257 réponses à ce sujet

[Coyotebay]

Remydat, I know exactly what the Fermi Paradox is about and what colonization means.  The Fermi Paradox only states that it is possible for an alien race to colonize the galaxy over millions of years, not that it should have happened by now.  It simply asks a question.  Plenty of reasons why the galaxy would not have been completely colonized.  The statement that the Reaper "solution" is why this galactic colonization never occurred might explain it, but that is not what we're arguing about.  You argue that it is logical that the Reapers have the motivation and the capability to maintain dominance and control over the galaxy, and I say no, they can't.  You say that without the Reapers, the Protheans would dominate and control the galaxy.  And I say no, they can't.  Too many worlds, too much vastness, too much decentralization.  Logically, it cannot be sustained.  Reapers/Protheans/Whomever are not immortal.  Their civilizations will eventually collapse and disperse because that is the natural order of things.  And in the their wake you will have new life and new civilizations emerge.  And if you expand beyond our own galaxy and bring in the rest of the universe, you will one day have a race from another galaxy coming into ours and changing things up again.

[remydat]

David7204 wrote...

We're back at this very uncomfortable place of simultaneously demanding that the Catalyst be right and demanding that he be wrong.

I have a simple question to ask. Do you want the Reapers to be right, or do you want them to be wrong?

Depends on what you you are referring to.  I think the Catalyst is right that a potential problem exists, I think they are wrong in how they choose to resolve that problem.

Whatever their concerns about a future synthetic threat, it is up to organics to either survive or die.  If the Catalyst wants to intervene it should do so only when said threat is more eminent.

Now maybe the Catalyst felt it could not do that because of resource contraints ie the harvest allows them to conserve energy while hibernating for 50k years as opposed to if they were constantly involved organic affairs trying to maintain the peace but that is just speculation.

In any event, where people run afoul is that they want the Catalyst to be all wrong or all right.  It had a fair reason to be concerned about the potential synthetic threat but it implement a solution that simply was too extreme and too premature.

[Coyotebay]

The main reason organic empires appear to rise and fall is because Alexander the Great can give birth to an idiot for a son.  And that idiot for a son can't hold the empire together in the same manner Alexander the Great can.  However, if Alexander the Great never died and simply acquired more and more knowledge and did not get bored of acquiring knowledge and did not get distracted by screwing women, he would have a much greater chance of maintaining his Greek dominance.

This is just plain wrong.  All civilizations eventually collapse, and there are a million reasons why.  You oversimplifying things to the extreme.

[remydat]

Coyotebay wrote...

Remydat, I know exactly what the Fermi Paradox is about and what colonization means.  The Fermi Paradox only states that it is possible for an alien race to colonize the galaxy over millions of years, not that it should have happened by now.  It simply asks a question.  Plenty of reasons why the galaxy would not have been completely colonized.  The statement that the Reaper "solution" is why this galactic colonization never occurred might explain it, but that is not what we're arguing about.  You argue that it is logical that the Reapers have the motivation and the capability to maintain dominance and control over the galaxy, and I say no, they can't.  You say that without the Reapers, the Protheans would dominate and control the galaxy.  And I say no, they can't.  Too many worlds, too much vastness, too much decentralization.  Logically, it cannot be sustained.  Reapers/Protheans/Whomever are not immortal.  Their civilizations will eventually collapse and disperse because that is the natural order of things.  And in the their wake you will have new life and new civilizations emerge.  And if you expand beyond our own galaxy and bring in the rest of the universe, you will one day have a race from another galaxy coming into ours and changing things up again.

At any practical pace of interstellar travel, the galaxy can be completely colonized in a few tens of millions of years.  According to this line of thinking, the Earth should have already been colonized, or at least visited

http://en.wikipedia....i/Fermi_paradox 

Look that is what the wiki says.  It say according to the paradox, the Earth should have already been colonized or at least visited.  So yes the logic of the paradox does suggest colonization should likely already have occurred.  If you disagree then go take it up with wiki not me.

With respect to the MEU you have no evidence that the Prothean empire would collapse.  We don't know how long the Leviathan empire lasted but it appears to have lasted well past 50k years.  The only thing that stopped them enthralling the galalxy was the Intelligence.  

Once a civilization has mastered inter-stellar travel, solved any internal conflict, and has learned how to harness the resources of the galaxy the only thing that can stop them really are themselves.  

So this is the problem with your assessment.  Organics die.  They die and they are replaced.  Even so they can dominate the known galaxy as we saw with the Leviathan, the Protheans, and the Council but they are always at risk because they can die and the great leaders that built the empire can potentially be replaced by ineffectual leaders and the empire can decline.  So all we can say for certain from organic civilizations is that despite the fact their leaders die and potentially are replaced by ineffective leaders, we still see evidence in the MEU of the dominant species controlling the other species.

Now where synthetics diverge is that they are potentially immortal.  The same leaders who led the empire to rise can potentially rule forever.  And worse they can continue to add to the knowledge that lead to their rise.  They potentially don't get bored from working or learning and they don't get distracted by sex, kids, or all the other things that can pull organics away from conquest.

So you comparison is completely off.  You speak of the natural order of things as if a synthetic race that is immortal and is not subject to organic distractions, vices, or limitations is natural.

Modifié par remydat, 02 juillet 2013 - 06:37 .

[KaiserShep]

Enhanced wrote...
I think you misunderstand. The Catalyst never said or implied that peace isn't possibe. He says "The peace won't last".  Can you provide of enough evidence to disprove that theory? If not, you are just "telling" me that it will last.

The fact that peace only happens through fear, makes doubt that it would last. Basically, it's fear that started the Geth War.

"The peace won't last" is such a meaningless statement. That's like saying any peace is invalid if it's not consistent forever. I'm not about to entertain that kind of mindset. 

Also, it's impossible to prove or disprove a prediction. It basically has to happen. When is it supposed to come true? Tomorrow? 10 years from now? 1000 years? Why should I take that seriously? 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 02 juillet 2013 - 06:45 .

[remydat]

Coyotebay wrote...

This is just plain wrong.  All civilizations eventually collapse, and there are a million reasons why.  You oversimplifying things to the extreme.

Sorry, have you come across an organic civilization whose leaders were immortal?  If so, your claim that this is just plain wrong cannot be proven.

When the Roman Empire fell, was it the same leaders that lead to its rise?  When the Chinese Empire fell, was it the same leaders that lead to its rise?  When the Mongolian Emprie fell, was it Genghis Khan that led to the fall?  When the Greek/Macedonian Empire fell, was it Alexander the Great that lead to the fall?

You are denying reality.  Organics die.  They are replaced.  Sometimes the replacements suck and the empire suffers because of it.

[KaiserShep]

It's not guaranteed to be worse. Predictions are for charlatans and weathermen. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 02 juillet 2013 - 06:53 .

[Enhanced]

KaiserShep wrote...

Enhanced wrote...
I think you misunderstand. The Catalyst never said or implied that peace isn't possibe. He says "The peace won't last".  Can you provide of enough evidence to disprove that theory? If not, you are just "telling" me that it will last.

The fact that peace only happens through fear, makes doubt that it would last. Basically, it's fear that started the Geth War.

"The peace won't last" is such a meaningless statement. That's like saying any peace is invalid if it's not consistent forever. I'm not about to entertain that kind of mindset. 

Also, it's impossible to prove or disprove a prediction. It basically has to happen. When is it supposed to come true? Tomorrow? 10 years from now? 1000 years? Why should I take that seriously? 

When peace stops and a war does happen, the synthetics may have already surpassed their creators. The creators eventually get wiped out, as the Leviathans and Catalyst have witnessed.

Modifié par Enhanced, 02 juillet 2013 - 06:56 .

[KaiserShep]

May have. The Easter bunny could release a bio weapon that eradicates mankind. It's all a premonition. There's nothing to prove, only to speculate, and with no idea as to the scale of time, aside from the litany of other variables, its statement remains meaningless.

[Enhanced]

KaiserShep wrote...

May have. The Easter bunny could release a bio weapon that eradicates mankind. It's all a premonition. There's nothing to prove, only to speculate, and with no idea as to the scale of time, aside from the litany of other variables, its statement remains meaningless.

So, you believe that they are lying? They didn't see it happen ?

Modifié par Enhanced, 02 juillet 2013 - 07:08 .

[KaiserShep]

I didn't say anything about lying; I simply insist that it's just as likely to be absolutely wrong in its prediction.

You're going to get mugged. How do I know? It happens to lots of people around the world on a regular basis. You can't prove that I'm wrong in my prediction. You can only insist that you could live out your entire life without it happening. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 02 juillet 2013 - 07:15 .

[katamuro]

KaiserShep wrote...

I didn't say anything about lying; I simply insist that it's just as likely to be absolutely wrong in its prediction.

You're going to get mugged. How do I know? It happens to lots of people around the world on a regular basis. You can't prove that I'm wrong in my prediction. You can only insist that you could live out your entire life without it happening. 

Exactly, even if someone sees something happening for several years it is possible that next year it wont happen because several reasons come together for it to happen. An AI that could design and build mass relays and citadel and engineer the keepers should be able to see that probability of such a thing always happening is false and their efforts would have been better used to prevent when it happens instead of killing off trillions when they reached the ability to create a true synthetic life. 

What I am arguing about is that the reason for Reaper solution is illogical because it is the reapers who do it. If it was a less advanced AI or just a robotic enemy with simple commands that can only see in absolutes then it would have fit in. But because Reapers are so advanced they had the ability and time to come up with a much better solution than a galaxy wide selective genocide. If they did not claim to be so superior and did not have the time and technology they had then their argument would be valid as within their limited ability it would have been the only solution they could do. But we know that Reapers are repositories of millions of years of accumulated knowledge and all information of every species ever existed. it is just a sudden attack of enormous stupidity to claim that over millions of years with their technology and knowledge the only thing they came up with was the solution they were using.  

[AlanC9]

Coyotebay wrote...
And you again ignore that in those first tens of millions of years, there was plenty of time for other races to evolve in parts of the galaxy the Reapers hadn't been to yet.  You base your argument on the certainty that the Reapers are alone and in control of everything, when it is all just pure fantasy.  If the galaxy really is teaming with thousands upon thousands of worlds with intelligent life, the Reapers logistically couldn't have kept up and many of those would have evolved to equal or surpass the Reapers.  

Show me the math here. I don't see any rational basis for it taking the reapers anything like tens of milions of years to survey every star in the galaxy. They don't need an actual Reaper visit to every star; a drone with a sensor package would do just fine.

[AlanC9]

katamuro wrote...
What I am arguing about is that the reason for Reaper solution is illogical because it is the reapers who do it. If it was a less advanced AI or just a robotic enemy with simple commands that can only see in absolutes then it would have fit in. But because Reapers are so advanced they had the ability and time to come up with a much better solution than a galaxy wide selective genocide. If they did not claim to be so superior and did not have the time and technology they had then their argument would be valid as within their limited ability it would have been the only solution they could do. But we know that Reapers are repositories of millions of years of accumulated knowledge and all information of every species ever existed. it is just a sudden attack of enormous stupidity to claim that over millions of years with their technology and knowledge the only thing they came up with was the solution they were using.  

Sure Unfortunately, ME1 didn't leave much room for a rational Reaper plan, especially since one of the constraints is that the Reapers were (at least arguably) wrong, assuming I'm right about that being the design intent.

50,000 years is just way too long to wait if you're trying to accomplish something.

[katamuro]

AlanC9 wrote...

katamuro wrote...
What I am arguing about is that the reason for Reaper solution is illogical because it is the reapers who do it. If it was a less advanced AI or just a robotic enemy with simple commands that can only see in absolutes then it would have fit in. But because Reapers are so advanced they had the ability and time to come up with a much better solution than a galaxy wide selective genocide. If they did not claim to be so superior and did not have the time and technology they had then their argument would be valid as within their limited ability it would have been the only solution they could do. But we know that Reapers are repositories of millions of years of accumulated knowledge and all information of every species ever existed. it is just a sudden attack of enormous stupidity to claim that over millions of years with their technology and knowledge the only thing they came up with was the solution they were using.  

Sure Unfortunately, ME1 didn't leave much room for a rational Reaper plan, especially since one of the constraints is that the Reapers were (at least arguably) wrong, assuming I'm right about that being the design intent.

50,000 years is just way too long to wait if you're trying to accomplish something.

ME1 just introduced reapers. It did not reveal any specifics at all. As I said in a previous post they should have gone with something simpler like the Reapers are cyberorganic constructs that need influx of fresh organic matter every 50k years or so. Hence they are reapers the ultimate predator. Even in ME2 we did not know anything about them. It is only in ME3 and in the last 5 minutes of it that it all goes ****** up because they tried to go for a more cerebral idea and failed producing some kind of twisted unfinished ending with huge plot holes and lore disrepancies

[Coyotebay]

remydat wrote...

Coyotebay wrote...

This is just plain wrong.  All civilizations eventually collapse, and there are a million reasons why.  You oversimplifying things to the extreme.

Sorry, have you come across an organic civilization whose leaders were immortal?  If so, your claim that this is just plain wrong cannot be proven.

When the Roman Empire fell, was it the same leaders that lead to its rise?  When the Chinese Empire fell, was it the same leaders that lead to its rise?  When the Mongolian Emprie fell, was it Genghis Khan that led to the fall?  When the Greek/Macedonian Empire fell, was it Alexander the Great that lead to the fall?

You are denying reality.  Organics die.  They are replaced.  Sometimes the replacements suck and the empire suffers because of it.

This argument is just becoming too silly to continue.  No, just because a single ruler is immortal does not mean the empire will last forever.  As was posted father up-thread, your position is like the person who claims there is a bigfoot, and you just can't prove him wrong unless you scour every single inch of the face of the Earth for one.  I don't have to show evidence of an immortal ruler whose empire collapsed to prove my point.  Basic laws governing any system, be it physical, biological, governmental, societal, whatever - state in no uncertain terms that it cannot remain static indefinitely.  Period.  No one will ever rule anything forever, immortal or not.

Modifié par Coyotebay, 02 juillet 2013 - 09:09 .

[AlanC9]

katamuro wrote...
ME1 just introduced reapers. It did not reveal any specifics at all. As I said in a previous post they should have gone with something simpler like the Reapers are cyberorganic constructs that need influx of fresh organic matter every 50k years or so. Hence they are reapers the ultimate predator. Even in ME2 we did not know anything about them. It is only in ME3 and in the last 5 minutes of it that it all goes ****** up because they tried to go for a more cerebral idea and failed producing some kind of twisted unfinished ending with huge plot holes and lore disrepancies

So as long as they didn't try to explain anything it worked for you?

Needing a refill every 50K years doesn't explain the cycles. If you want to harvest organics you farm them. The cycles are horribly inefficient as a farming operation; it's OK for the Reapers to be inefficient, but they can't be inefficient at something that's truly vital to their own existence.

[Coyotebay]

AlanC9 wrote...

Coyotebay wrote...
And you again ignore that in those first tens of millions of years, there was plenty of time for other races to evolve in parts of the galaxy the Reapers hadn't been to yet.  You base your argument on the certainty that the Reapers are alone and in control of everything, when it is all just pure fantasy.  If the galaxy really is teaming with thousands upon thousands of worlds with intelligent life, the Reapers logistically couldn't have kept up and many of those would have evolved to equal or surpass the Reapers.  

Show me the math here. I don't see any rational basis for it taking the reapers anything like tens of milions of years to survey every star in the galaxy. They don't need an actual Reaper visit to every star; a drone with a sensor package would do just fine.

Not for them to survey every star, for them to literally go out and visit every living planet in the galaxy and conquer it.  In the millions of years it would take to do that, other civilizations are growing and evolving.

Modifié par Coyotebay, 02 juillet 2013 - 09:15 .

[AlanC9]

Coyotebay wrote...

Not for them to survery every star, for them to literally go out and visit every living planet in the galaxy and conquer it.  In the millions of years it would take to do that, other civilizations are growing and evolving.

I still don't see the problem.

Like I said, show me the math.

[Coyotebay]

AlanC9 wrote...

Coyotebay wrote...

Not for them to survery every star, for them to literally go out and visit every living planet in the galaxy and conquer it.  In the millions of years it would take to do that, other civilizations are growing and evolving.

I still don't see the problem.

Like I said, show me the math.

What do you mean by "problem"?  If it takes a civilization millions of years to visit every system and every living planet in the galaxy, that means other civilizations have millions of years to grow and expand before encountering them.  The Reapers could not have encountered every other civilization in the galaxy before many of them became advanced.

Modifié par Coyotebay, 02 juillet 2013 - 09:17 .

[AlanC9]

I don't see why it would take millions of years. That's the problem.

[KaiserShep]

The reapers clearly do not use probes to find targets. The prothean scientists on ilos got away just by erasing records.

Math won't do much good for this because too many factors are unknown. How many reapers, how many stars, how much time it takes to survey each, how long it takes to reach each star beyond te relay network. The sheer vastness of the galaxy makes it a pretty lengthy undertaking. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 02 juillet 2013 - 09:28 .

[Coyotebay]

AlanC9 wrote...

I don't see why it would take millions of years. That's the problem.

We have so far visited just our own moon.  By the next millenium we will likely have just colonized the moon and Mars. So that's two down, a hundred billion to go.  Factor in time, distance, resources required.  You are talking millions of years given how colossal the galaxy is.  Fermi's own estimate is in the millions or tens of millions.

[David7204]

They survived in an underground bunker with probably less than a thousand people. Not enough to sustain a population.

[David7204]

Coyotebay wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

I don't see why it would take millions of years. That's the problem.

We have so far visited just our own moon.  By the next millenium we will likely have just colonized the moon and Mars. So that's two down, a hundred billion to go.  Factor in time, distance, resources required.  You are talking millions of years given how colossal the galaxy is.  Fermi's own estimate is in the millions or tens of millions.

'Next millenium'?

Try a century, and maybe I'll listen.