381 réponses à ce sujet

[Big Bad]

@Doctor Jackstraw:

I didn't read all of what you wrote as I haven't played the Walking Dead but I may someday so I don't want any spoilers. 

As for some of your other points - I think you may be confusing me with somebody else.  I haven't said anything about wanting a happy ending or needing to beat the Reapers conventionally.   I am just seriously put off by the fact that at the very last moment of the game, I am forced to accept as fact the idea that synthetics and organics must necessarily be mortal enemies.  Sure, there has been conflict between synthetics and organics, but up until that point, the game had gone out of its way to show that animus between the two sides was neither necessary nor inevitable.   The Geth didn't actually want to destroy the Quarians, they just wanted the chance to live.  I agreed with Legion that "this unit had a soul."  I found EDI to be a valuable and interesting person.  And then the end comes and basically negates all of that for no apparent reason. It just feels very thematically incongruent with my experience of the rest of the game. 

Let me put it another way - up until the very end, the Mass Effect universe seemed kind of similar to the Star Trek universe where very diverse groups of sentient beings could potentially co-exist.  Sure, conflicts could arise, but it was possible to stop or prevent them.  For every homicidal robot like Lore there was a Data present to act as a balancing counterpoint.  I thought that was where the ME universe was going, with hard-earned peace between the Geth and Quarians seeming likely (or at least plausible) and various artificial beings as my friends.  And then the end hits, and I find out that the universe is a very different place than I had been led to believe.  It's more like the Terminator universe, where genocidal conflict between machines and biological life is unavoidable.  That's fine as far as it goes.  I like the Terminator universe (well, T1 and T2) but the sudden thematic reversal is very jarring.  It just feels arbitrary and "wrong," given what came before it.  That's my opinion anyway.

tl;dr - I don't need a happy ending with adorable blue babies or a conventional way to beat the Reapers, but I feel like the ending needlessly betrays some of the core themes that were built up over the course of the series. 

Edit:  Just so my post isn't a total downer, I would like to add that I really, really enjoyed the Citadel.  It doesn't fix the ending for me, but made me feel better about the ME universe again, so I definitely salute Bioware for a job well done on that front.

Modifié par Big Bad, 12 mars 2013 - 10:54 .

[eddieoctane]

Big Bad wrote...

 I am just seriously put off by the fact that at the very last moment of the game, I am forced to accept as fact the idea that synthetics and organics must necessarily be mortal enemies.  Sure, there has been conflict between synthetics and organics, but up until that point, the game had gone out of its way to show that animus between the two sides was neither necessary nor inevitable.

Not only was the robots-vs-everyoen else conflict not inevitable, the only example we are shown of AIs actively tryign to exterminate organics were all caused by the Reapers meddling with said AIs to turn them hostile.

"We're going to kill you before the robots we sent to kill you do it first." What? How the hell is that considered a good plot? If the Geth sought out Soverign in ME1 (rather than the other way around), and if the Reapers had nothing to do with the Zha'til, the conflict between organic and synthetic would have been much more palatable. But we are shown that the only large scale conflicts are caused by the group who claims to be preventing it. There's a logical disconnect at play that cuts to the heart of what the over-archign plot became at the last minute.

[drayfish]

GiarcYekrub wrote...

drayfish wrote...

CaptainZaysh wrote...

drayfish wrote...

Some may like to embrace such a message, but until those five minutes, not everyone had to.

Yeah.  I'm conscious that I got lucky in that my ideology was presented in that scene (for, I think, only the second time in the trilogy*) as the "correct" one, and I can see how being told by the writers that you are on the "wrong" side of the debate could feel infuriating.

I think maybe the writers felt that Synthesis was the path that represented your ideology that we can all get along.  How do you feel about that?

* but admittedly the most important one

I definitely appreciate your point; and I think you're right, Synthesis was meant for the tree-hugging hippies like me.

The only thing is, Bioware fundamentally, profoundly, mind-numbingly missed the whole point of offering such an evolutionary leap...

You can't just force it on everyone. 

You can't just arrogantly decide that you know better, that everyone else and all their silly little elemental beliefs in the sanctity of their own autonomy can just be overwritten (literally) because you say so.

There is a poetry, a beauty to the idea of Synthesis.  Were it a choice, that Shepard, as the advocate for such change, could offer freely to those who wanted to accept it; were it an offering that - simply by virtue of its truly being a better path forward for all life in the universe - would be willingly accepted by all sentient species willing to continue to grow forward in fellowship with one another; then yes, that would be a statement on that diversity and hope that someone like myself would like to see represented, somehow, in game.

But by turning it into a mutation that is inflicted upon all life without their consent; by delivering it as a necessary imposed eugenic step towards preventing war because only creatures with the same DNA can avoid mutual destruction; is not only patently idiotic, it contradicts and undermines the very purpose of such an offering in the first place.

It is proclaimed as an advancement, but administered like the castration of the Krogan Gennophage.  I do not see how the two can satisfactorily resolve.

Curing the genophage involved forcing a mutation upon the the entire population of Tuchanka, If the change is positive I don't have a problem doing it.

Sorry, but that is literally the opposite of the point I was making...

[GiarcYekrub]

jumpingkaede wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

The reason I brought up T2 is because arnold has to sacrifice himself to prevent the machine threat in the future.  John is even FORCED to drop him into a pool of lava, sacrificing the father figure he never had for the good of the world.  How is that NOT a downer?

The reason I brought up Alien is its a parrallel to the reaper threat.  She barely manages to survive against this super powerful creature.  Leaving the theatre audiences are left to wonder how anyone would be able to stand up to MORE of them.  (And thats how we got the sequel, Aliens)

those are some direct comparisons to mass effect right there.  Sacrifice is the only way to stop the reapers, because the reapers are stronger and better than us in almost every way.  we're lucky for every moment we can survive against them.

Hmm.  I guess.

T2 was a little bit of a downer mixed with the uplifting hope for the future thing.   That's why the movie didn't end with him being lowered into the lava.  It ended with Sarah Connor and John speeding away pondering the promise of the future, which Arnold's sacrifice won for them.  That's probably a closer parallel to the EC ending (which has been better received), and not the original ending which didn't end with any sort of promise.  The original ending would've been T2 ending with the T-1000 melting.  Leaving lots of speculation as to what would happen to the T-800's arm, whether machines can learn human emotions, etc.


Also Ripley does stand up to the aliens in all the later sequels as well.  So... the unstoppable alien force actually gets stopped.  Repeatedly, in fact.  Even in Aliens 3 although it required a sensible sacrifice to do so.  (I didn't see Aliens: Resurrection.)

Mass Effect 3 Didn't end with Shepard dying, it ended with the "Wrath of Khan" New Eden moment as your surviving crew emerge to a new future filled with life, hope and wonder that Shepard made possible for years to come

[Atherus]

 You know, I don´t have problems with dark Games, played myself a lot of them. Hell Nier is one of my favorite games and it is a really depressing game at times with all the good people dying you are met:

SPOILER:

like Fyra that little girl that had such a hard time as a child and then, five years later just at the moment of her greatest joy she just gets killed by the alpha wolf Shade Roc. And such things are happening alot after the five year gap after the first chapter of the game.
And even in the first chapter you see some of your teammates suffering or can read later in the game why others hace suffered before they met you.

And I LOVED that game. I really did and still do, but that´s most likely because right from the start the game shows me, that it´s not a happy game and that it will not end really happy.

The problem with Mass Effect 1-3 was, that the overall tone of the game just shifted too much to let you forsee the outcome us the only one possible. You had grim dark parts in it as well as highpaced ones.
Hell depending on how you play your Shepard you could think this was a Space Opera like Star Wars and that Shepard would get off that ride like he did in ME 1. But to be honest, I thought the ending was fine, until the catalyst made his appearance.
All that happened afterwards just killed the ending for me the fist time I played it in march last year, without the EC and Leviathan, just those five minutes of Bull**** right after I relaxed my mind to see the ending sequence, just to get the (at this time for me) nonsence little space hitler throughed at me and to see ... something red and than nothing.

Now, after a whole year with Leviathan (I don´t have it but I know it´s story and think, it should have been in the main game just from the start as well as Javik should have been) and the EC I still think, there should have been either more different kind of endings (even with some kind of a happier ending because there are parts in the game that let you think it would be there) or like in ME 2 and DA:O one ending that varies because of the decisions you made througout the game. And NOT like what we got with space kid that totally wrecked your decisions and just let you pick your ending.
And don´t forget, for the EC a lot of people were fighting for so that all that came after us could enjoy without beeing destroyed utterly.

[frostajulie]

Sad was not the issue for me. Out of the blue flavor of lose was. Shepard does not like committing warcrimes. I guess since I was a kid I got used to being able to actually win games. And ever since ME1 I did get used to winning ME games and I was very used to Shepard defeating impossible odds by uniting the disparate galactic factions into a fighting force to be reckoned with. The themes strength through diversity and victory through unity really stood out to me throughout the series which is why the ending came as such a shocker and a revolting one at that to the kind of shepards I had played. I was expecting a refusal victory. In that ending shepard would die, the different species would be significantly reduced in numbers due to their fight against the reapers but they would have won and on their own terms, no holographic star brat dictating the terms of surrender and a new age would begin where the younger races would be in control of their own destiny and the legacy of shepard- galactic unity, finding common ground amidst our differences to form multi generational alliances woulkd have assured a bright dawn to future generations.

In refusal I got the epic speech that was in character for the Shepards I had played through multiple games and then was forced to watch as she lost everything.

sad ending the problem? Hardly.

Having control wrested from you and negating all your choices up to that point by a character who comes into existence 5 minutes before the credits roll- yeah THAT was my issue.

[Ieldra]

eddieoctane wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

cerberus1701 wrote...
*snip*

Heh. Lovely oxymoron, that.

Not exactly. If you play the story will all the DLC, the events of Leviathan will be valid foreshadowing. That this was added late in the publishing history doesn't matter for your experience of the story. It only matters for your opinion of the publishing sequence.

You do realize that means that the game was not narratively complete at the time of release, right? Cuttign off the ending to sell later is questionable, though it can be remedied by creatign a whole sequel. Cutting a chapter out of the middle of a book that is crucial for the finale to make sense is either bad business, bad writing, or both.

Yes, I realize that. I'm not saying it's good publishing practice. It's just that I prefer having a complete story at some time late in the production cycle to the story remaining incomplete. Also, I believe that Bioware reps have deceived themselves into believing their own statements that Leviathan and From Ashes were not critical to the understanding of the major issues of the main plot. There may have been technical limitations and business constraints involved in the decision making. While that still doesn't make things good, it would've been better for everyone if they had come out and admitted it.

[Alien Number Six]

OP the butt hurt will never end about the ending. Some people just couldn't handle it. Most of the people who couldn't stand it didn't have a life outside Mass Effect. Some of them got depressed over the ending of the game. Many people took the game way too seriously. It's okay to be bi-polar or manic depressive but if a video game sends you over the edge perhaps you should distance yourself from that game. Some people like me didn't mind the end of the game but thought it was too abrupt. The Extended Cut of the game fixed that for me.

[TheProtheans]

Ieldra2 wrote...

eddieoctane wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

cerberus1701 wrote...
*snip*

Heh. Lovely oxymoron, that.

Not exactly. If you play the story will all the DLC, the events of Leviathan will be valid foreshadowing. That this was added late in the publishing history doesn't matter for your experience of the story. It only matters for your opinion of the publishing sequence.

You do realize that means that the game was not narratively complete at the time of release, right? Cuttign off the ending to sell later is questionable, though it can be remedied by creatign a whole sequel. Cutting a chapter out of the middle of a book that is crucial for the finale to make sense is either bad business, bad writing, or both.

Yes, I realize that. I'm not saying it's good publishing practice. It's just that I prefer having a complete story at some time late in the production cycle to the story remaining incomplete. Also, I believe that Bioware reps have deceived themselves into believing their own statements that Leviathan and From Ashes were not critical to the understanding of the major issues of the main plot. There may have been technical limitations and business constraints involved in the decision making. While that still doesn't make things good, it would've been better for everyone if they had come out and admitted it.

You can't foreshadow something after it happened.

[dorktainian]

We beat the reapers.....and were then hit with the biggest mindjack in history. There's a saying..

"out of the frying pan into the fire..."

and thats where we are at the moment.

[Valo_Soren]

The ending does nothing to negate your choices. That is an ignorant and completely and utterly wrong statement. The only things that are 'changed' depend upon that ending choice. However let us go through each ending and explain why it doesn't 'negate' your choices.

Synthesis:
-EDI is still alive, and still with Joker. (unless you were a jerk)
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth and Quarians are still united and at peace with one another, or one or the other is dead.
-Everyone is blended into being part organic and part synthetic. The reapers help the galaxy rebuild and everyone is happy.

Control:
-EDI is still alive, and still with Joker. (unless you were a jerk)
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth and Quarians are still united and at peace with one another, or one or the other is dead.
-The Reapers are now the protectors of the galaxy under Shepards control who basically is still alive as a new artificial intelligence (people don't think about that for some reason) and under Shepards direction help to rebuild the galaxy.

Destroy:
-EDI is dead.
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy if its the queen from mass effect 1 or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.(whether it was the first queen that you let live in Mass Effect or the corrupted queen the reapers found and rose herself to be a reaper slave I wouldn't know as my one shepard who killedd the first queen killed the corrupted reaper one as well).
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth are dead and Quarians still have their homeworld back regardless so even if you made peace between them before choosing the destroy ending you basically win the war for the Quarians single handedly and gave them Rannoch on a silver platter.
-The Reapers are bloody destroyed, in this case galactic rebuilding will probably take longer yes but as the Catalyst said they should have little trouble doing so and in this case the Leviathans could possibly help out being thankful about the destruction of their creations.

Refuse, well the galaxy is harvested and rebooted for the next 50k year cycle as Glyph remains behind to warn the next cycle.

So as you can see no decisions are negated, merely affected by the ending decision. And this is going off the EC because the EC is now the official ending, there is no reason to bring up the origial ending at all as it was over written. The EC is better and more thoroughly explains why in each decision the galaxy is saved with all the little details thrown in.

[Valo_Soren]

Also people do this head canon crap about EDI and the Geth surviving the destroy ending or fan fiction or whatever. What they forget is that the Destroy option will destroy all synthetic life currenty in the galaxy on top of the Reapers but he also says 'eventually synthetics will be created again and war will happen' which means just because EDI and the Geth are destroyed doesn't mean they couldn't be rebuilt. The destroy option only destroys current AI tech, it doesn't prevent new AI tech from being created.

[Valo_Soren]

And also people are far to quick to pick the destroy ending as their favorite no matter their moral standing when if you think about it Destroy is more of a Renegade option because you're killing the Geth and EDI. You think to much about the Reapers being these evil things that need to be destroyed when the ending completely challenges that line of thinking. The Reapers are merely doing what they are programmed by the Catalyst to do. They don't have a choice. When you REALLY think about that you realize that with all their power the Reapers aren't as sentient as say EDI or the Geth, they aren't operating on their own. They aren't really individuals. As malevolent as they make themselves sound they are merely repeating, (Sovereign and Harbinger) the coding for their main purpose to harvest organic life, create more reapers, and that way keeping the galaxy from destroying itself entirely. Allowing younger races to thrive and get their chance and all the weird intricacies of that. So by choosing control you are changing their programming and you can use them to protect the galaxy from itself in a better way, and if you choose synthesis the Reapers are freed from that programming as all beings in the galaxy become new fully alive individuals part synthetic and part organic, they become the same. So basically its not as simple as you think it is if you really think about it. I think most of the time people don't actually try to get any details of the conversations in the game and just rush through everything to pick destroy just because you want the Reapers to be some big boss that you shoot out of the sky with a rocket launcher which is frankly idiotic. 

Modifié par Valo_Soren, 13 mars 2013 - 03:38 .

[Valo_Soren]

Well its not idiotic to want a 'big boss' ending in gameplay for most games but for RPG's these days if there is going to be a boss fight it should at least be a part of the ending for the hell of it. As much as I love ME 1 and 2 the fact that you have to fight control assumed Saren and a giant Reaper Embryo AFter you convinced Saren to take his life and AFTER you disconnected the reaper from the tubes makes me cringe. I am glad they didnt' go that route and make you duke it out with some reaper transformed illusive man after you talked him down into giving up and taking his life or shooting him yourself.

[Oni Changas]

Was gonna post a retort, but edisnooM ninja'd the f outta me with the best examples explaining why the RGB was, and still is, garbage.

In the end BW kinda worked around that by loopholing an awesome ending for us codenamed Citadel.

[Oni Changas]

Though despite that, we dont get a climax or even final confrontation with the enemy nor do we take back earth in the supposed war we were being built up to engage in.

[Valo_Soren]

OniTYME wrote...

Though despite that, we dont get a climax or even final confrontation with the enemy nor do we take back earth in the supposed war we were being built up to engage in.

I'm sorry but it should be obvious from the first game that there's no way a full on war with the reapers could be one conventionally when it took an entire fleet for one Reaper and they repeat that fact several times. This was always going to be the case as its clearly pointed out in the first game.

[Noelemahc]

Valo_Soren wrote...

The ending does nothing to negate your choices. That is an ignorant and completely and utterly wrong statement. The only things that are 'changed' depend upon that ending choice. However let us go through each ending and explain why it doesn't 'negate' your choices.

Synthesis:
-EDI is still alive, and still with Joker. (unless you were a jerk)
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth and Quarians are still united and at peace with one another, or one or the other is dead.
-Everyone is blended into being part organic and part synthetic. The reapers help the galaxy rebuild and everyone is happy.

Javik, Terra Firma and every biotic who is not an Asari would boldly disagree with you. I can easily see Javik building a doomsday cult around "putting things right" and annihilating every lifeform that was converted by Synthesis. Starting with murdelizing everyone on the Normandy, of course. And he will hardly be the ONLY one who is not thrilled at the prospect of becoming a robot (not what it is, but what they will SEE it as).
Everyone who has had implants of any kind may or may not survive Synthesis at all, and may or may not suffer drastic changes in personality and health due to the inevitable integration of the implanted circuitry into their biology on a deeper level. Unless of course the Synthesis is VERY flawlessly perfect, in which case the Ultimate Trump Card problem persists.

The Synthesis effect (like all the other Crucible effects) only extends to areas that have had active mass relays. Which means:
A) It may not cover all of the life in the Milky Way galaxy
it does not extend beyond the Milky Way galaxy

Since it was never made clear whether Reapers exist outside of the Milky Way galaxy or whether all of them came to hunt from wherever it is they sleep in the 50K year pauses, I can easily see a conflict between the Synthesized Reapers and the Vanilla Reapers. And the Leviathans will not be happy about all of this either.

Control:
-EDI is still alive, and still with Joker. (unless you were a jerk)
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth and Quarians are still united and at peace with one another, or one or the other is dead.
-The Reapers are now the protectors of the galaxy under Shepards control who basically is still alive as a new artificial intelligence (people don't think about that for some reason) and under Shepards direction help to rebuild the galaxy.

Iron Savior Problem. There is no indication, nor any guarantee, that ReaperShepard will not come to the same exact conclusions as the Catalyst did, down the line, and start the cycles anew. Oh, and the Leviathans will have to be dealt with at some point.

The aforementioned "out of coverage" problem persists, except now it's a conflict between Controlled Reapers and Vanilla Reapers.

Destroy:
-EDI is dead.
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy if its the queen from mass effect 1 or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.(whether it was the first queen that you let live in Mass Effect or the corrupted queen the reapers found and rose herself to be a reaper slave I wouldn't know as my one shepard who killedd the first queen killed the corrupted reaper one as well).
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth are dead and Quarians still have their homeworld back regardless so even if you made peace between them before choosing the destroy ending you basically win the war for the Quarians single handedly and gave them Rannoch on a silver platter.
-The Reapers are bloody destroyed, in this case galactic rebuilding will probably take longer yes but as the Catalyst said they should have little trouble doing so and in this case the Leviathans could possibly help out being thankful about the destruction of their creations.

If you made peace between the Quarians and the Geth, the Quarians are dead. Tali makes it very clear that many of them accept Geth runtimes into their suits to facilitate viral training regimen to boost their immune systems. The Geth being wiped by the Destroy beam means certain unpleasant death for all those participating, which may or may not cause a demographic catastrophe for the Quarian race on par with the Morning War, except unlike the Morning War it very well CAN bring their population below a sustainable level.

There is no clear indication or delineation of whether the Destroy beam differentiates between VIs and AIs. If it affects VIs, rebuilding anything becomes next to impossible, as then the Volus and the Quarians are pretty much guaranteed dead (their suits all depend on VIs). Same goes for Salarians and Quarians due to heavy use of cyber-augmentations, both of which are very much canon. Which leaves the galaxy as a mess with techless humans, never-that-good-at-science Turians and Krogans, now-useless Asari and equally techless Salarians. Galactic rebuilding will take a VERY LONG WHILE.

Oh, and the Leviathans made it clear they will conquer the crap out of us if the Reapers are ever destroyed, since their indoctrination is better than that of the Reapers and they, unlike the Reapers, have an understanding of "adapting plans".

Refuse, well the galaxy is harvested and rebooted for the next 50k year cycle as Glyph remains behind to warn the next cycle.

Sad sack moment: Twittercanon reveals that the next cycle uses the Crucible anyway, so appply whichever of the above colours you think is most likely to happen under Glyph's guidance.

Modifié par Noelemahc, 13 mars 2013 - 05:21 .

[Applepie_Svk]

Noelemahc wrote...


it does not extend beyond the Milky Way galaxy

Since it was never made clear whether Reapers exist outside of the Milky Way galaxy or whether all of them came to hunt from wherever it is they sleep in the 50K year pauses, I can easily see a conflict between the Synthesized Reapers and the Vanilla Reapers. And the Leviathans will not be happy about all of this either.


There is no clear indication or delineation of whether the Destroy beam differentiates between VIs and AIs. If it affects VIs, rebuilding anything becomes next to impossible, as then the Volus and the Quarians are pretty much guaranteed dead (their suits all depend on VIs). Same goes for Salarians and Quarians due to heavy use of cyber-augmentations, both of which are very much canon. Which leaves the galaxy as a mess with techless humans, never-that-good-at-science Turians and Krogans, now-useless Asari and equally techless Salarians. Galactic rebuilding will take a VERY LONG WHILE.

B:
That´s one of the point why is Catalyst flawed, apply the Catalyst´s absolute mantra on space and by choosing synthesis you´ve achieved nothing. Only if writers are telling me that Crucible can make an infinitely long and always spreading effect of synthesis beam, then wow really wow... you´ve just created perpetum mobile. 

Destroy:
In the old ending it was clear, each ending destroyed technology - told by Catalyst, ergo you not just killed all the technologhy, Reapers, Geths, AI, VI but also all people depending on technology - ergo - Quarians, biotics, Volus, all crews of fleets which were actually in space and all people on Citadel and Omega stations.

In the EC it was told that technology was not beyound the destruction ergo it could be fixed, yet it made a questions how do we know to repair RELAY NETWORK which for past previous 3 games BioWare and their narrative were telling us that this technology is beyound our comprehension.


As far as it goes with both OC-EC destroy endings, Shepard couldn´t survived the destruction ending with use of logic. 

Noelemahc wrote...

Refuse, well the galaxy is harvested and rebooted for the next 50k year cycle as Glyph remains behind to warn the next cycle.

Sad sack moment: Twittercanon reveals that the next cycle uses the Crucible anyway, so appply whichever of the above colours you think is most likely to happen under Glyph's guidance.

Join to army they said, it will be fun they said...

Modifié par Applepie_Svk, 13 mars 2013 - 05:44 .

[AlanC9]

Noelemahc wrote...

Iron Savior Problem. There is no indication, nor any guarantee, that ReaperShepard will not come to the same exact conclusions as the Catalyst did, down the line, and start the cycles anew. Oh, and the Leviathans will have to be dealt with at some point.

This always struck me as being one of the sillier worries. The Catalyst's logic was that compelling? Really? If you thought that, then you shoudl be picking Synthesis anyway.

If you made peace between the Quarians and the Geth, the Quarians are dead. Tali makes it very clear that many of them accept Geth runtimes into their suits to facilitate viral training regimen to boost their immune systems. The Geth being wiped by the Destroy beam means certain unpleasant death for all those participating, which may or may not cause a demographic catastrophe for the Quarian race on par with the Morning War, except unlike the Morning War it very well CAN bring their population below a sustainable level.

Interesting headcanon. How do you square this with the EC slides? Or do you just not bother?

Which leaves the galaxy as a mess with techless humans, never-that-good-at-science Turians and Krogans, now-useless Asari and equally techless Salarians. Galactic rebuilding will take a VERY LONG WHILE.

What's a VERY LONG WHILE here? Decades?

[Laforgus]

I have no problem with the Ending. But i hate the explanation given of the whole plot of the game itself.

I don't care if my Shepard had to go into Harby's drive core and blow himself up, to take the (BIG CENSORED WORD) Down.

What i hate is to be presented with:
A stupid AI
With a stupid dilema
With a stupid solution
And with an big stupid Execution of it

NO! just (╯゜□゜)╯︵ ┻━┻ this thing!

[Valo_Soren]

Noelemahc wrote...

Valo_Soren wrote...

The ending does nothing to negate your choices. That is an ignorant and completely and utterly wrong statement. The only things that are 'changed' depend upon that ending choice. However let us go through each ending and explain why it doesn't 'negate' your choices.

Synthesis:
-EDI is still alive, and still with Joker. (unless you were a jerk)
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth and Quarians are still united and at peace with one another, or one or the other is dead.
-Everyone is blended into being part organic and part synthetic. The reapers help the galaxy rebuild and everyone is happy.

Javik, Terra Firma and every biotic who is not an Asari would boldly disagree with you. I can easily see Javik building a doomsday cult around "putting things right" and annihilating every lifeform that was converted by Synthesis. Starting with murdelizing everyone on the Normandy, of course. And he will hardly be the ONLY one who is not thrilled at the prospect of becoming a robot (not what it is, but what they will SEE it as).
Everyone who has had implants of any kind may or may not survive Synthesis at all, and may or may not suffer drastic changes in personality and health due to the inevitable integration of the implanted circuitry into their biology on a deeper level. Unless of course the Synthesis is VERY flawlessly perfect, in which case the Ultimate Trump Card problem persists.

The Synthesis effect (like all the other Crucible effects) only extends to areas that have had active mass relays. Which means:
A) It may not cover all of the life in the Milky Way galaxy
it does not extend beyond the Milky Way galaxy

Since it was never made clear whether Reapers exist outside of the Milky Way galaxy or whether all of them came to hunt from wherever it is they sleep in the 50K year pauses, I can easily see a conflict between the Synthesized Reapers and the Vanilla Reapers. And the Leviathans will not be happy about all of this either.

Control:
-EDI is still alive, and still with Joker. (unless you were a jerk)
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth and Quarians are still united and at peace with one another, or one or the other is dead.
-The Reapers are now the protectors of the galaxy under Shepards control who basically is still alive as a new artificial intelligence (people don't think about that for some reason) and under Shepards direction help to rebuild the galaxy.

Iron Savior Problem. There is no indication, nor any guarantee, that ReaperShepard will not come to the same exact conclusions as the Catalyst did, down the line, and start the cycles anew. Oh, and the Leviathans will have to be dealt with at some point.

The aforementioned "out of coverage" problem persists, except now it's a conflict between Controlled Reapers and Vanilla Reapers.

Destroy:
-EDI is dead.
-The Rachni are still at peace with the galaxy if its the queen from mass effect 1 or are dead if you didn't let the queen live on the Grunt mission.(whether it was the first queen that you let live in Mass Effect or the corrupted queen the reapers found and rose herself to be a reaper slave I wouldn't know as my one shepard who killedd the first queen killed the corrupted reaper one as well).
-The Genophage still is or isn't cured.
-The Geth are dead and Quarians still have their homeworld back regardless so even if you made peace between them before choosing the destroy ending you basically win the war for the Quarians single handedly and gave them Rannoch on a silver platter.
-The Reapers are bloody destroyed, in this case galactic rebuilding will probably take longer yes but as the Catalyst said they should have little trouble doing so and in this case the Leviathans could possibly help out being thankful about the destruction of their creations.

If you made peace between the Quarians and the Geth, the Quarians are dead. Tali makes it very clear that many of them accept Geth runtimes into their suits to facilitate viral training regimen to boost their immune systems. The Geth being wiped by the Destroy beam means certain unpleasant death for all those participating, which may or may not cause a demographic catastrophe for the Quarian race on par with the Morning War, except unlike the Morning War it very well CAN bring their population below a sustainable level.

There is no clear indication or delineation of whether the Destroy beam differentiates between VIs and AIs. If it affects VIs, rebuilding anything becomes next to impossible, as then the Volus and the Quarians are pretty much guaranteed dead (their suits all depend on VIs). Same goes for Salarians and Quarians due to heavy use of cyber-augmentations, both of which are very much canon. Which leaves the galaxy as a mess with techless humans, never-that-good-at-science Turians and Krogans, now-useless Asari and equally techless Salarians. Galactic rebuilding will take a VERY LONG WHILE.

Oh, and the Leviathans made it clear they will conquer the crap out of us if the Reapers are ever destroyed, since their indoctrination is better than that of the Reapers and they, unlike the Reapers, have an understanding of "adapting plans".

Refuse, well the galaxy is harvested and rebooted for the next 50k year cycle as Glyph remains behind to warn the next cycle.

Sad sack moment: Twittercanon reveals that the next cycle uses the Crucible anyway, so appply whichever of the above colours you think is most likely to happen under Glyph's guidance.

Obviously you didn't watch the Extended cut explanations of the aftermath of each decision that totally debunk all of your statements here.

[Valo_Soren]

AlanC9 wrote...

Noelemahc wrote...

Iron Savior Problem. There is no indication, nor any guarantee, that ReaperShepard will not come to the same exact conclusions as the Catalyst did, down the line, and start the cycles anew. Oh, and the Leviathans will have to be dealt with at some point.

This is an artificial intelligence that has been harvesting organic civilizations for millions upon millinos of years with a race of sentient machines that cannot be defeated conventionally. It has no reason to lie to Shepard when its own creatons can tear everything apart so its not hard to find his argument compelling.

[Applepie_Svk]

Valo_Soren wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Noelemahc wrote...

Iron Savior Problem. There is no indication, nor any guarantee, that ReaperShepard will not come to the same exact conclusions as the Catalyst did, down the line, and start the cycles anew. Oh, and the Leviathans will have to be dealt with at some point.

This is an artificial intelligence that has been harvesting organic civilizations for millions upon millinos of years with a race of sentient machines that cannot be defeated conventionally. It has no reason to lie to Shepard when its own creatons can tear everything apart so its not hard to find his argument compelling.

It has also no reason to give Shepard way to destroy it, while it was programed to preserve life for all costs... 

contradiction strong in this one

Modifié par Applepie_Svk, 13 mars 2013 - 06:16 .

[Noelemahc]

AlanC9 wrote...

This always struck me as being one of the sillier worries. The Catalyst's logic was that compelling? Really? If you thought that, then you shoudl be picking Synthesis anyway.

It's not compelling for an organic. But ponder for a moment that Shepard is now running on the hardware that used to house the Catalyst. We've already been shown tha the equivalent of the FDIV bug causes unresolvable political differences in the Geth. I'd be paranoid about this if I were Shepard.

Interesting headcanon. How do you square this with the EC slides? Or do you just not bother?

The ones that don't bother to keep themselves consistent with the games that preceded them? I find it poetic. I also find it entertaining that the fanbase seems to have put far more thought into figuring out what each choice Shepard has will do to the galaxy than the game's own writers.

What's a VERY LONG WHILE here? Decades?

That depends. The Asari had millenia to figure out how the relays work,  and that was without technical limitation. My bet is a couple of decades unless something real nasty happens, yes. For an Asari or a Krogan, not an issue. For the other races? Not so much.

Obviously you didn't watch the Extended cut explanations of the aftermath of each decision that totally debunk all of your statements here. 

The ones that intentionally keep things as vague as possible to avoid having to fix the plotholes? All of the narration in the scenes covers the first few days after the Crucible's activation. Only the slides pertaining to Rannoch and Tuchanka show the long-run consequences of things and ONLY Synthesis shows the consequence of a Geth-Quarian peace. Also please note that the EC totally doesn't give a damn about the fates of the ME3 squadmates (despite showing mid-to-long-term fates of the ME2 ones), or the fates of Kahje, Khar'shan, Thessia or any other sentient race's homeworld.

We only have ReaperShepard's OPENING, freshly-uploaded, words to go on, for example. I, for one, would be paranoid about trusting someone that makes SHODAN sound compassionate.
We only have EDI's opening, freshly-organic'd words to go on. I'm glad her Pinocchio journey has come to fruition. I'm somewhat concerned about the fact that nobody stops to think for a moment what sort of change the Synthesis beam brought that EVERYONE is apparently happy about being green and glowing in the dark. I mean, this smells like Smilex at best, Stepford Smilers at length and Equilibrium in the very long run.

If you need a quick reference, I've compiled all the visual content of the ending slides of the EC over here.