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[Iakus]

In Exile wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
I know I'm coming in late here, but is it actually a problem that the Catalyst and the Reapers are wrong?

When the game makes you choose between commiting genocide (and indirectly agreeing with them), approving of genocide, or agreeing that the Catalyst is right, yeah. 

+1  

There is no way of telling the Catalyst "No you're wrong" without dooming the galaxy.

[eyezonlyii]

Ok, so the big criteria we see is that a spacefaring species is harvested because they presumably can create an AI. but what if they create the AI first? do the get harvested or do hey get a pass because they aren't "detected"?

[Deathsaurer]

Well the Quarians were getting slaughtered presumably because there weren't enough of them to make a Reaper...

[MassivelyEffective0730]

iakus wrote...

In Exile wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
I know I'm coming in late here, but is it actually a problem that the Catalyst and the Reapers are wrong?

When the game makes you choose between commiting genocide (and indirectly agreeing with them), approving of genocide, or agreeing that the Catalyst is right, yeah. 

+1  

There is no way of telling the Catalyst "No you're wrong" without dooming the galaxy.

I'm more concerned with the aspect of Destroy that disables the relays. That's more important to me than the lives of anyone (except Miranda). I'd like it a lot more if I could challenge it more and call out the error in its definition and postulate faulty programming that its problem is based off of.

I'd still destroy though. EDI and the Geth are a sacrifice that I'm more than willing to make (even if the Geth's death is rather pointless and devolving towards their story, though I see where it's coming from narratively).

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Deathsaurer wrote...

Well the Quarians were getting slaughtered presumably because there weren't enough of them to make a Reaper...

Plus, it'd be the easiest Reaper in the world to kill. Just sneeze at it and watch it die.

[CynicalShep]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

Deathsaurer wrote...

Well the Quarians were getting slaughtered presumably because there weren't enough of them to make a Reaper...

Plus, it'd be the easiest Reaper in the world to kill. Just sneeze at it and watch it die.

This reminds me of the War of the Worlds movie.

[In Exile]

iakus wrote...

There is no way of telling the Catalyst "No you're wrong" without dooming the galaxy.

That's not what I'm saying, though. In any of the three endings, Shepard arguably does something pretty horrible: (i) exterminating the geth/EDI (less bad, obviously, if you're just killing EDI); (ii) becoming a (benevolent) space dictator with an invincible army of genocidal space warships; or (iii) physically rewriting every living thing in the Galaxy. Or refusing, in which case the reapers just genocide everything. 

If the reapers are wrong, then you're doing essentially committing a horrible crime for no moral reason at all, other than the threat of everyone being killed. It's an incredible moment of forced powerlessness in a game about empowerment, where all of the choices are different versions of moral nausea. 

If the Reapers are right, then at least you can justify the things you're doing as having somewhat of a pay-off. 

[durasteel]

txgoldrush wrote...
...
And no, organics vs synthetics was not resolved on Rannoch. Why? Because the human held the gun to the organics to force them into peace. They did not find it on their own, and doubts linger afterward. Pay more attention to the characters. Without Shepard, the geth and the quarians would have destroyed eachother, even Tali and Legion would have. That's no proof. And really, the Catalyst's motive doesn't matter, its a conflict of methods. Who cares if he is wrong or right, its the methods that we oppose no matter what.
...

It was totally resolved on Rannoch. Just because two parties are forced to come to peaceful terms does not invalidate the peace, and just because a solution was not reached without Shepard deoesn't invalidate the solution Shepard brings.

On Rannoch, Shepard resolves the conflict. Shepard can choose synthetics, organics, or peace between both. Once Shepard fights for the opportunity to make that choice and picks a side, the conflict ends. One or the other faction controls the planet, or they share it successfully.

I agree with you that the Catalyst's motive doesn't matter. I disagree that there is a conflict of methods. It is a fight for survival, and it is in no way resolved prior to the catalyst scene.

[durasteel]

Nitrocuban wrote...

durasteel wrote...
Organics vs. synthetics was the theme of a side plot that was resolved on Rannoch. Notice that it was resolved.

Was it?
Wrex getting along with Mordin does not solve the Krogan/Salarian conflict
The only conflict solved on Rannoch was Geth vs. Quarians and that not even for good as nobody knows what the Geth might become when they build their Dyson Sphere thingy. Some synthetics will rebel sooner or later.
And that is pretty much what the Catalyst tells us. 

Yeah, it was resolved if you brokered the peace deal between the two factions, because Shepard proves by doing so that independant self-aware synthetics can live with their creators without the need to wipe them out.

I suppose if you pick one side and wipe out the other, you miss the opportunity to make that point, but whatever. It is a more immediate and rational conclusion to the matter as a theme in the game than the catalyst garbage, since destroy doesn't prevent future AI development, control just substitutes Shep for Cat on the throne of the reaper god, and synthesis hybridizes everything but does nothing to prevent the strong from dominating or annihilating the weak.

[durasteel]

Deathsaurer wrote...
I don't think it ever specified what caused the intial confrontation. I always got the impression organics freaked when the robots showed them up and tried to kill them resulting in their slaughter instead. Rannoch showed the power of a fully evolved AI civilization. What happens if someone like the Batarians keeps provoking them time and time again?

A geth platform asked its Quarian master if it had a soul. The Quarian realised that the geth had become self-aware and destroyed it, but because they are networked all geth became aware both of themselves and of the fact that the Quarians were determined to destroy them all. The geth fought to survive and drove the Quarians off of Rannoch, but although they had the opportunity to wipe the Quarians out the geth did not do so.

This event is bookended by Legion's death if Tali is alive and Shepard chooses the Quarians over the geth. Legion asks Tali "Does this unit have a soul?" to which Tali responds in the affirmative as Legion deactivates.

[AlanC9]

In Exile wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
I know I'm coming in late here, but is it actually a problem that the Catalyst and the Reapers are wrong?

When the game makes you choose between commiting genocide (and indirectly agreeing with them), approving of genocide, or agreeing that the Catalyst is right, yeah. 

Wait.... where does the approving of genocide part come in?

I'm not sure about the indirectly agreeing part either. Whatever the Catalyst wants is of only historical interest to my Shepards. Why should they care?

FWIW, I'm with you on the larger "moral nausea" point. Except for being bothered by that.

Modifié par AlanC9, 10 décembre 2013 - 02:26 .

[LinksOcarina]

iakus wrote...

And how is that any different than Shepard's fate?  How is Shepard dying any more or less a "narrative flavor" save Bioware saying "You get one flavor, now choke on it!"

I'd say this shows that people don't like being toyed with.  "You're screwed either way" isn't much of a choice.  That the writers didn't forsee the backlash to this is nothing short of astounding.

And Shepard dying the first time was, imo an awful bit of railroading that served no purpose but perhaps to warn us (hindsight being 20/20) that one or more writers on the Mass Effect team has an unhealthy obsession with killing player characters.

And no, there was absolutely nothing in the game that indicated Shepard must die.  Even in the final minutes with that idiotic Catalyst, there is no compelling reason why any of the "solutions" has to be lethal.  It's tragedy to force more tragedy onto an already tragic situation.  

You are again not listening.

Shepards fate is the Bhaalspawns fate because it's set already. The choice in the end is not about living or dying, but how you choose to die. Which sacrifice do you make to be the hero, or do you refuse it?

As I said before, thats the actual narrative choice. The plot point is that shepard is going to die for the galaxy. Call him Jesus or a hero or a moron or whatever you like, thats the plot point, just like the plot point for the Bhaalspawn is choosing between mortality or becoming the god of murder (or good). 

You don't need an indication, you don't even need it to be foreshadowed. At that final scene, it was pretty much set by the way the dialogue was written. That is again the other point, that Shepard's fate is supposed to be unchanged. The writers probably knew this and presumed the fanbase would understand the difference between narrative and plot. Some people don't and the backlash happened. At least, that is part of it.

Going back to the breath scene, I still maintain it should be removed, but again its a moment of BioWare trying to have their cake and eat it. The only way it would work  is to scrap the ending choices and re-work the entire scene, and BioWare was never going to do that to their story, nor are they obligated to We can agree or disagree all we want on this iakus, the point is your mad about something that can't, and arguably shouldn't, be changed. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 10 décembre 2013 - 02:21 .

[LinksOcarina]

AlanC9 wrote...

In Exile wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
I know I'm coming in late here, but is it actually a problem that the Catalyst and the Reapers are wrong?

When the game makes you choose between commiting genocide (and indirectly agreeing with them), approving of genocide, or agreeing that the Catalyst is right, yeah. 

Wait.... where does the approving of genocide part come in?

I'm not sure about the indirectly agreeing part either. Whatever the Catalyst wants is of only historical interest to my Shepards. Why should they care?

There is no approval of a genocide as far as I am aware, unless you miscontrue refuse as that. 

To your question Alan, it really shouldn't matter if the Caltalyst is right or wrong, because Shepard pretty much proves it wrong in that moment anyway, outside of refuse at least.

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 10 décembre 2013 - 02:16 .

[LinksOcarina]

In Exile wrote...

iakus wrote...

There is no way of telling the Catalyst "No you're wrong" without dooming the galaxy.

That's not what I'm saying, though. In any of the three endings, Shepard arguably does something pretty horrible: (i) exterminating the geth/EDI (less bad, obviously, if you're just killing EDI); (ii) becoming a (benevolent) space dictator with an invincible army of genocidal space warships; or (iii) physically rewriting every living thing in the Galaxy. Or refusing, in which case the reapers just genocide everything. 

If the reapers are wrong, then you're doing essentially committing a horrible crime for no moral reason at all, other than the threat of everyone being killed. It's an incredible moment of forced powerlessness in a game about empowerment, where all of the choices are different versions of moral nausea. 

If the Reapers are right, then at least you can justify the things you're doing as having somewhat of a pay-off. 

This is again based on the presumption that the reapers and the Catalyst are wrong. 

I still maintain that the jury is out on that that because our sample size is too small to make a judgement. As I said earlier the Geth and EDI do hurt the argument of the Catalyst, but at the same time those are very special cases where certain factors made them become a credible argument. Throughout the game we see the negatives that prove the Catalyst right. Overlord, the AI on the Citadel, the AI that tried to kill Shepard in Mass Effect 1, and the fact that AI existed before the Geth.

I am also reminded by that AI that tries to kill Shepard, when it said "all organics must destroy or control syntehtic life forms." Once again, it cuts both ways and makes this a gray area.

To bring it back on topic, we can partially thank Drew K for making this all part of the plot, including the Reapers too, which I am sure he had a hand in somehow. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 10 décembre 2013 - 02:34 .

[durasteel]

LinksOcarina wrote...
... The writers probably knew this and presumed the fanbase would understand the difference between narrative and plot. Some people don't and the backlash happened. 

Y'know, I really find it incredible that still, after all this time, some people still try to make the argument that we didn't like the ending because we somehow don't get it. We are unsophisticated or ignorant, so we failed to appreciate the artistic expression of Mac Walters in the "bittersweet" ending of the trilogy.

What a load of crap.

We hated the ending because it was stupid. It introduced a new stupid character as the antagonist we weren't allowed to fight, it offered three stupid nonsensical flavors of an ending, and when it was expanded in the DLC the stupid new enemy character said even more stupid nonsensical garbage than it did before. Ultimately, Shepard either dies for no good reason or seems to die and then is teased to have survived... even though we're told time and again that there will be no more Shepard. 

It is a bad concept, poorly executed. We understand it just fine, and we still hate it.

[LinksOcarina]

durasteel wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...
... The writers probably knew this and presumed the fanbase would understand the difference between narrative and plot. Some people don't and the backlash happened. 

Y'know, I really find it incredible that still, after all this time, some people still try to make the argument that we didn't like the ending because we somehow don't get it. We are unsophisticated or ignorant, so we failed to appreciate the artistic expression of Mac Walters in the "bittersweet" ending of the trilogy.

What a load of crap.

We hated the ending because it was stupid. It introduced a new stupid character as the antagonist we weren't allowed to fight, it offered three stupid nonsensical flavors of an ending, and when it was expanded in the DLC the stupid new enemy character said even more stupid nonsensical garbage than it did before. Ultimately, Shepard either dies for no good reason or seems to die and then is teased to have survived... even though we're told time and again that there will be no more Shepard. 

It is a bad concept, poorly executed. We understand it just fine, and we still hate it.

I honestly don't care if you hated it or not. You (not we) can have your own opinion on things. 

Nor did I even say that, so don't put words in my mouth. I am discussing something else entirely. Your problem with the ending is the context, not the bones of it. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 10 décembre 2013 - 02:38 .

[Farangbaa]

txgoldrush wrote...

Pretty much you write the entire paragraph, but you failed to get it.

First off, there is nothing new to the belief systems of the Reapers and Shepard from all throughout the game to the finale. In fact, the Catalyst just reinforced Shepards view of the Reapers all throughout ME3 that the Reapers do not understand organic life. Shepard certainly has this belief when confronting the Rannoch Reaper. He certainly has this belief when he talks to the crew before the final push to the beam. Its there all throughout, not just in the last 5 minutes. You were not paying attention.

And no, organics vs synthetics was not resolved on Rannoch. Why? Because the human held the gun to the organics to force them into peace. They did not find it on their own, and doubts linger afterward. Pay more attention to the characters. Without Shepard, the geth and the quarians would have destroyed eachother, even Tali and Legion would have. That's no proof. And really, the Catalyst's motive doesn't matter, its a conflict of methods. Who cares if he is wrong or right, its the methods that we oppose no matter what.

And third, the conflict is pretty much resolved BEFORE you meet the Catalyst, when you connect the Crucible to the Citadel.  That's why the Catalyst sidesteps Shepards argument against him, because his solution doesn't work anymore because the Crucible gave him new options. But this does not mean you didn't have a conflict with him all throughout the game. He is the embodiment of all Reapers. Connect the dots here. And the biggest reason why he "lost" is that he didn't understand organic life to know that they would pass down the Crucible and that the Crucible plans weren't eradicated and that he did not know how hard the organics would fight back, hard enough to reassess his options through the crucible. Connect the dots. The "clearly organics are more resourceful than we realize" is a huge line and telling of his lack of understanding of organics.

What goes on in the ending is a stalemate. Shepard cannot defeat the Reapers and end the cycle without the Crucible, and the Catalyst cannot enact new solutions without Shepard. They are at an impasse where both need the other to enact a new solution. The conflict is over, it was over before meeting the Catalyst, its resolution time. The elements in the conflict still do linger with the Catalyst and he does show signs of him not understanding organic life, such as not really understanding Shepards reaction or even opposition to synthesis, but the conflict itself Is over before the elevator ride up.

Thank you.

[Iakus]

[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...

You are again not listening.

Shepards fate is the Bhaalspawns fate because it's set already. The choice in the end is not about living or dying, but how you choose to die. Which sacrifice do you make to be the hero, or do you refuse it? [/quote]

That's just it, the Bhaalspawn can choose not to die (or shed his physical form, or whatever).  Just as the Warden can.  

Living and dying are two different fates.  They are separate states of being, as different as night and day.  Shepard does not get to choose which one to be.  Whether it is predetermined which chocie Shepard gets to make in the end, is not at issue.  SHepard, and the player  doesn't get to make that choice.  Pretty much the nmost basic choice there is in existence, whether to continue existing or not.

[quote[
As I said before, thats the actual narrative choice. The plot point is that shepard is going to die for the galaxy. Call him Jesus or a hero or a moron or whatever you like, thats the plot point, just like the plot point for the Bhaalspawn is choosing between mortality or becoming the god of murder (or good). [/quote]

Except such a fate is sprung on us unawares.  Mere minutes earlier, Shepard was telling Anderson how it's nearly over, and they'll be able to go home soon.  There was no reason for this plot pont.  It exists solely to add another level of unnecessary tragedy to an already overwrought story.  

[quote]
You don't need an indication, you don't even need it to be foreshadowed. [/quote]


:lol::lol:

[quote] At that final scene, it was pretty much set by the way the dialogue was written. That is again the other point, that Shepard's fate is supposed to be unchanged. The writers probably knew this and presumed the fanbase would understand the difference between narrative and plot. Some people don't and the backlash happened. At least, that is part of it.[/quote]

The entire Mass Effect trilogy was about altering fate, breaking cycles!  Railroading Shepard to an unavoidable death was pretty much the worst outcome they could possibly thinnk of that doesn't involve bricking game systems.

[quote]
Going back to the breath scene, I still maintain it should be removed, but again its a moment of BioWare trying to have their cake and eat it. The only way it would work  is to scrap the ending choices and re-work the entire scene, and BioWare was never going to do that to their story, nor are they obligated to We can agree or disagree all we want on this iakus, the point is your mad about something that can't, and arguably shouldn't, be changed. 
[/quote]

Oh, I'm mad about more than that.  

[KaiserShep]

Nah, I'm glad the breath scene wasn't scrapped. We wouldn't have all those beautiful "selfish xenophobic luddites" comments railing against destroyers if it wasn't there.

[LinksOcarina]

iakus wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

You are again not listening.

Shepards fate is the Bhaalspawns fate because it's set already. The choice in the end is not about living or dying, but how you choose to die. Which sacrifice do you make to be the hero, or do you refuse it?

That's just it, the Bhaalspawn can choose not to die (or shed his physical form, or whatever).  Just as the Warden can.  

Living and dying are two different fates.  They are separate states of being, as different as night and day.  Shepard does not get to choose which one to be.  Whether it is predetermined which chocie Shepard gets to make in the end, is not at issue.  SHepard, and the player  doesn't get to make that choice.  Pretty much the nmost basic choice there is in existence, whether to continue existing or not.

Actually, the pre-determination is the issue here, because that was always the case, as with other protagonists. 

What you are describing is again narrative flavor, and presuming the Bhaalspawn dies when he becomes a god of murder as well which I call a stretch since you don't really die.

Being two seperate states of being doesn't change the fact that the choices are locked in for that moment. This is why it's the same for Mass Effect, the important choice is that you actually choose. Your state of being is irrelevent to the choice. Sure it can factor into things, but that is why those aspects become a part of the narrative to that plot point. "How do you stop the reapers?" is the question, not "How do you live?".

Both are fundamentally the same through the mechanics of the game itself.  From a writing standpoint you can make a case like you are doing, but it doesn't change the fact that the games mechanics, how plot and narration is set up in BioWare games, provides you a narrative choice on how you say things, but not what is said or done. It's like the moments in Mass Effect 1 where no matter what dialouge choice you picked, you would say the same thing; it's pretty much the same principle here, because what was said by Shepard is designed to move the plot, not change the narrative.

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 10 décembre 2013 - 04:53 .

[In Exile]

AlanC9 wrote...
Wait.... where does the approving of genocide part come in?

Because the essence of control is to "take over" from the Catalyst to try and come up with a non-genocide way of dealing with the prolbme. The moral territory being staked out is more, "let's see if there's an alternative to genocide" rather than "genocide is wrong". 

I'm not sure about the indirectly agreeing part either. Whatever the Catalyst wants is of only historical interest to my Shepards. Why should they care?

Well, you're accepting that genocide is justified: it just has to be for the right goal. Even if you think the reapers goal is wrong, you're not disagreeing with their method as much on that point as you are with what they were trying to achieve. 

[Iakus]

LinksOcarina wrote...

That is again narrative flavor, and presuming the Bhaalspawn dies when he becomes a god of murder. Being two seperate states of being doesn't change the fact that the choices are locked in for that moment. That choice is not the important choice. It's the one you need to not focus on. 

I presume it is equivalent to death since the LI's epilogue changes to the nonromanced one if you decide to take up the Bhaalspawn essence.

Why?  This is my character, after all.  I should have a say in what happens to him or her.  It is not the only choice, no.  But saying it's not an important choice, to the point of denying it at all is doing a disservice to both the story and the player.

[In Exile]

[quote]LinksOcarina wrote...
If the reapers are wrong, then you're doing essentially committing a horrible crime for no moral reason at all, other than the threat of everyone being killed. It's an incredible moment of forced powerlessness in a game about empowerment, where all of the choices are different versions of moral nausea. 

If the Reapers are right, then at least you can justify the things you're doing as having somewhat of a pay-off. 
[/quote]

This is again based on the presumption that the reapers and the Catalyst are wrong.  [/quote]

I ... umm... I don't know how to react to this when my entire post is about how the Reapers being wrong makes the choices a lot more morally abhorent, to answer the question of why it would be worse if the Reapers were wrong. 


[quote]I still maintain that the jury is out on that that because our sample size is too small to make a judgement. As I said earlier the Geth and EDI do hurt the argument of the Catalyst, but at the same time those are very special cases where certain factors made them become a credible argument. Throughout the game we see the negatives that prove the Catalyst right. Overlord, the AI on the Citadel, the AI that tried to kill Shepard in Mass Effect 1, and the fact that AI existed before the Geth. [/quote]

The Catalyst's argument isn't stupid beyond belief because of a lack of empirical data. It's stupid beyond belief because it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what "organic" means. The intestinal fauna that coates our excrement are "living" organic beings, but the Catalyst isn't just creating huge farms of digestive tracts to "preserve" organics forever. Despite using the word "organic" what the Catalyst really means is sapient entities made out of flesh. But the made out of flesh part is idiotic - there's nothign intrinsically special in ME about being a saptient organic versus saptient something else, and sapient organics are just as likely to wipe each other out as anything. 

[quote]I am also reminded by that AI that tries to kill Shepard, when it said "all organics must destroy or control syntehtic life forms." Once again, it cuts both ways and makes this a gray area. [/quote]

The krogan destroyed the rachni, but organic life wiping out organic life doesn't justify exterminating all existing organic life to save all future organic life. It's a logical black hole that only seems superficially coherent because of this "right stuff" analogy. 

[LinksOcarina]

In Exile wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Wait.... where does the approving of genocide part come in?

Because the essence of control is to "take over" from the Catalyst to try and come up with a non-genocide way of dealing with the prolbme. The moral territory being staked out is more, "let's see if there's an alternative to genocide" rather than "genocide is wrong". 

I'm not sure about the indirectly agreeing part either. Whatever the Catalyst wants is of only historical interest to my Shepards. Why should they care?

Well, you're accepting that genocide is justified: it just has to be for the right goal. Even if you think the reapers goal is wrong, you're not disagreeing with their method as much on that point as you are with what they were trying to achieve. 

That doesn't approve of genocide at all though. Even thinking of an alternative to genocide directly presumes genocide is wrong. Morality is not brought into it because it's not explicitly stated, that is something we put in place through our own thought processes.

Considering Shepard has had moments where he can kill off entire species and justify the necessity of genocide, thats a shaky argument to make because the choices may actually match the thought processes of the player in that situation. This also makes the point kind of moot in that case in this instance, depending on how you play the game.

[LinksOcarina]

iakus wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

That is again narrative flavor, and presuming the Bhaalspawn dies when he becomes a god of murder. Being two seperate states of being doesn't change the fact that the choices are locked in for that moment. That choice is not the important choice. It's the one you need to not focus on. 

I presume it is equivalent to death since the LI's epilogue changes to the nonromanced one if you decide to take up the Bhaalspawn essence.

Why?  This is my character, after all.  I should have a say in what happens to him or her.  It is not the only choice, no.  But saying it's not an important choice, to the point of denying it at all is doing a disservice to both the story and the player.

I realized I wasn't clear so I added more in the original post above. 

And thats really the question of the day now. Is it your character fully? 

In every BioWare game I have played, it never is. I always thought that was understood though. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 10 décembre 2013 - 05:12 .