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[congokong]

Most fans hate the Catalyst (maybe because of its form) but it actually
brought an insight into the reapers' motivations besides the "you cannot
comprehend" arrogance of Sovereign, Harbinger, and the reaper on
Rannoch.

It's actually not that hard to comprehend. The debate is
the ethics of this "ends justify the means" rationale for the harvests.
The logic is that the catalyst has studied countless civilizations and
the dangers of technological progression. Every single civilization
inevitably ended with synthetics being created, surpassing organics, and
eventually destroying them. Leviathan originally intervened to destroy
these synthetics before they could destroy other organic societies but
later created the catalyst as a mediator. The catalyst realized that
Leviathan creating it proved that Leviathan was making the same errors
the lesser species were. Therefore the reapers were made to destroy
Leviathan and any advanced organics/synthetics before synthetics could
dominate all life in the galaxy. While this gives organics free reign to
live it also put them on a timer that was accelerated by the invention
of mass relays (done to make harvesting easier as they'd technologically
progress along a linear path as well as a means for the reapers to
travel).

A theme throughout the series is the dangers of
technology. The idea is that without Leviathan or the reapers eventually
all organics will be enslaved or killed by synthetics. So are the
reapers right?

Modifié par congokong, 12 janvier 2014 - 06:18 .

[Excella Gionne]

Reapers are sort of like the in-between people. While being Synthetic, they are also Organic. They have a reasonable logic for harvesting both Synthetic and Organic. They know that Synthetics will eventually evolve and seek their own right to live which will begin a war between both Synthetics and Organics like the Morning War. Since Reapers have yet to find a solution, the Crucible combined with the Catalyst will offer solutions to the Reaper A.I.

Your question is sort of a debatable question as it is a hard question to answer. Looking from the Reapers P.O.V. their's is right if ethically speaking. In Organics view, we feel like we are being robbed of our reason and choice to exist, but is compassion, love, and etc., the qualities of Organics enough to pardon us from the Reapers' solution between Organics and Synthetics? In the Synthetics view, they simply want to live as well, and maybe overtime develop organic qualities such as emotions. But synthetics are harder to predict....

[Obadiah]

I thought the Catalyst was right. Each time AI were created there seemed to be some kind of conflict, though the exact reasons in each case were different. In addition, as much as the Catalyst would like to remain apart from this pattern of destruction, its own actions resulted in the eventual creation of an anti-AI weapon, the Crucible, which is one step removed from Synthetics doing that to us.

JasonShep made a pretty good thread about this:
The Catalyst is Right [or How I Learned to Trust the Writers]

Modifié par Obadiah, 12 janvier 2014 - 03:22 .

[Excella Gionne]

StreetMagic wrote...

johnnythao89 wrote...

Reapers are sort of like the in-between people. While being Synthetic, they are also Organic..

Saying the Reapers are organic is like saying my leather boots are still cows.

Reapers are Organics too as seen in ME2 and mentioned in ME3. But they are essentially Synthetic given that they do have obvious Synthetic traits and are run by and given orders by an A.I. 

[Sleekshinobi]

I would have to say yes, the Catalyst and the Reapers were right. They were trying to preserve the knowledge of each cycle in Reaper form. Essentially saving organics from being destroyed completely by synthetics they create. Which is basically what Harbinger kept saying they are our salvation through destruction.

That is pretty much incomprehensible to an organic mind, which also kind proves what Sovereign was saying. But to a machine the only thing that matters is preserving the knowledge no matter what form in takes which is what the Reapers were doing.

EDI even states in the synthesis ending that the Reapers share the knowledge of the past cycles with them

[ImaginaryMatter]

I guess the ending writers intended for the Reapers to be unambiguously right since Shepard is not allowed to question or in anyway challenge the Catalyst's premise (except, maybe, in the Refuse ending, which doesn't end well for anyone we know).

However, that is where my problem with that premise comes into play. The Catalyst speaks of Synthetics rebelling in absolutes, it throws around words like 'inevitable' and 'always'. Yet, the majority of the AI characters Shepard meets -- with the exception of the Reapers -- have the same capacity for self determination as any Organic and most of the AI characters express no such interest: the Geth want to live in isolation and have no resentment towards Organics, EDI wants to help the crew of the Normandy and loves Joker, Legion believes in and struggles to bring in peace between the Quarians and the Geth and ultimately sacrifices himself for some reason to do so, etc.

Is it possible that an AI can lead to the destruction of all live? Sure, the Catalyst seems to fit that bill, given the vastness of space and number of iterations in the Cycle, there must have been several instances where only advanced species were destroyed without encountering any lesser species. In this instance all known Organic life would have been destroyed. Despite this, what is the difference in capacity between Organics and Synthetics in general? What is to prevent an Organic species from accomplishing the exact same thing? Organics have done many horrendous things to each other in the story.

The idea is an interesting one, but in my opinion it is in the wrong story. Mass Effect, at the very least starting with ME2, always explored the qualities that made Organics and Synthetics similar, not different. And despite being bombarded with, often to the point of annoyance and inconsistency, about how sympathetic the Synthetic characters are, at the end Shepard is told the all too loving robots are out to kill us all and the husk using, dark, foreboding, ancient evil cuttlefish are here to safe us from ourselves -- without any build up.

This coupled with the questions of a pro-Reaper entity existing aboard the Citadel with control over it's functions, the fact that the Kid rarely stops to qualify anything that it says, and Shepard unable to question anything important or bring up his own experiences with AI... leads me to conclude that the writers wanted the end to be deep and philosophical (and to their credit touching and rememberable), even if they had to cram it in.

So, in conclusion I guess the Reapers are right for no other reason than the Catalyst said so and Shepard believed it. Personally, I don't.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 12 janvier 2014 - 07:47 .

[Excella Gionne]

Well, paragon(Destroy) and renegade(Control) were reversed in the end, but that's mainly based on the IT theory or the person's perspective on what's right....

[TheMyron]

@OP: Do you want us all to die so that the Yahg and the Na'vi can take over the next cycle?

As Vigil said: "What does it matter? Your survival depends on you stopping them, NOT understanding them". I would have been left in the dark on this matter; another reason I hate ME3 (or at least the catalyst)

congokong wrote...


Therefore the reapers were made to destroy
Leviathan and any advanced organics/synthetics before synthetics could
dominate all life in the galaxy


In the end, Synthetics still dominate all life on the galaxy, (i.e. The Reapers)... The Catalyst has contradicted itself, thus it should self-destruct and allow all life (Shepard's included) to continue.

P.S. I preferred it when the Reapers just independent-minded machines hell-bent destroying organics, (i.e. No Catalyst).

Modifié par TheMyron, 12 janvier 2014 - 07:56 .

[dreamgazer]

TheMyron wrote...

Do you want us all to die so that the Yahg and the Na'vi can take over the next cycle?

That sounds like an entertaining sequel.  Picture some cryogenically-frozen humans running amuck around 'em. 

[KaiserShep]

Nope. Preserving knowledge is crap if it's going to be sealed forever in a killbot.

[DeinonSlayer]

Given that two out of the three synthetic-organic conflicts we're aware of in the MEU were instigated by the AI tasked with preventing them in the first place, I'm gonna say "no." The last was a product of the Council ban on artificial intelligence, attempted enforcement thereof (one must finally note the Council themselves were violating their own ban per the archival footage in the Citadel DLC).

[KaiserShep]

DeinonSlayer wrote...
(one must finally note the Council themselves were violating their own ban per the archival footage in the Citadel DLC).

The council's pretty shady. An asari crime lord just moseys on in to the Citadel and Tevos just gives her a pass no questions asked.

[CrutchCricket]

Are the Reapers right?

[AlexMBrennan]

I don't see how it matters - for us, it's a choice between certain death now and possible death at a later time and unless you value potential life infinitely higher than extant sentient life (I.e. the reapers will murder billions so bacteria which cannot feel get a chance to maybe evolve to become sentient) you'll pick the latter as there simply isn't any reliable evidence that catalyst could present.

[Axdinosaurx]

To solve the problem of synthetics killing organics, we kill all the organics and turn them into synthetics so the synthetics can't kill all organics.
Does it make any sense to you?

[NeonFlux117]

Yes, the Reapers are right.

From a certain point of view.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

If I destroy them I disagreed with them. If I chose Control I want to use them. If I chose synthesis they're right in theory.

[Sir Arun]

To be honest I think the Reapers are full of BS.

I'd like to put the theory that the Reapers arent AI, but VI. Daring theory, I know, but nonetheless. This includes Sovereign, Harbinger and Catalyst, btw.

The Reapers claim to be infinitely wise, and all-knowing, and say they've got it all figured out, when in reality they might be completely blind and only possess the programming and outlook of their Leviathan creators some 40 million years ago. The Leviathans believed all organics would create synthetics, and all synthetics would rebel and wipe out organics, so the Reapers assumed this must be true and robotically started fulfilling their purpose (consume and preserve organic essence within their collective consciousness, with each Reaper capital ship being a data bank for a harvested species)

If someone is a fan of 40k lore he might know the Necron Lord Nemesor Zahndrekh, and the fact that a fault in his programming has made him blind to the galaxy he had awoken in, still thinking he was an organic and fighting enemies of eons past. Similarly, this eccentricity could be depicted by the Reapers always speaking in such absolutes even though the Geth and Quarian and getting along and Joker is dating EDI.

In light of all this, perhaps the Star Child is lying after all. Choosing the destroy solution might actually not wipe out all synthetics at all, and merely the Reapers. After all, Bioware doesnt show us in the ending cutscene whether EDI and the Geth die or not. In fact, this "technological dark age" the Starchild warns of never happens because even after the Crucible firing you can see conventional space ships still flying with their internal lights on and everything, meaning they're fully operational.

Since Starchild doesnt want the Reapers to die, it tries to dissuade Shepard in any way possible to choose a solution far more suitable to the self-preservation of the Reapers, with synthesis obviously being their ultimate victory.

Modifié par Sir Arun, 12 janvier 2014 - 09:55 .

[wright1978]

No catalyst is a loony who keeps interfering with the experiment to prove his deranged obsession is true.

[Sir DeLoria]

 No, the Reapers are wrong on countless levels. Which is why I blew them to hell^_^

[Gervaise]

The Catalyst would appear to demonstrate one of the chief problems with A.I. intelligence - the response has to be programmed and once you have done so it will continue to react according to that programming unless it or someone else decides to alter it. You will note that EDI has to alter her own programming if she wishes to react in a different way to a situation. It is not possible to make a completely different response in isolation from the main programming, unlike a human where a particular situation might cause you respond in a way that is completely out of character but is appropriate to solve the issue.

What is clear, particularly if you played Leviathan, is that the Catalyst is still operating to its original programming. That programming may have been faulty on the part of the Leviathans but the fact is that the Catalyst has never questioned it or sought to change it. The only reason that it has continually been proved right is that it has controlled the evolutionary path of the organic species and then destroyed them at a particular moment in that path. Had it allowed development to continue, the adaptable nature of organics might well have resulted in a different result.

The current cycle actually demonstrates this. If Sovereign had been successful back in ME1, then the cycle of harvesting would have begun at a time when the Geth were in conflict with organics, in particular had nearly destroyed their creators. However, because he failed, the cycle was able to continue to a point where the true Geth (who did not really want conflict) had managed to make contact with organics and, if your Shepard decided on that course, has established a working relationship with at least one group of organics. Had Shepard not been rather suspect owing to their connection with Cerberus, it might be assumed that this relationship could have been built on to establish peaceful relations with the Geth. As it is, hostilities were resumed when the Quarians attacked their Dyson sphere. However, had the Reapers not intervened and once again seduced the Geth, it is possible that the Geth could have appealed to the Council and the Quarians might have been censured for that attack. This is only conjecture as we just don't know. That is my whole point - the Reapers have never allowed a cycle to continue beyond a certain point in time and so the Catalyst's observations are based on assumptions limited by these time constraints.

So, when I choose Destroy, I am not just basing this on Shepard's own experience on organic/synthetic conflict, but also my belief that nothing is inevitable unless you force it to be so.

[TheMyron]

NeonFlux117 wrote...

Yes, the Reapers are right.

From a certain point of view.

The Reapers don't welcome death, They fear it.