207 réponses à ce sujet

[Caz Neerg]

DuffyMJ wrote...
He can be a renegade all he wants, but persisting in actions despite the condemnation of the mass consensus (the citadel council, the alliance, likely even the terra firma party, and every single alien species in the galaxy) pretty firmly places him in the "bad" corner.  I don't care what his external representations advocate/claim, they are irrelavant.  You can say "I'm doing the right thing because I truly believe in my heart of hearts that it's for the best!" but that doesn't mean **** because the ends don't justify the means, you're defined by the ethics of your actions which can be judged by consistency, fairness, and respect to societal mores and the greater social consensus.  Humanity has already written the universal declaration of human rights, which can be easily scaled to apply to all thinking/sentient beings in the galaxy.  You may not personally subscribe to that code, but when you're making decisions that impact entire societies, you better damn well respect society's values.  Shepard was chosen to represent humanity in the Spectres because he's supposed to be the best humanity had to offer, not a ****g punk who thinks it's okay to be a total dbag to "get the job done".  Seriously, please stop trying to rationalize poor ethics, I feel like I'm talking to Dick Cheney or something.

Ethics aren't "poor" just because you don't agree with them.  Maybe you didn't notice, but the "mass consensus" in ME2 was wrong about pretty much everything.  The number of people who believe in something has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it is "good" or "bad."  Only whether or not it is popular.

Your opinion is that the ends don't justify the means, but you state it as if it were a fact.  The greater social consensus is only relevant from a moral standpoint if a given individual decides it is.  It is only relevant from a practical standpoint to the extent that people have the power to inflict negative consequences on you for failure to adhere to it.  If Shepard had respected societies values in ME1, everybody would be dead already, because he would have meekly accepted the lockdown of the Normandy.  If he respected society's values in ME2, he would have rejected Cerberus the first time he had a chance to get off the Normandy, and again, everybody would have gotten wiped out.  Majority opinions are not rendered correct by the fact that a majority holds them. 

Shepard does represent the best humanity has to offer, and every individual player gets to choose whether or not that means he is Paragon, Renegade, or something in between.

[Alex_The_Bloody]

Im still leaning towards an AI kinda thing no way he's just a super Bill Gates theres def something going on with him and i wouldnt put him down as good or evil but i fully believe we dont know his true motivations its def more than just looking out for huaman interests. While AI isnt really the right term i guess i think hes far more than just a normak human

[KaineDamo]

After completing the game I've come to the conclusion that he's a bad guy.



I think the Illusive Man had it in his mind since the beginning, when he wanted to resurrect Shepard, to use Shepard to gain Collector/Reaper technology. That is the real reason why he went through so much expense. Because if he could get just a little Reaper technology, it would make up for all that money spent raising Shepard from the dead.



Plus, when EDI spills the beans on previously restricted information, EDI states that there are only a handful of Cerberus cells active at once, so the Illusive Man can PERSONALLY oversee their activities.



I find it too hard to believe that he had no knowledge of those biotic children being experimented on. Plus all the shady Cebrerus stuff from the first game, like the Rachni and husk experiments. Not to mention the incident at Akuze. The Illusive Man must have had some knowledge if not flat out personal involvement in all these activities.

[Abirn]

DuffyMJ wrote...

Abirn wrote...

When you have a race of hyper advanced machines about to wipe out the galaxy then the ends do justify the means. We aren't talking stupid politics here people. This is a matter of survival not just for humans but every species in the galaxy,

It seems some people don't respect the seriousness of the situation.

Sorry but if you go all "ends justify the means", then you're simply proving the Reapers correct that we are an error that needs to be cleansed.   The entire game goes out of its way beating into your head that civilizations cannot handle/mis-use the adaptation of too-far-advanced technology when they have the chance to do so, and yet here you are advocating that position.  Unbelievable.

The reapers can be correct for all I care.  The primary function of all biological creatures is survival.  If somebody is threatening my extinction I'm going to fight back regardless of what I'm using to do it.  2 sticks, knives, pistols, nuclear weapons,  hyper advanced technology from the very enemy seeking to destroy us, it doesn't matter, survival is the primary drive behind all life. 

[Caz Neerg]

Say he was personally involved in all of those things. So what? If it helps defeat the Reapers, it is worth it. And the fear of people getting indoctrinated from being on the Collector base really doesn't seem rational. Indoctrination takes time, and the data from the team that was indoctrinated on the dead Reaper should give Cerberus a good idea of how much time. It really wouldn't be hard to just rotate people out of the station periodically so that nobody spends enough time there to get indoctrinated.

[Alex_The_Bloody]

[quote]Caz Neerg wrote...

[quote]DuffyMJ wrote...
He can be a renegade all he wants, but persisting in actions despite the condemnation of the mass consensus (the citadel council, the alliance, likely even the terra firma party, and every single alien species in the galaxy) pretty firmly places him in the "bad" corner.  I don't care what his external representations advocate/claim, they are irrelavant.  You can say "I'm doing the right thing because I truly believe in my heart of hearts that it's for the best!" but that doesn't mean **** because the ends don't justify the means, you're defined by the ethics of your actions which can be judged by consistency, fairness, and respect to societal mores and the greater social consensus.  Humanity has already written the universal declaration of human rights, which can be easily scaled to apply to all thinking/sentient beings in the galaxy.  You may not personally subscribe to that code, but when you're making decisions that impact entire societies, you better damn well respect society's values.  Shepard was chosen to represent humanity in the Spectres because he's supposed to be the best humanity had to offer, not a ****g punk who thinks it's okay to be a total dbag to "get the job done".  Seriously, please stop trying to rationalize poor ethics, I feel like I'm talking to Dick Cheney or something.
[/quote]
 First off while Cerberus may have a shady past the council does **** all to save humanity and they say its a human matter so were not getting involved so in your opinion its better for colonists to die then for Shepard to step on a few toes and maybe god forbid affend somebody. Im all for moral ethics etc but keep in mind morals are subjective earthlings cant even agree wether abortion is right or wrong theres no moral consensus on that. And at the end of the day when your dealing with plqanets and entire galaxies are at stake is it truly more important to do things ethicly as opposed to getting things done. Is it ethical to rewrite the geth not sure but if i dont the entire universe could be wiped out. Bioware gives you big desicions for a reason not to say while you can be a dick its better to be a paragon. No the games set up so both paths are viable as its up to you to decide how far youll go. Thats not to say you couldnt go to far do something truly evil but again if you kill one person to save Billions are you still evil?  Im just saying its not that simple its not  but if it comes down to saving a society or not becauseyou might offend them im sure theyd rather be saved and be a bit pissed then not. And please im talking about the mass effect verse strictly not real world stuff im not a republican not fond of war but things are rarley so simple as the wright way and thw wrong way.

[Alex_The_Bloody]

Plus shep is never stated as being the best humanity has to offer ethics wise but the best they have to offer in terms of getting the job done notice you could pick the ruthless backround which states very clearly you let people die to acomplish your mission its up to you whether hes a dbag or not bioware never says that shep is some sort of moral pinnacle just a damn fine soldier sure you could play him as an ethicley superior person but it was in no way implied

[Alex_The_Bloody]

Abirn wrote...

DuffyMJ wrote...

Abirn wrote...

When you have a race of hyper advanced machines about to wipe out the galaxy then the ends do justify the means. We aren't talking stupid politics here people. This is a matter of survival not just for humans but every species in the galaxy,

It seems some people don't respect the seriousness of the situation.

Sorry but if you go all "ends justify the means", then you're simply proving the Reapers correct that we are an error that needs to be cleansed.   The entire game goes out of its way beating into your head that civilizations cannot handle/mis-use the adaptation of too-far-advanced technology when they have the chance to do so, and yet here you are advocating that position.  Unbelievable.

Yes see when your dealing with entire planets and galaxies the end does justify the means what are you retarded i mean what good would being all nice be if all life in the galaxy is wiped out nobody would give a **** if the ends justified the means we survive or we dont no room for fing about there man. By your logic its better for a species to die off completley than offend the values morals of another ya that makes sense. Not that you have to go out of your way to be a dick but even in ME 1 you have to kill either ash or kaiden hard choices are what mass effects about

The reapers can be correct for all I care.  The primary function of all biological creatures is survival.  If somebody is threatening my extinction I'm going to fight back regardless of what I'm using to do it.  2 sticks, knives, pistols, nuclear weapons,  hyper advanced technology from the very enemy seeking to destroy us, it doesn't matter, survival is the primary drive behind all life. 

[Freestorm Skinn]

Even in the ASCENSION novel, it's clear Drew Karpyshyn thinks he's a bad guy.

[caTASHtrophy]

TIM is a hologram, he is nothing.



its sovereign in disguise!!!







kidding ... but who knows!?

[Alex_The_Bloody]

Caz Neerg wrote...

korraz wrote...

Two words. David Xanatos.

Skadhi1 wrote...


Let's look at the present counsel races. The Asari at least agreed to the genocide of an entire race- the Rachni. No doubt the Solarians were complicit.

The Turians, along with the Asari and Solarians, then released the genophage on the Krogan - the same race that had helped them destroy the Rachni. Nice little reward to the former heros, eh?

You might should keep in mind, that the Rachni were about to kill everyone and the Krogans were on their way to Galaxy Domination? The Genophage is NOT genocide, it just controls the birthrate of the Krogans, who would otherwise simply overrun the entire galaxy. At first I felt exactly like that about the Krogans, if you spend some time with Mordin and then go to Tuchanka, you see the justification for that. Most of the Krogans are alienhating, bloodlusting combatmachines, with Wrex being an extreme exception. If they could, they would very happily kill everyone in the galaxy. Like Mordin said: You don't give A-Bombs to cavemen. He even admits it was all the fault of the Salarians, getting the Krogans of Tuchanka and handing them weapons. They were and are simply not ready for this, hell, most of them are half animals!
Saying that, I am a big friend of the Krogans and I really like Grunt and Wrex.

Your analysis of the Krogan is fair, but the game still shows curing the genophage as a Paragon position to take.  Hopefully BioWare will preserve the integrity of the story by having that turn out to be a really bad idea in the long run, rather than having all Paragon decisions lead to the best outcomes just because they are "Good," even when logic and the nature of the characters/cultures dictate a different result.

 However you later find out the Rachni may have been forced into war by the reapers. I think the point of the game is with dealing with things on such a huge scale simple write and wrong begin to break down hence the fact that being a renegade or paragon arent mutally exclusive you can be both. Take the genophage the krogan are a very war like race and could very easily threaten galactic peace plus the krogan wiped out the rachni entirley and the krogan rebellions proved they could not be bargained with however there a dying race because of the genophage so whats the right call both have negative and positive possible outcomes. The game asks you to make the call but never says this is the right way this is the wrong way. Even Saren thought at the end of the die he was saving organic life and Shep may be faced with a similer choice in ME3.  Id say the game never gives you a right way or a wrong way as its never really as simple as be a dick or be a nice guy.

[Alex_The_Bloody]

DuffyMJ wrote...


Sociopaths are unbiased, they're physically incapable of empathy .  Fairness is not just about "pretending bias doesn't exist", it's about consistency.  You can have a point of reference or view, as long as you are consistent with it.  You can't argue that fairness is subjective, that's total nonsense.  Consistency is measurable.  Sentencing guidelines are measurable.  Attributions are measurable.  Discretionary decision-making is measurable in longitudinal study. 

It's impossible to be a pure renegade and consistent in Mass Effect.  It means you do not value ethics and only value ends.  This is proven by the similarities between the genophage research decision and the collector station decision.  For paragons, the decision in both cases is reconciling the ethics of the research (humans ground into bits against their will, live krogans experimented upon) and the promise of the research (putting the fate of an entire species in the hands of your ship's doctor who finds live subject experiments disgusting/preventing mass genocide in the hands of someone with no morals or ethics whatsoever).   For Renegades the means don't matter at all, all that matters is the results.

You can literally prevent over 3/4 of violent crime in America by incarcerating every adult male 18-24.  That's something you would agree with doing, right?  The ends justify the means, after all.  Think of how many women wouldn't be raped, how many people wouldn't be dead or robbed or otherwise inconvenienced if only we would enact a law stipulating that.  Who cares about whether it's fair or not?  That's completely subjective, anyway, right?

You sir are a goof ball. its one thing to say morals and ethics *should* be objective is one thing but to say they are is just so stupid its almost hard to argue.  The fact that people argue about whats write or wrong all the time proves your full of ****. To some smoking weed is super wrong some dont some think abortion is evil some dont and some people eat puppies yand some people will punch you in the face for eating a puppy oull find many poeple who disagree on how wrirte or wrong something is. Now do we have certian consesnus as a society as a whole yes killing is genneraly fround upon but again in self defense become JUSTIFIED by your logic anybody that murdered anybody would instantley be killed cuz murder is wrong no grey area right? This is all just so silly cuz right and wrong is a purley human mental construct and as such deosnt really apply to the real world nearly as much as we'd like it to. Thats not to say higher minded ideals dont have a place but we exist in a world of grey areas not black and white and thats why mass effect is so interesting as it gives you big choices were right or wrong doesnt easily apply.

[Alex_The_Bloody]

Oh and your point about sociopaths is completley irrelevant as laws are not based soley around empathy nor are morals people didnt eat shelfish because they thought it amoral. Not to mention the fact that its not like a sociopath is automaticley a killer thats a misconception and its just not true.

[Alex_The_Bloody]

I dont think your given enough information in the game to determine wether hes good or evil. I mean hes for sure an end justifies the means type guy but i never saw him do anything directly evil, expressed concern over jack backstory etc. so while he could be full of **** and i fully believe he has some shady intentions i would say evil might be to strong a word. Thats why i like the idea of being an AI in that his descions are purley based on logics and strategies and no concern for morals because if he turned out to be just like an evil bill gates that would be pretty lame

[Ultra Prism]

he is 200% Renegade thats it

[i7206]

TheShady wrote...

Obviously bad. He doesn't like the top options of the conversation wheel.

Lol. 

Bioware will pander to the paragons(just like ME1 ending).  TIM wil be bad, and all the paragons will feel justified in making the "right" decision. 

[Collider]

I am leaning towards the Illusive Man being someone with the ultimate good at heart. That being humanity safe enough in the galaxy not to be threatened. At the same time, his methods of doing so are questionable at best.

[tausra]

I think he has good intentions but is willing to do horrible things to reach his goals. He will advance humanity, even if it means destroying the competition. Personally His Husk, Biotic and Rachni experiments have soured him in my eyes. Selling humanity's collective soul to when a galactic p*****g match, it just doesn't seem worth it.

[jasonontko]

DuffyMJ wrote...

Caz Neerg wrote...

DuffyMJ wrote...
Well then frankly, you're wrong.  Justice is not about subjectivity, it's about fairness.  Procedures of justice have nothing to do with subjective values, and are all about fairness and equality.  If you let your subjective passions/beliefs guide your judgment, then you're not a "good guy", you're horribly biased.  

The nature of justice (and whether or not it is important to be just) is a matter of opinion, not fact, so it isn't possible for any view on it to be wrong.  Only for you to agree or disagree with it.  And there is no such thing as a person without bias, there are just people who admit their bias and those who try to pretend it doesn't exist.  Your subjective beliefs always guide your judgement.  The idea that decisions should be based on whatever promotes fairness and equality *is* a subjective belief.

Sociopaths are unbiased, they're physically incapable of empathy .  Fairness is not just about "pretending bias doesn't exist", it's about consistency.  You can have a point of reference or view, as long as you are consistent with it.  You can't argue that fairness is subjective, that's total nonsense.  Consistency is measurable.  Sentencing guidelines are measurable.  Attributions are measurable.  Discretionary decision-making is measurable in longitudinal study. 

It's impossible to be a pure renegade and consistent in Mass Effect.  It means you do not value ethics and only value ends.  This is proven by the similarities between the genophage research decision and the collector station decision.  For paragons, the decision in both cases is reconciling the ethics of the research (humans ground into bits against their will, live krogans experimented upon) and the promise of the research (putting the fate of an entire species in the hands of your ship's doctor who finds live subject experiments disgusting/preventing mass genocide in the hands of someone with no morals or ethics whatsoever).   For Renegades the means don't matter at all, all that matters is the results.

You can literally prevent over 3/4 of violent crime in America by incarcerating every adult male 18-24.  That's something you would agree with doing, right?  The ends justify the means, after all.  Think of how many women wouldn't be raped, how many people wouldn't be dead or robbed or otherwise inconvenienced if only we would enact a law stipulating that.  Who cares about whether it's fair or not?  That's completely subjective, anyway, right?

Dude some timeends do justify the means and sometimes they dont.  Means are costs and sometimes they are high costs to get even a higher reward.  You just want everything given to you with no costs.  I fell empathy for the Krogan but lets face it, they are not every going to play nice with others.  Genophage keeps them from fighting a galactic war.  Where you empathy for the Krogan's victims .   Sometimes there are no painless solution to problems. 

[tausra]

With the Krogans I blame the Salarians and their impatience. As Mordin put it they were giving nukes to cave men and hoping for the best. They uplifted a society totally unready for a role in galactic society, and then complained their new soldiers were too good at soldiering. The genophage is worse than a war crime, it's a death sentence for an entire species.

[Andorfiend]

TIM claims to want to advance humanity above all else and points to the neglect of the council as a reason why this needs to be done. He then proceeded to 'advance' humanities interests by wiping out several colonies thereby setting human expansion back by decades.

He murdered Alliance soldiers and Officers thereby weakening the human military.

He experimented with alien organisms which resulted in the release of unfriendly Rachni which could have led to the destruction of all of the Citadel species as well as humanity, he may well have also seeded human colonies with Thorian spores. Either action could trigger the Council races to knock humanity back to Earth and pin them there, if not to commit genocide against us.

He abducted a significant portion of humanities biotic children and conducted lethal experiments on them in an effort to do ... something ... given the unimportance of Biotics in anything but close combat operations I have no idea what his goal was but he set humanities biotic programs back measurably, and continues to screw things up to this day.

He constructed a covert organization and used his charisma and contacts to get billions of dollars in funding which he has mostly blown on garbage. Those dollars might otherwise have been invested in colonization and other efforts which actually help humanity.

In point of fact, except for bringing back Shepard he pretty much has never done anything positive in any way that I can perceive.



Oh. And he happens to be a backstabbing manipulative ******, but that's beside the point compared to his massively destructive efforts to 'help' humanity. Frankly he's done more damage than the Batarians have ever managed.



So yeah, I'll be putting a bullet in him the first second I get a chance.

[Mallissin]

LaughingDragon wrote...

is The Illusive Man is bad???

Let me remind everyone -

The Alliance and the Citadel Council COVERED UP the events in ME1 and have done NOTHING to address the reaper threat. In fact, they deny the reaper threat even exists at all.

Cerberus is the ONLY organization who is doing anything to fight the reapers. Cerberus alone solely funded the entire campaign against the collectors (including the resurrection of shepard and the construction of a new normandy) who in fact are working for the reapers while the alliance and citadel did absolutely nothing.

Whether good or bad, the illusive man is the only one taking action to protect the galaxy, which includes all races.

Hes clearly the most good guy in the entire freaking galaxy hes saving everyones asses.

You should listen to this guy. Not only is he right, but he figured out how to use colors in his message. The Collector base is already paying off!

[Jagri]

Cerberus is a terrorist organization denounced by the System Alliance and the Council. To the public view they are a blight and a point of embrassment. Shepard a hero to the galaxy is presumed killed two years ago by a unknown vessel. Thus two years pass and the Citidel Control sees a ship bit larger but same design as the SR1 Normandy bearing the markings of Cerberus with Shepard in command.

Military intelligence would soon kick in why does a terrorist organization have a state of the art vessel which was produced by the System Alliance. The most simple and logical explaination is that Shepard betrayed the Alliance and the secrets of the SR1 Normandy to Cerberus. But Shepard is a hero so to publicly denounce/arrest him would backlash so the only alternative is to no longer provide him Alliance resources and the Council would never back a terrorist organization. Its quite a show of faith they would restore your Spectre status in the first place.

In the end they want Shepard to break all ties with Cerberus before trusting him/her again and likely have a long debriefing to find out what exactly happened. Hopefully Shepard remembered to bring a recording of his/her activities.

Modifié par Jagri, 08 février 2010 - 07:40 .

[sodacatkun]

i think hes got good motives. but yeah lol if you wanna go by morals, hes a bad guy