Regardless of that, Indoctrination Theory was never more than a desperate attempt at trying to make a horrible conclusion somehow seem smarter and deeper than it was or ever will be.
Well it succeeds. Even if it's never officially confirmed or denied.
Pr0 said:
You can't keep hoping that the studio that made KoTOR is going to miraculously re-emerge and take control of their games development again. BioWare is dead and gone, all you're throwing money at right now is a zombie raised and sustained by the necromancer that is EA.
IMO, they burned their IP and, if you look at some interview (like this one http://www.sidhtech.com/news/mass-effect-4-bioware-shepard-name/10028902/), you can see that NO ANY EVENTS of the past three games will be featured in the game.
So it's not a sequel, it's not a prequel.
I think BW proved with MEtrilogy that they just can't do trilogies or at least the head of their department can't do trilogies they should start small and either make one or two for the ME4 universe and see if they can stay on theme, lore, and story before making anymore trilogies.
It seemed like they were doing fine... right up to the last fifteen minutes. That's really the only part of ME3 where they totally failed.
white_wolf said:
However now all that I said when they rewrote ME3's script they also WROTE OUT his thrall role so no there is no IT its an indoctrination wish at this point.
That's not true. Several actual Reapers (alive and dormant), Object Rho, various artifacts, countless Reaperfied or indoctrinated enemy troops... hell, potentially even the Reaper IFF aboard the Normandy (James mentions a humming sound, remember?).
By several Reapers do you mean the minute he spent in close proximity to Sovereign, the hour he spent on the dead Reaper corpse and the 10 minutes he speant next to the Reaper on the Quarian homeworld? You'd have to list the various artifacts for me to have any footing to say yay or nay. "Reaperfied" troops do not cause indoctrination, they are just husks used to shock and demoralize the organics, at no point are they meant to be able to cause indoctrination. The humming sound James mentions could be any number of things such as the ship engines, the metal of the ship vibrating due to inside and outside forces, and there's also the possibility that his brain is making up the humming noise to counteract the quiet.
Spoonius said:
Doesn't really matter anyway, that was just a single vector. There are plenty of other ways the Reapers could have got to Shepard (see above).
If the Reapers wanted to get to Shepard then why would they send the Collectors to obliterate the original Normandy in the first place? Why would they then not follow the ship debris immediately after it began to fall into the surrounding planets orbit? How is it that not only could Cerberus recover Shepard's body, but Legion was able to recover a piece of Shepard's armour before the Collectors (servants of the Reapers) even got a chance? Why would Miranda not tell Shepard at any point of all the things they put into him and how some of them was technology she had not seen before and was not fully aware of it's intent?
I understand that people think I'm being naive, but I still believe it has merit. I still haven't heard anything conclusive that invalidates IT, yet the amount of support (I won't say 'evidence', because it's not) is almost irrefutable.
Alright. Shepard has spent six months on Earth under heavy supervision when ME3 starts, when he finally leaves Earth as it's getting attacked, his convictions are still the same, find a way to defeat them. Remember how Saren was "slowly" indoctrinated? He didn't give up hope for survival, but he tried to prove that some organics were useful and worth saving, and the Reapers confirmed his beliefs cause they knew he would be more open to indoctrinating that way. When Shepard finally speaks to the Reaper on the Quarian home world, it again tells him his fight is doomed, and he again keeps to his conviction of uniting the galaxy.
Shepard's first dream sequence can be summed up as a nightmare as he has literally seen his species home world being devastated and witnessed just how ruthless the Reaper invasion really is. He is basically having a recurring nightmare in which the cold dark machines from the oblivion of space seem to keep winning and it's terrifying him.
It's stated that those whom are becoming indoctrinated see objects and shadows moving whilst they're awake, at no point do we ever see any of this type of shit happening.
We saw with the Hanar that got indoctrinated that indoctrinated creatures can go about relatively easily without being noticed as being indoctrinated and that only when on their own do they begin to do things that show they are indoctrinated (such as what the Hanar did). Shepard is on his own many times during the third game, and at no point does he act suspicious. At no point does he change, at no point does he do anything that could give the Reapers or their troops the edge.
IF the Reaper IFF was causing indoctrination, then why is it that Garrus and Tali, two squad mates that have been on the ship almost just as long as Shepard, do not give off any hints of indoctrination?
Spoonius said:
PTSD and IT don't need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, part of the theory is that the increased psychological pressure Shepard is subjected to throughout ME3 actually increase his vulnerability to indoctrination.
I agree, but I think that the amount of holes/stretches that are in/taken with the IT (and Bioware devs confirming that the EC is cannon and thus Shepard was not in some Reaper indoctrinated trance) make it far mor likely that the IT is bullshit and that most of Shepard's actions, reactions and psychological state are a part of a man with PTSD.
It's entirely plausible the Reapers would manipulate Shepard's mind (which is what they're doing during the dream sequence, remember) to cause him to "fail" if he decided not to choose.
Let me go ahead and stop you right there. No, it's not plausible that they'd make him dream about failing, about everyone dying, about the next cycle being the one that wins. For one: that's not what the IT claims the dreams are about. The IT claims that the ending sequences are dreams meant to make Shepard believe that he/she made the right choice. That what he/she decides is the decision that will win the war. And that's why the IT falls apart. Like I said, the IT was created before the EC, as such the IT has no way of compensating for the fact that the "I Reject These Choices" choice exists. It is the Reject ending that thoroughly proves that the literal interpretation is the one that's correct. It shows what happens if the Crucible is never fired off. You lose the war. They even change the Star Gazer scene to be two lifeforms from the next cycle talking about the Legend of Shepard that they learned from The Archives.
To still believe in the IT after seeing the Reject ending is living in denial. Denial over the fact that yes...Bioware DID fuck up the ending that badly. Believe me, friend, I'm a HUGE Mass Effect fan. It's easily the best game series I've ever played. Even after the extreme letdown of the ending, I still love the game and series. As I said to Spoonius: I'd love to believe that Bioware was capable of pulling off something as amazingly brilliant as the IT, but the evidence isn't there.
Well, I tried, but apparently you're not as open to being wrong as you claim to be. Don't you find it at least a little bit strange that so many people in this topic are arguing against you? Shouldn't that be a hint that maybe you're mistaken on this matter?
Soooo yeah, keep living the dream, I guess. Pretty much the last thing I can tell you is that if you honestly believe that ME4 is going to be a direct sequel to ME3 in which Shepard gets to finish the fight against the Reapers, Indoctrinated or no...well, you're doomed for disappointment my friend. Apparently in your mind, Shepard never will get to finish the fight with the Reapers. I've offered up all the evidence that I can, evidence which is clearly seen and experienced in the game while the IT's evidence is based off of conjecture and shaky interpretations of what is seen and experienced in the game. As I've said before: it was created because the fans desperately wanted something to cling to in order to make the ending of the series they loved so much not equate to a huge disappointment. There's no need to come up with a bunch of hypothetical and circumstantial evidence when everything during the ending sequence is much easier to describe as "Crappy Writing and Design Choices".
No hard feelings, I hope, as there certainly aren't any on my end. I always enjoy anything that gives me an excuse to write at length about Mass Effect. But I give up on trying to convince you that the IT is wrong.
Just a recap over the main points of my argument for you to think over and hopefully see the error in your logic.
1: If the IT is true, this cycle is doomed. The crucible never fires off, and the Reject ending shows exactly what happens when/if the Crucible is never fired off.
2: The existence of the Reject ending, itself, isn't covered by the IT. Arguing that it's just another Full Indoctrination choice doesn't work, seeing as how it'd go against the grain and be the only choice that shows a dream Shepard making the wrong choice to save his/her cycle.
3: It assumes that everything we see in the EC color endings is a lie, despite the fact that there's absolutely nothing to suggest that.
Other fun tidbits:
1: The Prothean VI never calls Shepard out on being Indoctrinated.
2: Check out the track title from the official sound track:
"An End, Once And For All". Even the frickin' soundtrack says that it's the end of the war.
IMO, they burned their IP and, if you look at some interview (like this one http://www.sidhtech.com/news/mass-effect-4-bioware-shepard-name/10028902/), you can see that NO ANY EVENTS of the past three games will be featured in the game.
So it's not a sequel, it's not a prequel.
I think BW proved with MEtrilogy that they just can't do trilogies or at least the head of their department can't do trilogies they should start small and either make one or two for the ME4 universe and see if they can stay on theme, lore, and story before making anymore trilogies.
It seemed like they were doing fine... right up to the last fifteen minutes. That's really the only part of ME3 where they totally failed.
white_wolf said:
However now all that I said when they rewrote ME3's script they also WROTE OUT his thrall role so no there is no IT its an indoctrination wish at this point.
Well that was where my keeping it short cut out. Basically again not to be super long, the reason why they decided that Hacket needed to send shep5000 to Arrival to get programed was because the memories Liara imprinted on him + the mind over matter "I'm the real shep," mantra TIM established throughout ME2 fakeshep really was the real shep he was resistant to the regular signals like the real one showed in ME and he couldn't be pinned down long enough to actually get any real effect from the signals you need constant exposure to them over a few days minimum so knocking him out allowed for the programing to take place in full the mind can't refuse suggestions when its asleep and the reaper code was finally accessed shep blows up the relay thinking he just stopped the reapers but he actually closed off a backdoor into their own base if shep didn't blow it up Kensen was going to being told one thing by the reapers but actually doing the opposite.
Shep from now on is Harbi's thrall like he told him he would be but like Saren he's allowed to do things he believes are of his own will but actually aren't from then on he is unknowingly working for the reapers by getting the largest military force in one location so they can all die without the bulk of their armies no planet anywhere will be putting up a fight for long not even if you cure the genophage will it stand against the reapers. Really I'm shortening it all up and maybe I should really get on the bsn and type out the near novel this loss potential plot could've or had evidence in game to show it was going this way but its far longer and far more detailed that goes over all 3 games.
Oh for fucks sakes! Let the IT go! It's been totally debunked by Bioware and many fans with an understanding of the Mass Effect Universe. As it's been said here in this thread, and many others, the IT was created to try to cope with the craptastic writing and awful ending of Mass Effect 3. Since then BioWare has come out and directly said "The IT is NOT what happens. The actual endings and EC are what actually happen. Get over it. IT was a dead on arrival theory anyways as it had just as many holes in it as the actual writing for Mass Effect 3.
Then there is the not so small fact that Galaxy Destroying Reapers wiping out all life is about as high the threat scale you can go. A direct sequel to Mass Effect 3 would have to undo the rather definitive ending of ME3 and reintroduce the not so dead Reapers. Yeah, right. Bioware has taken their lumps from the ME3 ending debacle. Does anyone really think they are so stupid as to do a direct sequel to ME3 and open themselves for giant plot holes, lore problems and how to continue on from the 3 cupcake colors of doom endings from ME3? Mass Effect with Shep and company vs. The Reapers is over. Let's all move on and see where this goes and let Bioware prove they have learned their lessons from the DA2/ME3 debacles.
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