335 réponses à ce sujet

[CoolioThane]

It depends on what you believe, doesn't it? Some people do think he was, but that discussion is only for groups.

[DirtyPhoenix]

So that's what ITers think.. ME3 was about Shepard's fight against indoctrination, not the Reapers. I can see how the ME3's conflict was resolved from IT's perspective; Shepard defeated indoctrination. But the reapers on the other hand..

And according to IT (if I'm not wrong) the crucible is a dud, so we're well and truly screwed, unless Shepard's survival magically inspires the fleets to victory.

See that's the thing I don't like about IT. Its good if you think the point of ME3 was beating indoctrination, but I don't. In my mind its something like this:

Shepard *stands up triumphantly, heroic music plays* Huzzah! I beat indoctrination!!
Harbinger: *standing right next to him* Huh.. *Zaps Shepard to oblivion, proceeds to curbstomp the remainder of the fleet.*

[Eryri]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Scroll up to my longer post above. It was two days. Not quite enough time, especially for someone as "special" as Shepard.

From earlier in the thread, a quote from Rana Thanoptis:

"Over days, perhaps a week of exposure to Sovereign's signal, the subject stops thinking for themselves and just obeys, eventually becoming a mindless servant."

The truth is that the game is always vague about the precise requirements for indoctrination, in terms of time of exposure or the range of the signal. It takes precisely as much time as Bioware needs it to take. 

It also seems to vary among individuals and circumstances. Rana seemed fine for the 2 years after her exposure to Sovereign before her little murder-suicide spree. Back in ME1, the scientist hiding on Eden Prime, while admittedly mentally vulnerable, was babbling about apocalyptic evil from the edges of space after only a few hours. Things he couldn't possibly know unless Sovereign (or perhaps the prothean beacon, admittedly) affected his mind directly. The other workers complained that the noise from Sovereign seemed to reverberate inside their heads in an unatural way, and they seemed to be in awe of it.

In any event, Leviathan renders the length of Shepard's exposure debate academic, as they were able to quite easily plunge Shepard into a completely illusiory world in a matter of seconds. Their enthrallment is the ancestor of indoctrination, and Harbinger himself is a chimera of thousands or even millions of Leviathans. If they can do it, so can Harbinger.

Modifié par Eryri, 16 janvier 2013 - 12:19 .

[Eryri]

pirate1802 wrote...

So that's what ITers think.. ME3 was about Shepard's fight against indoctrination, not the Reapers. I can see how the ME3's conflict was resolved from IT's perspective; Shepard defeated indoctrination. But the reapers on the other hand..

And according to IT (if I'm not wrong) the crucible is a dud, so we're well and truly screwed, unless Shepard's survival magically inspires the fleets to victory.

See that's the thing I don't like about IT. Its good if you think the point of ME3 was beating indoctrination, but I don't. In my mind its something like this:

Shepard *stands up triumphantly, heroic music plays* Huzzah! I beat indoctrination!!
Harbinger: *standing right next to him* Huh.. *Zaps Shepard to oblivion, proceeds to curbstomp the remainder of the fleet.*

Re your last point, it depends on where the "hallucination" for want of a better word, starts. Personally, I'm inclined to think it might begin earlier than Harbinger's death ray, at the transport crash. The Mako that Shepard is sitting in, jolts and the scene fades to black. When the action resumes they're suddenly all outside, with no explanation as to what caused the crash or how they got out.

This has the advantage that the ridiculous Normandy pick up scene never happened (thank God, it's dreadful) and Harbinger hasn't even arrived yet (at least not physically anyway). The crew would have plenty of time to pull a presumably unconcious Shepard to safety and regroup.

Modifié par Eryri, 16 janvier 2013 - 12:00 .

[CoolioThane]

pirate1802 wrote...

So that's what ITers think.. ME3 was about Shepard's fight against indoctrination, not the Reapers. I can see how the ME3's conflict was resolved from IT's perspective; Shepard defeated indoctrination. But the reapers on the other hand..

And according to IT (if I'm not wrong) the crucible is a dud, so we're well and truly screwed, unless Shepard's survival magically inspires the fleets to victory.

See that's the thing I don't like about IT. Its good if you think the point of ME3 was beating indoctrination, but I don't. In my mind its something like this:

Shepard *stands up triumphantly, heroic music plays* Huzzah! I beat indoctrination!!
Harbinger: *standing right next to him* Huh.. *Zaps Shepard to oblivion, proceeds to curbstomp the remainder of the fleet.*

Crucible's not necessarily a dud, we haven't had a chance to use it yet. But the general consensus is it's a trap, yes. 

Alas, not allowed to talk about IT here, but if anyone's interested, the IT forum is here:

indoctrinationtheory.forumotion.co.uk/

[Restrider]

In regards to the needed time of exposure, does anyone remember that Batarian in Mass Effect: Revelation?
He once was inside of Sovereign and ended up being indoctrinated (the subtle form of it, changing the behaviour in the Reapers' advantage, not the drooling husk-type).

[BleedingUranium]

As has been said, with IT, ME3's primary story is Shepard vs. indoctrination, and that's resolved no matter which ending you choose.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

Eryri wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Scroll up to my longer post above. It was two days. Not quite enough time, especially for someone as "special" as Shepard.

From earlier in the thread, a quote from Rana Thanoptis:

"Over days, perhaps a week of exposure to Sovereign's signal, the subject stops thinking for themselves and just obeys, eventually becoming a mindless servant."

The truth is that the game is always vague about the precise requirements for indoctrination, in terms of time of exposure or the range of the signal. It takes precisely as much time as Bioware needs it to take.

Two days and a week are not exactly close.

That's to say nothing of the fact Shepard thwarts the Reapers' attempted sabotage of The Project, and that Shepard's involvement in the events of Arrival is not canon in a new ME3 game.

Bioware can't make it take any less than 1 day without greviously contradicting established lore.

It also seems to vary among individuals and circumstances. Rana seemed fine for the 2 years after her exposure to Sovereign before her little murder-suicide spree. Back in ME1, the scientist hiding on Eden Prime, while admittedly mentally vulnerable, was babbling about apocalyptic evil from the edges of space after only a few hours. Things he couldn't possibly know unless Sovereign affected his mind directly.

Indeed it does vary. It would lead me to believe Shepard's mind would not succumb in just two days.

I doubt Manuel was indoctrinated. I think he just made a good guess. He was said to be brilliant, if unstable.

In any event, Leviathan renders the length of Shepard's exposure debate academic, as they were able to quite easily plunge Shepard into a completely illusiory world in a matter of seconds. Their enthrallment is the ancestor of indoctrination, and Harbinger himself is a chimera of thousands or even millions of Leviathans. If they can do it, so can Harbinger.

What little we know of Leviathan's method of control is that it's highly, highly different from the Reapers' method.

Leviathan can take down a Reaper dreadnought and disable spacecraft instantly.

If Harby can do what Levi can, why haven't we seen any ships inexplicably go crashing around the Reapers?

[BleedingUranium]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

What little we know of Leviathan's method of control is that it's highly, highly different from the Reapers' method.

Enthrallment was perfected and became indoctrination. Now compare the in-Shepard's-mind part of Leviathan to the decision chamber. If you don't notice the extreme similarities then you're intentionally ignoring them. And that's not even bringing up Overlord or the Geth Consensus mission, which again are very similar.

Modifié par BleedingUranium, 16 janvier 2013 - 12:41 .

[teh DRUMPf!!]

BleedingUranium wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

What little we know of Leviathan's method of control is that it's highly, highly different from the Reapers' method.

Enthrallment was perfected and became indoctrination.

So why didn't or don't they utilize Leviathan's ability to take down entire dreadnoughts with their indoctrination?

Now compare the in Shepard's mind part of Leviathan to the decision chamber. If you don't notice the extreme similarities then you're intentionall ignoring them. And that's not even bringing up Overlord or the Geth Consensus mission, which again are very similar.

The only similarity I know of is Shepard being on his knees. And the explanation for that is rather straightforward.

[Eryri]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Two days and a week are not exactly close.

That's to say nothing of the fact Shepard thwarts the Reapers' attempted sabotage of The Project, and that Shepard's involvement in the events of Arrival is not canon in a new ME3 game.

Bioware can't make it take any less than 1 day without greviously contradicting established lore.

I don't think it would be too much of a problem for them. The established lore is vague, perheps deliberately so. They left themselves plenty of wiggle room. If we knew that indoctrination took exactly this much time at exactly this much distance from a reaper, it would rob it of its mystery and make it far less frightening.

Indeed it does vary. It would lead me to believe Shepard's mind would not succumb in just two days.

As has been said before, Shepard has been clocking up little bits of exposure all over the place. The very fact that the process takes time, strongly suggests that it is cumulative, even if it doesn't outright prove it and there is nothing in the lore to directly prove that it is not, so it seems a safe assumption. Rana's example shows that once a latent indoctrination has taken root it is self sustaining, and can manifest years later - it is almost like a cancer in that regard. One cigarette won't kill you, but smoke enough over the years... While other people can smoke like chimneys and end up dying of something completely unrelated.

And I agree that Shepard may indeed be at least resistant to indoctrination, hence why he even has a fighting chance of overcoming it during the "great decision" at the end of the game.

In any event, Leviathan renders the length of Shepard's exposure debate academic, as they were able to quite easily plunge Shepard into a completely illusiory world in a matter of seconds. Their enthrallment is the ancestor of indoctrination, and Harbinger himself is a chimera of thousands or even millions of Leviathans. If they can do it, so can Harbinger.

What little we know of Leviathan's method of control is that it's highly, highly different from the Reapers' method.

Leviathan can take down a Reaper dreadnought and disable spacecraft instantly.

If Harby can do what Levi can, why haven't we seen any ships inexplicably go crashing around the Reapers?

Leviathan itself asserts that Indoctrination is a refined and perfected version of enthrallment. As to why they were able to knock a Sovereign class reaper out of the sky, I'll admit that strained my credulity (how on Earth did the Catalyst defeat them if they were able to do things like that?) 
However, while disabling the reaper, they were using their orbs as ampilfiers. Perhaps they have been doing their own research into enhancing their natural abilities during their long exile from power.

Also Harbinger is capable of directly manipulating the collectors even from outside the galaxy - which seems very similar to enthrallment.

Modifié par Eryri, 16 janvier 2013 - 12:49 .

[DirtyPhoenix]

ME uses recycled animations, across all the three games. And not just for kneeling. Shepard saying "This is an insult to the Alliance" to Wiks on Surkesh uses the exact same animation as Wrex saying 'They are my people" to the Dallatress in the war room. Seeing these I just can't take the "kneeling" argument seriously..

[Indy_S]

He probably wasn't indoctrinated since it appears to be outside the scope of the narrative. If the Word of God says so, then it is. However, they remain fairly silent. So anything would be speculation. For what it's worth, I'm going to continue with my probability and say Shepard isn't indoctrinated. Regardless of the time around Reapers, it either wasn't enough or Shepard's just badass enough to walk it off.

[BleedingUranium]

pirate1802 wrote...

ME uses recycled animations, across all the three games. And not just for kneeling. Shepard saying "This is an insult to the Alliance" to Wiks on Surkesh uses the exact same animation as Wrex saying 'They are my people" to the Dallatress in the war room. Seeing these I just can't take the "kneeling" argument seriously..

Sure they do, but that specific animation is only used in four places:

-Being forced into the digital reality in Overlord (alternate reality)
-Getting hit by Object Rho (indoctrination)
-Being forced into your own mind with Leviathan (alternate reality & entrallment/proto-indoctrination)
-Meeting the kid (alternate reality & indoctrination)

Even ignoring the last, there's a clear theme. That pose also suggests worship, which fits with each as well.

And then there's also all the fade-to-whites, which in any form of visual medium always mean alternate reality transition.

[Eryri]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

The only similarity I know of is Shepard being on his knees. And the explanation for that is rather straightforward.

Shepard isn't really kneeling down. He's still sitting in the Atlas. Leviathan deliberately put him in that position in the illusion to symbolically express his dominance over Shepard. 

That's not even the most obvious similarity. "Your memories give voice to our words". Leviathan uses the images of people Shepard knows; Bryson, Garneau etc. He even uses props - an representation of a microscope.

The catalyst also borrows images from Shepard's mind - the boy from Vancouver. This is true even in the literal interpretation, but taken with the added context of Leviathan it becomes more significant.

[Aaleel]

Because it would make all Shepard's the same. All Shepard's didn't do Arrival, all Shepards didn't take the loss of the Virmire squadmate the same. All Shepards didn't lose people on the suicide mission, and those who lost people did not take it the same. Mental make up and fatigue is a part of indoctrination as well.

People always complain about having their Shepard and their decisions mattering, but then turn around and want to be railroaded into one ending with an indoctrinated Shepard. I just don't get it.

[Restrider]

Aaleel wrote...

Because it would make all Shepard's the same. All Shepard's didn't do Arrival, all Shepards didn't take the loss of the Virmire squadmate the same. All Shepards didn't lose people on the suicide mission, and those who lost people did not take it the same. Mental make up and fatigue is a part of indoctrination as well.

People always complain about having their Shepard and their decisions mattering, but then turn around and want to be railroaded into one ending with an indoctrinated Shepard. I just don't get it.

The point is that you actually choose whether you align your Shepard with the Reapers' goals or not.

[BleedingUranium]

Aaleel wrote...

Because it would make all Shepard's the same. All Shepard's didn't do Arrival, all Shepards didn't take the loss of the Virmire squadmate the same. All Shepards didn't lose people on the suicide mission, and those who lost people did not take it the same. Mental make up and fatigue is a part of indoctrination as well.

People always complain about having their Shepard and their decisions mattering, but then turn around and want to be railroaded into one ending with an indoctrinated Shepard. I just don't get it.

That's not true at all, whether your Shepard, along with yourself, succumb to indoctrination is the entire purpose of the choices. That's the complete opposite of railroading.

Modifié par BleedingUranium, 16 janvier 2013 - 01:02 .

[DirtyPhoenix]

BleedingUranium wrote...

pirate1802 wrote...

ME uses recycled animations, across all the three games. And not just for kneeling. Shepard saying "This is an insult to the Alliance" to Wiks on Surkesh uses the exact same animation as Wrex saying 'They are my people" to the Dallatress in the war room. Seeing these I just can't take the "kneeling" argument seriously..

Sure they do, but that specific animation is only used in four places:

-Being forced into the digital reality in Overlord (alternate reality)
-Getting hit by Object Rho (indoctrination)
-Being forced into your own mind with Leviathan (alternate reality & entrallment/proto-indoctrination)
-Meeting the kid (alternate reality & indoctrination)

Maybe it is so because these are the cases where they needed to show Shepard weak and down?

[Aaleel]

BleedingUranium wrote...

Aaleel wrote...

Because it would make all Shepard's the same. All Shepard's didn't do Arrival, all Shepards didn't take the loss of the Virmire squadmate the same. All Shepards didn't lose people on the suicide mission, and those who lost people did not take it the same. Mental make up and fatigue is a part of indoctrination as well.

People always complain about having their Shepard and their decisions mattering, but then turn around and want to be railroaded into one ending with an indoctrinated Shepard. I just don't get it.

That's not true at all, whether your Shepard, along with yourself, succumb to indoctrination is the entire purpose of the choices. That's the complete opposite of railroading.

So having one ending with one correct choice in a series that made itself on decisions with no correct choice isn't railoroading.   

Modifié par Aaleel, 16 janvier 2013 - 01:09 .

[BleedingUranium]

Aaleel wrote...

BleedingUranium wrote...

Aaleel wrote...

Because it would make all Shepard's the same. All Shepard's didn't do Arrival, all Shepards didn't take the loss of the Virmire squadmate the same. All Shepards didn't lose people on the suicide mission, and those who lost people did not take it the same. Mental make up and fatigue is a part of indoctrination as well.

People always complain about having their Shepard and their decisions mattering, but then turn around and want to be railroaded into one ending with an indoctrinated Shepard. I just don't get it.

That's not true at all, whether your Shepard, along with yourself, succumb to indoctrination is the entire purpose of the choices. That's the complete opposite of railroading.

So having one ending with one correct choice in a series that made itself on decisions with no correct choice isn't railoroading.

I think next time I play the Suicide Mission I'll pick Jacob to go through the tube, and Jack to lead the fireteams. Oh, and Grunt can make the bubble.

Handing over the evidence on Tali's father and saving the fake Rachni queen sounds fun too. Maybe I'll shoot Wrex on Virmire while I'm at it.

Modifié par BleedingUranium, 16 janvier 2013 - 01:18 .

[Aaleel]

BleedingUranium wrote...

Aaleel wrote...

BleedingUranium wrote...

Aaleel wrote...

Because it would make all Shepard's the same. All Shepard's didn't do Arrival, all Shepards didn't take the loss of the Virmire squadmate the same. All Shepards didn't lose people on the suicide mission, and those who lost people did not take it the same. Mental make up and fatigue is a part of indoctrination as well.

People always complain about having their Shepard and their decisions mattering, but then turn around and want to be railroaded into one ending with an indoctrinated Shepard. I just don't get it.

That's not true at all, whether your Shepard, along with yourself, succumb to indoctrination is the entire purpose of the choices. That's the complete opposite of railroading.

So having one ending with one correct choice in a series that made itself on decisions with no correct choice isn't railoroading.

I think next time I play the Suicide Mission I'll pick Jacob to go through the tube, and Jack to lead the fireteams. Oh, and Grunt can make the bubble.

What was the correct choice for the Genophage, or saving the Rachni queen, or saving the council, or re-writing the Geth, or giving Cerberus the base?

What you're saying are command decisions in a battle, not story decisions.

I wonder if the Catalyst had never walked out and everyone had just fought through the Citadel to the council chamber and pressed a button to destroy the reapers would you hear anything about an IT, or ME3 being Shepard's fight against indoctrination.  NOPE.

Probably wouldn't see as many threads about conventional victory either. 

Modifié par Aaleel, 16 janvier 2013 - 01:18 .

[BleedingUranium]

Aaleel wrote...

I wonder if the Catalyst had never walked out and everyone had just fought through the Citadel to the council chamber and pressed a button to destroy the reapers would you hear anything about an IT, or ME3 being Shepard's fight against indoctrination.  NOPE.

Probably wouldn't see as many threads about conventional victory either.

Of course we wouldn't, because if that were the ending, then the ending wouldn't be indoctrination

[Ithurael]

Mr. Gogeta34 wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Indoctrination is not instantaneous; it takes time to set in. That period of time is typically days of exposure.

Shepard was disconnected from the source of indoctrination ('Rho) in Arrival after two days.

Arrival was a close call, but it's safe to say he got out okay. And I doubt it is "built up" cumulatively.

Rapid Indoctrination can take days or weeks.  Slow Indoctrination can take months or years.  It's also not just Object Rho, but Reapers in general that Shepard has been around.  He just took a nasty set of rho Shockwaves and was unconscious for nearly 2 days (similar to how Grayson passed out a while after being injected with Reaper technology).

Did Rho merely set phasers to stun?  No exposure while he was unconscious?

assuming your shepard did the arrival mission. IIRC The events of Arrival happened, but whether or not shep was involved in them is player choice.

[BleedingUranium]

One of the comics references Shepard doing Arrival. Arrival is canon and doing a playthrough without it is non-canon.