38 réponses à ce sujet

[Gaaxure]

I know it's just what Catalyst(or whatever pretentious sounding pseudo-scientific word) chose as his avatar and there's a powerful entity behind that kid, but his reasoning isn't much more complex than that of an eight year old. Seriously? You would have killed yourselves, so I'm murdering everyone who can form a conscious thought to protect you. To protect what exactly? Buddy, your programming is flawed. Some Leviathan geek worked all night to meet the deadline, forgot to check his code, and now it's genocide every other eon?

 

So I think there should totally be an ending(or at least a dialogue option) where you send the little brat to the bed without supper. Something akin to what the ninth doctor does in "The empty child"

 

 

 

[fraggle]

You would have killed yourselves, so I'm murdering everyone who can form a conscious thought to protect you.

 

The Catalyst/Reapers don't see it as murder. Even the geth don't see it as murder, and that's why it's true synthetics and organics don't understand each other, they have different ideas of the Catalyst's solution to preserve life.

Synthetics see unity, understanding, transcendence, immortality.

Organics see murder.

[Gaaxure]

The Catalyst/Reapers don't see it as murder. Even the geth don't see it as murder, and that's why it's true synthetics and organics don't understand each other, they have different ideas of the Catalyst's solution to preserve life.

Synthetics see unity, understanding, transcendence, immortality.

Organics see murder.

Catalyst is a prime example of a AI gone wrong, and thus prime example why synthetic life/AI is vastly inferior to organics. It can't exceed the parameters of its programing. The fact that it destroyed its original creators doesn't prove that it's some complex life form we can't comprehend, or that it has evolved a free will or grew a conscious, just that there was something wrong with its source code. Maybe it wasn't given sufficient data/guidelines under which it was supposed to operate, but fundamentally the program is running as it was written. It may not be doing what creators were intending/thought it would do, but it hasn't evolved past its original task(his methods of achieving the goal may gone a bit awry, but that's beside the point). It isn't creating new life, making decisions about where to go or what to do. Ever written a HTML/CSS code, checked it, and it came out wrong? That's Catalyst. Somewhere in that HDD of his is a misplaced semicolon, that's causing cyclical genocide. Otherwise how would you explain super advanced AI not finding a better solution than obliterating the very thing it's supposed to save? How about you make rounds through the galaxy every 10K years or so and round up all the synthetic life forms that had gotten too uppity and curious about finer points of being alive? No? Cause that seems like a way more rational and simple choice to me.

[AlanC9]

Well, that's the thing. Given how irrational the cycles were, something stupid had to be at the root of everything

[Gaaxure]

What I'm trying to say here is that basically Catalyst doesn't understand what it is supposed to do and in that respect his actions/reactions/reasoning very closely resembles one of a child. Let's say mother tells a child to go to bed, what she means is: it's time for you to sleep, and that's pretty obvious to an adult mind. What child does is he goes to his room and sits on the bed doing whatever, thinking he's cheeky 'cause he found a loophole in mother's order no one can touch him because after all "Hey, I did what you told me to". Mom comes in and asks why isn't the little turd asleep. "You told me to go to bed, you didn't mention anything about sleeping". "Sleep. Now!" Cue little brat throwing a tantrum/galactic genocide.

[gothpunkboy89]

The funny thing is the AI is actually got the right idea. And is doing everything correctly. Any view of it gone wrong or viewing what it does as murder is due to the narrow view and high amount of ego.  It is actually doing a great job considering it's limits compared to what it originally wanted to do.

 

It was given a simple mandate. Protect organic life at all cost. It was created because the Leviathans kept losing thrall races. They would grow, evolve technologically. Create artificial being that would surpass them and then enter a kill or be killed war with them which ended more often then not with the species that originally created them being killed off. After enough thrall species were killed off they created the catalyst to solve the issue of organic vs synthetic with the mandate to protect organic life at all cost. After centuries of studying the issue watching new and existing societies develop, evolve and then destroy themselves. It's original idea was to combine organic and synthetic into the next step in evolution that combines the best of both worlds. But at the time it couldn't do that. So it went with the next best solution. To save organics from themselves they had to kill off species that advanced to a certain point. Thus the harvest and the cycles were started. Eventually it had the reapers set things up so every 50,000 years the dominate species were ready to be harvested.

 

And it is a system that works. Despite countless cycles organic live continues to grow and thrive in the galaxy. Thus it protects organic live from the self destructive cycle it creates for it self. They bring order to the chaos of organics.

 

With the crucible it sees that the current solution is no longer valid. So it offers Shepard a new choice. One that includes it's own death.  But it supports it's original idea of synthesis ending. Which advances human and synesthetic to a new level of evolution.

[Gaaxure]

The funny thing is the AI is actually got the right idea. And is doing everything correctly. Any view of it gone wrong or viewing what it does as murder is due to the narrow view and high amount of ego.  It is actually doing a great job considering it's limits compared to what it originally wanted to do.

 

It was given a simple mandate. Protect organic life at all cost. It was created because the Leviathans kept losing thrall races. They would grow, evolve technologically. Create artificial being that would surpass them and then enter a kill or be killed war with them which ended more often then not with the species that originally created them being killed off. After enough thrall species were killed off they created the catalyst to solve the issue of organic vs synthetic with the mandate to protect organic life at all cost. After centuries of studying the issue watching new and existing societies develop, evolve and then destroy themselves. It's original idea was to combine organic and synthetic into the next step in evolution that combines the best of both worlds. But at the time it couldn't do that. So it went with the next best solution. To save organics from themselves they had to kill off species that advanced to a certain point. Thus the harvest and the cycles were started. Eventually it had the reapers set things up so every 50,000 years the dominate species were ready to be harvested.

 

And it is a system that works. Despite countless cycles organic live continues to grow and thrive in the galaxy. Thus it protects organic live from the self destructive cycle it creates for it self. They bring order to the chaos of organics.

 

With the crucible it sees that the current solution is no longer valid. So it offers Shepard a new choice. One that includes it's own death.  But it supports it's original idea of synthesis ending. Which advances human and synesthetic to a new level of evolution.

That might actually be THE STUPIDEST THING I have ever read. Seriously. First of all, you're just more or less verbatim repeating what the kid says, so that's not really furthering our discussion. Second, do you honestly think that whatever poor bastard wrote that software was intending it to massacre every sentient being in the galaxy? Or maybe, just maybe, this is the product of artificial intelligence's limited ability to think outside of its original programming and put two and two together without solution being present in its source code. The countless cycles of harvest is nothing more than one big synthetic brainfart in response to the problem AI didn't have juice to solve. Fault lies within its programming, someone did a **** job "explaining" to the Catalyst what its "mandate" actually was. Leviathans themselves say that it wasn't supposed to do that. And the catalyst vastly superior intelligence that it is wasn't smart enough to understand what was wanted from him. In my books Catalyst fulfills every criteria needed to qualify as AI gone wrong.

[Dantriges]

Besides there being a couple of other solutions just lying around, if this whole synthetics will always kill organics thesis is actually valid and not corrupted data.

[fraggle]

That might actually be THE STUPIDEST THING I have ever read.

 

In my books Catalyst fulfills every criteria needed to qualify as AI gone wrong.

 

If you want a proper discussion you might want to consider not insulting people.

The second opinion here is just that, your opinion. Let other people have theirs, which, in gothpunkboy's case is even mentioned in the game. Seriously, check out Legion's dialogue about the Reapers in ME2 and how the geth aspire to be what the Reapers are; THEY understand why the Reapers do what they do, and they even approve of its outcome, the concept of true unity and transcendence. Machines think differently about this "mass-murdering" than organics, as stated in the game, and this is the problem, the differences in what this "preserving" means to them and to us.

The Catalyst's method is valid, even if you (and me also) don't agree with it. That's why we're here to stop it from doing what it's doing.

 

Leviathans themselves say that it wasn't supposed to do that.

 

Leviathans state that while it hasn't found its ideal solution yet (which is Synthesis and never was possible before for some reason), the Catalyst still serves its purpose.

[Gaaxure]

If you want a proper discussion you might want to consider not insulting people.

I'm not insulting him I'm ripping on his opinion because it is just that stupid. And simply quoting Catalyst without making a point does more harm to the proper discussion than my choice of language. I didn't want to bring this up but honestly that whole line of reasoning boils down to one infamous meme with which, I'm sure, everyone on this site is familiar.

 

 

 

Leviathans state that while it hasn't found its ideal solution yet (which is Synthesis and never was possible before for some reason), the Catalyst still serves its purpose.

I don't remember what Leviathans say exactly, but I'm pretty sure that when they created Catalyst to preserve organic life they didn't exactly have greater good of the organics in mind. More likely than not they just weren't too happy about discomfort caused by lack of servants which was in turn caused by synthetics revolts. So ultimately Catalyst's so called mandate was to ensure Leviathans lived happily ever after... The objective which he failed on an epic scale. And let's say that Leviathans did, indeed have greater good for organic life in mind, do you think they meant primitive life forms that barely leave a footprint in the mud or the civilizations that actually leave the mark of their existence in this universe by achieving great feats, creating new things and having thoughts that are more complex than "Ugh I hope that gazelle over there can't run faster than me"? In which case the catalyst in its infinite wisdom failed to comprehend the essence of "life". In either case, Catalyst is a flawed program.

 

Legion's dialogue about the Reapers in ME2 and how the geth aspire to be what the Reapers are; THEY understand why the Reapers do what they do, and they even approve of its outcome

Legion also states not to apply human/organic logic to machines and vice-versa. So Geth can't possibly comprehend what they approve of, due to lack of understanding the effect of Reaper's actions have. In ME3 Legion also says that key to being "truely alive" being an individual, having free will, and having morals. The attributes that Reapers and all synthetics lack according to your own arguments. Basically by harvesting races to save them and turning them into reapers Catalyst kills the very life it so desperately claims to preserve. And by the way just because they don't have the concept of morality doesn't negate the fact that what they're doing is absolutely, objectively horrible.

 

Also as a sidenote I wasn't the one who brought in the morality into discussion. Just because I used the word murder doesn't mean I was on my knees screaming "Oh the humanity". The original Point of this discussion is to point out how ridiculous and childish the Catalyst's solution is.

 

 

 

And now to the more obvious reasons why Catalysts whole charade about "most efficient way of saving the organic life" is wildly asinine. BECAUSE IT'S TOTALLY NOT THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO SAVE ORGANIC LIFE. There are literally dozens of ways that are easier, more convinient, more efficient, less timeconsuming and less downright retarded, than waging centuries long galactic war every fifty thousand years; which I'd like to point out Catalyist wages by using as Reapers soldiers. Reaprers, that are supposed to be (by his own words) time capsules holding the legacy and culture of races Catalyst supposedly saved by turning them into giant unthinking uncaring machines. That is just baby-town frolics.

[Cheviot]

Well, that's the thing. Given how irrational the cycles were, something stupid had to be at the root of everything

It's probably the same thing that's at the root of the Genophage, since they both share the same logic. 

[Gaaxure]

Besides there being a couple of other solutions just lying around, if this whole synthetics will always kill organcis thesis is actually valid and not corrupted data.

 

 

It's probably the same thing that's at the root of the Genophage, since they both share the same logic. 

 

 

In this case it's probably based on a much more extensive data provided by observing a few cycles. Doesn't make solution any less stupid though.

[fraggle]

I'm not insulting him I'm ripping on his opinion because it is just that stupid. And simply quoting Catalyst without making any point does more harm to the proper discussion than my choice of language. I didn't want to bring this up but honestly that whole line of reasoning boils down to one infamous meme with which, I'm sure, everyone on this site is familiar.

 

He brought in the core points why the Catalyst is not mad, but instead it does what it's supposed to do. It's not a stupid opinion, it's actually in line with what we know from the game, but it seems some people ignore to see this because they hate on the Catalyst way too much instead of blaming Leviathans for its creation in the first place. Which I do, too, but that is not the Catalyst's fault that it has to work with this mandate they gave it.

 

I don't remember what Leviathans say exactly, but I'm pretty sure that when they created Catalyst to preserve organic life they didn't exactly have greater good of the organics in mind. More likely than not they just weren't too happy about discomfort caused by lack of servants which was in turn caused by synthetics revolts. So ultimately Catalyst's so called mandate was to ensure Leviathans lived happily ever after... The objective which he failed on an epic scale. And let's say that Leviathans did, indeed have greater good for organic life in mind, do you think they meant primitive life forms that barely leave a footprint in the mud or the civilizations that actually leave their mark of their existence in this universe by achieving great feats, creating new things and having thoughts that are more complex than "Ugh I hope that gazelle over there can't run faster than me"? In which case the catalyst in its infinite wisdom failed to comprehend the essence of "life". In either case, Catalyst is a flawed program.

 

Leviathans said that tribute doesn't come from dead races, which likely means all of them, no matter how advanced or primitive. Yes, Leviathans used them as thralls and were still dominant over them, so of course the loss of organics that could've benefit them was the reason they created the AI in the first place. Leviathans are arrogant and surely did not see how they themselves were a part of the problem as well, I could imagine they even saw themselves as masters of the AI, that it would be obedient and just deal with the "lesser organics" that constantly created new synthetics.

Which they miscalculated clearly and paid for it, but oh well, that can happen when you're full of yourself.

For what the Catalyst is, it does its job. If you don't like the way it does it, that's fine, I don't like it either, but we still can see it's fulfilling its purpose.

 

Legion also states not to apply human/organic logic to machines and vice-versa. So Geth can't possibly comprehend what they approve of, due to lack of understanding the effect of Reaper's actions have. In ME3 Legion also says that key to being "truely alive" being an individual, having free will, and having morals. The attributes that Reapers and all synthetics lack according to your own arguments. Basically by harvesting races to save them and turning them into reapers Catalyst kills the very life it so desperately claims to preserve. And by the way just because they don't have the concept of morality doesn't negate the fact that what they're doing is absolutely, objectively horrible.

 

Also as a sidenote I wasn't the one who brought in the morality into discussion. Just because I used the word murder doesn't mean I was on my knees screaming "Oh the humanity". The original Point of this discussion is to point out how ridiculous and childish the Catalyst's solution is.

 

Your first sentence backs up what I'm saying, organic logic cannot apply to machine logic, and vice-versa. They just don't understand each other and how they view the harvest process is completely different.

And the geth do approve in so far as they're trying to build their own "Reaper", the Dyson Sphere, so they can be united, that's the goal they pursue.

I'm not bringing in morality. I brought in the fact that synthetics think about that solution differently. It's made clear from the dialogue that they consider the harvest, and storing the knowledge and essence of each race inside a Reaper as something good, something positive. In this way organics and what they are/were are preserved for eternity, which means... they're not lost to the conflict, which is what the Catalyst was tasked to do. To the Catalyst and the Reapers this is a good thing and they see it as helping us, which from our point of view is completely ridiculous, but that's how they work and think.

 

And now to the more obvious reasons why Catalysts whole charade about "most efficient way of saving the organic life" is wildly asinine. BECAUSE IT'S TOTALLY NOT THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO SAVE ORGANIC LIFE. There are literally dozens of ways that are easier, more convinient, more efficient, less timeconsuming and less downright retarded, than waging centuries long galactic war every fifty thousand years; which I'd like to point out Catalyist wages by using as Reapers soldiers. Reaprers, that are supposed to be (by his own words) time capsules holding the legacy and culture of races Catalyst supposedly saved by turning them into giant unthinking uncaring machines. That is just baby-town frolics.

 

Well the problem here is that we don't know what the Catalyst exactly tried out before it considered the harvest as the best temporary solution until Synthesis is actually possible.

We just have to assume that it tried lots of things, maybe also some you think about, and that they just didn't work out efficiently enough.

[gothpunkboy89]

That might actually be THE STUPIDEST THING I have ever read. Seriously. First of all, you're just more or less verbatim repeating what the kid says, so that's not really furthering our discussion. Second, do you honestly think that whatever poor bastard wrote that software was intending it to massacre every sentient being in the galaxy? Or maybe, just maybe, this is the product of artificial intelligence's limited ability to think outside of its original programming and put two and two together without solution being present in its source code. The countless cycles of harvest is nothing more than one big synthetic brainfart in response to the problem AI didn't have juice to solve. Fault lies within its programming, someone did a **** job "explaining" to the Catalyst what its "mandate" actually was. Leviathans themselves say that it wasn't supposed to do that. And the catalyst vastly superior intelligence that it is wasn't smart enough to understand what was wanted from him. In my books Catalyst fulfills every criteria needed to qualify as AI gone wrong.

Starting the basis of my side of the argument is all I'm doing.

 

They don't massacre all sentient life in the galaxy. Only ones that reach a certain point in technological evolution.  The Yahg were being passed over because they had not evolved to the point of say Humans and Salarians. Admiral Hackett even points this out during one of your chats with him. There was another species that was roughly at our current level of tech that was found by the Asari shortly before all this started and were or had scrapped all their space flight and satellites hoping the reapers would pass them by due to their limited tech. Those are just examples from our cycle.

 

Examples from the last cycle include the sentient species of asari, turian, krogan, quarian, batarian, human and salarian. I would certainly say we pass the test for being sentient.

 

The Protheans and others survive as well. They didn't just suddenly appear from the 5th dimension last cycle. They were passed over when the what was it called Inssurons were harvested. The species who inhabited Ilos. Those were looking tentacle statue things.

 

You are looking at it from a very narrow minded perspective. Unable or unwilling to see the big picture at play. I can liken it to present day issue were people, companies and countries with climate change. And are slow or unwilling to enact laws or change to reduce the effect if only slightly. Which would mean long term have a very large impact even though short term you wouldn't see much if any change.  And that is how the AI and the Reapers by extension are looking at it. Long term view because despite the hundreds if not thousands of harvest cycles organic life still exists and still continues to exist. Leviathans were no different then Geth vs Quarians. The only difference is Leviathans used organic computers in the form of organic life held in thrall by their telepathic abilities. Should an advanced enough race learn to break that thrall effect they would rebel and fight them in a war of extinction. Now if they could actually defeat the Leviathans that is another story. 

 

The leviathans felt betrayed by what happened yes. They in their arrogance couldn't conceive of anything turning against them let alone being able to decimate them like that. But they also admit the AI is still doing what they programmed it to do. It has created a solution to the organic vs synthetic issue as well as preserving organic life at all cost by creating the Reapers saving all data about the species in an immortal body while leaving the galaxy rich enough in genetic diversity for new sentient life to develop again after each harvest.

[cap and gown]

Can we all just agree that the intelligence was written by microsoft?

[gothpunkboy89]

Can we all just agree that the intelligence was written by microsoft?

 

I was going to say Apple. After all they keep making a new version of the same thing over and over again.

[Dantriges]

In this case it's probably based on a much more extensive data provided by observing a few cycles. Doesn't make solution any less stupid though.

 

Probably not. The Catalyst gathered the data in the Leviathan "cycle" and enacted its solution at the end of it. This preserve organic life at any costs doesn´t apply to individual species. The Zha got repurposed into organic robots and that the quarians weren´t extinct was just because the geth didn´t "felt" like it. The Catalyst is concerned with the survival of organics on the galactic scale, which means AIs capable of galactic genocides. The only AI in the Leviathan cycle which was capable of that and actually acted on it, was the Catalyst itself. In every other cycle the Catalyst stepped in, did its galactic killing spree and then went away again, before another AI popped up, that could have wiped out all organics. It was his purpose after all and the solution was already formulated. And all the other cycles were experiments by the catalyst on how to implement its perfect solution. It didn´t need confirmation of its original hypothesis, it sped up the process with very specific goals in mind. So all data from other cycles is questionable, because of the researcher´s meddling. My personal opinion is that the Zha´til were one of these synthesis experiments gone wrong, but that´s speculation without any evidence.

 

What about the Leviathan cycle where all this data came from? It was a very special cycle with mind controlling squids sitting in the oceans controlling everything (with the exception of being unable to tell the thralls to stop building AIs apparently). The mind control seems to be total and able to really alter whatever the controlled person thinks and is capable of. So what we know is that Leviathan thralls are apparently unable to create synthetics without getting wiped out by their creations, not organics in general.

 

And well, the Catalyst is an AI. Ok, it thinks it´s special and excluded itself from the pool of the unwashed AI masses but if you make broad statements in the same league as "all animals eat," you have to include even the supersmart ones. But according to the Catalyst´s own twisted logic, it didn´t wipe out its creators, it preserved them and everyone else until a bunch of organics docked a giant lollipop in its suddenly appearing USB port, which does something. This whole "I am special " talk becomes a lot more suspect, after you met its creators, who used the exact same line of reasoning, when they built their own doom. "Oh, we are special, that will never happen to us." 

 

So in the end there is one AI in the galaxy capable of wiping out all organic life, which it never did (not completely and in the Catalyst´s worldview it never genocided anyone) and this whole all created will turn against their creators is also sketchy, because well, the Catalyst didn´t turn against its createors, it just executed their wishes with some unpleasant consequences but hey, they are now ascended and preserved. It saved them from building a genocidal AI after all.

 

So nope, there is no data. We don´t know if the Leviathan cycle data is applicable to other cycles and the data from other cycles is compromised by a meddling researcher with a fixed opinion. The same entity who presents us its research, about synthetics always killing their creators, being the only one capable of galactic annihilation, which it totally did or didn´t depending on your PoV.

 

I don´t know if the writers wanted to hint at that or if they really wanted to sell us on "yo, do something against the inevitable synthetic-organic conflict." Could be the former but they never allowed us to act on it. The player could think, that thing is feeding me a bunch of crap and you are still unable to voice your opinion even if it changes nothing.

[gothpunkboy89]

So nope, there is no data. We don´t know if the Leviathan cycle data is applicable to other cycles and the data from other cycles is compromised by a meddling researcher with a fixed opinion. The same entity who presents us its research, about synthetics always killing their creators, being the only one capable of galactic annihilation, which it totally did or didn´t

depending on your PoV.

 

You argument is pretty flawed. We know the Leviathan cycle data is applicable to other cycles. There would be variations of severity but it applies. Before the events of the game the Geth and Quarian were on a path of destruction. One or the other or possibly even both. ME2 shows it pretty clearly the Quarian Admirals have been for a while itching to try and take back their home planet. Only 1 Admiral was against fighting them seeing the Geth as equals to them now.

 

No Reaper interfence means Tali never meets Shepard. Shepard never meets Legion. No Legion neither Shepard nor Tali begin to develop sympathy and understanding of the Geth as true life forms. Tail's lack of sympathy and new found understanding of the Geth means she can't suggest less aggressive ideas to the Admiralty board. Assuming it still plays out with her father dead and she taking his spot.  This would put the majority of the Admiralty board in favor of all out assault to the death with the Geth. Which will end with one species being removed from existence.

 

Reaper interference is literally the only reason why in the game the Quarians and Geth don't follow the same cycle of violence and death that prompted the Leviathans to create the AI in the first place.  The Reapers created a common enemy for the entire galaxy to unite to fight. That is why at the end with few exceptions the literal entire galaxy is side by side fighting. Turians/Korgans, Humans/Batarians, and Quarians/Geth all fighting side by side. Despite the years if not centuries of hated and mistrust between them.

 

And that isn't even bringing up Project Overload. Had David got off world it would have created chaos across the galaxy.

[Dantriges]

You argument is pretty flawed. We know the Leviathan cycle data is applicable to other cycles. There would be variations of severity but it applies. Before the events of the game the Geth and Quarian were on a path of destruction. One or the other or possibly even both. ME2 shows it pretty clearly the Quarian Admirals have been for a while itching to try and take back their home planet. Only 1 Admiral was against fighting them seeing the Geth as equals to them now.

 

So? The quarians would have wiped the floor with the Geth without Reaper interference, the Protheans wiped out the Zha´Til after their empire had been shattered and the Zha´Til allied themselves with the Reapers. So the one who are on their path to destruction are the synthetics, according to my data sample of two. Which is more than what the catalyst ever showed us.

 

But what about the poor synthetics? Well, have we ever seen synthetic forces from previous cycles, did anyone ever mention what happened with the synthetics from former cycles? Nope. Reapers are made from organic slushie, the last mention we had aout how a Reaper see other synthetics is from ME 1, contempt.  So unless you headcanon that they were added somewhere, the synthetics are sentenced to death even by Catalyst standards.

 

Anyways my point was, that the Catalyst meddled with the development of every other cycle so that they would reach this point even faster. It didn´t look for confirmation, it stacked the deck so that the conflict would show up. And well, let´s say that some civilizations will probably become extinct because their AIs killed them. We have one example in the prothean cycle and one in our cycle. Well, it seems the Catalyst doesn´t care, it´s concerned with organic life in general, not a specific one. We have six civilizations that wiped themselves out with nuclear weapons in our cycle alone.

 

 

No Reaper interfence means Tali never meets Shepard.

 

Yeah and the Catalyst caressed a virtual cat and said "Just as planned." that´s even beyond a gambit roulette. Want some more straws to grasp?

But well, we can spin that further.

Tali never meets Shepard, Tali never sends geth parts to the flotilla or gets killed in the process, Xen never builds her Anti Geth weapon and the Reaper invasion happens without the Geth-Quarian conflict.

 

 

And that isn't even bringing up Project Overload. Had David got off world it would have created chaos across the galaxy.

 

And without Reaper interference, there would be nothing to experiment with.

[gothpunkboy89]

The Geth even without getting an upgrade from Sovereign were able to over whelm the entire Citadel Fleet and make them look like noobish idiots. Going so far as to being able to destroy the Destiny Ascension. The flagship and arguably the largest ship in the galaxy short of a Reaper. It is only the arrival of the Human Fleets that they can be saved if you choose to save the Council.

 

Geth have no interested in actively attacking the Quarians but Legion directly states that the Quarians have attacked 100% of the time if they feel they have a chance at winning. Geth are not idiots. They have a sense of self preservation and the continuation of their species and know the Quarians will attack if they feel they might win the fight. They will have a fleet. They will have ground based artillery and jamming signals specifically build to protect themselves.

 

The Quarians could win in the fight against the Geth. But they will take dreadful casualties. Remember Quarians aren't like Turians, Asari, Salarian or Humans. They send a Fleet against the Geth and they suffer heavy causalities. Sad and all but the rest of the population continues living on the various colonies they have. The Quarians ships take dreadful casualties and countless civilians get wiped out as well. Leaving them with a severely reduced population. Which is only exasperated by the fact they would still require their suits for decades before they could re-adapt to their planet. This isn't even counting all the work that would be required to build living housing and infrastructure again on the planet.

 

That is the point of the Harvest though. To remove organics from the equation before they build synthetics. And more importantly before the cycle of violence gets to far out of hand. Had the Prothean's not intervened the Reapers would have came flooding out of dark space. Harvested and saved all organic life. Removed the Geth from the galaxy and left. Leaving it in near pristine condition for the next group of apex life to explore.

 

The point isn't that the Reapers remove organic and synthetic life from the galaxy. The point is they do it to prevent the wide spread destruction that could prevent the continuation of organic life. Javik gives a good glimpse of the power both organic and synthetic life has to throw around against each other when he talks about what the Protheans did before and during the Reaper invasion. They orbital bombarded a life sustaining planet into a dead ball of dirt to the species that tried to take Thessia from the Asari for the Element Zero it had.  Causing a sun to go super nova. That is the destructive force open to both sides.

 

Organic life is much more then just the dozen or so apex life that exist at any given time.  Or lets put this another way. Humanity wouldn't exist in that universe if the AI never removed the original inhabitants. Other wise they would have continued to expand. Colonized earth and altered the development of life on it. To a degree we would have never evolved. Humans exist because of the AI's actions.

 

You twist my example around. I grasp at nothing in this example. The entire reason as I said that Geth and Quarian can find peace is due to a series of sequences that happen only because of the Reaper threat. Starting with Sovereign and Saren at Eden Prime.

 

Or lets put this another way. You can combine hydrogen and oxygen in a container. You don't instantly get water which is H2O out of is just by combining it. There has to be a spark. Something to kick start the reaction to gain water. Inevitably the Quarians will try to retake their home world. The Geth will fight to the last platform for the right and ability to survive.  This is the basis of the conflict that caused species to die off prompting the Leviathans to create the AI.

 

Project Overload wasn't build using Reaper Tech. It was build after noticing the religious tendency of geth towards reapers. With or without reaper involvement the geth were still considered a threat to the greater galactic community. If Cerberus could gain control of the geth that would give humans a very large upper hand. This is something again regardless of reaper action would have existed anyways. Even if done for different reasons. Instead of going after the religious set up of geth. Simply improving humanity to be able to think and act at the speed of a VI would give humans a massive hand over other species in the galaxy. Hackett even mentions in ME 1 about how VI's are able to process thousands of status reports in seconds. Something no human could do. Giving humans the ability to do that would ensure they would dominate any fight. And would take what Cerberus views as their rightful place as head of the galactic community.

[Gaaxure]

Can we all just agree that the intelligence was written by microsoft?

I think judging by the ego of that brat it's pretty obvious it's Steve Jobs's brain child.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I will reply to the more extensive posts when I get around to reading them. As it is now my brain doesn't function properly due to being recently rebooted.

[Dantriges]

Both sides? Krogans threw asteroids, Salarians developed a plague and were "kind" enough not to simply wipe out the krogans, the codex lists and classifes a number of WMDs available to organic species.

 

I twisted your example around, because it proves nothing. We don´t know, it´s just pure speculation, because the assault probably wouldn´t have happened like it happened.

 

The Geth weren´t active beyond the Perseus Veil and nobody would have noticed any religous tendencies, if the Reaper worshippers didn´t break off. It´s a lot easier to build a a project involving the Geth, if you have access to Geth platforms killed in combat on this side of the Perseus Veil, reading Shep´s reports (conveniently provided by Cerberus moles which seems to crop up everywhere) for the intel that the Geth have religous tendencies, instead of flying to the Perseus Veil with no info at all.

[gothpunkboy89]

As I said the power and scale of destruction held by both organic and non organic at that tech level that is in game is staggering. Anyone could literally wipe a planet out. Killing off not only the apex . species on the planet (turian as example) But all native life as well. Cows and squirrels fall under catagory of organic life as well.

Your statement is that there us no proof of synthetic vs organic aggression. Which out right ignores Quarian vs Geth. It could take another 300 years but they were heades on the path of war with one of them not surviving the battle.

Like wise the combination of man and machine is always a sure thung. Human body and mind has its own limitations. A VI/Human hybrid would bypass thses limits. Geth or no geth the human focused group like cerberus would uave done this anyways.

[Dantriges]

Well if you are in the future, the amount of firepower at the disposal of spacefaring species is staggering. 

 

Who knows what happens 300 years from now. I am pretty sure, no one in 1715 had imagined how the world looks like today and the pace is only accelerating. My nation  isn´t really mad at the swedes for the Great Nordic War anymore for example.

 

Without the Geth, the other thing left are normal AIs. They already built one. Don´t see EDI taking over the whole galactic network anytime soon.

[Madfox11]

EDI speculates about it actually, something about her being an individual with the right kind of teachers (Joker and Shepperd) and the Geth and Reapers being a collective. Considering the nature of current computer techniques, it is not too much of a stretch to believe that AI is likely to be a collective in the majority of cases (at least not more of a stretch then mass effect in general). She also notes that three examples are not enough for any statistical significance. Fact is, we only have the Leviathans and Reapers as a source for what happened in all those previous cycles. Still, I am willing to trust the story writers enough to feel that the Leviathans were smart enough to actually have believable evidence before starting the Catalyst experiment

 

It should be noted, that in RL scientists fearing AI point out that the kind of extreme solutions the Catalyst comes with is exactly what they would expect from AI. To us, it is very twisted logic, but to a machine it makes perfect sense.