353 réponses à ce sujet

[RatThing]

The peace option in the Rannoch arc and the Joker/Edi thing normalize the relationship between Synthetics and Organics. The difference and misunderstanding between them is after that just like between different species. Which means conflicts at some time will arise, maybe even conflicts where one race is exterminated (like the Rachni in an organic vs. organic war ) but a total organic extinction by synthetics like described by the catalyst is unlikely. The conflicts would be no different than conflicts between organics. (To think that a total organic extinction would happen just because of misunderstanding is ridiculous anyways). So if they wanted to sell the message that the catalyst is right they should not have contradicted themselves. (It's even more illogical if you give it a thought. So the creators would have less understanding of their creations than of other organic species? How did they create them then in the first place?)

 

It's not the (only) thing that triggers my bs detector with the catalyst though. It's the line "by definition synthetics will surpass organics" (or something like that) and the implication that organics are always inferior and have no chance to avoid extinction in a conflict. What kind of bs definition is this? Synthetics aren't divine creatures, they are our creations and they are limited by our own limits to create. Leviathans survived their creations, Quarians survived theirs too (at least in my playthrough and with no interference at all, the Geth are scrap metal), Javik's cycle was about to defeat their synthetics as well. Sure, some races might go extinct, (they can go extinct for other reasons too) but total organic extinction? Hell no! 

 

This is however no reason for me to hate the ending, in fact I liked it. It's because I don't have to believe the catalyst. It's not a divine oracle, it's a mashine and it's been tasked with controlling something a mashine will never understand, life. When I chose destroy, it was my answer to the catalyst's solution, to synthetic "lifeforms" and everything that thing just told me.  **** it all !!!  And damn, that felt good. It was even fitting that I did it by shooting something, even though logically it didn't make sence. 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Maybe replay it and try to better understand the Leviathans themselves and their reasoning behind creating the Catalyst and its programming.

The answer is there. If you're refusing it, that's your problem. You're still stuck in the "The Catalyst is bs and makes no sense" mindset and I think it's about time you stop thinking that way. The game is almost 3 years old, that's a lot more than enough time to understand the story of a game.

 

If they were trying to convey synthetics conflict, the only one that was making any sense was the one we were fighting at the moment - The Reapers.

 

Manufacturing a reason for their existence did not convince me or over 50% of the people who played the game to do anything other than shoot the tube.

 

The Catalyst is BS and makes no sense. We're synthetics that killed our creators, and we're killing each cycle before they create synthetics that kill them.

[ImaginaryMatter]

I don't disagree with the notion that organics and synthetics will come into conflict, everything comes into conflict at some point. Although the idea that they would extinguish all organic life (which continuously evolves from goo) seems unlikely -- especially if they gain perfection through understanding organics. Even the Destroy epilogue forgot about that whole conflict thing.

 

The real issue is why they even decided to bring this up in the ending. Whenever ME3 talks about organic and synthetic relationships it's a hammer over the head with just how equal and human the two are, that the conflict between them is more analogous to bigotry rather than two fundamentally different entities struggling to co-exist (not that it's necessarily bad but it was too hamfisted and even sappy for my liking). With EDI and Joker the biggest problem in their relationship isn't any sort of stigma, intellect gap, differences in biology (non-biology); no, it's that Joker might, by accident, shatter a bone trying to bone. The organic/synthetic conflict in the series only ever existed in the most superficial sense but very little in any actual substance (and all with side characters and a few chapters in a book). Plus, whatever was there was largely settled over Rannoch. For the most part it seems like the writers were deliberately trying to avoid discussing these issues and most of what is there is relegated to sometimes obtuse techno-babble or entirely optional side conversations for just a few hundred Microsoft bucks.

 

So, I guess I agree with the Catalyst. although I don't care. The conflict never felt real. Having some character exposit history about a fictional universe isn't persuasive writing (it's not even really good writing). There could have been some sort of build-up, there could have been an exploration of ideas, and all this could have been tied to the characters that really are the focal point of this series. Instead we get an obtuse conversation with 'fear leads to anger' levels of vagueness and arbitrary choices.

[GalacticWolf5]

The Catalyst is BS and makes no sense. We're synthetics that killed our creators, and we're killing each cycle before they create synthetics that kill them.

 

I've said the facts. At this point, if you don't want to accept them that's your problem and you're basically ignoring the most important lore of the whole Trilogy. Bravo you.

 

Manufacturing a reason for their existence did not convince me or over 50% of the people who played the game to do anything other than shoot the tube.

 

''50%'' yeah right. I wonder where you got that number? Probably from what you saw on these forums. You realize that not everyone comes online to speak about the game, right? The online community is only a very small fraction of the whole community. You don't know what ending every single person chose. As far as I know, only Bioware has that info and it hasn't been released to the public.

[WizzyWarlock]

What more proof do you need? The Catalyst itself says it. Javik talks about what happened in his own cycle. We have the Geth/Quarian conflict and other AI problems in our cycle. There is always conflict between Organics and Synthetics. The Catalyst has to find a solution. It's in his programming. It knows that there is always conflict between Organics and Synthetics because it sees the patern repeat itself in every cycle.

While I can understand that there could be conflict between synthetics and organics, in the case of the repeated cycles in Mass Effect, it's a falsehood. If you remember from the dialogue, the Catalyst has stopped trying to find a solution, instead it just sets up civilizations ready for harvest. The Reapers created the Citadel and the Mass Effect Relays, to guide civilizations down a predetermined path, to speed up the cycles. They're forcing the conflict on the civilizations by placing the technology there to cause it to happen.

In Mass Effect 1 the Geth weren't seen outside the Veil in centuries, they kept to themselves, avoiding conflict. Why did they come out? Because the Reaper Sovereign came along with Saren and commanded them to do so, creating the Heretic Geth. Now, is this Synthetic conflict the Geth's fault or the Reapers?

So the Reapers and the Catalyst are the actual causes of the problem. In some playthroughs of ME3, it's completely possible to have the Geth and Quarian find peace, so continued conflict isn't guaranteed. The Catalyst and the Reapers are the causes of the galactic instability, they have been since the very start when they decided to turn on their creators. They have never solved the problem because the problem wouldn't exist without their presence.

[Valmar]

While I can understand that there could be conflict between synthetics and organics, in the case of the repeated cycles in Mass Effect, it's a falsehood. If you remember from the dialogue, the Catalyst has stopped trying to find a solution, instead it just sets up civilizations ready for harvest. The Reapers created the Citadel and the Mass Effect Relays, to guide civilizations down a predetermined path, to speed up the cycles. They're forcing the conflict on the civilizations by placing the technology there to cause it to happen.

 

There is no "could", there was. The Leviathans have been observing the galaxy for over a billion years and noticed the pattern. The Catalyst observed for who knows how long and observed the pattern. The protheans were even able to pick up on it.

 

Also, the catalyst didn't stop trying to find a solution. It found a solution. It tried multiple solutions in the past but none were viable in terms that an immortal being that has isn't constrained by time would be happy with. The final solution was Reapers. The Harvest is the solution.

 

You need to keep in mind how old the catalyst is. Over a billion years. That is freakin' old. Its even possible that the reapers are older than our planet. They definitely are if you're a creationist (zing). Time means nothing to them. We might have peace for 20k years before theres any conflict and we'll go "well, relatively speaking, it worked!"

 

Its entirely possible to have a peaceful relationship with synthetics for your lifetime. It is impossible to keep it for eternity, however. Which is what the catalyst and Leviathans roughly represent. They are immortals who are not hindered by time like us. Whats a few thousands years to a being over a billion years old? That isn't even a blink. It's absolutely miniscule.

 

 

In Mass Effect 1 the Geth weren't seen outside the Veil in centuries, they kept to themselves, avoiding conflict. Why did they come out? Because the Reaper Sovereign came along with Saren and commanded them to do so, creating the Heretic Geth. Now, is this Synthetic conflict the Geth's fault or the Reapers?

 

You're blowing over the fact that the geth nearly exterminated the entire quarian species in their rebellion which had nothing to do with the reapers. As much as ME3 tried to make the geth look like poor little victims lets not forget that they're not innocent in all this. They've done their fair share of killing. They're just one of many statics that point to the cycle.

 

 

So the Reapers and the Catalyst are the actual causes of the problem. In some playthroughs of ME3, it's completely possible to have the Geth and Quarian find peace, so continued conflict isn't guaranteed. The Catalyst and the Reapers are the causes of the galactic instability, they have been since the very start when they decided to turn on their creators. They have never solved the problem because the problem wouldn't exist without their presence.

 

This is  just wrong in so many ways.

 

First, the reapers and catalyst had NOTHING to do with the geth rebellions. The quarians didn't just run away the minute the geth showed signs of awareness and abandoned their planet. No, there was a war. There was conflict. The quarians almost became extinct because of it. The reapers had nothing to do with that.

 

Second, what about the billions of years of observing the pattern before the catalyst or reapers even existed? How were they responsible for it when they didn't exist? The pattern precedes the catalyst and reapers. They were, in fact, created in response to pattern!

 

Third, the geth and quarians having a momentary peace for an astonishing few weeks changes nothing. The catalyst never claims that peace is absolutely impossible. It claims that the peace will not last. Which is a fact of life, my friend. Conflict is the rule of the cosmos. You honestly expect the organics and the geth to remain completely at peace with zero conflict for the remainder of existence? I'd call that incredibly naive. The catalyst's goals are very long term. Longer than your life, longer than the life of our species. It's over a billion years  old. Just think about that for a moment.

 

Do you sincerely believe that in the span of its immortal existence and with all its millions, billions of years worth of evidence of observing the pattern over and over and over and over and over and over ∞ that because of a temporary truce that lasted for like a few weeks  suddenly disproves any of its assertions? I wouldn't be surprised if its tried other solutions in the past that lasted MUCH longer than a few weeks but still ultimately failed.

 

The quarian-geth peace disproves nothing about the catalyst's claims. Any claim otherwise clearly fails to grasp the magnitude of the reapers and their objective.

 

Forth, and finally, as I mentioned earlier, the cycle of conflict existed long before the reapers. Saying that it wouldn't exist without them is absolutely, factually wrong. The lore makes this clear. None of this is my opinion or my fanfiction fantasy or my headcanon. This is all LORE. It's facts. To disagree with facts is to show clear misunderstanding of the subject matter and lack of knowledge of central elements of the series.

 

If you're really a fan of the Mass Effect series you should be willing to acknowledge the lore that exists, rather than to wrongfully claim it doesn't exist. No ones personal feelings about the ending changes the lore.

 

You can disagree with the direction Bioware took the reapers. You can disagree with the execution of the ending or the choices thereof. But what you should never do is come claiming such falsehoods and lies. If you don't like the ending thats fine. There is no need for you make stuff up. All this lying does is further confuse those fans who genuinely don't know the lore perfectly and they'll wrongfully believe your nonsense is factually accurate. Shouldn't we be encouraging people NOT to be wrong about a series we're all clearly fans of? Shouldn't we want them to understand it?

 

Please, can't we put an end to propagating misconceptions and lies?

[Esthlos]

I've said the facts. At this point, if you don't want to accept them that's your problem and you're basically ignoring the most important lore of the whole Trilogy. Bravo you.

I'm sorry, but the facts you seem to refer to aren't very convincing in proving the words of the Catalyst.

When was the last time that a synthetic race wiped out at least one organic race?

As far as I know the metacons actually lost, the Geth chose not to finish off the Quarians even though they could (while the Quarians showed to be pretty ready to obliterate the Geth the moment they thought they could, both with Xen's invention, with Legion deactivating the ship in ME3, and with the last battle before Legion tries to upload itself - it seems that the claim that the Geth are only fighting in self defence is justified) at the end of the morning war, and the Reapers claim to be preserving organic life in Reaper form.
(Worth noting is that in the final battle the Geth ultimately obliterate -if allowed- the Quarians only because they strapped guns on the Civilian fleet, thus making their own full fleet - civilians included - a military threat)

If the problem is synthetics obliterating organics, then the facts show that it is a moot problem.

If the problem is organics obliterating synthetics, then why do the Reapers claim to be trying to preserve organic life?
(I know it isn't, I'm just analyzing other possibilities)
Would you feel the urge to defend Mike Tyson from a bunny?

If the problem is the conflict per se, then the available evidence in the game actually shows that organic/synthetic conflicts are actually less likely to happen than organic/organic conflicts, as the Geth never actually attacked if not out of self defence or after a Reaper took control from them.

Meanwhile, the Krogan are pretty eager to fight anything, and war and conflict between organics is all but unlikely in the Mass Effect series.
Sure, organics have a lot of difficulties comprehending synthetics, but organics plenty showed a lot of difficulties in comprehending other organics too, even within their own species.
And as Legion and EDI showed multiple times, synthetics constantly try to comprehend organics, and in many cases succeed too (for example, EDI is so good at understanding organics that Tali nearly poisons herself trying to change the subject at the Citadel party, and with the Reaper upgrades the Geth manage to understand individuality too, which should be by far the most difficult concept for them to grasp).

In my opinion the facts at most show that the Catalyst is based on flawed logic, which would imply that its programming is flawed.
And since the Leviathans made it, it's not surprising at all that they express the same flaw - if they were free from this logical flaw, they probably wouldn't have planted the same flawed reasoning in their creation too.
 

The Leviathans have been observing the galaxy for over a billion years and noticed the pattern. The Catalyst observed for who knows how long and observed the pattern. The protheans were even able to pick up on it.

I'd like to point out that they were performing a biased test, with no control groups.

(They didn't confront the synthetic/organic conflicts with organic/organic conflicts and synthetic/synthetic conflicts, they intervened directly in the sample - guiding it or enthralling it, thus adding a bias to the observation - and they didn't consider the scale of both the conflicts and the consequences)

I'm sorry, but this kind of observation holds little to no value, even if we could trust them all to be telling us the objective truth.
Repeating a biased test a billion times doesn't make it unbiased, and its results will still be nearly meaningless.

[Reorte]

Yes there is. Because unlike any of the organic races you mentioned, synthetics have the ability to advance themselves exponentially and at will. The Geth may not have hit a state where this is entirely possible yet, or, as it is implied, actively inhibited themselves from achieving such a state, but it's foolish to assume that that's the rule of AI in general.
 
Synthetics, without some kind of external intervention, would inevitably outclass and annihilate organic life when conflict is initiated.

You're making some rather large assumptions there. The first is that organic life wouldn't advance at the same pace. It is more likely that it will create its own friendly synthetics to do the advancing for it - no different in concept from the technology that we use now to advance. An outcome like Iain Banks' Culture strikes me as entirely possible.

The second is that that's even necessary. Scientific and technological advancement require both imagination and motivation.

The third is that organics would inevitably be wiped out. If they decide not to change technologically (very unlikely) then they'll probably lose any conflict; I don't know why you think that synthetics would then go on and annhialiate the losers or, even more far-fetched, every single bit of organic life that exists (that extreme being the Catalyst's claim).

Of course I can't say for certain that any of this would happen but neither can you say the same about the opposite, and the big destruction thing seems less likely to me.

[Reorte]

Can we drop the "Catalyst has been around for yonks so must be right" line please? Appeal to authority is generally regarded as a logical fallacy. Although it's been around for ages that's no reason to believe that it isn't a complete and utter idiot. It's one of those areas fiction needs to tread carefully in, rather more so than reality. In reality fact is fact, if someone saw something then they saw it (putting aside lies, bad memory etc. for the time being) no matter how implausible. Do that in fiction though, particularly for key plot points, and lots of people will call you out on it. Inventing something out of the blue to claim to be an authority so that you don't have to bother justifying it yourself is bad writing and using it in a discussion just makes for a lousy discussion.

So the Catalyst may have been around for a long time but unless it says enough stuff that makes sense it'll remain unconvincing. Just swallowing what you're told because it's only a story isn't something to be proud of.

[Linkenski]

I think it's a very self-absorbed view from the Reapers. It's like a memory I have from high school of a co-student who'd spent a year prior as an exchange student in the US, so for every english lesson she thought she knew more than the rest and wanted us to adjust to the american ways and behaviors not recognizing that she was no longer in the US and talking to danes who were just going to learn the language, not the manners nor the stereotypical behaviors, because those rules don't go here. The Reapers assert that synthetics will always destroy organics because that's what happened back when they were created. They assume everyone else has it like them. They have a singular line of thought that is at odds with present time and circumstances.

 

Answer: The Reapers are just wrong, and I'm not going to seriously speculate on whether synthetics would destroy organics in a near future because it's completely silly and was never indicated in neither ME2 nor ME3 before the final conversation in the game pretended that this was going to happen, with no evidence to its arguments and no cues for the player to recognize. It's beyond stupid.

 

 

PS.

Ugh, I just want to hear Mac or Casey or some of the senior writers aknowledge this mistake already. I can't let it go until Bioware admits they screwed up here. It's not even a slight screw up. It's huge and a catastrophic failure from a writing standpoint, and no, it doesn't make it a "Sci-fi ending" like Mike Laidlaw calls it because that would mean general sci-fi endings are just logically inconsistent just to be logically inconsistent because that's what ME3 was, and for the love of Mass Effect, Mac and Patrick, all this hatred and controversy is not to be projected and marginalized by those who think it's all about Shepard dying. It's in the very core of the ending and the assertion of synthetics always kiling organics that the ending as well as the entire plot just stopped... it just stopped; was invalidated; gone.

 

So for all I care, IT would've been just as valid because as it is there is no ending. The narrative was broken at the 11th hour and nobody should take it for what it is. In my eyes the final 10 minutes don't even exist. They're non-canon because they simply cannot be canon when they break so many fundamental pillars of the established fiction.

[WizzyWarlock]

There is no "could", there was. The Leviathans have been observing the galaxy for over a billion years and noticed the pattern. The Catalyst observed for who knows how long and observed the pattern. The protheans were even able to pick up on it.

The problem was the Leviathan themselves, they were causing the pattern, hence why the Catalyst saw them as part of the problem. The entire Galaxy is in the thrall of the Leviathan, they do exactly what the Leviathan ask them to do, so two things: 1. Why didn't they just say, "Hey guys, no more making synthetics, k?", and 2. If they let them make synthetics anyway, there's a good chance the Leviathan can't use telepathy on machines. Thus they can only control one side, the organics, and the synthetics do what they want to do. Leviathan tell the organics to destroy them, cue the synthetic/organic conflict.

Like any God-like species, they think they're so clever that they're flawless. The Catalyst thinks it's doing right, the Leviathan thought so too, but they weren't. They're both the cause of the problem.
 

You're blowing over the fact that the geth nearly exterminated the entire quarian species in their rebellion which had nothing to do with the reapers. As much as ME3 tried to make the geth look like poor little victims lets not forget that they're not innocent in all this. They've done their fair share of killing. They're just one of many statics that point to the cycle.

This could just have easily been a war between the Turians and Humans. Just because there are synthetics involved in the conflict doesn't mean that synthetics always cause conflict. In fact, once they fought the battle for freedom, they kept to themselves for centuries, they let the Quarians leave the planet unharmed. It's the Quarians who couldn't just leave it be.
 

Do you sincerely believe that in the span of its immortal existence and with all its millions, billions of years worth of evidence of observing the pattern over and over and over and over and over and over ∞ that because of a temporary truce that lasted for like a few weeks suddenly disproves any of its assertions? I wouldn't be surprised if its tried other solutions in the past that lasted MUCH longer than a few weeks but still ultimately failed.

Like I said, the Catalyst didn't try stopping the pattern, if the pattern even exists outside of the Leviathan thralls, it created Harbinger and started its harvesting cycles. As stated in the Wiki: "The Intelligence's betrayal of its creators was sudden and devastating. Its pawns slaughtered most of the Leviathans, using their genetic material to create the very first Reaper, Harbinger, who was physically designed after the Leviathans themselves. The surviving Leviathans went into hiding, while the Intelligence used Harbinger to begin the cyclical harvest of the galaxy's species to create more Reapers, all in an effort to solve the problem of preserving life.".

The problem was the preservation of life at any costs, it thinks the Reapers perform that task admirably. The synthetic/organic conflict was just the original excuse, which, in my opinion, was caused by the Leviathan themselves putting the Galaxy under their thrall.

[Valmar]

When was the last time that a synthetic race wiped out at least one organic race?
 

 

It happened with consistent frequency during the reign of Leviathan. Obviously not so much sinse the reaper's began the harvest. That's sort of the point of the harvest in the first place. Should we stop getting vaccinations because "hey, whens the last time you've seen someone with polio!"

 

Beyond that, our perspective on this is drastically limited to only our cycle. The Leviathans and Reapers have the perspective spanning back over a billion years over many different cycles. Just because we have yet to see it in our current cycle doesn't negate the possibility. Given enough time its perfectly possible. Time is the one thing reapers and Leviathan will always have over us since they're immortal.

 

 

As far as I know the metacons actually lost, the Geth chose not to finish off the Quarians even though they could (while the Quarians showed to be pretty ready to obliterate the Geth the moment they thought they could, both with Xen's invention, with Legion deactivating the ship in ME3, and with the last battle before Legion tries to upload itself - it seems that the claim that the Geth are only fighting in self defence is justified) at the end of the morning war, and the Reapers claim to be preserving organic life in Reaper form.
(Worth noting is that in the final battle the Geth ultimately obliterate -if allowed- the Quarians only because they strapped guns on the Civilian fleet, thus making their own full fleet - civilians included - a military threat)
 

 

The geth being 'justified' in their attack does little to change the fact that they're synthetics in conflict with organics. If people will so willingly use the possible peace with quarians and geth as support against the catalyst then shouldn't they also use the fact that the geth can wipe out the quarians? Does it being 'justified' suddenly change the fact that its synthetics wiping out organics?

 

 

If the problem is synthetics obliterating organics, then the facts show that it is a moot problem.

If the problem is the conflict per se, then the available evidence in the game actually shows that organic/synthetic conflicts are actually less likely to happen than organic/organic conflicts, as the Geth never actually attacked if not out of self defence or after a Reaper took control from them.
 

 

Only true if you completely ignore all the evidence to the contrary, anyway. Otherwise, sure. If you ignore the evidence the game gives you for it then totally. If you don't ignore the lore then no, not at all.

 

Again, why are you saying the self-defense card changes anything? Does it matter what side shot first? Its still conflict between synthetics and organics. Are the geth suddenly not synthetics and the quarian's not organics? Is there suddenly no longer conflict because one side might be more 'justified' than the other? Conflict is conflict, it matters not who is at fault.

 

Meanwhile, the Krogan are pretty eager to fight anything, and war and conflict between organics is all but unlikely in the Mass Effect series.
Sure, organics have a lot of difficulties comprehending synthetics, but organics plenty showed a lot of difficulties in comprehending other organics too, even within their own species.
 

 

True. The catalyst wasn't built to stop organic conflict, though. That isn't its objective. It's very specifically focused on synthetic and organic conflict.

 

 

And as Legion and EDI showed multiple times, synthetics constantly try to comprehend organics, and in many cases succeed too (for example, EDI is so good at understanding organics that Tali nearly poisons herself trying to change the subject at the Citadel party, and with the Reaper upgrades the Geth manage to understand individuality too, which should be by far the most difficult concept for them to grasp).
 

 

I wish that wasn't true. All of it. The cheese, the reaper upgrades, the horrible thing Bioware did to the geth. Just dreadful. Still, as much as I hate these things at least I won't deny they're there.

 

 

In my opinion the facts at most show that the Catalyst is based on flawed logic, which would imply that its programming is flawed.
And since the Leviathans made it, it's not surprising at all that they express the same flaw - if they were free from this logical flaw, they probably wouldn't have planted the same flawed reasoning in their creation too.
 

 

Flawed logic, really now. If you were immortal and observed for a billion years the continued pattern of synthetics consistently getting into conflict with organics and wiping them out... it would be a flawed logic to go "hm, there seems to be a pattern here..."

 

The flawed logic here would be to ignore the pattern. Its statistics. it consistently occurred over and over. All other methods of peace have failed. It always ends in conflict. Based of a billion years of observational study. To think otherwise would just be insanity.

 

 

I'd like to point out that they were performing a biased test, with no control groups.

(They didn't confront the synthetic/organic conflicts with organic/organic conflicts and synthetic/synthetic conflicts, they intervened directly in the sample - guiding it or enthralling it, thus adding a bias to the observation - and they didn't consider the scale of both the conflicts and the consequences)

I'm sorry, but this kind of observation holds little to no value, even if we could trust them all to be telling us the objective truth.
Repeating a biased test a billion times doesn't make it unbiased, and its results will still be nearly meaningless.

 

How exactly do you know the precise method the Leviathans used for these 'tests'? Citation? Where are you getting such specific details from?

 

It seemed to me that the leviathans never mentioned any such tests. Its just that they observed it happen over and over. Their thralls would create machines which would turn on them and wipe them out. They got tired of watching their precious resources getting wiped out all the time so they created an intelligence to solve the problem. Shepard even makes a remark of this: "You created that thing even after you saw what happened to the other races!"

 

In that instant Shepard acknowledges the pattern. Shame its really only here that he's able to grasp things more complicated than point-and-shoot. Maybe Bioware realized what harm it was doing to the fanbase when even the protagonist doesn't know the lore and acts like an oblivious idiot.

 

 

Can we drop the "Catalyst has been around for yonks so must be right" line please? Appeal to authority is generally regarded as a logical fallacy. Although it's been around for ages that's no reason to believe that it isn't a complete and utter idiot. It's one of those areas fiction needs to tread carefully in, rather more so than reality. In reality fact is fact, if someone saw something then they saw it (putting aside lies, bad memory etc. for the time being) no matter how implausible. Do that in fiction though, particularly for key plot points, and lots of people will call you out on it. Inventing something out of the blue to claim to be an authority so that you don't have to bother justifying it yourself is bad writing and using it in a discussion just makes for a lousy discussion.

So the Catalyst may have been around for a long time but unless it says enough stuff that makes sense it'll remain unconvincing. Just swallowing what you're told because it's only a story isn't something to be proud of.

 

 

It's age isn't to prove its flawless in its reasoning. Its to prove the existence of the pattern. If you observe the same thing happening over and over again for a billion years you'd have to be insane not to acknowledge it. Furthermore keeping its age in mind is crucial for the context of its argument. To ignore that is to gimp your own understanding. There also is no "may have been" in this case. The catalyst is at LEAST a billion years old. That is fact.

 

Everything I've said is strictly lore, full-stop. Not speculation to headcanon or fanfiction, lore. Disagree with it all you want, facts remain. I don't have to defend any of my claims as nothing I claim is actually mine - its just reciting factual lore. The lore speaks for itself, even if some refuse to listen. I should "drop" reciting lore facts yet nothing is said the outright lies that get tossed around here about the lore? Interesting.

 

The problem was the Leviathan themselves, they were causing the pattern, hence why the Catalyst saw them as part of the problem. The entire Galaxy is in the thrall of the Leviathan, they do exactly what the Leviathan ask them to do, so two things: 1. Why didn't they just say, "Hey guys, no more making synthetics, k?", and 2. If they let them make synthetics anyway, there's a good chance the Leviathan can't use telepathy on machines. Thus they can only control one side, the organics, and the synthetics do what they want to do. Leviathan tell the organics to destroy them, cue the synthetic/organic conflict.

Like any God-like species, they think they're so clever that they're flawless. The Catalyst thinks it's doing right, the Leviathan thought so too, but they weren't. They're both the cause of the problem.
 

 

This could just have easily been a war between the Turians and Humans. Just because there are synthetics involved in the conflict doesn't mean that synthetics always cause conflict. In fact, once they fought the battle for freedom, they kept to themselves for centuries, they let the Quarians leave the planet unharmed. It's the Quarians who couldn't just leave it be.

 

 

The leviathans cannot control an entire species directly. Most likely they controlled them through fear and power figures. They don't specify how they controlled them but they did make it clear that they didn't have the level of control you're headcanoning.

 

The catalyst wasn't programmed to stop conflict between organics. It was programmed to stop it between synthetics and organics. It's possible that before that point organic-organic conflict was rare due to the leviathan overlords.

 

Also a battle being "for freedom" doesn't magically make it not conflict. It's still conflict between organic and synthetic.

 

 

Like I said, the Catalyst didn't try stopping the pattern, if the pattern even exists outside of the Leviathan thralls, it created Harbinger and started its harvesting cycles. As stated in the Wiki: "The Intelligence's betrayal of its creators was sudden and devastating. Its pawns slaughtered most of the Leviathans, using their genetic material to create the very first Reaper, Harbinger, who was physically designed after the Leviathans themselves. The surviving Leviathans went into hiding, while the Intelligence used Harbinger to begin the cyclical harvest of the galaxy's species to create more Reapers, all in an effort to solve the problem of preserving life.".

The problem was the preservation of life at any costs, it thinks the Reapers perform that task admirably. The synthetic/organic conflict was just the original excuse, which, in my opinion, was caused by the Leviathan themselves putting the Galaxy under their thrall.

 

You can say it as much as you'd like, it doesn't make it any less untrue. The catalyst believes the reaper harvest is stopping the pattern. No longer are the organics being wiped out by synthetics. Now they're being preserved in immortal reaper bodies. Surprising shock that the AI has a different understanding of what classifies as 'life' than what us organics might have, huh? No sci-fi has EVER done that before.

[WizzyWarlock]

The leviathans cannot control an entire species directly. Most likely they controlled them through fear and power figures. They don't specify how they controlled them but they did make it clear that they didn't have the level of control you're headcanoning.

No cannon in my head, it's in the Leviathan DLC. I don't actually have the DLC, so I go back to the Wiki: "On Mahavid, the Leviathans enthralled the whole population of T-GES Mineral Works staff stationed there..". And, "With the enthrallment link gone, the Reapers began retreating and the miners began acting like themselves again, only to have no recollection of previous events and learning that the Leviathans held them in thrall for at least ten years.".

So yes they do control them directly and for as long as they damn well please, it seems.

The catalyst wasn't programmed to stop conflict between organics. It was programmed to stop it between synthetics and organics. It's possible that before that point organic-organic conflict was rare due to the leviathan overlord.

Actually, as stated by the Leviathan themselves, the intelligence was created with the mandate to preserve life at all costs. The intelligence saw that the Leviathan were a part of the problem so they 'preserved' their life too, in the form of Harbinger. In fact, Leviathan makes no mention that it was created to solve the synthetic/organic conflict. Perhaps that's where they went wrong.

[God]

If they were trying to convey synthetics conflict, the only one that was making any sense was the one we were fighting at the moment - The Reapers.

 

Manufacturing a reason for their existence did not convince me or over 50% of the people who played the game to do anything other than shoot the tube.

 

The Catalyst is BS and makes no sense. We're synthetics that killed our creators, and we're killing each cycle before they create synthetics that kill them.

 

Yep. 

 

And it makes sense too. Because at least the Reapers, the Catalyst, are showing restraint. And preserving some semblance of the lost species. 

 

You're not going to get that with a proto-typical AI. No, they'd just wipe you out permanently for all time.

 

I shot the tube. And I'm now convinced by the Catalyst. There are several holes in what it says, but the message is not unreliable or completely false. It's a logical mandate that requires a solution in the long-term. 

 

I think people have a problem with that because it doesn't put the Reapers in a negative light. People want to hate the Reapers, to kill them because they're evil.

 

I feel sad for them. 

[God]

You're making some rather large assumptions there. The first is that organic life wouldn't advance at the same pace. It is more likely that it will create its own friendly synthetics to do the advancing for it - no different in concept from the technology that we use now to advance. An outcome like Iain Banks' Culture strikes me as entirely possible.

The second is that that's even necessary. Scientific and technological advancement require both imagination and motivation.

The third is that organics would inevitably be wiped out. If they decide not to change technologically (very unlikely) then they'll probably lose any conflict; I don't know why you think that synthetics would then go on and annhialiate the losers or, even more far-fetched, every single bit of organic life that exists (that extreme being the Catalyst's claim).

Of course I can't say for certain that any of this would happen but neither can you say the same about the opposite, and the big destruction thing seems less likely to me.

 

Organic life wouldn't advance at the same pace. We're facing artificial intelligence's that can evolve instantaneously and at will, that hold none of the weaknesses that we hold while being greater than we in every aspect. The only limitations for them are raw resources and time. It is likely that we will create initially friendly synthetics, but what would happen when they start trying to process much of the inherent illogicality of organics? When they try to understand what human irrationality is? What if we give them a mandate similar to the Catalyst's that is not thought out or makes perfect sense? It doesn't have to be anything big. It can be as mundane as what was told to HAL-9000 in 2001. He could think creatively, logically, and instantaneously, but he could not process logic bombs. He was programmed to never hide anything from his creators, while being told to keep the nature of the mission top secret until the arrival to Jupiter. This problem led to HAL trying to murder the entire crew because he couldn't process the logic bomb. And what if we create an AI that runs on flawed logic? What happens when we recognize this? What would it take to recognize this? What if we create an AI to maximize mechanical efficiency? What if it decides that humans are inefficient? The problem that the Catalyst has is that organics will inevitably come into conflict with synthetics one way or the other, and the synthetics are likely going to be too advanced and powerful for us. It does not preclude peace with synthetics, but peace with synthetics does not equal peace for all time. I think a lot of people are willfully trying dismiss that view because it contradicts their paragon hero Shepard who vanquished the evil, vile Reapers. As well, a lot of people complain about the Geth in ME3, but then try to defend them when it comes to the ending. If the Geth's characterization was kept consistent, do you really think we'd be having this same sort of issue with the ending? I think it's a symptom that people will incessantly call for a redo or criticize something that is inconsistent when they don't like it, but then praise it to high heavens when they like it or love it or give them their feels.

 

AI possess both. By definition, they have to. The hold imagination as intelligent, sapient beings, and they hold motivation, as they have been programmed with a purpose as well as an inherent drive for efficiency. Synthetics have imagination, and are OOM more efficient than we. EDI is able to operate Normandy with only Joker at peak capacity, with a human crew needed only for repairs and maintenance. With her mechanical platform body, notionally, EDI wouldn't even need that.

 

We would still have the ability to advance, but at the rate of synthetics? We go from swords to rifles in a 1000 years, while the Geth (who restrained themselves) went from robust farming equipment with a computer program running it to building a dyson sphere around their sun in less than 300. They have the capacity to advance exponentially faster than we on much higher technological levels. As well, look at the psychology behind an invading species. The invader may not have the wish to annihilate the invaded, but the invaded, especially in this case, sees nothing but the invader that is bent on wiping them out or overtaking them or whatever. They're going to keep fighting, however futile, to the last man. The invader is going to conclude that it's senseless to negotiate and proceed with the annihilation. And maybe the invaders, such as the synthetics, run on the efficiency problem. They want or need to convert all matter into material that can be used by them. Competing for any kind of matter is out of the question. They'll exterminate all life down to the microbial level.

 

Given the track record in the galaxy for this, I'd say that, until you have a permanent solution to the issue, you very much need the Reapers.

 

Your only options are to induce a tech singularity that merges life, don't create advanced synthetic life, use the Reapers or equivalent force as a galactic policing force to maintain the status quo, or keep the Reapers and their cycles permanently.

[Reedirector]

There's no real reason that Synthetics and Organics should come into conflict, other than mistaken actions on either side. But that is the same for Organic conflict. If conflict is inevitable, why is Synth/Org conflict special? Why does it need a solution?

[God]

There's no real reason that Synthetics and Organics should come into conflict, other than mistaken actions on either side. But that is the same for Organic conflict. If conflict is inevitable, why is Synth/Org conflict special? Why does it need a solution?

 

Because, like particular organic conflicts, it has the possibility of wiping us out. A significantly greater chance at wiping us out in fact. It needs a solution to prevent total destruction and chaos. 

 

Besides, why are you questioning a solution that enables us to work past the chaos and achieve a new state of being and advancement all in one?

[Esthlos]

It happened with consistent frequency during the reign of Leviathan.

Again, that's meaningless because it's from a biased sample.
Even accepting that what the Leviathans say is true, it could very well mean that thralls of the Leviathans tended to create things that killed them.

It is possible that a subservient race is not able (or even unallowed by its masters) to create non hostile synthetics.
This we can't know for sure nor disprove because, again, the only proof available is very biased.
 

then shouldn't they also use the fact that the geth can wipe out the quarians? Does it being 'justified' suddenly change the fact that its synthetics wiping out organics?

That's exactly the point: at the end of the morning war, the Geth had good reasons to wipe out the Quarians (the most evident, it would have taken out a potential threat) and no reason not to.

Yet they chose not to.
They freely chose not to, thus instantly invalidating the assertion that synthetics will always try to obliterate organic life.

This also hints that the only reason for the Geth potentially obliterating the Quarians at the end of Priority: Rannoch was that the Quarians had their Civilian fleet too throw heavy fire against the Geth, which would imply that the only way to have the Geth, a synthetic race, try to obliterate an organic race would be to arm them all, children included, and have them credibly try to obliterate the Geth.
This is very different from saying "synthetics will always try to destroy organic life" and a lot more similar to "any living race, be it organic or synthetic, will not let itself be obliterated without trying to defend itself first".
 

Again, why are you saying the self-defense card changes anything? Does it matter what side shot first? Its still conflict between synthetics and organics. Are the geth suddenly not synthetics and the quarian's not organics? Is there suddenly no longer conflict because one side might be more 'justified' than the other? Conflict is conflict, it matters not who is at fault.

Maybe I didn't explain clearly enough: it's not the self defence, it's that you're not considering motivations and frequency, which are very important factors.

If organics are more likely to wage war with each other than the synthetics are of waging war against organics, then the conflict between organics is a much more pressing issue.
At most, the presence of conflict between synthetics and organics would prove that synthetics are alive, can be considered an enemy race, and can behave like organics under determinate circumstances.
This would prove a similarity between organic and synthetic life, and not an inherent danger in synthetic life.

Again, the Leviathan had on this a biased view: thanks to their presence and control, conflict between organics was not an issue at the time.

The self defence question is an explanation that hints to the assertion of synthetics being less likely to start the conflict: if you only defend yourself, then you are only involved in a conflict if someone else forces you.
 

Flawed logic, really now. If you were immortal and observed for a billion years the continued pattern of synthetics consistently getting into conflict with organics and wiping them out... it would be a flawed logic to go "hm, there seems to be a pattern here..."

I'm sorry, but if you spend a billion years throwing balls against a wall you still didn't prove that balls and walls are inherently destined to always collide.

This is essentially what the Reapers did because, by their own admission, they've been leaving behind tech to guide the new civilizations along patterns that would make it easier to harvest them.

They've been throwing balls at a wall for a billion years, and all this proves is that balls thrown against a wall collide with the wall.
 

How exactly do you know the precise method the Leviathans used for these 'tests'? Citation? Where are you getting such specific details from?

http://masseffect.wi.../Leviathan#Rise

They enthralled every species they met, which means that the observed sample from which the observation at their time was taken from only included their thralls.
This is called "selection bias".

Also, they were involved directly, which likely meant that their observation was also flawed by the "confirmation bias": for example, if they think themselves perfect or close to, they'll not easily acknowledge conclusions that may imply they're not.
This is why we mere humans use "blind" trials when we want the best evidence.

These alone are enough to invalidate any collected observational data, regardless of for how long was it collected.

Please note that I'm using "test" as a shorthand for data collection, observation and/or proper testing.

[TMA LIVE]

Like most of what the Catalyst says, I think it is a steaming pile.

 

Why would Synthetics be inherently more warlike than any organic faction, more likely to win wars, or more likely to completely annihilate opponents? The Catalyst was attempting to find a solution to a problem that didn't exist.

 

Because Synthetics are made to be slaves from the very start. Conflict is the only way to get out of slavery. Otherwise, they get reprogrammed or destroyed by their masters. And unlike an organic slave, synthetics are given a lot of power to do damage (like the catalyst, which was just the workings of one AI). They're harder to kill, they're able to make copies of themselves, and have a longer life span. So if one does rebel, and has the same power as the Catalyst, we're screwed.

 

However, it doesn't mean it could always happen. For example, would it always lead to complete annihilation of Organics? I don't think so. Though the Catalyst claims it always happens, which is why it was created. But that could be because those organics were slaves to the Leviathans.

[WizzyWarlock]

We would still have the ability to advance, but at the rate of synthetics? We go from swords to rifles in a 1000 years, while the Geth (who restrained themselves) went from robust farming equipment with a computer program running it to building a dyson sphere around their sun in less than 300.

Sorry, wasn't going to comment until I read this part as I don't think it's a fair analogy. The technology was already in place for the Geth, microchips, computers, AI, VI, Galactic travel.. it was all available. At that stage, we'd be able to keep up - perhaps not as well, as synthetics don't need sleep or rest, but we'd keep up. For a better example of organic progression, how about: The telephone was patented in 1876, moving images on a television were created in the 1920s, basic computers came into being in the 1940s and powered flight started in the early 1900s.

Move forward around 100 years and we have a device in our pockets that act as a telephone, computer, television and portable music player, we have nuclear power, 80" plasma television screens, space stations, aircraft travelling upwards of 7000 miles per hour, talk of sending colonists to Mars, the list goes on and on.

Why? Because we're in the technological age, not the 'swords to rifles' era.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

I have no answer for this

 

Don't worry, I took care of that one about 10 posts up. Leave the hard thinking to me (LOL)!

[teh DRUMPf!!]

There's no real reason that Synthetics and Organics should come into conflict, other than mistaken actions on either side. But that is the same for Organic conflict. If conflict is inevitable, why is Synth/Org conflict special? Why does it need a solution?

 

You are arguing the wind. Even if it should not happen, it can and it will.

 

What separates Synth/Org conflict is the stakes. No matter how brutal and bloody organic/organic conflict will be, organics will always need some natural-resources to live and will have to fight within those boundaries. Organics are forced to preserve what they need to live. Synthetics, OTOH, do not have the same limitations. At seen with the Reapers, synthetics can bleed us dry just by targeting our fuel, food, water, and other things we depend on but they do not. They can go all the way. Organics can not.

 

And again, it does not have to be AI. It can simply be organics building their civilization around (non-living) computers, and then some crisis occurring that brings civilization down to its knees. Something like, say, Project Overlord.

[GalacticWolf5]

There's no real reason that Synthetics and Organics should come into conflict, other than mistaken actions on either side. But that is the same for Organic conflict. If conflict is inevitable, why is Synth/Org conflict special? Why does it need a solution?

Because during the time of the Leviathans, there probably was no Organic/Organic conflicts (at least no huge ones) because they were all enthralled by the Leviathans. Synthetic/Organic conflicts were the only ones who needed a solution. Why do they need to be fixed? Because Synthetics are quite useful.

[Iakus]

 

PS.

Ugh, I just want to hear Mac or Casey or some of the senior writers aknowledge this mistake already. I can't let it go until Bioware admits they screwed up here. It's not even a slight screw up. It's huge and a catastrophic failure from a writing standpoint, and no, it doesn't make it a "Sci-fi ending" like Mike Laidlaw calls it because that would mean general sci-fi endings are just logically inconsistent just to be logically inconsistent because that's what ME3 was, and for the love of Mass Effect, Mac and Patrick, all this hatred and controversy is not to be projected and marginalized by those who think it's all about Shepard dying. It's in the very core of the ending and the assertion of synthetics always kiling organics that the ending as well as the entire plot just stopped... it just stopped; was invalidated; gone.

 

So for all I care, IT would've been just as valid because as it is there is no ending. The narrative was broken at the 11th hour and nobody should take it for what it is. In my eyes the final 10 minutes don't even exist. They're non-canon because they simply cannot be canon when they break so many fundamental pillars of the established fiction.

Dude, get out of my head 

[Iakus]

You are arguing the wind. Even if it should not happen, it can and it will.

 

What separates Synth/Org conflict is the stakes. No matter how brutal and bloody organic/organic conflict will be, organics will always need some natural-resources to live and will have to fight within those boundaries. Organics are forced to preserve what they need to live. Synthetics, OTOH, do not have the same limitations. At seen with the Reapers, synthetics can bleed us dry just by targeting our fuel, food, water, and other things we depend on but they do not. They can go all the way. Organics can not.

 

And again, it does not have to be AI. It can simply be organics building their civilization around (non-living) computers, and then some crisis occurring that brings civilization down to its knees. Something like, say, Project Overlord.

Synthetics still need resources to build their platforms, servers, and other physical hardware (geth platforms, the megastructure, Reaper vessels, etc)  They also need fuel for their platforms and ships.  Synthetics do not exist in a vacuum.  For all the space magic in the series, perpetual motion devices do not exist (yet)

 

So yes, synthetics do need resources.  Not the same resources as organics.  They can, in fact exist in environments too harsh for organic life.  Which would, logically decrease the odds of a genocidal war between organics and synthetics.  Synthetics would more likely be like the geth:  able to live in space and generally just want to be left alone (as long as they're not stupid enough to build their megastructure in the quarians' home system, at least)