1388 réponses à ce sujet

[Han Shot First]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

I'm sorry but you seem to not to understand what status quo ante bellum means. Status quo ante bellum is a return to the conditions that existed before the outbreak of war. Control meets that criteria. So does Synthesis.

Destroy does not, because both the Catalyst and the Reaper fleet are destroyed.

No ending fits that description. Synthesis is the ending that LEAST fits that description, considering the basic nature of physical being in the universe has been altered.

Both Syntehsis and Control are a return to the status quo ante bellum. Neither side achieves its main war aim of destroying the other, and the Reaper fleet is still intact and undefeated with some version of a Catalyst still at the helm.

While the very nature of life has been altered in Synthesis, the war itself has ended in stalemate.

[SeptimusMagistos]

I think one of the major factors in how you view Control is whether you view Reapers as controlled by Shepard to be an external force or just one more part of the galaxy.

For me it's definitely the latter. Shepard was useful as a human soldier. Nobody questioned whether he was violating people's freedom when he descended on a Blood Pack base and killed everyone there. I honestly don't see why that should change if he's a fleet of Reapers instead.

[Ieldra]

CronoDragoon wrote...

jtav wrote...
And I (speaking as jtav here, not as any Shepard or offering any opinion on thematic consistency) think "Freedom above all" is a disaster of a philosophy. If a dictator is truly benevolent (which would exclude the usual police state tactics of torture and disappearances) what does it matter as long as people are happy and thriving.

It's an abstract and highly dependent argument, but it can matter. It can stagnate the mental growth of a species, make them reliant upon Shepard instead of themselves, etc. In that sense "happy" can also be dependant on your definition. Certainly they will be safer. Does that equate to happiness? Maybe. Perhaps happiness is also the pursuit of personal projects such that existentialists believe. In this case only certain projects can be approved, namely ones that don't "threaten the many." In which case any dangerous or potentially disastrous ideas will be rejected for peace. Again, stagnation.

I'd say that depends on your interference threshold. Prevent any small risk and yes, that stagnation is likely to happen. Prevent only risks with the potential to destroy civilization and things will be fine. There are many possible intermediate levels.

Nevertheless, exactly that aspect is why I prefer the post-Synthesis future to the post-Control one. I prefer a society without real existing gods. For the same reason, my Control!Shep would approach direct interference like divine intervention: the less of it there is, the better. Most of the time, he'd influence cultural climate through memetic engineering and otherwise keep to the background, to the point that people forget he exists.

[clennon8]

andy69156915 wrote...

http://en.wikipedia....y_Way_collision

Interesting. I never did the proper research then (spare time wiki research I mean, I'm no scientist). I always assumed it was gameover for both galaxies when the collision happened, that the gravity of both would rip, tear, and pull each other apart..

I first learned about it on "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman. 

[FlyingSquirrel]

You only keep the Reapers enslaved, which according to common perception is justifiable.

How so, if they were never truly responsible for their own actions?

If they wanted to continue the harvests or otherwise attack and kill people even after freed from the Catalyst, then it would be justifiable for AI-Shepard to "assume direct control" and prevent that, but the Synthesis epilogue suggests that they wouldn't do that. I realize that the Synthesis epilogue never happened in a universe where Shepard chooses Control, but insofar as it tells us something about how Bioware conceives of the Reapers and their likely actions if given independence, I think it's still relevant evidence.

I'm not really anti-Control - I'm still trying to make up my mind about whether I'll choose Control or Synthesis when I finish my current "canon" playthrough (hopefully by the end of the week), but for a Paragon Control ending, I have to imagine that AI-Shepard is leading the Reapers by consensus rather than micromanaging their thoughts and actions.

One thing that's interesting about Control is that it's probably the most open-ended of the choices, in that we can imagine all these different possibilities for what AI-Shepard eventually does. The eventual shape of the Synthesis techno-utopia is left vague, I suppose, but there won't be a single individual with extraordinary power to steer things in one direction or another. Refuse and Destroy are pretty straightforward - Refuse means the current civilizations lose the war, Liara's time capsule is buried somewhere, and the next cycle somehow puts a stop to the Reaper harvests, and Destroy means synthetics are wiped out and the surviving organics rebuild through conventional means.

[CronoDragoon]

Han Shot First wrote...

Both Syntehsis and Control are a return to the status quo ante bellum. Neither side achieves its main war aim of destroying the other, and the Reaper fleet is still intact and undefeated with some version of a Catalyst still at the helm.

While the very nature of life has been altered in Synthesis, the war itself has ended in stalemate.

Curious interpretations of Control and Synthesis. If Country A conquers Country B and instead of killing their soldiers assimilates them into their own army, that is hardly a status quo ante bellum. That's what happens in Control; The Reaper cycle is stopped and the Reapers are now controlled by Shepard-AI.

Synthesis is not a stalemate. Even if you want to claim it's not what Shepard wanted, it is what the Catalyst ultimately wanted, so by definition it cannot be a stalemate.

[3DandBeyond]

CronoDragoon wrote...

jtav wrote...

And I (speaking as jtav here, not as any Shepard or offering any opinion on thematic consistency) think "Freedom above all" is a disaster of a philosophy. If a dictator is truly benevolent (which would exclude the usual police state tactics of torture and disappearances) what does it matter as long as people are happy and thriving.

It's an abstract and highly dependent argument, but it can matter. It can stagnate the mental growth of a species, make them reliant upon Shepard instead of themselves, etc. In that sense "happy" can also be dependant on your definition. Certainly they will be safer. Does that equate to happiness? Maybe. Perhaps happiness is also the pursuit of personal projects such that existentialists believe. In this case only certain projects can be approved, namely ones that don't "threaten the many." In which case any dangerous or potentially disastrous ideas will be rejected for peace. Again, stagnation.

Agreed.  And the problem of the idea of the benevolent dictator is one of longevity and of reality.  What reality is there that features anyone that is without flaws and completely benevolent?  Beside that, a dictator does control everything so he's asserting that his wants and knowledge trump everyone else's.  Rules and laws are seen from his perspective alone.  Now freedom is not perfect, but jtav seems to actually be equating anarchy with freedom in which rules and laws and boundaries do exist.  Freedom is not a disaster even when it is an idea that it must be above all.  Because there can never be some totally benevolent dictator that exists in some idealistic vacuum.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  There well always be people who disagree and dictators will have enemies who want change.  They surround themselves with people who have their own agendas but are yes men.  And there's always someone looking to depose the ruler and use the power for their own desires.

But freedom isn't saying you just get to do whatever you want-it provides for the rights of others that you can't or should not trample on.  It also says what you have the right to do.  And every time someone enacts a law to embrace supposed security over freedom, they weaken us and tend to make things far worse.  There's no such thing as absolute security and such things are way too open to abuse.  You have only to look at just how the drug laws in the US have failed and how they've often been used to prosecute people for anything but what the laws were intended to do.  And prohibition did not stop alcohol use, it increased criminal activity surrounding making alcohol available.

[JasonShepard]

clennon8 wrote...

andy69156915 wrote...

http://en.wikipedia....y_Way_collision

Interesting. I never did the proper research then (spare time wiki research I mean, I'm no scientist). I always assumed it was gameover for both galaxies when the collision happened, that the gravity of both would rip, tear, and pull each other apart..

I first learned about it on "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman. 

If either of you want a proper doomsday scenario, check out Gamma-ray bursts. Wouldn't wipe out the galaxy (provided we understand them correctly) but could easily wipe out all life on Earth if one went off inside the Milky Way and was pointing towards us. And yes, we'd have no warning, since the radiation would be travelling towards us at lightspeed. Fortunately, they're pretty damn rare.

And to bring this back on topic... that's another motivation for picking Control? The tech level of the Reapers could allow them to predict and prevent any gamma-ray bursts? (I'm not being entirely serious here, in case you hadn't guessed )

Modifié par JasonShepard, 19 décembre 2012 - 06:11 .

[Ieldra]

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

You only keep the Reapers enslaved, which according to common perception is justifiable.

How so, if they were never truly responsible for their own actions?

If they wanted to continue the harvests or otherwise attack and kill people even after freed from the Catalyst, then it would be justifiable for AI-Shepard to "assume direct control" and prevent that, but the Synthesis epilogue suggests that they wouldn't do that. I realize that the Synthesis epilogue never happened in a universe where Shepard chooses Control, but insofar as it tells us something about how Bioware conceives of the Reapers and their likely actions if given independence, I think it's still relevant evidence.

I'm not really anti-Control - I'm still trying to make up my mind about whether I'll choose Control or Synthesis when I finish my current "canon" playthrough (hopefully by the end of the week), but for a Paragon Control ending, I have to imagine that AI-Shepard is leading the Reapers by consensus rather than micromanaging their thoughts and actions.

Remember I said "according to common perception". I do not necessarily agree. Anyway, the practical problem is that after Synthesis the Reapers will be free, which means they won't be a unified force any more. Some might be hostile and do untold damage before being brought down by the others. With Control, you can look into their minds and see which one could be freed and which is better kept under control.
Having said that, my main Shepard chooses Synthesis because the Catalyst has given him enough data to be convincing (that's headcanon, I just imagine that the conversation is a dramatic contraction of a more complicated conversation going on, and my Shepard is a mathematician and can follow the Catalyst's models to some degree)  and I choose it because of thematic considerations - I like the exotic future with the promise of ascension. I'd rather bring it about in a different, less drastic way, but it's important for me to actually see it happening on-screen.

One thing that's interesting about Control is that it's probably the most open-ended of the choices, in that we can imagine all these different possibilities for what AI-Shepard eventually does. The eventual shape of the Synthesis techno-utopia is left vague, I suppose, but there won't be a single individual with extraordinary power to steer things in one direction or another. Refuse and Destroy are pretty straightforward - Refuse means the current civilizations lose the war, Liara's time capsule is buried somewhere, and the next cycle somehow puts a stop to the Reaper harvests, and Destroy means synthetics are wiped out and the surviving organics rebuild through conventional means.

Indeed. That's what I meant when I said it's the only choice where your agency can reasonably said to extend into the future.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 décembre 2012 - 06:20 .

[teh DRUMPf!!]

Han Shot First wrote...

Both Syntehsis and Control are a return to the status quo ante bellum. Neither side achieves its main war aim of destroying the other, and the Reaper fleet is still intact and undefeated with some version of a Catalyst still at the helm.

While the very nature of life has been altered in Synthesis, the war itself has ended in stalemate.

I have to say, this is an interesting perspective, considering TIM attributes Anderson's destroy-mentality to him just being an old soldier, only able to see the situation "down the barrel of a gun."

I hope you don't take offense to that, because I do genuinely find it interesting to see a Destroy perspective rooted in military strategy/perspective. Like, now I know what TIM meant by that.

[jtav]

Control is attractive to me for a reason it probably shouldn't be. I've seen how petty, cruel, shortsighted, and just plain lazy life can be, both in the game and in real life. Without any Reaper interference at all we had the Krogan Rebellions and Morning War. We have the salarians planning to do it all over again with the yahg. We have the asari hiding the beacon.

Robot god looks pretty good.

[Iakus]

Mesina2 wrote...

iakus wrote...

I can only speak for myself but control is essentially enslaving the galaxy. The paragon version may be a more benevolent ruler, but in all cases, the Reapers are "guiding" the galaxy. The various peoples have traded their liberty for security. I seem to recall a saying about that. Who said that again? Ben somthingorother...

The entire trilogy has been about winning your freedom, breaking cycles, and developing along your own paths. Control flies in the face for that. The only question it asks are :Would you like your cages plain or gilded?"

How is it a slavery when you just don't allow governments to do any war?


Reapers don't start watching everyone like it's some Big Brother society.
They can't do that, they're just huge warships.


Only thing they can do is not allow any military action by any government body without dealing with Reapers.


That's all that can Reapers do.


Only way for actual slavery you describe is the Council or some other big government get's Catalyst Shepard to support that idea.

They also have armies of husks, occuli (which ironically occulus means "eye"), indoctrinated servants, and who knows what else.

And ShepReaper's mandate is not to "prevent war" but to "protect the many" and there's a LOT of wiggle room in that.  Just look at what the previous Catalyst's madate of "preserve life" led to.

[fiendishchicken]

In a vain effort to try and sound neutral OP, it's subjective to the player's experience, beliefs, and rationale.

I could make an argument calling Destroy and Refuse the only ethical decisions, and you'd be in there in a hot damn minute to argue it.

I pick destroy because I have no intent to let the Reapers live. I feel that there is something inherently evil about them and that the only way I can truly assure safety for Miranda and the galaxy is too destroy them. I don't care about sacrifice. I'm not going to do it myself. I will spend the lives of EDI and the Geth to achieve final victory over the Reapers. I'm sorry they're gone, but the mission parameters called for their destruction, so I paid that price willingly and without regret. I know I did the right thing shooting the pipe.

[clennon8]

I find dissonance in the self-attributed "open mindedness" of pro-Control and pro-Synthesis folks. Control and Synthesis both strike me as inherently cynical. It's as if you're saying organics are a bunch of doomed a-holes unless you impose a "solution" upon them. I say get rid of the effing Reapers and let the cards fall where they may.

[justafan]

For me, control boils down to whether I would entrust a mortal with godlike powers. The answer to that is a definitive NO.

[jtav]

clennon8 wrote...

I find dissonance in the self-attributed "open mindedness" of pro-Control and pro-Synthesis folks. Control and Synthesis both strike me as inherently cynical. It's as if you're saying organics are a bunch of doomed a-holes unless you impose a "solution" upon them. I say get rid of the effing Reapers and let the cards fall where they may.

Right about now I do beloeve that--that we are incapable of ruling ourselves with any degree of competence. It's anger talking but there it is. And I'd prefer to spare life in the hope that it eeventually grows up.

[The Heretic of Time]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Heretic_Hanar wrote...
Twitter canon to the rescue. 


Sounds like a ******-poor excuse to me though. If Sovereign could use a sleeper agent to bypass the keepers and give him back direct control over the Citadel, than what's stopping Harbinger or any other reaper from doing the same?

Or just kill all the dysfunctional Keepers and take over manually?

Also, when I need an external and not so easily accessible source (he did make his Twitter feed private for quite some time and I was not a passionate follower of it even when it was open) to learn something that's crucial to the plot, I'd say it's really bad conveyance and that the plot is rather poorly structured.

Amen to that.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Control is a textbook stalemate.

Both the Reapers and the civilizations of the galaxy had the goal of destroying the other, and they both fail in achieving their main war aim. The Reapers also remain undefeated in the 'field' of battle, and the peace is a return to the status quo ante bellum. The Reapers continue to exist, and so does galactic civilization. Essentially the galaxy reverts to the conditions of the day before the Eden Prime attack.

The only way to win the Reaper War is to choose Destroy.

Refuse is an outright defeat, and Control and Synthesis are stalemates.

The problem I have with this is that "winning the war" is not, in and of itself, the primary goal of either side. The primary goal of the organics and non-Reaper synthetics is to survive and continue living everyday life and developing their civilizations. Destroying the Reapers is a means to that end, but that doesn't mean it's the only means worth considering, or the best one in light of new information. The Reapers' goal, insofar as they have one, is carrying out the instructions of the Catalyst (which they probably can't just disobey). Control and Synthesis aren't so much a stalemate as simply ways of rendering the conflict unnecessary by taking the Catalyst out of the equation and erasing the reason for the Reapers to threaten other civilizations' survival and development.

I understand that some people think this was just too much of a 180 in storytelling terms, but that still would seem to make Destroy more appealing as a "meta" choice. For me, I've actually come around to the idea that this whole situation was the result of the Leviathans' hubris and its unintended consequences.

[CroGamer002]

iakus wrote...

They also have armies of husks, occuli (which ironically occulus means "eye"), indoctrinated servants, and who knows what else.

And ShepReaper's mandate is not to "prevent war" but to "protect the many" and there's a LOT of wiggle room in that.  Just look at what the previous Catalyst's madate of "preserve life" led to.

Everyone has it's own definition of that so it's open to interpretation.


So just because original Catalyst did it, it doesn't mane Catalysts Shepard will do as well.
Unless specific Shepard is that dumb.


And Catalyst Shepard could just easily put down husks and release control from indoctrinated people.

[SeptimusMagistos]

clennon8 wrote...

I find dissonance in the self-attributed "open mindedness" of pro-Control and pro-Synthesis folks. Control and Synthesis both strike me as inherently cynical. It's as if you're saying organics are a bunch of doomed a-holes unless you impose a "solution" upon them. I say get rid of the effing Reapers and let the cards fall where they may.

The price is too high. With Control they synthetics stay alive and the galaxy gets help rebuilding and policing itself. Assuming you don't go the 'Shepard uploaded himself to a new platform therefore Shepard must go violently insane' route, there are no real downsides.

[clennon8]

I think it's far more of a stretch to assume that Shepard digitizing himself and putting his AI copy in charge of policing the galaxy with an army of indoctrinating killer robots for the rest of time won't lead to problems.

[fiendishchicken]

jtav wrote...

clennon8 wrote...

I find dissonance in the self-attributed "open mindedness" of pro-Control and pro-Synthesis folks. Control and Synthesis both strike me as inherently cynical. It's as if you're saying organics are a bunch of doomed a-holes unless you impose a "solution" upon them. I say get rid of the effing Reapers and let the cards fall where they may.

Right about now I do beloeve that--that we are incapable of ruling ourselves with any degree of competence. It's anger talking but there it is. And I'd prefer to spare life in the hope that it eeventually grows up.

Here's a question. What makes you think a Reaper god is more suited to ruling us than say ourselves?

[Iakus]

clennon8 wrote...

I think it's far more of a stretch to assume that Shepard digitizing himself and putting his AI copy in charge of policing the galaxy with an army of indoctrinating killer robots for the rest of time won't lead to problems.

That's the Paranoia talking
 
Speaking of ME4...

[The Heretic of Time]

fiendishchicken wrote...

jtav wrote...

clennon8 wrote...

I find dissonance in the self-attributed "open mindedness" of pro-Control and pro-Synthesis folks. Control and Synthesis both strike me as inherently cynical. It's as if you're saying organics are a bunch of doomed a-holes unless you impose a "solution" upon them. I say get rid of the effing Reapers and let the cards fall where they may.

Right about now I do beloeve that--that we are incapable of ruling ourselves with any degree of competence. It's anger talking but there it is. And I'd prefer to spare life in the hope that it eeventually grows up.

Here's a question. What makes you think a Reaper god is more suited to ruling us than say ourselves?

The reapers don't rule over us in the Control ending, they protect us, maybe they police us (if Shepard was renegade), but they don't rule us.

Why are the police and trained army-men more suited to protect us and police us than say ourselves?

[jtav]

fiendishchicken wrote...

jtav wrote...

clennon8 wrote...

I find dissonance in the self-attributed "open mindedness" of pro-Control and pro-Synthesis folks. Control and Synthesis both strike me as inherently cynical. It's as if you're saying organics are a bunch of doomed a-holes unless you impose a "solution" upon them. I say get rid of the effing Reapers and let the cards fall where they may.

Right about now I do beloeve that--that we are incapable of ruling ourselves with any degree of competence. It's anger talking but there it is. And I'd prefer to spare life in the hope that it eeventually grows up.

Here's a question. What makes you think a Reaper god is more suited to ruling us than say ourselves?

Absence of passion. The fact that it cannot be bought, intimidated our distracted. It has no vanity, no desire for anything other than to complete its onectives, but being based on a human mind should, in theory, prevent the same insanity as the Catalyst.

Ask me in a month and I'll be back to Synthesis, I'm sure.