257 réponses à ce sujet

[remydat]

katamuro wrote...

Ok here you are just plain wrong. In fact **** Germany technology was a step ahead of the rest, the nuclear bomb was simply not created due to lack of resources as there was no uranium in needed quantities in the lands conquered by the ****s. Look at the jet planes, the V2, the countless other advances that were simply not made due to lack of resources. Before you start talking about historic facts do check them first. In fact **** germany tried to create nuclear bomb but due to lack of uranium and plutonium they were limited in what they could experiment with. It was germans who created the first radio guided anti-ship bomb. Dont mistake level of technology with ability to recreate it.

Sorry, technological ability requires both the knowledge and the resources.  In a hypothetical war against a synthetic army that can outproduce and outtech you, organics die.  Germany could neither outproduce or outtech the allies and that is why they lost.

[remydat]

KaiserShep wrote...

To say that technological advancement, or lack thereof, was the sole reason for Hitler's defeat is kind of crazy.

These vague, misanthropic musings are not going to help this debate in the slightest. The concept of morality being questionable before the 20th century alone is a total farce that I will not entertain. 

Um, the whole premise of blitzkrieg was to attack and defeat the enemy quickly because Germany knew it did not have the resources or technological capabilities to win a protracted war.  Quality only beats Quantity if the Quality is so vastly superior to the Quantity being produced.  Germnay's tech was not and hence they lost to the US and USSR because they could outproduce Germany.

[katamuro]

You do understand what was just said no? They had jet fighters before anyone else. They used plastics and inertial guided V2 rockets, the ones that both Allies and Soviets took at the end of the war and created their own rockets. Von Braun was in fact the guy who made the rocket to fly to the moon, and he was the same person who created V2. V2 could reach the outer edge of the atmposphere, fly faster than sound before Allies or anybody else even figured out how to fly near the speed of sound. And they lost for quite a lot more reasons than different in level of technology or production. If you dont know the actual levels of technology or understand how it works do go and bring yourself up to speed but do not insult the War or people who fought it on both sides by saying we won "simply" because we managed to outtech them which we did not but we did manage to outproduce them because we had more access to raw materials. And it still took years of fighting before victory.

[remydat]

Coyotebay wrote...

The Catalyst has not been controlling the galaxy for billions of years, as far as we know.  We are led to believe that the invasion we are seeing is the entirety of the Reaper fleet, which is good enough to take out a couple dozen civilizations.  Well it there are thousands of others out there, they simply do not have th resources to do it.

Your last statement leaves my jaw on the floor.  Notthe universe can't be controlled, will never be controlled.  Today we aren't even close to saying we have any form of control over our world.  We control the Earth hardly any more than the cave men did.  We can farm its resources and we can pollute it, and that's about it.  Control it?  No.  I don't see any technology on the horizon for creating a new continent or stopping a hurricane.  Controlling the Earth compared to controlling the universe is like comparing controlling a grain of sand to controlling the Earth.  What you talk about is creating tools to use what the world provides us.  This we can do.

Edit: On the whole "Best tech wins" theory, the Romans were the most advanced civilization on the planet at one time, and they crumbled.  Political and social decay, empire spread too thin, it all fell apart.  It's not all about numbers, not all about who has the best technology.

Once again, the Reapers have no intention of exterminating life.  If they did they could destory planets from the sky.  Further they could attack a single planet all at once and destroy it rather than attack multiple planets at the same time and in doing so divide their fleet.  The only reason they lose fighters is because they seek to harvest and so fight ground wars and they attack multiple planets at once.  None of which makes sense if the aim is to simply destroy.

If they simply attacked a single planet with the full Reaper army with the intention of destroying all life, there is nothing anyone in the galaxy can do to stop them.  And since they are immortal as I said, they could pretty much do this over the course of millions or billions of years.

And no best tech only wins if it is capable of overcoming the greater numbers of the enemy and you use it smartly.

[katamuro]

remydat wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

To say that technological advancement, or lack thereof, was the sole reason for Hitler's defeat is kind of crazy.

These vague, misanthropic musings are not going to help this debate in the slightest. The concept of morality being questionable before the 20th century alone is a total farce that I will not entertain. 

Um, the whole premise of blitzkrieg was to attack and defeat the enemy quickly because Germany knew it did not have the resources or technological capabilities to win a protracted war.  Quality only beats Quantity if the Quality is so vastly superior to the Quantity being produced.  Germnay's tech was not and hence they lost to the US and USSR because they could outproduce Germany.

You are forgetting that US fought with Japanese for quite a while. In fact Britain managed to hold them off for quite a bit before Soviet Union even started fighting, and then it took years of fighting together, and that includes resistances from dozen or so countries and an effort on all sides an dozens of millions in dead. Comparing that **** Germany and Italy had total losses of 16 million during the 1937 to 1945 and Allies including soviet union had a total of 61 million losses it is pretty clear which side had advantage before tapping out due to longer than expected war. 

[remydat]

katamuro wrote...

You do understand what was just said no? They had jet fighters before anyone else. They used plastics and inertial guided V2 rockets, the ones that both Allies and Soviets took at the end of the war and created their own rockets. Von Braun was in fact the guy who made the rocket to fly to the moon, and he was the same person who created V2. V2 could reach the outer edge of the atmposphere, fly faster than sound before Allies or anybody else even figured out how to fly near the speed of sound. And they lost for quite a lot more reasons than different in level of technology or production. If you dont know the actual levels of technology or understand how it works do go and bring yourself up to speed but do not insult the War or people who fought it on both sides by saying we won "simply" because we managed to outtech them which we did not but we did manage to outproduce them because we had more access to raw materials. And it still took years of fighting before victory.

Better Tech doesn't matter if you can't mass produce to an extent that allows you to use that better tech to defeat your enemy.  Germany is a country of what 40 million?  They were going up against countries that collectively had hundreds of millions of people.  In order to win their better tech would have to make up the difference in numbers.  It could not because it was not superior enough and could not be produced in enough quantities.

[katamuro]

Anyway my original point stands that there is simply no reason to think that to combat that remote chance of a synthetic race wanting to annihilate everyone Reapers found only a single alternative. Considering that reapers are highly advanced and highly intelligent they could have fought the war with the help of other organics or even on their own against such a species before they had millions of years to develop and defeat them as we defeated germany in WW2. They could have done a lot of different things so it does not make sense that they chose selective genocide as the only viable option. The logic of catalyst and reapers does not connect with their own actions and abilities. Hence the logic of exterminating is wrong and the catalyst is just a poor excuse of a plot device that is not consistent either with the overall themes of the 3 games or the in game lore.

[remydat]

katamuro wrote...

You are forgetting that US fought with Japanese for quite a while. In fact Britain managed to hold them off for quite a bit before Soviet Union even started fighting, and then it took years of fighting together, and that includes resistances from dozen or so countries and an effort on all sides an dozens of millions in dead. Comparing that **** Germany and Italy had total losses of 16 million during the 1937 to 1945 and Allies including soviet union had a total of 61 million losses it is pretty clear which side had advantage before tapping out due to longer than expected war. 

Actually Britain and the USA had under 500k in casualties each.  The Allies number is inflated due to countries like Poland, the USSR, China, India, Dutch East Indies which were celarly technologically backwards compared to Germany and the Western Allies.  Those countries had combined around 55-60 million dead.  So most of the Allied Deaths were the clearly technologically inferior countries and not due to the US or Britain.  

The USSR as I said survived primarily because they could outproduce Germany.  And in fact after the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, the rest of the next 3 years of fighting on the Eastern Front between the USSR and Germany was the USSR kicking German's a** all the way back to Germany.  The Germans never threatened to win that war after 1942.  It just took the USSR 3 years to push them all the way out of the USSR terroritory and back to what eventually became East Germany.

http://en.wikipedia....r_II_casualties

[remydat]

katamuro wrote...

Anyway my original point stands that there is simply no reason to think that to combat that remote chance of a synthetic race wanting to annihilate everyone Reapers found only a single alternative. Considering that reapers are highly advanced and highly intelligent they could have fought the war with the help of other organics or even on their own against such a species before they had millions of years to develop and defeat them as we defeated germany in WW2. They could have done a lot of different things so it does not make sense that they chose selective genocide as the only viable option. The logic of catalyst and reapers does not connect with their own actions and abilities. Hence the logic of exterminating is wrong and the catalyst is just a poor excuse of a plot device that is not consistent either with the overall themes of the 3 games or the in game lore.

And on that point point we agree.  Just because something is possible does not mean the solution the Catalyst decided on was the best one.

However, Leviathan did not program it to find the optimal solution.  It simply told it to preserve life at any cost.  So all that is required is for the Catalyst to find a solution and to implement it.  It was not programmed or required to weigh its proposed solution against other potential solutions. 

Just like if there are 10 different ways to get to downtown, I am not required to investigate all 10 and then choose the optimal path.  All 10 paths get me to the same destination and from the cold hard logic of an emotionless AI, I have no reason to favor one path over another so I simply choose a path and be done with it.

Modifié par remydat, 02 juillet 2013 - 12:05 .

[katamuro]

Its not just a computer it is an adaptable AI, and to increase efficiency of the programmed task it would have gone to great lengths to try different things.

Anyway The catalyst and the reaper explanation in game is not consistent with themes and lore of the game hence it is rubbish and they should have tried harder or tried less to create something better. there is no "oh you nearly got it" prize and what Bioware and Casey Hudson gave us was not even close. And I do love the games I will never accept the reaper and catalyst explanations as logical and fitting to the ME universe. That is my bit on this issue and I am going to sleep now.

[remydat]

Whether it is consistent with the lore or themes of the game is a matter of opinion.  I don't have a problem with it.  You do.  To each his/her own.

[Coyotebay]

remydat wrote...


Once again, the Reapers have no intention of exterminating life.  If they did they could destory planets from the sky.  Further they could attack a single planet all at once and destroy it rather than attack multiple planets at the same time and in doing so divide their fleet.  The only reason they lose fighters is because they seek to harvest and so fight ground wars and they attack multiple planets at once.  None of which makes sense if the aim is to simply destroy.

If they simply attacked a single planet with the full Reaper army with the intention of destroying all life, there is nothing anyone in the galaxy can do to stop them.  And since they are immortal as I said, they could pretty much do this over the course of millions or billions of years.

And no best tech only wins if it is capable of overcoming the greater numbers of the enemy and you use it smartly.

You continue to miss the point.  This has nothing to do with Reaper intent, it has to do with their ability to dominate the galaxy.  Your statement that there is nothning anyone in galaxy can do to stop them is based entirely on speculation.  How do you know that there is nothing anyone can do?  When the Reapers first started, there was one, then two, then four, then eight of them.  They had enough to take out one world.  It would have taken them thousands of years to make one small dent in the galaxy, millions more to make an impact that would be noticable relative to the size of the galaxy, based on your assertion that the galaxy is teaming with intelligent life.  During all this time, other civilizations were free to evolve, free to band together, to become even larger, more advanced, and more formiddable than the feared Reapers.  You also are stuck on the idea that conquest = victory.  You forget lessons from our own history, like with the Romans, that it is easy to conquer, hard to maintain control.  The idea of the Reapers persisting for billions of years and remaining unchanged is preposterous.  They would either eventually become extinct themselves from any number of causes, or change over time to where they wouldn't be the Reapers anymore.  And no, they are not immortal.  The fact that they can be killed refutes that statement outright.

Modifié par Coyotebay, 02 juillet 2013 - 01:08 .

[hpjay]

remydat wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

And this is why I destroy them. Their logic is idiotic, and they deserve to be deleted. 

No it isn't.  Their logic is in fact very logical.  You are actually thinking with your hear and not with you mind.  In galaxy that is 13.4 billion years old and counting, the basic laws of probability (ie math which you can't get any more logical than that) dictate that the scenario the Catalyst envisions is likely to happen.

This is part of the reason why organics instinctively fear AI.  We imagine them to be entirely logical beings so they simply run the math and draw a conclusion that ignores the morality of emotional element of a decision.

You destroy them because you are the target not beause their logic is idiotic.  You probably sit there every day devouring species you consider less than you (ie animals) and simply resist the idea that you are now someone else's prey.

 

While claiming logic and math are on your side you demonstated no logical arguement nor probability calculation to show that the scenario the Catalyst envisions is likely to happen.  As mr Spock would say "highly illogical".

13.4 billion years seems like a long time.  But its only 4.5 e+17 (thats 4.5 times 10 to the 17th power) seconds.   Not even enough time to get two indentical snowflakes in all the universe.  


  

[remydat]

hpjay wrote...

While claiming logic and math are on your side you demonstated no logical arguement nor probability calculation to show that the scenario the Catalyst envisions is likely to happen.  As mr Spock would say "highly illogical".

13.4 billion years seems like a long time.  But its only 4.5 e+17 (thats 4.5 times 10 to the 17th power) seconds.   Not even enough time to get two indentical snowflakes in all the universe.  

http://activemind.co...e_equation.html

So let's take the Drake Equation and play with it.  Let's say there 400 billion stars in the galaxy.  Let's say that 50% of them have planetary systems, let's say 1 planet in each system can sustain life and that life actually evolves on this planets 50% of the time.  And then let's say Intelligent Life evolves 50% of the time on planets that have life.  Now let's change the variable of how many of those planets communicate to how many of those planets the intelligent life eventually becomes capable of creating synthetic life.  Let's put that at 50%.  Finally let's say that this intelligent life capable of creating synthetic life survives for 10,000 years while they have the ability to create synthetic life.

Plug in the numbers and that results in 25,000 civilizations with the ability to create synthetic life in our Milky Way Galaxy.  Now obviously there is no way to truly validate these numbers but the point is to just illustrate that there is a lot of potential there for a civilization to create synthetic life.  So you are counting on those 25,000 civlizations with say billiosn of people each to never have a single person within those civilizations who desires to create synthetic life because they covet money, power, or control.  Further, you then counting on any synthetic life created to never decided that organics are a threat to it.

At the end of the day only the Catalyst and Leviathan observed what happened during the Leviathan age and both the Catalyst and Leviathan agree a problem existed.  Leviathan despite being subject to the first harvest states that there was no mistake and that the Catalyst served its purpose.  So what logical reason is there to doubt the problem was real except that you don't like how the game played out and you hate the idea of the Catalyst so you just reject what it says?

[KaiserShep]

So basically, it's "We say so" when it comes to the problem, regardless of how little sense it makes.

[remydat]

Coyotebay wrote...
You continue to miss the point.  This has nothing to do with Reaper intent, it has to do with their ability to dominate the galaxy.  Your statement that there is nothning anyone in galaxy can do to stop them is based entirely on speculation.  How do you know that there is nothing anyone can do?  When the Reapers first started, there was one, then two, then four, then eight of them.  They had enough to take out one world.  It would have taken them thousands of years to make one small dent in the galaxy, millions more to make an impact that would be noticable relative to the size of the galaxy, based on your assertion that the galaxy is teaming with intelligent life.  During all this time, other civilizations were free to evolve, free to band together, to become even larger, more advanced, and more formiddable than the feared Reapers.  You also are stuck on the idea that conquest = victory.  You forget lessons from our own history, like with the Romans, that it is easy to conquer, hard to maintain control.  The idea of the Reapers persisting for billions of years and remaining unchanged is preposterous.  They would either eventually become extinct themselves from any number of causes, or change over time to where they wouldn't be the Reapers anymore.  And no, they are not immortal.  The fact that they can be killed refutes that statement outright.

The Fermi Paradox states that at any practical pace of interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized within tens of millions of years.  A synthetic race unlike an organic race can hypothetically survive for that tens of millions of years.

So given the Reapers have survived for much longer than that and if we change colonization into complete destruction, it is likely a synthetic race as advanced as the Reapers can destroy all organic life within tens of millions of years.  

Again, all they need to do is nuke or poison a planet to make it unsuitable for organic life.  In the MEU, there are only around 15 civilizations that appear to be advanced enough for space flight so once the Reapers destroy those 15 civilizations, every other civilization they encounter will have no ability to defeat a nuclear bombardment from space since none of them have attained space flight.  So the Entire Reaper fleet starts off by nuking the Batarian colonies and then systematically proceeds to the next civilization and nukes the the planet one by one.  There is no need for ground forces and the game makes it clear that the Reapers cannons can fire the equivalent of a nuclear weapon.

So once again, the only thing that gives organics a chance is that the repears use ground forces because they choose to harvest.  That and they choose to attack several different worlds at once because they want to wrap up the harvest in a few centuries.  If all they wanted to do is destroy then you attack a species one by one and with your whole fleet and just fire your nuclear weapon type cannons from space and not engage them on the ground.

[remydat]

KaiserShep wrote...

So basically, it's "We say so" when it comes to the problem, regardless of how little sense it makes.

No I already gave you the Drake Equation calculator.  You can plug in whatever numbers you deem reasonable and then come back to me with your results and then we can debate the reasonableness of those numbers given what we know about the MEU.

It is disingenous to suggest I am saying We say so when I provided a link to a calculator which is one of the only reasonable ways for us to try and have a real discussion on how plausible such a scenario is.  So the choice is yours.  You can try and put in some work to support your opinion or you can stick your head in the sand and say I hate the Catalyst so I won't believe anything it says.

Modifié par remydat, 02 juillet 2013 - 02:06 .

[KaiserShep]

I don't really care for the dark energy bit either. I would've been fine enough with the reapers not having some hokey bs goal and just operate as a virus, which is kind of what they behaved like.

[remydat]

StreetMagic wrote...

The Catalyst doesn't observe anything. It runs on auto-pilot, churning out the same directives it was created for.

Leviathan stated the Intelligence spent time observing the problem before it came up with a solution.

[remydat]

StreetMagic wrote...

Meh. They should have kept the dark energy ending. The one thing that I prefer about it is that it's a primal, implacable force you're dealing with in that case. Nature (dark energy, in this case) can create a singularity because it's mindless and doesn't give a damn either way. I can deal with this. I expect more from intelligent beings though.

Dark Energy plot makes no sense for the simple reason that ME takes place in a single galaxy.  The idea that a single galaxy use of biotics could wreck the entire universe (if I understand how Dark Energy Plot works) is pretty ridiculous.  

Further, since there are billions of galaxies it is virtually impossible to believe that the Milky Way was the only galaxy to have organics develop the use of biotics so we would have to believe an entity like the Reapers exist in all those billions of galaxies in order for those galaxies to not have already destroyed the universe with their use of biotics.

Of course, you could argue this problem also exists with the whole synthetic vs organics but it is less so because as far as we know a synthetic race may already have destroyed all organic life in another galaxy in which the Reapers were never created but due to the size of the universe that synthetic race has simply not made it to our galaxy yet as if such a synthetic race existed it would likely exist at the edge of the observable universe which is something like 15 billion light years away.

[Wolfva2]

katamuro wrote...

Its not just a computer it is an adaptable AI, and to increase efficiency of the programmed task it would have gone to great lengths to try different things.

Anyway The catalyst and the reaper explanation in game is not consistent with themes and lore of the game hence it is rubbish and they should have tried harder or tried less to create something better. there is no "oh you nearly got it" prize and what Bioware and Casey Hudson gave us was not even close. And I do love the games I will never accept the reaper and catalyst explanations as logical and fitting to the ME universe. That is my bit on this issue and I am going to sleep now.

If this was a phylosophical treatise designed to make us think about the posibilities of Synthetic life, and how it could effect the galaxy, I'd agree with you that they should have tried harder to create something better.  But...it isn't.  It's JUST A FREAKING GAME.  They didn't design it to be accurate, they designed it to be FUN.  Granted, some people find accuracy fun.  For those people, there's a nice game designed by NASA that lets you pilot the shuttle and explore the galaxy.  Well, the solar system anyways.  Or so I've heard; I find actual space simulators boring.  But that's just me...and it's why I play games like ME as opposed to true astro-simulators. 

Oh yeah, inre the whole WWII subthread...there is a big difference between Technological capability and Technological ability.  Germany had the ability; but not the capability.  They could design highly accurate V2s and jet fighters, but they didn't have the ability to mass produce them.

Example.  Let's say you're a blacksmith.  You make great swords.  You get shipwrecked on a deserted island with no ore.  You have the Technological ABILITY (or know how) to make a sword, but you lack the CAPABILITY (ore or iron heavy plants) to produce one.  Overly simplified, I know.  But I'm a simple fella <shrug>.

[Phatose]

Actual space simulators boring?

Somebody get Wolfva a copy of Kerbal Space Program, stat.