864 réponses à ce sujet

[MisterJB]

Saphra Deden wrote...

MisterJB wrote...

My inactivity would still be a lot less criminal than liquifying millions of humans. 

Right, letting humanity go extinct is very heroic as opposd to sacrificing some and saving the species.

I never said that my choice would be that of a hero. I simply said that anyone who is willing to kill their brother and sister to save himself, does not deserve to be saved.
There are lines that should never be crossed or we risk becoming monsters ourselves.

aimlessgun wrote...
I actually want to come back to this point. Is it really a conumdrum? It's horrible, but if there was no other way what argument is there other than the one MisterJB uses?

And I actually reject JB's argument, because if Shepard is making the decision, I don't think Humanity is tainted. I think Shepard is tainted, and she alone is responsible, and can carry the sin alone. Future generations might go on into a morally brigher future and call her a monster, and they'll be alive to do so because of her.

Who is worse? The humans who force other humans into the pods or the humans who did nothing to stop them?
 

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

So you're going to study it without "having" it? How does that work?

I capture it, then I study it. This is not complicated. If I find anything useful, then great, I've improved our chances. If I find nothing, then oh well, no loss.

The base can be blown up later if it is dangerous or useless or becomes a liability, but it cannot be put back together if you change your mind after you've destroyed it.

This is what I wrote, and how you responded

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...


Renegades
always act as if "better to have it" is the default assumption, that if
we destroy it, it's more likely that we're destroying a benefit than
defusing a trap. I see no evidence of that.

No, our stance is that you don't know unless you study the ****ing thing to find out.

I am saying that devoting resources to studying it is not neccesarily better than not doing so. I'm saying that if we have five guys, and we can send them to Ilos to look at the conduit or to the collector base, it might be better to send them to Ilos instead, or to some independent lab. We have no way of knowing what the best way to use those resources is, and I think that it is EQUALLY POSSIBLE that using them to study the base is a trap, and will harm us in the long run.

Now, if there were an option to save the base but not devote any resources to it until after the Reapers are dead, that'd be fine. I'd be cool with that. I'd probably save it.

But that isn't an option. If we have it, TIM is going to use resources studying it. And if studying it is only going to give us tech for which the Reapers have countermeasures, that is bad. I'm not saying there is 0 chance that the Reapers are dumb and the collector base is full of stuff that can be used to take them down.

I'm saying that if I were the Reapers it wouldn't be, and if it is full of dangerous tech, then somehow, I am smarter than immortal genius machine intelligences.

[aimlessgun]

MisterJB wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

MisterJB wrote...

My inactivity would still be a lot less criminal than liquifying millions of humans. 

Right, letting humanity go extinct is very heroic as opposd to sacrificing some and saving the species.

I never said that my choice would be that of a hero. I simply said that anyone who is willing to kill their brother and sister to save himself, does not deserve to be saved.
There are lines that should never be crossed or we risk becoming monsters ourselves.

aimlessgun wrote...
I actually want to come back to this point. Is it really a conumdrum? It's horrible, but if there was no other way what argument is there other than the one MisterJB uses?

And I actually reject JB's argument, because if Shepard is making the decision, I don't think Humanity is tainted. I think Shepard is tainted, and she alone is responsible, and can carry the sin alone. Future generations might go on into a morally brigher future and call her a monster, and they'll be alive to do so because of her.

Who is worse? The humans who force other humans into the pods or the humans who did nothing to stop them?
 

Go ahead and say those who stood by are monsters too. Fine. But to say that their children are monsters and deserve to die, that every baby is a monster and deserves to die, that all the unborn babies are monsters and deserve to die...you don't see anything wrong with that?

Like Saphra said, judge individuals, not a species.

Modifié par aimlessgun, 09 avril 2011 - 12:58 .

[Soahfreako]

When was it ever a GOOD idea?

[Soahfreako]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...


I am saying that devoting resources to studying it is not neccesarily better than not doing so.

It certainly isn't worse than doing so and it could be better. You won't know unless you study it. What you are advocating is completely illogical.

"It's better to not find out." That's dumb.

Think whatever you want, but don't try and paint it as being equally valid because it isn't. To know whether something is dangerous or harmful or not you need to study it.

What is the alternative? You aren't going to invent new technology out of the blue before the Reapers get here. Your best chance is to use the base to observe Reaper construction methods and designs. This will give you insights into Reaper capabilities and potential weaknesses. You can use this knowledge to develop weapons focused on exploiting these weaknesses.

You can do none of this if you blow up the base.

You also won't be helping defeat the Reapers, since, you know, you'll be indoctrinated if you even tried to study their tech.

[aimlessgun]

Soahfreako wrote...
You also won't be helping defeat the Reapers, since, you know, you'll be indoctrinated if you even tried to study their tech.

Please read the thread before posting. People stop in here all the time and drop substanceless 1 liners about indoctrination without realizing we have had extensive discussion about it.

I hate to pick on you since it happens constantly, but I had to say it.

Modifié par aimlessgun, 09 avril 2011 - 01:03 .

[Soahfreako]

aimlessgun wrote...

Soahfreako wrote...
You also won't be helping defeat the Reapers, since, you know, you'll be indoctrinated if you even tried to study their tech.

Please read the thread before posting. People stop in here all the time and drop substanceless 1 liners about indoctrination without realizing we have had extensive discussion about it.

Because, you know, it's been proven to be true by Arrival.

[MisterJB]

Saphra Deden wrote...
It isn't about saving myself, it is about saving everyone else. I'm expendable. You are expendable. Any individual is expendable. The species however, is not.

I will judge a person, I will not judge a species. That is where you are monstrous.

So, it is a matter of numbers to you?

The humans who stand idly by while their species and civilization is eradicated from the face of the universe because they aren't willing to set their own personal morals aside in favor of the greater whole. It's sick, it's selfish.

Stand idly by? I say we figth against the Reapers but we do so without becoming worse than them.
Sick? The person willing to sacrifice millions of us is calling me sick? That's rich.
As for selfish, if by giving my life I would stop the Reapers, I would do so without a second's hesitation. However, I can't accept that our species is willing to sacrifice millions or billions of us just so a privileged group can survive. Now, that's sick.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...


I am saying that devoting resources to studying it is not neccesarily better than not doing so.

It certainly isn't worse than doing so and it could be better. You won't know unless you study it. What you are advocating is completely illogical.

"It's better to not find out." That's dumb.

Think whatever you want, but don't try and paint it as being equally valid because it isn't. To know whether something is dangerous or harmful or not you need to study it.

What is the alternative? You aren't going to invent new technology out of the blue before the Reapers get here. Your best chance is to use the base to observe Reaper construction methods and designs. This will give you insights into Reaper capabilities and potential weaknesses. You can use this knowledge to develop weapons focused on exploiting these weaknesses.

You can do none of this if you blow up the base.

Look, unlike you, I am not claiming that my plan is inherently better than any other plan. I am claiming that, if there is a 50% chance that all we will learn from the collector's base is crap tech that will SEEM great for us to have, but will actually make us weaker in battle, and there's a 50% chance that we will learn something useful, I might as well blow the base. And, given what I said before, about what I'd do if I were the Reapers, I do think it's more likely that the tech in there is a trap than that it's beneficial. I think it's unlikely that I am smarter than the Reapers. You think I am very likely smarter than the Reapers. That's fine. We can disagree.

If we're studying it, and we find an awesome new lazer, we won't KNOW if that lazer is a thing that the Reaper sheilds are completely unaffected by until we sink 40 bajillion dollars into its development. Basically, if we have a 40 trillion dollar research budget, I think that any of it spent on CB research is likely wasted. Better to spend it on Ilos, see if we can get that indoctrination detector the holo claimed he had working, and rig up some new conduits.

[aimlessgun]

Soahfreako wrote...

aimlessgun wrote...

Soahfreako wrote...
You also won't be helping defeat the Reapers, since, you know, you'll be indoctrinated if you even tried to study their tech.

Please read the thread before posting. People stop in here all the time and drop substanceless 1 liners about indoctrination without realizing we have had extensive discussion about it.

Because, you know, it's been proven to be true by Arrival.

Again, I would encourage you to read the thread. Starting arguments from square 1 that were moved forward pages and pages ago is not fun.

[Soahfreako]

aimlessgun wrote...

Soahfreako wrote...

aimlessgun wrote...

Soahfreako wrote...
You also won't be helping defeat the Reapers, since, you know, you'll be indoctrinated if you even tried to study their tech.

Please read the thread before posting. People stop in here all the time and drop substanceless 1 liners about indoctrination without realizing we have had extensive discussion about it.

Because, you know, it's been proven to be true by Arrival.

Again, I would encourage you to read the thread. Starting arguments from square 1 that were moved forward pages and pages ago is not fun.

I will not, as the mentioning of Arrival being proof should've stopped the arguing as it is a fact told to us by Bioware.

[aimlessgun]

Soahfreako wrote...
I will not, as the mentioning of Arrival being proof should've stopped the arguing as it is a fact told to us by Bioware.

Thanks for spamming the thread with rubbish, and for bringing me along for the rubbish spamming ride.

Modifié par aimlessgun, 09 avril 2011 - 01:08 .

[aimlessgun]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Look, unlike you, I am not claiming that my plan is inherently better than any other plan.

That speaks volumes about its lack of substance if you aren't even willing to defend it.

Now now Saphra, you're just trolling with that one.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Arijharn wrote...

aimlessgun wrote...
@Arhijarn, heads up: CGG believes that destroying the base is the more effective way to fight the reapers, so you'd have to have that argument first before getting to your points.

Thats... interesting. I'd like to read about their rationale as to why.

My rationale is predicated on the following:
1) Our species' biggest guns are those co-axially aligned within Dreadnoughts
2) Dreadnought firepower is currently insufficient as to breech Reaper shield technology (src: EDI if you take the 'Renegade' conversation option when the derelict Reaper isolates your group from that of the Normandy vessel)
3) This is backed up by the fleet operations against Sovereign during the climax of ME1, and was subsequently confirmed by Hackett (at least, in my playthrough) during Arrival's post mission debrief when he mentions that it took the '[entire?] fifth fleet -- and the Destiny Ascension -- to bring it down' although that in itself is debatable because we know that Sovereign was only destroyed after zombie-saren was exterminated. Was that the actions because of the 5th Fleet? Shephard? or was it a combination thereof?

I'll give you a little parable.

In Star Trek TNG, at one point the Enterprise is attacked by a ship that has Lasers, not Phasers. This has Picard barely stifling his laughter, but the people firing the lasers completely expect to win. To them, this is an incredibly  advanced, cutting-edge technology.  To Star Trek TNG people, it's terribly old fashioned.  You an fire all your lasers at the Enterprise all day, and all it will do is drain your power cells.

Now, in other SF universes, those lasers would be cutting-edge, relevant weapons. It's all a matter of tech levels.

As I've said before, if I were the Reapers, i'd give the collectors "Lasers" rather than my own "Phasers." That is to say, I'd give them an inferior technology, that would still seem advanced and impressive if, say, someone from the 1950s found it.

We're the guys from the 1950s. The reapers are the Enterprise. And the collectors have Lasers. That is my theory. That's how I'd handle things if I were the Reapers.

[Soahfreako]

aimlessgun wrote...

Soahfreako wrote...
I will not, as the mentioning of Arrival being proof should've stopped the arguing as it is a fact told to us by Bioware.

Thanks for spamming the thread with rubbish, and for bringing me along for the rubbish spamming ride.

Rubbish eh? You're obviously one of the few that can't accept facts, and instead make your own twisted truth. 

[Arijharn]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
Chief among them is this: if I were the Reapers, an eternal race of super-intelligent monsters, I would make damn sure that any technology that is ANYWHERE where people can get it is heavily trapped, and vastly inferior to what i have in my own system. I think the reason we benefitted so much from Sovereign tech was that that dude was a full-on grown-up Reaper who did not expect to die.

To be honest? I find the notion that the Collector Base being stuck in the middle of the galaxy surrounded by 'exploding suns and black holes' and being accessed only by one relay that can be safely navigated only by somehow harvesting from another Reaper it's IFF to be so improbable as to hardly qualify as 'ANYWHERE' by your principle.

That sort of storyline is made up by Varric to up-sell Hawke imo .

It's dramatic, it's cool, it happened, but to say that the Reapers somehow planned for this is absurd imo. Reapers and Shephard are victims of chance, nothing more (unless somehow the 'Creator's of Light' orchestrated this, but that's another complaint heh).

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
If I'm giving my moronic slave race some tech to use, I'm going to make damn sure it is tech I have a countermeasure for. Whatever that crazy beam is? I have a shield that makes that beam bounce off like butter. I'm sending these ships out all the time, and they could get taken out pretty easily. This base? It's in the Galaxy, through a Mass Relay. It's not inconceivable that sentients could stumble upon it.

I'm not saying that the Collector Technology will in and of itself give us the means to combat and win against the Reapers, but will likely give us technological insight into potentially new area's to explore. Plus, of course, they happened to be making a Reaper in the basement and any information we can gain on them while it's relatively safe to do so is a boon imo. It may come in the form of analysis of Reaper shells and pinpointing structural weaknesses or even exotic weapon designs etc, etc.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
So I'll just equip my slaves with weaker tech, all of which I have countermeasures for. It will be strong enough to use against the incredibly primitive races who I face, but too weak to harm me if it falls. Plus, I'll constantly monitor whether or not they capture the base, so I can know what they have access to.  The primitive organics might get lucky against the slaves at some point, I mean we've lost at least one actual Reaper in the past.

They may monitor the base remotely, but they would have realised when we stepped foot on it regardless, the point is also the fact that as it is we have no hope military speaking against the Reapers because we are at of a certain technological standard. We also know that the Collector's are above that current technological standard because we know that merc groups go to great lengths to meet Collector demands in exchange for their technology.

At the moment, we may as well be firing potato's at the Reapers, so practically any advanced weapon design is worth it. If we could build giant Arc Projector's and somehow fire them in space hell yes, I'd even suggest that too. I feel the situation is fast approaching desperate.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
So yes, while it's possible that destroying it loses us a valuable resource, it's equally possible that preserving it makes us play directly into their hands. Renegades always act as if "better to have it" is the default assumption, that if we destroy it, it's more likely that we're destroying a benefit than defusing a trap. I see no evidence of that.

Of course I can agree to this, but there's no evidence either way which makes this topic as contentious now as it was when it was first introduced. I find the idea of being 'morally reprehensible' to myself to be far more preferable than the alternative of everyone dying, I don't view morals as being sacrosanct but as extensions of how society has evolved over the ages (true story; at one point in time; a society thought killing each other in giant stadiums was a fun sport, a national event).

The problem I feel with your approach is that it becomes to much a Xanatos Gambit if nothing else, at what point should the Reapers go from being just a machine race into borderline gods with the amount of dupes they pull on us 'mere mortals.' 

I think that despite his/her skill, Shephard has for the most part won his victories primarily on sheer dumb luck, therefore the idea that somehow the Reapers have planned for this to be incredibly... improbable? impossible? Sloppy?

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
Now, it's possible that the Reapers didn't think of this. If you are suggesting that I am much smarter and better at planning than an immoral race of genius super machines, then I accept your compliment.

No, I just think you're guilty of giving them too much credit to be honest. It's been proven to us time and time again just how... fallable they really are. Sovereign being killed, Harbinger being effectively stopped in his tracks time and time again (the Collector's actual collecting operation, and now the Alpha Relay not to mention his many attempts to kill/capture you during the events of ME2).

If they were really smarter and better at planning than us, we wouldn't have had those opportunities is it in the nutshell (why? Because Harbinger controls all those pieces via the General!)

[CulturalGeekGirl]

aimlessgun wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Look, unlike you, I am not claiming that my plan is inherently better than any other plan.

That speaks volumes about its lack of substance if you aren't even willing to defend it.

Now now Saphra, you're just trolling with that one.

Indeed. I believe it is inherently better, but I know that I have no hard evidence, because none of us have any hard evidence. So I just put forth my reasoning, and say why I think it is better, without claiming that I have proof.

[Soahfreako]

Honestly, I cannot believe this is being debated. If Bioware has a DLC that SPECIFICALLY has a person who tries to study a piece of Reaper tech saying "Lets stop them gaiz! " only to have them go "Derp, all hail the Reapers." a few weeks later, you'd think that'd be a big enough clue. Apparently not.

[MisterJB]

aimlessgun wrote...
Go ahead and say those who stood by are monsters too. Fine. But to say that their children are monsters and deserve to die, that every baby is a monster and deserves to die, that all the unborn babies are monsters and deserve to die...you don't see anything wrong with that?

Like Saphra said, judge individuals, not a species.

Can I then sacrifice all the adults to the blenders and save the children who are blamemess? No, I can not.
Can I destroy the generation that allowed that a monstrosity to ocurr and save the next one? No, I can not.
It's all about choices. In this situation, Humanity made the choice of becoming monsters: I can make the choice of helping them or not. I choose not to.
And that makes migth make me a monster myself, I do not deny it. However, I simply could not find it in me to help people who were willing to do such an horrible thing. I could not, I would rather live with my conscience until the Reapers came for me.

[MajesticJazz]

Long story short, Bioware has always gimped Renegades and favored the Paragons. ME2 proved this and it will be shown again in ME3.

my 2 cents

Modifié par MajesticJazz, 09 avril 2011 - 02:34 .