Very well written, OP. You already know my stance on synthesis, so I'll spare you my blabbing on that again.
The setup: Mass Effect 1
Recall ME1. We have quite a few elements of "space magic" in it. FTL, biotics,inter-species sex, to name the most noticeable. The rationalization in terms of in-world science was shoddy, sometimes nonsensical, but then,
ME was never supposed to be hard SF, and to give the writers some credit, I've seen much worse on TV. In the end, these elements were introduced as part of the setting, built into the structure of this fictional universe in a way I could suspend my disbelief for. More importantly, they were described in a way that suggested they were intrinsically comprehensible to the people of the ME universe, no matter that I couldn't make sense of them in terms of the extended real-world science I would apply to a hard-SF universe.
I think this is as you mentioned, that they were written to fit within the universe of ME. The codex, iirc, went into pretty lengthy detail on how all of this works. One of the original writers, Chris l'Etoile, had wanted ME to be a harder universe (and I think he wrote the Codex as well), so he managed pretty well to let me suspend my disbelief for FTL and all that.
The first tear in reality: The Lazarus Project
The first hint that this principle of rationalization in in-world terms was about to break came with ME2's Lazarus project. Shepard was dead, and if he hadn't been "clinically brain dead" as was later explained in ME3, the word "dead" wouldn't have been used. It was always clear that Shepard was dead, not "almost dead". Also, anyone who knows the least bit about medicine knows that the brain deteriorates after a few minutes without oxygen. So where did the information come from used to reconstruct Shepard's memory and identity? There have been a few
rationalizations by players like "Shepard's brain was frozen" or "He carried a greybox which stored his identity", but anyone who noticed the symbolic significance of Shepard's resurrection would also notice the suggestion of a more mystical explanation: that the information was stored "somewhere else".
I'll admit, I didn't really blink an eyelash over this the first time I played. But I do wish that they had given us a chance to even ask about it more, instead of getting those small video logs that you see on the station that don't really provide many answers, or just being told I was nothing more than "meat and tubes." And what mostly bothers me is that Shepard wakes up, and then gets back to business, doesn't question it at all until Chronos Station in 3, and even then that's a real short questioning of self.
Going to skip over the suicide mission bit, you've explained my feelings pretty well there
The final descent: Legion's sacrifice
Geth are software. Even after they've gained identity, they remain software, as evidenced by Tali's explanation of how the geth are helping the quarians to adapt. So here's the question: why did Legion need to die? In which way, please, is a copy of some software not identical to its original? There is no such thing unless you assume some extradimensional element to anyone's identity which has the intrinsic property that it cannot be copied. I call BS on that one. There is an utterly pernicious aspect to this: before, certain elements were suggestive of mysticism but we could interpret our way around it using existing elements of the lore. Those elements had symbolic meaning but there could, as yet, be an interpretation in terms established by the lore or the fictional science of the ME universe. Now, Legion's sacrifice is the first time where this does not work anymore, where we are expected to take mysticism for reality. With Legion's sacrifice, the allegorical becomes real, and the ME universe ceases to be a science fiction universe.
Agreed, Legion's "sacrifice" is very forced. There is zero reason that he cannot copy himself before uploading the code. As others have mentioned, he doesn't have a bluebox. I kind of wish that there was an option for peace without Legion uploading the code, but alas, there wasn't, and I'm sure I'll be called names for thinking that.
Anyways, this here murdering binary thinking luddite ape who has been told to crawl back into the cave from which I came agrees that the switch from sci-fi to being hit over the head by the Space Jesus hammer is a very jarring switch. Had synthesis been foreshadowed just a bit more, and had played out in some different manner...well, I may have chosen it. But too little, too late, hindsight and blah blah blah and all that yazz.
edit: quotes like to mess with me.
Modifié par ruggly, 18 février 2013 - 04:54 .
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