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[drayfish]

Wha? Whaddid I miss? I heard someone mention this thread developing a Kick Starter, so I ran as fast as I could... And wow. Pages of delight: 'Sexy Turian Ladies', 'Indiana Batarian', the Film Critic Hulk, and brains! Delicious indoctrinated brains! And delta_vee: a hypothetical account of Indoctrination's pattern of assault upon the mind? You rock. Fantastic. I love this thread!
 
 
I know I'm embarrassing myself dipping backward in the discussion (even more than uttering the phrase 'you rock'), but:
 
 
@ KitaSaturnyne: Thanks for the link to your story – I really enjoyed it. I agree with the feedback so far: I had Max Payne's gruff voice in my head the whole time. It set the mood nicely. By the way, Sam's ex-wife Laura: was that a reference to the old noir film Laura? (I love that film.) And: 'Just another puppet who'd lost his strings': Sweeeeeeeeet...
 
 
@ frypan: Welcome back. I hope the trip was great (we mainlanders certainly offered you some horrible weather for it – you know we control the rain, right?)  And wow. That is quite a grim portrait you outline there about the concluding narratives of each of the characters. In all of the discussion of the overall ending I don't think I'd actually processed how dire things turn out individually for all the characters I love. 

'War is hell' and all that, but yikes. Did anyone get through this unscathed? I mean, even Joker – voice of wry cynicism and resilience; man who has faced the adversity of being handicapped his entire life and yet remained a resolute and firm – gets to learn of his sister's death and has the ship he (literally) loves eat a planet. And wide-eyed, idealistic Liara has her Santa Claus image of the Protheans kicked in her face for the span of the game... Maybe instead of 'Buy more DLC' we should have a different message flash up: 'Congratulations, you won. Now let's all just look at some photos of kittens wearing funny hats for a few hours and try to keep breathing. Oh, look at this one! He thinks he's people!'
 
 
@ Seijin8: You lay out a compelling (and I'd wager damn-near impossible) challenge there. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of narrative sorcery can wield those elements together (and hope that Bioware has such wizards on staff too).
 
 
@ CulturalGeekGirl: Thanks for the link to your review of/response to 'The Arrival' DLC. It was a great read: measured, thoughtful, knowing.* Secret shame (that is no longer secret): I've not played 'Arrival'. I was itching to play it, then had the ending spoiled for me. It's impossible now to go back and untangle whether that's why I didn't go through with downloading it before ME3 (or whether I'm just a cheap bastard waiting for a DLC sale – psst: it's because I'm a cheap bastard), but something about that final decision being forced upon the player rubbed me a little wrong. (Again: people should take my opinion with the bag of salt that I've not played a single second of the campaign, and my full acknowledgement that there were decisions that in Mass Effect 1 and 2 decisions were forced upon the player too...) Reading your review helped put that feeling into some perspective; and given some of the streamlined design choices in Mass Effect 3 perhaps it was indeed a sign of things to come.
 
 
* How is it that I have legitimately read the best reviews and analysis of games in the past few weeks that I have been involved in this thread than I have in the preceding several years? Between KitaSaturnyne and delta_vee's take on Max Payne, CulturalGeekGirl's blog posts on the Mass Effect series, (I hope I'm not out of line calling this out, but) an exceptional reading of Dragon Age 2 that jbauck offered me, to the general discussion of Chrono Trigger, Beyond Good And Evil, Dark Souls, etc... You all make measured, intelligent critique look so effortless! [I have deleted this sentence several times over, unable to get it right, but the rhetorical-question gist is: Why is it so hard for mainstream publications and reviewers to get that balance right?]


EDIT: Damn.  First poster of the page.  No fair.  ...Okay, since I appear to have permanently slipped into a Muppet-inspired nostalcoma, I request 'Rainbow Connection'.  And do the voice!  I'd better hear banjos!

Modifié par drayfish, 21 juin 2012 - 01:36 .

[frypan]

EDIT: Cheers Drayfish! Sydney is my original home, but Tassie is much more clement -even with the snow

@Seijin8 I agree. Bioware have the chops to write themselves out of the current awful ending. I'm also sure they dont want to leave so many fans feeling lousy either.

The key here is what Bioware want obviously. I dont buy that they will produce some EC just to say "we did our best". Remember, the mainstream press has been heavily biased against those who disliked the ending, so the company doesnt really need to appease or answer to anyone outside the core fanbase on this. This is a genuine address to customer dissatisfaction, plus possibly a chance to drum up some more interest and business - a second wind, for the game.

How far are they invested in the catalyst as a concept and the three choices exactly as they stand? Who knows, but they've listened to feedback before, and I think they are this time. Its just a matter of balancing out cost, the various groups who dislike the ending and those who liked it.

Whether they can make a big dent in the issue within the criteria you've set there though, I just dont know. I have pretty much lost interest in examining something that includes the catalyst - that was tried some pages back and didn't work for me, especially with extra elucidation. If the catalyst stays I'll just take my lumps and admit defeat.

That will be annoying but berabale, However I really don't want the self sacrifice bit in there as well. If we get both catalyst and a dead shep, I'll most certainly be pretty disappointed, no matter what bells and whistles surround it. Just more great scenes surrounding a miserable end point.

Thats just a summation of my personal feelings. Hopefully others will end up happy though. It would be a lot of work for nothing otherwise, and I imagine the devs would be disheartened if, with the foreknowledge of what failed last time, they were unable to make at least a significant number of folks happy.

As to the whole not buying Bioware products again, its an interesting issue and a good one for self analysis. I remember swearing off their products early on, but my histornics have passed in that regards. Would I deny myself fun just because of an artistic disgareement? Probably not, although I would like to see some sort of dialogue about what was going on therebefore I could trust their judgement. I also think this is necessary at some point, no matter what happens with the EC, if they wish to demonstrate that they understand where we disagreed with their original concept. .

However there are broader issues raised here and elsewhere that are worth considering. For instance, I suspect the issues that helped create the ME3 debacle, especially the whole grimdark stuff, will be present in force in other Bioware games, as most folks are not bothered by them - note games like Prototype, The Darkness et al that are quite popular with folks other than myself. I think we can expect more of that as the gaming industry is a bit of a juggernaut and slave to fashions, and the whole "being bad is fun" has not run its course yet.

Couple that with the online and day one issues endemic to the industry as a whole, and I'm a much more cautious customer overall - bad for a business that relies on preorders and the like, but I am only one customer, a curmudgeonly one at that these days. I probably dont figure high in demographic analyses. This is the case for many of us on this thread I fear too alas.

Maybe we can all get rich, and like Culture Geek Girl, throw money at Bioware to show our loyalty and get the games we want made. Otherwiese I suspect our tastes are too specialised and involve the allocation of resources such as complex plot and story trees, different to the industry trends as a whole an thus not fostered in the face of massive explosions and bombastic scenes.

Overall, it would be nice to be proven wrong, but for the moment its time to wait, see what happens in the industry as a whole. Luckily for myself there is a huge back catalogue to get through, including some fine references from this thread -and of course Bioware's own previous works. DAO is always good to replay, and I'm at the point where I can enjoy the first two ME games as an excellent, if incomplete work.

As a final note, sometimes an incomplete work is better for the lack of a final chapter, so a playthrough to the end of ME2 might work for some of us. Julius Caesar finished his commentaries on a high note, before the stabby bits that ended his life. Thats where I sit with the ME series at present - my heart is still with the end of ME2, and no matter what happens, I suspect it always will.

PS @BigglesFlysAgain. My childhood hero in the name, and a Captain Scarlet reference in your sig? Legendary!

Modifié par frypan, 21 juin 2012 - 01:36 .

[BigglesFlysAgain]

@Frypan

Thanks for noticing... In my head-cannon the mysterons are rogue prothean technology... I mean there is plenty of time between 2068 and 2148 to shoehorn S.P.E.C.T.R.U.M and the mysterons in somewhere, the tech level could just about work too...

Modifié par BigglesFlysAgain, 21 juin 2012 - 01:51 .

[frypan]

Thanks for the epitome of the last few pages Drayfish. Now I know what to look forward to while catching up. Some good links there, its just getting time to read through everything thats the issue!
 
And you've inspire me to get a worthy top page post in. If we're onto the muppets, Dr Teeth must be cited.

[frypan]

BigglesFlysAgain wrote...

@Frypan

Thanks for noticing... In my head-cannon the mysterons are rouge prothean technology... I mean there is plenty of time between 2068 and 2148 to shoehorn S.P.E.C.T.R.U.M and the mysterons in somewhere, the tech level could just about work too...

And of course - there is the indestructible one himself. Might partially answer my gloomy sounding last post, if Shep does a captain on us and pops up at the end saying "ha ha can't actually kill me"
 
Another instance of the catalyst talking utter bosh - Shep always survives!

[BigglesFlysAgain]

frypan wrote...



And of course - there is the indestructible one himself. Might partially answer my gloomy sounding last post, if Shep does a captain on us and pops up at the end saying "ha ha can't actually kill me"
 
Another instance of the catalyst talking utter bosh - Shep always survives!

I would go for that... as long as shepard did not have to win by driving an implausibly large explosive material transporter into the reaper fleet... and then waking up in hospital again...


I would also go for shepards flesh burning away and just being the terminator underneath, then having a jerky stopmotion chase after starkid

[vixvicco]

People read that wall of text?

[memorysquid]

BigglesFlysAgain wrote...

@frypan

Your right that it can't really be a traditional "war film" since you don't have the "humanisable" enemy, or even the dubious motives for the war in the first place, I thought about why a film with a faceless enemy could work as a war film, something like starship troopers (though its not to be taken too seriously!) and I think its because with most of those films, the protagonists are the faceless grunts, and its usually the incompetent or uncaring generals that put them in the danger they are in, and cause deaths of close friends ect, while in mass effect 3, for most of the game you are nearly always in command or control of a situation, so there are very few people you can blame when something goes wrong apart from yourself or the enemy, so to sum up ME3 is a war film without:


Humanised enemy

Goal or causes of war dubious

Incompetent commanders (apart from shepard?!?)

Shepard is in constant "run around scrabbling for resources mode" only because his incompetent superiors denied the truth he was offering them.  He undertakes every mission with basically a bare minimum of resources - 3 man team vs. continual flood of enemies. 

It's a thoroughly gameish, unreal setting designed to be challenging; I don't think you can really look that deep into it.

[memorysquid]

Seijin8 wrote...

Something I have been pondering about the endings and their relation to the EC:

On this thread we have repeatedly discussed both the narrative issues of the endings, and their poor execution. Basically, we can only guess at the artistic intent because the execution of that narrative was so abyssmal.

With the EC, we will (apparently) be treated to the full power of their artistic integrity as they execute their finale once again.

With the discussions about the tech singularity, leaked script, etc, we have an idea of what their artistic vision actually was. Most of us on this thread seem opposed to the whole premise, so even a spot-on execution in the EC will not salvage the story in any real way.

On the other hand, as delta_vee mentioned, the "artistic vision" may be the resultant emotional 5-finger deathpunch, and the narrative itself is a slave to that concept.

I know everyone will have their own thoughts on this (and many of these have already been mentioned somewhere in the voluminous depths of this thread), but I am curious what variations of the theme could be used to deliver that desired emotional piledriver in a way that did not break the theme or the setting in some way.

As I write this, I do not know of a way to execute such an emotional hit without simultaneously murdering any sense of triumph that the finale might be able to generate, but more creative minds than mine frequent this thread, so maybe they will be able to do so.

So, to summarize: can you construct the outline of an ending whereby:
- The Catalyst is retained in the spirit of elucidation machine and voice of the Reaper's motives
- The summation of the plot is emotionally rigorous, possibly even horrifying, without being so jarring as to divorce the player form the avatar or the narrative itself
- Shepard most likely self-sacrifices without it seeming like a deathmarch
- The finale is "bittersweet" while justifying the notion of Shepard being a legend in the far future, as opposed to a war criminal, mass murderer, foolish pawn of eldritch superbeings, etc.

Consider it a creative writing challenge. Be as complete or outline-oriented as you wish, or ignore this whole foolhardy endeavor.

Offer more exposition and have Shepard do something realistic, like try to understand what the Catalyst is saying and then offering some heart-wrenching omnitool call to his LI.  What stunned me out of disbelief is the sheer ludicrousness of Shep just sucking it all in and then deciding to suicide with no further thought.  In other places in the game you can literally stop what you're doing and have a chat with Jack while Cerberus is invading Grissom Academy, but at the end of everything you have to hurry and make a snap decision on how you're going to off yourself.

[Xandurpein]

Seijin8 wrote...

So, to summarize: can you construct the outline of an ending whereby:
- The Catalyst is retained in the spirit of elucidation machine and voice of the Reaper's motives
- The summation of the plot is emotionally rigorous, possibly even horrifying, without being so jarring as to divorce the player form the avatar or the narrative itself
- Shepard most likely self-sacrifices without it seeming like a deathmarch
- The finale is "bittersweet" while justifying the notion of Shepard being a legend in the far future, as opposed to a war criminal, mass murderer, foolish pawn of eldritch superbeings, etc.

Consider it a creative writing challenge. Be as complete or outline-oriented as you wish, or ignore this whole foolhardy endeavor.

I know I had promised myself to avoid the arrogance of trying to concoct my own take on the ending, but I guess the temptation is too great. Feel free to be as critical as you want. Here goes:

Shepard finally faces the Catalyst and the Catalyst explains to Shepard that it is from the earliest starfaring race in the galaxy. This race created an synthetic race of servants that eventually rebelled against their creators. The war was fought to a standstill, but this progenitor race believed that in time the synthetics would evolve at a faster pace than they could, so they decided to sacrifice their organic bodies and upload themselves to a vast mechanical hivemind, Reapers, to become the supreme and eternal war machines. Many of the first Reapers were created by slave races sacrificed to create Reapers, but Harbinger was unique, because he was contructed from progenitor volounteers.

The Indoctrination was originally created to unify the separate minds of the uploaded races into one hivemind, but the process was flawed. The Reapers had become the ultimate war machines, but the indoctrination that unified their minds had left them unable to evolve or change. They had become eternal, but unchanging. The Reapers convinced themselves they were pinnacle of evolution, but they were forced to destroy any race that threatened to overtake them by evolving beyond their capacity.

Some of the progenitors had forseen this possiblity though and created a failsafe device; a machine with the knowledge of how to deactivate the Reapers and wipe their minds. This was the VI known as the Catalyst. The Catalyst is bound by various protocols and is paranoid about self-preservation. It has leaked information about how to build the crucible to various races before, but dare not interfere directly. No race's survival is important for this being who think in terms of eons. It's waiting for the right race to appear before it dares commit itself and reveal it's existance. But Shepard has proved that mankind is the allies he's been waiting for.

The Catalyst claims that to destroy all the Reapers and the energy beam needs to be transmitted acroos the galaxy through the Mass Relay system, and that this requires that all the energy stored in the Mass Relays be released, destroying them. This will likely plunge the galaxy into a Galactic dark age, but the Reapers will be destroyed. The Catalyst claims however that the beam can be used in a more subtle way. It is possible to use the indoctrination signal to upload the Catalyst mind onto Harbinger and force the other Reapers to obey it. Catalyst promises then to become an ally of the organics and will use their power to help rebuild the Mass Relays, shortening the galactic dark age and alleviating the consequences considerably. If Shepard voices concern or distrust of the Catalyst motives, Catalyst informs him that there's a third option, insteead of uploading his mind onto Harbinger, he offers to upload Shepard's mind onto Harbinger. This will destroy Shepard's body and instead let him become Harbinger. Optionally there would be some conversation between the Catalyst and Shepard to reveal the nature of Shepard's "reign" should he chose to become a Reaper himself.

Phew, that's all I can think of at the top of my mind. I'm sure there are people who can find plot holes in this too, but at least I had fun musing.

Modifié par Xandurpein, 21 juin 2012 - 03:06 .

[GreyReaver]

Thank you for putting my nerd rage into a thoughtful and comprehensive screed err... post.

BW's response in their best Queen Victoria impersonation: "We are not amused."

[Seijin8]

@ alleyd... Rainbow Connection was among my favorite songs when I was... I dunno, 5 maybe. To see the lyrics huskified is... oddly pleasant. Thanks!

@ Xandurpein: I certainly don't see any glaring plot holes in there. It maintains many of the key elements and offers a wider range of outcomes than the current design. I like the bit about indoc resulting in an end to their self-advancement. The notion of forced homogenization resulting in an end to progress fits well with the overall ME narrative (and largely defies the current synthesis ending). "Pinnacle of evolution" takes on a very different meaning when their goal is to ensure that remains the case. Also, the progenitor volunteers becoming Harby actually explains its apparently different perspective from Sov.

Very good job, sir!

[KitaSaturnyne]

drayfish wrote...

@ KitaSaturnyne: Thanks for the link to your story – I really enjoyed it. I agree with the feedback so far: I had Max Payne's gruff voice in my head the whole time. It set the mood nicely. By the way, Sam's ex-wife Laura: was that a reference to the old noir film Laura? (I love that film.) And: 'Just another puppet who'd lost his strings': Sweeeeeeeeet...

Thank you! And good to see you back. I have to say, the feedback has been wonderful, but it's starting to make me think that I may have a future in this short story writing thing. And as far as I'm concerned, Sam Rivers was a fluke where all the right pieces just happened to fall into place, and the product of many edits and days thinking "no. They'll never like this. It's too cliche and stupid". And to be fair, without Fapmaster5000's guidance, I would have left him alive at the end, which would have justified that thought.

Particularly though, I'm pretty proud of the "King/ God" line.

That said, I'm trying my hand at another idea that came to me recently, so hopefully I'll be able to pull it off. I'm trying not to make it 'more than' or 'less than' dear old Sam, but I still fear that from such a strong start, the only way for me to go is down.
 

drayfish wrote...

@ frypan: Welcome back. I hope the trip was great (we mainlanders certainly offered you some horrible weather for it – you know we control the rain, right?)  And wow. That is quite a grim portrait you outline there about the concluding narratives of each of the characters. In all of the discussion of the overall ending I don't think I'd actually processed how dire things turn out individually for all the characters I love. 

'War is hell' and all that, but yikes. Did anyone get through this unscathed? I mean, even Joker – voice of wry cynicism and resilience; man who has faced the adversity of being handicapped his entire life and yet remained a resolute and firm – gets to learn of his sister's death and has the ship he (literally) loves eat a planet. And wide-eyed, idealistic Liara has her Santa Claus image of the Protheans kicked in her face for the span of the game... Maybe instead of 'Buy more DLC' we should have a different message flash up: 'Congratulations, you won. Now let's all just look at some photos of kittens wearing funny hats for a few hours and try to keep breathing. Oh, look at this one! He thinks he's people!'

I agree with both dray and frypan on this. Games do much in the way of training us, not just technically, (press A to throw feces!) but also emotionally. Mass Effect 3 trained me to dread going on to the next story point, because so many of the characters I had come to know and love had already been offered up on the chopping block. The game had quickly become an exercise of figuring out who was going to die next and for what reason. It sure as anything makes for some dramatic, emotional scenes, but there's hardly ever a place where we can take a break from that, so the game ends up being really emotionally draining.
 
 @Seijin8
 The only idea that really comes to me is that the Catalyst is the product of adding a bunch of advanced AI modules, disguised and random program fragments, to Avina. She, now called the Catalyst, is able to instruct Shepard how to use the Crucible (Including personally being able to control the Keepers?), and posits three different ways to destroy them, or otherwise put an end to their cycles of destruction. Whatever the choices are, we are then shown the effects these choices have on the galaxy. And just to ****** off delta_vee, one of the methods would include drawing energy from the mass relays, which would shut them down. Then, after the Reapers are destroyed/ stopped, the mass relays spring back to life after a painfully long moment, apparently only having needed a few minutes to gather enough energy to start working again. (Alternatively, someone could just figure out the equivalent of dropping a little eezo in the gas tank and poof! Working relays.)

I'd like to emphasize that I left out any and all justifications for the Reapers' actions, but only because I'm one of those who agree that their actions need no rhyme or reason.
 

drayfish wrote...

* How is it that I have legitimately read the best reviews and analysis of games in the past few weeks that I have been involved in this thread than I have in the preceding several years? Between KitaSaturnyne and delta_vee's take on Max Payne, CulturalGeekGirl's blog posts on the Mass Effect series, (I hope I'm not out of line calling this out, but) an exceptional reading of Dragon Age 2 that jbauck offered me, to the general discussion of Chrono Trigger, Beyond Good And Evil, Dark Souls, etc... You all make measured, intelligent critique look so effortless! [I have deleted this sentence several times over, unable to get it right, but the rhetorical-question gist is: Why is it so hard for mainstream publications and reviewers to get that balance right?]

To be fair, delta_vee pointed out a bunch of annoyances that I originally glossed over in Max Payne 3, and I was working off of first impressions.

I have the dreadful feeling that together we are strong, but separate us, and we are... well, not quite so strong. It's why I plan to enjoy my time here with the utmost.

Modifié par KitaSaturnyne, 21 juin 2012 - 11:33 .

[frypan]

@Xandurpein

Nice work. I still loathe the catalyst - but you've gone a way to making it less like some bogus altruistic device looking out for the galaxy.

The idea of the AI gone rogue is a good one - CultureGeekGirl had a similar suggestion upthread, but you've put a distinctive spin on it. I particularly like the way you've used sovereign's own words about being unchanging and immortal, and turned them into a manifestation of where things went wrong. Nicely done.

The big fear here, and I think I'm not alone, is that the moment some of us see that little troll waddle on screen we will switch off and stop listening. Our own prejudices may work against us here, even if Bioware do a good job of patching things up. Might have to steel myself in this regards, to be more objective with what is done.

EDIT: I also like the idea the reapers are the fallout from some ancient war. The images behind that, of a primordial battle between organics and synthetics that led to such a horrible legacy is quite evocative. It is much better, again, than the idea the whole thing was some sadists way of helping the galaxy.

Modifié par frypan, 21 juin 2012 - 11:38 .

[edisnooM]

Don't really have much to contribute to the alternate ending ideas but I wanted say interesting ideas so far.

One thing that worries me about the EC though is that if we still have the Catalyst, Synthetics vs Organics as apparently the main theme and what we are apparently supposed to find a solution to, combined with the same three ending choices and the whole Relay issue, I'm not really sure how BioWare is going to make it work.

I'm not going to say they can't because I know that they are capable of some truly great writing, but I think if they're determined to not create a new ending but merely expand and clarify what we have already been presented with, they're really going to have their work cut out for them.

Although if they get rid of the Geth and EDI part of destroy, let Shepard survive, and give us some sort of epilogue/reunion with our team, that would go a long way for me.

[Seijin8]

Well, for the record, I do not hold to the "not change anything" concept. Given all the PRiness of their posts at the time, I think anything resembling an admission of guilt was never going to happen, but at some point the writing team had to sit down and figure out what to do.

At said meeting they had to determine what parts they were *definitely* sticking to and where there might be wiggle-room. If they took fan complaints about theme and illogic seriously, then I cannot see anything less than a significant rewrite/retcon. And if they weren't taking it seriously... I doubt they would have invested the time at all.

At worst, I think we can look forward to a well-executed bad ending. At best, they re-envision their intent and focus on themes that ME has always centered around without needlessly massacring the setting.

My expectation is a middle ground of sorts: I can't see it "fixing" everything, but there are small elements that could be changed to make it more palatable, narrative sequences that could refocus us on their version of events, and create some less speculative end sequences to differentiate the three endings, making it clear that synthesis isn't huskification, destroy isn't the end of civilization, control isn't indocrination by other means, etc.

[KitaSaturnyne]

I think what I'd like most to see in terms of anything that DLC brings to the table is their effects on the ending. People poke fun relentlessly at the ending the third Lord of the Rings movie, Return of the King. While it took a long time and many people didn't like the "false fade out" style, this movie exemplifies the way to end a trilogy.

You have to take everything, and I mean EVERYTHING and wrap it all up in a nice, neat bow. Sure, you can leave some questions here and there, but for the most part, especially when it comes to plot points that relate to the central theme and focus of the three stories, it has to - nay, needs to - be touched on and wrapped up in a way that says that the end has been reached.

The current ending just stops, leaving us with more questions than answers, and while I understand that their intent might have been to end the series without a distinct canon for the players, the subsequent debacle shows that it just can't be done that way. The end of the trilogy is where answers matter the most, and they didn't just come up short, they didn't even try.

I'm hardly a professional writer (though as I've said above, I'm trying my hand at it to see what I'm capable of), and even I know that you can't just end the third game with Colored Energy -> Mass relays explode -> Normandy crashes -> Joker stares at the horizon.

Not only is it insufficient, but how can it even be called an ending?! This baffles me. When I think about it this way, it absolutely floors me that someone thought that this was good enough. We can blame whoever or whatever factor for it, but the truth is that we really don't know what the hell went on, and all indications lean towards it being what the developers thought was the best choice. A poor choice to be sure, since this wasn't even an ending.

Modifié par KitaSaturnyne, 22 juin 2012 - 03:05 .

[edisnooM]

@Seijin8

Yeah I'm sure they will take the problems pointed out by fans into consideration and try to come up with some sort of compromise, I'm just trying to keep my optimism in check. It didn't work out too well for me the first time round with ME3. :-S

@KitaSaturnyne

Agreed.

[frypan]

Phew, finally finished catching up on the reading. Some fine stuff there on indoctrination, nicely analysed Seijin8, and Delta_Vee, our resident polymath, managed to use some scary looking medical terms into the bargain.

The spirited debate on genocide is no surprise. This is one that has been heavily influneced by 20th Century  discussion, but was recently raised by a classicist/legal scholar as in need of work much much further back. Apart from the moral repugnance of trying to make it acceptable, its a mess as noted in the posts.

Kita, I have downloaded your story to go on the ipad - will be my bedtime reading tonight. And edisnooM - I was born near Dunbarton, but moved to OZ as a child. Och Aye! And Tassie beer is the best there is - Boags, Cascade and especially the local stuff. Its made by some Hobbits up in the hills around Snug (Yes that is a town)

Enjoyed the sing a longs, digressions into Dr Who and Monty Python, but I think my favourite quote is from the irrepressible and inventive fapmaster, who, in addressing a possible troll post said,

"I'm not quite sure what the "mature" thing to do would have been, but I can tell you what I would have had Shepard's response been, if I had total control of the character: near mental breakdown and psychotic laughter. Shepard would have doubled over, cracked up maniacally, and then demanded, "You're f*cking me, right?" "

That pretty much sums up how I'd like to react.

One new point I think we need to consider moving ahead, that edisnooM has raised below:

edisnooM wrote...

One thing that worries me about the EC though is that if we still have the Catalyst, Synthetics vs Organics as apparently the main theme and what we are apparently supposed to find a solution to, combined with the same three ending choices and the whole Relay issue, I'm not really sure how BioWare is going to make it work.

Synthetics vs organics, as far as the evidence shows, is not the key theme of the game. It's only when synthetics or organics do something wrong, or the relationship is out of balance, that this arises. For instance,

The Quarian's have a knee jerk reaction to the Geth evolving. This is what causes and is the source of a major ongoing conflict.

The Geth misguidedly worship the reapers or are subverted by reaper control. This is also why they are the enemy of ME1 and ME3.

Minor issues also show aberations in the natural order. For instance the AI in ME1 is forced into hiding through fear of human reaction, and the misuse of an autistic man as an AI hybrid in Overlord causes havoc for Cerberus.

The reapers are the only instance of a AI that is automatically or naturally in conflict with organics. All other instances are perversions of the natural state or relationship, at least as far as I can see. The development of the games shows a natural state of evolution in the Geth and EDI that in effect moves towards peace and normalcy.

Once again, the idea of synthetics vs organics as a theme does not work, as the instances in the game seem to me to be aberations from the natural relationship. Also, the causes of these conflicts arise from mistakes or misunderstandings that are endemic to organic races as much as synthetics. There is simply no inherent reason for synthetics and organics to fight.

By stating the opposition as a natural thing, the catalyst is taking a racial perspective that has not only been addressed as a reason to despise it, but has been debunked by the causes of conflict as iterated within the game.
As we get closer to the EC, this is one thing worth restating, in case it pops up as an undisputed "fact" in the catalyst's argument.

It is...thematically revolting, as we all know.

Without being serious, it could be argued more effectively that the natural theme is organics vs Krogan, as they were driven by biological and social pressures to expand. By comparison even the Rachni expansion was supposedly an abnormal event as we later found out.

EDIT: spellcheck imposed many times, and I should reference Saberhagan's Berzerkers
 as simply not being evident in the synthetic lifeforms and their choices.

Modifié par frypan, 22 juin 2012 - 05:52 .

[memorysquid]

frypan wrote...

Synthetics vs organics, as far as the evidence shows, is not the key theme of the game. It's only when synthetics or organics do something wrong, or the relationship is out of balance, that this arises. For instance,

The Quarian's have a knee jerk reaction to the Geth evolving. This is what causes and is the source of a major ongoing conflict.

The Geth misguidedly worship the reapers or are subverted by reaper control. This is also why they are the enemy of ME1 and ME3.

Minor issues also show aberations in the natural order. For instance the AI in ME1 is forced into hiding through fear of human reaction, and the misuse of an autistic man as an AI hybrid in Overlord causes havoc for Cerberus.

The reapers are the only instance of a AI that is automatically or naturally in conflict with organics. All other instances are perversions of the natural state or relationship, at least as far as I can see. The development of the games shows a natural state of evolution in the Geth and EDI that in effect moves towards peace and normalcy.

Once again, the idea of synthetics vs organics as a theme does not work, as the instances in the game seem to me to be aberations from the natural relationship. Also, the causes of these conflicts arise from mistakes or misunderstandings that are endemic to organic races as much as synthetics. There is simply no inherent reason for synthetics and organics to fight.

By stating the opposition as a natural thing, the catalyst is taking a racial perspective that has not only been addressed as a reason to despise it, but has been debunked by the causes of conflict as iterated within the game.
As we get closer to the EC, this is one thing worth restating, in case it pops up as an undisputed "fact" in the catalysts argument.

Perhaps that IS the natural order of things in the ME universe, as evidenced by the Metacon wars and even the Citadel finance AI.  AIs naturally slip control of their creators and either through native paranoia or creator prejudice, war ensues.  The Catalyst tells us precisely nothing, but the cause of the Metacon war is vaguely explained and the Geth war is fully explained.  Perhaps it is saying that violence is inevitable for those reasons and the nature of synthetic life leads to them far outstripping the organic; not that one can't find valid counterarguments in reality, but that in context, that is simply the way things turn out in the ME universe.

The theme seems to be more along the lines of "technology shapes organic society" rather than synthetics vs. organics, synthesis possibly being the complete [in game rationale] melding of technology with organic society.

[frypan]

@memorysquid

Fair enough, I suppose we could say it is a natural order as much as anything. However the point still stands I think that there is no inherent imperative driving the conflict, any more than anything else that starts wars. In each of the synthetic cases it is also clear that a mistake or misunderstanding causes the conflict, all avoidable and not part of the makeup of the creatures themselves. Based on evidence in game also, war may always arise, but so does peace.

That could be the theme "organics always make up with synthetics" -its as good as the inevitability of war theme.

If we accept that the conflict is reason enough to make the issue a central theme, the devs might as well just get Ron Perlman in to do his Fallout 3 voiceover and the whole "war never ends spiel"

All fairly grim for ME universe in my mind.

As far as synthetics outstripping organics, that one is also a speculation by the catalyst and certainly not an in game theme. As mentioned in this thread, humans are moving forward to a higher state naturally, and Shepherds body count of Geth suggests they dont have much chance even now- one man wiped out a shipload of them or reprogrammed them so again, the only inherently superior synthetics are the reapers.

Maybe lack of binocular vision among the Geth is the problem - poor Quarian design?

Modifié par frypan, 22 juin 2012 - 06:22 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

@drayfish

I just realized that I forgot to answer your Laura question. While the reference is true, I also wanted to point out that I based the character design in my head on a friend of mine who happens to be named Laura. Kind of a double reference, if you will.

@frypan

Great! I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for taking the time to read it. Also, a billion times YES on your great synthetics vs. organics analysis there. It really went a long way to reminding me of just how 'out of touch' the Catalyst ends up being in this context. It's like an 89-year-old senator who's been lobbying every year of his career for the ban of Rock 'N' Roll.

@memorysquid

Well said, but I think that the incidents you mention are more hiccups or obstacles on the road to mutual understanding between organics and synthetics, rather than indicative of organics vs. synthetics being the central theme of the story.

There are always "bad eggs" in any society, and in a certain way, the rogue AI on the presidium is a good example of that. It shows us that it's entirely possible for an AI to choose what we would call an "amoral" path because each AI is just like us: they're cobbled together by different sets of creators (ie. programmers), and therefore, they are capable of many different kinds of properties that allow them to act as others might not. In reference to organic minds, we call these "quirks".

Mass Effect 3 is really the point where the mutual understandings of underlying philosophy between organics and synthetics really comes to head, not only in terms of importance but also in terms of unity. The Geth end up working with all other organic species in an effort to expediate construction of the Crucible. We learn that the Morning War was the result of knee-jerk reaction to a burgeoning electronic sentience.

As soon as we end the war on Rannoch, the walls between organic and synthetic life are torn asunder, leaving no more reason for either race to misunderstand each other*. The Geth state their intentions and follow through with them, and the Quarians, and indeed the galactic community as a whole, are made better for their inclusion.

So if anything, the natural order of the ME universe was moving towards understanding between synthetics and organics, rather than building up to all-out war.

*I've only ever played the game where I was able to broker peace between the Geth and Quarians, where Legion uploaded its consciousness into the Geth collective. If this through road to understanding is impossible under any alternative circumstance, please correct me.

[Rogue Complex]

Save us hero.

[indyracing]

Just read the OP for the first time, and that is one of the best written analyses about the faults of the ME 3 ending I've ever read.

I think that precisely explains why I was having what was feeling like a mild seizure as I watched the ending play out for the first (and thus far only) time, as suddenly nothing made any sense.

The sheer lack of any cohesion of the ending with the rest of the story to that point was kind of making my brain hurt.

The OP simply does a brilliant job of explaining why.