457 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

 

 

1)  You know the Milky Way is under "direct control".

 

2)  You cannot know this about other galaxies (millions of years is nothing to a 13 BILLION year old galaxy). 

 

3)  Encountering entities in other galaxies that endanger the directive would also endanger it for the only place you know you have control. 

But that's exactly why they would want to patrol other galaxies

 

1) If intergalactic travel is possible, then

 

2) Sooner or later, entities from other galaxies will visit the Milky Way.

 

Do you really want to leave them to evolve past the point where you can handle them?  Or let them come to you in their own time, when they can take control away from you?

[straykat]

But that's exactly why they would want to patrol other galaxies

 

1) If intergalactic travel is possible, then

 

2) Sooner or later, entities from other galaxies will visit the Milky Way.

 

Do you really want to leave them to evolve past the point where you can handle them?  Or let them come to you in their own time, when they can take control away from you?

 

I guess I'll let you carry this angle.

 

I'm just sticking with the Catalyst as Problem Solver. Maybe they'd want to Police everything, but I don't think it'd be their first step at least. It isn't even their first step here.

[Medhia_Nox]

@straykat:  Why would they?  They're not biological.  They exist "forever".  They need only stop and "store" biologicals because of their programming.  Because - let's be serious... if the Catalyst was capable of human thought do you think it would not have seen the terrible flaws in its programming after a few hundred cycles? 

 

Honestly - I believe logic engines would come to the conclusions humans seem incapable of.  The universe is vast and you (we, it, they, whatever) are not important as an individual.  If anything about us is important - it is that we are participating in "life" - so is phytoplankton (and is actually far more important for life in general)

 

Policing "galaxies" is well beyond the boundaries of preposterous as far as stories goes... policing "the universe" would be a futile effort and I don't see any logic engine being stupid enough to think it's a worthwhile goal.  We know - through the story - they ARE capable of policing the galaxy (regardless of how insane that is) - but even so, they're failing more and more each cycle. 

 

The Catalyst should have known this inevitability was coming - and it probably would have - if it were anything more than a fancy program.  As it was - the Catalyst was incapable of anything like original thought - synthesis likely strained the boundaries of its programming - a glitch it cobbled together (and also an ode to transhumanism)

 

Personally - I believe true AIs that could think for themselves - would tend toward fatalism.  Only something programmed for "awe and wonder" would act like a human.  Humans act that way because we are moved by WAY more than just logic.  We're an irrational creature capable of moments of reason. 

 

The one thing I applaud in their depiction of the Catalyst?  How supremely incompetent it was over millions of years.  Completely unwilling - or incapable - of any real significant change to its programming. 

[straykat]

@straykat:  Why would they?  They're not biological.  They exist "forever".  They need only stop and "store" biologicals because of their programming.  Because - let's be serious... if the Catalyst was capable of human thought do you think it would not have seen the terrible flaws in its programming after a few hundred cycles? 

 

 

That's kind of another subject to me.. but I'm assuming it's AI because the writers say so. So I'm basing my ideas on this.

 

Personally, I think it's pretty stupid.

[Iakus]

 

Policing "galaxies" is well beyond the boundaries of preposterous as far as stories goes... policing "the universe" would be a futile effort and I don't see any logic engine being stupid enough to think it's a worthwhile goal.  We know - through the story - they ARE capable of policing the galaxy (regardless of how insane that is) - but even so, they're failing more and more each cycle. 

 

Nevertheless, it would be within its mandate to "preserve life" to do so.  As you yourself pointed out, it's doing insane things based on its bizarre "logic"  Even if such a task was preposterous, the Catalyst would expend stupid amounts of resources to make it happen.

 

The Catalyst may not feel the need to patrol the entire universe, but it would surely range as far out as it physically could.  Heck it might not even need Reapers to go out there.  It coudl send drones like what it used to wipe out the Leviathans

 

Reapers as Von Neumann probes?

[Sartoz]

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The fatal thinking flaw for those that are still whipping a dead horse (ie: the the Reaper / Catalyst / Leviathan lovers who won't let go) is this:

 

Reapers et al belong inside  a now dead - finished -ended trilogy.

 

You won't see them in Andromeda.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

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The fatal thinking flaw for those that are still whipping a dead horse (ie: the the Reaper / Catalyst / Leviathan lovers who won't let go) is this:

 

Reapers et al belong inside  a now dead - finished -ended trilogy.

 

You won't see them in Andromeda.

I don't think anyone who has been saying they could go to Andromeda are saying they will show up.

Now their legacy on the other hand could, and arguably should.

[Sartoz]

I don't think anyone who has been saying they could go to Andromeda are saying they will show up.

Now their legacy on the other hand could, and arguably should.

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Well, with three / four possible endings I doubt it.  Unless "by their legacy" you mean Earth's Last Mission = ARKCON project.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

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Well, with three / four possible endings I doubt it.  Unless "by their legacy" you mean Earth's Last Mission = ARKCON project.

Well, the ARKCON project is certainly one if they use Reaper tech, either directly or reverse-engineered, for it. Adds a sense of poetic irony to the Reapers' claim of them being "our salvation through destruction" since the remains of the ones destroyed lead to our salvation from them. 

Other than that, I mean things like the Mass Relays or the Andromeda races having Mass Effect technology, since that whole science is the legacy Reapers left us. 

[Addictress]

Yeah, they're going to need some serious lore gymnastics to explain why the reapers don't affect Andromeda.

[In Exile]

Yeah, they're going to need some serious lore gymnastics to explain why the reapers don't affect Andromeda.

 

They didn't go there. Boom, done. The Catalyst is powered by gibberish logic. That it's too stupid to go to another galaxy is no different from it being too stupid to realize that it was bringing about the genocidal apocalypse it was trying to stop, and that the very idea of a distinction between organic and synthetic life is incomprehensible nonsense. 

[straykat]

They didn't go there. Boom, done. The Catalyst is powered by gibberish logic. That it's too stupid to go to another galaxy is no different from it being too stupid to realize that it was bringing about the genocidal apocalypse it was trying to stop, and that the very idea of a distinction between organic and synthetic life is incomprehensible nonsense. 

 

If it's too stupid, then I obviously picked the right choice. Destroy! Hell yeah!

[Addictress]

They didn't go there. Boom, done. The Catalyst is powered by gibberish logic. That it's too stupid to go to another galaxy is no different from it being too stupid to realize that it was bringing about the genocidal apocalypse it was trying to stop, and that the very idea of a distinction between organic and synthetic life is incomprehensible nonsense. 

Why is the distinction between organic and synthetic life complete nonsense to you? Are you a pro-transhuman, sympathetic-to-artificial-intelligence, advanced-ethics futurist or something? Pretty sure people still consider the distinction to be a controversial one.

[Addictress]

Are you gonna get barcode tattoos on your bald head and jam at industrial raves in warehouses in the industrial district and get high on cocaine sniffed off microchip wafers like some 90's conception of a cyber hacker or something, like what is this

[In Exile]

Why is the distinction between organic and synthetic life complete nonsense to you? Are you a pro-transhuman, sympathetic-to-artificial-intelligence, advanced-ethics futurist or something? Pretty sure people still consider the distinction to be a controversial one.

 

It has nothing to do with being futurist, or even pro the idea we should have AI. It's that it makes no sense to say there's a commonality between being made out of meat in a way that could set up two sides to a conflict. It's nonsense. 

 

The distinction IRL is not between synthetic and organic life. It's between the human mind - which happens to be biological - and the idea that other minds are possible. The concept of another biological mind, the way we recognize it, is pretty controversial. We have lively debates about whether closely related animals have consciousness in a way that's even comprehensible to us. If we think simply about the kinds of possible minds we might have, we could imagine entirely biological minds that are so alien to us we could not even comprehend them as being capable of thought. 

 

Let's assume AI is even possible. A mind we design to be like a human mind - but made out of machines - could be a lot more like us than a biological mind that evolved in another biosphere. It's not that conflict with other minds is impossible, or that another group out there might want our extinction - it's that AI (and mechanic minds) are not necessarily any more or less alien that biological minds, and not anymore intrinsically likely to want to exterminate us (or even be without any kind of intention at all). 

 

Bacteria - like syphilis - are organic life. These are things that by their nature are potentially a danger to us. It's still possible a single as yet to evolve bacteria could lead to the extinction of our entire species. Setting up an existential concept out of being made out of meat is incoherent. 

[Addictress]

It has nothing to do with being futurist, or even pro the idea we should have AI. It's that it makes no sense to say there's a commonality between being made out of meat in a way that could set up two sides to a conflict. It's nonsense. 

 

The distinction IRL is not between synthetic and organic life. It's between the human mind - which happens to be biological - and the idea that other minds are possible. The concept of another biological mind, the way we recognize it, is pretty controversial. We have lively debates about whether closely related animals have consciousness in a way that's even comprehensible to us. If we think simply about the kinds of possible minds we might have, we could imagine entirely biological minds that are so alien to us we could not even comprehend them as being capable of thought. 

 

Let's assume AI is even possible. A mind we design to be like a human mind - but made out of machines - could be a lot more like us than a biological mind that evolved in another biosphere. It's not that conflict with other minds is impossible, or that another group out there might want our extinction - it's that AI (and mechanic minds) are not necessarily any more or less alien that biological minds, and not anymore intrinsically likely to want to exterminate us (or even be without any kind of intention at all). 

 

Bacteria - like syphilis - are organic life. These are things that by their nature are potentially a danger to us. It's still possible a single as yet to evolve bacteria could lead to the extinction of our entire species. Setting up an existential concept out of being made out of meat is incoherent. 

You are missing the old (like biblically old) concept of "made in God's/man's image" and a special meaning attached to the "artifice of man" - that is, things which are designd by the human mind and crafted by human hands have a special significance?

[In Exile]

You are missing the old (like biblically old) concept of "made in man's image" and a special meaning attached to the "artifice of man" - that is, things which are designd by the human mind and crafted by human hands have a special significance?

 

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. 

 

AI could be made by aliens. But my point is that AI is no less (or more) alien than aliens. Thinking beings are likely to come into conflict with one another. They might wage wars on one another - even genocidal wars. But you don't need weird differences between meat and metal. Hell, life based on silicon rather than carbon wouldn't be "organic" in the way we technically use that term, but it could (as much as any kind of alien life) be spontaneous and naturally occurring life, so in that sense not be "synthetic". 

 

AI could also be made out of meat. Like, there's no necessary reason why a species couldn't try and use cloning and gene therapy to create artificial life and artificial minds. 

[Addictress]

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. 

 

AI could be made by aliens. But my point is that AI is no less (or more) alien than aliens. Thinking beings are likely to come into conflict with one another. They might wage wars on one another - even genocidal wars. But you don't need weird differences between meat and metal. Hell, life based on silicon rather than carbon wouldn't be "organic" in the way we technically use that term, but it could (as much as any kind of alien life) be spontaneous and naturally occurring life, so in that sense not be "synthetic". 

 

AI could also be made out of meat. Like, there's no necessary reason why a species couldn't try and use cloning and gene therapy to create artificial life and artificial minds. 

That's technically true, but it's still a controversial distinction, for the root reason I mentioned above. It's the same underpinning root fascination that lends Blade Runner and Pinnocchio a lot of their charm.

 

It's not merely what an artifical construct that replicates mental processes can achieve, even if perfectly and exactly the same as a biological mind, or exceeding a biological mind - the fact that it was originating from human design/built (not originating independently in nature apart from sentient intentional construction) means something.

 

 I mean I think you're saying that encountering another sentient mind, like AI, is like encountering an alien mind in nature. Soemthing which arose apart from you and can think by itself. It's just as independent and good as a biological mind, no matter how it's made.

 

But how it's made is important to a lot of people. A mind arising from nature is never gonna be accepted as a mind arising from artifice.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

They didn't go there. Boom, done. The Catalyst is powered by gibberish logic. That it's too stupid to go to another galaxy is no different from it being too stupid to realize that it was bringing about the genocidal apocalypse it was trying to stop, and that the very idea of a distinction between organic and synthetic life is incomprehensible nonsense. 

 

Another poster is fond of pointing out, "tribute does not flow from a dead race". What they didn't point out, and what the reapers are too dumb to realize apparently, is that tribute doesn't flow TO a dead race either. And the reapers killed off the beneficiaries of this supposed tribute.

 

 

Given the tribute idea, their goal, despite having murdered the beneficiaries of the tribute, was to preserve life in the domain of their dead builders, ie the MWG.

 

Like Iakus and others though I'm cynical enough to expect that since the reapers didn't travel to Andromeda to 'protect' it, all the organic life in Andromeda should have been destroyed by now in a  technological singularity.

 

[In Exile]

That's technically true, but it's still a controversial distinction, for the root reason I mentioned above. It's the same underpinning root fascination that lends Blade Runner and Pinnocchio a lot of their charm.

 

It's not merely what an artifical construct that replicates mental processes can achieve, even if perfectly and exactly the same as a biological mind, or exceeding a biological mind - the fact that it was originating from human design/built (not originating independently in nature apart from sentient intentional construction) means something.

 

But I don't see how that's a real distinction. For one, it's not necessarily one any one being would built. Like, the very premise is that species A designs a form of life, Species Z, that wipes out species B. But more to the point, I don't see how from the perspective of species B the fact that Species Z - which is hostile - is designed by random accident of nature, random accident of design (typically how it goes, as people rarely set out to create genocidal AI), or intentional design. Plus if you're inclined toward a form of creationism, all life is synthetic in that way. 

[Addictress]

But I don't see how that's a real distinction. For one, it's not necessarily one any one being would built. Like, the very premise is that species A designs a form of life, Species Z, that wipes out species B. But more to the point, I don't see how from the perspective of species B the fact that Species Z - which is hostile - is designed by random accident of nature, random accident of design (typically how it goes, as people rarely set out to create genocidal AI), or intentional design. Plus if you're inclined toward a form of creationism, all life is synthetic in that way. 

that's why it's a dividing issue tho, because people don't want to accept the implications that it lends a support to the validity of creatonism or intelligent design or whatever. Or the people who do believe in creationism, or grew up with creationism as a child (and then later grew out of it) will feel like 'yah right on' or nostalgic somehow.

 

So, in at least three ways it pokes feels.

[Gothfather]

I wish to point out that just because the Leviathans saw this problem only on a galactic scale, and specifically to their slave races, the Catalyst is not necessarily so limited.  Is in fact hinted to take a much 'broader" view than the Leviathans ever did.  At no point are we told the Reapers only operate in our galaxy.

So your evidence that the reapers are extra galactic is that the we are not told they aren't? Hahaha What utter crap. We are SPECIFICALLY told the Catalyst CONFINED its search for a solution to the milky way. That is a specific limitation. And the fact that we are not told they only operated in our Galaxy DOESN'T confirm any evidence they did operate in other galaxies. There is in fact NO evidence that they went to any extra galactic systems all we know is that they appear to hibernate in dark space. Which isn't even a system for all we know but an empty region outside the milky way hense why it is DARK where they can't be stumbled upon my lesser races. There is significantly MORE evidence that they are confined to the milky way then there is evidence that they operate extra galacticly. In fact there is no evidence that they do so. It isn't a valid argument to say "well they don't specifically say they operated only in our galaxy so that is proof they operate outside it. In fact that isn't even evidence to support your position at all yet i have specific examples of the catalyst limiting itself to just the milky way.

[Addictress]

So your evidence that the reapers are extra galactic is that the we are not told they are? Hahaha What utter crap. We are SPECIFICALLY told the Catalyst CONFINED its search for a solution to the milky way. That is a specific limitation. And the fact that we are not told they only operated in our Galaxy DOESN'T confirm any evidence they did operate in other galaxies. There is in fact NO evidence that they went to any extra galactic systems all we know is that they appear to hibernate in dark space. Which isn't even a system for all we know but an empty region outside the milky way hense why it is DARK where they can't be stumbled upon my lesser races. There is significantly MORE evidence that they are confined to the milky way then there is evidence that they operate extra galacticly. In fact there is no evidence that they do so. It isn't a valid argument to say "well they don't specifically say they operated only in our galaxy so that is proof they operate outside it. In fact that isn't even evidence to support your position at all yet i have specific examples of the catalyst limiting itself to just the milky way.

That's what I thought - the original programmed objective was to protect life within the Milky Way, specifically.

 

It's just strange that, considering the huge scope of the trilogy and how 'advanced and incomprehensible' the reapers were supposed to be, they wouldn't ever question that peculiar facet of the objective, when they had already stretched principle enough to think in advance about protecting organic life via wiping out only the higher layers of evolved civilizations because it could be permanently eradicated for good otherwise. If they can think with the kind of foresight to envision that, then I would presume they can envision a scenario in which races from other galaxies evolve and advance unchecked to the point they can travel between galaxies and wreak havoc on this one.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

It's going to take some serious handwaving to explain why there are no Leviathans or Reapers in Andromeda.

 

Not really.

It could be that the Reapers go to one galaxy after completing a cycle there they would head back to the other galaxy and on and on. In that case by the time the ARK fleet gets to Andromeda all of the Reapers in the Milky Way would be either be destroyed, controlled, synthesized, or busy harvesting advanced life in the Milky Way, and they wouldn't be there.  

 

Also the Reapers are believed to be in space between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies in between cycles, if they went to Andromeda at all, and given that Andromeda is larger than the Milky Way, it's very plausible that a cycle there for harvesting all advance life in Andromeda would take them a lot longer. 

[Il Divo]

Nevertheless, it would be within its mandate to "preserve life" to do so.  As you yourself pointed out, it's doing insane things based on its bizarre "logic"  Even if such a task was preposterous, the Catalyst would expend stupid amounts of resources to make it happen.

 

The Catalyst may not feel the need to patrol the entire universe, but it would surely range as far out as it physically could.  Heck it might not even need Reapers to go out there.  It coudl send drones like what it used to wipe out the Leviathans

 

Reapers as Von Neumann probes?

 

This doesn't follow. The Catalyst follows a bizarre set of logic, but we can't extrapolate from that what the Catalyst would (or wouldn't) do, like deciding to venture out beyond the Milky Way. That's what inherently makes the Catalyst such a bizarre entity.

 

Perfect example: he openly gives the keys to shutting him down via Destroy, even while acknowledging that it's a non-solution to his idiotic Organic-Synthetic conflict or his absolute failure to immediately grab the Citadel and shutting down the relay network, which the Reapers seem able to do at their leisure after Cronos Station.  

 

We would have to start with the above scenarios if we're really going to get into the meat of why the Reapers have to be in Andromeda.