The collectors abduct humans to make indoctrination functional.
Consider indoctrination.
The brain is an incredibly complex thing. What if instead of the Reapers being able to sway the thoughts of any thinking lifeform instantly, it required study? It required the Reapers to study and understand the structures and functions of the brain and nervous system of whatever species they sought to indoctrinate. Surely an incredibly plausible scenario?
As the player and Shepard learn, indoctrination is not instant. It requires the Reapers to study each species they indoctrinate to be effective. So each cycle, agents of the Reapers meticulously spend hundreds of years gathering samples from the major species to study. In this cycle, the collectors. The galaxy is a huge place with plenty of dark, remote corners, so the agents are able to operate undetected. Asari, salarians, turians, krogan, maybe quarians and volus...all have had thousands of members quietly abducted by the Collectors over many years. The necessary data points for indoctrination to be effective.
But humans? Humans are different. Only made first contact 30 years ago. Not yet spread out enough across the galaxy to make discreet abductions particularly easy. Minor race. Insignificant. They'll be more than plenty of indoctrinated thralls from the other races to easily deal with them. No need to start a whole new cycle of collection and study to deal just because a minor race made contact a few decades ago.
That is, until the events of Mass Effect 1. Where humanity plays a very significant role in defeating Sovereign, where a human stops Saren, and where the Reapers lose their very significant advantage of control over the Relays. And so the collectors change their mind.
Not because humans are super special. Not because they're the geneically perfect race. Just because their actions in dealing with Sovereign bumped them up a few notches on the 'threat-o-mater.' Before, the Reapers had dismissed them as a minor race. Shepard's actions in ME 1caused the Reapers to reconsider and put in the effort to study them for indoctrination like the rest of the major races. On par with the major races. Barely. Not above.
Obviously, the collectors don't have hundreds of years to quietly abduct samples here and there. The invasion is imminent, so they resort to quicker methods - abducting colonies.
Remember, even if the 'collectors' of previous cycles were discovered or exposed or something like that...So what? The Reapers would still have the overwhelming advantage, indoctrination or not. They would still have go control over the relays, armies of husks, and of course the Reaper ships themselves. If the 'collectors' of previous cycles failed, the Reapers would only lose an advantage they didn't need in the first place.
But wait a minute. There's a huge problem. Indoctrination supposedly doesn't work without study, but we saw it in ME 1! The main villain was indoctrinated! Does indoctrination work without the Collector's data or not?
Well, yes and no. Consider:
#1. Saren and Benezia were exposed to Sovereign for years on end.
#2. Saren and Benezia were in much closer proxmity - often inside the ship itself.
#3. The indoctrination didn't actually fully work. Despite those two incredibly significant advantages, both Saren and Benezia were able to resist. Saren was even able to resist additonal implants from Sovereign.
There's very clearly a huge difference between the indoctraination we see in ME 1 and the stories of mass indoctrination we hear about. Stories of entire populations being completely subdued within days simply by a Reaper having landed miles away. Sovereign was able to kinda-sorta indoctrinate Saren the same way fiddling around with a machine long enough will probably eventually get something to work, even if you're completely clueless about what you're doing. The important point is, this 'blind indoctrination' would be more or less useless on a large scale, and so without the Collector data the threat of mass Reaper indoctrination is eliminated for Mass Effect 3.
So how does this all affect Shepard? Simple. The abductions and suicide mission procede normally. Instead of finding humans turned into goo to make a Reaper, Shepard finds thousands of aliens preserved in stasis. Learns the truth behind the collectors. Destroys the data for the Reapers. Makes a choice to Destroy the data entirely or preserve a copy. Some other final boss or climax would have to be thought up, but I doubt that would be too difficult.
What are the advantages of this?
- Mass Effect 2 is no longer 'pointless.'
We now have an established and progessive arc for the central conflict against the Reapers.
- Mass Effect 1 concerns crippling the Reapers' weapon of control of the Relays.
- Mass Effect 2 concerns crippling the Reapers' weapon of indoctraination.
- Mass Effect 3 concerns the defeat of the weakened yet still incredibly powerful Reapers themselves
- A victory in Mass Effect 3, particularly a conventional victory, is all the more plausible.
Justifying a victory over the Reapers is difficult. There needs to be very significant advantages the current cycle has that other cycles didn't to make a victory plausible and satisfying instead of contrived. Depriving the Reapers of one of their most powerful weapons is a massive step in that direction. Having the allied fleets be successful against Reapers is more much justified when the player is reminded that previous cycles had to deal with not only Reapers, but also indoctrinated masses equipped with their own weapons and ships.
- The absence of indoctrinated masses and non-Cerberus indoctrination in general in ME 3 is much more plausible.
I'm glad we didn't fight indoctrainated populations in ME 3; Shepard already has enough to deal with and gunning down humans, turians, salarians and asari would heavily undermine the themes of unity between the races in ME 3. It would also raise questions as to why Joe Average suddenly becomes a soldier that can hold his ground against Shepard and the squad as soon as he's indoctrainted.
But now, instead of just being handwaved, indoctrinated populations canonically don't exist in any significant numbers. Never fighting Reaper-aligned humans or aliens is justified because there are now no Reaper-aligned humans or aliens to fight.
- The final choice becomes much better
Many players have been upset that the presented reasoning behind destroying the base in ME 2 isn't very good. And I agree. The fact that the Collectors have killed people and a made a Reaper out of them isn't good enough justification for throwing away the base. A lot of players like to reason that they Destroy the base because they don't want Cerberus to have control of such technology, but that isn't explained well in-game.
So here's the new choice. Do you save the Indoctrination technology and data? Do you save the technology built for the sole and explicit purpose of enslaving a sentient being? No longer is the choice about saving whatever generic Collector technology lies within the base - it's about saving technology designed specifically to rob a person of their free will.
Is enslaving humans and aliens a price worth paying for the help in defeating the Reapers? It's a premise I'm confident Renegade players would find meaning in accepting and Paragon players would find meaning in rejecting. It also fits much better into themes of Control Cerberus uses in ME 3. Granted, I'm still unsure how the choice could be intergrated into ME 3, but I'm sure I could think of something satisfying with enough time.
- No genetic nonsense
No more Reapers being built out of human goo. No more 'essence of a species.' No more baby Reaper. No more 'humans have special genes.' No more Reapers being Organic-Synthetic hybrids. All of that can happily be scrapped.
Modifié par David7204, 06 août 2013 - 11:55 .
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