I Am Not Qualified To Answer The Krogan Question | Castle Super Beast Clips
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- Опубликовано: 16 ноя 2024
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You can listen to the full podcast on: Our site: www.castlesuper... ITunes: tinyurl.com/CS... (iTunes) Soundcloud” / castlesuperbeast … As well as Spotify, Google Podcasts, & Stitcher! You can watch us record live each week at / castlesuperbeast Hope you enjoy these moments from the show! For those wondering about full episodes, unfortunately, posting them in full to RUclips would hurt not only the audio podcast itself but also this channel directly in a not insignificant way. For the full podcast, please play or download it, or watch our full video archives on twitch.
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*The "Eyes of Hate" is a famous photograph of Woolie Madden on the White House lawn glaring at the camera with pure malice and disgust in his eyes seconds after being informed his photographer was Batarian. Prior to this, he was reportedly extremely friendly to the photographer, smiling and laughing in all his photos.*
@@LockjawGael "It smell like Batussy in here!"
This comment is powerful
Oh Goebbels...
Hey, they started the war, Brudda!
@@BTM8109 waiting on the Wakka edit of the picture, somebody be a hero
Pat's part near the end is perfectly encapsulated with a meme image
"It's a bit fucked that you killed 305,942 Batarians, Shep. But we understand you had to delay the Reapers."
"Reapers?"
God it sucks they didn't do more qith thhat. Have that be the centrepiece of Sheps trial at the begining and have a batarian squadmate that deapises you for it. Maybe perpectives shift as the war goes on and people see what shep was stopping from occuring for another year.
@@danielyoung6778 The problem was Arrival was paid DLC, so they couldn't do that without a potentially (massively) confusing scene if you hadn't played Arrival. That's why the trial is just vaguely, and kinda lamely, accusing Shepard of working with Cerberus instead of the Relay destruction if you never played it. I agree that's what they should have done, but they shot themselves in the foot on this because of the marketing model that DLC created. They split the fanbase like old CoD map packs splitting population in-game, and it's a single player game
@@pierakor Indeed! I played through the trilogy several times, but didn't buy the DLC. My only knowledge of Arrival was watching it on stream.
@@pierakor Same happened with Javik, originally not only was he an important part of the plot, he was supposed to be the Catalyst. Not in the way we know, but someone who was essential to make the Crucible work.
Arrival was the worst Mass Effect DLC by a wide margin. It had so many plot holes and inconsistencies that it would have been a mess to incorporate it into the next game in a meaningful way. I'm glad they didn't.
The genophage question in regards to Mordin isn’t a question about genocide. It’s about personal responsibility for genocide.
The STG and Council would want the Genophage recreated regardless. Mordin’s dilemma is whether he should take personal responsibility for the horrors inflicted. He eventually comes to the conclusion that any other person could be appointed to his position, and it’s important that he remain in the program and ensure the genophage doesn’t do something bad like make all Krogan sterile or something, or fail and cause a population boom that convinces the galaxy to wipe the Krogan out for good.
“It had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.”
100%
I think one piece of nuance that is missed a lot in this discussion is that even in present-day, the Krogan being wiped out is still the inevitable outcome. The necessary condition for relaxing or curing the genophage is the Krogan evolving socially to a point where they can exist as a unified member of galactic society without trying to kill each other and take over the galaxy. Wrex is working on that, but until there are a few generation of stable rule, all evidence and the perfect sci-fi simulations all say it's genocide or genophage.
If you understand that detail, then I think it becomes more clear that it's more of a personal dilemma for Mordin. As fucked as the genophage is, we know for a FACT (due to perfect sci-fi science and technology) that the alternative is genocide. I feel it's fairly obvious that almost anything is preferable to the Krogan going the way of the Rachni, so really there isn't even much of a debate to be had about the morality of the genophage itself.
man I miss Mordin
Thinking too deep is hard for Woolie, after all he just learned to read recently
this something very important & missing from Pat's reading of Mordin.
It's not as if Mordin refused to take the job the problem goes away.
The Salarian government is both ashamed, is aware that they are held responsible for unleashing Krogan by the other races, & understands the Krogan our not be thrilled by anything they do.
"Had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong"
-Admiral Madden, overseeing the glassing of Bateria
Did you mean Khar’shan?
Space-Headline: admiral madden caught selling batarian meat to several star ports, including establishments in the citadel.
He was noted as saying, when arrested that “it was worth it, and now we can address the reapers with a full stomach and clear mind”
Woolie-Avatar: "Yeah, I know about the two Genophages..."
Pat-Bumi: "Well actually there are eighty-five Genophages, but let's focus on the third..."
Huh, Pat is balding (and crazy) enough to be Bumi.
Avatarlington and Pumi, imo
Wait they reupped on the genophage 85 times!? Lol
"I am not qualified to Answer the Krogan Question" is a good title given Mordin's line; "Had to be me. Someone else would have gotten it wrong."
I kinda hope Woolie keeps going renegade on this issue so he gets Mordin’s Angry version of this quote for his first playthrough in 3.
@@cbhensoncbhenson5515 I play mostly paragon through ME3 because renegade can be miserable in that game, but on that quest I always start renegade/keep my options open and don't mention the Dalatrass' deal. The scene is so much cooler if Shepard is going to take the deal and Mordin talks them down/convinces you to go back to paragon. Him shouting "I made a mistake!" gets me every time.
@@cbhensoncbhenson5515 he may not do it but it for sure needs to be in an EX episode
Woolie would have rolled up and just started stomping eggs. I AM THE GENOPHAGE NOW
@@Weltallgaia The Rage of Genophage
Source on Krogan pulling Colony Drops - ME1 Codex > Aliens: Non-Council Races > Krogan: Krogan Rebellions
- ... "Being on the far side of Krogan space from the Council, the turians advanced rapidly into the lightly-dfended Krogan rear areas. The Krogan responded by dropping space stations and asteroids onto turian colonies. Three words were rendered completely uninhabitable."
I can feel the amount of giddiness radiating off of Pat, who knows full-well what happens but is unable to delve any further
Pat makes an excellent point about the batarians. 3 would have been the perfect opportunity to dive into that. Maybe have a batarian squad mate that can explain things, especially how their homeworld is forever fucked and they're an endangered species now? The codex even explains that most batarians never leave the homeworld and are subjects to their horribly shitty government, like there was potential to turn it around and make it so they're not just the "species you can hate without question"
ME 2 was supposed to originally have a Batarian engineer but Tali was a better fit and there didn’t need to be 2 engineers.
@@23kurtzy I feel like Zaeed should've been a batarian.
Considering his entire deal is "I'm a grizzled old veteran deep in the galactic underworld", it would perhaps make more sense for it to be any race OTHER than human, considering First Contact is barely 50 years and Zaeed is pushing 60.
@@Terramagu First contact should simply have been longer ago. People talk about the first contact war in the same way we refer to WW2, so making it 70 or 80 years before the first game would have been a much better fit.
In Woolie's defense, his argument of "I'm going to trust Mordin's judgement, because Mordin has studied this stuff and I haven't" makes a ton of sense OUTSIDE of a video game where the galaxy revolves around a single handsome man's decisions. WITHIN that context, though, the game's simply going, "What do YOU think is right, handsome video game player with modern sensibilities?" and Woolie is just massively overthinking it.
Right before the choice Mordin also says that while the data is potentially dangerous, it's still valuable to keep around. He even says if you keep it that it's better to have it and not use it then not have it at all.
@@Aregulargameplayer Yeah his argument there doesn't even hold up especially. By his own logic, keeping the data was better. He sets up this entire platform for why he should keep the data, and then proceeds to say it validates him /not/ keeping the data. I just don't get it lol.
@@dancinginfernal this isn't exactly the first time woolies talked himself into a bad idea. Both he and pat have brain worms. Pats is just overtly neurotic. Woolie is very good at twisting himself in circles until he doesn't know where he started
@@Aregulargameplayer plus, the subjects are already dead, why just flat out delete it and "erase" that sacrifice? You can use their data while still honoring the sacrifice attributed to it.
@@dancinginfernal I thought Mordin is just really conflicted and ultimately is swayed by whatever the player argues for.
I hope Woolie sees this, because there is one factor that Morddin brings up that Woolie glossed over when it comes to the simulations that the Salarians were running. The reason that war with the Krogan was inevitable is that they are fragmented, and DONT have a unified culture. To quote him directly "All noted Krogan fragmentation as dangerous. No unified culture to support re-population". Wrex is currently working on creating a unified culture for the Krogan. Whether or not he will or even can succeed is a different matter to consider of course, but Wrex's existence is the strongest argument for undoing the genophage.
I understand the whole thrust of the Mass Effect games is letting you make choices, but I think anyone who chooses to kill Wrex in ME1 should have their game taken away.
So you mean to tell me that the sole reason and strongest argument for undoing the genophage could just easily be killed in the first game cause of differing opinions and hot tempers?
@@TheSergio1021 ...yes...Well not sole reason, just strongest. Its still really fucked up and unethical, but without Wrex, undoing the genophage has a pretty high chance of just causing history to repeat, especially under a clan like the one that was allowing these experiments to happen.
@@trouty606 To be fair, not everyone chose to kill Wrex.
Sometimes, a certain character makes the choice for you because you weren't Chad or Sigma enough to talk Wrex down, or you weren't a good enough friend to get his granddad's cosplay back from a Turian collector.
@@Anime-Doof lol I've never heard the paragade system described as chad and sigma. Which one is which?
Gotta love how Woolie always overthinks himself into corners he wasn't meant to be stuck at.
He's the king at overthinking about solutions, or problems. Sometimes to a frustrating degree, at this point it's just something I watch to see his reaction of how once again he overthought something but what I do not like is when he takes it personally when chat is just poking fun at him. Woolie made a career of being the butt end of a joke but now he's too cool to laugh at himself? That's when I don't like his overthinking. When he can see he was wrong and laugh too? That's the best Woolie.
He’s got QA brain even when it comes to writing.
How dare he think about this art trying to tell him to think.
@@Horatio787 thinking's great! we're not talking about regular thinking though.
@@Horatio787 There's a difference between think about this for a minute and Woolie's passive skill of "turn that minute into an hour".
I know people already said it, but i'll repeat it: Okir wasn't trying to cure the genophage. He wanted to have a "pure" krogan with no "imperfection". Then, those "pure" krogan would just overpower the galaxy by their own strength.
Grunt still have the genophage. But has Okir said, he doesn't care. The important part of a krogan, for him, is his strength.
The title of the episode phrased it best. Okir wanted to Tank the genophage, not cure it. All krogan would still have it, but they'd be tough enough to ignore the genophage. Gosh woolie throws me for a loop sometimes holy fuck. Does he actually love racism?
@@pirateking56128 I know it's kind of the joke in his playthrough but sometimes I guess he forgot Cerberus is litteraly the space KKK ^^.
Well... To be fair, the game do a good job covering that fact.
@@SiegahertzCarmin Kelly literally compares loving a dog or cat to being able to think fondly of aliens. To her, at least in ME2, and the higher-ups at Cerb, Aliens are less than human. Not living, sapient, intelligent and capable of complex reasoning and thought people.
@@pirateking56128 No, he just loves how stupid it can get and how dipshits expose themselves
@@pirateking56128 he does. i don't think Woolie's actually racist, but he loves racism SO much that he loves pretending to be racist. which i don't know it that's worse or not.
Woolie is seeing why people fell in love with mass effect
the true mass effect was the morally ambiguous decisions we made along the way
Yeah we all love Mass Effect ..... until the point andromeda came out (good thing i didnt buy it :D) sadly Bioware became a Husk of itself and theyre Overlord EA may soon kill them out of *lack* *of* *performance* . (fuck EA btw).
Never seen a podcast title give me more of an "Oh boy." feeling more.
*sees title with racial/genocidal theme*
*sees HOUR PLUS timestamp*
*SEES WOOLIE MADDEN*
O H B O Y
You forget that the Krogan also live for well over 1000 years, to many of the Krogan the genophage did occur within their lifetimes.
Pretty sure Woolie's thoughts on the genophage would be entirely different, if you replaced the words "krogan baby genocide" with "batarian baby genocide".
I mean isn't the true for everyone? Krogans have value as individuals and as a culture.
Well the Batarians actually deserve a good genociding or two.
To see the man that gorged himself on the double standards of "Krogans are cool" vs "kill all Batarians"... to then turn around and decide to instead gorge himself on the thousands of krogan stillbirth corpses...
Amazing.
I expected nothing less from Woolie.
An amazing twist not even shamalan could expect
I don't see how these are mutually exclusive. You can like Krogans but still agree with the genophage. They are fictional beings and constantly demonstrated to be conflict craving borderline psychos. They are cool from a juvenile power fantasy perspective, but a society with the collective personality of a rabid hyena is probably not great for the larger galactic neighborhood.
What else could you possibly expect from Mr. Woolie "I will betray the entire human race for a jetpack" Madden?
@@matrix3509 In-universe, Woolie would've joined the Andromeda Initiative.
“When you try and commit omnicide on a planet with asteroids and moons, you have to go!” - Woolie on Batarians who attempted to do what Krogan have done many times successfully in the Krogan rebellions
The batarians are assholes for attempting to send an asteroid into a planet, but the krogan are super cool for actually doing it.
I think it should be stated that the alternative to the genophage was not simply the genocide of the krogan. it would have been a long war between two warrior races that don't understand the concepts of war crimes or surrender. the turians, and their council allies, would have also suffered tremendous losses. it's also entirely possible that the krogan could have won the war and conquered citadel space.
i always felt like the implied victor without the genophage would be the krogans, like the whole they reproduce too fast and they live longer than almost everyone means that if it was a war of attrition krogans could not lose at all, like every loss for the council and turians is a tragedy, every loss for the krogans is almost not even a setback
This might not have been the case during the original rebellion, but in the present, Mordin says that the Krogan would wipe themselves out anyway even if they won. They're fractured without a central government, and it would just be Tuchanka again but on a galactic scale. That's why he says they need to be unified for the end result to change and for him to feel comfortable lifting the genophage.
@@TheBackwardsLegsMan wipe themselves out?? Uh yeah id agree if the log entries can be considered trustworthy. As soon as they got ballistic weapons it was the #1 cause of death, and also, with no option B planet they glassed their own planet... I wonder just how scary those Hives were..
@@RedThebaron97
They are also way more hardy that you NEED to headshot them to bring them down consistently and their war tactics of using meteors to crack planets would mean the Council would need to bring out the big guns and just throw everything they had at em.
The standard CSB discussion, first-third serious conversation, second-third angry counter argument, last-third hysterical extremes
Best discussion structure
Grand Wizard Wakka approves this indecisive, indirect support of his Al Bhed eugenics project.
As someone with disabilities from a family with a history of disabilities, members of my family have been subject to forced sterilisation-- Including my mother; The fact that I exist is because someone fucked up the sterilisation and left enough shit intact that I could be made. This type of eugenics shit is still happening, so while I definitely appreciate the mention of Tuskeegee and the Japanese Unit 351 shit, it's also worth mentioning that this entire ethical conversation is still very much relevant in every country you can think of.
The USA sterilised disabled children with experimental radium back in the 1950s, etc. there are so many examples. (Seriously, look up "radioactive oatmeal disabled children USA" and then never sleep again.) Plus the many one-off cases, like my mother's, where a doctor just decided they didn't want a disabled woman to make more disabled people so attempt to under-the-table sterilise someone, or tell them they're infertile and it's best to have a hysterectomy/vasectomy for whatever bullshit reason-- Basically, lying about it. This happens way more often than anyone realises. I truly feel for the Krogans.
We had this Spiel already in another comment section: An uncontrolled birth rate of disabled people will not lead to an alien invasion that eradicates all life on the planet. It would simply lead to more lives being born.
Your case and example is incredibly messed up. But it doesn't apply to a violence race of angry lizard super-aliens who are incapable of making peace.
Woolie actually did read the codex entry about Krogan asteroid drops, but misinterpreted it as the Turians doing it to them.
Yeah, they Krogans are not victims.
Oh boy, now that Mordin's won Woolie over, his mission in ME3 can't come soon enough
Here is what I think Woolie and Pat are missing here. The Genophage is still within living memory of the Krogan. That wound is still raw. If you remove it NOW, you end up with an aggreived and aggressive people suddenly returning back to strength and out for revenge. The war that would follow would be Krogan Rebellions 2: Electric Boogaloo - Now it's personal.
Mordin often said that krogan were not ready and I think he was right in that regard. Removing it gradually after they have reunified under someone like Wrex is what I feel Mordin was angling for but that wasn't the situation he was tasking with re-adjusting.
To add to this discussion: If Wrex is dead and Wreav is in charge, Wreav wants revenge on the galaxy (Turians and Salarians especially). A cured genophage with Wreav in charge would lead to Krogan Rebellions 2, as hinted in a Mass Effect 3 ending slide. Further, Okeer mentions that each Krogan child is now branded as "precious", indicating that Krogan attitudes towards children are changing, meaning that given enough generations, Krogan society and attitudes could theoretically shift to something less aggressive or violent (for Krogan at least).
@@RedCaesar97
Hell, you see that even more in overhearing one of Wrex's guards talk about spending time with his son on a hunting trip. It was an emotional experience for him and he ends up reinforcing his want to stay in clan Urgnot and make a better world for his kid.
Fav part is when Mordin basically has the rebuttal to Shepard: "Curious you want to change society, yet you live in a society, Shepard."
"I am very intelligent"
“Societies are structural weaknesses.”
"You participate in society entirely too much, and do entirely too little to change it for someone who professes to be dissatisfied with its state."
How to live in denial of your bystander syndrome 101
@@defenestrationismyfavoriteword I mean that implies you would have helped someone if others weren’t around
When Wrex inevitably calls Woolie out for deciding the future of his race for him will Woolie demote Wrex to a 'Carth?'
Probably. Woolie is very 'you're cool until you call me out, then you're my blood enemy.'
Alls I’m gonna say is, very funny hearing woolie and Pat go into historical parallels of the genophage to real life and go to Tuskegee and Hiroshima but somehow misses the elephant in the room that is the sterilization of natives that the games even calls direct attention to when the krogan home planet is named after the Lakota word for Buffalo.
That...was a thing?
@@leithaziz2716 shit lasted well into the 70’s without the women’s consent or knowledge in most instances and Canada got mad crazy with that shit Canada really does not like their natives
@@leithaziz2716 You didn't know?!?
That's a reach, the Lakota word for buffalo is Tatanka.
In Russian, where most of the culture's inspiration came from, to the point that their Mercury is directly translated from "fool", a Tachanka is a horse-drawn cart with a machine gun strapped to it.
@@Stormfin Is it a reach, or are you just short-sighted?
It’s interesting how non optimistic Woolie’s take is.
Genphage= slow genocide
No phage= war->genocide
It seems he got very caught up in the “why it happened in the first place” problem, when alot of the time things in war, instant responses, do or die (perceived or real), just happen and questions are asked later.
I mean they were already at war and losing. The theory was that the war would continue to escalate into a racial genocide on either side
@@TheAsaoirc right
@@TheAsaoirc And even then, alternative means were possible without completely culturally demolishing and nearly genociding a society from a point of innocence. "They reproduce too fast, so we should kill all their children instead of just finding a means to kill the warrior caste or something."
Pat linking it to the atomic bomb is apt, because the US didn't need to target civilian centers to demonstrate the power. They chose to do a war crime, twice, instead of hitting military targets. Or just not dropping the bomb at all. Any number of possible solutions could have been divined, it's never a black/white choice in these situations, but in the post-scape people are eager to paint the situation that way. Always in search of a "better evil," that never exists.
Don't see any other way to view it from the Salarian/Alliance perspective.
They were getting wreaked by the Krogun via conventional war, so it was always going to either be a question of allowing themselves to be Genocided (remember Krogun were culturally and technologically still Medieval when aliens just gave them guns and starships) or commit a warcrime. Either they unleashed a total genocide plauge or the genophage.
Woolie is overthinking the decision being made at the end of Mordin's mission. Keeping the data is for Mordin to maybe one day think about curing the genophage using Maelon's data, in the context of ME 2 as a story with this as an arc. it's about what your Shep says is right so you can feel good.
Granted, it's not Woolie's fault for assuming Bioware would have more complicated writing than Good choice and Bad choice
@@SciontheDark I mean, it kind of is Woolie’s fault since there are several options that clearly state the data could be held onto even if it’s never used. Hell, even Mordin says it at the end
For me it was a pretty simple matter when I first played through this years and years ago. The data itself isn't ethical or unethical, it's just objective information. Information that is a huge head-start on a cure for the genophage. What's been done to the test subjects is abhorrent, but it's too late to save them. It's not too late, however, to save countless others with that objective information that has been gathered. It's not even an uncertainty that a cure could come from the data, Maelon was almost there. So you punish the bad guy for doing the bad things, but you don't throw away that information since given time it WILL lead to a cure. As Mordin says if you choose to keep the data...
(paraphrased)
Shepard: "If we use that data we're condoning the kind of work Maelon was doing."
Mordin: "There's always going to be unethical scientists doing unethical science, keeping this data won't change that."
But above all else there was the notion of "If we destroy this data then every Krogan in this base submitted themselves to those horrific, torturous experiments for absolutely no reason." I'd argue that'd be just as much of a travesty as what Maelon was doing.
Fun Fact: a LOT of modern medical science is built off "mad doctor's" doing seriously fucked up experiments on people.
The other important difference between the atom bomb and genophage was the rebuilding effort afterwards. Meanwhile the council in mass effect kinda just left the Krogan to collapse into anarchy. If they spent the last 300 years helping the Krogan integrate into galactic society there wouldn’t be a purpose for the genophage.
In addition an interesting dynamic is that the salarians originally developed the genophage as a deterrent to bring about negotiations and it was the turians who decided to use it in a weaponized form
There is always the possibility some tried, and Krogan pride lead to them violently reacting to those efforts.
@@werwolfnate maybe, but there is certainly no evidence of it and I feel like there would be multiple female clans willing to get help from the council especially if a cure was on the table.
In that sense, the genophage is much like the Korean War and its aftermath. Just ruining a people, then establishing a demilitarized zone around them, and essentially telling them to go fuck themselves.
Taking this line of comparison to its natural conclusion, it comes across as a pretty biting condemnation of the idea of armistices, as opposed to just fighting until unconditional surrender of one side or the other.
This, absolutely. Post WWII the allies understood the vital importance of making sure your defeated enemy doesn't hold it against you, on account of them not understanding it post WWI.
It always gets me when people go into this, from what the games have shown us the vast majority of the Krogan have Zero interest in integration, all they want to do is kill everything and then each other. All attempts at either overcoming or curing the genophage were performed by people who wanted to build armies, the Krogan seem ill suited to anything but war.
If you remember the ME1 codec the krogan had LITERALLY nuked themselves to near extinction when the council races found them.
I'm not saying it would never work, but it would be a hell of a gamble to try.
Watching Woolie moralize about how bad the genophage is right up until the exact moment the game put the decision to him specifically was peak content. I'm unironically glad he made this decision and can't wait to continue the discussion into ME3 and see where it goes.
It reminded me of how Pat ended his run of the trilogy. Picking Destroy after he spent three games ranting against any character with a whiff of anti-AI sentiment, palling with the Geth, clowning on Tali and her people. All that so at the very end, "We can just build more of 'em."
@@JoseRS1186 If you thought Pat had Morals or Ethics, he constantly loves to remind us, he doesn't.
He likes to litter.
Not out of convenience.
To spite everyone else.
@@UnlimitedBick All those destroyed sapient machines would make a whole lot of space litter.
@@JoseRS1186 the reapers would want you to pick control too, husk
I'm not particularly happy about it, cause Eve dies due to this.
I wonder how different Woolie’s opinion on the genophage would be if he met Wreav instead of Wrex.
I still don't get the "I thought one choice would lead to the genocide of all krogans".
Like how? Even if they would risk another war against the council after what happened, it's not like krogans go from babies to full warriors in a year or that suddenly the krogans build an fleet that can rival the turians hidden and with no repercussions. It's decades of possible diplomacy trying to reach a peaceful resolution in which the salarians could just revert or even make another biochemical response.
Deleting the date as well makes no sense since WHO could steal data from Mordin, a STG and apply it when no one besides 2 people in that room and the krogans themselves are the only ones who may want to cure it?
I wonder if this was one of those scenarios where, no matter what choice Woolie made, Pat would've called him a monster.
Of course it is, do you really think Pat would have done it otherwise?
Pat has always been up his own ass about a lot of stuff
This is also, naturally, the case for the replies years later, when the iron is ice cold.
Mordin did something horrible, but he did it ethically. Maelon wanted to do something ethical, and he did it horribly.
Woolie always has this odd habit of overthinking every situation, yet somehow coming to the outcome as if he hadn't given it any thought at all.
Pat was never the only stand user in Canada
Stand users are often attracted to one another
Oh-my-god. Woolie took ruthless! If he took war hero he would have discovered the blitz was not just batarians it was some turians too. The head of that operation was a turian.
The mission you're thinking of wasn't locked to background. In fact, Reggie completed that one.
@@MrZathos He took ruthless. That military background doesn't reveal who was behind the blitz.
Reggie did the suicide attempt at the citidal
Reggie took survivor.
@@damonsghost9235 He didn't, that was only in the compilation of "missed/alternate" content. Reggie into the blitz Turian and took him down.
@@hassanico9999 The bomb in the cave?
UNC: Espionage Probe?
Sole survivor gives UNC: Dead Scientists.
Go back to mass effect playthrough video 1: my name is red Shepard. Watch Reggie pick "sole survivor" at 11:28.
@@hassanico9999 ok so wiki's say non of the missions are locked but the background affects what the antagonist say. So it's possible you only get the dialogue about the blitz from Haliat.
To be fair to Woolie the Turian and Salarians certainly talk like they will have to exterminate the Krogans if the genophage does not stick.
The implication being that the sheer scale and horror of the Krogan Rebellions traumatized the survivors of the war so *thoroughly* that even some nigh 2000 years later these societies are still deeply scarred and thanking their respective pantheons that the Genophage is holding the Krogans back from starting Round 2.
It's explicitly stated that the end result is still genocide. The only way for the Krogan to not be wiped out like the Rachni and have their birth rate restored is if they can unify as a species and integrate into galactic society. The simulations Mordin talks about are not the original ones from 2000 years ago. They're the ones they ran when they decided to reup the genocide. The Krogan are still fractured, so the inevitable result is still them trying to take over the galaxy as several hyper aggressive factions. Wrex is working on it, but until there are a few generations of stable rule, the simulations (the perfectly accurate sci-fi simulations) are clear that it's still a doomsday scenario for the Krogan. It's not just trauma from them crashing moons into colony planets 2000 years ago, the data still says the Krogan are fucked if their birth rate recovers.
@@TheBackwardsLegsMan but Mordin admitted that they made a mistake and lost sight of a lot of important information
@@music79075 The 'mistake' he's referring to is not considering all the factors when developing the genophage, not the genophage itself. The cultural stagnation and the impact of Krogan society and culture is what they didn't consider, but he never says the simulations were wrong. He was very explicit that they only ever resulted in Krogan going on a rampage, and the humans/turians being forced to wipe them out completely. He also says he would have argued against the genophage had he been there originally, but as it stands the outcome is clear - without a unified population the Krogan are doomed. He's not okay with the nihilistic warrior culture it created, but he also sees that they can't really fix it now. Unless the Krogan are unified, anyway.
The is the biggest Wooliesplain cope segment since his pc controller preference.
maybe. but you use the word "cope" that way so...
Christ, I love the word cope being used as itself, cope. The circle is complete.
After listening to this on the podcast, I thought we were just gonna call this segment "Woolie, pt. 2" because only one man can take more than an hour to explain why he LP taxed his way into being convinced to genophage more instead of just going, "Wasn't it literally either kill them all or let them die out? No, my bad.".
i find the two piles of bodies paradigm strange, cause the pile of krogan soldier bodies comes with the bodies of every other race as well. the issue is not just limited to the krogan
don't tell anyone, there were piles of every other race down the other path too. congrats, you've taken a bunch of people you uplifted explicitly to be soldiers and taken away all their hope for the future. the fancy pop-psych term for what follows is 'death drive', and the action movies Mass Effect is taking a lot of its inspiration from calls it "having nothing left to lose." the Krogan have been a cheap, readily accessible source of massive collateral damage for the last couple hundred years, because your average Krogan is not looking to get paid, he's looking to get killed and bring a lot of other fuckers down with him. the money is just a way of hurting the people dumb enough to give them jobs that don't kill them.
Yeah, that's what they said. The thing was though Pat did Pat things trying to get more of an argument out of Woolie to think about is then making the numbers of the cultural effect of that many babies not being born and then going into the allegory part. He's hyper focusing Woolie and warping his rather balanced response to it.
@@xalrath oh yeah it sucks, but pretending a race with a collossal axe to grind once given there ability to make war would not try to make war again? its the outcome we have seen throughout our own history. there are also a few krogan we see thoughout the games that are trying to change there races future (for better or worse), and some like wrex who had the right idea a long time ago. when wrex was jumped by his father he had other krogan who believed in him. socially fucked beyond belief, but i dont think there was no chance.
Mordin is literally Doctor Strange from Infinity War. Well written character that takes a utilitarian approach when he can’t save lives.
Yes what does that have to do with my comparison (no snark in my tone)?
@Justahuman You realize the Marvel Cinematic Universe is based on comic books that have existed for decades before Bioware even existed as a company?
@Justahuman two characters can have similarities irrespective of when they were written
They aren't saying Mordin was based on Strange, they're just comparing their motivations
Boy, woolie's overthinking of the line maelon gives of "Eh, whatever about urdnot." (because behind the scenes, we can't account for Wrex being alive or dead!) Translating in his head to Wrex cheering him on, "Yeah Shepard, delete that shitty cure!" Is wild.
What Pat and Woolie (More Pat, given Woolie is still mid games) skim over is that if the cure for the genophage was given as the events of 2 were unfolding, it would be absolute chaos, the only reason it can work in 3 is because by then the clans have been all united under one ruler (ideally Wrex) which can enforce strict rules over the rest when it comes to reproduction. IF the cure was developed during the events of 2 and then distributed to pretty much all clans but Urdnot you'd have an explosion in birthrates, subsequent infighting between the clans which Wrex would not be able to win, and then the krogan race at its weakest point having to face the reapers.
That's not to say the genophage as a whole couldn't have been handled better, after all as messed up as it is they might as well have doubled down back then and start controlling the krogans culturally as well just to avoid the doomer cult that developed as a result of it.
I think the problem is they aren't understanding that Mordin's simulations were done in present day. He even explicitly mentions them pointing to a joint effort by humans and turians to wipe the krogan out. The culture leads to the krogan either being wiped out by the Council, or them conquering the galaxy before wiping themselves out due to infighting. Even with Wrex unifying them, he's one anti-material rifle round to the head from the entire thing falling apart and a power struggle fracturing the krogan again. It would take years and many successive rulers maintaining the status quo before it would be reasonably safe to relax the genophage.
Yeeeeah it's the whole thing. A whole third of the podcast about woolie talking about how much he hates krogan babies
Completely played that segment from Shepard's perspective of being stuck with Cerberus as the only way to fight the reapers. The council isn't acting on it, and as far as Shepard is concerned the Alliance isn't doing anything to prepare. The only krogan who believes Shepard about the Reapers is on Tuchanka in charge. Didn't care about the ethics of the genophage (right or wrong, it happened), didn't care about the fact that Wrex didn't approve of Maelon's intentions. Only cared about the fact that the Reapers are coming, and no currently known way to deal with an incoming war of that magnitude.
Didn't think too much about the answer to the krogan question because of how dire the incoming situation was going to be.
That was my reasoning as well, "winter is coming" and all that. Why woudn't I try to get on the good side of the biggest badasses of the universe, specially since the council just flipped me off?
39:57 it actually wouldn’t take that long for the Krogan to catch up. In this hypothetical where the Genophage is cured completely, the krogan population would absolutely boom out of control since each female can produce around 1000 eggs a year.
I can’t find what % of the population is female, but the total krogan population was about 2.1 billion. Let’s lowball it and say that 1/3 of the current krogan population is female and 50% of those are in the age range to have children. While more would definitely want to, for the sake of argument let’s say that 50% of those in the age range even WANT to have kids. (So 1/12 of the total population or 175 million).
Even after those limitations, if each of those krogan laid the max amount of eggs, the population would shoot to 175 BILLION in one year. That’s 83 times the total current population.
Let’s go further and examine if they don’t lay the max amount of eggs. We aren’t told how many eggs they lay at a time, but to reach 1000 a year, that’s about 83 a month. Let’s again lowball it and say 50 eggs are laid at a time. If they only lay that 1 group of eggs over the year, that’s still a population boom of 8.75 billion in one year.
Going EVEN FURTHER! Let’s absolutely lowball our limited female population to only 2 eggs in a year. That would result in 350 million new krogan. That’s 2.5 times humanity’s current birth rate of 140 million babies a year.
Even after all of this, we haven’t even begun to discuss the fact that the krogan can live for centuries.
I still think the genophage is wrong, but I completely see why the Council would look at those numbers and make the decision they did.
Sure, though that still doesn't justify what Mordinn was doing, where even as the Krogans were naturally becoming able to just not DIE OUT from their low birth rate, he continued to constantly reinforce the Genophage. Like Pat said, the conditions of the past were extremely different from now and the lives of the Krogan people are too valuable to snuff out due to improper estimates.
@@BonnieBoestar Here the thing. They would not be dying out if just pull back from their warrior culture bullshit Because that culture is born from the fact Krogan lives are cheap to survive is to be aggressive. They do not need to do that anymore with space travel they can live somewhere else. But they chose not to, and it is worst Wrex dies without creating a culture like he is doing in ME2 and 3 because Wreav wants to do Krogan rebellion II. Which just Proves Mordin right. People do not get Wrex opening dialog were he is mad that people don't deal with the genophage in any way and just went on a death march. Salarians made the knife Turians stabbed the krogans but the Krogans are dragging the knife through their own body.
I didn't read all the math. But if the rate has been 1/1000 for hundreds of years, with thier population decreasing the number of females. Wouldnt those insane sounding numbers be just be barley scrapping the rate that they were at pre genophage/during the rebellion? And thats just the rate, the actual population would take a while.
No, the Genophage was morally right. The Krogan were never going to stop. It was morally justified just as the crusades were. The Krogan were given planets, they were even honored and given respect. It wasn't enough. They even started using METOERS to slam into the planets. The genophage merely stopped the nervous system from forming, meaning there was no life to begin with with the fetuses. No sympathy for the Krogan.
Part of the gimmick with Salarians, and specifically Mordin, is that they're purely numbers and information. They're so used to that being the end all be all to everything, that they're kinda super disconnected to everything beyond that.
Mordin LITERALLY expressed a wish to learn about culture. Or are you forgetting his little performance he goes into when you talk to him and he starts performing a song? Or the part where he brings up what the Salarin's of the time failed to put in the numbers FOR a cultural impact?
@@RavenCloak13 Mordin straight up admits that he made a mistake, that he didn’t account for the cultural and psychological impacts of the Genophage. That he was “hiding behind statistics” (his own words)
@@NeoCreo1
Okay, you do know he didn't make it right? Just reup it. He also states he couldn't just let the Krogan's gain their normal breeding ability as well went on to take on cultural hobbies to learn better about emotional impact of things.
I still believe the genophage was necessary. I think towards the end of the krogan rebellions the krogans started dropping moons on turian colonies. To be honest I think that was the nicest way to end the war quickly and cleanly
Oh yeah. Mistakes upon mistakes were made but Krogans were committing war crimes. Just with less science and math.
The turians caught them in the flank during First Contact, and the krogan war machine just did a one-eighty and reclaimed all the teritory they lost before pouring into turian space.
Ten years later the turians were holding back the tide pushing into Palaven's moons.
The krogan were winning the goddamn war and were going to kill everybody.
That's why the Genophage was dropped: do it right now or die.
Prolonging the Genophage in the wake of natural adaptation and refusing to provide relief to surviving Krogan is the real sticking point. If they wanted to ensure the Krogan didn't stare down the barrel again, they should have assisted in a cultural reconstruction to try and push them away from a tribalistic eternal-conflict society. Instead the Council let the disease fester, and decided it wasn't their problem as long as the Krogan aren't doing a war. Just a little genocide, for funsies.
Everyone seems to forget the reason why the Genophage was done. The Krogans were committing war crimes and actual genocide on the races that not only compensated them but honored them.
I never once thought about how messed up it was that there were no Krogans during the Maelon thing. Holy shit!
No, that makes sense. Grunt like Pat said didn't have the cultural thing. Wrex, you are shooting him again probably given multiple times without a high Paragon or Renegade your shooting him cause he will do shit and even he knew he would do shit depending on if he finds out you don't fix the genophage in 3.
This is also about making the decision because this decision was made for the Korgan's before hand multiple times and you have to be the one to try and make it better for them because fuck man, the Korgan are a fan favorite species because of what they been through and the characters attached to the race. The direct comparison of this is freeing the Rachnia Queen in M1.
There's 1 thing I would like to mention to Pat if I could.
A large part of his argument is "Okay so Genophage may have been the lesser of two evils 400 years ago, I get that... but what about NOW? We're not in the Krogan Rebellions anymore! Why does the Genophage need to be renewed so badly?" This is true, however he then proceeds to point out how when you go to the Krogan home world, all of them are standing around going "Aw man once we get our numbers back up, we're gonna go get those fuckers! Once we cure the Genophage we're gonna get out there and kill all those bastards!"
So doesn't that, by the Krogans own words and motivations, kind of cement the Salarian, and Council, justification for keeping the Genophage strong?
The Genophage and Atom-Bombings are the obvious comparison, so imagine this; At the end of WWII, we drop the bombs on Japan, and the Japanese go "Oh man, once we get our cities rebuilt, we're coming for ya! We're going to invade your country as soon as we get the cities built back up!" What do you think the response would have been? "Well let's leave them alone to rebuild and see what happens then"? No, it would have been "Okay Japan, here come more bombs then."
Pat said "It's like a bunch of old white men deciding what's best for black people", but it's not, because black people aren't literally running around saying "I'm gonna have as many kids as I can and raise them to go around & kill every white person they see!" Whereas that is basically what the Krogan are saying.
Now, am I saying anything I've said is Morally Correct? No. But looking at it from a practical and realistic position, the keeping up of the Genophage still makes sense and is justifiable for the Salarians, as well as anyone else who would agree with their position.
Just my thoughts.
There’s something important to now about that Japan example you just brought up: After the end of world war 2, the US did not just leave Japan alone; essentially, the United States occupied the country, and ‘guided’ it, culturally and politically.
With this in mind, it’s important to understand that the genophage is LITERALLY genocidal (It is a measure to PREVENT BIRTHS within a selected racial group). The analogue is not bombing Japan more, it’s STERILIZING Japanese people.
There were probably other, more difficult options to dealing with krogan war mongering, but they CHOSE the genophage because they saw the krogan as what they (in part) made them; an uplifted biological weapon that turned on its master.
When you get to Tuchanka the Urdnots are not a warmongering tribe. Wrex has always realized that returning the Krogan to warring against the universe is fucking stupid and luckily he's the one best positioned to unite the Krogan by ME2
Sounds like that council is a bunch of fascists that need to be torn down then lmao take that back to Japan "hey, you're angry that we nuked you and a portion of your population is saying you want to attack us again? That's justification for us to nuke you again before you've even done anything!" that is the most fascistic thing anyone could say unironically as an argument. Of course they're mad at you, you're trying to control their population and culture over a perceived threat that you created and perpetuated
@@Nekros4442 you are correct, I just want to add one small caveat:
*_IF_* Wrex is still alive, and especially if the other hopeful character in ME3 survives
Otherwise, Wreav could arguably be a war monger
@@Abdega Absolutely
24:50
In a FUCKING HOUR worth of discussion, Woolie only properly adressed the data ONCE, and it's to say that the data could either save the Krogan, or "lead to ruin."
Woolie, WHERE IN THE GAME DOES IT SAY THE DATA BEING OUT THERE WILL KILL THE KROGAN? The choice is not hard at all, it's one of two things:
1. Keep the data, which can potentially cure the genophage.
2. Destroy the data, waste the sacrifices the volunteer Krogans made, and doom the species.
Woolie chooses option 2 and NEVER FUCKING EXPLAINS IT, while also saying "I don't like the genophage." This whole hour has basically convinced me that he's 100% more insane that Pat ever was.
Its called inference. Consider that basically every krogan in the past two games that isn't wrex that comments on it is a warlord that wants to conquer. In fact, if Wrex does, the krogan that takes up a leadership role _DIRECTLY STATES_ one of his goals is to fuck up the nations involved. The game rather bluntly suggests that if not for Wrex, the situation will devolve back to square one - krogan vs the rrst of the galaxy in a war of extermination.
@@Satsaru That doesn't give you the right to assume other Krogan can't CHANGE. Yes, the Krogan are rightfully pissed, and yes if some of them decide to go to war over the genophage that's FAIR.
However, Wrex is a perfect example of why NOT to continue the genophage like Woolie did. Wrex is able to get the Krogan to ally together for the first time because he doesn't want to constantly fight and murder.
That'd be like saying "Oh the Klingons are a warrior race, so let's just fucking nuke them." Even though multiple Klingon are capable of exercising restraint and collaboration for the betterment of the race.
If you "infer" that the Krogan deserve this fate, you're an asshole.
@@armchairmaster your username is certainly accurate, already insulting people over opinions of a fictional species. Wrex is literally ONE OF THREE Krogan in the entire series that does not explicitly want to go back to war if they repopulate. That is the expressed goal of his counterpart Wreav. You are free to assume that the group of people loudly yelling about how much they want to kill you given the chance won't _aaactually_ go through with it, but I don't think many have that weak of a survival instinct.
Being deserving of a fate isnt a poiny im making. If you beat someone over the head, they manage to get away from you and continue to loudly shout hiw you want to do it again, it isn't a surprise when the person you were clobbering would rather take a bat to your knees than to get smacked in the head again.
now now. you're both idiots.
If the research can be done, it can be done ethically. EDIT: Also, he just explains he didn't think it was a hard choice in this video; he was saying it as I wrote out my reply.
19:00
Well, not entirely true. I mean it gets revealed later in ME3 but the thing is yes, people volunteered but when they discovered what kind of experiments were going on they had to *escape* and the word “escape” indicates that they were held against their will.
It's endlessly amusing to watch a guy who uses the phrase "don't get it twisted" to in fact get it so twisted like this.
Don't worry about it wools, everyone makes regrets even with the best of intentions. But you better believe people are gonna make fun regardless of how well they understand the path you took to your decisions.
Which is exactly why people suck
In short, people will tell you you’re wrong literally regardless of what choice you make
LOGIC [Medium: Failure] - Well, if the scientist man says this species will be exterminated without his soft eugenics program, he *must* be right.
Trust the science amirite.
12:30 Woolie over her gashlighting the whole universe. What were all the races supposed to do? Die because you don't want the cool, very violent, lizard people to die?
"Oh but is horrifying." Sorry dude, can't hear you over the sound of you laughing at dying Batarians because of a bit.
I WAN MY FIGHT LIZARDS
salarians uplifting a bunch of violent, fast-breeding lizards into a situation that will make them even more violent: hahah, cool
salarians realizing they now have a bunch of violent, fast-breeding lizards with guns and spaceships on their hands: well this sucks, what the fuck
@@xalrath Forgot that they were being eaten by space-faring bugs b4 the uplifting (possibly corrupted by the reapers)
@@NotSolutha Still doesn’t change the fact that they meddled with the Krogan knowing how dangerous and volatile they were (and planned to do the SAME DAMN THING with the Yahg)
2:09 The mercs from ME2 are called the Blood Pack. Incidentally the Blood PACT is a Khornate Traitor Guard warband from the Gaunt's Ghosts novels in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
Woolie, watching you and Reggie play Mass Effect has been such a fucking treat. I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea, but watching you read every codex entry, visit every planet, and discuss every ethical decision in-depth has been really rewarding as a long time fan of the series. I can't WAIT to see the rest of the series!
It's filled a hole in my heart where I have always wanted to discuss this in depth lol. I don't know anyone who cares enough to discuss the morality of fictional characters at all.
The Genophaige was not a guaranteed end of the species, it limited the birth rate to a number that was not sustainable for the Krogans way of life. In order to survive they would have to stop being so willing to kill each other and sell themselves as mercenaries in mass. Which is exactly what Wrex was trying to do after getting back to Tuchanka, he had accepted that the Genophaige was not going away and if his people were going to survive, they would have to change how they live. That's what the Salarians choice was, either kill them all directly, or make it so that they would have to stop being war like and change or they would kill themselves.
But it didn't limit the birth rate. They could reproduce just as fast as before. For every 1/1000 Krogan were born 999/1000 were stillborn. Krogans would have to on average have around 999 miscarriages to have 1 be born
@@KingYama74 1 Krogan vs 999 that can live and reproduce is FAR better than the latter.
Pat, not everyone at Maelons lab was a volunteer.
There was a dead human with restraint injuries. Also the Urdnot scout was lied to about how the cure will be used, so not even he had informed consent.
Woolie has acknowledged in the past that he can't tell left from right. He also cannot tell the past from the future. He doesn't understand that things that happened before may not happen in the future, and in fact doesn't know they aren't happening right now. To him, the age of muskets coincided with the airplane. I believe he is some kind of lifeform from a higher dimension, possibly banished here by his lovecraftian fellows because he annoyed them.
I thought Disco Elysium shook Woolie out of his enlighten centrism
That was a fun bit in game, sure .
No matter what your opinion is on the genophage is, when mordin says the line that it was "like gardening " its so unsettling. Its almost like how a homicide detective can develop a disturbed sense of humor
I feel like people take it to the abortion/delivery method and "when it constitutes life" side of the argument, when the real thing is that this is being done without Krogan input or consent.
Mordin has the problem every academic has, he is trained to see the reason a rule exist but never what motivated it, he does not know the genophage didn't account for krogan culture, nor does he analyze the current krogan situation, he keeps repeating the same text that was presented to him and using that reason.
He never once considers that current Krogans have lived through the genophage, they are not treated as a sapient species, they are treated as wild animals using the same logic and the same krogans as the rebellions.
Except that's explicitly not what they're doing. The simulations Mordin talks about were completed in present day, and they very explicitly take into account modern Krogan social dynamics. The entire reason they decided to reup the genophage is all the simulations (which are near-perfect sci-fi simulations) showed, without exception, that the Krogan would go on a galaxy-wide conquest before eventually turning on each other and eradicating themselves. He mentioned either the humans and turians would be forced to wipe them out, or they'd wipe themselves out. Either way, it's clear that until they can stop turning each other into nuclear shadows, they can't be allowed to proliferate. That's why it's so important they be unified before the genophage is lifted. As they are now, they're fractured and basically incapable of peaceful co-existence.
ME3 SPOILERS BELOW:
Even Wrex fully intends to start conquering as soon as the Reaper threat is dealt with. He explicitly says as much if you meet him after curing the genophage.
Salarian Pat just developed the Gingerphage. He never thought Woolie would actually use it on the Batarians.
*It was only supposed to be a deterrent.*
Millions of afflicted Batarians with full heads of red hair. The dying off of the species from low birthrates was inevitable.
Man sure be nice if we had a warrior race in a year against the reapers!
ME3 SPOILERS:
I understand the 'Winter is Coming' analogy, but the krogan are pretty much definitely going to immediately start invading once the Reaper threat is dealt with. It's better than being wiped out by Reapers, but it probably wouldn't even be a full human lifetime before the krogan started trying to take over. Wrex even says thats the end goal in 3 if you actually cure the genophage.
I think the one really important distinction I would make about the genophage when trying to compare it to an IRL analogue, the council races were the underdogs. It wasn't just that it would be a bloody drawn out fight, but most likely they would be decimated in any form of long war with the Krogan. I think its less the "its this or a genocide of the krogans" that really leveraged the decision for the council races, but more "we really dont want to die (for our fuck ups)"
When races like the krogans, saiyans, or mandolorians cross the line, they're free game!!!
Humans have crossed every line they've ever come across, ill send your message to the aliens that we're free game
Woolie isn't overthinking this. He's giving due consideration to a complex and interesting dilemma. Just because the game doesn't explore this issue in the same depth you'd see if it happened in real life, doesn't mean deep consideration is 'overthinking.' The game won't give all the answer we want, but it's 100% still worth considering.
Yes, he is overthinking this. He thought that the decision was destroy data vs Krogan genocide, even with the game repeatedly stating that they could just hold onto the data and not necessarily use it. He also thought that Wrex would APPROVE of him destroying the data and ascribed far more direct knowledge of this situation to Wrex than was ever implied by the game
I'm fascinated how Woolie thought curing the genophage meant the extermination of the krogan and not the obvious danger of the complete opposite, the krogan exterminating everybody else lmao
Mordin says it will result in the extermination of the krogan very explicitly. Human and turian fleets would be forced to wipe them out, or they would wipe themselves out due to infighting.
Love how Pat always seems to forget the things that would make him wrong. XD
The entire part where he's saying how Mordin comes across as saying "we gotta do it because it was the right thing to do all those years ago" especially irked me and shows how little Woolie pays attention sometimes. Mordin stresses at multiple times in that mission he'd be down the for Krogan not needing the Genophage but without someone like Wrex to lead them (and at the time Wrex feels like he's not got the majority of Krogan on his side, and honestly since I don't think 3 takes place even a year later it's odd he got so much support so fast) they will inevitably fall back into their old ways like the idiots like Wreav want. You can argue how accurate the data and the simulations were but he's misunderstanding Mordin's whole character by acting like he's one of the brainlets saying "guess we gotta nuke Japan again to put them in their place lol"
Had to be me; someone else might've gotten it wrong.
I don't really see how they think Mordin's points are invalid because "the genophage was 400 years ago tho". If Wrex is there sure i can understand curing it, but when he's not Wreav spends most of the time telling you how hes going to fuck over everyone the second he gets a chance, and I don't think Eve alone could keep him in check. The krogan can't be trusted at all without Wrex since he's seemingly the only one who can unite everyone while also not wanting to start a 2nd Krogan Rebellion. Sure theres probably plenty of Krogan who agree with Wrex but he's the only one who can actually do anything.
Edit: Also despite that, I think it makes no sense to ever delete the data. It seems incredibly short-sighted for some moral grandstanding as a Paragon Shepard puts it "a lot of people died for it so it's tainted". Even if it does nothing, deleting every trace of their sacrifice seems worse to me over keeping it and maybe something good can come out of it.
4:22 Well Woolie, it had to be him, someone else might have gotten it wrong.
I think you got the pile of bodies explanation wrong, the game seems to imply that its a pile of Krogan babies or a pile of... everyone else, either they are stopped or everyone dies. If they could be defeated conventionally they wouldn't have to do any genetic manipulation
I never liked Mordin a whole lot back in the day, now I like him a lot but damn he did some fucked up shit, which is why his arc in ME3 is soooo good
I think they're not completely off. I think the theory is it would be a total war until either the Krogans won or krogans were destroyed
@@TheAsaoirc and Krogans winning meant everyone dies. The Krogans back then were way more burtal and weren't this depressed warriors that they're now, that's how I understand it anyway
I haven't given this any thought since the games first came out 🤔
I already saw on podcast but since I noticed this just wanted to say: the red thumbnail background bottom section (at least on phone) makes it look like I've already watched the video
In fairly certain at one point mordin says that krogan aren't going extinct, rather they just feel that they are
But doesn't it end up as some feedback loop that if the Krogans maintained their current level they WOULD be fine. But since they feel they're dying out they end up being basically suicidal and doing merc work they actually kinda are being self fulfilling in genociding themselves.
@@NEEDbacon The solarians constantly tweak the genophage to keep the numbers right. The more the krogan death spiral into despair and nihilism, the more they'll adjust to account for it.
@@TheBackwardsLegsMan I thought the only time they adjusted it was when it looked like the Krogan were overcoming it's effects. To the Council, if the Krogans die out cause they're too stupid to stop being suicidal then OH WELL. Or is there a codex entry about the time other then Mordin it's been adjusted?
@@NEEDbacon When they readjusted the genophage the krogan were already in that defeated mindset. Salarians only live 40 years and Wrex talked like his people have felt this way for a long ass time. The scientist would have been well aware if the krogan lifestyle and had that data when did their calculations.
@@corycyr6677 Please give an example where they tweaked the genophage to INCREASE the numbers. Even Mordin admits in 3 that they didn’t take the cultural impacts into account
This is unrelated but for some reason while watching this I got a commercial for the new Halloween movie that had no sound or music except for the trailer voice at the end. It even had place holder text that literally just said "Generic text" in the Halloween font. Reminds me of when they released the unfinished trailer for the new Mummy movie accidentally.
2 months late but might as well say it. All Woolie needs is someone like Pat to give him the info he's missing to get the correct info instead of what he usually does.
Quick correction to what Pat claims - Mordin absolutely does lie to both the player and himself about his deeper intentions. He absolutely knew that what his team did in strengthening the genophage was wrong/a huge mistake, and he's been struggling with that action his whole life since. He's just WAY too stubborn to openly admit it, so he has to use twisted logic to defend his choices.
He will admit as much in ME3 if you really push him though. Most people just never see that cutscene.
From what I recall in ME3, Mordin only admits he made a mistake if both Wrex and Eve are dead... meaning he is making a mistake by wanting to go ahead and cure the genophage.
I don't think Mordin lied. I think he honestly told himself that this was for the best. Less collateral damage. Krogans at least survive, Galaxy isn't threatened.
It was only when confronted by the cultural impact on the Krogan that Mordin really understood it was a slow genocide. They're a people without hope. A people crushed by the unbearable weight of miscarriages and stillborn children. Tuchanka is not rebuilding. It is a devastated wasteland. The Krogans live amongst the ruins and everything is geared towards survival. There is no peace, no advancement. When Bakara talks about the Krogan females who would walk into the wastes to be eaten by Thresher Maws rather than face another round of dead children. Think of how that must weigh on Mordin. That is on him. He is responsible for that. That's what pushed him to the breaking point. Where no amount of justification could validate their actions.
@@RedCaesar97 That is… the complete opposite of what happens. If you push him about deciding to cure it he breaks down and SHOUTS that he made a mistake by perpetuating the Genophage, that he used all that data and statistics as a shield against his guilt
@@NeoCreo1 You are correct. I was misremembering the scene. IF you keep silent about the Dalatrass's offer, then Mordin says he made a mistake if you press him on why he wants to cure the genophage. But if Wrex and Eve are both dead, then it would absolutely be a mistake to cure the genophage.
It’s not a mistake until wrex comes along which Mordin had no way of knowing would work in uniting the krogan given the less than two years he would of had to get them together and we aren’t precisely told when mordins crew went in
A big part of the Genophage conversation is the differing lifespans among galactic races. The average Human or Turian lifespan outpaces almost four Salarians, and an Asari will see four consecutive humans die old age before they've even become a Matriarch.
VERY different lenses through which to view galactic conflict. There are Asari who would've heard stories of the Rebellions from their parents, and, like Okeer, there are still Krogan who fought in them. For Turians, it's just another page in the book of grudges.
Everybody forgets it's the Turians who deployed the initial genophage after the Salarians developed it. They always get away scott-free in all the discussions.
What's funny is that the entire moral impetus for the Genophage is on the Salarians in the third game. The Turians not only get away scot-free, they are basically "YEAH, AND WE'LL DO IT AGAIN IF YOU GET TOO UPPITY."
There is utterly zero regret from the Turians about it, not even Garrus, really.
*The numbers don't lie... and they spell disaster for Krogans at Sacrifice*
The Genophage may have been the right choice to end the Rebellions. But the fact the Galactic community then allowed it to continue for 1,476 years, and Mordin participated in the effort to reaffirm the effectiveness of the Genophage, and the fact the galaxy are large just kinda shrugs and says "Well, that's the way it is, the Krogan will eventually die out", is beyond evil and is why Mordin was wrong.
Mordin was only wrong if there is no Wrex. Without him, the Krogan are BLATANTLY going to rekindle the war against... well, everyone.
Well Mordin's efforts are Top Secret with "fixing" the genophage. So the Galaxy at large didn't know it had to be updated. But you are correct it's kinda fucked they haven't gone "You know maybe we could dial that back".
Mordin's simulations were done in present day. He even references them pointing towards the humans, who weren't even around during the Rebellions, working with the turians to wipe them out. The fucked up thing is they didn't attempt to help the Krogan integrate into galactic society, and instead let them languish in this nihilistic cultural death for 1400 years. But by the time Mordin arrives on the scene, all evidence points to the krogan either being wiped out by the Council races + humanity, or them winning and conquering the galaxy, before turning on themselves and wiping themselves out. The key is them unifying and becoming capable of diplomacy before they relax the genophage, which the council should have been helping with all this time. This is what Wrex is trying to do right now.
It's incredibly fucked and beyond evil that the Galactic community never tried to help, but that is not Mordin's fault, and at all points up until present day, relaxing the genocide has been a death sentence for the krogan and most of galactic civilization.
Except the part where even Wrex admits it's not the genophage that will drive the Krogan to extinction, but their own behavior? Boohoo, poor krogans can only have one baby per family instead of a thousand?
I don't understand how people can feel this inclined to defend the krogans "knowing" they are genocidal maniacs who literally committed some of the biggest warcrimes in galactic warfare AKA making a life-supporting planet an uninhabitable wasteland and attempted exterminating every other race because they felt like it.
If anything the real injustice was how the salarians got off easy for causing this mess. Krogans got it easy, council races were absurdly generous in not nuking them back to the stone age.
The birth rate merely stabilized it so that they couldn't rebuild and challenge the other races. The fact they still existed 1400 plus years after the fact showed it wasn't a death sentence. The Krogan weren't going to change their ways until Wrex came onto the scene. The Krogan weren't going to stop conquering, they were compensated, and they were even honored. It was done out of necessity, not out off malace and they threatened the entire galaxy before it was put upon them. The krogan are not victims here. Sorry but they simply are not.
my favorite part of woolies streams and videos is how he stops to discuss really cool interesting implications in games just like this. easily my all-time favorite moments were watching him play kotor one with Pat and kotor 2 with little v because of how often it would derail and turn into a podcast about some stray implication in a conversation that would stretch to the coolest possible scenarios for like 2 hours. I love that shit so much i hope he never stops. Mass effect with Reggie has been incredible because of this same thing.
Hey, shout out to MATN - can you imagine him and woolie doing a collaboration? Between Jon's -1 perception and Woolie's "no wait I'm not done overanalyzing yet", it would be either the very worst thing, or the ABSOLUTE BEST.
I'm willing to flip that coin.
every single person watching dies of frustration, Woolie and Jon get life in prison for mass murder
Remember when Woolie was totally down with "glassing"? I remembers.
1:03:50 There's a fun little wrinkle that is very easy to overlook which is this: *The genophage killed exactly 0 krogans.*
Yes, that is not a joke and a technically an accurate statement, that unfortunately is never actively mentioned by Mordin, but at some point you learn how the genophage works in detail which is this: *It prevents the central nervous system from forming* in the first place. That includes the brain. Literally "no thoughts head empty". All those "dead" krogan babies were never an alive person to begin with,, because they're all just empty bodies with no brain.
Exactly.
Even in the worst case scenario of the Krogan die out from birthrates or die out later in a horrible brutal sci fi war the war is the better choice in that it’s better the war come about naturally having expunged every other option rather than normalizing wiping out other sentient species cause you think they’ll be an issue later. It’s a case of “Just because murder now might have a good outcome doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a no murder rule” sorta deals
My counter argument to Pat: Japan has massively changed from the warrior society that it was. The Krogan haven't. Every Krogan you meet talks about revenge. They haven't changed.
I have more to say, but until Woolie gets to a certain point in 3 (depending on who's alive), I kinda have to leave it there.
The big difference there is in my opinion that where the rest of the world sort of worked to build Japan back up, the krogans were kinda left to fester on their own bombed out planet. It makes sense for them to carry grudges.
"Every" Krogan? Including the one who wanted to write poetry for the Asari he was flirting with or the guy on Tuchanka who was talking about how much he likes going on hunting trips with his son or any of the other examples of Krogans just chilling out and being people? Many Krogans you meet DO talk about revenge though but they are presented as the rare villainous and ambitious members of an otherwise increasingly apathetic and nihilistic race
Their hatred is understandable though. A unfathomable amount of children died. For every 1 Krogan that was born about 1000 were stillborn. And Krogan live for a really long time you don't just forget that
@@Thechosenchicken The Krogan didn't want to change. The Japanese did and came back more successful than ever and won hearts around the world. The two are not even close.
@@KingYama74 The Krogan were compensated with planets and even were honored with a statue and got respect after the Rachni wars. They got greedy and waged war for no reason other than they could. They brought it upon themselves.
I’m super anti war and anti nuke, and I think that the nuclear bombings in Japan were horrendous, but when people talk about it like the nuclear attacks were this horrible, evil line that should never have been crossed…
I think people don’t realize just how bad the regular war was before going nuclear. Hiroshima and Nagasaki aren’t even CLOSE to the most destructive bombing runs in Japan from WWII.
It’s not that the nukes weren’t as bad as you thought, it’s that the Pacific Front was WAY worse than you thought if you think that the nukes were what went a step too far.
My family is very active in our local Asian immigrant community in America, and while the younger generation of Japanese people (up to their 50s) will all talk your ear off about how evil the nukes were, ALMOST ALL of the people 65 and up say “at least Hiroshima and Nagasaki had survivors”
The Pacific Front was so bad that many Japanese people saw just one big bomb as a mercy. It was that fucked up
i feel as though there is an important thing to note that was forgotten by pat, and that is that, when mordin said "Genophage or genocide?" he wasn't talking about the ORIGINAL decision - he was talking about his work. the whome thing about the krogan being exterminated utterly was in reference to what would happen if a genophage cure was developed - due to their cultural instability and lack of a unified culture, the ensuing chaos from the curing of the genophage would invariably lead to a krogan warlord conquering the rest of the clans, and then violently pushing out into surrounding space to secure land, glory, wealth, and his own position. this would lead to a second krogan rebellion which the krogan would have ZERO chance of winning, since they don't have anywhere near the naval capacity or pre-existing population to rival the military strength of the turians or humans, and would fight until there were not enough krogans to sustain a viable population (or until the turians bombed tuchanka into COMPLETE uninhabitability).
BECAUSE the krogan were not culturally stable and united, mordin's team's projections predicted with utmost certainty that the weakening/removal of the genophage would inevitably lead to a war that would exterminate the krogans. just look at the behavior of clan gatatog, weyrloc, or pretty much any of them except for urdnot under the rule of wrex (who is actively working towards a krogan rennaissance and unification) for reinforcement of this stance.
the conversation that was happening centuries ago was "holy fuck the krogans are MURDERING US, and now that the turians have joined the war they have begun DROPPING ASTEROIDS ON COLONIES, what the fuck do we do to stop this"
Krogan can live up to 1000 years, and have massive fertility rates without the genophage. A war with them not only means fighting an enemy that outnumbers you ten-to-one, outweighs you by a hundred kilos, but individuals of whom could have centuries of combat experience. Their culture is predisposed to belligerence and violence, and it won't shift for millennia because the boomer krogan aren't going anywhere unless they're actively culled. A problematic, bloodthirsty Krogan leader that manages to seize power will remain a problem well into the distant future.
If you don't have an answer for "how are we going to feed such an enormous explosion of very large, hungry mouths" (because god knows they sure don't), or a plan for "What if they decide they're going to try to murder and subjugate us again, as every precept of their society deems just and correct, and as years of resentment might motivate them to do, and as THEY'VE ALREADY TRIED." or even stop to entertain "hey, why do these barely-sapient bioweapons seem to want to massively expand their population? Why are they so upset they can't have hundreds of children over the course of their immense lifespans? To what goal do they seem to want 100 times the number of other Krogan around to compete with for the galaxy's limited resources?", if you can't answer those questions, then getting rid of the genophage is just irresponsible.
Spoilers for people who are watching the RUclips series and not the Twitch Streams
Right, I have been ditching Woolie's RUclips videos for his twitch for that reason. Unlike Pat who at least upload the entire stream in a matter of days to YT.
@@Max501 I liked the episodic uploads for Dakapon Kingdom, but for something like Mass Effect I'd like longer videos or daily uploads
Then don't watch bozo
@@dancinginfernal go outside.
@@miguelnewmexico8641 i cant im eating a burger and haven't paid yet
Let’s get personal: I played these games when I was pretty young and I always agreed with the use of the genophage and thought it was necessary. I liked Garrus and Mordin, they made good arguments, and they couldn’t be wrong, right?
Well, years passed and ME3 came out, and much of the plot is focused around if the genophage should be cured, and… none of the justifications I had been told seemed to hold up. Suddenly, the centuries-old status quo was being seriously questioned as a pillar of the setting, not a neat ethical quandary off to the side.
I’m not going to say the the handling of the genophage in the series was the key to me coming to understand that the status quo in our world could be equally unjust. But I did come to that understanding at some point in the course of the games coming out.
Over those years, my understanding changed from “if the genophage is still in place, it must be justified. Nothing that horrific could be allowed to stand unless the alternative is even more atrocious” to eventually “the status quo of history is not automatically justified, because the people making the decisions to continue enforcing it are not those suffering the consequences. They are just as capable of being wrong as any other person.”
TLDR I was very young when ME1 told me the genophage was horrible but necessary, and I was old enough to realize it was wrong right when the games themselves started to come around on it.
Its also interesting to note that of the races directly or indirectly involved with the genophage -- that is, the Salarians, the Turians, the Asari, and the Krogan -- the two races most vocally in favor of keeping the genophage around are the two races who live the shortest amount of time. The genophage is ancient history for the Turians and Salarians, while its almost still within living memory for the Asari and Krogan. And the Asari in general are conspicuously silent on the issue in all three games.
The Turians and Salarians are essentially just trusting the word of their forebears on the issue.
You’re forgetting something vital in 3. The Reapers are HERE and you NEED them. Yeah sure, it’s cool that Wrex got your back and a literal mother who experienced still birth multiple times told you how horrific the Genophage was. But then you’re forgetting the most important thing: what happens after the reaper threat has been dealt with? Do the krogans just accept their given colonies? They totally won’t try to reincite the krogan rebellions right? And what about the destroy ending where the bulk of the Urdnot clan was stranded on earth? Yikes
@@patrickzantomaster With Wrex leading things and also have the hope that their entire race isn't going to be wiped out by a birth control, maybe MAYBE the krogan can calm their tits enough. Just enough that the Turians and Salarians can maybe see slowly genociding them isn't great as they though.
No, your also too old to remember the part where it explicit told you about things that WILL happen if the Krogan aren't united. It explicitly told you this from Eve herself and fucking Mordin is even helping Eve. Like the other person said as well. The Reapers are coming. You need something to unit the different races and getting the Krogan warriors on your side fast and with Mordin helping set it up so things won't automatically go bad after the Krogan gain the ability to have more children along with Eve and Wrex leadership with other like minded Krogans would lead to a cultural change.
Your also too old to remember that the fucking games AND Krogan's themselves show you how violent they can be, what they would do as an opening act in a fight or what they are as a species. Krogan's hucked asteroids at planets, they were used to fight the Rachni, a species of overpowering hivemind bug like creatures that they near genocided, they are holding onto millennia of hate and nihilistic views o the world and running with mercenary gangs as most don't even live on Tuchanka anymore. Hell, unlike humans in the real world the Krogan actually turned their planet into a nuclear dessert wasteland. They are a prey species that have a different perspective on survival innate to a prey species. They want to bring things under heel. Without a strong leadership through Wrex and Eve and the rest of Clan Urgnot they would be going on a justified rampage throughout the galaxy and the Turians would go in and gun them down like pigs. It isn't till ME3 that they have a more uniting element and a chance for cultural improvement.
It's interesting to see when Pat dips into moral absolutism. That actions can be universally good or bad when removed from their context and alternative options.
I remember saying this months ago when people were arguing about this on the subreddit, when Woolie and Reggie first started with Mass Effect.
Which is worse; a plague of continuous stillbirths or the extermination of an entire sentient species? Pick one. You can not alter or change this choice, you must pick one. Choose.