JohnZ117 said:
And as for why the ME 3 endings make sense to me and others, I refer you to Mike Richards' excellent post:
To be honest, I do not find Mike Richard's arguments to be very good. They ignore key issues and events in the game. It ignores hard evidence and is selective in its interpretations and assumptions. Since the man himself has now joined this discussion, perhaps he would like to respond to my criticisms? While I understand I am walking into a quagmire here, I feel such arguments are worthy of discussion.
Time and time again we see that the point of the trilogy was exploring the danger of conflict based in false assumptions made about 'the enemy' and a lack of communication and understanding between sides.
This has been the basis of every major conflict presented, and several minor ones as well. The quarians attacked the Geth because they were afraid that they would revolt and exterminate them the moment they grew beyond their control, and the Geth attacked the quarians because they knew they would be afraid of them and preemptively try to stop them achieving full sentience. The krogan start taking territory for themselves because they believe the Council will never grant it to them, and in their culture this is a perfectly acceptable response. The Council believes the krogan cannot be reasoned with or appeased and instead decides to horrifically cripple them, seemingly forever. In the first contact war/relay 314 incident, the turians immediately responded with force out of desire to enforce Council law and fear of another rachni situation, without considering the impression this would leave on the newly contacted human race. Humanity, on the other hand, never had the chance to consider what reasons the turians could have for reacting forcefully to the activation of a dormant relay. For all they know, they could have very well actually prevented another rachni war.
This is a massive oversimplification, reducing complex ideas and events to simple platitudes. The Geth did not pre-emptively attack the Quarians. In fact, much of the early war was fought between different Quarian factions, essentially a Civil War. The Krogan Wars were motivated by the Krogan's need for land to house their rapidly expanded population. The Rachni were actually indoctinated (possibly by Reapers or the Leviathans), not to mention their origins lie in genetic engineering. I don't deny that understanding of the other is a major theme in Mass Effect, but the above argument ignores the events which ground this theme in the narrative thus creating a false or misleading impression.
This repeated message of understanding and communication is driven home once we learn the Reapers' true purpose. Harvesting and preserving organic life is horrific to us because the Reapers never stopped to consider out perspective. To machines, it makes perfect mathematical sense. On a galactic scale, conflict between synthetics and organics is statistically inevitable somewhere at some time, because they will mistrust each other and they will be afraid. The synthetics will by design be created to be superior to the creators, made to do things they can't or don't want to better then they ever could. And unlike an organic species emerging victorious over another, a synthetic race emerging victorious over organics could potentially allow them to dominate the evolutionary cycle of the galaxy completely. Organic civilization could fall and never be allowed to return.
This is really problematic. Especially the statement in bold. The problem with this argument is that no one in the world knows how a sentient machine would think. We can't know as we've never met any. To make any assumptions (and they are assumptions) we could look at fiction. But fiction provides no answer. Robotic life forms range greatly in character. Some a friendly, some villainous. Even then most have highly individual personalities. The same is true in Mass Effect. EDI, the Reapers and the Geth all have highly different personalities, goals and modes of interaction. Assuming a blanket way of interacting is already contradicting Mass Effect's set up. In addition both the Geth and EDI show they are interested in co-existence. Organic creatures too, including Tali, can reciprocate this desire. Essentially this argument is riddled with logical fallacies; appeals to authority, circular reasoning, appeals to inherent nature, appeals to fear and so many more that I would not have the space to list them all.
To a machine built to avert this seemingly inevitable disaster at all costs, the solution is obvious. If the Geth were to wipe out the quarians, everything that they were would be lost forever. But if the quarians were harvested, preserved in a new form before that happens, then some part of them will always survive. Their shared knowledge, their history, maybe even some form of individual minds would never be lost. That's why the Reapers were built out of people. In their own way, however misguided, they were trying to save us the only way they knew how.
And this is where the argument really begins to break down. First of all:
If the Geth were to wipe out the quarians, everything that they were would be lost forever.
This is the part that proves the catalyst a liar, or at least wrong. Helping the Geth to destroy the Quarians is exactly what the Reapers set about achieving. They give the Geth upgrades which allow them to destroy the Quarians, which would have happened if not for Shepard's intervention. They also enslaved the Zha'Til and sent them against the Protheans. The Reapers actively help synthetics to destroy organics, making their behaviour work against their stated purpose. Why not help the organics to destroy the synthetics, if synthetics are the problem? And why does he attack races that have not developed Synthetics? Including those like the Protheans who actively opposed synthetics.
As to harvesting, I would say that blending something does in no way preserve it. A culture is more than just it's material. A culture exists in its interactions with its environment in terms of knowledge, art and such. How these are preserved by the reaping process is never explained. But then the Reapers go into combat, where they can be destroyed! Again this works against their stated motivation. Add to this all the civilisations which are not 'preserved' such as the Protheans. Harbinger also had a load of other species slated for extermination. Why not preserve them is preservation is the goal?
The theme of understanding reaches it's apex in our final judgement. The obvious answer would seem to be to destroy the monsters and save the world, but that's the test. It's the obvious, thoughtless answer. Death and destruction on top of death and destruction with nothing gained and nothing learned. No attempt is made to understand the Reapers, no attempt is made to find a better way. Yes, we survive, but an entire species is in no uncertain terms killed at Shepard's hand, as well as a close friend. Every species the Reapers ever assimilated is destroyed forever as well, all that knowledge and history of countless civilizations, the only thing that survives of billions of lives, is thrown away forever. And the galaxy is left with nothing to protect itself in the statistically likely event that conflict arises between organics and synthetics again.
And now we get to the interesting part. This argument relies on circular reasoning, but worse than that it ignores the logical problem of this scene. First of all, to stop the Reapers a tube needs to be shot. How does shooting something turn a machine on? And why does Shepard walk towards the beam? What type of beam shoots out anyway? How does it destroy the Geth and Edi, as well as Shepard (possibly)? But perhaps the worst one is why does the catalyst force you to do this. It's already surrendered. It can just turn the Reapers off, or get them to stop fighting if it wanted to.
In Refuse, we see just that, the complete refusal to accept what we have been presented with. We are given the choice to go our own path and face our ending on our terms. But we aren't all powerful, we can't change the reality of the situation just because we want to. The most we can hope for is to lay the groundwork for whoever comes after us to achieve something more then we did. We're never told what exactly the cycle after us, or perhaps even the cycle after that, did to resolve things. But we know it is resolved and almost without question through one of the means presented to Shepard, since passing along the Crucible instructions was implied to be the key. Unlike Shepard they didn't defy the opportunity they had been given, they recognized it, and used it.
Refuse is nonsensical because Shepard goes off on a rant rather than challenge the situation presented. He does not address any of the logical inconsistencies in the catalysts arguments or attempt to pursued it in its thinking.
In Control we see the idea that peace of a sort can be obtained if everyone is united under the banner of a single voice. Balance can be maintained between synthetics and organics, not to mention simply between each side in and of themselves, and nothing has been lost. But it requires a great deal of trust in that single voice. We have to decide if living under what is essentially the unquestionable rule of a physical god is acceptable as long as that entity is benevolent to us. What happens if the people and the Entity That Was Shepard disagree? Is it worthy of that responsibility? Can we trust that it will continue to be worthy for the foreseeable future of the galaxy as it continues to evolve?
While I do like the show of scepticism here, again there is much missed. There are many more problems with control than what happens afterwards. First of all there is the thematic contradiction. The player spends the entire game arguing against this option with TiM either as Paragon or Renegade. We either kill him, or convince him to kill himself by revealing how indoctrinated he has become, only to wind up doing the same thing! It makes no sense. Not only that the mechanism makes no sense either. How is a pair of 'electrodes' (for lack of a better term) supposed to 'upload' Shepard's mind? We did get uploaded in the Geth Consensus mission, but that further contradicts this event. Shepard's body was not destroyed for a start. Second of all the level shows how limited Shepard's ability to engage with a synthetic mind is. We need a guide (Legion) to help us through it, and it is still an alien landscape. And that was just a small part of the whole Geth Consensus. Now the Reapers are supposed to be several orders of magnitude more complex, told to us by Legion, who is infinitely better at such interactions than Shepard is. So how is little old Shep supposed to cope? And of course, what goes up is not really Shepard is it? So what is it then?
The answer the game clearly favors is Synthesis, the total culmination of the theme of understanding and unity over mistrust and false assumptions. Shepard is given the ability to help avert or perhaps even completely resolve the inevitability of conflict between different mass groups of beings in a way The Catalyst or anyone else was incapable of doing previously. Synthesis puts everyone on an even playing field, giving them the ability to understand each other and communicate in an unprecedented fashion, and what could very well be the tools to building not a perfect world, but at least something of a better one. There is no evidence in the final sequence that it indoctrinates people or 'turns them into zombies' or 'suppresses all individuality' or any other such claims that frequently get thrown around. All we see is that it simply opens new doors for all life in the galaxy, and that has the potential to become something magnificent.
The problem with synthesis is twofold. First it makes no logical sense. Why does Shepard need to jump into a beam of light? How is a green beam of light supposed to change all DNA? How is a new DNA supposed to affect the synthetic/organic 'conflict'? What are the practical consequences to everyday life? The second problem is worse. See, in order to get Synthesis, one needs to obtain a high score. One gets this high score by getting the races of the galaxy to co-operate together. The very thing that allows Synthesis proves we don't need it. Contrary to what Mike states here, the Galaxy was getting along fine for the most part. Humans, Turians, Salarians, Volus, Hanar, Drell, Asari and Elcor all came together long before the Reaper War and learned to co-operate. Even other races were capable of at least working together such as Krogan, Quarian, Batarian and Vorcha. Hell, even Javik comes round in the end. The point of saving the Galaxy is that it is worth saving. Add to this the Reapers propensity for subversion and it is difficult to take Synthesis at face value, especially as such a state of being is so removed from our own experiences.
I think that such a post requires a summary.
1) The Catalyst does not do what he claims to do. He does not preserve life. He destroys some species, irrespective of their connection to Synthetics. He aids synthetics in destroying organics. And those he does preserve are thrown into combat where they can be destroyed.
2) The mechanisms involved in each ending make no logical sense. It is not clear how they are each supposed to function. In other words, why do they do the things that they do, in the way that they do them.
3) The endings violate, or at least diminish, the themes of the game. Themes like friendship are ignored. All the effort to bring everyone together is belittles. Some conflicts are pushed into the background while others are exaggerated in importance.
This is not an exhaustive description, and I have by no means covered everything, or given it the depth it deserves. Nevertheless it will do for now. I could easily write a more comprehensive argument against the ending rather than a rebuttal, though I might need to buy some nice brandy first.
