428 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

For who? Humans. Turians. Asari. Salarians. Maybe quarians and geth too. Possibly krogan. Hanar if you didn't think they were too stupid too live.

Modifié par AlanC9, 22 mai 2013 - 08:33 .

[Redbelle]

shodiswe wrote...

The problem with seeing TIM as an Advocate for Control is that he isn't even in Control of himself. If he's been screwing the galaxy over the whole game then you can critisize him even if he wants to pick destroy.

It doesn't matter he isn't trust worthy at that Point after all you have been going through.

Even if you support him it's apparent that he can't do anything, because he isn't in Control.

That doesn't make Control a good choice for someone capable of making the choice however with the crusible enabling this "salvation" of the whole galaxy and an end to the "Harvest".

You stop the reapers, all is good, the sythetic alleis are alive, the people on the citadel are alive lots of people are alive and the Galaxy and the relays are getting repaired and everythign goe back to "normal".

Perfect happy ending. Shepard and the Reapers become "mostly" unimportant bystanders. AI Shepard watches over the galaxy just like Shepard the Spectre did.
Guarding peoples right to have a voice about their future, and all that.

The Renegade Shepard AI might be a Little bit more intrusive than the Paragon one though.

TIM is perfect as a potential advocate....... he just isn't the prime candidate anymore because he is comprimised.

But his whole life has been spent trying to gain human dominance over everything. Shepard is without (or maybe not) the human domance part, and so can choose to to control for the sake of all life in the galaxy.

TIM can be an effective advocate, provided that Shepard affirms or reject's the human centric element's of TIM's ambition's..... and what can TIM do but go along with Shepard? At least if TIM can convince him the Reaper's will be a tool of benefit, not destruction.

Personally though, I hate the idea of giving the Reaper's a pass on the whole cycles upon cycles of death and harvesting. The only way I'd let those guy's off is if that primordial goo inside them could be used to reconstitute the race's they destroyed, in some way and form that they emerged as a species and not vegetable meat bag's.

.............Well why not? The crucible's can do anything...... right?

[Eryri]

AlanC9 wrote...

Eryri wrote...
Personally, I would have liked to see Shepard at least voice these sorts of concerns. I find his meek acceptance of the information provided by an entity that he has literally just met, rather irritating and out of character. It's only sheer dumb luck that the Catalyst was actually telling the truth.

Hmm.... how would that play out? If Shepard doesn't actively Refuse in dialogue he can walk around for a few minutes and find out that there isn't any exit or any kill switch. The big Refuse speech didn't have to actually trigger the end sequence, so he could have done this in Refuse too.

So he doesn't find them and.... I guess he talks to the Catalyst again, or just shoots him?  How does that conversation go?

Good Question. Unfortunately there IS no way for this scenario to play out well, in a fashion consistent with what I have come to regard as Shepard's character. My ideal version of ME3 wouldn't include the Catalyst at all. Making the Catalyst both a source of exposition, and a representative of the game's antagonists, (who thanks to a device we built without understanding it, is now apparently an antagonist no longer) was in my opinion, a very poor decision on Bioware's part. It requires us, as Shepard, to take it at its word, and suppress any of the quite reasonable doubts we or he might have, that something that until a few moments ago was trying to kill us, really is being sincere. Even if this exposition came from another more neutral source, such as a representation of whatever species designed the Crucible to begin with, it would still be jarring to see Shepard follow its advice when we've never encountered it before.
I play as a very paragon and idealistic version of Shepard, but I think even he would probably spend his last moments trying to get in touch with Hackett and the crucible engineers to find out if shooting at this machine really will turn it on, or failing that, trying to find the elevator controls to get away from this strange (and deeply annoying) A.I.

 

 

[Redbelle]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

"We have tried... similar things before and they have always failed."
"Why?"
"Because the organics were not ready. It is not something that can be ... forced. But you are ready."

So synthesis might not work in the long term either. It must have thought the others were ready otherwise it wouldn't have tried it then.

This is quality writing I must say. Powering down the XBox at that point might be the best choice. The ending simply sucks. I have no hope for the next installment. I'd love to have full modding tools and just mod a proper ending onto it.

People say that the ending's are to diverse to bring together in a new narrative for a ME4 sequel.

But like the above allude's too, synthesis does not have to be permanent. For synth, It could be story boarded that Synthesis wears off as organic DNA fights back and re-establishes itself. While synthetic bodies prove incapable of providing the structure to support Synth, whereby they have to build non synthesised bodies to escape the one's that are breaking down.

But, a possibility for keeping the consequence's of synth going is that all life born while synthesised is stable. Thereby we have a new subdivide of every species who got jiggy and made babies....... Krogan especially given the rate they pop them out.

[Redbelle]

AlanC9 wrote...

For who? Humans. Turians. Asari. Salarians. Maybe quarians and geth too. Possibly krogan. Hanar if you didn't think they were too stupid too live.

Isn't the point not to discriminate and save all you can?

ME2 introduced the concept that you could get a crewmember killed by ignoring their loyalty mission's or not preparing for the relay jump adequately. Or just by having all your specialists die and your forced to pick the wrong crewman.

In ME3's ending, I expected this level of implementation, only with races. Not individuals. To find that all the choices are predefined and that all the choice's are equally unpalatable was the lowest point ME ever arrived at, given that it had done so well with making choice's and consequence's have knock on consequence's depending on choice's made ages ago, way back in ME1.

Turn's out Wrex's life does matter in conjunction with Bakura's....

Modifié par Redbelle, 22 mai 2013 - 08:49 .

[Redbelle]

Eryri wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Eryri wrote...
Personally, I would have liked to see Shepard at least voice these sorts of concerns. I find his meek acceptance of the information provided by an entity that he has literally just met, rather irritating and out of character. It's only sheer dumb luck that the Catalyst was actually telling the truth.

Hmm.... how would that play out? If Shepard doesn't actively Refuse in dialogue he can walk around for a few minutes and find out that there isn't any exit or any kill switch. The big Refuse speech didn't have to actually trigger the end sequence, so he could have done this in Refuse too.

So he doesn't find them and.... I guess he talks to the Catalyst again, or just shoots him?  How does that conversation go?

Good Question. Unfortunately there IS no way for this scenario to play out well, in a fashion consistent with what I have come to regard as Shepard's character. My ideal version of ME3 wouldn't include the Catalyst at all. Making the Catalyst both a source of exposition, and a representative of the game's antagonists, (who thanks to a device we built without understanding it, is now apparently an antagonist no longer) was in my opinion, a very poor decision on Bioware's part. It requires us, as Shepard, to take it at its word, and suppress any of the quite reasonable doubts we or he might have, that something that until a few moments ago was trying to kill us, really is being sincere. Even if this exposition came from another more neutral source, such as a representation of whatever species designed the Crucible to begin with, it would still be jarring to see Shepard follow its advice when we've never encountered it before.
I play as a very paragon and idealistic version of Shepard, but I think even he would probably spend his last moments trying to get in touch with Hackett and the crucible engineers to find out if shooting at this machine really will turn it on, or failing that, trying to find the elevator controls to get away from this strange (and deeply annoying) A.I.

 

 

Having lived through the Cat's info dump last night from an insanity playthrough. IMHO, the Cat's discussion could have provided the basis for an entire game. Except by expanding the concept's and having them play out over a longer time frame. With squadmate's who could give you different perspective's on the problem......

It could have worked. It could have been ME4. Just with the time needed to give the concept a story arc.

MEHEM demonstrate's that the Cat is not neccessary to the story. But what the Cat say's could have some weight to it. But the Cat fails in delivering the message. If he had an entire game for the player to grow accustomed to him with some of BW's great writing team up's on the subject's the Cat bring' up and their might have been a place for him in ME.

[Phatose]

You probably could've quite a bit to improved the flow by introducing these theme's much earlier in the game via speculation on what the crucible actually does.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Redbelle wrote...

Eryri wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Eryri wrote...
Personally, I would have liked to see Shepard at least voice these sorts of concerns. I find his meek acceptance of the information provided by an entity that he has literally just met, rather irritating and out of character. It's only sheer dumb luck that the Catalyst was actually telling the truth.

Hmm.... how would that play out? If Shepard doesn't actively Refuse in dialogue he can walk around for a few minutes and find out that there isn't any exit or any kill switch. The big Refuse speech didn't have to actually trigger the end sequence, so he could have done this in Refuse too.

So he doesn't find them and.... I guess he talks to the Catalyst again, or just shoots him?  How does that conversation go?

Good Question. Unfortunately there IS no way for this scenario to play out well, in a fashion consistent with what I have come to regard as Shepard's character. My ideal version of ME3 wouldn't include the Catalyst at all. Making the Catalyst both a source of exposition, and a representative of the game's antagonists, (who thanks to a device we built without understanding it, is now apparently an antagonist no longer) was in my opinion, a very poor decision on Bioware's part. It requires us, as Shepard, to take it at its word, and suppress any of the quite reasonable doubts we or he might have, that something that until a few moments ago was trying to kill us, really is being sincere. Even if this exposition came from another more neutral source, such as a representation of whatever species designed the Crucible to begin with, it would still be jarring to see Shepard follow its advice when we've never encountered it before.
I play as a very paragon and idealistic version of Shepard, but I think even he would probably spend his last moments trying to get in touch with Hackett and the crucible engineers to find out if shooting at this machine really will turn it on, or failing that, trying to find the elevator controls to get away from this strange (and deeply annoying) A.I.

 

 

Having lived through the Cat's info dump last night from an insanity playthrough. IMHO, the Cat's discussion could have provided the basis for an entire game. Except by expanding the concept's and having them play out over a longer time frame. With squadmate's who could give you different perspective's on the problem......

It could have worked. It could have been ME4. Just with the time needed to give the concept a story arc.

MEHEM demonstrate's that the Cat is not neccessary to the story. But what the Cat say's could have some weight to it. But the Cat fails in delivering the message. If he had an entire game for the player to grow accustomed to him with some of BW's great writing team up's on the subject's the Cat bring' up and their might have been a place for him in ME.

But we know the reason that didn't happen.... Shepard was Drew Karpyshyn's character. Mac Walters hated writing Shepard and didn't want to write Shepard anymore. So Shepard had to die. But Casey didn't want Shepard to die, so we got the piddling breath scene. So much so wrong went with ME3 and the ending.

The only way I can get through the series is with the mod, or to just wipe out the Geth at Rannoch and pick Destroy. The Geth were destroyed when Chris L'Etoile left.

[AlanC9]

Redbelle wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

For who? Humans. Turians. Asari. Salarians. Maybe quarians and geth too. Possibly krogan. Hanar if you didn't think they were too stupid too live.

Isn't the point not to discriminate and save all you can?

For me, sure. Destroy fans sem to have other priorities. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

[AlanC9]

Eryri wrote...

I play as a very paragon and idealistic version of Shepard, but I think even he would probably spend his last moments trying to get in touch with Hackett and the crucible engineers to find out if shooting at this machine really will turn it on, or failing that, trying to find the elevator controls to get away from this strange (and deeply annoying) A.I.

You should totally play it that way, then. It's an amusing subversion of the genre -- the hero spends his last few minutes futilely searching for something that doesn't exist and he doesn't need, not realizing that victory is right in front of him.

[chemiclord]

AlanC9 wrote...

For me, sure. Destroy fans sem to have other priorities. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

Whelp, I can give you logic I ran though when I eventually chose Destroy with my playthrough.

I have no grounds to believe the dilemma the Catalyst presents.  He may very well be right (and that certainly is what the writing staff wanted to push hard here), but from the perspective of Shepard, I have no compelling reason to accept what it is saying.  

I just spent 6 in-game months telling the Illusive Man he's out of his mind, so Control is not even a consideration for me.  That I may die is an acceptable loss.  That other synthetic life may die is unfortunate, but they all knew what they signed up for when they joined the allied effort.  I'd feel the same way if organic life was on the chopping block.

All I know is that right here, right now, the Reapers are the problem I'm here to address.  I have the means to do it, and I am going to take it.  If that makes me a war criminal (as some people cry), well, I'll be long dead before they get to my case at least, because they'll have a good 1000 years of retroactive judgments to level on human history.

Modifié par chemiclord, 22 mai 2013 - 11:11 .

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

Redbelle wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

For who? Humans. Turians. Asari. Salarians. Maybe quarians and geth too. Possibly krogan. Hanar if you didn't think they were too stupid too live.

Isn't the point not to discriminate and save all you can?

For me, sure. Destroy fans sem to have other priorities. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

I do find coherence to be a priority, true...

Modifié par iakus, 22 mai 2013 - 11:18 .

[Ticonderoga117]

chemiclord wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

For me, sure. Destroy fans sem to have other priorities. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

Whelp, I can give you logic I ran though when I eventually chose Destroy with my playthrough.

I have no grounds to believe the dilemma the Catalyst presents.  He may very well be right (and that certainly is what the writing staff wanted to push hard here), but from the perspective of Shepard, I have no compelling reason to accept what it is saying.  

I just spent 6 in-game months telling the Illusive Man he's out of his mind, so Control is not even a consideration for me.  That I may die is an acceptable loss.  That other synthetic life may die is unfortunate, but they all knew what they signed up for when they joined the allied effort.  I'd feel the same way if organic life was on the chopping block.

All I know is that right here, right now, the Reapers are the problem I'm here to address.  I have the means to do it, and I am going to take it.  If that makes me a war criminal (as some people cry), well, I'll be long dead before they get to my case at least, because they'll have a good 1000 years of retroactive judgments to level on human history.

Bingo!

Modifié par Ticonderoga117, 22 mai 2013 - 11:36 .

[AlanC9]

chemiclord wrote...

I just spent 6 in-game months telling the Illusive Man he's out of his mind, so Control is not even a consideration for me.  That I may die is an acceptable loss.  That other synthetic life may die is unfortunate, but they all knew what they signed up for when they joined the allied effort.  I'd feel the same way if organic life was on the chopping block.

So the objective is still to save everyone you can, but you disagree about how many you can?

[chemiclord]

AlanC9 wrote...

So the objective is still to save everyone you can, but you disagree about how many you can?

The degree of variance seems to be how much you of the information you have presented to you in the scenario is trustworthy and viable.

[AlanC9]

If you start questioning some of the info, how do you stop before getting all the way to Refuse?

[chemiclord]

AlanC9 wrote...

If you start questioning some of the info, how do you stop before getting all the way to Refuse?

As I said, in my first time through, I have no reason to accept the Catalyst's problem as mine.  I really don't care what it was programmed to stop.  I don't accept its problem or its premise or its proposed solutions.  I have a job to do.  If the process the Catalyst gives me to Destroy them doesn't work, then I'll look for another way.

But the end goal is, I'm there to stop the Reapers; not to solve some problem I couldn't give one-tenth of one **** about.

Modifié par chemiclord, 23 mai 2013 - 01:31 .

[AlanC9]

I just didn't see how the argument against Control worked, which doesn't have anything to do with the Catalyst's problem. I agree there's no really good rationale for Synthesis.

[chemiclord]

AlanC9 wrote...

I just didn't see how the argument against Control worked, which doesn't have anything to do with the Catalyst's problem. I agree there's no really good rationale for Synthesis.

Basically, the Catalyst expects me to believe, "Control wouldn't have worked for HIM, but it would for you because you're you."

Uh huh.  Pull the other one, buddy.  It plays "Jingle Bells."

Modifié par chemiclord, 23 mai 2013 - 02:36 .

[CronoDragoon]

AlanC9 wrote...

Redbelle wrote...

Isn't the point not to discriminate and save all you can?

For me, sure. Destroy fans sem to have other priorities. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

My priority is to produce the best future possible while doing the least amount of moral harm. Those two ideas can either conflict or coincide, and in Destroy they definitely conflict. But the amount of damage I believe Synthesis and Control do to the universe far outweighs the damage in Destroy to synthetics.

For Control, I simply don't believe that Shepard-Catalyst will work. I just played a game that outlined just how horribly wrong computers with bad programming can turn. And now that entity will have unmitigated control over the universe? Not the ending for me, sorry. Others are more optimistic in this sense, but I don't see it.

Synthesis is just....sort of boring to me. You have this entire series about having a bunch of kids fighting over candy, and instead of learning to respect each other and share the candy, the moral answer all along was apparently to just stick IVs in all the kids arms and inject pure sugar into their veins. Not a compelling statement on the nature of diversity and conflict to me.

[Eryri]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Synthesis is just....sort of boring to me. You have this entire series about having a bunch of kids fighting over candy, and instead of learning to respect each other and share the candy, the moral answer all along was apparently to just stick IVs in all the kids arms and inject pure sugar into their veins. Not a compelling statement on the nature of diversity and conflict to me.

One of the best summaries of synthesis that I have read.

[Redbelle]

AlanC9 wrote...

Redbelle wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

For who? Humans. Turians. Asari. Salarians. Maybe quarians and geth too. Possibly krogan. Hanar if you didn't think they were too stupid too live.

Isn't the point not to discriminate and save all you can?

For me, sure. Destroy fans sem to have other priorities. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

Mine too, but the game makes that impossible. Destroy is simply the best of a group of bad options. It the only option that does the job of destroying the Reapers while presering as much of the galaxy as possible. Nut's to the Catalogic, Shep's got his own priorities.

Still steamed that I was forced to kill EDI with that option though. And that after 3 games of making the right decisions to allow peace to be possible between Quarian and Geth, it was all undone because someone at BW decided it should be so, instead of allowing the player the power.

It's ME's mantra after all. Give the power of the narrative to the player.

To not provide a path that results in total victory, as well as total defeat, seems to miss the evolution of how ME developed in the second installment. Total Victory and Defeat, as well as all inbetween was in the hands of the player. Providing the player with control of how the story would unfold.

Heck, you could even get Morinth to kill you and get a critical mission failure. Pointless maybe, but it was there. And appeared on Youtube as a memorable ME moment. It was remaniscent of MGS3's time paradox if you shoot Ocelot or get Snake killed. It then that you realise, that there really are some decision's you should know better than to make, but the player's sense of curiousity meant that you just.... had.... to .... say......YES!!!

All a part of the exploration of the game engine, because the power of the narrative was more firmly placed in the hands of the player, as opposed to how the narrative unfolds in BioShock: Inf.

Modifié par Redbelle, 23 mai 2013 - 07:06 .

[Caldari Ghost]

AresKeith wrote...

Phatose wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Phatose wrote...

Forgiving those you believe to be innocent is easy.
Forgiving those you believe to be guilty is hard.

Someone who saves a victim is a hero.
Someone who saves a villain? He's the messiah.

That's really what it comes down to.

How so?

In 3 out of 4 endings, the Reapers don't die.  In 1 of those endings, we do.  Assuming our own survival is top priority, what other reason remains? 

There is a vast amount of unsupported head-canon going on.  But when you look at the big picture?  Or even the BSN threads?  It comes down to "We will not let the Reapers live.  No matter what."

The Reapers were horrible.  Who's the greater hero?  The one who kills the bad guy, or the one who leads them back to the light?

I'm no Christian, but Jesus said to turn the other cheek.  Why can't we?

Because that phrase is harder than it sounds, some people can be forgiven over time

But the Catalyst and Reapers are far beyond forgiveness from the countless cycles of genocide, not everything can be forgiven.

And the Reapers were never in the light to begin with (Sovereign, Harbinger for example)

forgiveness is intangible. as long as you can comprehend the concept, it has potential. and the reapers have minds as well.

Modifié par Caldari Ghost, 23 mai 2013 - 10:43 .

[Redbelle]

Caldari Ghost wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Phatose wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Phatose wrote...

Forgiving those you believe to be innocent is easy.
Forgiving those you believe to be guilty is hard.

Someone who saves a victim is a hero.
Someone who saves a villain? He's the messiah.

That's really what it comes down to.

How so?

In 3 out of 4 endings, the Reapers don't die.  In 1 of those endings, we do.  Assuming our own survival is top priority, what other reason remains? 

There is a vast amount of unsupported head-canon going on.  But when you look at the big picture?  Or even the BSN threads?  It comes down to "We will not let the Reapers live.  No matter what."

The Reapers were horrible.  Who's the greater hero?  The one who kills the bad guy, or the one who leads them back to the light?

I'm no Christian, but Jesus said to turn the other cheek.  Why can't we?

Because that phrase is harder than it sounds, some people can be forgiven over time

But the Catalyst and Reapers are far beyond forgiveness from the countless cycles of genocide, not everything can be forgiven.

And the Reapers were never in the light to begin with (Sovereign, Harbinger for example)

forgiveness is intangible. as long as you can comprehend the concept, it has potential. and the reapers have minds as well.

Forgive? Ok, but to not hold the Reapers accountable? No. Everything they do in Shep's cycle has happened before to a resolution favouring the Reapers. By that I mean, everything.... was.... killed. And all respect to the Catalogic but the Reapers are not cleansing fire or a natural disaster. They were construction's of the Catalyst's making built on a platform of technology that exceeds the 50k year mark and then made insanely huge..... and then filled with the genetic material of dead people. The Cat said he preserved them.

I say, if preservation was his goal, he should have opened a zoo.

The Cat is the overlord of the Reaper invasion and the Reapers are the shock troops that,  figuratively and for all intent and purposes, have dangling bits of slain enemies adorned on them. If you want to think the primordial goo is still sentient in some way, then the Reapers are zombie hordes. And putting them out of their hate fuelled misery is doing them a favour.

The Reapers are an amalagation of flesh and machine combined in the most brutal and hellish way conceivable. Something I read year's back from a guy who worked the franchise. (yes I'm working on finding that quote). They are the enemy because they were made to be the antithesis of how we wish to continue living.. And while it's easy to forgive, they cannot be given a pass for the scale of devastation they have left that goes back to times before we can conceive.

They must be judged. And if that mean's killing them off, then afterwards I'll let the big G sort out the rest.

Modifié par Redbelle, 23 mai 2013 - 12:12 .