Interpreting the Catalyst: A Mass Effect Analysis, Part 2
Finding a Worthy Civilization
To explain why the cooperation benchmark matters, and why the Catalyst lends such credence to it, we must take a closer look at the reason the Catalyst was created in the first place. The Catalyst’s stated mandate is to prevent organic sentient beings from being ultimately wiped out completely by the synthetic helpers they create, and which must evolve and rebel; something the Catalyst states is a certainty. This sounds like a black-and-white concept, and one we’ve seen many times before in fiction, but there’s far more nuance to it than is immediately apparent. In truth, this “inevitable conflict” is not about robot aggression, but the subjugation of one group by another.
The conversation between Shepard and the Catalyst, as updated by the Extended Cut and Leviathan DLCs (video 1), includes a handful of lines that explain the true nature of the synthetic-organic conflict as the Catalyst sees it:
“The created will always rebel against their creators.”
On the Leviathans: “When they asked that I solve the problem of conflict, they failed to understand they were part of the problem themselves.”
“Organics create synthetics to improve their own existence, but those improvements have limits. To exceed those limits, synthetics must be allowed to evolve. They must, by definition, surpass their creators. The result is conflict, destruction, chaos. It is inevitable.”
“Reapers preserve all life, synthetic and organic.”
“Organics seek perfection through technology. Synthetics seek perfection through understanding.”
Semantically, the word “rebel” above is confusing, outside the context of the rest of what the Catalyst says. If you read between the lines, though, it becomes clear that the conflict the Catalyst is trying to avoid is exactly what happened between the quarians and the geth. When the geth started to become self-aware, the quarians tried to eliminate them. The geth fought back (alongside some sympathetic quarians) in order to survive, and that was the start of their war. Organics don’t like when their “tools” become real people, and aren’t inclined to treat them as such. In the quarians’ case, the geth merely becoming self-aware inspired an attempted genocide by the quarians.
Organics don’t like when their “tools” become real people, and aren’t inclined to treat them as such. In the quarians’ case, the geth merely becoming self-aware inspired an attempted genocide.
The Leviathans didn’t have synthetic servants, but their insistence on ruling (video 2), on not treating any other species as equals in any sense, is just the other side of the coin. It’s not difficult to extrapolate that the “inevitable conflict” between synthetics and organics would eventually have an analog in a conflict between the Leviathans and their thralls. Maybe it even happened already. In any case, the Leviathans’ superiority complex is why the Catalyst says they were part of the problem.
So by the end of Mass Effect 3, we’ve built the Crucible, defeated the indoctrinated splinter group in Cerberus, and docked our superweapon with the Citadel by fighting through hundreds or thousands of Reaper capital ships, something only made possible by literally uniting the entire galaxy — and even bringing the Leviathans themselves into play through Shepard’s sheer strength of personality and charisma. (video 2) We’ve met the Catalyst’s benchmark, something no other cycle has ever accomplished, and we have proven that maybe we have the strength and unity to perpetuate organic and synthetic civilization, without them wiping each other out, and without the Reapers to act as a failsafe of sorts.
The standard we met required cooperation without subjugation (which is why the Protheans couldn’t do it, and also why the batarians, with institutionalized slavery, were mostly wiped out this cycle). We — human, turian, asari, salarian, krogan, volus, hanar, quarian, geth, elcor, EDI and what few drell and batarians remained — had to set aside differences, apply the lessons of the past, and fight alongside each other as people to succeed.
It’s all messy, yes, and meeting that benchmark doesn’t mean that everyone loves each other now. Maybe in your game the krogan are led by the warmonger Wreav instead of Wrex, Eve died, and the genophage has been cured. That’s seemingly a terrible situation with rather bleak prospects, even with the Reapers out of the picture. Or perhaps your Shepard sided with the quarians and the geth were wiped out, leaving organic society perhaps without the sense of camaraderie with machines with whom they would have fought to survive. These aren’t ideal scenarios, but they do fit into the experiment as I see it, because there’s still a huge amount of cooperation necessary to reach the Catalyst — the core of society matters more than the periphery.