Why I Made My Choice about the Geth in Mass Effect 2 [ Edited ]

[h11asan101]

I choose to destroy the Heretic's. Why? As a disclaimer I haven't played mass three yet.

Point One: The enemy wants to kill every sentient life in the galaxy and by all accounts they have pretty good odds of doing so. Anything is preferable to that; when the stakes are this high morality is a luxury we can not afford. Survival is the only thing that matters. As such I do not care in the slightest whether it is more moral to rewrite or kill.

Point Two: An ally you can't fully trust is of limited use. You can never be 100% certain the Heretic's won't go back to the Reapers; every time you'll deploy them you'll wonder which side they're really on. This severely limits their utility https://routerlogin.uno/.

I do realize this statement applies to Cerberus as well; while I do believe they'll sacrifice me or commit atrocities on aliens at this time I have no reason to think they will work with the Reapers. I could be proven wrong but I don't have any evidence to suggest that.

Point Three: The Geth don't object to me killing the heretic's and most if not all companions object to rewriting them. This suggests that it could endanger relations with other nations who could fight the Reapers.

Point Four: I've seen what the heretic's can do; and if they put a knife in my back that effect is multiplied many more than just with their military might. I'm not going to get another chance like this.

[holger1405]

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@h11asan101 wrote:

when the stakes are this high morality is a luxury we can not afford.

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I strongly disagree with the term "morality is a luxury we can not afford", but more important, there is no "morality" choice here.

Destroying them means killing a big group of sentient beings.

Rewriting them means to force a big group of sentient beings into submission against their will. That is slavery.

None of this is of high moral value, but there is a strong argument that destruction is actually the more moral choice.

Edit: misquote.

[Fred_vdp]

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@holger1405 wrote:

Rewriting them means to force a big group of sentient beings into submission against their will. That is slavery.

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Legion disagrees with that. As a response to one dialog option, Legion agrees that all species must be judged on their own merits and that we can't apply human morality on the geth and heretics.

[holger1405]

@Fred_vdp 

He also said that "We stated the option exist, we did not endorse it. It's Shepard-Commander's decision."

And the Geth themself can't reach consensus about this question. 

Imho a human can not "choose" his morals on the ground that the Geth are a robotic (different) species. That would be even more immoral.

Rewriting them simply means to force them into submission against their will, in my opinion that is indeed blatantly unethical.

[sundance31us]

In the long run if they are rewritten they can benefit from Legion's upgrade in the future...depending on what choice Shepard makes.

I also question how much choice there really is when dealing with Reapers.

[holger1405]

@sundance31us 

Spoiler

It also helps the Quarians in ME3 if you destroy the Heretics.

But in the end this is all metagaming and should not play a role in the moment you make the decision.

[sundance31us]

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@holger1405 wrote:

But in the end this is all metagaming and should not play a role in the monument you make the decision.

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True, ideally the decision should be based on your characters experiences and beliefs and not on what you know.

Spoiler

One of my favorite pastimes is exploring dialogue options to see what hook the developers have placed for different choices.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I think the game had been out for at least a year before I found out that the music I was hearing when entering the Shroud ("Betrayal") only plays if you don't tell the Krogan about the plot. Even in a cure play my Shepard wouldn't tell the Krogan about the plot for diplomatic reason...in his opinion there had been enough bad blood, so he'd kept it to himself.

[holger1405]

@sundance31us 

I am guilty of doing the first (Spoiler-tag) thing once.   (And yes, I was totally metagaming in that playthrough.)

🤣😂
But you can't of course do it as long as

Spoiler

Wrex is alive

if you are not a total monster. So he had to go.

I of course didn't do it myself,

Spoiler

Ashley is just so overzealous.

😇

[sundance31us]

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@holger1405 wrote:

I am guilty of doing the first (Spoiler-tag) thing once.   (And yes, I was totally metagaming in that playthrough.)

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Well...

Spoiler

If you destroyed the data and are are not sorry about it Wrex will threaten you several times before the Shroud mission, so there is a hook (Eve dead and hostile Krogan).

With Wrex and Eve alive though....