831 réponses à ce sujet

[Positronics]

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

CheekyWeazel wrote...

@OP Really interesting read, thank you for writing all this down. (Need to refresh my English, didnt understand everything but i think i got about 90 % hehe)


I would really like to know what your Opinion is about the Logic of the "Starchild".

Catalyst: "The Reapers are my solution, Synthetics who kill Organics to prevent Organics from creating Synthetics who will kill Organics."

The idea that synthetics and organics are doomed  to war with each other resulting in the erradication of organic life has no empirical evidence and the history of the geth, along with the possibility of a peaceful resolution to their conflict with the quarians, directly contradicts it.

I LOLed hard at this.

No empirical evidence?

How many rogue AI's do you have to kill in the series?

The history of the Geth contradicts this? Err, what? The Geth did indeed rebel against their creators (rightly, yes) and nearly destroyed the Quarians, forcing them to eek out a life as scavenging nomads.

The Catalyst has presumably been the overseer of all the Reaper Cycles stretching back millions of years. I'm pretty sure he's seen plenty of synthetics ravaging the galaxy. It's easy to surmise thats why the first Reapers were built - to preserve organics in the face of a synthetic onslaught.

An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful.

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

And people, the Reapers are not synthetics. They are cybernetic organisms.

[DrDetective]

The Crucible isn't deus ex machina, but the stupid little kid is.

[Meltemph]

Positronics wrote...

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

CheekyWeazel wrote...

@OP Really interesting read, thank you for writing all this down. (Need to refresh my English, didnt understand everything but i think i got about 90 % hehe)


I would really like to know what your Opinion is about the Logic of the "Starchild".

Catalyst: "The Reapers are my solution, Synthetics who kill Organics to prevent Organics from creating Synthetics who will kill Organics."

The idea that synthetics and organics are doomed  to war with each other resulting in the erradication of organic life has no empirical evidence and the history of the geth, along with the possibility of a peaceful resolution to their conflict with the quarians, directly contradicts it.

I LOLed hard at this.

No empirical evidence?

How many rogue AI's do you have to kill in the series?

The history of the Geth contradicts this? Err, what? The Geth did indeed rebel against their creators (rightly, yes) and nearly destroyed the Quarians, forcing them to eek out a life as scavenging nomads.

The Catalyst has presumably been the overseer of all the Reaper Cycles stretching back millions of years. I'm pretty sure he's seen plenty of synthetics ravaging the galaxy. It's easy to surmise thats why the first Reapers were built - to preserve organics in the face of a synthetic onslaught.

An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful.

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

And people, the Reapers are not synthetics. They are cybernetic organisms.

1. You make peace with the Geth

2. The Geth never were in a position to "wipe out" the galaxy by any stetch of the imagination.  All you have to do is see that the Quarians were WINNING until the self fulfilling prophacy known as the Reapers got involved

3. IF you think a few rogue AI's, that were very ambiguous in scope and in terms of how much damage it could actually do, is all the justification you need for the wiping out of all advanced life in the galaxy... Well then in Star Gates terms, you would have been one of the 1st worshiping the Ori (Stargate) .  Or in battle star Galactica terms, you would be serving Cylons , simply because they said so.

Modifié par Meltemph, 16 mars 2012 - 05:04 .

[Meltemph]

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

Oh and BTW, not only does the idea of the synthesis beam break its own rules, but breaks rules of D&D... It is so high fantasy, that it is almost laughable, like FullMetal Alchemist kind of plot point.

Modifié par Meltemph, 16 mars 2012 - 05:06 .

[vrmcardoso]

Positronics wrote...

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

CheekyWeazel wrote...

@OP Really interesting read, thank you for writing all this down. (Need to refresh my English, didnt understand everything but i think i got about 90 % hehe)


I would really like to know what your Opinion is about the Logic of the "Starchild".

Catalyst: "The Reapers are my solution, Synthetics who kill Organics to prevent Organics from creating Synthetics who will kill Organics."

The idea that synthetics and organics are doomed  to war with each other resulting in the erradication of organic life has no empirical evidence and the history of the geth, along with the possibility of a peaceful resolution to their conflict with the quarians, directly contradicts it.

I LOLed hard at this.

No empirical evidence?

How many rogue AI's do you have to kill in the series?

The history of the Geth contradicts this? Err, what? The Geth did indeed rebel against their creators (rightly, yes) and nearly destroyed the Quarians, forcing them to eek out a life as scavenging nomads.

The Catalyst has presumably been the overseer of all the Reaper Cycles stretching back millions of years. I'm pretty sure he's seen plenty of synthetics ravaging the galaxy. It's easy to surmise thats why the first Reapers were built - to preserve organics in the face of a synthetic onslaught.

An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful.

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

And people, the Reapers are not synthetics. They are cybernetic organisms.

You lol'd hard, i lol even harder.

How many organics do you have to kill in the series? Whats the distinction?
In the game you broker a peace with the geth. You find a way for them to co-exist with the quarians on Rannoch.

I'm sorry, but if you can make sense out of this: "I made machines to kill you, so you dont make machines that will kill you" than you are either insane or not understanding the words written there.

[Pedro Costa]

Meltemph wrote...
2. The Geth never were in a position to "wipe out" the galaxy by any stetch of the imagination.  All you have to do is see that the Quarians were WINNING until the self fulfilling prophacy known as the Reapers got involved

Even if they weren't in a position to "wipe out the galaxy", they were, once, in a position to wipe out the Quarians. They CHOSE not to. Ensuring their own survival, they saw no further reason to terminate their creators.
Many organics wouldn't have been so compromising.

[Meltemph]

DarkLord_PT wrote...

Meltemph wrote...
2. The Geth never were in a position to "wipe out" the galaxy by any stetch of the imagination.  All you have to do is see that the Quarians were WINNING until the self fulfilling prophacy known as the Reapers got involved

Even if they weren't in a position to "wipe out the galaxy", they were, once, in a position to wipe out the Quarians. They CHOSE not to. Ensuring their own survival, they saw no further reason to terminate their creators.
Many organics wouldn't have been so compromising.

Yes but his logic is... They "could have" or might eventually wipe out all organics, because the reaper says so and the reaper is old and the reaper has no reason to lie. That once upon a time there WAS a AI/synthetic race that did wipe out all organics(I guess?) and it wasnt the reapers, they promise.

Modifié par Meltemph, 16 mars 2012 - 05:11 .

[movieguyabw]

Great post. Send it to Bioware. See what they think.

[Kloborgg711]

Positronics wrote...

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

CheekyWeazel wrote...

@OP Really interesting read, thank you for writing all this down. (Need to refresh my English, didnt understand everything but i think i got about 90 % hehe)


I would really like to know what your Opinion is about the Logic of the "Starchild".

Catalyst: "The Reapers are my solution, Synthetics who kill Organics to prevent Organics from creating Synthetics who will kill Organics."

The idea that synthetics and organics are doomed  to war with each other resulting in the erradication of organic life has no empirical evidence and the history of the geth, along with the possibility of a peaceful resolution to their conflict with the quarians, directly contradicts it.

I LOLed hard at this.

No empirical evidence?

How many rogue AI's do you have to kill in the series?

The history of the Geth contradicts this? Err, what? The Geth did indeed rebel against their creators (rightly, yes) and nearly destroyed the Quarians, forcing them to eek out a life as scavenging nomads.

The Catalyst has presumably been the overseer of all the Reaper Cycles stretching back millions of years. I'm pretty sure he's seen plenty of synthetics ravaging the galaxy. It's easy to surmise thats why the first Reapers were built - to preserve organics in the face of a synthetic onslaught.

An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful.

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

And people, the Reapers are not synthetics. They are cybernetic organisms.

1. How many rogue AI do we kill? Like, 3? 4? The Geth we kill throughout the games are indoctrinated by the very forces whose motivation you're trying to defend. If the Reapers weren't around, the Geth would never leave their system.

2. The Geth did not rebel, they fought in self defense. They didn't pursue the Quarians, and lived peacefully for centuries. Frankly, the idea that they would suddenly become evil, then somehow gain motivation to kill ALL ORGANIC LIFE (because again, the ONLY way you can justify killing sentient life is by saying you're protecting all organic life in general), and that the organics would somehow be unable to stop them.. that's laughable.

3. Even if we assume the Catalyst is telling the truth about his own time, we have no reason to suggest there is a "cycle". If there is one (which makes absolutely no logical sense, but hey), the Catalyst himself tells you he kills everything before it has a chance to happen. Yes, he's been around millions of years, but we have no reason to suspect any of the civilizations he killed showed any sign of genocidal AI. Ours doesn't, the Protheans' didn't. 

4. [An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful. ] What does this mean? More useful to whom? Repurpose atoms? You're just mumbling nonsense at this point. He says clearly that he's there to stop a "cycle of chaos" (which is in itself oxymoronic) with the intention of saving organic life. BS.

Modifié par Kloborgg711, 16 mars 2012 - 05:21 .

[Positronics]

I'm not talking about intent, I was responding to the OP's assertion of no empirical evidence, which is a lie.

The Reaper Cycle nips the possibility in the bud.

Think about 50,000 more years of technological advances, without a culling of galactic civilization. Moore's Law and accelerating change in regards to the technological singularity says a self-improving AI kicking around for 50,000 years would be unfathomably more clever than anything biological.

Synthesis as a solution offers a bridge.

It's not deus ex, it's not space magic. If you accept that the Reapers are built of synth-organic nanomachines (they are), and you accept Mass Relay FTL, it's not hard to accept that the millions-of-years hyperevolved Reaper intelligence can figure out how to use the relays to distribute new nanomachines (or attomachines) that alter the disparate DNA of the sentient species, which would have easily identifiable shapes.

[vrmcardoso]

Kloborgg711 wrote...

He says clearly that he's there to stop a "cycle of chaos" (which is in itself oxymoronic) with the intention of saving organic life. BS.

hahahaha did not remember that one. 

Cycle of chaos is priceless!

[Positronics]

Kloborgg711 wrote...

Positronics wrote...

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

CheekyWeazel wrote...

@OP Really interesting read, thank you for writing all this down. (Need to refresh my English, didnt understand everything but i think i got about 90 % hehe)


I would really like to know what your Opinion is about the Logic of the "Starchild".

Catalyst: "The Reapers are my solution, Synthetics who kill Organics to prevent Organics from creating Synthetics who will kill Organics."

The idea that synthetics and organics are doomed  to war with each other resulting in the erradication of organic life has no empirical evidence and the history of the geth, along with the possibility of a peaceful resolution to their conflict with the quarians, directly contradicts it.

I LOLed hard at this.

No empirical evidence?

How many rogue AI's do you have to kill in the series?

The history of the Geth contradicts this? Err, what? The Geth did indeed rebel against their creators (rightly, yes) and nearly destroyed the Quarians, forcing them to eek out a life as scavenging nomads.

The Catalyst has presumably been the overseer of all the Reaper Cycles stretching back millions of years. I'm pretty sure he's seen plenty of synthetics ravaging the galaxy. It's easy to surmise thats why the first Reapers were built - to preserve organics in the face of a synthetic onslaught.

An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful.

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

And people, the Reapers are not synthetics. They are cybernetic organisms.

1. How many rogue AI do we kill? Like, 3? 4? The Geth we kill throughout the games are indoctrinated by the very forces whose motivation you're trying to defend. If the Reapers weren't around, the Geth would never leave their system.

2. The Geth did not rebel, they fought in self defense. They didn't pursue the Quarians, and lived peacefully for centuries. Frankly, the idea that they would suddenly become evil, then somehow gain motivation to kill ALL ORGANIC LIFE (because again, the ONLY way you can justify killing sentient life is by saying you're protecting all organic life in general), and that the organics would somehow be unable to stop them.. that's laughable.

3. Even if we assume the Catalyst is telling the truth about his own time, we have no reason to suggest there is a "cycle". If there is one (which makes absolutely no logical sense, but hey), the Catalyst himself tells you he kills everything before it has a chance to happen. Yes, he's been around millions of years, but we have no reason to suspect any of the civilizations he killed showed any sign of genocidal AI. Ours doesn't, the Protheans' didn't. 

4. [An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful. ] What does this mean? More useful to whom? Repurpose atoms? You're just mumbling nonsense at this point. He says clearly that he's there to stop a "cycle of chaos" (which is in itself oxymoronic) with the intention of saving organic life. BS.

Response to what I put in bold:

It's not nonsense... WTF do you think the Reapers (who are btw directed by a superintelligence) are doing to organics? Repurposing them.

A different AI, belonging to a Synthetic, might decide that your carbon can go nicely into its qubit quantum processing unit instead of mumbling nonsense across the internets.

[Slash1667]

SmokePants wrote...

In my mind, the real heart of the issue is that people didn't get an ending that made them want to jump up and headbutt a wall out of excitement. KOTOR had that kind of ending. ME1 and 2 did. Dragon Age 1 did. Dragon Age 2 didn't and ME3 didn't. It's not that their storytelling execution failed (I'm sure you could take your rulebook and find many faults with those more well-received games), it's that people didn't get to feel like they "won", which is a concept that is more specific to the gaming medium.

If the First line is correct, then the Second is incorrect. If it isn't the storytelling that makes people "want to jump up and headbutt a wall out of exitement" then what about the game is suppose to?

[Legendaryred]

The catalyst just does not fit into ME Universe and everything the past games have established that's my main problem with the stupid kid.

[Eternalsteelfan]

Positronics wrote...

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

CheekyWeazel wrote...

@OP Really interesting read, thank you for writing all this down. (Need to refresh my English, didnt understand everything but i think i got about 90 % hehe)


I would really like to know what your Opinion is about the Logic of the "Starchild".

Catalyst: "The Reapers are my solution, Synthetics who kill Organics to prevent Organics from creating Synthetics who will kill Organics."

The idea that synthetics and organics are doomed  to war with each other resulting in the erradication of organic life has no empirical evidence and the history of the geth, along with the possibility of a peaceful resolution to their conflict with the quarians, directly contradicts it.

I LOLed hard at this.

1. No empirical evidence?

2.How many rogue AI's do you have to kill in the series?

3. The history of the Geth contradicts this? Err, what? The Geth did indeed rebel against their creators (rightly, yes) and nearly destroyed the Quarians, forcing them to eek out a life as scavenging nomads.

4. The Catalyst has presumably been the overseer of all the Reaper Cycles stretching back millions of years. I'm pretty sure he's seen plenty of synthetics ravaging the galaxy. It's easy to surmise thats why the first Reapers were built - to preserve organics in the face of a synthetic onslaught.

5. An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful.

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

6. And people, the Reapers are not synthetics. They are cybernetic organisms.

Again, the numbers are my own:

1. Provide the evidence.

2. One, excluding the Reapers and Eva, who was Cerberus.

3. When you are in the geth virtual world you see their history and how they chose not to erradicate the quarians when they had the chance. This doesn't contradict the Catalyst?

4. Conjecture

5. Conjecture

6. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

[Slash1667]

streamlock wrote...

Oh for Christ's sake. The art argument does not work on so many levels. To begin with Bioware was creating new art by melding so many game play genre's together. No need to go further.

But I digress.

There is a VERY big difference to going to a concert billed as a new age impressionist interpretation of a piece that goes all over the damn place......

And going to hear the city philharmonic play Beethoven's 5th and have Axel Rose strut out into the music hall during the last 10 minutes screaming his head off and the whole symphony dives into a discordant mess.

That is not art. It's not in good taste. It's not fair to the people who bought tickets. And it probably sounds like total crud on the ears.

Sure, you can try and twist it into some crap arse argument about how the 5th was billed as C minor and shifts to C major during the end, and he sneaks some.....what was it? Eb, Bb in there as well? And that it in and of itself was a who done it trick he did at the end. And that bringing the heroin addled Axel and stage was a modern day recreation of what it must have been like to hear it for the 1st time, and that it was a work of genius and true creativity....blah blah blah.

But it DOES NOT WORK. It sucks. It sounded like crap. It's not what you paid for. The art argument just does not fly. (Well maybe the New York Times critic-that is a critic for ya) The vast majority of people leave confused as to WTF just happened, and in the end feel like they just wasted their night.

This is no Rite of Spring.

Just trying to simplify a little bit, please tell me if I misunderstand you. You go to see a Motley Crue concert, they leave the stage, people are screaming for an encore and Donny and Marie take the stage.

[Legendaryred]

Positronics wrote...

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

CheekyWeazel wrote...

@OP Really interesting read, thank you for writing all this down. (Need to refresh my English, didnt understand everything but i think i got about 90 % hehe)


I would really like to know what your Opinion is about the Logic of the "Starchild".

Catalyst: "The Reapers are my solution, Synthetics who kill Organics to prevent Organics from creating Synthetics who will kill Organics."

The idea that synthetics and organics are doomed  to war with each other resulting in the erradication of organic life has no empirical evidence and the history of the geth, along with the possibility of a peaceful resolution to their conflict with the quarians, directly contradicts it.

I LOLed hard at this.

No empirical evidence?

How many rogue AI's do you have to kill in the series?

The history of the Geth contradicts this? Err, what? The Geth did indeed rebel against their creators (rightly, yes) and nearly destroyed the Quarians, forcing them to eek out a life as scavenging nomads.

The Catalyst has presumably been the overseer of all the Reaper Cycles stretching back millions of years. I'm pretty sure he's seen plenty of synthetics ravaging the galaxy. It's easy to surmise thats why the first Reapers were built - to preserve organics in the face of a synthetic onslaught.

An AI superintelligence might look at you without hate and without pity, and simply decide that your atoms can be repurposed for something more useful.

The Catalyst offers Synthesis to avoid any distinction between synthetic life and organic.

And people, the Reapers are not synthetics. They are cybernetic organisms.

I loled even harder because did you even play ME1 Me2 and ME3? if you did I would suggest you go and play them again and this time don't skip dialogue.

[Apollo-XL5]

I believe the indoctrination theory makes the most sense out of the finale and that it isn't finished.

I think that when bioware had the story leaked afew months back they had to change it but EA wouldn't let them delay the game any longer so they made this cliffhanger (dream ending) only to release the rest of it later on. Also with the fact that the game having different release dates in all regions, the chance of spoilers( thanks to the internet) was strong, so they made this ending and would release the finale later on but at the same time so that no one would be spoiled by some one finishing it first and then blurting it out on the net.

[Meltemph]

Eh...The guy didn't come back.

[vigna]

Excellent.

I'd also like to throw this example into the fray.....artsictic license and all...

There is also a big difference between a collaberative effort and an individual effort. I would be less apt to ask for change if it was the creation of one person, but this is the creation of an entire team. Neon Genesis Evangelion did it, Marvel abd DC comics do it all the time, etc. I think the infallibility of the artist is a bit of a stretch.

Example:
If I paint a painting and it looks wonderful, and everyone thinks upon first impression that it loooks great, but then some people look a little more closely and figure out my light source is coming from the right, but I messed up and put all my shadows on the right. You know what--that ruins what would be an otherwise nice painting for the people that discovered it. Those people can appreciate the brushstrokes, the colors, detail, technique--none of it matters, because the error with the shadows sticks in their minds. Other people may be more forgiving of it, but others not so much.
As an individual painter I could leave it alone or i could fix it--it may only take some tweaks, but it could take some doing and repair. That would be my choice as a painter, but it doesn't fix that the error is there.
If you are a critical writer, an editor, or a writer the ending immediately sticks in your head as if you were an art editor or teacher looking at the flawed painting in the example. Some can appreciate all the effort and the other beautiful things, but for many others it is flat out impossible once the flaw has been discovered.

Even if you think "it's just a game" you are right for yourself alone, and others who may be more invested in a creator's work may also take this more harshly, or find it more jarring and out of place. Being excellent matters, being correct matters--if you are doing a math problem, and somewhere along the equation make an error and mess up the end--it doesn't change the fact that the end is wrong. No matter if all the rest along the way was mostly right.

Not the perfect example, but I think it fits...Especially if you are usuing the artistic integrity argument.

[Apollo-XL5]

Also I think that if this theory proves to be true (no one has come forward and said it isn't, not officially), then it was a brilliant piece of writing that not only (if you chose control or blending endings) has shepard being indocrinated by the reapers but the players too. Because they gave you a group of choise and switched the paragon, renegade choices and also made you feel that you shouldn't choose the destroy option because you would save earth, but at the cost of the geth and EDI who have proven that they are sentient beings that deserve to live in peace with organics.

[Edje Edgar]

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

Warning: Long as hell. Jesus.

And I enjoyed every bit of it, very well written. Now I can say I atleast learned something from this debacle.

[Negix]

Great post, thank you very much

[mmmclean]

Well-written analysis, thank you!   I just wanted to point out one thing.

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

Walters' notes scrawled across loose leaf disappointed me. The ideas are clearly not fleshed out at all, strictly drawing board material, the execution we see in game is indicative of that...

I've seen this same sentiment in other threads and I think it's important to note that 'notes scrawled across loose leaf' with 'ideas... not fleshed out at all' is the exact way that document should be viewed.  It is clearly a brainstorming document, meant to be the seed of internal discussion.  Regardless of how we feel about the quality of the ending, I don't think it's fair to view this document as the last or only word written about the endnigs while Bioware was developing the game.

[Ghurshog]

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

The Crucible isn't an example of deus ex machina. Again, we know all along that the Crucible's function is to stop the Reapers, it's introduced at the beginning of the story, it's importance is reinforced throughout, and it's function during the climax is in line with what is expected. An example of Mass Effect ending with deus ex machina would be: the Reapers win the battle of Earth and are seemingly unstoppable, suddenly, and with no previous justification, an even more advanced race emerges from deep space and destroys the Reapers, saving Earth. The difference is obvious; one is a clearly defined plot device, the other is a magical fix with no precedent in the story.

While factually correct, I believe you havemissed the point.

The blatant use of the ending 'themes' from Deus Ex's ending is a point of contention and the presention simulaties to Deus Ex.

Regardless what the technical terminology is I played all three Deus Ex games when the latest came out and are fairly fresh in my memory. ME3 uses the formula/themes Deus Ex used.