The Solitary Path to Salvation

Arbitrary was already nuts.

More nuts, than. It's possible for crazy to go to fucking crazier, you know.

I'd say my crazy is progressing in a more proactive fashion now than it was previously.

I mean, at least I'm not walking down the street on Omega casually gunning down unarmed civilians because I'm bored.

That was an interesting week.

And every time we have one of these discussions you terrify me a bit more, Arbitrary.

you know this isn't a good place to discuss this.

I'd say come to the Citadel, but you might be... uh, uncomfortable. Little Rannoch and all.

No geth, though.

Little Rannoch is nice. I've been there before. I get a few looks but nobody's tried to start shit.

Guess people still recognize the suit.

Doctor says I need to speak to folks more often. Even if you frighten me, flip out at random points in time, and immediately calm down all in the span of about two minutes. That's the record, I think.

Hop on down to my place, we'll have another me-not-getting-stabbed talk.

Eh, why not. I'll be over shortly.

LET US WISH FOR A GOOD HARVEST, ALL

You humans actively worship the Reapers?

Here I thought you had your heads screwed on right.

I can't be the only one who finds the message to jar horribly with the primitive premise, can I?

Edit: Also, let me join the chorus voicing their irritation with the "Evil Toy Of Doom" shtick.

Oh?






Reading: It's not for everyone, apparently.

So at first, you sought to discredit myself by faulting my lack of experience; then, when it became apparent I had such experience, you now accuse me of being indoctrinated. You seem strangely willing to appear inconsistent to discredit an opinion you already consider ludicrous.

And how was the Crucible achieved? By the efforts of man alone? No - it was a product of our desperate coordination with the other races of the universe. Only by the combined efforts of all was the completion of the Crucible made possible. God gave us the tools of our salvation, just as He provided the means of our extinction should we fail.

You said it yourself. The Crucible was activated, and it did nothing. The 'weapon' that was intended to destroy the Reapers seemingly had no effect whatsoever. But the Reapers withdrew all the same. The Crucible was not a weapon, but a test. By burying our discord and uniting with the other children of God, we succeeded in passing this test. We displayed the willingness to set aside our conflicts and embrace each other as equals. The very name 'crucible' is indicative of this.

And what became of Shepard? Surely no weapon would require the death of its user. The Citadel was unharmed by the activation of the Crucible. And yet she disappeared. She - the only one, as you say, capable of activating the Crucible - simply vanished. But surely this is a coincidence. Just as it is a coincidence that we discovered the Crucible in the hour of our need. Just as it is a coincidence that after it misfired, the Reapers retreated all the same. A string of coincidences, carefully concocted simply so you can deny the challenges to your view.

At least you embrace unity, even if it is for material reasons. Despite your comments, I am not blind to the suffering of the other races. When I speak of the children of God, I speak not of humanity, but all of His offspring, scattered throughout the universe. The solution is not to prepare ourselves for renewed war, but to consolidate the established peace. For if His instruments return once more, no number of Crucibles or Shepards would be sufficient to deny our collective extinction.

It certainly amazes me what people are willing to believe. How long until we get a raving Shepardite to come in and start ranting?

I seriously don't see the reason for all the hate. She clearly isn't blaming anyone, persecuting anyone and her view boils down to "All hail Shepard who brought us all together." Seems pretty harmless to me. Okay, the crap about Reapers being some sort of a test is utter xemnashit, but I guess you just can't have a perfect religion.

I watched husks tear several of my neighbors apart. Others they impaled on spikes for us to watch, and then sent their corpses puppeting back at us and forced me to shoot them. My son was killed defending Palaven from the Reapers, and untold billions more were killed, tortured, and scarred. No one escaped harm, not even the newborn and innocent.

If there is a God who condoned that; as punishment or test, I'll shoot him too.

Wow. And now you're just adding ignorance to the pile. Here's a fun fact from the Reaper War, though I'm amazed that you apparently have no knowledge of it: Reapers primarily attacked heavily-populated regions, because the high density allowed them to trap the greatest number of people for later harvesting. In these areas, SOP for the Resistance ops I was part of was to never, ever trust the locals, and avoid all contact if possible, because the chance that the civilians could be indoctrinated, and then betray your location to the Reapers, rose exponentially when entering metropolitan areas. Why? Constant Reaper presence, a complete absence of shielding, and desperatio. All of those make indoctrination that much easier.

So you do the math. You admitted to spending the entire war in a city that was attacked by Reapers, and now you're spouting worship for them. Plus, you can't even appreciate what you sound like to everyone else, and think everyone is just crazy, stupid, or blind.

You're an indoc. It's written on the fucking wall.

Case in point, you accuse me of seeing or 'concocting' a string of coincidences that led to our asses being pulled out of the fire, and assuming that to be the truth of the matter. But you're doing the exact same thing on the flip side. You're taking those coincidences and giving them underlying connections that don't exist. You're seeing this conspiracy or prophesy or whatever the fuck you're calling it because your mind is trying to fill in the blanks, creating connections where there aren't any, since it doesn't understand how this could all have come to pass without some higher influence.

So when I put it that way, whose explanation looks more contrived, hmm? Oh wait, but you can't understand where I'm coming from, because those whispers in your head won't let you.

Like you said, the Crucible united us, made us all work together for the sake of our collective survival. But it wouldn't be much of a crucible if God gave us the means to get through it, now would it? There's nothing impressive about using His tools to save ourselves, because that implies that we couldn't set aside our differences without His help. And now that the Reapers are gone, and there is no need for the Crucible, you expect people to simply be grateful for his 'lesson,' you naive idiot?


You have my condolences, friend, and you're right on the fucking money.

You're in the tiny, tiny minority here, indoc. Where you found something to get all breathless and hot over, most of us lost something or someone. You want fucking gratitude for God, for people to understand and be grateful for His plan? Why don't you go find those Sovereign Nation folks, then? I'm sure they'll welcome you with open arms, because I bet you'll have a lot in common.

Here's the sad, disappointing truth of it all, indoc. God doesn't get to chalk this one up on His scoreboard. Us mere mortals - both the ones who've been cold for millions of years, and the people of go-around - built the Crucible. We united for the sake of our survival, and bled and died to make sure it came to pass. We created the device, we found the plans, we built it, and we gathered the largest damned fleet in galactic history to see it to its target. And you ask why Shepard was the only one who could do it? Because we heard she was killed when trying to get to the Citadel, but just minutes later, it turned out she made it. Because she was the one to stop Saren and Sovereign. Because she went through hell to make that final attack happen. Because if anyone could make it to the Citadel, with Reapers dropping in all around her, it was Shepard. The best damn soldier in the galaxy, but a sinner and a flawed sapient, just like the rest of us, and fuck you you for perverting her name for you own madness.

Your God doesn't get to claim what she did. He doesn't get to claim what Anderson or Hackett did. He doesn't get to claim with any of us did. He tried to wipe us out, and we told him to fuck off, by the skin of out teeth. We didn't need him, or any of his plans or tools, because according to you, he stripped away what we cared about most just to teach us a fucking lesson about playing nice.

And you're wrong about the next time. When He sees fit to try and exterminate us again, we'll go a step further. Because we've proven that we don't need Him, or His judgement, and that we can stand united, but on our terms. So when He comes calling, and when He tries to burn us to the ground... Even if we all die, we'll drag Him down to hell with us.

We're just spiteful like that.

You do realize that by your logic, something like 90% of your species is indoctrinated, right?

You do know all them indoctrinated people died right?

Sssssshhhhhhh Palmer. She's clearly a zombie. DON'T TELL ANYONE IT'S A SECRET. (－ｏ⌒)

I find the misguided pride hilarious.