106 réponses à ce sujet

[Shepard Lives]

I destroyed them because Thane thought rewriting them was unethical. ^^ Kidding aside, the Geth are evolving at an amazing speed. Sooner or later, the heretics would have regained their original programming.

[Skyblade012]

The reprogramming is more akin to therapy than brainwashing. If the true geth have free will in the first place, then the heretics will as well once reprogrammed. If the true geth do not have free will, then the heretics do not either, and there are no ethical issues with reprogramming them to be safer. We are not eliminating their free will, we are guiding them towards paths better suited to the survival of all parties.



As for the wholesale slaughter, yeah, that's the correct course to take. Heck, why didn't we execute every citizen of Germany after WWII for following Hitler? After all, they followed him of their own free will, and it would be morally reprehensible of us to change the way they think about what they did or why.

[Dellingr]

ABCoLD wrote...  Geth simply are strange that due to their linked consciousness they can have millions of individuals networked together, actually see all sides of the same argument and eventually reach a consensus in a truly democratic (communist?) way. Chosing to subvert the will of an intelligent being, even for good intentions is unethical, if not immoral.  There's no amount of 'good sense' about the positive things that will happen because of this choice that makes it the proper one.  The ends never justify the means.  The renegade/paragon options here were borked.

YES, I was reminded of Deus Ex: invisible war, how JC and Paul want to link every human's mind to create constant communication and full participation democracy

The geth think at the speed of light, so they can functionally have extensive debates and reach consensus on what to do and still react to events in the physical world in a timely fashion, instantaneous democracy on every issue. (and since Legion says individual geth programs are pretty simple, the connection allows "brainstorming" and greater complexity/intelligence through "teamwork")

thus, they're not a hive mind, they just function like one if you're observing from the outside

 

Speakeasy13 wrote......And if you really want to justify rewriting as paragon, here's a thought: the heretics didn't choose to worship the Reapers. They were infected by a virus. So rewriting would not be forcing your truth onto them, more like undoing the damage others had done, and restoring the system to a functional state.

no, Legion says that following the Reapers was their CHOICE, the virus came later and was their way of forcing the other geth to think like them, but their initial following of the reapers was their own choice "their conclusion was valid for them"

 

The_Undecided wrote... I really agonized over this choice. While the game clearly labels the "right" and "wrong" choices I also couldn't help but wonder if reprogramming the heretics was worse than killing them. I had brought legion along for several missions and had grown quite attached to him (and by extension the other Geth). The normal Geth make a big deal about free will and letting other species determine their own future, but Legion seemed fine with the prospect of reprogramming millions of other Geth.



In the end I figured that the heretic Geth had formed a religion about a force that was bent on exterminating all intelligent life in the galaxy most likely including the Geth themselves. If the Keepers and Collectors are any indication religious devotion is not good enough for the Reapers, they demand zero free will and would either take that away from the Geth or just kill them once they outlived their usefulness.



Given knowledge of the above any kind of logic that says to follow the Reapers is just plain wrong/insane. Basically the heretic Geth either didn't understand the Reapers plans (and it's doubtfully they would listen to reason) or they formed a dangerous suicidal terrorist cult on a galactic scale. If a human agreed to that sort of thing I would want them put in a mental hospital.



Reprogramming the Geth seems to be the merciful action, between shooting a dangerous lunatic and healing their mind what would you choose?

I like your thinking there, I could see the reprogramming as the equivalent of Cult Deprogramming for a human-actually that's a good way of thinking about it, if the reprogramming is more like a "call us so we can have another talk about these issues and work out what to do" (though Legion seems clear that it'll fundamentally alter how they think, and that doesn't seem ethical, though Legion later does indicate it's not clear cut like that ...)

 

ABCoLD wrote...

scyphozoa wrote... you are SHEP. You spent 40 hours in ME1 killing all the enemies that you could either choos to rewrite or kill. I know it seems unethical to brainwash but even Legion says it, the original mission was to kill them all without a second chance. rewriting is at least giving them a chance to live, other than butchering them all with legion.

The question becomes is making a person accept a fundamentally different viewpoint better than killing them?  There is also the 'non-zero probability' chance that they could revert to their old ways of thinking.  This is a really sticky problem for me personally.  I guess it comes down to the fact that I think everyone has the sovereign right (get it, pun!) to think how they think.  This allows for disagreement and discourse and growth.  When two people have sufficiently opposing ideals I think they also have the right to beat the crap out of each other.  And when one group advocates the genocide of another group, the other has the right to defend themselves or attack in return.  To clarify, this isn't an 'eye for an eye' mentality.  This is the view that a person's opinion is their own and altering it is tantamount to murder of the personality anyway.  To alter them so that they agreed with me is no better than Sovereign's indoctrination of Saren/Benezia/et. al.

Thing is, I also kinda agree with this in general, in fact when the twist of KOTOR happened I found myself thinking "wow, the Jedi council did something kinda evil". I'd say the heretic question is different though, because they retain all their memories and also because they're entirely free to go back to worshipping the reapers later on if they decide again that that's what they want to do, in fact their memories might convince far more Geth to worship the reapers, depending on content. Reprogramming does force them back to the default position but it does so only for the purpose of facilitating another discussion about the issues-this time with more information about worshipping the reapers.

so I guess I kinda justify it as my giving them a chance to decide not to be my enemy (except less arrogant than that reads as, maybe "think about this again, are you really sure this is what you want to do?")

also, as pointed out above, Legion tells you that you can't really apply the same ethics to their species as you can to your own or another organic species and Legion doesn't regard it as the same thing as brainwashing, and Legion would know a thing or two about geth

Plus, Legion's constituent geth do favour rewriting by a small majority, even though they won't operate off/act on anything but consensus

ABCoLD wrote... Am I simply strange then that I believe it's fine to simply kill your enemy when you have the option, but to alter their basic thought process is fundamentally wrong?  I really didn't have a problem with blowing them up, it's not like they were innocent.

If you are then so am I I did reprogram them though, due to the abovestated considerations, it was very thorny though and it's not a choice I'd always make that way, I think

ReplicantZero wrote... ... Interesting how people tend to anthropomorphize Legion to a 'he' even though we know it is actually a collective of AIs - logically would be an 'it' - guess it's due to the voice.

or a "them" I find myself calling them "The Legion"

it's kinda cool though, to realise that everything the platform does and says is the result of a consensus decision by 1144 (571+573-assuming no undecideds) AIs

Modifié par Dellingr, 11 février 2010 - 02:09 .

[Wildhide]

Keep in mind, blowing up the station doesn't eliminate all the Heretical Geth, just the ones on that station. So in the end it's a minor blow to their remaining forces, if your intent is to wipe them out. You just destroy their "bio" weapon.



I do believe I remember Legion pointing out that using the virus on the Heretics is no guarantee they'll return to the True Geth. It simply resets their program and gives them the opportunity to think from their new viewpoint, free of Reaper influence, and Legion hopes they'll return.



I see people referencing that the Heretics chose to leave, and so the True Geth let them, so they feel this means they weren't indoctrinated to start. This makes me believe they were, Legion only states some Geth chose to leave, who's to say that when Sovereign made his offer, he didn't indoctrinate a large group of Geth, and these are the ones that left?



I can't prove that, but based on Reaper attitudes and previous actions, it seems highly likely to me, and there's nothing I remember in the game that disproves this fact. Remember, you can't detect indoctrination, so to Legion and company it would seem as if they simply chose to go.

[ABCoLD]

durasteel wrote...

This will determine a major plot element in Mass Effect 3. There is one major reason why we don't get to see Tali's face in the romantic encounter: BioWare is setting up a "big reveal" on the Quarian home world where we see Tali in "street clothes" instead of an encounter suit.

In the next game, you negotiate a treaty between the Geth and the Quarians, or you beat the snot out of enough Geth that they are driven from the Quarian home world, or you betray Tali and the Quarians are doomed to extinction. There has just been too much lead-up to this, I am convinced that Shepard will ultimately decide the fate of the Quarian race in the next game.

Tali has already said that the Quarians have been messed up by being in their environment suits so long.  It'll be ages, perhaps generations before they can leave them even on their homeworld.

I agree this will be a major plot element, and I also agree it will have major reprecussions on the future of the Quarians.

Wildhide wrote...

I can't prove that, but based on Reaper
attitudes and previous actions, it seems highly likely to me, and
there's nothing I remember in the game that disproves this fact.
Remember, you can't detect indoctrination, so to Legion and company it
would seem as if they simply chose to go.

Geth are AIs, programs.  It seems highly unlikely that a virus that altered some of the geth runtimes wouldn't affect all of them.  Of course I also can't prove by pointing to anything in the game that they're not controlled by little hamsters by pulling switches and levers in their flashlight heads, so I have to assume what I'm told in the game is true.

Skyblade012 wrote...

The reprogramming is more akin to
therapy than brainwashing. If the true geth have free will in the first
place, then the heretics will as well once reprogrammed. If the true
geth do not have free will, then the heretics do not either, and there
are no ethical issues with reprogramming them to be safer. We are not
eliminating their free will, we are guiding them towards paths better
suited to the survival of all parties.

As for the wholesale
slaughter, yeah, that's the correct course to take. Heck, why didn't we
execute every citizen of Germany after WWII for following Hitler? After
all, they followed him of their own free will, and it would be morally
reprehensible of us to change the way they think about what they did or
why.

I will never agree with the 'making them right in the head' crowd, I think.  To follow your Germany analogy, and without further inflaming it with religion or what have you... we also didn't subvert their war effort by altering their base belief so that each and every citizen was absolutely certain that interpretive dance was the best way to win a war.  Of course, if we did, maybe we'd still be perched on the borders of a contained germany, sniping the odd mime infiltrator.

Spear-Thrower wrote...

I suspect that the 'paragon'
choice - rewriting the heretics - will have unexpected results. There's
a good chance that all Geth start to believe as the heretics do when
the memories are shared. Blowing them up is safer. Thinking that the
rewrite leads to a happy robot collective eager to ally with you in ME3
is naive. They may simply decide you forced them to believe a certain
way. Organics are dangerous.

I destroyed the heretics. That was the original plan and is less risky than an unpredictable 'brainwash'.

I don't think that all geth will think like the heretics do.  I'm more concerned that Legion will be outcast as an abberant when he allowed the fate of so many geth to be decided by a human instead of following his own race's destiny.  And when seeing what could happen in the hands of a base human the geth become more insular if you rewrite, cutting off all contact from the outside galaxy....  Of course this could happen with either decision.

[Wildhide]

ABCoLD wrote...

durasteel wrote...

This will determine a major plot element in Mass Effect 3. There is one major reason why we don't get to see Tali's face in the romantic encounter: BioWare is setting up a "big reveal" on the Quarian home world where we see Tali in "street clothes" instead of an encounter suit.

In the next game, you negotiate a treaty between the Geth and the Quarians, or you beat the snot out of enough Geth that they are driven from the Quarian home world, or you betray Tali and the Quarians are doomed to extinction. There has just been too much lead-up to this, I am convinced that Shepard will ultimately decide the fate of the Quarian race in the next game.

Tali has already said that the Quarians have been messed up by being in their environment suits so long.  It'll be ages, perhaps generations before they can leave them even on their homeworld.

I agree this will be a major plot element, and I also agree it will have major reprecussions on the future of the Quarians.

Wildhide wrote...

I can't prove that, but based on Reaper
attitudes and previous actions, it seems highly likely to me, and
there's nothing I remember in the game that disproves this fact.
Remember, you can't detect indoctrination, so to Legion and company it
would seem as if they simply chose to go.

Geth are AIs, programs.  It seems highly unlikely that a virus that altered some of the geth runtimes wouldn't affect all of them.  Of course I also can't prove by pointing to anything in the game that they're not controlled by little hamsters by pulling switches and levers in their flashlight heads, so I have to assume what I'm told in the game is true.

Skyblade012 wrote...

The reprogramming is more akin to
therapy than brainwashing. If the true geth have free will in the first
place, then the heretics will as well once reprogrammed. If the true
geth do not have free will, then the heretics do not either, and there
are no ethical issues with reprogramming them to be safer. We are not
eliminating their free will, we are guiding them towards paths better
suited to the survival of all parties.

As for the wholesale
slaughter, yeah, that's the correct course to take. Heck, why didn't we
execute every citizen of Germany after WWII for following Hitler? After
all, they followed him of their own free will, and it would be morally
reprehensible of us to change the way they think about what they did or
why.

I will never agree with the 'making them right in the head' crowd, I think.  To follow your Germany analogy, and without further inflaming it with religion or what have you... we also didn't subvert their war effort by altering their base belief so that each and every citizen was absolutely certain that interpretive dance was the best way to win a war.  Of course, if we did, maybe we'd still be perched on the borders of a contained germany, sniping the odd mime infiltrator.

Spear-Thrower wrote...

I suspect that the 'paragon'
choice - rewriting the heretics - will have unexpected results. There's
a good chance that all Geth start to believe as the heretics do when
the memories are shared. Blowing them up is safer. Thinking that the
rewrite leads to a happy robot collective eager to ally with you in ME3
is naive. They may simply decide you forced them to believe a certain
way. Organics are dangerous.

I destroyed the heretics. That was the original plan and is less risky than an unpredictable 'brainwash'.

I don't think that all geth will think like the heretics do.  I'm more concerned that Legion will be outcast as an abberant when he allowed the fate of so many geth to be decided by a human instead of following his own race's destiny.  And when seeing what could happen in the hands of a base human the geth become more insular if you rewrite, cutting off all contact from the outside galaxy....  Of course this could happen with either decision.

Tali states during her dialog in one of the games, I forget exactly where, that they want their homeworld back so badly because getting it is the difference between the Quarians alive now being free of their suits in their lifetimes, or it taking generations for the species to adapt to a new homeworld.

And no one ever claimed that they were manipulated by a virus to work with Sovereign.  The hamster example is a rather strawman argument, since there is evidence in the game to the contrary to begin with.  There is a heavy suggestion throughout both games that the Reapers can and will control anyone and anything they want.  I don't see why this would be stopped by the Geth being AIs instead of organics.  The Reapers are synthetics, there's no reason they wouldn't make their brainwashing trick work on Synthetics as well.