The Witcher 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda thread

Apr 22, 2017 14:48:29 GMT linksocarina said:

Your not thinking like a computer.

The leviathan made the ai to solve the problem of ai going to war and destroying organics. The ai they made concluded the problem was organics, so they destroyed them and started a cycle to systematically "purge" the system so ai can't become a threat and destroy everything.

The leviathans didn't know what to do, so they ask the reapers to solve the problem.

Now the reapers see for thousands of cycles the creation of the crucible, the defiance of organics, the struggle and destruction they wrought by doing their function. They see one organic in Shepard do the impossible and lead the charge on a finished crucible, and it makes the reapers re think their strategy.

The catalyst is in the same spot as the leviathans. They don't know what to do with the cycle, so they ask Shepard to help fix it for them.

The reapers are not about self preservation, they are about their function thay the leviathans began millenia ago. In that respect it's come full circle, the cycle that the reapers created doesn't work anymore, and it needs to change to preserve life in the galaxy.

Made sense to me, on both a philosophical level and a logical one.

I honestly don't see anything particularly impressive about the "achievements" of this particular cycle.

What is so impressive about the idiocy of deciding to throw all your recourses into building a giant space microphone when you don't even know what it does or how to use it?

And it's not like they even came up with this scheme on their own.

Realistically, statistically, other cycles probably came close as well.

As for me not thinking like an AI, my reasoning weren't about self-preservation (although that's likely to exist in a self aware AI as well) it was about simple analysis.

Shepard is hardly a great thinker, he is practically the typical human hero, all about "not giving up".

To an AI that's all about pure logic, that will look like the futile struggles of an insect caught in a Venus flytrap.

Again, one anomalous cycle hardly means anything, not when according to starbrat the synthetic-organic problem was proven in the past an endless number of times.

The bottom line here that there's nothing special about this cycle's organics. They didn't fight particularly well, they didn't innovate particularly well, even the "friendship" and cooperation thing was rather pathetic.

Nothing about this cycle should merit starbrat giving up on his prime directive.

The bottom line here that there's nothing special about this cycle's organics. They didn't fight particularly well, they didn't innovate particularly well, even the "friendship" and cooperation thing was rather pathetic.

Nothing about this cycle should merit starbrat giving up on his prime directive.

Apr 23, 2017 13:05:34 GMT Rochrok said:

I don't believe for a moment that he gave up.  I think he was just at the end of his rope and couldn't stop Shepard from destroying him so he had no other choice

I don't think this part is true.

At no point was starbrat "forced" to do anything. The reapers allowed this to happen. They could have tore the giant microphone to pieces.

They could have locked down the entire Relay System and moved the Citadel out of reach.

Shepard didn't even know what to do up there. Starbrat held all the cards and he is the one who told Shepard how to even use the giant microphone.

If he didn't say anything, likely Shepard would have failed.

It doesn't make sense.

Personally? ME3 should have ended after the Illusive Man scene, with Vigil or Vendetta taking control over the whole thing, Shepard pushing the "destroy" button, and the dying Anderson telling Shepard "You did good".

The whole starbrat thing doesn't make sense from too many angles.

Apr 23, 2017 16:45:15 GMT alanc9 said:

This is pretty much ruled out by the way EMS operates. Without enough military war assets the Crucible becomes damaged. And ironically, damage to the Crucible works against the Reapers; they can't actually blow it up, but they can make synthesis impossible.

I'm not talking about the arbitrary EMS thing, I'm talking about a realistic scenario.

The Reaper forces are simply so much stronger than everyone else, that if a force of say 50 Reapers barged in at close range from FTL and went for the crucible, there was very little you could do.

The math is still 4 dreadnoughts = one Reaper when it comes to firepower, of course you only have a few handfuls of dreadnoughts scattered over the galaxy, while the Reapers have thousands of ships to throw at you.

From where I stand there's no other explanation for the events of ME3 unless they held back significantly.

Starbrat could have closed the arms of the Citadel, hell, Harbinger could have went after the crucible even after it connected. None of it makes sense.

And this doesn't account for the fact that without starbrat Shepard wouldn't have known that in order to destroy the reapers he had to shoot a pipe... I mean, who would've thought?...