252 réponses à ce sujet

[GreyLycanTrope]

But that's my job

[Davik Kang]

Yo all I'm back, it's real late here so I'll put down the quick answers and get onto the rest tomorrow...

Restrider wrote...
I have a question:
What is your take on the breath scene? Where does it take place? When does it take place and how?

This was a real problem for me initially, because I thought the rubble scene looked very much like Earth.  But recently I am beginning to doubt that.  I posted some thoughts in the 'Shepard survives???" thread that's active at the moment.  Short answer for now is that I think Shepard breath scene is shortly after the Destroy choice, on a smashed up Citadel, maybe a few hours or day or so from the end of the game.

Jade8aby88 wrote...
Sorry, but you're not as original as you thought. I'm pretty sure The Twilight God's "IT con" theory is the same as this.

Not trying to be original though.  Please read the OP.  I am not for one second claiming this is a new theory or interpretation.  I am tryin to find other people who think the same, as well as those who can help iron out inconsistencies or just generally want to talk about it and other possibilities.

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...
It looks like someone recently finished the game and came to the conclusion that Shepard was undergoing indoctrination. They've been trying to make sense of the ending. Look at the OP's join date. Sept 24/25 2012. I think everyone should just lighten up and stop the fighting. I came to a similar conclusion. 

The reapers use indoctrination. IT is a valid possibility until Bioware says it isn't. End of story.

Yep you're exactly right, I finished ME3 a couple of weeks back and thought it was amazing, then signed up here to find that most definitely do not think it was amazing.  I've talked to various people with different opinions and interpretations of the ending, and I decided to make this thread so as not to spam the other threads with stuff irrelevant to their own discussions.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 06 novembre 2012 - 03:57 .

[marcelo caldas]

[quote]Davik Kang wrote...

 Some additional comments:


The StarKid is NOT a Deus Ex Machina


Makes sense, although the star ****, i mean kid, maybe isen't a DEM but the crucible certainly is.
Seriously the idea stinks, for sure is the worst outcome ever!

[marcelo caldas]

Davik Kang wrote...

Hydralysk wrote...
If such a large amount of players missed it, and worse, when they had it explained to them they still refused to believe it, then regardless of whether or not it was Bioware's intention it was not well exectued.

Unfortunately I think you're right.  I'm not sure exactly how many players believe x or y because no poll or forum is a good representation of the proportions.  It's a shame because some players really enjoyed it.  It was ambitious at least, trying to do something original.

let's face it, the whole crucible idea and the reaper goal are a bad joke at best.

[Davik Kang]

A Bethesda Fan wrote...

Davik Kang wrote...
The StarKid is NOT a Deus Ex Machina

A DEM is a device used since ancient Greek plays, where an omnipotent god character would be lowered onto the stage to resolve situations in the story that were otherwise unresolvable.  The term came to be used to describe similar plot devices in fiction, where a character or event would arrive completely unannounced and alter the story in a similar way.  .

Nope that is exactly what he did.
He appeared and solved our situation that was otherwise unresolvable.

Seriously I don't understand how people don't remember that, I only played it twice and I remember the horrors perfectly. 

OdanUrr wrote...
By your own definition, he seems like a DEM to me and I don't even have to believe anything he says. The fact remains that the Crucible doesn't fire automatically and nobody knows how to make it fire either. Without the Catalyst, Shepard would've bled to death then and there and that would be the end of ME3. Instead, the Catalyst "lifts" Shepard and tells him how to activate the Crucible. Whether we like that or not it's another matter.

caldas wrote...
The StarKid is NOT a Deus Ex Machina

Makes sense, although the star ****, i mean kid, maybe isen't a DEM but the crucible certainly is.
Seriously the idea stinks, for sure is the worst outcome ever!

A lot of people brought up the Deus Ex Machina thing so I'll go into it first.

I'll try again to explain what I mean, because a lot of people are responding to the general definition of DEM, and not what I said to explain the difference.  It depends on 2 things, first that the Kid is a new character, and second that the Kid has omnipotent powers to alter the course of the story in an unforseen way and resolve an unresolvable plot point.

First, the Kid is not a new character if you consider this to be an indoctrination attempt.  The Kid basically represents the Reapers.  He says himself he has the collective knowledge of the Reapers and essentially posits himself as a representative of the Reapers and their goals.  The Reapers aren't new, so the Kid isn't new.  He's just a collective voice for the Reapers, which enables you to have a conversation with them.  He looks like the Kid from your dreams because the indoctrination is appealing to Shepard's sense of guilt and desire to protect the innocent, like I said in the OP.

Secondly, the Kid has no power (other than indoctrination power).  The Crucible was built by the Alliance forces and their allies.  Shepard is now the one who can activate it.  The only thing the Kid can do is try to get Shepard to act in the Reapers' interests rather than in the Alliance's interests.

About the Crucible being a DEM, it's been in the story the whole time and we already knew it did something big but didn't exaclty know what.  Some may argue it's a contrived plot device.  I don't want to get into a big argument about that here.  For me it was a decent idea because it gave the game a hook, a simple goal for the Alliance - finish the Crucible or die.  It also gave the game a sense of drama, having to finish it before it was too late.  And it allowed the tying-in of Galactic Readiness and so forth.  I thought it was fine, some thought it was bad, ok, no problem.  Just saying here that it's not a DEM.

[Davik Kang]

A Bethesda Fan wrote...
So the only way that the Catalyst is not a DEM is if your theories are correct which is highly unlikely.
And the Catalyst has a lot of power, hell he can even shut down the power supply(Crucible) in the refuse ending.

Not exactly - the StarKid isn't a DEM if you think the end involves indoctrination.  There are plenty of theories and interpretations involving indoctrination, doesn't have to be this one.  Also in Refuse you just do nothing, so the Crucible doesn't activate.  I definitely think the Kid would have shut the Crucible down if he could have, on the basic principle of risk vs reward.

However, if indoctrination isn't part of the ending, then yeah you probably could say the Kid is a DEM.  It's not what I think though so I won't go into it here.  But it would be an interesting point in a Literal interpretation thread.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 13 octobre 2012 - 07:28 .

[Davik Kang]

Quikraptor wrote...

... Please respond to this, OP.

I ****ing LOVE your interpretation. It truly makes the most sense out of every theory out there. It's like the indoctrination theory, but this one isn't "SHEPARD WAS INDOCTRINATED THE WHOLE TIME!!! NONE OF WHAT HAPPENED REALLY HAPPENED!!!", but actually fits the character of Shepard. She knows her mission (I speak for FemShep, as that was mine, too. Male Shep is far too cliche. At least with a gal it's slightly more interesting.), and intends to carry it out. "We destroy them, or they destroy us."

But it's even more interesting to think about is that no matter what route you take, you're going back on something you deemed wrong.
-Control. You're going against TIM. If you're a Paragon, you go back on that and control the reapers after saying "We don't deserve it."
-Synthesis. We stopped Saren. Super simple stuff.
-Destroy. Also as a Paragon, we deemed the genophage wrong and cured it.

So your interpretation... It really makes the most sense. I will admit this.

Yeah, one of the reasons I liked the ending because it was a huge final choice that made you question any beliefs you had built up through the series.

Thanks for the support too, it's really appreciated.  However I think of it more as an interpretation, rather than "my" interpretation.  I know the thread name goes against this but it was supposed to be a joke, I hope that was clear from the OP.  I figured that a lot of players like yourself must have had a similar interpretation.  So really I wanted to make a thread where we could discuss it without jumping on the toes of the players who have different interpretations.

[Davik Kang]

zambot wrote...
This theory has the same problem as the other non-dream IT theories I've seen:

1. It requires the game/developers to lie to you. Regardless of which choice you pick, the reaper threat is over. Saying that an indoctrination attempt was successful at the very end if you pick 2 of the choices means the game must lie to pull it off.
2. It does not hold up when you have low EMS. In such cases, only one option is offered to you: control or destroy. In other words: if you have low EMS and the reapers are more successful, they don't try to indoctrinate you and go meekly to their deaths. This is not logical.
3. If the reapers are successfully in your head poking your thoughts, why would they let you see the destroy terminal at all?

Yep good points.  I haven't got perfect responses, I'll just address as best I can...

1.  Kind of.  I said somewhere before that the ME games are designed to be your story.  Not one canonical story that everyone's supposed to agree on.  So, I think it's indoctrination, but that doesn't mean that I'm right.  It just means that in my story, Shepard feared she was being indoctrinated and chose to Destroy the Reapers.  For players who picked the other two, I don't think Bioware's intention was to go "Hahaha fool after all this, you failed."  So in your story, if you didn't think it was indoctrination, then you are succesful in trying to Control or Synthesise.

2.  Very good point.  The only thing I've come up with in previous discussions of this, is that maybe low-EMS is equated to a player who rushed through the game, wanting to focus on the Priority story and not play MP or scan planets or do side-quests etc.  Such a player might be expected to have spent less time reading about the lore and making careful decisions about the fate of X Y Z.  They also might be the ones who didn't play ME1 or ME2.  So in this case the final choice is simplified so as not to be misleading.  The hints about the drawbacks of Synthesis are quite subtle and not readily gone into.  This isn't truly a rebuttal of your point btw, it's something that could be discussed in depth I think.

3.  I don't think they have a choice.  Imo, you are still at the panel in the Citadel, but hallucinating the ending.  Whether that is the case or not, the key thing is that I think Shepard instinctively knows how to activate the Crucible, just as she instinctively understood the Eden Prime beacon and Vigil VI in ME1.  But because of the hallucination, she is persuaded by the Reaper that she is being offered the choice to Destroy.  I don't think they "let you see the Destroy terminal" at all.  They can't blind you to Destroy.  They are just trying to convince you to turn away.  The decision chamber can be interpreted in many other ways too and I'd like to go into them in depth if people want.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 13 octobre 2012 - 07:29 .

[DoomsdayDevice]

[Davik Kang]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

Yeah, doesn't look good does it!  Will just say that

> in the rubble scene at the end, it appears to be indoors, due to lighting

> the rubble seems somewhat vertical, more like a collapsed structure than a concrete ground

> Shepard is wearing the same clothes as she wears during the whole ending sequence.

Not trying to claim it's a completely plausible survival, but not all that much about sci-fi is plausible.  Shepard's survived a lot, and somehow, despite abysmal odds, she survived this too.

[Jadebaby]

Davik Kang wrote...

Jade8aby88 wrote...
Sorry, but you're not as original as you thought. I'm pretty sure The Twilight God's "IT con" theory is the same as this.

Not trying to be original though.  Please read the OP.  I am not for one second claiming this is a new theory or interpretation.  I am tryin to find other people who think the same, as well as those who can help iron out inconsistyencies or just generally want to talk about it and other possibilities.

Of course, and I was never trying to undermine your creativity or interpretation. Just wanted to inform you that other people have thought this and there is a theory supporting it in case you want to discuss it with them. So sorry if I came off as brazen

Davik Kang wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...
It looks like someone recently finished the game and came to the conclusion that Shepard was undergoing indoctrination. They've been trying to make sense of the ending. Look at the OP's join date. Sept 24/25 2012. I think everyone should just lighten up and stop the fighting. I came to a similar conclusion. 

The reapers use indoctrination. IT is a valid possibility until Bioware says it isn't. End of story.

Yep you're exactly right, I finished ME3 a couple of weeks back and thought it was amazing, then signed up here to find that most definitely do not think it was amazing.  I've talked to various people with different opinions and interpretations of the ending, and I decided to make this thread so as not to spam the other threads with stuff irrelevant to their own discussions.

So then I guess you played with the EC your first time aruond? If so, then consider yourself extremely lucky. The 3 1/2 months between release and EC was hell for a lot of people.

[RebelTitan428]

if Bioware keeps Shepard alive they have no creativity left.
just let him/her and the universe die after ME3 and move onto something else

[DoomsdayDevice]

Davik Kang wrote...

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

*snip*

Yeah, doesn't look good does it!  Will just say that

> in the rubble scene at the end, it appears to be indoors, due to lighting

It's just dark. It was night in London, remember?

Davik Kang wrote...

> the rubble seems somewhat vertical, more like a collapsed structure than a concrete ground

Space stations built from concrete? Really?

Also: Wind on the citadel?

And where does that Mako come from?

Davik Kang wrote...

> Shepard is wearing the same clothes as she wears during the whole ending sequence.

Um, Shep's armour got blasted by Harbinger when she was still in London. Whether the dream starts there or no, the armour still got blasted and looks exactly the same as in the breath scene.

Davik Kang wrote...

Not trying to claim it's a completely plausible survival, but not all that much about sci-fi is plausible.  Shepard's survived a lot, and somehow, despite abysmal odds, she survived this too.

Have you taken into account that Shep has no helmet or functional armour when she's at ground zero of that blast which is 10-15 kilometers in diameter?

Check out the Rubble comparison

If they wanted this to be clearly on the Citadel, they could have made it a lot easier for us.

Nah, Leviathan establishes that it's most likely all an illusion.

Modifié par DoomsdayDevice, 13 octobre 2012 - 03:06 .

[Davik Kang]

Jade8aby88 wrote...
So then I guess you played with the EC your first time aruond? If so, then consider yourself extremely lucky. The 3 1/2 months between release and EC was hell for a lot of people.

Yes you're right.  At first I was stunned about the negative reaction to the ending, cos I thought it was so good.  But I have talked to a whole bunch of people who think quite the opposite, including 3DandBeyond, and I understand now why so many were really disappointed with it, post- and pre-EC.  For me the slideshows etc. didn't make too much difference because the chamber bit was my favourite bit, though putting the Cmdr Shepard thing on the memorial wall was also a pretty awesome moment.  But still I get it yeah, I don't want to criticise people who disliked the ending.

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

It's just dark. It was night in London, remember?
...
Space stations built from concrete? Really?

Also: Wind on the citadel?

And where does that Mako come from?
...
Um, Shep's armour got blasted by Harbinger when she was still in London. Whether the dream starts there or no, the armour still got blasted and looks exactly the same as in the breath scene.
...
Have you taken into account that Shep has no helmet or functional armour when she's at ground zero of that blast which is 10-15 kilometers in diameter?

Check out the Rubble comparison

If they wanted this to be clearly on the Citadel, they could have made it a lot easier for us.

Nah, Leviathan establishes that it's most likely all an illusion.

Yeah I have seen all the evidence you linked, and as I said, I thought it was Earth initially.  I'm not going to be able to prove you wrong, nor do I want to.  It's just that I've looked at all the evidence again and tbh I don't think it's been conclusively proven either way.  Sure, it's unreaslistic for Shepard to survive that, but I think the level of scientific analysis that goes into it is just unnecessary.  There are interpretations and there are plot holes, but doing these kinds of comparisons and calculations is at times missing the point I feel.

Anyway, to attempt to address a couple of points: the way the smoke is lit around Shepard looks like light highlighting dust, as it would if you were drawing a collapsed structure.  About concrete, I don't see why some of the Citadel material couldn't look like that too.  I also don't think it's clear that it's a Mako in the background.  In fact I think that they didn't want much about the ending to be clear at all.  That's where all the interpretation comes in.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think there's enough evidence to prove that the rubble scene is demonstrably London.  Nor to I claim to have disproved it.  But I think it could be the Citadel.  You've seen this before (it's in the Destroy ending) and I don't think the rubble scene is entirely inconsistent with it:




But I don't want to talk too much about small scientific points.  This is supposed to be about an interpretation.  Not about proving people right or wrong.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 13 octobre 2012 - 03:42 .

[Davik Kang]

BlueMoonSeraphim wrote...

If there is no indoctrination attempt, the morals of each option are definitely arguable.  For my stubborn "Destroy" choosing Shepard, "Control" represented corruptible absolute power that was too dangerous to keep and Synthesis represented raping all of organic life of its biological identity.  Certainly, "Destroy" was repugnant to her, but few choices in such dire circumstances are black and white.  Much of Mass Effect involves the shades of grey.  As you point out, Garrus asks you a hypothetical at one point about whether Shep would sacrifice a number of lives to save a much greater number of lives.  This is the "Destroy"-choosing-Shep summarized.  Of course, a different Shepard can have faith in herself to adequately control the Reapers and make them useful, or to judge that all roads eventually lead to some form of "Synthesis" and that there is no sense in putting off the inevitable (and in fact, she may believe it is safer and preferable to do it on these terms than risk the myriad worse forms of synthesis in the future, even if she has to take the blame upon herself).

If there is an indoctrination attempt, I mostly agree with your assessment.  Shepard has been an intriguing leader, and in "Control," certainly her leadership would make the Reapers stronger than ever.  Then, the ending interaction with TIM becomes especially relevant if you convinced him that he was being controlled by the Reapers when he thought he was controlling them.  Synthesis is especially troubling because in my mind, under an indoctrination attempt view, it feels apocalyptic.  It is the end of life as we know it.  Destroy, however, is not without its own problems.  Under an indoctrination attempt view, in my mind, it makes Shepard keenly sympatheic to the Reapers' logic.  She is being forced to make a cold, calculating, by-the-numbers decision in which one variable is destroyed to save another.  It is, strictly speaking, the very same methodology of the Reapers, applied to different variables.  That is why I hesitate to say that "Destroy" is breaking free of indoctrination and the "right" ending.  In fact, in that ending more than any other, Shepard steps into the role of the Reapers and sees through their lens in perfect alignment very clearly -- destroy A to save B, C, D, E, etc., or reaping synthetic life so that organic life may continue existing.

All of these options are multi-faceted, and that is why it is so difficult for me to ascribe "correct" and "incorrect" labels to them.  My different Shepards have made different choices based on who they were and what they believed in, and those choices simply became the harsh reality in the game and nothing more.  I think that is the point.  In the end, we are given a choice between many repugnant options.  There is no "unicorns, bunnies, and rainbows" ending where the hero makes the choice he was destined to and is vindicated.  

I won't presume to know what BW was thinking, but for me, it certainly carried through the series' theme that you can't save everything, and when you try to, you risk losing it all (i.e., "Refuse" option: "These are all terrible choices, and I won't pick one that isn't perfect!").  ME3's ending was supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth because the galaxy doesn't pull through unscathed.  Regardless of what decision you make, there is an indelible mark carved into the galaxy now immortalizing when a horrible tragedy occurred, and I never expected to be given an option that made up for all that has happened, because nothing simply could have.  

Of course, everyone's game is different.  I probably associate the most with my Shep who has been put through the wringer too many times and sees the writing on the wall; she knows there is no game-changer, only a game-ender.  She has stubbornly pursued the same goal all this time and does not look away.  For that Shep, putting an end to the atrocities with an atrocity that causes the fewest effects on the galaxy as a whole was the least terrible of the terrible options.  She isn't "right" or even "good," just happened to be in the position to make the choice and expects to pay for it and live plagued by it.

As far as this thread itself, live and let live.  People discussing Davik's interpretation aren't harming anyone, just expressing their enjoyment of the game by talking about it.  It is a real head-scratcher why dissembling trolls don't get suspended or banned and instead thought-provoking threads get closed because of their mischief.  It has sadly become a dependable, predictable, and unfair tactic. 

Ok finally got around to this one and, again, I agree with pretty much everything you said here.  Especially your take on the non-indoctrination endings - you explained the moral side of those choices way better than I did.  Unfortunately I can't provide much more of an answer because you said it all so well, I would just be fruitlessly rewording what you wrote.  It is at least a relief that we can disagree on the ending so fundamentally, and yet still see eye to eye on many of the possibilities within it.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 13 octobre 2012 - 04:20 .

[OdanUrr]

Davik Kang wrote...

A lot of people brought up the Deus Ex Machina thing so I'll go into it first.

I'll try again to explain what I mean, because a lot of people are responding to the general definition of DEM, and not what I said to explain the difference.  It depends on 2 things, first that the Kid is a new character, and second that the Kid has omnipotent powers to alter the course of the story in an unforseen way and resolve an unresolvable plot point.

First, the Kid is not a new character if you consider this to be an indoctrination attempt.  The Kid basically represents the Reapers.  He says himself he has the collective knowledge of the Reapers and essentially posits himself as a representative of the Reapers and their goals.  The Reapers aren't new, so the Kid isn't new.  He's just a collective voice for the Reapers, which enables you to have a conversation with them.  He looks like the Kid from your dreams because the indoctrination is appealing to Shepard's sense of guilt and desire to protect the innocent, like I said in the OP.

Secondly, the Kid has no power (other than indoctrination power).  The Crucible was built by the Alliance forces and their allies.  Shepard is now the one who can activate it.  The only thing the Kid can do is try to get Shepard to act in the Reapers' interests rather than in the Alliance's interests.

About the Crucible being a DEM, it's been in the story the whole time and we already knew it did something big but didn't exaclty know what.  Some may argue it's a contrived plot device.  I don't want to get into a big argument about that here.  For me it was a decent idea because it gave the game a hook, a simple goal for the Alliance - finish the Crucible or die.  It also gave the game a sense of drama, having to finish it before it was too late.  And it allowed the tying-in of Galactic Readiness and so forth.  I thought it was fine, some thought it was bad, ok, no problem.  Just saying here that it's not a DEM.

Well, I do consider the Catalyst to be a new, eleventh-hour-ish, character. Indeed, he has never been introduced in the previous Mass Effect games and you just happen to meet him at the end because he chooses to reveal himself. He also happens to tell you how to activate the Crucible. So, while Shepard is the one who can activate it, he'd never have been able to do so if not for the Catalyst. As for the Crucible being a DEM, if you consider the Crucible in the context of all Mass Effect games (with Mass Effect being a single story divided into three chapters), then, yes, I can argue that the Crucible is indeed a DEM introduced in the last game to solve the problem of how to defeat the Reapers.

[Davik Kang]

A Bethesda Fan wrote...
The Crucible was always active until it is shut down by either using it or leaving it for the catalyst to shut down.
It can be seen in the ending.

Activate =/= active

Huh?  Nothing gets shut down in the Refuse ending.  Shepard does nothing and the Reapers win.

[OdanUrr]

Davik Kang wrote...

A Bethesda Fan wrote...
The Crucible was always active until it is shut down by either using it or leaving it for the catalyst to shut down.
It can be seen in the ending.

Activate =/= active

Huh?  Nothing gets shut down in the Refuse ending.  Shepard does nothing and the Reapers win.

Actually, yes, the Crucible gets deactivated.

[Davik Kang]

OdanUrr wrote...
Well, I do consider the Catalyst to be a new, eleventh-hour-ish, character. Indeed, he has never been introduced in the previous Mass Effect games and you just happen to meet him at the end because he chooses to reveal himself. He also happens to tell you how to activate the Crucible. So, while Shepard is the one who can activate it, he'd never have been able to do so if not for the Catalyst. As for the Crucible being a DEM, if you consider the Crucible in the context of all Mass Effect games (with Mass Effect being a single story divided into three chapters), then, yes, I can argue that the Crucible is indeed a DEM introduced in the last game to solve the problem of how to defeat the Reapers.

Ok but that's why indoctrination is crucial to this point.  I guess I didn't explain well enough.  If there is no indoctrination, then the Kid very much comes across as a DEM.  I haven't really given that side much thought because I think the end is indoctrination, but I said earlier somewhere that I do think it'd be an intersting discussion.

But if you take it to be indoctrination, then the Kid is just a representative of the Reapers.  Not a new character.  To get past the DEM illusion (because I do think, as I said, that he is presented as a DEM), you have to consider that he's not really there, but more your mind trying to make sense of the persuasive Reaper voice in your head.  The dream-like qualities of indoctrination are explored in the previous games too.

For the second point, well ok the Crucible is a DEM if you take the whole trilogy and see ME3 as just a final act, but I think it was just a decent way to create a new, self-contained story for ME3.  Remember that not all ME3 players had played ME2 or ME1.  If you don't care about those players (some people make this counter-argument; I'm not saying it's yours) then fine, but I think having a somewhat self-contained plot for the game is a good thing.  The overall experience is still massively boosted if you played ME1 and ME2.

[Davik Kang]

OdanUrr wrote...
Actually, yes, the Crucible gets deactivated.

Ah ok, I watched it again.  I heard that if you hesitate in your final decision, move over to one side and then back again for example, then the game deems that you took too long, and the Crucible is destroyed.  So I think that the beam turning off is just the consequence of that time passing.  Reapers beat the forces protecting the Crucible and disengage it.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 13 octobre 2012 - 05:39 .

[Rixatrix]

Davik Kang wrote...
For the second point, well ok the Crucible is a DEM if you take the whole trilogy and see ME3 as just a final act, but I think it was just a decent way to create a new, self-contained story for ME3.  Remember that not all ME3 players had played ME2 or ME1.  If you don't care about those players (some people make this counter-argument; I'm not saying it's yours) then fine, but I think having a somewhat self-contained plot for the game is a good thing.  The overall experience is still massively boosted if you played ME1 and ME2.

I don't think the Crucible came out of thin air or the Catalyst for that matter.  From the first game, Shepard is getting messages from dead civilizations about the Reapers - why is it so hard to believe that previous cycles tried to stop them?  Really, that is what the Crucible is, right?  The Protheans were the last civilization to try building it, but its origins are unknown.  Maybe it varies with how much credence you give human exceptionalism, but since finding out about the cycles, I wondered how the previous ones tried to handle the Reapers.  It was hard for me to imagine that they all were sitting ducks, but somehow the humans were special.  I wasn't surprised when ME3 unveiled the Crucible; my thought was, "Finally, we get some information on what the previous cycles tried to do."  I'll admit, the Crucible finally succeeding seems pretty convenient, but since the first game, we've demonstrated time and time again that Shepard is no ordinary leader.

The Catalyst, on the other hand, was a surprise in the circumstances of its revelation, if not in its existence.  Let's face it, Reaper superiority was a factor since even before Sovereign's introduction.  They were this larger-than-life enemy, impossible to fully comprehend, and depending on whether your Shepard believes machines can be arrogant, they themselves emphasized that they were above the comprehension of organics.  They had reached a higher state.  The Catalyst, in many ways, probably felt like an over-simplified let-down to many, but without this collective consciousness, wouldn't the Reapers have been just as much of a letdown, if not more?  If we just found out that they were nothing more than simple, separate beings, like everyone else?  If the clockwork apocalypse of the galaxy didn't have a unifying presence, just a mechanical schedule and a job?

The Catalyst was the AI embodiment of an evolutionally sophisticated geth consensus.  It is like the ultimate form of Vigil representing a mass of complex beings.  It made sense but was unexpected and yet shockingly simple.  There are many speculations about its child form, but for my Shepard, it was like Legion's mission.  The geth adn quarians in those memories looked like Legion the current-day quarians, but what Legion says is that Shepard is imputing knowns to unknowns.  For my Shep, it was representative of what those memories meant for the current-day geth and quarians.  To apply this to the ending, my Shep was haunted by the death of a child, and ascribing that child's image to the AI presenting three life-altering choices was only emphatic of the weight of that choice and the countless children who would be affected.  That's all.  It made it less of a burden to choose the option she had been intent on since the start - destroying the Reapers.  Now, if the Catalyst looked like Legion or the Illusive Man, that certainly would have presented different emotions! :happy:

For me, at least, the Catalyst and the Crucible didn't feel like convenient toss-ins, but were actually part of the knot the strings in the story had been leading up to.  Not everyone had the same questions or expectations, and everyone is entitled for their opinion, but just presenting the opposite view.


BTW, Davik, glad you liked my thoughts on the ending.  One more thing about the Crucible, I recall from the game that it failed in the Prothean cycle because a separatist faction emerged wanting to use it to control the Reapers, and these separatists were later revealed to have been indoctrinated.  It doesn't necessarily mean that Control is a result of indoctrination, but its use circumstantially at the very least could certainly be used to strengthen your interpretation.  The flipside, of course, is that Shepard (being so extraordinary) could have been the one to overcome the temptation.  The choice of perspective is up to each individual Shepard. 

Modifié par BlueMoonSeraphim, 13 octobre 2012 - 09:44 .

[Davik Kang]

BlueMoonSeraphim wrote...
One more thing about the Crucible, I recall from the game that it failed in the Prothean cycle because a separatist faction emerged wanting to use it to control the Reapers, and these separatists were later revealed to have been indoctrinated.  It doesn't necessarily mean that Control is a result of indoctrination, but its use circumstantially at the very least could certainly be used to strengthen your interpretation.  The flipside, of course, is that Shepard (being so extraordinary) could have been the one to overcome the temptation.  The choice of perspective is up to each individual Shepard. 

Indeed!  This really is the core of the ending I think.  Shepard could genuinely have been the first individual to be strong enough to make the Control choice (or Synthesis choice perhaps).  It was actually my doubt of that idea that got me thinking something wasn't right - it was like the opposite jolt to the one where Shepard says "so the Illusive Man was right after all".  The idea of becoming a Reaper-God just seemed fundamentally uncomfortable, as did the Synthesis option (even more so, significantly more so), and that's what gave me the idea that I / Shepard was being indoctrinated.  I get so immersed in these games that I was basically thinking like Shepard, thinking "I'm a soldier, not a politician, not a God", and that was what pushed me to pick Destroy, even though I could have been wrong and will never truly know.  And that was the basis of this whole interpretation really.

However, we do at last disagree on something!  Your reasoning for the AI appearing in the form of the Kid was the first I had seen from a Literal interpretation.  But what I am wondering is, why does Shepard interpret the AI in this way?  In the Geth / Legion mission, she is plugged into a mainframe and forced to make sense of the information in some format.  She does that with a visual and aural interpretation, as they are the most common ways we receive data.  And even if it's just a metaphor, it doesn't really matter because Bioware show us the mission in visuals and audio for the same reasons.  And like you said, Shepard interprets these in her modern understanding of the appearance and sound of Geth and Quarians.

But with Vigil and the VI in ME3, we see a different image, perhaps a Prothean, certainly something Shepard has never seen before.  In which case, why does Shepard see something from her dreams when talking to the VI at the end?  Wouldn't this only be the case if she were dreaming or hallucinating?

Modifié par Davik Kang, 29 octobre 2012 - 03:23 .

[Rixatrix]

Davik Kang wrote...
However, we do at last disagree on something!  Your reasoning for the AI appearing in the form of the Kid was the first I had seen from a Literal interpretation.  But what I am wondering is, why does Shepard interpret the AI in this way?  In the Geth / Legion mission, she is plugged into a mainframe and forced to make sense of the information in some format.  She does that with a visual and aural interpretation, as they are the most common ways we receive data.  And even if it's just a metaphor, it doesn't really matter because Bioware show us the mission in visuals and audio for the same reasons.  And like you said, Shepard interprets these in her modern understanding of the appearance and sound of Geth and Quarians.

But with Vigil and the VI in ME3, we see a different image, perhaps a Prothean, certainly something Shepard has never seen before.  In which case, why does Shepard see something from her dreams when talking to the VI at the end?  Wouldn't this only be the case if she were dreaming or hallucinating?

Well, we can distinguish Vigil and the Catalyst.  Vigil, and the VIs we encounter, interact with Shepard in the physical world -- i.e., "true" visual and aural communication -- and in order to do that, their creators/programmers gave them visual and aural qualities.  The geth, OTOH, have actual physical platforms, but in the virtual reality of the geth consensus (hereinafter "VRGC"), they had no need of creating visual and aural traits because its use did not require such.  That's why Shepard had to illustrate what she saw with her own mind.  If you interpret the ending as Shepard going into a virtual reality, the Reaper collective consciousness and AI, the Catalyst, had no need of a visual form or aural communication when its primary function was overseeing the Reapers, who could make sense of data with no visual or aural traits.  So Shepard once again must populate the virtual reality with her own mind.  See below for a more in-depth analysis.

The reason I brought up Shepard's entry into the VRGC is because it may be a parallel to the ending's events.  What happened in the VRGC certainly did not physically occur, nevertheless, it did actually happen.  While this idea may seem contradictory on its face, you have the results of that mission which corroborate that Shepard did indeed effectuate what occurred in the VRGC, all the while not having "physically" done those things.  They happened in a virtual reality but had real consequences.  

In the VRGC, information was communicated in a way that was palatable to Shepard. One could argue whether the representations of the information had a deeper meaning or were simply convenient.  For my Shepard, the data of the geth's revolution was taken in the context of Legion's ongoing moral conflict surrounding the potential geth/quarian coexistence.  It was framing that history in a light relevant to the struggle in Shepard's time and forced that information into the picture when contemplating a resolution because it was still applicable, despite its beginnings being between different quarians and (likely) different geth platforms.

When Shepard arrives at the ending decision, a change in surroundings has clearly occurred without her physical movement.  Here is where one can speculate whether that is the result of a hallucination or a virtual reality, but the same occurred when Shepard transitioned into the VRGC.  

For the virtual reality interpretation, the Catalyst is represented in a familiar form and tells you so.  Once again, it is arguable whether that it simply convenient or more profound.  Unlike the VI Vigil, which interacted with Shepard in the physical world and was given its form by its creators, the Catalyst AI in this interpretation appears to Shepard in a virtual reality, like the VRGC, where Shepard populates the visual representation of the data with what is familiar to her.  The option she chooses isn't a figment of her imagination, but rather an actual choice with real consequences although it is made in a virtual reality, like in the VRGC.  

In support of this view, we have the ending cinematics of the game, which actually illustrate the effects (if you choose to interpret them literally).  This is the very same mechanic used in the VRGC mission, which is why it is familiar and seems reasonable.  OTOH, I doubt but am not sure that we have had a hallucination in the trilogy with real consequences or that we have seen the internal/mental mechanic for indoctrination.  That ambiguity can either discredit a hallucination theory or support it because not seeing it can mean either that we can't verify it or that we can't deny it as a possibility, respectively.  (Although students of philosophy will probably throw in burden shifting for their fun.) 


That said, the above is what helps me see the virtual reality view as reasonable, although, as you've seen, I like applying other interpretations, too.  In all honesty, the plethora of interpretations on the forums have made the ending much more enjoyable for me, because I always enjoyed experiencing the many different avenues the audience can take in how it receives a work.  Internal evidence able to support a number of theories makes a work more entertaining because of the amount of intellectual exercise you get to do!  I feel like sometimes people waste time trying to figure out the intent of the work's creator when, once released, the work becomes standalone for the sake of analysis and should be evaluated based on internal evidence.  (Though that may be because I take the views of New Criticism.)