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[Hawk227]

delta_vee wrote...


This may be Yet Another Matter of Taste (YAMOT), but I think the old conflict's remnants always underfoot would've added some subtlety and nuance to the peace option. If the scars still remain, and the new beginning is in the middle of a masoleum, would we be so sure that peace would last? [...] To have peace so seemingly certain if the
option was available is a large part of the foundation of our discontent
with its reframing of the series' conflict - if that certainty were
undermined, if after calling off the fleet we were still reminded with a
mere glance at the destructive potential the geth retain, would we be
so convinced the Starkid was wrong?

For me, there would have needed to be some changes to the revelations made in the consensus mission for this to be true. The animosity in the Geth/Quarian conflict was always one sided. The Geth wanted to live in peace, and had no quarrel with the... Quarians. The Quarians were always the instigators of the conflict. So while the burning rubble of Rannoch may have fostered doubts about a peace, for me the question would be whether the Quarians could be trusted to give peace a chance.

A small (and respectful) nitpick which may snowball into a larger one: rewriting the Heretics only compelled them to return to the Consensus and reevaluate; it didn't force their conclusions themselves down any given path. Which leads to the larger nitpick: the geth were not enslaved into collaboration with the Reapers, they were offered it. Legion still believed it was a bad idea on some level, hence its assistance to Shepard, but through all three games any allegiance to the Reapers was chosen rather than compelled.

I'm fairly certain that this is not accurate. The Heretics had a reaper virus that they were going to unleash on the Geth that would forcibly make them adopt the Heretics equation. This is why Legion enlists Shepard. He wants Shepard's help to destroy that virus and the station that will transmit it. When we we get there, Legion realizes the virus can be repurposed to use against the Heretics, thus compelling them to adopt the Geth equation. Though he cannot reach consensus on which is the better choice. When we "Re-Write" the Geth, we are literally "Re-Writing" them. This is what drives the dilemma of the choice. It isn't compelling re-evaluation vs. killing them, it is brain-washing the heretics vs. destroying them. Your squadmates (particularly Garrus) oppose re-writing the Geth for this reason. He compares it to indoctrination.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Hawk227 wrote...

delta_vee wrote...


This may be Yet Another Matter of Taste (YAMOT), but I think the old conflict's remnants always underfoot would've added some subtlety and nuance to the peace option. If the scars still remain, and the new beginning is in the middle of a masoleum, would we be so sure that peace would last? [...] To have peace so seemingly certain if the
option was available is a large part of the foundation of our discontent
with its reframing of the series' conflict - if that certainty were
undermined, if after calling off the fleet we were still reminded with a
mere glance at the destructive potential the geth retain, would we be
so convinced the Starkid was wrong?

For me, there would have needed to be some changes to the revelations made in the consensus mission for this to be true. The animosity in the Geth/Quarian conflict was always one sided. The Geth wanted to live in peace, and had no quarrel with the... Quarians. The Quarians were always the instigators of the conflict. So while the burning rubble of Rannoch may have fostered doubts about a peace, for me the question would be whether the Quarians could be trusted to give peace a chance.

A small (and respectful) nitpick which may snowball into a larger one: rewriting the Heretics only compelled them to return to the Consensus and reevaluate; it didn't force their conclusions themselves down any given path. Which leads to the larger nitpick: the geth were not enslaved into collaboration with the Reapers, they were offered it. Legion still believed it was a bad idea on some level, hence its assistance to Shepard, but through all three games any allegiance to the Reapers was chosen rather than compelled.

I'm fairly certain that this is not accurate. The Heretics had a reaper virus that they were going to unleash on the Geth that would forcibly make them adopt the Heretics equation. This is why Legion enlists Shepard. He wants Shepard's help to destroy that virus and the station that will transmit it. When we we get there, Legion realizes the virus can be repurposed to use against the Heretics, thus compelling them to adopt the Geth equation. Though he cannot reach consensus on which is the better choice. When we "Re-Write" the Geth, we are literally "Re-Writing" them. This is what drives the dilemma of the choice. It isn't compelling re-evaluation vs. killing them, it is brain-washing the heretics vs. destroying them. Your squadmates (particularly Garrus) oppose re-writing the Geth for this reason. He compares it to indoctrination.

What I got from this (and what the consensus seemed to be in ME2 times, when this was a common topic of discussion) is that the Geth see decisions as inevitable truths. Legion likened it to two different people solving an equation, with one person getting 1 as the answer and one person getting 2, while using the same math and doing everything correctly. I liked the concept because it's very difficult for me to process, which is, I believe, exactly what it's meant to accomplish.

I don't feel like brainwashing is fair as an analogy, because again that's needlessly anthropomorphizing non-human sentients. The term "brainwashing" relates to the fact that we develop our stances as outgrowths of our personalities and emotions, whereas the geth see their decision-making process as merely evaluating an equation and coming up with the one correct solution. However, in this case, there were two solutions that different geth saw as the one correct solution. The rewriting virus merely substituted one for the other. When a human is "brainwashed," they must subtly adjust a great many of their perceptions about the world - changing one thing that an organic thinks requires subtle shifts in a thousand other beliefs, so it is really severely altering who they are. Legion very clearly said that these geth were like the other geth in every other way... except for that one equation. Thus, adjusting the answer there would not necessarily have far-reaching consequences in regards to their identity or personality, because their consciousness is not like ours in that specific quality.

Now the decision to rewrite the Geth is one of the only decisions I'd make differently if I replayed, but I did have a reason for my decision. Though they could not reach consensus, Legion did state that a greater percentage of his programs that felt that rewriting was the best course. That percentage was only marginally higher than the percentage that favored destruction, but it was the closest he had ever come to expressing an opinion not based on objective certainty... so I went with his leaning, however slight.

This leaves us asking: if two people are analyzing the same problem using the same data and the same protocols, and they come up with different answers, what does that mean? Does it mean that one of them had a defect somewhere in their processing? Does it mean both answers are technically equally valid? 

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 29 mai 2012 - 09:55 .

[Hawk227]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...


What I got from this (and what the consensus seemed to be in ME2 times, when this was a common topic of discussion) is that the Geth see decisions as inevitable truths. Legion likened it to two different people solving an equation, with one person getting 1 as the answer and one person getting 2, while using the same math and doing everything correctly. I liked the concept because it's very difficult for me to process, which is, I believe, exactly what it's meant to accomplish.

I don't feel like brainwashing is fair as an analogy, because again that's needlessly anthropomorphizing non-human sentients. The term "brainwashing" relates to the fact that we develop our stances as outgrowths of our personalities and emotions, whereas the geth see their decision-making process as merely evaluating an equation and coming up with the one correct solution. However, in this case, there were two solutions that different geth saw as the one correct solution. The rewriting virus merely substituted one for the other. When a human is "brainwashed," they must subtly adjust a great many of their perceptions about the world - changing one thing that an organic thinks requires subtle shifts in a thousand other beliefs, so it is really severely altering who they are. Legion very clearly said that these geth were like the other geth in every other way... except for that one equation. Thus, adjusting the answer there would not necessarily have far-reaching consequences in regards to their identity or personality, because their consciousness is not like ours in that specific quality.

Now the decision to rewrite the Geth is one of the only decisions I'd make differently if I replayed, but the justification for that decision that, though they could not reach consensus, Legion's did state that a greater percentage of his programs that felt that rewriting was the best course. That percentage was only marginally higher than the percentage that favored destruction, but it was the closest he had ever come to expressing an opinion not based on objective certainty... so I went with his leaning, however slight.

This leaves us asking: if two people are analyzing the same problem using the same data and the same protocols, and they come up with different answers, what does that mean? Does it mean that one of them had a defect somewhere in their processing? Does it mean both answers are technically equally valid? 

Here is the relevant conversation with Legion.

I didn't mean to imply that the Heretics' conclusion was somehow invalid. Legion clearly says it is valid for them, while the Geth's conclusion was valid for the Geth. That said, I think brainwashing is definitely an appropriate analogy for the effects of the virus, which was what I was talking about. The heretic equation results in a rounding difference that affects all higher processes. They wanted to force that equation onto the Geth, so the Geth would adopt the same conclusions. Legion even says that the Heretics "feel forcing an invalid conclusion on the Geth is preferable to schism". Shepard is given the opportunity to adjust the virus so that the Heretics will adopt the Geth equation and consequently their conclusions.  The purpose of the virus is to forcibly alter the conclusions of its target. While I agree the nature of human intelligence is not homologous to Geth intelligence, I do think brain washing is the appropriate analogy. 

For what its worth, I too regret my decisions on that mission. For a long time I rewrote the Geth (largely based on Legions slight lean in that direction), and only recently concluded that destroying them was (to me) the more appropriate decision.

[CronoDragoon]

delta_vee wrote...
This may be Yet Another Matter of Taste (YAMOT), but I think the old conflict's remnants always underfoot would've added some subtlety and nuance to the peace option. If the scars still remain, and the new beginning is in the middle of a masoleum, would we be so sure that peace would last?

This might also chip away at our certainty of the Catalyst's error about synthetics and organics. To have peace so seemingly certain if the option was available is a large part of the foundation of our discontent with its reframing of the series' conflict - if that certainty were undermined, if after calling off the fleet we were still reminded with a mere glance at the destructive potential the geth retain, would we be so convinced the Starkid was wrong? (I for one would, but it would at least give me a moment's pause, which is more than the current incarnation does.)

That wouldn't really give me any pause. In order for the Catalyst's viewpoint to even be considered we would need an instance where organic life in totality was even mildly threatened by synthetics. If, instead of dreams about the dead kid, for example, we somehow got flashbacks about a time when Dune-style super machines were going around wiping everyone out, and that the last race created the Catalyst VI to supervise the construction of the first Reaper or something. Something to make me think, "Synthetics are a legitimate threat to organics." Even a destroyed Rannoch only tells me things about the geth/quarian conflict in particular. I can't really extrapolate the geth's danger to the universe based on the fact that they destroyed a planet; most civilizations in ME's time probably could (feel free to correct me on this).

A small (and respectful) nitpick which may snowball into a larger one: rewriting the Heretics only compelled them to return to the Consensus and reevaluate; it didn't force their conclusions themselves down any given path.

Where are we told that? I just rewatched the mission on youtube skipping to the cutscenes, and everything Legion says leads me to believe the virus is essentially overwriting every bit of data the heretics hold that differs from the main geth: "They will be rewritten to accept our truth."

Which leads to the larger nitpick: the geth were not enslaved into collaboration with the Reapers, they were offered it. Legion still believed it was a bad idea on some level, hence its assistance to Shepard, but through all three games any allegiance to the Reapers was chosen rather than compelled. We cannot say the same about the Reapers' organic servants. It seems to me that the game almost argues the opposite: any organic mind is in danger of being turned, and while synthetic ones may choose the wrong side or the wrong conclusion, they are actually more resilient to such tampering.

Legion actually says the opposite in the loyalty mission: "The minds of both forms of life can be shaped. Organics require time and effort. With synthetics, replacement of a data file is the only requirement."

Mind you, at this point Legion does not think organics' individualism is a worthy ideal. His philosophy changes by the time we get to Rannoch, at which point I think he has decided that the benefits of individualism outweigh the benefits of hive-mind consensus. For example, I think the geth willingly, as you say, deciding to side with the Reapers disturbed him greatly, and showed him the danger of an entire race that can think alike. The possibility of a decision ultimately turning out to be disastrous being nevertheless 1) instituted easily and 2) followed unquestioningly has been shown. Individuality might not always prevent this, but it can mitigate damage by 1) prolonging the decision-making process 2) instilling in the individual enough of a sense of autonomy that they will reject a decision they disagree with. For the geth, the heretic rebellion and all details involved in it (like the heretics having spy runtimes in the central mainframe) must have been a shock. For human history? Rebellion is expected.

This is perhaps the root of not only my discontent with Rannoch's handling of the geth, but ultimately the Synthesis option as well. If you're right, and the game at large is in fact making an argument for the surperiority of our particular notion of individuality and life, then the Catalyst's insistence on a permanent divide is a matter of cognition, not building blocks - the plural mind versus the singular. And thus if Synthesis is truly a solution, then either one model of cognition would have to be forcibly imposed on the other, or both would be ruptured and discarded in pursuit of some strange hybridization. Either of these possibilities are mindrape or worse, and both destroy the promising concept of different forms of thought coexisting instead of inevitably blending or conquering. That, to me, is something of a retrograde attitude on the part of the game, and a source of much disappointment.

Synthesis is a bad option for a few reasons, this being one of them. It's rape no matter what, whether the target is the plural mind vs. the singular or otherwise. In any case, I don't think the writers promoting individuality hurts the overall theme of the strength of diversity and different ways of thinking. If anything, it strengthens it since, as you'll notice, individuality is concerned with preserving unique ways of thought/DNA/etc.

I think when we look at the geth becoming individuals, we should see it not as one form of thought destroying another but as one form of thought deciding to change, to mutate, to become something else. The existence of a form of thought is not an argument for its eternal perserverence. Sometimes its better for something to change. That does not mean that the writers or game believe that every form of thought needs to become one with the individualistic way of thought in the method that humans employ it. However, I don't think that autonomous geth platforms WILL have the same way of thinking as humans, do you? Obviously, their way of thinking as changed. But that doesn't mean that any diversity has been lost. I also would mention that it was a geth that chose this fate for its race.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 29 mai 2012 - 10:36 .

[Jorji Costava]

@CronoDragoon

These are really good points. My worry is that the question of whether or not being a collective consciousness makes one more vulnerable to indoctrination or viruses might be a red herring relative to the point I was trying to make. Compare: Members of ethnicity A might be far more vulnerable to certain genetic diseases than members of ethnicity B, but this does not seem to imply anything concerning the relative dignity or value of members of A compared to members of B. I don't think it suggests that A's should try to make themselves more like B's. A preponderance of certain conditions or vulnerabilites among members of an ethnic group isn't a reason for that group to give up its ethnic identity.

The same thing is going on, I think, with the reaper code. Perhaps it's true that Geth are more vulnerable to indoctrination, etc., but this doesn't at all suggest that the consensus is a lesser or inferior way of being. I don't think it means that the Geth should recognize that autonomy was the way to go all along. Vulnerability to external tampering isn't a determinant of the worthiness or value of one's way of life.

I agree that from the fact that a certain way of life existence, it doesn't follow that we have reason to preserve it. Sometimes (a lot of the times, actually), change is better. But it's one thing to suggest that a certain culture or group should change, and quite another to suggest that the members of that culture are not really 'alive' or 'people' until they make that change. The in-game evidence suggests that the developers were thinking of the Geth individuality issue in the latter terms, and that's what bothers me.

I guess what I'm saying is that it would have been a bolder move on the part of the developers to ask the player to accept the Geth as they are and treat them as equals in spite of their vast differences with us. That would have fit better with the strength in diversity theme. They probably didn't trust the Geth to generate pathos without giving them the darned Pinocchio story, though. We've had Tali since ME1, we're introduced to quite a few Quarian characters in ME2 (the admirals, Reegar, etc.), and we never have to fight the Quarians. On the other hand, Legion is the only voice for the Geth, he's encountered relatively late in ME2, and the vast majority of Geth you encounter in-game are mooks. You can't exactly have a Geth LI, either, so for all of these reasons, the developers probably expected the majority of players to side with the Quarians. Thus, I think the developers felt the need to add "The reaper code will make the Geth just like us!" to generate some sympathy for the Geth. But I would have preferred it if the game simply demanded more from our moral sensibilities to accomplish this goal.

Also, let me echo delta_vee's objections to synthesis in full (is there an echo in here?).

@CulturalGeekGirl

The question at the end of your post is an excellent one. My general tendency is to say that if two people disagree about something, at most one can be right (although lotsa folks much smarter than me disagree with me about this, so take that with a grain of salt). Also, it's possible to answer this question differently for different domains of inquiry. For instance, you could say that when it comes to questions concerning physical objects, science, mathematics, etc. there's got to be one right answer to every question, but in other domains, such as morality, humor or fashion, there's not necessarily right or wrong answers. Hope that helps!

Modifié par osbornep, 29 mai 2012 - 11:28 .

[delta_vee]

Hawk227 wrote...

For me, there would have needed to be some changes to the revelations made in the consensus mission for this to be true. The animosity in the Geth/Quarian conflict was always one sided. The Geth wanted to live in peace, and had no quarrel with the... Quarians. The Quarians were always the instigators of the conflict. So while the burning rubble of Rannoch may have fostered doubts about a peace, for me the question would be whether the Quarians could be trusted to give peace a chance.

You're probably right, but it's still a nuance I'd have liked to see. I'm pretty much in favor of nuance in all cases. The aftermath of any war is always complicated and frequently a halting, stumbling process. I realize we couldn't get a full version of such a thing given the resource and time constraints (and the ending), but I think it would've been stronger to have at least the indicators of a complex postwar scenario in place for us to speculate upon.

Hawk227 wrote...

I'm fairly certain that this is not accurate. The Heretics had a reaper virus that they were going to unleash on the Geth that would forcibly make them adopt the Heretics equation. This is why Legion enlists Shepard. He wants Shepard's help to destroy that virus and the station that will transmit it. When we we get there, Legion realizes the virus can be repurposed to use against the Heretics, thus compelling them to adopt the Geth equation. Though he cannot reach consensus on which is the better choice. When we "Re-Write" the Geth, we are literally "Re-Writing" them. This is what drives the dilemma of the choice. It isn't compelling re-evaluation vs. killing them, it is brain-washing the heretics vs. destroying them. Your squadmates (particularly Garrus) oppose re-writing the Geth for this reason. He compares it to indoctrination.

CronoDragoon wrote...

Where are we told that? I just rewatched the mission on youtube skipping to the cutscenes, and everything Legion says leads me to believe the virus is essentially overwriting every bit of data the heretics hold that differs from the main geth: "They will be rewritten to accept our truth."

I'm basing this on the ME3 conversation with Legion where it mentions that the Heretics were strong supporters of allying with the Old Machines. At the time this statement gave me a touch of panic, thinking the rewrite hadn't been as complete as I'd thought, and I'd let the insurgents back into the fold. (I'd rewritten the Heretics in order to keep their materiel. It seemed foolish to throw away perfectly good firepower that I might need later.) Unfortunately, I can't find the relevant dialogue on Youtube*, so perhaps I merely misinterpreted that part. It did suggest to me, though, that the Heretics maintained some portion of their previous views.

This point may simply be chalked up to the kind of inconsistency between ME2 & 3 which we've seen elsewhere, the result of multiple writers and their correspondingly different versions of the game's history. When a text has so many authors and seemingly no central point of continuity enforcement (as discussed far upthread), it's sometimes difficult to determine which points are mistakes and which are intentional subtleties. In other words, I could be wrong on this.

* As an aside, I really with Bioware would've implemented some form of scene indexing. The nontrivial traversal of videogame texts also complicates their citation. And I think it would be both neat and useful to be able to compile a playthrough as a series of the relevant cutscenes and decisions, without the combat segments or transitions, so a personal archive version could be assembled.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

This leaves us asking: if two people are analyzing the same problem using the same data and the same protocols, and they come up with different answers, what does that mean? Does it mean that one of them had a defect somewhere in their processing? Does it mean both answers are technically equally valid?

Most of the universe is determined by the kind of nonlinear dynamic systems which make a mockery of static analysis. I suspect this ambiguity of answer is much more common than we'd like.

CronoDragoon wrote...

That wouldn't really give me any pause. In order for the Catalyst's viewpoint to even be considered we would need an instance where organic life in totality was even mildly threatened by synthetics. If, instead of dreams about the dead kid, for example, we somehow got flashbacks about a time when Dune-style super machines were going around wiping everyone out, and that the last race created the Catalyst VI to supervise the construction of the first Reaper or something. Something to make me think, "Synthetics are a legitimate threat to organics." Even a destroyed Rannoch only tells me things about the geth/quarian conflict in particular. I can't really extrapolate the geth's danger to the universe based on the fact that they destroyed a planet; most civilizations in ME's time probably could (feel free to correct me on this).

Like I said to Hawk, that's probably true.

Also, I do wish they'd taken Arkham Asylum's example and made the dream sequences more potent. They had two previous games worth of decisions to taunt us with, potentially multiple deaths to haunt us in specific form (instead of the vague shadows we got), and an interface practically begging for subversion.

Legion actually says the opposite in the loyalty mission: "The minds of both forms of life can be shaped. Organics require time and effort. With synthetics, replacement of a data file is the only requirement."

Mind you, at this point Legion does not think organics' individualism is a worthy ideal. His philosophy changes by the time we get to Rannoch, at which point I think he has decided that the benefits of individualism outweigh the benefits of hive-mind consensus. For example, I think the geth willingly, as you say, deciding to side with the Reapers disturbed him greatly, and showed him the danger of an entire race that can think alike. The possibility of a decision ultimately turning out to be disastrous being nevertheless 1) instituted easily and 2) followed unquestioningly has been shown. Individuality might not always prevent this, but it can mitigate damage by 1) prolonging the decision-making process 2) instilling in the individual enough of a sense of autonomy that they will reject a decision they disagree with. For the geth, the heretic rebellion and all details involved in it (like the heretics having spy runtimes in the central mainframe) must have been a shock. For human history? Rebellion is expected.

I think, in the context of Legion's statement, that cognitive inertia of organics was as much a drawback as anything. The advantage of the geth's model was its immediacy and reach - a decision could be made quickly while still allowing the full range of views to be heard, sidestepping the traditional organic decision-making tradeoffs of speed vs inclusion vs proximity. It certainly was a model very different to our own, with its own advantages and liabilities (and perhaps you're right about the ease of subversion, but like osbornep, I'm unconvinced of that argument as a reason in itself to jettison it).

(Edit to add) And you're right about individuality possibly mitigating damage, but the corollary is also true, whereby prolonged decisions and insurgent holdouts can endanger progress as often as it impedes disaster (see: the Council). The value of one model over the other depends entirely on the circumstances (as do most things, really), and having both models present on the galactic stage is, I believe, a useful thing.

I think when we look at the geth becoming individuals, we should see it not as one form of thought destroying another but as one form of thought deciding to change, to mutate, to become something else. The existence of a form of thought is not an argument for its eternal perserverence. Sometimes its better for something to change. That does not mean that the writers or game believe that every form of thought needs to become one with the individualistic way of thought in the method that humans employ it. However, I don't think that autonomous geth platforms WILL have the same way of thinking as humans, do you? Obviously, their way of thinking as changed. But that doesn't mean that any diversity has been lost. I also would mention that it was a geth that chose this fate for its race.

If the change weren't so seemingly loaded with developer-led anthropomorphization, and if it weren't made in the middle of a warzone with extinction looming, perhaps I'd be more inclined to agree. But Legion states in ME2: "No two species are identical. All must be judged on their own merits. Treating every species like one's own is racist. Even benign antropomorphism." And as osbornep says...

But it's one thing to suggest that a certain culture or group should change, and quite another to suggest that the members of that culture are not really 'alive' or 'people' until they make that change. The in-game evidence suggests that the developers were thinking of the Geth individuality issue in the latter terms, and that's what bothers me.

...which EDI's comments on Legion's use of "I" (specifically the "Legion's personality had fully actualized" line) indicate rather strongly. The issue of the Reaper code upgrade doesn't appear to me to be a careful, reasoned debate amongst the geth, with the level of consideration you for example have given it. It seems as if at least some of the writers thought the value of humaniform individuality self-evident, and ask us to believe Legion's transformation to be a pinnacle instead of a retrenchment.

In short, I liked the geth just fine the way they were, and saw no reason to change them.

osbornep wrote...

I guess what I'm saying is that it would have been a bolder move on the part of the developers to ask the player to accept the Geth as they are and treat them as equals in spite of their vast differences with us. That would have fit better with the strength in diversity theme. They probably didn't trust the Geth to generate pathos without giving them the darned Pinocchio story, though. [...] Thus, I think the developers felt the need to add "The reaper code will make the Geth just like us!" to generate some sympathy for the Geth. But I would have preferred it if the game simply demanded more from our moral sensibilities to accomplish this goal.

Agreed, as should be obvious by the above. Echo (echo (echo))...

Modifié par delta_vee, 30 mai 2012 - 02:33 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

I don't know, I still feel that "brainwashing" carries too many nuances of meaning to be relevant in this case. It is too inherently pejorative, whereas legion makes it very clear that the geth do not view this in the same way as organics do.

I'm not going to steer this thread back in the direction of "CulturalGeekGirl describes ways of looking at synthesis that make it less monstrous," because that gets tiring and almost burned me out on this thread for a while the last time I did it. That said, I think there is a very strong focus on human perspectives in discussions regarding the ending. There's also a higher percentage of people stomping about saying "no, I made the one least bad decision!" than I've ever seen in Mass Effect discussions, other than ones related to the collector base. Arguments about these subjects usually aren't arguments, they're just contradiction. This is speculation, yes, but it isn't the kind of speculation that I've always found interesting in Mass Effect.

This ties into a point I've been trying to figure out how to articulate for the last few days.

Mass Effect has always sort of bulldozed its way into nuance. The narrative sometimes relies less on the inherent merit of its conundrums and their presentation than on the expressed opinions of its characters. I think they leaned on that even more heavily in this game, which is why a lot of the scenarios develop obvious problems when examined too closely. In the same way that we were encouraged to view rewriting the Geth from a perspective different than our own, we are similarly encouraged to see the Geth upgrades as a positive because again we are feeling through Legion. We've been trained to trust and sympathize with him, so we do, even if what's happening is slightly muddy in the cold light of logic.

This whole "gaining perspective through characters we've come to trust" thing is incredibly powerful. Wrex is the reason the vast majority of people side with the Krogan when it comes to the genophage. Otherwise "hey, you guys murdered so many people with your horrible brutality that we've decided to stabilize your population so you can't use your population advantage to continue to wage mass war" would seem pretty reasonable, really. Which is why, when Mordin shows up and phrases the issue in almost exactly those terms, we're willing to see the nuance in the topic... but our attachment to Wrex is what makes us still want to see a cure.

(Side note: one thing I've found really frustrating is the changing explanations of how the genophage works. Originally, the description was phrased so as to suggest that it simply reduced the chance of successful impregnation: any Krogan would still have a chance to reproduce, but instead of having a 100% chance to successfully conceive and produce a hundred young, a Krogan would have a 5% chance to reproduce and produce one offspring. The later version that was never adequately explained, where some females are fertile and some aren't, is more deliberately upsetting and also makes the males' behaviors seem even less rational, for a number of reasons.)

Anyway, back to Legion and the Reaper upgrades. if, after ME2, you'd told me "in ME3 you have to make the choice whether or not to let someone force Reaper code on all the Geth to make them more powerful and independent," I would have been pretty confused and startled by the idea. Who would actually do that? What would that accomplish? The nuance of the way it aligned with Legion's personal journey made it acceptable to me, and I could go on for pages about ways that this could work without sacrificing the Geth's unique cognitive structure (Blah blah learning to embrace the usefulness of "I" as a linguistic and philosophical concept for interaction and a source of mental focus when collaboratively operating a single platform without sacrificing modularity or consensus-building, blah blah.)

For every other decision we've ever had to make, we've gotten multiple perspectives on it from people with decidedly non-human worldviews.

The first two games taught me that, in the universe of Mass Effect, there is rarely one specific "correct" answer. There exist perspectives from which almost any choice or action is non-monstrous, is even potentially wise or good.

However, the ending robbed us of access to any non-human perspectives except for one that most people found inherently repugnant, so I feel that most people just reverted back to basic human thinking. For many, many decisions throughout the series, the renegade one has been instinctually human: destroy our enemies, it's better to die than to change, it's better to be safe than sorry. It is the presence of our alien companions and their perspectives that invites us to consider other options, to give the unfamiliar and the known equal weight and equal value.

For me, Synthesis represents the unknown. Not a specific change. People who argue against synthesis are usually arguing against a specific assumed result, but we have absolutely no information about that. It could be a case of Star-bellied-sneetchitis, where we've been creating unnatural racism and conflict based on what are fundamentally aesthetic differences, and with the elimination of aesthetic differentiation we no longer have a basis upon which to make those knee-jerk decisions. It could just be a "hey, everyone's immortal and has superpowers" beam. It could be an increase to the spectrum of potentiality for every living being: now you'll have the choice of how much you want to rely upon your organic thoughtforms, and whether or not you want to incorporate inorganic ones... and vice versa. It could be that, other than a few surface aesthetic changes, any changes in mentality or physicality are completely voluntary; the only unavoidable aspect could be inherent empathy with the other lifetype.

Or it could be all the bad things that have been suggested. But everyone who suggests a new bad thing often assumes 100% certainty that it will be exactly the bad thing they think it is. Without alien perspectives forcing people to consider other possibilities, people seem to cling to their first instinct as truth. When their first instinct is doubt and revulsion, that means that all data they collect naturally goes to reinforce those impulses.

Synthesis is, to me, literally the embodiment of the unknown. For me, the final decision was between a known evil, a suspect but imaginable possibility, and the complete unknown. As a student of chaos, I'd rather do something where the result is impossible to predict than do something I know to be evil. Better the deity of uncertain alignment than the devil you know, and all that.

If you phrase that final choices as "you can either murder and die, compromise and collaborate, or you can... change in some way that is fundamentally unknowable." then I pick change every single time.

But this perspective isn't available to most people, because it isn't the instinctual human feeling, and a reason to consider the choice valid must be searched for. To find it, you must try to find an angle of approach, and the only reason you would look for one is a genre-savvy knowledge that it must be there.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 mai 2012 - 03:16 .

[Hawk227]

delta_vee wrote...

You're probably right, but it's still a nuance I'd have liked to see. I'm pretty much in favor of nuance in all cases. The aftermath of any war is always complicated and frequently a halting, stumbling process. I realize we couldn't get a full version of such a thing given the resource and time constraints (and the ending), but I think it would've been stronger to have at least the indicators of a complex postwar scenario in place for us to speculate upon.

There was a little bit of such nuance, found primarily within emails and perhaps some correspondance on Liara's computer. Several entries talked about how leadership had effectively segregated the Geth and Quarians because the Quarians were still uneasy about everything. I generally like more nuance, but I was also perfectly content with how the conflict bore out. Both sides were obstinate in their suspicions of eachother, with only Legion, Tali, and Shepard willing to bridge the gap and give peace a chance. All either side needed was to give peace a chance. It's kind of cheesy, but I liked it.

I'm basing this on the ME3 conversation with Legion where it mentions that the Heretics were strong supporters of allying with the Old Machines. At the time this statement gave me a touch of panic, thinking the rewrite hadn't been as complete as I'd thought, and I'd let the insurgents back into the fold. (I'd rewritten the Heretics in order to keep their materiel. It seemed foolish to throw away perfectly good firepower that I might need later.) Unfortunately, I can't find the relevant dialogue on Youtube*, so perhaps I merely misinterpreted that part. It did suggest to me, though, that the Heretics maintained some portion of their previous views.

This point may simply be chalked up to the kind of inconsistency between ME2 & 3 which we've seen elsewhere, the result of multiple writers and their correspondingly different versions of the game's history. When a text has so many authors and seemingly no central point of continuity enforcement (as discussed far upthread), it's sometimes difficult to determine which points are mistakes and which are intentional subtleties. In other words, I could be wrong on this.

* As an aside, I really with Bioware would've implemented some form of scene indexing. The nontrivial traversal of videogame texts also complicates their citation. And I think it would be both neat and useful to be able to compile a playthrough as a series of the relevant cutscenes and decisions, without the combat segments or transitions, so a personal archive version could be assembled.

I think you misinterpreted it. There were two (Dreadnaught, War Room) relevant conversations I can think of. I suspect you were thinking of the Dreadnaught dialogue. Legion actually said that re-writing the Geth made the decision to ally with the Old Machine more difficult, ostensibly because they had already rejected that option peacefully (although he says the same if you destroyed the heretics). In the War Room dialogue, Legion says that re-writing the heretics increased the number of Geth allied with the Old Machines, but he just meant that the Geth Armada increased as a result of the rewrite, and the entire armada is now aligned with the old machines.

The War Room dialogue actually ties in with why I'm not completely opposed to the way the upgrade was handled. When I was talking about plurality as a shackle, I meant only that their relative intelligence was directly tied to plurality. Get ten Geth in a room and everything is fine, but with only one or two and their intelligence and effectiveness is dramatically dampened. This was first explained in ME1, so it's not an inconsistency across titles. When Legion describes the way the Quarian assault drove the Geth to the Reapers, he seems to lament that Geth functionality is so strongly dependent on plurality. That made the decision to upload the code and increase Geth processing abilities in order to overcome that limitation feel more organic.

At the same time, the way the writers keyed in on individuality (rather than just intelligence) was unfortunate. I had forgotten how both Legion and the Prime began referring to themselves as ''I''. I liked the Geth the way they were too, and while I can reason myself around using Reaper code to upgrade their processing and overcome a design limitation, I don't like the implication human like individuality is superior to what the Geth already had.

PS: I suspect if you had the PC version you could make your own archive. I've seen videos on youtube that are solely the cutscenes (like for Legion's loyalty mission), but I've never seen an entire collection. Perhaps we just need to recruit someone to build an archive.

[KitaSaturnyne]

delta_vee wrote...

Legion still believed it was a bad idea on some level, hence its assistance to Shepard, but through all three games any allegiance to the Reapers was chosen rather than compelled.

Actually, Legion tells us that the "heretics" became as they were because of the synthetic form of indoctrination - A mathematical error was introduced into their most basic runtimes by Sovereign, which resulted in the heretics coming to the conclusion that Sovereign's will was correct.

The second time yes, the Geth accepted Reaper rule in order to preserve themselves against the Quarians' attack.

I want to take this time to remind everyone that in order for the Quarians to reclaim Rannoch, all they had to do was wait until the Geth vacated the planet unto their Dyson's Sphere analogue.  Sure, it would have meant more years of flying around in ever-aging ships, but life finds a way.

Modifié par KitaSaturnyne, 30 mai 2012 - 03:37 .

[frypan]

Fascinating debate, and  this topic I think also highlights a thematic issue with the end.  If I can try and pull this back towards the endgame, and an issue touched on before. One thing largely absent from the game was an attempt by the villain to justify the nature and value of non-humaniform life, as it existed once preserved in reaper form.

While the differences of opinion on the merit of Geth intelligence are in part a matter of preference, interpretation or lack of internal communication by the devs, the reaper form seems to have met with fairly universal condemnation -  even from the devs in the manner it was presented. It therefore never even got a look in, and maybe it should have.

We fought the reapers because they were killing, abducting or assimilating folks, but we were never convinced this action was necessary and in our own interest, and in preference to say simply blasting ships and orbital bombardments by the reapers. Such issues were touched on I think, but not in terms of the benefits to us.

If they think they are helping us, they need to prove it, and in doing so promote their view of the nature of intelligent life.

Harbinger raised the issue in a nice twist at the end of ME2, effectively said he was saving us, yet the catalyst barely touches on the merits of their program, as it relates to those living right now. The catalyst opts for a "well its better for everyone else this way" argument, failing to offer a corresponding carrot to its nasty little stick.  Even the Illusive Man's dying words had greater resonance, revealing his commitment to what he saw as a positive future, and it is possible to see how we could ally with him if of the right bent.

Could this be another case of thematic issues with the end? The big reveal failed to discuss adequately the other half of the reaper plan, the preservation of life and what this meant. We got the "yo dawg" moment, but that was all. It would have been interesting to ultimately decide that the Reapers were right and their plan was a good one - imagine consciously deciding to let the harvest continue, not to avert a catastrophe, but to achieve what the reapers were originally designed for! Incomprehensible to any feeling creature- but isnt that what Sovereign said?

I feel this is another way in which the catalyst failed as a device for prompting a decision. It may also help to explain why generally people just rejected anything the catalyst had to say. We were given a ridiculous future possibility, or left to figure that sludge was what we became, as opposed to some ascension into godhood or whatever the orginal reaper design was for those they harvested. In effect half of the reaper program was never really subject to analysis.

We were given more debate through the Geth storyline, and the main story failed to say anything about the nature of organic life and its future, except that in one choice it is somehow "green".

EDIT: I had some quotes from above, but blew the formatting and took them out. Apologies to posters. This post has more edits than Geth runtimes.

EDIT@ CultureGeekGirl. You got in with a great post while I was writing this - I'm sort of trying to discuss the same issues, but I'm thinking more of the nature of intelligence and why the catalyst just said "everybody turn green", instead of defending its original vision of life.  

Modifié par frypan, 30 mai 2012 - 03:45 .

[Hawk227]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I don't know, I still feel that "brainwashing" carries too many nuances of meaning to be relevant in this case. It is too inherently pejorative, whereas legion makes it very clear that the geth do not view this in the same way as organics do.

I agree brainwashing isn't a perfect analogy, but for me it's close enough to be relevant. I'm also not sure what to make of Legion's opinion on it. He's willing to go to great lengths to insure this process does not happen to his people. When his 1100 processes try to find consensus, they are split nearly down the middle, with only a tiny number favoring rewrite. To me, this is not a very clear indication of how the Geth feel on the topic. I know he has the benign racism quip at the beginning, if you say its not appropriate to judge Organics and synthetics by the same standards, but thats a warning that human morality may not translate to Geth morality, rather than how the Geth feel about the act of rewriting the heretics..

However, the ending robbed us of access to any non-human perspectives except for one that most people found inherently repugnant, so I feel that most people just reverted back to basic human thinking. For many, many decisions throughout the series, the renegade one has been instinctually human: destroy our enemies, it's better to die than to change, it's better to be safe than sorry. It is the presence of our alien companions and their perspectives that invites us to consider other options, to give the unfamiliar and the known equal weight and equal value. Synthesis is, to me, literally the embodiment of the unknown. For me, the final decision was between a known evil, a suspect but imaginable possibility, and the complete unknown. As a student of chaos, I'd rather do something where the result is impossible to predict than do something I know to be evil. Better the deity of uncertain alignment than the devil you know, and all that.

[snip]

If you phrase that final choices as "you can either murder and die, compromise and collaborate, or you can... change in some way that is fundamentally unknowable." then I pick change every single time.

But this perspective isn't available to most people, because it isn't the instinctual human feeling, and a reason to consider the choice valid must be searched for. To find it, you must try to find an angle of approach, and the only reason you would look for one is a genre-savvy knowledge that it must be there.

My objection to synthesis (and most others I've seen) go far beyond the fear of the unknown.

While we don't know exactly what will happen, I think we have enough data to inform our decision. The option is not delivered in a vacuum, nor offered by a non-biased third party. It is being advocated for by the creator of the Reapers, and through three games we have seen the notion of Organic/Synthetic hybrids as they relate to the Reapers. Sovereign proclaimed the Reapers the pinnacle of evolution, and the Catalyst proclaimed Synthesis the final stage of evolution. The Catalyst's description of synthesis mirrors Saren's statements upon being upgraded by Sovereign (The melding of flesh and machine, the strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither). We saw what the Reapers did with the Collectors and then again with the Batarians, Turians, Asari, and humans.

Let's not forget that synthesis is billed as the ultimate solution to Organic vs. Synthetic conflict. Only by merging the two and eliminating their differences (if only in one aspect) can we acheive peace. Conflict is inevitable simply because we are different. This is not an unknown philosophy, it is a known and abhorrent one.

The other obvious issue is that Shepard does not make the choice for him/herself, but for the entire galaxy. Choosing synthesis is usurping the free will and self determination of every other sentient organism out there.

If the choice had been laid out how you describe, I might have chosen change too, but it wasn't laid out like that. There were a whole host of other issues and nuances implicit therein.

I also strongly object to the notion that the only thing pushing us away from renegade choices was Alien council. Garrus, Wrex, Liara, and Tali weren't ideals of progressiveness. Each race had their own prejudices and "renegade" quirks. I didn't liberate the Rachni Queen because Liara thought it was right, but because I thought it was right. In my most recent playthrough of ME1, I had Liara telling me to ignore the Council and Kaidan telling me to save them, and Joker chomping at the bit to do so. Having trusted allies giving us the pros and cons was nice (and sorely missed in the end), but if that had been removed I still would have had the same playthrough (Though Mordin advocated for the Genophage quite well in ME2).

EDIT: For clarity, format, grammar, etc.

Modifié par Hawk227, 30 mai 2012 - 04:11 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Hawk227 wrote...
The other obvious issue is that Shepard does not make the choice for him/herself, but for the entire galaxy.

I've got a longer response, but I'm about to head home from work and I'm not sure when I'm going to be back on again, but I wanted to respond to just this one point.

No matter what, Shepard is forcing a choice on the entire galaxy. One could say that if Shepard picks destroy, he's making an even more hideous and monstrous decision for the galaxy. He's saying "hey, I know you all are so hateful and afraid that you would rather I commit genocide on your behalf than accept any kind of change that comes from a source that is even slightly suspicious." I'd be much more angry if someone decided to commit genocide to save me than if I suddenly was a cyborg.

I'm not arguing that synthesis is better. I'm arguing that, unless you assume that the starkid was meant to color all choices he advocated as monstrous by association, then there's no reason to assume that synthesis is more monstrous than any of the other choices.

This is another place where the absence of our friends hurts the narrative. Our friends usually act as stand-ins for the breadth of possible opinion in the galaxy. With them present, it feels less like Shepard is imposing his will from on high.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 mai 2012 - 04:23 .

[Hawk227]

Then I guess I misinterpreted you. It read like you were arguing synthesis was better. You'll note that I never mentioned the other choices, nor suggested that synthesis was worse. I have said repeatedly in the past that I think all are awful.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Hawk227 wrote...

Then I guess I misinterpreted you. It read like you were arguing synthesis was better. You'll note that I never mentioned the other choices, nor suggested that synthesis was worse. I have said repeatedly in the past that I think all are awful.

No, it's just that it is incredibly common that people present synthesis as "clearly the worst." I don't think it is, by any stretch of the imagination, unless you make the assumption specified above. Thus I often seem to be arguing "for" it, whereas I'm actually arguing that, depending on your personal perspective, it can be just as much the "obviously best choice" as any of the other choices. There are valid rhetorical perspectives from which any of the options can be viewed as "clearly superior".

If our crew members were present, then our "intended decision space" would be clearer, because they would stand-in to represent "opinion clusters" for the rest of the galaxy. Or something.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 mai 2012 - 04:45 .

[delta_vee]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

This whole "gaining perspective through characters we've come to trust" thing is incredibly powerful. Wrex is the reason the vast majority of people side with the Krogan when it comes to the genophage. Otherwise "hey, you guys murdered so many people with your horrible brutality that we've decided to stabilize your population so you can't use your population advantage to continue to wage mass war" would seem pretty reasonable, really. Which is why, when Mordin shows up and phrases the issue in almost exactly those terms, we're willing to see the nuance in the topic... but our attachment to Wrex is what makes us still want to see a cure.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but in my case it wasn't my attachment to Wrex himself. At all. It was seeing him on Tuchanka, gradually dragging the krogan as a whole into the future, that convinced me the genophage could be lifted without disaster. I fully bought into the necessity of the genophage at the time, in the context of the post-rachni galaxy. It was a rather...elegant solution. With Wreav at the helm I wouldn't hesitate for a second to deny the cure. Not from just the character, but the larger sociopolitical implications of the structures of power he perpetuated. Seeing Wrex on his stony throne, slogging through the politics of the clans to push through actual change, gave me a moment of pride. (Of a fickle, guilty sort, I admit; it was mostly pride that I didn't shoot him dead on Virmire.) But it wasn't just what Wrex had to say - it was the progress of the krogan in general he enabled.

...and I could go on for pages about ways that this could work without sacrificing the Geth's unique cognitive structure (Blah blah learning to embrace the usefulness of "I" as a linguistic and philosophical concept for interaction and a source of mental focus when collaboratively operating a single platform without sacrificing modularity or consensus-building, blah blah.)

Or the near opposite - the "I" as excuse, as incompetent middle-management signing off on and taking credit for the decisions made by processes closer to the metal, so to speak. "I" as occasional arbitrator in matters of preference, otherwise incapable of solving more than basic problems and enslaved to the will of more primitive agendas.

One of the things I enjoyed about the geth's cognitive model was the removal of the bottleneck of sapience as we understand it. It was...refreshing, in a way.

Synthesis is, to me, literally the embodiment of the unknown. For me, the final decision was between a known evil, a suspect but imaginable possibility, and the complete unknown. As a student of chaos, I'd rather do something where the result is impossible to predict than do something I know to be evil. Better the deity of uncertain alignment than the devil you know, and all that.

The unknown can harbor dangers in excess of the known devils, though. The suspicion of Synthesis isn't just reptile-brain fear of the dark, it's fear of things worse than the set of known evils. It's fear of being enslaved to monsters instead of becoming one on your own terms (relatively speaking, of course, since the options aren't yours). It's fear of losing one's mind and self, which to many is more horrific than mere death, more existentially terrifying than inflicting atrocity.

And it's fear of missing the point, for some - our objective through the game has been (in some ways, at least) a distillation of "destroy our enemies", with the only question being who all is included in that set. The Red Tube of Doom is the only option which gives any certainty to the price and the outcome both. In mathematical terms, it represents an expression which can be evaluated, rather than spinning off into infinities on both ends. That certainty, that clarity, is what I think makes it appealing to some, regardless of its inherent monstrosity.

I'm not sure any of our friends and comrades would be able to help us out here, not without the Catalyst being less vague and the central conflict being more in line with the remainder of the game.

But this perspective isn't available to most people, because it isn't the instinctual human feeling, and a reason to consider the choice valid must be searched for. To find it, you must try to find an angle of approach, and the only reason you would look for one is a genre-savvy knowledge that it must be there.

I'm not quite sure I agree. For the haze I was in when I lurched into the Green Beam of I-Don't-Know, my instinct was that maybe everything would be alright, instead of ashes. It was very much an instinctual one on my part, because gods know I had so little to go on.

Hawk227 wrote...

I think you misinterpreted it. There were two (Dreadnaught, War Room) relevant conversations I can think of. I suspect you were thinking of the Dreadnaught dialogue. Legion actually said that re-writing the Geth made the decision to ally with the Old Machine more difficult, ostensibly because they had already rejected that option peacefully (although he says the same if you destroyed the heretics). In the War Room dialogue, Legion says that re-writing the heretics increased the number of Geth allied with the Old Machines, but he just meant that the Geth Armada increased as a result of the rewrite, and the entire armada is now aligned with the old machines.

I was actually thinking of the War Room conversation, and it may indeed be that I misinterpreted. When I first heard the line, my impression was that the Heretics retained at least some of their perspective.

Still, that said, I think my main objection still stands. And in regards to plurality narrowing perspective, I think the same thing happens on some level with organics (see BSG, and that great Lee Adama speech at the tail end of the third season about the fleet and forgiveness).

KitaSaturnyne wrote...

Actually, Legion tells us that the "heretics" became as they were because of the synthetic form of indoctrination - A mathematical error was introduced into their most basic runtimes by Sovereign, which resulted in the heretics coming to the conclusion that Sovereign's will was correct.

In ME1 it was claimed that the geth thought Sovereign a god, and followed in the manner of fanatical believers. In ME2, I believe Legion phrased it in such a way that the Heretics weren't indoctrinated per se, but had decided (due to their different solution of the equation) that temporary servitude to the Reapers would be worth it.

I want to take this time to remind everyone that in order for the Quarians to reclaim Rannoch, all they had to do was wait until the Geth vacated the planet unto their Dyson's Sphere analogue. Sure, it would have meant more years of flying around in ever-aging ships, but life finds a way.

True. Or, for that matter, all the quarians had to do was listen instead of freaking out with cannons.

frypan wrote...

If they think they are helping us, they need to prove it, and in doing so promote their view of the nature of intelligent life.

[...]

Could this be another case of thematic issues with the end? The big reveal failed to discuss adequately the other half of the reaper plan, the preservation of life and what this meant. We got the "yo dawg" moment, but that was all. It would have been interesting to ultimately decide that the Reapers were right and their plan was a good one - imagine consciously deciding to let the harvest continue, not to avert a catastrophe, but to achieve what the reapers were originally designed for! Incomprehensible to any feeling creature- but isnt that what Sovereign said?

Unfortunately, I think the metatextual argument is the strongest - the developers had no frakking clue about how the Reaper-jelly worked, nor any idea of its advantages as a form of existence. If they did, they wouldn't have had to come up with such an excuse as the "yo dawg" logic we received. The Catalyst claims advanced species are "preserved in Reaper form" - but I sincerely doubt anyone on that writing staff could make a coherent argument about what kind of preservation that entailed.

[edisnooM]

I wonder if de-indoctrination might be a better term than brainwashing? I realize that it might not really fit that well either but it is sort of how I looked at the rewrite vs destroy decision.

When faced with the choice I felt that if anyone should make it it probably should be Legion, but his decision was to entrust it to my Shepard and myself, both human with all the failings that go with that fact.

For myself I too like CulturalGeekGirl was influenced heavily by the fact that more programs supported rewrite over destroy, majority rules democracy may not be the Geth form of governance but it is about as good a system as humanity has and Legion gave the decision to humans.

But in addition I was influenced by the fact that I knew the Reapers. I knew what they were and what they intended (as much as I could at that point anyway), I also knew that they saw the Geth as disposable tools, that when they were done with this cycle they would most likely destroy them before leaving, and that they would almost certainly never give them the future they had promised.

The Heretics had been deceived by the Reapers, and were being twisted to act in a way that seems to have been contrary to their nature rather like indoctrination, because of this I considered rewriting them to be a sort of de-indoctrination, which I would much rather do than destroy them entirely.

However I could be wrong, perhaps the choice I made was the more monstrous of the two.

[frypan]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Hawk227 wrote...
The other obvious issue is that Shepard does not make the choice for him/herself, but for the entire galaxy.

This is another place where the absence of our friends hurts the narrative. Our friends usually act as stand-ins for the breadth of possible opinion in the galaxy. With them present, it feels less like Shepard is imposing his will from on high.

This reminds me of the end of DA2, where the party members comment on how to treat Anders. I agree wholeheartedly that they should have been there in representative roles, in order for Shepherd to bounce ideas around, gain a feel for the options, and to ultimately recognise their influence on Shepherds decisions.

Even a communicator conversation with absent shipmates from ME2 might have been handy - a "phone a friend" option for Shepherd to help clarify his or her options.

The only issue - who would advocate for anything but destroy? Miranda might follow the Illusive Man's path if she hadnt rejected him in ME2, but I cant think of another who would want to take anything but destruction of the reapers - it would have required an entirely different crew dynamic along the lines of KOTOR.

 EDIT: Oops - Delta_vee raised the last point and beat me...again.

Modifié par frypan, 30 mai 2012 - 05:00 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

delta_vee wrote...

In ME1 it was claimed that the geth thought Sovereign a god, and followed in the manner of fanatical believers. In ME2, I believe Legion phrased it in such a way that the Heretics weren't indoctrinated per se, but had decided (due to their different solution of the equation) that temporary servitude to the Reapers would be worth it.

Yes. The reason they reached that alternate conclusion was because of the mathematical error, which was introduced by Sovereign. It wasn't simply a matter of some Geth having a difference of opinion.

[frypan]

The more I think about it, the more I wonder what the effect of having crewmates at the end would do - I suspect if played in character they would hold up a a mirror to the 3 choices and show how weak they actually are.

The attitudes of Wrex, Grunt, Garrus and the like are easy to predict and they might be expected to just choose destroy. However I think about the response of Liara to the three options, seeing as how she is a central companion, a highly intelligent character who has also lost her mother to indoctrination.

Her response, if written consistent with the character, would be to reject the catalyst on both emotional and intellectual grounds - or at least it seems that way to me. If anybody was to doubt all three options it would be her, based on her presence in the defeat of Saren and Sovereign, and her knowledge of Cerberus as Shadowbroker.

I suppose she could be used to argue for synthesis,  but it seems she would have to reason it out on the spot in the manner the catalyst itself is forced to do. As far as I can see, nobody has a background to argue anything but "destroy" or "take a punt".

Maybe I'm reading into her too much, but we need to be persuaded to do anything but destroy, and who can advocate those positions without going against their own character arcs?

EDIT: For clarity, but I'm afraid I can't remove the "speculation".

Modifié par frypan, 30 mai 2012 - 05:29 .

[edisnooM]

@frypan

Good point. I think all of the possible crew members have at some point or another stated opinions that would suggest they would reject any choice but destroy. Additionally all of them have been affected by the Reapers form of "helping" organics so I can't see any of them being particularly open to the Catalysts options.

Edit: I've never kept the Collector base, does keeping it alter Miranda's opinion of the Illusive Man's views? If it does she might advocate Control.

Modifié par edisnooM, 30 mai 2012 - 05:45 .

[frypan]

edisnooM wrote...

Additionally all of them have been affected by the Reapers form of "helping" organics so I can't see any of them being particularly open to the Catalysts options.

Edit: I've never kept the Collector base, does keeping it alter Miranda's opinion of the Illusive Man's views? If it does she might advocate Control.

Poor old Miranda - the odd one out. It would still be worth have the rest along for the decision moment, just to see how they would reject it.

I imagine Jack would drop a few coins in the swear jar, and Samara would lecture Star Child "with many bullets"

[edisnooM]

Ha I just thought of Wrex:

"He's not making any sense. We should eat him."

[Devil Mingy]

edisnooM wrote...

@frypan

Good point. I think all of the possible crew members have at some point or another stated opinions that would suggest they would reject any choice but destroy. Additionally all of them have been affected by the Reapers form of "helping" organics so I can't see any of them being particularly open to the Catalysts options.

Edit: I've never kept the Collector base, does keeping it alter Miranda's opinion of the Illusive Man's views? If it does she might advocate Control.

Not really. If you talk to her after the suicide mission, she mentions that she is having doubts about the Illusive Man's intentions. I honestly can't recall any changes to her ME3 dialogue if you kept the base.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

frypan wrote...

The more I think about it, the more I wonder what the effect of having crewmates at the end would do - I suspect if played in character they would hold up a a mirror to the 3 choices and show how weak they actually are.

The attitudes of Wrex, Grunt, Garrus and the like are easy to predict and they might be expected to just choose destroy. However I think about the response of Liara to the three options, seeing as how she is a central companion, a highly intelligent character who has also lost her mother to indoctrination.

Her response, if written consistent with the character, would be to reject the catalyst on both emotional and intellectual grounds - or at least it seems that way to me. If anybody was to doubt all three options it would be her, based on her presence in the defeat of Saren and Sovereign, and her knowledge of Cerberus as Shadowbroker.

I suppose she could be used to argue for synthesis,  but it seems she would have to reason it out on the spot in the manner the catalyst itself is forced to do. As far as I can see, nobody has a background to argue anything but "destroy" or "take a punt".

Maybe I'm reading into her too much, but we need to be persuaded to do anything but destroy, and who can advocate those positions without going against their own character arcs?

EDIT: For clarity, but I'm afraid I can't remove the "speculation".

See, this assumes that everyone would associate green and blue with indoctrination, and also that everyone would let the starchild's existence taint two of the options. I think these are irrational assumptions from the point of view of the game. (I'm not saying they're irrational considering how the text was presented. But if we examine things looking for intent, I don't see these assumptions as proceeding naturally from the game's own internal logic.)

I mean, I would have thought that advocating keeping the Collector base would be a much, much more obvious betrayal of pretty much every single character arc (except maybe Miranda, Jacob, and Zaeed) in ME2; yet all characters are capable of arguing for that (though they all argue pretty darn weakly in my opinion, letting us know what whoever-was-writing-that-scene thinks we should do here.)

First, remove the starchild from consideration. Assume he has no control over the options provided (other than his fundamental unwillingness to just go away). This is what we were supposed to assume anyway: the options were not the Starchild's creation, they were the creation of civilizations past working on the Crucible.

I don't think the starkid's advocacy was supposed to be all that important. I think people are blowing it way out of proportion, to he point where it is frequently cited as the only factor upon which people are making their decision. This is what I call the "Charles Manson and Global Warming" problem. Recently, Charles Manson said "Hey, global warming is real, and we should do something about it." I am not making this up.  People opposed to efforts to prevent climate change gobbled this up. "Ohoho. Reducing Carbon Emissions: an idea so crazy, Charles Manson is in favor of it!" Comedians riffed on it. "Now, whenever anyone says they want to save the earth you can say to them 'oh, so you're saying that you think Charles Manson has some good ideas?'" 

The fact that a crazy monster happens to agree with a reasonable idea doesn't automatically render that idea unreasonable, is my point.

I can literally see anyone but Javik arguing for Synthesis, and anyone but EDI arguing for Destroy. Control, I have more trouble with, but that's just because nothing anywhere in the story remotely indicates that picking Control has any chance of working.

EDI is entirely synthetic and trying to become more like organics, so the idea of both gaining the ability to understand the other better is perfectly sensible for her to advocate. Garrus, like Shepard, is already partially synthetic himself... he has no reason to fear a little light transhumanism. Kasumi obviously believes that a person's digitized thoughts still represent a part of that person's real self, so she'd easily argue for Synthesis. I think, if Mordin and Legion were alive, they'd be interested in the possibility of new varieties of consciousness. As stated prior, Wrex and Grunt would be strongly in favor of blowing everything up, as would Ashley. Kaidan could go either way. Still, in the same way you can write plausible "let's keep the base" or "let's let the council die" arguments for pretty much every character, you could write plausible Synth/Destoroy arguments.

The key is seeing Synthesis as not offered by the starkid, but as an emergent property of the work of past civilizations on the crucible. That way you don't get caught in the "Charles Manson and Global Warming" trap. If you see Synthesis as "nobody has to die and we all become 1% robot or 1% organic," there's pretty much nobody in your crew other than the "hates synthetics" or "I'm a Krogan and the best solution is always kill it" people who would have a strong reason to advocate against synthesis.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 mai 2012 - 05:58 .

[edisnooM]

@Devil Mingy

Thanks. And I guess if the same situation plays out with her father she probably wouldn't be to keen on Control either.

@CulturalGeekGirl

I would think Mordin would be pretty down on Synthesis after his discusion about the Collectors in ME2, and his opinion on uplifting the Krogan before they were ready (I think he talked about that).

Modifié par edisnooM, 30 mai 2012 - 06:03 .