889 réponses à ce sujet

[Auld Wulf]

Khelish wrote...

Who here picks peace on Rannoch? Save both of them? I do.

Man, I love that picture.

I can't bring myself to even dislike either of them. I dislike the extremist sides of both, but hey, I dislike extremists period. I've had first-hand experience with them thanks to Ireland having some pretty nasty extremists at one point (which I absolutely do not blame the Irish for). The peoples themselves though, the sane, good ones? I want to see them living together in peace, and building a better future for each other. There's just nothing better.

[PsyrenY]

remydat wrote...

Well sure, synthetics are merely a stand in for any group that has been persecuted for being what it is. Fundamentally, prejudice at its core is basically I don't understand you and because I don't I instinctively fear you and deem you to be threat that must be dealt with. They are to the MEU what mutants are to the Marvel Universe.

The problem with synthetics, and mutants, is that there are legitimate reasons to fear or even hate them. No ethnic group or other minority in our history has had this problem - blacks/aboriginals/etc. are still just humans, gays are still just humans, jews are still just humans. How many mutants in the X-verse have powers that are not only extremely dangerous but beyond their control? And the Catalyst, the Heretics, even the Zha'til drew conclusions giving us more than enough reason to be wary of synthetics.

I like to think I'm an idealist (hence the name.) And I chose peace on Rannoch too, not just for the war assets but for the limitless possibilities such an alliance could afford us. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to acknowledge the merits of the other side, and do what I can to limit Geth access to our infrastructure and lifeblood until I can be sure of them. Or at least until we're on even footing, which I see no way to achieve outside of Synthesis anyway.

[Phatose]

That invokes one very simple question.

Why aren't you afraid of "just humans"?

[S.A.K]

Phatose wrote...

That invokes one very simple question.

Why aren't you afraid of "just humans"?

We are afraid of humans some times. But we feel we can understand them because we are human ourselves and we also have to deal with them everyday.

[PsyrenY]

Phatose wrote...

That invokes one very simple question.

Why aren't you afraid of "just humans"?

There are things artificial intelligences can do that organics simply can't match. From ME2 for instance:

EDI: "I operate the ship's electronic and cyberwarfare suites in combat. My reaction time is much faster than any organic."
Shepard: "Cyberwarfare means things like viruses, right?"
EDI: "In close-range ship to ship combat, I can sometimes break through the firewalls of an enemy's internal wireless network. Once I gain control of their systems, I can turn off gravity or air. I can disable weapons guidance or shields. Or I can put their fusion plant in meltdown. On the defense, I manage Normandy's own suite of jammers, decoys and internal firewalls."
Shepard: "Sounds incredibly useful. Why isn't there someone like that on every warship?"
EDI: "An organic operator cannot react quickly enough to changing circumstances, or perform the necessary multitasking. This is a role that can only be filled by an artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, we are suspect."

Imagine a hacker fast enough to both attack a complicated IT security system and defend one against similar attacks simultaneously. Now also imagine that same hacker is incapable of getting tired, bored, hungry or sick. 

Why do I say "simultaneously?" Because we know she can both attack and defend - we watch her do it during the Collector Ship Trap, where she is attacking them (preventing the ship from leaving with you inside it, and opening the bulkheads they try to seal you in with) and defending (keeping them from disabling Normandy) at the same time. And keep in mind that she was, at the time, fending off the Collector Ship's own cyberwarfare systems, which were themselves augmented with Reaper tech.

EDI is benign, even friendly. But if she were to go rogue, or be turned by an outside force, stopping her would be a monumental task - never mind the damage that could be inflicted before anyone even knew there was a problem.

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 12 mai 2013 - 05:25 .

[Phatose]

And for all of her superfast reaction time, she loses control of the Normandy to Clone Shep.

And why does she struggle when dealing the the organic collectors?

Additionally, if her defensive hacking ability is so vital, why is the original Normandy never hacked? Why do the collectors shoot the Normany SR-1, when without an AI guarding it, they should've been able to just hack it and open the airlocks?

For that matter, why aren't any of the ships in the 5th fleet hacked while being attacked by super-hacker Geth and a Reaper?

Actually, why is there even a Reaper war? Shouldn't their super-duper mega-enhanced AI hacking ability basically let them turn off Alliance ships remotely, since they're not defended by super-fast AIs?

An awful lot is claimed about AI super hacking ability, but every time you'd think it would be relevant, it fails to appear.  EDI may be nice and friendly, but Reaper-controlled Geth sure as hell aren't, and the Reapers themselves are most definitely not friendly.

But for some reason, they never actually get around to using those mega-hacking abilities. 

Modifié par Phatose, 12 mai 2013 - 05:49 .

[Indy_S]

Optimystic_X wrote...

EDI: "In close-range ship to ship combat, I can sometimes break through the firewalls of an enemy's internal wireless network. Once I gain control of their systems, I can turn off gravity or air. I can disable weapons guidance or shields. Or I can put their fusion plant in meltdown."

That always struck me as odd. Why would anyone ever have those things on a wireless system?

And as Phatose says, noone ever appears to use cyber-warfare anyway.

[Phatose]

Well, nobody who isn't Tali Zorah vas "Oh look a Geth! Press button, hackzors! LOL it's shooting its friends".

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Funny, I used cyber-warfare with my Quarian infiltrator all the time in MP.

Yes there is a better way. Don't build the infernal things in the first place. There are plenty of people who need work. Why do you need to build synthetic people? Just because you don't want to pay health care benefits and a decent wage? Or don't want to get your own hands dirty killing your enemy?

[PsyrenY]

Phatose wrote...

And for all of her superfast reaction time, she loses control of the Normandy to Clone Shep.

I find it amusing that you take Citadel so seriously.

Phatose wrote...

And why does she struggle when dealing the the organic collectors?

She wasn't - she was actually fighting off Harbinger, a Reaper, not his Prothean husks.

Phatose wrote...

Why do the collectors shoot the Normany SR-1

Why wouldn't they? 
As for why they didn't hack it, see below.

Phatose wrote...

For that matter, why aren't any of the ships in the 5th fleet hacked while being attacked by super-hacker Geth and a Reaper?

Actually, why is there even a Reaper war? Shouldn't their super-duper mega-enhanced AI hacking ability basically let them turn off Alliance ships remotely

Bold mine. "Close range ship to ship combat" is a rarity. Don't let the dramatic knife-range cutscene space battles fool you, read the Codex instead.

Also, just because you can pick any lock ever devised doesn't mean you can do so in an instant. Hacking takes time; simply shooting is much faster and can be done from further away.

[PsyrenY]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

There are plenty of people who need work. Why do you need to build synthetic people? Just because you don't want to pay health care benefits and a decent wage? Or don't want to get your own hands dirty killing your enemy?

People tend to need nasty, inconvenient things like air, sleep, recreation/vacations, friends and family. They also have pesky things like morals and opinions that can sometimes get in the way of their instructions. Or at least. that's how someone like TIM or Xen would see the situation. Unfortunately, those with the capability to make AI - or the lack of scruples to seize control of it - often think this way, at least in the MEU.

[Morlath]

Optimystic_X wrote...

The problem with synthetics, and mutants, is that there are legitimate reasons to fear or even hate them. No ethnic group or other minority in our history has had this problem - blacks/aboriginals/etc. are still just humans, gays are still just humans, jews are still just humans. How many mutants in the X-verse have powers that are not only extremely dangerous but beyond their control? And the Catalyst, the Heretics, even the Zha'til drew conclusions giving us more than enough reason to be wary of synthetics.

Except that the people who hate ethnic minorities have internally valid reasons.

"They're taking our jobs"
"They're taking our benefits"
"They're impure"
"Their souls are damned and they're trying to drag my child to hell"
"They aren't human, they're nothing but animals"

And if any of those minorities had access to weapons, there would be a "legitimate reason" to fear/hate them.

You give a pacafist a gun and they keep someone else from dying, you give an extremist a gun and they use it to better their cause and if you give a "regular Joe" a gun they'll probably just keep it handy in case of something terrible happening.

[Argolas]

Morlath wrote...

And if any of those minorities had access to weapons, there would be a "legitimate reason" to fear/hate them.

That's stupid. No ethnic group has access to weapons more or less than others.

[Megaton_Hope]

Mutants aren't like a person with a gun. In some cases they're a person who is a nuclear weapon, which will go off if he loses control of his temper. Or a person whose touch will kill you. A person who cannot look at you with his eyes without burning a hole through your face and into the wall behind you.

There's a good reason to be afraid of all of that. And because not all people are good or responsible, no reason to trust it. It's not a perfect analogy for racism for that reason; if Jews were able to tear buildings apart with their bare hands or light fires with their minds, people'd have legitimate reasons to be antisemites, too.

That's not the case, but hey.

[Morlath]

Argolas wrote...

Morlath wrote...

And if any of those minorities had access to weapons, there would be a "legitimate reason" to fear/hate them.

That's stupid. No ethnic group has access to weapons more or less than others.

The line you quote is in no way my opinion but in relating the hatred towards minorities to the fear being talked about with mutants.

[Phatose]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Phatose wrote...

And for all of her superfast reaction time, she loses control of the Normandy to Clone Shep.

I find it amusing that you take Citadel so seriously.

Phatose wrote...

And why does she struggle when dealing the the organic collectors?

She wasn't - she was actually fighting off Harbinger, a Reaper, not his Prothean husks.

Phatose wrote...

Why do the collectors shoot the Normany SR-1

Why wouldn't they? 
As for why they didn't hack it, see below.

Phatose wrote...

For that matter, why aren't any of the ships in the 5th fleet hacked while being attacked by super-hacker Geth and a Reaper?

Actually, why is there even a Reaper war? Shouldn't their super-duper mega-enhanced AI hacking ability basically let them turn off Alliance ships remotely

Bold mine. "Close range ship to ship combat" is a rarity. Don't let the dramatic knife-range cutscene space battles fool you, read the Codex instead.

Also, just because you can pick any lock ever devised doesn't mean you can do so in an instant. Hacking takes time; simply shooting is much faster and can be done from further away.

If simply shooting is much faster and can be done from further away, seems kind of silly to be worried about hacking at all.

That's kind of my point here.  For all the apparent threat an AI could pose, the AI's we actually encounter never actually use them, and just shoot you instead.  If these capability are such a threat that we should be worried about them, why are the hostile AIs we encounter never actually doing any of this stuff?  And if there's a good reason they don't, wouldn't that same reason apply to any AI, meaning it's not really that much of a threat?

[Argolas]

Morlath wrote...

Argolas wrote...

Morlath wrote...

And if any of those minorities had access to weapons, there would be a "legitimate reason" to fear/hate them.

That's stupid. No ethnic group has access to weapons more or less than others.

The line you quote is in no way my opinion but in relating the hatred towards minorities to the fear being talked about with mutants.

If I understood you correctly, you invented a hypothetical scenario and I called it invalid because it's impossible. I'm sorry if I understood that.

[Morlath]

Argolas wrote...

If I understood you correctly, you invented a hypothetical scenario and I called it invalid because it's impossible. I'm sorry if I understood that.

The hypothothetical of people having incredibly powerful mutant powers was being used as valid reason to fear them. I put across the hypothetical that if the minorities that have faced discrimination were given weapons that the general population didn't have then this would be used as a way of validating people's hatred of them.

While any fear of the mis-use/accidental use of weapons/powers may be valid, the resulting bigotry or the use of this fear to validate bigotry isn't. So taking it back to the Geth; just because they could rise up and kill the Quarians doesn't mean they will and didn't give the Quarians the right to "strike first".

[PsyrenY]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

Mutants aren't like a person with a gun. In some cases they're a person who is a nuclear weapon, which will go off if he loses control of his temper. Or a person whose touch will kill you. A person who cannot look at you with his eyes without burning a hole through your face and into the wall behind you.

There's a good reason to be afraid of all of that. And because not all people are good or responsible, no reason to trust it. It's not a perfect analogy for racism for that reason; if Jews were able to tear buildings apart with their bare hands or light fires with their minds, people'd have legitimate reasons to be antisemites, too.

That's not the case, but hey.

Exactly. And similarly, there are legitimate reasons to fear synthetics. It doesn't help in the MEU that synthetic creators have a bad habit of wiring them into our most sensitive and top-tier military and scientific technology.

Phatose wrote...

That's kind of my point here.  For all the apparent threat an AI could pose, the AI's we actually encounter never actually use them, and just shoot you instead.

First off you're wrong - there are examples of the AI's superior reactions given in-game. For example, the asari commander you get the Reaper Code fragment for - the Reapers are creaming her fleets, and without the Geth's help you are unable to do anything to assist her. And the most obvious example of course is Rannoch, where a single Reaper's upgrades are able to completely nullify the Quarians' countermeasure, putting them at risk of extinction unless removed.

Second, you don't know for sure that cyberwarfare isn't being used. On several occasions we see Reapers fly right through frigates as they sit helpless, or land on top of dreadnoughts and cut through them like butter. These are ships that should be able to dodge or FTL out of the way, yet they just hang in space until rammed to fragments. Why?

[PsyrenY]

Morlath wrote...

While any fear of the mis-use/accidental use of weapons/powers may be valid, the resulting bigotry or the use of this fear to validate bigotry isn't. So taking it back to the Geth; just because they could rise up and kill the Quarians doesn't mean they will and didn't give the Quarians the right to "strike first".

It's more than fearing misuse. A gun's capabilities are limited; it can be detected by most security checkpoints, a shooter needs ammunition, range and line of sight; using the gun without being detected (during or afterward) takes uncommon skill/training, and guns/ammunition themselves tend to be traceable. And even when a shooter is opposed by non-shooters, he can still be overwhelmed by numbers or caught by surprise. There are ways around these limitations but it takes very uncommon shooters to circumvent all of them.

Mutant powers meanwhile can be much harder to deal with. Take a common ability from the comics, telepathy. Your first problem is even finding the hostile - generally, without a telepath on your side to detect them you are in serious trouble. And if you're actively searching for one, that is going to be the foremost thought in your mind, so they are going to be aware of you the whole time. Even without the mind control or telekinesis side of things, they can avoid you simply by being aware of that fact, while using the information of those around them to arm themselves and stay hidden. Once you add the other two in your odds get even slimmer as they're capable of laying red herrings or even fighting you directly.

And, lest we forget - the mutant has all those advantages and most of the time, they can use a gun anyway. So, other factors such as training being equal, they start out on even footing with you even before their powers come into play.

[Morlath]

Optimystic_X wrote...

It's more than fearing misuse. A gun's capabilities are limited; it can be detected by most security checkpoints, a shooter needs ammunition, range and line of sight; using the gun without being detected (during or afterward) takes uncommon skill/training, and guns/ammunition themselves tend to be traceable. And even when a shooter is opposed by non-shooters, he can still be overwhelmed by numbers or caught by surprise. There are ways around these limitations but it takes very uncommon shooters to circumvent all of them.

Mutant powers meanwhile can be much harder to deal with. Take a common ability from the comics, telepathy. Your first problem is even finding the hostile - generally, without a telepath on your side to detect them you are in serious trouble. And if you're actively searching for one, that is going to be the foremost thought in your mind, so they are going to be aware of you the whole time. Even without the mind control or telekinesis side of things, they can avoid you simply by being aware of that fact, while using the information of those around them to arm themselves and stay hidden. Once you add the other two in your odds get even slimmer as they're capable of laying red herrings or even fighting you directly.

And, lest we forget - the mutant has all those advantages and most of the time, they can use a gun anyway. So, other factors such as training being equal, they start out on even footing with you even before their powers come into play.

And yet the Biotics in the MEU aren't feared even if some of these issues are raised even in ME1 (Noverria, Banezia's commandos).

[PsyrenY]

Morlath wrote...

And yet the Biotics in the MEU aren't feared even if some of these issues are raised even in ME1 (Noverria, Banezia's commandos).

What? Biotics are feared. By every race except the asari, because everybody there has them.

Humans at least try to put them in the military - the Turians don't even do that.

[GimmeDaGun]

wrong topic... sorry

Modifié par GimmeDaGun, 12 mai 2013 - 09:03 .

[Megaton_Hope]

Morlath wrote...

The hypothothetical of people having incredibly powerful mutant powers was being used as valid reason to fear them.

Which it is. Whether you hate him or not, Magneto's power should inspire fear. He could wave his hand and collapse a skyscraper. Sweep a battalion of tanks out of his path. Lift a battleship out of the sea. The one thing that stops him is his forebearance, which Magneto in particular does not always extend.

It is perfectly logical to fear creatures like the Geth as well. Technologically, they are far beyond all the other races, including their own creators. They coordinate their actions fluidly and take the most nearly optimal actions they can calculate immediately. The thing that keeps them from wiping your fleet out of space is that they don't want to right now.

Fearing them does not, of course, mean that they must be hated or attacked as a result. But not fearing them, in order to treat them as equals, fails to acknowledge the very real threat they pose. The Geth aren't innocuous just because they're friendly.

[Argolas]

Morlath wrote...

And yet the Biotics in the MEU aren't feared even if some of these issues are raised even in ME1 (Noverria, Banezia's commandos).

Codex says that biotics aren't really dangerous without amplifiers. You can remove them and they are practically disarmed (like in the Citadel security checkpoint).