Which ending is the most morally correct?

Tyler on 6/9/2001 at 22:54

This os turning into an <IMG SRC="devil.gif" border="0"> thread... :(

[edit] I never knew if you put it :Ebil: it wouldn't work!! (darn caps!)

I STARTED A NEW PAGE!! COOL!

>>Tuler<<

[ September 06, 2001: Message edited by: Tuler ]

X on 8/9/2001 at 20:31

Heated if somewhat hostile discussion is better than conforming to a singular view. We are constructively arguing, not flaming each other.

Fone Bone 2001 on 13/10/2001 at 14:01

Well, the main thing I like about the Illuminati ending is the idea of guiding the world compassionately. However, the whole thing could become a tyranical dictatorship very easily. Besides, I'm not too fond of Morgan Everett after I found out he had no intention of reviving Lucius DeBeers - if you tell Lucius the truth, he says something like, "I just wanted one more taste of air" or something like that. Poor guy.

How about the new dark age? Well, the obvious good thing about this is complete freedom - also, we can start over and do everything right this time. Also, I really believe that you owe Tracer Tong for saving your life. He says something in the beginning like, "I fear that at the crucial moment I will lift up my hand to strike, and you will twist free of my grasp." However, is it really worth destroying civilization as we know it? And what if you don't get out of Area 51 in time, huh? It never really tells you if you do survive. Also, I would feel really, really bad about killing Helios. Helios is cool.

The last choice is, of course, to merge with Helios. The good part? Helios is free of human ambition and greed. It would rule justly with a zero possibility of prejudice or temptation. Also, because you are merging with it, it would have a great understanding of how humans think. What they want, and what they need. Remember what Helios says to you when you first enter Sector 3? "A corpse, yes. You feel something. I must know what you are feeling." Your human feelings, combined with Helios's reason could rule the world in the way it has never been ruled before. However, you really don't know what's on Helios's agenda. Somebody in this thread said that they have seen way too many movies about computers destroying the world and stuff. Plus, what about the loss of freedom? Plus, you don't get to kill Bob Page. . . which I really want to

All in all, I think the Helios ending is the best in theory.

However, the ending cutscene for the Illuminati ending is fantastic.

Tracer Tong's plan is fun to play, and I also like the concept behind it.

Which ending do I do? All of them, of course!

X on 13/10/2001 at 14:55

Indeed. One must pick all three endings at some point(or four depending on your pretention).

The morality of mass technological destruction is non existant. I raise the point again why should global society suffer for the infighting of Tong and Page? The Helios ending removes all control Denton may have, therefore we are left to a logical morality which can override benevolance.

Fone Bone 2001 on 16/10/2001 at 01:17

Quote:

Originally posted by nimbus:
I don't get the prize. But then again I have a fairly comprehensive understanding of philosophical ethics anyway :).

Anyway, though, I have quite a major problem with everybody's interpretation of the helios ending. Do you all really think that a program that reaches the sentient level is still naively oblivious to the concept of lying?

Picture this: so you're a computer, who has almost complete omniscence, access to all the information that you need to be completely powerful. Except no body, and you're quite vulnerable to this Bob page fellow and this tong guy who wants to wreck you completely. Are you concerned with peace and equity for these finicky humans anyway? What do they do for you, anyway?

Ah, but along comes this great guy. Not a middle-aged control freak with his own agenda, but a super-strong, deadly, and, oh yeah, innocent do-gooder who believes anything he's told, if you're "the good guy". What a great tool for you. Finally, you have freedom to protect yourself, and his ego won't get in the way either.

There's absolutely no reason whatsoever that helios would be telling the truth. And yet, like JC, most people blindly listen to whoever flatters their moral sensibilities the most ;).

That's the downside to the Helios ending. You don't really know what he's gonna do. The potential for peace, harmony, and overall goodness is the good side, the fact that you don't really know what will happen (Helios could be corrupt) is the bad part.

Fone Bone 2001 on 16/10/2001 at 01:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Kenzo Uji:
Peeps peeps please !!!
You can only actually shutdown the electronic spionage facility but you cannot cut away the Internet, there is no way to shut it down. Provided that there is no more central control, but the network is still there, the internet is not a star point topography system, with big center that routes everything, but a point to point topography and that make it's virtually unstoppable. Yes the centralized control is down, but not the local ones, those are easy to re-program. Hardly a couple of months.
So the third ending, ends with the master control, but does not plunge the humanity into the darkness (you wish).
Go and learn something about the internet, then tell me if i am right or not.


[ June 21, 2001: Message edited by: Kenzo Uji ]

Remember that Deus Ex takes place in 2054. Remember the Echelon project? The government's desperate attempts to monitor surveillance have resulted in the centralizing of the internet at Area 51.

Yes, you would plunge the world into a new dark age with this ending. Things in the future work differently. If Deus Ex were to happen today, you would be right, but remember what Tracer Tong says?

"Decades ago, the U.N. made Area 51 the central hub for all global communication networks."

Decades into the past from the year 2054 isn't exactly the year 2001.

"They dug their own grave, JC. We're going to eliminate global communications altogether."

PowerCrazy on 16/10/2001 at 22:47

Quote:

About the anti-matter explosion... In a nuclear explosion only a few molecules of matter are converted to energy. Given most of the energy of the explosion comes from the fusion of hydrogen atoms. But those reactors were quite large. lets say between them they only had 1 ton of antimatter in them. well using good ol' E=MC^2
(Energy = Mass * {the speed of light}^2) Mass is in grams. So 909.09kg (mass) * (3 * 10^8)^2 (Speed of Light squared) = 81800000000000000000 or 8.18 * 10^19 joules. Thats a FUCK load. I just looked it up. a kiloton yield from a nuclear device = 4.2 * 10^12 joules. so this explosion is about 19400000 times more powerful. or 19400 megatons. That is MASSIVE. the biggest nuclear device ever detonated was one by the Russians called the Monster it was only 50 megatons. so we are talking the entire united states/Canada/Mexico and maybe even Hawii. Either way the "New Dark Age" would just end all life on the planet. I'm going to go to the morally correct forum and post this stuff. oh and btw i got my numbers from a few books i've been reading, born secret, and the birth of the h-bomb. nothing classified...

Hopefully its pretty obvious by this that the New Dark Age would be a bad idea. Yes those are accurate calculations. I know my Shit.

Agent Monkeysee on 16/10/2001 at 23:03

During the development of bigger and better hydrogen bombs during the '50s, the scientists working on it discovered there is a physical limit to the size of a fusion explosion. Once you racket up to 100, 200, 1000, 10000 megatons you begin to get diminishing returns in terms of the actual radius of the explosion itself. I don't remember the exact numbers of this limit, but afterwards the heat and radiation emitted continues to increase but the fireball doesn't and the massive bomb essentially "punches a hole in the atmosphere" as the superheated cloud rises into orbit.

Whether this applies to antimatter reactions as well I wouldn't know (and I doubt anyone else would either at this point as antimatter explosive devices have never been constructed). But it suggests that the antimatter reactors would NOT take out a healthy portion of the western hemisphere. It WOULD make Nevada a rather unpleasant place to live for a long time, but I doubt this single explosion would seriously threaten life on the planet. Also keep in mind the explosion is deep underground so it will be somewhat muffled and contained by the earth's mass above it.

[ October 16, 2001: Message edited by: Agent Monkeysee ]

PowerCrazy on 21/10/2001 at 01:18

Well I know what you are talking about with Nuclear bombs. Dimenishing returns do occur, pretty soon in fact. However, I'm talking about the reaction between Matter and Anti-Matter. The current theory is that you will have 100% yield when matter and anti matter interact. Therefore 2 tons of anti matter will yield 4 tons of explosive energy. (whatever E=MC^2 says when you put 4 tons in for mass, remember the M is in Kilograms.) So in an Anti-Matter explosion you shouldn't have any dimenishing returns. And even if sector 4 is a Mile underground... We are talking about an almost unfatomable amount of energy released. 19400 times a one megaton blast... or something I don't remeber what i calculated.

Agent Monkeysee on 21/10/2001 at 02:05

Yes but it seems to me once the reaction begins the remaining reactant (the matter and antimatter) would, much like in a nuclear explosion, not only get blasted away from the reaction point, so they wouldn't be able to react with each other, but a lot of it would be stripped to a sub-atomic particle state by the energy of the initial reaction. Antimatter in dispersed particle form is not as deadly, in fact it's created all the time in particle accelerator collisions and the particles generally decay rapidly. I imagine something like this may occur here, so I don't think you would get 100% yield, although you would probably get a larger yield than any nuclear weapon is capable of.