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[Taboo]

 This is a response to the participation of Mr. Gamble in a thread I created yesterday., I wish to personally address my own issues with the ending and why I believe they failed. I have already sent an eleven page essay to the Bioware offices, detailing my feelings on art and Mass Effect and as such this thread will not contain any discussion of art. This is also a response to the pro-ending crowd and those who feel the only topic worth discussing is the Organics v. Synthetics debate.


Multicolored Explosions and the Madness of Crowds.

Mr. Woo stated in a previous thread that he felt the trilogy ended with something more than an explosion of three colors, I agree, the criticism is too glib. The problem I fear is far, far worse.

1. Hope

I've seen my fair share of endings that contain no hope but absolutly nothing compares to the ending of Mass Effect. The ending quite literally throws out the preceding one hundred plus hours by bull-rushing to an end that implies above all things, that everyone is going to die. As hokey as it is to say, Mass Effect was always about hope in the face of impossible odds. Leaving billions of sentient beings stranded in the Sol system is not very hopeful, nor is the obvious fact that the Normandy is going to have an incestuous commune on their hands. Your ending essentually suggests that everyone is going to die a horrible, malnurished death and the other a terrible, genetically laced problemed one.

2. Humanism

This is the key theme that was dismissed that really, really, sealed the deal for me. The greatest strength of the Mass Effect series for me was the ability to humanize everyone, including the villains. No one was belittled, no one was treated as less than an equal. In the end I have the option of commiting genocide against a race of synthetics. This goes against absolutly everthing you have established on Rannoch with Legion. Not only this ending bugs me though, in the synthetic ending you suggest we meld with synthetics, becoming a new race of beings, the ultimate in the universe. I don't need to make a comparison here because the real world one is already clear enough. Fascism was never part of the Mass Effect universe before, why now? In control, you suggest that a lifeform has the ability to maintain dominance over another as a matter of principle, regardless of past actions. I hate the Reapers as much as anyone but I refuse to become lord and master over any sentiant being. This too goes against everything you established beforehand.

3. Basic thought processess.

The ending as it stands is so full of so many plot errors it isn't even funny. I'm very willing to suspend disbelief (Explosions in Space for example are a big one) but when you go against established canon that you established, literally in the previous episode (Arrival) you can't expect everything to blow over.

A. Mass Relays

It is established in Arrival that the explosion of a Mass Relay will obliterate everything inside the system it is in. Nothing more needs to be said here as the evidence is incontrivertable.

B. The Citadel

Based upon the facts I have received from people on the forum, the citadel itself is 45km wide. In the past an aseteroid of 10km crashed into the earth causing a planetary ice age. Where are the pieces of the exploded citadel going to go? Probably not Mars! What is going to happen when three and a half times the amount of the asteroid that caused the ice age crashes down on Earth? I don't know but the implications are not pleasent.

C. Food

You have billions of people stranded in the Sol System some with certain types of food requirements. Do you expect the people on Earth to grow the food? With all the pieces of the citadel on top of them?

I'll expand on this later. I just can't bring myself to type anymore.