55528 réponses à ce sujet

[Seifer006]

IT is debunked. Bioware made it clear in the EC that it wasn't their intentions.

It would have been nice if Bioware rolled with it. but it's over folks. Gotta move on.

Modifié par Seifer006, 03 juillet 2012 - 08:42 .

[SHARXTREME]

Now it's not about making your enemy your pawn or servant. It's about turning your enemy, into you.

Great.
Yes, that would be full assimilation. What Borg do.
And Control ending seems to be exactly that.

[XanderLav]

Seifer006 wrote...

IT is debunked. Bioware made it clear in the EC that it wasn't their intentions.

It would have been nice if Bioware rolled with it. but it's over folks. Gotta move on.

Ohhh ok! If you say so, right on it.

[niravital]

smokingotter1 wrote...

I have a concern regarding Indoctrination Theory that just popped in my mind. From playing ME1-3 I got the impression that indoctrination was not something you could choose your way out of and was something you could snap out of... but only for a brief moment and those moments typically involve dying/suicide. From what I read it looks like the effects of indoctrination are both cumulative and permanent.

So even with a IT DLC Shepard will never be the same, even if the reapers are all destroyed. Unless they come up with some kind of anti indoctrination device that can undo the damage done to the brain. Alcohol maybe?

I guess that if you resist indoctrination enough time to kill all Reapers... they can't indoctrinate you any more...
No more voices cause no more Reapers.

[Vaya]

Just in case you weren't clear on the difference between belligerent literalists and trolls, that was a troll.

[HellishFiend]

Turbo_J wrote...

HellishFiend wrote...

legaldinho wrote...


You knoe what I think? There's something on the normandy.

Look at SR1. The look and feel of it. Then SR2. A more red colour scheme, a few more of those cables that seem to straddle the ship. By ME3 the ship has a sinister tone. The cables are more pronounced. After the dreams, as you wake up, you see immediately above shep's bed the red tinges all around his room. A distinctly different design since even ME2.

None of this is fact. I can't prove it. But it feels like the Normandy is a more sinister place in ME3.


You

Not to mention this. 

Also, I'm convinced those door opening sounds in the corners of the cargo bay are intentional. I think it is Shep's mind remembering/confusing when there used to be doors there on the SR-1.

I assumed that was how the maps were laid out outside of game reality. I think the normandy is flat. I do wonder why there is no damn elevator though. In my first playthrough it mapped me to the wrong location and I got spaced. I so wish I had fraps or bindi at the time.

It happens on Pragia in ME2 as well... doors opening through the walls.

As for the cargo bay, in the original normandy it was an elevator there. No doors. The doors to deck one were on deck two by the med bay and Sheps quaters.

Didnt the SR-1 cargo bay have doors to engineering in those corners? Fairly sure it did. 

[TSA_383]

Simon_Says wrote...

Simon_Says wrote...

smokingotter1 wrote...

Reapers: "So how's the work going on indoctrinating Shepard?"
Harbinger: "Uh... I didn't get that done because I was indoctrinated..."
Reapers:

Actually, think about it. Indoctrination is about turning organic minds to align with those of the reapers, right? So basically, it causes the subjects to think like reapers. A reaper mind and a thoroughly indoctrinated one would be very, very similar, no?

And if the reapers are made by converting several million minds, probably based on organisms who didn't wish to be converted, then they have to figure a way to force all those minds to work together under the reaper's banner. In short, they have to be indoctrinated.

Basically, the reapers are indoctrinated. And like a virus epidemic, they parasitically spread that indoctrination to reproduce. In a way, you could say then that the reapers are not the actual enemy. They're just another instrument of the real enemy. And that enemy is Indoctrination itself.

Can probably even link this idea with my Cosmic Imperative hypothesis. Indoctrination would be the galactic superorganism: the thinking system that sustains itself by harvesting lesser life.

More thoughts. If this happens to be the case, then what the Catalyst said may have actually been true. It's not a reaper, or a reaper puppet. It is the genuine intelligence that creates and guides the reapers.

"The Citadel is my home." "The Citadel is part of me."
"(I am) A construct. An intelligence designed eons ago to solve a problem."
"I was created to bring balance, to be the catalyst for peace between organics and synthetics."
"(I am an AI) In as much as you are just an animal."
"I embody the collective intelligence of all reapers."

The term Catalyst itself could be indicative. It is supposed to catalyze connection between organic and synthetic thought. Yet in chemistry when a reaction occurs what is left is a combination of the reactants. You get somthing that is in a sense greater than the reactants, yet is not a sum of the reactant's properties but something else entirely. The reapers/Catalyst takes organic and synthetic thought, and uses them to create more reaper thought.

You thought it'd be epic if the climax of the ME series was the reapers trying to indoctrinate Shepard? Then how about this: The force of Indoctrination itself trying to worm its way into Shepards mind, change it, and then shatter it as its own thought is reproduced.

Now it's not about making your enemy your pawn or servant. It's about turning your enemy, into you.

To me, the "catalyst" (if indeed it is the catalyst and not lying...) seems like an AI gone horribly wrong... 
Ostensibly built by its original creators to find a way to end some long-forgotten conflict between organics and synthetics, it then came to the conclusion that the best way to do this was... well...

It's the sort of thing I can imagine the quarians building

[Rosewind]

Seifer006 wrote...

IT is debunked. Bioware made it clear in the EC that it wasn't their intentions.

It would have been nice if Bioware rolled with it. but it's over folks. Gotta move on.

Noooooo! My world has come to a end, oh wait no it hasn't cause nothing was disproved or proven in the EC it just made certain things more clearer.
Oh well I guess we should all move on now.

Okay guys show over move along.....right.....

[Big_Boss9]

HellishFiend wrote...

Didnt the SR-1 cargo bay have doors to engineering in those corners? Fairly sure it did. 

Yes, they did.

[Simon_Says]

Also, might be good to explain what exactly this Indoctrination force I'm describing is using an example from ME lore: the Geth.

EDI is an AI. Geth are... not AI in the classic sense. Geth intelligences are an emergent property of the action of their constituent programs. In this sense the Geth are a super-AI. It transcends the boundaries of the physical. It can move and split and join again like fluid. Subsets can achieve a measure of independent identity, as Legion did, but it will still recognize itself as being a part of a greater whole. Short of destroying the whole geth network, the intelligence is in a real sense immortal and beyond the intuitive comprehension of a hardware-bound intelligence.

Now we may have the reason why the heretic geth 'worshiped' the reapers: they worshipped an image of what they are, extrapolated to unfathomable scope and power. Much like how most human religions involve worshiping icons that are, basically, humanity perfected and empowered.

"We are each a nation, independent..." Yet how come, besides Leviathan, the reapers are still one force? One gigantic armada all with the same goals, methods, beliefs... All with the one mode of thought? Indoctrinated thought?

"As much an AI as Shepard is an animal." So yes the Catalyst/Indoctrination force is artificial. But it's so much more. So much more complex. So much more capable. Even when its platforms are destroyed, it cannot die. And with it's capacity to spread itself among all life in this galaxy and beyond... yes, it's potentially infinite.

Eternal. Infinite. Immortal. The reapers used these words, but only now do I truly understand them.


Also, a tidbit from Dr. Chandana...

"A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's
a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want
to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

The god he speaks of is not the reaper. It's indoctrination.

Modifié par Simon_Says, 03 juillet 2012 - 08:59 .

[Turbo_J]

Big_Boss9 wrote...

HellishFiend wrote...

Didnt the SR-1 cargo bay have doors to engineering in those corners? Fairly sure it did. 

Yes, they did.

Yep, you're right. Still not sure it's 'intended' but maybe that's one of those things they 'left in' for effect.

[SHARXTREME]

smokingotter1 wrote...

I have a concern regarding Indoctrination Theory that just popped in my mind. From playing ME1-3 I got the impression that indoctrination was not something you could choose your way out of and was something you could snap out of... but only for a brief moment and those moments typically involve dying/suicide. From what I read it looks like the effects of indoctrination are both cumulative and permanent.

So even with a IT DLC Shepard will never be the same, even if the reapers are all destroyed. Unless they come up with some kind of anti indoctrination device that can undo the damage done to the brain. Alcohol maybe?

Or Crucible maybe?
When I think of this Reapers Indoctrination bussines and Catalyst as their boss that indoctrinated them, reaperised them in the first place, I think that simplest and easiest way to win against them is to design Crucible as anti.indoctrination device. That would solve immediate threat in blink of an eye. Catalyst loses his hold over Reapers, Reapers lose their hold over Cerberus and husk, marauder and Banshee hordes.
Divided enemy is much weaker enemy. With such enemy you could even negotiate and win conventionally. 

 

[BansheeOwnage]

Simon_Says wrote...

Also, might be good to explain what exactly this Indoctrination force I'm describing is using an example from ME lore: the Geth.

EDI is an AI. Geth are... not AI in the classic sense. Geth intelligences are an emergent property of the action of their constituent programs. In this sense the Geth are a super-AI. It transcends the boundaries of the physical. It can move and split and join again like fluid. Subsets can achieve a measure of independent identity, as Legion did, but it will still recognize itself as being a part of a greater whole. Short of destroying the whole geth network, the intelligence is in a real sense immortal and beyond the intuitive comprehension of a hardware-bound intelligence.

Now we may have the reason why the heretic geth 'worshiped' the reapers: they worshipped an image of what they are, extrapolated to unfathomable scope and power. Much like how most human religions involve worshiping icons that are, basically, humanity perfected and empowered.

"We are each a nation, independent..." Yet how come, besides Leviathan, the reapers are still one force? One gigantic armada all with the same goals, methods, beliefs... All with the one mode of thought? Indoctrinated thought?

"As much an AI as Shepard is an animal." So yes the Catalyst/Indoctrination force is artificial. But it's so much more. So much more complex. So much more capable. Even when its platforms are destroyed, it cannot die. And with it's capacity to spread itself among all life in this galaxy and beyond... yes, it's potentially infinite.

Eternal. Infinite. Immortal. The reapers used these words, but only now do I truly understand them.


Also, a tidbit from Dr. Chandana...

"A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's
a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want
to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

The god he speaks of is not the reaper. It's indoctrination.

My theory is also that the reapers are indoctrinated. And indoctrination is the main enemy of mass effect. Which fits well with it also being the last boss fight that we have now.

[zigamortis]

smokingotter1 wrote...

I have a concern regarding Indoctrination Theory that just popped in my mind. From playing ME1-3 I got the impression that indoctrination was not something you could choose your way out of and was something you could snap out of... but only for a brief moment and those moments typically involve dying/suicide. From what I read it looks like the effects of indoctrination are both cumulative and permanent.

So even with a IT DLC Shepard will never be the same, even if the reapers are all destroyed. Unless they come up with some kind of anti indoctrination device that can undo the damage done to the brain. Alcohol maybe?

It could be that shepard is unique. Either from having a remarkably strong will, which we know shepard does, or from being resurected. perhaps sheps brain can better withstand the effects of indoctrination. or maby it was just pure rage and stuborness that stoped the indoctrination, after all a stubborn enough person can do just about anything, just ask zaeed.

[UltimateTobi]

SHARXTREME wrote...

smokingotter1 wrote...

I have a concern regarding Indoctrination Theory that just popped in my mind. From playing ME1-3 I got the impression that indoctrination was not something you could choose your way out of and was something you could snap out of... but only for a brief moment and those moments typically involve dying/suicide. From what I read it looks like the effects of indoctrination are both cumulative and permanent.

So even with a IT DLC Shepard will never be the same, even if the reapers are all destroyed. Unless they come up with some kind of anti indoctrination device that can undo the damage done to the brain. Alcohol maybe?

Or Crucible maybe?
When I think of this Reapers Indoctrination bussines and Catalyst as their boss that indoctrinated them, reaperised them in the first place, I think that simplest and easiest way to win against them is to design Crucible as anti.indoctrination device. That would solve immediate threat in blink of an eye. Catalyst loses his hold over Reapers, Reapers lose their hold over Cerberus and husk, marauder and Banshee hordes.
Divided enemy is much weaker enemy. With such enemy you could even negotiate and win conventionally. 

 

Would like to see negotiating with a Banshee.
"I work with you, but... the priiice..."
"Oh, no Banshee, I am not doing THAT."
"*SCREAM!*"

Modifié par UltimateTobi, 03 juillet 2012 - 09:08 .

[BansheeOwnage]

zigamortis wrote...

smokingotter1 wrote...

I have a concern regarding Indoctrination Theory that just popped in my mind. From playing ME1-3 I got the impression that indoctrination was not something you could choose your way out of and was something you could snap out of... but only for a brief moment and those moments typically involve dying/suicide. From what I read it looks like the effects of indoctrination are both cumulative and permanent.

So even with a IT DLC Shepard will never be the same, even if the reapers are all destroyed. Unless they come up with some kind of anti indoctrination device that can undo the damage done to the brain. Alcohol maybe?

It could be that shepard is unique. Either from having a remarkably strong will, which we know shepard does, or from being resurected. perhaps sheps brain can better withstand the effects of indoctrination. or maby it was just pure rage and stuborness that stoped the indoctrination, after all a stubborn enough person can do just about anything, just ask zaeed.

I guess you could never indoctrinate krogan then. Lol. Actually, I don't recall seeing one.

[EpyonX3]

Simon_Says wrote...

Also, might be good to explain what exactly this Indoctrination force I'm describing is using an example from ME lore: the Geth.

EDI is an AI. Geth are... not AI in the classic sense. Geth intelligences are an emergent property of the action of their constituent programs. In this sense the Geth are a super-AI. It transcends the boundaries of the physical. It can move and split and join again like fluid. Subsets can achieve a measure of independent identity, as Legion did, but it will still recognize itself as being a part of a greater whole. Short of destroying the whole geth network, the intelligence is in a real sense immortal and beyond the intuitive comprehension of a hardware-bound intelligence.

Now we may have the reason why the heretic geth 'worshiped' the reapers: they worshipped an image of what they are, extrapolated to unfathomable scope and power. Much like how most human religions involve worshiping icons that are, basically, humanity perfected and empowered.

"We are each a nation, independent..." Yet how come, besides Leviathan, the reapers are still one force? One gigantic armada all with the same goals, methods, beliefs... All with the one mode of thought? Indoctrinated thought?

"As much an AI as Shepard is an animal." So yes the Catalyst/Indoctrination force is artificial. But it's so much more. So much more complex. So much more capable. Even when its platforms are destroyed, it cannot die. And with it's capacity to spread itself among all life in this galaxy and beyond... yes, it's potentially infinite.

Eternal. Infinite. Immortal. The reapers used these words, but only now do I truly understand them.


Also, a tidbit from Dr. Chandana...

"A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's
a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want
to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

The god he speaks of is not the reaper. It's indoctrination.

Interesting, but I disagree with your last part about Dr. Chandana.

He continues to say that a dead God can still dream. I'm pretty sure that the dead God he was referring to was the dead reaper they were in. Even though it was dead, it still indoctrinated them. What ever force that indoctrinates, believed to come from the core, it was still on. However, the AI was dead. That's why the doctors went crazy because they were indoctrinated by random reaper thoughts and no clear instruction.

[Arian Dynas]

Simon_Says wrote...

Also, might be good to explain what exactly this Indoctrination force I'm describing is using an example from ME lore: the Geth.

EDI is an AI. Geth are... not AI in the classic sense. Geth intelligences are an emergent property of the action of their constituent programs. In this sense the Geth are a super-AI. It transcends the boundaries of the physical. It can move and split and join again like fluid. Subsets can achieve a measure of independent identity, as Legion did, but it will still recognize itself as being a part of a greater whole. Short of destroying the whole geth network, the intelligence is in a real sense immortal and beyond the intuitive comprehension of a hardware-bound intelligence.

Now we may have the reason why the heretic geth 'worshiped' the reapers: they worshipped an image of what they are, extrapolated to unfathomable scope and power. Much like how most human religions involve worshiping icons that are, basically, humanity perfected and empowered.

"We are each a nation, independent..." Yet how come, besides Leviathan, the reapers are still one force? One gigantic armada all with the same goals, methods, beliefs... All with the one mode of thought? Indoctrinated thought?

"As much an AI as Shepard is an animal." So yes the Catalyst/Indoctrination force is artificial. But it's so much more. So much more complex. So much more capable. Even when its platforms are destroyed, it cannot die. And with it's capacity to spread itself among all life in this galaxy and beyond... yes, it's potentially infinite.

Eternal. Infinite. Immortal. The reapers used these words, but only now do I truly understand them.


Also, a tidbit from Dr. Chandana...

"A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's
a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want
to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

The god he speaks of is not the reaper. It's indoctrination.

It was lonely. It called to us.
It wanted to remember. The Masters had been gone so long.
The Masters were lost when it was shattered.
Currents swept through their inner worlds. They were turned to noise. Babble.
The worlds were empty. But the body lived. It lay fallow.
The heart pumped. The lungs breathed. But the mind forgot the Masters.
It called and They did not answer.
We have become an echo of Their echo.
We have become more than we were.
Join us. Know us. Remember all our lives.
We are no longer afraid.
You would never be lonely again.
We are not your enemy. We only wish to share ourselves.
We can join them. We can be like them.
We can reach the end of evolution.
Do not fear. It is wonderful to be us. We understand ourselves.
You cannot defeat them. They will lead us into eternity.
If you could only see how we see. Know what we've learned.
They were called imshai. Those who lived here before.
Reaper. One. A mechanical device used to cut ripened grain. Two. One who gathers a harvest.
Harvest. One. The consequence of an event or series of events. Two. The yield of a growing season. Three. To gather.
Shepard. They know you. They wish you to understand. They are shepherds, too. 

-Cut ME2 Dialogue

Bravo Simon. Bravo.

[BansheeOwnage]

UltimateTobi wrote...

SHARXTREME wrote...

smokingotter1 wrote...

I have a concern regarding Indoctrination Theory that just popped in my mind. From playing ME1-3 I got the impression that indoctrination was not something you could choose your way out of and was something you could snap out of... but only for a brief moment and those moments typically involve dying/suicide. From what I read it looks like the effects of indoctrination are both cumulative and permanent.

So even with a IT DLC Shepard will never be the same, even if the reapers are all destroyed. Unless they come up with some kind of anti indoctrination device that can undo the damage done to the brain. Alcohol maybe?

Or Crucible maybe?
When I think of this Reapers Indoctrination bussines and Catalyst as their boss that indoctrinated them, reaperised them in the first place, I think that simplest and easiest way to win against them is to design Crucible as anti.indoctrination device. That would solve immediate threat in blink of an eye. Catalyst loses his hold over Reapers, Reapers lose their hold over Cerberus and husk, marauder and Banshee hordes.
Divided enemy is much weaker enemy. With such enemy you could even negotiate and win conventionally. 

 

Would like to see negotiating with a Banshee.
"I work with you, but... the priiize..."
"Oh, no Banshee, I am not doing THAT."
"*SCREAM!*"

I might be able to pull it off.

[dreamgazer]

Seifer006 wrote...

IT is debunked. Bioware made it clear in the EC that it wasn't their intentions.

It would have been nice if Bioware rolled with it. but it's over folks. Gotta move on.

http://social.biowar...916857#12919766 

There are elements of Mass Effect 3 that are meant to have non-literal interpretations. The hope is that these things provide thought-provoking discussion about the themes of the story and the motivations of characters. As such, we would prefer not to comment on players’ interpretations of these elements, since it would ruin the enjoyment of such discussion by suggesting there is a single, concrete way of viewing them.

No, that doesn't confirm IT, but it sure as hell doesn't debunk the ideas that the folks in this thread unearth.

[BansheeOwnage]

Arian Dynas wrote...

Simon_Says wrote...

Also, might be good to explain what exactly this Indoctrination force I'm describing is using an example from ME lore: the Geth.

EDI is an AI. Geth are... not AI in the classic sense. Geth intelligences are an emergent property of the action of their constituent programs. In this sense the Geth are a super-AI. It transcends the boundaries of the physical. It can move and split and join again like fluid. Subsets can achieve a measure of independent identity, as Legion did, but it will still recognize itself as being a part of a greater whole. Short of destroying the whole geth network, the intelligence is in a real sense immortal and beyond the intuitive comprehension of a hardware-bound intelligence.

Now we may have the reason why the heretic geth 'worshiped' the reapers: they worshipped an image of what they are, extrapolated to unfathomable scope and power. Much like how most human religions involve worshiping icons that are, basically, humanity perfected and empowered.

"We are each a nation, independent..." Yet how come, besides Leviathan, the reapers are still one force? One gigantic armada all with the same goals, methods, beliefs... All with the one mode of thought? Indoctrinated thought?

"As much an AI as Shepard is an animal." So yes the Catalyst/Indoctrination force is artificial. But it's so much more. So much more complex. So much more capable. Even when its platforms are destroyed, it cannot die. And with it's capacity to spread itself among all life in this galaxy and beyond... yes, it's potentially infinite.

Eternal. Infinite. Immortal. The reapers used these words, but only now do I truly understand them.


Also, a tidbit from Dr. Chandana...

"A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's
a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want
to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

The god he speaks of is not the reaper. It's indoctrination.

It was lonely. It called to us.
[color=rgb(170,170,170)">It wanted to remember. ]The Masters[/color] had been gone so long.
The Masters were lost when it was shattered.
Currents swept through their inner worlds. They were turned to noise. Babble.
The worlds were empty. But the body lived. It lay fallow.
[color=rgb(170,170,170)">The heart pumped. The lungs breathed. But the mind forgot ]the Masters[/color].
[color=rgb(170,170,170)">It ]They[/color] did not answer.
[color=rgb(170,170,170)">We have become an echo of ]Their[/color] echo.
We have become more than we were.
Join us. Know us. Remember all our lives.
We are no longer afraid.
You would never be lonely again.
We are not your enemy. We only wish to share ourselves.
We can join them. We can be like them.
We can reach the end of evolution.
Do not fear. It is wonderful to be us. We understand ourselves.
[color=rgb(170,170,170)">You cannot defeat them. ]They will lead us into eternity.[/color]
If you could only see how we see. Know what we've learned.
They were called imshai. Those who lived here before.
Reaper. One. A mechanical device used to cut ripened grain. Two. One who gathers a harvest.
Harvest. One. The consequence of an event or series of events. Two. The yield of a growing season. Three. To gather.
[color=rgb(170,170,170)">Shepard. They know you. ]They wish you to understand. They are shepherds, too.[/color] 

-Cut ME2 Dialogue

Bravo Simon. Bravo.

And if they don't fix their mistake (endings) with indoc they're idiots.

Modifié par BansheeOwnage, 03 juillet 2012 - 09:12 .

[Maffers]

Simon_Says wrote...

Also, might be good to explain what exactly this Indoctrination force I'm describing is using an example from ME lore: the Geth.

EDI is an AI. Geth are... not AI in the classic sense. Geth intelligences are an emergent property of the action of their constituent programs. In this sense the Geth are a super-AI. It transcends the boundaries of the physical. It can move and split and join again like fluid. Subsets can achieve a measure of independent identity, as Legion did, but it will still recognize itself as being a part of a greater whole. Short of destroying the whole geth network, the intelligence is in a real sense immortal and beyond the intuitive comprehension of a hardware-bound intelligence.

Now we may have the reason why the heretic geth 'worshiped' the reapers: they worshipped an image of what they are, extrapolated to unfathomable scope and power. Much like how most human religions involve worshiping icons that are, basically, humanity perfected and empowered.

"We are each a nation, independent..." Yet how come, besides Leviathan, the reapers are still one force? One gigantic armada all with the same goals, methods, beliefs... All with the one mode of thought? Indoctrinated thought?

"As much an AI as Shepard is an animal." So yes the Catalyst/Indoctrination force is artificial. But it's so much more. So much more complex. So much more capable. Even when its platforms are destroyed, it cannot die. And with it's capacity to spread itself among all life in this galaxy and beyond... yes, it's potentially infinite.

Eternal. Infinite. Immortal. The reapers used these words, but only now do I truly understand them.


Also, a tidbit from Dr. Chandana...

"A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's
a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want
to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

The god he speaks of is not the reaper. It's indoctrination.

"Cerberus isn't just an organization or the people behind it. Cerberus is an idea. That idea is not so easily destroyed." - The Illusive Man

[Eryri]

Simon_Says wrote...

Also, might be good to explain what exactly this Indoctrination force I'm describing is using an example from ME lore: the Geth.

EDI is an AI. Geth are... not AI in the classic sense. Geth intelligences are an emergent property of the action of their constituent programs. In this sense the Geth are a super-AI. It transcends the boundaries of the physical. It can move and split and join again like fluid. Subsets can achieve a measure of independent identity, as Legion did, but it will still recognize itself as being a part of a greater whole. Short of destroying the whole geth network, the intelligence is in a real sense immortal and beyond the intuitive comprehension of a hardware-bound intelligence.

Now we may have the reason why the heretic geth 'worshiped' the reapers: they worshipped an image of what they are, extrapolated to unfathomable scope and power. Much like how most human religions involve worshiping icons that are, basically, humanity perfected and empowered.

"We are each a nation, independent..." Yet how come, besides Leviathan, the reapers are still one force? One gigantic armada all with the same goals, methods, beliefs... All with the one mode of thought? Indoctrinated thought?

"As much an AI as Shepard is an animal." So yes the Catalyst/Indoctrination force is artificial. But it's so much more. So much more complex. So much more capable. Even when its platforms are destroyed, it cannot die. And with it's capacity to spread itself among all life in this galaxy and beyond... yes, it's potentially infinite.

Eternal. Infinite. Immortal. The reapers used these words, but only now do I truly understand them.


Also, a tidbit from Dr. Chandana...

"A god - a real god - is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's
a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want
to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

The god he speaks of is not the reaper. It's indoctrination.

I really like this! As horrible as the Reapers are, they're just the physical manifestation of something much worse. A sort of cosmic mind virus. The ultimate "Selfish Meme".

You've just restored the Reaper's Lovecraftian menace! Bravo sir!

[Simon_Says]

EpyonX3 wrote...

Interesting, but I disagree with your last part about Dr. Chandana.

He continues to say that a dead God can still dream. I'm pretty sure that the dead God he was referring to was the dead reaper they were in. Even though it was dead, it still indoctrinated them. What ever force that indoctrinates, believed to come from the core, it was still on. However, the AI was dead. That's why the doctors went crazy because they were indoctrinated by random reaper thoughts and no clear instruction.

The dead god could be the reaper. Or Chandana was refering that the body of the god was dead, yet the god itself was still very much alive. And it was dreaming.

[Arian Dynas]

Seifer006 wrote...

IT is debunked. Bioware made it clear in the EC that it wasn't their intentions.

It would have been nice if Bioware rolled with it. but it's over folks. Gotta move on.

Actually, I would argue that the EC was not in their intentions, and that that fact is actually in favor of IT.

They expected more people to "get it". When they didn't, they made this ending to make a literal interpretation less sucky, so that at least, if they couldn't make it to where more would get it without being obvious, then at least they could satisfy enough people to keep the natives from getting restless.

Modifié par Arian Dynas, 03 juillet 2012 - 09:19 .