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[Giga Drill BREAKER]

Ugh 'Paradigm-Shift' reminds me of that awful trash that is FFXIII

[BleedingUranium]

There's another word in Mass Effect for having a paradigm-shift from you and your allies' goals to your enemies' goals. That word is indoctrination.

[Liamv2]

DinoSteve wrote...

Ugh 'Paradigm-Shift' reminds me of that awful trash that is FFXIII

[BleedingUranium]

HYR 2.0 wrote...






There... a rabbit. I wish you could see it like I do.... It’s so... perfect.

If you’re like me, you immediately saw a duck when you looked at this picture. Or, you may be thinking “wait, what duck?!” right now instead. The image above is, in fact, of both a rabbit and a duck. It just requires you to look at it in a different way to see them both.

What's ironic is that you just described what the Indoctrination Theory is better than I ever have.

[Ieldra]

To my chagrin, I've missed this thread when it appeared first.

To apply the "Paradigm Shift" to ME3's ending: we are called to change our perspective on the Reapers. Particularly, that they're not primarily "out to get us", but that there is a bigger agenda which is not necessarily incompatible with both our and the Reapers' continued existence.

Which is ok with me. The problem is that the writing and presentation of what came before makes it unusually hard for many people to see any reason why they should adopt the new perspective.

[BleedingUranium]

Ieldra, you just described what indoctrination is. Congrats.

[Steelcan]

BleedingUranium wrote...

There's another word in Mass Effect for having a paradigm-shift from you and your allies' goals to your enemies' goals. That word is indoctrination.

. So Shepard's change in perspective of the geth was indoctrination?

[BleedingUranium]

Steelcan wrote...

BleedingUranium wrote...

There's another word in Mass Effect for having a paradigm-shift from you and your allies' goals to your enemies' goals. That word is indoctrination.

. So Shepard's change in perspective of the geth was indoctrination?

No, that doesn't make sense.

[Ieldra]

BleedingUranium wrote...
Ieldra, you just described what indoctrination is. Congrats.

No. Indoctrination (as used within the context of the ME universe) would be if we were forced to adopt the new perspective through technological means. As HYR has described, as of the EC we are not.

[BleedingUranium]

Indoctrination is never forced, doesn't have to be through technological means.

[mcgreggers99]

HYR 2.0 wrote...









There... a rabbit. I wish you could see it like I do.... It’s so... perfect.

OF COURSE! 
It isn't a relay at all!
It's a Duck....Bunny thing.....Bioware are geniuses....just look at the similarities between these two images!
I'm calling this the "Duck-Bunny Theory." 

[/sarcasm]

Modifié par mcgreggers99, 24 janvier 2013 - 01:32 .

[mcgreggers99]

*deleted duplicate post*

Modifié par mcgreggers99, 24 janvier 2013 - 01:31 .

[MattFini]

Ieldra2 wrote...

The problem is that the writing and presentation of what came before makes it unusually hard for many people to see any reason why they should adopt the new perspective.

Well said.

I'll admit right off that I fall into this camp.

The notions of Control and Synthesis just don't jibe for me with that ME was about for three games across five years of playing in the MEU. 

"So the Illusive Man was right all aong?" wasn't enough for me to want to choose something other than Destroy. 

And this whole thread is interesting. Good job making a compelling argument/discussion, OP.

[DirtyPhoenix]

BleedingUranium wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

BleedingUranium wrote...

There's another word in Mass Effect for having a paradigm-shift from you and your allies' goals to your enemies' goals. That word is indoctrination.

. So Shepard's change in perspective of the geth was indoctrination?

No, that doesn't make sense.

Oh but it does. The Geth were your enemies before you met Legion. So for those Shepards who changed their perspectives after meeting him, we can conclude, by your definition, that were have been indoctrinated by the Geth.

Modifié par pirate1802, 24 janvier 2013 - 01:52 .

[Ieldra]

MattFini wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

The problem is that the writing and presentation of what came before makes it unusually hard for many people to see any reason why they should adopt the new perspective.

Well said.

I'll admit right off that I fall into this camp.

The notions of Control and Synthesis just don't jibe for me with that ME was about for three games across five years of playing in the MEU. 

"So the Illusive Man was right all aong?" wasn't enough for me to want to choose something other than Destroy. 

And this whole thread is interesting. Good job making a compelling argument/discussion, OP.

I didn't have a problem adopting the new perspective, But then, it's what I always wanted, and getting no other option than to destroy the Reapers was what I always feared, invalidating any attempt to profit from their superior technology and/or knowledge. The references to such a possibility were there, particularly in ME2, but very obscure, overshadowed by the abomination aesthetic, the indoctrination and the unnecessarily cruel procedures on the CB. Given the evidence of the old dark energy plot, the lead writers always wanted some kind of revelation of ambivalence and the possibility of a paradigm shift, somewhere towards the end of the trilogy, so why all this? They shot themselves in the foot with the presentation, and the writing of the Catalyst didn't help. It's been almost a year, and I'm still scratching my head about it. Can mere disorganization within the project and rushed development result in such a colossal blunder?

Modifié par Ieldra2, 24 janvier 2013 - 04:43 .

[Wayning_Star]

Ieldra2 wrote...

MattFini wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

The problem is that the writing and presentation of what came before makes it unusually hard for many people to see any reason why they should adopt the new perspective.

Well said.

I'll admit right off that I fall into this camp.

The notions of Control and Synthesis just don't jibe for me with that ME was about for three games across five years of playing in the MEU. 

"So the Illusive Man was right all aong?" wasn't enough for me to want to choose something other than Destroy. 

And this whole thread is interesting. Good job making a compelling argument/discussion, OP.

I didn't have a problem adopting the new perspective, But then, it's what I always wanted, and getting no other option than to destroy the Reapers was what I always feared, invalidating any attempt to profit from their superior technology and/or knowledge. The references to such a possibility were there, particularly in ME2, but very obscure, overshadowed by the abomination aesthetic, the indoctrination and the unnecessarily cruel procedures on the CB. Given the evidence of the old dark energy plot, the lead writers always wanted some kind of revelation of ambivalence and the possibility of a paradigm shift, somewhere towards the end of the trilogy, so why all this? They shot themselves in the foot with the presentation, and the writing of the Catalyst didn't help. It's been almost a year, and I'm still scratching my head about it. Can mere disorganization within the project and rushed development result in such a colossal blunder?

it's funny, that 'profit' is exactly what got the MEU in the fix it's in to start with. The term 'free stuff' takes on  a whole new meaning.

My first playthrough of ME3 lead straight to the green beam.. recycle resurrected Shepard to provide free will, the only real profit to realize when approached by nature and it's risks.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Out with the ole hatchet. This is a job for it...

BleedingUranium wrote...

Those two statements do not go together.

Indoctrination is a choice, you have to choose to accept what the Reapers are saying, they're just so convincing that no one's really able to resist. They make their ideas vs your ideas sound like eating the best thing you can possibly imagine vs eating manure.

No, that's not how it works.

Indoctrination forcibly changes your opinion over time. It doesn't matter how staunchy you oppose the Reapers, willpower alone is not enough. It's not a mental battle, it's a physical one.

The only, only way to "break" indoctrination is to remove the mind from the source of the signal.

BleedingUranium wrote...

There's another word in Mass Effect for having a paradigm-shift from you and your allies' goals to your enemies' goals. That word is indoctrination.

No. Indoctrination is the antonym of paradigm-shift.

At least, as far as the classical definition of indoctrination is concerned.

As for the game's version, I just covered that above.

BleedingUranium wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

*snip*

What's ironic is that you just described what the Indoctrination Theory is better than I ever have.

You clearly haven't read much out of the OP.

And what little you did read was with your Destroy-red specs on. Confirmation bias... *shakes head* tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.

This would actually be a better description of IT....

HYR 2.0 wrote...

... to revisit the rabbit-duck picture above... an individual who is told/taught repeatedly something like "no rabbits exist, there are only ever ducks" and subsequently looks at the picture and denies the existence or possibility of a rabbit... *that* would be an example of an "indoctrinated" individual.

BleedingUranium wrote...

Indoctrination is never forced, doesn't have to be through technological means.

Sorry, but that's where you're wrong. Reapers don't indoctrinate by talking it out with you.

In fact, they never talk it out..... 

Rannoch Reaper:
"It's not a thing you can comprehend."
"You resist, yet you will fail."

Sovereign:
"Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."
[Shepard" Why are you doing this?"] "You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence."

Harbinger:
"You are short-sighted."
"We cannot be stopped."
"This attack is pointless."
"You cannot comprehend your place in things."
"You are ignorant. We are knowing"

Every Reaper we've encountered has reasoned that we are too deaf-dumb-and-blind to comprehend and appreciate what they are doing, so they don't bother. Furthermore, they don't believe they can/will lose, either. So they don't even try. They don't have to, because they can naturally do it by force to any organic. And they don't need to, since their victory is assured to them anyway. The Rannoch Reaper got the farthest, but even he disregard his death by saying Shepard will just fail anyway.

Indoctrination is only ever shown to be achieved forcibly *and* technologically, slowly or rapidly. Slow-indoc is merely a brain-signal connection, it's not the inherent rhetorical prowess of the Reapers (lol).

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 24 janvier 2013 - 06:01 .

[Ieldra]

I'm afraid you'll have to be a little more specific to make me understand what you're saying, Wayning_Star.

[CosmicGnosis]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Indoctrination is only ever shown to be achieved forcibly *and* technologically, slowly or rapidly. Slow-indoc is merely a brain-signal connection, it's not the inherent rhetorical prowess of the Reapers (lol).

This is an excellent point. Indoctrination doesn't work the way Indoctrination Theory supporters think it does. Indoctrination is a physical process, as you've explained. An indoctrinated person has no choice in the matter, except for perhaps a suicide during a brief moment of self-awareness. The Reapers' arguments don't indoctrinate you. Rather, their signal does. Yes, it's totally possible for Shepard to be indoctrinated, but it's impossible for the player to be indoctrinated because the player is never exposed to the signal.

Frankly, it's amazing that IT ever became so popular. The theory makes no sense at its most fundamental level.

Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 15 avril 2013 - 09:05 .

[Argolas]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Indoctrination is only ever shown to be achieved forcibly *and* technologically, slowly or rapidly. Slow-indoc is merely a brain-signal connection, it's not the inherent rhetorical prowess of the Reapers (lol).

This is an excellent point. Indoctrination doesn't work the way Indoctrination Theory supporters think it does. Indoctrination is a physical process, as you've explained. An indoctrinated person has no choice in the matter, except for perhaps a suicide during a brief moment of self-awareness. The Reapers' arguments don't indoctrinate you. Rather, their signal does. Yes, it's totally possible for Shepard to be indoctrinated, but it's impossible for the player to be indoctrinated because the player is never exposed to the signal.

Frankly, it's amazing that IT ever became so popular. The theory makes no sense at its most fundamental level.

No persuasion involved?

"The Reaper's resulting control over the limbic system leaves the victim highly susceptible to its suggestions."

"Benezia forsaw the influence Saren would have. She joined him to guide him down a gentler path. But Saren is compelling. Benezia lost her way."

"Benezia underestimated Saren. We came to believe in his cause and his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling."

"The Indoctrination. There is an energy about Souvereign. You feel drawn to the ship, it makes Saren's arguments more persuasive, more compelling."

As for the signal, you can't claim it's not there.

Modifié par Argolas, 15 avril 2013 - 09:38 .

[Auld Wulf]

Argolas wrote...

No persuasion involved?

 "The Reaper's resulting control over the limbic system leaves the victim highly susceptible to its suggestions."

How can you so profoundly miss a point and then pull a facepalm?

Resulting. Resulting. Resulting control. As a result. (People only pay attention if you do this, it seems.) The person is suggestible and will do what they're told as a result. That's not persuasion, that's a signal altering the brain to want to do what it's told.

If you're familiar with how the brain works, at all, then the kind of "suggestible" they're talking about here isn't the kind you think it is. They're directly tampering with their behaviour, motivation, emotions, and even memories via a signal. That's not talking them into accepting an ideal, that's mind control. They're basically piggybacking off the brain's learning centres, off a person's ability to personally evolve, and using technology to alter them towards obedience.

That's not persuasion, that's brain hacking. The person is suggestible (suggestible as I've explained) as a result of being brain hacked.

Where is the persuasion? You don't need to persuade a person that you've slowly brainhacked to agree with you anyway. That's silly. They don't need persuasion because they can simply remake a person via their indoctrination technique. A person might think they believe completely in an ideal, they might think they've been persuaded to by the most charismatic person alive. But that's not what's happening.

They don't persuade anyone. They just hack them. Like machines.

Edit: Remember the scientists aboard the Reaper in ME2 who thought they were remembering things at the same time? That's part of indoctrination. That's brainhacking. The Reapers alter new memories to fit their ends, so that people believe that such things are happening. Consider what I've said against that piece of evidence.

I'm sure you'd like to believe that some kind of persuasion is going on, but no. People are just being mind-controlled similar to how the Reapers are, it's hacking, plain and simple. A person is just a biological machine, a biological machine that can be hacked.

Modifié par Auld Wulf, 15 avril 2013 - 01:18 .

[MrFob]

I don't think this is entirely correct.
There seems to be a little bit of both going on.
Sure, the reapers effectively "hack the brains" of their victims but it is a slow and gradual process. Within this process, it seems they do use the persons own original desires and twist them for their purposes. We have seen this in ME1 with Saren. He was a spectre. Maybe he was a bastard but he did want to protect council society. The reapers keep that concept in his mind but twist it, so that Saren now believes, he protects the future of organics best by working with Sovereign.
It's the same with TIM, the reapers use his desire to control and make him work right into their hands.
I can see how this form of mind control can be a subtle process, that works gradually, not like flipping a switch. This is even said in the codex (and by Saren, Rana Thenoptis and others). If you do this quickly, you control the person but they become less capable. If you do subtle manipulations within the brain and use arguments to further persuade (and yes, I use the word) the victim, they retain more cognitive power and can work on their own for you.
Our best proof of this is Grayson in the novel Retribution. He may be a bit of a special case because of his implants but he is the only "inside view" we ever get on the indoctrination process. He seems to hear the reapers in his mind, communicate on some level. Especially in the early stages, they always get the best result if they can twist the facts so that Grayson thinks what he is doing is in his own best interest.
There is a lot of force involved of course but depending on the case, I wouldn't just dismiss the possibility that indoctrination can be used in concert with persuasion to get the best results.

[Argolas]

Auld Wulf wrote...

Argolas wrote...

No persuasion involved?

 "The Reaper's resulting control over the limbic system leaves the victim highly susceptible to its suggestions."

How can you so profoundly miss a point and then pull a facepalm?

Resulting. Resulting. Resulting control. As a result. (People only pay attention if you do this, it seems.) The person is suggestible and will do what they're told as a result. That's not persuasion, that's a signal altering the brain to want to do what it's told.

If you're familiar with how the brain works, at all, then the kind of "suggestible" they're talking about here isn't the kind you think it is. They're directly tampering with their behaviour, motivation, emotions, and even memories via a signal. That's not talking them into accepting an ideal, that's mind control. They're basically piggybacking off the brain's learning centres, off a person's ability to personally evolve, and using technology to alter them towards obedience.

That's not persuasion, that's brain hacking. The person is suggestible (suggestible as I've explained) as a result of being brain hacked.

Where is the persuasion? You don't need to persuade a person that you've slowly brainhacked to agree with you anyway. That's silly. They don't need persuasion because they can simply remake a person via their indoctrination technique. A person might think they believe completely in an ideal, they might think they've been persuaded to by the most charismatic person alive. But that's not what's happening.

They don't persuade anyone. They just hack them. Like machines.

Edit: Remember the scientists aboard the Reaper in ME2 who thought they were remembering things at the same time? That's part of indoctrination. That's brainhacking. The Reapers alter new memories to fit their ends, so that people believe that such things are happening. Consider what I've said against that piece of evidence.

I'm sure you'd like to believe that some kind of persuasion is going on, but no. People are just being mind-controlled similar to how the Reapers are, it's hacking, plain and simple. A person is just a biological machine, a biological machine that can be hacked.

Indoctrination is a process. When the reaper gained control over your limbic system as a result of the physical and psychological conditioning, you are not fully indoctrinated yet. You are only fully indocrinated once you stop fighting it.

For example, Saren was not fully indoctrinated for the most part of ME1, yet he already served Souvereign. He was convinced that his way would save lifes. Only after he had doubts after the Virmire encounter with Shepard, Souvereign implanted him to make sure Saren becomes the complete tool that you think any Indoctrinated is.

Next example, Illusive Man. He was serving the Reapers for quite a while in ME3, but he was not a Reaper puppet until he had himself implanted with Reaper tech. He was indoctrinated and still, he had a mind and plans of his own that the Reapers didn't want him to have. The reaper assault against the Sanctuary facility proves that, TIM had figured out a way to control Reaper ground forces and thus became an actual threat.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

MrFob wrote...

There is a lot of force involved of course but depending on the case, I wouldn't just dismiss the possibility that indoctrination can be used in concert with persuasion to get the best results.

I tend to think this, myself. However, I think the issue here is the concept of indoctrination through a five-minute chat.

[Argolas]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

MrFob wrote...

There is a lot of force involved of course but depending on the case, I wouldn't just dismiss the possibility that indoctrination can be used in concert with persuasion to get the best results.

I tend to think this, myself. However, I think the issue here is the concept of indoctrination through a five-minute chat.

Rapid indoctrination is possible.

Besides, Shepard shows every single known indoctrination symptome throughout Mass Effect 3.

Headaches? Check.
Buzzing and ringing in the ears? Check.
Hearing alien voices/ whispers? Check.
Oily shadows? Both in the dreams and in the screen I posted above- Check.

Also, Shepard's mental condition is constantly getting worse throughout the game.


I am not saying the ending was a dream, but I am certain that there is manipulation involved in the ending.