368 réponses à ce sujet

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Ryzaki wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

A child is born sapient. The Geth weren't.

But at the time of the killing both groups were sentinent.

So which is it? Are the geth sentinent creatures and the Quarians attempted to commit genoicide. Or are the Geth merely machines and the Quarians killed themselves? 

Edit: for no reason at that considering they were no longer breaking the law if the Geth weren't sentinent.

The Quarians screwed themselves because of their laziness to just want machines to do all the work so they made them more complex.

[wulf3n]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
I said they don't view them as a race. They do admit that they became sentient.

But sentience in ME is a race.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

wulf3n wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...
I said they don't view them as a race. They do admit that they became sentient.

But sentience in ME is a race.

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

[Zing Freelancer]

DarthSliver wrote...

www.youtube.com/watch - Geth Network


www.youtube.com/watch - Quarian Rebellion



www.youtube.com/watch - Geth Future

this vids deserve a bump.

[STG]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

Geth are able to think, therefore, you are wrong.

[Pro_Consul]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

So then you are changing your position and now hold that the Geth are NOT responsible for any of the Quarian deaths that occurred during the Morning War?

Edit: please state your position. Are the Geth a race and therefore responsible for their own actions as you were earlier contending? Or are they merely a creation of the Quarians, and therefore the Quarians are completely responsible for everything done by the Geth? You cannot have it both ways, denying the Geth any of the rights of a sentient race while imposing on them the responsibilities of a race. Tell us, please: which is it?

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 05 février 2011 - 10:42 .

[V-rex]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

So then you are changing your position and now hold that the Geth are NOT responsible for any of the Quarian deaths that occurred during the Morning War?

Please refer to my post on page four, because I spotted a similar trend and I explained my position of it in more detail. That said to give the short version:
Apparently as long as we are talking about the Quarians wanting to shut down the Geth, then the Geth are being judged as nothing more than broken machines with no rights and can't be judged equally to us.
That said when the Geth fight back they must be judged entirely by our standards as evil murderous monsters who killed and maniacally laugh about it and should have known about the value of the lives of women and children.

So essentially the Geth can't be judged the same way we judge organics and aren't held to the same standards as long as we are the ones shutting them down. But if they are fighting back, now they can be considered 'war criminals'.

Modifié par V-rex, 05 février 2011 - 10:47 .

[Suron]

Hard situation but ultimately yes.

Quarians struck first and tried to wipe them out.  Synthetic or not these things now had coherent thought and self-awareness.

But it's not as cut and dry as that.  it NEVER is.

Quarians struck first due to how A.I.'s typically end up becoming once they're self-aware..which is to hate organic or just see no use to them so they're indifferent to organic survival etc etc etc...see matrix.

So the Geth were JUSTIFIED in DEFENDING THEMSELVES.

now...it went way to far and the Quarians lost their home world.

On the other hand..what if the Quarians had NOT struck first? we have no idea what the Geth would have done.  It's possible the Geth would have wiped the Quarians out entirely had they not attacked first...just waited and waited..then struck first themselves.

maybe the Geth never would have struck out.

MAYBE the whole Heretic/True Geth thing would have panned out anyway....So Geth and Quarians start out playing nice...then there Heretics attack the Quarians..at this stage

1. Quarians can't distinguish aggressive "Heretics" from friendly "True" Geth and fight both.
2. "True" Geth end up joining Quarians side against "Heretics"

and that's just TWO ways it could pan out.

Point is, in the end we have NO WAY of knowing what would have happened had the Quarians NOT struck first.  Maybe it would have panned out for the better..or maybe for the worse.  Regardless though you can't say the Geth were not justified in defending themselves REGARDLESS of how it would have/might have panned out had the Quarians not attacked first.

[adam_grif]

So essentially the Geth can't be judged the same way we judge organics and aren't held to the same standards as long as we are the ones shutting them down. But if they are fighting back, now they can be considered 'war criminals'.

Why should it matter one iota whether or not what the Quarians did to them was "right" or not? Someone wronging you isn't license to do anything you please to them. Revenge is not justice, and genocide is not an acceptable response to attempted genocide.

[General User]

Pro_Consul wrote...
Actually quite the opposite. On the threat scale isolationism places a nation far to the non-threat side, while its opposite, interventionism, is the one that places a nation firmly on the greater threat side of the scale. Parse it logically: a race that at its very core wants nothing more than to be left alone to do their own thing is about as NON-threatening as a race can get.

Isolationism and peaceful coexistence are not the same thing. Just as interventionism and aggression are not the same thing. 

Pro_Consul wrote...
If you take Legion at their word, then the Geth hold as a core belief that ALL sentients have the right of self-determination. That pretty much precludes the possibility of the Geth ever wiping out anyone who isn't actively attacking them first.

The geth only believe in respective self-determination until they don’t. The Heretics decided of their own free will to follow Nazara to war.

Pro_Consul wrote...
No disrespect, but that is nonsense. They either have sovereign rights of a sentient species or they don't. If they do, then the right to NOT get involved with their neighbors is certainly not one that can be lost. Really, how can you argue that they lost the right to keep to themselves and NOT interact with their neighbors? You are basically saying that they are now compelled to interact with other races. Please explain this.

No problem. The right the geth lost is the right to be left alone. 
 
For three centuries, the geth and the rest of the galaxy were content to eye each other warily across the Perseus Veil. Then one day, at the behest of a dark-god, an army of geth comes forth with electro-conductive fluid in its eye.
 
I didn’t say the geth didn’t have the rights of a sovereign nation, I said that the other peoples of ME also have those same rights, and their attendant responsibilities. Prime among them being to protect their citizens from external threats, as such, the Galactic Powers would be delinquent in their responsibilities if they didn’t intervene in geth affairs.

Pro_Consul wrote...
Well, 300 years after the war the population is 17 million. We do not have any info on how many were aboard the flotilla when it first evacuated, possibly a lot more or a lot less. But it is highly unlikely that the population has held steady at 17 million for all 300 years since the exodus.

I give it 17million +/- 20%.  The Migrant Fleet is not mentioned as having had an appreciable net gain or loss in ships over the centuries, and 17 million is mentioned as being mainly those ships vital capacity.  
Also bear in mind, a lower number of quarians escaping Rannoch only increases the number who died at geth hands.

Pro_Consul wrote...
Here are a few:

1. Quarian military leaders resort to WMDs which take out enormous areas of their own civilian populace in order to destroy strongholds of Geth.

2. Quarians suffer from planetwide famine due to break down of their agricultural system and distribution infrastructure (possibly due at least in part to overdependence on Geth labor).

3. Quarians are subject to deadly pandemic(s) caused by collapse of distribution infrastructure and their already less-than-stellar immune systems, aggravated by poor (if any) nutrition and poor (if any) sanitation.

The quarian immune system was only ever deficient on other worlds.  It is perfectly evolved for Rannoch.

None of those scenarios account for the total depopulation of multiple worlds. Sorry, the numbers simply aren’t there. All those events, even taken together, leave too many survivors.
 
Apart from the geth undertaking an organized campaign of extermination there is only one possibility: that the use of WMD’s was so widespread, that Rannoch should have been rendered permanently uninhabitable (not that the two are necessarily incompatible). But Legion tells us this is not so.

Pro_Consul wrote...
The second and third of those options are actually highly probable, not just possible. And really, we have no data on just how dependent the Quarians were on Geth labor to grow their food, maintain their power plants, move their freight, operate their sanitation and water facilities, keep their pharma and other manufacturing plants going and so on. The sudden removal of that labor force alone might account for anywhere from thousands to tens of millions of deaths, perhaps more if it led to cascading failures of basic services and necessities.

We do know this; geth weren’t widely used in the interstellar shipping industry. Otherwise there would have been no Migrant Fleet in the first place.

Pro_Consul wrote...
The two key points I am trying to make here are these:

1. Enemy action is not the only, or even the most deadly, cause of friendly casualties, particularly in a planetwide war with no clear battle lines.

2. In large scale war, civilians tend to suffer and die far, FAR more than soldiers, and most often NOT due to anyone directly killing or attacking them. Disease and starvation are generally the top two causes of civilian deaths during times of total war, with weather exposure in the mix in theaters of war with less than clement climates.

Disease and starvation are major killers of civilians during war time because those civilians have, in a systematic manner, been driven from their homes and had their food stores taken/ food supplies disrupted by the enemy army . 

That still counts as an organized campaign of extermination.

Pro_Consul wrote...
First, you are assuming extermination of non-combatants, an event for which we have no evidence of any kind.

The evidence is mathematical, logical, and demographic in nature.

Pro_Consul wrote...
But that aside, at what point is the civilian population responsible for the actions of their leaders? In your scenario the answer appears to be: never.

Correct (attn. art. 33).  No member of any racial/ethnic group can morally be held responsible for the actions of other members of that group.

Modifié par General User, 05 février 2011 - 12:06 .

[V-rex]

adam_grif wrote...

So essentially the Geth can't be judged the same way we judge organics and aren't held to the same standards as long as we are the ones shutting them down. But if they are fighting back, now they can be considered 'war criminals'.

Why should it matter one iota whether or not what the Quarians did to them was "right" or not? Someone wronging you isn't license to do anything you please to them. Revenge is not justice, and genocide is not an acceptable response to attempted genocide.

Please re-read my post.

When you do and analyze it properly you will realize that what I am actually doing here is pointing out that there is a major contradiction going on in some people's arguments.
Namely they are first declaring the Geth emotionless machines that only exist because of a 'mistake' and can't be compared to us in any way, hence the Quarians should have no ethical qualms with killing them.
I.E the Quarians 'made' them so it's okay.

But that also there seems to be a mindset that Geth are also evil murdering monsters who knew or at least are expected to know the value of the lives of civilians and are expected to have the same responsibilties of organics as long as we are talking about THEM attacking QUARIANS.

I.E that it seems said people making the arguments (making no names here) are proclaiming that Geth are both mindless machines who cannot be held to the standards or rights of organics but also malevolent supervillains who commit mass murder and must be judged and held responsible according to the standards of our society.

So which is it? Mindless machines that are broken, or fully aware beings that are just evil? Because they CAN'T BE BOTH!

That was my argument. Nothing to do with what you are talking about.

[Salty Specula]

adam_grif wrote...

Schneidend wrote...

adam_grif wrote...
No.

Well that was easy. Systmatically exterminating the Quarian people, and only failing because their last remaining survivors fled is what we would consider a war crime.

Both sides went to excessive and brutal extremes to try and take each other out completely.

Genocide is not acceptable just because the other side wanted to do it to you first. The geth should have defeated the Quarian miliatary then fled. At worst, you could justify the occupation of the Quarian civilian population and maybe even forcibly relocating them (maybe). You can't justify total obliteration.

Genocide in self defense is completely justifyable in a war crimes tribunal. If an enemy hurls themselves at you without hostile procovation in a 'pre-emptive strike' (which is highly, HIGHLY illegal) and you defend your land and people with lethal force against those attacking you until they leave, that is justifyable self defense. If they kept openly attacking afterwards, that's not acceptable, but they didn't do that. Unfortunately, the Quarians have numerous war crimes against them in this one and the Geth, while responsible for the slaughter of millions of Quarians, perhaps billions, it's considered justifyable self defense.

...

Or it would be if the Geth who are Sinthetic AI were to be given fair and equal treatment as sapients.

[Pro_Consul]

[quote]General User wrote...

Isolationism and peaceful coexistence are not the same thing. Just as interventionism and aggression are not the same thing.[/quote]

Never said they were same thing. But they don't have to be. If a race is devoted to "peaceful coexistence" then there isn't any need for a threat assessment at all. Remember the context: threat assessment. And a race whose customary modus is to actively intervene in the affairs of other races is inherently a much greater threat than one whose primary goal is to staunchly keep to its own space and be left alone. The interventionist is constantly stumbling onto ways to threaten you, while the isolationist will generally only threaten you if you try to force your way into their affairs.

[quote]General User wrote...

The geth only believe in respective self-determination until they don’t. The Heretics decided of their own free will to follow Nazara to war.[/quote]

By this rationale every single species automatically qualifies for a threat assessment of "maximum threat". When you make a threat assessment you are supposed to be trying to determine whether and to what degree some other race/nation/polity is a credible threat to your own group/plan/ethos/whatever. Threat assessment is not about taking every single possibility, even unto the ridiculously unlikely ones, and assuming that they have an equal weight. In short, it is not about what is "possible, no matter how remotely so", but rather about what has a credible likelihood of actually happening. When one removes the "credible" from the "threat" he/she has stepped from the realm of threat assessment into the realm of paranoid xenophobia.

As for the whole "decided of their own free will" bit, we have no direct knowledge of that. It is just as likely, if not more so, that Nazara/Sovereign was actually 5% successful in an attempt to tamper with the Geths' minds. Recall that the Legion specifically stated that a very low level routine in the heretics was suddenly changed to something slightly different than the other 95% of the Geth, but that it happened in a way that did not trip the automatic corrective features of their AI consciousness. That sounds a LOT more like indoctrination than rational choice.

[quote]General User wrote...

No problem. The right the geth lost is the right to be left alone. 
 
For three centuries, the geth and the rest of the galaxy were content to eye each other warily across the Perseus Veil. Then one day, at the behest of a dark-god, an army of geth comes forth with electro-conductive fluid in its eye.
 
I didn’t say the geth didn’t have the rights of a sovereign nation, I said that the other peoples of ME also have those same rights, and their attendant responsibilities. Prime among them being to protect their citizens from external threats, as such, the Galactic Powers would be delinquent in their responsibilities if they didn’t intervene in geth affairs.[/quote]

OK, this clarification makes more sense. And within reasonable limits I agree. The afftected races do indeed have a right to expect an explanation from the Geth at the very least, and perhaps more, including reparations and reasonable treaty guarantees to preclude a repeat.

[quote]General User wrote...

I give it 17million +/- 20%.  The Migrant Fleet is not mentioned as having had an appreciable net gain or loss in ships over the centuries, and 17 million is mentioned as being mainly those ships vital capacity.  
Also bear in mind, a lower number of quarians escaping Rannoch only increases the number who died at geth hands.[/quote]

Wasn't trying to imply anything, just picking a little nit there, since we were starting to stray into an assumption about something on which we lacked hard data. As to your last statement there, it relies 100% on the assumption that Quarians deaths were "at geth hands", which has not been established at all.

[quote]General User wrote...

[quote]Pro_Consul wrote...
Here are a few:

1. Quarian military leaders resort to WMDs which take out enormous areas of their own civilian populace in order to destroy strongholds of Geth.

2. Quarians suffer from planetwide famine due to break down of their agricultural system and distribution infrastructure (possibly due at least in part to overdependence on Geth labor).

3. Quarians are subject to deadly pandemic(s) caused by collapse of distribution infrastructure and their already less-than-stellar immune systems, aggravated by poor (if any) nutrition and poor (if any) sanitation.
[/quote]

The quarian immune system was only ever deficient on other worlds.  It is perfectly evolved for Rannoch.

None of those scenarios account for the total depopulation of multiple worlds. Sorry, the numbers simply aren’t there. All those events, even taken together, leave too many survivors.[/quote]

A couple of points here. First, their immune was indeed evolved for Rannoch, but certainly not "perfectly" so or they would never have known what illness was until they first visited another world. As the Codex says of Quarians, "Quarian immune systems have always been relatively weak, as pathogenic microbes were comparatively rare in their homeworld's biosphere. Furthermore, what few viruses and other microbes were native to their homeworld were often at least partly beneficial to them." In time of total war, on a planet wracked by use of WMDs, with a little or no sanitation, little or no medical or distribution infrastructure and a very high level of toxic residue, disease is inevitable. And having an already relatively weak immune system, it was very likely a downward spiral of death to the Quarians.

Second point, we don't know that all the colony worlds were "depopulated" in the sense of all their population being killed. For starters it is likely that few if any of them were very heavily populated in the first place, since as you point out the Quarians' immune system was not evolved for any of them. In addition, it is just as likely that many if not most were simply abandoned because they could not be defended or because they were dependent on logistical support from Rannoch which was no longer being provided. Again, there is at least as much likelihood that their "depopulation" was due to the normal consequences of the progress of the war as there is that direct enemy action was responsible.

[quote]General User wrote..

Apart from the geth undertaking an organized campaign of extermination there is only one possibility: that the use of WMD’s was so widespread, that Rannoch should have been rendered permanently uninhabitable (not that the two are necessarily incompatible). But Legion tells us this is not so.[/quote]

Actually Legion tells us very much the opposite, when he mentions that the Geth have deployed mobile platforms to Rannoch for centuries which have worked to rebuild it and clean up the toxic waste from the war, so that the Quarians may be able to one day live there again. If Rannoch required that much clean up, centuries worth, in order to be made habitable, then there is plenty of reason to expect that its pre-cleanup condition was responsible for an ENORMOUS number of Quarian deaths due to toxic exposure, disease, famine and other related problems.

[quote]General User wrote...

Disease and starvation are major killers of civilians during war time because those civilians have, in a systematic manner, been driven from their homes and had their food stores taken/ food supplies disrupted by the enemy army . 

That still counts as an organized campaign of extermination.[/quote]

Only if the enemy is deliberately driving out the civilians, seizing and destroying their supplies and so on. That is very rarely the case. In fact, it is just as possible that the Quarian military itself was the one uprooting their own civilian populace and destroying stores and the like - it's called "scorched earth" strategy and it is a very old concept. And it can all too easily result in far more deaths to one's own civilian populace than in enemy deaths. In any case, refugee populations are an inevitable consequence of war and the fact of their existence is very rarely the result of any "campaign of extermination". Further, in a planetwide war that began with no battle lines, no division at all between friendly and enemy territory, the refugee problem is multiplied immensely, since in essence every single Quarian on the planet suddenly found themselves in "enemy territory" the moment the Geth began to defend themselves.

[quote]General User wrote...

[quote]Pro_Consul wrote...
First, you are assuming extermination of non-combatants, an event for which we have no evidence of any kind.
[/quote]

The evidence is mathematical, logical, and demographic in nature.[/quote]

Actually the "evidence" is merely assumptive, and is no more supported by the known facts than its opposing hypothesis. And it is actually contradicted by the known information about Geth behavior during the war.

[quote]General User wrote...

[quote]Pro_Consul wrote...
But that aside, at what point is the civilian population responsible for the actions of their leaders? In your scenario the answer appears to be: never.
[/quote]

Correct (attn. art. 33).  No member of any racial/ethnic group can morally be held responsible for the actions of other members of that group.[/quote]

So that would be "never" then. I can see that on this one point we will not be able to agree. In my ethos it is simply not that easy to evade responsibility by hiding within a larger group and letting some assigned portion of them do the dirty work for the rest of you.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 05 février 2011 - 08:12 .

[General User]

V-rex wrote...
So which is it? Mindless machines that are broken, or fully aware beings that are just evil? Because they CAN'T BE BOTH!

Can it be neither? Can the geth and quarians be sentient beings who at times act with horrific excess and irrational fear?

[Pro_Consul]

General User wrote...

V-rex wrote...
So which is it? Mindless machines that are broken, or fully aware beings that are just evil? Because they CAN'T BE BOTH!

Can it be neither? Can the geth and quarians be sentient beings who at times act with horrific excess and irrational fear?

He was not saying those were the only two possibilities that exist. He was pointing out that some people in this discussion have been trying to argue from both of those positions simultaneously without realizing that they are mutually exclusive.

[Zing Freelancer]

I no longer know why we are having this conversation. In fact, this thread become concluded to me at page 4. Then some other people came who refused to read page 4 and now we have to discuss all the things we already discussed and agreed upon?



Sigh

[Pro_Consul]

Zing Freelancer wrote...

I no longer know why we are having this conversation. In fact, this thread become concluded to me at page 4. Then some other people came who refused to read page 4 and now we have to discuss all the things we already discussed and agreed upon?

Sigh

Ummmm, dude? You do realize that if we had already agreed upon all the things under discussion that we would not be in disagreement now, right?

And if the thread was concluded for you on page 4, why did you read page 5 and beyond? [confused]

[Ramirez Wolfen]

STG wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

Geth are able to think, therefore, you are wrong.

So can a dog, but it's not sentient like us.

[Pro_Consul]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

STG wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

Geth are able to think, therefore, you are wrong.

So can a dog, but it's not sentient like us.

So then are you finally admitting that you were wrong all the times you tried to condemn the Geth for the deaths of so many Quarians?

[Null_]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

STG wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

Geth are able to think, therefore, you are wrong.

So can a dog, but it's not sentient like us.

Geth asked if it had a soul.

[Zing Freelancer]

Oh, I see what this is. Must be one of those e-penis competition when one person is attempting to humiliate the other one with his logic?



Because, seriously, everything you are talking about is already covered on the first 5 pages.

[Ramirez Wolfen]

Pro_Consul wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

STG wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

Geth are able to think, therefore, you are wrong.

So can a dog, but it's not sentient like us.

So then are you finally admitting that you were wrong all the times you tried to condemn the Geth for the deaths of so many Quarians?

Since when was I wrong?

[Pro_Consul]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Pro_Consul wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

STG wrote...

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

Either way, the Geth are a creation and nothing more.

Geth are able to think, therefore, you are wrong.

So can a dog, but it's not sentient like us.

So then are you finally admitting that you were wrong all the times you tried to condemn the Geth for the deaths of so many Quarians?

Since when was I wrong?

That would be a resounding "no" then. You have at various times in this discussion argued for two separate, mutually exclusive positions, and yet you refuse to admit that either of them was incorrect. Nice.

Zing Freelancer wrote...

Oh, I see what this is. Must be one of those e-penis competition when one person is attempting to
humiliate the other one with his logic?

Because, seriously, everything you are talking about is already covered on the first 5 pages.

So now it is 5 pages instead of 4, huh? Guess you looked back and realized you had two posts on page 5 yourself, 1 page AFTER the point at which you just condemned this thread for continuing. In any case, agreement has not been reached at point in this thread. Just because you lost interest in the discussion doesn't mean it ended or even should have ended. And you were wrong about one other thing: not everything was covered in the first 5 pages. We didn't have an uninterested troll condeming the entire thread until you so kindly provided that for us on page 9. Thanks for that, by the way. 

Seriously though, why do you even make such troll posts? Do you honestly think we are going to end our discussion just because you personally are no longer interested in reading it? Do you truly think your are actually improving this situation for anyone at all, yourself included?

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 05 février 2011 - 09:06 .

[General User]

Pro_Consul wrote...
Never said they were same thing. But they don't have to be. If a race is devoted to "peaceful coexistence" then there isn't any need for a threat assessment at all. Remember the context: threat assessment. And a race whose customary modus is to actively intervene in the affairs of other races is inherently a much greater threat than one whose primary goal is to staunchly keep to its own space and be left alone. The interventionist is constantly stumbling onto ways to threaten you, while the isolationist will generally only threaten you if you try to force your way into their affairs.

If there is no threat assessment made, how then is another group’s dedication to peaceful coexistence to be determined? 

Pro_Consul wrote...
By this rationale every single species automatically qualifies for a threat assessment of "maximum threat". When you make a threat assessment you are supposed to be trying to determine whether and to what degree some other race/nation/polity is a credible threat to your own group/plan/ethos/whatever. Threat assessment is not about taking every single possibility, even unto the ridiculously unlikely ones, and assuming that they have an equal weight. In short, it is not about what is "possible, no matter how remotely so", but rather about what has a credible likelihood of actually happening. When one removes the "credible" from the "threat" he/she has stepped from the realm of threat assessment into the realm of paranoid xenophobia.

Indeed, “maximum threat” is the automatic default level at which all nations and peoples should interact with each other. Whether or not this threat level is escalated to open hostilities, or is mitigated into benign coexistence, or even further into mutual partnership is dependent of subsequent events.

Responsible leaders have to be able to envision the unlikely and plan for for worst.

Following their self-imposed isolation, the only subsequent events the galaxy has to judge the geth by are the events of ME1 and 2.  During which Legion is the only non-hostile geth.

Pro_Consul wrote...
As for the whole "decided of their own free will" bit, we have no direct knowledge of that. It is just as likely, if not more so, that Nazara/Sovereign was actually 5% successful in an attempt to tamper with the Geths' minds. Recall that the Legion specifically stated that a very low level routine in the heretics was suddenly changed to something slightly different than the other 95% of the Geth, but that it happened in a way that did not trip the automatic corrective features of their AI consciousness. That sounds a LOT more like indoctrination than rational choice.

So the decision to worship a giant metal space squid and follow it on a crusade to destroy civilization was NOT rational!?! 
 
Say it ain’t so Pro!

Pro_Consul wrote...
OK, this clarification makes more sense. And within reasonable limits I agree. The afftected races do indeed have a right to expect an explanation from the Geth at the very least, and perhaps more, including reparations and reasonable treaty guarantees to preclude a repeat.

Any ideas on how to enforce such a treaty?  To my way of thinking such a treaty will only hold up if the geth engage with their neighbors.  In other words a full 180 shift from established policy.

Pro_Consul wrote...
Wasn't trying to imply anything, just picking a little nit there, since we were starting to stray into an assumption about something on which we lacked hard data. As to your last statement there, it relies 100% on the assumption that Quarians deaths were "at geth hands", which has not been established at all.

I'm assuming a great many things on this matter.  If you're interested I'd be happy to break down those assumptions.  I'm sure there will be ample nit for the picking.

Pro_Consul wrote...
Actually Legion tells us very much the opposite, when he mentions that the Geth have deployed mobile platforms to Rannoch for centuries which have worked to rebuild it and clean up the toxic waste from the war, so that the Quarians may be able to one day live there again. If Rannoch required that much clean up, centuries worth, in order to be made habitable, then there is plenty of reason to expect that its pre-cleanup condition was responsible for an ENORMOUS number of Quarian deaths due to toxic exposure, disease, famine and other related problems.

Now here’s the rub. If the WMD usage didn’t render Rannoch completely uninhabitable, but rather insufficiently productive so as to sustain quraian life, and the geth didn’t kill the surviving but simply stood by and watched them die, would you consider that to be deliberate extermination?

I would.

Pro_Consul wrote...
Only if the enemy is deliberately driving out the civilians, seizing and destroying their supplies and so on. That is very rarely the case. In fact, it is just as possible that the Quarian military itself was the one uprooting their own civilian populace and destroying stores and the like - it's called "scorched earth" strategy and it is a very old concept. And it can all too easily result in far more deaths to one's own civilian populace than in enemy deaths. In any case, refugee populations are an inevitable consequence of war and the fact of their existence is very rarely the result of any "campaign of extermination". Further, in a planetwide war that began with no battle lines, no division at all between friendly and enemy territory, the refugee problem is multiplied immensely, since in essence every single Quarian on the planet suddenly found themselves in "enemy territory" the moment the Geth began to defend themselves.

Scorched earth tactics are designed to deny the enemy the use of the land and its bounty. What possible rationale exists for expending effort to deny food and shelter to a robot army?

Pro_Consul wrote...
Actually the "evidence" is merely assumptive, and is no more supported by the known facts than its opposing hypothesis. And it is actually contradicted by the known information about Geth behavior during the war.

Using humanity as a model, under what conditions has our entire race been dedicated toward a single end, without any divisions of an ethnic, national, or tribal nature?

Pro_Consul wrote...
So that would be "never" then. I can see that on this one point we will not be able to agree. In my ethos it is simply not that easy to evade responsibility by hiding within a larger group and letting some assigned portion of them do the dirty work for the rest of you.

Fair enough, but harbor no illusions, putting that ethos into practice is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Modifié par General User, 05 février 2011 - 09:27 .

[Pro_Consul]

[quote]General User wrote...

If there is no threat assessment made, how then is another group’s dedication to peaceful coexistence to be determined? [/quote]

Okey dokey, semantic point to you. At the stage of determining their intentions we determine they are by nature committed to peaceful coexistence and their threat level is therefore zero. Threat assessment is indeed performed, but turns out to be a lot of nothing and totally useless toward making either your point or mine. Irrelevancy dismissed?

[quote]General User wrote...

Indeed, “maximum threat” is the automatic default level at which all nations and peoples should interact with each other. Whether or not this threat level is escalated to open hostilities, or is mitigated into benign coexistence, or even further into mutual partnership is dependent of subsequent events.[/quote]

Boy am I glad we don't live in your world. That level of paranoia is only one step removed from genocidal xenophobia. In the real world the automatic default threat level is "unknown". For purposes of this context, the point of initial contact, opening of diplomatic relations, progression to trade relations and so forth is to gradually increase knowledge and familiarity, and therefore increase accuracy of threat assessment on both sides. The earlier it is in this process, the less reliable any threat assessment is presumed to be. There are two general types of information that are necessary for any kind of reliable threat assessment: physical and cultural. The former involves biology, technology, disposition and composition of forces, geography and so on. The latter requires getting to actually know the subject; how do they think, what do they value, what do they want, what do they fear? Physical intelligence lets you form a picture of the subject's capabilities, while cultural intel lets you form an idea about their plans and intentions. Without both of these any threat assessment is worth less than the memory space it occupies on your omnitool.

[quote]General User wrote...

So the decision to worship a giant metal space squid and follow it on a crusade to destroy civilization was NOT rational!?! 
 
Say it ain’t so Pro![/quote]

Funny. What it is even funnier is that it was your hypothesis that relied on the presumption you are now mocking so sarcastically, not mine.


[quote]General User wrote...

Any ideas on how to enforce such a treaty?  To my way of thinking such a treaty will only hold up if the geth engage with their neighbors.  In other words a full 180 shift from established policy.[/quote]

How do you enforce any non-aggression pact? By mutual fear of the consequences of violation. That doesn't require any ongoing active engagement by the Geth with their neighbors. It does require convincing the Geth that the consequences of their not preventing a recurrence are worse than the consequences of allowing such a recurrence. Nothing more....and nothing less, since that isn't exactly an easy feat.

[quote]General User wrote...
[quote]Pro_Consul wrote...
Wasn't trying to imply anything, just picking a little nit there, since we were starting to stray into an assumption about something on which we lacked hard data. As to your last statement there, it relies 100% on the assumption that Quarians deaths were "at geth hands", which has not been established at all.
[/quote]

I'm assuming a great many things on this matter.  If you're interested I'd be happy to break down those assumptions.  I'm sure there will be ample nit for the picking.[/quote]

I am not asking that you list all of your assumptions. Merely that when you do state them that you acknowledge them as such and not present them as if they were established facts.

[quote]General User wrote...

Now here’s the rub. If the WMD usage didn’t render Rannoch completely uninhabitable, but rather insufficiently productive so as to sustain quraian life, and the geth didn’t kill the surviving but simply stood by and watched them die, would you consider that to be deliberate extermination?

I would.[/quote]

I would not. Say you deliberately burn down the apartment building we live in as part of an attempt to murder me, we barely escape to the street and then I find that you have a bleeding wound that requires medical attention. Is it then premeditated murder on my part if I simply walk away and leave you to find your own medical assistance. Nope. At worst it is negligent homicide. At best it is a poor substitute for justice for your failed attempt to kill me and your successful attempt at driving us BOTH out of our home.

No matter how anyone tries to rationalize this, my system of morality does not permit blaming the victims for the consequences of someone else's crimes.

[quote]General User wrote...

Scorched earth tactics are designed to deny the enemy the use of the land and its bounty. What possible rationale exists for expending effort to deny food and shelter to a robot army?[/quote]

Obviously evacuees would bring whatever food and supplies they could carry. But if the military forced them to evacuate prior to, say, a planned bombing of the entire power distribution network and every technical production facility in a city, just how much good is the food left behind going to do to the refugees when they no longer have access to it? Denying the enemy what they need can still all too easily deny your own people what they need; even if those two needs have nothing else in common, the one thing they DO have in common is that they require access to a place that is now in enemy hands. So yes, a perfectly good rationale exists for denying food and shelter to your own people as a necessary side effect of denying power generation and production facilities to the advancing robot army.

[quote]General User wrote...

Using humanity as a model, under what conditions has our entire race been dedicated toward a single end, without any divisions of an ethnic, national, or tribal nature?[/quote]

Aside from survival, none. Of course one might view that as a sign of our social immaturity, this reluctance, or perhaps inability to work in common cause without regard to prejudicial influences. But that is rather a subtext of this entire discussion, isn't it?

[quote]General User wrote...
[quote]Pro_Consul wrote...
So that would be "never" then. I can see that on this one point we will not be able to agree. In my ethos it is simply not that easy to evade responsibility by hiding within a larger group and letting some assigned portion of them do the dirty work for the rest of you.
[/quote]


Fair enough, but harbor no illusions, putting that ethos into practice is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.[/quote]

Really? These would be the same Geneva Conventions that condemn entire nations which fail to actively seek out and prosecute war criminals and those who order war crimes, or who refuse to turn over accused war criminals for trial by international tribunal wherever domestic jurisdiction does not apply, yes? Seems to me this is simply a means of holding the people of a nation responsible at least in part for the actions of their leaders. Looks like the Geneva Conventions are actually based on my ethos, rather than condemning it.

These would also be the same conventions which specifically exempt signatories from having to abide by the terms whenever their opposition in a war is a nation which is not a signatory and does not abide by them, yes? Seems to me that when the Quarians held themselves above such things and arrogated to themselves the right to commit genocide and also refused to prosecute those who ordered genocidal actions, that under the Geneva Conventions that would mean they sacrificed all protections of the Conventions and relieved their opponent, the Geth, of any restrictions deriving from the conventions.

That's the way the GCs work. When a nation, even a signatory, refuses to abide by the restriction against war crimes, and then its people refuse to prosecute those war criminals or arrest them for prosecution by international tribunal, that country loses all protections under the Conventions until such time as they return to compliance. That entire country is also held responsible for any war crimes committed by its personnel, at the very least until those specifically responsible have been tried and punished and that nation has paid any reparations ordered by the international tribunal which judges their case. Here, Geneva Protocol I, Article 91:

A Party to the conflict which violates the provisions of the Conventions or of this Protocol shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.

It doesn't really get more explicit than that. The Geneva Conventions do NOT allow the civilian populace to be divorced from all responsibility for the actions of their government and armed forces. The nation as a whole is held accountable, as are the individual perpetrators of the actual specific violations. And the citizenry is required to comply with and assist in apprehension of those perps. If the GCs were applied to the Morning War the Geth would be due reparation payments from the Quarians, and the Quarians would have been a complete outlaw state for condoning their military and governmental leaders' attempts at committing genocide.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 05 février 2011 - 11:36 .