If these are not the real endings, I won't have a problem IF it is free dlc for everyone, if not, fucking ea, also, if shepard is indoctrinated on all endings for instance, that is also a proble, a VERY BIG PROBLEM with me.
Actually, they explain in Arrival that the reason it wipes out the system is because there's so much energy in the relay that suddenly releasing it causes an explosion on par with a supernova.Daystar Clarion said:And surely it's conjecture to assume that destroying a Mass Relay with anything but a giant rock would result in the same result?
Well, arguably, whatever Shepard does inside the citadel is pointless as it will simply culiminate into the same ending with different colors. They could have had the game pick a color for you based on choice or simply canonically decided option and then rolled the end credits with what your crew does once shepard is presumed dead, and the crucible firing eventually.Agayek said:Just taking this quote from the video because I just have to comment on it.Susan Arendt said:It's not like the endings are broken or anything....
This is flat out incorrect. The canon endings of Mass Effect 3 are extremely broken on a very basic, narrative level. They fail miserably in a variety of ways, introducing plots holes and inconsistencies all over the place.
Really, it can be broken down into a few discrete points, some of which was covered in the video:
1) The logic behind the Reapers is asinine. Anyone with half a brain can understand that "In order to stop robots from kill you, I built robots to kill you first" is bad logic. Computers operate solely on logic. It's a bit outrageous to not expect a machine older than I can comprehend to spot that flaw.
2) There's absolutely no closure. You have no idea what happened to the Quarians, Geth, Krogan, Turian, your crew or the fleet you brought with you. It just ends, with no way of telling what kind of impact you just had on the galaxy.
3) It is tonally and thematically opposed to the entire rest of the series (and even the rest of ME3). The series as a whole has proven itself to revolve around a few core ideas: Tolerance and unity despite base differences leads to greater strength (in every meaning of the word), What it means to be a person, The importance of free will, and Optimism even in the face of armageddon.
The canon endings spit in the face of all of that. They are tonally very, very dark, and Shepard just meekly accepts everything the Catalyst says, despite it going against every one (or most, depending) of his/her principles (and the themes I list above). It just comes out of nowhere and goes directly against what the games have been trying to establish.
4) Plot holes galore. The Normandy suddenly running away from the battle, the Relays exploding but not killing everything in the galaxy, Anderson and TIM magically appearing on the Citadel, the beam of death somehow not instantly killing Shepard, etc.
The canon endings are incredibly broken, at the most basic levels of narrative. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of simply broken literary mechanics. They might have been able to salvage it (or at least fix the worst of the flaws) if they had just cut out the Catalyst conversation and Joker flying away and added in a DA:O style end montage to wrap things up, but since they didn't, it came out utterly broken.
My point is that literary mechanics are much like game mechanics, there very much are hard restrictions in place that defines "good storytelling", and the canon endings don't meet those requirements.Susan Arendt said:I meant in the way a gameplay mechanic can be broken. You can argue things like tone, you can get different interpretations...there aren't different interpretations to "this skill one hit kills." That was the point I was making.
It's all explained fully here.Agayek said:Actually, they explain in Arrival that the reason it wipes out the system is because there's so much energy in the relay that suddenly releasing it causes an explosion on par with a supernova.Daystar Clarion said:And surely it's conjecture to assume that destroying a Mass Relay with anything but a giant rock would result in the same result?
It's not "a rock hit it, thus it explodes". It's "all of the energy it contains is released at once, creating an explosion".
From there, it's certainly not unreasonable to assert that Relays exploding at all creates a similar explosion.
Beyond that, you guys are missing the very simple explanation for why all life isn't destroyed by the relays going boom: The energy in the relays are added to the beam which is what allows it to propagate all the way through the galaxy. Simply put, the energy that would go into destroying the system instead goes into the beam that gets shot to the next relay, to keep the beam alive.
It's not a foolproof explanation, but it's far better than just throwing accusations at each other over a relatively minor issue with the endings.
That photoshop creeps me out so fucking hard...Daystar Clarion said:It's all explained fully here.
See? It all makes sense.
But you have to agree that my logic is sound, correct?Agayek said:That photoshop creeps me out so fucking hard...Daystar Clarion said:It's all explained fully here.
See? It all makes sense.
It's even worse than the Tali-as-Shepard one, and I didn't think that was possible.
It's more logically sound than anything the Catalyst says, I'll give you that much.Daystar Clarion said:But you have to agree that my logic is sound, correct?
Weeeeeeell, if they know what happens when a Mass Relay's destroyed it's safe to assume it's happened before, and one could easily be forgiven for thinking they didn't always use a giant space rock to do it. It's much less of a stretch then "this was just a different 'kind' of explosion".Daystar Clarion said:And surely it's conjecture to assume that destroying a Mass Relay with anything but a giant rock would result in the same result?Gigatoast said:But they never said that only happened because they hit the thing with a giant rock, they just said that's what happens you destroy one. Not to mention the relays in the ending clearly did explode, like I said, to assume the effect would be any different would be pure conjecture.Daystar Clarion said:The only solid piece of canon we have is that Mass Relays explode when you slam an asteroid into themGigatoast said:But honestly, that requires more baseless conjecture then the indoctrination theory. The only solid piece of canon pertaining to the situation is "when Mass Relays are destroyed they take the system with them", there's no fine print that says "unless they where destroyed via space magic". Everything beyond that established fact is just baseless.Daystar Clarion said:Like they said in the podcast.bootz said:The wounded Batarian on the citadel confirms that destroying a mass relay burned up his system.
It's not entirely outside the realms of possibility that that the relays were destroyed in a 'not wipeout the system' kind of way.
Susan Arendt said:This makes sense to me... for a game that I spent uniting the Geth and Quarians and krogans and constantly showing the galaxy that we make our own future and it doesn't have to be the status quo forever the ending does negate this entire theme of the ME series.Agayek said:3) It is tonally and thematically opposed to the entire rest of the series (and even the rest of ME3). The series as a whole has proven itself to revolve around a few core ideas: Tolerance and unity despite base differences leads to greater strength (in every meaning of the word), What it means to be a person, The importance of free will, and Optimism even in the face of armageddon.Susan Arendt said:It's not like the endings are broken or anything....
The canon endings spit in the face of all of that. They are tonally very, very dark, and Shepard just meekly accepts everything the Catalyst says, despite it going against every one (or most, depending) of his/her principles (and the themes I list above). It just comes out of nowhere and goes directly against what the games have been trying to establish.
I'm still ok with shep dying... just needs to be a sacrifice that reinforces that his sacrifice gave hope to those he died to save. If my Shep is going to die, he better go out like Bruce Willis in Armageddon (just sayin' ya know)
To comment on Casey Hudson's comment about wanting the ending to be unforgettable... I have only this to say:
"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why." -Sam from LoTR
Space magic, bro.Gigatoast said:Weeeeeeell, if they know what happens when a Mass Relay's destroyed it's safe to assume it's happened before, and one could easily be forgiven for thinking they didn't always use a giant space rock to do it. It's much less of a stretch then "this was just a different 'kind' of explosion".Daystar Clarion said:And surely it's conjecture to assume that destroying a Mass Relay with anything but a giant rock would result in the same result?Gigatoast said:But they never said that only happened because they hit the thing with a giant rock, they just said that's what happens you destroy one. Not to mention the relays in the ending clearly did explode, like I said, to assume the effect would be any different would be pure conjecture.Daystar Clarion said:The only solid piece of canon we have is that Mass Relays explode when you slam an asteroid into themGigatoast said:But honestly, that requires more baseless conjecture then the indoctrination theory. The only solid piece of canon pertaining to the situation is "when Mass Relays are destroyed they take the system with them", there's no fine print that says "unless they where destroyed via space magic". Everything beyond that established fact is just baseless.Daystar Clarion said:Like they said in the podcast.bootz said:The wounded Batarian on the citadel confirms that destroying a mass relay burned up his system.
It's not entirely outside the realms of possibility that that the relays were destroyed in a 'not wipeout the system' kind of way.
If someone gets shot and they're never seen again, you don't just assume they where hit with blanks.
Yeah but here's the thing. What happens after you choose is almost exactly the same no matter what you picked, you never actually see any of the scenarios the 'space brat' describes play out. Aside from two different instances of the reapers either blowing up or getting up and leaving, the only difference between the endings is the color. In fact, even the post credits clip is exactly the same every time, so apparently the 'decision' didn't matter in the long run either.Grell Sutcliff said:I actually liked the ending, in a way it was kinda cliche and yes they were way to similar visually but other than that they weren't that bad.
As I see it
AI boy: The boy is likely an ancient AI that turned his creators into reapers because he thought their actions would lead to the end of all organics and developed the cycle to save all races from their own foolishness. however the thought process of this AI that some may agree with is flawed in my opinion. Sure you may have to kill a few cultures to save the universe but don't kill them just because they're advanced, you actually need to evaluate the risk factors of the species and their current projects before you decide to kill them.
option 1: destroy the reapers and all other synthetics. The worst option because it kills the geth, destroys a lot of machines and even the reapers which if the boy tells the truth are trying to do the right thing which can actually be a valid argument that is hinted at earlier.
option 2: control the reapers. Basically like rewriting the geth and since it kills you, you can only send one command which is to leave and never come back.
option 3: synthesis. Probably the best option of the 3 in which I believe shepard merges with reapers and the energy of the crucible into a new kind of creature the keeps control of the balance in a new way.
However the destruction of the mass relays in all the options makes no sense.
well you are correct on most points but no one knows wether or not not it had an effect in the long run because the races lost long distance space travel and still haven't remade it yet so it hasn't been that long. Plus the effects of such a decision probably wouldn't be seen for millions of years, except the death of the geth but only to the quarians since they would be the only ones around to experience it. But really we will never know what impact the choice really made untill either a new game or some kind of DLC or book or something.Gigatoast said:Yeah but here's the thing. What happens after you choose is almost exactly the same no matter what you picked, you never actually see any of the scenarios the 'space brat' describes play out. Aside from two different instances of the reapers either blowing up or getting up and leaving, the only difference between the endings is the color. In fact, even the post credits clip is exactly the same every time, so apparently the 'decision' didn't matter in the long run either.
For all we know, the little kid AI was just making stuff up. He only designates a couple sentences to the description of each choice and that's it, that's the only explanation. He could have said ANYTHING and the endings would have had the same amount of context.
The only thing that gives the illusion of distinction between the game's endings are the words that come out of the bad child VO's mouth two minutes before the credits roll. The only reason this gets a pass from anyone is because of a few token lines, but as they say, "talk is cheap".
In reality this game does not have multiple endings, it just uses a couple throwaway lines to make it seem like you're making a choice.
Bioware already said any further games or tie-in products couldn't possibly continue this plot line, they would have to be prequels or midquels, so we'll never see the effects of this game's final choice. And without any kind of epilogue there's no way of ever knowing what happened. The only thing we can see, and therefor call an ending, is one of 3 different colored scenes of the galaxy being obliterated. The so-called "moral decision" in the end literally amounted to nothing but a palette swap.Grell Sutcliff said:well you are correct on most points but no one knows wether or not not it had an effect in the long run because the races lost long distance space travel and still haven't remade it yet so it hasn't been that long. Plus the effects of such a decision probably wouldn't be seen for millions of years, except the death of the geth but only to the quarians since they would be the only ones around to experience it. But really we will never know what impact the choice really made untill either a new game or some kind of DLC or book or something.
I can argue, however, that "this skill one hit kills" might not, after all, be broken. It may be a good mechanic. One-hit-kill-skill is not an automatically broken concept.Susan Arendt said:I meant in the way a gameplay mechanic can be broken. You can argue things like tone, you can get different interpretations...there aren't different interpretations to "this skill one hit kills." That was the point I was making.