467 réponses à ce sujet

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Looks like I missed out on a riveting conversation.

 

It's weird for me because I have religious beliefs -- pretty conservatives ones, at that -- but I tend to agree with God (as in, the user on this forum) on this. In truth, by my religion's standards, I am not a very good person. I mean, I believe in its teachings very firmly, and know a lot on that front. However, my efforts to lead a more pious lifestyle always fail. I just do not have it in me to be that way. Now, maybe it would be different if I had more of a support group that would hold me to it, but I have never found acceptance in that social-circle (which seems to further support my belief that I am not a very good person).

 

And on top of not being pious, well, over the past few years I've undergone a shift in my belief-system. I despise Kant's teachings. I find Nietzsche far more compelling. That kind of puts me at odds with my creed, though (then again, Nietzsche was less disdainful toward my religion than Kant).

 

As to the concept of "playing God" ... it is damn tough for me to disagree with it, try as I might. What if, in doing so, one achieves a good end for most people --or-- the prevention of a bad one for most people? If I have the power to decide, I would not hesitate to do a frightening thing that will lead to making things better. How can I believe God is displeased with that? If He did not want it, why do people so often rise to their station and make it happen? Supposedly they are an evil to be fought against, and that He will punish them for it later, but how do you fight progress? Is it even right to? ... **shrug** ... questions like these really give weight to the idea that we cannot look to God for the answers anymore ("God is dead"), even if I feel like it is kind of blasphemy for me say that.

[rapscallioness]

yeah, before the whole synth vs org thing, I just thought the Reapers were...well, eating us. I mean, storing our dna/essence/energy so they can have the means they need to reproduce.

 

Just as we take the energy of the prey we feed on. And in turn our prey feeds off of the energy of plant life. We kill to get the energy we need to live and reproduce. Plants just kinda hug it out with the sun to live. Everything else is kill to live.

 

If the reapers are as conscious as some people want to believe, then questions of continuity will come into play. Continuation of their "species". It may have started out as just a program to solve that Leviathan problem, but if they/Catalyst became more sentient, then survival is going to become a number one concern. Survival of you and your offspring. It's a powerful urge.

 

They waited until we were ripe, with a good population density--because the reapers need alot of metabolic fuel. Then they go back out to dark space and go to sleep.

 

To me, that is a more...neutral..motivation. I mean, are we evil when we kill and eat in order to survive? Would the reapers be evil for doing the same thing? No. Only problem is organics had become accustomed to being the top predator, until they find out they're just friggin fat sheep for something else to eat.

 

 

edit: I was thinking more H.G. Wells and The Time Machine. With the two races, one above ground and one below ground--in the shadows. Above ground people were not even aware of these other creatures below ground. They just knew they received everything they needed to prosper and live. Turned out they were given everything they needed in order to fatten them up. Improve their survival rates so the below ground ones could have a good meal later.

 

eesh.

[SimJom]

I'm a fan of Keirkegaard myself... who, if anything, was an influence on Neitzsche (even though the former was a theist). Both are "agents of chaos" in their own way, and of independence and self-made men.

Nietzsche went mad shortly after learning of Kierkegaard's existence; he never actually read him. [/history]

[rapscallioness]

Well, Sovereign was an arrogant cuss. Just like his daddy, Leviathan.

 

Although, Sovereign was right. The idea that we're killing you to keep you from building machines that will kill you is beyond my comprehension.

 

haha..snort.

 

Srsly, though. Even if they do eat, or are just hungry, they are still beyond my comprehension as beings. They themselves may have been beyond my true understanding, but what they may have needed to do to survive is just what it is. I mean, I may eat to live meself, and eat meat at that, but that doesn't mean someone knows who I am, or understands who I am.

[Coyotebay]

 

 

First, we are talking about synthetic here, bias should not apply to beings working on cold logic. Not to mention that its intentions are not the destruction of organics. Second, contrary to popular belief, harvesting does not equal to killing in ME universe where experience, knowledge and skill can be stored in DNA. Third, other conflicts are irrelevant. Yes they are bound to occur, but they fall outside of Reaper programming. The intelligence was created to solve the problem of organics getting wiped out by synthetics. The only problem that Leviathans cared about. Organic vs organic they can easily stop, synthetic vs synthetic they don't care about. Fourth, the story does not prove it wrong. The fact that you need the Reapers destroying advanced civilizations to achieve a temporary peace between the geth and the quarians and that you need Reaper technology for EDI to cooperate with organics (while still opposing her creators - Cerberus) and Collector attack to unshackle her only reinforces the idea.

 

And organics vs synthetics is one of the key elements of ME trilogy. Not seeing it won't make it go away. If you're interested, here is a quote from the lead writer on ME1 and ME2 - Drew Karpyshyn

We knew we wanted to focus on some key themes and bring in certain key elements: organics vs synthetics; the Reapers; the Mass Relays.

 

Well, harvesting is killing.  Just because you stored the person's memories away in some databank doesn't change the fact that you killed the individual.  By that reasoning, I could go murder someone, go preserve their head in a glass jar or cryogenically freeze  them or something, and say, hey, no murder here.  You can argue bias in the case of the Reapers because the writers wrote them to exhibit very human traits of arrogance and malevolence.  If they only operated on cold logic then the writers presented them poorly.  A proper representation would have been something akin to NOMAD in that old Star Trek episode.  But I guess it's more entertaining when the Reapers are all mean and evil, so be it.  And needing the Reapers destroying civilization to get the Geth and the Quarians to make peace simply proves the adage, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", it does nothing whatsoever to prove that without it synthetics and organics can never get along.  To imply that it does is the grossest of gross generalizations.  The Geth weren't at war with the Quarians because synthetics and organics are natural enemies, they were at war with them because the Quarians had tried to destroy them out of fear.  And what did we see in the story repeatedly in the crew's interactions with Legion and with EDI?  That organics and synthetics actually can get along when you put aside fear and ignorance.  Kind of a parallel to what we see in the real world in racial and ethnic relations.

 

And that's the whole point, really.  I think the whole premise is a bunch of horses***.  There is no basis to it other than being a convenient plot point to drive the motivations of the Reapers.  Synthetics and organics will or won't get along same as synthetics and synthetics and organics and organics.  You'll have synthetics siding with organics against other synthetics, organics siding with synthetics against other organics, organics that are more synthetic than organic, synthetics that are more organic than synthetic, synthetics and organics living in the same societies, adopting the same cultural values.  Integration.  You can program an evil AI, sure.  And you can also brainwash people to do evil things.  Witness ISIS.  The whole "Us and Them" line in the sand is an overly simplistic view of the universe dreamed up by people who grew up watching a little too much Terminator.  It makes for a fun story, but no, I do not take it seriously as a premise in the slightest.

[Vazgen]

Well, harvesting is killing.  Just because you stored the person's memories away in some databank doesn't change the fact that you killed the individual.  By that reasoning, I could go murder someone, go preserve their head in a glass jar or cryogenically freeze  them or something, and say, hey, no murder here.  You can argue bias in the case of the Reapers because the writers wrote them to exhibit very human traits of arrogance and malevolence.  If they only operated on cold logic then the writers presented them poorly.  A proper representation would have been something akin to NOMAD in that old Star Trek episode.  But I guess it's more entertaining when the Reapers are all mean and evil, so be it.  And needing the Reapers destroying civilization to get the Geth and the Quarians to make peace simply proves the adage, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", it does nothing whatsoever to prove that without it synthetics and organics can never get along.  To imply that it does is the grossest of gross generalizations.  The Geth weren't at war with the Quarians because synthetics and organics are natural enemies, they were at war with them because the Quarians had tried to destroy them out of fear.  And what did we see in the story repeatedly in the crew's interactions with Legion and with EDI?  That organics and synthetics actually can get along when you put aside fear and ignorance.  Kind of a parallel to what we see in the real world in racial and ethnic relations.

 

And that's the whole point, really.  I think the whole premise is a bunch of horses***.  There is no basis to it other than being a convenient plot point to drive the motivations of the Reapers.  Synthetics and organics will or won't get along same as synthetics and synthetics and organics and organics.  You'll have synthetics siding with organics against other synthetics, organics siding with synthetics against other organics, organics that are more synthetic than organic, synthetics that are more organic than synthetic, synthetics and organics living in the same societies, adopting the same cultural values.  Integration.  You can program an evil AI, sure.  And you can also brainwash people to do evil things.  Witness ISIS.  The whole "Us and Them" line in the sand is an overly simplistic view of the universe dreamed up by people who grew up watching a little too much Terminator.  It makes for a fun story, but no, I do not take it seriously as a premise in the slightest.

This is going to the point where you have to define what makes an individual. In ME universe (I mention this again, we are working with fictional universe here) the person is basically stored within DNA. Cloning is possible (as seen in Citadel DLC) and all knowledge, experience and skills are also stored in DNA (Javik's words). So unless we are arguing the notion of soul, harvesting =/= killing in ME universe. That said, the Reapers still kill those they do not harvest. Those people are presumed not worthy of storing, probably because they don't add any new traits or skills. And, of course, there are casualties from people resisting them.

I was talking about the quote from that AI on the Presidium, not the Reapers. It is there where you hear that "organics must destroy or control all synthetic life" for the first time, in ME1. You also seem to forget that all those friendly interactions would not have taken place without the Reapers. EDI - based on Sovereign hardware, created after it attacked the Citadel. Legion - designed to monitor actions of Old Machines and Shepard in organic space, created after the Sovereign attack. Remove the Reapers from equation and you'll only find examples of synthetics destroying organics or vice versa. No examples of cooperation. And here are examples of conflict from the games (unrelated to the Reapers) - Rogue AI on the Presidium, Rogue VI on Luna, Rogue VI in ME2 (those hacked mechs), Geth destroying 99% of Quarian population in Morning War and Quarians almost destroying the Geth in ME3 (before Reaper intervention). The problem is even acknowledged by the Council who passed regulations on developing AI technology.

The Catalyst does not say that synthetics will destroy all organics because they are just that evil. It says that the conflict is a result of synthetics surpassing their creators. And what does that mean? Organics fear that, because the day will come when synthetics will realize that they no longer need organics. And they don't know what will happen then. 

It is important to remember that this all takes place in a fictional universe with fictional factions, element zero etc. This conflict is one of the building blocks of the universe, present in the codex from the first game and referenced throughout the trilogy, just like eezo, mass relays, Alliance etc. Trying to apply real life standards to it is not going to work.

[Vazgen]

At the same time, the Catalyst also realizes it underestimated organics. That's the one thing that should give you hope (rather than fear), if you pick destroy. All of this stuff about "inevitability" is meaningless when it admits an oversight like that.

Well, tbh, it referred to the Crucible, not the organic capability of solving the conflict. I can see how it could be interpreted that way though.

 

I prefer to think that organics now have a huge "I win" button in case something goes wrong

[Iakus]

Reapers don't kill organics, they harvest them. Reaper is a synonym for harvester. Killing is not a synonym for harvesting or reaping. They mean completely different things.

 

 

I guess all that Reaper smoothie is just resting.

[ImaginaryMatter]

...

 

There's the self determination issue that the Reapers seem to struggle with. The idea of whether or not the Reapers are alive even with ME DNA is still more of a philosophical issue that deals with the meaning of life. I have no doubt that the Catalyst fully believes that harvesting isn't killing, and that's fine, but it's subjective.

 

As for the the synthetic vs organic thing I think it's really important  to look at how the series portrays the conflicts in context. In ME3 it's a recurring theme how sparing the Geth are and that the Quarian's more or less brought the genocide upon themselves; the Quarians are just so overly villified while the Geth are sanctified. EDI constantly seeks to become more human. Her relationship with Joker is the perfect opportunity to explore this conflict, it practically writes itself; instead the biggest issue in their relationship is that Joker might break a bone (I guess she's socially awkward but that affects almost every romance so it's not necessarily a robot thing). The problem here is that the organic and synthetic conflict never appears to be fundamentally different than any other in the series. Because of this the synthetics seem more like an allegory or motif for some other conflict or theme.

 

I think other people, or at least me, see the Synthetic and organic relationship more akin to prejudices that we see today or elsewhere in the series. There's nothing that at it's core separates the conflict from the others -- at least until the Catalyst says it is. It's not an issue of two fundamentally different entities trying to coexist, instead it's an issue of one species respecting another and that just isn't unique to robots and people. The only time the series really gets down to exploring the actual issue is with Xen who's views on the Geth deal with them being programs built by the Geth and somewhat similarly the presidium AI (although it's final word's can be stood in for almost any other interspecies conflict). It's one of the issues I have with the ending because the rest of the game is really unsubtle about how kind and alike robots are, only to flip that around at the end. I'm not opposed to the concept but by that point in ME3 it's too late for that kind of wrap up.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 It is kind of a moot point to say that harvest victims are killed. The Catalyst believes all organics are going to die anyway, making their lives basically forfeit.

 

 

What is not going to die (not in a normal civilization/cycle) is a Reaper, which is a life and a civilization in its own right. The idea behind the cycle is: 1 > 0.

[AlanC9]

Is this just an argument about semantics, or is there something substantive at stake?

[angol fear]

Killing doesn't save the essence. The reapers save the essence to put it in a new form, what they do is a harvest. 

[voteDC]

Killing doesn't save the essence. The reapers save the essence to put it in a new form, what they do is a harvest. 

What of the previously harvested species remains? What of their goals or beliefs remains a motivating force for that new Reaper which is born from their essence?

Nothing. What is created from the harvested species is pure Reaper. Whatever the species was before is dead.

[fraggle]

What of the previously harvested species remains? What of their goals or beliefs remains a motivating force for that new Reaper which is born from their essence?

Nothing. What is created from the harvested species is pure Reaper. Whatever the species was before is dead.

 

But the essence/knowledge itself is stored in a Reaper, it is there for eternity or until a Reaper is killed. And even then the Catalyst embodies all knowledge and it is still accessible to it, I'd like to think. Could be wrong though.

 

As for traits of a harvested species coming forth in a Reaper? I don't know. But Harbinger is just as full of himself as Leviathans were/are. Maybe it's still in there somewhere. It's unfortunate we don't know anything about other harvested species. Could be they were all considering themselves as superior and call lesser developed species primitives Then I'd have no problem with Reapers acting as they do.

 

But I see your point and agree to it to a certain extent, even though I also acknowledge the Catalyst's solution on how it preserves life (which doesn't mean I actually like what it does, but it's valid imo).

For me, all these people do not die, they just move on to exist in a different form. Or something.

[Torgette]

What of the previously harvested species remains? What of their goals or beliefs remains a motivating force for that new Reaper which is born from their essence?

Nothing. What is created from the harvested species is pure Reaper. Whatever the species was before is dead.

 

Right, hence why the Catalyst and Reapers view "ascension" to reaper form as the ultimate goal for species preservation. What we concern ourselves with preservation - memories, people, things and events - are meaningless to them. They think in millions of years, our mental history would be meaningless to them compared to our evolutionary history and the biological functions that drive us to do what we do in the first place.