If your analogy are to make any sense with the Catalysts special brand of "logic", the crops made the locusts themselves, and the farmer would be a giant locust himself.
I Have Obtained ME 3 Ending Enlightenment, A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE QUESTIONING THE ME 3 ENDINGS!
- Thread starter RJ 17
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There is just one flaw I would like to point out.
It's not the Reaper who created the Mass Relays. It's the civilization that created the Reaper. They created the Reaper, the Citadel and the Relays.
That's what I learned from the game. I think that little Timmy referred to them as to the Creator, like the Geth call the Quarians.
It's not the Reaper who created the Mass Relays. It's the civilization that created the Reaper. They created the Reaper, the Citadel and the Relays.
That's what I learned from the game. I think that little Timmy referred to them as to the Creator, like the Geth call the Quarians.
That might be true but i think if you look into the ending past what ive said its going to be a bad ending for you. Thats like looking at any ending of a game and going "well hes going to die of old age anyway"Lord Siathene said:
That ending would of made so much more sense and would of been a lot more powerful.wicket42 said:
Is a tremendous shame we didn't get that. I would definitely pay for that ending.
Now that I think back to ME2 a little more, it fits in perfectly with a lot of things that were said and happened. I honestly can't understand what reason they would of had for changing it.
Fucking asshats. I wasn't too annoyed by the ending but now that i've seen the alternative i'm REALLY pissed off.
I have a good analogy for the mass effect series.
Imagine if you will an athletic relay. Mass effect 1 starts off with good speed ahead of its opponents it gets a bit tired in the middle of his track but is still the first to pass the stick to the next competitor. Mass effect 2 is off to a great start, but it runs out of air somewhere near the end of the first third of his track. The track suddenly seems a lot longer than he judged at first, he slower his pace. With the slow pace he losses some of the advantage the first runner gained but non the less is still the first to pass the stick. Mass effect 3 bolts through the track with lightning speed. Everything goes smoothly, the surface and the sues have an optimal contact. It's perfection incarnate. But tragedy strikes in the last meter, fate plays a cruel joke and the runner crashes in front of the finish line. It's not a flat crash but more of a half assed judo roll through the finish line. The team still gets the gold but the runner must bear the disgrace of shaming the team.
I have no issue with the endings. The problem is not in the endings per se, but in the way the choice of ending is executed. If the game took control after the confrontation with Illusive man, if the choice of ending was calculated based on the paragon/renegade status of your character (something like 80% paragon jumps into the beam, undecided 50:50 kills the reapers and mostly renegade control) the whole ending business would have been a non issue, at least for me. Thats the minimum of what they could have done to make it feel more like consequence instead of just some arbitrary selection box thing.
As for the "definitive good ending" some fans drag around... What else is the synergy of organic and synthetic life other than a definitively good ending. Sure Shepard dies, but isn't that kinda the point? Sacrifice for the greater good and all that.
Still, I enjoyed the game and the ending - however mishandled it was - did not ruin the experience for me.
Imagine if you will an athletic relay. Mass effect 1 starts off with good speed ahead of its opponents it gets a bit tired in the middle of his track but is still the first to pass the stick to the next competitor. Mass effect 2 is off to a great start, but it runs out of air somewhere near the end of the first third of his track. The track suddenly seems a lot longer than he judged at first, he slower his pace. With the slow pace he losses some of the advantage the first runner gained but non the less is still the first to pass the stick. Mass effect 3 bolts through the track with lightning speed. Everything goes smoothly, the surface and the sues have an optimal contact. It's perfection incarnate. But tragedy strikes in the last meter, fate plays a cruel joke and the runner crashes in front of the finish line. It's not a flat crash but more of a half assed judo roll through the finish line. The team still gets the gold but the runner must bear the disgrace of shaming the team.
I have no issue with the endings. The problem is not in the endings per se, but in the way the choice of ending is executed. If the game took control after the confrontation with Illusive man, if the choice of ending was calculated based on the paragon/renegade status of your character (something like 80% paragon jumps into the beam, undecided 50:50 kills the reapers and mostly renegade control) the whole ending business would have been a non issue, at least for me. Thats the minimum of what they could have done to make it feel more like consequence instead of just some arbitrary selection box thing.
As for the "definitive good ending" some fans drag around... What else is the synergy of organic and synthetic life other than a definitively good ending. Sure Shepard dies, but isn't that kinda the point? Sacrifice for the greater good and all that.
Still, I enjoyed the game and the ending - however mishandled it was - did not ruin the experience for me.
Actually if it's even remotely possible not to, that means it's not INEVITABLE.Immsys said:
Even a tiny chance of something not happening means it's not completely unavoidable it happens.
Now, we can agree it doesn't mean there's "no chance" it'll happen, hell maybe odds are it would..., but there is still a problem of having your game end with "Synthetics will inevitably destroy their creators" when the ONLY examples of synthetics you have in your game do not follow that example at all.
Unless you are literally going for a "mindfuck" ending, your ending to your story should not directly contradict what the gamer experiences going through your world.
That is exactly it. The reapers exist because of the possibility that organic life will create extremely hostile synthetic life. The reapers are trying to prevent a future like the one from the Terminator series, or Matrix series.Deshara said:
The reapers "reap" the organics about the time they are developing AI. If you bought the prothean DLC, Javik mentions that the Protheans had just started fighting a war against their own AI. This is stated so deliberately by Javik that it can only be interpreted as Bioware trying to rub our face in a context clue.
There is one logical problem, and that is of course that the Catalyst itself is a "benevolent" AI, and the Geth and EDI are benevolent AI. So really, it doesn't seem inevitable that all organic life will eventually be destroyed by synthetic life at all. But I suppose might makes right and it doesn't really matter if the Catalyst is justified when it has the power to destroy everything in the galaxy.
*slow clap*
Thank you, this is pretty much what I have been thinking for the past few hours(just beat the game). However I take it in a different way. If you choose synthesis or control you are going to take a future from the cycle at least in a way. However, if you destroy the reapers, you finally give organics something they never had; true self determination. That is to me the only thing that you could wish for. New relays would be built, it would only be a matter of time.
Thank you, this is pretty much what I have been thinking for the past few hours(just beat the game). However I take it in a different way. If you choose synthesis or control you are going to take a future from the cycle at least in a way. However, if you destroy the reapers, you finally give organics something they never had; true self determination. That is to me the only thing that you could wish for. New relays would be built, it would only be a matter of time.
I'm going to try to do a less wordy post here, just the bullet points.
Yes it's possible the Catalyst was right & AI would turn on humanity at some point.
But this should have been shown through GAMEPLAY. Don't make it possible to have every AI you've ever met fighting to save organic life.
Yes, sometimes phyrric victories are the only victory to be had, and these tragic endings can make great stories.
But don't put this kind of ending in a series that, until now, has had the theme of every ending be "You can overcome the odds and get a definitive victory" especially not if the second games mechanics taught you "If you work hard enough, you can have everyone survive"
I think the reason so many of us object to the ending isn't because "Well you just hate phyrric victories and want everything to end happily all the time, regardless of how impossible that is in real life"
Our problem is the Mass Effect series taught us in game 1 & game 2, that you can face the unwinnable situation and make it winnable.
That you can save damn near everyone if you work hard enough.
If you blindfold someone and set up the stack/circumstances where they have every logical reason to believe you're gonna give them an apple....and you give them a lemon?
They're probably gonna be upset.
It's not they hate lemons, it's not they think lemons shouldn't exist.
It's that it's totally not what they expected and something that they couldn't have expected from the evidence given.
Yes it's possible the Catalyst was right & AI would turn on humanity at some point.
But this should have been shown through GAMEPLAY. Don't make it possible to have every AI you've ever met fighting to save organic life.
Yes, sometimes phyrric victories are the only victory to be had, and these tragic endings can make great stories.
But don't put this kind of ending in a series that, until now, has had the theme of every ending be "You can overcome the odds and get a definitive victory" especially not if the second games mechanics taught you "If you work hard enough, you can have everyone survive"
I think the reason so many of us object to the ending isn't because "Well you just hate phyrric victories and want everything to end happily all the time, regardless of how impossible that is in real life"
Our problem is the Mass Effect series taught us in game 1 & game 2, that you can face the unwinnable situation and make it winnable.
That you can save damn near everyone if you work hard enough.
If you blindfold someone and set up the stack/circumstances where they have every logical reason to believe you're gonna give them an apple....and you give them a lemon?
They're probably gonna be upset.
It's not they hate lemons, it's not they think lemons shouldn't exist.
It's that it's totally not what they expected and something that they couldn't have expected from the evidence given.
Not really. It is the only logical explanation because I refuse to believe that any writer could make so many mistakes in the final 10 minutes of the game after the rest of it was so awesome.saleem said:
My theory is that Bioware was messing with our minds. The easiest way to indoctrinate someone is when you already know how they think. And Bioware knows how we think. We think that blue color is good choice and red one is bad choice. Then why does Shepard wake up in a pile of rubble after red ending? In that ending the Citadel is destroyed. No one can survive that. He was never on the Citadel. Reapers messed with his head, and Bioware messed with ours.
There was also a theory that the kid Shepard couldn't save was actually Shepard. I've dismissed that theory because the kid is a boy even when you play as FemShep.
But I'm just showing off now.
Lame explanation: Bioware wanted cool "battle damage" to show just how injured you were. But, they didn't want to spend the time and money to create battle damaged models of all the possible armor combinations in the game.BloatedGuppy said:
So you default to battle damaged standard N7 armor.
They wanted you to use a hold out pistol to emphasize just how weak you were, so even if you didn't go into the fight with a pistol equipped, they gave you one.
Unfortunately, there are gameplay motivated reasons for each of these and I'd say they're the most likely explanations for them.
I don't know, you actually don't really see him charging with you. I've heard, though not seen for myself, that your squad mates actually stand on top of the hill where they spawn and don't run down with you. Which is probably a bug.
I think they're "supposed to" charge down the hill with you. You do, apparently, see they're bodies lying around if you're EMS isn't high enough.
The crash landing ending is inexplicable. I think the only explanation is that it is some sort of fever dream Shepard experiences while he/she is buried under the rubble or being vaporized by the crucible.
My interpretation is that he tried to jump the relay before the blast hit it. While traversing the relay, it catches up to him in the massless corridor of the relay.
Why he did this is never explained, which is why the Normandy crash landing scene is such bullshit. I guess you have to assume he saw the catalyst go off, assumed it would do horrible things to the ship, and tried to escape it. Or something.
I think this can only be interpreted as he/she being on London. Not only does it look like a pile of concrete, of which there is none on the citadel, but the citadel is clearly broken up into tiny flaming pieces when it blasts the relays.
So... You'd have to survive the explosion in your face from the red thing (pretty big), the exploding station ripping you apart (huge), a long fall at high velocity through a flaming debris field in a vacuum (you don't have a helmet or pressurized suite), atmospheric re-entry, and crash landing at terminal velocity.
No. The so called "deep breath" cut scene can only be of Shep waking up on Earth, and it can't be Shep waking up on Earth after the destruction of the Citadel/Crucible/Catalyst.
Because the Normandy Crash sequence was guest written and directed by David Lynch.
Yes. You're decision to blow the relays basically sends the galaxy back into the dark ages.
People have suggested that in the "control" ending, Shep could use the reapers knowledge/tech to rebuild the relays and guide the next cycle. A similar sentiment for synthesis: Reapers no longer need to kill us, so they help us? Maybe.
But the cycle you spent 3 games defending is certainly over no matter what you do.
And that's why there's an internet shit storm.
#2 is the actual explanation. Maybe if people hoot and holler enough on the internet, Bioware will retcon it by releasing #1 as DLC. For $9.99.
Huh... so, I guess my tl;dr is I agree with you completely! Good job.
I mean nothing personal, but I really reject this line of reasoning. The Relays were unimaginable reaper tech. Given the explanation of how they work in the codex, and what we know about science today, they're fantasy.Shock and Awe said:
The Protheans managed to build one crappy little relay after 50,000 years, but they had existing relays on which to base their designs and information.
I don't think it's realistic to think that new relays would be built for generations and generations and generations and generations and generations and generations and generations and generations. Which means that any stranded Quarians or Asari or Geth or Krogan or Turians or Salarians or Rachni would never ever see their home worlds again.
The best theory for this I saw was on RPGCodex - basically, at some point the initial intention was to have Shepard be indoctrinated, things got changed at the last minute (maybe it didn't focus group well), and you wind up with a game that implies indoctrination but doesn't do anything interesting with it.
I'm really not sure how to feel about the endings. They had a certain flair, but still...when the credits rolled I felt empty. The rest of the game was majestically executed IMO, so maybe on my second playthrough the endings will click, can always hope.
I saw a theory on the BSN that everything past the raping you get from Harbinger was Shepard's dying struggle with indoctrination. Very unlikely, but I think it'd be cool if it were true.
I saw a theory on the BSN that everything past the raping you get from Harbinger was Shepard's dying struggle with indoctrination. Very unlikely, but I think it'd be cool if it were true.