Talk:Mass Relay

Mass Relay picture
If you want a higher resolution Mass Relay picture, I have made one in 720p resolution (Although the other one is already at a reasonable quality ;)). Have no fear or copyrights, I assure you these are made by me from the in-game cut scenes played with a Bink video player and captured with "Print Screen". Anyone could have done the same :) I have posted across a few articles, so be sure to check them out as well (Sovereign, Destiny Ascension, FTL, M35 Mako, Mass Relay and Citadel). As I have no idea how to upload images here I will let you do it.

http://c.imagehost.org/0690/MassRelay.png

69.159.102.144 17:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)Darkdrium

Do relays need to be aligned?
See Talk:Relay Monument for a discussion about this.

How does it work?
Do two mass relays only link back and forth to each other? or can you dial up any mass relay from another like the stargates?


 * To quote from the article:

"There are two kinds of mass relay, primary and secondary. Primary relays can send a ship hundreds of light years but only link to one other relay, its 'partner'. Secondary relays can link to any other relay over shorter distances."
 * --Tullis 12:50, September 16, 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry for my ignorance. I have a problem with not checking things and asking what ever is on my mind.

Arcturus prime relay
I thought for sure that at the main intro to the game joker mentions the relay he takes to eden prime was called the Arcturus prime relay. should I add it to the list and create a short article? what is your opinion on this. The arcturus prime relay must be the partner to the charon relay, see arcturus.
 * It's not worth creating an article for something barely mentioned, and we're currently cutting down on unnecessary short pages. --Tullis 02:24, September 17, 2009 (UTC)

How about just adding it to the list but not making the page? I think it deserves that at least, but whatever you say I'm just making suggestions.

--Hi. Arcturus relay can't be a primary one, since it leads to Charon as well as to Eden Prime.
 * So where is your proof that it leads to the Charon relay. Considering the Normandy goes through the Relay directly to Eden Prime with no visit to Charon... Lancer1289 17:29, January 16, 2011 (UTC)

Rabbit Duck Illusion
I recently watched an episode of "How I met Your Mother" called "Rabbit or Duck?" which showed a famous cognitive illusion known as the Duck-Rabbit illusion

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Duck-Rabbit_illusion.jpg. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/8/8d/Mass_Relays_Codex_Image.jpg/250px-Mass_Relays_Codex_Image.jpg

After playing the game the last few days I've come to realize that the Mass Relays also seem to take the same basic shape the duck rabbit illusion does; except the ducks mouth would be pointing to the right in the mass relay pic. The mass relay looks like the duck rabbit illusion. I thought it might make an interesting piece of trivia, but I'm not sure though. I imagine the tidbit wouldn't hurt, should I add it?76.17.48.86 10:43, February 11, 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting, but no. Trivia should be kept to what was certainly done on purpose by the developers. I highly doubt they intended to invoke an interesting human image with ancient "Prothean" technology.

How they work
I was wondering about how exactly mass relays work, what lets the ships travel at such speeds. I think in the game they explained that the relays nullify the mass of any object in range, and then the object is accelerated. But nothing beyond that.

I thought that nullifying mass in space, where there is no gravity, is pointless, but after looking up mass on wikipedia it was all clear:

"The inertial mass of an object determines its acceleration in the presence of an applied force. According to Isaac Newton's second law of motion, if a body of mass m is subjected to a force F, its acceleration a is given by F/m."

I didn't think mass and weight were that different. This could be worth adding to the wiki, no?
 * I can't believe you didn't know mass and weight are two different concepts.

EDIT: I just thought of something - since a=F/m and if m=0 then the amount of acceleration is very questionable since mankind still doesn't know what happens when you divide by zero. --Anon 20:06, March 20, 2010


 * It is not worth adding to the wiki, it is basic science. By the way if you don't know all the facts you don't really have any business trying to disprove something. If you must know, a=F/m only works in classical mechanics.Bastian964 20:05, March 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree it isn't a worthy addition. All it would do is probably start an edit war and add some very confusing information to the wiki. Lancer1289 20:10, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

Just tell yourself it's magic and forget about it : ) ClearSound 19:19, April 12, 2010 (UTC)

contact
surely a note should be made in the trivia section about how they look similar when activated to the machine in contact Asdf1239talk 03:12, June 1, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think not. That device has four rings, while the relays have only two, just to name one difference. Also we don't know how that device worked, and we know, somewhat, how the relays work. Visual comparisons aren't enough to justify trivia. Also the device doesn't have the spikes/whatever you want to call them. I just wanted to point that out, because the visual comparison is only of the the spinning thing. Lancer1289 03:19, June 1, 2010 (UTC)

Energy
From where the mass relays gain the energy?
 * Probably via an internal reactor. However it is never hinted anywhere where they do. Lancer1289 18:00, August 21, 2010 (UTC)

Or they get energy like the stard estroyers in SW: Hyper matter annihilation reactor. I don't know how they work but I heard they are infinite.

Mass Relay Dimensions
Height, length, width, diameter of the element zero core rings. Does anyone know what they are? Please and thank you.
 * Unfortunately we do not have those answers as they aren't revealed in the game, books, or comics. Basically anywhere canon. I would recommend taking this up at the BioWare forums, maybe you will get a dev to respond with the dimensions and then perhaps share it with us. But again, since we only post canon information here, we do not have those answers. Lancer1289 01:48, February 4, 2011 (UTC)

Habitation
This seems like a silly question, but does anybody inhabit the mass relays? I've never even heard it referenced that there were living creatures occupying the stations. 71.20.43.135 18:44, March 30, 2011 (UTC)
 * We've had no confirmation either way on that matter. We don't know if they can be even boarded, or if they have an interior space that is pressurized. Lancer1289 18:46, March 30, 2011 (UTC)