Mass Effect 3: Casey Hudson's Largest FUBAR

[Yeager942]

Does anyone else kinda get the impression that the rest of the gaming world is ganging up on the people who aren't happy with the ME3 ending?

We're rocking the boat, so it's understandable that people think we're making a fuss out of nothing.

What those people don't realise, is that those of us who are unhappy about the ending have spent several years following a story, growing to love the characters, making universe molding decision, only for it to end with a plothole-ridden mess.

And the biggest offense is that we all got the same ending.

The space magic might have been a different colour, but we all got the same ending.

For a series that put such a huge emphasis on choice, and the affects those choices have on the story, that is unacceptable.

But we're setting back art another 10 years!

*sarcasm off*

I can't see how anyone who has followed ME for the past 5 years can look at the end and say "Yep, that was alright." Compare what BW promised to what we received and it is just indefensible. How did the writers sit in their room and collectively say, "Yes, this is how we are going to end it all. Champagne time, guys! We're going to make millions from the suckers!."

 

[Gigatoast]

Bioware claims that this story is fake. So take it with a handful of salt.

But the post was made on the confirmed account of one of Bioware's writing staff, several witnesses testify that the post is legit. To not deny this would be tantamount to confirming it, which would put Hudson and Walters in a very unpleasant situation. Not to mention the only possible way this was fake is if someone managed to hack the writer's PA account and post some very realistic misinformation, which hasn't come up in Hudson's denial.

I not going to outright buy the story, but it does explain a lot of things and I don't have much reason to doubt it.

 

[Tono Makt]

So here's two reasons this may have happened

1. They wanted to piss off 99% of the people on the internet who don't care about the ending by angering 1% of the people on the internet into making fucking tons of forums about mass effect.

2. They wanted to release a bad ending which they could follow up with DLC which 'fixes' the ending but in turn costs about $10.

Really hoping it's #2. Would be even happier if the ending turns out to cost far less than $10.

 

[Yeager942]

Bioware claims that this story is fake. So take it with a handful of salt.

But the post was made on the confirmed account of one of Bioware's writing staff, several witnesses testify that the post is legit. To not deny this would be tantamount to confirming it, which would put Hudson and Walters in a very unpleasant situation. Not to mention the only possible way this was fake is if someone managed to hack the writer's PA account and post some very realistic misinformation, which hasn't come up in Hudson's denial.

I not going to outright buy the story, but it does explain a lot of things and I don't have much reason to doubt it.

I hope you're right man, but I just can't help but doubt it.

 

[The Abhorrent]

Don't insult us, is the first thing you assume simply "lol they're just too dumb to like the ending"? Because the ending isn't particularly clever, philosophical or new, it's simplistic, cliche and insulting.

First off, cut it with the antagonistic remarks; I certainly wasn't trying to offend anyone, which is quite difficult to say when the truth of the matter is that the ending is making leaps of logic which most simply cannot follow. That doesn't mean the average player is "dumb", just that the conveying of the higher-level ideas weren't conveyed well enough. Instead of ideas flowing from A to B to C and so on, they went all the way from A to Z in one step without explaining it. While this can make the game more entertaining for a sophisticated audience... it's still a problem, because that audience quickly shrinks to nothing.

Nevertheless, that sort of behaviour is part of what's getting in the way of people understanding the ending -- they're jumping to conclusions. It's a case of where you have to sit back and look at the big picture, not just from your perspective. As I remarked in my earlier post, the patterns are more important than the details. This was repeated several times throughout the series, and the value of information was made quite clear... so why is almost everyone looking at the details? They're easier to wrap your mind around, that's why.

Mass Effect fans are smarter then you think, most of them have already deconstructed, analyzed and reconstructed every possible meaning behind the ending, to the point where people have developed a conspiracy theory centered around the minute details throughout the entire game. We've written VOLUMES about why the ending doesn't work and you honestly think it's because it just went over our heads?

Having read the link, I'm seeing the exact same problem. Getting bogged down in the details, not looking at the big picture. All of the details are hinting towards something which the vast majority of people are overlooking:

Spoiler

"The created will always rebel against the creators, leading to the extinction of all organic life."

So who are the creators? For the geth, it was the quarians. The quarians forcibly tried to shut them all down when they started showing signs of sentience, and the geth proved to be much better at self-defense than anyone realized. Even if the geth didn't directly rebel, it was made quite clear that they were much better at fighting than the quarians; the second half of the statement above is true. The first half? The exception doesn't make the rule, and players aren't privy to any other organic-synthetic conflict beyond Javik's offhand referral to the "Metacon War" from the last cycle.

But again, who are the creators?
Who is it that dictates the evolution of organic life along the lines they have determined?
Who built the Mass Relays and the Citadel?
Who is every single advanced organic species fighting against to survive?
Who is quelling a rebellion against the ascension to a higher form of life?

The Reapers are the creators of galactic society.

Sometimes, the answer is simpler than it looks. The Reapers, led by the Catalyst, aren't truly evil. Their methods are harsh, but it is "for the greater good"... from a certain point of view. They control the patterns, the pathways upon which advanced societies evolve; they've had millions of years to learn how to indirectly manipulate societies to bend to their will, in addition of direct manipulation through indoctrination.

---

And now onto some speculation.

As stated, Reapers are working "for the greater good"; guiding sentient species towards galactic society on paths they have determined. They have plenty of methods for indirect manipulation, but indoctrination was always viewed as a negative... but could it be used for good as well? Quite possibly, a way for them to keep things moving on the track they've made without too much deviation; at worst, you have the occassional mad genius who invents something special. Clever, but never stated in the material.

The other thing is... what are the Reapers monitoring for when they start their harvest? Sovereign was watching for something, but everyone is assuming it was a certain technological threshold. How about the development of sentient AIs? As Javik mentioned, the "Metacon War" was underway just before the Reapers hit. For the ME-cycle, it was the geth; the synthetic species were able to defend themselves so well that they drove the quarians from their homeworld, the conflict between organic and synthetic sentients had begun. But before any organic species ended up completely wiped out due to this, it was time for the Reapers to come in for their harvest and to "ascend" those species to the form of a Reaper themselves; but the Protheans had "fixed" the Keepers, preventing things from going as planned. Interestingly, why would Sovereign be insulted by the geth worshiping him as if he were a god? Because he's there to save organic life (not that they'd like it) and (possibly) wipe out the sentient AI synthetics which started the conflict (nothing against using them as a resource, however; preferrably as disposable as possible).

... Or maybe not.

The geth are an anomaly, they did not rebel and only defended themselves; pretty damn well, but they weren't antagonistic. The conflict still existed, but the nature of it had changed. The geth proved the Reapers were wrong. Their belief that all organic life would be destroyed by synthetics was no longer an absolute truth, so perhaps it was time for the cycle of harvesting to end. The Crucible has been passed down from cycle to cycle, perhaps even originating from the Reapers themselves; should it ever come to pass that the Reapers are wrong and the cycle must end, the Crucible is how they would manipulate another species into ending it for them. How it should end couldn't be made by the Reaper themselves, as they were just proven wrong; so the one who proved them wrong should make the decision.

By reaching the Catalyst, Shepard proved the Reapers were wrong.

But this raises an interesting dilemna, could the indoctrination theory be true? Could the Reapers be subtly indoctrinating Shepard to lead him/her down the path needed to end the cycle? As far as I can tell, the only way it makes sense is if the Reapers were deliberately trying to get Shepard to end the cycle. Why would the Catalyst appear before him as a child in order to make him/her feel the guilt of not being able to save everyone and all the more driven to stop the Reapers?

Which brings us to the final decision... the Catalyst brought both Shepard and the completed Crucible to itself, and leaves the decision of how to end the cycle of Reaper harvests to Shepard. The Catalyst removes any restraints at this point, it is a decision only Shepard can make.

Destroy the Reapers, ending the harvest but allowing for the possibility of a synthetic species to obliterate all organics without anything to stop them?

Control the Reapers, ending the harvest... until another organic-synthetic conflict arises and the Reapers are needed again to preserve organic life? And possibly to set species back to the pre-space-flight technology era so that it doesn't happen constantly?

Or use the Crucible to synthesize organic and synthetic species into a new life form, removing the reason for the conflict in the first place?

It's far too easy to focus on the "What?", but it's often the "Why?" which is more important.

 

[Something Amyss]

The quality of the writing is just a distraction from the core issue of choices not mattering. This wasn't because of bad writing, it's because they were too cheap to do things properly.

Inclined to question as to how you know it's a money issue and not bad writing.

Just because he gets it doesn't mean it actually makes any sense.

This one is example enough of that.
"This one" refers to me, just so we're clear.

It was more fun playing with his fairly-transparent self fellatio. "People who don't get it are the lowest common denominator I AM TOTALLY IN ON IT!"

Or how Bioware themselves changed one of their books because of fan outcry. This was only a couple weeks ago and nobody seems to remember!

Couple of months, wasn't it?

But anyway, it also demonstrates the sloppier writing going on more recently.

And nobody really dropped the "E" word.

Really hoping it's #2. Would be even happier if the ending turns out to cost far less than $10.

You're hoping that they intentionally withheld an ending, just so they could charge you additional money to complete the game and do as promised.

Well, that's reasonable.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Just because he gets it doesn't mean it actually makes any sense.

This one is example enough of that.
"This one" refers to me, just so we're clear.

It was more fun playing with his fairly-transparent self fellatio. "People who don't get it are the lowest common denominator I AM TOTALLY IN ON IT!"

*DOH*

This one missed your joke completely. My bad!

 

[meglathon]

Some day the people will look back, the pile of corpse that have rotted and decade, when only bones remain and the scavengers have left for fresher death to feast upon, the undertake will place the grave marker, and it shall read....

THE MASS EFFECT 3 ENDING CONTROVERSY
2012-2012, LEFT US TOO SOON...
IL be honest here, I'm getting a little bit annoyed by all this when, the top gaming news, form topics and matters of discussion are all ME3 ending.

 

[bobfish92]

The star child was less of a dem and more of an ass pull, but I see your point. Hell, even in 2 there were some very shifty changes (cerberus, the collectors, the t800 reaper larvae, etc). And I agree with your point about characters in 1, and I haven't played 3, but in 2 they mostly needed some more development, namely miranda, jacob, and thane to a lesser extent

My point wasn't about the starchild being dem, it was the Crucible - And then only IF you consider the series as one story in regard to the main story. For example a mention of the Crucible or a hint at it from, y'know, the badass prothian VI at the end of ME1 who oversaw all that the survivors did would have been nice, and since its hinted at as a key point of how to beat the reapers back near the start, it'd be less dem. Starchild isn't dem, but its still horrible writing.

As for the characters, they certainly were not "great" in 2, they just felt far more real than in 1. This could be more to do with increased dialouge, more of them and the work of the animators, its hard to tell. The fact that you literally have no goddamn idea how to beat the reapers after years of preparing then BOOP oh look something to break 'em all pops up at the start of the 3rd game just stinks of bad writing.

It should never really have existed, and it should all have been about literally trying to gather enough ships to defeat enough of them, then for the "ground battles" required by gameplay mechanics have it so that cerb's ships are helping the reaper fleet and thats what is throwing the balance off. So, you board the normandy towards the flagship of the cerb fleet, TIM is the "avatar" of Harbringer ala Saren in ME1's ending fight, Normandy breaks into the flagship, you fight your way to TIM, joker leaves to attack Harbie head on at the same time - You take down TIM, cerb's forces are called back when TIM see's that he was just indoc'd, harbringer is weaker due to defeat of his avatar, normandy destroys it, reapers keep fighting but are clearly fighting a loosing battle. Choices affect success, with no fleet galaxy is fucked, mid fleet heavy losses, etc etc.

 

[Mr Goostoff]

EA: Here's what's gonna happen Casey, you and Mac are gonna take control of this thing and end it.

Casey: Why?

EA: Well, see... if we put the ending in your and Mac Daddies hands instead of giving the fans what they were promised, they'll will rise up en mass and demand something new and then we'll be able to give them just that.

Casey: Or... we could just give them-

EA: No... the plans have been set in motion.

thats unfair.

the reapers somewhat had a point!

Nice picture, made me giggle a bit.

Made me think of something though. If the reapers are just chillin' in dark space for hundreds of thousands of years, and on top of that they're super duper (really duper) intelligent, than wouldn't at least one of them have found out that their reasons for killing organics makes no sense?

God I'm getting sick of this. The "Yo dawg" scenario that everyone so fondly brings up is completely untrue and misleading. The Catalyst didn't "create synthetics to kill organics, so that the organics won't create synthetics to kill organics". It created the Reapers to kill only the highest civilizations, in order to prevent their synthetics from wiping out everything.
And even if we forget that, there's still the whole other half of their reasoning. They don't do it simply to prevent synthetics turning on them. They do it to remove the top-dog in the galaxy, so that other species will have the chance to be uplifted, and have their shot.
Say what you will about the ending being unsatisfactory, there is nothing about this bit of it that deserves the amount of ridicule that it gets.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

Ugh...I guess I'm just venting now because of Gamesradar. I read an article on it that opened with: "I don't know what the ending of Mass Effect 3 entails, and I don't care. I haven't even played Mass Effect 3 yet. Hell, I'm still working through the first one at the moment."

and then went on for two pages saying we're wrong, entitled, etc. Got under my skin a little what with GR being one of my favourite sites.

Rocking the boat is kinda fun though.

I read an article on it that opened with:
"I don't know what the ending of Mass Effect 3 entails, and I don't care. I haven't even played Mass Effect 3 yet. Hell, I'm still working through the first one at the moment."

"I haven't even played Mass Effect 3 yet."

...wow. Okay, that would have been the point at which I'd stop reading.

 

[Tono Makt]

Really hoping it's #2. Would be even happier if the ending turns out to cost far less than $10.

You're hoping that they intentionally withheld an ending, just so they could charge you additional money to complete the game and do as promised.

Well, that's reasonable.

Given the two choices presented in the post you declined to quote and essentially taking my comment out of context, yes. It's perfectly reasonable.

Turning off the sarcasm, it's unreasonable to expect that Bioware is going to release a "better*" ending (or my preference, make the endings apples, blueberries and watermelon, instead of the choice between granny smith, mcintosh or golden delicious that we currently have) for free. If we're going to get something "better", we're going to be paying for it. It's going to be grating, and it's going to be difficult to press that "purchase" button but we're going to do it if they offer it.

Perfect world? They would admit that they promised us one thing (your choices and actions over three entire games will matter) and gave us the opposite (nigh-identical endings regardless of your choices and actions in any game), they would apologize for letting the fans down, and would release a free download of a "proper*" ending. Since we don't live in a perfect world, I'm hoping that we'll get $4.99 DLC to give us a proper ending to the Mass Effect Trilogy.

* Better/Proper endings being endings in which the actions and choices that the player has made have significant impact on the outcome, as well as there being substantive and difference between the endings.
Example: Destroy the Reapers, destroy the Mass Relays, galaxy is "saved", but now Earth has hundreds of thousands of aliens stranded in orbit - many of which are going to starve to death very shortly. (Turian/Quarian) The Stargazer and the Child talk about "The Shepherd", and how the Shepherd destroyed the Reapers forever.
Control the Reapers, Control the Mass Relays, order Harbinger to retreat back into dark space... and it flies off. (maybe toss in a "By your command" comment from Harbinger for s and g) Citadel flies off, people are elated that the Reapers are going, but are confused and scared because the Reapers just left. The Stargazer and the Child talk about "The Shepherd", and how the Shepherd drove the Reapers back into the darkness of space, never to be seen again.
Synthesize organic and synthetic life, something weird happens like Shepherd begins to talk through Harbinger. You see your two squad mates who didn't make it to the Citadel, nearly dead on the battlefield, enveloped by that green light and circuitry seems to take over their blood vessels and "stitching up" their wounds. Then they stand up, looking confused and awed at the new change. The Stargazer and the Child talk about "The Shepherd", and how the Shepherd brought about the miraculous change that turned everyone and everything in the galaxy into beings united by a shared synthesis between organic and synthetic life.

Are these GOOD examples? Maybe not. But they're vastly different from one another, making each choice obviously mean something. That's currently lacking, and where I have the biggest beef with the ending.

 

[anthony87]

Ugh...I guess I'm just venting now because of Gamesradar. I read an article on it that opened with: "I don't know what the ending of Mass Effect 3 entails, and I don't care. I haven't even played Mass Effect 3 yet. Hell, I'm still working through the first one at the moment."

and then went on for two pages saying we're wrong, entitled, etc. Got under my skin a little what with GR being one of my favourite sites.

Rocking the boat is kinda fun though.

I read an article on it that opened with:
"I don't know what the ending of Mass Effect 3 entails, and I don't care. I haven't even played Mass Effect 3 yet. Hell, I'm still working through the first one at the moment."

"I haven't even played Mass Effect 3 yet."

...wow. Okay, that would have been the point at which I'd stop reading.

Well if the comments of the article are anything to go by then that's where a lot of people stopped, myself included only to be hit by torrents of "Oh, well if that's where you stopped then you're missing the point of the article and just showing how whiney you are" and the like. Mind you, I did give it a read eventually and....well it's the same nonsense we've been hearing up to now saying we're acting spoiled, holding the industry back, "artistic integrity" and so on.

So it seems that even so-called "journalists" who haven't even touched the ENTIRE SERIES let along experienced the ending of the third game have a greater say on the whole matter than we do.

There's no bloody winning with these people.

 

[Allthingsspectacular]

God I'm getting sick of this. The "Yo dawg" scenario that everyone so fondly brings up is completely untrue and misleading. The Catalyst didn't "create synthetics to kill organics, so that the organics won't create synthetics to kill organics". It created the Reapers to kill only the highest civilizations, in order to prevent their synthetics from wiping out everything.
And even if we forget that, there's still the whole other half of their reasoning. They don't do it simply to prevent synthetics turning on them. They do it to remove the top-dog in the galaxy, so that other species will have the chance to be uplifted, and have their shot.
Say what you will about the ending being unsatisfactory, there is nothing about this bit of it that deserves the amount of ridicule that it gets.

No. This still makes no ****ing sense. Why even do that to begin with if they're going to be exterminated? Why let them rise up to begin with?

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

(snip)

(additional snip)

Well if the comments of the article are anything to go by then that's where a lot of people stopped, myself included only to be hit by torrents of "Oh, well if that's where you stopped then you're missing the point of the article and just showing how whiney you are" and the like. Mind you, I did give it a read eventually and....well it's the same nonsense we've been hearing up to now saying we're acting spoiled, holding the industry back, "artistic integrity" and so on.

So it seems that even so-called "journalists" who haven't even touched the ENTIRE SERIES let along experienced the ending of the third game have a greater say on the whole matter than we do.

There's no bloody winning with these people.

This reminds me, I need to find that Reddit thread where somebody posted a screenshot of Jim Sterling and a bunch of other guys having an ever-so-classy Twitter shit-fit about the guy who writes the articles for Forbes. You know, Forbes? The business magazine that's been pwning these gaming journalists with surprising regularity since this whole mess started?

Right, that Forbes.

EDIT: Oh, another thing, about these unceasing cries of "artistic integrity": where were they a few months ago, when a Mass Effect novel came out that was so utterly awful that Bioware wound up agreeing to have it rewritten?

 

[Darkcerb]

EA: Here's what's gonna happen Casey, you and Mac are gonna take control of this thing and end it.

Casey: Why?

EA: Well, see... if we put the ending in your and Mac Daddies hands instead of giving the fans what they were promised, they'll will rise up en mass and demand something new and then we'll be able to give them just that.

Casey: Or... we could just give them-

EA: No... the plans have been set in motion.

thats unfair.

the reapers somewhat had a point!

Nice picture, made me giggle a bit.

Made me think of something though. If the reapers are just chillin' in dark space for hundreds of thousands of years, and on top of that they're super duper (really duper) intelligent, than wouldn't at least one of them have found out that their reasons for killing organics makes no sense?

God I'm getting sick of this. The "Yo dawg" scenario that everyone so fondly brings up is completely untrue and misleading. The Catalyst didn't "create synthetics to kill organics, so that the organics won't create synthetics to kill organics". It created the Reapers to kill only the highest civilizations, in order to prevent their synthetics from wiping out everything.
And even if we forget that, there's still the whole other half of their reasoning. They don't do it simply to prevent synthetics turning on them. They do it to remove the top-dog in the galaxy, so that other species will have the chance to be uplifted, and have their shot.
Say what you will about the ending being unsatisfactory, there is nothing about this bit of it that deserves the amount of ridicule that it gets.

Except that alot of us have a fleet of quarians and geth that the god child pretends doesn't exist. Catalyst my foot, sheperd is the catalyst he/she is the agent of change tzeentch would be proud.

 

[jensenthejman]

Simply put, Mac should only ever write characters, Drew should write story/lore. And they should goddamn ALWAYS be up for constructive criticism.

^Pretty much this.

 

[anthony87]

(snip)

(additional snip)

Well if the comments of the article are anything to go by then that's where a lot of people stopped, myself included only to be hit by torrents of "Oh, well if that's where you stopped then you're missing the point of the article and just showing how whiney you are" and the like. Mind you, I did give it a read eventually and....well it's the same nonsense we've been hearing up to now saying we're acting spoiled, holding the industry back, "artistic integrity" and so on.

So it seems that even so-called "journalists" who haven't even touched the ENTIRE SERIES let along experienced the ending of the third game have a greater say on the whole matter than we do.

There's no bloody winning with these people.

This reminds me, I need to find that Reddit thread where somebody posted a screenshot of Jim Sterling and a bunch of other guys having an ever-so-classy Twitter shit-fit about the guy who writes the articles for Forbes. You know, Forbes? The business magazine that's been pwning these gaming journalists with surprising regularity since this whole mess started?

Right, that Forbes.

EDIT: Oh, another thing, about these unceasing cries of "artistic integrity": where were they a few months ago, when a Mass Effect novel came out that was so utterly awful that Bioware wound up agreeing to have it rewritten?

Awh man, why would Jim be bashing Forbes? I thought he was one of the few who actually understood why people were pissed off?

Oh well, at least we've still got Shamus not jumping on the "whiners" bandwagon.

 

[Killertje]

Don't insult us, is the first thing you assume simply "lol they're just too dumb to like the ending"? Because the ending isn't particularly clever, philosophical or new, it's simplistic, cliche and insulting.

First off, cut it with the antagonistic remarks; I certainly wasn't trying to offend anyone, which is quite difficult to say when the truth of the matter is that the ending is making leaps of logic which most simply cannot follow. That doesn't mean the average player is "dumb", just that the conveying of the higher-level ideas weren't conveyed well enough. Instead of ideas flowing from A to B to C and so on, they went all the way from A to Z in one step without explaining it. While this can make the game more entertaining for a sophisticated audience... it's still a problem, because that audience quickly shrinks to nothing.

Nevertheless, that sort of behaviour is part of what's getting in the way of people understanding the ending -- they're jumping to conclusions. It's a case of where you have to sit back and look at the big picture, not just from your perspective. As I remarked in my earlier post, the patterns are more important than the details. This was repeated several times throughout the series, and the value of information was made quite clear... so why is almost everyone looking at the details? They're easier to wrap your mind around, that's why.

Mass Effect fans are smarter then you think, most of them have already deconstructed, analyzed and reconstructed every possible meaning behind the ending, to the point where people have developed a conspiracy theory centered around the minute details throughout the entire game. We've written VOLUMES about why the ending doesn't work and you honestly think it's because it just went over our heads?

Having read the link, I'm seeing the exact same problem. Getting bogged down in the details, not looking at the big picture. All of the details are hinting towards something which the vast majority of people are overlooking:

Spoiler

"The created will always rebel against the creators, leading to the extinction of all organic life."

So who are the creators? For the geth, it was the quarians. The quarians forcibly tried to shut them all down when they started showing signs of sentience, and the geth proved to be much better at self-defense than anyone realized. Even if the geth didn't directly rebel, it was made quite clear that they were much better at fighting than the quarians; the second half of the statement above is true. The first half? The exception doesn't make the rule, and players aren't privy to any other organic-synthetic conflict beyond Javik's offhand referral to the "Metacon War" from the last cycle.

But again, who are the creators?
Who is it that dictates the evolution of organic life along the lines they have determined?
Who built the Mass Relays and the Citadel?
Who is every single advanced organic species fighting against to survive?
Who is quelling a rebellion against the ascension to a higher form of life?

The Reapers are the creators of galactic society.

Sometimes, the answer is simpler than it looks. The Reapers, led by the Catalyst, aren't truly evil. Their methods are harsh, but it is "for the greater good"... from a certain point of view. They control the patterns, the pathways upon which advanced societies evolve; they've had millions of years to learn how to indirectly manipulate societies to bend to their will, in addition of direct manipulation through indoctrination.

---

And now onto some speculation.

As stated, Reapers are working "for the greater good"; guiding sentient species towards galactic society on paths they have determined. They have plenty of methods for indirect manipulation, but indoctrination was always viewed as a negative... but could it be used for good as well? Quite possibly, a way for them to keep things moving on the track they've made without too much deviation; at worst, you have the occassional mad genius who invents something special. Clever, but never stated in the material.

The other thing is... what are the Reapers monitoring for when they start their harvest? Sovereign was watching for something, but everyone is assuming it was a certain technological threshold. How about the development of sentient AIs? As Javik mentioned, the "Metacon War" was underway just before the Reapers hit. For the ME-cycle, it was the geth; the synthetic species were able to defend themselves so well that they drove the quarians from their homeworld, the conflict between organic and synthetic sentients had begun. But before any organic species ended up completely wiped out due to this, it was time for the Reapers to come in for their harvest and to "ascend" those species to the form of a Reaper themselves; but the Protheans had "fixed" the Keepers, preventing things from going as planned. Interestingly, why would Sovereign be insulted by the geth worshiping him as if he were a god? Because he's there to save organic life (not that they'd like it) and (possibly) wipe out the sentient AI synthetics which started the conflict (nothing against using them as a resource, however; preferrably as disposable as possible).

... Or maybe not.

The geth are an anomaly, they did not rebel and only defended themselves; pretty damn well, but they weren't antagonistic. The conflict still existed, but the nature of it had changed. The geth proved the Reapers were wrong. Their belief that all organic life would be destroyed by synthetics was no longer an absolute truth, so perhaps it was time for the cycle of harvesting to end. The Crucible has been passed down from cycle to cycle, perhaps even originating from the Reapers themselves; should it ever come to pass that the Reapers are wrong and the cycle must end, the Crucible is how they would manipulate another species into ending it for them. How it should end couldn't be made by the Reaper themselves, as they were just proven wrong; so the one who proved them wrong should make the decision.

By reaching the Catalyst, Shepard proved the Reapers were wrong.

But this raises an interesting dilemna, could the indoctrination theory be true? Could the Reapers be subtly indoctrinating Shepard to lead him/her down the path needed to end the cycle? As far as I can tell, the only way it makes sense is if the Reapers were deliberately trying to get Shepard to end the cycle. Why would the Catalyst appear before him as a child in order to make him/her feel the guilt of not being able to save everyone and all the more driven to stop the Reapers?

Which brings us to the final decision... the Catalyst brought both Shepard and the completed Crucible to itself, and leaves the decision of how to end the cycle of Reaper harvests to Shepard. The Catalyst removes any restraints at this point, it is a decision only Shepard can make.

Destroy the Reapers, ending the harvest but allowing for the possibility of a synthetic species to obliterate all organics without anything to stop them?

Control the Reapers, ending the harvest... until another organic-synthetic conflict arises and the Reapers are needed again to preserve organic life? And possibly to set species back to the pre-space-flight technology era so that it doesn't happen constantly?

Or use the Crucible to synthesize organic and synthetic species into a new life form, removing the reason for the conflict in the first place?

It's far too easy to focus on the "What?", but it's often the "Why?" which is more important.

Some interesting points in your spoiler, thanks for that!

I still don't like the choices the ending gives though.

Spoiler

Nothing explains how Shepard's disintegration makes him magically control the reapers or fuse organics and synthetics together (and what the hell does that even mean?). And why do the Geth and your own implants have to die if you just want to destroy the reapers? And what DOES happen to your squad and all the races you managed to save? Is all that just unimportant because it's all about the patterns? I think not.

I don't mind if Shepard dies, but I'd like to know why it's important that he does. The "destroy all sentient synthetics" option makes the most sense to me, concerning his death, if you assume his implants pretty much replaced his brain, making him a sentient synthetic. However, I didn't assume that until I got to ME3's ending. Also, that would be the only ending where Shepard can survive if you have enough war assets, so how does that work exactly? For the other 2 endings it doesn't make sense why Shepard has to die and it isn't explained at all, you just see him get disintegrated, as if he was being harvested like the girl in ME2's last mission.

I do enjoy the speculation for a while (including the indoctrination theory), so I wouldn't mind if Bioware held back on the real endings and made those available as DLC after a few months. However it looks like that wasn't the idea behind this at all; it looks like it was just a sloppy ending made by 2 people instead of the entire team, leaving more questions unanswered than if the credits would have rolled after getting shot by harbinger. (Insert cutscene where all the fleets and all planets in the galaxy get reaped.)

 

[bobfish92]

A catalyst isn't an agent of change, it meerly enhances/speeds up an already occuring reaction.