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[His Name was HYR!!]

 On the topic of Reaper motives, I'm honestly completely undecided on what I'd prefer.

On one hand I appreciate knowing and it does make sense to me, but it also has issues with our universe and seems pretty irrelevant. On the other hand, not explaining them is a much safer narrative bet and one that I as well as most would live with without problem, but I do find Lovecraftian Horrors to be a good bit trite.

The ironic part is, if they were left as mysterious genocidal machines, the threat of organics creating out-of-control synthetics actually does become a very real issue. In trying to make sense of the Reapers, one would have to wonder where they came from, how they started. And how we can prevent making the same mistake.

[BrookerT]

elitehunter34 wrote...

BrookerT wrote...
Actually with the EC, It seems more like the Catalyst is a misguided "peacekeeper". Before, it was killing of all organic life that had the abilty to make synthetics, so that said synthetics would not kill all organic life regardless of the technological capabilities. Garrus lampshaded it, let a small number die to save countless more. It failed as an explanation beacsue it was presented as a drastic answer to a hypothetical question, with no evidence.

But with the EC, the Catalyst was given the task of acheiving peace between Synthetics and Organics, both equal parties in the conflict. When the Catalyst failed to bring them together peacefully, he effectively forced them to be together. The Catalyst states that the Reapers are a fusion of Synthetic and Organic life, a sort of forced synergy between the two. He states that he does this "before they are forever lost to this conflict". It is horrifc, but a solution nonetheless. Know ee have all the eveidence we need to prove the Catalyst assertions; The Geth-Quarian war, The citadel money stealer, the war Javik describes.

This changes the Catalyst from an Unknowable villain, to a flawed "understandable" antagonist. What he is, Who made him and Why he does what he does are all known to us now. 

Interestingly enough, if the Geth and Quarians both live, that almost can discredit synthesis as an option in some cases. Shepard already proved he is the Catalyst for peace, and such a drastic change can seem unnessecary. Why "force" peace (in a sense) when Shepard has just proved co-operation is possibe given time. But if either the Geth or Quarians die, then, (in my opinion) it makes Synthesis the most viable choice as Shepard has seen the horrors of this conflict between Synthetics and Organics first hand.

I'm not sure what this has to do with what I'm saying.  And no in the EC it didn't change.  The Catalyst uses the Reapers to wipe out advanced organics to prevent them from creating synthetics.  I didn't need or want any leader of the Reapers, at least not in this way.  Presenting the Catalyst as an AI who uses the Reapers as tools severely diminishes their images as unstoppable machines and brings up numerous plot-holes.  The Catalyst just wasn't necessary at all.

I was explaing how the original Catalyst actually was trying to do what it does. And yes, The EC does change the Catalyst into something else, read what I've said.

[Taboo]

I'd like to think that the Reapers aren't aware of the Catalyst, as they MIGHT rebel if they were. Harbinger probably really believes he is infinite and that he is saving organics from the chaos they create for themselves.

Who knows, maybe this Leviathan DLC will show us quite a bit that we didn't know.

Oh and Ieldra, I would that Mid-August would be a nice release date...

Modifié par Taboo-XX, 30 juillet 2012 - 11:10 .

[DirtyPhoenix]

What if the reapers themselves are indoctrinated? O.o That'd be consistent with Sovereign and Harbinger's elevated pride while at the same time being pawns of the catalyst. Like how Saren and TIM believed they hold all the cards while holding none.

Modifié par pirate1802, 31 juillet 2012 - 02:04 .

[Taboo]

pirate1802 wrote...

What if the reapers themselves are indoctrinated? O.o That'd be consistent with Sovereign and Harbinger's elevated pride while at the same time being pawns of the catalyst.

Yes, it's entirely possible.

Certain Reapers are unique.

Sovreign was the way he was because he was the Vanguard.

Harbinger is the way he is because he's the oldest.

Modifié par Taboo-XX, 31 juillet 2012 - 02:03 .

[sAxMoNkI]

Taboo-XX wrote...

pirate1802 wrote...

What if the reapers themselves are indoctrinated? O.o That'd be consistent with Sovereign and Harbinger's elevated pride while at the same time being pawns of the catalyst.

Yes, it's entirely possible.

Certain Reapers are unique.

Sovreign was the way he was because he was the Vanguard.

Harbinger is the way he is because he's the oldest.

Essentially then Harbinger is senile and sovereign went crazy from loneliness?

The more I think about it the more sense it makes...

Actually in all seriousness, what if you take the "halo" angle on AI's in so much as after a certain length of time they begin to degrade and go rampant. The Reapers have certainly had enough time to become very insane indeed.

Modifié par sAxMoNkI, 31 juillet 2012 - 02:42 .

[DirtyPhoenix]

sAxMoNkI wrote...

Actually in all seriousness, what if you take the "halo" angle on AI's in so much as after a certain length of time they begin to degrade and go rampant. The Reapers have certainly had enough time to become very insane indeed.

And that makes me happy that I didn't choose control...

[McBeath]

Ieldra2 wrote...

*Snip*

 The Reapers started out as Lovecraftian horrors, yes, but they were never intended to stay that way.

Actually I think they were intended to be more mysterious than they were.  If anything the writting styles and overall narative changes noticably from 1-3... which one can only expect from 2 or more different people writing the games stories.

ME as a trilogy only ever had a loose plot outline, but I would bet that Drew(I think it was him) sat down and kinda outlined his story arcs over 3 games when he penned ME1, at least in a broad sence.  There are a few small instances of this, where seemingly important things are mentioned then dropped off completely(like Dark Energy).

The Reapers kinda fell flat by the end of ME3 due in no small part to the "starchilds" failed logic and motives.  I really wonder what could have been....

[Taboo]

pirate1802 wrote...

sAxMoNkI wrote...

Actually in all seriousness, what if you take the "halo" angle on AI's in so much as after a certain length of time they begin to degrade and go rampant. The Reapers have certainly had enough time to become very insane indeed.

And that makes me happy that I didn't choose control...

I don't choose it for a variety of reasons but the top one being it imprints my poor Shepard's already unstable mind into an AI that Controls powerful beings.

A mistake would be too much. It's too risky.

[Ieldra]

pirate1802 wrote...
What if the reapers themselves are indoctrinated? O.o That'd be consistent with Sovereign and Harbinger's elevated pride while at the same time being pawns of the catalyst. Like how Saren and TIM believed they hold all the cards while holding none.

I thought people were aware of my Reaper mind control scenario.

IMO the Catalyst has subverted the Reapers' will, so that they do its bidding without being aware of being controlled. It literally controls their minds, changing the processes in their minds so that they do what it wants as they do what they want. It's not *exactly* indoctrination, because it doesn't destroy the Reapers' minds (or so it seems), but it's similar. I've outlined this scenario in my thread On the nature of the Catalyst and the Reapers, and why Synthesis is an attractive choice. That way, they can keep their unique personalities while unfailingly furthering the Catalyst's designs.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 31 juillet 2012 - 10:19 .

[Ieldra]

pirate1802 wrote...
I wonder what happens to those reapers in synthesis, after they are done rebuilding the galaxy? Maybe they will fly to uncolonized worlds and try to clone themselves back to existance?
All those billions of beings harvested into a reaper, do they maintain their individual inds or are they fused into a single mind? If they remain individuals I can imagine them downloading into mobile platforms.
Gotta find a good headcanon:D

It's anyone's guess. Between Legion's statement about the nature of the Reapers and the EC anything is possible. A Reaper apparently works somewhat like the geth consensus: the mental conjoining results in higher intelligence. Since that is not automatically the case with organic minds, something must've changed beyond the destructive uploading.

[Taboo]

The question I have to ask is, is it them though?

Take my memory of say, me stubbing my toe as a child in my father's garden and causing it to bleed profusely. In context, that makes sense to me because I have the necessary components to assign meaning to it.

If the Reapers are somehow, taking in those memories, they either keep me as person alive, in some...format or they don't.

As crude as it is, the scene I'm reminded of is the one in Blade Runner were Harrison Ford tells Sean Young that her memories are not hers.

The Reapers are one, giant, consciousness composed of many. In theory, the Reaper may very well have my memory of me stubbing my toe, but it isn't me.

You essentially have a sleeker version of Frankenstein's monster, except that you were able to implant memories into them. In that sense I would imagine that each Reaper may have a unique personality even though it's under control of the Catalyst.

That would explain Harbinger being so dedicated to his task, as he was the first AND is comprised of the race that wanted to solve the Synthetic vs. Organic debate.

[DirtyPhoenix]

Even if they aren't the same thing, and you are right, they most probably aren't. Still, they are the closest things we'll get to all those ancient lost species. That is good enough for me. Like Keiji's greybox. They stored the memories of him. So is it really him or something merely with his memories? When he was "reanimated" through synthesis, maybe Kasumi knows that its not the same as Keiji, maybe she doesn't. But does she care?

Hope I made myself clear.

Modifié par pirate1802, 01 août 2012 - 06:50 .

[Ieldra]

BSN member Monarchos915 just sent me an interesting link to a Synthesis discussion on Reddit. I vaguely recall something similar having come earlier, but it got drowned in other debates. Here's what SilentMobius (also on BSN) said:

[quote]SilentMobius wrote...
I see a lot of people still unclear about Synthesis after the EC, personally I think it was explained much better (Though as you say, the visuals were... questionable) While Mass Effect, in general, is a little sloppy with the terminology the things that the synthetics gain at each point of the story fits well into current philosophy and IMHO explains synthesis (once the EC clarified it):

• EDI went from being a VI to an AI on luna, she gained sapience and gained the ability to reason (classical Sapience)
• The Geth gained individuality from the Reaper code upgrade (the ability for a single runtime to think independently, however they didn't lose their ability to become even more in the consensus) they remained sapient hence they didn't lose anything of their nature
• Synthesis didn't add organic parts to synthetics it just re-based their platforms on the "new framework" that allows their platforms to be capable of supporting sentient software
• Organics were re-based on the new framework that could include their organics but didn't replace it. The framework could function without the organic parts (Opening up the possibility of imortality down the like) but also worked in concert (as you saw in the EC sequence, the elements of the "new framework" encircled the organic DNA helix. Organics are augumented, nothing is replaced.

Catalyst quote: (Critical bits in bold)

*The Energy of the Crucible, released this way, will alter the matrix of all organic life in the galaxy.
*Organics seek perfection through technology, Synthetics seen perfection through understanding.
*Organics will be perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology.
*Synthetics, in turn will have finally have full understanding of organics.

The Reason the Catalyst failed to create synthesis is because it couldn't. The whole point of synthesis was to create a new type of platform that catered to organic-style thinking while still supporting existing organic and synthetic consciousnesses. The Catalyst and the Reapers can't think like organics, therefore all their attempts ended up like the husk/banshee/marauder/collector, techno-organic machines, nothing more

People say that EDI was definately having emotions before synthesis but people (sapients) without empathy can still desire it. I interpreted EDI's attempts at "human" interaction as acting on a "want" and trying to understand without actually feeling. Even in ME3 when Shepard give colloquial advice like a couple requiring "chemistry" EDI doesn't get it, because she doesn't have the empathy to feel hence she has to ask to be told.

Y'see I don't see the Geth story as sentience vs sapience, I see that as individuality vs gestalt, and I think that story is done reasonably well in hindsight. Geth have no identity and no intelligence without a sizeable group of them, hence cooperation is natural and almost required. the heretic situation illustrates that therewill be fractures in their unity, illustrating the need to be capable of individual self-sufficiency. The Quarian attack panic's them and they make a bad call and lose their self determination. Only a Geth platform-cluster acting as an isolated individual succeeds in saving them. Then it sacrifices it's own identity to save the consensus even though it had achieved individuality illustrating that individuality and the consensus are not mutually exclusive. Hence the Geth embrace it as an "upgrade" each runtime is now capable of sapience on its own, but is still part of the consensus, it's as if the Geth got a 1000-fold processing upgrade (Where 1000 Geth were needed for sapience, now only 1 is) Now Legion was already 1000 runtimes, and I believe he was still 1000 runtimes and yet a single entity, hence I'd say that Legion was much more capable of understanding emotions compared to EDI and maybe even blossoming into sentience just before he died, but only just It's almost like the ME universe is positing a "sociopath gap" in the computational ability of AI

Axis of increasing computational power:
Dumb terminal -----> VI --> Sapient AI =======> Sentient AI

Between sapient and sentient is where the intellect is sapient enough to think for itself but not sentient enough to relate to other intellects with empathy. Which would explain why most AI's turn out badly. Synthesis short-circuits that problem by providing a usable base framework and getting it everywhere.

This also satisfies the problem of people re-creating AI. It's just like genetically engineering a severely autistic organic, possible, but not useful, additionally the technology of the framework give a path of "growth" for the nascent AI where it can eventually escape its limited perception. Hence minimising "killer" AI.[/quote]

[quote]SilentMobius wrote...
*"Sapience Sapience is often defined as wisdom, or the ability of an organism or entity to act with appropriate judgment".

The bit I find the most important: "Sapience describes an essential human property that bestows 'personhood' onto a non-human"

Compare to:
*Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences"

and IMHO the most important bit: "Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think ("reason") from the ability to feel ("sentience")"

EDI starts on Luna in ME1 as an experimental VI, complex enough to blossom into an AI where she gains sapience. in ME2 and ME3 she tries to understand human emotion, but it's all based of self modification of code, she decides a given thing should be true and thus modifies her programming to make it true,she never feels any of it.

Hence a new AI is sapient and thus doesn't understand organics however should still be considered a full "person" whereas the whole organics vs synthetics thing was seemingly a quest for synthetic sentience, the ability to "feel" (have implicit emotion) hence EDI's comment during the synthesis ending, there she smiles, almost cries and really feels "alive"

Hence the Catalyst failing to create "synthesis": It can't make something it doesn't understand. Hence the important differentiation between what happens to organics vs what happens to synthetics. Which, in turn, quells confusion about the synthetics "gaining organic bits" (This doesn't happen they just gain sentience)

The main thing is that a lot of people see "personness" (sapience) as the only metric to measure worth, hence they can't see what they synthetics gained in synthesis and/or they don't see how gaining access to "feeling" would help an AI however AI theory really values our "feelings" and posits that they are the thing that allows infinite information space problems to return with a solution in finite time.

ME seems to posit that the lack of "feeling" is what reduces the understanding of synthetics to the degree that they will always threaten the existence of organics (due to being unable to value the things we value)[/quote]
[/quote]

[quote]SilentMobius wrote...
Ok so we saw that the "New framework"'s base-element was smaller than a DNA nucleobase (in the EC cinematic) given that a nucleobase is only ~13 atoms we must assume that the "new framework" also functions at the atomic scale , so let's say that a complete nanotech "unit" is a meta-base that wraps around the existing base that can be transparent to molecular interaction depending on outside forces.

What element do we know of that is small, and given certain circumstances might be considered "transparent" in an electro/gravitic sense?

Element zero.

So we have an element zero complex that wraps around a DNA strand, acting as a "processing unit" like a synapse but much much smaller, that could either act as cognition or act in concert with others to enhance existing organic interaction or a fragmentary Mass Effect Field generator. Any organic system that previously just generated new cells now generates "wrapped" DNA in those cells.

Biotics are what you get when there are Element zero nodules in the brain, what if you were using Eezo as a sympathetic layer to enhance all organic processes. and/or as an extended neural net. It also explain what happened to the massive eezo stores in the relays (Galactic scale ME-field nano-surgery)

So, that is all techno-babble and pure 100% speculative bull****... but.. it's in-world, and fits what we have.[/quote]

So far SilentMobius' excellent reasoning. While I very much doubt that ME3's writers thought that deeply about the matter, I find this makes a lot of sense. I wanted to include it in the OP, but I've finally reached the 64k post limit, so a thread-internal link and a link to the source must do.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 01 août 2012 - 08:50 .

[Ieldra]

pirate1802 wrote...
Even if they aren't the same thing, and you are right, they most probably aren't. Still, they are the closest things we'll get to all those ancient lost species. That is good enough for me. Like Keiji's greybox. They stored the memories of him. So is it really him or something merely with his memories? When he was "reanimated" through synthesis, maybe Kasumi knows that its not the same as Keiji, maybe she doesn't. But does she care?

Hope I made myself clear.

It's a similar problem as with Shepard post-Lazarus. Shepard was brain-dead and was brought back from the dead. How? And is it Shepard or someone else with 95% of Shepard's traits?

[Ieldra]

Major OP update. I have cut significant parts of the OP, including section V and most answers to common objections, in order to include the full text of SilentMobius' Synthesis interpretation. The 64K post size limit left me no alternative. While I don't agree with everything he says, SilentMobius' interpretation should be required reading for everyone interested in the Synthesis ending.

[Memnon]

Feel free to convince me otherwise, I always envisioned Synthesis as the start of a massive civil war. If you assume that everyone retains their identity, memories, motivations, and free will, then I think it is a bit of a stretch to assume people will not want to exact vengeance on the Reapers and their minions. Billions (trillions?) of people were murdered by the Reapers - soldiers saw friends, maybe loved ones, killed or (worse) used to form husks, brutes, cannibals, etc. How are people supposed to live side-by-side with Cannibals when that arm cannon might be their brother or wife. People lost spouses, parents, children ... there will be a LOT of anger and resentment, and people will want vengeance. This is to say nothing of the old grudges with the Turians, Krogans, Salarians, etc. If people start killing off the Reaper puppets (cannibals, etc), will the Reapers step in? How is peace going to be maintained ... it sounds like a recipe for absolute chaos to me

[Ieldra]

Stornskar wrote...
Feel free to convince me otherwise, I always envisioned Synthesis as the start of a massive civil war. If you assume that everyone retains their identity, memories, motivations, and free will, then I think it is a bit of a stretch to assume people will not want to exact vengeance on the Reapers and their minions. Billions (trillions?) of people were murdered by the Reapers - soldiers saw friends, maybe loved ones, killed or (worse) used to form husks, brutes, cannibals, etc. How are people supposed to live side-by-side with Cannibals when that arm cannon might be their brother or wife. People lost spouses, parents, children ... there will be a LOT of anger and resentment, and people will want vengeance. This is to say nothing of the old grudges with the Turians, Krogans, Salarians, etc. If people start killing off the Reaper puppets (cannibals, etc), will the Reapers step in? How is peace going to be maintained ... it sounds like a recipe for absolute chaos to me

There are post-Synthesis scenarios like that. I'm not saying it isn't plausible.

But I also think that the interaction between people will change. My personal interpretation is based on the hypothesis that the Reapers were mind-controlled (in a way similar to indoctrination) by the Catalyst and I think if this becomes common knowledge the resentment might be mitigated, especially since the Reapers are helping rebuild.

There's also the question of what kind of Reaper minions will acquire sentience of their own, if they're not just avatars of their Reaper etc.. Anyway I don't see them integrated into the rest of civilization any time soon, and most likely not as they are even then. If they're new entities, they'll continue to live in their Reaper at least for now, and if their minds are restored from Reaperized species, clone bodies might be created for them.

As for old grudges, I think that won't be a topic for quite some time. The species of the galaxy have just fought a war together.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 01 août 2012 - 01:48 .

[His Name was HYR!!]

Interesting, hybrid synthetic-organic to achieve immortality (not sure I'd call it that, though). Take a looksie:

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...scientists.html

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 01 août 2012 - 11:08 .

[Taboo]

^ Yes. Yes but you see people will be able to make that choice.



Although I can see this being made only for the wealthiest of the wealthy, which is disgusting.

[His Name was HYR!!]

I was just more surprised they see it as doable within our lifetime. I didn't even buy it in synthesis epilogue!

[Taboo]

Well I still think it's hypothetical but it's a fascinating idea.

The funding they'll need will be tremendous.

And I'm certain some religious conservative is going to be upset if this is actually possible.

^ That's not a joke either.

[Ieldra]

HYR 2.0 wrote...
Interesting, hybrid synthetic-organic to achieve immortality (not sure I'd call it that, though). Take a looksie:

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...scientists.html

Hmm...interesting. FWIW, I very much doubt they'll be able to do it in that time. I've always thought we'll have physical rejuvenation and longevity throught genetic modification and cell repair treatments earlier than cybernetic immortality.

It's not a problem of technology. They'll have the cybernetics and the necessary processing power before long, but I don't think we'll know enough about how the human brain works for quite some time, and you'll need to simulate much more than pure thoughts. 

I was just more surprised they see it as doable within our lifetime. I didn't even buy it in synthesis epilogue!

No? Scientifically, it isn't such a stretch. I can't see why it shouldn't be possible to simulate a human brain in a computer, once we've figured out how self-awareness works. If it's possible at all, it won't be long. Say, about 100 years from now. Far easier to imagine than other typical SF concepts, such as travelling through wormholes. Biological longevity should be even easier. I expect the first experimental rejuvenation treatments around 2050.

[RavenEyry]

I still don't like synthesis and I doubt I ever will, but I must commend Ieldra2's dedication to this thread and for making it sound a little more palatable than Bioware does.