Here are some Saren quotes:
"I'm forging an alliance between us and the Reapers, between organics and machines. And in doing so, I will save more lives than have ever existed."
"The relationship is symbiotic. Organic and machine intertwined, a union of flesh and steel. The strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither. I am a vision of the future, Shepard. The evolution of all organic life. This is our destiny. Join Sovereign, and experience a true rebirth."
Here are some Illusive Man quotes:
"When humanity discovered the mass relays, when we learned there was more to the galaxy than we imagined, there were some who thought the relays should be destroyed. They were scared of what we'd find, terrified of what we might let in. But look at what humanity has achieved. Since that discovery, we've advanced more than the past ten thousand years combined!"
"Control is the means to survival."
We all know that Saren and the Illusive Man were indoctrinated. What, then, are we supposed to make of these quotes?
I'm going to keep it real here: I agree with them. It makes sense that we will continue to implant ourselves with technology. The future might indeed look something like Saren. I also agree that the reason we are the dominant species on Earth is because we learned how to control our environment, other species, etc. The more control one has, the more likely one will survive.
But because these quotes come from indoctrinated individuals, are they intended to be objectively wrong? Has BioWare set up these arguments to be refuted, rejected, knocked down, etc.? There is a reason why so many people found the Indoctrination Theory so compelling; there are clear parallels between these quotes and Synthesis and Control.
And of course, here is Anderson's famous quote:
"We destroy them, or they destroy us."
When we put all of this information together, there is no denying that Destroy comes out looking better than Synthesis and Control. Frankly, there appears to be only one correct choice. It's not that Shepard becomes indoctrinated if he chooses Synthesis or Control, but that he didn't learn from the villains' mistakes. In a sense, it feels like Shepard "loses" the Mass Effect trilogy. He has become the monster that he was supposed to defeat.
And that's what bothers me. People are all too willing to reject Saren's and the Illusive Man's arguments because they were indoctrinated, and that must mean they were completely wrong. Personally, I agree with them more than I agree with Anderson’s “them or us” mentality. But it doesn’t help that BioWare promoted that way of thinking through all three games… until the very last minute. I don’t want to force anyone to implant themselves, and I don’t want to dominate other sapient beings. But I also don’t want to destroy the “other”, or “that which is not like me”, which is what I see when I look at Destroy. I know people see it as “freedom”, but I see it as “organic freedom”. It implies that we must reject the machines because they will make us less than human, which is a theme that began in Mass Effect 1.
According to Casey Hudson, he just wanted the ending to make players think about these things without actually making a statement. Well, it appears that most people chose Destroy, which does indeed fit the story that came before. Shepard’s survival even feels like a reward. It is possible that BioWare intended to overturn the old ways of thinking right at the end, and make Control and Synthesis viable, but most of the fanbase, or perhaps the loud part of the fanbase, has declared that straying from the original path is wrong.
Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 09 janvier 2014 - 12:09 .
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