High EMS Destroy in the EC version is utterly boring and unworthy of the story that came before.
Why? Well, who of you thought the ME trilogy would end as a standard "kill the evil monsters and go home" story? Who of you all thought it *should* end that way? If you did, then perhaps you're satisfied with Destroy, but I could never be. After all the interesting themes touched by the story, after hours and hours of story that made me think, discussing the themes involved with many others, story that triggered emotions and intellectual curiosity, made me angry at people's narrow-mindedness in and out of the story or appreciative of how others were handled, after almost living in this fictional world in spite of the occasional silliness, this is how it ends? Kill the evil monsters and go home to friends and family, nothing else really changes, the relays are rebuilt in time and everything goes back to normal? This is how it ends, with Hackett giving an epilogue speech that sounds like cobbled together from every alien invasion B-movie since the 1950s? To say it with Jon Irenicus: To end....like this?
Never. A story that ends like this could never be my story. At least, in the original Destroy ending, there was some change since the relays were destroyed. Good or bad, civilization went of into a new direction. There was something to think about. Was it worth the price? What would happen now? An ending like that sends my imagination into overdrive, triggering countless story hooks in my mind, just as the other endings do. High-EMS-Destroy? Triggers nothing. Instead, it smothers my imagination with its utter conventionality. And don't tell me about a "missing" reunion scene, that would have made it worse, adding yet another conventional stereotype.
So, dear Destroyers, don't tell me how appropriate this ending is, how it's the only reasonable choice, a matter of military necessity etc.. etc.. That is all very subjective, and completely irrelevant in the face of one single fact: The game gives me an opportunity to shape the future of the galaxy, and I do not want the future that Destroy creates. I want change, I want things to happen that have never happened before, new wonders and new horrors both, a challenge for the civilization that emerges after the war, something to look forward to, something to think about, some cool stuff to happen. So if you want to turn your ME trilogy into a standard "kill the evil
monsters and go gome" story, that's your choice, but don't tell me it should be mine as well. For me, Destroy (the high EMS EC version) is the bad choice, the one that devalues everything that came before, thematically, symbolically, and drowns it all in an ocean of conventionalist crap.
Bioware has gone to great pains to assure us that whatever we do, it ends reasonably well. With the possible exception of Renegade Control, Destroy ends reasonably well, Control ends reasonably well, Synthesis ends reasonably well, even if you Refuse, things eventually end reasonably well. We all win, the endings just show us the style of the future we are creating, the themes and memes that will dominate civilization. None of them can be objectively considered bad, you can only disagree with the dominating themes and memes.
I am not saying that Destroy is objectively bad, but I do not care for the style of future created by Destroy. I disagree with most of its dominating themes and memes, and I do not like the kind of story that choosing Destroy makes of the ME trilogy. Because it's boring and conventional. In the end, that's why I choose a different ending, with almost all of my many Shepards.
Modifié par Ieldra2, 14 février 2013 - 12:17 .
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