95 réponses à ce sujet

[Zaxares]

I would agree to understanding and adopting Reaper technology ONLY after we ensure that the last of the Reapers has been completely obliterated and wiped from the galaxy. Every single previous instance of people attempting to study Reaper technology has ended up in them becoming indoctrinated, and ultimately serving the Reapers. That means that as long as there is a Reaper to control their technology remotely, it will be an unacceptable risk to study.

[Reapinger]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Also it apparently requires a combination of nanites injected into the body or inhaled, and electromagnetic radiation or sound.

An assumption, perhaps reasonable, but still uncertain. What if you're wrong? Chanadana was certain that after finding no activity even on the microsopic level that the Reaper was dead. He was wrong.

The asari scientist on Virmire said it was a signal, but that it was undetectable. How can you defend against something you can't detect?

Remember also that even if one group masters this technology the majority of people will remain ignorant. A lot of people don't really know what radiowaves are or how their cars work.

Remember also that once exposed to indoctrination you don't need to stay near the source to stay affected by it. Saren wasn't around Sovereign 100% of the time but he still carried out Sovereign's will once he'd had enough exposure.

To control a society you don't need to pump indoctrination into every household, you just need to influence the right people in the right places.

You complain about everything. It's called a theory and if you don't agree then just say so and don't talk down to people. 

[Medhia Nox]

The fact that the Reaper tech can be understood immediately at all - suggests that the Reapers are not what they really claim to be.

I take it from a position that I'd let humanity dig whatever grave it desires - sleep in whatever bed it makes - me, keep me out of it.

[Labrev]

Despite what my ME2 end-game decision may indicate, I am not against studying Reaper tech. I embrace it. Afterall, Reaper tech is what got humans into the galaxy in the first place, not to mention many other uses that have come of it.

I don't think I need to explain much more, you've just about covered everything.

I will, however, raise one concern: maybe this isn't the best time. Knowing what we know (that the Reapers will be at our gates not long from now) I'm not sure it's such a good idea to tinker with these things and risk shooting ourselves in the foot before they arrive, or during the war. I wouldn't call it off completely, we may find some valuable stuff to assist our cause, but I think it should be limited until further notice.

[Labrev]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...

I will, however, raise one concern: maybe this isn't the best time.

Then when is the best time? Is it when the Reapers are destroying our civilization piece by piece? Sooner or later you have to stop running and start learning.

You know, I did include an explanation. It's the part after the sentence you quoted. I'm hoping you read it and didn't just react to that one line.

I'm not running from anything. Just saying, it'll do us no good to blow ourselves up and make it easier for the Reapers to destroy us piece by piece.

Case in point: Reaper IFF. Once installed on Normandy, Collectors found the ship and abducted the crew. Even EDI didn't detect it. With technology which is that far above our comprehension, to the point where we can't even expect to account for the worst-case outcomes where they go wrong, an element of risk-assesment is necessary.

[Reapinger]

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...

I will, however, raise one concern: maybe this isn't the best time.

Then when is the best time? Is it when the Reapers are destroying our civilization piece by piece? Sooner or later you have to stop running and start learning.

You know, I did include an explanation. It's the part after the sentence you quoted. I'm hoping you read it and didn't just react to that one line.

I'm not running from anything. Just saying, it'll do us no good to blow ourselves up and make it easier for the Reapers to destroy us piece by piece.

Case in point: Reaper IFF. Once installed on Normandy, Collectors found the ship and abducted the crew. Even EDI didn't detect it. With technology which is that far above our comprehension, to the point where we can't even expect to account for the worst-case outcomes where they go wrong, an element of risk-assesment is necessary.

Some people read what they want to sadly. I feel that we must create our own technology, just like the Geth said and all people want to do is use technology meant to kill us. We need an original idea-- fast. 

[Reapinger]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...

Case in point: Reaper IFF. Once installed on Normandy, Collectors found the ship and abducted the crew.

You are honestly using this as a defense? If you hadn't installed the IFF you wouldn't have stopped the Collectors. Period. No way around it.

You had to install it, you had to face the danger to learn from it. Reaper technolgoy is so dangerous because we know so little about it. Knowledge will bring safety.

It's playing with fire and you admit it. Sure we may have an advantage-- but at what cost? Stop talking down to people. I favor developing a new technology. Sovereign makes it a point that we develop along their technology paths and that makes it easy. Using their tech is more of the same. 

[Labrev]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...

Case in point: Reaper IFF. Once installed on Normandy, Collectors found the ship and abducted the crew.

You are honestly using this as a defense? If you hadn't installed the IFF you wouldn't have stopped the Collectors. Period. No way around it.

You had to install it, you had to face the danger to learn from it. Reaper technolgoy is so dangerous because we know so little about it. Knowledge will bring safety.

The IFF did work out for us, but we got incredibly lucky there. If Joker hadn't narrowly gotten away, the whole mission would have gone to hell.

Whether or not we had to install it is not the point anyway. The point it: we can't take rash gambles with these things if we can't even weigh all the outcomes that will come of them. At least not while we're at war.

[Someone With Mass]

Yeah, I'm with the idea of not rushing to install every small part of Reaper technology we stumble across when we have so many unknown factors.

[knightnblu]

You call bullsh#t , but then you turn around and prove Mordin's point. Additionally, you never address why the Reapers want us to use this technology. The didn't leave it behind for nothing. They have a plan and they are aggressively pursuing it. You never explain how it is actually good for the species of the galaxy to go even further along the Reapers planned path despite the fact that it will apparently seal our fates nor do you seem to realize that what you are advocating is impossible.

A species cannot research anything unless it has access to it and the Reapers scrubbed the galaxy of both history and technology. All that is left are remnants of the Protheans and what little was left behind. Analyzing the ruins of Mars led us strait to where the Reapers wanted us to go and finding Reaper tech only endangers the discoverer with indoctrination as it did Kenson, the miners, etc.

I disagree with your argument on development of technology. Imagine if you are in a new city that is unfamiliar to you and need to get somewhere on the far side of it. You can either be handed the most direct route that has been pre-planned for you or experiment and find your own way there. If you take the most direct route, you will get there much faster and with far less effort, but you also miss other things that you may have found and you will not go back and look for them because you do not even know that they exist leaving these discoveries forever sealed from you.

The progress of technology is much the same. Once you are handed the tech, you will not research other possible avenues to that tech and any branches you may have discovered will be forever closed to you. We are also not talking about advances that will catapult a society 10, 20, or 30 years into the future. The Reapers are millions and possibly billions of years more advanced than any civilization in the galaxy.

Arthur C. Clarke said that any technology, if sufficiently advanced, will appear as magic to any civilization significantly inferior in development. What that means is that we can only understand what the Reapers allow us to understand because they dumb down their tech for us to follow. Recall the silver sphere used as a cabin decoration? When that thing went off it broadcast a signal that human technology was incapable of understanding. The Cerberus email even verified that. Sure, we could understand bits, but that was Prothean and not Reaper technology. How much farther along the technological path are they from the Protheans given the fact that the Reapers have been reaping for potentially billions of years?

Further, we do not even know if the Reapers are at the top of this technological hierarchy. They are constructs and that means that someone constructed them. Whether their creators were destroyed by them or they still serve them is unknown. Perhaps the threat is even greater than we know and there is some pan-galactic intelligence that is farming the galaxies for some purpose, would they not have other fleets mining other galaxies? Would they not investigate what happened to the Milky Way if we survive and manage to destroy their servants?

Something given has no value. I could give you the Olympic Gold Medal for Tae Kwon Do and it would mean nothing to you. An athlete that has earned it however, would find it invaluable. The same could be said of technology. Knowledge that is not earned does nothing to advance the species of the galaxy culturally, morally, or into maturity.

[Dean_the_Young]

Ieldra, you forgot one additional important argument:

"Even if I pass up indoctrination technology, others won't."

Council Spectres, Noveria or Illium 'unregulated' corporations, Terminus non-Council groups, Krogan/Quarian/Rachni non-Council species, or just plain groups like Cerberus.

Even if you, personally take a moral stand against using Reaper technologies... others won't. And they'll use it against you.

[Medhia Nox]

Reaper technology was given to us, that is a fact. They gave us the Mass Relays and Citadel so we would develop along the technological lines they're prepared to deal with. The Mass Relays only connect to the points in the galaxy they determine (and the galaxy in ME is so small as to be farcical).

I think it would be hilarious if they had the means to simply explode all the mass relay engines on every ship throughout the galaxy - crippling every moron race that gobbled up technology they had no business messing with in the first place.

Of course - this is science fiction and it's a video game - so technology will save us and we're guaranteed to win.

Modifié par Medhia Nox, 26 juin 2011 - 04:59 .

[SandTrout]

Medhia Nox wrote...

Reaper technology was given to us, that is a fact. They gave us the Mass Relays and Citadel so we would develop along the technological lines they're prepared to deal with. The Mass Relays only connect to the points in the galaxy they determine (and the galaxy in ME is so small as to be farcical).

I think it would be hilarious if they had the means to simply explode all the mass relay engines on every ship throughout the galaxy - crippling every moron race that gobbled up technology they had no business messing with in the first place.

Of course - this is science fiction and it's a video game - so technology will save us and we're guaranteed to win.

The Mass Relays are used because no other alternative currently exists to travel the distances involved. Using something that is already there is not the problem. Someone will use it to their advantage, regardless of any moral or ethical stance regarding the use of alien technology, so it may as well be the proverbial 'us'. However, a problem does arise from the philosophy of several of the Council Races regarding bans on studying the technology that they are using.

The Council banned study of the Keepers because they were afraid of loosing control of the Citadel, when, in fact, due to their lack of understanding of its functions, they never really had control of the Citadel in the first place. Otherwise, they would have realized the Mass Relay nature of the Citadel long ago. The Council has also banned tampering with the Mass Relays because they are afraid of loosing one.

In this manner, the Council is what has crippled themselves against the Reapers by knee-capping their own research into the technology they are using, and instead approach it in a superstitious manner that is akin to the Hannar's deification of the Protheans, but without the honesty to admit it. Even matriarch Aethyta points out that she was laughed at when she proposed constructing new Mass Relays.

Humans, on the other hand, have shown no qualms regarding tampering with and studying alien technology, though we currently lack the political clout necessary to ignore the edicts of the Council. Because of this drive for understanding, we were able to match the Turians in military technology during the First Contact war, even though the Turians had been members of Council for more than a thousand years, and space-fairing for far longer than that.

The Council's fear of scientific and technological progress has caused them to stagnate, even while one of the youngest interstellar species (Humans) rose up to the point where they were left with no choice other than to give us a seat on the council in less than 30 years after first contact.

This kind of historical progression demonstrates how the refusal to study and understand technology based on fear is a sure path to being overtaken by others who seek such knowledge in spite of the risks involved. Studying and mastering Reaper technology is necessary for survival in the ME universe. Morality does not need to enter into it, in the end. Slaves and dead men cannot exercise morals.

[GodWood]

knightnblu wrote...
Actually, I play paragon (mostly) and I took Mordin's words about technology to heart. When you accept technology that you haven't researched yourself, you close doors to other options. Paths that would have been opened to you had you not merely adopted the foreign technology. The Reapers left behind the technology that they wanted us to have because they wished us to reverse engineer it and adopt it so that we would develop in a pre-planned technological path. Why?
I can only assume that by us following that path it would be bad for us and good for the Reapers. Additionally, especially advanced tech would, in Mordin's words, be like giving nuclear weapons to cave men. A species that is unready culturally, emotionally, and technologically for such technology could easily be destroyed by it and by their own hands.
For these reasons and because of the horrors that were carried out at the Collector Base, I decided to destroy it. There is no sense in defeating the Reapers only to destroy ourselves with tech that we didn't earn.

Agreed. Collector base horrific. Vile experiments, but should use what's here. Risks galaxy to ignore opportunity.
-- Mordin Solus

Yeti13 wrote...
^^ Legion has the best response to this, species should make their own futures not be given them

Shepard-Commander, this facility is data. It has no inherent ethical value. Destroying it will not return those lost. Keeping it may save others.
-- Legion



These two responses (that they actually say when at the base) are far more in character than the bullsh*t reasonings they give when back on the Normandy.

[Rulid]

Let's clarify a moment.

The problem is that you can't actually place a moral compass on issues as large as the "development of technology and culture". It would be as vague as trying to judge historical events. Was Alexander of Macedon a villain by implanting seeds of hellenistic culture along the silk road? Were the early Muslims villains by spreading via Islam or the Sword?
I have no doubt that after this debacle is over people in the galaxy will no doubt go in and pry about the technological debris of the Reapers. That is without question.

The question only becomes a moral choice when it is whittled down to a single person, Sheperd.
Hypothetically, if Sheperd were given the "magical red button" to turn every Reaper tech left behind into inconsequential dust?

--------------------
Personally I side with Knightblu et al. in that Handed Down technology should not be used. The history of research is replete with instances in which an unfounded supposition caught on fire, enveloping the academia with unrelenting fervor until sufficient evidence to the contrary accumulated out of the debris. The madness of Ether in the late 19th century, the notion that Silicon injections are safe in the 1960-70s are only some of the examples. And even such notions are merely contemporary notions. They are not hand-me-down knowlege on par with "Alien Artifacts".
The point I'm presenting is that, unfounded notions will truly divert investigation from other areas.

Is this a good thing if the benefits tip in its balance?
Only if, with all certainty, the Reapers are the only threat presented by absorbing this knowlege.
Here are the three choices I will make in three different scenarios

1) In context with the mass effect universe, this would be so. It is the end of the trilogy. There is no plausible way in which Bioware will comeback with a ME4 "you thought it was over~!!". As a player and customer of Bioware, I will decide that it is logical to gain Reaper Tech. But since that would be no Fun, and Fun being the essence of Gaming, this position is moot to me.

2) In real life, or by Role Playing, I would say that there was no certainty that Reapers completely destroyed and there are no Reaper-like things remaining. And Sheperd will press the "Magical Red Button" if the chance is presented to her (Yay! Fem Shep).

3) If no such instance of being presented personally with the choice to press the Magical Red Button arrises, I believe Shep or anyone else will just have to advocate for Against, and just suck on her thumb. And the world will inevitably just go on and incorporate Reaper Tech anyway. Which will be lame.

Modifié par Rulid, 26 juin 2011 - 08:01 .

[XFemShepX]

Ieldra2 wrote...

*snip*

Inevitably, there will be those who say: who are you to determine what I should study. I'd be one of them. We'd research Reaper technology and from that point onwards events would have their own dynamic. Once an idea is in the world, once the capabilities exist to understand the stuff, someone will do it, and those who'd rather not have it must adapt to its existence. It was like that with the internet, with cars and with a number of other key technologies. There is no reason to assume it won't go the same way with Reaper technology. 

I find your whole argument well thought out, and for the most part, I agree with you. 

However, there is a difference between the technology we've shared as different evolving cultures on one planet, and the divide between sharing technologies between species--all of which might be at different stages of technological evolution--among many different planets and solar systems.

In most works of science fiction humans are generally depicted as "The Great Adapters".  We even see this in Mass Effect, considering the story of how humans were raised up and granted their status on the Citadal after only a few decades after the Prothean discovery on Mars.  We can't really hypothetically argue this point about mastering Reaper tech, because it is very possible that the other species do not possess the ability to "adapt" to great jumps in technology like we humans do.  It's because (of course) we're looking at this through human eyes, and assuming that these scientific discoveries will progress us forward somehow, but they could also have profound impacts on culture and tradition, religion, economies....it could go on and on.

Finally, there is Indoctrination.  This would be the trickiest part of trying to understand Reaper techology, because even those with the best intentions are insidiously turned against their own best interests.  I can imagine it going like this:

A scientest is studying the Reaper for years, only staying with it for a few hours at a time and then going away to their safe room to study and analyze data.  Sure--it'd be for the good of humanity.  They do their job well.  They're promoted in the ranks, and his government grants him more access.  He puts together some fantastic new technologies from the information he's gleaned in his studies....and for the first few years, there's significant output from the Reaper Project.  But then he starts understanding weapon systems, mass effect field generation...but then... is it the right time for humanity to receive this tech?  Or should he share his discovery with his Turian co-workers?  No, he keeps it secret...maybe just for a couple days.  After a week, his turian co-workers still haven't figured it out--Fools.  The whispers in the back of his mind tell him that his superiors aren't to be trusted.  There's a part of him that fears this is indoctrination, but there's a part of him that wonders why he even has superiors to begin with, since he's leading this whole investigation.  Maybe they can't be trusted.  Maybe they want to replace him, take him away from his specimen...take his glory for their own.  He starts keeping to himself, smart enough to keep his mouth shut so they don't accuse him of indoctrination and pull him from the project.  A smile and a nod, occasionally a drink after work with a few co-workers...it's all a song and dance to look normal, but all he thinks about is the Reaper.  Soon, violent thoughts begin to cross his mind, and he wonders how and why humanity was ever lucky enough to be able to defeat such an advanced, intelligent race like the reapers.  The Reapers are the only beings smarter than him.  If he learned all their secrets.....the possibilities were endless.

Needless to say, this scenario ends badly.

The only way I really think you could safely study Reaper tech is to have an Asari mind-meld with the scientists once a week to check for signs of indoctrination, and it'd have to be off the site of the Reaper. 

Just my opinion.

[Purge the heathens]

I just want to address a small issue that's bothering me.

I wouldn't believe Legion when it says that "species should make their own futures." That's easy for a geth to say. As the codex entry for hoppers from ME1 mentions, the geth are likely moving towards their singularity which means that at some point in the near future, their scientific and technological progress will reach speeds where they wouldn't need to rely on other species, anyway. Even if they couldn't upgrade their own intelligence, they're probably developing faster than everyone else.

Organics, however, aren't in such a lucky position.

[78stonewobble]

Yeti13 wrote...

^^ Legion has the best response to this, species should make their own futures not be given them

Examples: Protheon tech found on Mars, If the Protheons wanted us to to reach the citadel why not just put it on Earth? They wanted us to learn spaceflight first, to be able to reach Mars and start a colony there. We earned the right by achieving space flight ourselves.

Like Knight mentioned, the Salraians made a mistake when they raised the Krogan up before they were ready, dooming the galaxy to war.

I'm not saying we shouldn't study Reaper tech, but precautions must be taken. Any Reaper tech can cause Indoctrination over a period of time and that is how whole teams will end up dead or betraying people. Robots should be used to study the tech from distance, and it should be done by all species working together, in harmony.

You have to remember that in the future (movies in general) people become dumber.

Obviously studying a reaper artifact on the very asteroid that is supposed to delay them isn't ... logical is it?

Like in aliens 4:  Hmm we wanna try to study and control an alien who bleeds ACIDIC (thx) blood. Sure is smart to do that on a ship made of METAL.

Well back to reapers. Since danger is somewhat dependent on time and potential for damage for an entire reaper vessel is so large: I suggest the following.

1. Cut the reaper into many smaller parts.
2. People working on the reaper only works with it for xx minutes or hours and then gets sent to a specifik colony where they could do no harm. In the beginning people only work on the reaper once.
3. Via increasing the time you could eventually establish a "safe" limit on exposure to reaper material and indoctrination.
4. Parts of reaper tech are studied separately.
5. People with authority on the project are never allowed near the reaper objects themselves.


Well that's how I would do it.

Modifié par 78stonewobble, 26 juin 2011 - 11:35 .

[78stonewobble]

Purge the heathens wrote...

I just want to address a small issue that's bothering me.

I wouldn't believe Legion when it says that "species should make their own futures." That's easy for a geth to say. As the codex entry for hoppers from ME1 mentions, the geth are likely moving towards their singularity which means that at some point in the near future, their scientific and technological progress will reach speeds where they wouldn't need to rely on other species, anyway. Even if they couldn't upgrade their own intelligence, they're probably developing faster than everyone else.

Organics, however, aren't in such a lucky position.

The question is... Would they necessarily view lack of dependence on organics as a reason to become enemies of organics?

The Geth, to me atleast, seems to hold a certain respect for life and especialle intelligent life. Something that the Quarians, in their panic, didn't grant the Geth.

Remember that being a mostly logical species (with a bit of emotion mixed in) it shouldn't be too hard to limit their "population growth" to software and limited numbers.

They wanna build a dyson's sphere and use it as a computer. Fine by me. Heck, I'd help them do that, plenty of work for Quarians (not slaves but paid jobs and kinda fitting as reparations). A sun can sustain that Geth society for billions of years until they reach that penultimate concensus.  Also they do not age. They can allow themselves that respect for organic life because they have all the time in the world.

[Purge the heathens]

78stonewobble wrote...

The question is... Would they necessarily view lack of dependence on organics as a reason to become enemies of organics?

No. Legion pretty much says that the orthodox geth just want to be left alone and build their Dyson sphere. Sort of like a Reaper that's not bent on galactic xenocide. I'm not accusing Legion of being untrustworthy. What bothers me is that it says species should advance on their own while ignoring that the geth's ability to do so is likely superior to the rest of galactic civilization.

Oh, and I think you forgot an "acidic" in your Alien reference.

As for the indoctrination issue in researching Reaper technology, why not use shackled AIs and robots to do it? The Council may have its qualms about AI, but Cerberus at least could do that. Or, instead of just being extra careful around Reaper tech, someone could try to find a way of 1) detecting and 2) countering Indoctrination. The Thorian's remains might come in handy there once the side effects from its spores are dealt with. After all, getting hooked up to the Thorian undid Shiala's indoctrination. With a more benign variant and daily/weekly treatments...

[Ieldra]

Going to reply to a few criticisms:

This is not the time.
That depends. It is certainly very much the time to study everything that might help us against the Reapers. Reasonably, that includes their key technologies, including indoctrination. If you understand it, you are more likely to find a means to counter it. Also I was speaking about the time after the war. The problem we face now is different: how to distinguish the parts which might be useful from those which aren't.

There is not enough time
My original claim was not limited to study for the purpose of the war, but my assumption was that the war would be won, the question being: what will happen then? But even so: we do not know how far advanced the Reapers are, and the fact that we have successfully turned their technology to our purposes suggests they might not be as far advanced as fear of indoctrination might make us think. We will not know how long it will take until we've unraveled their basic principles. That could happen tomorrow, in a hundred years, or never.

Developing new technologies instead of using gifted ones:
This proposal is nonsensical if you do not even know that there is a different way to do things. Think of mass relays. We do not know if there is a different way to jump between distant star systems at all. Are you really proposing we should limit ourselves to regular non-portal FTL travel for an indefinite amount of time, which might as well be forever, just because mass relay technology was developed by an untrusted source? That would be a really dumb thing to do and besides impossible to enforce. I am not saying we shouldn't look out for alternatives, but until and unless there is one, there is no way to avoid using what's there. 

Playing with fire:
Every time a new key technology comes up, it includes a period of experimentation, which is sometimes dangerous. "There is a risk" has rarely stopped us and rightly so. Unless it is so dangerous that *nobody* will dare study it - and I don't need to say how unlikely that is, do I? - people will keep at it until they've cracked the stuff. Let's say people will keep at it for a decade, and should no inroads to understanding have been made, they'll park the stuff somewhere remote and start building bigger particle accelerators, allegorically spoken. At some time, someone will crack it.

We can't take gambles:
See above. Yes we can. We always do. And we must. We can try to minimize risks and in peacetime, we should of course take every possible precaution to the point of being paranoid (see the definition of level 4 biolab security for what that might entail). But there is never, ever a path of technological development without risk, and it is ridiculous to expect one. The only path without risk of being burned by the effects of new technology is stagnation. And that has other risks.
Yes, indeed we should not rush to install every single piece of Reaper technology we can find. Of course not and that was never in question. But if your survival is threatened, much higher risks are appropriate, and anyway that says nothing about studying the stuff in a reasonably secure environment once the war is over.

Reaper technology is a poisoned gift:
Actually no, it isn't. Mass relay technology is a poisoned gift, but it's only one technology. The Reaper debris we find after the war is not a gift. It's spoils of war. Also regarding mass relay technology: the Reapers left this with the plan to come back every 50K years to harvest the galaxy. Once the Reapers are gone and the 50K-year cycle of extinction is broken, the galaxy will develop along paths unplanned by the Reapers. Well, perhaps they did plan for after their own deaths, but now there is enough time that civilizations will eventually diverge from the paths planned for them.

We will only understand what the Reapers allow us to understand:
Mere supposition. It also presupposes that the Reapers have technology that is sufficiently advanced by Clarke's definition compared to our own. We do not know they have that, and there is every indication that they haven't. Unless you also presuppose that everything Shepard's been doing has been taken into account by the Reapers.

Something given has no value:
I see the ugly spectre of protestant ethics is raising its head. If someone gives me a gift, I should not value it because I didn't have to work for it? Is that what you're saying? I rest my case. Apart from that, I would say that by defeating the Reapers we'll have demonstrated our merit well enough. Were we that primitive compared to the Reapers, we would be able to defeat them.

Re-reading the criticisms of my original claim, I can't help but notice that most of the objections look like variations of "I do not like the stuff. Let's find reasons to claim it's bad to study it". The only respectable argument is this: we should think of the effect introducing a technology has on our societies. Yes, we should. Just as long as we also recognize that we have little freedom of choice in the matter: Reaper technology is in the world, and either we study the stuff, or we will eventually be dominated by those who do.