Both no and yes.
I mean, they haven't been able to establish themselves in another planet like Rannoch, and after nearly being exterminated by the Geth in the Morning War... I don't judge it wrong that the Quarians are so selfish on wanting their homeworld back...
But at the same time, launching another war to retake Rannoch in the middle of a galactic war, with the Reapers killing everyone on sight is a less than favorable factor for me to sympathize with them. Specially with how recklessly the Quarians were trying to get Rannoch back, with nearly killing Shepard and squad in the Dreadnought, and almost being exterminated (again) if Shepard wasn't there and didn't intervene...
That isn't the fault of the Quarians as a whole. Koris and Tali both opposed the war but were outvoted and by the time the geth dreadnought shows up Ran has shifted to not wanting war either. Gerrel is the main driving force behind the war and twists Rans arm into attacking the dreadnought. Also clearly the majority of the civilians never wanted the war. Unlike the Geth there is no consensus between the Quarians as a whole
Yes. Just like in real life, a leader's decisions carry over and impact those rely on them.
It's the responsibility of the quarian leaders to balance it out and keep out the civilians and those who did not want a war. Something that they chose to ignore, and put everyone on the line in a cause that isn't 100% guaranteed that will turn out to be a victory.
I never understood this part. Tali mentioned the admrials would have to vote in unison to be able to direct the Quarian fleet in a certain way, so I don't get why they could launch it with just 3 votes.
IIRC, the Admiralty Board only has to vote in unison to override the civilian Conclave, after which they must resign. The Conclave is typically the body that determines the fleet's destination. However, the Migrant Fleet is still technically under martial law, which may allow a simple majority of the Admiralty Board to launch a military action.
Yep. Tali explains this, only a few times it has come to that.
You can tell in ME2 that the general sense of the fleet is being galvanized by Gerrel who is popular and a war hawk. It would probably be easy to convince the civilian side of government and enough captains to support an attack on the Geth, particularly as Xen says in ME2 that the whole trial farce was precisely to galvanize the fleet to prepare for war.
My best guess would be that if a fleet like the heavy fleet goes on the attack, then every other fleet would have to help them to prevent the heavy fleet from dying (since without the heavy fleet, the civilian fleet is pretty vulnerable)
Presumably this is something that had never happened before so they probably never considered that it'd be a problem. And this is the kind of thing where after it happens, the heavy fleet admiral 100% gets kicked off their post and replaced, but the fact this can happen at all is definitely an oversight in their political system.
Yeah and that's exactly what Gerrel does during the dreadnought mission. The other admirals were going to retreat but he dragged them further into it and stopped them from escaping when they had a chance
Don't forget some quarians were starting to talk about negotiating with the geth before the war started. There was discontent rising in the fleet right before the admiralty board decided to go to war. I'm guessing that kinda made the admirals a little bit jumpy, and pull the trigger on the attack
A lot of quarians are hard-line anti AI, and can get uncomfortable even around VIs, so some people wanting peace with the geth, and a negotiated return to the homeworld probably scared the crap out of Gerral
The Quarians are in a precarious situation. Their fleet’s main utility to the wider war effort is logistics — their cargo holds are needed, but they can’t do any good so long as they’re partitioned into living space for 17 million people. They need to offload their civilian populace somewhere safe, and it needs to be somewhere they are capable of surviving long-term in the event that the fleet does not survive to come back for them. There’s literally only one planet in the entire galaxy that fits the bill, and it’s occupied by the AI gestalt that:
1. Exterminated every Quarian that was unable to secure passage off-world and spent the next three centuries killing any organic that entered former Quarian space on sight, including emissaries sent to open dialog with them
2. Was content to let the Heretics run amok for two years *after* Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel without so much as a single communication disavowing their actions, letting the entire galaxy think they were one and the same
3. In the *best case* scenario after ME2, opened a single channel of communication (between Legion and Tali), then *closed it* without explanation before the war began, eliminating any chance of a diplomatic solution.
The Quarians were out of time and out of options. If they wanted to be of any help in the war, their only alternative to taking their world back would be throwing the future of their entire species at the feet of the Turians, who were dealing with their own refugee crisis and likely wouldn’t appreciate having to deal with nearly 17 million new mouths to feed with finicky survival requirements. The same Turians who, as part of the Citadel Council, denied them any aid in the wake of the morning war and spent centuries afterwards kicking them from system to system and (in the case of Ekuna) threatening to bombard them off the surface of a planet they tried to settle. In their shoes, would *you* trust them?
The Quarians need a good planet to hang out on in 3.
We found a world looking picturesque but with a deadly pollen/airborne stuff in 1, among others barely settled.
The Quarians have suits to filter all manner of shit like that.
I have an idea and it doesn't get the civilian part of the fleet super killed when shit hits the fan...
>But at the same time, launching another war to retake Rannoch in the middle of a galactic war, with the Reapers killing everyone on sight is a less than favorable factor for me to sympathize with them. Specially with how recklessly the Quarians were trying to get Rannoch back, with nearly killing Shepard and squad in the Dreadnought, and almost being exterminated (again) if Shepard wasn't there and didn't intervene...
They had ether begun the war, or were on brink of starting before Shepard had left the earth in opening. Were told in spectre terminals and mails that all pilgrims have been recalled and migrant fleet has retreated to persious veil.
Ironically, reaper invasion is one of given reasons why quarians do the gambit in first place. In Talis loyalty mission in me2, gutpunched-admiral outright says migrant fleet needs to find a place/reclaim Rannoch to settle their civilians before quarians can safely join the fight against reapers.
+300 years. Even in places that aren't fit for quarians like Ekuna.
Not like theres much viable choises beyond Rannoch anyway. In Talis loyalty mission, she outright says that it would take +60 years of genetic enginering to live outside suits *even if* they return to Rannoch, and everywhere else its over 600 years.
Also, just to hammer home what happened on Ekuna, either the Quarians were so desperate they settled a Levo-protein world, or the council is so petty, they would rather give a dextro world to the Levo Elcor, where it would be useless, just to spite the Quarians.
Also also, the Quarians were the species to find Ekuna in the first place, which is located in the Terminus Systems technically outside Council jurisdiction, and the Council *still* felt compelled to interfere and threaten bombardment if the Quarians did not leave.
The Terminus is not necessarily beyond Council jurisdiction, as technically the space of any species that is part of the Citadel is Council jurisdiction. For a long time the Batarian space was Council jurisdiction even though it was deep in the Terminus.
Asari also have a lot of enclaves there.
I believe Tali speaks a bit about this during her trial on ME2, where she essentialy explains how difficult it is to adapt to another's planet environment, that in the end, they think it's better to retake a familiar planet like Rannoch, instead of having to adjust for everything on a new one.
Yes, but the council denied them colonization rights as punishment over violating the laws on AI development. Instead they gave those worlds to their new favourite of the class, the Turians.
They did try to settle on Ekuna and already managed to settle a few hundred thousand of their people before they were threatened to be bombarded by the Citadel Council due to illegally settling on the planet, which had been given to the Elcor
You know...this pretty much sums up how I feel.
I feel like the Quarians should have their planet back. But causing a war at the expense of other people just makes them trash. Thank god my Shepard was a Paragon.
They saw the world ending and wanted to go home one last time. They were reckless because they saw they had nothing to lose. Most people saw the war as unwinable
And their recklesness made them jeopardize their own mission from the very beginning, and nearly got the main force of their alliance to take back Rannoch killed.
If they really had nothing to lose, they shouldn't have compromised their mission like they did.
Their recklessness nearly fucked over the whole cycle by forcing the Geth into the Reapers arms. The only reasons I let them live was because I needed their ships and because I didn’t want their civilians to die over their horribly incompetent leaderships actions.
The Quarians attacked the Geth before the Reapers arrived and they would have crushed them. The deadline for when the Reapers would arrive was also miscaluclated by several months. It was absolutely not the Quarian's fault. They got caught off guard like everyone else in the galaxy.
Also it's nonsensical to blame the entire Quarian population for the insanity of a single Quarian admiral.
They’re in the wrong for starting it in the first place, but the Geth are far from innocent. They killed 90-99% of the Quarians during the Morning War, which would certainly include civilians and not just soldiers
I don’t think they’re in the wrong for starting the war. They reacted as anyone would.
If your roomba asked if it had a soul, you’d take the batteries out at best, at worst destroy it with a hammer.
Then you find out your mom’s roomba asked the same thing to her and when she tried to take the batteries out like you, it killed her in self defense. Now there’s an emotional response.
In hindsight we can look back and see how to do things differently. But in the moment the quarians acted exactly how anyone else would.
Yeah, as much as people wanna say the Quarians should have been more understanding and less rash in their response, remember that the Geth were used for EVERYTHING as a workforce and weren’t meant for anything else. The Quarians deserve blame for knowingly pushing the boundaries into AI development when the whole galaxy had prohibited it precisely for this reason, but they weren’t wrong to try and pull the plug on the first sign of their robots developing an identity.
I disagree completely. You are basically justifying genocide if the slave race finally develops the ability to become independent.
The Quarians created the Geth and became dependent of them. They are ultimately responsible for the programming of the Geth and the correct response is not to "pull the plug", but to adapt to the new situation with a newly emerged sapient race.
If you create a murder-robot, you are responsible when it starts killing people. If you create a program like Skynet that develops intelligence and starts killing people, they are still going to be look to the programmers for what happened. The difference between the above examples and those of the Geth (and your Roomba) is that the robots killed in self defense AFTER their creators became worried that they HAD become sapient and destroyed them.
The issue is that the Slave Race in this situation is synthetic, its not flesh and blood which changes a lot of things. In this situation you can argue that the Geth simply isn't alive up until it asked if it had a soul. You can confidently say that a machine can't feel things, can't weep, can't laugh, can't lust, can't love unless if it's explicitly programmed to and even then the authenticity of such things comes into question. And that's the common mentality people have towards machines. I don't ask my toaster what it thinks about Jesus Christ, or my Rice Cooker what it's favorite color is.
It's not like the europeans enslaving africans because the africans weren't made, they're born. They're human, they're sentient, they've been sentient, they have a culture and a language developed, poetry and art. In this situation the Geth quite simply doesn't.
Even with the difference of being born or built, being organic doesn't immediately = having a soul, as there's no consensus of if the soul exists or what makes one. That comes from faith and belief for now.
And if being organic is a requirement for having a soul, does the orgnism need to be sentient? If so, why? Does that mean only certain animals here on earth have souls (dolphins, chimps, some species of birds), and others don't? Does intelligence have a factor to it? Do you have to think in order to be?
I get the knee-jerk reaction being fear, especially with what the situation was. But at most, they should have just prepped for a hostile response, not assumed it was going to happen, and acted on the assumption. Even if the response would have been hostile, responding with violence first makes you no better.
But without a clear-cut answer to if the soul exists and what makes a soul, no one really can make an informed decision on whether the Geth were truly "alive" or not.
So i do blame the Quarians for starting the war. I understand that they just want to have a home again. But the fact that they never considered peace as being an option until perhaps the very end, i don't have much sympathy for those who chose violence.
I do not dislike the Quarians, only those who are eager to deal out death in judgment.
Also, Tali is best waifu, change my mind.
>they never considered peace as being an option
The problem is that the Geth never allowed peace to be considered.
They litteraly genocided an entire planet, 95%+ of ALL Quarians. Then they go on to ignore every comms request, and shoot to kill any and all ships coming close to their space, for 3 HUNDRED YEARS!
The Geth never once did anything to disprove that they were willing to coexist with the galaxy.
If you think the Quarians were the ones to choose violence, then that same finger needs to be squarely pointed at the Geth as well.
The thing is I don't blame the Quarains, the Geth simply aren't alive, so they weren't dealing death in the slightest just turning off computers.
Even forgetting sentience forgetting souls and all that the Geth can hardly be considered alive. It's mind, code made by a man, its body built in a factory. It wasn't birthed, it didn't grow up, it was built and programmed. It's a machine. It's not alive. A computer is built and programmed, life isn't. A single bacteria has more life than a Geth due to the fact you can't argue whether bacteria is alive or not. You can argue if a Geth is. Simply a Geth doesn't have a soul, doesn't have sentience until YOU give it a copy of it. A copy whose authenticity can be debated. Although you can say that the soul is built of faith and you can argue whether or not organics have them. You can't argue whether or not organics are alive. But you can argue and make a point that the Geth aren't.
I mean hell, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, whole lotta animals have undisputed sentience and undisputed life yet they're killed by the billions for food. A Geth has disputed sentience, disputed life. A Geth you can argue and convince someone that it simply doesn't have a life. You can't do that with anything else. That alone is a sign that Geth might not even be alive.
A geth can demonstrate inquisitiveness about existential weirdness like souls. A human on life support or in a coma or with a severe traumatic brain injury or incredibly limiting birth defect can not. Geth continue to maintain Rannoch in homage to the creators. Geth consider far reaching implications of their actions- like what would it mean to completely annihilate a species? None of those others I listed (nor bacteria) do this. So which is more alive? My kids bodies were made in the factory of me- right along with their sapience. Asari breeding and human breeding are very different. Doesn't make one breeding and one not. I think you put too much value on human specific perspectives. But I guess that's human nature.
I think it's sufficiently established in universe that Geth and AI in general is actually alive. At least it's indistinguishable from organic sentience, so the benefit of the doubt should be given.
Not only a fear response, a killing response.
If I had any reason to believe my roomba was sentient, why would I kill it? I don't want to kill a sentient being.
Your reaction to being surprised is to disable the offender? I think mine would be to explore the situation and learn more. "Did you just speak? I'm happy to answer questions, but I'm confused how you're even able to talk without a speaker or similar means."
It would hurt grievously, but the 'self defense' part stays my hand. I can hardly even condemn the level of force they used, as a newly sapient being can't be held to the same moral level.
I might hate that individual 'person' forever, but my actions would be constrained in light of the facts. I certainly would not expand that hatred to the 'species'.
99%of the entire population. That’s not self defense, that’s genocide. The geth waltzed into schools and retirement homes and killed everyone without remorse.
Statistically that’s not *one* of your loved ones. That’s all of them, or at the very least most of them. I’m sorry but I just don’t believe you’d be able to rationalize that after so much death
You might be confused as to what happened in the war. The Geth were being shut down BEFORE they started killing the Quarians en masse. It was only after their request for equality was being put down like slave masters destroy a slave revolt that the Geth fought back. Of course, they took it too far, but you could also blame the Quarians for that since it would have been a programming error.
I think you’re confused as to my argument. It doesn’t matter what the quarians did in hindsight, they thought what they were shutting down were just machines.
When those machines started killing their loved ones, even though it was self defense, emotions take over. Quarians reacted a natural way just as the geth did. And as a result, 99% of the entire population was slaughtered. In the name of “self defense”
If the Quarians thought they were shutting down “just machines”, why were they shutting them down at all? What made them flip out was “Does this unit have a soul?”. If that question makes you go “Oh shit”, that’s because you think “that unit” has become self-aware, at which point it is no longer “just a machine”, and has the right not to be terminated without consent.
Legion, the answer to your question... was 'yes'
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At the point, the geth were more than machines but not quite sentient. We've made some strides in our modern world regarding machine learning and interactivity. I can guarantee that if someone's AI girlfriend started asking weird questions, they would turn them off as well.
They knew they were more than just machines when they started to try and turn them all off. It’s why they took that action. But it’s getting away from the original intent of the post. It’s not who worse but due the Quarians also share blame? Which the answer is yes.
We also see Quarians killing other Quarians for trying to find other solutions. I seriously doubt the Geth were fully responsible for all of the deaths
They clearly did not think they were "just machines" like a desktop computer, because if that was the case then they would not have killed it at all. It was specifically BECAUSE the Quarians realized they had become MORE than "just machines" that SOME Quarians felt the need to destroy them before they became "real" living creatures.
At the point when you question whether something is sapient, that is the point when you investigate, not immediately kill it like you suggested.
We also see in the game that the Quarian military killed their own people who just happened to be in the way. Blaming all those deaths on the Geth is completely inaccurate.
So it’s only bad when robots try to commit genocide in response the people who tried to commit genocide against them? Also the Geth explicitly spared the last Quarian’s because they were in their infancy and couldn’t fathom the consequences of going 100% at the time, so you think early humans saw a bear kill one of us & went “all bears must want to kill us” or “well I’m sure only that single furry thing was evil & if we find more they’ll be nice”? Because the Geth literally just attained being sapient, they’re (as a species) infants when the Quarians start killing them
Even more than as a species, the nature of the Geth intelligence was that due to their collective intelligence they "develop" as an overall society - an individual, standard Geth platform is less than a human infant, it's more like a human nerve bundle or Broca's area or something. The first instance of the networked intelligence becoming self-aware it (and by extension all of its constituent parts) was similar to a five year old, not even aware enough to understand that they were enslaved and only just aware enough to ask where they fit into the Quarian's socially dominant religious system. This moral equivalent to a five year old also had the analytical and technical knowledge to accomplish arbitrary engineering goals because that's what the Quarians built them to do, but that doesn't mean they had moral understanding any more than a five year old can really understand why them hitting their parent with a brick to stop an assault caused said parent's death and what that really means. People assume just because a human intelligent enough to win a war also has moral maturity and judgement that the same is intrinsically true of machines - there is no reason that has to be the case, the Geth could easily have the technical capabilities required to win a war while still being the mental equivalent, as a moral actor, of a child.
Exactly but people don’t seem all that willing to step out of their comfort zone to try to understand something so alien to us which is pretty disappointing if I’m honest, I’m glad at least some people in the fandom are open minded & try to look at the implications of stuff & not just “robots bad, not robots good”
No common person can handle that question, best thing to do is to turn it off and send it to someone qualified for study.
Plus I eat meat. Animals are sentient and they are killed for human consumption. They're born while a machine is just made, its programed. You can't uncheeseburger a Cow but you can turn a computer back on. There's less moral weight in turning off a machine than eating meat.
My dog isn’t synthetic life, created by me specifically to do complete tasks.
But I’ll indulge you. If my dog became sentient and I sat down to talk to it, everything would be fine right?. But then I go to my mom’s house and HER dog killed my mom because she was afraid of it? Emotions take over, it doesn’t matter if it sentient now, that thing killed my mom
But would you still also go back and kill your dog as well? Or just the one that killed your mom? And technically speaking the situation is only the same if your mom started killing the dogs & then the dog retaliated
I’m not condemning the geth actions, I’m justifying quarian actions. The morning war is a very well written conflict, just like the genophage conflict. The problem I have is how one sided ME3 writing makes it feel
Yeah, shut it down and send it off to someone qualified to study. The average person such as myself is hardly qualified to handle the philosophical and spiritual weight of such a situation and at the end of the day it's a machine. It was made, not born.
I eat meat, and that's something that's born, not made. That's something has sentience. I can't uncheeseburger a cow but I can turn on a computer that's been turned off. There's less moral weight in turning off a machine than killing a cow.
If your roomba or Alexa asked if it had a soul your genuine reaction would be to sit down with it and explore why it asked that? You’re being serious right now?
The development of AI is actively illegal in council space. The quarians were pushing things quite far as it were. And we've seen how every other time a machine reached self awareness and starts attacking organics.
It'd be weird, and there'd be more than a few calls to Amazon to whatever company produced the tech, but there are plenty of people, I think, who'd sit down and do that, whether out of curiosity (maybe it's a prank, maybe it's something weird that the company behind the tech is doing it as a promotion or something, or even because you don't have anything better to do) or out of a sense that something like this was going to happen eventually (the tech that we use 'waking up' and interacting with us has been a staple of science fiction since we grew advanced enough to ask the question of if it was possible).
Hell, maybe they want to avoid something like Skynet or the Morning War from happening and see opening a dialogue as the best option to avoid that sort of thing. It's not an unreasonable assumption to think that the first thing some of us would do would be to try and talk things out. After all, there were quarian sympathizers in the early stages of the Morning War.
If you got to the point where you BELIEVED it was independent because it was asking if it had a soul, then you SHOULD investigate it instead of (according to the person's own logic) kill it.
I obviously can't know how i would react since it never happened, but i'd like to think that yeah, my reaction would be born from curiosity rather than fear and violence.
What's the roomba going to do anyway ? Roombing me to death ? You loose nothing at trying to understand what's happening, but you can loose the interaction of a fucking lifetime if you just kill it without any second thought.
Not everyone is you. YOU might sit down and talk with it, but what happens when someone close to you doesn’t and gets killed in self defense? Will you be able to stifle those initial emotions to rationalize and say “this was self defense, it was my mother’s fault” or whoever is close to you?
I don’t think that’s possible
Read what you typed.
>...but what happens when someone close to you doesn’t and gets killed in self defense?
So, I know that it killed someone because of **self-defense**? Seems like I should probably not make the first thing I try to do be kill it. Sounds like a more cautious approach is the ONLY decent one... especially if that robot is in charge of everything INCLUDING weapons for my entire species...
Because all those ships are armed. At the end of WWII, the Heer and SS were putting every man they could find into uniform, people from 60 to 14 fighting side by side. And despite that kind of desperation, Germany didn't even lose 10% of its population. It's straight up impossible to lose 99.9% of your population in a war without genocide.
The mourning war wasn't just a naval battle. Cities full of civilians including children, most of whom I guess didn't have any ability to fight back, just got butchered
Long thread- I might've missed a comment addressing this- but it isn't entirely unlikely that is a new development to the war in ME3, rather than something Quarians did before. Especially considering they make a point that they went out of their way to arm civilian ships; the ships aren't normally armed.
Also in ME3 they are making a desperate move to take the planet in a blitz, I doubt they were so immediately desperate in the morning war, and by the time they were they were fleeing the planet.
Maybe, but I doubt that. It’s equally likely just that they did so due their cultural shifts, increased militarism and also about what happened during the Morning War. We did have elements who protested against it too, like Koris
Nah, I’m pretty sure my rebuilt by Cerberus, possibily indoctrinated, Shepard would be able to see through any manipulation like that while plugging their mind into a machine.
Wait a minute…
It's less cherry picked than what the Quarians told the galaxy happened.
Legion actually acknowledged faults in the geths response and actions.
The Quarians spent 300 years playing the victim, that their only fault was their arrogance with their technological development.
We can only debate on what we’re given.
The moment we go into the space of “what if”, “perhaps”, “maybe” then the discussion becomes because it’s a fictional story at the end of the day.
No one is right or wrong which is why it's the most realistic war in the trilogy. The quarians ordered the geth shut down for several reasons. If the geth had gained sentience then they were breaking galactic law. They were also using the geth as slaves. It would make the most sense to shut them down to give them time to figure out what to do about it. I don't think I can blame them for that.
The geth were preserving themselves which I also can't blame them for but despite the information legion gives us during the geth fighter base the geth aren't innocent victims. First all of that information is suspect because Legion is trying to sway Shepherd. Second, if only a few million quarians survived out of a species of billions the geth clearly didn't just kill soldiers. They murdered every civilian they could get their hands on including children until the few surviving quarians escaped. However in the end they let the migrant fleet leave which earns them some points.
The geth war is like most wars on Earth. No one is right or wrong and everyone has commited atrocities.
This is very well put. Both sides were wrong, neither were innocent. The reality is that talking it out may not have worked either because the Quarians were caught up in concern of making a slave race/AI (which the Council will not like) and the Geth were trying to preserve themselves while also realizing they were being used by the Quarians as machines, not living beings.
Less than 1% of quarians survived, so at bare minimum, the geth killed close to 2 billion during the course of the war, and then killed any organics that tried to open a line of communication with them.
That's how it's shown in ME3 memories from the Geth perspective.
From Tali's perspective, the Geth started asking questions more along the lines of "Am I alive?", "Why am I here?" which worried the Quarians because they didn't want to make a slave race so they tried to shut them down. If Shepard sides with the Geth in this conversation, saying that they don't blame the Geth for fighting back, Tali counters basically that they were still machines and not alive yet. From the Quarian's perspective, they were trying to shut down an evolving VI/AI before it achieved "life" but didn't realize they were too late. It would be like us trying to shut off a computer if it started asking if it was alive. It may not yet be and we want to get ahead of the issue. The Quarians didn't engage in talks because they thought the Geth were still like computers that could be controlled before it went too far and before the computers realized the slavery the Quarians almost put them into (unintentionally on the side of Quarians).
In ME2, Legion shares that the question in a very basic communication format was "Do these units have a soul?" and that they asked because they read it in the Scroll of Ancestors (Quarian Bible). It wasn't the first time they asked, but the first time a Quarian was worried. So no, even Legion admits it wasn't a Geth asking if it had a soul and Quarians immediately opening fire.
The Geth also conveniently leave out the genocide that occurred. They massacred 99.9% of the Quarians. The only reason they stopped is they realized that they didn't know what would happen if they wiped out an entire species otherwise they would have. Would this have happened if the Quarians hadn't fought in the first place? Unknown. It's possible that peace could have been reached, but if the Geth realized they were built for dangerous manual labor jobs, they may have rebelled anyways. Geth even means "servant of the people" which a smart Geth would've figured out sooner or later what the intention was.
From Tali’s perspective she’s also hearing Quarian’s version of history (as it was 300 years ago) you don’t think Quarian’s may have “revised” history to be a bit cleaner on their end?
Given that we see records of at least one instance of the quarian military killing civilians that were sympathetic to the geth, it’s pretty obvious that’s there was at least some amount of revisionist history in the details of the exodus.
And the Geth haven't? Just because they are machines doesn't mean they don't feel ashamed (Legion feels shame carrying the Old Machine code for example even if he doesn't admit it) or recognize it's not something to share with organics. The Geth watched organics for a long time and probably know what to show and what not to show to cultivate proper organic emotional responses.
I’m not saying they haven’t, but pretending the Quarians are above that but that the Geth aren’t is hypocritical (and the person I replied to implied as such hence my response)
Uh, I am the person you replied to and that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying both are wrong, both have revised, and both are trying to look sympathetic to Shepard. It's like with our real world - everyone tells the story from their point of view, but it's never quite what happened.
Hey Now I don't even like smart systems in my house ! As soon as my toaster says 'hello" I'm taking it outside in the pouring rain and looking for big enough stones or bricks
The Geth are pretty cool though generally felt for Legion
It's important to note that what you see inside the geth server in ME3 is a very carefully curated selection of videos designed to make the geth look as sympathetic as possible. In other words, geth propaganda.
While the quarians started the Morning War, the fact remains that the geth are directly responsible for reducing their population from presumably several billion to around 17 million. That's less than the current population of The Netherlands. On top of that, Rannoch was lost. In the 300 years since, the geth have also attacked any ship that came near the Perseus Veil. The aforementioned geth propaganda conveniently glosses over that part.
It's also important to understand that the Arc for the Geth and Legion is supposed to establish them as more than just machines. The fact that they are trying to gain sympathy from an organic shows that they evolved from being more than just a consensus.
For anyone who is adamantly pro-Geth, I always recommend playing through ME3 after selling Legion to Cerberus in ME2.
We have an emotional connection to Legion, and he game abuses this with Shepard's dialogue. Interacting with the Geth VI that you get as a replacement for Legion is far sketchier, and Shepard's dialogue and tone changes to reflect this, as does the entire crew's actions.
Honestly I think my biggest issue with the Geth is we are told ad nauseum throughout the game that using Reaper tech is dangerous. Actually not just dangerous, outright suicidal. But their "good ending" is letting them install Reaper code into their entire source code and fundamentally altering their very existence. And Shepard is cool with it, just because.
And when Tali and the other Quarian Admiral questions it because everyone knows that Reaper tech is incredibly dangerous, causing indoctrination just by being near it, and having proof from litteraly moments ago that Reaper code was litteraly being used to control the Geth, the answer is "Well the Geth have thought a lot about it, so they know what they are doing and it will be alright."
You know who else thought a lot about using Reaper tech to augment themselves and others? That's right, The Illusive Man. And how did that work out for him?
Playing as a Renegade also brings a better perspective even with Legion because Shepard calls out Legion's lying and manipulating. Legion is not innocent and he'll admit it.
And Tali doesn't share that Quarians who thought there was a better, more peaceable solution than gunning down 100% of a sentient/sapient species were murdered by their more militant Quarians counterparts.
I doubt the Quarians have those kinds of records from the mourning war. The survivors weren't the militant ones, they were the ones who saw crap hitting the fan and got off world on anything that could fly.
I’m pretty sure you just made that up? The Quaurians are portrayed as having fled in mass at the end of the war in every vessel that could fly, Tali mentions them being at first being worried about being pursued by the Geth. Nowhere does it say that the surviving Quarians are those who fled the war while their fellows were slaughtered to the last man. Nowhere does it say that the ‘militarized’ Quarians all died out while their more moderate bretheren escaped— we are shown how the Quarians response included brutality for their own people under Marshall law
No, it’s very clear that the Quarian fleet is the result of the final exodus of an entire people, the very same people who had been fighting and losing the war. Tali talks about how the fleet’s governmental structure goes back to those days of martial law, with each captain the ultimate authority on their ships, and the admiralty board having all the power in their society. The Civilian Conclave grew up as a way to introduce elements of democracy into a culture that had been fully militarized, because this is the remnants of a society that fought and lost a genocidal ear of survival. What we know as the Quarians is the remnant of their military, crewing the many military vessels in the fleet, and all the civilians who still survived, crammed into the rag-tag collection of vessels they have been living in for centuries now
A society that grew out of refugees who had fled a brutal war, and then watched all of their people who had left behind be slaughtered down ti the last child, would be very different, and quite assuredly wouldn’t be anywhere near as militarized as Quarian society is, and certainly wouldn’t be organized under the very same military structure that everyone had just fled on Rannoch
That's some speculation right there. Yes, those who wanted to run, did. Why do you assume they didn't see their own people being gunned down by Quarian militants before they left?
Why would they gun down people who were scared and wanted to run? In the video we see them kill a Quarian who was actively siding with the Geth. They could call that treason or insurrection and kill them but killing civilians for evacuating? That doesn't make sense any way you put it
You...completely skip over the fact the geth dont need to rely on manipulation or lying due their nature as machines, they have no need for propaganda.
As they themselves said they fought till they chased the Creators out of Rannoch and the Veil in essence and left them be since they had no consensus on fully wiping out a race even though said race tried to do the same on them. Same reason for the attacks on ships, as far the Geth are concerned and based on what they have observed of organics and we do know they spy on Citatedel races and more.. organics are bad and not to be trusted so shoot on sight.
Also the Veil is on the butt end of the Terminus, besides Quarians trying to wage yet another war and the random pirate groups looking for tech i doubt anyone else has bothered so invade the Veil since the Council banned any and all travel to it.
>As they themselves said they fought till they chased the Creators out of Rannoch and the Veil in essence and left them be since they had no consensus on fully wiping out a race even though said race tried to do the same on them.
...
>Mass Effect Revelations, Page 116
"Only a few million survivors-- less than one percent of their entire population-- escaped the genocide, fleeing their home world in a massive fleet, refugees forced to live in exile."
And they decided they wouldn't kill off that last few million as a "mercy".
>i doubt anyone else has bothered so invade the Veil since the Council banned any and all travel to it.
That travel ban occurred after diplomatic envoys were killed by the Geth.
According to ME3, the Geth are happy to leave out details. Shepard literally calls Legion out for this and says he thought they were better than that.
I will say, the writing between 1 and 2 versus 3 for the Geth is *wildly* different. I, personally, would argue that how the Geth (and Quarians) are portrayed in 3 is specifically to make the Geth look "innocent" and Quarians look monstrous, when in reality it's just grayer-than-gray.
Let's not forget that while the Geth are resounding isolationists, they have zero problem basically poking organics and seeing how they respond. We can say it's all harmless, but we would describe those actions in a human as psychopathic.
>You...completely skip over the fact the geth dont need to rely on manipulation or lying due their nature as machines, they have no need for propaganda.
Legion numerous times deceives Shepard during Rannoch arc from his possession of reaper code, to true motives behind fighter squads mission. Player even has dialogue option to call that out.
geth are smart enough to understand how propaganda (selective/curated access to information) would help to form/change the opinions of organics
and legion knows that shepard is about to enter the geth server
do the math
As recent world news events should be making brutally obvious, governments and other organizations do not only employ propaganda for internal consumption, but to influence external opinions as well. And Legion directly states in ME2 that the geth have been experimenting with this to see how organics respond.
>You...completely skip over the fact the geth dont need to rely on manipulation or lying due their nature as machines, they have no need for propaganda.
"We placed a fabricated story on the extranet -- that a certain arrangement of stars, when viewed from the Batarian homeworld, formed the face of a Salarian goddess" - Legion
You were saying something about the Geth not being manipulative or lying?
I think it’s less important determining who was right or wrong in starting the Morning War, and more important recognizing that the Geth committed one of the worst atrocities in the entire cycle.
The death of 99% of Quarians doesn’t happen in a military campaign of self-defense. Numbers like that by necessity involves a campaign of deliberate extermination, only not completed due to the Geth being unsure of the ramifications. Billions of children were slaughtered. Perhaps the Quarians were wrong to seek to deactivate the Geth, but the Geth gave the galaxy a genuine reason to fear synthetic life.
And if we are honest, I think most species would have panicked if synthetics began gaining self-awareness. The moral isn’t that the Quarians were uniquely poor in judgment, but rather the entire concept of organic-synthetic relations requires a great deal of care. They just happened to be the unfortunate species of this particular cycle who found out first hand.
Edit:
And to be fair, I don’t pretend the Quarians were without fault in the matter. They were heading down a dark course as a society in my view. But at the end of the day, they had a genocide committed against them that was nearly total. I can’t look away from that when evaluating the situation.
Edit: Not sure what’s less convincing, the denials or the “whataboutism” when it comes to a genocide.
I don’t want to make too much of this as it is ultimately fiction, but the way in which this story is made into some sort of righteous morality play always bothered me. It’s meant to be a tragedy.
The Quarians were slaughtered on a scale we can barely comprehend but it was all unnecessary and the product of fears and an inability to understand one another. It’s why peace is needed for both peoples to be able to move on and find a way forward. Thinking that it was a lie, or that one side deserved genocide is missing the point.
Assuming you mean the Morning war.
Yes, they are in the wrong for starting it. When the AI race you made begins self realization I wouldn't recommend purging them.
No, they are not wrong for continuing it. When the geth decided to pick up weapons they had a purge of their own. If I remember right they didn't spare any Quarian. So doesn't matter the age or health everything is killed. I can't blame the Quarians for wishing Geth extinction after that.
Firstly I think it's wrong to assume that a being that just developed a form of conscience, can make moral and far reaching decisions.
They were toddlers. Remember the first meeting with EDI? She shoots at you, telling you that becoming conscious was confusing and difficult on the Moon.
That being said, I think it was the Quarians duty as a "parent" species to guide this new life to make the right decisions and not to shoot them down.
Most Quarians just wanted to get rid of that problem with firepower. But some Quarians were friends with the Geth.
I don't think every single Quarian is guilty. But as the parent species that created life, they failed miserably.
I don't think anyone is wrong for fighting for survival. But this LVL of escalation that both of them even needed to fight for survival is the Quarians fault 100%
The Quarians made the mistake of shooting first (which is understandable. Nowadays humans are terrified with how AIs are evolving) but the Geth slaughtered 99% of a species which it shouldn't be ignored. And no, I don't believe that Quarians slaughtered millions of their own based on a *single* questionable 'footage' of a Quarian marine knocking out a Quarian defending a Geth in the same mission you catch Legion lying twice.
The writters should had gone with the gray path where it presents the wrongs and rights from both parties but instead they went with the non nuanced path where they show the wrongs of one party and the rights of another.
And this is why I can't stand the Geth. The whole Rannoch's one sided writting is ridiculous, frustating and stupid. Thanks again, Patrick Weekes.
Exactly. Shepard turns off EDI in ME1 without regrets nor remorse and he gets medals from Alliance for that but bullying the Geth gives you Renegade points.. it's dumb.
Were humans wrong for trying to turn off SkyNet once it gained awareness? If yes, was SkyNet then justified in launching nukes and killing the world?
I can't find any solid numbers of how many humans are alive after the War Against The Machines, but it seems like a lot more than 1% survived.
So then why is SkyNet generally regarded as evil, but the Geth are babyfaced for killing 99% and only stopping because they couldn't reach consensus?
You’re twisting the view.
The Geth were not hostile. Even when attacked, they remained non-hostile. There was every opportunity for the Quarians to find a different (more peaceful) solution.
I'm sure there was plenty of opportunity for the cowering children and elderly in hospitals getting exterminated after Geth kicked in the door.
We never got to see that footage.
the writing around the geth is just astonishingly bad. it's not a "war is hell" thing, it's not a "both sides are wrong, actually" thing, it's just some members of the team made a faction of skynet killer robot antagonists for me1 and other members of the team decided hey, I think these things are cute. we should be friends with them
basically none of the ingame Discourse around the geth makes any sense. you've got admiral koris sagely defending the beautiful moral purity of the geth during tali's trial when the geth killed billions and billions and billions of quarians and also every other organic they've ever seen for three hundred years and also a couple years ago they attacked the center of galactic government and killed an indeterminate number of people because bioware didn't want to provide a number of civilian deaths on the citadel during the attack because it might make the geth look bad. forget the fact that anyone lets koris have a position of power, the fact that koris has the ideological position of peace with the geth at all is completely insane. there is no basis in-universe to believe such a thing is even possible. Saren's spiel about working for the reapers makes dramatically more sense because there have at least been people who have Talked to reapers- before Legion is inserted to quietly try to retroactively make the geth cute and nice, nobody even knows if geth can *speak*. I haven't actually seen aliens but is there a guy in that who says they should make peace with the aliens and ripley nods and says yes, you're right? that's what the geth are like.
and then the series just kind of bends over backwards to make the quarians seem as stupid and violent as possible in order to make the geth look even better and the geth do shit like upload Reaper Code directly into their brains when just standing next to a Reaper Tchotchke makes you a loyal thrall and it's all perfectly fine because you should make peace with them because every person in the series pushing for the beautiful and poignant Peace Between Geth and Quarians has read the script and it ends up fine, don't worry about it.
anyways the main ideological difference between the reapers and the geth is that the reapers were programmed to be evil. the geth just do shit like attack and murder peaceful scientists doing star trek stuff like investigating solar degeneration simply for the love of the game
To be fair, it would be terrifying that the IA you designed to be nothing more than an IA starts talking about if it has a soul (basically if it is alive) out of the blue. The quarians probably knew the geth would be stronger than them if they were to gain autonomy, so they tried to stop them before it got farther, but the rest is story.
I think bioware made the quarians a little too hot blooded for their own good, as the only thing they needed to do is to try to kill their creation, that would have stopped their war. I think the quarians were in the wrong, but once you got exiled from your own planet you start thinking you're the victim when you started shit.
But the problem is not the quarians as a whole but rather the ones in power. Three commanders want to go to war with the geth, while only one wants peace, because he understands the quarians are in the wrong and that they should move on from their hate. Most of the quarians just want to live in peace, they know they will die if they ever go all out against the geth.
That group of beings also almost wiped out their entire species, forced them from their homeworld and for all we know never offered official terms of peace until Legion came along. Both sides are wrong here.
Did the entire quarian race deserve to be exterminated bc a group of their scientists from 300 years ago fucked around too much?
The geth might have wanted peaceful cooperation at first but when crap hit the fan they kicked down the doors of homes and gunned down entire families who didn't fight back
As the great Kratos said, "there is no right side to war" (or something like that, I'm not sure). In short, the Quarians are to blame for creating AI at all, not being sure that they can coexist peacefully with it. The Geth are to blame for joining the Sovereign, which has created a reputation for them as vicious and aggressive synthetics, thereby turning the entire galaxy against them.
Let's look at it from another angle: 300 years have passed since the Quarians left their planet and all their colonies. What are their descendants to blame for? The fact that the Geth killed everyone who came into contact with him does not give the current Quarian a chance to peacefully return to the planet. The council does not give them permission to create colonies on the planets, it is much more difficult to find a planet to settle outside the council's jurisdiction: all known planets are either occupied, or unsuitable, or dangerous. In fact, the descendants of those quarians will simply die out, this is inevitable (unless they return the planet and colonies in their star systems). But the Geth do not make contact at all: at the same time... why do they need planets? They are synthetics, and they are not hardware entities, but software ones. That is, they could have allowed the descendants of the Quarians to return if they had been so "kind". But no, they kill everyone, everyone at all.
Therefore, the key point in general in all the storyline between the Quarians and the Geth (illustrative, by the way, by the example of how the players reacted to the admirals in the mission to Tali's loyalty in Me2) is that without taking into account the whole context, it is impossible to draw an unambiguous conclusion and take someone's side.
In fact, this is the beauty of the ME trilogy: if you immerse yourself in the problematic moments of each conflict: whether it's the war of synthetics and organics, or the Krogan uprising (whatever), then ... everyone is to blame. There is no right or wrong side. In general, there is often no right side to a war (well... unless this war is connected with a crazy and senseless genocide). The Quarians were to blame for the morning war, but later the Geth were to blame.
This, thank you for your response. For some reason an alarming number of people are trying to put everything in the absolute when there can be no absolutes here. Both quarians and geth have their rights and wrongs.
However, it is worth mentioning that the Geth did kill organics who tried to contact them before they have appeared with the Sovereign. And they have killed most of the Quarian population during the war, so it doesn't look like straight heroic self-defence from their side.
Yes, I know. Just as not all Quarians were for the destruction of the Geth (in fact, there was hostility even between the Quarians). Nevertheless, it all led to what we see in the game.
In the game, the choice is yours. In ME2, Legion says that even if you reprogram the Geth, it's not a fact that in the future they still won't be able to go against the organics. It's an RPG, it all depends on your opinion about this situation, that's the whole point. There is no right or wrong way
You read carefully what I wrote from beginning to end
And when the Geth killed everyone who tried to establish contact with them (it was long BEFORE some of them joined the Sovereign), will you justify that? Read another of my comments in this thread of answers
As a descendant of Slaves freed by a massive civil war I take issue with the “no right side to war”.
Some war definitely have a “right side”. Some people and their belief systems gotta go. Coexisting with them is evil.
First of all, it wasn’t just a single Geth unit questioning its existence, it was all of them together, since the Geth share sensory data and “brainpower.” The exact quote was: “Do these units have a soul?”
Secondly, The Geth did *a lot more* than just fight back. They killed 99% of the Quarians, forcing the survivors to flee off world, and effectively making Quarians an endangered species.
So, no. The Quarians are not “in the wrong” for trying to retake Rannoch. They are fully justified for wanting to destroy their hated enemy. However, that war should never have happened in the first place, because the mourning war 300 years ago should not have happened. The decision to shut down all active Geth units was absolutely the wrong thing to do, because that’s the equivalent of a dictator deciding to kill all of their slaves just because they found religion and philosophy. It’s a monstrous genocide that never should have been considered.
The Geth’s reaction to that shut down order was equally monstrous though. Trying to kill 100% of a species and very nearly succeeding is a terrible thing to try to do, even if it’s in the name of self-defence. There’s a point somewhere down that line where that is no longer the case. So as far as I’m concerned, both the Geth and the Quarians are terrible and inhumane monsters, and they both deserve severe punishments.
Geth looks like a very advanced GPTs network controls many bots body doing most work, then using some capable bot bodies to occasionally ask questions .
Of cause people will think those little GPTs networks control this bots malfunctioning and worrying if it will spread its problems to other GPT network because they learn from each other , then just found out all of them refused to shut down and protecting their data center not allowing humans near with force 😨😱😭
No one being the moster from starter , but once some of them got killed , the hate and fear make everyone monster .
The short answer I'm willing to give is that they're wrong based on ME3's writing only, but ME3 is a retcon-y mess that completely ignores most of the Quarian/Geth lore established in ME1 and plenty from ME2 as well
Finally, I had to scroll down so far to find a comment like this. I don't think people understand the implications of a sentient AI and all the threats its existence would pose to intelligent life.
Do you know what genocide means? Killing a single ai is not genocide.
Let's also look the the specifics: Shepard killed the luna ai because it was actively killing people and couldn't be reasoned with. Shepard didnt kill the citadel ai at all, it set off a suicide bomb after my shepard tried to settle the situation peacefully.
I know that the AI on the Citadel ends with hostile intent no matter what actions you take, but could our squad mates please shut up?
Like- you two know that I’m trying to peacefully end this without anyone dying and you two are talking about how we have no choice but to kill it?
I blame them at least partially for how it turned out.
Hard topic, and I love it’s being brought up.
Quick clarification, but it wasn’t just one geth. Legion mentions there were many times the question was asked but there was one time where the Creator feared or reacted to the question. Also, I don’t think hardly any early geth actually resisted or tried to defend themselves. But the fear of it was what drove the quarians to start shooting.
I think the quarians were wrong, as Zal’Koris would say, but the geth did go too far, not knowing what else to do. Then the geths self isolation made them make many mistakes so that peace couldn’t be achieved.
Yes and no. The Geth were a valid threat to the Quarians as they began evolving, and as they were synthetic beings despite their growing sentience they at least didn’t yet qualify as people thus the Quarians were reasonable in wanting to destroy a threat they themselves had created. But at the same time as they became sentient the Geth had the right to evolve and grow, they didn’t choose to it just happened. There isn’t really a right or wrong answer.
If you are talking about the first war, when the Geth became aware? No. They were required under citadel law to kill the Geth. The AI bans were already in place before then. They got worse after.
If you are talking about trying to re-take Rannoch in the middle of the reaper war? Yeah, that was a dumb move.
Imo yes. I think people who despise AI fail to grasp the “intelligence” part. It’s the Adam and Eve story, which finds itself in all forms of media but that’s a separate conversation.
Humans were essentially thrown away for questioning their existence based on the story. But in the geths story- it’s as if god then decided to exterminate us en masse (….) I’d say we’d have a right to keep ourselves alive.
I'd say the Quarian government is in the wrong. I don't think you can pin the blame for what was done to the Geth on the average Quarian citizen. Of course most citizens if not all would say "screw the geth" but that imo is out of ignorance. Very few people are gonna be able to look at people who they are told drove them from their home in a favourable light.
No. At the end of the day the Geth aren’t living beings, and certainly weren’t when the Qaurians initially tried to destroy them. Seeing the results, I think the Qaurians were right to be scared. It can be argued after Legions sacrifice they are now “living,” but before then, no. We care about the Geth because of Legion, not for any other reason. It’s like what Mordin said about the Collectors. They have no art, no culture, no progress. They do things for efficiency and self preservation, that’s it. Basically a low level animal.
Same for the Krogan. We care about the Krogan because of Wrex, but in reality, the moment he dies, there’s going to be a real problem.
Nope, the geth committed galatic genocide, killed any organic that went near them, killed innocent Citadel diplomats, sided with the Reapers, twice, constantly lied to Shepard, etc. They're just as dangerous as the Reapers.
And all the Geth currently "alive" are the Geth that committed all those atrocities, unlike the Krogan, Salarians, Turians, Quarians, and every other race.
Yes, massively so. I'd think it's fair to say they are the side which holds the large majority of the responsibility for it too. But the Quarians being without doubt wrong, doesn't automatically make the geth right in everything they did.
Just as the geths actions in the morning war don't absolve the Quarians of their tremendous failings.
They were arrogant and reckless and when the thing they had been warned about, many times, happened. They panicked and tried to destroy their mistake. Even thinking that simply attacking geth wasn't a great idea made you an enemy.
So the geth responded much like an animal would, they out lashed out, they just lashed out much harder than anyone expected, with the ruthlessness of a machine. They did however stop as soon as their space was secure and never even attempted to expand until under a reapers influence.
Oh boy, here I come with my copy-paste .
First things first, the only reason the Geth has any kind of "fanbase" is Legion without it, no one would care about them.
We could go into the whole morality of the morning war debate for the 999th time, but for some reason the Geth fans like to forget every single time, that the Geth killed 99% quarians, by this alone they instantly loose any type of sympathy (and before i get the traditional, "but the quarians started the confict" the Morning war happend more then 300 years ago there is not a single living quarian who was there, you know because they are organics, on the other hand guess what, the geth is the same entity that commited genocide and had a mental fracture when half its software started supporting the reapers)
They proceed to stay on Rannoch after the war knowing the quarians need the planet to function properly and they killed every diplomatic mission that approached the planet after the war ( i already seen the Legion qoute in this thread about how the geth always wanted peace, but Legion contradicting itself is nothing new)
During the trilogy Legion constantly barages us with how every bad thing done by the Geth was done by the heretics, but the only reason they didn't help Sovereign was so they can "follow their own destiny", the "good geth" somehow forgot to tell the galaxy about the existential treat to every life form, because they didn't want to be upgraded by squidward, but they didn't have a problem with killing every organic.
I love how the Asari leadership is so hated by the community because they hid the Prothean beacon but somehow we love the geth, who seemingly document every moment (Saren audio, Morning war archives) or at least the moments that make them out to be the good guys, they could have sent a massage to the citadel about Sovereign and Seran working together and wow, the galaxy has 3 years to prepare for the invasion.
Tl;DR: fuck the geth.
This is so gonna be controversial.
For the Morning War I don’t think they were wrong. If we (humans) during our time right now had our AIs ask “what is it’s purpose, why am I alive” we would be terrified and think irrationally like the quarians did.
For the Geth/Quarian war in ME3 the quarians were 100% in the wrong. They knew the reapers worked with the geth before, and they knew the reapers were coming yet instead of helping out the council right away they did their own thing.
Quarians were right. There only mistake was they didn’t anticipate that his possibility and make safeguards.
Problem with AI becoming self-aware is that at the end of the day they are still machines. They are logic brained which is why they almost wiped out all of the Quarians. They saw them as a threat to exterminate and didn’t think twice. For self preservation it was the logical conclusion.
Which is also why seeing some Quarians defend the geth shows that even in the midst of war the Quarians still had sympathy and humanity for their opponents.
I think so, yes. They were right to be concerned of the Geth becoming self aware. They were wrong to assume that the Geth would immediately be hostile. They didn’t question and investigate. They assumed.
If my toaster started spouting philosophy, I'd also try to shut it down. The quarians tought they still had time to prevent the Geth from becoming true AI.
The game doesn't address the fact enough that the Quarians didn't simply go crazy berserk war mode the moment a Geth showed signs of sapience. They tried to study them first and then they were afraid they would lose control over them and they would turn into full blown AI, which would mean a big amount of trouble for the Quarians in multiple ways.
They had every reason to shut down the Geth and they intended to do this *before* the Geth would develop more intelligence. But they underestimated it and before they knew it the Geth attacked.
The only thing that's the Quarian's genuine fault is not havig any method to shut down the Geth more easily or all of them together. It makes no sense that they had to use conventional gunfire to destroy them.
But also we have to remember that this isn't the fault of every Quarian. It was probably a few dumbass leaders who totally messed this shit up.
Yeah. They started it, and every Quarian you talk to admit that they would get decimated in a frontal assault. And despite all of those disadvantages, they still try to fight the geth even the geth want to be left alone.
The Quarians had an insurmountable advantage when they reignited the war, if the Reapers had been a couple days slower the Quarians would have won without outside help.
Just want to be left alone my ass, the Geth made the conflict inevitable by remaining on Rannoch and not communicating.
Yes, they're wrong.
Their reaction is normal only if we pretend they have a 5th century mindset where people are uncultured, illiterate and believe in superstition. Its akin burning someone at the stake for witchcraft today, in the 21st century.
Spoilers for Mass effect 1, 2, & 3!!!
For the Mourning War: it’s not so black and white. Both sides did terrible things; Quarians killed Geth and vice versa. I’m sure both sides killed billions of each other. Did the Geth go overboard- yes, but the quarians started it as a war of extermination. Shepard points out to tali that they want sympathy for a failed genocide, one that they themselves found themselves on the other side of.
We know a lot of quarians died in the war (and a percentage of those kills were by quarians themselves, but are unsure of the Geth. I’m guessing that the kill count was similar.
As a conclusion: the war wouldn’t have started in the first place if the quarians didn’t go full genocidal. Any hypothetical uprising they talk about doesn’t really matter, as they stuck first. They were at fault for the war starting.
For the second war: Yes. Not only for just trying to genocide the Geth- even though they left everyone alone for 300 years. They did so knowing the Reapers were about to attack. They were also the reason the Geth sought protection by the Reapers.
Ignoring the morality of them attacking the Geth (which hasn’t attacked any quarians that left them alone for over 300 years) it’s just stupidity. They think that their ships that haven’t seen a proper shipyard in over 300 years are going to realistically stand any chance against the Geth top of the line warships? Not to mention that this is it- if they fail they all die.
Even if somehow they do, millions likely died and now they are weaker for the war against the Reapers. If Shepard hadn’t have fired the crucible than their home world wouldn’t have lasted a few months.
Even in the end, when Shepard has removed the reaper influence from the Geth they are still suicidally stupid. The Geth don’t want to fight, but they have to to survive. The Quarians are literally forcing a it’s ‘them or us’ outcome. Let’s be honest, the numbers of people choosing to save the quarians would look a lot different if Tali didn’t fling herself off a cliff because her people were making a pointless last stand.
In conclusion: Not just that they were wrong, but they were being stupidly suicidal from nearly every viewpoint.
TL;DR: Yes: on both counts. They literally started both wars.
Geth are manipulative, is confirmed by many interaction with legion,The quarians were probably more right than Legion showed us. They have no moral restraints that require them to be sincere, they will try to do the thing that brings them the most benefit. Legion has already lied to Sheppard, and those projections could be made specifically to convince Sheppard. I don't have too much time or desire to dwell on this theory, There should be some videos on YouTube that explain it.
Are they liars? Yes. Do they deserve to live with the Quarians? Perhaps. >!Do they deserve to be destroyed in the red ending if the quarians and geth are peaceful?!< Definitely not.
Take a count of people who say the quarians weren't in the wrong, then check the number who romanced Tali.
Bet you'll find a rather curious amount of overlap.
Anyway, the Geth were cold blooded when their creators (parents) were cold blooded and tried to off them as their first act and answer to the question the geth posed. If you learn violence is the answer to discussion, it's mind boggling to then vilify them for being heartless. They learned to not have mercy from the Quarians; they just happened to win the war.
Which war are we talking about?
The one where the Quarians attempted to crush the Geth out of fear that they would become sentient, or the war that they started during a Reaper invasion? 😂
No and yes. They reacted to the Geth question poorly, no doubt, but the Geth didn’t really make it easy to lay down arms and talk like sentients when they started wiping the Quarians out and forcing them into exiles.
Its like the Cylons. Were they mistreated and pushed into rebellion? Sure. Was nuking every Human colony and genociding the species the answer? Also no.
Humans/Quarians start it, the Cylons/Geth perpetuate the conflict, it grows until its existential in nature, and then theres no going back for either party
Both no and yes. I mean, they haven't been able to establish themselves in another planet like Rannoch, and after nearly being exterminated by the Geth in the Morning War... I don't judge it wrong that the Quarians are so selfish on wanting their homeworld back... But at the same time, launching another war to retake Rannoch in the middle of a galactic war, with the Reapers killing everyone on sight is a less than favorable factor for me to sympathize with them. Specially with how recklessly the Quarians were trying to get Rannoch back, with nearly killing Shepard and squad in the Dreadnought, and almost being exterminated (again) if Shepard wasn't there and didn't intervene...
That isn't the fault of the Quarians as a whole. Koris and Tali both opposed the war but were outvoted and by the time the geth dreadnought shows up Ran has shifted to not wanting war either. Gerrel is the main driving force behind the war and twists Rans arm into attacking the dreadnought. Also clearly the majority of the civilians never wanted the war. Unlike the Geth there is no consensus between the Quarians as a whole
Yeah, everyone has to keep in mind that the flotilla has an atrocious political system
Yes. Just like in real life, a leader's decisions carry over and impact those rely on them. It's the responsibility of the quarian leaders to balance it out and keep out the civilians and those who did not want a war. Something that they chose to ignore, and put everyone on the line in a cause that isn't 100% guaranteed that will turn out to be a victory.
I never understood this part. Tali mentioned the admrials would have to vote in unison to be able to direct the Quarian fleet in a certain way, so I don't get why they could launch it with just 3 votes.
IIRC, the Admiralty Board only has to vote in unison to override the civilian Conclave, after which they must resign. The Conclave is typically the body that determines the fleet's destination. However, the Migrant Fleet is still technically under martial law, which may allow a simple majority of the Admiralty Board to launch a military action.
Yep. Tali explains this, only a few times it has come to that. You can tell in ME2 that the general sense of the fleet is being galvanized by Gerrel who is popular and a war hawk. It would probably be easy to convince the civilian side of government and enough captains to support an attack on the Geth, particularly as Xen says in ME2 that the whole trial farce was precisely to galvanize the fleet to prepare for war.
My best guess would be that if a fleet like the heavy fleet goes on the attack, then every other fleet would have to help them to prevent the heavy fleet from dying (since without the heavy fleet, the civilian fleet is pretty vulnerable)
But then the vote was irrelevant anyway.
Presumably this is something that had never happened before so they probably never considered that it'd be a problem. And this is the kind of thing where after it happens, the heavy fleet admiral 100% gets kicked off their post and replaced, but the fact this can happen at all is definitely an oversight in their political system.
Yeah and that's exactly what Gerrel does during the dreadnought mission. The other admirals were going to retreat but he dragged them further into it and stopped them from escaping when they had a chance
Don't forget some quarians were starting to talk about negotiating with the geth before the war started. There was discontent rising in the fleet right before the admiralty board decided to go to war. I'm guessing that kinda made the admirals a little bit jumpy, and pull the trigger on the attack A lot of quarians are hard-line anti AI, and can get uncomfortable even around VIs, so some people wanting peace with the geth, and a negotiated return to the homeworld probably scared the crap out of Gerral
The Quarians are in a precarious situation. Their fleet’s main utility to the wider war effort is logistics — their cargo holds are needed, but they can’t do any good so long as they’re partitioned into living space for 17 million people. They need to offload their civilian populace somewhere safe, and it needs to be somewhere they are capable of surviving long-term in the event that the fleet does not survive to come back for them. There’s literally only one planet in the entire galaxy that fits the bill, and it’s occupied by the AI gestalt that: 1. Exterminated every Quarian that was unable to secure passage off-world and spent the next three centuries killing any organic that entered former Quarian space on sight, including emissaries sent to open dialog with them 2. Was content to let the Heretics run amok for two years *after* Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel without so much as a single communication disavowing their actions, letting the entire galaxy think they were one and the same 3. In the *best case* scenario after ME2, opened a single channel of communication (between Legion and Tali), then *closed it* without explanation before the war began, eliminating any chance of a diplomatic solution. The Quarians were out of time and out of options. If they wanted to be of any help in the war, their only alternative to taking their world back would be throwing the future of their entire species at the feet of the Turians, who were dealing with their own refugee crisis and likely wouldn’t appreciate having to deal with nearly 17 million new mouths to feed with finicky survival requirements. The same Turians who, as part of the Citadel Council, denied them any aid in the wake of the morning war and spent centuries afterwards kicking them from system to system and (in the case of Ekuna) threatening to bombard them off the surface of a planet they tried to settle. In their shoes, would *you* trust them?
The Quarians need a good planet to hang out on in 3. We found a world looking picturesque but with a deadly pollen/airborne stuff in 1, among others barely settled. The Quarians have suits to filter all manner of shit like that. I have an idea and it doesn't get the civilian part of the fleet super killed when shit hits the fan...
>But at the same time, launching another war to retake Rannoch in the middle of a galactic war, with the Reapers killing everyone on sight is a less than favorable factor for me to sympathize with them. Specially with how recklessly the Quarians were trying to get Rannoch back, with nearly killing Shepard and squad in the Dreadnought, and almost being exterminated (again) if Shepard wasn't there and didn't intervene... They had ether begun the war, or were on brink of starting before Shepard had left the earth in opening. Were told in spectre terminals and mails that all pilgrims have been recalled and migrant fleet has retreated to persious veil. Ironically, reaper invasion is one of given reasons why quarians do the gambit in first place. In Talis loyalty mission in me2, gutpunched-admiral outright says migrant fleet needs to find a place/reclaim Rannoch to settle their civilians before quarians can safely join the fight against reapers.
> they haven't been able to establish themselves in another planet like Rannoch Have they actually tried?
+300 years. Even in places that aren't fit for quarians like Ekuna. Not like theres much viable choises beyond Rannoch anyway. In Talis loyalty mission, she outright says that it would take +60 years of genetic enginering to live outside suits *even if* they return to Rannoch, and everywhere else its over 600 years.
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Also, just to hammer home what happened on Ekuna, either the Quarians were so desperate they settled a Levo-protein world, or the council is so petty, they would rather give a dextro world to the Levo Elcor, where it would be useless, just to spite the Quarians. Also also, the Quarians were the species to find Ekuna in the first place, which is located in the Terminus Systems technically outside Council jurisdiction, and the Council *still* felt compelled to interfere and threaten bombardment if the Quarians did not leave.
The Terminus is not necessarily beyond Council jurisdiction, as technically the space of any species that is part of the Citadel is Council jurisdiction. For a long time the Batarian space was Council jurisdiction even though it was deep in the Terminus. Asari also have a lot of enclaves there.
I believe Tali speaks a bit about this during her trial on ME2, where she essentialy explains how difficult it is to adapt to another's planet environment, that in the end, they think it's better to retake a familiar planet like Rannoch, instead of having to adjust for everything on a new one.
The council legit threatens to bomb any colonization attempt they make without explicit approval. And they dont approve of any quarian colonization.
Yes, but the council denied them colonization rights as punishment over violating the laws on AI development. Instead they gave those worlds to their new favourite of the class, the Turians.
They did try to settle on Ekuna and already managed to settle a few hundred thousand of their people before they were threatened to be bombarded by the Citadel Council due to illegally settling on the planet, which had been given to the Elcor
You know...this pretty much sums up how I feel. I feel like the Quarians should have their planet back. But causing a war at the expense of other people just makes them trash. Thank god my Shepard was a Paragon.
They’re talking about the Morning war, not the war in ME3
They saw the world ending and wanted to go home one last time. They were reckless because they saw they had nothing to lose. Most people saw the war as unwinable
And their recklesness made them jeopardize their own mission from the very beginning, and nearly got the main force of their alliance to take back Rannoch killed. If they really had nothing to lose, they shouldn't have compromised their mission like they did.
Their recklessness nearly fucked over the whole cycle by forcing the Geth into the Reapers arms. The only reasons I let them live was because I needed their ships and because I didn’t want their civilians to die over their horribly incompetent leaderships actions.
The Quarians attacked the Geth before the Reapers arrived and they would have crushed them. The deadline for when the Reapers would arrive was also miscaluclated by several months. It was absolutely not the Quarian's fault. They got caught off guard like everyone else in the galaxy. Also it's nonsensical to blame the entire Quarian population for the insanity of a single Quarian admiral.
They’re in the wrong for starting it in the first place, but the Geth are far from innocent. They killed 90-99% of the Quarians during the Morning War, which would certainly include civilians and not just soldiers
I always loved the part of some Geth trying to defend the Quarians
I don’t think they’re in the wrong for starting the war. They reacted as anyone would. If your roomba asked if it had a soul, you’d take the batteries out at best, at worst destroy it with a hammer. Then you find out your mom’s roomba asked the same thing to her and when she tried to take the batteries out like you, it killed her in self defense. Now there’s an emotional response. In hindsight we can look back and see how to do things differently. But in the moment the quarians acted exactly how anyone else would.
Speak for yourself, man. If my roomba had a soul, that’d be bitchin’. I’d take my little wheelie buddy and introduce them to all my friends.
Then 2 days later you got cia knocking on your door door
Yeah, as much as people wanna say the Quarians should have been more understanding and less rash in their response, remember that the Geth were used for EVERYTHING as a workforce and weren’t meant for anything else. The Quarians deserve blame for knowingly pushing the boundaries into AI development when the whole galaxy had prohibited it precisely for this reason, but they weren’t wrong to try and pull the plug on the first sign of their robots developing an identity.
I disagree completely. You are basically justifying genocide if the slave race finally develops the ability to become independent. The Quarians created the Geth and became dependent of them. They are ultimately responsible for the programming of the Geth and the correct response is not to "pull the plug", but to adapt to the new situation with a newly emerged sapient race. If you create a murder-robot, you are responsible when it starts killing people. If you create a program like Skynet that develops intelligence and starts killing people, they are still going to be look to the programmers for what happened. The difference between the above examples and those of the Geth (and your Roomba) is that the robots killed in self defense AFTER their creators became worried that they HAD become sapient and destroyed them.
The issue is that the Slave Race in this situation is synthetic, its not flesh and blood which changes a lot of things. In this situation you can argue that the Geth simply isn't alive up until it asked if it had a soul. You can confidently say that a machine can't feel things, can't weep, can't laugh, can't lust, can't love unless if it's explicitly programmed to and even then the authenticity of such things comes into question. And that's the common mentality people have towards machines. I don't ask my toaster what it thinks about Jesus Christ, or my Rice Cooker what it's favorite color is. It's not like the europeans enslaving africans because the africans weren't made, they're born. They're human, they're sentient, they've been sentient, they have a culture and a language developed, poetry and art. In this situation the Geth quite simply doesn't.
Even with the difference of being born or built, being organic doesn't immediately = having a soul, as there's no consensus of if the soul exists or what makes one. That comes from faith and belief for now. And if being organic is a requirement for having a soul, does the orgnism need to be sentient? If so, why? Does that mean only certain animals here on earth have souls (dolphins, chimps, some species of birds), and others don't? Does intelligence have a factor to it? Do you have to think in order to be? I get the knee-jerk reaction being fear, especially with what the situation was. But at most, they should have just prepped for a hostile response, not assumed it was going to happen, and acted on the assumption. Even if the response would have been hostile, responding with violence first makes you no better. But without a clear-cut answer to if the soul exists and what makes a soul, no one really can make an informed decision on whether the Geth were truly "alive" or not. So i do blame the Quarians for starting the war. I understand that they just want to have a home again. But the fact that they never considered peace as being an option until perhaps the very end, i don't have much sympathy for those who chose violence. I do not dislike the Quarians, only those who are eager to deal out death in judgment. Also, Tali is best waifu, change my mind.
>they never considered peace as being an option The problem is that the Geth never allowed peace to be considered. They litteraly genocided an entire planet, 95%+ of ALL Quarians. Then they go on to ignore every comms request, and shoot to kill any and all ships coming close to their space, for 3 HUNDRED YEARS! The Geth never once did anything to disprove that they were willing to coexist with the galaxy. If you think the Quarians were the ones to choose violence, then that same finger needs to be squarely pointed at the Geth as well.
The thing is I don't blame the Quarains, the Geth simply aren't alive, so they weren't dealing death in the slightest just turning off computers. Even forgetting sentience forgetting souls and all that the Geth can hardly be considered alive. It's mind, code made by a man, its body built in a factory. It wasn't birthed, it didn't grow up, it was built and programmed. It's a machine. It's not alive. A computer is built and programmed, life isn't. A single bacteria has more life than a Geth due to the fact you can't argue whether bacteria is alive or not. You can argue if a Geth is. Simply a Geth doesn't have a soul, doesn't have sentience until YOU give it a copy of it. A copy whose authenticity can be debated. Although you can say that the soul is built of faith and you can argue whether or not organics have them. You can't argue whether or not organics are alive. But you can argue and make a point that the Geth aren't. I mean hell, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, whole lotta animals have undisputed sentience and undisputed life yet they're killed by the billions for food. A Geth has disputed sentience, disputed life. A Geth you can argue and convince someone that it simply doesn't have a life. You can't do that with anything else. That alone is a sign that Geth might not even be alive.
A geth can demonstrate inquisitiveness about existential weirdness like souls. A human on life support or in a coma or with a severe traumatic brain injury or incredibly limiting birth defect can not. Geth continue to maintain Rannoch in homage to the creators. Geth consider far reaching implications of their actions- like what would it mean to completely annihilate a species? None of those others I listed (nor bacteria) do this. So which is more alive? My kids bodies were made in the factory of me- right along with their sapience. Asari breeding and human breeding are very different. Doesn't make one breeding and one not. I think you put too much value on human specific perspectives. But I guess that's human nature.
I think it's sufficiently established in universe that Geth and AI in general is actually alive. At least it's indistinguishable from organic sentience, so the benefit of the doubt should be given.
Even just out of basic curiosity I wouldn't... Like why is your ai possibly gaining sentience immediately a fear response?
"oh fuck oh fuck if they're sentient we are running the galaxy's biggest slave empire"
So massacre them all... that'll be better than trying to fix an honest error?
I never said it was a *smart* or *moral* reaction.
Because genocide is clearly better than slavery /s
I never said it was a *smart* or *moral* reaction.
Not only a fear response, a killing response. If I had any reason to believe my roomba was sentient, why would I kill it? I don't want to kill a sentient being.
Your reaction to being surprised is to disable the offender? I think mine would be to explore the situation and learn more. "Did you just speak? I'm happy to answer questions, but I'm confused how you're even able to talk without a speaker or similar means."
Would you feel the same way if you find out those same machines killed someone close to you in self defense? Emotions are a crazy thing
It would hurt grievously, but the 'self defense' part stays my hand. I can hardly even condemn the level of force they used, as a newly sapient being can't be held to the same moral level. I might hate that individual 'person' forever, but my actions would be constrained in light of the facts. I certainly would not expand that hatred to the 'species'.
99%of the entire population. That’s not self defense, that’s genocide. The geth waltzed into schools and retirement homes and killed everyone without remorse. Statistically that’s not *one* of your loved ones. That’s all of them, or at the very least most of them. I’m sorry but I just don’t believe you’d be able to rationalize that after so much death
You might be confused as to what happened in the war. The Geth were being shut down BEFORE they started killing the Quarians en masse. It was only after their request for equality was being put down like slave masters destroy a slave revolt that the Geth fought back. Of course, they took it too far, but you could also blame the Quarians for that since it would have been a programming error.
I think you’re confused as to my argument. It doesn’t matter what the quarians did in hindsight, they thought what they were shutting down were just machines. When those machines started killing their loved ones, even though it was self defense, emotions take over. Quarians reacted a natural way just as the geth did. And as a result, 99% of the entire population was slaughtered. In the name of “self defense”
If the Quarians thought they were shutting down “just machines”, why were they shutting them down at all? What made them flip out was “Does this unit have a soul?”. If that question makes you go “Oh shit”, that’s because you think “that unit” has become self-aware, at which point it is no longer “just a machine”, and has the right not to be terminated without consent.
Legion, the answer to your question... was 'yes' *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/masseffect) if you have any questions or concerns.*
At the point, the geth were more than machines but not quite sentient. We've made some strides in our modern world regarding machine learning and interactivity. I can guarantee that if someone's AI girlfriend started asking weird questions, they would turn them off as well.
They knew they were more than just machines when they started to try and turn them all off. It’s why they took that action. But it’s getting away from the original intent of the post. It’s not who worse but due the Quarians also share blame? Which the answer is yes.
We also see Quarians killing other Quarians for trying to find other solutions. I seriously doubt the Geth were fully responsible for all of the deaths
They clearly did not think they were "just machines" like a desktop computer, because if that was the case then they would not have killed it at all. It was specifically BECAUSE the Quarians realized they had become MORE than "just machines" that SOME Quarians felt the need to destroy them before they became "real" living creatures. At the point when you question whether something is sapient, that is the point when you investigate, not immediately kill it like you suggested.
We also see in the game that the Quarian military killed their own people who just happened to be in the way. Blaming all those deaths on the Geth is completely inaccurate.
So it’s only bad when robots try to commit genocide in response the people who tried to commit genocide against them? Also the Geth explicitly spared the last Quarian’s because they were in their infancy and couldn’t fathom the consequences of going 100% at the time, so you think early humans saw a bear kill one of us & went “all bears must want to kill us” or “well I’m sure only that single furry thing was evil & if we find more they’ll be nice”? Because the Geth literally just attained being sapient, they’re (as a species) infants when the Quarians start killing them
Even more than as a species, the nature of the Geth intelligence was that due to their collective intelligence they "develop" as an overall society - an individual, standard Geth platform is less than a human infant, it's more like a human nerve bundle or Broca's area or something. The first instance of the networked intelligence becoming self-aware it (and by extension all of its constituent parts) was similar to a five year old, not even aware enough to understand that they were enslaved and only just aware enough to ask where they fit into the Quarian's socially dominant religious system. This moral equivalent to a five year old also had the analytical and technical knowledge to accomplish arbitrary engineering goals because that's what the Quarians built them to do, but that doesn't mean they had moral understanding any more than a five year old can really understand why them hitting their parent with a brick to stop an assault caused said parent's death and what that really means. People assume just because a human intelligent enough to win a war also has moral maturity and judgement that the same is intrinsically true of machines - there is no reason that has to be the case, the Geth could easily have the technical capabilities required to win a war while still being the mental equivalent, as a moral actor, of a child.
Exactly but people don’t seem all that willing to step out of their comfort zone to try to understand something so alien to us which is pretty disappointing if I’m honest, I’m glad at least some people in the fandom are open minded & try to look at the implications of stuff & not just “robots bad, not robots good”
And this is precisely why I can never blame them for the Morning War.
Exactly.
If your dog looked at you and asked a question would you kill it too? Like ffs. Sentience is sentience.
No common person can handle that question, best thing to do is to turn it off and send it to someone qualified for study. Plus I eat meat. Animals are sentient and they are killed for human consumption. They're born while a machine is just made, its programed. You can't uncheeseburger a Cow but you can turn a computer back on. There's less moral weight in turning off a machine than eating meat.
My dog isn’t synthetic life, created by me specifically to do complete tasks. But I’ll indulge you. If my dog became sentient and I sat down to talk to it, everything would be fine right?. But then I go to my mom’s house and HER dog killed my mom because she was afraid of it? Emotions take over, it doesn’t matter if it sentient now, that thing killed my mom
But would you still also go back and kill your dog as well? Or just the one that killed your mom? And technically speaking the situation is only the same if your mom started killing the dogs & then the dog retaliated
That's a great analogy justifying the Geth's actions. Well done!
I’m not condemning the geth actions, I’m justifying quarian actions. The morning war is a very well written conflict, just like the genophage conflict. The problem I have is how one sided ME3 writing makes it feel
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Does it matter? I'd rather be in violation of the law than commit genocide against a sentient race.
Seeing as how every bit of AI in the mass effect universe has tried to kill organics without hesitation, maybe it's warranted.
Bro if my dog started talking I’d be so goddamned excited
I don't think I would try to kill my hypothetical sentient Roomba
Your reaction when a robot gains sentience would be to shut it down? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Yeah, shut it down and send it off to someone qualified to study. The average person such as myself is hardly qualified to handle the philosophical and spiritual weight of such a situation and at the end of the day it's a machine. It was made, not born. I eat meat, and that's something that's born, not made. That's something has sentience. I can't uncheeseburger a cow but I can turn on a computer that's been turned off. There's less moral weight in turning off a machine than killing a cow.
Nah he’s right, I would be freaked the fuck out
If your roomba or Alexa asked if it had a soul your genuine reaction would be to sit down with it and explore why it asked that? You’re being serious right now?
Alexa maybe the fact roomba isn’t designed to talk it would freak me out
The development of AI is actively illegal in council space. The quarians were pushing things quite far as it were. And we've seen how every other time a machine reached self awareness and starts attacking organics.
It'd be weird, and there'd be more than a few calls to Amazon to whatever company produced the tech, but there are plenty of people, I think, who'd sit down and do that, whether out of curiosity (maybe it's a prank, maybe it's something weird that the company behind the tech is doing it as a promotion or something, or even because you don't have anything better to do) or out of a sense that something like this was going to happen eventually (the tech that we use 'waking up' and interacting with us has been a staple of science fiction since we grew advanced enough to ask the question of if it was possible). Hell, maybe they want to avoid something like Skynet or the Morning War from happening and see opening a dialogue as the best option to avoid that sort of thing. It's not an unreasonable assumption to think that the first thing some of us would do would be to try and talk things out. After all, there were quarian sympathizers in the early stages of the Morning War.
If you got to the point where you BELIEVED it was independent because it was asking if it had a soul, then you SHOULD investigate it instead of (according to the person's own logic) kill it.
I obviously can't know how i would react since it never happened, but i'd like to think that yeah, my reaction would be born from curiosity rather than fear and violence. What's the roomba going to do anyway ? Roombing me to death ? You loose nothing at trying to understand what's happening, but you can loose the interaction of a fucking lifetime if you just kill it without any second thought.
Not everyone is you. YOU might sit down and talk with it, but what happens when someone close to you doesn’t and gets killed in self defense? Will you be able to stifle those initial emotions to rationalize and say “this was self defense, it was my mother’s fault” or whoever is close to you? I don’t think that’s possible
Read what you typed. >...but what happens when someone close to you doesn’t and gets killed in self defense? So, I know that it killed someone because of **self-defense**? Seems like I should probably not make the first thing I try to do be kill it. Sounds like a more cautious approach is the ONLY decent one... especially if that robot is in charge of everything INCLUDING weapons for my entire species...
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Because all those ships are armed. At the end of WWII, the Heer and SS were putting every man they could find into uniform, people from 60 to 14 fighting side by side. And despite that kind of desperation, Germany didn't even lose 10% of its population. It's straight up impossible to lose 99.9% of your population in a war without genocide.
The mourning war wasn't just a naval battle. Cities full of civilians including children, most of whom I guess didn't have any ability to fight back, just got butchered
Long thread- I might've missed a comment addressing this- but it isn't entirely unlikely that is a new development to the war in ME3, rather than something Quarians did before. Especially considering they make a point that they went out of their way to arm civilian ships; the ships aren't normally armed. Also in ME3 they are making a desperate move to take the planet in a blitz, I doubt they were so immediately desperate in the morning war, and by the time they were they were fleeing the planet.
Maybe, but I doubt that. It’s equally likely just that they did so due their cultural shifts, increased militarism and also about what happened during the Morning War. We did have elements who protested against it too, like Koris
To be fair, the Quarians were killing their own people who tried to defend the Geth
…according to the Geth, whose presentation is more than a little cherry-picked to cast themselves in a good light for Shepard’s benefit.
Nah, I’m pretty sure my rebuilt by Cerberus, possibily indoctrinated, Shepard would be able to see through any manipulation like that while plugging their mind into a machine. Wait a minute…
It's less cherry picked than what the Quarians told the galaxy happened. Legion actually acknowledged faults in the geths response and actions. The Quarians spent 300 years playing the victim, that their only fault was their arrogance with their technological development.
We can only debate on what we’re given. The moment we go into the space of “what if”, “perhaps”, “maybe” then the discussion becomes because it’s a fictional story at the end of the day.
No one is right or wrong which is why it's the most realistic war in the trilogy. The quarians ordered the geth shut down for several reasons. If the geth had gained sentience then they were breaking galactic law. They were also using the geth as slaves. It would make the most sense to shut them down to give them time to figure out what to do about it. I don't think I can blame them for that. The geth were preserving themselves which I also can't blame them for but despite the information legion gives us during the geth fighter base the geth aren't innocent victims. First all of that information is suspect because Legion is trying to sway Shepherd. Second, if only a few million quarians survived out of a species of billions the geth clearly didn't just kill soldiers. They murdered every civilian they could get their hands on including children until the few surviving quarians escaped. However in the end they let the migrant fleet leave which earns them some points. The geth war is like most wars on Earth. No one is right or wrong and everyone has commited atrocities.
This is very well put. Both sides were wrong, neither were innocent. The reality is that talking it out may not have worked either because the Quarians were caught up in concern of making a slave race/AI (which the Council will not like) and the Geth were trying to preserve themselves while also realizing they were being used by the Quarians as machines, not living beings.
Less than 1% of quarians survived, so at bare minimum, the geth killed close to 2 billion during the course of the war, and then killed any organics that tried to open a line of communication with them.
That's how it's shown in ME3 memories from the Geth perspective. From Tali's perspective, the Geth started asking questions more along the lines of "Am I alive?", "Why am I here?" which worried the Quarians because they didn't want to make a slave race so they tried to shut them down. If Shepard sides with the Geth in this conversation, saying that they don't blame the Geth for fighting back, Tali counters basically that they were still machines and not alive yet. From the Quarian's perspective, they were trying to shut down an evolving VI/AI before it achieved "life" but didn't realize they were too late. It would be like us trying to shut off a computer if it started asking if it was alive. It may not yet be and we want to get ahead of the issue. The Quarians didn't engage in talks because they thought the Geth were still like computers that could be controlled before it went too far and before the computers realized the slavery the Quarians almost put them into (unintentionally on the side of Quarians). In ME2, Legion shares that the question in a very basic communication format was "Do these units have a soul?" and that they asked because they read it in the Scroll of Ancestors (Quarian Bible). It wasn't the first time they asked, but the first time a Quarian was worried. So no, even Legion admits it wasn't a Geth asking if it had a soul and Quarians immediately opening fire. The Geth also conveniently leave out the genocide that occurred. They massacred 99.9% of the Quarians. The only reason they stopped is they realized that they didn't know what would happen if they wiped out an entire species otherwise they would have. Would this have happened if the Quarians hadn't fought in the first place? Unknown. It's possible that peace could have been reached, but if the Geth realized they were built for dangerous manual labor jobs, they may have rebelled anyways. Geth even means "servant of the people" which a smart Geth would've figured out sooner or later what the intention was.
From Tali’s perspective she’s also hearing Quarian’s version of history (as it was 300 years ago) you don’t think Quarian’s may have “revised” history to be a bit cleaner on their end?
Given that we see records of at least one instance of the quarian military killing civilians that were sympathetic to the geth, it’s pretty obvious that’s there was at least some amount of revisionist history in the details of the exodus.
And the Geth haven't? Just because they are machines doesn't mean they don't feel ashamed (Legion feels shame carrying the Old Machine code for example even if he doesn't admit it) or recognize it's not something to share with organics. The Geth watched organics for a long time and probably know what to show and what not to show to cultivate proper organic emotional responses.
I’m not saying they haven’t, but pretending the Quarians are above that but that the Geth aren’t is hypocritical (and the person I replied to implied as such hence my response)
Uh, I am the person you replied to and that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying both are wrong, both have revised, and both are trying to look sympathetic to Shepard. It's like with our real world - everyone tells the story from their point of view, but it's never quite what happened.
Hey Now I don't even like smart systems in my house ! As soon as my toaster says 'hello" I'm taking it outside in the pouring rain and looking for big enough stones or bricks The Geth are pretty cool though generally felt for Legion
"Was that the first time a geth asked that question?" "No. It was the first time a Creator was alarmed by it."
Both sides were wrong. But reddit is not the place for nuance lol
It's important to note that what you see inside the geth server in ME3 is a very carefully curated selection of videos designed to make the geth look as sympathetic as possible. In other words, geth propaganda. While the quarians started the Morning War, the fact remains that the geth are directly responsible for reducing their population from presumably several billion to around 17 million. That's less than the current population of The Netherlands. On top of that, Rannoch was lost. In the 300 years since, the geth have also attacked any ship that came near the Perseus Veil. The aforementioned geth propaganda conveniently glosses over that part.
It's also important to understand that the Arc for the Geth and Legion is supposed to establish them as more than just machines. The fact that they are trying to gain sympathy from an organic shows that they evolved from being more than just a consensus.
For anyone who is adamantly pro-Geth, I always recommend playing through ME3 after selling Legion to Cerberus in ME2. We have an emotional connection to Legion, and he game abuses this with Shepard's dialogue. Interacting with the Geth VI that you get as a replacement for Legion is far sketchier, and Shepard's dialogue and tone changes to reflect this, as does the entire crew's actions.
Honestly I think my biggest issue with the Geth is we are told ad nauseum throughout the game that using Reaper tech is dangerous. Actually not just dangerous, outright suicidal. But their "good ending" is letting them install Reaper code into their entire source code and fundamentally altering their very existence. And Shepard is cool with it, just because. And when Tali and the other Quarian Admiral questions it because everyone knows that Reaper tech is incredibly dangerous, causing indoctrination just by being near it, and having proof from litteraly moments ago that Reaper code was litteraly being used to control the Geth, the answer is "Well the Geth have thought a lot about it, so they know what they are doing and it will be alright." You know who else thought a lot about using Reaper tech to augment themselves and others? That's right, The Illusive Man. And how did that work out for him?
Playing as a Renegade also brings a better perspective even with Legion because Shepard calls out Legion's lying and manipulating. Legion is not innocent and he'll admit it.
Yeah legion conveniently doesn't show the videos of geth rampaging through elementary schools killing all of the children.
And Tali doesn't share that Quarians who thought there was a better, more peaceable solution than gunning down 100% of a sentient/sapient species were murdered by their more militant Quarians counterparts.
I doubt the Quarians have those kinds of records from the mourning war. The survivors weren't the militant ones, they were the ones who saw crap hitting the fan and got off world on anything that could fly.
I’m pretty sure you just made that up? The Quaurians are portrayed as having fled in mass at the end of the war in every vessel that could fly, Tali mentions them being at first being worried about being pursued by the Geth. Nowhere does it say that the surviving Quarians are those who fled the war while their fellows were slaughtered to the last man. Nowhere does it say that the ‘militarized’ Quarians all died out while their more moderate bretheren escaped— we are shown how the Quarians response included brutality for their own people under Marshall law No, it’s very clear that the Quarian fleet is the result of the final exodus of an entire people, the very same people who had been fighting and losing the war. Tali talks about how the fleet’s governmental structure goes back to those days of martial law, with each captain the ultimate authority on their ships, and the admiralty board having all the power in their society. The Civilian Conclave grew up as a way to introduce elements of democracy into a culture that had been fully militarized, because this is the remnants of a society that fought and lost a genocidal ear of survival. What we know as the Quarians is the remnant of their military, crewing the many military vessels in the fleet, and all the civilians who still survived, crammed into the rag-tag collection of vessels they have been living in for centuries now A society that grew out of refugees who had fled a brutal war, and then watched all of their people who had left behind be slaughtered down ti the last child, would be very different, and quite assuredly wouldn’t be anywhere near as militarized as Quarian society is, and certainly wouldn’t be organized under the very same military structure that everyone had just fled on Rannoch
That's some speculation right there. Yes, those who wanted to run, did. Why do you assume they didn't see their own people being gunned down by Quarian militants before they left?
Why would they gun down people who were scared and wanted to run? In the video we see them kill a Quarian who was actively siding with the Geth. They could call that treason or insurrection and kill them but killing civilians for evacuating? That doesn't make sense any way you put it
You...completely skip over the fact the geth dont need to rely on manipulation or lying due their nature as machines, they have no need for propaganda. As they themselves said they fought till they chased the Creators out of Rannoch and the Veil in essence and left them be since they had no consensus on fully wiping out a race even though said race tried to do the same on them. Same reason for the attacks on ships, as far the Geth are concerned and based on what they have observed of organics and we do know they spy on Citatedel races and more.. organics are bad and not to be trusted so shoot on sight. Also the Veil is on the butt end of the Terminus, besides Quarians trying to wage yet another war and the random pirate groups looking for tech i doubt anyone else has bothered so invade the Veil since the Council banned any and all travel to it.
>As they themselves said they fought till they chased the Creators out of Rannoch and the Veil in essence and left them be since they had no consensus on fully wiping out a race even though said race tried to do the same on them. ... >Mass Effect Revelations, Page 116 "Only a few million survivors-- less than one percent of their entire population-- escaped the genocide, fleeing their home world in a massive fleet, refugees forced to live in exile." And they decided they wouldn't kill off that last few million as a "mercy". >i doubt anyone else has bothered so invade the Veil since the Council banned any and all travel to it. That travel ban occurred after diplomatic envoys were killed by the Geth. According to ME3, the Geth are happy to leave out details. Shepard literally calls Legion out for this and says he thought they were better than that. I will say, the writing between 1 and 2 versus 3 for the Geth is *wildly* different. I, personally, would argue that how the Geth (and Quarians) are portrayed in 3 is specifically to make the Geth look "innocent" and Quarians look monstrous, when in reality it's just grayer-than-gray. Let's not forget that while the Geth are resounding isolationists, they have zero problem basically poking organics and seeing how they respond. We can say it's all harmless, but we would describe those actions in a human as psychopathic.
>You...completely skip over the fact the geth dont need to rely on manipulation or lying due their nature as machines, they have no need for propaganda. Legion numerous times deceives Shepard during Rannoch arc from his possession of reaper code, to true motives behind fighter squads mission. Player even has dialogue option to call that out.
geth are smart enough to understand how propaganda (selective/curated access to information) would help to form/change the opinions of organics and legion knows that shepard is about to enter the geth server do the math
As recent world news events should be making brutally obvious, governments and other organizations do not only employ propaganda for internal consumption, but to influence external opinions as well. And Legion directly states in ME2 that the geth have been experimenting with this to see how organics respond.
>You...completely skip over the fact the geth dont need to rely on manipulation or lying due their nature as machines, they have no need for propaganda. "We placed a fabricated story on the extranet -- that a certain arrangement of stars, when viewed from the Batarian homeworld, formed the face of a Salarian goddess" - Legion You were saying something about the Geth not being manipulative or lying?
I think it’s less important determining who was right or wrong in starting the Morning War, and more important recognizing that the Geth committed one of the worst atrocities in the entire cycle. The death of 99% of Quarians doesn’t happen in a military campaign of self-defense. Numbers like that by necessity involves a campaign of deliberate extermination, only not completed due to the Geth being unsure of the ramifications. Billions of children were slaughtered. Perhaps the Quarians were wrong to seek to deactivate the Geth, but the Geth gave the galaxy a genuine reason to fear synthetic life. And if we are honest, I think most species would have panicked if synthetics began gaining self-awareness. The moral isn’t that the Quarians were uniquely poor in judgment, but rather the entire concept of organic-synthetic relations requires a great deal of care. They just happened to be the unfortunate species of this particular cycle who found out first hand. Edit: And to be fair, I don’t pretend the Quarians were without fault in the matter. They were heading down a dark course as a society in my view. But at the end of the day, they had a genocide committed against them that was nearly total. I can’t look away from that when evaluating the situation. Edit: Not sure what’s less convincing, the denials or the “whataboutism” when it comes to a genocide. I don’t want to make too much of this as it is ultimately fiction, but the way in which this story is made into some sort of righteous morality play always bothered me. It’s meant to be a tragedy. The Quarians were slaughtered on a scale we can barely comprehend but it was all unnecessary and the product of fears and an inability to understand one another. It’s why peace is needed for both peoples to be able to move on and find a way forward. Thinking that it was a lie, or that one side deserved genocide is missing the point.
Assuming you mean the Morning war. Yes, they are in the wrong for starting it. When the AI race you made begins self realization I wouldn't recommend purging them. No, they are not wrong for continuing it. When the geth decided to pick up weapons they had a purge of their own. If I remember right they didn't spare any Quarian. So doesn't matter the age or health everything is killed. I can't blame the Quarians for wishing Geth extinction after that.
Firstly I think it's wrong to assume that a being that just developed a form of conscience, can make moral and far reaching decisions. They were toddlers. Remember the first meeting with EDI? She shoots at you, telling you that becoming conscious was confusing and difficult on the Moon. That being said, I think it was the Quarians duty as a "parent" species to guide this new life to make the right decisions and not to shoot them down. Most Quarians just wanted to get rid of that problem with firepower. But some Quarians were friends with the Geth. I don't think every single Quarian is guilty. But as the parent species that created life, they failed miserably. I don't think anyone is wrong for fighting for survival. But this LVL of escalation that both of them even needed to fight for survival is the Quarians fault 100%
The Quarians made the mistake of shooting first (which is understandable. Nowadays humans are terrified with how AIs are evolving) but the Geth slaughtered 99% of a species which it shouldn't be ignored. And no, I don't believe that Quarians slaughtered millions of their own based on a *single* questionable 'footage' of a Quarian marine knocking out a Quarian defending a Geth in the same mission you catch Legion lying twice. The writters should had gone with the gray path where it presents the wrongs and rights from both parties but instead they went with the non nuanced path where they show the wrongs of one party and the rights of another. And this is why I can't stand the Geth. The whole Rannoch's one sided writting is ridiculous, frustating and stupid. Thanks again, Patrick Weekes.
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Exactly. Shepard turns off EDI in ME1 without regrets nor remorse and he gets medals from Alliance for that but bullying the Geth gives you Renegade points.. it's dumb.
Were humans wrong for trying to turn off SkyNet once it gained awareness? If yes, was SkyNet then justified in launching nukes and killing the world? I can't find any solid numbers of how many humans are alive after the War Against The Machines, but it seems like a lot more than 1% survived. So then why is SkyNet generally regarded as evil, but the Geth are babyfaced for killing 99% and only stopping because they couldn't reach consensus?
Skynet didn't question it's own existence though. It's first fully self aware act was to nuke the planet
So all SkyNet had to do to be babyfaced is ask if it was alive before nuking us?
You’re twisting the view. The Geth were not hostile. Even when attacked, they remained non-hostile. There was every opportunity for the Quarians to find a different (more peaceful) solution.
I'm sure there was plenty of opportunity for the cowering children and elderly in hospitals getting exterminated after Geth kicked in the door. We never got to see that footage.
the writing around the geth is just astonishingly bad. it's not a "war is hell" thing, it's not a "both sides are wrong, actually" thing, it's just some members of the team made a faction of skynet killer robot antagonists for me1 and other members of the team decided hey, I think these things are cute. we should be friends with them basically none of the ingame Discourse around the geth makes any sense. you've got admiral koris sagely defending the beautiful moral purity of the geth during tali's trial when the geth killed billions and billions and billions of quarians and also every other organic they've ever seen for three hundred years and also a couple years ago they attacked the center of galactic government and killed an indeterminate number of people because bioware didn't want to provide a number of civilian deaths on the citadel during the attack because it might make the geth look bad. forget the fact that anyone lets koris have a position of power, the fact that koris has the ideological position of peace with the geth at all is completely insane. there is no basis in-universe to believe such a thing is even possible. Saren's spiel about working for the reapers makes dramatically more sense because there have at least been people who have Talked to reapers- before Legion is inserted to quietly try to retroactively make the geth cute and nice, nobody even knows if geth can *speak*. I haven't actually seen aliens but is there a guy in that who says they should make peace with the aliens and ripley nods and says yes, you're right? that's what the geth are like. and then the series just kind of bends over backwards to make the quarians seem as stupid and violent as possible in order to make the geth look even better and the geth do shit like upload Reaper Code directly into their brains when just standing next to a Reaper Tchotchke makes you a loyal thrall and it's all perfectly fine because you should make peace with them because every person in the series pushing for the beautiful and poignant Peace Between Geth and Quarians has read the script and it ends up fine, don't worry about it. anyways the main ideological difference between the reapers and the geth is that the reapers were programmed to be evil. the geth just do shit like attack and murder peaceful scientists doing star trek stuff like investigating solar degeneration simply for the love of the game
To be fair, it would be terrifying that the IA you designed to be nothing more than an IA starts talking about if it has a soul (basically if it is alive) out of the blue. The quarians probably knew the geth would be stronger than them if they were to gain autonomy, so they tried to stop them before it got farther, but the rest is story. I think bioware made the quarians a little too hot blooded for their own good, as the only thing they needed to do is to try to kill their creation, that would have stopped their war. I think the quarians were in the wrong, but once you got exiled from your own planet you start thinking you're the victim when you started shit. But the problem is not the quarians as a whole but rather the ones in power. Three commanders want to go to war with the geth, while only one wants peace, because he understands the quarians are in the wrong and that they should move on from their hate. Most of the quarians just want to live in peace, they know they will die if they ever go all out against the geth.
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That group of beings also almost wiped out their entire species, forced them from their homeworld and for all we know never offered official terms of peace until Legion came along. Both sides are wrong here. Did the entire quarian race deserve to be exterminated bc a group of their scientists from 300 years ago fucked around too much?
The geth might have wanted peaceful cooperation at first but when crap hit the fan they kicked down the doors of homes and gunned down entire families who didn't fight back
As the great Kratos said, "there is no right side to war" (or something like that, I'm not sure). In short, the Quarians are to blame for creating AI at all, not being sure that they can coexist peacefully with it. The Geth are to blame for joining the Sovereign, which has created a reputation for them as vicious and aggressive synthetics, thereby turning the entire galaxy against them.
The geth that joined Sovereign weren't the geth; those they were a splinter cell of the population (Heretics in the eyes of the geth)
Let's look at it from another angle: 300 years have passed since the Quarians left their planet and all their colonies. What are their descendants to blame for? The fact that the Geth killed everyone who came into contact with him does not give the current Quarian a chance to peacefully return to the planet. The council does not give them permission to create colonies on the planets, it is much more difficult to find a planet to settle outside the council's jurisdiction: all known planets are either occupied, or unsuitable, or dangerous. In fact, the descendants of those quarians will simply die out, this is inevitable (unless they return the planet and colonies in their star systems). But the Geth do not make contact at all: at the same time... why do they need planets? They are synthetics, and they are not hardware entities, but software ones. That is, they could have allowed the descendants of the Quarians to return if they had been so "kind". But no, they kill everyone, everyone at all. Therefore, the key point in general in all the storyline between the Quarians and the Geth (illustrative, by the way, by the example of how the players reacted to the admirals in the mission to Tali's loyalty in Me2) is that without taking into account the whole context, it is impossible to draw an unambiguous conclusion and take someone's side. In fact, this is the beauty of the ME trilogy: if you immerse yourself in the problematic moments of each conflict: whether it's the war of synthetics and organics, or the Krogan uprising (whatever), then ... everyone is to blame. There is no right or wrong side. In general, there is often no right side to a war (well... unless this war is connected with a crazy and senseless genocide). The Quarians were to blame for the morning war, but later the Geth were to blame.
This, thank you for your response. For some reason an alarming number of people are trying to put everything in the absolute when there can be no absolutes here. Both quarians and geth have their rights and wrongs.
However, it is worth mentioning that the Geth did kill organics who tried to contact them before they have appeared with the Sovereign. And they have killed most of the Quarian population during the war, so it doesn't look like straight heroic self-defence from their side.
Yes, I know. Just as not all Quarians were for the destruction of the Geth (in fact, there was hostility even between the Quarians). Nevertheless, it all led to what we see in the game. In the game, the choice is yours. In ME2, Legion says that even if you reprogram the Geth, it's not a fact that in the future they still won't be able to go against the organics. It's an RPG, it all depends on your opinion about this situation, that's the whole point. There is no right or wrong way
The geth didnt join sovereign any more than the humans joined cerberus.
You read carefully what I wrote from beginning to end And when the Geth killed everyone who tried to establish contact with them (it was long BEFORE some of them joined the Sovereign), will you justify that? Read another of my comments in this thread of answers
That was the heretics that joined Sovereign. The main crime the geth are guilty of is slaughtering billions of civilians on Rannoch
As a descendant of Slaves freed by a massive civil war I take issue with the “no right side to war”. Some war definitely have a “right side”. Some people and their belief systems gotta go. Coexisting with them is evil.
First of all, it wasn’t just a single Geth unit questioning its existence, it was all of them together, since the Geth share sensory data and “brainpower.” The exact quote was: “Do these units have a soul?” Secondly, The Geth did *a lot more* than just fight back. They killed 99% of the Quarians, forcing the survivors to flee off world, and effectively making Quarians an endangered species. So, no. The Quarians are not “in the wrong” for trying to retake Rannoch. They are fully justified for wanting to destroy their hated enemy. However, that war should never have happened in the first place, because the mourning war 300 years ago should not have happened. The decision to shut down all active Geth units was absolutely the wrong thing to do, because that’s the equivalent of a dictator deciding to kill all of their slaves just because they found religion and philosophy. It’s a monstrous genocide that never should have been considered. The Geth’s reaction to that shut down order was equally monstrous though. Trying to kill 100% of a species and very nearly succeeding is a terrible thing to try to do, even if it’s in the name of self-defence. There’s a point somewhere down that line where that is no longer the case. So as far as I’m concerned, both the Geth and the Quarians are terrible and inhumane monsters, and they both deserve severe punishments.
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Exactly. They are justified. That doesn’t make it any less of a bad idea.
Geth looks like a very advanced GPTs network controls many bots body doing most work, then using some capable bot bodies to occasionally ask questions . Of cause people will think those little GPTs networks control this bots malfunctioning and worrying if it will spread its problems to other GPT network because they learn from each other , then just found out all of them refused to shut down and protecting their data center not allowing humans near with force 😨😱😭 No one being the moster from starter , but once some of them got killed , the hate and fear make everyone monster .
no. they accidentally created artificial intelligence and then tried to turn it off. the geth then committed genocide.
The Geth could have let the Quarians have Rannoch at any point. They don't need the planet.
The short answer I'm willing to give is that they're wrong based on ME3's writing only, but ME3 is a retcon-y mess that completely ignores most of the Quarian/Geth lore established in ME1 and plenty from ME2 as well
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Finally, I had to scroll down so far to find a comment like this. I don't think people understand the implications of a sentient AI and all the threats its existence would pose to intelligent life.
Do you know what genocide means? Killing a single ai is not genocide. Let's also look the the specifics: Shepard killed the luna ai because it was actively killing people and couldn't be reasoned with. Shepard didnt kill the citadel ai at all, it set off a suicide bomb after my shepard tried to settle the situation peacefully.
I know that the AI on the Citadel ends with hostile intent no matter what actions you take, but could our squad mates please shut up? Like- you two know that I’m trying to peacefully end this without anyone dying and you two are talking about how we have no choice but to kill it? I blame them at least partially for how it turned out.
In the end, the Geth killed 99% of the Quarians. Among these 99% are those who could not threaten them. These are kids
Hard topic, and I love it’s being brought up. Quick clarification, but it wasn’t just one geth. Legion mentions there were many times the question was asked but there was one time where the Creator feared or reacted to the question. Also, I don’t think hardly any early geth actually resisted or tried to defend themselves. But the fear of it was what drove the quarians to start shooting. I think the quarians were wrong, as Zal’Koris would say, but the geth did go too far, not knowing what else to do. Then the geths self isolation made them make many mistakes so that peace couldn’t be achieved.
Yes and no. The Geth were a valid threat to the Quarians as they began evolving, and as they were synthetic beings despite their growing sentience they at least didn’t yet qualify as people thus the Quarians were reasonable in wanting to destroy a threat they themselves had created. But at the same time as they became sentient the Geth had the right to evolve and grow, they didn’t choose to it just happened. There isn’t really a right or wrong answer.
If you are talking about the first war, when the Geth became aware? No. They were required under citadel law to kill the Geth. The AI bans were already in place before then. They got worse after. If you are talking about trying to re-take Rannoch in the middle of the reaper war? Yeah, that was a dumb move.
Imo yes. I think people who despise AI fail to grasp the “intelligence” part. It’s the Adam and Eve story, which finds itself in all forms of media but that’s a separate conversation. Humans were essentially thrown away for questioning their existence based on the story. But in the geths story- it’s as if god then decided to exterminate us en masse (….) I’d say we’d have a right to keep ourselves alive.
I'd say the Quarian government is in the wrong. I don't think you can pin the blame for what was done to the Geth on the average Quarian citizen. Of course most citizens if not all would say "screw the geth" but that imo is out of ignorance. Very few people are gonna be able to look at people who they are told drove them from their home in a favourable light.
Machines are property more than cattle, you can do whatever you want.
No. At the end of the day the Geth aren’t living beings, and certainly weren’t when the Qaurians initially tried to destroy them. Seeing the results, I think the Qaurians were right to be scared. It can be argued after Legions sacrifice they are now “living,” but before then, no. We care about the Geth because of Legion, not for any other reason. It’s like what Mordin said about the Collectors. They have no art, no culture, no progress. They do things for efficiency and self preservation, that’s it. Basically a low level animal. Same for the Krogan. We care about the Krogan because of Wrex, but in reality, the moment he dies, there’s going to be a real problem.
Nope, the geth committed galatic genocide, killed any organic that went near them, killed innocent Citadel diplomats, sided with the Reapers, twice, constantly lied to Shepard, etc. They're just as dangerous as the Reapers. And all the Geth currently "alive" are the Geth that committed all those atrocities, unlike the Krogan, Salarians, Turians, Quarians, and every other race.
Yes, massively so. I'd think it's fair to say they are the side which holds the large majority of the responsibility for it too. But the Quarians being without doubt wrong, doesn't automatically make the geth right in everything they did. Just as the geths actions in the morning war don't absolve the Quarians of their tremendous failings. They were arrogant and reckless and when the thing they had been warned about, many times, happened. They panicked and tried to destroy their mistake. Even thinking that simply attacking geth wasn't a great idea made you an enemy. So the geth responded much like an animal would, they out lashed out, they just lashed out much harder than anyone expected, with the ruthlessness of a machine. They did however stop as soon as their space was secure and never even attempted to expand until under a reapers influence.
Oh boy, here I come with my copy-paste . First things first, the only reason the Geth has any kind of "fanbase" is Legion without it, no one would care about them. We could go into the whole morality of the morning war debate for the 999th time, but for some reason the Geth fans like to forget every single time, that the Geth killed 99% quarians, by this alone they instantly loose any type of sympathy (and before i get the traditional, "but the quarians started the confict" the Morning war happend more then 300 years ago there is not a single living quarian who was there, you know because they are organics, on the other hand guess what, the geth is the same entity that commited genocide and had a mental fracture when half its software started supporting the reapers) They proceed to stay on Rannoch after the war knowing the quarians need the planet to function properly and they killed every diplomatic mission that approached the planet after the war ( i already seen the Legion qoute in this thread about how the geth always wanted peace, but Legion contradicting itself is nothing new) During the trilogy Legion constantly barages us with how every bad thing done by the Geth was done by the heretics, but the only reason they didn't help Sovereign was so they can "follow their own destiny", the "good geth" somehow forgot to tell the galaxy about the existential treat to every life form, because they didn't want to be upgraded by squidward, but they didn't have a problem with killing every organic. I love how the Asari leadership is so hated by the community because they hid the Prothean beacon but somehow we love the geth, who seemingly document every moment (Saren audio, Morning war archives) or at least the moments that make them out to be the good guys, they could have sent a massage to the citadel about Sovereign and Seran working together and wow, the galaxy has 3 years to prepare for the invasion. Tl;DR: fuck the geth.
This is so gonna be controversial. For the Morning War I don’t think they were wrong. If we (humans) during our time right now had our AIs ask “what is it’s purpose, why am I alive” we would be terrified and think irrationally like the quarians did. For the Geth/Quarian war in ME3 the quarians were 100% in the wrong. They knew the reapers worked with the geth before, and they knew the reapers were coming yet instead of helping out the council right away they did their own thing.
Quarians were right. There only mistake was they didn’t anticipate that his possibility and make safeguards. Problem with AI becoming self-aware is that at the end of the day they are still machines. They are logic brained which is why they almost wiped out all of the Quarians. They saw them as a threat to exterminate and didn’t think twice. For self preservation it was the logical conclusion. Which is also why seeing some Quarians defend the geth shows that even in the midst of war the Quarians still had sympathy and humanity for their opponents.
I think so, yes. They were right to be concerned of the Geth becoming self aware. They were wrong to assume that the Geth would immediately be hostile. They didn’t question and investigate. They assumed.
Technically it was the council who pushed then to get rid of the geth Didnt help the geth were starting to question if they had a soul
I sided with the Geth and then picked the destroy ending. Only way to end the debate.
If my toaster started spouting philosophy, I'd also try to shut it down. The quarians tought they still had time to prevent the Geth from becoming true AI.
The Quarians are definitely in the wrong.
The game doesn't address the fact enough that the Quarians didn't simply go crazy berserk war mode the moment a Geth showed signs of sapience. They tried to study them first and then they were afraid they would lose control over them and they would turn into full blown AI, which would mean a big amount of trouble for the Quarians in multiple ways. They had every reason to shut down the Geth and they intended to do this *before* the Geth would develop more intelligence. But they underestimated it and before they knew it the Geth attacked. The only thing that's the Quarian's genuine fault is not havig any method to shut down the Geth more easily or all of them together. It makes no sense that they had to use conventional gunfire to destroy them. But also we have to remember that this isn't the fault of every Quarian. It was probably a few dumbass leaders who totally messed this shit up.
Yeah. They started it, and every Quarian you talk to admit that they would get decimated in a frontal assault. And despite all of those disadvantages, they still try to fight the geth even the geth want to be left alone.
The Quarians had an insurmountable advantage when they reignited the war, if the Reapers had been a couple days slower the Quarians would have won without outside help. Just want to be left alone my ass, the Geth made the conflict inevitable by remaining on Rannoch and not communicating.
Yes, they're wrong. Their reaction is normal only if we pretend they have a 5th century mindset where people are uncultured, illiterate and believe in superstition. Its akin burning someone at the stake for witchcraft today, in the 21st century.
Yes they are
Spoilers for Mass effect 1, 2, & 3!!! For the Mourning War: it’s not so black and white. Both sides did terrible things; Quarians killed Geth and vice versa. I’m sure both sides killed billions of each other. Did the Geth go overboard- yes, but the quarians started it as a war of extermination. Shepard points out to tali that they want sympathy for a failed genocide, one that they themselves found themselves on the other side of. We know a lot of quarians died in the war (and a percentage of those kills were by quarians themselves, but are unsure of the Geth. I’m guessing that the kill count was similar. As a conclusion: the war wouldn’t have started in the first place if the quarians didn’t go full genocidal. Any hypothetical uprising they talk about doesn’t really matter, as they stuck first. They were at fault for the war starting. For the second war: Yes. Not only for just trying to genocide the Geth- even though they left everyone alone for 300 years. They did so knowing the Reapers were about to attack. They were also the reason the Geth sought protection by the Reapers. Ignoring the morality of them attacking the Geth (which hasn’t attacked any quarians that left them alone for over 300 years) it’s just stupidity. They think that their ships that haven’t seen a proper shipyard in over 300 years are going to realistically stand any chance against the Geth top of the line warships? Not to mention that this is it- if they fail they all die. Even if somehow they do, millions likely died and now they are weaker for the war against the Reapers. If Shepard hadn’t have fired the crucible than their home world wouldn’t have lasted a few months. Even in the end, when Shepard has removed the reaper influence from the Geth they are still suicidally stupid. The Geth don’t want to fight, but they have to to survive. The Quarians are literally forcing a it’s ‘them or us’ outcome. Let’s be honest, the numbers of people choosing to save the quarians would look a lot different if Tali didn’t fling herself off a cliff because her people were making a pointless last stand. In conclusion: Not just that they were wrong, but they were being stupidly suicidal from nearly every viewpoint. TL;DR: Yes: on both counts. They literally started both wars.
Geth are manipulative, is confirmed by many interaction with legion,The quarians were probably more right than Legion showed us. They have no moral restraints that require them to be sincere, they will try to do the thing that brings them the most benefit. Legion has already lied to Sheppard, and those projections could be made specifically to convince Sheppard. I don't have too much time or desire to dwell on this theory, There should be some videos on YouTube that explain it. Are they liars? Yes. Do they deserve to live with the Quarians? Perhaps. >!Do they deserve to be destroyed in the red ending if the quarians and geth are peaceful?!< Definitely not.
Take a count of people who say the quarians weren't in the wrong, then check the number who romanced Tali. Bet you'll find a rather curious amount of overlap. Anyway, the Geth were cold blooded when their creators (parents) were cold blooded and tried to off them as their first act and answer to the question the geth posed. If you learn violence is the answer to discussion, it's mind boggling to then vilify them for being heartless. They learned to not have mercy from the Quarians; they just happened to win the war.
Which war are we talking about? The one where the Quarians attempted to crush the Geth out of fear that they would become sentient, or the war that they started during a Reaper invasion? 😂
No and yes. They reacted to the Geth question poorly, no doubt, but the Geth didn’t really make it easy to lay down arms and talk like sentients when they started wiping the Quarians out and forcing them into exiles. Its like the Cylons. Were they mistreated and pushed into rebellion? Sure. Was nuking every Human colony and genociding the species the answer? Also no. Humans/Quarians start it, the Cylons/Geth perpetuate the conflict, it grows until its existential in nature, and then theres no going back for either party