232 réponses à ce sujet

[Tocquevillain]

Vergil_dgk wrote...

...or the reapers could just wait until such a creation actually arose, then zoom in and destroy it with their god-like powers, then tell sentients to stop creating that kind of stuff or be wiped out - and then zoom out again.

I've seen this idea a few times, and it sounds totally wrong to me every time I read it.

How do you think advanced species would react? They rely on synethetics and technology. If the Reapers came in like mommy and said NO, the advanced species would try to destroy the Reapers, and if they actually succeeded, then the galaxy would truly tilt towards chaos for all time, because the guiding hand would be gone. Easier to kill all the advanced species, and let the "minnows" grow up and only come in every 50 000 years instead of every year when another species creates more secret synthetics.

Of course, that is basically the ending of ME3, which is why the ending is so exciting, a shift towards chaos and unlimited possibility.

Modifié par Tocquevillain, 19 mars 2012 - 11:44 .

[Armass81]

As to the question of why they dont kill of synthetics instead of organics? Advanced organics are needed to make synthetics, they are not born out of nothingness. When you have a cancer, you destroy its root and cause, you dont just destroy the cancer. AI thinks It is more efficient and guarantees results.

Modifié par Armass81, 19 mars 2012 - 11:48 .

[Silhouett3]

likta_ wrote...
How would they know that? They thought they were the rulers of the galaxy, they did not know about the reapers until it was to late. They never had a "Shepard" to speak to a Reaper, they had no warnings from their forerunners. I doubt they would suddently start studying ancient civilizations when they are struggling to stay alive.

What difference Shepard's claim made in our cycle, other than leading to that famous internet meme?
 Protheans clearly knew much more about Mass Relays, therefore, the Reaper technology.  But they were scattered. Scientists in Ilos send the message through beacons after like a hundred years Reaper invasion began. They had time to study, like we had time to built the Crucible. Even Javik was born after the invasion began and seem to know a thing or two about fighting Reapers.

Of couse, Vandetta only theorises that past evolution cycles had a tendency leading to their own annihilation. Prothean faced many enemies - boht organic and synthetic- in their cycle, and seemed to found evidence of  the pattarn happening in the cycles before them..

[GnusmasTHX]

likta_ wrote...

Why would they believe that synthetics will inevitably wipe out all organic life? It never happened before. And why wouldn't they just roam the galaxy and kill off all synthetics? Because the damn ending does not make any sense, that's why.

Because the 3 years of in-game time is indicative of that.

In recent ME history, the quarians were almost wiped out by the geth. It's irrelevant to the Reapers whose fault it was.

For all you know, the Reapers sleep with one eye open at night, paranoid from all the wars they've fought with sentient toasters in the last billion years.

[likta_]

Tocquevillain wrote...

Vergil_dgk wrote...

...or the reapers could just wait until such a creation actually arose, then zoom in and destroy it with their god-like powers, then tell sentients to stop creating that kind of stuff or be wiped out - and then zoom out again.

I've seen this idea a few times, and it sounds totally wrong to me every time I read it.

How do you think advanced species would react? They rely on synethetics and technology. If the Reapers came in like mommy and said NO, the advanced species would try to destroy the Reapers, and if they actually succeeded, then the galaxy would truly tilt towards chaos for all time, because the guiding hand would be gone. Easier to kill all the advanced species, and let the "minnows" grow up and only come in every 50 000 years instead of every year when another species creates more secret synthetics.

Of course, that is basically the ending of ME3, which is why the ending is so exciting, a shift towards chaos and unlimited possibility.

No, just no. If the species is advanced enough to kill the reapers without space magic, they sure as hell don't take any crap from their own creations.

[likta_]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

likta_ wrote...

Why would they believe that synthetics will inevitably wipe out all organic life? It never happened before. And why wouldn't they just roam the galaxy and kill off all synthetics? Because the damn ending does not make any sense, that's why.

Because the 3 years of in-game time is indicative of that.

In recent ME history, the quarians were almost wiped out by the geth. It's irrelevant to the Reapers whose fault it was.

For all you know, the Reapers sleep with one eye open at night, paranoid from all the wars they've fought with sentient toasters in the last billion years.

The geth never were hostile to begin with, that is not an indication in the slightest. The REAPERS are the reason geth started to become hostile.

[Nekroso22]

The problem, OP, isn't that the stated purpose of the Reapers is silly. It isn't even the circular logic the Catalyst used to describe their existence (call it what you will, the "Yo dawg" picture sums up Catalyst's explanation nicely.)

The problem is that Catalyst's explanation rewrites the Reapers. It changes them from vast, unknowable machine intelligences to "we're-only-trying-to-help-you-just-don't-understand" cartoon villains. Some people have argued that they thought this explanation helped keep the Reapers' intentions vague, but I think it goes too far. It's a little late to rewrite the backstory for two other games.

That's not to say that the themes of ME3 couldn't be good in another setting, mind you. It's just that it lacks consistency with the established Mass Effect canon.

[GnusmasTHX]

likta_ wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

likta_ wrote...

Why would they believe that synthetics will inevitably wipe out all organic life? It never happened before. And why wouldn't they just roam the galaxy and kill off all synthetics? Because the damn ending does not make any sense, that's why.

Because the 3 years of in-game time is indicative of that.

In recent ME history, the quarians were almost wiped out by the geth. It's irrelevant to the Reapers whose fault it was.

For all you know, the Reapers sleep with one eye open at night, paranoid from all the wars they've fought with sentient toasters in the last billion years.

The geth never were hostile to begin with, that is not an indication in the slightest. The REAPERS are the reason geth started to become hostile.

Seeing as how you clearly never played any of the games, I'm just going to leave.

[Armass81]

likta_ wrote...

GnusmasTHX wrote...

likta_ wrote...

Why would they believe that synthetics will inevitably wipe out all organic life? It never happened before. And why wouldn't they just roam the galaxy and kill off all synthetics? Because the damn ending does not make any sense, that's why.

Because the 3 years of in-game time is indicative of that.

In recent ME history, the quarians were almost wiped out by the geth. It's irrelevant to the Reapers whose fault it was.

For all you know, the Reapers sleep with one eye open at night, paranoid from all the wars they've fought with sentient toasters in the last billion years.

The geth never were hostile to begin with, that is not an indication in the slightest. The REAPERS are the reason geth started to become hostile.

What about the heretics?

And what prevents geth, tough they are peaceful now, to come to a new concensus in the future, one where they see no need for organics at all?

[Ajensis]

Tregon wrote...
Except that disregards possibility of organic life becoming so powerful synthetics, like Reapers, have no hope.
Transcending their consciousness into some for of godhood or whatever. Reapers are not saying that synthetics might become too powerful, but that they WILL become too powerful. But it is never proven.

Unproven claim cannot be taken as truth.

Extinction based on flimsy "it MIGHT happen" denies all the sapient species chance to try to test their true potential. Their evolution is stopped at aribtrary moment without ability to work it forward.

Obviously the 50.000 years were agreed upon because it was deemed impossible for any race, organic or synthetic, to supercede the Reapers. At least that's what I think.

And yes, what they're doing isn't in the interest of testing our "true potential", but the Catalyst seems to prioritise the continued existence of life higher than its evolutionary potential. Which is a shame, of course, but that's just the way things are

proffbeer wrote...
I'm sorry, but circular logic is, by very definition, illogical. Doesn't matter how you spin it, in the end it all boils down to the same thing. The star child created synthetics, to kill (or harvest, which ever you prefer) organics, to prevent organics from building synthetics that kill organics. The sad part is, i still sit here in stupefied awe at the level of absurdity that statement has. It just doesn't make sense at any level. If the Star Child is as all powerful and all knowing as it came off to be, then it would have found a far better solution then the circular logic it created.

I'm not trying to spin it any way. Look, the difference here is how the organics are killed.

The Reapers: limiting genocide to sentient species, allowing all other organic life to continue and evolve for the next 50.000 years.

Potential threat created by organics that have reached dangerous heights without the Reapers to keep them down: potential genocide of all sentient species without allowing e.g. neanderthals to develop into today's human beings.

There's a difference. The Reapers wish to preserve life by setting us back when we start growing too powerful. Without them we might create something too devastating. Think of the atomic bomb and the danger of a nuclear war - then multiply to add to the whole galaxy. I'm not saying it's probable, but it's possible. It's not circular logic to have the Reapers kill us with every Cycle I hope you see the difference now. If not, feel free to point out where you think my argument is wrong and we'll take it from there.

Nekroso22 wrote...

The problem, OP, isn't that the stated purpose of the Reapers is silly. It isn't even the circular logic the Catalyst used to describe their existence (call it what you will, the "Yo dawg" picture sums up Catalyst's explanation nicely.)

The problem is that Catalyst's explanation rewrites the Reapers. It changes them from vast, unknowable machine intelligences to "we're-only-trying-to-help-you-just-don't-understand" cartoon villains. Some people have argued that they thought this explanation helped keep the Reapers' intentions vague, but I think it goes too far. It's a little late to rewrite the backstory for two other games.

That's not to say that the themes of ME3 couldn't be good in another setting, mind you. It's just that it lacks consistency with the established Mass Effect canon.

To your first paragraph: I disagree. The "Yo dawg" picture is a misrepresentation of the Reapers - see the reply to proffbeer directly above

I acknowledge that you would've preferred another purpose for the existence of the Reapers. I wouldn't mind a different explanation myself. I'm not trying to convince you that their purpose is a good one in terms of quality

Militarized wrote...

I feel like I've had to say this over and over and over...

Singularity "theory" or "philosophy", whichever you prefer, is cliche, mundane, asinine, ignorant, unimaginative, tasteless and all around just plain f#!$!ing stupid.

It is essentially "technophobia", stating progress is BAD and putting that progress into the form of an AI. We have no way of knowing how an AI would react to sentience... we don't have a proper perspective on this and it insults humanities progress towards a better tomorrow. Everytime we have a leap in technology we seem to drastically improve as a species. Violence is, statistically, on the decline and a large part of that is because of one of our new
inventions... the internet. We are headed toward becoming a class 1 civilization, if we can refrain from the fear mongering that something like a Singularity theory proposes... we just have to keep our baser instincts like this fear mongering in check.

I do not believe it's BioWare's intention to make us frightful of technological advancement. Just because it's indirectly the motivation of their main villans doesn't mean it represents the view carried forth. If anything, it's the opposite: we destroy (or otherwise overcome) the Reapers, after all I don't think anyone playing Mass Effect will carry the Catalyst's fear of created-life-killing-us with them into real-life.

Modifié par Ajensis, 19 mars 2012 - 12:10 .

[likta_]

Seeing as how you clearly never played any of the games, I'm just going to leave.

What? Its explained in the consensus that the Quarians tried to kill the Geth, the Geth acted in self defense, and seized all hostility once the Quarians left Rannoch. Once Sovereign showed up, 5% of the Geth, the "Heretics" followed the Reapers and began beeing violent.

[Militarized]

I feel like I've had to say this over and over and over...

Singularity "theory" or "philosophy", whichever you prefer, is cliche, mundane, asinine, ignorant, unimaginative, tasteless and all around just plain f#!$!ing stupid.

It is essentially "technophobia", stating progress is BAD and putting that progress into the form of an AI. We have no way of knowing how an AI would react to sentience... we don't have a proper perspective on this and it insults humanities progress towards a better tomorrow. Everytime we have a leap in technology we seem to drastically improve as a species. Violence is, statistically, on the decline and a large part of that is because of one of our new inventions... the internet. We are headed toward becoming a class 1 civilization, if we can refrain from the fear mongering that something like a Singularity theory proposes... we just have to keep our baser instincts like this fear mongering in check.

[Joccaren]

The problem is not with the whole 'Singularity' part of the ending, but with the method that is carried out.
A three year old child could come up with a better 'Solution' than the Catalyst: Wipe out all Synthetics when they rise up. Why wipe out Organics? They are the ones you are trying to protect. Wipe out the ones you are trying to protect them from.
By the Reaper's logic, we should go into places effected by the War on terrorism and kill every civilian over the age of 14, to stop them from being recruited and enslaved by terrorists. The far better method is to go in and try to stop the terrorists themselves, rather than those who will be effected by it.

[likta_]

What about the heretics?

And what prevents geth, tough they
are peaceful now, to come to a new concensus in the future, one where
they see no need for organics at all?

If it was not for the Sovereign, the Geth would not have concluded that it makes sense to follow "the old machines". There is no consensus anymore, every geth is now an individual.

Edit: BUH, edit fail sorry

Modifié par likta_, 19 mars 2012 - 11:58 .

[Myrmedus]

Iwillbeback wrote...

likta_ wrote...

@Ajensis

1.) It never happened before because there IS life in the galaxy, and there is no malevolent synthetic species hell bend on killing everything except for the reapers, which have no desire to kill off all life.

Life could of been extinct in the sense there were no clear organics that were capable advancing to something greater and then after time it started up again and the cycle began soon after.

Well if that's the case what's the need for the Reapers' cycle?

[Armass81]

Joccaren wrote...

The problem is not with the whole 'Singularity' part of the ending, but with the method that is carried out.
A three year old child could come up with a better 'Solution' than the Catalyst: Wipe out all Synthetics when they rise up. Why wipe out Organics? They are the ones you are trying to protect. Wipe out the ones you are trying to protect them from.
By the Reaper's logic, we should go into places effected by the War on terrorism and kill every civilian over the age of 14, to stop them from being recruited and enslaved by terrorists. The far better method is to go in and try to stop the terrorists themselves, rather than those who will be effected by it.

I elaborated on this already, you cut the root of the cancer out, you dont just destroy the cancer when it appears. Catalyst AI thinks this is more efficient, and it is. It doesnt care what civilization is alive, tough it does "preserve" them through horrible means, its main purpose is to ensure there is continuation of life in the galaxy. If AI's ever grow powerful enough, nothing would be able to stop them, not even the reapers. They would consume everything, all resources, all life would be destroyed. Forever.

Modifié par Armass81, 19 mars 2012 - 12:07 .

[dointime85]

Of course, there is a certain logic to what the Reapers do. What's missing is the option to say "I've had enough of your disingenious assertions" and see how things turn out if you refuse to choose either one of the options because you either think that

1. Preemptive Genocide is never ever justified
2. You can never extrapolate past experience to the future when free sentient beings are involved (kind of related to one)
3. The preservation of humanity in the form of a reaper doesn't generally appeal to you (maybe because there is no such thing as the essence of the species, when individuals are so vastly different)
4. That there's nothing that suggests that organic life has a higher intrinsic value than highly developed, self-aware synthetic life.

But I do understand that the OP did not intend to defend the Reapers' logic per se. Just wanted to make my point clear.

[Tocquevillain]

likta_ wrote...

Tocquevillain wrote...

Vergil_dgk wrote...

...or the reapers could just wait until such a creation actually arose, then zoom in and destroy it with their god-like powers, then tell sentients to stop creating that kind of stuff or be wiped out - and then zoom out again.

I've seen this idea a few times, and it sounds totally wrong to me every time I read it.

How do you think advanced species would react? They rely on synethetics and technology. If the Reapers came in like mommy and said NO, the advanced species would try to destroy the Reapers, and if they actually succeeded, then the galaxy would truly tilt towards chaos for all time, because the guiding hand would be gone. Easier to kill all the advanced species, and let the "minnows" grow up and only come in every 50 000 years instead of every year when another species creates more secret synthetics.

Of course, that is basically the ending of ME3, which is why the ending is so exciting, a shift towards chaos and unlimited possibility.

No, just no. If the species is advanced enough to kill the reapers without space magic, they sure as hell don't take any crap from their own creations.

Really? Because a) they didn't use space magic, they used an energy weapon that specifically kills Reapers, and the organics (quarians in particular) took a lot of crap from the geth, and were basically flotsam.

[Myrmedus]

Armass81 wrote...

Joccaren wrote...

The problem is not with the whole 'Singularity' part of the ending, but with the method that is carried out.
A three year old child could come up with a better 'Solution' than the Catalyst: Wipe out all Synthetics when they rise up. Why wipe out Organics? They are the ones you are trying to protect. Wipe out the ones you are trying to protect them from.
By the Reaper's logic, we should go into places effected by the War on terrorism and kill every civilian over the age of 14, to stop them from being recruited and enslaved by terrorists. The far better method is to go in and try to stop the terrorists themselves, rather than those who will be effected by it.

I elaborated on this already, you cut the root of the cancer out, you dont just destroy the cancer when it appears. Catalyst AI thinks this is more efficient, and it is. It doesnt care what civilization is alive, tough it does "preserve" them through horrible means, its main purpose is to ensure there is continuation of life in the galaxy. If AI's ever grow powerful enough, nothing wouldnt be able to stop them, not even reapers. They would consume everything, all resources, all life would be destroyed.

The issue with this is I don't see how it can have a good deal of evidence to back up its assertions. This extinction could only have happened once or twice - anything more and I'm not really seeing how organic life lives today, and in the event it does that surely disproves its theory anyway?

[Tocquevillain]

Militarized wrote...

I feel like I've had to say this over and over and over...

Singularity "theory" or "philosophy", whichever you prefer, is cliche, mundane, asinine, ignorant, unimaginative, tasteless and all around just plain f#!$!ing stupid.

It is essentially "technophobia", stating progress is BAD and putting that progress into the form of an AI. We have no way of knowing how an AI would react to sentience... we don't have a proper perspective on this and it insults humanities progress towards a better tomorrow. Everytime we have a leap in technology we seem to drastically improve as a species. Violence is, statistically, on the decline and a large part of that is because of one of our new inventions... the internet. We are headed toward becoming a class 1 civilization, if we can refrain from the fear mongering that something like a Singularity theory proposes... we just have to keep our baser instincts like this fear mongering in check.

....what did I just read and what does it have to do with a video game=]

[Myrmedus]

Tocquevillain wrote...

likta_ wrote...

Tocquevillain wrote...

Vergil_dgk wrote...

...or the reapers could just wait until such a creation actually arose, then zoom in and destroy it with their god-like powers, then tell sentients to stop creating that kind of stuff or be wiped out - and then zoom out again.

I've seen this idea a few times, and it sounds totally wrong to me every time I read it.

How do you think advanced species would react? They rely on synethetics and technology. If the Reapers came in like mommy and said NO, the advanced species would try to destroy the Reapers, and if they actually succeeded, then the galaxy would truly tilt towards chaos for all time, because the guiding hand would be gone. Easier to kill all the advanced species, and let the "minnows" grow up and only come in every 50 000 years instead of every year when another species creates more secret synthetics.

Of course, that is basically the ending of ME3, which is why the ending is so exciting, a shift towards chaos and unlimited possibility.

No, just no. If the species is advanced enough to kill the reapers without space magic, they sure as hell don't take any crap from their own creations.

Really? Because a) they didn't use space magic, they used an energy weapon that specifically kills Reapers, and the organics (quarians in particular) took a lot of crap from the geth, and were basically flotsam.

The Quarians weren't strong enough to kill the Reapers...so I'm not really sure what you're getting at there.

[Hellosanta]

I'm not going to say catalyst's logic is wrong. It has weakness and flaw though. I just don't believe that every civilization falls in the very same cycle and the logic of his. Even he admits that the cycle is now broken and he needs a new solution. Shepard, Legion, Tali and EDI basically shows that the cycle cannot be continued as catalyst has assumed. A very slight error or a just single subject that does not fit in the cycle will break the cycle eventually. This kind of reminds me of the Korean RPG game, The War of Genesis which talks about the concept of Möbius strip in the universe.
And I don't even know what I'm talking about here ...

[Myrmedus]

Tocquevillain wrote...

Militarized wrote...

I feel like I've had to say this over and over and over...

Singularity "theory" or "philosophy", whichever you prefer, is cliche, mundane, asinine, ignorant, unimaginative, tasteless and all around just plain f#!$!ing stupid.

It is essentially "technophobia", stating progress is BAD and putting that progress into the form of an AI. We have no way of knowing how an AI would react to sentience... we don't have a proper perspective on this and it insults humanities progress towards a better tomorrow. Everytime we have a leap in technology we seem to drastically improve as a species. Violence is, statistically, on the decline and a large part of that is because of one of our new inventions... the internet. We are headed toward becoming a class 1 civilization, if we can refrain from the fear mongering that something like a Singularity theory proposes... we just have to keep our baser instincts like this fear mongering in check.

....what did I just read and what does it have to do with a video game=]

...

What it has to do with the video game is that this philosophy the Reapers have is the "Technology Singularity" <_<

[Elyiia]

It's pretty obvious. The reapers are Bioware, the organics are the Mass Effect series and the synthetics are EA. Bioware destroys Mass Effect so that EA can't destroy Mass Effect.

[Silhouett3]

Synthetic-organic conflict is actually backed-up throughout the whole series.Synthetic do not have any use for organics, they isolate themselves from them. On the other side, why did Quarians made war upon Geth? Completely out of fear, fear of possibility that Geth may turn on them at some point. Self-preservation instinct. However we all know their judgement was baseless, illogical. That's why geth turned to Reapers both in ME1 and ME3. That's why they were testing organic reactions by putting false stories on extranet. If it wasn't the hyper-advanced AI code Legion "assumed control", there wouldn't be any alliance with organic society.