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I hate to be the Toadstool to your Mario, but this blog has undergone a minor reboot. Reclaimer 105 can now be found over at reclaimer105.com with a new look. New posts begin tomorrow with Fallout February. Thank you for coming back and I look forward to sharing great things with you in the future!
We are in a series looking at the games in the Deus Ex universe. If you never played them or are a little rusty on the plot details, head on over to Wikipedia. If you haven’t played and still want to, beware of spoilers.
In this series we’re addressing the question presented in all of these games- How do we fix human imperfection? The ending of Deus Ex: Human Revolution provides four options for changing the natural order of the world. In this post we’ll continue to dissect the various ending options.
Regulated Augmentations
Choosing to send this message will blame a competing company for the problem which would essentially sink competition in the technology field and give full control to the Illuminati. They would be able to continue with their plans to widely distribute augmentations that would then be utilized for population control. Morality would fall into the hands of a few mysterious people.
This choice is similar to the previous option, but with one important difference. Whereas the unrestricted augmentations option would allow for a competitive market for this tech, this would give sole control to the Illuminati. This option implies a low view of individual morality as a means of maintaining society. People are too irresponsible to be left to their own devices and so they must be strictly controlled. The first problem is that there is not any person or group of people that would be completely trustworthy with that much control, although a Christian worldview would agree that humanity needs more accountability and guidance. However, this option takes away something that God gives all of us- free will. This option runs the risk of essentially having a society of mindless robots.
Humanity Chooses for Itself
Adam Jensen is given a fourth option by the A.I. that has guided you this far. The facility broadcasting the signal that would also broadcast the global message is in a carefully regulated arctic environment. You can choose to allow the facility to self-destruct taking down all the major players (including yourself) while not broadcasting any signal at all. With this option, humanity figures out the situation for itself and decides how to respond to this global event without any manipulation by those who were responsible.
Like this guy.
Since we don’t have the choice of using augmentations now, this option basically represents our current state. Augmentations and the advancement of technology have been portrayed to this point almost as humanity’s pathway to godhood. This option takes the previous important leaders out of the equation and lets the rest of the world decide if they want to pursue that option or not. Again, the problem is that no human or group of humans has proven that we are capable of making truly good decisions on our own. In a sense, this option represents the idea of deism which holds that god might exist, but he plays no real role in the events of our world. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it implies that we’re essentially left on our own to figure things out. Any study of history or observation of the news will quickly make one hopeless about our chances to survive on our own.
Questions:
Which did you choose?
What should we as a people do to appropriately use technology?
How will technology change the way in which we’re governed?
We are in a series looking at the games in the Deus Ex universe. If you never played them or are a little rusty on the plot details, head on over to Wikipedia. If you haven’t played and still want to, beware of spoilers.
In this series we’re addressing the question presented in all of these games- How do we fix human imperfection? The ending of Deus Ex: Human Revolution provides four options for changing the natural order of the world. In this post we’ll dissect the various ending options.
Adam Jensen, like his successors in the next two games, is given a choice between four options for guiding the next step in human history. Each decision reflects a worldview of how society should be run, the natural order of life, and how technology affects us. A global tragedy has occurred in which everyone with augmentations receives a signal that makes them hallucinate, go insane, and attack people, essentially making them robot zombies. Adam Jensen can shut down the signal, but then he has the choice of what “truth” to send out to spin the explanation for the terrible events that have occurred. His choice will greatly affect public opinion and future decisions regarding the acceptance or denial of augmentations.
The conspirator behind the plan to disable augmentations is Hugh Darrow, the very same person who originally made human technological augmentation possible. He saw the horrible things being done with his inventions and decided to try to undo it. By this point you have also learned that the Illuminati have figured out how to use augmentations to control people against their will, presumably for their idea of the good of society. Depending on how you play through the conversation with Darrow and the last level, you have various options for how to redefine the natural order of society. We’ll look at and discuss each of them:
No Augmentations
You can broadcast the truth about the Illuminati using augmentations to control society, as well as Hugh Darrow’s words of remorse over his invention. This will put a bad taste in everyone’s mouth regarding this technology and will likely cause the world to abandon or severely restrict augmentations, causing humanity to remain relatively “pure” from inorganic modifications.
Taking this cautious approach would slow or stop what would have otherwise been an inevitable technological singularity that would have changed the course of humanity. Augmentations have the potential to allow the lowly masses to be controlled by the few in power. Eliminating this option would safeguard a more democratic existence for all. Humanity’s individual freedoms would be better protected. This option would also ease the consciences of those who feel that upgrading humanity is a slap in the face to our Creator. But what about amputees and the physically disabled? What about the handicapped and infirm? Technology can be a tremendous gift to some. Should the benefit to many be taken away because of the irresponsibility of a few?
Now we just need Chell’s boots so we can jump through portals.
Unrestricted Augmentations
The Humanity Front is a terrorist organization determined to keep humanity “pure” by opposing augmentations. The message being broadcast for this option would falsely accuse the Humanity Front of causing the global disaster through a terrorist act.
The corporate giants want this option because they stand to make a lot of money off the augmentation market. Corporations would allow for people to begin redefining humanity and human morality as they rise above their previous human limits. However, the very means of making this happen is already morally ambiguous as Jensen would have to spread a lie. The unrestricted use of this advanced tech would allow humanity to essentially take destiny into it’s own hands and do what it chooses with little concern over what is “right.” If everyone is augmented and connected, then everyone will be able to get along and conform to whatever moral code or lifestyle is chosen by those in power. The end goal of this choice is essentially some form of godhood. This is the same temptation and lie that was presented to us at the beginning of the human story and it led our current fallen, sinful state. The kind of freedom granted by augmentations without moral boundaries would only lead to chaos and destruction since we would be terrible gods. Nevertheless, eccentric characters bent on advancing humanity through technology seem to continually pop up.
Ended badly.
We’ll continue by looking at the other two endings in the next post.
We are in a series looking at the games in the Deus Ex universe. If you never played them or are a little rusty on the plot details, head on over to Wikipedia. If you haven’t played and still want to, beware of spoilers.
In this series we’re addressing the question presented in all of these games- How do we fix human imperfection? In this post we’ll talk about the role of technology in our lives as presented in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Technology is a big subject these days since it is playing such a huge role in our culture. Information is constantly expanding and high tech gadgets become more and more engrained in our everyday lives. But we’re still far from the kind of advanced, reality-augmenting, sci-fi things seen in Deus Ex….
…so maybe it’s not so far off after all.
In Adam Jensen’s near-future adventures in Human Revolution, technology has become both pervasive and highly controversial. They have reached the point where technology is being literally connected to human brain and body tissue. This makes for some great gameplay dynamics for sure, but what would that realistically mean for our society? The game attempts to address these questions as the fictional world is on the edge of a new stage of human development that is closely tied to the power of technology.
The fictional world of Deus Ex brings up all sorts of existential questions. What does it mean for humanity to augment the physical body with artificial materials? What are our bodies? Are we bodies, or souls in bodies, or minds, or some mix? If we change the make up of our bodies, how will that change our identity? Will it redefine what it means to be human? Can we augment ourselves so much that we’re not even human anymore?
But nobody is questioning how awesome it would be to have robot arms.
The underlying assumption in all of these questions is that technology has the potential to improve us in some way. In fact, some of the game’s major characters belief that augmentation is a necessary part of our progression as a species and it would be foolish to ignore the possibilities. But still we’re faced with the fact that we are somehow less without this technology and therefore we need it.
The problem is that if we’re less than adequate without technology, are we really capable of making technology less flawed than ourselves? Can something imperfect make something that is perfect. Can we fix ourselves? Technology presents one possible answer to the problem of fixing human imperfection. But technology fails, it becomes obsolete. Even if we could make a perfect machine that would fix our imperfection, it would become superior and take control of humanity. This is why there are so many machine apocalypse stories. Machines that we make would probably rule over us better than we rule over ourselves.
The global struggles depicted in Human Revolution indicate that we need to figure out what to do with technology. I’d like to say that we still have control over it, but there are already cases of people becoming addicted to virtual worlds and getting injured because of texting while walking.
This does not meant that technology is inherently evil. Technology falls in the same general category as sex, money, food, etc.- it is a neutral entity that can be used for good or ill. Even today people are quick to label something neutral, such as the internet, as evil simply because it has been used for something evil such as music piracy or pornography. But let’s not throw the robot baby out with the digital bathwater. Wisdom calls for moderation and careful consideration with every step down the silicon road. Technology can either be used to better our society, or it can be allowed to run rampant even to the point of altering our identity as a people. Only time will tell what kind of augmentations humanity will choose to implement.
In the meantime, humanity is still flawed. Regardless of how our bodies and minds will be altered, we are still incomplete spiritually. Jesus has made available tools and adjustments by which we can be augmented to become who he intended us to be. Allowing God to transform our identity may not give us robotic limbs or augmented-reality vision, but it will empower us beyond our fallen humanity.
Human Revolution continues the tradition of a multiple-choice ending. We’ll break these down in the next post.
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