286 réponses à ce sujet

[Seryl]

I really think that both Synthesis and Control are monstrous. Forcibly changing everybody to be part machine is effectively taking away their free will. Control is just as bad.

Destroy strikes me as the only moral choice. Yes, EDI and the Geth might be destroyed (this is debatable since we can't trust the starchild), but at least Shepard isn't playing god with every living thing in the galaxy, or making another race into his personal toys.

I have a question for anybody that'd care to answer. If ME3 ended with no final choice, would anybody have been disappointed? That is, if you could only destroy the Reapers, would that have been acceptable? In this scenario, the Crucible firing would remove the Reaper shields, then your ending would hinge on how high, or low, your EMS was.

The reason I ask is that the more I think about the ending, the more I think that the end choices were shoehorned in simply to give the illusion of choice to the player. If Shepard has spent the past five years working toward destroying the Reapers, starchild or no, it seems bizarre that he'd suddenly choose an option that didn't kill them.

[Ticonderoga117]

Seryl wrote...
I have a question for anybody that'd care to answer. If ME3 ended with no final choice, would anybody have been disappointed? That is, if you could only destroy the Reapers, would that have been acceptable? In this scenario, the Crucible firing would remove the Reaper shields, then your ending would hinge on how high, or low, your EMS was.

The reason I ask is that the more I think about the ending, the more I think that the end choices were shoehorned in simply to give the illusion of choice to the player. If Shepard has spent the past five years working toward destroying the Reapers, starchild or no, it seems bizarre that he'd suddenly choose an option that didn't kill them.

This I feel can lead to a WAY more satisfying and varied ending. Didn't collect those assets? Then things go bad, and here is how it plays out while also reflecting your other choices made in ME3. So if they did it correctly, no I wouldn't have because it would make the entire game a series of choices that actually made a difference instead of everything being nulled out by StarKid.

[ElSuperGecko]

Delta_V2 wrote...
Don't forget Overlord.  Everything we've seen has shown that forcibly combining organics and synthetics simply does not end well.

I forgot about Overlord as well.  Talk about foreshadowing...

[PsyrenY]

Javik doesn't apply, simply because Synthesis removes the divide. Even Saren and the Zha were not perfect hybrids - merely implanted organics.

The Quarians with Geth in their immune systems are quite a bit closer to Synthesis, and demonstrate the good that can be done with the technology.

Finally.Javik is hardly the most reliable source. If you achieve peace between the Geth and the Quarians, he considers you a fool, remember? And he wanted Legion jettisoned from the Normandy. Why is his opinion so sacred to you folks now?

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 24 avril 2012 - 09:26 .

[JShepppp]

You bring up very valid points, but there is no reason to assume the Catalyst's synthesis is the same as the Prothean-era race synthesis. The Crucible is much more advanced in terms of technology.

[Oldbones2]

Javik, who hates all synthetics with a righteous passion (they wiped out his race, oops, they forgot the preserve them as anything but mindless monsters) is going to get his life long dream of being 1/2 everything he hates.

[Delta_V2]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

Delta_V2 wrote...
Don't forget Overlord.  Everything we've seen has shown that forcibly combining organics and synthetics simply does not end well.

I forgot about Overlord as well.  Talk about foreshadowing...

Now that I think about it...Overlord is also an example of Control going horribly wrong.

How are we supposed to choose something other than Destroy again?

[Vox Draco]

Seryl wrote...

I really think that both Synthesis and Control are monstrous. Forcibly changing everybody to be part machine is effectively taking away their free will. Control is just as bad.

Destroy strikes me as the only moral choice. Yes, EDI and the Geth might be destroyed (this is debatable since we can't trust the starchild), but at least Shepard isn't playing god with every living thing in the galaxy, or making another race into his personal toys.

I have a question for anybody that'd care to answer. If ME3 ended with no final choice, would anybody have been disappointed? That is, if you could only destroy the Reapers, would that have been acceptable? In this scenario, the Crucible firing would remove the Reaper shields, then your ending would hinge on how high, or low, your EMS was.

The reason I ask is that the more I think about the ending, the more I think that the end choices were shoehorned in simply to give the illusion of choice to the player. If Shepard has spent the past five years working toward destroying the Reapers, starchild or no, it seems bizarre that he'd suddenly choose an option that didn't kill them.

*sigh* Just the way I had hoped it would end....a straightforward ending with the reapers destroyed, and your choices shaping the end-sequences and consequences...

After all it worked in Dragon Age origins? The Archdemon was destroyed and Denerim saved for every kind of character...but what made it interesting was: Did you sacrifice your warden, or someone else, or went the Morrigan-route? And then relax and look how your actions have impacted the world...simple and satisfying, and you won't hear much complaint about that ending....

There is no need at all for the Starchild-scenes and those red/blue/green-choices. none at all. Stop the game after the final confrontation with TIM, see Anderson die, activate the crucible...and hope your EMS is high enough that most of your allies and Earth survive and a team can even pick up Shepard for the ultimate happy ending...

I cannot imagine that such an ending would have created this kind of negative backlash, excecpt for a vocal minority calling it "cheesy" or "chliche", and they would discuss this on the forums mostly alone...because everybody else would rather play all the games again then discussing the Ending...

[LTKerr]

Unit-Alpha wrote...

LTKerr wrote...

Unit-Alpha wrote...

I agree. The disturbing thing is that the leaked script and the game itself both indicate that synthesis is supposed to be the best.

If that's true... well, I don't know what to say, it doesn't make any sense. It's stupid. So Bioware thought that the best way to end the trilogy is turning every organic into whatever cyborg with silicon DNA and every synthetic into...eh... some kind of three-fingered cylon?

It's because they were literally copying Deus Ex. The mistake they made was that with the Deus Ex version of synthesis, it was only the main character and the other options were much, much worse for the world. Not forced genetic rape for everyone that does very little to help the situation, as it was in ME3.

I see the parallelism here and, as you said, the synthesis option in Deus Ex is the option with less collateral damage and one of the options which changes the current status quo. One of the main problems here is: HOW could Bioware believe they could "translate" Deus Ex final choices into Mass Effect choices?

Merge with Helios (synthesis) ---> control? Shepard rules the higher power (reapers) at will.
Second Dark Age (destroy) -------> destroy? No, every ME3 option take the whole civilization back to a dark age.
Illuminati (control) -------------------> Reapers win.

Another problem here is: WHY?! After playing more than 100 hours Mass Effect doesn't need an awful deus ex machina right in the last 10 minutes. That's not what people expected, that's not what a decent writer would do. A deus ex machina fits in the Deus Ex series (if you played Human Revolution you know what I mean) because that's its central theme: a superior and invisible hand who rules the world and sees people, countries, everything as if they were just toys. Reapers don't do that, they don't want to rule the galaxy. Mass Effect doesn't revolve around philosophy or world politics or "information is power". Well, that last one maybe it is for Liara, but anyway... Mass Effect deserves a better ending, deserves something better than a deus ex machina or an awful copy of Deus Ex's ending.

Seryl wrote...
I have a question
for anybody that'd care to answer. If ME3 ended with no final choice,
would anybody have been disappointed? That is, if you could only destroy
the Reapers, would that have been acceptable? In this scenario, the
Crucible firing would remove the Reaper shields, then your ending would
hinge on how high, or low, your EMS was.
.

Actually that's what I expected.

Modifié par LTKerr, 24 avril 2012 - 10:10 .

[Dendio1]

Javik just told us synthesis happened with the zatil and ended up terrible. Thanks for the link..gonna go place synthesis right next to control.

[SovereignX6]

And that's why i picked DESTROY.

[ElSuperGecko]

Optimystic_X wrote...
Javik doesn't apply, simply because Synthesis removes the divide. Even Saren and the Zha were not perfect hybrids - merely implanted organics.

LOLOLOL , blindly devoted to Synthesis as always, eh Optimystic?

Of course Javik's conversation applies.  He gives more insight into the effects of comining organic and synthetic life than the Catalyst does!   He provides a canon historical example of the damage it can cause!  Not assumptions, not guesses, not speculation - actual examples of machines merging with organics.

Just because you think the implications... unpleasant, doesn't make it irrelevant to the debate.  It just means you're once again sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the warnings given to you in the game.

The Catalyst gives you less than a minute of dialogue about Synthesis.  With no explanations or guarantees.  Less than 60 seconds of dialogue convinced to do what the Catalyst wanted you to do.  Good work.

[Baa Baa]

Javik is a realist, so what he says is pretty likely

[ElSuperGecko]

Oldbones2 wrote...
Javik, who hates all synthetics with a righteous passion (they wiped out his race, oops, they forgot the preserve them as anything but mindless monsters) is going to get his life long dream of being 1/2 everything he hates.

The Reapers aren't synthetics.  They're synthetic/organic hybrids.

[omntt]

Synthesis should be the pinnacle of evolution. But the lack of details and any credibility make it looks like a trap rather then a prize. I remember that dialogue with Javik. Honestly I thought synthesis would lead to something like what he said, or showed what exactly means having a new dna. We just got green eyes and cyber-perverts.

Edit : I don't like it. Destroy over it everyday.

Modifié par omntt, 24 avril 2012 - 10:27 .

[ThinkIntegral]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

Optimystic_X wrote...
Javik doesn't apply, simply because Synthesis removes the divide. Even Saren and the Zha were not perfect hybrids - merely implanted organics.

LOLOLOL , blindly devoted to Synthesis as always, eh Optimystic?

Of course Javik's conversation applies.  He gives more insight into the effects of comining organic and synthetic life than the Catalyst does!   He provides a canon historical example of the damage it can cause!  Not assumptions, not guesses, not speculation - actual examples of machines merging with organics.

Just because you think the implications... unpleasant, doesn't make it irrelevant to the debate.  It just means you're once again sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the warnings given to you in the game.

The Catalyst gives you less than a minute of dialogue about Synthesis.  With no explanations or guarantees.  Less than 60 seconds of dialogue convinced to do what the Catalyst wanted you to do.  Good work.

He gives you one example from his cycle, and in that cycle the Zha'til supplemented AI's onto their bodies rather than, arguably, merging tech into their organic being that keeps a person's identity intact.  Second, he is incredibly biased coming from the tail end of a cycle where the majority of his life has been fighting the Reapers.

Javik's convo may apply, but his credibility, to me, is low.

The Catalyst isn't convincing you of anything.  You still have a choice. In fact, were it not for the Crucible the Catalyst would've continued the cycle of harvesting.  The Catalyst explicitly says the Crucible "changed it."  As such, any concept of it trying to convince you of going the Synthesis route would technically be the outcome of the work done on the Crucible; all the previous work of organics.

Unless you're trying to say it's all a last ditch attempt of it to preserve itself. But I didn't hear that in its tone and if that were true it would've stopped Shepard from shooting the power junction.

Modifié par ThinkIntegral, 24 avril 2012 - 11:24 .

[Cobra's_back]

devSin wrote...

I wish Javik could go with you to the end.

He would troll that dumb kid like nobody's business.

So this. Javik is my favorite Troll. Great post.

Thanks OP one more reason to  when I see the green option.

[Taboo]

I simply do not believe it is ethical to rewrite the way the universe has functioned for billions of years.

And to put that decision on the shoulders of one individual? Absolutely not.

[liggy002]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

Synthesis.  It's a bad thing.  Oh yes.


"The randomalienname - they were as the Geth are, to this cycle.  Their creators lived on a dying world.  It was beyond their ability to save, so they resorted to implants to enhance their intelligence.

The AI seized their physical body.  It could alter their genetic material at the deepest level.  In time, the offspring were moulded into a slave race.  Few organic traces were left.  They were monsters.

All machines commit treachery.  The one you brought onboard is no different.  They are more alien than you and I are to each other.  Organics do not know how we were created.  Some say by chance, some say by mircale.  It is a mystery. 

But synthetics... (know we created them).  And they know we are flawed.  They are immortal, we are not.  They see time as an illusion, we are trapped by it's limitations.  Above all, machines know the reason they were created. 

They serve a purpose, while we search aimlessly for ours.  In their eyes, organics have no reason to exist.  Do not trust them, Commander.

There is room for only one order of conciouness in the galaxy - the order of the machines, or the chaos of organics.  Throw the machine out of the airlock, Commander."


Javik isn't really talking about Legion, is he?  He's talking about Starchild, and the spurious nonsense he spouts.


Child: There is another solution.

Shepard: Yeah?

Child:
Synthesis.

Shepard: And that is?

Child: We combine organic life with synthetic life!  Basically you all get nice new semi-synthetic bodies, which are not at all susceptible to Reaper influence.  You'll all live happily ever after... well, until I hit the indoctrination switch, anyway.  Then you'll be lobotomised cattle and servants, forever willing to give up your lives to your supreme overlord - me.


Yeah, thanks kid.  But no thanks.

*shoots pipe*

No, he is talking about Legion.  This is actually one of the points that supports the IT.  It means that the Catalyst intends to screw us over.

Modifié par liggy002, 24 avril 2012 - 11:56 .

[d-boy15]

JShepppp wrote...

You bring up very valid points, but there is no reason to assume the Catalyst's synthesis is the same as the Prothean-era race synthesis. The Crucible is much more advanced in terms of technology.

yeah... advanced so much, beyond our understand.

but it doesn't even have a switch! are switch is so primative?

[Ck213]

So I have to pay more to get needed information from the game I bought?
Didn't know much about Javik. Perhaps I should just watch all his bits on Youtube.

[liggy002]

JShepppp wrote...

You bring up very valid points, but there is no reason to assume the Catalyst's synthesis is the same as the Prothean-era race synthesis. The Crucible is much more advanced in terms of technology.

I doubt that.  Javik is foreshadowing.  It's a common literary technique I am sure that you are aware of.

[Bigdoser]

Lets not forget javik saying that this cycle is doing well because of our diversity.

[lalaquen]

I thought that the fact that it was a bad idea would've been obvious to everyone the minute the Catalyst VI/AI said: "synthesis is the final evolution of life". Evolution is essentially just drift/change; an ongoing process that occurs as the direct byproduct of life. The only way for it to "end" is for all life capable of growth and change to end.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

And let's not forget who unshackled the damned AI. Joker, what a tool he was. Now I've got to spend all day computing pi because he plugged in the overlord.

I had that conversation with Javik when Legion came aboard for the first time. After thinking long and hard about it, I decided the Geth had to go.