136 réponses à ce sujet

[xlegionx]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous. Where are all the eager responses when *I* post a thread??

I don't know. People recognize Auld and Seival as people who get under people's skin and at times result to insults and condescendtion. Your posts and methodology of arguing seem far more moderate. Maybe that's it.

[TheProtheans]

Should have just said all paths lead to synthesis, I would have gotten the idea if that was your only sentence.

While there are many paths that do, not all paths would.
There is an infinite amount of paths and ways, so many different variables within the universe and the galaxy that would influence it.
Not all of them lead to Synthesis.

Modifié par TheProtheans, 16 mai 2013 - 10:41 .

[dgsf78]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous. Where are all the eager responses when *I* post a thread??

Whatever do you mean good sir? On a more serious note: Wulf has created a name for himself.

[KingZayd]

xlegionx wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous. Where are all the eager responses when *I* post a thread??

I don't know. People recognize Auld and Seival as people who get under people's skin and at times result to insults and condescendtion. Your posts and methodology of arguing seem far more moderate. Maybe that's it.

ouch. Being lumped in with Seival (who I partly think is just trolling, and not being serious) is a bit harsh.

[xlegionx]

KingZayd wrote...

xlegionx wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous. Where are all the eager responses when *I* post a thread??

I don't know. People recognize Auld and Seival as people who get under people's skin and at times result to insults and condescendtion. Your posts and methodology of arguing seem far more moderate. Maybe that's it.

ouch. Being lumped in with Seival (who I partly think is just trolling, and not being serious) is a bit harsh.

Well both have views that are pretty out there, and make multiple threads that more or less have the same ideas. and they both condescend at times.

EDIT: And Seival may very well be a troll. But I feel like even a troll could come up with better-constructed arguments

Modifié par xlegionx, 16 mai 2013 - 11:08 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...
My problem does not lie with the idea so much as the source.

Yeah, all right, that's really the biggest flaw in the ending scenario. I wonder if Bioware expected us all to buy the Catalyst's pronouncements just because it comes with pretensions to the divine. Personally, I find the presentation rather galling, as if I was to forget that this entity was responsible for the cycle. However, I see the Synthesis as a function of the Crucible rather than the Catalyst, and that separates it from the Catalyst, even though I still have to take the Catalyst's words for having been changed by the Crucible.

We cannot break the vicious cycle on our own through self-improvement.

Do I want to believe this? No. Is it possible that it is nonetheless true? Yes. The question here is: can we break away from our nature as determined by our evolutionary history? Can we really do anything, or does our nature constrain us in ways we cannot overcome with our own ingenuity? The answer is not at all obvious. It could be true.
However, I agree with you insofar that the Catalyst's original problem is not supported by the story. It is an assumption made in empty space, without hooks to anywhere else, especially if you make peace between the quarians and the geth. That doesn't exactly disprove the Catalyst, but it is a matter that had to be addressed were we to believe in the problem. It wasn't.

Reapers are medicinal in nature.

If you see "all life in the galaxy" as the body as the Catalyst does, this actually makes sense - if the previous assumption is true. Cut out a part to save the whole.

The culling cycle was a valid solution to the original problem and served the greater good.

The Catalyst's notion of "valid" is different from ours. Would we have accepted a different solution easier? Such as the Reapers (or whatever might have taken their place) acting as a police force which prevented synthetics that can surpass their creators from being built? We might have, but we would still have fought tooth and nails against anyone who constrained our advancement that way. Also, the Catalyst was experimenting with civilizations, Cerberus-style: let civilization after civilization arise to see if things work out differently in one cycle or the next. The thing is: that we came along and built the Crucible proves the Catalyst right: our cycle was different, and our cycle could effect a new solution. Ironically, that also casts doubts on the Catalyst's original problem: it could not extrapolate the path to the new solutions by itself, so why could it extrapolate the eternal recurrence of the "created rebel against their creators" scenario? Still, from its own viewpoint, the Catalyst did what it could. That this was amoral from our point of view is - I can't repeat this often enough - completely beside the point.

Reapers' new plan (Synthesis) is the ultimate solution to Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Given its last "solution" I am hesitant to buy in.)[/list]

Synthesis isn't the Reapers' plan. That was always the forced uploading. Synthesis is the plan of the Crucible designers. However, I agree that the way this is presented is off-putting. I never bought the "Synthesis is an utopia" scenario. There's altogether too much eschatological imagery in the Synthesis. That's *my* personal beef with this  option. Also, to echo MassivelyEffective730's point, forcing this solution on the whole galaxy rather defeats the spirit of the idea of transhumanism that appears to be part of it. As a transhumanist I actually feel somewhat soiled by this solution because it spits in the face of the individual empowerment that lies at the core of transhumanism. Even so, I still consider it better than the alternatives.   

I actually read your posts and take them seriously. I'm a hard-core destroyer, but I hate the ending because of the side effects -- every ending has a one or more bad side effects. And we're somehow trying to make sense out of this asinine ending. Was the original intent Destroy? Did the Catalyst put synthesis there? Did indoctrinated scientists put Control there? Whatever. Thank you, Mac, for the Mass Confusion 3 ending that needed Leviathan DLC to further justify the existence of the Catalyst.

You're a transhumanist. I was counting on nanotech and whatever so I could extend life, but it doesn't look like it's going to arrive in time, and if it does I'm going to be too old for it to do any good. Then I'd have to worry about my social security running dry and finding a job at 120.

You wrote something up here and I'll bold it. I'm also one who likes to use Leviathan's term The Intelligence, because I believe Shepard actually was the Catalyst - the initiator of the action, but for simplicity I'll stick with the established terms.

About the Catalyst and the reapers, and destroy. I'm brought to that conversation when we took down the Heretic base if you take the Renegade conversation option. "We've got a job to do. If this were an organic race I'd have an ethical problem. Geth aren't like us. Don't apply our moral values to them." Legion replies: "That is logical" and goes on to say it is even racist to do so, even benign anthropomorphism. Then he goes on to describe the difference between organics and synthetics. The Catalyst is a highly advanced synthetic.

Yes, it was doing exactly that. We actually talked to a few reapers. What's to say previous cycles didn't? The thing I find that is a bunch of crap is that the way they do it is like "You've got a problem and we're going to kill you for it" but they never tell you what the problem is. "It is not something you can comprehend." It's like it's some big mystery. How are we supposed to figure out what problem they're saying we have when they won't tell us and we're in the middle of fighting for our lives? Even when one told us it didn't make much sense.

Now our cycle is different. I look at the Quarians. If we make peace with the Geth, the Quarians and the Geth start forming a symbiotic relationship. The Geth with their upgrades still want to serve their creators, and the Quarians are accepting this. They are helping them adapt to their home world so they can get out of their suits in far less time than they would have normally taken. What is the next step? Do we think the Geth are going to suddenly abandon them? I don't think so. I don't think the Quarians are going to turn on the Geth either. I see a partnership forming. The Geth will probably plant the first crop, but the Quarians are going to have to do their own manual labor or make a new line of non-intelligent robots to help do that.

The Quarians are already full of cybernetic enhancements. Perhaps we see closer communication between them. We're seeing their own path toward a form of synthesis. This proves the Catalyst wrong. Yes there was conflict, but the Catalyst never looked at a resolution of the conflict. The Catalyst always sent in the reapers at the creation of synthetics and the first sign of conflict. It never let the conflict get resolved. It never trusted the resourcefulness of organics.

But when we completed the Crucible? "Clearly, organics are more resourceful than we realized." The Catalyst is not without flaws. We organics still had a few tricks up our sleeve.

I remember this one conversation between EDI and Joker from ME2 (lord knows I played it enough) where they were running combat simulations. EDI said that they were getting the best results when the two of them were working together than when they were working individually. EDI was quicker but too predictable, and Joker was quick but too inconsistent, but together the EDI's quickness combined with Joker's unpredictiblity would give the best results. "License to screw up." Another indication of more of a partnership of synthetic and organic being the optimal relationship rather than an adversarial relationship.

We prove the Catalyst right by completing the Crucible and actually arriving there. What I find really tricky about the whole thing is that the Catalyst said "Without us, synthetics would wipe out all organic life in the galaxy." It is a synthetic. It cannot do synthesis because it would be a self-fulfilling prophesy. But Shepard can because Shepard is an organic. This is the big facepalm. Shepard can be the tool for the synthetic to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy, and force the whole thing, and leave the reapers and the Catalyst around. This is the whole problem I have with that ending.

Otherwise, I have no problem with transhumanism. I have no problem with improving our genetic structure, with advancements in artifical limbs, cybernetics, or evolving in that direction in our own time. Hell, universal translators would be wonderful. lolz.

I think the entire ending is crap. I think it betrayed the spirit of the series. They tried to make it into something it was never meant to be. The ending divided the community.

[remydat]

The Catalyst never had to reconsider his position because oganics never gave him any evidence to suggest he should.

Leviathan makes it clear that the cycles and harvest were both a solution and an experiment. Leviathan also makes clear that the Catalyst has not truly fulfilled his purpose and that the harvest's will continue until he has.

What this implies is that the Catalyst knows its solution was imperfect and so used it's imperfect solution as an experiment as well. The experiment being whether organics could defeat it's imperfect solution. Until this cycle they could not but then this cycle not only defeats it when Shep meets the Catalyst, it does so by using the collective knowledge of all the cycles before them. The cycles and harvest were established to prevent the knowledge from one cycle leaking into the next and the Crucible proves it no longer achieved that goal.

Once this cycle defeats the cycles and harvest, it has proven they are more resourceful than the Catalyst though. Once they have proven that, the Catalyst considers it's purpose is fulfilled because it now believes organics are resourceful enough to survive without its aid. Hence why while it prefers synthesis, it basically lets Shep decide the outcome. Organics have beaten his experiment and their reward is they via their champion Shep get to decide their fate.

[Nightwriter]

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

[quote]Nightwriter wrote...

My problem does not lie with the idea so much as the source.[/quote]
Yeah, all right, that's really the biggest flaw in the ending scenario. I wonder if Bioware expected us all to buy the Catalyst's pronouncements just because it comes with pretensions to the divine. Personally, I find the presentation rather galling, as if I was to forget that this entity was responsible for the cycle. [/quote]
You are going to find all of my other objections very minor in comparison to that one. It really is my main beef.

And yes, Shepard does kind of have this whole "oh, you're appearing to me as an ethereal child from my dreams, let me put my blame and anger away and not question that" thing going on. Ery-vay eird-way.

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

However, I see the Synthesis as a function of the Crucible rather than the Catalyst, and that separates it from the Catalyst, even though I still have to take the Catalyst's words for having been changed by the Crucible.[/quote]
The Crucible is a bit of a gray area with me. It's kind of vague and I find much that we're told about it confusing. It's a weapon that was created to use against my enemy, yet my enemy is the one who presents it to me. While jumping and waving his pom-poms and shouting "Synthesis, Synthesis, he's our man, if he can't do it no one can." No clue what to think.

I think in many ways accepting Synthesis requires (or at least, is hugely bolstered by) an uncommon predisposition toward certain concepts that motivate one to look past the weeds which choke its execution here. Perhaps this gives some Synthesis supporters a feeling of excitement or exclusivity; I do not know. However, if it's as great an idea as they say it is, I think it should have been a bit more accessible to people like myself.

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

[quote]Nightwriter wrote…

We cannot break the vicious cycle on our own through self-improvement.[/quote]
Do I want to believe this? No. Is it possible that it is nonetheless true? Yes. The question here is: can we break away from our nature as determined by our evolutionary history? Can we really do anything, or does our nature constrain us in ways we cannot overcome with our own ingenuity? The answer is not at all obvious. It could be true.[/quote]
I feel that removing self-empowerment from the equation (having us accept that it is not through our own will or ability that we can change what is wrong with the world or ourselves) was one of the gravest mistakes the writers made.

Perhaps the idea that we cannot make a concerted effort to change on our own is realistic. But if BioWare insists on calling the game art, then I will employ a quote: "Art is art because it isn't nature." Science fiction consistently depicts futures where we overcome problems it would be naive to think we could overcome in the here and now. It almost exists to propose far-reaching scenarios and explore brave ideals.

And in the case of Mass Effect, not only had the theme of self-empowerment and self-progress been present throughout the series, but the theme of the Reapers being enemies of self-empowerment and self-progress was consistently felt. Tossing aside our own power and accepting a Reaper proposal (note: I am aware you don't think it was a Reaper proposal; I am merely speaking from my perspective) was about as thematically inappropriate as it gets.

Had they but replaced the Catalyst with EDI, had her "discover" a function in the Crucible that achieved Synthesis, and laid out a scenario where we had to dismantle the Reapers' flawed system and put in motion this new solution on our own initiative, support for Synthesis would almost undoubtedly be at least a little stronger. For many there would still be the obstacle of free will violation, but the taint of Reaper endorsement would be gone and it would feel much less like a capitulation.

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

However, I agree with you insofar that the Catalyst's original problem is not supported by the story. It is an assumption made in empty space, without hooks to anywhere else, especially if you make peace between the quarians and the geth. That doesn't exactly disprove the Catalyst, but it is a matter that had to be addressed were we to believe in the problem. It wasn't.[/quote]
That's an apt analysis. I will also add that if the person presenting the problem is suspect, the problem itself needs to be that much more observable and convincing in order to make us willing to listen to the enemy or work with them to solve it. Conversely, a shady source makes any weakly presented problem that much worse.

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...
[quote]Nightwriter wrote…

Reapers are medicinal in nature.[/quote]
If you see "all life in the galaxy" as the body as the Catalyst does, this actually makes sense - if the previous assumption is true. Cut out a part to save the whole. [/quote]
"Healing" people by making them grow gas masks on their faces and lumber around saying "are you my mummy?" made sense to the nanite cloud in Doctor Who, too. But the question wasn't "did it make sense to them?" but rather "was it helping people?" And the answer was "no." It wasn't. It was hurting them, in fact.

Or, to put it another way: what makes sense to the Catalyst is roughly as relevant as what makes sense to a sociopath. Should we try to understand sociopaths? Yes. Should their idea of what makes sense be used to answer the most important and far-reaching question of all time? No.

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

[quote]Nightwriter wrote…

The culling cycle was a valid solution to the original problem and served the greater good.[/quote]
The Catalyst's notion of "valid" is different from ours. Would we have accepted a different solution easier? Such as the Reapers (or whatever might have taken their place) acting as a police force which prevented synthetics that can surpass their creators from being built? We might have, but we would still have fought tooth and nails against anyone who constrained our advancement that way. Also, the Catalyst was experimenting with civilizations, Cerberus-style: let civilization after civilization arise to see if things work out differently in one cycle or the next. The thing is: that we came along and built the Crucible proves the Catalyst right: our cycle was different, and our cycle could effect a new solution. Ironically, that also casts doubts on the Catalyst's original problem: it could not extrapolate the path to the new solutions by itself, so why could it extrapolate the eternal recurrence of the "created rebel against their creators" scenario? [/quote]
The irony was not lost on me. Left a bit of a bitter taste.

The Catalyst's mysterious inability to pick a new solution when it was perfectly capable of picking the old one is another mystery. In fact if you refuse to choose at all, the Catalyst appears quite angry. "Well -- FINE! I don't like you then!"

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

Still, from its own viewpoint, the Catalyst did what it could. That this was amoral from our point of view is - I can't repeat this often enough - completely beside the point.[/quote]
I tend to disagree.

If the Catalyst is amoral, then not only was it utterly unfit for the task entrusted to it in the first place, but it should not be entrusted with any further social problem solving of any kind. The issue is as you said: its notion of "valid" is different from ours, so different that it led to an outcome where its chosen methods completely defeated its original purpose. In "preserving" life it destroyed everything that makes life worth preserving.

You may not view support for Synthesis as support for the Catalyst/Reapers, but people like the OP routinely do. I then wonder why they hold Synthesis to be for the moral good when the Catalyst and the Reapers are clearly amoral.

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

[quote]Nightwriter wrote…

Reapers' new plan (Synthesis) is the ultimate solution to Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Given its last "solution" I am hesitant to buy in.)[/list][/quote]
Synthesis isn't the Reapers' plan. That was always the forced uploading. Synthesis is the plan of the Crucible designers. [/quote]
Maybe my memory is failing me. I thought I remembered the Catalyst saying that Synthesis was the achievement of its original goal/purpose, and that it tried to make it work in the past but couldn't because Synthesis can't be forced.

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

However, I agree that the way this is presented is off-putting. I never bought the "Synthesis is an utopia" scenario. There's altogether too much eschatological imagery in the Synthesis. That's *my* personal beef with this option. Also, to echo MassivelyEffective730's point, forcing this solution on the whole galaxy rather defeats the spirit of the idea of transhumanism that appears to be part of it. As a transhumanist I actually feel somewhat soiled by this solution because it spits in the face of the individual empowerment that lies at the core of transhumanism. Even so, I still consider it better than the alternatives.
[/quote]
My position is that the idea of Synthesis (as you view it) is not invalid, but that it was invalid to present it at this time, in this game, using those villains.

Modifié par Nightwriter, 17 mai 2013 - 10:37 .

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

I still miss you Wulfie! Come back to us!

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

He did come back. The mods jumped on him like a frog on a peanut.

[ZipZap2000]

You mean a frog on a hot rock in the middle of summer, right?

[DeathScepter]

*makes some more popcorn for everyone loves popcorn and spiderman*