283 réponses à ce sujet

[Alpha-Centuri]

KitsuneRommel wrote...

Ha! But neither is empathy! (http://www.scientifi...ls-feel-empathy http://www.timesonli...icle4595810.ece). If mice can feel empathy too is it intrisic to intelligence?

The first article itself even describes a strong portion of its argument as more than sufficiently conjectural. With that said, I'll still respond in kind. Even if it is, the rodents that empathized did not change their habits. Again this doesn't sufficiently address the argument.

If your argument held true for the Reapers, It would be perfectly rational that the Reapers understand why we empathize, they just see it as pointless. I'll say this, it doesn't matter if animals can empathize or not. Legion says that Reapers do not. If you played the first ME, your conversation with Sovereign already shows that they view us as practically worthless. We are not even intelligent to them. Maybe its the 'Reaper' in me, but I don't really think twice when a bee gets in my house, and I kill it before it can sting me.

Only a human (or intellectually equivalent) would allow something that is a threat to remain because of some sense of morality. Wouldn't pure logic and reason deem that if something may effect your long-term interest, you would remove it?

So far, this is what we know:

Reapers are vastly more technologically capable.
Reapers are sentient machines
Legion says that they do not constrain themselves by human 'restraints', such as the emotions he laid out.

Of course Bioware could just come up something lame like "They do it because they are Evil!" or "They are vastly superior in intellect yet can't even make plans that a single human can't spoil".

They do it because it is logical. They are machines, they calculate what will be in their best interest. What we don't fully know yet is the reason why it is in their best interest... Is it some type of greater good thing? Perhaps they see these new species as threats if allowed to advance for so long.

How would it know really? Do the Geth feel pity, remorse or fear?

Legion is a machine, like the Reapers. It runs on calculations that are based on reason. If you don't accept that, take it up with Bioware. Maybe you can ask why during Legion's loyalty mission they didn't allow Shepherd to ask how would he know. Unless they pull some type of twist, there is no reason to argue that Legion doesn't know what he is talking about. Don't forget, characters aren't there simply to be a part of the story. They provide insight into the world, and are also used as plot devices. Take it at face value until Bioware tells us differently.

Modifié par Alpha-Centuri, 17 mai 2010 - 08:17 .

[KitsuneRommel]

Alpha-Centuri wrote...

It would be perfectly rational that the Reapers understand why we empathize, they just see it as pointless. I'll say this, it doesn't matter if animals can empathize or not. Legion says that Reapers do not. If you played the first ME, your conversation with Sovereign already shows that they view us as practically worthless. We are not even intelligent to them. Maybe its the 'Reaper' in me, but I don't really think twice when a bee gets in my house, and I kill it before it can sting me.

Why bother helping them spread out and grow new hives before killing them though? Just to select one race to harvest and kill all the other?

Reapers are sentient machines

Actually they are part synthetic/part organic which is one of the reasons this whole thread exists.

[Alpha-Centuri]

KitsuneRommel wrote...


Why bother helping them spread out and grow new hives before killing them though? Just to select one race to harvest and kill all the other?

All in due time. I'm sure Bioware will tell us eventually. The story isn't concluded The only reason that I could see is that they are looking for perfection. The only way for them to do so is to experiment by harvesting a bunch of one species in hopes of finding a strand of organic that can properly meld with synthetic. Perhaps this is their only way to procreate, and if they can't find the perfect breeding mix, they can't ensure their survival through new ones. We have already seen that we can destroy them. Just a theory, I look forward to finding out the true reason.

Reapers are sentient machines

Actually they are part synthetic/part organic which is one of the reasons this whole thread exists.

You are right. Legion is still used as a literary device to tell us about the threat. It would be awfully  nonenlightening if the only ones who could tell us about Reapers would be other Reapers. We would know next to nothing about them besides what Sovereign told us. Maybe Bioware will give us the option to ask Legion how would he know. I got it. LEGION IS A REAPER!

Legion also said that the Reapers came to them and they rejected their offer. Maybe he knows because they have had prior dealings with them?

[KitsuneRommel]

Alpha-Centuri wrote...

Legion also said that the Reapers came to them and they rejected their offer. Maybe he knows because they have had prior dealings with them?

The heretics should have some interesting knowledge if you chose to reprogram them. I think I need a little chat with Legion.

[Alpha-Centuri]

If i can guide you off the top of my memory, the discussion after his loyalty mission, and the closing statement after the suicide mission after you destroy the base. Something to the effect of "you rejected the Reapers power just like we did. You are more like us than we thought" Not too sure on the details, he goes into the details a little more after you activate him.



Yeah, I reprogrammed them. It'll probably bite civilization in the ass eventually, but having millions of geth on your side for the upcoming battle is better than nothing.

[jgordon11]

Morals are derived from emotion.  The reapers lack emotions as machines.  Hence the reapers lack morals and are completely driven by their logic.  Your first assumption is that with increased intellect comes higher morals, which seems to lack correlation.

Now this is all speculation on my part, but this is my personal opinion on the reapers.  First we must look at the facts and create some base assumptions.

1.  The reapers are have lived a ridiculously long time borderline being immortal (if they can keep harvesting the galaxy).
2. The reapers harvest the galaxy to most likely sustain themselves and to possibly to replenish their numbers (as seen by human reaper).
3.  The reapers are the pinnacle of artificial intelligence.

Now look at the galaxy from their perspective.  The creatures inhabiting it are simple, fleet creatures living only during a sliver of time.  To them we must seem like a microbe who only lives a fraction of a day.  Do you feel pity for the death of a bacteria who would've died so soon anyways.  Instead they use those "microbes" and sustain themselves extending their sentient thought and existence.  Isn't this a better use for them instead of letting them reproduce, achieve their pinnacle of their civilization then slowly fade and eventually become extinct most likely through their own means.

To me the reapers were created by one of the first galatic civilizations willingly to extend their existence beyond their fleeting lives and to do this they harvest the galaxy periodically.  Just because one is smart doens't mean they would feel responsibility for the other species of the galaxy.  Instead they most likely come to the conclusion that our lives are essentially meaningless and thus we should be used to prolong their existence, which is much more significant.

A tad wordy, but i hope you see my point in that we are less than ants to them in that we are so insignificant that the feel no remorse for using us to sustain themselves.

[Alpha-Centuri]

Well, to piggyback off of what me and Kitsune agreed about, they aren't just machines, but organic as well. I agree with most of your theory though.

Modifié par Alpha-Centuri, 17 mai 2010 - 09:52 .

[KitsuneRommel]

jgordon11 wrote...

Morals are derived from emotion.  The reapers lack emotions as machines.  Hence the reapers lack morals and are completely driven by their logic.  Your first assumption is that with increased intellect comes higher morals, which seems to lack correlation.

You also missed the fact that reapers are part machines, part organic. We just don't know how it all works.

And I said (or hypothesized) that it might be that empathy is a natural part of all living creatures of enough intelligence. I have no proof and since the behavioural studies of animals is still on it's baby shoes (there's still people who think that animals have no emotions are we are simply projecting ours on them) we are not likely going to find out anytime soon (if ever).

Edit: Forgot to add that simply intelligence is not enough. You have to be able to experience emotions (like pain) too. Pure machines can't do that.

Modifié par KitsuneRommel, 17 mai 2010 - 09:57 .

[Alpha-Centuri]

Could the machine aspect dominate while the organic material supplements it? Is it 50/50? 80/20? Maybe that might have some type of factor.

[jgordon11]

While they are based off organics they remain at core machines. They just use organic material to form the basis of their structure. The human material was turned into a metalic substance then injuected into the reaper frame when you face the human reaper. This clearly indicates that the reapers although organic in nature are clearly machines further supported by the fact that the geth believe them to be the pinnacle of artificial intelligence. Its likes building a machine but instead of using pure metal you use flesh for its body, but at the core it is still a machine (AI brain). Simply the reapers ARE machines period. Even if they were organisms, they still posses the logical calculating nature of a artificiail intelligence leading them to be devoid of emotion and thus morals. Again stop looking at them like normal organisms because theyre not. Remember in the first mass effect when discussing the reapers it was said that we organics couldn't understand their motives because we are organics. To me this is exactly what people are missing, stop looking at the reapears as organics, but godly super machines with organic materials who live forever. Surely a organic perspective is not appropriate for these beings.

[Darkhour]

William Adama wrote...

I never really understood the motive that went behind the mass genocides the Reapers periodically committed for the sole purpose of procreation... one would think that hyper advanced intelligences would be FAR more moral than those of smaller minds.

For example, human intelligence has allowed for empathy to be experienced which led to more pro social behaviours given to not only members of our own race but to members of other species as well.

Reapers SHOULD have not only empathy but possibly even greater senses of morality unthinkable or unpercievable to other organic life. Murder/violence for ANY reason should be abhorant for higher beings due to the fact that they understand suffering and death to a greater degree.

Legion/Geth came to this truth on its own and it's a machine... allowing things to self determinate absolves oneself from guilt of evils these beings visit upon themselves. Like if Legion were witnessing a quadruple homocide committed by 2 Vorcha on 4 other Vorcha and did nothing, he is not morally responsible for the actions of the Vorcha. But if her intervenes and kills the 2 Vorcha, he is guilty of murder. Evils done for a sake of good do not exist... if antyhing, higher intelligent peoples scoff at consequentialism and practice modes of deontological morality almost to absolution.

Why would Bioware even impose such a evil persona on beings that are obviously our intellectual superiors? I find it hard to believe that 100% of this race agrees with the destruction and mutilation of galactic civilizations solely for the sake of "building" more Reapers... if antyhing they should have found alternative paths to this problem due to the fact they are vastly more intelligent.

They just seem too... Terminator to me. And don't respond by saying that Reapers are machines, they are ORGANICS mixed with technology so they infact should experience organic sentience albeit on a higher level.

Discuss.

Humans make the mistake of assuming that other entities put the same value on your existence and state of being that another fellow human might. Humans are little more than dumb animals in the grand scheme of things. They are completely identified with sensation, instinct and have a false sense of free will (which you share with every other beast on your planet). You may be the most intellectual animal on your planet, but smartest roach is still a roach. Not many humans value the life of an ant. You are ants to the reapers.

You should be honored that "reapers" have choosen to ascend your species to godhoo and elevate you beyond the prison of nature.

Modifié par Darkhour, 17 mai 2010 - 10:52 .

[William Adama]

Darkhour wrote...

William Adama wrote...

I never really understood the motive that went behind the mass genocides the Reapers periodically committed for the sole purpose of procreation... one would think that hyper advanced intelligences would be FAR more moral than those of smaller minds.

For example, human intelligence has allowed for empathy to be experienced which led to more pro social behaviours given to not only members of our own race but to members of other species as well.

Reapers SHOULD have not only empathy but possibly even greater senses of morality unthinkable or unpercievable to other organic life. Murder/violence for ANY reason should be abhorant for higher beings due to the fact that they understand suffering and death to a greater degree.

Legion/Geth came to this truth on its own and it's a machine... allowing things to self determinate absolves oneself from guilt of evils these beings visit upon themselves. Like if Legion were witnessing a quadruple homocide committed by 2 Vorcha on 4 other Vorcha and did nothing, he is not morally responsible for the actions of the Vorcha. But if her intervenes and kills the 2 Vorcha, he is guilty of murder. Evils done for a sake of good do not exist... if antyhing, higher intelligent peoples scoff at consequentialism and practice modes of deontological morality almost to absolution.

Why would Bioware even impose such a evil persona on beings that are obviously our intellectual superiors? I find it hard to believe that 100% of this race agrees with the destruction and mutilation of galactic civilizations solely for the sake of "building" more Reapers... if antyhing they should have found alternative paths to this problem due to the fact they are vastly more intelligent.

They just seem too... Terminator to me. And don't respond by saying that Reapers are machines, they are ORGANICS mixed with technology so they infact should experience organic sentience albeit on a higher level.

Discuss.

Humans make the mistake of assuming that other entities put the same value on your existence and state of being that another fellow human might. Humans are little more than dumb animals in the grand scheme of things. They are completely identified with sensation, instinct and have a false sense of free will (which you share with every other beast on your planet). You may be the most intellectual animal on your planet, but smartest roach is still a roach. Not many humans value the life of an ant. You are ants to the reapers.

You should be honored that "reapers" have choosen to ascend your species to godhoo and elevate you beyond the prison of nature.

Yes but there are levels of intelligences in existence, from single cell life forms to human sentience. In the grande scheme of understanding a chimp or dolphin one would look to humans as a comparable sentience. Reapers are more closely relatable to us than to roaches due to the fact they are comparable to human behaviours. I have not seen anything "transcendent" about the Reapers, they just seem like evil people.

Also, you are talking about a machine that is deluded enough to think itself "beginningless". If an entity was beginningless, it had existed before the Big Bang occured and that is reaching into the area of God-hood.  Last time I checked, Reapers procreate (they make new Reapers, so they therefore have beginnings), they die (Citadel battle) and they  exist in the 4 dimensions of space-time (are finite). Only beings that are infinite can claim beginninglessness so therefore these machines are either really dumb or trying to frighten organic life.

Honestly, the whole conversation with Sovereign in ME1 was laughably bad as it makes absolutely NO sense to a rational person especially now that ME2 is out. I honestly half expected the Reapers to have some sort of Biblical ontology that was to be exposed in ME2 which would give merit to these creatures claims to being "apex lifeforms".

They could be have been transdimensional beings that explore multiverses and try to purge unethical life from their universes due to the imperfections that they exhibit. The mere acts of sin committed by these organics was the reason the Reapers were disgusted by organic life. The 50,000 year cycle was repeated because it took the Reapers that amount of time to visit life bearing universes and eradicate all life in between ours, and they keep returning because nature keeps producing more variants of life.

I just invented this story and I feel it far more involving than the shallow villainism given by Bioware, this is why i disliked ME2; it was/is amateur.

[Tirigon]

Alpha-Centuri wrote...

 LEGION IS A REAPER!

That´d be scary, because, you know, we want Legion as LI in ME3, and if he´s a reaper that would mean we will have sex with a reaper and that will probably be a bit deadly because the reapers don´t like fleshy creatures...

[oshilee]

I think the writing for the reapers motives were at best; lazy,



When you ask why there doing it, they dont give a reason, its bioware basicly saying "We couldnt think of a decent reason why they would do it. So instead, we're just make it that, theres no point explaining, because you wont get it."

Bleh..

[Poison_Berrie]

oshilee wrote...

I think the writing for the reapers motives were at best; lazy,

When you ask why there doing it, they dont give a reason, its bioware basicly saying "We couldnt think of a decent reason why they would do it. So instead, we're just make it that, theres no point explaining, because you wont get it."
Bleh..

It's a little early to say that, though.
It's not like told us Darth Vader was Luke's father in "A New Hope". Why would any type of entertainment media spoil everything straight away.

[badkenbad]

Well, the Reapers were trying to be empathetic with humans... And look what happened to that. Cyborg Shepard destroyed the galaxy's only chance to make peace with the Reapers.

[edited to remove spoiler. why is this not in the spoiler forum?]

Modifié par badkenbad, 18 mai 2010 - 09:43 .

[Darkhour]

William Adama wrote...

Yes but there are levels of intelligences in existence, from single cell life forms to human sentience. In the grande scheme of understanding a chimp or dolphin one would look to humans as a comparable sentience. Reapers are more closely relatable to us than to roaches due to the fact they are comparable to human behaviours. I have not seen anything "transcendent" about the Reapers, they just seem like evil people.

Any behaviour we perceive will be comparible to human behaviour because we are limited in our capability to experience. All we see in terms of the reapers are actions and results. How we chose to interpret those actions and results is an internal process, not external. You are operating from your own internal frame of reference.

Also, you are talking about a machine that is deluded enough to think itself "beginningless". If an entity was beginningless, it had existed before the Big Bang occured and that is reaching into the area of God-hood.  Last time I checked, Reapers procreate (they make new Reapers, so they therefore have beginnings), they die (Citadel battle) and they  exist in the 4 dimensions of space-time (are finite). Only beings that are infinite can claim beginninglessness so therefore these machines are either really dumb or trying to frighten organic life.

Reapers aren't machines as I understand it. They are beings of consciousness and exist on another plane of existence which is what I took from, "there is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it.". The dreadnaughts are merely a tool to interact with the molecular world of dense matter. 

I could state that I have no beginning or end. Maybe it is a true statement. Maybe not. You identify only with the physical matter, which is merely a moloecular soup of various densities spread out across billions of light years. Most people would agree that there is no intelligence (as we would define it) in any one atom. So why I would I conclude that billions of non-intellgent objects massed together could amount to intelligence in and of themselves?

There are schools of thought which might put forth the idea that humanity as a collective are beings of consciousness trapped within the cage of the mind, the perception of "self identity" and hopelessly identified with sensations of physical life. It is possible that the reapers in some distant past were just like us and through some means "awakened". Humanity, regardless of its currently state would, once "awakened", stretch back to the "time before time" (in terms of memory). I assume Bioware is borrowing from such eastern philosophies when creating the reapers.

Honestly, the whole conversation with Sovereign in ME1 was laughably bad as it makes absolutely NO sense to a rational person especially now that ME2 is out. I honestly half expected the Reapers to have some sort of Biblical ontology that was to be exposed in ME2 which would give merit to these creatures claims to being "apex lifeforms".

There are very few rational humans. Humans are irrational by their very nature. What makes sense to you is what you think you comprehend and what doesn't make sense to you is what you would not claim to comprehend. As the universe and all its mysteries are not limited by the depths of human comprehension the concept of a human dictating the criteria for what is ultimately rational or irrational is absurd... dare I say "irrational".

They could be have been transdimensional beings that explore multiverses and try to purge unethical life from their universes due to the imperfections that they exhibit. The mere acts of sin committed by these organics was the reason the Reapers were disgusted by organic life. The 50,000 year cycle was repeated because it took the Reapers that amount of time to visit life bearing universes and eradicate all life in between ours, and they keep returning because nature keeps producing more variants of life.

I just invented this story and I feel it far more involving than the shallow villainism given by Bioware, this is why i disliked ME2; it was/is amateur.

I too came to a similar conclusion after Mass Effect. I was of the opinion that a reaper was the Christian god, but then I realized Bioware wouldn't have the balls. Mass Effect did, to some extent, reinforce that concept. The references to harvesting humanity for ascendance and destorying those unworthy of ascendance is straight out of the New Testament. The reapers are merely applying this concept to the entire known galaxy. Now, if it turns out that the reapers seeded life throughout the galaxy and we are akin to a field of wheat with the reapers as farmers... 

Anyway, we do not have the whole story. So I will pass judgement on the reasons behind the reaper's actions until I've complete ME3.

Modifié par Darkhour, 18 mai 2010 - 11:35 .

[William Adama]

[quote]Darkhour wrote...

[quote]William Adama wrote...


[quote]They could be have been transdimensional beings that explore multiverses and try to purge unethical life from their universes due to the imperfections that they exhibit. The mere acts of sin committed by these organics was the reason the Reapers were disgusted by organic life. The 50,000 year cycle was repeated because it took the Reapers that amount of time to visit life bearing universes and eradicate all life in between ours, and they keep returning because nature keeps producing more variants of life.

I just invented this story and I feel it far more involving than the shallow villainism given by Bioware, this is why i disliked ME2; it was/is amateur.[/quote]

I too came to a similar conclusion after Mass Effect. I was of the opinion that a reaper was the Christian god, but then I realized Bioware wouldn't have the balls. Mass Effect did, to some extent, reinforce that concept. The references to harvesting humanity for ascendance and destorying those unworthy of ascendance is straight out of the New Testament. The reapers are merely applying this concept to the entire known galaxy. Now, if it turns out that the reapers seeded life throughout the galaxy and we are akin to a field of wheat with the reapers as farmers... 

[/quote]

I think you intend to mean the Old testament deity, not the New testament; something that Marcion the "heretic" also discovered when instructed by Constantine to write the modern Bible.

The modern Judeo-Christian deity is a non-linear entity that exists in all frames of time at once due to the claim it created the universe; it existed before linear time. It does not think or act linearly, it does not actively interfere with free willed agents, it is not anthropomorphic. It is a unfathomable entity responsible for the origination of our universe. The philosophical logic of such an entity is (dare I say) very, very interesting. 

This entity is completely unlike the Reapers. I don't even see how Bioware could have written the Reapers as such.

[Wildecker]

Darkhour wrote...

William Adama wrote ...

Also, you are talking about a machine that is deluded enough to think itself "beginningless". If an entity was beginningless, it had existed before the Big Bang occured and that is reaching into the area of God-hood.  Last time I checked, Reapers procreate (they make new Reapers, so they therefore have beginnings), they die (Citadel battle) and they  exist in the 4 dimensions of space-time (are finite). Only beings that are infinite can claim beginninglessness so therefore these machines are either really dumb or trying to frighten organic life.

Reapers aren't machines as I understand it. They are beings of consciousness and exist on another plane of existence which is what I took from, "there is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it.". The dreadnaughts are merely a tool to interact with the molecular world of dense matter. 

I could state that I have no beginning or end. Maybe it is a true statement. Maybe not. You identify only with the physical matter, which is merely a moloecular soup of various densities spread out across billions of light years. Most people would agree that there is no intelligence (as we would define it) in any one atom. So why I would I conclude that billions of non-intellgent objects massed together could amount to intelligence in and of themselves?

Did it ever occur to any of you that Sovereign might just have been exaggerating?
In Warhammer 40.000, the Eldar Farseer Eldrad Ulthran is quoted as saying: "What do humans know of our pain? We have sung songs of lament since before your ancestors crawled on their bellies from the sea." However, this does not imply the Eldar race has been around for about 380 million years. Only for a very long time, compared to humans.
When Sovereign says: "We have no beginning and no end", it means: We have been around for longer than your brains can comprehend, and we will outlive you like uncounted others that came before you. You are not even insignificant, you're nothing.

[FuturePasTimeCE]

Wildecker wrote...

Darkhour wrote...

William Adama wrote ...

Also, you are talking about a machine that is deluded enough to think itself "beginningless". If an entity was beginningless, it had existed before the Big Bang occured and that is reaching into the area of God-hood.  Last time I checked, Reapers procreate (they make new Reapers, so they therefore have beginnings), they die (Citadel battle) and they  exist in the 4 dimensions of space-time (are finite). Only beings that are infinite can claim beginninglessness so therefore these machines are either really dumb or trying to frighten organic life.

Reapers aren't machines as I understand it. They are beings of consciousness and exist on another plane of existence which is what I took from, "there is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it.". The dreadnaughts are merely a tool to interact with the molecular world of dense matter. 

I could state that I have no beginning or end. Maybe it is a true statement. Maybe not. You identify only with the physical matter, which is merely a moloecular soup of various densities spread out across billions of light years. Most people would agree that there is no intelligence (as we would define it) in any one atom. So why I would I conclude that billions of non-intellgent objects massed together could amount to intelligence in and of themselves?

Did it ever occur to any of you that Sovereign might just have been exaggerating?
In Warhammer 40.000, the Eldar Farseer Eldrad Ulthran is quoted as saying: "What do humans know of our pain? We have sung songs of lament since before your ancestors crawled on their bellies from the sea." However, this does not imply the Eldar race has been around for about 380 million years. Only for a very long time, compared to humans.
When Sovereign says: "We have no beginning and no end", it means: We have been around for longer than your brains can comprehend, and we will outlive you like uncounted others that came before you. You are not even insignificant, you're nothing.

Exactly. Maybe he's just a highly developed Sentient Interstellar Machine with A.I. that's elaborated enough to developed a emotional ego. They can travel to the far edges of space because machines aren't impatient  organics (who have a specific lifespan, who may not want to sit in warp drive for 200, 000 years just to reach the outer galaxy). A robot that's it's own starship could probably endure billions of years  just traveling at lightspeed to conserve on energy to reach the far ends of the universe, than engaging in warpspeed consuming mass amounts of energy at a time needing to refuel & recharge at a specific point in time. 

The Sentient Ship with A.I. probably grown cocky over successfully slaughtering countless of clueless unsuspecting organic lifeforms over and over again. 

Modifié par FuturePasTimeCE, 19 mai 2010 - 07:44 .

[Darkhour]

William Adama wrote...

I think you intend to mean the Old testament deity, not the New testament; something that Marcion the "heretic" also discovered when instructed by Constantine to write the modern Bible.

No, I mean the New Testament. The Old Testament god is a war deity specific to the ancient Isrealite culture.

Matthew 13: 24-30

Revelations 14:14-20

The modern Judeo-Christian deity is a non-linear entity that exists in all frames of time at once due to the claim it created the universe; it existed before linear time. It does not think or act linearly, it does not actively interfere with free willed agents, it is not anthropomorphic. It is a unfathomable entity responsible for the origination of our universe. The philosophical logic of such an entity is (dare I say) very, very interesting. 

This entity is completely unlike the Reapers. I don't even see how Bioware could have written the Reapers as such.

The New Testament god has many similarities to the reapers. The parables of Jesus are an obvious parallel to the intent of the reapers.

There is no judeo-christian deity. The jewish faith does not recognize "god the man" or a Trinity. The jewish god is their god and does not care about gentiles. As a whole the biblical deity(s) are akin to most cultures' mythologies: Human personas with supernatural powers.

[Eyesofjon]

You the op seem to think that morality and intelligence are the same thing.



If this was the case then intelligent people would never commit heinous acts, which is obviously not what history has shown it.



You claim that because the Geth are able to understand right and wrong that the Reapers should as well. Unfortunately the reapers were not created by humans like the Geth, and according to Sovereign not created by anything at all, the first reapers simply "Were". They existed way before organic life did, and seem to care little about organics other then to use them as tools. How is it hard for you to understand that the reapers Don't care about what they're doing because they simply don't care. They look out for number 1 just like humans do. They need organic life for some unknown purpose, and without feelings of compassion they have no problem choosing their needs over our needs.

[Darkhour]

Wildecker wrote...

Darkhour wrote...

William Adama wrote ...

Also, you are talking about a machine that is deluded enough to think itself "beginningless". If an entity was beginningless, it had existed before the Big Bang occured and that is reaching into the area of God-hood.  Last time I checked, Reapers procreate (they make new Reapers, so they therefore have beginnings), they die (Citadel battle) and they  exist in the 4 dimensions of space-time (are finite). Only beings that are infinite can claim beginninglessness so therefore these machines are either really dumb or trying to frighten organic life.

Reapers aren't machines as I understand it. They are beings of consciousness and exist on another plane of existence which is what I took from, "there is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it.". The dreadnaughts are merely a tool to interact with the molecular world of dense matter. 

I could state that I have no beginning or end. Maybe it is a true statement. Maybe not. You identify only with the physical matter, which is merely a moloecular soup of various densities spread out across billions of light years. Most people would agree that there is no intelligence (as we would define it) in any one atom. So why I would I conclude that billions of non-intellgent objects massed together could amount to intelligence in and of themselves?

Did it ever occur to any of you that Sovereign might just have been exaggerating?

Yes.

It also occured to me that maybe he isn't. Alot of things occur to me.