199 réponses à ce sujet

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Optimystic_X wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...
But you would care so little about the rest of nature, so little about every single living animal, plant, every single living organism that you would singlehandedly decide to change them forever for your own selfish wants. You would permanently destroy nature as we know it. You would play God, not just in a laboratory, not just with a single crop in a greenhouse, not just with an isolated instance, but across the entire galaxy, you would choose to venture into territory you have no business or right in which to venture.
What makes you think you have that right?
Feel better now?

1) Nature "as you know it" is destroyed every single minute of every single day. It is constantly changing and evolving. Synthesis is merely hitting Fast Forward, but Play was hit long ago. The only things that don't change are the dead, and only one ending results in that static mode of existence.
2) Shepard has "no business or right" to choose any of the endings. Yet there s/he is. And the Catalyst gave Shepard that right. And Shep has to pay the ultimate sacrifice to make it happen. Playing God? I think not.
3) Yes, I feel great about that choice, thank you.

I know a hell of a lot about evolution my dear child. Don't you dare lecture me. Synthesis is not hitting fast forward. It is doing what YOU want to do with it for YOUR selfish wants, and for the Catalyst's wants. You change nature to fit its desires.

Your statements are about the most idiotic things I've read on this board. I don't care if Shepard pays the "ultimate sacrifce." Shepard can shoot himself in the head if he wants to die so badly. The Catalyst gives Shepard that right? Listen to yourself. You're indoctrinated.

I feel great about choosing Destroy. Yes the geth and EDI die. There is no genocide. EDI is a casualty. If they were organic species I'd have an ethical problem. Geth aren't like organics. Don't impose our moral values on them. Doing so is racist, even benign anthropomorphism.

And I think you're full of horses***.

[PsyrenY]

Greylycantrope wrote...

Except this flies in the face of glowboy telling you the Crucible will not discriminate, specifically targeting Reaper code would be discrimination, by definition of the term.

It can't discriminate because every synthetic that currently exists has reaper code. It's not contradictory at all.

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

And I think you're full of horses***.

I'll just wait till you've calmed down a bit, shall I? 

[GreyLycanTrope]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Greylycantrope wrote...

Except this flies in the face of glowboy telling you the Crucible will not discriminate, specifically targeting Reaper code would be discrimination, by definition of the term.

It can't discriminate because every synthetic that currently exists has reaper code. It's not contradictory at all.

He doesn't say it can't he says it won't, as in doesn't have the functionality. He also says "All synthetics will be targeted", not "All with Reaper code will be targeted." And no not every synthetic in existance has reaper code at the moment.

[Xilizhra]

I know a hell of a lot about evolution my dear child. Don't you dare lecture me. Synthesis is not hitting fast forward. It is doing what YOU want to do with it for YOUR selfish wants, and for the Catalyst's wants. You change nature to fit its desires.

Sapient creations, too, are a part of nature.

I feel great about choosing Destroy. Yes the geth and EDI die. There is no genocide. EDI is a casualty. If they were organic species I'd have an ethical problem. Geth aren't like organics. Don't impose our moral values on them. Doing so is racist, even benign anthropomorphism.

Out of context and irrelevant. All it was referring to is how the geth mentality works. The geth do still have self-preservation desires, just as organics do; that much is the same.

[shodiswe]

Your emotions are probably what most people would expect from someone who has just completed their games playthrough. The later parts of ME3 being Priority Earth and onward arn't my favrite parts of the game.
The initial arrival of Sword fleet is fairly good. I'ts jsut a Movie sequence but the start is pretty good seeing the fleet arrive.
After that it all gets lets appealing.

Modifié par shodiswe, 30 avril 2013 - 08:15 .

[Iakus]

[quote]Optimystic_X wrote...

[quote]Greylycantrope wrote...

Except this flies in the face of glowboy telling you the Crucible will not discriminate, specifically targeting Reaper code would be discrimination, by definition of the term.
[/quote]

It can't discriminate because every synthetic that currently exists has reaper code. It's not contradictory at all.[/quote]

Umm, there is other synthetic life out there besides the geth and EDI.  

[/quote]

edit:  Yeah Greylycantrope mentioned the virtual aliens.  There are also shackled AI.

Modifié par iakus, 30 avril 2013 - 08:26 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Greylycantrope wrote...

Except this flies in the face of glowboy telling you the Crucible will not discriminate, specifically targeting Reaper code would be discrimination, by definition of the term.

It can't discriminate because every synthetic that currently exists has reaper code. It's not contradictory at all.

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

And I think you're full of horses***.

I'll just wait till you've calmed down a bit, shall I? 

I perfectly calm, and still think that.

Modifié par sH0tgUn jUliA, 30 avril 2013 - 08:26 .

[PsyrenY]

Greylycantrope wrote...

He doesn't say it can't he says it won't, as in doesn't have the functionality. He also says "All synthetics will be targeted", not "All with Reaper code will be targeted." And no not every synthetic in existance has reaper code at the moment.

Let's assume you're right for a moment, and the Crucible creators originally programmed it to nuke all synthetic life. That's still not forced - someone willing to destroy the Reapers at any cost (like many people here on BSN) wouldn't mind some collateral damage if it meant avoiding any more AI troubles for a long time.

As for your link, I'll consider EU material canon when it's not 3 years old and actually referenced in-game.

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

I perfectly calm, and still think that.

Well, while we're being mature and rational, I'm rubber and you're glue.

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 30 avril 2013 - 08:28 .

[JasonShepard]

@OP: Nice username you have there.
I approve, so long as you don't try telling me to lower my shields and prepare to be assimilated 

I'll do my best to answer all 14 questions. Where possible, I'll distinguish between what is canonical, what is speculation, and what is headcanon-created-so-that-I-can-enjoy-the-game. I'll try to keep things as simple as possible, just to avoid journeying too far into ungrounded speculation.

• Mildly Speculative: I'd assume the Leviathans used thralls to build the Catalyst. Leviathan technology is a bit of a question-mark, so they may even have had the thralls involved in designing the Catalyst.
• Canonical, with a bit of interpretation: Leviathan states that the Intelligence was envisioned as just another tool. Look at it from their perspective - what they saw was thralls creating synthetics and being wiped out by them, a bit like how we might see computer programs getting caught in logic loops. It simply didn't occur to them that the same thing could happen to them - they didn't see themselves on the same level as the thralls.
• Canonical: The Catalyst doesn't see the harvest as killing all organics, but as ascending them into Reaper form for preservation. The cycle is in place to stop any race of organics advancing to the point where they can make synthetics that are capable of wiping out the galaxy.
• Speculative: Synthetics advance faster than organics. Look at the geth - they went from creation to galactic power in the space of 300 years (Knowledge of quarian technology will have given them a headstart, but they still had to learn to understand, use and replicate it). At some point, synthetics will overtake organics and organics will be not able to catch up. At that point, in any conflict, organics would be at the mercy of the synthetics, and synthetics would be able to wipe out the organics.    Canonical: Synthetic/Organic peace is remarkably rare in the Mass Effect universe. The only examples of peace in our cycle both heavily involved Shepard. It's possible that events like the Morning War are the rule rather than the exception.
• Canonically, Sovereign offered the heretic geth a Reaper shell in exchange for their help. So I'd speculate that synthetics get harvested into Reapers just the same as organics - they're just sometimes easier to hack or persuade than organics.
• Ugh... Catalyst, Citadel, Reapers, 'Intelligence'... this is partly a mess because of how, at first, we think the Catalyst is just a component of the Crucible, then we find out that it's the Citadel, then we find out that it's an AI somehow associated with the Citadel. Canonically, the Leviathans created the Catalyst, which created the Reapers, which then created the Citadel - so my best guess is that the Citadel was built around whatever originally housed the Catalyst. I'd speculate that the Crucible never needed the Catalyst itself, it just needed the Citadel in order to interface with the Mass Relays.
• Speculative: There are various theories here. I personally go with two of them.    Firstly: The Crucible demonstrates that the Catalyst's solution is not perfect - it is possible for advanced technology to survive from one cycle to influence the next cycle. If that had been an advanced AI rather than the Crucible, the entire galaxy could have been dominated and/or wiped out by that AI by the time of the next harvest came around.    Secondly: The Crucible demonstrates that it is possible for organics to defend themselves from advanced synthetics, by building the Crucible and firing Destroy whenever synthetics become too much of a threat (This relates to 9). As a result, the cycles are unnecessary.
• That's sort of an easter egg reference to before the Extended Cut. People who hated all the options had a tendency to fire their pistol at the Catalyst, so Bioware included it as a way to trigger the Refuse ending.    As for whether AIs get angry: Canonically, EDI describes emotional analogues that AIs do experience (she likes having people talk to her face-to-face, she is repulsed by the Reapers and by images of their harvesting camps, she certainly appears to be emotionally attached to Jeff...). I could come up with similar examples for Legion. So I'd say there is evidence to suggest that AIs can experience emotion, depending on whether you consider a sufficiently advanced simulation to be equivalent to the real thing.
• Speculative: As I mentioned in 7, the Destroy function of the Crucible proves that organics can defend themselves from synthetics. The Catalyst is aware that the cycles are flawed, so it's willing to try a different solution rather than risk inevitably having something even worse slip through the cycles. Control is akin to the Catalyst simply handing you the reigns to the Reapers and letting you deal with it yourself.
• Somewhat speculative: It's implied that the Crucible had an original set of designers. Shepard asks both the Catalyst and the Leviathan who designed it, and neither give a straight answer. People have suggested that either the Leviathans or the Catalyst are the original Crucible designers. Personally I'd guess that there is a third party: An alien race of designers that knew a lot about the Citadel, and possibly knew about the Catalyst.
• I agree that the Crucible's abilities are given little-to-no explanation, and I wish we had been given that explanation.    Canonically, Control is little more than having you replace the Catalyst - try the renegade dialogue option in regard to Control. So that's the easiest to explain with the least speculation: the Crucible is doing a destructive analysis of Shepard in order to create a synthetic version that is given control of the Reapers.    Destroy - I'd guess that Destroy is similar to a galactic EMP, since that would explain why all synthetics and some technology is affected. I'm not sure how the Destroy wave is able to travel FTL though (which it must do or else the Reapers would be able to outrun it).    Synthesis... your guess is as good as mine, and my guess involves either a galactic nanite release, or quantum modification on a galactic scale. So... *shrugs*
• Speculation/Headcanon: Harbinger firing at Normandy would distract him from preventing Hammer from reaching the beam, and some of the soldiers charging towards the beam might make it through. Also, the Normandy is evacuating various injured soldiers (you see some get on while chatting with your squadmates), so it is not a priority target for Harbinger, since it's actually reducing the number of soldiers that Harbinger has to worry about. Finally, between the IFF, the Stealth Systems, the beam interference and EDI's electronic countermeasures, the Normandy is not the easiest of targets. But yeah, it was terrible tactics - Shepard appears to be thinking emotionally, not logically.
• Because Shepard ordered them to? And didn't want them to die? Depending on how you roleplay Shepard, this scene can be extremely out of character for Shep (especially with EDI in your squad), so I'm out of explanations here unless you're willing to pass Shep off as being excessively emotional about the squad.
• Speculation/Headcanon: Normandy's QEC is probably still active, so they may have gotten word from Earth that Shepard hasn't been found and is assumed KIA.

I hope all of that helps. It took me a little while to put together–

Oh for goodness sake.

JSHEPPPP!!!! I go and type out a nice long response to all of the questions, just to find that you've already done the job for me?! Honestly...
(Okay, it's my fault for not checking the thread before typing this up, but STILL...) 

OP: I'm aware that mine and JShepppp's explanations will correlate and overlap a fair bit. We have fairly similar approaches to the ending (although he tends to write things up FAR more often than I do...). And I do highly recommend his Catalyst's Logic thread (although it's a long  read)

EDIT: Formatting. Lists can get ugly on BSN...

Modifié par JasonShepard, 30 avril 2013 - 08:56 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

Optimystic_X wrote...
Let's assume you're right for a moment, and the Crucible creators originally programmed it to nuke all synthetic life. That's still not forced - someone willing to destroy the Reapers at any cost (like many people here on BSN) wouldn't mind some collateral damage if it meant avoiding any more AI troubles for a long time.

As for your link, I'll consider EU material canon when it's not 3 years old and actually referenced in-game.

Not what I'm arguing, I'm arguing soley that it's not Reaper code that is targeted for it's own sake as part of the Crucible's function and that assuming so is headcanon on the part of yourself and others not established in game but assumed to make sense of a nonsensical situation. Second alright let's say for a moment the the death of all synthetics was the intended purpose. How do organics on a technilogical level below the Reapers manage to create such a process? And if they can why is the Catalyst(who is well aware of the design mind you) still convinced that all organic life will be destroyed if organics are left to their own devices (which are capable of destroying all synthetics which pose a threat to them)?

Raloi come from the same source and are referenced in game, Citadel DLC has shows AI in the old ME2 mechs, We have the AI on the Citadel back in ME1. AI's exists outside the Geth and EDI, the Catalyst also knows this, refer to the original ending were he states the you can kill all synthetics including the Geth and think about the meaning of that phrasing and the new phrasing about not discriminating. It's all inclusive language. The function of the crucible has not been been retconned with the EC the wording has simply been changes to make it more specific that Reapers wouldn't be the only ones killed as some people were claiming they had EDI survive the Destroy ending.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 30 avril 2013 - 09:23 .

[TheBorgPrincess]

MyChemicalBromance wrote...

For 3/4, check this thread. I tried to keep it as neutral as possible with regards to the endings. There's a perspective to the Reapers that isn't represented well in the games (but is represented in astrophysics).

I read your thread. Thanks for the link! (Sorry for my really long response)

Regarding my question #3: The major takeaway I got from your thread was that you believe the Reapers/AI think on an infinite timescale and to them, preserving a race in reaper form = preserving life, because this way, they get to save it forever. The problem I have with this is that by transforming us into a Reaper, you are vitally altering us and so the argument that it's just a straightforward preservation technique really rings false to me. Also, you could preserve a life form for posterity really easily with the technology of the ME universe. For instance, you could
cryostasis a population sample large enough to represent a snapshot of current allele distributions in the race. That seems like a far more logical way to preserve life since 1) you're not interfering with the natural lives of EVERYONE and 2) you're actually preserving the life without altering it 

I guess the real issue is the AI. Prior to ME3 I was able to accept the idea that the Reapers were this odd amalgam of synthetic and organic that had screwed up motivations. I imagined that maybe they suffered from some sort of groupthink twisting of reasoning, leading them to their current conclusions that harvesting was the best. But once BioWare told me that an AI was in charge, and that this AI's mandate was simply to “preserve life,”
I got totally lost. An AI has to at the very least, be logical and even from an infinite timescale perspective, harvesting does not seem like a logical solution to me. 

Regarding question #4: Maybe I should clarify slightly. I do understand the idea that organics and synthetics can be in conflict. I just don't understand why this is a conflict that supposedly will last forever, can never be solved, and must always result in all organics dying forever.

On your thread, you talk about “malevolent AI's” and say that to the Reapers, “if a malevolent AI can exist, then one day it will exist.” You seem to use the heretic geth as an example of “malevolent AI's.” But the heretic Geth were not murdering organics until Reaper interference. There is no example of an AI ever doing anything to harm organics except when necessary to defend themselves. It seems like circular logic to say that the Catalyst knew malevolent AI's would exist, therefore he needed to save organics from the malevolent AI's because he's the only real troublemaker of an AI that we know of, and even his reasoning seems illogical to me (as I stated above).

Another point I don't quite agree with is your “astrophysics perspective.” I get that you were trying to say that the
universe is infinitely big and statistically, all things are possible. But real statisticians and astrophysicists don't  think like that. I'm going into paraphrase mode now, because my boyfriend happens to be an astrophysicist, so I asked him this to make sure, and here is what he said: 

We don't know for certain that the universe will expand infinitely, asymptotically, or even collapse in on itself. There is actually a large probability that much of the current matter of the universe will end up in black holes. Therefore, in the future, there may less possibilities since entropy has changed. The universe is big yes, but you can't make the mistake of thinking that because it is big, it is infinite.

Additionally, not all things that could happen will happen. Below is a problem from Kittel and Kroemer, Thermal Physics, 2nd Edition. It deals with the commonly stated idea that statistically, even a monkey could write Shakespeare, given enough time:

"It has been said that 'six monkeys, set to strum unintelligently on typewriters for millions of years, would be bound in time to write all the books in the British Museum.' This statement is nonsense, for it gives a misleading conclusion about very, very large numbers. Could all the monkeys in the world have typed out a single specified book in the age of the universe?"

Solution - Suppose that 10^10 monkeys have been seated at typewriters throughout the age of the universe, 10^18 seconds. This number of monkeys is about three times greater than the present human population of Earth. We suppose that a monkey can hit 10 typewriter keys per second. A typewritter has 44 keys: we accept lowercase letters in place of capital letters. Assuming that Shakespeare's Hamlet has 10^5 characters, will the monkeys hit upon Hamlet?
Part (a)- The probability that any given sequence of 10^5 characters typed at random will come out in the correct sequence (the sequence of Hamlet) is 10^-164345
Part (- The probability that a monkey-Hamlet will be typed in the age of the universe is approximately 10^(-164316)
Conclusion - The probability of monkey-Hamlet is therefore zero in any operational sense of an event, so that original statement at the beginning of this problem is nonsense.

Modifié par TheBorgPrincess, 30 avril 2013 - 11:37 .

[TheRealJayDee]

There are surely some delicious ME3 related jokes involving monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare waiting to be made... though not by me...

[GreyLycanTrope]

TheRealJayDee wrote...

There are surely some delicious ME3 related jokes involving monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare waiting to be made... though not by me...

Why not?

[TheRealJayDee]

Greylycantrope wrote...

TheRealJayDee wrote...

There are surely some delicious ME3 related jokes involving monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare waiting to be made... though not by me...

Why not?

Because I'm usually a nice guy and although I'm surely not happy about how ME3 turned out I don't want to attack anyone personally because of it - there's nothing to gain by going there, Mass Effect is over and I have accepted it.

So unless it's Auld Wulf related I try to be good and keep a lid on my sarcasm.

[GreyLycanTrope]

Fair enough.

[remydat]

The Borg Princess

If I may interject.

3. Species rise and fall. That is the natural ebb and flow of the universe. From its perspective, all the Catalyst has done is regulate that ebb and flow while preserving the collective knowledge of the species most of which would be lost if not for it's intervention.

4. Organics are still currently in conflict with each other even in the real world. Why wouldn't an immortal AI that has observed over billions of years that conflict always occurs not conclude synthetics are a threat when the difference is synthetics can evolve exponentially faster than organics?

[I_Jedi]

MEHEM essentially fixes up almost all the problems with the ending.

[Mangalores]

remydat wrote...

The Borg Princess

If I may interject.

3. Species rise and fall. That is the natural ebb and flow of the universe. From its perspective, all the Catalyst has done is regulate that ebb and flow while preserving the collective knowledge of the species most of which would be lost if not for it's intervention.

That'd be actually more consistent even with prior games. It still doesn't mean us mortals have to roll over and take it since his ebb and flow thingie might not be our game. It's a paramount drive of organisms to be not among the dieing part of natural selection.

4. Organics are still currently in conflict with each other even in the real world. Why wouldn't an immortal AI that has observed over billions of years that conflict always occurs not conclude synthetics are a threat when the difference is synthetics can evolve exponentially faster than organics?

Then he should have targeted the synthetics for destruction to prevent that. He doesn't,

[remydat]

mangalores,

No one said organics have to take it. I was just explaining the logic. Obviously we should fight it.

Synthetics will eventually be harvested or killed as well. Further, if he just targets synthetics then those same organics who are still adavancing will in his opinion create more synthetics. Killing organics allows the Reapers to only have to harvest every 50 thousand years instead of remaining as overload perpetually as those ever advancing organics continue to create synthetics.

[PsyrenY]

[quote]Greylycantrope wrote...

Not what I'm arguing, I'm arguing soley that it's not Reaper code that is targeted for it's own sake as part of the Crucible's function and that assuming so is headcanon on the part of yourself and others not established in game but assumed to make sense of a nonsensical situation.[/quote]

If you change it to "all synthetics" it still makes sense (as there are plenty of people who want to destroy the Reapers badly enough to consider all other synthetics collateral damage.) Just look at BSN if you want proof of that. So your point is no point at all.

[quote]Greylycantrope wrote...

Second alright let's say for a moment the the death of all synthetics was the intended purpose. How do organics on a technilogical level below the Reapers manage to create such a process?[/quote]

By collaborating across many cycles. Every cycle came up with technology that the others do not have.

[quote]Greylycantrope wrote...

And if they can why is the Catalyst(who is well aware of the design mind you) still convinced that all organic life will be destroyed if organics are left to their own devices (which are capable of destroying all synthetics which pose a threat to them)?[/quote]

Because "destroy all synthetics" is not an endpoint. We will make more. It would be like "destroying all computers," or "destroying all books" - they're too valuable not to have around.

[quote]Greylycantrope wrote...

Raloi come from the same source and are referenced in game, Citadel DLC has shows AI in the old ME2 mechs, We have the AI on the Citadel back in ME1.[/quote]

The question is do they exist now? We see no mention of them during the war, are they still around? Did the Reapers get them? Are they hiding? How do we know they survived Destroy or not? How do we know the have no Reaper code?


AI's exists outside the Geth and EDI, the Catalyst also knows this, refer to the original ending were he states the you can kill all synthetics including the Geth and think about the meaning of that phrasing and the new phrasing about not discriminating. It's all inclusive language. The function of the crucible has not been been retconned with the EC the wording has simply been changes to make it more specific that Reapers wouldn't be the only ones killed as some people were claiming they had EDI survive the Destroy ending.
[/quote]

[AresKeith]

@Optimystic the Raloi went back to their homeworld, shutdown their Relay and destroyed all their tech

[PsyrenY]

AresKeith wrote...

@Optimystic the Raloi went back to their homeworld, shutdown their Relay and destroyed all their tech

Ah, thanks. But they're not synthetics, so they don't matter to this discussion.

[MyChemicalBromance]

TheBorgPrincess wrote...

MyChemicalBromance wrote...

For 3/4, check this thread. I tried to keep it as neutral as possible with regards to the endings. There's a perspective to the Reapers that isn't represented well in the games (but is represented in astrophysics).

I read your thread. Thanks for the link! (Sorry for my really long response)

Regarding my question #3: The major takeaway I got from your thread was that you believe the Reapers/AI think on an infinite timescale and to them, preserving a race in reaper form = preserving life, because this way, they get to save it forever. The problem I have with this is that by transforming us into a Reaper, you are vitally altering us and so the argument that it's just a straightforward preservation technique really rings false to me.

I tried to address this in the section about immortal children (and their perspectives). There's no universal concept of preservation (look at our religions), so it's actually presumptuous to think that the Reapers (or the Catalyst as it were) would come to the same conclusions we do. There's also no universal definition of what constitutes life (especially in the Mass Effect Universe), so there's really no way for the Reapers to be (in an absolute sense) wrong. Preserving our genetic code (and nothing else) is what they've determined to constitute preservation.

I guess the real issue is the AI. Prior to ME3 I was able to accept the idea that the Reapers were this odd amalgam of synthetic and organic that had screwed up motivations. I imagined that maybe they suffered from some sort of groupthink twisting of reasoning, leading them to their current conclusions that harvesting was the best. But once BioWare told me that an AI was in charge, and that this AI's mandate was simply to “preserve life,”
I got totally lost. An AI has to at the very least, be logical and even from an infinite timescale perspective, harvesting does not seem like a logical solution to me. 

It isn't logical. This was actually something I pointed out in a thread long before Leviathan, and before the Extended Cut: The Catalyst's creators have to be organics. Why? Because it values organic life simply for being organic life (as opposed to "logical" reasons such as resources).

This neatly wraps up many of the eccentricities about the Reapers, such as their construction, ornate design, and elaborate harvesting methods. The Catalyst is pursuing illogical goals because that's what it was created to do. If it didn't value organic life, it wouldn't pursue the harvests, and likely wouldn't even care about preventing the "chaos", as it would only destroy something it didn't care about.

Regarding question #4: Maybe I should clarify slightly. I do understand the idea that organics and synthetics can be in conflict. I just don't understand why this is a conflict that supposedly will last forever, can never be solved, and must always result in all organics dying forever.

The Fermi Paradox (well.. Mass Effect's solution to it). If an Organic race rose to spacefaring status, it would dominate any race that rose after it (simply by virtue of time and technology). If the organic race was overthrown by synthetics (inevitable to the Catalyst because a malevolent AI could one day exist), then those synthetics would hold an advantage over any organic, and destroy them like they did their creators.

On your thread, you talk about “malevolent AI's” and say that to the Reapers, “if a malevolent AI can exist, then one day it will exist.” You seem to use the heretic geth as an example of “malevolent AI's.” But the heretic Geth were not murdering organics until Reaper interference. There is no example of an AI ever doing anything to harm organics except when necessary to defend themselves.

Even if organics initiate the conflict, the conflict still exists. Whether or not it rose spontaneously is irrelevant once it has happened. Also, don't forget the Citadel AI in ME1. It determined that all organics were inferior and deserved to die. If it happens once, it can happen again, and that's all the Catalyst needs.

This has come up before, so I admit I should make it clearer in the thread.

Another point I don't quite agree with is your “astrophysics perspective.” I get that you were trying to say that the
universe is infinitely big and statistically, all things are possible.

That's not what I was trying to say. The "astrophysics perspective" was there to back up the Fermi Paradox and Mass Effect's answer to it, not as a statement about infinite possibilities. I've dealt with probability and statistics enough to avoid the fallacy you listed.

The only other time I brought up "inevitability" was with regards to the Catalyst's logic involving synthesis and the creator-created conflict. I think here we can agree that the Catalyst's conclusion is logical, given that in our own cycle, the conflict has arisen many times, and if our cycle is representative of the others (we also have similar events taking place in Javik's cycle), the Catalyst's data set will suggest that the odds of synthetics dominating organics are decidedly non-zero.



Also, thanks for reading the thread! Yours is the most in-depth (relevant) response I've received yet.

Modifié par MyChemicalBromance, 01 mai 2013 - 02:45 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

Optimystic_X wrote...
If you change it to "all synthetics" it still makes sense (as there are plenty of people who want to destroy the Reapers badly enough to consider all other synthetics collateral damage.) Just look at BSN if you want proof of that. So your point is no point at all.

My point is that you're using headcanon as in game facts when referncing the crucible function, nothing you just said disqualifies that assertion. You're talking about something else entirely.

By collaborating across many cycles. Every cycle came up with technology that the others do not have.

Each cycle developed along the lines the Reapers allowed them to, that was the crucial point of the plan, to come in before they had an advanced enough understanding of how AI's functioned and before they managed to build them. So no their technology would be fairly similar to each other since that was the entire point of the cycle to begin with (refer to Sovereign's speech about letting life evolve along patterns they wanted). And again each cycle was at a technological point were building a device capable of destroying all AIs in existance, (which they have a limited understanding off, refer to Geth and Quarians), regardless of the way said AIs were constructed. Nor would they have the understanding to neurtalize the most advanced group of AIs ever created, as you're suggesting. Remember the Protheans didn't defeat the Zha'til but devolping a virus or other weapon that attacked their coding, they made the sun go super nova.
 

Because "destroy all synthetics" is not an endpoint. We will make more. It would be like "destroying all computers," or "destroying all books" - they're too valuable not to have around.

Preventing conflict that you destroy the oganics is the end point. They are no longer threatened and any synthetic in existance would see the weapon as a deterant before starting such a conflict again preventing the conflict from occuring and preseving both groups. So I'm not seeing a contradition in terms of the established goal.

The question is do they exist now? We see no mention of them during the war, are they still around? Did the Reapers get them? Are they hiding? How do we know they survived Destroy or not? How do we know the have no Reaper code?

Why wouldn't they, we don't see mention of how the war effects every species involved in the war, the Vorcha for example and they are still around. And if seeing is the only way to be certain of anything, we also don't see dead Geth either, so how can we be certain they're all dead?

All we have to go on is what the Catalyst tells us and again his language if very specific about every synthetics being affected, so unless he's overwritten every AI out there, which would be hard to do as they haven't overrun the entire galaxy yet, Reaper code insted what he's refering to.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 01 mai 2013 - 02:58 .