Re: Benefactor (contains spoilers)
@fudgietroll wrote:
@jpcerutti1 wrote:
@fudgietroll wrote:
@jpcerutti1 wrote:
@EgoMania wrote:
If it is SAM, then why would SAM help Ryder with finding out about Jien Garcen's death being murder and then allow the revealing of the existence of this mysterious benefactor to begin with?
For the same reason SAM is giving you any of the subplots in dribs and drabs. The "memory blocks" have been removed. The benefactor, Jien, and fate of the Milky Way are all tied together.
You could argue that Alec blocked all reference to Ellen from memory but, unless I didn't understand the flashback, SAM has known your Ma was in cryo the whole game - just didn't tell you any faster than what hitting progress unlocks allowed. I'm not even sure if SAM didn't arrange it all itself. I know I would look for ways around suddenly missing information and an AI has infinitely greater processing speed and raw computing power to put to the task.
SAM is leading you slowly through the scenario at a speed, and with conclusions, it is comfortable with.
I don't know. In ME2 EDI had a bunch of information that was part of her but she was unaware of/cut off from due to the AI shackles. When Joker removed them he gave her access to them again. AIs are powerful, but there are ways to block them which they cannot get around on their own. The way the Alec memory missions play out you are effectively an organic key to a series of individual shackles, and each trigger helps set a mental map that releases 1 "tumbler" in the lock
Unless you think the tumblers/shackles continue on to future games, they been removed. SAM says he finds them being there in the first place unique. Even if SAM didn't have direct information it can do that post-mortem reconstruction trick and try to recreate whatever got intentionally blocked - a trick EDI was never capable of pulling.
The whole arrangement is kinda hokey in the first place. Markers tied to physical locations nobody has ever been to be construed as "progress" along the Pathfinder path that I'm given as something dad did with a simple "encrypt memories" command. SAM wasn't aware of the command being possible or what it would encrypt is a pretty big stretch. Complicity is a whole lot easier to believe.
And now we are back to the whole Alec discussion. Alec made SAM and could, and possibly did, add shackles whenever he wanted. The assumption that he did so would allow us to continue to uncover the breadcrumbs of Alec's master plan over the following games. We may discover that Ellen was part of this too.
More to the point, Alec obviously planned to turn over the SAM link to one or more of his family at some point, and had obviously prepared these memories to play out for them over time. He probably set them to be keyed by a certain series of the organic user's neural maps. The glowing points in space are a visual representation of when Ryder's sensory, physical, and neurological stimulation brought their neural map into close enough approximation of the required neural map to "unlock"
While it may be possible that Alec constructed all of this and made SAM an unwilling participant - it doesn't make any sense. Why? What would be gained? Just because you can construct some argument to make it theoretically possible does not make it probable. SAM tells me this is a unique thing. SAM's log tells me before Alec dies that Cora is to be his successor.... unless you carefully study the wording which leaves theoretical wiggle room. People trying to wiggle out of things set up particular definitions and wiggle room in their wording. SAM tells me his abilities are beyond what the Initiative can comprehend... and Alec is part of the Initiative.
It's your brother. It's mom and dad are your mom and dad. The entire "human experience" is based on Alec and his interpretations of things, reasoning, and motives. SAM is an extension of Alec that lives in my head. As quick as he decides the only way out of the Archon's trap is to kill me I *do* ask him if there's any other solution and it doesn't even pause for a full second before replying that there's none - that might be just because that is what the script calls for... or it only took him the time the Archon chatted with me to consider every other theoretical possibility. It is working fast and was designed to solve problems, largely before I am even aware there are problems. I don't think an encrypt memory command is going to disable SAM. Why even bother? Alec doesn't need to.
