463 réponses à ce sujet

[Tonymac]

I have kind of had the idea that Starchild was supposed to be messed up. He is supposed to believe in what he is doing, and it is his justification. He is preventing synthetics from killing organics - by killing the organics before they can build synthetics.

He even killed his creators - he admits to it. They became the first true Reaper. Sound like a bit of a nutter to you? Well, he does to me too. He is evil, and insane. The Reapers aren't at war with us?! Enslaving races and turning them into bugs is not twisting the knife handle? He hates organics. He always has. Thats why he killed his creators - he knew he had surpassed them. Why work with them when you are beyond them? Thats like letting an unarmed robber have your wallet when you are packing heat. What do you do? I tell you what - you pull the trigger!

Thats exactly what he did. He killed his creators and decided to round up organics every so often and make more Reapers. Organics are playtoys to him - nothing more. He does not care for the families he destroys, nor the lives wasted. Call it ascending them or not - they are dogmeat in a bag regardless.

We are supposed to not trust him and see his evil, thats my take on it.

[Rhayak]

Sovereign and Harbinger both have the best quality a villain can have.
They make us WANT them dead.

The Catalyst.... well he's not really supposed to fit in narrow morals. He looks like a child and speaks like a shifty brat, but he is perhaps the most brutally logic being we ever face.

He was created to solve a problem and applied his solution: pruning and preserving the most advanced civilizations before they utterly annihilated themselves.

All that Reapers do: mutate people, dissolve people alive, turn people against one another, all while speaking with evil softwared voices.... these are all aspects that only go toward maximizing their efficiency in solving this problem.

So, in a horribly violent way, they indeed "save us through destruction".

Control and Synthesis are the best endings (Control if you really hate 'imposing' peace and happiness). Destroy is short-sighted.... while Rejection is a huge middle finger to all that you did in three games and every single character who ever helped you. Really smart....

[Blacklash93]

The Angry One wrote...
The civilisations in the Reapers? They're already dead. Let them rest in peace.
Their lost knowledge is regrettable, but it's like keeping a zombie alive because it once had the mind of a genius. You are simply prolonging the existence of a creature that should be laid to rest.

I wouldn't call this cut-and-dry. The Reapers seem to think their new existance is pretty great. Even if they aren't exactly who they were before, the minds preserved don't want to die nor do they feel any excrutiating pain or emptiness. I suppose when the Leviathan DLC comes out and if we talk to it we'll get a better perspective.

[CronoDragoon]

The Angry One wrote...

I don't accept that. There is no definition of "make peace" that includes "annihilate civilisations and preserve them as giant cuttlefish".

Remember, the Catalyst first says "without us, synthetics will destroy all organic life".
That makes it's directive survival, when it's original directive would've been diplomacy.

It's original directive was not diplomacy. Diplomacy was the first means through which it fulfilled its directive of "preserve organic and synthetic life." The creators were not cautious in defining the Catalyst's logic as they should have been.

Also, saying that the point is survival explains why he is fine with killing billions so long as he can make a Reaper. His primary directive is to prevent any form of life from being totally annihilated, and Reapers do this. If he says that he doesn't kill, then he is indeed lying, because we know the Reapers don't capture everyone and process them.

But we are forced, so it is. We destroy all synthetic life, thus continuing it's agenda albeit in the crudest manner possible.

Destroy does not further his agenda. The Catalyst would not WANT you to completely annihilate the geth, because that defies its prime directive of preserving organic and synthetic life. Neither the Catalyst nor Shepard want the consequences of Destroy.

[adneate]

Forbry wrote...
Destroy is not only wrong because of EDI and the Geth. It is also wrong because it doesn't end the cycle (which means everything that had happened will happen again in some way or the other if you choose to destroy) and it is also wrong because you destroy all knowledge/ancient civilizations captured in the reapers.

The Reapers are utterly mindless they have no independent thought of any kind, besides being brainless automatons they are also giant monuments to genocide and insanity. Your selfish desire to ferret out any information from these mass graves is tastleless and immoral.

Also the cycle doesn't exist that much is made clear since the natural state of the Galaxy is chaos and the only reason there is any pattern is because of the Catalyst's direct interference when it say started the Metacon War with the Protheans or reprogammed the Geth to attack everyone and everything.

[Forbry]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Forbry wrote...

Destroy is not only wrong because of EDI and the Geth. It is also wrong because it doesn't end the cycle (which means everything that had happened will happen again in some way or the other if you choose to destroy) and it is also wrong because you destroy all knowledge/ancient civilizations captured in the reapers.

Okay, but these are not complaints related to "cooperating with it." Destroy is meant to suggest that you do not believe the synthetic/organic cycle is inevitable. You are thus rejecting the Catalyst's programming. The EDI/geth thing therefore seems like an extremely strange and contradictory consequence to the spirit of Destroy.

If it is wrong for your second reason, then it was always wrong since ME1 and has nothing to do with the Catalyst.

I understand what you're saying and yes, you're kind of right here, but EDI and the Geth dying if choosing destroy, for me, is evidence that you're way of thinking about "destroy" is not the idea behind it, at least not the way as Bioware had it in mind.

[The Angry One]

Blacklash93 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...
The civilisations in the Reapers? They're already dead. Let them rest in peace.
Their lost knowledge is regrettable, but it's like keeping a zombie alive because it once had the mind of a genius. You are simply prolonging the existence of a creature that should be laid to rest.

I wouldn't call this cut-and-dry. The Reapers seem to think their new existance is pretty great. Even if they aren't exactly who they were before, the minds preserved don't want to die nor do they feel any excrutiating pain or emptiness. I suppose when the Leviathan DLC comes out and if we talk to it we'll get a better perspective.

That really is irrelevant. If 5 people are killed to make a patchwork monster, that monster might think for itself and like it's existence.. doesn't change that those 5 people are dead, and cannot be used to justify that monster's existence.
Especially if it goes around trying to eat people.

[o Ventus]

Blacklash93 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...
The civilisations in the Reapers? They're already dead. Let them rest in peace.
Their lost knowledge is regrettable, but it's like keeping a zombie alive because it once had the mind of a genius. You are simply prolonging the existence of a creature that should be laid to rest.

I wouldn't call this cut-and-dry. The Reapers seem to think their new existance is pretty great. Even if they aren't exactly who they were before, the minds preserved don't want to die nor do they feel any excrutiating pain or emptiness. I suppose when the Leviathan DLC comes out and if we talk to it we'll get a better perspective.

@bold---

... What?

[CronoDragoon]

Blacklash93 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Blacklash93 wrote...

Going from Sovereign's clear contempt for organic life and even other synthetics to the Reapers turning out to consider themselves incredibly considerate and altruisitic for life everywhere after all was the mistake. The Catalyst is just the face of this senseless and hopeless development.

While I don't for a minute believe that they had this ending in mind when they designed Sovereign, it is possible for him to hate organic life while still being controlled by the Catalyst to save it. Perhaps Sovereign was a synthetic race that was harvested? That would explain his hatred.

Sovereign is from organics, though. Legion confirmed that Sovy's minds were from organics. Why would you be contemptful of what you're made from and what gives you purpose?

Okay, I was just trying to make sense of the disconnect between Sovereign and the Catalyst, but it seems even my feeble speculations are already contradicted by in-game evidence, lol. Maybe Sovereign loves his Reaper form? I am grasping at straws here.

[BDelacroix]

What do you expect from a society that has grown up learning up is down, right is wrong, and everything is relative?

The catalyst boils down to an expert system with faulty input data. Shoot the red tube.

[The Angry One]

CronoDragoon wrote...

It's original directive was not diplomacy. Diplomacy was the first means through which it fulfilled its directive of "preserve organic and synthetic life." The creators were not cautious in defining the Catalyst's logic as they should have been.

It said it was created to establish peace between organics and synthetics. Preservation was an idea it came up with itself later on.

Also, saying that the point is survival explains why he is fine with killing billions so long as he can make a Reaper. His primary directive is to prevent any form of life from being totally annihilated, and Reapers do this. If he says that he doesn't kill, then he is indeed lying, because we know the Reapers don't capture everyone and process them.

"But you kill the rest."

"We help them ascend."

It deliberately dodges the issue and sugar-coats it with lies and half-truths every time the issue of killing is brought up.

But we are forced, so it is. We destroy all synthetic life, thus continuing it's agenda albeit in the crudest manner possible.

Destroy does not further his agenda. The Catalyst would not WANT you to completely annihilate the geth, because that defies its prime directive of preserving organic and synthetic life. Neither the Catalyst nor Shepard want the consequences of Destroy.

It does, because it ends the synthetic threat (the one that only exists in it's head). They may have tacked on all this diplomacy and "everyone's preserved" stuff, but the Catalyst still states at the beginning "without us, synthetics will destroy all organic life".

[CronoDragoon]

Forbry wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Forbry wrote...

Destroy is not only wrong because of EDI and the Geth. It is also wrong because it doesn't end the cycle (which means everything that had happened will happen again in some way or the other if you choose to destroy) and it is also wrong because you destroy all knowledge/ancient civilizations captured in the reapers.

Okay, but these are not complaints related to "cooperating with it." Destroy is meant to suggest that you do not believe the synthetic/organic cycle is inevitable. You are thus rejecting the Catalyst's programming. The EDI/geth thing therefore seems like an extremely strange and contradictory consequence to the spirit of Destroy.

If it is wrong for your second reason, then it was always wrong since ME1 and has nothing to do with the Catalyst.

I understand what you're saying and yes, you're kind of right here, but EDI and the Geth dying if choosing destroy, for me, is evidence that you're way of thinking about "destroy" is not the idea behind it, at least not the way as Bioware had it in mind.

I think Bioware did want Destroy to be a way to reject the Catalyst's programming. The problem is that they decided they had to balance the ending with the others and make it more grimdark, so they added the geth/EDI thing without considering how it affects the spirit of the ending.

[Nerevar-as]

Blacklash93 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...
The civilisations in the Reapers? They're already dead. Let them rest in peace.
Their lost knowledge is regrettable, but it's like keeping a zombie alive because it once had the mind of a genius. You are simply prolonging the existence of a creature that should be laid to rest.

I wouldn't call this cut-and-dry. The Reapers seem to think their new existance is pretty great. Even if they aren't exactly who they were before, the minds preserved don't want to die nor do they feel any excrutiating pain or emptiness. I suppose when the Leviathan DLC comes out and if we talk to it we'll get a better perspective.

They are doing upon others what was done to them. That says all there´s to know about the state those minds are in.
A perversion of who they once were. And the Starbrat is their collective CONSENSUS, not the trade federation control center.

I´m not so concerned about lost knowledge. Progress always went along the same path, then got stomped at the 50000 year mark.

[Forbry]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Forbry wrote...

Destroy is not only wrong because of EDI and the Geth. It is also wrong because it doesn't end the cycle (which means everything that had happened will happen again in some way or the other if you choose to destroy) and it is also wrong because you destroy all knowledge/ancient civilizations captured in the reapers.

Okay, but these are not complaints related to "cooperating with it." Destroy is meant to suggest that you do not believe the synthetic/organic cycle is inevitable. You are thus rejecting the Catalyst's programming. The EDI/geth thing therefore seems like an extremely strange and contradictory consequence to the spirit of Destroy.

If it is wrong for your second reason, then it was always wrong since ME1 and has nothing to do with the Catalyst.

So I can understand your idea of destroy and that within the context of that idea, killing EDI and the Geth is strange and contradictory, but as I said, I think that is because of the fact that your idea (which is not bad in itself!) is not the idea Bioware wanted to portrait.

[Legbiter]

Basically the Reapers are "uplifting" the space-faring civs to the next plane of existence while leaving the primitive ones in peace. From their point of view they are fulfilling a benevolent cosmic imperative and only ingrates and fools would even think of resisting them.

[General User]

Blacklash93 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...
The civilisations in the Reapers? They're already dead. Let them rest in peace.
Their lost knowledge is regrettable, but it's like keeping a zombie alive because it once had the mind of a genius. You are simply prolonging the existence of a creature that should be laid to rest.

I wouldn't call this cut-and-dry. The Reapers seem to think their new existance is pretty great. Even if they aren't exactly who they were before, the minds preserved don't want to die nor do they feel any excrutiating pain or emptiness. I suppose when the Leviathan DLC comes out and if we talk to it we'll get a better perspective.

Well, the Reapers are under the Catalyst's control; they do, think, and say what they are programed to do, think, and say.

[v3paR]

i now know why Sovereign said "i am beyond your comprehension". sadly this thread proves he was right.

i'm not defending the Starkid. i don't really like it. but the meaning of the whole fire thing is just so simple and obvious ...

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

From what I remember, he used fire analogy when Shepard basically cornered him by asserting that he himself contradicted what he said - since originally he says "I am solution to chaos, conflict between organics and synthetics". Shep says - "sorry, we kind of at war with synthetics right now thanks to you?!", and he "yes, but we don't wish for it". Was this relevant to Shepard's objection? Not a bit.
He's just like a delusional person who will present most ridiculous arguments not to admit that he's delusional.

Modifié par Ingvarr Stormbird, 02 juillet 2012 - 04:47 .

[Forbry]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Forbry wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Forbry wrote...

Destroy is not only wrong because of EDI and the Geth. It is also wrong because it doesn't end the cycle (which means everything that had happened will happen again in some way or the other if you choose to destroy) and it is also wrong because you destroy all knowledge/ancient civilizations captured in the reapers.

Okay, but these are not complaints related to "cooperating with it." Destroy is meant to suggest that you do not believe the synthetic/organic cycle is inevitable. You are thus rejecting the Catalyst's programming. The EDI/geth thing therefore seems like an extremely strange and contradictory consequence to the spirit of Destroy.

If it is wrong for your second reason, then it was always wrong since ME1 and has nothing to do with the Catalyst.

I understand what you're saying and yes, you're kind of right here, but EDI and the Geth dying if choosing destroy, for me, is evidence that you're way of thinking about "destroy" is not the idea behind it, at least not the way as Bioware had it in mind.

I think Bioware did want Destroy to be a way to reject the Catalyst's programming. The problem is that they decided they had to balance the ending with the others and make it more grimdark, so they added the geth/EDI thing without considering how it affects the spirit of the ending.

Well, I clearly don't see it that way   I do not think that Bioware would make such a "mistake".
Also, the thesis I think Bioware wants to portray is not only showing in the ending. It is also showing during the whole series, in a couple of ways, so already before the ending .

[sth128]

Wow I go away for 10 minutes and this thread has grown by 4 pages...

And yes, words are too complicated. It's picture time:


Also, a metaphor of me "not creating conflict" to the forum...


(No, I ain't flaming LOL)

[BDelacroix]

The argument is that these reapers are just doing what they were made do to. Which is fine except they are causing the problem they claim to be solving in order to be able to do what it is they are made to do.

Shoot.
The.
Tube.

Or pull the plug, but we don't get that option.

[BDelacroix]

sth128 wrote...

Wow I go away for 10 minutes and this thread has grown by 4 pages...

And yes, words are too complicated. It's picture time:
.picture redacted for space.

That's like the ruling that you can only shoot military equipment.
Uniforms are defined as military equipment.

No joke, that is an actual rule.

Modifié par BDelacroix, 02 juillet 2012 - 04:50 .

[Nerevar-as]

General User wrote...

Blacklash93 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...
The civilisations in the Reapers? They're already dead. Let them rest in peace.
Their lost knowledge is regrettable, but it's like keeping a zombie alive because it once had the mind of a genius. You are simply prolonging the existence of a creature that should be laid to rest.

I wouldn't call this cut-and-dry. The Reapers seem to think their new existance is pretty great. Even if they aren't exactly who they were before, the minds preserved don't want to die nor do they feel any excrutiating pain or emptiness. I suppose when the Leviathan DLC comes out and if we talk to it we'll get a better perspective.

Well, the Reapers are under the Catalyst's control; they do, think, and say what they are programed to do, think, and say.

Are they? The Starbrat is their consensus. They were built, but are AI, not VI. They certainly show no problem with what they are doing.

Guess that´s what happens when you change the main villain motivation in the last chapter.

[Brovikk Rasputin]

You people really are searching for things to complain about at this point.

[Blacklash93]

The Angry One wrote...

Blacklash93 wrote...

The Angry One wrote...
The civilisations in the Reapers? They're already dead. Let them rest in peace.
Their lost knowledge is regrettable, but it's like keeping a zombie alive because it once had the mind of a genius. You are simply prolonging the existence of a creature that should be laid to rest.

I wouldn't call this cut-and-dry. The Reapers seem to think their new existance is pretty great. Even if they aren't exactly who they were before, the minds preserved don't want to die nor do they feel any excrutiating pain or emptiness. I suppose when the Leviathan DLC comes out and if we talk to it we'll get a better perspective.

That really is irrelevant. If 5 people are killed to make a patchwork monster, that monster might think for itself and like it's existence.. doesn't change that those 5 people are dead, and cannot be used to justify that monster's existence.
Especially if it goes around trying to eat people.

If 5 people are dead then what's the problem? They're dead and irrelevant to the new creature. Abstract conceptions of being born from pain and suffering thus being unfit to live and such are applying things that the creature doesn't feel. Who is to say it doesn't deserve to live in its own right? The Reapers think they have to harvest and might even be forced to so they're inherently crazy or like rabid killbots.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree, just that there are multiple valid ways to look at this. Like I said Levithan should give us a better picture.

@o Ventus

They do like their existance and seem pretty proud of it. Sovereign and Harbinger bragged about it in much of their lines.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 02 juillet 2012 - 05:12 .