The Final Choice In Mass Effect 2 Is Horseshit: A Diatribe

[Russian_Assassin]

Well, my theory is that they meant to make the "Destroy the station" the evil choice, but some bloke mixed them up and they only noticed it when it was too late, so they shipped it anyways.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but so does their idea of 'good'!

 

[Zaydin]

As multiple people have said before me, if you don't destroy the collector base, remember who you are giving it to. TIM has withheld important information from Shepard before; why would he suddenly be trustworthy now? The man has stated he wants a humanity controlled galaxy; if you give him the Pandoras Box that is the base and Reaper technology, he will open that box achieve his goals, sooner or later. And, as people before me have said, think of what's happened to everyone who tried to mess with Reaper tech. They were all indoctrinated or killed; what do you think is going to happen when a group like Cerberus starts running experiments?

 

[Zaydin]

You remember the reaper mission where you had to recover the iff? They though the thing was completely dead (And it was) and all the scientists working on it turned into husks.

Seriously though, I would have much preferred our team mates give emphasis on the fact that whoever was working on it might turn into a husk at any moment rather than the fact that Cerberus was "evil".

They weren't so much as turned into husks; rather, they were indoctrinated and turned themselves into husks willingly while studying the 37-million year old 'dead' Reaper.

 

[Chamomiles Davis]

My only real problem with Mass Effect 2's choice stuff is that I accidentally blew up that Geth base.

I really wish I hadn't, and I didn't mean to! Now I gotta wait until my bro re-rents it so I can play through the entire damn thing again just to fix that problem for Mass Effect 3.

OT: Can someone please explain to me why this is the renegade choice?

This is a choice that I have seen so much argument about this with most coming out on the pro-rewriting side. WHY? Legion himself refers to the right of all sentient being to make their own decisions. He laments the fact that the Heretics have lost their way so much so that they would be willing to brainwash the entire Geth race to believe a truth that was not their own.

So WHY is it a paragon choice to do the same to the Heretics? They made their choice, accepted their own truth and must face the consequences of war. Would you think any different if they were human combatants?

 

[Zaydin]

My only real problem with Mass Effect 2's choice stuff is that I accidentally blew up that Geth base.

I really wish I hadn't, and I didn't mean to! Now I gotta wait until my bro re-rents it so I can play through the entire damn thing again just to fix that problem for Mass Effect 3.

OT: Can someone please explain to me why this is the renegade choice?

This is a choice that I have seen so much argument about this with most coming out on the pro-rewriting side. WHY? Legion himself refers to the right of all sentient being to make their own decisions. He laments the fact that the Heretics have lost their way so much so that they would be willing to brainwash the entire Geth race to believe a truth that was not their own.

So WHY is it a paragon choice to do the same to the Heretics? They made their choice, accepted their own truth and must face the consequences of war. Would you think any different if they were human combatants?

No one is really sure. Maybe the heretics breaking away from the core Geth was an act of Reaper tampering, and using the virus against the heretics is just setting them back to how they used to be. That's just a guess on my part, though.

 

[Chamomiles Davis]

I'm one of the few insane people who thinks that was actually a good part of the story, for reasons contained within this huge post;

Spoiler: Long and not entirely relevant to this thread

Many people have wondered why the Reapers constantly allow civilizations to build itself up, only to swiftly destroy it. There are many theories as to why. You could think that the Reapers are just using organics as a food source, but arguably there are easier ways to cultivate and sustain organic food than allowing civilizations to constantly evolve and then fall. Rather I think they do it because the Reaper's culture involves preserving the most advanced and valuable species for eternity as Reapers. Reapers are not one single species, but rather a combination of all species ascended into a higher form of life. The best the galaxy has ever produced, all united under one banner.

The Reapers were not just trying to build any ordinary Reaper. They wanted to build a Human Reaper. Not to lead a massive attack against the Citadel, but rather becuase this is the Reaper's culture. They believe Humans are the species with the greatest potential. If they were just trying to build a generic Reaper, they could have used any species. Arguably it would be a lot easier to target something other than human colonies. But they specifically wanted to turn humans into the Reapers. Think about Harbinger's dialogue. He refers to the process of turning humans into genetic paste to fuel the larva's growth as "ascension". Why use that word in particular? Why not call it "assimilation"? Or "consumption"? "Ascension" implies that they are raising humans to be what they consider to be a higher form of life. They see value in humans.

But what about Sovereign? He didn't seem to like organics at all. Why turn them into Reapers. Well I believe that the Reapers may have considered the current organic "crop" to be a failure, not worthy of being turned into Reapers. This could be for a number of reasons. I think it's because the galaxy had a very diverse category of sentient lifeforms, with no one species appearing to be dominant. The Protheans appeared to be the undisputed rulers of the galaxy at the time of their downfall. This is the Reapers idea of the perfect organic race to harvest. One species that follows their predetermined line of technological advancement, rather than a handful of species that all do so at the same time. So the Reapers were all set to just wipe every race out and start from scratch. What changed this? Well humans killed a Reaper. The game often alludes to the idea that by killing a Reaper, we grabbed their attention. To delay the extinction cycle and kill a powerful Reaper in the process would probably interest them. So Harbinger now thinks that humans are worthy of ascension into the ultimate life form.

If you're wondering why they didn't do this to the Protheans, it's because the Prothean Reaper failed. Instead they turned them into the Collectors, so that they would still serve a purpose.

In short; Reapers wanted to create a Human Reaper for cultural reasons, not military strength.

That's consistent when you take a few pieces of evidence...

Spoiler: Response, but a massive spoiler as well.

Legion asserts that the Reaper known as Sovereign was a composite entity of thousands of minds working as a collective. It's possible that a Reaper is a kind of hive mind constructed of the minds of an entire civilisation. Add in to this that the concept art for the human Reaper showed it being a part of a regular Reaper:

and it's likely that the human reaper is actually the norm for Reapers. Perhaps Sovereign was 'anonymised' so that no one would realise what it was or maybe Sovereign's parent species just doesn't look like anything we'd recognise.

Sovereign = Reaper Cuttlefish (see what they did there)

Spoiler: image

 

[Gestapo Hunter]

So, by TC opinion Auschwitz should have been kept open because of potential medical research opportunity. Seriously man, they were turning THOUSAND if not million of humans into protein shakes!

 

[Agayek]

Spoilers ahoy, obviously.

On a 1-week rental I managed to play 22 hours of Mass Effect 2. That's 1,320 minutes and about 1,305 of those minutes were pure unadulterated fun. The first five minutes had me scratching my head and wonder why I should be opposed to Cerberus as I had no idea who they were. Then I had 1,300 or so minutes of fun then I reached the end of the game.

Firstly, I fought the ridiculous boss (who I will cover in another post because I can not comprehend why a supremely powerful, cold, uncaring machine race would want to make a human reaper to punch spaceships) with ease through a series of Collector Particle Beam shots and sniper rounds to the face, then I came to the final decision:

Spoiler: The First Decision

Blow up the entire ship because Shepard "Won't sacrifice who s/he is."

This choice is ridiculous, in my opinion. Studying enemy technology so that you can save the goddamn galaxy doesn't require 'sacrificing' who you are. Not studying technology because someone evil used it and it has caused death borders on Dark Ages-esque superstition. Also, there are still Reapers out there so by destroying this and letting nothing good come you are exactly where you were when you started the game. Or, more accurately, ended the first game.

Yet the Bioware writers decided this must be the correct Paragon(read:good) choice and only a strictly Renegade character would not choose it.

Spoiler: The Second Choice

Research and learn from the ship.

The correct choice in my opinion.

As I said, the Reapers did not magically vanish, they are STILL out there. Examining this and hopefully finding a weak-point could be the only chance to truly defeat the Reapers. The main down-side is that Cerberus could use this to make another Reaper, which is virtually a non-problem. Firstly, it is not a simple process, to build the 'human-reaper larva'(ugh) and it would take time to build one. Secondly, Shepard has already defeated one reaper in Mass Effect 1 and destroyed a 'larval(uggghhhh) about 2 minutes ago, without losing anyone on his supposed Suicide Mission. Shepard and co. have proved they can handle 1 Reaper.

I chose this option based on what I've typed above and even Legion (who is my favorite character as he is the only one that seems to never hold the idiot ball) said "This facility is simply data, Shepard-Commander. It has no inherent ethics."
I agree entirely.

But yet this is the supremely evil choice. After you do this every member of your party will disagree and chastise you. Even the murderous convict with tatoos from tit to ass. Even the blood-thirsty Krogan Clone. Even the assassin-for-hire.Even the CERBERUS OPERATIVE.

Because you are inherently evil for studying a way to beat the enemy, even when you could blow up the station at any time should something go wrong.

As if.

The most irritating part is that isn't the black and grey morality you see elsewhere in the game that leads to hard decisions. This isn't even a Black and White/Paragon and Renegade decision. This is a logical/illogical choice. With the palettes switched.

Now tell me I'm right so I feel better about myself.

While I agree with you on the silliness of the binary choice, I have to point out that Reaper technology has been shown to have detrimental effects on any organic race it is near. It's well known that Reaper tech will eventually corrupt anyone who tries to work on it. It makes much more sense, from a military standpoint, to destroy it. That way it won't be able to inevitably corrupt whoever tried to decipher it's secrets and then be used against you later.

 

[jthm]

Nah, reaper tech has too many problems to even risk studying it.

Spoiler

You'll note that the dead reaper still indoctrinates people and it's defenses are still active. Also the reapers are machines with a link to this station. Couldn't they take control remotely? Not to mention defenses and booby traps. Even putting all of that aside, the whole theme of Mass Effect seems to be that we (aliens and humans) are all the same and can't be trusted with an unethical advantage. Even if you presented it to the council as a gift, don't you think they would try to create reaper level tech to fight back? And once they do, what's to say they wouldn't a)use it on their enemies or b) have it turn on them like the IFF did on your ship.

Too many risks, safer just to rely on Sheperd's ability to get shit done.

 

[King Kupofried]

My only real problem with Mass Effect 2's choice stuff is that I accidentally blew up that Geth base.

I really wish I hadn't, and I didn't mean to! Now I gotta wait until my bro re-rents it so I can play through the entire damn thing again just to fix that problem for Mass Effect 3.

OT: Can someone please explain to me why this is the renegade choice?

This is a choice that I have seen so much argument about this with most coming out on the pro-rewriting side. WHY? Legion himself refers to the right of all sentient being to make their own decisions. He laments the fact that the Heretics have lost their way so much so that they would be willing to brainwash the entire Geth race to believe a truth that was not their own.

So WHY is it a paragon choice to do the same to the Heretics? They made their choice, accepted their own truth and must face the consequences of war. Would you think any different if they were human combatants?

I think it being Paragon or Renegade is more through a much more simple consideration than the rather complex question of it all seems to ask.
Paragon you save thousands.
Renegade you kill them.

In one conversation Legion says that you cannot judge all races as the same, you have to see each one for their own merits. It's not reasonable to judge Geth as Human, they are machines, machines can be rewritten. While we may see it as brainwashing or manipulating the Heretics will never care that they were ever any different than the Geth after, they will form back into the Geth society and function as just the same manner as they always did, even producing valuable information and view points to add to their collective intelligence.
How I saw it there was really no reason to destroy them, unless out of support for the Quarians to regain their own world.

 

[Nullphantom]

There are a couple problems with keeping the ship alive. The first is that the Illusive Man's motives may not be as pure as Shepard's (depending on your play style). He may, and probably will, kill people in order to understand the technology and use the excuse "kill one, save many." The other problem is that remember the destroyed Reaper that was in space for thousands of years that was investigated and everyone went insane, that could happen again even though the ship is destroyed. In the end though, humanity will save the galaxy one way or another. Would be kinda cool if they die for destroying it though.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Now the Council's idiocy is something I can't even think of an explanation for. They piss me off more than every other plot related problem in Mass Effect 2.

lol.

This I agree with 100%

Spoiler: Why the Mass Effect Citadel council can go fuck itself:

Shepard: Help help! A giant machine race called The Reapers are threatening the WHOLE GALAXY! And they are let by a mad man called Saren!

Council: What a load of shit! The Reapers are just a myth, don't ya know!

Shepard: But what about this video I have of a giant ass space ship wiping out a whole colony while being supported by a whole army of genocidal robots?

Council: It could just be the Geth for all we know, there is nothing that proof these are reapers.

A few days later.....

Shepard: Here you go! A audio log that clearly proves that Saren is working with the Reapers with Saren himself admitting that he is!

Council: No way, this is clearly some sort of a mindfuck that is intended to trick us into doing... ......something......for some reason!

Shepard: Sight.......

A another few days later:

Council: HOLY FUCK WE ARE GETTING ATTACKED BY A GIANT ASS SPACE SHIP AND A EVIL ARMADA OF ROBOTS CONTROLLED BY SAREN AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Shepard: I will save you! (blows up Reaper and kills Saren).

Council: We owe you our life's, we can not bring back the dead, but we can help you in your struggle against the reapers!

Shepard: Fucking finally!

A few moments later in space...

Shepard: ARGH CRAP MY SHIP IS BLOWING UP PLUS I AM ON FIRE ARRRRGGHH!!!!

2 years later.......

Council: Shepard! You are alive!

Shepard: Yep! How is the fight against the Reapers going?

Council: What Reapers?

Shepard: The same ones as the ones who almost blew you the fuck up as well as the citadel 2 years ago.

Council: Now don't be stupid, we all know what Saren was behind the attack and that the Reapers are just a myth.

Shepard: WHAT? But you LITERALLY admitted that they existed and had to be defeated when I last met you?!?!

Council: Yea, well we changed our mind. Would you like to come work with again?

Shepard: Fuck you.

I think the worst part is that they claim Sovereign is a Geth dreadnought. You can take Legion with you, and he will tell them that the Geth posses no such technology. The Council will then tell Legion, the sapient Geth that knows more about his own damn species than any organic, that he is wrong.

 

[antipunt]

Raper technology is dangerous and uncontrollable

Oh dear. This could be bad news indeed....

OK, now onto being more serious:

I find this thread a breath of fresh air. I also kind of felt limited by the choices presented at end game. I know it's supposed to be 'morally-grey' or whatnot, but it felt kind of forced. As in, to do the 'right thing', I had to do something 'I really couldn't understand the logical basis for'. I kept thinking, there -must've- been a better way. But alas, the game did not present such an option. I sometimes think the writers did this -on purpose-, to screw with us

 

[Lonan]

This is definitely a morally gray choice. You have to bear in mind exactly who you would be giving the base to. If you trust Cerberus, have fun. I personally didn't. The only way I would have kept that base alive would have been to hand it over to the council, or possibly the alliance. Not the people who (Before the conflict started, mind) were experimenting with mind control and the thorian.

It seems like it would be giving a massive bomb to the most xenophobic people you can find, and then casually pointing out where a lot of people they hate hang out. Then giving them a stern warning they shouldn't use it, knowing full well the second that you turn your back there'll be an explosion where you just pointed.

None of that will matter if the Reapers wipe out all life. It will be completely irrelevant.

 

[8bitlove2a03]

and you need to play the first game to understand why Cerberus shouldn't be trusted with the tech.

No you don't. The most convincing piece of evidence for why Cerberus is both incompetent and evil is the Pragia facility, which is pretty much a required location to visit in the second game. The first game really just shows you some more stupid and morally questionable experiments made by Cerberus.

I don't say this based on actual game content. I'm basing it off the primacy effect (the fancy psychological term for "first impressions matter" because you remember the beginning of something more readily, allowing it to impact you more). If a player's very first contact with Cerberus is Cerberus bringing him back from the dead, then they will likely think kindly of them regardless of whether or not Cerberus acts like complete pricks.

 

[Lonan]

There is a very similar forum post on the ME website and might as well post the similar response here. It is true that if we "do" get the base to function for us, we could use the tech against the reapers. But to me there was TOO much of a risk to use it than there was to gain. Let me put in an example from District 9.
***************************************Spoiler**********************************************
In the movie, the main character tampered with an alien object and ended up transforming himself into the alien species.
****************************************Spoiler End*****************************************
What I am saying is this, if we "tampered" with Reaper tech, that is VERY well known to randomly produce Husks and brainwash mortals what do you think I would believe a fully functional Reaper tampered base would do to ANY alien species? I did not see it as "loosing myself", I saw it as "I have seen what this tech has done to MULTIPLE people. I am not going to give this tech to have an advanced/special ops organization get brainwashed by Reapers."

P.S. I have no idea how to hide spoilers, so if anyone could give me advice I would be happy.

For spoilers use (spoiler)(/spoiler) only instead of parenthesis use brackets.

Also, there is one flaw in your argument. Shepard has Legion on his side, and could possibly get the Geth to help him research it. Since Legion himself said the Geth would be willing to fight against the Reapers. And logically you would want any advantage on your enemy that you can get, and since robots tend to think logically (Legion and EDI have helped further this argument through many discussions with them) Shepard could potentially get the Geth to help research the base.

Plus you have EDI and VI's that could be put onto the base to speed up research, keeping organics away. And you can't brainwash robots.

That way organics don't get corrupted, and we get research.

If you can't brainwash robots, where did the 'heretic' Geth come from? Since the the Geth were the Reaper's greatest ally in the first game, it seems a bit silly to suggest they can't be controlled (or at least persuaded) by the Reapers.

The Geth rejected the Reapers. The Heretics accepted them. The Geth are fine.

 

[Yeager942]

I chose the Paragon option because, I couldn't trust keeping the Reaper facility/ship. It really seems too risky. The second you have to activate against the reaper armada is ME3, its just going to blow up in your face.

What Mass Effect's paragon/renegade options seem to be doing (at least for me) is that if you go renegade, you'll slowly mass up large amounts of weaponry. This may cause malfunctions at the last moment i.e. that Reaper ship or the weapons may be turned against the Citadel races. However, the paragon route, at least to me, seems to require the player to accrue different races into a giant alliance. Removing the genophage allows the krogans to repopulate, siding with the citadel in ME1, allying with the geth and not destroying the heretics will give you even more foot soldiers, and not killing Rachni queen all points that a pure paragon route will have to player recruit a titanic army.

 

[Reaperman64]

Thats The Problem with the renegade paragon system. being in the middle locks some of the game of, to do with influencing people and the loayalty of your crew. I really felt locked into being a paragon once id started. Plus bad is WRONG. its very WRONG. People will tell you off, look down on you and you wont get some cool stuff by being bad (which is WRONG)

With red dead, you get bonuses based on your morality, but thats where it ends. they are nice bonuses but really don affect gameplay or story enough so you want to get a completely good or bad charecter. Im genrally good, however if i dont like charecters, i will murder them in some highly creative ways...your never told which side your meant to pick, where as in ME2 bad is WRONG.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Spoiler

Spoilers ahoy, obviously.

On a 1-week rental I managed to play 22 hours of Mass Effect 2. That's 1,320 minutes and about 1,305 of those minutes were pure unadulterated fun. The first five minutes had me scratching my head and wonder why I should be opposed to Cerberus as I had no idea who they were. Then I had 1,300 or so minutes of fun then I reached the end of the game.

Firstly, I fought the ridiculous boss (who I will cover in another post because I can not comprehend why a supremely powerful, cold, uncaring machine race would want to make a human reaper to punch spaceships) with ease through a series of Collector Particle Beam shots and sniper rounds to the face, then I came to the final decision:

Spoiler: The First Decision

Blow up the entire ship because Shepard "Won't sacrifice who s/he is."

This choice is ridiculous, in my opinion. Studying enemy technology so that you can save the goddamn galaxy doesn't require 'sacrificing' who you are. Not studying technology because someone evil used it and it has caused death borders on Dark Ages-esque superstition. Also, there are still Reapers out there so by destroying this and letting nothing good come you are exactly where you were when you started the game. Or, more accurately, ended the first game.

Yet the Bioware writers decided this must be the correct Paragon(read:good) choice and only a strictly Renegade character would not choose it.

Spoiler: The Second Choice

Research and learn from the ship.

The correct choice in my opinion.

As I said, the Reapers did not magically vanish, they are STILL out there. Examining this and hopefully finding a weak-point could be the only chance to truly defeat the Reapers. The main down-side is that Cerberus could use this to make another Reaper, which is virtually a non-problem. Firstly, it is not a simple process, to build the 'human-reaper larva'(ugh) and it would take time to build one. Secondly, Shepard has already defeated one reaper in Mass Effect 1 and destroyed a 'larval(uggghhhh) about 2 minutes ago, without losing anyone on his supposed Suicide Mission. Shepard and co. have proved they can handle 1 Reaper.

I chose this option based on what I've typed above and even Legion (who is my favorite character as he is the only one that seems to never hold the idiot ball) said "This facility is simply data, Shepard-Commander. It has no inherent ethics."
I agree entirely.

But yet this is the supremely evil choice. After you do this every member of your party will disagree and chastise you. Even the murderous convict with tatoos from tit to ass. Even the blood-thirsty Krogan Clone. Even the assassin-for-hire.Even the CERBERUS OPERATIVE.

Because you are inherently evil for studying a way to beat the enemy, even when you could blow up the station at any time should something go wrong.

As if.

The most irritating part is that isn't the black and grey morality you see elsewhere in the game that leads to hard decisions. This isn't even a Black and White/Paragon and Renegade decision. This is a logical/illogical choice. With the palettes switched.

Now tell me I'm right so I feel better about myself.

I hate to say it but it sounds like you may have misunderstood the exacts ramifications of the decision. It's not that you will study the ship and learn from it, it's that you agree to hand it over to a man and an organisation that has proven since the first game that they are anti-alien, and generally evil, as well as the fact that you have visited a ship that people were studying, and it has driven them insane. There's an entire mission dedicated solely to showing you just how Reapers work, and just how crazy they will drive you if you try and study them.

If the Reaper ship is handed over to the Illusive Man, it seems fairly clear to me that he will use it to create his own fleet of Reapers and use them to subjugate the galazy, or else his team will go insane and you will have one more Reaper to dealwith at the end of the third game. Alternatively you can choose to not give the evil man world destroying technology that has proved impossible to study.

The Reaper is not just a battlestation, it's a sentient machine dedicated to wiping our human life. Studying that will not lead to good things. It's not just the good option, it's the only intelligent option.