Mass Effect

Forzare

Spoiler:

A couple reasons. My Shep said something about how she wouldn't brainwash organics, and this is no different. And Legion says something about how all the heretics would go back to the geth collective, and they'd make their decision. There was no guarantee that they wouldn't just come to the same conclusion again.

Nova

Spoiler:

Hm. My reasoning went a bit differently. It boiled down to either killing or brainwashing around one in twenty of all the Geth in the universe. I'm not sure which would be worse; the notion of killing tens of millions of sentient beings, or the notion of forcing tens of millions of sentient beings into seeing things differently.

The issue with the Geth is, individually, each program isn't exactly a pinnacle of sentience. It takes hundreds of Geth working in unison to form the Geth you fight in the game; Legion is comprised of something like one and a half thousand Geth.

So the issue of killing them became something a bit more complicated; because in killing these several million Geth, was I not only killing these Geth, but was I also going to end up depriving thousands of other Geth of the ability to become sentient?

In the end, I concluded that that was false, as they'd probably just combine with the others.

I was back to square one at that point.

What eventually tipped the scales, for me, was two things. One, was my desire to help the Geth make peace with the Quarians and eventually become a race like all the other aliens in the Citadel are. The other was my asking myself if I was really comfortable with sending millions of beings to their death.

The death issue was complex, in that the Geth don't exactly view death the same way we do. Their bodies are, after all, just platforms; they are perfectly willing to abandon them for any reason. But the Geth themselves are different. They're not used to death. As horrible as killing tens of millions of humans would be, at least humans all have some notion that they will die at some point. How much worse is it if you're sending millions of beings who have absolutely no idea of what's happening to them off to their death?

And I wanted to be able to bring a brainwashed Geth to the Council, and show them that I rewrote the Geth code. Killing them all, after all, offers the Council no proof that the Geth have actually changed; it just shows them an empty Geth platform. A brainwashed Geth, on the other hand, could potentially make them see that the Geth have changed, although it would be a steep, uphill battle.

It wasn't an easy decision to make, by any means.

Forzare

Spoiler:

What it really boiled down to for me was that rewriting them really wasn't any different than what the Reapers did. And there's something about taking away their power to choose that didn't really sit right with me. :V



Also, from what I've heard, rewriting actually makes it a little harder to get the Quarians and the Geth to make peace.

Nova

Spoiler:

Taking away their right to choose doesn't really sit right with me either. But then, neither does genocide, y'know?

Forzare

Spoiler:

Better to die free than live a slave and blah blah blah typical american attitude blah blah blah



Also, I don't know that I'd call it genocide. It's killing no matter how you look at it, but it is a war, and Geth don't really have civilians/children as far as we know.

ClockworkUniverse

Spoiler:

IMO, both options should have been renegade.

Forzare

Spoiler:

I dunno about that. They are sort of at war with organics. How would Paragon Shepard handle that?

ClockworkUniverse

Spoiler:

Bear in mind, it's about how Shepard is seen, not about his personality. Both acts are pretty horrifying despite being necessary.

Nova

Spoiler:

I don't think both actions should have been Renegade. As they're kind of necessary choices that you have to make to do Legion's loyalty mission, it would have been better if they hadn't been Paragon or Renegade.

Also:

"Better to die free than live a slave and blah blah blah typical american attitude blah blah blah"

Remember what Legion said about imposing one culture's morals onto another being bigoted and racist?

Alkthash

Spoiler:

Not just one's culture's morals, but ones species' morals. A lot of players seem to overlook that the Geth have a profoundly different outlook and psychology than humans do.

Nova

Spoiler:

And personal freedom above all is not something the Geth want. In fact, they hate the idea of being individuals, as it lessens them. They want to be united with their brethren Geth, because it leads to them becoming better.

Forzare

Spoiler:

Even looking past morality though, there's more tactical considerations. There was also nothing stopping the Geth from going back, integrating their experiences with the rest of the consensus, and having all the Geth come out in support of the Reapers. That's a big risk to take in a war. When you destroy them, you know you've eliminated a fair chunk of enemy forces. When you rewrite them, you could gain some allies, but you could also be bolstering your enemy.



@INUH: But the galaxy at large hates the Geth. Before she's killed, Shepard is basically doing cleanup duty on the Geth. Why would people think Shepard is an asshole for blowing them up?

Alkthash

Spoiler:

Fozare that argument doesn't work because you aren't just sending the other Geth back, you are rewriting them to agree with the rest of the species.

Nova

Spoiler:

Except the virus didn't work like that. The virus forcibly rewrote their minds to make them come to a different conclusion about the Reapers.

ClockworkUniverse

^^^^i don't have a response to that, but I strongly suggest playing 3.



^^^Fair point.

Nova

I can't play 3.

$100.

ClockworkUniverse

Yeah, fair enough

Nova

Also, as the decision is made in Mass Effect 2, any knowledge that comes from playing 3 can't really be taken into account, as the player doesn't have that information when they are making the decision.

Also;

ClockworkUniverse

True.

Forzare

Spoiler:

But the thing is, as far as I remember, it doesn't rewrite their memories. When they return to their consensus and share their experiences, that could change the consensus' opinion on the Reapers. It's a roll of the dice, since we don't know how they'd react.

Nova

Spoiler:

That's not how the Geth work, though. That's what it might be like if a bunch of humans were brainwashed and sent back, but the Geth don't reach conclusions like that. How did they put it- the Heretics believed that two is greater than one, and the True Geth believed that two is lesser than three? And you're rewriting the Heretics to think like the True Geth, here.

Forzare

Spoiler:

But they can have different perspectives when they have different experiences.

The true geth don't have the same experiences as the heretic geth. Getting their data could cause a shift.

Nova

Spoiler:

Considering the split in differences between the two groups (The Heretics believed that the Reapers were the pinnacle of synthetic evolution and wanted to emulate them, and the True Geth wanted to forge their own path) and the way the Geth were treated as disposable assets by the Reapers, I doubt it. And there is also the fact that for the most part, the Geth are more than content to not harm organic life, and just remain working upon their giant Dyson Sphere thing.

Overall, I think that with the change in attitude and the knowledge of what the Reapers are actually like, I consider it really unlikely that they would join the Reapers after they're sent back.

In fact, I would consider it more likely that killing off 5% of the entire Geth population would be more likely to cause a massive backlash from the Geth, really.

gentlemanorcus

Really good video trying to prove the indoctrination theory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbghjn7_Byc

Forzare

Yeah, that one's probably the best video I've seen on the subject.

Not that I've actually seen that many.

ClockworkUniverse

So, a friend of mine just finally got to start ME3, and when she tries to import her file, the loading screen doesn't end, but instead the music and sound cut out and the normandy just keeps flying through space with the little spinning circle in the corner. She's on the Xbox version. Thoughts?

Alkthash

Didn't happen to me when I uploaded my Xbox's saves. Did she restart and try again?

ClockworkUniverse

Turns out she had a bad disc. She's already acquired a replacement.

ClockworkUniverse

Ending dlc is confirmed.

Forzare

Link? I can't find any such announcement.