861 réponses à ce sujet

[aMytallica]

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

Modifié par aMytallica, 04 juillet 2012 - 05:49 .

[Reptilian Rob]

Yes, lets kill everyone EVER just so we can keep Shepard's morals intact.

Ridiculous.

[Ryzaki]

Reptilian Rob wrote...

Yes, lets kill everyone EVER just so we can keep Shepard's morals intact.

Ridiculous.

Ugh. You do not need to flat out lie to show disapproval of this ending. Everyone EVER doesn't die. The Stargazer scene clearly shows this.

[Reptilian Rob]

Ryzaki wrote...

Reptilian Rob wrote...

Yes, lets kill everyone EVER just so we can keep Shepard's morals intact.

Ridiculous.

Ugh. You do not need to flat out lie to show disapproval of this ending. Everyone EVER doesn't die. The Stargazer scene clearly shows this.

Ok then, everyone EVER that you knew and that was present for a very long ****ing time. 

Don't worry though, we still have the Yahg...

(Also, it's called redundant sarcasm)

Modifié par Reptilian Rob, 04 juillet 2012 - 06:05 .

[N-Seven]

Dying free is great.  Just don't make me die with you.  If someone polled the trillions of civilians, and the leaders of these people, what the goal of this war was, they would simply say, 'survive'.  They certainly wouldn't say, 'survive under a small subset of morally ideal conditions'.

The mission was, and always was, to stop the Reapers, that is all.  Build the Crucible, activate it,  survive somehow.   It was never, 'best case or nothing'.  Refusalists have forgotten that, and have put pride, the romantic notion of 'fighting to the end', moral absolutism, and oh heck maybe even a bit of dislike of children, in it's place. 

Someone on these forums brought up the movie '300' in defense of Refusal and whether it was stupid for the Spartans to fight to the last man.  Two major differences: their refusal and the Battle of Thermopylae actually had strategic importance, and they didn't drag every man, woman and child in the galaxy down with them.

Any true warrior knows that war is their profession but their product is peace.  Shepards who choose reject, I wouldn't even call good soldiers, much less worthy of being commanders or 'Spectres'.   In the face of defeat, an enemy  changes it's stance on the conflict, and offers you an olive branch.  Yet you reject the olive branch on the principle of it being 'the enemies olive branch'.  Romantic, but in the face of galactic doom, crazy.  Selfish.

Ethically, in any war, when there is an opportunity for peace to be brokered, it must be considered.  And yes, sometimes you have to negotiate with people you personally despise.  When brokering peace, concessions usually must be made by both sides.  In the ME3 endings, it is the Catalyst who actually makes just about all the concessions.  They could win their usual cyclic victory if they wanted to.  But in these negotiations they actually concede almost everything.  They give you the choice of totally destroying them.  They give you the choice of totally dominating them.   And a third ending that's more bizarre and harder to grasp.   They concede their entire existence. 

There is a tragic problem with the destroy option, that being that you also destroy the Geth and EDI, but that's entirely not their fault...the side effect of that option is beyond their means to correct.  But they offer it to you anyways.

It's almost a total surrender by a vastly superior force, who is on the verge of defeating you.  The cycles have gone on for a billion years, and here is your chance to end it on a platter.  But refusalists STILL decide to 'go down fighting'.  Disobeying their superiors, and disregarding their duty to protect others.  Due to mistrust, personal pride, an assumption that all others share your absolutism, fear of the unknown, and hatred of the enemy..  Thus dooming countless civilians who never wanted this war and don't care about glory or honor right now.

No good soldier would do this.  A person holding onto this sort of stubborn, cartoonish moral absolutism would probably be considered borderline mentally ill, and wouldn't pass a mental exam to become a mall cop much less a member of an elite unit of galactic protectors.  I wouldn't but a sharp stick in this guys' hand much less an assault rifle.  He/she would never be able to make the difficult choice of pulling the trigger in situations where you don't know all the variables, and just have to make the best choice you can.  And it's rare that you do.

Yes, there certainly is a 'Starbrat' in this scene.  I think it's the Shepards who pick refuse. The players picking it aren't of course.  I sincerely doubt any of you would make this sort of choice in a real-life situation, if by some horrible circumstance you were in it.  You're probably all very smart and decent people.  It's just because it's a game, it's really easy for a player to place themselves in an Ivory Tower and say 'this is what my character would do!' and brush off the in-game consequences.

Modifié par N-Seven, 04 juillet 2012 - 06:58 .

[Psychlonus]

aMytallica wrote...

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

I've been gone for a while and have been in radio silence on Mass Effect. This is the first thread that I've been skimming to find out about this extended cut stuff. It looks to me like Bioware has now included an option to lose the galaxy to the reapers in this cycle...an option that already existed after you found out about the reapers in Mass Effect I. I think there was a drinking game where you could pass out by drinking alien alcohol and then repeat that sequence for 100 hours instead of playing the rest of that game and Mass Effect 2.

[The Angry One]

aMytallica wrote...

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

Because we're choosing to fight the one perpetrating this genocide instead of helping it.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Shepard is not ultimately deciding the fate of billions here, the Catalyst is.

[Gibb_Shepard]

Refusal is by far the worst. Even worse than the abomination that is Synthesis.

What kind of fool would kill trillions of people because he has an extremely idiotic sense of morality?

[Gibb_Shepard]

The Angry One wrote...

aMytallica wrote...

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

Because we're choosing to fight the one perpetrating this genocide instead of helping it.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Shepard is not ultimately deciding the fate of billions here, the Catalyst is.

Shepard is deciding the fate of billions. The Catalyst is a ****ing AI program with inherently flawed logic. He is basically allowing this program to continue on with it's destructive cycle, as opposed to reaching a compromise.

Shepard knows full well that choosing to refuse the catalyst is choosing to commit galaxy wide genocide.

[carrmatt91]

The Angry One wrote...

aMytallica wrote...

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

Because we're choosing to fight the one perpetrating this genocide instead of helping it.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Shepard is not ultimately deciding the fate of billions here, the Catalyst is.

theres still a 50% chance that the catalyst is not lying whereas its drilled into your head that you can't win conventionately, and the catalyst itself doesn't choose any of the options, it is up to shepard to make the decision on whether or not to use the crucible, and bearing in mind indecision is a decision in itself shepard is the one who has the option to gamble on a 1 in 2 chance of the crucible succeding or a 1 in a million chance of a conventional victory, i don't know about you but i would take my chances with destroy

without meta-gaming

destroy (starbrat lies)           - everyone dies
destroy (starbrat tells truth) - everyone apart from synthetics live
refuse (starbrat lies)             - everyone dies
refuse (starbrat tells truth)   - everyone dies 

Modifié par carrmatt91, 04 juillet 2012 - 07:07 .

[KiwiQuiche]

I approve of your post and agree with many points in it, OP.

[TrollDemon]

Kind of ironic....dying free, when a lot more people are going to end up indoctrinated.

All kidding aside, I respect people's opinion on Refusal. But I myself adhere to Garrus' "Ruthless Calculus of War".

Kill a race, stop the cycle, save the next cycle from the tears and pain of a Reaper war. Is it genocide? Yes. Does the whole galactic civilization agree with this? In my opinion, it'd be split, but I have a feeling that the majority of the organic races would opt to survival over a long extinction war that is filled to the brim with robot zombies and indoctrinated family and friends.

 Shepard can't win without sacrificing a pound of flesh. It was alluded to in Mass Effect 1 and 2. Especially in Mass Effect 2. Am I desperate? Yes. This is survival, not war. In war of a survival one must make sacrifices that under normal circumstances would brand one as a war criminal. (like when Shepard killed those 300,000 Batarians) Is it cold hearted? Yes.

For me, after the events of Arrival, it changed from overcoming the odds to stopping the Reapers at any cost. this was present in a subtle degree for both Mass Effect 2 and 1. Shepard sacrifices a squadmate on Virmire. Shepard damns either the Council or a sizeable portion of an Alliance fleet during the Battle of the Citadel. Shepard and friends nearly sacrifice themselves stopping the Collectors. (they called it a suicide mission). Shepard sacrifices nearly 300,000 Batarian and an entire solar system in Arrival.

Mass Effect 3 ups the ante. This is all or nothing. The developers alluded to damning entire civilizations before Mass Effect 3 came out.

I'd feel incredibly bad about killing off the entire Geth network,But I spared trillions of other lives as a result of my renegade action. Is it genocide yes? But then when faced with extinction, I think many races would opt to survive by whatever means necessary.

That was my reasoning for choosing destroy. However, it is not the best nor the right option, due to the fact that many people have chosen different endings based on their own interpretations over the Mass Effect series. For some it was overcoming the odds when stacked up against you. For others, it was stopping the Reapers at all costs on whatever terms are avaliable.

I believed in overcoming the odds as well. That is, until the events of the Arrival told me that this is no longer against all odds anymore. The Reapers are here. This is survival on a galactic level.

Modifié par TrollDemon, 04 juillet 2012 - 07:24 .

[carrmatt91]

TrollDemon wrote...

Kind of ironic....dying free, when a lot more people are going to end up indoctrinated.

All kidding aside, I respect people's opinion on Refusal. But I myself adhere to Garrus' "Ruthless Calculus of War".

Kill a race, stop the cycle, save the next cycle from the tears and pain of a Reaper war. Is it genocide? Yes. Does the whole galactic civilization agree with this? In my opinion, it'd be split, but I have a feeling that the majority of the organic races would opt to survival over a long extinction war that is filled to the brim with robot zombies and indoctrinated family and friends.

 Shepard can't win without sacrificing a pound of flesh. It was alluded to in Mass Effect 1 and 2. Especially in Mass Effect 2. Am I desperate? Yes. This is survival, not war. In war of a survival one must make sacrifices that under normal circumstances would brand one as a war criminal. (like when Shepard killed those 300,000 Batarians) Is it cold hearted? Yes.

For me, after the events of Arrival, it changed from overcoming the odds to stopping the Reapers at any cost. this was present in a subtle degree for both Mass Effect 2 and 1. Shepard sacrifices a squadmate on Virmire. Shepard damns either the Council or a sizeable portion of an Alliance fleet during the Battle of the Citadel. Shepard and friends nearly sacrifice themselves stopping the Collectors. (they called it a suicide mission). Shepard sacrifices nearly 300,000 Batarian and an entire solar system in Arrival.

Mass Effect 3 ups the ante. This is all or nothing. The developers alluded to damning entire civilizations before Mass Effect 3 came out.

I'd feel incredibly bad about killing off the entire Geth network,But I spared trillions of other lives as a result of my renegade action. Is it genocide yes? But then when faced with extinction, I think many races would opt to survive by whatever means necessary.

That was my reasoning for choosing destroy. However, it is not the best nor the right option, due to the fact that many people have chosen different endings based on their own interpretations over the Mass Effect series. For some it was overcoming the odds when stacked up against you. For others, it was stopping the Reapers at all costs on whatever terms are avaliable.

I believed in overcoming the odds as well. That is, until the events of the Arrival told me that this is no longer against all odds anymore. The Reapers are here. This is survival on a galactic level.

the funny thing is, even though shepard killed 300000 people in arrival, the only reason he was 'arrested' was to keep the batarians from getting him, the alliance was on shepards side 100%, necessary sacrifice, well probably not udina.

[Nuclear Pete]

The Angry One wrote...

aMytallica wrote...

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

Because we're choosing to fight the one perpetrating this genocide instead of helping it.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Shepard is not ultimately deciding the fate of billions here, the Catalyst is.

The catalyst isn't deciding anythng. It's up to Shep to make a decision on how best to end the reaper threat.

By refusing to use the catalyst, Shep IS dooming this cycle to death by reaper.

[Reptilian Rob]

Nuclear Pete wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

aMytallica wrote...

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

Because we're choosing to fight the one perpetrating this genocide instead of helping it.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Shepard is not ultimately deciding the fate of billions here, the Catalyst is.

The catalyst isn't deciding anythng. It's up to Shep to make a decision on how best to end the reaper threat.

By refusing to use the catalyst, Shep IS dooming this cycle to death by reaper.

Not to mention the next cycle uses the Crucuble, making our cycle's fight completely pointless. 

And really, it's not hard to understand that the Catalyst is a ****ing proxy.

Modifié par Reptilian Rob, 04 juillet 2012 - 07:39 .

[The Angry One]

Nuclear Pete wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

aMytallica wrote...

You can talk about not wanting to commit and act of genocide by sacrificing the geth and EDI, but refusing leaves you sacrificing billions in the current cycle, as well as potentially risking countless cycles after. All those deaths are on your hands no matter which way you look at it. You're choosing an option knowing that everyone will die. How can that be preferable to actually making a choice and actively fighting to preserve as much life as possible?

Because we're choosing to fight the one perpetrating this genocide instead of helping it.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Shepard is not ultimately deciding the fate of billions here, the Catalyst is.

The catalyst isn't deciding anythng. It's up to Shep to make a decision on how best to end the reaper threat.

By refusing to use the catalyst, Shep IS dooming this cycle to death by reaper.

The Catalyst has determined 3 options and presented them to you, and is giving you an ultimatum. These or death.

And please, don't tell me the Catalyst doesn't have a hand in them. It contradicts itself on the nature of the Crucible ("the Crucble has changed me ..... the Crucible is little more than a power source."), it flat out admits that it wants synthesis and has tried it before.

Why would organics design a device to do exactly what their enemy wants to do? Too suspicious for me, sorry.

[The Angry One]

Reptilian Rob wrote...

Not to mention the next cycle uses the Crucuble, making our cycle's fight completely pointless.

Twitter canon is an oxymoron.

And really, it's not hard to understand that the Catalyst is a ****ing proxy.

For what? The Catalyst is the creator and controller of the Reapers. It is not a proxy.
After all, the Crucible is a power source.

[shodiswe]

Why DIE free when people can live free?!?

[carrmatt91]

The Angry One wrote...

Reptilian Rob wrote...

Not to mention the next cycle uses the Crucuble, making our cycle's fight completely pointless.

Twitter canon is an oxymoron.

And really, it's not hard to understand that the Catalyst is a ****ing proxy.

For what? The Catalyst is the creator and controller of the Reapers. It is not a proxy.
After all, the Crucible is a power source.

the people who made the catalyst designed the reapers, the catalyst merely used them.

"my creators gave them form, i gave them purpose"

the catalyst is basically a glorified male avina to me.

[Reptilian Rob]

The Angry One wrote...

Reptilian Rob wrote...

Not to mention the next cycle uses the Crucuble, making our cycle's fight completely pointless.

Twitter canon is an oxymoron.

And really, it's not hard to understand that the Catalyst is a ****ing proxy.

For what? The Catalyst is the creator and controller of the Reapers. It is not a proxy.
After all, the Crucible is a power source.

Opposed to say...In game canon where there are plans for the Crucible being viewed on a screen? Unless you think illogically backwards there is only one way to take that, at face value. Unless you like speculating (hurrdy durrdy)

No, the Catalyst is a proxy. He cannot make the choice, you have to. By that simple fact he is a proxy of the Crucible and the Citadel. He is acutally a duel proxy (like a switch modem) in that he controls the flow of the Reapers but has no control on the fate (current flow in modem terms) of said Reapers, only their actions. He's nothing more than a facy "What do" button.

Modifié par Reptilian Rob, 04 juillet 2012 - 07:47 .

[Gorkan86]

The Angry One wrote...
For what? The Catalyst is the creator and controller of the Reapers. It is not a proxy.
After all, the Crucible is a power source.

Catalyst said this to you, and you believe him?

[Moirai]

So, should Admiral Hackett be court marshalled for sacrificing the entire Second Fleet to save the Fifth and Sixth Fleets..?

Well, no. Because Hackett is military and understands that in war it is sometimes necessary to make strategic decisions in dire situations that require terrible solutions. But you make those decisions, when necessary, because it provides those that are left with the best tactical chance for survival.

With regards to the Refuse ending I think that people are, understandably, trying to apply basic Joe Public personal values to a situation in which they have no place.

You are not being compromised by fear by choosing Destroy over Refuse. You are making a sane strategic decision based on available information that potentially gives everyone the best chance for survival. In a situation of that magnitude, where the lives of everyone in the galaxy hang in the balance, your personal values do not take center stage. To think that they are so important as to potentially outweight the lives of the entire galaxy is egotistical, stupid and arguable morally repugnant in itself.

Shepard is career military. He or she has a duty to protect and defend those who cannot protect or defend themselves. They are duty bound to that ideal. And, yes, like any good commander, they should be basically guided by their own ethical ruleset and try to make decisions based on it. However, a good military commander also understands when his or her personal values have been invalidated by the situation and is prepared to do what is necessary and make that really tough unpalatable decision to acquire the best tactical result.

If you want to choose Refuse purely because you personally like the scenario better, then fine. But I do not believe, in any way shape or form, that it represents the moral highground that some people appear to have convinced themselves of over Destroy.

As it is, even with the Refuse ending there will eventually be deliberate and terrible sacrifices made. It will happen as fighting becomes more and more desperate. Even the Protheans started to sacrifice whole worlds just to try and slow the Reapers down. You are simply trading one sacrifice for many.

Avoiding sacrificing the Geth may make your Shepard feel better about themselves personally, at that particular moment. But the actual cost of that brief feel good moment is truly obscene...

Modifié par Moirai, 04 juillet 2012 - 09:35 .

[Oldbones2]

DEATHSCOPE wrote...

Oldbones2 wrote...

DEATHSCOPE wrote...

Sorry, the first point really got to me.

The Japanese were not in danger of being wiped out to the last man, woman, and child. With enough casualties, they would surrender. The races of the galaxy were not so fortunate. They cannot surrender. It was either fight or die. Sacrifice one race, save the rest.

I'm going to make a leap here and guess you are referring to the decision to use atomic weapons on Japan during WW2.


First off, that's sort of a muddy issue, since there were some who absolutely would fight to their last breath against the invaders.  If you had any idea of the superiority complex their propaganda gave them back then, you would know this.

Secondly, while there were of course, some Japanese who would surrender, and further some who didn't want to fight at all, they weren't going to be given a choice.  Their government was pretty adamant that their strategy would net them victory or let them die with honor.  (The unfortunate truth being that if they cost us enough lives, the Allies may very well have accepted a ceasefire.  Don't believe me, that's the entire reason the British allowed the Colonies to rebel, it simply cost too much to keep them when troops were needed elsewhere.)

You're talking like the Japanese government could keep control over ALL of their people. Forcing them to fight when they did not want to. I know that they were a military state but that's just not feasible. Some will surrender, the people and their culture will live on.

Thirdly, if the Japanese were so eager to surrender, I rather think they would have done it when we hit them the first time with a city destroying, god-fire weapons and proved once and for all that we were not BLUFFING, when we said we could wipe them off the map without a problem.

Good to know. I never said that they wouldn't surrender.

Instead, they kept refusing for three whole days.... until we hit them again.  At that point it was pretty clear, that fighting us was pointless and stupid.   THEN Japan surrendered.


Now lets take this analogy and flip it on its head.


Was winning the war this way worth it?

At the point in which we dropped the bomb, Japan's empire was pretty much done, even if we never invaded, their resource poor country, now deprived of many of its young men were pretty much screwed anyway.

It wasn't going to be a threat for many, many years.

Albert Einstein laid the foundation for the atomic bomb.  His science unveiled the possibility of such weapons, and his direct appeal to Roosevelt implemented their creation.


Albert Einstein said this 'I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to
President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was
some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them.'

For Einstein, the cost of winning the war with Japan (and I mean WINNING, not signing a treaty, an armistice, or a cessation of hostilities) was far too high. 


There are some acts so great and terrible they scar the very souls of all those involved.  Some acts that we can never undo, never atone for, never repair.  Acts that go beyond any conflict, acts that damn the very soul.


So if the choice is between doing what is morally and objectively wrong but keeps you alive, or doing what is right and dying with honor and freedom.... well, I like to think I'd pick the later.

When your entire race is near annihilation and extinction, you might think differently. Atrocities are always committed in war, never forget that.

Spoken like someone who has never had to commit one.

Spare me the flippant tone and casual disregard for life.  I wouldn't expect someone who references an event in World War 2, but knows next to nothing about it to have much insight into .....well anything really.

[ImperatorMortis]

So having every single person of every advanced species die is somehow more "OK" than having every member of a single "race" of machines die?

"What insane breed of logic is that?" - Lorik Qui'in

shodiswe wrote...

Why DIE free when people can live free?!?

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

THIS

Modifié par ImperatorMortis, 04 juillet 2012 - 02:05 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

ImperatorMortis wrote...

So having every single person of every advanced species die is somehow more "OK" than having every member of a single "race" of machines die?

"What insane breed of logic is that?" - Lorik Qui'in

shodiswe wrote...

Why DIE free when people can live free?!?

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

THIS

It's the "we're in this together" logic, and because some of us just don't want to throw our allies under the proverbial bus.