Is this an official, though retconned, doc by Bioware, or is this Fan-made? Because this would fix the ending. I notice a distinct lack of star-child.Major Tom said:
Poll: ME3 EC didn't fix anything
- Thread starter Adam Jensen_v1legacy
- Start date
God I've noticed so many people whining about how Synthetics aren't killing organics and the apparent hypocrisy of the reapers methods, so I felt like clearing it up, and some other things.
1. The catalyst-child is NOT saying synthetics are killing organics now, or will soon, but eventually, they WILL. Which is true, over an infinite period some people WILL eventually make a synthetic that can reproduce itself and will begin to destroy organics, because that's how infinite periods of time WORK.
2. The reapers aren't stopping synthetics killing organics by killing organics, (Well they are, but that's simplifying it) they are killing SOME organics so they wont make a synthetic that kills ALL organics, Reapers wont be killing Yahg, they aren't in space, they are letting each race achieve the pinnacle of their evolution and lifestyle, before killing them so they wont cause harm, and keeping record of them via new reapers.
3. Space magic, God the title of the god-damn series is just space magic, SCI-FI IS ALL SPACE MAGIC! (Ignoring hard science fiction for now) The difference between this and the mass effect is that synthesis and/or the crucible is more complicated to understand, or explain.
4. Finally, your choices do matter, IF you expand what you see as the ending, it's more than just the last cinematic, it's the scenes up to it as well, with the Illusive man, the battle for earth, the cinematic of reaching earth, all of it, near all of your choices changed something throughout that game, but NONE of them are important enough to put the fate of the entire galaxies Synthetics, Space faring organics, or all organics and synthetics on, so you make one last choice, that ALSO matters and you get an ending, face it, Grunt being alive or dead or unlikely to father a child for a long time would not change anything.
To end my rant, some people have been saying the ending is bad and they want a happy ending, and some have said the EC makes all the original endings end with sunshine and rainbows. Argue with each other to find out what the problems are, or else its just one massive case of not being able to please everyone. Like every other story ending.
1. The catalyst-child is NOT saying synthetics are killing organics now, or will soon, but eventually, they WILL. Which is true, over an infinite period some people WILL eventually make a synthetic that can reproduce itself and will begin to destroy organics, because that's how infinite periods of time WORK.
2. The reapers aren't stopping synthetics killing organics by killing organics, (Well they are, but that's simplifying it) they are killing SOME organics so they wont make a synthetic that kills ALL organics, Reapers wont be killing Yahg, they aren't in space, they are letting each race achieve the pinnacle of their evolution and lifestyle, before killing them so they wont cause harm, and keeping record of them via new reapers.
3. Space magic, God the title of the god-damn series is just space magic, SCI-FI IS ALL SPACE MAGIC! (Ignoring hard science fiction for now) The difference between this and the mass effect is that synthesis and/or the crucible is more complicated to understand, or explain.
4. Finally, your choices do matter, IF you expand what you see as the ending, it's more than just the last cinematic, it's the scenes up to it as well, with the Illusive man, the battle for earth, the cinematic of reaching earth, all of it, near all of your choices changed something throughout that game, but NONE of them are important enough to put the fate of the entire galaxies Synthetics, Space faring organics, or all organics and synthetics on, so you make one last choice, that ALSO matters and you get an ending, face it, Grunt being alive or dead or unlikely to father a child for a long time would not change anything.
To end my rant, some people have been saying the ending is bad and they want a happy ending, and some have said the EC makes all the original endings end with sunshine and rainbows. Argue with each other to find out what the problems are, or else its just one massive case of not being able to please everyone. Like every other story ending.
No, it really isn't true. And it's so fuckin' obvious to anyone who knows how logic works. Besides, nothing lasts FOREVER. Not even galaxies.LunaticPanda said:
I don't understand how people aren't seeing the lack of logic in that little shithead's reasoning. What The Catalyst says isn't absolute truth. It can't ever be absolute truth, not only because it logically and mathematically isn't (which was proven on The Escapist when everyone went berserk about the ending), but due to the very nature of the Catalyst. The Catalyst isn't god, he's a god damn A.I. He has one set opinion on one subject and he's not gonna change it. It still doesn't mean that his opinion is correct. There is just no logical reason to accept his opinion. And since anyone can come up with a better solution than to turn organics into Reapers (like let's say, plant indoctrination devices throughout the entire galaxy in order to prevent organics from creating synthetics), it's pretty fuckin' stupid to simply accept his retarded opinion as the one and only truth.
And a creature that can do no wrong according to some of you, couldn't have come up with Synthesis earlier? He was doing this harvesting shit for millions of years! He wasn't smart enough to build a power source like The Crucible on his own, then bring one random organic up there to sacrifice him in order to synthesize everyone with green space magic? But he's smart enough to KNOW that eventually EVERY organic race will create a synthetic race and go to war with them? And you people are seriously buying this shit?
They even said that it wouldn't change the endings significantly, was stated multiple times, so I'm wondering how you thought it wouldn't have the same Starchild-ex-machina that already existed. I do agree that the overall ending is still poorly thought out and executed, it could be done much better, in a manner akin to Star Trek TNG etc. All that set aside, while I am not a fan of the ending, the Extended Cut does make it better. Not necessarily good, but better.
Shots are framed better, more scenes to keep the perspective of characters in mind, explaining bits like what happened to Shepard's squad (not in depth but at least an answer) All the while putting some new dialogue that just makes it easier to follow whats happening. TRYING to make their sudden change from Space Opera Sci-Fi to Hard Sci-Fi work out better in the time they had to make this.
Lots of flaws in the ending already, but I knew they would still linger on. With the Ending being Free, though, and adding those little pieces to frame the ending better, I'd say it was successful in what they stated it would do.
Like to add that Mass Effect 3 is still not the worst ending to a game I've ever seen, and it's a shame that it will likely be remembered that way. It's disappointing, but I certainly wasn't compelled to be a wanker and file a lawsuit against BioWare/EA or something ridiculously out of proportion. Come on guys, at least it had an ending with proper scenes, attempts at closure and tying up loose ends. It's not like the atrocious ending of KotOR II- where the whole game just goes to a full stop, then rolls credits. Only ending to a game that made me angry.
Shots are framed better, more scenes to keep the perspective of characters in mind, explaining bits like what happened to Shepard's squad (not in depth but at least an answer) All the while putting some new dialogue that just makes it easier to follow whats happening. TRYING to make their sudden change from Space Opera Sci-Fi to Hard Sci-Fi work out better in the time they had to make this.
Lots of flaws in the ending already, but I knew they would still linger on. With the Ending being Free, though, and adding those little pieces to frame the ending better, I'd say it was successful in what they stated it would do.
Like to add that Mass Effect 3 is still not the worst ending to a game I've ever seen, and it's a shame that it will likely be remembered that way. It's disappointing, but I certainly wasn't compelled to be a wanker and file a lawsuit against BioWare/EA or something ridiculously out of proportion. Come on guys, at least it had an ending with proper scenes, attempts at closure and tying up loose ends. It's not like the atrocious ending of KotOR II- where the whole game just goes to a full stop, then rolls credits. Only ending to a game that made me angry.
Prove what wrong? shall I add on your comment about there being "No logical reason"to accept his opinion? (Despite me having no logical reason to accept yours, due to it being an opinion.) What exact part of the context am I leaving out? I just don't like copying walls of text when I'm only after two sentences. Even with that, It can still reflect. An opinion can be held stubbornly regardless of whether it is true, in fact, the nature of an opinion is that such a thing cannot be true else it becomes fact. This is true to the opinion of anyone or anything.Adam Jensen said:
Furthermore, you seem to misunderstand a few points I was making that I should have countered in my previous post.
1. The reapers can't indoctrinate everybody, that's not what they want (I admit, this is theory and speculation) They want a species to have a meaningful existence, but not one that puts them in danger of what the reapers believe is inevitable, indoctrinating them deprives the meaning.
2. It may not be an inevitable thing to you, but the reapers disagree, you could bring up a thousand points of synthetics not killing organics, and an AI could just say, "Not This time" they believe it is inevitable, they are acting to stop it and you can't dissuade them because your lifespan, perception, and everything else is just too small to be of any meaning to the millennia old robots, there is no logical basis whatsoever for you having a more complete world-view than things that have watched countless worlds over hundreds of thousands of years, who knows, maybe, once they were a touch late and had to stop an army of synthetics from a galactic-omnicide, maybe many times, maybe they performed a galactic omnicide and know the consequences, and what is actually at stake. Whatever it is, something definitely makes them think of themselves as a better opinion on this than a human that isn't even one hundred.
3. Synthesis, and the crucible in general, quite possibly run on a different branch of science than the reapers comprehend, or more likely. They don't have the faintest idea what would happen if they did that, it is a reckless thing to do by any stretch of the imagination and its ignoring important questions even when there are only three other choices. Contrast, something that they have done, successfully, repeatedly.
4. it wont be that EVERY organic race makes a synthetic to go to war with, it may not even be one, it may not even be a war, it could be one guy that gets the idea and makes the code, and spreads it, like if somebody infected every Geth, to quickly dispatch everyone, to reproduce and destroy, if one person gets the idea, and the hardware is good enough, then that's all that's ever needed. So, the reapers choose to stop it, by making sure no one guy has access to the hardware, and has the idea, which means making sure there ISN'T one guy with access to the hardware, by removing ALL guys with access to the hardware.
Twice, TWICE, I said the ending sucks. I'm not defending it; I'm merely saying art challenges you. You seemed to dismiss that notion completely. I even said ME3 was challenging in a bad way (bs detector), so please ditch this straw man argument you're clinging to.everythingbeeps said:
Also, I just want you to think about this: if you were a writer, and you poured years of work into a product you thought to be good and well-made and brilliant, then released and people demanded you change the ending, how would you feel?
I think I get how writers can make something really bad after making good shit; they hide in a bubble to create their work. That's what I do. And I haven't even made anything good haha. Point here is, it's deceptively easy to lose sight of what is the "right" thing to do in storytelling when you surround yourself with one project, which might be the case here. It happened to me.
You know, this conversation has really been eye-opening for me. I'm having a sort of epiphany.
My two cents on the commentary between Adam Jensen and LunaticPanda (didn't want to quote and have a massive, massive wall of text.)
It's like this, from the established lore, story and narrative in the ME universe the Star Brat's logic is a hideous thing. It's flawed, wretched and so riddled with holes that said starbrat could drive reapers through them. It's the why that makes the logic so appalling. Throught the entire series we are NEVER once given a clue as to the reapers motives, who or what created them or insight into their internal discourse as a "species" that is, until the ending of ME3.
The above happens for a reason, namely it maintains the Reaper's as an unknowable, unsearchable and completely alien enemy. Revealing their motives, rationale and "logic" takes all that from them and they just lose all threat they have. Add to it the logic of the starchild and the reapers become a laughing stock of a main protagonist. It's horrible logic and wretched story telling.
Add to it that the starchild's logic breaks the narrative cohesion of the past 2.95 games and reveals information that either Shep doesn't need to know, the Starchild would not or could not know (unless he was an "godchild") and his (starchild) logic is revealed for what it is; a strawman to drive the plot to conclusion.
By the above I mean this, The Starchild's statement that eventually a organic species will create a synthetic species that will destroy all organic life everywhere is a logical fallacy. The Starbrat, while old, is NOT a god. Ergo, he cannot know this will be the outcome. Why? Because it has NEVER happened. He, and his minions, have not allowed it to. Because of that one simple fact the Starchild cannot say with any degree of certainity his ascertation will occur because has no proof that his opinion and logic are correct. All he has is an opinion/logic based on a faulty premise that has never once been demonstrably proven. Shep on the other hand can prove (if certain choices were made) that Synthetics and Organics can get along.
Furthermore, part of the argument and reveals about the reapers logic and starchild's creation only serve to underscore how idiotic the starchild's logic actually is. By his (starchild's) own admission in the EC, he "didn't give his creators a choice". He made them the first reaper. By his own words his logic is proved wrong and that he is probably insane or at the very least not capable of rational, coherent well thought out plans. His solution to the "problem" is mass genocide. This is clearly delusional thinking and highly suspect logic. Other sci-fi series have gone down this road with a "starbrat" type of character but they have never, ever, ever been revealed in the final moments of the book, tv show or movie. Mass Effect 3 shows us why.
It's like this, from the established lore, story and narrative in the ME universe the Star Brat's logic is a hideous thing. It's flawed, wretched and so riddled with holes that said starbrat could drive reapers through them. It's the why that makes the logic so appalling. Throught the entire series we are NEVER once given a clue as to the reapers motives, who or what created them or insight into their internal discourse as a "species" that is, until the ending of ME3.
The above happens for a reason, namely it maintains the Reaper's as an unknowable, unsearchable and completely alien enemy. Revealing their motives, rationale and "logic" takes all that from them and they just lose all threat they have. Add to it the logic of the starchild and the reapers become a laughing stock of a main protagonist. It's horrible logic and wretched story telling.
Add to it that the starchild's logic breaks the narrative cohesion of the past 2.95 games and reveals information that either Shep doesn't need to know, the Starchild would not or could not know (unless he was an "godchild") and his (starchild) logic is revealed for what it is; a strawman to drive the plot to conclusion.
By the above I mean this, The Starchild's statement that eventually a organic species will create a synthetic species that will destroy all organic life everywhere is a logical fallacy. The Starbrat, while old, is NOT a god. Ergo, he cannot know this will be the outcome. Why? Because it has NEVER happened. He, and his minions, have not allowed it to. Because of that one simple fact the Starchild cannot say with any degree of certainity his ascertation will occur because has no proof that his opinion and logic are correct. All he has is an opinion/logic based on a faulty premise that has never once been demonstrably proven. Shep on the other hand can prove (if certain choices were made) that Synthetics and Organics can get along.
Furthermore, part of the argument and reveals about the reapers logic and starchild's creation only serve to underscore how idiotic the starchild's logic actually is. By his (starchild's) own admission in the EC, he "didn't give his creators a choice". He made them the first reaper. By his own words his logic is proved wrong and that he is probably insane or at the very least not capable of rational, coherent well thought out plans. His solution to the "problem" is mass genocide. This is clearly delusional thinking and highly suspect logic. Other sci-fi series have gone down this road with a "starbrat" type of character but they have never, ever, ever been revealed in the final moments of the book, tv show or movie. Mass Effect 3 shows us why.
I wrote a blog on this and this the crux of it. And before any snarky 'tl:dr' comments, consider that if you want to games to be art and thus to discuss them like they are, then you'll need to stop fearing large amounts of text, because that's what it takes to discuss art. If you only want to vent your spleen and be done with it, then discussing art isn't for you.
In order to break this destiny, the cycle represents the resetting of the universe. The advanced races are harvested to create the next Reapers, and the primitive races are spared so that they may flourish. The Catalyst appears immune to the paradox of its design, and presents Shepard with three choices -- yet all choices result in the destruction of the mass effect relay network, making communication and travel across the galaxy impossible. Whatever choice is made, the price is high. The longer he waits, the more lives are lost. The Reapers' goal gets ever closer.
What would we sacrifice of our ideals and morals in order or save the people we love, or to beat a deadly foe?
Act Three always ends in self-sacrifice. What the hero believes is his or her prize is often proved to be an illusion of the ego. This is why heroes must face literal or metaphorical death in the final moments. The fruit of their decisions may never be one that they themselves will taste.
Had Shepard defied the options before him, would a difference have been made for the better? Some people would rather die than choose. Yet is dying instead of saving, even if the latter requires great sacrifice, justifiable if it condemns the future? It is the question it presents us with now -- a terrible truth that heroes are seldom allowed full indulgence of their ideals, and quite often, they die vilified or unsung. The nature of heroism is by definition, a selfless service to the greater good.
As for the Catalyst's plan, that the only way to beget synthetic life is via manufacturing. Thus, destroying factories or self reproduction facilities would be enough to be reasonably sure no that more synthetics could be made. This is why the 'grey goo' scenario of nano-technology -- because scientists have already made it their mission to prevent unconstrained self replication.
Yet, organic life is a symptom of the universe -- an emergent quality of the universal elements. If it is assumed as inevitable that organic life will eventually, in some place, evolve, grow and create 'golems' of itself which in turn shall evolve as its rivals for existence, then the only choice available is to stem or impede the rise of organic life!
To the Catalyst, organic life is a stream that can never be stemmed. Synthetic life is an emergent result of that stream. Turning guns into landfill doesn't stop people making more guns and continuing to slaughter. I loved the seeming paradox of the Reaper Design. And honestly, when we live in a world in which nations wage war in the name of ending war, terrorise in the name of ending terror, oppress in the name of freedom or spill rivers of blood in the name of Divine love, how is the paradox of the Catalyst anything but par for the course?
The Reaper plan is not in place to stop organic life from enacting another Reaper plan. It's not the only solution nor the best, but why does that matter to the Catalyst? Remember, that regardless whether organics have invented autonomous AI or not, the Reaper purge is locked in place. By that time, organic life may have already risen and fallen under its own golems. The Reapers aren't there to prevent synthetic apocalypse but to simply limit its chances by keeping all life in a period of juvenility.
The existence of the Catalyst itself is very intriguing. Perhaps it's the end result of an ancient race now indistinguishable from synthetic, or was it their creation which ultimately destroyed them to save them, ala HAL from 2001. Already, the scenario of 'kill to save' has been used numerous times in the Mass Effect series, and at least once in the context of an AI run amok. And note that the rise and fall of the Protheans echoes the Reaper plan, ie an oppressive regime keeping other races from flourishing or advancing. In that case, the Protheans got a taste of their own medicine at the claws of the Reapers. If they had survived, who's to say they wouldn't have continued in their oppression to become just like the Catalyst and Reapers?
So for me, I saw Shepard at the end, thrust into a situation in which he truly had little choice. There was no chance that the Reapers would be beaten, and the Catalyst, through benefit of the Crucible, was able to offer compromise. It seems that the Protheans realised this and thus designed the Crucible for that purpose. Even if Shepard has defied the Catalyst, what chance would he and the other races of the galaxy had? Would they have waged a centuries long, losing, war like the Protheans did?
The ending of the series was true to the themes as I interpreted them. In fact when I got to the end, it all clicked. I had hoped for another way, but I realised the foreshadowing in the history and fate of the Protheans. The synthesis choice may well be foreshadowed in the very origin of the Catalyst itself. The concept of killing to save and all the hypocrisy involved within it, is a theme well used throughout the three games. EDI herself was once a deranged AI that Shepard had to vanquish.
I found the ending itself to be perfectly in keeping with the genre. Aurthur C. Clarke's 'Time Odyssey' series has a very similar premise, and if it wasn't for his Space Odyssey, nobody would be using the term 'Star Child' to refer to the 'Catalyst'. 2001: A Space Odyssey's Star Child was seen as a revelation, and yet its existence was almost devoid of explanation in comparison to Mass Effect 3's Catalyst.
The conceptual basis for the endings of both have clearly intellectual and moral foundations. Unfortunately this didn't connect to a large percentage of consumers, due certainly to a mixture of under-exploitation and a lack of being palatable. Yet 2001: A Space Odyssey, both the film and the novel, of which Mass Effect is inherently derivative, greatly succeeded precisely because of their varying degrees of mystery.
Yet today, it is a Twitter-Book Age, which has little tolerance for vagueness, nor any requirement to exceed the 'character limit' of one's most lazy intellectual effort. Add to that the mob mentality of the Net, the propensity for it to nurture one's muckraking, trolling side. The objection to the Mass Effect ending ended up completely out of proportion.
Mass Effect's interpretation of the Star Child and it's plan to both cultivate and manage life in the universe is not the flawed thing that is claimed. Although being god-like, it is not in fact a god. And despite being a synthetic intelligence, it is not an algorithmic one. Like us, its processes are heuristic. Even HAL9000 (in 2001), a cutting edge machine intelligence 'never known to have ever made a mistake or computational error' completely botched his assassination of the ship's crew, never mind that his attempt to do so clearly violated his stated intent, ie to 'protect the mission'.
As for the idea of god-like technology', Aurthur C. Clarke wrote, in his 'Three Laws': "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Yet that is definitely not to say that such technology is magical or has any of the perceived infallibility of something magical.
Mass Effect lore states that all A.I. became banned, galaxy-wide for its 'risk' of self-awareness. There was already one hundred year war going on between 'maker and machine'. Any adaptable, machine intelligence was seen as potential for future catastrophic war. Clearly the very concept of A.I. in Mass Effect does not entail any inherent perfection. An advanced artificial intelligence may operate beyond our own in cognition and mental capacity, yet imagine what humungous mistakes it could make if not simply a 'computation machine' but a real, living mind operating through a process of trial, error, pattern recognition and learning; just like us.
Those who believe the Catalyst to have acted 'un-machine-like' have not really grasped the series' philosophy on the subject, and that the motivation to create artificial life like the Catalyst must involve the emergence of an 'ego' and thus be contrary to the pulp SF cliche of the 'amoral, cold and calculating machine'.
The conceptual basis of the ending is sound enough, but the execution was lacking. I'm glad that Bioware are sticking to their guns on this and their execution is all they are changing.
In order to break this destiny, the cycle represents the resetting of the universe. The advanced races are harvested to create the next Reapers, and the primitive races are spared so that they may flourish. The Catalyst appears immune to the paradox of its design, and presents Shepard with three choices -- yet all choices result in the destruction of the mass effect relay network, making communication and travel across the galaxy impossible. Whatever choice is made, the price is high. The longer he waits, the more lives are lost. The Reapers' goal gets ever closer.
What would we sacrifice of our ideals and morals in order or save the people we love, or to beat a deadly foe?
Act Three always ends in self-sacrifice. What the hero believes is his or her prize is often proved to be an illusion of the ego. This is why heroes must face literal or metaphorical death in the final moments. The fruit of their decisions may never be one that they themselves will taste.
Had Shepard defied the options before him, would a difference have been made for the better? Some people would rather die than choose. Yet is dying instead of saving, even if the latter requires great sacrifice, justifiable if it condemns the future? It is the question it presents us with now -- a terrible truth that heroes are seldom allowed full indulgence of their ideals, and quite often, they die vilified or unsung. The nature of heroism is by definition, a selfless service to the greater good.
As for the Catalyst's plan, that the only way to beget synthetic life is via manufacturing. Thus, destroying factories or self reproduction facilities would be enough to be reasonably sure no that more synthetics could be made. This is why the 'grey goo' scenario of nano-technology -- because scientists have already made it their mission to prevent unconstrained self replication.
Yet, organic life is a symptom of the universe -- an emergent quality of the universal elements. If it is assumed as inevitable that organic life will eventually, in some place, evolve, grow and create 'golems' of itself which in turn shall evolve as its rivals for existence, then the only choice available is to stem or impede the rise of organic life!
To the Catalyst, organic life is a stream that can never be stemmed. Synthetic life is an emergent result of that stream. Turning guns into landfill doesn't stop people making more guns and continuing to slaughter. I loved the seeming paradox of the Reaper Design. And honestly, when we live in a world in which nations wage war in the name of ending war, terrorise in the name of ending terror, oppress in the name of freedom or spill rivers of blood in the name of Divine love, how is the paradox of the Catalyst anything but par for the course?
The Reaper plan is not in place to stop organic life from enacting another Reaper plan. It's not the only solution nor the best, but why does that matter to the Catalyst? Remember, that regardless whether organics have invented autonomous AI or not, the Reaper purge is locked in place. By that time, organic life may have already risen and fallen under its own golems. The Reapers aren't there to prevent synthetic apocalypse but to simply limit its chances by keeping all life in a period of juvenility.
The existence of the Catalyst itself is very intriguing. Perhaps it's the end result of an ancient race now indistinguishable from synthetic, or was it their creation which ultimately destroyed them to save them, ala HAL from 2001. Already, the scenario of 'kill to save' has been used numerous times in the Mass Effect series, and at least once in the context of an AI run amok. And note that the rise and fall of the Protheans echoes the Reaper plan, ie an oppressive regime keeping other races from flourishing or advancing. In that case, the Protheans got a taste of their own medicine at the claws of the Reapers. If they had survived, who's to say they wouldn't have continued in their oppression to become just like the Catalyst and Reapers?
So for me, I saw Shepard at the end, thrust into a situation in which he truly had little choice. There was no chance that the Reapers would be beaten, and the Catalyst, through benefit of the Crucible, was able to offer compromise. It seems that the Protheans realised this and thus designed the Crucible for that purpose. Even if Shepard has defied the Catalyst, what chance would he and the other races of the galaxy had? Would they have waged a centuries long, losing, war like the Protheans did?
The ending of the series was true to the themes as I interpreted them. In fact when I got to the end, it all clicked. I had hoped for another way, but I realised the foreshadowing in the history and fate of the Protheans. The synthesis choice may well be foreshadowed in the very origin of the Catalyst itself. The concept of killing to save and all the hypocrisy involved within it, is a theme well used throughout the three games. EDI herself was once a deranged AI that Shepard had to vanquish.
I found the ending itself to be perfectly in keeping with the genre. Aurthur C. Clarke's 'Time Odyssey' series has a very similar premise, and if it wasn't for his Space Odyssey, nobody would be using the term 'Star Child' to refer to the 'Catalyst'. 2001: A Space Odyssey's Star Child was seen as a revelation, and yet its existence was almost devoid of explanation in comparison to Mass Effect 3's Catalyst.
The conceptual basis for the endings of both have clearly intellectual and moral foundations. Unfortunately this didn't connect to a large percentage of consumers, due certainly to a mixture of under-exploitation and a lack of being palatable. Yet 2001: A Space Odyssey, both the film and the novel, of which Mass Effect is inherently derivative, greatly succeeded precisely because of their varying degrees of mystery.
Yet today, it is a Twitter-Book Age, which has little tolerance for vagueness, nor any requirement to exceed the 'character limit' of one's most lazy intellectual effort. Add to that the mob mentality of the Net, the propensity for it to nurture one's muckraking, trolling side. The objection to the Mass Effect ending ended up completely out of proportion.
Mass Effect's interpretation of the Star Child and it's plan to both cultivate and manage life in the universe is not the flawed thing that is claimed. Although being god-like, it is not in fact a god. And despite being a synthetic intelligence, it is not an algorithmic one. Like us, its processes are heuristic. Even HAL9000 (in 2001), a cutting edge machine intelligence 'never known to have ever made a mistake or computational error' completely botched his assassination of the ship's crew, never mind that his attempt to do so clearly violated his stated intent, ie to 'protect the mission'.
As for the idea of god-like technology', Aurthur C. Clarke wrote, in his 'Three Laws': "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Yet that is definitely not to say that such technology is magical or has any of the perceived infallibility of something magical.
Mass Effect lore states that all A.I. became banned, galaxy-wide for its 'risk' of self-awareness. There was already one hundred year war going on between 'maker and machine'. Any adaptable, machine intelligence was seen as potential for future catastrophic war. Clearly the very concept of A.I. in Mass Effect does not entail any inherent perfection. An advanced artificial intelligence may operate beyond our own in cognition and mental capacity, yet imagine what humungous mistakes it could make if not simply a 'computation machine' but a real, living mind operating through a process of trial, error, pattern recognition and learning; just like us.
Those who believe the Catalyst to have acted 'un-machine-like' have not really grasped the series' philosophy on the subject, and that the motivation to create artificial life like the Catalyst must involve the emergence of an 'ego' and thus be contrary to the pulp SF cliche of the 'amoral, cold and calculating machine'.
The conceptual basis of the ending is sound enough, but the execution was lacking. I'm glad that Bioware are sticking to their guns on this and their execution is all they are changing.
1. When it's shitty "art", you can dispense with the whole "art challenges you" nonsense. Again, Twilight does not challenge you. ME3's ending is as bad as anything Stephenie Meyer ever wrote. Not everything is "art", and not all "art" is legitimate, important, or worthy of existing.CaptOfSerenity said:
2. We're not having a debate. We're fighting over a fucking video game. Knock it off with your "straw man" crap. I'm so sick of seeing people toss around debate vocabulary as if it gives you more credibility. It doesn't. You're still bickering over a goddamn toy. What, couldn't you shoehorn "ad hominem" in there anywhere?
3. If I were a writer and it took me years to come up with that shit ending, I would EXPECT people to tell me it sucked and to get my shit together. Then I'd probably quit writing altogether. The fact that a "writer" came up with that doesn't give it any special nobility. And the fact that those same idiots so stubbornly defended it is borderline offensive.
4. I don't care that you're a "writer". I don't care that you think you can empathize with the hack clowns at Bioware. All that does it tell me you can't be remotely objective about this. All you're doing is making excuses for shitty, lazy, shoddy work. Maybe you hope that one day someone will make those same excuses for you?
My outlook on this is "whatever, it's over". I played through the last two missions to check out the EC content. I went with option D because I just kept telling the Star Child "screw that option". Kind of sucks to see Shepard go out with a whimper, didn't even go down in a blaze of glory.
Went on YouTube after and checked out the expanded original three endings. Good enough for someone who doesn't really care anymore. Almost four months since release, not worth the time and energy to get worked up about this anymore.
Yup, still lots of plot holes and inconsistencies. Time to move on.
Went on YouTube after and checked out the expanded original three endings. Good enough for someone who doesn't really care anymore. Almost four months since release, not worth the time and energy to get worked up about this anymore.
Yup, still lots of plot holes and inconsistencies. Time to move on.
Honestly, it's the best we could of hoped for after the maddening decision that there is nothing wrong with the core concept of the ending. Sure it's not great, but it's satisfying to show hey, maybe the entire galaxy isn't fucked. Sure it's not a great DLC, but it's free and maybe Leviathan can hint to what the starchild was actually talking about.
Honestly I am satisfied, in order to satisfy the buthurt fanboys im sure they would have to tailor make an individual ending to suit the need of every one of said complainers. For me, they gave us closure with the characters and your actions, maybe we dont know if shepard still lives but isnt that part of the game for once its letting the player tell the story, you decide if shepard died or lived in the Destroy ending. The plot holes, aside from the massive one staring you in the face (logic of synthetics vs. organics) were all fixed, the realys did not destroy the fleet and said fleet is not stuck on earth, life contiues and your teleporting squadmates were actually CASEVACed (military TLA for Casualty Evac). The main complaint about the ending is the logic of the child "space god", now he may have actually had a point there, but that became null when shepard stopped waring between synthetics and organics with the Geth vs. Quarian war. But thats the whole point, thats the reason why shepard was allowed to make these choices, thats the reason civilisation was spared, you are the shepard the bastion of the galaxy it wouldn't happen any other way.
everythingbeeps said:
I would give you a high five, but that wouldn't quite cover how much I agree with you on this sentiment. But I am le tired, so just adding in jargon, and perhaps I'll give you a cookie tomorrow for expressing my opinion probably better than I could have myself.