286 réponses à ce sujet

[SilentK]

viperabyss wrote...

SilentK wrote...

Synthesis will not remove all limitations in life. If the power goes out, even after the synthesis ending you will have to fix that yourself. If there is a earthquake on your planet people will still need the help of others to get out of the rubble. Synthesis do not remove all the bad things that can happen in life. There will still be accidents, sickness, and wars. So I do not believe that synthesis removes all problems that occur in life. But, I would like to know more how it altered the lives of those living in the galaxy.

Well theoretically speaking, by combining organics and synthetics, your body would form a symbiotic relationship, where the synthetic part would rely on the organics part for power, and organics part rely on the synthetic part for...strength and logevity perhaps?

I agree that synthesis does not remove limitations. I was merely pointing out the fact that human advancement is due to limitations, and our desire to overcome them.

Then we agree   =)

[shepard1038]

If I may make a take on the three endings:

Control: You can say that control is the worst ending and the renegade ending, because you control a sentient
species that never had free will and you become the new Guardian with the power to decide the path of the galaxy.
And it goes against everything you have worked for in all three games, because in all three games you see what
the reapers do and you only have to see what happen to the Ilusive Man. You cannot take control of the reapers and even then the reapers were created to harvest civilizations and slaughter people and if you chose that finale
you betray everything you have worked for and become the new Guardian and take control of the enemie you have
worked so long to destroy and what so glamirous that the Ilusive Man is the one that appears taking control when
the Guardian presents control.

Synthesis: You can say that synthesis is the neutral option, I am going to present the bad of this ending and the good:

The Bad: You changed the genetic code of every living thing, you forced the galaxy in to a new framework, Shepard dies and whats to stop the synthetics mind from dominating the organic mind or the reapers from killing and
harvesting organics and even if it is the final evolution then well whe can wait there is no hurry.

The Good: You stop the singularity problem(supossedly). The only ending where the reapers regaing free will when I saw that happen it was good because the reapers were only instruments of mass destruction.
And synthetics live.

Destroy: The best ending and probably the paragon ending, the only bad I can see in this ending is that(supposedly) the Geth and Edi die. It is the best ending because you acomplish what you have been determined
to accomplish, you avenge all the people the reapers killed, you kill the reapers, you give the galaxy the chance to
make their future and prove the reapers and the guardian wrong, Shepard lives, you don't let compromise
determined you're goals and you free the cycle from the reapers and the Guardian forever and maybe(supossedly) in the future when organics make synthetics they can live peacefully and cooperate together and prove the Guardian wrong.

Modifié par shepard1038, 25 avril 2012 - 07:24 .

[Fapmaster5000]

SilentK wrote...

Fapmaster5000 wrote...

I'm actually relatively okay with transhumanism.  It concerns me, but more for the way people approach it than anything.  Not something I'd choose, but whatever, your bag.

The "moral" problem with Synthesis is that Shepard chooses this fate for EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, with no concern.

The issues with Control and Destroy are far lesser.  Control takes free will from creatures who never had it, and who were your mortal enemy since before you were born.  Ethical concerns?  Heck yes, but ones more easily bypassed.  Destroy has genocide in it, but that's less of an issue than it would seem.  Destroy would possibly destroy a species (bad!), but it was a species which had comitted, entirely to a "win or die" fight.  They knew the stakes going in, and their consensus means that this ending was sacrificing soldiers, not civilians, since every geth would be entirely committed to the war.  

Further, Destroy is only accepting genocide if you ACCEPT the Catalyst's logic.  It is entirely possible for Shepard to say, "Fack you, no, I'll take my chances that you're wrong." and choose Destroy.  Synthesis means that you ACCEPT the Catalyst's logic that you WILL rape each and every organism in the galaxy, and then willfully choosing to do so.  Destroy can be killing without intent, Synthesis is always rape with intent.  

So, no, even in a scenario where the Catalyst is COMPLETELY RIGHT, and Destroy ends bad and Synthesis ends good, Shepard is still more morally reprehensible in the Synthesis ending, because he comitted a vile act with INTENT.

EDIT:  Consider, a child that kills her friend with her father's gun.  Is that murder if she did not concieve that the gun would kill?  Consider this against a man who chooses to inflict torture on another human being to change their opinion on a matter he believes important.  Is that action not wrong, even if his belief is just?

I dislike the use of the word "rape" when it comes to this choice. It feels like it used to color a morally ambigious descision with something that is decidedly wrong. Calling it rape does not turn synthesis into sexual violence.

How would you describe syntehsis if you removed that word. Is it the alteration without asking for permission before? Hmm... I can see it from both sides. It is not an easy choice to alter everyone. But also, if the solution is presented, is it right to turn away simply because you could not ask for advice. I guess that the day-to-day sort of comparison would be turning down a necessary medical procedure because you do not know if the patient currently not communicative would be supportive of it. Guess it is up to each and every Shepard to make that difficult choice themselves.

Okay, I can jive to removing the sexual connotations.  How about "forced mutilation"?  That seems appropriate, although it is rather wordy.

Your second paragraph is rather troubling.  Allow me a moment to take each point as it comes:

It is not an easy choice to alter everyone. 

It wasn't a choice for anyone besides Shepard.  The Catalyst did not say, "This beam of light will let them choose to be synthesized life", it said, "This will turn them into synthesized life."  There was no choice given, simply drastic and traumatic change to body and mind, delivered through surprise and force.  

But also, if the solution is presented, is it right to turn away simply because you could not ask for advice. 

Not acting is not an action.  Tautological, but by definition, true.  By not acting, you do not commit what is quite probably a crime on a scale so massive there is no term for it in human conception.  Turning away from that because of lack of evidence is not a moral failing, it is simply the logical and ethical choice.  To act upon such a decision without any relevant data is both unethical and willfully ignorant.

I guess that the day-to-day sort of comparison would be turning down a necessary medical procedure because you do not know if the patient currently not communicative would be supportive of it. 

False.

A medical procedure on a non-communicative patient is only "necessary" where saving their life is the direct consequence, and inaction will result in their death.

Organic life was not dying because of any cause except the Catalyst's own minions, the Reapers, which were actively killing them in masses, for an indefinate amount of time.

The more correct analogy would be a doctor murdering patients healthy, and then demanding the right to mutilate their bodies in return for no longer murdering them before they could die of cancer, which he believed they would quite probably get.

The only real moral to extract there is that the "doctor" not only should not be practicing medicine, he should be removed from a situation where he could inflict more harm.  Agreeing to let him mutilate every patient, ever, so that he wouldn't have a reason to kill them, would be acceding to his insanity, making you at most impotent and at worst an accessory.

Guess it is up to each and every Shepard to make that difficult choice themselves.  

Except this choice is only palatable iif Shepard is as crazy, megalomaniacal, and self-righteous as the Catalyst itself, or so weak a man as to be unable to muster the moral courage required to stand in the face of unparalleled, unmasked evil.  (No offense to femsheps, but the statement was better with a gender-biased term.  Substitute "woman" if you played femshep.   )

MisterJB wrote...

Letting "Morals" stop you from achieving something that has the potential to improve the life of all sentients in the galaxy, regardless of their financial status, is far more vile.

 

"Morals" are the only thing holding humanity back from an anarchic pit of mutual destruction.  "Morals" are anecessity for society to function, the ability to empathise and sympathise with others is a evolutionary trait of social animals, and the ability to form an ethical framework is one of the greatest gifts of mankind's intellect.  To turn away from that, to make decisions in an utter vacuum, informed only by ego and desire, is to become the embodiment of wickedness.

Pol Pot believed that reducing society to primitivism would improve the lives of all Cambodians.  Religious extremists of all colors have believed that killing the infidel would make a more glorious kingdom of God.  A certain National Socialist party believed that removing Jews, Communists, cripples, Gypsies, and homosexuals would lead to a purer race.  Your logic would justify all of them, as "morality" would not matter, so long as you believed the ends justified the means.  Not just that they WOULD justify the means, but merely that you BELIEVED they would.  Congradulation, sir or madam, you've taken moral relativism to a sickening new height.

In short: Who are you to make this decision for others?  Who are you to decide what they wanted, to irrevocably change who and what they are, without their consent?  You are not saving their lives, the threat ends in any ending.  You are sating your own ego, and becoming the very villain they Reapers were.

I would hope your ethics in real life are more fully thought out than in game.

Modifié par Fapmaster5000, 25 avril 2012 - 08:02 .

[j78]

Synthesis is such a joke most of us will be modified in some way before we die and be partly synthetic weather it be nano bots in are blood stream or artificial organs . Just watch a Ted conference .Anyone alive now has a good chance of being altered in some way in their life time granted you aren’t over 75. I think most people will already be synthesized by Sheps time .

Modifié par j78, 25 avril 2012 - 08:01 .

[Fapmaster5000]

j78 wrote...

Synthesis is such a joke most of us will be modified in some way before we die and be partly synthetic weather it be nano bots in are blood stream or artificial organs . Just watch a Ted conference .Anyone alive now has good chance of being altered in some way in their life time granted you aren’t over 75. I think most people will already be synthesized by Sheps time .

May very well be, but by their own choice.  That is the critical element.

[j78]

Fapmaster5000 wrote...

j78 wrote...

Synthesis is such a joke most of us will be modified in some way before we die and be partly synthetic weather it be nano bots in are blood stream or artificial organs . Just watch a Ted conference .Anyone alive now has good chance of being altered in some way in their life time granted you aren’t over 75. I think most people will already be synthesized by Sheps time .

May very well be, but by their own choice.  That is the critical element.

true

[MrGone]

devSin wrote...

I wish Javik could go with you to the end.

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

Me too, especially considering in the original drafts, Javik was the Catalyst. There would have been no stupid kid in the original conception, and all would have made sense.

[Byronic-Knight]

Bad King wrote...

Byronic-Knight wrote...

Technically, the second bit you highlighted ("In their eyes, organics have no reason to exist. Do not trust them, Commander. . . ") could be used to argue for the synthetics vs organics theme as having a prominence---which I think is appropriate for the scene, since you're heading to Rannoch, at the end of which you resolve the conflict between synthetics (Geth) and organics (Quarians).

The first part, however, is dead on: forcibly fusing organics and synthetics---in Javik's example, out of desperation---is implied (or outright stated) throughout the series to be a bad thing.

The more extreme example is the Collectors. The Reapers couldn't assimilate them, so they mutated them through technology to suit their needs.

The difference is though is that synthesis isn't fusing organic and synthetic parts together: it's instead merging them into a hybrid genetic code and completely removing the concepts of organic and synthetic, thus preventing either side from dominating/eradicating the other.

It is more gene-splicing than implanting; so technically, you are correct.

To force that upon individuals without their permission, however, is fraught with ethical issues I find loathesome, particularly when done in the pursuit of some 'final step in evolution.'

That has Master Race undertones running all through it (to me at least).

[Fapmaster5000]

Byronic-Knight wrote...

Bad King wrote...

Byronic-Knight wrote...

Technically, the second bit you highlighted ("In their eyes, organics have no reason to exist. Do not trust them, Commander. . . ") could be used to argue for the synthetics vs organics theme as having a prominence---which I think is appropriate for the scene, since you're heading to Rannoch, at the end of which you resolve the conflict between synthetics (Geth) and organics (Quarians).

The first part, however, is dead on: forcibly fusing organics and synthetics---in Javik's example, out of desperation---is implied (or outright stated) throughout the series to be a bad thing.

The more extreme example is the Collectors. The Reapers couldn't assimilate them, so they mutated them through technology to suit their needs.

The difference is though is that synthesis isn't fusing organic and synthetic parts together: it's instead merging them into a hybrid genetic code and completely removing the concepts of organic and synthetic, thus preventing either side from dominating/eradicating the other.

It is more gene-splicing than implanting; so technically, you are correct.

To force that upon individuals without their permission, however, is fraught with ethical issues I find loathesome, particularly when done in the pursuit of some 'final step in evolution.'

That has Master Race undertones running all through it (to me at least).

Or simple morbid tones.  What comes after your final step?  You stop.

Consider this: life takes its final step, and then halts.  Like the Reapers.  Turned into Reaper-goo is a "final step", as it halts the evolutionary process (which naturally has no end goal) into a permanent state.

Synthesis, even devoid of the Master Race implications, is doing to the galaxy EXACTLY what the Reapers were doing to the galaxy... it simply looks prettier.

It is an extension of the Catalyst's flawed logic.  It is a solution derived from invalid assumptions, and as such, much be dismissed.

Modifié par Fapmaster5000, 25 avril 2012 - 08:19 .

[j78]

Maybe synthesis is BW ‘s way of commenting on the singularity .Most of the great minds of are time believe that a form of synthesis will be humanities ultimate form or the apex of human evolution . Or maybe BW fans are a little to smart for their own good ? you don’t see all this deep philosophical debate going on in many game forums .thumbs up people.

[SilentK]

Fapmaster5000 wrote...

SilentK wrote...

I dislike the use of the word "rape" when it comes to this choice. It feels like it used to color a morally ambigious descision with something that is decidedly wrong. Calling it rape does not turn synthesis into sexual violence.

How would you describe syntehsis if you removed that word. Is it the alteration without asking for permission before? Hmm... I can see it from both sides. It is not an easy choice to alter everyone. But also, if the solution is presented, is it right to turn away simply because you could not ask for advice. I guess that the day-to-day sort of comparison would be turning down a necessary medical procedure because you do not know if the patient currently not communicative would be supportive of it. Guess it is up to each and every Shepard to make that difficult choice themselves.

Okay, I can jive to removing the sexual connotations.  How about "forced mutilation"?  That seems appropriate, although it is rather wordy.

Your second paragraph is rather troubling.  Allow me a moment to take each point as it comes:
It wasn't a choice for anyone besides Shepard.  The Catalyst did not say, "This beam of light will let them choose to be synthesized life", it said, "This will turn them into synthesized life."  There was no choice given, simply drastic and traumatic change to body and mind, delivered through surprise and force. 

Not acting is not an action.  Tautological, but by definition, true.  By not acting, you do not commit what is quite probably a crime on a scale so massive there is no term for it in human conception.  Turning away from that because of lack of evidence is not a moral failing, it is simply the logical and ethical choice.  To act upon such a decision without any relevant data is both unethical and willfully ignorant.
False.
A medical procedure on a non-communicative patient is only "necessary" where saving their life is the direct consequence, and inaction will result in their death. Organic life was not dying because of any cause except the Catalyst's own minions, the Reapers, which were actively killing them in masses, for an indefinate amount of time. The more correct analogy would be a doctor murdering patients healthy, and then demanding the right to mutilate their bodies in return for no longer murdering them before they could die of cancer, which he believed they would quite probably get. The only real moral to extract there is that the "doctor" not only should not be practicing medicine, he should be removed from a situation where he could inflict more harm.  Agreeing to let him mutilate every patient, ever, so that he wouldn't have a reason to kill them, would be acceding to his insanity, making you at most impotent and at worst an accessory.

Except this choice is only palatable iif Shepard is as crazy, megalomaniacal, and self-righteous as the Catalyst itself, or so weak a man as to be unable to muster the moral courage required to stand in the face of unparalleled, unmasked evil.  (No offense to femsheps, but the statement was better with a gender-biased term.  Substitute "woman" if you played femshep.   )

Hmm... forced mutilation. I agree with forced, because no one other than Shepard is there to make it. But I do not agree with mutilation. Joker did not look mutilated at all. I feel as it if the same thing as with the use of the word rape. A very charged word with negative emotins. But forced, yes. Forced alteration perhaps?

And yes, I agree on the fact that it is Shepard who chooses for everyone. The beam does not let each indivual choose for themselves. It is not a easy choice to alter everyone, Shepard makes that choice for all. Hmm... sorry if I was less than clear. But we also do not know how this change is percieved from those living at that time. The only ones we do see are Joker and those in the Normandy. Perhaps it feels wrong, perhaps it makes life easier for people like the Quarians getting help with the AI simulation a vaccine. We do not know. The game doesnt' tell how the world looks after this decision is made.

I have a FemShep who very much feels that the reaper-invasion has made this a life-or-death situation. There is organic life dying at this moment, look outside at the ships being shot down. She is there trying to save the lives of everybody. But no matter what one thinks about the Catalysts solution to the organics vs synthetics, I am talking about the choices before Shepard. Not the reaper-circle that the catalyst has created. I agree that the organics are dying because of the reapers. So Shepard has to find a way to end it. It is not Shepard who started the "murdering patients healthy, and then demanding the right to mutilate their bodies in return for no longer murdering them before they could die of cancer, which he believed they would quite probably get". Shepard has three choices, one of them saves both the organics and the Geth and EDI. If one believe that the Geth are sentient, that might be a acceptable choice because destroy would kill them. She doesn't trust the control-option. So she stands between altering all lives, or killing a entire race. Don't be so quick to judge how a person would handle that.

Modifié par SilentK, 25 avril 2012 - 08:41 .

[ThinkIntegral]

SilentK wrote...

She doesn't trust the control-option.

Right, because the control option leaves a chance for abuse.  What if war broke out between synthetics and organics with the Reapers gone?  Should Shepard sit on the sidelines? What if organic life in the galaxy was on the verge of being wiped out?  Does that give her a pass then to wipe out synthetic life that also has a right to existence?

[count_4]

ElSuperGecko wrote...
"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."

Synthethis is bad but I don't agree with what Javik says here. He makes the exact same stupid assumptions about organics and synthetics and draws the same nonsensical conclusions as StarBrat. He is just as deluded as StarBrat.

Modifié par count_4, 25 avril 2012 - 09:42 .

[Byronic-Knight]

Fapmaster5000 wrote...

Or simple morbid tones.  What comes after your final step?  You stop.

Consider this: life takes its final step, and then halts.  Like the Reapers.  Turned into Reaper-goo is a "final step", as it halts the evolutionary process (which naturally has no end goal) into a permanent state.

Synthesis, even devoid of the Master Race implications, is doing to the galaxy EXACTLY what the Reapers were doing to the galaxy... it simply looks prettier.

It is an extension of the Catalyst's flawed logic.  It is a solution derived from invalid assumptions, and as such, much be dismissed.

That is the other major, more immediate, narrative problem I have with it. 

Modifié par Byronic-Knight, 25 avril 2012 - 03:35 .

[MOELANDER]

Synthesis... Why was this included? It's totally nonsensical and it is against every theme they made in ME1 and 2...
And then they write themselves further against the airlock hatch by giving Javik this text? Javik please vent those responsible into space!

[Catroi]

I will not change the whole galaxy's DNA without asking anyone...

[Flextt]

The Reapers took over the Zha'til and turned them on their organic hosts. It is not their fault, same with the Geth.

[Bad King]

HellishFiend wrote...

MisterJB wrote...

HellishFiend wrote...
How appropriate that your avatar is a husk. <_<

Were avatars indicative of our choices ingame, I'd say you picked "Control".

I did not see any Husks in the Synthesis Ending. I saw organic life, fundamentally changed, but with zero indications of having lost their freedom. I saw a synthetic resting her head on the should of the organic she loves; a common organic gesture of affection.

Is that what you saw? I saw three strikingly similar endings that played out almost identically despite ostensibly different choices, which indicates to me that it was Shepard's delirious and optimistic imagination. In the one in question, I also saw Shepard being transformed into what looked very much like a Husk with TIM's eyes. Also, I'll quote the IT video here because it puts it quite simply: "Merge a human with reaper code and you get husks, not space magic"

On a side note, my avatar is a Batarian because I rather enjoy the two new Batarian classes in the multiplayer game. No other reason.

A husk is what you get when a dead body is implanted with reaper tech and controlled by the artificial implants. Synthesis changes the genetic code of all beings and merges the concepts of artificial and organic into one.

Take a minute to compare the two. One consists of the artificial side dominating the organic side- the boundary has not been removed between synthetic and organic and so the connflict between the two remains. With synthesis, by completely removing this boundary and merging the two into one at the molecular level, there is no longer such a conflict.

We have no example of a being which has been synthesised prior to the synthesis ending. In husks, Cerberus, and the species which Javik mentions, the boundary between synthetic and organic exists and one side has to dominate/control the other. When this boundary is removed however, something completely different is born.

And Shepard wasn't being transformed into a husk, he was being destroyed by energy. Same thing happens with control. Also, IT is wrong btw.

[lalaquen]

I completely agree that, in addition to ending biological evolution, Synthesis reeks of "Master Race" mentality and just perpetuates the Reapers intent, if not their specific means of accomplishing it. You are, essentially, destroying all life as it currently exists in order to preserve/recreate it in a "perfected" form.

Not to mention the fact that it doesn't actually solve the singularity problem. "The created will always destroy their creators"... but there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from creating a new race. They would, by virtue of the fact that even the plants are obviously hybridized in that ending, by hybrid lifeforms. But they could still be created. And, technically speaking, they would still be "synthetic" - because synthetic just means artificially produced, devised, arranged, or fabricated (usually for a specific purpose, but not always). In which case, they could (and by the Catalyst's argument will) still rebel. At which point Shepard has just forcibly ended natural evolutionary processes and determined at least the first steps on the path to the future for everything in the galaxy for absolutely no reason. It is a fundamentally flawed solution, derived from the faulty logic of an obviously flawed being (the Catalyst).

[MisterJB]

HellishFiend wrote...
Is that what you saw? I saw three strikingly similar endings that played out almost identically despite ostensibly different choices, which indicates to me that it was Shepard's delirious and optimistic imagination. In the one in question, I also saw Shepard being transformed into what looked very much like a Husk with TIM's eyes. Also, I'll quote the IT video here because it puts it quite simply: "Merge a human with reaper code and you get husks, not space magic"

First and foremost, Indocrination Theory has no basis besides wishfull thinking. If you want to claim Shepard was just imagining the endings, you'll need something stronger than that.

Second, merging geth with Reaper code led to the birth of a new species therefore, proving that Reaper code can be used for beneficial purposes. And we know for a fact that Reaper technology can be apllied to organics.
So, I have a basis for claiming that Reaper code can be used for beneficial purposes for organic species. A symbiotic relationship which is accomplished through Synthesis.

[MisterJB]

Fapmaster5000 wrote...
"Morals" are the only thing holding humanity back from an anarchic pit of mutual destruction.  "Morals" are anecessity for society to function, the ability to empathise and sympathise with others is a evolutionary trait of social animals, and the ability to form an ethical framework is one of the greatest gifts of mankind's intellect.  To turn away from that, to make decisions in an utter vacuum, informed only by ego and desire, is to become the embodiment of wickedness.

And you dare call the Catalyst self-rigtheous.
The world is not black and white despite what you want us to believe. The high ground is very shiny but too much light will blind you.
Synthesis can not only stop the Reaper War, it can possibly prevent future ones. It could enable organics to communicate at the speed of tought. And let's forget the physical benefits Husks (half their head gone and still alive) and Cerberus troops (can outfight anything short of an N7) enjoy from.
Imagine if this could be accomplished without humanity losing its free will or individuality or ambition. And you would deny them this based on some misguided conception of "morality". I find this to be immoral, selfish.

Pol Pot believed that reducing society to primitivism would improve the lives of all Cambodians.  Religious extremists of all colors have believed that killing the infidel would make a more glorious kingdom of God.  A certain National Socialist party believed that removing Jews, Communists, cripples, Gypsies, and homosexuals would lead to a purer race.  Your logic would justify all of them, as "morality" would not matter, so long as you believed the ends justified the means.  Not just that they WOULD justify the means, but merely that you BELIEVED they would.  Congradulation, sir or madam, you've taken moral relativism to a sickening new height.

You do realize that you've just described "Destroy", right? Killing an entire people out of fear, etc.

But yes, the ends do justify the means. Sometimes, individuals must suffer for the greater good. However, that is not what is presented in Synthesis. No one is being sacrificed, no one is being left behind.
All people, everywhere, are being changed for the better, regardless of their position in society. And you call this "sick"?

In short: Who are you to make this decision for others?  Who are you to decide what they wanted, to irrevocably change who and what they are, without their consent?  You are not saving their lives, the threat ends in any ending.  You are sating your own ego, and becoming the very villain they Reapers were.

I don't pick Synthesis to satisfy my ego. I pick it because it has the chance to not just save all life in the galaxy but to improve it. That you can't see this astounds me. Look at what the Reapers can do. Imagine the wonders we could create if we could just talk to them and ally their power and knowledge to our creativity and ambition.

What sentients want does not matter; what Shepard wants does not matter (mine wanted to keep his promise to Miranda, for instance). Someone has to make the difficult decidions and lead people, kicking and screaming if he has to, to a better future.

[ed87]

The game isnt coherent at all. Thats why the Starchild contradicts the actions of the Illusive man, lessons of Prothean history, and the peace with the Geth.

The whole game can only be looked at as a collection of short stories.

[DiegoProgMetal]

Vox Draco wrote...

Seryl wrote...

snip...

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...

...snip...

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...

...snip...

Exactly as I would like it to end. Instead of shooting a tube, just push the button. The Crucible, instead of making all that space magic, takes the shields/barriers of the Reapers off. We know from ME1 that a Reaper without its shield takes just a couple shots before it is destroyed, even before the Thanix Cannons. The best case scenario for the Reapers would be that they got just as powerful as any other dreadnought. Then the EMS would get into the game. The higher the EMS, the lesser the casualties. Simple, and allows for a great variety of endings.

[Cobra's_back]

j78 wrote...

Maybe synthesis is BW ‘s way of commenting on the singularity .Most of the great minds of are time believe that a form of synthesis will be humanities ultimate form or the apex of human evolution . Or maybe BW fans are a little to smart for their own good ? you don’t see all this deep philosophical debate going on in many game forums .thumbs up people.

Yes you are absolutely correct.


I love science, but I will not allow some sick immoral bastard take away my constitutional rights. At least today our laws stop this.  
 

[Fapmaster5000]

MisterJB wrote...

Fapmaster5000 wrote...
"Morals" are the only thing holding humanity back from an anarchic pit of mutual destruction.  "Morals" are anecessity for society to function, the ability to empathise and sympathise with others is a evolutionary trait of social animals, and the ability to form an ethical framework is one of the greatest gifts of mankind's intellect.  To turn away from that, to make decisions in an utter vacuum, informed only by ego and desire, is to become the embodiment of wickedness.

And you dare call the Catalyst self-rigtheous.
The world is not black and white despite what you want us to believe. The high ground is very shiny but too much light will blind you.
Synthesis can not only stop the Reaper War, it can possibly prevent future ones. It could enable organics to communicate at the speed of tought. And let's forget the physical benefits Husks (half their head gone and still alive) and Cerberus troops (can outfight anything short of an N7) enjoy from.
Imagine if this could be accomplished without humanity losing its free will or individuality or ambition. And you would deny them this based on some misguided conception of "morality". I find this to be immoral, selfish.

Pol Pot believed that reducing society to primitivism would improve the lives of all Cambodians.  Religious extremists of all colors have believed that killing the infidel would make a more glorious kingdom of God.  A certain National Socialist party believed that removing Jews, Communists, cripples, Gypsies, and homosexuals would lead to a purer race.  Your logic would justify all of them, as "morality" would not matter, so long as you believed the ends justified the means.  Not just that they WOULD justify the means, but merely that you BELIEVED they would.  Congradulation, sir or madam, you've taken moral relativism to a sickening new height.

You do realize that you've just described "Destroy", right? Killing an entire people out of fear, etc.

But yes, the ends do justify the means. Sometimes, individuals must suffer for the greater good. However, that is not what is presented in Synthesis. No one is being sacrificed, no one is being left behind.
All people, everywhere, are being changed for the better, regardless of their position in society. And you call this "sick"?

In short: Who are you to make this decision for others?  Who are you to decide what they wanted, to irrevocably change who and what they are, without their consent?  You are not saving their lives, the threat ends in any ending.  You are sating your own ego, and becoming the very villain they Reapers were.

I don't pick Synthesis to satisfy my ego. I pick it because it has the chance to not just save all life in the galaxy but to improve it. That you can't see this astounds me. Look at what the Reapers can do. Imagine the wonders we could create if we could just talk to them and ally their power and knowledge to our creativity and ambition.

What sentients want does not matter; what Shepard wants does not matter (mine wanted to keep his promise to Miranda, for instance). Someone has to make the difficult decidions and lead people, kicking and screaming if he has to, to a better future.

And you completely fail to address any point I raised.

Your logic justifies any position, so long as the actor in play believes in his or her own actions.  Consequences do not matter, reasons do not matter, so long as the deciding actor believes in the his or her choices strongly enough.  

This is a decision reached without debate, without discussion, without any knowledge of what will happen, where the only evidence presented is based on the statements of a being who's object has been your extermination and processing into goop for millions of years, who's entire logic can be destroyed with the simple question, "How do you know this?", and who cannot or will not simply stop killing people when it supposedly realizes that killing people is now pointless.  

It is either delusional, evil, or so very alien as to be antithetical to your existance.  How can you possibly listen to it?

So no, you can't "imagine all the wonders you could create" and then commit every everyone, everywhere, forever, to that fate, not without becoming the greatest villain in the known galaxy, worse than even the Reapers.  After all, you succeeded where they failed.  As I stated before: even bereft of any of its disturbingly "master race" implications, at its core, Synthesis is doing EXACTLY what the Reapers were doing, simply dressed up in prettier clothes.

To get to the top of your post: You never address why the high ground here is wrong, and then you attempt to claim it, without making a single concrete argument beyond extreme moral relativity, might makes right, and a disregard for any point of view beyond your own.

"Destroy" is not subject to the same grotesque implications as Synthesis, because those killed have already agreed to the stakes.   As I stated before:

Destroy would possibly eradicate a species (very bad!), but it was a species which had comitted, entirely to a "win or die" fight.  They knew the stakes going in, and their consensus means that this ending was sacrificing soldiers, not civilians, since every geth would be entirely committed to the war.

Further, Destroy is only accepting genocide if you ACCEPT the Catalyst's logic. It is entirely possible for Shepard to say, "Fack you, no, I'll take my chances that you're wrong." and choose Destroy. Synthesis means that you ACCEPT the Catalyst's logic that you WILL rape each and every organism in the galaxy, and then willfully choosing to do so. Destroy is at worst killing without intent, Synthesis is always rape with intent.

So, no, even in a scenario where the Catalyst is COMPLETELY RIGHT, and Destroy ends bad and Synthesis ends good, Shepard is still more morally reprehensible in the Synthesis ending, because he comitted a vile act with INTENT.

Society gets rocked in Destroy. It's not a good ending. An entire species may very well die from it. However, as stated, that species exists in consensus, and chose to enter a fight where the stakes were "we win or we all die". They are soldiers who stepped up to the plate at that point, whose sacrifice will be remembered as the galaxy moves forward, free of the Catalyst's insane troll logic, and decides on their own future.

It's the only ending that is made based on the objectives of the entire series, "Destroy the Reapers". It's the only ending that doesn't involve gambling that the Catalyst's Space Magic is the future. It's the only ending that doesn't sucker punch the galaxy with Shepard, Space God.

It's really the only ending that saves humanity, both as a species, and ethically, even at great cost.

(Oh, and as a note for my "Destroy" playthroughs: I imagine my Shepard will be guilt ridden for the rest of his life, if the Catalyst was right, and the geth/EDI are all dead. Much like the fathers of the atomic bomb, he'll probably debate himself with "was it worth it" and "was there a third option". He'll do this because he's basically a decent person who had to make a horrible choice. He'll also do this because he's still human, having made the best of three terrible options. Hopefully, the galaxy will forgive him.)

Modifié par Fapmaster5000, 25 avril 2012 - 06:07 .