[Megathread] Mass Effect 3

[Adam Jensen]

Let's not pretend the eternal synthetic vs. organic conflict made sense given it was invented in the last 5 minutes of ME3. After I'd just finished resolving said conflict with the Geth.

How is it made up in the last 5 minutes? It was in the story since ME1, through the story of the creation of the Geth.

P.S. I feel like I'm the only person in the world who actually LIKED the Mako. The weird driving-veritcally-up-mountains thing aside. Reminded me of Starflight (which I later read was indeed a major influence on ME).

Hell no. I hated getting flipped around by a little bump in the road, or climbing over a hill, only to fall and then have to try again. If the Hammerhead had armor stronger than tissue paper, it'd be the superior vehicle.

[Deleted]

[Very Tired]

I'm guessing it was the reapers that wiped out the dinosaurs.

[Durandro]

How is it made up in the last 5 minutes? It was in the story since ME1, through the story of the creation of the Geth.

Actually, not quite. The story actually told the tale of how people think synthetics are 'destined' to war with organics.

The Geth, upon further inspection, actually show how Synthetics and Organics are more similar then anyone imagined, and that they desired peace. They only rebelled against the Quarians after radical Quarians began attacking Geth unprovoked due to their own fears of what the question "Does this unit have a soul?" would lead to. Infact, there's even evidence that they only began fighting back to defend Quarians who stood up for the Geth and were thus attacked by other Quarians. Eventually when the gloves came off, the Geth forced the Quarians to flee Rannoch via overwhelming force (and presumably toxins added to the atmosphere to discourage them coming back), crippling their ability to strike back and then letting them go the moment they fled.

Then Sovereign came and convinced (or rather, corrupted the progamming of) 10% of the Geth into following it in a war against its enemies. The rest of the 90% stayed well away from the rest of the Galactic Community and busied themselves with building a Dyson Sphere to live on, while monitoring and learning of the other civilisations via the Extranet. We don't meet a single Geth Program who isn't a 'Heretic' until late in Mass Effect 2 (though arguments can be made for the Geth in the optional mission in ME1 - though the Alliance/Shepard is technically the aggressor in this conflict), and it is completely helpful, honest (and niave like a child) and goes out of its way to help Shepard.

Later, the Quarians attacked the Geth in order to attempt to retake Rannoch, destroying the Dyson Sphere the Geth were working on and killing tens of millions of them in the process. In a panic partially brought about by the sudden loss of so much processing power they agreed to the terms given to them by the Reapers, allowed their programs to be altered and fought back against the Quarians with overwhelming force.

Only until purged of the Reaper's influence do they become reasonable again, and instantly pledge their support to combating them and vow never to bend to their influence ever again.

This example alone shows the Reaper's 'reason' is flawed - yet is never allowed to be brought up in that conversation!

And then we have EDI. Enough said?

The only examples of completely hostile Synthetics come from Reapers, Reaper minions, a single second-generation AI and one malfunctioning training program that wasn't even self-aware (and was technically doing what it was programmed to, the parameters were just corrupted). Thus, from evidence we can see, Reapers are the sole cause of this flawed train of logic - they are inherently hostile to organic life, thus all synthetics (and hybrids) must be.

And they are wrong.

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It wasn't invented in the last 5 minutes of the ME3. You were only told that it was the reason for the cycle in the last 5 minutes. Mass Effect is filled with Organic vs Synthetic conflicts. All three games had such things, and ME2 had a bunch of rogue mechs to deal with. All of the revelations in Mass Effect 3 had hints in the previous games.

The mechs weren't rogue, they were reprogrammed (either by a traitor, a shizophrenic or a criminal, depending on the mission) - they were also not Synthetic Life, they were VI controlled machines with no self awareness or true intelligence.

Every conflict with AI's was due to Reaper influence (bar one example - the second generation 'scammer' AI on the Citadel in ME1) or aggression from Organics (Geth Rebellions, Citadel purging). The Geth Heretics were Reaper influenced, without Sovereign they'd have never left the Geth Consensus.

Its easy to have a forfilled prophecy when you make every attempt to bring it about yourself.

[Elim Garak]

Yeah I too fail to see this Synthetics vs Organics conflict in all THREE ME games save for last 5 minutes where it's explicitly mentioned for the FIRST time. The only thing that resembles it is the whole reaper invasion theme. Geth never were against organics. They were against Quarians or rather the other way around. Heretics were brainwashed by Reapers. That AI on the Citadel? It wasn't against organics either.

I think people who claim that this conflict was present thruout the series are just suffering from sever form of cognitive dissonance - caused by the Starchild's appearance. They couldn't believe that Bioware blew it - so they went on looking for confirmation to the opposite. And of course "found" it.

[Deleted]

Actually, not quite. The story actually told the tale of how people think synthetics are 'destined' to war with organics.

The Geth, upon further inspection, actually show how Synthetics and Organics are more similar then anyone imagined, and that they desired peace. They only rebelled against the Quarians after radical Quarians began attacking Geth unprovoked due to their own fears of what the question "Does this unit have a soul?" would lead to. Infact, there's even evidence that they only began fighting back to defend Quarians who stood up for the Geth and were thus attacked by other Quarians. Eventually when the gloves came off, the Geth forced the Quarians to flee Rannoch via overwhelming force (and presumably toxins added to the atmosphere to discourage them coming back), crippling their ability to strike back and then letting them go the moment they fled.

Then Sovereign came and convinced (or rather, corrupted the progamming of) 10% of the Geth into following it in a war against its enemies. The rest of the 90% stayed well away from the rest of the Galactic Community and busied themselves with building a Dyson Sphere to live on, while monitoring and learning of the other civilisations via the Extranet. We don't meet a single Geth Program who isn't a 'Heretic' until late in Mass Effect 2 (though arguments can be made for the Geth in the optional mission in ME1 - though the Alliance/Shepard is technically the aggressor in this conflict), and it is completely helpful, honest (and niave like a child) and goes out of its way to help Shepard.

Later, the Quarians attacked the Geth in order to attempt to retake Rannoch, destroying the Dyson Sphere the Geth were working on and killing tens of millions of them in the process. In a panic partially brought about by the sudden loss of so much processing power they agreed to the terms given to them by the Reapers, allowed their programs to be altered and fought back against the Quarians with overwhelming force.

Only until purged of the Reaper's influence do they become reasonable again, and instantly pledge their support to combating them and vow never to bend to their influence ever again.

This example alone shows the Reaper's 'reason' is flawed - yet is never allowed to be brought up in that conversation!

And then we have EDI. Enough said?

The only examples of completely hostile Synthetics come from Reapers, Reaper minions, a single second-generation AI and one malfunctioning training program that wasn't even self-aware (and was technically doing what it was programmed to, the parameters were just corrupted). Thus, from evidence we can see, Reapers are the sole cause of this flawed train of logic - they are inherently hostile to organic life, thus all synthetics (and hybrids) must be.

And they are wrong.

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The mechs weren't rogue, they were reprogrammed (either by a traitor, a shizophrenic or a criminal, depending on the mission) - they were also not Synthetic Life, they were VI controlled machines with no self awareness or true intelligence.

Every conflict with AI's was due to Reaper influence (bar one example - the second generation 'scammer' AI on the Citadel in ME1) or aggression from Organics (Geth Rebellions, Citadel purging). The Geth Heretics were Reaper influenced, without Sovereign they'd have never left the Geth Consensus.

Its easy to have a forfilled prophecy when you make every attempt to bring it about yourself.

Excellent post I want to add something Javik told Shepard during ME3. There was this race in Javik´s cycle who lived peacefully among Synthetics and the organic race even melded with the Synthetics (much like the Geth upload into the Quarian´s suits in ME3). However the Reapers exploited this and caused the Synthetics to kill off the Race they lived with. This caused the bodies who where coalesced with the Synthetics to become monsters and in the end it led to the Metacon war with the Protheans.

So the Reapers actually destroy any possible way of Synthetics living peacefully among Organics with corrupting those peaceful synthetics. The problems with the Geth in ME were actually caused by the hypocrite Quarians but also by the Reapers who caused a percentage of the Geth to follow them (Heretics). The other Geth however stayed neutral and peaceful on Rannoch and the only Geth who attacked Shepard and the other Races were Reaper following Heretics.

I just hope that the next ME game stops with this Organics vs. Synthetics bullshit.

[Dezerte]

I think Durandro nailed it, and explained more thoroughly why I disliked the ending. That essentially the Reapers had a highly flawed reasoning, you could go as far as say that they were committing logical fallacies left and right. Which in my view, destroyed the mystery about the Reapers and it felt like the Reapers were "neutered".

Sure, there were organics vs. synthetics themes in the game. There were also organics & synthetics getting along, romance, corruption, planet exploration/mining themes and the list goes on... so that is not an argument.

[zealo]

How is it made up in the last 5 minutes? It was in the story since ME1, through the story of the creation of the Geth.

The reapers are the ones creating the conflicts with syntethics, in the case of Geth vs Quarian they are only fighting for their own survival. As explained if you bring Legion to tali'zorahs loyalty mission in ME2 through save file editing/not going directly to the omega 4 relay you get a non heretic geth that says they only defended themselves against the creators and that peace would be what they desired, but that the creators have attacked 100% of the time when they believed victory to be possible thus making it impossible.

[Deleted]

Just to throw it in, the theory about inevitable war and following this extinction of human life between AI and biological life existed before Mass Effect. The authors just took it as an inspiration. The execution wasn't done really good because as you noticed we get too many examples that it does work in the game, so we as the players can't really feel into this conflict.

They should have left the geth solution more ambivalent and fleshed out how lots of previous circles got to the point of intergalactic war with their synthetics. Then the decision at the end could have you thinking a lot more.

[Deleted]

I'm guessing it was the reapers that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs in space, fighting the reapers in a galactic war?
Rad.

But then, how does the reaperified dinosaurs look?

[Mordin Solus]

like this i supose

[Deleted]

But better.
Someone get BioWare on this for ME4, we need to blow some minds!

[Dezerte]

They saved us from the Reapers.

[Deleted]

They saved us from the Reapers.

Oh wow so I owe my life to Tyrannosaur Vakarian? Damn I did not know that he was such a hero and that the Dinosaurs saved us from the Reapers. So it was not a giant meteor that killed them?

More importantly: What kind of dinosaur was Shepard? A Raptor?

[Deleted]

Nah, seeing how fucking loud Shep is, hes that thing that eats the fat guy in the car in Jurassic Park.

[rhorle]

Every conflict with AI's was due to Reaper influence (bar one example - the second generation 'scammer' AI on the Citadel in ME1) or aggression from Organics (Geth Rebellions, Citadel purging). The Geth Heretics were Reaper influenced, without Sovereign they'd have never left the Geth Consensus.

The AI on the moon, which later became EDI, had no reaper influence and had no problem killing all humans. Project overlord was only a VI but took over the facility of its "own will" and proceeded to kill everyone until it was stopped.

VI or AI it doesn't matter because they can still lead to organic versus synthetic conflict. And not all of the rogue mechs in me2 were reprogrammed by organic life.

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Sure, there were organics vs. synthetics themes in the game. There were also organics & synthetics getting along, romance, corruption, planet exploration/mining themes and the list goes on... so that is not an argument.

Yes it is because the existence of something doesn't mean it will never happen again. The Reapers don't care that some people manage to exist peaceful with one group of synthetics. Because they have seen that peace never lasts and there will always arise another devastating conflict between synthetics and organics. Just because quarians and geth now exist peacefully doesn't mean the next synthetic life will not fight back against organics (or even synthetics). Or that everyone will accept the new "hybrid" quarians, since AI is still outlawed in "citadel space". Even EDI is smuggled into the Citadel despite her being all "peaceful" and a war asset

The reapers had the cycle because conflict was inevitable even when some managed to find peace. There is no logical fallacy or flawed reasoning. The problem is you are only approaching it from one cycle instead of having witnessed it all from thousands of cycles where people managed to find peace but conflict still eventually broke out. Remember the Catalyst has stated that they have tried different solutions in the past. You all act like the Reapers have never tried to let peace happen as a potential solution. They have but it failed so the cycle continued.

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Excellent post I want to add something Javik told Shepard during ME3. There was this race in Javik´s cycle who lived peacefully among Synthetics and the organic race even melded with the Synthetics (much like the Geth upload into the Quarian´s suits in ME3). However the Reapers exploited this and caused the Synthetics to kill off the Race they lived with. This caused the bodies who where coalesced with the Synthetics to become monsters and in the end it led to the Metacon war with the Protheans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HGqz2FV98w

Mention nothing about the reapers being the cause of their hostile attitude. Javik only says that the reapers used the Zha'til when on the dreadnought and not that they were the cause of the Zha'til not being peaceful.

The actual quote by Javik is "Javik: "In my cycle, a race called the Zha used machines, the Zha'til, as synthetic symbiotes. The Reapers subjugated the Zha'til as they have the geth. Their mechanical swarms blotted out the sky. They were brutal, merciless.""

The Zha'til, like the geth, were hostile and a threat before the Reapers arrived.

[Dezerte]

Yes it is because the existence of something doesn't mean it will never happen again. The Reapers don't care that some people manage to exist peaceful with one group of synthetics. Because they have seen that peace never lasts and there will always arise another devastating conflict between synthetics and organics. Just because quarians and geth now exist peacefully doesn't mean the next synthetic life will not fight back against organics (or even synthetics). Or that everyone will accept the new "hybrid" quarians, since AI is still outlawed in "citadel space". Even EDI is smuggled into the Citadel despite her being all "peaceful" and a war asset

The reapers had the cycle because conflict was inevitable even when some managed to find peace. There is no logical fallacy or flawed reasoning. The problem is you are only approaching it from one cycle instead of having witnessed it all from thousands of cycles where people managed to find peace but conflict still eventually broke out. Remember the Catalyst has stated that they have tried different solutions in the past. You all act like the Reapers have never tried to let peace happen as a potential solution. They have but it failed so the cycle continued.

Ugh, rhole, I'm really not interested in discussing your opinions on this game. Your refusal to see the fallacies (Historian's fallacy to be specific) in the Reapers reasoning is not something I'm going to waste my time explaining to you.

[Deleted]

I think a severely limiting factor was that the reapers never could let a circle evolve past the point of their own origin, because they would risk the synthetics being to powerful to be overcome. They always had to rely on theory.

[Deleted]

I think a severely limiting factor was that the reapers never could let a circle evolve past the point of their own origin, because they would risk the synthetics being to powerful to be overcome. They always had to rely on theory.

Limiting to or from what?

[Dhrizzle]

I picked up on a strong theme of anti-AI sentiment amongst organics throughout all the ME games, the setting is very similar to (and gives a few nods towards) Frank Herbert's "Dune" and Iain M. Banks "The Algebraist", both of which have strong cultural and legal prejudices against sentient machines. As they (and Isaac Asimov) are amongst my favourite authors I always like to explore the relations between biological and technological life, and the handling of A.I. by organics was certainly the "something wrong with the universe" that you find in cosmic horror like ME.

As the Geth were monitoring organics they would be well aware that popular sentiment amongst people and leaders would prefer to see them eradicated. Whilst there is no way of knowing what the Geth would do post-singularity it would not be unlikely for them to make a pre-emptive strike to ensure their survival, or even wait to be attacked and then wipe the floor with organics. The rogue-AI on the Citadel was well aware of this attitude which is why it chose suicide rather than discourse (and tried to take Shep with it).