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[NeonFlux117]

TheMyron wrote...

NeonFlux117 wrote...

Yes, the Reapers are right.

From a certain point of view.

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

Their punishment must be more severe.....

[Sir Arun]

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.

This reminds me not just about the Quarian/Geth conflict that this game is supposedly focussing too much on, but actually a lot more about the Genophage.

We (council races) played Reapers on the Krogan because we feared they might get out of hand. We artificially tried to manage them, control them, sedate them, but in doing so they only became a pack of violent mercs solely concerned about self-preservation and fortune. Their violent behavior only gave genophage-proponents more reason to justify it, which is false logic similar to the starchild's.

One character remarks that if we cure the Genophage, we need not "have to face the Krogan threat" once this war is over at all, and instead a Krogan golden age could happen where the species once again can afford to focus on the culture and development of its race rather than survival alone.

I like this topic a lot because time and again it has been proven that a species can only advance once its basic needs have been covered. Art and culture can wait if I have trouble feeding and clothing my kids. Same will apply to my grandkids, and their great-grandkids and so on. Our own civilization didnt advance in any way, shape or form for tens of thousands of years during which we were hunter gatherers and merely spent each day hunting until we broke the cycle by becoming farmers able to grow their own food and, once food was ensured, we had the time to finally advance.

Modifié par Sir Arun, 12 janvier 2014 - 10:24 .

[TheMyron]

NeonFlux117 wrote...

TheMyron wrote...


Kai Leng doesn't welcome death, he fears it.

His punishment must be more severe.....

TIM: I made you, Shepard! I brought you back from the dead! I'm in charge!

Modifié par TheMyron, 12 janvier 2014 - 11:13 .

[NeonFlux117]

TheMyron wrote...

NeonFlux117 wrote...

TheMyron wrote...


Kai Leng doesn't welcome death, he fears it.

His punishment must be more severe.....

TIM: I made you, Shepard! I brought you back from the dead! I'm in charge!

" Never question my ability to fight, Shepard. I've been fighting them longer than you could imagine"

Modifié par NeonFlux117, 12 janvier 2014 - 11:28 .

[N7Gold]

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?


Yes and no. See, the Leviathans enslave "lesser" races to advance their existence. It has been hinted in the Leviathan DLC in Dr. Bryson's notes that the Leviathans and Thorians are anomalies of organic life because unlike common organic species, they have the ability to control the minds of other species (Leviathans use Quantum Entanglement signals, the Thorians use spores) and they don't generally use machines as technology like we do, they control other races as their version of technology. The "lesser" races created machines to improve their own lives, evidenced by the fact that the quarians used the geth as a labor force to do jobs that are either too difficult or too dangerous for organics to perform, so synthetics, by definition are made to surpass organics by strength, ability and evolution. But when synthetics gained a will of their own, their creators overreacted like the quarians, fearing that if their creations start thinking on their own, they'll rebel from their purposes and find their own, which would not bode well for their creators who need them as much as the Leviathans need the support of "lesser" species. Leviathans see "lesser" species as tools, and the "lesser" species see synthetic life as tools.

This overreaction led to the conflict between organics and synthetics. See, synthetics don't understand why their creators need them, and they only want to live their lives without being controlled, but organics aim to destroy or regain control of their rebellious creations, which forces the synthetics to fight back against their creators, even leading some of them to view organic life as a whole as a threat. The Leviathans, who used to control all life in the galaxy started experiencing problems because of a lot of their thralls where getting killed in the conflict, so they created the Catalyst to find a solution that will bring peace between the synthetics and their creators and establish a connection between both forms of life so the Leviathans using their mind control abilities will be able to enthrall organic and synthetic life all over the galaxy to enslave and protect them from another conflict.

The Catalyst studied the relationship between organics and synthetics, learning that synthetics only want to live a life of solitude if they can't get along with their creators, and the organics try to regain control of their rebellious machines or destroy them so they can create new and obedient machines because they need machines to advance their civilizations. Understanding all this gave the Catalyst the idea of what to do about the conflict. He presented the Leviathans a solution that is similar to Synthesis in some way, but somehow their efforts in manifesting the solution kept failing, making the conflict worse because they can't force the "lesser" races and their machine creations to choose the solution, so the Catalyst had to come up with a Plan B.

And Plan B is creating a synthetic pawn (Reapers) that the advanced "lesser" species and their rebelling machines can't defeat conventionally, a foe that will force them to do whatever it takes to fight for their survival and build a machine the Catalyst and Leviathans designed that can destroy all synthetic life, control it, or reach Synthesis. And the cost of creating this synthetic pawn is slaughtering most of the Leviathan population. Although the Leviathans requested the Catalyst to find a solution to the conflict at any cost, they did not like the idea of being brought to near extinction, but they failed to understand that just because they created the Catalyst to find the solution they requested does not mean they are immune to the Catalyst's new plan of finding the solution, which is to threaten to harvest organic life, provoking them into fighting back, they had to let the Catalyst harvest most of their race to create Harbinger. Then Harbinger systematically harvested every organic race and synthetic race, creating more Reapers for the Catalyst to control. And so, peace is restored to the galaxy at the cost of harvestign every sentient machine and every advanced civilization, leaving the "younger" races alone, at least until they become advanced. The Catalyst and Reapers created Mass Effect technology, the mass relays and Citadel to speed up the younger races' evolution into a space traveling society.

The Catalyst and Reapers goal is to threaten to harvest advanced organic life (that includes the Leviathans once the Reapers discover where they are hiding), urging them all to fight an enemy that is very difficult to defeat conventionally to the point where one day they will discover the plans of the Crucible and build it even though they know nothing about the device's origins so that they will be led to choosing the solution the Catalyst needs them to choose to complete his purpose for the descendants of his creators (Synthesis) so all organic life and synthetic life will be connected to each other and to the Leviathans via the Synthesis DNA, and the progenies of the Leviathans who created the Catalyst can use this connection to enthrall organic and synthetic life alike.

Modifié par N7Gold, 12 janvier 2014 - 12:48 .

[DoomsdayDevice]

Warning: opinion.

Of course the Reapers aren't right.

When Shepard came to the Citadel, the problem was the Reapers, and Shep came there to get rid of them.

Then Shep talks to the Reaper Overlord, and suddenly the problem isn't the Reapers, but the everlasting and unavoidable conflict between synthetics and organics. It's a clever distraction, because suddenly the Reapers aren't the problem, but the solution. A solution to a problem that Shep didn't even set out to solve. Shep came to solve the Reaper problem.

Don't you see it's just clever manipulation to change how Shepard (and the player!) perceives the Reapers?

You're being fooled into control or synthesis.

The Reapers don't want to be destroyed, so their tactic is to confront you with a cleverly made up story about a bigger problem, just to change your mind about destroying them.

Modifié par DoomsdayDevice, 12 janvier 2014 - 03:08 .

[shodiswe]

The Reapers do what the Catalyst orders them to do. They are the fire, they burn, the Catalyst commands the fire.

The correct question would be, is the Catalyst right? This isn't abotu a natural law however, there is no deffinate answer, that something is likely to happen isn't a guarantee or a law.

[Shuidizi]

Leviathans are wrong in the first place since they interfere too much and played god, they believe in controlling other sapient species instead of letting them do their own development, and that kind of "ordered" crap got carried over to their creation reapers and backfired to themselves.

Reapers are equally retarded in that sense, if organics really are "always" going to create machines that destroy them, then by there logic the only true solution is wiping out all organics so that possibility is absolute zero. Then of course the logic they possess "to impose order to chaos" or to believe organics will always conflict with synthetics are way to extreme and glaringly flawed to begin with. It's a logic that simply doesn't take into account of the diversity and flexibility of a big universe.

In the end both Leviathans and their creation reapers are retarded by their overwhelming power and believe they can be the true masters of this universe. And they believe they have a right to decide for all beings in the universe. And that my friend is unacceptable and why they should all die and deserve my hatred, even though they are not real.

[General TSAR]

Nope, they're dead.

[congokong]

Some points I need to make.


1) Leviathan didn't program the catalyst to believe that synthetics would always destroy organics. The catalyst came to this conclusion itself after studying many civilizations. The catalyst's equivalent to an organic's self-preservation instinct was to find some "solution" to the problem and decided on the reapers.

2) The peace between the Geth and Quarians (which only goes on for a few weeks during ME3) or EDI is far too short-term to cite as evidence to disprove the catalyst. EDI for example is allowed to co-exist with organics because she's useful. Everyone uses her. The idea is that in the long-run AIs will vastly surpass organics. This is evident by how quickly they can communicate, learn, build superior hardware, dreadnoughts, etc. My OP is assuming that the catalyst knows in the long-term the peace won't last. Honestly I believe this as well as humans can barely co-exist with each other. Eventually AIs would evolve enough that they would no longer see reason in tolerating organic flaws, or perhaps organics would throw the first stone. It would likely end with synthetics keeping organics for their own purposes (as humans do with animals) or simply exterminating them.

Javik: "There is room in the galaxy for only one form of life; the chaos of the organic or the perfection of the synthetic."

3) While in the long term each species does get exterminated by synthetics once they get too technologically curious, each one has time to thrive. The notion is that if left alone synthetics would dominate all life in the galaxy at once rather than in intervals as the reapers are doing. This would prevent any organic species to live on its own for any duration.

Modifié par congokong, 12 janvier 2014 - 05:59 .

[ImaginaryMatter]

Did anyone else find the Leviathan's acceptance of the Catalyst plan a little weird? I mean their main purpose in creating the Catalyst was to stop Synthetics from killing Organics was to preserve the capacity of those races to pay tribute, not some inherent love for the preservation of all Organic life outside their own (the Leviathans don't seem like particularly nice cuttlefish overlords). I know they say they gave the Catalyst the mandate to preserve all Organic life no matter the cost, but since they embarked on the plan to preserve the tribute gravy train, on that front wouldn't the Catalyst's solution be a complete and utter failure? Because the whole plan involves killing both the payers and the collectors?

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 12 janvier 2014 - 05:52 .

[Shuidizi]

I kind of want to argue with you because you almost sound like you are indoctrinated lol. I guess I'll keep it brief before I get a headache. I will write this down and withdraw from this post.

What little evidence the catalyst may have, what ever civilization they studied, none of them are naturally progressed, most of them influenced either by leviathan or by reaper technology to begin with. This is a very biased sample and does not prove the point synthetics would always destroy organics.

Since the Mass Effect universe is created by Bioware and not a true universe, I guess you might argue their logic is solid based on writer's intentions. But in real life, to assume something "always" happens, especially on such a complicated matter of "created synthetic life rebels and destroys creator organic life", that simulation is way more and beyond the comprehension of current human civilization, whatever we argue now is only in our own heads and based on largely unproven hypotheses. I personally believe in the diversity and resilience of our civilizations to think no matter how powerful AI may become in the future, it won't result in our total destruction. But that's my personal take on this matter.

Therefore the best I could agree with you here is that maybe from the writers perspective in Bioware they do leave hints maybe the catalysts' logic is fine and in ME universe no matter what you do the cycle will continue. But I don't agree with the writer's logic here and based on my real life opinion I believe such matter is more complicated than an unavoidable outcome. And since in game reapers and catalysts actions has consumed trillions of life before the final event, I find them repulsive and disgusting and therefore I ALWAYS destroy them.

Modifié par Shuidizi, 12 janvier 2014 - 06:07 .

[congokong]

I'm indoctrinated. lol That made me laugh. Spent too much time fighting the reapers. They're driving me over to their side; their way of thinking.

Don't get me wrong. I always destroy the reapers too. I'm just playing devil's advocate. It reminds me a bit of The Matrix trilogy. You only see it from humanity's perspective so until the Animatrix series you don't learn that the AIs were actually the initial victims and they simply won the war humans instigated.

And yes, in the real universe I hardly see synthetic domination as "inevitable." It hasn't happened yet. I'm arguing based on the ME universe perspective.

Modifié par congokong, 12 janvier 2014 - 06:19 .

[Podge 90]

If you're going to headcannon that synthetic intelligence will eventually rise against organics and wipe them out, you can also headcannon that the Council races learnt from their mistakes with the Geth, and using both history and post-Rannoch cooperation with Geth, then formed stringent laws and guidelines on the development (or illegality of development) with regards to synthetic life.

I believe that emerging victorious from the Reaper threat, and establishing Geth/Quarian peace, the galaxy can learn it's lesson.

[ImaginaryMatter]

congokong wrote...

2) The peace between the Geth and Quarians (which only goes on for a few weeks during ME3) or EDI is far too short-term to cite as evidence to disprove the catalyst. EDI for example is allowed to co-exist with organics because she's useful. Everyone uses her. The idea is that in the long-run AIs will vastly surpass organics. This is evident by how quickly they can communicate, learn, build superior hardware, dreadnoughts, etc. My OP is assuming that the catalyst knows in the long-term the peace won't last. Honestly I believe this as well as humans can barely co-exist with each other. Eventually AIs would evolve enough that they would no longer see reason in tolerating organic flaws, or perhaps organics would throw the first stone. It would likely end with synthetics keeping organics for their own purposes (as humans do with animals) or simply exterminating them.

The important thing to remember is that Mass Effect is ultimately a story. And in a story the authors, hopefully, can intentionally decide what they do and do not put into that story. In the series the majority of AI characters Shepard met are not incomprehensible beings, they are different, but they have qualities that make them entirely relateable and sympathetic, many of them even actively support cooperation between organics and machines. Many of the character arcs surrounding the AI characters do not deal with what seperates Organics and Synthetics but what makes them similar. The only incomprehensible synthetics are revealed to actually be rather simple.

So, in this universe of sympathetic, peace loving and accepting robot characters, we get told at the end of the game by some being we just met, who claims to be the Reaper head honcho, that peace between the two can never last, no evidence is presented outside of the Catalyst's word (as an aside I'm not advocating that the Catalyst lied, just that the Organic/Synthetic relationship as described by the Catalyst does not fit into the context of the story). In this game where the player can actively strive for peace and succeed, the main character is suddenly told that all that effort was for naught through an exposition dump, the player is not allowed to question the Catalyst's premise, even if is to get told that Shepard's experiences are limited or wrong, somehow.

Which brings me back to the issue of self-determination. The story never explains some imbedded concept within synthetics that cause them to want to KILL ALL HUMANS! (the AI characters are rather accepting of Organic's inability to accept them). An advanced AI species has no more reason to do this instead of live in isolation, uplift Organics, or even live cooperatively with them. As Chris l'Etoile stated, the conflict between the two amounts to simple racism on the part of Organics (hardly an unworkable issue to get over). Mass Effect never significantly explored the concept of rapidly advancing AI constructs and how such things creates a gulf between them and creator; instead it focused on the common humanity of the two. Because of this an ending that suddenly assumes this is inproper as a fitting conclusion.

If the series wanted this ending it should have built up to how large and complex the rapidly developing nature of AI seperates them from the meatbags, how such differences inevitably lead to conflict, how to deal with sapient creatures interacting with each other from different planes of existance, etc. Instead we deal with them falling in love and their philosophies on life.

Editted for some grammar issues.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 12 janvier 2014 - 08:03 .

[TheMyron]

NeonFlux117 wrote...

TheMyron wrote...

NeonFlux117 wrote...

TheMyron wrote...


Kai Leng doesn't welcome death, he fears it.

His punishment must be more severe.....

TIM: I made you, Shepard! I brought you back from the dead! I'm in charge!

" Never question my ability to fight, Shepard. I've been fighting them longer than you could imagine"

You blew it, it was supposed to be Shepard responding: Do you *feel* in charge?

[Gervaise]

I agree with Imaginary Matter. If the writers had stuck with AIs as presented in ME1, then it would have been much easier to accept the Catalyst's argument that there will always be conflict between organics and synthetics and this will result in the destruction of organics. In ME1 the Geth were the aggressors, Sovereign was the aggressor, that AI on the Citadel was an aggressor.

The problem is that in ME2 and ME3 the writers went out of their way to present the AIs in a sympathetic light. The Reapers were still the enemy but this was because they sought to destroy all the advance species in the galaxy, not simply because they were AIs. If you play Leviathan you discover the reason for this before the end but otherwise the reason for this behaviour is suddenly thrust upon you by the Catalyst and the justification flies in the face of everything you have experienced in game. This results in the paradox of the Destroy ending if you succeeded in brokering a peace between the Quarians and the Geth, because whilst it gives the organic species back their self determination and asserts your belief that it is not inevitable that we will make the same mistakes in the future, you also end up destroying your AI allies. This of course is the reason why many people reject destroy - not because they agree with the Catalyst but because they don't want to do this to the Geth and EDI.

However, it would appear the writers do want to suggest in some way that the Catalyst is right, since the ending that is hardest to achieve in single player (at least with the original ending) is Synthesis. Generally you would think that the ending you have to work hardest for is the "best" but in reality it always leaves me repulsed and the gushing EDI voiceover only makes it worse.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

IRL? I have no idea.


In the MEU? Yes.

[ruggly]

They're right because they were written to be right.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

When Shepard came to the Citadel, the problem was the Reapers, and Shep came there to get rid of them.

Then Shep talks to the Reaper Overlord, and suddenly the problem isn't the Reapers, but the everlasting and unavoidable conflict between synthetics and organics.

Actually, they are one in the same. Most players don't make that connection, though.

[ToJKa1]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...
Don't you see it's just clever manipulation to change how Shepard (and the player!) perceives the Reapers?

And Javik and the Leviathans are in on the same plot?

But no, they are wrong. EDI and Geth/Quarian peace confirms that. And further confirmed by the scene with the old man and child after the credits of the "Destroy" ending

I chose destroy, because if or one welcome our new Leviathan overlords.

[FlyingSquirrel]

The obvious objection I have to the rationale for the cycles is that these synthetic genocides of organics only took place in a galaxy dominated by the Leviathans. That's going to create all kinds of social and political factors that will influence the outcomes, especially when the Leviathans seem to have actively manipulated other races to serve their own needs. So they're working from an unrepresentative data set from the very beginning.

I would still be opposed to the cycles even if I thought their logic was correct, but under the circumstances, I think their logic is flawed from the outset. If the Leviathans had gotten out of the way and stopped exploiting other civilizations, they might have found things developing differently. After all, the current cycle has multiple spacefaring species and none of them have been wiped out by synthetics (the quarians came close, but they did survive, and synthetics do not seem to have been a major factor in the other species' histories). Furthermore, it appears that without the Reapers getting involved, the geth (the most prominent synthetics of the current cycle) would have kept to themselves and eventually uploaded themselves into that Dyson sphere - while it's tough to predict exactly what would happen after that, I see no reason to assume that they'd go to war with organics.

Modifié par FlyingSquirrel, 13 janvier 2014 - 05:38 .

[DeathScepter]

It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong but it only matters if we can control them ourselves. Look at the knowledge we can learn. Humanity can be secure in their future if we can harness the power and knowledge of the Reapers.