ME3: Are the Reapers the Good Guys?

[Blind0bserver]

Let's see... the Reapers are a "race" of sentient machines who influence the development of sentient life and it's technological progression so every several billion years they can kill everything for both resources and to propagate their own species.

So... no.

 

[boag]

Let's see... the Reapers are a "race" of sentient machines who influence the development of sentient life and it's technological progression so every several billion years they can kill everything for both resources and to propagate their own species.

So... no.

So they are evil in the same way people are evil for eating animals, and evil for having sex and raising children?

 

[Shock and Awe]

I don't think that the reapers are in anyway the composite consciousnesses of the races used in their creation. It seems to me that they are simply using organic material to basically create shells for their AI program)if you could call it that) to inhabit. Basically I think of it more as a giant parasite or something along those lines, especially when you remember that the reapers killed off those species. If it wasn't for them, they wouldn't need to be preserved.

 

[Shock and Awe]

Double Post, as an apology here is a kitten

Spoiler: YAY KITTEN

 

[Something Amyss]

In Mass Effect 2, we find out that reapers are what seem to be composite consciousnesses of races that are presumably now extinct.

That they killed off. They are not shepherding the consciousness of these races to prevent their loss, they are the reason the loss is a potential issue.

Allowing vast numbers of a race to survive in a different form, while at the same time clearing the galaxy to allow new forms of life to evolve.

There really is no need to clear out to develop other races. further, they've engineered limited technological advancement, which indicates a probability the new life will be like and develop like the old life. To what end?

 

[Blind0bserver]

Let's see... the Reapers are a "race" of sentient machines who influence the development of sentient life and it's technological progression so every several billion years they can kill everything for both resources and to propagate their own species.

So... no.

So they are evil in the same way people are evil for eating animals, and evil for having sex and raising children?

In this scenario does "eating animals and having sex and raising children" mean "systematically exterminating all life in the known galaxy purely for self-gain"?

 

[Valiant 4 Funk]

They farm sentience, for christs sake. I have this thing about sentience. I don't like arbitrarily killing it. I don't mind eating turkey on thanksgiving because turkeys aren't sentient. People are.

Well perhaps they are so intelligent that they consider humans to be non-sentient....just picture a farm of turkeys calling us humans "The Reapers..." We farm turkeys, allow them to grow up in our prefab structures, and them come for them when the time is right.

And we aren't evil.



Right?

 

[Something Amyss]

Well perhaps they are so intelligent that they consider humans to be non-sentient....just picture a farm of turkeys calling us humans "The Reapers..." We farm turkeys, allow them to grow up in our prefab structures, and them come for them when the time is right.

And we aren't evil.



Right?

They're pretty clearly aware of our sentience, since it's part of their actual MO.

I get what you're saying, it would just work better if it was another target. A target that didn't know its victims were sentient (indeed, plan it that way). A target that didn't have higher communication with its so-called livestock equivalent.

We also don't wipe out all turkeys in the world in our harvest, either. But that's, I think, less important here.

 

[renegade7]

Mass Effect 1: "There is a realm so far beyond your own you cannot imagine it." Dark space is pretty easy to imagine.

Mass effect 2: "You have earned the attention of those infinitely your greater." Now, the Reapers built a human reaper believing humans to be EQUALS. Maybe implying something worse?

"You are a fool Shephard. The ones you call Reapers were your salvation, not destruction."

So there is evidence suggesting that there may be a bit of a gray area here...

 

[AD-Stu]

Mass Effect 1: "There is a realm so far beyond your own you cannot imagine it." Dark space is pretty easy to imagine.

Mass effect 2: "You have earned the attention of those infinitely your greater." Now, the Reapers built a human reaper believing humans to be EQUALS. Maybe implying something worse?

"You are a fool Shephard. The ones you call Reapers were your salvation, not destruction."

So there is evidence suggesting that there may be a bit of a gray area here...

Those are all quotes from Reapers - and obviously the Reapers think they're correct / justified in their actions.

From the point of view of either party, there really isn't any grey area: humans (and asari, turians, salarians, quarians and whoever else) stand to be wiped out by the Reapers, so from our point of view what the Reapers are doing is unequivocally a Very Bad Thing. The Reapers obviously believe the opposite to be true, for whatever reason.

There's only a grey area if you're somehow a dispassionate third-party observer.

 

[nbamaniac]

The ME universe is more or less no different from a barn. You feed em clueless critters and take care of em for the meat. We eat the meat, so we live. In analogy, the reapers are farming the universe so that they'll survive and 'evolve'. The whole 'moral' thing is purely perspective then.

"The chicken exists because we allow it, and it will end because we demand it."

 

[4RT1LL3RY]

Reapers view is like this. Hmm, windows(the galaxy) has been running for a while without a reformat(cleaning), I should re-install windows(eradicate all sentient life who are above a certain point) so that it will run at optimal performance and be free of virus and registry errors (not have anyone who is a threat to our existence).

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Asking if the Reapers are evil is like asking if Cthulu is evil.

Probably yes, but they ultimately exist on a level we can't fully understand...so who's to say yes or no?

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Moral relativity is bullshit. The Reapers are evil by their actions.

Jesus Christ, people. They commit acts of genocide that would make National Socialists green with envy.

 

[alinos]

They're not evil in the same sense that we're not evil for herding and slaughtering cattle. The cattle may think it's horrible and disgusting, ect., but if they were in the position to use us as a long-term, sustainable food source, they damn well would. It's simply a matter of special pride: It's not wrong to harvist, as long as it's not us that's getting harvested.

except last i checked reaper's were robot's who don't need to feed on organic like.

The equivalent would be us going around killing every cow and then just leaving them dead on the ground and not using any part of them.

they harvest as the game put's it because that is their purpose. But on the level we have seen aside from creating more of themselves there is no need to do so.

and as immortal spaceship's, do they really need to make more of themselves

 

[Darth Caelum]

Moral relativity is bullshit. The Reapers are evil by their actions.

Jesus Christ, people. They commit acts of genocide that would make National Socialists green with envy.

Hmm. I would like to ask why, exactly, you consider Moral Relativity bullshit.

From the point of view of the ME species, yes, the Reapers are evil, if for no other reason than the fact that they're coming to wipe them out. If, as some had pointed out within this thread, that the Reapers may possibly be holding back something worse, then they get upgraded from Evil to a very dark shade of grey. However, unless Bioware is looking for a sequel hook, that is likely to not occur at the moment, so we must assume that the Reapers are doing it because they think it's right.

However, from a completely objective standpoint, what makes the ME species point of view more important than the Reapers? Yes, they're coming to wipe them out, but that simply makes fighting them a necessity, not out of any real moral standpoint. As previously stated, the Reapers are millions of years old, and do not operate under the same moral guidelines that we do. They operate under the belief that turning a single species they consider worthy into soup and becoming one of them is a good thing, the reasons for them thinking so being has been stated elsewhere in the thread.

This does not excuse their actions from a practical point of view, as whether or not they're right is meaningless when they have the power to enforce their point of view, but it does serve to understand them better. Moral Relativity, in my point of view, is less a method to justify the reapers as it is to understand them. You can justify anything, given enough reason to do so, but ultimately, they are still coming to commit genocide upon us, which means that, good or bad, the Reapers have to die to insure our own survival. Questions of morality on whether the Reapers are good or not mean nothing when they have a metaphorical gun to the head of every species in the galaxy, which just so happens to include your species as well.

 

[DracoSuave]

Mass Effect 1: "There is a realm so far beyond your own you cannot imagine it." Dark space is pretty easy to imagine.

Mass effect 2: "You have earned the attention of those infinitely your greater." Now, the Reapers built a human reaper believing humans to be EQUALS. Maybe implying something worse?

"You are a fool Shephard. The ones you call Reapers were your salvation, not destruction."

So there is evidence suggesting that there may be a bit of a gray area here...

Those are all quotes from Reapers - and obviously the Reapers think they're correct / justified in their actions.

From the point of view of either party, there really isn't any grey area: humans (and asari, turians, salarians, quarians and whoever else) stand to be wiped out by the Reapers, so from our point of view what the Reapers are doing is unequivocally a Very Bad Thing. The Reapers obviously believe the opposite to be true, for whatever reason.

There's only a grey area if you're somehow a dispassionate third-party observer.

Except in each of those cases, the Reapers are refering to.... The Reapers.

Mass Effect 1: "There is a realm so far beyond your own you cannot imagine it." --- The realm is the existance of humanity AS a reaper.

Mass effect 2: "You have earned the attention of those infinitely your greater." --- Yes. The Reapers see themselves as infinitely greater than the races they destroy.

"You are a fool Shephard. The ones you call Reapers were your salvation, not destruction." --- The Reapers see amalgumating entire races (like the Protheans) into their whole as salvation, rather than destruction. Contrast that with what they do to other races... which is simply destruction.

Spoiler: Multiply this by millions...

[youtube]si_P8BypaUk[/youtube]

...and you don't have morally grey. You have a holocaust.

 

[boag]

Well perhaps they are so intelligent that they consider humans to be non-sentient....just picture a farm of turkeys calling us humans "The Reapers..." We farm turkeys, allow them to grow up in our prefab structures, and them come for them when the time is right.

And we aren't evil.



Right?

They're pretty clearly aware of our sentience, since it's part of their actual MO.

I get what you're saying, it would just work better if it was another target. A target that didn't know its victims were sentient (indeed, plan it that way). A target that didn't have higher communication with its so-called livestock equivalent.

We also don't wipe out all turkeys in the world in our harvest, either. But that's, I think, less important here.

They dont wipe

Let's see... the Reapers are a "race" of sentient machines who influence the development of sentient life and it's technological progression so every several billion years they can kill everything for both resources and to propagate their own species.

So... no.

So they are evil in the same way people are evil for eating animals, and evil for having sex and raising children?

In this scenario does "eating animals and having sex and raising children" mean "systematically exterminating all life in the known galaxy purely for self-gain"?

They dont wipe out all life in the Galaxy, just the ones that have reached the evolutionary and technological stage they nee for "Ascension", as the collectors put it.