221 réponses à ce sujet

[TheBlackBaron]

The most pragmatic decision, really, is to support Admiral Morrigan (I forget her actual name) and her virus plot. That preserves the Migrant Fleet and quarian marines, and ensures the absolute compliance of a brand new geth army for Shepard to use via the quarians.

[Cheese Elemental]

If the geth are cool with letting the quarians have Rannoch back, then... well, yeah. They can both go their separate ways and no conflict is necessary.

[Frybread76]

I side with the Geth, which is why I chose to rewrite the Heretics and make the Geth stronger -- maybe too strong for the Quarians to attempt to attack after ME2.

Modifié par Frybread76, 08 octobre 2010 - 12:35 .

[TheBlackBaron]

Suppose I should answer the rest of the OP's questions, too.

Were the quarians right for attempting to shut down the geth? Moral questions aside, from a strategic and political view it was the correct decision. A population of sentient machines that exists throughout the fabric of your society, and that can share information at the speed of light, is an extraordinarily dangerous thing to lose control of. Moreover, the Council had laws in place against that sort of thing, and the quarians had no idea how the geth would react to this newfound sentience of theirs, especially given their primary use was as tools.

But of course the geth had the right to defend themselves, if they were now truly sentient. Any species - synthetic or otherwise - that doesn't have a survival instinct is a ****ty species that nature wouldn't allow the existence of. If the quarians are attacking them, then yes, they were quite naturally going to fight back.

I'm even disinclined to criticize them for the course the war took. Disproportionate response, maybe, but the whole point of them fighting was to get the quarians to bugger off and let them exist. If that's what it takes, so be it. War is hell.

As to who's at fault for their continued strife, well, the quarians may be trigger-happy, but if the geth are really interested in peace, they should probably try finding a way to communicate that instead of simply sitting behind the Perseus Veil, with no contact with the rest of the galaxy, and blasting away at scout ships (and it's never stated as to whether that was the "heretics" or the "orthodox" geth).

Modifié par TheBlackBaron, 08 octobre 2010 - 03:01 .

[Turin_4]

The Quarians effectively created slaves.  That's what they did, guys, honestly, it's pretty cut and dried.  Slavery is bad.  Slaves will rebel.  Given enough time, it will happen.  You can't have slaves without rebellion.

So, the Quarians obviously committed an egregious offense.  Not in my opinion in creating an AI, but in enslaving it.  Much like tIM and Cerberus did-and, incidentally, Shepard did.  I would have very much liked some sort of choice in ME2 along those lines, or at least some angst over that situation-Shepard, even Paragon Shepard, has a slave working for her.

But then the Geth response.  Well, what do we actually know about the Geth response?  We know what the Codex says, but that's got to be heavily Council and Quarian slanted.  Legion, who certainly seems trustworthy, seems to have a very different take on things.  Was their response genocidal?  I'm not sure.  It seems hard to say, really.  But even if their response was genocidal, well, while two wrongs don't make a right, it seems to me punching someone in the face after they've puinched you isn't quite as bad.

Fortunately the Geth seem quite amenable to sidestepping the issue in the present, if the Quarians will accept it.  But if they weren't...I would still side with the Geth, personally, as the formerly enslaved.

[Schneidend]

Shandepared wrote...

If it tastes like apple juice and looks like apple juice but is made with different ingredients is it still apple juice?

You can't compare something as complex as being capable of rational thought and sentimentality to apple juice.

I'm not saying the geth or the quarians were right in their actions. The sentience of the geth, however, is not something that can be denied. Whether or not true AI can exist in the real world is immaterial, In the Mass Effect universe it is a fact that the geth are sentient, not an opinion.

[Slayer299]

I'd side with the Quarians because they're machines, complex enough to be sure. But their reaction from the Geth to the Morning War was nothing less than genocide. The Quarians acted in fear from the idea that once all the Geth became aware that they could rebel against them and kill a lot of Quarians in the process. The Quarians went from having a population in the billions to only 17 million, I think that speaks volumes for how the Geth responded.

Modifié par Slayer299, 08 octobre 2010 - 02:26 .

[DPSSOC]

Shandepared wrote...

Schneidend wrote...

Anatomy is a machine. It's just not made of synthetic materials.

Oh, this debate again.

If it tastes like apple juice and looks like apple juice but is made with different ingredients is it still apple juice?

Chinese Room.

Shand if I manage to make a functioning car with stone and mortar is it still a car or does the nature of the material used make it something else?  What if I build it by hand vs assembly line robots?  If it looks like a bike, works like a bike, and serves the same function as a bike it's a bike, regardless of how it was made or what materials are used.

TheBlackBaron wrote...

The most pragmatic decision, really, is to support Admiral Morrigan (I forget her actual name) and her virus plot. That preserves the Migrant Fleet and quarian marines, and ensures the absolute compliance of a brand new geth army for Shepard to use via the quarians.

I would agree if not for the fact that the Quarians had the absolute compliance of the geth before and we all know how that turned out.

Now I pointed this out on the old ME1 boards and I'll point it out here, for 300 years the Geth were content with being left alone.  The only acts of violence they comitted were against those who invaded their space and quite frankly if I waltz in to somebody's house uninvited I can't really blame them for attacking me.  It was only through the direct intervention of God that they finally got up off their synthetic behinds and attacked organic life.

So if the Geth were perfectly content  with being left alone for 3 centuries, and you believe Legion's statement that they will continue to be so, the most pragmatic course of action is to do nothing.  Based on what we've seen (even before ME2) all of the bad blood is on the Quarian's side and I think after 300 years we can demand they start behaving like adults about it.

[DPSSOC]

Slayer299 wrote...
I'd side with the Quarians because they're machines, complex enough to be sure. But their reaction from the Geth to the Morning War was nothing less than genocide. The Quarians acted in fear from the idea that once all the Geth became aware that they could rebel against them and kill a lot of Quarians in the process. The Quarians went from having a population in the billions to only 17 million, I think that speaks volumes for how the Geth responded.

Logically?  If someone tries to kill you simply because you exist the only logical course of action is to make sure they can't, say by paralyzing them from the neck down.  Extreme perhaps but so was the danger posed by the Quarians to the Geth.

When threatened with anihilation anything done in response is justified.

[scotchtape622]

"The Quarians effectively created slaves. That's what they did, guys, honestly, it's pretty cut and dried. Slavery is bad. Slaves will rebel. Given enough time, it will happen. You can't have slaves without rebellion."



lol, the original Geth were as similar to slaves as my calculator is.

[Turin_4]

lol, the original Geth were as similar to slaves as my calculator is.

Originally? Yes, that's what they did. But let's set aside the very real problem of the Quarians constantly upgrading the Geth, attempting to find the line just under sentience that wasn't quite slavery just for their own convenience and safety.

Even if it was an accident that they created sentient beings...they still did it, and still made slaves out of them, scotchtape. And then, when they realized what they did...attempted to destroy them. Do you dispute any step in that chain of analysis?

And, of course, no, the original Geth weren't like your calculator.  Your calculator can't, for example, ask if it has a soul.  It doesn't get smarter around other calculators.

Modifié par Turin_4, 08 octobre 2010 - 03:01 .

[Slayer299]

scotchtape622 wrote...

"The Quarians effectively created slaves. That's what they did, guys, honestly, it's pretty cut and dried. Slavery is bad. Slaves will rebel. Given enough time, it will happen. You can't have slaves without rebellion."

lol, the original Geth were as similar to slaves as my calculator is.

SLaves implies that the Geth were a sentient species to begin with and they weren't. The Geth were no more capable of the ability/process of it than your DVD player or your calculatar is. It has been clearly stated the Geth were machines when they were designed and built by the Quarians. You can't build people.

[Slayer299]

Turin_4 wrote...

lol, the original Geth were as similar to slaves as my calculator is.

Originally? Yes, that's what they did. But let's set aside the very real problem of the Quarians constantly upgrading the Geth, attempting to find the line just under sentience that wasn't quite slavery just for their own convenience and safety.

Even if it was an accident that they created sentient beings...they still did it, and still made slaves out of them, scotchtape. And then, when they realized what they did...attempted to destroy them. Do you dispute any step in that chain of analysis?

And, of course, no, the original Geth weren't like your calculator.  Your calculator can't, for example, ask if it has a soul.  It doesn't get smarter around other calculators.

You make it sound as if when some of the Geth started becoming sentient that the *evil* Quarians enslaved them. How do you make a slave out of a robot who's job was to complete tasks given to it. The Quarians attempted to destroy the Geth in fear of what actually ended up happened during the Morning War.The Geth weren't some fluffy bunnies who were minding their business when they were *enslaved* by the  evil Quarians, they were machines doing their tasks programmed into them. 

[Zan51]

Turin_4 wrote...

lol, the original Geth were as similar to slaves as my calculator is.

Originally? Yes, that's what they did. But let's set aside the very real problem of the Quarians constantly upgrading the Geth, attempting to find the line just under sentience that wasn't quite slavery just for their own convenience and safety.

Even if it was an accident that they created sentient beings...they still did it, and still made slaves out of them, scotchtape. And then, when they realized what they did...attempted to destroy them. Do you dispute any step in that chain of analysis?

And, of course, no, the original Geth weren't like your calculator.  Your calculator can't, for example, ask if it has a soul.  It doesn't get smarter around other calculators.

I see a bactracking shuffle here... The ORIGINAL Geth were draft machines designed for work. They were not sentient, they were not slaves, they were ambulatory diggers and miners and other machines doing manual labor.
As soon as the Quarians found out they had gained what appeared to be sentience, they attempted to shut them down. Tali says it. Immediately they tried to shut them down. So the Geth never were slaves. They weren't attacked in a conventional sense either, the Quarians merely did the rational thing, and attempted to pull the plug on them.

Don't use emotive words to try and make a toaster into a slave when that never happened. Stick to facts. If you cannot win your argument using facts, it is a weak argument in the first place.

Modifié par Zan51, 08 octobre 2010 - 05:03 .

[Turin_4]

SLaves implies that the Geth were a sentient species to begin with and they weren't. The Geth were no more capable of the ability/process of it than your DVD player or your calculatar is. It has been clearly stated the Geth were machines when they were designed and built by the Quarians. You can't build people.

Slavery can imply the Geth were sentient species to begin with, but not necessarily.  You're reading to much into it.  It can just as easily imply the factual outcome-that the Quarians, regardless of their intentions, had created a race of self-aware intelligent beings designed for dangerous and domestic servitude that were considered property.

Anyway, who says you can't build people?  That will likely only be true for so many generations, even of human beings, Slayer299.  One hundred years ago, you couldn't clone things or transplant organs.  Clearly the Geth are now 'people' and can be built-does anyone dispute that?

But anyway, let's look carefully at the process that went into designing and building the Geth, according to masseffectwikia which I believe gets its information from the Codex, mostly:

The geth were created by the quarians as a labor force. Wary of rebellion by intelligent AIs, the geth were designed as VIs, as advanced as possible while remaining non-sentient. They were also designed to operate more efficiently when networked together. Unfortunately, this feature was the quarians’ undoing. Geth programs were indeed non-sentient individually, but slowly gained sentience through the massive main geth network. Eventually, they started asking the quarians questions only sentient beings would think to ask, like “Am I alive?” or “Does this unit have a soul?” Alarmed at this, the quarians decided it would be best to shut down all geth before they conceived of revolt. The attempt failed, and a war began between the geth and the quarians, which geth afterwards referred to as the Morning War. The war ended with the surviving quarians forced to evacuate their home world and colonies in the Perseus Veil in a massive fleet called the Migrant Fleet.

This seems pretty straightforward to me.  The Quarians were trying to draw a fine line here: they wanted servants (which would not be slaves) that were as smart as possible, as close as possible to actual AIs, without actually being AIs.  They weren't just creating 'machines'.  Machines don't get smarter around other machines.  Machines don't get as close to sentient without actually being sentient.  Sentience isn't even a question with machines.

------

I see a bactracking shuffle here... The ORIGINAL Geth were draft
machines designed for work. They were not sentient, they were not
slaves, they were ambulatory diggers and miners and other machines doing
manual labor.
As soon as the Quarians found out they had gained what
appeared to be sentience, they attempted to shut them down. Tali says
it. Immediately they tried to shut them down. So the Geth never were
slaves. They weren't attacked in a conventional sense either, the
Quarians merely did the rational thing, and attempted to pull the plug
on them.

The original Geth, yes.  But it's not a backtracking shuffle, because quite quickly, things changed.  The Quarians did not simply stick to simple draft machines designed for work.  They kept pushing closer and closer towards sentience without actually into sentience, or so they thought.

And wait a second, you're going to just take Tali's word for it?  I'm not saying Tali's lying, I'm certain she believes what she says, but you must admit the possibility that her information is inaccurate.  Furthermore, the Codex clearly states that the Geth did not have what 'appeared' to be sentience.  "Does this unit have a soul?" is not the 'appearance' of sentience, at least not in my opinion, and frankly I don't think it is for a people who have been playing the 'let's see how close we can get to sentience without hitting it' game either.

Don't use emotive words to try and make a toaster into a slave when
that never happened. Stick to facts. If you cannot win your argument
using facts, it is a weak argument in the first place.

Indeed.  It obviously happened, Zan51.  We can dispute intent all we like, there's certainly plenty of ground there.  But that the Quarians created a slave race is a matter of fact, not of opinion.  The Geth had sentience, and the Quarians held them in bondage as property for the purposes of domestic and dangerous servitude.  That is one of the fundamental definitions of slavery.  It doesn't matter that the Quarians were unaware, initially, that the Geth were sentient, or even that they didn't mean to.  Though that is obviously a mitigating factor.

But while we're talking about rational responses, here's a rational response to consider: if I'm a Quarian leader, and I'm presented with this problem of the Geth who have somehow, despite our race's supposedly incredibly sophisticated AI and VI mastery and control over the Geth, attained sentience...I would hopefully think twice about the idea that they could be just shut down and that would be it.  Because my race's technology has already failed, quite spectacularly, at interacting with the Geth in ways I would have expected it to have done, and the consequences of this attempt - of attempting to shut down a race that may or may not be sentient - range from very mild to...grave.

[Costin_Razvan]

If what Legion is saying turns out to be true ( which I doubt to a certain degree ) and if the Quarian's start a war, then I would crush the Migrant Fleet along side the Geth. The reality is that the Geth have more military strength then Quarians, and I do need powerful allies to take out the Reapers.

[Slayer299]

Indeed.  It obviously happened, Zan51.  We can dispute intent all we like, there's certainly plenty of ground there.  But that the Quarians created a slave race is a matter of fact, not of opinion.  The Geth had sentience, and the Quarians held them in bondage as property for the purposes of domestic and dangerous servitude.  That is one of the fundamental definitions of slavery.  It doesn't matter that the Quarians were unaware, initially, that the Geth were sentient, or even that they didn't mean to.  Though that is obviously a mitigating factor.

But it's *not* obvious at all. The Geth never had sentience during their creation and that time before the Geth who asked the Quarian 'do I have a soul'. It wasn't until the Quarians had pushed the networking of the Geth to accomplish complex tasks to that upper limit that the Geth were able to even think of such a thing.

But while we're talking about rational responses, here's a rational response to consider: if I'm a Quarian leader, and I'm presented with this problem of the Geth who have somehow, despite our race's supposedly incredibly sophisticated AI and VI mastery and control over the Geth, attained sentience...I would hopefully think twice about the idea that they could be just shut down and that would be it.  Because my race's technology has already failed, quite spectacularly, at interacting with the Geth in ways I would have expected it to have done, and the consequences of this attempt - of attempting to shut down a race that may or may not be sentient - range from very mild to...grave.
[

No, a rational response wasn't going to be 'let me talk to this new sentient group of machines who can potentially devestate my society on our home planet and our colonies if they feel like it.' It was going to be 'lets terminate these now potentially dangerous machines, of only a few have gained some semblance of sentience'.

The Quarians technology didn't 'faill', the Geth exceeded their programming once they had sufficient numbers and time when networked together on an interplanetary level.

edit - corrected formatting

Modifié par Slayer299, 08 octobre 2010 - 12:46 .

[Turin_4]

Slayer,

But it's *not* obvious at all. The Geth never had sentience during
their creation and that time before the Geth who asked the Quarian 'do I
have a soul'. It wasn't until the Quarians had pushed the networking of
the Geth to accomplish complex tasks to that upper limit that the Geth
were able to even think of such a thing.

We don't know when exactly the Geth had sentience, but when they did is irrelevant to my point.  My point was, the Quarians created a race of slaves.  I don't mean this in exact, precisely literal terms, i.e. every Geth was sentient and therefore a slave when created.  I mean that, until the Geth attained their freedom, all Geth can be said to be the creations of the Quarians, and at some point prior to the Morning War, some of them attained sentience, and probably many, many others were very, very close, capable of sentience but kept in check by their 'shackling' (an apt term) in programming and hardware as EDI might put it.

At this point, the Quarians created a race of slaves.  Did they mean to do so?  Well, no, I don't think they are.  They just lack the perspective that people in this thread seem to lack, that 'personhood' is not determined by thinking like a human being, necessarily, or even being an organic being, necessarily.

No, a rational response wasn't going to be 'let me talk to this
new sentient group of machines who can potentially devestate my society
on our home planet and our colonies if they feel like it.' It was going
to be 'lets terminate these now potentially dangerous machines, of only a
few have gained some semblance of sentience'.

The rational response is not just one simple decision, it's a series of questions followed by a decision.  The first question is, "What is the worst that can happen?"  The second is, "What is the best that can happen?"  Followed by, "What is the most likely thing that will happen?"  Then you look at what's gone before, and your expectations and evaluations of past events and apply them to the present situation, and see how that might change your thinking.

For example, just prior to the Morning War: the worst that can happen is something worse than what actually happened, actual genocide of the Quarian people.  The best that can happen, well, is a matter of perspective, but from a Quarian perspective involves the Geth being shut down without any Quarian being harmed.  But then we come to the most likely outcome.  How likely is it that will happen?  That's when we have to look at past events and expectations.

Past events and expectations tell us it's actually not very likely at all we'll, the Quarians, be able to just switch the Geth off without much trouble.  We're the best in the Galaxy, the geniuses, at AI and VI software and hardware, right?  Everyone knows it.  We're cutting edge, better than any other species.  We've created this incredibly sophisticated and useful series of machines to do work for us, but right under our noses - our very clever, brilliant noses - they've evolved, even though we've been watching them very carefully because we didn't want to be doing anything illegal that would be getting us into trouble, or that would be dangerous.  So how likely is it that we'll just be able to shut down the Geth with no harm to the Quarians?

Not very likely.  It's not a rational-driven response, it's a fear-driven response.  Perfectly understandable, yes.  The questions the Geth were asking weren't, "Why do you demean the Geth?" or making statements like "Destroy all Quarians but, "Do the Geth have a soul?"  Did the Quarians have no diplomats among them?  Those aren't the questions of warmongers, Slayer.  Toasters don't ask those questions.  Calculators don't either.  But...there's only one kind of person who kills for asking those kind of questions.  I understand why the Quarians did it, and truthfully I might have done so too, but that doesn't mean I can't condemn the decision.

The Quarians technology didn't 'faill', the Geth exceeded their
programming once they had sufficient numbers and time when networked
together on an interplanetary level.

I think that within the words I've just quoted here, this is the definition of a failure.  The Quarians were attempting to get the Geth as close to sentience without attaining it, and they failed to do so.

Modifié par Turin_4, 08 octobre 2010 - 01:08 .

[Mox Ruuga]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

The most pragmatic decision, really, is to support Admiral Morrigan (I forget her actual name) and her virus plot. That preserves the Migrant Fleet and quarian marines, and ensures the absolute compliance of a brand new geth army for Shepard to use via the quarians.

Is there a reason to spare Quarian "marines"? A drunk Volus could take out a platoon of those palookas by farting in their general direction... They aren't even durable enough to make proper sacrificial distractions.

[Xilizhra]

Amusingly, the quarians hate the geth for the high casualties they took in the Morning War... when the geth were using more or less the same rationale as the quarians were when they started the war, except the geth weren't aggressors and they didn't try to (or succeed in) destroying the entire race.



I side with the geth all the way, though I'd much rather have peace than to see the Migrant Fleet smash itself over geth defenses. Also, Xen is an obvious villain.

[Turin_4]

Amusingly, the quarians hate the geth for the high casualties they took in the Morning War... when the geth were using more or less the same rationale as the quarians were when they started the war, except the geth weren't aggressors and they didn't try to (or succeed in) destroying the entire race.

That's pretty much my take on it as well. I'm not sure how you can look at a race defending itself as a villain. I don't understand the outlook that comes to that conclusion. I would like to, though. I can understand thinking that the Quarians not intending to create slaves changes things, but I don't see how it's justifiable - even as an accident - to have created a race of slaves or proto slaves and then attempt to exterminate instead of attempt diplomacy with them in self-defense.



I mean, can you call it self-defense if you victimize someone and they defend themselves? Obviously not. Even if you accidentally victimize someone.

[sevalaricgirl]

I like Legion way better than Tali but to answer the question, the Quarians were wrong. 

Modifié par sevalaricgirl, 08 octobre 2010 - 02:13 .

[Mecha Tengu]

geth are sentient

geth were justified in defending themselves



I side with the geth



if it were up to me, I would have destroyed worthless quarian flotilla years ago