196 réponses à ce sujet

[biowaregeek]

 great find its worth replaying me2 to see if theres differnt dialogue in me3.

[Jedi31293]

SandTrout wrote...
I fight the Reapers because their goals are abhorrent to me. Their goals are abhorrent to me because I understand them. I do not hate them, I simply recognize the necessity of their destruction.

In those three sentences, you used the words "I" and "me" six times. Perspective.

To put it simply, a Reaper is probably saying the following:
I fight the Humans because their goals are abhorrent to me. Their goals are abhorrent to me because I understand them. I do not hate them, I simply recognize the necessity of their destruction.

I understand the Reapers' perspective, and can even come to sympathize with them. Does that mean I, as a human in the Mass Effect universe, will lay down my arms and simply allow the Reapers to wipe me out? Hell no.

Sympathizing with an "enemy" does not make you one of them. It simply means you understand them, and have the capacity to show mercy and compassion should the occasion arise.

[Kidd]

What freaks me out the most is this...

If the Human Reaper Larva was sentient, that sentience being hundreds of thousands of human beings... those hundreds of thousands of humans all decided to fight Shepard and friends. They wanted the process to continue, to become complete.

Do we really understand what that implies...?

[Fiery Phoenix]

However, our goal is not to understand them. As Vigil said, what does it matter if we understand them? We're not here to let them explain themselves to us; we're here to counter-attack with everything we've got.

That being said, I do see how some may think that defeating the Reapers constitutes understanding them in the first place. In fact, TIM, for one, appears to be doing just that. He's not in the slightest convinced that the Reapers can be defeated without sufficiently understanding them first. That kind of argumentative perspective makes sense to me, as I happen to agree with it since it's more of an exceptional case rather than a general rule.

Modifié par Fiery Phoenix, 20 octobre 2011 - 05:52 .

[Pride Demon]

Lisa_H wrote...

Pride Demon wrote...
*snip*

Where does this come from? It was really creepy, but I like that it add a new depth to the reapers

It was in some of the game files for ME2...
I don't know the deatails, didymos was to one to discover them, so he is probably the one that can give you a proper answer, I believe he mentioned where they come from once already in this very thread, though I may be wrong...

SandTrout wrote...
I fight the Reapers because their goals are abhorrent to me. Their goals
are abhorrent to me because I understand them. I do not hate them, I
simply recognize the necessity of their destruction.

Agreed!

The only thing is: we still haven't a clear idea of what their motives are; And I know knowing them isn't going to make me feel pity or hate them more (both are wasteful as you correctly pointed out), but it may be vital in finding a way to stop them...

Knowing how the Reapers see themselves is for me not a mere excercise in futility, but rather an important point in the way to their defeat: after all, they go a long way to shroud themselves in this veil of mistery, piercing it may indeed be one step towards beating them...

Like I pointed out in another thread, I aim to prove Vigil wrong: "you goal lies in stopping them, not understanding them", a practical point of view, however you just can't stop what you don't understand, and if you do it's usually out of luck (unreliable) or trial-and-error (inefficient)...
And the Reapers most likely know that, probably one of the reasons they hide traces of their existence...

Just my opinion anyway...

Modifié par Pride Demon, 20 octobre 2011 - 05:58 .

[JoePilot]

SandTrout wrote...

(moral relativism!!!)

First of all, everyone is a moral relativist, even you.  Don't believe me? Did you eat lunch today, or did you send that money to ethiopia so a starving child could eat? Moral relativist! 

The point being, moral absolutism is impossible in a complex world.  For example, killing is either never okay (absolutist) or sometimes okay (relativist), such as in the case of killing a few hundred to end a war that would otherwise cost millions of lives.  Moral relativism is a slander used by those who insist on seeing the world in black and white, against those who instead see shades of gray.  I'm not so naive as to think there aren't instances where there is an obvious right and wrong choice, but rather that such instances are fewer and farther between than you would like to admit.  i.e., I can think of very few justifications for murder, but they do exist.  Along the same lines, I condone the death penalty for sociopaths, a) to ensure they never offend again, and because they are incapable of remorse.

But that's not the point, because what we're talking about has nothing to do with morality anyway.  Even if the reapers didn't exist, what is the likelihood that humanity would survive for millions of years into the future, when our species, as it exists today is only ~50,000 years old?  If we are destined to die out in another 2 million years, either by our own doing or through some cataclysm that we don't even know about yet, but the reapers do, then why is it not desirable to take the next evolutionary step to preserve life?

I'm not saying the answer is to join the reapers, I'm saying it is a possibility that should be considered.  To fail to consider that an entire race of hyper-advanced collectives of whole civilizations millions of years old might know something we don't is short-sighted in the extreme.  And, choosing to destroy them so that we can live out our existence unaltered for a few hundred thousand years before we die out instead is a moral relativism all it's own.

Modifié par JoePilot, 20 octobre 2011 - 06:06 .

[SandTrout]

Jedi31293 wrote...

In those three sentences, you used the words "I" and "me" six times. Perspective.

To put it simply, a Reaper is probably saying the following:
I fight the Humans because their goals are abhorrent to me. Their goals are abhorrent to me because I understand them. I do not hate them, I simply recognize the necessity of their destruction.

Good, you understand my possition perfectly.

I understand the Reapers' perspective, and can even come to sympathize with them. Does that mean I, as a human in the Mass Effect universe, will lay down my arms and simply allow the Reapers to wipe me out? Hell no.Sympathizing with an "enemy" does not make you one of them. It simply
means you understand them, and have the capacity to show mercy and
compassion should the occasion arise.

What I think that you mean is that you empathize with them, not necessarily that you sympathize with thim. To be sympathentic implies that you take their side. Empathizing simply means that you comprehend their position.

Empathy is important in war in order to be able to predict the enemy, but should not be confused with sympathy where you begin to think that the enemy is correct is some manner.

[SandTrout]

JoePilot wrote...

SandTrout wrote...

(moral relativism!!!)

First of all, everyone is a moral relativist, even you.  Don't believe me? Did you eat lunch today, or did you send that money to ethiopia so a starving child could eat? Moral relativist! 

The point being, moral absolutism is impossible in a complex world.  For example, killing is either never okay (absolutist) or sometimes okay (relativist), such as in the case of killing a few hundred to end a war that would otherwise cost millions of lives.  Moral relativism is a slander used by those who insist on seeing the world in black and white, against those who instead see shades of gray.  I'm not so naive as to think there aren't instances where there is an obvious right and wrong choice, but rather that such instances are fewer and farther between than you would like to admit.  i.e., I can think of very few justifications for murder, but they do exist.  Along the same lines, I condone the death penalty for sociopaths, a) to ensure they never offend again, and because they are incapable of remorse.

[b]But that's not the point, because what we're talking about has nothing to do with morality anyway.  Even if the reapers didn't exist, what is the likelihood that humanity would survive for millions of years into the future, when our species, as it exists today is only ~50,000 years old?  If we are destined to die out in another 2 million years, either by our own doing or through some cataclysm that we don't even know about yet, but the reapers do, then why is it not desirable to take the next evolutionary step to preserve life?

First off, you don't understand what moral relativism is.

Secondly, I am specifically taking an Amoral possition on this topic. The first paragraph of that post was explaining why people are seeking to paint the Reapers in a sympathetic light because of their culturally ingrained notions of morality.

I'm not saying the answer is to join the reapers, I'm saying it is a possibility that should be considered.  To fail to consider that an entire race of hyper-advanced collectives of whole civilizations millions of years old might know something we don't is short-sighted in the extreme.

To assume that they do what they do for our benefit beyond their perception of what our destiny should be is idiotic.

And, choosing to destroy them so that we can live out our existence unaltered for a few hundred thousand years before we die out instead is a moral relativism all it's own.

It is perspective, but I am not claiming to do this for moral reasons, I am doing it because there is no practical alternative. Morality is derived from choices, and when there exists only a single practical path, there is no real choice, therefor morality does not apply to that decision.

Modifié par SandTrout, 20 octobre 2011 - 06:18 .

[JoePilot]

SandTrout wrote...

First off, you don't understand what moral relativism is.

Secondly, I am specifically taking an Amoral possition on this topic. The first paragraph of that post was explaining why people are seeking to paint the Reapers in a sympathetic light because of their culturally ingrained notions of morality.

No, they are considering the possibility that what we percieve to be horrific may be the exact opposite; an existence without death or suffering that is preferable to all other alternatives. 

What the reapers are doing may look abhorrent to those not "indoctrinated", but to those that are, and those that become part of a new reaper, perhaps it is a nirvanna of enlightenment and peace.

It is a plausible theory to explain why trillions of minds would all reach the same consensus and willingly repeat the cycle over and over, especially given the notion that they possess the knowledge and perspective that comes from living for millions of years.

Modifié par JoePilot, 20 octobre 2011 - 06:21 .

[SandTrout]

JoePilot wrote...

No, they are considering the possibility that what we percieve to be horrific may be the exact opposite; an existence without death or suffering that is preferable to all other alternatives. 

What the reapers are doing may look abhorrent to those not "indoctrinated", but to those that are, and those that become part of a new reaper, perhaps it is a nirvanna of enlightenment and peace.

It is a plausible theory to explain why trillions of minds would all reach the same consensus and willingly repeat the cycle over and over, especially given the notion that they possess the knowledge and perspective that comes from living for millions of years.

Weather you consider singularity desirable or not is irrelevant. What is to horrible about it is that the singularity is being forced upon us without ever having been given a choice. They have not come with offers of peaceful offerings to aid us in ascending to their status; they have come with war, fire, and destruction to force their will upon us.

We wish to continue our lives as individuals, they will to merge us into a single entity. Our goals are mutally exclusive, therefore war is the result.

[JoePilot]

SandTrout wrote...

To assume that they do what they do for our benefit beyond their perception of what our destiny should be is idiotic.

I am arguing that what they do is for their benefit, and given their technical superiority, and the notion that they are collectives of civilizations past, genocide for it's own sake makes no sense. 

They reproduce by taking whatever civilization shows the most promise and converting it into a reaper; an imortal manifestation of that culture who's true nature of existence is not entirely clear, on that we can surely agree.

My contention is that such an outcome may not be antithetical to our own long-term goals as a species, just that the reapers are a few thousand steps ahead of where we are evolutionarily, and therefore we aren't ready to consider that their goals are the same as ours would be, given enough time.

[SandTrout]

JoePilot wrote...

I am arguing that what they do is for their benefit, and given their technical superiority, and the notion that they are collectives of civilizations past, genocide for it's own sake makes no sense.

They reproduce by taking whatever civilization shows the most promise and converting it into a reaper; an imortal manifestation of that culture who's true nature of existence is not entirely clear, on that we can surely agree.

Indeed, I do agree on these points, and I have stated as much without going into the details of why the Reapers do the Reaping.

My contention is that such an outcome may not be antithetical to our own long-term goals as a species, just that the reapers are a few thousand steps ahead of where we are evolutionarily, and therefore we aren't ready to consider that their goals are the same as ours would be, given enough time.

The problem here is that the product would necessarily be not human. It would be something else that was manufactured from humans and might share some of humanity's traits, but it would not be something born of humanity any more than a human baby is an apple, cow, or chicken that the mother ate while pregnant.

Modifié par SandTrout, 20 octobre 2011 - 06:34 .

[JoePilot]

SandTrout wrote...
The problem here is that the product would necessarily be not human. It
would be something else that was manufactured from humans and might
share some of humanity's traits, but it would not be something born of
humanity any more than a human baby is an apple, cow, or chicken that
the mother ate while pregnant.

I am presupposing that those harvested to become a reaper do maintain their own unique, collective consciousness, they are still human, ishmai, nazara, etc.  They only seem to be no longer unique because they are in consesus given all that they now know.  I could always be wrong.

SandTrout wrote...
Weather you consider singularity desirable or not is irrelevant. What is to horrible about it is that the singularity is being forced upon us without ever having been given a choice. They have not come with offers of peaceful offerings to aid us in ascending to their status; they have come with war, fire, and destruction to force their will upon us.

We wish to continue our lives as individuals, they will to merge us into a single entity. Our goals are mutally exclusive, therefore war is the result.

I actually gave this very notion some thought, and again, just to play devil's advocate:

Maybe early on they tried the soft and gentle approach; the whole "we come in peace" schtick.  Maybe that way took too long? Maybe civilizations that had not yet reached the horizon of organic capability could not imagine why becoming a reaper was the only logical next step?  Maybe the end result  was always resistance? 

In that case, war would still result, as it must, if the cycle was to continue to give other races the opportunity to rise and be considered for inclusion.  That war would lack the advantage of the element of surprise and would be far more costly and damaging to the reapers, only to have the same result - a new reaper of enlightened minds that only after being uplifted is capable of appreciating the wisdom of the process.

And as you said, you wish to continue being an individual.  For how long?  Maybe the end result is always that there is a plateau for organics that cannot be overcome any other way, and we are only delaying the innevitable. 

This is all just a thought experiment, I'm not trying to seriously convince you of anything other than to consider that there are atlernate explanations for why they are doing this.  (it is just a game, after all)

Modifié par JoePilot, 20 octobre 2011 - 06:47 .

[Killjoy Cutter]

JoePilot wrote...

First of all, everyone is a moral relativist, even you.  Don't believe me? Did you eat lunch today, or did you send that money to ethiopia so a starving child could eat? Moral relativist! 

That's... not such a good example. 

[SandTrout]

If there is some sort of cataclysm that the Reapers are attempting to head off, then why not simply tell us? They wouldn't even need to tell us that they are capable of shutting down the Mass Relays via the Citadel so that the current pattern of the cycle can be used as a 'plan B'. Frankly, the "Greater Evil" argument doesn't jive with what we know about the Reaper's actions.

Also, the Singularity is the single greatest threat of extinction for a species. As seen with Sovereign and the Derelict Reaper, Reapers are not invincible, and they do not reproduce except through the cycles, which means that the human population will go from 11+ billion and growing to one, or however few Reapers are created from us, and stagnant. The best protection from extinction is diversity and a spread-out population that cannot be wiped out by a single cataclysm. Reapers are antithetical to this concept because they distil the population into very few individuals and preventing any sort of expansion within their population.

[111987]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

What freaks me out the most is this...

If the Human Reaper Larva was sentient, that sentience being hundreds of thousands of human beings... those hundreds of thousands of humans all decided to fight Shepard and friends. They wanted the process to continue, to become complete.

Do we really understand what that implies...?

Perhaps there still is an AI component to the Reapers, and it is the AI part of the Reaper that wishes to continue the cycle, not the organic part?

[JoePilot]

SandTrout wrote...

If there is some sort of cataclysm that the Reapers are attempting to head off, then why not simply tell us? They wouldn't even need to tell us that they are capable of shutting down the Mass Relays via the Citadel so that the current pattern of the cycle can be used as a 'plan B'. Frankly, the "Greater Evil" argument doesn't jive with what we know about the Reaper's actions.

Also, the Singularity is the single greatest threat of extinction for a species. As seen with Sovereign and the Derelict Reaper, Reapers are not invincible, and they do not reproduce except through the cycles, which means that the human population will go from 11+ billion and growing to one, or however few Reapers are created from us, and stagnant. The best protection from extinction is diversity and a spread-out population that cannot be wiped out by a single cataclysm. Reapers are antithetical to this concept because they distil the population into very few individuals and preventing any sort of expansion within their population.

Like I said, maybe they tried the explanatory approach, and it never worked?

Also, like I said, maybe the reapers do maintain that diversity, it just appears to be a single entity because of consesus on the necessity of the cycle.

[JoePilot]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

JoePilot wrote...

First of all, everyone is a moral relativist, even you.  Don't believe me? Did you eat lunch today, or did you send that money to ethiopia so a starving child could eat? Moral relativist! 

That's... not such a good example. 

You're right, it was a bad example, but taking one from the game itself, when Shepard destroyed Bahak to "save" the galaxy, that was moral relativism.

[SandTrout]

JoePilot wrote...

Also, like I said, maybe the reapers do maintain that diversity, it just appears to be a single entity because of consesus on the necessity of the cycle.

Having every member of a species in one entity, however large, without the ability to split off is not diversity.

[JoePilot]

111987 wrote...

Perhaps there still is an AI component to the Reapers, and it is the AI part of the Reaper that wishes to continue the cycle, not the organic part?

All my pandering to the contrary aside, this is probably more likely, especially if (as I'm sure is the case) the only good way to end ME3 given to us by Bioware is to destroy and defeat the reapers.

It will probably be revealed that all those civilizations are now slaves, or simply components of the real consciousness that is the reaper itself, and our killing them is somehow merciful to those inside.

[General User]

The marginal technological edge the Reapers currently enjoy does NOT make them, nor is it evidence that they are, a superior form of life.

Just the opposite really. I would argue that, given the length of time the Reapers have existed at almost exactly the same level of technology and civilization, that the Reapers themselves represent an evolutionary dead-end. They've long since plateaued and show no signs of ever being able to advance beyond what they are.

So what are the Reapers? An inferior form of life with a momentary technology edge.

[Kidd]

111987 wrote...

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

What freaks me out the most is this...

If the Human Reaper Larva was sentient, that sentience being hundreds of thousands of human beings... those hundreds of thousands of humans all decided to fight Shepard and friends. They wanted the process to continue, to become complete.

Do we really understand what that implies...?

Perhaps there still is an AI component to the Reapers, and it is the AI part of the Reaper that wishes to continue the cycle, not the organic part?

Makes it more difficult for me to imagine the Reapers truly feel they're doing us a favour then. And by everything they say, that really seems to be how they feel.

[JoePilot]

SandTrout wrote...

JoePilot wrote...

Also, like I said, maybe the reapers do maintain that diversity, it just appears to be a single entity because of consesus on the necessity of the cycle.

Having every member of a species in one entity, however large, without the ability to split off is not diversity.

What I'm saying is maybe they have the ability to disagree at any time (like the geth), but in those instances we have seen chose not to. 

[SandTrout]

JoePilot wrote...

You're right, it was a bad example, but taking one from the game itself, when Shepard destroyed Bahak to "save" the galaxy, that was moral relativism.

No. That was moral consiquentialism. The best estimates of likely results are weighed against each other and the result which is the most morally correct is chosen. In this case, Shepard didn't kill 300k, he saved millions.

Claiming that Balak from BDtS was morally equivalent to Shepard because he has a different culture would be moral relativism.

[JoePilot]

General User wrote...

The marginal technological edge the Reapers currently enjoy does NOT make them, nor is it evidence that they are, a superior form of life.

Just the opposite really. I would argue that, given the length of time the Reapers have existed at almost exactly the same level of technology and civilization, that the Reapers themselves represent an evolutionary dead-end. They've long since plateaued and show no signs of ever being able to advance beyond what they are.

So what are the Reapers? An inferior form of life with a momentary technology edge.

Good point, but if they were made too omnipotent, we wouldn't have a game, would we?