cindercatz wrote...
Feanor_II wrote...
cindercatz wrote...
Except that dark energy is real, and the entropic principle is an actual thing, and there's an actual, eons down the road supposed deadline. So yes, this is much, much smarter than what we got. You'd still have to beat the Reapers. I think the IT should have played into it like it should play in now. I don't think humans should be particularly special in the story, genetically or otherwise. Why so? Because we like to think everything centers around us? So the human reaper is still a bad idea, but otherwise, it's better than what we got, and if you let character and choices on display play into both the actual ending and the epilogue, it's much better than what we've got. If you do all that and preserve the relays for future games, is perfect, or perfect enough.
* what might have been :-/
edit: Well, dark energy has no motivation. It's the universal constant, by another name. It just is. But it would have given the Reapers themselves purpose and a believable explanation, not to mention maintained their autonomy. The Reapers are the enemy, not dark energy. Dark energy to the universe would be seen like a comet headed toward your planet, and the question is what do you do about it.
First of all we should not confuse Dark Energy with Antimatter...... I don't know much about the subject (my elder brother is more into that, I'm more for History).
OK, that has a scientifical basis..... but a few notes:
- Like it or not synthetics Vs organics is a subject that has been more present in previous games than Dark Energy had (only strated to be hinted in ME2), in ME1 it was even the central subject
- While it could be a good "plot asset" that premise of creating reapers to stop Dark energy it's simply absurd!:
> OK a civilization creates a hell of a technology
> Latter they discover that it's usage consumes the Galaxy or Universe......
> .............. so instead of stop using that technology, disable Mass Relays, investigate alternatives and leave messages in that direction for future civilizations.........
> ......... they sacrifice themselves to construct massive battleships that make even a greater use of than lethal technology and leave Mass Effect tech pieces scatered through the galaxy as lures for other civilization an periodicaly slaughter them brutally to construct other ships
> After each slaughtering they dissapear on the edge of the galaxy and enter "stand-by" mode.
- Not to tell that IMO it's stuppid trying to "stop Dark Energy", as I said it's like stopping the wind because of hurricanes.
You misunderstood me. I never mentioned anti-matter. Dark energy is not a bullet, it's an omni-present force ("constant" as an observational description).
So is the force of evolution, which dictates a tech singularity ( reasearch it ) happens. As a Tech Singularity is an event horizon...
When you get to a certain point of developement as a society, you may look to eternity as your future, and seeing that eternity is not in the cards, that there is something that, as far as you can tell, is inevitably going to wipe you out no matter what you do, depending on how fatalistic you are, you may look to defeat your fate at the end of time.
Similarly, when a civilzation, after a Tech Singularity, reaches the stage that humans refer to as "post-humans" ( the stage you actually talk about) - the alternative being wiped out by A.I ~ so, from an evolutional imperative, it's either posthuman ( as in postorganic) with technology augumentation of the species mind, or being wiped out by the A.I, depends on what slightly different path of evolution one society/culture might take ~ - indeed, one society might view it's future in eternity.
A posthuman status ( or postorganic), given the unthinkable processing power it gives, might make a posthuman physically and psychically look godlike, compared to the current standards.
Even though a postorganic has a godlike status compared to the current most inteligent organic being ( the humans), might be little as in comparison with a totally artificial deity. Imagine o Dyson Sphere worth of energy as an A.I. That's the "evolutional" mark an A.I might take.
A posthuman society might view it's totally artificial counterpart as threatening, and vice versa. As illustrated by the Geth-Quarian conflict, fear from one side might cause hostilities from the other. Let's say a postorganic society with direct access to its noosphere computes that A.I are bound to be more efficient and with most likely no spiritual attachement to their existance, they could wipe out organics, for a bunch of different reasons - one might be as additional energy source, other could be power competitivity, a real big number of reasons.
As the scenario of an A.I striving over it's organic creators is deemed likely, this A.I, if unchecked, growing dangerous might be seen as an - over the span of the Universe's life, because, as established, this society sees the lifespan of the Universe as the lifespan of its own - imminent danger.
It's not that something is going to wipe you out in your lifetime or your far descendants' lifetimes, it's that eventually you're going to cease to be altogether, along with everything else that's vibrant in the universe as you see it.
Exactly the same as in the case I have presented.
You might decide to try to stave that off, and failing that, simply preserve yourself through until after whatever happens next (over eons). You might even build an arc. Perhaps that is what the Reapers were meant to be, active still, to observe, to see if anyone of similar value might possibly join you.
Exactly! Because of the selfimage of Gods, the society ( possibly a communal mind, at this point) would think of ways to ensure that no AI deity ever takes away the chance of organics to reaching the pseudo, or partial "Omega Point" ( research it) that this community has reached. As ascension of the postorganic mind would have progressed, by the laws of evolution and efficiency, general mind usage and thought entropy would be sought to be rezolved by implementing a net of consciousnesses ( as I've already said, a communal mind), similar to a Geth Consensus, or even more similar to how a Reaper's mind is described to work.
As such, at least mentally, the society ( or communal mind) might eventually take the physical form of something that at least resembles a Reaper ( with furthur modifications in the future, to facilitate the Reap, the Reap not being concieved now).
Deciding that no A.I ever should be allowed to take organics the right of ascending to the point of what now would be post-postorganic, ( because, if unchecked, the evolution of A.I would take them far above anything remotely organic), the Reapers implement the cycle.
And what does the cycle do in their opinion? It permits them to ASCEND EVERY ORGANIC RACE with the bare minimum of intelligence required. The Reapers fastforward them through transorganic and postorganic stages of evolution, practically making every race a god, while ensuring that at no time there will be someone who could halt this evolution.
Perhaps, if you see yourself, as the Reaper afterward, of potentially attaining that salvation you sought as a species before, you might then offer it to others.
Exactly. Being brought to the level of post-postorganic, God at least in mind, you'd want to share the unimaginable brain/computational power with others. Might seem brutal, but you make sure every inteliigent organic race will have the chance of getting to the peak of evolution ( because current commonly accepted theoretical streams of evolutions dictate that at some point, we as humans will enter a Reaper-like stage of existence - if we survive long enough as a species) even though apparently you destroy that race.
"Salvation through destruction"
What might cause you to look at the universe and your species on such a long term, almost unfathomable (or only abstractly fathomable) scale and fear? Maybe you've gotten to such a point that you've become practically immortal. Maybe those "beings of light" actually existed, after a certain point. What if they are the first Reaper, and they're offering immortality of a sense to other advanced species? If that kind of salvation is the goal, the Reapers throughout the series make sense, and they serve a purpose other than sweeper.
Exactly as I have pointed out! Beings of light, apex of evolution decide to Reap, to share and ensure nobody could prevent them from sharing.
Maybe the reason that they really always maintained the relays, other than potentially finding more eezo, (and I always thought eezo burning in that star was responsible for Haestrom..) is that they really don't care about staving off universal entropy, being seemingly impossible, so who cares if you speed it up a bit? Maybe your goal is to ride your arc through it, with whoever else you 'save' along the way, and the relays help you to do that.. That idea of the Reapers as a museum of past civilizations, in their bio-synthetic inner world, would not be far off.
And that practically wouldn't differ with a thing, as explained, from the current Reaper motivations.
So whoever the first Reaper society were, they looked at the far flung, eventual end of the universe as one would regard a large comet headed for your planet in a future you can't change, i.e. inevitable doom. So, if you see that as personally threatening to all that you've become, and you're so advanced as to see yourself personally effected, and to see yourself as your galaxy's shephard, so to speak, what do you do? Do you accept your eventual fate head on, continue to live as you have, or, given the option, do you build an arc and attempt to beat it?
Or in this case, you build an arc and attempt to never let it happen.
In the end, I wanted to prove that these endings are not so remotely different, with enough thought given.
And from a logical standpoint, it would be more logical and more in with Reapers' "salvation through destruction" if they fastforward every civilization to the post-postorganic apex of evolution, that they could reach anyway if there wouldn't be pesty A.I, and prevent A.I's from preventing organic civilization of... oh, you get it.
Modifié par Dexi, 03 juin 2012 - 04:11 .
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I want to remind you, that biotics use dark energy for their powers. 
There are some theories that can be used for ME universe without the disruption of logic and game facts. 
