445 réponses à ce sujet

[CronoDragoon]

Xilizhra wrote...
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.

I know you don't think that's a fair analogy. If all that was sacrificed to make the Reapers was wedding rings I'd have a different opinion on the matter entirely.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Steelcan wrote...
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?

Whether I could or couldn't isn't really relevant, though - I couldn't imagine what exactly the process would be like in the first place, because we're talking about a sci-fi concept that has never been experienced in real life. Can I imagine what the merging of my own mind with millions of other minds would be like? Well, no, I can't. Speculating on whether the new entity created from such a process would be sane or not...well, that's even further beyond my pay grade.

In any case, we don't know if the new entity would retain any memories of the creation process. It's entirely possible that it wouldn't (the Catalyst likely limited the extent of the Reapers' knowledge and ability to consider different possibilities). My own interpretation has always been that the Reapers retain certain knowledge and ideas from harvested civilizations, but they themselves are not the people they harvest in any way - they are new, separate individuals, and anyone who is harvested dies in the process.

[Auld Wulf]

Sajuro wrote...

Ok it isn't a mercy killing because the Reapers are in pain, it's revenge for the civilizations they melted and terrorized and it is a mercy killing if you believe in souls so the countless creatures that make up Reapers can finally be laid to rest.

Irrelevant. They were under the influence of mind control. They have no responsibility for what they did under the influence, as they were merely weapons. When a crime is committed, do we blame the gun (the Reapers) or the people who pulled the trigger (the Leviathans)?

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

They are not being MIND CONTROLLED, they are AI that are doing what they are programmed to do.

[Auld Wulf]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

Unless the liquification process is first a consciousness-duplication process [...]

Which it is. Sovereign said that each Reaper is a nation. Legion said that the minds are uploaded. The Catalyst tells us that it helps each civilisation to ascend into being a Reaper, and that its primary goal is preservation (not destruction).

There's plenty to support this in canon. There's nothing to support the notion that people aren't preserved. If you can give me a quote of a character saying that they did the research and no one was preserved, then I'd be happy to look over it. As it is, the only evidence we've seen indicates that minds are preserved. (And possibly conjoined to create a new entity, but that doesn't make the new entity entity 'less alive' in any way.)

Megaton_Hope wrote...

Either way, the person they used to be is finished, over.

Perhaps, but you're still choosing to kill a creature who's never had the chance to act with free will. To me, that's like putting a gun to the head of a baby. I find it repugnant according to my own sense of ethics.

Modifié par Auld Wulf, 26 mars 2013 - 04:23 .

[Applepie_Svk]

Bwahahaha...
Reapers =/= virtual aliens
...NO!

[Xilizhra]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...
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.

I know you don't think that's a fair analogy. If all that was sacrificed to make the Reapers was wedding rings I'd have a different opinion on the matter entirely.

It was an analogy to Adam; the only value dead body parts have is sentimental, unless they're organ donors (which... is kind of what they were in Adam's case). In the case of the Reapers, the problem is that they actually killed people themselves... but this was done under mind control, and the entity that was doing so is now dead, so basically, justice has already been served no matter what, with the puppeteer gone. Now all you have are the puppets, who undertook no actions of their own accord.

[Steelcan]

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

In any case, we don't know if the new entity would retain any memories of the creation process. It's entirely possible that it wouldn't (the Catalyst likely limited the extent of the Reapers' knowledge and ability to consider different possibilities). My own interpretation has always been that the Reapers retain certain knowledge and ideas from harvested civilizations, but they themselves are not the people they harvest in any way - they are new, separate individuals, and anyone who is harvested dies in the process.

. I'm guessing that they are one intelligence, this is supported by Harbinger and Sovereign's use of the singular when referring to themselves.  "I am Sovereign"

And the harvested people simply make up data in it.  The people are dead.  There is no continuity of identity for those harvested.  But they do form a new intelligence that operates the Reaper.

[Auld Wulf]

Redbelle wrote...

I'm going to have to go with the argument that I'd kill the Reapers because they are the coffin's of dead civialisation's that commit galactic genocide once evey 50k year's.

Every piece of evidence we've seen (as I stated) tells us that the civilisations within are preserved. Read what HYR wrote about the virtual aliens within his OP if you want to understand that better. The fact of the matter is is that if we don't kill the Reapers, we could use the future-tech of the Leviathans (found within the Reapers) to give those people their lives and their bodies back. That is the ethical choice.

Furthermore, the Reapers aren't responsible for any acts committed, as it's done under mind control. As I said and I will continue to say -- we don't blame the gun for a crime committed, we blame the person who pulled the trigger. The Reapers were merely 'guns,' right up until they got their free will back (if you chose Synthesis). The Reapers have never been allowed to choose, they've never had that chance. They've been forced to obey.

And what do they choose to do with free will? Do they choose to kill, indoctrinate, or die? No, they choose to help people. The evidence is all there in canon. Ignore it all you want, but it doesn't change anything.

[Steelcan]

Auld Wulf wrote...

Sajuro wrote...

Ok it isn't a mercy killing because the Reapers are in pain, it's revenge for the civilizations they melted and terrorized and it is a mercy killing if you believe in souls so the countless creatures that make up Reapers can finally be laid to rest.

Irrelevant. They were under the influence of mind control. They have no responsibility for what they did under the influence, as they were merely weapons. When a crime is committed, do we blame the gun (the Reapers) or the people who pulled the trigger (the Leviathans)? Catalyst

  Fixed it.

[3DandBeyond]

I base my opinion on reality. I can conceive of no human being (my only area of knowledge) that would willingly want to serve out eternity encased within a hideous monstrosity that exists with the sole purpose of liquefying more people. If ever there was a true definition of abomination the reapers are it.

The reapers in and of themselves (as the machines they originated from) were hostile and irredeemable. We have no true idea where they came from, who created them, except for the possibility that they were created by some of Leviathan's thralls PERHAPS. If so, they were intent on killing. Every tool they have bears this out-they seem to be an attempt at perfecting Leviathans themselves and with perhaps the express purpose of enslaving them ultimately within the machines. Indoctrination is a form of enthrallment, perfected in some ways but degraded in others (enthrallment does not kill the thrall but indoctrination seems to sooner or later and it is fairly absolute).

The reapers seem to be perfectly suited for the task (the main task) they were created to perform and locked within them are the essences of trillions of people. We have no idea what truly exists of the people that were taken into them. We're told they were ascended but we assume that means that a person's consciousness or mind became a part of the reaper. For all we really know it may well be that the only thing used is that organic goo to make a reaper's structure. We don't know what happens to the minds and there's no possible way to reclaim the minds if intact and regain the person that existed with each mind. They exist, trapped inside this stinking mess. Ascension could be nothing more than some glorified use of the organic compounds within a body-kind of like preserving butterflies by pinning them to displays on a bigger scale.

The idea of mercy killing isn't to offer some saving grace for the reaper machines; it is to finally let the dead inside of them rest in peace if indeed they exist as thoughts anymore. But furthermore, it is also to let their loved ones know they are out of their misery.

I can't conceive of this happening, but if it were me and I was aware and inside a reaper, please kill me. If someone I loved or even liked a little bit or even someone I didn't know was inside one, I'd want them to be at peace. It's mercy for the people, inside and outside of the reapers that matters. It's one of the reasons I think it's irrational to choose control or synthesis-because people have to live with reapers made out of people juice, and with the knowledge that someone they know might be aware of just what they'd become-both very horrifying situations in my opinion.

[Steelcan]

@Auld Wolf, if they are mind controlled then thy are indoctrinated, if they are indoctrinated then they are a threat that needs to be killed.

[Jukaga]

OP: have you noticed the pure evil that is the reapers? The abominations they create, the horrors they inflict all while actually seeming to enjoy their cruelty? I can't understand anyone who could sympathize with them or show them the slightest bit of compassion.

[Auld Wulf]

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.

I know I've disagreed with you on things in the past, Ieldra, but I've always respected you and this post is a wonderful indication of why. I've quoted it in full because it deserves to be. And I wish more people understood this within the context of the story. The only reason a person kills all of the Reapers is that they hate them, there's absolutely no other justification for it. And presented with evidence, that evidence is usually just brushed aside.

My problem with those who choose destruction is the fallacious and intellectually dishonest justifications. The following I can accept:

"I hate the Reapers and I don't care, I kill them all because I want to. I don't care if they're innocent."

"My Shepard is a sociopathic nutbar. He hates everyone. He's worse than the leader of the Third Street Saints, and then some. He'd probably kill the entire Universe if he had the power. But he's unable to do that, so he settles for just killing a big chunk of it instead. (Including a chunk of the past.)"

"I find the Reapers personally disgusting, like spiders. I want to kill them because they are visually disgusting to me."

These would be truths.

But instead, we're given ridiculous justifications.

"But killing the Reapers is a mercy killing!" - Synthesis disagrees. The Reapers seem quite happy.
"The people within a Reaper are dead, it's just a machine!" - Mass Effect canon disagrees.
"They're evil things who do evil, they deserve to die!" - They're being mind-controlled. Catalyst says so himself.

This is why the arguments remind me of racism, because the people involved will do anything (anything) to assuage their guilt. And that makes me sad.

Modifié par Auld Wulf, 26 mars 2013 - 04:44 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

I can't speak for everyone, but since just about everything we know about the Reapers mind is speculative at best, I have to try and imagine how I would feel being a puppet for a glowing figure, and living out the rest of my days, practically an eternity, as a walking graveyard/genocidal tool. Frankly I can't say I'd want to live like that, I see it as a miserable and unending existence so if I'd be in the Reapers shoes I'd see it as a mercy, their form of being isn't what I want out of life.

[Auld Wulf]

Greylycantrope wrote...

I can't speak for everyone, but since just about everything we know about the Reapers mind is speculative at best, I have to try and imagine how I would feel being a puppet for a glowing figure, and living out the rest of my days, practically an eternity, as a walking graveyard/genocidal tool. Frankly I can't say I'd want to live like that, I see it as a miserable and unending existence so if I'd be in the Reapers shoes I'd see it as a mercy, their form of being isn't what I want out of life.

That's still an appeal to mercy, an intellectual fallacy. All we can do is let the Reapers choose what they want. If they want to die, it's within their power to kill themselves. It's not our choice. It's horrendously unethical to even begin to think that it is. It's like killing a person in a hospital without asking them first, even though they're fully capable of responding.

And Synthesis shows us that many Reapers did indeed choose to live. They're a part of galactic civilisation and helping out with the rebuilding effort. They seem happy enough to me. If they wanted to die, all they'd have to do is initiate a self-destruct or fly into the nearest star. Yet it seems they didn't do that. Interesting, that.

[Steelcan]

Being mind controlled defnately  absolve you of guilt

Modifié par Steelcan, 26 mars 2013 - 04:53 .

[CronoDragoon]

Edited.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 26 mars 2013 - 04:54 .

[Steelcan]

Auto correct on my iPad .

edited for clarity

Modifié par Steelcan, 26 mars 2013 - 04:53 .

[CronoDragoon]

Of course we don't actually know which Reapers wanted the cycle and which needed to be mind-controlled by the Catalyst. Assuming that Sovereign and Harbinger didn't want the cycle assumes a complete creation of their personality by the Catalyst.

[Steelcan]

The problem is the Catalyst only says he controls the Reapers. That does not mean he is in direct control over them.

It is entirely possible that the Reapers just agree with his assertions. They accept what he says as true. This would be more in line wi what we have seen in the games. They accept the Catalyst's beliefs and then work off of them.

[Auld Wulf]

knightnblu wrote...

I care about justice, and justice demands that they be executed for their crimes against sentient life across untold cycles and for the victims of the current cycle.

They were being mind-controlled according to canon. This is like blaming the gun for the crime instead of the person who pulled the trigger. I recently ran a poll regarding a hypothetical man who was mind-controlled into killing a person's family. I asked whether it was just to free him (understanding that he had no responsibility), control him (believing that he owes a penance of time as a slave), or kill him (believing it's the only way that justice can be served).

The majority voted that freeing the person was the way to go, because it's unethical to blame someone for committing an act under the influence of mind control. It's the Leviathans you'll want to blame for that, the ones who created the Catalyst and tied it in to their ridiculous doctrine. The Reapers were merely mind controlled into doing what they did. It wasn't their choice. They had no say. All they could do was do as they were told.

To blame and kill a person for being mind controlled is incredibly unethical.

knightnblu wrote...

How would preserving the tortured shadows of a dead people serve any purpose?

You don't see the point of an appeal to mercy except here you make an intellectually dishonest and logically fallacious appeal to mercy? Ow.

I won't go over my points again about how we could use the Reapers to restore the people preserved within. Nor will I go over in detail how--if conjoined--a Reaper is a new, living entity. You can read back over my posts for that. But the fact of the matter is is that the Reapers seem alive and content in the Synthesis ending. And people benefitted from the knowledge of countless numbers of cultures past. Seems like pretty good reasons to me. And they didn't seem very tortured to me in Synthesis, either. To the contrary, they were quite content and decided to help out with rebuilding civilisation.

It helps to know the canon before making a statement like this. At least watch Synthesis once.

knightnblu wrote...

Better to kill them all and be done with it.

So what if I find you distasteful? Better to kill you and be done with it? That's what you're proposing. This is why I find the justifications so ridiculous, because you know as well as I do that it's unethical. You just want to kill the Reapers because that would make you feel good.

Well, FYI, I wouldn't kill you even if it was in my power. I feel that would be cowardly and I'd be a lesser person for it. The fact of the matter is that Reapers are living entities, whether you find them distasteful or not is irrelevant.

knightnblu wrote...

The galaxy gets justice for the war crimes it has suffered repeatedly [...]

Then seek out the ones who pulled the trigger - the Leviathans.

[3DandBeyond]

Steelcan wrote...

Auld Wulf wrote...

Sajuro wrote...

Ok it isn't a mercy killing because the Reapers are in pain, it's revenge for the civilizations they melted and terrorized and it is a mercy killing if you believe in souls so the countless creatures that make up Reapers can finally be laid to rest.

Irrelevant. They were under the influence of mind control. They have no responsibility for what they did under the influence, as they were merely weapons. When a crime is committed, do we blame the gun (the Reapers) or the people who pulled the trigger (the Leviathans)? Catalyst

  Fixed it.

In actuality, we blame all of the above.  The reaper machines didn't just exist once they became reapers.  Everything we know points to them as already being killers.

And the problem with the whole idea of do we blame the gun (or any tool) is that most tools that exist in our reality today do not stand up by themselves and choose to destroy and yet we do often blame them.  We do so, because people created them and in some instances created tools that are far too perfect in their ability to destroy.

This is directed at Auld Wulf.  Most rational people wouldn't say that nuclear weapons are just A-OK and yet, they don't just decide to detonate or go off by themselves.  People of sound mind truly do wish they'd never come into existence or that at least there might come a time when they would cease to exist.

I don't want to make this a gun control debate, but you brought it up.  It is in part the misuse of things that causes the problems but creations of men do become the problem in and of themselves.  Guns today along with video games and a whole lot of social problems (inadequate mental health care, lack of quality jobs and decent education, drug addiction and abuse, and much much more) do exist as tools gone awry.  Guns are machined to such a high quality and with increased lethality and yes, clip capacity beyond legitimate need that their purpose is obscured.  They've been created to have intrinsic over the top lethality, so in effect they are a big part of the problem. 

Video games (specifically shooters like CoD) are not really animate objects and in and of themselves are not technically responsible for what people may do because of them, but they assume that only rational adults will play them, except no they don't.  Video games are designed to appeal to a completionist mentality-at the extremes that means someone who is obsessive, must complete all challenges, must get everything, must beat everyone.  They don't create mental ills, but they play upon them.  They also appeal to very young formative minds and can help to form them, even if that only means it makes the kid a better aim.  I play Black Ops 2.  It rewards you, as does every shooter out there, for head shots and then the blood explosions.  It's teaching kids how to be a good shot and what to aim for to avoid flak jackets.  Beyond that, I have never seen or heard so many racist, misogynistic, homophobic, hatespeak or seen so much anywhere else in my life as I have in the CoD games.  And into this mix I have never played any MP with such a young group of people playing it and I've played Little Big Planet games and others.  The game is populated with what sounds like 5 year olds quite often.  And I'm no prude, but they are also particularly vulgar.  Even in playing Uncharted 2 MP a few years ago, some small child was calling people's mothers a whole lot of things I can't write here.

This is about causality.  Guns, drugs, video games, money, sex, none of that creates a mentally ill or criminal killer per se, but they enable one by either creating a need (perceived need) to kill or by making it easier to do so.  Nothing we create exists in a vacuum or some sterile environment.  There are some tools (nuclear weapons for example) that it seems no one should control and others that are too perfect in their ability to kill, that rational minds should find a way to control more sensibly.

[Auld Wulf]

Rhayak wrote...

In Synthesis, however, it's explained that the Reapers did preserve the knowledge of those Reaperized. So they do continue to exist somehow, and there is a reason for NOT wanting to destroy them.

Exactly.

Wow, I'm talking a lot in this thread. But this is because it's a topic that I'm passionate about. The Reapers are essentially a paradigm shift, their purpose within the narrative is to help you perceive something in a different way than how you previously had. It's a good gesture, and a noble and magnanimous idea, so I respect it. And as such it will either bring out the best or the worst in people. We're either going to see people who'll embrace the new knowledge and set the Reapers free, or people who'll stand by their prior feelings (in a way that shares verisimilitude with Fantastic Racism).

I almost feel as though we have a group of people who've specifically avoided listening to any canon that doesn't support their view. So they didn't listen to Legion, nor did they try the Synthesis ending. Either that, or they clicked Synthesis and then got up and walked away. It's just the feeling I get from it. There's no way you can watch the Synthesis ending and then continue to make some of the fallacious justifications we've seen in this thread. No way at all. And that's absolutely fascinating to me. It makes me wonder about their character outside of the Mass Effect Universe, and what other views they hold (and why).

I don't think this thread will end the fallacious justifications. It'll take something a lot more powerful. But at the very least it does something to shed light upon them, so they can be seen for what they are. Pretty much any justification (and I do use the word loosely) to want to kill off all of the Reapers is shown to be folly by canon and logic. Even on a pragmatic level, you'd want to keep their knowledge for future civilisations to benefit from. And since we're aware from the Synthesis ending that they're not suffering, the mercy-killing justification is also folly.

And yep, I'm a troper. Love the tropes. And Fantastic Racism is very relevant here. What's especially interesting about this though is that it's escaping from the fiction into the minds of real people. Oh BioWare, what did you do? And I mean that with admiration, because... honestly? I find the Reapers to be a very clever thing in regards to storytelling.

[3DandBeyond]

Auld Wulf wrote...

knightnblu wrote...

I care about justice, and justice demands that they be executed for their crimes against sentient life across untold cycles and for the victims of the current cycle.

They were being mind-controlled according to canon. This is like blaming the gun for the crime instead of the person who pulled the trigger. I recently ran a poll regarding a hypothetical man who was mind-controlled into killing a person's family. I asked whether it was just to free him (understanding that he had no responsibility), control him (believing that he owes a penance of time as a slave), or kill him (believing it's the only way that justice can be served).

The majority voted that freeing the person was the way to go, because it's unethical to blame someone for committing an act under the influence of mind control. It's the Leviathans you'll want to blame for that, the ones who created the Catalyst and tied it in to their ridiculous doctrine. The Reapers were merely mind controlled into doing what they did. It wasn't their choice. They had no say. All they could do was do as they were told.

snipped

This is a straw man.  You can in no way compare the reapers to a person in that sense.  And that majority might individually feel far different should that freed man start a rampage and kill again.

That poll doesn't speak to reality at all either.  You set up 3 totally independent options that allow for no real shade of gray, such as rehabilitate the abused man.  Get him help to save his mind or to reclaim it from the abuse.  The reapers aren't shown as something capable of that except in the super silly Control cutscene which is far from any sort of realism.

In the case of that man, the reality is that victims of his crime spree (even if under mind control) would still not as a whole be happy to see him just set free with no attempt to "fix" him.  People have a great willingness to try and understand why killers (animal and human) kill and yet even though they may understand it, they still are not always super willing to take a chance on seeing them go free without their internal problem being addressed.

Your scenario is flawed.  You create polls like this for one reason-to get the answer you want.  Instead, create one that says a baby is born into a cult that thrives on killing and eating people.  He too enjoys it and grows up and goes about killing and eating as many people as he can.  He particularly likes to turn them into liquid and drink them and then creates clothes out of their skin, hats out of their hair and then he stuffs some of them and hangs them outside of his house.  He finally gets caught.  What do you want to do with him then?  Should he just be set free because he couldn't help how he was raised and the family he was born into?