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[Either.Ardrey]

Davik Kang wrote...

Is it possible that the Kid's voice could be Leviathan's?  ...snip...

Well, the Kid's voice was in the original pre-EC game, while Leviathan was Anthony Skordi, hired specifically to voice Leviathan, so no.

[Davik Kang]

NebuchadnezzaRT wrote...
While many non-ITers will chalk up our ending (the breathe scene, per se not an ending but the only "real" scene at the end of the game) to "head canon" so in reality, ending-wise, the burden of proof is on us ITers (and Davik I know your feeling on IT haha). 

The thing is, I am not so sure.  A lot of the stuff I've looked at recently has really really demonstrated IT as the true ending.  Simultaneously, I've seen things that cast doubt on all kinds of other stuff too.  I've always thought that IT was intended to be a possible interpretation of the ending, and recently I've seen things that point to it more than ever.

But it seems there's so much more.  It seems like the IT debacle has split the fans into two camps, pro-IT and anti-IT.  But I think there's a hell of a lot more.  The IT divide means that a lot of arguments end up as a 'dream or not dream' debate, which can't be answered... the divide over the endings and their moral implications is another thing that turns discussions into moral arguments, instead of discussions about what we actually see.

The nice thing about this thread is it's one of the fwe where people knwo and respect each other enough to discuss things openly, and the nature of the OP means that people in this thread tend to be more open minded to confusing and even contradictory ideas, which is one of the reasons why it's so succesful as a thread and why even non-ITers want to discuss things here.

I suspect my new thread isn't going anywhere, so I might go through the Hackett stuff to see what some of you might think, if you're interested.

[jojon2se]

Off topic, but no matter how amusing I find Javik's insensitivity in the Atheme temple, the revelations on the uplifting of the Asari really ruined Thessia for me.
I had imagined a biosphere so saturated in eezo that pretty much all life had innate biotic properties and hoped we'd get to visit part of some sort of zoo, where we could see gravity-defying plants and wierd animals. Oh well... :7

Modifié par jojon2se, 24 octobre 2012 - 04:19 .

[Davik Kang]

starlitegirlx wrote...
Humans don't have time to waste like asari. Humans do things alone as came up in ME1  and ME2 when people didn't like all the aliens on shepard's team and then they disbanded them after Shepard's death. Humans are emotionally powerful. I never really saw that any other species had the fire depicted of humans to progress. Turians were mainly disciplined which is often slower and more plodding. I'll stick with those races as the main examples as they are the ones that are key. All of this is why we scared the council and even other races and why we progressed so quickly within MEU. The same is implied of how humans are in ST enterprise except we were held back by Vulcans because they found us to be to firey/emotional. I think they used that dynamic in building the MEU. I read that they were even concerned it would be like ST so they had to be more creative in what they came up with for ME.

Right.  It is heavily implied from ME2 that humans are the target race for the new Reaper.  They have the genetic adaptability, combined strengths of other races without weakness, and necessary 'fire' as you put it.  Shepard is the embodiment of their strengths (though TIM is somewhat described as the same - in the codex I think?)  and is the one who leads everyone to Earth ultimately.

Note that

- the Citadel is their tool for harvesting the species.  They bring it to Earth for 'protection' apparently, but if they're harvesting people with it, weren't they always going to bring it to Earth?

- the 'Prothean' ruins with the designs for the Crucible were found right next to Earth.  Not only that, but found only at the last minute.  Because there was suddenly 'renewed interest' in the site according to datapads.  Why?  Very convenient, and I doubt this is just lazy writing.  It is specifically found on Mars.  We assume the site to be Prothean because that's what humanity thought when they found it 40 years ago or whenever.

- the Prothean AI says they couldn't determine exaclty when the Crucible was adapted to incorporate Reaper tech (the Citadel).  Just during some 'previous cycle'.  And all the warnings around TIMs base are of the dangers of using Reaper tech for your own ends.

Can this really be all coincidence and bad writing?  Maybe, but I relaly really doubt it.  It's too specific imo.

[smokingotter1]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

snip*

I don't believe there will actually be post-breath scene content. I would like it, but I don't believe in it.

I think we are meant to believe that we won by beating the Reapers' ultimate weapon: indoctrination.

This. I strongly doubt we'll have epic post breath content myself. I just don't see it happening.

[Davik Kang]

Either.Ardrey wrote...
Well, the Kid's voice was in the original pre-EC game, while Leviathan was Anthony Skordi, hired specifically to voice Leviathan, so no.

Ok thank you.

SwobyJ wrote...
Yeah, while Hackett is ...inspiring, there's always been strange stuff about him. 

This stuff doesn't mean 'Alliance is da enemy!' but more 'like any faction, its withholding information (see Asari, Turians, etc etc etc)'

Indeed.  Voice of reason - good stuff!  That seems to be the most plausible explanation at this stage.

But as you say, there's something off about Hackett.  I was first puzzled by the scene post-Cerberus base.  We don;t get a message from Hackett asking to come aboard.  Instead, a ship pulls up alongside the Normandy and connects a chute, almost as if they're boarding it like a pirate ship (anyone seen the old 80's Transformers movie?)  The he asks for permission.  He's through the door almost straight away, followed by two heavies with heavy pistols which aren't holstered.  It looks quite hostile right?

So then I watched the plan conjured up by Hackett and Anderson.  This is where the whole Priority Earth comes from.  Anderson handwaves the plan as due to there being a new beam which lifts people up to the Citadel.  How does he know this?  Apparently the Citadel has only just been moved to Sol.  Note also that we never see a beam from the Citadel going down to Earth.  We just see a light come on as if it's preparing to fire.

So basically the whole final plan involves Hackett and Anderson telling everybody to rush toward a big light beam that looks like a Reaper artifact and is surrounded by piles of corpses.  It's very Charge of the Light Brigade, even by the way it's portrayed on Earth, as we see an endless line of soldiers and tanks marching toward the beam.

For the sake of brevity I'll cut short here, but there are some really interesting things I found out about Hackett and the Alliance... will post soon.

[Rankincountry]

starlitegirlx wrote...

Rankincountry wrote...
That's a bit strong - I certainly don't hate you. You do have some barmy notions, though . But yeah, the only other species that achieved anything like the advances made by humanity was, of course, the Krogan. And of course, they were being manipulated all the way. So I don't think it's a huge leap to think that there is something behind humanity's dizzying ascent to power. The convenience of the Prothean archive both historically and with the crucible designs, TIM... and if we continue the thought that behind TIM is not Harbinger but Leviathan, maybe humanity is Leviathan's last throw of the dice - a species driven, courageous and violent enough to stop the reapers, but still susceptible to Thralldom? 

Maybe I'm reaching here, I don't know, but the more I think about this the more I feel like there's something to it.

I think Humans weren't uplifted but the reality of our species compared to others is quite different. Asari live for a thousand years and waste the first 200 being mercs and dancers. So they will be slow to progress and actually their progress was due to Protheans.

I don't remember how long Turians live, but they did have 15k years of civilization as said in ME3 I think by Primarch Victus. So they would be slow movers as well. Salarians have such short life spans that they would be forced to be slow to progress. They also lack the emotional intensity humans have because of their short lives. As mordin put it in ME2, they basically didn't have time to waste on emotions and process things very quickly.

Humans don't have time to waste like asari. Humans do things alone as came up in ME1  and ME2 when people didn't like all the aliens on shepard's team and then they disbanded them after Shepard's death. Humans are emotionally powerful. I never really saw that any other species had the fire depicted of humans to progress. Turians were mainly disciplined which is often slower and more plodding. I'll stick with those races as the main examples as they are the ones that are key. All of this is why we scared the council and even other races and why we progressed so quickly within MEU. The same is implied of how humans are in ST enterprise except we were held back by Vulcans because they found us to be to firey/emotional. I think they used that dynamic in building the MEU. I read that they were even concerned it would be like ST so they had to be more creative in what they came up with for ME.

Nice analysis  - it's a bit like ****** sapiens' rise to apex species on Earth, all because of a couple of evolutionary adaptations that got out of hand (large brain and opposable thumbs ftw ). Of course, this has led to terrible things happening in the real world as a result of mankind's collective hubris and I think actually this is another theme of ME. The Protheans and Leviathans are examples of races brought down in various ways by their arrogance and complacency.

"Look upon my works ye mighty, and despair!"

[Davik Kang]

starlitegirlx wrote...
Our only info on hackett is that he is an admiral. He is a great character. There is nothing suspicious about him. 

Ok I can't prove otherwise, and it may be a dead end, but let me show you what I have so far and then come back.  I'm not saying he is bad , he may well be the awesome figure he's portrayed to be, but all I'm saying is that he might not be.  Just an idea but there is some evidence.  Will post asap, I know it off by heart but it could be a long post.

SwobyJ wrote...
People have often taken ME to be a very 'hoo-rah military' series, but ... this info here would prove that to not be the case.

And 'No More Shepard' for ME4... could very well mean we play what Shepard BECOMES, and he is no longer military, and is focused on the larger issue (like Revan in KOTOR's ending except without the TOR  debacle)

Shepard is becoming an indoctrinating force in himself. However, I find he works more with 'Inspiration' (Charm or Indimidate them into it) than something more sinister or in the case with Asari, slightly eerie.

There are some SERIOUS parallels with KOTOR which I discussed with Spotless but haven't posted yet.  I won't go through the whole thing but just to say that they have influenced many of the ideas I have now, including the idea that the whole overarching story was intended to begin with (because many of the writing team are the same).

In brief:

[ KOTOR spoiler alert ]

Low EMS Control is like the prequel to KOTOR.  Shepard departs from the Council to fight the threat that they won't face.  He comes back with an impossibly big fleet of machines.

Low EMS Destroy is like the prequel to KOTOR II.  A horrific superweapon is used to end the Mandalorian threat at whatever cost.  Virtually no-one at that battle survives.

The Star Map on Kashyyyk specifically refers to Machiavellian-style leadership when testing Revan.  These ideas heavily influence my suspicions of Hackett and the Systems Alliance.


Both games and especially KOTOR II drive very deeply into what exactly makes Reavn and Exile such good leaders.  How people of all different walks of life seem to follow them without question.

[ End KOTOR spoiler alert ]

Modifié par Davik Kang, 24 octobre 2012 - 04:50 .

[Davik Kang]

starlitegirlx wrote...
Please post because I haven't seen one thing to imply he's anything but straight forward military 'get it done' guy, and I'm curious to see what's got you suspicious because I just have never seen anything. 

Certainly.

I already posted where my first suspicions came from.  By the way, do you remember the evidence for the boy on Vancouver being a hallucination, a warning?  There were danger signs visible every tinme we saw him.  Now watch the Crucible plan hatched at the end between Shepard, Hackett and Anderson.  Note that everytime we look back, the characters are deliberately positioned so that the danger signs behind in the QEC room are visible between the characters.

Right.  To look at Hackett we first have to look at the Systems Alliance.  It's a supranational organisation built to pool mulitnational Earth resources to make space exploration more realistic.  In other words, it's very rich.  But initially not very powerful.  The individual nations of Earth (the richest ones) are responsible for farming, colonising, and mining the other planets in the Star System.

This all changes with the discovery of the Charon Relay orbiting Pluto.  Humanity can now expand beyond the Sol system.  But it's too expensive a task for any individual nation.  So all resources are pooled into the Systems Alliance.  Note that it not only becomes responsible for colonising new star systems with it's huge financial resources, but also builds a massive army, and the Codex specifically notes that it does this before any alien contact has been made, hostile or otherwise.

Now, what I want to elaborate on is another theme of Mass Effect - that sources of wealth and power become more powerful through war and conflict.

When the Turians attack humans for the first time (First Contact War) individual nations are paralysed by indecision.  The Systems Alliance takes the lead and defeats the Turians, saving humanity from the threat.  The Council then intervenes before the Turians can retaliate, but the important thing is that the SA gains massive human support and effectively becomes the government for humanity outside of Sol.  They build a Parliament, but not on Earth - they build it on a space station at enormous cost (see the scientific explanation for how the space station remains in orbit - it's based on a real life mathematical solution to adding an object to an existing orbiting group of objects).

The Alliance has now become the leader and protector of humanity via wealth and military might.  The war was the catalyst that allowed this to happen.

Note how similar this is to ME1, where the Citadel council is paralysed by the Reaper threat, and humanity comes to its aid, effectively becoming a new superpower of galactic space as a result.

Right, Hackett stuff coming next.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 24 octobre 2012 - 05:16 .

[NebuchadnezzaRT]

Sorry to butt in guys but ever think of Klendagon? Remember the sparse description of the weapon that created the Great Rift Valley on the planet's surface?

Well we found the Reaper, the target of the weapon and we are left with only Cerberus scavenging the remains of the weapon.

If you compare the codex description of the Crucible and look at what that weapon did then I think you will find some similarities. And I doubt a derelict Reaper, the Weapon, and the Rift Valley would still be around after a whole cycle so, presumably, it was of Prothean origin. Since Javik, by no means, has all the answers, maybe we can assume somehow they did complete some version of the Crucible. And they used it without the Catalyst/Citadel/key components. So their Crucible/Weapon was basically an unfocused super weapon.

And The Illusive Man recovered it.

[NebuchadnezzaRT]

You have to remember Davik that this was a big theme in ME1 but was extremely played down in ME2 and 3.

[FifthBeatle]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

I firmly believe (ever since Leviathan established Reapers can build complicated illusions from your memories) that Shepard isn't actually on the Citadel. It is all a mental battle inside Shepard's mind. Especially because when Shepard zaps onto the Citadel, the sound effect that plays is the exact same sound effect that is used in Leviathan when going in and out of the mind control.

So, even when you shoot the tube in destroy, everything you see is just an illusion. Shepard wasn't on the Citadel. The crucible wasn't even used.

So, if you pick destroy, the child is not going to go 'OHNOZ' because that would instantly give away IT, and reveal that he doesn't want you to do that. The illusion is that all three endings are legit, so having the child go nuts in destroy would instantly reveal IT. The fact that he gets mad in refuse is simply because he's frustrated in a  "You could have been useful, Shepard." kind of way.

I am thinking that the three choices, as presented to Shepard, are reversed. The Reaper AI is asking you if you:

1. Want to be controlled (brainwashed, sleeper agent, etc.)
2. Want to be synthesized (upgraded with Reaper tech, like Saren and TIM and the Collectors, or perhaps even become part of a Reaper)
3. Want to be destroyed

I came to this conclusion because of Harbinger's line in the Retaliation trailer. (See my signature)

The outcome is inevitable. They will succumb (ctrl) and ascend (synth).... or they will be annihilated (destroy).

Now, choosing destroy is the least favourable to the Reapers, because it would mean they couldn't use you, but more importantly, it would also mean you would resists indoctrination, because you stick to your plan and still intend to destroy the Reapers.

My guess is that if the indoctrination attempt fails, you would normally die. Your mind would be destroyed. The only reason Shepard survives this in high EMS is because (s)he's got an extraordinary amount of willpower (which is illustrated by the amount of war assets you managed to get together).

I don't believe there will actually be post-breath scene content. I would like it, but I don't believe in it.

I think we are meant to believe that we won by beating the Reapers' ultimate weapon: indoctrination.

This seems like the most logical intent of the writers and the one that (along with all of the evidence everyone has pulled together) confirms IT as what is actually happening in the endings. 

Going to your first point about Leviathan, what I really like about it is that it confirmed that the ending could be created from Shepard's memories, thereby confriming the indoctrination mechanic. However, we are still missing the next pieces that will confirm what the Crucible actually is/does, what the Citadel actually is/does, and if the Catalyst is really the Citadel. What I am hoping for is to learn more about the Crucible from the Omega DLC (tell me that Omega doesn't look exactly like an incomplete Crucible), to learn the true function of the Citadel from the leaked/rumored Citadel DLC, and then to learn about the Catalyst from an eventual Shepard Wakes Up DLC. 

[paxxton]

No specifics, as usual.
https://twitter.com/...133175475015680

Modifié par paxxton, 24 octobre 2012 - 05:22 .

[Davik Kang]

NebuchadnezzaRT wrote...

Sorry to butt in guys but ever think of Klendagon? Remember the sparse description of the weapon that created the Great Rift Valley on the planet's surface?

Well we found the Reaper, the target of the weapon and we are left with only Cerberus scavenging the remains of the weapon.

If you compare the codex description of the Crucible and look at what that weapon did then I think you will find some similarities. And I doubt a derelict Reaper, the Weapon, and the Rift Valley would still be around after a whole cycle so, presumably, it was of Prothean origin. Since Javik, by no means, has all the answers, maybe we can assume somehow they did complete some version of the Crucible. And they used it without the Catalyst/Citadel/key components. So their Crucible/Weapon was basically an unfocused super weapon.

And The Illusive Man recovered it.

Interesting!  I think it's older than the Protheans because it says the balst is 37 million years old.  Cycles are much more common than 37 million years.  So it could be some much older, less developed version of the Giant Spacegun (which may or may not have been known as Crucible at the time, in the relevant alien language.)

[Davik Kang]

NebuchadnezzaRT wrote...
You have to remember Davik that this was a big theme in ME1 but was extremely played down in ME2 and 3.

I'm not convinced.  Gimme a sec and I'll explain what I've got on Hackett so far.  It's not conclusive which is why I'm trying to get people to help me seacrh for in-game stuff, not just on this but on everything.  There seems to be too much for it all to be a coincidence.

[NebuchadnezzaRT]

Davik Kang wrote...

NebuchadnezzaRT wrote...
You have to remember Davik that this was a big theme in ME1 but was extremely played down in ME2 and 3.

I'm not convinced.  Gimme a sec and I'll explain what I've got on Hackett so far.  It's not conclusive which is why I'm trying to get people to help me seacrh for in-game stuff, not just on this but on everything.  There seems to be too much for it all to be a coincidence.

Well, in the favor of helping, I will remind you that in the transmission from Hackett right after Earth his face is "mirrored". Then he leads you to the Crucible blueprints.

[BatmanTurian]

jojon2se wrote...

BatmanTurian wrote...
...
You do realize that a piece of literature can infer something and not come out and say it.
...

Go back a page or two, and you'll find yourself rather aggressively lambasting people, for not corroborating their ideas with solid empirical evidence. You are not really contradicting yourself, but one could be forgiven for detecting a slight self-bias and lack of empathy.

Point out to people when their argument falter, by all means, but try to do it by reasoning with them -- a confrontative tone will inevitably trigger an instinctive, defensive response and then you'll never get through - more likely you'll risk finding yourself vitrifying and becoming just as unreasonable and close minded as you see them (EDIT: ...and coming to see them that way and becoming annoyed, would be a symptom of that - raise warning flags  ).
That's an important part of what I, for my part, take away from the NYTimes article you posted.

As you can see; I'm lousy at this myself.

Well, it was 4 in the morning and I wasn't thinking clearly. As for solid empirical evidence, that doesn't always necessarily apply in literature, because the Author really does infer things without coming out and saying it, such as Joker's sister at Tiptree being turned into a husk.