Nyoka wrote...
I'm only talking about the idea of killing the geth alongside the reapers. The theme. All I was saying is this idea suits a Shepard who killed the rachni and all the colonists at Zhu's Hope, let the hostages die to catch Balak, and walked away from the factory workers on Zorya and killed Wrex. I think having the geth become individuals make the choice more difficult, because if destruction had been simply push the button and all the reapers die with no bad side effects (for example if the geth would have continued to be mindless mooks), it would have been the obvious choice and nobody would have even considered the other two. The side effect could have been the earth instead of the geth or something else. I'm not sure if the problem is that we're killing synthetics explicitly. Would have been better if the victims of destruction had been the turians, for example, or anyone else?
This, in my opinion, is one of the main reasons why the ending failed. It feels like Destroy only kills EDI and the Geth simply to balance it and make Synthesis look better. I'll probably be assuming a lot of things in the next few paragraphs. You can agree or disagree, but this is the interpretation I got based on the leaked script and the ending I saw.
First, I am assuming that, like in the leaked script, Synthesis is supposed to be the "perfect" ending. It's loaded with symbolism, presents a broad and profound idea, and is given the Catalyst's seal of approval as the most recommended method to end the cycle. I am also going to assume that the Catalyst is supposed to be taken at his word. Shepard doesn't question the Catalyst because we, as the player, are not suppose to question him. A few recent tweets from Mike Gamble also seem to imply that we were not meant to see Synthetic life as equals in this galaxy, which would give the Catalyst a bit of merit.
Going from this, the purpose of the Catalyst was to humanize the Reapers and portray them as a force for good against this inevitable conflict between creator and creation. They would be sympathetic, as they were in the original ending involving Dark Energy (I'll talk about this more in a bit).
If the Reapers are to be seen as a necessary evil whose actions are the sole reason we even have a galaxy to save, then Destroy suddenly doesn't look so good. Not only does it not solve the problem, it elminates the only hope to stop it and would force the galaxy to come up with their own solution before it's too late.
Control is an interesting choice, in that Shepard would assume control of the Reapers and use them as he wishes. In this ending, Shepard doesn't believe that the Catalyst's methods are correct, but that the Reapers are still needed because the problem itself is still very real (and unresolved).
This leaves Synthesis as the "true" ending. It would resolve the problem by eliminating the source of the conflict: that organic and synthetic life are different. The Reapers remain around as a failsafe, but the cycle itself is over because there is no reason to harvest and kill anymore. Synthesis would present a utopia with organics and synthetics living in perfect harmony and would presumably have no reason to create any more synthetic life in the future (or, if they did, it'd already be fully evolved or something... no idea if natural life would also come out fully evolved, too... Synthesis is really messy).
Now, according to the interwebs, the original idea for the Reapers' ultimate motive is that Dark Energy, the foundation of the entire society in Mass Effect, is going to kill us all and that the harvesting of organic life every 50,000 years to produce a new Reaper is what stops it. Now, regardless on the logic behind the idea (personally, I don't think it's much better than the ending we got; it's just better foreshadowed), this ending would also present us with two outcomes: Destroy the Reapers and come up with a way to stop Dark Energy on our own or help the Reapers by going along with their plan.
What's interesting about this idea is that I could really see my Shepard having a hard time deciding which to do based soley on the morality of the situation. The idea gives the Reapers enough sympathy for me to see their side of the story. Naturally, this is assuming that Dark Energy's detrimental effects on the galaxy would be well stated beforehand, which might be too much to ask given how much attention was paid to this Singularity idea. Not to mention that the ramifications of destroying the Reapers would have to be somewhat immediate if the effect is to be meaningful (say 50 years before it kills us all). After all, it's really hard to make the player care about people we do not and will never know. It'd be like asking me to murder my family if it meant people would be better off in 5 generations.
This is why I think they needed to kill the Geth and EDI to make Synthesis look better. The ending we got doesn't give the Reapers any sympathy. In fact, what the Catalyst says tends to contradict what most Shepards see throughout the series. We have no reason to believe him, and therefore have no reason to believe in his problem or his solutions. I think Bioware knew this to an extent, and that is why the deck is stacked against Destroy. Alternatively, perhaps they decided to kill all synthetic life simply because they didn't think we would care about them, and would see it as a small benefit in a post-Reaper galaxy that may not be in shape to fight a potentially hostile Geth.
Modifié par Devil Mingy, 26 avril 2012 - 07:42 .
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