(Can you please explain why you liked it?)I feel like it harkened back to some of my most beloved scifi tropes. 1: Sometimes you just can't save the world without making a sacrifice. 2: the classic scifi possibility of utterly changing the human experience of the universe. This being like the event at the end of the Asimov Caves of Steel series that led to Empire, the Butlerian Jihad that resulted in Dune's civilizations shunning AI but embracing Spice despite its effects, or the endings of the original Deus Ex.
There's also the fact that, like in Metal Gear Solid 4, it shows how much suffering and trauma the hero must go through to accomplish his/her goal.
(What made you feel so satisfied?) Aside from the immersion I get from the trilogy in general, I just felt so emotionally invested. I liked, honestly, that the only way for a single person to save the world would be to utterly change it. A hero doesn't always get a good choice and a bad choice, sometimes they're all ethically scary and yet the only remaining options. What got to me was Shepard's sacrifice.
(Can you explain it without falling back to making assumptions?)Assumptions as in... what? Imagination is all about assumptions. You could even try to discredit my entire post by saying I rely entirely on feelings and old tropes. But feelings are the point.
(Can you relate to the choices given and explain how they mattered to you depending on the end game choice?) I honestly got the endings. The only way to stop the reapers was to either command them, kill all AI, or appease the machines by giving them true life and bringing organics into the machine fold at the same time. Their commanding power was so powerful that ultimately the only thing to save the world was to play the Machine God's game. Taking for granted that a "Machine God" can exist,the fact that it would make these demands only makes sense. I can see how people would be upset that the Conduit turns out basically to be God, but I don't find my disbelief that hard to suspend here. The Geth, Eezo, and the mysterious nature of the Reapers already set me up for the fact that there's stuff the characters, and therefore I, will never know. And thematically, I'm fine wiith that.
(Can you tell me the difference between each of the choices the end gives you?) I'll give the ethical explanations. First of all, know that the Conduit was a test left by the Reapers (Machine God) to decide if organic life deserves to become advanced and control the galaxy. In building it, the first test was passed: organic life could cooperate well enough to get the thing running. The Reapers deviously controlled factions to slow down said construction, to prove if organic life could overcome its own limitations and essentially defeat itself. Saren and the Illusive Man both acted in the name of organics, but were in action doing everything in their power to ensure the Conduit could not be finished. Activating the device requires the willpower to resist Reaper indoctrination, thus the third test. Down to the choices now.
First, control the reapers. Can an organic being really control such power, or even deserve to? And becoming one with them, who's to say who's controlling who, just like Saren and the Illusive Man?
Second, wipe out all mechanical life. Is it ethical to do so, and is it worth all the artificial lives lost if it means ending the Reapers? If you never sided with the Geth in the first place, this is obviously the ending for you.
Merging organic and mechanical life. Why? Because it creates a universe of beings who no longer need worry about what is machine and what is man. All with life are mechanical, all machines are natural. This is the Utopia ending, and ultimately what the Machine God wants. There really is no reason this would be a bad thing, objectively, unless you spend a little too much time around magnets. How this ending is even possible is up for debate, but the mechanical wizard did it.
In all endings, the Reapers disappear and the Mass Relays are gone forever.
Basically the Conduit is the Machine God's gun to the head of the universe, saying "accept our kind and join us, or I will feed you to my children. Hardly a benevolent god, but outside organized religion, what God is? Was Cthulhu nice? No, and why should he be? What makes him a god is the fact that his very visage is beyond human understanding, let alone his mind.
Shepard must die in the end, to show what must be sacrificed to achieve peace. Shepard had to be shown that no matter what he chose, he would never get to benefit from his actions, and therefore must act in the interests of all.
Summary: Machine God wants all organic life to be one with machines instead of dominant over them. So he sends sentient dreadnaughts to eat them unless organics build a ship that can communicate with Mech God and earn forgiveness by making machine brothers with man. Of course, man can screw the Machine God over by killing or enslaving his children, either becoming a murderer or the cyber equivalent of the devil. Either way of the three, no more galactic travel until they can invent it on their own. Make sense?
(If Given the choice would you
A) Want a Different ending
B) Want an Epilogue without changing anything in the Ending sequence
C) Leave it as is
Follow up question, Why?)
I could have used an epilogue, but honestly as you have read, I loved the endings.
There's also the fact that, like in Metal Gear Solid 4, it shows how much suffering and trauma the hero must go through to accomplish his/her goal.
(What made you feel so satisfied?) Aside from the immersion I get from the trilogy in general, I just felt so emotionally invested. I liked, honestly, that the only way for a single person to save the world would be to utterly change it. A hero doesn't always get a good choice and a bad choice, sometimes they're all ethically scary and yet the only remaining options. What got to me was Shepard's sacrifice.
(Can you explain it without falling back to making assumptions?)Assumptions as in... what? Imagination is all about assumptions. You could even try to discredit my entire post by saying I rely entirely on feelings and old tropes. But feelings are the point.
(Can you relate to the choices given and explain how they mattered to you depending on the end game choice?) I honestly got the endings. The only way to stop the reapers was to either command them, kill all AI, or appease the machines by giving them true life and bringing organics into the machine fold at the same time. Their commanding power was so powerful that ultimately the only thing to save the world was to play the Machine God's game. Taking for granted that a "Machine God" can exist,the fact that it would make these demands only makes sense. I can see how people would be upset that the Conduit turns out basically to be God, but I don't find my disbelief that hard to suspend here. The Geth, Eezo, and the mysterious nature of the Reapers already set me up for the fact that there's stuff the characters, and therefore I, will never know. And thematically, I'm fine wiith that.
(Can you tell me the difference between each of the choices the end gives you?) I'll give the ethical explanations. First of all, know that the Conduit was a test left by the Reapers (Machine God) to decide if organic life deserves to become advanced and control the galaxy. In building it, the first test was passed: organic life could cooperate well enough to get the thing running. The Reapers deviously controlled factions to slow down said construction, to prove if organic life could overcome its own limitations and essentially defeat itself. Saren and the Illusive Man both acted in the name of organics, but were in action doing everything in their power to ensure the Conduit could not be finished. Activating the device requires the willpower to resist Reaper indoctrination, thus the third test. Down to the choices now.
First, control the reapers. Can an organic being really control such power, or even deserve to? And becoming one with them, who's to say who's controlling who, just like Saren and the Illusive Man?
Second, wipe out all mechanical life. Is it ethical to do so, and is it worth all the artificial lives lost if it means ending the Reapers? If you never sided with the Geth in the first place, this is obviously the ending for you.
Merging organic and mechanical life. Why? Because it creates a universe of beings who no longer need worry about what is machine and what is man. All with life are mechanical, all machines are natural. This is the Utopia ending, and ultimately what the Machine God wants. There really is no reason this would be a bad thing, objectively, unless you spend a little too much time around magnets. How this ending is even possible is up for debate, but the mechanical wizard did it.
In all endings, the Reapers disappear and the Mass Relays are gone forever.
Basically the Conduit is the Machine God's gun to the head of the universe, saying "accept our kind and join us, or I will feed you to my children. Hardly a benevolent god, but outside organized religion, what God is? Was Cthulhu nice? No, and why should he be? What makes him a god is the fact that his very visage is beyond human understanding, let alone his mind.
Shepard must die in the end, to show what must be sacrificed to achieve peace. Shepard had to be shown that no matter what he chose, he would never get to benefit from his actions, and therefore must act in the interests of all.
Summary: Machine God wants all organic life to be one with machines instead of dominant over them. So he sends sentient dreadnaughts to eat them unless organics build a ship that can communicate with Mech God and earn forgiveness by making machine brothers with man. Of course, man can screw the Machine God over by killing or enslaving his children, either becoming a murderer or the cyber equivalent of the devil. Either way of the three, no more galactic travel until they can invent it on their own. Make sense?
(If Given the choice would you
A) Want a Different ending
B) Want an Epilogue without changing anything in the Ending sequence
C) Leave it as is
Follow up question, Why?)
I could have used an epilogue, but honestly as you have read, I loved the endings.