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[flemm]

JamieCOTC wrote...

That or whoever wrote the Catalyst scene was trying to preserve the ego of the orinial writter.

I don't know about ego (the ego of whoever wrote the original endings must be either extremely resilient or thoroughly ravaged by now anyway), but I think they wanted to preserve the idea that the EC *clarified* the endings without changing them. Hence why the original lines are there, possibly? But the *clarification* really does more than clarify.

Modifié par flemm, 18 juillet 2012 - 04:03 .

[Tyreslol]

synthesis being the "best" ending is a shameful disgrace

the entire thing is so contrived and WTF inducing there are really no words to describe how bad it is

[Taboo]

I would argue that the new cap being 3100 for all scenes kinds of dashes that claim.

Also, Ieldra, as you have shown interest in the past, there is no canon ending.

Bioware stated this at Comic Con.

All four are equally valid.

[Tyreslol]

All four are equally valid.

so all of them are complete and irredeemable garbage?

i disagree; if the crucible/catalyst were even slightly better written/implemented, control and destroy as possible options would be workable

synthesis just doesn't fit into any reasonable conclusion because of the ridiculous appeal to space majick and how it completely breaks suspension of disbelief unless you're a fan of the matrix 2/3 and lolrandom pseudophilosophy

[Taboo]

Tyreslol wrote...

All four are equally valid.

so all of them are complete and irredeemable garbage?

i disagree; if the crucible/catalyst were even slightly better written/implemented, control and destroy as possible options would be workable

synthesis just doesn't fit into any reasonable conclusion because of the ridiculous appeal to space majick and how it completely breaks suspension of disbelief unless you're a fan of the matrix 2/3 and lolrandom pseudophilosophy

As much as I don't like Synthesis the smartest people usually end up posting in this thread. It's a real joy to talk with them. We may not see eye to eye but that doesn't mean I don't respect them.

That's kind of the point of art. To debate until the early hours of morning about philosophy. I live for it.

I also live for the day Ieldra rips the last hair from his head because of me. But out of a mutual frustration between us. An art debate.

Dann sind wir Helden
Fur einen tag

I hope my German is still good and I didn't call him something inappropriate. The last time I tried singing Heroes in German it didn't go well.

Let's see if he responds.

[Dr. Doctor]

Pretty much when Catalyst answers "So how exactly is this going to work?" question with "There's not enough time to explain" all I can picture is the people writing the EC wondering how the hell they're going to make this stuff make sense.

Turning Shepard into a post-Synthesis individual in an attempt to promote the idea to the rest of galactic civilization would make more sense than converting the whole of organic and synthetic life in the galaxy with a flash of light.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Shaigunjoe wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

You know after seeing what BioWare did to the story, I have no moral stand on the issue any more.

Who cares if it was what Saren wanted? If I'd know then what awaited at the end of the series maybe we could have negotiated this better, you know, maybe we could have all gotten along. I could have thrown Conrad or Ashley into the beam. No one else had to die.

Whoa whoa whoa, while most people would agree that Conrad in the beam would have produced superior results, but Ashley? Seriously?

Okay no Ashley.

We'll tell Saren to tell Sovereign to wake the boss and tell him we've got a proposition. He can bring in his reapers through the Citadel relay, but no funny stuff. No reaping and crap. They can watch and even help us. Give us a chance. It's going to take some time. We build this crucible thing then we dock it to the Citadel. Saren and Shepard go up and march (actually we'll blindfold him and tell him he's being given the secret Spectre initiation) our specimen (aka Conrad Verner) down the Synthesis walkway and join organic and machine across the galaxy. The strengths of both. The weaknesses of neither. Then we go have lunch. No one has to die on either side. Peace, love and all that good stuff. Deal?

But that geth fleet has to stay out of here since that causes problems.

Then the Council can hand out medals to Shepard and Saren for preventing a major war.

[Tyreslol]

you know, synthesis is so awful it actually manages to destroy the entire first game's plot revolving around stopping saren because we literally do to the galaxy what he was planning to

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Dear Dr. Doctor: I love your signature banner.

[Ieldra]

flemm wrote...

JamieCOTC wrote...
That or whoever wrote the Catalyst scene was trying to preserve the ego of the orinial writter.

I don't know about ego (the ego of whoever wrote the original endings must be either extremely resilient or thoroughly ravaged by now anyway), but I think they wanted to preserve the idea that the EC *clarified* the endings without changing them. Hence why the original lines are there, possibly? But the *clarification* really does more than clarify.

"We won't change the ending"

*watches ending where no mass relays explode*

Yeah, right Not that I'm complaining. If they hadn't said that everyone would have expected a completely replaced ending, so they didn't really have a choice.

But to keep those lines in just to keep a fiction up nobody's buying anyway seems weird.

[Ieldra]

Taboo-XX wrote...

Tyreslol wrote...

All four are equally valid.

so all of them are complete and irredeemable garbage?

i disagree; if the crucible/catalyst were even slightly better written/implemented, control and destroy as possible options would be workable

synthesis just doesn't fit into any reasonable conclusion because of the ridiculous appeal to space majick and how it completely breaks suspension of disbelief unless you're a fan of the matrix 2/3 and lolrandom pseudophilosophy

As much as I don't like Synthesis the smartest people usually end up posting in this thread. It's a real joy to talk with them. We may not see eye to eye but that doesn't mean I don't respect them.

That's kind of the point of art. To debate until the early hours of morning about philosophy. I live for it.

I also live for the day Ieldra rips the last hair from his head because of me. But out of a mutual frustration between us. An art debate.

Dann sind wir Helden
Fur einen tag

I hope my German is still good and I didn't call him something inappropriate. The last time I tried singing Heroes in German it didn't go well.

Let's see if he responds.

I know we'll not end up on the same side in this, but that's OK. And the only reason I might rip out a hair (not the last one tough) because of you is because half the time, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about and must ...*cough*... speculate.

[Ieldra]

Dr. Doctor wrote...
Pretty much when Catalyst answers "So how exactly is this going to work?" question with "There's not enough time to explain" all I can picture is the people writing the EC wondering how the hell they're going to make this stuff make sense.

Turning Shepard into a post-Synthesis individual in an attempt to promote the idea to the rest of galactic civilization would make more sense than converting the whole of organic and synthetic life in the galaxy with a flash of light.

I have a few ideas how Synthesis might have worked:
(1) The Crucible produces a stream of nanites and sends them out to the mass relays.
(2) These nanites reprogram the mass relays to produce other nanites (Synthesis nanites), which are then sent out at conventional FTL speed in form of thousands of FTL drones (per relay) powered by eezo taken from the relay.
(3) Those FTL drones deliver their payload on worlds with life, where life will be reprogrammed.
(4) The process is not instantaneous, but may take several days or weeks.

The only thing I haven't figured out is how Shepard fits in. The sacrifice may be thematically fitting, but it's hard to justify on science-fictional reasoning. It's a part of that style-over-substance philosophy I feel the trilogy has been increasingly using ever since Mac Walters took over. ME2 was worse than ME3 in this, but it comes back at the end of ME3 with a vengeance.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 18 juillet 2012 - 11:02 .

[Aurora313]

Yeah, the mechanics behind Shepard fitting in to the whole equation really stumps me too. I'm all for symbolism, but being an avid sci-fi fan, I'm more of a fan of things making logical sense. Which the endings do not. I understand and love symbolism, I'm a graphics/art student, but a shred of logic would be great. Its a vidgame, I know. But suspending disbelief only works so far.

That being said I'm all for a utopian/dystopian post-synthesis world. I seriously cannot let go of the idea that people would try to reverse the process and ever start a whole goddamned war over it.

[Ieldra]

So one side tries to regress while the other tries to ascend? I can see this happening, but why would people start a war over it? Why not let everyone go their own way?

[Shaigunjoe]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Shaigunjoe wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

You know after seeing what BioWare did to the story, I have no moral stand on the issue any more.

Who cares if it was what Saren wanted? If I'd know then what awaited at the end of the series maybe we could have negotiated this better, you know, maybe we could have all gotten along. I could have thrown Conrad or Ashley into the beam. No one else had to die.

Whoa whoa whoa, while most people would agree that Conrad in the beam would have produced superior results, but Ashley? Seriously?

Okay no Ashley.

We'll tell Saren to tell Sovereign to wake the boss and tell him we've got a proposition. He can bring in his reapers through the Citadel relay, but no funny stuff. No reaping and crap. They can watch and even help us. Give us a chance. It's going to take some time. We build this crucible thing then we dock it to the Citadel. Saren and Shepard go up and march (actually we'll blindfold him and tell him he's being given the secret Spectre initiation) our specimen (aka Conrad Verner) down the Synthesis walkway and join organic and machine across the galaxy. The strengths of both. The weaknesses of neither. Then we go have lunch. No one has to die on either side. Peace, love and all that good stuff. Deal?

But that geth fleet has to stay out of here since that causes problems.

Then the Council can hand out medals to Shepard and Saren for preventing a major war.

Hahaha, I haven't played ME1 in a long time, so my memory on it is funny, but I felt like we did attempt to reason with Saren, though I could be misremembering.

Anyway, that makes me think of this:

[elitehunter34]

Honestly the idea of an organic fully merged with synthetic technology is really cool. But it wasn't needed in the end at all. It's something that could have been explored in future series in the Mass Effect universe. Synthesis utterly breaks my suspension of disbelief as an ending. It would be a lot more interesting and it would make a lot more sense if something like Synthesis was something that happened over a long period of time, or was something that simply some people chose to do and some didn't. Why does it have to be forced?

[Ieldra]

@elitehunter:
I would have vastly preferred it if Synthesis had just affected Shepard, given her the ability to synthesize others, and if the epilogue had shown how the idea slowly spread over the galaxy over the next few thousand years. I'd have written it that way. That would have been hard to sell as a way to stop the Reapers, but given some suspension of disbelief, some logic that works can almost always be found, as I found while working on another story some time ago.

But that would have been not divisive enough for Bioware...

[Draining Dragon]

Reasons destroy is better:

1. Shepard lives
2. The Reapers lose. In Synthesis, the Reapers win because they get what they want.
3. If someone told me I could become a half-robot, I would say no. If they told me it was the final evolution of life, I'd give them a book on Darwin's theory.

[Aurora313]

Ieldra2 wrote...

So one side tries to regress while the other tries to ascend? I can see this happening, but why would people start a war over it? Why not let everyone go their own way?

Sure, it's all well and good if it's by choice, but for the sake of arguement, lets say the majority (about 60% or so) want to regress to normal state. The Minority are perfectly fine with their new existence and are perfectly happy to explore it. The Majority then realises 'oh - these people are evolving beyond what we can control, we need to regulate them.' and while the Minority argues 'Hey, you chose to turn back to normal, not us - what gives you the right to force restrictions on us? If you wanted to keep up, you shouldn't have regressed.' or something to that effect, just not so snobbish..

I see it getting to the point where Naturals would have so much propaganda against hybrids that it's like the geth-Quarian war. In perhaps 300+ years, Naturals would believe that the hybrids are like the human-cylons from BSG. Still machines, but made to look organic despite the fact that most of them were born as organics.

I could go on, but its bedtime.
For my headcanon it basically boils down to the same old conflict except instead of synthetics, it's Naturals vs Hybrids. Hybrids fight to contiuue living. Naturals in the centuries to come see them as an abomination and want them destroyed.

Modifié par Aurora313, 18 juillet 2012 - 02:32 .

[flemm]

Ieldra2 wrote...

But to keep those lines in just to keep a fiction up nobody's buying anyway seems weird.

That's true. It's objectively a little wierd, though, given that the new lines don't really fit with the old.

[JamieCOTC]

Tyreslol wrote...

you know, synthesis is so awful it actually manages to destroy the entire first game's plot revolving around stopping saren because we literally do to the galaxy what he was planning to

Saren was being played. Even he saw that in the end. He wanted to submit.  Synthesis isn't submission. Not unless you see it that way and if you do, it's valid for your ending. But it's not valid for my ending. There is no canon ending and therefore no ending is better than the other. 

As to why no ending is better than the other, I have a theory.  As Casey Hudson explained some months back, you can just do SP and skip all the side quests and "have some kind of ending and victory."  That's so they could have a "variety" of endings (which the EC does provide) and no one will feel like they lost.  Notice that there is no "Reapers win" ending.  The problem w/ that is when you try to please everyone, more times than not you end up pleasing no one. 

[webhead921]

Here is an interesting synthesis related exchange that I noticed last night that I didn't catch on my first playthrough. People in the past have quoted mordin ("no soul, replaced by tech") when arguing against synthesis, but this quote suggests that samaritans might approve synthesis. " EDI: Mordin sent me a nicely
crafted message. It seems he
recalls our conversations about
the Salarian equivalent of
transhumans.
Shepard: If I could I'd stop you right
there.
EDI: Transhumans have some of
their brain's abilities, such as
memory, supplemented or
entirely replaced by
cybernetics. Legal definitions
vary from planet to planet. The
Salarians embrace the
concept. Humans have diverse
and contentious opinions.
Shepard: Do my implants make me a
transhuman?
EDI: That would be telling.
Shepard: ...what?
EDI: I'm sorry. That was a joke. You
are fully human. Cerberus
extensively reconstructed you
but your brain functions are
organic.
Shepard: Don't ever do that again."

[Ieldra]

Yes, I know that exchange, and it's a rather interesting insight into Mordin's take on things. I still resent it because it makes Shepard come across as anti-transhumanist. Which my main Shepard definitely isn't. Some writer couldn't resist infusing Shepard with his personal ideology, making him humorless as well for good measure.

[Dr. Doctor]

What confused me about that conversation is that a biotic Shepard would be a transhuman individual. He has neural implants that amplify his natural biotic abilities.

[JamieCOTC]

webhead921 wrote...

Here is an interesting synthesis related exchange that I noticed last night that I didn't catch on my first playthrough. People in the past have quoted mordin ("no soul, replaced by tech") when arguing against synthesis, but this quote suggests that samaritans might approve synthesis. " EDI: Mordin sent me a nicely
crafted message. It seems he
recalls our conversations about
the Salarian equivalent of
transhumans.
Shepard: If I could I'd stop you right
there.
EDI: Transhumans have some of
their brain's abilities, such as
memory, supplemented or
entirely replaced by
cybernetics. Legal definitions
vary from planet to planet. The
Salarians embrace the
concept. Humans have diverse
and contentious opinions.
Shepard: Do my implants make me a
transhuman?
EDI: That would be telling.
Shepard: ...what?
EDI: I'm sorry. That was a joke. You
are fully human. Cerberus
extensively reconstructed you
but your brain functions are
organic.
Shepard: Don't ever do that again."

Where does this come from?