2146 réponses à ce sujet

[Commander Kurt]

Soo.. Just finished Overlord, and it sure made the whole keeping the base issue easier..



That sort of shifted me from "Cerberus has shifty morals, but they won't kill us all" to "Cerberus or reapers, who will get the job done first".

[Arijharn]

Man, how pissed would you be if you got your ass handed to you by a rapidly growing plant?

[Nightwriter]

Shandepared wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

Aresh: "I hired these mercs and came back almost a solar year ago."

So you can see why I'm like .

Well um...

What exactly makes you think the mercs are a recent thing? I mean despite knowing they've been there for a year, what makes you feel like the mercs haven't been there long?

Keep in mind the plant-life on Pragia is apparently mutated on a global scale and can overrun a colony in hours or days if it nos constantly fought against.

When you first walk into the room with the krogan, he's going, "Wtf Aresh, you said there'd be good salvage here. I don't see any salvage."

This doesn't strike me as a remark he would make after one year of being on the planet. More like a remark he would make after one hour of being on the planet.

[Fiery Phoenix]

The Blood Pack's presence on Pragia felt wrong in a lot of ways anyway.

[Nightwriter]

Commander Kurt wrote...

Soo.. Just finished Overlord, and it sure made the whole keeping the base issue easier..

That sort of shifted me from "Cerberus has shifty morals, but they won't kill us all" to "Cerberus or reapers, who will get the job done first".

Hey, I'm no Cerberus supporter, but I thought it was a bit hard to blame them for this. At most, all you can accuse TIM of is pushing his people too hard and being too demanding. At most.

That mess was all down to Archer. It was his idea to put his own brother into a freakish torture chair/AI linkup thingy (*shudder*). Poor David.

What Cerberus itself did there was no different than what Rael did aboard the Alarei.

[CroGamer002]

Giving some terrorist dude most advance thing in the galaxy that did a lot of experiments on his own spices even though he claims he is pro-for that species?

That's very smart!







Note.



I have 3 Shep's in which I give Cerberus base( 1 Renegade, 1 Paragade and 1 Paragon Shep),

[Nightwriter]

Arijharn wrote...

Man, how pissed would you be if you got your ass handed to you by a rapidly growing plant?

[Inverness Moon]

Arijharn wrote...

Man, how pissed would you be if you got your ass handed to you by a rapidly growing plant?

Have you ever played Mario? 

[Arijharn]

Lol of course... but I'm just trying to think of the perspective that you're a bad ass Krogan mercenary who otherwise eats bad guys but some stupid plant is beating you down. ZOMG!

[lovgreno]

Those stupid plants realy hurt that krogans feelings. But let's not get off topic here, more good reasons to keep or destroy the base please. Preferably both if you think you can manage that in one post.

[Icinix]

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil they set out to destroy." - Christoper Dawson



You have a place that inflicted untold horrors upon people, a brutality on a massive scale. To take that as a 'benefit' is insulting to the people who were killed for it's purpose. Just because you didn't do it yourself, doesn't make it any less wrong. Otherwise you cross into the dangerous territory or accepting advancement through the same methods you seek to prevent.



Destroy it.

[Arijharn]

Icinix wrote...

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil they set out to destroy." - Christoper Dawson

You have a place that inflicted untold horrors upon people, a brutality on a massive scale. To take that as a 'benefit' is insulting to the people who were killed for it's purpose. Just because you didn't do it yourself, doesn't make it any less wrong. Otherwise you cross into the dangerous territory or accepting advancement through the same methods you seek to prevent.

Destroy it.

You may as well destroy defibrillators, not undertake rescue operations to people suffering hypothermia or even limb reattachment operations and prevent the training of doctors because a lot of the core knowledge of modern medicine came out of certain studies performed by certain unethical people in a rather dark period of human history at a certain period of time from 1939-1945.

If you have no alternative to what amounts to galactic civilisation becoming completely extinct, then the concept of morality isn't quite so black and white blue or red any more is it, unless you wish to damn everyone to accompany you on your funeral pyre and quite frankly I think you have less right to do that than I would by saying that you must work on this base despite any moralistic qualms you may have.

But you know, the fact that I'm studying how they liquified a human to form slushie shakes doesn't actually mean that I want to do it myself, so you know what... I don't think Christopher Dawson is relevant.

[nikki191]

for every success cerberus has.. resurecting shepard, building the SR2 there are countless screw ups that get alot of people killed for no benefit what so ever. frankly cerberus is for to incompetent to be left with a working collector base and reaper.. and knowing their eventual plans for human dominance its too much of a risk. frankly the collector base is a thing NO race or group should have access to

Modifié par nikki191, 27 septembre 2010 - 03:54 .

[Ieldra]

nikki191 wrote...
frankly the collector base is a thing NO race or group should have access to

No, it is a thing every group should have access to.

[Commander Kurt]

Nightwriter wrote...
Hey, I'm no Cerberus supporter, but I thought it was a bit hard to blame them for this. At most, all you can accuse TIM of is pushing his people too hard and being too demanding. At most.

That mess was all down to Archer. It was his idea to put his own brother into a freakish torture chair/AI linkup thingy (*shudder*). Poor David.

What Cerberus itself did there was no different than what Rael did aboard the Alarei.

Well, quite frankly that seems to always be the case with Cerberus. But the horrible implications for David Archer is not my main concern, my main concern is that Cerberus was playng with a fire that would have burnt down the entire universe. Had it not been for Shepard, David would have turned all tech in the ME universe against us (according to Archer). That was not the worst-case scenario aboard the Alarei.

Whether this is the result of poor management or poor ethics, I don't care. I only care that it was allowed to happen.

[Dean_the_Young]

Commander Kurt wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...
Hey, I'm no Cerberus supporter, but I thought it was a bit hard to blame them for this. At most, all you can accuse TIM of is pushing his people too hard and being too demanding. At most.

That mess was all down to Archer. It was his idea to put his own brother into a freakish torture chair/AI linkup thingy (*shudder*). Poor David.

What Cerberus itself did there was no different than what Rael did aboard the Alarei.

Well, quite frankly that seems to always be the case with Cerberus. But the horrible implications for David Archer is not my main concern, my main concern is that Cerberus was playng with a fire that would have burnt down the entire universe. Had it not been for Shepard, David would have turned all tech in the ME universe against us (according to Archer). That was not the worst-case scenario aboard the Alarei.

Whether this is the result of poor management or poor ethics, I don't care. I only care that it was allowed to happen.

I assume you'll also hold that standard to the Council, the Salarian STG, and the Asari Matriarch groups, yes?

[mosor]

Reasons for destroying the base:

1. Duh, it's the top option. Therefore it has to be the good option. I want my paragon points.

2. I was on my period and wanted nothing more than to break something.

3. I like pretty explosions

4. TIM is the devil and therefore much more dangerous than the reapers.

5. Cerberus resurrected me, gave me plenty of state of the art weapons their operatives developed or collected around the galaxy, built a better Normandy, created EDI, developed anti-reaper algorithms for her to use, financed my missions, and gave me intel and tools to enter the omega-4 relay to stop the collectors, but they're obviously incompetent.

6. Reaper tech indoctrinates. Quick chuck EDI and the Thannix cannon out the airlock before we become mindless husks! Ohh no! The citadel is reaper tech! We can't step foot in there! Oh my god...the council,,,,that's why they stonewall my efforts to investigate the reapers! The council chamber must be where the indoctrination device is located! Purge them!

7. Extinction for everyone is better than compromising my morality. I'm positive all the other people, human an alien alike will appreciate me endangering them for my moral stance.

Edit: Oh I forgot the most important one!

8. Reaper tech leads us to paths the reapers desire! Derstroying the base is just the first step in my jihad against all things reaper. Next up. The mass relays and mass accelerator weapons! We'll take care of dem reapers with good ole guwnpowder based weapons and nukes! We'll use old fashioned ion engines to catch them instead of FTL.

Modifié par mosor, 27 septembre 2010 - 01:43 .

[smudboy]

Mesina2 wrote...

Giving some terrorist dude most advance thing in the galaxy that did a lot of experiments on his own spices even though he claims he is pro-for that species?
That's very smart!



Note.

I have 3 Shep's in which I give Cerberus base( 1 Renegade, 1 Paragade and 1 Paragon Shep),

TIM did not do, nor was aware, nor condoned, experiments on his own species.

Modifié par smudboy, 27 septembre 2010 - 01:32 .

[Icinix]

Arijharn wrote...

Icinix wrote...

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil they set out to destroy." - Christoper Dawson

You have a place that inflicted untold horrors upon people, a brutality on a massive scale. To take that as a 'benefit' is insulting to the people who were killed for it's purpose. Just because you didn't do it yourself, doesn't make it any less wrong. Otherwise you cross into the dangerous territory or accepting advancement through the same methods you seek to prevent.

Destroy it.

You may as well destroy defibrillators, not undertake rescue operations to people suffering hypothermia or even limb reattachment operations and prevent the training of doctors because a lot of the core knowledge of modern medicine came out of certain studies performed by certain unethical people in a rather dark period of human history at a certain period of time from 1939-1945.

If you have no alternative to what amounts to galactic civilisation becoming completely extinct, then the concept of morality isn't quite so black and white blue or red any more is it, unless you wish to damn everyone to accompany you on your funeral pyre and quite frankly I think you have less right to do that than I would by saying that you must work on this base despite any moralistic qualms you may have.

But you know, the fact that I'm studying how they liquified a human to form slushie shakes doesn't actually mean that I want to do it myself, so you know what... I don't think Christopher Dawson is relevant.

Disregarding the human medical history, because I believe that a lot of the core medical science came from a lot further back than World War 2, regardless of the outcome of that particular debate however...

The ultimate argument I suppose is if you're an 'ends justify the means' kind of person or not.
 
What about this, if you knew before the colonies were abducted that they would be tortured and you could gain a lot of valuable information, would you allow them to still be abducted knowing it would mean their lives, or would you stop it but lose all that valuable information you want / need?
In essence, by taking the base you're saying what was done to those people was beneficial, and that just won't sit right with me in any way shape or form.  The torture and murder of people no matter the gains, is never a beneficial thing.

[Ieldra]

Icinix wrote...
In essence, by taking the base you're saying what was done to those people was beneficial, and that just won't sit right with me in any way shape or form.  The torture and murder of people no matter the gains, is never a beneficial thing.

No, that's not at all what he was saying. Keeping the base for research would benefit the knowledge of Reaper capabilities regardless of whether people were actually "processed" there or not. For that reason, the fact that they were should be irrelevant to the decision. Linking what was done there to the ethics of the decision of keeping the base is irrational.

BTW, there actually *are* beneficial results from horrible experiments and such. Beneficial for whom, that's the question, of course, and if the results justify the means. "No" is a possible answer. But to deny that there *can* be such results is to deny reality

Modifié par Ieldra2, 27 septembre 2010 - 02:04 .

[Icinix]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Icinix wrote...
In essence, by taking the base you're saying what was done to those people was beneficial, and that just won't sit right with me in any way shape or form.  The torture and murder of people no matter the gains, is never a beneficial thing.

No, that's not at all what he was saying. Keeping the base for research would benefit the knowledge of Reaper capabilities regardless of whether people were actually "processed" there or not.

Looks like that is saying their deaths were of a beneficial nature.

For that reason, the fact that they were should be irrelevant to the decision. Linking what was done there to the ethics of the decision of keeping the base is irrational.

BTW, there actually *are* beneficial results from horrible experiments and such. Beneficial for whom, that's the question, of course, and if the results justify the means. "No" is a possible answer. But to deny that there *can* be such results is to deny reality

No, I don't believe the results justify the means.  Yes, you could murder, torture and pillage and make wondrous amazing discoveries that would indeed benefit mankind in a plethora of ways.  But to do so would destroy the very essence of being human.  Personally, if Mass Effect were real, and I was commander shepard (I'm working on the armour, cardboard, real nerdy like), I could not live with myself calling a decision like that if I had a choice.
If you could and ethically can accept that, then power to you, but I couldn't.
Incidentally, did you do the Nirali Bhatia quest in Mass Effect, and did you leave the body?

[Arijharn]

Icinix wrote...
What about this, if you knew before the colonies were abducted that they would be tortured and you could gain a lot of valuable information, would you allow them to still be abducted knowing it would mean their lives, or would you stop it but lose all that valuable information you want / need?

I realise that this is an academic debate, but this is even more academic than that. But to answer your question; it depends. You see, I don't believe you can consider any one thing about the Reaper threat in isolation. In the ideal world if I knew they were being abducted and tortured and I knew that information would come to me in a timely manner and I knew there were no threats coming to me in x amount of time then absolutely I would act in haste to save them.

But you know, as brutal as it sounds if I honestly thought saving those 100 lives would have a much higher chance to damn millions otherwise, then I'm sorry, I'd leave those 100 to die no matter what it costs me personally, because in the end I am not fighting for 100 people, I'm fighting for everyone, and 'millions' fit my definition of 'everyone' easier than 100.

That doesn't mean I wont regret my decision in some way in leaving 100 to die, but I have to divorce my personal misgivings because I think the stakes are higher than just those 100.

Icinix wrote...
In essence, by taking the base you're saying what was done to those people was beneficial, and that just won't sit right with me in any way shape or form.  The torture and murder of people no matter the gains, is never a beneficial thing.

I don't believe I'm saying that at all, I'm not the one throwing their lives away in the first place to make a Human-Reaper. I can not magically restore them to life, I can not suddenly reverse the fear they felt as they were being mulched. They have passed on and I'm not even disrespecting their bodies, I'm making sure that I'm understanding what happened to them to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

The Reapers understand the concept of Total War only, and I do not believe they'll alter their agenda if we find what they do to be ethically distasteful. Ergo, I can not rely on my own moral centre to be the key to defeating them. Forsaking your moral standing is a horrendous thing, but I draw strength from the fact that I'm doing everything I can to save not just my species, but as many people as I possibly can. To do any less is a gross miscarriage of justice, especially to those who have already inadvertently given their lives to it by simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even if the worst came to pass, even if I fail and all my efforts are for naught. Even if the Reapers accomplished their goal and put the next notch on their belt then I can go to my grave that I did everything I possibly could to beat them, that I left no stone unturned and that I even sacrificed myself for the chance of ending the threat once and for all... and frankly I do not believe you can say the same.

[Ieldra]

Icinix wrote...
No, I don't believe the results justify the means.  Yes, you could murder, torture and pillage and make wondrous amazing discoveries that would indeed benefit mankind in a plethora of ways.  But to do so would destroy the very essence of being human.

Please read my post again and recognize that I did not justify anything. But I do say that in the face of galaxy-wide extinction you do not have the right to make everyone die just for the sake of your personal ethics. Do you think Renegades don't feel compassion, that any Renegade Shepard is a jerk? What if their decisions haunt them to their death, but they still make them because they consider them necessary?

Personally, if Mass Effect were real, and I was commander shepard (I'm working on the armour, cardboard, real nerdy like), I could not live with myself calling a decision like that if I had a choice. If you could and ethically can accept that, then power to you, but I couldn't.

I could accept that the necessity outweighs many ethical considerations. I would not justify processing people myself, or having them processed by allies, in the base, but I can see no benefit in destroying it just because what was done there. The past is the past, and no further damage will be done by keeping the base intact, except what might be done by TIM with it. See my post on page 1 for an answer to that.

Incidentally, did you do the Nirali Bhatia quest in Mass Effect, and did you leave the body?

I always convinced Samesh to leave the body to the Alliance for research. I empathize with him, but the body is not Nirali Bhatia anymore, and no damage will be done to her or Samesh himself by doing research on her corpse. I'd do that with members of my family in RL if necessary, and I'd make a will that lets people research on my body after I die if necessary, or even just as a matter of principle, I don't know yet. As I said: it does no harm, and I consider the kind of morality that judges such things to be unethical irrelevant.

[Icinix]

Arijharn wrote...

(snip)

Even if the worst came to pass, even if I fail and all my efforts are for naught. Even if the Reapers accomplished their goal and put the next notch on their belt then I can go to my grave that I did everything I possibly could to beat them, that I left no stone unturned and that I even sacrificed myself for the chance of ending the threat once and for all... and frankly I do not believe you can say the same.

No, but I can say that I held to my morals throughout, and ended it without sacrificing who I was, and took all the paragon options (joke).  Actually I'm off to bed, but looking forward to picking this up later.

Keep punching.

[mosor]

Icinix wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

(snip)

Even if the worst came to pass, even if I fail and all my efforts are for naught. Even if the Reapers accomplished their goal and put the next notch on their belt then I can go to my grave that I did everything I possibly could to beat them, that I left no stone unturned and that I even sacrificed myself for the chance of ending the threat once and for all... and frankly I do not believe you can say the same.

No, but I can say that I held to my morals throughout, and ended it without sacrificing who I was, and took all the paragon options (joke).  Actually I'm off to bed, but looking forward to picking this up later.

Keep punching.

You didn't want to sacrifice who you are and willing to endager trillions by not investigating the potential of that base because of your moral stance? Paragons sound incrediably selfish and self serving.