Bioware General (Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Other)

[Augustei]

Control is absolute bollocks.
For one it completely ruins the power sale in Mass Effect, turning it into some warped parody of Warhammer 40k's God-Emperor without any of the actual point of 40k's. It also doesn't deal with the fact of getting rid of the Reapers, it simply makes Shepard the next Starchild and it'd be only a matter of time before the human's perspective eats in and the cycles start up all over again over something else.
Plus it adds this stupid space-magic-y feel that's just silly. "Oh, I am one with the reapers so I must be a God now". What utter tripe.

Not to mention you inflict the loss that the characters feel whilst dangling the presence of Shepard over them constantly. It'd be like they'd not died, but also can never interact. It's not a greater good mentality.

Back on to power scaling it also ruins the dynamic of the races and how they interact in ME. No conflicts because you're under the threat of ReaperShep, no advancement because ReaperShep would keep you in check and there'd be no freedom to choose or debate for ourselves because as soon as things get a tiny bit loud ReaperShep would come down and tell us what to do.
It creates this massive power that has not much to do in Galactic terms, that is also an outsider and doesn't fit in.
So unless Shepard is flying the Reapers back into darkspace and staying there then there is no purpose for Control. And even then if that's what they do then they may as well have just chosen Destroy.
I mean you lose one AI and the Geth at a higher level.
the Geth can be remade to their previous form and be treated better.
As Andromeda now proves AI creation doesn't need reaper tech, so AI will return.
Unless their next step is to show SAM is part Reaper tech.
Which would be bollocks.

Dynamic of the races? i'd rather have them all bend the knee to earth tbh. No advancement? they have a hyper advanced race of immortal robots working for them now, their tech will advance "a thousand fold". Heck most of their advancement thus far was already based on prothean and reaper tech, even with the reapers dead it'd still be the same they'd just be working with remains instead of the live deal.

I honestly don't know why anyone would bother trying to remake the Geth anyway.

They were useful as cannon fodder and the red wave did the courtesy of disposing of them the exact second they outlived their usefulness.

You lack of love for the ultimate brobots is disturbing

[Riptide]

On that note, HOW THE FUCK did they build as much of the Nexus as they did?

When it left the Milky Way, it was only the top segment, but when we arrive, it's got the ring and the second half. WHERE THE FUCK did they get the manpower and the raw resources to BUILD THAT SHIT IN ANDROMEDA? The fucking thing is the size of the Citadel, it should of taken like, a decade with everyone on the Nexus working at capacity to build something that big. Instead you have a few hundred/thousand people building something the size of a city IN SPACE.

WHAT THE SHIT

[Augustei]

On that note, HOW THE FUCK did they build as much of the Nexus as they did?

When it left the Milky Way, it was only the top segment, but when we arrive, it's got the ring and the second half. WHERE THE FUCK did they get the manpower and the raw resources to BUILD THAT SHIT IN ANDROMEDA? The fucking thing is the size of the Citadel, it should of taken like, a decade with everyone on the Nexus working at capacity to build something that big. Instead you have a few hundred/thousand people building something the size of a city IN SPACE.

WHAT THE SHIT

I'm still wondering how the hell they funded it with the money of only two billionare tycoons. and if the benefactor is Cerberus as some speculate, how the hell do they have money left over after funding research to resurrect the dead which apparently cost a complete fortune, funding and equipping an entire army out of nowhere, maintaining an occupation of Omega, bankrolling a political party, running numerous research projects. Boggles the mind

I know TIM has a starship building front company but geez....

[Alienmorph]

On that note, HOW THE FUCK did they build as much of the Nexus as they did?

When it left the Milky Way, it was only the top segment, but when we arrive, it's got the ring and the second half. WHERE THE FUCK did they get the manpower and the raw resources to BUILD THAT SHIT IN ANDROMEDA? The fucking thing is the size of the Citadel, it should of taken like, a decade with everyone on the Nexus working at capacity to build something that big. Instead you have a few hundred/thousand people building something the size of a city IN SPACE.

WHAT THE SHIT

And again... about one year worth of supplies, so much so that part of the colonists went rebellious and had to be cast away... and you spend what's left of you resources and manpower to try finish the Nexus rather than looking for even an half-habitable world (don't tell me there isn't at least a planet like, say, Mars on a system withing the Helius Cluster, but Earth-like planets are relatively common) where to set a temporary bridgehead and start producing some food and energy? Ffs Addison, you make the Council look like it was made of geniuses!

[Someone With Mass]

On that note, HOW THE FUCK did they build as much of the Nexus as they did?

When it left the Milky Way, it was only the top segment, but when we arrive, it's got the ring and the second half. WHERE THE FUCK did they get the manpower and the raw resources to BUILD THAT SHIT IN ANDROMEDA? The fucking thing is the size of the Citadel, it should of taken like, a decade with everyone on the Nexus working at capacity to build something that big. Instead you have a few hundred/thousand people building something the size of a city IN SPACE.

WHAT THE SHIT

A political clashing and power vacuum happened during the construction too, in which I'd imagine that a lot of people died. If they had set up a temporary housing station inside an asteroid they were mining for raw materials, then I'd have an easier time believing it. Or if the whole thing happened during the span of like five years. There are also a lot of places I'm having a hard time believing that people put up in only one year. Like Kadara.

[Mazder]

Dynamic of the races? i'd rather have them all bend the knee to earth tbh. No advancement? they have a hyper advanced race of immortal robots working for them now, their tech will advance "a thousand fold". Heck most of their advancement thus far was already based on prothean and reaper tech, even with the reapers dead it'd still be the same they'd just be working with remains instead of the live deal.

So you'd rather have something not Mass Effect then. Because if you ruin that dynamic like that then there is honestly no point of playing the game as it would not be the same universe in the slightest.

A race of hyper advanced race of immortal robots that don't answer to them in any way, have no need to, nor have any need to answer to anyone in the galaxy or have any point of interacting with them. There would be an equal chance of them completely dominating the galaxy all over again just because it'd be easier for shepard to keep an eye on everything and make sure their rules are imposed and nothing "too advanced" gets made.
We do not even know if the technology could be shared without Indoctrination effects, which would just add another layer of despotic nature onto ReaperShep.

Using and reverse engineering and separating the tech from wreckage is a lot safer than active reapers flying around.
Hell on Indoctrination alone you'd not want one of them around.

Too bad that A: alot of NPCs and even characters like PeeBee talk like there was nothing left to do in the Milky Way, which is such infuriatingly bullshit, B: it's severaly hinted that the Andromeda Initiative WAS funded a great deal from the getgo by someone who wanted to use it as backup plan to save at least part of mankind before the robo-squid arrived (coughcoughcerberuscough) and that even Alec Ryder and some of the other heads of the project have been suspecting for a decent enough time that that was the real reason the project was being successfully put in motion.

Basically the whole "to boldly go where no one went before" shtick was just a promotional stunt both in-universe and marketing-wise. Had they played it straight instead of building it up like some kind of big twist, it would have made things significantly better... it would have explained why they so desperately needed AI help, why they only had time to locate a few "golden worlds" and why they bothered to build the framework for a second Citadel but couldn't even get more an year worth of supplies with them. Most of the dumb shortcomings of the Andromeda Initiative could have been explained with "we need to leave before the Reapers arrive, this is the best we can do". The fact they managed to build half a dozen megastructures and send them off in just a few years would still be bollocks, but overally not pretending that the whole "escaping the reapers" subplot was some kind of twist would have made things much more bearable.

Well for NPC's I'd say it's their personal choice. A fresh start away from everyone else with 0 chance of the Council fleeting up and coming in to stomp you like a colony/new government would in the Milky Way sounds like a dream come true with those of that mindset.

Funding isn't the same as intent. Jien Garson and Alec Ryder had their reasons. Sure they might have had to fill a quota to get the cash but until we get any more info out on the benefactor it'd be safe to assume their intent isn't the sole drive of the Initiative.

I dunno, the whole "escaping the Reapers" as a plot is just....lame to me.
It's just weaksauce IMO.

I honestly don't know why anyone would bother trying to remake the Geth anyway.

They were useful as cannon fodder and the red wave did the courtesy of disposing of them the exact second they outlived their usefulness.

Well, as it was stated before they'd be an allied super-computer and a massive work-force. While organics need to sleep, Geth can keep working. If you give it enough intelligence they can create ideas and think in ways an organic can't and then help us in other ways we'd never imagined.

On that note, HOW THE FUCK did they build as much of the Nexus as they did?

When it left the Milky Way, it was only the top segment, but when we arrive, it's got the ring and the second half. WHERE THE FUCK did they get the manpower and the raw resources to BUILD THAT SHIT IN ANDROMEDA? The fucking thing is the size of the Citadel, it should of taken like, a decade with everyone on the Nexus working at capacity to build something that big. Instead you have a few hundred/thousand people building something the size of a city IN SPACE.

WHAT THE SHIT

I thought it was always flat-packed inside the first section and what we see is basically the shell of things and the internals are yet to be made properly.
Or they had a bunch of stored building materials for the ring and then mined the rest.

Sad thing is we literally see no other ships other than te Tempest so it's kinda hard how anything related to the nexus works.

I'm still wondering how the hell they funded it with the money of only two billionare tycoons. and if the benefactor is Cerberus as some speculate, how the hell do they have money left over after funding research to resurrect the dead which apparently cost a complete fortune, funding and equipping an entire army out of nowhere, maintaining an occupation of Omega, bankrolling a political party, running numerous research projects. Boggles the mind

I know TIM has a starship building front company but geez....

Well being a billionaire in the ME-verse is waaaaaay more impressive than in our world currently. I mean, even if you have a minor front then on a Galactic scale you have the potential to move billions of credits around as a small shipping company, and Cerberus had fronts and roots in nearly every faced of human society at one point or another during the games.
That's without funelling and stealing shit from the other races.

[Raga]

I actually go back and forth on whether or not I prefer the Control or Destroy ending. It basically comes down to how much you believe what Starbrat says about AIs inevitably annihilating organics. If you think this is horseshit, Destroy is the best option. If you think this is plausible, Control is the best option.

[Someone With Mass]

The thing is that Í can totally see Shepard sacrificing himself for the betterment of the galaxy, since he's been putting a lot of himself into the war against the Reapers throughout the years. It all comes down to how that sacrifice is implemented. Becoming a machine overlord or wanting to blow it all up is a matter of Shepard's viewpoints/the player's opinion.

If you think that Shepard's moral compass is straight enough to be able to watch over the galaxy with just hands/claws/tendrils, then I'd say that the Control ending is good enough, regardless of the Starbrat's intention, because that little shit is dead and gone no matter the ending.

I personally went with Destroy because I just wanted it to be over and Shep to join up with his friends and family and then help rebuild the galaxy. I did consider Control, but then I thought of the aforementioned friends and family and decided against it. Plus, I think it's nice that the galaxy finally has a chance to determine its own fate. For good or bad.

[Vol]

I actually go back and forth on whether or not I prefer the Control or Destroy ending. It basically comes down to how much you believe what Starbrat says about AIs inevitably annihilating organics. If you think this is horseshit, Destroy is the best option. If you think this is plausible, Control is the best option.

Depends on what scale you consider "inevitable." Organics live on a scale from seconds to years, past that, a lot of biological bookkeeping blurs our minds. Asari and krogan, they probably think of decades like we do years. The Reapers did their reaping over thousands of years, then laid dormant for however many thousands or dozen of thousands, until it was time to reap again, repeated for millions of years.

So from the POV of the current crop of Milky Way advanced life, there's been multiple attempts at annihilation from AI that we know of, one that was within living memory of asari/krogan (Quarian genocide), and just recently, there was another one that very nearly succeeded (Heretic geth, guided by Sovereign, tacit approval of rest of geth). And then Shepard himself encounters a few other AIs that need to be put down during this time period, of hostile intent. However, it is possible to make peace with the geth, either with or at the expense of the quarians.

Best case scenario, you make peace, push EDI to date Joker. Worst case, you make peace by directly allowing the completion of the quarian genocide, and convince Joker/EDI that their relationship is a farce and to walk away. And then you face the Starchild all full of certainty that its wrong and you're right because of your experiences.

But, again, scale. Javik tells of an active AI annihilation campaign in his own time, when the Protheans had far more power and control and means to fight back than our cycle ever did. To the Reapers, how many countless times have they seen or learned of an AI genocide campaign over the millions of years they've been active? How many times was a peace made with the AI? And then what happened? If I'm remembering correctly, the Leviathans outright tell us it kept fucking happening over and over.

Considering the relative tech level of the two cycles we know of when they get reaped, right around when a proper AI genocide can kick off in earnest, the Reaper case makes more sense. It has no merit, given the solution they came up with, but if the pattern holds true, then organics really do invite our own doom here. Either directly through messing with AI, or indirectly, by creating Reapers who then kill everybody every so often. Either way, we're validating the Reapers belief for the cycles.

So with that said, Control, to me, is the equivalent argument of saying, "I know this event happens constantly on the geological scale, but this time it's going to work out!" Whereas Destroy is wiping the slate clean. No doubts, no second chances, burn down the entire Reaper structure, all known AI, and let the ruins of the galaxy teach us a lesson before we inevitably make new ones.

[TTTX]

I dunno, the whole "escaping the Reapers" as a plot is just....lame to me.
It's just weaksauce IMO.

no more weaksauce then go another galaxy just to explore other planets for no other reason other then why the fuck not?
After all the Milky way was barely explored at all maybe around 1% that's not even a scratch in a galaxy, which means there is still tons of planets and species left to be discovered, which defeats the purpose of the official reason to go ME:A which is to explore and colonize (which is already a thing in the Milky Way), but that's boring in the MW, but now going to another galaxy makes it new and exciting for some reason.

Well being a billionaire in the ME-verse is waaaaaay more impressive than in our world currently. I mean, even if you have a minor front then on a Galactic scale you have the potential to move billions of credits around as a small shipping company, and Cerberus had fronts and roots in nearly every faced of human society at one point or another during the games.
That's without funelling and stealing shit from the other races.

Cerberus was just one of BW favorite pets, similar to Liara, that got special attention, but the writing was never really good with them to begin with.
Cerberus haven't been around in the ME timeline for more the slightly less then 30 years and in that time they managed become a small super power without more or less anyone knowing they existed (even the Shadow Broker barely knew anything about them), despite the fact a good portion of their projects blows up in their faces, planning skills are idiotic (both ME2 and ME3 proves that quite well), etc.

Cerberus is in my opinion one of the original trilogies stupid poorly executed ideas (they aren't a bad concept, but the writing just isn't there), similar to making the Shadow Broker a bad guy for no real good reason and Liara taking over in less then 2 years (It's not like she couldn't do it, but it seems a bit unlikely considering how she was in ME1 and giving the time frame)

[TTTX]

Depends on what scale you consider "inevitable." Organics live on a scale from seconds to years, past that, a lot of biological bookkeeping blurs our minds. Asari and krogan, they probably think of decades like we do years. The Reapers did their reaping over thousands of years, then laid dormant for however many thousands or dozen of thousands, until it was time to reap again, repeated for millions of years.

So from the POV of the current crop of Milky Way advanced life, there's been multiple attempts at annihilation from AI that we know of, one that was within living memory of asari/krogan (Quarian genocide), and just recently, there was another one that very nearly succeeded (Heretic geth, guided by Sovereign, tacit approval of rest of geth). And then Shepard himself encounters a few other AIs that need to be put down during this time period, of hostile intent. However, it is possible to make peace with the geth, either with or at the expense of the quarians.

Best case scenario, you make peace, push EDI to date Joker. Worst case, you make peace by directly allowing the completion of the quarian genocide, and convince Joker/EDI that their relationship is a farce and to walk away. And then you face the Starchild all full of certainty that its wrong and you're right because of your experiences.

But, again, scale. Javik tells of an active AI annihilation campaign in his own time, when the Protheans had far more power and control and means to fight back than our cycle ever did. To the Reapers, how many countless times have they seen or learned of an AI genocide campaign over the millions of years they've been active? How many times was a peace made with the AI? And then what happened? If I'm remembering correctly, the Leviathans outright tell us it kept fucking happening over and over.

Considering the relative tech level of the two cycles we know of when they get reaped, right around when a proper AI genocide can kick off in earnest, the Reaper case makes more sense. It has no merit, given the solution they came up with, but if the pattern holds true, then organics really do invite our own doom here. Either directly through messing with AI, or indirectly, by creating Reapers who then kill everybody every so often. Either way, we're validating the Reapers belief for the cycles.

So with that said, Control, to me, is the equivalent argument of saying, "I know this event happens constantly on the geological scale, but this time it's going to work out!" Whereas Destroy is wiping the slate clean. No doubts, no second chances, burn down the entire Reaper structure, all known AI, and let the ruins of the galaxy teach us a lesson before we inevitably make new ones.

Well the AI uprising in the prothean time happened because the Reapers came in took over the AI and told to go out and kill other races, so the Reapers also causes AI uprisings and get them to kill races (which Sovereign also did with the Geth) so they are basically creating the very problem they are "preventing".
as for Leviathan well we have zero information to what happened back then other then the giant cuddle fish used pretty much everyone as slaves, so it's quiet possible the AI revoltered to kill the giant cuddle fish because they are giant dicks, but the slaves got sacrificed to put down the AI and that way the cuddle fish lost more both the AI and slave races to get tribute.

[Alienmorph]

I dunno, the whole "escaping the Reapers" as a plot is just....lame to me.
It's just weaksauce IMO.

Mostly because it is. But you know what's even weaker? Playing it like it was some kind of cool twist, despite the fact that even from a game development standpoint we always knew that ME:A was happening to literally escape the reapers.

[Raga]

Eh, upcoming WOT. Apologies.

Well, the Starchild itself says that this cycle is different by the simple virtue that Shepard has managed to appear in front of it. It's possible that God-Emperor Shep could regress into another endless cycle of reaping, but given what we've seen from the Reapers themselves, god-like AIs don't tend to deviate from their original path either because they remain stupid GIGO machines or because they truly do have such a stupendous grasp of the bird's eye view of things that it takes some monumental new data to truly alter their course. It took umpteen million years for something significant enough to break their original logic to happen. Considering Shep is now privy to all of the data of the past cycles by melding with the Reapers and that of itself was not enough to overwhelm Shep's decision to forego reaping, I don't really see why it wouldn't take another umpteen million years for something else monumental enough to alter Shep's logic to occur. So yea, it's a chance, but if you really believe in technological singularities, it's at worse no greater a chance than just winging it with Destroy and at best gives you a God cyborg on your side with an express interest in preserving organic life to mediate.

Also, using in-universe logic it appears that some combination of AI/organic melding is space magic that renders technological singularities moot. Such is what is proposed by Synthesis and such is what is happening with SAM & Ryder. To be clear, this is horseshit from a RL logical perspective but inasmuch as I also accept that geth are sapient when that makes no sense and that magic blue space rocks allow FTL travel, it is a consistent bit of in-universe space magic I can accept. And to that end, if such a sacrifice has to be made for peace, for someone to alter themselves down to the core of their being forever, I had rather Shepard chose to do this herself rather than force such a change on the entire galaxy without their consent or input.

However, as I say, I go back and forth on this. Another fairly easy interpretation is that the Reapers are GIGO stupid machines. In that scenario, AI/organic conflicts keep "inevitably" happening because they keep explicitly facilitating them by the way they manipulate cycles. They also make this sweeping declaration based on a sample size of 1 galaxy out of the billions in existence. Given the time scale and age of most galaxies and the relative abundance of sapient organic life, it stands to reason that many if not most galaxies should have developed techno singularities and robot overlords and exterminated all endemic organic life long ago. And given effective AI immortality, you would expect them to be in contact with some of those robot overlords of other galaxies. What's latency of a few thousand lightyears to an immortal AI? And yet...nothing. We have 0 indication from Starchild or anything that such robot overlords exist elsewhere which blows a pretty big hole in Starbrat's theory.

In this scenario, the Reapers' behavior is probably nothing more than an unexpected side effect of the way the Leviathans programmed them (which is actually exactly what the Leviathans say is the case). And given that the Leviathans held the entire galaxy in effective thralldom, it seems likely that if uncontrollable techno singularities kept popping up a likely culprit is how they were running things. And if that's the case, and they were fundamentally unable to identify that the problem was *themselves* there is a very high likelihood that this bias would get carried over into the machines they program. I can think of a very simple way this could happen in fact.

They believe they are the "apex race" and yet they are incapable of solving the techno singularity problem. They develop an AI with an explicit mandate to solve a problem they admit they can't solve by virtue of creating the AI in the first place. Yet their arrogance means they program the AI to subservience and to the unambiguous understanding that they are the "apex race." Dumb robot takes them at their word. "Leviathans are the master race, the "pinnacle of evolution," greatest of all the organic races. They cannot solve this problem. Therefore the problem cannot be solved by organics or natural selection. Therefore, inorganic control must be applied from outside." Hence reaping. There is nothing inherently inevitable in that logic except the Leviathans being big, dumb jerks who think they know it all.

[magnuskn]

See, the problem with the entire structure of an "AI will inevitably turn on organics" argument is that it cannot be proven unless it actually always happens. That we were able to make peace with the Geth already partly disproves the argument, although with the caveat that they might turn on us later once more.

So, we either accept that the Reapers were wrong (in which case Destroy was the only correct option) or that they were right all along (in which case it's either Control or Synthesis).

Now, despite my deep dislike for Andromeda, the fact that we got a whole colonization force of 100.000 which firmly believes that SAM is super-duper awesome (with some exceptions, of course) and that I suppose that BioWare wants to convey the message that they are not insane fanatics doomed to failure... well, that kinda makes the point that BioWare actually supports Destroy.

Or that they can't write a coherent storyline anymore at all and got their head up their ass so far that they can lick their own tonsils, which is of course also a very valid point of view.

[Alienmorph]

The Reapers: organics and machines can't cohexist, we're seen it happen for billions of years and in countless iteractions. It cannot be done.

Alec Ryder: all you have to do is have the AI be in symbiosis with the organics so that they can grow togheter and like each-other! It's so simple!

So it's either that BW was making shit up as they were going, or the solution is still merging AIs and organics, aka they still think Synthesis is the best solution, except Alec's kind of symbiosis between SAM and the colonists is a more gradual and less invasive way to merge machines and organics overtime.

[Raga]

The abiding message in both stories (MEA and ME trilogy) is that transhumanism will save us from the impending inevitable robo-apocalypse. That seems to be the pet theory anyway of some high ranking creative type or other (or several) at Bioware. Personally this point of view just gets on my nerves as I literally never see it spoken by anyone except modern day wannabe techno Nostradamus types (Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Neil de Grasse Tyson, assorted sci-fi writers, assorted other Silicon Valley types, etc.). Basically guys whose qualifications are like "I am a smart engineer or cosmologist or computer scientist who is famous. Therefore I must be the oracle of Delphi pertaining to all futurey science/technology thingies."

[Alienmorph]

Transhumanism has its pros and cons, but shifting your story's theme to "becoming techno-organic is the way forward"... when most of your bad guys are technorganic monstrosities, rebellious robots and evil augmented people, isn't the right way to advocate for transhumanism as the "good outcome".

[magnuskn]

And let's not forget the horrible lovecraftian nightmare which Synthesis really is as an ending.

[Vol]

@Raga: With Ascended-Shepard, I see it going badly for 1 of 2 reasons. Either one, he's able to retain her core of humanity, which the ending implies, in the process of becoming a Reaper in a sort of mental stasis, like the Reapers unchanged programming as you noted. Which is then bad because Shepard's sense of judgement could run a range from incredibly unethical, and even outright evil at times, to inexplicably noble and altruistic. It's bad because if Shepard is stagnant as the techno-God of the galaxy, what happens as everyone else, the living and dying peoples, change with the times? I'm picturing in, say, ten-thousand years, where the values and culture and technology and so on of the MW species are as baffling and scary and threatening to Shepard's immortal, Reaper-controlling mind as what a caveman would think if you dropped him into the middle of Times Square on New Years. Then we have our overlord stuck in the mindset of a relative primitive, who also wields all the power, and took on the role as a moral obligation to protect. What happens if there's a war between the krogan and the salarians? What happens if some people get too transhumanist-y? Or start building shit that can threaten Reaper supremacy? "Protect and nurture" are some loose terms.

Or two, Shepard properly ascends, becoming something greater than human or Reaper, as close to a god as we can get in the setting. In which case you have the Superman problem, and no Lex Luthor.

The first is most strongly supported by the ending tho. So if her mental imprint is responsible for rebuilding and guiding the future, we have the morals and thinking of a 30-something year old human from the year 2000-something in charge of everything for the indefinite future. That's good, until it really isn't.

@magnus: I'm thinking it's another Great Filter point. Surviving the nuclear age is the filter we're dealing with, assuming the theory has any validity. Then surviving making AI and the inevitable uprising would be another. So it's not that AI genocide succeeds, perhaps ever, but that is always happens, and on a long enough time scale, eventually one will be big enough to destroy all life. So if the Reapers are able to constantly see evidence of uprisings in the cycles, or influence their own, then that in and of itself is validation of their programming. "If we can consistently turn AI into genocide machines, then the creators are not doing a good enough job to protect themselves against it, thus we must reap, because eventually, this would have happened anyway, given our infinitely more complete sense of history."

@Alien: Or Alec has the perspective of an amoeba in the greater scheme of things, and that his success with SAM means absolutely nothing unless it holds up forever. And given SAM killed Ryder, the case he's making isn't great.

[Riptide]

@Raga: With Ascended-Shepard, I see it going badly for 1 of 2 reasons. Either one, he's able to retain her core of humanity, which the ending implies, in the process of becoming a Reaper in a sort of mental stasis, like the Reapers unchanged programming as you noted. Which is then bad because Shepard's sense of judgement could run a range from incredibly unethical, and even outright evil at times, to inexplicably noble and altruistic. It's bad because if Shepard is stagnant as the techno-God of the galaxy, what happens as everyone else, the living and dying peoples, change with the times? I'm picturing in, say, ten-thousand years, where the values and culture and technology and so on of the MW species are as baffling and scary and threatening to Shepard's immortal, Reaper-controlling mind as what a caveman would think if you dropped him into the middle of Times Square on New Years. Then we have our overlord stuck in the mindset of a relative primitive, who also wields all the power, and took on the role as a moral obligation to protect. What happens if there's a war between the krogan and the salarians? What happens if some people get too transhumanist-y? Or start building shit that can threaten Reaper supremacy? "Protect and nurture" are some loose terms.

Or two, Shepard properly ascends, becoming something greater than human or Reaper, as close to a god as we can get in the setting. In which case you have the Superman problem, and no Lex Luthor.

The first is most strongly supported by the ending tho. So if her mental imprint is responsible for rebuilding and guiding the future, we have the morals and thinking of a 30-something year old human from the year 2000-something in charge of everything for the indefinite future. That's good, until it really isn't.

@magnus: I'm thinking it's another Great Filter point. Surviving the nuclear age is the filter we're dealing with, assuming the theory has any validity. Then surviving making AI and the inevitable uprising would be another. So it's not that AI genocide succeeds, perhaps ever, but that is always happens, and on a long enough time scale, eventually one will be big enough to destroy all life. So if the Reapers are able to constantly see evidence of uprisings in the cycles, or influence their own, then that in and of itself is validation of their programming. "If we can consistently turn AI into genocide machines, then the creators are not doing a good enough job to protect themselves against it, thus we must reap, because eventually, this would have happened anyway, given our infinitely more complete sense of history."

@Alien: Or Alec has the perspective of an amoeba in the greater scheme of things, and that his success with SAM means absolutely nothing unless it holds up forever. And given SAM killed Ryder, the case he's making isn't great.

Or the Catalyst is just an insane AI, which realistically we are given far more evidence of than anything regarding an inevitable AI rebellion.

Which Andromeda only further proves, given they don't have this problem, apparently.

[magnuskn]

Quite honestly, if we make a case that the Reapers were always right all along, because they got a longer scale of history, then Mass Effect is one of the bleakest stories imaginable. We were always fated to fail, no matter what we do. I find that to be a deeply wrong point of view.

[Riptide]

Quite honestly, if we make a case that the Reapers were always right all along, because they got a longer scale of history, then Mass Effect is one of the bleakest stories imaginable. We were always fated to fail, no matter what we do. I find that to be a deeply wrong point of view.

Agreed.

[Vol]

Sorta. They were 'right' in their premise, because they forced it to happen, but their conclusion was never substantiated, because they always nipped it in the bud. We don't know what will happen with them gone, and neither did they.

[Alienmorph]

I would also like to point out that the Remnants further proove how much biased toward AIs BW still is, since they're basically a good version of the Reapers that terraforms planets instead of harvesting organic life. Although that begs the question of "what happened to the Remnants' creators?" were they killed by their own creations, who now act as cosmic gardeners out of guilt, or they self-distructed their civilization, and their machines are all that's left because the underline message is that artificial life is ultimately better than us faulty meatsacks?

[magnuskn]

Blegh, the Remnant don't even get to be interesting AI. They are just killer bots who are controlled by either their programming or, later, us and the Kett. If they had an own will, an own story to tell (meaning that they would communicate with us actively, instead of just wanting to kill us for disturbing them), then they would count for this discussion.

As it is, they don't have agency and just serve as obstacles and a set-up for the reveal of their creators.

[Vol]

https://twitter.com/MassEffect_News/sta ... 0379167746

"@Bioware will have a panel on #MassEffectAndromeda at Montreal Comic Con, on 8th July 4 PM EDT. Comic Con schedule: "

"Mass Effect News‏ @MassEffect_News 3h3 hours ago
More
Unlikely for DLC announcement. Brief Q&A is not for that. However we might get clarifications on it, or at least some info on future patches"

[Alienmorph]

So basically is gonna be "blah blah Anthem blah Anthem blah blah theresmoretocomeforAndromedabutcanttalkaboutitnowbye!"

[Vol]

If it's anything like other panels I've seen, best case, "While I can't comment on what might or might not be being worked on, I can say that fans of a certain wandering, mysterious people shouldn't expect never to see them again."

[TheodoricFriede]

https://twitter.com/MassEffect_News/status/881968910379167746

"@Bioware will have a panel on #MassEffectAndromeda at Montreal Comic Con, on 8th July 4 PM EDT. Comic Con schedule: "

"Mass Effect News‏ @MassEffect_News 3h3 hours ago
More
Unlikely for DLC announcement. Brief Q&A is not for that. However we might get clarifications on it, or at least some info on future patches"

Alright, you know what? I think I'm done.

I liked Andromeda. I thought Andromeda was a great game. But I can not stand being jerked around by this fucking company anymore.

Fuck Bioware, fuck Mass Effect, and most certainly fuck Anthem.

I have, at this point, received more pain and frustration from this dumpster-fire of a company than I ever have pleasure.

[Vol]

That's a fan account by the way, they're making an assumption.

[TheodoricFriede]

What difference does it make?

Its not like they are wrong.

[Augustei]

So you'd rather have something not Mass Effect then. Because if you ruin that dynamic like that then there is honestly no point of playing the game as it would not be the same universe in the slightest.

A race of hyper advanced race of immortal robots that don't answer to them in any way, have no need to, nor have any need to answer to anyone in the galaxy or have any point of interacting with them. There would be an equal chance of them completely dominating the galaxy all over again just because it'd be easier for shepard to keep an eye on everything and make sure their rules are imposed and nothing "too advanced" gets made.
We do not even know if the technology could be shared without Indoctrination effects, which would just add another layer of despotic nature onto ReaperShep.

Using and reverse engineering and separating the tech from wreckage is a lot safer than active reapers flying around.
Hell on Indoctrination alone you'd not want one of them around.

Well sure it'd be bad for a narrative of future games, but as far as the choice by its own out of that context yeah.

My Shepard is good people, he won't be too Authoritarian or indoctronation...y, just a gentle push every now and then...And ensuring the races of the galaxy know their place at Humanity's feet, putting down revolts and such.

[magnuskn]

Well sure it'd be bad for a narrative of future games, but as far as the choice by its own out of that context yeah.

My Shepard is good people, he won't be too Authoritarian or indoctronation...y, just a gentle push every now and then...And ensuring the races of the galaxy know their place at Humanity's feet, putting down revolts and such.

As others have noted, it's not "your Shepard". He's dead in Control. It's a Xerox copy (if the Catalyst didn't lie to you, that is. It's not as if you got some way to verify his claims) and he's now detached from most that made him human. After the last of his friends dies (I guess in a thousand years with Liara and maybe Wrex), would you really trust such a being to keep the same perspective he had for the eons?

[Alienmorph]

Alright, you know what? I think I'm done.

I liked Andromeda. I thought Andromeda was a great game. But I can not stand being jerked around by this fucking company anymore.

BW has lost its touch when it comes to fans interaction and PR stuff years ago... probably all the way back to the months after ME2's launch. At this point it's kinda foolish to expect any clear answer from them on anything that isn't aimed at building hype or that paints them in a positive light.

In this case, tho, it's pretty obvious that the problem is that they themselves are pretty clueless. They probably still want to release a major piece of DlC or two before putting anything ME completely on ice, but I would imagine they'd be having an hard fucking time pitching the idea to EA. And in general, their mere existence as a company now depends on what's gonna be of Anthem.

In this case, I think it's not a matter of jerking around... they honestly can't show in how much of a incresingly desperate situation they are, if they want to maintain any shred of presence in the eye of the public. Even tho pretty much anyone that follows them can figure out what's going on.

[Mazder]

So...this dropped:
https://twitter.com/masseffect/status/8 ... 6492331008

So, Blinks in Andromeda MP, eh?
And new Platinum difficulty.

[TheodoricFriede]

Cant wait to not be able to play the DLC that explains how the fuck they got here.

Im just going to go ahead and assume that, regardless of excuse, anything in MP is non-canon.

[UNiT]

Bioware and EA didn't confirm that there won't be SP DLC for Andromeda yet.

[TheodoricFriede]

Bioware and EA didn't confirm that there won't be SP DLC for Andromeda yet.

How many times am I suppose to listen to their vacuous silence in the face of these reports and assume its still happening?

Apparently Eurogamer has their own source claiming there is no DLC. EA/Bioware have said nothing.

I cant deal with these assholes anymore.

[Someone With Mass]

Cant wait to not be able to play the DLC that explains how the fuck they got here.

Im just going to go ahead and assume that, regardless of excuse, anything in MP is non-canon.

Considering that the MP community has killed more outlaws than there are Milky Way people in Andromeda, I'd say that's a safe way to do it.

[UNiT]

Bioware and EA didn't confirm that there won't be SP DLC for Andromeda yet.

How many times am I suppose to listen to their vacuous silence in the face of these reports and assume its still happening?

Apparently Eurogamer has their own source claiming there is no DLC. EA/Bioware have said nothing.

I cant deal with these assholes anymore.

Well there is precedent with DAI when the first dlc took like 5ish months to release and the release had a very short notice. The silence is deafening I agree tho especially in the face of all this internet hate bandwagoning.

Considering that the MP community has killed more outlaws than there are Milky Way people in Andromeda, I'd say that's a safe way to do it.

Well obviously the casualty rate is non canon but the plot in mp is at least semi canon.

[TheodoricFriede]

Well there is precedent with DAI when the first dlc took like 5ish months to release and the release had a very short notice. The silence is deafening I agree tho especially in the face of all this internet hate bandwagoning.

The difference?

People weren't talking about how the support is deal for months.

[Someone With Mass]

Well obviously the casualty rate is non canon but the plot in mp is at least semi canon.

There's a plot?

[Vol]

Yeah, those APEX update things, give some context for the missions.

The game, based on more dedicated people than I going through all sorts of sales data and insider info and reportings, figured the game sold at least 3 million in the first month. So it was clearly a financial success, though probably not what EA expected, since they have retardedly high "goal" sales, like with Dead Space 3.

[Someone With Mass]

Yeah, those APEX update things, give some context for the missions.

The game, based on more dedicated people than I going through all sorts of sales data and insider info and reportings, figured the game sold at least 3 million in the first month. So it was clearly a financial success, though probably not what EA expected, since they have retardedly high "goal" sales, like with Dead Space 3.

Yeah, If EA just went away without a single trace, the world would be a better place.

Hehe. Rhymes.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Yeah, those APEX update things, give some context for the missions.

The game, based on more dedicated people than I going through all sorts of sales data and insider info and reportings, figured the game sold at least 3 million in the first month. So it was clearly a financial success, though probably not what EA expected, since they have retardedly high "goal" sales, like with Dead Space 3.

EA is a lot like a pollster. They have a wildly unrealistic expectation. Then call things failures when they do well but not outstanding.

[UNiT]

Well obviously the casualty rate is non canon but the plot in mp is at least semi canon.

There's a plot?

Kinda like the ME3MP missions to kill a billion banshees or whatever, only thursday more or less there's a new apex plot mission that involves a new character kit, a map, objective or enemy to kill. They also vary in difficulty with most that happened where bronze and only like recently we got actual good gold ones including the last one that also was 11 waves long.

[Someone With Mass]

EA is a lot like a pollster. They have a wildly unrealistic expectation. Then call things failures when they do well but not outstanding.

They also expect games that are given a barely decent budget (which then gets slashed mid-production for no goddamn reason) to be huge successes.

Then again, there's a reason why they've earned those "shittiest company of the year" awards several times in a row. At least until Konami decided to become the assholiest company to ever exist.

[Raga]

The first is most strongly supported by the ending tho. So if her mental imprint is responsible for rebuilding and guiding the future, we have the morals and thinking of a 30-something year old human from the year 2000-something in charge of everything for the indefinite future. That's good, until it really isn't.

Well, two things. One, this assumes that the reason Shep AI works is because it "retains some aspect of its humanity" which might not be the case at all. I don't think it's the retention of the humanity so much as the mixing of organic ways of thinking with the inorganic that makes it work. It works because Shepard changes, not because they stay the same.

Two, I don't actually really see how having some hypothetical limit on the progress or evolution or change or whatever you want to call it of organic life is inherently a bad thing. This assumption is actually already hard-baked into just about every moral or philosophical understanding that humans have of the universe except the particularly toxic combination that is scientific positivism and secular humanism. Don't know if you've ever read any of the Eschaton series by Charles Stross (and they are only "eh" so I don't really recommend it). In that a god-like AI is created following a techno singularity and leaves behind this message:

I am the Eschaton; I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.

So basically "so long as you don't fuck up the very nature of the universe, I don't care what you do." So that is a hard-nosed limit, but it's not a particularly unreasonable one that sticks humans in the Stone Age forever. I really interpret Shep AI as basically saying "don't make murder bots. Otherwise carry on." I don't really think Shep AI is invested in making sure a particular organic species doesn't genocide another or something along those lines. Objectively, it knows that organic species go extinct and new ones evolve and that's just the way of things. I don't think short term geopolitical issues between organics will phase it much.

[Raga]

I would also like to point out that the Remnants further proove how much biased toward AIs BW still is, since they're basically a good version of the Reapers that terraforms planets instead of harvesting organic life. Although that begs the question of "what happened to the Remnants' creators?" were they killed by their own creations, who now act as cosmic gardeners out of guilt, or they self-distructed their civilization, and their machines are all that's left because the underline message is that artificial life is ultimately better than us faulty meatsacks?

Do we actually know the Jaardan are machines? I actually assumed them to be organic as Andromeda does seem to be heading in an organic enemy direction rather than an AI direction. It seemed like a narrative decision to put some distant between it and the original trilogy.

[Alienmorph]

The first is most strongly supported by the ending tho. So if her mental imprint is responsible for rebuilding and guiding the future, we have the morals and thinking of a 30-something year old human from the year 2000-something in charge of everything for the indefinite future. That's good, until it really isn't.

Well, two things. One, this assumes that the reason Shep AI works is because it "retains some aspect of its humanity" which might not be the case at all. I don't think it's the retention of the humanity so much as the mixing of organic ways of thinking with the inorganic that makes it work. It works because Shepard changes, not because they stay the same.

Two, I don't actually really see how having some hypothetical limit on the progress or evolution or change or whatever you want to call it of organic life is inherently a bad thing. This assumption is actually already hard-baked into just about every moral or philosophical understanding that humans have of the universe except the particularly toxic combination that is scientific positivism and secular humanism. Don't know if you've ever read any of the Eschaton series by Charles Stross (and they are only "eh" so I don't really recommend it). In that a god-like AI is created following a techno singularity and leaves behind this message:

I am the Eschaton; I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.

So basically "so long as you don't fuck up the very nature of the universe, I don't care what you do." So that is a hard-nosed limit, but it's not a particularly unreasonable one that sticks humans in the Stone Age forever. I really interpret Shep AI as basically saying "don't make murder bots. Otherwise carry on." I don't really think Shep AI is invested in making sure a particular organic species doesn't genocide another or something along those lines. Objectively, it knows that organic species go extinct and new ones evolve and that's just the way of things. I don't think short term geopolitical issues between organics will phase it much.

Well, it's rather obvious AI Shepard retains his human memories and a similar moral code, so much so that the Extended Cut has a Paragon and a Renegade variation of it. And if it was just a matter of Shepard's memories and perspective being added to the Reapers and Catalyst's collective, it's extremely unlikely a single mind would have influenced it in a meaningful way. In order to work, as its name says, the Control ending implies some form of unilateral takeover performed by Shepard.

So I don't really think we can dismiss that easily the whole "Shepard/AI loosing touch with what's right, or eventually come to the same conclusions as the original AI and re-start the Reaping" argument.

Do we actually know the Jaardan are machines? I actually assumed them to be organic as Andromeda does seem to be heading in an organic enemy direction rather than an AI direction. It seemed like a narrative decision to put some distant between it and the original trilogy.

Sounds more like they were ripping off the Precursors from Halo to me with that idea: if I were to hazard a theory, I'd say that something or someone destroyed most if not all of life in Helius, and the local civilization before diying left behind the means to repopulate the sector of life. So either the Jaardan were the ancestors of the Angara, who were cloned or artificially bred after the crysis was passed by the Renmants machineries, or thei're the AIs that control the Remnants themselves.