597 réponses à ce sujet

[TJX2045]

So we should have overpopulation of synthetics and have them be dominant? It's just so contradictory either way.

[mcsupersport]

SteveGarbage wrote...

I definitely can't argue with the reasoning of the Reaper invasion. Having the Reapers there to keep advanced civilizations from creating a synthetic lifeform that will destroy ALL life makes sense to me. The Reapers just kill the advanced races and leave primitive life alone.

It's the main reason why I felt I couldn't chose the Destroy option. Although EDI is great and the Geth can be reconciled, that doesn't mean that synthetics aren't a threat. As long as organic life can create synthetic life, that threat is there.

That's why I went Synthesis.

Space magic Synthesis still doesn't stop advance life from creating a pure synthetic after the Reapers leave and having it Rebel.  Even though you are part synthetic, you would not be "Pure" so you would be wiped out, if you follow the faulty logic of the Catalyst.

Also, how can the Geth be killed without taking out all advanced hardware in the Galaxy including all ships, omni-tools, Quarian Exo-suits, cars, most buildings, and all computer hardware in the Galaxy??  Geth you see are not Hardware, they are Software, thus they can't be "Killed" by the beam of energy just because, except if it is "Magic" like the magic in being able to combine DNA level Organic with Synthetic, BS.

Edi, yeah she has hardware that could be killed and she may die since it would be Reaper hardware, but the Geth are pure software.

[savionen]

111987 wrote...

Kandon Arc wrote...

Let's seriously consider what wiping out ALL organic life entails. This means a synthetic race would scour the entire galaxy, hunting down every animal, from elephant to rat; every plant, from tree down to blade of grass; every fungus; every virus; every bacterium; every speck of primordial ooze. What logical reason could a synthetic race have for doing this? Surely it would just do what the reapers do and wipe out any organics that threaten them?

We don't know how a synthetic's mind would work, so it's impossible to speculate. They might simply decide it's better to destroy all organic life so there's no chance of them ever threatening the synthetics.

Aside from that, if the reapers are so infinitely powerful and infinitely intelligent, and only want to protect organics, why don't they just wipe out all synthetics themselves?

Modifié par savionen, 16 mars 2012 - 01:42 .

[Kandon Arc]

111987 wrote...

Kandon Arc wrote...

Let's seriously consider what wiping out ALL organic life entails. This means a synthetic race would scour the entire galaxy, hunting down every animal, from elephant to rat; every plant, from tree down to blade of grass; every fungus; every virus; every bacterium; every speck of primordial ooze. What logical reason could a synthetic race have for doing this? Surely it would just do what the reapers do and wipe out any organics that threaten them?

We don't know how a synthetic's mind would work, so it's impossible to speculate. They might simply decide it's better to destroy all organic life so there's no chance of them ever threatening the synthetics.

We know how the reapers, geth and edi work actually, none of them have ever shown a desire to completely exterminate all orgaincs.

[TJX2045]

mcsupersport wrote...

Space magic Synthesis still doesn't stop advance life from creating a pure synthetic after the Reapers leave and having it Rebel.  Even though you are part synthetic, you would not be "Pure" so you would be wiped out, if you follow the faulty logic of the Catalyst.

Also, how can the Geth be killed without taking out all advanced hardware in the Galaxy including all ships, omni-tools, Quarian Exo-suits, cars, most buildings, and all computer hardware in the Galaxy??  Geth you see are not Hardware, they are Software, thus they can't be "Killed" by the beam of energy just because, except if it is "Magic" like the magic in being able to combine DNA level Organic with Synthetic, BS.

I agree with both of your points.  Well said.

Modifié par TJX2045, 16 mars 2012 - 01:44 .

[111987]

Kandon Arc wrote...

111987 wrote...

Kandon Arc wrote...

Let's seriously consider what wiping out ALL organic life entails. This means a synthetic race would scour the entire galaxy, hunting down every animal, from elephant to rat; every plant, from tree down to blade of grass; every fungus; every virus; every bacterium; every speck of primordial ooze. What logical reason could a synthetic race have for doing this? Surely it would just do what the reapers do and wipe out any organics that threaten them?

We don't know how a synthetic's mind would work, so it's impossible to speculate. They might simply decide it's better to destroy all organic life so there's no chance of them ever threatening the synthetics.

We know how the reapers, geth and edi work actually, none of them have ever shown a desire to completely exterminate all orgaincs.

The Reapers aren't AI's. EDI just recently became unshackled and formed an attachment to organics; this is obviously not the norm. The Geth only recently became true AI's...who knows how long they'll stay peaceful.

[Genera1Nemesis]

Beast919 wrote...

Genera1Nemesis wrote...
This seems to indicate one thing; Sovereign; being the Reaper Vanguard; hides
in the Veil during each cycle. It's mission doesn't activate until one or more
AI intelligences come to the ultimate conclusion that organics are unnecessary.
The first thing Soveriegn did was take control of the Geth heretics by
convincing them 'the old machines' were their deities. He then indoctrinated
Saren and began his mission to activate the Citadel.

So yeah, Sovereign instantly nullifies the threat to organic life, without a fight, and then proceeds to wipe out organic life anyway.  Real strong logic.  The reapers are unstoppable - they can kill WHATEVER THEY WANT - why would they choose to kill organic life instead of synthetic to "protect" organic life from synthetic.  It inherantly does not make sense.  And remember, Soveriegn single handedly dominated the majority of the Geth collective.  Imagine would a full Reaper fleet could have done if they had focused on simply synthetics instead of the very people they were trying to "protect."

The Geth weren't the only AI represented in the story. It just proved that organics had reached the apex in the creation of synthetic life. If the Reapers only focused on synthetics what would stop someone like TIM from just going ahead and building a better, more sophisticated AI down the road...maybe even one that could control the Reapers in much the same way Catalyst did. They acted before this could happen.

[111987]

savionen wrote...

111987 wrote...

Kandon Arc wrote...

Let's seriously consider what wiping out ALL organic life entails. This means a synthetic race would scour the entire galaxy, hunting down every animal, from elephant to rat; every plant, from tree down to blade of grass; every fungus; every virus; every bacterium; every speck of primordial ooze. What logical reason could a synthetic race have for doing this? Surely it would just do what the reapers do and wipe out any organics that threaten them?

We don't know how a synthetic's mind would work, so it's impossible to speculate. They might simply decide it's better to destroy all organic life so there's no chance of them ever threatening the synthetics.

Aside from that, if the reapers are so infinitely powerful and infinitely intelligent, and only want to protect organics, why don't they just wipe out all synthetics themselves?

Wiping out synthetics just cures the symptom, not the cause of the problem. Protecting organics keeps them live long enough to advance and create even more powerful AI's.

[forgottenlord]

Genera1Nemesis wrote...

"Does the possibility of this happening justify the action. Again, I ask about the person who you think is going to commit murder - at what point do you consider it ok to take a potential murder suspect into custody? Is it when you've got a written confesssion? Is it when you've got a clear set of information that clearly paint a motive and plan to commit murder but not constitute proof of intent? What about a statistician that says "based upon the genetic patterns of this individual, this person has a 85% chance of committing murder"? Let's expand this out to a more direct parallel - let's say a race shows up with their warships over Earth circa 1945 having just detected the EMP shockwave from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And they say "you have developed the atomic bomb which means you will soon possess the means to destroy your world and nearly all life upon it hundreds of times over. As such, to ensure you will not do so, we're going to destroy you so that future species can evolve in your place on this world." Now tell me - how sold are you on the validity of that argument? And considering how we're doing 65 years later, how comfortable are you with that logic? Just because something can happen doesn't, on its own, justify such extreme measures."

Very solid argument, and one I do tend to agree to a point...it also reminds me of the argument brought up at the end of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I am just saying that within the confines of the narrative that we were given, the Reaper solution (while cold and lacking emotional connection) may have been the best solution up until that one organic proved it couldn't work anymore (Shep)

The Catalyst is a representative of something we aren't meant to agree with; being that we are organics who feel it is our right to exist despite the dangers we may or may not pose on ourselves or other forms of life. In this sense; and from the standpoint that writing an all-powerful being in terms that can be understood from the writer and the audiences perspective: it must be given to us in a fashion that is inherently wrong from our limited point of view.

Take Q in Star Trek as an example. In the first episode of TNG he put humanity on trial for crimes of our past and for crimes that we may not even commit in the future. Q had to be written in a way that we; as humans; inherently disagree with his logic. We have to disagree because our survival depends on it. Q was also something we were never meant to comprehend; much like the Reapers and the Catalyst itself.

They never went into any detail about why the Catalyst had come to it's conclusion of inevitability; and that is open for debate I suppose. What I do understand is that Catalyst is at least 150 000 years old, probably much older than that. It; like Q: is supposed to be something we cannot comprehend. Perhaps the Reapers don't jsut do this in our galaxy but in many. Maybe many galaxies have fallen to a synthetic lifeform (maybe even the Reapers themselves are representatives of this lifeform) It's about fate vs. free-will; Catalyst deals in absolutes (fate) while Shep represents free-will and the ability to choose. Neither logic is right or wrong until the actions or inactions of individuals proves otherwise.

Wasn't the entire point of this thread to justify the Catalyst's position?  Now you step back from that position and then handwave "he is unknowable".  (BTW: we've got him as at least 37 million years)

I'm not saying the Catalyst doesn't have what it perceives to be justification, but I refuse to accept its justification on merely the grounds given.  As said on my post on the first page, my biggest beef with him is that we're given no ability to dispute it nor are any counter arguments given.

Not to mention, by making his motivations so low level and limited, I find it incredibly hard to justify treating him as a superior being.  Indeed, the logical flaws in his arguments - even in some of the basic arguments that are presented and easy to interpret at a lower level - make it very difficult to put him on the pillar to be respected simply because it is.  The indifference Q provides plus the fact that he's actually showing some level of trying to challenge Picard (amongst others) both directly (making him justify humanity's right to exist) and indirectly (providing difficult puzzles to solve that require an evolution in thinking) makes it easier to accept him as the unknowable.  If this were the dark matter argument where it feels like I'm on the cusp of understanding but there's information that seems just outside my reach, then that might be a sellable argument.  However, as presented, it's not.

In Universe, he can believe whatever he wants so long as my Shepard with her own motivations and beliefs as brought about by me can believe what she wants.  What she wants to believe is that this is a false slippery slope argument.  What she gets to believe is this is some being that speaks truth no matter what and she can't do a thing about it.  Therefore, from a meta-gaming perspective, the Catalyst is not justified.  If this were a TV series or an Eastern RPG where player personality is dictated, perhaps this would be more swallowable.  However, Mass Effect is player-centric, not character-centric.

[piemanz]

savionen wrote...

111987 wrote...

Kandon Arc wrote...

Let's seriously consider what wiping out ALL organic life entails. This means a synthetic race would scour the entire galaxy, hunting down every animal, from elephant to rat; every plant, from tree down to blade of grass; every fungus; every virus; every bacterium; every speck of primordial ooze. What logical reason could a synthetic race have for doing this? Surely it would just do what the reapers do and wipe out any organics that threaten them?

We don't know how a synthetic's mind would work, so it's impossible to speculate. They might simply decide it's better to destroy all organic life so there's no chance of them ever threatening the synthetics.

Aside from that, if the reapers are so infinitely powerful and infinitely intelligent, and only want to protect organics, why don't they just wipe out all synthetics themselves?

They're not infinately powerful but they're much more powerful than us. But theres a couple of reasons for it anyway.

Only killing synthetics would still leave the organics around that have the knowledge to create more sythetics. Theres a chance that letting the organics live the'll eventually evolve and advance to be more powerful than the Reapers themselves.

[Hudathan]

forgottenlord wrote...

I'll read and respond at length when I get home, but I want to underline one major problem: I don't really care whether the Catalyst is right or wrong - the problem is that we're forced to accept him as right without any ability to bring our own thought process into it. The fact that it is treated as an absolute truth, unquestionable and unchallengeable (and never challenged in the game) is what makes the ending hard to take. I'd love to have that concept be the Catalyst's (actually, I'd prefer it to be Harbinger's instead) and Javik's so long as there is a counterpoint with the option to side with either opinion and then you and I and hundreds of other fans, instead of talking about how atrocious the endings are, could be debating whether they're right or not.

Taking the destroy option, despite the immediate consequences it holds, is Shepard's way of disagreeing with the Catalyst and simply ending the cycle. It's also not a coincidence that it's the 'default' ending you can get regardless of how you played the game, it's an option open to all players.

[Beast919]

Genera1Nemesis wrote...

Beast919 wrote...

Genera1Nemesis wrote...
This seems to indicate one thing; Sovereign; being the Reaper Vanguard; hides
in the Veil during each cycle. It's mission doesn't activate until one or more
AI intelligences come to the ultimate conclusion that organics are unnecessary.
The first thing Soveriegn did was take control of the Geth heretics by
convincing them 'the old machines' were their deities. He then indoctrinated
Saren and began his mission to activate the Citadel.

So yeah, Sovereign instantly nullifies the threat to organic life, without a fight, and then proceeds to wipe out organic life anyway.  Real strong logic.  The reapers are unstoppable - they can kill WHATEVER THEY WANT - why would they choose to kill organic life instead of synthetic to "protect" organic life from synthetic.  It inherantly does not make sense.  And remember, Soveriegn single handedly dominated the majority of the Geth collective.  Imagine would a full Reaper fleet could have done if they had focused on simply synthetics instead of the very people they were trying to "protect."

The Geth weren't the only AI represented in the story. It just proved that organics had reached the apex in the creation of synthetic life. If the Reapers only focused on synthetics what would stop someone like TIM from just going ahead and building a better, more sophisticated AI down the road...maybe even one that could control the Reapers in much the same way Catalyst did. They acted before this could happen.

Geth were created, what, a few hundred years prior to the story?  Isn't it something like 300 or so?  The hell took Soverign so long to be like "oh hey, my sole reason for existence is occuring, I better do something about it."

It simply doesn't make sense.  If soveign is able to chill close enough to see wtf is going on in safety, so should other reapers, first of all, and secondly, if they exist on a level beyond our comprehension, why are they portrayed as so incredibly weak?  They can only save us by eliminating us entirely?  Thats nonsense.  If they're so amazing, what do they have to fear from our creations, compounded by the fact that they bet THEIR ENTIRE PLAN on the fact that they'll see our creations coming.

There's no logic to it.  Its nonsense.

[Meltemph]

The thing people who are fine with the logic are missing. The reapers are millions of years old and are synthetic/organic constructs, which mean someone created them. So up to this point there were no reapers, and this race that made them, decided that before there time, there was a AI that always created synthetics that wiped out civilizations.

SO this species created the reapers and started harvesting every advanced organic life in the universe after creating the mass relays. From this time on, the reapers with the way they left the galaxy, essentially created a self fulfilling prophecy. The kept things the way they were to help develop species according to their design, by keeping them on the same track as every other species.

Evolution DEFIES this line of thought that existence is a straight line. While normally you should never have to think about crap like this, the ending literally forced you to ask questions that the game did not supply answers to.  Because the reapers obviously had a beginning, which imply's at some point the cycle did not exists since the reapers infact exist. Otherwise you would be arguing that someone created something even worse then the reapers before this, which makes even less sense.

Modifié par Meltemph, 16 mars 2012 - 01:54 .

[111987]

Beast919 wrote...

Genera1Nemesis wrote...

Beast919 wrote...

Genera1Nemesis wrote...
This seems to indicate one thing; Sovereign; being the Reaper Vanguard; hides
in the Veil during each cycle. It's mission doesn't activate until one or more
AI intelligences come to the ultimate conclusion that organics are unnecessary.
The first thing Soveriegn did was take control of the Geth heretics by
convincing them 'the old machines' were their deities. He then indoctrinated
Saren and began his mission to activate the Citadel.

So yeah, Sovereign instantly nullifies the threat to organic life, without a fight, and then proceeds to wipe out organic life anyway.  Real strong logic.  The reapers are unstoppable - they can kill WHATEVER THEY WANT - why would they choose to kill organic life instead of synthetic to "protect" organic life from synthetic.  It inherantly does not make sense.  And remember, Soveriegn single handedly dominated the majority of the Geth collective.  Imagine would a full Reaper fleet could have done if they had focused on simply synthetics instead of the very people they were trying to "protect."

The Geth weren't the only AI represented in the story. It just proved that organics had reached the apex in the creation of synthetic life. If the Reapers only focused on synthetics what would stop someone like TIM from just going ahead and building a better, more sophisticated AI down the road...maybe even one that could control the Reapers in much the same way Catalyst did. They acted before this could happen.

Geth were created, what, a few hundred years prior to the story?  Isn't it something like 300 or so?  The hell took Soverign so long to be like "oh hey, my sole reason for existence is occuring, I better do something about it."

It simply doesn't make sense.  If soveign is able to chill close enough to see wtf is going on in safety, so should other reapers, first of all, and secondly, if they exist on a level beyond our comprehension, why are they portrayed as so incredibly weak?  They can only save us by eliminating us entirely?  Thats nonsense.  If they're so amazing, what do they have to fear from our creations, compounded by the fact that they bet THEIR ENTIRE PLAN on the fact that they'll see our creations coming.

There's no logic to it.  Its nonsense.

Remember the Rachni Wars? The Rachni were indoctrinated for some purpose. Possibly to help Sovereign reach the Citadel once it learned the Keepers weren't responding. When that plan failed, it bided its time until a new opportunity presented itself.

[Kandon Arc]

111987 wrote...

Kandon Arc wrote...

111987 wrote...

Kandon Arc wrote...

Let's seriously consider what wiping out ALL organic life entails. This means a synthetic race would scour the entire galaxy, hunting down every animal, from elephant to rat; every plant, from tree down to blade of grass; every fungus; every virus; every bacterium; every speck of primordial ooze. What logical reason could a synthetic race have for doing this? Surely it would just do what the reapers do and wipe out any organics that threaten them?

We don't know how a synthetic's mind would work, so it's impossible to speculate. They might simply decide it's better to destroy all organic life so there's no chance of them ever threatening the synthetics.

We know how the reapers, geth and edi work actually, none of them have ever shown a desire to completely exterminate all orgaincs.

The Reapers aren't AI's. EDI just recently became unshackled and formed an attachment to organics; this is obviously not the norm. The Geth only recently became true AI's...who knows how long they'll stay peaceful.

Obviously not the norm? We have 2/3 examples of AI in this game and they all function against the catalyst's reasoning, yet they're not the norm? Norms come from evidence. I see none that supports the catalyst.

[Genera1Nemesis]

forgottenlord wrote...

Genera1Nemesis wrote...

"Does the possibility of this happening justify the action. Again, I ask about the person who you think is going to commit murder - at what point do you consider it ok to take a potential murder suspect into custody? Is it when you've got a written confesssion? Is it when you've got a clear set of information that clearly paint a motive and plan to commit murder but not constitute proof of intent? What about a statistician that says "based upon the genetic patterns of this individual, this person has a 85% chance of committing murder"? Let's expand this out to a more direct parallel - let's say a race shows up with their warships over Earth circa 1945 having just detected the EMP shockwave from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And they say "you have developed the atomic bomb which means you will soon possess the means to destroy your world and nearly all life upon it hundreds of times over. As such, to ensure you will not do so, we're going to destroy you so that future species can evolve in your place on this world." Now tell me - how sold are you on the validity of that argument? And considering how we're doing 65 years later, how comfortable are you with that logic? Just because something can happen doesn't, on its own, justify such extreme measures."

Very solid argument, and one I do tend to agree to a point...it also reminds me of the argument brought up at the end of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I am just saying that within the confines of the narrative that we were given, the Reaper solution (while cold and lacking emotional connection) may have been the best solution up until that one organic proved it couldn't work anymore (Shep)

The Catalyst is a representative of something we aren't meant to agree with; being that we are organics who feel it is our right to exist despite the dangers we may or may not pose on ourselves or other forms of life. In this sense; and from the standpoint that writing an all-powerful being in terms that can be understood from the writer and the audiences perspective: it must be given to us in a fashion that is inherently wrong from our limited point of view.

Take Q in Star Trek as an example. In the first episode of TNG he put humanity on trial for crimes of our past and for crimes that we may not even commit in the future. Q had to be written in a way that we; as humans; inherently disagree with his logic. We have to disagree because our survival depends on it. Q was also something we were never meant to comprehend; much like the Reapers and the Catalyst itself.

They never went into any detail about why the Catalyst had come to it's conclusion of inevitability; and that is open for debate I suppose. What I do understand is that Catalyst is at least 150 000 years old, probably much older than that. It; like Q: is supposed to be something we cannot comprehend. Perhaps the Reapers don't jsut do this in our galaxy but in many. Maybe many galaxies have fallen to a synthetic lifeform (maybe even the Reapers themselves are representatives of this lifeform) It's about fate vs. free-will; Catalyst deals in absolutes (fate) while Shep represents free-will and the ability to choose. Neither logic is right or wrong until the actions or inactions of individuals proves otherwise.

Wasn't the entire point of this thread to justify the Catalyst's position?  Now you step back from that position and then handwave "he is unknowable".  (BTW: we've got him as at least 37 million years)

I'm not saying the Catalyst doesn't have what it perceives to be justification, but I refuse to accept its justification on merely the grounds given.  As said on my post on the first page, my biggest beef with him is that we're given no ability to dispute it nor are any counter arguments given.

Not to mention, by making his motivations so low level and limited, I find it incredibly hard to justify treating him as a superior being.  Indeed, the logical flaws in his arguments - even in some of the basic arguments that are presented and easy to interpret at a lower level - make it very difficult to put him on the pillar to be respected simply because it is.  The indifference Q provides plus the fact that he's actually showing some level of trying to challenge Picard (amongst others) both directly (making him justify humanity's right to exist) and indirectly (providing difficult puzzles to solve that require an evolution in thinking) makes it easier to accept him as the unknowable.  If this were the dark matter argument where it feels like I'm on the cusp of understanding but there's information that seems just outside my reach, then that might be a sellable argument.  However, as presented, it's not.

In Universe, he can believe whatever he wants so long as my Shepard with her own motivations and beliefs as brought about by me can believe what she wants.  What she wants to believe is that this is a false slippery slope argument.  What she gets to believe is this is some being that speaks truth no matter what and she can't do a thing about it.  Therefore, from a meta-gaming perspective, the Catalyst is not justified.  If this were a TV series or an Eastern RPG where player personality is dictated, perhaps this would be more swallowable.  However, Mass Effect is player-centric, not character-centric.

There is a difference between seeing the objective sides of both arguments and 'hand-waving" as you put it. All I'm saying that to call the logic completely silly and false doesn't really do justice to the story we were given. It would also mean that any other sci-fi story that deals with this absolute (Terminator, the Matrix) are just silly,and they are not.

The Crucible is that puzzle that you refer to in the dialogue. It seems (as I interpret it) that Catalyst required the Crucible because organics had passed the test and the reapers could possibly lose. The solution wasn't going to work anymore because Shep completed the puzzle; and a new solution was needed that Catalyst could not determine as it represented fate vs. Shep representing free-will. In the end it was a metaphor of the right to exist; and neither logic proved false because determinism became the sole factor that set the course towards a different outcome then the one Catalyst deemed necessary.

[Beast919]

111987 wrote...

Remember the Rachni Wars? The Rachni were indoctrinated for some purpose. Possibly to help Sovereign reach the Citadel once it learned the Keepers weren't responding. When that plan failed, it bided its time until a new opportunity presented itself.

That took place well over a 1000 years before the story.  No Geth, no catastrophic AI experiences.  you're disproving your own theorey.

[OtaconUCF]

Hudathan wrote...

Taking the destroy option, despite the immediate consequences it holds, is Shepard's way of disagreeing with the Catalyst and simply ending the cycle. It's also not a coincidence that it's the 'default' ending you can get regardless of how you played the game, it's an option open to all players.

It's not the default option. If your EMS is too low to open any further ones your single choice depends what you did to the Collector base in ME2. If you kept it, you're presented with the Control option. If you destroyed it, you're presented with the choice to destroy them. 

And yeah, it's the only option that lets you kinda tell the Reapers to screw off, but you're still accepting the deal on their terms and, if they're still alive, you're still sacrificing the Geth and implicitly agreeing with the Catalyst's premise.

[111987]

Meltemph wrote...

The thing people who are fine with the logic are missing. The reapers are millions of years old and are synthetic/organic constructs, which mean someone created them. So up to this point there were no reapers, and this race that made them, decided that before there time, there was a AI that always created synthetics that wiped out civilizations.

SO this species created the reapers and started harvesting every advanced organic life in the universe after creating the mass relays. From this time on, the reapers with the way they left the galaxy, essentially created a self fulfilling prophecy. The kept things the way they were to help develop species according to their design, by keeping them on the same track as every other species.

Evolution DEFIES this line of thought that existence is a straight line. While normally you should never have to think about crap like this, the ending literally forced you to ask questions that the game did not supply answers to, because the reapers obviously had a beginning, which imply's at some point the cycle did not exists since the reapers infact exist. Otherwise you would be arguing that someone created something even worse then the reapers before this, which makes even less sense.

Since we don't know the circumstances behind the origins of the Reapers, it's impossible to know for certain what initially inspired the idea of the Reapers.

[111987]

Beast919 wrote...

111987 wrote...

Remember the Rachni Wars? The Rachni were indoctrinated for some purpose. Possibly to help Sovereign reach the Citadel once it learned the Keepers weren't responding. When that plan failed, it bided its time until a new opportunity presented itself.

That took place well over a 1000 years before the story.  No Geth, no catastrophic AI experiences.  you're disproving your own theorey.

How am I disproving my theory? The Reapers invade to prevent synthetics from spreading and killing everything. Starting the invasion BEFORE the synthetics are even around yet makes perfect sense...

[piemanz]

Beast919 wrote...

111987 wrote...

Remember the Rachni Wars? The Rachni were indoctrinated for some purpose. Possibly to help Sovereign reach the Citadel once it learned the Keepers weren't responding. When that plan failed, it bided its time until a new opportunity presented itself.

That took place well over a 1000 years before the story.  No Geth, no catastrophic AI experiences.  you're disproving your own theorey.

Not really, because it proves that sovreign had infact tried to start the Reaper invasion 1000 years prior. Probably because it thought organics were on the cusp of creating synthetic life.

Modifié par piemanz, 16 mars 2012 - 02:00 .

[111987]

Kandon Arc wrote...


Obviously not the norm? We have 2/3 examples of AI in this game and they all function against the catalyst's reasoning, yet they're not the norm? Norms come from evidence. I see none that supports the catalyst.

The Catalyst/Reapers have had billions of years of experience, and have seen the cycle repeat itself every time. That's a hell of a lot more evidence than EDI (who is in love with an organic...definitely not the norm) and the Geth (who have been true AI's for only a few days).

[Meltemph]

111987 wrote...

Meltemph wrote...

The thing people who are fine with the logic are missing. The reapers are millions of years old and are synthetic/organic constructs, which mean someone created them. So up to this point there were no reapers, and this race that made them, decided that before there time, there was a AI that always created synthetics that wiped out civilizations.

SO this species created the reapers and started harvesting every advanced organic life in the universe after creating the mass relays. From this time on, the reapers with the way they left the galaxy, essentially created a self fulfilling prophecy. The kept things the way they were to help develop species according to their design, by keeping them on the same track as every other species.

Evolution DEFIES this line of thought that existence is a straight line. While normally you should never have to think about crap like this, the ending literally forced you to ask questions that the game did not supply answers to, because the reapers obviously had a beginning, which imply's at some point the cycle did not exists since the reapers infact exist. Otherwise you would be arguing that someone created something even worse then the reapers before this, which makes even less sense.

Since we don't know the circumstances behind the origins of the Reapers, it's impossible to know for certain what initially inspired the idea of the Reapers.

Which is why it is impossible to agree with the reapers logic, unless you claim it is infalible simply because it exists. The point is the only way you could UNDERSTAND the reapers line of thought is to understand its existence.  We dont get to know this, so anyone saying that the reapers make sense is like saying they they know what happened millions of years prior to the existence of reapers.  And if you dont follow this line of thought you are essetnially giving the reapers the validation of a litteral god.

Modifié par Meltemph, 16 mars 2012 - 02:04 .

[111987]

Meltemph wrote...

111987 wrote...

Meltemph wrote...

The thing people who are fine with the logic are missing. The reapers are millions of years old and are synthetic/organic constructs, which mean someone created them. So up to this point there were no reapers, and this race that made them, decided that before there time, there was a AI that always created synthetics that wiped out civilizations.

SO this species created the reapers and started harvesting every advanced organic life in the universe after creating the mass relays. From this time on, the reapers with the way they left the galaxy, essentially created a self fulfilling prophecy. The kept things the way they were to help develop species according to their design, by keeping them on the same track as every other species.

Evolution DEFIES this line of thought that existence is a straight line. While normally you should never have to think about crap like this, the ending literally forced you to ask questions that the game did not supply answers to, because the reapers obviously had a beginning, which imply's at some point the cycle did not exists since the reapers infact exist. Otherwise you would be arguing that someone created something even worse then the reapers before this, which makes even less sense.

Since we don't know the circumstances behind the origins of the Reapers, it's impossible to know for certain what initially inspired the idea of the Reapers.

Which is why it is impossible to agree with the reapers logic, unless you claim it is infalible simply because it exists. The point is the only way you could UNERSTAND the reapers line of thought is to understand its existence.  We dont get to know this, so anyone saying that the reapers make sense is like saying they they know what happened millions of years prior to the existence of reapers.  And if you dont follow this line of thought you are essetnially giving the reapers the validation of a litteral god.

Part of the reason why I'm inclined to at least listen to the Catalyst is because the Reapers have so much more knowledge about the galaxy than we do. Also, the Reapers aren't really known for lying. They might sometimes be vague, but i can't recall of a time where they outright lie about something.

[Genera1Nemesis]

Beast919 wrote...

Genera1Nemesis wrote...

Beast919 wrote...

Genera1Nemesis wrote...
This seems to indicate one thing; Sovereign; being the Reaper Vanguard; hides
in the Veil during each cycle. It's mission doesn't activate until one or more
AI intelligences come to the ultimate conclusion that organics are unnecessary.
The first thing Soveriegn did was take control of the Geth heretics by
convincing them 'the old machines' were their deities. He then indoctrinated
Saren and began his mission to activate the Citadel.

So yeah, Sovereign instantly nullifies the threat to organic life, without a fight, and then proceeds to wipe out organic life anyway.  Real strong logic.  The reapers are unstoppable - they can kill WHATEVER THEY WANT - why would they choose to kill organic life instead of synthetic to "protect" organic life from synthetic.  It inherantly does not make sense.  And remember, Soveriegn single handedly dominated the majority of the Geth collective.  Imagine would a full Reaper fleet could have done if they had focused on simply synthetics instead of the very people they were trying to "protect."

The Geth weren't the only AI represented in the story. It just proved that organics had reached the apex in the creation of synthetic life. If the Reapers only focused on synthetics what would stop someone like TIM from just going ahead and building a better, more sophisticated AI down the road...maybe even one that could control the Reapers in much the same way Catalyst did. They acted before this could happen.

Geth were created, what, a few hundred years prior to the story?  Isn't it something like 300 or so?  The hell took Soverign so long to be like "oh hey, my sole reason for existence is occuring, I better do something about it."

It simply doesn't make sense.  If soveign is able to chill close enough to see wtf is going on in safety, so should other reapers, first of all, and secondly, if they exist on a level beyond our comprehension, why are they portrayed as so incredibly weak?  They can only save us by eliminating us entirely?  Thats nonsense.  If they're so amazing, what do they have to fear from our creations, compounded by the fact that they bet THEIR ENTIRE PLAN on the fact that they'll see our creations coming.

There's no logic to it.  Its nonsense.

Ok, your right. It's nonsense. Pure nonsense. The fact that the Geth were not true AI until Legion made them so doesn't mean anything. The fact that Cerberus was doing wahtever it took at that time to create a perfect AI doesn't matter...and as I pointed out in an earlier post if you were to tell people "We know you can make guns, but don't do it because they'll kill you" wouldn't stop someone like TIM from doing just that; because he could. The Reapers (from their perspective) acted when they did because what if Cerberus had succeeded? What if an AI developed that was so sophisticated that even the Reapers couldn't stop it...or worse it could control the Reapers? They acted on initiative was all I was saying. To view this as nonsense doesn't really do justice to the fact that the Reapers saw it this way, regardless of whether anyone else did or not.