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[StarcloudSWG]

That's assuming the narrator, in this case the Catalyst, can be trusted. Since the Catalyst is, in essence, all the Reapers put together, it cannot be trusted; it pushes Shepard towards Synthesis and in no way is unbiased and ambivalent about it. It *wants* the entire galaxy plugged into ReaperNet.

[Hadeedak]

Some form of knowledge is preserved in the Reapers: if nothing else, in the memory of each 'individual' Reaper. They're horrific, certainly. They're also data: data that can be used to study the origins of intelligence, sapience, functioning of galactic society.... I guess what I'm going for there is, assuming for a moment there's no hivemind or memory of individuals preserved in any fashion in the Reapers.... They're still the only link to hundreds of extinct civilizations, and they'd remember them because they were there to kill them. Which is more information than the galaxy would get any other way. It's more than could be discovered by any other method.

Though I doubt that's what 'preserved in Reaper form' means. Are they pawns, tools or conscious and malevolent evil? Well. We don't know with what we're given. And there's no way to go "STOP. Just stop everything for study."


Of course, if you can't trust the Catalyst and what you're shown in the Extended Cut, then suddenly you can say whatever the flip you want about the endings, because there's no 'truth' shown.

[liggy002]

Then apparently Bioware is indoctrinated as well since they don't want to release the true endings. They think that the lie is the truth.

[Sc2mashimaro]

I totally agree with the OP. Not reading into any intentions of the writers, from Shep's perspective, why would you ever believe what a representative or the brain of the obviously sociopathic villains tells you about how you should resolve the problems of the galaxy. I have a hard time doing anything but destroy or reject.

[Ieldra]

Sc2mashimaro wrote...
I totally agree with the OP. Not reading into any intentions of the writers, from Shep's perspective, why would you ever believe what a representative or the brain of the obviously sociopathic villains tells you about how you should resolve the problems of the galaxy. I have a hard time doing anything but destroy or reject.

Sociopathic villains? Bah. For the term to have any meaning the species in question must be social in the first place. The Reapers arent. The Catalyst isn't. They are simply not concerned with such things. It is not wrong, not good, not evil, it is just an attribute of the Catalyst. It's objectives are obviously not necessarily compatible with the wellbeing of organic civilizations, but its mental workings does not make it a villain. To count as a villain, there needs to be an implicit acknowledgement that the person in question can reasonably be expected to conform to certain standards. The Catalyst is not of that kind. It's just completely and utterly non-human.

For that reason, the argument that the Catalyst cannot be trusted is meaningless, because it operates on our standards of what is "villainous". Those standards do not apply. The Catalyst's objectives are not necessarily compatible with the well-being of organic civilizations, but neither are they necessarily incompatible. Against Saren, there stands Shepard. Just like Saren, Shepard is a symbolic representation of a symbiosis of synthetic and organic. Obviously, they are very different. Shepard initiates the Synthesis through putting himself into the equation (no matter the nonsensical science, it's the symbolism that counts here), so Synthesis will be made in Shepard's image rather than Saren's.

You may or may not trust the Catalyst. There is no preference for either since the Catalyst's objectives are neither necessarily beneficial nor necessarily detrimental to the wellbeing of civilizations. But you can trust your Shepard. Being a symbolic representation of a positive symbiosis of organic and synthetic, any Synthesis Shepard initiates will also have an outcome that can reasonably be considered good.  

[dorktainian]

Synthesis is a fail of epic proportions. Yay for intergalactic violation. Did anyone ever give shepard the mandate to s....w everyone over? Thought not.

[Hadeedak]

dorktainian wrote...

Synthesis is a fail of epic proportions. Yay for intergalactic violation. Did anyone ever give shepard the mandate to s....w everyone over? Thought not.

Well, s/he did either kill off or unleash the krogan.... the rachni.... the geth....


It's not like big choices no one person should HONESTLY be making has ever slowed Shep down much.  The end's just cranking up the volume. And hey. Every. Single. One of the endings are a mandate to @&#@* everything over, in one way or another. You're there. Hurry up and pick your poison before more people die. All of them have ginormous ramifications and consquences.

[BleedingUranium]

Sc2mashimaro wrote...

I totally agree with the OP. Not reading into any intentions of the writers, from Shep's perspective, why would you ever believe what a representative or the brain of the obviously sociopathic villains tells you about how you should resolve the problems of the galaxy. I have a hard time doing anything but destroy or reject.

Exactly. Shepard has no reason to trust the Reapers. I can't believe that actually needs saying.

[Indy_S]

StarcloudSWG wrote...

That's assuming the narrator, in this case the Catalyst, can be trusted. Since the Catalyst is, in essence, all the Reapers put together, it cannot be trusted; it pushes Shepard towards Synthesis and in no way is unbiased and ambivalent about it. It *wants* the entire galaxy plugged into ReaperNet.

The narrator in that case (my previous comment) is actually the BioWare writers. It has little to do with the honesty of the Catalyst.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

clennon8 wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

clennon8 wrote...

I really shouldn't be referring to Starchild as "the Catalyst," because I think "I am the Catalyst" is one of his lies. More likely, the Citadel is the Catalyst, just as Vendetta said. Starchild is the Intelligence mentioned by the Leviathans. He is housed on the Citadel, and he is a factor that the designers of the Crucible didn't account for.

The Starchild is not the catalyst; he's just a very naughty boy -- seriously he's "the Intelligence". Shepard is "The Catalyst" because Shepard initiates the action. The Crucible turns the Citadel into a weapon. This is how I read it.

Making Shepard the Catalyst raises the question of what it is about Shepard that is needed for the Crucible to work.  Honestly, the Citadel makes more sense to me, in this regard.

I've had a busy day. It wouldn't necessesarily be Shepard. The only thing that peaked the reapers interest in Shepard is that she defeated one of them. It could be any organic who made it to that level who wasn't indoctrinated. It is the one who would make the choice for their cycle. James Vega could make the Crucible work.

Gaining access to the level was the test. Hence the name Crucible. The Citadel is the weapon. The initiator of the action is the Catalyst who chooses how the weapon is used.

This is why Shepard could never find the Catalyst. This is why no one could ever find the Catalyst. The reapers knew they were looking for the Catalyst, hence the Intelligence said it was the Catalyst. There is a saying in Zen: "If you meet the Buddha on the side of the road kill him." This is an allusion to identifying one's Buddha nature outside of oneself. Since we're dealing with a lot of symbolism here Shepard is identifying her own Buddha nature outside of herself instead of from within.

All the Intelligence is doing is telling the Catalyst what is on the menu. So technically we should stop calling what we are now calling the Catalyst "the Catalyst" and call it the Intelligence or Starbrat. The dialogue does not say "Catalyst: I am the Catalyst." The dialogue says "Child: I am the Catalyst" and it keeps saying "Child: ............" It never changes. There is a reason for that. It is not the Catalyst. You are.

Do you follow me?

Modifié par sH0tgUn jUliA, 14 février 2013 - 10:58 .

[TheRealJayDee]

Auld Wulf wrote...

It's just easy to demonise people who play games and actually don't like picking the 'kill everything' option every time they're given an option. I'm actually very much used to that. I've frequently called for more choice and diplomacy in RPGs of the past, and the ME series is one example that I like very much, of doing it at least partially right. Another good example is Fallout: New Vegas, where you can even talk the enemy general out of war (right at the end of the game).

I know that someone who doesn't just want to 'kill ****' is also a person who isn't familiar for those who play games only to kill ****. But I started off gaming with the home computers, so I was introduced to a lot of text adventures, puzzle games, and platformers where the goal was avoidance rather than just slaughtering everything that got in my way. I think that culturally we just get swept up in our paths.

Due to my background of text adventures, avoidance games, point & click adventures, RPGs, and so on, I tend to continue to want to follow that route. I easily get tired of games which are just kill kill kill. I think you can test skill in other ways, VVVVVV was a particularly fine example of that. But I think that some gamers have a very narrow scope of experience, having started off with Megaman, or Final Fight, or Tomb Raider, or Call of Duty.

For those players, the option to just kill everything you run into is natural. It's a binary condition. The player is 1, the good guy. The enemies are 0, the bad guys. And 1 exists to destroy 0 and bring light back to the land. Which is pretty much the plot of almost every console game ever, to be honest. So it's easy to get into that mindset. Those players go into a game expecting to be 1, to kill 0, and to get a big congratulatory ending where they're heralded as some godlike being of good.

Mass Effect 3 provides them with a more nuanced option. There are endings which are more applicable to players like myself, those who didn't really find much of interest in the 'kill everything' games, and found more to capture and enthrall their attention outside of that. This is why I sometimes find myself wishing that gamers had a more rounded experience when it comes to playing games, then they wouldn't be so binary, so... 1 destroys 0, 1 wins.

But yes, I mean... there are just so many games I can think of where I was the guy who chose to run instead of fight. Always running. Proud to run. And only fighting when I absolutely had to. Ecstatica was a sublime example of that, for anyone who's played it. And if you haven't, you should try. I guess it's kind of like Doctor Who versus Rambo, which is hilarious when you think about it.

Since the early days of me playing pen&paper RPGs I have always had a tendency towards charismatic, rather peaceful characters, who tried their best to avoid unneccessary casualties (regardless of the system played). I do the same in videogames if possible, and I always prefered games that focused on things different from shooting stuff (my real introduction to gaming besides Mario Land and Tetris were the old LucasArts point&click adventures). Of course I also play game that involve killing, as most games do to some extent, Mass Effect being a prime example. My canon paragon Shep chose  Destroy, as in his eyes it was the only way to put an end to the two real problems the galaxy has - the Reapers and the Catalyst.

But all in all I'm just tired of discussing the endings at all, because so many bad things can be attributed to each of them that discussing them does little except making the fans bash each others heads over which is the worst and why the other parties are wrong and sick to even consider choosing the option of their liking.

I can't express how much I would have loved Shepard's story to end with less forced controversy...

Modifié par TheRealJayDee, 14 février 2013 - 11:08 .

[BleedingUranium]

Indy_S wrote...

StarcloudSWG wrote...

That's assuming the narrator, in this case the Catalyst, can be trusted. Since the Catalyst is, in essence, all the Reapers put together, it cannot be trusted; it pushes Shepard towards Synthesis and in no way is unbiased and ambivalent about it. It *wants* the entire galaxy plugged into ReaperNet.

The narrator in that case (my previous comment) is actually the BioWare writers. It has little to do with the honesty of the Catalyst.

The Bioware writers don't exist in-universe.

[Indy_S]

BleedingUranium wrote...

The Bioware writers don't exist in-universe.

And you didn't read my previous comment. It has nothing to do with the Catalyst. Context changes things, Uranium.

[masster blaster]

You know for the people that defend synthesis most of the time your arguments are based on YOUR headcanon, not the IN Game Synthesis end. And please stop using the word killing everyone in Destroy, and genocide. I read the synthesis front page, and I was like really. Just killing one Reaper= Genocide. Ya I say don't play ME at all, or are you going to say killing a Reaper before we reach the catalyst chamber is okay, but killing them in Destroy is genocide. I fail to see your point. If the Reapers died before you reach the catalyst chambers just as "oh well it had to be done", well don't say that killing EDI or the Geth is genocide if you say killing just one is Genocide. That's beyoned stupid. You mean to tell me that Not only do you believe the brat, forced synthesis on every, even though synthesis can't be forced right " .....It is something that....can not be forced.", bevlive the Reapers are innocent, but now believe killing a Reaper is an act of genocide. Well um let's see killing the Geth in ME1, and in ME2 is genocdie right. I mean they have no control over themselves. It's not like the Geth Heratics choosed to follow Nazara right? Oh wait they did. It's genocide that you can let the council die, or sacrifce half of the Alliance fleets to save the council right. If you believe every act you do is genocide, as I said don't play ME at all.

[masster blaster]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Sc2mashimaro wrote...
I totally agree with the OP. Not reading into any intentions of the writers, from Shep's perspective, why would you ever believe what a representative or the brain of the obviously sociopathic villains tells you about how you should resolve the problems of the galaxy. I have a hard time doing anything but destroy or reject.

Sociopathic villains? Bah. For the term to have any meaning the species in question must be social in the first place. The Reapers arent. The Catalyst isn't. They are simply not concerned with such things. It is not wrong, not good, not evil, it is just an attribute of the Catalyst. It's objectives are obviously not necessarily compatible with the wellbeing of organic civilizations, but its mental workings does not make it a villain. To count as a villain, there needs to be an implicit acknowledgement that the person in question can reasonably be expected to conform to certain standards. The Catalyst is not of that kind. It's just completely and utterly non-human.

For that reason, the argument that the Catalyst cannot be trusted is meaningless, because it operates on our standards of what is "villainous". Those standards do not apply. The Catalyst's objectives are not necessarily compatible with the well-being of organic civilizations, but neither are they necessarily incompatible. Against Saren, there stands Shepard. Just like Saren, Shepard is a symbolic representation of a symbiosis of synthetic and organic. Obviously, they are very different. Shepard initiates the Synthesis through putting himself into the equation (no matter the nonsensical science, it's the symbolism that counts here), so Synthesis will be made in Shepard's image rather than Saren's.

You may or may not trust the Catalyst. There is no preference for either since the Catalyst's objectives are neither necessarily beneficial nor necessarily detrimental to the wellbeing of civilizations. But you can trust your Shepard. Being a symbolic representation of a positive symbiosis of organic and synthetic, any Synthesis Shepard initiates will also have an outcome that can reasonably be considered good.  

Oh this is rich. Yeds let's give the Reaper Leader what it wants yes. It's just doing it's job for that last let's see billion years. And despite it trying to FORCE synthesis on everyone, it has failed, yet when the crucible docks with the Citadel it has a change of heart just like that. Oh and it is pure evil. It wants to protect us from the evil synthetics, only to use synthetics to kill organics. Then look at the rachni queen we save in ME1, does she looked saved to you? No! We had to save her, or let her die. Oh and it's preserving everyone, umm let's take a look at the fleet battle, and hammer landing/ hammer fighting that one Reaper Destroy. Let's look at the dead bodys we see on almost every planet we go to. Oh and I read your synthesis thread, and just what the hell.

Killing one Reaper= genocide.
Letting Shepard live so Shepard can pick synthesis is beyond stupid.
Then there is the fact where your using real life synthesis to make synthesis sound better. Why don't you use synthsis that's in the game, and not in real life. The things I read in the synthesis thread have half to do with synthesis in ME, but in real life to. Is it hard for you to make a case in In game synthesis, yet not hard for YOUR canon end of synthesis?

[masster blaster]

LineHolder wrote...

LOL, people like to throw words like genocide, racism and xenophobia around here like no tomorrow.

After the initial hilarity, it becomes sad to watch.

You tell me if a destroy thread opens up. Synthesisers come in and say Destroy is genocide, well do not call destroy genocide, if you believe killing just one Reaper is genocide then.

[Indy_S]

masster blaster wrote...

LineHolder wrote...

LOL, people like to throw words like genocide, racism and xenophobia around here like no tomorrow.

After the initial hilarity, it becomes sad to watch.

You tell me if a destroy thread opens up. Synthesisers come in and say Destroy is genocide, well do not call destroy genocide, if you believe killing just one Reaper is genocide then.

That seems like an incomplete thought. Are you suggesting that one good genocide deserves another?

[masster blaster]

So your compareing Saren towards Shepard. Ya about that. One Saren was Indoctrinated, and got fooled by Nazara/ the catalyst to do their dirty work. Saren was going to let everyone die/ get harvested because he wanted to be saved. Saren only wanted synthesis because hello Indoctrinated. Now I am not saying Shepard is indoctrinated, but coparing Saren to Shepard is just plain idiotic. Saren was not in the right mind, yet Shepard, well the player is right, or is it possible the catalyst just wanted you to pick synthesis, and do it's dirty work for him, since he can't pick synthesis, then let Shepard pick synthesis for him.

[Indy_S]

LineHolder wrote...

My point is that it is meaningless to debate philosophical ramifications (I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face here) of the endings because the scenario in which you choose them and their consequences are arbitrary and ridiculous.

I'm inclined to agree with this. My suspension of disbelief was shot to hell. You can argue about the implications of them but arguing the morality behind the decisions doesn't take enough into account to actually address it.

[Indy_S]

masster blaster wrote...

So your compareing Saren towards Shepard. Ya about that. One Saren was Indoctrinated, and got fooled by Nazara/ the catalyst to do their dirty work. Saren was going to let everyone die/ get harvested because he wanted to be saved. Saren only wanted synthesis because hello Indoctrinated. Now I am not saying Shepard is indoctrinated, but coparing Saren to Shepard is just plain idiotic. Saren was not in the right mind, yet Shepard, well the player is right, or is it possible the catalyst just wanted you to pick synthesis, and do it's dirty work for him, since he can't pick synthesis, then let Shepard pick synthesis for him.

Who's comparing Saren to Shepard here?

[BleedingUranium]

LineHolder wrote...

My point is that it is meaningless to debate philosophical ramifications (I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face here) of the endings because the scenario in which you choose them and their consequences are arbitrary and ridiculous.

That's the point though, it's a morality decision. One of those "If x amount of people were tied to one train track, and x amount on another, what would you do?" kind of scenarios. Of course that would never happen like that, but that's not the point.

[masster blaster]

Indy_S wrote...

masster blaster wrote...

LineHolder wrote...

LOL, people like to throw words like genocide, racism and xenophobia around here like no tomorrow.

After the initial hilarity, it becomes sad to watch.

You tell me if a destroy thread opens up. Synthesisers come in and say Destroy is genocide, well do not call destroy genocide, if you believe killing just one Reaper is genocide then.

That seems like an incomplete thought. Are you suggesting that one good genocide deserves another?

If you can call killing a Reaper genocide, then let's look at ME.

Is saving the council genocide because your actions lead the Alliance fleet to lose one third of their fleets, or is it genocide to let the council die, and focues all Alliance fleets on Nazara alone.

Is it genocid to blow up the collector base, along with all the collectors, and human genetic material in the base, or is it genocide to wipe out all organic life on the collector base, and the collectors.

Is it genocide to kill the Geth heratics in ME1 al the way through ME3. Legion has no problem in killing a few Geth, so he can save his people. However I know your going to say " well look how that turns out to be in destroy."

Is it genocid that Shepard let all those baterians die in arrival, despite the fact you try to warn them?

Is killing the Cerberus troops genocide, since clearlly the have Reaper tech installed in them/ are being controlled by TIM, who is being controlled by the starbrat?

Is it genocid to kill those Salarians on virmire, since clearlly they show no signs of comman life, and can't out run the blast at all?


I can go on, but we have killed more people that you ever know. Oh you may say, " but I did what had to be done, but it was my choice, yet I did not kill those people by my hands." Ah yes just because you did not partack in their deaths, doesn't mean my your commands people died. Yet it was to save other lives to no?

[masster blaster]

Indy_S wrote...

masster blaster wrote...

So your compareing Saren towards Shepard. Ya about that. One Saren was Indoctrinated, and got fooled by Nazara/ the catalyst to do their dirty work. Saren was going to let everyone die/ get harvested because he wanted to be saved. Saren only wanted synthesis because hello Indoctrinated. Now I am not saying Shepard is indoctrinated, but coparing Saren to Shepard is just plain idiotic. Saren was not in the right mind, yet Shepard, well the player is right, or is it possible the catalyst just wanted you to pick synthesis, and do it's dirty work for him, since he can't pick synthesis, then let Shepard pick synthesis for him.

Who's comparing Saren to Shepard here?

Ieldra2