Poll: Best Mass Effect Moral Conundrum

[Hristo Tzonkov]

Rewriting or destroying the geth.It's either give them an honorable death despite their bad loyalty choice or rewrite them practically destroying them for a choice that might've been forced on them.Honestly toughest choice.The roles are even kinda inverted since the paragon choice is a lot more pragmatist and unjust.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Weather to help Mr. Bosker or Samesh Bahtia.

 

[Dendio]

Edit for clarification- Samara just swore her life and code over to me. This was our loyalty mission and I had told her i'd be on her side. Her daughter was the more interesting character ( looking fowards to seeing whaat happens in ME3 with morinth)( also there was the whole killing her just because of what she was being morally wrong*...so i went against my better judgement and took her along. Thats the only time i went against my gut.

She didn't kill her because of what she was. Morinth has two sisters, both of whom are locked away in secluded monasteries not being killed. Samara was hunting Morinth because she's addicted to killing people by agonizingly overloading their central nervous systems and went on the run rather than give it up.

As for ME3, assuming Shepherd didn't take the bait and suffer death by snoo snoo, I guess Morinth will get bored and go off to find someone else to eat. She's an addict, it's what she does. I'll be surprised if she reappears in more than a vague supporting role.

It'd still be the more interesting option come Me3. Imagine running past morinth as she just finished feasting. My shepard would reply " oy Morinth you so silly" xD

Samara would probably be a boring run of the mill cameo. She doesnt eat people when bored lol

 

[teebeeohh]

samara mortih, whenever i get the option to save an entire race that could kick major butt i save them to call in favor when the reapers come knocking

 

[Vykrel]

the geth one. i was thinking about how the geth are so destructive, but when i thought of Legion i took the option of rewriting their programming.

the destroy/preserve the collector base one was also a tough choice. i made the destroy one simply because i knew it was the paragon option. personally, i wouldve preferred keeping the base, since it could be used against the collectors. Shepard just didnt trust the Illusive Man so the paragon option was to decide against his plan.

the rest are either easy choices or theyre from ME1, which i didnt finish

 

[Simon1]

Rewriting/Destroying Geth Heretics. That decision took me a good 3 minutes. I decided to rewrite them. After all, though sentient, the Geth are machines. There main function is to serve the users, whether organic or artificial life.

 

[Asturiel]

Its actually comical that the one I found hardest wasn't represented here, perhaps because it was one you could cop out on.

Spoiler: I'm not sure why you need spoiler protection but why not

I found the question they posed with Tali's loyalty mission regarding her father the hardest. To defend Tali's name and bring her back into the fleet or honor her father and not destroy his reputation really took me for a loop. I couldn't decide what was best, since both hurt Tali and both felt like I was the difference between one truth being shown and another discarded. I was truly pissed when you could cop out and be charismatic without making the choice, but that is the one I liked the best. (Closely followed by the Geth rewrite one.

 

[Quazimofo]

Well I was playing as a paragon, so most of my moral choices were dictated as such. But the only one that really wasn't was Ashley or Kaiden. I'd grown fairly attached to both of them, but chose the kill Ashley on the grounds of her being a complete up-herself *****. That sure showed her a lesson in passively pissing me off (Feelsgoodman)

yeah, in this situation i chose whoever was with the salarians at the time, ashley i think, since if you go back basically nobody is alive anyway besides your squadmate, so i chose the many over the few.
the rest of the choices i put very little though into because the answer always seemed clear, the greater good came over minorities, evil was slaughtered. garrus's guys? deserved it, had the potential to be harmful. geth rewrite or kill? they wont know the difference if they are rewritten and they can be more helpful alive than dead. reaper base? its evil, so is morinth over samara. the council? their descisions will be pretty much the same either way so may as well gain the trust of all of the aliens.

the racchni that you couldve saved were a non-genocidal sect so save them.

the only one that made me think was the krogan, since they could be a valuable asset with their numbers, but the last person to think that almost doomed the galaxy. but without the cure they die out slowly. tough choice. but of course if one species must die so the rest can survive, no matter how horrible it is, it must be done. (im talking intelligent species here, i dont want to die as one of the humans slowly destroying the earth, specially since ima trying best as i can w/ my high school IB schedule to help the environment in a number of little ways, as is my dad but on a much larger scale since thats his company's business)

 

[Sean Steele]

The council was very hard when I played the first time, except when I found out after playing through the second time that saving the council dose not interfere with destroying our big bad reaper friend. After I found that out the decision was super easy from then on.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Samara would probably be a boring run of the mill cameo. She doesnt eat people when bored lol

Strangely, some of her dialogue initially led to me to suspect she might be an Ardat Yakshi herself. She passed it on to all of her daughters, she pointedly shuts down any kind of sexual relationship and she's shown to be a ridiculously powerful biotic.

While I don't think that's true, it would be interesting to see how she adapted psychologically after killing Morinth. It was the whole reason she became a Justicar, after all. I'd also be interested to see if it mentions her other daughters, or whether she's taken any steps to reclaim a sense of family for herself.

There's potential for real character development which isn't there with Morinth. Morinth will never change, she's an addict. Everything she does is merely to feed her addiction.

 

[dementis]

Didn't really find any difficult, just chose the option that matched my characters alignment, good sheperd = good choice, evil sheperd = evil choice. It would be better if they didn't actually have a paragon or renegade choice for everything, just some morally grey choices instead.

 

[bob-2000]

I think that the entire idea of the Genophage is pretty morally ambiguous.

 

[drisky]

Its actually comical that the one I found hardest wasn't represented here, perhaps because it was one you could cop out on.

Spoiler: I'm not sure why you need spoiler protection but why not

I found the question they posed with Tali's loyalty mission regarding her father the hardest. To defend Tali's name and bring her back into the fleet or honor her father and not destroy his reputation really took me for a loop. I couldn't decide what was best, since both hurt Tali and both felt like I was the difference between one truth being shown and another discarded. I was truly pissed when you could cop out and be charismatic without making the choice, but that is the one I liked the best. (Closely followed by the Geth rewrite one.

Spoiler

Have you seen what happens when you decide to tell the truth? Its very dark.

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I saved the Rachni.

Kaidan/Ashley: I was romancing Kaidan but I was seriously considering saving Ashley. Even though I played a soldier and didn't really need her. I eventually just saved Kaidan. I'm not even sure why. It wasn't as if romancing him was at all important to me. I just made a split second decision and headed in his direction. My husband asked me why later, and I just shrugged. Then again, even after he ...scanned and probed my planet (if you know what I mean), he just ups and turns into the biggest douche ever in ME2, calling me a traitor. Though I doubt Ashley would have been any different in ME2.

I saved the Council.

I allowed Garrus to kill the man who betrayed his whole team, even though I did (in the beginning) try to talk him out of it.

**Rewrite/Destroy Geth Heretic was the hardest choice for me. I actually stopped playing, and thought about it while I made dinner. My husband and I even had a discussion about it while we ate. I eventually ended up rewriting them. But I didn't feel as if rewriting them was a good thing. Neither option seemed very Paragon to me.

I didn't even really think on the Samara/Morinth choice.I picked Samara. Especially after talking to the victims Mother. Listening to her talk about her daughter was gut-wrenching to me. Also felt pretty bad about Samara, especially since she bred three of those monsters. It was her job to make it right, and avenge the victims.

I saved the Genophage work. "Better not have it, and not need it." If the Krogan start shit, I'll be there to handle it.

And I destroyed the hell out of the Reaper base. No question. The Illusive Man is a racist ass who is pretty damn far up his and the rest of humanities ass.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

Samara/Morinth is the lowest one? Wow, did I judge that wrong.

My second choice would be the council one, or perhaps Ashley/Kaiden, but for the most part I at least could feel I'd done the right thing. The Samara/Morinth one leaves me feeling guilty no matter what happens.

The Geth one interested me, but I feel no remorse for ordering the rewrite. They're not human, they have their own morals and ethics, and by their standards rewriting was not deemed wrong. I'm not one to impose my morals on another race.

 

[crudus]

The Geth choice. I really had to think what was better. I thought about what is better for everyone. What I would do in that situation and what I would like to have done to me in that situation. I actually put the controller down and ate dinner mulling it over. I honestly would have given the game much more credit as an art if they actually made it so both options gave you renegade points. This wasn't a black or white decision like they make it; it was actually black and black. They were both equally evil[footnote]for lack of a better word[/footnote] things to do in my opinion. Hell, if I was the developer in charge of this and I had to make it so one choice was paragon, I would have made genocide the paragon choice.

The Geth mission prompted a lot more thought for me because it touched on a lot more than its surface suggested, i.e. free will versus biological lives which were at stake.

Oh it touched on a lot more than that. It actually asks things like "what is free will", "what is happiness", "what does it mean to be free", "would you prefer to live in slavery happy or die". The list just goes on. It was definitely one of the best moments in the Mass Effect series (and probably always will be). Sadly it was sullied by their "morality" system.

Ashley vs Kaidan. Although my female adept was romancing Kaidan, giving up Ashley pretty much meant giving up my soldier.

I am actually surprised people answer this. All the people I know who play this game are just like "later Kaiden, you suck".

Saving Ashley and Kaidan was by far the easiest choice out of all of them. Kaidan was such a douche. I had no desire to save him, that and Ashley was just more useful all around.

Yeah, like that.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

What about all the choices I had to make during the suicide mission when I thought any single one could equal death!? It was stressful!

 

[Yellowstone]

Ultimately, I remembered that it was Sovereign that was responsible for changing the Geth's programming, and what he did is more akin to the indoctrination on organics than it is a means of "persuasion." The game and extra credits kept trying to present it as an analog between groups who just held different perspectives, but I did not see it that way. Those Geth did not have a choice to serve Sovereign, and I was freeing them.

I've seen multiple people make this claim, and it's just not true. The game never states that the initial decision on the part of the heretics was made under the influence of Sovereign/Nazara. Nazara offered to help the geth achieve their goal of building a Dyson Sphere that would house all the geth. Most of the geth rejected this aid, while a small percentage accepted it. This choice was freely made, and accepted peacefully by the "true geth." Nazara would go on to manipulate the heretic geth to serve as brainwashed soldiers, and one could use your argument to support rewriting that brainwashing. You can't use it as an argument in favor of editing the choice to follow the Reapers, though.

 

[Asturiel]

Spoiler

Have you seen what happens when you decide to tell the truth? Its very dark.

Spoiler

No I hadn't seen that, I chickend out and took the option that everybody was happy with. But I honestly feel that Bioware punted that by letting people detour it. There was so much good in there if you forced the player to make a meaningful decision. Gah!

EDIT: I'm frankly surprised that people found the Ashley/Kaiden thing hard to do. Ashley was a ***** and a racist (speciesist?) I wasn't sad to see her go.

 

[TilMorrow]

For me it was the decision of whether I should or should not destroy the reapers base after clearing it of all the collectors. On one hand it could be used to further the research Cerberus has on the reapers and potentially used against them in the fight to come but on the other hand Cerberus could use it in ways I could not foresee (remember the Thorian project from ME1?) and possibly do more harm than good and the reapers may recover the base quite easily if they decide to go after it.

I'd say the second biggest conundrum for me is the council's fate decision.