Ieldra2 wrote...
@Wulfram:
Well, ME2 downplayed pretty much everything but the characters, but it's certainly odd for ME3. Only the Rannoch plot provides a fundament - and Javik, which makes it even more annoying that he was cut out of the game for DLC.
Guest_Calinstel_*
Ieldra2 wrote...
@Wulfram:
Well, ME2 downplayed pretty much everything but the characters, but it's certainly odd for ME3. Only the Rannoch plot provides a fundament - and Javik, which makes it even more annoying that he was cut out of the game for DLC.
Ieldra2 wrote...
(2) I think the writers expected us to lump the Reapers together with the geth into the "synthetic" and thus "other" category of life. So that while we were learning to accept synthetics as people, we would also consider the possibility that the Reapers were "just enemies" and otherwise valid forms of life.
What brought that to ruin so completely that there was no recovery was that they pushed the horror up to eleven in ME2 and again in ME3. To estimate the role of the "abomination aesthetic", consider how you would've reacted if the Reapers had harvested organics, but in a somewhat "cleaner", more clinical way, without all the unnecessary pain and the re-use of organic body parts for their minions. What if the Reaper minions had been machines instead of travesties of existing species? I venture to guess that many of us would have been rather more ready to see the Reapers as "just enemies" instead of "eldritch abominations", enemies with which to make peace was generally considered possible.
Ieldra2 wrote...
As for (3): It is heavily suggested by Miranda when she says she'd never worked with so many black boxes before. What could black box technology refer to but Reaper tech? Anything else would not have been beyond her understanding.
Modifié par Ieldra2, 15 décembre 2012 - 09:38 .
In my point ofview that issue is reversed.Dr_Extrem wrote...
dreman9999 wrote...
That alone speaks volumes on the issue the catalyst brings up about synthetics vs organics. He is just a machine doing whathe is programed to do. He never saw it as an issue on his own. His creators did.Dr_Extrem wrote...
do not argue with a rock.
qoud erat demonstrandum
i dont know if i want to cry or laugh ..
I don't see any real jumps in concepts.Masha Potato wrote...
I doubt it was foreshadowing because i would never in my life believe there was any sort of planning in ME plot whatsoever. Considering the crazy jumps between concepts that happened duringtrilogy it's more like fundamental disconnect between the writers and the writers.
dreman9999 wrote...
In my point ofview that issue is reversed.Dr_Extrem wrote...
dreman9999 wrote...
That alone speaks volumes on the issue the catalyst brings up about synthetics vs organics. He is just a machine doing whathe is programed to do. He never saw it as an issue on his own. His creators did.Dr_Extrem wrote...
do not argue with a rock.
qoud erat demonstrandum
i dont know if i want to cry or laugh ..
Ieldra2 wrote...
@Lizardviking:
re: nature of the Reapers:
Not so. It doesn't matter if chemically organic stuff is used in their construction, they're still synthetics because they're constructs. As revealed by Legion, the defining characteristic of a Reaper was that it was a machine body organic minds were uploaded to. The appearance of the "Terminator" points in the same direction, as well as Javik saying "machines had surpassed us long ago" when referring to the Reapers.
I think EDI's lines at the CB suggesting something different were only put in to justify the organic appearance they had in mind at some time for the human Reaper. You can see this in the concept art from the ME2 art book that came with the CE. All the rest of the lore soundly pointed - and still points - to Reapers as synthetics. That the ME team made up things to suit their dramatic needs with no regard to the lore shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.
The giant retcon came with Leviathan. Only then were the Reapers "revealed" to target all life, not just organics.
re: Lazarus using Reaper tech:
They wanted to keep it ambiguous, like so much else. Miranda's explanation is at the very least highly suggestive of Reaper tech.
I do not associate much thinking with a dialogue containing something as nonsensical as "essences of species". It's certainly nothing supported anywhere else in the story, even Javik refers to the Reapers as machines. I think the "hybrid" suggestion was put in to justify the organic appearance of the original human Reaper concept as well as the Reaper minions. They wanted the Reaper minions to look as repulsive as possible, and to hell with the consequences for the lore. The need for cheap drama overruling lore consistency? Really, nothing remotely new.Lizardviking wrote...
Ieldra2 wrote...
@Lizardviking:
re: nature of the Reapers:
Not so. It doesn't matter if chemically organic stuff is used in their construction, they're still synthetics because they're constructs. As revealed by Legion, the defining characteristic of a Reaper was that it was a machine body organic minds were uploaded to. The appearance of the "Terminator" points in the same direction, as well as Javik saying "machines had surpassed us long ago" when referring to the Reapers.
I think EDI's lines at the CB suggesting something different were only put in to justify the organic appearance they had in mind at some time for the human Reaper. You can see this in the concept art from the ME2 art book that came with the CE. All the rest of the lore soundly pointed - and still points - to Reapers as synthetics. That the ME team made up things to suit their dramatic needs with no regard to the lore shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.
With the human Reaper reveal the dialog is build up to present them as freak-hybrids and not synthethic. If that was not their intentions then I wonder what on earth they were thinking when making the dialog.
Yes, but that was accidental. At that point, the geth were not targeted by the harvesting. They were just in the way. Legion says that: "The Reapers are your future rather than ours". Only with Leviathan did the agenda change to "preserve ALL life". Before, it had always been just organics.The giant retcon came with Leviathan. Only then were the Reapers "revealed" to target all life, not just organics.
Fairly certain Legion already said back in ME2 that the Reapers threatens their future.
So why then the "black boxes"? Why the insistence that Shepard had been DEAD, suggesting that he couldn't have been revived by "normal" means not involving the technology of transcendence-themed entities who came to be known for dealing with minds of organics and machine bodies? Given those very suggestive elements, yes, it would take an explicit mention of not having used Reaper technology to convince me that "Lazarus used Reaper tech" was not on the list of intended interpretations.re: Lazarus using Reaper tech:
They wanted to keep it ambiguous, like so much else. Miranda's explanation is at the very least highly suggestive of Reaper tech.
I disagree, the complete lack of mention of Reaper tech. Especially when the scientist guy got worked up over using Reaper parts to build EDI heavily implies that Shepard's revival was simply done by "normal" means.
Or does people really need both the scientist and TIM to look into the camera and say "And for the record to anyone who watches this classified video. We did NOT use any Reaper tech!"
Modifié par Ieldra2, 15 décembre 2012 - 10:30 .
I get your point, that why I said in my point of view it's reversedDr_Extrem wrote...
dreman9999 wrote...
In my point ofview that issue is reversed.Dr_Extrem wrote...
dreman9999 wrote...
That alone speaks volumes on the issue the catalyst brings up about synthetics vs organics. He is just a machine doing whathe is programed to do. He never saw it as an issue on his own. His creators did.Dr_Extrem wrote...
do not argue with a rock.
qoud erat demonstrandum
i dont know if i want to cry or laugh ..
*sigh* ... dreman just dont gets my point .. this is amusing and frightening at the same time.
What in dear lord shows in the plot that AI's want to be more human? EDI's humanity is here own issue ofa child imatating a parent. The geth arn't trying to be more like organics and don't end up like organics.paul165 wrote...
@ The OP I would tend to agree with this however I would also argue that ME3 displayed it's AIs very poorly with the very crude emotional plays in the Geth mission and EDI's arc which seemed to argue that the highest aspiration of AIs is to be a knock off human.
EDI is an a AI it/she has no gender and no hormones so why is it interested in knocking boots with the pilot? I would argue it would work better if EDI was more obviously alien the conversations with Shepard were a good start but they then threw it away with the romance arc presumably added to "humanise" a character that shouldn't be human in the first place.
Ieldra2 wrote...
I think there is such an underlying assumption, mainly in the perceived incapability of synthetics to feel genuine emotion. Note how post-Synthesis, we see EDI smiling and hugging Garrus. She had never smiled before and was always more detached. She showed determination in the FOB scene, but her post-Synthesis appearance was markedly different from before.
There appear to be three fundamental assumptions:
(1) Synthetics cannot feel genuine emotion, or at least have a much more limited capacity for it. See EDI; and
Ieldra2 wrote...
(2) Human-like individuality is required for life to be really valid. Thus, pre-Rannoch geth are not considered equal to organics before and unless they acquire the Reaper upgrade.
dreman9999 wrote...
What in dear lord shows in the plot that AI's want to be more human? EDI's humanity is here own issue ofa child imatating a parent. The geth arn't trying to be more like organics and don't end up like organics.paul165 wrote...
@ The OP I would tend to agree with this however I would also argue that ME3 displayed it's AIs very poorly with the very crude emotional plays in the Geth mission and EDI's arc which seemed to argue that the highest aspiration of AIs is to be a knock off human.
EDI is an a AI it/she has no gender and no hormones so why is it interested in knocking boots with the pilot? I would argue it would work better if EDI was more obviously alien the conversations with Shepard were a good start but they then threw it away with the romance arc presumably added to "humanise" a character that shouldn't be human in the first place.
Lizardviking wrote...
The idea that the main theme of ME boils down to for Bioware is "Synthethics vs organics" baffles me. After ME2 everything changed, the Reapers were revealed to be hybrids and the Geth were threatend by them just as much as any other organic species. It was no longer "Synthethics vs organics" but "Reapers (hybrids) vs everyone
Calinstel wrote...
If you remember that scene then you will remember it was the AI that initiated an attack on Shepard. No were did Shepard move to attack or kill it before threatened.
Also, with the VI on the moon. It (now EDI) gained awareness while under attack and responded yet, in ME2 and 3, EDI does not.
Why then is the message about organics attacking synthetics when the reverse is true?
I ask this as EDI 'woke up' on a training range where the targets were supposed to be attacked and, even with the burgeoning AI, it would have known that the things being attacked were there solely for that reason. The computers that housed the AI were, at the time, not being assaulted.
Seboist wrote...
Lizardviking wrote...
The idea that the main theme of ME boils down to for Bioware is "Synthethics vs organics" baffles me. After ME2 everything changed, the Reapers were revealed to be hybrids and the Geth were threatend by them just as much as any other organic species. It was no longer "Synthethics vs organics" but "Reapers (hybrids) vs everyone
Like Derperus and the Geth the Reapers are superb examples of "plot clay" that changes on the fly.
ME1: Machine gods that hold organic life in contempt and consider them an "accident". They also assist the Geth against organics.
ME2: Now they're cyborgs who turn the "genetically diverse" species into liquid goo to form space terminators while exterminating those who don't meet their criteria.
ME3: Now they're about killing organics and turning them into goo to save them from creating synthethics that kill organics. All past establishments of Reapers wiping out entire species and aiding Geth against organics in both past and present is conveniently overlooked.
If there's anything good I can say about how this series was handled is that it's a textbook example of how NOT to write a trilogy(and how not to handle RPG mechanics and choices).
Modifié par Dr_Extrem, 16 décembre 2012 - 12:08 .
Seboist wrote...
ME1: Machine gods that hold organic life in contempt and consider them an "accident". They also assist the Geth against organics.
Wulfram wrote...
Seboist wrote...
ME1: Machine gods that hold organic life in contempt and consider them an "accident". They also assist the Geth against organics.
To be fair, they use Geth against Organics. Saren says Sovereign holds the Geth in contempt
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