In the first game you can't avoid fighting the geth, it's true. But the fact that they are synthetic is secondary in importance to the fact that they worship Sovereign. Don't forget that Sovereign also had tank-bred krogan and indoctrinated asari under its control as well.
True. I never claimed they were the ONLY enemies in the main mission. Though one cannot deny they are the primary enemy for the main storyline. The reason for why you fight them does not change the fact that you're fighting synthetics. Doesn't Saren even make a point of demonstrating how useful organics can be so that we're spared from reapers? At any rate, organic vs synthetic was definitely a theme.
Given the absolutist statement of the Catalyst, yes. Any instances of organics and sythetics coexisting peacefully undermines its argument.
The catalyst doesn't argue that peace is absolutely impossible in the sense that it can never occur. Only that the peace cannot last and will eventually lead to conflict. It is inevitable. Which, from the perspective of an immortal being observing the pattern for billions of years, it is right. Peace /cannot/ last, period. Peace cannot even last between organics. Does anyone honestly expect peace with the geth to last for all of eternity just because we shook hands and teamed up for a few weeks? Eternity is a long damn time. From our perspective peace might last our entire lives. The catalyst is an immortal being that has been watching this pattern play out repeatedly over billions of years.
Conflict is the rule of the cosmos, to paraphrase Javik.
So what does the Krogan Rebellions say? The Rachni Wars? Every organic vs organic conflict ever? The Morning War and the current flare-up between the quarians and the geth is really not much different than that. So what if one side is synthetic?
It says that organics will always fight organics. Which is just as broad of a claim as saying synthetics will always fight with organics. Neither would be inaccurate. So what one side is synthetic, you say? Well, it means that synthetics are fighting with organics. It doesn't have to mean anything more than that. The catalyst doesn't say "conflict will arise because moral differences" yadda yadda. It only says that there will be conflict. The specifics and cause of the conflict is irrelevant, it is STILL conflict.
It doesn't care about the organic vs organic conflict because that isn't what it was programmed for. It was built specifically for the synthetic vs organic dilemma. Which is clearly present throughout the trilogy.
Read what I said.
In ME1, reaper forces consisted of both mech and organics. However, I'll play along and focus solely on the Geth portion of the reaper forces. The Geth that sided with Nazara were only a small percentage of the population. After Nazara was destroyed, the heretic threat mostly subsided.
Actually I think you should read what I said. At no point did I ever say you fought only synthetics. You act as though because a few organics are in the mix that it somehow means you don't fight synthetics. The majority of opponents you face in ME1 are still geth (main story mission line). Hell, Shepard dies while doing a mission related to cleaning up geth forces.
Yes, the heretics were relatively small in number compared to the geth. So? Does that mean they're not synthetics? Does that mean we weren't in conflict with them? The game still presents a theme of organics in conflict with synthetics regardless of how many forces they had.
Collectors are organic with cybernetics. They are cloned and have DNA. They are not AI. The only AI in ME2 that we are forced to deal with are allies. Any other instance of AI are in side missions and can be skipped and therefore are not mainline plot elements.
I never said they were AI. I said they were more synthetic than they were organic. Which is true. Much of the collectors has been replaced by tech, primarily due to all the cloning. Hell, the fact that they're clones could arguably be enough to call them synthetic. Mordin compares them to husks. You don't think HUSKS count as being partly synthetic?
The Geth (except for heretics) aren't out to destroy organics. They are defending themselves. The Quarrians have the choice to avoid eradication.
Well I'd actually argue that the heretics aren't out to destroy organics. They just do what their gods tell them to do. They don't necessarily have a malice towards organics inherently. All this is irrelevant, however. You say this as if it somehow changes the FACT that they're synthetics in conflict with organics. The cause of the conflict is irrelevant, they're still in conflict. No vindication for either party is going to change the fact that there is conflict. It still counts as conflict, regardless.
My original statement is this:
"Organic vs synthetic was not a central theme of the first game" and "The core theme of the saga is Reapers killing organics (ME1), Collectors liquefying organics (ME2), Reapers killing or huskifying organics (ME3)."
Which is just a bunch of self-contradiction in of itself. Organic vs synthetic wasn't a central theme yet the entire premise of the series revolves around us organics trying to survive against a genocidal race of synthetic, sentient space ships. Fairly central, I'd say. Even if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy on the reaper's part.
At any rate what I said is still accurate. Organic-synthetic conflict was a theme present throughout the entire trilogy.
Saying "conflict will arise between organics and synthetics" is like saying "it's going to rain eventually" It's not exactly prophetic to make that claim.
But again, so what? Conflict arises between any two groups. Mass Effect showed nothing that indicates that organic vs synthetic conflict is substantially different than organic vs organic.
Exactly. The crucial element to remember, however, is that the catalyst was built to only care about the synthetic and organic conflict. Not the conflict organics have with themselves. Regardless, what you say is accurate. The catalyst's claim is so broad that it HAS to be accurate. To borrow your phrase, its like saying its going to rain eventually. There WILL be conflict between synthetic and geth. Yet people act as though a momentary truce with the geth for an astonishing few weeks somehow results in proving that broad claim wrong.
But in neither ME1 or ME2 was there substantive discussion on a history of synthetics turning on organics (aside from the singular example of the geth) nor a serious concern of it happening. ME2 it wasn't even addressed at all, save a concern about what EDI would do once unshackled (frankly I'd have been more worried about what Shepard would do, but the story stayed on rails preventing that.)
While I disagree with there being no serious concern over it happening I do agree that they didn't embellish on the subject nearly enough considering its what they decided to make the main focus on ME3.
You don't have to have discussions on it for it to be a theme, nor have it happen every minute for it to be considered a theme. For example, Battlestar Galactica is about Synthetics vs Organics as their main plotline, but it's not just about that. Not every episode showed cylons attacking, or showed how these two can or can't get along. It's also about the crew, and how they survived. It's about faith and religion. It's about the ugliness of war. There's more then one thing going on. 2001 is also not just about the dangers of AI, but also about the dawn of man and how far we as a species can go, but the 3rd unit "hugely" focuses on AI being a scary thing.
Again, why I consider it "a" theme, and not the theme.
My sentiments exactly.
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