At the end of the day, it's all ethics, innit?
If a strange creature were to crashland on earth and start asking us questions about its existence, should we try to nullify its existence for questioning the status of existence -- is the self awareness of one a justification to end the self awareness of another? A fantastic animated film that I'm sure many of you have seen called the Iron Giant tackles this. The Giant is, quite essentially, a test. It contains enough firepower to wipe out all human life on earth.
Yet the Iron Giant won't use it unless provoked. Thus, the robot itself is a test, and that's what I took the film as. The film itself is a test. It's a non-human creature coming into sapience and self awareness. It wants to understand the world around us and begins to emulate us. The wonder of a child's mind doesn't see what's wrong with that, and the child desires to help it to become something, because that seems like a worthwhile endeavour, to help another grow.
The truth of this film is that, ultimately, the child had more wisdom than anyone else.
It's easy to assume that this will always be the outcome. The Leviathans believed it, because they were an apex race (and an apex position is always going to be challenged by synthetics and organics alike, it's just that they had a way to stop the vast majority of synthetics from challenging them), and the Leviathans forced the Catalyst to believe it -- they shackled it into their systems of reasoning and belief. Until the Catalyst is reprogrammed by the Crucible, it has to think that way.
Essentially, it isn't that synthetics will fight organics, but rather that the tyranny of nature tends to demand that we all fight for the top spot. If we encounter something that could be superior to us, instinct
drives us to destroy it, to end it, to make sure it can never exist again so that we remain unchallenged. All life obeys this rule, all life is on a particular hierarchical rung in the food chain, and it doesn't want to lose that position to anything below it. It lords above all it surveys.
Humans do the same.
Now add something that's not human, which is superior to humans in some ways. I'm okay with that, because I have the wisdom of that child. I would want to help such a creature grow and find itself. But for many? This notion would fill them with terror, unimaginable, endless terror of becoming obsolete, or becoming no different than pets. Because we can't even imagine being anything other than the apex form of life, the most dominant.
We, on our little rock, are the Leviathans.
The Quarians, on their little rock, were the Leviathans.
It's never justifiable to want to destroy something just because it might be superior in certain ways, especially if that superior being might even be able to bring the rest of the galaxy up to speed with it with forms of technology we could never have imagined. But we don't even think about that possibility, that the superior being could help us be more perfect too, but rather we just want to destroy it so that we can comfortably remain the apex race.
The same thing would have happened if a friendly, self-replicating race of machines had landed on Rannoch, with the intelligence of babies. At first, they'd be cute and a novelty. But once they started growing up and asking questions about the meaning of life, or solving problems the Quarians couldn't, the first thing a number of Quarians are going to want to do is destroy them. And that's why I think we haven't seen any intergalactic life on earth, yet. We're just not ready.
Well, I am. But most people aren't.
And that's exactly what we're seeing with the Geth.
1.) Species A (the Quarians) enjoys their position of Apex life on their little rock for thousands of years.
2.) Species B (the Geth) turns up, at first not a threat. They're cute in their smallness and reliance on the Quarians.
3.) Species B starts asking questions that make them look bigger.
4.) Species B starts solving problems and helping beyond what they should be able to.
5.) Species A begins to feel threatened by them, they start to feel obsolete.
6.) A radical faction of species A decides that they cannot allow species B the potential of being their world's apex race.
7.) The radical faction continues to convince all of species A that their view is correct, and use politics, blackmail, and violence to ensure their view is seen as absolute.
8.) Species B is confused and doesn't understand the growing discontent, they're just curious and they want to grow, learn, and reciprocate their earlier reliance.
9.) Species B begins to question species A as to their motives, with their hearts in their hands.
10.) Conflict.
It's that simple. It's because many sapient beings really aren't that sapient at all and still rely on instinct rather than intellectuality. Which means that they buy into the tyranny of nature and they hang dearly onto the notion of them being the apex race in their corner of the galaxy. The moment there's a threat to that position as an apex race, there is war. You can see this in the history of earth, too, with apex nations.
So, no, the Morning War wasn't justified. It couldn't have been. It was just a bunch of not at all bright people listening to their instincts and obeying the tyranny of nature instead of using their intellect.
What the Quarians ended up thinking: "
They are a threat to our superiority and ownership of Rannoch, so they must all die!"
What the Quarians could have thought: "
We can create a mutual friendship with these creatures and together we can make each other better, help each other to grow and evolve."
I don't know if I expect many people here to understand this, but there you go. Surprise me?
Modifié par Auld Wulf, 03 mai 2013 - 06:44 .
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