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Gantolandon posted:The ultimate problem with Tong's vision is that it is hilariously over the top for something that doesn't even really solve the problem. The Illuminati ran the world before the Internet and nanofabrication were a thing and there is nothing preventing them from building another Helios. Hell, the world could as well laud them as saviors if they manage to build another global network and stop the chaos. It does fit his character, though. The two points where you realize what kind of person Tong is, is when he tells JC something to the effect of, "The more power you think you have, the more it slips through your fingers," and then later when he has a brush with the Grey Death. The world is too complicated, and it frustrates him. He's basically the most anarchic of all the good-guy characters in the game. Fun thing is, the "power ... slips" quote was delivered by Adam Jensen to a young Tracer Tong in a Gamestop-exclusive segment of Human Revolution (it's also enabled by getting The Missing Link DLC). Tong tells Adam, "I will ... try to remember that."
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Feb 3, 2014 01:50
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Tracer is also the one guy who got to see the results of his plan come to fruition in IW and regretted it deeply.
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Feb 3, 2014 08:54
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Prenton posted:The MJ12 base is a special case as you're explicitly getting back your weapons. You have to be a bit careful and check, but one of the pistols in the armoury will be your modded one, etc.
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Feb 3, 2014 14:17
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Wouldn't the only sure way to prevent a techno-singularity from happening while still leaving humanity alive be to destroy all accumulated human knowledge and hope we do better on the next pass in few thousand years?
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Feb 3, 2014 14:45
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Pvt.Scott posted:Wouldn't the only sure way to prevent a techno-singularity from happening while still leaving humanity alive be to destroy all accumulated human knowledge and hope we do better on the next pass in few thousand years? You could possibly mine up all the rare earth elements on Earth and jettison them into space, I guess? Would make creating advanced electronics pretty non-viable. Not that 'mining all the rare earth elements on Earth and jettisoning them' is exactly a terribly practical plan.
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Feb 3, 2014 14:56
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chiasaur11 posted:Tong's route "just" wipes out global communications, killing millions by all odds, but it's the only option that can be reversed. If anything, the Illuminati ending is the reversible one. A cabal of schemers can be brought down eventually, but millions of casualties will stay dead forever.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:12
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Keep in mind that Majestic 12 proves that civil war in the Illuminati is possible; they aren't really a monolithic cabal, they're a group of powerful people with very different ideas about how the world should work that cooperate just enough to maintain collective control. Further, there are only a small number of them at any moment. Revolution is certainly possible in that case. The HELIOS ending is the most ambiguous one, for me. What does it mean that J.C. is now fundamentally in charge of everything? Maybe that depends on how you played him during the game.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:17
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idonotlikepeas posted:What does it mean that J.C. is now fundamentally in charge of everything? Maybe that depends on how you played him during the game. Oh god this is the most horrifying future imaginable.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:20
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If you want a picture of the future, imagine a man in a trenchcoat, jumping on a lamp while carrying a dead body, forever.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:30
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idonotlikepeas posted:If you want a picture of the future, imagine a man in a trenchcoat, jumping on a lamp while carrying a dead body, forever. What a shame.
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Feb 3, 2014 15:42
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Pvt.Scott posted:Wouldn't the only sure way to prevent a techno-singularity from happening while still leaving humanity alive be to destroy all accumulated human knowledge and hope we do better on the next pass in few thousand years? So you pull a Babylon 5? Bomb everyone back to the middle ages and see if we do it better the second time around.
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Feb 3, 2014 17:06
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DatonKallandor posted:So you pull a Babylon 5? Bomb everyone back to the middle ages and see if we do it better the second time around. Who knows, we may be on our tenth go round!
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Feb 3, 2014 17:37
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idonotlikepeas posted:Keep in mind that Majestic 12 proves that civil war in the Illuminati is possible; they aren't really a monolithic cabal, they're a group of powerful people with very different ideas about how the world should work that cooperate just enough to maintain collective control. Further, there are only a small number of them at any moment. Revolution is certainly possible in that case. Helios says it's going to merge with JC to better understand humans. I think it will still remain a godlike AI without any other personal ambition than governing the humanity. IW expands its plan somewhat - it wants to link all minds in some sort of global network, creating a perfect direct democracy with everyone giving their input in real time. That's a terrible game, though. Most likely, Helios would be a benevolent dictator on steroids. With universal constructors, nanotechnology and power over global communication, it could make all the world's problems irrelevant, including war, hunger and poverty. It could take control over modern economy, effectively turning it into a centrally planned system. And, unlike Illuminati, it wouldn't even have to create a facade of democracy. Someone could theoretically assassinate Everett and take over the infrastructure, but it's much harder to do this with an enemy who IS the infrastructure. So, potentially it could create a Paradise on Earth, if it is as benevolent as it claims. It pretty much, however, would make humanity irrelevant. They would no longer evolve on their own, instead being biological components of a system governed by something more enlightened than them.
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Feb 3, 2014 17:46
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    Handouts: Navarre Email: Dinosores Jacobson Email: 2001 Jacobson Email: How to be both great and terrible at your job Jacobson Email: Whupass What is this stuff? Ambrosia Flyer Castle Clinton Sign Atlantic Campaign Memorial Known misses: the prod charger by the entrance to the subway, some extra dialog from Anna Navarre, two bums with a full conversation, a credit chit hidden in the loot room under Castle Clinton. Bobbin Threadbare fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 3, 2014 17:59
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Hey now, if you spec yourself on heavy weapons the flamethrower is 100% pure and distilled comedy gold. Nothing says sneaking game quite like carefully sneaking up on a guy just to set him on fire.
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Feb 3, 2014 18:35
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I think the dialogue is a little more interesting if you give the kid Soy Food instead of a candy bar. edit: the first kid, I mean. Internet Janitor fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Feb 3, 2014 |
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Feb 3, 2014 18:56
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Regarding the Philosophy Corner, you mentioned the 'Ideal Platonic City', which is described in in Plato's Utopia. This ideal city doesn't have Gods or Kings. Rather, it has Philosophers as its leadership. People of knowledge and wisdom, rather than power and might. I won't go into the details, but let's just say that Bob Page is full of poo poo, and doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't get knocked down enough in this game.
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Feb 3, 2014 18:59
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berryjon posted:Regarding the Philosophy Corner, you mentioned the 'Ideal Platonic City', which is described in in Plato's Utopia. This ideal city doesn't have Gods or Kings. Rather, it has Philosophers as its leadership. People of knowledge and wisdom, rather than power and might. I don't know, he either gets blown up horribly, watches the system he so desperately wanted to control go up in smoke, or watches the AI that he attempted to merge with reject him and merge with his mortal enemy instead simply because said AI immediately recognizes that he's full of poo poo and says as much. That seems like a pretty poor result for all his work all things considered!
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Feb 3, 2014 19:11
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berryjon posted:Regarding the Philosophy Corner, you mentioned the 'Ideal Platonic City', which is described in in Plato's Utopia. This ideal city doesn't have Gods or Kings. Rather, it has Philosophers as its leadership. People of knowledge and wisdom, rather than power and might. I didn't say "ideal Platonic city," I said "Platonically ideal society," which refers more to Plato's theory that there's a dimension out there where every object and idea exists in perfection and all human crafts are merely attempts at reaching that ideal; all ships are copies of the Platonic ship, all pots are copies of the Platonic pot, etc. Thus, my comment was on how Page expected to craft an impossibly perfect society. Also, if you don't think that Bob Page thinks he meets or exceeds Plato's standards for leadership, then you don't know Bob Page. Besides, do you really expect a man who misquotes Aquinas to the point of blasphemy wouldn't also mangle Plato's vision?
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Feb 3, 2014 19:24
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I ran into an interesting bug in Battery Park. I was unsatisfied with the way my character inventory (I forgot to take the baton from Liberty Island) and skillset (want to invest earlier in hacking), so after loading into Hell's Kitchen and coming to this conclusion, I decided to start a new game. I started Liberty Island with my entire inventory intact. GEP Gun, grenades, assault rifle, upgraded sniper rifle, all my ammo, ... Effectively, I'll have 4 more rockets, a far more upgraded sniper and pistol, and so on. 
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Feb 3, 2014 20:07
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berryjon posted:Regarding the Philosophy Corner, you mentioned the 'Ideal Platonic City', which is described in in Plato's Utopia. This ideal city doesn't have Gods or Kings. Rather, it has Philosophers as its leadership. People of knowledge and wisdom, rather than power and might. It's described in Republic actually, and the 'golden souls', the aforementioned philosopher kings are selected less for their aptitudes than their appetites. Basically, the castes in the Republic are determined by what drives the individual: the bronze-soul craftsmen and workers are driven by physical desires: wealth, comfort, sex, and so on, while the silver-soul soldiers and peacekeepers are driven by their desire for honor, glory, and recognition. The golden-souls are instead driven by their desire to seek out truth/perfection in all things; justice, governance, and science, just to name a few. It's one of the most common misconceptions about the Republic; it's not advocating a technocracy, it's advocating rule by those who aren't interested in glory or gain, but instead interested in working towards a more perfect society for the sake of a more perfect society, the pursuit of the Ideal.
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Feb 3, 2014 20:33
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I never knew there was a way to save the hostages without subduing the terrorists. SO, there, that's me up. Finally hit my "Never knew that" point. Shame, I figured we'd get to Paris at least before I had to fold. :P
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Feb 3, 2014 21:14
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You missed the zyme vial floating above the ledge of the eagle statue in the place with the slabs. (At least it was floating in one version I played. Very amusing bug.)
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Feb 3, 2014 21:34
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The interesting part about Plato's / Socrates' Republic is that it founded on manipulation and deceit. Deus Ex doesn't go quite in-depth as it could into Helios as the shaper of media and memory (not even as deep as Picus news in DE:HR), but there's still an undercurrent of re-representation throughout the game, exemplified in the news stories that follow JC and frame him as various figures, according to the needs of the conspiracy.fool_of_sound posted:It's described in Republic actually, and the 'golden souls', the aforementioned philosopher kings are selected less for their aptitudes than their appetites. Basically, the castes in the Republic are determined by what drives the individual: the bronze-soul craftsmen and workers are driven by physical desires: wealth, comfort, sex, and so on, while the silver-soul soldiers and peacekeepers are driven by their desire for honor, glory, and recognition. The golden-souls are instead driven by their desire to seek out truth/perfection in all things; justice, governance, and science, just to name a few. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Feb 3, 2014 |
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Feb 3, 2014 21:46
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Maybe Bob Page hangs out and plays XBox and talks philosophy with some dude named Thomas Aquinas.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:41
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Xander77 posted:The interesting part about Plato's / Socrates' Republic is that it founded on manipulation and deceit. Deus Ex doesn't go quite in-depth as it could into Helios as the shaper of media and memory (not even as deep as Picus news in DE:HR), but there's still an undercurrent of re-representation throughout the game, exemplified in the news stories that follow JC and frame him as various figures, according to the needs of the conspiracy. I'm not exactly sure what point you're making. That Plato argues that the castes of the Republic would be reinforced through the manipulation of education? Because, yeah, that's certainly part of it. But the point of my post is that Plato never argued that the Republic would or should be a meritocracy/technocracy/'rule by wisdom'; it is instead based on the assumption that people are born with a preference for certain groups of desires, and that education had the dual purpose of discovering which of the 'soul' groups the students belong to, and to reinforce the desires appropriate to that group, to the exclusion of others, and that further these desires would affect their future actions such that they would be ideal members of their caste. Please note that I'm not arguing for the Republic; it's a society based in social manipulations and executive caste assignments that are ostensibly determined at birth. I'm just correcting the misconception that it's some sort of idealized rule by the knowledgeable.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:52
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New secrets I learned in this episode, despite playing this game many times: -The two boxes floating in the water at the start -Destroying the vending machine instead of picking the lock and using the code the kid gives you -The bioelectric cell on top of that one crate (I think I always broke the box you need to jump on first) You should show off the singing homeless man, though. Also, isn't there a conversation with that guy who begs you to kill him?
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Feb 3, 2014 22:54
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fool_of_sound posted:I'm not exactly sure what point you're making. quote:Please note that I'm not arguing for the Republic; it's a society based in social manipulations
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Feb 3, 2014 22:57
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Yay, Philosophy corner! About Aquinas and law: He's most particularly known for being one of being the notable proponents of natural law theory, which implies that law must have meet some moral requirement in order to be given legal force. He, and Augustine are responsible for the idea that "An unjust law is no law at all" ( the relevant Summa section here). As mentioned in the video, Aquinus argues strongly against excessive power of the state. Importantly, he argues that a state should not proscribe all vices because such is beyond the power of human law: "The purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not suddenly, but gradually. Wherefore it does not lay upon the multitude of imperfect men the burdens of those who are already virtuous, viz. that they should abstain from all evil. Otherwise these imperfect ones, being unable to bear such precepts, would break out into yet greater evils" It's interesting to contrast that to the kind of legally sanctioned repression that goes on puritanical groups, as well as the kind of 'perfect' society Page might be hinting at. And of course, he would indeed likely be horrified by such vainglory on the part of Page and would suggest that it was 'an act of violence'.
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Feb 3, 2014 23:06
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Gully Foyle posted:You should show off the singing homeless man, though. Also, isn't there a conversation with that guy who begs you to kill him? Confirmed. There's also a short conversation with a woman standing by a barrel. Adding them to the list. As for the Zyme, I'm not going back for that because I find the spinning zoom-in to be aggressively unhelpful and so I put that stuff in the same category as all the soda cans and forties lying around: stuff I'll never have any reason to collect. I figure I can show off the effects at some point, but there's enough here and there that I won't go looking for it.
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Feb 3, 2014 23:27
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"...but first we must exterminate the terroristsshsh" What happens if you take option #3 at the subway station (let everyone live)? Farecoal fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 3, 2014 23:33
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I usually ignore the beer, but collecting zyme does have a use later on.
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Feb 4, 2014 00:34
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Farecoal posted:"...but first we must exterminate the terroristsshsh" The same as what happens if you rescue the hostages by killing all the NSF--the only flags are based on whether the hostages are present, dead, or escaped when you first leave Battery Park (although Navarre will have some praise for you if the body count goes high enough). Option 3 is more something to do when you're on a pacifist challenge run.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:00
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I love how Anna Navarre and Gunther Hermann were portrayed in DX. The former's callousness and the latter's paranoia stem from the same source: they are soldiers and that's pretty much all they will ever be. They are so heavily augmented they barely have any chance of leading a normal life. Finding a partner is not very probable, because not many people in the world are attracted to cyborgs stuffed with murderous weapons. For the same reason finding friends outside of UNATCO is very difficult, as they are immediately recognizable and their profession, despite propaganda, is not very popular. They can't even hope for any peaceful retirement - their prosthetics constantly malfunction and have to be services and - as we know from DX:HR - require neuropozyne to not cause constant pain. They can't leave UNATCO and they know it. Anna just revels in what she does the best - killing people. She pretty much accepted her role as the government's assassin and tends to ignore her organization's professed goals when they conflict with her bloodlust. She will grudgingly respect JC if he's as ruthless as her, because that's the way her world works: you sacrifice a part of yourself to become one of the elite. What she won't accept are the ones that try to have the best of both worlds - act like normal human beings and be more powerful than her. That's why she hates Paul. Gunther is much more conscious of his situation. He more or less understands how bad his situation is - that he has no future beyond UNATCO and the organization won't keep him around if he stops being useful. The arrival of the first nano-augmented agent sent him into full panic mode. He does everything to prove he hasn't lost his edge, including pestering Manderley for upgrades. The day of attack on the Statue must have been really bad for him: instead of leading the charge against the terrorist, he was ordered to stand back and let the new agent do the work. It's probably why he went berserk and why he goes all pissy if JC won't let him leave the statue with at least some honor. Most probably Anna and Gunther would have it easier to accept nano-augmented if they were simply more powerful than them. The main problem, however, seems to be that JC and Paul could theoretically live outside UNATCO - have friends, partners and children, or hold jobs that don't require slaughtering people.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:01
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:As for the Zyme, I'm not going back for that because I find the spinning zoom-in to be aggressively unhelpful and so I put that stuff in the same category as all the soda cans and forties lying around: stuff I'll never have any reason to collect. I figure I can show off the effects at some point, but there's enough here and there that I won't go looking for it. I always collected huge piles of zyme because there's a way to turn it into a bunch of credits later in the game, which I always found amusing.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:07
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I've always wondered why this game is so renowned. I'm still not convinced, but with this episode I'm starting to see the appeal.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:20
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Known misses: the prod charger by the entrance to the subway, some extra dialog from Anna Navarre.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:49
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Regy Rusty posted:I've always wondered why this game is so renowned. I'm still not convinced, but with this episode I'm starting to see the appeal. Yeah, not to knock it overmuch but the whole Liberty Island and UNATCO office first chapter is kind of a ho-hum thing in my opinion, and every time I've replayed DX before I've always just flown through those bits as quick as I can to get to the better stuff.
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Feb 4, 2014 01:50
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Aquinas did talk about the city on the hill... but only insofar as he wrote an extensive commentary on Matthew. And frankly some of what he says about the city on the hill metaphor is a load of horse elbows. (Although if I recall properly some of what he said was quoting other theologians.) Jesus was actually speaking fairly simply in this case: he was saying that the people listening to him were supposed to be exemplars of his philosophy, and that it was impossible to hide or conceal them, and that they had to live up to that. You can get into a lot of stuff about how the hill is Jesus and the house is the church and all that, but all Jesus really seems to be saying is "if you follow me, you have a duty to set a good example for everyone else".
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Feb 4, 2014 01:50
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah, not to knock it overmuch but the whole Liberty Island and UNATCO office first chapter is kind of a ho-hum thing in my opinion, and every time I've replayed DX before I've always just flown through those bits as quick as I can to get to the better stuff. Basically up to this update I was struggling to see what made this more special than other FPS's of its time. Like it's got customization and stuff but the gameplay didn't seem that interesting. With the multiple routes and ways things can play out in this update though, I'm starting to get intrigued.
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Feb 4, 2014 02:02
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