Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 06 avril 2013 - 01:58 .
Steelcan wrote...
The issue CosmicGnosis is that we can see for ourselves the Catalyst's assertions disproven.
He makes an absolutist claim, "synthetics will destroy ALL organics". Because this is an absolutist claim even one example contrary to it disproves his hypothesis. In this case destroying the Geth on Rannoch firmly disproves his claim. Organics have successfully defeated their synthetic creations. This is further expanded on but Javik and his "Metacon war".
Also, with respect to the OP's work and obvious time spent on this thread, many of his conclusions are wrong. He equates the Catalyst to a hyper-advanced AI, when it seems to me he is the equivalent of a "dumb" AI from Halo's lore.
Modifié par remydat, 06 avril 2013 - 03:14 .
Steelcan wrote...
The issue CosmicGnosis is that we can see for ourselves the Catalyst's assertions disproven.
He makes an absolutist claim, "synthetics will destroy ALL organics". Because this is an absolutist claim even one example contrary to it disproves his hypothesis. In this case destroying the Geth on Rannoch firmly disproves his claim. Organics have successfully defeated their synthetic creations. This is further expanded on but Javik and his "Metacon war".
Also, with respect to the OP's work and obvious time spent on this thread, many of his conclusions are wrong. He equates the Catalyst to a hyper-advanced AI, when it seems to me he is the equivalent of a "dumb" AI from Halo's lore.
cerberus1701 wrote...
The Catalyst is wrong for many reasons, but the biggest problem is that it predicates all its positions on inevitability. "This has always happened and I know it always will so I do what I do."
He's right....BEACAUSE HE MAKES SURE IT HAPPENS. From Sovereign telling Shep that they direct how races develop to being perfectly willing to do little things like drive the Rachni into a genocidal rage in order to "be right."
That's why his logic is flawed.
That's why he's wrong.
That's why it cannot be trusted.
That's why the pipe needs to get shot.
Steelcan wrote...
The issue CosmicGnosis is that we can see for ourselves the Catalyst's assertions disproven.
He makes an absolutist claim, "synthetics will destroy ALL organics". Because this is an absolutist claim even one example contrary to it disproves his hypothesis. In this case destroying the Geth on Rannoch firmly disproves his claim. Organics have successfully defeated their synthetic creations. This is further expanded on but Javik and his "Metacon war".
cerberus1701 wrote...
The Catalyst is wrong for many reasons, but the biggest problem is that it predicates all its positions on inevitability. "This has always happened and I know it always will so I do what I do."
He's right....BEACAUSE HE MAKES SURE IT HAPPENS. From Sovereign telling Shep that they direct how races develop to being perfectly willing to do little things like drive the Rachni into a genocidal rage in order to "be right.
Mcfly616 wrote...
The Catalyst is right....
remydat wrote...
cerberus1701 wrote...
The Catalyst is wrong for many reasons, but the biggest problem is that it predicates all its positions on inevitability. "This has always happened and I know it always will so I do what I do."
He's right....BEACAUSE HE MAKES SURE IT HAPPENS. From Sovereign telling Shep that they direct how races develop to being perfectly willing to do little things like drive the Rachni into a genocidal rage in order to "be right."
That's why his logic is flawed.
That's why he's wrong.
That's why it cannot be trusted.
That's why the pipe needs to get shot.
The difference here though is time. How many people try and claim the genophage was correct or that it should be sabotaged because they have seen what the Krogan did and so it must mean they will do it ago.
At least the Catalyst likely has millions of years of examples before it acts.
Modifié par cerberus1701, 07 avril 2013 - 12:18 .
Modifié par L_B_123, 07 avril 2013 - 12:50 .
MetioricTest wrote...
I just read the entire opening post and while it was an interesting read I sadly have to say I buy very little of it :/
Which isn't a shot at JShepppp, I thought it was well written and I hope he takes the time and effort to reply to me.
But It just doesn't add up. And here are some problems:
#1: The Catalyst is Ventboy.
First off let's ignore the Catalyst's reasoning and focus on what he is. Why is he a hologram of the 5 year old kid Shepard saw die brutally and then had nightmares about all game? Either the Catalyst can read Shepard's mind and is picking an image Shepard would find disturbing or sympathetic... Or there was something about that kid to begin with.
Either way the Catalyst is screwing with you. I see no "blankly logic pragmatic reason" why an AI would take on that form to talk to Shepard. It just screams "agenda" when to buy Catalyst's logic we have to assume he doesn't have one. And if he was simply trying to pick the image most likely to make Shepard follow his logic, why that Kid? I can think of dozens of images Shepard would find more trustworthy.
#2. How did the synthesis peace not come forced?
You say that peace could not be forced on people and it has to come to them. Meanwhile everyone after synthesis still retains their individuality, just now parly synthetic or partly organic... But that doesn't add up.
Humans are working peacefully with Repears to rebuild the houses they just destroyed over the corpses of their dead family and friends without vengeance or problem. Including Krogan. If Synthesis made them "just get over it because it's logical." then that is forced peace because you're brainwashing them.
Other disturbing things include Kasumi getting back together with the partly organic hologram of her dead boyfriend. This seems to be something that no one would consider desirable.. You just think that over for a second in your head. Yet Kasumi is cool with it.
There is 0 evidence that Synthesis just makes people more aware and assures that peace is "possible." it creates strange peace instantly... Sadly Synthesis was so much Bioware's attempt to make a happy ending that it is filled with awkwardness and things you don't quite buy. As such I think it's a mistake to try and defend it logically.
Nothing about the Synthesis ending matches your description about it. Quite the opposite even.
#3.141592: Why the color invert?
TIM is Paragon. Anderson is renegade. Despite spending the last 10 minutes arguing that control is bad.. It's suddenly good because Catalyst says so?
Now regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree that Control is paragon etc... You can't deny the Catalyst is clearly trying to display it as such. Not just in words but in presentation. Why would a blankly logical AI do this? He even admits he doesn't like control but yet asks you to do it. It's pretty clear that he straight up does not like Destruction. Which in of itself raises a whole new side to him. That's a preferance.
#4: The Reapers didn't rebell.
You spend a lot of time explaining how everyone rebelled against their creators. Without mentioning that the semi-organic Reapers have never rebelled against the completely synthetic Catalyst after nearly a billion years of blind service. Even though you directly pointed out that they have their own minds and desires.
Doesn't this billion years of service kind of prove that rebellion against creators isn't assured? What is stopping Harbringer and his buddies literally destroying the Catalyst and doing whatever they want to do? Because the Catalyst controls them for a greater cause? Didn't stop the Geth. Didn't stop Edi.
Does a partly synthetic creature never rebell against another synthetic creature? Why not. The Geth fanatics rebelled against the normal Geth and estentially built their own cult.
#5: Reaper arrogance.
The Reapers up till now do not back up the Catalyst story. Sovereign and the Reaper on Rannoch repeatedly inform us that their purpose is beyond our understanding. Catalyst had no problem exlaining himself in literally under 5 minutes.
And The Catalyst as you said it offers no sympathy or emotional reaction to life itself. He compares the Reaper Harvesting to fire, saying that while a fire burns you it isn't in conflict, it's just doing what it is in it's nature. But Pardon me Mr Catalyst, fire never insulted me and told me I can't understand it.
Sovereign and Harbinger repeatedly mock and insult us. They call humanity vermin that should be eradicated. Demand that "evolution can't be stopped." (When according to you they want the exact opposite, evolution TO BE STOPPED) etc etc.
Harbinger also expresses a desire for Shepard's body (who wouldn't) which has absolutely no bearing on anything The Catalyst wants ever.
The reason for this is because clearly they are not talking about the Catalyst's goal as that was shoehorned in. They were presumably thinking about Dark Energy (or something else) but now this is out in the open, it's foolish to accept that the Catalyst is comfortable with this. Self-aware Reapers with their own goals and attitudes which seem to not actually care about his goal... It just repeatedly raises the question of "Why don't they rebel? Why do they act like this?"
#6: The Catalyst won't just follow orders
It accepts that the cycle is flawed. Accepts that Shepard would be a superior master of the Reapers... But then insists that Shepard uses the Crucible to turn him into a new AI. Why? Can't Shepard just go "Hey Starchild, I don't want to die so here in detail is exactly what I want you to do. Download all the information the Reapers have into the console in my Normandy Bedchambers, fix the relays, repair the major damage you've done, then kindly blow all yourselves up so I can kill you all without ruining Joker's sex life."
But no. This is not an option. Shepard to grab the big machine, which has to kill him, which has to create an AI of him, which has to ensure the Reapers exist forever....
Why why why why why?
The real answer is because the ending I just gave would be rather anti-climatic, sacrificless and boring. But the lore answer is impossible to find. If the Catalyst doesn't trust Shepard's judgement then why is happy for Shepard to take over at all? It just implies the crucible itself will do something to Shepard and make him change. Which if the Catalyst knows... And didn't tell us... Raises more questions.
#7: We're left to guess
While it's okay for us, the fans in a Meta sense to sit-down and dicuss in detail everything that's happened in a video game plot. Shepard is not. He's in the thick of it and just introduced to a crazy decision from a crazy character that he has no hope of fully understanding that quickly and under so much stress and pressure (he is literally half-dead and his home planet is literally burning behind him as his friends literally die around him)
And The Catalyst response to this is to appear in the form of the Ventboy, explain himself rather badly overly simple ways that leave speculation... Then give Shepard the most important decision of all time that the only possible way to know what will come of them is to be a player who has already seen the endings.
Shepard has no idea what the **** will happen if he dives into Synthesis. Even if you as a player think it's a great choice and the best ending. It makes no sense that Shepard would buy it or understand it in that situation. The Catalyst explained himself so badly and so suddenly.
This is a flaw that mainly comes from being a video game as opposed to the Catalyst himself but even so it doesn't add up. The Catalyst has ruthlessly led to this awkward imperfect solution for a billion years... But yet will let the most important decision of all time that will either give him a much better near-perfect solution or destroy (no pun intended) the solution entirely... And then chooses to explain himself that badly? That awkwardly?
It doesn't add up. Trying to give logic and explanation to the Catalyst will just fall flat because he was implimented into the story so badly. If he was what you described, he would not act like this.
#8: Weakness of destroy ending.
You kinda side-stepped this in your post. The destroy ending destroys The Catalysts solution entirely. You're saying after a billion years or rigid determination The Catalyst is simply willing to "give up" and hope someone else finds a solution within 100,000 years?
That makes no sense. The blank determined AI you described would never allow this as an option. It would literally force Shepard not to do this even if he tried. He's not going to give up an imperfect solution for no solution... No way.
Relevant Nitpicks: Things that need to be brought up but are indeed very nitpicky.
#1: Why now?
Why Shepard and why this very second? Shepard is special because he's part synthetic... Okay.... Know how he got to be part synthetic? Someone shoved bits of metal into his spine. Here's an idea: Stop the Reaper attack for 15 minutes. I'll go downstairs, shove some tech into TIM's spine, then hurl him into Synthesis for us.
There is nothing in the Catalyst's argument that explains or suggests why they have to hurry or why Shepard, the most impressive human being (and possibly the most impressive organic being) in the galaxy has to be the one to make the sacrifice. Even if the sacrifice has to be alive (which raises questions) they literally could get anyone to do it. Maybe one of those dying soliders in agony. Maybe a widow who has nothing to live for. The Catalyst is billions of years old but unable to wait because Shepard must die and he must die now!?
Why? That impatience is becoming of a 5 year old child (which ironically he looks like) not a billion year old emotionless AI.
Again this reeks of "needing to have a strong ending to a game" as opposed to a story that makes sense. It's hard to use logic for.
#2. The Catalyst doesn't deal with life Outside of the Milky Way
Mass Effect itself, the fact there are races everywhere and Stargazer all imply that the Universe is full of aliens. All over the place. Or at least, it's a possibility. Yet the Catalysts solutions and concepts only deal with the Milkly way. Sooner or later between 3 minutes from now and 350 billion years synthetic or organic life is going to leave the Milky Way and explore or life from outside the Milky Way will come to us.
And from your singularity description... It will be a super powerful Synthetic beyond everyone and everything else which will destroy our semi-organic asses because they're all powerful and uncaring.
How does Synthesis fix the conflict when down the line Organic or Synthetic life will come to visit the Milky Way and bump into us "perfect" beings.... That will just restart the conflict.
The fact the Catalyst never shows any indication of caring about this strongly attacks the notion that he is "A blank AI trying to deal with the dilema of Organic v.s Synthetic life." it would not be so narrow minded.
#3: Aww you should play ME1
It's a great game and my favorite of the series.
Relevant points over:
And putting aside everything else logical. There is one important illogical thing to consider that nobody has mentioned because it's not relevant:
To buy the Catalyst's logic we have to accept things which we have never seen simply because he says so. We have to accept he had other solutions, accept conflict is constant and accept it's Shepard's goal to try and fix the problem instead of just killing the Reapers.
Now you can argue back and forth until the cows come home whether or not the logic is "valid" or not... But the fact remains it's terrible storytelling. It's an awful decision to introduce a brand new character who you have to take his word for because "Why would he lie?" You really need to display these things not just state them. You also really need to display that the Synthetic/Organic existance struggle is something relevant to Shepard. Otherwise you're left with the Catalyst feeling like he's walked in from a different story (Dues Ex for example)
Let me give you a bad example of why this is bad writing: The Catalyst could walk on screen and reveal that Biotics are the problem. Bioitcs become too powerful and overtake everyone else and threaten to destroy life. The Catalyst was tasked with creating peace between Biotics and non biotics but found the task impossible so he made the Reapers to "side-step" it. Now he needs you to either destroy all biotics, control the Reapers as you see fit or make everyone a biotic.
This is no more or less valid than the Synthetics issue in any other way other than the fact Bioware didn't pick it. Because the reasons for it are just as supported in the ME series as the Synthetic/Organic conflict were (biotics are judged and mistreated, grow stronger as they advance, there are some missions about it and because the Catalyst says it happened in the past)
A good ending would display and foreshadow this in a much better and more creative way. The Catalyst really feels like something that was quickly rushed into a story. As opposed to actually being part of one.
^ Now this is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand but I still say it's important to note because It just makes me feel that this ending is a really bad ending and that the Catalyst is a terrible character.
Thanks for reading anyone who did ! hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed this topic!
Edit: Now with pictures!
osbornep wrote...
Well, if there's any thread where we can get into the minutae of logical reasoning, it's this one. A couple of highly nitpicky points for the OP (tl;dr warning in effect):
The argument you describe as 'deductive' is actually inductive, and the argument you describe as inductive is closer to being deductive. Deductive arguments are arguments that purport to logically guarantee the truth of the conclusion, given the premises. An inductive argument, by contrast, purports only to provide probabilistic support for the conclusion. Basically, the characterization of deductive as moving from the general to the particular, while inductive moves from the particular to the more general, is unhelpful and often inaccurate. The argument "Most Martians swim; Bob is a Martian, so probably, Bob swims" is inductive, but is in no way moving from a particular claim to a more general one.
With this in hand, the 'deductive argument' you make on behalf of the Catalyst is straightforwardly inductive: It seems to be of the form, "In every past instance, synthetics have rebelled, so probably, they always will." That's a generalization structurally similar to arguments like "Every observed raven is black, so probably, all ravens are black."
Your inductive arguments look more similar to deductive arguments, where the premises are intended to logically guarantee the conclusion. The first argument (A1 & A2 => C1) looks 'valid-ish,' but only because A2 appears to be a mere restatement of the conclusion. A1 seems to contribute little to establishing the intended result. The third argument (C2 & A5 => C3) looks invalid. From the fact that beings have different desires, it doesn't follow that they have conflicting desires. You may desire ice cream and I may desire chocolate cake, but it may very well be the case that there are no obstacles to both of our desires being satisfied. Again, that's more of a nitpicky complaint than anything, but if we're aiming for some kind of precision here, we ought to attend to those kinds of things.
MetioricTest wrote...
MetioricTest wrote...
#1: The Catalyst is Ventboy.
#2. How did the synthesis peace not come forced?
#3.141592: Why the color invert?[of the Crucible]
#4: The Reapers didn't rebell.
#5: Reaper arrogance.
#6: The Catalyst won't just follow orders [Why does the Catalyst allow Destroy or not allow other peaceful options?]
#7: We're left to guess [r.e. the bland explanation the Catalyst gives]
#8: Weakness of destroy ending. [why does the Catalyst allow Destroy?]
Relevant Nitpicks: Things that need to be brought up but are indeed very nitpicky.
#1: Why now?
#2. The Catalyst doesn't deal with life Outside of the Milky Way
[b]#3: Aww you should play ME1
[b]Relevant points over:[/u]
And putting aside everything else logical. There is one important illogical thing to consider that nobody has mentioned because it's not relevant:
To buy the Catalyst's logic we have to accept things which we have never seen simply because he says so. We have to accept he had other solutions, accept conflict is constant and accept it's Shepard's goal to try and fix the problem instead of just killing the Reapers.
I like the fact that 9 months ago, before Levithan before anything, I kinda took down TC#'s point.
Modifié par MetioricTest, 13 avril 2013 - 09:50 .
Each Reaper is still an individual, made up of the collected minds of harvested species... The Catalyst just has them all indoctrinated.
And he presumably can't turn Indoctrination around that quickly. To work with your analogy - it would be like trying to call off an attack when the cavalry charge had already reached enemy lines...
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