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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2016 10:00:17 GMT
Well, I could argue that Control is Renegade merely because it's not what the Alliance ordered Shepard to do and Shepard belongs, at that point in time, to the Alliance... based on this definition of Renegade: "a person who deserts and betrays an organization, country, or set of principles." (Merriam-Webster). In addition, there is the reality that there are two clearly different versions of the Control ending to ME3 - one given if Shepard's alignment is Paragon and a different one given if Shepard's alignment is Renegade Of course. Either choice is loaded with different motivations and results. But I still think the colors are relevant, especially since the respective choices exemplify Order and Chaos. Control imposes order upon the galaxy, regardless of Shepard's morality. Destruction removes that order. It really is as simple as that. Paragon taken to the extreme is rigid order. Renegade taken to the extreme is pure chaos. The removal of the Reapers is "anarchy" on a galactic scale. Now, this anarchy isn't necessarily bad. But we must acknowledge the reality of our circumstances: The Reapers have controlled the galaxy for at least one billion years. They are the ruling authority, the "gods" of the galaxy. But they've taken their pursuit for order too far. We want this regime to end. However, pure anarchy might also be too extreme. The galaxy is, after all, a vast place with unknown terrors lurking around every spiral arm. However much we may loathe their methods, the Reapers have managed to prevent the total extinction of organic life. I suspect that they've held back far more than just the rise of other synthetics. If they were to suddenly disappear, any number of catastrophes could befall the galaxy. Which brings me to Synthesis. Yes, I consider this to be the balanced choice. The order of synthetics united with the chaos of organics. A balance of reason and emotion. Every individual given the power and knowledge to shape one's own destiny. It is fitting that the Lovecraftian gods are conquered by knowledge and technology, the very things that Lovecraft himself feared. The term "paragon" is not defined in terms of being "orderly." To be a "paragon" is to merely be an "exemplar" of a particular trait worthy of being copied (e.g. a "paragon of virtue" is the most common use of the term). Javik discusses this sort of thing, but uses the term "exemplar" instead; and "exemplar" is a listed synonym for "paragon." When Javik describes himself to be is the "exemplar of vengeance." However, it's your mental extension of what trait Shepard is the exemplar of that causes you, somewhat arbitrarily, to associate it with a state of "orderliness." Dictators, who are leaders that attempt to exert extreme control over their populations are generally not thought to be "paragons of leadership." I'm not saying it's wrong to attach the meaning to the colors as you have done. To me, however, they became meaningless quite early in the game. For example, I have several Shepards who, at the end of ME1, were considered Renegade - i.e. their renegade bars were much higher than their paragon, there was a red backdrop behind each of them just before the credits rolled, the speeches given by Anderson or Udina were the acknowledge renegade ones, etc.... yet, when I imported the saves into ME2... without exception, the game indicated that Shepard had followed the "paragon" path. |
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Post by Ieldra on Oct 25, 2016 13:12:33 GMT
For me to fear galactic "anarchy" is for me to fear the actual real universe. Evolution of life on earth is chaotic. And in a split second, a gamma ray burst can emit more energy than our sun does in it's entire lifetime and devastate everything in it's path for thousands of light years. There's no giant robot to rescue anyone or control this mess. And yet time goes on. With destroy, I'm merely bringing a fictional universe more in line with this. "Evolution is chaotic" is a misconception: Mutation may be random, but selection is anything but. Also, every society needs order. How much, well, there's where differring political opinions come in, but no human society can exist without a measure of order, and more so if it's a technological society. It may be optional for a posthuman society where we don't depend any longer on co-operation, but even then it's very likely people still want it, because having no order means you have to learn how the world works every day anew, and you can depend on nothing. What doesn't exist is order on the scale of societies and above but under the scale of universal laws, so any society has to adapt to changing external conditions over time, but we can still depend on things like "the sun will almost certainly be there for the next billion years". |
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Post by straykat on Oct 25, 2016 14:57:48 GMT
For me to fear galactic "anarchy" is for me to fear the actual real universe. Evolution of life on earth is chaotic. And in a split second, a gamma ray burst can emit more energy than our sun does in it's entire lifetime and devastate everything in it's path for thousands of light years. There's no giant robot to rescue anyone or control this mess. And yet time goes on. With destroy, I'm merely bringing a fictional universe more in line with this. "Evolution is chaotic" is a misconception: Mutation may be random, but selection is anything but. Also, every society needs order. How much, well, there's where differring political opinions come in, but no human society can exist without a measure of order, and more so if it's a technological society. It may be optional for a posthuman society where we don't depend any longer on co-operation, but even then it's very likely people still want it, because having no order means you have to learn how the world works every day anew, and you can depend on nothing. What doesn't exist is order on the scale of societies and above but under the scale of universal laws, so any society has to adapt to changing external conditions over time, but we can still depend on things like "the sun will almost certainly be there for the next billion years". I don't care about human order in this context. It's miniscule (and rather arrogant, I might add  ). You want to use that as some excuse for fictional entities like "Reapers"? I don't understand. And it's not just mutation that is random, but environment. |
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Post by Ieldra on Oct 25, 2016 19:24:10 GMT
I don't care about human order in this context. It's miniscule (and rather arrogant, I might add ). You want to use that as some excuse for fictional entities like "Reapers"? I don't understand. And it's not just mutation that is random, but environment. It's not about the Reapers, and if human order is not important in this context, then why do you claim anarchy is the natural state of the universe. It means "devoid of hierarchy", and what meaning does that have outside the context of human (or alien) societies? I didn't want to argue a specific point, I just wanted to point out a flaw in your argument. |
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Post by straykat on Oct 25, 2016 21:50:36 GMT
I don't care about human order in this context. It's miniscule (and rather arrogant, I might add ). You want to use that as some excuse for fictional entities like "Reapers"? I don't understand. And it's not just mutation that is random, but environment. It's not about the Reapers, and if human order is not important in this context, then why do you claim anarchy is the natural state of the universe. It means "devoid of hierarchy", and what meaning does that have outside the context of human (or alien) societies? I didn't want to argue a specific point, I just wanted to point out a flaw in your argument. We're talking about macro-level magnitudes of "order". The Reapers turned a whole galaxy into their petri dish. But the world is already fine without that. This is the main absurdity of the Mass Effect plot to me... it hinges on me fearing reality itself. Or it at least hinges on me being so immersed in it's fiction that I forget about reality. But my suspension of belief doesn't go that far. I'm not arguing for chaos on every degree though.. I'm not that crazy. I just think our social lives are pretty insignificant compared to this. And it's not something even the Reapers cared about themselves. Other than the Citadel/galactic power base. And even then, they weren't detailed about it. They just kept people in a sort of consumerist stupor. They didn't bring order to other aspects of society. Nor do I think Destroy advocates for that kind of chaos necessarily. Only low EMS does. It's extreme in wiping the slate clean... like a forest fire perhaps. But even that promotes revitalization somewhere along the way. While higher EMS is very targeted destruction. It's just militaristic... knowing your enemies and only focused on that. edit: This is starting to make me wonder if that Dark Energy plot was better, after all. It had nothing to do with chaos.. but massive effects (no pun intended) on the fabric of the universe itself. THAT is worth fearing. And it had more parallels to real fears... like global warming. It could've been clever if it tackled a current issue like this, in an indirect way. |
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). You want to use that as some excuse for fictional entities like "Reapers"? I don't understand. And it's not just mutation that is random, but environment.