196 réponses à ce sujet

[Xandurpein]

comrade gando wrote...

if the catalyst actually is just an AI with faulty logic then they didn't do a very good job explaining it. in fact, very little is explained and what is explained is just warped and doesn't make any sense to me. It also bothers me that he's the kid from earth and shepard doesn't say a damn thing about it, in fact I feel like I'm not even in control of my shepard anymore when he's saying **** like "guess illusive man was right HERP"

they could have had the catalyst be bozo the clown on a unicycle throwing custard pies and shepard would be like "... seems legit..."

Writing dialogue for a CRPG requires a very deft touch, because you must try to maintain the illusion that the players control the dialogue, when most of the time they really don't. Ideally, at least one of the responses available to the player should feel natural to her/him. If the plot fails to convince the players, they want to say "whooa, stop there!", but the game won't permit it and that makes them feel disconnected from the protagonist and thus the illusion fails. This is exactly what you describe, and what I felt too.

This is also incidentally why a good plot that can be relatively easily grasped "as is", without relying on head canon and symbolism, is so important to keep the player connected to a CRPG game, and why Mass Effect 3 failed so spectacularily in my opinion.

[Dharvy]

I know this may a be a little off topic, but anyone not believing the catalyst logic on synthetic war wiping out organics as being far fetched that that is probably the same thought process all the councils Alliance /Citadels had towards Shepard throughout the series with his/her far fetched ideal that some giant fleet of synthetics is coming every 50k years to wipe out the galaxy?

My point is now you're in a position to hear someone tell of something they're trying to prevent and possibly experienced to some extent and that it is a drastic situation giving the scope of galactic time frame and you have to make a judgement call on if its plausible and warrants action.

[Xandurpein]

Dharvy wrote...

I know this may a be a little off topic, but anyone not believing the catalyst logic on synthetic war wiping out organics as being far fetched that that is probably the same thought process all the councils Alliance /Citadels had towards Shepard throughout the series with his/her far fetched ideal that some giant fleet of synthetics is coming every 50k years to wipe out the galaxy?

My point is now you're in a position to hear someone tell of something they're trying to prevent and possibly experienced to some extent and that it is a drastic situation giving the scope of galactic time frame and you have to make a judgement call on if its plausible and warrants action.

The analogy fails at the end, because we aren't really allowed to make a judgement call if it's plausible or not. We're forced to accept the words of Catalyst as gospel and act upon it.

[Dharvy]

Xandurpein wrote...

Dharvy wrote...

I know this may a be a little off topic, but anyone not believing the catalyst logic on synthetic war wiping out organics as being far fetched that that is probably the same thought process all the councils Alliance /Citadels had towards Shepard throughout the series with his/her far fetched ideal that some giant fleet of synthetics is coming every 50k years to wipe out the galaxy?

My point is now you're in a position to hear someone tell of something they're trying to prevent and possibly experienced to some extent and that it is a drastic situation giving the scope of galactic time frame and you have to make a judgement call on if its plausible and warrants action.

The analogy fails at the end, because we aren't really allowed to make a judgement call if it's plausible or not. We're forced to accept the words of Catalyst as gospel and act upon it.

But you can refuse to act upon it, which is simply what the Council did to Shepard, refuse to act upon it. They were forced to make a judgement call on if its plausible and warrants action and they chose inaction. I think the analogy does hold up. The three choices in someways act upon what the Catalyst tells you.

[ElementL09]

Preservation of Organics from a Synthetic stance is flawed. You can perseve genetic material of a race without wiping them out. You can do the same with synthetics as well. He's just using this preservation stance as an excuse to continue to give the Reapers form so that he can continue to "uphold his solution to the chaos" by fighting a fire with a bigger fire. It only makes sense for him because he's a synthetic.

[Ice Cold J]

...is legitimate but flawed.

That's my opinion, anyway.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Serious question.  Didn't you think the very existence of the Catalyst implied that somebody, somewhere had once run the numbers?  I just took it as read.

Not at all. That's what makes the Catalyst so frustrating in the original endings. Not only is he presenting us with an incredibly controversial claim, but we don't even have a basis (evidence) on which to say whether he's BSing us. In the EC, you may not believe him, but he does present an argument for his case, built on empirical experience. The first thing I wanted to yell at the Catalyst was: "Where the hell did this come from?".

[CaptainZaysh]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Not at all. That's what makes the Catalyst so frustrating in the original endings. Not only is he presenting us with an incredibly controversial claim, but we don't even have a basis (evidence) on which to say whether he's BSing us. In the EC, you may not believe him, but he does present an argument for his case, built on empirical experience. The first thing I wanted to yell at the Catalyst was: "Where the hell did this come from?".

Hmm.  That's odd.  Then again, I was already aware of the dangers posed by the singularity so I guess none of the Catalyst's reasoning was controversial to me.

[fr33stylez]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

fr33stylez wrote...

Here's another example:

(1) Organics will develop more advanced weapons as technology advances
(2) Organics will use such technology to wipe each other out in a Techno-Nuclear-Holocaust war

Sure, but that's not the problem the Catalyst was designed to solve.

Which makes it illogical in my opinion.

I may decide in order to avoid dying by skin cancer, never leaving my bedroom stepping into the sun is logical. Of course, there's a thousand different cancers I can possibly acquire in a lifetime that are not melanoma. Simply saying my actions are logical because it only addresses melanoma is pretty myopic. I may inhale particles in my home over my life that give me lung cancer - that's also a possiblilty.

Just as well, there's no guarantee I'll ever get skin cancer by going out in the sun, but the chance is still non-zero. Making such a drastic solution to address simply the posibility of one reality is not logical.

[CaptainZaysh]

fr33stylez wrote...

Which makes it illogical in my opinion... Making such a drastic solution to address simply the posibility of one reality is not logical.

You're looking at it like an organic.  To us, of course the solution to, say, "prevent nuclear apocalypse" is not "bomb humanity back to the stone age".  But an AI lacks the common sense or emotional intelligence required to understand why such a solution is monstrously inappropriate.

The Catalyst, to me, was actually the most convincing alien in the entire trilogy because its thought processes were so foreign.

But that doesn't mean it was illogical.  It's logical that an AI created to address one problem would not seek to address other problems.  (In fact, we see evidence of this in the way the Reapers display no interest in evolving nor expanding their mission.  They're forever frozen at a slightly higher tech level than the one they allow the rest of the galaxy to reach.)

[AngryFrozenWater]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

fr33stylez wrote...

Which makes it illogical in my opinion... Making such a drastic solution to address simply the posibility of one reality is not logical.

You're looking at it like an organic.  To us, of course the solution to, say, "prevent nuclear apocalypse" is not "bomb humanity back to the stone age".  But an AI lacks the common sense or emotional intelligence required to understand why such a solution is monstrously inappropriate.

The Catalyst, to me, was actually the most convincing alien in the entire trilogy because its thought processes were so foreign.

But that doesn't mean it was illogical.  It's logical that an AI created to address one problem would not seek to address other problems.  (In fact, we see evidence of this in the way the Reapers display no interest in evolving nor expanding their mission.  They're forever frozen at a slightly higher tech level than the one they allow the rest of the galaxy to reach.)

They do expand on their initial task in several horrific ways. That frozen slightly higher tech level has the added advantage that it allows the reapers to stay on top of the food chain. If their task was to address the conflict that resulted from the hypothetical threat then it sure does not help to create conflict by cyclical genocide using their infamous "ascension through destruction" reproduction method. Expanding their war machine was a goal that directly conflicted with what they were supposed to achieve, because it was just in their interest as predators to build that war machine during the last billion years or so. It doesn't help either to turn the heretics and zha'til hostile in an attempt to prove their point. And whether you like it or not, exterminating those that you are supposed to protect does not make sense. By doing all that they have the ignorance of self-proclaimed gods. Remember that they are not invitited to this party. They have no business here at all. Their creators have little to do with it either, because they have been long gone since they have been harvested against their will by the brat and its boys. They keep violating the right of self-determination in the most horrific ways imaginable - from turning the children of the protheans hostile to synthesis.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 17 août 2012 - 11:02 .

[LittleFranklin]

I'm not bothered about the Catalyst's reasons for the Cycle. There's no way we can conclusively decide if it's logic is flawed or not, and all we really need to know is it believes it is.

But I can't think of any good reason why it would allow Shep to choose the next course of action. It aught to just calculate what it thinks the best choice is and choose it. I guess the only good reason is it allows the player to choose.

Modifié par LittleFranklin, 17 août 2012 - 11:38 .

[Kataphrut94]

I'm not bothered by his motivation - the idea of hitting the reset button on a civilisation before it reaches the point of collapse in order to preserve the younger ones and give them their fair go doesn't make sense to me, but I can get how it would to an immortal AI.

It is worth remembering that the Catalyst is something in the realm of billions of years old - the idea that organics and synthetics cannot coexist probably started with his own creators and their troubles, but I'm sure that within that timeframe enough evidence has accumulated over the millenia to support his argument. Within the last two cycles (an eyeblink to the Reapers) we've had the Zha'til, the geth and several smaller-scale conflicts like that one money-grubbing AI on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1. I like to think that guy was actually the Catalyst playing a prank.

That's why I don't believe making peace between the geth and quarians should be enough to convince him. Partly because it's a pretty anticlimactic way to end a series and wouldn't really work from a game design perspective, but mainly because something that old with that level of experience would have heard all the excuses before and not be fazed in the slightest.

[AngryFrozenWater]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I'm not bothered by his motivation - the idea of hitting the reset button on a civilisation before it reaches the point of collapse in order to preserve the younger ones and give them their fair go doesn't make sense to me, but I can get how it would to an immortal AI.

It is worth remembering that the Catalyst is something in the realm of billions of years old - the idea that organics and synthetics cannot coexist probably started with his own creators and their troubles, but I'm sure that within that timeframe enough evidence has accumulated over the millenia to support his argument. Within the last two cycles (an eyeblink to the Reapers) we've had the Zha'til, the geth and several smaller-scale conflicts like that one money-grubbing AI on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1. I like to think that guy was actually the Catalyst playing a prank.

That's why I don't believe making peace between the geth and quarians should be enough to convince him. Partly because it's a pretty anticlimactic way to end a series and wouldn't really work from a game design perspective, but mainly because something that old with that level of experience would have heard all the excuses before and not be fazed in the slightest.

Well... It's too vague to treat that hypothetical threat seriously. In the last two cycles the reapers turned the zha'til against the zha, the quarians caused the Morning War, plus the reapers turned the heretics hostile and controlled the geth on Rannoch. The reapers just turned those synthetics hostile in an attempt to prove its point.

[Hydralysk]

Kataphrut94 wrote...
That's why I don't believe making peace between the geth and quarians should be enough to convince him. Partly because it's a pretty anticlimactic way to end a series and wouldn't really work from a game design perspective, but mainly because something that old with that level of experience would have heard all the excuses before and not be fazed in the slightest.

But that's just it, us trusting it relies on us gambling on the idea that the catalyst's age confers some kind of superior knowledge, but he wasn't even able to succesfully predict that an organic race could reach his chamber or whatever it's called. We're told he's seen some serious s*** go down, but he doesn't elaborate, so we need to choose between the empirical evidence gained by what we've seen or trust the words of the leader of the greatest genocide plot in the galaxy because he's old. Plus, the two cycles we've heard about were wiped out without the Reapers explaining themselves, it's hard to start a debate when the first thing your opponent does is take out his gun and shoot you in the face.

Modifié par Hydralysk, 17 août 2012 - 02:08 .

[dreman9999]

SentinelShepParagon wrote...

TJBartlemus wrote...

Fun fact. The Reapers are just synthetics that use organics for building materials. They also dissect organics through turning them into goo (gain all their knowledge and ancestors knowledge through genes) and plug their knowledge into a Reaper AI. They also use all new tech that is not based on theirs is transformed into theirs for Reaper use. (All that was info was from cut lines in ME2) Preserving organics. I don't think so. Using them for own gain is more like it. The Catalyst has been proven to lie to Shepard and from what we know it is a rogue AI. Rogue AI's have always been a problem in the Mass Effect universe and usually need to be destroyed.

Either way, the logic still makes sense. It is just morally screwed up and horrifying. That is why it must be stopped.

OP...You were right about what the reapers do to organics minds before... 

[dreman9999]

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I'm not bothered by his motivation - the idea of hitting the reset button on a civilisation before it reaches the point of collapse in order to preserve the younger ones and give them their fair go doesn't make sense to me, but I can get how it would to an immortal AI.

It is worth remembering that the Catalyst is something in the realm of billions of years old - the idea that organics and synthetics cannot coexist probably started with his own creators and their troubles, but I'm sure that within that timeframe enough evidence has accumulated over the millenia to support his argument. Within the last two cycles (an eyeblink to the Reapers) we've had the Zha'til, the geth and several smaller-scale conflicts like that one money-grubbing AI on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1. I like to think that guy was actually the Catalyst playing a prank.

That's why I don't believe making peace between the geth and quarians should be enough to convince him. Partly because it's a pretty anticlimactic way to end a series and wouldn't really work from a game design perspective, but mainly because something that old with that level of experience would have heard all the excuses before and not be fazed in the slightest.

Well... It's too vague to treat that hypothetical threat seriously. In the last two cycles the reapers turned the zha'til against the zha, the quarians caused the Morning War, plus the reapers turned the heretics hostile and controlled the geth on Rannoch. The reapers just turned those synthetics hostile in an attempt to prove its point.

It doesn't do that toprove it's point. It takes controlof them to impose their beliefs. Synthetics up risedageinstorganics 3 times in the series with out reaper involvement.
The morning war.
Project overlord
the 
Hahne-Kedar[/b] mech mission in ME2.

[Hydralysk]

dreman9999 wrote...

AngryFrozenWater wrote...

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I'm not bothered by his motivation - the idea of hitting the reset button on a civilisation before it reaches the point of collapse in order to preserve the younger ones and give them their fair go doesn't make sense to me, but I can get how it would to an immortal AI.

It is worth remembering that the Catalyst is something in the realm of billions of years old - the idea that organics and synthetics cannot coexist probably started with his own creators and their troubles, but I'm sure that within that timeframe enough evidence has accumulated over the millenia to support his argument. Within the last two cycles (an eyeblink to the Reapers) we've had the Zha'til, the geth and several smaller-scale conflicts like that one money-grubbing AI on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1. I like to think that guy was actually the Catalyst playing a prank.

That's why I don't believe making peace between the geth and quarians should be enough to convince him. Partly because it's a pretty anticlimactic way to end a series and wouldn't really work from a game design perspective, but mainly because something that old with that level of experience would have heard all the excuses before and not be fazed in the slightest.

Well... It's too vague to treat that hypothetical threat seriously. In the last two cycles the reapers turned the zha'til against the zha, the quarians caused the Morning War, plus the reapers turned the heretics hostile and controlled the geth on Rannoch. The reapers just turned those synthetics hostile in an attempt to prove its point.

It doesn't do that toprove it's point. It takes controlof them to impose their beliefs. Synthetics up risedageinstorganics 3 times in the series with out reaper involvement.
The morning war.
Project overlord
the 
Hahne-Kedar[/b] mech mission in ME2.

Once again rising up against organics is not the thing the catalyst is ostensibly trying to stop, it's the fact that after they rise up they will murder all organic life.

Morning War: Depending on your views on synthetic life this can be completely justifiable since their only alternative was complete anihilation.
Project Overlord: Not really rising up in malice so much as in panic. It's a mentally handicapped human hooked into a VI who isn't fully aware of what's happening to him or how to stop it so he's lashing out, hence all the "MAKE IT STOP!!!" lines.
Hahne-Kedar: I can see where you're coming from with this one, but I was under the impression this was because of a computer virus causing combat droids to attack indiscriminately instead of a concious decision to attack their creators.

[Blueprotoss]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

How is that because the EC only made it more obvious that the Catalyst was the Reaper leader and the Created vs Creator viewpoints.

The EC has the Catalyst explain that relations between Organics and Synthetics always ended in conflict and that all efforts to prevent this failed. This gives an empirical basis to the Catalyst's claims: that synthetics and organics will always come into conflict with each other. How does he know? Because they've always come into conflict with each other.

Without the EC, the Catalyst doesn't have any knowledge of the topic. All we know is that he thinks synthetics will kill everybody. We have no premise, meaning you can shove in anything you want. Maybe it was empirical, maybe it was a theory, or maybe the Catalyst watched Terminator too many times. Without a premise, we can't say which way the wind blows.  

The Catalyst was known to be the Reaper leader before the EC, but the EC did put a bright spotlight on that based on how some people didn't notice.  Ironically ME1 and ME2 did the whole Created vs Creator thing, which means its nothing new.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Blueprotoss wrote...

The Catalyst was known to be the Reaper leader before the EC, but the EC did put a bright spotlight on that based on how some people didn't notice.  Ironically ME1 and ME2 did the whole Created vs Creator thing, which means its nothing new.

I don't see how someone couldn't have noticed. But this has no bearing on the argument. Pre-EC, the Catalyst doesn't give us any evidence. The Catalyst being the Reaper leader doesn't tell us anything about why one might believe that synthetics/organics is a problem, more than anything (dark energy, for example). That's what the EC gives us. Synthetics and organics are a problem because...no matter what happens, something causes them to fight. What is the reason? We don't know, but we still have an empirical basis.

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 17 août 2012 - 03:21 .

[Blueprotoss]

Kataphrut94 wrote...

I'm not bothered by his motivation - the idea of hitting the reset button on a civilisation before it reaches the point of collapse in order to preserve the younger ones and give them their fair go doesn't make sense to me, but I can get how it would to an immortal AI.

It is worth remembering that the Catalyst is something in the realm of billions of years old - the idea that organics and synthetics cannot coexist probably started with his own creators and their troubles, but I'm sure that within that timeframe enough evidence has accumulated over the millenia to support his argument. Within the last two cycles (an eyeblink to the Reapers) we've had the Zha'til, the geth and several smaller-scale conflicts like that one money-grubbing AI on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1. I like to think that guy was actually the Catalyst playing a prank.

That's why I don't believe making peace between the geth and quarians should be enough to convince him. Partly because it's a pretty anticlimactic way to end a series and wouldn't really work from a game design perspective, but mainly because something that old with that level of experience would have heard all the excuses before and not be fazed in the slightest.

Nuclear weapons could be a life ending threat just like a man made plague, which this could destroy a lot of life whether or not if Earth is our only home.

[Blueprotoss]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

The Catalyst was known to be the Reaper leader before the EC, but the EC did put a bright spotlight on that based on how some people didn't notice.  Ironically ME1 and ME2 did the whole Created vs Creator thing, which means its nothing new.

I don't see how someone couldn't have noticed. But this has no bearing on the argument. Pre-EC, the Catalyst doesn't give us any evidence. The Catalyst being the Reaper leader doesn't tell us anything about why one might believe that synthetics/organics is a problem, more than anything (dark energy, for example). That's what the EC gives us. Synthetics and organics are a problem because...no matter what happens, something causes them to fight. What is the reason? We don't know, but we still have an empirical basis.

Actually the Catalyst has a lot of ground to stand on before the EC while 3-4 extra lines in the EC showed the obvious.  Dark energy is a bad exampled based on how it hasn't been explored that much because its one of the peices of content to be dropped from ME3 and the ME series as a whole.

[guacamayus]

that's not logic, is morality, and asking an AI to agree with your own is kind of... illogical xD

[Baa Baa]

Tony77A wrote...

If his logic was sound, the reapers would destroy all synthetic life, tell organics "don't create synthetics or we'll be mad" and monitor the situation from afar.

Guess that was too hard for the AI/catalyst to figure out....
Nope, return every 50k years and press "reset" is much better.

Or how about not leaving tech that catapults the technological levels of societies that finds it...

This.

[The Angry One]

Blueprotoss wrote...

Actually the Catalyst has a lot of ground to stand on before the EC while 3-4 extra lines in the EC showed the obvious.  Dark energy is a bad exampled based on how it hasn't been explored that much because its one of the peices of content to be dropped from ME3 and the ME series as a whole.

Once again Blueprotoss outright lies about the events and themes of the trilogy.