Shandepared wrote...
Becoming friends or romantically involved implies nothing of the sort. Renegade doesn't mean you only regard other people as tools. All it means is that you get the job done at any cost without diverting your attention elsewhere. Making sure the team is focused is part of the job. My Shepard likes most of them and he's friendly with them, but he'd still sacrifice them if it were necessary without hesitating. Originally when I imported my Shepard he had sacrificed Ashley on Virmire despite romancing her and turning down Liara. He missed her, but he knew it had to be done.
I do believe that paragon Shepards can just as easily sacrifice anyone necessary to get the job done - and the do, because paragons don't get out of the Virmire choice, and when it comes down to it, they make the choice to, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, many possible renegade sacrifices are not actually necessary. Earlier in the thread, you talked about getting to the base only to find Dr. Chakwas as the sole survivor, and somehow this fits into your "get it done whatever the cost" philosophy in what way, exactly? You have the Reaper IFF working and can go through the Omega Relay, but you still do a handful of missions before going through? Wasting your time so you can get the bad boy result of killing off your entire crew needlessly?
I question your judgement then. Risking the survival of galactic civilization to save the Council was a bad call, even if it wound up working out for you. Blowing up the Collector base was a bad call, even if studying it blows up in your face later. What I care about is the principal, the reasoning, I care about what you tried to do and what risks you took. With the Council decision you are risking the entire galaxy for good public relations. With the Collector base you are risking the possibility of failure for the chance at life saving intelligence on the enemy.
The Council decision does not strictly hinge upon good public relations. It also has something to do with leaving a Geth Armada to wreak havoc along your backline when they finish off the Destiny Ascension while your forces are potentially still in combat with Sovereign.
Your choice does come down to saving the Destiny Ascension and the Council or not, but that is simply not the only factor at play. The Geth are still a factor if you choose to sacrifice the DA.
The renegade way is indeed faster and sometimes easier, but it is also rational and when you consider the big picture it is more ethical.
A renegade would rather take the personal morality and karma hits if it means keeping other safe. I call it sacrifice, heroic sacrifice. Paragons on the other hand put others in danger so that they, the "hero", doesn't have to make any compromises with their conscience.
This is self-serving rationalization. Renegade choices are not more rational or ethical than paragon choices. Perhaps from your worldview/perspective, but you're clearly not working from an objective viewpoint here, but from a viewpoint in which you've already weighted renegade choices with value judgements (heroic sacrifices). Renegade Shepard doesn't sacrificy anything that Paragon Shepard doesn't, except perhaps for what appears to be a political impediment to human ascendancy (although realistically this would have the opposite outcome). Of course it's convenient to judge this choice ethical and rational, in much the same way that someone might consider it ethical and rational to turn in the other prisoner in the prisoner's dilemma, because while you can't get the best outcome, you can't get the worst either. But you're not sacrificing anything, you're simply making the expedient, rather than ethical, choice. The same applies to keeping or destroying the Collector Base.
Renegade and paragon Shepard are both heroic, and both make sacrifices. Both succeed because of dramatic necessity.
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