232 réponses à ce sujet

[Aesieru]

Zyrious wrote...

This actually makes no sense at all. In fact most civilizations are only advancing at all technologically because of the Mass Relay's. And couldn't they just wipe out all AI rather than slaughtering trillions of sentients? It also contradicts everything the reapers have said, and imo it ruins them.

The reapers were suppose to be independant, "We are each a nation". More explanaion of motives is nice but i didnt really need an origin story, it was almost implied that the original reaper was likely created by a species seeking immortality. That they saw other organics as weak, mortal tools to be used to sustain themselves, and when they saw a species as worthy of immortality as them, they harvested them.

I think the whole "Gaurdian" thing ruins it, and was unnecessary. Instead of finding the gaurdian, shepard could have just found a VI of one of the Prothean scientists who was stranded on the citadel after modifying the keepers, and he could have relayed how they continued studying the Citadel and the fact it controls the entire relay network, and that they discovered how to use the citadel against the reapers one they are in the galaxy.

But eh, too late to change that now. As it stands, the reapers are just a tool where they essentially shoot a guy holding a gun to his own head to prevent him from shooting himself. Why not just shoot the gun? Or his hand? Why did you give him the means to get a gun in the first place(Mass Relays)?

You're looking at it in a complex way when the answer is simple. It's not the fact they had a gun, it's the fact thta they could of built something that was a gun that had a will of its own and that would destroy everything and thus in extension that would devour all resources and render the cycle of life ended.

[WizenSlinky0]

Zyrious wrote...

This actually makes no sense at all. In fact most civilizations are only advancing at all technologically because of the Mass Relay's. And couldn't they just wipe out all AI rather than slaughtering trillions of sentients? It also contradicts everything the reapers have said, and imo it ruins them.

The reapers were suppose to be independant, "We are each a nation". More explanaion of motives is nice but i didnt really need an origin story, it was almost implied that the original reaper was likely created by a species seeking immortality. That they saw other organics as weak, mortal tools to be used to sustain themselves, and when they saw a species as worthy of immortality as them, they harvested them.

I think the whole "Gaurdian" thing ruins it, and was unnecessary. Instead of finding the gaurdian, shepard could have just found a VI of one of the Prothean scientists who was stranded on the citadel after modifying the keepers, and he could have relayed how they continued studying the Citadel and the fact it controls the entire relay network, and that they discovered how to use the citadel against the reapers one they are in the galaxy.

But eh, too late to change that now. As it stands, the reapers are just a tool where they essentially shoot a guy holding a gun to his own head to prevent him from shooting himself. Why not just shoot the gun? Or his hand? Why did you give him the means to get a gun in the first place(Mass Relays)?

It would be impossible for the reapers to counteract a potential AI singularity before it occured. While organics can be more easily monitored/controlled by the cycle. Sure, reapers could go around destroying all AI, but the point is organics will just make more. The point is supposed to be our Hubris will drive us to create more and more advanced AI regardless of the consequences until we learn our ultimate lesson and become extinct.

The Mass Relays exist in order to limit organics. Not help them. By giving them a free method of long-distance travel they never develop the means to do so on their own before the next cycle. This ensures they are confined to the galaxy and unable to go beyond the confines the relays have set up for them. It's basically a giant cage.

I agree with you that the Guardian goes against a lot of what the reapers said in the earlier games. Doesn't outright contradict too too many of them but I think it'd still have been better without the guardian. It still makes sense though.

In fact, by considering the fact the relays of the galaxy are indeed used to cage organics rather than assist them it's another possibility that each galaxy contains a similar cycle and each galaxy in turn has made several choices to continue or end the cycle.

The mass effect galaxy could very well one day be inducted into a new society based across the universe rather than the galaxy, once they reach their own means of travel.

[Aesieru]

WizenSlinky0 wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

This actually makes no sense at all. In fact most civilizations are only advancing at all technologically because of the Mass Relay's. And couldn't they just wipe out all AI rather than slaughtering trillions of sentients? It also contradicts everything the reapers have said, and imo it ruins them.

The reapers were suppose to be independant, "We are each a nation". More explanaion of motives is nice but i didnt really need an origin story, it was almost implied that the original reaper was likely created by a species seeking immortality. That they saw other organics as weak, mortal tools to be used to sustain themselves, and when they saw a species as worthy of immortality as them, they harvested them.

I think the whole "Gaurdian" thing ruins it, and was unnecessary. Instead of finding the gaurdian, shepard could have just found a VI of one of the Prothean scientists who was stranded on the citadel after modifying the keepers, and he could have relayed how they continued studying the Citadel and the fact it controls the entire relay network, and that they discovered how to use the citadel against the reapers one they are in the galaxy.

But eh, too late to change that now. As it stands, the reapers are just a tool where they essentially shoot a guy holding a gun to his own head to prevent him from shooting himself. Why not just shoot the gun? Or his hand? Why did you give him the means to get a gun in the first place(Mass Relays)?

It would be impossible for the reapers to counteract a potential AI singularity before it occured. While organics can be more easily monitored/controlled by the cycle. Sure, reapers could go around destroying all AI, but the point is organics will just make more. The point is supposed to be our Hubris will drive us to create more and more advanced AI regardless of the consequences until we learn our ultimate lesson and become extinct.

The Mass Relays exist in order to limit organics. Not help them. By giving them a free method of long-distance travel they never develop the means to do so on their own before the next cycle. This ensures they are confined to the galaxy and unable to go beyond the confines the relays have set up for them. It's basically a giant cage.

I agree with you that the Guardian goes against a lot of what the reapers said in the earlier games. Doesn't outright contradict too too many of them but I think it'd still have been better without the guardian. It still makes sense though.

In fact, by considering the fact the relays of the galaxy are indeed used to cage organics rather than assist them it's another possibility that each galaxy contains a similar cycle and each galaxy in turn has made several choices to continue or end the cycle.

The mass effect galaxy could very well one day be inducted into a new society based across the universe rather than the galaxy, once they reach their own means of travel.

That might require far too many Reapers, and I don't think that's logical.

[Aesieru]

Repeat

Modifié par Aesieru, 02 mars 2012 - 11:52 .

[Capeo]

So the Reapers use AI that has reached singularity (geth) to help stop said singularity from happening? Okay.

On top of that 50,000 years is way too long if they mean to stop singularities. A species would be spared by being where humans were 10,000 years ago. That leaves 40,000 years to develop AI.

[Aesieru]

Capeo wrote...

So the Reapers use AI that has reached singularity (geth) to help stop said singularity from happening? Okay.

On top of that 50,000 years is way too long if they mean to stop singularities. A species would be spared by being where humans were 10,000 years ago. That leaves 40,000 years to develop AI.

The cycle occurred whenever technology was at its prime for people, Sovereign determined that himself be it 2000, 10000, or 100000 years later.

The Geth didn't achieve it yet, they just had communal intelligence at basic AI levels over a large range of solar systems. They were tools easily manipulated by the Reapers as was seen with the Heretics.

[WizenSlinky0]

Aesieru wrote...


That might require far too many Reapers, and I don't think that's logical.

Hm? Why isn't it logical? Obviously at some point organics have to develop in other galaxies. It would be illogical for only ours to develop so much organic life. Which means they eventually had to face the same problem.

It's not too much of a stretch to assume whatever created the reapers used to be a race that spanned the universe rather than an empire that spanned a galaxy.

Dark space is big. The space between galaxies is big. The reapers never started with large numbers. They expand their numbers after every extinct race. Which means to start the cycle in the various galaxies you would need a far smaller number of reapers than would otherwise exist at this point in time.

It's just wild speculation really but it's a possibility. And would explain why no other race has ever made it across galaxies into ours at any point. They are either caught up in the cycle or rose above it and agreed not to interfer with the cycles of other galaxies until they learned the lesson it was meant to teach.

[AkiKishi]

Must have been smoking the good stuff when they came up with that one.

Dark Energy made more sense.

[Aesieru]

WizenSlinky0 wrote...

Aesieru wrote...


That might require far too many Reapers, and I don't think that's logical.

Hm? Why isn't it logical? Obviously at some point organics have to develop in other galaxies. It would be illogical for only ours to develop so much organic life. Which means they eventually had to face the same problem.

It's not too much of a stretch to assume whatever created the reapers used to be a race that spanned the universe rather than an empire that spanned a galaxy.

Dark space is big. The space between galaxies is big. The reapers never started with large numbers. They expand their numbers after every extinct race. Which means to start the cycle in the various galaxies you would need a far smaller number of reapers than would otherwise exist at this point in time.

It's just wild speculation really but it's a possibility. And would explain why no other race has ever made it across galaxies into ours at any point. They are either caught up in the cycle or rose above it and agreed not to interfer with the cycles of other galaxies until they learned the lesson it was meant to teach.

To travel between a galaxy to another galaxy would take require immense energy and an immense amount of time unless you had some hyper-acceleration system built up.

Also, no, I think you're thinking too much into it, and it was established Harbinger was the first, so he leads the Reapers there are none other than what's there.

[Aesieru]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Must have been smoking the good stuff when they came up with that one.

Dark Energy made more sense.

Not entirely.

[Zyrious]

WizenSlinky0 wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

This actually makes no sense at all. In fact most civilizations are only advancing at all technologically because of the Mass Relay's. And couldn't they just wipe out all AI rather than slaughtering trillions of sentients? It also contradicts everything the reapers have said, and imo it ruins them.

The reapers were suppose to be independant, "We are each a nation". More explanaion of motives is nice but i didnt really need an origin story, it was almost implied that the original reaper was likely created by a species seeking immortality. That they saw other organics as weak, mortal tools to be used to sustain themselves, and when they saw a species as worthy of immortality as them, they harvested them.

I think the whole "Gaurdian" thing ruins it, and was unnecessary. Instead of finding the gaurdian, shepard could have just found a VI of one of the Prothean scientists who was stranded on the citadel after modifying the keepers, and he could have relayed how they continued studying the Citadel and the fact it controls the entire relay network, and that they discovered how to use the citadel against the reapers one they are in the galaxy.

But eh, too late to change that now. As it stands, the reapers are just a tool where they essentially shoot a guy holding a gun to his own head to prevent him from shooting himself. Why not just shoot the gun? Or his hand? Why did you give him the means to get a gun in the first place(Mass Relays)?

It would be impossible for the reapers to counteract a potential AI singularity before it occured. While organics can be more easily monitored/controlled by the cycle. Sure, reapers could go around destroying all AI, but the point is organics will just make more. The point is supposed to be our Hubris will drive us to create more and more advanced AI regardless of the consequences until we learn our ultimate lesson and become extinct.

The Mass Relays exist in order to limit organics. Not help them. By giving them a free method of long-distance travel they never develop the means to do so on their own before the next cycle. This ensures they are confined to the galaxy and unable to go beyond the confines the relays have set up for them. It's basically a giant cage.

I agree with you that the Guardian goes against a lot of what the reapers said in the earlier games. Doesn't outright contradict too too many of them but I think it'd still have been better without the guardian. It still makes sense though.

In fact, by considering the fact the relays of the galaxy are indeed used to cage organics rather than assist them it's another possibility that each galaxy contains a similar cycle and each galaxy in turn has made several choices to continue or end the cycle.

The mass effect galaxy could very well one day be inducted into a new society based across the universe rather than the galaxy, once they reach their own means of travel.

I still don't buy it.  You really can't justify the slaughter of trillions of beings, and the horrors they go through, in the name of preventing them from creating an AI that does pretty much the same damn thing(The reapers harvest resources too, in case you're wondering.) Especially based on a hypothetical "Technological singulairty". That'd be like wiping out all humans in the 40's because they're about to reach a singularity of reaching the nuclear age. Just because it's a "Possibility", but it is only 1 of many possibilities.

Well atleast i can have my shepard tell the gaurdian to ****** off and hit the destroy button. It's a pitty that, imo, the gaurdian ruins the whole "Old God" concepts, independant, powerful beings who essentially consider themselves god's, choosing who "Ascends" and who dies simply because. Machines who are each a nation, independant and unknowable. Now they are just a contrived maintanence program.

[WizenSlinky0]

Aesieru wrote...

To travel between a galaxy to another galaxy would take require immense energy and an immense amount of time unless you had some hyper-acceleration system built up.

Also, no, I think you're thinking too much into it, and it was established Harbinger was the first, so he leads the Reapers there are none other than what's there.

Indeed. It would until someone invented a method of doing so much like the mass relays are capable of moving us across the galaxy in an instant. In just 50,000 years the protheans were able to break the mass relay technology to create one of their own, if only a prototype. This cycle has gone on for millions or perhaps billions of years.

You're telling me if an organic race exists in another galaxy outside this cycle they would not be able to solve inter-galactic travel problems in that much time?

Yes, I am overthinking it. I'm bored and it's fun. You don't have to agree with it but the reasoning has rational basis.

[WizenSlinky0]

Zyrious wrote...

I still don't buy it.  You really can't justify the slaughter of trillions of beings, and the horrors they go through, in the name of preventing them from creating an AI that does pretty much the same damn thing(The reapers harvest resources too, in case you're wondering.) Especially based on a hypothetical "Technological singulairty". That'd be like wiping out all humans in the 40's because they're about to reach a singularity of reaching the nuclear age. Just because it's a "Possibility", but it is only 1 of many possibilities.

Well atleast i can have my shepard tell the gaurdian to ****** off and hit the destroy button. It's a pitty that, imo, the gaurdian ruins the whole "Old God" concepts, independant, powerful beings who essentially consider themselves god's, choosing who "Ascends" and who dies simply because. Machines who are each a nation, independant and unknowable. Now they are just a contrived maintanence program.

You can justify anything you want to justify. It's not difficult. If you decide the only options are routinely killing all advanced organics or the extinction of all organic life everywhere for eternity...the choice becomes pretty easy. It's a sick and twisted cycle but at some point someone decided it was necessary. I can only assume it was influenced by a very very close call in the very distant past.

I don't agree with the cycle. It's basically a debate of control vs chaos. Is it ok to let things unfold as they will or should we interfer and perhap impose an unnatural restriction that prevents the worst-case scenario but is inherently evil in of itself?

Which is why the guardian exists, in my opinion. If they believed it an unsolvable problem then the Guardian would not exist to be interacted with. It would simply be a program that runs and ends. The fact there is a guardian at all suggests to me that someone somewhere left open the option that eventually a race would reach that point and once again determine whether or not organics were ready to break from the shackles of the cycle.

The cycle is almost training wheels for organics. Meant to keep us from going extinct before we understand the inherent dangers in what we're doing.

[Icinix]

The Reapers were awesome in ME1 - they suffered a slow and gradual decline in awesomeness once Harbinger started talking.

By the end of ME3 - they're no longer the fearsome enemy they were created to be - rather just another robot enemy with a questionable / contradictory reason for existence.

Mass Effect 3 the game will be / is awesome - Mass Effect 3 the story is certainly a let down.

[loungeshep]

I was hoping they would be an amalgamation of a construct of the galactic equation.

[Aesieru]

Zyrious wrote...

WizenSlinky0 wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

This actually makes no sense at all. In fact most civilizations are only advancing at all technologically because of the Mass Relay's. And couldn't they just wipe out all AI rather than slaughtering trillions of sentients? It also contradicts everything the reapers have said, and imo it ruins them.

The reapers were suppose to be independant, "We are each a nation". More explanaion of motives is nice but i didnt really need an origin story, it was almost implied that the original reaper was likely created by a species seeking immortality. That they saw other organics as weak, mortal tools to be used to sustain themselves, and when they saw a species as worthy of immortality as them, they harvested them.

I think the whole "Gaurdian" thing ruins it, and was unnecessary. Instead of finding the gaurdian, shepard could have just found a VI of one of the Prothean scientists who was stranded on the citadel after modifying the keepers, and he could have relayed how they continued studying the Citadel and the fact it controls the entire relay network, and that they discovered how to use the citadel against the reapers one they are in the galaxy.

But eh, too late to change that now. As it stands, the reapers are just a tool where they essentially shoot a guy holding a gun to his own head to prevent him from shooting himself. Why not just shoot the gun? Or his hand? Why did you give him the means to get a gun in the first place(Mass Relays)?

It would be impossible for the reapers to counteract a potential AI singularity before it occured. While organics can be more easily monitored/controlled by the cycle. Sure, reapers could go around destroying all AI, but the point is organics will just make more. The point is supposed to be our Hubris will drive us to create more and more advanced AI regardless of the consequences until we learn our ultimate lesson and become extinct.

The Mass Relays exist in order to limit organics. Not help them. By giving them a free method of long-distance travel they never develop the means to do so on their own before the next cycle. This ensures they are confined to the galaxy and unable to go beyond the confines the relays have set up for them. It's basically a giant cage.

I agree with you that the Guardian goes against a lot of what the reapers said in the earlier games. Doesn't outright contradict too too many of them but I think it'd still have been better without the guardian. It still makes sense though.

In fact, by considering the fact the relays of the galaxy are indeed used to cage organics rather than assist them it's another possibility that each galaxy contains a similar cycle and each galaxy in turn has made several choices to continue or end the cycle.

The mass effect galaxy could very well one day be inducted into a new society based across the universe rather than the galaxy, once they reach their own means of travel.

I still don't buy it.  You really can't justify the slaughter of trillions of beings, and the horrors they go through, in the name of preventing them from creating an AI that does pretty much the same damn thing(The reapers harvest resources too, in case you're wondering.) Especially based on a hypothetical "Technological singulairty". That'd be like wiping out all humans in the 40's because they're about to reach a singularity of reaching the nuclear age. Just because it's a "Possibility", but it is only 1 of many possibilities.

Well atleast i can have my shepard tell the gaurdian to ****** off and hit the destroy button. It's a pitty that, imo, the gaurdian ruins the whole "Old God" concepts, independant, powerful beings who essentially consider themselves god's, choosing who "Ascends" and who dies simply because. Machines who are each a nation, independant and unknowable. Now they are just a contrived maintanence program.

They use resources to repair themselves and create a few new ones yes, but that's not even a footnote in the AI-expansiont that render worlds entirely bare in mass.

[Aesieru]

Icinix wrote...

The Reapers were awesome in ME1 - they suffered a slow and gradual decline in awesomeness once Harbinger started talking.

By the end of ME3 - they're no longer the fearsome enemy they were created to be - rather just another robot enemy with a questionable / contradictory reason for existence.

Mass Effect 3 the game will be / is awesome - Mass Effect 3 the story is certainly a let down.

They seem more to me like an old mechanism of the galaxy used as a prevention to keep things working.

[Nathan Redgrave]

It's only paradoxical until you put it in the perspective of the Reapers themselves--they don't give a rat's arse about individual persons or even individual races. The idea is to keep *all* organic life going indefinitely, whereas if the "singularity" occurs, it could wind up being the bottleneck that defines and/or ends all organic civilization in the galaxy from that point forward. I think the Reapers themselves are probably a result of that singularity occuring in the very distant past, but it's also possible that the "singularity" itself is something that the Reapers or their originators simply postulated as inevitable based on their own experiences, rather than it actually being inevitable.

However, it's worth noting that the geth uprising in recent history lends credence to the Reapers' case.

[Nathan Redgrave]

Icinix wrote...

The Reapers were awesome in ME1

No they weren't; they were a complete unknown. We didn't know whether they were awesome or not yet. You may think a few lines of dialogue and a vague extinction-cycle concept spells "awesome," but to me it just spells "we don't know anything of substance yet."

Modifié par Nathan Redgrave, 03 mars 2012 - 12:14 .

[Aesieru]

Nathan Redgrave wrote...

It's only paradoxical until you put it in the perspective of the Reapers themselves--they don't give a rat's arse about individual persons or even individual races. The idea is to keep *all* organic life going indefinitely, whereas if the "singularity" occurs, it could wind up being the bottleneck that defines and/or ends all organic civilization in the galaxy from that point forward. I think the Reapers themselves are probably a result of that singularity occuring in the very distant past, but it's also possible that the "singularity" itself is something that the Reapers or their originators simply postulated as inevitable based on their own experiences, rather than it actually being inevitable.

However, it's worth noting that the geth uprising in recent history lends credence to the Reapers' case.

The geth only attacked because they were attacked. As legion stated, they bore them no ill will. It was the fear of AI that led the Quarians to their actions.

[Icinix]

Nathan Redgrave wrote...

Icinix wrote...

The Reapers were awesome in ME1

No they weren't; they were a complete unknown. We didn't know whether they were awesome or not yet. You may think a few lines of dialogue and a vague extinction-cycle concept spells "awesome," but to me it just spells "we don't know anything of substance yet."

Yes they were. We knew they worked through indoctrination, through perhaps crafting devastating wars, from the shadows until they were ready to strike. We knew that everything we developed throughout the galaxy was along a path of their choosing. We knew that extinction cycles repeated.

You may think all of this spells "we don't know anything of substance yet" but to me it spells "awesome powerful unknown enemy."

Having them as a remote controlled group of robots with some autonomy just made all that was built to be awesome null and void.

[thane0909]

Aesieru wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

This actually makes no sense at all. In fact most civilizations are only advancing at all technologically because of the Mass Relay's. And couldn't they just wipe out all AI rather than slaughtering trillions of sentients? It also contradicts everything the reapers have said, and imo it ruins them.

The reapers were suppose to be independant, "We are each a nation". More explanaion of motives is nice but i didnt really need an origin story, it was almost implied that the original reaper was likely created by a species seeking immortality. That they saw other organics as weak, mortal tools to be used to sustain themselves, and when they saw a species as worthy of immortality as them, they harvested them.

I think the whole "Gaurdian" thing ruins it, and was unnecessary. Instead of finding the gaurdian, shepard could have just found a VI of one of the Prothean scientists who was stranded on the citadel after modifying the keepers, and he could have relayed how they continued studying the Citadel and the fact it controls the entire relay network, and that they discovered how to use the citadel against the reapers one they are in the galaxy.

But eh, too late to change that now. As it stands, the reapers are just a tool where they essentially shoot a guy holding a gun to his own head to prevent him from shooting himself. Why not just shoot the gun? Or his hand? Why did you give him the means to get a gun in the first place(Mass Relays)?

You're looking at it in a complex way when the answer is simple. It's not the fact they had a gun, it's the fact thta they could of built something that was a gun that had a will of its own and that would destroy everything and thus in extension that would devour all resources and render the cycle of life ended.

But if the Reapers can destroy eveything why not just destroy any advanced AI that species may create before they devoured resources. Seems to me the Reapers just destroy species but don't replace them with anything so what would it matter....  why destroy at all? what's their gain?

If they were attacking to "meld" with a new species to obtain some kind of perfect reaper that may make more sense (certainly with regards to the 'human reaper' they made in ME2). However their level of destruction seems to leave very little behind to continue (the protheans seems to be extinct, well that is until the DLC was announced).

I can hear Bioware saying .... "Look! this is how it goes now okay buddy!...... jeez! <_<"

[Nathan Redgrave]

Icinix wrote...

Yes they were. We knew they worked through indoctrination, through perhaps crafting devastating wars, from the shadows until they were ready to strike. We knew that everything we developed throughout the galaxy was along a path of their choosing. We knew that extinction cycles repeated.

You may think all of this spells "we don't know anything of substance yet" but to me it spells "awesome powerful unknown enemy."

Which is blandness in the extreme. There have been a ridiculous number of "awesome powerful unknown enemies" in the history of pop culture. It's only when the "unknown" part is revealed that you can see whether or not they pass muster.

The catastrophe of Project Overlord could have constituted a case of the singularity as well, had it been allowed to spread off of Aite.

Modifié par Nathan Redgrave, 03 mars 2012 - 12:28 .

[Nathan Redgrave]

Urdnot Grim wrote...

This would be true if the Quarians had not initiated the attack first. The geth had no reason to attack them until the Quarians tried to destroy them.

Arguing the ifs, ands, or buts of the situation is a pointless tangent. The point is, their technology overcame them. That's the singularity in a nutshell. The Reapers exist to keep Skynet from taking over the galaxy, whether it comes in the form of Skynet or not.