926 réponses à ce sujet

[Seival]

KaiserShep wrote...

So the brutes become two guys trapped forever in a monster costume. Seems legit.

And ex-Reaper-ships will become millions of people contained within one 2km-long indestructible shell. There is nothing negative in that.

The Earth is a giant living being, which contains millions of small living beings.
A human is a living being which contains a lot of bacteria.
You have no idea how many lives you contain right now, KaiserShep.

Modifié par Seival, 08 juin 2013 - 11:22 .

[IceHawk-181]

The difference is that the bacteria under my fingernails is not a sentient life that was horrifically riped from its body and viciously melted down...

And where do you get the idea that individuals are retained?

The only canon statements from the Catalyst or the Endings state genetic material and knowledge is retained.

[IceHawk-181]

And the Earth is not alive...it is a rock floating in space...

Modifié par IceHawk-181, 08 juin 2013 - 11:24 .

[TheRealJayDee]

Seival wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

What about the brutes? They have turian heads and krogan rear ends. Needless to say that is a troubling state to wake up in.

The ex-Reaper-ships are many voices contained in one vessel, and I see no troubles with them in EC Synthesis. So, brutes will not have any troubles too.

Seival wrote...

brutes will not have any troubles

Urm, I mean, yeah, sure. Cannibals will be totally fine as well. No psychological trauma to be found here...

Modifié par TheRealJayDee, 08 juin 2013 - 11:29 .

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Wait a sec...

Is the whole point of this exercise to determine a single, morally "correct" ending from Destroy, Control, and Synthesis? 

[KaiserShep]

Sure, nothing negative about dying a horrible screaming death, being liquefied and trapped in a death machine for all eternity. Kumbaya, everyone.

[Skvindt]

IceHawk-181 wrote...

The difference is that the bacteria under my fingernails is not a sentient life that was horrifically riped from its body and viciously melted down...

And where do you get the idea that individuals are retained?

The only canon statements from the Catalyst or the Endings state genetic material and knowledge is retained.

Actually, Legion states that minds are retained inside Reapers as well.  So if that means their thoughts continue, then you could make the case that individuals are retained as well.  Just not in their original physical form.

[AresKeith]

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Wait a sec...

Is the whole point of this exercise to determine a single, morally "correct" ending from Destroy, Control, and Synthesis? 

No it's more of "Synthesis is always correct and canon" by Seival

[IceHawk-181]

SRX wrote...

IceHawk-181 wrote...

The difference is that the bacteria under my fingernails is not a sentient life that was horrifically riped from its body and viciously melted down...

And where do you get the idea that individuals are retained?

The only canon statements from the Catalyst or the Endings state genetic material and knowledge is retained.

Actually, Legion states that minds are retained inside Reapers as well.  So if that means their thoughts continue, then you could make the case that individuals are retained as well.  Just not in their original physical form.

Do you have the quote, because I cannot find it.

[Seival]

IceHawk-181 wrote...

The difference is that the bacteria under my fingernails is not a sentient life that was horrifically riped from its body and viciously melted down...

And where do you get the idea that individuals are retained?

The only canon statements from the Catalyst or the Endings state genetic material and knowledge is retained.

Life is life, and it doesn't matter how exactly it was created. All life deserves respect and second chance if failed once. But watching your replies, I gained a feeling that if you were a Quarian, then you would be among the first ones who opened fire on Geth.

Ex-Reapers might be not the same persons as before the harvest, but they will be alive and they will be a persons. You can't refuse that after watching EC Synthesis. And according to the Synthesis ending, none of those new born are aggressive or unconstructive.

[Skvindt]

IceHawk-181 wrote...

SRX wrote...

IceHawk-181 wrote...

The difference is that the bacteria under my fingernails is not a sentient life that was horrifically riped from its body and viciously melted down...

And where do you get the idea that individuals are retained?

The only canon statements from the Catalyst or the Endings state genetic material and knowledge is retained.

Actually, Legion states that minds are retained inside Reapers as well.  So if that means their thoughts continue, then you could make the case that individuals are retained as well.  Just not in their original physical form.

Do you have the quote, because I cannot find it.

1:02

[Seival]

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Wait a sec...

Is the whole point of this exercise to determine a single, morally "correct" ending from Destroy, Control, and Synthesis? 

There are no universal ethical rules. So, determining a single, morally "correct" ending makes no sense.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

AresKeith wrote...

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Wait a sec...

Is the whole point of this exercise to determine a single, morally "correct" ending from Destroy, Control, and Synthesis? 

No it's more of "Synthesis is always correct and canon" by Seival

There seem to be more than a few who have the inverse interpretation, as well. 

Ah, well. The last couple of days have been interesting.

I think I'll conclude my brief tourist visit, though. 

There's lots of neat ideas of what could have been out there, and some people who's thoughts I'd be curious to hear. There's definitely some interesting discussion, but I just don't really enjoy arguing over whose choice is the "morally correct" one.

Forcing everyone to accept a single ending would defeat the entire purpose. If any one answer was truly morally absolute, it would render the choice meaningless. Might as well have just scripted a fixed ending, or sent the whole kit-and-kaboodle of to "Choose Your Own Adventures," so people who picked the "wrong" ending would be told to go back to page 3 and choose again. 

[IceHawk-181]

Thanks SRX, I could not find that clip for the life of me:
 
"Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within immortal machine bodies."
 
Considering that these minds are conjoined and then, per Legion's other statements, dominated by a single thought (that of the Reaper) I highly doubt individuality is possible any longer. Maybe for the Husks and their iterations.
 

Seival wrote...
Life is life, and it doesn't matter how exactly it was created. All life deserves respect and second chance if failed once. But watching your replies, I gained a feeling that if you were a Quarian, then you would be among the first ones who opened fire on Geth.

Your childish sniping aside, with all due respect your argument was not "they represent some form of life" but that they represented "the original life forms" themselves.
 
Tantamount to the literal resurrection of past species.
 
Nice concession and Goal Post maneuver there.
 

Seival wrote...
Ex-Reapers might be not the same persons as before the harvest, but they will be alive and they will be a persons. You can't refuse that after watching EC Synthesis. And according to the Synthesis ending, none of those new born are aggressive or unconstructive.

Of course the Reapers would be alive after Synthesis.
 
No one was arguing otherwise, we were pointing out that there is no canon support to claim that a Reaper represents either the literal resurrection of either an individual or a society.
 
Canonically it is merely the uploaded "minds" (whatever that means) of individuals, conjoined in some unknown process, subjected to millennia of Reaper domination, are described merely as the "knowledge" or the "collective knowledge" of a civilization.
 

Modifié par IceHawk-181, 08 juin 2013 - 11:47 .

[TheRealJayDee]

Seival wrote...

Life is life

...nanananana. Do we have an official Synthesis theme song now?!

[Skvindt]

IceHawk-181 wrote...

Thanks SRX, I could not find that clip for the life of me:
 
"Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within immortal machine bodies."
 
Considering that these minds are conjoined and then, per Legion's other statements, dominated by a single thought (that of the Reaper) I highly doubt individuality is possible any longer. Maybe for the Husks and their iterations.
 
 

What do you mean by dominated by a single thought?  Are you referring to how the Reaper called itself Nazara (Sovereign)?

I don't entirely understand Legion's quote by 'uploaded and conjoined'.  It seems like Legion is suggesting that those minds are 'merged', as if into one.  Yet later on in the conversation it still refers to them as if they are multiple minds as opposed to one.  So maybe there is some sort of individuality retained, or maybe the process of uploading into a Reaper is something that isn't something we can truly understand or comprehend.

Modifié par SRX, 09 juin 2013 - 12:14 .

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Seival wrote...

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Wait a sec...

Is the whole point of this exercise to determine a single, morally "correct" ending from Destroy, Control, and Synthesis? 

There are no universal ethical rules. So, determining a single, morally "correct" ending makes no sense.

OK, but why is it "not genocide" when the Reapers end sentient organic life, while Destroy "is genocide" against Reapers?

Bearing in mind that whether or not we take Cellular Memory into account, the original "Life," in scientific terms, is still "dead" when you collect its DNA. Unless you consider a blood bank to be full of living, breathing people in test tubes, which I assume that you don't. Similarly, I assume you would not interpret a "Clone" as the original life-form, continued, since they can both, technically, live at the same time, precluding the idea that they can both be defined as the same person.

I ask as someone who recognizes the validity of Cellular Memory, and who chose Synthesis repeatedly as the ending. I consider Destroy to be genocide against Geth, and Reapers.

However, I consider that "Them or Us" is a valid reason for Genocide, and it's not like the Reapers themselves gave anyone a choice. I recently switched to Destroy for perfectly valid reasons.

So if the purpose of this discussion is not to convince people that "Destroy" is wrong, what is the point?

And to repeat my earlier question that you still haven't answered, "External to what?"

[IceHawk-181]

SRX wrote...

IceHawk-181 wrote...

Thanks SRX, I could not find that clip for the life of me:
 
"Billions of organic minds, uploaded and conjoined within immortal machine bodies."
 
Considering that these minds are conjoined and then, per Legion's other statements, dominated by a single thought (that of the Reaper) I highly doubt individuality is possible any longer. Maybe for the Husks and their iterations.
 
 

What do you mean by dominated by a single thought?  Are you referring to how the Reaper called itself Nazara (Sovereign)?

I don't entirely understand Legion's quote by 'uploaded and conjoined'.  It seems like Legion is suggesting that those minds are 'merged', as if into one.  Yet later on in the conversation it still refers to them as if they are multiple minds as opposed to one.  So maybe there is some sort of individuality retained, or maybe the process of uploading into a Reaper is something that isn't something we can truly understand or comprehend.

In Mass Effect 3 Legion describes contact with the Reapers as the existence of an incomprehensible single thought that was capable of completely overwhelming the Geth that were interacting with it for a relatively short period of time.
 
What such an influence would do to the conjoined (likely no longer individual) minds after minimally 50,000 years (1 billion years at the oldest) is anyone's guess.
 
Speaking of Harbinger.
It clearly has a distinct personality from other Reapers considering its obsession with Shepard. Not even Sovereign had that issue. If Harbinger is representative of what happens to the "conjoined minds" of a species, they are most certainly not individual any longer.
 
 

[KaiserShep]

If I mount the reapers heads on my wall, it's not genocide; it's preservation. Their essence can decorate the halls.

[IceHawk-181]

An interesting possibility is that Reaper personalities are actually a strange mixture of the tendencies of the harvested population and the directives of the Catalyst, producing a sentient entity that is neither in its totality, but nonetheless chained to the Catalyst's control.
 
I mean, Harbinger being the remnants of the Leviathans could explain his arrogance and disdain for Shepard, a "lesser" species it perceives as beneath itself.
 
Of course Sovereign was also an A-hole...
 

EDIT: 
/Imagines a Salarian Reaper singing Gilbert & Sullivan while Harvesting the next cycle...
 

Modifié par IceHawk-181, 09 juin 2013 - 12:27 .

[KaiserShep]

I would love to see that Salarian reaper.

[Ravensword]

Lol. Seival blocked me.

[AresKeith]

KaiserShep wrote...

I would love to see that Salarian reaper.

And Vorcha, and Elcor, and Drell, and Volus