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[CosmicGnosis]

Shepard: I think we'd rather keep our own form.

 

Catalyst: No. You can't.

 

 

Nature Unbound

 

By destroying the Reapers, Nature is liberated from their control. No longer will life in the galaxy be guided down a rigid path to some uncertain end. The Gardener is gone, and the Garden may grow in any way it wishes. Nature is beautiful and wonderful, but also terrifying and cruel, perhaps even more so than the Reapers themselves. Nature is unfair, cold, and unsympathetic. Nature has no intellect, no grand plan, no purpose. It just is. In a universe of Nature Unbound, all things end in darkness.

 

The Futility of Control

 

The Catalyst failed not because it was "corrupted", but because its failure was inevitable. It attempted to control Nature, to force it down an unnatural path. The flaw is that the Catalyst is not eternal. Even if the harvest cycle had been successful, Nature's universe would still have ended. The Catalyst could never preserve life for all time. The plan was futile. When the Crucible docks, the Catalyst knows that it has failed. There is a small possibility that Catalyst-Shepard, a synthetic mind with an organic origin, could develop a new plan to control Nature, but it's unlikely. Again, Shepard-Catalyst is not eternal. It cannot control life for all time. All things will end. Resistance is futile.

 

The Ascent to Transcendence

 

Humans are not meant to exist outside of Earth's atmosphere. It is unnatural. Although the laws of Nature allow us to exist in a very specialized location, the universe is extremely hostile to life. We are threatened by forces beyond our control. Asteroids fly around our planet. Diseases infect our world. We require machines to support ourselves as we explore planes of existence that we can barely comprehend. We attempt to control Nature so that we may continue to exist. We wish to retain our current form. But we can't. If we wish to exist in a universe that is hostile to organic life, then we must change. Earth will not exist forever. We cannot remain as we are. We must change the way we think, feel, and live. And even that may not be enough. Perhaps the only way to exist is to change Nature itself. But if we wish to change Nature, we must change with it, for we cannot exist outside of it; we are Nature. As children of the stars, we are the consciousness of the cosmos, the universe come to life. We are Nature trying to understand itself. And as the embodiment of Nature's thought, we can change ourselves so that the consciousness of Nature may exist forever. 

 

"Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves, but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."

- Carl Sagan

[DeinonSlayer]

It's funny the depth people still try to read into something they seem to have come up with in the time it takes to light one up.

If they weren't even conscious of glaringly obvious problems like teleporting squadmates, how much thought could they have possibly invested into the philosophical implications of what they were writing?

[SwobyJ]

Nearly all stories have scribbles like that in the conceptualization process. I've never taken that as more that a writer's notes that writers tend to have. You should see the stacks of scribbles that J.K. Rowling has for Harry Potter, to keep track of things and how she'll explain them in the books.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

But they got it wrong. It's the end of the second Matrix. Matrix Reloaded. 

 

It's funny the depth people still try to read into something they seem to have come up with in the time it takes to light one up.

If they weren't even conscious of glaringly obvious problems like teleporting squadmates, how much thought could they have possibly invested into the philosophical implications of what they were writing?

It's the ending of the second Matrix movie not the first, Hudson. The Matrix Reloaded. Put down the bong. Walters, your ending sucked. 

 

Sense of hope - "You have hope. More than you realize."

 

@SwoobyJ - the diagram is very simplistic, and doesn't seem to make that much sense unless you played the original ending. That is a complete diagram of the original ending in its fullest. That is as much thought that went into it. All the endings are virtually identical except for the color of the explosions on your screen: you die, the relays explode, and the Normandy crashes. If you played enough multiplayer you got Morrigan's Ritual with the Destroy ending. What would have really been cool is if you only got to survive that ending if you took Liara's gift. lol.

[SwobyJ]

Anyway, Cosmic, submitting entirely to Nature can really suck. It means just waiting for Nature to kill you. In general, I agree with you, actually. The concept of changing ourselves to fit the environment instead of..

 

Destruction - Focusing on survival, and ending the lives of those in our way of it.

Control - Focusing on preservation, and limiting the freedoms of those in our way of it.

 

But Nature can be a b****. So yeah, Destruction and Control have their places. Personally, I still go Destruction, when it comes to the Reapers. I don't want humanity changed into something else yet, and I still don't see much value in preserving it in synthetic form.

 

~~~

 

@julia - Nope, it was the first.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

The Architect scene and the gasp of air was in the second.

[CrutchCricket]

As much as it galls me to even come close to actually defending this atrocity, making an appeal to entropy isn't a very good argument since nothing can escape it or prevent it. So the conclusion "x fails because it doesn't address entropy" is a flawed and useless one.

 

Now I can agree that the holokid was never designed to preserve life from anything that can threaten it. Only Skynet. Death by Skynet is only one of countless ways life can come to an end, without even waiting for entropy. So it fails because its scope is too narrow. I don't agree that a control program with a broader scope and the ability to adapt would also fail. If you ignore the implications of the disconnect and assume that the new control entity will babysit organics for eternity, it might qualify.

[SwobyJ]

The Architect scene and the gasp of air was in the second.

I know.

[Mcfly616]

Cool perspective OP.




P.S. the Matrix sequels suck. Like the Highlander sequels, they actually don't exist. They're simply a myth. And they (ME writers) were trying to capture the feel of the last scene of the first Matrix. (you know, the feeling the Wachowski's were trying to convey when Neo gives his little monologue to the machines in the phonebooth and then flies away.) It's a "brave new world" with new possibilities. They weren't trying to mimic the scenes of the movie, they were trying to get the same idea/vibe.

[CrutchCricket]

P.S. the Matrix sequels suck. Like the Highlander sequels, they actually don't exist. They're simply a myth. And they (ME writers) were trying to capture the feel of the last scene of the first Matrix. (you know, the feeling the Wachowski's were trying to convey when Neo gives his little monologue to the machines in the phonebooth and then flies away.) It's a "brave new world" with new possibilities. They weren't trying to mimic the scenes of the movie, they were trying to get the same idea/vibe.

 

Err... no. The Matrix sequels were nowhere near as bad as the Highlander sequels. At least they kept story and timeline consistency. And at least they added to the universe without shitting on what came before. Which is more than I can say for certain things in Mass Effect...

[Mcfly616]

Err... no. The Matrix sequels were nowhere near as bad as the Highlander sequels. At least they kept story and timeline consistency. And at least they added to the universe without shitting on what came before. Which is more than I can say for certain things in Mass Effect...

Err...yeah. And nobody said they were 'as' bad as the Highlander sequels....but they are indeed terrible films. And using the word "consistency" to describe anything about the Matrix sequels is quite comical. And oh yes, they absolutely **** all over the first film. Bloody diarrhea. They're pretty much universally shunned by critics and viewers alike. Not to mention the plot is as convoluted as they come. There is no critical acllaim for either film, whatsoever. Cool special effects though. Yay.

[Jukaga]

I enjoyed Matrix Reloaded. Revolutions was a mess though.

[DeinonSlayer]

I enjoyed Matrix Reloaded. Revolutions was a mess though.

What was the deal with those nighclub bouncers whose schtick was to jump up and walk upside-down on the ceiling? They're on the ceiling, big whoop. It didn't even give them a positioning advantage during that firefight, no cover that was unavailable to Neo and co., nothing. At least The Twins in Reloaded got a tangible advantage out of their phasing ability.

[Bob from Accounting]

It's funny the depth people still try to read into something they seem to have come up with in the time it takes to light one up.

If they weren't even conscious of glaringly obvious problems like teleporting squadmates, how much thought could they have possibly invested into the philosophical implications of what they were writing?

 

Should I even point out the laughably childish foolishness of this 'argument'? How utterly clumsy and pathetic it is?

 

By the way, when I take notes to solve problems, they look every bit as bad as this. If not worse.

 

That's not to say they put in the thought they should have for the ending. They probably didn't. But it's sure as hell not because they take sloppy notes and because there are other mistakes like 'teleporting squadmates.'

 

[DeinonSlayer]

Should I even point out the laughably childish foolishness of this 'argument'? How utterly clumsy and pathetic it is?

By all means. Scoffing at random people on the Internet is your medication. I gather the withdrawal symptoms are... unpleasant.

By the way, when I take notes to solve problems, they look every bit as bad as this. If not worse.

That's not to say they put in the thought they should have for the ending. They probably didn't. But it's sure as hell not because they take sloppy notes and because there are other mistakes like 'teleporting squadmates.'

So... the fact that you take sloppy notes means they put a lot of thought into the endings... when you concur that they didn't put a lot of thought into the endings... but the provided example of the shortcomings of the ending isn't relevant to why it was bad how?

What exactly was the purpose of this post? Because it seems to me that beyond professing your superior reasoning, you have very little to say.

[Bob from Accounting]

You'd have to be a complete fool to believe that sloppy notes means anything either way. I understand how desperate people here can be to defend their delusions, but they're notes. Notes. Scribbles. I've scribbled down more bad ideas and mistakes than I could ever count. Also plenty of good ideas and perfectly correct work. That's why they're notes.

[Deathsaurer]

So it fails because its scope is too narrow.

Not really. It was only ever intended to maintain the Leviathan empire. None of the other potential cuases of mass extinction were something they were worried about because they never had problems with them. The thing completely jumped the shark and decided it needed to save the galaxy from itself and could never quite manage it.

[Jukaga]

What was the deal with those nighclub bouncers whose schtick was to jump up and walk upside-down on the ceiling? They're on the ceiling, big whoop. It didn't even give them a positioning advantage during that firefight, no cover that was unavailable to Neo and co., nothing. At least The Twins in Reloaded got a tangible advantage out of their phasing ability.

They thought it looked cool,i guess. The whole premise of the Matrix doesn't hold up to any scrutiny.there is no reason they would need us as batteries if they had fusion power. It would have made more sense if they were just studying us in a controlled environment, not building a gilded cage for organic batteries. But they looked cool, and i enjoyed Ms Moss in a catsuit.

[CrutchCricket]

Not really. It was only ever intended to maintain the Leviathan empire.

 

Right because Leviathans with their apparent EMP powers needed help against machines...

[Bob from Accounting]

First one had a damn good ending, though. Damn good. Endings are tough are hell, and the Matrix is one that fully delivered on both the narrative and thematic fronts.

[Cknarf]

Shepard: I think we'd rather keep our own form.

 

Catalyst: No. You can't.

"Blow it out your ass."

*shoots tube*.

[Bob from Accounting]

Right because Leviathans with their apparent EMP powers needed help against machines...

 

First of all, being able to make EMPs does not make you magically all powerful against any electronic threat.

 

Secondly, I wonder if I was the only one that caught that the Leviathan's power was clearly the precursor to the technology in Destroy. And thus not an EMP. Just goes to show how important presentation is. Everybody, including myself, has issues with Destroy somehow differentiating between Synthetics and regular electronics, but nobody's so much as brought up the Leviathans doing the same thing with their pulses.

[Kel Riever]

I never picked control, but if I did, here's what I'd do:

 

1) make a nice synthetic form of myself and walk around.  I'd contact my peers so nobody wondered what happened to me, because it would be stupid to leave them wondering.

 

2) I'd remember that Code works so I could actually specifically destroy what I wanted and leave what I wanted alive.  So after I'd make the Reapers fix the galaxy, I'd blow every single one of them apart, except for...

 

3) Starbrat.  Him I'd recreate, but without any of his prior power.  Then I'd spend as long as I like, probably a long time since we're talking millennia here, and punt him across the room whenever I had to remember how idiotic he sounded.  

 

I mean, since we threw out making sense since Starbrat showed up, why not?  Spekulashun! Oh, and Leviathan...biggest Sushi party ever!

[Deathsaurer]

Right because Leviathans with their apparent EMP powers needed help against machines...

Why assume they had that ability at the time instead of developing it as a defense mechanism after the Catalyst took over? If they could do it then there is no way their empire would have fallen to machines, even if they did get blindsided.