Not curing the Genophage: The reason you're a heartless monster.

I wouldn't say that the Turian's deployment of the Genophage was overkill. The Krogan had just dropped asteroids on several (as in more than one) garden worlds thereby killing millions and rendering the planets uninhabitable even to the current era.  And on top of this, the Hierarchy wasn't even a part of the galactic government that the Krogan were rebelling against in the first place. If anything ,their use of the Genophage and planting of the secret bomb on Tuchunka was more than reasonable.

However, in spite of all of that, they are the ones, not the diplomatic Asari, that are supplying the Krogan homeworld with foodstuffs since the conclusion of that war.

Youre right. It isn't the only deterrent. The Krogan just aren't responsible -- or indeed smart enough - to control their own livelihoods by not killing each other or practicing some form of contraception. They're literally too stupid to solve this themselves. And I don't mean "stupid" in some crass way. I mean literally. And even if they had some measures, they're still too stupid to even practice basic concepts of "civilization". Wrex himself scoffs at the idea of Krogan simply living and colonizing. As if that was some giant task for them. They just want to lounge around and kill shit.

Literally stupid. Even the most primitive earth societies know the importance of agriculture. Let alone not killing each other (and everyone else) into oblivion. Since the Krogan can't even meet others half way or even a fraction of a fraction of halfway, then the Genophage ends up being the deterrent.

But ultimately, they should have never been uplifted in the first place. That's the real fault of the Council races. Life needs to evolve at it's own pace. Which is why I don't like the Reapers (or TIM's infatuation with them) either.

Isn't it true that if the genophage cure is sabotaged that the krogan die out? I think that's sufficient evidence of genocide. I don't believe genocide is a viable option for sentient creatures. Even the Reapers maintain the species they kill in some form (as another Reaper).

I think you're missing the point. Several points actually, one of which is that the krogan would be dead without "the meddling of others". See: the Shroud.

Now if you say they should've never been uplifted to begin with, like straykat, then you've got a point. But what's done is done. One could also make the argument that since we (or rather the salarians) got them into this mess, they have some responsibility for their continued survival. Whether any side of it likes it or not.

Such a simplistic outlook. Absolute statements with no regard for context or other related factors rarely make for tenable RL positions. You have a rodent infestation and you and your neighbor are shooting at each other. Both negatives. But are you going to sit there and complain about the rats or are you going to try and take care of the gunman across the yard first?

Krogan have much bigger problems than the genophage yet are refusing to do anything about them. All they do is bitch about the genophage and kill each other. I think people can be forgiven for not buying to the notion that if only the genophage went away, the krogan would be hunky dory and productive members of society (not even galactic society, just their society on their own).

And before you try and start in with "but it's still a negative and I don't like doing negative things" don't you think that's passing the buck a little? You want to say you care about krogan well being, but by only going after the genophage because it's a "negative" perpetuated by the Council (it's really not, asari had nothing to do with it) you're effectively saying "the krogan can rot for all I care so long as I have my moral high ground".

And I replied that this is mostly nonsense. Why do krogan need 1000 births per pregnancy or clutch or however it is they actually procreate? Their population does not need constant breeding. And if it does, it's because they keep killing each other or dying in pointless gang wars or other criminal activity. That and/or they refuse to aggregately improve their material surroundings. Krogan behavior is the fault here and it's not breeding behavior. It's the underlying fundamental inability to understand that they need to change their way of life.

Good, maybe we're getting somewhere after all. That is the argument. Everything else stems from that.

Otherwise:
1. No one's claiming that. But blaming everything wrong with their lives on said emotional state or refusing to deal with the other causes of their misery is equally rubbish.
2. No they should do something about it, instead of continuing on the path of self-destruction or throwing a tantrums about it, sometimes at the most inopportune time. Alternatively, yes they should get on with their lives. Are you implying victims should be defined by their experiences and never recover?
3. The victim is a child if they refuse to even acknowledge that said emotion distress is the least of their problems, and/or they do nothing productive about it.

You do know that nuclear disarmament is a thing precisely because nuclear deterrence is batshit right? I'm not even a historian and the level of headdesk... I suspect this discussion may be running its course.

There clearly is. Krogan fertility is adjusted to a manageable, reasonable rate, specifically pre-industrial. Brushing up on krogan history will tell you that industrialization is what began the slow decline for the krogan- long before any outsider messed with them. That's when life was "too easy" and their bombs eventually fell.

Unlike RL bioweapons, the genophage has actual benefit beyond threat reduction or punishment. Your refusal to acknowledge it does not render it false.

Doesn't disprove my point. People merely argue where the line is.

Blame the Krogan first. They're the ones that nuked their own planet and then ceaselessly gun each other down even when they know their numbers are small. Suddenly that's everyone else's fault?

Even more ridiculous: the fault of some soldier from a newcomer race of Humans, who barely has anything to do with any of it. More to the point: That soldier has to use questionable research against his own people just to keep Eve alive. Why is it the soldier's fault for not wanting to do the equivalent of Nazi Medicine? Only in Bioware La La Land is it suddenly the "right" thing to support Dr. Mengele.

As for the cure leading to complete death, if I was listen to Patrick Weekes, sure. If I was to actually play all of ME2, then no. The Male Shaman said it was a good thing to destroy their own planet. Strange as it is. As did Okeer. They were shooting for quality over quanity... that this would only leave the best krogan surviving. Especially Grunt. To "rise above a pile of corpses" and ignore adversity. It's hardcore, but it is what it is. There was never this idea of complete annihilation until ME3. Okeer's solution was more like pressing a reset button.

I don't know where to start with this.

You brought up the Shroud as a example of the "meddling of the others", when the issue was the LACK OF CHOICE, the imposition of that "meddling". The Krogan accepted the Shroud and have rejected the Genophage. That is the key difference between the two. Not the effect or perceived benefits, the partnership and shared responsibility that come with two sides working together. Since we uplifted the Krogan we do have a responsibility to help them. Help can come in many forms, I'd like that help to be coorperative rather than imposed.

You say the Krogan don't acknowledge their own failings, but then cite information almost directly from Wrex and Eve, Krogans that acknowledge their own failings.

You claim that I took an absolute position when it wasn't even. "Absent a really, really compelling reason..." - is doing bad things for uncompelling reasons a thing now?

You fault the Krogan for using this opportunity to force the Council to give them a Genophage cure, when recent history has shown the Salarians will actively update the Genophage if it is overcome naturally, and then steal it (Eve) if it is developed. The behavior/attitude arguments made against the Krogan are the exact reason they had to take the opportunity force the issue, otherwise they'd be waiting for the galaxy to get to some nebulous consensus opinion where they were completely unthreatened by Krogan birthrate, or thought these sentient and already capable people where "mature" enough to handle it. If the Krogan want the Genophage cured they have to force it.

You say I'm passing the buck on Krogan overpopulation, when I earlier said that this was a Krogan issue and we should help if asked for assistance. I'm not sure why that is "passing the buck", and not simply engaging cooperatively with the Krogan to solve their problems.

You denied that the Genophage affects Krogan reproductive behavior when the logical deduction from Mordin's description of 1 in 1000 births is, obviously, that the Krogan have to maintain their pre-Genophage mating habits in order to get the 1 live birth to maintain their numbers or die out. It is one of the first things Wrex says about the Genophage in ME1, that they have to focus on breeding. Denial of this is silly. What's the counterargument - that if the Krogan mate less the birthrate goes up?

You're complaining about the cold war, when the relevant aspect of it was that it was a common example where threats from weapons were used, the weapons weren't fired, and those threats had some benefit of stability. If that isn't a straightforward enough example, then pick any standoff that you can think of where the two sides threaten each other but don't attack. I.e., the Genophage unused, or its history of being used in the past once it is cured, could be an effective deterrent to Krogan aggression.

You've dismissed the fetus which Krogan females try to carry to term and that are born as stillborn (no mention of premature stillborn in game, but I'm sure that has happened as well) as a form of life that was killed by the Genophage, because the line for life is OMG soooo fuzzy when applied to a fetus, when its not really when the fetus is carried to term.

I think the Genophage, to begin with, was all kinds of wrong. I don't think bioweapons are ethical to begin with, and when you start targeting women and fetuses, it becomes morally heinous. It can't have been the only way to stop the Krogan (Why not target male fertility instead? Prevent conception in the first place? Why not find a way to curb their violent tendencies?), but whatever my objections to it may be, it helped to save the galaxy.

BUT now that the Genophage is in place, I don't think it would be right to cure it and return the Krogan to their pre-Rebellions condition, for the sake of all the other races. Even with the "ideal" leaders Wrex and Eve, one gets hints that their cycle of galactic expansion will continue, and now made possibly more bloody with the need for revenge on the part of most other Krogan. I would only be comfortable curing the genophage if there was a precondition (not just a vague hope) where the Krogan learnt to be less violent and warlike.

For me, it's not so much of the debate on how horrible the Genophage is towards the Krogan population, and possibly (one could argue) dubious methods of containment, but rather on the timing of Wrex/Wreve's demand for the cure.

Curing the Genophage does absolutely nothing to help anyone (including the Krogan) at that time of the Reaper War. All it did was give the Reapers days, weeks, perhaps even months (depending on how long the Tuchunka arc was) of free reign to kill and/or indoctrinate millions of people throughout the galaxy. How many Turian dreadnoughts were reduced to space debris in the time it took Shepard and Co. to finish playing doctor? How many more worlds fell under Reaper control while we were summoning Kalros? How many of the the babies sired by the now fertile Krogan are going to contribute in anyway to the fight? More than likely, all Wrex/Wreve has done is make more targets of opportunity for the Reaper forces to target. Congratulations, you can now have children, but it looks like that Reaper destroyer is just going to burn them to dust from orbit.


For being a supposed smart, mutant Krogan Wrex is incredibly short sighted when it comes to dealing with the Reaper invasion. All the babies in the world aren't going to matter for squat if the Turian military backbone had been broken while he was giving his ultimatum for the cure and the galaxy's chance of deploying the Crucible was snuffed out.

The difference here though is that the Krogan weren't under heavy attack, like the Turians, being unable to help due to the Reaper forces bogging down their armies. Nor was the entire Krogan population at risk of being completely wiped out, like the Quarians, during even a minor skirmish without securing safe holdings. They also weren't physically incapable of lending aid, like the Rachni, being held in containment by the Reapers themselves. The Asari and Salaians were withholding aid for no particularly compelling reason as well, granted, but out of all the possible allies to call to help fight, the Krogan had the worst excuse for not immediately joining the fray. What tactical reason is there in airing out centuries old dirty laundry now, when the entirety of galactic civilization is at stake?

Those three species, the Turians, Quarians, and Rachni had pressing, and dire circumstances preventing their call to aid, but once those were dealt with they jumped on board, no questions asked. The Krogan on the other hand, have no do or die obstacles preventing their help, they just actively refuse to assist until their comparatively petty demands are met.





On a side note, the whole gunning for taking back Earth (before the Reapers/Plot moved the MacGuffin there) was beyond stupid. It was actually perfectly reasonable that the other species didn't immediately drop everything they were doing and rush to save a planet with no tactical significance to speak of. The real goal was the construction and deployment of the Crucible, and to get the ships needed to protect it, Palaven had to be relieved, seeing as it; unlike Earth; was still contested and keeping the Reapers occupied. 

Bakara says that the reason for all the fighting/mercenary work is because they have nothing else to live for.  It's a misguided attempt to impress the females.  Wrex aside, check out Charr.  He can be found on Illium in ME2 and his corpse is in Grunt's mission in ME3.  It shows you that the krogan are capable of being more.  I might equate it more to poverty conditions where few escape it even though it's technically possible.  The odds are just stacked terribly against them and so it continues on.  Realistically, the genophage cure required someone extremely intelligent.  No krogan fits that category.  Then, as we later learned, the Shroud was sabotaged anyway so even if a cure was developed it would have failed.  Combine extremely high infant mortality rates with a violet culture and that race is going extinct.  If you take away the genophage they survive.  Simple facts.

You're missing the point. They have no hope. That's why they didn't change.

If Wrex and Eve both die, then you're crazy to cure the genophage. Leaving a cured Krogan in the leadership of Wreave is asking for another war, right when all the other races are at their weakest.

However with Wrex and Eve in charge, there's no reason not to cure the genophage.