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[Sarevok Synder]

Daaaamn; that's some wall of text!

At this stage I'm pretty sure there was no master 'Indoc' plan on Biowares part, it was just atrocious/lazy writing. That's not to say they won't adopt the Indoctrination theory to save face, only time will tell.

[I am KROGAN]

STAG IRONHIDE wrote...

I am KROGAN wrote...

Holy mother of god, this is an essay. Seriously, it's not a fact, it's a theory.

If you don't personally believe it, fine, whatever, I could care less. The need for a Graduate School-esque dissertation "disproving" it is totally and completely pointless for one reason: the people who subscribe to the indoctrination THEORY are not going to have their minds changed by an essay describing why every piece of evidence is false. What you're trying to do (this may be a terrible analogy) is disprove the existence of God. People who believe are hard as hell to convince.

I'm glad you felt that it was worth your time to write this so that you could find people who agree with you on the internet (or spur disagreements).


My TL:DR:

TL:DR


Edit: Grammar

Agreed. There's no way I'm going to read something that long about the ending, ME is supposed to be a cheesy and exciting space opera series, the fact that someone has  to go that far into trying to figure the ending shows that Bioware changed their minds about what they wanted the series to be at the last second.

Glad someone shares my sentiments.  Everything gets taken too far on teh interwebz.

[lookingglassmind]

Hello, everyone!

I represent a website created by the original contributors of the Indoctrination Theory (Byne, lookingglassmind, BlackDragonBane) on the BSN. Called Theorycrafting HUB, it is a site purely dedicated to theory and philosophy in gaming and other story-telling mediums. As such, I feel as though this thread perfectly expemplifies the focus of our site.

http://w11.zetaboard.../forum/3225589/

We created the website in order to act as a more intellectual, leisurely, slow-paced mirror to the BSN -- we saw that many quality posts and threads were being buried due to the heavy traffic load of the BSN.

We are looking for intelligent, controversial opinions -- that are willing to explore concepts and theory -- to contribute to our growing community. Many of the posters that have responded to this thread and to the OP himself/herself exactly represent the type of individuals we are hoping to include in our celebration of gaming theory!

From the team at Theorycrafting HUB: we sincerely hope that you will consider our invitation to join our community, and add all of your excellent thoughts to the information already gathered there. Bring your brilliance to help Theorycrafting HUB grow and become established in the gaming community!

Sincerely,

lookingglassmind

Modifié par lookingglassmind, 31 mars 2012 - 11:00 .

[KosakNZ]

The OP spends a lot of time on irrelevance before he even starts arguing his point which seems mostly to get the choir on side, but doesn't really help anyone. You can use arguments of denial and wishful thinking for both sides of the debate.

The
meat appears to be occams razor and begging the question, others have
already gone over occams razor. But the begging the question argument
doesn't really wash. We didn't start with "Indoctrination theory is
true" we started with "This doesn't seem real".

Each scene involving that child (in all forms) goes out of its way to give subtle and not so subtle hints it isn't real, from the way the kid talks, the fact that Anderson doesn't notice him and none of the soldiers helping people onto the shuttle notice him. All this stuff in act 1 just seemed "off" and this is long before anyone brought up IT, were you not weirded out by this when you first played?

Then as soon as we get hit by that beam near the end we have the same thing. The game seems to be going out of its way to make things seem unreal. Harbinger legs it to the conduit to prevent the assualt team getting in and then just wanders off letting not just a seriously injured Shepard waltz in, but a completely unharmed Anderson as well. In the background we have Coates stating that everyone in the assualt was killed, yet the first reaction the player is going to have is "I'm not dead yet! What are you talking about?".

So after the enemy who jumped in to stop us reaching the conduit let us reach the conduit, we end up in two different places that are right where we need to be, and apparently the reapers have been kind enough to configure the walls to let us go right where they don't want to let us go (and who has heard to the walls just moving around willy nilly on the citadel before?). Oh and not only are there no guards in here, but no guards are following us up. I don't know about you, but I certainly wasn't expecting the interior of the citadel to have zero reaper/husk presence.

And on it goes, mysteriously transferring gunshot wounds, evelators appearing out of nowhere to take us to talk to a ghostly being who says a bunch of crazy stuff we don't argue with for some reason. The entire sequence seems unreal.

So once you come to the conclusion it is not real, you're left with the question "What the hell is going on?"

[Shaftell]

I still believe it was a giraffe damnit!!

Seriously speaking, you're very passionate and dedicated fan to write such a long wall of text on this topic. I am willingly accepting the fact that i'm tricking myself into believing IT. You guys remember the popular movie called Inception? Where people were so confused... Couldn't find the closure they wanted... What did they do? They came up with many theories as to what happened so they could get closure... I don't care what they do in the ending, so long as there is an ending. I am going to reset my brain and act like it didn't all happen and happily play it again...For instance, in games where we make big choices and don't like the result...what do we do? Hit the magic reset button in our brains and reload the game and act what previously happened, didn't happen, so we can acheive our desired result. This is how I view IT and the whole Mass Effect ending debacle...

[FemmeShep]

This really does remind me of the placebo effect. It's funny how people will make things up, and go along with it, to the point it becomes their reality.

There are folks out there that 100% believe IT as fact, and have claimed BioWare to be geniuses. What if it turns out, IT wasn't real, and it was the players that completely made it up. The fact that they called BioWare genius and made something up that wasn't there, but then went on to accept is as factual is very telling about human nature.

This is not to say, I think IT is not real. I won't go as far as to side with OP in that regard. But I also think it's theory/speculation. And that's what people should accept it as.

Modifié par FemmeShep, 31 mars 2012 - 11:10 .

[Sarevok Synder]

Shaftell wrote...

I still believe it was a giraffe damnit!!

Seriously speaking, you're very passionate and dedicated fan to write such a long wall of text on this topic. I am willingly accepting the fact that i'm tricking myself into believing IT. You guys remember the popular movie called Inception? Where people were so confused... Couldn't find the closure they wanted... What did they do? They came up with many theories as to what happened so they could get closure... I don't care what they do in the ending, so long as there is an ending. I am going to reset my brain and act like it didn't all happen and happily play it again...For instance, in games where we make big choices and don't like the result...what do we do? Hit the magic reset button in our brains and reload the game and act what previously happened, didn't happen, so we can acheive our desired result. This is how I view IT and the whole Mass Effect ending debacle...

With regards to Inception, he was awake in the end. He only had a wedding ring on in the dream world. He wasn't wearing a ring in the ending scene.

[Bronze65]

Two points.

1. The indoctrination theory doesn't say Shepard is indoctrinated. It says they are TRYING to indoctrinate him.

2. I refuse to believe that 99% of beautiful writing suddenly goes haywire at the end and we're fed what we think is garbage. I choose to believe a theory supports said ending and the indoctrination theory is by far and large, the closest.

[RussianSpy27]

Eviscerator03 wrote...

But hopefully at the very least some readers will learn a thing or two about critical thinking and analysis- not t

Dude, very briefly: 

(1) In addition to everything else, the child who was allegedly playing on grass with a ship like Luke Skywalker runs through a LOCKED RED DOORof a building. -  FF to 7:15 - the room gets destroyed and the airduct he allegedly crawls into has an elecrocusion warning (FF to 8:55)

(2) The point is not that you can't shoot Anderson (I agree with you that such a point is moot) but that a regular gun has unlimited ammo (unheard of concept in the series).

If it's so insignificant given the whole experience of a badly injured Shepard, why include the slow motion battle with husks before reachng the beam? Injured Shepard can't reload? As you say: extremely weak. He was strong enough to walk so far and shoot, he can reload. 

(3) You fail to explain the secret ending with Shepard being among Earthly Rubble following the destruction option only (if I didn't notice it in your essay, my apologies). 

Modifié par RussianSpy27, 31 mars 2012 - 11:39 .

[KosakNZ]

RussianSpy27 wrote...

If it's so insignificant given the whole experience of a badly injured Shepard, why include the slow motion battle with husks before reachng the beam? Injured Shepard can't reload? As you say: extremely weak. He was strong enough to walk so far and shoot, he can reload.

Yep he can reload, and he does if you hit the reload button.

[Rafe34]

recentio wrote...

Rafe34 wrote...

Ziggeh wrote...

Rafe34 wrote...

Exactly. Occam's Razor does not apply in video games, or anything fiction. Much of the time, it's actually the reverse- the more complicated explanation is the correct one. Glad I'm not the only one to point this out.

I could get quite worked up about this sort of thing. I've started calling it "cargo cult debating", where people use things they've seen in successful arguments as if they're interchangable and powerful in all situations. The number of times people have misrepresented my point and then called it a "straw man".....

That... is a very good name for it.

And yes, people do that with IT all the time. The video game journalists are doing that with the Retake movement. Mischaracterize what the other guy is saying to make him look ridiculous.

But IT *is* failing to apply Occam's razor to real life -- the real life idea that BioWare intended IT is incredibly convoluted and is *exactly* what is being claimed.

Sure. But A) I doubt many ITers actually believe BW intended this anymore. And Occam's Razor is way overused by people who don't really understand that he never meant it to be a catch-all. It just means, in general, all other things being equal, NOT *every single time*, all other things being equal... it's not a law, and it's not meant to be taken as such.

When applying to a company making a fictitous game, Occam's Razor really doesn't work. Game plots are nearly always far more convoluted than real life "plots."

[Mbednar]

Here's my take. It can be argued for either side

The current game is riddled with plot holes

Using everyone's evidence against the Indoc Theory can confirm that it would be full of plot holes if it were true.

-----------------------------------------------------------

So either the writers just poorly thought out the game as is.

Or they are using the Indoc Theory and its full of plot holes as well

Until Bioware gives the word, nothing substantial can be proven or disproven on either side due to Bioware's pattern of inconsistencies in the game.

Modifié par Mbednar, 01 avril 2012 - 12:03 .

[Rdubs]

Bronze65 wrote...

2. I refuse to believe that 99% of beautiful writing suddenly goes haywire at the end and we're fed what we think is garbage.

I know, right?  It's almost like one or two people decided to ditch the ending which was originally laid out and instead write a brand new one, but they were so confident in their ability to do so (or were afraid of negative feedback) that they overrode and bypassed the controls and second-checks that were present in all of the rest of the game's writing.

[Devos]

As much as the rather floppy logic of IT irks me I've got a feeling in part it will be right. As I noted earlier in the thread hallucination is a cheap catch all explanation, not just for fans in denial but for cornered writers looking for a way out. When the ending is revisited I strongly suspect hallucination will be used as a soft ret-con device...

at which point ITist claim they were right all along even though the vast majority of their reasoning and assertions will be wrong.

[AlexMBrennan]

It goes without saying of course that if we can prove an item of evidence is only supporting a theory if the theory is true, then it is an example of begging the question and must be discarded

Could you explain that in a bit more detail? As it is, I don't think that's true and simply introduces a bias against one of the hypotheses.

E.g. the teleporting squad mate example. You claim that it's adequately explained by the "Bioware screwed up" hypothesis but can't be used to support "indoctrination hypothesis" because that would require you to assume that IH is true - ignoring the fact that you it only explains the facts if you assume BSUH as well.

At the end of the day, the teleporting squad mate is adequately explained by both competing hypotheses so my posteriors would be unchanged. What we'd need is stuff that cannot be explained by IH to reject it (e.g. "Buy more DLC" message) or stuff that cannot be explained by BSUH to accept it (still waiting).

[nevar00]

Why are people still desperately trying to poke flaws in this?

Yes I doubt it was intentional but Bioware has an here as it basically retcons the entire ending, more or less and allows them to do it right. Is it perfect? No, but it certainly makes more sense than that mess we already have.

[thefallen2far]

STAG IRONHIDE wrote...

If Indoctrination is true,  it means the destroy ending where he gasps for breath is the only true ending and the Reapers are still a threat. Synthesis/Control means you died on Earth while Indoctrinated.

So that means that even if Indoctrination is the case, Bioware released an incomplete game.

They did release an incomplete game.  A character was missing, you had to go online to multiplayer to activate most of the endings and they have other levels which were never resolved that have to be released.... so yes, it was an incomplete game.

[Devos]

Rdubs wrote...

Bronze65 wrote...

2. I refuse to believe that 99% of beautiful writing suddenly goes haywire at the end and we're fed what we think is garbage.

I know, right?  It's almost like one or two people decided to ditch the ending which was originally laid out and instead write a brand new one, but they were so confident in their ability to do so (or were afraid of negative feedback) that they overrode and bypassed the controls and second-checks that were present in all of the rest of the game's writing.

I've got an alternative theory I call it Failure of Process Theory...

http://www.gameranx....ersial-ending/' class='bbc_url' title='Lien externe' rel='nofollow external'>Exhbit A

I have nothing to do with the ending ...

No other writer did, either, except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.

And honestly, it kind of shows.

http://social.biowar...dex/10731191/1' class='bbc_url' title='Lien externe' rel='nofollow external'>Exhbit B

since the ending is typically the last thing that gets worked on, it tends to receive the worst of the resource crunch. Which is incredibly counter-productive, I know-- nobody needs to tell us that.

Down side of the theory is that its even more depressing than the ending.

Modifié par Devos, 01 avril 2012 - 12:28 .

[Devos]

*cough* whoops, move along.

Modifié par Devos, 01 avril 2012 - 12:28 .

[DarthSyphilis59]

You don't like the indoctrination theory, who gives a rat's ass. Some people like it. It's neither right or wrong because you said so.

[Dresden867]

OP: I salute you for this extremely detailed, well-examined post.

[Rdubs]

Devos wrote...

I've got an alternative theory I call it Failure of Process Theory...

LOL trust me that's what I was referring to.  I just try to not reference the information directly because the thread door men like to close threads where it is brought up.

Except I call it the "ipso facto" theory - basically, because the two head hanchos were writing it themselves, and no one tells them what to do, any material they would come up with by definition does not need any input.  It's also called "hubris."

Modifié par Rdubs, 01 avril 2012 - 12:48 .

[TeaKae421]

The article is devastating to the indoc theory IMO.

The assumptions and circular reasoning have been evident since it was first proposed, but this article presents the counter-argument better than I've seen thus far. From the moment indoc theory was popularly endorsed it has taken on more and more characteristics similar to that of your average 9/11 or JFK conspiracy, down to the prickly reaction you receive when you so much as dare voice dissent to the almighty theory (not from everyone of course).

I always felt much of the *evidence* for the theory could be explained away by plot convenience, poor writing, the reality of how games are made etc. It has always been the much more likely explanation, unfortunately, it just isn't a very interesting one, so hasn't been taken up with quite the same level of zeal as the indoctrination theory has.

Modifié par TeaKae421, 01 avril 2012 - 12:48 .

[Femlob]

Devos wrote...

Rdubs wrote...

Bronze65 wrote...

2. I refuse to believe that 99% of beautiful writing suddenly goes haywire at the end and we're fed what we think is garbage.

I know, right?  It's almost like one or two people decided to ditch the ending which was originally laid out and instead write a brand new one, but they were so confident in their ability to do so (or were afraid of negative feedback) that they overrode and bypassed the controls and second-checks that were present in all of the rest of the game's writing.

I've got an alternative theory I call it Failure of Process Theory...

Exhbit A

I have nothing to do with the ending ...

No other writer did, either, except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.

And honestly, it kind of shows.

Exhbit B

since the ending is typically the last thing that gets worked on, it tends to receive the worst of the resource crunch. Which is incredibly counter-productive, I know-- nobody needs to tell us that.

Down side of the theory is that its even more depressing than the ending.

Quoted for truth.

[Powerpetzi]

So, one question, OP ... sorry if you already answered this in another post, not gonna read through 16 pages of replies ....

Where's your big evidence that IT cannot be right? Your "security camera footage of the defendant in a hotel thousands of miles away at the time of the murder", as you so eloquently put it?

You may or may not have debunked the evidence supporting IT (relying as singularily on "begging the question" as a bible nut relies on "the existance of god" in their arguments, if I may add), but you failed to produce that strong evidence that overrides all the weak evidence hinting otherwise.

As it stands, your post made for an interesting read, but you didn't prove or unprove anything.