Enriching Lives - What Mass Effect 2 Teaches Us about Morality - Extra Credits

[Music] some of my favorite gaming experiences have been those rare occasions when out of nowhere a game changes the way you see the world or teaches you something about yourself recently James was telling me of just such an experience he'd had a video game asked him a question he couldn't answer he said he was playing the game he reached a certain part and then he just had to set the controller down and think he sat there cross-legged pondering for more than half an hour then he picked up the controller he knew what to do or rather what he would do and in doing so he learned something about himself today we're going to discuss that one question that tiny moment in one game and show just how much impact a single well-crafted scenario can have for those of you wondering the game was Mass Effect 2 by this point I figure most of you have played it if you haven't don't worry you should still be able to follow along but you know spoilers

seriously go play the mass effects they're great games okay everybody left the room who doesn't want to hear Mass Effect spoilers good there comes a point in Mass Effect 2 where the player is asked to decide the fate of a faction of the GU a sentient machine race here's the setup the GU were initially one unified group then they began to have ideological and religious differences now one sect of the GU has come to believe that it is the will of God to destroy Commander Shephard that's you and the other sect believes that it should protect shepher the player is given the choice to either destroy the GU sect that wants shepher dead or reprogram them in such a way that they share the beliefs of the group of the GU that want to protect you they won't even know they've been reprogrammed so yes there is a clear storyline question being asked but what's really being asked of us the player here on a surface level this is a question of how you deal with religious fundamentalism it's meant to lead us to consider current world affairs and ask ourselves are those really the only two solutions are there options other than total Destruction or the fundamental undermining of belief

but there's another question here a more introspective one just as serious as any question about Modern Life if a little more abstract fundamentally the player is being asked what does it mean to be human what is at the core of being a sentient being this is the same question that philosophers and Poets have asked throughout time we can trace this very question from Aristotle to Milton we see it in Hume and nii deart and Kant it is a question that we as human beings can't help but ask and we do so through every medium we have so let's take a closer look at how it's being asked here imagine for a second that this gu sect is you and the belief in question is something that you believe in very strongly or hold very dear now imagine someone could take that belief from you say the religion of your father or your belief in the worth of your own individuality imagine that they could do it without asking you without you ever knowing without your valtion at all imagine that they could wipe away your belief so thoroughly that if you met your former unaltered self you would disagree so violently that you probably

couldn't stand each other now imagine that the only way to prevent that from happening was a struggle to the death which would you choose I for one would rather go down fighting is not our free will our ability to choose our own beliefs at the core of what makes us human is it not our ability to overcome our instincts that make us sentient what would we be without that to me this question also sparked thoughts of force lobotomies brainwashing re-education and yet here the question was presented so reasonably as your playing you might think of course I should rewrite their beliefs for their own good you might come to believe that this faction of the GU doesn't understand its own evil nature and you should benevolently try to save them from their clear path toward self-destruction but how many manic depressives have gone on the table how many homosexuals have been sent away to be cured how many Heretics tortured how many lovers of democracy intered by these same arguments being forced to confront these questions to understand how they're presented and what they mean taught James something about himself taught him what he believed the place and the the value of free will to be but

just because that's the answer James chose doesn't mean it's the right one if you go back and play that section of the game again you might find yourself thinking differently or approaching the problem from a different angle this is the unique power of video games as a medium they ask us to live our decisions in this medium we cannot be Spectators we are forced to confront our own actions and that forces upon us a level of introspection now some of you may be thinking that this is a silly thing to be talking about in a video game that we are reading way too much into this guys that's something we have to get past Mass Effect 2 is a well thought out game made by an incredible team no one would think twice at trying to understand the meaning in an Oscar nominated film or appe peel a prizewinning book is it somehow beneath us to learn about ourselves from an interactive experience do we doubt the makers of games so much that we think them incapable of putting anything of worth into a video game I don't believe much in authorial intent but I believe the guys at BioWare are sharp enough to know what they're doing if you go back to that part of the game you'll notice that the mission where you're asked to decide the fate of the GU is is called A House Divided this is

a reference both to one of Lincoln's first speeches on slavery and to a Biblical passage specifically Mark 3:25 and Matthew 12:25 where Jesus is accused of heresy and Demon worship and that biblical reference is no accident many of your other crew members loyalty missions reference biblical passages as well mirandas refers to Luke 11 and the story of the prodical son gises is a reference to Exodus 21:24 th either refers to Deuteronomy 24:16 or Leviticus 2639 depending on how you interpret the character and his relationship with his son this isn't just halfhazard the developer wants us to understand the Dual nature of their reference they are using the context to clue Us in on the nature of the question being asked this moment in the game really only falls short in one way not embedding the question into the game mechanics as our medium evolves designers are learning to embed and reference these sort of dilemmas with all the tools that games provide Mass Effect 2 does a brilliant job of making you live The Dilemma of choosing between what may well be genocide and the utter subversion of anent entire Race's free will

unfortunately the designers missed a great opportunity to reinforce this dilemma at its conclusion if both choices had resulted in Renegade points instead of one being labeled the Renegade choice and the other being the good Paragon choice this would have been a fully realized attempt at using the medium of gaming to provide the player with a moment of introspection here alone the designers fell short looking at the question and the game as separate entities but I guess one can't ask for everything we'll get there so no matter how you approached this dilemma or what answer you gave when you played it I hope you learned something from the experience as you can see video games are absolutely capable of enriching our lives I for one can't wait to see them get better and better at it see you [Music] later

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