Aucune réponse à ce sujet

[AlexMBrennan]

First off, this is not just me bashing the indoctrination theory - I enjoy a good argument, but that requires that people use reasonably correct logical arguments. You need to know the words and grammar to be able to write a novel.

The following two things are getting pretty tiring. Please stop:

1) trying to prove that conventional victory is possible. It isn't
2) trying to prove the "Indoctrination Theory" (sic) wrong.
3) listing stuff that "proves" the "Indoctrination Theory" (sic) true
=====
1) Conventional victory is impossible

Firstly, it was established in ME1 that the Reapers are such a great threat that fighting is not an option. In ME2, nothing happened (to change that). If you want to have a conventional victory in ME3, you need to explain why fighting the Reapers openly is no longer an automatic loss.

If that has changed, the Reapers are not stupid. They were controlling the Collectors, and will have gathered some information about the state of the galaxy. They would not have attacked if they hadn't been sure they'd win - they cannot achieve their objective (prevent the tech singularity by continuing the cycle) if they are dead.

Finally, even if the Reapers had somehow been surprised by our technological advances (thanix cannons are usually suggested), we still cannot *win*. Go read the Codex entry on space combat. It says:

Battles in open space are short and often inconclusive, as the weaker opponent generally disengages.

Once a ship enters FTL flight the combat is effectively over; there are no sensors capable of tracking them, or weapons capable of damaging them. The only way to guarantee an enemy will stand and fight is to attack a location they have a vested interest in, such as a settled world or a strategically-important mass relay.

The Reapers don't have planets. They don't have shipyards. They don't need fuel depots. They can just keep running.

So, even if we had been able to massively increase our firepower without the Reapers learning about it, we would only be able to chase them off. They could switch to guerilla tactics - attack one system in force and retreat before we can react.

But even if we had the firepower for the small patrols to stand up to the entire Reaper armada, then we still couldn't win because the Reapers could just fall back into dark space and wait for us to forget about them, or nuke each other, or something else entirely. That's averting defeat for the moment, but not a victory.
This is sophistry to a degree - it's an acceptable outcome for Shepard and organics in general, even if it's not technically a victory

=====
2) You cannot prove that the Indoctrination Theory [sic] is wrong.

Firstly, the indoctrination theory is not a theory:

Wikipedia says:
A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment.

It's a hypothesis. If you keep using the word "theory", you sound like a creationist. You don't want to sound like a creationist, continually reminding everyone that "Evolution is just a theory"
</tangent>

It is, of course, possible to prove a particular incarnation of the IT wrong - e.g. "Shepard wakes up on Earth after pressing the Blue button, having fought off indoctrination" then it's possible to prove this wrong (e.g. by having Shepard wake up in hospital after an overdose, and finding out that the events in all 3 games were merely a dream.

However, the basic premise of the IT is that "the stuff at the end isn't real", and that's where things get difficult.

To prove that wrong, you'd have to prove that "the stuff at the end is real"... problem is that you cannot do that.

Think about it: Are you dreaming right now? If you look out of your window, and see a pink unicorn flying past, then you must be dreaming. However, the absence of pink unicorns does not imply that you're not dreaming (e.g. if there are teal unicorns flying past your window, then you're still dreaming). Even the absence of any "obvious" clues is not enough to conclude that it's not a dream because you could be having a realistic dream (which is, by definition, indistinguishable from reality until you wake up).

IT is just like that - if it is true, it's very easy to prove that it's true (pink unicorn flying past your window), but impossible to prove wrong even if it's wrong.

=====

3) Stop listing stuff that "proves" the "Indoctrination Theory" (sic) true if it doesn't

It's possible that IT is true. It's possible that there is evidence for it. But most of the "evidence" isn't evidence. Let me explain:

If you have two conflicting hypotheses, then you need data consistent with only one of them to make a decision. For example, suppose we have a fair coin. Then, one hypothesis is "The coin has heads on one side and tails on the other" and "The coin has heads on both sides". What data could you get?

*If you tossed the coin, and it came up with heads, does that tell you anything? Well, no - because either hypothesis is consistent with the data.
*If you tossed the coin, and it came up with tails, then clearly the 2nd hypothesis ("The coin has heads on both sides") must be false.
* If you tossed the coin 100 times, and it came up heads every time, then statistics tells you that it's extremely unlike to be a fair coin, and thus that the 1st hypothesis ("The coin has heads on one side and tails on the other") is probably wrong.

The same applies here. To prove IT true, you need to provide us with data that is consistent only with the IT hypothesis (the flying pink unicorn, basically)