LDS Darth Revan wrote...
I'm want to try to play the game with an IT viewpoint just to see what it's like. Do you guys have any advice on how my mindframe should be attuned to fully experience this? I understand where IT is coming from, but can't mentally cross the concept bridge without guidance.
What I did was listen to the IT documentary on you tube. But that isn't really the best evidence, however, it's kind of eye opening and makes you at least ponder it.
The best thing I think would be to find a post from DoomsdayDevice and in his signature there is a link to IT stuff. Go to those links. There is a great collection of all these conversations you have with character in game where you can see clear parrallels to what synthesis is and what control is and there are several that support choosing destroy. There are severa that use the word nightmare, which given that it is used rather often, and then the catalyst tells you to 'wake up' - well it's foreshadowing an altered state of mind.
You have to look at it symbolically rather than just take it at face value. See the images and what they represent. Perfect example, the starbrat is the image we see thoughout the game - IN NIGHTMARES and then he becomes the thing that is manipulating your choices. The child is a guilt trigger. Shepard seems troubled when he/she cannot get the kid out of the vent and then he disappears. Shepard then watches the kid get destroyed in the shuttle. Then it haunts shepard in dreams. Later, in leviathan we see how people are pulled from Shepard's mind to relate information (bryson, the assistant to dr. bryson, and the one from the mine). Then we are told that the reapers refined this process so that instead of the empty background you have with leviathan, they can make the illusion/delusion much more elaborte. So now we know for fact that this child can be pulled from shepard's mind and put into the scene on the citadel and it can have a reaper using it to speak as did leviathan. But we heard leviathan rather than Bryson or Garneau or the assistant. This is most interesting in the EC DLC change to refuse ending when you choose refuse ending you now hear the true voice of the catalyst (since it is a form of breaking free so you aren't heaing the voice the reaper wants you to hear). SO BE IT is a deep harbinger/reaper like voice. And it's angry. This now parallels leviathan only shows you that it can manipulate your mind more deeply and in a much more insidiousway because everything looks and seems normalish (as leviathan said) . So there is symbolism and there are references that can lead you to this conclusion. You just have to pay attention to what has been said and then see how it applies. Leviathan is strong proof that the ending we have is a mental manipulation. Then when you see what the parralels are to synthesis and control, you see how they are not these utopias that the brat makes them out to be.
Another thing that I like is the direct parallel between the genophage (which you cure) reresenting synthesis as it is meddling with the natural evolution of a species. Also, the uplifting of the krogan was meddling. And we see what meddling did in that case to the galaxy. It had devastating effects and the outcome of the meddling was bad. You have the Salarian Councilor telling you not to cure it beause he learned his lesson to not meddle, which supports not choosing synthesis (is it a he that's on the ship? Hard to tell). But then on Sur'kesh you have two salarians (the one you meet at the gate and then Mordin (who has now changed his stance on it interestingly enough) to letting nature run it's course and NATURAL EVOLUTION do it's thing rather than meddling. All that is symbolic foreshadowing of synthesis.
For Control, you have the quarian vs. the geth. When the quarians feared they lost control of the geth they assumed the geth would go to war with them, but the geth were only protecting themselves for survival it seems. So this is a battle for control. Not having control anymore triggers a war started by the quarians that lasts for 300 years and leaves the quarians living is suits, homeless and floating through space. And that's not even considering the heretic development and how the heretics then chose to align with Soverign and begin turning humans into husks (start of reaper process). This is what control gets you. You start off in control then lose control and the outcome of the lost control is devastating.
Personally, I wonder if these parallels with the quarians are the reason we get these two endings in the hallucination chamber. They were very prevalent in shepards mind having just cleaned up or tried to clean up the mess we have that resulted from control and synthesis. Since none of it is real then the choices aren't real. They are just a hallucination to get you to side with the reapers which no matter how high your EMS is, you cannot survive. Another interesting point. So the reaper fills in the hallucination with what is in Shepard's mind (like how the dreamer fills in the dream in inception) and then you have these choices that represent two major conflicts shepard had to resolve.
That's the sort of thing you have to look for in game. Themes, symbolism, what seems to allude to something else.