5087 réponses à ce sujet

[Taboo]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Tallestra wrote...
I wanted happy ending for my Shepard, but even more I wanted the ending where we could win without compromising our core values, even if it would mean Shepard, or even Normandy were killed (they all were prepared for it). But no, as CGG said, remaining true to yourself means you lose and die anyway, you are punished for doing the right thing.  

I've been skimming the last few pages of this thread and it is as if I've entered a parallel universe, an incomprehensible one at that. Are you seriously telling me that "doing the right thing" is in any way independent from the results you get? That if you do X and get the worst possible result, then you most definitely did *not* do the right thing?

Sorry if I'm getting somewhat into rant mode, but I can't stand this fallacy of "follow your heart and everything will be OK" most people appear to expect from their stories. Human morality is not the measure of the universe, and I think *that* message desperately needs to be sent.

I've also read several claims that - and here's where the parallel universe comes in - the new endings are nihilistic. Eh....what? That's....an....alien thought. The original endings, they were nihilistic. You destroyed the universe whatever you did. The new ones just force you to compromise but you do save the galaxy and you get to see it. I can't see anything fundamentally wrong with that.

The only criticism I agree with is the fundamentally flawed premise of the ending, Flawed not because it's unrealistic, but because the rest of the trilogy sent a different message. I think the ending concept was poorly planned, but I can live with it since I still get a satisfying story out of it with a little mental tweaking. That's why I like the new endings. 

SO. MUCH. THIS.

[M0keys]

KitaSaturnyne wrote...

@M0keys

delta_vee has something set up already. I'll leave it to his discretion as to whether it should be shared any further.

definitely give me a holler if he decides to share it! i feel a kindred spirit with you guys...i know i haven't been here much, but i've been doing a lot of reading

[jlocohustler]

Damn too long, I'll read this tomorrow.

[bowery tuff]

I've been following here off and on for a while but haven't posted. I feel like venting to smart people so, here I am. In regards to the rejection ending, I was unfortunately spoiled on that ending before playing the EC so I knew what would happen (death, destruction, etc.) So playing the EC, I was thrilled with the new scene with my LI leading up to the beam and was happy that if the Catalyst must exist, at least I can actually question him. But holy crap did I want to hit every dialogue option that essentially said "Go **** yourself."
In fact, the extended dialogue made me want to say it more. So the ancient AI that just happens to look like some kid i saw explode on Earth not only operates on hypocritical logic but it created the Reaper threat itself by turning its creators into the first Reaper. We've all seen the Yo Dawg meme but this takes it a step further, right? The idea of using synthetics to kill organics to keep synthetics from killing organics was thought up by an AI who killed a bunch of unwilling organics to create a giant synthetic to keep organics from creating synthetics that would eventually kill the organics. If you read that and didn't suffer an anyeurism, get professional help.
That's why I really wanted that fourth option, but knowing what the outcome would be, I bit the bullet and picked destroy. I'll get to why in a moment.
Control was mildly tempting for a moment. I heard the extended explanation of Synthesis and thought, "Yup. Still an abomination." If someone wrote this ending where peace is achieved through killing diversity throughout the galaxy and thought, "yeah, this is the best ending," they should be ashamed.
Picking destroy for me was like Brad Pitt shooting Kevin Spacey at the end of Se7en. The Catalyst kept telling me Gwyneth Paltrow's head was in the box and I finally reached my limit and pulled the trigger. I knew the consequences. I knew I would lose the geth and EDI. I just wanted the Reapers dead and for that kid to shut up. The Catalyst taught my ultimate paragon Shepard what it truly meant to be a renegade and to just really, really hate something. I picked the ending where Shepard didn't sacrifice his body and soul to save the galaxy (as I feel he would do in the other two endings), just his soul. 

[Hawk227]

frypan wrote...

I still think we still need to isolate the tone and theme of the third game from the first two. Something, or someone got broke there, and this is the result. I’m not going to let it ruin my enjoyment of the franchise.

I don’t care if the resulting head canon puts me in a rubber cell, with a toy Normandy made of my own poop. Audience interpretation is as important as general reception. Ask Virgil. The story goes Augustus made such good propaganda use of Virgil’s Aeneid, on his deathbed he demanded it be burned.

Cheers to this, Frypan. I couldn't agree more.

@drayfish

That post was... heartbreaking. Cheers, to Commander Tess Shepard.

[delta_vee]

Ieldra and Taboo agreeing? We really are in a parallel universe.

And Ieldra, it's the nature of that compromise as the only way to save the galaxy that's so revolting to me (among others). Here metatext blends with text: the Crucible is the only hope, because (the galaxy hasn't prepared | the developers locked us into a war story otherwise unwinnable); the choices require solving the conflict of (the Catalyst | Hudson & Walters), instead of the conflict of (the galaxy | the players); it requires acquiescence to the vision of someone else to "win". I don't think it's about "following your heart" so much as "following what came before and lead here".

So hey, I pick Refuse on both levels, and walk away clean.

[MrStoob]

Refuse was great, I'm glad they threw that into the mix. Another chance to see and mourn my lovely Liara ^^

[jason32choy]

I agree that Control and Synthesis are at odds with the themes presented with the ME games.

Why is Destroy in conflict with the theme???

The professor/thread starter claims that it is committing genocide over the synthetics and it carries an immoral theme that values the organic life over the synthetics.

But I haven't found anyone complaining Shepard destroying the Batarian homeland as genocidal and at odds with his/her character or moral. And that was JUST for preventing Reapers from arriving a bit sooner. So in the face of this "final chance" to stop the Reaper threat, Shepard, in that professor's view, should choose not to make ANY SCARFICES despite the FACT that the Crucible is the one and only chance that stops the obliteration of the advanced species, Organic and Synthetic.

I found it hard to believe that any Shepard, irrespective of your experience, personality or morality, would opt for the Refuse choice over the Destroy one just because they can't come to terms with the sacrifices necessary to stop  the Reaper threat. I, too, lament for the loss of EDI and the Geth which is an emotionally difficult choice for me given the excellent Geth-Quarian story in ME3. I value the Geth just as much as the organics, but that doesn't negate the need to do whatever it takes to preserve the other lifeforms.

I sincerely hope that the thread starter or people who agree with him that Destroy is a "thematically revolting" choice to answer this question: WHY TAKE REFUSE OVER DESTORY???

P.S. I found the professor's comment enlightening as well and agrees with him on the Synthesis and Control fronts.

EDIT: Finishing the post cause I posted prematurely due to inadvertant touch on a smart phone. 

Modifié par jason32choy, 28 juin 2012 - 07:08 .

[NobodyofConsequence]

Q: How many Bioware writers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: None, Bioware don't change lightbulbs, but we can make it a different colour for you.

(I was also thinking 'the lightbulb has to be ready to change' as option

Oh, and, "This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a colour."

***for the tl;dr crew - skip the rest. Trust me.

Levity aside, here follows an attempt at cogency.

I'm in the 'Life is not about fairness' camp. Fairness is something that we humans attempt to impose on Life, through our own capacity to think, to plan, to choose accordingly, to weigh our actions and their consequences. My feeling, as opposed to my thought, is that Bioware missed this completely in determining the endings to this series.

I do feel that the endings all had an element of hope. I differ from some other posters in this thread in that the Reject ending was relatively solid for me, made so by virtue of the consequences of not only that choice, but the sum total of choices of my FemShep (Elise, Earthborn Renegade Soldier, aka The Ice Queen, who nevertheless fell for Liara's warmth), Liara and others. Destroy was actually the first option I chose for her (it's what she went there to do, and she was going to see the mission through no matter what), but on replay, I simply wanted to see what happened.

My HeShep (Lucius, Paragon Vanguard Spacer Hero, who saw a kindred spirit in Ash's never-say-die nature, Cerberus adventures in ME2 notwithstanding) chose Synthesis as the best of a set of imperfect options, figuring that of all the choices available to him, this one provided the greatest utility to the highest number. Destroy was out of the question, since Geth are now people too and EDI deserved better, Control was morally abhorent to him, and Reject meant the death of the trillions he considered it his duty to protect. His hope was that synthesis would not imply that any being lost its capacity or right to self-determination, but enhanced that capacity instead. Hoped. As I said, none of the solutions struck him as ideal.

And yet, there's some still some thorns in the whole EC for me. I suspect this is slightly OT, so my apologies if so, but ever since we learned in ME1 that each Reaper is a nation, I've wondered how they can be that technologically advanced and yet act that stupidly. How could you design a system, with millions of years to perfect it and the resources of countless advanced civilisations to draw upon, that has the equivalent of a Blue Screen of Death whenever a controlled minion crashes, and a BSOD that causes the PC to explode, at that? How could we have a moment as perfect as the observation made by one of the Cerberus researchers on the Derelict Reaper about them being gods, literally warping the fabric of reality, and even a dead god can dream, yet go on to rely on Plot Stupidity as the device to stretch the story out in to a third volume. (I built a device which can destroy planets. Oops, forgot about that dang exhaust port). If teams of the most brilliant researchers in the Council-and-surrounding space can decipher the plans to the Crucible, build and also improve on those plans in a matter of months, why can't the Reapers, with the equivalent of thousands of cultures of a similar level, not figure out the plan once the Crucible arrives in-system? For that matter, why not just shut off the beam from London to the Citadel rather than weaken the defending force just long enough to allow the Crucible to dock? And how the hell does Harbinger, who can pick off individual tanks with his weaponry, who is supposedly one of the First among Equals of the Reaper community, completely miss the Normandy flying in and parking long enough to not only do an evac but have a hearfelt departure scene? Do Reapers hire the same architects as the Geth?

I mean, GAH!

This isn't directly related to the endings, I know. But it predisposes me to certain responses to them. It's frustration, building, and not being resolved.

I have wondered why it wasn't simply possible to switch the Reapers off. And then it occurred to me that they are gods after all, able to warp the very fabric of reality, and even an inert Reaper is still a threat. And then it occurred to me, why not bargain with the Catalyst, "I have the power to destroy the Reapers, then. Yet I still recognise that the Reapers act as they do because of instructions you have given them. I recognise that there is the equivalent of quadrillions of lives inside those Reapers, and although I am sworn to protect those alive, today, I would prefer to do so in a way that does not lead to needless destruction. And anyway, why do you target organics to prevent synthetics destroying them, when you could simply destroy any synthetics who threaten organics. You have the Reapers after all, right, and you don't save synthetics, you save organics, so you must see organic life as having value, surely? But yeah, how about you send the Reapers back to darkspace, we'll not throw the switch on the Crucible, and this way we at least have a chance to create what I believe we can - a united galaxy, with organics and synthetics living and working in relative peace and harmony. And you can always come back later if you feel the situation is getting out of hand and organics are about to be completely destroyed, right?"

So yeah, that. The **** of this thing is that the Catalyst, despite being a cleansing fire, forgot about the great Biotic wave. That the technologies of the ME series are imposed because of the Catalyst, guiding the development of species along lines they desire, and precluding true evolution, true change.

And yet, Catalyst - agent for reaction. The desired outcome is an explosion of cultural maturity amongst organics, of the sort that would not lead to conflict with synthetics. So maybe in that one sense, the Catalyst eventually worked as intended. Shame that the knowledge of the thousands of cultures bound in the Reapers was obviously homogenised by the Catalyst's own interference and precluded it from actually, I don't know, having the Reapers build the Crucible and then using it itself to achieve its goal of ending conflict between organic and synthetic, through the synthesis option. But hang on, the Catalyst wasn't able to act on that, it only had the capacity to Reaperise its own creators and all other subsequent civilisations of note, but not actually use any of the technologies its constituent Reapers developed.

The Catalyst was perfectly happy making decisions for the good, as it perceived it, of organic life as a class, not for organic life as an actual thing. The Catalyst, in essence, is a version of the Control ending, designed by the same committee who attempted to build a horse and instead came up with a camel.

And that there is my problem. Nonsensicalities aside, of which I see many (you might have realised that by now), all the Reapers are is a sociopath's version of Control. I dislike Destroy because I thought shooting the hostage was pretty stupid when Keanu Reeves did it, and even worse when it was Shepard. I dislike synthesis because this is not a case of thesis/antithesis/synthesis, more like, thesis/Theseus/Theos. My Sheps simply never wanted to be God. And I'm mortally wary of any suggestion that one needs to be in order to Do The Right Thing ©.

Probably said much the same as many others here, probably not quite so elequent, but cheers for reading if you made it this far. Said, done, satisfied.

tl;dr Summary of endings as follows: [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/devil.png[/smilie][smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/wizard.png[/smilie][smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/sick.png[/smilie][smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/alien.png[/smilie]

EDIT - changed one instance of 'Catalyst' to 'Crucible', brain fart when originally posting, oops

Modifié par NobodyofConsequence, 28 juin 2012 - 07:13 .

[RiouHotaru]

This complaint that somehow Reject should've have a different outcome, or that the next cycle's use of the Crucible is somehow a personal affront to you seems mind-boggling. Did everyone forget the Stargazer scene where the woman states that BECAUSE of the sacrifices you made in your cycle, their cycle ended the conflict without any significant losses?

Why is this overlooked? Why do people fixate on the Crucible as somehow being the root of all evil?

[Ieldra]

delta_vee wrote...
Ieldra and Taboo agreeing? We really are in a parallel universe.

And Ieldra, it's the nature of that compromise as the only way to save the galaxy that's so revolting to me (among others). Here metatext blends with text: the Crucible is the only hope, because (the galaxy hasn't prepared | the developers locked us into a war story otherwise unwinnable); the choices require solving the conflict of (the Catalyst | Hudson & Walters), instead of the conflict of (the galaxy | the players); it requires acquiescence to the vision of someone else to "win". I don't think it's about "following your heart" so much as "following what came before and lead here".

So hey, I pick Refuse on both levels, and walk away clean.

So...if, let's say, Destroy had kept the synthetics alive but totally destroyed the relays, creating that dark age the new endings have retconned, while the other endings would have resulted in an intact civilzation, would that have been ok? You'd just have fubared galactic civilization for a few millennia, but hey, no genocide. Would you have been ok with that?

[N7 Banshee Bait]

I'm just glad most people aren't like the OP. Oh my God! This world would be completely unbearable if everybody was like that.  It's pretty bad now, but thanks to this thread we can all see so how much worse it could be.

Modifié par Steelgrave, 28 juin 2012 - 07:01 .

[flemm]

Ieldra2 wrote...
The only criticism I agree with is the fundamentally flawed premise of the ending, Flawed not because it's unrealistic, but because the rest of the trilogy sent a different message. I think the ending concept was poorly planned, but I can live with it since I still get a satisfying story out of it with a little mental tweaking. That's why I like the new endings. 

I agree, and this aspect cannot be fixed: the endings do not flow naturally from what has previously been established over the course of the story (even the ME3 portion of it).

However, now we have a clearly differentiated set of choices, each with interesting results for the galaxy's future. So... I think they did what they could.

Modifié par flemm, 28 juin 2012 - 07:04 .

[M0keys]

jason32choy wrote...

I agree that Control and Synthesis are at odds with the themes presented with the ME games.

Why is Destroy in conflict with the theme???

The professor/thread starter claims that it is committing genocide over the synthetics and it carries an immoral theme that values the organic life over the synthetics.

But I haven't found anyone complaining Shepard destroying the Batarian homeland as genocidal and at odds with his/her character or moral.

my shepard didn't destroy the batarian homeworld. he was prevented by plot devices from getting a warning out in time. i really did everything I could, and in the end I just had to run because there was no time left

[M0keys]

RiouHotaru wrote...

This complaint that somehow Reject should've have a different outcome, or that the next cycle's use of the Crucible is somehow a personal affront to you seems mind-boggling. Did everyone forget the Stargazer scene where the woman states that BECAUSE of the sacrifices you made in your cycle, their cycle ended the conflict without any significant losses?

Why is this overlooked? Why do people fixate on the Crucible as somehow being the root of all evil?

it's not overlooked

it's a triumph of sentience over obedience if shepard gives the next race a chance to win on their own

but the next race used the crucible, the very thing shepard rebelled against, sacrificed the entire galaxy for, just so that people could make their own choices.

it's a total wash

Modifié par M0keys, 28 juin 2012 - 07:31 .

[Ieldra]

M0keys wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...

This complaint that somehow Reject should've have a different outcome, or that the next cycle's use of the Crucible is somehow a personal affront to you seems mind-boggling. Did everyone forget the Stargazer scene where the woman states that BECAUSE of the sacrifices you made in your cycle, their cycle ended the conflict without any significant losses?

Why is this overlooked? Why do people fixate on the Crucible as somehow being the root of all evil?

it's not overlooked

it's a triumph of sentience over obedience if shepard gives the next race a chance to win on their own

but the next race used the crucible, the very thing shepard rebelled against, sacrificed the entire galaxy for, just so that people could make their own choices.

it's a total wash

If you defer the choice to the next cycle, you can't expect them to make a choice to your liking. Perhaps they found one of the choices to their liking? Or they didn't have synthetics to worry about?

Modifié par Ieldra2, 28 juin 2012 - 07:44 .

[jason32choy]

M0keys wrote...

jason32choy wrote...

I agree that Control and Synthesis are at odds with the themes presented with the ME games.

Why is Destroy in conflict with the theme???

The professor/thread starter claims that it is committing genocide over the synthetics and it carries an immoral theme that values the organic life over the synthetics.

But I haven't found anyone complaining Shepard destroying the Batarian homeland as genocidal and at odds with his/her character or moral.

my shepard didn't destroy the batarian homeworld. he was prevented by plot devices from getting a warning out in time. i really did everything I could, and in the end I just had to run because there was no time left

I understand that. However, my point is that Shepard won't shy away from making scarfices in order to save the rest. This is not to demean the significance of the synthetics.

To me, it's just a simple logic: One synthetic race (Geth) < All advanced organics and synthetics (Geth included)

By choosing Refuse, you are essentially dooming the current cycle just to give a chance for the next cycle. And given all the hard work this cycle has done against the Reapers, is this the right and rational choice for Shepard to make? Give up on this cycle and venture into the unknown.

For me, I never contemplate the Control and Synthesis. As the geth story has taught me that a peaceful, symbiotic relationship between organics and synthetics can be achieved through understanding and communication. Therefore, the Catalyst's conclusion is not founded.

This logic leads to one conclusion, the Reaper / Catalyst's purpose is ill-founded and thus their existence is not necessary. So I choose to destroy the Reapers and give the organics a chance to develop synthetics that can mutually benefit the two and co-exist.

Is my logic sound?

Edit: In my first playthrough, with no knowledge of any endings and purely based on the infromation given by the Catalyst in the original ending, I choose Destroy cause that's the only logical choice from my view.

Second Edit:
Been reading more posts from various users, the key difference between my view and theirs seems to be that I see Geth dying as a necessary scarfice to save the current cycle and I bare a great hope that in the future, organics will learn from the Geth-Qurian relationship that they can co-exist with the new synthetics created. While many claim that they are ok with Shepard / Normandy scarficing for the greater good, they seem unable to accept that the scarficies may not be confined to the few that are actively fighting the Reapers. The choice of killing the Geth saddened me and that's why I felt greatly moved by the original ending despite its many plot holes like Normandy retreating etc.

P.S. Really intrigued by the amount of rational discussion in this thread. But sad to see that some failed to enjoy the game and vowed never to play a Bioware game ever after just because of the ending. So should I be done playing all games from Bethesda because Fallout 3 original ending is way much worse than ME3? Everything and everyone deserves a second chance, right?

Modifié par jason32choy, 28 juin 2012 - 09:03 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

jason32choy wrote...

M0keys wrote...

jason32choy wrote...

I agree that Control and Synthesis are at odds with the themes presented with the ME games.

Why is Destroy in conflict with the theme???

The professor/thread starter claims that it is committing genocide over the synthetics and it carries an immoral theme that values the organic life over the synthetics.

But I haven't found anyone complaining Shepard destroying the Batarian homeland as genocidal and at odds with his/her character or moral.

my shepard didn't destroy the batarian homeworld. he was prevented by plot devices from getting a warning out in time. i really did everything I could, and in the end I just had to run because there was no time left

I understand that. However, my point is that Shepard won't shy away from making scarfices in order to save the rest. This is not to demean the significance of the synthetics.

To me, it's just a simple logic: One synthetic race (Geth) < All advanced organics and synthetics (Geth included)

By choosing Refuse, you are essentially dooming the current cycle just to give a chance for the next cycle. And given all the hard work this cycle has done against the Reapers, is this the right and rational choice for Shepard to make? Give up on this cycle and venture into the unknown.

For me, I never contemplate the Control and Synthesis. As the geth story has taught me that a peaceful, symbiotic relationship between organics and synthetics can be achieved through understanding and communication. Therefore, the Catalyst's conclusion is not founded.

This logic leads to one conclusion, the Reaper / Catalyst's purpose is ill-founded and thus their existence is not necessary. So I choose to destroy the Reapers and give the organics a chance to develop synthetics that can mutually benefit the two and co-exist.

Is my logic sound?

Edit: In my first playthrough, with no knowledge of any endings and purely based on the infromation given by the Catalyst in the original ending, I choose Destroy cause that's the only logical choice from my view.

Firstly: Arrival has no relation to the Batarian homeworld. I can't believe people are still making this mistake, I've had to clarify this hundreds of time since Arrival (an expansion I hated for many other reasons, but let's not actually misunderstand what happened). It's one colony, not the homeworld. The batarians have hundreds of colonies and a homeworld left. That isn't even remotely comprable to extinguishing an entire race. The rest of the batarians are wiped out by the Reapers and indoctrinated Batarians, not Shepard.

Secondly: Destroy also endorses the Catalyst's viewpoint - he believed that genocide was acceptable if it was a side effect of the greater good, and you are agreeing with that portion of his philosophy if you pick destroy. You're saying 'you're right, no race has any right to exist if they're in the way of something bigger we want to achieve. Your multiple genocides were just collatoral damage, after all."

Thirdly: It isn't "destroying one race so that others can live." There are other options where everyone can live. Stop phrasing it in that way. It's "destroying one race because the other means to peace make me uncomfortable." 

This is why all three endings are terrible: all of them endorse at least one part of the Catalyst's worldview. I happen to find Destroy's especially repugnant, since you are agreeing with the philosophy of the cycle itself. You're basically making the same decision the Catalyst made when he decided to reaperize his creators: any atrocity, no matter how horrific, can be justified as long as you think it's the "only logical answer."

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 28 juin 2012 - 09:14 .

[delta_vee]

@Ieldra2

So...if, let's say, Destroy had kept the synthetics alive but totally destroyed the relays, creating that dark age the new endings have retconned, while the other endings would have resulted in an intact civilzation, would that have been ok? You'd just have fubared galactic civilization for a few millennia, but hey, no genocide. Would you have been ok with that?

You want my textual answer, or my metatextual one?

Textually I would've been somewhat less bothered. If it had been a choice between destroying the Reapers and the relays both, or demanding their surrender in the face of said threat, I think it would've been miles better - but that requires the removal of the Catalyst and his so-called problem, which is the crux of my dissatisfaction.

My real objection, though, has less to do with the specific consequences of the specific choices, and more with the entire idea of the final choice as presented, including and especially its irrelevance to the larger narrative. I've gone on about both at length already earlier in this thread, so in short, I agree with you at least this far:

The only criticism I agree with is the fundamentally flawed premise of the ending, Flawed not because it's unrealistic, but because the rest of the trilogy sent a different message. I think the ending concept was poorly planned...

...and I'd drop the "only" part. However you juggle the consequence matrix, the presence of the choice is antithetical to the narrative. This is, I believe, due to both authorial insistence on the existence of a final choice and the nature of the conflict that choice addresses - both of which are, I think, somewhere between unnecessary and actively harmful.

Any choice forced upon the players in this context will inevitably be suspect, and of course any final choice will be calibrated in some fashion to equalize (to one degree or another) the consequences of the options available, so no one choice is obviously the "right" one. If that choice revolves around some mad machine god with ideas about orgs and synths contrary to the remainder of the text, any construction of the final decision will be fatally flawed.

Modifié par delta_vee, 28 juin 2012 - 09:00 .

[Ieldra]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
This is why all three endings are terrible: all of them endorse at least one part of the Catalyst's worldview. I happen to find Destroy's especially repugnant, since you are agreeing with the philosophy of the cycle itself. You're basically making the same decision the Catalyst made when he decided to reaperize his creators: any atrocity, no matter how horrific, can be justified as long as you think it's the "only logical answer."

I'd phrase it this way: no morally objectionable act exists for which it isn't possible for a context that justifies it to exist. It's always a matter of balancing results against methods, and survival of a galaxy full of people is a good with a very high value. Presented with a goal, you are obliged to find the least objectionable method to achieve it. You either find the goal isn't worth it or you find that it is. And if it is, then you must use that least objectionable method regardless of how repugnant it is in a more absolute sense. A simple moral calculus. It's of no use to complain that no better method exists if no better method exists. 

As for endorsing the Catalyst's worldview: not so. If an action gives you an acceptable result, then the worldview of the one who presents it to you as a solution to some problem is completely irrelevant. You can make a decision and completely ignore the Catalyst's premise, just make it based on benefits versus drawbacks, both immediate and projected. Which kind of future do you think is best, and will you pay the price for it? Again, the future course of galactic civilization is a very high good.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 28 juin 2012 - 09:15 .

[TemplePhoenix]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I'd phrase it this way: no morally objectionable act exists for which it isn't possible for a context that justifies it to exist. It's always a matter of balancing results against methods, and survival of a galaxy full of people is a good with a very high value. Presented with a goal, you are obliged to find the least objectionable method to achieve it. You either find the goal isn't worth it or you find that it is. And if it is, then you must use that least objectionable method regardless of how repugnant it is in a more absolute sense. A simple moral calculus. It's of no use to complain that no better method exists if no better method exists. 

As for endorsing the Catalyst's worldview: not so. If an action gives you an acceptable result, then the worldview of the one who presents it to you as a solution to some problem is completely irrelevant. You can make a decision and completely ignore the Catalyst's premise, just make it based on benefits versus drawbacks, both immediate and projected. Which kind of future do you think is best, and will you pay the price for it? Again, the future course of galactic civilization is a very high good.

This.

[Jorji Costava]

Ieldra2 wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
This is why all three endings are terrible: all of them endorse at least one part of the Catalyst's worldview. I happen to find Destroy's especially repugnant, since you are agreeing with the philosophy of the cycle itself. You're basically making the same decision the Catalyst made when he decided to reaperize his creators: any atrocity, no matter how horrific, can be justified as long as you think it's the "only logical answer."

I'd phrase it this way: no morally objectionable act exists for which it isn't possible for a context that justifies it to exist. It's always a matter of balancing results against methods, and survival of a galaxy full of people is a good with a very high value. Presented with a goal, you are obliged to find the least objectionable method to achieve it. You either find the goal isn't worth it or you find that it is. And if it is, then you must use that least objectionable method regardless of how repugnant it is in a more absolute sense. A simple moral calculus. It's of no use to complain that no better method exists if no better method exists. 

As for endorsing the Catalyst's worldview: not so. If an action gives you an acceptable result, then the worldview of the one who presents it to you as a solution to some problem is completely irrelevant. You can make a decision and completely ignore the Catalyst's premise, just make it based on benefits versus drawbacks, both immediate and projected. Which kind of future do you think is best, and will you pay the price for it? Again, the future course of galactic civilization is a very high good.

Perhaps it's more precise to say this: The problem isn't that in order to make one of the choices, you yourself have to endorse the Catalyst's worldview; the problem is that the game itself endorses that worldview. You can argue with the Catalyst about his ideas and methods, but the game makes it pretty clear you lose this argument (was anyone else bothered by that ridiculous fire analogy as much as I was?). Within the context of the game, your rejection can be nothing more than willful self-deception. To reject the catalyst's claim that synthetic/organic conflict is inevitable and that reaping was the best solution until the crucible came along is, in the view of the game, to simply close one's ears off to the fundamental truths of existence. And that's the problem: Those crazy ideas should never have been made into Undeniable Truth. The game makes the catalyst's ideology into fact. I can't speak for anyone else, but that's what really bothers me about those final moments.

EDIT: Removed a redundant sentence.

Modifié par osbornep, 28 juin 2012 - 09:35 .

[LateNightSalami]

I just got done reading his orginal post. All of what he said still applies to the extended cut and thus I find the ending to be a broken failure in almost every way possible. Check out tasteful understated nerdrage for in depth reasons. The extended cut did add some emotional closure that was sorely lacking so it has that going for it. But it still suffers from a loss of "genre, character focus, and central conflcit" (mrbtongue) that plagued it before hand.

[drayfish]

Thank you all for the very kind words, and for raising a toast. That truly meant a great deal. I'm not ashamed to say I was a little emotionally raw after that ending, and being able to talk it through with you all, and to see similar experiences being expressed has helped a great deal. There are simply too many posts that I want to call out that it will swiftly become infuriating, but do believe that everyone's critique (on all sides of the debate) has blown me away in these past several pages. The level of insight is to be celebrated – and certainly has been more helpful than my woeful little outburst.
 
 
@ Ieldra2: Hi again. I'm truly glad that the endings worked for you. Indeed, I am particularly glad in your case that Synthesis got clarified some. I've not seen that ending yet, but from what I hear it turns out to be quite an appealing glimpse of the future. Of course, I still personally reject it wholly, but I am glad that for those alert to its poetry it is a satisfying and elegant end.
 
To answer your implied question, I guess what I am lamenting is my own misreading of the entirety of the text. 
 
Until the last couple of days I could, on some level, put it down to a miscommunication – the creators had rushed out their conclusion and as a consequence had butchered its meaning. But knowing that this was their definitive statement – that this was the message they developed this spectacular universe in order to send – has led me to see that this beautiful universe is not one in which I want to live in anymore. It certainly appears it's not one in which I my avatar is welcome.
 
If Star Trek is about hope, and Firefly about defiance, and Star Wars is about the balance of good and evil (and infuriatingly stilted dialogue), and Battlestar Galactica is about cycles of self-destruction and our capacity to alter that inevitability, then Mass Effect reveals itself to be wholly about compromise. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to succeed? For some that's everything.
 
(And if that sounds like a criticism, it's not meant to be. Clearly that was the premise the creators were attempting to play out: how far will you compromise those 'ideals' that pushed you along the whole time? Or do you even need to sacrifice your beliefs at all? Because if you never saw Synthetics as people, then gravy. Not only does the game force this compromise upon you for victory, but it rewards you for making any choice that gives you over to your enemy's point of view. You create universal peace by meeting your enemy in the middle – I would argue stepping further than the middle, but still.) 
 
But what I don't understand, what even now fills me with bewilderment and genuine shock, is why, if the whole theme was compromise, did they kept insisting that the central thrust of the game was 'hope'? Liara even throws the term out to future generations in the opening of her holo-log in the 'Refuse' ending. We offer you hope... 
 
...No we don't. We hoped and failed, remember? We didn't do what apparently needed to be done. 
 
And the word hope is not just a trump card that you can slap own amidst a cavalcade of despair to pretty up the carnage. As silver linings go it's pretty flimsy. Just four little letters, more a puff of air than a declaration. It has to be attached to something. There has to be something to hope for. 
 
So why on the whole way to those final choices was everyone blathering about hope? I mean, all the 'I'll-see-you-after-this-is-all-overs' were heartbreaking enough, knowing what was to come, but to then have everyone praising Shepard for sticking to her beliefs, a litany of platitudes about how magnificent it was that she never sacrificed what defined her, how that fortitude was a beacon for the peoples of the galaxy. And what for? To be called an abject failure for continuing to stick to those beliefs when it counted most?
 
In his farewell Javik told me I was the 'avatar' of all life. That everyone and everything in the universe was looking to me and at me at that very moment. That Shepard was a symbol of all that existence could and will become, from the metaphorical blood of whom a new generation will emerge. Even the Illusive Man, while cursing my name in a video feed said that he respected that Shepard's beliefs never wavered. She would do what she believed in, no matter the cost, no matter what the circumstance.
 
And then the game places before her three atrocities cooked up by the guy who has been strangling the life out of the universe and demands that she go along with one. Her legacy is to be a sycophant to the sociopath who eons ago lost himself down a perverted path of malformed altruism. Not to shut him down. Not to expose the horror of his actions to him, nor argue him back to sense. To agree that his ways (destruction or control) or his wildest fantasies (* sparkles just-makes-everyones-the-sames rainbows *) are the only way forward for life. We've spent hundreds of hours fighting against such twisted ideals, and now we must not only suffer one of them, but wholly embrace it. Make it our own choice.
 
The Reapers get to stand over us – even metaphorically in their deaths – shouting 'Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! What? Gonna cry?'
 
Hope it aint. 

[jason32choy]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Firstly: Arrival has no relation to the Batarian homeworld. Seriously guys? It's one colony, not the homeworld. The batarians have hundreds of colonie

Secondly: Destroy also endorses the Catalyst's viewpoint - he believed that genocide was acceptable if it was a side effect of the greater good, and you are agreeing with that portion of his philosophy if you pick destroy. You're saying 'you're right, no race has any right to exist if they're in the way of something bigger we want to achieve. Your multiple genocides were just collatoral damage, after all."

Thirdly: It isn't "destroying one race so that others can live." There are other options where everyone can live. Stop phrasing it in that way. It's "destroying one race because the other means to peace make me uncomfortable." 

This is why all three endings are terrible: all of them endorse at least one part of the Catalyst's worldview. I happen to find Destroy's especially repugnant, since you are agreeing with the philosophy of the cycle itself. You're basically making the same decision the Catalyst made when he decided to reaperize his creators: any atrocity, no matter how horrific, can be justified as long as you think it's the "only logical answer."

I admit I may have overstated the Batarian point. But in essence, your arguement is that any sort of genocide of a race should not be condone with Shepard's conscience. Therefore, Destroy is not viable.

I am sorry that I haven't explained fully my views on Control and Synthesis which undoubtedly shaped my choice of Destroy.

For Control, I chose to reject it because the story thus far has kept insisting that controlling the Reaper is not a viable option and on top of that, it's too dangerous for one person to wield such a formidable power. [I believe that's what went wrong with the Catalyst too. If Shepard, as a Reaper-leading mind, deemed something as inappropriate and use the whole Reaper on his unjustified cause, it would lead to catastrophoies like numerous cycles before.]

For Synthesis, it seemed an eventual evolution, but I felt I forced the whole universe to follow the path that I've chosen. So my point of one person deciding the fate of universe still holds true. Besides, from the Geth-Quarian, Genophage stories, I've learnt that it may not be the technological difference that drives them into point of conflict, but the inability to comprehend and communicate with others. That may be driven by the need for domination, self-protection, fear, etc. But would turning them all into part organic / part synthetic solve that part of the problem? There's no gurantee of that.

For Refuse (new ending), you essentially took a moral high ground yet ignoring your resposibility to save all lives from Reapers.

Back to why Destroy is the logical choice. Destroy, in essence, frees the current cycle from the Reaper threat. Can the organics learn from the Geth and create a symbiotic relationship between new Synthetics and them? I can't be sure. But I felt I've fulfilled my responsibility by choosing the best choice possible going forward. I keep enforcing the word choice because that's what it is. A choice that you, as Shepard, must make at that point. You must have heard "the lesser of two evils" and I firmly believe that I made the most logically and morally sound choice POSSIBLE.

I agree that killing all Geths is an atrocity, but isn't letting all the life in the entire cycle's fate be decided by one man be worse? And abandoning the lives of this cycle way worst?

I agree with you that I did in part condone the Catalyst's theory but I don't feel that makes a terrible ending nor my choice is anywhere as absurd as its principle of "synthetics will eventually kill all organics". Claiming that my choice is essentially the same as the Catalyst's is like claiming a doctor removing a leg to save one's life is ludicrous. Because there's so much more value to live then to die.

I think what it boils down to is this: Are you looking for a protagonist who can always prevail with odds against them without compromising his/her principles? If you're, then no endings in this game may suit you.

But I am not and my conscience is clear with my choice. Hope this has expressed my thoughts.