138 réponses à ce sujet

[Ecael]

Tlazolteotl wrote...

I disagree. 2 year olds are very violent, and have to be taught how not to fight.
Anything that removes this layer of conditioning, from frontal lobe damage to certain drugs' effects, will turn a lot of people into killers.

Some can be violent, but you don't see 2 year olds being charged with murder. Children that age can't comprehend what death actually means to them or others. They don't start becoming less egocentric until later in childhood.

Since 2 year olds are often only exposed to other family members, it's hard to believe that any kind of killer instinct could evolve naturally when you're killing off relatives at the age of 2. The desire to reproduce, however, is ingrained in every living being that has the mental and physical capacity to do so.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Like Jack, it should be noted. She freely admits to getting a high while killing people in combat after the conditioning she was given by Cerberus.

Exactly. Jack was conditioned to feel pleasure from killing, just as Morinth was. Neither had the freedom to separate the two stimuli.

[Tlazolteotl]

Ecael wrote...

Some can be violent, but you don't see 2 year olds being charged with murder. Children that age can't comprehend what death actually means to them or others. They don't start becoming less egocentric until later in childhood.

The only reason that is so is due to 2 year olds being physically incapable of inflicting the necessary damage.

Developmental psychology, particularly work by Richard Tremblay, states that any sort of assumption that humans "become" violent due to external factors is a fallacious one.
The process is in reverse.
Humans are violent. They have to be brainwashed into becoming less so.

The actual terms of this conditioning is a function of the society they are conditioned by.
If you had grown up in a tribe in papua new guinea, the odds of even thinking twice before stabbing an interloper in the face would be none to slim.

The natural state is the violent one.

[Ecael]

Tlazolteotl wrote...

Ecael wrote...
Some can be violent, but you don't see 2 year olds being charged with murder. Children that age can't comprehend what death actually means to them or others. They don't start becoming less egocentric until later in childhood.

The only reason that is so is due to 2 year olds being physically incapable of inflicting the necessary damage.

Developmental psychology, particularly work by Richard Tremblay, states that any sort of assumption that humans "become" violent due to external factors is a fallacious one.
The process is in reverse.
Humans are violent. They have to be brainwashed into becoming less so.

The actual terms of this conditioning is a function of the society they are conditioned by.
If you had grown up in a tribe in papua new guinea, the odds of even thinking twice before stabbing an interloper in the face would be none to slim.

The natural state is the violent one.

Actually, I take that back. You're correct on that part:

SciAm Link

Toddlers are quite aggressive in nature, even moreso if they lack the necessary gene expression (or proper prenatal development), and are even capable of more than just aggression when they don't receive the parental "brainwashing".

However, if that applies to Asari, it would put Samara entirely at fault for the development of Morinth's behavior -- because she had pureblood daughters (genetic), didn't take care of herself during pregnancy (prenatal), and didn't nurture her children properly (social).

Backtracking to the topic at hand, it's not just about the natural tendency to reproduce, but experiencing heavy risk gratification from giving in to those tendencies. So while creatures have an early natural tendency to be violent and can kill when they are capable -- as well as a natural tendency to reproduce (and will attempt to do so when capable), the majority of them still won't experience orgasmic pleasure from killing. Morinth only does so because it was conditioned, just like Jack.

[Ladi]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I seem to remember Samara massacred all but the children, even after Morinth had escaped.

Moreover, corrupted? It misses a crucial part of Morinth's hunt. Morinth does not make anyone do anything: she makes them want to through charm and strength of personality. All her victims, like Nef or the village, are quite willing to die for her. Saying Morinth corrupts them is like saying making a friend who will go through hell or high water is corruption.

I think corrupt is an apt choice of words (wiki's, not mine) when you consider she was having people offer their children as sacrifices. Samara's actions make sense in terms of her ridiculous code - you're the one who said how Lawful Good doesn't mean nice. She certainly wouldn't have left the children to fend for themselves.

Being willing to die for a friend is something that is earned through shared experiences. Morinth's seduction isn't anything especially impressive, true, but its the same reason why people resent it when a friend starts spending more time with a girlfriend - they don't feel as if she's earned the right by dint of time spent.

[Pacifien]

Ecael wrote...
People don't have natural tendencies to kill other people unless they're mentally ill.

Sure, but our own justice system does place a difference in punishment based on just what kind of mentally ill the murderer happens to be. Premeditated with awareness of what you're doing tends to get placed firmly outside of the insanity plea. Morinth knows what she's doing. Now, can she help what she's doing? Is the urge so incredibly strong that she'd never be able to resist the urge to do it? Not really given any evidence one way or the other, but given that Samara's other two children seem to manage it would indicate that Morinth could resist the urge if she wanted to. She just doesn't want to.

Ecael wrote...
Almost everyone has tendencies to want to reproduce, though. The killing part is just the aftereffect, as it only became pleasurable after enough classical conditioning.

I'd phrase it as sexual gratification rather than reproduction. Do asari only experience sexual gratification with the melding of the minds, though? And since when did achieving sexual gratification become an acceptable excuse to act on that urge? You could say that pedophilia and forms of rape were just a means toward achieving gratification for a mental desire they have no ability to control to which success also satisfies their classical conditioning.

[Pacifien]

Shandepared wrote...

Collider wrote...

This is why I hope the quarians don't turn into another overly human looking race...

Very much agree with that.

Then you are going to be disappointed. The shape of their skeletons (and skulls, specifically) implies a strong human resemblance.

You could say that if you consider the drell as also being a species with a strong human resemblance. The general outline of the human body still allows for considerable deviation while still maintaining the outline of a human.

Unless you want to bring up the model of the head you can see in silhouette or when you manage to position the camera to see through the mask. You can believe it displays the exact outline of what you'd expect a quarians face to look like. Or you can believe it's a placeholder that exists simply to give depth behind a somewhat translucent faceplate.

I tend to think people who believe the former lack any imagination whatsoever.

[Pacifien]

Ecael wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Like Jack, it should be noted. She freely admits to getting a high while killing people in combat after the conditioning she was given by Cerberus.

Exactly. Jack was conditioned to feel pleasure from killing, just as Morinth was. Neither had the freedom to separate the two stimuli.

This would imply that one cannot be reconditioned, which is a debatable concept, particularly given a fully developed human mind. Doable, I think. Not easily and not with any guarantee of success. Much funnier when done with babies. Cruel... but funny.

[Baldrick67]

Never choose Morinth.



Just too plain nasty for my Paragon to stomach.



Don't forget the cruel and callous way she manipulated and then killed Nef. Morinth enjoys stalking and then killing her prey. Pretty soon crew on the Normandy would start to disappear or turn up with fried brains.

[Jonathan Shepard]

Polka14 wrote...

Pacifien wrote...

Morinth will be instantly loyal and play the exact same role Samara plays during the suicide mission.
But to answer your question, I killed Samara for about thirty seconds so that I could unlock Morinth's Dominate ability. Then I reversed time and killed Morinth properly.

If you reloaded a save file, doesn't that discount what you did in another save?

Nope, it's a sort-of time glitch. But it's not really a glitch. Because the way you unlock bonus powers is through achievements. To get Dominate, you need the achievement. Your profile won't lose achievements even if you re-load a previous save file. So it's not really a glitch. It's a way to take advantage of the system. Kinda.

[Pacifien]

Shandepared wrote...
It allows for some, but that much. Besides, we've already gotten a good look at Tali. We can't see the details, but what we can see shows that she has a very human-like face. All that is really left to question now is whether or not she has hair, what skin color is, and what her ears look like.

Unless you view the head model as a placeholder....

[Collider]

In Ascension Quarians are described as having eyes, eyelids, nose (which appears humanoid through the mask if you look in ME2), and lips. They have "what passes for Quarian ears," which seems to indicate they are either not visible or just some hole like with the Asari. Other than that everything is up in the air.