Krogans, and why I don't care
Games often throw me into moral dilemnas. Too often. The Tenpenny Tower quest in Fallout 3 is a prime example of something I had to think about for a long time before making a choice.
As you have probably guessed from my previous journal entry, my party in Mass Effect always consisted of Tali and Garrus. However, the most shocking thing that happened with them was when we were in one of those long elevator rides on the Citidel. Both got into an argument about the moral justifcations of their own species exterminating others: Garrus blaming Tali for the enslavement of the geth, and Tali blaming Garrus for the sterilization of the krogan.
And then Garrus said something that made me think: "You say it [sterilization of the krogan] like it's a bad thing." And then the conversation ended.
For the longest time, I was angry at Garrus until I talked to Wrex, the krogan about the subject. I asked him why his people did not look for a way to stop the sterilization and eventual extinction of his people. His reply was something along the lines of, "Do you see my people in labcoats, doing experiments? No, my people are warriors, we are not scientists. We won't find the cure." In this case, while sterilization of the krogan by the turians was wrong, the krogans expecting everyone else to find the cure for them is wrong as well.
I wish I had the option to tell Wrex at that point, "If you're own people don't care enough to find a cure to save your people, then I don't care, either."
Wrex was an unsympathetic character, and made his own species to look like nothing but apathetic, violent idiots, mindlessly going from one place to the next, killing for money and pleasure. If keeping the species alive was important to the krograns, they would do anything to save themselves -- but they don't, and that is why I didn't care about the krogans. They act as if they don't want their species to live.
But I understood why Wrex wanted to join Saren, at the same time. It showed glimmer of "humanity" in him and that krogans had hope. But then Ashley shot him. At that point, I realized that if the krogans were as long-lived and powerful as Reapers, they would be as merciless and cruel.
As you have probably guessed from my previous journal entry, my party in Mass Effect always consisted of Tali and Garrus. However, the most shocking thing that happened with them was when we were in one of those long elevator rides on the Citidel. Both got into an argument about the moral justifcations of their own species exterminating others: Garrus blaming Tali for the enslavement of the geth, and Tali blaming Garrus for the sterilization of the krogan.
And then Garrus said something that made me think: "You say it [sterilization of the krogan] like it's a bad thing." And then the conversation ended.
For the longest time, I was angry at Garrus until I talked to Wrex, the krogan about the subject. I asked him why his people did not look for a way to stop the sterilization and eventual extinction of his people. His reply was something along the lines of, "Do you see my people in labcoats, doing experiments? No, my people are warriors, we are not scientists. We won't find the cure." In this case, while sterilization of the krogan by the turians was wrong, the krogans expecting everyone else to find the cure for them is wrong as well.
I wish I had the option to tell Wrex at that point, "If you're own people don't care enough to find a cure to save your people, then I don't care, either."
Wrex was an unsympathetic character, and made his own species to look like nothing but apathetic, violent idiots, mindlessly going from one place to the next, killing for money and pleasure. If keeping the species alive was important to the krograns, they would do anything to save themselves -- but they don't, and that is why I didn't care about the krogans. They act as if they don't want their species to live.
But I understood why Wrex wanted to join Saren, at the same time. It showed glimmer of "humanity" in him and that krogans had hope. But then Ashley shot him. At that point, I realized that if the krogans were as long-lived and powerful as Reapers, they would be as merciless and cruel.