Mass Effect

[TheMightyEthan]

I would classify my main shep as good, but he's definitely a moral relativist. He weighs the pros and cons and take the choice he sees as representing the highest likelihood of doing the most good. So if it's a choice between letting the council die to maximize the likelihood of defeating Sovereign or saving the Council but potentially losing the Citadel and allowing the Repears into the galaxy then yeah, he'll let the Council die. He'll wish that it hadn't come to that, but when it does he'll make the tough call and recognize that no one, not even the Council, is worth losing the entire galaxy for.

Funny thing was, I did not truly 'roleplay' this. Effectively, I 'gamed the system' (possibly an idea for an article there, although I'm sure others have touched on this before). I figured there's no way they'd have the Worst Ending Ever as a possibility in the first part of a game trilogy and the dialogue seemed to imply that the real cirumstance was about incurring greater losses for the Alliance Navy i.e. humans..

Yeah. I didn't actually pick the "let them die" option (except on my Renegade Shep), I picked the "Save them if you can, but focus on Sovereign" option. However, the game treats that as identical to the "let them die" option. :/

[Waldorf and Statler]

Ethan.

 

We're not so different, you and I....

 

 

Yeah my Shepard has to make the tough calls. I too was surprised that the "Hey I'm saving the god damn galaxy here, they can take care of themselves as I'm trying to you know, save everybody else from end-game boss" was the renegade choice. In this matter, Bioware seems to be wrong as sometimes the world isn't black and white. Sometimes it's morally grey, If I had said "don't save them we have the resources to save them AND fight the bad guy, but fuck them they did 'air quotes' to me? LIKE HELL" then yeah, give me renegade points.

 

 

On that matter I have a question. I was watching Extra Credits when the topic of Legion's mission in Mass Effect 2 came up. They started talking about how there were only two choices for the outcome of the Geth:

 

A. Kill the renegade Geth who want to kill you.

B. Reprogram them to not hate you anymore.

 

Am I going crazy here? I could've sworn that Legion gave you a third option. The entire video keeps talking about how these two options were great.... but wasn't there a third? I haven't played the game since it came out, but didn't Legion say something along the lines that there is a way to remove whatever is controlling them and let them choose for themselves what they want to believe? AKA giving them free will?

 

Or am I going CRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY. AM I GOING CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAA-AAAZEEEEEEY?!

[Hot Heart]

No, I think it only gives you that binary choice. LOL!

[Waldorf and Statler]

Seriously? Then I actually don't remember what the hell I chose as I've been believing this entire time there was a third choice.

[Hot Heart]

My dumb brain just went "I'm making them all friendly. That's good, right? It's in blue. Gotta be good" and then later "Brainwashing, what?"

[Waldorf and Statler]

Yeah. Bioware needs to gets its priorities straight. I now recall I chose the brainwashing option and I feel horrible.

 

It sucks making tough choices, but I'd feel better if Bioware didn't tell me that was the good option lol

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, there's only brainwash them or kill them.

 

The only "third option" is not to do Legion's loyalty mission at all, but then that results in them brainwashing the nice geth into hating you, so...

 

*Edit* - On my "do what I actually think is right" character I killed them all. Guess I really buy into the whole "give me liberty or give me death" thing, and think it's worse to subrogate someone's free will than it is to kill them.

Edited December 15, 2011 by TheMightyEthan

[Waldorf and Statler]

I would've killed them as an act of respect if they could even understand it and come to respect me for it. But they're machines. Killing them would only be a short-term answer.

 

Brainwashing them, while fucked up, at least makes the whole geth stronger. Will they always be my allies? I doubt it. I'm gonna take a wild guess here that I'll have to choose between the Quarians and the Geth in ME3 [or something of the sort]. But I dunno...

 

I wish it wasn't so black and white. Just like how keeping the collector's base is considered evil. How the fuck is keeping data we can learn from evil?

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Brainwashing them, while fucked up, at least makes the whole geth stronger.

 

The human race would be better off without (read: stronger) without Christians, but does that mean you should brainwash them without giving them a chance? This is true for any religion. Anyways, yeah, it shouldn't be that simple, but I think what makes ME fun is the weight of your choices even if the choices are limited. We can wait until next generation to get really crazy with what can happen with choices I guess. Or not, if they keep half assing games.

[TheMightyEthan]

I would've killed them as an act of respect if they could even understand it and come to respect me for it. But they're machines. Killing them would only be a short-term answer.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Why is it any more short term than exterminating any other group? And what do you mean, "but they're machines"?

[Waldorf and Statler]

MACHINES ARE NOT HUMANS, MACHINES ARE NOT HUMANS. THEY HAVE NO SOULS VOTE FOR BILL 1001101

 

I was simply joking that they are machines, so have no understanding of anything dealing with emotion or honor, only with what is logical. Hence that they wouldn't understand the moral implication of destroying them. They'd only see it possibly as a move by Shepard to beat them. Rewriting them wouldn't make them see it as they'd already love me.

 

 

I was also talking about a comment in the Mass Effect wikia, nothing more. Somebody pointed out that brainwashing them could be a good answer for the current time-being, but that it'd make the geth stronger.

 

They also commented on the other option

 

This problem will be a more immediate solution. This station, however, is only the main station, and there will still be holdouts, which will present problems in the future. This option will also give you renegade points.

 

It was simply a comment and it made sense

 

Edit: Faiblesse I agree. It's not that simple. Hence why the only reason I chose one over the other was due to one being paragorn. I would MUCH rather, such as you already said, the choice not be so black and white

Edited December 16, 2011 by Waldorf And Statler

[Hot Heart]

Let us not forget that bit where there is what appears to be a scaredy Asari mercenary and the Paragon choice is to let her go...only to later discover she was actually a cold-hearted killer. Damn, that was sneaky.

[Waldorf and Statler]

There's only one evil thing I did throughout the entire game. And that was to trick the "Biotic God" into going headfirst into action. Oh how I lulzed

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Let us not forget that bit where there is what appears to be a scaredy Asari mercenary and the Paragon choice is to let her go...only to later discover she was actually a cold-hearted killer. Damn, that was sneaky.

 

Paragon and renegade are personal choices, not universally "moral."

[deanb]

So I've only just seen the VGA trailer. Gotta say it's looking like one mighty fine RPG.

[TheMightyEthan]

This problem will be a more immediate solution. This station, however, is only the main station, and there will still be holdouts, which will present problems in the future. This option will also give you renegade points.

It was simply a comment and it made sense

I can't remember for sure, but I thought the dialog in game made it clear that destroying the station would kill all the heretics... like it would send something through their network or whatevs that would destroy even the ones that weren't there.

[Hot Heart]

Paragon and renegade are personal choices, not universally "moral."

 

I'm not 100% sure that's the case. But, anyway, my main point was that usually picking Paragon means you get to be the hero and everything turns out hunky-dory. Usually you are in complete control of a situation, right to the end.

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

 

So I've only just seen the VGA trailer. Gotta say it's looking like one mighty fine RPG.

Between that and the on-rails E3 demo, I'm not holding out much hope for this one. But who knows; it could surprise me.

[TheMightyEthan]

I know I've said this before, but I've always looked at Paragon and Renegade as "plays by the rules" and "does not play by the rules" rather than a more general morality. More akin to lawful/chaotic than good/evil.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

 

So I've only just seen the VGA trailer. Gotta say it's looking like one mighty fine RPG.

 

The "RPG" part was a joke lolrite?

[Waldorf and Statler]

I'm gonna withhold judgement. People like to whine at Bioware since they're not exclusively doing RPG's anymore. I'm sorry to say that EA probably has something to do with that. Do stuff that will guarantee more sales, and it seems to be working

[deanb]

The "RPG" part was a joke lolrite?

Yes, it's sarcasm.

[excel_excel]

Well what'd you expect them to show in a VGA trailer? Stat screens and weapon customization? Still looking forward to it massively.

[deanb]

Well at least maybe a "Well you've seen that trailer for the VGA masses, here's one just for the web that shows off that RPG side we've been saying will be more prominent in ME3". It's a bit hard to take them on their whole "we heard you felt ME2 wasn't RPG enough, so here's some multi-player and a dude running around from giant lasers"

[excel_excel]

Maybe the RPG mode will be a pre-order exclusive