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[Gervaise]

Synthesis changed the DNA at its basic level. So all organics are now organic/synthetic hybrids. That doesn't necessarily mean that their individual characteristics, imperfections and weaknesses are altered. Joker was a human with an odd syndrome, now he is a pseudo-human with an odd syndrome. It is of course possible that subsequently the Reapers would provide him with new synthetic parts to replace his faulty ones.

The main difference that Synthesis effected was to join the consciousness of organics and synthetics and bring them into harmony. Whether this would end all conflict is open to debate but I would assume that the Intelligence would still exist and be running the show and thus to some extent all beings would be under its control.

Despite seeing Krogan babies, I would imagine these were born prior to the change, and that normal reproduction no longer exists. When something wears out it is replaced by synthetic parts, which is why EDI anticipates achieving immortality. Evolution has effectively been frozen in time.

[SwobyJ]

Don't get too attached to the plot.

lol just had to say it

[CrutchCricket]

SwobyJ wrote...
Interpretation. It even says "WE will be yours to direct and control as you see fit", which could go either way (either a statement that the Catalyst will be controlled, or just that he's currently a part of the Reapers but won't later on so whatever).

"We" the Reapers. It is useless to control the holokid controlling the Reapers when you can control the Reapers directly. More to the point, the function of the holokid is to control the Reapers. But if it gives up that control, it gives up its function. Thus it has no more function and therefore no more reason to exist. It is obsolete. Obsolete software gets overwritten or deleted.

Nothing in any dialogue declares that it's gone. It only leaves the setting, either violently or peacefully or shown way off into the distance.

It disappears as you grab the rods. Just as in destroy, only not as violently because you're not destroying the system.

An AI with nowhere else to go and no reason to go... meh, sounds like a typical AI situation in Mass Effect. Geth become their own beings and have to deal with that. EDI was completely unshackled (no more dictacted purpose) and chose her own way.
And if it's more of a Controlled by Shepalyst deal, then that's up to Shepalyst and we haven't seen what he's done with the Catalyst. Again, there was no mention of being 'overwritten'. Replacement isn't overwriting. Like, by definition.

So sorry, for as much as you hate the Catalyst, its fate is still up in the air. One can decide that its gone in all endings, or one can decide that it's still sticking around and has a new purpose/unpurpose, or we can wait and see if the next game even addresses this (which it may or may not - we haven't seen any content).

It's not a "typical AI situation" at all. EDI and the geth self-determinate. The holokid is shackled to the purpose it was built for. If that purpose ends, due to a "solution" being found or it is relieved of duty, it's activity ends. And in the case where a new control entity arises, it has zero reason to preserve the old one- particularly Shepard who most certainly does not agree with how the old boss did things.

Not to mention that technically speaking, what do you think is easier to implement, swapping out one control module for another or making a drastic rewrite to a system to create a new level in the hierarchy? Even an intro to programming student will tell you it's the former.

[SwobyJ]

"Obsolete software gets overwritten or deleted."

Well that's just rude. Syntheticist.

[ErikModi]

Hmm, interesting question. Hadn't thought of it that way, but here goes:

Each Reaper is, indeed, an individual consciousness. However, AI, by it's very nature, is based on a fundamental program. It cannot violate this program. Everything an AI does stems from that basic program. You can look at it as being similar to the "Nature vs. Nurture" argument in psychology, which argue about how much of a given human's behavior is fundamentally coded into them genetically (Nature) or learned from outside influence (Nurture.) The Reapers are created with a fundamental coding to obey the Catalyst. Whatever else they do, that is their prime directive. As such, when the Catalyst says "time to harvest all the sufficiently advanced organics" the Reapers reply "Okay." When Shepard takes control of the Reapers, replacing the Catalyst, s/he says "Time to stop harvesting the sufficiently advanced organics," and Reapers reply "Okay." Understanding how it's own process violated the intent of its creators, but not the letter of their directive, the Catalyst was likely aware that programming the Reapers with the right fundamental base code, which I posit to be "obey me," would prevent the Reapers from turning on it should it decide, one 50,000 years, not to harvest all sufficiently advanced organics. In fact, one could go so far as to say that ALL the problems of synthetic/organic conflict are the result of bad programming, either on the part of the synthetics (not having been programmed with a proper base code that would ensure they had no reason to turn against their creators), or on the part of the organics (being unable to overcome the organic programming to see the unknown as a threat, and to see threats as things to be eliminated.)

When it comes to the Geth, their self-awareness only comes from having a sufficient number of programs running in proximity to cross the threshold of self-awareness. When updated with code from the AIs contained within Reapers, this allows each Geth program to be self-aware on its own. Since we currently have no real idea what self-awareness even IS, let alone how to duplicate it, speculating on how, exactly, this happens is simply a waste of time. Suffice it to say that it does. However, the Geth do not share the same basic operating parameters as the Reapers, and so have to forge their sapient way in the exact same manner that any life form does, without a single, guiding intelligence to tell it what to do (debates about religion may be germane to this point, but likely not appropriate for this forum.) As such, the newly-sapient Geth do not have the single focus that the Reapers do, because they have no one to give it to them (at least, not past Shepard saying "fight the Reapers.")

[CrutchCricket]

lol no. Calling the geth toasters is syntheticist.

I'm synthetic Darwinist. Survival of the l33test.

[ErikModi]

Hmm, another thing I noticed, after playing the Destroy and Synthesis endings to see what's what, is that the Catalyst mentions that the Crucible is just an energy source, which allows new options for how the Citadel and the Reapers interact. It's quite possible that, in the Control ending, the Crucible provides the energy and signal strength for Shepard to ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL over every Reaper simultaneously, forcing them to break off. Once that energy is exhausted, Shepard is still the leader of the Reapers, and convinces them of a better way of doing things. Which would still mean the Reapers are fully sapient individuals, and can pass that on to the Geth through code.

[General TSAR]

Toasters are toasters no matter how fancy the clock.

[Reorte]

CrutchCricket wrote...

It's not a "typical AI situation" at all. EDI and the geth self-determinate. The holokid is shackled to the purpose it was built for. If that purpose ends, due to a "solution" being found or it is relieved of duty, it's activity ends. And in the case where a new control entity arises, it has zero reason to preserve the old one- particularly Shepard who most certainly does not agree with how the old boss did things.

Is it shackled or just fully committed to doing what it does? If you're not certain that you can create an AI that won't go off the rails then shackle it, but try to build it in the first place so that it completely wants to do whatever it is that you want it to do - then no need of shackles (but you might put them in anyway to cover any mistakes you made, which the Leviathans clearly didn't).

[SwobyJ]

^^^^

[CrutchCricket]

Reorte wrote...
Is it shackled or just fully committed to doing what it does? If you're not certain that you can create an AI that won't go off the rails then shackle it, but try to build it in the first place so that it completely wants to do whatever it is that you want it to do - then no need of shackles (but you might put them in anyway to cover any mistakes you made, which the Leviathans clearly didn't).

If the Crucible "opens new possibilities" I'd say it was shackled. Otherwise the choices aren't mutually exclusive. I'm sure that inasmuch as the holokid can be said to have volition (I don't personally think it does but whatever) it "wants" to fulfill its purpose.

As for the Leviathans, they knew enought to shackle it but they clearly didn't think of everything. It seems very much like a classic Asimov conundrum-

"The Three Laws should do it!"

Nope, it Zeroth Law'd your ass.

[ErikModi]

Even the Three Laws were prone to all kinds of muck-up. Basically every Asimov robot story is about how the Three Laws really aren't a "perfect circle of protection." The I, Robot short stories, in particular, focus on unintended and unforeseen consequences of robots simply doing exactly what the Three Laws made them do, and it causing no end of problems. My particular favorite is the robot administrator who invents religion.

[Reorte]

CrutchCricket wrote...

If the Crucible "opens new possibilities" I'd say it was shackled. Otherwise the choices aren't mutually exclusive. I'm sure that inasmuch as the holokid can be said to have volition (I don't personally think it does but whatever) it "wants" to fulfill its purpose.

Maybe, but it could also be "Ooh, never thought of that" or "here's some means to do something that I'd have liked to do before but never had the ability to."

I agree that holokid doesn't seem to have much volition but I think that the Reapers do. It could be that they're built to view the Catalyst in a similar manner to a god.

[shodiswe]

Organics are machines aswell.

[CronoDragoon]

Reorte wrote...
I agree that holokid doesn't seem to have much volition but I think that the Reapers do. It could be that they're built to view the Catalyst in a similar manner to a god.

I actually don't think they know about the Catalyst at all. I think the "need" to continue the cycles is a type of indoctrination the Catalyst builds into them at "birth" in such a way that they never suspect it's not a natural fact of their existence. The Catalyst can therefore hide his presence cycle to cycle without worrying about the Reapers suddenly doing their own thing.

In other words, I agree that the Reapers have volition, but essentially that volition stops when it comes to the subject of the cycles.

[kazumasoju]

   I would think that the Reapers are more akin to the geth ( using the Geth and Quarian realtionship / the Reapers and the Catalyst as a comparison ). I wouldn't say that the reapers are the origin for the code. The reapers harvest the knowledge and essence of civilizations from each cycle and this is what upgraded the geth consensus.

 

   While yes the reapers are serving or acting as the Catalyst's solution to chaos ( as the geth are also arguably so for the quarians on a much smaller scale ) ; The Reapers are a sencient race with free will.

[Tevinter Soldier]

I think the biggest problem people have with misunderstanding the geth code is AI with free will

 

an A.I can be completely sentient (sentience is self awareness) and not have free will

 

basically the reapers are designed with basic guidelines in this case to make more reapers (logically they would also have a command that prevents them rewriting said code) for all intense and purposes the reaper is still a full functioning AI.

 

think of it like a person with OCD the reapers, reap they cannot control it they might not like it but if its part of their central operating system they will do it. 

 

it doesn't lesson them as beings if anything its sorta sad, imagine being self aware and only doing something because your told to....makes them actual slaves.

 

as for the reaper code, all it does is optimise the geth software so that programs that make up "geth" are able to perform more calculation's. in essence freeing up processing power in the remote platforms. that allows emergent intelligence to reach "higher" thinking levels in individual units.

basically bringing mobile platforms to the same level as the entire network.

 

think of it like this

before reaper code "the geth" refers actually to the network only at a network level does "the geth" actually exist below that "geth" lose more and more of itself until a mobile platform on its own is pretty much a dog.

after the upgrade so much extra processing power is left over that the individual "geth" platforms become "the geth" they have so much processing power individual unit's are capable of building consensus. 

 

think of it like the heretics vs the collective it was enough to cause a split so much of a split that one can argue they were two separate groups. now all geth platforms are their own group.

 

but this also means the geth stop actually being geth as individual units would inevitably reach different consensus and would split further apart from rest giving birth to entities each platform identifies with, in human terms Names.   

[Farangbaa]

Maybe, but it could also be "Ooh, never thought of that" or "here's some means to do something that I'd have liked to do before but never had the ability to."

I agree that holokid doesn't seem to have much volition but I think that the Reapers do. It could be that they're built to view the Catalyst in a similar manner to a god.

I have a really strong hunch that the Reapers have no clue at all the Catalyst exists. 

[SwobyJ]

Agreed scrub.

 

What Legion/GethAI attempts, is pretty much a fasttrack to something the Geth were attempting anyway. Some differences:

 

1)Obviously, like I said, it was a fasttrack. They don't do it more exclusively on their own (over years? more?), but get it asap

2)It was a 'Reaper gift' in essence. Legion trying this in ME3 imo had more to do with him being converted to a Heretic-but-not, than keeping true to his conclusions in ME2. He changed his mind. We can accept this or not.

3)It's down a Reaper path via their code. The beings the Geth become, would be less the result of a Dyson Sphere, but more, well the Reapers.

4)The 'platforms as individuals' is something that the Geth probably have little issue with, but we now can't see how they'd figure it out on their own. It's now a sudden change and while the short term results appear incredibly peaceful, they are now open to becoming disparate individuals tackling future issues their own ways.*

 

 

Think of it this way:

Red - Individual but Collective when needed, may or may not go for Peace

Blue - Collective but Individual when needed, may or may not go for Peace

Green (I interpret the upgrade as Green) - Peace, but may or may not go Individual or Collective

 

The Geth become changed to beings that less value the Collective, and more just higher notions of Peace and Life. That means, yes, that they're even more tied to Rannoch and wanting to help the Quarians settle it as long as the Quarians want to, but it also means that those who stand in their way or break off from them, may be the causes of greater disasters than if the Geth kept to themselves behind the Veil, just poking a bit outward with information spying and Legion. They valued the safety of the Geth over peace with others, and that has changed with ME3.

 

It's a danger, despite the positively dramatic feeling of the Rannoch Peace result, and we have to make the decision to temper the Geth's integration with organics but still welcome their upgrade (Geth only), destroy the Geth for whatever presented reason or danger so far (Quarians only), or fight to make things work for as many parties as possible in at least the short term (Geth+Quarian peace).