Talhydras wrote...
It's certainly a twisty issue for me. On the one hand, it IS nice to be able to reject the Deus ex Machina plot wholehearted. As someone who thinks it's pretty silly, there's a great deal of Catharsis in expressing some of the disappointment in the entire plot in those final moments.
Lately I've been thinking of it in terms of hindsight. It's a thing that IT folks have been banging on about for a while now, I know, but I really can't figure out how Shep is supposed to believe a single word the Catalyst says. Based on that, I can't allow my Shep to pick any of its options. So far, for my Shep, every single Reaper-Organic interaction has been manipulation on the behalf of the Reapers trying to kill the Organics. Put simply - the only way Shep can know what any of the options do is by watching videos on youtube. Obviously Shep can't do that - so Shep has to believe that for some reason it will be different this time: that this isn't like Object Rho, the Mass Relays, or the Citadel where the Reaper tech was candy coated poison.
This is why I'm excited for the Leviathan DLC. Leviathan may change that paradigm. Leviathan may add a moment, before the ending, where Shep realizes that in extremely strange situations the Reapers are occasionally altruistic or helpful. Then that moment can be used to parallel the endings, where the Reapers are also in an extremely strange situation. By using Leviathan to establish an earlier precedent where cooperation with Reapers is possible, the existing endings and Refusal will be brought more closely into balance from the perspective of Shep IMO.
I still favor Refusal.
Deus ex Machina is a resolution that doesn't resolve things for me, no matter how wondrous the options are. That's just the sort of stories I don't like, ultimately, and the option to say "well this is dumb" is always welcome.
I don't seperate myself from the context of the experience with my characters. "Refusal" Does not fit my active Shepards.
My Vanguard Shepard argued with Tali about the Geth when she expressed her disposition agianst them. He agreed with Legion's logic, which up until that point was given no evidence to beleive him, full on a leap of faith, even as he was falling in love with Tali, it was the one thing he would not back down on. He beleived Synthetic life deserved to live, and organics could coexist with them.
However, he also destroyedthe Geth Hertics - his view being it would be not better than the Reapers to indoctrinate the Heritics into beleiveing the origonal Geth's logic. Legion influened that too. "All Life should Self-determinate."
However, Shepard also beleived information should be open and shared, regardless of the source of it, especially if that information can be used to a good cause. That's why he told Mordin to save Maelon's data.
These factors ultimately lead Shepard to the Synthisis option, even though it caused him to lose himself and his bond with Tali. Sure, I as a player had the option of braking his character, going against all the decissions I had made and thus make Shepard a Hypocrite, but I diddn't.
And that's one thing I want to make clear here - the ending decissions do not ignore your choices in the past. The choices you made in the past influence your decission for your Shepard at the end - because you had to make them. When the ultimate decission comes, is your character a Hypocrite? Does he make the hard sacrafice to do as he was told. Or does he fold his hands and wait for the end because he did not get percicely what he wanted?
It's not easy to have the onus, and the responsibility, of a hard decision on our shoulders. But that's the reality of what Shepard faces in the Curcible decision. They're not so much the Catalyst's terms as the Crucibles, by the way. The Catalyst is merely explaining the choices. If it was wanting to lie, he could have completely left out the choice about destruction, or refused to tell Shepard about the choices at all.
It was at this point of the game, the players were ready to cash in their chips and reliquish their responsibility over the Mass Effect universe and just watch the consequences of their previous choices unfold. It insults them that they have to affirm their choices or comprimise a premise of their previous decissions in order to reach the end - and they pretty much get asked: What do you or your character values the most?
In the Destroy Ending, you valued Duty, or your love interest, above all else.
If you valued Power, or Control, or Ultimately beleived in defending the life of Synthetics without altering the course of all life, Control ending appealed.
If you were looking for the choice that would give the world the best future, and the idea of altering the world to do so did not bother you, Synthesis.
If you could not take the responsibility, or valued principles above survival, you could Reject the use of the Crucible all together.
Each of these options appeal differently to people. None of them are ultimately wrong. I chose how I felt my character would chose, rather than make the choice personally. Each playthrough may wind up at a different ending due to that, and I'm happy that BioWare Flushed them out for me to see the results of those choices.
I would thing the game deserved deeper variance in endings, but I undersatnd the premis at least, even though I disagree with it still.
I think ultimately, chosing what your character would do makes these endings better than simply destroying all suspension of disbeleif and making a choice because you hated the scripting or logic use.
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Whoa I go to sleep for five hours. Where did all these replies come from? XD
