1765 réponses à ce sujet

[pattywagon]

SwobyJ wrote...

Sure it's Harbinger?

I'm guessing it is as the catalyst really pushes you to do anything but destroy, and even recommends control or synthesize which were the themes stated by others. In ME1 Saren talked about a new era of uniting machine and organics into a new being, then in ME3 Illusive Man talked about control. They were indoctrinated by the Reapers, so my theory is the kid is Harbinger, or is the intelligence that controls Harbinger. It's stated in the Levithan (spelling) where the Reapers came from, especially with their original design and how the first Reaper, Harbinger was born.

[SwobyJ]

I also got from it that there was no way Nyreen could have taken down that many adjs at once, keeping them from harming others (that's the big part), without a unique tactic.

Maybe that last part should have been emphasized. That there's no biotic or combat or tech related anything that could have saved Omega's citizens there except the bubble. It was too fast.

[SwobyJ]

pattywagon wrote...

SwobyJ wrote...

Sure it's Harbinger?

I'm guessing it is as the catalyst really pushes you to do anything but destroy, and even recommends control or synthesize which were the themes stated by others. In ME1 Saren talked about a new era of uniting machine and organics into a new being, then in ME3 Illusive Man talked about control. They were indoctrinated by the Reapers, so my theory is the kid is Harbinger, or is the intelligence that controls Harbinger. It's stated in the Levithan (spelling) where the Reapers came from, especially with their original design and how the first Reaper, Harbinger was born.

I think it's Sovereign, or rather Nazara. And that this meeting was a long time coming.

Modifié par SwobyJ, 04 février 2014 - 11:18 .

[SwobyJ]

StreetMagic wrote...

"I am Sovereign. And this station is mine."

I'm still wondering if they want to stick with that line.

Precisely...

Though by now, as you know, I find these lines even more interesting: "There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own, you cannot even imagine it."

[congokong]

SwobyJ wrote...

I also got from it that there was no way Nyreen could have taken down that many adjs at once, keeping them from harming others (that's the big part), without a unique tactic.

Maybe that last part should have been emphasized. That there's no biotic or combat or tech related anything that could have saved Omega's citizens there except the bubble. It was too fast.

Something about that biotic bubble explosion never made sense to me. Since the explosion moved outward with Nyreen dying instantly shouldn't the biotic bubble have faded instantly; resulting in the explosion to proceed outward?

[Invisible Man]

congokong wrote...

SwobyJ wrote...

I also got from it that there was no way Nyreen could have taken down that many adjs at once, keeping them from harming others (that's the big part), without a unique tactic.

Maybe that last part should have been emphasized. That there's no biotic or combat or tech related anything that could have saved Omega's citizens there except the bubble. It was too fast.

Something about that biotic bubble explosion never made sense to me. Since the explosion moved outward with Nyreen dying instantly shouldn't the biotic bubble have faded instantly; resulting in the explosion to proceed outward?

you know it's pointless to ask such questions, space magic ftw!

[ImaginaryMatter]

congokong wrote...

I don't get how so many people think the catalyst scenario is such bad writing. It actually gives an explanation into the reapers' motivations. I even made a topic about this.

http://social.biowar...17774888-1.html

Instead of challenging if the reapers are right in their actions based on the catalyst's premise almost everyone tried challenging the premise instead.

The Catalyst revelation leaves a few glaring plot holes that are never addressed by the story, mainly dealing with the concept that if the Catalyst was the Citadel why it never assisted in the cycle until it became convenient for the plot to move the Citadel to Earth and wrap up the story; and how what the Catalyst's statements about the Reapers seemingly contradict things stated by Sovereign and Harbinger, which, again is never resolved by the story.

When dealing with the actual premise I find it more of an issue thematically, rather than the discrepancy between the Reaper's stated goals and their actual actions (both of which are bad writing). The nature of the Synthetic vs Organic conflict in Mass Effect was different than the one painted by the Catalyst, namely that Organics and Synthetics are not fundamentally different from each other and that the gaps between them is not much different from those that split Organic races. This conflict which was primarily represented by the Geth/Quarian conflict was concluded with the Rannoch Arc, with 2 out of the 3 outcomes involving Synthetics in a seemingly stable alliance with Organics.

If the writer's intended for the story to end this way, they should have painted the conflict has irreparable; with the game highlighting how incomprehensible AIs are, rather than how alike and peace loving they were. Instead the ending slams the conflict back into it's undeveloped status from ME1. What's worse is that the player's personal connection to the conflict (the Geth and the Quarians) is never brought up in the conversation, when from Shepard's perspective it is entirely relevent. There isn't even the option for the Catalyst to tell Shepard that the alliance is either unstable, sure to fail, etc. it just gets ignored. This I think is very reflective of how disjointed the ending is from the entire rest of the series.

The solutions themselves don't bother me as much as, at least thematically (aside from some slight disturbing connotations they have), they seem to be reasonable solutions to how to deal with AI life (destroy it, control it, remove the differences). What I do find awful about the solutions mainly ties in with the Crucible, which is how nothing involving the Crucible's existence or it's functions makes sense.

Edited for grammar.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 05 février 2014 - 12:29 .

[ImaginaryMatter]

Mesina2 wrote...

Nyreen's suicide.

Off all the damn stupid ME3 has, this one is takes number 1 spot.

I mean, what the hell?! Why?! What would she do that?! Support was just seconds away! Absolutely pointless and incredibly stupid! No thought was put into writing that scene.

I don't think she knew help was on the way. Besides I think the symbolic importance of the scene was that Nyrene's desire to save the people of Omega outweighed her fears and how Aria did have some attachment to something outside of her title.

[RangerSG]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...

congokong wrote...

I don't get how so many people think the catalyst scenario is such bad writing. It actually gives an explanation into the reapers' motivations. I even made a topic about this.

http://social.biowar...17774888-1.html

Instead of challenging if the reapers are right in their actions based on the catalyst's premise almost everyone tried challenging the premise instead.

The Catalyst revelation leaves a few glaring plot holes that are never addressed by the story, mainly dealing with the concept that if the Catalyst was the Citadel why it never assisted in the cycle until it became convenient for the plot to move the Citadel to Earth and wrap up the story; and how what the Catalyst's statements about the Reapers seemingly contradict things stated by Sovereign and Harbinger, which, again is never resolved by the story.

When dealing with the actual premise I find it more of an issue thematically, rather than the discrepancy between the Reaper's stated goals and their actual actions (both of which are bad writing). The nature of the Synthetic vs Organic conflict in Mass Effect was different than the one painted by the Catalyst, namely that Organics and Synthetics are not fundamentally different from each other and that the gaps between them is not much different from those that split Organic races. This conflict which was primarily represented by the Geth/Quarian conflict was concluded with the Rannoch Arc, with 2 out of the 3 outcomes involving Synthetics in a seemingly stable alliance with Organics.

If the writer's intended for the story to end this way, they should have painted the conflict has irreparable; with the game highlighting how incomprehensible AIs are, rather than how alike and peace loving they were. Instead the ending slams the conflict back into it's undeveloped status from ME1. What's worse is that the player's personal connection to the conflict (the Geth and the Quarians) is never brought up in the conversation, when from Shepard's perspective it is entirely relevent. There isn't even the option for the Catalyst to tell Shepard that the alliance is either unstable, sure to fail, etc. it just gets ignored. This I think is very reflective of how disjointed the ending is from the entire rest of the series.

The solutions themselves don't bother me as much as, at least thematically (aside from some slight disturbing connotations they have), they seem to be reasonable solutions to how to deal with AI life (destroy it, control it, remove the differences). What I do find awful about the solutions mainly ties in with the Crucible, which is how nothing involving the Crucible's existence or it's functions makes sense.

There are so many holes in the Starbrat as Catalyst idea as to render it swiss cheese. The very fact that the Synth/Organic conflict isn't nearly as inevitable or permanent as certain characters claim it is right at the top of the list. You have geth/Quarian resolution on your side . You have EDI's empathy with organics as well. So the very idea that the conflict is 'inevitable' and 'irresolvable' is rubbish, even from inside the game's own content. But Shepard isn't allowed to even point this out. Indeed, Shepard is forced to accept everything the leader of his sworn enemy says as unvarnished truth and act on it the way true believers are expected to follow inspired divine texts. So yes, loss of agency, railroading, and all the other charges laid on that scene are entirely valid.

Then there's the question of why in the frak organics would plan a doomsday device for the Reapers, and make its central component an AI...ANY AI. But the one in charge of the ones currently frying the galaxy? Really? Idiot Ball much?

And if the argument is the Catalyst is the AI controlling the Citadel, well there's still a host of problems. Why did it let the Protheans alter the Keepers? Why did it NEED the Keepers to send the signal, when it was there to do it iself all along? Starbrat literally undercuts everything that was stated by Vigil and makes the entire conflict with Sovereign utterly inexplicable. It didn't need the Conduit, or Saren, or even a Sentinel. As soon as a Citadel race expanded to a sufficient point, it could've opened the path to Dark Space, killed the Relay Network, and started the harvest. So no, the whole thing is a mess. Aside from the whole, "Yo, I kill organics every 50000 years to solve the problem of synthetics killing organics." 

But then, what can I expect from an AI built by a race who built an AI to examine the problem of AIs killing organics? "But you can't conceive of the power we wielded." 

Leviathan was meant to explain why Starbrat appeared, but it really comes off as digging a deeper hole. 

[SwobyJ]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...

Nyreen's suicide.

Off all the damn stupid ME3 has, this one is takes number 1 spot.

I mean, what the hell?! Why?! What would she do that?! Support was just seconds away! Absolutely pointless and incredibly stupid! No thought was put into writing that scene.

I don't think she knew help was on the way. Besides I think the symbolic importance of the scene was that Nyrene's desire to save the people of Omega outweighed her fears and how Aria did have some attachment to something outside of her title.

Yeah. In my 'color coded' view, Omega DLC is VERY VERY RED (instead of the Blue + Green Leviathan DLC, and the Green + Red From Ashes DLC, and the Blue + everything else including weird colors we don't normally see + reminders of Red Citadel DLC).

However, they gave Blues/Paragons a bone throughout the journey. It wasn't exactly a glowing view of Blue (like you said, help was already on the way..), but it still continues the themes.

And ultimately, you can optionally make Nyreen's sacrifice affect Aria enough that you'd have good faith that after the war, Aria would probably keep the welfare of Omega's residents much more at heart than she would have otherwise (she's always had a slight element of it, but it was only enough to keep Omega from anarchy or deposing her in mutany).

Modifié par SwobyJ, 05 février 2014 - 12:38 .

[Undead Han]

The entire plot for Mass Effect 1.

Saren is revealed to be a traitor when he attacks a human colony to obtain a Prothean beacon he already possessed (Virmire) to find the location of a Conduit he didn't need to access an area of the Presidium he already had full access to.

ME1 has by far the most nonsensical main plot of the series. Nostalgia goggles, though.

If I have to limit it to just one particular scene however, my pick would be the final chat with the Catalyst. That was so terrible it was painful.

Modifié par Han Shot First, 05 février 2014 - 03:18 .

[Ithurael]

Han Shot First wrote...

The entire plot for Mass Effect 1.

Saren is revealed to be a traitor when he attacks a human colony to obtain a Prothean beacon he already possessed (Virmire) to find the location of a Conduit he didn't need to access an area of the Presidium he already had full access to.

ME1 has by far the most nonsensical main plot of the series. Nostalgia goggles, though.

If I have to limit it to just one particular scene however, my pick would be the final chat with the Catalyst. That was so terrible it was painful.

I was waiting for someone to bring that up

Thank you!

Luckly we also have ME3 to invalidate ME1 and, by default, ME2 as well as ME1 invalidating the whole trilogy!
:wizard:

[Ithurael]

But Yeah...

back on topic.,.. I would have to say either the whole Starbrat encounter or the Normandy Evac. (both in ME3)

If it takes a company a free 2 GB DLC to patch a part of the story...you are telling the story wrong lol.

But the Normandy Evac is just a ridiculous as the starjar sequence both in my opinion and objectively.

[Undead Han]

Ithurael wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

The entire plot for Mass Effect 1.

Saren is revealed to be a traitor when he attacks a human colony to obtain a Prothean beacon he already possessed (Virmire) to find the location of a Conduit he didn't need to access an area of the Presidium he already had full access to.

ME1 has by far the most nonsensical main plot of the series. Nostalgia goggles, though.

If I have to limit it to just one particular scene however, my pick would be the final chat with the Catalyst. That was so terrible it was painful.

I was waiting for someone to bring that up

Thank you!

Luckly we also have ME3 to invalidate ME1 and, by default, ME2 as well as ME1 invalidating the whole trilogy!
:wizard:

I've always wondered whether in some early stage of development Saren wasn't supposed to be a Spectre. That might explain at least why he would have needed the Conduit. Then at some later date someone says, "Hey, wouldn't be fun to make Saren a Spectre too?" And they forget that it gives him access to the Presidium.

/speculation

[AlanC9]

RangerSG wrote...

And if the argument is the Catalyst is the AI controlling the Citadel, well there's still a host of problems. Why did it let the Protheans alter the Keepers? Why did it NEED the Keepers to send the signal, when it was there to do it iself all along?
 

The Keepers were a silly mechanism in the first place. Why have a Keeper run someplace and push a button? Can't the thing that tells the Keeper to push the button just push the button itself?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

"You mean Asari can mate with their own race?"

/thread

[Undead Han]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

"You mean Asari can mate with their own race?"

/thread

But wait...how can that be? The BSN told me Drew K. was the best writer of all time!

[ImaginaryMatter]

Han Shot First wrote...

The entire plot for Mass Effect 1.

Saren is revealed to be a traitor when he attacks a human colony to obtain a Prothean beacon he already possessed (Virmire) to find the location of a Conduit he didn't need to access an area of the Presidium he already had full access to.

I believe Liara states that the Virmire beacon is also damaged. If this is true it makes sense for Saren to search for other beacons to fill in the missing bits if he had obtained the Virmire beacon first. Otherwise, it doesn't seem like too big of a stretch to assume that Saren found the Virmire beacon after the events of Eden Prime as it was stated that he was still continuously searching for Prothean artifacts after Eden Prime.

Also, I believe it is never stated that Saren had access to Citadel controls. Spectres still answer to the Council and as we see with Shepard the Council does restrict Spectre activity. It seems reseasonable that the Council would restrict access of the station controls to a limited number of people.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 05 février 2014 - 06:24 .

[Invisible Man]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

The entire plot for Mass Effect 1.

Saren is revealed to be a traitor when he attacks a human colony to obtain a Prothean beacon he already possessed (Virmire) to find the location of a Conduit he didn't need to access an area of the Presidium he already had full access to.

I believe Liara states that the Virmire beacon is also damaged. If this is true it makes sense for Saren to search for other beacons to fill in the missing bits if he had obtained the Virmire beacon first. Otherwise, it doesn't seem like too big of a stretch to assume that Saren found the Virmire beacon after the events of Eden Prime as it was stated that he was still continuously searching for Prothean artifacts after Eden Prime.

Also, I believe it is never stated that Saren had access to Citadel controls. Spectres still answer to the Council and as we see with Shepard the Council does restrict Spectre activity. It seems reseasonable that the Council would restrict access of the station controls to a limited number of people.

that's about what I figured, though that's a bit more organized, i'll admit.

[AlanC9]

But we see the Council conspicuously not restricting access to the room with the controls. All sorts of people are in there.

Modifié par AlanC9, 05 février 2014 - 08:52 .

[ImaginaryMatter]

Okay, yes, but access to the Council tower is restricted to military leaders, politicians, and business men -- presumably the kind of people who would not be of much use to Saren.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 05 février 2014 - 09:19 .

[AlexMBrennan]

So, you figure that the Council's security would just stand idly by whilst Saren opens a gate to dark space? Or are you saying they would let him and an army of illegal geth waltz into the Council chamber?

[AtlasMickey]

Yeah the Normandy evac really ****ed up that scene for me. It was probably my favorite scene in the entire series, this bull rush of every character in the area toward the conduit with the understanding that there's no time to waste, no looking back, no holding hands, no saying goodbye, just run run run in a mad dash to the conduit. As a distance runner it had a personal significance for me. 

I know what it's like to just feel wrecked by a run, to pull all your energy into a long haul into a distance you never thought you could run, then sprint, then collapse and get up wondering if you're dead and pull energy from places you never knew you had and keep going! It was the most inspirational most amazing moment and worthy of all the hundreds of hours put into the franchise.

But, no, all those losers who wanted to go to bed with their Turian love slave one last time had to try to "retake" the game, insisting that all that struggle Shepard was going through to get to the conduit was not actually a struggle at all, but a dream! I will always have a special place for the bitterness reserved for the indoctards who made that rewrite possible, especially when nothing about the game needed to be changed in order for it to be understood. If you really wanted to see your love interest one last time, you should have just downloaded some readily available porno drawings of them and called it a night.

Now that that scene is screwed up, the next best scene is Mordin admitting his mistake on Tuchanka and then proceeding up the tower to cure the genophage. So it would of course be extremely annoying that in the following scene where Shepard is having a sleepless night and is asked what's on her mind, the only options are the Virmire character and something else that's not Mordin. The answer should have been, duh, Mordin. 

[Dean_the_Young]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

What's wrong with a comatose?

People in a coma are treated in hospitals, not space!Al-Qaeda camps - if Shepard is "just" heavily injured than there is no justification for Shepard being completely isolated from all his friends and work for Cerberus.

Well, there's always evil!Hospitals, a staple from horror fiction.


I can't find it now, but I remember once proposing an alternative opening in which Shepard was highly crippled by the Collector attack. Unable to act or move, the Council and Alliance basically just hid their hero in a Citadel medical facility and tried to forget about it as a sort of shame for cripples. Shepard is ignorred, and considered uncomfortably embarassing to the point of being under a sort of house arrest in the name of medical care.

Shepard's friends didn't abandon, per see, but they were left to go on with their lives and careers: Tali returned to the Fleet, Wrex left for Tuchanka politics, Garrus wen back to Citadel and got fed up again, and the VS and Liara are gone for long durations trying to fill Shepard's void in the Alliance and trying to find more evidence of the Reapers. Your Love Interest visits, but the distance and separatation and stress are having a toll... a hardship only increased by Shepard's growing frustration, upset, and anger at how no one is addressing the Colony Abductions that Shepard has been seeing in very obscure news. This frustration comes to bear as Shepard lashes out at the VS (or Liara, if LI) about how even they are ignorring the Reapers, a regretful outburst that just shows how bad things have gotten for the wounded veteran.


In comes the Lazarus Foundation: a not-for-profit medical charity for Alliance veterans, funded and supported by a number of leading Human corporations. With a mandate for expanding the limits of medical science to benefit all mankind, their target demographic is extrelemely wounded people who modern medical science can't handle, by using highly experimental techniques and procedures to give a chance where nothing else could. There are risks- sometimes the surgeries carry a significant risk of death, while cybernetic implants and biotic brain surgery have been known to have even more debilitating effects. All participants, test subjects for the advancement of medical science, are volunteers who sign a waver.

Or so explains Lazarus Foundation Manager Miranda Lawson, introduced to Shepard by Anderson after Anderson was introduced to the charity by other contacts. Anderson believes it's Shepard's best chance to get back to their old life. The Lazarus Foundation, besides itself being a not-for-profit charity and unconcerned with profit, both is interested in helping the First Human Spectre for its own sake and admits that the PR for success could boost their renown andstanding. But most importantly, Shepard knows they could get back on their feet.

Shepard agrees, and goes under the knife. Repeatedly, for some time.

Reclass? Extreme surgery. Level reset? Rehabilitation therapy and retraining, managed by Lazarus Foundation member and trainer Jacob Taylor. The Lazarus Project mission will naturally be recast as Shepard's rehabilitation, a point at which Shepard is back in the game.

By the point the narrative resumes from the time skip, Shepard is preparing for release and express a seeming comfort (if not friendship) with Jacob, as talking-buddies about the Colony Abductions in the Terminus and how no one is doing something. Jacob drops significant foreshadowing that there are some people trying to do something, and that getting Shepard back on his feet is part of his contribution. Shepard, visibly interested, wants to know more. Jacob promises to tell Shepard more once Shepard passes the rehabilitation exam.

The tutorial is Shepard's rehabilitation exam, and the initial training course takes a turn for the worse when the medical machines and synthetic assistants and guards go haywire, killing doctors and patients alike and throwing the foundation into chaos. At this point the scenario returns to the ME2 of canon, with Shepard escaping through the Foundation space-station and discovering there's more than meets the eye. The funding records are excessive and make no sense for a charity group, Miranda talks about how there's only one patient on the station and everyone else we saw glimpses of were just test subjects for Shepard, and there's references to The Boss as a previously never-referenced person above Miranda who is asking for in-depth updates on Shepard.

Eventually Jacob admits that Lazarus Foundation is a Cerberus Front Company, that Cerberus is the one behind Shepard's recovery and not (as Shepard previous alludes, the Alliance), and that all this is to help get Shepard chasing the Reapers and colony abductions.

We escape, we meet TIM, and all is back on track, with equivalent narrative justifications for Shepard's isolation.

Willingness to work with Cerberus? Colony abductions and initial goodwill remain.
Frictionwith Alliance and Council? Established frustration of watching them not address Reapers for years while hiding him away.
Departure of squadmates? Letting them return to their own lives when Shepard can't lead the team.
Friction and distance with love interest? Pre-rehabilitation stress of a crippled veteran relationship, followed by months of isolation during Shepard's time with Lazarus and the VS/Liara being on a deep cover deployment/off-grid archeological hunt when Shepard recovers.


And... bam. Back on track. The VS can deserve some new dialogue, with the prologue tensions/argument still ringing when the VS doesn't trust Cerberus and is concerned they could have done something to coerce/control Shepard, and Shepard drops a justification that Cerberus chose to help them when the VS and Alliance couldn't. Oops. Come Illium, Liara is distracted/uninterested in accompanying Shepard because she's pursuing related to the Protheans and the Reapers, something that she can't even tell Shepard in case she (or Shepard) are being spied upon. She can't even let Shepard accompany her, because doing so would tip Cerberus off and endanger her lead even more than this explanation. The only other thing you can get out of her, if you do her little quests, is that she thinks this could be big, big enough that she has to put archeology before Shepard, but she does hope they can reunite after she finishes her thing.

Which, with a recas Shadow Broker, would be revealed/foreshadowed as her discovering the Crucible/Superwapon plans

And so the plot rumbles on.