1027 réponses à ce sujet

[Brovikk Rasputin]

That's a ridiculous thing to say. Don't you want to save all your friends? The characters you've spent 60 hours together with? I sure do.

[Eain]

Hudathan wrote...

I can't believe we're having an argument over whether or not morality is important enough to let trillions of people die. If we don't agree on that much then there is no point in going round-and-round.

The Crucible, which noone knows anything about, turns out to be nothing other than a giant cuckoo's clock that spawns the Reaper Overlord, who meets Shepard with no other message than "to solve this conflict, pick a colour to kill yourself!"

And when you ask it why, it says: "BECAUSE OTHERWISE TRILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE. FOREVER."

If your Shepard buys that your Shepard is being roleplayed like a very gullible fool.

Modifié par Eain, 02 juillet 2012 - 09:39 .

[M Hedonist]

Brovikk Rasputin wrote...

That's a ridiculous thing to say. Don't you want to save all your friends? The characters you've spent 60 hours together with? I sure do.

Missed the entire point.

[Hudathan]

Eain wrote...

The Crucible, which noone knows anything about, turns out to be nothing other than a giant cuckoo's clock that spawns the Reaper Overlord, who meets Shepard with no other message than "to solve this conflict, pick a colour to kill yourself!"

And when you ask it why, it says: "BECAUSE OTHERWISE TRILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE. FOREVER."

If your Shepard buys that your Shepard is being roleplayed like a very gullible fool.

So your reasonable alternative is to allow the continuation of the death of trillions of people which has already gone underway by that point? Let me get this straight, folding a poker hand after you already gone all in is not gullible but playing it out is?

[Necrotron]

Hudathan wrote...

Guglio08 wrote...

Bathaius wrote...

This is why it was so essential that they added the rejection option to the ending sequence, since it is the only logical step for Shepard to take.

It's the exact opposite of a logical choice.

Unless your logic dictates that getting everybody killed is better than feeling bad about yourself.

This entire thread is about the fact that Shepard, the character, has no credible information to believe that doing what the self-described creator of the Reapers and indoctrination will actually do what the starchild says it will do.

Nothing in that entire sequence informs Shepard that shooting the tube or jumping into a beam of light will actually fire the catalyst except the Reapers.  So, Shepard can either trust the Reapers (sounds ridiculous, right?) or search for another way to fire the catalyst/defeat the Reapers.  My Shepard chose to find another way to fire the catalyst, which apparently means everyone dies and the next cycle found a way.

Now, if I approach the ending from a metagame perspective, as the Angry One is stating, I would obvious know the starchild is telling the truth and pick one of his choices.  But, playing in character, my Shepard has zero reason to trust the starchild and would seek for a way to fire the catalyst that doesn't involve him killing himself to allegedly do so on the word of a Reaper.

Modifié par Bathaius, 02 juillet 2012 - 09:45 .

[humes spork]

Zine2 wrote...

No, what's cute is that you consider "continuing to slaughter countless people" as a sign of good faith.

So tell me, why would the Catalyst not leave Shepard to die?

[Guglio08]

Bathaius wrote...

Nothing in that entire sequence informs Shepard that shooting the tube or jumping into a beam of light will actually fire the catalyst except the Reapers.

Even without metagaming, Shepard has two options: pick a solution proposed by The Catalyst which has unknown effects, or let everyone die. 

Because without the Crucible, they already know they will die. So Shepard has no reason not to choose a mystery solution.

[Eain]

Hudathan wrote...

Eain wrote...

The Crucible, which noone knows anything about, turns out to be nothing other than a giant cuckoo's clock that spawns the Reaper Overlord, who meets Shepard with no other message than "to solve this conflict, pick a colour to kill yourself!"

And when you ask it why, it says: "BECAUSE OTHERWISE TRILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE. FOREVER."

If your Shepard buys that your Shepard is being roleplayed like a very gullible fool.

So your reasonable alternative is to allow the continuation of the death of trillions of people which has already gone underway by that point? Let me get this straight, folding a poker hand after you already gone all in is not gullible but playing it out is?

For all Shepard know the Crucible is the Reapers' plan B. Their means to quickly and efficiently lure all the fleets to a single location for rapid death while also getting rid of the head of their resistance, since Shepard knows Harbinger has been gunning for him since ME2.

Why would Shepard want to deploy the Crucible at all? How can Shepard know for sure that what the Catalyst says is true and that the Crucible will deploy against the Reapers rather than for them? When a total bum walks up to you offering you a suitcase of five million dollars if only you follow him into a back alley, you expect to either get robbed or be offered a ******, so you keep walking. Maybe he does have five million dollars, but everything you know about bums in dark alleys suggests the opposite.

Everything Shepard knows about Reapers suggests that the Crucible is more likely to be a giant deception, and everything Shepard knows about himself and the races of the galaxy it's that hard work has always gotten the job done.

Shepard has no reason to believe that:

1) He's the first organic to ever make it that far.
2) They're the first cycle to deploy the crucible.
3) That the Reapers did not know of the Crucible.
4) That killing yourself will do what the Catalyst says.
5) That the Catalyst is the Reaper Overlord at all rather than some VI programmed to deceive him.
6) That the Catalyst is not in fact simply Harbinger trying to fool him.
7) That this is not all just a Reaper backup plan incase their initial invasion via the Citadel doesn't work.

The Crucible has machinated thinking written all over it. The Reapers are about efficient destruction, yet nothing they've done since arriving in the galaxy suggests efficiency in any way. So Shepard's expecting their machinelike calculated brutality to rear its head at some point as otherwise it'd make no sense. The Reapers had a perfect invasion plan, which the Protheans sabotaged. Now the galaxy has a chance to resist, and the Reapers have to deal with that aswell. They're not exactly doing their best to chase the races of the galaxy all over the universe, so make they're trying to lure the races to them instead.

It all makes much more sense in Shepard's mind than the Catalyst telling the truth.

Modifié par Eain, 02 juillet 2012 - 09:54 .

[Jackums]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

The AI hacked it, and added two options that would preserve itself

No, it didn't. Previous cycles added those new features to the Crucible.

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

and Control because it still exists even though it takes on the aspects of the new controller,

No, it doesn't. Shepard replaces it entirely. It states this.


All three main choices (Destroy, Control, Synthesis) are equally valid and end the Reaper threat. Refuse ends the Reaper threat, but not until a later cycle where they just use the Crucible anyway. Ergo, RGB are valid and Refuse is just a redundant, prideful sacrifice of trillions of lives for no reason.

[Sisterofshane]

Zine2 wrote...

humes spork wrote...

It's cute

No, what's cute is that you consider "continuing to slaughter countless people" as a sign of good faith.

*points at humes spork and laughs*

Yeah, next time the police are getting shot at by an insane criminal, they should take it as a "sign of good faith"!

*points at humes spork and laughs*

Any sane writer who's seriously trying to portray the Star Child as being "reasonable" as this point would have made the Star Child call for something called a "cease fire". But no, instead he drags Shep up to his throne room, commends him for making it there, and then railroads him into picking Red, Green, or Blue. And then goes all pouty when you refuse.

But nah, we'll have you spout off some nonesense about how Reapers are beyond the concept of "cease fires" but we should wuv them anyway because they're just misunderstood cuttlefish. *laughs*

Is it not obvious enough that the Catalyst is using the turmoil outside to fuel you to make a choice regarding the use of the crucible?

It doesn't want you to think about the choice.  It wants you to make one off the cuff.  Like Humes pointed out, it basically has a fifty/fifty chance that you will make a choice it finds agreeable, and it clearly tries to influence you to make the one decision it finds to be the most acceptable.  The more time you take to think about what it says, the less likely it is that you will make a choice that will benefit it.

The fact that the battle rages on and more people are dying by the minute would have a way of lighting a fire under Shep's a**, wouldn't it?

[Zine2]

humes spork wrote...

Zine2 wrote...

No, what's cute is that you consider "continuing to slaughter countless people" as a sign of good faith.

So tell me, why would the Catalyst not leave Shepard to die?

Because it's insane.

There is literally no rhyme or reason to its choices. Because it's been living with the guilt of having OMNOMED its creators all those years ago and was never all that sane to begin with. And because Mac Walters and Casey Hudson failed at writing a finale that satisfied no one except those who were interested in the reproduction habits and random neural firings of giant space cuttlefish.

It turned on the Random Number Generator, came up with a result that said "talk to Shep!". While forgetting that Shep will probably be mighty pissed that it's still off killing his / her friends in the fleet.

And really, there's no excuse for that. Because if the Reaper wanted to show a sign of good faith, it could have done so by calling off the attack. As you insist, they're gonna win anyway. So why not delay it for ten minutes so that Shep can make up his mind with a clear head, maybe consult with Hackett on the fleet, and actually make a collective choice based on what the "grand alliance" wants?

If you are in a position of strength and don't simply want to destroy an enemy, you show actual signs of good faith. Like "stop shooting".

Instead we get an insane AI who does things that make no sense when put together.

[shodiswe]

Since the reapers didn't build the citadel and since the original purpose of the citadel and the crucible was to create synthesis then it sounds plausible.
Some may say how do you know the reapers didn't build it? it might be lying. Maybe, but it's more likely they didn't sicen someone had to have created them in the first place and it makes sense that the Citadel was created first with the catalyst as the onboard AI to help with their research, no organic lifeform would be likely to construct a reaper.
That requiers liquifying millions or billions of people. Therefor the Reapers were likely biult and created by the Catalyst that resides on the citadel. It's the simplest and most reasonable explanation of this whole mess.

Therefor the research original intent was probably beneficial and in good faith, even thoguh it did go wrong at some point.

Given that everyone seems doomed anyway, no single world has actualy been able to push the reapers away, (I don't count the Hanars orbital defence system) the reapers wern't prepared to fight it since they thought it had been disabled, and were therefor caught offguard..

Since there is no hope to stop the reapers conventionaly now that they number thousands of Dreadnaughts after all these thousands of cycles of sucessful reaping. The only option seems to be the research and work prepared by the reators of the catalyst.

Either finnish what they had started and pacify the Catalyst since that would fulfill it's primary programming, the process would be complete and it has nothing else to do.

Overload the device and send out a pulse that should destroy the Reapers, (how do you know it will even work? it might be a trap! Maybe you're destroying your only chance at stoppign the reapers!)

Control, replace the obviously flawed simplistic AI with a more comprehesive program that will understand Organics and synthetics better through experience being an organic and itneracting with Organcis and synthetics.

Synthesis: Complete the original project and put an end to the Catalysts work.

Reject accomplishes nothing other than the satisfaction that you didn't give in to the ultimatum that could have saved the lives of trillions.

Even if the Shepard AI woudl go insane after a few thousand or million years the galaxy would be stronger and better prepared, though Isee no reason for the Shepard AI to go insane.
Why would it change who it is, few people changes their personality that much.

The reapers does what ever is requiered to accomplish their goals, therefor it's wise to question them. But rejectign the only possible alternatives to anihilation doesn't seem to help.

[humes spork]

Zine2 wrote...

If you are in a position of strength and don't simply want to destroy an enemy, you show actual signs of good faith. Like "stop shooting".

Why? It gains absolutely nothing. It holds all the cards, has the position of absolute dominance, and the final choice is completely on its terms. It does whatever the hell it wants, and Shepard and the organics take what it gives them. Which, in this case, is one shot to not screw the pooch with the cycles' continuance the consequence for failure. Anything beyond ignoring Shepard and allowing the cycle to continue in itself is an act of good faith, considering the stakes and power dynamic at play, for the fact the Catalyst has nothing to gain and Shepard/organics nothing to lose at that point.

That is, assuming the Catalyst is a malevolent, deceptive, Machiavellian operator, or just plain insane as you put it.

Which brings up the very point of writing up and posting the payoff matrix for the final choice, which demonstrates the Catalyst is acting "irrationally" (in terms of game theory) and fundamentally contradicts the notion the Catalyst (and by extension the Reapers) is a malevolent, deceptive, Machiavellian operator. If it were, it would act rationally and not put Shepard in the position to make the final choice. I think we can both agree on at least that much.

Modifié par humes spork, 02 juillet 2012 - 10:12 .

[Yalision]

I guess we'll see whenever we get a post-Crucible Mass Effect.

[TODD9999]

A good point, OP.

I chose Control (as a Paragon), but I will freely admit that this is due to metagaming. In every other situation like what Shepard finds himself in at the end of ME3, he's managed to stand up for his beliefs (and usually to talk his opponents into suicide, surrender, or otherwise altering their behavior). In this case, he may not be able to make the Catalyst shut itself down, but the least he can do is stand firm.

What I would have expected from Refusal would be something more along the lines of the Catalyst saying "SO BE IT" and then some sort of Reaper monstrosity coming up, complete with rant about how rejection shows that he's such a pitiful mortal that he can't grasp the opportunity and favor he was just shown by being granted the opportunity to work with the Reapers. Obviously this would need other changes to the structure of the ending (like Shepard not being so heavily injured, or perhaps as he stands, defiant and bloodied, his friends come along or are dropped off by the Normandy, and Shepard himself does nothing but stand his ground as all the friends and allies he's made show the strength of unity by destroying the Reaper beast, thus causing all the Reapers to freak out and become vulnerable to destruction or possibly just shut down or whatever).

Yes, if I did not know that Reject was an incredibly short and unsatisfying ending, I would have been much more tempted to go for it. It's much more in line with Shepard's actions to date. He didn't go through all that he did to find some weird AI on the Citadel that claims to control the Reapers and then do what it wants. As a new player, knowing the game only with Extended Cut content, I think I probably would have gone for Reject without a second thought, giving BioWare a little smirk. "You sly devils, giving me the Catalyst's options first so I'd think I had to go for them, but then giving me the 'real' option at the end."

Of course, this discussion easily turns into another - that of course some metagame, because you as a player want to derive maximum enjoyment from the game. So if you know that your Shepard would choose option A, but option B will lead to a chain of much more enjoyable content, you can rationalize selecting option B in some manner for yourself. It all comes down to whether you find it more enjoyable to play the content you yourself want to see, or to know that your Shepard is exactly as he should be.

Even though it's obvious, everything I've said is my own opinion and based upon my Shepard. Just throwing that in there since this is obviously a bit of a contentious topic.

EDIT: And of course this is just based off my memory, off the top of my head.  There may be counterexamples to things I've said, but I believe there should also be examples to support me.

Modifié par TODD9999, 02 juillet 2012 - 10:10 .

[Hudathan]

Eain wrote...

For all Shepard know the Crucible is the Reapers' plan B. Their means to quickly and efficiently lure all the fleets to a single location for rapid death while also getting rid of the head of their resistance, since Shepard knows Harbinger has been gunning for him since ME2.

Why would Shepard want to deploy the Crucible at all? How can Shepard know for sure that what the Catalyst says is true and that the Crucible will deploy against the Reapers rather than for them? When a total bum walks up to you offering you a suitcase of five million dollars if only you follow him into a back alley, you expect to either get robbed or be offered a ******, so you keep walking. Maybe he does have five million dollars, but everything you know about bums in dark alleys suggests the opposite.

Everything Shepard knows about Reapers suggests that the Crucible is more likely to be a giant deception, and everything Shepard knows about himself and the races of the galaxy it's that hard work has always gotten the job done.

Shepard has no reason to believe that:

1) He's the first organic to ever make it that far.
2) They're the first cycle to deploy the crucible.
3) That the Reapers did not know of the Crucible.
4) That killing yourself will do what the Catalyst says.
5) That the Catalyst is the Reaper Overlord at all rather than some VI programmed to deceive him.
6) That the Catalyst is not in fact simply Harbinger trying to fool him.
7) That this is not all just a Reaper backup plan incase their initial invasion via the Citadel doesn't work.

The Crucible has machinated thinking written all over it. The Reapers are about efficient destruction, yet nothing they've done since arriving in the galaxy suggests efficiency in any way. So Shepard's expecting their machinelike calculated brutality to rear its head at some point as otherwise it'd make no sense. The Reapers had a perfect invasion plan, which the Protheans sabotaged. Now the galaxy has a chance to resist, and the Reapers have to deal with that aswell. They're not exactly doing their best to chase the races of the galaxy all over the universe, so make they're trying to lure the races to them instead.

It all makes much more sense in Shepard's mind than the Catalyst telling the truth.

If your argument is that the Crucible can be a trap and it's not a risk worth taking, then that should have happened way earlier in the story. Once the fleets were committed alongside the Crucible, any potential trap would have essentially been sprung already. At that point there is no reason not to see things through. We're not talking about whether or not the Crucible was a good idea, we're talking whether or not it makes sense to not use the Crucible when we're already committed to the idea.

It's as if I've been kidnapped by cannibals who I know are going to eat me. They lock me in a room but there seems to be a gun case hidden under the floor. I can't get away, and I can't beat the cannibals barehanded, so I might as well open the case to see if there is a working gun inside.

Not using the Crucible once you're already standing bleeding out on top of the Citadel with the fleets engaged all around you is like actually finding a gun in that case but then not even trying to see if it would work because the cannibals came in and said "damn you found a gun." I guess it's safer to just put that gun down in case they were trying to trick you and let them eat me anyway.

[Eire Icon]

Few Points:

The most obvious one is the current predicament that the galaxy is in. If Shepard refuses to choose the cycle will continue and all advanced life will be wiped out. He knows this, its been established numerous times throughout the game. On one hand if he chooses one of the three main choices, there is a chance to save the galaxy. If he does not choose there is not. Put simply there is no risk there. Its a case of he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Choosing a slow mass genocide because you fear the Catalyst may be tricking you into a slow mass genocide point blank does not make sense

Secondly, if you don't believe the Catalyst, and believe he is deceiving you, why would you believe his assertion that he controls the Reapers? - Disbelieving him on some points and believing him on others is illogical. Why do you believe one part of his story and not the other????

It all boils down to this:

If I've been set on fire, and I'm slowly burning to death and my enemy appears with a bucket of fluid and gives me options which include throwing a bucket of water on me I need to consider the following

Yes it could be a trick, where maybe they have petrol in the bucket that is going to expediate my death. But lets face it I'm going to die anyway. In the absense of any other option I'm going let him throw the bucket over me and I'll hope its water. I'm not going to stand there and say "I don't trust you" and then burn to death

[Guglio08]

Some of these posts are very confusing to me.

The main theme of the whole trilogy has been self determination. Choosing your own fate means making choices based on uncertainties. If you want absolute certainty in your life, just succumb to the cycle.

Why would Shepard not use the Crucible? In fact, I'm willing to wager that Refusal is more a metagame choice than the other three. You choose refusal because you don't like what any of the other choices result in, but Shepard has no idea what the Crucible will do even if he picks one of the three options.

[Clayless]

The Angry One wrote...

-OP-

You keep on making this same argument, was it yesterday that you made a thread about how it shocked you that the Catalyst probably wasn't a little Canadian boy, therefore why should we trust him?

You're saying the same thing here. All you need to know is:

If you trust the Catalyst and he's telling the truth you stop the Reapers.

If you trust the Catalyst and he's lying everyone dies.

If you do nothing everyone dies.

Really this doesn't need two seperate threads in 48 hours.

Modifié par Our_Last_Scene, 02 juillet 2012 - 10:34 .

[Ryzaki]

wh00ley 06 wrote...

If only Mike Gamble and Jessica Merizan had kept their big mouths shut about this ending.

Agreed. That hurr durr next cycle used the Crucible anyway idiocy was just plain unnecessary.

[Eain]

Hudathan wrote...

If your argument is that the Crucible can be a trap and it's not a risk worth taking, then that should have happened way earlier in the story. Once the fleets were committed alongside the Crucible, any potential trap would have essentially been sprung already.

Why? We don't know what the Crucible does. In fact, if the Catalyst is untrustworthy then even his explanation doesn't count, making that we are quite simply never told. So why would it be sprung then?

At that point there is no reason not to see things through. We're not talking about whether or not the Crucible was a good idea, we're talking whether or not it makes sense to not use the Crucible when we're already committed to the idea.

But at that point everyone still thought the Citadel was the Catalyst, so it was all different. Then Shepard took the magical space elevator and everything changed. Suddenly not the Citadel is the Catalyst, but the Reaper Overlord is, except he's not actually catalysing anything because that's supposed to be Shepard's job. So who is the Catalyst now? Shepard when he kills himself and activates the Crucible? The Reaper Overlord? The Citadel? None of this makes any sense anymore, Shepard thinks.

It's as if I've been kidnapped by cannibals who I know are going to eat me. They lock me in a room but there seems to be a gun case hidden under the floor. I can't get away, and I can't beat the cannibals barehanded, so I might as well open the case to see if there is a working gun inside.

No, it's as if you've been kidnapped by cannibals who have a history of leaving behind guncases that are in truth full of poisonous scorpions for people to get killed by. Every time someone discovers one of these cannibals' guncases and they open it things go wrong. You get taken to a room and get told by the lead cannibal that they'll stop eating people if only you would open that guncase right there and shoot yourself with the weapon inside.

Common sense dictates that there is no weapon inside, only more poisonous scorpions, and that therefore you cannot fulfill the lead cannibal's rather ridiculous sounding demand anyway.

Not using the Crucible once you're already standing bleeding out on top of the Citadel with the fleets engaged all around you is like actually finding a gun in that case but then not even trying to see if it would work because the cannibals came in and said "damn you found a gun." I guess it's safer to just put that gun down in case they were trying to trick you and let them eat me anyway.

Nope, it's like standing on a plateau with the lead cannibal overlooking his minions eating all your people while having to listen to him asking you to kill yourself if you want to make them stop.

Modifié par Eain, 02 juillet 2012 - 10:44 .

[humes spork]

Eire Icon wrote...

If I've been set on fire, and I'm slowly burning to death and my enemy appears with a bucket of fluid and gives me options which include throwing a bucket of water on me I need to consider the following.

Indeed. Shepard has no reason to disbelieve the Catalyst. More payoff matrix goodness:



If the Catalyst is lying, Shepard (and by extension, the organics) still loses no matter what. There is no "win" proposition in this case. If the Catalyst is telling the truth, Shepard can win by picking one of its three options.

Based upon that payoff matrix, while people may make the emotional argument there's no reason to trust the Catalyst the exact opposite is true. Nothing is gained by distrusting the Catalyst, and nothing is lost by trusting it. In that case, the only rational choice is to trust it.

Consider it a variant of Pascal's wager; given the truth of the matter cannot be known until a choice is made, there's more to be gained from wagering on the Catalyst's honesty than there is to be lost wagering on its dishonesty.

[Baronesa]

Ryzaki wrote...

wh00ley 06 wrote...

If only Mike Gamble and Jessica Merizan had kept their big mouths shut about this ending.

Agreed. That hurr durr next cycle used the Crucible anyway idiocy was just plain unnecessary.

Million times this

[Hudathan]

Eain wrote...

Nope, it's like standing on a plateau with the lead cannibal overlooking his minions eating all your people while having to listen to him asking you to kill yourself if you want to make them stop.

Doesn't change the fact that in such a moment doing nothing will lead to everyone's death anyway. Your engineers never figured out the Crucible, sucks that you had to go into the finale without any sense of certainty. Would be nice to know what would happen, but you don't. All you know is that you're trying to do everything in your power to prevent the annhilation of the galaxy, and by that point there is no reason not to take a chance.

In fact, that's why I took the Destroy option. I shoot a tube in the hopes that it will be something good. I wasn't told to drop my gun. I wasn't told to jump into a beam of light and hope that the Reapers would stop killing. At worst, I shoot the tube and destroy the Crucible, in which case we would be no better or worse off than if we had never built the Crucible to begin with. At least this way, we might get to warn the future cycles that the Crucible has indeed been completed and that they should avoid doing so since it's a trap. Either way we gain something by using the Crucible since it's pretty much too late to do anything else.

[elitehunter34]

humes spork wrote...

Eire Icon wrote...

If I've been set on fire, and I'm slowly burning to death and my enemy appears with a bucket of fluid and gives me options which include throwing a bucket of water on me I need to consider the following.

Indeed. Shepard has no reason to disbelieve the Catalyst. More payoff matrix goodness:



If the Catalyst is lying, Shepard (and by extension, the organics) still loses no matter what. There is no "win" proposition in this case. If the Catalyst is telling the truth, Shepard can win by picking one of its three options.

Based upon that payoff matrix, while people may make the emotional argument there's no reason to trust the Catalyst the exact opposite is true. Nothing is gained by distrusting the Catalyst, and nothing is lost by trusting it. In that case, the only rational choice is to trust it.

Consider it a variant of Pascal's wager; given the truth of the matter cannot be known until a choice is made, there's more to be gained from wagering on the Catalyst's honesty than there is to be lost wagering on its dishonesty.

I don't think its that simple.  What if by trusting the Catalyst picking one of the options it instantly indoctrinates everyone which allows the Reapers replenish their numbers and create even more Reapers for the next cycle to fight.  If instead you decide to stand and fight, that forces the Reapers to fight you and they can't make Reapers out of you if you've been killed.  So yes there can be some gain by distrusting the Catalyst.  The OP's argument still stands: you can only trust the Catalyst if you meta-game.