From the first time when my Shepards met a Reaper, it has always been their secondary goal that humanity - or whichever faction they happened to feel allegiance to - should gain understanding and mastery of the Reapers' technology in the end.
I wish to discuss the proposition that this is (a) a desirable goal and (
a necessary goal.It is desirable because
(a) It will let us understand and master that which we have until now only used, namely mass portals.
(
Increased understanding of scientific and technological principles is, as a rule, always desirable. Exceptions need justification.© it will help protect from further threats of the same kind.
It is necessary because
(a) after the war the galaxy will be littered with Reaper debris, some faction will eventually understand and master it. It is undesirable that another faction gains that understanding and yours does not.
Since I can already hear the assertions reflexively raised against this proposition, I will deal with two common counterarguments first.
(A) "Nothing good can come of it".
This is an assertion based on the moral intuition that something that has been used for such "evil" cannot be good for something desirable. It should be obivous that there is no basis for such an assertion but wishful thinking. Even should it be true in some cases, the argument is usually made from a position of ignorance. When it comes up, you do not yet know. The plain fact is, apart from a few things we have tried, we do not know which good and bad will come from understanding and mastering it. We don't even know if indoctrination will continue to be a danger once we understand how it works. We will not know until we have tried. And then, of course, it will be too late. However, in this specific case, the argument is very obviously wrong. A great good has already come of it, since...
Reaper technology has saved your ass in ME2.
I'm talking about EDI, who has built-in parts from the wreck of Sovereign which have enabled her to interface with the Reaper IFF and the Collector base. Without EDI, the Normandy would have never made it through the Omega-4 relay, the SR2 might not even have survived the Collector attack after the Reaper IFF was installed. To the best of our knowledge, without the bits of Reaper technology incorporated into EDI, Shepard's mission in ME2 would have failed.
(
"It is too dangerous to deal with"This argument, too, is made from a position of ignorance. Of course new technologies are often dangerous. The first cars were deemed so dangerous that there was a time when a runner with a black flag was required to run in front of every car as a warning to others. We laugh about that today and tend to forget that cars costs thousands of lives per year. Still, we have deemed it worth it, have we not?
The scientists who discovered radioactivity died from cancer. For dangers like this the principle applies that understanding brings control: we now know when how much radioactivity the human body can absord without permanent damage, and how to protect ourselves against it to some degree. It may not be perfect, but it's certainly better than it would be had we not gained the understanding of what it is.
Besides, this argument can be raised as an objection to everything we develop. For instance, It is not yet decided if the development of the combustion engine was something too dangerous in the long run. The plain fact is: we do not know. That has never stopped us, since we know: once an idea is realized, it is not possible to put it back into the box. The same goes with Reaper technology. Refusing to deal with it will only increase the danger, the only way to retain some modicum of control is to master it ourselves.
Indoctrination:
Someone I debated this with once said "It's only a matter of time before someone will have indoctrination guns." Indoctrination appears like a particularly fearsome weapon because it robs us of our identity. But as a weapon of subversion it has several disadvantages: it is 100% lethal. Once applied, the victim will die or end as a very obbvious husk. It may takes days or weeks, but the victim will end as a husk. Also it apparently requires a combination of nanites injected into the body or inhaled, and electromagnetic radiation or sound. Which means it is not so easily applied unless the victim stays in the vicinity of the source. I submit that the scientists of Dr.Chandana's team would have been perfectly able to protect themselves from it, had they only been as security-conscious as would befit their mission.
In the end it all amounts to this: at the end of the war, Reaper technology will be widely available. Should it prove as powerful as it appears now, it will likely transform our societies in the long run . The only question is, will we retain some measure of control over the process by understanding and mastering the stuff, or will we refuse to acknowledge the necessity, stick our heads into the sand and be driven by it to an unknown end?
Modifié par Ieldra2, 25 juin 2011 - 01:47 .
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