75 réponses à ce sujet

[NKKKK]

But Saren was a dick

[dreman9999]

esalor wrote...

Am I forgetting Revelation and ME1?
Before meeting Sovereign, Saren was portrayed (and perceived by Anderson) as minimally an "ends justify the means", ruthless, operator of the Council. He was, at its worst, a sadist who enjoyed torturing people for information who also distrusted Humanity.
I don't remember him expressing any opinion on synthesis. He learns about an important artifact that can control and manipulate the Geth and goes looking for it at the end of Revelation. We infer that he finds Sov., realizes what is going on and the reaper indoctrinates him using the idea that only synthesis can save sentient life from reapers.
Am I missing something?

if the above is correct, yes, Saren represents Synthesis. But, if we are believing the Indoctrination theory, just as TIM's indoctrination took the form of a belief that he can control the Reapers, Saren's took the form that he can merge with them.

That is not what Saren was shown to be.
He was shown to be a man all about absolute order...No mater the means...He never enjoyed 
torturing  anyone, he was just indifferent about it. All he cared about was the results, no the means of getting it. He was ruthless in the name of order. He is the defination of everything that is Turian like The illusive man is a definition of everything human.

[gekko513]

dreman9999 wrote...

gekko513 wrote...

Destruction does not equal Shepard's way of thinking. He's thrilled about the peace between Geth and the Quarians if you choose that, even if the Quarians are equally as bad as the reapers seen from a synthetic point of view.

He wants to destroy the reapers early on for their actions as seen from the organics perspective. In the end he gets told the bigger picture. That changes the premisses. What then becomes Shepard's way of thinking is up to you to decide.

If your facing an enemy that doesn't back down an always want to destroy or control you...What little choice do you have but to destroy them?

There's a lot more to the story than that. It's about how to see beyond the harshness of the war/conflict and the picture of an enemy. I think there are a lot of parallells in the final dilemma to how conflict and wars here on earth never cease to exist. Once that enemy picture is established it's really hard to see the case from the other point of view. The atrocities committed overshadow everything else.

Then, also, this is science fiction, and the reapers are way more advanced than us. If we flip the point of view, the organics would be like primitive animals are to us, and we both harvest and control animals, so there's a parallell to that as well.

[ed87]

I never understood the endings, until i read a long post on a forum from someone younger than me calling me an idiot and enlightening me with his knowledge on all things art

[Nykara]

Grasich wrote...

gekko513 wrote...

Destruction does not equal Shepard's way of thinking. He's thrilled about the peace between Geth and the Quarians if you choose that, even if the Quarians are equally as bad as the reapers seen from a synthetic point of view.

He wants to destroy the reapers early on for their actions as seen from the organics perspective. In the end he gets told the bigger picture. That changes the premisses. What then becomes Shepard's way of thinking is up to you to decide.

I don't know about yours, but my Shep wasn't in the habit of believing ANYTHING the Reapers told him.

Let's change the context here a bit for perspective. Imagine, instead of the god-kid, Harbinger had appeared and told you the exact same things. Would you believe him for even an instant?

I didn't believe the Starchild let alone Harbinger or anyone else if they told me I only had those three options. That entire scene was just.. bleh

[dreman9999]

-Draikin- wrote...

Grasich wrote...
This is one of the defenses for IT, that a Shepard that realized that the god-kid was full of crap and who wanted to destroy the Reapers, might do so on the premise that the Geth were allies, and so the god-kid was wrong. Therefore, the god-kid tells Shep that the Destroy ending will kill them, which might give Shep pause.

I know it's a defense for the IT, but if Bioware had anything like this planned, we would have known by now. I could believe the IT was once planned but was scrapped due to lack of time, but that's about it. Bioware's defensive reaction is really telling that they had no backup plan.

If bioware lanned this..They would not say anthing yet... The idea is to indoctrinate the player. If they say any thing, the idea goes down the toilet. Think of it as a sioclogical test.

[dreman9999]

gekko513 wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

gekko513 wrote...

Destruction does not equal Shepard's way of thinking. He's thrilled about the peace between Geth and the Quarians if you choose that, even if the Quarians are equally as bad as the reapers seen from a synthetic point of view.

He wants to destroy the reapers early on for their actions as seen from the organics perspective. In the end he gets told the bigger picture. That changes the premisses. What then becomes Shepard's way of thinking is up to you to decide.

If your facing an enemy that doesn't back down an always want to destroy or control you...What little choice do you have but to destroy them?

There's a lot more to the story than that. It's about how to see beyond the harshness of the war/conflict and the picture of an enemy. I think there are a lot of parallells in the final dilemma to how conflict and wars here on earth never cease to exist. Once that enemy picture is established it's really hard to see the case from the other point of view. The atrocities committed overshadow everything else.

Then, also, this is science fiction, and the reapers are way more advanced than us. If we flip the point of view, the organics would be like primitive animals are to us, and we both harvest and control animals, so there's a parallell to that as well.

I understand that...But we as organics can only really see thing which a base oforganic thinking. We would only see the conflict, which is our nature. We are significate being...we only see what's in front of us. Reaper are eternal machines, their way of though is beyond ours. They can see an entire different plain of exsistance.

[dreman9999]

NKKKK wrote...

But Saren was a dick

And so can your Shepard .

[gekko513]

Nykara wrote...

Grasich wrote...

gekko513 wrote...

Destruction does not equal Shepard's way of thinking. He's thrilled about the peace between Geth and the Quarians if you choose that, even if the Quarians are equally as bad as the reapers seen from a synthetic point of view.

He wants to destroy the reapers early on for their actions as seen from the organics perspective. In the end he gets told the bigger picture. That changes the premisses. What then becomes Shepard's way of thinking is up to you to decide.

I don't know about yours, but my Shep wasn't in the habit of believing ANYTHING the Reapers told him.

Let's change the context here a bit for perspective. Imagine, instead of the god-kid, Harbinger had appeared and told you the exact same things. Would you believe him for even an instant?

I didn't believe the Starchild let alone Harbinger or anyone else if they told me I only had those three options. That entire scene was just.. bleh

Well, apparantly those were the only three things the Crucible was capable of doing by design. The fourth option is to die and not activate the Crucible. Then the cycles would continue instead.

Modifié par gekko513, 01 avril 2012 - 02:37 .

[esalor]

dreman9999 wrote...

esalor wrote...

Am I forgetting Revelation and ME1?
Before meeting Sovereign, Saren was portrayed (and perceived by Anderson) as minimally an "ends justify the means", ruthless, operator of the Council. He was, at its worst, a sadist who enjoyed torturing people for information who also distrusted Humanity.
I don't remember him expressing any opinion on synthesis. He learns about an important artifact that can control and manipulate the Geth and goes looking for it at the end of Revelation. We infer that he finds Sov., realizes what is going on and the reaper indoctrinates him using the idea that only synthesis can save sentient life from reapers.
Am I missing something?

if the above is correct, yes, Saren represents Synthesis. But, if we are believing the Indoctrination theory, just as TIM's indoctrination took the form of a belief that he can control the Reapers, Saren's took the form that he can merge with them.

That is not what Saren was shown to be.
He was shown to be a man all about absolute order...No mater the means...He never enjoyed 
torturing  anyone, he was just indifferent about it. All he cared about was the results, no the means of getting it. He was ruthless in the name of order. He is the defination of everything that is Turian like The illusive man is a definition of everything human.

OK. that is a good way of summarizing it, you are right.
I was trying to point out, Saren never explicitly pointed out he was looking for synthesis until he was indoctrinated. But, his desire for order, as you explained, might be why Sovereign choose this line of thinking to indoctrinate him.

[TexasToast712]

Grasich wrote...

This is one of the biggest defenses (imo) for indoctrination theory. Unless Bioware had a massive derp moment, they should have realized that 2 out of the 3 endings were EXACTLY what 2 of the main antagonists of the series were indoctrinated into wanting.

[Kilfio]

In my year's worth of studying the final choices of ME3, and wrestling with Synthesis vs. Destruction, I never made the connection between Saren and Synthesis. I was too wrapped up in the fact that Synthesis is only unlocked when you're at a high enough EMS and galactic readiness, and so it must somehow be a better ending. (I wrote two essays on my profile advocating both endings for different reasons.)

Destruction would have been my choice if I were Shepard in his exact same situation, and it was indeed my original choice. Fact is, I just can't trust the little guy. He has not demonstrated any kind of value for "lesser" beings, and believed that putting memoirs of societies into Reapers somehow made their destruction okay. I can't even trust that he's the leader of the Reapers, and if he is, that he doesn't want to just get rid of the troublesome little human and proceed with the destruction (throw myself into the energy column? Really?). So I would take the first chance I got, even a slim one, to blow them all to hell. As for the geth...yeah, that sucks. But so do all the other sacrifices made in the galaxy's desperate struggle for survival. As for the Catalyst's warnings of postponing the inevitable (and he's really not one to talk), I would argue that we have already proven our ability to reach beyond our tunnel vision as a galaxy, and that we have learned from the Reaper conflict of the errors we must not allow ourselves to make.

Now, if I were omniscient, I'd probably choose Synthesis, since I know from gamer's foresight that it truly is a sunshine-and-roses happy ending. But I'd have serious issues of precluding Shepard's well-deserved future with Tali.

[DoomsdayDevice]

OP is spot on. It's obvious.

[CosmicGnosis]

Destruction = Organic purity, freedom from the machines that will taint us, chaos of organic evolution, etc.

It fits very well with the themes of ME1. It disregards what we learn about synthetics in ME2 and ME3.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Shepard embodies successful synthesis, courtesy Cerberus.


Destroy (and especially the breath-scene) is more like watching Shepard choke to death in the ME2 prologue... rofl.

[ImaginaryMatter]

We've seen nothing in the game that quite compares to Synthesis. Synthesis leads to the creation of an entirely new form of life, Shepard, Saren, and everyone else with cybernetic upgrades are no where near close to that.

The difference between TIM and Saren is that deep down somewhere TIM believed in control while deep down Saren did not believe in synthesis, the Turian only came to spout that idea when he was truly lost to Indoctrination as he had lived out his usefulness to Sovereign (as the effects of Indoctrination can be strengthened at the expense of the victims mental capacities).

[Mcfly616]

Meh... I mean there's definitely symmetry. But instead of Shepard, I'd probably throw Anderson or Hackett in there.


Control - TIM, Synthesis - Saren, Destroy - Anderson.......


Shepard - ?


And that's the point. (atleast from my perspective)

[Mcfly616]

StreetMagic wrote...
 As it is, it's about becoming one with the Reapers.

Synthesis has nothing to do with "becoming one with the Reapers". It's merely the solution to the problem that the Reapers were created for. (that's pretty concrete)


And the "union" between synthetics and organics that Saren alluded to....that's Synthesis. (my own subjective opinion)

Modifié par Mcfly616, 12 février 2014 - 06:41 .

[Slurms McKenzie]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

OP is spot on. It's obvious.

I like the way his mind works

[dorktainian]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

 Shepard embodies successful synthesis

     


hahahahahaha  

[teh DRUMPf!!]

^ obviously unaware of how Project Lazarus turned Shepard cyborg -- complete with the options of strengthening skin, bone, muscle w/ synthetic weave (if researched).

[ImaginaryMatter]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

^ obviously unaware of how Project Lazarus turned Shepard cyborg -- complete with the options of strengthening skin, bone, muscle w/ synthetic weave (if researched).

It didn't really turn him into something more than human, just a slightly stronger human with tech replacing some Organic bits -- he still couldn't perform amazing physical feats. In ME3 he goes back to gaining strength the good 'ole fashion method of pumping iron. I don't think cybernetics are too impressive if the same results could be gained by going to the gym.

[CronoDragoon]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...
It didn't really turn him into something more than human, just a slightly stronger human with tech replacing some Organic bits -- he still couldn't perform amazing physical feats. In ME3 he goes back to gaining strength the good 'ole fashion method of pumping iron. I don't think cybernetics are too impressive if the same results could be gained by going to the gym.

Doesn't he have synthetic brain implants? In my book that makes him more than human. Where's the line between human and cyborg? I'm not sure. But I think for the purposes of the topic - which is trying to separate the Synthesis storyline from Shepard - it's still a valid objection. There's much about who Shepard is that could be incorporated into a Synthesis narrative. Not for my Shepard, but I can easily see the thematic continuity there.