28 réponses à ce sujet

[BrandonDotCom]

I, among many of you were left strongly dissatisfied by the conclusion of Shepard's final journey, however this is not the issue at hand. My main concern is the gaping plot hole present in all 16 of Mass Effect 3's endings.  After establishing the only way to save the galaxy from the threat of the Reapers is to utilize the Crucible, Shepard desperately has to decide on one of three options. However no matter which option is chosen the subsequent side effect of using the crucible is the destruction of EVERY mass relay in the entire galaxy. Although, as we have seen in the events of Mass Effect 2's DLC Arrival, when a mass relay is destroyed, the resulting explosion levels the entire system! So not only will there be a perpetual schism in the intergalactic community, that prevents distant races from EVER uniting but the entire Milky Way is toast!

[Verkir]

I hadn't even considered that, but even if the relays didn't explode like arrival you now have the combined turian, asari, salarian, krogan and human fleets stuck in the sol system. Congrats you just created a vacuum of resources that soon enough everyone is going to slaughter everyone else for.

[Der Estr Bune]

The common response to this is that there is a huge difference between crashing an asteroid into one and shooting "space magic" at it. It's entirely possible (probable) the Catalyst is designed to destroy them in a much less explosive way.

[BrandonDotCom]

If the Catalyst; A sentient self-important passive aggressive child, created the Reapers in the first place, why would he/she be able to interface with the crucible in the first place? Wouldn't 'it' have a vested interest in something like this not happening?

[NoUserNameHere]

We could assume that Arrival's default Relay explosion targets and kills Organics in the system; a failsafe to ensure organics don't try anything stupid to stop the Reaper invasions.

In the endings, the Relays now explode with the space magic of your choice: Synthetic-killing, Reaper-controling, or Synthesising.

Shepard is quite possibly alive in the ending that would otherwise destroy the Solar System, so we know it's not Arrival X 1000.

[Der Estr Bune]

The Catalyst uses the Reapers to enforce the Organic-Destruction cycle, except that the cycle is no longer sufficient. Maybe the Crucible (which has no pinpointable origin) was planted by the Catalyst in the first place, and it used its development as a way to determine such a point. At this point, he's got to go back to the drawing board anyway, so why not just let the Reapers go?

Modifié par Der Estr Bune, 10 mars 2012 - 08:42 .

[Sovereign z]

 Space child and his space magic resolves this issue 

[BrandonDotCom]

Also, with one of Mass Effect's central themes being unity and to collectively overcome the MASS threat, why does the conclusion result in the division of every race in the Galaxy,

[Pandaman102]

Presumably the difference is that one is an uncontrolled, unfocused release of energy that only destroys, while the other is a controlled, focused transfer of energy from one relay to another; so rather than resulting in a system-ending explosion, it's just the relay being destroyed because 1) it no longer has the energy to maintain itself and 2) it wasn't designed to do that.

That being said, Verkir is right. The remaining alien forces stranded in Sol system are pretty much doomed, since many of them cannot eat anything grown on Earth. Hell, curing the Genophage for Krogans has damned them to extinction as well, since the Shroud is gone and it's no longer purifying their planet's atmosphere of the nuclear fallout.

[Der Estr Bune]

You're getting closer to some of the meat of the problem, I think, but if I had to answer, I'd go with something like, "Sacrifices had to be made" or some such. Any really, they're not divided. Ideally, you'd have them all present on Earth. They're just totally cut off from their own people (which is a really problematic ending in itself).

[BrandonDotCom]

Well the real nugget in this is, why destroy the relays? The destruction of the relays means that everything we have worked for is simply for nothing. And If the ending after the credits was suppose to immortalize Shepard for his actions, it is not like the there is any means of passing this knowledge to other worlds or species because guess what? The relays are gone!

[askanec]

FTL travel still exists. There are still surviving ships from the battle. It simply takes longer for the various alien races to find their way home without the mass relays. As to how much longer the journey would take and whether they are equipped for the journey home, we don't know.

Regardless, there are still aliens in other parts of the galaxy. I doubt even the Krograns sent every man, woman and child to Earth to fight.

[thoaloa]

FTL travel in the "Mass Effect" universe is slow and uses fuel to travel short distances between local star systems. Without the relays it will take ages to rebuild any faster than light long range system.

Without the relays getting materials for food, rebuilding gates, and fuel will be difficult.

[thoaloa]

Also civilizations get to their societies collapse as a few long distance communication systems will still function but will have no means of aiding them due to a lack of long distance travel.

[BlackDragonBane]

 This is under the speculation that the Catalyst created the Reapers, though I'm pretty sure that the Catalyst only claims that it controls the Reapers,  not that it created them.

The Reaper cycle has been going on for, likely, millions to billions of years, if you take into account that number of Reapers present (roughly 1000, if not more). From what little we have to go on, there's nothing to dispute (Or support) that something didn't create the Reapers and the Catalyst as a fail safe against an all out war against synthetics and organics.

The conflict between the Quarins and the Geth is a good example. The Quarins turned against the Geth because they began to exhibit behavior found in organics, such as asking about souls. It terrified them and in return, they sought to destroy them. The Geth defended themselves and the war has been going on for 300 years until Shepard brings an end to it one conclusion or another. What if the first civilization ( or at least one of the many early ones) found the perfect union between synthetics and organics, resutling in the tech of the Reapers creation, as well as development of the Catalyst, Citadel, and Mass Relays. The Reapers, after all, are synthetics created with organic DNA, preserving the races they wiped out in one manner or another. The cycle exists for a reason and we don't know for certain that the cycle is every 50,000 years, we just know that's how long ago the Protheans were wiped out. Again, the cycle is a fail-safe against all out war because the Catalyst leaves alone planets where development is not far enough along to warrant space travel and tech development on a sophisticated scale, much like how the humans, asari, turians, and salarians were left alone during the Prothean's extinction because they were simply not developed along to be of any concern. After all, one of your companions points out that the Reapers refused to go near the Yaag homeworld, a likely candidate for the next cycle if the Reapers succeeded in harvesting the more advanced races.

As to why this cycle is neccessary, perhaps a war DID happen between Synthetics and their creators that likely nearly destroyed an entire galactic civilization and it was assumed that other races that evolved and developed tech would likely develop their own AIs and then turn on them when they grew too curious and intelligent, a pattern that would never break and likely result in the destruction of ALL Organic life, leaving worlds barren and synthetics running free. So, lo and behold the Catalyst and the Reapers are built to ensure that that never happens, that organics in danger of such things are wiped out before they could cause any harm to themselves and other organics.

As to the destruction of the relays themselves, I think with the tech they were built from and the Catalyst, the explosion was not like the one in Arrival or the one that decimated the Batarian homeworld. (unless those are the same ones) The explosion seemed more controlled, granted it was a large one but it seemed to obliterate the entire relay itself without debris.

I'm sure with the races working together, they could figure out a way to speed up travel between systems and galaxies but I do admit the destruction of the Mass Relays was excessive but in the grand scope of things, the Mass Relays, the Reapers, the Citadel, and the Catalyst were all part of each other and with the destruction of the Catalyst and Citadel, I'm kind of not surprised the Mass Relays self-destructed whatever the reason for it was. We don't know the history behind the techonolgy used to create them so anything would be just wild fan speculation like I just displayed.

[KodiakAsh]

I could buy the Paragon and Renegade choices at the end of the game (Blue, Red) but what I think bugs me most is the destruction of the Mass Relays.

[askanec]

thoaloa wrote...

Also civilizations get to their societies collapse as a few long distance communication systems will still function but will have no means of aiding them due to a lack of long distance travel.

Quantum entanglement, which allows instanteous communcations across worlds, already exists in ME. The only issue is cost and its point-to-point nature.

I really doubt the loss of mass relays would amount to the collapse of worlds. Inhabited worlds should be self-sufficient in basic necessities. It makes no economic sense to ship food hundreds of light years from one planet to another. Trade would definitely suffer, though. Again, by how much? We don't know. If we look at Earth examples, decades of trade sanctions did not cause the complete collapse of sanctioned countries, nor even a regime change.

[BrandonDotCom]

But why? We can sit hear and talk semantics all day about how we can rebuild and dust ourselves off, but the ending doesn't convey any of that. All we get from the ending is a conclusion that loosely is determined by your decisions and that's ot. Anything else we pull from the ending is conjecture and because of all this i have yet to see a logical explanation ass to why this is a satisfying conclusion.

[Zulakkar]

I must agree with OP's point blowing up a MR should infact terminate all of the galaxy. Just because it is "Space Magic" should make no difference it is still blowing the hell up.
Also whoever created this Red Queen copy was probaly kill by it , for the "Greater Good" ofc.

[Pandaman102]

askanec wrote...

 I doubt even the Krograns sent every man, woman and child to Earth to fight.

Problem is that Tuchunka is still a wasteland, even if there is a small bit of vegetation growing around the ruins. The Shroud was helping rehabilitate the planet, but now that's gone it will take that much longer for the planet to recover - throw in a massive population explosion on top of that, inability to emigrate to other planets, and the loss of their leader (Eve may be a shaman, but Wrex is still the one who united many of the clans and the one they would have deferred to), and the Krogans' future isn't that bright.

[askanec]

Pandaman102 wrote...

Problem is that Tuchunka is still a wasteland, even if there is a small bit of vegetation growing around the ruins. The Shroud was helping rehabilitate the planet, but now that's gone it will take that much longer for the planet to recover - throw in a massive population explosion on top of that, inability to emigrate to other planets, and the loss of their leader (Eve may be a shaman, but Wrex is still the one who united many of the clans and the one they would have deferred to), and the Krogans' future isn't that bright.

I think the Krogans would do just fine.

The Krogans turned Tuchanka into a nuclear-devastated wasteland for 2,000 years  before the Salarians uplifted them. By then, the Krogans had become adept at surviving under such a harsh environment that made them well-suited to fight the Rachni.

Population was kept low then because there was limited resources. So even if you remove the genophage now, population would still be kept in check. Maybe the Krogans will compete with each other for resources, but that's hardly new, is it? They've been doing that for thousands of years.

As for the Shroud, it is mentioned that a council force stationed in orbiting stations maintains it. It is likely they would have the expertise to repair it.

Or maybe the Krogans will go extinct. Who knows? ME is a fictional galaxy and it is all in the hands of the writers.

[Pandaman102]

askanec wrote...

Pandaman102 wrote...

Problem is that Tuchunka is still a wasteland, even if there is a small bit of vegetation growing around the ruins. The Shroud was helping rehabilitate the planet, but now that's gone it will take that much longer for the planet to recover - throw in a massive population explosion on top of that, inability to emigrate to other planets, and the loss of their leader (Eve may be a shaman, but Wrex is still the one who united many of the clans and the one they would have deferred to), and the Krogans' future isn't that bright.

I think the Krogans would do just fine.

The Krogans turned Tuchanka into a nuclear-devastated wasteland for 2,000 years  before the Salarians uplifted them. By then, the Krogans had become adept at surviving under such a harsh environment that made them well-suited to fight the Rachni.

Population was kept low then because there was limited resources. So even if you remove the genophage now, population would still be kept in check. Maybe the Krogans will compete with each other for resources, but that's hardly new, is it? They've been doing that for thousands of years.

As for the Shroud, it is mentioned that a council force stationed in orbiting stations maintains it. It is likely they would have the expertise to repair it.

Or maybe the Krogans will go extinct. Who knows? ME is a fictional galaxy and it is all in the hands of the writers.

True, and there's the possibility that by sending the lion's share of their fighting forces the leadership positions would be dominated by the level-headed female Krogans.

And the Krogans will become the new cycle's Asari. That would be very strange.

[Phydeaux314]

A couple points regarding the relay explosion.

First off, we don't actually have evidence that ALL mass effect relays take out an entire system when they're smashed. The only relay we've seen smashed has been the Alpha relay, and that one is specifically listed as having vastly increased simultaneous transfer capability as well as the ability to send to any other node in the network.

Secondly, there may be a difference in "overloading the relay" and "smashing it with a really big rock." Unfortunately, that falls into the category of "ad hoc" explanations, since we really have no information to work from here.

Third... oh, screw it. I can't do this any more. It's late, I'm tired and sick, and the whole bloody experience HURTS too much. I'm going to go cry myself to sleep with my dying cat and hope that I dream of happier times.

[geertmans]

i"m not really bothered by the Mass Relay error. In my mind the energy sent out by the crucible/citadel traveled through the whole galaxy with the help of the Mass Relays. After the Relays purged their energy they simply break down. No explosion there since the Mass Effect field is gone or something.

Anyway, what bothered me more; I choose to control the reapers and wanted to continue the cycle, why then do my newly acquired relays have to break down

[Holoe4]

Plot holes, no closure... yep they really did it this time.