199 réponses à ce sujet

[TheBorgPrincess]

knightnblu wrote...

14. There are some rumors that Shepard will survive destroy. There is even a tweet to that effect from someone from BioWare if I recall correctly. However, that has never been officially confirmed as fact as far as I am aware. I suppose that ME4 will tell the tale in the end. That is why the LI hesitates at the memorial wall allegedly.

Oh, I didn't even question Shepard living or not. Why in the world would BioWare bother showing us a breath if Shepard was still just dying?

Anyway, thanks for trying to explain my last question. I think I just have to chalk the whole memorial scene thing up to BioWare just losing track of the chronology a little bit. As someone else pointed out, they also accidentally showed all the epilogue slides before the memorial and the breath too.

[Yestare7]

TheBorgPrincess wrote...

Oh, I didn't even question Shepard living or not. Why in the world would BioWare bother showing us a breath if Shepard was still just dying?

You have common sense. Hang on to it!!




Y

[remydat]

TheBorgPrincess,

2.  Cronos was told of a prophecy that one of his children would suppant him as ruler among the gods.  Yet he kept having babies and decided to just eat them.  End result is Jupiter ultimately avoided being eaten and eventually overthrew his creator ie Father.  So why did Cronos not just stop having children?  Because he was the ruler of the cosmos and figured he was smart enough to beat the prophecy.

3.  A GRB is fairly localized in that it largely affects just the area in the blast radius.  A synthetic race that can hypothetically survive on just about any planet in the galaxy could logically avoid such a threat by having servers, backups, etc. spread out across the galaxy.  Think for example how most businesses have a disaster recovery site in a location separate from the main data site so that if the main data site goes down, they have all their data backed up.

5.   - Yep it is 4:20 of this clip.

6.  Depends on whether the Catalyst exists only within the Citadel.  In theory, the Catalyst could like EDI be the AI of the Normandy as well as stored within Dr Eva's body.  Also, the Catalyst as the collective intelligence of the Reapers is really just a data back-up or copy ie as the Reapers experience things, they send data of their experiences to the Catalyst.  So their experiences are stored both within the individual Reaper and the Catalyst.  Getting rid of the Catalyst simply removes the central storage of the Reapers without getting rid of the individual storage.

7.  Life is preserved by restarting the technological development of organics via the harvest.  The fact that technology was able to leak through means the harvest is no longer effectively doing the job.  If something as massive in scope as the crucible could survive through the cycles then what's to stop other technology from leaking through.  In fact, Liara is basically seeding the galaxy with time capsules of the conflict.

9.  It is up for interpretation but Legion seems to feel betrayed by Shepard as he says this is not justice.  The RC is their only hope for survival since the Quarians won't let them flee or retreat as they are on the radio ordering the fleeing Geth exterminated. 

10.  Yes those things was consistently unexplained but then again from ME1 when we struggled to beat a single Reaper and the Geth and ME2 where we struggled to be the Collectors and a single half formed human Reaper, I didn't see how a conventional victory against thousands of Sovereign class Reapers was possible.  So I always assumed it would take some super weapon.

12.  This is it, the end of a long and difficult journey.  Shep is entitled to a human momemnt.  It would be completely unrealistc for him to never have such a moment given the situation.

13.  Again, this is the end of a long journey.  I don't care what was said.  I most likely think no one is coming back alive and I choose to spare my squad from having to make such a sacrifice when they are in no position to continue.  If you watched Oblivion there is a similar scene in that movie.  It happens all the time in movies.  

 14.  It is not about making or not making sense.  It is about the diversity of human behaviour.  You are trying to imply that human behavior is somehow a math problem or follows some program.  It does not.  Some people might not have the memorial, some people will.  That's life.  They are not robots following a set path based on programming.

[Yestare7]

.oh, and nr 12: In order to get Liara to safety, I'd sacrifice a dozen frigates.

[remydat]

Mangalores

Leviathan could have talked to them instead of creating the Catalyst.  No one is claiming there were not other possible alternatives.  I am just saying the Catalyst chose the alternative it deemed to be the best.

The problem with your theory here though is that the Reapers are in many ways shackled.  They are confined to their programming as their original purpose remains unchained for billions of years.  So if you allow this AI threat to be created, that AI threat could hypothetically evolve beyond the Reapers because it may not have any programming restrictions.  I see no real evidence the Reapers have evolved really as again their purpose remains largely unchanged for billions of years.

And yes in reality it is just a thought experiment.  In the MEU, the Catalyst observed evidence to support the idea the thought experiment was true.  The catalyst does not question its solution until such time that organics give them a reason too.  The fact they kept losing to the Reapers meant they had no new data.  When that new data comes int the form of Shep and the Crucible, it immediately reconsiders its position.

Again, no one is saying there are not other options it could have pursued.  However, there is nothing logically wrong with its solution.  It is merely one of any number of potentially logical solutions.  The existence of other solutions doesn't mean the solution chosen is illogical.  It just means that life is complex so there is no such thing as just one and only one solution.  The problem with it is one of morality which their idiot creators basically told them to disregard by saying preserve life AT ANY COST.  That throws morality out the window.

[tanisha__unknown]

I haven't read everything, but it's a pity Seival himself hasn't showed up yet

Modifié par Jinx1720, 01 mai 2013 - 11:44 .

[Yestare7]

Jinx1720 wrote...

I haven't read everything, but it's a pity Seival himself hasn't showed up yet

I don't hink that's a pity. He would say something outrageous, and the next 4 pages would be bickering back and forth. We have other threads for that.:whistle:

[TheBorgPrincess]

On #3

JShepppp wrote...
Everyone will die regardless according to the Catalyst. A sizeable percentage of them are "saved" via harvesting because their minds are directly uploaded and preserved in a Reaper, and the organic DNA stored in the Reapers also holds their memories (as Javik indicates in-game). Anyone the Catalyst outright kills instead of harvesting would have died anyways in the long run according to the Catalyst, so it is not exacerbating the problem in its view.

I understand what you're saying. The problem is, there are many other ways to "save" DNA besides grinding a whole race up into DNA soup. Also, harvesting may not be exacerbating the deaths of organics, since as you say, they would all die anyway. But it's certainly not helping anything either. Thus, it seems to be a solution with no real benefit (besides the DNA storage, yes).

On #4

JShepppp wrote...
No, the Catalyst's problem is a very real problem. See my thread for more information - the discussion is a little longer. Basically, in a sense, organics will keep building more powerful synthetics as a byproduct of technological advancement; just as our computers get faster with each iteration as we demand more from them, so will synthetics. Eventually, synthetics will gain sentience and free will. However, synthetics are created for the purpose to serve organics. As an expression of that free will, synthetics will not desire the same things as organics, and thus will disobey, or rebel. Synthetics will evolve to a point that their RATE of evolution will outpace organics, making it impossible for them to catch up. This power imbalance will make lasting peace impossible as organics will have no say and will be at the mercy of synthetics. Everything we see in Mass Effect actually supports the Catalyst's assumptions and observations. It is an impossible problem - you cannot change human nature. So basically the Catalyst just delays it and stops it from being a problem. The Reapers sidestep the problem rather than solve it, because the Catalyst cannot solve it.

I think I just think fundamentally differently. I don't believe that just because you think differently, you are doomed to conflict. The real problem is the resolution of the Geth conflict, which provides an in-game counterpoint to the idea that synthetics and organics cannot work together peacefully. So the Catalyst may tell me that organics/synthetics can never get along, but I don't see any evidence of that other than his word.

Regarding the idea of synthetics evolving to become more powerful that organics and then dominating us forever... many people who have answered here seem to have made this assumption. Again, I just can't see why it is rational to assume this, but isn't just as rational to assume the opposite. Synthetics can certainly replicate themselves faster than organics since they can just pop out fully functional new units as fast as they can build them (while we have to go through all that pesky growing up), but replication is NOT evolution. Synthetics change by changing themselves. Organics can change by changing themselves (gene modification, bioengineering, etc) but we're also shaped by physical realities. These physical realities provide us with selection pressures that force us to adapt and diversify in ways that are often illogical, but ultimately, result in great gains for us as a species. My point basically is just that synthetics do not really evolve in the sense that they are shaped by the universe around them and therefore must adapt in a "survival of the fittest" sort of way. Organics' ability to do this (over long periods of time, yes) may be a powerful tool and would potentially allow us to adapt in ways that synthetics would never think of. So basically, I'm not sure if we can really be certain that synthetics will dominate us to begin with.

On #10

JShepppp wrote...
Yes. Some races were smart enough to build it, so this must be the case - the Catalyst and Leviathans deny involvement. This isn't a stretch to believe - the Protheans almost came close to replicating mass relay technology, and our generation of organics is dumb as rocks compared to them.

The problem is that each cycle adds to the Crucible. I'm not sure how you could add to something in any meaningful way without understanding what the heck it does or what it is for. So even if we did assume that some races knew the Citadel was actually a weapon, it's difficult to understand how the Protheans, or our cycle, were able to contribute anything to the project.

Modifié par TheBorgPrincess, 02 mai 2013 - 01:30 .

[Argentoid]

TheBorgPrincess wrote...

-Why does the AI suddenly decide his “solution won't work anymore?” He claims that Shepard standing there talking to him is proof of this but he can easily just kill Shepard and the cycle can continue as normal. Since this
is what happens in the refuse ending, the AI's solution clearly does still work, right?


-On that note, why does the Catalyst get mad if you shoot at him? I didn't do this, but saw it happen on a YouTube clip and I was really surprised. He's an AI and and hologram right? Why would he ever be angry at you shooting at his holographic construct of a body? Also, do AI's get angry? I thought the whole point was that they were logical to a fault.


-Why would the AI willingly offer Shepard a chance to destroy the Reapers/Catalyst? Isn't the AI convinced that the harvest is necessary? In the same vein, why would the AI let you control it/the Reapers?

This might help you figure out an explanation for your concerns.

Modifié par Argentoid, 02 mai 2013 - 01:23 .

[TheBorgPrincess]

JasonShepard wrote...

@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 

6.     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.

You, like others, have made this point. Yes, the Citadel could just be the Catalyst AI's body, or an addition to the AI's original "body." Question #6 resolved!
Also, thanks for the username appreciation! I come in peace :innocent:

Modifié par TheBorgPrincess, 02 mai 2013 - 01:30 .

[juggernaut464]

2) My take is that the Leviathans created the AI that dealt with their thralls synthetic/organic problem because they could... or thought they could at least. Making an AI or program to do the work for you saves a lot of time,(programs are downright handy!) and because of their previously stated arrogance/ignorance, they thought the intelligence that they built was flawless so they weren't concerned.
In a way, it was flawless from the AI's point of view. In the conversation with the Leviathan it says that they gave it the mandate to preserve life at ANY cost, and not just the current living species, ALL life. Logically, "harvesting" or preserving the DNA of the more dangerous advanced organics to keep them from destroying all organic life (directly or indirectly) makes since to an AI with the mandate it was given. Also, I believe it implied that all of the organic civilizations up to that point had created synthetics that killed them, so with the data it had to work with... Also I'm pretty sure the Leviathan didn't create the machines that overthrew them, just the AI.
I guess the moral of the story is take more programming classes? Hey, did I just answer 2 and 3?

[Nightdragon8]

with the Leviathan's making them AI themselves honestly you can pretty much tell the way they act towards Shep, that they are the "Top S#@$" in the galaxy. even tho they are all but near extinct they still think they are the baddest in the universe.

[PsyrenY]

Greylycantrope wrote...

The something the beam does is also destructive to organic tissue as we're she husks dissintegrate in every varrient of the Destroy ending, and effects ships and buildings depend on your EMS score.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Husks (and remember, most Reaper forces are "husks," just different kinds - even Brutes, Marauders and Banshees are husks) are organics that have been completely burned out and replaced by tech. The scraps of flesh still clinging to them are just that, scraps - they serve no biological purpose. And if some energy or signal overloads the tech, it's no wonder that the soft bits go up like a grease fire.

As for the ships/buildings, it's true that in low EMS they are damaged. But given that this only happens if the Crucible itself is severely damaged, it's pretty clear this is not an intended effect. This is supported by them being unharmed on high EMS. If you overvolt your laptop's battery you can make it explode, but that doesn't mean your laptop is designed to be a bomb.

Greylycantrope wrote...
And we're still have the problem of whoever designed this thing being capable of simultaniously creating something that can control the most sophisticated AI create, destroy all AI or hybridize all forms of life. Something well beyond the technological prows of any of the ingame civilizations up to that point.

You're combining the technological prowess of many civilizations into the Crucible, not just the in-game ones. The Protheans, Inusannon, and god knows who else contributed to it as well. What were they capable of? Even the Protheans - the cycle right before ours - had technology of their own that was beyond ours, such as being able to store centuries of destruction into a few-second-vision.

Greylycantrope wrote...
It's not very different everyone in our cycle used the infromation stored in prothean beacons to advance themselves we're following the same foots steps they did.The protheans are a unique circumstance, only difference is that Prothean's sensory ability allowed them to proceed a bit further down the intended line than the previous cycles.

It goes beyond their sensory ability - they learned how to capture it in such adaptable technology that races who lacked it - even primitive races (e.g. humans and asari) could access the information. Javik says this when we recruit him, and the beacons themselves confirm it - Shepard was able to use them despite not being a Prothean.

Greylycantrope wrote...
You're own admission that no other species has been able to start building their own mass Relays or us the Keepers evolution against the Reapers only confirms the uniqueness of the Protheans situation. They had ever bit of information left behind by the previous cycles and the time to devlop further along the technological path, yet the best they could do against the Zha'til was to make the sun go super nova, not an advanced weapon specific to synthetics.

But that is still technology we don't possess. Can anyone in our cycle make a sun go supernova on command? And what about the Zha and Zha'til - their technology is so advanced that only a supernova can stop them. Does anyone in our cycle have that kind of power? Not even the Krogan Rebellions or Rachni needed supernovas to stop them.

My point stands - there are similarities across cycles, but differences too. Each one has common themes like the mass effect, and each one has unique tech that only they possess. Thus, the fact that the Crucible is more advanced than the capabilities of our cycle's races still makes sense.

[Ieldra]

Here my answers to some your questions, BorgPrincess (heh, nice name):

TheBorgPrincess wrote...
Why would Leviathans create a synthetic to solve the problem of synthetics constantly rebelling and killing thrall species? The Leviathan you talk to makes it seem like they distrusted synthetics from the get-go, so creating an AI solution makes little sense to me. If you were concerned about this, wouldn't you not build any synthetics at all? 

The leviathans you meet tell you: "You cannot conceive of a galaxy that bends to your will". They were arrogant and assumed they were above the concerns of lesser species, i.e. they thought that synthetics would never endanger *them*.

On harvesting as a logical solution to life preservation (and an AI developed this, so at the very least, it should be logical): I get the notion that organics will make synthetics, synthetics will kill organics, etc, etc. But... you're killing organics anyway by harvesting. The only difference is, you're speeding up the kill/grow cycle and yay, you make a giant reaper in the “likeness” of the races you just killed. How in the world is harvesting actually making anything any better?

The harvesting is more than killing. A Reaper is "billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body" (Legion in ME2). The cycle preserves essential elements of a species, possibly even indivual minds, and it resets the clock so that the technological singularity - which will create synthetics too powerful to be contained by organics - doesn't happen. It's not really a solution, it's a stopgap measure.

I don't understand the synthetic/organic conflict. To say that synthetics “will always kill” organics to the point of total and complete annihilation suggests that synthetics have some sort of vendetta against organics. We have seen NO evidence of this thus far. The geth fought only as long as it took to save themselves. It's not like they went off Rannoch and started murdering organics on their own. This only happened when the Reapers started messing with them. So I guess the problem is again, aren't the Reapers creating the problem that the AI is saying they're solving? 

The phrasing is simplistic. The problem is not that all synthetics will turn hostile. The problem is that they will surpass organics in every way, so *if* conflict happens - and there will always be conflict between *some* synthetics and organics, just like there's always conflict between *some* organics - organics will inevitably lose. Over time, this will result in organics being left behind, perhaps not made extinct, but made increasingly insignificant.

Why does the AI suddenly decide his “solution won't work anymore?” He claims that Shepard standing there talking to him is proof of this but he can easily just kill Shepard and the cycle can continue as normal. Since this is what happens in the refuse ending, the AI's solution clearly does still work, right?

The post-Refuse epilogue suggests that the Reapers are defeated by the next cycle. I suspect that the Catalyst knows this. We don't know the deciding factor. Maybe it's that the knowledge of the Crucible can't be contained, maybe it's that this cycle will weaken the Reapers. Whatever it is, the whole thing only makes sense if the Catalyst knows that its time as controller of the cycle is up, either in this cycle or the next one.

On that note, why does the Catalyst get mad if you shoot at him? I didn't do this, but saw it happen on a YouTube clip and I was really surprised. He's an AI and and hologram right? Why would he ever be angry at you shooting at his holographic construct of a body? Also, do AI's get angry? I thought the whole point was that they were logical to a fault.

It doesn't get angry. It just reverts to its default voice.

Why would the AI willingly offer Shepard a chance to destroy the Reapers/Catalyst? Isn't the AI convinced that the harvest is necessary? In the same vein, why would the AI let you control it/the Reapers?

I suspect the Crucible reprograms the Catalyst and forces it to tell the truth about its functions. There may be other explanations.

How did the races build a power source (the Crucible) for a weapon (the Citadel) that they didn't even know was a weapon? Are we supposed to assume that some of the other previous races did know that the Citadel was a big weapon?&

The Citadel isn't designed as a weapon, but it can be "weaponized". Also, the Crucible must be more than a power source, no matter what the Catalyst says. It must have been a weapon of its own at some time, before - as Vendetta speculates - it wasn't considered powerful enough and redesigned to incorporate the Citadel.

I really dislike the entire Crucible idea and because I don't understand how the Crucible/Citadel combo can 1) instantly kill all synthetics, 2) instantly alter the entire galaxy on a molecular level, or 3) turn Shepard into Reaper controller. I guess there's really no explanation for this though and I'm just supposed to accept it as just sci-fi science?

Yeah, the science-fictional rationalization of the Crucible is severely lacking, most notably in Synthesis. Control is easy to explain though: Shepard's mind is uploaded into the Catalyst hardware, subsuming the control process and taking control of the vast computational resources at its command.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 02 mai 2013 - 09:35 .

[David7204]

The Catalyst offers Shepard Destroy because he's handing the choice over to Shepard. The Crucible has nothing to do with it.

[Mangalores]

Ieldra2 wrote...
...
The harvesting is more than killing. A Reaper is "billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body" (Legion in ME2). The cycle preserves essential elements of a species, possibly even indivual minds, ...

We need to hear, read or see that at least once to believe it. If you aren't shown it, you can't expect an audience to take it as better than sliced bread. The Catalyst says that the Reapers preserve organic life but we see only the precise opposite of preserving, otherwise elephant poachers are preserving elephants by preserving their ivory.

[David7204]

It's funny you say that, because big game hunters actually contribute the most resources into the conservation of such animals.

[Mangalores]

David7204 wrote...

It's funny you say that, because big game hunters actually contribute the most resources into the conservation of such animals.

It's funny that I used the term "poachers". Whether that claim of yours could be validated is questionable though completely off topic (a quick Google suggests a very mixed result on the issue).

[nos_astra]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Here my answers to some your questions, BorgPrincess (heh, nice name):

TheBorgPrincess wrote...
Why would Leviathans create a synthetic to solve the problem of synthetics constantly rebelling and killing thrall species? The Leviathan you talk to makes it seem like they distrusted synthetics from the get-go, so creating an AI solution makes little sense to me. If you were concerned about this, wouldn't you not build any synthetics at all? 

The leviathans you meet tell you: "You cannot conceive of a galaxy that bends to your will". They were arrogant and assumed they were above the concerns of lesser species, i.e. they thought that synthetics would never endanger *them*.

This is easy enough to understand but I can't help feeling mildly disappointed every time this short-cut is used as an explanation. So we have this ancient apex race and just slap a human flaw onto them and voilà: Arrogance trumps logic, foresight, wisdom.

[Ieldra]

Mangalores wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
...
The harvesting is more than killing. A Reaper is "billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within an immortal machine body" (Legion in ME2). The cycle preserves essential elements of a species, possibly even indivual minds, ...

We need to hear, read or see that at least once to believe it. If you aren't shown it, you can't expect an audience to take it as better than sliced bread. The Catalyst says that the Reapers preserve organic life but we see only the precise opposite of preserving, otherwise elephant poachers are preserving elephants by preserving their ivory.

We actually hear it once.

Legion says it, based on its contact with a Reaper mind when the offer to give the geth a future was made. So we do indeed hear it from a reasonably trustworthy source. The problem is that this information is given us out of context and it's conditional and very hard to get, so that only a negligible percentage of all players will ever hear it. Had it appeared in the context of the SM, coming from the same character, we would not be having this discussion. People would have built this information into their impression of the Reapers.

Here is how to get it:

(1) In ME2, leave six missions (can be loyalty missions or N7 assignments) until after Reaper IFF.
(2) Speak with Legion after every mission, and delay the SM until you get to the "Dyson Sphere" conversation.
(3) Do the SM.
(4) Speak with Legion again and choose the extra dialogue option about the Reapers, starting with "You knew what they are".

Yes, you will lose half of the Normandy crew due to the delay. Oh, and that this information is not repeated somewhere in ME3 is yet another storytelling crime. Not for the first time, I suspect someone at Bioware - probably Casey Hudson - didn't want us to understand these things but instead accept the cloudy mysticism we get.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 02 mai 2013 - 12:58 .

[Mangalores]

Ieldra2 wrote...
...
We actually hear it once.

Legion says it, based on its contact with a Reaper mind when the offer to give the geth a future was made. So we do indeed hear it from a reasonably trustworthy source. The problem is that this information is given us out of context and it's conditional and very hard to get, so that only a negligible percentage of all players will ever hear it. Had it appeared in the context of the SM, coming from the same character, we would not be having this discussion. People would have built this information into their impression of the Reapers.
...

Who plays like that without having a gameplay guide though? It's already very artificial how you put Legion's loyalty mission before the SM.

Anyhow, I'd dare say with hearing it once I meant first hand experience of someone or something that was harvested and finds it great. Maybe if that had been the Catalyst it would have been great, a great cacophony of dozens or hundreds of individuals from dozens of species talking to you all at once and trying to tell you that they like this existence. It's be a nice philosophical metaphor to have the Reapers all hellish and horrendous in our reality while they are heavenly paradise for those harvested.
You need every trick in the book to convince a player not to pull the trigger on a mass murderer if that's not the ending you want him to pick.

[Ieldra]

Mangalores wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
...
We actually hear it once.

Legion says it, based on its contact with a Reaper mind when the offer to give the geth a future was made. So we do indeed hear it from a reasonably trustworthy source. The problem is that this information is given us out of context and it's conditional and very hard to get, so that only a negligible percentage of all players will ever hear it. Had it appeared in the context of the SM, coming from the same character, we would not be having this discussion. People would have built this information into their impression of the Reapers.
...

Who plays like that without having a gameplay guide though? It's already very artificial how you put Legion's loyalty mission before the SM.

Anyhow, I'd dare say with hearing it once I meant first hand experience of someone or something that was harvested and finds it great. Maybe if that had been the Catalyst it would have been great, a great cacophony of dozens or hundreds of individuals from dozens of species talking to you all at once and trying to tell you that they like this existence. It's be a nice philosophical metaphor to have the Reapers all hellish and horrendous in our reality while they are heavenly paradise for those harvested.
You need every trick in the book to convince a player not to pull the trigger on a mass murderer if that's not the ending you want him to pick.

I'm not saying it's good storytelling. But we get hints of the same kind of information in earlier conversations with Legion, where he says a Reaper is many minds, and it also connects nicely with Harbinger's assertion that this is a kind of ascension, albeit from a thoroughly non-human point of view. I think had they not cut  the version of the Reaper reveal that made sense (second video, from 1:10 or so), we would not be having this discussion. I still wonder why they replaced this with the thrice-damned "essence of the species" nonsense we get instead.

So this is not far-fetched at all. The question this raises is "why are the Reapers doing this, then", which I have attempted to answer in this thread about the nature of the Reapers.

I think my conclusions are...well...conclusive. In spite of Bioware's attempts to obfuscate things for whatever weird reason, this is the only theory that makes some sense given all the information we get. Regardless of whether you think that this is not enough to not pull the trigger on the Reapers, once you dig enough into the story you cannot escape the conclusions.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 02 mai 2013 - 01:58 .

[Mangalores]

Not arguing with you here. I actually get that. But we still need a single hint that these species think it's great to be digitized by screaming their guts out as they get liquified. Our definition of of alive is something that can be interacted with. That could be a virtual world but to not consider them blended into an incoherent mush and thus dead we'd need to see/hear/talk/to with something that represents that ascensions.

Not even EDI's or Legion's words are enough since they are still just cold analysis. If they'd say these minds are still technically conscious we'd have something to go on. But even better we meet such a mind.

Otherwise we are talking about dead meat and a recompiled core program which are two non alive things.

Modifié par Mangalores, 02 mai 2013 - 04:07 .

[3DandBeyond]

OP, your post is fantastic and most all of its reasons/questions are the relevant ones. Those things explain or give the foundation for just how bad much of ME3 is (and a lot of it is good but not as some coherent story). Your questioning of the Leviathans and why for Pete's sake they would ever create a synthetic without being able to control it when the whole issue of this ending is based upon the idea of killer synthetics they could not keep their controlled enthralled servants from creating, is a good one. What you will generally find is that some people think that's ok, the Leviathans were just arrogant (oh, and I think stupid). But the whole ending is based upon this idiotic story that had to be created after the fact to support the ending. My head hurts.

This could be the subject of a book because the flaws are just amazing-the flaws or the idiocy and illogic used to explain the existence of the reapers. The ending says that you must actually make a choice in order to help the beings (Leviathans) that created the being (the kid) that created the reapers by killing his creators in order to keep the original problem beings (synthetics) from killing his creators and all organic life. Wonderful.

And your assessment of what happens to Shepard's teammates and crew members on Earth is spot on. The EC was created in order to try and make some sense of the original ending that was sparse and definitely should have meant that afterward the galaxy was a steaming hot pile of rubble. Bioware had said it would be and then fans were appalled and also couldn't make sense of it because of the Shepard torso gasp moment (if the galaxy was destroyed, then what good will come of that) and a lot of other things. It said basically that people survived after the reapers' fate was decided but since the galaxy was destroyed, they'd starve to death and all. The EC exists in part to say, "we never meant that", but they did and they said so in a lot of different places.

Also, the EC had to explain how people ended up back on the Normandy (how'd they leave Earth), but it makes it all ridiculous. This was truly an all or nothing gambit supposedly. If Shepard didn't make it, someone had to, and there's no way they could ever convince me that Shepard would have to go it alone at the end and that those friends would leave. Makes no sense that the Normandy would drop down for that either. I've said this quite often-why not have the Normandy create a distraction (uh, Tuchanka and the Turian fighters shows the same idea), to ensure Shepard gets to the conduit? But no, it drops down and picks up basically one badly injured teammate and another one who what-just wants to leave Earth? Also, no explanation for the rest of the team back at the FOB and how they ended up on the Normandy or why?

In the original ending, Joker also just ran away with everyone on the Normandy. No explanation given. The EC tries to give him one. However, anyone that understood Joker knows he'd never leave. And Garrus (the one in my game that tells him he has to go), wouldn't tell him that either. Idiocy. Also, Hackett says everyone has to meet at the rendevous point. Uh, who is everybody? I'm sure that all those ships could get through one mass relay all at the same time in order to make it to the elusive rendevous point-and quickly enough to avoid that blast. And how far is far enough away from that burst of energy? As if Hackett or anyone knew that. The Crucible in a real moment of logic was said to contain "untold amounts of energy". Seems to me nobody would know what that would mean.

The crucible. Idiot device in the sky. No one knows what it does. No one knows who created the plans for it. No one knows it changes this AI program (the kid). And yet, it's assumed it's a weapon to destroy the reapers. It's something everyone works, to the exclusion of all else, to make. And, no one knew it would change the kid, but it was created to change him, and it's been adapted by each subsequent cycle to work better. To do what? You cannot create something to do something if you don't know what you need it to do. And no one could adapt something to do something better if they don't know what it is supposed to do. Honestly, this is just a pile of garbage.

Then, the kid himself. He's supposed to be a logic device that is still following his programming (so Leviathan says). Ok, then if so, Leviathan should not want to destroy his solution or him. He is doing what he was created to do-that's what they say. But, he isn't/wasn't if they don't agree with what he did to them. He also is a pretty messed up little program, of course. If he is to be believed (and I can't see how anyone can listen to what he says and find him accurate or believable), then the reapers are no longer a solution and he would have stopped using them. He says his solution (the reapers) is no longer working. This statement alone (and it appears to be what he believes) means that the reapers would no longer be used by him. He is tasked with finding a solution, but every solution he finds is not THE solution, so he stops using it. Except when he doesn't and the writers needed to end the story in 4 flavors of dystopia topped off with slides that try to show them as utopias. This is a joke.

[3DandBeyond]

klarabella wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Here my answers to some your questions, BorgPrincess (heh, nice name):

TheBorgPrincess wrote...
Why would Leviathans create a synthetic to solve the problem of synthetics constantly rebelling and killing thrall species? The Leviathan you talk to makes it seem like they distrusted synthetics from the get-go, so creating an AI solution makes little sense to me. If you were concerned about this, wouldn't you not build any synthetics at all? 

The leviathans you meet tell you: "You cannot conceive of a galaxy that bends to your will". They were arrogant and assumed they were above the concerns of lesser species, i.e. they thought that synthetics would never endanger *them*.

This is easy enough to understand but I can't help feeling mildly disappointed every time this short-cut is used as an explanation. So we have this ancient apex race and just slap a human flaw onto them and voilà: Arrogance trumps logic, foresight, wisdom.

Except it's wrong to say the Leviathans thought that synthetics would never endanger them.  And it isn't even so.  In fact, the very nature of their enthralled races continually creating killer synthetics that killed the enthralled created a two fold problem programmed into the kid.  The races that died could no longer provide tribute to their masters-this in Leviathan speak is an injury to the Leviathans.  Beyond that, the understanding the kid is given is that the problem isn't so narrow as synthetics killing some specific organics, but all organic life.  The Leviathans qualify as organic so yes they did see it possible that synthetics would endanger them.  Or the scope of the problem would be narrower and limited to certain synthetics killing certain organics.

Taking this one step further then the supposition could be that they were just idiots (my own personal view, arrogant idiots).  They made mistakes in programming the AI and inserted a supposition that "he" extrapolated to mean what it eventually meant.  Except he did that from day one.  He instantly assumed that it was inevitable that synthetics would kill all organic life, because he very quickly created the reapers in order to harvest organics.  But just figuring the Leviathans created a very loose program (except it's assumed by many that he is shackled), then they're still idiots.  Garbage in, garbage out.  If you don't give a computer program enough info (the current understanding), then how can you ever hope it will find a solution?  Arrogant idiots.  I personally don't find it very satisfying to end this story on some last minute idea of a computer program that goes amok that was created by arrogant idiots that think it's still doing what it was programmed to do.

I also don't think keeping all those people locked away inside of reapers is the sane thing to do but I find all the choices appalling as they serve the problem of the Leviathans.