312 réponses à ce sujet

[PsyrenY]

dreman9999 wrote...

Yet nothing is pointing to anythign to support that the sarchild is telling the truth...

Aside from the fact that he has nothing to gain by talking to you at all?

[jimjamalam22]

very insightful and well crafted vid, good job

[Alez Zinai]

Optimystic_X wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

Yet nothing is pointing to anythign to support that the sarchild is telling the truth...

Aside from the fact that he has nothing to gain by talking to you at all?

Or maybe he thinks that he can gain something - there are three options to end reaper threat.
Speculations.

[pro5]

Optimystic_X wrote...

That is where you are wrong. The child didn't need 15 lines of dialogue to convince me to examine the other options... he only needed one.

"Including the Geth."

That was where my Shepard slammed on the brakes.

Exactly.

An entity you've never met before, and which uses words "we" and "us" when referring to the Reapers, made you "slam on the brakes" by *implying* the option to Destroy the Reapers will affect your synthetic allies - EDI and the Geth.

Optimystic_X wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

Yet nothing is pointing to anythign to support that the sarchild is telling the truth...

Aside from the fact that he has nothing to gain by talking to you at all?

Right. Except, you know, saving itself ("we", "us") by fast-talking you into making the wrong choice.

And, if we accept for a moment that Indoctrination does indeed take place, they gain a new powerful pawn - influential military leader - to use for their own goals.

[Vigilant111]

I didn't even examine the validity of the dialogues, the vision of Anderson shooting the red pipe was enough for me

[dreamgazer]

Optimystic_X wrote...

"Including the Geth."

That was where my Shepard slammed on the brakes.

It's amazing how those three words may very well have been the spark that created this whole debate. 

People rag on BioWare's writing in the final scene, but the manipulative, thought-provoking vagueness they erect in such a succinct fashion is pretty damn impressive.

[pro5]

Bill Casey wrote...

www.youtube.com/watch
Illusive Man: Harness their very essense to bring humanity to the apex of evolution.

This one is awesome.

Lends more weight to my placing TIM's icon under Synthesis as well as Control in the video. And basically confirms that the Reapers were using The Illusive Man to subtly condition Shepard towards adopting Synthesis as an alternative to Control, even though TIM never openly spoke for anything but Control.

I vaguely remembered TIM speaking about evolution *somewhere* else when prepping the quotes, but couldn't recall where it was. Great find.

[pro5]

back from page 12

[TJX2045]

What I've seen in this video so far (I'm 12 minutes in) is definitely why I stick by my decision of choosing Destroy like I did in my very first playthrough. The other two looked too good to be true and felt like short term solutions or outright lies. Destroy is what we've been fighting for all along, and that is what I came to do. Synthetics can be rebuilt. Organics cannot.

EDIT: This is a great video.  I think one of the most important aspects is the Catalyst almost ALWAYS speaks in the plural form when he talks to Shepard.  I'm surprised that it seems mostly the people who support the Destroy ending or IT are the only ones who see this as strange?

Modifié par TJX2045, 03 juin 2012 - 07:17 .

[pro5]

Reposting an interesting question from youtube comments and my thoughts on it:

ToBusyWithOtherStuff wrote...

but if bioware did ''indoctrinate us'' then why wont they tell us now and have given you the cutscene for it at the end. why would any game developer purposely make the fans wait months to find out the true ending. If the indoctrination theory is true than they shouldve made it clear in the game at the end.

If they made it clear, then it would only work with the first "wave" who played the game as soon as it hit the shelves. You may find it hard to believe, but even now, months after release there are people who are still playing and finishing the game for the first time. Because they have jobs, time issues, other games to play, computer problems, etc etc etc.

By taking their time with it, they may aim to let as many people as possible to make THEIR choice, not Bioware's.

If true, this trick is brilliant - but it only works once for each player, BEFORE it's explained. Because, let's face it, after they explain it - who would pick Control or Synthesis other than out of curiosity to see the indoctrinated cutscenes? That information would hit the internet and spread like a forest fire in an instant, and someone who'd come in to play the game for the 1st time would have a thousand opportunities to be tipped off that the final scene is an indoctrination attempt.

Finally, I want to make it clear that I personally am far from happy with Bioware communication (or rather the lack of such) on the ending until now - regardless of whether this video is correct or not. I don't appreciate having to spend months in frustrated uncertainty and anxiety, looking for clues to the real meaning behind the ending, struggling off the nagging doubt that there is such a meaning, and trying to maintain hope that my favourite series did not go out by the way of trash bin.

[Alez Zinai]

pro5 wrote...
....
If they made it clear, then it would only work with the first "wave" who played the game as soon as it hit the shelves. You may find it hard to believe, but even now, months after release there are people who are still playing and finishing the game for the first time. Because they have jobs, time issues, other games to play, computer problems, etc etc etc.
....

F.e. my wife still playing Skyrim and I can't even spoil ME ending to her - what can I possibly say: "Commander Shepard has become legend by ending the Reaper threat. ..."

Still I belive that current situation with endings may be result of juncture between release deadline and script leak. So EA forces BW to meet deadline and Hudson and Walters came out with plan that:
1) satisfies EA deadline
2) gives BW time to end game (EC)
3) leaves auditory attached to game

[mass perfection]

They want us to use our knowledge of the lore to piece together what happened?Then If that's true we destroyed all life by blowing up the relays.

[pro5]

mass perfection wrote...

They want us to use our knowledge of the lore to piece together what happened?Then If that's true we destroyed all life by blowing up the relays.

True, if we stick to the lore then the mass relays should have pulled an Arrival.

I assumed they meant something else in that interview though, so I stuck mostly to analyzing the Catalyst and his 3 choices in the video...

[pro5]

Back from page 11.

[Bill Casey]

They didn't forget about Saren...

www.youtube.com/watch

Shepard: "It didn't seem as if The Illusive Man was suggesting we appease them, not like Saren did."




www.youtube.com/watch
EDI: "Do you think I should make modifications."
Shepard: "Only you can really answer that question. That's the point of free will."

Modifié par Bill Casey, 07 juin 2012 - 06:35 .

[pro5]

Back from page 23.

[pro5]

Just a few days away from *finally* knowing THE TRUTH™.

Awesome.  

Modifié par pro5, 23 juin 2012 - 07:40 .

[OhoniX]

Actually, it's a forty minute video explaining why the rest of the ME series totally negates the Control and Synthesis options.

They are literally/figuratively everything that you have been fighting against for nearly 100 hours of gameplay.

But so is the Destroy ending. Destroy-happy people always gloss over that point. The Destory ending involves the genocide of an entire species, which anyParagon Shep would never do if there were an alternative. You may not like the Synthesis or Control endings, but you cannot claim that they are less true to what Shepard would do than the Destroy ending is, unless you're playing Renegade, OR the Geth had already been wiped out.

[Quackjack]

Wow
That was awesome
Unfortunatly, I think your right
BW indoctronated themselves

[pro5]

OhoniX wrote...

Actually, it's a forty minute video explaining why the rest of the ME series totally negates the Control and Synthesis options.

They are literally/figuratively everything that you have been fighting against for nearly 100 hours of gameplay.

But so is the Destroy ending. Destroy-happy people always gloss over that point. The Destory ending involves the genocide of an entire species, which anyParagon Shep would never do if there were an alternative. You may not like the Synthesis or Control endings, but you cannot claim that they are less true to what Shepard would do than the Destroy ending is, unless you're playing Renegade, OR the Geth had already been wiped out.

There is no alternative available that isn't essentially surrendering to the Reapers by accepting their goals as your own. I don't think Paragon Shepard would be any more sympathetic to the idea of a synthetic/organic hybrid being the supreme stage of evolution than Renegade Shepard. The video is very clear in describing the reasons why, so I'm not going to repeat myself again here.

And no, I didn't gloss over the "genocide of a species" problem. A good chunk of time in the vid is spent outlining why "the Catalyst"'s presentation of the choices, Destroy in particular, should be taken with healthy scepticism.

Modifié par pro5, 23 juin 2012 - 08:45 .

[OhoniX]

And no, I didn't gloss over the "genocide of a species" problem. A good chunk of time in the vid is spent outlining why "the Catalyst"'s presentation of the choices, Destroy in particular, should be taken with healthy scepticism.

Whether you believe the Catalyst or not is completely irrelevant. Shepard, in reality, has two major choices:
A. Believe the Catalyst. If you choose this option, then you have three further choices, A1. Commit genocide, A2. Attempt to seize the will of a billion year old sentient intelligence, or A3. evolve all life in the universe in a way that will cause the Reapers to leave everyone alone.

OR

B. Don't believe the Catalyst. In this case, Destroy is NOT the obvious answer, because "destroy" is only one of the options that the Catalyst gives you. Disbelieving the Catalyst does not only mean that maybe the Destroy ending isn't as bad as he tells us it is, it also means that the "destroy" ending could be anything. If you don't take the Catalyst at face value, then why would you possibly believe that shooting the red console would result in destroying the Reapers?

For all you know, all destroying the red console would do is blowing up the Citadel, with you on it, removing the last threat in the Reaper's way and allowing them to kill all humans in peace. You have NO reason to believe that destroying the red console will do anything positive whatsoever, except that the Catalyst tells you that it will. If you choose to believe that he is lying, then there is no "right" answer. If you choose to believe that the Catalyst is lying then you're just rolling the dice, any one of the three options could be positive, all three could, none of them could, there would be no way to make an informed choice in that case.

Choosing the red ending in that case is not expecting to kill the Reapers without killing the Geth, it's just rolling the dice. It may kill the Reapers, it may just kill you, it may destroy the crucible without harming the Reapers, it may turn the Reapers into ice cream and grant you a Segway for all you know, but there's no way you can claim to distrust the Catalyst AND claim that any ending choice is the "best" one.

So if you take the position a." I don't believe the Catalyst," and b."so I'll choose the destroy ending," then you're automatically a fool, there is no destroy ending unless the Catalyst is telling the truth. You can fairly say that you don't like any of the options that are available to Shepard in the end, but not because you don't believe the Catalyst. It's ok to not like any of the options presented, that's the point of them. If any of the options were easy then it wouldn't be a choice, there would be a "right" answer and a bunch of "wrong" ones, there's no choice in that, that would be completely against everything ME has been about.

Besides, there's no need to speculate, we all know after the fact that the Catalyst was speaking the truth, because it all plays out exactly as he said it would.

[pro5]

OhoniX wrote...

B. Don't believe the Catalyst. In this case, Destroy is NOT the obvious answer, because "destroy" is only one of the options that the Catalyst gives you. Disbelieving the Catalyst does not only mean that maybe the Destroy ending isn't as bad as he tells us it is, it also means that the "destroy" ending could be anything. If you don't take the Catalyst at face value, then why would you possibly believe that shooting the red console would result in destroying the Reapers?

Destroying the Reapers? Not enough evidence for that to be certain, you're right. But there is a good reason to believe it would NOT result in as much disaster as choosing the other two options. That reason is: "The Catalyst" clearly does not want you to pick Destroy. Considering the realization of *what* exactly the Catalyst is and what the other two options represent that I share in the video, it alone is compelling enough for me to make this choice.

I believe choosing Destroy means Shepard sees through the Child's lies. He understands what it is trying to do - to manipulate and condition him into adopting its ideology. And he chooses to defy its attempts to manipulate him by the only way game offers us - "shooting the tube".

OhoniX wrote... 

If you choose to believe that he is lying, then there is no "right" answer. If you choose to believe that the Catalyst is lying then you're just rolling the dice, any one of the three options could be positive, all three could, none of them could, there would be no way to make an informed choice in that case.

If the ending choices are to be taken at face value, as you seem to believe, then there IS no way to make an informed choice. Because we're not given nearly enough information to make such a choice. The Child describes the choices to Shepard, but it's not impartial - and it's not even hiding that fact, clearly favoring one of the options over the others. It intentionally provides little detail and uses confusing and ambigious wording when speaking to Shepard.

I think this was done intentionally by Bioware writers, for a good reason. That reason is that the choice Shepard is facing is not a literal choice, but an ideological one. He - and through him, the Player - must use his knowledge and past experience of events in the Mass Effect universe to realize what real effects would each ending choice have on that universe.

OhoniX wrote... 


Besides, there's no need to speculate, we all know after the fact that the Catalyst was speaking the truth, because it all plays out exactly as he said it would.

1. Shepard breathing scene disproves one of the things it said.
2. I don't believe the ending cinematics are what really happens. But I have no real proof to back this claim up at this point, so I'll just invite you to watch the video if you haven't and make up your own mind. Don't agree with me? Fine, I respect your opinion, even if I don't share it.

In just a couple days, we're going to find out who was right. 

Modifié par pro5, 24 juin 2012 - 08:54 .

[OhoniX]

Destroying the Reapers? Not enough evidence for that to be certain, you're right. But there is a good reason to believe it would NOT result in as much disaster as choosing the other two options. That reason is: "The Catalyst" clearly does not want you to pick Destroy. Considering the realization of *what* exactly the Catalyst is and what the other two options represent that I share in the video, it alone is compelling enough for me to make this choice.

There's no reason to believe that the Catalyst doesn't want you to choose the Destroy option. The descriptions he presents for it are no more conflicted than for the other two. If he seriously intended to convince Shepard to choose one of the other options then he could have described the Red choice to be a far worse one (like it would destroy all life in the solar system, not just the Geth), or described one or more of the other options as being "happy+," with cake and ice cream. I think it's a terrible misread of the situation to believe that the Catalyst was trying to "shepard" Shepard away from the red choice.

If the ending choices are to be taken at face value, as you seem to believe, then there IS no way to make an informed choice. Because we're not given nearly enough information to make such a choice. The Child describes the choices to Shepard, but it's not impartial - and it's not even hiding that fact, clearly favoring one of the options over the others. It intentionally provides little detail and uses confusing and ambigious wording when speaking to Shepard.

The Catalyst says it himself, HE doesn't know what the exact outcomes will be. He's not a game guide, he can't predict the future, all he knows is vaguely what the machine is capable of, and what is likely to happen as a result. That's more helpful exposition than most characters in the series are capable of. Hell, the scientists who built the Crucible had no clue what it would actually do. He told you what he knew, it wasn't the whole story, but he didn't know the whole story because he's not omniscient.

I do agree with you that the writers left this choice deliberately vague, because like many of the other choices in the series, Shepard is forced to choose without knowing exactly how things will turn out. I mean, do you choose to save the Rachni queen? She claims she'll go off in peace, but perhaps, as you believe of the Catalyst, she was lying too, and letting her go would mean a war of annihilation on the galaxy. Is saving the Krogan the right play? What about the Geth at Rannoch? In order to save the Geth, you must deliberately throw the Quarians into the thresher, their outcome completely in doubt. If you don't use outside knowledge before making that choice, you are choosing to allow genocide against at least one of those two civilizations, in the uncertain hope that it won't come to that. You are at no point given any absolute certainties that everything will work out, but if you trust your judgement, you can make that happen anyways.

These are all gambles in which Shepard must choose an outcome with limited knowledge of the situation, and the ending of the game is no different.

1. Shepard breathing scene disproves one of the things it said.

Yeah, but considering that Shepard was blown up and re-entered Earth with no shields and minimal armor, you can hardly blame the Catalyst for being skeptical of her chances for personal survival.

2. I don't believe the ending cinematics are what really happens.

That's just stupid. That would make no damned sense. Why in God's name would they have ending cinematics for the last game in the series that do not represent what actually happens at the end of the series? The only reason you ever show players something which is not true is so that you can show them the truth later as a twist. If it's the very last thing shown, it MUST be true. The idea that the ending cinematics, as presented, are not literal truth, is absolutely ludicrous.

I've been fairly supportive of Bioware on this issue, as I found the green ending to be quite satisfying as a player, but if it turns out that the original cinematic endings were some sort of dream sequence, and they did not make this absolutely crystal clear by the time the "start a new game+" screen came up, then I will have lost ALL respect for Bioware as a supposed maker of videogames. That would be the ultimate in bad game design, worse than anything that has been said of them thus far about the original endings.

Modifié par OhoniX, 24 juin 2012 - 10:28 .

[pro5]

OhoniX wrote...

2. I don't believe the ending cinematics are what really happens.

That's just stupid. That would make no damned sense. Why in God's name would they have ending cinematics for the last game in the series that do not represent what actually happens at the end of the series? The only reason you ever show players something which is not true is so that you can show them the truth later as a twist. If it's the very last thing shown, it MUST be true. The idea that the ending cinematics, as presented, are not literal truth, is absolutely ludicrous.

I've been fairly supportive of Bioware on this issue, as I found the green ending to be quite satisfying as a player, but if it turns out that the original cinematic endings were some sort of dream sequence, and they did not make this absolutely crystal clear by the time the "start a new game+" screen came up, then I will have lost ALL respect for Bioware as a supposed maker of videogames. That would be the ultimate in bad game design, worse than anything that has been said of them thus far about the original endings.

Your reaction - all your questions and statements - are understandable. They are also addressed in the video linked in the original post.

I won't be repeating here again what I already explaned in great detail there.

My potential explanation of why they wouldn't include the real details of what was taking place in the end is several posts above on this page, but you won't understand it unless you're familiar with the vid's contents.

Modifié par pro5, 24 juin 2012 - 12:12 .

[Sardart]

All these scenarios posted into the forums where enjoyable, and I'd kill to see such twists in a real produced series. Still, I'm pretty sure the nowadays common rule to dumb down games, appealing a wider audience, is the best and only answer for such endings...... and the copy & paste MP.

Let's hope EC doesn't bring even more headaches...