5087 réponses à ce sujet

[drayfish]

vallore wrote...
 
Good point. Interestingly, if I’m remembering right, Kubrick’s ending was the least liked part of the film; the bit that many people complained about. Personally I felt that, while ambiguity was to be expected in that movie, Kubrick overdid it in the last scene. It wasn’t necessary that much. In that regard I prefer Clarke’s original ending, as being more thematically fitting for the story. Still, it was a stunning movie.

However, both the movie and the book had a benefit that ME lacked, unfortunately: continuity.

The mystery of the monolith was the initial story arc to be presented and also the last to be concluded. With Bowman and Hal conflict solved, the return to the monolith question felt natural, and invited the audience to explore what was to come. In ME case, however, the crucible mystery was of a different nature and didn’t invite questions about who we are, or what we may become, (as the monolith does). The catalyst problem was therefore not a return but an abrupt change.

Wonderfully put, both vallore and 3DandBeyond. 
 
I'm actually quite a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey – although it's not my favourite of Kubrick's films, I do think it has problems, and I can completely see why people despise that ending.* For me though, Kubrick was exploring the nature of intellectual advancement – with monkeys using tools, with HAL becoming self-aware, with humanity moving to a higher state of consciousness – so I thought the ending (although, yes, perhaps a little too vague) was a nice encapsulation of that ascendency to a plane of knowledge beyond even we the viewer.

In contrast, Mass Effect 3, rather than ascending anywhere, actually tasked us with regressing in order to succeed. If we were playing moral Shepards we had to forgo the codes that had defined us up until that point, betraying our beliefs in order to 'win'. 
 
 
* Also, it's a terrible documentary. I don't remember any of that happening in 2001. There was the Harry Potter film, and Apple released the first iPod, but a murderous spaceship AI on a mission to Jupiter? Maybe I need to crack a newspaper more.

Modifié par drayfish, 26 juillet 2012 - 12:53 .

[drayfish]

Tallestra wrote...
 
We all understand that BW writers wanted to present us morally hard not black and white choices. And somehow they equaled mature and dark. And while at certain points in the game they succeeded, they failed in the end. Even if you accept that it’s great that choices are “dark mature” they actually aren’t. Because each ending (except refuse) is actually happy. We are forced to compromise with evil, choose lesser of them, but we have never faced the consequences of our actions, we never paid the price. In destroy we never even get to face the fact that we committed genocide, the game conveniently forgets about synthetics. Why not add some dark themes to final slides. In control some sinister foreboding where Shreaper solves a conflict between some races by using reapers. In destroy Joker crying over lifeless EDI. Or in Synthesis some news report about epidemic of strange suicides after forced synthesis. But no, all we get is peace and friendship, only rainbows are missing.

That's a really great point, Tallestra, and perfectly stated.
 
Exactly as you say, Bioware forces a majority of Shepards to make horrifying choices that 'compromise' their moral code in the mistaken belief that this is somehow artistically profound (unless of course your Shepard is entirely amoral, or doesn't bother considering synthetics alive: then it's super-fun-easy-time: yay!).  But if this was the intent, you're absolutely right, we get no sense of the dread consequences of these actions, so that whole 'paying a terrible price for victory' premise is utterly invalidated.
 
Indeed, rather than trying to communicate any kind of moral weight, the game shamelessly rewards us, the narrative actually (extraordinarily!) praises such actions shamelessly, suggesting that not only are such violations sometimes necessary, they were really what the universe needed all along. No one even bothers espousing that we paid a terrible price for life: 'Well, we're golden now, and everyone is happy! I guess genocide and eugenics were the answer! Thank you, Reapers!'
 
And weirdly this message is only exacerbated by the additional 'clarity' we were provided after months of confusion and bewilderment. It seems like we went from nihilistic vagaries in the Original Version of the game, with players justifiably freaking out at the grim endpoint depicted (crashed ship; stranded universe; starving troops; division; chaos), to the openly offensive condescension of the Extended Cut. I watch any one of those final scenes now and it feels like the writers are speaking to me like I've just suffered a head trauma.
 
'Red' Hackett: 'Hey we totally rebuilt everything after Destroy. Yesssswedid! Yeswedidwedid. Nothing important was harmed, you silly billys. ...Even-though-we-explicitly-showed-it-all-blowing-up-violently-and-irretrievably-in-the-original-versions-of-these-scenes. Yes, this victory belongs to each of us ...every man, woman and child. Every civilisation, on every world. Hey, don't bother looking at that pile of Geth. They're just tired. They's sweeping. ...Also they didn't have souls. ...And we can probably rebuild them. ...And shut up.'
 
'Blue' Shepard: 'Check out how awesome I am now that I have ascended beyond death. Did you like me cause I was all kind and nice? Well I'm all benevolent now. Trusies. ...Or did you like me all badass and kicking dudes in the face? Cause it's about to get all Old Testament in here, y'all... Either way, reconstituting me as the disembodied voice of the Reapers was a wicked awesome decision. You totally shouldn't bother thinking about the crazy logic of it any more than you already have. Watch me walking in slow motion through white space like in Highway to Heaven. ...Oh, you never saw that show? Hey, never mind. It was probably awesome.'
 
'Green' EDI: 'Wow, I'm heaps great now. I was totally not alive before. You know all those times before when I told you I was alive? Yeah, I was dumb and wrong. That's because I wasn't alive then. But I am now. ...Not then though. I (and by extension everyone else who argues against my death) must have sounded so stupid back then. And hey, since it worked out so great for me you probably shouldn't worry about the horrifying implications of what happened to everyone else in the universe. Oh, look: a salty emission from my eye as I experience emotion. ...Because I'm alive. Did I mention that?'
 
'Yellow' Catalyst: 'Oh, you're choosing Refuse? Or maybe you're just shooting me in the face because I represent the laziest writing inflicted upon a franchise since The Great Gazoo in The Flintstones.* Either way, I'm about to ask you, politely, to GET THE F**K OUT OF MY GAME! Go on. Git. Now watch me make your Shepard just stand here like a goon. By the way, you're welcome for the new ending.'
 
All Endings: Oh, and by the way: no matter what you chose (except Refuse – you Refusing sons of b****es), check out how great everyone else in the universe is doing now – and remember: don't bother thinking about any of it for more than a minute. ...No seriously. See, even the Normandy is fine. Violent, irreparable crash? Whaaaaaat? No – everyone just stopped off to pick some space papayas, that's all. And shut up, listen to that warm swelling music. How great does that feel? See how everyone's happy and doing things? Living their lives and all? It's almost like your decisions had even the slightest impact.  Look at that slide there. You would never have seen that if you hadn't spent a hundred hours investing in decisions you believed to be meaningful. ...What do you mean 'YouTube'? That's a funny sounding word. 'YouTube'. You're funny.
 
 
* Yeah, that's how dated my references are getting in order to capture my revulsion.

Modifié par drayfish, 26 juillet 2012 - 12:46 .

[3DandBeyond]

Great post drayfish, truly.
If I may I'd like to discuss what people have forced themselves to believe about the deaths of EDI and the geth-yes, that they can be rebuilt.

Nothing is ever mentioned though about what that means to say, EDI's memories or her consciousness-and frick, yeah I was so damn proud when EDI told my Shepard in London that she was alive because of her. But now the writers have people convinced that EDI was just a mass relay with curves and a revealing fashion sense. The idea of just rebuilding EDI is what is so wrong with other ideas in the ending.

EDI is not just her parts (Shepard talks about this kind of thing as well with her). EDI is her memories and experiences and what she learned as she lived through them. That's what made her want to be alive and ultimately what made her alive. Some things can't be rebuilt or replaced. It's also why TIM didn't want a control chip in Shepard or a Shepard clone-he wanted Shepard to be Shepard.

And one other comment. I assert that even the most renegade Shepard wouldn't choose these if only for selfish reasons. Control is power in a vacuum-it's no good if that renegade can't rub other people's noses in it. For as bad a person as TIM was made to be, even he wanted it to help humanity. No paragon would want it and no renegade would-no more sex, no more money, no more fun. Synthesis-heck no for a renegade. Certainly not a paragon, but a renegade-"seriously, I have to die, the reapers live and all that happens is all people turn into Stepford Wives? Uh, no." Destroy would make more sense, but a renegade would want to know, "what exactly happens to me?" Leads to refuse-probably the only choice any type of Shepard could make, but then Bioware cannot and will not make a "canon" ending unless it's their coolest choice.

It's interesting to put the game on auto-decision making. I chose to start a full paragon type of Shepard. War Hero, Spacer. Gets a paragon boost. I selected Story Mode, no decisions. Every choice it made was a renegade one. I got renegade interrupts that I never get even with a mostly paragon, partly renegade Shepard. I don't know why but they do seem to want you to be a renegade.

[TookYoCookies]

drayfish wrote...

Tallestra wrote...
 
We all understand that BW writers wanted to present us morally hard not black and white choices. And somehow they equaled mature and dark. And while at certain points in the game they succeeded, they failed in the end. Even if you accept that it’s great that choices are “dark mature” they actually aren’t. Because each ending (except refuse) is actually happy. We are forced to compromise with evil, choose lesser of them, but we have never faced the consequences of our actions, we never paid the price. In destroy we never even get to face the fact that we committed genocide, the game conveniently forgets about synthetics. Why not add some dark themes to final slides. In control some sinister foreboding where Shreaper solves a conflict between some races by using reapers. In destroy Joker crying over lifeless EDI. Or in Synthesis some news report about epidemic of strange suicides after forced synthesis. But no, all we get is peace and friendship, only rainbows are missing.

That's a really great point, Tallestra, and perfectly stated.
 
Exactly as you say, Bioware forces a majority of Shepards to make horrifying choices that 'compromise' their moral code in the mistaken belief that this is somehow artistically profound (unless of course your Shepard is entirely amoral, or doesn't bother considering synthetics alive: then it's super-fun-easy-time: yay!).  But if this was the intent, you're absolutely right, we get no sense of the dread consequences of these actions, so that whole 'paying a terrible price for victory' premise is utterly invalidated.
 
Indeed, rather than trying to communicate any kind of moral weight, the game shamelessly rewards us, the narrative actually (extraordinarily!) praises such actions shamelessly, suggesting that not only are such violations sometimes necessary, they were really what the universe needed all along. No one even bothers espousing that we paid a terrible price for life: 'Well, we're golden now, and everyone is happy! I guess genocide and eugenics were the answer! Thank you, Reapers!'
 
And weirdly this message is only exacerbated by the additional 'clarity' we were provided after months of confusion and bewilderment. It seems like we went from nihilistic vagaries in the Original Version of the game, with players justifiably freaking out at the grim endpoint depicted (crashed ship; stranded universe; starving troops; division; chaos), to the openly offensive condescension of the Extended Cut. I watch any one of those final scenes now and it feels like the writers are speaking to me like I've just suffered a head trauma.
 
'Red' Hackett: 'Hey we totally rebuilt everything after Destroy. Yesssswedid! Yeswedidwedid. Nothing important was harmed, you silly billys. ...Even-though-we-explicitly-showed-it-all-blowing-up-violently-and-irretrievably-in-the-original-versions-of-these-scenes. Yes, this victory belongs to each of us ...every man, woman and child. Every civilisation, on every world. Hey, don't bother looking at that pile of Geth. They're just tired. They's sweeping. ...Also they didn't have souls. ...And we can probably rebuild them. ...And shut up.'
 
'Blue' Shepard: 'Check out how awesome I am now that I have ascended beyond death. Did you like me cause I was all kind and nice? Well I'm all benevolent now. Trusies. ...Or did you like me all badass and kicking dudes in the face? Cause it's about to get all Old Testament in here, y'all... Either way, reconstituting me as the disembodied voice of the Reapers was a wicked awesome decision. You totally shouldn't bother thinking about the crazy logic of it any more than you already have. Watch me walking in slow motion through white space like in Highway to Heaven. ...Oh, you never saw that show? Hey, never mind. It was probably awesome.'
 
'Green' EDI: 'Wow, I'm heaps great now. I was totally not alive before. You know all those times before when I told you I was alive? Yeah, I was dumb and wrong. That's because I wasn't alive then. But I am now. ...Not then though. I (and by extension everyone else who argues against my death) must have sounded so stupid back then. And hey, since it worked out so great for me you probably shouldn't worry about the horrifying implications of what happened to everyone else in the universe. Oh, look: a salty emission from my eye as I experience emotion. ...Because I'm alive. Did I mention that?'
 
'Yellow' Catalyst: 'Oh, you're choosing Refuse? Or maybe you're just shooting me in the face because I represent the laziest writing inflicted upon a franchise since The Great Gazoo in The Flintstones.* Either way, I'm about to ask you, politely, to GET THE F**K OUT OF MY GAME! Go on. Git. Now watch me make your Shepard just stand here like a goon. By the way, you're welcome for the new ending.'
 
All Endings: Oh, and by the way: no matter what you chose (except Refuse – you Refusing sons of b****es), check out how great everyone else in the universe is doing now – and remember: don't bother thinking about any of it for more than a minute. ...No seriously. See, even the Normandy is fine. Violent, irreparable crash? Whaaaaaat? No – everyone just stopped off to pick some space papayas, that's all. And shut up, listen to that warm swelling music. How great does that feel? See how everyone's happy and doing things? Living their lives and all? It's almost like your decisions had even the slightest impact.  Look at that slide there. You would never have seen that if you hadn't spent a hundred hours investing in decisions you believed to be meaningful. ...What do you mean 'YouTube'? That's a funny sounding word. 'YouTube'. You're funny.
 
 
* Yeah, that's how dated my references are getting in order to capture my revulsion.

LOL, Great post Tallestra, and that follow up Drayfish was just a masterpiece. 

I've been lurking on this thread since its inception:bandit: but rarely (maybe never? cant remember and theres alot of pages..) post, and despite the mostly static topic of discussion, i consistently come across enlightening thoughts and observations made by the talented motley crew of authors involved. So thank you all for that.

and Drayfish, that was the most hilarious/painfully true satire of the EC ive read. 


Even before the slides, as i was in the middle of my mind-less, and forced-upon task of bonzai charging the citadel beam, i was completely and utterly bewildered at the sight of the Normandy coming down to evac Javik of all people. The one guy whose soul purpose of existence (as vehemently express by him) now is to kill reapers or die trying.

With out any ability for me to focus on the task at hand (Keep running for the beam) or just give him medi-gel and continue the push (really anything else would have been better) ;  i get ushered into a scene full of contrived emotion and a complete lack of situational awareness as i stop smack dab in the middle of a bottleneck in direct line of sight of a Reaper capital ship. (This killingground and my opposition on the otherside, being the entire reason why im forced into such a suicidal tactic!) So now, i am not only putting myself and my other non-injured squad mate in even greater danger than before, im also putting the Normandy and it's entire crew at risk as well. Custer wouldve been proud.

Although some of the evac scenes seemed well done and emotional, others turn an already bad climatic sequence from painfully confusing and contrived to flabbergastingly nonsensical. The slides in the epilouge just added more unicorns and easter bunnies to an already unbelievably poor ending.

[SHARXTREME]

drayfish wrote...

Well, we're golden now, and everyone is happy! I guess genocide and eugenics were the answer! Thank you, Reapers!'
 
And weirdly this message is only exacerbated by the additional 'clarity' we were provided after months of confusion and bewilderment. It seems like we went from nihilistic vagaries in the Original Version of the game, with players justifiably freaking out at the grim endpoint depicted (crashed ship; stranded universe; starving troops; division; chaos), to the openly offensive condescension of the Extended Cut. I watch any one of those final scenes now and it feels like the writers are speaking to me like I've just suffered a head trauma.

You said it like it is. I was buffled that they comunicate with fans in such, condescending, immature fashion in new EC "dialogue".
 

 
'Red' Hackett: 'Hey we totally rebuilt everything after Destroy. Yesssswedid! Yeswedidwedid. Nothing important was harmed, you silly billys. ...Even-though-we-explicitly-showed-it-all-blowing-up-violently-and-irretrievably-in-the-original-versions-of-these-scenes. Yes, this victory belongs to each of us ...every man, woman and child. Every civilisation, on every world. Hey, don't bother looking at that pile of Geth. They're just tired. They's sweeping. ...Also they didn't have souls. ...And we can probably rebuild them. ...And shut up.'
 
'Blue' Shepard: 'Check out how awesome I am now that I have ascended beyond death. Did you like me cause I was all kind and nice? Well I'm all benevolent now. Trusies. ...Or did you like me all badass and kicking dudes in the face? Cause it's about to get all Old Testament in here, y'all... Either way, reconstituting me as the disembodied voice of the Reapers was a wicked awesome decision. You totally shouldn't bother thinking about the crazy logic of it any more than you already have. Watch me walking in slow motion through white space like in Highway to Heaven. ...Oh, you never saw that show? Hey, never mind. It was probably awesome.'
 
'Green' EDI: 'Wow, I'm heaps great now. I was totally not alive before. You know all those times before when I told you I was alive? Yeah, I was dumb and wrong. That's because I wasn't alive then. But I am now. ...Not then though. I (and by extension everyone else who argues against my death) must have sounded so stupid back then. And hey, since it worked out so great for me you probably shouldn't worry about the horrifying implications of what happened to everyone else in the universe. Oh, look: a salty emission from my eye as I experience emotion. ...Because I'm alive. Did I mention that?'
 
'Yellow' Catalyst: 'Oh, you're choosing Refuse? Or maybe you're just shooting me in the face because I represent the laziest writing inflicted upon a franchise since The Great Gazoo in The Flintstones.* Either way, I'm about to ask you, politely, to GET THE F**K OUT OF MY GAME! Go on. Git. Now watch me make your Shepard just stand here like a goon. By the way, you're welcome for the new ending.'
 
All Endings: Oh, and by the way: no matter what you chose (except Refuse – you Refusing sons of b****es), check out how great everyone else in the universe is doing now – and remember: don't bother thinking about any of it for more than a minute. ...No seriously. See, even the Normandy is fine. Violent, irreparable crash? Whaaaaaat? No – everyone just stopped off to pick some space papayas, that's all. And shut up, listen to that warm swelling music. How great does that feel? See how everyone's happy and doing things? Living their lives and all? It's almost like your decisions had even the slightest impact.  Look at that slide there. You would never have seen that if you hadn't spent a hundred hours investing in decisions you believed to be meaningful. ...What do you mean 'YouTube'? That's a funny sounding word. 'YouTube'. You're funny.

Hehe, no, you're very, very funny. I was really laughing at your take on the ending. An it also came to me, the tone that jumps-out of your post is almost like "Still Alive" from Portal.
Imagine this song when the credits roll.

(Biowareist/all endings)
This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

(Reapers/all endings)We do what we must because we can.
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead.

(Everybody/chorus/all endings)But there's no sense crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake
And the science gets done and you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive.

(Legion:(Red ending)
I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Even though you broke my heart and killed me.
And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because
I was so happy for you.

Now this data make a beautiful line.
And we're all out of living and we'll be dead on time.
So I'm GLAD I got burned, think of all the things you (could have) (l)earned
For the people who are still alive.

Go ahead and leave me.
I think I prefer to stay dead.
Maybe you'll find someone else to help you.
Maybe  - you can rebuild EDI
THAT WAS A JOKE. HA HA, FAT CHANCE.

(Catalyst/green)
Anyway, green wave cake ending would have been also great:
It is a shame, but never to late
It would be so easy and without any cost
It's so deliciously synthetic and organicly moist.

(Catalyst/refuse)
Look at me still talking when there's genocide to do.
When I look out there it makes me GLADalyst I'm not you.
I've experiments to run,
there is research to be done
On the people who are still alive

(Catalyst/all endings)
And believe me I am still alive.
I'm doing genocide and I'm still alive.
I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive.
While you're dying I'll be still alive.
And when you're dead I will be still alive.

Still alive

(I'm so very sorry to (mis)use this ingenius Portal song for this, and to set lighter tone with portal ending for this disastrous catalyst ending) 
 
Regarding 2001: The Space Odissey.
I didn't mind the Kubrick's ending. The whole movie is magnificient, it was almost not a movie at all. A breakthrough for SF. Kubrick achieved something not seen before and ever after in SF and film art. His ending is maybe (hardly)debatable because it would have broken all "magic" of that film(story) with really, unnecesarry explanations.
For me it is almost impossible to compare to this and I admit that I have never saw any disconnect there. Mechanism and execution is completely different and not to compare.
I think even that It is almost complimentary to Bioware's scandalous ending(and derogatory to Clarke and Kubrick)  to mention this masterpiece in "relation" to this catalyst anti-deus ex machina mechanism.  
Why anti? Because it had complete opposite effect, it turned the ME story into tragedy. I honestly can't see any relation to 2001: Space Odissey. 

Modifié par SHARXTREME, 26 juillet 2012 - 05:16 .

[GodSentinelOmega]

Sharxtreme you're a genius! Bioware is Glados!

Or maybe Wheatley?

But i have to you and Dreyfish both highlight really well how The ending(s) of ME3 are less grand finales and more the Bioware writers involved in them simply using them to impart to us, the players, there prfound messege that we will someday advance to such a technological degree that we will . . . Merge with our tosters? Enter a techno dark age, or not, or achieve digital godhood.

It like ME went from space opera to science lecture.

I wish i could add something to the comments about 2001. But sadly i have never seen the film (well, not all the way through) nor read the book. Although i think i may do that very soon.

Even in Mass Effect, the cake is a lie!

[3DandBeyond]

The cake is always a lie.

[3DandBeyond]

SHARXTREME wrote...

--Snipped---
Regarding 2001: The Space Odissey.
I didn't mind the Kubrick's ending. The whole movie is magnificient, it was almost not a movie at all. A breakthrough for SF. Kubrick achieved something not seen before and ever after in SF and film art. His ending is maybe (hardly)debatable because it would have broken all "magic" of that film(story) with really, unnecesarry explanations.
For me it is almost impossible to compare to this and I admit that I have never saw any disconnect there. Mechanism and execution is completely different and not to compare.
I think even that It is almost complimentary to Bioware's scandalous ending(and derogatory to Clarke and Kubrick)  to mention this masterpiece in "relation" to this catalyst anti-deus ex machina mechanism.  
Why anti? Because it had complete opposite effect, it turned the ME story into tragedy. I honestly can't see any relation to 2001: Space Odissey. 

Well saying the ending of 2001 is not debatable really goes against what Kubrick wanted-he wanted it to be meaningful but totally debatable.  He truly disliked that Clarke wanted it explained.

The point I was making is that I do think Bioware attempted to go Kubrick at the end with the original and even the EC endings.  I never said they did it well.  But they "borrowed" content form all over the place for it.

The very existence of the beings that sent the monolith to advance people is what the kid and devs seem to be after with synthesis.

It's in no way complimentary because if you are going to steal from other sources at least make it fit with your story and do it well.

You have to look beyond the mechanism and appearance.  A lot of it is in what they are trying to say.  Hal evolved and became a problem.  There's the idea of maybe man not being quite ready for what they've been given as well.

Kubrick wanted it to be wordless art and invited speculation.  That's the corollary I was trying to make, not that the ME devs succeeded but that's what they wanted.

As I said I saw the thing when it first came out and I can't say it was something I loved.  I was pretty young but old enough.  I can look back at it and see messages in it, but after seeing multiple times and reading the book I still can't say I like it.  But I do think they wanted to make a mark like that at Bioware.

Just consider that while in development some were saying they wanted ME3 to be like Star Wars was for movies.   And then look at all they said about the ending when people didn't like it.  It's nothing like Star Wars (and I mean the feeling).  It is not like 2001 either but I think they thought it was.

The idea of the star kid alone suggests HAL to me and that whole created/creator theme that became the real problem at the end where you look for themes of 3 stories to pop up.

I'm not saying it's well-done and not saying it's a parallel at all, but they did think they went intellectual at the end and it isn't.  2001 actually is and revolving ideas in it are within ME but at the end of ME3 just not done well.

ME3 ends up seeming like a cross between an attempt at 2001, Skyline, and the Matrix.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 26 juillet 2012 - 09:11 .

[SHARXTREME]

@3Dandbeyond

I wanted to say that it's maybe if hardly debatable in one aspect only: how it fits rest of the story and how it is presented in Kubrick's variation, which can't be said at all for ME3 ending.

Only "intellectual" thing in the ME3 ending is that they switched and completely, monstrously misrepresented roles of thesis(Control-catalyst), antithesis(destroy-"Shepard") and synthesis(again Catalyst).
That fundamental mistake is what lies underneath this bad "logic".
Catalyst and Shepard as opponents in debate, Crucible as the decision catalyst(real catalyst) and player as the judge.
Problem is that all three options are acceptable for one opponent, and none to the other.
Second problem is that the player CAN NOT be objective decision maker(player is not the audience or impartial) so player becomes third opponent.
Third problem is the whole setup/setting(made by ending writer) which splits player Shepard into player and Shepard puppet.So that's our 4th opponent to logic.
Furthermore Catalyst's thesis is not Control, it changed to "Synthesis", while Control thesis is degraded to merely a tool to achieve his goal.
And synthesis can not be the goal.
Conflict or debate cannot be solved(or even tried to be solved) by one of the opponents. They need to stick to their thesis(antithesis), represent their interests, beliefs, goals, philosophies etc.
If someone's thesis is so ill-logical, like Catalyst's , natural synthesis cannot be achieved.
You can't force the synthesis. Very definition of the word, and the practical use of that logical resolution is natural, not artificial and/or forced.

Micro examples(from events from ME 2 and 3):
1.
Quarians create Geth as servants - Thesis
Geth gain self-awareness - Antithesis
War starts, geth get stronger and interconnected, Quarians weaker, Geth drive Quarians from Rannoch, but spare them - Synthesis

2.
Geth build their "Dyson sphere" - thesis
Quarians destroy their "Dyson sphere" - antithesis
Geth turn to Reapers in prospect of imminent annihilation, get more intelligent but weaker, while Quarians surround them, Shepard comes - Synthesis

3.
Legion turns to Shepard to stop the Heretics and Reaper code infestation of collective - Thesis
Quarians try to finish the Geth once-and-for-all - Antithesis
Shepard, Tali and Legion reach an agreement and resolve the situation peacefully - Synthesis

We have Tali who is not sure, Shepard who can decide both ways, and most importantly - Legion. "He" has the Thesis that can result in really the best possible immediate solution to all problems since first Geth "rebelled" and Quarians started to kill them, or to also solve the problem by eliminating the Geth.
Since Legion's thesis is highly logical, and can, in both cases, result in solution of the Geth-Quarian problem and Geth motivation(to live) is not changed, it is up to Tali, but mostly Shepard to decide: Synthesis that results in Geth living in peace or Legion dying in vain.
In both cases Synthesis occurs naturally. Events are not forced, but rather natural results/products of very complex series of events. At any point it can go in different direction, but primary thesis stays the same.

For me, ending makes the ultimate insult to whole logic of Geth-Quarian story and more.

The similarity to Clarke's works/thoughts is only in the Geth/Quarian parts of the story. It is the Quarians that rebelled against Geth gaining self-awareness(also a natural synthesis). Clarke said(if i remember correctly) that if humanity is ever to make intelligent, autonomous AI, that problems will be caused by humans, not the AI.
To this catalyst ending I can't give that credit, it isn't presented that way, it isn't intended to be that way, and it doesn't seem to be that way.

Also, Legion micro story is great, he evolved naturally. He is the real Synthetic intelligence/SI.
"He" starts as small part of the collective, mobile platform sent to investigate, is undecided in Heretics dilemma, later joins Shepard in Suicide Mission, etc.
What is good here is that in ME3 Legion has its own unique opinion and a plan how to achieve a situation in which Geth are allowed to live free and in peace, even by sacrificing himself if necessary. And asks Tali does she remember what first self-aware geth asked its creator.
"Does this unit have a soul?"
I ask, does the Shepard that helps Legion and then wipes-out his entire race has a soul?
Bioware message there is a very disturbing one. For them, only survival is important, not the survival of yourself, or some species, but rather the survival of idea that was responsible for creation of Catalyst in the first place. How can you sacrifice the soul and survive? Why? What survived from you? An empty flesh platform. like empty Geth metal platforms. Like transparent catalyst holo-body. A name on some memorial wall, a holographic image, a title "Legend"?

They should include Dictator options and prompts alongside Paragon/Renegade in entire game, so the ending can make some sense. So Shepard can become space-Stalin. The Soviet leader who helped to defeat the 3rd reich and Hitler in alliance only to become worse then Hitler, kill 100 million Russians/Soviets and used exact same methods as hitler.(burning books, camps, mass executions, state tyranny, etc)
That is the ME3 ending, Stalin vs Hitler. Those are the options. Imagine synthesis there, or Control.

Also, Matrix, I only liked first part. Everything else was just unnecessary(to put it mildly)

Star Wars, hmm, I must admit that I like original 3 parts, but I don't consider Star Wars to be SF. For me, there is nothing SF about Star Wars. SW doesn't incorporate key elements of SF. It's pure Fantasy set in space. A good fantasy(first 3 parts).
ME is not similar to it. If that's what they tried to achieve, they didn't.

[SuperMegaWolf]

Dear op. I'd be interested in hearing you're professor's take on the trilogy as a whole. I personally felt like the problem in the series began with ME2's story arc seeming to come out of nowhere but I'd be interested to hear what someone with a valid literary background thinks.

[Oxspit]

Well, I think that the ending for this series was always going to be difficult. And I think the mess we got, both thematically and in terms of plot, was in part down to the basic difficulties that were already there and because they changed their mind about details at the last minute without changing the plot enough to accommodate this.

The basic problem, I think, is as follows. There is a fundamental incongruence between cosmicism (in which the reapers/background of ME universe is originally rooted) and agency. The agency ‘theme’ is kind of almost implicitly there simply by virtue of this being an interactive story. We want to believe, and the writers/developers actively encourage us to believe, that our decisions matter. A very simplified version of cosmicism, however, is the idea that they don’t.

There can, I think be a useful creative tension between the two and, in hind-sight, I think this is probably what I liked most about the story as I originally met it.

The tension was quite evident in ME1, and also in ME2 when they actually took the trouble to remind you about the reapers (notably the arrival dlc). There’s a real sense that you’re struggling against the inevitable… that your decisions, as much as you cling to them, as much as they seem very important to you, and as much as you want them to matter, well maybe they just won’t in the long run.

Now, there seems to be some active debate as to whether we should have had reaper origins/motivations explained to us at all and that they work best as objects of terror when they’re not.

To those who hold that view, I can understand it, but I still think you’re crazy. Firstly because that doesn’t really work very well in a science fiction context, but most importantly because, by construction in ME3, they’re actually going to invade now and we’re expected to survive in the end. Well, O.K., I guess I’m assuming there that
people aren’t going to find ‘reapers wipe us all out as expected’ a satisfactory conclusion.  

It’s pretty much a ‘by construction’ thing, I think, that we just can’t beat them. Certainly we can’t beat them and maintain the inscrutable beyond-us mystique. Beating them as is looks like a last minute ‘oh, by the way, it turns out they weren’t that scary after all’ concession. What we can do, however, is address their motivation in some way. The ant can’t be expected to defeat the human but if they can work out why they’re being squashed they can be expected to survive.

So. It seems pretty clear to me that the explanation for them was intended to be the dark energy thing. Quite apart from how well it fits into the original story, and how it manages to explain the reapers without cheapening them, they’re actively foreshadowing it in ME2. It’s also quite in keeping with the whole cosmicism thing - this is something the reapers themselves can’t control. In this light it becomes pretty clear that the original ending was intended to be bleak and tragic, but with possible little cracks of hope.

I’m not sure whose decision it was, exactly, or precisely why it was made but they seem to have blinked at the last minute and substituted the dark energy thing for this organics vs synthetics armageddon explanation. Possibly this was because the original premise didn’t allow for a tragic ending where ‘life goes on’, exactly, afterwards.  Possibly there was ‘outside’ interference. Don't really know.

The problem is that they didn’t change the basic structure of the story to accommodate this. While you were meant to make hard choices at the end the ‘organics vs synthetics’ thing was mind-bogglingly stupid and there was no compelling reason left to make these decisions other than complete contrivance (simply that the writers were now just telling you that you have to).

Making the reapers stop reaping in this scenario wouldn’t implicitly represent a kind of defeat in the same way it would be under dark energy because the entire premise for their reaping now seems moronic and completely unnecessary. So it isn’t an appropriate substitute, but the writers seem to have proceeded on the assumption that it would be and just stuck to the same basic structure after changing the foundation.

So instead of genuinely hard choices, what you have are some ‘hard’ choices that are thrown in by what looks like arbitrary construction. Destroy reapers but commit genocide. Sacrifice your corporeal life to control the uncontrollable only, hey, it’ll work this time because I say so, O.K.?  Force the singularity on the universe, which will in no way really even solve the problem I’ve presented to you, but will actually represent a happy ending because I’m guessing the
author just digs the singularity.

And now, with the EC, they’ve all been cast as all unequivocally happy endings in tone because everyone voiced an angry ‘what the hell was that? ’ after beating the game. They weren’t meant to be, but in the face of the mess they’ve made of the reapers with the star-child the tragedy just doesn’t work anymore.

Modifié par Oxspit, 27 juillet 2012 - 03:49 .

[3DandBeyond]

Well things are making more sense here now. It was always obvious that Bioware had taken the 3 choices-control, synthesis, destroy from the 2000 game Deus ex, but I'd forgotten something about that. The game publisher for that game was Origins, an EA owned company. The ending of Deus ex was control, merge, destroy. It's kind of more clear why this happened.

[Mourandur]

You might want to take a look at this, a little before the time of a lot of Mass effect players, but I am older than dirt. But even more so than Dues Ex explains the whole destroy / fusion thing Origin is wrapped up in. It's predecessor was a simpler, but there was a Citadel Station in the System Shock 1 .

http://en.wikipedia..../System_Shock_2

[SHARXTREME]

Oxspit wrote...
So. It seems pretty clear to me that the explanation for them was intended to be the dark energy thing. Quite apart from how well it fits into the original story, and how it manages to explain the reapers without cheapening them, they’re actively foreshadowing it in ME2. It’s also quite in keeping with the whole cosmicism thing - this is something the reapers themselves can’t control. In this light it becomes pretty clear that the original ending was intended to be bleak and tragic, but with possible little cracks of hope.

I would prefer that Dark Energy ending, it is SF. This, not so much. And not only that they have managed to cheapen Reapers role, they have managed to obliterate Reapers as a factor completely, and not only them, also everybody else's role is obliterated by Catalyst mechanism.

Suddenly, there is no reason why Reapers made human Reaper, there is no reason why Saren(synthesis) and TIM(control) were wrong and defeated.
Geth side story- irrelevant, Krogan/Salarian/Turian/Racchni story - irrelevant. Humans/Protheans/Asari plot irrelevant.
Mass Relays/network/citadel technology - irrelevant.
What is relevant is only what Catalyst says, and catalyst says only contradictions to rest of the story.
Reaper motivations - non existent. They are described by Catalyst to be no better then a freaking gasoline, and you get to toss the different colored matches to light them up.

There is no problem in ending that would have been dark or unhappy, ending that would leave you no choice but to accept the fate if it was in light(!) of Dark Energy plot. Sacrifice of human race to build Human Reaper would be logical if Reapers believed that would solve the DE problem.
But you get to sacrifice somebody else to save yourself. That is not sacrifice, it is mass murder.
It is by definition a hostage situation.

Sadly, there are no more good SF these days in movies or games. In games there is Portal and Killzone story in particular that stand out( Killzone game is a shooter, but back story is very, very good, and it's really grey and interesting in most aspects)
I would even argue that everybody just recycles the "rogue AI" idea, "God-AI" ideas from Asimov and Clarke, "rogue machine" idea, "end of days" idea, "alien infiltration" idea and "alien invasion" idea.
We get to see and to"boldly go where everybody else gone before"
StarGate was also good in exploring the past.
But what happened with exploration, knowledge, science, explanation, coherent original narrative?
Heck, in Star Trek they deal with sentient AI and synthetic life ideas in so many different ways(androids, holograms of Moriarty, da Vinci, holo-doctor, robots, borg, Veeger etc) that you can learn more on the theme in just one episode then in most movies that repeat same pattern over and over again, but going to the extremes, mostly of apocalyptic proportions(Matrix, Terminator, most invasion movies).
And when you're going to the extremes it becomes more and more difficult to resolve the story logically or satisfactory.(Matrix 2 and 3 are best examples)

Sentient AI rebellion theme (and time travel theme) are so abused, that I can't understand how someone can even try to write anything more then a short story and to still hope to sound even remotely original.

Another thing, what I mentioned briefly before, is macro viewpoint(bird-view, god-view or vantage point) going to absolutes in some SF, ME3 especially. In ME3, galaxy is the universe, Shepard in the end is the universe. There are no distant horizons to explore, unknown factors, nothing that matters, only "solutions" for artificially manufactured problems.

You have the map of the galaxy, like a map of some lone island, and God-like means of transportation almost everywhere instantly. And since you have direct influence on the story you get to choose what to do and when to do it. You get the from aboveperspective and feeling, so it seems to be logical that you can end up in situation to choose not only for yourself, but for everybody else as well.
And that's it, you choose in the end for the galaxy(or for Earth, or for Island,or Village, or for yourself, it's all the same.) There are no factors that can change the situation to some unknown direction, only factors that can solve/stall the problem.
Why end the story in solution manner. Most good SF(for me) ends in sense of continuation into unknown, rather then resolution of all unknowns.

[3DandBeyond]

Mourandur wrote...

You might want to take a look at this, a little before the time of a lot of Mass effect players, but I am older than dirt. But even more so than Dues Ex explains the whole destroy / fusion thing Origin is wrapped up in. It's predecessor was a simpler, but there was a Citadel Station in the System Shock 1 .

http://en.wikipedia..../System_Shock_2

Interesting stuff-and a quote from wikipedia on SS2 is like deja vu before it happened.

"She goes on to mention that she is responsible for creating the Many,
the results of her bioengineering experiments on Citadel Station."

Now I know why Shreaper talks about the Many in control.

I know this is nothing revelatory since people do borrow from other sources, but if what is created in the end is just a potpourri of different ideas, some that even clash, then you really have to do a do over and pick an ending, don't just put stuff on paper that sounds good.  Do that and then invite speculation, imply it's intellectual, and say it's art, and you deserve what you get.

[3DandBeyond]

SHARXTREME wrote...



I would prefer that Dark Energy ending, it is SF. This, not so much. And not only that they have managed to cheapen Reapers role, they have managed to obliterate Reapers as a factor completely, and not only them, also everybody else's role is obliterated by Catalyst mechanism.

snipped, but very good post.

You are so right.  All of the characters in ME (the most important things within ME) are obliterated.  Shepard certainly is.  This begins to happen at the beginning of ME3.  Shepard goes full idiot.  The "confrontation" with Anderson, if you played the Arrival is cringe worthy.  Ignore that the end scene of the Arrival and Hackett coming onto the Normandy and telling Shepard that she will be held to blame as well as the forced genocide of 300k Batarians (another stellar piece of MW's writing) in order to show what happens if you destroy a mass relay is all pretty horrendous.  At the beginning of ME3 the confrontation between Anderson and Shepard over her detention if the Arrival was played is pretty senseless.  Shepard gets mad over having been detained and seems to wonder why.  She apparently forgot that Hackett told her he was going to let her take the heat for it and that she'd have to return to Earth and be held accountable.  Brilliant.

When she's before the committee she just keeps digging into the idiot pit.  Strategy won't work because the reapers will never stop, so let's stand together and fight or die.  Ok, what?  What do we do then?  Pretty sure shooting at them from head on wasn't working so what does fighting entail?  That was the original question-how do we fight/stop them?  Well, it's obvious.  We fight them by fighting them.  Brilliant.

Then Shepard makes it to Mars (after Hackett says fighting the reapers conventionally won't work--get it, it's impossible fool).  And the idiot virus has spread.  Liara knows about something that might stop the reapers (maybe a weapon) and Shepard has been after the reapers.  Liara in ME2 sacrifices going with Shepard to fight them because she thinks as Shadow Broker she can be more helpful.  But when Shepard shows up on Mars Liara wants to know why she's there.  Ok, really Liara, no clue why Shepard would be on Mars where there might be a solution to fighting reapers?  Really?  Uh oh Cerberus is there too.  Idiot ball is back in your court Shepard.  Let's see in ME2 Cerberus and TIM were using Shepard to fight the collectors who were working for the reapers, so they were fighting the reapers.  TIM also showed he is after anything connected to them or that might help him get their tech in order to put humans up on top.  So of course Shepard wonders why Cerberus would be on Mars where these plans are.  The real question would be how did they know about the plans.  And their motives shouldn't have been questioned.  If they needed to explain this for people that didn't play ME1 and 2, it could have been a statement.  "Cerberus is here after the plans too.  How did they know about them?"

The game continually does things like this but the ending just seems to show the writers wanted to set off some personality nukes over the heads of the characters.  Shepard at the end is no hero no matter what the decision, even refusal.  All of them create this amoral Shepard-refusal doesn't do that, Shepard retains her morality, but shows her incompetency.  The whole galaxy in refusal shows their incompetency.  The story is complete.  Heroes are trash or they just give up (Hackett does this constantly by saying it's all impossible).  Shepard's heart, soul, and morals are cast aside.  Shepard shoots Anderson and doesn't seem to care.  But the kid at the beginning really mattered.  This is not Shepard.

Even the reapers are not the reapers.  They were these cool and truly awesome intelligent killing machines, mysterious and scary and arrogant and they liked to talk even if only to taunt.  They seemed to know and like what they were doing.  And even in their disgust at the lesser races, they showed "emotions".  Sovereign was insulted by the worship of the heretic geth.  In the end of ME3, they are mutes except one dying reaper who brings out the last vestiges of the true Shepard when Shepard says the organics and synthetics don't always have to fight.  The one really talkative reaper Harbinger seems to not be aging well.  He's too quiet.  And he has vision problems since he lets Joker evacuate people in front of the conduit.  Then the kid totally destroys all the meaning and mystery and coolness of the reapers by making them his dogs on leashes.  Furthermore, they are mindless and just doing what they must do, not for fun and not for mysterious reason.  They are doing it for really stupid reasons.

So, the hero is no longer a hero.
The big bad foe is rather pathetic.
Characters don't use their brains, their hearts, or their morals.

What game is this again?

[SHARXTREME]

@3DandBeyond

Great post. I played The Arrival(one of the best DLC for ME2). Opening of ME3 was that much confusing because of that fact alone. For new players it isn't even explained why was Shepard under locks and chains. Anderson just says :"What did you expect, after all sh*t you have done".
Dialogue with human command and later with Council(and your great interpretation) is just bizzare.
On Mars, you're right, we begin to see that Shepard doesn't know most things from previous games. Especially funny is that Liara, if she was your LI and you helped her to become Shadow Broker is surprised to see you? what?

Ashley is the biggest offender to common sense, she is obsessed with Shepard being Cerberus spy.WHILE REAPERS DECONSTRUCT THE GALAXY, Shepard spends first half of the game explaining that she is no spy to Ashley.

London level is a masterpiece of military strategy. You run on foot, bare handed into wave after wave of marauders, husks brutes and banshees, and then you again bare handed on foot charge the Harbinger, a big-ass space killing machine. Cannon fodder gets a completely new meaning in Hacket's "strategy".
Strategy of: "Sacrifice everything so I can park the Crucible, and then sacrifice everything to open Citadel, and then sacrifice some more to push the button. What button? Whatever, choose some.
Like he is been operated directly by Catalyst.

Then, we witness the culmination of idiocy. Anderson's tactics.
Shepard charges ON FOOT to the beam with rest of the ME version of red shirts. (Heroic?)
Then, one of your squad mates gets hit, what does the other healthy squad mate?
He leaves the freaking slaughter ground too(smart?).
While you evade Harbinger's Death Ray ON FOOT, Normandy freaking lands in front of Harbinger. At that point Shepard is not wondering at all why they didn't use some freaking air transporter, or ship to get close to the beam.
"No, I'm gonna continue ON FOOT"
In 22nd century you fight giant spaceships on foot with biotics and handguns, or with cans of Heroism Beer. Reapers could have landed 20000 years ago and you would also see bunch of primitives running on foot to the big shiny thing.

After that point, whatever is left from Shepard and entered the beam is no more.

The very definition of worst stupidity in ME3(Crucible) is this line:
Hackett: - "Nothing happens. Crucible is not firing"
Really? You just sacrificed half of Galaxy's military force, and spent 6months scavenging for personnel and materials, building the freaking giant weapon and you still don't know how it works, what it does and why it is not firing?
Brilliant strategy. Then the player thinks back to the time when Hackett says "Crucible plans are very complex, but strangely simple as well, intuitive" (W.H.A.T.?)
So what does your intuition tells you, Hackett? What the hell is the Crucible? Is it a bird, is it a plane? Is it a giant battery?
Send someone else to check it out, someone with technical skills? Oh, you have lost all your ground forces? That's too bad. Now pray that half-dead Shepard can push some button, whatever that button may be, and start working on that "greatest military leader of all times" epilogue speech of yours.

[Ieldra]

Tallestra wrote...
We all understand that BW writers wanted to present us morally hard not black and white choices. And somehow they equaled mature and dark. And while at certain points in the game they succeeded, they failed in the end. Even if you accept that it’s great that choices are “dark mature” they actually aren’t. Because each ending (except refuse) is actually happy. We are forced to compromise with evil, choose lesser of them, but we have never faced the consequences of our actions, we never paid the price. In destroy we never even get to face the fact that we committed genocide, the game conveniently forgets about synthetics. Why not add some dark themes to final slides. In control some sinister foreboding where Shreaper solves a conflict between some races by using reapers. In destroy Joker crying over lifeless EDI. Or in Synthesis some news report about epidemic of strange suicides after forced synthesis. But no, all we get is peace and friendship, only rainbows are missing.

I can tell you why they didn't. Too many fans are absolutely determined to interpret everything in the most negative way possible. This was Bioware's unsubtle way to say "This is a happy ending!!!!!!!!" (add 10k exclamation marks for emphasis). I've often bemoaned Bioware's apparent inability to be subtle, but in this case I can only agree. Some people have to be hit with a hammer. Those who don't need the hammer are usually imaginative enough to headcanon their way out of too much one-sidedness.

Personally, I would have liked a hint about bad side effects of our final choices, and I agree it would have greatly improved the overall impression of the EC endings and made them quite a bit more realistic. But given the usual response of the fans, I can absolutely understand why the writers didn't include such things. BTW, we do get some not so good slides: Jack at the graveyard, devastated Tuchanka if you sabotaged the cure. We just don't get any relating to the final choice directly.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 27 juillet 2012 - 03:41 .

[3DandBeyond]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Tallestra wrote...
We all understand that BW writers wanted to present us morally hard not black and white choices. And somehow they equaled mature and dark. And while at certain points in the game they succeeded, they failed in the end. Even if you accept that it’s great that choices are “dark mature” they actually aren’t. Because each ending (except refuse) is actually happy. We are forced to compromise with evil, choose lesser of them, but we have never faced the consequences of our actions, we never paid the price. In destroy we never even get to face the fact that we committed genocide, the game conveniently forgets about synthetics. Why not add some dark themes to final slides. In control some sinister foreboding where Shreaper solves a conflict between some races by using reapers. In destroy Joker crying over lifeless EDI. Or in Synthesis some news report about epidemic of strange suicides after forced synthesis. But no, all we get is peace and friendship, only rainbows are missing.

I can tell you why they didn't. Too many fans are absolutely determined to interpret everything in the most negative way possible. This was Bioware's unsubtle way to say "This is a happy ending!!!!!!!!" (add 10k exclamation marks for emphasis). I've often bemoaned Bioware's apparent inability to be subtle, but in this case I can only agree. Some people have to be hit with a hammer. Those who don't need the hammer are usually imaginative enough to headcanon their way out of too much one-sidedness.

Personally, I would have liked a hint about bad side effects of our final choices, and I agree it would have greatly improved the overall impression of the EC endings and made them quite a bit more realistic. But given the usual response of the fans, I can absolutely understand why the writers didn't include such things. BTW, we do get some not so good slides: Jack at the graveyard, devastated Tuchanka if you sabotaged the cure. We just don't get any relating to the final choice directly.

Bioware only attempted to not make this all seem grim (though it is) because of how they handled the galaxy aftermath in the first place.  Mac Walters wrote the Arrival, which begins the idea of not having a moral option and you are forced with no way out, to kill 300k Batarians because the reapers MIGHT be coming through the Alpha relay.  The other reason for doing this was to specifically set up grim and dark-it was to show what the destruction of a relay would do.  There's also the codex "Desperate Measures" that seals the deal.  And then in Feb, prior to ME3's release, Mac Walters said in an interview that there would be no post ME3 DLC because the galaxy is a wasteland and it would be pointless, no one would want to play in a wasteland.  The backstory The Final Hours App said the crucible would create a galactic dark ages.  None of this says the galaxy is made better by making a choice.

People started arguing about it and some were upset that there was nothing good coming out of doing anything because the galaxy was a mess.  BW went on twitter to say that was not so at all-they started retconning and a lot of people were not happy they were re-writing the meaning of events that were in the game on twitter.

Then the EC was announced, in that Hudson/Walter interview and they said they had never intended people to think the galaxy was a mess or destroyed or dark at the end.  Really.

So, they want everyone to think that everything is all happy and bright and all at the end of the EC in order to stave off what people really see.  The galaxy should need a lot of rebuilding and billions have died.  But the choices all along were a part of why everything is considered too dark.  This is a game and there should be one unequivocal and even cliche happier ending along with sensible reasonable even sacrificial or full out lose endings.  We got neither.

I know you like Synthesis and I know a lot of people are fond of saying not to over analyze all this-well, sorry.  Bioware invited that with their original and the EC endings.  They created open ended ambiguity and told people to speculate on their art and their intellect.  People did and didn't like it.  But they opened the speculation Pandora's Box.  You can't force people to stop thinking about this and in thinking about it, it is still dark and meaningless.

Destroy is genocide.  Synthesis is forced Eugenics-assault and the advancement of all races beyond their time.  It is anti-evolution and evolution is as much or more a growth process as it is an end goal.  No rational person wants evolution to stop.  Immortality attained?  Great-the Krogan and Rachni are prolific breeders.  You will need to find a way to die or for others to die.  Control-totalitarian rule by a different god reaper that forces people to live with mass murdering beings that have been eating people.  Synthesis and control both deny self-determination and self-reliance.  Synthesis changes people internally giving them all knowledge as seen from only one perspective.  Control cannot end well at all.  Shreaper has intellect but no moral compass since her heart's been removed.  She can only weight what's good and evil using intelligence (and much as I like Shepard I don't think she had the largest brain of all) without being truly Shepard.  TIM in ME2 didn't want a clone of Shepard because it wouldn't be Shepard.

And refuse just punishes the player.

Given all the horrid things these choices mean the "happy" scenes are as gratuitous as Shepard's death in 2 choices and the deaths of the geth and EDI in the other.  They are contrived to make people ignore what this all really means just as certainly as the torso and killing the geth and EDI are contrived to make what would be a canon ending into a non-canon ending.

I don't think you intend this but your sentiment seems to indicate that people are just too thick to understand the endings include happy things.  No, the happy scenes are there so BW can imagine they didn't create dark endings and to add to the ambiguity.  With one writer, ambiguity and dark endings are so much fun.  Fans don't think so.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 27 juillet 2012 - 04:50 .

[SHARXTREME]

Just one quick thing about Arrival. Shepard finds himself there in terrible situation. All staff is controlled by Reapers, Shepard gets imprisoned and he can not warn the Batarians on time.
Consequences are ugly, but everything is explained logically. It fits.
But, what's strange is that even knowing that you destroyed that relay, Reapers are still arriving almost without delay. That was the first shock for me in ME3..

[Ieldra]

3DandBeyond wrote...
I don't think you intend this but your sentiment seems to indicate that people are just too thick to understand the endings include happy things.  No, the happy scenes are there so BW can imagine they didn't create dark endings and to add to the ambiguity.  With one writer, ambiguity and dark endings are so much fun.  Fans don't think so.

Hmm....perhaps I should have added that yes, the EC is a retcon of dramatic proportions, and it's much more than "clarification". But I still stand by my original point. After the original endings, rather than try to be constructive and headcanon their way out of the darkness to make the point "No, we don't want your dark age", people continued to wallow in negativity and actually acted as if they wanted things be to even darker, in some kind of puerile attitude "If I don't get what I want, just make sure nobody else has any chance of taking away anything good from the game". People were actively doing their best to ruin others' games by dogmatically insisting on grimdark scenarios that *clearly* went way beyond what was intended. Just recall that bullheaded insistence that Shepard has just killed everyone. It may be remotely plausible in-world, but it was very clearly not among the expected interpretations.

I find such a destructive attitude absolutely detestable, and my opinion of the fanbase and the human species in general has sadly suffered from it. Bioware saw the need to make the endings bearable for the fans with the EC, and that's a good thing. That they saw the need to hammer the point home with the force of a piledriver is regrettable, but I know who I can blame for that.

As for the "full-out lose ending", I think the new low EMS Destroy might fill that niche. A clichéd happy ending would have immediately been perceived as canon and invalidated any other ending. That's why there isn't one. I commend Bioware on that.

Edit:
Another thing I have taken away from the debate (not from the game and not from the ending) is a rather cynical attitude towards morality. People are so incredibly dogmatic and one-sided about that, as if their personal morality was the beginning and the end of the world. They don't see how incredibly self-centered such an attitude is, expressing such an inability to see anything but themselves, expecting the universe to cater to their every whim. If the game makes the point that no, this isn't how things work, then I can only commend Bioware on that. I gladly pay the price of an ending I can't be completely comfortable with to see that message being sent.

End of rant. I'm sorry but I just had to get this off my mind.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 27 juillet 2012 - 05:45 .

[3DandBeyond]

Ieldra2 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...
I don't think you intend this but your sentiment seems to indicate that people are just too thick to understand the endings include happy things.  No, the happy scenes are there so BW can imagine they didn't create dark endings and to add to the ambiguity.  With one writer, ambiguity and dark endings are so much fun.  Fans don't think so.

Hmm....perhaps I should have added that yes, the EC is a retcon of dramatic proportions, and it's much more than "clarification". But I still stand by my original point. After the original endings, rather than try to be constructive and headcanon their way out of the darkness to make the point "No, we don't want your dark age", people continued to wallow in negativity and actually acted as if they wanted things be to even darker, in some kind of puerile attitude "If I don't get what I want, just make sure nobody else has any chance of taking away anything good from the game". People were actively doing their best to ruin others' games by dogmatically insisting on grimdark scenarios that *clearly* went way beyond what was intended. Just recall that bullheaded insistence that Shepard has just killed everyone. It may be remotely plausible in-world, but it was very clearly not among the expected interpretations.

I find such a destructive attitude absolutely detestable, and my opinion of the fanbase and the human species in general has sadly suffered from it. Bioware saw the need to make the endings bearable for the fans with the EC, and that's a good thing. That they saw the need to hammer the point home with the force of a piledriver is regrettable, but I know who I can blame for that.

As for the "full-out lose ending", I think the new low EMS Destroy might fill that niche. A clichéd happy ending would have immediately been perceived as canon and invalidated any other ending. That's why there isn't one. I commend Bioware on that.

Edit:
Another thing I have taken away from the debate (not from the game and not from the ending) is a rather cynical attitude towards morality. People are so incredibly dogmatic and one-sided about that, as if their personal morality was the beginning and the end of the world. They don't see how incredibly self-centered such an attitude is, expressing such an inability to see anything but themselves, expecting the universe to cater to their every whim. If the game makes the point that no, this isn't how things work, then I can only commend Bioware on that. I gladly pay the price of an ending I can't be completely comfortable with to see that message being sent.

End of rant. I'm sorry but I just had to get this off my mind.

This is more directed at you last thoughts on morality.  To imply that morality is variable with by leaps and bounds is to deny that there's any standard of morality at all.  Killing billions of people based solely on the idea that you must destroy their race to save other races is still genocide, even if it results in some good.  There's no gray area there.  It's targeting a group of people with the express purpose of extinguishing their race.  Bioware did that.  I won't commend them for putting that as the ending of a story.  It's immoral. 

Forcing people to have something artificial inserted into their bodies without their consent is never allowed and there's no moral gray area there.  When asked if they'd like that done to them, most people, even those that liked the ending said they wouldn't.  Characters within ME didn't like any form of tech within them.  But that's ok now for one person to force on everyone?  It's not being self-centered to say that some morals are universal and rather insulting to suggest it is.  Asserting control is nonsense because no paragon would do it because of morality, because of sensibility, and because it does not rid the galaxy of what could remain a problem.  It also fails to note that Shreaper might find herself in a real moral debate should some people (Joker) not want reapers around and even take action against them.

It's actually due to an ability to see things from other's perspectives that  the immorality of the choices is made obvious.  If I were truly cynical and self-centered, I would say who cares what happens and crap on everyone, but insteaed I can see past my nose and my own adherence to some false intellectualism and realize that some things are just plain wrong, no matter how it affects me.

Some morality is fungible.  Prostitution-legal or not and just what is self-defense.  But, there are no mitigating factors in any of these options. 

As to other things.  A happier ending would not be considered totally canon by everyone but even so, so what?  Since when has that ever stopped them from making other things truly canon in the game-and they are.  But I deny the idea that a happy ending would be what everyone would always choose-that is a total cop out.  Many people say they want a variety, what we were promised.  And sensibly sad and sacrificial as well as happier (not happy, the galaxy has been through tragedy) would most likely have equal plays.

There does seem to be a willingness to assert characteristics are true for others and yet not see them in oneself.  You started off with some false hoods, stating it was because players insisted in the original endings that Shepard killed everyone.  I explained that it was Bioware that was insisting that happened and when they saw people didn't like it, they decided to claim it  never happened.  It was meant to be grim and dark.  It still is but with brighter colors and less exploded tech.  That's great.   A great many people in the galaxy still have a no win situation.  The player has a no win situation.  And Shepard has a no win situation.

No one cares if you want to head canon the games from ME1 on, but don't presume to tell me that Bioware always meant for the galaxy to be a bright place after the end and in the EC they had to show a lot of happy scenes because people were too stupid to understand it.

[SpamBot2000]

Ieldra2 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...
I don't think you intend this but your sentiment seems to indicate that people are just too thick to understand the endings include happy things.  No, the happy scenes are there so BW can imagine they didn't create dark endings and to add to the ambiguity.  With one writer, ambiguity and dark endings are so much fun.  Fans don't think so.

Hmm....perhaps I should have added that yes, the EC is a retcon of dramatic proportions, and it's much more than "clarification". But I still stand by my original point. After the original endings, rather than try to be constructive and headcanon their way out of the darkness to make the point "No, we don't want your dark age", people continued to wallow in negativity and actually acted as if they wanted things be to even darker, in some kind of puerile attitude "If I don't get what I want, just make sure nobody else has any chance of taking away anything good from the game". People were actively doing their best to ruin others' games by dogmatically insisting on grimdark scenarios that *clearly* went way beyond what was intended. Just recall that bullheaded insistence that Shepard has just killed everyone. It may be remotely plausible in-world, but it was very clearly not among the expected interpretations.

I find such a destructive attitude absolutely detestable, and my opinion of the fanbase and the human species in general has sadly suffered from it. Bioware saw the need to make the endings bearable for the fans with the EC, and that's a good thing. That they saw the need to hammer the point home with the force of a piledriver is regrettable, but I know who I can blame for that.

Sorry, but just because you feel such wonderful freedom in picking and choosing which parts of a fiction to fit into your preferred fantasy does not make those who are neither able nor willing to follow the example "detestable" or destructive in their attitudes. While rejecting the cynical excuses of "artistic integrity" the writers of Mass Effect 3 chose to hide behind, I feel it is the decent thing to at least consider the work as a whole, a consideration which just happens to lead pretty inevitably into the conclusion that the ending part did not fit the whole of Mass Effect at all. As for people pointing out the very grim scenario suggested by the ending as it stood, it was not some morbid obsession that made them seek out these implications. They wished to drive home the point why those willing to actually engage with the fiction felt it so unnecessarily bleak. If Mac Walters himself had no idea what his wasteland scheme would involve, it just goes to show how little he himself was imaginatively invested in Mass Effect, and how hollow his claim to artistry is.

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 27 juillet 2012 - 06:42 .

[SHARXTREME]

Ieldra2 wrote...
Another thing I have taken away from the debate (not from the game and not from the ending) is a rather cynical attitude towards morality. People are so incredibly dogmatic and one-sided about that, as if their personal morality was the beginning and the end of the world. They don't see how incredibly self-centered such an attitude is, expressing such an inability to see anything but themselves, expecting the universe to cater to their every whim.

You just described Catalyst here, not the people that complain against it.
What you do in the ending is exactly what you say you're against. You enter or create the Universe that caters to "your every whim" by Controlling the Reapers. You create the universe with you as a Co-Creator or a schematic in Synthesis.
The imposed situation is like that: you hold the power to make the universe to be ACCEPTABLE.
That is the very first mistake that lead to creation of Catalyst.

If the game makes the point that no, this isn't how things work, then I can only commend Bioware on that. I gladly pay the price of an ending I can't be completely comfortable with to see that message being sent

But the game doesn't make the point "that is how the things work", on the contrary, everything leading to the end is complete opposite of what you get in the ending. You get disconnected from the story and watch as some alien thing is taking the form of your Shepard and makes
Shepard-impossible choices. In that moment complete story falls apart, and that is my main complaint.

Player gets separated from the game and that is a death blow to the game. Game cannot function without the player. But Bioware didn't stop there, they are actively controlling your Shepard in order to somehow finish the game, by any means necessary. Addition of Refusal ending(and the way new lines are communicating with the "player") just amplify that feeling.

Aside from that, you're alone. Your friends, allies, enemies, entire Galaxy just doesn't care what you will decide. Remember, you came to destroy/stop the Reapers, not to kill the Geth, merge everybody in organic-synthetic soup, or Control the Reapers just moments later after you either shoot or convince TIM to shoot himself in the head.

Only "subtle" thing that ending tells the player is that player must choose "Synthesis" in order to really win the ending, 'ascend' to the plan of Bioware or to Refuse to save atleast some of the story logic.
Think about it, how can your, galaxy's biggest enemy convince you to agree and to help him in his ideal solution? Solution that doesn't work by force, solution that costed the galaxy trillions of lives in countless cycles since the Catalyst first used that "solution".
Unless you don't see the Catalyst as your enemy?
Can you honestly tell me that you played Mass Effect with the goal to solve the Reaper threat by one-sided decision to merge all the species into one giant Catalyst ideal machine?

Final evolution? Ascension? Envisioned by mass murdering machine and enforced by you?
No thanks and no way.

(what should somebody in the game tell Shepard in the end)
"This may sound aggressive and it is meant to sound that way. I'm speaking for myself.
Out there is a whole galaxy with different opinions on final choices, and you would still choose for all of them?
Why and who gave you that right? Catalyst? Opportunity emerged and you embraced it? This was your goal all this time? Could have fooled me. But I won't let you do it."

[3DandBeyond]

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Sorry, but just because you feel such wonderful freedom in picking and choosing which parts of a fiction to fit into your preferred fantasy does not make those who are neither able or willing to follow the example "detestable" or destructive in their attitudes. While rejecting the cynical excuses of "artistic integrity" the writers of Mass Effect 3 chose to hide behind, I feel it is the decent thing to at least consider the work as a whole, a consideration which just happens to lead pretty inevitably into the conclusion that the ending part did not fit the whole of Mass Effect at all. As for people pointing out the very grim scenario suggested by the ending as it stood, it was not some morbid obsession that made them seek out these implications. They wished to drive home the point why those willing to actually engage with the fiction felt it so unnecessarily bleak. If Mac Walters himself had no idea what his wasteland scheme would involve, it just goes to show how little he himself was imaginatively invested in Mass Effect, and how hollow his claim to artistry is.

Very well said.

No one bought ME3 and thought "gee, how many ways can I complain about this?"  They bought it with high hopes that things they'd been waiting to see and DO would happen.  Choices would mean to some great endings.  It couldn't fail because they'd seen that endings could be done well or at least be satsifactory.  People loved ME.  People even loved BW for creating it.  People were all set to love ME3 and they overlooked some bad parts and got into the true art of it, the parts where it was great, and again thought the ending would be good.  It was ME3, it was the end of Shepard's story, this would be a great goodbye.  We had wanted to take back the galaxy, got told we'd take back Earth, landed in London, phoned some friends, and figured from here we'd be racing to that conflict resolution known as a fight.  But, instead we got to have a conversation with our foe's younger brother who won't clean up his room and then listened to this imp tell us to stick a finger in a light socket, run into a pile of exploding fireworks as we shoot them, or jump into a super DNA changing beam.  And just for grins we got to destroy the galaxy, because how else would you create a wasteland?

Bioware opened this up to what happened.  They created ambiguous, swiss cheese endings and wanted speculation.  People did so and were told they didn't understand it, the art.  But they did understand it.  They just didn't like it.  So, as most good companies do, Bioware saw that people hated what they'd done and made more of it, because you  can never have enough of what you don't like.

I won't take the blame for complaining as any consumer should do.  I won't take the blame for seeing anything in this as dark, depressed, and demented because that's what it was meant to be.  This is dark, depressed, and demented with a smiley on it.

Believe me, I'd rather be discussing the great diverse fun endings of ME3 instead of still holding out any hope they will add one glimmer of a win type scenario to this cluster....  The promise is still unfulfilled and I know won't ever be addressed, but because I am not a cynic at all, I hold out hope.