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[Vasparian]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Leafs43 wrote...

Anything is possible on a long enough timeline.

Which is why it's not a contradiction.

What the Catalyst is saying is that organic and synthetic life cannot coexist long term, and the inevitable conflict will result in synthetics winning and destroying organic life.

The Catalyst doesn't even give any indication for what would motivate synthetics to do this, so any suppositions that the Catalyst is saying that the Geth want to destroy the Quarians is just an assumption.


What the Geth-Quarian conflict shows is that, at least right now, the Catalyst's assertion may not actually be correct.  Shepard even acknowledges this doubt when he says "maybe" in response to the Catalyst stating that the peace won't last.  As a game player, I was certainly skeptical as well.  Especially given the Rannoch storyline.  It's why I ended up choosing destroy, because I wanted the galaxy to determine their own fate rather than have Reaper intervention come in and muck it all up every fifty thousand years.

It's to bad your company made anything you decide to do pointless eh?

[Rdubs]

Leafs43 wrote... 

So did Mac and Casey both have a brain fart?

Close, they had a hubris "we think we're better than everyone else" fart followed by a massive pride fart when they decided to torpedo customer loyalty rather than admit the endings needed to be re-done.

[Leafs43]

There are more examples of organics killing off other organics than there are of synthetics killing off organics.

There are the rachni wars, the genophage, and even some of the hardened vets from the first ME1 about the first contact war are al about ethnic cleansing and genocide.

But for synthetics, we get just the geth and quarian conflict, which it was explained to us in fact it was the quarians who first sought destruction and the geth let the quarians go. Then we have some off topic comment of Javik, whose story for all we know was written post production by a different team.

[Rdubs]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I was never a particularly big fan of the Crucible as a plot device because it lends itself to allowing fantastic elements into the story that are unexpected.

Like this human / understands.
And replace "crucible" with "starchild" and in 25 words or less he would have explained why the ending as presented never would have lasted 5 seconds if it had been peer reviewed like the rest of the writing.

[Alexius]

I don't think the writers are contradicting themselves. It's their characters' beliefs that they're writing, regardless of whether another character may or may not agree or what will happen next in the story. Legion said what Legion believed, and so did the Catalyst. I for one, for the sake of hope alone, would be more inclined to trust Legion's words than what the Catalyst says.

Sure, Shepard puts a lot of effort in trying to stop the conflict between the geth and the quarians. Then comes the Catalyst and tells you that the created will always rebel against their creators. Shepard knows that this may not be true based on previous experiences. It is unfortunate that the Crucible's energy cannot disable just Reaper tech, but if that's how it is, so be it.

Legion is the reason why I chose destroy, strangely enough, because even though I was destroying all synthetics I knew that in his words there was hope that, in the future, the Catalyst's statement would be proven wrong.

Modifié par AlexiusDAlex, 15 avril 2012 - 10:12 .

[Federally]

The Catalyst's logic is not a contradiction. It could easily be argued that given enough time synthetics will eventually destroy Organics. The problem is the contradiction of the narrative itself. You spent three games not just fighting against the Reapers but also overcoming prejudices. Prejudices between organic species and even between synthetics and organics. It all builds up to a final conclusion where if you made the 'right' choices you confront the Reapers with a vast alliance made up of so many groups that mistrusted or outright hated each other before. Then the Catalyst comes and presents his assertion and instead or arguing against it our hero just caves in.

The main antagonist is supposed to have motives you disagree with, sympathetic bad guys don't make good villains in this type of story, but the hero isn't supposed to contradict everything they've done and just agree with the antagonist. The real contradiction is with Shep, the catalyst is supposed to be a bit off and out of touch.

I can't help but remember the IMO terrible ending to Dragon Age 2 in all of this. No matter what you did through the whole game the mages always betrayed the player and turned to evil when pressed which proved the antagonist right. The difference in ME3 is that the main protagonist betrays the player and accepts the antagonist as correct.

[xxskyshadowxx]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

TheJiveDJ wrote...

I'm sorry but the "inevitable" argument is a major cop out. Just because there is SOME possibility that at SOME POINT in SOME TIME, SOMEWHERE synthetics MAY turn against their creators and kill organics is such SHODDY logic that it literally makes me sick thinking about it.

No one has actually stated that it is inevitable.  Nor does the Catalyst believe it "may" happen.  Especially within the context of this thread.

A single data point, the Geth-Quarian peace resolution, does not contradict the Catalyst's claims.  You can think the Catalyst is talking out of his rear and use your experience with the Geth-Quarian situation to substantiate your position, but a character making an assertion isn't a contradiction because it's just a character making an assertion.  The Catalyst believes it, just as TIM believes the Reapers can be controlled and used, just as Saren believes that working together to achieve synthesis is what's best.

At no point can any of their perspectives be proven to be correct (or proven to be false either).  TIM's maybe, but in talking with people on these boards it seems like many people questioned whether or not they could trust the idea that Shepard wouldn't eventually be compromised.  The idea that it might not work out flawlessly is certainly present.


NOTE:  I only present the context of a large scale timeline since many people use the Geth-Quarian conflict resolution as being evidence that the Catalyst is unequivocally wrong, which isn't the case.

 A couple of points, regardless of who is right or who is wrong (and leaving aside the many false claims about the ending "s" pre-release):

1) Why does Shepard blindly accept the choices provided to him/her from a Reaper? Why does anyone think this is okay? Why is Shepard's personality completely subverted? Why can't he/she so much as question the choice (which is something he/she has always done)?

2) If chaos and the resultant repercussions are the real issue of concern for the Reapers, then none of the endings work.

3) Where is the "Destroy everything and everyone option? (Okay we sorta get this, since we blow up all the relays, but still...) By the Reaper's logic, synthetics will eventually rise up against their creators blah blah way overused Sci-fi hyperbole regurgitation...and so on and so forth. What isn't brought up or addressed is that organics have been rising up against themselves since inception. This includes the less developed lifeforms. So regardless of what happens with machines, chaos always will exist and always has. If chaos is the big issue...all life, everywhere must me removed from the equation. Only synthetic life alone would prevent chaos...but then if there is only synthetic life...and it has been established that synthetic life WILL rebel eventually, then the only real solution to the chaos is all life everywhere, synthetic or not must end. Thus, the Catalyst's reasoning is flawed because it does not address that.

4) Player choice was heralded in all the pre-release PR blurbs as being a huge factor in the endings, yet in the actual endings in the game, player choice was completely removed (the A,B and C don't count because they are all illogical and go against previous narrative). It was also said there would be no Reaper "off" button, yet that is exactly what the endings were. This needs to be explained by the folks responsible.

[LordJeyl]

"The created will always turn against their creators"

Ok...

"Synthetics will destroy all organic life"

So, which is it? Synthetics destroy their creators, or Synthetics destroy all organic life? If it's the latter, shouldn't it be something more along the lines of "The created will always destroy what is not them"? Or "The created will never adapt to the organic way of life". I don't know.

But what I do know is this. The synthetics I've encountered have this thing called "morality". The Geth have it, and EDI has it. What possible moral reasoning would these synthetic beings come up with "Organic genocide is good!" and actually follow through with it? How is it that these synthetics who carry a semblance of individuality all agree that murdering everything that has "water" in it is all for the good of their being? Wasn't there a moment in Mass Effect 2 where Legion's software was split on deciding what to do with the heretics? Why won't there be any synthetics split on choosing whether or not to destroy all organic life?

The Catalyst isn't saying anything contradicting. He's not saying anything at all.