[PC/PS3/360/WiiU] Mass Effect 3

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

I wish Reapers were "beyond our understanding", like ME1 told us. In the end, they are just dumb AIs that are inferior than even the Geth.

Dunno, I think the fact that you are having so much trouble wrapping your head around their logic still makes them somewhat "beyond your comprehension."

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

As I say, just because it is a different way of thinking doesn't give Bioware the right to tell us they are right. Bioware flat out told us everything Reapers said should be accepted at face value, that if we disagree we should just die.

It is one thing to have a Synthetic way of thinking. It is another entirely that Bioware told us everything we do is irrelevant because what the Reapers want is more important.

Bioware doesn't tell us they're right, Bioware tells us that if you want this cycle to survive, the crucible's the only option. As much as I dislike the endings, I at least want to label them terrible for the right reasons.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Even if they are machines, they're not programmed in any conventional sense. Reapers have their own free will (albeit one subservient to the Star-Child).

The reapers "will" seems to be little different from what most androids in sci-fi have. Enough to create a personality, but not enough to become an actual free will. They are still subservient to their programming and control node.

I personally label the reapers as machines for the same reason as I label someone with cybernetics a human. That's what they are. They may have cybernetics, but they are still human. A reaper may have biological components, but they are still synthetic at their core.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Dunno, I think the fact that you are having so much trouble wrapping your head around their logic still makes them somewhat "beyond your comprehension."

I'll admit, I laughed at this.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Dunno, I think the fact that you are having so much trouble wrapping your head around their logic still makes them somewhat "beyond your comprehension."

I understand their logic perfectly. It's just retarded, it doesn't make it hard to understand.

The Reapers have a screw lose and didn't realise they are actually the very threat they are trying to prevent. That is all. That kind of mental retardation is something the Geth would never have fallen for. Humans do this all the time, mind you; plenty of human rulers want to conquer the planet because then we could have world peace. Which means we get constant war. This is the same kind of stupidity we see everywhere, not any kind of high level mental function.

[Keroko]

Clearly you don't, because you've once again misinterpreted them. Or you're ignoring my posts attempting to explain. Whichever.

The goal of the reapers is preservation of organic life. Note, organic life. Not civilizations. Do not see this as keeping peace. That is not their goal. They couldn't care less about what organics do with eachother, because whichever side wins, organic life will remain. Extinction is part of organic life, as long as something remains to take its place.

Synthetics winning a war for dominance, however, would result in the eradication of all organic life. Machines are thorough like that.

Reapers, on the other hand, don't destroy organic life as a whole. They eliminate any synthetics threatening organics, and then cull the organics to a point where they are no longer capable of creating more synthetics for a while. Like a gardener trimming his garden. Organic life remains.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Keroko

The reapers "will" seems to be little different from what most androids in sci-fi have. Enough to create a personality, but not enough to become an actual free will. They are still subservient to their programming and control node.

I personally label the reapers as machines for the same reason as I label someone with cybernetics a human. That's what they are. They may have cybernetics, but they are still human. A reaper may have biological components, but they are still synthetic at their core.

I think the core of the reaper is the "tang" we see humans getting turned into. So the core of the reaper is something biological, the machine elements are just an appendage.

That's my view of it.

The other possibility is that it's a biological machine. It's not implausible that a civilization could create an artificial biological brain. The reapers could be just such a construct.

Anyway, Synaesthetic is right, explaining the Reapers is like explaining Cthulhu, it just makes them seem less godlike. Reapers are functionally gods (and certainly don't mind masquerading as them), Gods don't need to explain themselves. The Reapers are "beyond our comprehension", and they should have stayed that way.

Showing them being made from humans was fine, it adds an extra layer of body horror to them, they shouldn't have gone further then that though...

[Kyero Fox]

I bet their just jealous they didn't have hot alien women like Tali and...... garrus? ...hmm. can't think of any other hot aliens...

[james0246]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Anyway, Synaesthetic is right, explaining the Reapers is like explaining Cthulhu, it just makes them seem less godlike. Reapers are functionally gods (and certainly don't mind masquerading as them), Gods don't need to explain themselves. The Reapers are "beyond our comprehension", and they should have stayed that way.

The Reapers were never "beyond our comprehension", they just never explained themselves properly. Do you see the difference?

Beyond Comprehension implies an fundamental inability to understand or even communicate with the other lifeforms. Cthulhu and other Elder/Outer/Inner Gods actions were incomprehensible because they either never communicated with the human protagonists or fundamentally could not without literally destroying the minds of the humans (it's kind of hard to understand a gods actions when simply thinking of them can cause you to go insane).

The first time Sovereign opened its gigantic mouth is the first time it became possible to understand the creature, and the fact that it, and Harbinger, kept trying to get Shepard to understand why it was doing what it was doing (even if its explanation sounded stupid) fundamentally makes it different from creatures/entities like Cthulhu.

Bioware always wanted the Reapers to be understandable. They simply failed at making their explanation truly interesting.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Clearly you don't, because you've once again misinterpreted them. Or you're ignoring my posts attempting to explain. Whichever.

The goal of the reapers is preservation of organic life. Note, organic life. Not civilizations. Do not see this as keeping peace. That is not their goal. They couldn't care less about what organics do with eachother, because whichever side wins, organic life will remain. Extinction is part of organic life, as long as something remains to take its place.

Synthetics winning a war for dominance, however, would result in the eradication of all organic life. Machines are thorough like that.

Reapers, on the other hand, don't destroy organic life as a whole. They eliminate any synthetics threatening organics, and then cull the organics to a point where they are no longer capable of creating more synthetics for a while. Like a gardener trimming his garden. Organic life remains.

I understand perfectly. It is still retarded; they assume that because they are effectively undead, in that they are homunculus made from organic parts, that they are somehow not synthetic. So it doesn't count that they are the threat.

As I say, I have no problem understanding their every word. They are just pointless words that get nowhere, as it came from the mind of a broken machine that doesn't have proper logic circuits.

And if you say Reapers are not machines because they are organic... I say that's the reverse of the Geth. The Geth are sentient even when they are not organic. Reapers act like retarded robots even though they are not synthetic.

And stop telling me that I don't understand them. If they act like an automatic lawn mower, then they are just lawn mowers. They couldn't see past the purpose of what they are doing. Something the Geth has evolved past. The Reapers have advanced technology, but with primitive AI that is several centuries behind the Geth.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by james0246

The Reapers were never "beyond our comprehension", they just never explained themselves properly. Do you see the difference?

Beyond Comprehension implies an fundamental inability to understand or even communicate with the other lifeforms. Cthulhu and other Elder/Outer/Inner Gods actions were incomprehensible because they either never communicated with the human protagonists or fundamentally could not without literally destroying the minds of the humans (it's kind of hard to understand a gods actions when simply thinking of them can cause you to go insane).

The first time Sovereign opened its gigantic mouth is the first time it became possible to understand the creature, and the fact that it, and Harbinger, kept trying to get Shepard to understand why it was doing what it was doing (even if its explanation sounded stupid) fundamentally makes it different from creatures/entities like Cthulhu.

Bioware always wanted the Reapers to be understandable. They simply failed at making their explanation truly interesting.

Then what of this entire dialogue sequence:

In particular:

"You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."

"I am beyond your comprehension."

"My kind transcends your very understanding."

[Kyero Fox]

Shepard made peace with the synthetics, so there is no need for the reaper's way anymore.

[Key Board]

clearly a lot has been changed during production

Sovereign and even Harbinger had way too much ego to be simply an indifferent tool that is serving a purpose

tools are not supposed to have active resentment and that much ego, but Starchild tries to convince us that they are merely doing their job.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Then what of this entire dialogue sequence:

In particular:

"You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."

"I am beyond your comprehension."

"My kind transcends your very understanding."

This is standard big bad arrogant egotism (turn on any episode of Buffy (or really any action show/anime/comic/etc) and you'll see the same speech), trying to frighten weaker willed individuals (Saren). No more and no less. The fact that within a few days (in world time) of these lines an armada was able to destroy the voice should be a solid indicator that the Reapers are not "incomprehensible" or beyond "understanding" (and that's ignoring the fact that the Protheans already broke their biggest secret 50,000 years previous (biggest secret, of course, being the mass relays)). At best, the Reaper technology was 100 years beyond what the current cycles inhabitants could use (and if the Asari hadn't wasted the last 50,000 years trying to fuck everything in existence, the current cycle would have already surpassed the Reapers).

Cthulhu and other similar level creatures would literally destroy the minds of any who even attempt to talk or think about such creatures beyond the simplest of abstracts. And, absolutely nothing any mortal can do (or ever has done) can defeat such characters (you can defeat an Avatar of such characters, or delay the inevitable, but the actual beast itself is always beyond anything humanly possible). The Reapers have been defeated in the past, present and the future (if you choose the refuse ending), they are not the gods they claim to be.

[Key Board]

The indoctrination angle was much more spooky in ME1

when Sovereign landed on Eden Prime everyone experienced migraines

it just seems that somewhere during production they decided to move from mecha lovecraft to matrix machines / decepticons

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I think the core of the reaper is the "tang" we see humans getting turned into. So the core of the reaper is something biological, the machine elements are just an appendage.

That's my view of it.

The other possibility is that it's a biological machine. It's not implausible that a civilization could create an artificial biological brain. The reapers could be just such a construct.

I don't think so. If the "tang" is the core, it would imply influence on the reaper. But each reaper is subservient to its programming and the star child. I think the "tang" is more like a mixture of blood and data. Sure, it's necessary for the reaper to... well... be, and it preserves the stored knowledge of the race in question, but it's not what lies at its core.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

I understand perfectly. It is still retarded; they assume that because they are effectively undead, in that they are homunculus made from organic parts, that they are somehow not synthetic. So it doesn't count that they are the threat.

As I say, I have no problem understanding their every word. They are just pointless words that get nowhere, as it came from the mind of a broken machine that doesn't have proper logic circuits.

And if you say Reapers are not machines because they are organic... I say that's the reverse of the Geth. The Geth are sentient even when they are not organic. Reapers act like retarded robots even though they are not synthetic.

And stop telling me that I don't understand them. If they act like an automatic lawn mower, then they are just lawn mowers. They couldn't see past the purpose of what they are doing. Something the Geth has evolved past. The Reapers have advanced technology, but with primitive AI that is several centuries behind the Geth.

If you want me to stop saying you don't understand them, stop saying things that are plain wrong. Elimination of synthetics ism't their main goal. Preservation of organic life is. The reapers know they are synthetic. The starchild repeatedly says this.

Back to the debate, the reapers saw several cycles, and each time the results in the contact between synthetics and organics were the same. Thus they concluded that the cycle was the only answer for the continued existence of organics. This situation remained necessary cycle after cycle (you will note that even the protheans had their own synthetic war).

But to say that the reapers never evolved past that... is once again wrong. When new variables presented themselves, the reapers re-evaluated their purpose. That's why the star child offers you the choices, even though two of the three go against what they had done for milenia.

And if I may play the devil's advocate here for a bit... who's to say the peace between the organics and the geth would last?

Originally Posted by Key Board

clearly a lot has been changed during production

Sovereign and even Harbinger had way too much ego to be simply an indifferent tool that is serving a purpose

tools are not supposed to have active resentment and that much ego, but Starchild tries to convince us that they are merely doing their job.

Look at star wars. Tons of droids, many with ego's, but only a handful that ignore their purpose and live their own life. C-3PO is quite eccentric for a droid, and has a clear personality, but the line "that's against my programming" is drilled in my head with the number of times I've heard it.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by Keroko

And if I may play the devil's advocate here for a bit... who's to say the peace between the organics and the geth would last?

To be fair, every one of Shepard's decisions can be questioned along these lines. What is to prevent the re-balled Krogan from declaring war on the galaxy once again? What is to prevent the Salarians from neutering the Krogan once again? What is to prevent the Rachni from killing all? What is to stop humans from killing all? Etc. All we have, as a player, is our faith in Shepard (as out player character) and the world he/she has helped foster. (Sadly, Bioware did not take this in to account when constructing the ending.)

edit: Something that is forgotten in the current mess, the Protheans were at war with a synthetic race during their extinction cycle. So, it's not like there was no credence to the starchild's words...

---

That being said, as a general question, are the Keepers synthetic?

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by james0246

That being said, as a general question, are the Keepers synthetic?

I would say the keepers are similiar in nature to the Reapers, though clearly without any independent will.

Then again, the "ending" implies the Reapers don't have any "will" either, but then, I'm ignoring the ending

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by james0246

To be fair, every one of Shepard's decisions can be questioned along these lines.

True, but it's only fair given that we are doing the same thing for the current endings. Paragon control and synthesis are happy endings without the meta, and even destroy is largely a happy one, geth nothwistanding.

Originally Posted by james0246

That being said, as a general question, are the Keepers synthetic?

Bio-engineered, so biological. Very likely a former race that got conquered and rebuild to serve a purpose like the collectors.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I would say the keepers are similiar in nature to the Reapers, though clearly without any independent will.

Then again, the "ending" implies the Reapers don't have any "will" either, but then, I'm ignoring the ending

That's the thing with the Control ending; it implies that the individual Reaper units don't have any independence whatsoever. There is no consensus governance; even the Reapers themselves are "under direct control" of the Star Child.

[kenjiharima]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotat...3wE&feature=iv

Top Comments

I still don't get why BIOWARE aren't disproving the Indoctrination theory. We (the fans) continue to ask about it but all BIOWARE say is "No comment" or "We're not talking about it". If it does exist then it was pointless to release the EC DLC. BIOWARE...JUST SAY YES OR NO GOD DAMN IT!

[Tiresias]

Hey Sovereign, why are the Reapers doing this?

Puny mortals, our motives are beyond your understanding.

Hey Harbinger, why are the Reapers doing this?

Puny mortals, our motives are beyond your understanding.

Hey Reaper Destroyer on Rannoch, why are the Reapers doing this?

Puny mortals, our motives are beyond your understanding.

Hey you last-minute-blue-kid-thingy, why are the Reapers doing this?

Dood, that's so easy, even primitive monkeys like you will get it - synthetics will always kill organics, so we will kill you before your creation does that. Got it?