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How does anyone pick the Geth over the Quarians

posted 10 years ago by AliBamaGirl
36 replies | jump to latest

I've just completed my 2nd playthrough of all 3 games and this time Tali wasn't loyal. I unexpectedly had to choose between the Geth and the Quarians for survival.

While I liken Koris's fleet to the Germans and their 'we had to do what Hitler and the SS told us' excuses for what they allowed to happen in their own country, I am surprised that anyone would pick the Geth over the Quarians. Yes, the Quarians forced them to rebel. Yes, the Geth had the right to defend their existence when they came under attack. No, imo, the Quarians aren't entitled to the homeworld after 300 years and deserve an ass kicking. When it comes to which race should be annihilated, though, that's a whole other matter.

There are children in the Quarian flotilla. As much as I loved Legion and side with the Geth in the Quarian war, I can't kill children. The Geth don't have children. The Geth are true AI's, yes, but they are, for all intents and purposes, mobile computers. No matter how self-aware they are, there are no children to be preserved.

I can condemn the Quarians for their selfish need to take what they want at all costs, but I can't condemn every Quarian child to death because their parents are too stupid to see the forest for the trees.

[–] BigMeanieHead 10 years ago

Quarian children and quarians in general are smelly, stinky, egomaniac creatures. They deserved their fate (which is Shepard going through the Quarian fleet, shooting up everyone, akimbo style).

It really pains me that throughout the entire trilogy, you cant shoot one of them.

[–] Glaramara 10 years ago

The quarians claim they do need Rannoch. They are very, very vulnerable with the ancient and creaking Migrant Fleet, and the loss of one or two liveships would be catastrophic and, with the Reaper war going on, quite likely (although they should be keeping them safe, not arming them). Without lots of external support Rannoch is the only world they can practically settle on. The geth, though, have no need for Rannoch and could've built their big computer anywhere. The quarians shouldn't have gone in guns blazing (at least not if both Legion and Tali survived ME2 on talking terms) though.

Whether the geth are computers or not is irrelevent. Quite honestly the fact that the quarians have children is irrelevent too. The big difference is that there are plenty of quarians caught up in it with no choice but due to the nature of the geth conciousness there aren't any such geth. Every geth program running and networked is one small non-individual component of a whole that accepts the concensus and works with it.

[–] raven1066 10 years ago

I did, once. Then I saw the whole race die. Never again.

"A true archer doesn't even need a bow or an arrow."

[–] Tonnie21 10 years ago

I have no problems with picking the Geth over the Quarians. IMO, it's about winning a war against a threat that could wipe us all out and the Qaurians are fighting over a planet they can't even live on completely. Sure they need to house their noncombatants but they didn't think about that while flinging their full forces at the Geth and strapping their civilian ships with heavy artillery. IMO, it's up to the Quarian leaders to care enough about their own people to stop attacking once they had been asked to do so. They refused and allowed themselves to be bullied by one trigger happy idiot. I don't need people like that on my side so goodbye Quarians. However, I almost always save both.

[–] Glaramara 10 years ago

If only wars were simply sorted out by "Please stop attacking." "OK."

The quarian argument is that they needed Rannoch to survive the Reapers and taking the risky measure of strapping big guns on to the liveships was the only way that would work. Not taking advantage of the enemy seemingly immobilised (and who knows for how long) would be madness - they'd need to have good reasons to really, really trust Shepard (as would the geth) if he's asking them not to take their most reliable chance of victory. It's a pity that Han'Gerrel was turned into a bit of pantomime villain (although it's not as bad as the Dalatrass in the genophage arc, who should've been there to raise serious doubt about the cure).

All that's a bit separate from "who is the most useful against the Reapers". Normally I'd say the geth but they were getting the crap kicked out of them by the quarians until the Reapers got involved, albeit by means that probably wouldn't work against anyone else. On the other hand are the geth reliable? Even if they are honest with you could they be taken over again?

[–] dobraye_utra 10 years ago

The reapers couldn't reacquire the Geth again, since Legion's advanced AI prevented them from hacking him. Legion uploaded his code to the entire collective, so they're now immune to reaper-infection.

"In High school I was Captain of the Machine-gun Team!" Nick Deezy

[–] Tonnie21 9 years ago

How about "Please stop attacking, the enemy is going to flipping destroy you." People surrender all the time in war. But considering the fact that the Quarians pew pew themselves to death means that their plan to take advantage of the immobilized Geth was madness. Or better yet, it wasn't madness to do that but it was madness to ignore new intel on the enemy. That was Gerrel's problem. He outright ignored new info on the enemy threat to blindly follow his current objective.

I think the upgrade prevents the reapers from taking control again because they aren't the same as they were before. But even if that was the case, I would still pick the Geth. Remember, the Geth had to accept the Reapers help before it was allowed into their network, it wasn't a forceful control.

[–] Strazdamonas 8 years ago

The dialogue path i choose pretty much ended up with "if you attack you are going to be annihilated". the Quarians were *beep*

------------------------------------------------
Resistance is impolite, Friendship is mandatory.

[–] MuggySphere 10 years ago

Because I felt sorry for the Geth......

The Quarians may have given them life, but then they wanted to commit wholesale genocide on them when they didn't conform to how they wanted the Geth to be.

For me it was an easy choice...

2nd playthrough I chose the Quarians.

3rd playthrough I went for peace

[–] phaskell 10 years ago

I thought the Quarians were annoying space gypsies so first couple of times i offed them. If you have Tali loyal she helps you save her people, but have to renegade in your conversation with the dying Reaper. When my Shepard was dating Tali i saved them, and also so my boy Garrus could hit that.

Chick Flicks Suck! Action movies rock! Horror Rules! Dexter, Criminal Minds, Awesome!

[–] RightBackAtYa 10 years ago

If the game works out that I have to choose, I always choose the Geth over the Quarians. In my book, the Quarians are self-entitled bigots who shoot first and don't ask questions later.

The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.

[–] Glaramara 10 years ago

What, every single one of them? Better hope that you never end up on the receiving end of a bomb because someone has decided the same about your leaders.

[–] RightBackAtYa 10 years ago

Please, show me one instance in any of the games where the Geth attacked the Quarians first.

And you can't keep using the "the leaders made us do it" excuse. It didn't work at Nuremberg and it doesn't work here. "I was ordered to do it" is a piss-poor excuse. If you don't want to do something, and there are many of you who feel that way, do something about it. Quit being lemmings and stand up for your beliefs.

The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.

[–] Glaramara 10 years ago

We're talking about the entire bloody population here, not some soldiers. "I was ordered to do it" is irrelevent. By your argument to hell with Nuremberg, should've just wiped out everyone in the country, they deserved it for not doing something about it.

[–] iCode_v2 9 years ago

It's a video game.
Keep your pants on and stop being ridiculous.

[–] Glaramara 9 years ago

As ridiculous as replying to the nearly two year old part of the discussion, or that thinking that because it's a game the principles and questions raised aren't something that may be taken seriously?

It's not hard to see when a discussion changes from purely the events in a work of fiction into what's really a more general discussion using the work as an example.

[–] walls29 9 years ago

Legion made a good case of geth freedom with that mission Rannoch: Geth Fighter Squadrons. Tali was dead because she wasn't loyal to me in ME 2 and I had no idea she was pre requisite to achieve peace between geth and quarians. So I sided with geth and saw all of them dying. I made a new save, went to sleep, still thinking about my decision lol trying to rationalize it "geth are better soldiers, these quarians can't fight".

The next day I reloaded the save to see if I had missed any option for peace, but nope, had to choose geth or quarians again. One more time I picked geth but as that quarian lady begged I decided to side with them at the last moment and Legion tried to kill me saying that he couldn't allow quarian to decide their future. Quarian lady helped me and said something like "oh and he seemed so sincere". Now, if he turned against me just like that, what could I expect in the future after reapers were gone?
Good riddance I say, but I think I'll play the game again to get Tali with Garrus and try to make peace between then to see how it plays out.

[–] Winter_King 9 years ago

Peace is the ideal outcome. Only possible with import save from Mass Effect 2 and even with that there is some choices you need to make in order to ensure that you can convince the quarian fleet to stand down.

You get both the quarian and the geth fleet as war assets significantly improving your EMS.

Personally my latest playthrough was the only one I couldn't achieve peace. Tali was dead and Legion was given to Cerberus. I sided with the Quarians.

Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it.

[–] Everything_Precious 9 years ago

I choose the Geth. It isn't the fault of the Geth that the Quarians broke the rules and created them. Then, once they realized their rule breaking had come back to bite them in the ass, they decided to fix the situation with a handy little invention called genocide.

The Quarians declared war on the Geth. The Quarians were the first to attack during every encounter with the Geth after the war. The Quarians alive today have no home planet, their ancestors did. They have no inherent right to Rannoch. They started a war, they lost the war they started, they ran from the planet. They had settled on a different planet but were kicked off by the council because once again, they broke the rules and didn't bother to ask the council if they could colonize the planet they decided would belong to them. The Quarians alive today are nothing but sheep, unable to think for themselves. They didn't want war but they went to war anyway because they didn't have the guts to tell their leaders no.

Far as I'm concerned, they get what they deserve. They care about nothing but their own desires and think the galactic rules are for everyone but them. If I have to choose between Legion and Tali, the Geth win the contest hands down.

[–] grimjac100 9 years ago

I chose the Quarians, for similar reasons as yours but reversed.

The Geth aren't alive. They're machines, just like your toaster, just like your iPhone, just like the Reapers. I don't care how personalized my iPhone is, how well it knows my taste in songs or directions or web-searches...if it comes down to choosing my iPhone or saving the life of some blind, crippled, drooling-on-himself racist homophobic 90 year old Nazi sympathizing old dude...yeah, my iPhone isn't going to survive. That's just the way it is.

No matter how you justify it, the Geth aren't `alive'. Store their programming somewhere and boot them up in toaster in a few years. Of course the Quarians declared war on the Geth. In the ME Universe, any time AI becomes widespread, there's a war with organics. Skynet. If you suspected your toaster was defective and posed a danger to you and your family, would you enter negotiations with that defective piece o technology or would you just toss it?

Sure, in the game, EDI was my favorite companion. But when push came to shove, I went the Destroy option. Why? Because EDI is an easily-replicated shell and a programming core. In my head, she's going to be easy to bring back. Not like Shephard taking 2 years and a buttload of money and being effectively a miracle to come back.

For the Geth, if one survives, they all survive. They aren't individuals. Stick one in a lead-lined room, hit the Destroy function to handle the Reapers, wait a few years to be sure technology is working right, then pop out the Geth and we're good to go.

You can't do that with the Quarians...or any organics.

"I know you got guts...I can see 'em!" Norbert Sykes

[–] Glaramara 9 years ago

Get a DNA sample, store it safe, and the population is good to go again even if they have been made extinct. The process is a bit more complicated but at the end of the day we're just machines too, albeit made of biological bits instead of wires and fibre optics (or whatever futuristic stuff the geth are made of).

[–] RightBackAtYa 9 years ago

What difference does being alive make? The Geth are a race of sentient beings. As such, they have the right to exist. They were a peaceful people who were created and then attacked because of the hubris of the Quarian people.

For the Geth, if one survives, they all survive.

That isn't true. Did you miss Legion telling Shepard that as each of them were destroyed when the Quarians attacked (yet again), that their intelligence dimmed? And that was before they got the Reaper update.

The fact of the matter is, the Quarians have no right to Rannoch. It is not their home world. It may be their planet of origin 300 years ago, but it is not their home world. Their ancestors lived there, they did not. The Geth fought for survival and it was the Quarians who chose to flee as opposed to being annihilated. It was also by the grace of the Geth that they are still alive today.

The Geth allowed them to keep their lives. They should be grateful for that.

What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.

[–] Glaramara 9 years ago

You're implying that it was ever so kind of the geth to not wipe out the quarians to extinction? Sure, killing billions isn't quite as bad as killing everyone, but still...

Not every quarian supported wiping out the geth, there were innocents. There are no individuals to be innocent in the geth.

[–] Strazdamonas 8 years ago

Actually if you did the Geth fighter squadron mission you would know that The Geth fought ONLY as long as the quarians were a threat and as soon as they judged them to not be a threat they stopped any fighting and went secluded themselves.

No, quarians were wiping out quarians that sided with the geth, nazi style.

------------------------------------------------
Resistance is impolite, Friendship is mandatory.

[–] jaffa_cree52 9 years ago

I chose the geth during my first play through, kinda sad seeing tali die

The save the geth missions were kinda cool imo