293 réponses à ce sujet

[robertthebard]

MetioricTest wrote...

Now first off this isn't an ending topic. I'm not saying I want a convential victory or it should be included in DLC or anything like that. I frankly didn't and don't care how the end of the war went down so long as it was told well.

But since this whole "conventional victory" stuff popping up recently (I think some people are calling it the new IT) I've seen literally hundreds of people declare that it is and always was impossible, presented as such since the first game.

And to that I say bull****.

If victory was an impossibility and pointless to attempt until Liara found the crucible plans on the floor at the start of the game. Why did it matter that the council refused to believe the Reaper threat? Why was that dramatic? **** it, if defeat at the hands of Reapers was assured unless someone stumbles over an "I win" button, we may as well deny Reaper existance and die in happiness instead of long drawn out agonizing death. Hell the stumbling part can happen either way (as indeed it did)

What's the relevance of bringing Shepard back to life and stopping the Collectors from abducting human colonies? Saving a few lives? We'd save even more if we took all the resources/time/effort we spent into doing that and instead put it into curing dieases and giving it to hospitals.

Why does it matter whether or not we save Toombs? Take down the Shadow Broker? 

What's the dramatic value in anything, anything at all if at absolute best all it means is "Well, at least we'll go down swinging a little bit more when we all die." That's terrible... The point always was working towards the ultimate goal of defeating the Reapers.

Now don't misunderstand my point here. I'll repeat I'm not saying this as a "And so they should have made it an option!" I'm saying "Within the context of the story it should have been possible or else the story loses a lot of meaning and drama."

The entire trilogy and ME3 especially is so much stronger if:
"We could have beaten the Reapers If only.... The council listened two years ago."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... We would unify our fleets, even at the cost of our homeworld's security."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... The Asari had shared knowledge of the prothean beacon."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... The Batarians had been more cooperative."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... Miranda's butt wasn't distracting the admirals."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... TIM's obsession didn't lead him to indoctrination and he had worked with us."
Etc.
And now we have to fall back on this desperate crucible plan because of the folly of man.

As opposed to:
"Never had a chance. Good thing Liara found those plans 5 minutes ago."

Just my thoughts. In my "headcannon" or whatever (I don't like that term for some reason) defeating the Reapers was always possible. It just was never realized due to arrogance and denial.  I find that to be a much more powerful and moral story than "We were always ****ed but then we discovered the Death Star."

This is my position on Conv Vic theory:

If the council had listened, and started preparing once they had verification of Sovereign, and if Miranda had been deployed to just the right place, at just the right time(ok, not really, but it is kinda funny) and people lost the idea that the war would be short enough that they could bring Shep and LI together for some post war cuddle time, it's possible.  We could have fought them essentially the same way the Protheans did, with the distinct advantage of our cycle not being dominated by one race, and the combined might, with various different strategies, specialties may have given us an advantage.  However, when the wolf is through the door, it's too late to drop barricades, which is what we have in ME 3.  The war is already started, and we're no where near ready for them.

[AlexMBrennan]

OP, you're unfortunately wrong. If conventional victory had always been possible, *then* ME1 and ME2 would have been completely irrelevant. Rather than stopping Saren we could have had it out then and there. Rather than delaying the inevitably by blowing up that relay, we could have had it out then and there.

With the Crucible, defeating the Reapers at least nominally depends on the previous games because Liara wouldn't have found the data if the Reapers hadn't been delayed. Sure, it sucks, but if you're absolutely determined to have a massive Reaper invasion after wasting ME2 on the Collector non-threat, that's about the best you can do. Shepard's link to the plot is tenuous enough as it is (the only thing that makes Shepard plot integral in ME2 and ME3 is the beacon on Thessia... which could be handled by prothy as well) - I really don't think you could still call it "Shepard's story" if you were to have your way.

What should have happened: Shepard stops Sovereign in ME1, and ME2 is spent working out how the Reaper can be defeated (anti-Reaper EMP, keystone army reveal, frequency remodulator to render their barriers ineffective, whatever) and use ME3 to deploy it. Change Collectors from building a human Reaper to just opposing the Alliance research effort (and/or opening another relay to dark space).

[taggen86]

It took a huge part of the citadel fleet to take down one sovereign class reaper after deactivating its shields. The end of ME2 reveals that there are at least 200 of these (without any possibility to deactivate their shields given what we know). The only reapers shepard took down in me3 were the very small ground based destroyers.

=Conventional victory do not make sense and requires space magic. 

Modifié par taggen86, 17 juillet 2012 - 08:12 .

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

Not being able to win conventionally does not tarnish the first two games because the first two games werent about defeating the reapers.

ME1 was about stopping Saren and the Geth, Soverign was a last minute curveball and the reaper threat became a looming one. The goal was to stop the reapers and drive them back to dark space and shepard left to look for a way to do that. This should have set up the crucible mission.

ME2 was about stopping an unknown threat and preparing for a suicide mission. It didnt really have to do with the reapers either. You assemble a dirty dozen and go on a big fat mission. This game is not tarnished by the crucible because it wasnt about the reapers, it was about the collectors.

ME3 was the first game that was about stopping the reapers, no previous games are tarnished by the way ME3 ends. It does not trivialize stopping Saren and the Geth from finding the Mu Relay and activating the Deactivated Citadel. It does not trivialize stopping the Collectors from Harvesting human colonies and attacking Earth. The reaper invasion itself might trivialize these conflicts, but the Crucible storyline does not have anything to do with the previous two stories.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

OP, you're unfortunately wrong. If conventional victory had always been possible, *then* ME1 and ME2 would have been completely irrelevant. Rather than stopping Saren we could have had it out then and there. Rather than delaying the inevitably by blowing up that relay, we could have had it out then and there.

With the Crucible, defeating the Reapers at least nominally depends on the previous games because Liara wouldn't have found the data if the Reapers hadn't been delayed. Sure, it sucks, but if you're absolutely determined to have a massive Reaper invasion after wasting ME2 on the Collector non-threat, that's about the best you can do. Shepard's link to the plot is tenuous enough as it is (the only thing that makes Shepard plot integral in ME2 and ME3 is the beacon on Thessia... which could be handled by prothy as well) - I really don't think you could still call it "Shepard's story" if you were to have your way.

What should have happened: Shepard stops Sovereign in ME1, and ME2 is spent working out how the Reaper can be defeated (anti-Reaper EMP, keystone army reveal, frequency remodulator to render their barriers ineffective, whatever) and use ME3 to deploy it. Change Collectors from building a human Reaper to just opposing the Alliance research effort (and/or opening another relay to dark space).

What I think a very elegant and simple solution is that ties in with established narrative without changing anything important: While aboard the Collector Base Shepard uncovers Collector-Encrypted data on the location of a Prothean Weapon in the Sol System.  Unfortunately the data will take several months to decrypt (The data points to a specific location in a hidden underground bunker on Mars)  At the end of the game you can hand the data over to Cerberus for analysis, take it back to the Alliance to have them look it over, or leave it with Edi to decrypt.

What this does is important:
It makes the Collector motivations clear.  They were preparing to decimate human populations, scatter human armies across colonies, and use a human reaper to lead the assault on planet earth so they could find the crucible plans and destroy them.  The information from the data would have been in the minds of top prothean scientists that were indoctrinated and turned into collectors.  The reason for the implied attack on earth (Collector Ship mission hints at it) would be to acquire the Crucible plans and destroy them so that the device could not be used against them.

This also sets up the ME3 story better because now we know what to expect.  Reguardless of who you give the data to it would be a perfect opportunity for a trademark "meaningless choice" scenario where all 3 results point to the same conclusion.  The alliance gets ahold of the Data, Cerberus spies get involved, Edi is drydocked, Hackett assigns Liara to the dig site.  ME3 stays the same, but a subtle inclusion into the ending of ME2 (requiring two additional scenes)  would fix so many issues in what would bridge the 3 games as a dependant trilogy.  It would make ME2 mean something to the overall story.

[Outamyhead]

Mr.House wrote...

Miracle of Palavan and Rannoch. Sure it was not the entire Reaper force, but if the united fleet used those tactics and where not idiots during the battle of Sol a conventional victory, while costly is indeed possible. Also the Reapers have one massive flaw. They can't replenish their numbers, only their foot soldiers. If you keep destroying so many dreadnaughts it will hurt the reapers in the long run because it takes to long to make Reapers. Also if you have the geth and rachni alive, they can build ships between clusters, and if you cured the genophage you will have unlimited krogan krogan troops at your hand(see krogan rebellions of why it ended with a bio weapon)

Not to mention if ME2 was not a waste of time and we in fact got people ready for the invasion, got all ships with thanix canons, made sure we had alot of dreadnaughts ready and the council where not complete utter morons then it would have been possible. ME2 hurt the main story arc ALOT because of it doing nothing.

Well you have to remember in ME2 the Reapers got the collectors to try and take out Shepard and his entire crew full of threats to the Repaer invasion, which failed in a way because he was brought back (not to mention all the key members of personnel made it out), and got an even bigger team of whoop ass, the only thing that helped the Reapers invade with fair ease, was the fact Shepard was out of action for two years so no one was pushing the tech, or preperations for the impending and inevitable invasion.

And they weren't being reminded every five minutes that Reapers were real, and then he was locked up for six months because of the Alpha relay incident so he couldn't bug Mordin about his morals of curing the Krogan, but then Mordin wouldn't have been at the research base if he had hung about with Shep and the gang either and found out about Eve.

So there are plenty of reasons why the galaxy wasn't ready, and one small group of military war assets were.

Modifié par Outamyhead, 17 juillet 2012 - 07:25 .

[The Spamming Troll]

in my head cannon ME2 and ME3 do not exist.

[NoirCZ]

Just a quick question: Wasnt there somewhere in the codex that 3 dreadnaughts are so-so for capital reaper ship and 4 of them overload the reaper shield for sure...?? GETH are/were networked AI god damn it. And even EDI can sync up other ships in the fleet for her targeting. I think they would be more than capable to concentrate fire in 4 to 1 ratio to take down reapers one by one, Even if it were for hit and run through relays or jumping out from hyper, shooting, jumping back...

The damage that Soverign did... I account that to fact that he completely surprised the fleets... now they would expect already what reapers can do. Shepard even can get some Asari a reaper code to predict reaper movement god damn it use it to target them better?
I guess they did not go all out with dreadnaughts main guns because they feared hitting Earth by misfire? Then again... sync it up via the perfect AIs at hand?

[wantedman dan]

The smell of MacGuffin in the morning is sweet isn't it, OP?

[SuperVulcan]

The Spamming Troll wrote...

in my head cannon ME2 and ME3 do not exist.

I wish I had imagination like you. Seriously. To me, ME 2 was like a bad fanfic. 

[The Spamming Troll]

SuperVulcan wrote...

The Spamming Troll wrote...

in my head cannon ME2 and ME3 do not exist.

I wish I had imagination like you. Seriously. To me, ME 2 was like a bad fanfic. 

...by a 9 year old who just read a bunch of comic books.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

NoirCZ wrote...

Just a quick question: Wasnt there somewhere in the codex that 3 dreadnaughts are so-so for capital reaper ship and 4 of them overload the reaper shield for sure...?? GETH are/were networked AI god damn it. And even EDI can sync up other ships in the fleet for her targeting. I think they would be more than capable to concentrate fire in 4 to 1 ratio to take down reapers one by one, Even if it were for hit and run through relays or jumping out from hyper, shooting, jumping back...

The damage that Soverign did... I account that to fact that he completely surprised the fleets... now they would expect already what reapers can do. Shepard even can get some Asari a reaper code to predict reaper movement god damn it use it to target them better?
I guess they did not go all out with dreadnaughts main guns because they feared hitting Earth by misfire? Then again... sync it up via the perfect AIs at hand?

This is assuming reapers just sit there like videogame bosses and let themselves be shot abunch while barely trying to kill you.  (Seriously how many videogames are designed where theres a boss that just sits in one spot and points his glowing weakspot at the player while doing nothing for 12 second intervals?


In actuality a reaper force would alter their strategies to overwhelm the dreadnaughts and focus entirely on them, overpowering them.  if 4 of our 200 or so dreadnaughts can handle one reaper how are they supposed to handle the entire armada?  At best that'd be 50 to 1 odds with no casualties or damage on our side.  as soon as we start losing dreadnoughts things start going exponentially bad for us.

Also about edi and geth trying to hack reapers, you know that the reapers were hacking geth on rannoch right?  That was a single destroyer, not even a real reaper, and it was able to control the entire geth fleet.  Theres no way edi could hack harbinger or even a destroyer.  come on now be realistic.  :/

[The Night Mammoth]

taggen86 wrote...

It took a huge part of the citadel fleet to take down one sovereign class reaper after deactivating its shields. The end of ME2 reveals that there are at least 200 of these (without any possibility to deactivate their shields given what we know). The only reapers shepard took down in me3 were the very small ground based destroyers.

Missing the point completely. This isn't an argument concerning the plausibility of a conventional victory, read the f*cking post at the top of the first page. 

=Conventional victory do not make sense and requires space magic. 

The irony of that statement given what the ending is like even after the EC makes my head hurt. 

[sistersafetypin]

DistantUtopia wrote...

MetioricTest wrote...
(snip)
Just my thoughts. In my "headcannon" or whatever (I don't like that term for some reason) defeating the Reapers was always possible. It just was never realized to arrogance and denial.  I find that to be a much more powerful and moral story than "We were always ****ed but then we discovered the Death Star."

A very good post and quite a compelling argument why within the narrative, a coventional victory should be possible.

And OP, I think ultimately you're right. Arrogance got in the way

[NoirCZ]

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

NoirCZ wrote...

Just a quick question: Wasnt there somewhere in the codex that 3 dreadnaughts are so-so for capital reaper ship and 4 of them overload the reaper shield for sure...?? GETH are/were networked AI god damn it. And even EDI can sync up other ships in the fleet for her targeting. I think they would be more than capable to concentrate fire in 4 to 1 ratio to take down reapers one by one, Even if it were for hit and run through relays or jumping out from hyper, shooting, jumping back...

The damage that Soverign did... I account that to fact that he completely surprised the fleets... now they would expect already what reapers can do. Shepard even can get some Asari a reaper code to predict reaper movement god damn it use it to target them better?
I guess they did not go all out with dreadnaughts main guns because they feared hitting Earth by misfire? Then again... sync it up via the perfect AIs at hand?

This is assuming reapers just sit there like videogame bosses and let themselves be shot abunch while barely trying to kill you.  (Seriously how many videogames are designed where theres a boss that just sits in one spot and points his glowing weakspot at the player while doing nothing for 12 second intervals?


In actuality a reaper force would alter their strategies to overwhelm the dreadnaughts and focus entirely on them, overpowering them.  if 4 of our 200 or so dreadnaughts can handle one reaper how are they supposed to handle the entire armada?  At best that'd be 50 to 1 odds with no casualties or damage on our side.  as soon as we start losing dreadnoughts things start going exponentially bad for us.

Also about edi and geth trying to hack reapers, you know that the reapers were hacking geth on rannoch right?  That was a single destroyer, not even a real reaper, and it was able to control the entire geth fleet.  Theres no way edi could hack harbinger or even a destroyer.  come on now be realistic.  :/

I wasnt talking about Geth and EDI hacking reapers, but about them coordinating the fire, like EDI did with the reaper on Ranoch, or like EDI helped with targeting the THANIX missiles.
And about reapers sitting in place... it sure looked like they did in the cinematics... even if not, codex said that turians were able ot outmaneuver reapers at least partially. Plus with the asari working on reaper code to predict their movement...

Another question... what the hell are THANIX missiles anyway? I thought that THANIX cannon was a gun developed from reaper tech, shooting stream of molten metal or something... how do you put that onto missile? I wonder if the normal THANIX cannon fire can be countered... I mean normal torpedo from main gun (gauss gun?) can be shot down by GARDIAN lasers...

Modifié par NoirCZ, 17 juillet 2012 - 10:31 .

[Ticonderoga117]

Hell yeah OP.
What's the drama of anything if we trip over the "I win" button at the end of it all.
I mean c'mon! It makes everything effectively null and void for choice.

[GreyLycanTrope]

I always felt the game was more about finding humanity's place in the galaxy and unifying the galaxy through whatever means you deem necessary, not about finding the magic kill all Reapers button in the last possible moment.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 17 juillet 2012 - 10:43 .

[Klijpope]

sth128 wrote...
If you cannot win, there's no point in trying. It's like alchemy. You can't change lead into gold. Just stop. Appointing the best chemists and metallurgists in the galaxy won't change a thing, ME3 will still be a block of lead instead of gold.

John Dee would have words with you... 

Alchemy leads to chemistry - it certainly wasn't a waste of time. Just as astrology gave us the tools for astronomy.

[DriftingMustang]

all those if only's didnt happen though

[Hudathan]

You weren't fighting thousands upon thousands of Reapers in the first two games.

[MetioricTest]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

OP, you're unfortunately wrong. If conventional victory had always been possible, *then* ME1 and ME2 would have been completely irrelevant. Rather than stopping Saren we could have had it out then and there. Rather than delaying the inevitably by blowing up that relay, we could have had it out then and there.

No because we would have still needed the two years of preperation to get it done. We also would have still needed to stop Saren and stop the Collectors.

This is why I said "If only" and listed things that didn't happen.

I'm not saying an alliance ship should trash a Reaper ship for the fun of space battles. I'm saying it's a more powerful story if the defeat and desperation comes from our own faults. Not our own faults are irrelevant becuase no matter what we're screwed but luckily we found an I win button. That's... just a bad story.

And I strongly believe people only started to really accept that as the story to counter the guys who was asking for conventional victory DLC. Which I think is off the mark.

Not being able to win conventionally does not tarnish the first two
games because the first two games werent about defeating the reapers.

ME1
was about stopping Saren and the Geth, Soverign was a last minute
curveball and the reaper threat became a looming one. The goal was to
stop the reapers and drive them back to dark space and shepard left to
look for a way to do that. This should have set up the crucible
mission.

ME2 was about stopping an unknown threat and preparing
for a suicide mission. It didnt really have to do with the reapers
either. You assemble a dirty dozen and go on a big fat mission. This
game is not tarnished by the crucible because it wasnt about the
reapers, it was about the collectors.

ME3 was the first game that
was about stopping the reapers, no previous games are tarnished by the
way ME3 ends. It does not trivialize stopping Saren and the Geth from
finding the Mu Relay and activating the Deactivated Citadel. It does
not trivialize stopping the Collectors from Harvesting human colonies
and attacking Earth. The reaper invasion itself might trivialize these
conflicts, but the Crucible storyline does not have anything to do with
the previous two stories.
?

I disagree. It was about working towards defeating the Reapers. You stopped Saren because would lead the Reapers to defeat you, you stopped the Collectors because they were Reaper allies. You battled Soverign/Harbinger and delayed them to defeat the Reapers.

If the entire time actually defeating the Reapers when they turn up is compeletely impossible... All this stuff that came before it was pointless. And then as such, becomes a pointless story. I can't buy into the drama and tension of choices and consequences of ME1 and ME2 if I decide that there are none.

And I feel that the point and purpose of Shepard's attitude and the attitudes of everyone he mets become tarnished if they don't mean anything.

The Council denying the Reaper existance is only interesting and aggrivating if it changes something. If the universe would have been different and better off if they never denied Reaper existance. If it's exactly the same in every way, I don't care what they do and infact think they're in the right for denying it and giving their people more happiness.

Why is it displayed as a bad thing that the races wouldn't come together out of fear of their homeworlds. I don't blame them, buy your people some more time instead of sending out an entire unified fleet to be crushed in one blow because victory is impossible. Not helping other becomes an absolutely superb option.

I'll also repeat that if conventional victory was always an impossbility, it was idiotic of Shepard and co to constantly try to get everyone to build armies and prepare for them. Instead they should have recruited scientists and rearched every promising corner into some kind of virus or pulse to defeat the Reapers.

Considering Liara screwed around for two years, then found the crucible plans in a couple of months.... It would clearly have been a sensible course of action.

Shepard's actions and the game's narrative only work if conventional victory was possible. The story is also morally much stronger for it. And so is the crucible. The crucible as the desperation fallback option because of our folly works quite well. The crucible as our only option because nothing else matters... Well it's kinda lame.


I honestly think if people here replayed ME1 and ME2 again but kept in mind that conventional victory is absolutely impossible and none of the actions/choices matter... They'd realize how bad they've just made the game (and the crucible when ME3 comes round) become... Needlessly.

Modifié par MetioricTest, 17 juillet 2012 - 11:38 .

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

NoirCZ wrote...

I wasnt talking about Geth and EDI hacking reapers, but about them coordinating the fire, like EDI did with the reaper on Ranoch, or like EDI helped with targeting the THANIX missiles.
And about reapers sitting in place... it sure looked like they did in the cinematics... even if not, codex said that turians were able ot outmaneuver reapers at least partially. Plus with the asari working on reaper code to predict their movement...

Another question... what the hell are THANIX missiles anyway? I thought that THANIX cannon was a gun developed from reaper tech, shooting stream of molten metal or something... how do you put that onto missile? I wonder if the normal THANIX cannon fire can be countered... I mean normal torpedo from main gun (gauss gun?) can be shot down by GARDIAN lasers...

The codex about that also stated that the advantages in maneuverability were marginal at best. 

The reapers adapt to tactics and exploit them.  Its brought up in the codex and by javik.  They're hyper intelligent synthetic lifeforms.  they're not just a ship, each of them is a nation.  When you attack earth its a surprise assault against a defensive fleet thats busy harvesting humans from earth to the citadel for reaper creation.  They dont actually "stay in place" for long.  If you have low EMS you see more of the reapers' battle superiority in the initial assault and the docking of the crucible.  sadly bioware didnt invest the time to give us a really complicated space battle to play with (though there are remnants within the game of prototypes for it)  In any place, every notation by the turians for every small victory ends with powerful losses that render the tactics useless for further combat.  The reapers are toying wtih us.  Asari trying to predict thier movements is grasping at best and doomed for failure at worse.  The reapers are living beings with intelligence and firepower far beyond what we're capable of. 

We just dont get to see it because ea rushed the game so bioware was forced to leave it up to our imagination by describing it in codex.  We didnt get to see the big battle so abunch of people are just assuming that it was winnable because of how other battles in the game have went (Collectors, Destroyers).  Maybe bioware can do a "reaper big fat battle" dlc where they show us how terrifying reapers are in combat.  A Destroyer isnt a true reaper, it doesnt have the intelligence, size, firepower, or defenses of its greater bretheren.  We never get to see a fleet get decimated by actual reapers, we just fight thier grunts and infantry.  Maybe we'll get a DLC where people who didnt replay ME1 enough times to understand what was going on in the confusing space battle at the end will get the chance to see a real reaper in action and witness how devastatingly powerful and unstoppable they are when they're not practically ignoring us.  (I'm really bummed that we didnt encounter more indoctrinated people throughout the game, thats the reapers bread and butter.  that and being huge.)

Modifié par Doctor_Jackstraw, 17 juillet 2012 - 11:44 .

[jeffyg93]

Hudathan wrote...

You weren't fighting thousands upon thousands of Reapers in the first two games.

Yeah.. b...bu...but the Reapers lost a couple destroyers in the Battle of Palevan! A lone destroyer was hardly able to be killed by the entire ****ing Quarian fleet! The largest of all thresher maws was able to kill a small Reaper on the ground.

Clearly the unprepared galaxy can defeat an enemy that:

• Outnumbers them
• Is technologically superior
• Is physically stronger
• Has the combat experience of millions of millions of years
• Doesn't have to worry about supplies, homeworlds to defend, or morality
• Has already conquered at least 50% of the known habitable galaxy by the climax of the game

Finally, here are a few cherry-picked codex entries that show the Reapers are, in fact, capable of being destroyed! Yay, confirmation bias!

Seriously, people who think conventional victory is possible are ignorant of what war of attrition is. The Reapers don't give a **** about how many losses they take. There may be a few ****ing cases in which the destruction of the galaxy is stalled, but that is a battle, not a war. Wars are long term. And all things considered, the Reapers willl kick ass in any long-term engagements. They do not have anything to protect and have innate indoctrination powers. Give up this argument guys.

[Morogrem]

MetioricTest wrote...

Now first off this isn't an ending topic. I'm not saying I want a convential victory or it should be included in DLC or anything like that. I frankly didn't and don't care how the end of the war went down so long as it was told well.

But since this whole "conventional victory" stuff popping up recently (I think some people are calling it the new IT) I've seen literally hundreds of people declare that it is and always was impossible, presented as such since the first game.

And to that I say bull****.

If victory was an impossibility and pointless to attempt until Liara found the crucible plans on the floor at the start of the game. Why did it matter that the council refused to believe the Reaper threat? Why was that dramatic? **** it, if defeat at the hands of Reapers was assured unless someone stumbles over an "I win" button, we may as well deny Reaper existance and die in happiness instead of long drawn out agonizing death. Hell the stumbling part can happen either way (as indeed it did)

What's the relevance of bringing Shepard back to life and stopping the Collectors from abducting human colonies? Saving a few lives? We'd save even more if we took all the resources/time/effort we spent into doing that and instead put it into curing dieases and giving it to hospitals.

Why does it matter whether or not we save Toombs? Take down the Shadow Broker? 

What's the dramatic value in anything, anything at all if at absolute best all it means is "Well, at least we'll go down swinging a little bit more when we all die." That's terrible... The point always was working towards the ultimate goal of defeating the Reapers.

Now don't misunderstand my point here. I'll repeat I'm not saying this as a "And so they should have made it an option!" I'm saying "Within the context of the story it should have been possible or else the story loses a lot of meaning and drama."

The entire trilogy and ME3 especially is so much stronger if:
"We could have beaten the Reapers If only.... The council listened two years ago."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... We would unify our fleets, even at the cost of our homeworld's security."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... The Asari had shared knowledge of the prothean beacon."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... The Batarians had been more cooperative."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... Miranda's butt wasn't distracting the admirals."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... TIM's obsession didn't lead him to indoctrination and he had worked with us."
Etc.
And now we have to fall back on this desperate crucible plan because of the folly of man.

As opposed to:
"Never had a chance. Good thing Liara found those plans 5 minutes ago."

Just my thoughts. In my "headcannon" or whatever (I don't like that term for some reason) defeating the Reapers was always possible. It just was never realized due to arrogance and denial.  I find that to be a much more powerful and moral story than "We were always ****ed but then we discovered the Death Star."

heres the problem with your theory... the 3rd game is all about that we unified way too late.  If, in the 1st game they had listened we wouldve had more time to prepare instead of a last minute, last ditch effort. Under the cercumstances of you needing to unify the galaxy DURING the invasion of the reapers, yeah it's perfectly acceptable that a conventional victory is off the table. I'm sorry, but that was the point of the last game, it appears that you missed it.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

MetioricTest wrote...

I'm not saying an alliance ship should trash a Reaper ship for the fun of space battles. I'm saying it's a more powerful story if the defeat and desperation comes from our own faults. Not our own faults are irrelevant becuase no matter what we're screwed but luckily we found an I win button. That's... just a bad story.

The discovery of the Atomic Bomb was an I win button for America, are you saying World War 2 was a bad story?


A "Device" story isnt an inherently bad concept.  Also as an asside, claiming "space magic" is ridiculous when Mass Effect is built on space magic.  

Biotics, Indoctrination, Hiveminds, Psychokinesis, Mind Melding, Aliens that can live for a thousand years, on and instantaneous information transfer via touch.  That's a good one.  Mass effect is full of magic.  Most of this they dont even bother hinting at explanations for, yet a wave of energy that can rewrite DNA or destroy constructs is magic?  Its only a hop skip and a jump away from how actual nuclear radiation works.  (Mutations caused by radiation is a real thing, dna being rewritten, ect)