(Spoilers) Mass Effect 3 Ending is Evil

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Synthesis' admittedly fuzzy fusing of synthetic and organic life, well, it's not the first time something similar happened - look no further than Shepard herself.

It is quite frankly not comparable. Shepard is the result of a several year-long medical experiment (but that whole Project Lazarus business was the weakest plot point in ME2). Synthesis is the result of the End-o-Matic 3000(tm) somehow being to detect living beings all over the Galaxy and instantly changing them at a molecular level. It's magic, introduced at the last moment, and makes no sense in the framework of the established "science" of the ME universe.

 

[votemarvel]

If you were in Shepard's position in real life, you'd do it. If you were standing on the deck of the Crucible, you would not agonize this long about the potential moral dilemma.

I would however spending more than a few moments wondering if I could trust the enemy leader on the methods to stop said enemy.

No in fact I wouldn't. I would assume the enemy leader was lying to me in an attempt to make me fail.

"You're an AI huh? So where's your core at?." Something along those lines is what I'd be asking.

 

[CloudAtlas]

The Catalyst states it is inevitable.

If it is inevitable then eventually the Catalyst and the Reapers will attempt to wipe out all organics.

So the Catalyst's own logic suggests that it will eventually try to wipe out all organics because it is inevitable.

How can you not see the flaw in its argument?

Look, I see what you're getting at, I do. And my beef is not with the people who point out the cracks in the reasoning of the Catalyst, but with those people who claim it doesn't make any sense at all and that's why it's all shit and everything.

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

Your argument above is entirely correct. Now one could argue that Reapers are not synthetic, but a mix, and maybe not life at all, but that would be beside the point, I think.
If we assume that the Catalyst's assessment of the problem is valid, and the solution to preemptively wipe out all life is valid too, that still leaves the question who should be the one implementing this solution. The Catalyst may have been faithful to its imperative so far, but a simple software error or something could change that, and as time approaches infinity, the likelihood of that happening approaches 1. To assume that this couldn't happen to oneself is nothing but hubris. And, yea, that's a good reason to destroy the Reapers at the end, other than the somewhat selfish desire not to be annihilated, and pretty much also the big drawback of the Control Ending.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Synthesis' admittedly fuzzy fusing of synthetic and organic life, well, it's not the first time something similar happened - look no further than Shepard herself.

It is quite frankly not comparable. Shepard is the result of a several year-long medical experiment (but that whole Project Lazarus business was the weakest plot point in ME2). Synthesis is the result of the End-o-Matic 3000(tm) somehow being to detect living beings all over the Galaxy and instantly changing them at a molecular level. It's magic, introduced at the last moment, and makes no sense in the framework of the established "science" of the ME universe.

It's probably pointless to argue. While fusion between synthetic and organic elements is not new, you're right that nothing resembling the precise way of how the two are fused has been introduced before, and it does look quite magical. It's not exactly my preferred ending either, and that's one of the reasons, and if that's too far removed from what else there is in the universe for your taste, that's just it.

 

[lapan]

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

But we have no way to confirm those observations. For all we know it could be entirely talking bullshit to us.

Yes, the ending doesn't leave us any other choices anyways, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

 

[Alarien]

The only solid "11th hour" or deus ex argument for ME3 that I've seen really is the one about synthesis. It is literally the only subject that only comes out at the very end. The Catalyst itself is the subject of the entire 3rd game, fully 1/3 of the series. By that very fact, any argument against the Catalyst itself being deus ex or 11th hour is downright silly. Destroy has been the subject since Mass Effect 1. Control is considered a subject throughout all of Mass Effect 3. Synthesis comes out at the very end.

Is that bad?

This is a matter of, again, perspective. If you feel that it's bad, fine. I don't. I personally dislike deus ex machina solutions, but I don't see synthesis as such since there are a few well established themes that make this feel far more inevitable as a solution. The first is the inevitability of conflict of synthetic vs. organic. (And, seriously, people need to stop with the Geth/Quarian OMGPROOF argument that this throws the logic all out of whack. As someone else pointed out, the direct observation of millions of years by the Reapers supports the inevitability argument. Anomalies do not prove the argument invalid. The Geth are an anomaly.) The second is the Catalyst. We've spent the entire game knowing "this thing must do something pretty awesome, but we have no idea what it is." So... it's ok for it to do what you expected (i.e. Destroy the Reapers), but it's not ok for it to do something you didn't quite expect. I thought "not quite sure what to expect" was actually a theme of pretty much every single conversation concerning the Catalyst's function throughout the entire game? For it to be ultimately capable of doing only one thing (i.e. destroy) which you expected all along, would be kinda sad development. The final theme, and this is one that I think has been kicking around since Mass Effect 1, is "why is this cycle different?" Why are we going to play out the final cycle (we know it's going to be the last one right?... right?) and how is it different from the countless failures that came before? Destroy and control are hardly revolutionary ideas. Certainly someone thought of them before. So... the difference is humans? That's pretty arrogant and would lead me towards the hatred I feel towards ethnocentric garbage I see in movies like Avatar and The Last Samurai. We're humans (American in the case of that goddawful Cruise movie), and we're just better than you, so we'll win this time! Wow, how... awful. So, it is Shepard? Is Shepard the savior? That would be pretty pathetic as well. Vast nth-illions of people have died to the Reapers, but we have Shepard who's going to pull it all off on his/HER own, because no one has ever tried to do this coalition building thing before and no one is that bad ass. Blah.

Synthesis, to me, works because it addresses the thing about "this cycle" that sets the cycle apart. It is the "new answer" that the starchild has been waiting for. Does that work for you? No? That's fine. It's a matter of opinion. For me, it felt perfectly reasonable and not a last minute rushed excuse for an answer. It also doesn't render Destroy or Control necessarily wrong. Mass Effect is inevitably about choice and regardless of the countless arguments about choice not playing a part in the series, you still get the choice at the end, for what you want.

This is also why I really wish they would drop the franchise now. Anything that occurs after the events of Mass Effect 3 must render a decision on the "canonical way" that the story ended. That would, to me, be the thing that ultimately renders all of the choices for each of our journeys through the game meaningless.

 

[Alarien]

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

But we have no way to confirm those observations. For all we know it could be entirely talking bullshit to us.

Yes, the ending doesn't leave us any other choices anyways, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

I meant to throw my thoughts into this ring earlier as well. Addressing the many arguments that boil down to "why the hell would we believe the starchild? Who knows if he's lying? Also, including the side argument/logic that Shepard is at the end choice and the Reapers can't stop him directly so the starchild is trying to subvert Shepard into choosing a specific path.

Basically, the counter argument is "why the heck would the starchild need to lie to Shepard?"

If you work on the assumption/argument that Shepard has reached the terminus and the Reapers feel a need to subvert him, that assumes that they have no way to simply STOP him. But that also flies in the face of the fact that Shepard was passed out, bleeding out on the floor of the Citadel "control room," not in contact or even view of the "win machine" and that some force, presumably the starchild brought him up. If the Reapers feared Shepard using the machine, the most effective thing for them to do would have been ... exactly nothing. He'd likely have died on the Citadel floor while the fleets died around him. The Reapers win again. Also, in control of the Citadel, the Reapers clearly have the ability to manipulate the very structure of the Citadel, as seen in all the shifting of walls. So... could they not have done that in a way to specifically bar Shepard from the control area, or just outright kill him/her?

No, the logical explanation is that the starchild wanted Shepard to access the machine in the end, as summed up by the very simple statement that we can continue to reference: "my solution will no longer work." Basically, he has stated that despite any steps backwards or slow down, Shepard/humanity/organic life's very presence on the control platform of a completed Crucible/Citadel machine indicates that, given the countless cycles over countless future eons (anyone remember the 100 monkeys, 100 typewriters, infinite time -> Shakespeare quote?) some race will eventually complete the Crucible/Citadel, possibly before the Reapers can stop it, and the solution of the Reapers will be rendered an ultimate failure.

Seeing this play out in the current cycle, and Shepard reaching nearly to the terminus (before collapsing in a dying haze) is the proof it needs that a "new answer" is required.

So, how does this suggest that, perhaps, the starchild is not simply lying? Well, why would it need to? If it could render Shepard a non-issue by not doing anything, or out right killing him, then why bother lying? Why bother bringing him to the win machine? The starchild has had his AI logic/answer proven an inevitable failure. Its mandate still exists, but it needs a new solution that it cannot come up with on it's own. There is no motivation here to lie to preserve the existing cycle solution. It simply has no need to do so. The starchild knows what the machine can do and it knows that each of these solutions are potentially going to be effective. It also knows that it cannot decide (or it would likely have already done so).

Now, we move into personal theory, the above is just a logic game. To me, at least, it's clear that the starchild/AI logic is incapable of having a correct answer to the synthetic/organic problem because it lacks full organic understanding/perspective. This was exactly the argument made throughout the entire 3rd game concerning the Geth. It was the entire arc of EDI's development. In the Mass Effect mythos, synthetic AI will seek to gain an understanding of what it means to be alive and it wants to gain organic perspective to help do that. The starchild lacks this. It needs an organic perspective to find the solution and Shepard represents that. It needs to fulfill it's mandate and it needs organic perspective. It needs Shepard to know the truth about the Catalyst, so lying makes absolutely no sense.

My $.02 on that subject, though the way I write, it's more like $1.50.

 

[CloudAtlas]

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

But we have no way to confirm those observations. For all we know it could be entirely talking bullshit to us.

No, we don't. We have some evidence, but no definite proof. We just have to make a decision under uncertainty. What's bad about that?

Edit:

(a lot)

Interesting perspective. Always something new to learn, it seems.

 

[Animyr]

You don't have to accept the Catalyst's logic - you can shoot at it, or refuse to make a decision, and bear the consequences.

What I meant by "accepting the Illusive Man's argument resp. the Reaper's argument" was more, how should I say it, acceptance at a deeper, thematic level. With Control, you do, in the end, what the Illusive Man has always wanted from you, and what you have rejected all the time before. With Synthesis, you agree that there can be no peace between Synthetics and Organics and that's why the only solution (other than extinction) is to eradicate the distinction.

And you don't have to buy any of what the Catalyst tells you anyway. You can just do what you came to do in the first place - destroy Reapers, and be done with it. At any cost.

Yeah, I kinda lost the thread of my original statement. And it's clear you don't understand my point.

Let me retry. Throughout the game, both Shepard and the player are shown over and over that rational and friendly discourse can build a bridge over every gap presented to them. They can refuse to do that, of course, but that choice is almost always shown to be the bad one. The message is clear; as varied as life is, we?re not so different that we can?t get along. We?re only enemies if we choose to be.

Then the catalyst pops in and say "yeah, all that? Not true. You are enemies whether you like it or not.?

You already agreed that the theme of unity, as something that is both desirable and feasible, is omnipresent. So, yes or no...do you agree that the catalyst?s stance is utterly antithetical to that of the story at large? Because it is. And yet all four of the endings have Shepard, and thus the player, spinning on their heel and implicitly agreeing with the Catalyst, throwing out all of their struggles and experiences and acting on the grounds of a few lines of exposition. No ending has the player embracing the differences between life forms. You can only destroy or erase these variations, or let the catalyst destroy them for you.

The question of synthetic and organic life, what is life, what is sentience, and so on, I didn't feel that this stopped being part of the game after the Quarian-Geth conflict. It's just such a prominent one over the course of all 3 games.

In what sense? If you mean that ending the geth war didn?t resolve the issue for ever and ever, for all time, sure. But for the intents and purposes of the story at hand? It?s wrapped up pretty definitively. Either the two sides are reconciled, or one is completely gone. Either way, the conflict is over. Either the catalyst's problem doesn't exist, or his solution is unnecessary (we got rid of the problem ourselves, without reapers or the crucible).

Remember, the reapers don?t count here either. I already explained this. None of the races or conflicts we actually know and have interacted with are relevant! That leaves us with long-defeated synthetics in the distant past, and a theoretical synthetic race that doesn't even exist yet as the basis on which to base our ending decision.

As for my point about the problem disappearing, I was just pointing out that there are other issues. In fact, the Krogans are shown to be even more threatening to the galaxy than the geth, and the implication that your resolution of that issue is a temporary one is far stronger there then it is with the Geth, or any non-reaper synthetic. So if non reaper synthetics are the greatest threat to galactic peace, then why does the story present, at length and in depth, greater threats to galactic peace then non-reaper synthetics? This is what I mean when I say that the ending feels like it belongs in a different story.

Maybe it's not the pinnacle of storytelling, but how are you supposed to show events that happened many millions of years ago? And the raison d'etre for the Reapers' existence is already foreshadowed in the Leviathan DLC, not just at the very end.

Well, throughout the trilogy you discover evidence of the Prothean race everywhere you look. Their existence factors in the plot, the characters (Liara is a Prothean scholar, for instance) and the lore (prothean relics are very valuable). They take great pains to let you know these guys existed even if they?re long dead (and that?s before you meet Javik). Yet these synthetic wars, which the ending revolves around and which motivates our villain, get only a few lines of exposition. You see the discrepancy here?

And secondly, you could sidestep the issue of ?showing events that happened many millions of years? ago by not making the ending revolve around them in the first place. You know, keep the action focused on the story we actually just saw, not one that's only mentioned by a few times by minor characters? To say that it's "not the pinnacle of storytelling" is a huge understatement.

As for Leviathan, it's far too little far too late. The ending should have resolved the conflict put forward in the previous three games, not the conflict put forward in a small post-launch expansion.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

You can try all you want to justify the Catalyst in a vacuum, but that doesn't stop from not fitting in with the narrative. Its introduction is literally the point where the narrative collapses in on itself. It conflicts in every way the previous portrayal of the Reapers, it creates plot holes in its relation to ME1, and it robs Shepard and by extension the player of any agenda, reducing both to simple battery deliverymen, that are only allowed to "win" as an act of charity.

Now, we move into personal theory, the above is just a logic game. To me, at least, it's clear that the starchild/AI logic is incapable of having a correct answer to the synthetic/organic problem because it lacks full organic understanding/perspective. This was exactly the argument made throughout the entire 3rd game concerning the Geth. It was the entire arc of EDI's development. In the Mass Effect mythos, synthetic AI will seek to gain an understanding of what it means to be alive and it wants to gain organic perspective to help do that. The starchild lacks this. It needs an organic perspective to find the solution and Shepard represents that. It needs to fulfill it's mandate and it needs organic perspective. It needs Shepard to know the truth about the Catalyst, so lying makes absolutely no sense.

But if you actually offer any other perspective than what it restricts you to (although the only counter-"argument" Shepard is allowed to make is very unimpressive), it kills everyone anyway out of what can only be described as petty spite, and you get a glorified game-over.

 

[CatComixzStudios]

I have actually studied the endings in more detail than was probably needed, and figured out alot of the remaining things that still bother me, even after the extended cut. I even made my own versions of the endings because I'm a diehard fanboy with no life and an unnatural love of this series.

I've been waiting for a chance to break this baby out. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wC-nAKzqvQnQli8Py5busUkYFiHQmfEXVIxzZ457GHY/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Alarien]

Animyr, I don't follow your unity argument. First off, the argument you present is really only valid insofar as it addresses organic races, however, I think you missed a major point that all that unity stuff and using discourse to bridge gaps is really only valid in the context that the game presents it and the game presents it in the context of universally perceived assured total annihilation. So, given the context of "we're all going to die," then it is possible for species to overcome their differences and achieve some form of general united purpose. Organic life needs an Catalyst (pun, sorry) for your the unity theme of Mass Effect to be valid.

However, the argument is countered when the Reapers are not a looming presence. The presence of the terminus systems, the First Contact War, the Skillian Blitz, the Human-Batarian conflict and the subsequent secession of the Batarians from the Council are all things that indicate that, given a different context, conflict is going to be part of the norm. I don't even think we need to put this into context of the Mass Effect world to see the validity of this argument. We can just look at our own news.

Further, trying to bring this to the main theme of Mass Effect 3, that of organic-synthetic conflict, we have only the direct observation of the Geth. However, keep in mind that no matter how paragon you were and how well you ended the Geth-Quarian crisis, you had to either commit a form of genocide OR a form of mass brain-washing to see it through to that "happy" conclusion. We cannot forget the events of Mass Effect 2 and the Geth - Heretic internal conflict. This suggests that an entire mindset that was counter to that of the main Geth as well as organic life could not be simply fixed via discourse. It had to be eliminated entirely, via one means or the other.

Maybe I'm just seeing your argument wrong, but I don't think Mass Effect was ever leading us to the conclusion that unity was even a realistic goal. It happened in this cycle only by huge effort and strength of character and in the context of impending doom, but even then it wasn't fully achieved. Not everyone agrees to help, no matter what you do (much of the Salarians, in my game). Not everyone can be cajoled or coerced into helping (Geth Heretics). Even internally, humanity couldn't get it together (Cerberus). I don't think unity as a final solution was ever going to be some form of goal for the game or series, so the fact that it is not part of the finale choices, other than the outcome of Shepard's journey and who joined him in the final battle, doesn't really impact the story to me.

Umm, Blachman...

I won't argue that the Catalyst appearing in ME3 creates some prior plot holes. Yeah, it does, because it wasn't part of the original narrative. I assume you know what the original narrative and ending were about, so I won't recount it, but in my own opinion (and I really like Drew Karpyshyn, a lot) the original ending was just plain bad. It was too dark, too depressing, and the final choice would have rendered much of the game and any replays with a certain hopelessness. I like hope in my games, even if it's just an illusion. I'm ok with the Catalyst. It creates dark, relatively bright, open, or even somewhat off-the-wall ending possibilities. So there are a few plot holes. NONE of them are particularly earth-shattering.

It does not collapse the narrative for me, it seems to follow just fine. It does not rob me of Shepard's agenda. I fail to see how it does that. I always felt that, in the face of the Reapers, Shepard was just going to be a form of deliveryman, rather than the anti-Reaper Rambo. His agenda seems clear in all 3 games: find a way to stop the Reapers, do his best to see that that way succeeds. That's an agenda and it follows in all 3 games.

And yes, if you choose to do nothing or shoot the starchild in the head, the Reapers win. Of course they win, this cycle. The reason is that the cycle will be preserved for the time being, but the observation of the progression of organic resistance to the Reapers has already shown that, eventually, the situation will occur again, with a new "Shepard" at the win machine and, eventually, one of these Shepards will choose. The cycles will continue until an organic representative makes the choice that needs to be made. It doesn't have to be Shepard, it's just that Shepard is the final proof and the first faced with the choice. I don't see what your argument is here.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

It does not collapse the narrative for me, it seems to follow just fine.

And there is were I always will vehemently disagree. The ending comes across as the Dog Ending to Silent Hill 2, except it we are supposed to take it seriously.

It does not rob me of Shepard's agenda. I fail to see how it does that. I always felt that, in the face of the Reapers, Shepard was just going to be a form of deliveryman, rather than the anti-Reaper Rambo. His agenda seems clear in all 3 games: find a way to stop the Reapers, do his best to see that that way succeeds. That's an agenda and it follows in all 3 games.

As much as Shepard is a stand-in for the player it is still completely out of character for him to meekly submit to his enemy, yet the ending offers you no other option than that.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Let me retry. Throughout the game, both Shepard and the player are shown over and over that rational and friendly discourse can build a bridge over every gap presented to them. They can refuse to do that, of course, but that choice is almost always shown to be the bad one. The message is clear; as varied as life is, we?re not so different that we can?t get along. We?re only enemies if we choose to be.

Then the catalyst pops in and say "yeah, all that? Not true. You are enemies whether you like it or not.?

You already agreed that the theme of unity, as something that is both desirable and feasible, is omnipresent. So, yes or no...do you agree that the catalyst?s stance is utterly antithetical to that of the story at large? Because it is.

Yes, I agree the theme of unity, diversity, cooperation is central, and it does not exclude synthetic life. And, yes, the Catalyst's position is in opposition to that. But isn't he your main adversary? Isn't it good that you don't agree with him on a fundamental issue? Well, other than that he wants to wipe out humanity and so on...

And yet all four of the endings have Shepard, and thus the player, spinning on their heel and implicitly agreeing with the Catalyst, throwing out all of their struggles and experiences and acting on the grounds of a few lines of exposition. No ending has the player embracing the differences between life forms. You can only destroy or erase these variations, or let the catalyst destroy them for you.

I do not feel that this is true. If you choose Destroy, you do not have to agree with him on anything. Synthetics are bound to wipe out organics eventually? Thanks for the warning, but we'll take our chances. By choosing Destroy, you do not make a statement about the worth of synthetic life either. All you're saying is that the destruction of one species of synthetic life - if it still exists at this time at all - is preferable to the consequences the other alternatives entail. The Geth are simply collateral damage.
Yes, Control and Synthesis have stronger connections to the Catalyst's reasoning - but that's exactly why I consider them, thematically, as the "bad" endings - the endings where one or both of your main adversaries win, to some degree, if only spirit. But I think it is good that the player has the freedom to choose them.

As for my point about the problem disappearing, I was just pointing out that there are other issues. In fact, the Krogans are shown to be even more threatening to the galaxy than the geth, and the implication that your resolution of that issue is a temporary one is far stronger there then it is with the Geth, or any non-reaper synthetic. So if non reaper synthetics are the greatest threat to galactic peace, then why does the story present, at length and in depth, greater threats to galactic peace then non-reaper synthetics? This is what I mean when I say that the ending feels like it belongs in a different story.

I don't know what to say. I just don't feel this way. In Mass Effect 3, from minute one onward, your goal is to defeat the Reapers. Everything you do on your journey is nothing but removing obstacles and garnering support for this mission. Yet, their motivations remain mysterious. How, then, could the climax have been anything else but a reveal of these motivations? And again, I think the endings tie well into the themes of the story so far, and I gave reasons for that, but there's not much use in repeating them.

Well, throughout the trilogy you discover evidence of the Prothean race everywhere you look. Their existence factors in the plot, the characters (Liara is a Prothean scholar, for instance) and the lore (prothean relics are very valuable). They take great pains to let you know these guys existed even if they?re long dead (and that?s before you meet Javik). Yet these synthetic wars, which the ending revolves around and which motivates our villain, get only a few lines of exposition. You see the discrepancy here?

Yes, I do. I felt that the mystery around my adversary was beneficial to the experience, but if someone has different preferences, who am I to argue? Well, as long as he/she isn't telling me it's objectively bad.

I started to write down some more reponses on what you said, but at the end, most of it just boilt down to "I just didn't feel this way", but that's not really a position you can discuss about, so I deleted it again.
I'm generally wary, and tired, of stories that aim for the greatest possible scale, like Mass Effect does. That's probably the reason why I didn't play any part of the series until this winter. But somehow, Mass Effect (3) just works for me, and that's all I can say about it really.
And lest I be accused of being a BioWare fanboy: In Dragon Age, it didn't. At all.

 

[xamufam]

Mass effect 3 suffers from too rewrites
In the leaked script & the final hour of me3 app & the codex
Shepard is going trough an indoctrination you hear whispers & see oily shadows you see & hear things that are not there.
from the app there were 3 catalyst missions that would have began with eden prime, then thessia last, the citadel, illusiveman would have turned to a reaper boss & Shepard would be under full reaper control. fighting it. In the app they also said they changed the ending after the leak in november

In the comics Jack Harper/illusiveman was exposed to the same reaper artifact that saren was exposed to at the same time as saren his eyes mutated. (this was during the first contact war)



i believe this was the original ending before they began to change it & cut content mars/april 2011
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/995452-mass-effect-3/62230265
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyScZCu7E6g&context=C4562354ADvjVQa1PpcFOSt2YwlU7FG4bMaZgezVcXrA9se_aA6U8=
http://social.bioware.com/forums/forum/1/topic/355/index/16621390/3#16624681

From leaked script http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/995487-/62226083
one of the endings Shepard would become one with the reapers

Indoctrination
http://social.bioware.com/1376675/blog/212630

 

[Alarien]

It does not collapse the narrative for me, it seems to follow just fine.

And there is were I always will vehemently disagree. The ending comes across as the Dog Ending to Silent Hill 2, except it we are supposed to take it seriously.

It does not rob me of Shepard's agenda. I fail to see how it does that. I always felt that, in the face of the Reapers, Shepard was just going to be a form of deliveryman, rather than the anti-Reaper Rambo. His agenda seems clear in all 3 games: find a way to stop the Reapers, do his best to see that that way succeeds. That's an agenda and it follows in all 3 games.

As much as Shepard is a stand-in for the player it is still completely out of character for him to meekly submit to his enemy, yet the ending offers you no other option than that.

Interesting, I completely disagree with this evaluation of Shepard. I believe that this suggests that Shepard is a fairly colossal moron. Shepard can't be remotely oblivious to the fact that a direct war on the Reapers, even by the whole galaxy, at this point, is going to fail miserably. That's been clearly implied to the player and, hopefully, to Shepard since Mass Effect 1. I don't see his behavior as meek submission. In fact, considering that activating the Crucible has been his mission in Mass Effect 3 since it was discovered (yes, in Mass Effect 3, we've established that craw sticking point for some people), I don't see how that suddenly goes from "point of his narrative" to "meek submission." It doesn't really follow. The only thing that happens in between him actively trying to get to the Crucible controls to activate them and him actually activating them, is he meets a child-AI-thing that basically explains the plot. Why does it then stop being the mission to activate the Crucible and suddenly become a surrender, especially when destroying the Reapers is still on the table?

In the end, I still come back to the evaluation that a large proportion of the vitriol that comes out of the angry-vocal portion of the ME fan community (and let's be realistic here, it's still not the majority of the community), are angry that Shepard cannot choose to fight a conventional campaign and win (the very standard happy ending option). Originally, that option was not presented to them. In the Extended Cut it was, in the form of refusal and, of course, Shepard/Organics lose. But this brings me back to my first post. Shepard was always going to lose conventionally. That's something that has never had a plot hole, retcon, or other complaint validly leveled against it. That kind of war cannot win against the Reapers, and, indeed, the original scripts and focus of ME1 and ME2 agree with this. The Reapers are superior in technology in a way that current organics can't even fathom and they even have numbers on their side. Shepard was never meant to fight a conventional war and win because it wasn't ever set up as a plausible option. Further, I still assert that to do so would utterly cheapen the entire mythos of the Reapers and the history the game sets up around them. If Shepard and humanity can bring a galaxy together and defeat the Reapers, why could none of the countless prior civilizations do the same thing?

That would be a much greater plot hole than any that actually do exist in the game and the rewritten post-Mass Effect 2 script.

 

[CloudAtlas]

You can try all you want to justify the Catalyst in a vacuum, but that doesn't stop from not fitting in with the narrative. Its introduction is literally the point where the narrative collapses in on itself. It conflicts in every way the previous portrayal of the Reapers, it creates plot holes in its relation to ME1, and it robs Shepard and by extension the player of any agenda, reducing both to simple battery deliverymen, that are only allowed to "win" as an act of charity.

I never intended to say that it fitted perfectly. But it fitted well enough, at least for me, and I gave some reasons for it.
And how the hell does it rob the player of any agenda? You can do what you intended to do from the start, fire up the Crucible and blow the Reapers to kingdom come. I didn't expect anything else, and there's nothing "submissive" about that. But you're offered even more options. And, mechanically, the final decision was exactly like any other decision before: You're offered two or more options, and you have to pick one of them. Your agency was always just as limited. And a boss battle would have been the last I wanted.

And one more word about Shepard being "submissive" in her conversation with the Catalyst. At first, I found it a bit odd that she seemed rather calm, I wanted her to be angry. But then again, she's at the very end of her journey, she's so exhausted she passed out. Maybe she has no power left anymore to be angry. And the whole sequence had an almost dream-like, ethereal, near-death vibe to me, and, in a way, I found that fitting. And not a hard break with the previous Anderson scene either. And at the end, she does pull out her gun, and she fires...

Animyr, I don't follow your unity argument. First off, the argument you present is really only valid insofar as it addresses organic races, however, I think you missed a major point that all that unity stuff and using discourse to bridge gaps is really only valid in the context that the game presents it and the game presents it in the context of universally perceived assured total annihilation. So, given the context of "we're all going to die," then it is possible for species to overcome their differences and achieve some form of general united purpose. Organic life needs an Catalyst (pun, sorry) for your the unity theme of Mass Effect to be valid.

(...)

Maybe I'm just seeing your argument wrong, but I don't think Mass Effect was ever leading us to the conclusion that unity was even a realistic goal. It happened in this cycle only by huge effort and strength of character and in the context of impending doom, but even then it wasn't fully achieved. Not everyone agrees to help, no matter what you do (much of the Salarians, in my game). Not everyone can be cajoled or coerced into helping (Geth Heretics). Even internally, humanity couldn't get it together (Cerberus). I don't think unity as a final solution was ever going to be some form of goal for the game or series, so the fact that it is not part of the finale choices, other than the outcome of Shepard's journey and who joined him in the final battle, doesn't really impact the story to me.

I agree 100%. While I'd say that, yes, the value of cooperation is a central message of the game, getting all races work together was incredibly hard even in the face of total annihilation. Nobody worked together without wanting something in return. Everyone keeps secrets from each other. Some even actively sabotage each other. In fact, it's entirely possible to think the central theme of the game is that people are just stupid (one user of this forum felt this way and described in detail why some time ago), and you need to do their various biddings just in order to get them to stop fighting each other instead of their real enemy. Seen from this perspective, as much of a saint as Shepard might have been at the start of her journey, is it really that hard to imagine that she would sacrifice any of those suicidal dimwits in an instant in order to end the war?
That said, I still think that only the Synthetic ending violates that message that variety is good, cooperation's the key, and so on, in any significant way - and that this is exactly the point.

Further, trying to bring this to the main theme of Mass Effect 3, that of organic-synthetic conflict, we have only the direct observation of the Geth. However, keep in mind that no matter how paragon you were and how well you ended the Geth-Quarian crisis, you had to either commit a form of genocide OR a form of mass brain-washing to see it through to that "happy" conclusion. We cannot forget the events of Mass Effect 2 and the Geth - Heretic internal conflict. This suggests that an entire mindset that was counter to that of the main Geth as well as organic life could not be simply fixed via discourse. It had to be eliminated entirely, via one means or the other.

Those were indeed beautiful moments, philosophically. The meaning of free will to life and the ethics of rewriting the Geth. But, no, of course Mass Effect has no meaning at all.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Shepard was always going to lose conventionally. That's something that has never had a plot hole, retcon, or other complaint validly leveled against it. That kind of war cannot win against the Reapers, and, indeed, the original scripts and focus of ME1 and ME2 agree with this. The Reapers are superior in technology in a way that current organics can't even fathom and they even have numbers on their side. Shepard was never meant to fight a conventional war and win because it wasn't ever set up as a plausible option. Further, I still assert that to do so would utterly cheapen the entire mythos of the Reapers and the history the game sets up around them. If Shepard and humanity can bring a galaxy together and defeat the Reapers, why could none of the countless prior civilizations do the same thing?

There were plot threads that pointed in different directions on that:

Virgil mentions that the Reapers relies on surprise and subterfuge, and have a established strategy of first decapitating the galactic government by a surprise attack on the Citadel, and then shutting down the Relay system before running a divide and conquer campaign on the isolated pockets of resistance. This strongly implies they want to avoid facing a united galaxy: Ignored in ME3.

The Reapers goes to great lengths to avoid taking the long way into the galaxy, and are even willing to wait thousands of years for Sovereign to complete his mission and then some more for the Human Reaper project to be completed and open the backdoor, and first when that fails they decided to take the long way because they have no other option. Obviously there most be some significant drawback to this route: Ignored in ME3.

It all serves to contrive this very specific level of hopelessness [http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=615], where the Reapers can't be defeated but apparently can't just steamroll the galaxy, which means only this specific transparent plot-device can stop the Reapers, something that becomes rather contradictory when you read about this quote:

In Mass Effect 3, you know you need to take back Earth, but the path to victory is less clear at the outset. You won?t just find some long-lost Reaper "off" button.

EDIT:

We cannot forget the events of Mass Effect 2 and the Geth - Heretic internal conflict. This suggests that an entire mindset that was counter to that of the main Geth as well as organic life could not be simply fixed via discourse. It had to be eliminated entirely, via one means or the other.

Now, hold on a minute! You never genocide the heretics. You have the option of blowing up their virus or turning it against them.

 

[Animyr]

But isn't he your main adversary? Isn't it good that you don't agree with him on a fundamental issue?

So why are we forced to help him then? Especially since we have no reason to think that his position is a sensible or sympathetic one.

If you choose Destroy, you do not have to agree with him on anything.

Yes, you do. You agree that synthetics cannot be allowed to exist and live on their on free will. You either take their free will, take their lives, or use space magic. Whatever you choose, you roll over and fulfill his will in some way.

Everything you do on your journey is nothing but removing obstacles and garnering support for this mission. Yet, their motivations remain mysterious. How, then, could the climax have been anything else but a reveal of these motivations?

Comments like these betray what I think is a vital misunderstanding of the story on your part.

The motivations of the reapers are unimportant. They're evil robots; that's all they needed to be. While there were hints at some hidden method behind the madness, and that's fine, Mass Effect was ultimately about shepard and his/her friends, not the Reapers. But the ending is almost entirely about the reapers and about resolving their problem, while Shepard and his companions are shunted to the wayside. It lost sight of what was important.

I felt that the mystery around my adversary was beneficial to the experience, but if someone has different preferences, who am I to argue? Well, as long as he/she isn't telling me it's objectively bad.

An odd sentiment coming from someone who likes an ending where the antagonists convoluted motivations are revealed via exposition dump. And there's a difference between a mystery and having nothing to go on.

As for the ending, sorry, but I do think it is objectively bad. Regardless of my personal issues with it, it breaks many of the basic rules of good storytelling--show-don't-tell, for a start. Abandoning the focus on character, for another. If you personally liked it, that's fine. But I want you to be clear on what it is, exactly, that you've accepted. I don't think it's an accident that your responses to my points have essentially and increasingly boiled down to "well, I just don't care about that."

given a different context, conflict is going to be part of the norm.

Remember, the catalyst isn't just trying to prevent conflict. He thinks that two different types of life forms will always, always conflict due to their intrinsically different natures, and that this conflict will be consistently more devastating then any other type of war (ie that all organic life will die). And yet, most of the conflicts you listed are organic vs organic. The most powerful known non-reaper armies were the rachni, the Krogan, and the Protheans, all organics who fought organics. The geth don't even come close, in power or maliciousness. In the main story, synthetic conflict is not shown to be any more dangerous or inevitable then any other type of war. Which is why the Catalyst's motivations feel very forced.

And remember, even the synthetics that inspired the catalyst in the first place were always defeated even before the reapers were created. So not only are we not sure the problem even exists, but if it does, how are any of the solutions put forward necessary?

Further, trying to bring this to the main theme of Mass Effect 3, that of organic-synthetic conflict, we have only the direct observation of the Geth. However, keep in mind that no matter how paragon you were and how well you ended the Geth-Quarian crisis, you had to either commit a form of genocide OR a form of mass brain-washing to see it through to that "happy" conclusion.

I don't recall the happy ending involving brainwashing, unless you brainwashed the heretics. Even if it is how you say, we hardly needed the catalyst or the crucible to do the genocide/brainwashing for us, so why were they needed? And the Geth crisis wasn't the focus of the story either, sharing equal billing with the Genophage plotline, which had nothing to do with organic/synthetic conflict. So, for the third time, I fail to see how it alone provides a proper basis for the ending. And it is alone, as you yourself admit.

but I don't think Mass Effect was ever leading us to the conclusion that unity was even a realistic goal. It happened in this cycle only by huge effort and strength of character and in the context of impending doom, but even then it wasn't fully achieved. I don't think unity as a final solution was ever going to be some form of goal for the game or series

I think you must have played a different game then. You keep portraying the alliance as some sort of marriage of convenience and while there are some elements of that, by and large it's really more along the lines of the reaper threat forcing the races of the galaxy to depend on each other, and making them realize that their differences don't mean they need to be enemies. This message is especially strong with the Geth (does this unit have a soul?) more than any other; despite being the most exotic of alien races, the geth turn out to have very human desires. No intrinsic biological deviation of nature motivates these conflicts; if anything, human nature does. And yet, it's the former that the Catalyst claims is the *real* problem, and it's that issue that shepard tackles at the end, one way or another.

 

[votemarvel]

SNIP

Sure its logic makes sense, right up until you add the Catalyst to it. Then it falls apart.

I would really have liked an ending where I could have pointed out the flaws in the Catalyst's logic, I wanted to be able to argue with it and show it that it is wrong.

Yet I couldn't. Even in the Extended Cut I had to accept what it said as true or do nothing.

Why couldn't there be an ending where dialogue wins the day.