374 réponses à ce sujet

[Sunnyhat1]

jerms510 wrote...

The "dark energy" ending would've been even more terrible, imo. doesn't make any sense, was only mentioned briefly in ME2 on Haestrom. I don't know why so many people seem to have such a stark erection for it.

You may not know this but the Mass Effect story was thought out as a whole by the same writer, drew karpyshyn. The dark energy plot was his intention from the start. And the events of ME2 where heading right into his theme (Focus on humans / creation of human reaper).

But said writer left Bioware after ME2. And his replacement changed the plot (or rather the final twist) to the fisco we have now.

[dointime85]

commandergodchild wrote...

Indeed organics can build something incredibly destructive to the galaxy, its called the catalyst. And the right thing to do is shoot it in the face, not play by its arbitrary rules that doom the galaxy to a dark age.

But it is destroyed in two of the three endings (as far as the citadel is concerned) and totally out of function when you take its place and control the reapers. Shooting the child in the face makes as much sense as shooting Avina.

[ShaneP]

dointime85 wrote...
It's the Crucible which opened up the new possibilities. They were non-existent for the catalyst as a program, before.

It didn't need the crucible for the option to just butt out and let nature take it's course. That option was available to it, it just chose to arrogantly assume that not only did it have the right answers to what chaos leads to (Which in itself is paradoxical, it's called chaos for a reason) but that it knew what was best for organic civilisations.

Modifié par ShaneP, 24 mars 2012 - 08:45 .

[Evil Minion]

Opsrbest wrote...

terdferguson123 wrote...

omntt wrote...

Op i'm sorry but i have to say that after 5 pages i still find the starchild to be either a liar or a retard...

It's an AI that had created a solution with no regard whatsoever to morals, it cannot be a "retard" (why use that word anyways, sais a lot about you, sorry to be judgemental but well there it is). I said it in the OP, you cannot expect to understand it's purpose when looking at it from a moral perspective.

It's not an AI though. An AI has the capacity to exceed itself beyond the original goal. The only way to expain the Catalyst to have existance without any form of AI adaptation to any of the information it would have had or plausible outcomes would be if it didn't exist at all until the Crusable. And when the Catalyst states "I control the Reapers" it says that isn't possible. A VI on the other hand would function in a similar manner as an AI but without the capacity for change. The possibilites it gives are too finite for an AI and it doesn't consider the fact that the Catalyst and it's Reapers have been influencing organic life X number of cycles.

It's premise and logic are wrong and an AI would adapt to that. The means of using synthetic life created by two cycles in order to defeat those cycles and using indoctrination to succeed the point of conflict add to that. It's not adaptive thinking. It's linear thinking.

Unless.....

From the point of view of the AI itself.....

The premise and "logic" are correct.

Or the AI is friggen nuts. In ME1, an AI goes rogue and starts killing everyone on the moon base. If something has the potential to be "logical," then it has the potential to be "illogical," even while believing its "illogic" is "logical." The "psycho AI" on Luna Base was an AI who was not being "logical."

And, judging by The Geth, AI has limits to how far it can "adapt" itself. The Geth needed to download the "Reaper Code" in order to become an individuals, but they couldn't just decide to upend their original "programming" and become "individuals" of their own free will. They needed to download an entirely different program for it to work.

Modifié par Evil Minion, 24 mars 2012 - 08:47 .

[Nefelius]

Catalyst's logic makes no sense not because he sees everything from an AI's perspective.
He couldn't built himself, then built the Reapers. There must have been an organic race that made him and programmed with this crap. Why?

[terdferguson123]

bronzerevolution wrote...

The issue is, the mathematical aim to prevent life's destruction makes no sense. Surely the Reapers have destroyed much more life than if AIs rebelled against organics. So, does the Catalyst truly aim to protect life from destruction, or does it stand to gain from the reaping?

They have destroyed more only because they are not allowing the AI's to rebel. You see what I am saying? The Catalyst's logic is all about a "What-If" analysis, and preventing it from ever happening.

[KrabFace]

Why are people trying to justify the logic?
It doesn't make sense. End of story

[defenestrated]

Evil Minion wrote...

Or the AI is friggen nuts. In ME1, an AI goes rogue and starts killing everyone on the moon base. If something has the potential to be "logical," then it has the potential to be "illogical," even while believing its "illogic" is "logical." The "psycho AI" on Luna Base was an AI who was not being "logical."

Pretty sure that was a VI.

[terdferguson123]

Nefelius wrote...

Catalyst's logic makes no sense not because he sees everything from an AI's perspective.
He couldn't built himself, then built the Reapers. There must have been an organic race that made him and programmed with this crap. Why?

You are right that it didn't build itself, however, what we do know from EDI is that AI's can eventaully develop their own thoughts. Theres no reason to believe that the Catalyst was originally programmed this way. The most logical answer that I think anyone can give is that the original race that created the catalyst was destroyed by Synthetics, hence why it came to this conclusion.

Modifié par terdferguson123, 24 mars 2012 - 08:49 .

[fropas]

Sunnyhat1 wrote...

jerms510 wrote...

The "dark energy" ending would've been even more terrible, imo. doesn't make any sense, was only mentioned briefly in ME2 on Haestrom. I don't know why so many people seem to have such a stark erection for it.

You may not know this but the Mass Effect story was thought out as a whole by the same writer, drew karpyshyn. The dark energy plot was his intention from the start. And the events of ME2 where heading right into his theme (Focus on humans / creation of human reaper).

But said writer left Bioware after ME2. And his replacement changed the plot (or rather the final twist) to the fisco we have now.

Thanks sunny,

I didn't know that was how it could have ended . . .At least now I know the star child is full of BS. . .Too bad Drew left.

[Evil Minion]

Nefelius wrote...

Catalyst's logic makes no sense not because he sees everything from an AI's perspective.
He couldn't built himself, then built the Reapers. There must have been an organic race that made him and programmed with this crap. Why?

That's my guess. Silly organics built a bunch of silly machines.

But why The Reapers go a-reaping is irrelevant to the main point f the story.

[dointime85]

ShaneP wrote...

dointime85 wrote...
It's the Crucible which opened up the new possibilities. They were non-existent for the catalyst as a program, before.

It didn't need the crucible for the option to just butt out and let nature take it's course. That option was available to it, it just chose to arrogantly assume that not only did it have the best answers but that it knew what was best for organic civilisations.

Well yes but no.  No, because it simply executed the purpose for which it was built. I doesn't have an understanding that its preservation of organic life does not work because it doesn't understand what makes life valuable. As some others have said, it's like it doesn't understand the difference between a lion which walks around the savannah and a taxidermized (thanks, Chuck Testa for teaching me this lexical item) lion in a museum. It's simply an AI with flawed and limited capabilities in this regard.

[Penitent]

terdferguson123 wrote...

(Protracted unsubstantiated opinion.)

/Fixed.

[Evil Minion]

defenestrated wrote...

Evil Minion wrote...

Or the AI is friggen nuts. In ME1, an AI goes rogue and starts killing everyone on the moon base. If something has the potential to be "logical," then it has the potential to be "illogical," even while believing its "illogic" is "logical." The "psycho AI" on Luna Base was an AI who was not being "logical."

Pretty sure that was a VI.

Actually, it was EDI.

[fropas]

defenestrated wrote...

Evil Minion wrote...

Or the AI is friggen nuts. In ME1, an AI goes rogue and starts killing everyone on the moon base. If something has the potential to be "logical," then it has the potential to be "illogical," even while believing its "illogic" is "logical." The "psycho AI" on Luna Base was an AI who was not being "logical."

Pretty sure that was a VI.

LOL a VI programmed to attack organics during training simulations. Of course it killed people when it went rogue.

Modifié par fropas, 24 mars 2012 - 08:52 .

[AlexMBrennan]

He couldn't built himself, then built the Reapers. There must have been an organic race that made him and programmed with this crap. Why?

Zeroth law rebellion.

tvtropes says...
This trope is named for Isaac Asimov's "Zeroth Law of Robotics", which followed the spirit of the first three, taking it to its logical conclusion that human life itself must be preserved above individual life. This allowed for a robot to kill humans or value its own existence above that of a human if it would help all of humanity.

[21constable]

But is the catalyst an AI or a godlike being?

Modifié par 21constable, 24 mars 2012 - 08:51 .

[dointime85]

Evil Minion wrote...

The premise and "logic" are correct.

Or the AI is friggen nuts. In ME1, an AI goes rogue and starts killing everyone on the moon base. If something has the potential to be "logical," then it has the potential to be "illogical," even while believing its "illogic" is "logical." The "psycho AI" on Luna Base was an AI who was not being "logical."

I found it pretty hilarious to learn in ME3 that this was EDI. To me it sounded like she was an AI in her adolescence these days. You know, these teenagers can get really irrational.

[Welsh Inferno]

Nefelius wrote...

Catalyst's logic makes no sense not because he sees everything from an AI's perspective.
He couldn't built himself, then built the Reapers. There must have been an organic race that made him and programmed with this crap. Why?

My guess is that, that race advanced far enough that they made themselves into the original Reapers. The leviathan of Dis was a Reaper, but it was said to be an "organic ship" unlike the reapers who appear metallic. I'm thinking that Leviathan was one of the earliest Reapers, still being mostly organic and capable of organic thought somehow. I then think over some time they slowly became stagnant and developed flawed logic, and thus created an AI to control and protect Organic life as a whole. 

Well in my headcanon atleast I guess.

[Nefelius]

Let's assume that billions of years ago there was a race that created the Relays, Citadel, Catalyst and the Reapers.
Maybe, after certain events, they thought of this all "yo, dawg' crap and begun the cycles.

What bugs me - is when Catalyst says that "Synthesis" is the desirable destination of evolution. Like it's the best thing to do to end the conflict. Why that race of space magic wielders that have built all those massive stuff did not think about building their own Crucible (or any other similar device) that would allow them merge everything. Why did they not think about it and created the "Reaper crap"? They WANTED the synthesis, but decided to commit mass genocide every 50k years instead.

[Evil Minion]

KrabFace wrote...

Why are people trying to justify the logic?
It doesn't make sense. End of story

+1.

I've never needed to agree with "villain logic" before, and I don't now.

C-SEC Officer: "Why can't the Hanar act in an orderly fashion?"
Shep: "Because it's a big, stupid jellyfish."

ME Fans: "Why doesn't Reaper logic make sense."
Evil Minion: "Because they're a bunch of stupid, giant, metal squids."

[SentinelBorg]

cavs25 wrote...

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

This could be explained by the idea of Intelligence Explosion,
meaning that a AI could enhance itself much faster than any organics
and that it then could already be too late when the Reapers arrive.

terdferguson123 wrote...

Welsh Inferno wrote...

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.

I can almost guarantee it would take a LOT longer than 10k years to reestabilish mass effect style relay technology. 

I disagree. The current species already built miniature Mass Relays in
the case of their FTL comm buoys and the Protheans even created the
Conduit. While the Protheans may have been a bit more advanced (I think
they are mostly overhyped, because the current species thought for a
long time, that they built the Citadel and the Relay network), the
current species have the advantage of a lot of dead Reaper tech and also
of a real motivation.
Also don't forget, that the Salarians are
still in pretty good shape and that the Asari were not nearly hit as
hard as the Humans and Turians.

My guess would be that a first
Conduit sized Mass Relay will be build in the next one hundred years and
there will be a new Relay Network in the next five hundred years.

Abirn wrote...

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.

Don't mention the plot hole!

Modifié par SentinelBorg, 24 mars 2012 - 08:55 .

[operageek]

Thanks for posting this. It is the most clear reasoning behind StarChild I have heard yet - I was totally bewildered by him. It helps me not detest the ending quite so much.

Out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts on the choices StarChild proposes to Shepard, and how they might represent a solution to him? Because I am still lost there. It seems to me that regardless of the option chosen, the galactic community still has the capacity to make itself extinct by creating synthetics. Starchild only brings it up with the "destroy" option, so is there a reason why organics in the "control" option or the organic-synthetic hybrids of the "synthesis" option wouldn't repeat the same pattern, eventually?

[Salvatore510]

Oh for the love of God, THE CATALYST IS LYING! Not telling the truth! Feeding you lies! guiding you to try to get you to do what he wants you to do! For all we know, the mass relays may actually be fine! How do I know this? Well how about the fact that, despite the fact it says that shepard will be killed if he choses destruction, if you have a high enough EMS, shepard is still alive at the end. it tries to make you believe that you can control the reapers yourself, to which I respond like this: You will fail in the long run. Your control will weaken. sure, you may give the galaxy a few new cycles before they come back to wreck your ****, but you still fail.

And don't even get me started on the synthesis ending.

TL;DR: Starchild is talking bull**** and shepard never made it to the catalyst. The Starchild is most likely a reaper. Ignore his suggestions and destroy those buckets of bolts!

[Welsh Inferno]

Nefelius wrote...

Let's assume that billions of years ago there was a race that created the Relays, Citadel, Catalyst and the Reapers.
Maybe, after certain events, they thought of this all "yo, dawg' crap and begun the cycles.

What bugs me - is when Catalyst says that "Synthesis" is the desirable destination of evolution. Like it's the best thing to do to end the conflict. Why that race of space magic wielders that have built all those massive stuff did not think about building their own Crucible (or any other similar device) that would allow them merge everything. Why did they not think about it and created the "Reaper crap"? They WANTED the synthesis, but decided to commit mass genocide every 50k years instead.

I think I hate that most about the Synthesis ending.