Hello, all. Please pardon me if I'm jumping back to a previous line on this thread, but I was recently thinking about CulturalGeekGirl's (brilliant) attempt to salvage the current ending by changing as little as possible. It got me thinking about how I'd massage the Starchild's scene, keeping to its spirit, to resolve some of the "thematic revulsion" that began this thread. I thought I'd post it here for your perusal.
Warning: Wall Of Text.
I tried to preserve what I could of Starchild's existing dialogue. Let's begin just after Shepard is lifted up to the Starchild:
Starchild: Wake up!
Shepard: What? Where am I?
Starchild: The Citadel. It's my home.
Shepard: Who are you?
Starchild: I am the Catalyst.
Shepard: I thought the Citadel was the Catalyst.
Starchild: No. The Citadel is part of me.
Shepard: Why do you look like … that? You look like … a human child I … knew.
Starchild: Yes. I've been watching you. Testing you.
Shepard: Testing me? You mean the nightmares?
Starchild: Yes. They were part of the test. We were trying to indoctrinate you.
Shepard: Indoctrinate me!
Starchild: Yes. We came close. Much of your final journey here we managed to cloud. The confrontation
with The Illusive Man should have finished it. However, in the end, it failed. You threw off the attempt. That is part of why you are standing here now.Here we accomplish several things. First, we explain most of the Indoctrination Theory, although probably not in
the way that IT proponents would prefer. This gets rid of a great many plot holes. Second, we establish some instant familiarity. This isn't a new character that we've never seen before, we've seen it several times in our dreams! Third, we make a big start at wrenching this scene back into the Dramatic Arc. Aha, this is an
answer, not a new set of questions! This is where our dreams have been coming from, and why things looked so odd after the Harbinger Beam; it was an Indoctrination attempt! Fourth, we begin to establish that Shepard has been undergoing a test; this will play into the modifications of the Three Choices coming up
Shepard: How do I know that this, here, isn't an indoctrination-induced hallucination?
Starchild: You don't. You will have to decide for yourself. However, I will offer one argument. If this was a further attempt at Indoctrination, why would I tell you? It would merely put you on your guard.Here we head one question off at the pass, and also throw a small bone to the IT fanatics. This can still all be an Indoctrination hallucination! The Starchild said so!
Shepard: What are you?
Starchild: I am the Catalyst. I am what you would call a shackled Artificial Intelligence, but I am also something more. I have been impressed with the memories and knowledge of the first sentient race of the galaxy. I am limited in what I can do, but I know much.This is another bow to the Dramatic Arc: don't introduce new questions during the Falling Action unless you quickly answer them. We have to know what the Starchild is.
Shepard: Can you stop the Reapers?
Starchild: The Reapers are mine. I direct them. They are my solutionA small change, aimed at closing a few more plot holes. The Starchild doesn't
control the Reapers, he only directs them. There are limits to his power over the Reapers, to what he can do.
Shepard: Solution? To what?
Starchild: Chaos.
Shepard: I don't understand.
Starchild: The created will always rebel against their creators. But we found a way to stop that from happening. A way to restore order for a new cycle.
Shepard: By wiping out organic life?
Starchild: No. We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just as we left your people alive the last time we were here.
Shepard: But you killed the rest.
Starchild: We helped them ascend so they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form. We then destroyed the AIs they built, to preserve organic life in the galaxy.Shepard: I think we'd rather keep our own form.
Starchild: No, you can't. Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics. We've created this cycle so that never happens. That's the solution.
Shepard (if he has recruited the Geth): But what about the Geth?
Starchild (if Shepard recruited the Geth): Indeed. The Geth are the first AIs that have ever been respectful of organic life. That is part of why you are here. The Geth, and you, have demonstrated that the cycle is no longer valid.Here, with just a few words, we incorporate the previous plot into the Starchild's explanation. Rather than hand-wave away (or just plain ignore) the entire Geth experience that was built into Priority: Rannoch, we acknowledge it, and explain it as unique, and contributory to what's coming.
Shepard: So why did you bring me here?
Starchild: You are the first organic to make it this far. To resist indoctrination. To get the Crucible built, and to connect it to the Catalyst. You have proven that the cycle is no longer valid.Here is another statement that Shepard has been tested, and found worthy. We also explain why the Starchild lifted Shepard up; s/he passed the test. It's also a brief explanation of the Crucible. The Cruicible wasn't a super weapon, it was a fail-safe. It was a way to change things if the Cycle ever turned out differently than the creators of the Reapers expected.
Shepard: So now what?
Starchild: The Crucible changed me. Created new … possibilities. But I can't make them happen. You could destroy us. The destruction of the focused mass effect cylinder would set up a chain reaction in the Citadel. An energy pattern would get beamed to the mass effect relays and then they, and the Citadel, would release their energy in a controlled explosion. It would be a patterned electromagnetic pulse that would destroy all synthetic life: Reaper, Geth, the AI in your ship that you call EDI. Even you are partly synthetic …
Shepard: But the Reapers will be destroyed?
Starchild: Yes. But it would be up to your people to prevent a new cycle. Do you think you can? Do you think your children can?
Shepard: Maybe …Here we have the first option established. The description of what happens if you shoot the cylinder is a Space Magic spiel, and could easily be phrased differently. The important thing is to establish that this solution results in a specific kind of effect, one which affects all synthetic life. That's the price of this solution: that beings that you (probably) care about will be destroyed along with the Reapers. A Renegade would probably go ahead and do this; that's the Renegade style: get the job done, whatever the cost. Additionally, we try to establish the the explosion won't destroy the system that each relay sits in. Finally, we point out that this solution puts the responsibility of preventing the AI Takeover squarely on the current civilization.
Starchild: Or you could control us.
Shepard: Huh. So The Illusive Man was right after all.
Starchild: No. He wanted to control us to use us. He wanted to advance your race to primacy in the galaxy. He could not resist indoctrination, so he could not handle the Reaper interface without going insane. You can. I have tested you. <Paragon:
You carefully weigh the cost before you act.> <Renegade:
You do what you believe you must, whatever the cost.> I do not know exactly what you will do with the Reapers, but you will not abuse your control. Perhaps you will withdraw us back to Dark Space. Perhaps you will station us near the mass relays to guard against the rise of malicious AIs. However, you will not keep your human form. Your consciousness will be uploaded to the Reapers, and that will also consume the energy of the mass relays and the Citadel, but your body will die.
Shepard: But the Reapers will obey me?
Starchild: Yes.This is a medium-sized change from the original. To begin with, we reject that this solution is equivalent to TIM's (something that I'm not sure the original writer would be happy with). We point out the difference between
taking control and having it
given to you. We also now harvest the hints we stated earlier, that Shepard was being tested. This was why: to determine if s/he could, and should, be given control of the Reapers. This control, however, doesn't come without cost to Shepard: his/her body will die. However, s/he will gain control of the Reapers, and can use/direct them as s/he sees fit. This seems to me to be a Paragon type of choice.
Starchild: There is another solution.
Shepard: Yeah?
Starchild: Your people have done something different with the Crucible. Something … unanticipated. With it I can achieve … synthesis.
Shepard: And that is?
Starchild: I can analyze an organic life, its body and its mind, at a remarkably fine level. With that I can use Reaper techniques, but in a much more subtle way, to combine synthetic and organic life into a new framework.
Shepard: Wasn't that Saren's goal?
Starchild: No. Saren was indoctrinated. He saw the current, crude Reaper adaptations and believed them to be his ideal. This would be different. All Reapers would become the basis for a new synthesis of organic and synthetic life. Any organic or synthetic that chose to do so could join into the new framework. It would give organics a near-immortality and a new, enhanced existence. It would give synthetics the kind of individuality that they've never known before <If the Geth were allowed to gain individuality from Reaper tech
>, similar to the Geth </if
>. The new synthesis would be capable of guarding the galaxy from destructive AIs. However, the initial analysis of the organic life would be deadly, and there is only one organic life here and now: yours. There is no time to find another. Soon the Reaper fleet will destroy yours and we will begin the ending of this cycle, and then it
will be too late.
Shepard: And there will be peace?
Starchild: The cycle will end.This was the toughest option to massage. It's supposed to be the best option, the one you only get if your Effective Military Strength is high enough. It's supposed to be a kind of trans-humanic synthesis of organic and synthetic. However, I couldn't get past both the fact that it echoed strongly of Saren's faulty goals in ME1 and that the original choice shoved synthesis down the throat of every sentient being in the galaxy, will they or nil they. So I had to both distinguish it from Saren's solution and I had to make it optional, rather than mandatory. If it was optional, however, it had to somehow address the synthetics-will-destroy-everything problem, so I threw that in too.
Now, this doesn't do everything. Starchild is still pretty much a Deus-Ex-Machina, one of the laziest ways to resolve a story that there is. This doesn't solve the "Yo, dawg!" problem very well; the Starchild's original logic is still pretty circular. It doesn't rejoin the dramatic and literary climaxes of the story; the Final Battle is still just before the Harbinger Beam and the Final Conflict is still talking with TIM. It doesn't answer the question of just what the heck Joker was doing, flying the Normandy away from the battle, and with crewmembers that had just been helping you on the ground, too. However, it does seem to me to preserve the spirit of what BioWare was trying to do with their Three Choices, without the horrid thematic blunders that the original sequence had in place. So what do you think? Would this ease the thematic revulsion from the original?
Edit: Good Lord, this thing is unforgiving of off-line composition on alternate text editors.
Modifié par FamilyManFirst, 24 mai 2012 - 07:07 .
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