359 réponses à ce sujet

[shodiswe]

I will take Javik's lead on this one, the Turians should have detonated the bomb the very day the Rebellions ended and destroyed the Krogan, there was no need for the Genophage. No matter what Padok Wiks says the galaxy is better off without species like the Krogan.

That would make for a less interesting game setting though, wouldn't you agree? It would destroy the setting in a similar way that Destroy does.

[AlexMBrennan]

Under those conditions it still makes the most sense to focus entirely on sovereign

That would require knowledge of what's going on in the battle which neither we nor Shepard has I.e. there is no right or wrong answer - sure, if you assume that the geth are stupid and will keep chasing a damaged non-threat whilst their leader is getting murdered then you would be right (again, I'd prefer a solution that doesn't require the enemy commander to be a bowl of jello) but it's equally plausible that the geth will turn back when Sovereign is threatened, essentially turning this choice into "let's fight sovereign" vs "let's fight sovereign whilst the entire geth fleet is also shooting at us".

[KaiserShep]

I will take Javik's lead on this one, the Turians should have detonated the bomb the very day the Rebellions ended and destroyed the Krogan, there was no need for the Genophage. No matter what Padok Wiks says the galaxy is better off without species like the Krogan. 

 

This is assuming that the bomb was sufficient to actually destroy the krogan in one fell swoop, which I don't believe it was. I could argue that the galaxy would be better off without species like the salarians, since they were responsible for both the rachni wars and the krogan rebellions in the first place. A species like the krogan, if left to their own devices, might have wiped themselves out in the nuclear fallout, but it's also possible that near extinction might have seen a very different path of their development. I guess there's no way to know, because meddlesome frogs got into the mix, however necessary that may have been.

[Kabooooom]

That would require knowledge of what's going on in the battle which neither we nor Shepard has I.e. there is no right or wrong answer - sure, if you assume that the geth are stupid and will keep chasing a damaged non-threat whilst their leader is getting murdered then you would be right (again, I'd prefer a solution that doesn't require the enemy commander to be a bowl of jello) but it's equally plausible that the geth will turn back when Sovereign is threatened, essentially turning this choice into "let's fight sovereign" vs "let's fight sovereign whilst the entire geth fleet is also shooting at us".

I disagree, but only from the position of what Shepard does actually know (which is minimal, as you point out). He only knows that Sovereign is actively trying to open the Citadel relay (Saren did already handed control of the station over to him) and will continue to do so. He does not know a) how much damage Sovereign's shields can take, or how much damage Sovereign itself can take if the shields fall, or b ) how much time will elapse before the Citadel relay will open.

So they give three choices: 1) stay back, let council die, come in with full force at a future time in the battle. 2) come in, save council. Or 3) come in, ignore council, focus on Sovereign.

It makes little sense to me to choose (1) unless you knew that at some point Sovereign's shields would successfully be brought down, or unless you knew how long it would take him to succeed in opening the relay. And you know neither. An argument could be made to choose (2) in order to save the Ascension for pure militaristic utility (not to save the Council, that's not a good enough reason in my opinion). But I think the time-dependency of the situation is the only reason why I think this is an inferior choice. However, it certainly makes waaaay more sense to choose this, and an argument can be made for it as opposed to (1) which is pretty much indefensible. So I choose (3) to try to kill the bastard as quickly as possible, and if you fail, then at least you tried everything. (2) and (3) both end up being equivalent choices, but there's no way my Shepard could have known that.

[Aimi]

if anything, STG moving to upgrade so quickly shows how much they probably regret that uplift. If not that, then it shows a much darker side to their own culture considering the only race ever aware of the Genophage starting to weaken was the Salarians.

 
Alternatively, it demonstrates how much "maintaining the genophage" in and of itself - regardless of the consequences - had become valuable to elements of the salarian elite. It seems apparent to me that many Council observers consider the genophage to be their sole safeguard against a metaphorical avalanche of bloodthirsty krogan. They equate the end of the genophage to the end of their security, instead of seeing it as only one part of an entire network of measures taken to limit the security threat that the krogan posed.

It's important to remember that the genophage was not an immediate-impact superweapon that instantly halted krogan offensives. By definition, it's something that would have a very gradual effect. All it did was modify birth rates: nobody would even be able to tell whether it was working for a generation. It had no effect whatsoever on the krogan armies and fleets that already existed. Primarch Victus claimed that Menae was where the turians made their 'last stand' during the rebellions, and that the genophage was what saved them. This is flat-out wrong, directly contradicted by the planet descriptions in the Apien Crest and indirectly contradicted by common sense.

A more accurate description of the genophage would be a comparison to the turian bomb in the Kelphic Valley. It was effectively a fail-safe, designed to secure a military victory over the krogan clans that Council forces had already won. Because nation-building on Tuchanka was presumably deemed too expensive, risky, and difficult, the Council elected to militarily neuter the krogan and live with the relatively minor consequences of the societal instability that the genophage caused.
 

Eh I don't think the problem was the use of the Genophage to stop the rebellion but its continued use without any consideration for the psychological damaged it caused and overall stagnation of the Krogan's societal development by the galaxies "elite".

I strongly agree, and I think that that was one of the primary takeaways that was intended by Mordin's loyalty mission. (In ME3, Bakara hammers this point home.) Mordin made several arguments based on projections and threat assessments, and the construction of theoretical scenarios revolving around responses to the end of the genophage. And, y'know, if the only issue was the objective population threshold and the birth rate, he'd have had a fairly good argument. Confronting him with the evidence of the dead krogan test subjects showed him that there were other consequences to leaving the genophage in place.

Threat assessments and projections are notoriously dubious anyway. Any prediction of the future relies far more on the prejudices of the predictor than on some objective extrapolation. Tetlock and Belkin's famous study of academic predictions over the last several decades demonstrates this rather nicely: even "fox" prediction strategies aren't that useful, especially when applied to all of history. (Too many variables! Too many variables!) What's the likelihood that salarian projections took the effect of the genophage on krogan psychology seriously? It's gotta be pretty low, right? Especially given Mordin's response to it? The salarians took what they thought they knew about krogan bloodthirstiness and military instincts and incorporated those assumptions into their models.

The same caveats, naturally, apply to what Maelon thought would happen if the genophage was ended. He thought that the krogan would undergo some sort of cultural renaissance. There's no particular reason to assume that that would be the case, either: the way Clan Weyrloc treats his genophage cure indicates that there are plenty of krogan all too interested in using the genophage for wars of conquest and revenge. Even though the almost total lack of krogan space-naval assets means that such wars would be hilariously one-sided, either way a "renaissance" seems awfully unlikely. Theoretically possible, but unlikely. The factors that made that renaissance possible in ME3 - Wrex's leadership, Eve's presence, the threat of the Reapers - weren't in the picture when Maelon was running his experiments.

---

Eve's suggestion that much of krogan violence stems from the psychological impact of the genophage has a fair amount of weight. Obviously, we don't have anything like a longitudinal study of krogan motivations going back over the past millennium and a half. But from what we know - the krogan we encounter - the genophage casts a very long shadow over almost everything they do. It is virtually all-pervasive, which makes sense, because it affects every krogan. How could it fail to have had some sort of impact on the way they think about their place in the galaxy? Even something as minor as the romance between Ereba and Charr: one of the reasons she has problems committing to him is her suspicion that he's just using her as a baby factory because the genophage makes having krogan children fantastically unlikely.

The genophage also has a more obviously negative societal impact in that it dramatically shifts the dynamic of clan warfare. Urdnot's scout commander makes it quite plain that because of the genophage, women and children are in relatively short supply, and losing them has a very disproportionate effect on a clan. They're simply too juicy a target to pass up. As Clausewitz might say, for any given krogan clan, the women and children are the Schwerpunkt, the "center of gravity"...and for Clausewitz, attacking the enemy's center of gravity was the most effective way to fight a war. The scout commander doesn't quite put it in those terms: he simply says that for a clan to lose its women and children is to lose its future. I don't know about you, but most people think that transforming warfare into a game of directly attacking noncombatants is horrifying.

Then again, if you're the kind of person who thinks that the krogan should have been slaughtered en masse in retaliation for the rebellions, then you probably aren't all that worried about the societal effects of the genophage on the krogan.

[Kabooooom]

Also why blame the actions of the Krogans of Old on the current generation of Krogan? They already payed for their crimes. Also What was the other choices should the Salarians have done with the Rachni? Also what should the Council done with the Krogans? They could have explore the galaxy with a huge army.

I don't blame the Krogan. The genophage was the solution (the only solution) to the Krogan problem. It wasn't a punishment, but a necessary evil.

This is probably a stretch, but is there a possibility that Mordin didnt account for the Krogan becoming a united people under one leader, or for a duo such as Wrex and Bakara being in charge?

I could see many of the other factors clearly leading to war, but its not hard to imagine the path Krogan ended up taking under Wrex being seen as a laughable idea just because of what everyone thought of the Krogan to start with.

I believe that Mordin does acknowledge that a unified Krogan government is a game changer if you call him out in ME3 for being an apparent hypocrite. But I would be skeptical as to how long of a game changer it could be. Even if Wrex and Eve's pacifying influence lasted for a thousand years, eventually it may not.

Again, this isn't a problem though or at least not enough of one to not cure the genophage during the war. There's no way the galaxy would allow another Krogan Rebellions. The genophage would be re-initiated before that happened.

[I Tsunayoshi I]

This is assuming that the bomb was sufficient to actually destroy the krogan in one fell swoop, which I don't believe it was. I could argue that the galaxy would be better off without species like the salarians, since they were responsible for both the rachni wars and the krogan rebellions in the first place. A species like the krogan, if left to their own devices, might have wiped themselves out in the nuclear fallout, but it's also possible that near extinction might have seen a very different path of their development. I guess there's no way to know, because meddlesome frogs got into the mix, however necessary that may have been.

 

The bomb clearly wasnt enough to kill the planet. If you fail to deal with it, it kills all the Krogan in the Valley, which is enough to cripple their aid for Shepard mind you, but its not the true doomsday weapon its made out to be. Even then, the bomb only does the substantial damage it does because the Krogan were gathering en masse in the blast zone.

 

That said, I agree that the Krogan if left alone would have probably nuked themselves to near oblivion and possibly started to come back changed for the better, if and only if they had a proper leader to motivate said changes.

 

The only comparable race I can think of that did just that and didnt really change much at all were the Jiralhanae from Halo, aka Brutes. They did nuke themselves back to pre-industrial levels of civilization, and instead of changing their own violent and tribal/clan based culture, they just continued on the same path that almost killed them all once before. The problem was only exacerbated further when the San'shum not only gave them a massive tech boost and uplifted them back into being a space faring society. Most Halo fans can pretty tell ya from here that they just changed the targets of their infighting from each other to the Sangheili as they started trying to make themselves look like the real top dogs in the Covenant's military forces, which eventually led to the Great Schism which effectively ended the Covenant. The main factor that I can see for this happening mostly comes from the fact that the Jiralhanae never had any sort of leader that tried to encourage them to change or focus their efforts to other more beneficial pursuits.

 

I don't blame the Krogan. The genophage was the solution (the only solution) to the Krogan problem. It wasn't a punishment, but a necessary evil.

I believe that Mordin does acknowledge that a unified Krogan government is a game changer if you call him out in ME3 for being an apparent hypocrite. But I would be skeptical as to how long of a game changer it could be. Even if Wrex and Eve's pacifying influence lasted for a thousand years, eventually it may not.

Again, this isn't a problem though or at least not enough of one to not cure the genophage during the war. There's no way the galaxy would allow another Krogan Rebellions. The genophage would be re-initiated before that happened.

 

I doubt anyone would try to say that the Genophage wasnt the only option that the Turians and Salarians had to end the Rebellions. Doesnt make it right, but conventional warfare was useless against the Krogan.

 

A unified govt alone for the Krogan really isnt a game changer, since it all comes down to who is leading it. Wreav or anyone else like him would only continue to provide validation to the other races why the Genophage should never be cured. They'd never use their power for anything beneficial so long as revenge is their motivation to do anything. The only reason why the cure is worth considering is because of the leadership of Wrex and Bakara. They know the mistakes that were made, and they are working to make sure they are not repeated so that the Krogan can be more than the brutes that they are believed to be.

 

And with the air cleared a bit, I hope, on that matter, another means of dealing with the Krogan if they were to revert back to the violence that made up their culture before would more than likely be made in cause it ever looked like another Krogan Rebellion was going to start up. If only more because the Salarians would more than likely be the slowest to get over the prejudice, or at the very least, just make sure they are prepared to deal with the problem if it arose again. 

[Deathsaurer]

The thing is though, when it is within a species' biological nature, it is extremely difficult to "change" because it is who they are. I tend to believe Mordin on this- he said he accounted for everything, the galaxy ended in war every time.

I think they *could* change, just like I think us humans could change in real life and outgrow our self-destructive tendencies before we cause our own extinction. In the case of the Krogan though, this should have been done before they were uplifted and joined the galactic community.

I'm sure Mordin believed the simulations were the most accurate thing possible. Thing is the Catalyst does the same. I agree with Koris in this respect. I don't know if peace is possible but we all deserve to find out so Wrex gets his chance. This is, of course, a meta rejection of the idea.

[Kabooooom]

Unlike most, I tend to accept the Catalyst's statement that the organic-synthetic conflict is inevitable, but that's another discussion entirely lol.

The fact that we are discussing the genophage so thoroughly here is testament to how well they wrote that part of the story.

[Excella Gionne]

The Genophage Arc is written in the way where you have to bet on a two-sided coin. You have the Salarian(either Padok or Mordin)who is going to help the Krogans regardless, and you have yourself. You have to make a decision to trust the Krogans regarding their past and the possibility of another war with the Krogan, or you simply create genocide and not trust the Krogan. It helps if friends are there, but will you trust Wrex and Eve(unless she's dead)to lead the Krogans to a better future and not reenact the Krogan Rebellions? With Wreav it's quite clear on where the future is headed...

[Kabooooom]

I trust Wrex/Eve to hold it together for awhile - maybe hundreds of years, maybe a thousand. But for all time? Nope. I have no doubt the Krogan would start another rebellion. But the only ending this really matters in is destroy, and I also have no doubt the rebellion would probably never even get off the ground due to the galaxy intervening before it (probably with a second genophage-at least that's what I'd do if I were the Salarians).

[themikefest]

I don't trust Wrex and Eve. Why should I trust only 2 Krogan when there could be millions that don't agree with Wrex and will kill him and Eve to seek revenge? I would like to of heard from a few other Krogan on there opinion about the genophage. Because of that and that the Salarians offer their fleets if I sabotage the genophage, I choose to sabotage the genophage. The repear war is much bigger than curing the Krogan and I have to get as many resources as possible to fight the reapers

 

[Sir DeLoria]

I don't know, while I'm strictly against collective responsibility or guilt and I always cure the Genophage with Wrex and Eve in place, I can understand why people wouldn't give the Krogan a second chance. To each their own.

[Kabooooom]

@themikefest (sorry, phone is screwing up, can't use quote system) - I actually agree with you almost entirely. The ONLY reason I cure the genophage is because I view the Krogan as a larger potential resource than the Salarian fleets long term, due to their massive birth rate, and since Shep has no way of knowing how long the war will last.

[Excella Gionne]

This is why Control and Synthesis do seem much better than Destroy.....

[I Tsunayoshi I]

 

I don't trust Wrex and Eve. Why should I trust only 2 Krogan when there could be millions that don't agree with Wrex and will kill him and Eve to seek revenge? I would like to of heard from a few other Krogan on there opinion about the genophage. Because of that and that the Salarians offer their fleets if I sabotage the genophage, I choose to sabotage the genophage. The repear war is much bigger than curing the Krogan and I have to get as many resources as possible to fight the reapers

 

My problem with the Salarians, is that they are basing all of their reasoning from stuff based on past data and ignoring anything else that doesnt fall in line with what they think. I half expected Linron to start using slurs to refer to the Krogan at one point or another because her views are some of the most extreme that are shown off in ME3. Considering that Linron didnt have that great a power base when she took power (ANN Blog post prior to ME3) and that STG starts getting ready to fight for Shepard against her orders, one would say that Linron could very well expect to be ousted ASAP after the Reaper War if only because whichever bloodline on Sur'kesh ended up with STG support, would be the new leaders of the govt there.

 

 

@themikefest (sorry, phone is screwing up, can't use quote system) - I actually agree with you almost entirely. The ONLY reason I cure the genophage is because I view the Krogan as a larger potential resource than the Salarian fleets long term, due to their massive birth rate, and since Shep has no way of knowing how long the war will last.

 

I really cant take Linron's offer for any reason. There are just way too many xenophobic feelings coming off of her for the offer to be genuine. On top of that, knowing what I'd know about the Salarian First Fleet, I'd have to make a note to turn them in for stealing classified state secrets that they had no right to considering every ship there has Normandy's stealth systems which never had the Salarians involved in any part of the process. It seems like the Salarians in general have no real respect for the rest of the galactic community considering if they dont like you, they'll screw with you forever, and if they do like you, its only because you have something that they can steal from you for their own benefit.

[Kabooooom]

Also, when I first made the genophage decision, I highly suspected that the dalatross was either bluffing, or they would be forced to join you later on when the reapers start knocking on Sur'kesh's door. So curing it was a no-brainer to me, after I gave some serious consideration to sabotaging it.

[themikefest]

My problem with the Salarians, is that they are basing all of their reasoning from stuff based on past data and ignoring anything else that doesnt fall in line with what they think. I half expected Linron to start using slurs to refer to the Krogan at one point or another because her views are some of the most extreme that are shown off in ME3. Considering that Linron didnt have that great a power base when she took power (ANN Blog post prior to ME3) and that STG starts getting ready to fight for Shepard against her orders, one would say that Linron could very well expect to be ousted ASAP after the Reaper War if only because whichever bloodline on Sur'kesh ended up with STG support, would be the new leaders of the govt there.

 

My problem with the Krogan is that in the last thousand plus years of having the genophage, they have made no effort in rebuilding their planet or doing anything that would convince the Council species that they should have a cure. All they have done is fight each other and sell themselves out like common thugs.

[I Tsunayoshi I]

My problem with the Krogan is that in the last thousand plus years of having the genophage, they have made no effort in rebuilding their planet or doing anything that would convince the Council species that they should have a cure. All they have done is fight each other and sell themselves out like common thugs.

 

True. Nothing involving the Krogan was going to change without some sort of outside interference since the Council was set against doing anything to start bringing the Krogan back, and the Krogan were set on believing they had no good reason to change their ways.

[Excella Gionne]

Even if I were to sabotage the Genophage with Wrex as leader, the Salarian asset hardly changes. If the councilor dies, almost nothing happens. It's kinda like offering an offer that gives you nothing if you were to side with the one's who offered the offer. I have my reasons for curing the Genophage. Aralakh is still a Demilitarized Zone nonetheless and resources on Tuchanka are still scarce, even if the genophage was cured, Krogans wouldn't be able act much at all.

[Barquiel]

For me the genophage decision has always been the hardest one in the series.

Even Wrex starts talking about building a Krogan empire and expanding...and Wreav doesn't even try to hide his intentions to attack the salarians/turians. Furthermore, the Krogan are basically space Somalia while the salarians are a galactic superpower (I know their war assets are laughable even if you sabotage the cure). But on the other hand I really like Eve and the epilogue implies that the Krogan go extinct if you sabotage the cure (which doesn't make any sense). In the end I cured the genophage in my Wrex playthrough because I couldn't kill Mordin/Wrex, and sabotaged the cure in my Wreav playthrough.

[Kabooooom]

I've never sabotaged the cure in my playthroughs, but I think I've seen an epilogue shot of the Tuchanka wasteland and a Krogan skull or something - implying they went extinct, right? I think I saw this on a YouTube video once of ending differences.

This *could* make sense. The genophage only stabilizes the birth rate. Population levels are in flux with birth/death rates, and there is a minimum population number from which a species is no longer genetically viable, or too genetically homogenous that they are more likely to succumb to disease (Devil Facial Tumor Disease is a fascinating real life example of this phenomenon in action).

So, if they suffered enough casualties in the Reaper war, and then further casualties from continued infighting in a temporarily ruined galaxy after the war, I can totally see how they could go extinct.

[Excella Gionne]

My problem with the Krogan is that in the last thousand plus years of having the genophage, they have made no effort in rebuilding their planet or doing anything that would convince the Council species that they should have a cure. All they have done is fight each other and sell themselves out like common thugs.

Remember, they're a proud race which technically means they are warriors. They evolved out of the Genophage once, but Salarians went in with the modified Genophage and secretly implemented the Genophage 2.0 back on Tuchanka. And since Mordin did lead the STG team to implement the modified Genophage it was re-released onto Tuchanka once more. So yeah, it's not like they didn't do anything about it, Salarians are the ones to be blamed for keeping it going even after the Krogans evolved out of the original Genophage...

[I Tsunayoshi I]

Remember, they're a proud race which technically means they are warriors. They evolved out of the Genophage once, but Salarians went in with the modified Genophage and secretly implemented the Genophage 2.0 back on Tuchanka. And since Mordin did lead the STG team to implement the modified Genophage it was re-released onto Tuchanka once more. So yeah, it's not like they didn't do anything about it, Salarians are the ones to be blamed for keeping it going even after the Krogans evolved out of the original Genophage...

 

They hadnt evolved out of ****. The Genophage was only just beginning to to be overcome genetically and it would have taken just as long if not longer for it to have decreased in effectiveness to an appreciable extent. The Salarians jumped the gun blatantly in dealing with making the 2.0 virus, and did so for the most stupid of reasons.

[guigaccess]

I am all for curing the genophage. I mean, if there was an option of refusing the cure when the krogan leader (Wrex or Wreav) demands it to help the turian, I think there could be a dilemma. But promising the cure and faking it seems like a bad idea.

 

I mean, I only made my first playthrough so maybe I missed something, but what prevents the Salarian from making a stronger version of the genophage again just like Mordin did some years ago? As I see it, nothing.

 

So,

(1) Wreav is the only leader = sure rebellion.

(2) Wreav and Bakara are opposing leaders = unlike rebellion.

(3) Wrex is the only leader = unlike rebellion.

(4) Wrex and Bakara are leaders = no rebellion at all.

 

(1) The worst case is Wreav being the only leader around. Based on what we saw from the Extended Cut, they excite the krogan for war as soon as the reapers are taken care of. This fits him, since he is not as rational as Wrex. And this also means the krogan would be engaging fight without enough time to benefit from the genophage being cured or without rebuilding their civilization. They would still be few in numbers, with almost no technology at hand, and probably with a weak leadership since krogan currently are too belligerent to work as a united front. 

In this case, the krogan would be no problem. If the salarian can just pull a new genophage, they would be taken care quickly but problem that wouldn't even be necessary.

 

(2) Bakara promises a civil war if the males want to go to war. The female krogan are still krogan and wouldn't go down without a fight. Even cured of the genophage, how much could the krogan numbers grow without females? Seeing how the male leaders hold Bakara in high regard, it is even likely many of them would join her side.

So even if Wreav or another male manages to succeed here, the krogan would be in a much worse condition than they are now. They would be even less of a threat than in the (1) scenario.

 

(3) and (4) Extended Cut confirms Wrex was speaking the truth and no rebellion will follow in the imeadiate future. Seeing how krogan can live as much as asari, we can expect Wrex to lead the krogan for a long time. There is no telling what will happen after his death, though. After Wrex is gone, the krogan will be stronger than ever, high numbers and advanced. If they are still as now, things could be bad, but with their people focusing on rebuilding, there is a high chance their destructive behaviour will disappear. We know for a fact they only became like that once they became "purposeless" and started to turn against each other since they lacked any other ordeals in life.

 

In the last cases, also, faking the cure is the worst you can do since we know Wrex find out about the cure being faked despite the dalatrass efforts. This is the worst option, actually. This gives the krogan a genuine reason for war with a high chance of the turian joining their side. The turian are too honorable to ignore their debt: Palaven was saved thanks to the krogan and based on a promise that was broken. I seriously doubt the turian would manage to ignore that. And due to their agreements, if the turian join the krogan, the volus has to do the same as well.

 

 

 

Seriously, I don't think the krogan are something to be worried of. They are doomed if they want to start a war again because they don't have the patience to wait until they are recovered before doing so.

Instead of the krogan, I think the real threat to the galaxy are the salarian. They didn't learn from their past mistakes and are thinking of uplifting the yahg: THAT would be the end of the galaxy.