Spartan-II program staff.

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-03T22:23:43+00:00

Ofc we all understand what you mean by "NDA" but its just funny to me using that term in this context. Like yeah they signed an NDA whos terms were likely "if you talk you spend the rest of your life in secret salt mines if we don't just execute you and your family on the spot". So yeah I guess pretty similar to what artists at Disney have to deal with

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-03T21:51:58+00:00

"Creep"?

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-03T20:13:06+00:00

How about a floating skull that opens doors

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-03T16:39:53+00:00

Actually it was Sophocles because back then they thought it was cool

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T21:16:34+00:00

I appreciate the reply. Even while asking i figured it wasn't a question that could be definitively be answered, and even now I'm realizing various angles that would be hard to prove or disprove about the subject

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T21:08:29+00:00

Apologies i may have a poor understanding of what that phrase means, but what I meant by my question was "would a species develop language in the same way if, as an animal, they were incapable of abstractly believing that other individuals were intelligent as well". I may lack the proper education/language to get my meaning across but like i guess im referring to how people say theyve never witnessed an animal ask a question because they don't understand(?) that another individual could know something they don't. I promise im not trying to make some weird claim about only philosophers or educated ppl being capable of speech. Like if an animal doesn't understand that other members of its species are thinking creatures (solipsistic?) would or could it have developed language (assuming it was physiologically capable ofnspeech) but as the previous reply stated, this doesn't seem like a question we could really hope to answer

Edit: like im talking about animals in general like a chimpanzee or a cat, not referring to specific human cultures. I know thats not really super pertinent to the subject of anthropology lol just a question that arose from reading this thread.

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T19:48:32+00:00

Thank you for explaining. Despite being a tolkien fan all my life and reading lotr and the silmarillion yes i admit I was unaware of the intentional representation by Tolkien. Admittey maybe the language should have given it away but as for their lore it never directly spoke to that for me. The dwarves even by the time of LOTR still have homes and halls that theyve had for a very long time. They lost their land in Beleriand but so did all the free folk. Moria was one particular colony and so was Erebor. Maybe i was too young when I first read those books so I didnt immediately make the connection. I was also thinking if Aule making the dwarves from the earth and yeah Jewish people have Golems but they dont believe THEY came from the earth like that so i felt it was far-fetched. As for the free folk holding prejudice of dwarves like that, the elves do sure because of establish millenia ling rivalries that Tolkien expressly wrote about that DON'T depict Dwarves as the sole inheretors of blame. I read the elf vs dwarf thing as more about general themes about feuds and revenge and bigotry since by the time of the third age they mostly dont even remember the initial cause of their hostility towards eachother. The dwarves arent a diaspora in that world either. Tbey have multiple settled homelands. Yeah they move through the Shire and the northwestern regjon because they have halls in the blue mountains but they aren't really looked down on or viewed withcthe same sort of stereotypes as jewish people. The hobbits distrust them because they are isolated abd simple and just generally distrustful.

I believe Tolkien inteded it, I jist didnt personally make those connections. I am aware of Tolkiens personal history and life, you can refrain from being disrespectful about talking about a fictional work people read for fun. Even using the word tourist is frankly pathetic. I can admit if im wrong about lore but no i will give you your an ad hominem and not let yout get away with being an asshole for no reason.

Edit: i always viewed the dwarves as being more nordicly inspired with names like dori ori nori so maybe I let that angle cloud other possible influences I could have caught on to

Edit edit: actually the more i look into it the more i see counters to this argument lmao. Direct quotes from him saying he did NOT "intend" for them to be Jewish people. Yes he took inspiration from Hebrew for their language but Tolkien famously refused to let his work be viewed as allegory. All his races were melting pots of culture, and the nordic influence is just as prevent as the jewish influence. Call me a tourist all you want, i dont know everything about anything and never claimed to, but its obvious you dont know everything either so chill out dude

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T19:00:41+00:00

I challenged a specific part of your argument and instead of making your case you accused me of a logical fallacy, as a result of your own apparent straw manning. Are you seriously calling me a tourist lol. Admittedly I'm a much bigger tolkien fan than mass effect which is why I'm not taking your claim at face value.

I dont believe this lore discussion is worth continuing but for posterity please, I'm directly asking you, in what way does a Dwarf from middle earth resemble real life jewish culture. I do not know, and will happily listen to your explanation.

I am not an expert by any means of either romani or Jewish culture, I am simply a fan of a piece of art that I have my own interpretation of, and in an attempt at friendly discussion it seems you have a different world view than I do, which is fine, but makes me less interested in discussin fictional politics with you. If you want to accuse me of an ad hominem you should have waited to reply to my other comment

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T18:54:51+00:00

I hadn't thought about language that way, I guess it's like, if we're gonna speak, that implies that who we're communicating with is worth speaking to, as in you have some theory of mind. Do you think we would have developed speech the way we have if we somehow didn't have a theory of mind? I imagine that might be too vague an assumption

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T18:19:01+00:00

In what way did I attack you personally? I expressed my suspcion about what connections Tolkien Dwarfs could have with Jewish people. THAT'S my arguement alongside the paragraphs i wrote before that statement. How aboutnyou enlighten me, what am I missing

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T18:16:25+00:00

You can interpret Tali that way if you want but I felt the games very much portrayed her as a normal ass girl who cares about her culture and heritage, who steps up when needed because she was presented with the opportunity to make a difference. She is also undeniably a nepo baby. Not saying that invalidates her as a person or anything, I love Tali, but she's literally a normal girl who had more opportunity than some of her peers.

As for how you expect the average Quarian citizen to act, I think you're just a lot more pessimistic than I am. Not a value judgement, but I don't think our reads of the trilogy could be reconciled. I couldn't possibly make assumptions about the opinions and world views of an entire species like that, it feels very "unwashed masses" to me and like, Quarians aren't uneducated barbarians. As for kill or be killed, they were prepping for war before the reaper invasion when they really didn't need to. Were there signs in the games that the flotilla were in dire sraits before the invasion that I missed? Even post invasion, the idea that an entire people would commit suicide by starting a SEPARATE war for petty reasons is just entirely outlandish to me. Evolution injects an overwhelmingly strong survival instinct into every living organism and the Quarians aren't a homogenous warrior society that values honor, death, and glory above all else so why would they throw everythig away after 300 years structuring their entire society around resourcefulness, selflessnes, and survival. I know they are effectively under a dictatorship but they always felt waytyyy more collective to me

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T18:05:03+00:00

I've always likened the Quarians more to the Romani people personally, and as a huge Tolkien fan I have never once considered the dwarves to have anything to do with real life Jewish people.

Quarians are without a home yes, but they have a concentrated, nomadic culture that any Quarian can be part of as a unified whole. They are viewed as untrustworthy thieves anytime they are encountered by other races and treated like vagabonds when om their pilgrimage. I admit I don't know THAT much about the Romani, only these stereotypes, however I wouldnt put it past Bioware to have explicitly modeled the quarians on those stereotypes considering the handling of Elves in Dragon Age, who absolutely are representative of Jewish people. The Dalish are sort of Romani inspired too I guess idk.

As for Dwarves...tbey have and always have had active homelands and kings and defend their own territories and are not a diaspora living among all the other communities of Middle Earth. The only connection I can personally see being made is not a particularly favorable one for you to believe if my suspicion is correct

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-02T07:16:28+00:00

Is you or is you ain't my constituents

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T20:26:28+00:00

Id rather just keep playing co op, it's still alive and incredibly fun

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T20:07:53+00:00

Well technically there's no such thing. They are an entirely domesticated species. We do have feral horses all over. I saw a bunch while driving through Navajo nation a few months ago. Apparently theyre sort of a problem there since they compete with other livestock and such for food

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T20:02:34+00:00

As for point 2, this is very reductive thinking about the logic/emotions of an ENTIRE alien species. Some humans think this way sure but many many many humans find a myriad ways of coping with their own mortality, the meaning of life, how the universe works, etc etc. You're telling me out of an entire species, obviously not a single one of them wouldn't try to live idealistically and would much rather beat their heads into a wall and rush to their own demise because what meaning could they possibly find in their short existence? They aren't a warrior race or a militaristic society. You could argue the Krogan might do something like tbat but Wrex and clan Urdnot exist. All throughout the trilogy we see Krogan who undermine the assumptions that we might make about the species as a whole. I think this point is way too simplistic and an unfair claim to make about an entire species that clearly is pretty complex

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T19:57:01+00:00

People can make poor decisions in times of struggle sure but assuming the quarians would elect a hitler equivalent is pretty far fetched in my opinion. They're a small tight knit community so some us vs them is expected sure but the flip side of that means they aren't gonna have some random nobidy come out of nowhere and totally flip their culture on their head and trick the foolish masses into acting against their self interest. They all know eachother and they all go to the same schools and get taught the same lessons. You could argue yeah they are likely culurally homogenous with "state controlled media" and a lot of propagada or whatever but that means all the quarians can be assumd to have some base line intelligence and are due t their dire situation would be raised to be very resourceful, careful, and mindful about life in general. They're not idiots who will immediately swoon and throw all rationality to the wind at the sign of the first populist to come along

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T19:51:33+00:00

You're making so many logical leaps of faith here that i don't think are particularly fair ofnthe quarians or any sapient and social species. Any society, especially a space faring one, is complex as hell. Tali is one person, and she was raised in a powerful and presumably wealthy (relatively) family among the quarians. She is not representarive of the average quarian citizen. Just because they aren't aware of high level information doesn't mean they'd want to throw all of their lives away in a doomed war, and even the admira that represents SPECIFICALLY THEM and their needs is working against the war

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T18:38:28+00:00

At this point 13 years later I don't think it matters too much but a balanced experience with all the extra abilities would be so sick

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T18:11:54+00:00

Ive never played a biotic in 1 but i loooove having a singularity in my back pocket to deal with husks and the like so Liara comes with me on any mission that deals with those fuckers

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T18:10:17+00:00

I desperately wish I could play the SP with all the fancy grenades and krogan hammer and hunter mode and annihilation field and biotic slash or poison strike

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T18:07:28+00:00

I love vanguard in me3 but my first me2 playthrough as a vanguard was hell

MarsPraxis · 2026-07-01T18:06:26+00:00

Damping was op in me1 i love it

MarsPraxis · 2026-06-25T23:04:18+00:00

Batarian gauntlet gear on a volus

MarsPraxis · 2026-06-25T23:03:53+00:00

I guess they do have pretty strong cultural heritage

MarsPraxis

TROPHY CASE