1057 réponses à ce sujet

[Subject M]

sp0ck 06 wrote...

marky1607 wrote...

JShepppp wrote...

Welcome to BSN dude, glad to have you here. As for how the Catalyst/Reapers were created, I have no idea at all. As for looping, the idea is to stop it from continuing and reaching a certain point. The loop itself doesn't seem to be a problem to them for some reason, though you're right - the stagnation that it invites is weird for machines to accept. 

Additionally, I agree with the rest of you that argue that this case cannot be reevaluated and changed if organics and synthetics find the way to coexist (like geth and quarians) - hence the circular logic from beginning of my post and computer behavior that doesn't reassess the conditions. And no, I don't see the Crucible as means that jumps in to alternate that "flaud" computer logic because the Reapers themselves should have full situational awareness programmed in them and they should react differently if certain conditions in galaxy are changed and there is no need to reap organic life to ultimately stop synthetic life.

I'm sorry if I don't understand here, but it sounds like you're saying the geth/quarians are irrelevant (Catalyst's opinion) but that it should still reassess its solution. That sounds contradictory so I think I'm misunderstanding something. 

About Reapers being fully aware and autonomous, the Catalyst has control over them, though we don't know if it's their thoughts, actions, or both.

I'm sorry, I've got that statement a little entangled. I agreed with the rest of the fans that have the following point: Catalyst should see that Quarians and Geth are working together and that this is new situation that contradicts Catalysts initial motivation for Reapers. I've wanted to say thet Geth/Quarian cooperation is indeed very relevant and Catalyst didn't include that in the possible outcome.

One thought just came to me. For any given reason, if Catalyst can do all those options (control, synthesis and destroy, for me synthesis is entirely unbelivable), we can conclude that he has almost infine power over galaxy, espicially if he has the means to rewrite DNA. If that is so, there could easily be an option where energy wave rewrites the code of the synthetics to be more ethically and morally openminded towards organics. I can see this as much more plausable solution than energy wave that rearrenges DNA to combine organic and synthetic life. And one more fact - synthetic life has no DNA. Maybe in some future, science will might emulate DNA strands with nanotechnology but it still won't be DNA in true sense.

I don't see how the Quarian/Geth cooperation should change the Catalysts' mind.  Its an alliance only a few days old forged out of complete desperation, and is almost certainly doomed to failure however you look at it.  From the Catalysts' point of view, having observed probably millions of cycles, I don't think "look! these synthetics and organics, who have been fighting for centuries, are currently not killing each other!" is going to change its mind.

The problem is, Shepard should be able to bring this up, and have the Catalyst counter.  That was the problem I had with the Catalyst:  not the idea of it, but how short and one sided the conversation with it was.

For story and rpg reasons of course. If it is something new to the catalyst, something that would invalidate their harvesting and analysis, all that hard work would matter and the player could activly change the outcome of the ending away from the strange no-win situations as dictated by the catalyst. It would mean that the universe was evolving and/or that the problem was not as they thought it was, it would mean that the synthetic threat could be defeated and solved by the accumulated actions of every single being in the galaxy since the beginning of time (including the reapers) - leading up to this particular development and moment in history. Otherwise the peace and cooperation is pretty much meaningless.

If they wanted to go with the AI-organic conflict, they should never have introduced Legion/the Geth and EDI like they did, they should have described them as increasingly hostile and simply incompatible with organic interests.

Modifié par Subject M, 01 mai 2012 - 04:04 .

[marky1607]

sp0ck 06 wrote...

marky1607 wrote...

JShepppp wrote...

Welcome to BSN dude, glad to have you here. As for how the Catalyst/Reapers were created, I have no idea at all. As for looping, the idea is to stop it from continuing and reaching a certain point. The loop itself doesn't seem to be a problem to them for some reason, though you're right - the stagnation that it invites is weird for machines to accept. 

Additionally, I agree with the rest of you that argue that this case cannot be reevaluated and changed if organics and synthetics find the way to coexist (like geth and quarians) - hence the circular logic from beginning of my post and computer behavior that doesn't reassess the conditions. And no, I don't see the Crucible as means that jumps in to alternate that "flaud" computer logic because the Reapers themselves should have full situational awareness programmed in them and they should react differently if certain conditions in galaxy are changed and there is no need to reap organic life to ultimately stop synthetic life.

I'm sorry if I don't understand here, but it sounds like you're saying the geth/quarians are irrelevant (Catalyst's opinion) but that it should still reassess its solution. That sounds contradictory so I think I'm misunderstanding something. 

About Reapers being fully aware and autonomous, the Catalyst has control over them, though we don't know if it's their thoughts, actions, or both.

I'm sorry, I've got that statement a little entangled. I agreed with the rest of the fans that have the following point: Catalyst should see that Quarians and Geth are working together and that this is new situation that contradicts Catalysts initial motivation for Reapers. I've wanted to say thet Geth/Quarian cooperation is indeed very relevant and Catalyst didn't include that in the possible outcome.

One thought just came to me. For any given reason, if Catalyst can do all those options (control, synthesis and destroy, for me synthesis is entirely unbelivable), we can conclude that he has almost infine power over galaxy, espicially if he has the means to rewrite DNA. If that is so, there could easily be an option where energy wave rewrites the code of the synthetics to be more ethically and morally openminded towards organics. I can see this as much more plausable solution than energy wave that rearrenges DNA to combine organic and synthetic life. And one more fact - synthetic life has no DNA. Maybe in some future, science will might emulate DNA strands with nanotechnology but it still won't be DNA in true sense.

I don't see how the Quarian/Geth cooperation should change the Catalysts' mind.  Its an alliance only a few days old forged out of complete desperation, and is almost certainly doomed to failure however you look at it.  From the Catalysts' point of view, having observed probably millions of cycles, I don't think "look! these synthetics and organics, who have been fighting for centuries, are currently not killing each other!" is going to change its mind.

The problem is, Shepard should be able to bring this up, and have the Catalyst counter.  That was the problem I had with the Catalyst:  not the idea of it, but how short and one sided the conversation with it was.

Last part was true, conversation with catalyst is way too short and not too informative. If anybody is in Shepards shoes in that moment, he wouldn't go for any of those options. To many variables and to few explanations and answers.

Just to clarify my post, that was a portion of previous, larger one. It's a bit out of context with just those to paragraphs. My point was that Reapers/Catalyst do not reassess the situation at all, their whole premise is that synthetic life will always fight and conquer organics. And harvesting cycles go on on this premise without any reassessment of situation. That's flaud. That's not computer logic or any kind of logic, and you cannot propose such solution to universe wide problem. OK, Catalyst has absolute view of the whole situation and he won't take in consideration one short term alliance of synthetics and organics as a basis for new solution. But he doesn't even let it play out. And if we look carefully at chain of events, Catalyst is probably remnant of first organic race to face this problem. And they propose this solution based on one occurence?! That's far fetched. And I say 1 occurence because they do not let in further cycles that organics and synthetics evolve too much to reach technological singularity, so they don't even try to take in consideration that events in new cycle can play out differently. Which is entirely possible if we look at quantam theory and every outcome is possible. My point finally is. Catalysts logic is to absolute and it's based on very, very few facts and situations. That's why his logic is flaud. In my opinion

Modifié par marky1607, 01 mai 2012 - 04:05 .

[incinerator950]

I'm rather curious just how bad it would have been to come up with the Reaper concept as a Galaxy wide Solution.

[MAXinsanity409]

Mandatory TL;DR comment.

[Fliprot]

If the catalyst loves organics so much, that it will go thorugh so much convoluted trouble to "preserve" us. Why doesnt it just kill the synthetics if they happen to be about to destroy organics? Why doesnt it let history run its course until him, and the reapers are needed to come save our asses? It's been pretty much proven that the reapers can practically control geth at will, so...

[JShepppp]

Fliprot wrote...

If the catalyst loves organics so much, that it will go thorugh so much convoluted trouble to "preserve" us. Why doesnt it just kill the synthetics if they happen to be about to destroy organics? Why doesnt it let history run its course until him, and the reapers are needed to come save our asses? It's been pretty much proven that the reapers can practically control geth at will, so...

I know my OP was long so you may not have read, but in Part III of the post, I tried to address this problem.

JShepppp wrote...

Repeatedly killing synthetics can be problematic because (a) organics, unimpeded, may eventually create synthetics or AIs that are more powerful than the Reapers; and ( because it does not stop organics from reaching the technological singularity, which the Catalyst views to be the problem. Once the singularity is reached, there is no going back for organics. Also, this would not be as "helpful" to new organic life as [Reaping and giving a clean "galactic" slate] would be.

Basically, self-evolving synthetics can be created that can overpower the Reapers. 

[JShepppp]

incinerator950 wrote...

I'm rather curious just how bad it would have been to come up with the Reaper concept as a Galaxy wide Solution.

I also would like to know this. It's very unfortunate that we're not given nearly enough info about it all. 

[marky1607]

Fliprot wrote...

If the catalyst loves organics so much, that it will go thorugh so much convoluted trouble to "preserve" us. Why doesnt it just kill the synthetics if they happen to be about to destroy organics? Why doesnt it let history run its course until him, and the reapers are needed to come save our asses? It's been pretty much proven that the reapers can practically control geth at will, so...

My point exactly. Bioware should have work on the resolving the plot better. They have a mountain to climb here (in terms of polishing the story and loose ends), and they've fallen hard almost from the peak. I could say that Bioware was never prepared that Mass Effect 1 will be such a big hit. Now, the game grew out of proportions and it is difficult to tie all loose ends.

[JShepppp]

marky1607 wrote...

Last part was true, conversation with catalyst is way too short and not too informative. If anybody is in Shepards shoes in that moment, he wouldn't go for any of those options. To many variables and to few explanations and answers.

Just to clarify my post, that was a portion of previous, larger one. It's a bit out of context with just those to paragraphs. My point was that Reapers/Catalyst do not reassess the situation at all, their whole premise is that synthetic life will always fight and conquer organics. And harvesting cycles go on on this premise without any reassessment of situation. That's flaud. That's not computer logic or any kind of logic, and you cannot propose such solution to universe wide problem. OK, Catalyst has absolute view of the whole situation and he won't take in consideration one short term alliance of synthetics and organics as a basis for new solution. But he doesn't even let it play out. And if we look carefully at chain of events, Catalyst is probably remnant of first organic race to face this problem. And they propose this solution based on one occurence?! That's far fetched. And I say 1 occurence because they do not let in further cycles that organics and synthetics evolve too much to reach technological singularity, so they don't even try to take in consideration that events in new cycle can play out differently. Which is entirely possible if we look at quantam theory and every outcome is possible. My point finally is. Catalysts logic is to absolute and it's based on very, very few facts and situations. That's why his logic is flaud. In my opinion

Yeah, the Catalyst's reasoning is more theoretical than factual, but that's also partially the nature of the problem it's trying to prevent - by its nature, the technological singularity is much more theoretical than anything. Pre-singularity is the realm of facts, and post-singularity, by its nature, is pretty much conjecture. 

I do wish the Catalyst could have been questioned and could counter some points. I do think that's EXTREMELY important both for the story's competence and for the players' satisfaction. 

[JShepppp]

MAXinsanity409 wrote...

Mandatory TL;DR comment.

Yeah sorry. I'm going to update the OP within the next couple of hours and will have a maximum of three sentences for a TL;DR at the top. It'll be in green colors too. Check back then if you can; I'll bump anyways when I update. 

[JShepppp]

Richard 060 wrote...

I can see where mirage2154 is coming from regarding the 'technological singularity' and it's use as an excuse/defense for the Catalyst's arguments.

It might indeed make for an acceptable means to take the Catalyst at face value for those who subscribe to the theory, but here's the problem:

- For starters, the singularity is almost akin to philosophical conjecture - it's a well-reasoned extrapolation based on logic, but it's not an inevitability by any means. Treating it as inevitable to make the Catalyst work as part of the narrative is a terribly unscientific misapplication, frankly - it's as bad as when sloppy tabloid journalists take a possible health risk somewhere, and present it as fact (the MMR vaccine, for one).

Yeah, but I personally think if they worked a little harder they could have made it at least a little philosophically satisfying. This is why the in-universe facts don't apply. Probably sloppy writing imho. 

- More crucially, it's really bad form on the part of the writers to assume that most gamers would even be aware of the technological singularity hypothesis. I can't imagine they'd be so lazy as to feel that they could base the ending to the trilogy on something that is very far from being common knowledge without a shred of establishment or explanation in the story beforehand.

I agree. They at least should have mentioned it rather than try to "dumb it down for the Hollywood-style audience" so to speak. They had it planned here and there. I don't know why they took it out when that's really what the Catalyst is gearing towards. 

Like with movies where the filmakers excuse the poor story execution of their film, by asking the viewer to fill in the gaps by watching the Director's Cut/deleted scenes, or reading a tie-in publication, if your story doesn't work without the aid of supplemental material which many audience members may not have, then you have failed your job as a storyteller.

I agree. It was sloppily done and was too subtle. 

[Subject M]

JShepppp wrote...

Fliprot wrote...

If the catalyst loves organics so much, that it will go thorugh so much convoluted trouble to "preserve" us. Why doesnt it just kill the synthetics if they happen to be about to destroy organics? Why doesnt it let history run its course until him, and the reapers are needed to come save our asses? It's been pretty much proven that the reapers can practically control geth at will, so...

I know my OP was long so you may not have read, but in Part III of the post, I tried to address this problem.

JShepppp wrote...

Repeatedly killing synthetics can be problematic because (a) organics, unimpeded, may eventually create synthetics or AIs that are more powerful than the Reapers; and ( because it does not stop organics from reaching the technological singularity, which the Catalyst views to be the problem. Once the singularity is reached, there is no going back for organics. Also, this would not be as "helpful" to new organic life as [Reaping and giving a clean "galactic" slate] would be.

Basically, self-evolving synthetics can be created that can overpower the Reapers. 

So can organics. If the Reapers are afraid to be outgunned they should have involved themselves more directly in the development of the galaxy and keep order, or simply stay away and monitor the savages from afar and strike against the rising agressive threat itself when it grew. They have a huge head start.

[JShepppp]

marky1607 wrote...

I'm sorry, I've got that statement a little entangled. I agreed with the rest of the fans that have the following point: Catalyst should see that Quarians and Geth are working together and that this is new situation that contradicts Catalysts initial motivation for Reapers. I've wanted to say thet Geth/Quarian cooperation is indeed very relevant and Catalyst didn't include that in the possible outcome.

I think it's because it either views the peace as (a) unlasting because it was formed in extenuating circumstances or ( irrelevant because it's not past the singularity point. I talked about this somewhere in the Wall of Text that is the OP, and I do concede that it should at least be mentioned and/or refuted by the Catalyst so that plot dignity is given to the Geth/Quarian and Joker/EDI story arcs.

One thought just came to me. For any given reason, if Catalyst can do all those options (control, synthesis and destroy, for me synthesis is entirely unbelivable), we can conclude that he has almost infine power over galaxy, espicially if he has the means to rewrite DNA. If that is so, there could easily be an option where energy wave rewrites the code of the synthetics to be more ethically and morally openminded towards organics. I can see this as much more plausable solution than energy wave that rearrenges DNA to combine organic and synthetic life. And one more fact - synthetic life has no DNA. Maybe in some future, science will might emulate DNA strands with nanotechnology but it still won't be DNA in true sense.

The Crucible makes those options, not the Catalyst. As for rewriting synthetics, the thing is synthetics can self-evolve and rewrite themselves (at least the kind of synthetics the Catalyst cares about - singularity) and they can perhaps change their moral code then. Beyond the singularity synthetics can't be defeated unless they endup killing themselves or something or some great HUGE natural disaster occurs galaxy-wide. Otherwise organics will always be at the mercy of the synthetics. Sure, synthetics may not always war...but the question is if anyone is willing to have a potential enemy have that much power. The Catalyst's point of view is taht for organics in general, that kind of power is ill-advised. 

[deeros]

Why did the Reapers wipe out the Protheans? Javik said they had united all organics to destroy the machines in their cycle, also known as the Metacon War. They won. There was no reason at all to destroy the Protheans as there was no synthetic life left. The logic is flawed, throw it out the airlock, commander.

[JShepppp]

lillitheris wrote...

3. If synthetics are the problem and the Catalyst is trying to protect organics, it should just kill Synthetics instead!

Repeatedly killing synthetics can be probelmatic because (a) organics, unimpeded, may eventually create synthetics or AIs that are more powerful than the Reapers; and ( because it does not stop organics from reaching the technological singularity, which the Catalyst views to be the problem. Once the singularity is reached, there is no point going back for organics. Also, this would not be as "helpful" to new organic life as "cleaning the slate" would be.

I'm pretty sure that I posted this earlier, but your entire argument falls apart here, even if we were to grant all your premises, starting from the assumption of infinite advancement. Your argument above has a few errors in it, too, not least of which is equating singularity with invincibility.

Destroying organic species once they reach the point when they can A) fight back and are close to creating AIs is probably the worst possible solution to the problem if you examine it from an efficiency or logistics standpoint.

It's stupid.

You can argue that it's programmed in a way that only leaves it with this solution, but that just means that its programmers were stupid.

There's nothing that you can say that makes it not stupid, because it is.

If you want to argue that it's stupid, but we still have to deal with it because it is what it is and theoretically someone might actually have been stupid enough to come up with this ‘solution’, that's fine.

Well it doesn't know of any other way to stop the singularity which it sees as an inevitable product of evolution. Pretty much the idea is to cut down the trees before they grow too tall but to not cut down the forest (not sure if the analogy holds but yeah).

Singularity isn't equated with invincibility outright but is equated with unquestionable and unchanging superiority. Organics would be at the complete mercy of the synthetics and could do nothing about it. The Catalyst thinks that war is inevitable after enough time and that organics should never be at the absolute mercy of synthetics. 

Having a vastly superior intellect would give a decisive edge in conflict. We haven't seen any cases yet of this in ME; the Reapers' edge is nothing compared to synthetics beyond the singularity. 

[JShepppp]

DJCubed wrote...

Sorry for the long post.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I found the catalyst to be interesting, but I wish it was better explained in game (it's creators for example), and the final cutscene with Joker and crew was bothersome. 

Glad you enjoyed the ending. I actually pretty much felt the same way. I thought with a bit more exposition on the Catalyst, things could have been a whole lot better. 

[JShepppp]

Subject M wrote...

JShepppp wrote...

Fliprot wrote...

If the catalyst loves organics so much, that it will go thorugh so much convoluted trouble to "preserve" us. Why doesnt it just kill the synthetics if they happen to be about to destroy organics? Why doesnt it let history run its course until him, and the reapers are needed to come save our asses? It's been pretty much proven that the reapers can practically control geth at will, so...

I know my OP was long so you may not have read, but in Part III of the post, I tried to address this problem.

JShepppp wrote...

Repeatedly killing synthetics can be problematic because (a) organics, unimpeded, may eventually create synthetics or AIs that are more powerful than the Reapers; and ( because it does not stop organics from reaching the technological singularity, which the Catalyst views to be the problem. Once the singularity is reached, there is no going back for organics. Also, this would not be as "helpful" to new organic life as [Reaping and giving a clean "galactic" slate] would be.

Basically, self-evolving synthetics can be created that can overpower the Reapers. 

So can organics. If the Reapers are afraid to be outgunned they should have involved themselves more directly in the development of the galaxy and keep order, or simply stay away and monitor the savages from afar and strike against the rising agressive threat itself when it grew. They have a huge head start.

"So can organics" - hm, maybe that's why they strike when the singularity seems a little far off. 

[JShepppp]

deeros wrote...

Why did the Reapers wipe out the Protheans? Javik said they had united all organics to destroy the machines in their cycle, also known as the Metacon War. They won. There was no reason at all to destroy the Protheans as there was no synthetic life left. The logic is flawed, throw it out the airlock, commander.

I don't want to be the one who seems like he's hiding behind the Shield of Philosophical Debate, but the singularity hadn't occurred yet. Also, there's nothing to say they wouldn't create synthetics in the future after enough time. 

[JShepppp]

Wintermaulz wrote...

Dont know if this was posted already, not gonna look, but ill leave this here

[img]http://i.imgur.com/wZr54.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/wZr54.gif[/img]

This disregards the singularity...but I can understand that since it wasn't explicitly stated that this is a valid train of thought.

[JShepppp]

malhar34 wrote...

mirage2154 wrote...

So what's the "technological singularity" comes from anyway? Was it in game or codex, was anything of this sort was explained in hole ME?How can you just fit a term that not related to the game to explain this game? This post does no make sense at all, as your certainty assumption is base on a term that has never ever apeared in game at all. Ana using something like that to explain a game is utterly fail(at least in my opinion). A great idea is when you use the samething to make everyone to resonate with their own understanding, not the a few page long explaination about how it works.

I dont like the ending at all but this statement is complete ignorance. Technological singularity is a concept that is not made up at all. Look it up on wikipedia it is a very real concept that some futurists think can happen.

And the part of your paragraph I highlighted makes no sense whatsoever. His argument makes sense and what he cannot explain he has explicitly stated. There are probably more holes we can ask about but that is just grasping at straws. OP is trying to make sense of the ending with as much evidence as possible. Maybe there is some speculation but the ending whether good or bad was not crystal clear and this is the current discussion. #Stayontopic/Learntoanalyzereadings.

@mirage: Cut content is what I used to try to make sense of the endings. I thought I'd share what I found for those looking for closure, but if people are unwilling to look at cut content (very valid) then unfortunately they may have to look elsewhere or wait for the EC DLC which hopefully will put more things on the table. I'll put up a TL;DR for the wall of text. Remember, the wall of text is for nitpicky things, not for the overall big idea. 

@malhar34: Thanks dude.

[DLClol]

Fliprot wrote...

If the catalyst loves organics so much, that it will go thorugh so much convoluted trouble to "preserve" us. Why doesnt it just kill the synthetics if they happen to be about to destroy organics? Why doesnt it let history run its course until him, and the reapers are needed to come save our asses? It's been pretty much proven that the reapers can practically control geth at will, so...

Organics would just create Synthetics again after they left

At least with the genocidal approach the younger races get a chance to live for awhile

For example if the Protheans were not reaped they more than likely would have uplifted Humanity as a slave race and now humanity becomes involved in this metacon war when they really should be back on Earth living in caves.

Modifié par DLClol, 01 mai 2012 - 05:44 .

[JShepppp]

DLClol wrote...

Fliprot wrote...

If the catalyst loves organics so much, that it will go thorugh so much convoluted trouble to "preserve" us. Why doesnt it just kill the synthetics if they happen to be about to destroy organics? Why doesnt it let history run its course until him, and the reapers are needed to come save our asses? It's been pretty much proven that the reapers can practically control geth at will, so...

Organics would just create Synthetics again after they left

At least with the genocidal approach the younger races get a chance to live for awhile

For example if the Protheans were not reaped they more than likely would have uplifted Humanity as a slave race and now humanity becomes involved in this metacon war when they really should be back on Earth living in caves.

I agree.

[JShepppp]

 Bump - I updated the OP. I included a TL;DR section in green and in a quote box at the beginning (can't miss it). Hope this helps. Apologies again for the huge wall of text, but I am very happy people are giving input. 

[JShepppp]

Krunjar wrote...

Really intelligent post. Wish I could add to it but everything i think of you have covered. Alot of this I inferred myself from the ending which was one of the reasons I liked it. Only thing I didn't like about the ending was the lack of explanation as to what happened next. And hopefully they are going to fix that. Good show!

Yeah, I really want to see an epilogue where the decisions play out. Or really, where we see what happens to all the characters. I can even live without dialogue - just cutscenes and heartfelt music.

[JShepppp]

marky1607 wrote...

malhar34 wrote...

Very good points being made. I do agree that this ending COULD have been plausible but the way they wrote it and threw it at us was horrible. Lots of questions left all and all but one minor thing. I am pretty sure in ME3 they say that the crucible was built over many cycles with each race adding a little bit to it.

Yes, I can confirm that Javik says that information (that the Crucible wasn't originally Prothean design but every race in each cycle improves the design of Crucible by adding something of their own) in conversation at the end of Horizon mission or in first conversation with Javik after Horizon mission. Of course, for players that don't have From Ashes DLC, they will not have Javik as squadmate and they won't hear that information about the Crucible.

The Thessia VI says that too, so luckily people who didn't pay for Javik and had to learn about him from other sources after playing the game (like me lol) would still get that tidbit.