304 réponses à ce sujet

[TJBartlemus]

jasonh10 wrote...

See, I think this isn't the end of the war with the reapers. I think it may be the end of Shepard's story, but the war will continue, either by the crucible being a dud, hoax, trap or they just fail to implement it. My reasoning for this is $$$. I honestly don't see how they can have Mass Effect without Shepard and the reapers. They could probably afford to lose one or the other, but not both. They have such a well crafted universe I'm sure they don't want to give that up. And while I'm sure a lot of the hard core fans would stick around for a post-reaper universe, I'm not sure 'Mass Effect 4: The Turians Rebuild' would garner nearly as much interest.

And while they explicitly stated that this would be the end of Shepard's story many times, to my knowledge they never said that it would definitely be the end of the reaper threat. I know they said something about there wouldn't be an 'abc' ending or something, but that in no way means it will actually end. But if I'm right, Shepard has to die. Otherwise, he'll continue to fight in some capacity and his story isn't over. Although they could bring him back for one more game...

But I'm rambling and off topic, and probably 100% wrong anyway lol. I know Inception has been heavily discussed here, and I think the comparison is legitimate. Where in it, they use dreams inside of dreams and such, and they may have done the same thing here. He was fully conscious, then zapped by Harby, bam, first dream state. He shoots husks and has the epic battle with Marauder Shields in a half dream/half reality, then jumps in the beam. Only I think he's only partially awake and he never even gets up. He arrives on the Citadel but this is all in his head in the next dream state. The magic elevator ride is him returning to the half dream, and that all plays out in his head.

Sorry that this repeats much of what you've been saying. It just helps me articulate my thoughts to write it all out like this. Of course, if he is up and doing stuff, then that means he's actually activating the Crucible and the game actually ends, and all we need is more info for clarity on what happened. If it's all in his head, then the crucible is waiting on the Citadel, and nothing is actually accomplished. The story is still ongoing and unfinished.

To be honest, my thoughts on this change daily. Of one thing I am finally 100% certain, though: this isn't just a case of poor writing. There's much more going on than just a literal interpretation.

Don't worry about rambling. The thread needs more discussion anyway.  Your thoughts are almost like mine. I do agree there has to be something going on and it's not what it seems, though it does leave a pretty big plot hole if Shepard has been sitting since Harbys beam in the IT interpretation. Then we don't have an "ending" to the Reaper threat. Hopefully within the next month there will be answers. Especially since Leviathan is coming out.

[Alienboy411676]

TJBartlemus wrote...

Alienboy411676 wrote...

TJBartlemus wrote...

Alienboy411676 wrote...

No, not a message.  A simulation would be accurate.  

Okay, say that was true. When Shepard woke up what would happen then? Since it was a simulation, then it cannot be assumed that everything would happen the same as it did.

No, they wouldn't happen the same as they did in the simulation, but you'd have the important information you needed, like the crucible plans are in Mars, begin construction, take it to the Citadel, stop the Reapers.  In the mean time, they send a fleet to secure the Conduit so they don't even have to worry about Sovereign.  With the experience Sheperd has from the simulation, she could go to the Citadel where the Crucible is docked and make an informed, intelligible decision on how to handle the Reapers, maybe even have the council and ambassadors of the other races there to discuss it and make an even more informed decision.  With Sheperd's experience from the simulation she could virtually represent a lot of the non-council races who don't have ambassadors there, like the Quarians, Geth, Krogan etc.  

Sorry but that wouldn't happen. Shepard may be more experianced but no one knows or trusts him yet. It would be as effective as warning about the Reapers again. Besides it took months to build the Crucible and that was with the entire galaxy sending support to build it. Pre-Invasion of Reapers no one would believe or do what Shepard says. 

If she showed them the plans for the crucible they might.  Plus the knowledge of the beacon hidden on Thessia, that would be a pretty convincing piece for the Asari. 

[cdtrk65]

I like the nightmare/dream theory. Not sure about the waking part. However where Shepard is knocked into a dream state is hard to tell. There are plenty of chances of him/her being knocked out in the first attack. The beam through the conference room, then he/she hits his/her head during another beam shot. Though if you are going by the breath scene then I suppose it would've had to happen somewhere in London (armor).

As Jason said it they never said Shepard would beat the Reapers. Say the outcome of 3 is if Shepard is indoctrinated or not. If he is indoctrinated then he will fight for the reapers, if not then he will play an Anderson role in the next trilogy.

[TJBartlemus]

cdtrk65 wrote...

I like the nightmare/dream theory. Not sure about the waking part. However where Shepard is knocked into a dream state is hard to tell. There are plenty of chances of him/her being knocked out in the first attack. The beam through the conference room, then he/she hits his/her head during another beam shot. Though if you are going by the breath scene then I suppose it would've had to happen somewhere in London (armor).

As Jason said it they never said Shepard would beat the Reapers. Say the outcome of 3 is if Shepard is indoctrinated or not. If he is indoctrinated then he will fight for the reapers, if not then he will play an Anderson role in the next trilogy.

Hmmm....that sounds like another theory.....do you happen to support the IT? 

[jasonh10]

TJBartlemus wrote...

jasonh10 wrote...

See, I think this isn't the end of the war with the reapers. I think it may be the end of Shepard's story, but the war will continue, either by the crucible being a dud, hoax, trap or they just fail to implement it. My reasoning for this is $$$. I honestly don't see how they can have Mass Effect without Shepard and the reapers. They could probably afford to lose one or the other, but not both. They have such a well crafted universe I'm sure they don't want to give that up. And while I'm sure a lot of the hard core fans would stick around for a post-reaper universe, I'm not sure 'Mass Effect 4: The Turians Rebuild' would garner nearly as much interest.

And while they explicitly stated that this would be the end of Shepard's story many times, to my knowledge they never said that it would definitely be the end of the reaper threat. I know they said something about there wouldn't be an 'abc' ending or something, but that in no way means it will actually end. But if I'm right, Shepard has to die. Otherwise, he'll continue to fight in some capacity and his story isn't over. Although they could bring him back for one more game...

But I'm rambling and off topic, and probably 100% wrong anyway lol. I know Inception has been heavily discussed here, and I think the comparison is legitimate. Where in it, they use dreams inside of dreams and such, and they may have done the same thing here. He was fully conscious, then zapped by Harby, bam, first dream state. He shoots husks and has the epic battle with Marauder Shields in a half dream/half reality, then jumps in the beam. Only I think he's only partially awake and he never even gets up. He arrives on the Citadel but this is all in his head in the next dream state. The magic elevator ride is him returning to the half dream, and that all plays out in his head.

Sorry that this repeats much of what you've been saying. It just helps me articulate my thoughts to write it all out like this. Of course, if he is up and doing stuff, then that means he's actually activating the Crucible and the game actually ends, and all we need is more info for clarity on what happened. If it's all in his head, then the crucible is waiting on the Citadel, and nothing is actually accomplished. The story is still ongoing and unfinished.

To be honest, my thoughts on this change daily. Of one thing I am finally 100% certain, though: this isn't just a case of poor writing. There's much more going on than just a literal interpretation.

Don't worry about rambling. The thread needs more discussion anyway.  Your thoughts are almost like mine. I do agree there has to be something going on and it's not what it seems, though it does leave a pretty big plot hole if Shepard has been sitting since Harbys beam in the IT interpretation. Then we don't have an "ending" to the Reaper threat. Hopefully within the next month there will be answers. Especially since Leviathan is coming out.

I can't wait for Leviathan. I know there's been a lot leaked about it from people checking the game files, but I've tried to avoid all that to avoid spoilers. I like to go in fresh.

[clos]

I"ll take IT, dreaming, whatever. Anything to change the EC endings from the crap it they currently are.

[cdtrk65]

TJBartlemus wrote...

cdtrk65 wrote...

I like the nightmare/dream theory. Not sure about the waking part. However where Shepard is knocked into a dream state is hard to tell. There are plenty of chances of him/her being knocked out in the first attack. The beam through the conference room, then he/she hits his/her head during another beam shot. Though if you are going by the breath scene then I suppose it would've had to happen somewhere in London (armor).

As Jason said it they never said Shepard would beat the Reapers. Say the outcome of 3 is if Shepard is indoctrinated or not. If he is indoctrinated then he will fight for the reapers, if not then he will play an Anderson role in the next trilogy.

Hmmm....that sounds like another theory.....do you happen to support the IT? 

I have to admit I am late to the game (just finished ME3 last week) so I am not sure all of what IT covers.

[Alienboy411676]

By the way, I don't actually believe that Sheperd was dreaming everything since the beacon on ME1 lol, I was just sayin it wouldn't have been horrible if they did.

In fact, I have my own theory, and it's similar to yours, and parts of it I may have actually derived from yours. I've read a lot of theories on the forums so I don't know if this is fully mine or if someone else has contrived it, but parts may have been obtained from yours.

It's possible that what's going on is neither the Reapers nor the Catalyst wish to continue the cycles of destruction. The Catalyst deliberately raises the platform Sheperd collapses on to revive her when he could have left her there to die and their cycles would have continued unhindered. Also, lots of people seem to think that Harbinger is saying "Save us" just before he hits her with the beam. When you think about what has been learned about Leviathan so far...I think it's been said that the Leviathans are suppose to be the result of their past attempts at Synthesis. Suppose one of their attempts in a past cycle did affect a single/small group of the Reapers to the point where the Catalyst could no longer control them, and that is why they have "defected". In reality, they've been freed. Freed from the programming set in the Catalyst that makes him unable to discontinue the cycles of destruction. They want Synthesis to work to free them of their programming and stop the cycles. This explains why the other endings work. Control would replace the Catalyst with Sheperd, who would be free of the constraints set by the original programming. Destroy is not favorable to the Catalyst and Reapers for obvious reasons, they have a sense of self-preservation, but also accept it as a possible solution to the cycles of destruction. They simply cannot do it by themselves because of self-preservation settings in their programming.

Perhaps the Geth are the real key to Synthesis. The Geth are a race of synthetics that WANT to UNDERSTAND organics (Legion has stated this on a number of occasions). They don't want war or destruction, they want to simply coexist. Maybe that's what the Catalyst means when he says Sheperd's cycle is ready. Maybe the reason that Synthesis never worked before is because there were always synthetics who wanted to destroy organics, and the Synthesis energy was not enough to sway them to be peaceful.

"It's just my opinion though, there's really no need to go spreading it around." - Joker

[TJBartlemus]

:innocent: 

Modifié par TJBartlemus, 18 août 2012 - 12:29 .

[TJBartlemus]

cdtrk65 wrote...

I have to admit I am late to the game (just finished ME3 last week) so I am not sure all of what IT covers.

If you join the IT group there is a discussion topic that has a link to what I call the IT Codex. It explains everything you need to know about IT. It's still in editing stage but a majority of it is finished and is allowing people to look on it. I would just give the link but I don't really trust the threads....you know....trolls can be d**ks sometimes and mess things up just to spite us. 

OR you can always check out the IT thread and/or ask Byne for a quick version of the idea.

Modifié par TJBartlemus, 11 août 2012 - 02:35 .

[Schachmatt123]

This WNT pretty much sums up how I see the ending. Great stuff, thanks for sharing

Modifié par Schachmatt, 11 août 2012 - 03:30 .

[ebuchala]

paxxton wrote...


Leaving IT for ME4 somehow makes sense to me. The dev cycle of the main game is in the maintainance stage. The main game is a kind of framework for DLCs. In the case of the timeline it presents, BioWare won't add anything post-breath because that part of the story isn't meant for the current product. One thing that puzzles me though is that if they knew that the story wouldn't end with ME3, why they keep on saying "Shepard's story is over." Why say it in the first place if they knew it wasn't true. That only makes sense if one of those holds true:
1. They do it on purpose. Why? To lure people into indoctrination at the end.
2. They didn't plan on IT.

Well, they could confirm IT in a DLC that bridges 3 and 4 and then jump forward in time to the end of the war. Let me explain.

First, it kinda bugs me that:

1. The Protheans battled the Reapers for 150 years before losing and we come along and win in less than 1 year. The Protheans weren't slackers when it came to battle and while I could see it taking us less time in this cycle because we're more diverse, which even Javik agrees is a big plus, having where it takes us not even 1/100th of the time it took the Protheans seems a bit farfetched.

2. Take back Earth is the hype. What about the rest of the galaxy? I know even with IT (or WNT), that the idea could be to completely end the war across the galaxy with the end of ME3--the literalist view definitely believes this but it kinda feels like a cheat and a bit against the theme of the whole series to make everything hinge on Earth being saved. I do realize that we all like feeling that humans are intelligent enough, mature enough, responsible enough, advanced enough, etc., to fit in and even surpass races that have been around for centuries longer than us. And playing into that vanity is good for business, I'm sure, but it's an aspect that disappoints me about ME3. I played the series working my butt off to unite everyone on various levels, even if some of the unification was tenuous, at best.

What I could see to continue the franchise without Shepard but without losing fans who think Shepard has to be part of things for it to even be ME would be to have the IT DLC as a bridge as I mentioned and then everyone imports their ME3 saves into 4, which starts at the beginning of the end of the war, say 30 years in the future (Shepard would be in his 60's if he lived). Someone who got their Shepard indoctrinated doesn't have the original Shepard in their story at all, just stories of everything he/she did, including if he ended up working for the Reapers. Someone who didn't indoctrinate their Shepard or whose Shepard refused the options (could technically still live) would have a Shepard in Anderson's or Hackett's role (I would prefer Hackett but could see how having the original Shephard in Anderson's role would work).

The fun part is we would play Shepard's offspring. If you had a love interest in ME3 (mine was Tali for my broshep), then your character generator would be to generate a Quarian/Human hybrid. Liara for LI? You've got an Asari. Garrus for the femshep? Then it's Human/Turian hybrid. Etc. Ashley/Kaiden/Miranda/Jack? Human, of course. If you didn't have a love interest, they could either have Shepard procreate offscreen (between ME3 and 4) or use the Liara goodbye scene as an impregnation thing and you automatically start with an Asari (mainly because she's the only one who could pull something like that off).

You could still be Shepard if your import was from broshep. Not sure how they would work it if your Shepard was femshep although I'm sure they could some up with some reason for your character to still be Shepard since I'm not sure how feasible it is to have half a dozen different last name options for the main character.

The war has continued, of course, so this would be Shep Jr. picking up the mantle and finishing off the war and ending the Reapers.

I have to admit that I really don't like the idea of Shepard ending up indoctrinted for ME4 if they want to get rid of him. Especially not if IT is true and I spent all this time fighting against all of this, chose the "right" ending to fight off indoctrination only to get to ME4 and have that mean nothing. That would disappoint me because, frankly, I get way more attached to game characters than I should.

Sorry for the wall of text.

[TJBartlemus]

Just to get the message out, don't worry about walls of text. In fact, if anything I actually support it. So don't worry about it at all.

[TJBartlemus]

ebuchala wrote...

paxxton wrote...


Leaving IT for ME4 somehow makes sense to me. The dev cycle of the main game is in the maintainance stage. The main game is a kind of framework for DLCs. In the case of the timeline it presents, BioWare won't add anything post-breath because that part of the story isn't meant for the current product. One thing that puzzles me though is that if they knew that the story wouldn't end with ME3, why they keep on saying "Shepard's story is over." Why say it in the first place if they knew it wasn't true. That only makes sense if one of those holds true:
1. They do it on purpose. Why? To lure people into indoctrination at the end.
2. They didn't plan on IT.

Well, they could confirm IT in a DLC that bridges 3 and 4 and then jump forward in time to the end of the war. Let me explain.

First, it kinda bugs me that:

1. The Protheans battled the Reapers for 150 years before losing and we come along and win in less than 1 year. The Protheans weren't slackers when it came to battle and while I could see it taking us less time in this cycle because we're more diverse, which even Javik agrees is a big plus, having where it takes us not even 1/100th of the time it took the Protheans seems a bit farfetched.

snip*

My thoughts exactly. BioWare totally ended the war with the Reapers way too soon. It had so much potential for future games it made no sense to end it in the first game of the war.  

[TJBartlemus]

 London: FOB

 During Priority: Earth at one point a shuttle containing Admiral Anderson and Major Coats picks Shepard up from a hot zone and transports him to the FOB. The shuttle that picks Shepard up is the UT-47A Kodiak Drop Shuttle used strictly by the Alliance, a shuttle that has been used the entire game up to this point. When Shepard is dropped off however, a closer look inside of the shuttle reveals it as the model UT-47, a shuttle that is used by Cerberus and was the same model that Shepard used all the time in ME2. The main differences which make it possible to determine between these models are the number of seats. In the UT-47A model, it contains 4 seats. In the UT-47, it contains 9 seats. Another determining factor is the fact that in the UT-47 model shuttle that drops Shepard off, it has a Cerberus logo still on the inside.

 The fact the models change is irregular because as far as it has been proven, this type of event has never happened during the rest of the game. As well to the plot in a literal sense it makes no sense for having the change. Looking at it from a WNT perspective however, this event starts to make a lot more sense. One part of WNT claims an idea that what could cause the changes affecting Shepard could be that the beam he is trying to get to could potentially double as an indoctrination device. If true this could explain the sudden change of shuttles. Shepard at the start of the mission was a good distance away from the FOB and the beam. So his perceptions aren’t being affected or at least not to an extent. Thus the shuttle appears as it should. When he is transported to a location much closer to the beam, the effects get stronger and the shuttle transforms to an image more familiar to him, the UT-47 Cerberus shuttle.

 The reason the outside doesn’t change is currently up for debate. The most likely reason could be that if the outside changed it would be too much of a hint that something was wrong when it's supposed to be subtle. And a change from a blue shuttle to a white one would be a MASSIVE hint. An in game reason for the outside not changing could be that Shepard's mind wouldn't allow a change in an object that he knows for certain what it looks like. This is possibly proven to be possible because as shown in the Geth Fighter Squadrons mission and what Legion explains in that mission, “Your mind perceives our world as something familiar.” So the human mind is known to change things to make sense of them or makes details stay the same so the mind doesn't go insane.

 If the change of vehicles is truly a change purposely in the game by BioWare, it is potentially the only time that it is proven and plain that the Reapers are effecting Shepard’s perceptions and changing what he is seeing. It also is potentially proving that at least a portion or all of WNT is true.

So what do you guys think of this? Opinions? Comments? 

[Kulbelbolka]

I think that Major Coats is a Cerberus'es double agent.
He was quite strange from the beginning. He was presented to us as a new character, but his participation was quite poor. What makes me alert that game pays too much attention for character with such a little role.

And now I'm starting to understand bioware's intention.

[dorktainian]

3 possibilities..

dream / indoctrination or....

crap storytelling..



or cynical moneymaking plan to milk consumers before revealing the real ending in sureal plot twist via payed dlc

[TJBartlemus]

Kulbelbolka wrote...

I think that Major Coats is a Cerberus'es double agent.
He was quite strange from the beginning. He was presented to us as a new character, but his participation was quite poor. What makes me alert that game pays too much attention for character with such a little role.

And now I'm starting to understand bioware's intention.

Notice that a lot of weird things BioWare did with London. One of those is certainly Major Coats. He appears 2 other times in game in spots we don't notice him. Outside the shuttle already in the FOB when he is supposed to be inside the shuttle, and his body is the one that BioWare used to have the helmet taken off by the Keeper when you get to the Citadel. Both times BioWare could of used other models but instead intentionally used the Coats model. Absolutely strange in my opinion.  

[Kulbelbolka]

TJBartlemus wrote...

Notice that a lot of weird things BioWare did with London. One of those is certainly Major Coats. He appears 2 other times in game in spots we don't notice him. Outside the shuttle already in the FOB when he is supposed to be inside the shuttle, and his body is the one that BioWare used to have the helmet taken off by the Keeper when you get to the Citadel. Both times BioWare could of used other models but instead intentionally used the Coats model. Absolutely strange in my opinion. 

I think that his role in ME3 was meant to be more important than it is now. He is the first character of ME3 who was presented (in first teaser). Also it's strange that he was vioced by not another noname voice actor, but by Nicholas Boulton, one of the favourite bioware's voice actors.

P.S. Also, about London. I've made this topic some time ago and there are my guesses for possible London DLC.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I'm thinking that in some parallel universe SJ has played an ending to ME3 that she actually enjoyed, and that fact pisses me off because all I got was speculations.

What happened to my 50,000 CR Cerberus Armor?!

[TJBartlemus]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

I'm thinking that in some parallel universe SJ has played an ending to ME3 that she actually enjoyed, and that fact pisses me off because all I got was speculations.

What happened to my 50,000 CR Cerberus Armor?!

Speculations. BioWare's masterplan for getting the life of ME3 as a popular game to last longer. 

[N7 Panda]

Thank you for all the info and links in the OP - it took a while but I got through in the end!

@TJBartlemus:
So do you think that BioWare are going to do something along the lines of 'No, of course there is no more to the story after the Citadel'...a bit later, nope. A wild Chuck Testa appears with new DLC. And how much of what you think is based off of in game content and how much of it is from the actual company IRL (what they say the way they have behaved in the past etc.)

[TJBartlemus]

Nope2.1 wrote...

Thank you for all the info and links in the OP - it took a while but I got through in the end!

@TJBartlemus:
So do you think that BioWare are going to do something along the lines of 'No, of course there is no more to the story after the Citadel'...a bit later, nope. A wild Chuck Testa appears with new DLC. And how much of what you think is based off of in game content and how much of it is from the actual company IRL (what they say the way they have behaved in the past etc.)

Yeah it's a good portion of reading but I feel it's worth it in the end!! :happy:

On your question...I know they aren't changing the endings or signifigantly adding to them, but they never said definitely that there wouldn't be any content after the endings. Last time I checked yesterday I believe they were thinking about whether to or not. Today I think that Jessica or Chris admitted that they have all the ME3 DLC planned out. So anything is possible. Also on what I think is based off of content and how much is from the company...I really don't have a definite answer for that. I believe a lot of what I think on the game comes from a multitude of things. But what I can say definitely is that the only thing I 100% trust on what I think of is the content we have so far. The comments BioWare has made can easily be lies while the content we have is incapabe to doing such.

Thanks for the great questions!!!  Feel free to ask more any time!!!

[TJBartlemus]

 Interesting find. When watching the Empire Strikes Back it showed Luke in the cave in which Vader appears and is killed. A few seconds later we see Vader was in fact Luke. To me this looked like a very close representation to a WN. Knowing that Casey has gotten a lot of inspiration of movies like Star Wars and Star Trek. Maybe he found inspiration in this scene and tried to impliment such an idea in the end of ME3 as IT or WNT???

[ebuchala]

Kulbelbolka wrote...

I think that his role in ME3 was meant to be more important than it is now. He is the first character of ME3 who was presented (in first teaser). Also it's strange that he was vioced by not another noname voice actor, but by Nicholas Boulton, one of the favourite bioware's voice actors.

P.S. Also, about London. I've made this topic some time ago and there are my guesses for possible London DLC.

Those are some interest clues to a possible London DLC. I think that would be an excellent addition to the game--I was disappointed that we didn't have an ending battle similar to the ME2 suicide mission where you took all your squaddies and separated into groups through sections of the battle and then regrouped to fight through the next battle area. I would LOVE to have that opportunity in a DLC.

Back on topic, Coates is a strange one, for sure. Originally I would've just written him off as a squandered asset but adding in the keeper and Coates' body on the Citadel after removing his body at the beam and having his voice tell everyone to fall back seems really strange.