Mass Effect 3: It's not the endings, its the final battle (And synthesis)

[JellySlimerMan]

See, the problem is that something Else was foreshadowed. Actually, a lot of other possible endings were foreshadowed, but I can't find evidence that the "literal interpretation" of the ending was foreshadowed.

Then you paid absolutely no attention to every word that was spoken in regards to the Catalyst or Vendetta.

And it's not BioWare's fault if you're purposefully shoving your head in the sand.

You are one of those people that find no fault in movies like Prometheus, are you? let me show you what real people think about these belivable characters:

http://blip.tv/the-spoony-experiment/vlog-6-8-12-prometheus-6194523

Anyway, its funny now that you mention it, because you said before that The Catalyst DOESNT control the Reapers or isnt a Reaper himself. Remember this?

Claiming the Catalyst is a Reaper despite it being blatantly obvious that the Catalyst is not "a Reaper" simply so one can pretend it is unreliable and that there really isn't any price to pay in the Destroy ending.

*facepalm*

This is the message that game developers might get from ending-bashers: if you make a game where victory through sacrifice is a major theme from the beginning to the end, then people will like that theme up until the very last moment when they will hate it just because it spoiled their sunshine-and-flowers happy ending.

Even when The Catalyst himself said he controls them at 0:56 "Perhaps, i control the Reapers. They are my solution"


And, acording to you, it was foreshadowed by Vendetta at 11:35 that "The Reapers are only servants to the pattern. They are not its master"


(While we are on the subject, what happened to what Vendetta wanted to do at 12:47? when we rescue him from Cerberus we dont find out what was what he wanted to do by "Assist with the The Catalyst")

But the million dollar question becomes: So what?

How is "The Reapers are puppets" translates to this foreshadowing "The one who controls them is in The Citadel. Who, by the way, built the Citadel and now somehow it is the missing piece to complete a superweapon named "The Crusible" designed to destroy The Reapers"?

Vendetta says that the other cycles adapted The Citadel as being part of the design to use the weapons of the Reapers against them, but in no way did ANYONE knew that the one controlling the Reapers, and the one who should had a way to send the signal to the other Reapers by himself when the Keepers didnt respond anymore, is IN the Citadel. That is just the mother of all coincidences, and yet the one who controls the Reapers names itself as The Catalyst, like he was a part of it all along.

At 0:47 and beyond: "At some point, it is difficult to input when, the Crusible planes were adapted to include the use of The Catalyst"

Again, that just helps to build up the idea that its a trap from the Reapers:

1)A superweapon that conveniently appears in the last second (in a overarching plot sense, it appears in the last moment of the trilogy. In the game sense, it is presented very early in the Mars mission)

2)Who nobody knows exactly what it does and we still go along with it (nevermind that the most typical and even cliche military procedure will dictate that someone sets up a scene where the scientist make a miniature version of the real weapon as a way to demostrate to the higher ups what the weapon MIGHT do in case it is fully completed. You know, kinda like how America used nuclear bombs test BEFORE using the one on Hiroshima)

3)That needs The Citadel to function even when its a well know fact it is a Reaper creation.

4)The same Citadel that was moved to Earth when TIM told the Reapers about the Crusible (not ASAP as Reapers tend to do in previous cycles) and that we can now reach without problems through the Charon (Sol) Relay because the Reapers conveniently forgot to shut it down. You know, shutting down the Relay network like The Reapers always do except not this time?

5)Where the main antagonist, the one who controls the Reapers AND refers itself as a Reaper by including itself when referencing them, lives.

6)And whose motivations are stupid, insane and nonsensical for a machine that lived for almost an eternity, and that somehow didnt use that time to question its motivations, nor try to find a better solution that puny mortals did better by creating The Space Duracell know as The Crusible. (They did try but somehow that didnt work out, because the organics werent ready and cant be forced.....even if they are already doing that by forcing everyone into being a synthetised cyborg know as a Reaper)

If that doesnt scream "IT'S A TRAP!", then these "well written" people are too dumb to live.

EDIT1: This is interesting. How is it possible for the Reapers to NEVER notice they are being controlled? Vendetta makes the implication that they dont control the cycle pattern, like they are mindless or something. But for being almighty techno gods "Independant, free of all weakness. The pinacle of evolution and existance" it seems that the idea never crossed their minds even with almost an eternity to think about it or find the source that its controlling them. The Geth were pretty self aware of their surroundings even if they are inferior synthetic creatures compared to The Reapers, and i am expected to believe that they are incapable of self reflection or even go beyond their programing after thousand of cycles even when the Geth DID just that in less than a single cycle?

 

[cricketer15]

its a good game though

 

[JellySlimerMan]

its a good game though

Depends of what you consider a good game. It is a good RPG? a good GoW? a good Romance SIM? i am not even sure it could be good compared to the competition around. Maybe people have less and less money today and cant buy many games to have something to compare with.

 

[jawz13]

The Synthesis ending was my favorite ending...I rather liked the third game despite any flaws it had.
The second will always be my favorite, but the hate ME3 gets will always baffle me.

Just a simple question: What kind of complains have you seen on part of the fans regarding the ending AND the series.

I think the marketing of the game had a lot of people under the impression that they would have full control over exactly how the game ended (standard EA marketing fail and has very little to do with the developers). Also a lot of people were pretty butthurt because, lets face it, sad endings don't have as much mass market appeal as happy ones.

The modern trend of fanboy nitpicking of films and games is getting kind of silly.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

The Synthesis ending was my favorite ending...I rather liked the third game despite any flaws it had.
The second will always be my favorite, but the hate ME3 gets will always baffle me.

Just a simple question: What kind of complains have you seen on part of the fans regarding the ending AND the series.

I think the marketing of the game had a lot of people under the impression that they would have full control over exactly how the game ended (standard EA marketing fail and has very little to do with the developers). Also a lot of people were pretty butthurt because, lets face it, sad endings don't have as much mass market appeal as happy ones.

The modern trend of fanboy nitpicking of films and games is getting kind of silly.

This is the, what, 4th time i post this video with ACTUAL QUOTES of the DEVELOPERS (not marketing)?


Watch from 14:38 to 18:21

And what is worse, the numbers of displeased fans that complain about the lack of proper and well written storytelling (on a company that MADE its reputation on making well written stories) outnumber everything else:


This isnt nitpicking, this is a serious problem. People dont listen to the retard that invented "The Awesome Button", remember that?:

ME2 also didnt fare better:

Do you feel how you become even dumber by seeing this? how more neurons are dying in agony? THAT is marketing.

But when even the people that should tell you the truth about how the product ACTUALLY works lie about it, then who do we trust now? we are LITERALY burning money for no apparent reason in the same way we are buying something that we have no reason to trust that it will even remotely close to what we end up obtaining. This ME3 fiasco is just the Aliens: Colonial Marines but way more subtle and controlled because now everyone things that the gamers are being whiny and entitled.

 

[J Tyran]

those assumptions are all based on incredibly smart AIs doing incredibly stupid, illogical things.

Some of that could be explained by the Reapers arrogance, after many millions of years and countless cycles noone ever threatend them so they beleived they where unstoppable. The arrogance was also in their nature because,

Spoiler: ME3 and Leviathan DLC spoilers

Their creators where arrogant too, after seeing younger races fall victim to rogue AIs they decided they had to stop it. They decided to create an incredibly powerful AI to oversee the younger races, even though they where forewarned about the risks of creating them by the example of the races they intended to protect. They believed that they where so advanced that nothing could threaten them, not even an almost omnipresent synthetic intelligence. Their creation spent millennia gathering resources and data and then turned on them, the Reapers have the same level of hubris

I think the Leviathan DLC fixes some of the problems the ending of ME3 had though, like:-

Spoiler: More Leviathan spoilers

The illogical nature of the "solution" because the Reapers never intended the cycles to be a permanent solution to rogue AIs and where trying to find another way. They refined the nature of the cycles so they became more efficient and where much shorter, they created the relays and influenced the technological evolution of the organic races to help expidite the process. They did this as an experiment so that one day they could find a better or permanent solution, the Leviathan also told Shepard that his actions and experiences where not happenstance. The plans for the Crucible might be another key, despite the almost total erasure of each harvested species the plans for the device managed to get endlessly passed down for millions of years. They might have allowed this deliberately, thats just personal speculation though its not in the story

The revelations in that DLC add to the ending and the ending makes a little more sense in light of it. Its still far from a "good" ending but paired with the extended cut of the ending its not quite as bad.

Still its very lame that you need to spend money on a DLC to get the full picture, the DLC is OK and worth the money but its not nice that you need to buy it to complete the ending.

Depends of what you consider a good game. It is a good RPG? a good GoW? a good Romance SIM?

I think ME3 in particular is a good tactical third person shooter, the combat mechanics are generally solid. You have a huge arsenal of weapons, upgrades and abilities to choose from and form a team. Then you use all of it in a fairly intense shooter that can be quite challenging and have to use your squad mates and synergize all of the weapons and powers and use it tactically.

For me the Mass Effect series has been a shooter with a deeper choose your own path space opera story.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Depends of what you consider a good game. It is a good RPG? a good GoW? a good Romance SIM?

I think ME3 in particular is a good tactical third person shooter, the combat mechanics are generally solid. You have a huge arsenal of weapons, upgrades and abilities to choose from and form a team. Then you use all of it in a fairly intense shooter that can be quite challenging and have to use your squad mates and synergize all of the weapons and powers and use it tactically.

For me the Mass Effect series has been a shooter with a deeper choose your own path space opera story.

But those tactics matter in the game? one can simply spam Charge+Nova during the whole game (except when the game tells you not to do it because no reason whatsoever, forcing you to use the gun for a short time) making everything else useless. And there are times when the game punish you for having certain skills when the plot feels like it, like the Eva Core "fight" (i refuse to call that a fight) where you dont have enough time to kill her and you cant use your powers in most cases.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Spoiler: More Leviathan spoilers

The illogical nature of the "solution" because the Reapers never intended the cycles to be a permanent solution to rogue AIs and where trying to find another way. They refined the nature of the cycles so they became more efficient and where much shorter, they created the relays and influenced the technological evolution of the organic races to help expidite the process. They did this as an experiment so that one day they could find a better or permanent solution, the Leviathan also told Shepard that his actions and experiences where not happenstance. The plans for the Crucible might be another key, despite the almost total erasure of each harvested species the plans for the device managed to get endlessly passed down for millions of years. They might have allowed this deliberately, thats just personal speculation though its not in the story

The Catalyst was asking for a new solution now that its old solution "wont work anymore", but when you reject those 3 options and TRY to convince him that those choices were just the same thing he did before, it flips out and goes "SO BE IT" before you can ACTUALLY argue about new solutions.

And if the Crusible offers a new "ideal" solution in the form of Synthesis (as he said it was) then why in the crap he sends the Reapers to destroy it?


Or are you telling me that it was the shoots of a simple pistol that destroyed it? shooting thins breaks them? who knew? well, apparently not Shepard, because he/she shoots the Destroy option and that doesnt break it, in fact it makes it work as intended.

I dont see how making an statement of facts, like Sovereing did, counts as being arrogant. The only one that actually sounds arrogant or even angry is Harbinger.

 

[J Tyran]

Depends of what you consider a good game. It is a good RPG? a good GoW? a good Romance SIM?

I think ME3 in particular is a good tactical third person shooter, the combat mechanics are generally solid. You have a huge arsenal of weapons, upgrades and abilities to choose from and form a team. Then you use all of it in a fairly intense shooter that can be quite challenging and have to use your squad mates and synergize all of the weapons and powers and use it tactically.

For me the Mass Effect series has been a shooter with a deeper choose your own path space opera story.

But those tactics matter in the game? one can simply spam Charge+Nova during the whole game (except when the game tells you not to do it because no reason whatsoever, forcing you to use the gun for a short time) making everything else useless. And there are times when the game punish you for having certain skills when the plot feels like it, like the Eva Core "fight" (i refuse to call that a fight) where you dont have enough time to kill her and you cant use your powers in most cases.

Turn the difficulty up, getting out in the open after using charge & nova will get you killed in seconds if you miss time it. As for the Dr Eva thing, never had a problem with that. A couple of pistol shots to the head drops her, I see your argument with the Dr Eva part though. It was pretty pointless the way it played out, I guess the designers where going for a dramatic interactive cutscene but it didn't really work out. Only thing that can be said is that it was better than a QTE.

Spoiler: More Leviathan spoilers

The illogical nature of the "solution" because the Reapers never intended the cycles to be a permanent solution to rogue AIs and where trying to find another way. They refined the nature of the cycles so they became more efficient and where much shorter, they created the relays and influenced the technological evolution of the organic races to help expidite the process. They did this as an experiment so that one day they could find a better or permanent solution, the Leviathan also told Shepard that his actions and experiences where not happenstance. The plans for the Crucible might be another key, despite the almost total erasure of each harvested species the plans for the device managed to get endlessly passed down for millions of years. They might have allowed this deliberately, thats just personal speculation though its not in the story

The Catalyst was asking for a new solution now that its old solution "wont work anymore", but when you reject those 3 options and TRY to convince him that those choices were just the same thing he did before, it flips out and goes "SO BE IT" before you can ACTUALLY argue about new solutions.

And if the Crusible offers a new "ideal" solution in the form of Synthesis (as he said it was) then why in the crap he sends the Reapers to destroy it?


Or are you telling me that it was the shoots of a simple pistol that destroyed it? shooting thins breaks them? who knew? well, apparently not Shepard, because he/she shoots the Destroy option and that doesnt break it, in fact it makes it work as intended.

I dont see how making an statement of facts, like Sovereing did, counts as being arrogant. The only one that actually sounds arrogant or even angry is Harbinger.

Spoiler: Reply and ME1 & ME3 spoilers

Maybe the Catalyst didn't recognize the solution until it was staring him in the face, maybe he wanted to see how hard the organics would fight to achieve their goals. The Reapers and the Catalyst had engineered the galaxy to be driven by evolution, the Protheans recognized it and called it the "cosmic imperative". Maybe it wanted to see if they where strong enough to complete their mission, after all once it was docked why did they ignore it? All speculation of course, there are still missing pieces. No denying that at all, just that the Leviathan plot filled in some of the holes.

No idea whats going on in the video, maybe the engine and mechanics of the game need you to shoot the conduit doohicky to trigger the ending and shooting elsewhere just gives a critical mission failure.

As for the arrogance every Reaper has been arrogant, Sovereign was on Virmire in his discussion with Shepard and his arrogance caused his defeat at the Citadel. He was angered by Shepards resistance and believed he could destroy Shepard by assuming control of Sarens corpse, Sovereign was winning the fight. The Citadel fleet was in tatters and the Alliance fleet where dropping like flys and couldn't penetrate his shields. Instead of taking a cautious approach and waiting for the Geth or deploying husks he chose in his arrogance to risk everything by assuming control to squash Shepard in person, it backfired on him and he temporally lost some control over his own form and his shields dropped allowing the Alliance to destroy him.

The same for the Reaper on Tuchanka, it appeared that didn't believe the Thresher Maw was a threat. It could have flew away and killed it from the air, Reapers take off in seconds. Instead it chose to stand its ground against something it should have took more seriously, thats arrogance.

Same for the one on Rannoch, it chose to go out in the open and try to kill Shepard in person. It could have took evasive action and flew away and attack the Quarians but it didn't.


The dialogue for each Reaper betrays arrogance to, they condescend Shepard and insist that Organics have no comprehension of the Reapers and their purpose.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

And if the Crusible offers a new "ideal" solution in the form of Synthesis (as he said it was) then why in the crap he sends the Reapers to destroy it?

Perhaps the problem is your assumption that the Catalyst "sent" the Reapers to destroy the Crucible.

No assuptions here. Here is the dialog in question:

At 5:45

The EC makes it clear that The Catalyst KNEW about The Crusible before, both from TIM telling them AND from previous cycles. If they knew what the Crusible was capable of all along, then they SHOULDN'T, EVER, put a finger on it, or else the feature that they needed so much, the ideal solution (Synthesis), will be lost forever. But, as seen in the cinematics of low EMS on the EC, the Reapers take adventaje that no one is protecting the Crusible and do so much damage to the point that even The Catalyst makes it clear that using it at all will destroy all life in general, not just synthetics.


The EC is, as you said, a clarification for the people too dumb to notice subtleties. Now it is MORE obvious than ever that the Reapers make no sense at all.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Spoiler: Reply and ME1 & ME3 spoilers

Maybe the Catalyst didn't recognize the solution until it was staring him in the face, maybe he wanted to see how hard the organics would fight to achieve their goals. The Reapers and the Catalyst had engineered the galaxy to be driven by evolution, the Protheans recognized it and called it the "cosmic imperative". Maybe it wanted to see if they where strong enough to complete their mission, after all once it was docked why did they ignore it? All speculation of course, there are still missing pieces. No denying that at all, just that the Leviathan plot filled in some of the holes.

And you dont find anything wrong with this? that a creature that has an eternity in its hand, doesnt use it to question its programing or search alternate solutions? even when inferior synthetics creatures like The Geth questioned their existance very quickly (quickly at least compared to the time span of the Reapers)?. That we are still using "maybe" to the motivations of the antagonist? even when almost every story ever makes it clear what are the motivations of all the players of the story?

Being driven by evolution would mean more creatures like the Thorian or even more Leviathans would exist because the Reapers allow it. The Thorian gets a special mention on the narrative saying that, since it didnt use Mass Effect tech, it evolved on a path that didnt need synthetics at all. This would mean that The Thorian is the ideal kind of organic race The Reapers wants, because those are not stupid enough or dependant enough to make synthetics that will destroy them. However that is not what the Reaper wants, because if it was the case, then they wouldn't leave ME tech to be found and increase the possibility of a more synthetic technological path.

Why not take a look at the ideal solution of Synthesis one more time:

 

[J Tyran]

Spoiler: Reply and ME1 & ME3 spoilers

Maybe the Catalyst didn't recognize the solution until it was staring him in the face, maybe he wanted to see how hard the organics would fight to achieve their goals. The Reapers and the Catalyst had engineered the galaxy to be driven by evolution, the Protheans recognized it and called it the "cosmic imperative". Maybe it wanted to see if they where strong enough to complete their mission, after all once it was docked why did they ignore it? All speculation of course, there are still missing pieces. No denying that at all, just that the Leviathan plot filled in some of the holes.

And you dont find anything wrong with this? that a creature that has an eternity in its hand, doesnt use it to question its programing or search alternate solutions? even when inferior synthetics creatures like The Geth questioned their existance very quickly (quickly at least compared to the time span of the Reapers)?. That we are still using "maybe" to the motivations of the antagonist? even when almost every story ever makes it clear what are the motivations of all the players of the story?

Being driven by evolution would mean more creatures like the Thorian or even more Leviathans would exist because the Reapers allow it. The Thorian gets a special mention on the narrative saying that, since it didnt use Mass Effect tech, it evolved on a path that didnt need synthetics at all. This would mean that The Thorian is the ideal kind of organic race The Reapers wants, because those are not stupid enough or dependant enough to make synthetics that will destroy them. However that is not what the Reaper wants, because if it was the case, then they wouldn't leave ME tech to be found and increase the possibility of a more synthetic technological path.

My own part was speculation but the rest wasn't, the Catalyst seeded the technology to accelerate the cycles. It was experimenting with the universe to find a permanent solution. The Geth do not really count anyway, for two main reasons. The Reaper sample size covered 10s of millions of years and the Geth where not a "true" AI in the same way as others.

The Reapers are not infallible anyway, one got killed by a worm. Two others where so angry at Shepard they got distracted and got themselves killed. So whos to say their solution was right? The Leviathan wasn't very impressed with it, not just because they got harvested first. There is no maybe about their motivations either, the Leviathan laid it all out. The Leviathans evolved past a point where they just sat and watched the galaxy and became concerned about the wars between organics and synthetics. So they built an almost godlike machine intelligence to solve it and then it eventually turned on them, they where in hiding ever since watching their creation. No maybe about it.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Spoiler: Reply and ME1 & ME3 spoilers

Maybe the Catalyst didn't recognize the solution until it was staring him in the face, maybe he wanted to see how hard the organics would fight to achieve their goals. The Reapers and the Catalyst had engineered the galaxy to be driven by evolution, the Protheans recognized it and called it the "cosmic imperative". Maybe it wanted to see if they where strong enough to complete their mission, after all once it was docked why did they ignore it? All speculation of course, there are still missing pieces. No denying that at all, just that the Leviathan plot filled in some of the holes.

And you dont find anything wrong with this? that a creature that has an eternity in its hand, doesnt use it to question its programing or search alternate solutions? even when inferior synthetics creatures like The Geth questioned their existance very quickly (quickly at least compared to the time span of the Reapers)?. That we are still using "maybe" to the motivations of the antagonist? even when almost every story ever makes it clear what are the motivations of all the players of the story?

Being driven by evolution would mean more creatures like the Thorian or even more Leviathans would exist because the Reapers allow it. The Thorian gets a special mention on the narrative saying that, since it didnt use Mass Effect tech, it evolved on a path that didnt need synthetics at all. This would mean that The Thorian is the ideal kind of organic race The Reapers wants, because those are not stupid enough or dependant enough to make synthetics that will destroy them. However that is not what the Reaper wants, because if it was the case, then they wouldn't leave ME tech to be found and increase the possibility of a more synthetic technological path.

My own part was speculation but the rest wasn't, the Catalyst seeded the technology to accelerate the cycles. It was experimenting with the universe to find a permanent solution. The Geth do not really count anyway, for two main reasons. The Reaper sample size covered 10s of millions of years and the Geth where not a "true" AI in the same way as others.

The Reapers are not infallible anyway, one got killed by a worm. Two others where so angry at Shepard they got distracted and got themselves killed. So whos to say their solution was right? The Leviathan wasn't very impressed with it, not just because they got harvested first. There is no maybe about their motivations either, the Leviathan laid it all out. The Leviathans evolved past a point where they just sat and watched the galaxy and became concerned about the wars between organics and synthetics. So they built an almost godlike machine intelligence to solve it and then it eventually turned on them, they where in hiding ever since watching their creation. No maybe about it.

A permanent solution that only needed a power source, remember? that is what The Catalyst said The Crusible was, "a little more than a power sourse". That is like a Giant Space Duracel, and they only needed to create one to make the ideal solution work. But even THEN, that solution isnt permanent either, after all, what is stopping the new synthetic/organic hibrid life from creating more synthetics that destroy them? They knew all along the solution but somehow that did work because "The organics werent ready. Its not something that can be forced" even if they already do that by the Reaper method of forcing people into that shell. You see what i meant by "not questioning their goals after an eternity later?"

At 31:44 to the end.

There is NO permanent solution and a machine should know better than the organics with concepts of "Hope". They should have opted for a more efficient and simpler solutions. Like killing the synthetics themselves ASA, or even give tech and knowledge that makes organics consider Transhumanism via genetics rather than with machines and AIs (after all, not all technology follows the same path, acording to Legion). This way, they live longer and dont get killed. And last if not least, they could indoctrinate every organic ever into NEVER making synthethics against their will. Sure, the games wouldn't exist if that was the case, because no one ever would be able to break free from indoctrination, but when a plot only exist because no one uses the most logical and simpler solutions, then we are either watching "Gilligan Island" or a campy horror movie from the 80's.

When i referred to the Geth i meant that, in their short time "alive", they felt more capable or transending their programing than the billion of years old Reapers, who still do the same shit over and over without coming up with new solutions or even questioning their quest.

There is only so much a simple explanation like "they got overconfident/arrogant" can do. Both Leviathan and Reapers got overconfident of their power? just like that? Leviathans were certainly arrogant for making a machine after witnessing organics getting killed by machines they created, but what about The Reapers? they certainly take their time to kill organics in a slow pace, to the point that the plan of "shutting down the Relay Network via The Citadel" AND harvesting organics before they are even ready to their presence, was their modus operandy since cycles ago. So they are arrogant to not attack a worm yet cautious enough to adopt an strategy that minimises loss of Reapers and careful focus fire on each organic race? if they are so arrogant they could go full Cthulhu and just walk over each planet and take all the fleets up front, because, after all, who could possibly defeat them? what is the consistency here?

This "arrogance" also contradicts their programing. They use the Reaper shells to protect the harvested people inside them, and use that shell to fight, instead of creating pure synthetic Reapers to fight in the front lines, and put the Soylent Green away from danger. Because, as we are told, each cycle ends with the creation of a Reaper (1 cicle = 1 Reaper) and if a single Reaper dies (lots of them die in this cycle alone) then a whole cycle worth of people are just banished forever. You would think that they would put more resourses in making priority Nº1 "preserving life at all cost" become absolute and more efficient.

http://www.koobismo.com/2012/08/the-leviathan-and-the-death-of-hope/