Mass Effect: Human Revolution

Depends on the cell and what they do in this incarnation (read: IgnusDei reveals more of them), I'd say.
But then, more MJ12 than Illuminati (80/20, perhaps). Not that that is a good thing @any measure.

What exactly is the distinction?

The Illuminati are passive-aggressive, MJ12 is just agressive.

Illuminati- grand plan that nudges humanity into the image they want.
MJ12- Grand plan the grabs and forces humanity into a plan they have.

Counterpoint: Mind control on a mass scale.

Counterpoint to yours- Not mind control, restriction of ability.

(yes mind control, but not obvious.)

I'm just saying, it's not exactly 'nudging' anymore, is it?

Seriously, people saw the Illuminati at their moment of weakness in the original Deus Ex and assumed they prefer limited methods instead of using them because that's what's available to them. If you handed the Illuminati from Human Revolution the Aquinas hub, tell me they wouldn't jump on the chance to use it.

In 2027, Hyron is better than the Aquinas Hub - Helios is fairly unruly, but Darrow was able to get the Hyron Drones to broadcast his signal with little trouble.

IgnusDei - odd thought; it's possible to get a revolver from Sarif right before the first mission, and keep it throughout the game. Perhaps that's Sasha?

Welcome to the modern (Well, post-modern) media. The people'll believe anything if it's got a good enough lie behind it. To quote Modern Warfare 2:

"History is written by the victor. History is filled with LIARS. If he lives, and we die, his truth becomes written, and ours becomes lost.

Shepherd will be a hero, because all you need to change the world is one good lie... and a river of blood..."

In short, if the media is against you, you are already dead.

That assumes that every state and species would have the same 'kill 'em all' attitude. When the Council first heard of the Geth attack they were less than concerned (though that was more the writers needing to add drama). More to the point, the Geth never made any effort. A general rule of political campaigning is that simply allowing the opposition to completely frame the terms of the debate ruins you. Ultimately none of this suggests wisdom, it suggests naivete. Just look at Legion's reaction to finding out that Heretic Geth had been spying on them.

That's because we don't live in a black and white world. If the Geth bothered to make contact with the Citadel after the Morning War, you can be damned sure that the plot for Mass Effect 1 would've changed. But they didn't.

The Galactic Community hates the Quarians because they're tired of the Quarians going on about how they're in the right- when they're NOT.

Hell, I've got a ME2 playthrough where I don't recruit Tali until after I've done with the game and I tell her the Quarians are all f**king idiots.

What does the geth choosing not to track down the rest of the quarians and wipe them out suggest?

That means "I'm out of ammo."

In-universe, Legion tells Shepard that they stopped firing once the Quarians began leaving Rannoch. Once they were out of system, the Geth just let them go.

Although if I was a Geth, I'd have made sure that I shot down the vessel containing Han Gerrel's ancestor.

Why? Just 'Cause!

EDIT: If you don't get it, "Why? Just 'Cause!" is a reference to Zero Punctuation's review of Just Cause 2, where he abused the crap out of the pun.

It suggests the Geth had limited resources and even if it was a war for survival it was still a limited war.

That seems to have more to do with A. the Quarians being far more defenseless than other widespread species* and something that's defenseless is a nice target for any xenphobe who realizes that going after a Turian/Batarian/Salarian/whatever could end poorly and B. the Quarian tendency to mine any solar system they go in unless they're paid off means that very few civilizations probably have a history of good experiences with them. Of course the Quarians are a bit strange. From their experiences I would have expected them to openly embrace a strong state as the one thing keeping them safe in a galaxy filled with hostiles. Instead political disunity seems to be the rule (and I still think their trial system is insane).

*And exposes a major flaw in the Council if it abandoned one of its members when they were fighting what could have been a war for their survival.

Yeah, I forgot about that stuff. I didn't know they were paid off, though. Interesting...

Hmm. The "strong state" theory is interesting, given that during the Morning War, the quarian government was a military dictatorship - one that considered geth sympathizers to be legally indistinguishable from geth. Which is actually kind of funny, given that geth usually re-loaded into new platforms after Waco sieges where the government killed everything in sight. Maybe the quarians recognize that a so-called "strong state" can be ignorant of important facts such as, "there's no point in smashing hard drives if the software's already backed up elsewhere?"

Maybe, but try keeping things orderly and nice when you've got 17 million people on a limited number of ships. Sooner or later things are going to start to get tense and when radicals start clashing people start demanding a strong response. It isn't necessarily going to be a dictatorship, Israel and WWII-era U.K. are good examples of that. Yes, I know that this is trying to look at the political psychology of aliens but the rest of the species seem to usually follow human mentality. So to see the admirals so openly at each other's throats was something of a shock in ME 2.

I've never seen the Codex entry or dialogue, but they also apparently 'accidentally' leave repeat offenders off on planets they visit. So the Quarians aren't evil or actively malevolent, they just have the unfortunate mix of being weak in a predatory universe and policies that don't encourage people to think well of them. And Quarians in small groups like Tali here are bearing the brunt of those ill thoughts.

No, Sasha is a custom job made by Amnon himself. It's frame, cylinder, color, and overall shape is based on the Webley-Fosberry automatic revolver, with a barrel resembling the Mateba AutoRevolver's (with a Quantum Tunneling mod attached) and the grip of a Smith and Wesson Model 620's. Amnon also hand loads the .357 ammo with a potent explosive charge that propels a 200 grain slug at 3600 feet per second.

It's a monster to handle, but Jensen can do it. He uses it as a backup in case his main weapon jams or gets hit with Sabotage.

It's actually nice to see a species that isn't all Hats. You essentially see the four major elements of their civilization; Admiral Koris is in charge of civilian government, Admiral Raan runs their police force, Admiral Gerrel is the quarian Hackett, and Admiral Xen runs the hardliner faction.

EDIT: Thanks for mentioning that, IgnusDei. I thought it was a 2020's gun that Jensen kept for nostalgia's sake. I'll have to edit the trope page.

Question to that angle, at what speed is someone's kinetic barriers activated? Would a thrown rock do it, or is a bullet or a (grain of metal propelled at such speed) necessary?

I think it's programmable, like in Dune. I know there's a "hyper" mode which renders the bearer completely immune to gunfire but leaves them wide open to hand-to-hand combat - the Shadow Broker uses it during a boss fight. It's probably a power hog, however.

Thinking the general shielding unit of terminus thugs and the like.

Omni-blade rips through everything in sight, so it probably has to be a Mach percentage for the shield to trigger.

cause If I have the correct source material, a punch, ignoring game mechanics, should not trigger the sheild, while a projectile traveling at sufficient velocity would. The question I have is if the revolver Jenson would use would trigger the shields.