597 réponses à ce sujet

[shepskisaac]

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

You're still only able to select HIS solutions. The only options presented are the ones that the Catalyst offers. There is no real chance to offer a rebuttle.

No, these are options Crucible provides - options made possible by the designers of Crucible. He tries to make you take the opion that suits him best

[AdeptusAstartes]

IsaacShep wrote...

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

You're still only able to select HIS solutions. The only options presented are the ones that the Catalyst offers. There is no real chance to offer a rebuttle.

No, these are options Crucible provides - options made possible by the designers of Crucible. He tries to make you take the opion that suits him best

He's presenting you with the choices, whether or not they are directly from him or from the Crucible is immaterial. Shepard is not given the chance to say: "Hold the eff on. None of these choices you're offering me make one lick of sense. I can give you at least two instances where organics and synthethics can work together, and you can only tell me that nothing that I do, or anyone ever does will matter, it's just going to happen this way. Well I don't buy your disengenious assertion." 

*right hook*

[shepskisaac]

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

He's presenting you with the choices, whether or not they are directly from him or from the Crucible is immaterial. Shepard is not given the chance to say: "Hold the eff on. None of these choices you're offering me make one lick of sense. I can give you at least two instances where organics and synthethics can work together, and you can only tell me that nothing that I do, or anyone ever does will matter, it's just going to happen this way. Well I don't buy your disengenious assertion." 

*right hook*

So you want "convince Catalyst that he's wrong" ending?

[AdeptusAstartes]

IsaacShep wrote...

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

He's presenting you with the choices, whether or not they are directly from him or from the Crucible is immaterial. Shepard is not given the chance to say: "Hold the eff on. None of these choices you're offering me make one lick of sense. I can give you at least two instances where organics and synthethics can work together, and you can only tell me that nothing that I do, or anyone ever does will matter, it's just going to happen this way. Well I don't buy your disengenious assertion." 

*right hook*

So you want "convince Catalyst that he's wrong" ending?

Yes. One of the shining moments of gaming was playing the original Fallout and convincing the Master that his plan was flawed, and defeating him without firing a shot. 

When one of the overarching themes of the Mass Effect series is not only the right to exist, but the right to choose your own destiny, taking that from you in the final moments of the game has to be one of the biggest sucker punches ever. If Shepard has reconciled the Geth and helped EDI understand the value of life; there is no reason why it should not be an option to tell the Catalyst you're not going go along with his 'choices' and either talk him and the Reapers down, or unleash the might of the alliance you've spent the last 30 some odd hours building in this game alone, and let the chips fall where they may, because it was at least Shepard's choice. 

[Sanjuronord]

I was amused that the Catalyst and the Reapers were ever created because apparently this race built a giant red "kill all synthetics" ray gun. Seems like a much more practical solution to the whole issue... if you even buy their logic, which I don't.

The whole fixation on synthetics killing organics just felt like an overprotective parent(except the parent usually doesn't kill the child...) that obsessed over one potential threat to the point of ignoring every other potential threat. A race could just as easily genetically create a super race of mutants or a really, really big bomb. A race like the rachni or the krogan seem just as dangerous to me as the geth. Maybe synthetics are just the uber threat, and any civilization that gets taken down by a lesser threat just isn't worth saving... I dunno.

I'm not quite sure where the basis for their logic even comes from unless they dug up some evidence that every race prior to theirs was killed by their synthetic creations. Did they use to come back every 100,000 years and find all organics had already been wiped out by synthetics and shaved that number down to the current 50,000 years (so there would be organics around to save, by killing them)?

[Zofiya]

IsaacShep wrote...

So you want "convince Catalyst that he's wrong" ending?

That would be an infinitely better paragon choice than Control. And for renegade, how about the "I'm here to curbstomp the Reapers, you control the Reapers, I'll curbstomp you instead" ending?

[Laughing_Man]

aristaea wrote...

IsaacShep wrote...

So you want "convince Catalyst that he's wrong" ending?

That would be an infinitely better paragon choice than Control. And for renegade, how about the "I'm here to curbstomp the Reapers, you control the Reapers, I'll curbstomp you instead" ending?

I want "kick his pretentious ***" ending, and to top it off, take the enormous junk heap called "the crucible", and convert it into something usefull, like a giant-reaper-killing super-weapon.

[shepskisaac]

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

Yes. One of the shining moments of gaming was playing the original Fallout and convincing the Master that his plan was flawed, and defeating him without firing a shot. 

When one of the overarching themes of the Mass Effect series is not only the right to exist, but the right to choose your own destiny, taking that from you in the final moments of the game has to be one of the biggest sucker punches ever. If Shepard has reconciled the Geth and helped EDI understand the value of life; there is no reason why it should not be an option to tell the Catalyst you're not going go along with his 'choices' and either talk him and the Reapers down, or unleash the might of the alliance you've spent the last 30 some odd hours building in this game alone, and let the chips fall where they may, because it was at least Shepard's choice. 

I can understand that, but why should the Catalyst believe you he's wrong based on Get/EDI evidence? Geth and EDI don't exceed organic intelligance. Catalyst believes in technological singularity - a point where AIs exceed organics beyond organics' comperhension which (as Catalyst believes) will lead to AIs concluding that there's no reason for organics to exist. Geth and EDI are decades/centuries/millenias from exceedeing organics significantly. To convince Catalyst, you would need an AI that actually reached technological singualrity, yet doesn't want to kill organics.

[111987]

Convincing the Catalyst that he is wrong would be such an unfathomably awful ending. This guy has been around billions of years and has never wavered in his thinking. Now cause Shepard is here, he'll change his mind?

Sorry but in my opinion that would be an even worse ending.

[Noatz]

Part of what galls about the Catalyst is that you are not even offered the option to contest what it says. With all other NPCs who spout nonsense in the games ever, Shepard has the option to call them on their bull**** either with impassioned words or his fist. That he simply puts on the meme "okay" face and goes along with it is in fact contrary to everything ANY variant of Shepard has done and stood for up until that point.

Putting this aside for a moment however, the logic of the Catalyst is still facile and easily deconstructed, and its solution equivalent to shooting someone in order to cure their depression. The geth who the Reapers didn't meddle with were shown to be not inherently hostile; the only reason there was a war in the first place was because the Quarians feared what they had created (as it turns out, irrationally). The possibility of the freed and upgraded geth destroying the Quarians springs only from the desire for self preservation (precisely why Shepard and the races of the galaxy are fighting the Reapers); it is Han'Gerrel's rabid desire to destroy them that causes this terrible outcome.

The Catalyst's argument centres around synthetics "inevitably" rising up and destroying synthetic life, yet the geth unequivocallly prove this assertion to be false in any outcome: their fundamental nature does not change depending on what happens between them and Quarians, and it is this nature that the Catalyst is banking on to prove its case.

Not to mention if it really wanted to preserve organic life it could just Reap created synthetics like many have said before, and tell the race that created them they jolly well better not do it again or sohelpme...

[AdeptusAstartes]

IsaacShep wrote...

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

Yes. One of the shining moments of gaming was playing the original Fallout and convincing the Master that his plan was flawed, and defeating him without firing a shot. 

When one of the overarching themes of the Mass Effect series is not only the right to exist, but the right to choose your own destiny, taking that from you in the final moments of the game has to be one of the biggest sucker punches ever. If Shepard has reconciled the Geth and helped EDI understand the value of life; there is no reason why it should not be an option to tell the Catalyst you're not going go along with his 'choices' and either talk him and the Reapers down, or unleash the might of the alliance you've spent the last 30 some odd hours building in this game alone, and let the chips fall where they may, because it was at least Shepard's choice. 

I can understand that, but why should the Catalyst believe you he's wrong based on Get/EDI evidence? Geth and EDI don't exceed organic intelligance. Catalyst believes in technological singularity - a point where AIs exceed organics beyond organics' comperhension which (as Catalyst believes) will lead to AIs concluding that there's no reason for organics to exist. Geth and EDI are decades/centuries/millenias from exceedeing organics significantly. To convince Catalyst, you would need an AI that actually reached technological singualrity, yet doesn't want to kill organics.

You're still missing the point. It doesn't matter if the Catalyst believes you at the end of the day or not. You're robbed of the chance to even TRY to convince him/it otherwise. 
Even though you end up having to fight Saren in one form or another, at the end of that journey you at least still have the CHANCE to convice him he's wrong and indoctrinated. With the Catalyst you're not even given the chance to even question it. The Cycle is simply the way things are. Get over it. What flavor candy do you want?

That's the problem.

[111987]

The Geth haven't proven anything about the nature of synthetics and AI. It's been like a week since they've tried coexisting. The Reapers have been around billions of years and have likely seen similar situations. There is no long term, or even short term guarantee of peaceful coexistence.

[shepskisaac]

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

You're still missing the point. It doesn't matter if the Catalyst believes you at the end of the day or not. You're robbed of the chance to even TRY to convince him/it otherwise. 
Even though you end up having to fight Saren in one form or another, at the end of that journey you at least still have the CHANCE to convice him he's wrong and indoctrinated. With the Catalyst you're not even given the chance to even question it. The Cycle is simply the way things are. Get over it. What flavor candy do you want?

That's the problem.

I see. Yes, perhaps there should've been a choice to at least say "you're wrong" even if Star Child was like "la la la la not listening". But it would still lead to the same choices though, because you wouldn;t be able to convince Catalyst

[AdeptusAstartes]

111987 wrote...

Convincing the Catalyst that he is wrong would be such an unfathomably awful ending. This guy has been around billions of years and has never wavered in his thinking. Now cause Shepard is here, he'll change his mind?

Sorry but in my opinion that would be an even worse ending.

It doesn't matter if you can change his mind or not, it matters that you don't even have the chance to. Nor the chance to just say screw it to the whole thing and just fight to the bitter end. 
Taking the Catalyst's choices is essentially Shepard giving up and accepting the premise there is nothing they can do about it accept take the paths they're told to take. Which contradicts one of the core themes of the series, which is self-determination.

[savionen]

Each time the synthetics advanced, the Reapers were directly involved. The Protheans were winning until the Reapers stepped in and screwed them over.

If anything, the story has proven that organics are more dangerous than synthetics. The Rachni would have wiped out the galaxy if not for the Krogan, and then after that the Krogan had to be sterilized otherwise they would have wiped out the galaxy.

[AdeptusAstartes]

IsaacShep wrote...

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

You're still missing the point. It doesn't matter if the Catalyst believes you at the end of the day or not. You're robbed of the chance to even TRY to convince him/it otherwise. 
Even though you end up having to fight Saren in one form or another, at the end of that journey you at least still have the CHANCE to convice him he's wrong and indoctrinated. With the Catalyst you're not even given the chance to even question it. The Cycle is simply the way things are. Get over it. What flavor candy do you want?

That's the problem.

I see. Yes, perhaps there should've been a choice to at least say "you're wrong" even if Star Child was like "la la la la not listening". But it would still lead to the same choices though, because you wouldn;t be able to convince Catalyst

It wouldn't have to, because it could lead to Shepard doing what they came there to do. Fight and destroy the Reapers or die trying. Or die succeeding. Or live succeeding and walk away from a boss explosion not even looking back or anything.

[Auresta]

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

111987 wrote...

Convincing the Catalyst that he is wrong would be such an unfathomably awful ending. This guy has been around billions of years and has never wavered in his thinking. Now cause Shepard is here, he'll change his mind?

Sorry but in my opinion that would be an even worse ending.

It doesn't matter if you can change his mind or not, it matters that you don't even have the chance to. Nor the chance to just say screw it to the whole thing and just fight to the bitter end. 
Taking the Catalyst's choices is essentially Shepard giving up and accepting the premise there is nothing they can do about it accept take the paths they're told to take. Which contradicts one of the core themes of the series, which is self-determination.

This. Even if it was hopeless, it is human nature to have a fighting will and the determination to find logic and hope. We don't take ****.

[lm_Commander_Shepard]

OP is indoctrinated!

[111987]

AdeptusAstartes wrote...



It doesn't matter if you can change his mind or not, it matters that you don't even have the chance to. Nor the chance to just say screw it to the whole thing and just fight to the bitter end. 
Taking the Catalyst's choices is essentially Shepard giving up and accepting the premise there is nothing they can do about it accept take the paths they're told to take. Which contradicts one of the core themes of the series, which is self-determination.

Screw the whole thing, as in not activate the Crucible? What does that accomplish, except becoming extinct and allowing the cycle to continue?

And this isn't the first time Shepard has been limited in choices. Why did he have to release or kill the rachni queen? Why did he only have the options of destroying the collector base or giving it to Cerberus? This isn't totally unprecedented.

Modifié par 111987, 15 mars 2012 - 11:53 .

[CarolSephard]

God Child's logic is "Reapers kill organics to save them from being killed by synthetics". So, there are some pyromaniacal in this planet ¿Should we burn the entire planet just to save the trees from those maniacs? 

[shepskisaac]

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

It doesn't matter if you can change his mind or not, it matters that you don't even have the chance to. Nor the chance to just say screw it to the whole thing and just fight to the bitter end. 
Taking the Catalyst's choices is essentially Shepard giving up and accepting the premise there is nothing they can do about it accept take the paths they're told to take. Which contradicts one of the core themes of the series, which is self-determination.

Fight how? WIth the fleet he gathered?

[111987]

savionen wrote...

Each time the synthetics advanced, the Reapers were directly involved. The Protheans were winning until the Reapers stepped in and screwed them over.

If anything, the story has proven that organics are more dangerous than synthetics. The Rachni would have wiped out the galaxy if not for the Krogan, and then after that the Krogan had to be sterilized otherwise they would have wiped out the galaxy.

If the Geth were left alone, they would have become a purely mechanical Reaper. Who knows what would have happened after that? It's implied that the Reapers have seen synthetics rise and attack species before.

[AdeptusAstartes]

111987 wrote...

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

111987 wrote...

Convincing the Catalyst that he is wrong would be such an unfathomably awful ending. This guy has been around billions of years and has never wavered in his thinking. Now cause Shepard is here, he'll change his mind?

Sorry but in my opinion that would be an even worse ending.

It doesn't matter if you can change his mind or not, it matters that you don't even have the chance to. Nor the chance to just say screw it to the whole thing and just fight to the bitter end. 
Taking the Catalyst's choices is essentially Shepard giving up and accepting the premise there is nothing they can do about it accept take the paths they're told to take. Which contradicts one of the core themes of the series, which is self-determination.

Screw the whole thing, as in not activate the Crucible? What does that accomplish, except becoming extinct and allowing the cycle to continue?

Andnthid isn't the first timenShepard has been limited in choices. Why did he have to release or kill the rachni queen? Why did he only have the options of destroying the collector base or giving it to Cerberus? This isn't totally unprecedented.

You don't know it would have led to failure. Wouldn't that be the whole point of your war assets and EMS?

What were the choices you would have made available for those particular plot points? They're at least logical and follow within established context of what has gone before in terms of decision making.

Give the Collector Base to the Alliance would be the only other alternative I could think of; but considering the very nature of the Base, and the fresh experience of the derelict Reaper and the effect it had on the research team, the options Shepard has available are plausible and logical. 

It's been a long time since I've played through ME1, but IIRC the Rachni queen talks to you a bit, explains what went down back in the day and then it's either take the chance and let it free, or kill it. I suppose another alternative would be just leave it in captivity for when the Peak 15/16 facility is retaken? That could have led to interesting implications down the road.

However the point here is that in what is the final decision of the game the choices that are available to you aren't presented or even the idea of Shepard. Destroying the Collector Base is Shepard's solution. Freeing or killing the Rachni queen is at the end of the day Shepard's choice. The paths offered by the Catalyst are NOT Shepard's solution. 

[AdeptusAstartes]

IsaacShep wrote...

AdeptusAstartes wrote...

It doesn't matter if you can change his mind or not, it matters that you don't even have the chance to. Nor the chance to just say screw it to the whole thing and just fight to the bitter end. 
Taking the Catalyst's choices is essentially Shepard giving up and accepting the premise there is nothing they can do about it accept take the paths they're told to take. Which contradicts one of the core themes of the series, which is self-determination.

Fight how? WIth the fleet he gathered?

That's what it's there for right? Sure didn't get all dressed up for nothing.

[OtaconUCF]

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.

I pretty much agree with this. It seems like the way things go with the Geth can vary pretty wildly if the OP's case is true, but correct me if I'm wrong, everyone got the same scenes in while in the Geth consensus, where we're presented with Geth deciding not to pursue the fleeing Quarians and not being agressors at all in the Morning War. Also, as Legion states, the only reason they're fighting with the Quarians in ME3, and accept help from the Reapers to do so, is because they don't want to be wiped out.

Also, according to the Mass Effect wiki, the heretic Geth don't come into existance and break from the majority's isolationism until they're approached by Sovereign first. Without the direct involvement of the Reapers, there's certainly no indication that they would inevitably chosen all organic life had to die.

Let me clearly state that again, the only reason the Geth you fight in ME1 and 2 began to take aggressive action against organics is the arrival of the representitive of the Reapers who offers them gifts to do exactly what the Catalyst's cycle is supposed to prevent; attack organics.

They also certainly left enough organic life alive on Rannoch, between plants and birds and the like you can see when you're there. These facts are the case regardless of how the Geth vs. Quarian scenario plays out. And right there the Geth exist as a contradiction to the 'truth' the Catalyst bases the solutions he offer's on.

EDI offers a second example of how synthetic life doesn't inevitably go down that path. Is it possible? Yes. Inevitable? I'm highly skeptical. It seems like Shepard should be too, given what he/she has witnessed. But instead he/she just takes the words of an entity that introduces itself as his/her enemy("I control the Reapers, they are my solution") at face value? As someone on another forum I was discussing this with put it...

If Catalyst has been watching as it aludes to if would realise that. So either your dealing with the AI equivalent of a dribbling retard (especially as it's minions were the ones that created the heretic Geth) or something that isn't actually a sentient AI but a hard coded VI instead; in which case screw the explosion lets start ripping out cables until it sings Daisy Daisy and turns itself off. Hell dump the Citadel in to a star and kill it that way. Which ever it's basically HAL.

There's also of course the third option that it's outright lying to you, as I certainly didn't trust that thing as far as I could throw it(which given it's a hologram is obviously not very far), as the player. But again, Shepard plays right along with it. That's what really bugged the crap out of me about the entire conversation with the Catalyst, that you have no option to actually challenge what it's telling you.
[/i]

The only example in support of Catalyst's proposition is the story told by Javik, but again, it's already clearly not 'inevitable' as we have synthetics opting for peace cooperation (or at the very least non-hostilitiy and isolationism) over 'kill 'em all' 2 to 1 in the situations presented to us.

The Reapers themselves...I'm not sure where to put them in place here. If they're truly sentient synthetic beings with complete free will, then they themselves have clearly shown that the Catalyst's truth is a blatent lie as they've chosen to protect and preserve organic life, even if their methods aren't exactly friendly to any species that gets too smart. If they're instead just shackled AI or even some approximation of VI then they don't factor into the equation here at all.