465 réponses à ce sujet

[CaptainZaysh]

shinobi602 wrote...

Some? You mean vast majority?

How the **** does it protect them? They are melted into **** by force, and thrown into a megamachine that itself doesn't have free will but instead simply follows commands by spacekid. What kind of "preservation" is that? In fact it's not even explained. Are their consciences still there? Are their souls floating somewhere in limbo? Sounds like a splendid way to "ascend".

It believes it preserves them in Reaper form.  You can disagree that such an end is desirable (as I did, in a hail of bullets!) but the Catalyst clearly believes it is preserving them.

I find the speculation about the consciousnesses really fascinating (see the cut text above!).  What I find most intriguing is that no Reapers rebel.  Does that mean they're controlled in some way?  Are the consciousnesses altered copies?  Or are they fused somehow into some superconsciousness, that could no more go back to being one of billions of individuals than we could contemplate returning to ****** heidelbergensis?

[Fnordamatic]

Obviously, the Reapers are incredibly advanced, and the "Star Child" (whatever he actually is) has access to vast knowledge.

So, with that in mind, why couldn't he just invent a way to save organic species under potential threat from synthetics instead of destroying them?

You know, why not just appear in a massive mothership or something and say, "Hey! I'm taking you all to some new paradise on another planet I've been setting up for you for thousands of years so you don't all get killed!"

Or any number of other viable solutions. But instead he chose to wage galactic war, killing billions in the process, processing entire species into paste to assimilate them into cosmic death machines... in order to save them.

[katamuro]

really you are trying to debunk a humorous image?

[Xenoaroe]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Talogrungi wrote...

The Reaper "solution" would have been credible had they turned out to be ark ships capable of storing the consciousness of each "reaped" individual...

That is the implication.  A realm of existence beyond your understanding.  Check out this cut text from ME2:

It was lonely. It called to us.
It wanted to remember. The Masters had been gone so long.
The Masters were lost when it was shattered.
Currents swept through their inner worlds. They were turned to noise. Babble.
The worlds were empty. But the body lived. It lay fallow.
The heart pumped. The lungs breathed. But the mind forgot the Masters.
It called and They did not answer.
We have become an echo of Their echo.
We have become more than we were.
Join us. Know us. Remember all our lives.
We are no longer afraid.
You would never be lonely again.
We are not your enemy. We only wish to share ourselves.
We can join them. We can be like them.
We can reach the end of evolution.
Do not fear. It is wonderful to be us. We understand ourselves.
You cannot defeat them. They will lead us into eternity.
If you could only see how we see. Know what we've learned.
They were called imshai. Those who lived here before.
Reaper. One. A mechanical device used to cut ripened grain. Two. One who gathers a harvest.
Harvest. One. The consequence of an event or series of events. Two. The yield of a growing season. Three. To gather.
Shepard. They know you. They wish you to understand. They are shepherds, too.

Where did you snag that cut text? I'd be interested in seeing more.

[Militarized]

[quote]CaptainZaysh wrote...

Yes but our civilization would be destroyed, let's assume it's a hyper intelligent organic whose culture has evolved into a parasite like society, having wasted their own world to nothing. Stephen Hawkings example is perfect. They travel from system to system, destroying any and all life in their path with their superior technology and draining all the worlds they find of resources. Hypothetically, irl, they could travel around our universe by consuming suns and creating wormholes to travel around our galaxy with. That would surely be even WORSE then the proposed singularity theory in Mass Effect. [/quote]

Sure, but again, that's not the problem the Reapers are there to solve.  They're the Singularity Police.

 [/quote] 

I suppose that's a valid argument but I'd still say it's asinine. Why limit it's self to one theoretical/not set in stone problem when there are more concrete ones when it comes to saving organic civilization? For supporting Mac Walters "speculation for everyone" poor writing is the only answer I can come up with to that. 

[quote]CaptainZaysh wrote... 

Not quite!  The concept is to save advanced organic civilisation from executing the singularity. 
 [/quote] 

Ugh, now we're being nitpicky IMO . Again, why would he limit his purpose of saving us to just one potential disaster among so many? It is... again.. asinine and logically incoherent. He talks about it with such finality as if it's the biggest threat to us when there's so many more *facepalm*. 

[quote]CaptainZaysh wrote...  
I see no difference between one organic civilization that will eventually burn it's self out destroying everyone it runs into and a synthetic that would do the same/similar. [/quote]

Yeah, but that's because you're not an AI.  The fact that the Catalyst doesn't seem at all interested in expanding its mission is actually one of the things I find most interesting about it.  It's the kind of device I could easily see some government department somewhere cooking up, inadvertently dooming their whole civilisation because the thing was too damn synthetic to understand that the plan it cooked up was insane. 
 [/quote] 

I do also suppose that answers my asinine logic problem but if a tech singularity is true, would this AI child ALSO represent a tech singularity in and of it's self? Wouldn't it become a super intelligence able to comprehend all our problems? Or go rogue? 

[quote]CaptainZaysh wrote...   
Yep, absolutely.  Also in favour of your argument the geth had 300 years to evolve past us and they're still building the hardware to do so (their Dyson Sphere).

That said, I think that lots of smart people today feel the tech singularity is inevitable.  In a universe with EDI and the geth I'd feel inclined to fall on their side of the debate. 
[/quote]  

There was a previous discussion where someone in the IT field replied to me, tech singularity is entirely based on Moores Law that technology will progress indefinitely... without Moores Law the entire theory literally falls flat on it's face. Moores Law is already proving to be fallible as we speak, we are no longer progressing in the leaps and bounds we were before due to a couple issues we are attempting to work around. As of right now though it may look like we may stagnate, rendering this whole argument null and void. 

[quote]CaptainZaysh wrote...    

Again, not their job.  They're the Singularity Police.  (Maybe if you picked the Control option you could turn them toward projects like that.)

[/quote]

Again, see above . 

From my perspective Singularity Police is applying an arbitrary limitation to make sense of the weaksauce narrative we've been presented. This is inherently the problem with Mass Effects ending... narrative cohesion has been totally lost because we have so many questions, we're picking at what seems like a loose thread and now the entire couch is falling apart. It's ridiculous. I could have written a better ending and I'm not even a writer. >.< 

Modifié par Militarized, 28 mars 2012 - 03:56 .

[shinobi602]

CaptainZaysh wrote...
It believes it preserves them in Reaper form.  You can disagree that such an end is desirable (as I did, in a hail of bullets!) but the Catalyst clearly believes it is preserving them.

I find the speculation about the consciousnesses really fascinating (see the cut text above!).  What I find most intriguing is that no Reapers rebel.  Does that mean they're controlled in some way?  Are the consciousnesses altered copies?  Or are they fused somehow into some superconsciousness, that could no more go back to being one of billions of individuals than we could contemplate returning to ****** heidelbergensis?

Dude, you've been arguing this whole time when that is what we want. We want answers. Nothing is explained. There needs to be closure and answers. The Catalyst says he controls them. They do what he tells them to do. What's worse is that Shepard believes what this abomination says without a second thought. Just boom, right there, cold stop goes ahead and falls for whatever it says.

Your post about the cut content is irrelevant. It was cut for a reason. Bioware didn't want that to be in the game, thus it is not canon in this context and is not for the general viewer's eyes.

When Shepard defied all odds in ME1/ME2. Said "I can do it" when so many so he/she couldn't. Never accepted anyone's bull****, instead made his/her own destiny, and fought to the very end when all odds said 'give up'. This last 5 minute sequence was so out of place with the rest of the trilogy. That is why we are so upset. It creates more questions than answers.

Modifié par shinobi602, 28 mars 2012 - 03:57 .

[CaptainZaysh]

Fnordamatic wrote...

Obviously, the Reapers are incredibly advanced, and the "Star Child" (whatever he actually is) has access to vast knowledge.

So, with that in mind, why couldn't he just invent a way to save organic species under potential threat from synthetics instead of destroying them?

The common suggestion is that it could just come in and wipe out the synthetics we create, although of course that does sound more complicated and liable to failure than stopping us from reaching the necessary tech level in the first place.  It has the benefit of not requiring a galactic-scale genocide, but there are all kinds of reasons why that might not bother an AI.

Fnordamatic wrote...
You know, why not just appear in a massive mothership or something and say, "Hey! I'm taking you all to some new paradise on another planet I've been setting up for you for thousands of years so you don't all get killed!"

In many ways that could actually be the way it views Ascension.  

Fnordamatic wrote...
Or any number of other viable solutions. But instead he chose to wage galactic war, killing billions in the process, processing entire species into paste to assimilate them into cosmic death machines... in order to save them.

That's not the objective, and a guy with "Fnord" in his handle ought to know better than to use language to misdirect.

[Belisarius09]

@OP

Just because you've pointed out an outlier doesn't mean the general concept is false. Reapers still harvest aka kill advanced races of organics. The fact that they don't kill those whom haven't advanced doesn't mean they stopped killing off the advanced ones. so no, you're wrong, you haven't debunked the image.

More importantly you fail to understand a simple image. The image and meme is simply pointing out the catalyst's logic was circular, and ultimately nonsensical. Maybe you're the one that doesn't understand the ending.

Modifié par Belisarius09, 28 mars 2012 - 03:57 .

[Icophesis]

 I think you made this thread out of emotion. This isn't what bothers us exactly, its that if the Reapers were so concerned that Organics would be wiped out by Synthetics, why don't they kill the Synthetics instead/why are they killing organics.

We understand the Reapers original purpose of harvesting life for reproduction/their own agendas, but Star Child seems to render this moot.

[CaptainZaysh]

Xenoaroe wrote...

did you snag that cut text? I'd be interested in seeing more.

http://masseffect.li...com/877028.html

[spartan5127]

Icophesis wrote...

 I think you made this thread out of emotion.

He made this thread to troll for clicks to his stream.

[Xenoaroe]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Xenoaroe wrote...

did you snag that cut text? I'd be interested in seeing more.

http://masseffect.li...com/877028.html

Thanks Cap'n.

[Orthodox Infidel]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

You may be right that it would ignore or act benevolently toward organics: the concern, of course, is that it may not.  If we allow a synthetic intelligence to emerge that is many times more intelligent than us, it follows that the possibility it could destroy us is non-zero.

Given a long enough period of time, all non-zero possibilities must eventually occur.

It is true that given a long enough period of time, all non-zero probabilities occur.

The flaw in your argument is that you've assigned a non-zero probability to an event which has never happened. Events which have never happened cannot have any probability assigned to them. We know because organic life still exists, it has never been wiped out. And no, the "it hasn't been wiped out because the Reapers stopped it" argument isn't valid, because it still didn't happen before the Reapers started reaping.

The only exceptions to this rule are trivial events where all relevant variables are known perfectly in advance, such as your odds of winning the lottery.

[Favourite store on the CitadeI]

Elyiia wrote...

We know, the pictures are a simplified image to express displeasure at the endings. End.

[pfellahX]

Do you normally sweat while you type?

Gross.

[Klijpope]

FitScotGaymer wrote...

tobito113 wrote...

These "yo dawg" pictures annoy me too, they keep using it like its some proof is contradiction...

No no one does. At least not seriously.

Someone needs to learn what Satire is.

Erm, these are being used seriously across the interwebs and these boards. And it is not really satire - it is sarcasm, and not particularly clever sarcasm either.

The reasoning is this: Reapers harvest advanced organic civilisations so that they do not create synthetics which would then go on to destroy all organics, not just the advanced ones.

It really isn't rocket science, and it makes everyone using that meme look a bit daft. It makes them look less intelligent than they are and misrepresents the issue to those ignorant of the game.

Essentially, it is a cheap shot that makes proper discussion very difficult. It is also more tiresome than arrow-in-the knee jokes now. Pretty special after only 2 weeks.

[CaptainZaysh]

Militarized wrote...

I suppose that's a valid argument but I'd still say it's asinine. Why limit it's self to one theoretical/not set in stone problem when there are more concrete ones when it comes to saving organic civilization?

Because it's an AI!  It's just following its mission.  I kind of like it: it demonstrates to us why AI is so alien to us, and potentially so dangerous.  It just doesn't compute things like we do; it's a different form of life.  In many ways it's one of the most truly alien creatures we encounter.  The more I think about the Catalyst, the more I like it.

Militarized wrote...
I do also suppose that answers my asinine logic problem but if a tech singularity is true, would this AI child ALSO represent a tech singularity in and of it's self? Wouldn't it become a super intelligence able to comprehend all our problems? Or go rogue?

Not necessarily.  If its shackled to not seek to expand its mission, and to not attempt to improve upon itself (which would seem sensible given its mission) - basically shackled to not become the thing its fighting - then that would explain firstly why the Reapers don't seem to evolve and also why they don't care about anything except the Cycle.

Militarized wrote...
There was a previous discussion where someone in the IT field replied to me, tech singularity is entirely based on Moores Law that technology will progress indefinitely... without Moores Law the entire theory literally falls flat on it's face. Moores Law is already proving to be fallible as we speak, we are no longer progressing in the leaps and bounds we were before due to a couple issues we are attempting to work around. As of right now though it may look like we may stagnate, rendering this whole argument null and void.

Yah.  I'm no expert on that, but my assumption is that our processing power in ME has continued to advance.  Remember we can do FTL travel and move things with our brains in the ME universe too.  

[VerdantSF]

Sorry, but just because a species gets skipped in one cycle, doesn't mean it won't get reaped in the next. It's still a ****ty way to go and still results in genocide.

[CaptainZaysh]

Xenoaroe wrote...

Thanks Cap'n.

*Batarian salute*

[demin8891]

8/10. Would almost rage again.

[Talogrungi]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Talogrungi wrote...

The Reaper "solution" would have been credible had they turned out to be ark ships capable of storing the consciousness of each "reaped" individual...

That is the implication.  A realm of existence beyond your understanding.  Check out this cut text from ME2:

It was lonely. It called to us.
It wanted to remember. The Masters had been gone so long.
The Masters were lost when it was shattered.
Currents swept through their inner worlds. They were turned to noise. Babble.
The worlds were empty. But the body lived. It lay fallow.
The heart pumped. The lungs breathed. But the mind forgot the Masters.
It called and They did not answer.
We have become an echo of Their echo.
We have become more than we were.
Join us. Know us. Remember all our lives.
We are no longer afraid.
You would never be lonely again.
We are not your enemy. We only wish to share ourselves.
We can join them. We can be like them.
We can reach the end of evolution.
Do not fear. It is wonderful to be us. We understand ourselves.
You cannot defeat them. They will lead us into eternity.
If you could only see how we see. Know what we've learned.
They were called imshai. Those who lived here before.
Reaper. One. A mechanical device used to cut ripened grain. Two. One who gathers a harvest.
Harvest. One. The consequence of an event or series of events. Two. The yield of a growing season. Three. To gather.
Shepard. They know you. They wish you to understand. They are shepherds, too.

Lots of speculation for everyone; I read that text and immediately think "that's the ramblings of an insane mind suffering under the self-justification of Reaper indoctrination".

Sure as hell doesn't sound like a preserved consciousness to me.

[Yokokorama]

Still doesn't explain why the Reapers made the Geth bad guys. They go around claiming they're there to maintain order, yet disrupt the very order they claim to want by making a docile synthetic race become hostile.

[Xenoaroe]

Klijpope wrote...

FitScotGaymer wrote...

tobito113 wrote...

These "yo dawg" pictures annoy me too, they keep using it like its some proof is contradiction...

No no one does. At least not seriously.

Someone needs to learn what Satire is.

Erm, these are being used seriously across the interwebs and these boards. And it is not really satire - it is sarcasm, and not particularly clever sarcasm either.

The reasoning is this: Reapers harvest advanced organic civilisations so that they do not create synthetics which would then go on to destroy all organics, not just the advanced ones.

It really isn't rocket science, and it makes everyone using that meme look a bit daft. It makes them look less intelligent than they are and misrepresents the issue to those ignorant of the game.

Essentially, it is a cheap shot that makes proper discussion very difficult. It is also more tiresome than arrow-in-the knee jokes now. Pretty special after only 2 weeks.

I was going to make a comment...




But then I took an arrow to the knee!

[CaptainZaysh]

Orthodox Infidel wrote...
The only exceptions to this rule are trivial events where all relevant variables are known perfectly in advance, such as your odds of winning the lottery.

That doesn't seem to be correct to me.  Let's say we have two kingdoms which will exist in perpetuity (or, at the very least, for the next 3-5 billion years).  One is vastly more powerful than the other and has the capability to destroy it.

Aren't the odds of it at some point developing the intent basically 1?

[CaptainZaysh]

Yokokorama wrote...

Still doesn't explain why the Reapers made the Geth bad guys. They go around claiming they're there to maintain order, yet disrupt the very order they claim to want by making a docile synthetic race become hostile.

They allied with the geth to gain an advantage in the war.  It's the same as Nazi Germany allying with Soviet Russia at the start of WW2.