196 réponses à ce sujet

[Ieldra]

@Vox Draco:
As opposed to you and the other pro-Destroy fundamentalists, I am not running around yelling "Synthesis is the only option" at the top of my voice and lobbying to invalidate others' choices in a future ending DLC. For all that complaining about choices not mattering in the ending, you're doing a good job of trying to deprive others of every choice you don't agree with. Damned thought police!

[incinerator950]

MakeMineMako wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

*sigh* I'm getting *so* sick of you pro-Destroy fundamentalists.

I'm not a "Pro-Destroy Fundamentalist".

I'm a "All Three Choices Are Equally Evil" fundamentalist.

I believe 4:12-4:22 is what you're implying.

[The Angry One]

MakeMineMako wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

*sigh* I'm getting *so* sick of you pro-Destroy fundamentalists.

I'm not a "Pro-Destroy Fundamentalist".

I'm a "All Three Choices Are Equally Evil" fundamentalist.

I guess that makes me a "Destroy is dumb, Control is dumber, Synthesis violates the core themes of all 3 games, cheapens what we were fighting for and endorses a frighteningly racist and sickeningly intolerant agenda." fundamentaist.

Modifié par The Angry One, 04 mai 2012 - 04:42 .

[jstme]

Yeah.
Well - lot of thought went into this. Can i ask you a few simple questions though - and bear with my fundamentalism please - what part of bilogical organism will remain in "transcended" organic individual? Will organs remain - and why? Will cells remain - and why?
Or lets tackle it from the other angle - will geth now suddenly grow organs - and why? Their circuits will somehow be replaced by blood vessels, nerves and muscles? Why?
And since we witness leaves being "transcended" - will any sufficiently advanced machine now be part organic too? How reaper controller solution will differeniate between a super computer and EDI?

Oh ,and it all is achived by green wave. Suggested and executed by a creature that created/controls the reapers, that killed multitudes without second thought. All your info and all the options you have are originating from that thing that according to you simply controls innocent reapers. And you trust him.
Plus, this change is forced on everything that falls into green wave victim cathegory.
Again, yeah. Transcending.
This is death of nature. You think that some beautiful butterfly will be born as a result of reaper option, reaper suggestions and reaper execution.
Better to be a fundamentalist then to be this naive.

[d-boy15]

errr... I confuse, how do we know by blow up the citadel starchild will no control over the reapers?
and how can the reapers can be trust? even starchild is not control them. it's not like their laser is
disable in synthesis isn't it?

didn't try to bashing you choice though, just asking...

Modifié par d-boy15, 04 mai 2012 - 04:46 .

[Grimwick]

The Angry One wrote...

You say destroy is genocide for killing Reapers? Then I say with synthesis you are guilty of tactitly supporting Reaper genocide, not only what they have done, but what they will do to some other innocent organic and synthetic species elsewhere.

^ This. OP you are making a seriously flawed argument here.

[AlexXIV]

Ieldra2 wrote...

*sigh* I'm getting *so* sick of you pro-Destroy fundamentalists.

Because you got fond of Reaper Gospel. They tell you for 3 games that they are the harbinger of perfection, your genetic destiny, and suddenly you believe it. Sorry, but you are a victim, not more and not less.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 04 mai 2012 - 04:58 .

[Xellith]

Ieldra2 wrote...

*sigh* I'm getting *so* sick of you pro-Destroy fundamentalists.

And according to MY theory on the ending - you have been indoctrinated for not believing destroy is the option to pick.

[incinerator950]

AlexXIV wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

*sigh* I'm getting *so* sick of you pro-Destroy fundamentalists.

Because you got fond of Reaper Gospel. They tell you for 3 games that they are the harbinger of perfection, your genetic destiny, and suddenly you believe it. Sorry, but you are a victim, not more and not less.

[Vox Draco]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@Vox Draco:
As opposed to you and the other pro-Destroy fundamentalists, I am not running around yelling "Synthesis is the only option" at the top of my voice and lobbying to invalidate others' choices in a future ending DLC. For all that complaining about choices not mattering in the ending, you're doing a good job of trying to deprive others of every choice you don't agree with. Damned thought police!

For a non-fundamentalists, many of your post have a very aggressive tone...just saying...but I sympathize, as you are supporting a different and not very popular opinion most of the time, which can be stressful and frustrating, I am aware of this

You and everyone else, as I already pointed out, are free to choose whatever you want to...but I do not consider "wishful thinking" to be basis of that decision. But I begin to repeat myself...

And yes, just to make you feel right: I wouldn't mind at all if NONE of these choices were real. And I would not mind at all if bioware would retcon them all out and go for an entire different route. I find all of them, in the context of the series, simply out-of-style, confusing, unnecessary unclear and too open for speculation, which was obviously intended and works ratehr well, but feels so out of place for me...

I want an option that feels like Shepard came up with, not this catalyst-reaper-thingy. A choice where Shepard on behlaf of the galaxy rejects the reaper's faulty logic and weird assumptions, and return the fate of teh galaxy into the hands of each race again. A las, we are not given that...and so I have to stick with the least risky one...

[AlexXIV]

incinerator950 wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

*sigh* I'm getting *so* sick of you pro-Destroy fundamentalists.

Because you got fond of Reaper Gospel. They tell you for 3 games that they are the harbinger of perfection, your genetic destiny, and suddenly you believe it. Sorry, but you are a victim, not more and not less.

I assumed you were older than that. Why don't you stop trying to be funny by posting pictures? Use words if you can.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 04 mai 2012 - 05:02 .

[Ieldra]

jstme wrote...
...what part of bilogical organism will remain in "transcended" organic individual? Will organs remain - and why? Will cells remain - and why?
Or lets tackle it from the other angle - will geth now suddenly grow organs - and why? Their circuits will somehow be replaced by blood vessels, nerves and muscles? Why?
And since we witness leaves being "transcended" - will any sufficiently advanced machine now be part organic too? How reaper controller solution will differeniate between a super computer and EDI?

I do not know. The game gives us no information about it. I have suggested that it is a symbiosis rather than a physical rewrite, because the latter doesn't make sense. But of course you'd put that off as wishful thinking as well. I'm using the themes presented by the games and the fact (!!!) that the claim "Reapers are cosmic horrors" has been invalidated by ME3's ending in my reasoning.

As for the fundamentalism: I am not the one trying to invalidate other options for the final choice. I've repeatedly said "all [high EMS] endings are good endings (as far as any of them is good)". I could make an equally eloquent argument for any other choice, even for those I don't like. And I'm fully aware that my personal value system predisposes me towards Synthesis. That's why *I* am not making absolutist claims about the merits of Synthesis. I'm just sick of people making absolutist claims based on *their* personal value system and lobbying for a removal of all choices they don't agree with - see IT.

[Ieldra]

Vox Draco wrote...
I wouldn't mind at all if NONE of these choices were real. And I would not mind at all if bioware would retcon them all out and go for an entire different route. I find all of them, in the context of the series, simply out-of-style, confusing, unnecessary unclear and too open for speculation, which was obviously intended and works ratehr well, but feels so out of place for me...

The fact that the choices are presented by the Catalyst presents a problem, otherwise I don't mind them.  I don't think we were supposed to see the Catalyst as the "big bad" rather than beyond the scope of human morality. I have no trouble accepting that, because I've always thought any specific morality is a cultural construct on a fundament of genetic predisposition, and aliens could have a moral system unrecognizeable to us. But I can also see why many people are unwilling or unable to take that stance. The presentation of the Reapers as Space Cthulhu has been rather pervasive (a fact I've been known to rant about), and what's a fortunate circumstance for me might be the opposite for others.

I want an option that feels like Shepard came up with, not this catalyst-reaper-thingy. A choice where Shepard on behlaf of the galaxy rejects the reaper's faulty logic and weird assumptions, and return the fate of teh galaxy into the hands of each race again. A las, we are not given that...and so I have to stick with the least risky one...

Which means, you want a return to the status quo before the war minus the Reapers. Not my preference, but if you want that...why not choose Control?

[Oldbones2]

Ieldra2 wrote...

In this thread, I'll present some evidence for the hypothesis that the Reapers are as much victims of the cycle as the species they were made from, and that it is the Catalyst who makes them do what they do. As a consequence of insights into the Reapers' nature, the Synthesis ending becomes more attractive.

On the nature of the Reapers:
In the trilogy, we get two pieces of information about the nature of the Reapers:
(1) Legion in ME2: "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within immortal machine bodies. "Each a nation".
(2) The Catalyst in ME3: "We helped them ascend, so that they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form."

What came to me first when hearing this again is the insight that the Reapers are physically synthetic, not bio-synthetic (EDI's speculation at the Collector Base was wrong).The processing of organics isn't used to build the structure, but to re-encode their idenities into a new form. All that is left is information, and the genetic material is only used to extract information about the physical forms. Could they have done that without destroying the host? Of course they could have, but as we all now know, the purpose was as much to destroy the old form as to create the new one.

But the more interesting question that comes up is this: If everythose those species had been - their identities, the memories of their material culture, their ideas, memories of their lives - are preserved within a Reaper, then why the hell are they doing all this? Why do they serve the cycle and do to others what has been done to them? Without fail, without any drop-outs? For if those billions of uploaded minds were mangled beyond recognition, like the Collectors were, beyond all saving as we know from Mordin, insane by the standards of their old identities, their minds lost, then they could not be the "old life preserved in Reaper form", they would be something else.

The plausible, almost obvious answer is: they're mind-controlled by the Catalyst.

On the nature of mind control:
To understand where I'm coming from, it is important to see that all those instances of "mind control" we see in the games aren't in fact mind control. Anderson? His mind is free, his body is controlled. The same with Shepard when he shoots Anderson. Grayson? His mind was in the process of being conquered and destroyed, not controlled. Because true mind control is something you will not notice! If you are truly mind-controlled, if your will is subverted, you will do what you want - and it will be what your master wants. You will not just be "not allowed to think or act differently", you simply will not think or act differently. There is no fight, no resistance, your actions will feel as natural to you as they would were you not mind controlled. THAT is mind control.

To get back to the Reapers, this kind of mind control is what it takes to get the Reapers to act like they do,without fail every single time one is created, and still feel and act like individual Reapers, even to themselves. And all it takes is to maintain a single "truth" in the conjoined minds: "The cycle is necessary. It is inevitable. What was done to you was necessary and inevitable. Your form is what it was always meant to be."

How does the Catalyst control the Reapers:
Remember what the Catalyst says about itself: "The Citadel is part of me". This implies that there are other parts and raises the question "what are the other parts"? Now I'm going to speculate a bit and postulate that the other parts are in the Reaper bodies, and that the Catalyst's consciousness is distributed between the Citadel as the primary seat and parts of the Reapers. Multiple-body super-intelligent beings have been ossasionally used in SF literature since...hmm...I think it started 1988 with "Neverness" (corrections welcome), so this is not an exotic concept. The parts external to the Citadel allow the Catalyst to maintain its mind control.

I will conclude, thus, that the Reapers' fate, beyond "they are not a threat anymore" which applies to all endings, is not inconsequential for the final choice. From the moral angle, destroying them is multiple genocide, and controlling them keeps them enslaved. From the practical angle, the knowledge of countless cycles will be destroyed if you destroy them. Thus, let's have another look the choice that avoids that:

How the Synthesis relates to the Reapers:
There is this term that comes up in association with the Reapers and Synthesis both: "pinnacle of evolution/final evolution of life". Legion associates "Unity. Understanding. Transcendence" with the state of the Reapers. Now obviously the "final evolution" is hyperbole, for there can't be such a thing and even if there was, the Reapers wouldn't be it, or we wouldn't be able to destroy them.
And even if the process weren't so horrific and the result so butt-ugly,
we are not ready for the Reaper's kind of ascension, that "Unity". We want to remain individuals physically and mentally, thank you very much. But "understanding" and "transcendence" would figure prominently in any description of advanced life which has taken a step, or several steps, forward on some scale of artificial evolution.

Synthesis - a selective transcendence:
So what does the Synthesis achieve? Rather obviously, it doesn't conjoin any minds and implant them into a machine body. Nor does it turn anyone into a giant cuttlefish, a tentacled monster or any other disgust-evoking lifeform (just watch the ending sequence). Nor is any interpretation that lessens minds in the spirit of the Synthesis. But if the terms used to describe it have any meaning within the themes touched by the story, then post-Synthesis intelligent life will have the tools to transcend fundamental limitations of its previous condition and gain an understanding of the universe on par with the Reapers (with post-Synthesis life having inherited the potential for self-improvement from pre-Synthesis synthetics, as I have described in [my Synthesis thread). In addition to that, the remnants of the species of past cycles will all be preserved along with all their knowledge and experience, and freed from the Catalyst's mind control, we can expect any future interaction to be less hostile that it has been. No, things will not be perfect - as long as there is life, there will be conflict - but the cycle has stolen millions of years of potential advancement from the intelligent life of the galaxy. I would even postulate that had the cycle not happened and organic and synthetic life survived against all odds, then there would be a symbiosis of synthetic and organic life at this point in time. Synthesis will give part of that lost potential back.

I'm Pro-Control, and I can't get behind this.

To me that is the height of arrogance and evil.  To force people to be anything.  Even if it makes them better.

People have a right to be bad.  And if Mass Effect history is any judge, they NEED to work out how to better themselves, rather than just have an advanced race uplift them.

Good read though.


My syn. thread.

http://social.biowar.../index/11152094

[Ieldra]

d-boy15 wrote...
errr... I confuse, how do we know by blow up the citadel starchild will no control over the reapers?
and how can the reapers can be trust? even starchild is not control them. it's not like their laser is
disable in synthesis isn't it?

The Citadel is the Catalyst's "head", so to speak. Blow it up and it will be gone. Even if it will not be gone, the cycle is ended, which means the Catalyst will stop the harvesting if it still exists and has control. If it does not have control, the Reapers will still be powerful, but at the very least, they won't have a unified purpose any more. And...they leave, right? What would they want with the galaxy's civilzations anyway once they're freed from the Catalyst's purpose? They're self-sufficient. They don't need planetary resources, there's nothing in the galaxy's civilizations they need. And their interest likely goes beyond those things of interest to the other post-Synthesis civilizations.

But I grant you that if you want to minimize risk, you'd be better off with one of the other options.

[Sparse]

Ieldra2 wrote...
The fact that the choices are presented by the Catalyst presents a problem. I don't think we were supposed to see the Catalyst as the "big bad" rather than beyond the scope of human morality.

It's what the Catalyst says. The moment the Reapers started having understandable motives the entire technological singularity thing that it appeared they had been working towards in the first to games collapsed.

You can't have an intelligence so far beyond your own that it is totally incomprehensible to you if it sits and explains it's motives to you. The moment it did that you were not dealing with a higher form of life any more, the Reapers if anything were a lower form of life capable only of pursuing a very limited hypothesis with little or no independent thought..

[Ieldra]

@Oldbones2:
I meant "better" in the sense of "more capable", not "morally better". People can still be "bad". They can also still choose not use their new capabilities.

I've also read your thread some time ago. You make a few valid points, but I don't agree that Synthesis makes everything homogenous. That would be like saying because life of Earth is all DNA-based, it's all the same.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 04 mai 2012 - 05:36 .

[Vox Draco]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Vox Draco wrote...
I wouldn't mind at all if NONE of these choices were real. And I would not mind at all if bioware would retcon them all out and go for an entire different route. I find all of them, in the context of the series, simply out-of-style, confusing, unnecessary unclear and too open for speculation, which was obviously intended and works ratehr well, but feels so out of place for me...

The fact that the choices are presented by the Catalyst presents a problem, otherwise I don't mind them.  I don't think we were supposed to see the Catalyst as the "big bad" rather than beyond the scope of human morality. I have no trouble accepting that, because I've always thought any specific morality is a cultural construct on a fundament of genetic predisposition, and aliens could have a moral system unrecognizeable to us. But I can also see why many people are unwilling or unable to take that stance. The presentation of the Reapers as Space Cthulhu has been rather pervasive (a fact I've been known to rant about), and what's a fortunate circumstance for me might be the opposite for others.

I want an option that feels like Shepard came up with, not this catalyst-reaper-thingy. A choice where Shepard on behlaf of the galaxy rejects the reaper's faulty logic and weird assumptions, and return the fate of teh galaxy into the hands of each race again. A las, we are not given that...and so I have to stick with the least risky one...

Which means, you want a return to the status quo before the war minus the Reapers. Not my preference, but if you want that...why not choose Control?

Well, lets agree we disagree on the catalyst. You ee him obviously in a different light than I do. I don't want to offend you, but somehow...when standing in front of a boing that claimed to have been responsible for the killing of....trillions...I cannot mame myself trust, accept or believe this one. so much for Bioware choosing the Catalyst to present these options. But I agree...maybe...if it wasn't the catalyst but instead something different, an AI maybe implanted by the races responsible for the crucuble...I would have a different point of view. But as it stands, all choices are coming from the catalyst. And yes, he claims it is the crucible that makes these solutions possible, but again. It is the catalyst saying this. And all we and Sheaprd can do is to either believe it or not...

And what staus quo do you mean? The galaxy determening its own fate, without forced evolution and reapers trying to harvest all advanced races? Sure! That is the point of the entire series for me!

And not...I do NOT believe control will be this solution, as the Reapers are still around and it is up once again for wishful thinking that they will never do harm again to the galaxy..

[Vox Draco]

Ieldra2 wrote...
But I grant you that if you want to minimize risk, you'd be better off with one of the other options.

My main point why I am a so-called destroy-fanatic...if we are stuck with these choices, than at least the less risky one. Thats my Shepard's point of view.

[Ieldra]

Sparse wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
The fact that the choices are presented by the Catalyst presents a problem. I don't think we were supposed to see the Catalyst as the "big bad" rather than beyond the scope of human morality.

It's what the Catalyst says. The moment the Reapers started having understandable motives the entire technological singularity thing that it appeared they had been working towards in the first to games collapsed.

You can't have an intelligence so far beyond your own that it is totally incomprehensible to you if it sits and explains it's motives to you. The moment it did that you were not dealing with a higher form of life any more, the Reapers if anything were a lower form of life capable only of pursuing a very limited hypothesis with little or no independent thought..

Not *everything* an advanced intelligence does needs to be incomprehensible to others. The problem is rather this: The rationale of the cycle is based on a complex theory of future development, namely, the technological singularity. But the writers simplified it so much that it didn't make sense any more. The KISS principle bites you in the ass if you try to reduce complexity so far that your reasoning collapses. And anyway this would only apply to the Catalyst, since the Reapers are mind-controlled and thus allowed to be one-sided.

[Ieldra]

Vox Draco wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
But I grant you that if you want to minimize risk, you'd be better off with one of the other options.

My main point why I am a so-called destroy-fanatic...if we are stuck with these choices, than at least the less risky one. Thats my Shepard's point of view.

Then you killed the Rachni queen and let the Council die in ME1? You destroyed the geth Heretics and the genophage cure?

I'm not exactly criticizing your viewpoint - I have done all these things with some of my Shepards and probably will choose Destroy with one of them - but there may be a double standard at work here. Particularly the cured krogan have the potential to be a huge threat to the post-Reaper civilizations. Why take THAT risk?

Also I take the endings as intended: Commander Shepard ends the Reaper threat. I agree that we need more than a simple metagame assurance to explain why, particularly for the Synthesis ending, but until we have one, I take it in the spririt it was inteded and make up my own explanation. Also I have no problem believing that in Control, ascended-Shepard will continue to control the Reapers and find a different solution to the organic/synthetic problem before the time comes when it is needed.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 04 mai 2012 - 05:58 .

[jstme]

Ieldra2 wrote...
As for the fundamentalism: I am not the one trying to invalidate other options for the final choice. I've repeatedly said "all [high EMS] endings are good endings (as far as any of them is good)". I could make an equally eloquent argument for any other choice, even for those I don't like. And I'm fully aware that my personal value system predisposes me towards Synthesis. That's why *I* am not making absolutist claims about the merits of Synthesis. I'm just sick of people making absolutist claims based on *their* personal value system and lobbying for a removal of all choices they don't agree with - see IT.

You have the right to your own opinion and preferences - this is not something others should force onto you in some kind of giant wave.
But from what i see majority of people unhappy with the ending simply want other option. Not total removal of existing ones. You want to stop with that ideal symbolic green wave solution -  this is ok. I want the ability to refuse accepting those 3 options and finding the acutal (as in - nonsymbolic)  solution that is not dictated by force behind the reapers nor tainted by results of its previously chosen option.

[incinerator950]

AlexXIV wrote...

incinerator950 wrote...

AlexXIV wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

*sigh* I'm getting *so* sick of you pro-Destroy fundamentalists.

Because you got fond of Reaper Gospel. They tell you for 3 games that they are the harbinger of perfection, your genetic destiny, and suddenly you believe it. Sorry, but you are a victim, not more and not less.

I assumed you were older than that. Why don't you stop trying to be funny by posting pictures? Use words if you can.

Don't need to lower myself to your position. 

[lillitheris]

Ieldra2 wrote...

But the more interesting question that comes up is this: If everythose those species had been - their identities, the memories of their material culture, their ideas, memories of their lives - are preserved within a Reaper, then why the hell are they doing all this? Why do they serve the cycle and do to others what has been done to them? Without fail, without any drop-outs? For if those billions of uploaded minds were mangled beyond recognition, like the Collectors were, beyond all saving as we know from Mordin, insane by the standards of their old identities, their minds lost, then they could not be the "old life preserved in Reaper form", they would be something else.

The plausible, almost obvious answer is: they're mind-controlled by the Catalyst.

This relies on the assumption that the Reapers are actually a gestalt of the species. If you choose to believe that, then your explanation is quite reasonable.

I can’t believe that killing and pureeing creatures would preserve their intelligence or emotions*. I could tenuously allow that maybe there’s some kind of a base racial memory or stereotype template that can be extracted. The basic Reaper nature is what it is, by design, and this racial paste is added to it as a spice.


* Think a human brain. When you talk about neural pathways, it’s actually pathways. It’s not individual neurons that can be separated. It’s a collection of very specific and often idiosyncratic connections.