Games where neither character is right

[Moloch Sacrifice]

Although "individual consciousness" is not part of their own societal make-up that does not mean they do not have the resources nor ability to understand it.

I would argue that even by the time of the events of Mass Effect 2, the Geth still did not fully understand individuality. When Legion attempts to access classified data on Tali's omni-tool he is confused by her reaction; from the perspective of the Geth the idea of a secret is an anomaly, as all information is shared between them freely. Likewise, he is distinctly surprised to learn that the Heretic faction were covertly gathering information on the 'true' Geth, despite the Heretics having a very clear motivation to do so. If the Geth understood individuality fully, these events would not have had the same effect on Legion.

 

[Diablo2000]

If that's baseless speculation, then so is your assertion that many or most of the Quarians were completely unassociated and blameless in regards to the attempt to annihilate the Geth, which is the entirety of your argument.

That's absurd.

The writers did not refer to the original quarian government being a universal democracy with every decision being determined by a vote of every single individual so it's ridiculous to assume that was the case. You are quite honestly trying to demonize the entire race.

"We set about trying to wipe out your entire species even though you never tried to hurt us. Now that you have the upper hand, I think you really should stop at just 50%."

"You have proceeded to slaughter billions of us who had no say in determining your fate. Surely seeing that you've wiped our entire military and half our population we are no longer any kind of a threat?"

I'd say that given what they attempted, they should be grateful for the 1% that were allowed to flee and the fact that the Quarian species was allowed to continue to exist.

Not going to repeat it.

Actually, I was thinking of WWII when I typed that.

Anyway, no, that would not have been justified since the Germans never attempted to destroy the entire populations of the Allied nations.

However, a better parallel can be found on the Eastern Front of WWII. The Germans committed terrible atrocities in Russia. When the tide turned and the Russians invaded Germany, they committed atrocities of their own (although not on anything near the same scale). While what crimes the Russians committed are still on them, I'd say the Germans had no right or reason to expect restraint.

It's not a matter of whether the German citizens who had no involvement in Nazi crimes should have expected restraint, rather it is a matter of whether they deserved to be punished for something they didn't do (which of course it'd be insane to suggest they deserved to be punished.)

Although such atrocities were to be expected under these conditions (all the allies committed these crimes) that does not justify them, nor does it alleviate the guilt of those who committed them nor do those who had such crimes inflicted on them deserve it.

It was a pointless excess that should have been avoided.

I think this here is a fundamental misunderstanding of Geth psychology. As a collective who acts upon consensus, the very idea of the actions of a group not reflecting that of the whole is complete anathema to them.

Going to have to cut you right off here and repeat myself yet again.

The geth can (and did) upload themselves to the quarian's information network accessing millions of years worth of people's experiences, thoughts, ideas, mindsets, moralities and so on. Within a few moments they can read every scrap of history, politics, science, sociology, psychology, biology etc and analyse all of these topics through every available paradigm provided.

Although "individual consciousness" is not part of their own societal make-up that does not mean they do not have the resources nor ability to understand it.

Kids, Kids. You are both wrong!
If you try to put a hamburger into a microwave and your microwave asks "Why?", most people will be extremely freak out by this. The Quarians acted out of fear that once the Geth gained full concience they would destroy the quarians because they wouldn't have need for "organics", except that by that point in time the geth had no intention do to so.
So was their desition of attacking the gets first justified? Yes. Has it right? HELL NO!
The same applies to the atrocities that the geth commited, was understantable but wasn't right. However made sense they wouldn't simply stop at 50% per cent of the quarians, mostly because they would eventually just rise up and try to take on the geth again and start another war very soon (In fact that was what happen), so they left 1% which was just enough so the race would survive. Was awful, but it wasn't just senseless killing.

So both sides were wrong in this really.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

snip

Kids, Kids. You are both wrong!
If you try to put a hamburger into a microwave and your microwave asks "Why?", most people will be extremely freak out by this. The Quarians acted out of fear that once the Geth gained full concience they would destroy the quarians because they wouldn't have need for "organics", except that by that point in time the geth had no intention do to so.
So was their desition of attacking the gets first justified? Yes. Has it right? HELL NO!
The same applies to the atrocities that the geth commited, was understantable but wasn't right. However made sense they wouldn't simply stop at 50% per cent of the quarians, mostly because they would eventually just rise up and try to take on the geth again and start another war very soon (In fact that was what happen), so they left 1% which was just enough so the race would survive. Was awful, but it wasn't just senseless killing.

So both sides were wrong in this really.

Absolutely; both sides did horrendous things for understandable reasons. However, the point I was trying to make is that the Geth are just as much victims as they are war criminals (as are the Quarians), whilst Nil Kafashle seems to believe that their actions are completely unjustified.

EDIT: Although I would absolutely love to have an existentialist microwave. Imagine the banter! "Your lasagne will be cooked for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. However, after heating it will proceed to gradually grow cold and unpalatable until you are left bitterly wondering how it ever appealed to you in the first place. Watch out: the plate can get hot!"

 

[Darkbladex96]

It's a sign of a good writer and good story when two people have strong beliefs about something but the story never shows one as being 'more right' than the other. They're both instead faithfully portrayed as if both of then have very understandable reasons for thinking what they think.

So what are some of the strong examples of that happening in a game? (And does something like getting Paragon points for supporting one guy in a game like Mass Effect mean that that's the side which is being portrayed 'right'? Or how about when the game overall gives you a better reward if you take a certain person's side?)

This isn't quite true. The sign of good writing thing, that is. It's okay to have a character just be flatout wrong and bad because they want to be. If that's the character, well that just the character.

 

[Zhukov]

If that's baseless speculation, then so is your assertion that many or most of the Quarians were completely unassociated and blameless in regards to the attempt to annihilate the Geth, which is the entirety of your argument.

That's absurd.

The writers did not refer to the original quarian government being a universal democracy with every decision being determined by a vote of every single individual so it's ridiculous to assume that was the case. You are quite honestly trying to demonize the entire race.

That's more speculation.

Throughout the series, Quarians who did not support the destruction of the Geth were portrayed as few and far between. The only ones we met were Koris (I think that was his name, the Quarian admiral who favoured peace) and the dissenters shown in the Geth archive. That's it. We can assume that they had supporters, but any such are clearly a minority.

"We set about trying to wipe out your entire species even though you never tried to hurt us. Now that you have the upper hand, I think you really should stop at just 50%."

"You have proceeded to slaughter billions of us who had no say in determining your fate. Surely seeing that you've wiped our entire military and half our population we are no longer any kind of a threat?"

Except they did still pose a threat. 50% of a race is still billions of people who want you dead. Hell, the descendants of the 1% that were allowed to escape later developed the network disruptor weapon and attacked the Geth again in ME3, killing billions of Geth who just wanted to be left alone to build their giant hard drive.

Bottom line is that the Quarians instigated a total war with the goal of utterly destroying a species that meant them no harm. They lost that war and the species they were trying to utterly destroy passed up the opportunity to utterly destroy them in return because their goal was merely self preservation, not genocide. The Quarians then repaid that mercy by turning around generations later and picked a second fight. By my reckoning, that puts the Geth firmly on the moral high ground.

If you try to put a hamburger into a microwave and your microwave asks "Why?", most people will be extremely freak out by this. The Quarians acted out of fear that once the Geth gained full concience they would destroy the quarians because they wouldn't have need for "organics", except that by that point in time the geth had no intention do to so.
So was their desition of attacking the gets first justified? Yes. Has it right? HELL NO!
The same applies to the atrocities that the geth commited, was understantable but wasn't right. However made sense they wouldn't simply stop at 50% per cent of the quarians, mostly because they would eventually just rise up and try to take on the geth again and start another war very soon (In fact that was what happen), so they left 1% which was just enough so the race would survive. Was awful, but it wasn't just senseless killing.

So both sides were wrong in this really.

Actually, I think the Quarian's initial fear of the newly awakened Geth, apart from the general freak out factor of having one's lawnmower start asking questions about souls and the meaning of life, was due to the fact that AI were illegal by council treaty and thus could get them in serious trouble. At least, that what I remember. If there was mention of them fearing attack from the Geth, then I've forgotten it.

Anyway, the Quarian's actions were, in my eyes, at least somewhat understandable. They had reasons for wanting the Geth gone and they never attempted to negotiate because, seriously, who negotiates with a lawnmower? But that's a long way from justified or right. They could have at least tried talking. After all, if it's smart enough to start asking about the meaning of life then it's smart enough for you to ask what it wants before you send in the troops.

 

[Drake666]

snip

Kids, Kids. You are both wrong!
If you try to put a hamburger into a microwave and your microwave asks "Why?", most people will be extremely freak out by this. The Quarians acted out of fear that once the Geth gained full concience they would destroy the quarians because they wouldn't have need for "organics", except that by that point in time the geth had no intention do to so.
So was their desition of attacking the gets first justified? Yes. Has it right? HELL NO!
The same applies to the atrocities that the geth commited, was understantable but wasn't right. However made sense they wouldn't simply stop at 50% per cent of the quarians, mostly because they would eventually just rise up and try to take on the geth again and start another war very soon (In fact that was what happen), so they left 1% which was just enough so the race would survive. Was awful, but it wasn't just senseless killing.

So both sides were wrong in this really.

Absolutely; both sides did horrendous things for understandable reasons. However, the point I was trying to make is that the Geth are just as much victims as they are war criminals (as are the Quarians), whilst Nil Kafashle seems to believe that their actions are completely unjustified.

EDIT: Although I would absolutely love to have an existentialist microwave. Imagine the banter! "Your lasagne will be cooked for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. However, after heating it will proceed to gradually grow cold and unpalatable until you are left bitterly wondering how it ever appealed to you in the first place. Watch out: the plate can get hot!"

The moment my microwave quotes Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I'll salt and burn it.

You can never be sure with those romantic philosopher!

By the way, nice discussion guys. I little bit "intense" for me, but you are doing something good. You think about the game you played, about right and wrong, about good and evil. I think all forms of entertainment should provoke that kind of discussion and it's great that a AAA game can do that to you

 

[Poppy JR.]

Fire Emblem: Awakening had a couple of moments where a lot of your enemies had nothing against you; they were just trying to help their countries, just like you.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

The moment my microwave quotes Jean-Jacques Rousseau, I'll salt and burn it.

"The person who has eaten the most is not the one with the most courses but the one with the richest desserts."
"Those that are most slow in making a meal are the most faithful in the consumption of it."
"We are born weak, we need nourishment; helpless, we need recipe books; foolish, we need oven mitts. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of the kitchen."

 

[Silvanus]

I'd just like to say that it's a great mark in Mass Effect's favour that it can evoke the kind of genuine debate as the one above between Zhukov, Nil and others.

In fact, you've convinced me to restart and play through it properly.

 

[Drake666]

Did someone played Risen?
Not the greastest game, but I like the plot and the setting.

Spoiler

Near the end of the game, you've got the choice of liberating a Titan and killing/destroying everything/everyone on the island BUT perhaps save the mainland from the attack of other Titans OR just stop the Inquisitor from liberating that Titan. I really don't know what is the "good" choice here. I think it works with what the OP was talking about

 

[BrotherRool]

It's a sign of a good writer and good story when two people have strong beliefs about something but the story never shows one as being 'more right' than the other. They're both instead faithfully portrayed as if both of then have very understandable reasons for thinking what they think.

So what are some of the strong examples of that happening in a game? (And does something like getting Paragon points for supporting one guy in a game like Mass Effect mean that that's the side which is being portrayed 'right'? Or how about when the game overall gives you a better reward if you take a certain person's side?)

This isn't quite true. The sign of good writing thing, that is. It's okay to have a character just be flatout wrong and bad because they want to be. If that's the character, well that just the character.

I don't mean it's the sign of a good writer if every single character and conflict is like that =D But if you can't write from two perspectives without favouring your own at all then you're probably not doing a good job

 

[Diablo2000]

If that's baseless speculation, then so is your assertion that many or most of the Quarians were completely unassociated and blameless in regards to the attempt to annihilate the Geth, which is the entirety of your argument.

That's absurd.

The writers did not refer to the original quarian government being a universal democracy with every decision being determined by a vote of every single individual so it's ridiculous to assume that was the case. You are quite honestly trying to demonize the entire race.

That's more speculation.

Throughout the series, Quarians who did not support the destruction of the Geth were portrayed as few and far between. The only ones we met were Koris (I think that was his name, the Quarian admiral who favoured peace) and the dissenters shown in the Geth archive. That's it. We can assume that they had supporters, but any such are clearly a minority.

"We set about trying to wipe out your entire species even though you never tried to hurt us. Now that you have the upper hand, I think you really should stop at just 50%."

"You have proceeded to slaughter billions of us who had no say in determining your fate. Surely seeing that you've wiped our entire military and half our population we are no longer any kind of a threat?"

Except they did still pose a threat. 50% of a race is still billions of people who want you dead. Hell, the descendants of the 1% that were allowed to escape later developed the network disruptor weapon and attacked the Geth again in ME3, killing billions of Geth who just wanted to be left alone to build their giant hard drive.

Bottom line is that the Quarians instigated a total war with the goal of utterly destroying a species that meant them no harm. They lost that war and the species they were trying to utterly destroy passed up the opportunity to utterly destroy them in return because their goal was merely self preservation, not genocide. The Quarians then repaid that mercy by turning around generations later and picked a second fight. By my reckoning, that puts the Geth firmly on the moral high ground.

If you try to put a hamburger into a microwave and your microwave asks "Why?", most people will be extremely freak out by this. The Quarians acted out of fear that once the Geth gained full concience they would destroy the quarians because they wouldn't have need for "organics", except that by that point in time the geth had no intention do to so.
So was their desition of attacking the gets first justified? Yes. Has it right? HELL NO!
The same applies to the atrocities that the geth commited, was understantable but wasn't right. However made sense they wouldn't simply stop at 50% per cent of the quarians, mostly because they would eventually just rise up and try to take on the geth again and start another war very soon (In fact that was what happen), so they left 1% which was just enough so the race would survive. Was awful, but it wasn't just senseless killing.

So both sides were wrong in this really.

Actually, I think the Quarian's initial fear of the newly awakened Geth, apart from the general freak out factor of having one's lawnmower start asking questions about souls and the meaning of life, was due to the fact that AI were illegal by council treaty and thus could get them in serious trouble. At least, that what I remember. If there was mention of them fearing attack from the Geth, then I've forgotten it.

Anyway, the Quarian's actions were, in my eyes, at least somewhat understandable. They had reasons for wanting the Geth gone and they never attempted to negotiate because, seriously, who negotiates with a lawnmower? But that's a long way from justified or right. They could have at least tried talking. After all, if it's smart enough to start asking about the meaning of life then it's smart enough for you to ask what it wants before you send in the troops.

If I not mistaken in the first Mass Effect when you ask Tali about it she justify the attacks that way. So there was probably a fear of the geth deciding they don't need the quarians anymore and kill all them, that was what I got from it anyway.

 

[Single Shot]

What got me onto this line of thought is Sheperd Book in Firefly.

"HTTP 404 Not Found" - Now that is a truly inspirational quote. I'm guessing you mean something to do with this quote.

"I've been out of the abbey two days. I've beaten a lawman senseless. Fallen in with criminals. I watched the captain shoot the man I swore to protect. And I'm not even sure if I think he was wrong."

Thanks for finding the quote. Since the original guy is banned I guess it's probably not worthwhile quoting him in?

I think that line is still totally in sync with me, I'm a pretty big Firefly fan and I was individually reviewing each episode when I was first thinking about this and I feel like there was only one time when they didn't write Book properly (which was when River ripped up his bible and he gave a talk about how it didn't matter whether symbols were true or not) and even then, it's possible it's deliberate because it was always hinted that Book wasn't a preacher his whole life and when they revealed his secret that's definitely how it turned out.

When he says the line about "And I'm not even sure if I think he was wrong." he's got a lot of agony in his voice and is clearly being legitimately shaken by events. It's not like he's suddenly cast off everything he had previously thought and he gives it consideration and eventually finds something he's comfortable with instead of say, becoming atheist or whatever.

(and of course it's fine to have characters change and convert/de-convert. You just need to make sure y ou're doing it because that's what's right for the story and not because you writing some Atheist/Christian wishfulfillment fantasy where everyone ends up agreeing with your cunning arguments and becomes more like you)

I won't ruin too much for you, but you're right. I suggest you read the "A Shepard's tale" comic at some point. It goes through Book's life from abusive childhood to the moment Kaylee welcome's him aboard.

There is a lot of old pain and in that man, and it becomes clear that the whole crew has 3 basic backstories and are only really shaped by how they've responded to it.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Quarians acted like children with their hands caught in the cookie jar, and attempted to kill the Geth out of fear, not just of the Geth, but of being slapped down legally by the Council. Their actions precipitated the war, and their measure so extreme they killed their own people to get to the Geth, despite the Geth initially not wanting to fight back but rather diplomatically solve the issue. They opened the damn door and couldn't close it so they blew up the house. Quarians were responsible for the Geth, and even though the Geth were now gaining Sapience, they weren't perfect beings and responded in kind AFTER they had no other choice. Quarians were the most guilty party because they handled the situation like scared children, and the Geth literally were children. Can't expect a new race, no matter how much info they had access to, to get things right and know intrinsically what the right action. The Geth may have gone overboard but the Quarians were the ones who taught them that genocide was perfectly ok. Having your tactics sent back at you doesn't absolve you from the crime, and since the Quarians were the parent in this situation they're more than responsible for the Geth's actions. Criminal Facilitation in my book. Quarians taught the Geth by their own actions genocide was acceptible, thereby facilitating the Geth response. And later the Geth did express remorse, the Quarians never seemed to admit any culpability other than "oops we created the Geth, tried to kill them and they went berserk! Pity us!"
Some advanced Civilization...

But as this is my final word, I'll just agree to disagree with the opposition. Just wanted to state my view a little more concise after thinking it over more. And to say that neither side was right but the Geth were wronged most and harmed most by the Quarian actions, the Quarian were lucky the Geth simply didn't go Skynet on them at first sapient thought.

 

[Cybylt]

Say what you want about Skyrim's civil war questline, I enjoyed how, in the end, neither side was right and it was just a matter of personal belief. Both sides were kind of rigth and a dick at the same time. After the disappointment on how Fallout: New Vegas failed to deliver their promise of grey & grey, it was quite refreshing.

Ehhh, I can't help but feel one side is on shakier ground if we're being generous since it's discovered early on that they're backed by the pretty literal elf nazis and lead by sleepers... and they promote xenophobic agendas as one of their selling points.

Also the things they claim to be against including elf nazi occupation and religious suppression were never even a reality until they started killing people over it.

On the Imperial end... they let organized crime go on in the ass end of Skyrim.

All they could really complain about was that the empire didn't fight to the last man when they had the chance. But their own actions are undermining that very possibility in the future. A united empire is a threat, a fractured one is ripe for Aldmeri "cleansing."

Snip

One problem with all that. Advanced AI wasn't an offense against the Council races until after the Geth took the Quarian homeworld.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

A small minority of higher up quarians decided to shut down the geth yet you continue to project blame onto them all by virtue of them sharing the same race.

I really wanted to leave it as is but you're acting on false pretense here. I feel I must correct you on this, the Quarian government decided to terminate the Geth after a few Geth asked their Quarian masters if the Geth had souls. The Government handed the edict down to the entire race: "Terminate your Geth servants". They believed that they could terminate the Geth before they knew what was happening. The Geth did not respond in violence until the Quarians panicked and opened fire which prompted the Geth to think about picking up weapons and fighting back, and even then there were Geth who remained loyal to their creators and tried to protect the Geth sympathizers in the Quarian ranks by putting themselves in harms way. The Quarians as a RACE knew what was transpiring but only a minority opposed it. Its not as if this was a quiet hush-hush thing that only a select few Quarians had knowledge. The war escalated, the Quarians declared martial law and were soundly routed.
You say it like there were only a few Quarians who decided the Geth must die, if that were so, wouldn't the Quarians opposed to killing the Geth have outnumbered the ones who wanted them dead and thus would have had the strength in numbers to stop the war before it escalated? Its not as if the Quarians weren't free thinkers and couldn't act against the wishes of an immoral government order. If there were more who didn't support it than who did, why didn't they stop it?
The Geth, I must repeat, didn't think of fighting back against the shutdown order until the Quarians fired upon them only then it occured to the Geth to pick up arms. That the Quarians didn't try diplomacy first is the paramount reason they were guilty, the Geth only fought to defend themselves. And when the Quarians fled the homeworld, the Geth did not pursue because they were unsure of total genocide as an option and the Quarians didn't pose much of a threat anymore.
Had the Quarians stood up to their government it could have been avoided. But they didn't, and they paid the price for it with every misstep thereafter.
So again, it wasn't a minority, the Geth supporters were in the minority, even after some Geth went out of their way to protect the Quarians who sympathized with the Geth.
I don't see how the Quarians weren't ultimately responsible for the war and the deaths of 99% of their race.