Comsky159 wrote...
Rommel49 wrote...
Control is arguably the least safe option in my book. To basically repost my thoughts from another thread on the subject, somewhat long:
Fact is, I wouldn't trust anybody to keep the Reapers docile and non-threatening to organics long-term. Even if I trusted Starkid to be honest about the control option (which I don't, it's just his word that it'd work for me when it wouldn't for TIM, and I doubt TIM was told it wouldn't work for him, but I digress); I honestly wouldn't even trust myself/Me-Reaper to remain beneficient (or even just non-hostile) when thinking about my future existence over the long haul.
Seriously, that's just being honest and realistic about it: no matter how well-adjusted I might be now or how pure my motives are in the beginning, how long until Reaper-Me goes completely cuckoo for cocoa puffs as a result of knowing full well that everyone I ever cared about, all of my friends and family are dead and their bodies turned to dust long ago, and I'm forced to linger alone and isolated for what might as well be eternity? Note that Starkid doesn't even bother attempting to sugarcoat this point, I'll only be able to remember those people (and he makes it clear that I will remember them, not just some machine-intelligence gestalt formed from my personality and memories. This means that those memories will eventually become nothing more than a never-ending catalog of everyone and everything I've ever lost and can never get back; including the sacrifice of my very humanity - that's basically a living hell, no matter how you try to slice it. Nobody is meant to be effectively immortal and outlive (I use "outlive" very loosely in this instance) everyone they ever cared about... pretty much the only way it wouldn't eventually drive an intelligent being utterly insane is if they were already the biggest sociopath to ever live and just didn't care, which kinda defeats the purpose.
Even if we assume my personality and memories just formed the gestalt for the development of a new AI, over the long term that AI's own extended "life" and experiences are going to alter it to the point that the result couldn't be reasonably predicted aside from the fact that I highly doubt it would remain the same self-sacrificing entity that initially spawned it. That AI's experiences may be enough to render it just as cuckoo as if it were actually me or as dangerous (if not moreso) than the original Reapers. Honestly, given long enough, I wouldn't be surprised if Reaper-Me picked folks at random and sent Husks to chase them around for years on end while trying to tap them to death with spoons or set them on fire with individual matches or something, pretty much anything to keep myself entertained or distracted from the never-ending nightmare of that existence.
It may not be perfect, but destroy is really the only option given that absolutely guarantees the Reapers will never render another race extinct, the Leviathans just aren't a big enough threat to justify the risk of keeping the Reapers around; if nothing else, the Leviathans certainly aren't the friendliest bunch, but they also haven't given any indication they want us extinct and they don't force us to fight off the corpses of our own people. Hell, we know where the Leviathans are, it's unlikely they're going anywhere and there's no indication they can do their thing unless they or an artifact is close enough to their target, just park ships in orbit of their planet and bombard them if you feel the danger's great enough.
I trust Shepard. The reason the catalyst is mistaken is solely because of Shepard; he's the one anomaly, the only person capable of resolving any and every issue this chaotic Galaxy may spawn, irregardless of any supposed logic or reason. No other human being in past, present or future can compare to this living outlier to the catalysts rationale.
Ergo without Shepard around, the Catalyst's reasoning will actually gain credence. With this in mind, doesn't in make sense to preserve the audacity, resilience and benevolence (for paragon) that comprises his core? Doesn't it make sense for him to assume position of immortal galactic guardian? Even in human form Shepard was already a nigh-deity, all control does is cement this fact by allowing him/her to transcend flesh and blood.
Don't make the mistake of confusing yourself with Shepard, he/she may be your avatar but he exists in a different universe, fundamentally superior to every human being. However, obviously character construction will play a part here, and thus will vary significanty from person to person. For my Shepard control is quite simply a dream; after being surrounded by so much inexorable death and destruction for so long and sacrificing so many on behalf of this mission (Arrival DLC, Virmire, Mindoir, Akuze, Thessia, Collector Base) he is finally confronted with the opportunity to save everyone and everything at the singular expense of his corporeal existence.
Perhaps your Shepard is incapable of maintaining control, maybe his intimate connection with friends and lovers failed to fasten the conviction that peace is always a possibilty. In the Shepard I know however, this is certainly not the case.
Beyond this I shouldn't have to vocalise what the Shepard AI's value is in terms of rebuilding and augmenting, protecting and supporting both organics and synthetic races under a prior-to unattainable, infallible democratic system.
As far as I'm concerned this isn't what Shepard set out to do in ME1; it was what he was born to do in 2157.
Actually, that's kinda the point - he was cracking even before the final choice (PTSD-esque symptoms, dream sequences, etc.), so even going into that he was kinda losing it from seeing basically a single kid die, that's what's forming the mental gestalt of the new Reaper; I'd hardly consider that a stable foundation long-term.
Your rationale also doesn't make sense or address the overall point I was making, and actually reinforces it - going the immortal machine route actually means surrounding yourself with nothing
but an unending train of inexorable death, pretty much forever, the thing you wanted to avoid most and shuffled off the mortal coil to avoid? It's now become
the only thing you'll ever have. That's the fridge horror of what the choice actually entails, everyone and everything that was supposedly saved? That Shepard gets front-row seats to watch them all die and everything crumble into dust anyway.
Even if all war, disease, and famine is eliminated? Won't matter in the long-term. You still get to watch countless generations of every single race die off from old age, when I say "long-term", do you think I mean a few years, decades, centuries or even millenia? Try billions at a minimum (oldest known reference to the Reapers we have is based on the age given for the Leviathan of Dis at around a billion years old), even the 50,000 year cycle is a drop in the bucket, this is the kind of timescale when you get to watch stuff like every living thing on once vibrant worlds like Earth dying off as a result of its oceans evaporating and being cooked by our sun as it expands. Seriously, whatever's left of any Shepard's original hopes, motivations, life experiences, etc. would essentially be a grain of salt at the bottom of the Grand Canyon after just filling the entire thing with sand, in an objective way it'd account for so little of the whole as to be eventually be rendered irrelevant - it'd be like that half-second on the first Tuesday of Febuary in 1991, and that's potentially the best case scenario of that choice.
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