Except then all the Rachni/Krogan have to do is find an unoccupied system with a Mass Relay, reactivate it, then sudden devastating attacks on hundreds of basically undefended worlds.

EDIT:

I've only read the synopsis of the DLC so I can't say what they thought the consequences were but to my knowledge the choices were down to 1. Let Reapers Invade or 2. Destroy Mass Relay. Possible side effects (like Batarian genocide) had to be taken out of the equation.

 

I actually remember being impressed the cinematic was done that way, because it is realistic. Large objects at a long distance always appear to be moving slowly because unless there's something 'normal' sized around to compare them to, your brain will automatically treat them like smaller objects that are closer.

 

So, according to DLP, destroying unfathomably useful and utterly irreplaceable devices of impressive size and resilience with potentially devastating side effects and countermeasures is something that most space faring races should have done as a matter of course in every difficult war they've been in since they discovered these devices? Kay.

 

Actually Kalas, you had to destroy the relay. You could decide whether or not to warn the Batarians but either way you were forced to destroy it.

 

Okay, think of one of the "Wonders of the world."

Now think of one we haven't burned down or blown up or melted the outer coating off of for fun.

 

None of them?

All the wonders of the world have basically just fallen into disrepair because the cultures and societies that made them stopped being able to maintain them. Also, the analogy doesn't even work because the Relays are not monuments to the greatness of their society but integral parts of the infrastructure that makes their society work.

 

So...the outer coating of the pyramids? The temple of Artemis? Zeus at Olympia? That's 3 just out of the original seven.

The fact it, given sufficiently advanced technology and human (/whatever species, they're all the same anyway) nature, they should have fucked up at least one relay by doing things like shooting them at planets.

 

Except none of the wonders actually did anything besides sit there looking pretty. Unlike the relays which are THE infrastructure of the entire galaxy. It'd be like blowing up the only plane on earth and magically making it impossible for humans to ever create flight technology again. Sure we'd still have land and sea transport, but damn.

 

That assumes they can find an unoccupied relay within their standard FTL range. From what we've seen of relay distribution and the range of conventional FTL drives in the ME universe, that's a long ways away from being a sure thing. Not to mention that activating/going through a previously undiscovered mass relay has all kinds of hazards associated with it.

Plus, even if another relay was in range, having a several ligh-years long supply line would slow down any Krogan counter-offensive considerably.

 

Don't forget the remains of the Colossus, which was still something of a tourist attraction until it was melted down for scrap by the Arabs.

Yes, but we're talking about objects roughly 4-8 km across. With that size range in mind, watch the video from 0:05 (when it cuts to the external view). At 0:05 the asteroid starts from maybe 3-4 kilometers away from impact. It doesn't actually hit the relay until 0:15. That means the asteroid it moving at roughly 300-400 meters per second, which is about average for a real-world rifle round.

They are in space, with large engines and mass reducing fields for the asteroid itself all running continuously for some time before the impact. I'm not saying it should have been running at .9c or anything ridiculous like that, but it should have been moving at at least a few dozen km per second to justify retconning the whole "Relays are indestructible" bit.

 

Eh depends. In ME canon the Sol relay is connected to Arcturus which is the main hub for the local cluster. Arcturus is 30 light years or so away. So maybe you get lucky or maybe you don't.

 

For any that might be interested in the crazy theory that I've mentioned the discussion was moved to here and been refined: http://w11.zetaboards.com/Theorycraftng_HUB/forum/3225589/
WARNING: I advise you not go here unless you've beaten the game, there are massive spoilers.

Also, at the risk of further embarrassing myself I'm pretty sure we have important dlc(probably free) coming March 29th.

 

I can't actually find anything that actually states the size of the relays in any of the games, but I've always thought they were much bigger than that. I mean the Sol relay was found covered in ice and orbiting Pluto as it's largest moon, Charon. Charon is approximately 1,200 km in diameter - roughly a third the size of Earth's own moon. That's a hell of a lot of ice to get through if the relay is under 10 km long.

 

Well the Normandy shows that it can´t be that bigger... On the other hand some codex entries talk about how entire fleets are able to use those relays.

I think that the best is to ignore "The arrival" and the possibility off destroying a Relay... It destroys much off logic of the gameplay in Mass Effect (Why didn´t it happen before.. why did Cerberus not just destroy the Omega 4 Portal etc)

 

*Shrug* Like Erandil said, we've seen both Normandys right next to relays for size comparison. And the bit about Charon being the relay always struck me as one of the weakest aspects of the ME back story. You're right about that being an absolutely retarded amount of ice to dig through, plus 50,000 years just doesn't seem like enough time to accumulate that much ice naturally.

My personal theory is that the Protheans got to Sol through conventional FTL from Arcturus, realized the Relay was buried in ice accumulated over the course of possibly millions of years and decided that the flight from Arcturus and back isn't far enough to justify the effort of digging the relay out just to visit a backwater garden world with a few primitives chilling on it. When the Reapers swung through to knock out the base on Mars, they might've figured that leaving the relay buried would trap Humans in the Sol system, making them easy to deal with all at once during the next cycle.

 

As far as the Charon relay goes, I always speculated that perhaps the relay was covered in ice as part of some Reaper/Prothean plan. On the one hand, perhaps the Prothean base on Mars somehow froze the relay in an effort to buy more time to finish the Crucible.

Alternately, perhaps the Reapers left the relay frozen, and made some sort of arrangement to have the relay reveal its nature once humanity was ready to go out into the broader galaxy. The Reapers wanted humanity and every other harvest-worthy species to find the mass relays after all; the Reapers always leave enough tech behind to make the next cycle's development predictable.

 

Does Tali's exile in Mass Effect 2 effect Mass Effect 3? I heard she becomes an admiral but is that changed if she was exiled?

 

Spoiler

She's exiled but it turns out the admirals were keeping her as their dirty secret, due to her expertise on Geth. After the meeting with the admirals, she joins your crew for the Dreadnought mission.

 

Hilarious but spoilerific image at this link.

 

Also major spoilers, but these go well together.

http://i.imgur.com/KbrMI.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPelM2hwhJA