86 réponses à ce sujet

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Well that depends. A lot of the experimentation undertaken by German and Japanese scientists in WW2 produced results; sadly it was on POW's, Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies, the mentally ill etc and was neither consented too nor ethical; was barbaric and resulted in death or pernament injury/disability.

I wouldn't call that irrelevant; neither would I call Cerberus' methods (which also involved horrific and barabic treatment of people resulting in death - uncanny echoes there) irrelevant.

 

As I said, results are results. It sucks, but we got results that we used (and still use). Say what you will about the Japanese and Germans being racist, but they knew how to get results. That's why we and the Soviets took them back to the States to use in our own scientific experiments. That's why many of the scientists responsible for those experiments went on to have healthy, productive, and illustrious careers as well as strong, prosperous families. They did more than any of the people they experimented on would have likely ever achieved. I don't condone their reasoning or rationale (it was mired in too much racism and irrational xenophobia), but I condone their methods if it produces viable results.

 

I would call the methods irrelevant. Great contributions to science were achieved. I can't help but admire and respect it; granted, a lot of it was science committed in the name of torture rather than the other way around. IMO, you need to distinguish between the two. Otherwise, if it works, it's doable. People are resources. Nothing more. A smart man uses his resources to his advantage.

[DeinonSlayer]

Well that depends. A lot of the experimentation undertaken by German and Japanese scientists in WW2 produced results; sadly it was on POW's, Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies, the mentally ill etc and was neither consented too nor ethical; was barbaric and resulted in death or pernament injury/disability.
I wouldn't call that irrelevant; neither would I call Cerberus' methods (which also involved horrific and barabic treatment of people resulting in death - uncanny echoes there) irrelevant.

I wouldn't take this approach with Massive. Ethical arguments bounce right off. You're talking to a guy who has repeatedly argued that pre-emptively exterminating every human who can't find a rifle or a welding torch to pick up in the Reaper war (anyone he can't find immediate use for) is sound strategy - that anyone not directly contributing is a potential husk consuming resources which could be devoted elsewhere; dead weight better shed early.

[von uber]

Ah, like children you mean. Nice.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Ah, like children you mean. Nice.

 

If it's them or survival? Yes. Without hesitation. 

 

You can always make more children. 

[DeinonSlayer]

If it's them or survival? Yes. Without hesitation. 
 
You can always make more children.

Haven't seen you framing it as "them or survival" so much as "them or inconvenience." The galaxy isn't populated by lobotomized Cerberus drones who would turn their weapons on their own families without question to eke a bit closer to a 100% efficient war economy (never mind the drain on resources that such an extermination would itself represent (looking past the moral horror of the holocaust (I know), try thinking solely of the trains, weapons, personnel etc. devoted to it which could have been deployed to the front) or the difficulty this adds to post-war recovery). There's no point in musing about what could be accomplished with an army of drones unencumbered by morality or free will (or functional reproductive systems?) when what's available is a multi-species force mostly composed of individuals with families they hope to see survive the war. Morale remains a key factor to success with such an army, and that means not exterminating our entire noncombatant population.

...on an off-note, can Cerberus drones conceivably reproduce? If they were all that remained of humanity after the war, would there ever be a "normal" (non-cyborg) generation of humans again?

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Haven't seen you framing it as "them or survival" so much as "them or inconvenience." The galaxy isn't populated by lobotomized Cerberus drones who would turn their weapons on their own families without question to eke a big closer to a 100% efficient war economy (never mind the drain on resources that such an extermination would itself represent (looking past the moral horror of the holocaust (I know), try thinking solely of the trains, weapons, personnel etc. devoted to it which could have been deployed to the front) or the difficulty this adds to post-war recovery). There's no point in musing about what could be accomplished with an army of drones unencumbered by morality or free will when what's available is a multi-species force mostly composed of individuals with families they hope to see survive the war. Morale remains a key factor to success with such an army.

...on an off-note, can Cerberus drones conceivably reproduce? If they were all that remained of humanity after the war, would there ever be a "normal" (non-cyborg) generation of humans again?
 

 

That sucks then. Hell, part of me wants to see the galaxy fall. It purges the weak. Thinking about it, there's not much to the holocaust that could have been conceivably added to the German war machine: they were rather efficient with how they killed. The sublimation of metal pellets into gas was a rapid means of killing people off. 

 

Said multi-species force doesn't deserve victory. I have no faith in their ability to win. I want them to fail. I want them to see how puny and futile their efforts are. I want them to be broken. That way, they can be born anew of something far stronger, far more powerful, and far greater. My Shepard says it in no uncertain terms: Be willing to die. Give up hope. It's the only hope you have.

 

I take the Lt. Col. Spiers approach to conflict (because I've seen first-hand how devastating it is compared to the opposite method). You can have the idealist, Harry Potter-esque version, which is the ideal that you fight because you have something to lose, or something to gain. 

 

And then you have the cynical, and (in my opinion, and based on my observation) the more effective method, which is where you fight because you have nothing to lose. Your back's to a wall. You have no hope of survival. Give up any hope of survival. Give up hope period. Soldiers who gave up hope also gave up fear. There's no point in being afraid. There's nothing holding you back now. It's a kind of bitter irony: accepting that there is no hope for you, accepting that you're nothing more than a killing machine who's only mortal purpose is to be the most effective tool possible is the only thing that might save you in the end. It turns off the human part of you. Humanity is an intrinsic part of the psyche that must be purged in war. It's why I find the Reapers oddly beautiful in how they act. It is indeed perfection. 

 

We must become something more than them. Hell, if my Shepard picked control, he'd continue the harvest until only those strong enough to overcome their weakness remained. 

 

It's probably why I'm so partial to the Clone Army and the Droid Army in Star Wars. They won't stop until they win, or they're dead. The only two things in war that should ever matter.

As for the future of humanity post-war? Who know. I would claim who cares? If we just go back to what we were before, I'd consider my efforts to be a hopeless failure. If I knew that humanity would fall back into what it was before, I'd let the Reapers purge us and be done with it.

[DeinonSlayer]

I get the whole "burn the bridge behind you" philosophy, and I won't deny that there can be benefits, but you're talking about burning Rome behind them while they're at it. Speirs didn't need to burn Boston to the ground before he shipped out to reach that mindset - simply to accept that he would not come back alive.

If you continued the harvest with Control, how exactly would you expect any survivors at the end, and how is this not ethnic cleansing? Even fighting to the last man, I can't think of any species that would able to survive. Such has been the case for every cycle that came before.

[Jorji Costava]

That sucks then. Hell, part of me wants to see the galaxy fall. It purges the weak. Thinking about it, there's not much to the holocaust that could have been conceivably added to the German war machine: they were rather efficient with how they killed. The sublimation of metal pellets into gas was a rapid means of killing people off. 

 

Said multi-species force doesn't deserve victory. I have no faith in their ability to win. I want them to fail. I want them to see how puny and futile their efforts are. I want them to be broken. That way, they can be born anew of something far stronger, far more powerful, and far greater. My Shepard says it in no uncertain terms: Be willing to die. Give up hope. It's the only hope you have.

 

I take the Lt. Col. Spiers approach to conflict (because I've seen first-hand how devastating it is compared to the opposite method). You can have the idealist, Harry Potter-esque version, which is the ideal that you fight because you have something to lose, or something to gain. 

 

And then you have the cynical, and (in my opinion, and based on my observation) the more effective method, which is where you fight because you have nothing to lose. Your back's to a wall. You have no hope of survival. Give up any hope of survival. Give up hope period. Soldiers who gave up hope also gave up fear. There's no point in being afraid. There's nothing holding you back now. It's a kind of bitter irony: accepting that there is no hope for you, accepting that you're nothing more than a killing machine who's only mortal purpose is to be the most effective tool possible is the only thing that might save you in the end. It turns off the human part of you. Humanity is an intrinsic part of the psyche that must be purged in war. It's why I find the Reapers oddly beautiful in how they act. It is indeed perfection. 

 

We must become something more than them. Hell, if my Shepard picked control, he'd continue the harvest until only those strong enough to overcome their weakness remained. 

 

It's probably why I'm so partial to the Clone Army and the Droid Army in Star Wars. They won't stop until they win, or they're dead. The only two things in war that should ever matter.

As for the future of humanity post-war? Who know. I would claim who cares? If we just go back to what we were before, I'd consider my efforts to be a hopeless failure. If I knew that humanity would fall back into what it was before, I'd let the Reapers purge us and be done with it.

 

There's a lot to say here, but I'll start with this. First, I find social Darwinism of any sort to be pretty much bankrupt as a moral theory, and this is especially so if the whole concept of morality is (as you say) entirely without merit. How can the strong deserve to survive or the weak deserve to perish if the whole concept of desert is bogus? A calamity that wiped out every intelligent, beautiful and capable person and left alive only weak, disabled and unintelligent people would be, from the nihilist's point of view, no better or worse than any other state of affairs.

 

Secondly, I'm not sure how the rest of what you said constitutes a response to DeinonSlayer's argument. You claim that to win a war, soldiers have to be willing to do anything and ignore all moral scruples. Deinon's point is that you have at your disposal a group of soldiers who just aren't like this, and that there's no way you can do anything to change that. If we were dealing in what-ifs, then I could just follow every principle laid out in Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars without exception ever, because in my make-believe world, I can guarantee that the other guys will do the same thing. But it turns out things don't work that way.

 

To have any chance to win the war, we'll all have to do something we don't want; for me it's allowing millions to die and making choices that will have human costs, for you, it's the necessity of dealing and negotiating compromises with people who have beliefs and attitudes you don't share. It turns out that war presents us all with decisions we don't want to have to make, and that lacking moral scruples doesn't allow us to avoid this. "Tough choices," indeed.

[DeinonSlayer]

There's a lot to say here, but I'll start with this. First, I find social Darwinism of any sort to be pretty much bankrupt as a moral theory, and this is especially so if the whole concept of morality is (as you say) entirely without merit. How can the strong deserve to survive or the weak deserve to perish if the whole concept of desert is bogus? A calamity that wiped out every intelligent, beautiful and capable person and left alive only weak, disabled and unintelligent people would be, from the nihilist's point of view, no better or worse than any other state of affairs.
 
Secondly, I'm not sure how the rest of what you said constitutes a response to DeinonSlayer's argument. You claim that to win a war, soldiers have to be willing to do anything and ignore all moral scruples. Deinon's point is that you have at your disposal a group of soldiers who just aren't like this, and that there's no way you can do anything to change that. If we were dealing in what-ifs, then I could just follow every principle laid out in Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars without exception ever, because in my make-believe world, I can guarantee that the other guys will do the same thing. But it turns out things don't work that way.
 
To have any chance to win the war, we'll all have to do something we don't want; for me it's allowing millions to die and making choices that will have human costs, for you, it's the necessity of dealing and negotiating compromises with people who have beliefs and attitudes you don't share. It turns out that war presents us all with decisions we don't want to have to make, and that lacking moral scruples doesn't allow us to avoid this. "Tough choices," indeed.

He's previously argued that, basically, The Shepard is utterly essential to winning the war, irreplaceable, and that if the galaxy didn't bend to his demands (made in the name of 1: stopping the Reapers, and 2: stealthily establishing his post-war power base), The Shepard would sit back and watch them burn, confident in their inevitable failure.

I wonder what this Shepard would do or think when Hackett appointed one or more replacements as ambassadors plenipotentiary who went on to unite the galaxy and win the war without him or his methods.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

He's previously argued that, basically, The Shepard is utterly essential to winning the war, irreplaceable, and that if the galaxy didn't bend to his demands (made in the name of 1: stopping the Reapers, and 2: stealthily establishing his post-war power base), The Shepard would sit back and watch them burn, confident in their inevitable failure.

I wonder what this Shepard would do or think when Hackett appointed one or more replacements as ambassadors plenipotentiary who went on to unite the galaxy and win the war without him or his methods.

 

He'd laugh as they failed (in my universe). He'd ensure that they failed if he had too. They don't deserve to win. 

[DeinonSlayer]

He'd laugh as they failed (in my universe). He'd ensure that they failed if he had too. They don't deserve to win.

So rather than observe the shortcomings of his own philosophy and re-evaluate, he'd target former allies and destroy whatever he needed to destroy to convince himself he was right?

How is this any different than the Catalyst fomenting conflict between synthetics and organics to justify its own existence?

[MassivelyEffective0730]

There's a lot to say here, but I'll start with this. First, I find social Darwinism of any sort to be pretty much bankrupt as a moral theory, and this is especially so if the whole concept of morality is (as you say) entirely without merit. How can the strong deserve to survive or the weak deserve to perish if the whole concept of desert is bogus? A calamity that wiped out every intelligent, beautiful and capable person and left alive only weak, disabled and unintelligent people would be, from the nihilist's point of view, no better or worse than any other state of affairs.

 

Secondly, I'm not sure how the rest of what you said constitutes a response to DeinonSlayer's argument. You claim that to win a war, soldiers have to be willing to do anything and ignore all moral scruples. Deinon's point is that you have at your disposal a group of soldiers who just aren't like this, and that there's no way you can do anything to change that. If we were dealing in what-ifs, then I could just follow every principle laid out in Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars without exception ever, because in my make-believe world, I can guarantee that the other guys will do the same thing. But it turns out things don't work that way.

 

To have any chance to win the war, we'll all have to do something we don't want; for me it's allowing millions to die and making choices that will have human costs, for you, it's the necessity of dealing and negotiating compromises with people who have beliefs and attitudes you don't share. It turns out that war presents us all with decisions we don't want to have to make, and that lacking moral scruples doesn't allow us to avoid this. "Tough choices," indeed.

 

I never stated that the entire concept of morality is without merit (obviously, I wouldn't be espousing my own variation of it if I did). I'm not necessarily a nihilist. I have some similar views to them, but I also have a large belief in 'he who holds power is fit to hold it in any means'. I'm a believer in those with power not having to be fettered by the concerns of those without it. If they choose to involve themselves, for good or ill, it's their power to do as they see fit with. 

 

I see Deinon's point. I did side-step by saying what I think is needed. To be honest, with what we have? I'd refuse. In the ending, I'd choose refuse. If that was what I had, and that was what got me to the place where I needed to be with the Crucible ready and armed and me ready to activate it, with everyone banking on me? I'd refuse. I'd label my tangent not against the Reapers, but at the galaxy. On the concept of just wars: For the most part, I don't believe in the concept of unjust wars. The only moral criteria in my worldview is whether or not it's economically feasible. 

 

I don't know about you, but my decision is easy: Let them die. The Reapers are the only beings that really fit the kind of necessary philosophy I'd support. They deserve the victory most. It's victory or death for me. It's not so for anyone else on a macro-scale. That means it's only death from my perspective.

[Jorji Costava]

He's previously argued that, basically, The Shepard is utterly essential to winning the war, irreplaceable, and that if the galaxy didn't bend to his demands (made in the name of 1: stopping the Reapers, and 2: stealthily establishing his post-war power base), The Shepard would sit back and watch them burn, confident in their inevitable failure.

I wonder what this Shepard would do or think when Hackett appointed one or more replacements as ambassadors plenipotentiary who went on to unite the galaxy and win the war without him or his methods.

 

Interesting. This raises a couple of questions:

 

1. If as Massively says, it's impossible to win the war with the existing force, and if the existing force is the only one we're going to have, then it's just impossible to win the war. In that case, how can Shepard be essential to that goal? It would be like saying, "You can't get rid of me, guys, because if you do, then how will you be able to square the circle?"

 

2. Even if Shepard is essential to the war effort, it doesn't follow that he can't screw it up. And one of the ways you can screw up is by blowing all your political capital through showing blatant disregard for civilian lives. It's pretty clear that at the meta-level, Massively is absolutely right about the specialness of Shepard (there was a bit too much of that in the story for my tastes, actually). But the characters in the story aren't going to act on the basis of that meta-level knowledge, because they have no access to it. In his deliberations, Shepard has to take into account the fact that even if he is irreplaceable, many people in positions of power will not see him as such.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

So rather than observe the shortcomings of his own philosophy and re-evaluate, he'd target former allies and destroy whatever he needed to destroy to convince himself he was right?

How is this any different than the Catalyst fomenting conflict between synthetics and organics to justify its own existence?

 

What are the shortcomings of his philosophy? 

 

Technically, of either of theirs? I don't hold the Catalyst's philosophy as ontologically wrong or paradoxical, only his programming and machine logic. I think he got logic bombed. Otherwise, he has the power. He's right.

 

You and I have disagreed on this, and we will continue to; might makes right. 

[DeinonSlayer]

What are the shortcomings of his philosophy? 
 
Technically, of either of theirs? I don't hold the Catalyst's philosophy as ontologically wrong or paradoxical, only his programming and machine logic. I think he got logic bombed. Otherwise, he has the power. He's right.
 
You and I have disagreed on this, and we will continue to; might makes right.

For starters, the basic fact that it cannot be implemented with the forces at your command. They're not going to pre-emptively exterminate their own populations at your say-so; they'll blow you off or frag you. For the Turians, for example, abandoning Palaven to devote their resources to the final push was the hardest choice they were called on to make. They won't be keen on glassing colonies that haven't been hit yet to prevent their being harvested or eating more food than you'd like. The Quarians aren't going to space the civilians in their cargo holds to get the ships to you faster, even if you threaten not to help - withdraw your support, watch them die, and you'd go back to Hackett without the logistical support he ordered you to acquire for him and with a fleet of Reaper-controlled Geth on your ass to make everyone's lives harder. You're saying that if your Shepard saw his replacements succeeding despite not purging their own populations (an unnecessary self-sabotaging measure, costly in terms of political capital, morale, and resources, which serves to accelerate the Reaper invasion timetable as they'll simply skip worlds they would otherwise have taken the time to harvest), your Shepard, unwilling to accept that they were succeeding, would shift his focus to sabotaging their war effort to ensure their failure.

There's a difference between withdrawing one's support for their efforts, and actively attacking them.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

For starters, the basic fact that it cannot be implemented with the forces at your command. You're saying that if your Shepard saw his replacements succeeding despite not purging their own populations (an unnecessary self-sabotaging measure, costly in terms of political capital, morale, and resources, which serves to accelerate the Reaper invasion timetable), your Shepard, unwilling to accept that they were succeeding, would shift his focus to sabotaging their war effort to ensure their failure.

There's a difference between withdrawing one's support for their efforts, and actively attacking them.

 

I'd ask how they'd be succeeding. Then again, I want to see the strong win. The Reapers are the strongest there. They're the ones who deserve to win most of all. I know I'd be accelerating their goals, because it would mean they'd win. Even if it means my death (which it most certainly does) the victory is theirs to take. There's nothing I can do to beat them anymore. There's no point in trying to stop them then.

 

It's a matter of not wanting to see the weak prosper. IMO, if it were truly up to me in the ME-verse, I'd let the synthetics run the galaxy. Pure, unfettered, absolute, regimented order and efficiency. 

[DeinonSlayer]

I'd ask how they'd be succeeding. Then again, I want to see the strong win. The Reapers are the strongest there. They're the ones who deserve to win most of all. I know I'd be accelerating their goals, because it would mean they'd win. Even if it means my death (which it most certainly does) the victory is theirs to take. There's nothing I can do to beat them anymore. There's no point in trying to stop them then.
 
It's a matter of not wanting to see the weak prosper. IMO, if it were truly up to me in the ME-verse, I'd let the synthetics run the galaxy. Pure, unfettered, absolute, regimented order and efficiency.

INDOCTRINATED PRESENCE DETECTED.
ACTIVATING SECURITY PROTOCOLS.

[Jorji Costava]

I never stated that the entire concept of morality is without merit (obviously, I wouldn't be espousing my own variation of it if I did). I'm not necessarily a nihilist. I have some similar views to them, but I also have a large belief in 'he who holds power is fit to hold it in any means'. I'm a believer in those with power not having to be fettered by the concerns of those without it. If they choose to involve themselves, for good or ill, it's their power to do as they see fit with. 

 

We're drifting further and further off topic, so I'll probably just leave the matter with these few remarks. Even if we're moving outside nihilism, I have a tough time seeing any rational basis for the idea that those with power are entitled to do what they will. It's hardly self-evident, and I see no good argument for it. It's true that as a matter of empirical fact, people in power frequently don't show any concern for the interests of marginalized groups, but as anyone familiar with 101-level Hume should be able to point out, nothing at all follows about what people in power ought to do from this observation about what they actually do.

 

Perhaps you instead mean to be defending a more general egoism, according to which the rational thing for any person to do is whatever will advance his or her own interests. But in that case, there's no rational basis for criticizing the weak and disenfranchized; after all, they generally pursue their own interests, which is exactly what the theory says you should do.

 

Ultimately, I think social Darwinist-type views succumb to the same failing that racist views do, which is arbitrariness. Nothing about the contingent, historical fact that one somehow found oneself in a position of social advantage implies that one now occupies a 'special' place in the universe. It's only a few steps up from deciding who deserves what by rolling dice.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

INDOCTRINATED PRESENCE DETECTED.
ACTIVATING SECURITY PROTOCOLS.

 

I wouldn't call it indoctrination.

 

Is it possible to legitimately hold the Reapers to be greater beings? I think it is.

[DeinonSlayer]

I wouldn't call it indoctrination.
 
Is it possible to legitimately hold the Reapers to be greater beings? I think it is.

As do I. Doesn't mean we have to knuckle under to them. Certainly doesn't oblige us to protect their status as such by helping them to destroy us, as you say your Shepard would do.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

We're drifting further and further off topic, so I'll probably just leave the matter with these few remarks. Even if we're moving outside nihilism, I have a tough time seeing any rational basis for the idea that those with power are entitled to do what they will. It's hardly self-evident, and I see no good argument for it. It's true that as a matter of empirical fact, people in power frequently don't show any concern for the interests of marginalized groups, but as anyone familiar with 101-level Hume should be able to point out, nothing at all follows about what people in power ought to do from this observation about what they actually do.

 

Perhaps you instead mean to be defending a more general egoism, according to which the rational thing for any person to do is whatever will advance his or her own interests. But in that case, there's no rational basis for criticizing the weak and disenfranchized; after all, they generally pursue their own interests, which is exactly what the theory says you should do.

 

Ultimately, I think social Darwinist-type views succumb to the same failing that racist views do, which is arbitrariness. Nothing about the contingent, historical fact that one somehow found oneself in a position of social advantage implies that one now occupies a 'special' place in the universe. It's only a few steps up from deciding who deserves what by rolling dice.

 

Agreed. I'd say I've alienated enough people with my views. I'd say something else. I'm a guy who hates weakness. To be honest, I more or less despise the people I am obligated to protect and defend. I have my view of what is, and what I think it should be. I think we'd disagree on the nature of power. I know I'd disagree with David Hume. It's my idea of any 'rights' people have; I don't believe in inalienable human rights. I should also clarify by what I mean by power. Obviously, my notion of it is a lot more abstract in its application than what is in actual reality. Then again, Mass Effect is a power fantasy. It let's you do what you'd otherwise be unable to do. In your view, I'd say that people like me are the ones that should be kept as far from the kind of power I think I'm talking about, which is to say, the power that does hold the ability to more or less define reality to an extent. In my view, I view people like me as the only ones fit for such power.

 

To summarize a quote from Warhammer 40K: Only the Insane have the strength to take true power, and only the truly powerful are fit to define sanity.

 

I'm not one that necessarily posits that there's an inherently special place in the universe for those of social advantage either. That said, I wouldn't be adverse to being in that position. Honestly, I think if there was one thing I could be for a day, it'd be an omnipotent god-like being. 

[TheOneTrueBioticGod]

Well, if the were Reapers truly were the strongest, then how did they lose? 

I say the winner is the one who deserved to win. 

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Well, if the were Reapers truly were the strongest, then how did they lose? 

I say the winner is the one who deserved to win. 

 

They won because I beat them. I was the strongest of everyone. I am the winner. 

 

I'll be exercising my new power soon. The galaxy will grow. It'll be a pretty nice image. Reaper-tech to be studied, and the singularity to be reached. I'll be in the shadows pulling the strings, making things the way I want them to be. And to boot, I'll be their hero in a public facade. But the time will come when the real reckoning comes.

[DeinonSlayer]

They won because I beat them. I was the strongest of everyone. I am the winner. 
 
I'll be exercising my new power soon. The galaxy will grow. It'll be a pretty nice image. Reaper-tech to be studied, and the singularity to be reached. I'll be in the shadows pulling the strings, making things the way I want them to be. And to boot, I'll be their hero in a public facade. But the time will come when the real reckoning comes.

And if Ensign Ricky was the one lucky enough to make it through the beam, he'd be the one to pull the trigger on the tube!

[MassivelyEffective0730]

And if Ensign Ricky was the one lucky enough to make it through the beam, he'd be the one to pull the trigger on the tube!

 

Eh, I have a rewrite where the Catalyst acknowledges that it will only activate for Shepard, where the portal is keyed only to Shepard's DNA via the Reapers, and the Reapers verbally acknowledging Shepard alone as a greater threat than the entire assembled Galactic force. And I of course have a lot more of the statements still made in game along the lines of "Shepard, you were the only one who could ever have pulled this off". It's never explicitly stated in the actual game of course, but you get a lot of those moments that it's Shepard, and Shepard alone who has the importance. And yes, I believe that it's as it should be.

 

To be frank, I believe Shepard should be the 'Chosen One' of sorts (although I have him being more of an Unchosen One).