374 réponses à ce sujet

[terdferguson123]

cavs25 wrote...

terdferguson123 wrote...

rma2110 wrote...

But the catalyst never says that technology will destroy us. It says synthetic life will destroy its creator. Death by killer robots rather than nuclear warhead. So technology is fine as long as it's not sentient. So, why have the Geth not turned on their creators?

The nuclear warfare comment I made was simply to show that technology can create horrible things with the intent of doing good. Just becuase said synthetics have not been created yet, does not mean they never will. To the catalyst, it's mathematically proboble that they will eventually create those synthetics that will destroy galactic life.

What types of mathematics is this God kid using? lol

I'm not sure why you find this so hard to believe? As I have said, technology creates terrible things all the time with the intent of doing good. All it takes is one person to set something completely off, if a life span of billions upon billions of years, the chances of that happening are astounding.

[humes spork]

Starbrat is a synthetic and its logic is not for you to understand. The best you can do is judge it from an organic perspective, which is exactly the point and what the game beats you over the hammer with if you take the time to talk to Legion and EDI and actually consider what they have to say.

Modifié par humes spork, 24 mars 2012 - 07:17 .

[Reverend002]

Have you ever seen I, Robot where Will Smith gets saved instead of a little girl because his chances of living were higher? It's right but it's not right.

Here we are.

[terdferguson123]

Welsh Inferno wrote...

Its pointless to destroy the relays. Life advanced enough to do it once, life WILL advance to a point where we can travel the stars the same way again one day.

Your right, eventually this will happen, it does not change the fact that from an AI perspective who's goal is stop the destruction of all organic life, it will do whatever it can to prolong that even if it fails in it's initial plan.

[lothvamp]

That's like saying a computer should/would "choose" to wipe your hard-drive to keep you from getting a virus that MIGHT wipe your hard-drive. Also, it uses a virus to help it do this *Reapers use of the geth as tools*

[Abirn]

So OP question for you.

If the catalyst was on the citadel the whole time, why did it need soverign to open the citadel relay to darkspace. What was the point of the first 2 games.

[frylock23]

terdferguson123 wrote...

rma2110 wrote...

But the catalyst never says that technology will destroy us. It says synthetic life will destroy its creator. Death by killer robots rather than nuclear warhead. So technology is fine as long as it's not sentient. So, why have the Geth not turned on their creators?

The nuclear warfare comment I made was simply to show that technology can create horrible things with the intent of doing good. Just becuase said synthetics have not been created yet, does not mean they never will. To the catalyst, it's mathematically proboble that they will eventually create those synthetics that will destroy galactic life.

I see, so by this kind of logic, just because it is mathmatically probably that a giant asteroid will hit the earth at some point in the future and cause an apocalypse that will wipe out most of the extant species of life on this planet including mankind ... I ought to just go out and do my best to cause everything to go extinct sooner rather than simply wait for the mathematically inevitable.

Modifié par frylock23, 24 mars 2012 - 07:20 .

[lillitheris]

I'm not sure you understand what an Artificial Intelligence is. It's not a computer.

(Of course we can't rule out that the Catalyst may not be an AI despite thinking it is.)

...

The problem with the logic isn't that I don't believe in the possibility of a species creating an artificial lifeform that gets hissy and destroys everything. The problem is that if you look for a solution that involves a massive robot army, the obvious one is having your massive robot army destroy the *synthetics*. Not the species that creates them and every other species that doesn't, just in case they might.

[H. Birdman]

1. Organics grow back every time. If they didn't, then even one occurrence of the supposedly "inevitable" total extinction would render the reaper cycle unnecessary.
2. Nothing in the series suggests that advanced AI's are limited to "only understanding math". They are clearly capable of making higher level value judgments, as these are really just more complex forms of math.
3. Even if you ignore 1 and 2, showing up every 50,000 years is a staggeringly foolish way to carry out the stated objective of culling advanced civs. What if the reapers came just 1000 years earlier? Humans would not make the termination cut, as they weren't a spacefaring civ. Then they get 49,000 years to develop tech, at which point they could decimate the reapers. Put another way, probability dictates that in 2180 there is some species in the midst of its Rennaissance or Industrial Revolution that will clean the reapers' clocks next time.

[Kawamura]

parasite23 wrote...

Good thoughts, but the starchild doesn't say organics will inevitably destroy themselves, it says organics will inevitably create synthetics and the created will always turn against the creators.

And his conclusion is to destroy the creators as soon as they are capable to create the created who could possible destroy them.

Why doesn't it choose the obvious solution. Destroy synthetics before they can destroy their creators?

Also a problem, yes. The "to preserve organic life" would make sense if that was the only way to, well, preserve it. 

If what's killing life is the advanced synthetic life it produces, which the Reapers can easily control (see: the infecting code) since they are also synthetic, the less resource intensive process would be to just undo the synthetic life. 

[iamthedave3]

terdferguson123 wrote...

cavs25 wrote...

Ummm so why not just wipe out the evil synthetics the organics create?

Because, given enough time, they could potentially create Synthetics more powerful than the Reapers. The best course of action that the Catalyst as a computer with no feelings for organics whatsoever, is to destroy the root of the problem before it can happen.

Okay, but here's the problem.

Why does the Catalyst then give Shepherd the option to Destroy? Why does it give Shepherd any options at all? If the Catalyst has already considered everything and believes it has found the mathematically correct solution, any outcome other than Synthesis should be dismissed out of hand. Shepherd cannot possibly do this job better than the catalyst, so why make the offer? Without the reapers, the creation/destruction process cannot be averted, so why give that option either?

Ultimately you're making it up as you go along, and you have to because we don't know the catalyst's nature, it's original motivation, who made it and who it used to be, or the precise reason for why it's so fatalistic.

Modifié par iamthedave3, 24 mars 2012 - 07:24 .

[WeAreLegionWTF]

cavs25 wrote...

Ummm so why not just wipe out the evil synthetics the organics create?

i was thinking the same thing and had the boys do some tests in the lab... my team came up with this.

[terdferguson123]

frylock23 wrote...

terdferguson123 wrote...

rma2110 wrote...

But the catalyst never says that technology will destroy us. It says synthetic life will destroy its creator. Death by killer robots rather than nuclear warhead. So technology is fine as long as it's not sentient. So, why have the Geth not turned on their creators?

The nuclear warfare comment I made was simply to show that technology can create horrible things with the intent of doing good. Just becuase said synthetics have not been created yet, does not mean they never will. To the catalyst, it's mathematically proboble that they will eventually create those synthetics that will destroy galactic life.

I see, so by this kind of logic, just because it is mathmatically probably that a giant asteroid will hit the earth at some point in the future and cause an apocalypse that will wipe out most of the extant species of life on this planet including mankind ... I ought to just go out and do my best to cause everything to go extinct sooner rather than simply wait for the mathematically inevitable.

An asteroid is not going to cause the extinction of an advanced race of organics. Maybe an underadvanced one, but not an advanced one.

Modifié par terdferguson123, 24 mars 2012 - 07:21 .

[Leafs43]

The catalyst isn't confusing, he just makes no sense.

It's a slap dash, copy and pasted ending the is contrary to what the series was moving towards.

[Kashola]

Would sure like to know the origins of the Reapers to get more clarification on the motives of them.  Instead we are here on the forums filled with...



                                                      SPECULATION 


In any case, OP, i think you did a good job trying to explain the Starchild.  However, i feel his logic still isn't as solid as Mr. Hudson would like us to feel it to be.  

[Jae510]

 It's not that I'm confused about it, it's that it makes no sense to begin with.

"We're going to prevent you from destroying all organic life with synthetics. By destroying ALMOST all organic life with Synthetics."

[Blindspy]

Interesting argument, but we've seen the reapers make decisions before that had nothing to do with their supposedly "purely mathematical" programming. You can find this in nearly every conversation they have with Shepard throughout the games. Heck, just talking to Shepard or anyone else about their goal to destroy galactic civilization is a mathematically inefficient way to go about things - it heightens the chance that the reapers will encounter more resistance.

The rest of the story just doesn't match up with the idea that the reapers can't think outside the bounds of pure mathematical efficiency.

[terdferguson123]

iamthedave3 wrote...

terdferguson123 wrote...

cavs25 wrote...

Ummm so why not just wipe out the evil synthetics the organics create?

Because, given enough time, they could potentially create Synthetics more powerful than the Reapers. The best course of action that the Catalyst as a computer with no feelings for organics whatsoever, is to destroy the root of the problem before it can happen.

Okay, but here's the problem.

Why does the Catalyst then give Shepherd the option to Destroy? Why does it give Shepherd any options at all? If the Catalyst has already considered everything and believes it has found the mathematically correct solution, any outcome other than Synthesis should be dismissed out of hand. Shepherd cannot possibly do this job better than the catalyst, so why make the offer? Without the reapers, the creation/destruction process cannot be averted, so why give that option either?

By the time Shepard reaches that point on the Citadel, the Catalyst knows Shepard has won, at this point it's only option to try and preserve its goal is fire the crucible (preferably from the catalysts side to have shepard control or merge the dna) and destroy the mass effect relays preventing galactic communication and advancement for potentially millions of years.

[terdferguson123]

Jae510 wrote...

 It's not that I'm confused about it, it's that it makes no sense to begin with.

"We're going to prevent you from destroying all organic life with synthetics. By destroying ALMOST all organic life with Synthetics."

Why does that not make sense? It's a computer, it is doing what is most efficient, creating something to destroy the root of the problem before it can destroy EVERYTHING. It makes perfect sense you are just reading way too much into the synthetics stopping synthetics part.

[Welsh Inferno]

terdferguson123 wrote...

Welsh Inferno wrote...

Its pointless to destroy the relays. Life advanced enough to do it once, life WILL advance to a point where we can travel the stars the same way again one day.

Your right, eventually this will happen, it does not change the fact that from an AI perspective who's goal is stop the destruction of all organic life, it will do whatever it can to prolong that even if it fails in it's initial plan.

An AI will also know that just OUR galaxy, forget all the others wil last an incrediblly long long time. Trillions or more years. It will take us a few thousand at the most(10,000?) to be able to start establishing a relay network.  The timeframe it delays us is so short in comparison, that it remains pointless to me.

[Geirahod]

humes spork wrote...

Starbrat is a synthetic and its logic is not for you to understand. The best you can do is judge it from an organic perspective, which is exactly the point and what the game beats you over the hammer with if you take the time to talk to Legion and EDI and actually consider what they have to say.

Even EDI concords that the reaper's existence is pathetic.
You should get that convo to understand why the reapers existance explained by the catalyst has no meaning or logic.

I give you a clue:
Their own preservation, harvesting organics to keep existing as reapers...

Modifié par Geirahod, 24 mars 2012 - 07:28 .

[zsom]

This would actually make sense if it wasn't for the third ending. No AI would choose a solution that has a small chance of failure, cyclic genocide, when there is a seemingly simple and final solution, synthesis.

[Gill Kaiser]

I already got all that from watching the ending. Just because there's some form of extremely twisted logic in there doesn't change the fact that as a plot device, it just doesn't work. It doesn't change the fact that:

- It negates everything the player has accomplished, and deprives them of any form of catharsis.
- It's delivered by a character who was only introduced in the last 10 minutes.
- It flies in the face of Mass Effect's central themes, such as force through unity despite differences, and the fundamental right of all beings to be judged on their own terms.
- Shepard and the player have absolutely no agency, but must mindlessly go along with what the AI says.

However, I know this isn't the point of this thread, so just ignore me.

Modifié par Gill Kaiser, 24 mars 2012 - 07:28 .

[terdferguson123]

lillitheris wrote...

I'm not sure you understand what an Artificial Intelligence is. It's not a computer.

(Of course we can't rule out that the Catalyst may not be an AI despite thinking it is.)

...

The problem with the logic isn't that I don't believe in the possibility of a species creating an artificial lifeform that gets hissy and destroys everything. The problem is that if you look for a solution that involves a massive robot army, the obvious one is having your massive robot army destroy the *synthetics*. Not the species that creates them and every other species that doesn't, just in case they might.

I do understand what an AI is, and whats to say that this AI just does not care about anything but preventing galactic extinction?

[Wabajakka]

I would say this sums it up quite nicely.