if the geth were actual AIs i'd give a shit whether they died en masse
y'know, the whole unique quantum bluebox thing that makes an AI actually self aware and stuff? geth don't have it. geth are basically 15,000 MS clippies stuffed into the same hard drive.
they're made up of identical copies of the same installation wizards, and it's only by a freak fluke that when you put 15,000 in the same vicinity, they get smarter.
again, just listen to Legion. guy's got no problem wiping out billions of geth because of a goddamn rounding error.
if someone killed EDI, i'd be fucking pissed. if someone took out Legion, no big loss, because i've got a backup of Quarian Clippy on a flash drive somewhere. plug it in and set it to copy itself for a few hours and VOILA LEGION'S BACK.
Just because Geth are pure software AI does not mean they are not AI.
They are just a hive mind, a many-as-one type of intelligence. Which makes them functionally superior to quantom box type AI, since Geth platforms can be destroyed and they'll be uploaded back into the collective conciousness.
if the geth were actual AIs i'd give a shit whether they died en masse
y'know, the whole unique quantum bluebox thing that makes an AI actually self aware and stuff? geth don't have it. geth are basically 15,000 MS clippies stuffed into the same hard drive.
Geth are explicitly AI. Blue box isn't the definition, but they have a comparison: them all together.
Ask Legion how he'd feel about wiping out all Geth. Oh, wait, he was there.
Except, you know, the Geth aren't human. The Quarians were confronted with a Skynet situation. Striking first was the only smart decision they could make.
I'm not comparing humanity to the geth, I'm saying that if human beings can indeed be this stupid, we should probably be wiped out.
The quarians were confronted with their unarmed servant robots becoming sentient and asking some basic questions about their existence. The geth started fighting back when the quarians attempted to exterminate them. How is the geth's response unreasonable? How is the quarian response logical?
"Oh hey we've accidentally created intelligence. Better kill it, just like we kill all other intelligences we come into contact with!"
If you can't see how a society that depends entirely on these robots (and with apparently enough robots around to threaten the entire world) gets scared when these same robots all start showing signs of sentience you're just being naive
Two things could happen in that situation
a) The robots accidental sentience turns out to be benevolent and the Quarians and Geth live happily ever after
2) the end of Quarian civilization
Do you really gamble when presented with a choice like this? The only choice the brass could take at that point was to try and deactivate the Geth and try to deal with it after the fact
In the case that the Geth weren't going to end up friendly, and were indeed a threat, attacking them was a gamble, too - a gamble that didn't exactly end well.
It's completely understandable that they felt fear on this discovery. I'd argue that acting out of fear isn't always the wisest thing to do.
At least attempting peaceful negotiation before all-out genocidal war would've been a good plan. Records indicate that the quarians didn't.
I'm a little curious to find out where the initial galaxy-wide pants-wetting fear of AIs came from - the Codex indicates that AIs were illegal before the geth, which is why the geth were developed as networked VIs, to skirt that particular law. Perhaps the Reapers didn't want to face intelligences with the same capabilities they had, and thus planted this fear through indoctrinated agents much earlier in the current galactic civilization? There's nothing about AIs that makes them inherently hate or oppose organic life, as far as I know, just as there's nothing about organic life that makes it inherently opposed to an AI. The blanket ban on and fear of AIs has always been one of the least sensical parts of the setting, to me.
Not saying it was a wise decision but hindsight is 20 20.
I believe most races in the ME universe would have reacted the same way Quarians did in such a situation. Hell, the Quarians probably followed standard galaxy procedure by trying to get rid of the AI since AI was basically a big no-no even back then.
Except, you know, the Geth aren't human. The Quarians were confronted with a Skynet situation. Striking first was the only smart decision they could make.
I'm not comparing humanity to the geth, I'm saying that if human beings can indeed be this stupid, we should probably be wiped out.
The quarians were confronted with their unarmed servant robots becoming sentient and asking some basic questions about their existence. The geth started fighting back when the quarians attempted to exterminate them. How is the geth's response unreasonable? How is the quarian response logical?
"Oh hey we've accidentally created intelligence. Better kill it, just like we kill all other intelligences we come into contact with!"
If you can't see how a society that depends entirely on these robots (and with apparently enough robots around to threaten the entire world) gets scared when these same robots all start showing signs of sentience you're just being naive
Two things could happen in that situation
a) The robots accidental sentience turns out to be benevolent and the Quarians and Geth live happily ever after
2) the end of Quarian civilization
Do you really gamble when presented with a choice like this? The only choice the brass could take at that point was to try and deactivate the Geth and try to deal with it after the fact
In the case that the Geth weren't going to end up friendly, and were indeed a threat, attacking them was a gamble, too - a gamble that didn't exactly end well.
It's completely understandable that they felt fear on this discovery. I'd argue that acting out of fear isn't always the wisest thing to do.
At least attempting peaceful negotiation before all-out genocidal war would've been a good plan. Records indicate that the quarians didn't.
I'm a little curious to find out where the initial galaxy-wide pants-wetting fear of AIs came from - the Codex indicates that AIs were illegal before the geth, which is why the geth were developed as networked VIs, to skirt that particular law. Perhaps the Reapers didn't want to face intelligences with the same capabilities they had, and thus planted this fear through indoctrinated agents much earlier in the current galactic civilization? There's nothing about AIs that makes them inherently hate or oppose organic life, as far as I know, just as there's nothing about organic life that makes it inherently opposed to an AI. The blanket ban on and fear of AIs has always been one of the least sensical parts of the setting, to me.
It's also interesting that humans are allowed AI research.
Sure, it's carefully monitored and restricted, but humanity is currently the leading AI developer in Council space, if memory serves.
If there was an already existing fear of AIs, and AIs were prohibited, its pretty easy to see why the Quarians tried to preemptively annihilate them. Not the right choice, but still, there's at least a reasoning behind the action instead of "BURN! KILL!"
For the first game, only get Bring Down the Sky, which is free. All the ME2 plot stuff is good, but Shadow Broker is by far the best and Kasumi comes in second with an awesome squadmate, best SMG, and unique mission type.
As someone who bought both on Steam during the last sale - what DLC is recommended? I'm usually against DLC, but some looks interesting.
Also, it is fairly jarring to play them back to back, primarily since they decided to remap a bunch of keys. That wasn't pleasant.
Overlord's pretty good, Lair of the Shadow Broker is practically must-have, Arrival's pretty good too, though you should wait until after you beat the game to do it (you can continue playing normally after you beat the game, so don't worry about missed conversations and the like), Kasumi and Zaeed are both alright.
Firewalker's not something I'd recommend, though. Only the very last part of it is really any good.
As someone who bought both on Steam during the last sale - what DLC is recommended? I'm usually against DLC, but some looks interesting.
Also, it is fairly jarring to play them back to back, primarily since they decided to remap a bunch of keys. That wasn't pleasant.
Kasumi and Lair of the Shadow Broker are mandatory buys, Zaeed/Cerberus Network ought to be free to download, Arrival is not mandatory but still should buy it, and Overlord is probably worth the money but certainly a tier below Kasumi and LotSB. Everything else is unnecessary.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
Shadow Broker is probably my favorite DLC of all time, along with the Alan Wake "specials".
I don't know about Kasumi, I was actually pretty disappointed by it. It's like... maybe 30 minutes of stuff. I wasn't really impressed by the party, what with not being able to talk to anyone or go most of the places. "Sorry, Commander Defeated-a-Reaper, this area's roped off."
Kasumi herself, though, is pretty awesome as a squadmate.
if the geth were actual AIs i'd give a shit whether they died en masse
y'know, the whole unique quantum bluebox thing that makes an AI actually self aware and stuff? geth don't have it. geth are basically 15,000 MS clippies stuffed into the same hard drive.
they're made up of identical copies of the same installation wizards, and it's only by a freak fluke that when you put 15,000 in the same vicinity, they get smarter.
again, just listen to Legion. guy's got no problem wiping out billions of geth because of a goddamn rounding error.
if someone killed EDI, i'd be fucking pissed. if someone took out Legion, no big loss, because i've got a backup of Quarian Clippy on a flash drive somewhere. plug it in and set it to copy itself for a few hours and VOILA LEGION'S BACK.
Just because Geth are pure software AI does not mean they are not AI.
They are just a hive mind, a many-as-one type of intelligence. Which makes them functionally superior to quantom box type AI, since Geth platforms can be destroyed and they'll be uploaded back into the collective conciousness.
Destroy EDI's box and she's gone forever.
precisely! EDI's 'life' is easily equated to the value of organic life; unique and unrecoverable when lost. geth, by contrast, have a gradual scale of intelligence that results as a function of proximity.
kill a blue suns merc and you've slain a fully sentient (although dumb for pointing a gun at shepard) being.
kill a geth, and you've basically slain the machine equivalent of a parakeet.
anyway, the only reason why the geth went apeshit in their total-war eradication campaign is because they hadn't realized their own otherness. nowadays, geth don't worry about if they have souls, or if they die, or any of that. but when you've been steeped in quarian culture - a culture that's been dedicated to resurrecting the dead as AIs - you're gonna start off skewed.
curly haired boy on
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Is Kaidan/Ashley's recovery from stasis on Horizon ever actually explained? All the rest of the colonists got abducted, but your former crewmember greets you (albeit hostilely).
Is Kaidan/Ashley's recovery from stasis on Horizon ever actually explained? All the rest of the colonists got abducted, but your former crewmember greets you (albeit hostilely).
Not all.
Follow-up email says 2/3rds of the colony didn't get grabbed. Ash or Kaiden just got lucky.
Is Kaidan/Ashley's recovery from stasis on Horizon ever actually explained? All the rest of the colonists got abducted, but your former crewmember greets you (albeit hostilely).
Not all.
Follow-up email says 2/3rds of the colony didn't get grabbed. Ash or Kaiden just got lucky.
I'd imagine Shepard was creating enough of a ruckus the Collector's just grabbed who was near and got outta town.
You can just rename them or move them to a different folder. Do that for the other loading movies too, those animations are often like 3-4 times as long as it actually takes to load levels
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
You can just rename them or move them to a different folder. Do that for the other loading movies too, those animations are often like 3-4 times as long as it actually takes to load levels
I thought it took awhile. Just the BWLogo.bik, and the 25 or so load movies? or are there specific ones?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTD3NKOm7VE
I think it was all the ones with load_stuff. There was one loading screen it bugged out if you replaced, but I forgot which one it was.
The opening videos are that one and ME_EAsig_720pv2_raw.bik
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
Thanks muchly. Faster by quite a bit. I did wonder why the hells it took so long to load.
I don't know about Kasumi, I was actually pretty disappointed by it. It's like... maybe 30 minutes of stuff. I wasn't really impressed by the party, what with not being able to talk to anyone or go most of the places. "Sorry, Commander Defeated-a-Reaper, this area's roped off."
Kasumi herself, though, is pretty awesome as a squadmate.
I really like Kasumi's mission, especially the party. I loved the heist aspect and going in undercover. And what bits are roped off? Isn't it just the bedroom and the security office, both of which you break into anyway. As for the people, your never really able to just talk to random NPCs unless they have a side quest so I don't see what the problem is.
She is a great squadmates though.
I guess I'll need to pony up for some Bioware Funbucks (I guess I could use them in DA2, potentially, if there was anything I wanted) and pick up "Arrival" finally--the thing that kept me from getting it the day it dropped, like I did for LotSB, was the rather tepid response to it.
I mean, killing Batarians is fun, but it's no more fun (or no less) by itself than killing waves of Salarians, Humans, Turians, Asari, etc. Given the cost, I'm expecting a bit more to it...
precisely! EDI's 'life' is easily equated to the value of organic life; unique and unrecoverable when lost. geth, by contrast, have a gradual scale of intelligence that results as a function of proximity.
The problem here is that you keep taking this on the individual level and checking for equivalency to organics. Destroying a geth platform is one thing. Destroying the entire geth overmind is a completely different thing. People and constructs like EDI are consolidated whereas geth are gestalt. Brain cells vs the brain.
Safe to say the geth wouldn't be cool with be genocide'd even today.
I guess I'll need to pony up for some Bioware Funbucks (I guess I could use them in DA2, potentially, if there was anything I wanted) and pick up "Arrival" finally--the thing that kept me from getting it the day it dropped, like I did for LotSB, was the rather tepid response to it.
I mean, killing Batarians is fun, but it's no more fun (or no less) by itself than killing waves of Salarians, Humans, Turians, Asari, etc. Given the cost, I'm expecting a bit more to it...
Arrival is pretty short and somewhat underwhelming, but it's good to see just because of its kicking off ME3. The last scene is pretty cool, though.
Is Kaidan/Ashley's recovery from stasis on Horizon ever actually explained? All the rest of the colonists got abducted, but your former crewmember greets you (albeit hostilely).
Not all.
Follow-up email says 2/3rds of the colony didn't get grabbed. Ash or Kaiden just got lucky.
I'd imagine Shepard was creating enough of a ruckus the Collector's just grabbed who was near and got outta town.
but like Kaidan was one of the first ones frozen, he was right next to Lillith who we know got abducted
it would be really easy to show Kaidan running away and shooting, then cut to black and let us later assume he managed to fight off the collectors. but they chose to show him get frozen, which I think has a hidden meaning.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
I'm trying to get my wife to play ME2, but I don't really want to explain it to her or have her play ME1 in order to understand it. She will read or watch a Let's Play though. Anyone have a link to a really good ME1 LP?
Mild Confusion on
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
You could have her play through the interactive comic thing. Explains the plot and prevents the failshep decisions from tainting her first playthrough.
Is Kaidan/Ashley's recovery from stasis on Horizon ever actually explained? All the rest of the colonists got abducted, but your former crewmember greets you (albeit hostilely).
Not all.
Follow-up email says 2/3rds of the colony didn't get grabbed. Ash or Kaiden just got lucky.
I'd imagine Shepard was creating enough of a ruckus the Collector's just grabbed who was near and got outta town.
but like Kaidan was one of the first ones frozen, he was right next to Lillith who we know got abducted
it would be really easy to show Kaidan running away and shooting, then cut to black and let us later assume he managed to fight off the collectors. but they chose to show him get frozen, which I think has a hidden meaning.
Given how dumb most of Horizon was, I wouldn't doubt it was a writer mixup. But we'll see.
They did say that some squadmates would be important to the main story afterall.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
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Just because Geth are pure software AI does not mean they are not AI.
They are just a hive mind, a many-as-one type of intelligence. Which makes them functionally superior to quantom box type AI, since Geth platforms can be destroyed and they'll be uploaded back into the collective conciousness.
Destroy EDI's box and she's gone forever.
Geth are explicitly AI. Blue box isn't the definition, but they have a comparison: them all together.
Ask Legion how he'd feel about wiping out all Geth. Oh, wait, he was there.
In the case that the Geth weren't going to end up friendly, and were indeed a threat, attacking them was a gamble, too - a gamble that didn't exactly end well.
It's completely understandable that they felt fear on this discovery. I'd argue that acting out of fear isn't always the wisest thing to do.
At least attempting peaceful negotiation before all-out genocidal war would've been a good plan. Records indicate that the quarians didn't.
I'm a little curious to find out where the initial galaxy-wide pants-wetting fear of AIs came from - the Codex indicates that AIs were illegal before the geth, which is why the geth were developed as networked VIs, to skirt that particular law. Perhaps the Reapers didn't want to face intelligences with the same capabilities they had, and thus planted this fear through indoctrinated agents much earlier in the current galactic civilization? There's nothing about AIs that makes them inherently hate or oppose organic life, as far as I know, just as there's nothing about organic life that makes it inherently opposed to an AI. The blanket ban on and fear of AIs has always been one of the least sensical parts of the setting, to me.
I believe most races in the ME universe would have reacted the same way Quarians did in such a situation. Hell, the Quarians probably followed standard galaxy procedure by trying to get rid of the AI since AI was basically a big no-no even back then.
It's also interesting that humans are allowed AI research.
Sure, it's carefully monitored and restricted, but humanity is currently the leading AI developer in Council space, if memory serves.
Why I fear the ocean.
Also, it is fairly jarring to play them back to back, primarily since they decided to remap a bunch of keys. That wasn't pleasant.
Overlord's pretty good, Lair of the Shadow Broker is practically must-have, Arrival's pretty good too, though you should wait until after you beat the game to do it (you can continue playing normally after you beat the game, so don't worry about missed conversations and the like), Kasumi and Zaeed are both alright.
Firewalker's not something I'd recommend, though. Only the very last part of it is really any good.
Kasumi and Lair of the Shadow Broker are mandatory buys, Zaeed/Cerberus Network ought to be free to download, Arrival is not mandatory but still should buy it, and Overlord is probably worth the money but certainly a tier below Kasumi and LotSB. Everything else is unnecessary.
Kasumi herself, though, is pretty awesome as a squadmate.
precisely! EDI's 'life' is easily equated to the value of organic life; unique and unrecoverable when lost. geth, by contrast, have a gradual scale of intelligence that results as a function of proximity.
kill a blue suns merc and you've slain a fully sentient (although dumb for pointing a gun at shepard) being.
kill a geth, and you've basically slain the machine equivalent of a parakeet.
anyway, the only reason why the geth went apeshit in their total-war eradication campaign is because they hadn't realized their own otherness. nowadays, geth don't worry about if they have souls, or if they die, or any of that. but when you've been steeped in quarian culture - a culture that's been dedicated to resurrecting the dead as AIs - you're gonna start off skewed.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Yes, BioWare and EA, I know you're proud of yourselves, but after fifty times booting the game I think I can remember who made it.
Not all.
Follow-up email says 2/3rds of the colony didn't get grabbed. Ash or Kaiden just got lucky.
Why I fear the ocean.
I'd imagine Shepard was creating enough of a ruckus the Collector's just grabbed who was near and got outta town.
I thought it took awhile. Just the BWLogo.bik, and the 25 or so load movies? or are there specific ones?
I think it was all the ones with load_stuff. There was one loading screen it bugged out if you replaced, but I forgot which one it was.
The opening videos are that one and ME_EAsig_720pv2_raw.bik
I really like Kasumi's mission, especially the party. I loved the heist aspect and going in undercover. And what bits are roped off? Isn't it just the bedroom and the security office, both of which you break into anyway. As for the people, your never really able to just talk to random NPCs unless they have a side quest so I don't see what the problem is.
She is a great squadmates though.
I mean, killing Batarians is fun, but it's no more fun (or no less) by itself than killing waves of Salarians, Humans, Turians, Asari, etc. Given the cost, I'm expecting a bit more to it...
Sounds like s/he's indoctrinated.
You know what to do
The problem here is that you keep taking this on the individual level and checking for equivalency to organics. Destroying a geth platform is one thing. Destroying the entire geth overmind is a completely different thing. People and constructs like EDI are consolidated whereas geth are gestalt. Brain cells vs the brain.
Safe to say the geth wouldn't be cool with be genocide'd even today.
Arrival is pretty short and somewhat underwhelming, but it's good to see just because of its kicking off ME3. The last scene is pretty cool, though.
but like Kaidan was one of the first ones frozen, he was right next to Lillith who we know got abducted
it would be really easy to show Kaidan running away and shooting, then cut to black and let us later assume he managed to fight off the collectors. but they chose to show him get frozen, which I think has a hidden meaning.
Feed the kid to a Thorian, then kill the Thorian?
Why I fear the ocean.
Sounds like you got a bad case of too much webcomics thread.
Here's what got me wanting to play through the entire series again:
This.
and This.
Steam: abunchofdaftpunk | PSN: noautomobilesgo | Lastfm: sjchszeppelin | Backloggery: colincummings | 3DS FC: 1392-6019-0219 |
Reaper sympathizer!
Maybe if I make ME gifs instead...
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Given how dumb most of Horizon was, I wouldn't doubt it was a writer mixup. But we'll see.
They did say that some squadmates would be important to the main story afterall.
I knew every class was getting an extra power.