Musings on Mass Effect 3: Morality of the End *SPOILERS*

   Mass Effect 3 (ME3) is the end of one of the most epic, controversial and important science fiction series of our time.  At the end of Mass Effect 3, assuming players have played both ME1 and ME2, they will have invested roughly 120 hours of their time in the world of ME.  Additionally, while other works of science fiction such as movies, TV shows or books only have one version of their story, the Mass Effect series is essentially a choose your own adventure story with hundreds of decision points.   Therefore, it comes as no surprise that there is a bit of controversy at the end.

   Personally, I was a little upset with the ending when I finished the game.  However, given some time and reflection, and looking at the various endings I think that there is a lot of good in each possible ending and each ending provides it's own moral challenge.  This moral challenge is something worth talking about in my opinion and it's something that people who haven't played the games should have a chance to talk about as well.  To that end I'm going to do a quick summary or "The story so far" to get you up to speed.

"The Story So Far"


   In the world of Mass Effect humanity is far from alone in the galaxy.  There are dozens or alien cultures that humanity shares the galaxy with and humans are essentially the new kids on the block as they have recently discovered the mass effect relays that link the various world of the milky way galaxy together.  Mass effect relays are massive contraptions floating in space that are used for near instantaneous transportation from one relay to another.  Nobody knows for sure where they come from but they are thought to have been left by an extinct alien race.  Turns out they were built by a race of synthetic capitol ship sized robots called reapers that come every 50,000 years and harvest (kill them and build a new reaper based on the characteristics of that race)  the advanced races of the galaxy, leaving the developing races in place.

   ME1 is about discovering this threat and stopping the awakening of the reapers.  ME2 has a similar theme of stopping them from coming but in ME3 they have come and despite uniting the whole galaxy against them there is still no hope in winning in a fair fight.  Enter the crucible, a design for a weapon passed down for countless 50,000 year cycles that is improved upon by the previous generation before they are ultimately harvested. Theoretically, it's supposed to destroy the reapers but nobody knows for sure what it will do.  In the ending moments of ME3 you have activated the crucible and have a decision to make.

Paragon vs Renegade vs Neither


   It's worth mentioning at this point that you have been presented with hundreds of choices by this point and there are roughly three possible answers to a question.  You can do the Paragon thing (my personal choice) which translates into, "Doing the right thing without compromising honor or morals."  Renegade is more about "Getting the job done, consequences be damned" and finally you can choose to not use paragon or renegade conversation options, resulting in more depressing and more realistic results (not being able to talk someone down before they start a losing war, not being able to save all your friends during a suicide mission, etc).

Themes in ME3


   It's also worth mentioning that there are a couple of important themes in ME3 that play into your choice.  The first is the struggle between artificial or synthetic life and organic life.  Once of the races in ME are the Geth, a group of sentient robots that have been at war with their creators for 300 years and have worked with the reapers out of fear for their lives.  In ME3 you have a chance to end this conflict and negotiate peace, heck they even are there at the end helping you.  Additionally, over the course of ME2 and ME3 you are introduced to EDI, an artificial intelligence program that achieves sentience and a body during your adventures.  She even starts dating one of your crew members and is considered a friend of the main character.

   The other theme worth mentioning is indoctrination.  The reapers are like robotic Cthulhus and are almost god like.  Their mere presence can influence people's thoughts and indoctrinate them, turning them into unwitting allies, resulting in setting their enemies against each other.  One such person was convinced right up to the end that the reapers could be controlled and that by doing so, humanity would enter a new golden age.

The Final Moments and the Three Choices


  In the final moments of ME3 you have activated the crucible and you meet an AI that claims to control the Reapers.  Apparently, the Reapers are this AI's solution to the conflict between artificial and organic life and that by "pruning" the galaxy every 50,000 years, it feels it is preventing the eventual extinction of organic life at the hands of synthetic beings but it says this solution has failed as evidenced by your presence there.  This at least explains why the reapers didn't just blow the crucible to hell, as it was some sort of test but I'm not sure how much trust to put into an AI that claims to control the Reapers.  Granted, Shepard has been blown halfway to hell by this point, many of her friends are now dead and she can see the grand alliance being torn  to shreds just outside the viewports so she's not in too much of a position to argue.

You are then presented with three choices, Red, Blue and Green, all of which will destroy the mass relays, effectively setting galactic civilizations back thousands if not millions of years:

Red (Renegade)


   The red option is to destroy all synthetics in the galaxy.  At this point Shepard is more machine than person so it's quite possible a fatal option for her as well.  For a Renegade Shepard, they've probably already killed off the Geth so really they are just faced with killing themselves and a friend to save the galaxy (for the moment).  However, the AI warns that the cycle will eventually repeat with synthetics and organics fighting again.  For a Paragon Shepard this is a much harder choice.  You are essentially asked to destroy two entire races, one of which is determined to destroy you (the reapers) but the other (the Geth) are recently incorporated allies.  What's more, you just had a friend sacrifice himself (Legion) to give the Geth intelligence on an individual level (they had to network to achieve this in the past).

Questions:

Is Xenocide an acceptable option in the face of an enemy that will not stop and is in the process of committing  Xenocide on dozens of races simultaneously?

Is it acceptable to perform Xenocide on the enemy and an ally? What about killing yourself? A friend (without asking them)?

Blue (Paragon)


   The blue option is to kill yourself and transfer all that is you into the Reapers and control them.  This presents some interesting moral quandaries.  First of all, your character has been convinced that the Reapers could not be controlled and, in my case, talked a man into shooting himself in the head to stop him from trying.  Granted, he was indoctrinated but still what do you say to him if you meet up in the ME equivalent of an afterlife... whoops, guess you were right?  Also there is the question of taking away the free will of an entire race.  The Reapers obviously despise organics and Shepard is just going to make them all model citizens?  Remember, the Reapers are sentient beings, although they appear to have been reigned in by another AI.

Questions:


Is subverting the free will of an entire race an acceptable way to stop them from committing Xenocide multiple times?

Is it better or worse than committing Xenocide yourself?

Green


  The green option is the bullshit option (in my personal opinion).  It's about as close as you can come to a happy ending but I personally feel it would result in anything but a happy ending.  In the green option you kill yourself to combine synthetics and organics into a "new DNA" and everyone becomes an organic synthetic hybrid.  According to the AI that controls the Reapers, this is the "final evolution" and it'll solve all those nasty problems with synthetics and organics killing each other.

   There a few problems with this line of thinking (putting aside Biology).  First of all, the Reapers, who despise all organics, will become part organic and then what? Are they going to do a bit of soul searching and see how wrong they were? Will having fleshy bits make them see organics really aren't that bad? Or are they going to go on a rampage and kill everyone?  Also, I'm pretty sure everyone in the galaxy can find something different about each other to kill and be killed for.  Finally, what stops people from creating purely organic or synthetic beings?  Then you'll have three participants in a galactic drama, won't that be fun.

   There is also the moral implications for this.  You are altering the biological basis of everyone in the galaxy without their permission.  To put this in perspective. What if a scientist found a way to convert everyone into white women that could reproduce? Or Asian men? Would that really solve our problems? Or just create new ones?

Questions:


Is it morally acceptable to alter the genetic code of all sentient beings to prevent Xenocide?

Would it even work?

Conclusion


  When first presented with these three choices I actually stopped and started making a pro's and con's list.  I eventually chose the blue ending but am unsure if I made the right choice.  I'd say that classifies as a perfect ending to this series that has been about choice and morality.  Hopefully, this leads to more discussion on the issues presented in this series.  I'm also curious as to which choice you made (or would make) and if you feel like it was the right choice.

The little moments that make science (or anything) worth it.

     So right now I'm in a particularly good mood.  The reason for this?  I figured out something that had been plaguing me for a good month now.  Basically we are trying to look at our bacteria using a special microscope after tagging them to see if they have more or less of a certain protein on their surfce after mutating it. Essentially we look at the bacteria and more glow = more protein, less glow = less protein (simple right).  The only problem was we couldn't find our bacteria using this special microscope.  We did a roughly 12 hour day only to find at the end that we couldn't see our bacteria...frustrating.

      Fast forward over a period where I put off working with it (cause I'm a bit over it) and am trying to get permission to use another scope we used in the past and I know works.  We decide once we know we can't use the old scope to try again only we won't do the whole 12 hour process, we just want to see if we can find the darn bacteria.  So we use a normal microscope and find them in a minute or less.  So far so good.  We then go to the special microscope (which is inverted to allow the use of larger sample containers etc) and try all sorts of different things but still can't see our bacteria.... more frustrating.

     That is until we accidently move it to a larger objective and find them quickly.  Weird but encouraging.  We still need to get the high power objective working so that night I download information about the objective and scope.  The objective has a little marking on it (among several others): WD 0.17.  As I am finding out information about the objective I find out that WD stands for working depth of 0.17 mm.  Hmm.... interesting.  I mull that over in my head over night and suddenly it hits me.  Working depth... that's as far from the objective that it can see.  This is an inverted scope so we were trying to have the objective look through the slide which is thicker than 0.17 mm.  I bet all we have to do is invert the slide and we'll see our bacteria.  Today I invert my slide and what do you know?  I see my bacteria!  Hurrah! One problem down, many more unknown problems ahead.  When we were trained on the scope we were taught by people who only need to use the larger objectives with much longer WD values.  Lesson, it pays to keep thinking about things.  (Cartoon bellow).

     This type of eureka! moment has happened one other time in my time here.  I was trying to generate double mutants but kept on getting single mutants.  After much thinking I finally figured out that the mutations were too close together and I would overwrite one when trying to make the other (cartoon bellow).  These small realizations are what keep me coming back.  There is something about these realizations that, while they seem obvious after you have figured it out, make all the blood sweat and tears worth it. :)

The Dating Game

   I walk into my classroom for another day of teaching and the smiles start immediately.  A bit unusual, but maybe they are finally learning to love microbiology?  A few students start chuckling and one of the more outgoing students raises their hand.

"Yes?"

"Where did you get that shirt?"

I look down and realize I'm wearing my "Game Over" shirt.  I smile and tell them,

"My Mom got it for me."

 
   It never ceases to amaze me but this shirt is by far the most commented on of any of my shirts.  Even strangers have stopped me and commented on it.  If you know me you know I don't think much of it, there is no deep message I'm trying to get across with my T-shirts.  Mostly I just thought it was kinda funny.  Most of the guys I run across tend to think the same way but some (not all) girls are somewhat offended.  Still, the constant comments have made me think a bit more on it and what it really means to me. This post is the fruit of my thoughts.  Hopefully it's somewhat entertaining and maybe a bit informative.

The Dating Game

   Dating is a game.  At least in so much as it's a competition "played according to rules and decided by skill, strength or luck."  I don't mean anything negative by this either.  I quite like games.  I spend an inordinate amount of time on games.

   Granted dating is a rather complex game with a global pool of players.  The rules are sort of fuzzy too, and "winners" are often decided by all sorts of factors, including luck.  Come to think of it, people have different ideas about what it means to win as well.  The classical definition of winning the dating game is to find the ideal partner and settle down, maybe raise some kids too.  Women are stereotypically thought to hold the classical view of the dating game.  Another common view of winning, (mostly among younger men), is to date without actually settling down, but to move from partner to partner, never getting "caught."  Hence the Game Over t-shirt, stating that the girl won and the guy lost.  Although, in my experience most everyone eventually wants to win the dating game via the classical means.

  Still, while people might agree upon the ultimate goal of the game, people have markedly different strategies about getting to that point.  Some people race to finish the game.  Others take their time but keep working at it again and again with different potential partners.  Still others seem to not be interested in playing at all but eventually join in the game.  There are "hard to gets", the "focusing on other things," the "romantics" and a million other different variations.

  It's really quite bewildering, but almost everyone plays it (nothing against those who don't), partly because we seem to be built for companionship and partly because it's so fun.  Then when we eventually do win the dating game, we move on to the marriage game (or long-term exclusive partnership but marriage is easier to say).

The Marriage Game

   The marriage game, once started, is often played for life or at least a good portion of life.  This is part of the danger of the dating game, a poorly played dating game sets you up for a tough game of marriage.  There are means of forfeiting the marriage game and going back to the dating game, but this is often painful and not fun for anyone involved.  Therefore it is critical to play the dating game to the best of ones ability, especially because a properly played dating game sets one up for a marriage game where many a day feels like a win (not to say you don't have to play the marriage game well, and work at it).

The Dating Game and Me


So with all that said, where am I at?  How do I approach this global game of love?

Currently my stats are as follows:

   Years alive: 28
   Years spent single: 26
   Years spent in a relationship: 2
   Number of girlfriends: 1
   Overall impression of the relationship:  Was fun and innocent.  Glad it happened but was not meant to be.  Long distance relationships aren't for me, even only being 1hr-2hrs away.

   As you can see I am quite experienced and good at being single.  Not everyone is blessed with this ability (I'm not being sarcastic here).  I am able to entertain myself and am blessed with great friends, amazing roommates and a loving family.

  Being so good at being single do I even want to date/marry?  Yes.  As much as I enjoy my single life of games, science and friends, I've had a taste of companionship and I want more.  I want someone to hold. To cuddle (a cuddling), to really invest in and to be invested in.  I want someone to love and to be loved by.  That said, if my lot in life is to remain single, I think I could make my peace with it, just as I've made my peace with baldness :)

  So I want to date but I've only dated once.  Why?  I'm not entirely sure.  Perhaps we should take a look at my dating history to help answer this question.

My Dating History/ History with Women

   My history with women begins early.  While I don't remember this, the story has been told to me quite often.  With the help of my grandparents at the kindergarten end of the year picnic (I think) I gave a girl (name withheld to avoid embarrassing her) a plastic ring.  I was quite proud of myself too by the looks of it.

   Alas, my smoothness with the women was not to last as the next year in the first grade I peed my pants because I was too polite to interrupt my teacher to ask if I could go to the bathroom.  What follows are many a year in grade school of being oblivious to girls.

  Eventually, high school came.  I spent most of high school hanging out with four friends talking video games. I had the occasional crush but would never dream of talking to them much less do anything about it.  I had one friend who happened to be a girl at youth group (Christine).  Through that friendship I (quite awkwardly) started to learn how to interact with girls.

   College came and I tried to keep to my proven strategy of avoiding girls.  Through David's friendship I meet Becky and Erica who for some reason decided that this extremely shy person needed to be befriended.  Through their friendship I started to learn a bit more about interacting with girls.  Then Megan came along towards the end of college.  She made me one of her projects and through watching her dating my roommate Chris (and their eventual marriage), and her friendship (and video games!) I learned even more of the "secrets of women."  Still, while I had the occasional crush I would never develop it, but rather ignore it until it went away.

   After college I eventually moved into a house with Chris, Megan, Becky and Hilary.  I was becoming competent at talking to girls and had good friendships with girls.  Watching Chris and Megan move on in their relationship I realized I wanted something like that.  Megan put me in contact with her best friend Becca and we started talking (by me messaging her on myspace to ask permission to add her as a friend, yeah, I think I'll always be a [lovable] dork).  I sort of just went for it and we started dating.

  It was my first time dating in my life and it was fun.  Looking back now it had all the innocence and joy that other people experience in their first relationship, usually when they are much younger.  Still it was not to be and we eventually broke up.  Becca eventually moved on to a wonderful husband, Luis, and a beautiful baby girl, Katie.  I moved on to what is shaping up to be 3+ years of school getting my masters of biology.  During this time I've moved back into my familiar pattern of noticing girls and then ignoring them.

My Strategy, Problems with it and Future Directions


My current strategy is something like this:

In my mind I shout "Girl!" (in my best Dug impression from Up!) when I notice a pretty girl.  Then I do... nothing.

To be fair, we all do some variant of "Squirrel!" whether it is "Girl!" or "Boy!" when we notice someone who is pretty but I'm pretty sure there is something you do after that.

   According to the above video (it's pretty good for what it is, although a bit depressing with a sprinkling of hope) after you meet someone there is "the chase."  That's definitely something I could work on; considering if I don't chase anyone I won't catch anyone.

   I can always hope someone chases me, but I'm not so sure I'd notice.  I tend to be pretty bad at this part of the game and when you're bad at something you either accept it or you work at it until you're better.

   So the chase.  My first problem is identifying a potential "target" to chase.  This world is full of pretty people.  Thankfully being pretty is not the only criteria for a potential date.  Intelligence, charm, personality, beliefs,  things in common, etc. are all important.  In the video the chase is started by a chance meeting just like the best romantic comedy films, sadly life is not always like this.  So one must identify a potential target out of a sea of people.

   A good way to narrow this down at first is to identify those who are already in relationships, something I've gotten better at doing (apparently people talk about this things and that plus watching people is a good way to inform you about who's dating whom, and who's interested in who).

   Another thing to do is figure out if someone is interested in you.  This is something I know I'm terrible at because presumably one or two people have been interested in me and I most definitely have not noticed or at least not fully noticed (maybe something in the back of my mind but I probably said "Nah, couldn't be").

   Then there are logical considerations.  Will this even work?  Is it worth the chance?  Admittedly I tend to error on the side of caution in this but relationships tend to defy logic at times.  Something I would do well to keep in mind.

My final problem is being willing to take a chance.  As my friends can attest, I tend to do two things in games:

1)  Take my time

2)  Play defensively

This works in games (sometimes) but eventually you need to take a chance, but it can be scary.

Conclusions and Caveats 


   This post has been kicking around my head for quite a while now and it feels good to get it out.  Hopefully it was an enjoyable read.  I also hope you don't see this as a "cry for help," or some sort of complaint about oh poor me, I'm single.  I assure you, life is good :)  A few other caveats:

1)  Many people I know are getting married/ engaged.  I'm happy for them but, don't want to feel pressured to get married now because, "everyone else is doing it."  My age is also no reason to rush into things.  A poorly played or rushed dating game will just set me up in a badly placed marriage game.  That said, doing nothing is not going to help either.

2)  I know that I am quite the catch.  I may not have much experience in this dating game, but damn it all I play games to win and I plan to play this game with all my heart, soul and mind and plan to continue to play it well into the marriage game, assuming that happens.

3)  Don't assume this is the foremost thing on my mind and I'm evaluating all my female friends for possible courtship.  I know I'm generally quiet and it's often hard to guess what I'm thinking.  Here's a hint, I'm most likely thinking about a book, a game or possibly my research.  That's just how I am.

Ice Hockey

Ice Hockey is the only sport that I follow and even then I tend to only follow it around the playoffs.  Knowing me you might be surprised that I follow any sport at all, let alone hockey considering my nerdy and geeky life and the aversion the stereotypical geek has to any physical activity.

My History with Hockey


I suppose my enjoyment of hockey comes first from the proximity of our local team, the San Jose Sharks as in the 93-94 season they moved to San Jose for their third season (the first two they were right outside San Fran).  This made them the only major sports team to date to be based in San Jose.  The other major factor was that our neighbors at the time had season tickets to the Sharks and when they went out of town they would let my Dad, me and my brother go to Sharks games.  Add in the fact that my oldest friend Michael Yee (known each other since birth) was a developing Sharks fan (he's still way more of a fan than I am) and sprinkle in how cool the goalies look with their pads and I was well on my way to becoming a hockey fan in my youth.  Oh and did I mention they enter the game through a huge sharks head that's lowered from the ceiling?

Finally to seal the deal something amazing happened that third season.

History is Made


First some important background (not that I knew most of this at the time).  The Sharks were in their third season and for their first two seasons saying that they did horrible was an understatement.  They were one of if not the worst teams in the NHL and they hold the NHL record for loses in a season (71).  However, in their third season they had one of the best turnaround seasons ever and even made the playoffs (barely) as 8th seeds.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are set up as follows: 2 conferences, 8 teams per conference, you play a best of 7 series and if you win you move on to the next series while your opponent is eliminated.  The top seed is matched with the lowest seed so 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7 etc.  Given the highly physical nature of hockey, lasting through 4 grueling series and winning them all is one of the harder things to do in sports.

The Sharks were matched against the number 1 seeded Detroit Red Wings who were largely favored.  Detroit is also known as "Hockeytown" and has the largest active streak of going to the playoffs among the 4 major sports.  They've been going for 20 years now, they're that good.  They currently have 11 Stanley Cup wins, but the Sharks won the series in 7 games.  As a young kid that was just amazing to see.  I was sold, and even started drawing Sharks swimming around the ice eating maple leafs (their next opponent) but they lost that series in 7.

Hockey and Me Now


Over the years the Sharks have turned into one of the dominate teams in the NHL although they still haven't managed to get past the conference finals (they were just eliminated this week) but I figure they'll get their justly deserved Stanley Cup championship eventually.  The sport is just fun to watch with the speed and skill of the players.  It's even starting to catch on and become decently popular here in the states.  I know logically my rooting for players has no impact but sometimes it's just fun to watch people do something amazing that you could never do.  So what are you waiting for? Go out there, pick a team and enjoy the action!  Here is a link to start understanding how the game is played.



I love these history is made comercials :)

Transitions

I am fast approaching the beginning of a new chapter in my life with my (hopefully) immanent graduation from graduate school.  As such I figured it would be a good time to transition my much neglected vlog into blog form (with possible video interjections).  Mostly because writing is easier and less time consuming than shooting and editing video but hopefully it will also get my writing juices flowing so I can breeze through my 100+ page thesis.

I have no illusions as to how few people will read this but I have a few goals:

1)  Understand myself a bit more - You ever stop and think about why you do what you do?  No?  Ok I'm probably just weird but, I do ask myself that from time to time and often the answer is I don't know and I do so love a puzzle :)

2) Have a handy list of what's going on in my life - Cause when people ask what's going on I tend to forget or say "Not much".

3) Use it as a creative outlet - I'm mostly doing logical "right brain" things these days.  It's relaxing to use the creative part of my brain from time to time.

4) Try and improve my communication - This is an area I suck at, I hope this blog helps alleviates this weakness to some degree.

5) Share cool stuff - I like sharing things that I think are awesome with people.  Sometimes a get a little too excited though but yeah this will let me share some of what I think is worth sharing.

[Side note: I'll use brackets and italics to designate times where I go off on tangents and just write what's on my mind, feel free to skip these quite possibly long winded sections. Case in point, what do I mean by "improve my communication"?  It's not like I don't know how to be clear when I speak.  I'm naturally shy (possible blog topic) but that's not the real problem.  Part of it is laziness (should probably call my family back) but again not quite what I'm getting at.  It certainly takes me forever to open up to new people, I mean like on the order of years, that could certainly use some improvement.  Letting people get to know me without them having to go to extreme lengths to find the "whole me" (not the real me, that seems an inaccurate description) would be a good improvement.  Perhaps I should use this space to be more transparent?  Being quiet is cool and all (another possible topic) but it leaves people wondering what you're thinking and often times they just assume/ assign a thought to you.  So yeah by "improve my communication I suppose I mean "let you know what I'm thinking."]