[...] I view every Choice as a terrible option because its validity is entirely based on how "optimistic" and "hopeful" the person making the choice is. There is no evidence nor any reason to believe it will work and be a resounding success. It is, for all intents and purposes, a leap of faith. At best, your odds are 50/50 it benefits all. At worst, you've "skewed" the galaxy in ways that cannot be undone due to unforeseen circumstances and have to live with the consequences.
Fixed!
Why then choose Synthesis, you may ask, if the story indicates it's not necessary? I do not see the "ideology of sameness" in Synthesis. I see why people come to that interpretation, but I see different themes at work. The three main choices embody different ideas, all of which are good: stability (Control), autonomy (Destroy) and advancement (Synthesis). Every choice promotes its principle at some expense to the others. If I choose Synthesis, it's not for the purpose the Catalyst promotes it. It's to break out of the current bounding box. If that comes with an infusion of aspects from "other" sources, that is a price I am willing to pay, it may even be necessary for that breakout. It would, indeed, be very much preferable to let people make such choices for themselves, but the alternatives are genocide and autocratic rule - two "solutions" to problems humans have used since time immemorial. It was time for something new.
Sadly, the autonomy for Destroy is "autonomy for me, but not for thee" It requires the betrayal of one or more allies to achieve. Making it a nonstarter for me even though that's the philosophy I'd prefer.
I don't buy into "advancement" because the entire trilogy has beaten us over the head with how messing around with technology you don't understand is a recipe for disaster. if Synthesis really is "inevitable" I'd say we should earn it on our own. Advance our technology based on what we understand now. Then build upon that. Then build upon that. And so on. For millions, perhaps billions of years, the Reapers have been guiding the development of the galaxy. We have been blinded to other possibilities because advanced tech has simply been handed to us. Who knows what advancements, perhaps entire fields of science, have been ignored because the Reapers have given us shortcuts.
That's aside from the gross violation of the genetic information of the entire galaxy.
But the narrative does a very bad job suggesting the problem is a problem.
Actually, the narrative exemplified the problem more than well by virtue of the Reapers existing. We were just not beaten over the head with or asked to think about it. In fact, lots of fans hated the ending for making them have to, with many people quoting Vigil's line about how understanding the Reapers in unnecessary to the task of stopping them (to say nothing of how questionable that philosophy is, on both a practical and moral level).
Besides, if they are going to ask us to be accepting of synthetics like geth and EDI, is it not only fair for the Reapers to be given consideration for the same?
I've probably watched that ending more times than you have, and my explanation fits very aptly. Add in the fact that my interpretation is rooted in more logic and lore than yours, and I daresay mine is right, and yours is wrong (you'll also note the complete absence of husks in the ensuing slide-show, which alone disproves that what was shown with husks in the first place was at all significant).
But that's fine, you can believe something less logical and less lore-compatible if it pleases you.
https://www.youtube....IKeiJypeI#t=214
Seems to me they quite clearly become self aware. they certainly do not die, in fact they slowly get up in a similar manner to the human. And it's not just the husks, but all the other delgihtful creaters the reapers have created. After all, synthesis will combine all synthetic and organic life into a new framework. Even the bleeding plants are shown to have the upgrade.
And the Turians are not shown in the ending slides. Doesn't mean they are all dead.
Basically Bioware didn't really think the implications of what they were proposing through.
The Reapers aren't true Synthetics. With Mass Effect 2 they were revealed to be something more akin to the virtual aliens. Each Reaper is a sort of partially synthetic hive mind created from A.I. processes and the many processed victims used in its creation. The Reapers represent a form of a slavery both in how they are created from unwilling prisoners, and in that once created the Reapers are leashed to a master A.I.
Synthesis and Control perpetuates that slavery.
The Reapers aren't true Synthetics. With Mass Effect 2 they were revealed to be something more akin to the virtual aliens. Each Reaper is a sort of partially synthetic hive mind created from A.I. processes and the many processed victims used in its creation. The Reapers represent a form of a slavery both in how they are created from unwilling prisoners, and in that once created the Reapers are leashed to a master A.I.
Synthesis and Control perpetuates that slavery.
The Reapers are not distinguishable from synthetic life in any way. They have no organic-like traits. So for all intents and purposes, they are synthetic/AI. Hell, Javik routinely refers to them as such, and I doubt he is unaware of the details behind Reaperization (only Shepard has any comparable amount of knowledge on them).
Besides, that "revelation" came in ME2, so any who started with ME1 could still consider the implications of such an entity existing (and in ME3, we are given the Catalyst).
Also, I reject that interpretation of the Reapers. I do not think they are like virtual-aliens. I think they are all individual beings formed from gestalt minds ala Legion. I also think they become autonomous in the Green ending, given thematic fit and general common-sense.
Everyone knows the best ending was dying to Morinth in ME2.
The biggest argument against Synthesis, besides that it allows the mass-murdering A.I. and the Reaper fleet to survive, is that the Catalyst's solution isn't even a solution at all. Even if we accept its argument that synthetics and organics cannot coexist, turning everyone into a cyborg isn't going to solve anything.
Lets pretend for a moment that Neanderthals didn't go extinct. In this alternate timeline they have survived to the modern day and also have advanced civilizations, and compete with us for resources. That occasionally leads to war. Now if someone could come along with a wand of space magic, and somehow turn every Neanderthal and every modern human into a hybrid of the other, would that prevent war? Of course it wouldn't. We are the only the sapient beings on our planet and that has never stopped us for from finding reasons to engage in war, mass slaughter, or genocide. A magic wand that made everyone the same wouldn't change that.
Synthesis would only work as means of preventing war or genocide if it also fundamentally alters the minds of the people undergoing transformation. And at that point it is no different than indoctrination. Unless Synthesis denies the people it transforms the right of free will, it will not in any way work to prevent war or atrocities.
I'm done responding to this. Han Shot First, I know you've been around for a long time. I know you've read the explanations for how Synthesis could possibly lead to a solution for the organic-synthetic problem. So why do you and others insist on repeating this argument over and over again, when a compelling explanation has been offered many times by multiple people?
I'm going to post a part of Ieldra's explanation from his Synthesis thread:
III. The organic/synthetic problem asserted by the Catalyst
Now the thematic considerations have been dealt with, we can at last get to the heart of the matter: the organic/synthetic problem for which Synthesis is asserted to be a permanent resolution:
"Organics create synthetics to improve their own existence. But these improvements have limits. To exceed those limits, they must be allowed to evolve. They must, by definition, surpass their creators. The result is conflict, destruction, chaos. It is inevitable" -- Catalyst, ME3 Extended Cut
III.1 Outlining the problem
The definitions of organic and synthetic life forms given in I.1 above have some important consequences. Most notably, if you want to add something physical to a synthetic, you can do so with relative ease, since you have the schematic and can selectively change existing parts in order to integrate the new part. If you want to do the same with an organic, you have to redesign the complete organism from the ground up, since every stage of the growth process is affected by the change. Or more to the point: improving synthetics is easy, improving organics is very hard. That's why organics seek to improve themselves with technology, and that's why they create synthetics.
Those synthetics can self-evolve. Imagine a macroscale self-replicating machine inhabited by a mind with the attributes of a seed AI. The body can self-replicate, the mind can improve itself, create new ideas and realize physical representations of them using the machinery of self-replication. In very little time, it would be possible for such a life form to develop into a super-intelligent being with immense physical power. The end result of such a process could be a Matrioshka brain, a megastructure like the one the geth are building. Imagine the processing power of a brain with the mass of several gas giants, built in a time of mere decades. Mass Effect 1 makes another allusion to the possible existence of planetary brains with the planet Ploba, Antaeus System, Hades Gamma Cluster.
There is nothing that can improve as fast as this in the organic realm, and there is no guarantee that this self-evolving synthetic will be friendly to organics. It might not be actively hostile, but that is not needed to destroy organics. All that is needed is that it is super-powerful, indifferent and that it has a motivation to self-replicate and/or self-improve. This is the kind of synthetic life that will, given a little time, cause the extinction of organics just by doing what all life does: expanding into space it has not previously occupied. Consider as a comparison the number of species humans have made extinct just by expanding across the face of the Earth. The obvious reply "Those organisms couldn't talk with us" doesn't apply since from the viewpoint of a post-singularity AI, humans are about as intelligent and important as ants are to us.
The common objection here is: we do not know that this will happen. No, we do not. But the Catalyst is more intelligent and knowledgeable than we are (see part I about why I am making that assumption), and it has a different perspective and the ability to model future developments in a way similar to the salarian's simulations of krogan future development. Given that the Catalysst's simulations for future development are likely orders of magnitude more complex than the salarians', I'm willing to suspend my disbelief here and go with the premise that it is, if not guaranteed, at least extremely likely.
Thus: synthetic life, once a self-replicating synthetic with the mind of a seed AI exists, will very likely cause the extinction of organic life in the galaxy (realistically we should restrict this to multicellular life, since bacteria should be impossible to eradicate) with no intervention.
*Skipping ahead*
(3) Organics' integration with technology and synthetics' gaining understanding
The "altered matrix" will ensure that organic life will retain its basically organic nature, and the new coding of synthetic life will not change its basic synthetic nature. As per EDI's description, the line between them may disappear in future, but Synthesis does not make that happen, it only makes it possible. Instead, every side gains desirable traits from the other - organics the ability to integrate fully and seamlessly with technology and synthetics full understanding of organics, empathy, intuitive understanding etc.
It will not be a physical unification, it will not make everyone the same or remove all differences between organics and synthetics. Note that the changes to synthetics need not necessarily be physical. A synthetic individual's continuity is based in software anyway, so any fundamental change must start there. Of course physical changes can be made to synthetics to accomodate things like relationships to organics (see EDI), but those are part of synthetics' self-change capability. Synthetics can have a hardware-based notion of individuality like organics, but it is not a fundamental part of them. It may cease to be a fundamental part of organics as well, should things like upload technology be developed or learned from the Reapers.
(4) Invoking a different singularity
It is impossible to prevent a singularity because Synthesis does not reduce synthetics' capability to self-evolve, but gives the same ability to organics. This is akin to invoking a singularity-like event on organic life. This is the basis of the ascension - evolving to an existence unfathomable to those who came before. Again, this is a development in the future, but likely inevitable in the long run.
I'm done responding to this. Han Shot First, I know you've been around for a long time. I know you've read the explanations for how Synthesis could possibly lead to a solution for the organic-synthetic problem. So why do you and others insist on repeating this argument over and over again, when a compelling explanation has been offered many times by multiple people?
I think I have an answer to that.
ME starts out as a cosmic horror story with Lovecraftian elements, and retains important element of that through all three games, with any evidence to the contrary carefully hidden in dialogue most players never knew existed. As such, it reinforces the bounding box of the human condition, hinting that if we ever break out of this box, we'll become like the Reapers or something equally unpleasant. Thus, by the conventions of the subgenre ME appears to be until the ending, any outcome that breaks the bounding box is going to be bad regardless of what in-game characters think about it. People do not argue that Synthesis is no solution because they infer that from the evidence. They argue that way because the idea that Synthesis is bad is fixed in their minds by genre conventions, and any line of reasoning absolutely must end there, because that's what they take away from the story at a thematic level.
And they're not exactly wrong about that. ME is such a story. The thing is that the ending challenges everything that came before, using tangible but extremely obscure story elements as a base. I am extremely glad about that, but It is a blunt and altogether badly-executed attempt at such a challenge, ignoring that the weight of the story that came before is not so easily discarded.
So where does my interpretation come from? Well, to be honest, the main reason I started out is is that I could not accept a story with only bad and depressing endings, because that's how things looked before the EC. However, the reason I kept at it is because I'm not so fast in disregarding claims of important in-game characters as irrelevant just because they were introduced late and challenged what came before. People's claims that the Catalyst talks BS were always so much BS to me themselves, because to me the idea of an inevitable conflict between synthetics and organics was familiar. I am an avid SF reader, and the topics of AI evolution, the singularity hypothesis, evolution of intelligence in general and humanity breaking out of their bounding box, all that was very familiar to me. So was the idea that by taking more technology into ourselves, we would inevitably become "other" to those left behind, in time. The only real problem was the ME team's incredibly clumsy writing. They clearly attempted to bypass the intellectual dimension of the overarching plot and appeal to people's emotions instead. Well, by that they broke it. Yet, if you're familiar with the topics, you will inevitably start to ask "How can something like Synthesis be an acceptable solution to that kind of problem"? And among other things, that's what I attempted to answer with my big thread.
Did the writers intend such an interpretation? Did they make the EC version after the fact, based on interpretations by players? I don't know. What I do know is that it's possible for something like Synthesis to "work" without having to bend the lore. That the writers confused the issue rather than clarify it does not change that. That in-world, I do not know that it *will* work does not make a difference, because that's the same with every choice I ever make. As unpleasant as it is that we're forced into complicity with the antagonist by making one of the choices it presents to us, it is the only game in town. I might as well attempt to get *something* pleasant out of it.
The Reapers are not distinguishable from synthetic life in any way. They have no organic-like traits. So for all intents and purposes, they are synthetic/AI. Hell, Javik routinely refers to them as such, and I doubt he is unaware of the details behind Reaperization (only Shepard has any comparable amount of knowledge on them).
Besides, that "revelation" came in ME2, so any who started with ME1 could still consider the implications of such an entity existing (and in ME3, we are given the Catalyst).
Also, I reject that interpretation of the Reapers. I do not think they are like virtual-aliens. I think they are all individual beings formed from gestalt minds ala Legion. I also think they become autonomous in the Green ending, given thematic fit and general common-sense.
ME2 implies that they are like the virtual aliens, at least as far as the uploading of organic minds. It might be a bit space magicky, but it is the canon. Conversations with Legion also make clear that the Reapers aren't like other A.I.
I'm done responding to this. Han Shot First, I know you've been around for a long time. I know you've read the explanations for how Synthesis could possibly lead to a solution for the organic-synthetic problem. So why do you and others insist on repeating this argument over and over again, when a compelling explanation has been offered many times by multiple people?
I'm going to post a part of Ieldra's explanation from his Synthesis thread:
*snip*
Ieldra's post is well-written, but it is based on the assumption that Synthetics are inherently dangerous and without a radical solution, a technological singularity leading to our extinction is inevitable. I don't agree that with that point of view. If I did I wouldn't have had Shepard shoot that tube.
Space is incredibly vast. In our galaxy alone there may be as many as 300 billion stars, most of which are likely to have orbiting planets. The asteroid belt in our solar system alone contains more than 2 million objects greater than 1km in diameter. Similar asteroid belts likely exist in many star systems. And in the observable universe, there may be as many one hundred billion galaxies. Any species or A.I. that masters the ability to traverse the galaxy, or to travel between multiple galaxies, would be very unlikely to exhaust resources. I think the view that synthetics would exhaust their resources and need to compete for ours greatly underestimates the sheer vastness of space and all that it contains.
Furthermore it anthropomorphizes the synthetics in two ways. The first is in assuming that they'd have an unsustainable need to continue reproducing until resources were strained, requiring greater and further expansion that leads to conflict. In that we are viewing the A.I. through the lens of our own biological imperative to reproduce. Machines however aren't animals with the same biological coding. Why would their organic creators, or the machines themselves, write code that mimics our reproductive instincts? We need to reproduce or our species would go extinct. A.I. are on the other hand are practically immortal. As organics species progress enough that they overcome all the natural barriers that once limited their numbers, they face overpopulation and all the problems associated with that. We are currently experiencing that to some degree on our own world. Why saddle synthetics with code that would provide none of the benefits of our reproduction, but all of the downsides? Also while we are our 'hardware' and cannot exist without it, synthetics are basically software. What need would they have to continue reproducing hardware platforms, when millions of them (Geth) can exist on a single server? As machines that lack our biological urges and many or biological limitations, A.I. like the Geth should be much more efficient at managing their population and resource drain than us.
The second way it anthropomorphizes the synthetics is in seeing in what is an alien intelligence, a mirror of our own darkest natures. It assumes that any position of superiority over other 'nations' on their borders, will result in a relationship that is exploitative, colonial, hostile, destructive, or genocidal. It also assumes that they would have the same competitive urges as us, which like our reproductive urges, are nothing more than biological coding. Competition is necessary in a life lived by tooth and claw, where food is obtained by killing prey, rivals are defeated for reproductive rights, and hunting territories and offspring must be defended from other predators. Like with our reproductive urges, why would an A.I. either be saddled by its creator or by themselves with code that mimics the biological coding of the animals we evolved from?
Now all of that isn't to say that A.I. would pose no risk. I just disagree with the assertion that synthetics are far more dangerous than organics. Organic aliens are far more frightening in my opinion, because unlike machines they are more likely to be like us. They would have most likely evolved from animals that killed and ate other lifeforms, and who violently competed with one another for hunting grounds or mates. They are more likely to mirror our darker natures. I'd be more afraid of the Krogan wiping out humanity than the Geth.
III.1 Outlining the problem
The definitions of organic and synthetic life forms given in I.1 above have some important consequences. Most notably, if you want to add something physical to a synthetic, you can do so with relative ease, since you have the schematic and can selectively change existing parts in order to integrate the new part. If you want to do the same with an organic, you have to redesign the complete organism from the ground up, since every stage of the growth process is affected by the change. Or more to the point: improving synthetics is easy, improving organics is very hard. That's why organics seek to improve themselves with technology, and that's why they create synthetics.
ME2 implies that they are like the virtual aliens, at least as far as the uploading of organic minds. It might be a bit space magicky, but it is the canon. Conversations with Legion also make clear that the Reapers aren't like other A.I.
Even if I accepted this interpretation, the Reapers would still remain an example of synthetic life. You could replace the goo inside them with a hard-drive and they would not become fundamentally any different than they were before. They have no organic-like traits, only synthetic-like ones. And as of ME3, it is a moot point anyway. They are not even the masterminds behind the cycle. The Catalyst is, and he is a "pure" synthetic, one that rose to power over Leviathan before the first Reaper was ever created.
There is no need for the writers to prove the threat when the threats' manifestation is standing right in front of you.
And the Virtual Alien is synthetic life, too.
Synthesis was BW's best choice all along. This "your ending is the best ending" only happened after the backlash. Days before the game was released they said you could get the "best ending" through SP alone. As we all know, it was impossible to get a destroy w/ Shepard alive ending w/out playing MP. As the poster said above, it was a treat. But that's all water under the bridge.
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