User blog comment:Kyz99/Collector Base - Kept/@comment-78.144.218.236-20101101034016

I think the Collector's base tech will ultimately be a dead end: I think your decision will affect how Shepherd and Cerberus get along, and no doubt the Council's opinion of Shepherd's allies, but I don't think the technology will be much help against the Reapers. Maybe some good will come out of it, but I doubt it will be the key to the plot.

The game has stressed the importance of following your own path and not the path already trodden on several occasions - the geth civil war is over that ideological conflict, and it resonates in Sovereign's speech: "Your civilisation is based on the technology of the mass relays - our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."

Not only does the game distinguish accepting someone else's technology from using it on your own terms, but it distinguishes using someone else's technology - the answer to your problems - from determining a solution yourself.

Essentially, the game stresses the importance of cultural intellectual property: it is better, and more personally valuable, to learn and to do for yourself than to have someone else do for you.

What if humanity had never discovered the mass relays? It may have taken thousands more years, but maybe they would have developed their own trans-galactic transport, which would be free from Reaper interference.