926 réponses à ce sujet

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Grand Admiral Cheesecake wrote...

There are only two possibilities.

1. Seival is the most dedicated troll BSN has ever seen, in which case I salute your work.
2. Seival is legitimately this crazy, in which case I fear for everyone's "essence".

[KaiserShep]

Spirits. Seival, you can't reconcile the fact that millions upon millions of people are incinerated by reaper death rays, let alone the fact that nothing in the epilogue suggests that the people that were brutally processed into a homogenous goop can be reconstituted.

[Dextro Milk]

I needed that laugh after coming home from work... Thanks Sevial.

[dreamgazer]

Seival wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Seival wrote...

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.

Makes the whole "You are bacteria" thing make sense, huh?

So, are we supposed to feel guilt when we, as humans, use antibiotics?

Antibiotics can kill both beneficial and non-beneficial bacteria. If you will use antibiotics without doctor's consult, you may die.

Human can't exist without beneficial bacteria inside him.
Human immune system can't have enough readiness without non-beneficial bacteria.
If you don't feel bad about using antibiotics, then you are very short-sighted.

Hah! Brilliant, thank you.

[BSpud]

Oh Sevial. LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE CREATED, BIOWARE.

[Tron Mega]

mass effect 3 is so bad, people would rather have conversations with seival and auld wulf on the BSN.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Seival wrote...

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Anyway, it concluded with this UN definition of Genocide:
 "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

That should, I would hope, resolve the issue of whether or not the Reapers commit genocide. They do.

The question is whether their reasons are valid enough to justify the genocide. I've already stated that I believe the reasons for genocide behind the "Destroy" choice are valid.

I think you need to recognize that you believe the Reapers' reasons for genocide are valid. The best villains are ones who you can actually relate to, in some way. Understanding why the Reapers believe what they are doing is justified adds depth.

But it doesn't change the definition of genocide, whether the DNA is preserved or not. The Ego is created by perception - ending sentient life is ending the ego's ability to perceive. Those people are not coming back. Cloning creates new people - it doesn't recreate the old ones.

No, this definition is incomplete, and so can't resolve the issue of whether or not the Reapers commit genocide. Each listed act in the definition misses one very important word: irreversible. If you have a possibility to reverse a crime, i.e. bring a victim back to life (for example) then it's not a murder yet. But if the life is lost forever - then it becomes murder.

Harvested people are not murdered yet. They are transformed, and they can be recovered at least partially. They are still alive. And there is only one option to help those people - Synthesis.

And like I already said, my ethics doesn't have such thing as justifiable genocide.

The definition isn't incomplete. It's taken word for word from the UN charter. You can feel free to look for yourself, it's easily Googled.

The reason it doesn't contain the word "irreversible" is because that word is not in any definition of "genocide."

I'll break it down:

"...causing serious bodily or mental harm..." and "...killing..." which the Reapers do by the billions, and by their own admission. The entire Earth sequence is evidence enough by itself. They enslaved and killed billions of humans on Earth before the harvest began, and that is both physical and mental harm.

"...imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group..." applies to everyone they kill or "harvest," unless they're having babies in those tubes.

Most importantly, "...inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part..." Breaking people down into goo is destroying them physically. Even if you preserve the DNA, you have destroyed their minds, personalities, and their bodies, which more than meets the definition. What comes out the other side (assuming you are correct about the harvest) is something new, created from the destruction of the old.

In fact, that definition not only establishes that the Reapers commit genocide, it establishes that they meet every single tenet of the definition, which neither requires that they do so completely, nor that they are successful in doing so.

The Reapers commited genocide before the harvest even began, and continued to do so after it began, and they have done so for millions of years.

I thought we were discussing the validity of their reasons for genocide, and for choosing Synthesis as an alternative to allowing their genocide to continue. If the Reapers were right, why not pick refuse?

Modifié par Jeremiah12LGeek, 10 juin 2013 - 06:00 .

[dreamgazer]

Tron Mega wrote...

mass effect 3 is so bad, people would rather have conversations with seival and auld wulf on the BSN.

You underestimate the power of multi-tasking.

[Redbelle]

KaiserShep wrote...

Spirits. Seival, you can't reconcile the fact that millions upon millions of people are incinerated by reaper death rays, let alone the fact that nothing in the epilogue suggests that the people that were brutally processed into a homogenous goop can be reconstituted.

It sounds like he's taken an idea I had about using transporter and Heisenberg theory where the original is copied and the copy is sent to a different location while the original is destroyed. To build the copy you need base material, which that goop would be handy for.

However, to do this you would need a building guide of what the original was like in order to build a copy of the original. No evidence exists that the Reapers hold data of this type.

[Ninja Stan]

Let's keep the name-calling and insults out of the discussion, please. We can disagree with each other without resorting to childish behaviour.

[Seival]

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Seival wrote...

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Anyway, it concluded with this UN definition of Genocide:
 "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

That should, I would hope, resolve the issue of whether or not the Reapers commit genocide. They do.

The question is whether their reasons are valid enough to justify the genocide. I've already stated that I believe the reasons for genocide behind the "Destroy" choice are valid.

I think you need to recognize that you believe the Reapers' reasons for genocide are valid. The best villains are ones who you can actually relate to, in some way. Understanding why the Reapers believe what they are doing is justified adds depth.

But it doesn't change the definition of genocide, whether the DNA is preserved or not. The Ego is created by perception - ending sentient life is ending the ego's ability to perceive. Those people are not coming back. Cloning creates new people - it doesn't recreate the old ones.

No, this definition is incomplete, and so can't resolve the issue of whether or not the Reapers commit genocide. Each listed act in the definition misses one very important word: irreversible. If you have a possibility to reverse a crime, i.e. bring a victim back to life (for example) then it's not a murder yet. But if the life is lost forever - then it becomes murder.

Harvested people are not murdered yet. They are transformed, and they can be recovered at least partially. They are still alive. And there is only one option to help those people - Synthesis.

And like I already said, my ethics doesn't have such thing as justifiable genocide.

The definition isn't incomplete. It's taken word for word from the UN charter. You can feel free to look for yourself, it's easily Googled.

The reason it doesn't contain the word "irreversible" is because that word is not in any definition of "genocide."

I'll break it down:

"...causing serious bodily or mental harm..." and "...killing..." which the Reapers do by the billions, and by their own admission. The entire Earth sequence is evidence enough by itself. They enslaved and killed billions of humans on Earth before the harvest began, and that is both physical and mental harm.

"...imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group..." applies to everyone they kill or "harvest," unless they're having babies in those tubes.

Most importantly, "...inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part..." Breaking people down into goo is destroying them physically. Even if you preserve the DNA, you have destroyed their minds, personalities, and their bodies, which more than meets the definition. What comes out the other side (assuming you are correct about the harvest) is something new, created from the destruction of the old.

In fact, that definition not only establishes that the Reapers commit genocide, it establishes that they meet every single tenet of the definition, which neither requires that they do so completely, nor that they are successful in doing so.

The Reapers commited genocide before the harvest even began, and continued to do so after it began, and they have done so for millions of years.

I thought we were discussing the validity of their reasons for genocide, and for choosing Synthesis as an alternative to allowing their genocide to continue. If the Reapers were right, why not pick refuse?

The definition is corresponding to realities of modern real world, but for the fictional sci-fi world like MEU it is incomplete.

Do you remember what Anderson said?  Which means everyone are to be processed. The Reapers will leave no dead bodies behind. They will harvest everyone. I'm still sure there were not too much civilian casualties during the initial attack, but even those unlucky will not gone forever (if you will choose Synthesis in the end of course).

Do you remember the Catalyst's conclusion in the end? It told us that Harvests became outdated. Don't you agree with that? So, eventually the Reapers were right, yes? Without Harvests they wouldn't create Shepard and Crucible. Without Shepard and Crucible the Harvests would be the only possible solution, and no one would have a power to stop that.

I don't like the Catalyst methods, but I can understand its reasons. And eventually we have a chance to restore all harvested lives (at least in different form). Synthesis stops any genocide from happening. Destroy commits genocide postponed by the Reapers, plus commits genocide of the Geth, plus causes some more casualties among other races in the process. In Control you have some number of possibilities of what to do next (applying the Synthesis is one of the options, obviously). And in Refusal you just let the Reapers to continue Harvests. So do you really think I can choose anything but Control in order to apply Synthesis later?...

..."Controlled Synthesis" is the only outcome I really like. I can apply Synthesis and avoid casualties on the Citadel in the process.

[The Night Mammoth]

So in conclusion, Jeremiah was right, and that post is just so much waffle.

[Seival]

Every thread that involves some thoughts on the endings ends up in arguing about moralities. And that is not my fault.

[The Night Mammoth]

It takes two to tango. You can't avoid having a moral discussion about this, and whether you like it or not, there are clear ethical problems relative to what most people believe with what you like to talk about.

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 10 juin 2013 - 10:22 .

[PerhapsDeadMaybeNot]

^ quite true
Science-Fiction is based around the question "what if"...it is inevitabe that such questions of ethics and morality are going to be asked...because that is what science-fiction is about...what is right and what is wrong if something like this happened

so when someone posts a quote to justify a quite questionable decision, people are going to argue.

[PerhapsDeadMaybeNot]

I personally wouldn't mind mechanical augmentations, but by so much...when that change is on such a fundamental level....well, then it gets complicated

[remydat]

Let's try to sum this up quite easily.

The harvest perserves life without any consideration as to the form that perservation takes and whether the life being perserved wants to be perserved in the form of a Reaper.

As an individual, I am entitled to tell the Catalyst to f**k off and that I do not want to be perserved in the form he desires because I prefer my current form. In short, it is not a decision the Catalyst has a right to make for me or anyone.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Seival wrote...

The definition is corresponding to realities of modern real world, but for the fictional sci-fi world like MEU it is incomplete.

I really don't know what to say.

If you redefine genocide to suit your position, it becomes essentially impossible to discuss it.

If "killing people" doesn't count as "killing people," then all three endings shouldn't count as genocide. But or some reason killing Reapers in self-defense does?

If the Reapers can bring back anyone who has ever died ever by making them into a Reaper, and absolve themselves accordingly, why can't we do the same? In a million years, the surviving species (now that progress and evolution don't get "interefered" with every 50K years) could have the technology to bring the Reapers back as a new species, making Destroy no more genocide than what the Reapers do.

Modifié par Jeremiah12LGeek, 11 juin 2013 - 02:41 .

[Redbelle]

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Seival wrote...

The definition is corresponding to realities of modern real world, but for the fictional sci-fi world like MEU it is incomplete.

I really don't know what to say.

If you redefine genocide to suit your position, it becomes essentially impossible to discuss it.

If "killing people" doesn't count as "killing people," then all three endings shouldn't count as genocide. But or some reason killing Reapers in self-defense does?

If the Reapers can bring back anyone who has ever died ever by making them into a Reaper, and absolve themselves accordingly, why can't we do the same? In a million years, the surviving species (now that progress and evolution don't get "interefered" with every 50K years) could have the technology to bring the Reapers back as a new species, making Destroy no more genocide than what the Reapers do.

Lets come down in favour of real world life.

It is, after all, the birth place of fantasy.

And no matter what. Those who built the world we play in must conform to those rules in order to build a world we recognise.

The Reapers have committed genocide time and again, cycle after cycle.

To suggest that the victims of the Reapers will rise again is to say that those we bury and cremate will one day rise. It's a nice dream. But we must face realities. And the reality is that the boy killed in that shuttle, and the people with him, and the soliders on the ground, and those turned to husks and all those who were burned, exposed to space, trampled upon and mutilated by the Reapers are victims of a monsterous injustice. Al because a little AI thought it could ignore the desires of people like us to go on living.

The Reapers committed galactic wide genocide. And for all the pretty words and flights of fancy, we cannot lose sight of that fact.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

But jumping in a blender and being ground up does not kill you. Don't you understand? Being pushed into a blender and being ground up isn't murder because it is reversible. I'm beginning to understand all of this.

[Kel Riever]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

But jumping in a blender and being ground up does not kill you. Don't you understand? Being pushed into a blender and being ground up isn't murder because it is reversible. I'm beginning to understand all of this.

Everything is atoms, therefore it s all the same, right?

[Seival]

Jeremiah12LGeek wrote...

Seival wrote...

The definition is corresponding to realities of modern real world, but for the fictional sci-fi world like MEU it is incomplete.

I really don't know what to say.

If you redefine genocide to suit your position, it becomes essentially impossible to discuss it.

If "killing people" doesn't count as "killing people," then all three endings shouldn't count as genocide. But or some reason killing Reapers in self-defense does?

If the Reapers can bring back anyone who has ever died ever by making them into a Reaper, and absolve themselves accordingly, why can't we do the same? In a million years, the surviving species (now that progress and evolution don't get "interefered" with every 50K years) could have the technology to bring the Reapers back as a new species, making Destroy no more genocide than what the Reapers do.

Show me at least one individual who will want, and will 100% possess the power to bring the Reapers back after Destroy. If you will find any, let me know.

Synthesis is not just theoretical in ME3 - it is real in the story, and has a lot of fans. We know what Synthesis does. We know how to trigger it. We know it will 100% work as intended.

Just a desire is not enough to bring someone back. You have to possess the power to do so. So, basically, "maybe I will resurrect them one day, if I'll find out how" doesn't postponed the genocide, while "I will resurrect them - I possess the power to do so, and I have the desire to do so" - does.

Awakened Collectors prove that harvested can be released. Which means the original Catalyst has the power to release the imprisoned life even without Synthesis, but it obviously thinks it's not the time yet... that was before the final dialogue. And now it's in your power to release the harvested, restore them as self-aware creatures, who possess the memories of their past... not just restore, but also improve, because Synthesis is much more than just a resurrection of harvested.

EDIT: And I wonder, how many times the definition of genocide has already been redefined in reality.

Modifié par Seival, 11 juin 2013 - 08:38 .

[Astartes Marine]

Seival wrote...
We know what Synthesis does.

Considering how it's generally referred to as space magic and aside from vague statements about it from the Catalyst and slides in an epilogue with no explanations, details or specifics...no we don't really know exactly what it does. 

There's a very incredibly vague idea, but the whole concept is so poorly (never) explained.  We can all headcanon away, much like you do, but there are few to no cold hard facts regarding the mechanics and exact effects of the Synthesis beam.

Seival wrote...
doesn't postponed the genocide

Destroying what was already dead isn't genocide.  Whatever race that makes up each Reaper is long dead and have been for some time.

Seival wrote...
Awakened
Collectors prove that harvested can be released.

A vague 2-3 line character bio from the canonically questionable multiplayer side of the game that also includes mass produced Alliance EDIs, N7 characters that make Shepard seem like an average soldier, Turians with jet boots, and a Krogan with a bloody massive hammer that is seen nowhere else in the series.

That is shaky proof at the very best.  Especially after Mordin's examination and results on the Collectors...

Seival wrote...
And now it's in your power to release
the harvested, restore them as self-aware creatures, who possess the
memories of their past... not just restore, but also improve, because
Synthesis is much more than just a resurrection of harvested.

Yes I'm sure the Praetorians with the three dozen or so corpses in their bellies will be just fine. 
Or the Cannibals and Brutes that are made up of more than one corpse.
Or the Banshees that are in constant agony from the "modifications".

You might look at that and say, "oh they'll all be fine with it" but I look at is nothing short of something out of the minds of Clive Barker, John Carpenter and Tim Butron all mixed together.  Nightmarish.


And just how does one resurrect a puddle of goo?