9089 réponses à ce sujet

[KingZayd]

frylock23 wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

frylock23 wrote...

Marx's biggest mistake was in thinking that humans could be content living in insect-style hive societies. He forgot that we are separate organisms that are inherently driven to compete against one another for a bigger piece of the pie. You can fight the impulse, but it's part of your genes. THEY want you to succeed so they can get passed on and survive.

And if we did somehow learn to live in hive societies so Marxism would work out, the hives would still compete to see which one was better, just like insect colonies do.

In my opinion, a form of communism could truly work in a golden space age where resources are effectively unlimited.

At the same time, what would drive people to work if they had everything they could ever need at their fingertips?  Because be honest, even in that golden age, there will be jobs that need doing that won't be fun to do.

I think the best argument for communism to ever work and the only place where it's ever been truly practical is on the very small scale of the nuclear to extended family.

Nothing, unless they were passionate about it. This golden age assumes you have robots to do the important jobs like plumbing, construction, cooking (RoboChef!), driving and piloting (w/e the equivalents are), medical stuff etc.

[General User]

Ieldra2 wrote...

If the Catalyst's claim of "preservation" and "ascension" has even the tiniest bit of truth, the minds within the Reapers are at least salvageable, if not intact. As I see it, destroying them is multiple genocide. Also see my thread linked above about the Reapers being mind-controlled.

It doesn't.  The Catalyst doesn't understand organics.  It is unreasonable to think that it would be capable of "preserving" them. 

It is perfectly valid to conclude that killing all the Reapers is not genocide at all, since the Reapers were never really alive, much less sentient, in the first place.  Or that it is an acceptable genocide, since doing so eliminates the real and eminent threat they pose to others.

Ieldra2 wrote...
No certainty, yes. If you want to choose Destroy, you can deny it. But it's just an excuse.

Any solution that eliminates the Reaper threat is acceptable really.

Modifié par General User, 08 juin 2012 - 07:29 .

[Vigilant111]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...
I do not want to choose destroy, but I don't see any other way to end reaper threat

Fair enough. It's a mindset I can understand, even though I don't share it.

You can not kill something that is already dead, I mean did the reapers exhibit any individuality to u? any culture? any sign of life? it is simply not enough to just put these lives into storage, u cannot salvage lives like that

This, however, is just an assumption. Technology can do some pretty crazy things in the ME universe. Harbinger and Sovereign were rather different personalities, too. And remember Harbinger's "We are Harbinger"? As Mordin says: "No proof, but theory fits evidence".

U are no less assuming than we are if not more, Mordin is wrong, theory has to be based on evidence, no evidence, then it is a hypothesis

I was talking about the lives that have been "ascended", where exactly are they hidding? these so-called lives are meaningless if they are not living in their original form, no, a reaper is a reaper, it cannot excuse itself from killing by saying they could ascend u to a better place

Reapers' purpose is harvesting, not to ascend and preserve, the acension is for the reapers' own benefit only, for self-evaluation, for their own study and not for the greater good of the galaxy

[frylock23]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...
I do not want to choose destroy, but I don't see any other way to end reaper threat

Fair enough. It's a mindset I can understand, even though I don't share it.

You can not kill something that is already dead, I mean did the reapers exhibit any individuality to u? any culture? any sign of life? it is simply not enough to just put these lives into storage, u cannot salvage lives like that

This, however, is just an assumption. Technology can do some pretty crazy things in the ME universe. Harbinger and Sovereign were rather different personalities, too. And remember Harbinger's "We are Harbinger"? As Mordin says: "No proof, but theory fits evidence".

@frylock:
You make some pretty big assumptions about what can and cannot be done in the ME universe. What the Reapers did shouldn't have been done, ok, but that it can't be done without destroying the minds involved I cannot see. The concept of a gestalt mind of thousands of humans goes back at least half a century in SF. And those who wrote about it mostly weren't Marxists or of similar persuasion.

I'm not saying that gestalt minds are unfamiliar to me. I am saying that I see little evidence for them in ME beyond the Thorian example.

What I'm saying is that there is nothing to suggest that this is at all what the Reapers are doing. And if it were, why are they constantly referring to themselves in first person?

Aside from your speculation, there simply isn't any compelling evidence either way.

[frylock23]

KingZayd wrote...

frylock23 wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

frylock23 wrote...

Marx's biggest mistake was in thinking that humans could be content living in insect-style hive societies. He forgot that we are separate organisms that are inherently driven to compete against one another for a bigger piece of the pie. You can fight the impulse, but it's part of your genes. THEY want you to succeed so they can get passed on and survive.

And if we did somehow learn to live in hive societies so Marxism would work out, the hives would still compete to see which one was better, just like insect colonies do.

In my opinion, a form of communism could truly work in a golden space age where resources are effectively unlimited.

At the same time, what would drive people to work if they had everything they could ever need at their fingertips?  Because be honest, even in that golden age, there will be jobs that need doing that won't be fun to do.

I think the best argument for communism to ever work and the only place where it's ever been truly practical is on the very small scale of the nuclear to extended family.

Nothing, unless they were passionate about it. This golden age assumes you have robots to do the important jobs like plumbing, construction, cooking (RoboChef!), driving and piloting (w/e the equivalents are), medical stuff etc.

Heh, this seems like the most likely future for the TS, and it wouldn't be because our machines got infinitely smart. It would actually be because we got too inept to survive.

[Ieldra]

frylock23 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

If the Catalyst's claim of "preservation" and "ascension" has even the tiniest bit of truth, the minds within the Reapers are at least salvageable, if not intact. As I see it, destroying them is multiple genocide. Also see my thread linked above about the Reapers being mind-controlled.

No certainty, yes. If you want to choose Destroy, you can deny it. But it's just an excuse.

Not necessarily. My husband studied plenty of preserved specimens on his way through college. They were kept in jars of formalin. They were most definitely not alive, but they were preserved.

As far as his claim of ascension goes, since it's already been established that they need genetic goo to fuel the construction of new Reapers. That could be all it is. Being used to turn into a Reaper is ascension. There is no life there, not necessarily, beyond the Reaper itself who may or may not have any real connection to the species in question beyond having been fueld in its nascent state by that species' genetic goo.

So...what about Legion's statement in ME2, that Reapers are "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined in an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'". Of course this a perversion of the ascension theme, but nonetheless it makes my hypothesis rather more plausible than the alternatives.

It helps that I've always seen the Reapers that way, even before I knew of Legion's statement. Because there is no way individuals could be needed to create a Reaper unless their minds were needed. DNA is easy to extract without destroying the host. I think EDI's speculation in ME2 turned out to be wrong. All the DNA is needed for is to encode the information about the physical form of an organic. The appearance of the human Reaper supports this interpretation. A Reaper is physically synthetic. On a meta-level, I think EDI's speculation was based on a dropped concept which survives in the more organic-looking Reaper concept art in the ME2 art book.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 08 juin 2012 - 08:07 .

[Vigilant111]

Ieldra2 wrote...

So...what about Legion's statement in ME2, that Reapers are "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined in an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'". Of course this a perversion of the ascension theme, but nonetheless it makes my hypothesis rather more plausible than the alternatives.

Sounds like a prison to me

[General User]

Vigilant111 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

So...what about Legion's statement in ME2, that Reapers are "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined in an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'". Of course this a perversion of the ascension theme, but nonetheless it makes my hypothesis rather more plausible than the alternatives.

Sounds like a prison to me

That's a good point.  Theoretically, could a given "organic mind" leave a Reaper if it so chose? 

[The Night Mammoth]

General User wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

So...what about Legion's statement in ME2, that Reapers are "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined in an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'". Of course this a perversion of the ascension theme, but nonetheless it makes my hypothesis rather more plausible than the alternatives.

Sounds like a prison to me

That's a good point.  Theoretically, could a given "organic mind" leave a Reaper if it so chose? 

Most likely not. The Reapers don't seem to be fond of letting organics do whatever they want.

That's if the organic minds want to leave. It seems to me like they're all idoctrinated or just insane. And dead. 

Best to kill the Reapers and put them out of their misery.

[lillitheris]

Ieldra2 wrote...

So...what about Legion's statement in ME2, that Reapers are "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined in an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'". Of course this a perversion of the ascension theme, but nonetheless it makes my hypothesis rather more plausible than the alternatives.

It’s dangerous nonsense? A human mind cannot be reconstructed from a liquefied brain. Human consciousness is connections.


…


Also, completely hypothetically since, as I said, it’s physically impossible — if this actually were the case, wouldn’t it be much simpler for e.g. Sovereign to just appear at the Citadel and go “hey guys, we used to be fleshlings like you, but then we got uploaded into this Reaper thing and it’s totally awesome, you should do it too”?

Also also, as that one virtual reality space race (I don’t remember what they were called, there was some MIT professor that went to hang out with them in the VR) demonstrates, it’s really dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. Imagine you put the entire humanity into a single Reaper, and then it accidentally gets into a nova? Poof, no more humans.

Modifié par lillitheris, 08 juin 2012 - 08:35 .

[General User]

The Night Mammoth wrote...

General User wrote...

Vigilant111 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

So...what about Legion's statement in ME2, that Reapers are "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined in an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'". Of course this a perversion of the ascension theme, but nonetheless it makes my hypothesis rather more plausible than the alternatives.

Sounds like a prison to me

That's a good point.  Theoretically, could a given "organic mind" leave a Reaper if it so chose? 

Most likely not. The Reapers don't seem to be fond of letting organics do whatever they want.

That's if the organic minds want to leave. It seems to me like they're all idoctrinated or just insane. And dead. 

Best to kill the Reapers and put them out of their misery.

That sounds about right to me.  After what they went through to be made into a Reaper, and after so long being forced to do the same to others, if anything of those people does remain destroying the Reapers could very well be a mercy for them.

What about after Synthesis?  Could the Synthesis process return to those people the independence of thought, action, and being that was stolen from them so long ago?

Modifié par General User, 08 juin 2012 - 08:33 .

[KingZayd]

frylock23 wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

frylock23 wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

frylock23 wrote...

Marx's biggest mistake was in thinking that humans could be content living in insect-style hive societies. He forgot that we are separate organisms that are inherently driven to compete against one another for a bigger piece of the pie. You can fight the impulse, but it's part of your genes. THEY want you to succeed so they can get passed on and survive.

And if we did somehow learn to live in hive societies so Marxism would work out, the hives would still compete to see which one was better, just like insect colonies do.

In my opinion, a form of communism could truly work in a golden space age where resources are effectively unlimited.

At the same time, what would drive people to work if they had everything they could ever need at their fingertips?  Because be honest, even in that golden age, there will be jobs that need doing that won't be fun to do.

I think the best argument for communism to ever work and the only place where it's ever been truly practical is on the very small scale of the nuclear to extended family.

Nothing, unless they were passionate about it. This golden age assumes you have robots to do the important jobs like plumbing, construction, cooking (RoboChef!), driving and piloting (w/e the equivalents are), medical stuff etc.

Heh, this seems like the most likely future for the TS, and it wouldn't be because our machines got infinitely smart. It would actually be because we got too inept to survive.

what is TS? Haha, it's a utopia really. I would hope people would still do stuff, you know, be creative, be scientific etc. Sure progress would slow down due to lack of need, but that's fine as long as stuff's all good already

Now.. to get there..

Modifié par KingZayd, 08 juin 2012 - 09:03 .

[KingZayd]

KingZayd wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

As I see it, the Reapers were mind-controlled by the Catalyst, else they couldn't have done all that. Not being what they are. Details about what true mind control may entail in this thread.

so the Catalyst can mind-control the reapers but not mind-control Shepard?

And is this mind-control indoctrination?

Please address this. I don't think you're wrong about the mind-control thing, I just want to get your opinion on why the Reapers can be controlled and why Shepard can't.

[Taboo]

I'd uh, like to point out that, uh, the only things that are destroyed in Destroy are Synthetics. The Geth are already dead in my playthrough.

I kill very few.

ALSO, Shepard directly answers your question about harvesting things from Reapers on Rannoch. He/She says it's an abomination. I thinks it's MORE than clear what the writers thought in this regard.

Modifié par Taboo-XX, 08 juin 2012 - 08:42 .

[Ieldra]

KingZayd wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

As I see it, the Reapers were mind-controlled by the Catalyst, else they couldn't have done all that. Not being what they are. Details about what true mind control may entail in this thread.

so the Catalyst can mind-control the reapers but not mind-control Shepard?

And is this mind-control indoctrination?

Please address this. I don't think you're wrong about the mind-control thing, I just want to get your opinion on why the Reapers can be controlled and why Shepard can't.

Read the linked thread, and you have your answer. "The Citadel is part of me", says the Catalyst. Where are the other parts? Well, in the Reapers of course, the Catalyst's consciousness is distributed between the Citadel and the Reapers. That's how it mind-controls them. Shepard has no corresponding part.

I don't know why this is even a question. The Catalyst must have limitations. If it could mind-control anyone in the galaxy, it would be practically omnipotent and the Cycle couldn't be broken.

[Ieldra]

Taboo-XX wrote...
ALSO, Shepard directly answers your question about harvesting things from Reapers on Rannoch. He/She says it's an abomination. I thinks it's MORE than clear what the writers thought in this regard.

Where? I would've remembered such a drastically out-of-character statement. My Shepard does not say this. And that's good, because he doesn't think this. I - and Cyrus Shepard with me - is allergic to the term "abomination", because it's pejorative and based on notions of sanctity he most emphatically does not subscribe to.

[Ieldra]

lillitheris wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
So...what about Legion's statement in ME2, that Reapers are "Transcended flesh. Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined in an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'". Of course this a perversion of the ascension theme, but nonetheless it makes my hypothesis rather more plausible than the alternatives.

It’s dangerous nonsense? A human mind cannot be reconstructed from a liquefied brain. Human consciousness is connections.

Who says the brain is liquefied before its contents is read? Come on, uploaded minds are such a staple of SF that insisting it's impossible will get you nowhere.

@General User:
I think you said it sounds like a prison. I do not disagree. I said it's a perversion of the ascension theme. It wasn't my intention to paint this as desirable, only to underline that a Reaper's consciousness is a gestalt mind of billions of individual organic minds. which means that killing a Reaper is genocide. In addition, the Reaper mind-control theory (Heh - I should give this theory a fancy name) means that individual Reapers are either not at all or only partly to blame for their actions. Thus we should look for solutions that do not destroy them.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 08 juin 2012 - 09:08 .

[Taboo]

 Thomas Shepard asks you NOT to mess with the overbearing id that is Major Tom in this clip.

Out of character? Nonsense. They died thousands of years ago, and are better left to rest in piece.

Even the writers don't think it's a good idea.

[The Night Mammoth]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@General User:
I think you said it sounds like a prison. I do not disagree. I said it's a perversion of the ascension theme. It wasn't my intention to paint this as desirable, only to underline that a Reaper's consciousness is a gestalt mind of billions of individual organic minds. which means that killing a Reaper is genocide. In addition, the Reaper mind-control theory (Heh - I should give this theory a fancy name) means that individual Reapers are either not at all or only partly to blame for their actions. Thus we should look for solutions that do not destroy them.

Genocide? 

Yeah, that seems about right.

Genocide I am more than happy to commit. Hopefully that'll put those indoctrinated/enslaved/insane/combination-of-the-previous-three organic minds out of their misery and give them all justice. 

Well, I say it sounds about right because I don't think they're 'alive'. They're dead for all intents and purposes. Lacking indiviudality, free-will, intelligence, emotion, judgement based on 'feelings' and not instinct and logic etc. 

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 08 juin 2012 - 09:14 .

[KingZayd]

Ieldra2 wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

As I see it, the Reapers were mind-controlled by the Catalyst, else they couldn't have done all that. Not being what they are. Details about what true mind control may entail in this thread.

so the Catalyst can mind-control the reapers but not mind-control Shepard?

And is this mind-control indoctrination?

Please address this. I don't think you're wrong about the mind-control thing, I just want to get your opinion on why the Reapers can be controlled and why Shepard can't.

Read the linked thread, and you have your answer. "The Citadel is part of me", says the Catalyst. Where are the other parts? Well, in the Reapers of course, the Catalyst's consciousness is distributed between the Citadel and the Reapers. That's how it mind-controls them. Shepard has no corresponding part.

I don't know why this is even a question. The Catalyst must have limitations. If it could mind-control anyone in the galaxy, it would be practically omnipotent and the Cycle couldn't be broken.

Ah.. apologies, it was the next paragraph, didn't expect a second paragraph on mind control.

If it lives  partly within the reapers, why would it let you destroy it completely?
Also, how does put parts of itself into the reapers? How was a part of it going to go into the Human reaper we saw in ME2? When we killed Sovereign, the Human Reaper, and the Rannoch Reaper etc, did we kill parts of the Catalyst?

And the reapers minds are organic as you say, so surely it can control Shepard's mind too?

Modifié par KingZayd, 08 juin 2012 - 09:14 .

[Ieldra]

Taboo-XX wrote...
Thomas Shepard asks you NOT to mess with the overbearing id that is Major Tom in this clip.

Out of character? Nonsense. They died thousands of years ago, and are better left to rest in piece.

Even the writers don't think it's a good idea.

Didn't your hear what I said? I did not get this dialogue because it is the Paragon version. In dialogues with Reapers, I rarely choose Paragon because I know I won't like what comes out fo Shepard's mouth.

@KingZayd:
How? What does it matter? Likely you won't understand the process anyway? But consider this: in ME3 is any indication, every Sovereign-class Reaper will be created through processing on the Citadel, maybe the lesser Reapers as well. This is at least very suggestive.

Also, I think the Catalyst's consciousness is distributed through the CItadel and the Reapers, but there needs to be some hardware to carry it. You could say, every Reaper has a part of the Catalyst's brain implanted. There is no reason why it should be able to control organic individuals in their own bodies.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 08 juin 2012 - 09:18 .

[Taboo]

I'll always be King of Pain ladies and gentlemen.

Or rather, My Shepard will be.

The choice to Destroy the Reapers is a lot like the Collector Base. Most people don't take an issue with blowing it up.

[Vigilant111]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@General User:
I think you said it sounds like a prison. I do not disagree. I said it's a perversion of the ascension theme. It wasn't my intention to paint this as desirable, only to underline that a Reaper's consciousness is a gestalt mind of billions of individual organic minds. which means that killing a Reaper is genocide. In addition, the Reaper mind-control theory (Heh - I should give this theory a fancy name) means that individual Reapers are either not at all or only partly to blame for their actions. Thus we should look for solutions that do not destroy them.

We will extract those minds out of u, goodbye reaper, ur role as a memory storage facility has come to an end

[Ieldra]

Vigilant111 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

@General User:
I think you said it sounds like a prison. I do not disagree. I said it's a perversion of the ascension theme. It wasn't my intention to paint this as desirable, only to underline that a Reaper's consciousness is a gestalt mind of billions of individual organic minds. which means that killing a Reaper is genocide. In addition, the Reaper mind-control theory (Heh - I should give this theory a fancy name) means that individual Reapers are either not at all or only partly to blame for their actions. Thus we should look for solutions that do not destroy them.

We will extract those minds out of u, goodbye reaper, ur role as a memory storage facility has come to an end

Actually, that's a future project in one of my headcanon scenarios. But the Reapers need to survive the war for this.

[Taboo]

Ah, that would be our issue then Ieldra. Universalism isn't very popular amongst relativists it seems.

You shouldn't mess with Major Tom.

Miranda doesn't think it's a good idea either.