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[Reth Shepherd]

Eterna5 wrote...

Rifneno wrote...

CosmicGnosis wrote...

Rifneno wrote...

Fire is not sentient. An intelligent being cannot compare its destruction to fire. If you can't grasp that distinction, there's really no hope for you.

Why are there people here that always enjoy implying that I'm stupid?

The statement is intended to convey the purpose of the cycle. It ensures that new life develops and has a chance at existence.

When you say things like "you owe your existence to the omnicidal rogue AI", you should probably expect people to imply there's some sort of mental defect at play.  Personally, I just think you're trolling.

Why is he wrong? Aside from you being butthurt about it I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why his statement is utrue. 

It's true, but so what? It changes nothing aside from that we partly owe our existence to a crime committed many times over. It changes nothing in so far as that crime needs to end.

Cosmic Gnosis: what the cycle does is cut life down in its childhood. What would a race be like if it had the chance to grow and develop? How far would they have advanced, what would they be like? We don't know, because they were never given the chance to grow and find out. We think of ourselves as the apex and the height of civilization, but the truth is that we've barely been out here any time at all. Given 50,000 years to grow, we would look and act very differently than we do now. Given 500,000 years to grow, and it's unlikely we'd be recognizable. But no race has ever gotten that far because SOMEONE decided in his great wisdom that no race should get the chance to grow up.

[dreamgazer]

Did I just stumble onto a thread that parallels the synthesis decision with the big bang theory?

[Ieldra]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

Scottus4 wrote...

CosmicGnosis wrote...

Guys, BioWare deified the Catalyst, not me. Still, it makes sense that it is the "god" of the Mass Effect universe. I think it takes the Created vs. Creator theme to a very interesting place. If you wish to destroy this "god", then do it.

Or maybe you wish to replace it, and become a god yourself? Or maybe you wish to seize its power and bestow it upon every being in the galaxy (stealing fire from the gods)?

That would have been cool if they actually played that approach. I think that's part of the reason people hate the Catalyst though, it was so terribly executed. The concept of the Catalyst isn't bad, but forcing our Shepard to feel sympatheic towards him because he's in the form of a child and then babbling about "organics creating machines that wipe themselves out" is just bad.

Yes, the presentation sucks, but for my own sanity I accept the intended message.

QFT! And your interpretation of the three choices matches mine exactly.

BTW, I wonder if things had been better received had the Catalyst been a floating sphere or some other abstract form.   

[Reth Shepherd]

Ieldra2 wrote...

CosmicGnosis wrote...

Scottus4 wrote...

CosmicGnosis wrote...

Guys, BioWare deified the Catalyst, not me. Still, it makes sense that it is the "god" of the Mass Effect universe. I think it takes the Created vs. Creator theme to a very interesting place. If you wish to destroy this "god", then do it.

Or maybe you wish to replace it, and become a god yourself? Or maybe you wish to seize its power and bestow it upon every being in the galaxy (stealing fire from the gods)?

That would have been cool if they actually played that approach. I think that's part of the reason people hate the Catalyst though, it was so terribly executed. The concept of the Catalyst isn't bad, but forcing our Shepard to feel sympatheic towards him because he's in the form of a child and then babbling about "organics creating machines that wipe themselves out" is just bad.

Yes, the presentation sucks, but for my own sanity I accept the intended message.

QFT! And your interpretation of the three choices matches mine exactly.

BTW, I wonder if things had been better received had the Catalyst been a floating sphere or some other abstract form.   

It would have been better received if it hadn't identified itself as a Reaper. There were bound to be immediate comparisons to earlier villains (Saren, TIM) who were convinced they were doing the right thing, and all of them spouting off the same cr*p the Catalyst was trying to feed us. He gives us no reason to trust him and many reasons to believe he's trying the same thing on us that he succeeded in doing to other victims.

[Ieldra]

Kabooooom wrote...

I don't check your math there. Given the number of planets humans colonized in a few decades, how long would it take for an uninterrupted race to fill up,the galaxy?

Using the mass relay network, not long at all. But, traveling FTL across the galaxy - a damn long time. With over 200 billion stars and 40 years of travel in a straight line across the galaxy at FTL speeds in the ME universe...it would be a colossal amount of time.

And there's so much space that most species could expand without even interacting with each other.

EDIT: Also, here's a thought I had. Earth-like worlds are rare in the relay network, comparatively. What if they are rare in the galaxy on the whole? What if the Reapers have the relay network connecting to the majority of Earth like worlds in the galaxy, such that any sapient species that evolves anywhere will find the network and use it? That is a reasonable assumption.

In that case, the lack of the relay network would effectively stop any civilization cold. Benning is about 40-50 light years from Earth. Terra Nova and Eden Prime are like 10,000. Good luck finding that needle in the haystack without the relay network.

That depends on your interpretation of "a long time". Even using only sublight travel, a civilization could expand across the galaxy in a few million years. That's a SHORT time given the lifespan of stars, even a short time compared to the history of life on Earth! As for discovering habitable worlds, we have discovered more than 500 extrasolar planets in about 20 years using comparably primitive technology. We're just a few years away from having technology which can tell, under the right cirumstances, if a planet 10k ly away has life as we know it or not.  

[Mr. Gogeta34]

Throughout history, a species has never, ever destroyed itself... just sayin...

Modifié par Mr. Gogeta34, 28 décembre 2012 - 08:28 .

[Ieldra]

Reth Shepherd wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
BTW, I wonder if things had been better received had the Catalyst been a floating sphere or some other abstract form.   

It would have been better received if it hadn't identified itself as a Reaper. There were bound to be immediate comparisons to earlier villains (Saren, TIM) who were convinced they were doing the right thing, and all of them spouting off the same cr*p the Catalyst was trying to feed us. He gives us no reason to trust him and many reasons to believe he's trying the same thing on us that he succeeded in doing to other victims.

It isn't a Reaper. It's the Reapers' controlling entity (though admittedly the difference is academic as far as players' perceptions of it are concerned, given the presentation). Also, the Catalyst's logic is right, it's just simplified to the point where it doesn't make sense any more without background knowledge.

I think there are three factors contributing to players' being unable to see the Catalyst as some neutral force of nature or accept that in this universe, it has a role analogous to a god, rather than The Enemy:

(1) People are unwilling to accept a philosophical stance as valid for any entity as long as it results in something like the cycle. People are unwilling to drop their human perspective even as a theoretical exercise in order to understand an antagonist, as if they fear merely understanding a viewpoint would make them agree with it. People don't want its logic to have a point, so they deny that a perspective may exist from which that logic makes sense.
(2) Players of video games are conditioned into an us vs. them mentality. Once an enemy, always an enemy.
(3) Bioware pushed the horror up to eleven in ME2 and ME3 again. The cycle is always an atrocity, but if the Reapers had made an effort to minimize the pain of their victims and made the harvesting process comparably "clean", perhaps it wouldn't be quite so hard to look at the Catalyst's viewpoint dispassionately.

To make it completely clear to those who would cry "Reaper apologist!". I understand the Catalyst's viewpoint. That doesn't mean I agree with its solution (the cycle), but it does mean that I don't find it beyond all reason to try and find a solution that accomodates both its and my perspective.

Whether that viewpoint is presented to us in a satisfactory manner is a different question. But as CosmicGnosis said, I accept the intended message in order to be able to take anything away from the story.

[Reth Shepherd]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Reth Shepherd wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
BTW, I wonder if things had been better received had the Catalyst been a floating sphere or some other abstract form.   

It would have been better received if it hadn't identified itself as a Reaper. There were bound to be immediate comparisons to earlier villains (Saren, TIM) who were convinced they were doing the right thing, and all of them spouting off the same cr*p the Catalyst was trying to feed us. He gives us no reason to trust him and many reasons to believe he's trying the same thing on us that he succeeded in doing to other victims.

It isn't a Reaper. It's the Reapers' controlling entity (though admittedly the difference is academic as far as players' perceptions of it are concerned, given the presentation). Also, the Catalyst's logic is right, it's just simplified to the point where it doesn't make sense any more without background knowledge.

I think there are three factors contributing to players' being unable to see the Catalyst as some neutral force of nature or accept that in this universe, it has a role analogous to a god, rather than The Enemy:

(1) People are unwilling to accept a philosophical stance as valid for any entity as long as it results in something like the cycle. People are unwilling to drop their human perspective even as a theoretical exercise in order to understand an antagonist, as if they fear merely understanding a viewpoint would make them agree with it. People don't want its logic to have a point, so they deny that a perspective may exist from which that logic makes sense.
(2) Players of video games are conditioned into an us vs. them mentality. Once an enemy, always an enemy.
(3) Bioware pushed the horror up to eleven in ME2 and ME3 again. The cycle is always an atrocity, but if the Reapers had made an effort to minimize the pain of their victims and made the harvesting process comparably "clean", perhaps it wouldn't be quite so hard to look at the Catalyst's viewpoint dispassionately.

To make it completely clear to those who would cry "Reaper apologist!". I understand the Catalyst's viewpoint. That doesn't mean I agree with its solution (the cycle), but it does mean that I don't find it beyond all reason to try and find a solution that accomodates both its and my perspective.

Whether that viewpoint is presented to us in a satisfactory manner is a different question. But as CosmicGnosis said, I accept the intended message in order to be able to take anything away from the story.

My answer is the same as earlier.

What the cycle does is cut life down in its childhood. What would a race be like if it had the chance to grow and develop? How far would they have advanced, what would they be like? We don't know, because they were never given the chance to grow and find out. We think of ourselves as the apex and the height of civilization, but the truth is that we've barely been out here any time at all. Given 50,000 years to grow, we would look and act very differently than we do now. Given 500,000 years to grow, and it's unlikely we'd be recognizable. But no race has ever gotten that far because SOMEONE decided in his great wisdom that no race should get the chance to grow up.

[Reth Shepherd]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I think there are three factors contributing to players' being unable to see the Catalyst as some neutral force of nature or accept that in this universe, it has a role analogous to a god, rather than The Enemy:

(1) People are unwilling to accept a philosophical stance as valid for any entity as long as it results in something like the cycle. People are unwilling to drop their human perspective even as a theoretical exercise in order to understand an antagonist, as if they fear merely understanding a viewpoint would make them agree with it. People don't want its logic to have a point, so they deny that a perspective may exist from which that logic makes sense.
(2) Players of video games are conditioned into an us vs. them mentality. Once an enemy, always an enemy.
(3) Bioware pushed the horror up to eleven in ME2 and ME3 again. The cycle is always an atrocity, but if the Reapers had made an effort to minimize the pain of their victims and made the harvesting process comparably "clean", perhaps it wouldn't be quite so hard to look at the Catalyst's viewpoint dispassionately.

To make it completely clear to those who would cry "Reaper apologist!". I understand the Catalyst's viewpoint. That doesn't mean I agree with its solution (the cycle), but it does mean that I don't find it beyond all reason to try and find a solution that accomodates both its and my perspective.

Actually, let me answer this in a little more detail.

(1) There's a quote from The Book of Night With Moon that I feel is applicable here.

"What makes you think you have the right to tell the Gods how things ought to be done?"
"What made Them think They had the right?"

Whatever logic the Catalyst had is irrelevant when you look at the results. A galaxy whose inhabitants are a billion years behind in development. (Almost certainly longer than that, as the only date we have is from the Reaper 'corpse' recovered by the Batarians.) More dead than any hypothetical war between organics and synthetics could have possibly claimed. A galaxy who was never given the chance to learn to put silly differences aside and work together. (And for the record, we KNOW of at least one race that DID learn to. The Reapers enslaved and mutilated them, and then sent them out to soften up the Protheans before the actual Reaper invasion.) If Synthesis is such a grand idea, then why did the Catalyst never consider the possibility of cultivating those races who had achieved it on their own, and use them to spread the concept and reality across the galaxy? His logic has lead to a more broken galaxy than the original problem would have. He's refused to admit that his logic could be wrong. At this point there is nothing to do but remove the problem. So what if he's a 'God'? Who gave him the right to play the part?!

(2) I can only speak for myself, but I would have personally LOVED to have had a rogue Reaper faction in ME3. You get all the lovely drama of whether or not to trust them, plus a look at their mentality, so forth and etc. Cerberus was an enemy in ME1 and an ally in ME2. (Then they went James Bond villain and became a solid enemy again in ME3. ) They would also have been perfect to continue that 'are they with us or against us' tension. The Geth were enemies until Legion came along and gave us the other side of the story. Most of us today consider the Geth to be people in their own right, and very definitely allies. This reason doesn't stand up to close examination.

(3) This one I'll grant you.

[Ieldra]

Reth Shepherd wrote...

My answer is the same as earlier.

What the cycle does is cut life down in its childhood. What would a race be like if it had the chance to grow and develop? How far would they have advanced, what would they be like? We don't know, because they were never given the chance to grow and find out. We think of ourselves as the apex and the height of civilization, but the truth is that we've barely been out here any time at all. Given 50,000 years to grow, we would look and act very differently than we do now. Given 500,000 years to grow, and it's unlikely we'd be recognizable. But no race has ever gotten that far because SOMEONE decided in his great wisdom that no race should get the chance to grow up.

Absolutely. I fully agree with this. I've said the same in some old thread. Yet again, that I understand the Catalyst's rationale does not mean I agree with it.

(1) There's a quote from The Book of Night With Moon that I feel is applicable here.

"What makes you think you have the right to tell the Gods how things ought to be done?"
"What made Them think They had the right?"

This, too, is something I could've said. Perhaps people don't understand what I'm implying when I say "The Catalyst is a god analogue". In an SF context, a god is nothing but a shorthand for "some alien techno-wizard with galaxy-shattering powers powered by Sufficiently Advanced Technology". No universal morality license is granted. Not by me, anyway.

I don't grant the Catalyst any "rights". But I think it knows what it's doing. It has knowledge and power analogous to a god's. It isn't insane, it isn't defective, it just has completely non-human priorities. Yet again, all that doesn't mean I have any problem saying his solution (the cycle) is unaccaptable to me and I won't let it continue should I acquire the power to stop it.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 28 décembre 2012 - 10:53 .

[Dubozz]

***k the Catalyst. Worst character evah. Bioware failed so much in the end. Still i can't comprehend how one of the best games turned into such bs.

[Reth Shepherd]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Reth Shepherd wrote...

My answer is the same as earlier.

What the cycle does is cut life down in its childhood. What would a race be like if it had the chance to grow and develop? How far would they have advanced, what would they be like? We don't know, because they were never given the chance to grow and find out. We think of ourselves as the apex and the height of civilization, but the truth is that we've barely been out here any time at all. Given 50,000 years to grow, we would look and act very differently than we do now. Given 500,000 years to grow, and it's unlikely we'd be recognizable. But no race has ever gotten that far because SOMEONE decided in his great wisdom that no race should get the chance to grow up.

Absolutely. I fully agree with this. I've said the same in some old thread. Yet again, that I understand the Catalyst's rationale does not mean I agree with it.

(1) There's a quote from The Book of Night With Moon that I feel is applicable here.

"What makes you think you have the right to tell the Gods how things ought to be done?"
"What made Them think They had the right?"

This, too, is something I could've said. Perhaps people don't understand what I'm implying when I say "The Catalyst is a god analogue". In an SF context, a god is nothing but a shorthand for "some alien techno-wizard with galaxy-shattering powers powered by Sufficiently Advanced Technology". No universal morality license is granted. Not by me, anyway.

I don't grant the Catalyst any "rights". But I think it knows what it's doing. It has knowledge and power analogous to a god's. It isn't insane, it isn't defective, it just has completely non-human priorities. Yet again, all that doesn't mean I have any problem saying his solution (the cycle) is unaccaptable to me and I won't let it continue should I acquire the power to stop it.

Your headcanon, your call. (Not trying to be insulting. Merely saying that we know so little about the little Starbrat that ANY statements about his nature or rationale are purest headcanon.) But I listed in the post above the reasons why I DON'T believe the Catalyst knows what it's doing, immediately below the book quote.

[KiwiQuiche]

Every grand narrative eventually fails and falls. That's the way it has been for humans as long as we've had society.

We didn't need some stupid retarded space program to change it for us.

[Ultranovae]

Do people really not get why the Catalyst refers to the cycle as a cleansing fire?
It's a ****ing METAPHOR!
You know, a comparison using the word is instead of a simile.
The metaphor simply refers to the way a fire destroys a forest, yet the violent destruction of said forest (with its squirrels, sparrows, eagles, its baby deer and bird chicks, trees and fruits) renews the land.
Personally, I would have loved the catalysts motivations ended at that. No machines vs. Organic beings since it recalls the trite machine war trope we're so conditioned to by now.
Rather if the machine saw itself as simply a force of nature, that would be enough for me.
It is rather logical that we would not exist in the way we do now had previews species developed, in the same manner we wiped out neanderthal and took its place as the "smartest" species on the planet.
Lastly there's the point that the Catalyst's solution is not valid because the catalyst itself is not "natural". I hardly see that as a valid objection but let me refute it anyway. Seeing as to how our very travels to the stars are possible thanks to "artificial" things and pretty much our entire survival depends upon artificial objects created by us, the catalyst seems simply like one more object created by one species simply carrying out a solution to the conservation of the species.
That which we create is as much part of nature as beavers dams and spider webs. Contrary to popular belief, nature doesn't always resolve things in a peaceful harmonious manner benefiting everyone. Nature destroys indiscriminately, lets the survivors survive and create havoc in ecosystems potentially destroying them.
It is of course a matter of perspective, for victims of natural disasters there's little consolation in knowing that the nature had no personal agenda against them, but nature just does its thing, indifferent to your pain and suffering.
I too didn't care for the catalyst looking like a child mostly because his introduction was so forced. But, and this is one that I like and I cannot lie, the image of a child being the god of the ME universe was a fun juxtaposition, that such a fragile thing could represent something so imposing and destructive.

[The Heretic of Time]

Our Catalyst,
who art in the Citadel,
hallowed be thy name.
Your cycle may come,
your reaping be done,
for organics as it is for synthetics.
Give us this cycle our daily reaper tech,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into conflict,
but deliver us from chaos.

EAMEN!

HAIL THE CATALYST!

HAIL!

HAIL!

HAIL!

Modifié par Heretic_Hanar, 29 décembre 2012 - 04:20 .

[Someone With Mass]

AlanC9 wrote...
I don't check your math there. Given the number of planets humans colonized in a few decades, how long would it take for an uninterrupted race to fill up,the galaxy?

Without the assist of the mass relay network? At least one billion years, considering that it takes a few million years for the light of dying stars to simply reach Earth.

Also, charting every planet in the galaxy alone should take the good amount of that time, since there are billions of those as well, and not every planet needs to have ideal Earth-like environments to be colonized, as shown with Noveria.

Short story: I don't think any race can colonize everything in the galaxy before they die out.

It's about as silly as the notion that synthetics will kill every organic being in the galaxy if left unchecked.

[David7204]

Given that the Milky Way has a diameter of only 100,000 light years or so, I don't think light is going to take "a few million years" to reach Earth.

[Dean_the_Young]

Since conventional FTL goes at something like 15 light years/day, and the galaxy is only about 120,000 light years, and the (pre-Reaper War tech) FTL is about 12 light years per day, a billion is a tad on the high side.

Since the Reapers canon-ized that FTL doesn't have to suffer from the range-limiting charge-buildup, and Reapers (IIRC) go about 30 LYD, the time it would take someone with Reaper tech (such as the post-war galaxy at large) to cross the galaxy would be (assuming straight line/etc. etc.) just 4,000 days, or about 11 years. Even if you kept the 'current' FTL speed, that would still be less than 30 years if you didn't have to stop.


Now, yes, you would have to stop. And we're not just talking a straight line, and we can't just colonize every place we come across immediately, etc. etc. 'Fill up' is also a vague metric, considering the question of colonizing via artificial environments otherwise unlivable worlds... or even empty space, which there is a lot of.

But in terms of putting a presence on the habitable worlds across the galaxy? Just starting from one planet, just one post-Reaper, post-Relay surviving world could conceivably put colonies on all corners at the furthest edges of the galaxy well within a century.

[Dean_the_Young]

David7204 wrote...

Given that the Milky Way has a diameter of only 100,000 light years or so, I don't think light is going to take "a few million years" to reach Earth.

Well, light from other galaxies would, but I don't think that's what the intended line of conversation was talking about.