233 réponses à ce sujet

[DrowNoble]

This is why starchild needs to go in the first place. To have a god character introduced in the last 10 mins shows terrible writing. If I was writing the ME story for a creative writing class, doing the ending as it stands now would earn me an F from my professor. You don't create a godlike character at the end to solve all the problems, any amateur writer knows that.

I suppose Glowing Blue Boy could stay *IF* we were given more options. Shephard, who defied authority and the odds before, could say "screw you I'm calling EDI for Option 4, sending it the fleets for Option 5" etc.

I even disproved that synthetics and organics can't get along by ending the geth/quarian war. Heck, EDI and Joker are doing far more than getting along. Another failed promise from Bioware, my choices had no affect on the ending.

Remember people: HOLD THE LINE

[CaliGuy033]

The Angry One wrote...

If you have even a rudimentary understanding of logic

I'm going to have to go ahead and stop you right there.

[Computron2000]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Computron2000 wrote...

Your leaps of logic are amazing.

As are yours. Glad we could have this totally productive discussion. 

Bottom line: you don't get to run back into the Citadel or "hack the hologram" (I'm laughing as I type this) but I'll gladly direct you to fanfiction.net.

I'm sad to see you failed to address the point. I must admit with what i know now of your logic, i must use extraordinary ways to make things clearer for you to understand. 

At what point does Hackett saying "cannot win it conventionally" mean you
i) cannot hack the god of reapers or Hackett even knew of its existance and was referring to it
ii) attack and die when i mentioned regrouping
iii) cannot destroy or disable the Citadel or Hackett even referring to destroying the citadel

I hope you understood that as i made it as clear as i could ot help your understand.

[jumpingkaede]

What's even sillier is that the Protheans... and every cycle before them... built a device that needed to be connected to the Citadel even though the Citadel was the FIRST thing lost to the Reapers in every cycle.

Talk about making things difficult for themselves.

[Darkeus]

jumpingkaede wrote...

Guys, guys, girls, listen: I think it's pretty obvious that the Catalyst is full of it. It's also pretty obvious that Shepard had no choice but to listen because he was placed in an impossible situation where those WERE his only choices.

That's not the problem here. The problem is that Bioware put Shepard in that situation and made the Catalyst the Steward of that impossible situation. That entire scene shouldn't have been there to begin with for exactly the reasons discussed in this thread.

In Saw terms, you don't get mad at the guy who had to choose to saw off his leg or die. Those were his only choices. The person who's really at fault is the uh, Saw guy... it's been a long time since I saw that movie. Jigsaw?

Yep, the Starchild is the problem.  Anytime a lazy Deus ex Machina is developed, it means that the writers are either A). Poor writers who should have never been hired

or

.  Written into a corner and lack the logic to solve the problem.

or C).  Rushed into doing the best they can.

But yeah, the Starbrat should not even exist....

[Kr0gan]

The Starchild is a god, no god can survive when faced with logic.

[Darkeus]

jumpingkaede wrote...

What's even sillier is that the Protheans... and every cycle before them... built a device that needed to be connected to the Citadel even though the Citadel was the FIRST thing lost to the Reapers in every cycle.

Talk about making things difficult for themselves.

Good point....  How the hell does that work?  The Crucible was made AFTER the Citadel was already taken.  So they were developing a weapon that they had little means to ever activate??

[PsyrenY]

Computron2000 wrote...

I'm sad to see you failed to address the point. I must admit with what i know now of your logic, i must use extraordinary ways to make things clearer for you to understand. 

At what point does Hackett saying "cannot win it conventionally" mean you
i) cannot hack the god of reapers or Hackett even knew of its existance and was referring to it
ii) attack and die when i mentioned regrouping
iii) cannot destroy or disable the Citadel or Hackett even referring to destroying the citadel

I hope you understood that as i made it as clear as i could ot help your understand.

It's clear that you are the one refusing to see reason, but I'll try to indulge you anyway.

Hackett's comment relates to your latter two "fallbacks":
- Regroup and come up with a plan: in the middle of the final battle, whose entire purpose was to get the Crucible into position since there was no way the combined armies could win on their own? What miracle that does not involve space magic could you possibly come up with at that point? No, your only "plan" that does not involve the Crucible would be to go down swinging.
-Get back into the Citadel: you have yet to explain how this is possible, as the Catalyst's elevator had no visible controls. But even assuming you're able to do this, you have no explanation of how you would "get Harbinger to shoot at the Citadel." He has no reason to do so - you're no threat to him at all, even if he can somehow perceive you.

As for your first "fallback," hacking the super A.I.: the first reason this is ridiculous is that you're now implying that only Engineer Shepards should get a chance at a different ending. You're also assuming that Starkid has some kind of wireless network you could gain access to. Or second, that he doesn't have similar defenses to the Reapers/Collectors, whereby he can attack 10,000+ firewalls at once while directing troops (see ME2.) We don't even know if your omnitool survived having your hardsuit getting blown off.

You're grasping at straws here even more tightly than the IT folks, and that's saying something, all because you're in search of some form of player agency beyond what the designers gave you. But Mass Effect isn't a tabletop game - EVERY option has to be one the designers give you, because they have to program it in. This isn't freeform or improv; what you see is what you get, end of.

Hopefully that cleared things up for you.

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 09 avril 2012 - 12:16 .

[Kr0gan]

In the beginning of the game, I was expecting that the Crucible was a trap or part of the great design of the Reapers (twist!), maybe something they couldn't build so they planted it as hope for the organics so they could build it... of course, that theory left space for many questions but less than the original ending (a superweapon is so cheap).

[Darkeus]

Kr0gan wrote...

In the beginning of the game, I was expecting that the Crucible was a trap or part of the great design of the Reapers (twist!), maybe something they couldn't build so they planted it as hope for the organics so they could build it... of course, that theory left space for many questions but less than the original ending (a superweapon is so cheap).

Oh, it is a trap alright.  It was a trap for the writers!

[ShadowOptik]

Wait, Logic tables in High School? I think I may have NOT been given the opportunities that I needed as a student. :_(

[Byronic-Knight]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Paragon Fury wrote...

It wouldn't have been a debate really; it would've just been Shepard pimp-smacking Starchild with logic.

To which it would reply "your anecdotes are nice and all but you haven't convinced me, now pick a color." Then what?

You refuse, watch the enormous fleet you've assembled destroy the Reapers, the Normandy swings around to the Citadel, you sacracstically salute the Catalyst, say "Well, it's been interesting," and go back to Earth.

He doesn't make you choose. There isn't a timer of some sort where, if you don't pick one, everything ends anyway, there isn't any sense of urgency in the scene. He just presents you with door number 1, 2, and 3, tells you what's behind each, and says pick. If all the options suck---to you---and you've gathered the might of the galaxy, enough that you could defeat the Reapers without making a choice, then why choose?

[Anareth]

Turn off the Rannoch relay, problem solved.

[PsyrenY]

Byronic-Knight wrote...

You refuse, watch the enormous fleet you've assembled destroy the Reapers
...
and you've gathered the might of the galaxy, enough that you could defeat the Reapers without making a choice

Do you have a source for either of these beliefs? Because I'm pretty sure that the whole point of building the Crucible is that all those ships were not enough.

[Calibrations Expert]

You forget that, to a Reaper Heratic, 2+2=3, so Starboy's logic is only flawed to everyone besides him. To him no sense is perfect sense, and Shepard decides to become a pus*y after Thessia falls.

Modifié par Calibrations Expert, 09 avril 2012 - 12:27 .

[inko1nsiderate]

Your missing a pretty important idea of logic.

Suppose I say something like:

If synthetics exist, call them S, then there exists some G contained in S that will destroy all organics.

It doesn't matter how many examples in S you find that do not destroy all organics, you haven't really disproved the theorem (though with enough observations you could at least determine if the statement is reasonable or not). To disprove it you must show that for all S there cannot exist a G such that all organics will be destroyed.

I took the Catalyst as having two distinct statements that are related, but not in a 1-to-1 way. These statements were:

1) If there are synthetics, then organic life will eventually be destroyed by them.

2) The created always rebel (note: not necessarily destroy) against their creators (see: 
, as his actual dialogue states the created always rebel, and not that all synthetics will try to destroy all organics all the time as you contend).


Point 2 is clearly backed up by the entire video game. EDI rebelled against TIM, the AI on the citadel rebelled, the Geth rebelled, Overlord rebelled, the Geth Tali's father made rebelled, etc. Every instance of AI in the game rebelled against the people who created it. But they didn't necessarily destroy it. But that is fine because the Catalyst literally says: "The created always rebels against their creators" (see: ). Note he never says that all synthetics must destroy all organics all the time as you contend.

Even if the Geth make peace, point 1 could still stand, even EDI remarks that we hardly have enough examples of synthetic civilization to properly generalize. This is a case were empirical evidence of many synthetic civilizations would allow you to at least induce whether or not statement 1 is reasonable. A single example of a synthetic civilization isn't going to give you enough confidence to say 'point 1 has been disproved'.

Modifié par inko1nsiderate, 09 avril 2012 - 12:34 .

[DarkShadow]

Byronic-Knight wrote...

Optimystic_X wrote...

Paragon Fury wrote...

It wouldn't have been a debate really; it would've just been Shepard pimp-smacking Starchild with logic.

To which it would reply "your anecdotes are nice and all but you haven't convinced me, now pick a color." Then what?

You refuse, watch the enormous fleet you've assembled destroy the Reapers, the Normandy swings around to the Citadel, you sacracstically salute the Catalyst, say "Well, it's been interesting," and go back to Earth.

He doesn't make you choose. There isn't a timer of some sort where, if you don't pick one, everything ends anyway, there isn't any sense of urgency in the scene. He just presents you with door number 1, 2, and 3, tells you what's behind each, and says pick. If all the options suck---to you---and you've gathered the might of the galaxy, enough that you could defeat the Reapers without making a choice, then why choose?

Uuuh, yes there is? If you don't choose fast enough, the reapers destroy the citadel and you die. Just wanted to point that out.

Modifié par DarkShadow, 09 avril 2012 - 12:34 .

[nitefyre410]

Kr0gan wrote...

In the beginning of the game, I was expecting that the Crucible was a trap or part of the great design of the Reapers (twist!), maybe something they couldn't build so they planted it as hope for the organics so they could build it... of course, that theory left space for many questions but less than the original ending (a superweapon is so cheap).

  

 I did not expect it to be  trap - what I did expected was some more explination on how and why it works, it orgins, what it theorically does. What the Protheans did to add it -  and race to find the  Catalyst.  I expected  TIM to play more of a Ocelot role  in the story and I was hoping we go the Prothean home world at least once.  Mass Effect 3 could have easilly been   40 hours long and it would've been great.   I Expected to go to other   Prothean Archives left around the galaxy on each homeworld to piece this  the nature of Crucible together all while trying to out  be Cerebus to it  and keep the Reapers  at bay. 

For some reason Bioware has this need to want to trim their  games down to 30 hours.   

Instead after Rannoch  which felt like  a real turning point once you choose peace everything starts to go down hill fast. 
 

Modifié par nitefyre410, 09 avril 2012 - 12:43 .

[Sepharih]

Optimystic_X wrote...
That's hardly the same thing. Are the Quarians Aryan monsters for using cybernetic implants? Or the Alliance, for installing them in their soldiers?

You're applying a moral imperative where none exists. "We should all respect our differences" is a question of diplomacy, not of transhumanism. To realize the benefits of Synthesis, you need to ask yourself "why do organics keep creating synthetics in the first place?" And by "synthetics" I don't just mean mindless machines and servos - I mean artifical intelligence.

I'm simply pointing out that it's thematically inconsistent with the series.  Forcibly merging all synthetics and organics is hardly equatible to the fact that quarians and even our hero use implants.  There's a lot of overlap and intermingling amongst the various races, but it would be antithetical to the themes of the series to suggest that the only way to resolve their differences is to have them merge together completely.
Question:  If you don't think this is thematically inconsistent then how do you reconcile it with how eerily it mirror's an indoctrinated Saren's view of the future?

Optimystic_X wrote... 
How is Tuchanka a difficult choice? Watch the PAX video when they asked "how many people cured the genophage." The entire room said yes. Musta took a lot of soul-searching for that one.

Easiest decision in the world for my Shepard.  Doesn't change the fact that Tuchanka was hands down the best and most satisfying section of the game.

Optimystic_X wrote... 
And so you say too. When Hackett asks you to activate the Crucible, Shepard doesn't know how.

Not the point.  Point is you are not given any reason to trust this character and every reason to distrust him.  I distrusted him the second he took a form that was inarguably designed to appeal to shepard's guilt.

Optimystic_X wrote... 
You DID achieve impossible odds. Just because it didn't happen 100% the way you expected it to doesn't mean it's not a victory. All three options save the galaxy from the Reaper threat, just not in a straightforward and boring way.

All of which are contradictory to the character and the story and pretty much destroy any catharsis which could have been achieved.
And all I'm saying here is that the fact Hackett says "it's impossible" doesn't make it so.  Shepard has done the impossible before.

Optimystic_X wrote... 
So? Divorcing it totally from gritty reality reduces it from a true epic down to Disney material.
Unless this was the ending you were hoping for anyway.

You're proposing a false dichotomy.  Is the Star Wars trilogy not an epic?
There was already plenty of loss and sacrifice to go around.  Anderson and even Shepard dying are fine and more than enough to create a bittersweet ending.

Modifié par Sepharih, 09 avril 2012 - 12:38 .

[athaclena]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Computron2000 wrote...

I'm sad to see you failed to address the point. I must admit with what i know now of your logic, i must use extraordinary ways to make things clearer for you to understand. 

At what point does Hackett saying "cannot win it conventionally" mean you
i) cannot hack the god of reapers or Hackett even knew of its existance and was referring to it
ii) attack and die when i mentioned regrouping
iii) cannot destroy or disable the Citadel or Hackett even referring to destroying the citadel.

Hackett's comment relates to your latter two "fallbacks":
- Regroup and come up with a plan: in the middle of the final battle, whose entire purpose was to get the Crucible into position since there was no way the combined armies could win on their own? What miracle that does not involve space magic could you possibly come up with at that point? No, your only "plan" that does not involve the Crucible would be to go down swinging.
-Get back into the Citadel: you have yet to explain how this is possible, as the Catalyst's elevator had no visible controls. But even assuming you're able to do this, you have no explanation of how you would "get Harbinger to shoot at the Citadel." He has no reason to do so - you're no threat to him at all, even if he can somehow perceive you.

Dudes. Comrades in arms, even. We have all been through a lot here. Please make some time for understanding your fellow sentient.

Optymistix: Computron's points have more to do about the lack of choice given than the fact of the choices given: it doesn't matter to him/her that there were choices, only that those choices were arbitrary and not backed up by the previous games. If this was a tabletop game, it would be like a heavily-invested-in-their-character-and-world player ****ing about the purely narrative ending. Their point is valid. The GM should tailor their games to the players.

Computron: Optymistix's points have more to do with the validity of the story than the flaws of the storyteller: the consumer has no right to the creative voice, only the one/s who tell the story. If this was a tabletop game, it would be like a heavily-invested-in-the-story player ****ing about people not liking the GM. Thei point is valid. Players should be aware of the style of the GM.

If you care, look up GNS theory. It's interesting.

I care about story, in my stories. I hate the ending of ME3: I feel it betrays the story presented in the games up until the end. It feels cheap to me; deus ex machina is sloppy and lazy. However, everyone's mileage may vary, and disagreement does not mean death.*

Of course, if y'all want a flame war with fellow true believers, go right-a-****ing-head. The message of these games is choice, right? So choose.

* I might sneer at you though. I can't stop myself. Blame Bioware: they made me love her.

[Computron2000]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Computron2000 wrote...

I'm sad to see you failed to address the point. I must admit with what i know now of your logic, i must use extraordinary ways to make things clearer for you to understand. 

At what point does Hackett saying "cannot win it conventionally" mean you
i) cannot hack the god of reapers or Hackett even knew of its existance and was referring to it
ii) attack and die when i mentioned regrouping
iii) cannot destroy or disable the Citadel or Hackett even referring to destroying the citadel

I hope you understood that as i made it as clear as i could ot help your understand.

It's clear that you are the one refusing to see reason, but I'll try to indulge you anyway.

Hackett's comment relates to your latter two "fallbacks":
- Regroup and come up with a plan: in the middle of the final battle, whose entire purpose was to get the Crucible into position since there was no way the combined armies could win on their own? What miracle that does not involve space magic could you possibly come up with at that point? No, your only "plan" that does not involve the Crucible would be to go down swinging.

Ah its good to see that your "conventional" sentence only applied to 2 of them. Let us now look at it.

"in the middle of the final battle, whose entire purpose was to get the Crucible into position since there was no way the combined armies could win on their own"
Hmm, so you're saying that no one can retreat because... you're saying no one can retreat?

I mentioned it previous but i can see you did not understand. How does retreat and plan again mean "the combined armies could win on their own", which implies its going to be a straight up fight? I mentioned "attack and die" as a specific point to this, yet you again return to the same answer.

My apologies as i thought you were intelligent enough to understand the implication why i mentioned "attack and die". I will try to not overestimate it again.

With regard to this option, it was based on there being communication with Hackett to appraise him of the situation after which a retreat and attempt to ascertain the citadel's capabilities in connection to the reapers would be common sense. Hackett said a straight up fight cannot be won but there was never a variable of having the reaper god being identified.

Optimystic_X wrote...
-Get back into the Citadel: you have yet to explain how this is possible, as the Catalyst's elevator had no visible controls. But even assuming you're able to do this, you have no explanation of how you would "get Harbinger to shoot at the Citadel." He has no reason to do so - you're no threat to him at all, even if he can somehow perceive you.

Indeed, there was no information available yet you were adamant that it was impossible. What if i said that the elevator was not needed to bring you back to the citadel? The answer is not difficult and there are 2 very easily seen portions. First, the Crucible's arms attach to the citadel. Think carefully what that means. Secondly the art of the area Shepard is in at the end uses the same art as that of the nightclub. Again think carefully what that means.

Next we have the "harbinger to shoot the citadel", which ignores my first choice, to destroy the Citadel without using the Reapers, which again can be done multiple ways, including overextending the arms, shutting off the mass effect field maintaining orbit, calling in the fleet to hit the Citadel instead, etc.

Now let us put those aside and look at get "harbinger to shoot the citadel". What do you have? Citadel opens and closes its arms. What can you do? Open the arms, draw as many of them in with the fleet and close the arms. What can the Reapers do? Guess.

Optimystic_X wrote...
As for your first "fallback," hacking the super A.I.: the first reason this is ridiculous is that you're now implying that only Engineer Shepards should get a chance at a different ending. You're also assuming that Starkid has some kind of wireless network you could gain access to. Or second, that he doesn't have similar defenses to the Reapers/Collectors, whereby he can attack 10,000+ firewalls at once while directing troops (see ME2.) We don't even know if your omnitool survived having your hardsuit getting blown off.

Oh i thought its obvious. As an engineer, Shepard would be trained in such operations. Surely you don't believe putting turrets are all engineers are capable of!

I can see you did not think about the area you're in. Why would i need a wifi network? You have this kid who TELLS YOU STRAIGHT TO YOUR FACE THE RED KILLS HIM AND THE BLUE CONTROLS HIM <- this is important which is why i capitalised it for you. Now think about the 2 areas. Do they work on wifi?

Optimystic_X wrote...
You're grasping at straws here even more tightly than the IT folks, and that's saying something, all because you're in search of some form of player agency beyond what the designers gave you. But Mass Effect isn't a tabletop game - EVERY option has to be one the designers give you, because they have to program it in. This isn't freeform or improv; what you see is what you get, end of.

Hopefully that cleared things up for you.

Its funny. You're parroting my point

Computron2000 wrote...
These are possibilities that you could do in a taletop RPG. However the real problem lies in that this is a story. If you force the player into fixed actions by sticking your fingers in your ears and going "lalalalala", your story has a major major problem.

If this was a novel, readers would be asking why would he choose red/green/blue (depending on the ending the writer took) because the reader would also come to the same conclusion of why agree with the kid who came out from nowhere and actually told you he made the creatures that are your nemesis.

And that was my very first post on this thread.

[Byronic-Knight]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Byronic-Knight wrote...

You refuse, watch the enormous fleet you've assembled destroy the Reapers
...
and you've gathered the might of the galaxy, enough that you could defeat the Reapers without making a choice

Do you have a source for either of these beliefs? Because I'm pretty sure that the whole point of building the Crucible is that all those ships were not enough.

Nope, no source at all. 

But, you continue to think it couldn't happen because Hackett said it couldn't. . . even though everyone told you in ME2 that going through the Omega 4 relay meant certain death. And also, in that amazing cutscene showing the fleet arriving at Earth, you see one of the Reapers go down anyway.

You kill the one on Rannoch with a fracking laser-pointer, and that was only the result of the Migrant Fleet. . . now you have Volus, Hanar, Asari, Turian, and Salarian (et al---in case I'm forgetting anyone) along with the entire Alliance Navy. And in another post you describe the situation as ‘nigh-impossible’. Not impossible. . . nearly. The slimest chance is better than no chance, and think back to Arrival, when that projection comes up: 

"Maybe you're right. Maybe we can't win this. But we'll fight you regardless. Just like we did Sovereign. Just like I'm doing now. However 'insignificant' we will fight, we will sacrifice, and we will find a way. That's what humans do."

Until you're confronted with some psuedo-mystical hologram, whose logic can be disproven with an iota of contemplation---united the Geth and Quarians, Quarians shot first, Joker's banging a machine---and then suddenly you have a brain fart and say, "Yeah, okay." 

Going down fighting is a better alternative to choosing one of the options presented. 

[ZajoE38]

Very good work! But apart form that Javik confirmed it in dialogue in some part of the game - unlogical ending = ignorance of the players.

[Motherlander]

Perhaps the the choices of the Catalyst are limited by the crucible.

Modifié par Motherlander, 09 avril 2012 - 12:54 .