Hello fellow BSN commentators, I would like to bring a point up.
This is addressed to both people who hate the ending and people who love it.
Why should we believe the Catalyst? Are we simply expected to go off its word? It could have easily presented some form of proof to support its argument but instead we are simply accepted to believe what it says. This is not so, the burden of proof falls to the program's feet, and it failed to deliver.
This further ruins the ending as across the first, second, and third game we find out that synthetics only actively seek to assault organics under the direction of the old machines. The Reapers corrupt organic life and seem capable of manipulating synthetic life as well and the only reason the geth are hostile in the first is because of Sovereign and in the second we find out those geth are less than five percent of the entire geth collective. The only other AIs we encounter are scared or trying to survive.
The AI funneling credits in the first would have disappeared without resistance had Shepard and co not stumbled upon it and one of your teammates always taking issue with just leaving it be, laws on the citadel mean that you must actively control or destroy synthetics. The AI on Luna base was scared and confused because it had just become 'alive' and did not know what to do, it freaked out and went berserk because it had just achieved sentience suddenly due to Cerberus.
Across all three games we see that AIs simply wish to be left alone and do not wish to die. The Catalyst presents no proof that synthetic life will destroy organic life and all physical evidence accumulated across the three games seems to prove that its tools, the Reapers, are the ones responsible for turning synthetics into organic killing machines. At worst this is a serious plot hole and only serves to prove the dissonance of the main themes of the series in the end and at best the Catalyst is self-serving and trying to rationalize its genocidal tendencies.
The fact that Shepard does not even try to argue with the AI seems to lead me that we are expected to agree with it especially since the "destroy" ending is the only one Shepard can potentially survive. This is a horrible idea and makes me wonder if the person in charge of writing the ending was even paying attention to the story prior.
The Catalyst: Another Issue With The Ending
Débuté par
deathscythe517
, mars 11 2012 05:23
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#2
Posté 11 mars 2012 - 05:28
Der Estr Bune
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Actual answer: It's stupid, and we shouldn't believe him.
My attempted defense: The Catalyst is apparently omnipotent, or at least damn close (he can marge the DNA of all synthetics and organics in the galaxy, from his fixed point on the Citadel). This implies (and you can see it in the nickname God-Child) omniscience as well, so we (or Shepard, in-universe) assume that if he can do anything, he must also know everything. Thus, there's not really any grounds to question him.
Obviously a faulty assumption, but I think it's a justifiable leap for someone to make. Shepard isn't really that someone, being the "spit in the face of fate" s/he is, but I'm doing my best here, damn it.
My attempted defense: The Catalyst is apparently omnipotent, or at least damn close (he can marge the DNA of all synthetics and organics in the galaxy, from his fixed point on the Citadel). This implies (and you can see it in the nickname God-Child) omniscience as well, so we (or Shepard, in-universe) assume that if he can do anything, he must also know everything. Thus, there's not really any grounds to question him.
Obviously a faulty assumption, but I think it's a justifiable leap for someone to make. Shepard isn't really that someone, being the "spit in the face of fate" s/he is, but I'm doing my best here, damn it.
Modifié par Der Estr Bune, 11 mars 2012 - 05:29 .
#3
Posté 11 mars 2012 - 05:30
deathscythe517
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I still think it's a plot hole and we should not be forced to rationalize it, and yes, the Reapers could be controlled by God himself and Commander Shepard would simply wage war on the heavens if that were the case. From the Catalyst onward it's like we're playing a completely different person in a completely different game with a completely different story.
#4
Posté 11 mars 2012 - 06:06
killnoob
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Lol mate, The catalyst is the worst idea in the history of sci fi to date and i'll tell you why.
1. he's a character that's only been shown during the last 5 min of a story.
Now, imagine right before frodo got on that ship towards the shiny west a dragon named Iamtrol appear out of the water and tells him Sauron was trying to unit the middle earth, and now Frodo has to choose between (A) resurrect Sauron to stop middle earth from tearing itself apart or (
go with the elves.
The first thing frodo would do is probably shove that dragon right back into the water and continue rowling. The Catalyst is doing the exact same thing as that dragon and being a writer myself, I was told never to write a character out of the blue. It just goes to show how easy it is to be the writers of a successful franchise and it's shattering to see how incompetent the endings are. (Though, they did do a good job with the rest of the game so I guess whoever is responsible for the ending screwed up big time)
You can argue that the human kid is the foreshadowing of the catalyst, but that would probably be the worse, the most improper foreshadowing technique used in fiction I've seen. The kid appeared on Earth, not the Citedal. Unless the "Shepard Hallucination" theory is true, there's no reason why the catalyst should take the form of that child.
Writers, you've got a ton of explaining to do.
2. The catalyst reduced the supposedly "too smart for you to understand' reapers into stupid machines who can't even reason logically despite having existed for millions of years. Kill organic to stop them from creating machines that kill organics? Old life need to be destroy in order for new ones to grow? lol.
Incomprehensible for humans to understand? dude, some cyber kid just explained the whole deal in 2 sentences, and I'll have to agree, Stupidity is really impossible to comprehend. They make no sense whatsoever. And the catalyst's supposed to be omnipotent lol
3 Instead of Shepard deciding what he will do for the galaxy, the catalyst forced him to choose between 3 choices.
Aside from the catalyst being a retard, he also has a knack for coming up with retarded solutions. Synergy? Right and how do you decide what organic fused with what synthetics? Isn't Synthergy pretty much what the reaper's been doing, fusing organics with synthetics?
.
Not only that, he also failed to mention that all 3 choices involve the destruction of mass relay. Imagine Obi wan's spirit says to anakin after he blew up death star : "Ops sorry I forgot to tell you, destroying death star would caused the supernova at the center of galaxy to explode. "
Right.You can forget the star war prequels, George Lucas would've been flamed to death.
4. Catalyst is in control of the reapers.
This is dumb. Shepard choosing the choice he provided means that once again we have to walk on the path determine by the prik responsible for the reaper cycles. Might as well just surrender to the reapers and let them harvest us instead.
As writers, you need to be constantly thinking what impact your characters will bring, not to the setting, but to the story. A character like the catalyst brings Mass Effect nothing but hinderance, there's not one good thing you can say about him. So ask yourselves this, bioware writers,
Why is he in the game?
1. he's a character that's only been shown during the last 5 min of a story.
Now, imagine right before frodo got on that ship towards the shiny west a dragon named Iamtrol appear out of the water and tells him Sauron was trying to unit the middle earth, and now Frodo has to choose between (A) resurrect Sauron to stop middle earth from tearing itself apart or (
go with the elves.The first thing frodo would do is probably shove that dragon right back into the water and continue rowling. The Catalyst is doing the exact same thing as that dragon and being a writer myself, I was told never to write a character out of the blue. It just goes to show how easy it is to be the writers of a successful franchise and it's shattering to see how incompetent the endings are. (Though, they did do a good job with the rest of the game so I guess whoever is responsible for the ending screwed up big time)
You can argue that the human kid is the foreshadowing of the catalyst, but that would probably be the worse, the most improper foreshadowing technique used in fiction I've seen. The kid appeared on Earth, not the Citedal. Unless the "Shepard Hallucination" theory is true, there's no reason why the catalyst should take the form of that child.
Writers, you've got a ton of explaining to do.
2. The catalyst reduced the supposedly "too smart for you to understand' reapers into stupid machines who can't even reason logically despite having existed for millions of years. Kill organic to stop them from creating machines that kill organics? Old life need to be destroy in order for new ones to grow? lol.
Incomprehensible for humans to understand? dude, some cyber kid just explained the whole deal in 2 sentences, and I'll have to agree, Stupidity is really impossible to comprehend. They make no sense whatsoever. And the catalyst's supposed to be omnipotent lol
3 Instead of Shepard deciding what he will do for the galaxy, the catalyst forced him to choose between 3 choices.
Aside from the catalyst being a retard, he also has a knack for coming up with retarded solutions. Synergy? Right and how do you decide what organic fused with what synthetics? Isn't Synthergy pretty much what the reaper's been doing, fusing organics with synthetics?
.
Not only that, he also failed to mention that all 3 choices involve the destruction of mass relay. Imagine Obi wan's spirit says to anakin after he blew up death star : "Ops sorry I forgot to tell you, destroying death star would caused the supernova at the center of galaxy to explode. "
Right.You can forget the star war prequels, George Lucas would've been flamed to death.
4. Catalyst is in control of the reapers.
This is dumb. Shepard choosing the choice he provided means that once again we have to walk on the path determine by the prik responsible for the reaper cycles. Might as well just surrender to the reapers and let them harvest us instead.
As writers, you need to be constantly thinking what impact your characters will bring, not to the setting, but to the story. A character like the catalyst brings Mass Effect nothing but hinderance, there's not one good thing you can say about him. So ask yourselves this, bioware writers,
Why is he in the game?
Modifié par killnoob, 11 mars 2012 - 06:11 .
