Alright, as promised, my response (directed at OP):
Obviously, I disagree.
First, the Catalyst doesn't strike me as an organic being. Unless you argue that he is an "ascended" organic being (which has no establishment in the Mass Effect Universe and also has major problems as it means he was able to survive a theoretical synthetic singularity) or a God (which I'm not touching with a 50 foot pole), the Catalyst is, himself, a Synthetic creation that surpassed its creators and destroyed them in some fashion or another. Now, this destruction may have brought about the first Reaper or it may have been an actual destruction, but regardless, the synthetic creation surpassed the creator and destroyed its civilization. Now, at first blush, this might seem to prove the Catalyst's arguments - but in reality, I feel it actually disproves his arguments because what he did next was to preserve organic life - he created the cycles. Considering the certainty he states that Synthetic life would surpass its creators and destroy organic life, doesn't it seem ridiculous that he then chooses to "protect" organic life (even if he's destroying it through his inability to understand organic life - more on that later). So at its fundamental level, he's just wrong - the theoretical synthetic singularity does not necessitate the end of organic evolution and what limitations are in place are entirely of his creation. I believe the line is "don't p*** on my leg and tell me it's raining"
Furthermore, his logic is based upon a sample size of one - he was eventually created and was able to surpass, technologically, his creators and defeat them. Yes, there might be plenty of cases throughout the various cycles he saw where this wasn't the case, but a Paragon Shepard has counter-examples - the Geth being allied and cooperative with the Quarians. And races in general.
Now earlier today it was commented that there is a creepy parallel between Javik's story about the synthetic race that uploaded into their creators' heads and then ended up taking over their creators and quarians having geth in their heads (
http://social.biowar...index/9850043/1 - includes a discussion between both of us). While I see the parallel, I disagree. But first, we have to get rid of the two root conflicts that are asserted more than a few times in the game.
The first is that synthetics represent order and organics represent chaos and these ideals are inherently at war with one another. I know I linked you to my earlier argument against this before (
http://social.biowar...index/9991187/1) but I want to make sure I cover it specifically here. Basically, I think it's utter garbage.
Order vs chaos is something that is represented quite frequently in fiction - and to a lesser extent, history. However, the imposition of order is often, by its very nature, chaotic. Why? Because order is based upon your definition of order. Is it order to arrest someone who will likely kill someone before they kill said person? How certain do you have to be? Can you define that threshold? Now compare answers with the rest of the class. Even between EDI and the Geth, the answer will be completely different - and this is from two different synthetics, two different representatives of order. So order is, by its very nature, false. There's actually an argument that any sufficiently complex system is, by its very nature, chaotic - and that would include AI. This gets even more complex when the other argument is brought in - the inherent conflict between creator and created (which is significantly less problematic but still false). The claim goes according to the idea that the created will always rebel (I put a huge astericks next to it but I'll let the argument slide for now). But from the perspective of the creator, isn't this necessarily chaotic. It has its creation doing exactly what it was designed to do - and then the creation is no longer doing what it was designed to do. That chaos. At that moment, the created represents chaos while the creator represents order. Admiral Xen is a prime example talking about the "rightful place" of geth in ME2. That's about as cliche as you can get for the represntation of order. And wouldn't the very fact that nobody knew what the geth were about to do demonstrate that the geth were, themselves, chaotic. The galaxy braced itself for war.... and the Geth just wanted to make a dyson sphere. If there's an inherent conflict there, it's the inability of the two groups to understand one another - but this is a conflict we see repeated everywhere in the world and often the most effective solution is for both sides to want to understand each other and try things to do so. An argument furthered by the fact that Shepard can befriend Legion and EDI by both the respective AIs and Shepard wanting to do that.
So there is no order vs chaos issue - just one kid's concept of order vs chaos. While I don't have a problem with him believing that he's applying order to chaos, I do have an issue with this being considered close to reality. It isn't. After all, every 50,000 years, he's trying to enforce his order and doing so creates chaos in the galaxy and disrupts whatever galactic order has been put in place - all in the name of a higher order of order (if you will) - a pretty significant zeroth law argument. I don't buy it.
So there's the other issue - the inherent conflict between created and creator. While I think there is some degree of it, I think it's overly simplistic to focus on this. Instead, I want to pose this question to you: you have a population that expects this other set of population to perform a specific task while treating them as second class citizens. This other set, however, is capable of going beyond the bounds of what is expected of it. Eventually, said population rebels.
Four - probably five - times throughout the series, this pattern happened. The first was obviously the geth and quarians. The second was the Krogan. The third (weaker) case was EDI. The fourth case is the race Javik mentions. The fifth (possible) case was the Catalyst. Let's throw in a fifth case: slave rebellions throughout history. An intelligent people expected to perform a specific task that wanted to go beyond that task. In nearly all these cases, when the group in question wished to go beyond the bound that were set for them and in most cases, the "master" wanted to maintain status quo. Rebellion happens. This pattern is repeated throughout history - the desire of intelligent beings to go beyond the constraints set by others. It is an unquestionable inherent conflict and it explains all confirmed conflicts we've seen. This includes the race Javik mentions - the synthetic race were still servants, tools being used to fix the environment. The geth, however, are now starting to be seen as equals, worthy of respect and consideration. So long as the master-servant relationship is never reestablished, the risk isn't there.
So why would the created conflict with the creator? Javik argues that it's because they know where they come from and why they exist. Well, we were raised up by Protheans - do we feel a need to rebel against the Protheans because of it? No. Instead, we honor protheans - sometimes worship them. For that matter - what do current Creationists think of their Creator? In regards to purpose - what does it matter what purpose we were created for? Does that meet what we have decided to do for ourselves now? The arguments ring hollow. It might give a different mindset (and to some extent, we see that with Geth creator-worship), but it isn't the same thing as creating an inherent conflict.
So if respect is the major factor in preventing these wars, why must we assume that the war is inevitable? If the argument is a lack of willingness to try and get along between creator and created (which is a reasonable suggestion), I can understand that - but this assumes that synthetics will necessarily create a logical fallacy whereby the actions of one represent the actions of all. Just because the one organic that created me is unwilling to release its control over me doesn't mean all are - we saw that with the Morning War memories.
So then what about AI superiority complexes? To which I say: what about them? There's an inherent assumption that intelligent AI will develop them - and more importantly, an entire race of AI will develop one that can surpass all other organic races. First, it is false to assume that all AI will come to the same conclusion - even the Geth didn't follow that pattern. So it is unreasonable to condemn AI because some might come to that conclusion. Second, it is false to assume that even if they do come to that conclusion, they will necessarily go and start killing everything. Third, by the time AI of that level exist, it's probably unreasonable to assume that just because the AI surpassed organics that this means it's unbeatable. In a one on one battle, perhaps this is true. But that removes any allowance for the impact of Alliances - both with organics and synthetics. Take, for example, the Reapers. Sure, without the Crucible, you might still not have been able to win due to the sheer number of Reapers, but you had two distinct AI's that willingly allied against the Reapers with the Organics and the Organics themselves allied together to stop the Reapers. They didn't lose because Reapers developed beyond them, but because the Reapers developed beyond them before mammals had even developed and had millions of years to build their fleet.
(I actually question the premise that AI will always surpass Organics
too, but that's a problem I run into with a lot of these AI is a
c***shoot stories)
Basically, you combine all these together, there is no certainty and, perhaps just as importantly, the actions of organics could have as much impact as the actions of synthetics in creating this theoretical "synthetic singularity". And now we come to the final problem - the fatal flaw in your entire argument
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.
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