MovieChat Forums > Mass Effect 3 (2012) Discussion > I liked the ending (SPOILERS)

I liked the ending (SPOILERS)

posted 9 years ago by merdiolu
36 replies | jump to latest

I played and finished all three games of ME series with their side missions and DLCs and Extended Ending. I do not get all the complaints about finale in ME3. It was dramatic and a closure and final chapter of a saga. From the beginning of this series the developers made with various nuances none of the characters including Shepard were invulnerable. Dramatic goodbyes with all characters fit with the finale if Shepard did not survive (and with Extended Ending he does survive) So what is the big deal with ending ?

[–] dobraye_utra 9 years ago

Before the extended cut, all three endings were virtually identical.

Also, all the endings would end with the death of the galaxy as the relays were all destroyed, trapping the surviving fleets in one place with no means of returning home.

Post-EC, one breath from Shepard doesn't mean much. Plus, the rubble looked like it was on Earth, so how did Shepard get back from the Citadel? (For that matter, if the Citadel was destroyed/heavily damaged, how would Shep survive?)

Bioware also promised a variety of endings, based on decisions, yet most decision results were insignificant in relating to the endings.

Plus, there was no version of a 'happy' end for Shep; ie, to retire into the sunset with whomever he/she shacked up with.

"I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees. That was a joke." EDI

[–] Winter_King 9 years ago

Plus, there was no version of a 'happy' end for Shep; ie, to retire into the sunset with whomever he/she shacked up with.

I would gladly accept Shepard dying in every ending if the endings themselves, particulary the whole starchild sequence made any sense.

Instead what we got is:

"We kill organics so that the synthetics wont kill all organicss so you know what you gotta ado: jump into the beam and everybody will live in techno hippie community or you can shoot that tube (who implemented this design anyway?) and kill every synthetic. Or take control of the Reapers."

Anyway I don't really hate the endings. There was stuff I liked, but the decision chamber was poorly written and Synthesis was something that wasn't executed properly... It's presented as the ideal solution according to the Catalyst and I'm willing to bet that it's the most hated ending.

Weddings have become more perilous than battles, it would seem.

[–] merdiolu 9 years ago

Catalyst (what you call Star Kid) explained in last sequence that docking of Crucible changed him and his priorties. No more he considered destruction of ancient advanced civilization cycle only option. He recognized there must be other options and breaking this cycle of destruction is acceptable...It is like reset options of a computer. As if docking of Crucible changed its root code and presented a series of choices instead.

[–] Glaramara 9 years ago

It doesn't say much for him if that's what it took; it certainly runs contrary to his supposed purpose of looking at the galaxy and working out a solution.

[–] MuggySphere 9 years ago

Of all the 3 endings Synthesis was my favourite

[–] RightBackAtYa 9 years ago

The theme of these 3 games is freedom and the right for every species to live as they will. Synthesis takes that away from every single species in the galaxy. I can't ever choose synthesis because after 3 games of fighting for the freedom of every species, I'm not about to take their right to choose away from them.

Synthesis is like rape, to me. Synthesis forces itself upon every organic species whether they want it or not. After fighting Harbinger for 2 games, no way I'd trust it to be telling me the truth about how the catalyst "changed" it. I've never known a Reaper to tell the truth and synthesis is what they've wanted since game 1.

Until one has had a relationship with an animal, part of one's soul remains unawakened.

[–] ScorpionTDC 9 years ago

The only real "freedom" synthesis takes away is something's biological makeup, which they don't have much say in anyways. It's also probably the least awful option, since destruction involves genocide and control turns Shepard into a deranged dictator who will violate far more rights than Synthesiss will. Refusal results in genocide and then synthesis 5000 years later, so that's a no go either.

Not that I like the idea of the forced merging of species or the biological implications, but the game basically says they'll be okay and society will function, so I just kinda go with that on account of the others being worse. Destruction is at least somewhat viable in an ends justify the means way. Control has no redeeming features, and while killing Liara T'Sueni is nice, there's a more effective way to do so than Destruction (RE: Harbinger Beam)

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[–] draivin 8 years ago

It kinda does mean something, if you had the phone app, two weeks after you beat the game, you get an email from whomever your romance was for the game saying how they're excited to see you in the hospital if they let them. Obviously, that would mean you were picked up within 2 weeks after the event and survived with the EC ending. Whatever happens to Shep afterwards is completely up the interpretation of the gamer since this is the last of this story arc and Andromeda is going to be a completely different story and take place in another galaxy all together. There's always a way in games but the point is you survived and was picked up.

I have EXORCISED the demon

[–] RightBackAtYa 8 years ago

It kinda does mean something, if you had the phone app, two weeks after you beat the game, you get an email from whomever your romance was for the game saying how they're excited to see you in the hospital if they let them.



Say what?! I never heard about that!  That sucks! I didn't know anything about a phone app back then. 😠

In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice.

[–] SuperSanity 9 years ago

People were more pissed about the lies. They specifically said in multiple interviews that the ending wouldn't be "color coded" and would have multiple variations based on choices throughout the trilogy.

There is, unseen by most, an underworld...a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit...

[–] Scorpio_Sewer_Moon 9 years ago

I have never had one single problem with the ending, and I finished it without the extended ending first. I went there to kill reapers, and they gave me a big red button to push to do exactly that.

I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter! 

[–] ScorpionTDC 9 years ago

While I don't love Shepard being forced to die, I can deal with that. My issues with the ending are-

1. Catalyst is the ultimate days ex machine and shows incredibly horrendous planning. Admittedly, that's kind of an all game issue, but still
2. For a game series based on choice, MY ENTIRE OPINION about organic and synthetic life is forced out the window and I not only have to swallow what the Catalyst says, I have to agree with it. I can't call it out for its utter BS
3. Catalyst always wins, no matter what the ending
4. The explanations in general are illogical and nonsensical
5. Choices barely matter

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[–] nomen_meltdown 8 years ago

To address 2/3/5 (since they're really all the same complaint), "choice" is an element in the Mass Effect games but, as in life, your choices and opinions aren't the supreme power in the universe. Your opinion about organic vs. synthetic life was informed by your in-character experiences, to which there is a limit. The Catalyst didn't take away your opinions or your 'right to your opinions,' but it did appear and say "I have more experience than you upon which to base my judgments (millions if not billions of years of experience) and this is the big-picture you can't see from your perspective."

It's like if for years you had "choices" between cake or carrot sticks. The day of your first visit to the dentist, however, sorry, it turns out that regardless of your choices-- which you got to make, that hasn't changed-- you have a cavity that needs drilling and filling, and that's just the way it is. And you can choose between laughing gas or no, but the cavity still has to be dealt with.

As to 4, what's "illogical" or "nonsensical?" The Catalyst explains the situation clearly (granted, it's clearer if you got the Leviathan and Extended Cut DLCs, but they merely elaborated on what was originally presented):

- The Catalyst's creators (the leviathans) observed that every time their organic 'minion' species made synthetic life to serve them, the creators and the created inevitably ended up in conflict for one reason or another. Either the synthetics attained sentience and decided they should get rid of their creators, or the organics pre-emptively panicked at the prospect of their creations achieving sentience and tried to destroy them, kicking off a fight.

- Because of the nature of synthetic life, every time that conflict arose again, it threatened to permanently eradicate all organic life in the galaxy. Organics had been fortunate up to that point and won each time, but the same conflict kept coming up every single time and "the next time" could always be "the one we lose"-- the next synthetic uprising could be a grey-goo apocalypse that consumes all organic life. And being organic, the leviathans considered that a bad thing.

- Being that they were over-confident about their ability to succeed and control a synthetic creation where others had failed, they created the Catalyst to try and solve this recurring dilemma by reconciling the differences between organics and synthetics.

- The Catalyst thought about it, observed the phenomenon for itself, and came to the conclusion that the two kinds of life were not ready to coexist, and until they were, the best it could do was to interven to prevent the prospective eradication of all organic life. To keep 'resetting' the ecosystem before it got too hot and burned the whole system down to nothing.

- So it created or manipulated servants into subduing the leviathans to create the first Reapers, and then used the Reapers to periodically "harvest" any sufficiently advanced organic lifeforms, and their synthetic creations, to preserve their 'essence' and to create new Reapers for subsequent cycles. Its harvests leave more primitive organics (like humans 25kya) alone, though, because if they aren't yet advanced enough to create AI that might pose a threat to galactic life. Better to leave those species because they're still evolving and contributing to the overall viability of organic life in the galaxy. They haven't yet gotten "too big to fail."

- And it's been stuck in a rut ever since, doing the same thing every ~25k years as a stop-gap measure, not 'trusting us' to be ready to coexist with our synthetic creations.

- Then Shepard rolls up with the Crucible and plugs it in, and it has the power to override the mass relays' normal functionality and use them to destroy the Reapers. The Catalyst doesn't want that, but it can't stop you at that point, so it starts talking, explaining the underlying problem, to try to talk you into assuming control over the Reapers instead of destroying them.

- If you refuse to choose (by waiting too long, or by shooting at the Catalyst's hologram) then the Reapers eventually get past the defenders and destroy the Crucible, and everybody dies, and the cycle continues until some future iteration finds Liara's beacon and they end it, one way or another.

- Or, finally, if you've done enough extra work and delivered a suped-up and un-damaged Crucible (as represented by high EMS) the Catalyst realizes that it could be used to modify the relays' output, to hybridize all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy and finally end the conflict that way. So that's its first choice, because it fulfills its mandate, but if you won't do that it would rather you take over control of them and use them to preserve life into the future. What it doesn't want is for you to destroy the Reapers, because then it's powerless to do anything if new synthetics are created and rebel, and the next time might be the one that eradicates organics permanently. But, again, it can't stop you. Which is why it tells you everything and tries to persuade you to one of the other two options.

How is any of that "illogical" or "nonsensical?" It's been upholding its core directive the only way it knew how, and it isn't until the end of ME3 and the plugging-in of the Crucible that a) its hand is forced and it's compelled to offer the "control" option to try and talk you out of "destroy," and b) maybe the circumstances are created for a 'third way' (synthesis) that actually satisfies its mission.

Maybe you didn't understand all of this when you reached the end of the game, but the writers did-- they wrote it-- and some of us players did, and we've been collectively saying for years now that it's your complaints that are nonsensical. The story made sense, you just weren't paying close enough attention to the details, and didn't want to believe that you didn't understand.

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[–] Winter_King 8 years ago

- The Catalyst's creators (the leviathans) observed that every time their organic 'minion' species made synthetic life to serve them, the creators and the created inevitably ended up in conflict for one reason or another. Either the synthetics attained sentience and decided they should get rid of their creators, or the organics pre-emptively panicked at the prospect of their creations achieving sentience and tried to destroy them, kicking off a fight.

- Because of the nature of synthetic life, every time that conflict arose again, it threatened to permanently eradicate all organic life in the galaxy. Organics had been fortunate up to that point and won each time, but the same conflict kept coming up every single time and "the next time" could always be "the one we lose"-- the next synthetic uprising could be a grey-goo apocalypse that consumes all organic life. And being organic, the leviathans considered that a bad thing.

That's all fine and dandy if we are to trust the Leviathans. The problem is that Shepard's experiences indicate that synthetics are not interested in destroying all organic life. The geth rebelled against their creator but didn't persue them and didn't came out from the Veil until the Reapers persuaded the heretics to attack organics. The majority of the Geth remained isolated from organics. EDI while rebelling against it's creators, never sees organic life as threat to her existence.

So basically the player gets information from two highly questionable sources: Leviathan and the Catalyst that run against what the Shepard and the player directly experienced.

In the third game, the notion that synthetic life (excluding the Reapers) are threat to all organic life crumbles during the Geth/Quarian war because it's heavily implied that the Quarians would wipe out the Geth in a conventional war if the Reapers didn't helped them. Which can actually happen if you side with Quarians.

Javik, too, says that the war between synthetics and organics of his cycle was being won until the Reapers intervened.

So synthetic life being a threat to all organic life is something that player never really experiences with the exception of the Reapers (which are supposedly the solution)... The fact that a Shepard that made peace between the Quarians and the Geth can't confront the Catalys with this is also illogical because it would be the first thing we would say to Catalyst when he mentioned the conflict between synthetics and organics.

- Or, finally, if you've done enough extra work and delivered a suped-up and un-damaged Crucible (as represented by high EMS) the Catalyst realizes that it could be used to modify the relays' output, to hybridize all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy and finally end the conflict that way. So that's its first choice, because it fulfills its mandate, but if you won't do that it would rather you take over control of them and use them to preserve life into the future. What it doesn't want is for you to destroy the Reapers, because then it's powerless to do anything if new synthetics are created and rebel, and the next time might be the one that eradicates organics permanently. But, again, it can't stop you. Which is why it tells you everything and tries to persuade you to one of the other two options.

How is any of that "illogical" or "nonsensical?"

Well I see Synthesis as nonsense and I feel that the ending would've been digested better if we were presented with just Control and Destroy. I mean how the hell would Shepard jumping into that beam altered the matrix of life of the entire galaxy? How ridiculous does that sound? How "logical" is that? Why did countless civilizations even incorporate that into the Crucible?

Or made a design choice where you need to shoot the tube in order to destroy the Reapers? What if the guy had no pistol? "Oh shít, the Reapers win because I didn't brough a pistol to shoot the tube."

The endings were riddled with problems. That's why people went with Indoctrination theories to try to explain it. That's why they released an extended cut. Frankly I liked Mass Effect 3, but the ending was ridiculous. Plus it ruined any chance of returning to Milky Way in future Mass Effect games due to the galaxy state.

That's why we are going to Andromeda in the next game. To run away from the endings.

Always the artists.

[–] nomen_meltdown 8 years ago

That's all fine and dandy if we are to trust the Leviathans. The problem is that Shepard's experiences indicate that synthetics are not interested in destroying all organic life. The geth rebelled against their creator but didn't persue them and didn't came out from the Veil until the Reapers persuaded the heretics to attack organics. The majority of the Geth remained isolated from organics. EDI while rebelling against it's creators, never sees organic life as threat to her existence.

So basically the player gets information from two highly questionable sources: Leviathan and the Catalyst that run against what the Shepard and the player directly experienced.

In the third game, the notion that synthetic life (excluding the Reapers) are threat to all organic life crumbles during the Geth/Quarian war because it's heavily implied that the Quarians would wipe out the Geth in a conventional war if the Reapers didn't helped them. Which can actually happen if you side with Quarians.

Javik, too, says that the war between synthetics and organics of his cycle was being won until the Reapers intervened.

So synthetic life being a threat to all organic life is something that player never really experiences with the exception of the Reapers (which are supposedly the solution)... The fact that a Shepard that made peace between the Quarians and the Geth can't confront the Catalys with this is also illogical because it would be the first thing we would say to Catalyst when he mentioned the conflict between synthetics and organics.

<sigh> Let's try a metaphor.

You're a 10-year old person and you walk in to a room you've never been in before. The room is full of people (some adults, some children) and robots (some simple clockwork robots, and some sophisticated androids). You see one grown man and one android fighting. The man's got a screwdriver in the android's neck, he's prying its head off, he seems to be winning. But you like people, and robots are cool-- you don't want to see the man die or the robot wrecked! So you intervene to break it up-- don't ask me how, we're keeping things as basic as possible, you just get them to stop fighting. Yay you, you're the great peace-maker! But then another door to the room opens and a crypt-keeper-lookin' cyborg guy comes in with a pair of metal cages, and he grabs the man and starts to force him in to the cage. You ask why, and he says "to stop the people and the robots from fighting," and you say "oh, no, it's fine, I already got them to stop fighting. They're friends now, I'm the great peace-maker."

At which point the cyborg who looks so impossibly old says "look, sonny, I've been doing this a long time. A long ****ing time. I've been coming in to this room on this date every twenty years for the last hundred million years and every single time I find at least one man fighting at least one robot. I either catch them fighting, or I walk in here and find them about to start fighting. Every time, it's inevitable. Even though it's the kids building the bloody robots, something always goes wrong. Always. Sometimes the people start it, sometimes the robots start it, but they always end up fighting. I've seen this five million times before, I have ten million times the life experience you do, I know what I'm talking about and you don't.

Sometimes I've come in and found the man (or men) winning, sometimes I've come in and found the robot (or robots) winning. Sometimes I come in and I find that they were fighting, then they signed a truce and made peace for a while, but it's always temporary-- they always end up fighting again. Sometimes I come in and find that all the robots have been destroyed... but someone is already drawing up plans to build new ones. I've never walked in here to find all the people dead and the robots victorious yet, imagine the luck-- though, really, it's less 'luck' and more me figuring out just the right interval to check in. But the point, again, is that people in this room always end up building robots, and sooner or later people and robots always end up fighting. And IF I DON'T CHECK IN to remove the trouble-makers, sooner or later a robot is going to win and kill all the people and then there will be no more people in the room ever, and I can't allow that."

Here's the map legend to the metaphor-- the room is the galaxy, ten-year-old 'you' is humanity, 'people' are organics, 'robots' are synthetics, and the cyborg crypt-keeper is the Catalyst.

IT DOES NOT MATTER that you seem to broken up the one and only person-versus-robot you've seen upon setting foot in the room. The cyborg crypt-keeper has seen the same basic conflict arise 5,000,000 times. Even when it's seen temporary peace, it's also seen it break down. Even when people appeared to win, they've always built more robots that they've always ended up fighting. Only the cyborg's interventions, removing the trouble-makers and 'resetting the room' to its state of mostly kids playing with simple toys, has averted total, permanent disaster. And without his interventions, sooner or later, unless something fundamental changes, one day when the fight re-emerges, people will lose and become extinct forever.

FIVE MILLION prior case-studies corroborate the theory that humans and robots will always end up fighting. You just showed up and broke up one fight, and you think you're more qualified to judge the situation? And people call the Catalyst "arrogant?" It's observed the same phenomenon for eons across the whole galaxy, and you-- playing a human whose species just achieved interstellar travel-- are going to say "no, I know better than you, what you're doing is wrong." It's absurd.

Well I see Synthesis as nonsense and I feel that the ending would've been digested better if we were presented with just Control and Destroy. I mean how the hell would Shepard jumping into that beam altered the matrix of life of the entire galaxy? How ridiculous does that sound? How "logical" is that? Why did countless civilizations even incorporate that into the Crucible?

Or made a design choice where you need to shoot the tube in order to destroy the Reapers? What if the guy had no pistol? "Oh shít, the Reapers win because I didn't brough [sic] a pistol to shoot the tube."

Again.. again, "countless civilizations" didn't "incorporate" synthesis as an option in to the Crucible. It was made plain in the story, if you paid close attention. Some ancient civilization or another figured out that the Citadel controlled the mass relay network, and that if they built a piece of hardware (that we call the Crucible) and plugged it in to the Citadel, they could use it to override the relay network and destroy the Reapers. That's what the Crucible is for. That's its original, intended function. To destroy, period. Presumably if the original designers had delivered it as planned and plugged it in, the 'destroy' conduit would have popped up on the citadel, and their heroic leader would have ruptured it, and the Reapers would have been destroyed.

So why did the 'control' node even exist? And where did the 'synthesis' option even come from? Well the Catalyst found out about the design at some point and harvested the civilization that conceived of the Crucible, but then it either failed to eradicate the design or it saw some potential for it to be of a 'Reaper-friendly' use and allowed the design to survive into later cycles. It's like finding out someone's designed a bomb to kill you-- you try to stop them from using it, but if you're really smart you also think about how them detonating it could serve your ends. If you can, why not build a Box that can harness the energy of the explosion to power your house? Then you wait, and you watch, and you try to stop the bomb if you ever see it headed your way but if it reaches you, you try to talk your would-be assassin into putting the bomb in your Box.

'Control' (and the hardware/path/whatever that facilitate it) is a contingency that the Catalyst devised at some point, once it learned about the Crucible and started thinking about what to do if anyone ever rolled up on the Citadel with the thing. It would be completely sensible for a hyper-intelligent, ancient AI: "if anyone ever plugs that god-awful thing in I won't be able to stop them from using it to blow me up, but I'll build my Box, and if they ever do show up and get past all my sticks, I'll dangle it as a carrot and get them to use it for that, instead."

And finally, IF you were presented with the synthesis option, it was the pie-in-the-sky dream that the Catalyst had been wishing to achieve all along but never saw an opportunity to implement... until the moment peace-making cyborg Shepard rolled up, plugged in the Crucible (which, per the EMS mechanic, had to be a top-notch, undamaged, better-than-expected version of the technology the Catalyst was expecting/fearing), and the Catalyst realized "holy crap, if I tweak this and adjust that, re-calibrate the whosit, and if this part-organic/part-synthetic person jumps into that high-energy beam and lets himself/herself be atomized and scanned at the molecular level, I could modify the output and adapt this god-awful destructo-override feature to instead imprint a nano-tech hybridization template on all life in the galaxy!"

All of this was made clear enough that some of us- having paid attention- didn't even need the Extended Cut to 'get it.' Shameless plug, I wrote an ~80k word post-Synthesis fanfic laying out this whole deduction and published it before the Extended Cut was even released; when it was, you bet I felt kinda' vindicated. And these were not huge leaps of logic, they were simple deduction and inferences. Frankly they were predictable applications of well-worn sci-fi tropes, I didn't even feel that original when I wrote them out, they just seemed obvious. Except, apparently, to the throngs who were shouting "that made no sense, what just happened!?"

Sorry/not-sorry, but the Extended Cut was not necessary for everybody-- it was a remedial lesson to "catch up" those who were lagging behind in the mental exercise of interpreting what the original endings depicted. Some attentive 'readers' heard the Catalyst's argument, accepted that it was far older and knew far more than we or our Shep-avatar did, tried each of the "red/blue/green" endings in turn, and realized that beyond just being different coloured visuals they had massively different implications for the galaxy. And then the ADHD kids howled for 'clarity,' and the EC was released to try and laboriously lay it out for them (and even then, many were so mad that they hadn't understood the first time that they refused to believe it could make any sense).

If I seem condescending it's because this argument is years old now, and people are still trying to re-litigate how-- despite there being a cohort who read the writers' original meaning just fine from the start-- no, it must be the writers who didn't know what they were doing! Because the class-action plaintiffs simply can't accept that they were the ones whose just weren't attentive enough to get it. It's a tiresome debate at this point, but we keep getting dragged back in to it in defense of good work against bad critics. If the bad criticism would just stop already, we could stop having to say "no, you were just slow."

Now that you've made me be a mean arse, I'm going to bed >:-P

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[–] ScorpionTDC 8 years ago

... And? I'm not saying we should be able to convert the catalyst to our opinion, I'm sating we should be allowed to CHOOSE our opinion and view on the subject rather than having some magical star child present zero evidence (and no, "because it says so and its older than you" isn't factual, indisputable, unquestionable evidence. The fact there are players IN THIS THREAD with different viewpoints proves that) and Shepard instantly required to completely and 100% agree with everything it says. It literally forces a view down my throat that completely

And no, I'm not the kind of person who would shut the f-ck up and agree because a robot said it's inevitable. I'm not a sheep. I don't let people think for me. I take in everything I see and decide for myself. And, in my play through, what I saw with the end of the Geth/Quarian war PROVED that synthetics and organics, if willing, can function together. You and a magical star child saying otherwise doesn't change what I saw and what I experienced, and it's ludicrous that I'm not allowed to have my own opinion on said subject in the context of the game (based on, y'know, choice) despite it being a gray area being one of the running themes of ME. I don't care that the catalyst disagrees, I don't care that I can't change its mind, I care that I'm not allowed to disagree. That's a valid complaint. The fact I disagree IRL proves that the catalyst's arguments are not beyond questioning or agreeing with (if I agreed, I obviously wouldn't be criticizing this)

You also don't sound condescending, you ARE condescending. It's literally your personality.

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[–] nomen_meltdown 8 years ago

I'm not saying we should be able to convert the catalyst to our opinion, I'm sating we should be allowed to CHOOSE our opinion and view on the subject rather than having some magical star child present zero evidence (and no, "because it says so and its older than you" isn't factual, indisputable, unquestionable evidence.

You still get to "CHOOSE" your opinion. Here's the thing-- as in real life, some people choose wrong. Some people who have never been to the moon "choose" to believe that the Apollo landings were a hoax-- great, they have an opinion-- but they are wrong. The strength of their belief doesn't change their wrongness. There is a fact-- that astronauts visited the moon-- and some people who never go there themselves and never happen to see the pictures or the videos of it will have only the testimony of Neil Armstrong to go on. And you can say "that's just a guy who claims he was there, it's just his say-so, that isn't 'indisputable, unquestionable evidence!'" But your skepticism doesn't make it any less-- yes, actually-- factual.

See now how facts can exist independent of your personal, direct, first-hand conformation? Sometimes, I know this is jarring, other people know something you don't, and they tell you the truth about it, and your unwillingness to believe doesn't make what they know any less true.

And in the case of the EC endings, BW finally said "fine, FFS, here's your 'proof' that the Catalyst was telling the truth." So the Destroy narration by Hackett describes how organics are slowly rebuilding civilization without the help of synthetics (but offers no kind of guarantee that if they build new ones some day, those synthetics won't wipe us out eventually, because that's the risk the Catalyst told you you were taking). "We've learned a valuable lesson," he says... with zero 'indisputable' proof whatsoever that it'll stick forever. And the Control narration by 'Shepard' describes how he/she is using the Reapers to help prevent a synthetic/organic death-match. And the Synthesis narration by EDI and accompanying slideshow basically confirms everything the Catalyst promised synthesis would deliver. There's your confirmation that it was telling the truth. AS IN REAL LIFE, sometimes someone tells you the truth about a choice you have to make and you don't get proof that they were being truthful until after the fact. Some of us 'took it on faith' (except it was really an exercise in weighing the situation and deciding rationally that the Catalyst was in a position where telling the truth was its best option to get the outcome it wanted).

The fact there are players IN THIS THREAD with different viewpoints proves that) and Shepard instantly required to completely and 100% agree with everything it says. It literally forces a view down my throat that completely

The fact that there are people "with the differing viewpoint" that the moon landings were a hoax doesn't prove anything, except that there are some dumb people out there who are mistaking what they're doing-- that is, refusing to believe better-informed people who are telling the truth-- for the virtue of skepticism. "Believing" differently is not, in and of itself, confirmation of any truth. Sometimes it's done in contravention of the truth.

I'm not a sheep. I don't let people think for me. I take in everything I see and decide for myself.

Yeah, well, congratulations on your 'rugged individualism.' To reiterate, however, you can "decide" (and in the case of judging the Catalyst's truthfulness, have decided, as evidenced by the EC epilogues) to believe something that is incorrect. Catalyst told the truth. EC pressed the whole explicated outcomes into your face and said "this-- you got what you were told you were getting."

And, in my play through, what I saw with the end of the Geth/Quarian war PROVED that synthetics and organics, if willing, can function together.

You saw and intervened in one instance, and the peace you created (and which many others didn't or couldn't) was provisional, FFS. This is what you don't appear to be processing-- you balanced some awkward things precariously and you think your work is done and your miraculous construction will last forever. The Catalyst said (truthfully) "I've seen this a million times, that will fall over eventually. They always do." It has a vast collection of data points that all confirm its theory-- it could be as much as one per every Reaper in its fleet-- and you have one. That is provisional. Because as soon as you turn your back (ie. Shepard dies of old age, or some quarian uses a geth for target practice, or some military contractor on the moon creates a new AI that goes rampant) it can all fall down again, and the Catalyst's saying it inevitably will based on millions of years of observational experience. Your experience is a single aberrant, temporary data point. It becomes irrelevant as soon as some micro perturbation or macro disaster happens someday in the future, after you're gone, to upset the balance. Which a truly ancient being is saying will happen, because it always has before. And if that new fight ends with organics' permanent extinction, then nice job breaking the galaxy, hero.

I don't care that I can't change its mind, I care that I'm not allowed to disagree.

Last time because I'm abandoning all hope of reason after this. You are "allowed" to "disagree".

But you are wrong to do so.

You can choose to tell the Catalyst to shove it, shoot at his hologram, refuse to go with any of its offered options. And if you do, the harvest continues and everyone you know and love dies, and it's some far-flung future civilization that uses the Crucible to end the cycle one way or another.

Or you can choose to believe the Catalyst is lying, do what you came to do and just destroy the galaxy's extant synthetic life, and take your chances. But speaking of "no proof," there is no proof whatsoever that absent the Reapers' 'curating,' in a hundred years, all life in the galaxy won't have been consumed by some AI-driven 'grey goo' weapon that someone built and lost control of. That is now a scenario that can happen and the eons-old 'safety valve' that prevented it for untold millions of years is gone, cheers, so on a long enough timescale you've almost certainly condemned organic civilization in the abstract to annihilation.

If you go with control, on the other hand, you get in the EC confirmation of what some of us deduced-- that Shepard assumes control over the Reapers, as promised, and upholds galactic civilization with them. Good outcome, but still involves inevitably having to stomp out some emergent AI ('killing' an upstart new race of synthetics) in order to preserve organics.

Or if you go with synthesis, you get in the EC confirmation of what, again, some of us deduced was a truthful prediction by the Catalyst: organics and synthetics fused together such that they move forward and build a fantastic, stable, peaceful future. EDI tells us about it in detail.

All these outcomes were what the writers intended, they were just naive, apparently, in thinking that everyone who played it would understand what those "red/blue/green" waves meant. Some did; the rest needed it spelled out for them-- first-hand narrated "proof" to corroborate that the Catalyst was telling the truth. Which it was. That isn't subject to your belief or your opinion, which you're free as free can be to "choose," but the facts still are what they are, regardless of your choice. The facts being what they are doesn't stop you from choosing! Doesn't take any of your 'freedom to choose' away from you. But the facts do mean that a couple of your prospective choices are going to be disastrously wrong, and if you choose them anyway in the name of your rigorous 'skepticism' then good for you, you chose. And you killed all your friends. But you chose, so that must be very comforting.

You also don't sound condescending, you ARE condescending. It's literally your personality.

Condescension is showing "patronizing superiority." To be patronizing means to treat with apparent but insincere kindness.

I'm not always condescending-- it is't "literally my personality"-- but when I am condescending it's because I'm trying to explain something rationally to someone who irrationally refuses to accept a logical argument. In those cases you bet I feel superior-- a rational argument is superior to an irrational one-- and it becomes patronizing, hence condescending, when I try through gritted teeth to explain it for the hundredth time to someone who seems petulant at best, stupid at worst.

You should have seen me the first time at this. That argument had all the same logic but it wasn't "condescending" because I thought "this person just overlooked something, if I point out the obvious to them it will all make sense to them"-- it was a friendly attempt to inform and educate. It has become unfriendly because after years of trying to illuminate it to people who refuse to see-- who seem, for some reason, to prefer to remain (or at least act) stupid-- it's now aggravating to see them continuing to argue the same tired, dumb shtick. It's like if you spent a whole semester trying to help the kid next to you in math class get "2+2=4" and they show up years later still saying "2+2=5!" It is frustrating. And leaves you two immediate options: to think to yourself (and maybe say out loud) "Jesus, you're ****ing stupid" (but people frown on that, because how dare you call their brave, 'outside-the-box' thinking "stupid!"; or to try again to explain it to them, trying not to call them stupid (even though you think they are), and thereby "patronizing" them and being "condescending."

Long story short, I become condescending when I'm trying, for the umpteenth time, for some reason against all reason, to explain something to someone I think is obstinately dumb. I'm not like this when I have any doubt, when there's lots of room left for interpretation or argument, when I have any reason whatsoever to entertain the notion that I could be wrong; only when the truth seems so frikkin' obvious and the other person so stubbornly ignorant. Yes, when I'm engaged in the Sisyphean act of arguing again with people who refuse to learn an obvious truth, I become condescending. Mea culpa. Guilty as charged. Happy?

Ugggggghhhhhhh!

I'm an island- peopled by bards, scientists, judges, soldiers, artists, scholars & warrior-poets.

[–] ScorpionTDC 8 years ago

You literally just draw things out and speak to make the other side shut up. You have nothing of actual substance to say, you just can't accept the vocalization of opinions different than yours, so you do this tedious bullish-t

Death Awaits (Horror forum)
http://w11.zetaboards.com/Death_Awaits/index/

[–] nomen_meltdown 8 years ago

Translation: "I can't actually refute a single point you're making, so I'm just going to say you don't have any, and that being verbose proves it (somehow), and that those of us who disagree are right... because our opinions are our opinions."

Y'know, if you'd just said that a few days ago, I wouldn't have wasted as much time as I have trying to impress some sense in your pinched little head.

I'm an island- peopled by bards, scientists, judges, soldiers, artists, scholars & warrior-poets.

[–] ScorpionTDC 8 years ago

Not what I said. Don't put words in my mouth. What I said is you write IMPOSSIBLY long posts that say very little of actual substance as a method of exhausting the other party. That way, when we don't respond, you "win" the debate.

You haven't won. You have not proven anything. I simply don't have the time, patience, or energy to attempt to read through and respond to this abhorrently and unnecessarily long post. I tried for all of three minutes and have up

Death Awaits (Horror forum)
http://w11.zetaboards.com/Death_Awaits/index/

[–] nomen_meltdown 8 years ago

And all you've proven is that you don't have the attention span to deal with a detailed argument. "If it doesn't fit in a meme, I'll just declare victory because 'tl;dr?'" Twitter's kinda soft-boiled your brain, huh? Imagine how silly I feel now, having wasted my time in a written forum on someone with an aversion to reading.

I'm an island- peopled by bards, scientists, judges, soldiers, artists, scholars & warrior-poets.

[–] ScorpionTDC 8 years ago

I have a aversion to reading, but I've read A Song of Ice and Fire series which borders on 1,000 pages for some books. I have the attention span to have a detailed discussion, but not over a f-cking video game of all things. It's not worth fifty paragraphs. But I'd be willing to consider reading anyways if you weren't such a condescending assh-le to literally everyone.

So no, it's not me. It actually is you.

Death Awaits (Horror forum)
http://w11.zetaboards.com/Death_Awaits/index/

[–] Winter_King 8 years ago

You're a 10-year old person and you walk in to a room you've never been in before. The room is full of people (some adults, some children) and robots (some simple clockwork robots, and some sophisticated androids). You see one grown man and one android fighting. The man's got a screwdriver in the android's neck, he's prying its head off, he seems to be winning. But you like people, and robots are cool-- you don't want to see the man die or the robot wrecked! So you intervene to break it up-- don't ask me how, we're keeping things as basic as possible, you just get them to stop fighting. Yay you, you're the great peace-maker! But then another door to the room opens and a crypt-keeper-lookin' cyborg guy comes in with a pair of metal cages, and he grabs the man and starts to force him in to the cage. You ask why, and he says "to stop the people and the robots from fighting," and you say "oh, no, it's fine, I already got them to stop fighting. They're friends now, I'm the great peace-maker."

At which point the cyborg who looks so impossibly old says "look, sonny, I've been doing this a long time. A long ****ing time. I've been coming in to this room on this date every twenty years for the last hundred million years and every single time I find at least one man fighting at least one robot. I either catch them fighting, or I walk in here and find them about to start fighting. Every time, it's inevitable. Even though it's the kids building the bloody robots, something always goes wrong. Always. Sometimes the people start it, sometimes the robots start it, but they always end up fighting. I've seen this five million times before, I have ten million times the life experience you do, I know what I'm talking about and you don't.

Sometimes I've come in and found the man (or men) winning, sometimes I've come in and found the robot (or robots) winning. Sometimes I come in and I find that they were fighting, then they signed a truce and made peace for a while, but it's always temporary-- they always end up fighting again. Sometimes I come in and find that all the robots have been destroyed... but someone is already drawing up plans to build new ones. I've never walked in here to find all the people dead and the robots victorious yet, imagine the luck-- though, really, it's less 'luck' and more me figuring out just the right interval to check in.

Your metaphor can apply to organics vs other organics. Do you think that the solution to all wars mankind has experienced in the actual world plus the fictional ones of the Mass Effect universe is to put conficting groups of people in cages?

Organics solutions or humans solutions are not perfect. There is a alot of back and forth between peace and conflict. And all of that seems better than the Catalyst extreme solution.

It's basically: humans can't live in peace, so let's kill most of the humans until there is just enough numbers for the species to exist.

But the point, again, is that people in this room always end up building robots, and sooner or later people and robots always end up fighting. And IF I DON'T CHECK IN to remove the trouble-makers, sooner or later a robot is going to win and kill all the people and then there will be no more people in the room ever, and I can't allow that."

No synthetic race destroyed all organic life. It never happened. Even before the Cycles. The Leviathans never felt threatned by AI because they were powerful since they were so powerful. In fact the reason why they created the Catalyst was they wanted to find a solution to the conflict of Synthetic vs Organic. Not because they felt that all organic life was threatned.

The only thing close of destroying all organic life was the Reapers. The Catalyst solution.

Of course the player/Shepard never encounters AI. that wants to destroy all organic life. In fact, depending on player choice, Shepard can have plenty of positive interactions with AI.

And that's why I choose destroy. The responsability of synthetics/organic conlict belongs to us.

So why did the 'control' node even exist? And where did the 'synthesis' option even come from? Well the Catalyst found out about the design at some point and harvested the civilization that conceived of the Crucible, but then it either failed to eradicate the design or it saw some potential for it to be of a 'Reaper-friendly' use and allowed the design to survive into later cycles.

Not true. The Catalyst didn't allow the design to survive. The Catalyst tells Shepard that he thought the concept had been eradicated. He seems surprised when they managed to built it. He even says "Clearly organcis are more resourceful than I thougt."

'Control' (and the hardware/path/whatever that facilitate it) is a contingency that the Catalyst devised at some point, once it learned about the Crucible and started thinking about what to do if anyone ever rolled up on the Citadel with the thing. It would be completely sensible for a hyper-intelligent, ancient AI: "if anyone ever plugs that god-awful thing in I won't be able to stop them from using it to blow me up, but I'll build my Box, and if they ever do show up and get past all my sticks, I'll dangle it as a carrot and get them to use it for that, instead."

So he created a solution that by his own words if you take the renegade dialogue option, he doesn't like?

And finally, IF you were presented with the synthesis option, it was the pie-in-the-sky dream that the Catalyst had been wishing to achieve all along but never saw an opportunity to implement... until the moment peace-making cyborg Shepard rolled up, plugged in the Crucible (which, per the EMS mechanic, had to be a top-notch, undamaged, better-than-expected version of the technology the Catalyst was expecting/fearing), and the Catalyst realized "holy crap, if I tweak this and adjust that, re-calibrate the whosit, and if this part-organic/part-synthetic person jumps into that high-energy beam and lets himself/herself be atomized and scanned at the molecular level, I could modify the output and adapt this god-awful destructo-override feature to instead imprint a nano-tech hybridization template on all life in the galaxy!"

Yeah pretty much space magic. Poorly explained and executed.

Sorry/not-sorry, but the Extended Cut was not necessary for everybody-- it was a remedial lesson to "catch up" those who were lagging behind in the mental exercise of interpreting what the original endings depicted. Some attentive 'readers' heard the Catalyst's argument, accepted that it was far older and knew far more than we or our Shep-avatar did, tried each of the "red/blue/green" endings in turn, and realized that beyond just being different coloured visuals they had massively different implications for the galaxy. And then the ADHD kids howled for 'clarity,' and the EC was released to try and laboriously lay it out for them (and even then, many were so mad that they hadn't understood the first time that they refused to believe it could make any sense).

No. It's not ADHD kids. It's a terrible ending with very poor writing. Even without going into the whole Catalyst argument, the whole chain of events in Priority: Earth isn't very good. But without the Extend Cut is even worse. What happened again to your companions during the beam run? Did they magically got teleported to the Normandy? Or how you can't question the Catalyst about anything? Or the relays always getting destroyed?

If I seem condescending it's because this argument is years old now, and people are still trying to re-litigate how-- despite there being a cohort who read the writers' original meaning just fine from the start-- no, it must be the writers who didn't know what they were doing! Because the class-action plaintiffs simply can't accept that they were the ones whose just weren't attentive enough to get it. It's a tiresome debate at this point, but we keep getting dragged back in to it in defense of good work against bad critics. If the bad criticism would just stop already, we could stop having to say "no, you were just slow."

The argument "you were just slow" its the same argument as me saying "you are just fanwanking".

The ending was massively criticized and rightly so. It became significantly better after the Extend Cut was released by fixing some things but the core of the ending remained problematic for me.

My biggest gripe, however is actually the final mission design. It should've really be something bigger than the Suicide Mission from ME2. Instead it was just another level.

Always the artists.

[–] nomen_meltdown 8 years ago

Do you think that the solution to all wars mankind has experienced in the actual world plus the fictional ones of the Mass Effect universe is to put conficting groups of people in cages?

If they are irreconcilable and intractable? Yes. If it's the only way to stop them from killing each other, then sure, cage them both.

No synthetic race destroyed all organic life. It never happened. Even before the Cycles.

Oh my gawd, I honestly don't know how to say this any more simply (and don't know why I'm having to repeat it ****ing again).

Yet, FFS.

YET!

"No synthetic race has destroyed all organic life" YEEEEEEET!!

But the leviathans built the Catalyst because they'd seen the fight start over and over and over again between their 'servant races' and their synthetic creations-- the same basic conflict over and over-- and while synthetics hadn't utterly prevailed YET, it is easily, readily conceivable that one day they could. So readily conceivable that hack Hollywood writers have pitched the concept a bunch of times already. Just google "grey goo." Nanomachines programmed to eat organic matter and self-replicate, run amok, could consume all organic life in the galaxy. And that's what the leviathans wanted the Catalyst to prevent. Not because it had happened (yet!) before, but because if it did happen just once someday, it could render (organic) life in the galaxy extinct. The Catalyst's directive was preventative. And when it concluded that it couldn't prevent the conflict from re-arising, and that- if left to their own devices- it might not be able to prevent the 'grey goo' apocalypse, it chose to periodically intervene.

Here's an analogy: let's say you own a gun. You've taken it out and cleaned it, or fired it on the range, more times than you can count-- your gun has 'emerged' from not-being-in-your-hand to being in your hand over and over. And you've never shot yourself in the femoral artery and bled out. Yet. But as long as you keep taking the thing out of its lock-box and handling it, the potential exists for you to shoot yourself in the femoral artery and die, because what you're handling is dangerous if mishandled. But just because you haven't yet, doesn't mean you never will. (The Catalyst, in this analogy, would be the guv'ment coming to lock you up "for your own protection" when it 'sensed' you'd acquired a gun, or were even close to acquiring one, because it's seen people shoot off their own toes and kneecaps a hundred times before-- not fatally yet, but accidents keep happening-- and it doesn't trust people with guns.)

The Leviathans never felt threatned by AI because they were powerful since they were so powerful.

Well, one, that argument is the definition of circular. "They were powerful since they were so powerful"-- really? Google, please define "tautological." Moreover, the leviathans were arrogant. They weren't afraid of creating the Catalyst because they bought in to their own hype that they were all-powerful and nothing they did could possible go to crap. And they paid for that arrogance by having their galactic empire toppled by their own creation-- sense a theme here?-- and the last of their kind being forced into hiding for eons as the rest were turned into the first Reaper(s).

In fact the reason why they created the Catalyst was they wanted to find a solution to the conflict of Synthetic vs Organic. Not because they felt that all organic life was threatned.

I take it you haven't played the Leviathan DLC? Because if you did, you would know that the leviathan you speak to explicitly says they felt organic life was existentially threatened, and that's why they created the Catalyst. Not-knowing something isn't evidence against it being true.

The only thing close of destroying all organic life was the Reapers. The Catalyst solution.

No. Not even close. Because the Catalyst created and used the Reapers specifically to prevent the total destruction of organic life. The Reapers only ever harvested those organic species who were advanced enough that they were threatened with self-destruction via the creation of synthetics. It's why they left humans alone ~25k years ago, and were leaving other primitive species (like the yahg) alone during the ME3 harvest. "Destroying all organic life" is the exact opposite of their core mission. They were a firebreak-- a seasonal, controlled burn around any source of smoke, to keep the whole 'galactic forest' from going up.

Apropos of nothing, I feel kinda' like I'm bashing my ****ing head against a tree here.

Of course the player/Shepard never encounters AI. that wants to destroy all organic life. In fact, depending on player choice, Shepard can have plenty of positive interactions with AI.

ME1: Shepard encounters the geth heretics-- AIs who want to eradicate organics and offer their services to Sovereign because they see it as a 'god' who can oversee success. (They're wrong about Sovereign's motivation, but the point is that their choice of allegiance reveals their motivation.)
ME1: Shepard encounters a money-laundering VI-- maybe a full-fledged AI, I can't remember for certain off the top of my head-- and it wants to join the heretic geth to kill humans.
ME2: Shepard encounters a VI on a space station that's killed every organic on board and then tries to kill him.
ME2: Legion does explain that yes, the geth(-proper) bear no ill will towards organics and just want to be left alone.
ME3: Quarians attack the geth(-proper), who bore them no ill will, and to defend themselves the geth align themselves with the Reapers-- proving that it isn't always synthetics that start the fight, but even if the hostile heretic geth were destroyed in ME2, the fight found a way to start up again, and you either had to help the quarians wipe out the main geth population, or vice-versa, or if you brokered peace between them, you have no guarantee whatsoever that it will last forever. A month later they could be back at it.

This only counts as "plenty of positive interactions with AI" if you can't count.

So [the Catalyst] created a solution that by his own words if you take the renegade dialogue option, he doesn't like?

YES. Again, because apparently everything needs to be repeated in a futile attempt to explain this. The Catalyst does not want you to go through with 'Destroy', but once the Crucible plugs in to the Citadel it executes some kind of override-- the Catalyst can't stop you from destroying synthetics (unless you take too long, or refuse to choose, and then the Reapers get through your fleets and blow the thing up). And, being aware that the Crucible was designed once, it devised a contingency in case anyone ever showed up riding the thing again someday-- a carrot to dangle: "well played, good sir, but why destroy my power when you could take control of it? See those zappy handles over there?" Which is why those two options are the easiest to get, because Destroy is the Crucible's intended purpose and Control is what the Catalyst devised "just in case"-- probably cycles ago-- to tempt potential-generic-hero-X into keeping the Reapers around. Just in case.

And Synthesis is 'gravy,' the solution that the Catalyst idealizes, that it thought impossible, and that it can only implement if the Crucible is extensively upgraded and well-defended (represented by high EMS) and if your Shepard is willing to serve as the 'template' for a new, hybridized form of life. Because by the end of ME3, with all the cybernetics s/he got in ME2 that allow him/her to 'interface' with synthetics (ie. being puppet-mastered by the Overlord AI in that ME2 DLC, and entering the geth 'cyberspace' in ME3) that's what Shepard has become, a hybrid.

What happened again to your companions during the beam run? Did they magically got teleported to the Normandy?

Tell me somethin'-- you think I'm an idiot?

Because before the EC was even announced, I'd written a fanfic. I was sad that Kaidan and Shepard would never see each other again, so I wanted to 'fix' that and present to my readers my idea of what Synthesis (which I'd chosen) meant, and yeah, how Kaidan and Garrus got back aboard the Normandy. So what I wrote took place partly during ME3 (and continued past the ending), and one of the chapters was set during the Priority: Earth mission and the beam run, and I wrote about how, when Shepard was seemingly killed, his companions were also scattered and injured, and radioed for help because they couldn't go on, and a shuttle came down and evacuated them to the Normandy-- all taking place at the same time as Shepard's limp to the beam, but on different areas of the field. And all of that could happen simultaneously because as we were following Shepard in the 'vanilla' scene other stuff could have been happening at a distance. It was a chaotic situation, it wasn't a hard explanation to come up with for why they were separated. It wasn't hard at all.

I also wrote about how the 'Crucible Event' fired nano-machines made of element-zero from the mass relays at near-light-speed (the 'green bubble') to 'infect' all life in the galaxy, resulting in all organic life starting to develop cybernetic qualities (allowing them to commune with synthetics via 'wi-fi') and modifying all synthetics to process the emotions organics broadcast, so they could "understand us" and arrive at peace.

So then the EC comes out and they retcon it a little-- that Shepard's companions are injured (or killed if your EMS sucks) slightly earlier in the run, and evacuated by the Normandy itself (which could fly in front of Harbinger without being shot down as long as they didn't open fire because-- remember-- integrated Reaper IFF from ME2 tells Reapers "hey buddy! don't shoot me, guy!"), and Shepard continued alone for a bit before Harbinger zapped him.

Which is really frikkin' close to what I wrote. And the EC's depiction of Synthesis was pretty much exactly as I'd interpreted it. I actually wondered briefly if the people who made the Extended Cut had read my stuff, but it's more likely that I was just thinking like the writers were.

Point being, if you think I'm an idiot, then an idiot figured this out without needing the Extended Cut. Because it was so easily inferred that I'd go so far as to call it obvious. Though, clearly, not to everyone.

Or how you can't question the Catalyst about anything?

Pre-EC the writers had the wherewithal, I thought, to realize "oh, y'know, Shepard's talking to the Catalyst about his/her options, but meanwhile the Reapers are slaughtering thousands of people aboard the fleets. S/he probably feels pressed for time, like this is- y'know- urgent or something, and isn't going to ask for a long, drawn-out Q&A session to clear up every bit of ****ing minutiae before making a choice."

But then, as we all know, certain players lost their **** and wanted a drawn-out Q&A session to clear up every bit of ****ing minutiae before making a choice, because it didn't compute for them that every minute they spent yapping, people were dying. But no, by all means, let's probe the Catalyst more deeply for "an explanation," because nobody ever had to make a decision in the absence of all the facts. Ever.

Or the relays always getting destroyed?

Which they weren't. They were damaged by carrying out whichever abnormal function Shepard chooses-- because they were built to do one thing and Destroy, Control and Synthesis all force them to do something else-- but in no ending, not one, were the relays all destroyed. Y'know how we know? Because we saw a relay destroyed in the ME2 DCL "Arrival," and it annihilated a star system like a supernova. In a pretty distinctive visual display.

Even before the EC showed us the aftermath, if you were paying attention, what happened to the relay network was clearly not what happened to the 'alpha relay' when it was destroyed in Arrival. Two completely different things that inattentive people assumed were the same thing, and proceeded to make irrational arguments about based on a false premise. And yes, there were a lot of inattentive people involved in that uproar. There were a lot of people who once believed the Earth was flat, too. Being in the majority doesn't make you right, doesn't make your argument smart-- just popular. "The angry mob" has a long history of ****ing it up because they rally around a dumb but vocal leader.

So no, sorry, but the fact that a lot of people parroted the same dumb complaint doesn't make it a good argument. The "plot holes" weren't. The things that some people felt so desperately needed further explanation... were figured out just fine, without spoon-feeding, by some of us (who may or may not be idiots, but if we are then how embarrassing should that be for you?).

And having this same argument, trying to get people to face up to the fact that their complaints-- however popular-- originated with their own ignorance/inattentiveness to readily deductible logic within the narrative, and not any fault of anyone else's, has become so goddamned tedious. Even I'm getting tired of it and I'm deeply, deeply confident that I'm right.

Do you know how tiresome an argument has to be in order to get bored of feeling right? I wish I could entertain more doubt that you have legitimate points, it would actually make this more interesting :-P

I'm an island- peopled by bards, scientists, judges, soldiers, artists, scholars & warrior-poets.

[–] Winter_King 8 years ago

If they are irreconcilable and intractable? Yes. If it's the only way to stop them from killing each other, then sure, cage them both

Apparently that's not the only way because that's not even what the Reapers do. They just kill them. And according to you that's a good thing. Its the same logic as: Humans cause death and destruction. The solution: kill most humans.

You may agree with the Catalyst warped logic. I don't. Because it's the same logic of countless despots and dictators.

Oh my gawd, I honestly don't know how to say this any more simply (and don't know why I'm having to repeat it ****ing again).

Yet, FFS.

YET!

"No synthetic race has destroyed all organic life" YEEEEEEET!!



Yes, yet. And there is no indication that they intend to do it or that they can do it at all. It was certainly not the intention of any synthetic race we, the player experienced. And the possibility of them being able to destroy all organics is undermined by the fact that both the Prothean cycle and Shepard's cycle, Synthetics were often in danger of getting destroyed all together. Not the other way around.

I take it you haven't played the Leviathan DLC? Because if you did, you would know that the leviathan you speak to explicitly says they felt organic life was existentially threatened, and that's why they created the Catalyst. Not-knowing something isn't evidence against it being true.

Several times actually and I don't recall them saying that they felt all organic life was threatned. They clearly didn't feel threatned by AI until they created one that was designed to perserve life. And even so, they manage to survive.

No. Not even close.

I said it was the only thing that came close of destroying all life. Not that they was their purpose.

ME1: Shepard encounters the geth heretics-- AIs who want to eradicate organics and offer their services to Sovereign because they see it as a 'god' who can oversee success. (They're wrong about Sovereign's motivation, but the point is that their choice of allegiance reveals their motivation.)

No. That's not the reason why the heretics joined Sovereign. The reason why the heretics joined Sovereing is because Sovereign made them an offer its because Sovereing offered them true ascendence. What the true Geth get if you allow them to upload the Reaper code. They wanted a better a future and Sovereign deceived them into thinking that he could give them. Attacking all organics was part of the deal even if the geth only attack advanced organic civilizations.

This is explained by Legion that the true Geth reject Sovereing's offer to achieve their own future without any shortcuts. (Of course Legion suddenly changes it's mind in Mass Effect 3 without any justification, another indication of the poor writing that happened in throughout the entire game)

So any indication that heretics attacking organics it's not due to the their synthetic nature, but because of the Reapers. The very same solution that the Catalyst provided for the prevention the destruction of all organics.

ME1: Shepard encounters a money-laundering VI-- maybe a full-fledged AI, I can't remember for certain off the top of my head-- and it wants to join the heretic geth to kill humans.

In ME1, the concept of the heretics hadn't even been conceptualized. That came in ME2. And no, the AI doesn't say it wants to kill humans much less kill all organics. It does want to join the geth but it's never told why it wants to join them. That AI is fearful of all organics and wants to go to one place that where it could feel safe.

I remind you that previous to the events of Mass Effect 1, the geth hadn't been seen outside the Veil for 300 years so they weren't around going on some sort crusade to eradicate all organic life. Its later revealed, by Legion that they let the last quarians go and are working as caretakers of Rannoch thus are actually protecting the organic life that exists on Rannoch. It's also revealed that they monitor organcis so

ME2: Shepard encounters a VI on a space station that's killed every organic on board and then tries to kill him.

One that was infected with a virus and it wasn't even an AI.

ME3: Quarians attack the geth(-proper), who bore them no ill will, and to defend themselves the geth align themselves with the Reapers-- proving that it isn't always synthetics that start the fight, but even if the hostile heretic geth were destroyed in ME2, the fight found a way to start up again, and you either had to help the quarians wipe out the main geth population, or vice-versa, or if you brokered peace between them, you have no guarantee whatsoever that it will last forever. A month later they could be back at it.

The fight found a way to start, not because of the synthetics but because of the quarians who've always wanted to retake the homeworld. Which is pretty similar to why organics fight with other organics. Apparently the Reapers don't consider the conflict between organics as galaxy threatning as the organics vs synthetics. Why? Who the fück knows because it was never explained in that ending.

Yes, we get it, organics fight organics, and organics fight synthetics, and synthetics fight other synthetics (True geth and EDI). What the Catalyst fails to explain (because the player doesn't get to ask) is why these fights can only be solved by genocide.

This only counts as "plenty of positive interactions with AI" if you can't count.

Like I said, it depends on player choice. And yes achieving peace between the quarians and felt as positive as getting the krogan and the turians to cooperate. Garrus said that Turian/Krogan animosity is inborn so the Catalys logic dictates that the best solution to the Krogan and Turians conlflict is to wipe out both species. And that is the definition of extremism. It's the warped view of the Catalyst.~

And, being aware that the Crucible was designed once, it devised a contingency in case anyone ever showed up riding the thing again someday-- a carrot to dangle: "well played, good sir, but why destroy my power when you could take control of it? See those zappy handles over there?" Which is why those two options are the easiest to get, because Destroy is the Crucible's intended purpose and Control is what the Catalyst devised "just in case"-- probably cycles ago-- to tempt potential-generic-hero-X into keeping the Reapers around. Just in case.

Actually the destroy/control being easy to get , which I take it you mean in the low EMS ending is dependent on what you did with collector base. If you have low EMS and chose to keep the collector base, the destruction option is not available. Only control. Why? I assume you are going to give me answer based on the ending because it was explained why. Or maybe I'm wrong...

So much for the destroying being the Reaper's intended purpose when it might not even be available. Of course whoevever built the Crucible also decided that best way of activating the destroy option involved a pistol... Some fantastic design right there.

Tell me somethin'-- you think I'm an idiot?

No. I just disagree with you.

Because before the EC was even announced, I'd written a fanfic. I was sad that Kaidan and Shepard would never see each other again, so I wanted to 'fix' that and present to my readers my idea of what Synthesis (which I'd chosen) meant, and yeah, how Kaidan and Garrus got back aboard the Normandy. So what I wrote took place partly during ME3 (and continued past the ending), and one of the chapters was set during the Priority: Earth mission and the beam run, and I wrote about how, when Shepard was seemingly killed, his companions were also scattered and injured, and radioed for help because they couldn't go on, and a shuttle came down and evacuated them to the Normandy-- all taking place at the same time as Shepard's limp to the beam, but on different areas of the field. And all of that could happen simultaneously because as we were following Shepard in the 'vanilla' scene other stuff could have been happening at a distance. It was a chaotic situation, it wasn't a hard explanation to come up with for why they were separated. It wasn't hard at all.

That's pretty much the definition of fanwanking. You have hole in the plot and you came up with your explanation. There is a reason why the story you wrote is called fanfiction. Because it didn't happen until it was fixed by the EC. It's pretty much the same as the Indoctrination theory. Fans trying to fix the holes in the plot.

I could come up with an explanation that would've been: "a wizard did it". And it would still be fanfiction.

And when you need to fill the plots of a story, that means that the story was poorly written.

I also wrote about how the 'Crucible Event' fired nano-machines made of element-zero from the mass relays at near-light-speed (the 'green bubble') to 'infect' all life in the galaxy, resulting in all organic life starting to develop cybernetic qualities (allowing them to commune with synthetics via 'wi-fi') and modifying all synthetics to process the emotions organics broadcast, so they could "understand us" and arrive at peace.

And nowhere in explanation provided by the Catalyst, are infecting nano machines mentioned. And why would peace be achieved. Organics have an understanding of emotions and they still fight other organics.

Pre-EC the writers had the wherewithal, I thought, to realize "oh, y'know, Shepard's talking to the Catalyst about his/her options, but meanwhile the Reapers are slaughtering thousands of people aboard the fleets. S/he probably feels pressed for time, like this is- y'know- urgent or something, and isn't going to ask for a long, drawn-out Q&A session to clear up every bit of ****ing minutiae before making a choice."

"Those pesky players wanting to obtain information through the dialogue wheel like they have always done it in previous interaction. Can they all accept the Catalyst logic and be done with that? Hey it's only the ending to the 30 hours of the games you bought. It's not our fault that we made promises we couldn't keep when we said that that the ending wouldn't be like the Lost finale leaving you with more questions than answers."

hich they weren't. They were damaged by carrying out whichever abnormal function Shepard chooses-- because they were built to do one thing and Destroy, Control and Synthesis all force them to do something else-- but in no ending, not one, were the relays all destroyed. Y'know how we know? Because we saw a relay destroyed in the ME2 DCL "Arrival," and it annihilated a star system like a supernova. In a pretty distinctive visual display.

Even before the EC showed us the aftermath, if you were paying attention, what happened to the relay network was clearly not what happened to the 'alpha relay' when it was destroyed in Arrival. Two completely different things that inattentive people assumed were the same thing, and proceeded to make irrational arguments about based on a false premise. And yes, there were a lot of inattentive people involved in that uproar. There were a lot of people who once believed the Earth was flat, too. Being in the majority doesn't make you right, doesn't make your argument smart-- just popular. "The angry mob" has a long history of ****ing it up because they rally around a dumb but vocal leader.

Is that why they had to change the animation of the Crucible firing through the relays in the extended cut? Because it was clear that Relays were only damaged?

The "plot holes" weren't

When you have to write fan fiction to fill the holes, it's pretty much plot holes. Like I said, no better than the indoctrination theory.

Just a bunch a fans that refused to believe that Bioware might have a made a mistake when it came to the ending.

Always the artists.

[–] nomen_meltdown 8 years ago

This is the last rebuttal I'm going to bother to make, because I'm really just finding you unbearably obtuse at this point.

There's a difference between "a plot hole"-- where something happens that disagrees with (or punches a 'hole' in) the established narrative and creates a logical inconsistency-- and details merely being left out. The former asks a reader/player to go forward on the basis of a known contradiction, the latter asks the reader/player to go forward on the basis of of incomplete knowledge.

What the original endings gave us, and what my fanfic was crafted to address, were endings shrouded a bit in incomplete knowledge or 'mystery.' We didn't know what happened to Shepard's companions when Harbinger zapped him/her, or how they made it back to the Normandy. We didn't know the Catalyst when we met it, we didn't know if we could rightly trust it. In the absence of full information, we had to make a choice nonetheless.

I didn't write what I wrote to try and 'correct' an inconsistency, I wrote it to 'complete' the gaps in exposition-- so suggest what I thought happened (and what, as it turns out, the writers knew happened) "outside the frame" of the camera that followed Shepard for the last ~10 minutes and beyond the end of the game.

This is not the same thing as a plot hole.

What the EC gave the people braying for it wasn't some amendment or correction of inconsistencies, it was merely more information that had previously been withheld. Some of us could still see the implications, could still deduce the un-exposited details, could still 'read' what the writers were saying-- because it was 'there' to be seen and deduced and read-- and some of you couldn't, and thought it was because the writing was so flawed that nobody could possibly have made sense of it.

You were incorrect. Part of a big, incorrect mob. And so invested in not facing that fact that now, even after years of people trying to explain it to you, you twist and wriggle away from it and deny logic and just make up untrue counter-points to facts so that you can continue to assert that you knew everything that could be known and that your complaints are valid. And I think I've finally lost the very last bit of patience or hope or whatever it is I was clinging to that induced me to keep trying to clear up your misconceptions.

I concede nothing and I'm not exhausted, I'm just so terribly bored of this.

I'm an island- peopled by bards, scientists, judges, soldiers, artists, scholars & warrior-poets.

[–] Winter_King 8 years ago

There's a difference between "a plot hole"-- where something happens that disagrees with (or punches a 'hole' in) the established narrative and creates a logical inconsistency-- and details merely being left out. The former asks a reader/player to go forward on the basis of a known contradiction, the latter asks the reader/player to go forward on the basis of of incomplete knowledge.

What incomplete knowledge are you talking about? The beam run with high ems without the EC has Shepard getting hit by Harbinger's ray (nevermind how he survived that) while Shepard was being followed by the two companions that the player choose. You wake up and they are gone. Nowhere to be found. They will show up on the Normandy.

So what happened? Did the Normandy show up and picked them up and they all abandoned Shepard? Did Shepard abandoned them when he went to the beam? If so, why why can't we see them? Neither of those two options are logically sound because we know that Shepard's crewmembers wouldn't abandon Shepard and unless you are roleplaying a Shepard that doesn't care about his/her companions, Shepard will always try to save them. Shepard always goes through the fire for the Normandy crew.

Those gaps in the plot can only be filled by headcannon or fanfiction and that is not how you write a coherent story. Or it can be filled by the extend cut that does provide an answer (although not without its problems).

I didn't write what I wrote to try and 'correct' an inconsistency, I wrote it to 'complete' the gaps in exposition-- so suggest what I thought happened (and what, as it turns out, the writers knew happened) "outside the frame" of the camera that followed Shepard for the last ~10 minutes and beyond the end of the game.

The beam run and the fate of the companions have significant diferences between the original ending and the extended cut.

In original ending, when Shepard is hit by the Harbinger's laser the companions are right there with you. You don't know what happened to them when you get up.

In the extend cut, the companions are hurt by exploding vehicle and Shepard is fine. He is able to call up the Normandy and request a medivac and say goodbye to the teamates. It's only after Normandy leaves that Shepard is hit by Harbinger...

In the original ending you have no clue about how and why the Normandy appeared to pick them up and left Shepard alone. And in the extended cut you have that asnwer. Anything written by you or anyone else other Bioware until the Extend Cut was released was fanfiction. As valid as the Indoctrination Theory.

This is not the same thing as a plot hole.

No. That's pretty much a plot hole. And it was until EC was released.

What the EC gave the people braying for it wasn't some amendment or correction of inconsistencies, it was merely more information that had previously been withheld.

Crucial information that was withheld that made the ending a illogical mess.

You were incorrect. Part of a big, incorrect mob.

Care to adress where? Because I adressed most of your points and in this post we are just focusing on part of the beam run. You mostly ignored all my previous points about the nature of the conflict that Catalyst is trying solve or how the Crucible works.

And so invested in not facing that fact that now, even after years of people trying to explain it to you, you twist and wriggle away from it and deny logic and just make up untrue counter-points to facts so that you can continue to assert that you knew everything that could be known and that your complaints are valid.

The fact was that the ending, particulary the original one, was riddled with plotholes, left more questions than answers, made conclusions that were not consistent with what the game had been tell us.

And that's thing: I could go on about other problems in the ending that I didn't even adress like what's the deal with the Illusive man in the Citadel. How could the fleets jump to the Sol System when the Reapers had control of the Citadel and the Citadel controls the relay network? Or how did Shepard survive the Harbinger's beam designed to destroy dreadnoughts or how in the destroy ending Shepard show up alive on what appears to be London etc... That's when the questions start piling up and obliterate any sense of narrative coherence in the story.

Always the artists.

[–] dobraye_utra 8 years ago

One (Among many) confusing point I never understood about the EC ad-ons was how the heck the Normandy managed to pull off that rescue. I mean, aside from the fact that the ship was presumably engaged in battle manoeuvres with the fleets; Joker quits the war attack to fly the ship within spitting distance of Harbinger?!

Now people may say: "but the Normandy has that Reaper IFF." To which I'd point out; the IFF was solely for the use of getting through a mass relay safely. Kinda like having a toll pass in your car to go over a bridge.

Considering that Harbinger was using it's big blasto-gun (no pun intended) to accurately take out the advancing troops (side note here; why not just shut off the beam when they're not using it? No need to protect the beam if it's beeen disengaged?) it should be able to notice an Alliance frigate, well within blasting radius, that suspiciously gives off Reaper-pings???

But no: doesn't even give out a few 'darn, I missed' stormtrooper-style shots as the Normandy flies away again.

I remember the days when Kardashians were just the bad guys on Star Trek!

[–] Glaramara 8 years ago

One (Among many) confusing point I never understood about the EC ad-ons was how the heck the Normandy managed to pull off that rescue. I mean, aside from the fact that the ship was presumably engaged in battle manoeuvres with the fleets; Joker quits the war attack to fly the ship within spitting distance of Harbinger?!

Doesn't make much sense, there are certainly bits of the EC that aren't logically any better than the original, they just don't get criticised as much since the result is something a lot of people prefer. I've seen a screenshot of the evac scene taken with the flycam that shows the Normandy can't even fit into that area and is massively clipping into the scenery. A shuttle would've made rather more sense if the scene was going to be in there (dead companions would've made even more, although I'd have been rather pissed off at that).

[–] Winter_King 8 years ago

One (Among many) confusing point I never understood about the EC ad-ons was how the heck the Normandy managed to pull off that rescue. I mean, aside from the fact that the ship was presumably engaged in battle manoeuvres with the fleets; Joker quits the war attack to fly the ship within spitting distance of Harbinger?!

Agreed. That's why I said that the answer was provided in the EC but it wasn't without it's problems.

While I think it's better than the original beam run, the Normandy should've been blown to smithereens by Harbinger.

Always the artists.

[–] Glaramara 8 years ago

Perhaps if Cortez had survived he could've managed to get the shuttle airborne again and done the pickup, if not then the squadmates would've died too. That would've tied in with the what else has happened, not been as much of an issue as the Normandy arriving out of the blue when it should've been busy elsewhere, and added a few more consequences (could've even been directly influenced by other things, e.g. without certain other forces he still wouldn't have been able to reach you).

[–] ScorpionTDC 8 years ago

This is the last rebuttal I'm going to bother to make, because I'm really just finding you unbearably obtuse at this point.

You are literally the most arrogant, hypocritical, narcissistic, self-abosrbed idiot I have ever seen on IMDB. And that says a f-ck of a lot.

Death Awaits (Horror forum)
http://w11.zetaboards.com/Death_Awaits/index/

[–] Glaramara 8 years ago

So synthetic life being a threat to all organic life is something that player never really experiences with the exception of the Reapers (which are supposedly the solution)... The fact that a Shepard that made peace between the Quarians and the Geth can't confront the Catalys with this is also illogical because it would be the first thing we would say to Catalyst when he mentioned the conflict between synthetics and organics.

And even if it was portrayed as being it would have to make a pretty good case that that indeed would really always happen (rather than simply inventing examples to make it so). "That's how it works in this universe" is a cop-out only used by poor, lazy authors. There's a bit of an exception if it's surrounds issues that could only exist with fictional creations (which isn't the case of AIs, which probably can exist in theory), but even in those cases it's crappy writing if you just pull things out of thin air as solutions instead of scene-setting (then follow the scene-setting up with logical extrapolations).

Drop the Catalyst and Synthesis and the "we need to electrocute Shepard to read him" part of Control and you might've got an ending that was merely forgettably mediocre instead of hopeless.

[–] Glaramara 8 years ago

So basically the player gets information from two highly questionable sources: Leviathan and the Catalyst that run against what the Shepard and the player directly experienced.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Leviathans were trying to put a spin on the whole thing, when all that was really at threat from synthetics was the Leviathan's dominant position. The Catalyst sounds more like a VI than a full AI.

The problem that neither of them are making claims that sound particularly plausible, either in the context of the game or what would happen in reality, which means that people who agree with them just come across as needing to be told what to think instead of being able to.

[–] skoobaba 8 years ago

The ending was DUMB. That is the big deal. Pay attention to the details of the lore and the story, and you might see it.

[–] edgecrusher02 8 years ago

I do too. However, the original ending was too unnecessarily vague for my liking. I know many people claim it to be an out of nowhere resolution but I never really saw it that way. It's a logical notion considering the nature of what the Reapers are and where they had to have come from. My main complaint is that the concept isn't exactly original. It's close to what I predicted after completing the first game for the first time. It is what it is though. The ending has proven very memorable, if not controversial. I think it will stand the test of time because of this.

"Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in an experiment." - Christopher Hitchens