92 réponses à ce sujet

[fish of doom]

Zyrious wrote...

Having emotion and being human are 2 different things. Legion is sentient, but he and the geth are unique, with their own culture, goals, morals, and way of life. Synthesis combines and homogenizes things in such a way that it gaurentee's peace and a lack of threat from technological singularity. It is major.

it actually doesn't, because the writers screwed up, although the sentiment behind it would be this (which is also the reason i chose it), just that the solution itself makes no sense.

[Paulinius]

Zyrious wrote...

 Synthesis combines and homogenizes things in such a way that it gaurentee's peace and a lack of threat from technological singularity.

How did we reach this conclusion?

What exactly prevents war amongst the hybrids? 

What keeps them from making their own synthetic life which can then rebel and try to destroy them?

[Bigdoser]

Eh I hold the opinion that synthesis and control is pretty much you doing what the reapers want you do so my renegade shep went for destroy since she did not agree with the catalyst. I personally think that the ending is harbinger trying to indoctrinate shepard.

[NoUserNameHere]

My alien waifu said that adaptation was not a choice in dealing with the Reapers.
Synthesis just seems like submission. The trilogy seems to groom gamers to accept extinction rather than submission.

[Drake_1000]

Excuse me but we have a choice at the end ?!

[Gibb_Shepard]

How is turning everyone half synthetic going to stop them from creating AI once again?

Definitely the most logically incoherent ending. Anyone who chose this over the other logically incoherent endings should be ashamed.

[phimseto]

If any of you ever have a chance to change the nature of my existence with magic space beams and choose to do so, I promise that I will hunt you down and kill you. :-)

I thought the ending was a disaster, but to evaluate the choices for what they were, synthesis was easily the most pernicious and evil. It's one thing to wipe out synthetic life, but to fundamentally alter the nature of existence for all species? Without their approval and in complete opposition to what they are fighting against?

Seriously, **** that.

Modifié par phimseto, 12 mars 2012 - 01:12 .

[MPSai]

JrSlackin wrote...


I think that's the issue with the control one honestly.

It just brings up the question of how much control and reign does Shepard have over the Reapers and for how long.

It's my issue with all three choices honestly is the amount of uknown  that's left before us. It reminds me of an Inception type ending to where I love the movie then coming to the end just leaves with that "is he awake or is he dreaming?" While there's only two options (maybe three if you want to consider him dead) it leaves a huge gap at the end of the movie letting the view decide. Which in that situation it's understandable since there's only TWO options.

With the ending to this, it only ended with more unanswered questions and ended up asking more questions other then "is he awake or is he dreaming". (Hopefully people understand what I'm getting at.)

Yeah but that's Inception, something that's meant to be mind-bending and open-ended. Mass Effect up until the point where you speak with the Catalyst was pretty grounded in realism. Sci-fi realism, sure, but it was all pretty believable and explainable. 

Modifié par MPSai, 12 mars 2012 - 01:11 .

[Zyrious]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

How is turning everyone half synthetic going to stop them from creating AI once again?

Definitely the most logically incoherent ending. Anyone who chose this over the other logically incoherent endings should be ashamed.

The implication is that it changes the very way all life percieves things, as every one is now half synthetic at a very fundamental way they also think similar to synthetic life and thus a divide is not nearly as likely. It isn't spelled out entirely but the writers intentions are made clear. It changes the very fabric of existence for all. Which is what the reapers want.

Its not so much saying they wont make AI, but they if they do the AI wont ever be totally disconnected as the new life-forms as a result of synthesis will share similar lines of thinking with said AI, and thus they will never depart so redically from eachother.  You are essentially ending pure organic existence forever and creating a future of AI and part-organic AI.

Modifié par Zyrious, 12 mars 2012 - 01:13 .

[Kentuckan]

Zyrious wrote...

Kentuckan wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

Kentuckan wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

I see Synthesis as "giving up", as essentially doing exactly what the reapers want. It's their plan B if Plan A screws up, and i dont want any reaper plans going through. Fact of the matter is, the reapers were created out of fear, and now they are trying to use that fear to control you. The "Catalyst" desperately wants you NOT to pick the destroy option, all the more reason to pick it. You sacrifice the Geth, but new AI can be created, and their sacrifice is minor compared to Galactic scaled rape against everyones will.

The Destroy ending is about faith. Faith in who we are, in our ability to succeed. If you do Synthesis it means your shepard has lost faith in humanity and the galaxy at large. If you do control it means you are afraid of what might be. If you do destroy, you acknowledge anything is possible, but you have faith and hope, the very things that have driven you up until this point. Even a renegade would do destroy. Actually, a renegade would probably do destroy even faster. A paragon would just consider synthesis...then do destroy. IMO.

I see were you are coming from, but again I can not agree. Until undeniable evidence is given to the contrary I will continue to just see the choices as they are. It feels wrong to invalidate two possible player choices and turn the whole thing into some sort of mind game where if you pick anything but the destroy option then your Shepard is weak willed and succumbs to the reapers.

Surely you must understand why I or anyone sharing my particular viewpoint believe this. I mean when given three crappy options, I picked the option that allowed me to fufill my goal even if the cost was my own life. That goal was to end the reaper threat, and make sure no one else has to die, and if that decision turns out to be in reality some weak minded middle ground decision concocted by the reapers to make me some how give up then you must understand why I would be upset by that.

You can't necessarily say there is no "death" in synthesis. You are destroying the very diversity of the universe, and the very essence of who everyone is, and you are making the ultimate proclamation of lack of faith in the galaxy. You are sacrificing the very nature of being for everyone, including the geth. Some may be happy, and it may in part be due to having your brain literally infused at the atomic level with synthetic parts. It destroys what we are.

If my shepard had so little faith in humanity, he probably wouldn't have complained about humanity ascending as a reaper.

Until we get any form of epilogue we can not be certain what happens to those who under go synthesis, the rest of your post is merely opinion. I do not care to discuss the ethics of forcing this decision on all life in the milkyway, but Shep being the zombie-VI-cyborg that he is, still considered himself to be human.

Forcing it on all life in the galaxy is a pretty big thing to ignore. Changing the very nature of all life in the galaxy could almost be considered a form of genocide, you are destroying cultures, ways of life. Shepard is most definitely not in the same situation, remember cerberus was desperate that he be "as he was" and the cybernetics was kept to a minimu, and his brain completely untouched (it was preserved thanks to the helmet). They used advanced medicine, and cybernetic additions which were still seperate from the body. Mainly clamps and reinforcements to the bone structure (we see the whole process in the beginning of ME 2). By and large Shepard is still very much human with some augmentation.

Synthesis changes the very DNA of all life on a very fundamental level. This is spelled out by Reaper-god-child.

I fear our debate is only going to end in a stalemate ... an expected outcome. Anyway I can see you are understandably against the synthesis ending as I am against either of the other two. Since ME ended the way it did we have no way to be sure what exactly happened to the people affected by the wave and all we can do is speculate.

You may find hope, be it false or not, in the thought that the ending is all some sort of big mind game, but I refuse to believe it until given solid evidence to the contrary. As it stands all I see is that I was given three crappy choices and I selected the one I found tolerable.

((Also my zombie-VI-cyborg comment was more or less a joke, but the point was that Shepard wasn't completely human anymore))

[GhostlyMaiden]

Zyrious wrote...

Having emotion and being human are 2 different things. Legion is sentient, but he and the geth are unique, with their own culture, goals, morals, and way of life. Synthesis combines and homogenizes things in such a way that it gaurentee's peace and a lack of threat from technological singularity. It is major.

You destroy trillions ways of life, culture, uniqueness, sense of being, and you force it on all of them, and it does change them. Thats why the reapers stop, because the very essence of life is changed, and no longer a "threat". In this sense, how are you better than the reapers? People are still "Alive" when merged into a reaper, they are each a nation of their species afterall. But their sense of being, way of thinking is completely changed, as shepard remarks when he first talks to reaper-god-child.

How so? Societies and culture develop based on environmental influences. With the Mass Relay network crippled, space travel will take several years to reach their destinations. This will leave several pockets of people to develop isolated from others. They will make their own rules, their own government, their own art and their own history during that time. Do you believe that the humans, turians, asari, and salarians have different cultures solely because of their genetic make-up? Perhaps one day, one of these groups of people will be able to recreate the mass relays or another means of travel and discover these other planets and call them "alien". 

Modifié par GhostlyMaiden, 12 mars 2012 - 01:14 .

[Zyrious]

Kentuckan wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

Kentuckan wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

Kentuckan wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

I see Synthesis as "giving up", as essentially doing exactly what the reapers want. It's their plan B if Plan A screws up, and i dont want any reaper plans going through. Fact of the matter is, the reapers were created out of fear, and now they are trying to use that fear to control you. The "Catalyst" desperately wants you NOT to pick the destroy option, all the more reason to pick it. You sacrifice the Geth, but new AI can be created, and their sacrifice is minor compared to Galactic scaled rape against everyones will.

The Destroy ending is about faith. Faith in who we are, in our ability to succeed. If you do Synthesis it means your shepard has lost faith in humanity and the galaxy at large. If you do control it means you are afraid of what might be. If you do destroy, you acknowledge anything is possible, but you have faith and hope, the very things that have driven you up until this point. Even a renegade would do destroy. Actually, a renegade would probably do destroy even faster. A paragon would just consider synthesis...then do destroy. IMO.

I see were you are coming from, but again I can not agree. Until undeniable evidence is given to the contrary I will continue to just see the choices as they are. It feels wrong to invalidate two possible player choices and turn the whole thing into some sort of mind game where if you pick anything but the destroy option then your Shepard is weak willed and succumbs to the reapers.

Surely you must understand why I or anyone sharing my particular viewpoint believe this. I mean when given three crappy options, I picked the option that allowed me to fufill my goal even if the cost was my own life. That goal was to end the reaper threat, and make sure no one else has to die, and if that decision turns out to be in reality some weak minded middle ground decision concocted by the reapers to make me some how give up then you must understand why I would be upset by that.

You can't necessarily say there is no "death" in synthesis. You are destroying the very diversity of the universe, and the very essence of who everyone is, and you are making the ultimate proclamation of lack of faith in the galaxy. You are sacrificing the very nature of being for everyone, including the geth. Some may be happy, and it may in part be due to having your brain literally infused at the atomic level with synthetic parts. It destroys what we are.

If my shepard had so little faith in humanity, he probably wouldn't have complained about humanity ascending as a reaper.

Until we get any form of epilogue we can not be certain what happens to those who under go synthesis, the rest of your post is merely opinion. I do not care to discuss the ethics of forcing this decision on all life in the milkyway, but Shep being the zombie-VI-cyborg that he is, still considered himself to be human.

Forcing it on all life in the galaxy is a pretty big thing to ignore. Changing the very nature of all life in the galaxy could almost be considered a form of genocide, you are destroying cultures, ways of life. Shepard is most definitely not in the same situation, remember cerberus was desperate that he be "as he was" and the cybernetics was kept to a minimu, and his brain completely untouched (it was preserved thanks to the helmet). They used advanced medicine, and cybernetic additions which were still seperate from the body. Mainly clamps and reinforcements to the bone structure (we see the whole process in the beginning of ME 2). By and large Shepard is still very much human with some augmentation.

Synthesis changes the very DNA of all life on a very fundamental level. This is spelled out by Reaper-god-child.

I fear our debate is only going to end in a stalemate ... an expected outcome. Anyway I can see you are understandably against the synthesis ending as I am against either of the other two. Since ME ended the way it did we have no way to be sure what exactly happened to the people affected by the wave and all we can do is speculate.

You may find hope, be it false or not, in the thought that the ending is all some sort of big mind game, but I refuse to believe it until given solid evidence to the contrary. As it stands all I see is that I was given three crappy choices and I selected the one I found tolerable.

((Also my zombie-VI-cyborg comment was more or less a joke, but the point was that Shepard wasn't completely human anymore))

I never said it was a mind-game. Reaper God Child genuinly wants you to do synthesis, control is his last-resort, and he absolutely does NOT want you to do destroy, he spells this out for you clear as day. Wether you agree with RGC or not is what's in question, i do not. Destroy every time for me.

[Zyrious]

GhostlyMaiden wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

Having emotion and being human are 2 different things. Legion is sentient, but he and the geth are unique, with their own culture, goals, morals, and way of life. Synthesis combines and homogenizes things in such a way that it gaurentee's peace and a lack of threat from technological singularity. It is major.

You destroy trillions ways of life, culture, uniqueness, sense of being, and you force it on all of them, and it does change them. Thats why the reapers stop, because the very essence of life is changed, and no longer a "threat". In this sense, how are you better than the reapers? People are still "Alive" when merged into a reaper, they are each a nation of their species afterall. But their sense of being, way of thinking is completely changed, as shepard remarks when he first talks to reaper-god-child.

How so? Societies and culture develop based on environmental influences. With the Mass Relay network crippled, space travel will take several years to reach their destinations. This will leave several pockets of people to develop isolated from others. They will make their own rules, their own government, their own art and their own history during that time. Do you believe that the humans, turians, asari, and salarians have different cultures solely because of their genetic make-up? Perhaps one day, one of these groups of people will be able to recreate the mass relays or another means of travel and discover these other planets and call them "alien". 

Who we are as a species genetically shapes us just as much as anything else. Asari genetics shaped their culture, how long they live, how their mind works, their connections with biotics. Same with salarians, same with the GEth. Geth think completely differently from us, and tech singulairty is a threat because AI in general thinks so radically different from Organics in general.

You take away that, you homogenize it to such an extreme degree,  and it is a subtle form of genocide. The way your very MIND works is being ALTERED so that you gain a new understand of synthetic life and AI and can co-exist with all. Your very existence and the very way your body works and functions is all changed. It is no minor feat in any way.

[Rane7685]

I combined DNA wanted Joker and EDI to live happily ever after

[Abremms]

 I went with synthesis because it seemed like the surest way to break the cycle. 

as far as "space magic" I think its important to remember exactly what the crucible was. The ultimate project undertaken by the greatest minds of of the greatest civilizations of countless cycles inspired by desperate necessity, and then passed on into the next cycle for the greatest minds of the greatest civilizations of the next cycle to iterate on. That could lead to some tech that we cannot imagine and would not even perceive as technology. for all we know, the crucible allows catalyst to alter the quantum mechanics governing our universe. It is said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and in the context of this particular fiction, the crucible qualifies. Its a Big Dumb Object in true scifi form. 

Modifié par Abremms, 12 mars 2012 - 01:25 .

[Gibb_Shepard]

Zyrious wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

How is turning everyone half synthetic going to stop them from creating AI once again?

Definitely the most logically incoherent ending. Anyone who chose this over the other logically incoherent endings should be ashamed.

The implication is that it changes the very way all life percieves things, as every one is now half synthetic at a very fundamental way they also think similar to synthetic life and thus a divide is not nearly as likely. It isn't spelled out entirely but the writers intentions are made clear. It changes the very fabric of existence for all. Which is what the reapers want.

Its not so much saying they wont make AI, but they if they do the AI wont ever be totally disconnected as the new life-forms as a result of synthesis will share similar lines of thinking with said AI, and thus they will never depart so redically from eachother.  You are essentially ending pure organic existence forever and creating a future of AI and part-organic AI.

I could've sworn that little twit of a kid said that all organic thought processes would remain the same.

There cannot be a hybrid between AI thought processes and Organic thought processes. They're both fundamentally different. 

[Zyrious]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Zyrious wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

How is turning everyone half synthetic going to stop them from creating AI once again?

Definitely the most logically incoherent ending. Anyone who chose this over the other logically incoherent endings should be ashamed.

The implication is that it changes the very way all life percieves things, as every one is now half synthetic at a very fundamental way they also think similar to synthetic life and thus a divide is not nearly as likely. It isn't spelled out entirely but the writers intentions are made clear. It changes the very fabric of existence for all. Which is what the reapers want.

Its not so much saying they wont make AI, but they if they do the AI wont ever be totally disconnected as the new life-forms as a result of synthesis will share similar lines of thinking with said AI, and thus they will never depart so redically from eachother.  You are essentially ending pure organic existence forever and creating a future of AI and part-organic AI.

I could've sworn that little twit of a kid said that all organic thought processes would remain the same.

There cannot be a hybrid between AI thought processes and Organic thought processes. They're both fundamentally different. 

He never says anything of the sort, infact he says the very DNA of all life is changed fundamentally. A new, homogenized DNA of organic and synthetic combined is created galaxy wide. The whole reason this is beneficial is so that organics are more like synthetic and thus even if new AI is created, the ways of thinking are not so drastically seperated as to make war between the two inevitable.

[Paulinius]

Zyrious wrote...


He never says anything of the sort, infact he says the very DNA of all life is changed fundamentally. A new, homogenized DNA of organic and synthetic combined is created galaxy wide. The whole reason this is beneficial is so that organics are more like synthetic and thus even if new AI is created, the ways of thinking are not so drastically seperated as to make war between the two inevitable.

Again, how exactly are we reaching this conclusion?

[Unit-Alpha]

Again, I don't think synthesis is as great as it appears. Sure, from the perspective of the Reapers, this is pretty damn good, but for an organic, it is not.

FYI: I went destroy. One last tribute to Anderson.

[Zyrious]

Paulinius wrote...

Zyrious wrote...


He never says anything of the sort, infact he says the very DNA of all life is changed fundamentally. A new, homogenized DNA of organic and synthetic combined is created galaxy wide. The whole reason this is beneficial is so that organics are more like synthetic and thus even if new AI is created, the ways of thinking are not so drastically seperated as to make war between the two inevitable.

Again, how exactly are we reaching this conclusion?

It is directly implied by the catalyst as the means to permanent peace between organic and synthetic, that AI will never diverge so radically from all other life as to outpace it and try to destroy it. Otherwise catalyst is just having you do it for the lulz of raping everyone with cybernetics just for the hell of it.

[GhostlyMaiden]

Paulinius wrote...

Zyrious wrote...


He never says anything of the sort, infact he says the very DNA of all life is changed fundamentally. A new, homogenized DNA of organic and synthetic combined is created galaxy wide. The whole reason this is beneficial is so that organics are more like synthetic and thus even if new AI is created, the ways of thinking are not so drastically seperated as to make war between the two inevitable.

Again, how exactly are we reaching this conclusion?

It's basically the nature vs. nurture argument. I place more emphasis on nurture, but I do believe nature does have it's part as well.

[aimlessgun]

Zyrious wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...
How is turning everyone half synthetic going to stop them from creating AI once again?
.

The implication is that it changes the very way all life percieves things, as every one is now half synthetic at a very fundamental way they also think similar to synthetic life and thus a divide is not nearly as likely.

This is probably the best defense of the concept, even though it's still incredibly vague (like how do AIs think differently from organics? Can all AI or all organics really be grouped up like that?).

But this brings up my main problem with synthesis. Instead of these very vague and arbitrary "organic" vs "synthetic" categories, the main conflict is between creator and created. And somehow combining every being into the universe to have blood and circuitry seems unlikely to affect that. Creator/created, old and new, that's a conflict that will happen for eternity as long as there is life.

Modifié par aimlessgun, 12 mars 2012 - 01:46 .

[Bigdoser]

Unit-Alpha wrote...

Again, I don't think synthesis is as great as it appears. Sure, from the perspective of the Reapers, this is pretty damn good, but for an organic, it is not.

FYI: I went destroy. One last tribute to Anderson.

I agree I personally see synthesis and control as a betrayel to everyone that is fighting plus I see synthesis and control is doing what the reapers want you to do. I hold the opinion that harbinger is trying to indoctinate shepard cause the destroy ending is the only ending shepard can live in and if you watch the scene it looks like shepard is on earth and there is no way shepard body can survive re entry so I think that shepard waking up at the end is shepard breaking the indoctirnation attempt. So I think that scene showing shep is alive is after harby shot his laser at hammer forces. 

[Xeaa]

 There's one major thing that everybody who says that this is playing into the reaper's hands - Catalyst said that ALL DNA would be combined, organic and synthetic. This means that for as much synthetic material all organic life received, all synthetic life received an equal amount of organic. The reapers are now part organic.

This completely levels the playing field, so conflict based solely on differences in DNA/creation should no longer exist.