209 réponses à ce sujet

[davishepard]

Gill Kaiser wrote...

No, "Reapers vs organics" there too. You can't hinge a concept about an entire state of being on one species. Every one of your "synthetic vs organic" examples is directly caused by the Reapers.

Why you fail in see that Reapers are machines/synthetics? Some kind or problem, denial, or just the will to bash what a team member said because you, I don't know, feel so awesome in doing so?

[Benny8484]

DJBare wrote...

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

The Reapers aren't just focusing on organic life, they focus on ALL highly advanced civs (as per ME1). Get your crap together Gamble and understand what came before! You can't just hijack the motivation of a timeless Space horror just because you've watched the matrix and decided to mix it with DX:HR!

This is why until I'm told otherwise the Reapers motives are suspect to say the least, I don't believe they are protecting organic life from synthetics, I believe that are preventing organics from reaching a level where they become a threat to Reaper dominance of the galaxy.

This is the same assumption I was under.  Basically they don't want organic life to advance to the point where they could oppose the reapers as a serious threat.

[Jonathan Shepard]

In Mass Effect, yeah, I could see it being about Synthetics versus Organics, but Saren is proof that you get a mess when you try to combine the two.

In Mass Effect 2, we see the horrors of combining those two life forms through husks, collectors, and the structure of the proto-reaper. We also see that Synthetics /can/ work together with Organics, proven by Legion.

In Mass Effect 3, our ship gets a body, Shepard pretty much is forced to trust that AI if none other, and can accelerate the geth's development towards sentience, along with learning that the Quarians started a genocidal war out of fear. Before the ending, Mass Effect 3 seems to have been about bringing Organics and Synthetics together to fight the horrific mess of blending them together into husks, banshees, marauders, cannibals, brutes, and ravagers. It was about using their differences against abominations that tried to be both. Javik even says that the diversity in this cycle is what may be its salvation.

The series thematically seems to suggest that by bringing synthetics to work together with organics, differences can be put aside to combat a dark mirror of what happens when diversity is eliminated, and technology invades organic tissue. Is that not what was so horrific about Shepard being rebuilt? He didn't even know who he was-- organic? synthetic? both?

It's a shame there wasn't more of an in-depth look with player input on the issue.

But yeah, the series isn't about synthetics versus organics.
It's about getting organics and synthetics to work together to defeat the abominable synthesis of the two that eradicates diversity.

Sure, there are other themes in there, but that's what I always took away from the whole AI conflict that kept coming up.

Modifié par Jonathan Shepard, 26 avril 2012 - 02:02 .

[EnvyTB075]

Shaigunjoe wrote...

Can't agree with this.  The reapers are a clear manifestation of organic life being dominated by synthetics.  Cold, calculating, no emotion.  You see that in Saren and his pals in the first game, the collectors in the 2nd and the reapers themselves in number 3.

This is overshadowed in each and every instance by the theme of strength through diversity by your team that you assembled in each game to fight the singular Reaper threat.

The Reapers are an umbrella threat, the light at the end of the tunnel. The immediate antagonist is what defines the motivations of the protagonists and hence the entire point of the game. ME1 is to stop Saren, Sovereign and the Geth Heretics via a combined Asari/Alliance/Turian assault. ME2 is to stop the Collectors via a multi-species uber-squad. ME3 is like an expansion on ME2's point, however instead of individual characters, you're going after fleets of the species.

The Reapers control over other species is merely an explanation as to why they're a threat at all. If they weren't controlling specific (< --- very important) individuals and races, they would be considerably less scary. It serves as an encouragement to kill them, not as a philosophical debate that Shepard and his/her crew have whilst downing some drinks in the Normandys bar.

davishepard wrote...

Ericus wrote...

Bioware's
own story contradicts the idea that organic vs. synthetic is the major
theme (EDI allies with the Normandy crew, the Geth can achieve peace
with the Quarians).  So it's not the fans that disagree with the game
creators, it's the game creators that disagree with themselves.  Don't
blame us for simply pointing it out.

They contradict nothing. It's not organics against all synthetics.
And yes, you can reach peace between Geth and Quarian in ME3, but this
doesn't invalidate the point, since the Reapers are still around. Maybe
things can change in ME4, but this trilogy was always about organics vs.
synthetics. All the other things aren't major themes, no matter how
much people liked them. 

Uh, no. Star-childs "logic" invalidates this. He states that all Synthetics will eventually kill all organics.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

Modifié par EnvyTB075, 26 avril 2012 - 01:50 .

[Superstarsage]

Identifying the reapers as synthetic was something i never really did. I identified them as lovecraftian creatures that presumed they were THE ONE TRUE genetic destiny, the true outcome of evolution and growth a la harbinger “We are your genetic destiny.” In such, a group of really arrogant monstrosities.

Which was completely destroyed in mass effect 3 sort of. I mean, I suppose that's what the reapers might believe, but apparently it's not what star child believed? I dunno

Edit: better put. Reapers are Reapers.

Modifié par Superstarsage, 26 avril 2012 - 01:49 .

[HinduCowGirl]

God DAMN IT, Mike! Write a new story, one that makes sense! Then redo the whole freaking game. This ***** makes me FUME.

You just eradicated the whole idea about the series. What was the point of trying to make peace between the Geth & Quariens when the whole thing was about merging both of them to begin with?

What was the point of running around the whole galaxy trying to patch things up, make peace when, we've just could have made a task force to research the reapers and the history of the galaxy, break into the control room of the citadel. Get mind humped by space-brat and then just merge everyone against their will?

The more I look into this, the more I read, the more I see ME3 becomes the worst mistake ever made by a gaming company. The whole game contradicts the two previous ones, and the only solution to this is to go back to the drawing boards and make a whole new game that in fact builds upon the original concept and ends coherent to that concept.

Yeah, blowing the Batarians sky high, genophage, what the "#"#%"#$ do you call merging organics with machines? That would be a total eradication of the diversity in the universe.

Yeah, you are all the same, just a little bit different.. just like the endings in the game. BAH!

[tanuki]

davishepard wrote...

Of course organic versus synthetic was a major theme, just look at the Reapers. But no, people want a reason to complain, even if they have to distort things to have it.

Ok then, so Reapers are the ultimate point to show organics vs syntetics conflict? But strarbrat says they were created to SOLVE that conflict. Don't you see some contradiction there? (That their solution doesn't make sense anyway is the whole other matter)

davishepard wrote...

Lyme Eilserv wrote...

Either Gamble has no idea of what he's talking about, or he does know and is acting the corporate stooge. The "evidence" he refers to is so thin and takes a backseat to unity/diversity/companionship in every f**king mission.

"but the idea is there is no concept of machine or organic anymore. There is only life."
WTF does this even mean??!

You know, I didn't used to be angry about this, just terribly, terribly disappointed. But hearing **** like this, not too sure I even want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

It means that machines and organic fused, and there's only the "organic/machine" life form in the Systesis ending.

I have the opinion that you and many other here have no idead what you are talking about, and are just raging either because you rage about anything ME3 related or just hated the endings and so almost everyone/everyone from the team that made the game.

There was life already, whether it is synthetic or organic! Life comes in different forms. Why would you try to take every living being in the galaxy and forcebly rewrite it into organic/machine hybrid to solve some artificial problem made out of thin air. The whole syntesis stuff is utterly offensive and racist, not to mention other problems.

[The Night Mammoth]

Superstarsage wrote...

Identifying the reapers as synthetic was something i never really did. I identified them as lovecraftian creatures that presumed they were THE ONE TRUE genetic destiny, the true outcome of evolution and growth a la harbinger “We are your genetic destiny.” In such, a group of really arrogant monstrosities.

Which was completely destroyed in mass effect 3 sort of. I mean, I suppose that's what the reapers might believe, but apparently it's not what star child believed? I dunno

Edit: better put. Reapers are Reapers.

This needs to be reiterated.

The Reapers were machines, but that fact was never the main driving force behind everything. Sure, machines, synthetics, hybrids, whatever, but they were Reapers before all of that, vast and unknown, what form of life they were as irrelevant to the plot. 

[EnvyTB075]

davishepard wrote...

If a machine use human blood as fuel, it's still a machine. It's not that hard to understand that Reapers are machines/synthetics.

Uh, what? Are you going to tell me that if i can make a combusiton engine run on liquified rats, that because it was previously an organic lifeform, my 1.9 litre combustion engine under the bonnet of my Holden Astra is suddenly a sentient being?

davishepard wrote...

And there was that time when the Geth
attacked that group lead by Tali in Haestrom, just because they were
there. There goes the Geth only attack in self defense by the window?

I guess this would be a good time to remind you that these are Heretic Geth minority, and that Legion is the only Geth platform outside of the perseus veil that is part of the greater Geth consensus.

Modifié par EnvyTB075, 26 avril 2012 - 01:56 .

[Storenumber9]

Honestly, I agree with what's been said time and time again.

They started with a simple, easy to understand concept (Defeat the reapers), and messed it up by complicating it. ( element of Synthetic vs. Organic.)

It would have been better if there was never any reason explained for the Reapers. There never needed to be. It was assumed that they were hostile, and it could have been for a number of reasons. Although, if they wanted to make a reason, they should have gone with the KISS principle.(Keep it simple, stupid)

Everything would have made a lot more sense if they were just another species (albeit, a species of machines) that harvested life in order to continue their own existence. The return of the Reapers could have been viewed as a simple feeding frenzy, rather than some complicated ploy to stop some silly cycle of organics being wiped out by synthetics, which didn't actually work, considering the reapers are the "Solution" to the problems. (Using synthetics to stop synthetics from killing everyone, what?)

And no one give me that crap about the Reapers being sentient beings. By the end of the game, it was established they were being controlled, so it can be stated pretty easily that they were just dumb machines being willed to do what their masters want.

Modifié par Storenumber9, 26 avril 2012 - 02:00 .

[Peranor]

[quote]Jonathan Shepard wrote...

But yeah, the series isn't about synthetics versus organics.
It's about getting organics and synthetics to work together to defeat the abominable synthesis of two that eradicates diversity.[/quote]


[/quote]
^This!



[quote]Taboo-XX wrote...

The government isn't my issue with synthesis. The denial of what makes all life beautiful, individuality is.
We are who we are because NATURAL evolution has allowed to be the way we are.
You are essentially asking me to go against the way the universe has allowed organisms to function for BILLIONS and BILLIONS of years.
Unethical. Overtones unpleasent.
[/quote]

^And this

[Shaigunjoe]

The Night Mammoth wrote...
Explain then why it's the prevalent theme over all others.

I think the prevalent theme is probably based on opinion/playthrough of the player (after all, you can prevent quarian/geth conflict from ending well).  But I will try to explain why I think it is the major theme of the series.  I apologies if it gets tl;dr, I will try and avoid it.

The core conflict of ME3 is the reapers.  The main enemies in the three games (saren/geth, collectors, reapers) all have the qualities that we associate with sentient machines.  Cold, calculating, no emotion.  Sure, in some cases you are fighting organics, but they are being used as tools (in a simliar way we use machines as tools to fight them).  In that way, the man versus machine conflict is portrayed up into the final conflict.

The geth/quarian conflict is more about creator/createe relationship than man versus machine, you can see in the history of the conflict mission that the geth never really portrayed the standard qualities associated with the core man versus machine conflict in literature.  The reason quarians became afraid of them is because they were acting like sentient beings.

So that brings us to the ending, where you ultimatly get to decide the fate of the current man versus machine struggle.  I am going to delve into symbolism here, as going into what actually happens really isn't relevant in this discusion.

If you choose destroy, you are saying machines have no place here, organics have won, and as a result machines will probably be taboo in the future for a while.

If you choose control, it is saying segregation is the correct way to resolve issues, organics and machines are not ready to live together, maybe some day they will be.

Synthesis is saying the solution is for organics and synthetics live together and work out their differences, which is why I think that is the best option, as has history has shown us, eradication and segreation don't have the best long term results.  Not saying synthesis peace will hold for all time, but probably longer than the other two options.

[element eater]

i saw it as about diversity seeing all races as they are equals and that they achieve there greatest through cooperation rather then dominance


when people cooperate and accept others:
-turians and humans old enemies but when the cooperate they create the normandy
-saren would have succeeded if not for the combined efforts of the ME1 team
- the collectors a life form devoid of individuality and free will are defteated by a team made up of lots of differant individual races and viewpoints
-ME3 the reapers would win if it wasnt for everyone putting aside there differances and fighting togethor

those who deny it
-cerberus want only human dominance and they loose there humanity seeking it
-batarians isolate themselves and seek dominance on there own they loose everything
- the asari leaders refuse to share information and they loose thessia as a rresult if they'd been more forthcoming it wouldnt have come to that
- Javiks cycle looses because they lack diversity 

Shaigunjoe wrote...

choose control, it is saying segregation is the correct way to resolve issues, organics and machines are not ready to live together, maybe some day they will be.

i dont see that tbh, control is the vaguest of the endings as you are never able to indicate sheps cause of action when its done. For example i imagined you could just control the reapers to kill themselves wether directly or indirectly.  Thus preserving life as it is as no huge changes were made to galactic society to achieve there death, essentialy achieveing the destroy ending without destroying any other lifeforms.

Modifié par element eater, 26 avril 2012 - 02:12 .

[knightnblu]

The only way that the synthesis option would actually work is if all of the matter in the galaxy were converted into a synthetic/organic hybrid. If not, then the possibility of manufacturing exclusively synthetic life remains. Amongst humans, we often separate out because some are older or not old enough, some are darker or not dark enough, some are male or some are female, some are too religious or not religious enough. What would stop purely synthetic life from judging the synthetic/organic hybrid as not enough like them to keep them from launching a campaign of extermination because the hybrid is not machine enough?
 
Now it may be possible that the synthetic fusion has installed some programming into the hybrid to control behavior, is that what BioWare is saying? That the fusion of machine and organic has also come at the price of free will? Do the surviving Reapers now exist to enforce that programming?
 
Hard to determine with only 14 lines of dialog and absolutely no questions from Shepard who just goes along with whatever "star child" tells him to do. Trust that isn't earned is called being bamboozled at worst and coercion at best. How is Shepard being coerced you ask, because he still controls the Reapers and they have never stopped reaping despite "star child's" own admission that his solution will no longer work. I read that as do it my way or I'll kill you.

[aj2070]

iakus wrote...

This cycle the krogan (and the rachni before them) proved to be far greater threats to galactic life. And they were fully organic. Simply merging organic and synthetic into a single e-DNA fixes nothing.

Another excellent point and more evidence that Gamble is clueless.  This confilct has been around since Mass Effect and synthesys does nothing to avert it.

[davishepard]

EnvyTB075 wrote...

Uh, no. Star-childs "logic" invalidates this. He states that all Synthetics will eventually kill all organics.

NO EXCEPTIONS.

He states this, sure. And he may be right, even if the events saw by Shepard says otherwise in that moment. You see through his eyes what happens in that period of time, but it will last forever? Will not come a time when something will make war arise betweeen organics and synthetics again? The Quarians didn't create the Geth ignoring the Council law?

Would be peace between Quarian and Geth without Shepard's intromission? The game shows that wouldn't. With Shepard and his god-like persuasion powers, nothing garantees that the galaxy would keep united.

[aj2070]

Synthesis = Harrison Bergeron = cheap way to eliminate conflict.

[DJBare]

davishepard wrote...

If a machine use human blood as fuel, it's still a machine. It's not that hard to understand that Reapers are machines/synthetics.

Huh what?, this is not a vampire story, we already know the origin of the Reapers, they are born of a race who decided to grotesquely meld themselves with machines because of dark matter threatening the galaxy, they thought this was the only way to combat the threat, they are a mixture of organic and machine.

[davishepard]

Ashley_82 wrote...

Ok then, so Reapers are the ultimate point to show organics vs syntetics conflict? But strarbrat says they were created to SOLVE that conflict. Don't you see some contradiction there? (That their solution doesn't make sense anyway is the whole other matter)

There was life already, whether it is synthetic or organic! Life comes in different forms. Why would you try to take every living being in the galaxy and forcebly rewrite it into organic/machine hybrid to solve some artificial problem made out of thin air. The whole syntesis stuff is utterly offensive and racist, not to mention other problems.

I never saw what the Catalyst said meaning that he wanted to stop that conflict. He wanted to prevent organic life from being totally wiped out by synthetics.

The Synthesis end the problem that the Catalyst presents, and stop the Reapers. The control option is bad for Shepard, the destroy option is bad for the synthetics and the synthesis is bad for Shepard and invasive, yes, for everyone. You have to consider what you will sacrifice, because stopping the Reapers won't came for free, and at the ending of the game trilogy, after losing everyone that you lose, Shepard (and you, the players), should have realized it.

Modifié par davishepard, 26 avril 2012 - 02:21 .

[Kunari801]

Mystiq6 wrote...

Below are a series of tweets from Mike Gamble:

The themes of ME are all about the organic and synthetic struggle. Synthesis breaks the chain forever.

 Gamble: geth vs organics. reapers vs organics.

Gamble:
is EDI alive? do you consider that a form of life?

 

Interesting, I didn't associate "Organic vs Synthetic" as a major theme either, sure it was there in-some-sense since the major antagonists were usually Synthetics but I felt the story was was more of a "Good vs Evil" and a "Strength through diversity" themes. 

Yes, by the end I *did* indeed consider EDI and the united Geth as a life form, synthetic life to be sure, but still a life form.  Both EDI and the Geth were allies against the Reapers and NOT a threat to organics any longer.   That reinfoced the "Strength through diversity" and "Good vs Evil" themes. 

The "Eventually they will..." argument is a logical falacy.  If you take the time-scale out to infinity of course you can justify about anything.  Right-here-right-now the Geth and EDI are allied with me against the Reapers. 

Modifié par Kunari801, 26 avril 2012 - 02:21 .

[Shaigunjoe]

EnvyTB075 wrote...


The Reapers are an umbrella threat, the light at the end of the tunnel. The immediate antagonist is what defines the motivations of the protagonists and hence the entire point of the game. ME1 is to stop Saren, Sovereign and the Geth Heretics via a combined Asari/Alliance/Turian assault. ME2 is to stop the Collectors via a multi-species uber-squad. ME3 is like an expansion on ME2's point, however instead of individual characters, you're going after fleets of the species.

This actually strengthens the view point that the core theme is organics versus machine.  Machines represent conformity.  How do you fight that?  With diversity and individuality.

[davishepard]

EnvyTB075 wrote...

Uh, what? Are you going to tell me that if i can make a combusiton engine run on liquified rats, that because it was previously an organic lifeform, my 1.9 litre combustion engine under the bonnet of my Holden Astra is suddenly a sentient being?

I guess this would be a good time to remind you that these are Heretic Geth minority, and that Legion is the only Geth platform outside of the perseus veil that is part of the greater Geth consensus.

What I was saying is that the Reapers may be created with organics processed material, but that doesn't make them hybrid. They're machines, follows his logical/program, and don't have anything that resembles his former selves.

They may be Herect, but his means that the Quarians in Haestrom weren't killed by the machines that they created? I guess not.

Modifié par davishepard, 26 avril 2012 - 02:21 .

[DJBare]

davishepard wrote...
What I was saying is that the Reapers may be created with organics processed material, but that doesn't make them hybrid. They're machines, follows his logical/program, and don't have anything that resembles his former selves.

The better way to describe reapers is organics with prosthetics.