT 1
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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 28, 2010 16:01:44 GMT 1
They've got an equally interesting article on "The Science of Starcraft 2" there as well.
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Post by lieden on Aug 28, 2010 17:04:19 GMT 1
Would someone please address the evolutionary process that made the race of asari looking like blue-skinned human female hotties?
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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 28, 2010 17:09:05 GMT 1
I'm pretty sure evolution didn't have a say in that.
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Post by jklinders on Aug 28, 2010 17:16:31 GMT 1
I got this one guys. It's called male hormones, both in the writers and in the primary target audience. When you have a race of strippers that transcend all species version of beauty there can be no other explanation.
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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 28, 2010 17:54:38 GMT 1
I was going to write, "Male devs wanted to have lesbian alien space babes in the game" originally, but thought that might be a bit crude (besides, not all of the devs are male, I don't think). Ah screw it, I wrote it anyway.
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Post by lieden on Aug 28, 2010 21:05:10 GMT 1
I always had trouble with the asari, because everything else in ME aims for a decent level of believability, whereas the asari are plainly made up for the sex-appeal factor and there is absolutely no explanation why they would be so human-like. (To be fair, the drell are also strangely human-like and I read somewhere that they made up the race after Thane was created, because they wanted an extra, attractive alien male LI for Shepard. :p) Anyhow, this calls for a vengeful crack!ficcy explanation: The asari were in fact closely related to humans (perhaps the Protheans experimented with the same primitive race and transferred populations from one planet to the other at some very early stage in history), had originally two sexes like humans, and at some point determined that this brought about polarity in their society, so the women genetically killed the men off. (Inspired by this article here. So this is the asari's dirty big secret, about which no-one else in the Galaxy knows. Perhaps in the end will assimilate all other known races and become the next generation of Reapers. :p :p :p
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Post by jklinders on Aug 28, 2010 22:14:38 GMT 1
Well an all female race is not COMPLETELY out to lunch. As this article shows the Y chromosome is not the most stable of genetic structures and is losing genetic information as the generations pass. Give it a few 10s of thousands of years(assuming we last that long) and there may not be any men left. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090716201127.htm
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Post by Nemonus on Aug 28, 2010 22:35:33 GMT 1
(LOL lieden. That theory makes sense. XD)
I always thought the asari could be explained by the fact that the Reapers tend to encourage a certain kind of species (i.e. the humanoid kind) to develop, because it's...useful to them in some way.
Also, male game designers. Which, yes, is kindof subverted by Thane. His leather outfit isn't quite as blatant as asari strippers, but...
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Post by Knightfall on Aug 28, 2010 23:27:15 GMT 1
I got this one guys. It's called male hormones, both in the writers and in the primary target audience. When you have a race of strippers that transcend all species version of beauty there can be no other explanation. jklinders, Ambassador of Man. You have my axe. When I first saw the asari and learned that they were pretty much a race of universal hookers, I was just like...BioWare, you have no shame. You're hired. Let's not forget that they attempted to top themselves with Kelly Chambers in ME2. As per the article, it was pretty interesting! It's unfortunate that quantum entanglement, which sounds like the best form of communication ever, is so impossible to get right. And the explanation for the mass travel system is sorta funny, like it's right out of that Futurama episode. "Impossible! Nothing can travel faster that light!" "Precisely! That's why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208!" xD
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Post by jklinders on Aug 29, 2010 0:43:30 GMT 1
I got this one guys. It's called male hormones, both in the writers and in the primary target audience. When you have a race of strippers that transcend all species version of beauty there can be no other explanation. jklinders, Ambassador of Man. You have my axe. When I first saw the asari and learned that they were pretty much a race of universal hookers, I was just like...BioWare, you have no shame. You're hired. Let's not forget that they attempted to top themselves with Kelly Chambers in ME2. As per the article, it was pretty interesting! It's unfortunate that quantum entanglement, which sounds like the best form of communication ever, is so impossible to get right. And the explanation for the mass travel system is sorta funny, like it's right out of that Futurama episode. "Impossible! Nothing can travel faster that light!" "Precisely! That's why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208!" xD ;D I was disappointed that the quantum entanglement was bollocks. That seemed the most plausible of the bunch as I knew someone was actually playing around with it.
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Post by lieden on Aug 29, 2010 6:13:08 GMT 1
Guys, guys, when you're talking about instant communication / quantum entanglement and such stuff, you're actually talking about the ansible! (Coined by Ursula K. Le Guin in 1966.) Linders, my problem was not with an all-female race. My problem was with a race that looked exactly like female human potential strippers. I mean, why not tone down things a bit? Maybe asari don't need breasts (or maybe breasts would develop during pregrancy). I understand that plausibility has to be sacrificed for the sake of practicality, reduced complexity and a degree of attractiveness, but that was a bit too much, and perhaps even unnecessary. I mean, for example, if some human has a thing for aliens, make it as out-of-place and possibly perverse as it probably ought to be. (Hey, Garrus is blatantly alien, and he was a hit!) I'm not some kind of prude, sexiness in games (or anywhere), but that widespread pre-packaged kind of sexuality that objectifies female (and male) bodies annoys me to no end. I'm sorry if I'm not very coherent. It's still very early in the morning. :}
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Post by jklinders on Aug 29, 2010 13:27:59 GMT 1
Never said otherwise. My point in posting the article I did was to reinforce what had been brought up concerning the ants. The asari were written(sorry about the crudeness here) as a young male's wet dream. I mean let's face it, it's a race of bisexual women who will screw anything. It really does not get more blatant than that. The writers are young men writing for young men. this all comes back to male hormones nothing more or less simple than that.
For that matter Tali is not much different. Very idealized human female shape. The fact you cannot see her face is irrelevant. In fact the mystery of her face probably makes that much more attractive to some. Bottom line I was not trying to make stupid excuses for the wet dreams of a few Bioware writers. On that note it is kinda early for me and I better finish my coffee.
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Post by Battlechantress on Aug 29, 2010 14:43:03 GMT 1
Yeah, meanwhile, Garrus was given to the fangirls purely due to popular demand. In one interview with Casey, he mentioned that Garrus was "ugly" and didn't see the appeal. Just goes to show that devs may write some great stuff, story- wise, but they can also be shallow as hell. (That "romance" with Jacob still makes me want to dry heave.)
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Post by jklinders on Aug 29, 2010 15:06:35 GMT 1
But the priiiize.
I was just happy they gave Garrus a personality in ME2. I play male Shep so the romance does not come in, but they actually had him cracking a couple of jokes. In ME1 it was all C-sec this and C-sec that oh will you please stop whining. Combine that with him dying easy in ME1 I barely took him along. Now I gotta talk myself out of taking him because he rocks so much.
I leave Jacob "calibrating" his "guns" in the armory as he rarely has anything useful to offer character or combat wise.
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