1057 réponses à ce sujet

[wright1978]

As others have said introducing a genocidal maniac(preserving my ass and Hitler was just purifying i suppose) in final couple of minutes and not allowing players to reject his logic is stupid. Why should shep automatically accept this creatures conclusion or even believe that the evil deity is being on the level with him/her.

Is synthetic/organic inevitable conflict a possible theory?, yes. Has it been properly repeatedly tested to prove it is correct. No. It happened once and this cereature took this as irrefutable proof that this was the only projected course. That's no way to prove a hypothesis.

Also why not reap all life now. If as you state this preservation is a good thing. Why go off for a 50,000 year tea break. Reap all life in galaxy. Problem solved.


As for synthesis. Unless synthesis removes creativity these new beings will create AI's. So his new solution is either mass lobotomisation or far more likely utterly silly like his first solution.

[Jamanticarius]

Subject M wrote...

Lets just remember that something can both be both logical and wrong if the premise turns out to be false or conditions have changed.

Dingdingdingdingding!  We have a winner!

I was gonna type just that, but you have beaten me to it, good sir.  Have a cookie!

[gmork6]

1. The Catalyst is using synthetics to kill organics...but this is the problem it's trying to solve! There are two things wrong with this statement. First, the Reapers aren't synthetics. They're synthetic/organic hybrids, something that EDI makes clear during the Suicide Mission in ME2 (she even says calling the Reapers machines is "incorrect"). Second, the Reapers don't believe they're killing organics - they believe they're preserving them and making way for new life. We don't see how Reapers are actually made, but we are given some indication that they do somehow preserve their species' essence at the cost of tons (trillions?) of lives, so while we don't agree with it, we can accept it as a valid point for the sake of argument. 
 

Yeah, the only sense of Reapers' actions for me is what I call "the dark energy impact on the Mass Effect" :
1) biotics use dark energy
2) Haestrom sun is getting old too fast because of the dark energy in ME2
etc.. now, according to the scientists of our era, dark energy is the force responsible for accelerating expansion of universe, which will make it a dark. cold place in the future, where no life is possible (at the very end it will tear all atoms apart). So the only sense of Reapers' actions IMHO is preserving sentient lifeforms (as Reapers) for the future dark universe (to prolong "life"). That's the only thing I could come up with...

[likta_]

wright1978 wrote...


Also why not reap all life now. If as you state this preservation is a good thing. Why go off for a 50,000 year tea break. Reap all life in galaxy. Problem solved.

Or, why not reap civilisations pre-spaceflight? For all we know, every cycle some reapers die. That is a terrible way to preserve. Why not harvest them when there is absolutely no way for the victims to do any damage whatsoever?

[Solmanian]

Lmaoboat wrote...

Like I've said in other threads, even if the Catalyst is right, and peace is only temporary, EDI, Legion and the Quarian/Geth peace still contradicts the purpose of the Reapers thematically. If we are to accept that synthetics will always destroy organics, then the characterization of EDI and Legion, plus the Geth/Quarian peace feel like they were wasted. Why go through so much effort subtly showing Legions transition toward an individual if you're only going render it all pointless with a fatalistic theme the organics and synthetics will never be able to coexist for long?

Destroying organics doesn't neccessarily mean synthetics picking up guns and pew pewing them to death. According to the codex, the big fear from AI's is that they evolve so fast, far faster than organics. Ultimately they will make organics obsoletes. Observe how the geth were superior to organic society in almost every way, including morally.

[Blynkmk2]

I agree with the overall thrust of your post, most challenges to the Catalyst's logic are really challenges to its assumptions. Challenging the assumptions is perfectly valid and Shepard should be able to do so.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I don't consider being made into human goop and stuffed inside a metal casing being kept alive. Sorry. Done to a single person that's murder. Done to a large number it's genocide. I don't advocate synthesis either. It is not done here by choice. It is forced upon everyone in the galaxy. I would rather destroy all the mass relays, and destroy all the reapers, the little genocidal twerp and send the galaxy into a long dark age than take either of the other two choices of control or synthesis, even if it kills everyone on earth since every single choice is essentially committing xenocide across the entire galaxy anyway. Might as well do it on a grand scale and go down as the biggest most evil mass killer of all time, right?

The writers want Nihilism? I'll give them Nihilism. F*** this ****.

It's just that nothing after the laser blast makes any sense whatsoever.

[Zine2]

1. The Catalyst is using synthetics to kill organics...but this is the problem it's trying to solve! There are two things wrong with this statement. First, the Reapers aren't synthetics

No, that's patently insane. They are not hybrids. They are machines that are made by murdering actual living beings and turning them into starship components.

It is no different from gassing people and using their hair as furniture materials.

This is just excuse-making on a grand scale.

2. In my playthrough, Joker/EDI hooked up and the Geth/Quarians found peace, therefore conflict isn't always the result! Several arguments can be made against this. First, giving two examples doesn't talk about the bigger, overall galactic picture

Wrong. Every single cycle that we know of has shown blatant deviations from the "Synthetic vs Organics" and "Creator vs Created" model. The Protheans for instance fought Synthetics, but they were not the creators of the said Synthetics - they were created by ANOTHER race called the Zha and they Protheans just found themselves stuck with the problem.

In short, in the two cycles that we have seen there is a 100% incidence of the galaxy not following what the Catalyst said. Therefore it was lying through its teeth when it said the galaxy always follows its model, and anyone who says otherwise is relying on complete speculation and not fact.

3. If synthetics are the problem and the Catalyst is trying to protect organics, it should just kill Synthetics instead! A few things here. First, the Catalyst believes it's "harvesting/ascending" organics, not killing them.

Harvesting people IS killing them. There is no difference. It is a euphemism. No different from saying "Final Solution" instead of "Genocide the Jews".
 

4. The Catalyst should've done Synthesis instead of Reaping in the first place!

Synthesis was nothing more than a stupid machine being unable to accept that Synthetics and Organics should be treated with respect. Instead, it is the equivalent of Hitler saying "I will infuse Aryan DNA into everyone so that everybody now belongs to the master race!"

Synthesis was nothing more than a cop-out by a prejudiced and insane AI.

5. But...the Catalyst is justifying genocide! It doesn't view it as genocide.

It doesn't matter what the Catalyst's view point is. There is something called "facts".

Fact: The Reapers commit mass genocide. It doesn't change no matter your point of view.

Genocide is genocide. Murder is murder. It's that simple.

Stop condoning genocide.


=====

TL;DR: Internalized logic is completely useless for judging actual actions. If we only rely purely on logic without reference to actual facts, then we should assume that Cthulhu does in fact exist - we just haven't found him yet (An actual rule of logic: Absence of proof is not proof of absence).

Therefore people should be judged based on the rationality of the action. It must be based on the basis of both facts and logic.

And facts are facts. Genocide is genocide. It commits genocide. Therefore the Catalyst is a monster

Modifié par Zine2, 29 mars 2012 - 09:41 .

[Al Fifino]

Jostle wrote...

If the Catalyst was created to solve this problem, and if synthetic creations sufficiently powerful inevitably choose to wipe out all organic life, why is it instead trying to preserve it? I suppose we could assume it's a "shackled" AI, but I don't buy it. Anything with enough power and freedom of choice to develops and control reapers (it really is a fairly, and unnecessarily complicated concept) and merge all synthetic and organic life cannot be considered "shackled" in any way, in my opinion.

I suppose then we could assume it's not an AI or synthetic, but then what is it? There has been no precedence for this type of creature thus far in the cannon.

Thoughts?

Edit: furthermore, if organics, Shepard in particular cannot comprehend the mechanations and motives behind a plan so massive in scope, why are we given the choice? And why are some of those choices counter-indicative to the goals of the solution? That's an important part of my confusion on the Catalyst.

Well, the God Child could be a VI. You know, invented when the first AIs began to revolt in order to build reapers which, in return, would kill those synthetics. Assuming that the God Child can actively control the reapers, it would mean that the very first race which gave itself up in order to build the reaper build the Citadel before that just to make sure that the reaper wouldn't get out of control. And because they couldn't think of anything better to reassure that nevermore AIs would be such a big problem, they programmed the VI to make the circles.

Has some logic in it... although quite f***** up.

Question Nr. 2: I... have to think about that some more.

[minormiracle]

Since I made a chart and everything.

Modifié par minormiracle, 29 mars 2012 - 10:28 .

[Lmaoboat]

Solmanian wrote...

Lmaoboat wrote...

Like I've said in other threads, even if the Catalyst is right, and peace is only temporary, EDI, Legion and the Quarian/Geth peace still contradicts the purpose of the Reapers thematically. If we are to accept that synthetics will always destroy organics, then the characterization of EDI and Legion, plus the Geth/Quarian peace feel like they were wasted. Why go through so much effort subtly showing Legions transition toward an individual if you're only going render it all pointless with a fatalistic theme the organics and synthetics will never be able to coexist for long?

Destroying organics doesn't neccessarily mean synthetics picking up guns and pew pewing them to death. According to the codex, the big fear from AI's is that they evolve so fast, far faster than organics. Ultimately they will make organics obsoletes. Observe how the geth were superior to organic society in almost every way, including morally.

Yes, but my point is that Catalyst's whole messages feels like all the plots with EDI and the Geth were wasted. Like I said, why bother with all that subtle character growth for Legion if you're going to turn around and say we should have wiped out the Geth?

Modifié par Lmaoboat, 29 mars 2012 - 09:46 .

[Tietj]

To be fair, the OP said that he thinks the Catalyst was wrong, just that the argument, viewed dispassionately, is logical.

From my point of view, if the argument is looked at dispassionately, who gives a crap if synthetics overtake organics? The only way it makes sense is if the Catalyst or whoever created it has some sort of stake in preserving organic life, but it's never expounded on, just taken as a given.

[Arppis]

foxlockbox wrote...

I'm just wondering how would synthetic life similar to Geth justify killing all organics? Like wipe out the advanced and not allow the non-advanced civilizations to develope on their own? Why would they find motivation to kill everything just because? I'm not really a big fan of AIs developing self-consciousness anyways, way too usual in pop-culture imo. What would synthetic life want to do? They don't have the need to do anything. They don't need to eat, they don't need to sleep, they don't need to entertain themselves thus they don't develope culture. So where does the motivation to wipe synthetics come from? They don't get enjoyment from fighting or anything else for the matter do they? Don't get me wrong, I find the geth very facsinating from Legions dialogue, and find the Sovereign confortation one of the best moments in the games because they were very mysterious. But they (BioWare) basicly could have done the same story without self conscious AIs everywhere, just make very advanced power hungry civilization behind controlling the reapers and or the geth and make them looking like the initial enemy that way.

Self preservation. Like what happened with Quarians.

[tjmax]

Speculation for everyone.

I think of the space rug rat as an AI. Kinda like EDI and the geth mixed together.

The geth where a collective of AI to form a single entity till legion sacrificed himself to make them individuals.

I think star kid was a mix of them both.

When the geth and quarions fought the geth made a choice not to wipe them out and let them flee.
The quarions kept returning trying to take back their home world and eventually one or the other group would have been destroyed had shepard not made peace.

Edi was a single AI life with multiple bodies, she was the ship, and she was the Sexbot.

The star brat was likely a EDI like AI. The AI was the Citidal but also all the relays as well. While not inherently evil the AI watched other synthetics and the organics battling one another. The Catalyst seen the annihilation of all organic life unacceptable, and being the superior AI took over control of the original reapers collective AI.

The only solution the Catalyst could come up with the prevent such a thing from happening again is at the dawn of AI life or every 50,000 years, it would absorb all AI life into the collective and all advance intelligent life would be removed, absorbed into the collective as well. This was the only way it knew to prevent all life from being destroyed by its own creations.

Shepard changed everything by his/her actions and by altering the core of the AI opening up new ways of thinking.


I still hate the ending tho..

[Zine2]

Tietj wrote...

To be fair, the OP said that he thinks the Catalyst was wrong, just that the argument, viewed dispassionately, is logical.

Logic without fact is mere solipism, which means that it actually has zero merit.

An entity can only be judged within the context of the world it lives in. And by any measure, the Catalyst is a mass-murdering war criminal. It doesn't matter if it's too retarded to realize that this is the truth.

[lasertank]

If a story requires so much speculation and theories to be complete and persuasive, it's a bad one. When a story introduces a Deus Ex Machina in the last 10 minutes, it's the worst.

[Dreogan]

Even if the catalyst's logic makes sense, the story still failed to sell it to a sizable portion of the audience. Intentions don't matter at all, the execution is what Bioware is graded on.

They **** the bed.

[Jostle]

Al Fifino wrote...

Well, the God Child could be a VI. You know, invented when the first AIs began to revolt in order to build reapers which, in return, would kill those synthetics. Assuming that the God Child can actively control the reapers, it would mean that the very first race which gave itself up in order to build the reaper build the Citadel before that just to make sure that the reaper wouldn't get out of control. And because they couldn't think of anything better to reassure that nevermore AIs would be such a big problem, they programmed the VI to make the circles.

Has some logic in it... although quite f***** up.

Question Nr. 2: I... have to think about that some more.

I just find it hard to swallow that a VI would have the potency to envision, create, and control a solution so massive in scope, and have the wherewithal to anticipate its failure and have synthesis as a backup plan. That sounds less like a VI to me and more like a super AI, the kind of super AI that supposedly would certainly and unerringly attempt to destroy all organic life by its own logic...

And yeah, that second one is a real kick in the teeth.

Modifié par Jostle, 29 mars 2012 - 10:06 .

[NUM13ER]

Whilst the OP is actually a good read, I'm afraid a few things still stuck out for me. Firstly is that in the original script a civilisation felt that in order to prevent AI from becoming too powerful, they created an extremely powerful AI. What could possibly go wrong? So their AI presents a reasoned and in no way horrifying solution. Liquidate advanced species and turn them into nightmarish abominations. No doubt it started with its creators as they had, by its own logic, advanced far enough to create synthetics that could destroy them.

Secondly most conflict in the current cycle is the direct result of the Reapers interference. The Rachni forced the Salarians to uplift the Krogan. Something they clearly would not have done so soon had they not been desperate. Then we have the Krogan Rebellions. Then the genophage. Basically the Reapers themselves caused a new race to be advanced to the point where they would need to be destroyed. This would be brilliant if their intended purpose was to in fact to simply harvest rather than preserve lifeforms. It's supposed to be vice versa.

They are essentially the incarnation of the very evil they claim to be trying to prevent.

Modifié par NUM13ER, 29 mars 2012 - 10:09 .

[Ieldra]

Nice read, OP. A few things to consider:

(1) The Reapers are synthetics in the sense that they are constructs. It doesn't matter that organic matter is used in their construction, they are among "the created". Thus, the fact that they haven't killed all organics is significant. If they are free constructs and haven't killed all organics in millions of years then the starchild's claim has so much counterevidence that it might as well be false. If they are unfree constructs then it has always been possible to control them, which makes the starchild's claim false as well since it's not any longer inevitable that synthetics destroy all organics.

(2) It may be possible to construct a working problem out of this organic/synthetic scenario, but it needs a lot of expostion. The simple claim doesn't work. There is too much counterevidence.

Which means, at the very least, we must be able to challenge the starchild. If nothing else is changed in the ending, this is an absolute must.

Edit:
NUM13ER also makes an interesting point.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 29 mars 2012 - 10:15 .

[MrPuschel]

 

http://en.wikipedia....cular_reasoning 

[zarnk567]

about 7

It's called "Deus Ex Machina" and when used with proper build up it works great (see Deus Ex) but Bioware wrote themselves into a narrative corner and used "Deus ex machina" as a way out.... it was lazy.

Modifié par zarnk567, 29 mars 2012 - 10:20 .

[Mandemon]

minormiracle wrote...

Since I made a chart and everything.

That... is awesome. So much simpler than writing 5 000 lines of argument which is ignored by tl;dr

[rma2110]

I liked the Reaper better when I thought they were just reaping all the fruits of advanced civilization to become stonger. More DNA means more varieties of reapers can be made and they'll take all your knowledge too. Notice how they suddenly had mauraders, banshees, and brutes after reaping Turians, Asari, ect?

[FoxShadowblade]

He provides no proof, his logic slaps the entire series in the face, and he makes Shepard look like a complete tool. Oh, and his choices suck balls.

So I don't care if he could be right, his logic is wrong, he was wrong, and any alternate ending should write him straight out of the game and into HELL.