The Night Mammoth wrote...
dreamgazer wrote...
Did we know what it was before Vigil told us? Nope. It's Mysterious Device A, which could be a weapon, a signal, or Sovvy's favorite candy bar.
Just because it was revealed late on in the story doesn't mean it's a DEM. Shepard and co. are constantly looking for it, the Mass Relays are fully explained, and it fits with whole idea of the protheans leaving something behind with the beacons and the warnings.
Hence why it's a hybrid instead of a verbatim DEM, why it's a quasi-MacGuffin until the plot needs it to ultimately fix the problem. The timing of its use, and the way it exploits the info-dump from Vigil about where it leads, borders on that line.
The Protheans' ability to exploit and understand the Reapers' relay tech isn't explained, but, of course, it's not revealed until the last minute that the relays are Reaper design, either. I can concede to the idea of the beacons as a suggestion that they'd "leave" tech behind, but there's quite a difference between mental-communication storage devices and a functioning prototype of teleportation tech they didn't invent.
Did it provide the only means to resolve the plot, one that wasn't foreshadowed and utilizing foreign technology that we'll use because an ancient AI told us so? Yep. Conveniently still functioning until a few seconds before the crew zip through it.
It also provided a means through which the plot could continue by allowing Saren to use it. The Conduit isn't suddenly given to the protagonist when they're stuck at a dead end with no way out, it's simply part of the plot, like dozens of other things.
The whole thing is dead-ended without the conduit turning into a prototype relay, which was never directly foreshadowed and remained open just long enough to squeeze the antagonist
and the protagonist through it before the buzzer. And yeah, "Saren's on the Citadel and finishing his plan, but use that soon-to-be-closed backdoor with my assistance and you can stop him" is kinda handing the protagonist the solution in a dead end.
Did it hurl the Mako lock, stock, and barrel onto a safe place on the Citadel in a very unlikely way? Yep. But who cares when we're stopping Saren and saving the day?
It also hurled Saren onto a safe place n the Citadel in a very unlikely way, and no, that wouldn't make it a DEM either.
I see.
It's neither a pure DEM nor a MacGuffin, but a safe, contrived and "defendable" hybrid of unexplained motivations and grand, last-minute plot resolution. But it's alright because it's ME1.
It's alright because there's really nothing wrong with Conduit; it's just a plot device. Vigil's the real glaring flaw in ME1's ending.
The combination of them both can be glaring, if you look at them through certain lenses.
Honestly, I don't see what the problem is so forgive me. It's not perfect, obviously, the whole 'Saren needing the Conduit' premise is little off at the beginning of the game, and yeah, the fact that it deactivates right after Shepard goes through is contrived, but other than that, I thought it was a great revelation that fit quite well.
Don't mistake my comments as "dislike" or something I have an intense problem with (Vigil's info-dump, a conversation with the voice of an extinct species, remains my favorite moment in the trilogy for what it reveals), only that the series has been wiggling around plot-breaking devices since the first game. I poke fun at the "
SPACE MAGIC" of the Thorian and mental cipher, too, but I also
like those. And I still consider ME1 to be the most properly-written of the three. Just ... not without faults, some of the same things that the series has been more aggressively chided for later on.
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