445 réponses à ce sujet

[Yestare7]

Whatever you want to call it, the PIGS MUST DIE!!

[DarthRic]

Modifié par DarthRic, 26 mars 2013 - 09:59 .

[Someone With Mass]

I'm with Javik on this one.

Besides, the technological advancements the future societies can make will be unhindered by the Reapers. It's only a matter of time before they've overcome that technological level.

As for the minds, they're conjoined during the harvesting, which means that they have no individuality.

One ship, one will, many minds.

[Auintus]

Consider Gilbert Alexander(Bioshock 2). He leaves behind messages and supplies to ensure that you can make your way through the facility and get what you need to move on. In return, he asks that you kill him as he is slowly losing his mind. Throughout the area, you deal with "Alex the Great," Gilbert's current persona who is trying to stop you at every turn, but at the end, begs to be allowed to live. You are given the choice to kill him. I think the parallels are rather accurate, at least as far as mercy goes.

[RedBeardJim]

Dean_the_Young wrote...


But then, that's just a consistent weakness of the franchise in general, because Bioware (or Mass Effect in particular) sucks at treating numbers of scale consistently. This was evident all the way back in ME1, when we first heard the Alliance backstory and yet Humanity was treated as a near-great power despite only a few decades of Mass Effect knowledge.

It's a consistent fact of the planet lore that Bioware had no idea of what a 'big colony' meant: the largest Human colonies (Terra Nova during ME1 BDTS DLC) is around four million. At the same time, the planet Aite (the Overlord world) is going to have a moon crash into it in two centuries, has a population of one and a half billion: Korlus, the junk-planet Grunt is gotten from, is a Terminus planet of almost four billion. Heck, the single Asari colony of Illium, one of the 'newest' Asari colonies, has 85 million people... which outweighs the combined total of all known Human colonies in existence. And yet, Human colonies are treated as a Big Thing, though even in ME2 Bioware could never decided if tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of colonists had been abducted. (Fun fact: Shepard's Collector Base speach doesn't even cover all the colonists taken from Horizon alone.)

Mass Effect's number lore is a mess, and always has been, same with all other military fields. Dreadnaughts, the Biggest Baddest measure of power the galaxy has, number in the low dozens. Krogan, despite having no space navy and being primarily infantry, are considered a considerable military force. The War Assets are replete with such examples, in which an individual or small group of people is equivalent to a warship or entire fleet.

But then, what can you expect from a sci-fi setting which measures military strength in terms of ground forces in an age of orbital bombardment?

I agree with this post. The implication in ME2 that the Collectors were going to fit the entire population of Earth in a single cruiser-sized ship was laughable.

[Slayer299]

There is no reason to show the Reapers mercy. They have marched across the Milky Way countless times, obliterating civilizations either through bombarding their worlds, reaping them into another Reaper or in general just wiping out everything above a certain tech level.

Yes, it is a mercy to the memory of those people who were harvested. The abomination(s) they were forced to become and force others to endure is now ended. Was that my Shepard's reasoning? No. It was more simple; they were evil, they were out to destroy everyone in the galaxy along with the person she loved, so they needed to be stopped once and for all...

[KennyAshes]

Ieldra2 wrote...

"Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'" (Legion in ME2 on the nature of the Reapers).

Killing a Reaper is genocide. Maybe it's justified, maybe not, I'm not taking a stance on that here, but assuming it's an act of mercy is not just the cheapest kind of hypocrisy, it's the worst kind of racism, because it assumes that a kind of life you know nothing about is not worth living. You cannot imagine that an entity created through the harvesting process can want to live? That individual minds may still be alive and want to continue? Fine, but that says more about your lack of imagination than about the entity in question.

If you want to know, free the Reapers from the Catalyst's control - and ask. Or take control of them and take the answer from their minds.

If the individual minds would be alive and have a chance of individualism and control then ME2 human-Reaper would not have been produced by the collectors unless the Collectors were trying to help us. Because the human-Reaper would have a chance of turning on the Collectors/Reapers out of revenge and to save loved ones from the same faith.

On the other hand keeping individualism in nothing but a 'plantstate' that can't even look where it wants to look (organicsmoothy) is not the best way to keep sanity in an individual. Especially if if you are locked up like that for billions of years.

And if I may top it, logically the entity that we represent means nothing to a computer. Knowledge is something it can crave and keep if it can digest the smoothy in some freaky way.But there just is no logical use in keeping personality and individuality for a computer out of a name or number to link specific data with a specific memorybank. Memories and knowledge it can understand, personality is basically is an unpredictable variable and thus dangerous for a computer.

So if there is nothing left but processingpower and memorybanks to form the Reapers as they are, they are not living things. Not more than the laptop I turn on for work in the morning and off when I go home in the evening.

Modifié par KennyAshes, 26 mars 2013 - 02:08 .

[CronoDragoon]

Ieldra2 wrote...

"Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'" (Legion in ME2 on the nature of the Reapers).

Killing a Reaper is genocide. Maybe it's justified, maybe not, I'm not taking a stance on that here, but assuming it's an act of mercy is not just the cheapest kind of hypocrisy, it's the worst kind of racism, because it assumes that a kind of life you know nothing about is not worth living. You cannot imagine that an entity created through the harvesting process can want to live? That individual minds may still be alive and want to continue? Fine, but that says more about your lack of imagination than about the entity in question.

If you want to know, free the Reapers from the Catalyst's control - and ask. Or take control of them and take the answer from their minds.

How you feel about this can be compared to the Frankenstein's monster myth if Dr. Frankenstein had actually killed people in order to obtain the body parts he needed. Would you kill Frankenstein's monster because his existence is predicated on theft and injustice? Or does he, the innocent, deserve to live?

Note that for this example the consciousness of the people killed does not transfer over to the monster, which I believe is the case with the Reapers. I do not believe that the Reapers are really an amalgamation of organic minds. If you do, the analogy is slightly different.

Still, the critical point persists in the example. I would kill Frankenstein's monster and you would probably not.

[Kel Riever]

Again, in an ending that makes no sense anyway, it hardly matters.

I picked an ending first so I didn't have to hard crash my game. Now I hard crash the game anyway before Glowjob shows up. All problems solved.

[Xilizhra]

Still, the critical point persists in the example. I would kill Frankenstein's monster and you would probably not.

Wait, you would kill someone because of the sins of their parent?

I'm reminded of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame: "Who is the monster and who is the man?"

[KennyAshes]

Xilizhra wrote...

Still, the critical point persists in the example. I would kill Frankenstein's monster and you would probably not.

Wait, you would kill someone because of the sins of their parent?

I'm reminded of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame: "Who is the monster and who is the man?"

To answer to this, I would kill Frankenstein's monster if it was treathening to kill us. Out of that I go by 'live and let live'.
Same for the Reapers, I don't judge their motives, nor their past, I judge their actions.

[Bizantura]

Different strokes for different folks.
Personally I think your nuts..............

[llandwynwyn]

'Mercy' isn't even a popular argument, so why create this thread?

[CronoDragoon]

Xilizhra wrote...

Wait, you would kill someone because of the sins of their parent?

I'm reminded of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame: "Who is the monster and who is the man?"

Did I say that was my reason? I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Thanks for calling me a monster, though. I was thinking of engaging in civil discussion about this matter but whatever, enjoy your labels.

[Ieldra]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

"Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body. 'Each a nation'" (Legion in ME2 on the nature of the Reapers).

Killing a Reaper is genocide. Maybe it's justified, maybe not, I'm not taking a stance on that here, but assuming it's an act of mercy is not just the cheapest kind of hypocrisy, it's the worst kind of racism, because it assumes that a kind of life you know nothing about is not worth living. You cannot imagine that an entity created through the harvesting process can want to live? That individual minds may still be alive and want to continue? Fine, but that says more about your lack of imagination than about the entity in question.

If you want to know, free the Reapers from the Catalyst's control - and ask. Or take control of them and take the answer from their minds.

How you feel about this can be compared to the Frankenstein's monster myth if Dr. Frankenstein had actually killed people in order to obtain the body parts he needed. Would you kill Frankenstein's monster because his existence is predicated on theft and injustice? Or does he, the innocent, deserve to live?

Note that for this example the consciousness of the people killed does not transfer over to the monster, which I believe is the case with the Reapers. I do not believe that the Reapers are really an amalgamation of organic minds. If you do, the analogy is slightly different.

Still, the critical point persists in the example. I would kill Frankenstein's monster and you would probably not.

I would not, indeed. Since a being cannot be responsible for its own origin, its origin has no bearing on its right to exist. Once it does exist, it has the same rights as any other being. There are no "abominations" (understood as beings that shouldn't exist according to some arbitrary standard of origin). That is a fundamental cornerstone of my ethics.

Let me ask you this: would you kill Miranda if experiments on unwilling humans had been used in acquiring the knowledge of how to create her genetic template? That would be your stance, taken to its logical conclusion.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 26 mars 2013 - 03:27 .

[WarGriffin]

Eterna5 wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...

Who dare I ask think it's a mercy killing? I don't pick it for this reason. The loss of the Reapers is horrible.

Not everyone picks Destroy "cuz reasons".

My cannon SHep picks Destroy because it is in her charater to do so...even if I don't personally like it much. 

Isn't that the pretty much all the endings in a nutshell, BW found away to make three options nobody really likes,

[Steelcan]

Assuming that the organic minds that go through the transformation are "intact", I don't believe they are, conjoined seems to imply they are made into one intelligence, then the minds have got to be horrifically scarred. Can you imagine going through what they did and coming out sane?

[CronoDragoon]

Ieldra2 wrote...
I would not, indeed. Since a being cannot be responsible for its own origin, its origin has no bearing on its right to exist.

What is the right to exist but an arbitrary designation based on sentience? Taken to its logical conclusion, the "right to exist" mandates everyone starves to death. Kantian ethics are impractical.

Regardless, I agree with you in almost every case when it comes to preserving the right to exist for sentient beings. The Reaper case is special in my mind because of two facts: 1. I am being forced into making a choice, and 2.  their existence is impossible without perverting and destroying the existence of others. The basic premise of their existence is injustice.

Let me ask you this: would you kill Miranda if experiments on unwilling humans had been used in acquiring the knowledge of how to create her genetic template? That would be your stance, taken to its logical conclusion.

In this case the connection between Miranda and the test subjects is indirect, at best. Moreover, I would have to assume that I am choosing to either kill Miranda, control her mind for all eternity, or whatever the Synthesis equivalent in this case would be. In such a case I may indeed choose to kill her.

Have you played DA2? There's an example in that game of the case of Frankenstein's monster with (SPOILER) Hawke's mother. Had they give me a choice, I would have killed her.

Here's a thought experiment for myself: Let's say the Crucible fried the Catalyst and released the Reapers from his control, and that's all it did. Afterwards, the Reapers all expressed their desire to live and redeem themselves in the eys of the public. Would I then destroy them? Probably not, actually. Thus my stance on the Reapers' right to exist is conditional upon a few factors, namely that: I am forced into three choices, none of which are obviously the best option, and 2. I have imperfect information, and thus the knowledge that the Reapers exist because of existence stolen from unwilling subjects who would not want their legacy to be Reaperized overrules suppositions about what the Reapers are and how they view their existence.

[Xilizhra]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Wait, you would kill someone because of the sins of their parent?

I'm reminded of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame: "Who is the monster and who is the man?"

Did I say that was my reason? I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Thanks for calling me a monster, though. I was thinking of engaging in civil discussion about this matter but whatever, enjoy your labels.

Didn't you say you would kill Adam because his creation involved theft of body parts?

[MASSEFFECTfanforlife101]

Mercy? There was no mercy involved. I destroyed the Reapers because they deserved it. Mercy is not for beings who caused murders in the billions/trillions over the passed thousands/millions of years.

Modifié par MASSEFFECTfanforlife101, 26 mars 2013 - 03:54 .

[Apple Lantern]

My canon Shep destroys the Reapers because of everything they've put him and his friends through. Selfish? Probably.

[CronoDragoon]

Xilizhra wrote...
Didn't you say you would kill Adam because his creation involved theft of body parts?

No, I didn't. If you're making a Bible analogy it doesn't work, because Adam was created from dust on the ground. Eve was created from his rib, and Adam seemed pretty okay with it, so I don't see any justice necessary.

[Xilizhra]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
Didn't you say you would kill Adam because his creation involved theft of body parts?

No, I didn't. If you're making a Bible analogy it doesn't work, because Adam was created from dust on the ground. Eve was created from his rib, and Adam seemed pretty okay with it, so I don't see any justice necessary.

Blah. Adam, the name of Frankenstein's creation.

[CronoDragoon]

Xilizhra wrote...

Blah. Adam, the name of Frankenstein's creation.

Ha! I didn't know that! That Dr. Frankenstein is a cheeky bastard to be sure.

In that case, yes, but in a way that's more complicated than your summary. According to you and Ieldra, the family members of those who were murdered hold no claim to the remains of their loved ones because Frankenstein decided to use them to create a new life. I disagree with that claim.

[Xilizhra]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Blah. Adam, the name of Frankenstein's creation.

Ha! I didn't know that! That Dr. Frankenstein is a cheeky bastard to be sure.

In that case, yes, but in a way that's more complicated than your summary. According to you and Ieldra, the family members of those who were murdered hold no claim to the remains of their loved ones because Frankenstein decided to use them to create a new life. I disagree with that claim.

Well... no! You can't kill someone just because their birth involved material objects you might have an attachment to! That's like saying that you could rip the heart out of someone who had a valve implant or something made from your wedding ring.