1895 réponses à ce sujet

[Reiisha]

Recent AngryJoe vid does have a good point...

The ending was forced on Bioware by EA so they could eventually order a Mass Effect 4.

Instead of the closure and wildly different endings we were promised earlier, EA forced Bioware to change it into a very general 'open' ending so they could give you ME4.

Unless....

Unless ME4 ends up being the indoctrination theory explanation. >_>

[Kanon777]

wicked_being wrote...

tobito113 wrote...

This is the most valuable thread in the entire forum, we cant let it go out of the first page...

My goodness I can't believe I'm quoting you but you're right. This thread has improved the mood in the forum substantially. People should read this.

[pikey1969]

tobito113 wrote...

wicked_being wrote...

tobito113 wrote...

This is the most valuable thread in the entire forum, we cant let it go out of the first page...

My goodness I can't believe I'm quoting you but you're right. This thread has improved the mood in the forum substantially. People should read this.

lol and you wonder why people treat you like a troll when you're 'serious'.

aside from that point though, tyrion, nice choice.

[Anduin The Grey]

Reiisha wrote...

Recent AngryJoe vid does have a good point...

The ending was forced on Bioware by EA so they could eventually order a Mass Effect 4.

Instead of the closure and wildly different endings we were promised earlier, EA forced Bioware to change it into a very general 'open' ending so they could give you ME4.

Unless....

Unless ME4 ends up being the indoctrination theory explanation. >_>

They either will or they won't, the former is great fodder for I told you so and the latter will speak for itself. For all we know the entire end game was IT and we have to wait for 4 pieces of 'free' DLC episodes to finish telling the entire ME3 story.

This not only allows EA to pad out it's release quarterly sales, reintroduce IT without any need to retcon a single thing and without having to break the whole line of, we are not changing the endings. Millions of Xbox, PS3 and PC users indoctrinated by a game, that'd be genius in my view and any previously supposedly plot hole never existed.


I also doubt very much if at all it's likely to happen. Lots of clever folkes at Bioware, no-one will dispute that, am sure there's at least half a dozen things they can come up with that all accomplish the goals we'd all like to see, I say we let them get on with it and leave the speculation to speculators and try to ignore those who think they should be working in the writing team.
:P:P

[Capeo]

Reiisha wrote...

Recent AngryJoe vid does have a good point...

The ending was forced on Bioware by EA so they could eventually order a Mass Effect 4.

Instead of the closure and wildly different endings we were promised earlier, EA forced Bioware to change it into a very general 'open' ending so they could give you ME4.

Unless....

Unless ME4 ends up being the indoctrination theory explanation. >_>

The endings weren't forced on BW by EA.  These endings stretch all the way back to when Drew K was still on the ME team. 

[Persephone]

wicked_being wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

I am getting worried, so how does the stargazer scene fit into all of this?

This. I asked this on the previous page: can someone confirm that the Stargazer epilogue is 10,000 years into the future (and presumably no space-faring tech yet)?

Remember Liara planting her "project" detailing the entire struggle AND hailing Shep like a messiah nearly everywhere she possibly could? 

Maybe Stargazer/the people living on that world found a (damaged? Hence the "missing stories") copy of it & translated it as best they could?

That's my headcanon anyway.

[Valorefane Dragonwinter]

Capeo wrote...

The endings weren't forced on BW by EA.  These endings stretch all the way back to when Drew K was still on the ME team. 

Current ending is nothing like what Drew K. originally wrote up.  You can thank Hudson and Walters for the current endings.

EDIT:  Also, Tyrion FTW.

Modifié par Valorefane Dragonwinter, 09 avril 2012 - 03:34 .

[kimuji]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

eromelcm7 wrote...

This is quite interesting, so lets continue this logic. Given that synthetics are the ultimate outcome of tools, it would follow to negate the need/desire for physical tools (as stated above). But synthesis does not accomplish this.

The desire for a tool starts with simpler physical need. The Geth tool was created from the simpler physical need for labor (like agriculture). The desire for these tools is only a desire in the sense that survival dictates it. This is not laziness. Tools follow as a solution to survival, which is continues and thus the development of tools is a continues advance. Really, the only way to stop this advancement is to eliminate the pressure of survival. But synthesis is "the finale evolution of life" right? So no more pressure to survive right? Right? Not that I can see...

We are told that a new format of DNA is created through the combination of synthetics. So we still have some form of "DNA" in this ending -- this is important. This means we are still self-replicating life. Nothing has really changed here, survival is still a factor and thus the creation of tools is inevitable. The forms of matter used as a "framework" of life are irrelevant, merely existing in the physical world as life bounds you to its rules. The only real solution would be to transcend the physical. If anything, AI are the closest thing to "the finale evolution of life" because they exist as software, as Javik says, "outside of nature". By what logic would AI feel the need to create subservient AI? They have no physical needs.

But this all just an extrapolation on the assumption synthesis is supposed to stop the creation of new synthetics and synthetics are somehow inherently bad as asserted by the Catalyst.

I agree that need plays a role, but eventually it sees diminishing returns.  If you look at most of the Western world, I don't think a lot of developments come from any sort of survival need, but just from a need to be more efficient and whatnot. 

It'd be like my job at work, in that I could go in and manually test over a sequence of data on a day to day basis, or I can write up a simple C# app that does it for me and outputs the results I need automatically.  As a result, I'm free to kick up my feet and drink some lattes while lurking in the forum to see what the ME crowd is up to.  And doesn't that just make the world a better place? >.>

Jokes aside, from a survival perspective, I don't see it as being much of a focus for our innovation moving forward at this stage in our history.  How this applies to a species that has not transcended is something that is tricky to answer.

Glad to see you are still around. 

I don't think they (the writers) wanted us to think and philosophize so deep on our ways to use technology, the ending is more focused on what happens if our tools and creations become sentient. It is a very interesting topic indeed but still I don't think that humanity and organic species relying too much on technology is the Catalyst's point. If we need intelligent tools able understand orders and do what we want them to do then we are not building tools we are just looking for slaves to do the laborious jobs in our place. And here we're back on the explanation to "created will always rebel against the creator". I'm not a believer, but I guess if God created humanity only to do his laundry, build him a palace and do the cooking we would have rebelled at some point. ^^

Back to the "green ending", we've discussed the ethical and technical implications (even if for the technical part we have very few theories and explanations), there's still one thing to say, this ending is the one where Shepard fully accepts the Catalyst's logic.

The Catalyst claims he created the Reapers to prevent the synthetics rebellion from becoming the begining of organic life total extinction. He also says that harvested civilizations are "stored" and "ascend" into Reapers form. I have a hard time believing that because most harvested species end up into a husk-like forms and used as meat for the front lines, the huge sentient flag ships are all identical and seem to belong to the same unique species unlike the husks. So I don't believe they "store" and "preserve" harvested civilizations they just turn them into new devoted troops to help them wiping out the galaxy, just like the collectors are not an "archive" of the Prothean civilization they are just repurposed tools. The case of the ME2 huge human Reaper is a bit different, that's an attempt of evolution that's why they needed a species with a large genetic diversity and chose humans. Once again they were not trying to store and preserve humanity in order to keep their memory alive (damn who would believe they are actually doing this for an historical memory purpose...) they used it as mean to evolve and improve their own species. I can't believe anything else than the Catalyst trying to show an almost acceptable, and false, picture of the Reapers actions to Shepard in order to make him agree with the "green" solution. The Catalyst wants (or so he says) an end to what he believes to be an inevitable and eternal confrontation beteween organics and synthetics. From his perspective (flawed or not) the green ending is the "best" solution and all what he says is really pushing Shepard in that direction. There's another evidence that choosing this path is doing what the Reapers want. If you choose control you force the Reapes to retreat, and you can wipe them out with the destroy solution. In both case you stop them against their will. But this is very different with the fusion solution, you don't ask or force them to go away, they do it spontaneously they simply agree to retreat. Meaning they got what they wanted: that's mission complete for them. Choosing the fusion is basically saying that the Catalyst and the Reapers are right and Shepard just help them to do their job.

So that's why I believe a smart or a very reluctant to transhumanists theories Shepard would be very suspicious about this ending. It really sounds like a manipulation because it is pretty obvious that the Reapers are not "storing" the civilizations they harvest, there are clearly true Reapers and tools. The Sovereign/Harbinger class ships are the masters, the husks/marauders/banshees etc. are only tools and expendable troops, the Reapers use their downed enemies as an unlimited source of fresh soldiers. That's one of the main purposes of the harvested civilizations. Sometimes they use a specific species to improve themselves that's what they tried with humanity. The Reapers evolve and they know they have to because they know thay aren't invincible, Shepard's victory over Sovereign proved it. They know that they must always keep an edge over the civilizations they are harvesting, if they don't and get defeated their cycle will be broken and their goal (whatever it is, the Catalyst's motives could be their real motives) will be compromised. So harvesting has several purposes: building an army, evolving, and if what the Catalyst says is true, the very mean for "resetting" organic civilizations to an early stage of evolution. But it has nothing to do with "preserving" the exctincted species. This is just a convient way to make it look acceptable to Shepard's eyes, there's absolutely no such thing as an ascension for them. The true fate of the harvested species is: meat for the battle field, evolution material and used as ressources.

At this stage we can either believe the Catalyst is telling his true motives but lying on the means ( "ascension" etc.) to make it sound reasonable or believe he is lying on everything and that the Reapers have another purpose or nature. Maybe they're just something like an apex predator (Sovereign says they are the Apex of evolution) who preys on the galactic species using a very sophisticated trap (mass relays, the citadel etc...) and using a cyclic pattern in order to preserve their "food" and resources. There are probably many other possibilities but t is  impossible to truely believe in the "ascension" thing, they are not the keepers of the civilizations they harvest. The only thing on what the Catalyst may be sincere is his will to stop the "created/creator" issue. He may be lying on that but he can also believes in what he says. Both are possible.

I've been rather long... more on the next episode. 

Modifié par kimuji, 09 avril 2012 - 04:00 .

[Astralify]

Terror_K wrote...

You mean such as, "why did three of the most popular side characters (Shiala, Gianna Parasini and Kal-Reegar) get completely shafted in ME3?"

and

"Why was the main plot so completely linear?"

"Why are Cerberus a Mary-Sue group with unlimited resources and men, and the best equipment, while also being better at everything than every other species and faction in the game?"

"Why did proper conversation take a massive back-seat in ME3, especially after this was the biggest complaint about ME2 DLC squaddies?"

"Why no planet exploration and why were sidequests nothing but the same Citadel fetch-quests in different clothing?"

"Why did BioWare claim our choices would matter so often when they knew they wouldn't given their overall philosophy that's completely counter to that?"

"Why all the autodialogue and only two choices 90% of the time?"

"Why were there more Charm/Intimidate options on Noveria in ME1 than there were in the entirety of ME3?

"Why was the final game the most linear, shallow and choice-free of the trilogy when this was the one where you guys could apparently 'go nuts!' and there was nowhere to import from from here?"

"Why was every quest completely linear, with even less choices than in ME1 and ME2 as to how to go about it?"

[wicked_being]

Persephone wrote...

wicked_being wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

I am getting worried, so how does the stargazer scene fit into all of this?

This. I asked this on the previous page: can someone confirm that the Stargazer epilogue is 10,000 years into the future (and presumably no space-faring tech yet)?

Remember Liara planting her "project" detailing the entire struggle AND hailing Shep like a messiah nearly everywhere she possibly could? 

Maybe Stargazer/the people living on that world found a (damaged? Hence the "missing stories") copy of it & translated it as best they could?

That's my headcanon anyway.

And maybe the Stargazer isn't even human dun dun dun...

[Emberwake]

These explanations sound fine. In fact, they're the same explanations many pro-enders have been using to justify the current ending.

But now Bioware faces the same problem theu did: if these are the explanations you wanted why were they not better established earlier in the narrative?

[kimuji]

Lochias WH wrote...

These explanations sound fine. In fact, they're the same explanations many pro-enders have been using to justify the current ending.

But now Bioware faces the same problem theu did: if these are the explanations you wanted why were they not better established earlier in the narrative?

Are you talking about the stargazer or the the green ending?

[Kushan101]

pikey1969 wrote...

tobito113 wrote...

wicked_being wrote...

tobito113 wrote...

This is the most valuable thread in the entire forum, we cant let it go out of the first page...

My goodness I can't believe I'm quoting you but you're right. This thread has improved the mood in the forum substantially. People should read this.

lol and you wonder why people treat you like a troll when you're 'serious'.

aside from that point though, tyrion, nice choice.

Hardest I've laughed for at least a week, thanks for that

[Optimus J]

Pretty much give me, better saying IMPROVE my felling that Weekes is asking himself what the hell he is doing there. As do Jessica.
With such incompetent bosses blocking their talent.

Modifié par Optimus J, 09 avril 2012 - 04:53 .

[Dorryn]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That was sort of the impression I got from why the Geth were created. Wasn't Legion originally an agricultural unit? Tali refers to them as tools, but once they became sentient they were now slaves.

It is implied during the Geth Server mission. Are you confirming that the geth platform we see reaching for the sniper rifle really is Legion?

[EnforcerWRX7]

Bioware's biggest problem now is making the ending make sense.  No amount of glitter and gold can make the ripped off desu ex ending any better.

I'll say it right now: I have no hope for the clarifications extended cut to make this any better...

BUT I will check it out when it comes out simply on curiosity sake because its free. These interviews tell me two things:

1. They were constantly being pressured for time and resources. A lot was cut.
2. They know the ending isn't that great. They won't say it but now they are looking into ways to appease the fans a bit more (i.e. the citadel has some safe sections, etc). You can tell from the interviews because they have re-conned in some assumptions that I know were not there at first.


All of this does scream one thing though: "We made a generic ending so we can continue the series".

They got permission for ME4 (in some form) and they need to continue the galaxy.

I thikn

Modifié par EnforcerWRX7, 09 avril 2012 - 05:00 .

[Tirranek]

Persephone wrote...

wicked_being wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

I am getting worried, so how does the stargazer scene fit into all of this?

This. I asked this on the previous page: can someone confirm that the Stargazer epilogue is 10,000 years into the future (and presumably no space-faring tech yet)?

Remember Liara planting her "project" detailing the entire struggle AND hailing Shep like a messiah nearly everywhere she possibly could? 

Maybe Stargazer/the people living on that world found a (damaged? Hence the "missing stories") copy of it & translated it as best they could?

That's my headcanon anyway.

Disinclined to believe this only because I reckon without any sort of enduring digital archive, it's really unlikely evidence will last 5000 years, or at least stay complete. The fact that the story has remained intact suggests there is an advanced society of some sort.

Then again, the whole Stargazer scene seemed strange to me.

[scolack]

would love to have gotten a non-paraphrased form of this interview! but great nontheless hard to swallow the idea that weekes put forth that Casey and 1 other guy were the sole writers for the endings? something like that...cmon now..

[Moogberg]

scolack wrote...

would love to have gotten a non-paraphrased form of this interview! but great nontheless hard to swallow the idea that weekes put forth that Casey and 1 other guy were the sole writers for the endings? something like that...cmon now..

It wasn't an interview, it was an informal chat. Giving an interview kind of makes every word the official word of a company, and it can create problems down the road (remember Casey Hudson's promise that it wouldn't be a A-B-C ending). That's also why Weekes distances himself from the words he's supposedly spoken.

If Weekes mentioned (then retracted) that the whole London/Citadel mission was written by two guys, it's obviously not because he's just disgruntled, that's because part of the writing team was also dissatisfied and he wanted to get that collective disappointement off his chest, for a little while, even if he took heat for that. If he was just unhappy with the management, he'd leave to join another company. He wants the writing to go more smoothly next time, while maintaining a relationship with the other writers.

[DasHamburglar]

Michael Gamble wrote...

Luiginius wrote...

Weekes said those were his statements seen through the eyes of the person asking the questions.
I don't know what other confirmation you could ask for. In no way is it accurate, Weekes said that himself, but it's still the best PR piece concerning bioware.
Done by a fan, answers given by a man in the writing team, no pr people in sight.
Paints a pretty clear picture what is the other issue bioware is having besides the ending.

You know, most of us in game development would love to have all the time in the world to make our games, but that doesn't mean we put something out that we don't believe is quality.

As for some of this specifics of the questions...

Of course joker wouldn't abandon Shepard for no reason, and yes - let's not underestimate FTL here let's also not forget about quantum communication...or the incredible store of food rations that the Normandy has.

Cmon - give us some time with the DLC, and let's try to avoid hatin' on Patrick or Jessica:P

FTL can only travel 12 lightyears a day (it says so in the codex), i did the math, and it would take over 27 years to cross the milky way, and that's if it is a straight line. palaven and tuchanka aren't far from earth, but it's still probably five years to get there from earth. Thessia is farther, and rannoch is probably a good 20 year journey. being able to communicate instantly over distance (quantum communication) is nice, but there are thousands of ships stuck over earth years away from their homes. without the mass relays the galactic civilization is broken.

[Allan Schumacher]

Dorryn wrote...

It is implied during the Geth Server mission. Are you confirming that the geth platform we see reaching for the sniper rifle really is Legion?

Haha I was curious about it.  A friend of mine said it was (I don't know if he saw something I missed or if he just felt more strongly about it) and since I was already open to the idea I figured it was probably the case

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 09 avril 2012 - 07:36 .

[AllThatJazz]

Persephone wrote...

wicked_being wrote...

G Kevin wrote...

I am getting worried, so how does the stargazer scene fit into all of this?

This. I asked this on the previous page: can someone confirm that the Stargazer epilogue is 10,000 years into the future (and presumably no space-faring tech yet)?

Remember Liara planting her "project" detailing the entire struggle AND hailing Shep like a messiah nearly everywhere she possibly could? 

Maybe Stargazer/the people living on that world found a (damaged? Hence the "missing stories") copy of it & translated it as best they could?

That's my headcanon anyway.

That's what I assumed when I first finished the game. I was honestly surprised when I read all the forum posts about the Stargazer being descended from the Normandy crew etc, which then led to all the Tali/Garrus starvation horror, and the 'everyone will be an idiot within a few generations' etc. I had not picked up on any of that stuff.

@DasHamburglar - I have to say I disagree I think Galactic civilisation is set back, certainly, but not broken at all. Turians and Krogan could get back home relatively quickly - Turians could adapt some Quarian Liveship tech to sustain them on the journey, and Krogan can eat almost anything so sustenance wouldn't be a problem. Asari live for a thousand years, so taking a decade or more to get back home won't exactly feel that long to them. The only ones who face a huge journey are the Quarians - and they've lived their entire lives on a flotilla, they have excellent and well-established means of feeding and fuelling themselves - and they have something huge to look forward to at the end of the journey, which is a reclaimed homeworld.

Also, Earth will have a much, much diminished population, meaning that there will pretty much be room for those who want to stay (unless they are krogan, they need to leave).

Plus, research will start in earnest once individual civilsations have recovered a bit - faster FTL travel, research into rebuilding the Relays or finding alternatives. They'll get there -  it'll just take a while, which you'd expect after the biggest war the galaxy has seen for 50,000 years

[Silpheed58]

kimuji wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

eromelcm7 wrote...

This is quite interesting, so lets continue this logic. Given that synthetics are the ultimate outcome of tools, it would follow to negate the need/desire for physical tools (as stated above). But synthesis does not accomplish this.

The desire for a tool starts with simpler physical need. The Geth tool was created from the simpler physical need for labor (like agriculture). The desire for these tools is only a desire in the sense that survival dictates it. This is not laziness. Tools follow as a solution to survival, which is continues and thus the development of tools is a continues advance. Really, the only way to stop this advancement is to eliminate the pressure of survival. But synthesis is "the finale evolution of life" right? So no more pressure to survive right? Right? Not that I can see...

We are told that a new format of DNA is created through the combination of synthetics. So we still have some form of "DNA" in this ending -- this is important. This means we are still self-replicating life. Nothing has really changed here, survival is still a factor and thus the creation of tools is inevitable. The forms of matter used as a "framework" of life are irrelevant, merely existing in the physical world as life bounds you to its rules. The only real solution would be to transcend the physical. If anything, AI are the closest thing to "the finale evolution of life" because they exist as software, as Javik says, "outside of nature". By what logic would AI feel the need to create subservient AI? They have no physical needs.

But this all just an extrapolation on the assumption synthesis is supposed to stop the creation of new synthetics and synthetics are somehow inherently bad as asserted by the Catalyst.

I agree that need plays a role, but eventually it sees diminishing returns.  If you look at most of the Western world, I don't think a lot of developments come from any sort of survival need, but just from a need to be more efficient and whatnot. 

It'd be like my job at work, in that I could go in and manually test over a sequence of data on a day to day basis, or I can write up a simple C# app that does it for me and outputs the results I need automatically.  As a result, I'm free to kick up my feet and drink some lattes while lurking in the forum to see what the ME crowd is up to.  And doesn't that just make the world a better place? >.>

Jokes aside, from a survival perspective, I don't see it as being much of a focus for our innovation moving forward at this stage in our history.  How this applies to a species that has not transcended is something that is tricky to answer.

Glad to see you are still around. 

I don't think they (the writers) wanted us to think and philosophize so deep on our ways to use technology, the ending is more focused on what happens if our tools and creations become sentient. It is a very interesting topic indeed but still I don't think that humanity and organic species relying too much on technology is the Catalyst's point. If we need intelligent tools able understand orders and do what we want them to do then we are not building tools we are just looking for slaves to do the laborious jobs in our place. And here we're back on the explanation to "created will always rebel against the creator". I'm not a believer, but I guess if God created humanity only to do his laundry, build him a palace and do the cooking we would have rebelled at some point. ^^

Back to the "green ending", we've discussed the ethical and technical implications (even if for the technical part we have very few theories and explanations), there's still one thing to say, this ending is the one where Shepard fully accepts the Catalyst's logic.

The Catalyst claims he created the Reapers to prevent the synthetics rebellion from becoming the begining of organic life total extinction. He also says that harvested civilizations are "stored" and "ascend" into Reapers form. I have a hard time believing that because most harvested species end up into a husk-like forms and used as meat for the front lines, the huge sentient flag ships are all identical and seem to belong to the same unique species unlike the husks. So I don't believe they "store" and "preserve" harvested civilizations they just turn them into new devoted troops to help them wiping out the galaxy, just like the collectors are not an "archive" of the Prothean civilization they are just repurposed tools. The case of the ME2 huge human Reaper is a bit different, that's an attempt of evolution that's why they needed a species with a large genetic diversity and chose humans. Once again they were not trying to store and preserve humanity in order to keep their memory alive (damn who would believe they are actually doing this for an historical memory purpose...) they used it as mean to evolve and improve their own species. I can't believe anything else than the Catalyst trying to show an almost acceptable, and false, picture of the Reapers actions to Shepard in order to make him agree with the "green" solution. The Catalyst wants (or so he says) an end to what he believes to be an inevitable and eternal confrontation beteween organics and synthetics. From his perspective (flawed or not) the green ending is the "best" solution and all what he says is really pushing Shepard in that direction. There's another evidence that choosing this path is doing what the Reapers want. If you choose control you force the Reapes to retreat, and you can wipe them out with the destroy solution. In both case you stop them against their will. But this is very different with the fusion solution, you don't ask or force them to go away, they do it spontaneously they simply agree to retreat. Meaning they got what they wanted: that's mission complete for them. Choosing the fusion is basically saying that the Catalyst and the Reapers are right and Shepard just help them to do their job.

So that's why I believe a smart or a very reluctant to transhumanists theories Shepard would be very suspicious about this ending. It really sounds like a manipulation because it is pretty obvious that the Reapers are not "storing" the civilizations they harvest, there are clearly true Reapers and tools. The Sovereign/Harbinger class ships are the masters, the husks/marauders/banshees etc. are only tools and expendable troops, the Reapers use their downed enemies as an unlimited source of fresh soldiers. That's one of the main purposes of the harvested civilizations. Sometimes they use a specific species to improve themselves that's what they tried with humanity. The Reapers evolve and they know they have to because they know thay aren't invincible, Shepard's victory over Sovereign proved it. They know that they must always keep an edge over the civilizations they are harvesting, if they don't and get defeated their cycle will be broken and their goal (whatever it is, the Catalyst's motives could be their real motives) will be compromised. So harvesting has several purposes: building an army, evolving, and if what the Catalyst says is true, the very mean for "resetting" organic civilizations to an early stage of evolution. But it has nothing to do with "preserving" the exctincted species. This is just a convient way to make it look acceptable to Shepard's eyes, there's absolutely no such thing as an ascension for them. The true fate of the harvested species is: meat for the battle field, evolution material and used as ressources.

At this stage we can either believe the Catalyst is telling his true motives but lying on the means ( "ascension" etc.) to make it sound reasonable or believe he is lying on everything and that the Reapers have another purpose or nature. Maybe they're just something like an apex predator (Sovereign says they are the Apex of evolution) who preys on the galactic species using a very sophisticated trap (mass relays, the citadel etc...) and using a cyclic pattern in order to preserve their "food" and resources. There are probably many other possibilities but t is  impossible to truely believe in the "ascension" thing, they are not the keepers of the civilizations they harvest. The only thing on what the Catalyst may be sincere is his will to stop the "created/creator" issue. He may be lying on that but he can also believes in what he says. Both are possible.

I've been rather long... more on the next episode. 

Also, if you think on it, organics that become reapers become bound to the "Will" of the star kid and thus become his tools "a la" enslaved.  And in this since the creators are then enslaved by the creation.

[Silpheed58]

Dorryn wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That was sort of the impression I got from why the Geth were created. Wasn't Legion originally an agricultural unit? Tali refers to them as tools, but once they became sentient they were now slaves.

It is implied during the Geth Server mission. Are you confirming that the geth platform we see reaching for the sniper rifle really is Legion?

The was what I got from that memory module.

[T-Dawg135]

The very fact that there is so much speculation regarding the endings proves their failure as narrative. A well written narrative, even one that was designed to leave things vague, will never create so many questions with so many options, especially concerning things of such dramatic importance. Take for example the movie Inception. At the end the audience is left asking themselves if the main character really has rejoined his family or if he's still trapped in the dream world. This leads to speculation and discussion, as intended.

What the ending of Inception does NOT do is leave you with fifty other questions. Whether it's real or a dream, the main character is with his family. The audience is left to believe that he is happy and with his family, regardless. In spite of the "true" ending, the audience has only ONE question of any significance to the story, and only TWO options with which to answer that question.

Now let's take a look at the end of Mass Effect 3:
Did the mass relays explode and destroy the systems in which they were located?
Of course they did, that's what happens. It's proven in the Arrival DLC.
No, it was just a controlled overload. There was only minor damage caused, like the Normandy's engines. 
Of course not. Joker simply overloaded the engines trying to escape. 

Did the team that you had with you die when you were charging the beam?
I don't know. I never saw them again so I'm assuming yes/no.
I watched them get off the Normandy on that jungle planet, so yes; although I don't know how they got their.

How does the red, destroy, ending work?
It destroys all reaper tech.
It destroys all synthetic life.
It destroys all synthetic material.
It destroys all technology.

After exploding, did the Citadel crash into earth?Of course, it was in low orbit, exploded and fell to earth, creating a massive nuclear winter and ending all life on the already devastated planet.No, the mass effect fields kept the station in orbit. Nothing crashed to earth.The explosions on the Citadel were just for visual umph. The damage to the station was just superficial.

These are just a small sample of the questions the ending leaves unexamined, and only a small handful of the answers that I have seen provided for each (every answer with well thought arguments to support it). I haven't even touched on things like the level of FTL tech that is left, how everyone is going to eat, how the rest of the galaxy is going to fare now that their military force is stranded permanently/temporarily in the Sol system, etc. etc. etc. 

You can not leave a narrative this open ended, asking your audience to do the majority of the finishing of the work for you, and still call it complete. And on top of that, how can "artistic integrity" be used to defend what was given, when the audience is being asked to fill in this many blanks? You can have a thought provoking ending that creates discussion and speculation, but still provide a satisfying conclusion (look at the Inception example above). 

The best analog of this situation that I can think of would be if Harry Potter and Voldemort killed each other while in the woods by themselves, and then the book ended. That's it. Nothing else. Technically the villain was defeated, by the audience has to fill in so many blanks regarding what that means for the universe that was presented that it isn't really an ending at all. You would feel like someone tore out the final chapter.

To quote an anonymous source, “No one gives a damn about events, it’s how they affect the characters that they care about.” We didn't get any of that in Mass Effect 3. Instead we were left with wild speculation on numerous topics and absolutely no indication who might be right. Both sides, those who claim that everyone dies no matter what due to starvation/etc., and those who claim that everything after the endings is all sunshine and rainbows, are pulling all of their evidence from the same pool. And it's all compelling.

The end of Mass Effect tries to leave the game "open to interpretation" in an attempt to allow all possibilities to be true. Rather than provide a clear resolution, or several clear resolutions, it simply says, "Now fill in all the blanks yourself, crafting the ending to the game that you always wanted because there's no way that we can make you happy." That's a narrative FAIL.

Look here to see more information on how Mass Effect 3 failed narratively. (The author of the linked article lists the source of the quote above as "a wise friend".)

Modifié par T-Dawg135, 09 avril 2012 - 08:40 .