Mass Effect 3: The Process

[Zen Toombs]

Actually, neither Tali nor Garrus died. None of your squadmates do. It's kindof weird, but and one of the plot holes. For some reason they are on the Normandy, don't ask why.

EDIT: On another note, we're friends on Xbox live right? We should play multiplayer sometime. It's a lot of fun.

.. Wait, what ..?

But, I saw them as Shepard was weak and limping- Garrus on the ground dead with his mouth open and Tali, oh god.. Tali was on her back in a pool of blood. Are you telling me that somehow I missed seeing them on the Normandy with the ending choice I make? Please show me a video or something to clarify I must know.

Also yes, since I beat single player.. I will be happy to play with you on ME3 multiplayer. Least anything we do will make far more sense then the single player ending. :{

I brought Liara and Tali with me, and in the Synethesis ending I chose I saw Tali get out of the Normandy with EDI and Joker. It was.... weird.

I'm not entirely opposed to the "indoctrination theory", although I'm not sure that it is the case.

If it is true, and the planned actual ending is a bit later, that DLC BETTER not cost money, because that is STUPID.

[also, with indoctrination theory, my thought is that the whole scene after you get lazor'd is a hallucination, and if you choose destroy you're shaking the indoctrination off.]

Also, EVERYTHING that happends after the credits [old man talking to kid, the "a winner is you" screen]
[HEADING=2]NEVER HAPPENED[/HEADING]
Yay personal retcons!
I still want to have a little faith in Bioware.

 

[Hellkiller15]

lolololololol Mass Effect 3 body pillows i'd buy those.

 

[Rad Party God]

Hitler's not pleased with it too.


I think I now need to play this game. I don't care if I ever get the bad taste out of my mouth afterwards or ends up eating obscene amounts of ice cream in the bathtub, I need to see the ending/s by myself.

 

[Therumancer]

yeeeaaaaah to be fair, in hindsight, i found the 'paragon' ending a little more appropriate than the others, but yeah, still total BS

There is no Paragpon ending
The lore states that an exploding Mass Relay destroys all life within its sector...from the DLC Arrival
all the endings have the relays explode... thus all advanced technological life is destroyed except for the crew of the Normandy... who crash lands somewhere...

In fact Shepards does more damage to the Universe then the Reapers would have done anyway...
The best you can hope for is:
1: Destroy... you end the Reaper cycle utterly thus giving future life forms a chance of existing without the threat of being harvested.
2. Control... take control of the Reapers and bend them to your will... basicly you decide who will get killed and when.
3. merge - all life becomes half organic/sythnthetic... except there is no real life forms as the exploding relays took them out... except for the normandy crew...

Theyt are all Renegade options and only the Destroy has a long term net benefit.

I suspect you missed a few things or didn't get the full ending. I put some thought into this (more than I should).

Spoiler

If you get the 'best' ending which is to select Destroy after having saved Anderson with a 4000-5000+ readiness rating Shepard lives. You get a scene of Shepard among the wreckage of the Citadel drawing in a breath, proving survival.

What this means is that the Reapers were destroyed, but not all synthetics. You were lied to about that, as Shepard (who is heavily cybered) did not die and in that condition you'd think the loss of all the synthetic components would have been instantly lethal... and most importantly since they said Shepard would die and it DIDN'T HAPPEN it puts a lot of the claims in doubt.

What's more The Citadel for all apperances of destruction apparently didn't totally explode, there are still apparently pieces with independant life support (like the one Shepard is in) so it's intact to some extent and can probably be rebuilt. If that's the case, the Mass Relays might not be in as bad a shape as they first appear either.

I never got the impression that the relays wiped out all the colonies or anything, indeed we saw people on earth cheering as the Reapers blew up. The damage in space seemed to be from detonating Reapers... and what hit The Normandy seemed like some kind of singularity or space portal as opposed to an actual explosion, and indeed it transported him to another planet where he apparently crash landed the ship. That bit is the confusing part, but I think it was intended to be a way of writing the Normandy and it's crew out and putting them somewhere safe through any of the endings for later franchise potential. The prescence of the two crew members you see (which seem to be your most heavily used squad members by reports) simply seems to indicate that the crew survived, after the destruction of Hammer Joker probably was doing extractions of survivors, which probably included most of the major characters so they got to live happily ever after. That is how say Liara or Javik could have been on board, we don't know how long Shepard was out upon arrival, and given that the Normandy was in low orbit coordinating Thranix missle strikes (even if he was "about to rejoin the fleet"), I'd imagine Joker descended to get as many people out as he could and then ran away from the Reaper.

It's not difficult to justify most of the events, and the bit with Shepard living is actually right there, and that says pretty much everything you need to know.

A "best" ending is one where it the damage is catastrophic, the galaxy has entered a long (or not so long) night, but will doubtlessly recover. The races in Mass Effect *DO* have non-gate space travel and do exploration, it's just that they use gates for most of their major travel between crucial locations for the sake of speed and exploration. A lot of races needed to travel through space to some extent to get to the gates they found apparently.

I'd imagine what your looking at is a slow process of the races needing to use conventional space travel to reach the gates and repair them over a period of time. Earth is probably in the best shape since most of the major ships and minds in the galaxy were present for the final battle and some doubtlessly survived. What's more since The Citadel is at least partially intact not to mention all the dead Reapers with the driving minds gone, there is plenty of tech to salvage and rebuild from.

I mean with the damage done there is no way this was going to end well, but the best ending does leave things on a pretty positive note given the sheer damage inflicted.... and really anyone still breathing is a "win" given that losing very much meant everyone dies.

I think Stargazer is intended to be a descendant of the crew of the Normandy on the planet they landed on. There are enough humans to repopulate probably especially with their genetic technology but only one badly damaged ship to salvage, so they probably wound up having to pretty much start a civilization from the near beginning. It does raise some interesting questions about Liara (who was definatly on board in my game) since she was going to live 900 more years, and any other Asari that might have been extracted. With 900 years and their knowlege base I do think whatever civilization they had would get up into space in record time since think of the progress we made since the year 1100 and that was without super advanced aliens to presumably hold knowlege and guide development, of course in Stargazer's time thta might not have happened yet... the point is they probably aren't screwed too badly either.

 

[Yeager942]

The endings are so fucking terrible. At first, I assumed it was obsessive ME fans who just wouldn't be satisfied with whatever ending Bioware made, but I was wrong.

Every decision and choice I made in the past 3 games were totally invalidated. This is what irks me above all us. What was the point about agonizing over the Collector Base? What was the point of curing the genophage? Bioware seemed to forget the whole point of playing a Mass Effect game.

 

[1337mokro]

Anyone that expected to get a satisfactory ending was a fool.

They still need a way to sell the Mass Effect 4th alternate ending DLC, the actual ending, that is of course until the Mass Effect 5th alternate ending DLC is made which will be the really real ending, but then the Mass Effect 6th alternate ending DLC comes along with the super for realz ending.

Shall I continue beating the dead horse about franchise whoring or did people get the point? The day 1 critical story character DLC was already borderline insulting. They basically went and played people for suckers, will play them for suckers when their 10$ dlc packages to "Fix" the ending come out and EA will be laughing all the way to the bank and Bioware will be slowly slumping into the quicksand as they have been since they made Dragon Age 2.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Yeah, the very ending was not very satisfying to me. It wasn't bad, but the choice... just not exactly what I was expecting. I think I'm still in denial. I still not entirely sure how I think about it.

The rest of the game I liked. Especially all the interactions with old friends. And enemies.

 

[1337mokro]

Actually, neither Tali nor Garrus died. None of your squadmates do. It's kindof weird, but and one of the plot holes. For some reason they are on the Normandy, don't ask why.

EDIT: On another note, we're friends on Xbox live right? We should play multiplayer sometime. It's a lot of fun.

.. Wait, what ..?

But, I saw them as Shepard was weak and limping- Garrus on the ground dead with his mouth open and Tali, oh god.. Tali was on her back in a pool of blood. Are you telling me that somehow I missed seeing them on the Normandy with the ending choice I make? Please show me a video or something to clarify I must know.

Also yes, since I beat single player.. I will be happy to play with you on ME3 multiplayer. Least anything we do will make far more sense then the single player ending. :{

I brought Liara and Tali with me, and in the Synethesis ending I chose I saw Tali get out of the Normandy with EDI and Joker. It was.... weird.

I'm not entirely opposed to the "indoctrination theory", although I'm not sure that it is the case.

If it is true, and the planned actual ending is a bit later, that DLC BETTER not cost money, because that is STUPID.

[also, with indoctrination theory, my thought is that the whole scene after you get lazor'd is a hallucination, and if you choose destroy you're shaking the indoctrination off.]

Also, EVERYTHING that happends after the credits [old man talking to kid, the "a winner is you" screen]
[HEADING=2]NEVER HAPPENED[/HEADING]
Yay personal retcons!
I still want to have a little faith in Bioware.

Why would Destroy and not Control be a viable option? Heck the only option that fits into the Indoctrination excuse is Synthesize. Which is a total conversion of the Galaxy into syntheto-organic hybrids.

If you choose to take Control over the reapers. Like my Renegade Shepard probably would, why does that mean the reapers keep him in the illusion? Why does Destroy have the rose coloured ending, when in fact the entire destruction could be an illusion and all there would be is Shepard lying on his back laughing and screaming "I did it, I did it" whilst the Reapers clean up what's left of the fleet.

No this was just really really shitty writing waved of with a contradictory logic loop of the main cop out AI bad guy that is contradicted by several possible endings and events in the game itself.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Actually, neither Tali nor Garrus died. None of your squadmates do. It's kindof weird, but and one of the plot holes. For some reason they are on the Normandy, don't ask why.

EDIT: On another note, we're friends on Xbox live right? We should play multiplayer sometime. It's a lot of fun.

.. Wait, what ..?

But, I saw them as Shepard was weak and limping- Garrus on the ground dead with his mouth open and Tali, oh god.. Tali was on her back in a pool of blood. Are you telling me that somehow I missed seeing them on the Normandy with the ending choice I make? Please show me a video or something to clarify I must know.

Also yes, since I beat single player.. I will be happy to play with you on ME3 multiplayer. Least anything we do will make far more sense then the single player ending. :{

I brought Liara and Tali with me, and in the Synethesis ending I chose I saw Tali get out of the Normandy with EDI and Joker. It was.... weird.

I'm not entirely opposed to the "indoctrination theory", although I'm not sure that it is the case.

If it is true, and the planned actual ending is a bit later, that DLC BETTER not cost money, because that is STUPID.

[also, with indoctrination theory, my thought is that the whole scene after you get lazor'd is a hallucination, and if you choose destroy you're shaking the indoctrination off.]

Also, EVERYTHING that happends after the credits [old man talking to kid, the "a winner is you" screen]
[HEADING=2]NEVER HAPPENED[/HEADING]
Yay personal retcons!
I still want to have a little faith in Bioware.

Why would Destroy and not Control be a viable option? Heck the only option that fits into the Indoctrination excuse is Synthesize. Which is a total conversion of the Galaxy into syntheto-organic hybrids.

If you choose to take Control over the reapers. Like my Renegade Shepard probably would, why does that mean the reapers keep him in the illusion? Why does Destroy have the rose coloured ending, when in fact the entire destruction could be an illusion and all there would be is Shepard lying on his back laughing and screaming "I did it, I did it" whilst the Reapers clean up what's left of the fleet.

No this was just really really shitty writing waved of with a contradictory logic loop of the main cop out AI bad guy that is contradicted by several possible endings and events in the game itself.

No, see the theory is that EVERYTHING past you getting hit with Harbringer's lazor is a hallucination. It could be - and probably is - just terrible writing, but it also had the potential of being something more.

With control, remember that controlling the Reapers is what TIM tried to do, and it would easily be a "you control the reapers - but they control you so it's as if they control themselves".

As for why destroy shows you a "rose coloured ending", remember that you only see Shep breathe if you have the highest levels of War assets, >5000. So in showing Shepard this illusion, they are trying to buy time to crush the reinforcements that would help Shep up.

Also the AI's logic is a mite crazy, but makes a certain degree of sense.

 

[mdqp]

No, I am sorry, but the AI's logic doesn't make any sense at all. Here is what I posted about the ending on this thread a few posts ago

Spoiler

It's stupid, because they say to you that they are saving the organics, but: If that's saving the organics, than it's the same as saying "we put this one cell of a human being in the freezer, and then we kill every other human, we saved them!". A human being isn't only its genetic informations, but the expression of said informations. Also, the Reapers are getting killed, because they wait until the organics can oppose them, for some reason. This means that the ancient races that were "saved" by them before, get killed, too, making their actions pointless. Also, you proved that the synthetic can live together with the organics. Furthermore, the idea of the synthetics inevitably trying to kill the organics every time is stupid, too, even without considering the Geth. The synthetics have different needs than organics, they can easily live without harming each other. It's stupid that such a (supposedly) advanced AI lets a single member of the species it has been harvesting for thousands of years decide what's best for everyone, because it has been doing that very same thing without ever going through the trouble of consulting them, and also because who got there wasn't really chosen for his merits. ANYONE could have reached that room, if for example, Shepard died before reaching it. Furthermore, 2 of the 3 possible solutions aren't solutions at all, and they shouldn't be there in the first place. Destroying the reapers and all the current syntethics doesn't make the creation of new syntethics impossible, which is bad, according to the AI, because it would bring the result it was trying to avoid. Controlling the reapers is bad, too, because the AI can't possibly know what you will do with them (you might even go crazy through the process). The only ending that slightly makes sense is the middle ground... Except that it doesn't make sense, too, because if such a thing was possible, the AI would have done that a long time ago, solving the problem forever (You can breed a living being for that purpose, if you can harvest countless civilizations). I could go on and on, but you get it.

Please, tell mr what's the flaw in my reasoning. I will add that if you consider everything an hallucination, then you can't possibly know what is real, and you can't deduce what's going on, so the choice in the end isn't a choice at all (if someone can make you hallucinate things, then for all you know you never entered the citadel in the first place, which seems to be plausible, if you consider everything since the incident an illusion... The same thing is valid even if the hallucination was caused by the shock. Furthermore, it doesn't make sense that the number of choices is tied to how many points you have, if you consider it an hallucination, in my opinion).

 

[1337mokro]

Actually, neither Tali nor Garrus died. None of your squadmates do. It's kindof weird, but and one of the plot holes. For some reason they are on the Normandy, don't ask why.

EDIT: On another note, we're friends on Xbox live right? We should play multiplayer sometime. It's a lot of fun.

.. Wait, what ..?

But, I saw them as Shepard was weak and limping- Garrus on the ground dead with his mouth open and Tali, oh god.. Tali was on her back in a pool of blood. Are you telling me that somehow I missed seeing them on the Normandy with the ending choice I make? Please show me a video or something to clarify I must know.

Also yes, since I beat single player.. I will be happy to play with you on ME3 multiplayer. Least anything we do will make far more sense then the single player ending. :{

I brought Liara and Tali with me, and in the Synethesis ending I chose I saw Tali get out of the Normandy with EDI and Joker. It was.... weird.

I'm not entirely opposed to the "indoctrination theory", although I'm not sure that it is the case.

If it is true, and the planned actual ending is a bit later, that DLC BETTER not cost money, because that is STUPID.

[also, with indoctrination theory, my thought is that the whole scene after you get lazor'd is a hallucination, and if you choose destroy you're shaking the indoctrination off.]

Also, EVERYTHING that happends after the credits [old man talking to kid, the "a winner is you" screen]
[HEADING=2]NEVER HAPPENED[/HEADING]
Yay personal retcons!
I still want to have a little faith in Bioware.

Why would Destroy and not Control be a viable option? Heck the only option that fits into the Indoctrination excuse is Synthesize. Which is a total conversion of the Galaxy into syntheto-organic hybrids.

If you choose to take Control over the reapers. Like my Renegade Shepard probably would, why does that mean the reapers keep him in the illusion? Why does Destroy have the rose coloured ending, when in fact the entire destruction could be an illusion and all there would be is Shepard lying on his back laughing and screaming "I did it, I did it" whilst the Reapers clean up what's left of the fleet.

No this was just really really shitty writing waved of with a contradictory logic loop of the main cop out AI bad guy that is contradicted by several possible endings and events in the game itself.

No, see the theory is that EVERYTHING past you getting hit with Harbringer's lazor is a hallucination. It could be - and probably is - just terrible writing, but it also had the potential of being something more.

With control, remember that controlling the Reapers is what TIM tried to do, and it would easily be a "you control the reapers - but they control you so it's as if they control themselves".

As for why destroy shows you a "rose coloured ending", remember that you only see Shep breathe if you have the highest levels of War assets, >5000. So in showing Shepard this illusion, they are trying to buy time to crush the reinforcements that would help Shep up.

Also the AI's logic is a mite crazy, but makes a certain degree of sense.

Yes I got that. That's why I'm saying it doesn't make sense that only the Destruction ending has the extra bit. There is no sense in the reapers controlling you whilst they control themselves. Have you tried letting a computer run a computer run a computer? It doesn't work. For the same reason why a hypnotist being hypnotised by another hypnotist he is hypnotising will just result in two hypnotists clucking like chickens.

The same way a Reaper controlling Shepard Controlling the Reaper would result in both of them starting braindead in space as they are caught in a negative feedback loop. Btw you just need 4000+ war assets for the destruction ending with the extra bit. Which also doesn't make sense because then Destruction is the only viable option. Which would still go directly against many people's way of playing Shepard. Why can't the Illusive Man be right? He always seemed to be on top of things. Though the reason why he's evil and actively working against you in ME3 also makes no sense.

The logic just isn't there in the AI's explanation and it doesn't make sense. It's the explanation found in a bad 80's direct to VHS sci-fi movie.

"I will kill you because if I don't you will just kill each other."

WAIT WAIT!!! I know where I heard this Bullshit before. This is the fucking plot to Final Fantasy X ( and X2)!!!

"To end all suffering in Spira I will destroy Spira so there is no more suffering" -Seymour

FUCK, Bioware ripped of Final Fantasy, do you see what I mean with shitty writing. It's the ultimate moronic cop out argument.

It also doesn't make sense because this Generation's Artificial Life was one of the most peaceful and caring synthetic life BEFORE the reapers came in and quite literally corrupted their programming. The only reasons synthetics were killing people without a reason was that the reapers made them.

It's circular nonsense logic, which you can't rebut at all. You can't point to the Geth and say. What about them? They basically fought a war in which they took way more casualties than before to allow their creators time to flee the planet when they realized the war was lost and they are now effectively helping us fight you?

Where is the Synthetics killing Organics bullshit the AI is talking about? All of that crap happened out of self defence OR because the Reapers forced them to be their tools. It's complete bullshit. Had the reapers not shown up the Geth would have stayed in their Nebula, maybe sent out an envoy in 200 years to start peace negotiations. But then Sovereign showed it's face. Indoctrinated a part of the Geth to make them believe he is their God and do his bidding.

In fact, had we been allowed to call out the AI on this bullshit there probably would have been less people so annoyed and upset. We are just given a few reasons and facts in the end of the game we just HAVE to accept.

3 Things will always have happened at the end.

TIM is dead.
Joker and the rest of the crew bailed from the fight.
All the Mass Relays get destroyed.

There are exactly 3 endings. All identical, the only thing that changes is the colour of the MR radiation. No matter what you did, what you COULD do if the game didn't lock you on rails. Press button A, B or C to end game.

 

[Kafloobop]

She.....she's eating ice cream....with her hands.....

 

[GriffValdez]

XD Dat pillow! Can't stop laughing. Awesome

 

[pearcinator]

INDOCTRINATION!!!!

 

[Saladfork]

You know you have a shitty ending when "it was all a dream" actually makes it better.

I guess I'm still in the denial stage 'cause I'm hoping for DLC that'll fix this mess.

 

[darth gditch]

Snip

I usually don't indulge in this but:

If you want to start saying who ripped off who, you have to go back a hell of a lot further than Final Fantasy. XD

There are only around 7 unique stories after all.

Anywho, you're absolutely right, the ancient AI's logic makes no sense at all. Which, in my interpretation, is precisely the point.

Look at it this way, the AI never said the Reaper cycle was to save any particular organic species, but rather the purpose was to preserve organic life in general. Also, the Reapers don't kill everyone, only races that are sufficiently advanced. Another hypothetical AI might not be restricted in such a way. So, if an organic race is capable of creating AI, it must be killed off. And you'd have to kill them off before they became more advanced than the tools you're using to kill them. Otherwise, an AI could be created that WOULD destroy everything, rather than just killing everything sufficiently advanced. It creates a nice, orderly cycle that will endlessly repeat itself (until I suppose the galaxy is depleted of resources in a few hundred billion years?). Thus, there is no danger of organics completely wiping themselves out.

And just like a typical machine would, the ancient AI assumes that there can be no deviation from the cycle. It MUST continue to try to impose order on the increasingly chaotic universe, because that's why it was created.

Well, anyhow, that's what I got from the story. I think the games have evidence to support that interpretation.

Now, what I infer implicitly is that the ancient AI must be limited in scope, despite it's age and sophistication because it does not enter the possibility of dialogue with a synthetic race as I viable option, even when the Geth PROVE that it is. That's interesting.

What I think is bullshit about the endings is how they ALL destroy galactic civilization. Not to mention, why the crap is Joker running away? Or why is Javik now back on the ship? He was clearly incinerated in a Reaper blast!

How can you continue the Mass Effect universe in any form if you irreversibly break it in the end of ME3?!?

Meh, enough rage. Guess I'll go play the surprisingly fun multiplayer now. XD

 

[Zen Toombs]

-snip-

That's basically what I've been trying to explain. Thankye kindly for putting the Reaper's logic in a different way, that hopefully makes more sense to people. ^_^

 

[Uszi]

Actually, neither Tali nor Garrus died. None of your squadmates do. It's kindof weird, but and one of the plot holes. For some reason they are on the Normandy, don't ask why.

EDIT: On another note, we're friends on Xbox live right? We should play multiplayer sometime. It's a lot of fun.

.. Wait, what ..?

But, I saw them as Shepard was weak and limping- Garrus on the ground dead with his mouth open and Tali, oh god.. Tali was on her back in a pool of blood. Are you telling me that somehow I missed seeing them on the Normandy with the ending choice I make? Please show me a video or something to clarify I must know.

Also yes, since I beat single player.. I will be happy to play with you on ME3 multiplayer. Least anything we do will make far more sense then the single player ending. :{

If you get a higher EMS, than Garrus and Tali will fall through a plot hole and live -- via space magic.

And it will honestly piss you off more, because it will make less sense than this:

She.....she's eating ice cream....with her hands.....

In the tub.
That's impressive in and of it's self.

And For This Exact Reason I'm DRINKING TILL I FALL OFF OF THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH!

Drinking Game: Every time you feel sad/disappointed by the result. You take a drink!

Started drinking Saturday 3/10/12.

Ambulance arrived.

Doctors needed to set up an intravenous drip feed of alcohol in order to continue honoring this challenge while I lay unresponsive in the ICU.