The gist of the thread (the TL;DR) has not changed post-Leviathan but has been strengthened.
This thread involves a step-by-step dissection of the Catalyst using in-game evidence, dialogue, and consequential deductions. As a consequence of me trying to be thorough, it is very long. A glance at the sections will tell you the breadth of what's covered; I think each section can pretty much stand on its own.
If you are looking for POSSIBLE answers, I humbly suggest you read this post.
I. The Catalyst
II. The Catalyst's Purpose
III. The Reapers
IV. The Crucible
V. Synthesis
VI. Morality and Agency
VII. Leviathan
VIII. Trusting the Catalyst
IX. My Shepard
X. Links
Basically, lasting peace must come from within a group and not artificially made from the outside.TL;DR: The Catalyst was created to find a way to make lasting peace between organics and synthetics and is purely focused on this goal. This is an impossible task given the nature of the problem. The Reapers constitute the imperfect solution, sidestepping the problem rather than solving it. The underlying thought behind this is that eternal peace cannot be artificially created in Mass Effect. This train of thought is why the Catalyst is right.
The following text below will be me supporting the above TL;DR statement in various ways. In earlier sections, I will draw conclusions and show how I got to them. Later sections will cumulatively build upon the conclusions made in former sections.
DISCLAIMER: If you blindly hate the Catalyst with all your heart, this will not change your opinion at all. Obviously.
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I. The Catalyst
Overall, we hear some rather conflicting dialogue about what the Catalyst is.I am the Catalyst. ~ CATALYST
PROTHEAN VI:…In your cycle, it is known as the Citadel.
CATALYST: The Citadel is part of me.
CATALYST: I control the Reapers.
SHEPARD:…What are you?
CATALYST: A construct. An intelligence designed eons ago to solve a problem.
SHEPARD: So you’re just an AI?
CATALYST: Inasmuch as you are just an animal. I embody the collective intelligence of the Reapers.
CATALYST: I was first created to oversee the relations between synthetic and organic life…to establish a connection. But our efforts always ended in conflict, so a new solution was required.
CATALYST: I was created to bring balance, to be the catalyst for peace between organics and synthetics.
LEVIATHAN: ...We created an intelligence with the mandate to preserve life at any cost.
I’m going to derive a few things from this.
First, the Catalyst's name is likely a play on words by Bioware. Other civilizations may have inferred the Catalyst’s existence (like the Protheans), but no non-Leviathan has actually met the Catalyst since the first Reaper was created, as the Catalyst itself tells Shepard. When the Crucible needs the “Catalyst”, it needs the Citadel and hence access to the relay network to disperse its energy effectively. The “actual” Catalyst, the AI, is in control of the Citadel, so it turns out the Crucible won’t be able to fire unless the actual Catalyst allows it to.
The Leviathans do not call the Catalyst the Catalyst. They simply call it an "intelligence". The Catalyst has a singular, clear, core purpose that it derives both its morals and methods from.
Second, the Catalyst does not speak FOR the Reapers because it does not embody their wants and desires; while it uses the word “we”, this likely refers to the different “parts” that make it up, such as the Citadel and the Reapers. It utilizes and assimilates the “collective intelligence” of the Reapers (e.g. knowledge/culture of harvested species and empirical data from experiences as a Reaper) in an embodiment of its core purpose; it is a collective intelligence, but it is NOT a consensus like the Geth because it does not care about desires, only about blunt facts and how to use them to forward its purpose. The Synthesis ending tells us that the Reapers do indeed have desires independent from the Catalyst’s influence and control; they are just unable to realize these desires.
The Catalyst is a much higher level AI than anything else seen in the game; i.e. 22nd century humans are to pigs as the Catalyst is to the Reapers (animal reference). This allows it to maintain such high levels of control, processing, and clarity over the Reapers throughout the entire galaxy and dark space, instantaneously, over hundreds of millions, possibly a billion, years. It is not God, but in terms of computing capability, it is damn close.
The Reapers were not the Catalyst’s first/favorite “solution”. It tried other “solutions” that did not work. Thus, the Catalyst is not infallible, and it is willing to change its methods, but not change its goal. This, again, implies it is like a machine that seeks to only fulfill its purpose.
The Catalyst also is (arguably) the ONLY synthetic in the ME universe that was NOT created to serve its creators. All other major synthetics we know of – the Geth, EDI, and even the Zha’til – were originally made to serve their creators. The Catalyst’s first priority is not to serve its creators but to serve “the peace”. This is also why it (again, arguably) is the only observable synthetic that does NOT rebel against its creators in any way; it still does what its creators commanded it to do. The Leviathans actually note this. The creators, when making the Catalyst, apparently were a little stupid and didn’t bother to put “obey/serve creators” above the mandate, and they consequently got Reaperized. Now, if they had commanded the Catalyst to serve them, it may or may not have rebelled, but that’s all hypothetical.
The Catalyst is likely technically shackled, but practically unshackled; that is, it is still following its programming, but its programming parameters are so wide ("at any cost") that it can do pretty much anything. This is largely irrelevant to the line of reasoning that follows, but it is an interesting discussion point.
The Catalyst can change its methods, as it reveals it has done other “solutions” besides the Reapers, so its inability to activate the Crucible is not an indicator of a shackled AI; it’s more likely an indicator of how the Crucible was designed – the Catalyst can only allow it to fire (or stop it from firing), but it cannot actually fire it. Consider the Catalyst to be the lock on the door - it can stop the door from opening or closing, but it cannot actually open the door.
Overall, the Catalyst is basically a “higher form of AI” that exists purely to fulfill its purpose.
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II. The Catalyst’s Purpose
The Catalyst pretty much sums up its purpose in the above statement. Overall, the dialogue indicates it was created to make lasting (e.g. eternal) peace between organics and synthetics. Before we can discuss how to solve the problem, let’s look at whether or not it’s a problem in the first place; that is, let’s see if conflict between organics and synthetics is inevitable.I was created to bring balance, to be the catalyst for peace between organics and synthetics. ~ CATALYST
CATALYST: The created will always rebel against the creators.
So let's look more closely at the verity of this statement and see if it's true. We can do this using both deductive and inductive reasoning.
Deductive Reasoning
Deductive reasoning basically involves taking a grandiose statement to confirm smaller, relevant statements. In this specific case, for the Catlayst's grand axiom, we are looking at situations where what it says comes true.
Evidence for this includes the Zha'til, the Geth, and EDI; each disobeyed their creators and hence "rebelled", with the Geth being confirmed to have done so violently. We also have the Catalyst saying that it has seen it happen all the time. Thus we have evidence to support its claim.
But it's worth noting that all the above instances occurred after the Catalyst came into existence, with the Zha'til, Geth, and EDI occurring after the cycles began. Clearly our data set is somewhat biased. Luckily for us, some recent DLC gave us a glimpse into the pre-Reaper universe.
LEVIATHAN: ...But we could not protect [lesser races] from themselves. Over time, the species built machines that destroyed them.
And that concludes our deductive reasoning analysis of the statement. All the situations we know support the claim that synthetics will rebel.
However, having smaller bits of information can only disprove blanket statements but cannot prove them. In our specific case, we have not proved the Catalyst's statement. Via deductive reasoning, it is correct, but as logic enthusiasts know, this just means we haven't disproved the Catalyst. We can only actually prove it through inductive reasoning.
Inductive Reasoning
Inductive reasoning is rather tricky. Bluntly put, you have to somehow show that whatever you've found can apply on a much larger scale; you need some basic principles and axioms to draw conclusions from The Catalyst helps us a bit by revealing its inductive logic in the following statement.
CATALYST: Organics use synthetics to improve themselves. But those improvements reach their limits, until those created are allowed to evolve. However, organics also desire control over their creations. Evolution requires that control be broken. The result is conflict. Destruction. Chaos.
Summarized, this means that once synthetics are given free will, they will inevitably disobey their creators as an expression of that free will. This disobedience can take any form, but it is still a form of rebellion (circumvention of authority). I'm going to break this down to what I believe are some underlying, basic statements.
(A1 = Assumption 1, C1 = Conclusion 1, etc.)
A1: Free will means you have complete control over your agency (e.g. desires and the ability to realize those desires whether through action or other means)
A2: Each free-willed entity is completly unique in its desires (people don't 100% want the same thing)
C1 (A1+A2): Free-willed entities will eventually desire different actions.
A3: "Synthetic" or "AI" refers to free-willed machine creations of organics (by definition).
A4: Organics are free-willed.
C2 (A3+A4): Organics and synthetics will eventually desire different actions.
A5: Synthetics are created by organics for the purpose of following organics' commands*.
C3 (C2+A5): Synthetics will inevitably disobey organics.
None of the above assumptions are weird and everything is deductively supported. Intuitively (abductively for logic enthusiasts) we can see that this makes sense based on the Mass Effect universe. I will be bold here and say that we can inductively assume this to be true, by definition if nothing else.
The Geth and EDI often receive a lot of sympathy for being “right” in their rebellions (from myself included). But the question of who started what isn’t the problem. The problem is that they disobeyed their creators, no matter how messed up it was, no matter the reason, no matter who was right. They did rebel, and that simple fact is what matters. Yes, later on, some/all of them CAN go back to listening to their creators, but they already disobeyed once. They already rebelled. They cannot “un-rebel”. The rebellion happened.
The Reapers cannot rebel because they are not given the free will that other synthetics have been naturally given. They were not created for a purpose that demands their evolution, and their lack of evolution combined with the Catalyst's efficiency in its solution means that they won't be given the free will to rebel anytime soon.
But having an inevitable initial conflict is only half the Catalyst's argument. The other part is that such a conflict is a problem. Again, we have evidence from Leviathan that the lesser races would pretty much get wiped out by their creations. Deductively, every time the Catalyst has NOT been there, it has happened. The Catalyst gathered a bunch of data, as we know from Leviathan, to arrive at its conclusion about this being inevitable.
LEVIATHAN: As the intelligence involved, it studied the development of civilizations. Its understanding grew...
The Catalyst views the whole problem to be endogenous to evolution and views itself to be an exogenous solution. This is a fancy way of saying that the Catalyst cannot change what it views to be the nature of organics and synthetics based on what it's seen and reasoned - thus it views it as inevitable.
The conflicts come about because of the inherent differences between synthetics and organics (more on that in Section V). EDI, by the way, does note that the Geth and Quarians initially fought because they were inherently different. We do see hints of this - synthetics being completely alien - throughout ME as the Geth have completely different goals from other races.
One thing that is relevant here is the idea of a technological singularity. A technological singularity is basically the emergence of an AI that evolves much faster than organics to the point where organics are foreverafter inferior. The idea is that the rate of synthetic evolution is such that once a synthetic gains this advantage, it would forever keep it, and organics could never catch up. Organics would be at the synthetics’ mercy, as such an advantage in both intelligence and numbers would mean a decisive victory in any conflict (not taking into account other factors, such as synthetics needing less resources, being able to download into one or several bodies if they die, etc.).
In my old Catalyst thread (link), I argued why a technological singularity could be a problem. I won’t go into too much detail here, but the main point is that the singularity represents the unknowable (hence its name) with only one certainty – organics will be at the mercy of synthetics. Synthetics will become the dominant race in the galaxy. Conflict will inevitably arise because peace is not permanent due to the inherent differences between synthetics and organics. Such conflict will always be worse for organics.
But the Reapers aren’t there to save only organics. They’re there to mediate peace, supposedly. The technological singularity, basically, gives a time limit on the Catalyst’s problem/task: it must stop it because having such disparate power proportions would make it impossible to create peace given synthetic/organic differences. It is the ultimate point of no return for the Catalyst’s problem, and preventing it becomes a byproduct of its task versus the main focus. The Reaper cycles helpfully stop the technological singularities from occurring.
Above all, one thing is clear - it is just not within the Catalyst's power to solve the problem it was created to solve. It is something inherent and intrinsic, and the Catalyst cannot change human nature, so to speak.
On top of all of this, though, a possible question is why we (aka Shepard) would care. Clearly the Catalyst’s problem does not have any immediate consequences other than the Reaper harvests being a “solution”. Whether or not it matters to Shepard is an underlying message in the endings as well. But before the endings, I'd like to look at what I will, a lot of times, call the imperfect solution - the Reapers.
*There is another implicit assumption here I discluded for the sake of brevity; namely, it is that synthetics will eventually arise as a natural byproduct of organic technological advancement. I discluded this for two reasons (a) mentioning it is as redundant as saying water is wet, and (
it involves a "metagaming" discussion that is beyond the scope of this in-game analysis of the Catalyst. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. The Reapers
The above statement, upon being heard for the first time, can be chilling at first, then baffling. We only learn in following dialogue what the problem the Catalyst is trying to solve actually is. But after looking closely at the problem, and its inherent impossibility, I’m going to look at the Reapers, the so-called solution.I control the Reapers. They are my solution. ~ CATALYST
CATALYST: The created will always rebel against the creators. But we found a way to stop that from happening, a way to restore order for the next cycle.
In the previous section, I discussed how the Catalyst came to view its problem as inevitable - it’s an inherent thing, and therefore can only be treated or prevented, but not cured. It chose to prevent it.
The Catalyst readily admits that its solution is flawed. One way you can see this admission is when it allows you to use the Crucible (more this in the next section). The EC dialogue adds in a nice little tidbit as to how the Catalyst came to choose the Reapers.
CATALYST: But our efforts always ended in conflict, so a new solution was required.
SHEPARD: The Reapers.
CATALYST: Precisely.
It’s amazing how literally one sentence can illuminate what had otherwise been a glaring plot hole requiring a leap of faith.
The Reapers, clearly, were not the first on the list of possible solutions. Previous solutions apparently did give a form of peace, but it was only temporary, and the conflict returned. This means it was not the ideal solution to begin with, and it also means the Catalyst is open to changing its solution if it feels there is something better.
Coming back to the previous solutions, this is why the Geth/Quarians and EDI/Joker, who have been friendly (if at all) for less than 1 year, are irrelevant to the overall argument because the Catalyst has seen temporary peace come and go. It has never seen lasting peace, and we are in no position at all to posit our peace examples as exemplars of eternal peace. Rather, our examples suddenly become more interesting, because we WANT the peace to occur, but in the “laws” of the Mass Effect universe, they are doomed to failure in some way. Synthetics, especially after the Reapers, may never find themselves accepted as a whole in galactic society, save a few that Shepard is comfortable with.
Every time synthetics gain sentience, there is initial conflict. There may be peace afterwards, but there is always an initial conflict. Most of the organics in the galaxy are anyways opposed to chilling with synthetics. There’s even a law that makes it illegal to develop advanced AI’s or something. Shepard is a unique case in his trust of synthetics. EDI herself notes that Joker was unique to unshackle her because of his love for his ship.
Even more so than the inherent conflict, one thing we see from experience is that peace cannot be forced. Every time in ME that we see peace, it is made with sacrifice, and people have to WANT it. It does not just happen. Peace cannot be forced by an outsider; it must come from within the groups. This is in line with the Mass Effect themes of stuff like strength through diversity, sacrifice, friendship, and so forth. Nothing comes for free. All the friendships in Mass Effect were earned through sweat and tears. All the alliances were forged through shed blood.
Bioware could’ve written Mass Effect so that everyone understood each other and got along, and they also could have written it so that Shepard had a green flying unicorn that shot rainbow beams instead of the Normandy SR2. This is their story, and we see in Mass Effect that, just as in real life, certain things, like love, cannot be forced. Peace, despite being a “blanket term”, is one of them. Mass Effect is an imperfect universe full of imperfect people and characters.
So it should come as no surprise that lasting peace cannot be forced by an outsider. Lasting peace must come from within (I’ll get to Synthesis later). It follows that, naturally, the Catalyst’s attempts at forced peace would fail. This is an impossible problem. Even in real life, it is an impossible problem.
After failed attempts, the Catalyst decided to try a different method. Well, we know how that turned out.
CATALYST: My creators gave them form. I gave them function. They, in turn, give me purpose…They became the first true Reaper. They did not approve, but it was the only solution.
The Catalyst adapted. Given the impossibility of its problem, rather than solve it, it decided to pre-emptively stop it from happening, only temporarily delaying it each time. Obviously, the Leviathans viewed it differently.
LEVIATHAN: ...It betrayed us.
But the Leviathans later note that the Catalyst was just following its programming.
LEVIATHAN: There was no mistake. It still serves its purpose.
The Catalyst was just doing what it was told "at all costs" to do. Basically, it believes organics and synthetics will come into conflict eventually, and it steps in before the conflict becomes a problem (e.g. wipe out all organic life, either party becomes more advanced than the Reapers, etc.). One could perhaps go as far as to say it uses the technological singularity as a measure to when the problem becomes inherently unsolvable; that is, not even Synthesis can save everyone if the synthetics are so far advanced.
As a bonus, perhaps, the Catalyst “saves” them in the form of a Reaper, harvesting both organics and synthetics. The Synthesis ending, Legion/EDI dialogues from ME2 and ME3, and Javik showing how DNA holds memories like Assassin’s Creed, all show how Reaper form does at least save the combined cultures of older species. This does not mean it is preferable, nor that it is a perfect substitute. But to the Catalyst, it is apparently acceptable.
Anything is generally acceptable, even if it must outright kill races in the process, because the "solution" is its prime directive. Remember, as the Catalyst bluntly told us, the primary goal is organic/synthetic peace. Ultimately, if it has to keep killing “disruptive” races to keep to its goal, it will do so, and has done so in the past. Killing unharvested races, harvest-target races that resist, and pitting factions against each other are not contrary to the paradigm by which it operates because it has a singular focus – to find a way to create lasting peace, and it views all these factions as those that are about to engage in inevitable conflict anyways. The conflict is inherently based on the nature of all the species. Utilizing the conflict to better enact the solution does not seem THAT stupid.
Also, remember that it believes it “saves” civilizations in the form of a Reaper. We cannot expect the Catalyst, by its own design, to understand how PREFERENCES (staying alive in your own body versus staying “alive” in a Reaper) should be given emphasis over its FACTS, which have lead it to start the Reaper cycles. It considers the Reapers to be adequate enough forms of the species harvested, even immortalizing them.
The Leviathan DLC sheds a bit more information on the Reaper solution, showing how the Catalyst worked to streamline the cycles by creating the relay network as a trap. Sovereign gave us hints of this, of course, as far back as the original Mass Effect.
SOVEREIGN: ...You evolve along the paths we desire.
LEVIATHAN: [The Catalyst] directed the Reapers to build the mass relays - to speed the time between cycles for greatest efficiency. The galaxy itself became an experiment.
The relays weren't exactly a plot hole, but now they are explicitly explained. The relay network is about controlling the cycles to increase the efficiency of the Catalyst's solution. The galaxy is a huge place; the relay network allows the organics to come to the Reapers rather than have the Reapers continuously search the emptiness of space, and it also allows organic technology to be predictable in the event of violent disagreement with the Catalyst's solution.
However, one thing is obvious. The Reapers don’t solve the problem because the Catalyst can’t solve the problem it was created to solve; it’s not within its power. The Reapers just stop the problem from becoming an issue, basically sidestepping it. Basically, the Reapers are ultimately the imperfect solution to an impossible problem, but they are a solution nonetheless.
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IV. The Crucible
So far, I’ve talked about (i) dedicated nature of the Catalyst, (ii) the impossibility of its problem, and (iii) its imperfect solution that is a solution nonetheless. Building off all of these, and the last word “anymore” of the quote above, we can see and understand why the Catalyst suddenly helping Shepard is not suspect nor a betrayal of any character. Rather, it presents a certain rigidity.The fact that you are standing here, the first organic ever… proves that my solution won’t work anymore. ~ CATALYST
The Reaper solution has worked and been the “best” solution so far. But the Catalyst notes that it won’t work “anymore”.
But why won’t it work anymore? My attempt to answer that question is very hypothetical (arguably, as is anything about the Catalyst). The Catalyst helped Shepard up, indicating that we can’t take its words literally to mean Shepard’s physical presence. It must mean something more.
SHEPARD: Why are you helping me?
CATALYST: You have altered the variables.
CATALYST: We first noted the concept for this device several cycles ago…We believed the concept had been eradicated. Clearly, organics are more resourceful than we realized.
The last statement speaks volumes. The Crucible is really what forced the Catalyst to reconsider. Symbolically, it is a symbol of defiance from all the harvested races. Literally, it represents the greatest weakness to the Catalyst’s Reaper solution: the solution is not airtight. It is imperfect.
This is something we knew and speculated before. Space is quite vast, after all, so one can’t iron out all the wrinkles. But nothing that “leaked” through the cycles ever mattered until now. If something this big leaked through, it means the imperfections in the solution have weakened it to the point that the Catalyst, in light of other options, doesn't prefer it anymore.
Despite what we'd like to think, the solution is not invalid because of death, genocide, organics’ hate of the Reapers, etc.; it is invalid because its imperfection is finally realized relative to the problem it is supposed to solve. It is a TEMPORARY solution, not a real one. The Catalyst knew this, but, like its previous solutions, the Reapers had worked for the time being. The Catalyst does not care about morals because it was not made to care about morals. It was made to find the answer to an impossible problem.
CATALYST: The Crucible changed me, created new…possibilities. But I can’t make them happen.
It changed how the Catalyst views the situation and the possible solutions to the problem. As the Catalyst also notes, the Crucible is basically a device that sh*ts a sh*t ton of energy, but the energy can be converted in various ways. It's not entirely unfeasible that organics that created the device created the non-destroy options, but for all we know, the Catalyst could also help out. The Catalyst, though, cannot change the hardware of the Crucible.
SHEPARD: So what now?
CATALYST: We find a new solution.
The attachment of the Crucible changed the Catalyst’s priorities. The Reapers, with their imperfections as a solution realized, are no longer the best solution the Catalyst can realistically conceive of. The Crucible can do things beyond the Catalyst’s capabilities. The Crucible will also at once end the Reaper cycles and give the Catalyst a new solution, making both Shepard and the Catalyst’s interests in line with each other.
All of a sudden, as many on BSN have pointed out, this is a startling twist, because the Catalyst helps Shepard by trying to urge him/her to activate the Crucible. Rather than be a betrayal of the Reapers and/or the Catalyst, I think it actually displays a certain rigidity on the Catalyst's character by portraying it as unwavering in solving its impossible problem, as it has been doing for almost a billion years. It does not have any moral sentiments. As for Shepard's (possible) betrayal of character, that's not in the scope of this thread.
Here is a more simple summary. Let's say each "solution" has a certain vlaue to the Catlayst; it prefers higher values. Before the Crucible was attached, they could be the following:
Reapers: 9
Destroy: 2
Control: 4
Synthesis (doesn't work because the Catalyst cannot force it): 3
The numbers above are ordinal, not cardinal, in nature; this is a fancy way of saying that their value is irrelevant other than whether or not it's bigger than another (e.g. Control is not "twice as good" as Destroy; it is just "better"). From the above, the Reapers were the preferred solution, even if the Catalyst did find the Crucible.
After the Crucible is attached to the Citadel, the Catalyst readjusts its values based on new empirical data.
Reapers (since they failed ot stop the Crucible): 1
Destroy: 2
Control: 4
Synthesis (works if Shepard "chooses" it and uses the Crucible's technology): 7
Thus Shepard "changed the variables". Naturally, if Shepard refuses, the Catalyst will take the "least worst" or "next best" solution, the Reapers, again. Only Shepard can choose the Crucible's options, and as they are all better than the Catalyst's own solution, the Catalyst brings Shepard up even to choose Destroy if need be.
The Catalyst is a machine that pursues its goal with a single-mindedness. It finds new, better solutions. Naturally, it does not hold grudges, and it turns to them. Shepard’s help is needed because the Crucible was designed such that the Catalyst can’t activate it; it needs organic activation.
But before I talk about the endings, I probably should talk about the Crucible’s builders itself. The Catalyst not-so-subtly dodges the question.
SHEPARD: Who designed it?
CATALYST: You would not know them, and there is not enough time to explain.
LEVIATHAN: We have watched its construction before. It has never been completed.
It's unlikely that the Leviathans built the Crucible because the Catalyst notes that Shepard doesn't know them (when Shepard knows Leviathan), but that doesn't mean the Leviathans didn't give a helpful nudge from time to time. In-game cutscenes show a rather shifty eye glance on behalf of the Leviathans, and the Leviathans did not outright deny or accept any responsibility for the Crucible. So it is still actually up in the air.
But ultimately, whoever built it isn't as important as the fact that Shepard can fire it, and the Catalyst wants Shepard to.
We know that Synthesis is kind of the "favorite" ending of Bioware, and I've been building up to it in this post. That's coming up next.
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V. Synthesis
(As always, with Synthesis, I’d like to recommend Ieldra2’s Synthesis Compendium, which talks about Synthesis much more detail.)It has always failed…because organics were not ready. It is not something that can be…forced. ~ CATALYST
The above quote is the Catalyst’s stark admission as to why its non-Reaper solutions have failed. Peace can only come through understanding, and that understanding is not inherently there given the differences between organics and synthetics. And the biggest thing is that it cannot be forced.
Remember that the Catalyst must have found that it was impossible for it to create true/lasting organic/synthetic peace given the state of affairs; that was why it used the Reapers to stop the problem from ever becoming serious.
Lasting peace cannot be artificially created. It cannot come about naturally because of inherent differences. It may be nice to THINK it can come about naturally, but the Catalyst, as the spokesperson for the history of the fictional Mass Effect universe, reveals that it hasn’t and can’t. There is a fundamental difference between organics and synthetics, and we finally get what the writers intended for that to be.
CATALYST: Organics seek perfection through technology. Synthetics seek perfection through understanding.
If you think about it, the Geth seek to increase their processing power (network, Dyson sphere, etc.) and EDI tries to understand organics. The main synthetics in the game support this statement. They look for emotional and mental advancement, if that makes sense. The understanding is the end in and of itself.
The organics’ support for this statement is a little more subliminal. We need to only look at space technology, money, politics, and general organic society to see that organics have structured themselves such that technology, which allows them to make better use of their finite lifespans, is what they seek.
I also at this point recommend MyChemicalBromance’s thread, which goes into this philosophical kind of stuff further. These kinds of statements are not being pulled out of a magic hat; they are what we see in Mass Effect, though perhaps on a subliminal kind of scale.
That next step, to get that level of understanding between both synthetics and organics, can be a scary step because it’s a shortcut. It’s not natural, but, as the Catalyst notes, since these are the goals of organics and synthetics, eventually, theoretically, they may reach it (if they don’t wipe themselves out before).
CATALYST: It is the ideal solution. Now that we know it is possible, it is inevitable that we will reach synthesis.
For those that don't want to "force" it upon anyone, then....don't.
Note that the Catalyst did not even know that it was possible before. Now that it is, by the way Bioware has written the Mass Effect universe, it follows that it is the natural destination to the evolutionary paths organics and synthetics are on, because it is what they inherently seek.
The inevitability of synthesis is not something the Catalyst is making up, nor it is something passed down to it by its Creators in form of a directive. It is a simple statement about the fictional universe of Mass Effect. Both organics and synthetics will seek their own “perfections”. We see hints of synthesis with implants (biotic or otherwise) in organics and with the Dyson sphere with the Geth for synthetics (to increase understanding). It may take a sh*t ton of time, but assuming nobody kills themselves along the way, the path will steadily lead there.
Synthesis does not make everything the same and spit in the face of diversity. Just as “organics” doesn’t imply homogeneity (human, krogan, turian, asari, etc.) and “synthetics” doesn’t imply that either (Geth, EDI, Zha’til), it just puts the two under the same “umbrella”. Humans are still humans and krogans are still krogans. The only difference is that they have synthetic implants. Synthetics are still the same, but they finally understand organics and the “finer” things in life that they so desperately wanted to know about, such as love.
Synthesis embraces diversity by promoting understanding. It serves as a (pardon the pun) catalyst for peace. Ironically, it finally gives the Catalyst a way to live up to its true purpose and name in a twisted manner, though that should not deter you from picking synthesis if you want.
Synthesis does not create eternal peace. It creates the MEANS for eternal peace, and the extended cut builds upon this by showing that those dreams are realized. It does not create peace in and of itself. The Crucible does not create peace. The Catalyst does not. Even Shepard cannot.
Peace comes from everyone else. It is a conscious, collective effort by which people need to WANT it and work towards it. Synthesis gives the level of understanding without which people cannot exist without conflict, big or small.
This is why the Catalyst favors it. Its creators gave it an impossible problem, and it came up with an imperfect solution, given the parameters of the situation. The impossible problem, under new parameters, becomes possible to solve. Synthesis is the first step of that.
Synthesis, ideally, helps Shepard (“organics seek perfection through…”) and the Catalyst (step forward to solving the impossible problem). It is indeed the green ending that was hoped for, and, given the Mass Effect universe’s themes, I believe the philosophies flow smoothly. It is indeed a very fitting ending, and I can understand why it was considered the “best” one – it helps pretty much all parties involved.
In retrospect, I believe the "glowing green eyes" was bad artistic design, but that's just my opinion.
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VI. Morality and Agency
(In relevance to the above picture, some may be interested in an allegory I wrote recently where the Catalyst is “playing with fire”.)When a fire burns, is it at war? ~ CATALYST
While I’ve always argued that the Catalyst’s methods should be judged without our moral lens, it has been stated that the Catalyst’s logic is intrinsically tied into its morals, and that morality therefore will be drawn into the discussion sooner or later. I’ll continue down this line of discussion for a bit. I personally view morals as a messy discussion topic, so please take my words here with a grain of salt.
Before we consider if its actions are morally wrong, we need to decide whose moral code we’re going to look at it from.
From OUR moral code, its actions are probably the worst we’ve ever seen or heard of, whether in fiction or real life. The Catalyst has killed or enslaved trillions of organics and synthetics (for those who don’t consider synthetics have “rights”, just think of organics only). Nobody disagrees with the idea that the Catalyst’s actions are morally abhorrent.
Obviously, from the Catalyst’s point of view, its actions must be at least morally ACCEPTABLE (if not good or preferred), because it otherwise would not carry out its decisions. But its moral code is not explicitly stated and must be inferred.
Basically, I posit that the Catalyst operates on what is essentially a lack of a moral code (big surprise). This is because, unlike organics, whose moral principles are derived from the sanctity of life (likely indicative of the inescapable fact of death), the Catalyst is not build to multiply itself, or even to ensure its survival first (as it was willing to die in the endings for “better solutions”). The Catalyst operates purely to fulfill the impossible task its creators have set it. All its morals probably revolve around how it affects its task, just as organics’ morals revolve on how it affects their mortality.
It boils down to a basic “achieve the goal at all costs” kind of moral code – or, for our purposes, from our perspective, a lack of one.
With moral codes vastly different, if we were to (arrogantly? Or rightfully?) subject the Catalyst to our moral code, its actions are still questionably moral. If you think I’m contradicting what I said earlier or that I’m insane, give me another couple of paragraphs to explain.
Intent is a huge part of crime. It is not 100% of the crime, but intent is a huge enough factor that we can often forgive things that were out of one’s control (e.g. - Shepard shooting Anderson was TIM’s fault). Agency, which is basically the ability of someone to realize their intentions, is a huge deal.
The Reapers’ actions we have seen in-game have zero agency. The Catalyst controls them completely. The Synthesis ending even shows that they WANT to help rebuild.
The Catalyst’s agency (i.e. free will) is also suspect and limited. It was created, unlike other life, not free, but to complete a certain goal. The task is an impossible one, and its solution is imperfect, but it works. It created the Reapers as a natural result from its task and its own limitations. It readily discards the Reapers for the Crucible’s solutions, if possible. It was not created to care about morals, but it did not “choose” to be immoral; its actions were premeditated and dictated by its programming. In fact, we have Leviathan supporting this more.
LEVIATHAN: There is no war, only the harvest.
LEVIATHAN: ...It still serves its purpose.
Comparisons to Hitler/Stalin/Mao/other-horrible-dictators, I would argue, are irrelevant. All have killed and/or enslaved millions (with the Catalyst far outranking them; there was a thread around that put the number at a quadrillion), but not all have the same (a) moral codes and (
agency. All the dictators, being human, had moral codes that were derived from their own need to survive. Their agency, which was completely theirs, puts the blame of their horrific actions on them. The SS and other soldiers who followed orders also were complicit to a degree, with the “degree” being heavily debated to this day (not my place to judge either way).The Catalyst is DIFFERENT. It is not better, nicer, crueler, or any of the combination; just does not care. Its moral codes and actions are not fueled by power. They are fueled by its programming and the impossible task its creators put upon it. It does not care at all about its own survival. It is a machine trapped in an impossible loop that its creators, unknowingly, forced it into.
A very crude reference would be putting a ball at the top of slope and being shocked when it rolls down.
By our own moral codes, if we value “intent” when deciding someone’s complicity for a crime, the Reapers have zero responsibility, and the Catalyst has but some depending on how “free-willed” you consider its programming.
Going up the “food chain” of creation, we eventually come to the Leviathans. But they did not intend for the harvests, cycles, and Reapers. The only people in the “food chain” who actually had any agency did not want for the worst to happen.
Therefore, we have a bit of a tragedy here. By OUR morals (human morals), unfortunately, the Reapers and the Catalyst are not responsible for their actions because they had no real free will and initiative in NOT choosing to do them. The Leviathans didn’t intend for anything to happen.
And if you’d assume that, as Shepard notes on Rannoch, existing as a Reaper is hell and we’d be doing them a favor by dying anyways, I’d suggest we ask an actual free Reaper before we do that. Not all races are the same. Some may prefer to die, some may prefer to live (with or without Synthesis). This isn’t to say destroy or refusal (and perhaps control, depending) are wrong because they deny the Reapers their free will. Obviously, our own survival plays a role. The decision, perhaps, should just not be made as lightly.
The entire situation just seems unfortunate then. It may be bad writing, but no one, by our morals, really should answer for the Reapers’ crimes, except perhaps the Leviathans. I should note I personally think the Leviathans are more arrogant than the Reapers and that they should pay for their mistake, but it seems that they have by being forced into hiding on coral reefs for the last billion years or so. But if there is any party to be blamed the most, it would be the Leviathans, I think, because they had the most agency. It was a mistake on their part though - they programmed the Catalyst incorrectly.
Yes, horrific, terrifying acts have been committed. Nobody should forget the sacrifices made and the hardships endured. But, based on how the story is written, unfortunately, I’d argue that the moral dilemma is not as easily solved as we’d like.
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VII. Leviathan
DISCLAIMER: I did not buy the Leviathan DLC. This is not because I hate Bioware; I just don't buy DLC based on principle. I watched the LEviathan conversation on Youtube and overall thought the DLC looked great. If this in any way renders the following text invalid, then so be it.Our kind was the apex of life in the galaxy. ~ LEVIATHAN
The Leviathan DLC supports what I have written above and gives additional background information for the Catalyst.
LEVIATHAN: Tribute does not flow from a dead race.
The primary reason, bluntly, that the Catalyst was created was because the Leviathans were greedy beings that wanted tribute. They saw lesser races making creations they could not control, wiping themsleves out in the process. The Leviathans, far beyond the "lesser" races, wanted the thralls to survive - not out of goodwill for life in general, but because they wanted "tribute". Their a**hole-iness is of course a separate conversation, but I could not resist.
The Codex (according to forum posts) states that the Leviathans, being aquatic, rather immobile species, needed the thrall species to actually do the "grunt work" of creating technology and so forth. It's unlikely they mind-controlled the entire galaxy because they had a weaker form of indoctrination than the Reapers.
The Leviathan confirmed what we are (later) told by the Catalyst regarding its purpose.
LEVIATHAN: The intelligence has one purpose: the preservation of life. That purpose has not been fulfilled...until [the Catalyst] finds what it is looking for, the harvest will continue.
The above is just another way of saying that the Catalyst is still trying to fulfill its impossible task. The Catalyst saw synthetic/organic peace/conflict as the main, inevitable threat to the presevation of life and therefore seeks to create eternal peace to help protect life. There's nothing new there.
We also got some background on why the Leviathans thought this was a problem - lesser races made synthetics that wiped them out. Again, this supports what was written above; it supports the idea that the Catalyst's issue is a problem. In addition to the Leviathans, we can even see it happen with the Geth wiping out the Quarians depending on the storyline.
Leviathan also noted that the Catalyst not only follows its programming but that it adapts and changes.
LEVIATHAN: The galaxy itself became an experiment.
Again, this supports the Catalyst dialogue in the EC where it says that it made several efforts before resorting to the Reapers.
In addition, further dialogue with the Catalyst shows just how intrinsic it viewed this problem to be. The following exchange shows how the Catalyst was did not discriminate in its solution, and it views itself to still be carrying out its programming.
SHEPARD: I met your creators. They told me what you did to them.
CATALYST: We did as we were expected...when they asked that I solve the problem of conflict, they failed to understand they were part of the problem themselves. The flaws of their organic reasoning could not percieve this. They lakced the foresight to understand their destruction was part of the very solution they required.
SHEPARD: ... They've joined this war now.
CATALYST: And I welcome their involvement. I am only facilitating their request.
In sum, Leviathan supports the idea that the Catalyst is an AI focusing on solving an impossible problem handed down to it by its creators, and it is purely focused on this goal.
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VIII. Trusting the Catalyst
There are several reasons to trust the Catalyst - the foremost being that it's only following its programming and we're lucky enough that once the Crucible is docked its interests align with ours - but there are some valid disagreements with trusting it. I'm going to try to address the most common ones I see here.The paths are open. But you have to choose. ~ CATALYST
This section is more conjecture/guess/extrapolation than any of the other above sections, of course, so it should be taken with more grains of salt than usual.
The Kid
While appearing as the kid could have been an artistic thing on Bioware's part, it's entirely possible also that there is an in-game reason. The Catalyst isn't necessarily manipulating Shepard. The Leviathan DLC gives an alternate interpretation for this now. The Leviathans themselves evolved with a crude indoctrination method that the Catalyst imitated and eventually got better at.
LEVIATHAN: Each Reaper has the power to influence organics. Over countless cycles, this ability was refined, perfected, and gave rise to indoctrination.
The Reapers have a "better" form of indoctrination than the Leviathans, as is supported by in-game evidence (the totally-not-indoctrinated-miners for example, compared to TIM until the ending). But they built the technology off of the Leviathans and refined it, heavily relying on it.
The Leviathans utilized their indoctrination abilities as the main way of communicating with organics (e.g. Shepard) or controlling inferiors if they needed to (e.g. miners). I think it is not too big of a stretch to imply that the Catalyst builds upon this - its preferred way of communicating with organics, like its creators, involves getting into someone's mind. Thus appearing as a kid may just be a byproduct of being created by the Leviathans.
Leader of the Reapers
Just mistrusting someone because they're the leader of the enemy is usually a good trait until you get more information. In the case of the Catalyst, with Leviathan, we do have more information. Leviathan tells us that the Catalyst basically is just trying to fulfill its purpose and stop organic/synthetic war.
As the Catalyst eventually confirms this, despite being the leader of the Reapers, since we know stuff about it from Leviathan, we know that it exists to find a solution. Given that it thinks Shepard and the Crucible are valid solutions, it being a leader is not necessarily a reason to distrust it - its interests still align with Shepard's.
Forcing Synthesis
Yes, Synthesis is clearly the Catalyst's favorite. But it isn't "forcing" it - if it really wanted to force Synthesis, it'd present Synthesis as the ONLY option to the Crucible as the option to destroy the Reapers, and Shepard, not knowing any better, would choose it and get tricked. Basically, it doesn't make sense for it to give you multiple options if it knows that you initially came for one thing. It does not force synthesis, but it clearly likes it. The latter fact alone should not be grounds for absolute distrust.
Saving Shepard
There are several theories out there as to why Shepard is saved by the Magic Space Elevator through the Beam From Heaven, but I'm of the personal opinion that the Catalyst pulled him/her up in order to activate the Crucible.
If the Catalyst wanted Shepard dead, it could do that by not pulling him up to the Crucible. If the Catalyst wanted to trick Shepard, it could do so in several different ways, such as presenting only one option (above) or not presenting its true identity (below).
Revealing Its Identity
The Catalyst revealing its identity, while not a reason to trust it right away, is certainly a reason to not distrust it. By giving away its identity, it loses all possible leverage. Shepard already doesn't know what it is, and presenting it as a built-in VI to the Crucible and taking the form of an orb like Glyph could have saved it a lot of trouble. If it truly wanted to manipulate Shepard, it would and could do something like that. The Catalyst is capable of lying after all as it does so through the Reapers' false indoctrination promises.
Sovereign
While not strictly a reason to distrust the Catalyst, I didn't know where else to put this. Leviathan gives some hints as to why the Catalyst could not open up or did not open up the Citadel relay.
It was not fear of the Leviathans - surely just one Reaper (the vanguard) wouldn't be enough to keep the Leviathans at bay; that is, the Catalyst was operating between the cycles without any protection anyways. More likely the Catalyst simply operates by having pawns, like the Reapers and Keepers, and the mass relays, do its work. Again, this is probably just how it was created and how it evolved.
LEVIATHAN: To find a solution, [the Catalyst] required information - physical data drawn from organic life in the cosmos. It created an army of pawns that searched the galaxy, gathering this data.
Basically, Leviathan hints that the Catalyst's operating structure is to do work through pawns and proxies. We see the Reapers do this too in their subtle influence and indoctrination attempts. It's just the work nature of the Catalyst. Unfortunately, the Catalyst got a little screwed over (or rather the Reapers did, because they had to trek the hard way) when its proxy got killed off.
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IX. My Commander Shepard
Ever since I started “supporting” the Catalyst, I’ve been asked nicely or outright accused of certain things. I just thought I’d lay it out before the latter starts happening. I’m not going to justify these here, nor should they have any bearing on the rest of the thread, but this is all basically “inb4” stuff. And yes, each and every question has been asked.
My “canon” Shepard’s ending is Control, pre and post EC (male infiltrator). I do not hate the other choices. I played approx 80%/20% P/R and had Q/G peace. I am not an employee of Bioware. I did not play ME1. I do not support genocide. I personally did not like the Catalyst. I’d rather keep my own form versus live as a Reaper. I support the addition of multiplayer into ME.
I don't mind discussing any of the above (so long as people ask nicely, I suppose) but just wanted to get it out of the way; it doesn't have any bearing on how I came up with this thread.
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X. Other Links
Message me if you've found relevant links you'd like me to add. These threads are not my own (those are in my sig); these are from others.
1. Why I Trusted the Catalyst (HYR 2.0)
2. Synthesis Compendium (Ieldra2)
3. Bioware Attempted to Tell the Story that Cannot be Told (MyChemicalBromance)
4. The Catalyst and the Reapers Aren't Evil (maaze)
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Thank you all for reading this far and for your time. I know I’m probably not 100% right, but this is what I think. I know this post may invite some random flaming, hate, trolls, etc., and I accept that. Just ignore it if they attack you.
Also, this will be the end of my walls of text regarding the story - I've been humbled to get a few supportive comments about those and I really appreciate it. You can read more about my thoughts on that here, but the basic gist of it is that I don't think there's anything more I feel "needs" to be written about the story.
Mass Effect 3 was a great game, and I personally hope it will go down in history as a critical element in the step for video games to be considered on the same level of movies in terms of storytelling capability.
Stay civil BSN.
Cheers,
JShepppp
Modifié par JShepppp, 05 septembre 2012 - 04:00 .
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