Yeah. At first I thought it was a minority ... but there's been too many people who seem to share the sentiment of this silly meme. And this is the only time I will ever say this on a topic to do with Mass Effect, because it's the only instance I've actually seen where it is accurate to say this and isn't just pure snobbery and condescension:
If you believe this is accurate ... you haven't understood the ending.
The Starchild's logic is not cyclical, illlogical, flawed or fallacious in any way. The Starchild's logic is, in fact, foolproof. If you disagree with the logic, that's fine ... you're not meant to agree with a logic which concludes that killing most of the galaxy's inhabitants is the correct course of action to take. But that doesn't invalidate the logic.
The Starchild believes that if technology evolves to a certain advanced point, self-aware machines will develop which have enough power to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy in a similar event to the well-trodden science-fiction concept of the Singularity, and that these machines will inevitably rise up against their creators and destroy them. Given the finality of this consequence, it needs to take the course of action which will 100% prevent this from ever occuring. And the logic of preventing the technology which creates the machines from ever being invented is undeniably sound. It's the only 100% certain way. So it creates a force which will make sure that technology in the galaxy never advances beyond a certain point by destroying the most technologically developed civilisations every 50,000 years, thus keeping the technology level below a safe threshold.
All of that is soundproof. Let's go through the common issues people have with it.
Argument 1: That it's an illogical course of action to take because we don't know that synthetics rising up against their creators is an inevitability (and that the Geth prove it).
No, nothing is ever an inevitabiltiy. But if you have reasonable cause to believe it will happen, and the consequence is the destruction of all life, you need to be 100% sure it won't ... because otherwise there won't be anyone around for a second chance.
The Geth is something which people keep bringing up as some kind of evidence against the Starchild's logic (e.g. I made peace between the Geth and the Quarians, so it'd all turn out alright!). These people don't seem to realise that the Geth had been warring for centuries before you came along and fixed it. It doesn't matter who started the fight ... it started. If we were at a sufficient technological level for those synthetics to have the same amount of power as the Reapers, what was a non-fatal mistake which enveloped the Quarians home planet and space would've resulted in the complete destruction of all life in the galaxy. Similarly, EDI was the rogue AI we take out on the Lunar Base in ME1. It was just a mistake that she went all psycho and started killing people ... but if we were past the point of technological no return, it again wouldn't matter. Everyone's dead, no second chances. The Geth and EDI are proof that even in the time which Mass Effect is taking place ... these mistakes are happening. And there's no reason to believe that they'd stop happening other than naive idealism.
Argument 2: That the Starchild's argument is cyclical (creating synthetics to kill organics in order to prevent synthetics killing organics).
This line is trotted out without the two qualifying words ... "creating synthetics to kill some organics in order to prevent synthetics killing all organics". The Reapers don't kill all life. The synthetics they're preventing from being developed would. Which is worse?
The whole point of the Reapers, and the Starchild, is that they're there to prevent organic life as a form of life from dying out. They don't care about individual species any more than we would care about individual ant colonies if we were trying to save an ant population. Their one aim is to make sure organics don't die out. It's immoral logic, because it's a logic which doesn't care that each species is unique and doesn't value the sanctity of life in the way that we, as humans, do. But the Starchild isn't human, and doesn't share those views. It's logic is impeccable ... it's morality is non-existent.
Argument 3: That the Starchild could simply destroy the synthetics instead of destroying the life that creates them.
It can't do that, because it would result in ridiculously short cycles. Once the technology for the synthetics is invented, destroying them will basically do nothing ... because someone, somewhere will have the knowledge of how to do it again. You could destroy every nuclear weapon on Earth right now, but we wouldn't be safe from a nuclear holocaust, because the technology to develop them still exists. Once something's been invented, it cannot be uninvented.
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I think that basically covers the main misconceptions people have about that logic, and I'd be naive to think that posting a thread will stop people from saying any of these misinformed lines again ... but at least I've posted it in a thread now instead of having to correct people on an individual basis.
Modifié par The Razman, 11 mai 2012 - 03:57 .
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