143 réponses à ce sujet

[Captain Starbuck]

Loregothe wrote...


If this was a remote commune of non-aggressive individuals then I would think "do nothing" would be the logical choice. But they are killing my people, and I would like them to stop. They won't negotiate, so therefore my alternative is victory. I kill them all with a clear conscience, because they would do the same if the tables were turned.

I don't see this as a difficult choice.

I see the logic of your point of view, but still I find it  quite juvenile, I find. one must see that taking the stance of ''An eye for an eye'' would leave any populated enviroment or world in the end, blind. Rewriting the Geth leaves not only the possibility  for a negative outcome but also the chance for a positive one.

I just wanted add The writers of this game deserve a lot of credit for building this Sci-Fi epic, with so many moral & philisophical dillemas. excellent sequel!

[Azorgamer]

In my opinion, the Reapers are coming, do I want to leave around thousands (or more) Geth, that thought the Reapers were gods when Legion even admits they might turn back to the same way of thinking again. If one Reaper was able to corrupt them, how about that massive group of Reapers we see at the very end of the game. No thank you, I already have to fight the Reapers, I have the chance to destroy a huge group of their allies - I'm doing it. Good bye Geth, every playthrough - be it that I'm playing absolute Paragon or Neutral (never could bring myself to play all out Renegade - to evil for me).

[kaotician]

Whilst I understand the philosophical problem of the rewrite, I found that it was the lesser of two evils in comparison with destroying them entirely for a fault not of their own making - and as this was a case of the Geth having their programs rewritten, could they really be held to blame for their actions? To my mind, it would be like blaming someone for having leukaemia or similar ie it's genetic, and not an issue of free will or choice, which would make the Geth's behaviour morally debatable in my eyes.

[PopDisaster]

reepneep wrote...

Baher of Glory wrote...

babylonfreak wrote...

Legion calls them Heretics. This suggests to me some form of cultish indoctrination (not the Indoctrination of organics we've seen so far.)

Let's take for example David Koresh and the Branch Davidian. You have a charismatic individual claiming to have a direct line to God. For the Geth, Sovereign has a direct line to God... he *is* a God. Like Koresh's followers, the Heretic Geths follow willingly because of this charisma, yet it is still a form of brainwashing and mind control.

When the FBI stormed their farm, what was their goal? To capture and detain the cultists, most likely they would have been sent into psychotherapy. The attempt went badly and in the end the Davidians all died. The amount of criticism the FBI received makes it obvious that destroying the farm, and killing the Davidians, was NOT the paragon way of doing things.

Legion states that even with the virus, the Heretic Geth would isolate themselves and think about it. It sounds more like therapy to undo psychological damage than brainwashing. In any case, maybe rewriting them is not *nice* but as long as there is life, there is hope. Killing is a very permanent solution that strikes me as a "quick fix, ends justify the means" outlook which I think is what Renegade choices are about.

For those worried that the Heretics will just spontaneously revert, Legion states it is a "non-zero probability." It's not a high statistical probability. It's not an even statistical probability. Non-zero sounds more like: "It's possible but unlikely, just above zero." If your broker states the odd of making money on so-and-so are "non-zero" I don't think you'll put money on that.

Rewriting is *not* a comfortable option, but then neither was storming the Branch Davidian complex to imprison and "brainwash" them through psychotherapy. The FBI never for a second had plans to simply drop a Daisy-cutter on the farm.

This!

I think, when the term "brainwashed" came up, it distorted the entire discussion.

Let's look, what we know:

1) The Geth developed early some kind of mysticism. Evidence found in ME 1 mission against the Thorian, there was kind of a shrine in the ExoGeni-building

2) Sovereign neither brainwahed nor "rewrote" a part of the Geth. He took advantge of his new mysticism and seduced some of the Geth (heretics) to believe, he is their god.

3) The 5% of the Geth, who are from now on called "Heretics" followed him out of a free will descision, tolerated by the other 95% of the Geth.

4) Saren was introduced by Sovereign to be the "prophet" and his representative. The Heretics accepted this.

Until now their is no brainwashing or rewriting. It is exactly the same as we can see every day on our earth, when false prophets lure normal people into misbelieves. Under the permanent influence these people turn away from their former existence and become fanatics / zealots / whatever. Now we could speak of "gradually brainwash" and / or "indoctrination".

Let's now assume, that the FBI in the quoted example above would not have failed. Let's say, they catched all these mislead people alive.

Now I ask you: What should they have done with that bunch of fanatics?
a) Execute them on the spot
Give them medical / psychological treatment?

c) Let them chill in Waco with their savior because they weren't really bothering anyone?

Really bad analogy.  The situations aren't really comparable because one set of subjects is baking bread and singing kumbaya while the other is conspiring with a timeless evil to exterminate all sentient life.  A is applicable to the later, not the former while B does not accurately represent what happens in game. 

Being forced to talk to a shrink may not be voluntary, but listening to what he has to say is.  You don't have to cooperate.  You can stay as you are, if you so choose, and live with the consequences.  The destruction of your personality, the userpation of your free will, the theft of your very soul is, in my mind, one of those things that fall in the the category of 'fates worse than death'.

But the Heretics aren't losing free will, personality (something which they don't even have in the first place), or "their soul." (We don't even know that geth have "souls.")  By re-writing them, we are forcing them re re-evaluate what they've done. After doing so, they still have the choice to choose to believe whatever they want. They can go back to their old way of thinking or reach the same conclusions as the "True Geth." It's their choice!

And for the example provided above, instead of using the facts of what happened, for the sake of argument, assume that the fanatics were a violent group and you had the same choices.

1) Kill them because of their beliefs? Because they were following a "false prophet"?
2) Try to help them see what they are doing is wrong and give them mediacl/psychological treatment?

[Xena_Shepard]

Yes, because it was my deep sense of moral that said "No, blow them all to hell!"

[Nightwriter]

I rewrote the geth. I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong within the context of the situation.

[kaotician]

No, they were re-written in the first place. Legion talks about a tiny amount of data that had been adjusted, so that when they were uploaded again, the changed data changed other Geth. They were, in their way, indoctrinated too.

[Nightwriter]

kaotician wrote...

No, they were re-written in the first place. Legion talks about a tiny amount of data that had been adjusted, so that when they were uploaded again, the changed data changed other Geth. They were, in their way, indoctrinated too.

This is true. But Legion also said that this didn't mean the geth were exactly "wrong" in their beliefs. The heretics' beliefs were right for them, even if they were nudged in that direction.

[Louis deGuerre]

Once again, the heretic Geth were not rewritten. They chose to follow Sovereign of their own free will. The rewriting-virus has not been used yet and was created to turn the 95% of peaceful Geth into heretics as well.



This is the core of the whole dilemma. I would not have (so much of) an issue with rewriting Geth who had already been rewritten.

[Zem_]

reepneep wrote...

The mechanisms of causing the changes are different because the creatures being victimized are different.

Victimized?  Who is the victim here?  Are they victims if you rewrite them but not victims if you kill them?

The nature of the act, however, remains the same.  You are forcing them, against their will, to think and act as you want them to.  You are removing their free will, stealing their right of self determination.  You are making them slaves.

I'm making them gone.  Kill them or rewrite them.  The ones who did the crime are GONE.  What's left is a different creature, essentially and I am not restricting its ability to self-determinate from then on.  Legion even admits to a non-zero probability they could take the same path in the future.

Paragon is supposed to be taking the high road, doing the right thing
even if it presents a more dificult, perhaps even hopeless path. 
Renegade is about winning at all costs, principals be damned.  ME2's choice is between violation of the mind (game says paragon) and desruction of the body (game says renegade).    I don't know about you, but I think the game designers got the choices backwards in this case.

There is no difference between destroying the mind and the body when it comes to geth.  As Legion explains, they are software not hardware.  If the devs got anything wrong it was not making the two choices morally equivalent.

[babylonfreak]

The very fact that we are arguing the subject so passionately tells me that Bioware got it right. They gave us a very meaningfully hard choice to make that is not white versus black but very gray versus gray. I think that's pretty impressive.



And I stand on my point. Legion says they will isolate themselves and *think* about it before returning to the collective. That doesn't strike me as a full and absolute rewrite, otherwise what is there to think about? We're not brainwashing them into mindless slaves, we're "strongly suggesting an alternate interpretation". They still have free will.



The probability that they revert is again non-zero. The first time only 5% of the Geth chose that path. The returning Geth will return with the memories of being used as canon-fodder in a war that is not theirs, and getting repeatedly trounced by Shepard-Commander. It is possible, but highly doubtful. Paragons get points for doing the risky thing because they are idealists. Renegades get points for taking the quick easy solution.

[Wiggletphyre]

Is treating people that came from a Cult brainwashing?

The 'heretic' situation is very much like a cult.

They worship there leader who they think is a allmighting god and there way to enlightenment.

There leader just wants to take there stuff and use the geth for his own goals.

Cults is where people get brainwashed so reprogramming isnt realy doing anything new with them exept for turing them in to productive members of geth society

Modifié par Wiggletphyre, 20 février 2010 - 05:59 .

[cerberus1701]

Not at all.



You're just correcting an error the Reapers introduced in the first place.

[Forest03]

This is one ME2 event whose results I would really like to see in ME3, and not just in cut-scene or blips-of-text fashion.

I rewrote the Geth in all of my play-throughs. Not only would this have greater ramifications in ME3 (should BioWare choose to extrapolate from Legion's narrative), but it's also the logical choice.

After they accepted the "gifts from the old machines", Sovereign not only promised new technology to the subverted Geth (from here on known as Heretics), he reprogrammed them to wage war on all organics. The Heretics are malfunctioning, even if they themselves do not think that their logic is in error. Legion himself presents a good analogy in one of his dialog strings. In rewriting the Heretics, one does not change them into something else, like mere tools whose functions are now to serve a cause other than Sovereign's, but reverts them to their original state while keeping all of their recorded experiences intact.

Furthermore, however small the imbalance is, Legion's high level processes "vote" (for lack of a better word) 573 vs 571 in favor of rewriting. It seems that Legion's character design not only follows this course of action, but BioWare seems to be nudging us a little in that direction.

Though, aside from the issue of morals, there is also the potential for disaster. Legion himself states that the Geth do not understand how reunification with the Heretics will effect either faction. Although they do not experience trauma, there are bound to be great repercussions (negative or otherwise) due to the combination of all their memories. Not to mention, you are effectively increasing the size and power of the Geth army, which could in turn make the Quarian situation even more dire. Also, keep in mind that there is no mention whatsoever of stripping away the Heretics' Reaper-given upgrades, if any. That would be downright hypocritical of the Geth to keep Sovereign's gifts to the Heretics. **

** Has anyone found reference to this? Did Sovereign actually give the Heretics any Reaper tech or upgrades? Does Legion mention anything about their platforms or stations that would indicate the latter?

Still, I chose rewriting anyway, simply because doing so could carry great consequence - for good or for ill - and create deeper involvement for the player in ME3.

Modifié par Forest03, 20 février 2010 - 06:34 .

[Zem_]

I'd expect that ME3's use of the savegame import will be much like ME2's. Your choices will not so much change the course of events as "color" them a bit. There are three choices with this mission: Kill em, rewrite em, or don't do Legion's mission at all (in which case the Heretics are still a threat in ME3). If I had to guess, I would expect there is some epic showdown at the end of ME3 and the heretics either line up with you, against you, or aren't present at all for the final battle. Kind of like recruiting the various armies in Dragon Age.

[Louis deGuerre]

http://img85.imagesh...enshot064e.jpg/

Modifié par Louis deGuerre, 20 février 2010 - 08:46 .

[babylonfreak]

Doesn't Legion himself state that applying human logic to Geth is racist?

[catelee2u]

I figured brainwashed is slightly one better than dead so went for it. They're both hard options.