209 réponses à ce sujet

[KenanJabr]

I think objectivity is an important virtue if we all want to get to the bottom of this.  I had initially quit on IT after playing the EC and being overwhelmingly disappointed with it.  Over the last couple of days, my interest in the Theory resurfaced because, deep down, I still believe it to hold more water than what I'm branding the "Face-Value Theory" (FVT).  Although the FVT is wholly possible (and probably more likely to be true than IT), the only way that the Synthesis and Control Endings logically hold up is if we accept that what all of our Shepards did throughout 99% of the series was wrong.  Trying to take out The Illusive Man and Saren, though they preached truth, was brash and naive on our parts.  Harbinger, at the end of ME2 says that the Reapers are the salvation to our destruction.  They were, and they end up fulfilling Harbinger's prophecy.  Harbinger, the DeathGodDemonChild, and the Reapers were doing the right things all along.  They acted out with moral ambiguity, but their greater awareness makes them more heroic than organics, individuals who couldn't accept that working with the Reapers was a viable option for peace

This is what you accept as fact if you accept the FVT.  Bioware may or may not have intended it to be that way, but this is what those endings mean within the context of the entire series.  Employing the scientific method, let's hypothesize that the IT is still the actual ending.  Here is a list of empirical data that I've compiled with some free time over the last half hour.  I'm sure there's more, but I'd like some feedback from anyone and everyone (no matter what your beliefs are).  Some of the things below are old...  some are new.  All of the questions, even post-EC, hold up extremely well.


NOTES:

Refusal scene should provide closure, but does it really?  Is it possible indecision represents his simply not being indoctrinated but, instead, just dying?  With Shepard dead, the Reapers win.

If Shepard can't be indoctrinated, which, if we take the endings at face-value, is implied even further in the EC when Deathkid says "you changed the variables", how did TIM control him?

What are the black streaks that Shepard sees at various parts throughout the final sequence?  Why do they suddenly stop after he passes out and is taken up to the lolkid?

The slideshows didn't show any new people.  Were any of them killed before, and there again in the slideshows?

The epilogues are too nice; almost dream-like.

Gunshot wound; HOW?!  Wouldn't they have fixed that?

Why not explain what the "Breath" was?

If the child is Harbinger, why does Shepard dream of him so much?  Was it showing their destined connection to one another, or was Harbinger/Godchild, at the very least, ATTEMPTING to indoctrinate Shepard?  And what did the voices and the whispers throughout mean?  Are we supposed to ignore the fact that EVERY indoctrinated person we've encountered experienced just that?  Fatigue and weariness don't cause auditory hallucinations.  That's entirely mental.  Was the Deathtrololkid just whispering because he was bored at the time?  Was Shepard schizophrenic after being hit by a beam that probably should have killed him?
 
Why did the Reapers leave the beam unguarded after the beam took Shepard out?  Carelessness like that seems highly uncharacteristic of transcendentally intelligent beings.

Loudness that persists after being hit by the beam (Reapers are supposedly gone at the moment, for whatever reason, so what is it?) and a loud robot-like noise was clearly ADDED when Anderson first wakes you up on the Citadel in the EC.  Why?

When Hackett talks about someONE making it to the Citadel in the EC, how he could possibly know that still is left unexplained, and, even suspending disbelief in regards to that, who is he referencing?  If Anderson, TIM, and Shepard are all on there, and we know that Anderson and Shepard BOTH got there at about the same time, why didn't Hackett mention there being multiple people who got through?  And (this is a stretch), but let's assume that Shepard had some kind of way of allowing Hackett to locate his position, why didn't he say "Shepard got through,"?

Why does the Catalyst say "Wake up!" when Shepard clearly isn't sleeping?

What was the other entrance that Anderson came through?

EDIT:  In the EC, when talking to lolkid after asking more about the Reapers, he references the way they handle the cycles to a burning fire...  not once...  but twice.  Another coincidence, or was it intentional?  It seems to tie in with the dreams almost too well to not be intentional.

Modifié par KenanJabr, 27 juin 2012 - 10:37 .

[Bill Casey]

Legbiter wrote...

IT was always a desperate, fairly pathetic response to the full horror of Bioware's initial ME 3 ending. Gnostic pap, like the Gospel of Judas, except less coherent.

No it wasn't...

[recentio]

babachewie wrote...

hahaha! Keep f*ckin that chicken.

[Eli Parker]

I still use the indoctrination theory in my head canon as the EC was just - meh - and Mass Effect 3 still has lots of problem prior to the ending.

[Rohirrim]

Judas Bock wrote...

I posted this in the IT thread, but it didn't get much attention, 

If it didn't attract attention in that threat, it's quite telling. 

As much as I like the idea of the indocrination hypothesis and don't think the new EC addresses enough of the plotholes, it's over. 

[babachewie]

KenanJabr wrote...

I think objectivity is an important virtue if we all want to get to the bottom of this.  I had initially quit on IT after playing the EC and being overwhelmingly disappointed with it.  Over the last couple of days, my interest in the Theory resurfaced because, deep down, I still believe it to hold more water than what I'm branding the "Face-Value Theory" (FVT).  Although the FVT is wholly possible (and probably more likely to be true than IT), the only way that the Synthesis and Control Endings logically hold up is if we accept that what all of our Shepards did throughout 99% of the series was wrong.  Trying to take out The Illusive Man and Saren, though they preached truth, was brash and naive on our parts.  Harbinger, at the end of ME2 says that the Reapers are the salvation to our destruction.  They were, and they end up fulfilling Harbinger's prophecy.  Harbinger, the DeathGodDemonChild, and the Reapers were doing the right things all along.  They acted out with moral ambiguity, but their greater awareness makes them more heroic than organics, individuals who couldn't accept that working with the Reapers was a viable option for peace

This is what you accept as fact if you accept the FVT.  Bioware may or may not have intended it to be that way, but this is what those endings mean within the context of the entire series.  Employing the scientific method, let's hypothesize that the IT is still the actual ending.  Here is a list of empirical data that I've compiled with some free time over the last half hour.  I'm sure there's more, but I'd like some feedback from anyone and everyone (no matter what your beliefs are).  Some of the things below are old...  some are new.  All of the questions, even post-EC, hold up extremely well.


NOTES:

Refusal scene should provide closure, but does it really?  Is it possible indecision represents his simply not being indoctrinated but, instead, just dying?  With Shepard dead, the Reapers win.

If Shepard can't be indoctrinated, which, if we take the endings at face-value, is implied even further in the EC when Deathkid says "you changed the variables", how did TIM control him?

What are the black streaks that Shepard sees at various parts throughout the final sequence?  Why do they suddenly stop after he passes out and is taken up to the lolkid?

The slideshows didn't show any new people.  Were any of them killed before, and there again in the slideshows?

The epilogues are too nice; almost dream-like.

Gunshot wound; HOW?!  Wouldn't they have fixed that?

Why not explain what the "Breath" was?

If the child is Harbinger, why does Shepard dream of him so much?  Was it showing their destined connection to one another, or was Harbinger/Godchild, at the very least, ATTEMPTING to indoctrinate Shepard?  And what did the voices and the whispers throughout mean?  Are we supposed to ignore the fact that EVERY indoctrinated person we've encountered experienced just that?  Fatigue and weariness don't cause auditory hallucinations.  That's entirely mental.  Was the Deathtrololkid just whispering because he was bored at the time?  Was Shepard schizophrenic after being hit by a beam that probably should have killed him?
 
Why did the Reapers leave the beam unguarded after the beam took Shepard out?  Carelessness like that seems highly uncharacteristic of transcendentally intelligent beings.

Loudness that persists after being hit by the beam (Reapers are supposedly gone at the moment, for whatever reason, so what is it?) and a loud robot-like noise was clearly ADDED when Anderson first wakes you up on the Citadel in the EC.  Why?

When Hackett talks about someONE making it to the Citadel in the EC, how he could possibly know that still is left unexplained, and, even suspending disbelief in regards to that, who is he referencing?  If Anderson, TIM, and Shepard are all on there, and we know that Anderson and Shepard BOTH got there at about the same time, why didn't Hackett mention there being multiple people who got through?  And (this is a stretch), but let's assume that Shepard had some kind of way of allowing Hackett to locate his position, why didn't he say "Shepard got through,"?

Why does the Catalyst say "Wake up!" when Shepard clearly isn't sleeping?

What was the other entrance that Anderson came through?

 

Modifié par babachewie, 27 juin 2012 - 10:44 .

[PsyrenY]

babachewie wrote...

hahaha! Keep f*ckin that chicken.

I lol'd hard at this metaphor.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

The thing that people need to remember is that the reapers seek perfection. harbinger is programmed to allow shepard to make that decision because it is the desire of the creators of the reapers to achieve balance. depending on the ending you get the reaper's message to shepard can be one of comprimise or mercy/regret, depending on how you see it. When the crucible docks it introduces new possibilities to the catalyst AI and changes the gameplan, basically. the reaper solution is no longer the best solution, the reapers seek perfection.

"We are your salvation through destruction" this isnt harbinger taunting you, this is his core belief until the catalyst awakens.

[Tipsyfresh]

Modifié par Tipsyfresh, 27 juin 2012 - 11:37 .

[Tipsyfresh]

Im glad the IT is still kicking, I've settled on either bioware was nowhere near as cool and smart as we thought they were (although they've got mass skills) OR they are playing the long game where once everything (dlc etc) is finished and launched then We will know what really happened in ME3

The latter seems to be possible because of the Leviathan info and how it appears to be pertinent to whatever the catalyst has said about its creators.

But I'm okay with accepting that bioware just couldn't bring a fresh interactive immersive storyline to a close...it's nothing new.

One thing that sticks out to me is "your beliefs do not matter!" says the catalyst. That's so strange on so many levels -throughout MEffect beliefs have mattered, geth believed in themselves and sent the quarians packing, organics believe in all kinds of things that have driven their behavior in ME (justicars code, winning the reaper war etc). What the heck is this supposed to mean/imply?

Any thoughts?

[Faded-Myth]

I actually don't go with the IT myself, but I will admit, I feel like the Refuse ending is there for those that do. Catalyst sounds like a Reaper, which for the sake of my own satisfaction I like to believe is cannon across all endings, regardless of the plot holes it creates (what's one more amongst several?) I like to see Refusal as the Reapers basically saying "Alright, you don't believe these are your only options? You failed! How's those lemmons?" And the rest is up to your speculation.

Sure, I know that's likely a bunch of codswallop. It could be as simple as it is portrayed. But I feel if one was inclined to believe in IT, that's about as close as you're going to get.

Modifié par Faded-Myth, 27 juin 2012 - 11:42 .

[M Hedonist]

Taboo-XX wrote...

It just won't ****ing die will it?

Bioware will eventually stop making ME games altogether. IT supporters will then proceed to claim the "reveal" is going to come in the next DA game.

[withneelandi]

Bioware types have quite clearly said that the don't want to be prescriptive about how people read the events in the game.

Thats the people that wrote the game saying "there are no right and wrong answers", so the extended cut doesn't flush anything down the toilet, but it does mean that some people might have to adjust their reading of the game, now that the content of the game itself has changed.

Bioware definately tried to write an end to me3 that challenges the player to look at what is happening and make a value judgement, I think there is enought there to at least make the case that all is not quite as it seems.

I'm also sure that there was some effort to plant those seeds in the players mind by the writers, too much about the climax still feels ..... odd.

IT is still a viable theory, albeit its obvious now that there will be no "waking up" stage of the game. I think a literal interpretation is equally as valid.

[Dawgrum]

Not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet but...

SHEP WAS SHOT BY MARAUDER SHIELDS BEFORE ENTERING THE BEAM.

If you go back and play, it is very clear this is where his bullet wound comes from. They even make a point of it in the EC. MS shoots first, your screen turns red with blood splatter, and then you dispatch him and keep going.

Sorry IT guys but this is one point that has been put to bed.

Modifié par Dawgrum, 27 juin 2012 - 11:57 .

[Tipsyfresh]

Sauruz wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...

It just won't ****ing die will it?

Bioware will eventually stop making ME games altogether. IT supporters will then proceed to claim the "reveal" is going to come in the next DA game.

Ha. Love this, mostly cuz u put reveal in scare quotes

[XxDarkTimexX]

Sauruz wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...

It just won't ****ing die will it?

Bioware will eventually stop making ME games altogether. IT supporters will then proceed to claim the "reveal" is going to come in the next DA game.

indoctriation has nothing to do with Dragon age

[N7Gold]

IT is an intelligent theory, but the theory needs to be dropped now that the EC is released.

[nitefyre410]

XxDarkTimexX wrote...

Sauruz wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...

It just won't ****ing die will it?

Bioware will eventually stop making ME games altogether. IT supporters will then proceed to claim the "reveal" is going to come in the next DA game.

indoctriation has nothing to do with Dragon age

  

You are so missing the point that I think you made the point very sad. 

[Big_Boss9]

Modifié par Big_Boss9, 28 juin 2012 - 12:19 .

[Felis Menari]

Dawgrum wrote...

Not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet but...

SHEP WAS SHOT BY MARAUDER SHIELDS BEFORE ENTERING THE BEAM.

If you go back and play, it is very clear this is where his bullet wound comes from. They even make a point of it in the EC. MS shoots first, your screen turns red with blood splatter, and then you dispatch him and keep going.

Sorry IT guys but this is one point that has been put to bed.

If you pay attention to the marauder shields segment, you will actually notice where Shep takes the hit (right shoulder). The scene with Anderson/TIM shows the gun shot wound to be on Shep's left side. So you would be incorrect. Not trying to say "Haha, a victory for IT!". Just letting you know that you got it wrong, is all.

[Tango One]

Felis Menari wrote...

Dawgrum wrote...

Not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet but...

SHEP WAS SHOT BY MARAUDER SHIELDS BEFORE ENTERING THE BEAM.

If you go back and play, it is very clear this is where his bullet wound comes from. They even make a point of it in the EC. MS shoots first, your screen turns red with blood splatter, and then you dispatch him and keep going.

Sorry IT guys but this is one point that has been put to bed.

If you pay attention to the marauder shields segment, you will actually notice where Shep takes the hit (right shoulder). The scene with Anderson/TIM shows the gun shot wound to be on Shep's left side. So you would be incorrect. Not trying to say "Haha, a victory for IT!". Just letting you know that you got it wrong, is all.

After Shepard is shot by Marauder shields, he holds his shoulder several times during the final cut scenes. His hand would be covered in blood from trying to stop the bleeding.

[felipejiraya]

IT isn't even funny anymore.

[gmboy902]

Yawn.

We're dealing with an AI who rebelled against his creators and turned them into a Reaper, who is now telling us he is trying to stop the created from rebelling against his creators. That pretty much flushes everything he says down the drain about synthesis.

BioWare said IT would still be just as viable after EC and it is. It wasn't viable then and it isn't now. I firmly believe that their interest in it only went so far because they realized that their fans thought more about the plot than they did.

[The Anti-Saint]

Silly humans, always looking for patterns where none exist.

[fishfang]

wasn't the crucible build to only destroy reapers, so why did we end up with control and synthesis option then? I mean, countless civilizations before build it only for the purpose to destroy so how is it possible that all of sudden it has the design to do different things?
Why didnt the reaper defend the interior of the citadel with infantry, so they make sure nobody ever reaches the control pannel? Annd also, what happened to the people inside the citadel after the reaper took control?

When the crucible got transfered and protected by "shield" to the citadel, shouldn't it be easier for the reapers to destroy the crucible with their sheer combat power instead of protecting the beam??
what can "shield " do, if all reapers on sol system engage them?

Why exactly does the catalyst not interact during the whole events of mass effect? Maybe he cant interact, because he was only designed to find a solution nothing else, and if his solution, the reapers, fail , he decided to try and find an other solution. would that make sense?