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[CulturalGeekGirl]

delta_vee wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

This relates to the "The Reapers are inexhaustibly stupid" point I made recently.

With regards to that, a) you're right, and if they weren't stupid we'd have no game, which I think leads to c) someone somewhere failed with regards to the core premise of the third game.

I don't take it that far. If the Crucible is just the combined wisdom of every sentient spacefaring race that has ever existsed, and the Reapers don't know about it, then completing it and pushing the button(s) without chatting about it to the Reapers doesn't require them to be stupid.

We'd still have a game if the end goal was "Build this thing and create a force capable of defending it while it fires" or "build this thing and create a force capable of taking back earth, because it needs to be used on earth for some reason," then we'd still have a game that could be 90% the same as it is now.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 30 mai 2012 - 06:42 .

[delta_vee]

I was generalizing the Reapers' stupidity past your statements, I suspect, vis-a-vis their established MO with regards to the Citadel and the relays. Their abandonment of their established war strategy still gets me peeved whenever I think about it, because it derives so directly from having their arrival begin the game (thus requiring something less than a full-on curbstomp) and the plot contortions necessary to make such a campaign winnable on some level.

Also, you did say "If they didn't design the crucible they're stupid, because they let out a bunch information about themselves and the Citadel, with absolutely no gorram idea what this would lead to." Which I'd agree with even if the Crucible were merely a great big dark-energy-powered anti-Reaper wave motion cannon (which I was quite convinced it was until the Magic Elevator).

That said, I tend to think such a conclusion felt lacking to the devs, somehow. How else to explain the sudden attempt to make everything about something other than simply destroying the Reapers?

[KitaSaturnyne]

delta_vee wrote...

Also, you did say "If they didn't design the crucible they're stupid, because they let out a bunch information about themselves and the Citadel, with absolutely no gorram idea what this would lead to." Which I'd agree with even if the Crucible were merely a great big dark-energy-powered anti-Reaper wave motion cannon (which I was quite convinced it was until the Magic Elevator).

Heh. Reaperdouken.

The thing about all this talk regarding Synthesis is that it's all conjecture. All of it. Sure, we have some vague lines from the Catalyst about "new DNA" and "ultimate evolution" (which comes off to me as separate from similar lines said by Saren and Harbinger rather than supportive), but that's it. We have no idea what changes are really brought about.

What does the game tell us? Well, all it tells us is that things get decorated with a circuit design.

My suspicion is that when Synthesis was devised, the writers didn't even really have a good sense of what it was themselves. So, they tacked on a vague explanation that didn't actually explain anything, then went to Starbucks to celebrate.

While I love how this allows for a wide variety of interpretations, this means that no one interpretation of Synthesis can be correct or, technically, incorrect. Since the consequences of this choice are so vague, they end up being subject to the opinions and notions of each individual person. One person sees it as a bridge to understanding between organic life, and synthetic life. Another sees it as genetic rape on a galactic scale. Still others remember what the Catalyst said, that it's a big evolutionary step.

The first two of these arguments aren't based so much on evidence as much as they are on assumptions and emotional responses. It's almost like gathering people's opinions on most types of music. If a particular artist or style of music doesn't appeal to us, then we (rather self-righteously) declare that "it sucks". But to others, that artist or genre might speak volumes and move them to tears. I believe the endings are the same way, not because of any artistic merit, but because they're so vague.

The Catalyst's assertions on Synthesis end up not holding water for us because there's no evidence to support its claims afterwards. Again, all we get is that everyone is decorated with circuit designs, and that Joker loves EDI. Since she leans her head on his shoulder as if to be sentimental and loving, I guess we can extrapolate from this scene that EDI is capable of loving him back on a human level or human-like capacity, but didn't she already?

(Side note: HOW IS JOKER NOT BROKEN AND/ OR DEAD AFTER THE NORMANDY CRASHES?!)

Am I saying that Synthesis is better or worse than the other endings? Absolutely not. The price of Destroy is far too high to even think of considering. Control is just stupid, and I don't buy that "...the Illusive Man was right after all." In fact, just from watching the scene, Synthesis seems to ensure that the Reapers will be back, or in the least, continue to exist, which is what we've been trying to stop for the duration of the game. They're not under anyone's control, they just leave. That's it.

@Mani Mani

While I love Fapmaster's excellent ending idea, CGG is right. The Crucible was forged from a blueprint handed down over the cycles. The idea of it being of Reaper construction is a fabrication of FapMaster's work.

[edisnooM]

@KitaSaturnyne

Oh I know it was just a part of his alternate idea (though others have suggested it was a trap as well), and that nothing in game suggests otherwise.

This connects to something else I was thinking about though, even if the solutions aren't his the Catalyst seems to subvert them to his own view. Destroy takes out all synthetics, and he makes mention that the peace won't last that, as though stopping synthetics was our quest all along, control as CGG suggested could be seen as Shepard standing guard over any future synthetic threat, and synthesis is painted as the final form of evolution, that the merging of the two will somehow help with the conflict.

Overall it seems to me like the Crucible as presented by the Catalyst is geared rather heavily towards dealing with the problem of synthetics vs organics, when it was supposed to be a way to stop the Reapers.

Modifié par edisnooM, 30 mai 2012 - 08:40 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

@Mani Mani guy

Exactly. The crux of my "the ending changes the central conflict of the story" argument.

[drayfish]

Wonderful, wonderful rich debates going on all over the place in this thread. Our brains are eating well today. I love the discussion of the implications of Geth self-hood, and Legion's inching toward that loaded use of the word 'I'. Sadly I have nothing of worth to add to this discussion at the present besides my curiosity and enthusiasm, but fantastic stuff.
 
And I do really love to hear this synthesis debate, because it's opening up new ways for me to approach that ending without descending into fury and apoplectic twitching. I'm certainly not there yet, but you are profoundly helping me to conceptualise what it might be as opposed to what it currently is (at least in my mind). And thanks for the links and the input Ieldra2 – very much appreciated.
 
I completely agree with the statement that Synthesis in its current form is essentially one gigantic pulsating narrative question mark. Indeed, it is (as many people have stated throughout this recent analysis) precisely because of this lack of contextualising information that I find myself filling in the narrative absence with horror – much as the people who support this conclusion understandably fill it in with hope and promise for a better, remade future. Perhaps this is indicative of some fundamentally cynical nature of mine (take your unbridled imaginative whimsy elsewhere, mimes of the world – you have no power over me!*) but impending doom is still where I land given the way in which this option is so vaguely delivered.
 
This is probably entirely off-track, but I did just want to add a couple of reasons why I think this might be so in my case. I'm always compelled, when trying to put the synthesis option into a format that I can even process (that's not Narnia-related), to think of the concluding chapter of another epic narrative that I gladly followed for several years: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. 
 
[SPOILER ALERT: she was a slayer of vampires. Also her name was Buffy.]
 
Within this universe, Buffy is a chosen one. Of countless potential ones, she is chosen by some mythic omnipresent force to fight the demons and keep the peace. At the end of season seven, facing an unstoppable, oncoming hoard that will annihilate all existence (why do they all want to do that?) Buffy realises that the best way in which to fight back is to unlock the power that is already possessed by, but lying dormant within, all of the other untapped potential slayers. She and witch Willow perform a spell that therefore unlocks this capacity that these women already have, and a thrilling outpouring of female empowerment ripples across the world, with those now able to stand up, standing up.
 
The reason that this works for me – and damn does it work – is because in that case, Buffy and Willow were not operating as an external force inserting new content into these slayers, remaking them in a different image; it was instead a switch that these women all already possessed, and that was now able to be flicked on. They were allowed to access a power that was already part of them, that they had until now been denied.
 
Synthesis, in contrast, seems necessarily and disturbingly more invasive. Much like Seijin8 posits, I struggle with how synthesis can be conceptualised as a subtle change. In order to necessitate the dissolution of the delineations that might that give synthetics a decisive advantage over organics, I presume the metamorphosis would have to be profound. That doesn't mean that the result is necessarily bad (again, the narrative doesn't even approach giving us enough information to assess that definitively) – but a fundamental alteration to our being it surely must be. We are become the ubermensch.
 
Ultimately I might be (almost certainly am) splitting hairs, but there's something about that imposition that I find particularly distasteful, robbing the action of the poetry that I think the creators were going for. Despite the pervasiveness of technology everywhere; despite having commonplace bio-implants and omni-tech strapped to our wrists that Swiss Army knives its way into our usage; even despite Shepard his/herself being cyber-undead because of technology – to me it doesn't feel like this merging between human and machine is yet at that natural tipping point where Shepard is just offering the final domino nudge. 
 
On top of which – most significantly – I still can't get past the question of why. Why do we have to do this? As the discussion about the Geth and their multiform identity within this thread indicates, we (as both players and characters) are closer to accepting the still alien nature of synthetics than the infinitely dumb Reapers ever predicted we could be. We are able to empathise with and support creatures wholly biologically and ideologically unlike ourselves, openly disproving the premise upon which the Reaper's have built their entire existence. The fact that because the Reapers are too gorram stupid to acknowledge what we have already come to accept we must therefore forgo continuing this progression organically, instead having several significant stages in this evolution arbitrarily skipped, rather undermines the significance of the journey for me. I get that it's a sacrifice to negate obliteration – but it just pisses me off.
 
If you download into my head the ability to play piano, the sound I make thereafter might be pretty, but it's not really mine. I didn't work for or earn it: it's code. Synthesis seems similar to me: it could be beautiful, but because we skipped the part where we worked for it, incorporated it naturally into ourselves, I feel like the achievement is fundamentally cheapened. But again, that's just my curmudgeonly, cynical knee-jerk humanism. ...You're not trapped in a box, mime! You're just not.
 
What bothers me (in all my bubbling stew of scorn) is that choosing synthesis is clearly meant to be the hopeful ending – it's the ending brimming with possibility, with a wild, new expanse of an entirely remade universe stretching out before us, all to be explored and understood – but it seems that the only way that it can come into being is through our acceptance that we have, or will, fail. (This is not to solely pick on synthesis – choosing any of the current endings amounts to failure in my interpretation – but synthesis seems particularly deceptive.) Selecting synthesis means that we must accept that we cannot prevent bloodshed and extermination by any other means than homogenisation – that negotiation, fellowship and understanding can never win out (which again, flies in the face of the experience I was having across 100 hours of gameplay). 
 
When Starbies was telling me that synthetics and organics will inevitably destroy each other, I wanted to select the (unavailable) dialogue option that said: 'Oh yeah?  Well I've got a guy called Legion waiting in the car who wants to kick sand in your face for saying bad stuff about me.'
 
I didn't need to have a core processor to appreciate him; and he didn't need a pancreas to see where I was coming from. We just used the more powerful form of synthesis: we accepted each other for who we are, and decided to work together. No green beams of whatsit necessary.
 
But that's just a general, unhelpful account of my psychological state of play. It's certainly not unswayable. I am eager to be persuaded otherwise. And believe me, everyone in this thread is doing a far better job of talking me down off the ledge than the Bioware writers did in their take.
 
 
* ...Am I missing something? Is it the body stocking? The edges of sweat eating into the pancake makeup? The stripy shirt? What am I not seeing in this art form?

Modifié par drayfish, 31 mai 2012 - 10:54 .

[delta_vee]

@ edisnooM, Kita:

Yeah, I think the fact that all the options are geared towards "solving" the org/synth "problem", even though the Crucible was designed by organics to, y'know, kill Reapers, is probably a driving factor in the "Reapers designed the Crucible" conspiracy theory, as well as increasing suspicion of the actual effects.

/me shakes head.

Also, sorry edisnooM, "Reaperdouken" beats "Reaperduction".

[CulturalGeekGirl]

KitaSaturnyne wrote...

My suspicion is that when Synthesis was devised, the writers didn't even really have a good sense of what it was themselves. So, they tacked on a vague explanation that didn't actually explain anything, then went to Starbucks to celebrate.

While I love how this allows for a wide variety of interpretations, this means that no one interpretation of Synthesis can be correct or, technically, incorrect. Since the consequences of this choice are so vague, they end up being subject to the opinions and notions of each individual person.

I agree with the first part and disagree with the second.

That is to say, I think that we have precious little to go on about Synthesis, we have little to no meaningful information about it, nothing is explained at all, etc...

However, I believe it only comes close to working as an ending if people are willing to not have a strong notion about it.  It only works if you see it as... and I keep using this term... a "possibility space" rather than an actual definite series of events. For me, the only intellectually honest way to view it or portray it is as an unknown. Any time you try to start an argument about it based on your firm belief that this specific thing is what happens... I get bored.

Now, "what ifs" concerning it are interesting. I like them. But I think that specific choice completely dismantles any hope of certainty, and the vast majority of people do not respond well to that.

[edisnooM]

@delta_vee, KitaSaturnyne

Yeah I should have mentioned that in my post, Reaperdouken is very good. Ah well, I had a decent run on the Reaper based word games front. :-)

[delta_vee]

drayfish wrote...

* ...Am I missing something? Is it the body stocking? The edges of sweat eating into the pancake makeup? The stripy shirt? What am I not seeing in this art form?

You're missing nothing. Mimes are horrible. They're almost as bad as clowns.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Now, "what ifs" concerning it are interesting. I like them. But I think that specific choice completely dismantles any hope of certainty, and the vast majority of people do not respond well to that.

Nor can I blame them, really. That gaping maw of possibility is a many-headed beast. I don't think rejecting it is indicative of any poverty of thought nor narrowness of view.

[KitaSaturnyne]

@delta_vee

Agreed. Not much else I could think of to add to that. I'm thinking my earlier "replacment of endings" argument might be inaccurate too. More like replacing the last 50 pages of Moby Dick with the last 50 pages of 1984, instead of the first 50.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I agree with the first part and disagree with the second.

That is to say, I think that we have precious little to go on about Synthesis, we have little to no meaningful information about it, nothing is explained at all, etc...

However, I believe it only comes close to working as an ending if people are willing to not have a strong notion about it.  It only works if you see it as... and I keep using this term... a "possibility space" rather than an actual definite series of events. For me, the only intellectually honest way to view it or portray it is as an unknown. Any time you try to start an argument about it based on your firm belief that this specific thing is what happens... I get bored.

Now, "what ifs" concerning it are interesting. I like them. But I think that specific choice completely dismantles any hope of certainty, and the vast majority of people do not respond well to that.

Indeed. I also think it's this lack of certainty that cements the disparity between Synthesis and the rest of the story.

For the entire duration of the games, we've been given choices with concrete, tangible consequences. Make choice A, get consequence A and so on. While that doesn't exclude the possibility of a scene or choice where the opposite happens (no concrete results during the story), the ending is the absolute worst place to showcase something like that. The ending is, I believe, the most crucial moment for the consequences of our actions to play out in a tangible manner because A) it's the ENDING; it's how the games have gone thus far, and; C) the end of any story is where we need the most answers. To do it any other way (ie. the way things are now) would just be unsatisfactory for the players. Speculation is for the parts of the story leading up to the ending. The ending is where everything is answered. There can be some uncertain terms (Will Billy and Sarah be able to mend their relationship after Billy cheated with Carrie?), but in Mass Effect, we need to know a lot more than they bothered to tell us, and we certainly didn't need the slaps in the face, masquerading as statements about "artistic integrity" and "lots of speculation from everyone".

I have the feeling that it's like having a party where you invite only vegans, and serve only beef.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

drayfish wrote...
 
Within this universe, Buffy is a chosen one. Of countless potential ones, she is chosen by some mythic omnipresent force to fight the demons and keep the peace. At the end of season seven, facing an unstoppable, oncoming hoard that will annihilate all existence (why do they all want to do that?) Buffy realises that the best way in which to fight back is to unlock the power that is already possessed by, but lying dormant within, all of the other untapped potential slayers. She and witch Willow perform a spell that therefore unlocks this capacity that these women already have, and a thrilling outpouring of female empowerment ripples across the world, with those now able to stand up, standing up.
 
The reason that this works for me – and damn does it work – is because in that case, Buffy and Willow were not operating as an external force inserting new content into these slayers, remaking them in a different image; it was instead a switch that these women all already possessed, and that was now able to be flicked on. They were allowed to access a power that was already part of them, that they had until now been denied.
 
Synthesis, in contrast, seems necessarily and disturbingly more invasive. Much like Seijin8 posits, I struggle with how synthesis can be conceptualised as a subtle change. In order to necessitate the dissolution of the delineations that might that give synthetics a decisive advantage over organics, I presume the metamorphosis would have to be profound. That doesn't meant that the result is necessarily bad (again, the narrative doesn't even approach giving us enough information to assess that definitively) – but a fundamental alteration to our being it surely must be. We are become the ubermensch.

Here is where I fundamentally disagree, and I'm going to outline specifically how the beam itself causing only an extremely minor change could lead to sufficiently increased competitiveness in the long run, based solely on voluntary iterations upon that minor change.

All the green beam needs to do is open new avenues of growth for organics and synthetics, it need not actually force them down those routes.

Let's look at synthesis as a continuum. At the lowest point is "mind-controlled interstellar iPhone embedded in your skin." At the highest point is "immortally transcended superconsciousness."

Now let's say that all the green beam does is the iphone bit... but it also opens up the avenue for anyone, organic or synthetic, to choose to move towards immortally transcended superconsciousness. Right now, you just have every song ever recorded available to play any time you might feel like listening to it, but you also have the option to load your consciousness into a backup, if you want. You have the option to supplement your organic intelligence with synthetic subroutines, if you want. Or If you just want to stay someone who has the complete text of all books ever written on file so that you can view it at any time, you can. If you want to stay a single synthetic consciousness operating an autonomous platform, you can. The hypercompetitive ultimate transcendental evolution is not forced on everyone, it's just a choice that is now available to everyone. And I'd wager credits to croissants that some organics are going to chose to ascend, thus preserving the legacy of organics forever. 

/dusts hands

There, now all you had to do to avoid committing genocide was get one minor, iphone-based surgery. Is that first iPhone based surgery an imposition? Sure. And that sucks. I'm not happy about it. But if I woke up with the ability to play Draw Something whenever I wanted to just by thinking about it... I wouldn't be devastated over the loss of my fundamental humanity.

drayfish wrote...

{snip}
 
On top of which – most significantly – I still can't get past the question of why. Why do we have to do this? As the discussion about the Geth and their multiform identity within this thread indicates, we (as both players and characters) are closer to accepting the still alien nature of synthetics than the infinitely dumb Reapers ever predicted we could be. We are able to empathise with and support creatures wholly biologically and ideologically unlike ourselves, openly disproving the premise upon which the Reaper's have built their entire existence. The fact that because the Reapers are too gorram stupid to acknowledge what we have already come to accept we must therefore forgo continuing this progression organically, instead having several significant stages in this evolution arbitrarily skipped, rather undermines the significance of the journey for me. I get that it's a sacrifice to negate obliteration – but it just pisses me off.

I agree wholeheartedly that I can't get past the question of why... but not just for Synthesis. For all of it. For the entire conversation, for the choice itself. Why? There's no reason for any of it. We're dancing at the end of a madman's string, and why? For no good reason. Because of his whims.

This is why I have no hope for EC. They can't fix "why" without significantly changing the ending, far beyond the scope that they've talked about. So I agree, the lack of a cogent "why" makes things ridiculous... but it makes all the available choices ridiculous and meaningless and stupid-feeling.

drayfish wrote...
If you download into my head the ability to play piano, the sound I make thereafter might be pretty, but it's not really mine. I didn't work for or earn it: it's code. Synthesis seems similar to me: it could be beautiful, but because we skipped the part where we worked for it, incorporated it naturally into ourselves, I feel like the achievement is fundamentally cheapened. But again, that's just my curmudgeonly, cynical knee-jerk humanism. ...You're not trapped in a box, mime! You're just not.

Yeah, I'm kind of... on the fence about this.

I love to sing, but nobody wants to hear a mediocre singer sing a capella. I once spent a year learning to play guitar, and I was crap at it. I have small, delicate hands, and they ached and struggled and I buzzed strings while people with bigger hands had a much easier time. If I could have a program that would just give me the muscle memory required to twist my hands into those unnatural positions, and prosthetics to help me stretch my fingers farther, and to prevent my fingertips from bruising and bleeding, I'd welcome those advancements. Once I had those basics, I could decide what chord variations to play, the pace of my strumming, the picking technique I wanted, all from my skillsofts. My choices of chord variations and strumming techniques would be my creative input, and I could eventually make my own changes to those programs, and those changes would count as creative expression.

This may be influenced by the fact that, in my work, I'm often putting creative input into tools that do all the "hard work" for me. I don't have to code a quest system from scratch, a quest system already exists in the game... I just put in text and goals, add some monsters to a map, change some numbers, do some light, trigger-based scripting within a pre-existing tool, but I've still created something. The use of "shortcuts" created by someone else, the fact that I didn't learn to do it from scratch with my own hands, that doesn't reduce the creative value of my input. It's like having a skillsoft for chord positions but still using your creativity to decide what chords to play.

drayfish wrote...
What bothers me (in all my bubbling stew of scorn) is that choosing synthesis is clearly meant to be the hopeful ending – it's the ending brimming with possibility, with a wild, new expanse of an entirely remade universe stretching out before us, all to be explored and understood – but it seems that the only way that it can come into being is through our acceptance that we have, or will, fail. (This is not to solely pick on synthesis – choosing any of the current endings amounts to failure in my interpretation – but synthesis seems particularly deceptive.) Selecting synthesis means that we must accept that we cannot prevent bloodshed and extermination by any other means than homogenisation – that negotiation, fellowship and understanding can never win out (which again, flies in the face of the experience I was having across 100 hours of gameplay). 
 
When Starbies was telling me that synthetics and organics will inevitably destroy each other, I wanted to select the (unavailable) dialogue option that said: 'Oh yeah?  Well I've got a guy called Legion waiting in the car who wants to kick sand in your face for saying bad stuff about me.'
 
I didn't need to have a core processor to appreciate him; and he didn't need a pancreas to see where I was coming from. We just used the more powerful form of synthesis: we accepted each other for who we are, and decided to work together. No green beams of whatsit necessary.
 
But that's just a general, unhelpful account of my psychological state of play. It's certainly not unswayable. I am eager to be persuaded otherwise. And believe me, everyone in this thread is doing a far better job of talking me down off the ledge than the Bioware writers did in their take.

There is no way to view any of the endings in the context of Starkid that isn't insulting. I don't see why synthesis is any more deceptive or disingenous than any of the other ones, (unless you fall for the "Charles Manson and Global Warming rhetorical trap.) They are all bad. They're all solutions that are either flawed or unnecessary to a problem that we're not remotely convinced exists.

That's why all my interpretations of the choices ignore the starkid. The only way I can feel even an iota of peace about any of the endings is if, after I finish the conversation, I view the choices before me objectively, on their own inherent merits, without reference to why I'm being forced to make them.

I'm in a room and there are three buttons. One kills a huge number of my friends. One seems stupid. And one doesn't seem necessarily all that bad. It accomplishes something I think we were probably going to eventually do anyway. I may not like it, but if I think about the three choices based entirely on what they actually... do... then I pick synthesis and everyone gets an epidermal iphone, but nobody has to die today. Well, except possibly me.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 31 mai 2012 - 01:00 .

[Hawk227]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
 ...unless you fall for the "Charles Manson and Global Warming rhetorical trap...

I think the Charles Manson and Global Warming analogy is inappropriate. Charles Manson and Global Warming have nothing in common. He didn't convince his followers to kill people to prevent global warming. But the Catalyst did create the Reapers to prevent organic/synthetic conflict, and now he thinks Synthesis is the best new solution to the exact same problem. If the Catalyst had chimed in and said that L2 Biotics deserve reparations, and we were arguing that reparations must be evil, you'd have a point.

The Catalyst isn't Charles Manson arguing that we should do something about Global Warming, he's Hitler arguing that something you know absolutely nothing about is an appropriate alternative to the Holocaust, except he's still talking vaguely about the superiority of Aryans.

(Sorry for Godwinning, but it felt appropriate for once )

That's why all my interpretations of the choices ignore the starkid. The only way I can feel even an iota of peace about any of the endings is if, after I finish the conversation, I view the choices before me objectively, on their own inherent merits, without reference to why I'm being forced to make them.

I'm in a room and there are three buttons. One kills a huge number of my friends. One seems stupid. And one doesn't seem necessarily all that bad. It accomplishes something I think we were probably going to eventually do anyway. I may not like it, but if I think about the three choices based entirely on what they actually... do... then I pick synthesis and everyone gets an epidermal iphone, but nobody has to die today. Well, except possibly me.

The second paragraph is why you sound like you are advocating for synthesis... because, essentially, you are.

I can't ignore the starkid. We spent most of the game half looking for the last missing peace of the Crucible, the Catalyst. The starkid is the catalyst, he is required for the process, so we can't ignore him. Or is he the Catalyst? Maybe the Citadel is really the Catalyst, like we were led to believe. Then what is the starkid doing? Is he deceiving us, is he steering us? Why? Either way he's relevant.

Everything you've described about synthesis is all well and good (here and in previous pages). I would pick an iphone transplant on behalf of everyone over genociding the Geth too. I would pick making everyone Garrus or Shepard level hybrids and imbueing synthetics with empathy over genociding the Geth as well. The problem is, none of what you've proposed is in the text, and nothing in the text precludes something even more awful than genociding the Geth. The possibility space is indeed unknown, but while it has an infinite range of good outcomes, it also has an infinite range of bad outcomes.

The only data we have on synthesis is what the Catalyst tells us. He seems to think that synthesis is an appropriate alternative solution to the Reapers. But, he also thought the Reapers were an appropriate solution to the exact same problem. We have some notion of his judgement, and its awful. He also tells us that Synthesis is the final evolution of life, the pinnacle, if you will. But I thought the Reapers, his creations, were the pinnacle of evolution? It's not a lot to go on, but it suggests that the result could easily fall in the awful range. It doesn't help that the leaked script made synthesis "becoming one with the Reapers" and what we got is basically a less fleshed out version of the same scene.

For these reasons and many more, I can never pick synthesis, but its not about ethics. It's not that synthesis is ethically or morally worse than the others, it's not, they're all morally and thematically revolting. For me to take Synthesis seriously, the Catalyst has to be entirely trustworthy (or non-existent) and all choices have to be equally plausible. If that's true, Control is back in play. The two problems with control are that A) It feels like a trap and the hubristic side of assuming you're strong enough not to be corrupted. But A) is definitely crossed out in this scenario, and for I'm either strong enough or I fly them into the sun immediately. Either way, control doesn't look as bad as genocide or mass raping the galaxy with whatever synthesis is (good or bad).

Alternatively, the Catalyst is essentially irrelevant, and just pointing out the options set forth by all the preceding cycles, and Control isn't a trap, and back in play. Either way, the decision (for me) is always between control or destroy. In one scenario I reluctantly take destroy (because it's the only definite solution to the Reaper problem) or I gladly take control.

Modifié par Hawk227, 31 mai 2012 - 02:19 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Edit: actually, I'm not going to address the Godwin. it goes down a bad road. There's a reason I chose the example I did, and it was to AVOID that road.

I'll be back later when I can think straight.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 31 mai 2012 - 02:18 .

[delta_vee]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Now let's say that all the green beam does is the iphone bit... but it also opens up the avenue for anyone, organic or synthetic, to choose to move towards immortally transcended superconsciousness. Right now, you just have every song ever recorded available to play any time you might feel like listening to it, but you also have the option to load your consciousness into a backup, if you want. You have the option to supplement your organic intelligence with synthetic subroutines, if you want. Or If you just want to stay someone who has the complete text of all books ever written on file so that you can view it at any time, you can. If you want to stay a single synthetic consciousness operating an autonomous platform, you can. The hypercompetitive ultimate transcendental evolution is not forced on everyone, it's just a choice that is now available to everyone. And I'd wager credits to croissants that some organics are going to chose to ascend, thus preserving the legacy of organics forever. 

I'd respectfully disagree. I think this leads to the same schism the Catalyst blathered vaguely about. Assuming the singularity/transcendence/whatever is a) possible (a prerequisite), probable (enough to warrant concern), and c) powerful (not vulnerable to simply cutting the power), then I believe it follows that transcendence becomes unduly incentivised. Those who do not are eventually at the mercy of those who do. Choice becomes pressure, which becomes inevitability, which becomes a prison. I don't think it's possible to introduce such a change, both widespread and far-reaching, without also changing the power structure which is all-important.

The best case is the Minds of the Culture, watching over their mortal charges (pets?) with care. The next-to-worst is the Vile Offspring of Accelerando, driving the holdouts of posthumanity into exile. The very worst are the TITANs of Eclipse Phase, hunting heads and stealing minds. A wide probability space, granted - but the cost of being wrong is so very steep.

[drayfish]

You are so dangerous CulturalGeekGirl. So. Very. Dangerous. 
 
I don't know how you do it, but you can make me approach the most repugnant, vile concepts with – not acceptance; I remain a long, long way from acceptance – but with a... a hopeful objectivity?  (If that makes any sense... which it doesn't.) Are you some kind of magnificent wizard? Do you have sprites and pixies that dance at your command? Have you been reading The Tempest so long that – wait! Why am I suddenly carting wood?
 
Truly thank you for articulating that vision of synthesis. It has allowed me – for the first time since switching off the game after the credits rolled out – to think about the Green ending with anything but abject disgust. Admittedly in order to even think at any length about it I still have to (as a defence mechanism) cling to this notion you suggest that it can be as minor as a non-invasive biotic upgrade rather than the wholesale restructure of DNA that it appeared to be sold as – but approaching the concept as a tool to be utilised has allowed me to conceptualise it more rationally. (Although I would add the caveat that nothing in text suggests that the process is indeed that subtle; indeed in the final FMV the freaking trees are part-synthetic too. What the hell was that about?)
 
I should make clear though: I still hate it. Many of my instinctual complaints remain: I think it destroys the evolution poetry it was shooting for; it's an answer to a question that no-one in the universe beside a deranged pre-programmed maniac was asking; and I despise Shepard being compelled to inflict her will upon the world (that's how we ended up with Madonna's film career). But you have managed to inch me closer to one vision of this synthesis ending that allows me to at least see where the creators of the game were (perhaps) coming from. And that is an evolutionary leap in itself.

[Seijin8]

Indeed, CulturalGeekGirl has made an impressive show of making synthesis less awful-seeming.

Between her exposition and many of the links left by Ieldra2, I have come to the conclusion that there isn't any single thing in the finale (or even the game leading up to it) that is irredeemably broken.

- The motivations for the Reapers can be made clear without needing to sympathize with them.
- The Catalyst can be portrayed in a way that makes him neutral and somewhat trustworthy.
- Each of the ending options can be presented in a way that makes them viable in and of themselves without needing to contrast them with a "lesser evil" mentality.
- The technological singularity can not only be the reason for all this, but could become a legitemate debate point by itself at the finale.

I think the ending fails not because of any one of these points, but because so many previously untested and foreign concepts/narrative mechanisms are launched *at once* atop a story that has been struggling for self-consistency up to this point.

Any one of these elements could be added without seriously disrupting the game:
- The Catalyst could appear to try and convince Shepard not to Destroy the Reapers outright, or at least to understand why the Reapers are necessary. The only options that need to be presented are "Red button: push it you glorious bastard!" or "Damn, Reaperboy Culkin has a point..."
- The idea of the Crucible allowing for a variety of possible changes (with no Catalyst around to complicate matters with trust issues) and Shepard realizing before pushing the button will in fact wipe out the Geth and EDI and any other device "infected" with Reaper code. Based on EMS, Shepard is given additional options for how to enable the Crucible.  Perhaps destroy encompasses more than a single red blast, but can be modulated.  Something has to be scarificed, but what?  Would Shepard wipe out Earth if it meant saving the Geth?  What if Earth and the Geth could be saved, but only at the expense of the relays?  What if Earth, the relays and the Geth coould survive, but some of the Reapers would survive as well?  Is that worth the risk?

If the story was truly to be about transhumanism vs. the tech singularity, it could easily fit within the existing narrative, and offer all current ending options, by having Shepard discover much of this information while activating the Crucible:

- Shepard is navigating the interface with EDI's help.
- Shepard and EDI come across the Reaper's own instruction set, realizing that the Reapers exist to prevent runaway synthetic AIs from wiping out organics.
- Something in the Reaper's own intelligence reports show that EDI is close to attaining the needed processing power and efficiency of code to ascend toward the singularity. (Picture the moment where EDI and Shep realize the Reapers have come to stop EDI and AIs like her, and consider her such a threat that wiping out any trace of the civilizations that made her is acceptable and necessary.)
- EDI, with this knowledge in hand, has her Galadriel vs. the One Ring moment. Shepard's interaction with her up to this point can help to guide her. Yes, Joker is a tool for activating the overlord. Get ready to count to pi. A split scene of Joker and Shepard each confronting EDI aboard the Normandy and via the Crucible could have been very cool to see.
- Assuming EDI can resist the temptation, she comes to understand that the tech singularity is a real problem. She herself sees no way to stop an AI like her without self-evolving to the same level, and ultimately becoming the overlord, even if a protective force. Controlling the Reapers is possible, and using them to fight such an outbreak is viable, at least in the short-term. However, the Reapers fear the singularity because it is beyond them as well. EDI and Shep have to consider that anything EDI does to stop an AI outbreak would be on a scale even beyond the Reapers, and equally open to abuse.
- EDI can recognize the threat is ultimately a matter of organic inability to adapt on the same timescale, and be able to use "reverse indoctrination" to accelerate transhumanism to a degree where organics are competitive (synthesis).
- EDI can become the new Catalyst, and control the Reapers herself. (Does Shepard trust her this much?)
- Having "Sheparded" the new galactic protector shows the story arc was ultimately about Shepard and EDI, that her time as a fembot was instrumental in seeing individuals as worth saving, even at the risk of future genocide.
- A variable sequence of ending outcomes similar to Tuchanka's meta-story could proceed, leaving us with variations on the existing three endings, but having arrived at them through the same fundamental gameplay mechanics we were already familiar with. No Catalyst needed.

So, again, it is the collision of all these dissonant notions at once, without any of the supporting mechanisms previously employed in the series that leaves us blinded, confused, and emotionally separated from the end. The ending components themselves needn't be abhorrent, just morally and ethically complex, with no clear right answers - a theme we have visited many times in ME.

Not sure what my overall point is/was.

Modifié par Seijin8, 31 mai 2012 - 06:39 .

[edisnooM]

@Seijin8

That is a very cool write up of how it could have gone.

However all these alternative ideas are slightly depressing in that it is very unlikely BioWare will do something like them, or in some cases couldn't without seriously changing the ending. :-S

[Seijin8]

Well, it depends very much on what part of the ending's "artistic integrity" they wish to maintain, and what parts of the ending they see as assisting or harming that artistic vision.

I never believed the notion that nothing was going to change, and the discussions we are having here must have also been taking place among the writers. I can't see EA giving BioWare the go ahead for a new ending unless there was a strong indication that it could actually be salvaged.

Tricia Helfer being brought in for additional voice work indicates that EDI has a role to play in the extended cut, probably just as exposition machine, but possibly to smooth some rough edges with the entire concept.

I maintain a shred of hope that BW's artistic vision involves the three endings, but not the means to presenting them. In this, the Catalyst could absolutely be jettisoned.

I have to believe that BW have at least an inkling of why the endings didn't work for many, and to have gotten the go-ahead from EA, they must have a solid idea of how to repair it. If the endings really were a two-man project, that sh*t won't float any more, and creative writers can surely find a way through this.

My only concern is the fairly short development window being the real stumbling block in the repairs.

Modifié par Seijin8, 31 mai 2012 - 07:11 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Ok, just got back from a party where I drank dangerous lemonade, ate questionable Jello, talked about Jem and watched the last half hour of the Other Guys. I'm firmly in a good mood now. (Once again I must sing the praises of the game industry. Where else can you find such a convivial accumulation of nerds.) If my tenses are a bit messy, blame the fading tail of a most pleasant intoxication.

I'm not a pixie, but it's been pretty well established amongst my peer group that I'm a being of chaos. There was a period of time when my best friend was a librarian, a being of pure order. He would spend months tracking down the ideal edition of Frankenstein, in the perfect condition, winging it back to his lair to sit in neat, corner-aligned stacks. I would trip over a cardboard box and find a paperback from 1960 that would fall open to the exact quote I was looking for. In his room, everything was in its place, part of a precise mental inventory. Anything you asked me for, I'd have to check to see if I had... and there was always a chance that I did. A set of paints, a pink wig, a fencing foil, a flask of twelve-year-old scotch, a volume of italo calvino, a traditional tea ceremony set, a wig display head, a set of sculptor's tools. All would sink into the vortex, perchance to be retrieved when there was a need.

I'm going somewhere with this, honestly. Despite the ease of identifying my means of existing and the train of debris that I leave behind as "chaos," I'm not involved in any active tearing down of established authority. So I always identified myself as neutral good. Recently, though, I was having a discussion with a learned friend, and they said "I think most people are generally lawful." This staggered me, somewhat. If 80% of people are inherently quite lawful, then maybe it shifts the window. Maybe neutrality is chaos, relatively speaking.

I delved further into this line of inquiry, trying to understand that particular way of thinking. In a fantasy book that, somewhat ironically, is about the rights of synthetics in comparison to those of organics, I sought wisdom from my favorite fictional source of insight into what normal people are like, and he spoke from the pages thusly: "They think they want good government and justice for all, Vimes, yet what is it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal and tomorrow is pretty much like today."

Synthesis is bad because it could go wrong in all sorts of horrible ways. I'm not going to argue with that. It represents an unknowable and uncertain future encompassing infinite possibility, every option between euphoria and despair.

Or, as I like to call it, tomorrow.

Still, yes, it involves engaging, on some level, with a tyrant. You have to talk with him, and when he tells you three things, you have to pick one. This is why, when it all comes down to it, there is only one course of action I have actually traditionally advocated for: the double deuce, the big blow off, the Reapers destroyed the Crucible. Resume? No. No resume. The only winning move is not to play. Better dead than smeg. Even I prefer to remove myself from play than to be involved in such a questionable decision based on a flawed premise presented to me by a monstrous object of hate.

I'm ready to let go, when I realize something.. Every tomorrow is built on some suspect decisions made by angry, bitter people doing their best to make the best call they can in a situation where a moronic madman holds all the cards. That's pretty much a roadmap for human history.

And then I think of the Yahg. Why'd it have to be the Yahg? If we were leaving the universe to the pyjaks and spacecows, I'd be content to watch it burn while we fight a losing battle, but the Reapers aren't killing the Yahg. And if the Yahg build the crucible... they'll pound Destroy like nobody's business, or dive into Control and pilot their Reaper fleet across the galaxy, killing everything in their path.

But I can't see a Yahg ever picking synthesis, with their blanket hatred of everything that isn't them. And that... that makes me smile, a little. I pour one out for the last Shadowbroker, thank him for that little bit of cultural education he provided me, and I limp towards a future I cannot know, guess at, or imagine.

I limp towards gorram tomorrow.

* * * * *

Look, I know that, as beings of order, the predictability of the other choices is part of their appeal, that the utter incomprehensibility of synthesis, the ridiculousness of it, are detriments in your philosophy. I get that. That's why I'm not, no matter what anyone says, saying that I think Synthesis is the right choice for anyone but someone like me. Still, if you're willing to examine the choices from a point of view that places absolutely no value whatsoever on predictability, that gives no influential value (positive or negative) to the opinions of tyrants, that, as a rule, likes surprises... maybe you can see how, for a being of chaos, the third way could feel right.

If it weren't for the Yahg, though, I'd totally be up for deucing OUT, y'all.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 31 mai 2012 - 08:22 .

[edisnooM]

@CulturalGeekGirl

Good post, but I wouldn't dismiss the Yahg entirely. All they need is their own version of Wrex to drag them kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat. :-)

Modifié par edisnooM, 31 mai 2012 - 08:02 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

edisnooM wrote...

@CulturalGeekGirl

Good post, but I wouldn't dismiss the Yahg entirely. All they need is their own version of Wrex to drag them kicking and screaming into the Century of the
Fruitbat. :-)

I'm just sayin' I'm not ready to hand 'em the keys to a fresh universe at the moment, is all.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 31 mai 2012 - 08:15 .

[Abraham_uk]

You know there is a lot of these kind of (TL:DR) remarks on BSN

"To long, didn't read."

Well I'm glad I took the time to read the opening post. Took me ages (because I'm a slow reader) and a lot of the references I didn't get. But the content is fantastic.

I agree with the opening post. But I think the Professor won't be too pleased with Extended Cut.

Modifié par Abraham_uk, 31 mai 2012 - 08:26 .

[Aslanasadi]

This is very well written. Thank you for posting this here.
Also I can say that I agree with it very much.

Modifié par Aslanasadi, 31 mai 2012 - 08:41 .

[Orion1836]

I just now finished the game (a few months late thanks to deployment), and I have to say that I heard about the ending beforehand, but not in any sort of detail. I thought that it couldn't possibly be that bad... Bioware is famous for their writing quality and they'd never screw up something as major as the end of Mass Effect.

Then I started playing the game, and was absolutely floored at how well written each little scene was (of special note, Garrus' sniper contest on the Citadel, and Thane/Mordin's death scenes). How could something this good end badly?

Then I saw the ending. For the record, I chose "synthesis" with over 4k points. Yeah.

Honestly, I kind of expected Shepard to die, or at the very least, I was mentally prepared for it. There had simply been too much denouement prior to the actual final fight. I would have even applauded had he valiantly given his life in a list-ditch effort to stop the Reapers. An ending doesn't have to be happy to be good.

But no matter how I look at it, the boy-catalyst was an ass-pull. Like the OP said, the choices (and reasoning) presented were so thematically different from everything said previously, that the end effect was a complete loss of my suspension of disbelief. Furthermore, where did this intelligence "behind" the Reapers come from, and how/why wasn't it even alluded to before the ending. It was even worse than a deus ex machina ending.

At the end of the day, ME belongs to Bioware and the team that created it, and I will respect their artistic decision. It was a brave choice not to give us the "standard awesome happy ending" we've been used to seeing in previous games such as Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age and KOTOR. They took a lot of risk trying something new with such a valuable title.

It would be an even braver choice if they were to step up, admit that it could have been better, and release an alternate, "happy" ending. Hell, they'd probably make a mint selling it as DLC.

Modifié par Orion1836, 31 mai 2012 - 09:23 .