428 réponses à ce sujet

[jtav]

Ieldra2 wrote...

CaptainCommander wrote...
Synthesis is a problem because you spent the WHOLE of ME1 telling Saren that its wrong and if you manage to convince him he kills himself! To then suddenly be like "No you know what you are right! Sorry Saren buddy."

I'm getting really tired of this comparison. I don't know about you, but I told Saren I wouldn't want to be a Reaper slave. I didn't reject his vision of "the strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither", I only rejected the version where we'd have to become Reaper slaves to achieve it.

Also, there is nothing in the way our genes are encoded which defines us for all practical purpose. It's the information encoded that does that. Encode it some other way, it still remains the same. Also, against the "removes diversity" complaint: all life on Earth is based on DNA. Is all life on Earth the same?

Just to play devil's advocate:

Synthesis doesn't destroy diversity, but it does carry the ideas that baseline healthy humans are inadequate and need to be evolved and that synthetics are not true life and they require a messiah to supernaturally turn them into a real boy. It's bad enough that I don't speak to EDI on Synth playthroughs.

[Wayning_Star]

jtav wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

CaptainCommander wrote...
Synthesis is a problem because you spent the WHOLE of ME1 telling Saren that its wrong and if you manage to convince him he kills himself! To then suddenly be like "No you know what you are right! Sorry Saren buddy."

I'm getting really tired of this comparison. I don't know about you, but I told Saren I wouldn't want to be a Reaper slave. I didn't reject his vision of "the strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither", I only rejected the version where we'd have to become Reaper slaves to achieve it.

Also, there is nothing in the way our genes are encoded which defines us for all practical purpose. It's the information encoded that does that. Encode it some other way, it still remains the same. Also, against the "removes diversity" complaint: all life on Earth is based on DNA. Is all life on Earth the same?

Just to play devil's advocate:

Synthesis doesn't destroy diversity, but it does carry the ideas that baseline healthy humans are inadequate and need to be evolved and that synthetics are not true life and they require a messiah to supernaturally turn them into a real boy. It's bad enough that I don't speak to EDI on Synth playthroughs.

what might make anyone "real" ?



humans are only human..

[The Night Mammoth]

dreamgazer wrote...

Wayning_Star wrote...

lol, looks like that moral dilemma has finally sunk into some fans closed minds about their eventual synthesis within the MEU and beyond.

How on Earth did you arrive at this conclusion after reading this thread?

He was left out in the sun too long, and now he's a bit unhinged.

[SpamBot2000]

Wayning Star is gnomic. I can dig that, if not actually understand.

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 19 mai 2013 - 05:24 .

[Eryri]

jtav wrote...

Just to play devil's advocate:

Synthesis doesn't destroy diversity, but it does carry the ideas that baseline healthy humans are inadequate and need to be evolved and that synthetics are not true life and they require a messiah to supernaturally turn them into a real boy. It's bad enough that I don't speak to EDI on Synth playthroughs.

Pretty much this. While synthesis may not "destroy" diversity in the ME universe, it does symbolically undermine it as a theme within the story. Krogan may continue to look and act like Krogan, but every species now has the same technology running through them. They have been made more similar, if not identical. Each species' way of life will most likely change, and even if the changes are for the better, they will not be of their own choosing or authorship. 

And of course, Organics as a group, are now more similar to Synthetics and vice versa. Their differences have been reduced. Their outlooks are more similar. There is no longer such a wide variety of beings in the ME universe, as the extemes (organic and synthetic) have been normalised to a mean. It's up to personal interpretation if you regard this a positive change or not.

Personally I don't, as I don't think tolerance is something that should just be extended to people who are only slightly different to oneself.

Modifié par Eryri, 19 mai 2013 - 05:42 .

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Ya know, I was thinking about this thread the other day. Here's the thing, I accept a lot of reasons one would not choose RGB, but those who start arguing things like "have the right to ___" and "mandate" ... they just don't get it.

This is a war we're talking about, and a conflict in which all life at risk of great suffering (simple death is actually getting lucky). Apart from the fact that some people put that above the options to end the war, which goes to show how many simply don't have any awareness of the situation at hand, you literally cannot do worse than losing.

At that point, the right to choose any Crucible option is very much with Shepard/the player.

Again, people, open your eyes. Look at what's going on out there. This is not politics, this is a war. Some people here have said things like "we go to war to uphold a just cause." That's so far off the mark it's not even funny.

I've listened to what anti-enders have to say about the ending, and the final decision. I get it. In fact, I can agree with it to some extent. I see it both ways, though, and this is one way I see it positively: BW did not want to portray war as clean.

If there were any doubt, look no further than Javik's quote about honor.

Yeah, it's dark, but it's not a message to lament in the slightest. Nobody should have delusions about war being anything better than a necessary evil. In that, ME3 may have even saved lives! But clearly, as some of the hate for the ending indicates, saving lives only seems to count if you do it as a shining white knight.

Arrival DLC set the tone. If that was too much for you, then playing ME3 at all was ill-advised.

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 19 mai 2013 - 05:42 .

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

CaptainCommander wrote...
Synthesis is a problem because you spent the WHOLE of ME1 telling Saren that its wrong and if you manage to convince him he kills himself! To then suddenly be like "No you know what you are right! Sorry Saren buddy."

I'm getting really tired of this comparison. I don't know about you, but I told Saren I wouldn't want to be a Reaper slave. I didn't reject his vision of "the strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither", I only rejected the version where we'd have to become Reaper slaves to achieve it.

Also, there is nothing in the way our genes are encoded which defines us for all practical purpose. It's the information encoded that does that. Encode it some other way, it still remains the same. Also, against the "removes diversity" complaint: all life on Earth is based on DNA. Is all life on Earth the same?

Just to play devil's advocate:

Synthesis doesn't destroy diversity, but it does carry the ideas that baseline healthy humans are inadequate and need to be evolved and that synthetics are not true life and they require a messiah to supernaturally turn them into a real boy. It's bad enough that I don't speak to EDI on Synth playthroughs.

"Inadequate"? The idea is that baseline healthy humans are unfit for survival as a species. I don't have a problem with that. I've often thought the same. We are carrying way too much genetically encoded stone-age legacy around, and we won't survive as a species without dealing with that one way or the other. Maybe we'll have the time for natural evolution to catch up, but I doubt it. At the moment, I am, in  fact, convinced that we won't survive as a technological civilization without changing ourselves.

As for the other problem: yeah, Synthesis heavily suggests that life is only valid if it has certain traits typical for organics - against everything suggested throughout the story. I believe this is a side effect though. Here's why I think so: 

The writers envisioned Synthesis as a merge of organics and synthetics, but apparently didn't think about the details all that much when they made the original endings. So far, so good (if you can say that). Unfortunately for them, there was the ending sh*tstorm and they decided to make the EC. Now they actually had to answer the question: what do synthetics lack that organics have, that a merge would benefit them? I asked myself the same question and.....came up with the same answer way back in my first Synthesis thread: give them something like empathy. I wasn't sure it was a good idea, I just couldn't come with anything else at the time. The problem lies in how they let EDI express it: "I am alive".

The message being unintended doesn't make things better, of course. As a story critic, I can only say that this was yet another colossal blunder in a story already rich in colossal blunders, but as a player, it lets me get around the unfortunately implications of EDI's "I am alive".

At this point, may I ask others here who chose Synthesis at least once: what do you think? What do synthetics lack that organics have, that a merge would benefit them? And how should it have been expressed in the story?

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 mai 2013 - 05:41 .

[KingZayd]

Ieldra2 wrote...


At this point, may I ask others here who chose Synthesis at least once: what do you think? What do synthetics lack that organics have, that a merge would benefit them? And how should it have been expressed in the story?

I only accidentally chose synthesis that first time, but I felt as if I could answer this:

Nothing.

It's the advantage of intelligent design vs evolution, a process that takes a long time to yield results. The former couldn't happen without the other, but once that intelligently designed lifeform is able to boost its intelligence and improve on the design using that intelligence it's not even a close race.

That's one thing I hated about pre-EC synthesis. It hurt synthetics. It made them mortal and it gave them needs that synthetics wouldn't normally have (food etc). I suppose that's one way of preventing a singularity. Permanent sabotage.

Modifié par KingZayd, 19 mai 2013 - 05:56 .

[Ieldra]

HYR 2.0 wrote...
Ya know, I was thinking about this thread the other day. Here's the thing, I accept a lot of reasons one would not choose RGB, but those who start arguing things like "have the right to ___" and "mandate" ... they just don't get it.

This is a war we're talking about, and a conflict in which all life at risk of great suffering (simple death is actually getting lucky). Apart from the fact that some people put that above the options to end the war, which goes to show how many simply don't have any awareness of the situation at hand, you literally cannot do worse than losing.

At that point, the right to choose any Crucible option is very much with Shepard/the player.

Again, people, open your eyes. Look at what's going on out there. This is not politics, this is a war. Some people here have said things like "we go to war to uphold a just cause." That's so far off the mark it's not even funny.

I've listened to what anti-enders have to say about the ending, and the final decision. I get it. In fact, I can agree with it to some extent. I see it both ways, though, and this is one way I see it positively: BW did not want to portray war as clean.

If there were any doubt, look no further than Javik's quote about honor.

Yeah, it's dark, but it's not a message to lament in the slightest. Nobody should have delusions about war being anything better than a necessary evil. In that, ME3 may have even saved lives! But clearly, as some of the hate for the ending indicates, saving lives only seems to count if you do it as a shining white knight.

Arrival DLC set the tone. If that was too much for you, then playing ME3 at all was ill-advised.

Indeed, and this is why I don't have a problem with the ethical dimension of ME3's endings. There's no ending without a downside that you actually feel as a player. I see that as a desirable thing. On the other hand, I think that Bioware went too far by making the Catalyst the spokesperson for the endings.

I wonder: had there been some neutral source of the ending exposition, would people have less problems with them? Is it the Catalyst as the spokesperson which creates the problem or is it really the ending options themselves?

[Ieldra]

KingZayd wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

At this point, may I ask others here who chose Synthesis at least once: what do you think? What do synthetics lack that organics have, that a merge would benefit them? And how should it have been expressed in the story?

I only accidentally chose synthesis that first time, but I felt as if I could answer this:

Nothing.

It's the advantage of intelligent design vs evolution, a process that takes a long time to yield results. The former couldn't happen without the other, but once that intelligently designed lifeform is able to boost its intelligence and improve on the design using that intelligence.

Nothing indeed. That would be my answer as well, taken from the story told before the ending.

So why do I choose Synthesis in spite of that? Because IMO it's still the "least bad" outcome. Synthesis changes synthetics, but the change is neither good nor bad, other that it deprives them of a part of their former synthetic-ness in a way more fundamental than the way organics are changed. EDI actually appears to appreciate the change. I may not like the message, but I can live with the outcome. Better than with the others anyway. unless I choose Control and create a headcanon where Control!Shepard guides the galaxy towards Synthesis. If I can create such a scenario successfully (so far I haven't been able to), I may change my main Shepard's ending....

[dreamgazer]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I wonder: had there been some neutral source of the ending exposition, would people have less problems with them? Is it the Catalyst as the spokesperson which creates the problem or is it really the ending options themselves?

Yes, the decision chamber would've played out very differently with alternate variables---such as how the Catalyst presents itself---and divorced awareness of the first two games. People would likely consider options they aren't considering now under those circumstances, and the ensuing conversation would look much different.

That's simply not the case, though.

[David7204]

I don't know about that.

Players wanted Shepard to live and the Reapers to die.

[KingZayd]

Ieldra2 wrote...

KingZayd wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

At this point, may I ask others here who chose Synthesis at least once: what do you think? What do synthetics lack that organics have, that a merge would benefit them? And how should it have been expressed in the story?

I only accidentally chose synthesis that first time, but I felt as if I could answer this:

Nothing.

It's the advantage of intelligent design vs evolution, a process that takes a long time to yield results. The former couldn't happen without the other, but once that intelligently designed lifeform is able to boost its intelligence and improve on the design using that intelligence.

Nothing indeed. That would be my answer as well, taken from the story told before the ending.

So why do I choose Synthesis in spite of that? Because IMO it's still the "least bad" outcome. Synthesis changes synthetics, but the change is neither good nor bad, other that it deprives them of a part of their former synthetic-ness in a way more fundamental than the way organics are changed. EDI actually appears to appreciate the change. I may not like the message, but I can live with the outcome. Better than with the others anyway. unless I choose Control and create a headcanon where Control!Shepard guides the galaxy towards Synthesis. If I can create such a scenario successfully (so far I haven't been able to), I may change my main Shepard's ending....

Before the EC, I'd say it's a terrible deal for synthetics. They get burdened with all these organic weaknesses they have no need for. Now I just think it confirms the prejudices of those who don't consider them to be alive. The whole "it takes "space-magic" to allow synthetics to understand organics concept, and the idea that EDI was not truly alive before that.

I pick destroy in the end, because I'm not convinced the Reapers should be inflicted on the galaxy. Don't get me wrong, I love the Geth, and they're the only reason I'd hesitate to destroy them. If forced, I would pick the Geth over the Quarians. But the Reapers would wipe out the Geth anyway if they don't suddenly become friendly.

I don't suscribe to the idea that synthetics and organics can't get along, so I have faith that we'll be able to do that with future synthetics who will also be able to develop thanks to the end of the cycle. That might sound callous (it might sound like I'm suggesting the Geth are replaceable because they're AI's or something, which would be wrong), but ultimately I don't think it's worth risking all the races in the galaxy for the sake of one race (and EDI)

[jtav]

So what is someone who isn't a transhumanist supposed to choose? I don't think either non-Reaper synthetics or organics need to change and that the singularity is nonsense within the narrative. But I'd like to fix the Reapers if I can.

[KingZayd]

jtav wrote...

So what is someone who isn't a transhumanist supposed to choose? I don't think either non-Reaper synthetics or organics need to change and that the singularity is nonsense within the narrative. But I'd like to fix the Reapers if I can.

I guess control if you can stomach  an organic becoming a synthetic, and trust that the new entity you've created won't ever cause trouble for the galaxy with all that power and that it will eventually free the Reapers.

Other than that I guess it's got to be destroy.

Modifié par KingZayd, 19 mai 2013 - 06:20 .

[Bleachrude]

I'm not sure synthesis should be looked at as a failure because it reduces diversity...otherwise you're equating transhumanism with failure and that has always been seen as a viable possible future.

The final form/end goal of transhumanism is that everyone will be physically the same since everyone can have the ultimate form (this would also apply to any other species).

Every species would have the same biotic power of asari, the toughness of a krogan, the intellect of a salarian etc....

re: Ending choice
It should have been Anderson arguing for destroy and TiM arguing for Control. Basically, the three of them should have been lifted up to the platform to meet the AI. The AI should have offered the choice and the two should have put forward their arguments...and if your EMS was high enough, then the AI should offer a compromise with both Tim and Anderson arguing against it.

Modifié par Bleachrude, 19 mai 2013 - 06:26 .

[David7204]

It's very difficult to make an ethical judgement of Synthesis because the narrative is stupidly vague on what the hell is actually happening...

I very seriously doubt the writers have any better idea. I bet dollars to doughnuts if you isolated them and asked them what happens during Synthesis, you'd get a dozen different answers that would often contradict each other.

Modifié par David7204, 19 mai 2013 - 06:24 .

[Iakus]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I wonder: had there been some neutral source of the ending exposition, would people have less problems with them? Is it the Catalyst as the spokesperson which creates the problem or is it really the ending options themselves?

It's the ending options themselves.  It doesn't matter who gives teh exposition..

Shepard, alone, rewriting how the galaxy works is a Bad Thing.  Full stop.  Eityher in forcing transhumanism on everyone, creating a Reaper police force to rule the galaxy, or deciding organics are more worthy to live than synthetics.

As for tone:

Arrival should not have set the tone of ME3, as it's just one DLC for a previous game.  What should have set the tone for ME3?  ME1 and ME2.

Modifié par iakus, 19 mai 2013 - 06:26 .

[Bleachrude]

iakus wrote...


As for tone:

Arrival should not have set the tone of ME3, as it's just one DLC for a previous game.  What should have set the tone for ME3?  ME1 and ME2.

That implies that ME2 has the same tone as ME1.

It clearly does not and in a way, you could actually switch the plots of ME1 and ME2 around and it would actually work better IMO.

[Ticonderoga117]

David7204 wrote...

I don't know about that.

Players wanted Shepard to live and the Reapers to die.

Would of been nice.

[dreamgazer]

David7204 wrote...

It's very difficult to make an ethical judgement of Synthesis because the narrative is stupidly vague on what the hell is actually happening...

It can be whatever the player wants it to be. Synthesis is a Rorschach test, an unrealistically implemented one, and the preceding narrative points to it potentially being both a venomous monster and a beneficial advancement. Tweak the variables a bit, though---make it optional without upsetting the organic-synthetic solution, truly pacify the Reapers, not rearrange genetic material by way of a massive space beam, hand-wave Saren's desires---and I could see many other people getting into the idea of the solutions and opportunities that it affords.

I'm in favor of localized, optional, reliable physical modifications. I'm not in favor of Synthesis.

Modifié par dreamgazer, 19 mai 2013 - 06:58 .

[KingZayd]

dreamgazer wrote...

David7204 wrote...

It's very difficult to make an ethical judgement of Synthesis because the narrative is stupidly vague on what the hell is actually happening...

It can be whatever the players wants it to be. Synthesis is a Rorschach test, an unrealistically implemented one, and the preceding narrative points to it potentially being both an venomous monster and a beneficial advancement. Tweak the variables a bit, though---make it optional without upsetting the organic-synthetic solution, truly pacify the Reapers, not rearrange genetic material by way of a massive space beam, hand-wave Saren's desires---and I could see many other people getting into the idea of the solutions and opportunities that it affords.

I'm in favor of localized, optional, reliable physical modifications. I'm not in favor of Synthesis.

If it was like this, then the only problem I'd have with it is the Starchild.

[Iakus]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I don't know about that.

Players wanted Shepard to live and the Reapers to die.

Would of been nice.

In broad outlines, yes

[AresKeith]

I actually like the concept of Synthesis, but the way Bioware did not so much

[Iakus]

Bleachrude wrote...

That implies that ME2 has the same tone as ME1.

It clearly does not and in a way, you could actually switch the plots of ME1 and ME2 around and it would actually work better IMO.

But ME1 and ME2 give you ending scenerios that feel like "wins".  Even if the win's arent' entirely "clean"  

ME1:  Destiny Ascension is destroyed, killing the Council and ten thousand asari or Fifth Fleet gets hammered saving them

ME2: Collector Base is destroyed/captured.  The losses you sustain depends on Shepard's choices, which could range from zero to everyone including Shepard.

Arrival ended on a downer:  Shepard couldn't save anyone.  Which in large part is how the endings to ME3 feel (screw "you ended the cycles", it just doesn't feel worth it to me)  


Heck, in most endings Shepard can't even save him/herself.

Modifié par iakus, 19 mai 2013 - 06:59 .