207 réponses à ce sujet

[Bardox9]

If this is what you believe then you should not try to stop Saren since Synthesis (or a version of it) was his goal.

 

 

With the difference that Saren was indoctrinated, so he couldn't synthesise even if he wanted to. (Just like TIM couldn't control)

 

You are assuming that the ending actually happened. It didn't. It was a dream sequence. It was Harbinger appearing as a little ghost boy trying to indoctrinate Shepard. Get him to accept the Control path(as TIM did) or accept the Synthesis path(as Saren did) and turn away from the destroy path(the path Shepard has been on since the moment you talk to Sovereign on Virmir). Once you choose your path, Shepard wakes up (with that wierd single gasp thing) either as the next Reaper agent OR more determined than ever to destroy the Reapers.

[shodiswe]

The motive isn't supposed to be original (If you seek originality you will never find it, it only exist in structures/ forms not in themes). Bioware know their ending is based on Asimov's writings (They have shown that they know enough of the masterpieces and popular work of sciences fiction).
Their motive can be easily understood.

Cheap, classical doomsday horror and fear of that which is different or "unknown". Why not, it sells.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

You are assuming that the ending actually happened.

 

Which is the only reasonable assumption to make. Storytelling requires the audience to suspend their disbelief and believe that everything they're told that happened did, in fact, happen. Violating the implicit trust between audience and stoyteller(s) isn't brilliance, it's stupidity.

[dreamgazer]

50 shades of gray

 

The reapers are crappy Twilight fanfic? This is indeed a disturbing universe.

 

Makes all of Harbinger's BDSM-esque taunts in ME2 make a lot more sense, though.

[Bardox9]

Which is the only reasonable assumption to make. Storytelling requires the audience to suspend their disbelief and believe that everything they're told that happened did, in fact, happen. Violating the implicit trust between audience and stoyteller(s) isn't brilliance, it's stupidity.

I agree it isn't brilliance and it is stupid and it is a violation. This is why I am still pissed about the ending.

[TurianRebel212]

The Reapers reap. It ain't that hard to understand or anything. They're evil wannabe "Gods of the Galaxy". They think they're so "infinite" and "powers of the universe bend to me". And blah, blah, blah. 

 

 

 

Oh yeah Reaper turds. Well what happens when I shoot the tube.... You go bye bye. 

 

Nice try Harby. You scrub. Get gud!!! 

 

F*ck the Reapers. Their "ideas" of "ascension" and "pinnacle of evolution" is just them compensating for their small d!cks. They're just jerks. And I shoot the tube every time cause they're jerks and you can't trust or reason with a small d!cked jerk. 

[dreamgazer]

Sure, from a human perspective it seems counter-intuitive to take life in order to preserve it. In fact from memory this is touched on in Shepard's confrontation with Starchild. However, from a cold, calculating, mechanical view it has a certain morbid logic. Sacrifice a handful of species every 50,000 years to protect the rest from their 'inevitable' creations.

 

Ultimately, I don't disagree with this, especially in context of the bolded and how the issue is debatable enough to retain the warped villainy of the Reapers.

[TurianRebel212]

They failed. Their failures. They failed their very first harvest. Derp. 

 

Leviathans are still alive.... Remember???

 

 

The reapers ain't that tough nor that complicated in their motives. 

 

 

They're not even than Good. 

 

They couldn't even kill one human who foiled their plans EVERY step of the way, lol. 

 

Then when the same human, unified the galaxy against them, they lost. They lost. 

 

 

Their goal is to Reap and to create one reaper every cycle, perfect in it's design. 

 

Their second goal is self preservation. 

 

 

But they still got beat, lol. By a human and some pals. Lol. 

[dreamgazer]

But they still got beat, lol. By a human and some pals. Lol. 

 

... and the entirety of the galaxy's military pushing against them at every step, countless pooled resources, blueprints left by the previous cycle's vastly more technologically-advanced race, and tough sacrifices and losses along the way.

 

Shepard didn't build the Crucible himself, after all. 

[NeroonWilliams]

F*ck the Reapers. Their "ideas" of "ascension" and "pinnacle of evolution" is just them compensating for their small d!cks. They're just jerks. And I shoot the tube every time cause they're jerks and you can't trust or reason with a small d!cked jerk. 

Methinks thou dost protest too much sir.

[General TSAR]

I guess it's too much to talk it up to hack writing, no?

[Reorte]

They ensure this by leaving behind their own technology so we develop along the paths they desire... wait, how is this not silly again?
 
If they wanted to make sure we didn't develop synthetics, why uplift our tech level with mass effect technology? Why not let cavemen be cavemen, so to speak?

Certain paths. Th development of AI isn't connected to mass effect technology, that (supposedly) just makes it easier for the Reapers to round up and mulch everyone.

[Reorte]

I guess it's too much to talk it up to hack writing, no?

Sometimes it's possible to pull out interesting things even out of hack writing.

[dreamgazer]

I guess it's too much to talk it up to hack writing, no?

 

Sure, but you can do that with the rest of the trilogy, too, if you really wanted.  

[Farangbaa]

You are assuming that the ending actually happened. It didn't. It was a dream sequence. It was Harbinger appearing as a little ghost boy trying to indoctrinate Shepard. Get him to accept the Control path(as TIM did) or accept the Synthesis path(as Saren did) and turn away from the destroy path(the path Shepard has been on since the moment you talk to Sovereign on Virmir). Once you choose your path, Shepard wakes up (with that wierd single gasp thing) either as the next Reaper agent OR more determined than ever to destroy the Reapers.

 

I have no idea what kind of mindset a person needs to have to prefer inventing a lie over just accepting that what they see is just something they dislike.

[Cknarf]

You're indoctrinated!

[cap and gown]

To the OP: The Catalyst's logic does NOT make sense. He was created to stop synthetics from wiping out Organics. He did not do that. Instead he created a whole bunch of synthetics to wipe out organics. If he had really wanted to stop synthetics from wiping out organics, he should have used his resources to do just that. You do not preserve life by destroying it. You preserve it by keeping it alive. The second Harbinger said "Salvation through Destruction" you knew the writers had gone nuts.

[Reorte]

To the OP: The Catalyst's logic does NOT make sense. He was created to stop synthetics from wiping out Organics. He did not do that. Instead he created a whole bunch of synthetics to wipe out organics. If he had really wanted to stop synthetics from wiping out organics, he should have used his resources to do just that. You do not preserve life by destroying it. You preserve it by keeping it alive. The second Harbinger said "Salvation through Destruction" you knew the writers had gone nuts.

He wipes out individual organic species to preserve organic life as a general whole, whilst keeping a record of everything that does get killed. Thus organic life in general continues, even if individual species don't. It doesn't make a great deal of sense but isn't 100% nonsense.

[congokong]

Like posts from people who dislike the ending, this topic comes up here and there; usually by people like me who actually liked the ending.

 

 

http://forum.bioware...-reapers-right/

[Probe Away]

To the OP: The Catalyst's logic does NOT make sense. He was created to stop synthetics from wiping out Organics. He did not do that. Instead he created a whole bunch of synthetics to wipe out organics. If he had really wanted to stop synthetics from wiping out organics, he should have used his resources to do just that. You do not preserve life by destroying it. You preserve it by keeping it alive. The second Harbinger said "Salvation through Destruction" you knew the writers had gone nuts.

No, he did not create synthetics to 'wipe out organics'. Their job was too wipe out the few races each cycle that got too advanced, in order to protect the rest of organic life (including species that are still in the early stages of evolution) from what the catalyst saw as an inevitability: the creation and rebellion of synthetic life.

Your argument is based on a false premise, as are most arguments declaring the Reapers' motives to be nonsense. Was it a good direction to take the series? Now that's debatable.

[cap and gown]

No, he did not create synthetics to 'wipe out organics'. Their job was too wipe out the few races each cycle that got too advanced, in order to protect the rest of organic life (including species that are still in the early stages of evolution) from what the catalyst saw as an inevitability: the creation and rebellion of synthetic life.

Your argument is based on a false premise, as are most arguments declaring the Reapers' motives to be nonsense. Was it a good direction to take the series? Now that's debatable.

 

You're missing the point: the catalyst should have stopped synthetics from wiping out organics. THAT was its job, one that it failed at spectacularly.

[Obadiah]

Not according to it.
 

...
I was created to bring balance, to be the catalyst for peace between Organics and Synthetics.
...
I was first created to oversee the relations between Synthetic and Organic life. To establish a connection.
...
When they asked that I solve the problem of conflict, they failed to understand they were part of the problem themselves. The flaws of their organic reasoning could not perceive this. They lacked the foresight to understand their destruction was part of the very solution they required.
...

[Probe Away]

You're missing the point: the catalyst should have stopped synthetics from wiping out organics. THAT was its job, one that it failed at spectacularly.

No it didn't, it utterly succeeded, just not in the way the Leviathans intended. Life in the galaxy goes on in between the harvests. You're missing the significant distinction between eradicating a handful of races every 50,000 years and wiping out all organic life.

In the catalyst's view, the only sure way to stop an advanced race from developing potentially deadly synthetic life is to wipe that race out. If it only destroys their creation then there is a risk they will wind up doing it again.

As humans we would throw around various possibilities and try to find a more palatable solution. But if you deal in absolutes like the reapers do, you pick the option that provides the most certainty.

[vallore]

Every now and then someone still makes a post saying how stupid the Reapers' motives were in ME3, and these posts seem to get lazier and more dismissive as time goes by. For instance, I read a post yesterday that summarized the Reapers' goal as "to kill all organics so that they don't kill themselves". Like many such posts, this is more than just a gross oversimplification; it's downright incorrect.

Let's start from the basics:

1. The Reapers were created to preserve organic life at all costs.

2. The greatest perceived threat to organic life (in the view of the Leviathans and therefore the Reapers) is the creation and rebellion of synthetic life.

Assuming I have summarized those points properly, the Reapers have clearly deduced that:

3. The extinction of a few species every 50,000 years is acceptable, as long as the majority of organic life continues.

4. The best way to prevent the rise of synthetic life is to ensure no species advances to the point of mass-producing AIs (although they were a few hundred years too late in this cycle).

If you add those points together you get a philosophy whereby sentient organic species can be left to their own devices for millennia, allowing them to thrive and leave their own mark on the galaxy, until they advance too far and the Reapers intervene.

Sure, from a human perspective it seems counter-intuitive to take life in order to preserve it. In fact from memory this is touched on in Shepard's confrontation with Starchild. However, from a cold, calculating, mechanical view it has a certain morbid logic. Sacrifice a handful of species every 50,000 years to protect the rest from their 'inevitable' creations.

To be clear, I'm not defending Bioware's decision to go down this path from a narrative or thematic perspective. It's not particularly original (e.g. I, Robot) and there are arguably some inconsistencies created between ME3 and the first two games purely by virtue of that decision. I just get sick of people dismissing the Reapers' motives out of hand.

 

Here’s a question. Why would synthetics want to extinguish all organic life? What is the purpose of doing so?

[KaiserShep]

They failed. Their failures. They failed their very first harvest. Derp. 

 

Leviathans are still alive.... Remember???

 

 

The reapers ain't that tough nor that complicated in their motives. 

 

 

They're not even than Good. 

 

They couldn't even kill one human who foiled their plans EVERY step of the way, lol. 

 

Then when the same human, unified the galaxy against them, they lost. They lost. 

 

 

Their goal is to Reap and to create one reaper every cycle, perfect in it's design. 

 

Their second goal is self preservation. 

 

 

But they still got beat, lol. By a human and some pals. Lol. 

 

Isn't that kind of the point? From ME1 onward, we're shown the sum of the reapers' errors rapidly catching up to them. Failing to harvest the Leviathan was probably one of the least of their errors. They failed to destroy the protheans entirely. Sovereign failed to undo the sabotage to the Citadel trap. Their contingency plan with the Collectors was thwarted, and they failed to ultimately destroy the Crucible plans, made even worse for them if you don't give a salarian's cloaca about their goals and simply destroy them. They did succeed, however briefly, in killing Shepard though. But ingenuity on the part of the puny organics was apparently more than they could handle.