Poll: Was ME1 really as good as we remember or was Saren just an idiot antagonist?

[Odin311]

Snip

If Saren never attacked Eden Prime, Sovereign could have just flown into the Citadel, and Saren could have used his SPECTER status to request docking.

-Saren requests a private meeting with the council, and is than in the tower.

-Sovereign interfaces with the Citadel, and causes it to close.

-Geth that have been packed into Sovereign activate, and assault the Citadel directly.

-With the Citadel cut off from reinforcements, and it's local security in disarray, Saren kills the council, and activates the Citadel's mass effect relay.

-Reapers pour through and the galaxy is prepared for another cycle.

 

[bladester1]

I'm pretty sure Saren, and Soverign for that matter, didn't know what the conduit was, so they wanted to know what it did before they took over the Citadel. All they knew is that somehow the Protheans used it to reprogram the bug guys on the Citadel.

 

[boag]

He needed the conduit to stop the Citadel arms from closing. Otherwise Council would've just closed them immediately.

What?

The citadels arms didnt close in time to do jack shit when the Geth Fleet came in, what would the difference have been?

My friend, you forget a couple of simple facts. Vigil explains that Sovereign is slow and methodical in everything he does. Had he made his move too soon, the entire galaxy would be united against him and he'd be destroyed.

that didnt stop him from bum rushing the Citadel at the end of the game


Beyond that: Saren had his Specter status revoked at the beginning of the game when you prove that he attacked Eden Prime, as such coming back to the Citadel and just walking up like everything's fine wouldn't be an option. COULD Saren have made his move sooner? Probably, but there's variables that we just don't know about. Maybe the Geth hadn't amassed enough forces. We know he was wanting to build a massive Krogan army and perhaps he didn't have enough for a full-on assault. Benezia's influence might have slowed him down a bit too before she became fully indoctrinated. We also know he was planning on making an army of Rachni but that ended up falling through.

all irrelevant because he could have bid his time, but instead he fucked up and attacked eden prime, effectively tipping everyone off.

Conduit was somehow involved with the Reaper signal not working.
it wasnt

He might have known that the Citadel was Sovereign's ultimate goal, but with the Conduit still being an unknown,
his entire plan was based around transporting troops using the conduit, you just said so in your previous paragraphs

it's likely the big bad Reaper wanted to make sure his bases were covered so he didn't assault the Citadel only to find that nothing would happen because this mysterious Conduit was somehow blocking him. Upon finding out the truth, that it's a backdoor to the Citadel, they coulda said "Fuck it, lets use this to attack. Give the order to the fleet to move out."

so in the end he just dropped logic and still attacked like a moron, because he had already screwed himself over.

 

[hermes]

Because Sovereign didn't know about the conduit. It just knew something was done to the Mass Effect relay in the Citadel that prevented its plan to work (a plan that worked countless times, which hurt the pride of such a proud member of an infinite and unstoppable race). It wouldn't let a missing variable like that escape before the attack, so it indoctrinated Saren to use his specter status to find out about it (that is why he attacked Eden Prime, but failed to cover his tracks properly) and indoctrinated the geth and the rachni to work as its agents for the invasion.

Even if he discovered how to nullify the effects of the conduit, by then Saren was a wanted man because of our actions, so casually walking by was not a possibility. A direct attack was also not recommended without enough forces, since it would loose the element of surprise and the citadel could just shut itself down.

Finally (and I am not sure about this, correct me if I am wrong), but in the game they never mention the location of the control panel that turns the citadel into a relay. The functionality was hidden for hundreds of cycles, so its unlikely it is a button anyone (even Saren) could casually walk and press... Its even explained that the plan works by giving an order to the keepers to open the door from their side.

 

[Sexy Devil]

Saren predicted synthesis! He is a prophet and his voice must be heard!

Praise the lord! Running into the magic beam was his birthright!

Clearly the OP does not share in his vision. He would treat us like this!

Fear not, when legendary Saren delivers us from evil by turning us all into synthetics-organic hybrids or something with his glorious space Jesus powers, the filthy plebes like the OP will be left behind.

To get even more off topic, I didn't even know hitting people like that was a renegade option (besides with Khalisa, of course). Man, I need to stop playing Paragon.

 

[OldKingClancy]

I've just recently started the Mass Effect series and finished the first game for the second time so I can't compare it for the other games but I really liked it, Saren was a great villain (But I can see your point), the micro-managing didn't bother me and yes the facial graphics weren't the best but the worlds looked amazing.

My only main problem was that Mako controls were ass and during the drive to the Conduit Mako looked at the laws of physics and said 'Fuck that'

 

[Grygor]

He needed the conduit to stop the Citadel arms from closing. Otherwise Council would've just closed them immediately.

What?

The citadels arms didnt close in time to do jack shit when the Geth Fleet came in, what would the difference have been?

Of course they didn't close in time - Saren had already gone through the conduit and seized control of the station by the time Sovereign and the Geth fleet attacked. That was the entire point of Saren using the conduit - to keep the Council from sealing the station before Sovereign can get inside.

 

[RubyT]

ME1 was a very good game. It didn't live up to my expectations set forth by the first time on the Citadel, when I was expecting every "town" (here: planet) to be this detailed and awesome.

But sadly, if you play the 5 (?) main planets in just the right order, you experience an aweful decline in story, ending with the last one (some sort of research station IIRC) where nothing was explorable and every NPC (those with names) just had the standard "What's going on around here?" dialog options.

And you had the horrible generic planet landing missions with the 3 types of dungeon.

But never was I bothered by the storyline.
If there's a plot involving domination of the world/universe and a hero with chances to prevent this, there will be plotholes.

Remember the indestructible Death Star with a vent to it's core and a Shield Generator on Endor.
If you expect airtight logic, Fantasy and Science-Fiction are rarely your friend...

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Snip

If Saren never attacked Eden Prime, Sovereign could have just flown into the Citadel, and Saren could have used his SPECTER status to request docking.

-Saren requests a private meeting with the council, and is than in the tower.

-Sovereign interfaces with the Citadel, and causes it to close.

-Geth that have been packed into Sovereign activate, and assault the Citadel directly.

-With the Citadel cut off from reinforcements, and it's local security in disarray, Saren kills the council, and activates the Citadel's mass effect relay.

-Reapers pour through and the galaxy is prepared for another cycle.

So let me get this straight...

Saren turns up in a vast ship, like, larger than anything in Citadel space and of a truely alien design. The council looks at this thing and goes "Haha, it's okay, he's a SPECTER! Why would we possibly question him arriving in a titanic ship beyond the scale of even our greatest dreadnoughts? Who are we to question Saren's almighty pimp-wagon?". Then the ship not only docks, but suggestively latches onto the central spire, all the while the council, C-Sec, and everybody else on the Citadel just nods along with this.

Saren then deploys with his Geth... Fighting into the most heavily protected part of the Citadel, activating the central controls before anyone realises something is awry. Your entire plan hinges on everyone looking at Sovereign, an eight kilometre long ship and not thinking that there's anything weird about it at all, even after it starts molesting the effective capital of all sentient life in the galaxy.

 

[Klatz]

Doesn't the Catalyst AI residing in the Citadel render the whole Sovereign, Saren debate moot. Why didn't the Catalyst AI just open the Relay itself? Why this rigamorale with the Conduit etc.

 

[Bravo 21]

I'm still wondering why when the initial invasion from dark space directly to the citadel didn't go as planned, Sovereign didn't wake up all the other Reapers and use massive force to wipe out everyone, then figure out what went wrong. Maybe even ancient machines can feel pride, because seriously, there is no logical way the organics would have been able to survive if all the Reapers were to show up at the Citadel, lock the mass Relays, and then proceed to murder every living thing everywhere. Not Elegant, but it's super effective.
EDIT: I mean arriving via FTL, not the conduit or their initial plan

 

[SajuukKhar]

I saw a thread a couple of days ago on BSN about a unofficial interview a fan had with one of the ME devs and he asked why the Reapers didn't shut down the relay network in ME3.

apparently the Keepers were doing something that prevented the entire thing from going down.

 

[Bebus]

Interesting question but...

Spoiler: ME3 spoiler, if anybody even cares any more...

The starbaby renders the entire question, and frankly game, redundant. They did not need Saren. They did not need the conduit. All they needed was for starbaby to say "yup, come invade now" and boom end of the universe, nobody knows what happened.

One of the many, many, many gaping problems with the ending.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Interesting question but...

Spoiler: ME3 spoiler, if anybody even cares any more...

The starbaby renders the entire question, and frankly game, redundant. They did not need Saren. They did not need the conduit. All they needed was for starbaby to say "yup, come invade now" and boom end of the universe, nobody knows what happened.

One of the many, many, many gaping problems with the ending.

Unless of course he had some sort of failsafe system put in by whoever made him in case he went rouge that prevented him from opening the citadel relay himself to prevent a possible early invasion.

they should have mentioned one.

 

[Joccaren]

Here is the problem: Saren and Sovereign didn't know why the Relay didn't activate. They had no clue what the Conduit was until they got to it. Until the Conduit was found, Sovereign had no clue what had been done to stop the Relay activating, and he likely found out what on Ilos.

 

[Conza]

So, I recently started a full ME1-ME2-ME3 run to build a new character and I just finished ME1 a few days ago. I was sitting there watching the ending and going...wait a minute.

Because here is the thing. You spend THE ENTIRE GAME hunting Saren. Saren is hunting the Conduit. Saren needs the Conduit to bring back the Reapers. So you're trying to find the Conduit the entire game. But then at the final hour you find out that the Conduit is just a backdoor onto the Citadel and it's the CITADEL that Saren really needs to bring back the Reapers, not the Conduit.

but wait a minute.

I'm sure atleast one other person would've told you what I'm going to say, but I'll do it anyway

Saren was a SPECTRE, an above-the-law Supercop with nearly unlimited power and access on the Citadel. Not only that but he was the BEST of the SPECTREs.

So my question then is why didn't Saren just just have Sovereign and the Geth Fleet just suddenly stream through the Mass Relay while he waltzed up to the Citadel Tower in the Chaos and activated the Citadel Relay? We know that he had Krogan and Asari support

What are you talking about?

He goes to Eden Prime to find out information about the conduit, this is what makes him a villan yes, but he couldn't by-pass this step otherwise he wouldn't know what to do, so he never could have Krogan and Asari support without going to Eden Prime (Also, the Krogan army came later, and by Asari support, I assume you mean the official Asari army of biotics?).

, and they already have Citadel access. He could have had a ton of double agents on the Citadel ready to attack on his command.

Who would these people be? Not fellow spectres, not c-sec, everyone else would've had to be... an enkindler, not to be suspicious, I don't see how that could've worked.

He also was able to sneak Geth onto Noveria

That was the side-kick played by Mirina Sirtis. And the Citadel isn't a planet, so there's no where to hide giant geth in containers, unlike the ice plains of Noveria.

and we know the Citadel had a huge security upgrade after the attack, so it's not unreasonable to think he could have snuck Geth onto the Citadel as well.

Same as above

I mean, if he had done that rather than go attack Eden Prime,

He can't, already explained.

then no one would have known he was a villain, Shepard wouldn't have ever been tapped to assemble a crew and likely wouldn't have even been on the Citadel, and the human fleet wouldn't have been standing by to save the Citadel and destroy Sovereign.

Skip, repeat information

Hell, the only reason Saren NEEDED the Conduit at all in the first place was because he played his hand in the first 5 minutes of the game and declared himself a villain and got himself banned from the Citadel.

Once again, explanation provided here.

Hell, it seems like the whole story of Mass Effect 1, not to mention even giving Shepard the opportunity to stop him, was predicated entirely on the absolute incompetence of Saren.

Wrong. Mass Effect 1 has the best story segment and stand alone story of any of the games, it sets the stage completely establishing all of the races, how the inter-global community works, the purpose to stop Saren is a pre-lude to the potential invasion of the Reapers. This is much more than a quest to stop Saren.

And yet, ME1 get's praised as the story with the best writing

Because it is, clearly.

...when the whole story is only possible because the main antagonist is a buffoon.

Again, you're repeating your points, so I could repeat my responses, but its not necessary, its just your whole premise is completely wrong - one fact has skewed the enture argument, unfortunately.

I mean, am I missing something here? Cause I've thought about it for a while and it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Mass Effect 3 might be the best Mass Effect - but only just. If it had a proper story conclusion to back up all of the great plot through out the game, no one would be questioning anything about it, not really. Mass Effect had excellent everything, its just a completely solid stand alone game, ME2 doesn't do that at all, its only good as a building block from ME1, and ME3 probably is a good stand alone game, but its only really competitive with ME1 once you've played ME1/ME2 and have that investment of wanting your Shepard to do what you want. ME1 has the unfair of advantage of not having to follow itself, the problem with them setting the bar so high with that first game, is there was virtually no where to go but down if changed anything - which they did in ME2, the combat was horrible - and correcting for it in ME3 brought it back somewhat, but ultimately without that conclusion, ME3 can never be said to have a greater story and thus overall be as solid a game as a result, as ME1 will always be remembered to be as.

 

[boag]

He needed the conduit to stop the Citadel arms from closing. Otherwise Council would've just closed them immediately.

What?

The citadels arms didnt close in time to do jack shit when the Geth Fleet came in, what would the difference have been?

Of course they didn't close in time - Saren had already gone through the conduit and seized control of the station by the time Sovereign and the Geth fleet attacked. That was the entire point of Saren using the conduit - to keep the Council from sealing the station before Sovereign can get inside.

again, WHAT?

You get to the Station just about the same Time Saren Does, there is a time gap between the Coucil getting the fuck out of dodge and Saren Himself closing down the Citadel, that was enough for the Geth Invasion fleet not only blitz right through the entire Citadel Defensive Fleet, but also to drop more troops and even let Sovereign get nice and cozy on the Tower.

Odin already posted the most efficient way Saren could have accomplished the goal, without being an absolute fuckwit about it.

Snip

If Saren never attacked Eden Prime, Sovereign could have just flown into the Citadel, and Saren could have used his SPECTER status to request docking.

-Saren requests a private meeting with the council, and is than in the tower.

-Sovereign interfaces with the Citadel, and causes it to close.

-Geth that have been packed into Sovereign activate, and assault the Citadel directly.

-With the Citadel cut off from reinforcements, and it's local security in disarray, Saren kills the council, and activates the Citadel's mass effect relay.

-Reapers pour through and the galaxy is prepared for another cycle.