257 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

KaiserShep wrote...

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

I thought we were talking about doing an initial survey, not what happened during the prothean cycle.

Anyway, Vigil says that his base severed all communication with the outside, went dark, and everyone retreated underground to wait out the danger in stasis. So erasing records isn't all they did.

[AlanC9]

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.

You shouldn't have mentioned time and distances there since in the MEU interstellar travel is almost free and instantaneous if we're talking about  timescales in the thousands of years.

Fermi's giving a figure for colonizing the entire galaxy, not for charting it and finding all the intelligent life. His figures also assumed no FTL.  You don't seem to be able to keep straight exactly which one of these you're talking about.

Modifié par AlanC9, 02 juillet 2013 - 09:52 .

[katamuro]

AlanC9 wrote...

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.

I just meant that as an example of something simpler and sinister. there could be all kinds of why and how, all I am saying is that the "we kill all of you to save the future organics from hypothetical war with synthetics" is just not what can be considered a fitting explanation. They could have not explained it at all. remain a mystery have some kind of Reaper - Shepard stand off. Shepard ready to pull the trigger to kill all of the Reapers, Harbringer shows up tries to screw with shepards head saying stuff like "This is your salvation, We are your only future". 

Or the Reaper could have been created as immortal repositories of species, initiall created from the species that were on the brink of some kind of catastrophy or extinction and they made a mistake in the program or the converting process drove the first reaper insane so that it would consider that its mission is to preserve each species that had advanced enough in the reaper form. And the 50k cycle just a median time of such civilizations to occur. So it comes out that they do want to preserve the species but against the wishes. So it is still evil and revolting but all the taunts and things the Reapers say are still true.

[remydat]

Coyotebay wrote...

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.

Clearly you are missing the point.  The Synthetic race are virtually immortal not just leaders.  And who said anything about something remaining static.  The fact is this immortal race of beings also possess the ability to digest vast amounts of knowledge and far exceeds an organic's ability to retain knowledge.  This immortal race has the ability to continue learning.

So no, you theory makes no sense.  Basic laws operate under the assumption that things die.

The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sāla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind

This is one of my favorite literary quotes and I think it is fitting for this situation.  As the above illustrates the reason why there is an ebb and flow to life is because things wither and die.  The Gion Shoja bell is rung when a patient is dying.  The color of the sala flowers change because a flower ages, withers, and dies.  The proud do not endure because eventually they die.

Death is the great equalizer.  Doesn't matter how prosperous a civilization is the fact its people wither and die means there is always a risk that the next generation is not as intelligent or adept at managing the empire.  You comparing that to an ageless race that never dies and can continually acquire new knowledge is simply implausible.  It is not apples to apples.  It is not even apples to oranges.  It is like comparing apples to a nuclear weapon.  There is no comparison.

[AlanC9]

katamuro wrote...
I just meant that as an example of something simpler and sinister. there could be all kinds of why and how, all I am saying is that the "we kill all of you to save the future organics from hypothetical war with synthetics" is just not what can be considered a fitting explanation. They could have not explained it at all. remain a mystery have some kind of Reaper - Shepard stand off. Shepard ready to pull the trigger to kill all of the Reapers, Harbringer shows up tries to screw with shepards head saying stuff like "This is your salvation, We are your only future".

This strikes me as far worse than what we did get.

Or the Reaper could have been created as immortal repositories of species, initiall created from the species that were on the brink of some kind of catastrophy or extinction and they made a mistake in the program or the converting process drove the first reaper insane so that it would consider that its mission is to preserve each species that had advanced enough in the reaper form. And the 50k cycle just a median time of such civilizations to occur. So it comes out that they do want to preserve the species but against the wishes. So it is still evil and revolting but all the taunts and things the Reapers say are still true.

This works, but I don't see it as much of an improvement

[remydat]

And to clarify it would take a civilization tens of millions of years based on conventional modes of travel. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter. In the MEU with Mass Relays and FTL travel which the Fermi Paradox never contemplated you can likely traverse the galaxy much faster.

This is especially true if we assume that the known galaxy in this cycle (ie that 1% explored) is not the same as it was for all the countless cycles that came before it. Most likely the Reapers have mass relays all across the galaxy ie including the 99% of the galaxy that organics in this cycle don't know about but since the organics that once lived in those parts of the galaxy were harvest already countless cyles ago, we are never shown those relays because no advanced civilizations currently live there.

Modifié par remydat, 02 juillet 2013 - 10:00 .

[katamuro]

AlanC9 wrote...

katamuro wrote...
I just meant that as an example of something simpler and sinister. there could be all kinds of why and how, all I am saying is that the "we kill all of you to save the future organics from hypothetical war with synthetics" is just not what can be considered a fitting explanation. They could have not explained it at all. remain a mystery have some kind of Reaper - Shepard stand off. Shepard ready to pull the trigger to kill all of the Reapers, Harbringer shows up tries to screw with shepards head saying stuff like "This is your salvation, We are your only future".

This strikes me as far worse than what we did get.

Or the Reaper could have been created as immortal repositories of species, initiall created from the species that were on the brink of some kind of catastrophy or extinction and they made a mistake in the program or the converting process drove the first reaper insane so that it would consider that its mission is to preserve each species that had advanced enough in the reaper form. And the 50k cycle just a median time of such civilizations to occur. So it comes out that they do want to preserve the species but against the wishes. So it is still evil and revolting but all the taunts and things the Reapers say are still true.

This works, but I don't see it as much of an improvement

Come on you dont expect me coming up alone in 5 minutes with something far better? I am just saying there are alternatives that might be more logical than what we had. i personally would have accepted the twisted idea that saving us by turning into a reaper is an insane idea of a cyberorganic construct gone mad. Instead we get a "this is the truth the only truth and the only way how total annihilation by hypothetic nonexistant synthetic species is prevented". 

[AlanC9]

No , I didn't. I'm just pointing out that ME1 dug a pretty deep hole here.

[remydat]

Actually just did some quick math. The Reapers took 200 years to defeat all advanced organic life in the Prothean Cycle. Mind you this is with the harvest requiring them to fight ground wars instead of just nuking planets from the sky. Even so, if we assume the Protheans had only discovered 1% of the galaxy like this current cycle then 200 / 1% suggests it would take 20,000 years for the Reapers to finish off the rest of the galaxy.

The estimate assumes they have mass relays all across the galaxy but even if they didn't, the fact they just need to nuke a planet instead of fight time consuming ground wars and the fact that after wiping out advanced organic life, they will be facing a bunch of primitive organics who haven't even achieved space flight likely offsets things any additional travel time.

So yeah organics in the galaxy would probably get wiped out a lot quicker than tens of millions of years given the tech in the MEU.

[AlanC9]

remydat wrote...

And to clarify it would take a civilization tens of millions of years based on conventional modes of travel. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter. In the MEU with Mass Relays and FTL travel which the Fermi Paradox never contemplated you can likely traverse the galaxy much faster.

This is especially true if we assume that the known galaxy in this cycle (ie that 1% explored) is not the same as it was for all the countless cycles that came before it. Most likely the Reapers have mass relays all across the galaxy ie including the 99% of the galaxy that organics in this cycle don't know about but since the organics that once lived in those parts of the galaxy were harvest already countless cyles ago, we are never shown those relays because no advanced civilizations currently live there.

Well, I think the argument is about the Reapers never being able to conquer the galaxy in the first place, not about what they can do after they've conquered it and set up the relays.

One billion years ago, how many planets with intelligent life were there? What fraction of those species had discovered agriculture?

Anyway, let's say there were a  number of spacefaring species. Why would they be able to outdevelop the Reapers? The Reapers don't build thousands and thousands of robot battleships because they don't need to, not because they didn't have the capability.

[Coyotebay]

remydat wrote...

Clearly you are missing the point.  The Synthetic race are virtually immortal not just leaders.  And who said anything about something remaining static.  The fact is this immortal race of beings also possess the ability to digest vast amounts of knowledge and far exceeds an organic's ability to retain knowledge.  This immortal race has the ability to continue learning.

So no, you theory makes no sense.  Basic laws operate under the assumption that things die.

The sound of the Gion Shōja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sāla flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind

This is one of my favorite literary quotes and I think it is fitting for this situation.  As the above illustrates the reason why there is an ebb and flow to life is because things wither and die.  The Gion Shoja bell is rung when a patient is dying.  The color of the sala flowers change because a flower ages, withers, and dies.  The proud do not endure because eventually they die.

Death is the great equalizer.  Doesn't matter how prosperous a civilization is the fact its people wither and die means there is always a risk that the next generation is not as intelligent or adept at managing the empire.  You comparing that to an ageless race that never dies and can continually acquire new knowledge is simply implausible.  It is not apples to apples.  It is not even apples to oranges.  It is like comparing apples to a nuclear weapon.  There is no comparison.

I haven't missed any point.  There is nothing to suggest that synthetic races are immortal, and even if we accept for the sake of argument that they are immortal or close to it, it does not change anything.  To win your point, chaos theory and the definition of deterministic systems has to be completely rewritten.  Whether or not somethign dies does not change the underlying laws.  Even in your example of Alexander the Great you showed your basic lack of understanding of this.  Even if Alexander was immortal and even if he did everything right, his empire STILL would have collapsed eventually because of the myriad of things he can't control.  Only in a static universe does your model work.

Alan, the Reapers had to build the network of mass relays first to accelerate their travel through the MEU.  That would have taken a lot of time, and even with time and distance shortened, the task is still enormous.  And again, regardless of whether it is millions of years or tens of thousands of years to encounter every system in the galaxy, during that timeframe there are going to be other civilizations at least on par with the reapers, including synthetic ones.  You can just say for the sake of this story that there aren't, and you can ignore that the entirety of the Reaper fleet presented in the game is nowhere near enough to conquer and maintain control of a galaxy (for the story they were just focused on the smaller scale of the known galaxy in question so this can be forgiven), but you can't really say that if you looked at if logically, the Reapers would just sail around the galaxy conquering everyone without finding an equal or someone stronger than them.

Anyway I can argue this back and forth with you until I'm blue in the face, but it's getting old.  I simply do not agree that the Reapers nor any alien super race, be they immortal and have mass relays or whatever, can conquer a galaxy and control it for a meaningful length of time.  It is simply not plausible, and you have to ignore or dismiss a million different variables - any one of which can cause a fail - for it to be true.

[remydat]

AlanC9 wrote...

Well, I think the argument is about the Reapers never being able to conquer the galaxy in the first place, not about what they can do after they've conquered it and set up the relays.

One billion years ago, how many planets with intelligent life were there? What fraction of those species had discovered agriculture?

Anyway, let's say there were a  number of spacefaring species. Why would they be able to outdevelop the Reapers? The Reapers don't build thousands and thousands of robot battleships because they don't need to, not because they didn't have the capability.

They would still being able to conquer it in less than tens of millions of years because they still have FTL travel.  The diameter of the galaxy is 100,000 light years.  If they can travel say 10 times FTL then that shrinks it to 10,000 years. 

The Fermi Paradox never contemplated FTL travel.  Once you factor that in and the fact that all the Reapers have to do is nuke or use chemical weapons on a planet rather than commit ground troops, they could easily conquer the galaxy in less time than the Fermi Paradox contemplates.

Modifié par remydat, 02 juillet 2013 - 10:29 .

[AlanC9]

Coyotebay wrote...
 And again, regardless of whether it is millions of years or tens of thousands of years to encounter every system in the galaxy, during that timeframe there are going to be other civilizations at least on par with the reapers, including synthetic ones. 

Whether it's millions or thousands of years to encounter every system matters. Anatomically modern humans existed for something like 200,000 years before developing technology.

And why are you assuming that the Reapers will be stagnant in their own technological and industrial development during those years? Sure, the Reapers go stagnant after they've conquered the galaxy, but why would they choose to go stagnant before conquering it?

[remydat]

Coyotebay wrote...

I haven't missed any point.  There is nothing to suggest that synthetic races are immortal, and even if we accept for the sake of argument that they are immortal or close to it, it does not change anything.  To win your point, chaos theory and the definition of deterministic systems has to be completely rewritten.  Whether or not somethign dies does not change the underlying laws.  Even in your example of Alexander the Great you showed your basic lack of understanding of this.  Even if Alexander was immortal and even if he did everything right, his empire STILL would have collapsed eventually because of the myriad of things he can't control.  Only in a static universe does your model work.

If Harbinger is not immortal what is he?  He has been around since the Leviathan Age.  Legion states clearly the Geth have backups and re-create themselves from those backups.  When Legion is killed during the Collector mission, you get a Legion VI that represents his memories and experiences based on the last time he backed himself up prior to the mission.  So not sure what you are talking about that there is no evidence that synthetics are practically immortal.

And please explain how chaos theory is relevant in this situation?  What laws are you referring to and what does those laws say about something that cannot die and can continually obtain new knowledge? 

[katamuro]

Immortality implies that something cannot be killed. Harbinger can be killed, the reapers are just extremely long living cyberorganic constructs that also are extremely hard to kill. Not immortal. A geth can be killed if it is too far to get downloaded back into the mainframe or as we ourselves know if the mainframe is corrupted or compromised can also be killed. So where exactly are those immortal synthetics? They are very hard to kill but that is about it. Also the legion VI is quite different than legion. Geth are collection of software and as software if they are not kept up to date than the individuality is lost when the most recent or experienced version is killed in the battle.

[hpjay]

remydat wrote...

1st - I assume nothing.  I am not suggesting synthetics will try to exterminate organics.  I am saying it is possible that is all.  You are trying to pretend it is impossible when you have no way to prove it is.

2nd - I have no argument.  I am telling you the Catalyst's argument.  Leviathan and Catalyst both claim they observed a problem.  They are currently the only entities in the game that have any knowledge of what happens when an advanced space faring species survives past 50k years and creates a synthetic race.  So until we see a cycle surive past 50k years, you are in no position to claim the Catalyst is wrong.   It is not my fault the game does not provide you with evidence for your claim. 

3rd - No you guys are claiming a story is illogical when the only two species in the story that have survived past 50k years have told you there was a problem.  Then you are telling me the story is illogical when it is obviously a derivative of a real world thought experiment (ie idea from the Fermi Paradox that an alien nation should have colonized the galaxy by now).  The game resolves this real world paradox by introducing a species (the Reapers) that basically prevents any species (organic or synthetic) from achieving what the Fermi Paradox says they should have by exterminating advanced organic and synthetic life every 50k years before they can take over the galaxy.. 

So whether you find a reason or not is irrelevant.  The question is whether it is possible.  Even if we ignore the synthetic question the answer to that question is yes.  Without the Reapers for example, even if there were no synthetics, the Protheans would have essentially colonized the rest of the galaxy as they had already subjugated everyone else and were tinkering with the young species in our cycle.  Are you going to tell me that humans back when they were still drawing paintings on caves were in a position to defeat the Protheans?  Javik made it clear, you join the empire or you die.  Hell what did the Leviathan do if not enslave their thralls so that they could serve them?  That is two organic species and left unchecked their ultimate desires was to control the lesser species that they considered inferior to them.  

The only difference between the Protheans/Leviathan and a synthetic race is the Protheans/Leviathan likely had a use for other species as slaves and their thralls.  Why should they toil when they can get their slaves to do it for them.  Synthetics as Javik notes have no need for organics.  They don't tire from work or presumably get bored so there is no need for them to enslave or tolerate our existence.  Maybe they will be kind and tolerate us or maybe they decide that there is no reason for them to share the resources of the galaxy with a species that offers them nothing in return?

 

You need to educate yourself on the nature of a circular argument. The best I can figure your arguement hasn't gotten beyond its probable that the robot apocalypse will happen cause the universe is big and old and its very probable to happen in that environment.  Thats a circular argument.  Your conclusion is in your premise. 

Also, you didn't state that the robot apocalypse is simply possible... you stated that "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".   You stated affirmatively that the robot apocalypse is likely to happen.  You made the claim, you need to support it.  Its not incumbant apon me to prove anything, I'm asking you to support your arguement.  You claimed math and logic were on your side, yet you haven't used anything but probability to weakly support the possibility that there are a large number of galactice civilizations.  

And I'll say it.  Drake missed two big factors in his  equation  one is the need for a dual planet (or planet moon system) like the earth moon system.  the other is the need of a cleanup planet like jupiter to keep the solar debris like enough that the doesn't get blasted by major impact events.

These prior points are about things in the real world.   I'm pointing that out because you arguements shift suddenly from discussions about real world possibilitis to in game narative.  Its almost like you don't differentiate between the two.   You also went off on somestuff that I don't even know what...    Quote: " Are you going to tell me that humans back when they were still drawing paintings on caves were in a position to defeat the Protheans?
"   I can't even fathom what the heck that was in response to.  Or why your trying to put words inb my mouth.


Referring to IN STORY elements, I said that :

" The authors can make anything they want to thappen, happen. But that doesn't make it either logical nor likely.

I personally find no reason why an intelligent, sapient race would want to destroy another, simply because one is based on carbon and the other on silicon.

In story... if the authors wanted us to beleive in the robot apocolypse, they should not have let us make freinds with them in ME2 and ME3."

The first bit is a rebuttal that logic and probability on on your side.  It was a reminder that just because the writers put something in the story doesn't make it likely or logical.  My beef is that in a narative you should not show me one thing and then at the end tell me something different.  In the ME case, don't show me that robots can be friendly and let me make friends with them; don't let me think I overcame a deep prejudicial belief common in the story world; and then simply tell me at the end it was wrong and that those robots are really a danger to the entire galaxy.  That is bad narrative, that is bad story telling.  A story should use dramatic action to illistrate its points, not exposition.  That would be like ending Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with random new character telling you that Joey and John will end up in divorce court while race riots ravage the country.  It is a narrative inconsistancy.

Modifié par hpjay, 02 juillet 2013 - 11:58 .

[Coyotebay]

When I was going for my masters, I took classes in systems dynamics and quantitative analysis.  One of my projects was building a dynamic model of harbor seals in Alaska, and showing how if you change any of handful of factors by a little bit you cause their population to plummet catastrophically.  You can do the same thing with the Reaper harvest model.  If you take Drake's equation and start with, say, 10,000 worlds with intelligent life on them, probably 1% would be in the advanced stage, with the other 99% somewhere between the stone age and our own 21st century.  So 100 worlds with advanced sapients on them.  The Reapers harvest them, then go away for 50,000 years.  Now you are down to 9,900 worlds with intelligent life on them.  Add back maybe 10 from the million worlds with some form of life on them (and that's generous, as only a tiny fraction of one percernt of these worlds would only be 50,000 years away from producing the next intelligent species), and you have 9,910 total.  During the next 50,000 years, another 1% hit advanced stage, so that's 99 worlds.  The Reapers harvest them.  Now you are down to 9,811 worlds with intelligent life.  In the next 50,000 years, add back another 10 for a total of 9,821.  The Reapers harvest 98 worlds this time, and you are down to 9,723.  You can see where this is going...

Now factor in that the total number of planets supporting life will suffer attrition thorugh the eons, through natural disasters, planets colliding, asteroids, stars going nova...you name it.  So gradually over time the total pool of planets capable of supporting intelligent life diminishes.  Because the Reapers NEVER allow organics OR even synthetics to evolve to where they could terraform other worlds and create new templates for life, the Reapers have capped thte total number of life-giving planets available, while at the same time very quickly reducing the planets with intelligent life on them down to nothing.  The Reapers therefore insure that not only will intelligent life eventually become extinct, but in the long run, so will all life.  For the Catalyst not to see this is the ultimate logical failure of its argument.  And I am sure that is because the writers didn't really figure this out.

Modifié par Coyotebay, 03 juillet 2013 - 01:15 .

[KaiserShep]

hpjay wrote...
My beef is that in a narative you should not show me one thing and then at the end tell me something different.  In the ME case, don't show me that robots can be friendly and let me make friends with them; don't let me think I overcame a deep prejudicial belief common in the story world; and then simply tell me at the end it was wrong and that those robots are really a danger to the entire galaxy.  That is bad narrative, that is bad story telling.  A story should use dramatic action to illistrate its points, not exposition.  That would be like ending Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with random new character telling you that Joey and John will end up in divorce court while race riots ravage the country.  It is a narrative inconsistancy.

This is precisely the problem. None of this nonsense grasping at what equation generator one can find to reconcile a fictional system that uses arbitrary numbers will undo the fact the story practically writes its message in bright lights, and then tries to tell us "LOL NOPE" in the weakest possible way. That may convince some people, but there's a reason why it's so widely rejected. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 03 juillet 2013 - 02:28 .

[AlanC9]

Coyotebay wrote...
When I was going for my masters, I took classes in systems dynamics and quantitative analysis.  One of my projects was building a dynamic model of harbor seals in Alaska, and showing how if you change any of handful of factors by a little bit you cause their population to plummet catastrophically.  You can do the same thing with the Reaper harvest model.  

So if you plug in a certain set of numbers you can make the harvest fail? Well, yeah. Therefore the numbers you're plugging in aren't the right numbers, since the harvest didn't fail in the MEU.

 Because the Reapers NEVER allow organics OR even synthetics to evolve to where they could terraform other worlds and create new templates for life, the Reapers have capped thte total number of life-giving planets available, while at the same time very quickly reducing the planets with intelligent life on them down to nothing.

This is false. There are plenty of references on the galaxy map to worlds undergoing terraforming.

Your assertion that the Reapers are quickly reducing the number of life-giving planets is also false. The percentage of present and  former garden worlds that they've destroyed is quite low considering that we're at  20,000 cycles and counting. (Unless you're arguing that a lot of the worlds that are simply uninhabitable on Shepard's map were onc e garden worlds, and his cycle just doesn't know it? Hard to prove or disprove that, since by definition there's no data)

And even if you were right about these things, the Reapers themseves are capable of doing terraforming if they think the galaxy is looking a bit barren.

[remydat]

katamuro wrote...

Immortality implies that something cannot be killed. Harbinger can be killed, the reapers are just extremely long living cyberorganic constructs that also are extremely hard to kill. Not immortal. A geth can be killed if it is too far to get downloaded back into the mainframe or as we ourselves know if the mainframe is corrupted or compromised can also be killed. So where exactly are those immortal synthetics? They are very hard to kill but that is about it. Also the legion VI is quite different than legion. Geth are collection of software and as software if they are not kept up to date than the individuality is lost when the most recent or experienced version is killed in the battle.

Clearly when I am using the term immortal, I am not using it with the notion that it cannot be killed at all.  I am using it to describe an entity that can live indefinitely provided it is no violently killed.  Various religions speak of immortal gods but those gods can typically be killed with some special weapon or the like.  Hell there are a lot of games like God or War or Dark Siders where enemies that are supposedly immortal can be killed using some special means.

[remydat]

hpjay wrote...

You need to educate yourself on the nature of a circular argument. The best I can figure your arguement hasn't gotten beyond its probable that the robot apocalypse will happen cause the universe is big and old and its very probable to happen in that environment.  Thats a circular argument.  Your conclusion is in your premise. 

Also, you didn't state that the robot apocalypse is simply possible...[/color] [color=#FF0000]you stated that "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".   You stated affirmatively that the robot apocalypse is likely to happen.  You made the claim, you need to support it.  Its not incumbant apon me to prove anything, I'm asking you to support your arguement.  You claimed math and logic were on your side, yet you haven't used anything but probability to weakly support the possibility that there are a large number of galactice civilizations.  

And I'll say it.  Drake missed two big factors in his  equation  one is the need for a dual planet (or planet moon system) like the earth moon system.  the other is the need of a cleanup planet like jupiter to keep the solar debris like enough that the doesn't get blasted by major impact events.

These prior points are about things in the real world.   I'm pointing that out because you arguements shift suddenly from discussions about real world possibilitis to in game narative.  Its almost like you don't differentiate between the two.   You also went off on somestuff that I don't even know what...    Quote: " Are you going to tell me that humans back when they were still drawing paintings on caves were in a position to defeat the Protheans?
"   I can't even fathom what the heck that was in response to.  Or why your trying to put words inb my mouth.


Referring to IN STORY elements, I said that :

" The authors can make anything they want to thappen, happen. But that doesn't make it either logical nor likely.

I personally find no reason why an intelligent, sapient race would want to destroy another, simply because one is based on carbon and the other on silicon.

In story... if the authors wanted us to beleive in the robot apocolypse, they should not have let us make freinds with them in ME2 and ME3."

The first bit is a rebuttal that logic and probability on on your side.  It was a reminder that just because the writers put something in the story doesn't make it likely or logical.  My beef is that in a narative you should not show me one thing and then at the end tell me something different.  In the ME case, don't show me that robots can be friendly and let me make friends with them; don't let me think I overcame a deep prejudicial belief common in the story world; and then simply tell me at the end it was wrong and that those robots are really a danger to the entire galaxy.  That is bad narrative, that is bad story telling.  A story should use dramatic action to illistrate its points, not exposition.  That would be like ending Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with random new character telling you that Joey and John will end up in divorce court while race riots ravage the country.  It is a narrative inconsistancy.

I said it is POSSIBLE.  Possible just means the probability of something happening is greater than zero.  Probable generally means something has a greater than 50% chance of happening. 

So if something has a non-zero chance of happening then basic probability suggests that eventually after X number of iterations it will in fact happen.  The fact that I don't know when X is doesn't change the fact that if you run enough iterations of something with a .00001% chance of happening, it will likely happen at some point.  So the only way to disprove that is to either prove the chance of it occuring is zero or for the experiment to end which the experiment can only end when the galaxy no longer exists.

A dual planet moon system and a planet like Jupiter being a requirement for intelligent life is a theory as far as I am aware.  It is not definitive that those conditions must be met.  Further, I am pretty sure in the MEU those conditions are not met and life still exists.

And you were questioning why a synthetic species would want to destroy organics.  I pointed out that every dominant organic species in the galaxy has tried in some way to control the other organic races.  The Protheans had already subjugated every other adavanced race in their cylce so a primitive race like the humans were no match for it.  So why do you think that every single synthetic race that will ever exist will never try and do the same?  Except in their case, they don't never organics to be slaves and keeping them alive just means you have to share the galaxy's resources with them.

And I don't care about the whole bad narrative argument.  It has been beaten to death.

Modifié par remydat, 03 juillet 2013 - 06:11 .

[Eckswhyzed]

remydat wrote...

And you were questioning why a synthetic species would want to destroy organics.  I pointed out that every dominant organic species in the galaxy has tried in some way to control the other organic races.  The Protheans had already subjugated every other adavanced race in their cylce so a primitive race like the humans were no match for it.  So why do you think that every single synthetic race that will ever exist will never try and do the same?  Except in their case, they don't never organics to be slaves and keeping them alive just means you have to share the galaxy's resources with them.

What's funny is that a highly advanced synthetic race that doesn't want to deliberately wipe out organics can still do so. If I dig up an anthill in the process of tending to my garden, I didn't want to wipe out the ants. They're just in my way. Similarly, if a synthetic race millions of years old without highly advanced technology needs your planet - well, tough luck.

In fact ANY synthetic race with different values than ours can pose an existential threat. See the idea of a paperclip maximizer. The link applies to AI developed here on Earth, but it's not too hard to generalise it to any external synthetic race.

[remydat]

KaiserShep wrote...

This is precisely the problem. None of this nonsense grasping at what equation generator one can find to reconcile a fictional system that uses arbitrary numbers will undo the fact the story practically writes its message in bright lights, and then tries to tell us "LOL NOPE" in the weakest possible way. That may convince some people, but there's a reason why it's so widely rejected. 

Widely rejected based on what?  What statistics do you have to prove that claim except the BSN where the same people complain about the game over and over?  The game sold millions so how are you going to prove that over half of the people that bought the game rejected it?

[KaiserShep]

Do you really think that all this negativity toward the game's ending exists solely within BSN? After checking Kotaku, Forbes, IGN, and others going on about how fans hate the ending, I have every reason to believe that EA/BW totally borked the experience for quite a lot of players. I didn't come to this conclusion observing this forum.

The amount of copies sold is irrelevant. It's part of the Mass Effect franchise, and was greatly hyped. Of course it sold lots of copies.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 03 juillet 2013 - 06:33 .