Rewrite or Destroy the Geth Heretics – Mass Effect 2
Near the end of Mass Effect 2, Legion reveals that his people, a race of sentient machines called the Geth, are split in religious ideologies over a force called the Reapers. As it transpires, the Reapers are a group of sentient machines that cleanse the Milky Way Galaxy of nearly all organic life every 50,000 years. One Geth religion worships them as Gods, while the other, of which Legion is part of, believe they should be destroyed.
Understandably, Shepherd isn’t too keen on the idea of all organic life being completely annihilated. Siding with Legion, the player engages in a mission to wipe out the Reaper worshipers for good. It is later discovered, though, that instead of killing them via a virus, the virus could instead be rewritten to convince the Reaper worshipers to side with Shepherd and Legion. They don’t have to die.
On paper, this seems like the obvious choice. Making someone believe the truth sounds a lot better than committing genocide, right? Perhaps not. Sure, Shepherd saving the Geth would ensure their survival, but by fundamentally changing their beliefs, the player was stripping away their very identity. Plus, more pragmatically, it bolsters the Geth ranks, a group that up until Legion, had been purely antagonistic. Maybe it’s better to be safe than sorry…
