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[His Name was HYR!!]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

Yes, but it still feels wrong. I know that shouldn't matter, but in a story, it does.

Ah. Well then... can't help with that. Sorry!

According to Casey Hudson, he just wanted the ending to make players think about these things without actually making a statement.

That seems to be the typical approach with BioWare, and the message they try to get across is often missed, for whatever reason (bad writing, we're too stupid to understand... take your pick). At this point, I'd like them to start just making their point loud and clear. No more beat-around-the-bush, relying on us to "figure it out" kind of stuff.

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 09 janvier 2014 - 03:07 .

[ruggly]

HYR 2.0 wrote...
That seems to be the typical approach with BioWare, and the message they try to get across is often missed, for whatever reason (bad writing, we're too stupid to understand... take your pick). At this point, I'd like them to start just making their point loud and clear. No more beat-around-the-bush, relying on us to "figure it out" kind of stuff.

Yep.

[AlanC9]

MACharlie1 wrote...

Is submission not preferable to extinction?

They bloody echoed this EXACT line in ME3 and still pushed Synthesis as the best choice...

Submission to what, though? Reality?

[DoomsdayDevice]

@CosmicGnosis

You're too idealistic. The Reapers are the biggest threat that ever existed in this galaxy. They have been wiping out everyone and everything for millions of years. As much as we'd like to resolve our conflicts peacefully, there are simply cases where it's going to be kill or be killed.

As for the sacrifice of synthetic life, I have to agree with this Anderson quote:

"A good leader is someone who values the life of his men over the success of the mission, but understands that sometimes the cost of failing a mission is higher than the cost of losing those men."

Modifié par DoomsdayDevice, 09 janvier 2014 - 03:42 .

[Argentoid]

CynicalShep wrote...
 I don't care about the moral or philosophical implications - they want me dead = I want them dead. Whoever is left alive in the end wins.

'Murica

[DoomsdayDevice]

Polgara T'Suzsa: "Neural feedback, It disincentivizes sacrificing pieces casually."

[CosmicGnosis]

For me, the final choice "colors" the entire playthrough. It feels like all of my choices culminate in that final decision. I suppose this is why the ending ruined the whole trilogy for some people.

[MACharlie1]

AlanC9 wrote...

MACharlie1 wrote...

Is submission not preferable to extinction?

They bloody echoed this EXACT line in ME3 and still pushed Synthesis as the best choice...

Submission to what, though? Reality?

In the context of both (with Saren and EDI), it was pure self-preservation. EDI asked Shepard why the prisoners didn't sucumb to a standard system of self-preservation when they risked their own lives to save the others despite in the end not saving anyone to which SHEPARD asked if submission was preferable to extinction to which EDI said NO - that life was more then just self-preservation and being immortal as the Reapers "promised". Submitting to the Reapers - working WITH them. To Saren and probably a lot of the indoctrinated, submitting meant becoming a husk. Becoming intertwined with machine. The strengths of both. The weaknesses of neither. 

[MegaSovereign]

TIM and Saren said those things because they were trying to convince themselves that attempting to fight the Reapers would be a mistake.

Everything they say boils down to "think of the possibilities!!!" They're in the wrong not because those possibilities are corrupt, but because they don't even exist.

At that point Shepard has the most experience with the Reapers, the Catalyst, and the Leviathans (if you did the DLC obviously). So I guess my point is, if you're worried about indoctrination then put this into perspective:

I have Shepards that choose Destroy. I don't think you can go wrong with it. It seems practical to just stick with the plan that seemed like a long shot in the first place. Part of indoctrination is viewing Reapers with superstitious awe. If the biggest reason you refuse to choose Control or Synthesis is that you're intimidated by the Reapers, it's because you've given them a God complex.

Just role-play, man and stop worrying about indoctrination/Bioware's mixed messages.

[CosmicGnosis]

MegaSovereign wrote...

Just role-play, man and stop worrying about indoctrination/Bioware's mixed messages.

I wish I could choose Destroy as easily as other people, but this is where I sympathize with Refusers. The synthetic extinction is a critical flaw of Destroy, one that is so great that I feel dirty for choosing it. It's similar to how I feel about Synthesis, but I still prefer the overall outcome of that choice more than Destroy's outcome.

I don't feel dirty about choosing Control, but its outcome suggests an authoritarian philosophy, which I hate. Each choice has such awesome (in the literal sense of the word) pros and cons that I can't help but get lost in a labyrinthine web of paradoxical messages. 

[NeonFlux117]

They are indoctrinated agents of the Reapers.

And have been since the Arca Monolith exposure way back during the fist contact war.

If you think that indoctrinated Agents are okay and their ideas are a good thing then:

Why didn't you just let Saren do his thing in ME1.

Why did you attempt to stop TIM. Just let him try his control thingy on the reapers.....

Oh, right I forgot....

"He (TIM) couldn't control us (Reapers) because we already controlled him".... -Catalyst.

Gee, the catalyst really likes using we, us, our, when describing it's relationship with the reapers...


I wonder why that is?

Modifié par NeonFlux117, 09 janvier 2014 - 11:16 .

[DoomsdayDevice]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

The synthetic extinction is a critical flaw of Destroy, one that is so great that I feel dirty for choosing it.

But that is the whole point of the ending. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The main reason non-destroyers pick a different ending is because they don't want to sacrifice their friends/synthetics. But that is exactly how the Reapers try to sway you from destroy.

Sometimes victory only comes through great sacrifice. This theme constantly repeats in ME3. Hackett having to sacrifice a part of the fleet to let the rest escape...

Just take a look at all these quotes...

Aria: Nyreen's code of ethics won't let her sit by if civilians are exposed. It's what makes her utterly predictable and easy to manipulate.

Garrus: If just one survivor is left standing at the end of the war, then the fight was worth it. But humans want to save everyone. In this war, that's not going to happen.

Shepard: If you'd saved them all, would things have worked out better?
James: I... I don't know. I don't think so.
Shepard: The right choice is usually not the easy one.
James: Yeah. Did you know that before you joined the N7?
Shepard: Yeah, that's why I was asked. There's not a single N7 that hasn't sacrificed, either themselves or their soldiers.

Liara: What if we're too late? My people are dying down there.
Javik: Your empathy is a weakness. You must numb yourself to loss.
Shepard: Benezia took you to this temple?
Liara: I was just a child. I thought it was a history lesson. But now? Maybe there was more to it.
Shepard: What do you mean?
Liara: I went digging through her old files. She had heavily encrypted records on this place, some dating back centuries. I still can't crack most of them. Whatever's going on, it's well hidden.
Javik: I've studied your old mission reports. Your mother was indoctrinated.
Liara: Yes. We had to kill her.
Javik: Yet it did not stop you from fighting. As I said, steel yourself. Many more lives will be lost.
Shepard (renegade): I know it's difficult, Liara, but he's right. You could spend all day counting casualties.
Javik: When you should be avenging them.
Liara: I'm sorry, I can't be that callous.
Javik: (long pause) War doesn't always provide you a choice.

Garrus: I'm starting to understand why the galaxy needs cold hearted dictators every now and then.
Shepard: They get things done?
Garrus: They don't give a damn about the consequences.
Garrus: Suppose that's what it's going to take, Shepard, the ruthless calculus of war. Ten billion people over here die, so twenty billion over there live.
Garrus: Are we up for that? Are you?
Shepard (Renegade): If all life in the galaxy vanishes because we hesitate, what choice do we have?

Lt. Victus: Haven't these men sacrificed enough?
Shepard: Sacrifice is what we sign on for. They know that, and so should you.

Salarian councilor: Sometimes spectres have to make sacrifices. I hope you're ready to do that when the time comes.

Shepard: People will die, but we will fight your regardless. We will fight, we will sacrifice, and we will find another way.

Shepard: It's hard enough you're fighting a war, but it's even worse knowing that no matter how hard you try, you can't save them all.

Anderson: A good leader is someone who values the life of his men over the success of the mission, but understands that sometimes the cost of failing a mission is higher than the cost of losing those men.

There's more, but you get the idea.

Modifié par DoomsdayDevice, 09 janvier 2014 - 04:02 .

[jamesp81]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

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.

Don't take this the wrong way, but this kind of thinking comes off as ridiculous to me.  I don't care if they are 'other' or not.  They've stated a goal, and pursued its completion by actions, to destroy me and those I care about.  I don't need any other reason to stop them by any means necessary, including destroying them.  Their appearance or otherness aren't relevant..  It's their actions that matter.

[Linkenski]

CosmicGnosis wrote...
"We destroy them, or they destroy us."

I hate how my 2nd favorite ME Trilogy character's most memorable quote became one of his most narrow-minded ones.

Thanks Mac. Thanks for taking a turd on what was previously a very relatable and likeable character. I know opinions beg to differ but I just hated almost every word that came out of Anderson in ME3. His characterization was so off.

[DoomsdayDevice]

jamesp81 wrote...

CosmicGnosis wrote...

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.

Don't take this the wrong way, but this kind of thinking comes off as ridiculous to me.  I don't care if they are 'other' or not.  They've stated a goal, and pursued its completion by actions, to destroy me and those I care about.  I don't need any other reason to stop them by any means necessary, including destroying them.  Their appearance or otherness aren't relevant..  It's their actions that matter.

I have to agree with this. It doesn't even matter that it's synthetics. If instead of synthetics I would have to sacrifice Earth or all of humanity, I'd do it, if it meant the rest of the galaxy would be rid of the Reapers forever. As unimaginably horrible as that would be.

I mean sure, there will be people who pick destroy because they always hated synthetics, but if that's not your motivation, then why make a problem of it.

I can see people having a problem with having to make a big sacrifice, but it shouldn't really matter who's the victim.

I think it's just that some players want a perfect ending with only good outcomes, and no drawbacks, but that's not realistic. Not in this story.

[N7Gold]

I think there's more to it than staying true to your original path. From your statement, OP, and from what I've seen and heard as I played all three games, I can't help but notice that Saren and Illusive Man, who were both puppets of the Reapers needed Shepard to change his/her beliefs and methods on how to stop the Reapers without letting the harvesting cycle continue.  It seems as if the Reapers are trying to use them to subtly convince Shepard that there are "better" ways to end the conflict against the Reapers without resorting to indoctrinate him/her (because he/she can't control the Reapers while they control him/her, that's why TIM couldn't control them himself, and Synthesis can't be forced), and destroying them is not one of them, which is strange. It can't be coincidence that the solutions of the Crucible accurately align with the beliefs and goals of Anderson (Destroy), Illusive Man (Control) and Saren (Synthesis). If the Reapers end up being destroyed, the Catalyst will have no purpose, no means of trying to fulfill the request of his Leviathan creators.

Modifié par N7Gold, 10 janvier 2014 - 01:59 .

[Reigned]

A big problem I had was the original intention of creating the Intelligence/Reapers, was to understand and solve the problem of organic extinction. Harbinger discovered it was the organics creation of synthetics and ultimately concluded that if organics decide to do as such, they must be eradicated to preserve whats left of organics. The problem? Shepards ability to actually reason with synthetics (Legion, Geth, EDI), and ally with them while also understanding, acknowledging and appreciating their sense of individuality. With this accomplishment, even if you choose destroy, it's not difficult nor impossible afterwards to create synthetics again after this. The general fear that organics had of unshackled artificial intelligence is now gone, seeing as though it can be reasoned with and understood. I guess the biggest unknown is would the surviving galaxy after this feel it's necessary to create synthetic life again?

[Obadiah]

ruggly wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...
That seems to be the typical approach with BioWare, and the message they try to get across is often missed, for whatever reason (bad writing, we're too stupid to understand... take your pick). At this point, I'd like them to start just making their point loud and clear. No more beat-around-the-bush, relying on us to "figure it out" kind of stuff.

Yep.

Indeed. I don't mind so much if the game's story is a little obtuse, but when we ask, I'd like to hear what THEIR artistic interpretation is for what they are depicting.

[The Sarendoctrinator]

One of the major problems is the way they portrayed these choices up until the final moments of the game. Shepard was shown to be fighting against them - for most of the trilogy, regardless of dialogue choices, we could never really agree with the idea of Synthesis or Control. Saren and TIM both asked Shepard to join them at some point, but it wasn't an option. So for their ideas to suddenly become an option in the end, it just makes me wonder why I had to talk two of my favorite characters into suicide.

Also, there's the fact that the being presenting us with these choices is the one controlling the Reapers, and goes on to tell Shepard that every option will lead to his or her death. Shepard accepting this willingly doesn't seem consistent with their characterization throughout the rest of the series. 

To make Control and Synthesis fit better into the story, they should have given Shepard the option to express an interest in them earlier. There were only a few vague hints (the geth and studying Reaper tech, depending on your dialogue choices), and those were nowhere near the same level as the endings (making the choice to alter all organics and synthetics instead of allowing them to make the choice for themselves, or controlling the Reapers and keeping them around instead of using the knowledge to destroy them which had previously been suggested).

I wouldn't have had a problem choosing those options if they didn't seem so out of character, even though the only one I personally agree with is Destroy, as long as it didn't involve going along with a Reaper-being's suggestion (shown to be a bad idea with both Saren and TIM) that outright states this "solution" to a problem Shepard may or may not believe exists is going to kill them. As it is now, I just turn the game off after the last conversation with Anderson.

[TTTX]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...
I think it's just that some players want a perfect ending with only good outcomes, and no drawbacks, but that's not realistic. Not in this story.

Let's just forget all the people died during the trilogy, both off screen and on screen.

Also the whole sacrfies thing was overdone by the time of the ME3 ending.

[N7Gold]

TTTX wrote...

DoomsdayDevice wrote...
I think it's just that some players want a perfect ending with only good outcomes, and no drawbacks, but that's not realistic. Not in this story.

Let's just forget all the people died during the trilogy, both off screen and on screen.

Also the whole sacrfies thing was overdone by the time of the ME3 ending.

It may seem overdone, but I think the constant message that the right choice is sometimes the ones that renegades aren't afraid to choose is meant as a hint for us that the road to true victory is not as straightforward and morally black and white as we thought it would be, especially since the characters in the game rely on technology that their enemy, the Reapers created, and the Crucible is no exception to that fact.

[BioWareAre****s]

The question you should be asking is *Why* did the Reapers choose TIM and Saren in the first place? When a race of beings *that* superior and with *that* much time on their hands choose somebody to help them on as grand a scale as TIM and Saren did, it has got to be for a reason, and that reason could - and most probably was - because they shared similar values to the Reapers in the first place. Yes, Saren and TIM evidently thought that they had themselves become monsters in the end - evidenced by the fact that you can talk them into committing suicide - but that's because they've realised that they're being used.
IMO, the Reapers chose to indoctrinate the two of them because they already held beliefs that somehow coincided with the Reapers' plans - such as TIM's penchant for control - and therefore those comments made by Saren and TIM still stand. Indoctrinated or not, they're valid points. I still don't like Synthesis or Control, but that's not relevant here.

[N7Gold]

FluffyCannibal wrote...

The question you should be asking is *Why* did the Reapers choose TIM and Saren in the first place? When a race of beings *that* superior and with *that* much time on their hands choose somebody to help them on as grand a scale as TIM and Saren did, it has got to be for a reason, and that reason could - and most probably was - because they shared similar values to the Reapers in the first place. Yes, Saren and TIM evidently thought that they had themselves become monsters in the end - evidenced by the fact that you can talk them into committing suicide - but that's because they've realised that they're being used.
IMO, the Reapers chose to indoctrinate the two of them because they already held beliefs that somehow coincided with the Reapers' plans - such as TIM's penchant for control - and therefore those comments made by Saren and TIM still stand. Indoctrinated or not, they're valid points. I still don't like Synthesis or Control, but that's not relevant here.

I don't know why they chose Saren, I mean initially, before his indoctrination, he only wanted to find a way to put humanity in its place to avenge his deceased brother, and allying with the Reapers seemed like the best thing to do. As for TIM, he was planning on building a pro-human organization before he got indoctrinated 33 years before ME3. Through his subtle indoctrination, TIM learned that there is someone or something out in the dark corners of the galaxy that will put humans to the test, and that inspired him to make his infamous manifesto. He would do anything to advance mankind, and that made him a perfect puppet for the Reapers becasue it would be difficult to get him to have second thoughts about his actions.

[FlyingSquirrel]

I think I understand what you're getting at, OP, and I will admit that I am puzzled by Bioware's intentions.

I don't really find any of the endings satisfying, but I'd choose Control or Synthesis before I'd choose Destroy, and yet on my latest playthrough I noticed what some have said on BSN, namely that the narrative seems to be pushing you towards Destroy until the very end. Once Shepard is presented with new information -- the immense collateral cost of Destroy to EDI and the geth, the fact that the Reapers may not be directly responsible for their actions, the possibilities of Control and Synthesis -- it is incumbent upon Shepard to consider all this. But introducing this much new information at the last minute is usually questionable storytelling, unless "What if everything you thought you knew is suddenly and dramatically proven wrong?" is one of the themes of the story, which it isn't in the case of Mass Effect.

One very basic level which probably deserves consideration is that the "mechanics" of choosing your ending are a little confusing. On my first playthrough, I thought I was supposed to walk into the beam and *then* make a choice and was a bit puzzled when Shepard just dove in and Synthesis took place. I think at least a few others have posted that they didn't quite know what they were doing when they first encountered the endings. So the Anderson and TIM parallels might be there partly just for the sake of the cutaway scenes showing you what to do (shoot the tubes for Destroy, use the panel for Control).

Maybe they just figured that the color reversal (i.e. Anderson's choice associated with Renegade Red and TIM's with Paragon Blue) was enough of a tipoff to the players that simply choosing which character we trusted more wasn't necessarily the way to go? And the Catalyst, IMO, doesn't necessarily support Anderson's argument *or* TIM's. "We destroy them or they destroy us" turns out to be an oversimplification...but so does "Control is the means to survival." And personally I've never taken much stock in the Saren / Synthesis parallel. Both of them involve integrating technology with biology, yes, but it's unclear if what Saren was attempting would lead to the universal advances in knowledge, communication, and understanding that seem to be promised by Synthesis. Plus, I just assumed that Saren was being duped and Sovereign never intended to let him go through with it.

The other possibility might be that Bioware just underestimated the extent to which we would place stock in who advocated each choice in making our own decisions. The choices at the end almost felt a little more like something out of the Witcher games, where you get stuck siding with Ruthless Bastard #1 who's going to get innocent people killed or Ruthless Bastard #2 who's also going to get innocent people killed, and end up doing something in spite of the person urging you to do it.