Riddle Me This...

At that point, the crucible has already been docked and the catalyst, by virtue of the fact that it is a hologram, is actually powerless to stop Shepard from using it.  People fight wars for the "right" for their appointed leaders to sit down with the enemy at the end of it all and decide on what form the "peace treaty" or "social contract" will take.  Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (clearly referenced in the game) is all about social contract theory.... how and why people relinquish their personal rights to form governments in the first place and why those governments and civilizations collapse into states of war.

Back in ME1, Shepard is given a similar choice when deciding the fate of the Rachni Queen.  So, let's compare the progression of the dialogues side by side:

Step 1:  Establishing that we are indeed talking to the leader of the enemy:
Child:  "I control the Reapers. They are my solution."
Rachni Queen says "We are the mother.  We sing for those left behind.  The children you thought silenced."

Step 2:  The enemy denying Shepard's accusations of wrong doing: 
Child:  "No.  We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just as we left your people alive the last time we were here".... right through to essentially denying that the Reapers betrayed Leviathan)
Rachni Queen (when Shepard uses the middle selection, which is "Are you some kind of leader?", resulting in Shepard saying "Did you order your people to kill the science team?"):  "No.  We were locked away here.  The children are beyond our songs.  They have been lost to silence."

Step 3:  The enemy acknowledging that Shepard now has them in a position where a "peace" can now be negotiated.
Child (after Shepard asks "Why didn't you stop it." "We believed the concept had been eradicated. Clearly, organics are more resourceful than we realized."  through to "You have hope. More than you think. The fact that you are standing here, the first organic ever, proves it. But it also proves my solution won’t work anymore" through to  "It is now within your power to destroy us."
Rachni:  "What will you sing?"  Will you release us?  Are we to fade away once more?" through to "Your companions hear the truth."  You have the power to free us, or return our people to the silence of memory."

Step 4:  Acknowledging that the enemy does not desire to just continue on with the war and negotiating for the "survival" of their people.
Child: "We find a new solution." with Shepard asking "Why are you telling me this? Why help me? and then Child responding "You have altered the variables." followed by a description of the other two choices that would no result in the total destruction of the Reapers.
Rachni Queen (if Shepard asks about her plans):  No.  We, I do not know what happened in the war.  We only heard discordance, songs the color of oily shadows.  We would seek a hidden place to teach our children harmony.  If they understand, perhaps we would return."

While the ME3 ending is longer a more complex... it follows the same basic pattern as the earlier decision regarding the Rachni.
 

These are very insightful comments about what is taking place at the end of ME3 and make the ending way more understandable. Thank you. However, the fact that these ideas were not clearly outlined during the in-game dialog to the point where nearly no one on the planet understood what was going on only goes to show how poorly the ending was implemented and/or written. There were so many questions not answered when all was said and done that people felt frustrated rather then satisfied. This is to me the main reason the ending of ME3 left the series tainted.

I've seen you use this argument before on the forum, and frankly it comes across as a bit arrogant. To suggest that players somehow "missed the point" or "didn't understand" something as the reason they felt the Ending failed to provide closure is disingenuous, at best.

The Ending failed because it changed the rules mid-stride. Everything the player thought they were fighting for, had been emotionally invested in to care about, is stripped away. Contrary to what you said, the developers had chosen the simple ending. The complex ending would have tied all the loose ends together in a believable and narratively-established way.



What does it matter that it required Shepard to pull the wool from their eyes? And I'm not sure the Reaper threat was the sole motivation behind striking the truce. Had it been two organic races ready to obliterate each other, would the implications be any different?

This argument doesn't support the "synthetics are a threat" position (if that was what you were going for )

Actually never considered David as a problem. Other then an explicit example of what a rouge AI would be capable of doing. Which is actually one of my biggest issue with the series. The fact they dumb down the capabilities of the Reapers, EDI and the Geth save for when it is plot convenient. Because they are all down right retarded compared to what everything says they should be capable of. To what the game shows they are when it is convenient.

But tell me what is the reasoning for the out right hostility to the point of being willing to kill it self and Shepard on the part of the AI on the Citadel that was found funneling money to build it self a ship to be transferred on to?



Really love not only the implication of that conversation from the AI. A simple AI literally creating a more complex one. Which really shows the potential for exponential growth. As well as Ashley's knee jerk reaction. Help it is just like something else so it will automatically kill us given half a chance. It is almost as if ME 1 was setting the foundations for the issues and conflict between the two different forms of life before ME 2 royally and completely fucked everything up.

Yes the Reapers are the main antagonist of the series. That doesn't negate the issues that are shown happening. The issues that are shown to be developing. Even a deadly virus can only show minor symptoms that can lead you to ignore it till it is to late.



When people stop providing plenty of evidence for that claim I will. The very basis of the Reaper plan is to show up decades if not centuries before they would reach that point. So the lack of Synthetic life wiping out all organic life is expected. But this basic detailed is ignored, missed or relegated to unimportant status by players.

And yes it would be exactly like arrest anyone who collects knives because knives kill people. After every knife collector on the planet went on a bloody rampage killing millions of people world wide. Seriously did you forget the time the Geth turned the Quarian population from several billion to only a couple hundred thousand? That an experiment with combining a human and a VI resulted in David accessing every system and wiping out literally every person save one on the base in his attempt to quite the noise. And that the Geth or an AI like EDI would be capable of the same thing. Much like the AI on the Citadel that attempts to blow up Shepard by over charging basic infrastructure components till they would explode.



Existing for millions of years. Seen the rise and fall of countless civilizations. Exists on the very Citadel that races have used as data depositories. Can communicate and share the collective information the Reapers have based on their observations and the collective memories of races harvested and turned into Reapers. That is as close to omniscient as you can get without bringing religion into the mix. And if you want to bring that into the mix by every measurable way the Catalyst is God. And to be joined in Reaper form is his ultimate blessing.



Why do you assume that only Synthetics start the conflict? That actually seems to be a fairly common theme with a lot of people arguing against the Catalyst. It makes no claim that Synthetics are always the aggressor. Only that Synthetic life because it is objectively superior to organic life in every measurable way will always win the confrontation. The end result of that win is the destruction of an entire organic race.

And answer me this if you can. If you were a member of a race of synthetic life and you just fought a bloody to the death war with an organic race that you won. What logic would you have to trust any other organic race will not attack you? That the logical conclusion to finally be safe and free from the threat of being attacked by other organic races is to wipe them out.


The Geth let the Quarians go because they were unsure of the ramification of wiping out an entire race. Well what would their conclusion be if the Quarians attacked and the Geth repelled them again. Forget about the existence of Reapers for a moment. They already let the Quarians go and choose to isolate themselves. And in return they were attacked again while the rest of the organic galaxy sat on the side lines. At best doing nothing, at worst cheering for the Quarians.

Would there be any reason for the Geth to let the Quarians life and not wipe them out completely and utterly? Why?

Would there be any reason for the Geth to view the rest of the organic life in the galaxy as a threat to them for standing buy and letting the Quarians attempt to kill them off? Why?



You say the Catalyst doesn't fill in the blanks then don't elaborate on that. Going off on an irrelevant tangent about Sovereign telling people not to build AIs. An important detail you seem to forget is that the creation of AI's is heavily regulated by the Council. Only a handful of companies have the permission to create them. And even then it is under extremely controlled circumstances. As well the fact that is thrown in the player's face at every turn by Tali and other Quarians. They were not intentionally attempting to create an AI. Because you know that is illegal to do. And yet their actions resulted in the creation of the Geth.

As for the "you cannot comprehend" line. I think it is fairly justified for a decent number of people. Because out right I am showing you, pointing out to you the flaws and the cracks that are only just starting. And you are waving them off claiming they don't matter. You are directly showing you can't comprehend runaway technology because of how your scoff at all the warning signs.

With the EDI and Geth statement you are assuming a static universe. That everything will remain the same always. The simple fact is nothing is static. What is now will not always be. EDI is an individual who's entire life has been surrounded only by organics. Her only interaction with her own kind is the short time Legion was on the Normandy during ME 2 and ME 3. There is no planet/society of EDI's that she was created in and developed in who then all on her own decided to help Shepard out during the events of ME 2. The Geth for all intents and purposes are an individual as well. Due to the fact it takes dozens of Geth programs to reach the same intelligence level as a single organic life form. But their action was to completely and utterly isolate themselves from organic life after their initial conflict with the Quarians.



And yet I have provided ample evidence that that claim is false. You however continue to brush aside all the points I bring up to show the problems developing. So any issue is because someone missed or ignored something. In your case your continual brushing to the side all the points I bring up would classify as ignoring it.



And if we have only your irrelevant tangent about Sovereign telling the races of the galaxy not to build AIs. Which ignores the fact that developing them was already illegal save by a very small handful of companies under very strict conditions. And the fact the Quarians never intended to create an AI and yet still created a synthetic race that was capable of completely annihilating them. As argument against it then I'd say your argument is the weak one here.



Yes their over aggression caused the downfall of the ancients rendering their planet a radioactive ball of rock. Their continued aggressive tendencies plunged the galaxy into a war that killed billions. Thus causing the Genophage to be developed and released to stem the flow of blood. The after math of the war destroying their civilization yet again scattering the Krogan into individual clans fighting for the few resources their planet had left. With many leaving the planet to exist in the only way they have known for thousands of years. Fighting for credits or simply because they can.

What Eve and Wrex want is to rebuild the Krogan society to a time before their aggression got the better of them. To how the Krogan were before they rendered their planet a radioactive ball of rock. And the Krogan are fully into that message shown in two ways.

The first is a war asset that drops significantly if Eve dies resulting in Krogan infighting among clans over the cause of her death. Or if you fail to defuse the bomb on Tuchunka the resulting explosion that kills all the Krogan in the valley drops the war asset from 300 to only 50. a -250 lose.

The second being this e-mail you get from her

From: Urdnot Bakara


Commander.

I'm writing you from the Kelphic Valley on Tuchanka. I wish you were here to see this. I'm watching krogan pour in from across our entire planet, so many of them that I've lost count. They've all heard the news. We are finally free. The age of suffering is over. Never again will krogan be afraid to give birth. Never again will they fear the pain and heartache it might bring.

While I don't know what fate ultimately has in store for my people, I can promise you your decision to believe in us will not be in vain. We will fight the Reapers for more than glory. We will fight them because we know there is a future for us after victory. The rest of my life will be devoted to traveling Tuchanka and speaking aloud the words no krogan has heard for nearly 2,000 years: There is reason to hope. This, I owe to you, Commander. This, I will never forget.

Eve and Wrex know that continuing the way they have been will only result in the destruction of the Krogan race. As well even if Wreav is leader Eve makes it very clear that she and the other females will fight him and that he will have to deal with a Civil War before she allowed the Krogan to continue down that dark path that they Krogan have been doing on.

How do the Geth respond to a similar set up?



We will uphold it's promise.

Krogan respond to the actions of Shepard buy supporting the galaxy in a time of war and looking to improve themselves beyond what they are now. Promising to rebuild the Krogan society to something better.

The Geth just do it because Legion pinky promised before he died.



Who said that synthetics were inherently hostile? Not I. Not the Catalyst. You have created your own straw man argument out of thin air. Your turn the argument from what it is. That due to the differences there is conflict between organic and synthetic life. And that due to the superiority of synthetic life they will win. Into a straw man that you can then easily defeat by claiming that the game says that synthetic life is inherently hostile and aggressive.

The more this goes on the more it seems like your entire argument is based on a self constructed straw man. And this only enforces the very things you tell me I need to stop doing.

Riddle me this Bioware....

Why would a character with over 10 years of training and experience in the military shoot at an object that will explode while walking towards it instead of shooting from a distance?