Poll: Best Mass Effect Moral Conundrum

[Viennetta]

I'd say the Reaper base at the end of Mass Effect 2 made me think for the longest. However, the difficulty of the choice is due to the unknown repercussions which will presumably shape Mass Effect 3.

I mean, all things considered it's much better to save the facility, and yet for some reason they made that a moral decision when there was no believably good excuse not to keep the facility. Supposedly it's now in the hands of Cerberus, but Shepherd knows where it is, and undoubtedly the Systems Alliance has the power to take control of it. Just all round a dumb idea. But the choice is perplexing.

 

[Conza]

For me, going against the awesome elusive man (who really, is just Martin Sheen in his early 50s, let's be honest, that's why he's so awesome). Wow, only 4th most hardest choice.

There are heaps of great decisions in the poll, but most of them I was just 'yep, easy choice'.

1. Save Rachni
2. Save Ashley (Kaiden is just annoying, never used him)
3. Abandon the council, this one doesn't really seem like one to mull over, I just thought, if I do that, then something else might be neglected, so 'there's no time!'.
4. Always Dissuade Garrus.
5. Rewrite. It's amazing how big a deal people made of this (it was even mentioned in an Extra Credit episode, go look it up, it's pretty good analysis)
6. Save genophage work (it has been about a year now, but I think saving it was the one that would help cure the genophage, which ever one seemed to do that at the time, which I'm guessing was 'Save').
7. Don't even remember, probably save Samara, she sounds like the good one.

So 8. Really annoyed me, since I could either go 'With IM and Renegade' or 'Against IM and Paragon'. Unless I'm wrong and the decision to destroy or not is just a choice, what do others think?

 

[delroland]

The Geth situation does bring some interesting issues to light. Their corruption of code could be compared to a person who suffers mental health issues from significant trauma. If those issues cause the person to become self-destructive, but he (or she) refuses treatment, do we as a society have a right to force that person into treatment?

Or, perhaps more relevant, does society have the right to take children away from an anti-social, fundamentalist religious group? What does that say about freedom of religion? And isn't that essentially what the Geth Heretics are, a splinter religious sect?

However, I found the Reaper base decision to be much more poignant, in that is it right for humanity to benefit from human rights violations performed by another party? On one hand, the damage is already done, but on the other, by using said technology, aren't we giving permission to future mad scientists, telling them that it's okay as long as humanity benefits in the end?

 

[ChocoFace]

I killed the geth, after thinking about what the right thing to do was for half an hour.
Toughest decision i've ever had to make in a video game ever, period.

 

[fishman279]

The Krogan in general are the best moral conundrum in Mass Effect, IMO. The genophage is an immoral, extreme, and repressing imposition on the basic rights and freedoms of the Krogan people. On the other hand, it might be the only thing keeping Krogan clans from wiping out the galaxy due to a cultural heritage towards violence and conquest.

Oh so difficult. I love Wrex, but man, his friends don't play nice.

Exactly this. I kept the cure to the genophage because it was just an immoral way of dealing with the Krogans and only generates more hate on both sides. That said, I countered it by rewriting the geth heretics, so there can be a MASSIVE Krogan vs. Geth war. You can't say that's not awesome.

 

[Staskala]

Definately the Geth mission. You're either killing them or essentially brain-washing them.

Neither of them take the moral high ground.

Except for the fact that the game outright tells you that killing them is evil and brain-washing is good.

I'm picking the Ashley/Kaidan "dilemma" if only because it was the game's only conflict where the designers didn't impose their morals on you.
Seriously, what's the point of moral choice systems when you only pick between pre-determined good vs. evil options?

Ah, but I'll stop here, more than enough has already been said about moral choice systems and Mass Effect's in particular, so I'd just repeat the same arguments for the 100th time.

 

[Nooners]

No mention of Tali's loyalty mission? That one made me think for quite a bit.

 

[delroland]

Definately the Geth mission. You're either killing them or essentially brain-washing them.

Neither of them take the moral high ground.

Except for the fact that the game outright tells you that killing them is evil and brain-washing is good.

Not really. Legion's telling you that he is 51% sure brainwashing is the right path does not equate to "outright telling you that killing them is evil".

No mention of Tali's loyalty mission? That one made me think for quite a bit.

I just let Tali make the decisions here. It's her life, and so it's her choice. I didn't agree with that choice, but it was still hers to make.

 

[Easton Dark]

Decisions were made quickly for all but one, my reasons are listed below, all took less than a minute to decide.

Save/Destroy Rachni - They wanted me to be responsible for the extinction of a sentient race of the galaxy? Yeah right - SAVED

Save Ashley/Kaidan - Ashley annoyed me so freaking much; she's like Jack but she hides it better and under her military cover I'm sure she's secretly racist (all humans are). Plus Kaidan's hair is cool. - KAIDAN

Save/Abandon the Council - The galaxy needs leaders, and those leaders need to trust Shepard. What better way for them to trust me than to save their lives? - SAVED

Allow/Dissuade Garrus from killing - Garrus has a right for revenge, the death of people who wanted nothing more than help is to great a crime to go unpunished - KILLED

Save/Destroy work on Krogan genophage cure (in Mordin's loyalty mission) - It's said in the codex that Krogans were not always the blood-thirsty, rage-filled creatures the galaxy views them as. Before the genophage blood-rage krogans were the minority, leaving more of them (at least a little bit) more peaceful than the current generation. What they did was wrong, but the response to them was equally so, and if I saved the Rachni, it'd be hypocritical and dangerous for me not to save the race that could stop them. - SAVE THE DATA

Samara/Morinth - Morinth cares nothing for other people and only wants to help herself, Samara wants to help the Galaxy and will murder her own child to do it. No question - SAMARA

Save/Destroy Reaper base - Put the most advanced technology in the hands of terrorists and base defences around technology the Reapers themselves designed? ...... Yeah...... - DESTROYED




The only one to give me pause was the Geth collective, to save or destroy? On one hand, re-writing them would give the majority Geth a huge rise in their military strength, what if they decided to be not so peaceful in the future? Could they be trusted with millions more Geth on their side? But on the other hand, what if they were on the up and up? Could the Galaxy really afford for one faction to be significantly weakened in the coming battle?

I had to think for 10-15 minutes. Carefully I decided to Rewrite the Geth. Hard choice.

 

[Staskala]

Definately the Geth mission. You're either killing them or essentially brain-washing them.

Neither of them take the moral high ground.

Except for the fact that the game outright tells you that killing them is evil and brain-washing is good.

Not really. Legion's telling you that he is 51% sure brainwashing is the right path does not equate to "outright telling you that killing them is evil".

Nope, but the +10 Renegade does.

 

[DevilWolf47]

The work on the Krogan Genophage. It's clear that it was morally iffy, but at the same time it was clear that doing nothing was not an option because the Krogan were a major threat.

 

[Sendura]

Whether to save Ashley or Kaidan in ME1 was easily the best in my opinion. I know you guys thought it was an easy choice, but I actually liked both characters. I'll admit, neither of them had much depth, but I thought long and hard about it and eventually chose Kaidan. I'm not exactly sure why, but I thought he should be a hero (I left him shooting Geth while protecting the bomb).

The easiest one to make in my opinion was crossed between Rewriting Legion and Destroying the reaper base. As soon as I saw Legion popping other Geth in the head with a sniper rifle, I knew I wanted him in my party.

I knew I had to destroy the reaper base because I just couldn't let something used for so much evil remain unscathed and I was shocked that the illusive man actually wanted to preserve it.

 

[Tilted_Logic]

Oh jeez I can't pick.
I had some trouble destroying the Reaper base. The logical thinker in me liked the idea of having enemy technology to study, and I would have gone with that had my squadmates not pointed out the implications of keeping the base, which ended up tearing me apart for a bit. Same thing for the genophage cure - I'd like to have it handy.

Saving the Rachni was an easy choice for me, whereas rewriting the Geth pulled at some ethical strings. Although I liked the idea of convincing the heretics to join us, I disliked programming them to. But I wouldn't have destroyed them, so rewriting was really my only choice. I suppose being they're a foreign machine I can't assume to judge them on human terms, but it still felt odd to just program their beliefs.


Honestly I guess out of all the ones I can think of Samara vs. Morinth was the most difficult for me. Samara's views on justice are quite extreme, and I can understand Morinths' desire not to be ostracized.... In the end though Morinths' killing-spree-for-pleasure put me off choosing her.

 

[tthor]

frankly, the moral conundrums in mass effect tend to truly suck. however, i did like the one in mass effect 1, where you have to decide whether to release the rachni queen or not

 

[Shock and Awe]

Definitely the Geth Mission. It touched on the real world morality of free will vs destruction, life vs liberty, ect. I actually put a lot of thought both into the moral side of it and the practical side of having either more Geth that can fight the Reapers, or less to threaten Organics. I also found the Rachni question similarly hard on practical lines. The Council was also a hard choice, but in the end both ends had merit. Though while the Genophage question was supposed to be hard I know based on Mordin's reasoning and facts that it was the right call, the less of two evils. The Ashley/Kaiden question was easy in that it boiled down to who was a better character, so I instantly chose Ashley. I let Garrus kill the bastard in ME2 because I know if I was in that situation I probably would do much worse to him.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

None of those. The hardest conundrum I faced was an obscure side mission in ME1 I stumbled across completely by accident.

Found a freighter, with all of the inhabitant's having been killed save for one person on life-support. They're unconscious, brain dead, and floating through space. The choice is this: turn the machine off, hence killing the man, or leave it on, hence leaving him floating through space for all eternity in a mostly dead state with no chance of recovery.

I just sat and stared at the screen for a couple of minutes, jaw gaping, unable to choose. I turned him off in the end, but... Dunno, that one got to me a bit.

 

[norwegian-guy]

The destroy/brainwash-scenario with the geth. Some will acuse me for picking the one they mentioned in Extra Credits, but it's the only one I was really stuck at and had problems with determing wich was the better option.
There where other complicated situations like the Ashley/Kaidam situation, but one can only base ones actions in that situation one ones own relation to the characters.

 

[Gill Kaiser]

The fate of the Heretic Geth was by far the most morally difficult choice.

Saving the collector base was the runner-up, but I had much less trouble making that decision because I just don't trust the Illusive Man with that kind of galactic advantage.

 

[Gill Kaiser]

None of those. The hardest conundrum I faced was an obscure side mission in ME1 I stumbled across completely by accident.

Found a freighter, with all of the inhabitant's having been killed save for one person on life-support. They're unconscious, brain dead, and floating through space. The choice is this: turn the machine off, hence killing the man, or leave it on, hence leaving him floating through space for all eternity in a mostly dead state with no chance of recovery.

I just sat and stared at the screen for a couple of minutes, jaw gaping, unable to choose. I turned him off in the end, but... Dunno, that one got to me a bit.

Really? I thought that was pretty cut-and-dry, myself. There's absolutely no reason to keep him alive.