flipthepool said:
Dude, that is not an opinion. People have talked about, and made excellent points about how the Catalyst's reasoning is faulty and directly contradicted by the game itself. Nobody is saying, "the Catalyst is a stupidhead!" and that's it. People are bringing up the contradictions in the Catalyst's logic, and how the Catalyst himself directly contradicts the whole "synthetics will ALWAYS KILL ALL ORGANICS, BLARGH!" reasoning, being that he IS a synthetic, who is trying to SAVE organic life.
The Catalyst is an AI, programmed a long, long time ago, by organics who saw, that the technological path they were going down would eventually lead to demise of all organics by the hands of synthetics. To prevent this from happening, they made the Catalyst and the solution to the problem of synthetics wiping out organics is the Reapers.
To the Catalyst and the Reapers, they
are saving organics, by storing them in Reaper form, but also, they're making sure that future species of organics have a figthing chance and not being wiped out by synthetics.
These...aren't opinions. Saying, "the Geth (synthetics) and the Quarians (organics) were able to peacefully reconcile their differences," ISN'T an opinion. Asking, "If synthetics are ALWAYS going to kill ALL organics, then why is the Catalyst, a synthetic, trying to save organics? Doesn't that disprove that line of reasoning?" ISN'T an opinion.
Saying that the whole "synthetic life will ALWAYS do this thing," goes directly against the self-determinism of the series is NOT an opinion. Saying that it goes against the idea that synthetic life has free will ISN'T an opinion.
You're right, those aren't opinions, I didn't say that either. Regardless, that doesn't matter to the Catalyst or the Reapers. As I said, the Catalyst was programmed eons ago and the experience of those organics was that synthetics would eventually take over the galaxy which, again, is why it was set up in the first place.
The ending, however, very much supports self-determinism. With the mass relays destroyed, organics will finally be free to pursue technological and societal advancements they want, instead of being directed down a certain path, set by the Reapers.
None of these things are opinions, they are facts, and they are why the endings are so freaking stupid. They are based on a premise that is faulty from the offset, and one that is in no way supported by the rest of the series. "Synthetics vs. organics," hasn't been the major conflict of the series. "The Reapers vs. Everyone else in the universe," has been the major conflict of the series.
I mean, the second game goes WAY out of the way to try to establish that a) not all synthetics are evil Reaper lovers, and b) they have their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own motivations. So when the third game suddenly goes, "Nope! They're all going to KILL YOU," well, I call shenanigans. Because that was in no way supported by the game itself.
The third game most certainly does not state that all organics are going to kill you. The
Catalyst with its programming, states that organics will eventually make synthetics who will wipe all organics out, because that's what the original creators of the Catalyst (probably) witnessed. It might be right, it might be wrong, but the Catalyst is only as good as its programming.
Synthetic vs organics might not have been the major conflict, but it's a theme of the ME trilogy and the explanation of whole Reapers vs. the galaxy. Being a theme in the series, it and the themes of self-determism(both the instance I explained above and self-determinism for the player) and self-sacrifice ties up together and makes the ending.
But listen, it's obvious that neither of us are going to convince the other side that their opinion is the right one. I've tried to make my side and my understanding of the ending and the trilogy as clear as possible. I'm not surrendering my position, but it's clear that we aren't getting anywhere, so I'm going to stop replying here. I'm willing to explain my side of things, if anyone is interested in a PM, but this back and forth is getting us nowhere.
I respect your right to your opinion(and those who hold similar views) and think it's absolutely fine that you have that opinion. Despite what you might think, I don't think you guys are idiots, you just hold a different opinion than me. I thank you and the others who have been keeping the discussion civil, while presenting your side of things, but if you haven't been convinced so far, you won't ever be, hence why I don't think it's necessary to spend more time here, especially when I can't even get people to admit that the endings are indeed different and depends on choices throughout the series:
MomoElektra said:
Sp3ratus said:
It might just be minor alteration for you, but they are different endings, as different things happens in each and it is influenced by earlier choices in the series.
In my opinion that makes them the exact same ending with some different variables.
