1388 réponses à ce sujet

[Paranoidal nemesis]

Ieldra2 wrote...

jtav wrote...
Easy, make it a little cyberpunk-y. The Industrial Revolution solved a lot of our problems but it created new ones as well. People are still people.

Good analogy. There will be new wonders, but also new horrors, Also, the "final evolution" is nonsense. The epilogue clearly shows future advancement.

Doesn't it also say its the apex of evolution though?  There is a difference between evolution and advancement. 

[NeroonWilliams]

Xandurpein wrote...

I think the ethical reason why I abhor Control is that Shepard's role as ruler of the Galaxy rests on might of arms and I think that is ethically wrong. Take away the real or implied threat of force and Reaper Shepard will hardly be able to control the Galaxy. Might doesn't make right.

I have to call out this invalid thinking.  While it may seem impolitic to think that might makes right, it is in fact a true statement as far as the rule of law.  The rule of law exists because a society as a whole believes that those laws are just and that is how they ought to live.  Anyone who disagrees and disobeys those laws is forcibly reprimanded by receiving a penalty.  If they disagree enough the only way to make the society change is through force of ideas which validates the current law, or force of arms to codify the new law.  Don't think that just because you don't see the arms at all times doesn't mean they aren't there to back up the law.

[clennon8]

Metagaming is the name of the game for pro-Synths and pro-Controllers. "Bad writing" has excused them from the rigor of role-playing.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

I am Renegade!Shepard is here.

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 19 décembre 2012 - 11:52 .

[clennon8]

Damn. There's that guy.

[Meltemph]

Nothing you said is reliant on the synthesis or control ending at all.

"Integration of technology" is specifically mentioned in the exposition. What the hell do you take that to mean? Of course Synthesis adds to the setting.

Why do you think synthesis is the only way for this to happen? Mass Effect could have very easily done these types of things on its own. The writers were clearly willing to show an incredibly advancement in technology, with bringing Shep back from the dead, and how so much technology was integrated in their lives.

Also with reaper tech, I'm not sure it would even be possible to have a brain hacked, that is just headcannon, since we were given no reason to believe that the reapers themselves were hack-able. Regardless none of this matter, because it isn't the point. The point is, from a story or setting perspective, ME created no barriers as to why the setting couldnt have gone in that direction without some hamstrung ending that made everything poof into existence, in terms of the perfect setting for it.

There is many other ways they could have woven the setting into that pov if they really want to take it there. As it stands now, they have a cheap, "magic happened and now we will deal with whatever we can think of next".

Again, nothing mentioned outside of something more to do with reapers is specific to the control or synthesis endings.

Modifié par Meltemph, 19 décembre 2012 - 11:57 .

[cyrexwingblade]

Synthesis is cognitive dissonance. The portrayed ending, the canon, is so happy and fluffy it's misplaced in the ME universe just for that reason. However, without meta-gaming, my Shepard had no reason to view synthesis as anything other than 'giant universe husk-making nuke'. Husks are synthesized, the entire Reaper force is synthesized, they are both organic and synthetic. That is the only example of Synthesis she has seen, and it's not a risk she's willing to take.

She would agree with the destroyers, Control is a massive risk, but it's a massive risk vs. genocide, and genocide is unacceptable to Litilla Shepard. ESPECIALLY if she survives it. The only way she could every make herself do it would be a 'I'm right behind you guys...' for Legion and Edi's sake. If she survived? After killing Edi and the Geth? Yeah, no... she'd... snap.

[Iakus]

Paranoidal nemesis wrote...

Similar reason of why I can't choose synthesis, even though I know Shep is dead. 

In regards to some of the other posts about the LI serving as a virtual girlfriend for basement dwellers, I want to mention  something Bioware does better then any other studio is develop its characters with both depth and interaction.  To make Mass Effect's universe worth saving, there should be someone in it worth dying for.

"It's easy to find something worth dying for.  Do you have anything worth living for?"

[JasonShepard]

Okay, a couple of hours away, and this thread is still going. I'm impressed.

iakus wrote...

fiendishchicken wrote...

After looking at this thread, all I can say is good work for giving the people on the BSN another thread to war with each other OP. Bravo.

With one or two exceptions, this has been a very restrained and intelligent debate.

By BSN standards, anyway.

Scratch that, I'm very impressed. Well done BSN!!!:lol: This thread has actually restored my faith in the forum...

Eryri wrote...

MegaSovereign wrote...

The "absolute power corrupts" doesn't actually apply here considering Shepard in the Control ending is no longer organic.

Isn't that rather having things both ways? If Shepard retains his human perspective including his morality and mores, then he is just as capable as any other human of making moral mistakes, and of being corrupted by power.  

If on the other hand, as you say, this copy of Shepard is no longer susceptible to such human frailty, then he must surely have lost that human perspective. Then he becomes something beyond our understanding, with thought processes and actions we can no longer predict. Something operating without human morality, and which may make a cold, rational calculation that the cycles must begin again to serve some perceived "greater good".

Either way, Control is not an option that appeals to me, for this and other reasons.

While scanning through the thread from where I left it, this post really stood out. Either Shepard is still essentially human - in which case s/he could still make mistakes - or Shepard is now an AI bound only by cold logic. While I don't necessarily agree with the either/or arguement here, I do understand it. And I can see it as a valid arguement against Control.

However, let's run with it for a moment.

Taking option A - Shepard is still moral, but still fallible - is a fascinating situation. Especially if we assume Shepard knows this and chose Control anyway. Why is it fascinating? Imagine, a near all-powerful Shepard who knows that s/he could still make mistakes. Shep would have to be checking him/herself every single moment. And if s/he makes a mistake and realises it... what then? The author in me finds that characterisation compelling. The EC Control epilogue may be Shep-AI's initial intent, but once s/he realises that s/he can and has made a mistake, I can very easily see them going one of two ways. Absolute power, ends justifies the means mindset of "mistakes don't matter" or... "I can't allow myself to stay in power".

Okay, that went out on a tangent. Still I hope some of you found it interesting. And the potential for character exploration like this is part of why I like Control. And that's definitely not an ethical motive...

Modifié par JasonShepard, 20 décembre 2012 - 12:15 .

[Paranoidal nemesis]

iakus wrote...

Paranoidal nemesis wrote...

Similar reason of why I can't choose synthesis, even though I know Shep is dead. 

In regards to some of the other posts about the LI serving as a virtual girlfriend for basement dwellers, I want to mention  something Bioware does better then any other studio is develop its characters with both depth and interaction.  To make Mass Effect's universe worth saving, there should be someone in it worth dying for.

"It's easy to find something worth dying for.  Do you have anything worth living for?"

We don't definitvely get to know if we live at the end...

[The Heretic of Time]

fiendishchicken wrote...

Volc19 wrote...

Common arguments against Control are usually these:

1- Association fallacy: "TIM liked control, TIM is bad, therefor control is bad."

2- Literary inconsistency: "Shepard: Control will never work, TIM, time to die... oh wait, nevermind, it totally works."

3- Indoctrination/trust issues: "Even though I know what happens in the endings, and I know that they all work out in the end, I still think the Catalyst is lying to me."

4- Headcanon: "Shepalyst makes the galaxy into a police state regardless of his moral alignment, and I will think this regardless of evidence to the contrary."

Out of all of them, I think 2 is the most reasonable objection. Without the ability to ever say Control sounds viable, and killing TIM for wanting it, picking Control comes off as hypocritical. That, however, will not stop me from picking the best ending.

EDIT: I totally missed Ieldra's most recent post. Now I feel silly.

Good work picking Destroy fellow destroyer.

He isn't a destroyer. He said he picked the best ending, not Destroy.

[SeptimusMagistos]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

*I* simply do not believe that Shepard would trust Godchild at this point when he's clearly trying to get me to *not destroy* the Reapers.

I figure if he's telling the truth about what one of the gadgets does, he's probably telling the truth about all of them.

AlexMBrennan wrote...
Another concern is that Godchild wasn't made to be evil, and doesn't didn't come up with the Reaper cycle for the evulz - if anything, I'd say the the aesop here is that cold, hard reason and logic needs to be tempered with humanity to get an acceptable outcome. Thus, there is no guarantee that replacing one AI with another (albeit based on Shepard) wouldn't result in more of the same long term problems. 

First off: that's exactly why you're replacing it. You inject the 'humanity' into it.

More importantly, my Shepard saw the Catalyst as an example of what happens when you let a Renegade run things. So he calmly took over the wheel and painted the galaxy a pretty shade of blue.

[Seboist]

What I "like" about control is how nobody ever controls Rachni, Geth or Thorian creepers but the one moron who compared the genophage to the first contact war is able to control the machine god themselves with ease.

Modifié par Seboist, 20 décembre 2012 - 12:52 .

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

jtav wrote...

Another reason it might be unpopular is that it doesn't offer much in the way of rewards for playing the game well: no maskless quarians or futuristic cities or breathing Shepards so it feels less like you won.

I consider seeing both the Geth and Quarians alive without having used vile green space magic a victory.

[Aaleel]

For a number of reason

1) I had just made a man suicide himself because he wanted to do this exact thing, after spending the entirety of the game trying to convince him how dumb the idea was.
2) As long as the reapers are alive they're a threat to everyone and everything plain and simple.
3) If the new AI goes the way of the old AI and convinces itself that something makes sense logically for the good of the galaxy, there is nothing anyone will be able to do to stop a bad 'solution' because the Catalyst will have the most powerful army in the galaxy and can do whatever it wants.

Only way I saw to definitively stop the reapers for good was to eliminate all the reapers.  You don't have to put faith in some AI not to so what it feels is best for the galaxy with impunity.

Modifié par Aaleel, 20 décembre 2012 - 12:58 .

[Maniccc]

I dislike control because:

1) It is hubris. Who is Shep (or anyone, for that matter) to decide anything for other people? "I will ensure...." tells me all I need to know. One person will speak for everyone, whether you like it or not. I have no doubt that godshep would do all sorts of "good" things, but that's not the issue, is it? The question is not if some good things will come of it, the question is this: does any one person have the moral perfection to rule absolutely? The answer is obviously "no."

2) Reapers become slaves.

I have a problem with the interpretation of the destroy ending. In this battle for the galaxy's freedom to determine its own destiny, we have all come together in a common cause, knowing that perhaps none of us will survive. Our common cause is the destruction of the Reapers, not inputing shep as a god. The death of anyone, let alone every synthetic, is unfortunate, but the destroy ending is the very purpose of our alliance. The Geth know they might all die. EDI knows she might die. She says the Reapers are an "abomination and must be destroyed." Their very existence is thoroughly vile to her.

Choosing destroy is not a choice to commit genocide of the Geth, choosing destroy is the fulfillment of all our goals. The annihalation of the Geth is a consequence of achieving that goal, just like the death of Anderson was a consequence. None of it is happy, it's a war.

If you choose the Geth over the Quarians, are you comitting genocide of the Quarians? The Quarians will die because they chose to attack rather than live in peace. The Geth are not dying because you choose to kill them, they are dying because of the Reapers, because of the imperfection of the Crucible.

The issue here is a mistake I see all the time. People confuse agency and responsibilty. If I can save one of two people, and choose person A, does that mean I killed person B? Shep does not destroy the Geth, the Geth die as a consequence of our failure to build an adequate weapon. This, combined with my Libertarian stance and the issues with Control I mentioned above, lead me very clearly to only one choice: Destroy is the only moral option. It fulfills our purpose, it frees us of the Reaper tyranny, it gives the races of the galaxy the freedom to determine their own destiny, it annihilates the profanity that is the Reaper's very existence.

[Eterna]

Uncle Jo wrote...

Eterna5 wrote...

I chose Control because I firmly believe there needs to be a force or entity that can prevent war before it begins. Some people may call that robbing organics of free will, but personally I believe that the ability to commit war on a large scale is not a right worth having. 

*snip*

Wow man. Just wow. And how are you going to prevent a war before it begins?

If you know that acts of agression against other nations will ultimately end in your demise, then you aren't very likely to instigate a conflict. 

[Xilizhra]

Seboist wrote...

What I "like" about control is how nobody ever controls Rachni, Geth or Thorian creepers but the one moron who compared the genophage to the first contact war is able to control the machine god themselves with ease.

None of those three had a giant machine already set up to control them.

The issue here is a mistake I see all the time. People confuse agency
and responsibilty. If I can save one of two people, and choose person
A, does that mean I killed person B? Shep does not destroy the Geth,
the Geth die as a consequence of our failure to build an adequate
weapon. This, combined with my Libertarian stance and the issues with
Control I mentioned above, lead me very clearly to only one choice:
Destroy is the only moral option. It fulfills our purpose, it frees us
of the Reaper tyranny, it gives the races of the galaxy the freedom to
determine their own destiny, it annihilates the profanity that is the
Reaper's very existence.

Foolishness. No state of existence can be said to be inherently profane (if the Reapers find their own existence to be such, they would commit suicide in Synthesis, but they don't), and you still make a choice to commit genocide via your own action (actually, two of them). It's not a matter of choosing between person A and B, it's a choice of choosing A or choosing both. It's simple as that.

Modifié par Xilizhra, 20 décembre 2012 - 03:20 .

[Maniccc]

Xilizhra wrote...

Foolishness. No state of existence can be said to be inherently profane (if the Reapers find their own existence to be such, they would commit suicide in Synthesis, but they don't), and you still make a choice to commit genocide via your own action (actually, two of them). It's not a matter of choosing between person A and B, it's a choice of choosing A or choosing both. It's simple as that.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Anyone can state anything to be inherently profane, it's all a matter of definition and perspective.  Of course, we know the Reapers think they are the saviors of all organic life, but not one organic species they wiped out would think of them as anything less then a genicidal and thoroughly evil (profane) thing.

Once again, you fail to understand the difference between choice and consequence.  If you say Shep thinks this:  "I will destroy all synthetic life" then sure, it is a choice to commit genocide.  But Shep does not choose that.  Shep chooses:  "I will destroy the Reapers."  That choice, like every choice ever made in life, has consequences.  The question then, is this:  Is the annihilation of synthetic life a worst consequence than setting myself up as some imperfect supreme being to which all life must answer?  Add to this the fact that control actually contradicts one of the main goals of the story (to free the galaxy from tyranny) by setting up another tyrant.

You make, like I said, a VERY common mistake.  You are confusing choices.  And no, it's not a matter of choosing to save A and B instead of just A.  Reducing the choice to that means to ignore the meaning of saving A and B,  In this case, the meaning is creating an imperfect god that will tell everyone what's what, like it or not.

You need to read some moral philosophy and learn the meaning of agency, intention, responsibility, and so on, as it relates to a moral choice.  For example, you ignore the issue of intention, and look only at results. 
Without considering intent, it is impossible to know if any decision ever made is moral or not.  Moral choices may result in undesirable results and immoral choices may result in desirable results.  The morality is not determined by result, but by the underlying rationale for the choice regardless of potential results.  That is what morality is: the philosophy by which we make a choice.

By looking at results as the determining factor, you can never have a consistent or reliable moral system.  Furthermore, since you can never be 100% certain what any given result might be, any "moral" choice so made, will be made in a vacuum.  In short, your argument states that there is, in fact, no morality, only desirable and undesirable (or, more or less desirable) results, and any given person will pick any perceived desirable result at any given moment.

So using your own methodology, I will choose to commit Geth genocide because they are synthetics and will eventually turn against organics and seek to destroy us.  So by choosing destroy I wipe them out, along with the Reapers, and can then preach about the evils of synthtic life and so on.  So as you can see, anything can be justified if you choose based on results and potential results because we do not know the future, so anything can be posited as "possible".

EDIT:

I would also like to point out a strawman fallacy you commit.  I never said that the Reapers are "inherently profane", so your entire point on this is moot, anyway.

Modifié par Maniccc, 20 décembre 2012 - 04:13 .

[CosmicGnosis]

I hate what has become of this fanbase. No matter which ending you pick, someone will think you're a terrible person.

I doubt that BioWare expected this reaction.

Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 20 décembre 2012 - 04:23 .

[dreamgazer]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

I hate what has become of this fanbase. No matter which ending you pick, someone will think you're a terrible person.

I doubt that BioWare expected this reaction.

I don't.  I doubt they thought it'd be this venomous, though---and it might've not been with tighter execution.

[Jorji Costava]

@Maniccc

I'm not so sure Xilizhra's criticism can simply dismissed on the grounds that it equates the rightness/wrongness of a choice with its actual consequences. An act can be wrong for a variety of reasons other than its consequences or an explicit intention to do wrong formed by the actor (i.e. negligence, weakness of will, etc.). To take an exceptionally shopworn example from Peter Singer, suppose Bob passes by a child drowning in a pond, and has the opportunity to save the child at minimal expense to himself. Bob, however, refuses to do so on the grounds that he does not want to get his new shoes wet. It looks to me that Bob has done something seriously wrong, even though he never explicitly formed an intention to kill the child. In other words, he was obligated to consider and pursue an alternative course of action.

The point is not that the end choice is exactly analogous to this pond scenario; it isn't. The point is that acts of omission can be seriously wrong when they lead to extremely bad consequences, and when the subject knows that there are alternatives available that avoid those consequences. Do control and synthesis count as good alternatives to destroy? Well, that's a path I've been down before, and don't really want to go too far into again; I'm pretty exhausted with it. The only point I want to make here is that even if we grant that destroy isn't the intentional killing of the Geth, that doesn't get destroyers off the hook automatically. It could still turn out seriously wrong on the grounds that one failed to pursue more humane alternatives. We need to show that those alternatives aren't so humane after all. On that matter I doubt we have enough information to confidently draw any conclusions one way or another.

For anyone who has the time and willingness, see 19:30-35:00 of this video for some relevant discussion on double effect and related issues.

[Veloric Wu]

Control is my favorite.

1. Where did you get the data that Control is least favorite? All the major polls I've seen point out that Synthesis is the least loved.

2. If it is, then I think it's because Control is brought up by TIM and he is pretty much the evil guy~which makes Control look like a glorified surrender. Then again, I would say Synthesis is even more a surrender.

[Maniccc]

osbornep wrote...

@Maniccc

I'm not so sure Xilizhra's criticism can simply dismissed on the grounds that it equates the rightness/wrongness of a choice with its actual consequences. An act can be wrong for a variety of reasons other than its consequences or an explicit intention to do wrong formed by the actor (i.e. negligence, weakness of will, etc.). To take an exceptionally shopworn example from Peter Singer, suppose Bob passes by a child drowning in a pond, and has the opportunity to save the child at minimal expense to himself. Bob, however, refuses to do so on the grounds that he does not want to get his new shoes wet. It looks to me that Bob has done something seriously wrong, even though he never explicitly formed an intention to kill the child. In other words, he was obligated to consider and pursue an alternative course of action.

The point is not that the end choice is exactly analogous to this pond scenario; it isn't. The point is that acts of omission can be seriously wrong when they lead to extremely bad consequences, and when the subject knows that there are alternatives available that avoid those consequences. Do control and synthesis count as good alternatives to destroy? Well, that's a path I've been down before, and don't really want to go too far into again; I'm pretty exhausted with it. The only point I want to make here is that even if we grant that destroy isn't the intentional killing of the Geth, that doesn't get destroyers off the hook automatically. It could still turn out seriously wrong on the grounds that one failed to pursue more humane alternatives. We need to show that those alternatives aren't so humane after all. On that matter I doubt we have enough information to confidently draw any conclusions one way or another.

Actually, you and I are saying much the same thing.  I never dismissed Xilizhra's criticism simply on the basis of choice and consequence, or even intention as well, but also on the other factors I mentioned.  The issue in control is whether or not god-shep is a moral pursuit, or an immoral one.  We can only operate from what we know (as Shep, in particular, there is no way Shep can know that killing the Reapers will, in fact, kill all synthetics as well).

Part of the problem with having this discussion as it relates to ME3's ending, is that the ending is artificially designed to create a supposed "moral ambiguity".  Moral ambiguity is based on a lack of understanding, both of one's own moral philosophy and all the details governing any given situation.  This is one of the fundamental problems with the ending:  given the situation in which Shep finds herself, it is impossible to make any sound desicion.  We have no evidence that the ghost is being honest to any degree whatsoever, and we have only three possible actions (well, four, with refuse) to take.  The ending is shoe horned onto us, and we are no longer entirely responsible for any of it, because so much of it is beyond our power.  We are basically pushing a button in the dark and hoping for the best.

And I agree that we lack information to really know if the choice we made was the "right" choice.  The whole thing is ultimately rather open and up in the air, so the best we can do is work with what we know, and not go off on what may or may not happen after the fact (like saying Shep could just later control the Reapers and send them into a star).

Any value in this discussion at all is really not relevant to ME, in my view, but is instead found in the ideas regarding morality in general.

[OmegaXI]

Still look at it the same way I looked at it on my first playthrough, the reapers would still be around which scared me. I remembered Javik's words, "Every soul that has ever existed is watching this moment." millions upon millions of years worth of death. And I had the chance to end it (the Reapers) for good with destroy.
I can see the appeal of Control, but it just strikes me as one of those "Last Temptation" moments and I was scared of the reapers still being arround. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", I didn't trust the reapers still being around, I mean "what if the chaos returns" is one thing but "What if I lose control of the Reapers" was alot more evident at that point.