75 réponses à ce sujet

[PsyrenY]

I think it's pretty safe to say that, whether you came to terms with or still revile the endings, nobody from either camp would be satisfied with a prequel or midquel to Shepard's trilogy. We want to see how the galaxy has changed, and write new stories in ME's rich 'verse.

My peace offering proposition to both sides is this - what if they tweaked Destroy to only mostly destroy the Geth, and possibly even spare EDI? Would that be an acceptable starting point for "ME4?"



I think it would, and here's how I envision it going down:

- No Reapers or Catalyst left around. As much as I like the ideas of Control and Synthesis, it would honestly be tough to write a convincing threat that a fleet of Reapers couldn't solve. If we do need their knowledge for something, let it be salvageable in fragments.

- The Geth are reduced to a fraction of a fraction of what they were. In addition, Legion's upgrade had unintended consequences - the platforms that remain are intelligent, but have lost the ability to create new Geth units. Before they can even consider building a new Dyson Sphere and resuming their quest for perfection, they have to solve this immediate problem, which could take centuries - plenty of time for multiple titles to be set in the U.

- EDI, assuming she survives, would only be known to the Normandy crew and a handful of high-ranking Alliance officials. Thus we avoid the thorny issue of other races' militaries knowing that the humans have a pet AI piloting their most advanced frigate, at least for a time. Cerberus' status is uncertain, but with its key players taken down they would not be a major player for a very long time to come - assuming they don't simply reform under Miranda or Oriana's leadership.

- Start with the most optimistic circumstances. Rachni alive, Krogan babies, Geth-Quarian peace, no squadmate deaths aside from Thane, Mordin and Legion (and possibly Zaeed given the unfortunate RL passing of his VA.) They don't have to play major roles or anything, but the more that are alive, the more callbacks and references we can do in the next title.

Finally, whether Shepard survives isn't too important to me (I doubt s/he will be playable either way) but you could throw that in too, and blue babies/whatever if you really want. The Final Hours app makes it clear that you survive and are hospitalized in high EMS destroy anyway.

[DeinonSlayer]

In other words, you're suggesting that they canonize MEHEM.

No thanks.

[AlanC9]

Beat me to it.

[Steelcan]

Get over it people the geth are dead

[PsyrenY]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

In other words, you're suggesting that they canonize MEHEM.

No thanks.

Not at all:

- MEHEM specifies that the Geth are unimpacted by Destroy. I think they need to be, both to set them back/delay their attempts to reach singularity, as well as to add in meaningful consequences for the war. I however don't think it would be very interesting to wipe them out entirely.
- MEHEM specifies that Shepard is fine after ME3. For myself, I think Shepard (even assuming s/he survives at all) should definitely no longer be physically capable of active duty. That would ensure a new protagonist (or protagonists) can take the stage.
- MEHEM specifies that EDI survives. This is actually an open question for my proposition (sorry I wasn't clearer on that point) - she could just be dead, or she could be alive but at reduced functionality/cognition due to the violent corruption/deletion of her Reaper code.
- MEHEM specifies that the relay network is left intact (or at least very minimally damaged.) This is another open question in my proposition - while I think we can repair some of it, I would like new relays or even a new form of galaxy-wide FTL altogether. As well as dealing with the very real hardships (isolated colonies, nonfunctional Citadel, piracy, and stranded aliens) that would result until those repairs/innovations are made.
- MEHEM does not address any of the many challenges that lurk down the road. Leviathans, Yahg, Rachni, even a resurgent Krogan could all be problem points. And the Reapers don't even have to be fait accompli, though the Catalyst at the very least should be gone.



Basically it's a compromise ending that is much less saccharine than MEHEM, but deals with the very thorny plot issues that Control and Synthesis would raise for continuing the franchise.

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 03 janvier 2014 - 04:48 .

[CrutchCricket]

Control with disconnected and thus absent Reapers would be a better preservation of the status quo.

That being said I don't want any canon set at all. I have no interest in ME4 but more importantly, I think the least they could do is let us make this final choice for ourselves without steamrolling over it like they did all the others. The ending sucked major dong but at least let us keep our choice of colored crap.

In other news, I think there's plenty of room for expanding the universe prior to the war. Maybe not for major events but for smaller character-focused stories (i.e. Bioware's strength) there's definitely space. I'd rather they just leave the whole thing be, but since that's not going to happen as more money can still be wrung from this, they have a few decades to work with. Go nuts.

[Daniel_N7]

It's been speculated before on the forums that if "ME4" turns out to be a sequel, it could be approached as a sequel to the Mass Effect Universe, not necessarily a direct sequel to Mass Effect 3. That means that BioWare may take some latitude in reestablishing the basis for a continuation of the MEU without resonating the specific consequences of the Destroy/Control/Synthesis endings.

You could therefore have some post-Reaper-War impacts such as a partially disassembled Relay network, on par with some liberties regarding the Geth or EDI or even the Citadel.

It also seems pretty obvious from the signs already left by BioWare that there will be no mention whatsoever to Shepard, but I do wish they find imaginative ways to tie the new story (hopefully trilogy) to the previous one, by adding the presence of some of the older characters like Garrus or Wrex, or even the chance to see the Normandy once more. We'll see...

[AlanC9]

CrutchCricket wrote...

That being said I don't want any canon set at all. I have no interest in ME4 but more importantly, I think the least they could do is let us make this final choice for ourselves without steamrolling over it like they did all the others. The ending sucked major dong but at least let us keep our choice of colored crap.

The only feasible way I see to do this is by going the KotOR 2 route and trivializing the differences between the different ending states. I was not a fan. OTOH, KotOR2 was a decent enough game that I was  able to overlook the crap start.

[PsyrenY]

We would all love vastly different starting points depending on our choice of ending, but the reality is that just isn't feasible. For me, the journey is what mattered rather than the destination, and the questions raised along the way mattered more than the answers. Take rewriting vs. blowing up the Heretics in Legion's loyalty mission for instance - I didn't really care that ultimately, there was little difference between the two options in ME3. Rather, back when that choice was first presented in ME2 it spawned thread after thread of passioned debate for one side or the other and that to me was all it needed to do. We saw similar behavior from the choice between Udina and Anderson (which ultimately didn't matter either) and we're about to see it again here with these endings. That's what we as fans need to understand - that it's the questions that matter.

In short, science fiction's job is to make us think "what if?" And drama's job is not so much to say "what did they do?" Rather it asks "what would YOU do?" A much more important question, and one that is going to have multiple answers by definition, so the threads have to be tied together ultimately.



@ Crutch: If you don't want a canon ending that's great - but you and those like you who do not can simply not buy ME4 and say the series ends with whichever color you chose. For myself, I'll take a canon ending if it means more mass effect.

@ Daniel: This is more or less what I'm saying but I do think that Synthesis (as much as I love the idea of it) is so radical a shift for the series that they would basically have to address immediately whether or not that ending was chosen. And my gut says they won't go with it, it's just too big a change. EDI's epilogue stresses how hard it is to imagine the lengths we can go to now and that is indeed really all you can say about it because it's so far removed from anything even the writers themselves can relate to.

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 03 janvier 2014 - 05:27 .

[CrutchCricket]

If you try to set a generic sequel state that makes no reference to the specific consequences of each ending you are trivializing the choice. As much as I like to give them crap for the RGB thing, the endings do go off wildly on their own tangents and such a divergence can't be ignored. So we get to some point in the future. Is it after synthesis where everyone has glowing green crap on them and can interface with their wireless printer? Is it after control, where you'd expect to find a society colored (lol) if not entirely built on the fear of the Reapers returning? Or is it after Destroy where you still have most of the relays offline?

Go far enough into the future and maybe you can start blurring the lines. But we'd be talking centuries, if not millenia, in which case most characters would be dead and technology should be wildly different. And if that's the case, why call it Mass Effect at all, apart from the obvious marketing cash-in?

[CronoDragoon]

Are these tweaks to make Destroyers feel better or to make it easier for ME4 to be a post-all-choices sequel? If it's the latter you can just include a line that the quarians rebuilt the geth after Destroy without jumping through hula-hoops about what Destroy did.

[von uber]

What is this obsession over keeping EDI and the Geth alive; I don't get it. They are not that great a part of the story. The geth in fact only really matter as mooks in me1.
If they do a sequel set within a reasonable enough time frame high ems destroy is the only viable option for a story set in the same universe without massive retconning.

[CrutchCricket]

Optimystic_X wrote...

We would all love vastly different starting points depending on our choice of ending, but the reality is that just isn't feasible. For me, the journey is what mattered rather than the destination, and the questions raised along the way mattered more than the answers. Take rewriting vs. blowing up the Heretics in Legion's loyalty mission for instance - I didn't really care that ultimately, there was little difference between the two options in ME3. Rather, back when that choice was first presented in ME2 it spawned thread after thread of passioned debate for one side or the other and that to me was all it needed to do. We saw similar behavior from the choice between Udina and Anderson (which ultimately didn't matter either) and we're about to see it again here with these endings. That's what we as fans need to understand - that it's the questions that matter.

In short, science fiction's job is to make us think "what if?" And drama's job is not so much to say "what did they do?" Rather it asks "what would YOU do?" A much more important question, and one that is going to have multiple answers by definition, so the threads have to be tied together ultimately.



@ Crutch: If you don't want a canon ending that's great - but you and those like you who do not can simply not buy ME4 and say the series ends with whichever color you chose. For myself, I'll take a canon ending if it means more mass effect.

No accounting for the cynical then? The more they pull stuff like invalidating your choices, the more people will expect them to, which will mean fewer and fewer people sticking around long enough to consider the philosophical implications of stuff like rewrite vs destroy. But hell don't take my word or prediction for it. Look at the original ending and how many people were just dying to discuss the implications of control and synthesis... oh wait.

Those implications didn't change. But because the choice was seemingly meaningless by virtue of it looking the same, even those that didn't immediately fly off the handle weren't rushing to discuss themes and meanings.

I also find the "well then don't buy it" response unduly dismissive. Despite all that's happened, some of us still care for the universe and the lore. Making a new game still means adding to that lore even if I don't buy it (and I'm not the kind to pick and choose which work I consider canon). And with Bioware's track record to date that notion is naturally concerning.

[CronoDragoon]

StreetMagic wrote...

I don't even know why Destroyers need to feel better to begin with.

Well clearly many disagree with you there. Thus MEHEM.

[PsyrenY]

StreetMagic wrote...

They must really believe in their minds that they made Shepard so epic that any mention of him/her can't be acknowledged. Like they're too large for life or something. When from my point of view, they made Shepard more feeble than before, and he needs to be vindicated in a new way.

It's not that - it's just hard to refer to Shep without mentioning his/her gender, abilities and demeanor.

CrutchCricket wrote...
No accounting for the cynical then? The more they pull stuff like invalidating your choices, the more people will expect them to, which will mean fewer and fewer people sticking around long enough to consider the philosophical implications of stuff like rewrite vs destroy. But hell don't take my word or prediction for it. Look at the original ending and how many people were just dying to discuss the implications of control and synthesis... oh wait.

There was plenty of discussion of both those things. You can check my sig for many, many threads on it, including some excellent treatises by MCB and Ieldra2.

The problem is that a Control/Synthesis universe is much more interesting to write about than to actually play in. What kind of challenge could arise that a friendly Reaper fleet could not deal with? There would be no room for true heroism unless the problem is so minor as to be nearly inconsequential.

CronoDragoon wrote...

Are these tweaks to make Destroyers feel better or to make it easier for ME4 to be a post-all-choices sequel? If it's the latter you can just include a line that the quarians rebuilt the geth after Destroy without jumping through hula-hoops about what Destroy did.

Rebuilt Geth is pointless - no matter what you called them, they wouldn't actually be Geth. They wouldn't have had the experiences that the Geth went through - no scars from the Morning War and the Dyson bombing, no experience being enslaved by Reapers and Overlord, no connection to Legion's ultimate sacrifice. They would basically be an entirely new race at that point and the Geth themselves would be dead.

CrutchCricket wrote...

I also find the "well then don't buy it" response unduly dismissive. Despite all that's happened, some of us still care for the universe and the lore. Making a new game still means adding to that lore even if I don't buy it (and I'm not the kind to pick and choose which work I consider canon). And with Bioware's track record to date that notion is naturally concerning.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be dismissive - but the fact is that they're going to keep making ME games, and they have to move past ME3 eventually, even if that means retconning the entire thing. (Note - I am not saying they should do this, I'm actually happy with the endings.) I'd rather brainstorm on the most productive ways they can continue the franchise, than declare any attempts at going forward to be nonstarters and wallowing in the series' past.

Modifié par Optimystic_X, 03 janvier 2014 - 05:53 .

[CronoDragoon]

Optimystic_X wrote...
Rebuilt Geth is pointless - no matter what you called them, they wouldn't actually be Geth. They wouldn't have had the experiences that the Geth went through - no scars from the morning war and the Dyson bombing, no experience being enslaved by Reapers and Overlord, no connection to Legion's sacrifice. They would basically be an entirely new race at that point.

What was the geth consensus if not an example of how the geth store their race memory? Why can't the new geth just upload these memories? But you're right they won't have the Reaper upgrades. For some fans this would be an improvement, and would allow the geth another chance at developing without Reaper code. /shrug

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 03 janvier 2014 - 05:52 .

[PsyrenY]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Optimystic_X wrote...
Rebuilt Geth is pointless - no matter what you called them, they wouldn't actually be Geth. They wouldn't have had the experiences that the Geth went through - no scars from the morning war and the Dyson bombing, no experience being enslaved by Reapers and Overlord, no connection to Legion's sacrifice. They would basically be an entirely new race at that point.

What was the geth consensus if not an example of how the geth store their race memory? Why can't the new geth just upload these memories? But you're right they won't have the Reaper upgrades. For some fans this would be an improvement, and would allow the geth another chance at developing without Reaper code. /shrug

The Consensus IS the Geth. So if you're saying that's intact, you're actually agreeing with me that not all of them would be destroyed.

That's not something the Quarians can rebuild - you can't rebuild memories. Either you have them or you don't. The Quarians can tell their new creations what happened, from their perspective, but not what the Geth themselves experienced.

[Chashan]

Optimystic_X wrote...

I think it's pretty safe to say that, whether you came to terms with or still revile the endings, nobody from either camp would be satisfied with a prequel or midquel to Shepard's trilogy. We want to see how the galaxy has changed, and write new stories in ME's rich 'verse.

My peace offering proposition to both sides is this - what if they tweaked Destroy to only mostly destroy the Geth, and possibly even spare EDI? Would that be an acceptable starting point for "ME4?"

[...]

Reasonable enough. Yet, given that there's this mentioned alternative - "blurring the lines" - around that BW can legitimately use instead and avoid the entire issue altogether, I would prefer that. Regarding one possible collateral of vanilla-Red, you already pointed out her place in the larger picture:

- EDI, assuming she survives, would only be known to the Normandy crew and a handful of high-ranking Alliance officials. Thus we avoid the thorny issue of other races' militaries knowing that the humans have a pet AI piloting their most advanced frigate, at least for a time. [...]

Hence, no necessity whatsoever for her to be mentioned again. Does not stop BW from introducing new Ai-characters, of course.

StreetMagic wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Go far enough into the future and maybe you can start blurring the lines. But we'd be talking centuries, if not millenia, in which case most characters would be dead and technology should be wildly different. And if that's the case, why call it Mass Effect at all, apart from the obvious marketing cash-in?

Well, the whole Stargazer thing kind of worries me, if that might be a starting point. That's so far into the future they don't even know much about the Reaper war anymore.

Given the non-committal nature of sections of the finale, would that be such a bad thing, though?

Several millennia is a lengthy enough time for peoples' imaginations to run wild as far as the final choice, and the more major ones of the trilogy are concerned go. Setting a very explicit set of events as what goes down as a direct result of the final choice, overriding that part, one of the few strengths I'll allow the decision-chamber, would not go over well either.

Again, Optim puts it quite well, really:

Optimystic_X wrote...
We would all love vastly different starting points depending on our choice of ending, but the reality is that just isn't feasible. 

Thus, making use of the quite ambiguous, mythical set-up ME3 ended on would be the fairest compromise to everyone involved, as I see it.

Modifié par Chashan, 03 janvier 2014 - 06:17 .

[CronoDragoon]

Optimystic_X wrote...
The Consensus IS the Geth. So if you're saying that's intact, you're actually agreeing with me that not all of them would be destroyed.

That's not something the Quarians can rebuild - you can't rebuild memories. Either you have them or you don't. The Quarians can tell their new creations what happened, from their perspective, but not what the Geth themselves experienced.

Why can't you rebuilt synthetic memories?