5087 réponses à ce sujet

[Necrotron]

zarnk567 wrote...

Zolt51 wrote...

Hmm.. "revolting". I think that one is new. Adding it to my collection of retaker angst quotes, for when I need a good laugh.

.............Someone did not read the OP's post. His professor never claimes to be one..... not everyone who hates the ending is a retaker......

Just because someone was personally upset with the ending, and enjoys analyzing it on it's artistic merits, does not mean one does not recognize Bioware's sovereignty to do what they want with the ending.

And I don't know that all RetakeMassEffect people want the demise of Bioware should they refuse to change the ending, I think most of them just want a franchise they love saved (in their opinion).

[Spartanburger]

drayfish wrote...
You are Shepard, Legion is your friend, and when he asks you if he has a soul, you put your controller down for a moment and bawl like an infant.

Yeah... I admit it. I did that.

[optimistickied]

Kloreep wrote...

Yep, they did.

Admittedly, it's largely an emotional thing based on circumstance. I would have disliked the ending no matter what, and my previous posts have explained why. But that I was so upset is definitely a matter of circumstance.

First, the ending has the disadvantage of being the ending. There's nothing after it to "cleanse the palette" (unless you count that short and meh stargazer scene) so I walked away with the most highly objectionable scenes as the most recent and freshest in my mind. Second, it has the disadvantage of being placed into an otherwise awesome game: everything before that seemed to me at worst mediocre and at best really damn good, so the ending was set up to be a sharp and unsignalled drop going up against some high expectations. (I'd seen murmurings of discontent, but also hadn't gotten much of a read on them beyond "the ending may be a downer," which didn't sound worrisome at all.) Third, like CulturalGeekGirl, I stayed up late to finish - played straight through from the Cerberus base assault, not realizing just how far from the end I still was. So mentally, I was both deep into it and tired.

I knew something was going very wrong with the game soon after the platform raised Shepard up. The only thing I could immediately put my finger on (though it's a biggy) was that I called bull on pretty much everything the Catalyst was telling me. Yet, my videogame-senses were tingling and telling me that yes, there's no nuance here, I'm really just expected to swallow this exposition and make this DX-style ending choice accepting this as true. So I briefly considered destroy, but rejected it on account of the Geth. (Though the quote didn't come to mind, "submission is NOT preferable to extinction" sums it up.) I ended up going with synthesis, because at least it was merely confusing, at least it merely sounded impossible and stupid, rather than being outright repugnant. Like Hawk227, it didn't feel I'd picked it in a reasoned way, just drifted into it as the least worst way of submitting to this bizarre twist the game was determined to enforce.

Remember when Hackett radios in to say nothing's happening? I loved that moment.  I went all screwfaced. I kind of panicked. What the hell do you mean "nothing's happening"? So there's Shepard futility trying to activate this crazy doohickey, looking all feeble and weak and disoriented and grieving and he's bleeding out, and I can't hit a button to save the day, and I don't know what's coming next, and there's nothing I can do. So it was a miscarriage? The very character who has prowled space with all of his famous martial expertise and strength of will, who has brokered peace treaties between aliens and fell in love and found friendship and inspired loyalty and joined the universe to take this noble stand against some insurmountable enemy, is suddenly defeated by a gizmo, a chintzy control panel.

I think the audacity of that moment freaked me out to such a degree that the Catalyst's appearance seemed almost tame. Everything was suddenly different. I know I'm being effusive here, but that was how severe my emotional reaction originally was. Isn't it crazy how different it was for us? Now I can see your side. I've just watched a YouTube clip and I get exactly what you're saying, and yet I'm inclined to try to recapture my original response.

Kloreep wrote...

I'm still curious about going back to the analogies I set up earlier, if you found interest in them. What separates bioengineering as a method for control from other technology? If nothing, why is intelligent synthetic life identified with technology more than intelligent organic life? I think the Krogan, or Cerberus' experiments with the Rachni & Thorian, or some experiments (like on the Yahg) that we see in Priority: Sur'Kesh, and so on... they show how a biomodification-inclined empire like the Salarians could be just as menacing as a synthetic species (or an organic species that successfully controls synthetics) - whether said empire ends up as an agent of order (experiments are successful and their control and power grows) or as agent of chaos (created rebels against the creator and yada yada).

I guess synthetics are originally constructed to serve as means to an end, while organic lifeforms do not presuppose function. Hopefully? If there is a need for life, if life is designed for a purpose, it cannot exist in the natural world (blah blah Camus life is absurd rah). It must be artificial or technological. But that's largely a philosophical debate, I guess, and would require a hell of a lot of time and research to fully articulate. Like, just look at livestock, for example.

However, that is why I think synthetics are technological. I associate technology with chaos because it upsets the equilibrium achieved in nature (order). I think order is achieved through a balance of chaos, whereas chaos emerges from the need to impose order. Is that logically unsound? I should work on that.

Kloreep wrote...
You're one of the best-spoken (best-written?) posters here. You trying to brag or something, ese?

You are!

Modifié par optimistickied, 20 avril 2012 - 12:49 .

[drayfish]

optimistickied wrote...

(blah blah Camus life is absurd rah).

Fantastic!  I love this thread.

Modifié par drayfish, 20 avril 2012 - 12:54 .

[-Spartan]

 The following links are to some lite reading for those of you interested in the "bigger picture" regarding the situation at hand.

Ally J Shivka

Conflict of Interest in Gaming Journalism 

Modifié par -Spartan, 20 avril 2012 - 01:34 .

[optimistickied]

Hawk227 wrote...

optimistickied wrote...

But I think living without the dread of Reapers is what the Catalyst is offering. Organics must be the custodians of their universe. It is up to them to challenge this prophecy. It warns Shepard of the dangers of playing God, of creating artifical life, of abusing technology, but is nonetheless supplanted. It has realized organic life is worthy of self-determination despite knowing that organic life is doomed.

Whereas the old solution kept order, the new solution permits chaos.

I don't think the endings are remedies from destruction, only the removal of a divine authority that had always been repressing organic life.

In a way, I don't think your idea of the Reapers is contradicted by the Catalyst. It admits organics were being robbed of their forms. Organic life had never been capable of opposing them. They were very literally grinding us into paste and there really was nothing we could do to stop it.

Much earlier in this topic, I'd talked about synthetic life being a symbol of technology. I stand by that. I think the polarity between nature and technology had created a constant tension throughout the story. When I confronted the Catalyst, I never felt as though this theme was downplayed, because I looked at it both literally and metaphorically.

Sorry you felt divorced from the game though. That sucks.

I've never played Deus Ex and I'm not familiar with its ending. I know I haven't properly addressed your points here (I just got out of school), but I do appreciate where your coming from and your perspective has definitely influenced my own.

Since I don't believe in IT, I think Shepard's resistance to Indoctrination may be worth noting. I also think he is rewarded for his efforts by a presumably omniscient Catalyst who chooses to reveal itself to him. Why it selects Shepard to be the deliverer of organic life is... left to conjecture. We don't know. I don't know. I'll think about it.

(I feel like my post here has a lot of nonsense and spelling errors. I have so many excuses though. I grew up underprivileged, natch.)

I see what your saying about choices being about removal of divine authority. But I have trouble reconciling that with what the Catalyst says. He delivers his premise about the created rebelling against its creators. Then he says his solution won't work, and that we have to find a new solution. He's still using the word "solution" to refer to the Organics vs. Synthetics conflict. Then he gives you three options, only one of which is a solution.

For the reapers as villains, I think the motivation matters. In ME1 it sounded like they did it just because they could. In ME2 you learn about the colonists being made into a proto-reaper and it throws the reproduction angle in there. Both of those things are scary. Not just "we're grinding you into a paste and you can't stop us". "We're grinding you into paste, you can't stop us and we're doing it simply to make more of us." When that changes to "We're grinding you into paste, you can stop us if you want, but we're only doing it to help you" it kind of kills it for me.

Maybe this is unfair, but a little part of it is that it's impossible not to get this scene. You can do the absolute bare minimum and still meet the catalyst. No matter what, shepard can stop them. If you do the minimum it doesn't turn out as well, Destroy is your only choice and Earth is incinerated, but the rest of the galaxy is free.

I saw the generic Organic/technology theme (apparently I don't know what to call it), but for me it faded out after ME1. In ME1 you can talk to Kaidan about L2 implants, and you meet the biotic terrorists that are all pissed about their L2 implants, there's the rogue AI on the citadel and the rogue VI on Luna, and theres the rogue scientists doing awful things in the name of ... science. But these are all optional quests. I only met the rogue AI on my most recent (maybe 4th time) playthrough. In ME2, I didn't see these things (I'm also a little obtuse). Cerberus put you back together, but that seemed to be for the best. Everyone had moved on to L3 and L4 implants, so that wasn't an issue. I'm sure the bad things in the name of science was still there, but it was apparently no longer plot relevant. You have an awesome, helpful, funny loyal AI on board. Then you meet Legion and you start to get the idea that even the Geth conflict wasn't as it seemed. These last two things were even cemented in ME3. You see the Quarians initiated the morning war, EDI takes on a physical form to see the world like an organic would even adjusting her protocol and falling in love with Joker. By the time the end came around I was seeing the intertwining with technology as an unambiguously good thing. But like I said before, I was genuinely worried about the Krogan. I've generally kept Paragon but if Eve hadn't been so cool, I wouldn't have cured the genophage. So the end was almost an unsupported rebuttal of the last 2 games for me. I was substantially more worried about an Organic race than I was about technology and specifically synthetic life.

I never played the first Deus Ex, but I played the newest one. And its very much about these issues (and so was the first apparently). As you go through it you see the good and bad in technological advancement (people are actually replacing organic limbs with robotic upgrades, and getting microchips to make them more charismatic). You meet people with differing opinions (It's all good, it's all bad, we need to regulate it) and its up to the player to decide how they feel at the end. It seemed a much more appropriate journey

Your interpretation of the catalyst as omniscient and rewarding of shepard is interesting. I would disagree (naturally). He very heavily implies that Shepard will die in the destroy option, but it is possible for him to survive. Also, the choices you get, and the catalysts attitude toward you, are tied to your EMS level. With low EMS he treats you as an annoyance, and your given only one option. As your EMS improve new options are made available (control, and then synthesis). Does he reward you more as you better unite the galaxy? That seems plausible. But why start with destroy? In his eyes that's the worst solution. But if you distrust the Catalyst it would be the best solution, the Reapers can't rebel against your control, and you don't homogenize the galaxy into reapers. I'm not sure any of this negates what your saying, but it seemed a relevant point.

As for IT, I actually am a believer. It fixes the narrative coherence issues for me, it's reasonably well foreshadowed, it makes Arrival relevant again, and it makes for a really interesting storytelling mechanic. Indoctrinate the player! I think that's cool. If you're at all curious I would suggest poking in on the main hallucination IT theory thread (with 1500+ pages). Any articulate well reasoned voice is welcomed, whether they agree with us or not. Also, sorry for being so long winded. I don't even have a good excuse like being a lit professor.

This topic is so cutting into my homework time.

Thanks for your response. Notice how the Catalyst admits in Destroy, the peace won't last. I think it accepts that this outcome is a solution. If synthetic life destroys organic life, the prophecy is fulfilled but the matter is settled. So cheery, but it goes back to that "divine removal" thing.

The Catalyst admits the Reapers were harvesting civilizations. I think it's more, "We've been grinding you into paste and absorbing you to keep you from unleashing Armageddon. You may think we're evil, but we think you're foolish." I mean why would they simply want to make more of themselves? To fill in all the negative space beyond the stars?

I think it's interesting your saying, "I was substantially more worried about an Organic race than I was about technology and specifically synthetic life." I think that's the point, really. Yeah. Ultimately, the organics are the scary ones. Synthetics must be constructed. If organics were not so ambitious and enterprising and irresponsible and did not pursue the creation of artificial life, their destruction would not be assured.

I forget sometimes about EMS levels. Perhaps reward isn't the appropriate term. More like "acknowledge." Why do you say Destroy is the worst solution, according to the Catalyst?

"Indoctrinate the player!"  I like it.  You're not long-winded at all. I'll check out the IT topic.

Also, drayfish, if you're reading this, I was going to comment on your last response, but I'm a little afraid and also, do you think composition is as important as content or is it an even split? For that matter, was there anything about the Mass Effect 3 ending you enjoyed?

drayfish wrote...

As audience members we have been invited to help steer this car (sure,
by necessity we were sitting on Bioware's lap the whole time), but that
sense of freedom and abandon that we could imagine for ourselves, that
we could feel through the thrum of the engine under our hands, was like
no other narrative engagement up to this point.

That is sublime.

Modifié par optimistickied, 20 avril 2012 - 01:53 .

[drayfish]

optimistickied wrote...

Also, drayfish, if you're reading this, I was going to comment on your last response, but I'm a little afraid and also, do you think composition is as important as content or is it an even split? For that matter, was there anything about the Mass Effect 3 ending you enjoyed?

Hi Optimistickied:
 
Never be afraid to respond. 
 
Obviously there is never a singular answer to such an intriguing and diverse question as the one that you pose, but if I'm understanding the question correctly (is the act of experiencing, and perhaps manipulating, the artwork as important as designing the original text, its subject matter, and parameters?), the beauty of the video game medium is that it offers the opportunity to explore that division as no other art form has before.
 
I can say that personally, in the case of Mass Effect, there can clearly be no audience response and interaction without the original text already being designed, with its multiplicity of possibilities already encoded on the disk waiting to be explored; so in that case, I would have to say content, by necessity, must win out. However, the beauty and appeal of Mass Effect lies in its capacity to invite us to invest in the shifting sands of those possibilities.
 
I mentioned the example of theatre in a previous post, and to return to that analogy again, theatre offers a similar (though not quite as expansive) exhibition of this interrelationship. If you are watching great theatre, you can go to the same production of the same play on two separate nights and see two fairly distinct versions of precisely the same events, because fine actors respond differently to the feel of an audience and to their fellow performers. They adapt and shift (albeit in minor, but profound ways), instinctively measuring the temperament of the room and responding accordingly to great effect. It's why good theatre (and I say 'good' because bad theatre is like a dagger in the eye) has that remarkable frisson that charges a room with emotion.
 
Video games are on their way to having the capacity to elicit similar feedback and adaptation to audience response – and Mass Effect is an enormous leap in that direction, responding to our input directly and thereby tailoring its expression to our experience. 
 
In answer to your second question, I will admit (as I think I've mentioned in my previous posts), many of your descriptions of the ending, the intensity of the emotion, the agony of those decisions, do strike me profoundly. But personally – and again this is entirely my own subjective perspective – the frustration of feeling that my engagement had been hijacked by the arbitrary nature of that endpoint hollowed those sensations out. 
 
I was heartbroken by the decision I felt I had to make out of those three options – and in that sense the game was extremely successful. If the primary purpose of that moment in the artwork was to create a purely emotional response that would stay with me as viewer and participant, then the creators achieved their goal. My issue is that in order to wrestle me into that position the game had to violate the entire thematic journey that I had (up to that exact moment) been on, and it was that sense of somehow being mistaken about the whole premise under which this universe operated, making a decision that I felt (and again: wholly my own subjective opinion) undid every choice I had made up to that point, stirred up an existential numbness that ultimately undermined and muffled the sorrow.
 
...Wow that was pretentious. Sorry, that's probably not at all what you were asking.

[Kloreep]

optimistickied wrote...

Remember when Hackett radios in to say nothing's happening? I loved that moment.  I went all screwfaced. I kind of panicked. What the hell do you mean "nothing's happening"? So there's Shepard futility trying to activate this crazy doohickey, looking all feeble and weak and disoriented and grieving and he's bleeding out, and I can't hit a button to save the day, and I don't know what's coming next, and there's nothing I can do.

Loved that part, I had a similarly positive experience with the bit of the ending between TIM's end and the Catalyst's introduction. What really made it for me is Shepard's response: "What... what do you need me to do?" Desperate, but still giving it all, even bleeding to death. Big Gorram Hero to the end - but in a human way.

That's one place ME3 really succeeded for me: somehow it humanized Shepard, a character that had been built into a godlike figure previously, especially in ME2. It made some chinks during the course of the game, but it was that last bit that did most of the work and finally accomplished it: seeing Shepard limping, bloody, absolutely wrecked by Harbinger's beam finally got me to see the character as mortal and vulnerable. The character I was playing. Amazing moments there.

optimistickied wrote...

I think the audacity of that moment freaked me out to such a degree that the Catalyst's appearance seemed almost tame. Everything was suddenly different. I know I'm being effusive here, but that was how severe my emotional reaction originally was. Isn't it crazy how different it was for us? Now I can see your side. I've just watched a YouTube clip and I get exactly what you're saying, and yet I'm inclined to try to recapture my original response.

Yeah, and I think I begin to see yours: if the train is already going so far off the tracks that the hero is about to die for "nothing," what's a little more crazy?

optimistickied wrote...

I guess synthetics are originally constructed to serve as means to an end, while organic lifeforms do not presuppose function. Hopefully? If there is a need for life, if life is designed for a purpose, it cannot exist in the natural world (blah blah Camus life is absurd rah). It must be artificial or technological. But that's largely a philosophical debate, I guess, and would require a hell of a lot of time and research to fully articulate. Like, just look at livestock, for example.

Here's (I hope) what I'm trying to get at: I can see a distinction between life that evolved out of random chance and lives in absurbity, and life that was intelligently constructed. (Though others, like Ashley, might ask us why we're so certain we belong in the former category. ) The Creators and the Created, we might say. However, I can't readily transfer that to Synthetic vs. Organic, because Organic life can be non-randomly created or modified by other intelligent life. Depending on the definition of Synthetic life, I can see it being possible to say that "Synthetics = Created." But the other three parts of this don't work for me, namely:
Organics = Creator (what if they're bioengineered?)
Creator = Organics (couldn't any sufficiently intelligent life create other life?)
Created = Synthetics (again, bioengineering...)

Also, I have to say I don't get Created vs. Randomly Evolved as being that big a divide. Sure, the Created get to have a origin "myth" that is actually pretty factual - assuming they don't mess with it. However, that's really more of a "how" or a very mundane "why," not an existential "why." If we feel absurd because we have no "why," how is synthetic life going to feel that "you were created to serve these absurd organics who have no 'why' themselves" is any less absurd? If I personally want to know "why" I was created, I can be answered that I came to be because my parents liked the cut of each other's jib. That's certainly an explanation, a true one. But it's not something that is going to solve any existential crises for me, or thereby place me on a different plane from other intelligent beings.

And, even assuming it did and I therefore have an existential answer: why am I necessarily in conflict with other intelligent beings just because we do lead radically different existences? Rebellion or Difference != Eternal Incompatibility.

optimistickied wrote...

I associate technology with chaos because it upsets the equilibrium achieved in nature (order). I think order is achieved through a balance of chaos, whereas chaos emerges from the need to impose order. Is that logically unsound? I should work on that.

While I may be misinterpreting it, I think I take issue with this line of thinking, yes.

Take eutrophication. The basic idea is that when the balance of nutrients in a body of water changes, the ecosystem there changes too. At first because some life has an easier time (or a harder one), and then even moreso line simply because relative sizes and activity of populations has changed - a formerly marginal species may grow to crowd out others, for instance. From this we get instances like algae pretty much taking over lakes, or jellyfish ruling parts of the sea they used to just be small parts of. That might sound "chaotic" - but not at all IMO. Circumstances change due to technology (e.g. fertilizer runoff in Eutrophication's case) and things arrive at a new equilibrium. Are we talking about nature or technology? Well, both, really. And even looking at each part in isolation, I have a hard time classifying either as simply identified with order or chaos.

More importantly, nature itself is not all about equilibrium. If anything, it's about change. Look at the number of extinction events that have occurred on Earth, and what the survival rates for the species around at each were like. Nature appears pretty chaotic to my eyes. As long as you don't narrow the scale to our human perspective, the natural world is all about circumstances constantly changing. And life either keeping up or getting left by the wayside.

That was a bit confused, probably because I'm not really grokking you in the first place. I hope it made at least some sense.

optimistickied wrote...

Kloreep wrote...
You're one of the best-spoken (best-written?) posters here. You trying to brag or something, ese?

You are!

Wabbit season!

Modifié par Kloreep, 20 avril 2012 - 03:08 .

[noivoieidoi]

Made Nightwing wrote...
Drayfish, p.13:

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why[...]

It’s like asking where the copper in your car’s wiring came from, when you should focus on your destination. These questions never occurred to me, or I thought the answers were obvious, and surely we focused on and enjoyed different aspects of the game. Except for the Catalyst-Citadel, which I find to be an intriguing and great character (unfortunately underdeveloped), unlike many others in the game. I mentioned in several places the evidence pointing to its origin and possible back story, as the very first rebel of the galaxy, who found a way to dominate from shadows its creators, the Reapers, and have an imperceptible but huge influence in the galaxy for aeons. Or maybe this is only what reading haiku in my childhood did to me.

In the Control ending, Shepard is invited to pursue the previously impossible path of attempting to dominate the reapers and bend them to his will. Momentarily putting aside the vulgarity of dominating a species to achieve one's own ends (and I will get to complaining about that premise soon enough), this has proved to be the failed modus operandi of every antagonist in this fiction up until this point – including the Illusive Man and Saren – all of whom have been chewed up and destroyed by their blind ambition, incapable of controlling forces beyond their comprehension. Nothing in the vague prognostication of the exposition-ghost offers any tangible justification for why Shepard's plunge into Reaper-control should play out any differently. In fact, as many people have already pointed out, Shepard has literally not five minutes before this moment watched the Illusive Man die as a consequence of this arrogant misconception.

The Catalyst-Citadel surrenders its power and its place as the master of the galaxy to Shepard. Shepard needs to ascend in order to do that, and so become the supreme villain or benefactor of the galaxy (depends on your point of view), giving up his/her humanity. You (the player) should take a step back and try and see the big picture, fully understand the stakes and ask yourself what is to become a god like. Shepard guides you here, hesitating to assume such responsibility. I don’t know a lot of people who meditate over that. Can’t see how it fits the definition of vulgarity.

The Destroy ending, however, seems even more perverse. One of the constants of the Mass Effect universe (and indeed much quality science fiction) has been an exploration of the notion that life is not simplistically bound to biology, that existence expands beyond the narrow parameters of blood and bone. That is why synthetic characters like Legion and EDI are so compelling in this context, why their quests to understand self-awareness – not simply to ape human behaviours – is so dramatic and compelling. Indeed, we even get glimpses of the Reapers having more sprawling and unknowable motivations that we puny mortals can comprehend...

To then end the tale by forcing the player to obliterate several now-proven-legitimate forms of life in order to 'save' the traditional definition of fleshy existence is not only genocidal, it actually devolves Shephard's ideological growth, undermining his ascent toward a more enlightened conception of existence, something that the fiction has been steadily advancing no matter how Renegadishably you wanted to play. This is particularly evident when the preceding actions of all three games entirely disprove the premise that synthetic will inevitably destroy organic: the Geth were the persecuted victims, trying their best to save the Quarians from themselves; EDI, given autonomy, immediately sought to aid her crew, even taking physical form in order to experience life from their perspective and finally learning that she too feared the implications of death.

Correct, the idea of destroying the Reapers is repulsive. And this is the whole point: when facing death (or even caught in less threatening events), what would you do? It’s a theme never fully explored, but often debated in war fictional or documentary works, based on real life events. It’s even harder to make a choice when you base it on conflicting data: some consequences of your preceding actions seem to point towards the possibility of a peaceful and reasonable agreement (though far from entirely disproving etc.), and on the other hand your last hope, the virtually immortal Catalyst-Citadel says nope, on long term this inevitably ends badly. What do you do? Oh, I get it... it’s easier to evade it entirely by yelling ‘bad writing, you shouldn’t ask me such questions!’, isn’t it?

And finally Synthesis, the ending that I suspect (unless we are to believe the Indoctrination Theory) is the 'good' option, proves to be the most distasteful of all. Shepard, up until this point has been an instrument though which change is achieved in this universe, and dependent upon your individual Renegade or Paragon choices, this may have resulted in siding with one species or another, letting this person live or that person die, even condemning races to extinction through your actions. But these decisions were always the result of a mediation of disparate opinions, and a consequence of the natural escalation of these disputes – Shepard was merely the fork in the path that decided which way the lava would run. His/her actions had an impact, but was responding to events in the universe that were already in motion before he/she arrived.

To belabour the point: Shepard is an agent for arbitration, the tipping point of dialogues that have, at times, root causes that reach back across generations. Up until this moment in the game the narrative, and Shepard's role within it, has been about the negotiation of diversity, testing the validity of opposing viewpoints and selecting a path through which to evolve on to another layer of questioning. Suddenly with the Synthesis ending, Shepard's capacity to make decisions elevates from offering a moral tipping point to arbitrarily wiping such disparity from the world. Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.

And your point is?...  I mean – any other choice Shepard would have made would impose his/her will in the galaxy. Moral tipping point? Now you symbolize the evil/good in the galaxy, please rise to the expectations. The old moral rules don’t apply anymore; in fact, now YOU make the moral rules, on a new foundation, a galactic vision. This ALWAYS happens, as scientifically demonstrated (and shown in the 3 games too): moral rules dynamically change with the side you are on, your position in society and the power you have. Now you are a god – the highest and most powerful position in galaxy and above any rivalry or tribal interests. So, what’s with all this ‘moral tipping point’ nonsense? Oh, yes, I think I might have heard of it when I was a puny human. Now it's gone. Good. Never felt comfortable with it anyway. ‘Wiping such disparity from the world’... Hum... On Earth we are all humans. Not only all DNA based, but all a single species. Does anybody see any uniformity coming around the corner anytime soon? Getting rid of wars and other such violent and tragic arguments is highly praised; people want at least this kind of uniformity. The reality is far from that though.  How about the very dividing debate about the endings of ME3?

The obscurities in the ending of Mass Effect 3 have not been similarly earned by its prior narrative.

With this, I wholeheartedly agree! The series is kind of an action game incorporating a lot of great ideas already presented in other fictions, some original twists, several interesting characters, equal amounts of good and ridiculous lines of dialogue, and the shallow Shepard. Nothing to make me remember it any other way than great entertainment. The ending changed that, and from this point of view, again, I completely agree – it doesn’t fit the game. It is still sort of a children’s ending, as the rest of the game, but the missing explanations do a lot of good. You, the player, are allowed to finally think and write the story the way you wanted. The gods of Mass Effect don’t hold your hand anymore, but merely gave you some general directions and that's it. From now on you are on your own feet. My feet brought me back to Dune, one of my favourite SF series of books. There, the mighty god of Dune, able to see the future’s divergent paths, all of them leading to a ME3 apocalyptic kind of ending, must constantly plan, choose and adjust, hoping that at some point he will find a happy or at least positive future line. Of course, I never felt that the game ended, but it rather began. It awoke my sense of temporal exploration.
 
And probably here lies the best explanation for our differences: I didn’t feel any special psychological attachment to the story or the characters in the three games and my expectations for the ending were pretty low compared to the others’. Kind of cheesy-heroic-something, in line with the ME series. Maybe I’m too demanding, but only a few games made me feel for the characters (only The Witcher and TLJ-Dreamfall series come to mind at this time). So, I was pleasantly surprised and now I hope the Real Mass Effect for Matures will commence, through a new, less action and more puzzle oriented series of games, consistent with the ending of ME3.

Modifié par noivoieidoi, 20 avril 2012 - 03:03 .

[M0keys]

noivoieidoi wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...
Drayfish, p.13:

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why[...]

It’s like asking where the copper in your car’s wiring came from, when you should focus on your destination.

All my friends in Mass Effect amount to copper wiring!?

:(

[fle6isnow]

M0keys wrote...

noivoieidoi wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...
Drayfish, p.13:

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why[...]

It’s like asking where the copper in your car’s wiring came from, when you should focus on your destination.

All my friends in Mass Effect amount to copper wiring!?

:(

Nah, just Legion.

[M0keys]

fle6isnow wrote...

M0keys wrote...

noivoieidoi wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...
Drayfish, p.13:

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why[...]

It’s like asking where the copper in your car’s wiring came from, when you should focus on your destination.

All my friends in Mass Effect amount to copper wiring!?

:(

Nah, just Legion.

Legion amounts to copper wiring!?

:(

[NS Wizdum]

noivoieidoi wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...
Drayfish, p.13:

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why[...]

It’s like asking where the copper in your car’s wiring came from, when you should focus on your destination. These questions never occurred to me, or I thought the answers were obvious, and surely we focused on and enjoyed different aspects of the game. Except for the Catalyst-Citadel, which I find to be an intriguing and great character (unfortunately underdeveloped), unlike many others in the game. I mentioned in several places the evidence pointing to its origin and possible back story, as the very first rebel of the galaxy, who found a way to dominate from shadows its creators, the Reapers, and have an imperceptible but huge influence in the galaxy for aeons. Or maybe this is only what reading haiku in my childhood did to me.

Actually, its more like asking: "What is my car doing in South America? I just parked it in london 5 minutes ago!"

[Riion]

M0keys wrote...

noivoieidoi wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...
Drayfish, p.13:

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why[...]

It’s like asking where the copper in your car’s wiring came from, when you should focus on your destination.

All my friends in Mass Effect amount to copper wiring!?

:(

I hear copper is quite expensive on the market these days...

[NS Wizdum]

Riion wrote...

M0keys wrote...

noivoieidoi wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...
Drayfish, p.13:

So, putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to explain why[...]

It’s like asking where the copper in your car’s wiring came from, when you should focus on your destination.

All my friends in Mass Effect amount to copper wiring!?

:(

I hear copper is quite expensive on the market these days...

It was higher a couple years ago. Its down to around $2.30/lb now. How much do you think Legion weighs?

[SkaldFish]

@Hawk227, @optimistickied:  The dialogue you two have been having prompted me to start looking into the Reapers, their motivation, and how the Reaper concept changed across the installments of the trilogy. I've started compiling all that in blog posts, and would welcome any comments. At the moment, it's admittedly not what I'd call compelling content because I'm compiling what I think we know about the Reapers. Eventually I'll get to some analysis that I'm hoping will help me understand why I found the ME3 ending so jarring. Honestly, though, I don't know at this point what I'll find.

I'm primarily doing this for my own benefit, but others might find it interesting or, at a minimum, worthy of either attack or reasoned dismissal, so here are the links to the first two installments:

Goodbye Reapers, We Hardly Knew Ye (Part 1) - The Groundwork
Goodbye Reapers, We Hardly Knew Ye (Part 2) - The Reapers in Mass Effect 1: Extragalactic Machines of Mystery

[Hawk227]

optimistickied wrote...


This topic is so cutting into my homework time.

Thanks for your response. Notice how the Catalyst admits in Destroy, the peace won't last. I think it accepts that this outcome is a solution. If synthetic life destroys organic life, the prophecy is fulfilled but the matter is settled. So cheery, but it goes back to that "divine removal" thing.

The Catalyst admits the Reapers were harvesting civilizations. I think it's more, "We've been grinding you into paste and absorbing you to keep you from unleashing Armageddon. You may think we're evil, but we think you're foolish." I mean why would they simply want to make more of themselves? To fill in all the negative space beyond the stars?

I think it's interesting your saying, "I was substantially more worried about an Organic race than I was about technology and specifically synthetic life." I think that's the point, really. Yeah. Ultimately, the organics are the scary ones. Synthetics must be constructed. If organics were not so ambitious and enterprising and irresponsible and did not pursue the creation of artificial life, their destruction would not be assured.

I forget sometimes about EMS levels. Perhaps reward isn't the appropriate term. More like "acknowledge." Why do you say Destroy is the worst solution, according to the Catalyst?

"Indoctrinate the player!"  I like it.  You're not long-winded at all. I'll check out the IT topic.

I have to say, as this conversation has gone on I've started wondering
what your focus of study is. I imagine one of the humanities, probably
literature or philosophy. Something that nurtures abstract thought. When
I graduated a few years ago, my degree was in biology and my transcript
was embarrassingly thin on the humanities. It's interesting to
contemplate how our chosen fields affect our perception of the end, and
what that says about how we view the world.

This thought really culminated for me when you said

"Notice how the Catalyst admits in Destroy, the peace won't last. I think it accepts that this outcome is
a solution. If synthetic life destroys organic life, the prophecy is fulfilled but the matter is settled. "

I see exactly what you mean, but I never would have
thought of this, and I'm not sure agree. What exactly was the problem
that the Reapers are a solution too? I thought it was the inevitable
extinction of organic life. The catalyst states the problem is "chaos"
but then defines chaos as the inevitable extinction of organic life. The
catalyst tells you that Destroy will end in the extinction of organic
life. How is this a solution? If it is a solution, why make the reapers
in the first place? Maybe we have different definitions of solve? Maybe
I'm confusing "favorable solution" with "solution"? Now it's my head at risk of explosion.

I find myself disagreeing with you for the most part, but your ideas are very thought
provoking and I genuinely appreciate this and respect you all the more
for it.

"We've been grinding you into paste and absorbing you to keep you from
unleashing Armageddon. You may think we're evil, but we think you're
foolish."  I mean why would they simply want to make more of themselves? To fill in all the negative space beyond the stars?

You're quote is exactly my problem with it. The whole "we were doing it for you" robs them of menace and gives them a sort of perverted altruism. And, in a sense, it robs them of their "humanity". I think that reproduction is sort of a fundamental motivation for life. I see the Reapers as alive, obviously. Why wouldn't they want to make more of themselves? Are they somehow above it? To turn them into a tool subverts what made them interesting and menacing. They used to be a sapient entity destroying us for their own unknown reasons, now they are robots serving a function. Am I making sense? Sometimes its hard for me to tell.

The reason I say destroy is the worst solution for the Catalyst is because it destroys his solution (and apparently him) and commits organic life to extinction. The reason I specify "for the catalyst" is simply because I distrust him, his solution, and the supposed problem.

EDIT:

optimistickied wrote...
I associate technology with chaos because it upsets the equilibrium
achieved in nature (order). I think order is achieved through a balance
of chaos, whereas chaos emerges from the need to impose order. Is that
logically unsound? I should work on that.

I missed this earlier, but having a background in biology I really like this. Leave it alone, it's brilliant.

Modifié par Hawk227, 20 avril 2012 - 04:16 .

[Hawk227]

SkaldFish wrote...

@Hawk227, @optimistickied:  The dialogue you two have been having prompted me to start looking into the Reapers, their motivation, and how the Reaper concept changed across the installments of the trilogy. I've started compiling all that in blog posts, and would welcome any comments. At the moment, it's admittedly not what I'd call compelling content because I'm compiling what I think we know about the Reapers. Eventually I'll get to some analysis that I'm hoping will help me understand why I found the ME3 ending so jarring. Honestly, though, I don't know at this point what I'll find.

I'm primarily doing this for my own benefit, but others might find it interesting or, at a minimum, worthy of either attack or reasoned dismissal, so here are the links to the first two installments:

Goodbye Reapers, We Hardly Knew Ye (Part 1) - The Groundwork
Goodbye Reapers, We Hardly Knew Ye (Part 2) - The Reapers in Mass Effect 1: Extragalactic Machines of Mystery

That should be an interesting investigation. For me the writing team did a fantastic job of slowly building them up in a way that kept them menacing and enigmatic but still allowed our understanding of them to grow. At least until that gorram* Space God Child went and neutered them!

Anyway, I look forward to reading it.


* - I'm totally adopting this word for the forum, getting to curse without cursing is very attractive when describing the end.

[Hawk227]

Kloreep wrote...

optimistickied wrote...

I associate technology with chaos because it upsets the equilibrium achieved in nature (order). I think order is achieved through a balance of chaos, whereas chaos emerges from the need to impose order. Is that logically unsound? I should work on that.

While I may be misinterpreting it, I think I take issue with this line of thinking, yes.

Take eutrophication.The basic idea is that when the balance of nutrients in a body of water changes, the ecosystem there changes too. At first because some life has an easier time (or a harder one), and then even moreso line simply
because relative sizes and activity of populations has changed - a formerly marginal species may grow to crowd out others, for instance. From this we get instances like algae pretty much taking over lakes, or jellyfish ruling parts of the sea they used to just be small parts of. That might sound "chaotic" - but not at all IMO. Circumstances change due to technology (e.g. fertilizer runoff in Eutrophication's case) and things arrive at a new equilibrium. Are we talking about nature or technology? Well, both, really. And even looking at each part in isolation, I have a hard time classifying either as simply identified with order or chaos.


More importantly, nature itself is not all about equilibrium. If anything, it's about change. Look at the number of extinction events that have occurred on Earth, and what the survival rates for the species around at each were like. Nature appears pretty chaotic to my eyes. As long as you don't narrow the scale to our human perspective, the natural world is all about circumstances constantly changing. And life either keeping up or getting left by the wayside.


That was a bit confused, probably because I'm not really grokking you in the first place. I hope it made at least some sense.

I really liked his quote. I also really liked your response, so I hope you don't mind if I butt in for a second.

It's true that an ecosystem can go through drastic changes after an event like an ice age, meteor impact, or smaller events like eutrophication events. But I would consider those outside events. An ecosystem is a community of organisms adapted to a set of conditions. But a change in the set of conditions is an external pressure on that ecosystem. As a result the organisms better suited to the new environment prosper and the rest are left behind until a new equilibrium (order) is found. That external pressure results in a fundamental change in the ecosystem.

This order is built on the chaos of competition. But as humans, we don't like that competition. We might get eaten by a mountain lion or die from famine from some external pressure (like drought). So we impose order with technology. We develop ways to mass produce food to feed billions, we use guns to hunt our predators to extinction. We clear cut forests for farm land and housing development. We pump CO2 into the atmosphere to heat our homes so we don't freeze in the winter. This throws off the balance of everything else.

As a result we've escaped the system and become the external force. By trying to impose order we create chaos.

Modifié par Hawk227, 20 avril 2012 - 04:43 .

[Sable Phoenix]

noivoieidoi wrote...

>snip<

And probably here lies the best explanation for our differences: I didn’t feel any special psychological attachment to the story or the characters in the three games and my expectations for the ending were pretty low compared to the others’. Kind of cheesy-heroic-something, in line with the ME series. Maybe I’m too demanding, but only a few games made me feel for the characters (only The Witcher and TLJ-Dreamfall series come to mind at this time). So, I was pleasantly surprised and now I hope the Real Mass Effect for Matures will commence, through a new, less action and more puzzle oriented series of games, consistent with the ending of ME3.

Alright, you were actually laying your point out very well, and I was following along and could see where you were coming from (even if I don't agree with you), you were just trundling along swimmingly... right up until this point.

Pretentious much?

This is the problem when trying to talk to all of you ending apologists.  You're all just so much smarter than the rest of us.  We who dislike it are little more than intellectual ants.  How could our pathetic mental processes possibly keep up?

I'm really, really sick of that attitude by this point, so I'll just leave this here:

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 20 avril 2012 - 06:23 .

[Hexi-decimal]

Really really enjoyed this read. It nice to see someone so thoughtfully, and constructively lay out their point of view. This is more or less my issues with the endings. Though I still hold out some hope that the DLC in the summer will give me enough explanation to not entirely dislike the endings.

[optimistickied]

drayfish wrote...

Video games are on their way to having the capacity to elicit similar feedback and adaptation to audience response – and Mass Effect is an enormous leap in that direction, responding to our input directly and thereby tailoring its expression to our experience.

And here everybody thought gaming was still in its chubby infancy. The medium's voice has already cracked and pitched and its flexing in the mirror as we speak. It's squeaking into our hearts and stealing our wallets, like any proper teenager ever could.

Also, you're very quotable, you know? Adaptive storytelling is intriguing.

drayfish wrote...

My issue is that in order to wrestle me into that position, the game had to violate the entire thematic journey that I had (up to that exact moment) been on, and it was that sense of somehow being mistaken about the whole premise under which this universe operated, making a decision that I felt (and again: wholly my own subjective opinion) undid every choice I had made up to that point, stirred up an existential numbness that ultimately undermined and muffled the sorrow.

You tender-hearted scamp! For some reason after I read that (I now associate you with overdue library books and the odor of exploding ink chemicals) I thought of Holden from The Catcher in the Rye when he says to Antollini, "I like it when somebody digresses. It's more interesting and all." I mean, I am trying to view the endings as  unmitigated disasters (as they are for a lot of people for a lot of reasons) but I sort of admire them, in a way.  Anyway, it's pretty cool that you've come out to share your thoughts with us. It gives people looking for a sense of validity someone to turn to. They can refer to this thread, and use your own articulated voice to echo their personal discontent. It's fantastic. I like that we can all come from our respective levels of education and literacy and experience and engage in a conversation about a mutual interest we feel passionately about. I hope it makes our gray matter grayer.

Even though seriously, since coming to these threads, I've become one of those scary troglodytes. And you really are hyperbolic...

Kloreep wrote...

Yeah, and I think I begin to see yours: if the train is already going so far off the tracks that the hero is about to die for "nothing," what's a little more crazy?

Well, if you fly over the first cuckoo's nest, you probably just end up landing in the next one, right?

Kloreep wrote...

Here's (I hope) what I'm trying to get at: I can see a distinction between life that evolved out of random chance and lives in absurbity, and life that was intelligently constructed. (Though others, like Ashley, might ask us why we're so certain we belong in the former category. ) The Creators and the Created, we might say. However, I can't readily transfer that to Synthetic vs. Organic, because Organic life can be non-randomly created or modified by other intelligent life. Depending on the definition of Synthetic life, I can see it being possible to say that "Synthetics = Created." But the other three parts of this don't work for me, namely:
Organics = Creator (what if they're bioengineered?)
Creator = Organics (couldn't any sufficiently intelligent life create other life?)
Created = Synthetics (again, bioengineering...)

Also, I have to say I don't get Created vs. Randomly Evolved as being that big a divide. Sure, the Created get to have a origin "myth" that is actually pretty factual - assuming they don't mess with it. However, that's really more of a "how" or a very mundane "why," not an existential "why." If we feel absurd because we have no "why," how is synthetic life going to feel that "you were created to serve these absurd organics who have no 'why' themselves" is any less absurd? If I personally want to know "why" I was created, I can be answered that I came to be because my parents liked the cut of each other's jib. That's certainly an explanation, a true one. But it's not something that is going to solve any existential crises for me, or thereby place me on a different plane from other intelligent beings.

And, even assuming it did and I therefore have an existential answer: why am I necessarily in conflict with other intelligent beings just because we do lead radically different existences? Rebellion or Difference != Eternal Incompatibility.

Huh. I guess the Catalyst doesn't seem to make these distinctions. If you possess synthetic material, as Shepard does, then in the Destroy ending (for example), it sounds as though you're pushing daisies, despite the character's classification as an organic lifeform. I admit that that's pretty damning considering how pervasive technology is in the Mass Effect universe. Destroying synthetics may  conceivably include destroying organic lifeforms modified by  genetic or cellular engineering. However, because Shepard can survive the Destroy ending, it could also mean that the synthetic components used to modify organics may be safely removed or converted... by that "space magic" stuff. In other words, the organic template would remain but be severed from its synthetic assets. I suppose bioengineered components could be considered synthetic impurities.

To try to address your point though, I guess... huh. I agree that any sufficiently intelligent life could have the capacity to generate new life but I would make a biological/artificial distinction. In my opinion, the Catalyst would not differentiate between a synthetic created by an organic or a synthetic created by a synthetic. I suppose a perfect organic created by a synthetic would be an anomaly. Furthermore, if a synthetic intelligence inhabits an organic form, it is still a synthetic, and a true organic intelligence should not exist in a synthetic form because to do so, it would have had to have been artifically dissociated from its original body. I would say that until the two are properly merged in Synthesis, synthetics and organics can't achieve absolute harmony. Obviously, I'm seriously stretching the Mass Effect lore.

I know this is like the 10th time you've tried explaining your position here, but I'm kind of dense and it's 4 am, and it's a confusing topic. Moving on then,

For some reason, your response prompted me to think about this scenario: Say EDI and Joker wanted to reproduce, so EDI constructs a new synthetic lifeform somehow incorporating Joker's genetic material to represent the child. Is that lifeform truly the offspring of EDI and Joker? EDI is the creator in this scenario, and the Brave Little Toaster is the "infant." Is EDI the mother of the new lifeform, in the biological sense of the word?

As for the second part of your response,

The prophecy states that the created will always rebel against their creators. I would say that, unlike synthetics, organics cannot definitively identify their creator(s).  Plus, whereas I think we suffer existential angst over our lack of purpose in the universe, synthetics can resolve internal existential questions with empirical research and inquiry. If an organic asks itself, "Should I exist?" it has no way of verifying the answer it arrives at. The synthetic can trace its intended purpose to an exact origin, even if it its original purpose is simply "For nothing." This is an expansive topic that we could devote a lot of time talking about.

Kloreep wrote...

Take eutrophication. The basic idea is that when the balance of nutrients in a body of water changes, the ecosystem there changes too. At first because some life has an easier time (or a harder one), and then even moreso line simply because relative sizes and activity of populations has changed - a formerly marginal species may grow to crowd out others, for instance. From this we get instances like algae pretty much taking over lakes, or jellyfish ruling parts of the sea they used to just be small parts of. That might sound "chaotic" - but not at all IMO. Circumstances change due to technology (e.g. fertilizer runoff in Eutrophication's case) and things arrive at a new equilibrium. Are we talking about nature or technology? Well, both, really. And even looking at each part in isolation, I have a hard time classifying either as simply identified with order or chaos.

More importantly, nature itself is not all about equilibrium. If anything, it's about change. Look at the number of extinction events that have occurred on Earth, and what the survival rates for the species around at each were like. Nature appears pretty chaotic to my eyes. As long as you don't narrow the scale to our human perspective, the natural world is all about circumstances constantly changing. And life either keeping up or getting left by the wayside.

Eutrophi... eutrophica... eutrophication...

Admittedly, biology isn't my field and "order and chaos" is just using general terminology to describe natural and unnatural phenomena. I find the sciences are really daunting but also really boring, because they seem to be all about learning different systems and laws and studying principles. There may at times be temporal irregularities in nature and there are chaotic systems operating within the universe (isn't there a thermodynamic property about it?) but...  it seldom seems random to me.  Where's that Mordin impersonator?

Hawk227 said...
I have to say, as this conversation has gone on I've started wondering what your focus of study is. I imagine one of the humanities, probably literature or philosophy. Something that nurtures abstract thought. When I graduated a few years ago, my degree was in biology and my transcript was embarrassingly thin on the humanities. It's interesting to contemplate how our chosen fields affect our perception of the end, and what that says about how we view the world.

Buff up your humans. I didn't peg you for a bio guy, by the way.

I feel like I'm majoring in aimless. First year. I'll probably go Lit. I guess. I'll try to respond to the rest tomorrow. Sore eyes.

Modifié par optimistickied, 20 avril 2012 - 10:19 .

[drayfish]

optimistickied wrote...

Even though seriously, since coming to these threads, I've become one of those scary troglodytes. And you really are hyperbolic...

Hyperbolic? Indeed. It's the verbal equivalent of using needless hand gestures, and I'm afraid I'm known for them too.

But your rhetoric seems to be coming along very nicely:

'And here everybody thought gaming was still in its chubby infancy. The medium's voice has already cracked and pitched and its flexing in the mirror as we speak. It's squeaking into our hearts and stealing our wallets, like any proper teenager ever could.'

Fine, fine work. I salute you.

Modifié par drayfish, 20 avril 2012 - 11:07 .

[bushes289]

bump

[Keyrlis]

optimistickied wrote...

I
associate technology with chaos because it upsets the equilibrium
achieved in nature (order). I think order is achieved through a balance
of chaos, whereas chaos emerges from the need to impose order. Is that
logically unsound? I should work on that.

One basic flaw there, though. Nature is chaos. Thermodynamic laws stipulate that it is more energy costly to impose order, and it will naturally degrade to lower energy levels. For example, it's possible to stack a house of cards, but the more likely state is to find them scattered on the floor, like when I try. Differently dyed water, allowed a connecting channel, will flow and completely scatter their respective molecules amongst each other. To separate them again requires an expenditure of energy. Technology requires many higher magnitudes of order and energy use. Circuits currently can be made in certain labs with wire only 5 gold atoms wide, but the amount of energy expended in creating such delicate and specific order is enormous, reflected in how expensive the projects are. However, drop a phone from Verizon and see what little inertial energy it takes to disrupt the precise order that allows technology to function.
Then there is the software side. One word. Bugs. Even random mistakes in accessing and moving data can allow miswrites of data. Usually it is self-correcting, but sometimes errors occur. This can happen in organics as well as synthetics: Cosmic rays can damage code of either magnetic or genetic nature, and these changes can go unnoticed and be copied millions of times, sometimes compounding with other mutations. Checking every bit (literally) of code is tedious and energy-expensive.

I think I understand what you are saying, you just labeled it backwards, relative to the laws of entropy, and it confused me for a moment.

I think this is the most well-discussed thread on the forum, and hope the devs get through the massive amount of words stacked here. There are some incredibly revealing displays of loyalty to the storyline that truly show how absorbed some of us were in the universe of ME. I have tried to remain open minded, and have found some comfort in the remarks supporting my distaste in the endings, while yet learning new perspectives which lessen the sullen looks I give the cover everytime I play multiplayer.
There are also, as usual, trolls to distract and disturb, but most of the people here have given well thought out and succinctly written conversation. I appreciated the long, blurry read I finally finished this morning, and as soon as there's coffee, I'll remember what my point was.