3528 réponses à ce sujet

[Obadiah]

...or you can just continue to deny the fairly obvious an explicit premise of the choice in the Decision Chamber. Enjoy that.

[straykat]

...or you can just continue to deny the fairly obvious an explicit premise of the choice in the Decision Chamber. Enjoy that.

 

Is that to me? What are you talking about?

 

I was talking about "advanced civilizations". They're not advanced. They're all scavengers. It's orchestrated advancement. Duped into a high that they are masters of the universe. To me, the only solution is to get off the drug first. Then life will take of itself.

[Obadiah]

Is that to me? What are you talking about?

I was talking about "advanced civilizations". They're not advanced. They're all scavengers. It's orchestrated advancement.

Those two designations (advanced and scavengers) are not mutually exclusive.

[Natureguy85]

You really are just absent mindlessly ignoring a ton of stuff in game to keep up this failing rear guard action of trying to make me wrong aren't you?

 

1. AI overlord threat appears to be alive and well in the minds of every race similar to the way that possibility is alive in our own real world mind set.

 

2. AI research was out lawed besides a handful of very heavily regulated companies.

 

With those two in mind you would think the problem would be solved.

 

But wait!!!!

 

Quarians without actually breaking the law manage to create a very sophisticated VI program that all on it's own started to evolve and gained sentience.

 

Showing even when you attempt to prevent the problem life finds away. And is also why the rest of the galaxy stuck with very dumb VI programs rather then more sophisticated ones like the Geth. To prevent that from happening again.  And to prevent that would require technological stagnation as they would not be able to improve computer any more then they already are without worry of another Geth situation happening.

 

Nah, you do that all on your own. Number 1 is the reason for number 2. That was true before the Geth were made. I never argued that those were enough to stop the Geth from being made. Tali specifically says they were skirting the boundaries of the law, going right up to the line without crossing it. This is often, if not always, portrayed as dangerous in fiction and real life. The Quarians were playing with fire and got burned.

 

But you're the one who said that the galaxy learning its lesson was why nobody else made their own version of the Geth. If "life will find away" (nice Jurassic Park reference), then what difference does that make? Why didn't it just happen? After all, the Asari have been making VIs and machines for longer than the Quarians have. Why haven't those VIs spontaneously advanced, before or since the Geth? Was it just dumb luck? Or are the new precautions working where the old ones failed, meaning the Reapers aren't needed?

 

 

 

when a genocidal AI reaches the conclusion that to save organic life it has to destroy it or harvest it into liquid form so it can form some kind of sick tribute to it's masters, it's time to pack our bags and get the hell out of this galaxy.  I still after all this time cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could defend the reapers or their mindset.  

 

the definition of AI is....

 

"Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, an ideal "intelligent" machine is a flexible rational agent that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal."

 

The only 'success' the reapers are having is killing every advanced sentient organism every 50,000 years, ergo that must form a part of their orginal plan.  

 

Who or what would want to limit organics to a certain development?  A level of development which would then be used to obliterate them?

 

ME3 DLC actually revealed them.  They're called leviathan and (although they were not exactly telling the truth) they created this whole mess.  

 

This is an interesting take on the Leviathans involvement. I knew they wanted to be back on top, but I saw that as their plans post Reapers, not the Reaper cycle was part of the plan. It reminds me of Shadows of Mordor where

Spoiler

there are reasons to not trust Celebrimbor and the DLC focused on him confirms those suspicions that he is manipulating Talion.

It would have been a great lead into the next game were we sticking around post-Reapers.

[straykat]

Those two designations (advanced and scavengers) are not mutually exclusive.

 

They're both weak, in this case. That's the kind of point of Sovereign way back when.

[gothpunkboy89]

I realise that i may look at this from a human point of view.  As you have said I'm looking at this from our perspective, but what gave leviathan / reapers the right to exterminate entire species?  Javik hit the nail on the head, in that we must destroy them.  They might not think this is a war, but this is a battle for our survival.  To survive we must do whats right by ourselves, not some monster that thinks it knows better.  

 

Would you give up everything we are and everything we will ever be on the whim of a creature or AI whose sense of morality is so distorted?

 

Forget what it knows.  This is about our survival.

 

This isn't about rights and who has them. What right did the Asari and Salarians have when they decided only they get to be rule makers for the Council and get to decide who joins them and who doesn't?

 

Reapers use sound logic behind their actions. You are not required to like their actions but you can not fault the reason behind it.  Wiping out an entire race sounds like a big thing but on a cosmological scale it is really very insignificant. How many countless races have existed before the races in ME universe. And how many would have existed after it.

[Natureguy85]

The Catalyst already admits that the Reapers are not the ideal solution, so they might not even be appropriate if we had events supporting the Catalyst. I mean... would organics be more willing to be harvested if they knew the Catalyst was right? I actually think 'No'.
I'm curious how you would change the motivation. You mean that you'd give them a different objective than to 'save' organics from synthetics?

They aren't even the best solution, even without the oh-so-awesome Synthesis. You're likely right that many wouldn't be willing to be harvested even if the Catalyst were right but at least then we could have a real discussion/argument about it.

As for what I'd change the motivation to, I don't have one solid answer, but a few possible ideas. I'm sure other people could come up with other good ones.

1) The Reapers are preventing anyone from advancing far enough or in an unexpected way to challenge their dominance of the galaxy. This is the simplest one.

2) Organic advancement would somehow destroy the galaxy, similar to the dark energy plot.

3) The Reapers conducting some sort of experiment, waiting for a race to arise that can fulfill some greater purpose that even they themselves can't achieve. This would help explain the interest in humans, though it would still be sad to go from "humans prove their worth" to "humans are special." Leviathan claims the Catalyst is experimenting, but this would have to be developed better and along the main plot, not in an after the fact DLC. It also doesn't line up as well with Sovereign's words and attitude as the other ideas do.

XCOM does this really well.

Spoiler

The aliens invade to push the humans to fight them, take and research their technology, and eventually develop psychic powers to help them fight some unknown, impending threat. The Ethereals, the leading aliens, are very powerful psychics, but have a weak physical body. They hope humans will develop their psychic abilities without losing their strong and hardy physical form. You even find out that all of their troops are the previous failed attempts.

Yeah, I can see that. But I'm just not sure, like I wrote above, if it would really change anything. It might simply go from not believing the Catalyst and pick Destroy to believing the Catalyst but still pick Destroy, because we don't want to get harvested, haha.

Both are perfectly legitimate attitudes and ways to handle the story. Destroy is the least problematic ending.

Ah, that's ok, there's plenty of silly boss fights in games But I will start to watch it!

Would you kindly tell me what you think once you finish Bioshock?

True, Shepard is not a total blank slate. I do wish we had the option to support Cerberus in ME3, at least to a certain point (the story could've still played out more or less the same with this I believe). Or I also would've liked dialogue options that were in favour of the concept of Control TIM talks about, but that Shepard just doesn't like his methods to achieve this goal.
I have not played KotOR, but it sounds nice with the calling out. I'm always in favour of such things (I also hope that things like that happen in Andromeda!).

Yeah, allowing Shepard to consider Control as a good idea would have helped a lot. Having the ability to successfully do it with the Geth would be even better. It would be a much larger version of what TIM does when trying to draw a parallel between Controlling the Reapers and EDI controlling EVA's body.

True, Shepard is not a total blank slate. I do wish we had the option to support Cerberus in ME3, at least to a certain point (the story could've still played out more or less the same with this I believe). Or I also would've liked dialogue options that were in favour of the concept of Control TIM talks about, but that Shepard just doesn't like his methods to achieve this goal.
I have not played KotOR, but it sounds nice with the calling out. I'm always in favour of such things (I also hope that things like that happen in Andromeda!).

The nice thing with KotOR is that you can show an attraction to the Dark Side the entire game. Not only does this work well with the story, but it makes choosing the Dark Side at the end make sense as the conclusion of your character's journey rather than something thrown on at the end to give the player choice for its own sake.

You're right of course, but actually I don't feel like the epilogues leave less room for interpretation in so far that the Shepard people played is still kinda 'there', the mindset of Shepard is still included in these epilogues. They mirror what kind of Shepard you played I'd say, a continuation perhaps, of the Shepard that used to be. I think it's a nice touch with the Paragon/Renegade/Neutral alignment.

Sure, the Shepard-Catalyst changes with Paragon and Renegade, and I've been told actually has slight dialogue changes depending on specific choices. But the epilogues give it a pretty specific attitude and plan for the galaxy. There's room for interpretation on exactly how it goes about achieving its goals, but it's clearly going to be active, or at least a looming threat, rather than as passive as defenders like to believe.

The first post of the thread in your sig is interesting, however I also see that this is only his opinion. He gives the choices a personal value. This is one side, his side. Other people feel different about this. They might think that Control is great. And they have ideas about it, and how their Shepalyst might make it work afterwards. To be completely honest I agree that Control and Synthesis are repulsive, I remember reloading immediately after my first playthrough where I picked Synthesis because of how it all played out. But this is also just my opinion. Not everyone is repulsed by what they saw or were shown.
Even what he says about Destroy has a counter; not everyone considers EDI or the geth alive, so they do not consider it genocide at all. Or maybe they have already killed off the geth, then EDI would be the only one left that's truly affected (from AIs we met). Some people might say even then Destroy is not acceptable, for me it would be. But that's because I feel that one death, if you want to call it that, would save the entire galaxy. And also because I believe that EDI would die for this cause, to enable a future without Reapers for others.

This is true to a point. I never really saw the Geth as alive, but I thought of Legion as special. Legion being the only one we met and never seeing actual Geth society is a big reason. But thematically I know the game was trying to sell me on the idea that the Geth are life. Thankfully Shepard can disagree somewhat, but the game took a side. You pretty much have to tell Tali that the Quarians tried to commit genocide against another species. Likewise, the games take a side on Control being bad. Yes, as players we like choices, but they should fit the story. Remember also that we're only discussing writing. You can argue that offering a choice is good game design, story aside, but that's a different issue.

Also his point with Destroy was that it was unclear exactly what would be affected and how. How a player weighs the different consequences, such as you being willing to sacrifice EDI for the greater good and feeling she'd be ok with that, is going to be an individual thing. However in order to make such decisions, we have to be informed on the consequences.

I actually think both of these merge already, our experience and the Catalyst's explanation. The experience people had from the trilogy gives them enough reason to either believe, not believe or stay neutral towards the Catalyst.

Well, it doesn't. It just doesn't and I've already explained how so.

I see it a bit different I guess. Of course, it would have benefited the story, I totally agree. But on the other hand, why do some people still pick it and defend their decision even when Control in the game was always shown as something bad? It was enough for them to believe that good things still can come out of Control.

Because they accept the whitewash of the consequences by the Catalyst. The series told you it was bad. The Catalyst comes along and says "No, it's totally fine." Some people say "ok then!" and grab on. They might like the idea of Control or just want to not sacrifice the Geth or something else. They are, however, ignoring what the story told them. Maybe someone doesn't care because their player empowerment is more important than a coherent story, and that's perfectly fine when discussing the game. However, that goes more to gameplay and game design than writing. I'm focusing on writing here.

The first is a problem because you weren't able to play Shepard that way (that I remember. Tell me if I'm wrong about that. What stands out most in my mind is Shepard telling TIM "we're not ready.") The second exposes how Destroy affects the Geth and EDI only to make that not the obvious choice.

[Natureguy85]

 

Reapers use sound logic behind their actions. You are not required to like their actions but you can not fault the reason behind it.  Wiping out an entire race sounds like a big thing but on a cosmological scale it is really very insignificant. How many countless races have existed before the races in ME universe. And how many would have existed after it.

 

Sure I can. Even accepting their premise and reasons, the Reapers are a ridiculous "solution" to the supposed problem.

[General TSAR]

People are still arguing about this being brilliant?

[straykat]

People are still arguing about this being brilliant?

 

 

It's a coping mechanism. 

[dorktainian]

This isn't about rights and who has them. What right did the Asari and Salarians have when they decided only they get to be rule makers for the Council and get to decide who joins them and who doesn't?

 

Reapers use sound logic behind their actions. You are not required to like their actions but you can not fault the reason behind it.  Wiping out an entire race sounds like a big thing but on a cosmological scale it is really very insignificant. How many countless races have existed before the races in ME universe. And how many would have existed after it.

 

 

just because the reapers wiped out trillions of sentient creatures, does not mean we shouldn't call them out on their garbage reasoning.

 

 

it's that simple.  sometimes i'm utterly staggered why anyone would choose it.

[kal_reegar]

just because the reapers wiped out trillions of sentient creatures, does not mean we shouldn't call them out on their garbage reasoning.

 

 

it's that simple.  sometimes i'm utterly staggered why anyone would choose it.

 

Well, that's somehow fascinating, isn't it?

 

During the trilogy Shepard can persuade his enemies to do thing against their own best interest. Sometimes using very stupid arguments.

The final boss doesn't shoot you. He try to persuade you. A sort of retaliation.

Bioware writers know that some player are so hopelessy good (they want to save everyone, they want the best for everyone, they want the perfect ending) that they will gladly avoid sacrifice, if an (apparently better) alternative is presented to them. Even if it is presented by the leader of you enemies. Without thinking, without reasoning, without analyzing the political/ethical consequences.

Here, I'm the bad guy but I'm offering you the the best of all possible worlds... will you trust me? I know that you desperately WANT to trust me...

 

We know that the catalyst is not trying to deceive you (the ending slides proves it), but the first time you talk with you have no real reason to trust him about synthesis (or anything else).

 

Synthesis was a masterpiece of gaming psychology.

[dorktainian]

Well, that's somehow fascinating, isn't it?

 

During the trilogy Shepard can persuade his enemies to do thing against their own best interest. Sometimes using very stupid arguments.

The final boss doesn't shoot you. He try to persuade you. A sort of retaliation.

Bioware writers know that some player are so hopelessy good (they want to save everyone, they want the best for everyone, they want the perfect ending) that they will gladly avoid sacrifice, if an (apparently better) alternative is presented to them. Even if it is presented by the leader of you enemies. Without thinking, without reasoning, without analyzing the political/ethical consequences.

Here, I'm the bad guy but I'm offering you the the best of all possible worlds... will you trust me? I know that you desperately WANT to trust me...

 

We know that the catalyst is not trying to deceive you (the ending slides proves it), but the first time you talk with you have no real reason to trust him about synthesis (or anything else).

 

Synthesis was a masterpiece of gaming psychology.

 

indeed

[fraggle]

As for what I'd change the motivation to, I don't have one solid answer, but a few possible ideas. I'm sure other people could come up with other good ones.

 

1) The Reapers are preventing anyone from advancing far enough or in an unexpected way to challenge their dominance of the galaxy. This is the simplest one.

 

2) Organic advancement would somehow destroy the galaxy, similar to the dark energy plot.

 

3) The Reapers conducting some sort of experiment, waiting for a race to arise that can fulfill some greater purpose that even they themselves can't achieve. This would help explain the interest in humans, though it would still be sad to go from "humans prove their worth" to "humans are special." Leviathan claims the Catalyst is experimenting, but this would have to be developed better and along the main plot, not in an after the fact DLC. It also doesn't line up as well with Sovereign's words and attitude as the other ideas do.

 

Spoiler

XCOM does this really well. The aliens invade to push the humans to fight them, take and research their technology, and eventually develop psychic powers to help them fight some unknown, impending threat. The Ethereals, the leading aliens, are very powerful psychics, but have a weak physical body. They hope humans will develop their psychic abilities without losing their strong and hardy physical form. You even find out that all of their troops are the previous failed attempts.

 

Yeah, I was actually reminded a little of the dark energy plot while discussing this. I was always somewhat glad this wasn't the ending we got, but it's not a bad idea I just find what we got a lot more interesting.

 

As for the others, 3 is really a nice idea (not that 1 isn't, but as you stated it is the simplest). And I agree that Leviathan comes across as trying to explain the Catalyst's origins (maybe exactly because of the ending backlash) as an afterthought when it should've been in the main story.

I thought though that them targeting humans was because Shepard challenged them.

 

XCOM sounds interesting and it would surely have been interesting to see something like this play out in ME.

 

Would you kindly tell me what you think once you finish Bioshock?

 

Of course, I hope I remember I'll try to watch and finish it asap.

 

The nice thing with KotOR is that you can show an attraction to the Dark Side the entire game. Not only does this work well with the story, but it makes choosing the Dark Side at the end make sense as the conclusion of your character's journey rather than something thrown on at the end to give the player choice for its own sake.

 

This does sound good, yes. A colleague of mine told me that it's really good as well, but I'm no SW fan, and it's not available on PS3.

 

Sure, the Shepard-Catalyst changes with Paragon and Renegade, and I've been told actually has slight dialogue changes depending on specific choices. But the epilogues give it a pretty specific attitude and plan for the galaxy. There's room for interpretation on exactly how it goes about achieving its goals, but it's clearly going to be active, or at least a looming threat, rather than as passive as defenders like to believe.

 

Okay, yeah, I can agree on the more active part. Then of course there's still the option to simply play without EC, hehe.

 

Also his point with Destroy was that it was unclear exactly what would be affected and how. How a player weighs the different consequences, such as you being willing to sacrifice EDI for the greater good and feeling she'd be ok with that, is going to be an individual thing. However in order to make such decisions, we have to be informed on the consequences.

 

I don't exactly remember how it was pre-EC, was it more or less the same? It was quite alright with EC for me.

 

Because they accept the whitewash of the consequences by the Catalyst. The series told you it was bad. The Catalyst comes along and says "No, it's totally fine." Some people say "ok then!" and grab on. They might like the idea of Control or just want to not sacrifice the Geth or something else. They are, however, ignoring what the story told them. Maybe someone doesn't care because their player empowerment is more important than a coherent story, and that's perfectly fine when discussing the game. However, that goes more to gameplay and game design than writing. I'm focusing on writing here.

 

The first is a problem because you weren't able to play Shepard that way (that I remember. Tell me if I'm wrong about that. What stands out most in my mind is Shepard telling TIM "we're not ready.") The second exposes how Destroy affects the Geth and EDI only to make that not the obvious choice.

 

I guess we should agree to disagree here then And even though I agree it was presented as bad, I believe that even previously badly considered or presented solutions like Control in this case can be good, especially when playing mostly Paragon. In case you played a Renegade the outcomes probably will not bother people anyway.

 

As for the second part, you are right; as far as I know Synthesis was the devs' 'best ending' choice. I don't remember exactly what Shepard said to TIM, but in the end Shepard also considers he/she was wrong about it and that TIM was right Control is possible (So the Illusive Man was right after all). Shepard didn't believe Control would work, but sees that it is, and this time not with the cruel methods of TIM.

[kal_reegar]

 

1) The Reapers are preventing anyone from advancing far enough or in an unexpected way to challenge their dominance of the galaxy. This is the simplest one.

 

2) Organic advancement would somehow destroy the galaxy, similar to the dark energy plot

 

2) that's Me3... if organic advance too much -> than synthetics that will destroy all life.

the game doesn't ask you to personally believe that this scenario s highly probable/inevitable... you just need to accept that the catalyst beleives that this scenario it's highly probable/inevitable.

You can 100% agree with him, or you can call him a stupid broken IV or you can just  doubt about it, admitting that theoretically it's a possible outcome.

 

I mean, even ending 1 requires the reapers believing in something you cannot prove or disprove (someone will advance far enough and than it will challenge our dominance). Why are you prepared to accept this hypothesis as a sound explanation for the reapers behaviour and not the apocalyptic tech singularity threat?

The game shows that peace between different races is possible, so why the reapers should believe that their dominance will be challenged, without their intervention?

[oddball_bg]

It's a coping mechanism. 

Ha,ha,ha!Good one!No,it's not,I can assure you!

[gothpunkboy89]

just because the reapers wiped out trillions of sentient creatures, does not mean we shouldn't call them out on their garbage reasoning.

 

 

it's that simple.  sometimes i'm utterly staggered why anyone would choose it.

 

 

Kills some

 

or

 

Kills all

 

That is the options presented

[General TSAR]

Kills some

 

or

 

Kills all

 

That is the options presented

Considering the fact that once those some reach some arbitrary level of technological development, they are already dead because reasons beyond comprehension/crappy writing.

[gothpunkboy89]

Considering the fact that once those some reach some arbitrary level of technological development, they are already dead because reasons beyond comprehension/crappy writing.

 

And yet the other option is allow them to grow and develop technologically till they reach a point they create a force capable of not only wiping the creators out but ensuring nothing else could rise to take their place.

 

This isn't bad writing this is you plugging your ears to the facts and then complaining.

 

You again have the option of a group that selectively harvests races while keeping the abundance of life in the galaxy fertile and growing. Or the group that will harvest everything then salt the land to ensure nothing else can develop. And if it does start to develop it will be killed as soon as it starts to grow.

 

Between those two choices the Reapers are the better option.

[Natureguy85]

You again have the option of a group that selectively harvests races while keeping the abundance of life in the galaxy fertile and growing. Or the group that will harvest everything then salt the land to ensure nothing else can develop. And if it does start to develop it will be killed as soon as it starts to grow.

Between those two choices the Reapers are the better option.

The Reapers are the only ones present in the story. If the Catalyst can make up a scenario to claim it and the Reapers are necessary, why can't we make up alternative scenarios where they aren't?

[voteDC]

A problem is that we are never allowed to advance to the point that we can control Ai creations. The Protheans had pretty much done that though, they were winning their war against AI and the Reapers harvested them anyway.

What if they hadn't though? Would AI even be an issue under the post Metacon War Prothean Empire?

The Reapers help perpetuate the very issue they claim to want to prevent by stopping cultures advancing to the point where it isn't an issue. They allow the cycle to continue by never allowing a culture to adapt to stop the problem themselves.

[kal_reegar]

A problem is that we are never allowed to advance to the point that we can control Ai creations. The Protheans had pretty much done that though, they were winning their war against AI and the Reapers harvested them anyway.

What if they hadn't though? Would AI even be an issue under the post Metacon War Prothean Empire?

The Reapers help perpetuate the very issue they claim to want to prevent by stopping cultures advancing to the point where it isn't an issue. They allow the cycle to continue by never allowing a culture to adapt to stop the problem themselves.

 

 

If I take the time machine, go back to 1400 AD and tell to medieval man "sorry bro, I must kill you all now and reset civilization to paleolithic, or soon you will create more and more advanced weapons that in the end will be used to kill the human race in a few minutes and possibly destroy every form of complex life on earth", he would probably laugh and say "are you crazy? With this crossbows and swords? With this defective guns? with this trabuchet? ahaahah".

 

He can't even conceive atomic bombs, or bacteriological weapons.

I can. I can conceive them, I can predict their effects, I can predict that probably/possibly they will be used. Even if they've never be used. But their very existence is a plausible threat for all life.

 

The medieval man has the right to try to stop me, to defend the right of humanity to build is own future, to believe that WW3 is avoidable,  but I'm not mad, I'm not saying absurd-illogic things, and my predictions could very well be 100% right.

[gothpunkboy89]

A problem is that we are never allowed to advance to the point that we can control Ai creations. The Protheans had pretty much done that though, they were winning their war against AI and the Reapers harvested them anyway.

What if they hadn't though? Would AI even be an issue under the post Metacon War Prothean Empire?

The Reapers help perpetuate the very issue they claim to want to prevent by stopping cultures advancing to the point where it isn't an issue. They allow the cycle to continue by never allowing a culture to adapt to stop the problem themselves.

 

Protheans were winning by the action of forcing every living organic race above a certain technological level to join them empire at gun point.  Actively manipulating the Asari's genetic development to make a race worthy of being asked to join their empire rather then forced by threat of destruction. And the only way they were capable of doing that was thanks to the Reapers. They left the technological scrapes behind to allow them to advance. They created the Mass Relay Network that allowed them forcibly gather all organics to fight against them.

 

On a time scale claiming they have it under control is like going back in time to the early days of the Industrial Revolution and claiming they have the capacity to handle nano technology and all the possible dangers it presents.

[Dantriges]

The medieval man has the right to try to stop me, to defend the right of humanity to build is own future, to believe that WW3 is avoidable,  but I'm not mad, I'm not saying absurd-illogic things, and my predictions could very well be 100% right.

 

Maybe, OTOH caution is wise, but being ruled by fear turns you into a moron, lashing out against preceived threats, imaginary or otherwise and makes you easy prey for demagogues.

[Obadiah]

I like that the ending encompasses not just everything we've experienced in game, but also demonstrates the destination of the advances of our civilization - AI can progress from the level of the Geth to become as powerful a Reapers (whose state of existence is difficult to describe or comprehend), and organics can develop tools as powerful as the Crucible, etc...

The decision in the Decision Chamber represents the kind of problem that our advanced knowledge can reveal, problems that we would perhaps rather be blissfully unaware of.

I thought it was profound.