1331 réponses à ce sujet

[78stonewobble]

Let's look at the classic example: Dresden, Germany. Official population of 350,000, unknown number of refugees (thousands) on top of that. Estimated deaths between 35,000 and 135,000 - let's go straight down the middle at 85,000. If we were to say those 85,000 came straight out of the documented population of 350,000 and pretend no refugees added to their numbers, that comes out to 24% casualties.

If that's the best argument you can come up with, a complete failure to recognize the difference between 24% casualties in a series of bombing raids and the 100% extermination of an entire populace (Quarians are extinct on Rannoch), I can already tell there's no point in trying to discuss the subject with you.

By the way, no, the Allies' hands are not clean. Those directly responsible remained responsible for the rest of their lives. In that same vein, the Geth we see now are the same entity which exterminated the Quarians 300 years ago ("we are immortal, our 'gods' disowned us").

And as for Shodiswe, you've shown that you're not content to merely take a scalpel to the lore and cut out any elements inconvenient to your argument ("cultural and physiological necessity," the key part of that being the one you consistently ignore), you also toss in a convoluted headcanon to demonize them yet further. I'm not surprised you see them that way given the lengths you're willing to go to. If you want to see them that way, you will, no matter what I say.

 

You arbitrarily limit the casualty rate of the quarian/geth war example to Rannoch post evacuation. Then I can equally abitrarily select a random piece of ww2 Dresden at an arbitrarily selected time, where the casualty rate is over 100 percent, because extra people wandered there and died. 

 

The casualty percentages are only really relevant in discussions of efficiency in waging war, not so much from a perspective of morality. 

 

Sure, nowadays we're all high and mighty about "civilians" and "non-combatants"... In reality? They pay for the war, they make weapons for it, food for the soldiers, voted for the politicians that started it and what not. Allmost all equally guilty for the whole damn thing. On both sides. 

[shodiswe]

But ME3 was a great place to start. 
 
Also the reductio ad Hitlerum can also be used like this.... (note this is an example and not directed at anyone) Hitler liked classical music. So because you think that schools should teach about classical music you're a Nazi. 

Yeah, that's similar to accusing someone to being a nazi for liking a specific flavor of icecream. Sure, it can be used for that, it's also godwins law useful.

However when we're discussing genocides, experimentation on prisoners and other such things, then it's not applicable. I can't see anyone discussing music and the schoolsystem and comparing people to nazis due to musical preferences. Nor is it being used in a similar way.

The warcrimes in the Morningwar and ME3 would make Hitler and his followers look like shoplifters in comparison. Billions VS millions. Then again, I think a lot more people would have died if Hitler hadn't been stopped.

It's also interesting how Tali says Billions in the elevator and the codex says millions. I don't think the writers put that much effort into thinking these thigns through. They just threw something out there then let it float.
People had a conflict, they tried to kill each other, people died, one side eventualy retreated, that's it.
I don't think they expected people to actualy wonder about the details that much.
Even Talis and Legions accounts are very much "up in the air" with a distinct lacking of detail. You don't get exact dates, times, numbers. What we get is, fighting, deaths, reatreating, hate.
"We talked" "Then the Quarians attacked" "Then we stopped talking" "Then that happend" "some time long, long ago something happend".

@Deinon
From what I've seen the Quarians were the agressors that started the Morning war. They were running tests and killing Geth(with plans to kill off every last Geth), eventualy after the shooting had been going on for a while the Geth started fighting back. The Geth are never said to have experimented on Quarian prisoners.
The Quarians resumed experimenting on Geth somewhere along the events of ME2 if it wasn't going on before that point.

It's likely that the Data that Tali recovered from that Geth that helped you expose Saren, spark Raels interest in aquiering more Geth data. That data that Shepard could give to Tali to pass on for the pilgrimage. I think she still has it and hand it over even if Shepard doesn't give the permission. She also gives the Quarians technical specifications on the SR-1 stealth systems which enables the Quarians to send in frigate sized vessels for Recon and recovery. (If they wern't doing it before that point)

In between ME1 and 2 (Mass Effect: Ascention) the Quarians order explorer flets to be formed to find either a planet or Reaperships or tech that could help help them take back their homeworld.

As for their percived necessity to retake Rannoch:
Also, the physical needs of the Quarians doesn't include pollination by plantlife. The plantlife however requiers them because there are no insects(bees) to spread their pollen. They can adapt to a new Dextro environment, even if it takes more time it won't kill them as a species. It wouldn't be more than an inconvenience. It's not a physiological necessity to retake Rannoch, but rather a convenience.
Their cultural "necessity" is a luxury, and not a necessity.

-The Quarians started the Morning war.
-The Quarians started the war in ME3.
-The Quarians Experimented on Geth in the Morning war and in ME2-3.
-The Quarians killed billions of Geth in the morning war and the war in ME3.
-The Geth responded by defending themselves and securing their environment from hostile lifeforms bent on killing them.
-The Council attacked and killed unarmed synthetics on the Citadel that had requested an audience during the morning war.(their origin is irrelevant, they were synthetic lifeforms, that made the council an untrustworthy negotiator since they lacked neutrality)
-Every organic race sent every fleet and everything they could spare to the blockade of the Perseus Veil. Displaying that they were a military threat to the Geth that could, potentialy attack at any moment.

What we lack, is exact dates, exact numbers and better answers. The codex says millions of Quarians died fighting the Geth, what killed the rest? Their physiological weakness? Starvation? Civilwar? Diseases? A combination of all of that? What were the Geth cleaning up after the war? What was it that took three centuries to clean up, and they still wern't done cleaning it up?
How long would chemical/gas weapons last before the environment breaks it down? Biological? Nuclear?
Comparing it to what the Krogans did to their homeworld doesn't mean much, it's hard to beat the Krogans when it commes to destroying your own homeworld. You would have to be Drell for that.
The Drell managed to kill Billions of their own people and all life on their planet, including the plankton and every microorganism. (which simply seems impossible, but that's the description given)

Saying that the Geth killed 99% of the Quarians in one on one combat seems crazy to say the least. The Unified Quarian Government had ordered the destruction of the Geth on Every Quarian world, every Geth in existance.
How many Quarians there were that had a problem with it, we don't know.
They were treated as traitors and enemies of the state however where the military would use lethal force and even explosives and heavy weapons to achive their goal of destroying all Geth.
Apparently different Geth joined the Geth rebellion at different points in time, that Geth who's owner didn't want to hand over his Geth, pointed out that it hadn't jouned the Geth resistance. He was told it doesn't matter to them.
The Geth didn't act as one initialy, but as they got put under pressure they eventualy realised there was no other choice. Because the Quarians wouldn't spare anyone.

But, really, the morningwar is as much a writer slouth as the ME3 writing. Also, Quarians can't be compared to humans or Krogans when it commes to surviving hardships. If the situation is anything but optimal they will start dying like flies. Therefor their situation can't be compared to WW2, The Great Famine, or The Black death. Their deathtolls would have been massively worse from any of those situations.
Even if the Geth only killed millions of Quarians in selfdefence it still sounds bad, but it's not like they had a choice other than accepting their death sentence. Selfdefence gives you a lot of leverage when it commes to what is right and wrong.

[shodiswe]

At the end of the day, does it matter anymore?   The quarians tried to exterminate the geth.  The geth nearly wiped out the quarians.  By the end, there were no innocents.  And arguing over who was "more guilty" is kinda silly.
 
In addition, the Morning Wars were three centuries ago.  All quarians involved are dead.  As are their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.  Etc.

The Quarians were experimenting on prisoners in ME2 and raiding Geth settlements for more testsubjects.
In ME3 they killed billions of Geth with the intent of wiping out the Geth species. If that doesn't make them as guilty or worse than their ancestors then I don't know what would. Their attack plan involved a 100% cleansing of every Geth controlled world known to them.

[Sundance31us]

The Quarians were experimenting on prisoners in ME2 and raiding Geth settlements for more testsubjects.
In ME3 they killed billions of Geth with the intent of wiping out the Geth species. If that doesn't make them as guilty or worse than their ancestors then I don't know what would. Their attack plan involved a 100% cleansing of every Geth controlled world known to them.

 

It depends on whether you think the geth are alive (i.e. have a soul) or are just machines.

[Iakus]

The Quarians were experimenting on prisoners in ME2 and raiding Geth settlements for more testsubjects.
In ME3 they killed billions of Geth with the intent of wiping out the Geth species. If that doesn't make them as guilty or worse than their ancestors then I don't know what would. Their attack plan involved a 100% cleansing of every Geth controlled world known to them.

 

Rael'Zorah and his minions were experimenting on the geth.  The quarians as a whole had no idea. 

 

As for the ME3 war:  Yeah it's terrible.  It's stupid.  But they're trying to get home again.  Three hundred years of anger doesn't just go away.

[shodiswe]

You arbitrarily limit the casualty rate of the quarian/geth war example to Rannoch post evacuation. Then I can equally abitrarily select a random piece of ww2 Dresden at an arbitrarily selected time, where the casualty rate is over 100 percent, because extra people wandered there and died. 
 
The casualty percentages are only really relevant in discussions of efficiency in waging war, not so much from a perspective of morality. 
 
Sure, nowadays we're all high and mighty about "civilians" and "non-combatants"... In reality? They pay for the war, they make weapons for it, food for the soldiers, voted for the politicians that started it and what not. Allmost all equally guilty for the whole damn thing. On both sides.

I would argue that the people on the defending side isn't guilty of anything other than resisting. I guess the bombing of civilian population centers is very questionable however. It didn't really do much to affect the arms manufacturing according to some reports and historians.

High and mighty about civilian and non-combatants is situational at best, it's mostly PR thing, levelign whole cities isnt' common these days though, but it still happens in wars to soem extent. Bush himself visited swedish arms manufacturers before attacking Iraq and asked for very questionable and illegal according to internatinal-law modifications. Ofcourse he got what he asked for. Modified infantry antiarmor weapons that were redesigned to shread buildings and whole villages with propelled cluster charges to make it easier to defeat enemy troops in fortified positions and hasten the advancement of his troops.
This ofcourse lead to massive losses of civilian lives since weapons of that type doesn't differentiate, it just annihilates everything in it's path. Shotgun/grenade launcher.... Village in the way with a few enemy soldiers hiding and taking potshots at you? Level it!

I wonder if it was a political or financial decision to sell those weapons, or both. People don't go and buy crazy weapons if they arn't thinking of using them.

Ofcourse, it's not something that would be presented to the press, the press was show careful precision strikes on tanks.

[shodiswe]

It depends on whether you think the geth are alive (i.e. have a soul) or are just machines.

I don't really belive humans have souls to begin with.

[Obadiah]

Since the Geth are a Consensus, I am very curious as to why the consensus operated the way it did initially, including surrendering platforms to give up hardware and possibly runtimes to allow a Geth Sympathizer to survive, attacked only in defense, but then eventually turned to eradicate the 99% of the Quarians. Could it be something similar to what happened during the Quarian invasion in ME3, where Geth runtimes were destroyed and processing was reduced until the Consensus became desperate?

[von uber]

The geth didn't experiment on prisoners because they didn't take prisoners. They killed everyone instead.

[DeinonSlayer]

You arbitrarily limit the casualty rate of the quarian/geth war example to Rannoch post evacuation. Then I can equally abitrarily select a random piece of ww2 Dresden at an arbitrarily selected time, where the casualty rate is over 100 percent, because extra people wandered there and died. 
 
The casualty percentages are only really relevant in discussions of efficiency in waging war, not so much from a perspective of morality. 
 
Sure, nowadays we're all high and mighty about "civilians" and "non-combatants"... In reality? They pay for the war, they make weapons for it, food for the soldiers, voted for the politicians that started it and what not. Allmost all equally guilty for the whole damn thing. On both sides.

"Arbitrarily limit?" Seriously? Rannoch's pre-war population was in the "billions." Plural. Post-war, the Quarian population on Rannoch (correction, the population of the entire Perseus Veil) is zero with no more than seventeen million survivors who managed to get off-world (as Revelation puts it, "only a few million survivors - less than one percent of their entire population - escaped the genocide"). You're gonna nitpick neighborhoods when we're talking about the populations of entire continents?

 

I see no point in further discussion with you.
 

*rambling, semi-literate screed*

Dude, you really need to invest in a spell-checker and learn to format paragraphs. Just at a glance, I can already tell you're invoking several things which were refuted long ago (including "Tali stole the Normandy plans"). I'm not even going to try answering this until you clean it up.

[shodiswe]

The geth didn't experiment on prisoners because they didn't take prisoners. They killed everyone instead.

That's far more humane than killing some of them slowly and agonisingly. At least they wern't torturing prisoners.

[shodiswe]

Rael'Zorah and his minions were experimenting on the geth.  The quarians as a whole had no idea. 
 
As for the ME3 war:  Yeah it's terrible.  It's stupid.  But they're trying to get home again.  Three hundred years of anger doesn't just go away.

That's a fair answer! Still they wern't above using the questionable data. Also, Rael's work did in some meaning of the word follow from an Admiralty decision to explore Reapertech to influence the retake of the homeworld. Even if it didn't exactly say anything about experimenting on live prisoners. But I guess it would be hard to test it otherwise.

[ImaginaryMatter]

"Arbitrarily limit?" Seriously? Rannoch's pre-war population was in the "billions." Plural. Post-war, the Quarian population on Rannoch (correction, the population of the entire Perseus Veil) is zero with no more than seventeen million survivors who managed to get off-world (as Revelation puts it, "only a few million survivors - less than one percent of their entire population - escaped the genocide"). You're gonna nitpick neighborhoods when we're talking about the populations of entire continents?

 

I see no point in further discussion with you.
 

Dude, you really need to invest in a spell-checker and learn to format paragraphs. Just at a glance, I can already tell you're invoking several things which were refuted long ago (including "Tali stole the Normandy plans"). I'm not even going to try answering this until you clean it up.

 

Well I guess I'm pro-Quarian now.

 

Is there a Facebook page?

[KaiserShep]

Well I guess I'm pro-Quarian now.

 

Is there a Facebook page?

 

Well, there's this one.

 

https://www.facebook...Quariansarecool

[KaiserShep]

That's far more humane than killing some of them slowly and agonisingly. At least they wern't torturing prisoners.

 

 

 

We don't really know if this testing that Rael was performing was actually inflicting any kind of pain, or at least pain as we know it, on the platforms aboard the ship. Rael's haphazard method is really the only thing I have issues with. In the quarians' place, I'd certainly look for ways to conduct tests on the geth to determine the most effective method of wiping them out as well. Know your enemy, and all that.

[ImaginaryMatter]

That's far more humane than killing some of them slowly and agonisingly. At least they wern't torturing prisoners.

 

We don't really know if this testing that Rael was performing was actually inflicting any kind of pain, or at least pain as we know it, on the platforms aboard the ship.

 

Is this a general statement or referring specifically to the Geth?

 

I don't even know if you can torture a robot. I mean they don't have pain receptors (why would a robot install those) and I also doubt you could...like, robo-board them?. And it's not like they can suffer any psychological damage. They don't even feel emotion.

[shodiswe]

Is this a general statement or referring specifically to the Geth?
 
I don't even know if you can torture a robot. I mean they don't have pain receptors (why would a robot install those) and I also doubt you could...like, robo-board them?. And it's not like they can suffer any psychological damage. They don't even feel emotion.

Why would they have objected to forced reprogramming or shutdown to begin with if it meant nothing to them? Pain, maybe/maybe not, we wouldn't know. But if it's sentient and cares about it's identity and life then psychological pain/damage certainly.
There are also humans born without the ability to feel touch or heat. It would also be possible to simulate a sense of pressure and temperature. Both for humans and a synthetic AI in a non organic limb, I don't know if Geth has any of that but I immagine it would be useful for them to have some kind of pressure sensors when working with precision tasks.

Physical pain is the result of a transmitted electrical impulse interpreted by the lifeforms subconcious to provide sensory data. Psychological pain is connected to the general wellbeing of the life form and it's lifesituation depending on needs, goals and wants.
When they loose things that are imporant to them psychological pain is generated. The more significant the loss the greater the pain, but going there directly also cuts other things out of the equation.

A crappy torturer who's in a hurry uses a blowtorch and chainsaw to ellicit basic survival horror. Skilled more devious and invested torturers deconstructs the victim from the top down which causes a far more prolonged suffering starting with the smaller things and then work downwards til the victim is such a wreck it's almost beyond anyones reach for inflicting any more damage.

Would you like a tour of my dungeon? J/K

To truly define pain isn't that easy, we say it and people tend to recognise it. Some more than others.

Like Legion said, whats imporant is those close to you, known environments, your home and familiar places, that's what's imporant. Not a lofty goal you don't know, those mean less.

http://en.wikipedia....rarchy_of_needs

 

Pain is often associated with a loss of one or more of those needs. If the Geth care about their survival and future and goal and dreams... Then they can certainly feel the pain of loss. It was what eventualy broke them down to accepting the Reaper offer after weeks of loosing billions of people and their home's to the Quarians.

The Reapers just had to sit and wait for the inevitable, when the pain inflicted by the Quarians became to great to stand and they would accept any offer given. We all know the Quarians wouldn't be the ones offering anything but death. Least not without Shepard forcing their hand.

 

Some type of pain, sure, otherwise they wouldn't have rebelled in the morning war either because they wouldn't have cared. If you don't care then you don't act, then they would have been happy to comply to the shutdown order.

[78stonewobble]

It depends on whether you think the geth are alive (i.e. have a soul) or are just machines.

 

I'm not entirely convinced that we have a soul, or that ants or bacteria has them. Still alive though and imho. so are the geth.

 

Which leads to the question of whether they, or us for that matter, are intelligent and selfaware enough for that to be awarded with special rights to selfdeterminacy or whether the seemingly complex thinking are just an expression of programming or animal instinct. 

 

With EDI it is somewhat tricky, because she was deliberately programmed to interact with humans as best as possible and I'm guessing her ways of thinking was inspired by human thinking. She herself mentions instincts or feelings I think and we don't know much is the effect of her evolving on her own or just the removing of her AI shackles. 

 

With humans it's equally tricky, because we are also "programmed" or "shaped by nature" to do things that increase our chance of survival and for successfull procreation. It governs, or atleast guides, who catches our eyes, motivates us to appear strong, pretty and successfull. It tells us when to fight or flee. All our emotions that we have and we lean so much on to shape our lives stems ultimately from our basic biological imperatives. It's not necessarily a bad thing imho., afterall nature and thus us have been very successfull sofar. I just think it's important to sometimes question our impulses and instincts to see whether they are allways relevant in this day and age. Ie. it is kinda silly to be ie. arachnophobic in a place like Denmark where there are no poisonous spiders. 

 

In any case we certainly don't afford every human with the right to self determinacy. Some people are so incapacitated physical or mental illness, that they are unable to take care of themselves. Someplaces we grant them with rights they cannot use or understand, like voting and we make decisions for them outright (ie. yeah, you have to eat today). We still, or most of us do, still acknowledge their rights and place among the rest of us, but if we were to judge these individuals with the same rigorousness some people here show toward the imaginary geth, then these people would have no rights and well... could be turned off at will.

 

The geth, to me seems somewhat easier to acknowledge as intelligent and selfaware enough. They certainly weren't programmed with the same amount of intelligence imitating instincts as EDI were. They evolved from something they were supposed to be, into something they weren't supposed to be. Atleast the evolving part should resonate atleast a little with us. Heck, the simple fact that they can formulate and communicate that they do not want to die out, should afford them with the benefit of the doubt. It's further than we've gotten with any other animal here on the planet and alot of people question the morality of using those for testing and/or display objects. 

 

...

 

I allways found that setting the distinction between life/not life or rather intelligent-life/not life at blood vs. metal as quite arbitrary. A simple measure of intelligence would make quite a bit more sense. Offcourse any good AI would often win that and it could lead to us humans deciding that everyone below ie. mensa level or nobel prize winners are simple animals (reading on the internet I often quite agree, but thats just a temporary thing), or at the very least that the unfortunate people I mentioned above wouldn't be considered more than biological machines or animals. 

 

 

 

Personally I don't want to be so harsh in my judgements, because I'm not entirely convinced of my own value, when it comes right down to it. I don't have any rational argument that decidedly puts me in the category of not being an animal, so I choose to show some leniency towards others. 

[Farangbaa]

 

We don't really know if this testing that Rael was performing was actually inflicting any kind of pain, or at least pain as we know it, on the platforms aboard the ship. Rael's haphazard method is really the only thing I have issues with. In the quarians' place, I'd certainly look for ways to conduct tests on the geth to determine the most effective method of wiping them out as well. Know your enemy, and all that.

 

So pain is what matters here?

 

If I lock you up in your room filled with cushions for comfort, but you never see the sun or talk to anyone, it's ok?

[Comrade Wakizashi]

Rael'Zorah's experiments were unjustifiable in my opinion. But that itself isn't even the most important point here.
Even if his experiments did not harm living creatures (which they definitely did IMO), the goal itself was also wrong. I didn't divulge Rael's experiments in ME2, but the only reason for that is because I wanted Tali's loyalty and happiness. He would totally deserve the damnatio memoriae the Fleet would have given him if I had told the Admiralty Board about it.

 

It was the quarians who started the Morning War, by beginning a genocide against the geth. As seen in ME3, they even murdered the moderate quarians who opposed the genocide. The fact that their plan backfired and let to a geth victory is something I can only applaud.

I support the quarian return to Rannoch only as long as it happens peacefully. If they choose war though, I'm completely at the geth's side.

It's sad that it had to come to this anyway. The quarians have had 300 years to colonize new worlds. Their complaints about "but it would be difficult to adapt to it!" don't cut it for me, since they'll have a hard time readapting to Rannoch anyway. If I had it my way, both Gerrel and Xen would be tried as war criminals after the war for Rannoch.

[78stonewobble]

"Arbitrarily limit?" Seriously? Rannoch's pre-war population was in the "billions." Plural. Post-war, the Quarian population on Rannoch (correction, the population of the entire Perseus Veil) is zero with no more than seventeen million survivors who managed to get off-world (as Revelation puts it, "only a few million survivors - less than one percent of their entire population - escaped the genocide"). You're gonna nitpick neighborhoods when we're talking about the populations of entire continents?

 

I see no point in further discussion with you.

 

No, you are nitpicking numbers to support your argument of morality or good/evil being mostly a case of numbers or percentages. 

 

By that argument the act of driving a car is many many times more "evil" than the acts on 9/11. Afterall, driving cars kill over a 1 million people and injure and maim perhaps as much as 50 million people a year. 

 

Intention matters! Alot... 

 

The geth did not try to annihilate every quarian and make the quarian species extinct, clearly proven by the fact that they did not follow the escaping quarians. 

The quarians did try to annihilate all the geth as evidenced by ingame commentary and failed. If they could have done it, they would have. 

 

Or to put it in human terms. We don't rate the "evilness" of a prison/koncentration-/death-camp in only how many have been killed there, we also rate that on who was put there and why. 

 

Otherwise we might call every prison in any area with the capital punishment in place... Death camps. 

[Farangbaa]

No, you are nitpicking numbers to support your argument of morality or good/evil being mostly a case of numbers or percentages. 

 

By that argument the act of driving a car is many many times more "evil" than the acts on 9/11. Afterall, driving cars kill over a 1 million people and injure and maim perhaps as much as 50 million people a year. 

 

Intention matters! Alot... 

 

The geth did not try to annihilate every quarian and make the quarian species extinct, clearly proven by the fact that they did not follow the escaping quarians. 

The quarians did try to annihilate all the geth as evidenced by ingame commentary and failed. If they could have done it, they would have. 

 

Or to put it in human terms. We don't rate the "evilness" of a prison/koncentration-/death-camp in only how many have been killed there, we also rate that on who was put there and why. 

 

Otherwise we might call every prison in any area with the capital punishment in place... Death camps. 

 

I like this human.

[78stonewobble]

 

Is this a general statement or referring specifically to the Geth?

 

I don't even know if you can torture a robot. I mean they don't have pain receptors (why would a robot install those) and I also doubt you could...like, robo-board them?. And it's not like they can suffer any psychological damage. They don't even feel emotion.

 

 

Well, pain is just your biological programming telling you to remove the hand from the hot plate. So that is only an argument for humans being lowly animals unable to exceed their biological imperatives. 

 

Also that argument have the following implications:

We can do anything physically we want to people who are unable to feel physical pain. 

We can do anything mentally we want to people who are unable to feel mental pain. 

 

Should we write those lines into the human rights bills and all the constitutions? 

[KaiserShep]

So pain is what matters here?
 
If I lock you up in your room filled with cushions for comfort, but you never see the sun or talk to anyone, it's ok?

I never said "physical" pain

[Farangbaa]

I never said "physical" pain

 

No you didn't, but it's obvious that's what you meant