230 réponses à ce sujet

[Tsantilas]

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

[InfiniteDemise]

greywardencommander wrote...
Until told otherwise I will believe that due to the 'leaked endings' they realised that what we have as a marketing ploy and will release free dlc.

So, it's a marketing ploy to lose a large sum of money and foster a huge amount of consumer ill-will?

Huh.

[booboo645]

I like the idea that just because you chose *destroy* and woke up in the bonus footage it might happen regardless (you were just rewarded for making the best choice). What's to say you won't wake up from every other choice you make and that the indoctrination process won't affect things more seriously as you end the game?

Who is to say that the option you pick there wouldn't allow BioWare to make a completely different ending for each, depending upon your choice? It's a big reaper test imo and along with fixing the plot itself with extension, it would allow us to actually form our own endings, with something we actually chose.

[RavenEyry]

InfiniteDemise wrote...

The only argument necessary to disprove the cultist theory is the real-world financial one, which is blindly ignored.

There are some pretty scary similarities between real cultists and the people here that are so desperately trying to make sense of the load of crap dumped at the end of this game. People are inventing new realities to deal with the total disconnect between their emotional investment in Shepard and the ME universe and the bizarre space magic garbage that was actually foisted on us.

It's not healthy to be this obsessed people, let it go.

You know who I hate? Those scientists and their barmy "gravity" theory. We all know we're stuck on this Earth because God put glue on our feet but those crazy cultists keep obsesivelt talking about something "based in actual fact". Should lock 'em all up I say!

[greywardencommander]

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

because killing him is not enough, I said this in my post. Killing him makes him a martyr for them to continue fight, and who knows even win, indoctrinating breaks the entire will of the galaxy fighting, if Shephard falls to indoctrination, there is no longer hope.

[Myskal1981]

I see the OP changed the title of the thread. Well done.

[lyssalu]

CPU Hero wrote...

I always thought the Indoctrination Theory was a bit far fetched. I personally believe that BioWare came up with a better ending, then decided that it wasn't what they wanted, delayed the game to march 6, and threw together this ending.

Now, since this is currently the cannon ending, I will say that I think that Shepard dies before he gets to the control panel to activate the crucible, and has a dying dream about the elevator, and the Starchild, and the terrible ABC ending.

this would be preferable tbh

[Schief724]

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

It's a long drawn out process to eliminate all technologically advanced civilizations from the galaxy. The chance to convert Shepard, a symbol of victory over the Reapers and somebody who has plagued them from day 1, would be a major coup that could expedite the process. The Reapers are all about achieving their goals in the most efficient way possible.

[Malanek]

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

The entire galaxy has, finally, come to trust Shepard. Having Shepard be able to manipulate and position forces makes things much easier. Plus it stops him destroying them.

By the way, could everyone interested in the subject who has not already done so, please vote in the poll in my signature. It's to try and work out what percentage of the BSN believes in the IT. 

[Wabajakka]

Noatz wrote...

You don't really disprove anything, let alone definitively.

For example

"indoctrination as a subtle whisper you can't ignore, that compels you to do things without knowing why. Over days, perhaps a week of exposure to Sovereign's signal, the subject stops thinking for themselves and just obeys, eventually becoming a mindless servant."

"...there is a balance between control and usefulness. The more control Sovereign has over a person, the less capable they become."

"The mental damage from indoctrination is severe and permanent. As Shepard saw, the captured salarians on Virmire had been turned into shambling husks, who either attacked on sight or just stood awaiting orders. Only people with immense mental strength are able to resist indoctrination, and even then, only for a short time."

There is no mention of dream sequences, or vivid full blown hallucinations. In addition, Indoctrination isn't a process that can fail. If the reapers use indoctrination on someone, their way of thinking is altered to follow reaper doctrine. After a while, the subject becomes a full blown slave who isn't in control of his actions. The subject never makes a choice to join the reapers, nor does he become tricked. He simply joins them without knowing he has changed.

As for the black lines on the screen during the TIM conversation, it is explained throughout the game via the Cerberus subplot, that TIM is experimenting on himself with reaper tech so that he can be able to control the reapers. What he manages to do is reach a point where he's able to exert limited control on people, which is what happens during the conversation. He tries to control Anderson and Shepard, but ultimately if you make the right decisions you can shoot him or make himsee the error of his ways and commit suicide. That is the only part in the whole trilogy where Shepard experiences some form of control/indoctrination, and it ends the moment TIM dies.

How does he control Anderson and Shepard? I mean logically he can't just control anyone he wants to, he didn't place a chip in Shepard - this we are told exhaustively, and he certainly didn't do anything to Anderson.

TIM's work revolves around co-opting the Reaper's signal to their forces, last time I checked Shepard and Anderson weren't husks.

Lastly the codex specifically mentions "ghostly images". You're using only entries from ME1 because the wording is slightly different and better supports your assertions - a classic example of cherry picking evidence.

Holes, your arguments have them.

[effortname]

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

Mostly because everything we've seen in this entire trilogy has led us to believe the Reapers are massive dicks to everyone.

[Jaze55]

greywardencommander wrote...

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

because killing him is not enough, I said this in my post. Killing him makes him a martyr for them to continue fight, and who knows even win, indoctrinating breaks the entire will of the galaxy fighting, if Shephard falls to indoctrination, there is no longer hope.

But but... according to the theory he IS indoctrinated. Again, the effects of indoctrination are irreversable.

NO HOPE NO HOPE AT ALL

Oh wait, 

[Sodrer]

effortname wrote...

Yeah they only broke indoc for 2 minutes TOPS to kill themselves. In Benezias case she broke it but then immedietely tried to kill SHepard AND her daughter Liara if you took her. So you can ONLY break it for a few minutes, not completely

Again, these were fully late-stage indoctrinated allies of the Reapers. They had been like this for months, if not years. Shepard is only at the very first phase where the Reapers attempt to change his thought process. He's not even close to their level yet.

Because accepting the Indoctrination Theory as canon, means that essentialy only 1 out of 16 possible endings is the "true ending" that allows you to progress the story via DLC, because that's the only one in which Shepard "wakes up". It contradicts the current ending more than the plot holes and inconsistencies do.

No it doesn't. The destroy option is simply the most direct. You can assume that if the DLC picks up where the ending left off, then people who chose the other options would need to do more work to break the indoctrination. For example, some kind of mental battle with Harbinger (like the Geth mind interface minigame) where you can hear your squadmates telling you to fight.

Or shooting yourself like Saren or TIM. <--Epic

Modifié par Sodrer, 19 mars 2012 - 08:50 .

[Jaze55]

Orange Tee wrote...

Noatz wrote...

You don't really disprove anything, let alone definitively.

For example

"indoctrination as a subtle whisper you can't ignore, that compels you to do things without knowing why. Over days, perhaps a week of exposure to Sovereign's signal, the subject stops thinking for themselves and just obeys, eventually becoming a mindless servant."

"...there is a balance between control and usefulness. The more control Sovereign has over a person, the less capable they become."

"The mental damage from indoctrination is severe and permanent. As Shepard saw, the captured salarians on Virmire had been turned into shambling husks, who either attacked on sight or just stood awaiting orders. Only people with immense mental strength are able to resist indoctrination, and even then, only for a short time."

There is no mention of dream sequences, or vivid full blown hallucinations. In addition, Indoctrination isn't a process that can fail. If the reapers use indoctrination on someone, their way of thinking is altered to follow reaper doctrine. After a while, the subject becomes a full blown slave who isn't in control of his actions. The subject never makes a choice to join the reapers, nor does he become tricked. He simply joins them without knowing he has changed.

As for the black lines on the screen during the TIM conversation, it is explained throughout the game via the Cerberus subplot, that TIM is experimenting on himself with reaper tech so that he can be able to control the reapers. What he manages to do is reach a point where he's able to exert limited control on people, which is what happens during the conversation. He tries to control Anderson and Shepard, but ultimately if you make the right decisions you can shoot him or make himsee the error of his ways and commit suicide. That is the only part in the whole trilogy where Shepard experiences some form of control/indoctrination, and it ends the moment TIM dies.

How does he control Anderson and Shepard? I mean logically he can't just control anyone he wants to, he didn't place a chip in Shepard - this we are told exhaustively, and he certainly didn't do anything to Anderson.

TIM's work revolves around co-opting the Reaper's signal to their forces, last time I checked Shepard and Anderson weren't husks.

Lastly the codex specifically mentions "ghostly images". You're using only entries from ME1 because the wording is slightly different and better supports your assertions - a classic example of cherry picking evidence.

Holes, your arguments have them.

Why does the game go out of its way to tell you Shepard is under the effects of PTSD? - lets see if you have ANY idea wtf I am talking about.

Facts, you choose to ignore them.

[Tsantilas]

greywardencommander wrote...

because killing him is not enough, I said this in my post. Killing him makes him a martyr for them to continue fight, and who knows even win, indoctrinating breaks the entire will of the galaxy fighting, if Shephard falls to indoctrination, there is no longer hope.

ok... so lets assume Harbinger successfully Indoctrinates Shepard (which happens in almost every ending except the one where you Destroy the reapers and live, according to the theory), then what?  Shepard is 1 man.  What's he going to do, dragon punch the galactic fleet?  I don't buy this "martyr" reasoning.  Killing him would crush their hope as their last chance to kill the reapers is gone, no one made it to the catalyst, game over, roll over and die.

[Sibbwolf]

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose.

Indoctrination is not always a quick process. See Saren, Illusive man.. and read the books!

For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result,

Agent vs pawn. Subtle influence of a powerful individual is far more valuable than turning that individual into a pawn.

and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible.

Irrelevent.

Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past.

Wrong. It takes 100s of years for the Reapers to conquer the Protheans, and if you pay attention in ME3, the Earth gvt orders troops to arrest/kill anyone "provoking" the reapers - "in the name of peace".

So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

The greatest weapon to use against any army is it's own hero - if he can be turned or tricked, the power of the force can be sapped away without a battle.

[RavenEyry]

Schief724 wrote...

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

It's a long drawn out process to eliminate all technologically advanced civilizations from the galaxy. The chance to convert Shepard, a symbol of victory over the Reapers and somebody who has plagued them from day 1, would be a major coup that could expedite the process. The Reapers are all about achieving their goals in the most efficient way possible.

Also Harbinger has a stalker like relationship with Shepard. I'm sure he'd get pretty sweaty at the idea of making Shepard his mind-slave, whatever point the war is at.

[atum]

InfiniteDemise wrote...

The only argument necessary to disprove the cultist theory is the real-world financial one, which is blindly ignored.

There are some pretty scary similarities between real cultists and the people here that are so desperately trying to make sense of the load of crap dumped at the end of this game. People are inventing new realities to deal with the total disconnect between their emotional investment in Shepard and the ME universe and the bizarre space magic garbage that was actually foisted on us.

It's not healthy to be this obsessed people, let it go.

Personally I find it much more interesting to read the arguments on why or why not a theory fits the *story* and less interesting to read why or why not they might plan a DLC or what the business reasons behind something are.  Not that the later is completely invalid, but it's not particularly interesting.

I like the Indoctrination theory because it's interesting.  I'm indifferent to DLC.  Sure a free one might be nice but otherwise I'm not sure I care.

You'll see some intense debate on these boards, and the personalities of the poeple on all sides are going to vary greatly -- from level-headed all the way through to bi-polar.  Arguing that one side is cult-like is selection and confirmation bias.  Because it's quite likely any sampling of people would have some charateristics that could be attributed that way.  Frankly, I'd be shocked if you found a group of people who lacked this.

There will be people projecting:  Some will feel the need to "fight the power" some will feell the need to defend anyone from being attacked [Bioware in this case].

And some might feel that it's their job to inject the lone sane voice into a conversation. 

So I hate to break it to you, but you (and I) are just as crazy as the rest.

[effortname]

Tsantilas wrote...

greywardencommander wrote...

because killing him is not enough, I said this in my post. Killing him makes him a martyr for them to continue fight, and who knows even win, indoctrinating breaks the entire will of the galaxy fighting, if Shephard falls to indoctrination, there is no longer hope.

ok... so lets assume Harbinger successfully Indoctrinates Shepard (which happens in almost every ending except the one where you Destroy the reapers and live, according to the theory), then what?  Shepard is 1 man.  What's he going to do, dragon punch the galactic fleet?  I don't buy this "martyr" reasoning.  Killing him would crush their hope as their last chance to kill the reapers is gone, no one made it to the catalyst, game over, roll over and die.

Shepard is the only reason the Krogan, Geth, and mercenary forces are even in this thing. If he's turned it's a massive blow to morale. Also Hammer couldn't even land troops or fire a missile at the Reapers without Shepard literally doing everything.

[Jeb231]

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose. For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result, and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible. Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past. So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

Harbinger wants shepard'body since the ME2 comics. Why? this one is a dfficult since we've never learnt as to why he cares so much about him. Actually, we still don't know what the reapers want if you consider the indoc theory to be true. Maybe he amuses him. Maybe it's because of his genetic material (refering to the original dark energy plot).Maybe he wants to destroy the last beacon of hope for humanity.

I would like to point out that neither conclusion is wrong until an epilogue is released. The endings were made to create a lot of speculation so it's not impossible to consider they'd tweak things so both arguments look equally valid. There is a difference between truth and intent.

[greywardencommander]

Tsantilas wrote...

greywardencommander wrote...

because killing him is not enough, I said this in my post. Killing him makes him a martyr for them to continue fight, and who knows even win, indoctrinating breaks the entire will of the galaxy fighting, if Shephard falls to indoctrination, there is no longer hope.

ok... so lets assume Harbinger successfully Indoctrinates Shepard (which happens in almost every ending except the one where you Destroy the reapers and live, according to the theory), then what?  Shepard is 1 man.  What's he going to do, dragon punch the galactic fleet?  I don't buy this "martyr" reasoning.  Killing him would crush their hope as their last chance to kill the reapers is gone, no one made it to the catalyst, game over, roll over and die.

because controlling the most for want of a better word 'powerful' man in the galaxy, (this is the guy that single handedly built an army, ended the Geth/Guarian and Krogan/Salarian conflicts) could be the difference between say 6 months and 100's of years of war (like the Protheans).

[Thorn Harvestar]

You'd think if Harbinger intended to kill you outright, he'd make sure he finished the job before flying off to god-knows-where...

[RavenEyry]

Harbinger trying to kill Shepard doesn't remove any chance of indoctrination. (KOTOR spoiler alert!) The Jedi were trying to kill Revan but upon knocking him unconscious a golden opportunity presented itself. Exactly the same with Shep and Harby.

[Vigil_N7]

effortname wrote...

I have, and I still think its an asinine concept to have it as DLC. Shepard breaking indoctrination and finishing the story should've been part of the actual ending, as it stands, if the theory is true then we've been given an unfinished game, which is completely insulting.

Would you rather a story end on a fakeout or a complete tangent that has nothing to do with anything that was previously in said story? It's a least of two evils choice, and the fans' literary analysis has given us the lesser of the two.

The whole point is that we shouldn't have to accept either evil. I was incredibly disappointed with the ending, and I want a more fitting one more than anyone else. 

However, this is the end of the trilogy we are talking about. Bioware has no excuse to not put the proper ending in the game, just so that they could release the game earlier and/or milk the cash cow even more by adding the planned ending as DLC. 

There has to come a time where we as consumers stop putting up with **** like this, buying any ending DLC which was purposely planned before the release would validate Bioware's actions, when they would clearly be wrong. 


NOTE: I am not against ending DLC if it changes the ending. However, I am against Bioware releasing ending DLC that was already planned to be part of the story, but was never added due to time contraints/wanting more money. 

This isn't an extra squadmate or a mission pack, THIS IS THE ENDING TO A TRILOGY THAT HAS SPANNED FIVE YEARS! 

Modifié par Vigil_N7, 19 mars 2012 - 08:59 .

[Tsantilas]

Sibbwolf wrote...

Tsantilas wrote...

I'll ask a question that I edited into the OP, now that I remembered it:

Indoctrinating Shepard at this stage of the war serves no purpose.

Indoctrination is not always a quick process. See Saren, Illusive man.. and read the books!

For all practical purposes, killing him would have the same result,

Agent vs pawn. Subtle influence of a powerful individual is far more valuable than turning that individual into a pawn.

and the reapers will win unless someone else activates the Crucible.

Irrelevent.

Indoctrinating Shepard wouldn't help their war in any way, as the time of politics and such is long past.

Wrong. It takes 100s of years for the Reapers to conquer the Protheans, and if you pay attention in ME3, the Earth gvt orders troops to arrest/kill anyone "provoking" the reapers - "in the name of peace".

So why bother? Harbinger obviously meant to kill Shepard with the deathray during the charge, and his survival is a fluke at best. So why bother with Indoctrination?

The greatest weapon to use against any army is it's own hero - if he can be turned or tricked, the power of the force can be sapped away without a battle.

The reapers are not so petty to go after shepard for some mere vendetta.  Their logic is supposedly out of mortal realms.  Harbinger is going to go after Shepard because he picked on his little brothers?  That makes no sense.  Again, a pawn is only useful as long as you have someone to manipulate.  It takes 100s of years for the Reapers to conquer the Protheans, but I'm pretty sure the whole Prothean fleet and army wasn't in the same system to be whiped out in 1 cleaving swipe.  If they kill everyone in SOL system they've practically won, and Shepard won't make any difference.