[quote]Ymladdych wrote...
[quote]HYR 2.0 wrote...
I'm giving you a chance to prove you're right. If you can't do it, it's your problem, not mine.[/quote]
Except that you can't "prove" rightness or wrongness from a speculative question regarding a fictitious work. Trading "what ifs" based on our belief systems only proves that we can rationalize how those belief systems fit into the narrative, and a "good" fit isn't necessarily the "only" fit, much less the "right" fit.[/quote]
That's a nice sentiment. However, I tend to think that if one person's interpretation makes more sense than another's, than the former's is at least more valid than the latter's, if not the right interpretation over the wrong one.
And, well, you're dealing with me right now...
[quote]
[quote](1) "Willpower" would imply TIM is thinks he is indoctrinated or being indoctrinated and actively trying to resist it, which we can prove is not the case as he denies the Reapers are influencing him at all multiple times in ME3.[/quote]Not necessarily. We describe willful people as "persevering," "unwaivering," or "stubborn." Why? What does it mean to be "stubborn?" Would you agree that one element of a "stubborn" person is a clearly defined belief system that's resistant to persuasion and coercion? "Stubborn" people have an innate resistance to altering their mindset, even if they're not conscious of their resistance. Of course, once a "stubborn" person recognizes coercion, then yeah, they'll put up a fight.
Which means, if the Reapers are smart (and they are), they would take great care to ensure that a strong, willful personality like TIM remained oblivious to their influence for as long as possible. They would restrict their "control"
to nudges - a devil on the shoulder whispering so softly in his ear that he wouldn't differentiate the input from his own thoughts.[/quote]
I would not agree. I live with a stubborn person, and there's a trick in getting that person to do things my way: getting him to think he agrees with me (and vice versa) when we actually disagree. If you don't recognize a conflict, you won't resist it and proceed to be stubborn.
Could the Reapers not be doing the same -- making him think their thoughts are his own? Sure, they could be. However, that begs the question why they didn't employ this tactic to stop him from doing all the things he did to sabotage the Reapers plan (again: Shepard, the suicide-mission, and all research on the Reapers culiminating into Sanctuary).
[quote][quote](2) It didn't "almost" backfire on them, it *did* backfire (if true). If the Reapers relaxed control enough to let TIM steal Shepard's body from them, to let him help Shepard wipe out the Collectors and stop them from creating the human Reaper, that's failure of epic proportions.[/quote]
Wouldn't you say it was a failure of epic proportions for them to lose control of Saren and let him /suicide? Saren's death forced Sovereign to assume direct control of the avatar, making itself vulnerable to attacks from
the fleet. (Remember, its shields only dropped when Shepard sufficiently damaged the avatar.)[/quote]
Saren's suicide is a very different thing. Saren, for one, was actually still in the process of indoctrination. He joined the Reapers willingly, for one thing, and was trying to resist indoctrination from the beginning. It wasn't until Sovereign had him imlant himself that he was doomed. However, even then he wasn't totally fargone and could fight them, which Shepard exploited by talking him into suicide. It was a failure outside of their indoctrination's control.
TIM does not think he's indoctrinated; he thinks his thoughts are his own and is not trying to fight them. If he really is indoctrinated since ME:E, allowing him to steal Shepard's corpse and wipe out their Collector minions = epic fail.
[quote]As EDI says, the Reapers are not infallible, and they're not above miscalculation. (Failed Synthesis in the past; the survival of The Crucible plans; the fact that Shepard and Anderson's run to the beam succeeds; etc.)
What can Shepard say when EDI expresses concern about their plan? (paraphrasing): "It'll work because they don't think they can lose." An assertion that's supported repeatedly by various Reaper smacktalk sessions throughout the trilogy.[/quote]
There's infalliable, and then there's illogical/idiotic. If they have control of TIM as of ME:E, there is no reason for them to let them steal Shepard from them or kill off the Collectors. It's counter-productive and there is literally nothing TIM can do as a sleeper-agent to make up for those losses that the Reapers don't figure to do without him anyway.
If they don't have control of TIM at that point, he's not indoctrinated at that time, either -- plain and simple. Again, the process must be facilitated by a device emitting Reaper signals, it does not take place in the absence of their influence.
[quote]Especially when Shiala proves that victims don't have to be "totally gone" vegetables to suffer from permanent indoctrination effects. She's not a Reaper thrall, right? She's high-functioning. She doesn't express any interest in going back to the Reapers, but she flat out writes in her email, "I'm sure I'm still indoctrinated. I remember Sovereign's voice in my mind [...] But my connection the people of Zhu's Hope is stronger."[/quote]
Shiala, for one thing, was totally indoctrinated at one point.
Her indoctrination just gets a bit whacky, given the Thorian.
And I get that indoctrinated thralls suffer from permanent effects. In fact, that's yet another mark I have against the hypothetical of TIM being indoctrinated since the First Contact War. As Maelon says of Mordin's teaching: "forced behavior modification always results in mental degradation. Whether by Reaper indoctrination or drugs, subject always loses higher cognitive-function." The Codex says that (slow-)indoctrination victims can be sustained for months to years. Not, however, years to decades, as would be the case with TIM (and the First Contact War was over 30 years ago).
[quote][quote]Mass Effect: Retribution also narrates from the perspective from TIM just as it does Grayson here. However, where the novel clearly depicts the details of Grayson's indoctrination, TIM's perspective bears 0 similarity. No such details of outside influence exist within TIM's POV at all in this book.[/quote]1. TIM's perspective having 0 similiarity to Grayson's doesn't mean a whole lot if TIM's connection to the Reapers was still muted/tenuous during the events of the novel. Other than whatever happened to his eyes from the artifact, TIM didn't have Reaper tech implanted yet. But poor Grayson had nanites directly tubed into his body and was repeatedly dosed on Red Sand to break his will.[/quote]
Again, I reject the notion of a "partially-indoctrinated" TIM, and my reasons for that are all over this post.
Destroying Grayson's willpower actually means something, here -- it inhibited him from conciously fighting them.
He already knew the Reapers were in his head. Not so with TIM. As such, TIM is not "fighting" anything.
[quote]2. Maybe the Reapers could've influenced TIM, but they didn't see a need to tap him yet. (A sleeper agent, as per the indoctrination Codex.)[/quote]
Which, again, would be ridiculous. Do they think that without TIM, they'll be defeated by our cycle? Harbinger talked a big game before ME3, and virtually no one is advocating to fight a conventional war with the Reapers because it is deemed all but hopeless. They do not need TIM later and have no reason to believe they do/will. Not tapping him earlier to prevent losing Shepard/suicide mission is utterly foolish. What is TIM going to do later to replace the losses of (1) a harvesting factory in an inaccessible location to anyone else; (2) their Collector slaves; (3) Shepard's corpse?
[quote]The interesting part about Grayson's POV is how he can be completely oblivious to the Reapers' manipulations even though he's fully aware of his own indoctrination. Basically, one example flows like this:
Grayson: I need to kill myself! I must do the right thing!
Reapers: Crap! He's /suiciding like Saren! Stop him!
*manipulates Grayson's limbic system*
Grayson: Wait, what am I doing? There's hope! Screw the Reapers! They won't make me take the coward's way out!
*tosses the knife aside*[/quote]
I know of that, which raises the question the second thing I responded to.
[quote]1. Paragon Shepard's eyes don't permanently turn renegade red after the blast, so that right there implies a difference between Shepard's encounter with Project Rho and TIM's experience with the artifact. (TIM shows evidence of being physically affected, Shepard does not.) TIM artifact could Reaperfy - Object Rho only seemed to indoctrinate.[/quote]
As I said, there's a difference between the two artifacts.
The Monolith device produced husks (rapid indoctrination). 'Rho was just a simple artifact causing slow indoctrination.
More to the point, though, a (temporary) link between subject's mind and Reapers is not the end-all/be-all for enthrallment. That link must be sustained for indoctrination to take place -- as it is not an instantaneous thing.
[quote]2. Shepard isn't TIM. Shepard's 30%-40% cyborg already, and if Reaper indoctrination affects organics but not synthetics, maybe his cybernetics imparted a resistance.[/quote]
Shepard's brain is still organic, though, which is the key thing that is compromised through indoctrination.
As such, he can be corrupted just as TIM can be.
The cybernetics are merely there to restore organ functionality, not replace them.
[quote]3. *cringes* For the record, I'm not an IT'er, but I have to be honest *cringes again*...we don't really know if Shepard came away from Rho completely unaffected. I'm not saying that he was indoctrinated, or that picking X ending means Y, but the Starkid's chosen form does imply that The Catalyst had access to his thoughts. (That's all I'm going to say on this. I don't want my TIM opinion to seem like a case for IT, because it's not.)[/quote]
On Ilos, Vigil managed to adopt languages foreign to it/its creators so Shepard and even all alien members in the party can understand what it says -- no access to their mind required, it somehow just manages to make itself speak in such a way that they can all understand. If an malfunctioning VI can do that, why can't an advanced AI do the same, on a visual level? Rather than appear as something obscure, he appears as something Shepard can perceive.
To that end, Legion did the same thing for Shepard within the Geth Consensus.
[quote]But the thing is, his opening line in that speech is, "Desolas was right" - he doesn't qualify the statement, and lo and behold, the moment he gets the opportunity, he starts building a Reaper army like Desolas. That's absolutely misguided, given his previous experience with the artifact. And yes, I think that speech shows that it was his intention from day 1.[/quote]
It isn't misguided. TIM did not create a "Reaper army" to do their work for them. He did it to use the army as fodder to defend Cerberus as they looked for a way to stop the Reapers. <-- full stop. Secondly, the only real problem with amassing a Reaper army as a means to stop the Reapers is that it is rather uncouth and hypocritical. However, it is plenty logical, seeing as refugees/civilians are only liabilities in the war and they will die like the rest if the Reapers aren't stopped -- so turning them into "resources" makes sense. If TIM succeeds to stop the Reapers through his control scheme, then it is an arguably defendible action on an ethical level as well -- sacrifice a few to save many.
I agree with TIM's actions. I'm not indoctrinated.
Shepard can agree, too! Finish Sanctuary, go talk to Joker, and then select the renegade option. He can choose not to, meaning he has his right-of-mind and is not indoctrinated. Whoever wrote that dialogue is not indoctrinated, either.
[quote][quote]IT levels of analysis -- not everything is foreshadowing.[/quote]
It may not foreshadow indoctrination specifically, but it's absolutely meant to be a red flag about TIM's motivations and his trustworthiness. You don't need "IT levels of analysis" to see that - just a basic grasp of cinematic technique, narrative context (it occurs after he sends Shepard into a dangerous trap), and body language.
I mean, Casey Hudson flat-out states in one of the ME books (I don't remember which one - it's packed away) that they give players a lot of nonverbal information via things like physical symbolism, body language, facial expressions, etc. (I think the chapter's called, "The Eyes Have It," and funny enough, it features TIM with his cybernetic eyes.)
And if you still want to claim "IT levels of analysis", here's an interview with Derek Watts (art director). The whole thing's interesting if you like dev diaries, but if you want to cut to the chase, at 5:35 he talks about shortening Tali's hood as a visual representation of her maturity in ME3. (The rationale being that women cut their hair as they get older.) See? Symbolism.
www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/04/22/mass-effect-3-creating-garrus.aspx[/quote]
I never said that such cues don't exist, just that a simple stare by TIM is not one of them.
And TIM can be untrustworhy without being indoctrinated. He can just be plain manipulative normally.
Again: sometimes a river is just a river... not everything is foreshadowing.
Modifié par HYR 2.0, 18 juillet 2013 - 12:49 .
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