Iakus
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Post by Iakus on Mar 22, 2017 15:34:20 GMT
The complexity of this discussion is more than the actual story deserves. It's SAM merging with Ryder so he becomes superpowered. That's all it was presented as. It didn't even have the foreshadowing and trilogy-long thematic motifs like the AI vs. organic topic did in the original trilogy. Mac really REALLY likes Synthesis, doesn't he?
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Post by spacebeetle on Mar 22, 2017 21:18:43 GMT
The complexity of this discussion is more than the actual story deserves. It's SAM merging with Ryder so he becomes superpowered. That's all it was presented as. It didn't even have the foreshadowing and trilogy-long thematic motifs like the AI vs. organic topic did in the original trilogy. Mac really REALLY likes Synthesis, doesn't he? And personally I really don't understand why... I mean... you must have some sort of god complex to believe that you have the right to decide about the very life of everyone in a galaxy...
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shermos
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Post by shermos on Mar 24, 2017 2:02:46 GMT
We're basically having synthesis forced on us as a canon ending. So, why bother going to a new Galaxy in the first place? This game could have happened in an unexplored part of the Milky Way a few hundred years post Reaper War. We could have revisited some parts of the known galaxy, but with a focus on the new cluster. Hell, if BW were set on going to Andromeda, the Remnant could have been Protheans who managed to hide from the Reapers long enough to develop feasible inter galactic FTL, allowing for their escape and a chance to rebuild strength for an eventual return (they wouldn't know the next cycle managed to stop the Reapers, and who knows what problems they ran into in Andromeda). That would set the scene for the MW races to follow with the hope of making contact.
We could have had MEA without needing to give up the previous setting. Kind of like Stargate Atlantis. It's not like MAss Effect isn't known from borrowing from other scifi. It's one of its charms.
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Post by amleth on Mar 24, 2017 3:19:12 GMT
it's really simpler than that. The whole SAM business and all the plots where you convince people opposed to SAM that they are wrong is just Mac Walters retrospectively defending his stupid ass synthesis ending in ME3. That's all, it's lazy, obvious, clumsy author filibuster.
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ATR16
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Post by ATR16 on Mar 24, 2017 4:24:41 GMT
The AI launch between ME2 and ME3. How is that relevant? AI can still be created. One was created by random people and we found it on the citadel in ME. The problem with SAM is how advanced he is, and quarian help might justify partially. Although I think the explanation will at least be influenced by 'humans are awesome and can do everything'. No, sorry: AI is launched in 2185 so at most at the beginning of ME2. Not after. And it becomes relevant because as you say, SAMs AI are way too much advanced for their time: if their development begun in 2165/2170 where the know-how to build them came from? From Reaper tech? Mmhh… not possible, or at least highly improbable. If the tech came from Cerberus, TIM should have had SAMs smart AI through ME2 and 3. Which isn’t the case. Did Alec stumble upon reaper tech, and not only resulted immune to indoctrination, he managed to crack open the tech and retrofit it? Talking about improbable… all the while keeping it all hidden, from Alliance, the Council, the Shadow Broker and Cerberus? Did the Quarian helped? Again, why they should have? They hate AI, to the point they wish for all AIs to be erased. Has Alec encountered the only deviant Quarian who wishes to create more AIs just out to spite to his/her entire species? And even then, SAMs are waay too smart for being Geth like AI. Hell, at this point the Geth themselves could have helped Alec in developing SAMs. It would be as probable as any other idea… They remain all unbelievable and preposterous though. I just like to think that Alec got home every day, turned on his computer and programmed the most advanced AI in the history of the galaxy in his garage without anyone ever finding out. Kinda like how Jeff Goldblum hacked the aliens in Independence Day with his Windows 95 laptop
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ATR16
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Post by ATR16 on Mar 24, 2017 4:28:04 GMT
The complexity of this discussion is more than the actual story deserves. It's SAM merging with Ryder so he becomes superpowered. That's all it was presented as. It didn't even have the foreshadowing and trilogy-long thematic motifs like the AI vs. organic topic did in the original trilogy. I feel like the board has spent more time thinking about it than the writer(s) did at any point. The amount of handwaving it presents is bothersome and, like a lot of things in the game, kinda represents the overall quality and lack of polish present.
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bizantura
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Post by bizantura on Mar 24, 2017 10:25:56 GMT
The complexity of this discussion is more than the actual story deserves. It's SAM merging with Ryder so he becomes superpowered. That's all it was presented as. It didn't even have the foreshadowing and trilogy-long thematic motifs like the AI vs. organic topic did in the original trilogy. I feel like the board has spent more time thinking about it than the writer(s) did at any point. The amount of handwaving it presents is bothersome and, like a lot of things in the game, kinda represents the overall quality and lack of polish present. I think the opposite. In order to bring "memes" out in little story fashion, you have to know your stuff. I bet the writers read all the classic SF stuff and more. Commercial guys/girls are of the brightest out there. Sadly it is used to manipulate and not much else. The real artists are not to be found in the "modern art industry". To be frank, being an artist living today must be hard. That said, I do wonder why people don't read those classics for themselves? Yes, reading/researching is time-consuming but wanting it all neatly packaged thru a video game made for mass consumption?! Never going to happen.
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Post by dazk on Mar 27, 2017 7:42:12 GMT
I just want to know why SAM can't do the bloody annoying Sodoku puzzles for me?????
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CTPhipps
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Post by CTPhipps on Mar 27, 2017 8:34:07 GMT
I think part of the issue is the fact you're going with a very ME1 interpretation when ME2 and ME3 rolled back that tremendously. EDI and the Geth showed the A.I. were entirely capable of living beside human beings as well as being their friends.
I don't think of SAM as an AI, though.
SAM strikes me, instead, as a cybernetic interface. He's as much a part of your body as your arm.
The irony, of course, is that according to SAM he's experiencing life as a human but he's actually less human-like in his behaviors than Legion or EDI.
I wonder if that's a front he's putting on because unlike any other robot, by the time you finish your romance plot, SAM is the only AI in history to have had sex with a man or woman.
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spacebeetle
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Post by spacebeetle on Apr 7, 2017 16:22:25 GMT
So, after finishing the game, taking my time to explore and experience everything it has to offer (this the reason I’ve neglected my own topic) I’ve to say many of my doubts about SAM remains. So, let me reiterate that I dislike the plot devices known as SAMs: both the implications following their existences and the problems which spawn from there are humongous and rarely addressed, imo. I also think that yes, many problems pertaining the existence of SAMs AI should be addressed in game asap (free DLC maybe?). I also think that giving to the SAMs the ability to interface with organic physiology without considering the long-term implications was an overreaching of the plot. That said, I’m… perturbed in a positive way by a peculiar realization: if SAMs stores the memory of their Pathfinder, up until the position is transferred to a successor, are Pathfinder functionally immortals?
As we know, our SAM remember everything from Alec Ryder life, and we can infer the same holds true for the others SAMs too. These memories are not “alive” in a proper sense, but they are still the wisdom of a whole life stored in a digital support. Memories that can be accessed directly by our PC, while “our” memories of the adventures and mysteries of Andromeda are added to the chain. Widening the concept a little (we’re only at the first/second ring of the chain for now), it is believable every successor of the Pathfinder should inherit the wisdom, the tricks, the drive and in a way the identities of those who came before him/her. It’s not really a position anymore at this point, but more of a symbiotic mantle, feeding the current pathfinder only to add more and more to the gestalt of knowledge (is this how Sarissa deployed Matriarchal grade biotics twice?). This could imply many things for the AI, among the others:
1) Until all SAMs are destroyed and the knowledge on how to build them is lost forever, the AI is basically invincible. The Kett or the Remnant can keep killing pathfinder after pathfinder, but sooner or later the number of strategies and combat learnt on death door by the pathfinders through their generations will reach critical mass and the development of the “Order of the Pathfinders” will be so that no one could hope to outsmart them (not even the Reapers perhaps?). I’m already seeing with my mind eye the AI director, last from a wise legacy of leaders that generation after generation are protected from the 4 noble clan of the Pathfinder (5 with the Quarians).
2) The more the Pathfinders are left to their own mission, the more powerful their SAMs become, thanks to their symbiosis. And with the ability to enhance the physiology of the host, it is hard to say how long could a Pathfinder could potentially live. Surely longer than a “baseline” human/salrian/turian/ asari.
And I can imagine the common AI member couldn’t be so thrilled to be shepherded around when the directives come from 5 strange fellows who spend much of their time talking with the predecessors in their head (when they are not killing everything, ofc).
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