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[JShepppp]

EDIT: I have posted all the parts of this (there are 6 parts). If long reading is not for you, then see the TLDR part below. However, I hope you do stick around and read the entire post.


The title of this thread used to be "Shepard was incredibly lucky". To clarify that I'm trying to both make light of things and point out some plot holes, I changed the thread name. TL;DR is below, but please read the full thing below that if you have time. I haven't changed the original post.


TLDR: Summary of  Some "Lucky" Situations (not just "omg Shepard didn't die"; things Shep didn't have control over)

1. Protheans screwing Keeper signal so Reapers are delayed
2. Sovvy not calling in Harby and Co. to quickly FTL to the galaxy within 3 years and instead chilling for centuries trying to find out how to open the Citadel
3. Sheps' brain being the only thing not liquified after the Normandy SR1 was destroyed
4. Randomly finding a Reaper in the galaxy that died 37 million years ago
5. Stopping Harby and Co. mere minutes at the end of their 3-year long FTL journey
6. Reapers not immediately taking the Citadel after Earth to control/turn off the relays as they usually would (not touched upon in my summary but yeah)
7. Learning about the Crucible just as the Reapers are on Earth's doorstep (as opposed to finding them during the decades prior of studying Prothean archives)
8. Catalyst not opening the Citadel and allowing the Reapers to come in immediately (which would render the entire series pretty much null)

A series of fortunate events that, individually can be all right, but together sum up to make our cycle a lot luckier than previous ones. I still love ME and this wasn't really a problem, just something I wanted to point out. Full version below.

I was talking to a friend the other day. I'm normally a very sarcastic person, so I explained the ME story in my terms with an emphasis on just how lucky a lot of things are. He suggested I write it down and see what others thought. Took me a while, but here it is - the way I sometimes cynically look back at the ME story. This will obviously be VERY long and will probably be posted in several posts/parts, so don't read/complain TLDR if that's not your thing please. I hope you enjoy - part of this is meant to kindly point out plot holes, and some of it is meant for humor.

Hope you enjoy!

An asterisk (*) indicates that it was a paragraph added or changed after this topic was initially made. I've had some time to think since then lol. 

Part 1: ME1

So, from the beginning, the Reapers had a pretty sweet plan overall. They'd wait until life was tasty enough, fire up the Citadel relay, then swoop in for some good old harvesting. They were polite enough to clean up after themselves before going and napping in Dark Space until their alarm clock from the Citadel woke them up.

We, of course, were lucky. Sovereign woke up, yawned, and decided that the fruit of life was pretty ripe for plucking. So he sent a signal, expecting to have lunch by noon. But it didn't work. The freaking Protheans, in a last act of defiance, somehow managed to hack Reaper tech and screw up the signal that Sovereign tried to send.

Must've been a WTF moment for Sovereign, who ended up sitting around for centuries trying to figure what happened, sending indoctrinated scouts. Maybe he was too stubborn to tell his buddies he failed, otherwise they would've come in within 3 eyars and harvested the galaxy while humanity still believed the Earth was flat. Anyways, good old Sovvy realized the Protheans changed the Keeper signal, and it was his job to go and return them to factory settings. The Catalyst for some reason didn't bother to help out and open its relay. Maybe, setting an example for Reaper underlings, the Catalyst was also taking an average nap of 50,000 years, which would've been kind of stupid, seeing as its future enemies were living inside it. But who knows. 

*We also met the "Old Gang", including Liara "Plotshield" T'Soni, Ashley "Neo Na*i" Williams, Kaiden "Whiny" Alenko, Garrus "The Callibrator" Vakarian, Tali "Photoshop" Zorach, and (Urdnot) "Shepard" Wrex. We also meet David "Fatherly Figure" Anderson and Flight Lieutenant "The Joker" Joker. 

Sovvy also met with Commander Shepard. In his time, Sovvy had probably talked with a lot of defiant organics, so he really didn't give a crap. Eventually, rather than contacting his boss the Catalyst (who probably could've opened the Citadel anyways), he decided to go on his own, ironically displaying the arrogance-over-efficiency mindset that machines don't ahve. Maybe the Catalyst was a cranky early-morning person and Sovvy thought he could deal with the situation before it went up the food chain. To avoid getting completely pulverized, he grabbed his favorite indoctrinee, hacked a few robots, and went to the Citadel, which unfortunately was not ideally built for direct access by a 1 kilometer large Reaper. Then we know what happened. Shepard defeated him, the galaxy was happy, and the Turian councilor could make his air quotes in peace. 

Part 2: Preparing for the Suicide Mission

Then came ME2. Turns out Sovvy wasn't the only Reaper who was an early riser. Harbinger, apparently a random Reaper just chilling out in Deep Space, was controlling the Collectors, who had just recently gone on a human-colony-abduction spree. Carrying out their genetic experiments, Harby decided that biologically humanity, despite its defiant/aggressive, killing-a-Reaper psychological nature, would be a perfect species to ascend to machine/organic hybrid levels due to diversity. But he knew Shepard, for one, might have a problem with the whole turning-people-into-genetic-mush aspect of it and might be able to sotp him. So he tried to eliminate Shepard by destroying his ship, the Normandy SR1. 

By all extents, Shepard shouldn't have survived. But somehow, despite everything but his brain being squishy mush, Cerberus brought Shepard back to life, a brilliant plot device that allowed the entire galaxy to forget about Reapers without Shepard to keep mentioning them. Most of Shep's old pals were doing well. Garrus disturbed lawless Omega so much that all the merc gangs put aside their differences to focus on taking him down together, and he held them at bay. Wrex became the ruler of his species, and Tali successfully completed her pilgrimage. Liara helped recover Shep's body and eventually (with his help) became the Shadow Broker. The only person who isn't thrilled to see you is A/K, who also conveniently hides during a boss fight when you fight off a lot of Collectors and whines at you after. The Council isn't much help. The Turian one, in particular, seems to have a particularly long and sharp object rammed up where the Sun doesn't shine.

*So Shepard went to secure a new squad. Think about who he gets. Garrus and Tali, an awesome soldier/bro and tech genius respectively; Miranda "Dat A**" Lawson, a human genetically engineered to be perfect; Jack, the result of years of harsh genetic experimentaiton intended to create the most powerful human biotic; Samara, an Asari whose biotic skills are honed after centuries operating as a terrifying but revered vigilante; Thane, the galaxy's top assassin; Kasumi, the galaxy's top thief; Zaeed "Lone Survivor" Massani, the galaxy's most highly priced mercenary and the man who single-handedly founded one of the biggest merc groups; Legion, the collection of 1,000 geth minds; Grunt, a Krogan genetically engineered to be perfect; Jacob "The Prize" Taylor, a very decorated and former Alliance black-ops soldier; and Mordin "Pop Star" Solus, a scientist who eventually stops a brand-new plague on Omega and creates/cures the modified genophage in one short Salarian lifestyle, all while doing it with boss singing skills. 

By some stroke of incredible luck or bad/unexplained writing, Cerberus come across a random Reaper just floating in the galaxy that was killed 37 million years ago. The galaxy's a pretty big place, but perhaps TIM had his semi-indoctrinated-sources or something. They manage to hack Reaper tech, rip off the IFF, and after what must've been a very cramped shuttle trip while the Collectors strike, they go through the Omega 4 relay.

Modifié par JShepppp, 23 avril 2012 - 01:01 .

[JShepppp]

 Part 3: Suicide Mission + Arrival


By chance, a series of new technologies make the SR2 able to beat the hitherto superior (single) Collector ship. Technology advances fast in 3 years apparently, especially when you steal it. The best is the Thannix Cannon, something the Turians unashamedly ripped off of Sovvy's corpse seemingly without telling their councilor that the tech is so far beyond current galactic level (read: not Geth). They keep it secret but Cerberus, despite some differences (to put it lightly) manages to buy them. A few bursts of Sovvy's teeth and the Collector ship blows up. The Normandy crash-lands but will be up just in time for Shepard's end run. Shep makes it through with his team, leaving most of his team to hold that line. He meets the Human Reaper, and after taking his own time to observe it with some helpful input from EDI, it wakes up. Shepard somehow manages to kill a giant-fetus Reaper, and as the base gets destroyed from within, he escapes with barely a scratch. 

For all intents and purposes, the base should've been impregnable. Harby would've been perfectly within his rights to be like OMGHAX during the entire mission. Sovvy took pride in talking about how organics were "extinguished", but Harby talks about how Reapers are the "salvation" of organics. Seems like the Catalyst never explained to Sovvy what the hell they were actually doing all these billions of years. In fact, it seems more and more that Sovvy was almost a kind of Reaper outcast of sorts, voted off the Island of Dark Space to be a Vanguard of Destruction for Organics Without Being Told Why. Hell, the Catalyst didn't even help him open the Citadel. 

Then comes Arrival. Apparently, Harby was multitasking the entire time, traveling through FTL as he controlled the Collectors, hinting to an answer to the long-standing series-long question of how the latter consistently displayed horrible, Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy skills. The Reapers helpfully tell those studying Artifact Rho that they'd be coming into the Alpha Relay. Unluckily for them, despite the galaxy being big and having trillions of people, Shepard is the one who finds out. In general, it seems that Sovvy may have gotten out a message to some Reaper bros. Or maybe the Catalyst, too lazy to open up the Citadel, woke up them up and told them to trek the hard way. Anyways, when Shepard arrives, Harby, too idealistic for his own good, decides to capture him alive. However, Shepard awakes wholly fine, and without even handcuffs to stop him, proceeds to singlehandedly decimate the indoctrinated forces, managing to destroy the Alpha Relay with just minutes to spare. If he had stopped for a bathroom break, the entire fate of the galaxy would be very different.

Again, Harbinger should've been like OMGHAX as Shepard destroyed the Relay mere minutes near the end of their 3-year FTL journey. Instead, he took it in stride, conversing with Shepard, even politely telling him to prepare for their arrival. Then he peaces out. Though his voice wasn't as cool as Sovvy, Harby did have better manners. 

Part 4: Galactic Diplomacy


At the beginning of ME3 we see that Harby's diplomatic banter was in vain. The Alliance heads are only convinced of the Reaper threat when the Reapers freaking shoot at them. Shepard manages to escape the Normandy, which thankfully doesn't get obliterated by the nearby Reaper during the minute-long conversation with Anderson. Unfortunately, a kid dies during this sequence, setting the stage for a series of ambiguous character-development dreams. 

Then Shepard goes to Mars, where apparently a Prothean WMD blueprint has been chilling for literally millennia and nobody knew about it. Somehow, despite Liara having found out only recently, Cerberus knows about it. The weapon, the Crucible, is a convenient plot device, because now Shepard can go ahead and do whatever because the true Reaper-beating device will be built in the background of the story. Shepard tries to ally the other races to unite, but most decide that old grudges are more important than staying alive against the Reapers.  Well, crap. After a bit of traveling, Shepard eventually (in most playthroughs I'm sure) cures the genophage. The Mother of All Thresher Maws even helpfully lends a hand to kill a Reaper, then peaces out. 

Cerberus seems now to have upped its game. Creating a galactic network of hideouts, sleeper agents, and a massively large/indoctrinated army and equipping them all takes a ton of resources, and this reveals that TIM could have been much more helpful in ME2 in retrospect. With funding that seems to rival not only planets but entire civilizations, Cerberus, in a self-defeating kind of logic, hampers the Crucible/Allied efforts...for its grand plans that involve using the completed Allied-Effort-Built Crucible to control the Reapers. Walking a fine balance, if Cerberus was "too" successful at dividing the galaxy, it would have still failed without a functional Crucible to use. This can be conveniently hidden behind indoctrination though. 

*We also meet Javik ("Prothy"), the last living Prothean who serves as a beacon of hope, knowledge, and historical intrigue for the lore-rich world of Mass Effect, all for the convenient but baffling price of $9.99 (before tax). The Ship's AI, EDI, also gets a new body and becomes a squadmate. Nothing appearance-wise changes for current chracters, except that Jack grows hair on her head. 

*We meet up with  few old favorites as well. Conrad "The Hero" Verner apparently has had a doctoral thesis in xeno-dark-matter-technolog or something similarly incomprehensible all this time, and he redeems himself by taking a (possibly fake) bullet for Shepard. Refund Guy, in an end to his determined, inspirational, years-long story, finally can get a refund of 15 credits for his toaster. Khalisah "Punching Bag" Jilani also ups her game, showing herself capable of not only dodging Shepard's canon-punch but even knocking him out, something the Reapers have been unable to do, indicating her deployment could be a viable alternative to the Crucible. Udina attempts a coup, finally giving players a long-awaited excuse to shoot him in a deeply satisfying moment. The Mako is absent again, perhaps deployed as a War Asset in the hopes that the Reapers will kill themsleves trying to drive the damn thing. 

The Quarians, in a startling display of idiocy unbecoming of races that know how to do FTL travel, decide to attack the Geth right when the Reapers are nearby. Innocently dangling the Carrot of Protection in front of them, the Reapers convince the Geth to give them the Reins to Their Horses by letting down their firewalls for a bit. The Reapers then utterly hack and screw the Geth over. Shep comes to learn about the history of the Quarian/Geth conflict. Basically, the Quarians are complete a**holes. Seems like everything's going good on the mission, but when they try to destroy the base with a Normandy strike, it turns out that there was a freaking Reaper napping there, and when it wakes up, it's (understandably) cranky at being shot at with aerial bomboardment. As the gamer watches in awe, Shepard announces his unbelievably heroic sacrificial, and borderline insane/stupid idea to take on a live Reaper on foot, calling down orbital strikes from the entire Quarian Fleet + Normandy. Somehow he manages to dodge the Reaper's advanced-computer-AI-enhanced-targeted-laser-weapon-system. Still, it takes a few strikes of the combined Quarian Fleet to take it out, and on ground, Reapers have to lower their shields anyways for physics reasons. Seems like the Quarians may not be that useful in a fight versus thousands of Reapers anymore, but everyone loves Tali so the Quarians are probably going to be saved anyways. The Rannoch Reaper decides to give a few unhelpfully cryptic and short departing words of wisdom, perhaps indicating that conversational ability is a prime factor in Reaper Size/Rank (Sovvy/Harby were more talkative). This idea will later be disproved by the Catalyst.

And then there's Kai Leng, the man who always literally brings a knife to a gunfight. Shepad finally manages to overcome the Ridiculous Shield of Plot Immunity and kill him in the now-cannon Renegade interrupt. Turns out the Catalyst is the Citadel apparently, but also, in a predictable but still dreaded twist, the Reapers know that you know so they moved it t Earth. Well, luckily, now all the races will fight for Earth anyways because it's the last hope for the Crucible/galaxy. If the Reapers had moved it to Earth earlier, convincing aliens to help might've been easier.

Modifié par JShepppp, 23 avril 2012 - 01:01 .

[JShepppp]

 Part 5: Taking Earth Back

And so finally, after being forced to eat from the Bean Dip of Galactic Organic Harvesting, the united races decide to unleash a Great Wind of Resistance. Despite the massive space fight in which ships come close together (breaking canon for cinematic effect), Shepard and Co. manage to break free and land on Earth, fighting ground forces. Then there's a brief moment where everyone takes a breather and bathroom break to give epic last words. In a desperate dash, Shepard and Co. rush the Conduit Beam. The other Reapers, including Harby, scramble to stop them rather than turn off the beam. Forgoing the friendly convos he had with shep in ME2, Harby outright tries to obliterate everyone. He succeeds...but not really. Maybe because of Harby's double-failure in ME2 (Collectors/Alpha Relay), the Catalyst scolded him and told him to stop trash-talking Shepard until the personal score was even (prior: 2-0, Shep). Shep manages to wake up and, with an infinite-ammo-pistol, guns down Marauder Shields and makes his way up to the Citadel.

Conveniently, he appears within walking distance of the Master Control Panel of the Citadel. Anderson comes up after him, coincidentally unwounded, and also conveniently gets there faster despite there apparently being only one path. Then TIM shows up, and everyone has a friendly reunion, except they all die except Shep. Hacket says the Crucible isn't working, and just as Shep collapses, a helpful Beam From Heaven descends and Shep goes up to talk to the Catalyst, who helpfully alters its appearances so it can go by the affectionate fan-given nicknames of The Kid, Godchild, Dreamchild, @$#%*, etc. in a manifestation of Shepad's character building dreams, which are suddenly given a supposedly clear but really somewhat confusing significance. 

Part 6: The Crucible and The Catalyst


The Crucible is an interesting weapon. Initially thought of hundreds of millions of years ago, then added to bit by bit, it's pretty epic in terms of backstory and is a fitting act of defiance to the Reapers. Thankfully, the weapon blueprints weren't lost over time. Apparently, though, some other important things were lost, such as the idea of what the Catalyst really is, or what the Crucible actually does. Thankfully, the Catalyst helpfully tells Shep about what the Crucible can do, also chipping in that the Mass Relays will be destroyed as a price. But nothing's free, just like the Prothean DLC which was first found in the leaked November script before the game Went Gold. But I digress.

The Catalyst isn't teh Citadel but is apparently the AI that controls the Citadel and the Reapers. Chilling in the Citadel for almost a billion years, the Catalyst is surprisingly coherent and working, indicating that its creaters (leaked script: "I was created eons ago to solve a problem...to prevent organics from creating an AI so powerful that it would overtake them and destroy them) must've designed programs so well that they never randomly got disconnected from EA Servers on Wave 11. Also, it must have insane amounts of processing power to hold tens of thousands of Rapers under its thumb, not to mention the Citadel and the expected extra Reapers ad infinitum as the Cycle continues. Reducing the hitherto awesomely powerful Reapers to mere pawns, and glossing over the fact that if he had actually done his own job and opened up the Citadel realy, the Reapers would have succeeded, Godchild talks about why he was created. Seems like some supremely ancient spacefaring race had their synthetics try to wipe them out, and all other organic life in the galaxy including but not limited to bacteria, and they held a grudge ever since. Godchild cuts the crap and wrongly assumes that the threat of impending death and intergalactic annihilation means Shepard doesn't want dialogue options for a friendly chat. The Kid then offers Shepard a choice between different colored explosion, noting that Green is the best because it offers a permanent if somewhat confusing solution that the Catalyst apparently long ago decided was Plan B if Plan A (harvesting) failed. Of course, each choice is more like a Plan F, as in, "We are totally f..."

As lucky as the suicide mission was, making it to the Citadel and then further up to the Catalyst is even more unbelievable, but true enough for some save Indoctrination Theorists. The Destroy Option (Red) means Shep has to shoot one fuel tank of sorts, thereby destroying all the Reapers, reducing it to a mundane task that even Conrad Verner could not have failed at. Good thing Shep didn't drop the infinite-ammo-pistol, otherwise that would've been awkward. Control (Blue) has two conveniently-human-sized handles that Shep grabs onto, indicating the incredible foresight and helpfulness of previous cycles that designed that aspect of it. Synthesis (Green) is poetically nice but cutscene-wise pretty much the same. Regardless, sure, the bulk of galactic military forces and races are trapped in a now-ravaged system, galactic civ enters a Dark Age of sorts, and your crew are the luckiest people alive by finding a random planet that is perfect for all sorts of life and crash-landing on it with no injury, but at least the Reaper threat has ended. 

And there we have Mass Effect from the eyes of a sarcastic gamer, a gamer who DOES enjoy the game(s) immensly, who WAS almost moved to manly tears at some points (coughMORDINcough), who IS playing the story again with his "worst" Shepard to find the differences along the way, and who WILL keep playing online multiplayer despite getting disconnected out of credits and buying 20+ spectre packs but not getting a Widow. No regrets from this series. Plot holes or lucky circumstances are especially common in scifi, but ME did things well, especially with the characters.

Modifié par JShepppp, 26 mars 2012 - 03:59 .

[StarcloudSWG]

Shepard was not *just* lucky. Shepard planned ahead. No matter how much luck you have, it's useless without planning and executing that plan.

[SchizoTyler]

A very entertaining read. lol.

Although I must say... HOLY WALL O' TEXT BATMAN!

[JShepppp]

StarcloudSWG wrote...

Shepard was not *just* lucky. Shepard planned ahead. No matter how much luck you have, it's useless without planning and executing that plan.

Right. Well I meant that the situations he were in were lucky; of course, succeeding in them once he was there took some skill. 

SchizoTyler wrote...

A very entertaining read. lol. 

Although I must say...HOLY WALL O' TEXT BATMAN!

Lol thank you for reading still. Glad you enjoyed it.

[JShepppp]

bump

[Jaze55]

I read this last night.... awesome by the way.

[JShepppp]

MassEffected555 wrote...

I read this last night.... awesome by the way.

Lol thanks. Bumping this again...man forums move fast here.

[antony1197]

JShepppp wrote...

MassEffected555 wrote...

I read this last night.... awesome by the way.

Lol thanks. Bumping this again...man forums move fast here.

Yeah i read the whole thing too

[JShepppp]

antony1197 wrote...

JShepppp wrote...

MassEffected555 wrote...

I read this last night.... awesome by the way.

Lol thanks. Bumping this again...man forums move fast here.

Yeah i read the whole thing too

Nice, any thoughts?

[Zing Freelancer]

Now that was funny as hell.

Garrus turned into Batman and Omage is his little Gotham City.

[Jaze55]

JShepppp wrote...

antony1197 wrote...

JShepppp wrote...

MassEffected555 wrote...

I read this last night.... awesome by the way.

Lol thanks. Bumping this again...man forums move fast here.

Yeah i read the whole thing too

Nice, any thoughts?

I'd just like to say thanks for this and it's funny as hell .... and it's a good point. I think I might have Shepard but my next lottery ticket.

[Carlthestrange]

Shepard is not lucky. Shepard is a computer game character.

[Kenta Shuuichi]

Impressive. Laughed most of the time, it was so good XD.

[shrimprahmen]

loved this post especially Bean Dip of Galactic Organic Harvesting

[lillitheris]

I find myself annoyed at the fortuitous happenstances in stories quite often. Then, I remind myself that if not for those, the story would be really short.

This is only a problem because we have so many stories now, and our minds are conflicted by all these low probabilities that appear to coexist.

Nice text, though!

[JShepppp]

MassEffected555 wrote...

JShepppp wrote...

antony1197 wrote...

JShepppp wrote...

MassEffected555 wrote...

I read this last night.... awesome by the way.

Lol thanks. Bumping this again...man forums move fast here.

Yeah i read the whole thing too

Nice, any thoughts?

I'd just like to say thanks for this and it's funny as hell .... and it's a good point. I think I might have Shepard but my next lottery ticket.

I admit I had a bit of fun writing this so it's good to see others had a bit of fun reading it

[daisekihan]

Shepard is not so much lucky, as he is able to revert his consciousness to a point several minutes in the past whenever he dies. As he replays his own death time and again, he eventually learns what he needs to do to survive, or else just gets lucky.

[AtlasMickey]

Look, I work at a casino, so maybe I expect a more cut-to-the-chase version of luck, but I'm reading this seeing a lot of exposition but no real concrete moment where you're saying Shepard got lucky. Boil it down to some moments where it could have gone the other way.

[JShepppp]

AtlasMickey wrote...

Look, I work at a casino, so maybe I expect a more cut-to-the-chase version of luck, but I'm reading this seeing a lot of exposition but no real concrete moment where you're saying Shepard got lucky. Boil it down to some moments where it could have gone the other way.

Sorry, my bad I realized it almost sounded like a rant of sorts. I love ME, just to clear things up. My sarcastic tone isn't meant to attack it. I updated the original post.

Modifié par JShepppp, 28 mars 2012 - 02:56 .

[JShepppp]

WOW forums move fast here

[Unit-Alpha]

Very nice, and quite hilarious.

[JShepppp]

Unit-Alpha wrote...

Very nice, and quite hilarious.

Thanks

[thehomeworld]

Now I want to see this done in animation OP.