IscrewTali wrote...
All 3 endings are still better than refusal. Cowardice and inability to make the hard decisions, forcing someone else in the future to do it for you? No matter how someone attempts to justify it, it's still makes you a weakling. I wouldnt be surprised if this gets bombed by arguments of space magic, godmode and genocide.
All endings other than Reject are repellent, especially Synthesis.
I was a college professor in another life. I can smell a rushed, poorly conceived, poorly executed product when it's stuck under my nose. In this case, Casey-Mac tried to shove it up my nostrils. I've posted versions of my response in other threads, so I'll present an expanded version of it here:
This is by Dr. Colin Dray, a Lit professor:
Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut – A Disappointed Fan Responds Professor Dray posted a version of his article in the forums. The post is long, but I highly, highly recommend it:
- "All Were Thematically Revolting". My Lit Professor's take on the Endings. (UPDATED) (Mass Effect 3 - Mass Effect 3 Story and Campaign Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)) | BioWare Social Network Even if you accept the Insane AI-God interpretation, Star-jar’s proffered choices and their execution irrevocably break established ME themes and lore. I choose Reject on principle--most importantly, on principles and themes already established in the ME series right up until Shepard the Shepherd ascends unto the AI-God's magical home.
Let’s look at the Catalyst’s (Star-jar’s) retconned dialogue. In both the original and EC endings, Star-jar asserts his Solution early on: the Reapers harvest organic species capable of creating synthetics because creating synthetics inevitably results in conflict. That conflict will result inevitably in synthetics destroying all organic life in the galaxy.
OK. However, when you examine Star-jar’s expanded EC dialogue, he says the Reapers harvest both organic and synthetic life. A BioWare writer realized if the Reapers harvest only organics, then synthetics would remain to complete their pogrom. Oops.
Besides smashing established ME themes to atoms, the endings are based on two plot devices that wash away ME lore in a Space Magic tidal wave: the Star-jar deus ex machina and Crucible-Space Magic Wand.
Make no mistake: Star-jar is a deus ex machina plot device. That term means more than just a literal god from a machine. Here’s the expanded definition:
Deus ex machina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Even if Star-jar is an insane AI versus a god, it has deific powers regardless. Consider:
Many have noted EMS has virtually nothing to do with actual military strength’s effect on the finale. It’s a mechanic to determine the number and nature of choices you get at endgame.
So in the “real” game world, the Crucible would have to be built with all possible EMS assets and their values included. This data would include items such as whether or not doctors at Huerta Memorial would feel bad about themselves if an Asari huntress they treated committed suicide. To detect these data, the Crucible would have to be omnipresent—even while it’s under construction.
The Catalyst would also have to know the number and worth of assets available so it could determine how many assets Shepard gathered via the Crucible and their derived worth. In other words, to have the Citadel magically pop-up the right pipes and Space Magic fountain, the Catalyst would have to know whether or not the Crucible accomplished its mission fully. So the Catalyst would have to be omniscient.
Then, in the Synthesis ending in particular, the Catalyst-Crucible hybrid would need to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. Why? Because the Catalyst-Crucible projects a Space-Magic beam containing Shepard’s DNA—the DNA of one human being—via the relays throughout the entire galaxy to combine organic DNA and synthetic code at the molecular level to create a new life form—I say again, to create a new life form. This beam would have to reach systems that –don’t have relays--. It would have to reach ships, space stations, etc. out of relay range.
So Synthesis creates new life, and to know whether or not Synthesis worked the Catalyst would have to know where all targets were and ascertain if those targets were converted: the Catalyst must be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. In other words, it must have the powers of a god as we commonly define one. Does –any- of this seem consistent with established ME lore?
Bottom line: to make any sense of this fanciful tripe players must suspend disbelief by dropping their intelligence and logic into a Grand Canyon-sized trench. Here’s how I reconcile it:
The Real Hero Of Mass Effect Explains How - And Why - The 'Reject Ending' Works - Forbes Griffiths’ headcanon accepts the nutty-AI premise and runs with it to Reject. I was one who adamantly argued for a Reject ending, so I run with Griffiths (and I freely admit I’m a huge Liara fan). Note Griffith's version accepts the Reaper victory. All advanced organic and synthetic species are destroyed, harvested, reaped. I'll choose the future over Star-jars' ludicrous, ridiculous, repellent options every time.
And I’m one of those who believe the next (or future) cycle(s) heeded Liara’s warning and did not use the Crucible as presented in ME3, despite Mike Gamble’s retcon Tweet to the contrary. Liara says plainly it didn’t work and warns future Cycles not to make the same mistakes her Cycle did. She’d include info on all the time, energy, and resources her Cycle poured into the Crucible—and it didn’t work. Is it reasonable to assume a subsequent Cycle would build another Crucible? C’mon now.
The only way they’d build another Crucible is if they found more data that explained explicitly how it worked--whether or not they’d build it and use it if it performed as advertised for Shepard is a whole nother debate. Given what Liara specifically says, in-game--despite retcon Tweets to the contrary--I contend her data enabled future cycles to reverse engineer a weapon that would work another way.
So the ME3 ending, including the EC, fails: it fails as fiction, it fails as the finale to an epic trilogy, and it fails to deliver what ME3’s writers, developers, and producers promised. And that’s the real tragic ending of ME3.
Modifié par Aquilas, 03 juillet 2012 - 02:32 .
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