326 réponses à ce sujet

[Liamv2]

Don't mind me i am just here for the lul's

[SinerAthin]

From an ethical point of view, Synthesis is the best ending.

But, that's not why people hate it.
It's mainly because Synthesis is viewed as: "And then everyone turned green, and lived happily ever after. The end."

It is the "Best" ending, but it's by far the worst written ending, and we are usually left with more questions than answers at the end of the cutscene.

[Bionuts]

Arcian wrote...

As a transhumanist, I'm all for upgrading our species to a better state. But:

1) It has to happen in a way that makes sense. Synthesis does not make sense, which is why I hate it. It boils down to space magic, which, as the name implies, isn't science and therefore not real.

2) A lot of people do not believe in transhumanism - by the time our species is capable of upgrading ourselves, a lot of people are going to refuse the upgrades because of 10,000 different religious, philosophical and practical reasons I don't care about but which I am going to respect when I upgrade myself (provided I am alive when that day comes).

Synthesis does not respect those 10,000 reasons but instead changes everyone without giving them a choice in the matter. That is another of the reasons I hate synthesis. People need to be able to choose how to live their lives, and in what state to live them.

1. All 3 options are space magic, though.

2. If the upgrades were to lead to higher intelligence, healthier body, etc., then I would take it. The problem lies in Shepard having 3 choices at the end of her life. None of them are a guarantee.

Sure, but 3 choices in the end. And if the benefits are high, I'd push the button, anyways. Even if the people do not like it initially, their descendants will benefit. Tis' a pragmatic point of view.

[KaiserShep]

I love the smell of space dictatorship in the morning.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Bionuts wrote...

Arcian wrote...

As a transhumanist, I'm all for upgrading our species to a better state. But:

1) It has to happen in a way that makes sense. Synthesis does not make sense, which is why I hate it. It boils down to space magic, which, as the name implies, isn't science and therefore not real.

2) A lot of people do not believe in transhumanism - by the time our species is capable of upgrading ourselves, a lot of people are going to refuse the upgrades because of 10,000 different religious, philosophical and practical reasons I don't care about but which I am going to respect when I upgrade myself (provided I am alive when that day comes).

Synthesis does not respect those 10,000 reasons but instead changes everyone without giving them a choice in the matter. That is another of the reasons I hate synthesis. People need to be able to choose how to live their lives, and in what state to live them.

1. All 3 options are space magic, though.

They are. But let's not keep using that excuse that so many people use. Let's put it this way: Is destroy explained in a way that makes it seem like a massive contradiction to established science and biology? To common sense? If you look at it, Destroy is essentially a really big, galaxy spanning EMP wave. See how that works? 

2. If the upgrades were to lead to higher intelligence, healthier body, etc., then I would take it. The problem lies in Shepard having 3 choices at the end of her life. None of them are a guarantee.

The thing is, we already have all those things: We don't need synthesis to achieve those things. That whole non-sense is completely redundant the more you think about it.

Sure, but 3 choices in the end. And if the benefits are high, I'd push the button, anyways. Even if the people do not like it initially, their descendants will benefit. Tis' a pragmatic point of view.

Not really. A pragmatic point of view would see the issues with how the Catalyst is explaining things. How he has a lot of holes in his story. You're thinking of an idealistic view.

[Bionuts]

ruggly wrote...

And we need to force synthesis to do these things because we are somehow unable to do it on our on, at our own pace?  I don't see why we can achieve synthesis on our own.  It will be a bumpier road, but that's far more preferable to me than saying "all you organics are awful, you need to be saved right now."

I don't like the destruction of synthetics in destroy, since I see it as tacked on to make it look real bad.  But there's no reason post-destroy that we can't achieve all of that, and go hand-in-hand with new synthetics to a better future.

There is no guarantee organics would achieve it on their own. Perhaps change in this instance is good even if people reject it at first.

I'm thinking more of the longterm. I doubt most people would be happy at first, but it will be a non-issue in generations later when their descendants are reaping the benefits.

This is if their are actually benefits in the first place.

[o Ventus]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...


They are. But let's not keep using that excuse that so many people use. Let's put it this way: Is destroy explained in a way that makes it seem like a massive contradiction to established science and biology? To common sense? If you look at it, Destroy is essentially a really big, galaxy spanning EMP wave. See how that works?

A discriminatory, indecisive EMP that only targets certain pieces of technology.

[o Ventus]

Bionuts wrote...

There is no guarantee organics would achieve it on their own. Perhaps change in this instance is good even if people reject it at first.

If the Catalyst is to be believed, Synthesis is "inevitable".

I'm thinking more of the longterm. I doubt most people would be happy at first, but it will be a non-issue in generations later when their descendants are reaping the benefits.

Exactly what is being gained? Circuitboards under the skin? An advanced metabolism? Increased resistance to disease? Everything that is granted by Synthesis can be artificially implanted, without violation of consent to billlions of people.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

o Ventus wrote...

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...


They are. But let's not keep using that excuse that so many people use. Let's put it this way: Is destroy explained in a way that makes it seem like a massive contradiction to established science and biology? To common sense? If you look at it, Destroy is essentially a really big, galaxy spanning EMP wave. See how that works?

A discriminatory, indecisive EMP that only targets certain pieces of technology.

Not at all. 

It's not discriminatory at what it hits. Everything gets hit.

The deal is how things react to the energy burst. Not everything is going to react the same way.

[Bionuts]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

They are. But let's not keep using that excuse that so many people use. Let's put it this way: Is destroy explained in a way that makes it seem like a massive contradiction to established science and biology? To common sense? If you look at it, Destroy is essentially a really big, galaxy spanning EMP wave. See how that works? 

It's still space magic, though. Destroy doesn't actually make sense, nor is it explained.

The thing is, we already have all those things: We don't need synthesis to achieve those things. That whole non-sense is completely redundant the more you think about it.

We do, but not in the potential capacity if there are truly benefits in synthesis.

Not really. A pragmatic point of view would see the issues with how the Catalyst is explaining things. How he has a lot of holes in his story. You're thinking of an idealistic view.

I still have to choose, though. And with little time remaining, there isn't any to waste. I could question why the Reapers would let me control them, why they would let me destroy them, but it accomplishes nothing.

[KaiserShep]

If we're going to go with space magic, how about an energy wave that uses a destructive mass effect field specifically tuned to disrupt the reapers' unique energy signatures, which has the unfortunate side effect of disrupting higher functions in AI, but not basic hardware. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 02 août 2013 - 07:54 .

[Bionuts]

o Ventus wrote...

I'm thinking more of the longterm. I doubt most people would be happy at first, but it will be a non-issue in generations later when their descendants are reaping the benefits.

Exactly what is being gained? Circuitboards under the skin? An advanced metabolism? Increased resistance to disease? Everything that is granted by Synthesis can be artificially implanted, without violation of consent to billlions of people.

I assume synthesis gives organics higher intelligence, as well as shared perspectives. This could be wrong, but that's my assumption.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

I could never live with forcing people to live in a green tinted universe.

Red and Blue are vastly superior colors.

Modifié par Grand Admiral Cheesecake, 02 août 2013 - 08:00 .

[CrutchCricket]

Fandango9641 wrote...
Really? I understand enough to agree that humans are limited in all manner of different ways (yay me)! Tell me, do you share Ieldra's view that humans are simply incapable of overcoming a little xenophobia CrunchCricket?

Who's talking about xenophobia?

Being incapable of understading something funadmentally alien from us (or far vaster than us) has nothing to do with fear or prejudice.

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...
Yes, and I disagree with what's in your thread. 'Should' is really not a complete argument. I disagree. I don't think indifference will exist, and I think you're relying too much on examples from other universes, which have a much different context from what we get in Mass Effect.

Not really as the examples aren't dependent on the context of their universes at all, and are instead based more on logical extrapolation of a general case.

I think hardware is everything. I'm saying I think that Shepard being uploaded as the new master AI would also lead to the externality of him also now being based off the Catalyst's prior programming. He's being uploaded into the same hardware, possibly with the same programming and logic functions built in by the Leviathans, and thus gaining the same perspective on the problem as the original Catalyst. He will retain, through his own memories and thoughts, some semblance of his prior existence, but I think the organic perspective he had will be considered incompatible with his new perspective. Why will he care about the insects on the dustballs? Because he's programmed to care. It's built into his construct. It was built into his construct hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs even existed. His hardware isn't predisposed to kill: it is predisposed to solve the problem that the original Catalyst was built to solve. That was what the Leviathan's built for it. That's why I think it's going to eventually end up as a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

At the end of the day, it really is your headcanon vs. mine. We aren't given enough information to quantitatively say what the specifics will be, how the process works, or the tech that goes into it. 

So it seems we'll reach an impasse.

There is no reason to assume any of those things like shared programming for anything more than the metaphorical limbic system to actually control the Reapers. Also the ability to self-modify (which I think is necessarily a part of the new entity will be able to remove any hidden surprises that still remain).
Also, careful what you claim the hardware can magically do. You're starting to sound like Seival. Hardware is hardware and does nothing without programming. And the programming has changed.

But if you want to agree to disagree as far as what the entity will be predisposed to do, I can leave it here.

I think I remember TIM saying something about using the Crucible to control the Reapers? Wasn't that part of implementing his plan? The husks were the proof of concept that it could be done on a base level? Yeah, I think TIM always planned on using the Crucible, or some kind of facsimile device that could control the Reapers. I think that was their plan all along.

It's not happening, but not for the reasons you prescribe. It will work, just not for TIM or Cerberus. Reaper intelligence is irrelevant to the Crucible. This is proven in game.

That'd be quite the feat of clairvoyance given no one knew what the Crucible does. So he was very much talking out his ass. The fact that he happened to be right is incidental and also predicated on the holokid letting him (which it didn't for unrelated reasons).

As for the orbs, they clearly do work on the Reapers. I think the Reapers are well aware of the capabilities of the Leviathans however. I think that's why the Reapers probably wouldn't take chances attacking the Leviathan's on their own. The single Reaper we see that is destroyed is the exception, and I think that that is because the Reaper had been lured into a false sense of security.

As for the Reaper being 'disabled' by the 3-on-1 punch, that's speculative headcanon. You're clearly saying 'I believe' and exercising it as proof. 

So allow me to retort: I disagree. I believe the Reaper was killed by one Leviathan. I have no proof beyond the shot of one Leviathan using the orb to disable the Reaper and make it crash within the water. 

We can interpret that scene many ways. You have your way I have mine. One thing though, I don't think it was the orbs that downed the Reaper, I think it was a direct assault from the Leviathans. The shots of them interspersed in that sequence give the impression that they're rising. Speculations of what actually happened to the Reaper aside, I always saw that as Leviathans rising up to meet their creations. But anyway, I still don't think the orbs are strong enough to actually dominate a Reaper.

o Ventus wrote...
It not only has Shepard's memories, but is also influenced by his or her moral standing and personality, as seen by the renegade and paragon variations.

None of that matters in the disconnect. But don't just take my word for it: Artificial General Intelligence and the Human Mental Model That was posted in another thread that dealt with this issue.

Indifference didn't work that well in the past. Ask the first Catalyst.

The holokid isn't indifferent. It's a ****ty program stuck in a loop.

You also make the wildly preemptive assumption that something so powerful and advanced shouldn't notice or care about something so far lesser than itself. I'm an atheist, but have you met God? How would you know what he (or something like him) would think?

We're not talking about God. Don't try to load this discussion with unnecessarily complex ideas. Any being would have no reason to care about something so far beneath the scope of their existence.

This is unfounded at the very least, and is contradicted by your own ant/boot analogy. If humans are so much bigger and more advanced than ants, why are ants such a nuisance? They're enough of a pest that there are products devoted to ridding your lawn of ants. People may very well become ants to the Shepalyst. We have no way of knowing. People kill ants by virtue of ants following their "programming". They become inconvenient, so we eliminate them. The renegade version of Control somewhat touches upon this with Shepalyst enforcing the peace instead of allowing it to come normally. If those pesky organics can't cooperate, why shouldn't be just kill them?

I may agree to discuss this when you tell me exactly how we're supposed to "inconvenience" the entity when it goes off and does its own thing.

Modifié par CrutchCricket, 02 août 2013 - 07:59 .

[o Ventus]

Bionuts wrote...

I assume synthesis gives organics higher intelligence, as well as shared perspectives. This could be wrong, but that's my assumption.

1. Synthesis explicitly gives organics the benefit of integration with technology. Both the Catalyst dialogue and the epilogue make this clear.

2. This is wholly unnecessary, because these things were already being gained before Synthesis. 

3. Gaining "higher intelligence" has been going on since life began to take form.

[Iakus]

KaiserShep wrote...

I love the smell of space dictatorship in the morning.

Utopia Justifies the Means

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Bionuts wrote...

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

They are. But let's not keep using that excuse that so many people use. Let's put it this way: Is destroy explained in a way that makes it seem like a massive contradiction to established science and biology? To common sense? If you look at it, Destroy is essentially a really big, galaxy spanning EMP wave. See how that works? 

It's still space magic, though. Destroy doesn't actually make sense, nor is it explained.

No. It's not explained (and this is the first time I've seen where you have to shoot something to activate it). But it's lack of explanation is much better than the explanation we get for synthesis involving violations of science and biology and including mysticism.

The thing is, we already have all those things: We don't need synthesis to achieve those things. That whole non-sense is completely redundant the more you think about it.

We do, but not in the potential capacity if there are truly benefits in synthesis.

What makes you think that? Do you have any proof of this? I don't think you do. I think all the benefits from synthesis can be achieved without synthesis, on our own, at our discretion, and with our own consent. No deaths are required, and it's not for some abstract purpose of stopping conflict between organics and synthetics. The Reapers are dead, and the Catalyst is dead. Synthesis is unnecessary in that regard in my opinion.

Not really. A pragmatic point of view would see the issues with how the Catalyst is explaining things. How he has a lot of holes in his story. You're thinking of an idealistic view.

I still have to choose, though. And with little time remaining, there isn't any to waste. I could question why the Reapers would let me control them, why they would let me destroy them, but it accomplishes nothing.

And I understand that. But I think fast. Very fast. I know I don't like the idea right off the bat of Control. I pick up immediately on what the Catalyst isn's saying. I immediately reject synthesis on the basis of the non-science behind it. As soon as the Catalyst describes synthesis, I have warnings blaring in my head that Synthesis is not the way to go. Destroy is the best option to me. I can reject the Catalyst and the Reapers because I really don't think their justifications fit the bill. In fact, that bird was dead before it even started to fly. So I walk to the pipe and shoot it.

[ruggly]

Bionuts wrote...

ruggly wrote...

And we need to force synthesis to do these things because we are somehow unable to do it on our on, at our own pace?  I don't see why we can achieve synthesis on our own.  It will be a bumpier road, but that's far more preferable to me than saying "all you organics are awful, you need to be saved right now."

I don't like the destruction of synthetics in destroy, since I see it as tacked on to make it look real bad.  But there's no reason post-destroy that we can't achieve all of that, and go hand-in-hand with new synthetics to a better future.

There is no guarantee organics would achieve it on their own. Perhaps change in this instance is good even if people reject it at first.

I'm thinking more of the longterm. I doubt most people would be happy at first, but it will be a non-issue in generations later when their descendants are reaping the benefits.

This is if their are actually benefits in the first place.

Ventus beat me to it, but I'll repeat it anyways.  "Now that we know it's possible, it is inevitable that you will achieve synthesis" or whatever the quote is.  If the stargazer scene tells me anything, 10,000 years is more than enough time to have achieved synthesis on our own post-high EMS destroy.

I'm not saying that change is inherintely bad, but I believe that forced change is not the best idea, especially when it's supposed to solve a problem that I didn't even believe in the first place.

Modifié par ruggly, 02 août 2013 - 08:05 .

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

iakus wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

I love the smell of space dictatorship in the morning.

Utopia Justifies the Means

Reminds me of this conversation.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Bionuts wrote...

o Ventus wrote...

I'm thinking more of the longterm. I doubt most people would be happy at first, but it will be a non-issue in generations later when their descendants are reaping the benefits.

Exactly what is being gained? Circuitboards under the skin? An advanced metabolism? Increased resistance to disease? Everything that is granted by Synthesis can be artificially implanted, without violation of consent to billlions of people.

I assume synthesis gives organics higher intelligence, as well as shared perspectives. This could be wrong, but that's my assumption.

You know what they say about assumptions...

[o Ventus]

CrutchCricket wrote...

None of that matters in the disconnect. But don't just take my word for it: Artificial General Intelligence and the Human Mental Model That was posted in another thread that dealt with this issue.

Exactly what considers "the disconnect"?

The holokid isn't indifferent. It's a ****ty program stuck in a loop.

Dodging the point. You're doing it.

We're not talking about God. Don't try to load this discussion with unnecessarily complex ideas. Any being would have no reason to care about something so far beneath the scope of their existence.

It's called an analogy. There is literally no other real life example that can be used. Do you ever plan on acknowledging my point?

I may agree to discuss this when you tell me exactly how we're supposed to "inconvenience" the entity when it goes off and does its own thing.

Why are we assuming it just "goes off and does its own thing"? Both the paragon and the renegade epilogues show that it indeed does NOT "go off and do its own thing".

[Arcian]

Grand Admiral Cheesecake wrote...

I could never live with forcing people to live in a green tinted universe.

Red and Blue are vastly superior colors.

I prefer pink myself. The color, not the singer.

*shudders*

[MassivelyEffective0730]

[quote]CrutchCricket wrote...

[quote]MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...
Yes, and I disagree with what's in your thread. 'Should' is really not a complete argument. I disagree. I don't think indifference will exist, and I think you're relying too much on examples from other universes, which have a much different context from what we get in Mass Effect.[/quote]
Not really as the examples aren't dependent on the context of their universes at all, and are instead based more on logical extrapolation of a general case.
[/quote]
Extrapolation from a theoretical case would work better. That said my point stands. I really think you're using examples from other universes wrong here. What I think you're saying is that: it's logical in that universe, and it happened in that universe, so it seems likely in Mass Effect. I don't quite think that really stands as an argument. But that's just how I'm interpreting your argument.
[quote]
[quote]
I think hardware is everything. I'm saying I think that Shepard being uploaded as the new master AI would also lead to the externality of him also now being based off the Catalyst's prior programming. He's being uploaded into the same hardware, possibly with the same programming and logic functions built in by the Leviathans, and thus gaining the same perspective on the problem as the original Catalyst. He will retain, through his own memories and thoughts, some semblance of his prior existence, but I think the organic perspective he had will be considered incompatible with his new perspective. Why will he care about the insects on the dustballs? Because he's programmed to care. It's built into his construct. It was built into his construct hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs even existed. His hardware isn't predisposed to kill: it is predisposed to solve the problem that the original Catalyst was built to solve. That was what the Leviathan's built for it. That's why I think it's going to eventually end up as a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

At the end of the day, it really is your headcanon vs. mine. We aren't given enough information to quantitatively say what the specifics will be, how the process works, or the tech that goes into it. 

So it seems we'll reach an impasse.[/quote]

There is no reason to assume any of those things like shared programming for anything more than the metaphorical limbic system to actually control the Reapers. Also the ability to self-modify (which I think is necessarily a part of the new entity will be able to remove any hidden surprises that still remain).
Also, careful what you claim the hardware can magically do. You're starting to sound like Seival. Hardware is hardware and does nothing without programming. And the programming has changed.

But if you want to agree to disagree as far as what the entity will be predisposed to do, I can leave it here.
[/quote]
Perhaps I did get a bit zealous in claiming. I still believe that what I said is the case, though this time I'll put up a disclaimer: It's what I think is going to happen. 

See, here's what I think. I think that the Shepalyst will inherit the Catalyst's perspective in Control. He gains all of the original Catalyt's data, and combined with the constraints of how the hardware is programmed, he comes to the same conclusion as the Catalyst. He might have the ability to self-modify, but he sees no reason too. I don't think the programming will change unless Shepard wants to change it, and as I said, I don't think he will change it because he... understands the original Catalyst.

And with that, I think we're going to have to disagree here. Just don't compare me to Seival. I'm not that wacky. This isn't something we can really argue with in the long run. It'll just end up being another 'is peanut butter a condiment' argument.

[quote]
As for the orbs, they clearly do work on the Reapers. I think the Reapers are well aware of the capabilities of the Leviathans however. I think that's why the Reapers probably wouldn't take chances attacking the Leviathan's on their own. The single Reaper we see that is destroyed is the exception, and I think that that is because the Reaper had been lured into a false sense of security.

As for the Reaper being 'disabled' by the 3-on-1 punch, that's speculative headcanon. You're clearly saying 'I believe' and exercising it as proof. 

So allow me to retort: I disagree. I believe the Reaper was killed by one Leviathan. I have no proof beyond the shot of one Leviathan using the orb to disable the Reaper and make it crash within the water. 
[/quote]
We can interpret that scene many ways. You have your way I have mine. One thing though, I don't think it was the orbs that downed the Reaper, I think it was a direct assault from the Leviathans. The shots of them interspersed in that sequence give the impression that they're rising. Speculations of what actually happened to the Reaper aside, I always saw that as Leviathans rising up to meet their creations. But anyway, I still don't think the orbs are strong enough to actually dominate a Reaper.
[/quote]
 
The orbs alone are useless, of course. I'm not arguing that. I think the Leviathan is using the orb to amplify its signal and to boost its range. And if it can do that with a few orbs to one Reaper in a few seconds....

I don't think it will be a total gamechanger, but it might seriously stem the tide against the Reapers. That said, if the Reapers aren't destroyed but dominated like the rest of the husks, then the Reapers might as well roll out a sign saying 'under new management'. I got the impression that the Leviathans used the Reapers themselves as slaves, but it's unclear if the Reaper is killed, disabled, or simply turned into a Leviathan thrall. Makes Destroy seem that much more of a no-brainer to me. You don't want the Leviathan's to use the Reapers to regain galactic power.

Modifié par MassivelyEffective0730, 02 août 2013 - 08:30 .

[dorktainian]

Reapers want you to pick synthesis.
Reapers want you to pick Control.
Reapers do not want you to pick destroy.

So can someone remind me what shepards mandate is when he gets to the citadel?

Oh yeh........Destroy the reapers using the crucible. Thats his only mandate. Anything else is morally corrupt.

[Bourne Endeavor]

People have largely covered the scientific and nonsensical issues, however there is another makes Synthesis utterly nightmarish. All those already reaperised forces, the Husks, Banshees, Marauders and etc. They are implied to have regained a form of sentience. Imagine you were essentially a zombie abomination that ravaged people by the hundreds and brutally tore them apart. Better even, remember the Asari with PTSD? How her captain became a banshee and tortured a fifteen year old girl and her family?

Suddenly, you remember everything. The anguish and pain you have inflicted, and monstrosity you have become. Even a hybrid mind is not capable of absorbing the severity of such a revelation and likely to be driven into madness all over again. Synthesis is torture beyond words to Reaperised "people."