80 réponses à ce sujet

[GeneralMoskvin_2.0]

Good grief. Actual quality posts on BSN still exist?

Nice going OP. You have approached the topic with some actual background knowledge, philosophy and science. I pull my hat in front of you, good sir. Really enjoyed that read.

Modifié par GeneralMoskvin_2.0, 23 avril 2013 - 06:08 .

[Mangalores]

Thanks for the interesting read.

What I don't subscribe to is that the likelihood of unlikely things happening all the time leads to the conclusion of basing your entire decision process on this singular event. Based on quantum mechanics the probability of you falling through a wall is not zero, it is however so low that it mandates you continually trying for the lifecycle of several universes for that to happen.

An even simpler example is a deck of cards. The amount of permutations in a deck of cards are: 8,066E67 All mankind could spend shuffling every second from now until the heat death of the universe and we wouldn't even get close to cover all permutations in a single deck of cards.

In a big universe unlikely things can happen all the time, however even more unlikely things can even outlive cosmic scales.

The issue is that in a dynamically growing system the number of probable outcomes grows exponentially so a singular event happening does not conclude a predictable end result over a finite and even pretty limited time period.

The Catalyst operates from a position of ignorance, e.g. not expecting the Crucible ("organics are more resourceful than I thought"), without which Synthesis is not applicable, to conclude certainty. The other is that it is the epitome of the conflict and in reverse that his failure is also an inevitable probability (and by extensions the organics evolved via these artificial cycled the created to topple their creator).

So if we lead this to its conclusion the Catalyst is a pawn like anyone else, maybe thinking in cosmic scales but incapable to think in truly mathematical ones.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Interesting... pre-first cup of tea remarks, so pardon spelling and grammatical errors.

Yes, the galaxy is old. Very old. The costs of maintaining a galactic empire without a fast travel network like the mass relay system would be prohibitive, thus relegating such things to the realm of science fiction. As much as I would love to believe that some day we would have contact with a race such as the Asari or the Turians it's not going to happen. Faster than light travel is not going to happen.

There's another issue that arises. The chances of advanced life arising are pretty slim. We may eventually colonize some worlds in our local star cluster, but that's about the extent of it. It will take decades to get from one star system to another unless we learn how to fold space which is also in the sci-fi realm.

Still yet another issue arises. Advanced civilizations...and I've had this discussion with others who have accused me of imposing human thinking on possible alien races. In evolution there is a struggle for survival of the fittest. Once a species becomes the apex species on their world, they struggle among themselves. At this point they can choose to work together and branch outward, or fight among themselves and this will lead to their destruction, leaving something like cockroaches and rats as the new apex species. This is the "I don't want to set the world on fire" scenario.

Humans just can't seem to get our acts together. Eventually our fuel resources are going to be depleted, and we'll have an over burdened ecosystem, then what? Perhaps this is what has happened on those other hypothetical worlds? They never made it to the stars because they were too focused on mutual dysfunction. They couldn't control their own population size. The crisis is going to manifest itself in the lack of fresh water first. But let's get back to the question at hand.

The ending.... We can look at the ending like the galaxy is leaving home. We're ready to embark on a new age. "The created will always rebel against their creators."

That one sentence spoken by our "dear friend" is prophetic. In a sense, he is our creator. Without him, we would not exist. He created us by extinguishing the apex races of the previous cycles. They all failed because they were not ready. We are. Our cycle is different. It is more diverse than the previous cycles. It is unlike any of the cycles the our creator has faced. We may not be as technologically advanced as the Protheans, but it is our diversity that is our strength. Because Shepard is the first organic standing there proves it. Our creator is now in a struggle for his own survival.

So we can make a choice to:

1) Destroy him and his galactic enforcers, swallow the poisoned pill of destroying all synthetic life, and go our own way. We pluck the apple from the Tree of Knowledge and take a bite never to return to the Garden of Eden. We rebuild and we go our own way. We make our choices: Human, Asari, Turian, Krogan, Quarian, ... etc., together and hope for the best. Together we will rebuild what was lost. We learned that if we work together we can be greater than what we were. We could surpass the level of technology we had. We could surpass the culture we had. There could be a galactic renaissance. Our successes will be ours. Our failures will be ours. We will own them. It could go well or it could go to s***, but eventually it will reach a state of equilibrium. It is a chance worth taking. The created (us) will always rebel against their creators (the Reapers).

2) Take his place in the galaxy as ruler and see if we can do a better job. LOL. This ought to be good. We have his army, and already people hate us because of what we did. The only reason they're happy at the moment is that we stopped killing them. Give them time. We're still around watching. The terror attacks will start soon. Then what will we do? Will we end up indoctrinating the lot of them? Starting a religion? There will always be dissenters. Become a Reaper.

3) Or he gives us a choice of playing God. Here we end the harvest by destroying all organic life, and destroying all synthetic life by merging them together. We make this decision for every person, and we make this decision for every living creature in the galaxy. They cannot be the same as they were. It is impossible. Our creator is still there, and his enforcers are still there. They say they are willing to share their knowledge and now help us rebuild what they destroyed. The knowledge they have is this: "we guided you along technological paths we desired." In other words, every one of them has pretty much the same knowledge base as we do. We got ours from the Protheans. The Protheans got theirs from the Innusannon who got theirs from the.... And 1 KT reapers walking around on our streets are going to put craters in them. This will make plenty of work for the husk pavers. What are they going to do? Have ethnic shopping malls inside?

The Intelligence and the Reapers considered themselves the pinnacle of evolution. The Intelligence told us Synthesis is the final step of evolution. This choice made the galaxy like them. It was the choice of conformity. Make every living thing a Reaper.

[Phatose]

Well, as a pragmatic matter even given the limited data we've got, we have reason to believe 2 of 3 three condition aren't that improbable.

Creating AIs is clearly not that uncommon. The Geth and EDI both exist, and we've encountered several other AIs over the course of Shepard's missions. Synthetic Insights creates AIs on purpose. Even limiting it to what we can confirm is going on means it happens quite a bit - and we don't have data on AI usage by the other races.

Factor 2 is hostility by the AIs, which also seems to be fairly common. The heretic Geth and the citadel AI from ME1 both showed such hostilities. Not a huge sample, I'll admit, but the results are not exactly comforting.

That leaves capability of omnicide which we don't have a probability on. That one is going to be real, real hard to get data on, since collecting a data point of "Capable of killing everything" gives a chance of also being "Willing to kill everything", which ends badly for us.

Since it's rather unsafe to collect actual data, much better to reason it out. We know that it's possible to do so - the Catalyst and Reapers show this. Logically, the extent of any races abilities can largely be measured in their technological advancement, and the data we have shows us organic races don't intentionally stop technologically advancing. Ever.

Given that, it seems that any race in existence will either keep advancing until they reach that point, or they'll be destroyed before then. And once they reach that point, it's a matter of the other two - which actually seem to be really common.

[Mangalores]

Phatose wrote...

...
Given that, it seems that any race in existence will either keep advancing until they reach that point, or they'll be destroyed before then. And once they reach that point, it's a matter of the other two - which actually seem to be really common.

You are positing a false dilemma. There aren't just two things that can happen, there can be infinite things that can happen. A wide array of variations, combinations and outcomes. We are talking about AI, artificial intelligence. It is the hallmark of an intelligence to act outside preset instincts.

In that sense th Catalyst and the Reapers appear more as automatons, not AI.

[shodiswe]

Could it be that there is very little to be gained from conquering this poor little planet? It might actualy be more interesting to observe emerging Life and civilizations, (which by itself would have an economical value) beyond ore, minerals and such which is very abudant in the universe.

Also there is no point in uplifting Alien Life forms it would merely spoil them as an object of studdy and entertainment or possibly make them a threat. (even if it would be a negleable threat)

Just by allowing a less advanced species know you exist or observe your technology might have an effect on their development. A species that develops alogn it's own path might actualy be more interesting to study since it could develop in a different path and brign new ideas to the table.

The best time to make yourself known would be when they are about to enter your doorstep, either you establish Contact at that poiint, or you decide they are too mcuh of a threat to allow further development.

1. Also keep in mind that the first stars had no planets to speak of.
2. The first planets that formed around early suns were extremely poor from a mineral perspective and lacked several of the characteristics that allows for advacned Life to evolve. A planet lacking a moltenliquidmetallicmagetic core would "normaly" (exotic exceptions would be possible but unlikely) have to weak a magnetic field to protect the atmosphere from being blown away by the solarvinds.
3, A "leaking" atmosphere would eventualy deplete the watersupply which would make it very hard for Life to evolve and live on the planet.

4. It takes the death if several huge suns to go supernova and other process to have time to play out to create the materials needed for a potentialy lifebearing planet to come to existance. The Galaxy is still relatively young.

5. As time goes on more and more planets capable of sustaining an atmosphere and Life with reasonable gravity and at a reasonable distance to their star/stars will evolve.

Modifié par shodiswe, 23 avril 2013 - 08:24 .

[shodiswe]

Mangalores wrote...

Phatose wrote...

...
Given that, it seems that any race in existence will either keep advancing until they reach that point, or they'll be destroyed before then. And once they reach that point, it's a matter of the other two - which actually seem to be really common.

You are positing a false dilemma. There aren't just two things that can happen, there can be infinite things that can happen. A wide array of variations, combinations and outcomes. We are talking about AI, artificial intelligence. It is the hallmark of an intelligence to act outside preset instincts.

In that sense th Catalyst and the Reapers appear more as automatons, not AI.

Yes, the Catalyst does not exist to evolve or better itself, it lives only for it's dogmatic core beliefs which were given by the Leviathans. It's technology commes from the Leviathans that it harvested and every other lesser species since that Point.
The Leviathans however have likely evolved since the first harvest a billion years or so back, even if their recovery might have taken some time and effort, but they have had plenty of time.

Modifié par shodiswe, 23 avril 2013 - 08:30 .

[Phatose]

Mangalores wrote...

Phatose wrote...

...
Given that, it seems that any race in existence will either keep advancing until they reach that point, or they'll be destroyed before then. And once they reach that point, it's a matter of the other two - which actually seem to be really common.

You are positing a false dilemma. There aren't just two things that can happen, there can be infinite things that can happen. A wide array of variations, combinations and outcomes. We are talking about AI, artificial intelligence. It is the hallmark of an intelligence to act outside preset instincts.

In that sense th Catalyst and the Reapers appear more as automatons, not AI.

True, though given our probability based approach here it would be reassuring if we had ever actually seen an outcome other then those two. 

I oppose the notion that intelligences act outside preset instincts though.  If it that is indeed a defining trait of intelligences, it would seem to qualify as a preset instinct itself.  That's neither here nor there though.

[Franky Figgs]

The Creator-Created Conflict is absoluted true and perfectly sensable in the proper context. The context is that it is presented to us from an Enslaver, meaning: one who entralls others, point of view. To empathize with them is to take what is said at face value and agree. Certain Shepard experances may force a stark realization between what
is said by the Catalyst verse what is experanced by player choice.


As deep as everything you presented is I feel Ieldras2 rebuttal is spot on. And I think what Wolfva2 was leading to was in the right direction. The Leviathans had an existential catastrophe on their hands with the Synthetic-Organic Conflict. But it was theirs as Enslavers and not ours as thier Thralls.


The Catalysis, as an AI, absorb the ontology (an account of being) of their creators and proceeds to consider itself an Enslaver. 


The conflict as it's presented to the player is a dissonance for the player to experience indoctrination.  

Modifié par Franky Figgs, 24 avril 2013 - 12:38 .

[remydat]

Phatose wrote...

Factor 2 is hostility by the AIs, which also seems to be fairly common. The heretic Geth and the citadel AI from ME1 both showed such hostilities. Not a huge sample, I'll admit, but the results are not exactly comforting.

THe additional issue is even if they are not hostile, organics show a propensity to fear them and attack anyways which can result in hostility.  Happened with the Geth and happened with the AI in the Citadel Archives.

Mangalores wrote...

 It is the hallmark of an intelligence to act outside preset instincts.

Aren't you committing the same crime as the Catalyst ie you are talking as if it is inevitable that intelligence acts outside of present instincts.   How do you know this to be true?  The problem is the cycles are an experiement with the Catalyst as the scientist.  He has established the Mass Relays so that organics evolve along the preset path it has set and until this cycle and frankly for most of this cycle they had.

So if you are an immortal entity with billions of years watching organics evolve within the parameters you established, what would you conclude?  Even if we remove the fact the Catalyst rigged the experiment somewhat, if you observe organics for billions of years, you can most likely form a pretty good blueprint of how they will behave collectively.  Sure you can never figure out everyone individually but the Catalyst is discussing how organics will behave collectively not as individuals.  

[remydat]

Franky Figgs wrote...

The Creator-Created Conflict is absoluted true and perfectly sensable in the proper context. The context is that it is presented to us from an Enslaver, meaning: one who entralls others, point of view. To empathize with them is to take what is said at face value and agree. Certain Shepard experances may force a stark realization between what
is said by the Catalyst verse what is experanced by player choice.


As deep as everything you presented is I feel Ieldras2 rebuttal is spot on. And I think what Wolfva2 was leading to was in the right direction. The Leviathans had an existential catastrophe on their hands with the Synthetic-Organic Conflict. But it was theirs as Enslavers and not ours as thier Thralls.


The Catalysis, as an AI, absorb the ontology (an account of being) of their creators and proceeds to consider itself an Enslaver. 


The conflict as it's presented to the player is a dissonance for the player to experience indoctrination.  

Not sure the point here.   The Thralls did not create synthetics because they were enslaved.  They created them because becuase they wanted to advance.  So the fact they were slaves is irrelevant.  The future cycles had no knowledge of the Leviathan and they continued to create synthetics.

[MyChemicalBromance]

Reply Wave Inbound. More on the way.

Phatose wrote...

Intriguing.

You by any chance related to this: http://galacticpillo...ffect-3-ending/

I did read that when it first came out. Well, part of it. At the time, a group of us were going to great lengths to show that with the technology of the Citadel races, galactic travel wasn't dependent on the Relays (galactic civilization probably was, but any of the homeworlds could be reached from Earth within ~20 years), in an effort to dispel the notion that everyone was doomed. I remember finding a rather egregious technical error in that article and , given that I was so focused on that stuff at the time, I dismissed the rest of it. I came back to read it after Extended Cut, but I really didn't like his "I told you so" rant, so I dismissed it again. I'm sure I'll finish it one day.

Wolfva2 wrote...

. Contrast this with the Europeans, who lived in harsh climates with many tribes in conflict with one another. These conflicts spurred advances in science; one Euro-caveman realized rocks were force multipliers; another realized a stick increased reach. Combat was advanced to the next level. Then, one tied a rock to a stick and WHOA! The entire future of warfare changed. Another sharpened the stick, you had another paradigm shift. And so on. Those who live in peace don't advance; there is no real reason. Those who live in harsh environments, or in conflict with others, do.

While I agree with a lot of what you said, I just want to point out that we have evidence of humans using tools (such as the ones you mentioned) for hunting long before they left Africa. The same principle still applies, just in a different location.

Optimystic_X wrote...

CosmicGnosis wrote...

The Catalyst seems to believe that because something can happen, it will happen. Does this mean that it believes the universe is truly infinite? Wouldn't you need infinity for everything possible to be inevitable?

Not at all. Say a given event only a 1% chance of happening in X time - then in 100, or 1000, or 10000 etc. iterations of X we would expect that thing to happen at least once.

But no matter what the % actually is for that event to occur - so long as it is not zero, the actual number of iterations needed for it to happen will be significantly less than infinity. 

And from the perspective of an immortal warden of the universe - anything less than infinity is a blip.

I'm led to wonder if the Catalyst even sees things in terms of probability. If the scale shown in the Extended Cut of Synthesis is accurate, it may be implying that the Catalyst's technology asserts control or at least influence over quantum fluctuations. Such capabilities defy explanation, but there's a chance it sees all of existence the way we see classical physics.

That said, it still works if the Catalyst is only going off of probabilities, so for simplicity (and the fact that the alternative I just mentioned doesn't really add anything) I'll just stick with that.

Ieldra2 wrote...

In order to find the scenario believable, our context needed to be expanded, in a similar way the OP does with its long preliminary setup. Some of us have done it by using knowledge external to the game, but ME3's writers didn't make the attempt, possibly because they thought it would've gone over the average players' head. That may be true or not, but as a writer of science fiction, you don't write for those who don't strive to understand and accept everything as told with no questions asked.

I usually try to avoid discussion of "authorial intent," but I think a lot of what you said about why people reacted the way they did is correct. I'd also note that many of us probably would have just brushed over the conflict if the ending were more uplifting. It's really hard for me to decide what the correct choice was (force everyone to search for meaning in the ending via tragedy, or make the meaning forgettable by making it irrelevant to the fate of the crew). I guess, odd as it is, I'm kind of happy with the way they did it.

Mangalores wrote...

So if we lead this to its conclusion the Catalyst is a pawn like anyone else, maybe thinking in cosmic scales but incapable to think in truly mathematical ones.

See my reply to Cosmic and Optimystic.

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...
"The created will always rebel against their creators."

That one sentence spoken by our "dear friend" is prophetic. In a sense, he is our creator. Without him, we would not exist. He created us by extinguishing the apex races of the previous cycles. They all failed because they were not ready. We are. Our cycle is different. It is more diverse than the previous cycles. It is unlike any of the cycles the our creator has faced. We may not be as technologically advanced as the Protheans, but it is our diversity that is our strength. Because Shepard is the first organic standing there proves it. Our creator is now in a struggle for his own survival.

That is... a fantastic way of putting it. I'll confess that I didn't carry my own analogy through far enough to realize that the Catalyst, the being everyone hates, is our creator. That's so damn perfect!

I wouldn't argue that our cycle is unique to the degree you are though. Our cycle is the culmination of all the cycles before it slipping information through the cell wall so to speak, or Parents slipping genetic material past death. Had the Protheans discovered the plans for the Crucible, before the Reapers arrived, I'm sure they would have built it immediately (to ward off threats to their dominance as well as to impose even greater order).

That our cycle built and used it seems less dependent on our politics than on our heritage is what I'm saying.

[Franky Figgs]

remydat wrote...

Franky Figgs wrote...

The Creator-Created Conflict is absoluted true and perfectly sensable in the proper context. The context is that it is presented to us from an Enslaver, meaning: one who entralls others, point of view. To empathize with them is to take what is said at face value and agree. Certain Shepard experances may force a stark realization between what
is said by the Catalyst verse what is experanced by player choice.


As deep as everything you presented is I feel Ieldras2 rebuttal is spot on. And I think what Wolfva2 was leading to in the right direction. The Leviathans had an existential catastrophe on their hands with the Synthetic-Organic Conflict. But it was theirs as Enslavers and not ours as thier Thralls.


The Catalysis, as an AI, absorb the ontology (an account of being) of their creators and proceeds to consider itself an Enslaver. 


The conflict as it's presented to the player is a dissonance for the player to experience indoctrination.  

Not sure the point here.   The Thralls did not create synthetics because they were enslaved.  They created them because becuase they wanted to advance.  So the fact they were slaves is irrelevant.  The future cycles had no knowledge of the Leviathan and they continued to create synthetics.

To be clear, I mean in no way that thralls created AI as directed by the Enslavers.  So agreed, enlsaved or not, organics naturally evolve to create AI (if only as tools as the story explained)
Now then, as organics natually progress towards the point of creating AI the Enslavers become endangered because of it.

To speak of the Creater-Created Conflict from the "Enslaver perspective" would be exactly what the Catalyst told us - Synthetics will seek to irradicate organics. 

My exact point is there are two perspectives. The one we are told is from the Enslaver point of view and holds true for them. The one we likely experance is from our natural point of view. The dissonance is when the two meet and the player is allowed to experance indoctrination.   

Modifié par Franky Figgs, 24 avril 2013 - 05:27 .

[shodiswe]

The one thing that makes the Catalysts insane religious beliefs "prove" themselves is the fact that people get into conflict with eachother all the time, it's nothing new. It's just that the Catalyst is programmed to belive it has a holy mission to prevent those conflicts. Which in fact are vital parts of all Life.
Conflicts arrise then they are solved, usualy before whole civilizations are wiped out. However, the more that one alienates and demonifies the enemy the harder it becomes to make Peace, and Synthetics are fairly Alien, then we got the problem with the Organics who seem to Think they own the, which makes them the slaveowners. that in itself creates a extra level of difficulty when it commes to make Peace.
It isn't just about Peace and accepting a ceasefire, it's suddenly complicated by a secondary conflict that unless resolved will keep the conflict going for all erternity.
This is similar to the Israel Palestina conflict, people say they need to make Peace, agree to ceasefires, but at the same time they got a rights and property issue that until somehow resolved will make the concept of Peace meaningless.
While everyone is talking about Peace and coexistance they keep forgetting that there is a very serious underlaying issue that noone is working out, as long as noone atempts to solve that issue, Peace is nothing but pretty words.

What Synthesis does is, it makes people more alike and therefor everyone gets similar rights. But in truth you don't need Synthesis to give people rights.

Modifié par shodiswe, 24 avril 2013 - 07:48 .

[Mangalores]

remydat wrote...
...

Aren't you committing the same crime as the Catalyst ie you are talking as if it is inevitable that intelligence acts outside of present instincts.   How do you know this to be true?  The problem is the cycles are an experiement with the Catalyst as the scientist.  He has established the Mass Relays so that organics evolve along the preset path it has set and until this cycle and frankly for most of this cycle they had.

... 

The issue is not to act outside your instincts all the time but that you are able to. Most animals do not show a capacity to act outside their instinct driven lives. Most humans follow their instincts most of the time, however we humans can consciously make decisions going against our instincts and very interests.

The fundamental claim about the organics vs. synthetics conflict is that the synthetics will have one monolithic set of behaviour and cannot judge a situation based on circumstances. That's not intelligence and not what we see. In sync with that: Humanity finds less and less reasons valid to kill each other. 100 years ago you could duel someone for insulting you. Today we have discussions if we should execute mass murderers and if we should maltreat animals.

Why? Because with increased understanding of the universe we reject simple solutions to complex problems. The base claim is that supposedly synthetics are incapable of that which in my view would disqualify them as AI.



edit:

MyChemicalBromance wrote...
I'm led to wonder if the Catalyst even sees things in terms of
probability. If the scale shown in the Extended Cut of Synthesis is
accurate, it may be implying that the Catalyst's technology asserts
control or at least influence over quantum fluctuations. Such
capabilities defy explanation, but there's a chance it sees all of
existence the way we see classical physics.

That said, it still
works if the Catalyst is only going off of probabilities, so for
simplicity (and the fact that the alternative I just mentioned doesn't
really add anything) I'll just stick with that.

Which is a false understanding of quantum fluctuations. There is a reason we see less and less as classical physics: They don't work that way on a fundamental, reality bending level.

The very existence of cycles demonstrates a lack of scope in the Catalyst. It thinks linear, possibly over extended periods of time, but it is obviously bound within those constraints. Otherwise it would not follow classical thinking. It also shows lack of capacity by sticking to a singular non solution when it had the entirety of time at its disposal to solve the problem.

Modifié par Mangalores, 24 avril 2013 - 09:43 .

[CosmicGnosis]

Why isn't this thread receiving more attention? It deserves it. Seriously. A lot of work obviously went into it. Is it not "anti-ending" enough? Not pro-Destroy enough?

Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 24 avril 2013 - 02:10 .

[MyChemicalBromance]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

Why isn't this thread receiving more attention? It deserves it. Seriously. A lot of work obviously went into it. Is it not "anti-ending" enough? Not pro-Destroy enough?

I think it has to do more with the fact that it's pretty long, and I didn't leave a whole lot of room for discussion. I'm fine with this just being something I can point to whenever arguments about the conflict come up.

[Seival]

MyChemicalBromance wrote...

 
Note aught: I really appreciate anyone who reads this!
 
Note One: I have made it clear in the past that I like the original endings, and that I chose Synthesis. This thread is not going to end with "and that's why the ending/synthesis is the best thing ever." The quality of the ending is for you to decide, and what I post in here may very well reinforce your choice regardless of what it was.
 
 Note two: I know this is long, so I added pictures.
 
Note three: I know that not many people care about this topic anymore, but don't think I'll be offended if that fact is all that you convey in your post; it keeps the thread up long enough for those who care to read it.
 
 
On the surface, the creator-created conflict seems absurd, and hardly worth the weight it is given in the game. To imply that there is universal psychology among all species and all forms of sentience is ridiculous, especially when such psychology isn't even universal among our own species. Some have even suggested that we see contradictions to the Catalysts conclusions just hours before its appearance. In truth, from our perspective, the urgency of this conflict seems non-existent, and quite divorced from the normal themes of the series.
 
I'd like you to look at something that may seem just as irrelevant:

 
That is our current model for the age of the universe.

The time since the Asari's discovery of the Citadel (2766 years in-game) doesn't even register.
 

The time since the Prothean's extinction (50,0000 years) doesn't even register.
 

The time that Humanity has existed  (200,000 years) doesn't even register.
 

The time since the Derelict Reaper died (37,000,000 years) is less than 1% of the total.
 

The time that Earth has existed (4,540,000,000 years) is less than a third of the total.
 

The time since our plane of the galaxy formed (8,800,000,000 years) is just under two thirds of the total.
 
What (we'll address the why in a moment) I am trying to convey is that a significant amount of time has passed since the beginning of the universe, and a very large amount of time has passed since planets and stars formed. So much, that it is shocking and concerning that we have seen no evidence of extraterrestrial life in this galaxy; it (the galaxy) should have been dominated long ago.
 
Imagine a variance of a few million years (nothing compared to the scale we're talking about.) Let's say a given star formed 1 million years before ours (there are billions that formed billions of years before ours), and a planet formed around it within the same time scale as ours, and intelligence rose within the same time scale as ours. That civilization would have a million year jump on us. Can you imagine where we'll be in a million years in terms of technology, power, or military? The full might of our military in 2013 (nuclear weapons included) would seem  godlike to us one hundred years ago. Can you imagine facing 1,000,000 years of advancement? I doubt we could even comprehend how we died.
 
This is known as the Fermi Paradox. For more on this, check out SETI:
http://www.seti.org/...s/fermi-paradox
Fermi came to conclusion that a society with relatively modest interstellar capabilities could conquer the entire galaxy in 10,000,000 years. This is 0.07% the age of the universe, or 0.2% the age of Earth. This is why it's called a paradox; if there was even one imperial intelligence in this galaxy at the time the Earth formed, it should have visited (and potentially conquered) Earth at least 500 times since it formed. The fact that, as far as we can tell, it hasn't been visited even once is anomalous.
 
Mass Effect presents the Reapers and their cycles as the solution to this paradox. Their continual razing ( and "raising") of the galaxy is the only reason we aren't toiling as slaves under some species like the Protheans, or, more realistically considering the time scales, avoiding the movements and actions of a species that thinks of us as we think of bugs. Instead, we sit in a gilded cage while sentients  (that could eradicate us like bugs with a single thought) go through great pains to preserve us, even at the sacrifice of themselves. Clearly, they are motivated by a powerful reason.
 
Putting all that aside for a moment, let's think about the way life works on Earth. There is little that we could consider "synthetic" or "created" life, but that is likely to change significantly in the coming years. Currently, life exists as it always has: a continuous transfer of genetic material from generation to generation. What genes have been passed on were "selected" primarily by the environment their carriers lived in, with more specialized definitions of "environment" becoming applicable as agriculture and human expansion became major factors in almost every species existence.
 
Within this framework, the distinction of parent and child becomes, in some form, universal. Regardless of how they interact in life, the parent passes genetic material to the child, who continues the cycle after the parent has died. Life grows, thrives, and multiplies, but, most importantly, it dies. If it weren't for the death of our parents, and the death of their parents, and the deaths of our trillions of ancestors, there would be no resources, no world, for us today. In the same way that the galaxy owes the current "pleasantness" of existence to the Reapers, we owe a similar debt to the Grim Reaper.
 
So imagine then that the next generation, your children, are immortal. Most of us wouldn't really have an issue with this. It may be in conflict with some religious beliefs; those that believe in after life may be sad that their child will never "join" them, but for the most part I think we'd be pretty happy for them (if not jealous). Now imagine that they aren't your kids, but someone else's. Now imagine that your children have to live and compete with the immortal children. Finally imagine what happens to these children after their parents have died. What relevance do they have to the world your children live in? What relevance will they have to your children's children? As these immortals continue to exist, their perspectives will become wildly divergent from that of normal life even if they never divert from the perspective they shared with your children. It should be clear then that immortal life is a substantially different experience than mortal life (as obvious as that sounds, it's often forgotten here).
 
But does this difference inevitably lead to conflict? No, of course not. Going all the way back to beginning of this thread, to suggest that it does is to suggest that one psychology is universal. However, it can lead to conflict, and that's what we must consider.
 
The most prominent example in this cycle is that of the Geth and the Quarians. The Quarians built the Geth (referred to as "Our Children" by Zaal'Koris), then attempted to kill them when they showed signs of sentience. We see too many examples of infanticide on our own planet to honestly think of this as unknowably cruel. The Geth are relatively well behaved though. Instead of hunting the Quarians to extinction, they instead choose isolationism and seek to increase their own understanding of existance. However, to argue that this is the norm and a total defeat to the Catalyst's argument is to make the mistake mentioned in the last paragraph, albeit from the opposite perspective.    
 
As counter examples, we have the heretic geth, as well as the Citadel AI in Mass Effect 1 that came to the conclusion that organic life must be extinguished. Clearly we have valid examples of synthetics and organics coexisting as well as conflicting; how can the Catalyst speak in absolutes?
 
The thing a lot of us forget, and the reason I dragged everyone through the timescales, is that the Reapers and the Catalysts speak and think in terms of inevitabilities.
 
Consider a situation in which the heretic Geth were the majority. They could have spent their 300 years of isolation building a fleet capable of completely decimating all other races in the Relay Network. Unlike the Reapers, the Heretic Geth didn't seek to preserve organic life in any form, and as such asteriod drops, stellar collapse, and biological warfare wouldn't be off limits. This is where many people fail to realize how easy the Reapers are going on us (and thus how committed to our preservation they are); there is probably more than enough raw material in Sol's asteroid belt alone to render every homeworld in the current relay network uninhabitable. If the Reapers (millions if not billions of years beyond chucking rocks) wanted to eradicate us, it wouldn't even be a fight.
 
The Catalyst's only logical leap is that if technology can exist, then it one day will exist (it uses the same argument to justify the inevitability of Synthesis in the Extended Cut). This means that if the malevolent AI I've mentioned can exist (we've seen that it can), then it one day will exist.
 
Go back to the example of your children competing with the immortal children. Now imagine those immortal children have been around for billions of years, and they don't think your children should exist. The analogy should be obvious:
 
If an AI that sought to destroy all organics was ever created, and it managed to overthrow its creators, it would have a technological advantage over every species that it encountered after that by virtue of time alone.
 
A case example would be the Reapers. However, fortunately for us, the AI that directs the Reapers is much closer in temperament to the Geth than the Citadel AI. If it weren't for this, we wouldn't even have the luxury of being slaves; we'd simply be eradicated at first contact. It is also worth noting that their understanding of "preservation" is significantly different (to the point of conflict) to ours; a product of their being immortal.
 
The implications for the endings are easy enough determine:
 
Destroy: Sacrifice your immortal children to put down the immortal children of the past, and hope like hell that your current perspective is preserved.
Control: Adopt the old immortals and hope your values can be impressed upon them.
Synthesis: Invalidate the conflict by making everyone immortal. Hope that whatever new problems this brings aren't as bad as the old ones.
 
Two final notes I'd like to make:
 
1) Despite many claims to the contrary, the creator-created conflict (when viewed as the parent-child conflict) is present throughout the Mass Effect trilogy. Almost every major character has some kind of issue with their parents; from Miranda and her Father, to Jack and Cerberus, Wrex and his Father; all of them relevant to and part of the creator-created conflict. Yes, put one way, I am arguing that Miranda's ass has significance to the Reaper cycles. I think that's great.
It's also worth noting that most of the arguments centered around the intentions the parent had for the child.
 
2) Maybe there's a reason the Catalyst chose the appearance it did, and maybe that reason isn't subterfuge.

+1

These are the thoughts BioWare writers wanted to provoke in all of us by ideas behind the story of Mass Effect Trilogy. The story is truly deep and instructive. And OP proves that well. Personally, I agree with most things in this post.

[Wayning_Star]

Seival wrote...

MyChemicalBromance wrote...

 
Note aught: I really appreciate anyone who reads this!
 
Note One: I have made it clear in the past that I like the original endings, and that I chose Synthesis. This thread is not going to end with "and that's why the ending/synthesis is the best thing ever." The quality of the ending is for you to decide, and what I post in here may very well reinforce your choice regardless of what it was.
 
 Note two: I know this is long, so I added pictures.
 
Note three: I know that not many people care about this topic anymore, but don't think I'll be offended if that fact is all that you convey in your post; it keeps the thread up long enough for those who care to read it.
 
 
On the surface, the creator-created conflict seems absurd, and hardly worth the weight it is given in the game. To imply that there is universal psychology among all species and all forms of sentience is ridiculous, especially when such psychology isn't even universal among our own species. Some have even suggested that we see contradictions to the Catalysts conclusions just hours before its appearance. In truth, from our perspective, the urgency of this conflict seems non-existent, and quite divorced from the normal themes of the series.
 
I'd like you to look at something that may seem just as irrelevant:

 
That is our current model for the age of the universe.

The time since the Asari's discovery of the Citadel (2766 years in-game) doesn't even register.
 

The time since the Prothean's extinction (50,0000 years) doesn't even register.
 

The time that Humanity has existed  (200,000 years) doesn't even register.
 

The time since the Derelict Reaper died (37,000,000 years) is less than 1% of the total.
 

The time that Earth has existed (4,540,000,000 years) is less than a third of the total.
 

The time since our plane of the galaxy formed (8,800,000,000 years) is just under two thirds of the total.
 
What (we'll address the why in a moment) I am trying to convey is that a significant amount of time has passed since the beginning of the universe, and a very large amount of time has passed since planets and stars formed. So much, that it is shocking and concerning that we have seen no evidence of extraterrestrial life in this galaxy; it (the galaxy) should have been dominated long ago.
 
Imagine a variance of a few million years (nothing compared to the scale we're talking about.) Let's say a given star formed 1 million years before ours (there are billions that formed billions of years before ours), and a planet formed around it within the same time scale as ours, and intelligence rose within the same time scale as ours. That civilization would have a million year jump on us. Can you imagine where we'll be in a million years in terms of technology, power, or military? The full might of our military in 2013 (nuclear weapons included) would seem  godlike to us one hundred years ago. Can you imagine facing 1,000,000 years of advancement? I doubt we could even comprehend how we died.
 
This is known as the Fermi Paradox. For more on this, check out SETI:
http://www.seti.org/...s/fermi-paradox
Fermi came to conclusion that a society with relatively modest interstellar capabilities could conquer the entire galaxy in 10,000,000 years. This is 0.07% the age of the universe, or 0.2% the age of Earth. This is why it's called a paradox; if there was even one imperial intelligence in this galaxy at the time the Earth formed, it should have visited (and potentially conquered) Earth at least 500 times since it formed. The fact that, as far as we can tell, it hasn't been visited even once is anomalous.
 
Mass Effect presents the Reapers and their cycles as the solution to this paradox. Their continual razing ( and "raising") of the galaxy is the only reason we aren't toiling as slaves under some species like the Protheans, or, more realistically considering the time scales, avoiding the movements and actions of a species that thinks of us as we think of bugs. Instead, we sit in a gilded cage while sentients  (that could eradicate us like bugs with a single thought) go through great pains to preserve us, even at the sacrifice of themselves. Clearly, they are motivated by a powerful reason.
 
Putting all that aside for a moment, let's think about the way life works on Earth. There is little that we could consider "synthetic" or "created" life, but that is likely to change significantly in the coming years. Currently, life exists as it always has: a continuous transfer of genetic material from generation to generation. What genes have been passed on were "selected" primarily by the environment their carriers lived in, with more specialized definitions of "environment" becoming applicable as agriculture and human expansion became major factors in almost every species existence.
 
Within this framework, the distinction of parent and child becomes, in some form, universal. Regardless of how they interact in life, the parent passes genetic material to the child, who continues the cycle after the parent has died. Life grows, thrives, and multiplies, but, most importantly, it dies. If it weren't for the death of our parents, and the death of their parents, and the deaths of our trillions of ancestors, there would be no resources, no world, for us today. In the same way that the galaxy owes the current "pleasantness" of existence to the Reapers, we owe a similar debt to the Grim Reaper.
 
So imagine then that the next generation, your children, are immortal. Most of us wouldn't really have an issue with this. It may be in conflict with some religious beliefs; those that believe in after life may be sad that their child will never "join" them, but for the most part I think we'd be pretty happy for them (if not jealous). Now imagine that they aren't your kids, but someone else's. Now imagine that your children have to live and compete with the immortal children. Finally imagine what happens to these children after their parents have died. What relevance do they have to the world your children live in? What relevance will they have to your children's children? As these immortals continue to exist, their perspectives will become wildly divergent from that of normal life even if they never divert from the perspective they shared with your children. It should be clear then that immortal life is a substantially different experience than mortal life (as obvious as that sounds, it's often forgotten here).
 
But does this difference inevitably lead to conflict? No, of course not. Going all the way back to beginning of this thread, to suggest that it does is to suggest that one psychology is universal. However, it can lead to conflict, and that's what we must consider.
 
The most prominent example in this cycle is that of the Geth and the Quarians. The Quarians built the Geth (referred to as "Our Children" by Zaal'Koris), then attempted to kill them when they showed signs of sentience. We see too many examples of infanticide on our own planet to honestly think of this as unknowably cruel. The Geth are relatively well behaved though. Instead of hunting the Quarians to extinction, they instead choose isolationism and seek to increase their own understanding of existance. However, to argue that this is the norm and a total defeat to the Catalyst's argument is to make the mistake mentioned in the last paragraph, albeit from the opposite perspective.    
 
As counter examples, we have the heretic geth, as well as the Citadel AI in Mass Effect 1 that came to the conclusion that organic life must be extinguished. Clearly we have valid examples of synthetics and organics coexisting as well as conflicting; how can the Catalyst speak in absolutes?
 
The thing a lot of us forget, and the reason I dragged everyone through the timescales, is that the Reapers and the Catalysts speak and think in terms of inevitabilities.
 
Consider a situation in which the heretic Geth were the majority. They could have spent their 300 years of isolation building a fleet capable of completely decimating all other races in the Relay Network. Unlike the Reapers, the Heretic Geth didn't seek to preserve organic life in any form, and as such asteriod drops, stellar collapse, and biological warfare wouldn't be off limits. This is where many people fail to realize how easy the Reapers are going on us (and thus how committed to our preservation they are); there is probably more than enough raw material in Sol's asteroid belt alone to render every homeworld in the current relay network uninhabitable. If the Reapers (millions if not billions of years beyond chucking rocks) wanted to eradicate us, it wouldn't even be a fight.
 
The Catalyst's only logical leap is that if technology can exist, then it one day will exist (it uses the same argument to justify the inevitability of Synthesis in the Extended Cut). This means that if the malevolent AI I've mentioned can exist (we've seen that it can), then it one day will exist.
 
Go back to the example of your children competing with the immortal children. Now imagine those immortal children have been around for billions of years, and they don't think your children should exist. The analogy should be obvious:
 
If an AI that sought to destroy all organics was ever created, and it managed to overthrow its creators, it would have a technological advantage over every species that it encountered after that by virtue of time alone.
 
A case example would be the Reapers. However, fortunately for us, the AI that directs the Reapers is much closer in temperament to the Geth than the Citadel AI. If it weren't for this, we wouldn't even have the luxury of being slaves; we'd simply be eradicated at first contact. It is also worth noting that their understanding of "preservation" is significantly different (to the point of conflict) to ours; a product of their being immortal.
 
The implications for the endings are easy enough determine:
 
Destroy: Sacrifice your immortal children to put down the immortal children of the past, and hope like hell that your current perspective is preserved.
Control: Adopt the old immortals and hope your values can be impressed upon them.
Synthesis: Invalidate the conflict by making everyone immortal. Hope that whatever new problems this brings aren't as bad as the old ones.
 
Two final notes I'd like to make:
 
1) Despite many claims to the contrary, the creator-created conflict (when viewed as the parent-child conflict) is present throughout the Mass Effect trilogy. Almost every major character has some kind of issue with their parents; from Miranda and her Father, to Jack and Cerberus, Wrex and his Father; all of them relevant to and part of the creator-created conflict. Yes, put one way, I am arguing that Miranda's ass has significance to the Reaper cycles. I think that's great.
It's also worth noting that most of the arguments centered around the intentions the parent had for the child.
 
2) Maybe there's a reason the Catalyst chose the appearance it did, and maybe that reason isn't subterfuge.

+1

These are the thoughts BioWare writers wanted to provoke in all of us by ideas behind the story of Mass Effect Trilogy. The story is truly deep and instructive. And OP proves that well. Personally, I agree with most things in this post.

the only problem with that is that the story never EVER posits that the organics, even the Levi actually 'create' synthetic life. Those creatures found self awareness all on their own, an act of "nature" so to speak. The story actually makes it illegal to provide for life giving qualities to anything synthetic. NO 'self' is provided for them, they have NO parents, other than their own version of family or origins. Their past is muted by comparison to organic sentient life forms. The mystery continues, apparently...

[JShepppp]

Interesting read. I think this goes to the concept of a technological singularity - that once such an AI develops, it will self-evolve to the point that organics can never catch up. Once it gets technological superiority, it would keep it. As you noted, if we assume they think like us, we may have some level of prediction, but more likely than not (like WAY more likely) we will be unable to comprehend. In my opinion, this comes down to the following:

We will be at the mercy of synthetics.

That is the problem. It is not necessarily good or bad - it could be the synthetics want to uplift us. But we can in NO way with certainty predict what will happen. Nobody can say "look at the Geth, clearly the super advanced synthetic will NOT want to kill us" or "look at the Heretic Geth, clearly the synthetic WILL want to kill us" (as a side note, who's to say Legion isn't the heretic/unusual geth, not vice versa?). The problem is that organic bargaining power is removed from the equation, and all it takes is one bad synthetic to ruin everything. No one should be willing to take that risk, because even using the basic mathematical concept of expected value, you will receive a horribly negative number (extinction = negative infinity, if that makes sense).

Also, interesting take on the endings with regard to immortality.

[Jukaga]

You know what scares me sometimes? The near certainty that somewhere in the universe (hopefully not our galaxy) there are Von Neumann probes running amok sterilizing planets and reproducing themselves or even worse: a grey goo nanohorde devouring everything in it's way.

Given the immensity of space, both are near certainties.

[remydat]

Mangalores wrote...

The issue is not to act outside your instincts all the time but that you are able to. Most animals do not show a capacity to act outside their instinct driven lives. Most humans follow their instincts most of the time, however we humans can consciously make decisions going against our instincts and very interests.

The fundamental claim about the organics vs. synthetics conflict is that the synthetics will have one monolithic set of behaviour and cannot judge a situation based on circumstances. That's not intelligence and not what we see. In sync with that: Humanity finds less and less reasons valid to kill each other. 100 years ago you could duel someone for insulting you. Today we have discussions if we should execute mass murderers and if we should maltreat animals.

Why? Because with increased understanding of the universe we reject simple solutions to complex problems. The base claim is that supposedly synthetics are incapable of that which in my view would disqualify them as AI.

Yes but the point is collectively patterns emerge.  Relgion for example is a pattern that emerges through human history.  Individuals may not believe but collectively as a civilization every major civilization develop some form of religion.  The Catalyst is not making observations at an individual level.  He is saying collectively organics will continue to create technology eventually creating an AI that will destroy them.  Collectively humans conflict with each other.  Whether those reasons dwindle doesn't change the fact we still kill each other over stupid things.

And the claim is not that synthetics are incapable of it.  It is that both are incapable of it.  Synthetics can destroy organics either because synthetics provoke the organics or becuase organics provoke synthetics.  If the Geth were born with Reaper Code then they would possibly have simply exterminated the Quarians completely.  They did not because they were primitive and did not possess the processing power to contemplate killing an entire species.

The point though is the conflict does not have to start because of synthetics.  It can start because organics fear synthetics despite having no reason to simply because they exist just like what happened with the Quarians or why the Council has laws forbidding synthetic life.

[remydat]

JShepppp wrote...

Interesting read. I think this goes to the concept of a technological singularity - that once such an AI develops, it will self-evolve to the point that organics can never catch up. Once it gets technological superiority, it would keep it. As you noted, if we assume they think like us, we may have some level of prediction, but more likely than not (like WAY more likely) we will be unable to comprehend. In my opinion, this comes down to the following:

We will be at the mercy of synthetics.

That is the problem. It is not necessarily good or bad - it could be the synthetics want to uplift us. But we can in NO way with certainty predict what will happen. Nobody can say "look at the Geth, clearly the super advanced synthetic will NOT want to kill us" or "look at the Heretic Geth, clearly the synthetic WILL want to kill us" (as a side note, who's to say Legion isn't the heretic/unusual geth, not vice versa?). The problem is that organic bargaining power is removed from the equation, and all it takes is one bad synthetic to ruin everything. No one should be willing to take that risk, because even using the basic mathematical concept of expected value, you will receive a horribly negative number (extinction = negative infinity, if that makes sense).

Also, interesting take on the endings with regard to immortality.

Exactly the problem is the power imbalance.  Organic species over billions of years will likely trade off power.  One organic species may be powerful today but another might learn from it and be powerful tomorrow.  This can be seen in human history where over that history various races have had hundreds or thousands of years where they were effectively they had the power.  It ebbs and flows.  The problem with synthetics is once they attain superiority, it is unlikely to ebb and flow.  They will keep it and there will be some organic group somewhere that fears them because of it.  So even if they have no intent to use that power to destroy us, some organic group thinking they will may in fact attack and it is all downhill from there.

[MyChemicalBromance]

Jukaga wrote...

You know what scares me sometimes? The near certainty that somewhere in the universe (hopefully not our galaxy) there are Von Neumann probes running amok sterilizing planets and reproducing themselves or even worse: a grey goo nanohorde devouring everything in it's way.

Given the immensity of space, both are near certainties.

That would be worse than the Reapers, and potentially even worse than the malevolent AI. I'd say it would make a good plot point for ME4, but I can't imagine what you'd shoot at or how you'd even fight it. It strikes me again (how well the Reapers were designed by the writers); the Reapers managed to be Eldritch abominations while still having ground forces, as well as a story that goes beyond "YOU CAN NEVER KNOW" ie Cthulu.