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[MrFob]

SHARXTREME wrote...

MrFob wrote...
MEEM - The first Mass Effect 3 Ending Mod

This is great, this is logical and it is a hard decision. True SF. Well done, I really, really like it

Especially your tight composition of many seemingly not related different factors logically.
The very basis of interstellar transportation is the reason of widespreading that creatures influence on everything. It's like that's their means of reproduction and evolution, forming some kind of underlying mega-matrix. That is basically a premise that universe itself is/can become a (intelligent) life-form.
Underlying logic is sound and frightening at the same time. There you can explore/question different levels of nature of individuality and life itself. What is life, and what is NOT life?
If that creatures would reach unstoppable levels, what would our part be. Would we be merely a gears in the Universe Machine? Can such sub-dimensional genetic homogeneity even survive long term?
What happens when all Universe is transformed? etc

All decisions are a risk, BUT what I personally miss from original ending and your mod is this closed setting. I miss the counterpoints/thoughts presented by your shipmates, somebody in the fleet, Reapers, anybody really, so that decision is not made under time or setting pressure.
You see, I believe that my Shepard(or anybody) is not qualified to deal with the problem unilaterally

I was entertaining the thought of different scenarios(not for ME) involving some sort of sub-dimensional or xeno-dimensional creatures(not in this way). Your take is surprisingly fitting for ME, but I find it is a shame to put such scenario at the very end of some story, and not continue, build upon it, explore more(not solve more).
EDIT: 
It seems to me that former Control option(now interfacing with the Reapers) is only option that would involve only Shepard. A dialogue with the Reapers. It can be acceptable for Shepard. Others are too risky unilaterally. 

EDIT2: The most dramatic moment and is also perfectly delivered is the question from Prothean VI:
- "The Question is... If you believe the Problem?"
Real good stuff.
I commend this Decatalystifying of ending, especially in such logical way.(although some question remain) but that's beside the point and not fixable by just modding the ending.

See, that's why I wanted some feedback from this thread. You guys think of stuff, I never thought of. Thanks SHARXTREME.

Obadiah wrote...
@MrFob
With respect to why the Catalyst
would offer Destroy: the way I see it the Catalyst doesn't believe
living or existence is important. Its only goal is to solve the problem
it was given. Since at the end of Mass Effect 3 it sees itself as
inevitably doomed to failure, it will accept annihilation.

@Obadiah: Well, if that is the case, it's not conveyed in the final conversation at all. In fact, the kid says quite the opposite rather often like when Shepard says organics want to keep there own form he gets a very definite "No, you can't." (just one example). It also states outright that destroy is in no way another solution ("the peace wont last"). Sorry but I can't see that it would be contempt with it's own destruction without solving the problem (which, if you think about it, it does in none of the endings really but that was already discussed to death in this thread and others).
Granted, it does say "My solution won't work anymore" (although, the reasoning of that never made sense to me either) but it seems miles away from just giving up. It want to "find a new solution" and destroy just isn't one.

EDIT: Oh no, first post, I didn't want the first post!
Ok, I stick to the very unoriginal and obvious (but IMO still wonderful) choice of Reignite - A Shepard tribute song by Malufenix.

Modifié par MrFob, 30 juillet 2012 - 05:04 .

[3DandBeyond]

Oxspit wrote...

@3DandBeyond

Yeah, I don't think I ever could have bought an uncompromising victory to this story. I think it would have been a complete departure from the scene set in ME1, even if they'd thrown the "don't build up too many essential plot devices for one of the three acts in the acts before it: focus on new gamers" edict and had you actively prepare for the invasion throughout ME2.

Arguments over a conventional victory are really just silly. The reapers are, by construction, just given every conceivable advantage over us. When people think they're discovering 'weaknesses' they're just discovering, at most, stuff the authors didn't think of.

snipped

Well, let me see.  Over the top silly is what we got.  And It's a total departure from ME1 and 2 and parts of ME3 itself.  The writers purposely inserted things to say one thing is impossible and we found ways to accomplish it.  That's the story, that's the game.  They showed reapers were not invincible.  Difficult yes but not invincible.  They included things (a codex name reaper vulnerabilities) to indicate reapers had vulnerabilities.  We are also told that we have an even chance of winning (on the war asset screen) and are told as soon as we load the game that we are winning in key locations.  Why include vulnerabilities and show reapers being destroyed as well as the other dead reaper in ME2 (the derelict one and other things that they found that had been used to destroy reapers)?

I never had the sense they were impossible to beat no matter what they said because it was deja vu all over again.  And sometimes predicable is preferable.  But they had to keep asserting it was impossible or the crucible wouldn't have been needed.  The fact that not one single person raised a hand and asked why they were building some unknown device to the exclusion of all else indicates the galaxy has a drinking problem.

What we got was ME3 as a standalone game-that is what it is.  That is what Bioware's marketing boss thought it should be.  He felt people wouldn't remember the other games (his words) and nothing that happened before would matter (who cares about some romance) because it's all out war against the reapers.  And he said (like any good marketing guy would) that ME3 was a good entry into the series.  Does that make sense?  Marketing would say to people, "in order to play this you might want to play the other games if possible".  That's what they are made to do, but this game was made to be a standalone.  And I do know that because I have played ME1-3 and ME2 and 3 alone, and ME3 alone.  The only difference is some dialogue and the loss or lack of countrol over some war asset points.  There also may be some minor character differences and some minor mission differences, but nothing that will affect the outcome.

I don't mean there needn't have been losses or some compromises, but the game as you to compromise everything just for some warped idea of what survival means.  During war you do make calculations that you will sacrifice in order to take ground.  But ME3 asks that you give up what makes life worth living to force others to live with what might not be life in a very real sense.  Either that or you tell Shepard to go kill a whole race of people and someone that Shepard helped become alive for an ambiguous end. 

That's not fun, not game-like and definitely not what ME was ever set up to be.  I've done the impossible before because I worked hard to do that.  I (Shepard) came back with all my teammates from a suicide mission.  And I wasn't asked to kill my friend-I mean literally to kill my friend ever to achieve some kind of dubious and debatable win.  I was not asked to sacrifice all to solve my foe's problem and force people to accept totalitarian rule by my enemies or internal change in some warped idea of achieving perfection-evolution's end.

Give me a silly real fight any day over this brand of silly.  These choices, this whole ending is something the writers want me to think is intellectual, artistic, and not silly?  They insult my intelligence, warp morality, turn real moral compromise on its head.  The ending doesn't say Shepard might have to sacrifice people in battle and make hard choices that will hurt in an attempt to win.  The ending says Shepard must throw people on a fire in order to appease the enemy and let him win.  No matter the choice, they all do fulfill the kid's purpose and one may marginally fulfill Shepard's as well by coincidence.  But even in that there's a threat that hangs over it to indicate it doesn't mean the kid will be gone.

It's not my fault the writers lacked imagination.  Not my fault they chose to ignore what they'd written previously.  Not my fault they decided to ignore weaknesses they wrote into the game in favor of fantasy (real silliness) and the crucible (nonsense).

And had the crucible been something people understood no matter how silly that might have been it could have made some sense.  It could have been what it was originally intended to be-a dark energy device.  Dark energy creates a mass effect field that could be used to raise or lower the mass of reapers.  Lowering their mass lowers their kinetic barriers.  Reapers do this to land on planets which is why they could destroy one even with not so powerful weapons on Earth.  A Cain took out a Destroyer class reaper with a Hades Cannon mounted on it.  And 2 missiles took down another reaper.  EDI used the Normandy to target it and after the missiles hit someone shouted, "it's going down" after which they made sure it was dead by having "everyone" open fire on it.

The point is, I don't care how seemingly silly a real fight would have been.  I don't personally see that it would be and it certainly wouldn't be as awful as what we got.  The ending is both silly and demented.  I say demented because none of the conversation between Shepard and the kid is at all realistic.  It plays like it's on auto-play where every once in awhile Shepard asks, "why" and "how" and never says, "you're an idiot", "you're crazy", or "why the hell should I believe any of this garbage and why would I ever help you" or "you're a big fat liar, nyah, nyah".  But then the writers decided to make us pay even for making the logical only choice, shooting the kid in the face because even getting to the point of having Shepard vocalize refusal is idiotic.  No way in hell Shepard would listen to all this crap and get that far.

So, the game forces you to either make the laudible compromise of genocide, molestation/assault and forced insertion of tech and Shepard essence into everyone in the galaxy (reality not silly right), or totalitarian reapers through the godhood of Shepard (something any Shepard would never do), sprinkled with a dose of suicide and/or shooting the VI of a kid in the face.  That is sooo real and great gaming-and it really fits into ME whereas using alternate imaginative ways to try and fight reapers (using everything known about them and even learning and using new things) is silly and does not fit in with ME games (you know the ones where they always used conventional weaponry and didn't rely on fantasy).  I'm confused.

I mean no disrespect, but I constantly see this stated--trying to use conventional weaponry or unconventional means or even finding new ways to fight the reapers is fantasy.  Well, if that is then what is the ending we now have?  My main complaint is the writers decided to supposedly use their imagination on this ending and demand that we use our imaginations to fill in all the holes it leaves open.  Yet when we say they actually should have used their imaginations in order to fulfill the promise of some awesome cataclysmic galaxy vs. reapers and Shepard vs. reapers fight and we use our imaginations to say there are certain things that could have been tried, the standard response is "it's impossible".  Well, how can you argue with that.  It's only impossible because the writers needed to have a less complicated plot and less complicated visuals.  If they had to show the war assets in action and had to have a lot of people at the end (instead of 1 1/2 people) that would have meant more of a story and more work.  The kid and the crucible take up big chunks of what imagination could have been used for.  It is what it is and it's awful and silly.

[3DandBeyond]

MrFob wrote...

@Obadiah: Well, if that is the case, it's not conveyed in the final conversation at all. In fact, the kid says quite the opposite rather often like when Shepard says organics want to keep there own form he gets a very definite "No, you can't." (just one example). It also states outright that destroy is in no way another solution ("the peace wont last"). Sorry but I can't see that it would be contempt with it's own destruction without solving the problem (which, if you think about it, it does in none of the endings really but that was already discussed to death in this thread and others).
Granted, it does say "My solution won't work anymore" (although, the reasoning of that never made sense to me either) but it seems miles away from just giving up. It want to "find a new solution" and destroy just isn't one.

EDIT: Oh no, first post, I didn't want the first post!
Ok, I stick to the very unoriginal and obvious (but IMO still wonderful) choice of Reignite - A Shepard tribute song by Malufenix.

I do so love Reignite-I have the mp3 and several tribute videos for it showing actually victorious things.

The kid has many problems.  Some involve his contradictory nature.  He contradicts the story that came before and he contradicts himself.

I've always believed that if his solution won't work anymore then Shepard should think, "great.  If I do nothing they will go away."  Or that Shepard should even say that if it isn't working then it's time to leave or something.

But in saying he controls the reapers and they are his solution and then that his solution is not working anymore he is setting up the next part.  He needs a new solution.  The choices provide 3.  One may be his "best" choice, but they all do solve his perceived problem.  They are all temporary as he sees it but then so were the reapers.  And we don't really know what happens to the kid either.  It's really rather vague and since he isn't really very consistent in what he says, anything could happen.

Destroy is actually the slash and burn solution.  None of the other choices are any more permanent.  His goal is to wipe out chaos and a specific conflict, but control really sets the stage for more of that kind of conflict and synthesis sets up chaos as well as conflict.  Even the reapers were not permanent solutions as evidenced by the fact they no longer are the perfect solution and that they had to keep returning.  But, the kid is set up to see things as fated-he has no way of knowing the future.  He thinks he does because he's basing it all on probabilities.  He sees one solution as more permanent and one as kind of the status quo and then another as really temporary.  But he fails at this because he lacks imagination and interpretation.  He can't see any situation really as creating lasting peace unless everyone becomes more like him.  So the one that has the most chance of really taking a stab at truly leading to peace is seen as the least desirable.  It is the one that rejects him to a degree.  It doesn't fit in with his belief that in order to keep synthetics from killing organics you must use synthetics to kill organics to stop them from making their own synthetics.  But it still destroys the bad type of synthetics-those that organics created.  Unfortunately it also destroys his creation.  The only valid synthetics are those that he creates. 

He may like Synthesis best but then it's probably because they are both equally warped.  I mean Shepard's minute amount of DNA and energy is going to cause the massive amounts energy from the crucible to change somehow.  Why not spit into the ocean and see if someone can find your DNA there?  It makes as much sense.

I don't think the kid is really looking for contentment in finding a solution.  I think he must find a solution even if he doesn't like it.  Note that he does know that people don't like things and he disregards that-it's irrelevant.  Everything is subordinate to achieving his goal.  I think what happened to him is he was created to fill a very specific need that occurred at the time-perhaps synthetics and organics were at war and he was meant to find a solution to that.  So he was programmed to do so but the programming was flawed.  It didn't specify that he should find a solution to the current problem but it was vague. 

It's like me telling you to drive a car.  I haven't told you where or when or why or for how long or set any parameters.  I think this may have happened to the kid.  He was told to stop conflict but he wasn't told to stop THIS conflict.  From that he ended up "believing" that this was a neverending conflict that he needed to stop.  He wasn't told to get everyone to work together so he thinks they can't so that's irrelevant.  He wasn't told that in order to solve this there were things he shouldn't do so he could do anything, nothing was wrong as long as it solved the problem and the problem was eternal.  He is obviously flawed and we know the flaw came from somewhere-I think it was his original programming.  On some level even he may "know" this and may have realized that the core of the problem was creators that created flawed synthetics like him.  He may ultimately even recognize that he is flawed and so his replacement or destruction is allowable if they solve the problem.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 30 juillet 2012 - 02:00 .

[Tallestra]

The problem with the kid is that his ideas are so illogical that no amount of thinking, reasoning and discussion can make sense of it. The BW got the speculations, but not the kind they would want.

[3DandBeyond]

Tallestra wrote...

The problem with the kid is that his ideas are so illogical that no amount of thinking, reasoning and discussion can make sense of it. The BW got the speculations, but not the kind they would want.

Oh I absolutely agree.  Just speculating because the discussion went there.  The kid makes no sense and should be removed, so in my mind I'm working to make it so.

[SHARXTREME]

3DandBeyond wrote...
I mean no disrespect, but I constantly see this stated--trying to use conventional weaponry or unconventional means or even finding new ways to fight the reapers is fantasy.

It's Bioware's fault that some people see the ending(that is a new definition of unconventional) as a maximum that can be done. In SF? To not be able to imagine a thousand different conventional ways to defeat the enemy? What would be then in real life? Surrender on the spot?
You're in the end forced to make ritualistic sacrifice to some hungry mountain-god and to break every moral, logical and military convention(and doctrine) to "win".

ME3 is a stain on SF genre, even on Space-Opera genre, whatever you want to call it.
I mean, really, Cerberus, Alliance's biggest "domestic" enemy has strategy and tactics centuries more advanced than cannon fodder tactics of Alliance, Krogan, Turian etc.
Strategy based on science, exploration, unpredictability and smarts.
Problem is that they under leadership of over-ambitious Illusive Man fight the wrong enemy, us, using brutal methods.
Think about it, TIM would never shake-hands with catalyst, he would(did) try to deceive the Reapers, unlike ending-Shepard who stands just dumb there in front of Catalyst.
TIM is the classical victim of his own ambitions and fits perfectly in "You can't change the devil, devil changes you"
(It was little bothering to see last TIM sequence from both perspectives. On full Paragon TIM is sorry that he screwed up and it seems that he realized that he was wrong to fight the Alliance/Shepard)
On full Renegade, he says that "He is the Pinnacle of Human Race".
So what is it then?)

I must admit that I liked ME2 the most. It was SF and I had high hopes for ME3. So my "headcanon" would start in ME2. Shepard would join the Cerberus and try to overthrow or convince TIM to bring different strategical view to Hacketz&Co.

I don't know, after this, that BW is even capable to write and finish good SF story.
Everything in ME3(aside from Tuchanka and Rannoch missions) is not SF. Not by a long shot.
Their definition of conventional win is defined in raw numbers and 1st grade math.
Bigger ship>smaller ship. More smaller ships>=less bigger ships + Crucible = WTF.
Tactics from before 3000 years, where bunch of primitives gathered on some field to battle it out with axes and spears in giant bloodbath..
.In the end everybody are just soldiers, no scientists there, no smart moves, surprises, bravery anything. Just Shepard with his imperative to emerge as a hero and savior of us all.
They have killed-off two characters who could help to solve the situation in more SF style- Mordin and Legion. Shepard didn't even consult them while they were alive.
SF such as ME didn't need a single hero, it's counterproductive. For Shepard to be the only hero, everybody else needs to be just... crew.

[Conniving_Eagle]

I did everything right on my Mass Effect Trilogy playthrough. ME took me 30 hours, ME2 took me 40 hours. I was a completionist. I did every single thing, 100% done. I played Multiplayer to fully utilize my EMS. I didn't deserve to solve the antagonist's problem for him. I deserved to beat him, on my own terms...

Or who knows? Maybe that's just me being a self-entitled, pretentious little whiner.

Modifié par Conniving_Eagle, 30 juillet 2012 - 08:49 .

[Fiery Phoenix]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

I did everything right on my Mass Effect Trilogy. ME took me 30 hours, ME2 took me 40 hours. I was a completionist. I did every single thing, 100% done. I played Multiplayer to fully utilize my EMS. I didn't deserve to solve the antagonist's problem for him. I deserved to beat him, on my own terms...

Destroy does just about that. The only difference is the Catalyst actually presents it as a possible option for you, so it's not technically something you do "on your own terms". Refusal gives you that, though. But you fail anyway. Booooyaah!

[Conniving_Eagle]

Fiery Phoenix wrote...

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

I did everything right on my Mass Effect Trilogy. ME took me 30 hours, ME2 took me 40 hours. I was a completionist. I did every single thing, 100% done. I played Multiplayer to fully utilize my EMS. I didn't deserve to solve the antagonist's problem for him. I deserved to beat him, on my own terms...

Destroy does just about that. The only difference is the Catalyst actually presents it as a possible option for you, so it's not technically something you do "on your own terms". Refusal gives you that, though. But you fail anyway. Booooyaah!

Destroy is on the catalyst's terms. That's the problem. And refusal leads to unnecessary annihilation.

[robertthebard]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

Fiery Phoenix wrote...

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

I did everything right on my Mass Effect Trilogy. ME took me 30 hours, ME2 took me 40 hours. I was a completionist. I did every single thing, 100% done. I played Multiplayer to fully utilize my EMS. I didn't deserve to solve the antagonist's problem for him. I deserved to beat him, on my own terms...

Destroy does just about that. The only difference is the Catalyst actually presents it as a possible option for you, so it's not technically something you do "on your own terms". Refusal gives you that, though. But you fail anyway. Booooyaah!

Destroy is on the catalyst's terms. That's the problem. And refusal leads to unnecessary annihilation.

To destroy the Reapers is exactly why I built the Crucible.  Conversations with the Council, Hackett, Anderson and Liara throughout the game will bear this out.  I don't allow myself to play this far, as I don't buy surviving the laser, but the first time I did, I destroyed them, and it wasn't solving the antagonist's problem, it was doing what I set out to do.  It seems like everyone gets so caught up in "But the SC offered it, so it's bad" that they don't notice that it's offered because that's what the Crucible was designed to do, it just had a couple of other side effects that I'm not all that interested in hearing about.

[SHARXTREME]

robertthebard wrote...
To destroy the Reapers is exactly why I built the Crucible. Conversations with the Council, Hackett, Anderson and Liara throughout the game will bear this out. I don't allow myself to play this far, as I don't buy surviving the laser, but the first time I did, I destroyed them, and it wasn't solving the antagonist's problem, it was doing what I set out to do. It seems like everyone gets so caught up in "But the SC offered it, so it's bad" that they don't notice that it's offered because that's what the Crucible was designed to do, it just had a couple of other side effects that I'm not all that interested in hearing about.

They didn't know what Crucible was designed to do and they hammered this throughout the game. So, there was a LOT of room for speculation on why on earth would your enemy present you with winning solution.
Also, there's that small problem of Reapers not being your enemy from the point that Catalyst says "I control the Reapers".

You also say that you couldn't finish the quarian-geth story to make peace between them(if I understood your post on previous page?).
There in those missions is the real reason why everything that catalyst says or does is completely wrong and he cannot be reasoned with.
To kill the Geth is to destroy only species that actually overcame Reapers hold. Legion and Shepard actually broke the Reapers code there and used it for their own purpose.
BW should have spend more time to include at least some science in science fiction, let Geth help you. Racchni, Salarian scientists, whoever. Crew on your ship is just not qualified for such
high-tech warfare

Instead you build the Crucible without knowing what it does and got to be sent to bite your way through hordes of reaper forces, get hit by a little laser and you quit, soldier?

[TheShadowWolf911]

SHARXTREME wrote...

robertthebard wrote...
To destroy the Reapers is exactly why I built the Crucible. Conversations with the Council, Hackett, Anderson and Liara throughout the game will bear this out. I don't allow myself to play this far, as I don't buy surviving the laser, but the first time I did, I destroyed them, and it wasn't solving the antagonist's problem, it was doing what I set out to do. It seems like everyone gets so caught up in "But the SC offered it, so it's bad" that they don't notice that it's offered because that's what the Crucible was designed to do, it just had a couple of other side effects that I'm not all that interested in hearing about.

They didn't know what Crucible was designed to do and they hammered this throughout the game. So, there was a LOT of room for speculation on why on earth would your enemy present you with winning solution.
Also, there's that small problem of Reapers not being your enemy from the point that Catalyst says "I control the Reapers".

You also say that you couldn't finish the quarian-geth story to make peace between them(if I understood your post on previous page?).
There in those missions is the real reason why everything that catalyst says or does is completely wrong and he cannot be reasoned with.
To kill the Geth is to destroy only species that actually overcame Reapers hold. Legion and Shepard actually broke the Reapers code there and used it for their own purpose.
BW should have spend more time to include at least some science in science fiction, let Geth help you. Racchni, Salarian scientists, whoever. Crew on your ship is just not qualified for such
high-tech warfare

Instead you build the Crucible without knowing what it does and got to be sent to bite your way through hordes of reaper forces, get hit by a little laser and you quit, soldier?

indeed, it makes no sense no matter how you look at it.

[SHARXTREME]

Oxpit wrote...
The thing that makes the dark energy line so good. The terrifying thing you would have learned is the reapers motivation. What would have been terrifying about it is not that it is monstrous or patently evil. What would have been terrifying about it is that it's actually a very good reason. It acually becomes hard to justify that stopping them is the right thing to do.

I missed this on last page. But I agree completely, that was why I was so shocked that they have dropped this script to replace it with this??

That is a HARD decision. Even harder would be to kill the Reapers and try to figure out the solution on your own given short amount of time and knowledge of the problem.

Problem with both situations(catalyst and DE) is trust. Writers didn't found it important to explain to the player, why he should trust the enemy?
There was no dialogue(barely) between Reapers and player.
You just heard occasionally : "This hurts you" "We are your salvation through destruction" etc.
I get that they wanted to make the enemy that would outclass even Borg and species 8472 together, but damn, if they needed to finish the game AND Reapers story AND on their terms(meaning: we learn their motivations/lack of) why not go in the dialogue.
Shepard-player doesn't know practically anything about Reapers, how on earth could s/he trust anything they say? It just isn't in the story.

[3DandBeyond]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

I did everything right on my Mass Effect Trilogy playthrough. ME took me 30 hours, ME2 took me 40 hours. I was a completionist. I did every single thing, 100% done. I played Multiplayer to fully utilize my EMS. I didn't deserve to solve the antagonist's problem for him. I deserved to beat him, on my own terms...

Or who knows? Maybe that's just me being a self-entitled, pretentious little whiner.

I agree so much with this.

[3DandBeyond]

TheShadowWolf911 wrote...

SHARXTREME wrote...

robertthebard wrote...
To destroy the Reapers is exactly why I built the Crucible. Conversations with the Council, Hackett, Anderson and Liara throughout the game will bear this out. I don't allow myself to play this far, as I don't buy surviving the laser, but the first time I did, I destroyed them, and it wasn't solving the antagonist's problem, it was doing what I set out to do. It seems like everyone gets so caught up in "But the SC offered it, so it's bad" that they don't notice that it's offered because that's what the Crucible was designed to do, it just had a couple of other side effects that I'm not all that interested in hearing about.

They didn't know what Crucible was designed to do and they hammered this throughout the game. So, there was a LOT of room for speculation on why on earth would your enemy present you with winning solution.
Also, there's that small problem of Reapers not being your enemy from the point that Catalyst says "I control the Reapers".

You also say that you couldn't finish the quarian-geth story to make peace between them(if I understood your post on previous page?).
There in those missions is the real reason why everything that catalyst says or does is completely wrong and he cannot be reasoned with.
To kill the Geth is to destroy only species that actually overcame Reapers hold. Legion and Shepard actually broke the Reapers code there and used it for their own purpose.
BW should have spend more time to include at least some science in science fiction, let Geth help you. Racchni, Salarian scientists, whoever. Crew on your ship is just not qualified for such
high-tech warfare

Instead you build the Crucible without knowing what it does and got to be sent to bite your way through hordes of reaper forces, get hit by a little laser and you quit, soldier?

indeed, it makes no sense no matter how you look at it.

Yes, it's like the game expects you to play like you are metagaming at the end, but you don't do that with the rest of the games previously.  You make gut level decisions based in part on some hopes and wishes (surely do a bit of that Robert), but at the end you aren't given any good reason to make a decision.  I'd pick destroy if it didn't kill EDI and the get (it's a game and I want to win it) and if Shepard had a way to actually live not just be torso Shepard (because I want a possible happier ending to Shepard's story and as SHARXTREME said, also to everyone else's story).  As it is there's just no way for me to end the game other than my own head canon and I have many versions of endings in my head.

But it's a game and it's a story and it's in an interactive visual medium set within a "universe" that had specific rules within it-what you'd see and what may or may not be possible.

[SHARXTREME]

Problem with "headcanon" is that for mine I would need to rewrite complete ME3.
Starting with the end of ME2. In the end of ME2 my Shepard would say:
"No, I'm not giving this ship to the Alliance and you Illusive Man can join forces with me".
"We keep the collector base to learn from that"
"We cannot defeat the Reapers Alliance style, they're not ready and you certainly cannot control such superior enemy"
"Stop wasting your time and resources on that or I will be forced to stop it for you"
"Thanks to EDI, I know where and when to hit you"
When ME3.1 starts everybody will begging Shepard and Cerberus for help anyway.
etc.
Then you proceed to gather allies, while making plans to win against the Reapers using the technology, manpower and knowledge you obtained.

BUT You see, this is sad. I have never felt the need to rewrite somebody else's story in my head, or to join a forum just to discuss some story.
I never thought that I'm capable to like some story and to dislike what has been done to it this much to even consider it. This ending must be a screw-up of historic proportions.

[Oxspit]

@3DandBeyond

In a way, I sort of agree with you. I would say that a conventional victory plotline possibly isn't less ridiculous than the ending we actually got so, hey, why not give it a go?

The thing is, I actually mean that as a statement on just how incredibly bad the ending they gave us actually was (I really do agree with the OP).

I'm prepared to admit it's debatable as to whether a conventional victory would have worked better story-wise (it certainly works better game-wise), but I'd rather we didn't pretend it wouldn't have been arguably just as bad as the current ending, just for other reasons.

There's a very big difference between 'it is not impossible to kill them' and 'it is possible that we could beat them militarily', and an even bigger one between that and 'is it plausible that we could beat them militarily'.

There just isn't any field where they don't have an overwhelming advantage over us, by construction, from ME1 onwards. I just can't see how that's even up for debate. I really can't. The point being that for us to defeat them militarily, they have to make a lot of mistakes. Like, so many it hurts. Only they've done this thousands of times before, at least once to a civilisation far in advance of us technologically and without anything like the same comparative disadvantages. And they were certainly not introduced to us as stupid in the slightest.

The point being, beating them conventionally is every bit as much a demolition of their own back-story as the ending we got. It might not lead to the same confused revulsion as the current ending, but it's still cheap and stupid. That people can even think it's a viable option just represents another way that ME3 represented a massive dropping of the ball on their part, really. I mean, the ending is far from the only place ME3 is a complete mess, it's just where it became harder to not notice. For me, the dull, sick feeling that they were strip-mining their own universe for momentary convenience actually kicked in on Thessia, not at the ending at all. There was just so much stupid thrown at us on Thessia it hurt.

For a lot of people it didn't kick in at all. I can sort of get that. By Thessia I started to realise just how much I'd been ignoring/let slide because I was having too much damn fun, but all of that stuff was still there way before that - other people clearly care about different things in a game.

On a side note, though, conventional victory is actually a bit of a thematic demolition, too (did you not pick up on the cosmicism stuff? How did you miss it?).

Modifié par Oxspit, 31 juillet 2012 - 07:09 .

[Oxspit]

SHARXTREME wrote...

Oxpit wrote...
The thing that makes the dark energy line so good. The terrifying thing you would have learned is the reapers motivation. What would have been terrifying about it is not that it is monstrous or patently evil. What would have been terrifying about it is that it's actually a very good reason. It acually becomes hard to justify that stopping them is the right thing to do.

I missed this on last page. But I agree completely, that was why I was so shocked that they have dropped this script to replace it with this??

That is a HARD decision. Even harder would be to kill the Reapers and try to figure out the solution on your own given short amount of time and knowledge of the problem.

Problem with both situations(catalyst and DE) is trust. Writers didn't found it important to explain to the player, why he should trust the enemy?
There was no dialogue(barely) between Reapers and player.
You just heard occasionally : "This hurts you" "We are your salvation through destruction" etc.
I get that they wanted to make the enemy that would outclass even Borg and species 8472 together, but damn, if they needed to finish the game AND Reapers story AND on their terms(meaning: we learn their motivations/lack of) why not go in the dialogue.
Shepard-player doesn't know practically anything about Reapers, how on earth could s/he trust anything they say? It just isn't in the story.

I don't think trust actually is a major problem with DE. People are starting to study the problem in ME2, and the reveal about its potentially destroying the galaxy/being close to tipping point, and it's dangerous build-up being caused by eezo use (the very thing 'Mass Effect' is based upon) can actually be made independently by us. The reapers need not tell us about it at all.

After that, the reaper cycle is patently a solution to this terrible problem even if for some reason we choose to disbelieve that's why they do it.

[SHARXTREME]

@Oxspit

I get the DE ending. It would present some hard choices(although the very choice in cosmicism setting should mean less then nothing). MrFob's ending mod is also good.(even though he's using same setting.)
That's not the problem. Problem is that player doesn't see anything coming/It could be anything.
Main enemy and concern throughout the ME3 is Cerberus, player gets the feeling that if he can deal with the Cerberus; he can deal with the Reapers(biggest point for this is failed Thessia mission). Everything else(as a point of the story is afterthought)

About cosmicism and conventional or military victory(impossibility of, as you say). I just don't see how one single Shepard can tackle such non-odds, why he would be even remotely interested in tackling such non-odds.
That story is futile, it gets no point across, aside from futility and nihilism. AND the Reapers are not presented that way. They are maybe half that way and with inclusion of catalyst even that falls completely apart. The ending choices are validating the possibility, not impossibility of choices, but in the same time they are questioning Shepard's right to choose(by our moral and logic standards)
And (Shepard's) logic is based on knowledge. No knowledge - no logic. More knowledge - better logic.
That's the fault of the story. Shepard didn't obtained the knowledge required for adapting his logic so the story can survive such descent into futility.

I for myself didn't connect with Shepard in ME3 as much as in ME2. In ME3 focus from Shepard is shifted to bigger picture: uniting galaxy/defeating Reapers. So I cared more what happens in the bigger scheme then what happens in Shepard's micro-situation. But, Shepard is bound to his micro-situation while trying to solve bigger problem by his standards.
So, everybody is slipping into defeatism, not only in-game, but outside of the game as well. With Shepard that cheers them on to continue fighting.
Only way to correct that is to include different opinions and perspectives/voices in the ending. Somebody that knows/has opinion on the problem, not on the situation. Because situation is not the problem, Reapers are not the problem, they are degraded to the manifestation of the problem.
.
But what you're also missing by saying that conventional victory is not possible(or is futile to try) is a very important thing, our defining characteristic.
Even if you would see the Universe as always unknowable to us, or even if the universe is working in pre-deterministic or fatalistic standards, even then/especially then you must "play your role".
You must try to survive, win, learn, use what you have learned to live-on. Everything else is defeatism, a logical downfall.

You see, by saying that "conventional victory"(what does that even mean in SF?) is not possible because we basically don't know the rules of the game and we are insignificant(cosmicism), you're basically saying that your knowledge or logic is also not sufficient to make any kind of logical statement, as well as logic of those that say that conventional victory is possible. So it's a fallacy. You have no basis to conclude one way or another in cosmicism setting, and you're losing any ground to base your assumptions on.

Modifié par SHARXTREME, 31 juillet 2012 - 12:54 .

[robertthebard]

SHARXTREME wrote...

robertthebard wrote...
To destroy the Reapers is exactly why I built the Crucible. Conversations with the Council, Hackett, Anderson and Liara throughout the game will bear this out. I don't allow myself to play this far, as I don't buy surviving the laser, but the first time I did, I destroyed them, and it wasn't solving the antagonist's problem, it was doing what I set out to do. It seems like everyone gets so caught up in "But the SC offered it, so it's bad" that they don't notice that it's offered because that's what the Crucible was designed to do, it just had a couple of other side effects that I'm not all that interested in hearing about.

They didn't know what Crucible was designed to do and they hammered this throughout the game. So, there was a LOT of room for speculation on why on earth would your enemy present you with winning solution.
Also, there's that small problem of Reapers not being your enemy from the point that Catalyst says "I control the Reapers".

You also say that you couldn't finish the quarian-geth story to make peace between them(if I understood your post on previous page?).
There in those missions is the real reason why everything that catalyst says or does is completely wrong and he cannot be reasoned with.
To kill the Geth is to destroy only species that actually overcame Reapers hold. Legion and Shepard actually broke the Reapers code there and used it for their own purpose.
BW should have spend more time to include at least some science in science fiction, let Geth help you. Racchni, Salarian scientists, whoever. Crew on your ship is just not qualified for such
high-tech warfare

Instead you build the Crucible without knowing what it does and got to be sent to bite your way through hordes of reaper forces, get hit by a little laser and you quit, soldier?

Hackett, ordering you to Mars:  possibly only way to destroy the Reapers.
Liara at the comm room:  Capable of unquantifiable levels of destruction.  etc etc etc

What is in question once they have the plans is how it will destroy them, which is why I figured it was an Anti-Reaper Virus delivery unit.  There was no doubt in my mind, whatsoever, that it was intended to destroy the Reapers.  It's a weapon, and a Reaper specific weapon.  What is the purpose of a weapon?  The biggest concern that I see thrown around after it's in development is how it works, and would it destroy everything else too.

Shepard:  It would be nice to know we're not kids playing around with a loaded gun.
Liara:  Yes, if it backfires the results would be catastrophic.(paraphrased)
Hackett, on finding out TIM is after it too:  He's wrong, dead Reapers is how we win this.

No where is there an implication that it's not a weapon to destroy the Reapers, but there's lots of speculation as to how, and what else it may take with them when it's fired.

The little laser that can cut a cruiser in half?  Is that the laser you're referring to?  The same laser that rips one shuttle in half and destroys another as you depart on the Normandy in the beginning of the game?  It's logical disconnects like this that actually take credence away from threads like this.  It's the "Let's disregard evidence presented in game so we can prove our point" that makes them seem more like extended therapy sessions, than critique of the game/ending.  How is it, for example, that getting hit by that one little laser on Rannoch while lining up the fleet kills you outright, but isn't fatal on Earth?  It doesn't even have to actually hit you, it just has to be pretty close.  How's that work, exactly?  Is Harbinger not giving it's all to the task at hand?  So it's using a laser 1/1,000,000th the strength of what it's capable of doing?  No, it doesn't kill you on Earth because if it did, these forums would have erupted 1,000 times worse than they did.

[SHARXTREME]

You didn't exactly understand the part with "little laser" . I was just trying to express how stupid the whole situation was.

And no, as it turned out, the Crucible is not the device that targets Reapers, it's not Reaper-specific, as you say.
It targets synthetics, machines, technology(even synthetic parts in Shepard, so it doesn't target only Reaper code). So use of it in Destroy would in reality bring galaxy back to dark ages. But, they didn't have the 'quads' to stick with such ending, which is clear to see in aftermath -all-happy- movies.

In reality, if I would somehow end up in such situation, I would be forced to choose Destroy option and hope that Catalyst is lying.
BUT(a large, galactic BUT) I would try EVERYTHING to destroy the catalyst, find his weak spot, modify the energy release(because as catalyst shows us- it can be modified), before I shoot the tube of damnation.
If it wasn't for Catalyst and ending would involve some large scale non-interactive space battle movie where in the end you activate the Crucible, and the results are based on EMS/your actions/orientation it would be acceptable to 99,9% of the people.
But the Catalyst managed to rip countless holes in the fabric of story so we got forums filled with different, but similar complaints. Complaints based on one thing only. Catalyst options.

[Conniving_Eagle]

Conventional victory being impossible is a thematic betrayal in of itself. Up until this point, the player was meant to believe that they could defeat the Reapers on their own terms. Conventional Victory = Impossible was only [arguably] established in the third game.

Prior, we are given the sense of "Our cycle is different." The Reapers' effectiveness at 'reaping' comes not from their firepower or military capabilities, it comes from their patience and ruthless calculus. In the previous cycles, the Reapers would pour through the Citadel, killing the galaxy's leaders and obtaining all the necessary information on advanced organic life. More importantly, they gain total control of the Mass Relays. The Reapers then proceed shut down all the relays, only opening one at a time to systematically wipe out its respective local civilization(s). This is what Sovereign meant when it said "We are legion. Our numbers will darken the skies of every world." Sovereign didn't mean this would occur simultaneously, they don't have the numbers for that. The Reapers' success is the result of cutting off a system's communication, then swarming it, planet by planet.

The Reapers have already lost this critical advantage. I'm curious to know how they learned anything about this galaxy, they didn't capture the Citadel until the end of the game. How did they ascertain which planets were colonies, homeworlds, the location of Arcturus Station, each race's level of technology and capabilities (they obviously prepared for the Turians). There are the Collectors, but they operated in the Terminus systems, and only collected genetic information.

With the destruction of Sovereign, the Turians developed Thanix technology. Commander Shepard retrieved information and Reaper tech from the derelict dreadnought and the Collector base. What about Arrival? What the hell was the point of that DLC? Give the Alliance and Council another 6 months to sit on their asses doing nothing? You think the Reapers would've been weakened from having to make a journey spanning thousands of light years from dark space to the milky way.

Javik comments that this cycle might have a chance, that the reason the Prothean Empire was due to its hegemony, and even then, the Protheans came close to defeating the Reapers.
Remember the end of Mass Effect 2?

www.youtube.com/watch

The music is not menacing or depressing, there isn't some long fixation on the Reapers to get the point across to the player "Yeah, look at how huge their fleet is, they are unstoppable." The music is at first subtle, but it is upbeat, optimistic, and hopeful. We then see Shepard glance out into space, with composed look on their face, as if to say "Bring it on." Then the camera switches switches to show the Reaper fleet in dark space, descending upon the Milky Way, but keep in mind the music, it is epic, upbeat, optimistic. It is foreshadowing what an epic and grand scale ME3 would be for the player (one of the best executed endings to get someone excited for a sequel IMO).

ME3 could have been so much more, there was no need for a super weapon, because the antagonists weren't established as invincible (which is poor writing). If done correctly, conventional victory wouldn't have broken Mass Effect's lore or made the Reapers look like pushovers. It was only in the third game that they writers decided "Nope. They're unstoppable, there's no way you can beat the Reapers." Even then, you can still make the argument that we didn't need the Crucible to win in ME3, there wasn't enough information on the Reapers to disprove it.

Modifié par Conniving_Eagle, 31 juillet 2012 - 06:36 .

[SHARXTREME]

@Conniving_Eagle

Yeah, don't remind me of great ME2 ending. It was really suspense, I was expecting a glorious game, or even a glorious battle. ME2 story-game-fluidity was remarkable.

Shepard stands there with a strong, capable crew and state-of.the-art ship, reading a pad with Reaper information, like she is actually thinking on how to defeat them. Like she actually has a plan.
But then, in ME3, we hear: "That's the plan?" Shepard has no ship, crew mates are all over the galaxy, new crew is shockingly uninteresting and Reapers are already at the door. What a shame for the story.
I think they have seriously dropped the ball there.
They could have made an epic story on basis that they have established.

Modifié par SHARXTREME, 31 juillet 2012 - 07:29 .

[Oxspit]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

Conventional victory being impossible is a thematic betrayal in of itself. Up until this point, the player was meant to believe that they could defeat the Reapers on their own terms. Conventional Victory = Impossible was only [arguably] established in the third game.

You're really going to have to explain to me how that is, because I'm afraid I just don't see it.

I'll accept that there is an agency question - i.e. we really are lead to believe that our decisions matter, and that our personal struggle is important. Again, the juxtaposition between that and the cosmicism back-drop was why I thought this story was going to be interesting, and the ending hard to write. They were always going to have to resolve those two things somehow, I thought, and I didn't envy them (but hot damn was I interested to see it).

But that's not the same thing as conventional victory=viable. Not in the slightest. Just not the same thing at all.

As to their only establishing this in the third game... well, I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person and I , at no point, got the impression that we could hope to win a conventional war against the reapers. I saw them establishing precisely the opposite.

In ME1 you learn that these reapers not only wiped out the Protheans, but countless other comparable civilisations before it. That they are a race that is, potentially, millions of years ahead of you technologically. You meet an actual reaper. Both his attitude and everything you learn and see about him confirms that he is a foe who is quite simply beyond you.

You see strange arguments about the battle for the citadel, and the comparable losses in ships and such-like which completely miss the point of the battle. Sovereign was not trying to kill as many ships as he could. That was completely incidental to him. His one goal was to open the citadel relay and usher in the endgame, and he simply brushed aside all of our defenses like they weren't even there and went straight for this goal. Our military forces couldn't even delay him from doing this.

And his plan should have worked. If it weren't for the wildly improbable chest-thumping intervention of Shepard, and more importantly the improbably successful Prothean efforts which allow us to re-take control of the station and an arguable act of impatience on Sovereign's part (he could easily have retreated, or even turned to focus on destroying the citadel fleet rather than risk destruction by taking control of Saren), it would have.

If you didn't get the impression that we were incredibly lucky to have taken Sovereign alone down the way we did I have to question whether we were playing the same game.

ME2 you can almost ignore because, well, they seemed to just take an active departure from the reaper problem, but whenever they came up, the assumption always seemed to me to be reaper arrival=endgame.

[Oxspit]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...



Prior, we are given the sense of "Our cycle is different." The Reapers' effectiveness at 'reaping' comes not from their firepower or military capabilities, it comes from their patience and ruthless calculus. In the previous cycles, the Reapers would pour through the Citadel, killing the galaxy's leaders and obtaining all the necessary information on advanced organic life. More importantly, they gain total control of the Mass Relays. The Reapers then proceed shut down all the relays, only opening one at a time to systematically wipe out its respective local civilization(s). This is what Sovereign meant when it said "We are legion. Our numbers will darken the skies of every world." Sovereign didn't mean this would occur simultaneously, they don't have the numbers for that. The Reapers' success is the result of cutting off a system's communication, then swarming it, planet by planet.

Well, you know what really is bad writing? Reliance on some vague 'our cycle is different' idea.

That said, yes, our cycle is shown (rather than just vaguely stated) to be different in one crucial respect: In the sheer, blind luck of coming directlly after the Protheans. They really are shown to be special. They are literally the first cycle to master the citadel enough to sabotage the keepers without the reapers knolwedge - you have to believe they are the first, or Sovereign's actions make no sense at all. They also learn enough about the citadel to be able to sabotage reaper control after the fact.

Our advantage, then, is time. Not much, though, as it happens. ME2 represented a clear decision to make sure that advantage is destroyed, however. Indications are that, with the human reaper, they'd decided to go down some 'our cycle is special because, well, humans are special' angle instead. By ME3, they seem to have changed their mind again and decided, no, 'our cycle is special because, like, democracy or something'. Each an indication of their focussing on the chapter as a stand-alone game and to hell with the overall story.

I would have rather seen us actually earn the advantage we were given than seeing us commit a new act of special pleading each time, myself.

As to the second part, no they don't rely on overwhelming military superiority, but they still have it. You could actually make them militarily equivalent to us and only give them their longer experience and indoctrination (christ that's a powerful advantage), and it's still their war to lose.


Positing an enemy with overwhelming advantages over you isn't bad writing. Positing that and then contradicting yourself when it becomes inconvenient as you've written yourself into a corner: that's bad writing.
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