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 - 07:02 .
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hold on to the handles and control the reapers!
