135 réponses à ce sujet

[Fast Jimmy]

I disagree. ME1 destroyed the ME universe's potential before it began by giving us the Reaper bogeymen and putting a timestamp on their arrival.

 

In fact, ME2 was the best game for what you're advocating, because it essentially ignored the Reaper threat and focused on the galaxy. There were the Collectors, but they were only tangentially related to the Reapers (through Harbinger, and of course being Protheans). ME2 was the only game of the series that could stand apart from the Reapers. ME1 and ME3 were the worst, when it came to nonsensical omnipotent threats--that squelch worldbuilding (which was where ME2 excelled, IMO).

 

But... but... I literally just said the world of ME1 would have been great to build a series in if it wasn't for the Reapers.

 

Besides, ME2 was all about the Reapers - or, at least, Collectors. The only reason the Collectors were a threat was the nead for the Reapers to convert large segments of the human/Earth's population into a new Reaper. Yes, the game was mostly about recruiting the squad needed to stop them, but it still doesn't make any sense without the Reaper influence. Meanwhile, ME1 could easily have worked without the Reapers - just remove the scene with Sovereign on Virmire, change some dialogue around across the game and make the ending about Saren taking over the Citadel because humans were amassing too much power.

 

Also, I don't think ME2 did much world building. Outside of introducing new locations like Omega and a small handful of inconsequential races like the Vorcha, we didn't really learn all that much more about the galaxy. 

[ObserverStatus]

Hopefully they're turning "F.A.T.A.L." into a video game. Roll for anal circumference tbh.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

Duh, You people aka haters are just jealous that we LOVE ME2!

[mybudgee]

But... but... I literally just said the world of ME1 would have been great to build a series in if it wasn't for the Reapers.

The only reason the Collectors were a threat was the need for the Reapers to convert large segments of the human/Earth's population into a new Reaper. 

This was the one flaw with ME2: the Baby Terminator. It should've been a 30% complete dreadnought...

[Texhnolyze101]

Jade Empire 2 : (insert name of ancient chinese monster similar to a lich king)

[In Exile]

I disagree. ME1 destroyed the ME universe's potential before it began by giving us the Reaper bogeymen and putting a timestamp on their arrival.

In fact, ME2 was the best game for what you're advocating, because it essentially ignored the Reaper threat and focused on the galaxy. There were the Collectors, but they were only tangentially related to the Reapers (through Harbinger, and of course being Protheans). ME2 was the only game of the series that could stand apart from the Reapers. ME1 and ME3 were the worst, when it came to nonsensical omnipotent threats--that squelch worldbuilding (which was where ME2 excelled, IMO).

The reapers could have worked if Bioware just accepted that ME2+ would involve a huge technology leap for the Citadel races. Handwaving away a serious technological revamp is no more or less silly than the idea of hyperintelligent genocidal AI anyway. But Bioware apparently wanted unstoppable reapers, so their plot was DOA unless the bad guys let you win. Which is hilariously what happens in ME3.

[TheChosenOne]

Is it really true that Bioware is working on a new Star Wars game or is that just regularly internet horsewash? 

[mybudgee]

^ it is almost certainly BS

[TheChosenOne]

^ it is almost certainly BS

 

Pity....

[Fast Jimmy]

I read this: "The world presented in ME1 was one of great possibility. We saw that possibility pigeon holed in ME2..." Maybe I'm being oversensitive but I read that as "ME1 was good, ME2 was bad."

 

Oh, well, yeah... ME2 was bad. Some jewels of awesome story, don't get me wrong... but in terms of world building? It made the galaxy seem smaller. The Ciatdel was cramped instead of feeling like a planet-size station, the visits to worlds like Tuchanka was made to feel dinky and insignificant and very few lore/government/history/story elements are added in, even as background or flavor. 

 

 

 

 

About ME2, disagree strongly about the Reaper threat being a necessary part of it. Turning humans into a paste, sure. But that has nothing to do with the impending return of the Reapers. The impending return of the Reapers played 0 part in the plot of ME2. And I'm sure you could come up with a reason separate from the human paste bit.

 

For world-building, I don't know. We saw the Quarians for the first time, encountered a "live" Geth...maybe it was just me but I felt like I got a real sense of the ME universe from that game.

 

 

You are right there, the Geth/Quarian dynamic did get explored, especially with Tali and Legion's loyalty quests. And the fighting of the thresher maw n Grunt's loyalty quest (while not true "lore," per se, but which gave great atmosphere)i was great. In fact, the areas where the game really shined in terms of story and world building were in some of the loyalty missions. The main story itself did little to flesh out the game world at all. "The Collectors are bad, Cerberus is morally gray, TIM knows everything and the Citadel government is incompetent" - that's the highlight takeaways.

 

Meanwhile, in ME1, we are exposed to a host of new races, the quandaries of artificial intelligence, the criminal elements of the galaxy, civilizations that are rich and deep in their history, technology that is decently thought out and shown to have multiple applications, corporate espionage/intrigue... in the other games? They only touch on and leverage what was already set up in the first game, introducing very little and leaving tons more on the cutting room floor. It did a great job of making you feel like you were truly stepping off a ship onto a foreign setting, where humanity was still playing catch up on centuries of events and intricacies. That's good world building.

[Fast Jimmy]

The reapers could have worked if Bioware just accepted that ME2+ would involve a huge technology leap for the Citadel races. Handwaving away a serious technological revamp is no more or less silly than the idea of hyperintelligent genocidal AI anyway. But Bioware apparently wanted unstoppable reapers, so their plot was DOA unless the bad guys let you win. Which is hilariously what happens in ME3.

 

Well, we did get the Thannix cannons, reversed engineered from Sovereign.

 

But even then, the Reapers were just too powerful. And nothing done in ME2 helped in this effort - the Collector Base had zero value to helping the overall effort, even if you salvaged it (in fact, it seemed like the only thing Shephard did by removing the Collectors was to HASTEN the Reapers return). Reapers were powerful enough to require the entire fleet unloading everything they had on just one ship to take it down. For there to then be tens of thousands made any sort of fight impossible. The MacGuffin route was pretty set in stone, as no amount of forces were going to be able to fight off an entire fleet of super-ships.

 

I still maintain that the MacGuffin should have been a doomsday device, capable of destroying the Reapers, but causing insane collateral damage in the process. This could result in the destruction of the Earth, dooming humanity to not having a homeworld, or result in the destruciton of the Allied fleet, wiping out the vast majority of the Citadel races forces. The aliens would still have their homeworlds (after a fashion, since they were mostly reduced to rubble), but they would hate humanity for making that call and would be set back centuries in their rebuilding process.

 

This would then result in an ending that showed how this choice affected the rest of the decisions across the trilogy, where the choice of saving the Krogans or not is heavily influenced by if the bulk of their population was wiped out by the Reaper-killing blast. It would have been a question of "does Shephard do what's best for humanity or the best for the rest of the galaxy, both at the cost of each other?" That's what so many of the themes of the ME universe have been about - not AI vs. organics. 

[Heimdall]

I agree that they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner by insisting on the Reapers' technological superiority and not implementing more technological advancements. However, I maintain that ME3 should have been about uncovering the Reapers' origins (Not necessarily the same origin we were given in the end) and finding a weakness to exploit through that avenue, not building a giant MacGuffin (Even if it turned out to be a MacGuffin, it might be a little less absurd than spontaneously building a device like the Crucible based on a conveniently time discovery of schematics). I still think ME2's final mission should have been about fighting the Reapers' initial arrival, that's what the suicide mission should have been about, not human gene smoothies and baby terminator Reapers (Note, I said the end since I think the recruitment and loyalty mission focused structure was great and highly engaging. Just the main plot I would change).

ME3 should have started in the midst of the war. I have this idea in my head that Cerberus could still have served as an adversary, but imagine if they were being controlled by the Leviathan, looking for a way to finally stop their wayward creation, rather than being manipulated by the Reapers? Seems better than what we got, anyway.

[Fast Jimmy]

I'm probably biased because ME2 was my first ME game. That's probably why I feel the way I do. But in my opinion having MORE hubs is a far better way of fleshing out the universe than just having one. Don't get me wrong, after I played ME1 I lamented the smaller Citadel in ME2 too. But you get no sense of an asari-owned world (Illium), or a shady black-market world (Omega), or the Krogan as a race (Tuchanka).

You had a glimpse into a corporation controled world that acted as a really great mini-hub on Noveria, showing how corporations have a large amount of autonomy but where the Spectre status was key. The idea of corporations and being a Spectre was completely abandoned in all other games.

You had a really amazing glimpse into colony life on Feros, as well as a really unqiue alien-type in video game sci-fi with the Thorian, in addition to having its own side quests and equipment stores, which is a mini-hub as well. I would say only Therun and Virmire were a "corridor" main plot mission areas.

And, aside from that, the side quests were really rich. You had a hostage negotiation instance where biotics who were exposed to harmful materials were needed to be dealt with. You had a case of possible euthanasia, where everyone but one crew member (who was completely insane) had been killed or in a coma. You had all of Cerberus, which was one big side quest not tied to the main plot at all. And you had red sand dealers, who were dealing in both drugs and information and where you had the choice of starting a turf war or wiping out both sides. In addition, you had loyalty quests and ancillary quests (like the Luna side quest or the quests that were tied to your background) which breathed life into the worlds... even if those quests played out in the same three areas, recycled over and over.

As for the story--the main plot was definitely inconsequential: that was what made it so great. It was Bioware taking a step away from their tried-and-true "THE WORLD/UNIVERSE WILL DIE IF YOU DON'T DO THIS NOW." The Collectors were a threat, but only a minor one. The loyalty missions were where the game shined.

Eh. Shephard set out to stop the Reapers. His entire goal was to save the Galaxy. To spend an entire game doing nothing and then have the Reapers show up at the end basically means Shephard did a terrible job of doing what he was trying to do.

This is making a human-centric focus.

Do you recall all of the complaints pre-ME3 about the adverts being "They're coming after Earth!"? No one here--that's an exaggeration, FEW here--is/are human centric. It feels like just another take on Cerberus/ME1's ending.

While I agree with InExile and you about the necessity of...ah, 1.5 years ago they called it a "Deus Ex Machina," turning it into a "humans or the galaxy" thing wouldn't develop anything.

Making it a human focus would make more sense than making it an AI one. The theme of "humanity first" has existed in every game, from Udina and Terra Firma in ME1 to Cerberus in ME2 and the Alliance putting Earth first in ME3.

Organics vs. Synthetics is a big part, don't get me wrong... but you prove throughout the entire series that a peace can be forged, that coexistence can happen. To then be told "no it can't, we know, that's why we slaughter everyone to make sure synthetics don't kill organics (cue the X-zibit pic here)" is just silly.

Besides, each of the endings lampshades most of the choices made in prior games. Who needs to worry about Geth and Quarians getting along when everyone is robo-zombies? What does it matter if the Genophage is cured if an entire Reapers run by GodShep is on patrol across the galaxy? The only ending that lets your choices actually play out in a logical fashion is Destroy, which is why it is the front runner in my mind to be adopted as canon. Either way, the theme presented in the end was one of nihilism, that the player's journey and choices meant nothing, that this all could have been done a long, long time ago if someone had accidentally fallen down a random air duct in the Citadel centuries ago and met the Catalyst face to face.

[mybudgee]

However, I maintain that ME3 should have been about uncovering the Reapers' origins (Not necessarily the same origin we were given in the end) and finding a weakness to exploit through that avenue, not building a giant MacGuffin (Even if it turned out to be a MacGuffin, it might be a little less absurd than spontaneously building a device like the Crucible based on a conveniently time discovery of schematics). I still think ME2's final mission should have been about fighting the Reapers' initial arrival, that's what the suicide mission should have been about, not human gene smoothies and baby terminator Reapers (Note, I said the end since I think the recruitment and loyalty mission focused structure was great and highly engaging. Just the main plot I would change).

 

I agree. In Both ME2 & 3, the DLC had a more logical and interesting narrative than the actual game's plot...

[Fast Jimmy]

I agree that they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner by insisting on the Reapers' technological superiority and not implementing more technological advancements. However, I maintain that ME3 should have been about uncovering the Reapers' origins (Not necessarily the same origin we were given in the end) and finding a weakness to exploit through that avenue, not building a giant MacGuffin (Even if it turned out to be a MacGuffin, it might be a little less absurd than spontaneously building a device like the Crucible based on a conveniently time discovery of schematics). I still think ME2's final mission should have been about fighting the Reapers' initial arrival, that's what the suicide mission should have been about, not human gene smoothies and baby terminator Reapers (Note, I said the end since I think the recruitment and loyalty mission focused structure was great and highly engaging. Just the main plot I would change).

Eh. How would a dozen foot soldiers fight off an initial invasion? Assume breaking into a Reaper itself involved exploring and fighting through an entire ship, like it was in the Derelict Reaper. And imagine they are then successful in blowing it up... they would have to do that 10,000 times! Without an entire armada, fighting more than one ship at a time becomes inconceivable.

ME3 should have started in the midst of the war. I have this idea in my head that Cerberus could still have served as an adversary, but imagine if they were being controlled by the Leviathan, looking for a way to finally stop their wayward creation, rather than being manipulated by the Reapers? Seems better than what we got, anyway.

Ugh. Leviathan is just stupid.

Okay, these beings were all powerful, ruling the galaxy and all other sentient species were their thralls. Sure, fine.

They saw their own servants be killed and slaughtered by their AI creations and, in their hubris, created an AI to solve the problem which turned against them. Whatever, I've heard worse.

But the AI is able to overpower its overlords and makes the first Reaper with the flesh of most of the entire space squid species... what? Leviathan shows they can take down a single Reaper capital ship, the most powerful and devastating force in the universe, just by three of them lighting up their eyes. How the heck did their entire race fall prey to the Catalyst before he could even make the first capital ship?

But put that aside - lets just say there were other forces that could overcome these gods by the millions and begin their cycle of creating an unstoppable fleet... these beings, now millions of years old, with access to the knowledge of the ages, the experience of seeing countless races attempt to build the Crucible and fail miserably and which command the perspective of more lifetimes than we can legitimately conceive... and all it takes is Shephard to show up and say "come on, brah, let's fight" and THAT'S what spurns them into action? Uber genius, all powerful beings just needed a quick pep talk to finally fight back?

Dumb. Dum dum de dum dum DUMB.

[Heimdall]

Eh. How would a dozen foot soldiers fight off an initial invasion? Assume breaking into a Reaper itself involved exploring and fighting through an entire ship, like it was in the Derelict Reaper. And imagine they are then successful in blowing it up... they would have to do that 10,000 times! Without an entire armada, fighting more than one ship at a time becomes inconceivable.

Well, the team would have to be used to carry out some mission that achieved that result, it could involve ancient technology or setting a trap, or whatever, I was mostly just trying to get across the idea of ME2's main plot being less filler-y.

Ugh. Leviathan is just stupid.
Okay, these beings were all powerful, ruling the galaxy and all other sentient species were their thralls. Sure, fine.
They saw their own servants be killed and slaughtered by their AI creations and, in their hubris, created an AI to solve the problem which turned against them. Whatever, I've heard worse.
But the AI is able to overpower its overlords and makes the first Reaper with the flesh of most of the entire space squid species... what? Leviathan shows they can take down a single Reaper capital ship, the most powerful and devastating force in the universe, just by three of them lighting up their eyes. How the heck did their entire race fall prey to the Catalyst before he could even make the first capital ship?
But put that aside - lets just say there were other forces that could overcome these gods by the millions and begin their cycle of creating an unstoppable fleet... these beings, now millions of years old, with access to the knowledge of the ages, the experience of seeing countless races attempt to build the Crucible and fail miserably and which command the perspective of more lifetimes than we can legitimately conceive... and all it takes is Shephard to show up and say "come on, brah, let's fight" and THAT'S what spurns them into action? Uber genius, all powerful beings just needed a quick pep talk to finally fight back?
Dumb. Dum dum de dum dum DUMB.

Yeah, I still think they would have been more interesting than indoctrinated Cerberus, if integrated into the main plot. But they didn't even come up with the Leviathan until ME3 was just about done as far as I know. Everything about the Reapers reeks of insufficient pre-planning.

[Fast Jimmy]

Well, the team would have to be used to carry out some mission that achieved that result, it could involve ancient technology or setting a trap, or whatever, I was mostly just trying to get across the idea of ME2's main plot being less filler-y.

Yeah, I still think they would have been more interesting than indoctrinated Cerberus, if integrated into the main plot. But they didn't even come up with the Leviathan until ME3 was just about done as far as I know. Everything about the Reapers reeks of insufficient pre-planning.

Agreed. And again - I don't begrudge the MacGuffin. But it still crashed and burned with how it handled even that.

[Fast Jimmy]

1. You make good points here. I can hardly deny any (most) of this, though I disagree that Feros was a good look at a colony--the plot (indoctrination) overshadowed any normalcy there.

2. The fact that it was set up as the goal doesn't make it not cliche both in theory and execution, and doesn't mean that deviations are automatically negative.

3. I'll agree about Udina, but Terra Firma was nothing more than a one-off. I could make the claim that the sentient pazaak (whetever that game is called) computer machine that wants to escape the Citadel and meet the Geth was a focus of the game based on that (as an aside, this would have been a truly fascinating story to follow), or that cheating at the aforementioned whatever-the-name-game with that Salarian's tool is the focus.

You don't prove anything until ME3, and even then calling it proof would be a stretch. A period of peace, rather than a certain future. And the Catalyst acknowledges this. The Catalyst acknowledges that in the short term, Orgs and Synths can get along--but it comes back to conflict. And then, this: this is the key part:

The Catalyst telling you Synthetics and Organics cannot coexist is not the game telling you they cannot coexist. Allow me to repeat myself:

The opinions of one individual (one who, we can all agree, is biased) do not define the moral of the story.

I remember all of the arguments in those first few months, and this is what no one got. The fact that the Catalyst thinks that way doesn't mean that it's a fact. It doesn't mean that it's certainty. It means...that the Catalyst thinks that way. And here's the beautiful part: you have a choice to agree or disagree.

I hope I'm not coming off insulting, this isn't aimed at you Jimmy but more at the BSN BF in general--but I'll repeat myself once more: the game gives you a choice to accept or reject the Catalyst's logic. And that's found in the ending. It is NOT an Obsidian "This is the way it is!" soapbox. It is an opinion, that you are allowed to defy, accept, or ignore.

While I get that, all of the choices accept the premise that the Catalyst proposes. It admits it's own logic is flawed, but then refuses to call off the attack, instead offering three choices that are all unnecessary. Because he Cafalyst is the one holding all of the cards and won't take the most logical resolution - peace - then the very faulty nature of the reason given is hugely important to the conversation, even if it is just his opinion.

But on top of that, while you say Obsidian hops up on a soap box, I think Bioware practically hopped on top of a soap monolith. The further you steer into the logic of the Catalyst, the better the endings outcomes are. Destroy results in suicidal genocide (if you believe AI's can be considered living and/or if you had low EMS and Earth was destroyed), while Control results in ultimate peace and security, while Synthesis is portrayed as a Garden of Eden outcome.

This was slightly obfuscated in the original endings, where it could be possible that the Catalsyt was tricking Shephard and that things may have been quite dark )hence the Indoctrination Theory's beginnings) but the EC shows us that, indeed, these scenarios do seem to be the rosey outcomes the Catalsyt described them to be and not some form of enslavement or bait and switch.


"AI and organics can't live side by side without eventual war and extermination." That's the Catalyst's idea. The options he gives are "wipe out our entire system, killing part of yourself in the process, and risk starting the cycle all over again," "take over my role and control the Reapers, acting as galactic police and ensuring AIs (or anyone for that matter) never rise up," or "separate the distinction between organics and synthetics and usher in a new era of tranquility and peace for the entire galaxy."

If you reject the Catalyst's idea, then all of these options seem beyond pointless. There's no need for everyone to die - just stop attacking and we can work this out. And there's no need to fuse everyone into a new form of biology against their will - we can see if that's something people want to do themselves. And let's not just murder not only the Geth, but also the hundreds of millions of years of culture, identity and knowledge that have been harvested by the Reaper cycle.

Let's all just mellow out and stop trying to kill each other and that way, we can let the Galaxy decide what we want to do, instead of one person and a psychotic hologram. But since the Catalyst holds all of the cards, you HAVE to buy into his crazy house of twisted mirrors, even just a little, to do anything other than Refuse... which gains absolutely nothing except guaranteed extinction.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

The Catalyst telling you Synthetics and Organics cannot coexist is not the game telling you they cannot coexist. Allow me to repeat myself:

 

The opinions of one individual (one who, we can all agree, is biased) do not define the moral of the story.

 

I think the only way they can coexist is Shepard turning into God-Shepard!

[Fast Jimmy]

I think the only way they can coexist is Shepard turning into God-Shepard!

Once the specter of "does taking this option just make me a puppet of the Reapers" is cast off (done pretty well with the EC, in my opinion), then Control becomes the default best choice. If the Reapers are capable of wiping out all sentient life in the Galaxy time and time again, they can put down any AI/organic fights that arise, as well as keep the peace any other way imaginable.

It doesn't involve the unsolicited hijacking of the entire galaxy's biology and it doesn't involve killing the Geth (or, arguably, anyone who has any synthetic tech in their bodies, such as the biotics). It solves every problem. And it in fact does not require any space magic. There is no need for the blue blast to occur and destroy the relays, honestly... the Catalyst has, at the least, Indirect control of the Reaper forces (if not DIRECT control) so absorbing Shep's consciousness into that system should have been all that was needed. If Harbinger can "Assume Direct Control" of Collector forces from tens of thousands of light years away in Dark Space in real time, then there is little preventing GodShep from doing the same.

Of course, the fact that Control would work so well only shows how wrong the Catalyst's logic is. The solution it arrived at - harvest all organic life before it makes synthetics - worked when it was first created. But the second it had an armada of thousands of Reapers no traditional force could contend with, the best solution was available - stay in the Galaxy and play interstellar squid cop.

That's how Blasto did it. And don't tell me Blasto doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Fast Jimmy]

I feel that feel on quoting on these new boards. I'll try and be coherent.

 

 

 
I disagree that all accept the Catalyst's logic. I'll point out that when talking to the Catalyst, the Catalyst goes out of its way to dissuade you from picking Destroy (I'm not sure about Control).
 
And I feel obliged to make the point that I made many times 1.5 years ago: 
 
Destroy is not genocide, and never was. The synthetics dying is a side effect, not intentional--in fact, I would call it incidental. Because of that (and because the galaxy is yet still in a place to create synthetics immediately), I cannot at all agree that this acquiesces to the Catalyst's logic. This is a direct defiance: to destroy his "cops," as you put it, and allow the galaxy to grow without artificial bounds. Again--the synthetics dying is not the reason, it is an unfortunate byproduct. It is the price you pay for freedom ("can you bear the sin of our salvation?").

 

Eh, that's splitting hairs. I make a choice to go out partying and miss work the next day where I have a huge presentation. We lose a client because of it and my boss fires me, despite the fact that I didn't mean to - the damage done isn't negated by my lack of intentions. And, again, you are a slave to this price simply because the Catalyst's twisted logic... he can't just stop attacking everyone now that he has reached this bizarre epiphany. Why? Reasons. Space, robot reasons. That makes you a slave to his choices.

 

I really can't speak to Control very much, but it seems like it's ignoring the logic: becoming the Reapers is a separate issue from whether synths and orgs can coexist. You can apply it to the conflict, but it isn't intrinsically related.

 
Synthesis is of course agreeing with the Catalyst and following its logic.
 
And really, the less said about the EC the better. It ruined a number of things, and the only clarification it provided was either heavyhanded (voiceover by Hackett, slides), or actually changed content (the Relays being dismantled) for the worse.

 

They should have stuck with their endings or completely re-written them, in my opinion. This extension of the original endings only brings more questions than answers and still doesn't resolve a lot of the narrative problems with how the endings work. And, as you said, completely handwaving the relays being destroyed in Control and Synthesis was beyond stupid.
 

This has nothing to do with AIs and organics. This is about the Reapers, and the Reapers alone. You can impose the Synth/Org conflict onto it, but it is not intrinsic. This option is actually "take over the Reapers." That's it.

 

Control solves the AI/organic conflict. As it solves any other conflict. Krograns? No need to worry about them - you can wipe them off the face of the planet without one Citadel ship being scratch. Geth and Quarians? Let's see how quick they come to the negotiating table if any conflict breaks out in the future when you've got a couple thousand Reaper capital ships holding them at gunpoint. 

 

Its the ultiamte cheat, the ultimate backdoor, the ultimate nuclear deterrent. A completely united galaxy stands no chance against the might of the Reapers (just as Refuse showed us), so any violnet conflict can be magically resolved by the 250 million-year-old gorilla in the room.

As for "murdering" the hundreds of years of culture, etc. absorbed by the Reapers--I don't agree. I don't accept that they actually absorb anything. They THINK they do, and thus their logic is fine, but I don't agree that they do, and thus we lose naught from destroying them.

 

At the very least, you are killing sentient beings, beings who seem to be slaves (in some fashion) to the will of the Catalyst. Regardless, there is eons worth of history (I think you may have meant hundreds of MILLIONS of years of culture?) that would be worth preserving, at the very least, that we are unsure if Destroy would erase or not.
 

The only problem with this is that the Catalyst doesn't really know how to assimilate new information--it was only the Crucible that allowed it any option but "Purge."

I don't know... in discussing synthesis, the Catalyst sounds like it has tried the option a few times in the past, but found the galaxy unready at various points. So it sounds like it does evaluate the states of things and decides if new courses would be appropriate. 

 

But I think we are overanalyzing something that wasn't given much analysis by its creators to begin with, so I'll concede the point as "the Catalyst was meant to look like it was stuck in a faulty infinite logic loop."
 

I think they can coexist without any special thing. I think they can coexist as well as organics can (aka not at all, aka joking maybe sort of).

 

This did cross my mind, that maybe the problem was that the task given by the Leviathans wasn't specific enough. Was the instruction "how do we prevent AI from killing organics?" If so, the Catalyst might have likely assumed that AI's must be permitted to be created (instead of banning the practice and policing any violations), that a single organic death was a failure (such that the AIs never tried to eradicate all organic life, but simply had instances where conflicts arose and organics were killed) and/or that the solution to this problem took precedence over any other priorities, like the survival of civilization. 

 

Regardless, to many questions are raised from the gaps in the logic to make me want to take the endings seriously anymore. They may have been a genuine attempt at a deeper commentary, but the amount of holes in how things fit together just get more and more complicated with each piece of information they revealed and elaborated on with future content and comment. So to that end, I just write off the whole thing as a failed experiment.