222 réponses à ce sujet

[Johndoev2]

I do believe the first stage of grief is Denial....

[Cosmar]

OP, even if that is true, it's still an unsatisfying ending. Actually, for me, that would be even LESS satisfying than if the ending were real, because then there is no closure at all and no clue whatsoever as to what really happens. Which is what the overwhelming majority of us wanted, and were promised: to see what happens, to see the concrete end of the series. If it were just an indoctrinated dream sequence, then who's to say that the whole damn game wasn't also just an indoctrinated dream?

And even if you're right, and the Destroy ending is the actual good ending and the others are actually bad, we have no way of knowing, because we never see what really happens. So this whole theory can only be conjecture. Optimistic conjecture, but conjecture nonetheless. Presenting it as fact is pretentious and obnoxious.

[F3rnando Bacate]

Y'know what would be brilliant? IF this theory of indroctrination-hallucination thing turned out to be true, and the real ending comes in a DLC.

DLC: The End of the Cycles

I'm still putting all the pieces together, making a replay throughout the entire game to make the right decisions and make a perfect 'pre-ending'...

IM ALREADY WAITING FOR MY REAL ENDING DLC, BIOWARE

[LordAsael]

I can believe this. There are a few factors that suggest this. As I play through again I recall at least two instances where Garrus tells Shepard that he needs to rest. When Shepard rests he gets these terrible dreams. He's exhausted and he is likely more open to suggestion/indoctrination. It's not a theory that I ever completely discounted.

It however doesn't seem to fit the statements made prior to release that suggested a definitive conclusion and a lack of post finale DLC that would be able to clarify the finale. If this was the case why couldn't the cinematic that followed clear things up? If it means ME4 I'll be there. If not I would like to have a clear resolution to the conflict.

[MajorStranger]

Anyway, true or not, I'm not touching my Mass Effect copy again until they do something about the ending.

[Karait]

Humm, they did tell us to keep our ME3 saves didn't they? Maybe the content with real wnding is locked for the moment?

Geez.. I'm just grasping at straws am I not? Still, the theory holds and it would literally blow my mind.. I sure as hell hope you're right. Won't hold my breath though.

[Ultra Prism]

I just hope you are right!

[TomY90]

it does make more sense than what we saw.

But it was meant to be the end of story of Shepard and if it was just him indoctrinated then how could the secret ending (where you see this guy telling his kid of the story of Shepard and how some information on the story has been lost through the ages) be his or her imagination.

[Smiley556]

GoblinSapper wrote...

From an in-textual perspective your theory makes sense but you have to examine things from a meta-textual perspective. Why would Bioware troll it's consumers in this fashion? Why invite the bad PR from releasing the real ending later, whether for free or not? It wouldn't. Your mind is undergoing a coping strategy called 'Bargaining', it's one of the stages of grief.

From a meta point of view I could present other questions. Why would bioware suddenly have such bad inconsistent story writing only in the last minutes? Why would their PR lie about the end of the game so blatently? Why are producers ensuring us we should hold on to our ME3?

It feels to me that Bioware is making a groundbraking ballsy move not shipping the ending of the game with the original release. There are plenty reason to justify it.

Ofcourse there is the debate if we will stand for this. The initial shock to the fanbase and ofcourse the even more horrible possibility we might have to pay for the DLC.

[Biotic Sage]

LOL at "It's all very obvious." I loved the ending as is by the way.  The fact that you think that all empirical evidence points to the ending taking place in Shepard's head is just flat out laughable. And it's sad that you went to such great lengths of rationalization, I'm very sorry for you when Bioware outright confirms "This is the ending we wanted. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination. It didn't take place in Shepard's head."

Modifié par Biotic Sage, 11 mars 2012 - 06:27 .

[Militarized]

This has been discussed already, there is a large thread for it. If you had been paying attention Miss Dwindling Hope you might have seen that...

On a lighter note, this is how desperate we are to rationalize Mass Effect 3's ending. Saying it again.

Smiley556 wrote...

GoblinSapper wrote...

From an in-textual perspective your theory makes sense but you have to examine things from a meta-textual perspective. Why would Bioware troll it's consumers in this fashion? Why invite the bad PR from releasing the real ending later, whether for free or not? It wouldn't. Your mind is undergoing a coping strategy called 'Bargaining', it's one of the stages of grief.

From a meta point of view I could present other questions. Why would bioware suddenly have such bad inconsistent story writing only in the last minutes? Why would their PR lie about the end of the game so blatently? Why are producers ensuring us we should hold on to our ME3?

It feels to me that Bioware is making a groundbraking ballsy move not shipping the ending of the game with the original release. There are plenty reason to justify it.

Ofcourse there is the debate if we will stand for this. The initial shock to the fanbase and ofcourse the even more horrible possibility we might have to pay for the DLC.

 

HOWEVER... If you are right about this I have to agree. It is the most ballsy move ever and I weep with tears of joy at their feet for being so god damn ****ing epic. 

However however... I think they failed and we're headcanoning to the max. 

Modifié par Militarized, 11 mars 2012 - 06:28 .

[Leafs43]

I refuse to believe the ending is the ending.

The whole random child controls the reapers from inside the citadel and kills advanced civilizations every 50,000 years to save organic life makes zero god damn sense.

[Foulpancake]

Honestly i think this would be a hugely ballsy move on Biowares part and would pay off in the end. With the leaked plots and serious holes in the end, its the only thing that makes sense. If anyone has seen Usual Suspects (Spoiler i guess if you haven't) they filmed 2 endings. 1 where Gabriel Byrne was Kaizer Soze, and thats the one that everyone thought was the correct one. Even Gabriel Byrne. But they filmed the second ending with almost nobody except a few key people knowing, Kevin Spacey being the real Kaizer.

It wouldn't be the first time someone has used elaborate tricks to keep a plot hidden until the end. And seriously, how long would the gaming industry be talking about Bioware's big Gahones if they could pull this off?

[Nagatsu]

Well this does add an interesting approach to the idea. Indoctrination does give some 'answers' to how the ending played out. Personally I like to think they left the three choices for the ending up to we the players to make our own personal conclusions on how it ended me personally I like the idea my Shep resisted indoctrination by picking neither joining or destroying the Reapers but taking the middle road of the Synthetic/Organic hybrid approach just seem to been more up my alley when it comes to be Paragon Player lol

[Eumerin]

The first hints of indoctrination actually turn up in the dreams. In the second and third dreams (and possibly in the first; not sure on that), there are whispers that you hear throughout. While watching the second dream, it occurred to me that Shepard might be suffering from a mild form of indoctrination.

However I have strong doubts that was the intent of the ending.

Anderson claims that he went up the beam after Shepard did. The room that Shepard arrived in was dark, and iirc, Shepard comes to in the room face down. It's possible that Shepard was unconscious on arrival and Anderson just stumbled past him. As for the unfamiliarity of the Citadel, that's not exactly a surprise either. It's no secret that the Keepers have their own passageways to move around in and areas that they can travel through that no one else has been to. For instance, in the first game it's noted that the number of Keepers always stays constant, with new Keepers replacing Keepers that are killed. But no one knows where the replacement Keepers come from. The control console that we see in the ME3 ending may very well be the room that's supposed to be used to send the signal to the Reapers when it's time to begin another cycle. In short, the fact that the section of the Citadel isn't familiar isn't really an argument against it being real.

Finally, the Prothean VI on Thessias has the ability to detect when someone has been indoctrinated. It detects Kai Leng's indoctrination and shuts down when he approaches. It doesn't detect that in Shepard.



As for the invincible Keepers...  it's possible that Bioware just decided that no one would try and shoot them and didn't bother giving them hitboxes.

Modifié par Eumerin, 11 mars 2012 - 06:38 .

[Foulpancake]

Smiley556 wrote...

GoblinSapper wrote...

From an in-textual perspective your theory makes sense but you have to examine things from a meta-textual perspective. Why would Bioware troll it's consumers in this fashion? Why invite the bad PR from releasing the real ending later, whether for free or not? It wouldn't. Your mind is undergoing a coping strategy called 'Bargaining', it's one of the stages of grief.

From a meta point of view I could present other questions. Why would bioware suddenly have such bad inconsistent story writing only in the last minutes? Why would their PR lie about the end of the game so blatently? Why are producers ensuring us we should hold on to our ME3?

It feels to me that Bioware is making a groundbraking ballsy move not shipping the ending of the game with the original release. There are plenty reason to justify it.

Ofcourse there is the debate if we will stand for this. The initial shock to the fanbase and ofcourse the even more horrible possibility we might have to pay for the DLC.

If they are ballsy enough to do this, AND i get my ending i so desperately want...i would pay whatever the Frak they want! Seriously this game has meant a lot to me and to think it ended the way i did, i don't accept that. The Indoctrination thing i think is brilliant and hope hope hope its the case

[Plasma Prestige]

 It's still dissatisfying. I won't say it ruined the game, because it did not, but it was a dissatisfying ending to a phenomneal-otherwise game.

[KMYash]

Endings are like jokes. If you have to explain them they're no good

[Smiley556]

"Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending. BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions than answers after finishing the game.."

"There are many different endings. We wouldn’t do it any other way. How could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can’t say any more than that…"

Quotes from Mike Gamble

Maybe we can try putting a little bit of trust in the developers of Bioware? The 'ending' we have now is not at all the ending as Gamble discribes it. Combined with telling us to hold on to ME3 (and combined with my original post) I think we need to calm down and wait for a bit to see what Bioware comes up with.

[Miss Vader]

This does make sense, especially so when you tie into account the very end of the game with the child and stargazer- child asking for another story about The Shepard- perhaps the next story the man was going to tell was the continuing events of after Shepard waking up from his indoctrinated state.

[deathscythe517]

Jjacobclark wrote...

Smiley556 wrote...

 The only thing I am suprised about is how many people in the mass effect player community did not understand the ending. My faith in this community is dwindling as I see them rage.

I dont understand how people dont see that the whole sequence after shepard gets blasted by harbinger is played out in his head. It is all extremely obvious and the game has been working up to it. The way indoctrination is explained over the game (making people think they are willingly helping the reapers, convinced that the reapers serve a greater cause, and uplifting the reapers as some godlike being in the subjects mind).Also the dream sequences, there are multiple dream sequences in the game so as to make it entirely possible that the ending sequence could be some hallucination too.

Now for the events itself, they are extremly clear. Harbinger, the one reaper who has been trying to indoctrinate shepard for so long, blasts shepard. He wakes up, hears whispers (Like every person that was being indoctrinated) and finds a pistol with unlimited ammo (the kind of inaccure detail one would find in a dream). He steps into the beam and gets teleported to the Citadel, the citadel which is horribly inaccurate (not recognisable, keepers cant be shot, dead human bodies litter the place in dramatic fashion which makes no sense except if imagined by shepards dispairing brain). Then theres Anderson, shepards father figure, who has no possiblity to be there (no survivors from the beam, cant have gotten passed shepard somehow). However it would make sense that he was there if it was a concotion of shepards brain, ofcourse shepard would imagine anderson there. They dont recognise the citadel, another thing commonly assosiated with dreams (if your in a dream everything makes sense, untill you start examining your surroundings and realise it totally unlogical and unrecognisable, you usually wake up not soon after). He gets to the console with anderson there, obviously imagined since anderson couldnt have gotten past shepard and according to the conversation he was only a couple seconds ahead yet you dont see him. Another figure of shepards imagination pops up out of nowhere, the illusive man. More dispair enters shepards brain as he imagines the illusive mans power, forcing him to shoot anderson. Through sheer will of force he overcomes his thoughts of the illusive man, either through breaking lose and shooting him, or by making him shoot himself.

Then comes the reaper who talks directly to shepard. You know, that reaper that presents itself as the ghost of the kid haunting shepards dream and as a godlike figure. If you read the indoctrination codex you will see indoctrinated people see reapers as godlike figures. You also clearly (or not so very clearly) hear harbingers voice in the background while the kid speaks and he refers to himself as 'we' everytime he talks about the reapers (ie. he's being pretty blatant about being a reaper). The reaper then comes up with an explenation which would make it (vaguely) seem as if the reapers serve a greater purpose (again, read the codex entry on indoctrination).
Shortly after shepard is presented with 3 choices. There is only one choice that is considered 'good' for it gives the possibility for shepard to survive and, interestingly, this is also the choice portrayed as being the worst choice according to the reaper. "you can control the reapers, just touch the lightning thing, you will die (ie. succumb to us) but everything will be alright. Or you can jump in the beam, you will die, but everything will be alright. Or you can shoot that thing, you will destroy the reapers, but it will destroy all synthetics, even you are part synthetic and you will kill the geth and your friend edi". Everything points out that the reapers Doesnt want you to make that choice, he wants shepard to willingly choose one of the other 2 options (thus completing the indoctrination of shepard).

Shepard keeps his mind cool and picks destroy the reapers, defying what the reapers wants him to do. He then imagines all that he expects to happen, and includes his hopes and wishes. His friends who were with him at the beam somehow got to safety. He imagines them stepping out of the normandy unharmed on  a distant world, giving him some peace of mind. He wakes up back in the rubble on earth, Harbinger has failed.
Now we wait for Bioware to release the end (obviously this hallucination wasnt the end) for which I am gratefull. They made sure nobody gets spoiled cos of differing release dates around the globe and the datamining of the possible endings (the end isnt in the game yet so that it cant be datamined, its brilliant really).

I sincerely hope we can stop raging now.

I find your smug superiority...inexplicable

It seems to be a trait carried across that small percent who like the ending, it's not that we don't understand the ending, it's that we don't like it and it doesn't fit. You being a holier-than-thou 'I'm smarter than you' apologist is not helping get people on your side.

[Gowienczyk]

Biotic Sage wrote...

LOL at "It's all very obvious." I loved the ending as is by the way.  The fact that you think that all empirical evidence points to the ending taking place in Shepard's head is just flat out laughable. And it's sad that you went to such great lengths of rationalization, I'm very sorry for you when Bioware outright confirms "This is the ending we wanted. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination. It didn't take place in Shepard's head."

Then they just insulted our attachments, intelligence and destroyed the soul of their series and will go down in history as horrible writers; not for content, but for conclusion.

[Lugaidster]

I like this interpretation, but I just have one issue. If you don't have enough EMS, destruction is the only ending possible. If the reaper doesn't want you to take that road, then why does it offer only that road? (Of course it leads to the destruction of the earth as well, so maybe that's the explanation?)

On the whole meta-textual interpretation, if this is what they're planning, Mike Gamble's tweet makes a whole lot of sense.

Cheers.

[Foulpancake]

Eumerin wrote...

The first hints of indoctrination actually turn up in the dreams. In the second and third dreams (and possibly in the first; not sure on that), there are whispers that you hear throughout. While watching the second dream, it occurred to me that Shepard might be suffering from a mild form of indoctrination.

However I have strong doubts that was the intent of the ending.

Anderson claims that he went up the beam after Shepard did. The room that Shepard arrived in was dark, and iirc, Shepard comes to in the room face down. It's possible that Shepard was unconscious on arrival and Anderson just stumbled past him. As for the unfamiliarity of the Citadel, that's not exactly a surprise either. It's no secret that the Keepers have their own passageways to move around in and areas that they can travel through that no one else has been to. For instance, in the first game it's noted that the number of Keepers always stays constant, with new Keepers replacing Keepers that are killed. But no one knows where the replacement Keepers come from. The control console that we see in the ME3 ending may very well be the room that's supposed to be used to send the signal to the Reapers when it's time to begin another cycle. In short, the fact that the section of the Citadel isn't familiar isn't really an argument against it being real.

Finally, the Prothean VI on Thessias has the ability to detect when someone has been indoctrinated. It detects Kai Leng's indoctrination and shuts down when he approaches. It doesn't detect that in Shepard.



As for the invincible Keepers...  it's possible that Bioware just decided that no one would try and shoot them and didn't bother giving them hitboxes.

I've been thinking about the Citadel

1. Doesn't the center platform with the console remind you of TIM's monitor room?

2. Anderson says "looks like how you described the Collector Base"

3. They look as if they are in a central area...the Citadel has NO central. its Shut it looks like an empty corn husk. There is a ciruclar disk at the bottom with a bunch of arms coming out of it. There is nothing in the center of the citadel, its hollow.

4. There is a main control room that has never been found by any of the alien races living here for thousands of years?...doubtful

5. The black smoke-like stuff floating around during TIM conversation looks a whole lot like the shadowy figures in Shepards dreams

[Foulpancake]

Lugaidster wrote...

I like this interpretation, but I just have one issue. If you don't have enough EMS, destruction is the only ending possible. If the reaper doesn't want you to take that road, then why does it offer only that road? (Of course it leads to the destruction of the earth as well, so maybe that's the explanation?)

On the whole meta-textual interpretation, if this is what they're planning, Mike Gamble's tweet makes a whole lot of sense.

Cheers.

If Harbinger fails to indoctrinate shepard, at least he delayed him, thus not enough EMS = dead. With enough EMS the fleets will last long enough for Shep to beat Harbingers attempt and wake up in the rumble after the beam hit