1765 réponses à ce sujet

[ImaginaryMatter]

CronoDragoon wrote...

ImaginaryMatter wrote...
I wouldn't say every explanation. For example, and I'm not promoting this, if the Reapers have some sort of non-linear view of time that could lead them to have goals that go beyond what humanity can truly understand.

That's not an explanation, though. That's a reason for not giving an explanation.

This is a semantics arguement, but wouldn't that still be an explanation?

ImaginaryMatter wrote...
If the Reapers were Indoctrinated wouldn't their Reaper brains have turned to mush? Unless they are like the Collectors. I think a bigger question would be why the Catalyst would bother creating Reapers that have sentience if it was just going to force them into servitude or create the illusion that they have freewill anyway, it just seems a little unnecessary (also, according to the Leviathans didn't the Catalyst only gain Indoctrination capabilites after several cycles?).

I don't remember that quote from Leviathan. Anyway, Reapers don't have brains; they have data. Their minds are synthetic, created from deconstructive analysis of organic minds. The "organic slush" contained within Reapers is the DNA part of the Catalyst's "preserve life" campaign. But even if their minds were organic, why would Indoctrination turn their brains to mush? This didn't happen with Saren or TIM.

As for the rest, we're getting into speculative analysis here, but since the Catalyst is trying to preserve a "racemind" it is following his mandate to keep it as similar to what the organic minds were collectively. So long as they follow the cycles, why should the Catalyst care to eliminate any other facet of their intelligence?

There is another reason to create the Illusion that the Reapers are independent: to hide the Catalyst himself. Greatest trick, devil, etc.

It takes a while to turn Organic minds into mush, Sarren and TIM were only Indoctrinated for a relatively short time compared to the Reapers who have possibly been Indoctrinated, supposedly, for millions if not billions of years. The relevant quote from the Codex is:

"Long-term physical effects of the manipulation are unsustainable. Higher
mental functioning decays, ultimately leaving the victim a gibbering
animal... Slow, patient indoctrination allows the thrall to last for
months or years."

Granted the Collectors were able to somewhat circumvent this problem, but I don't believe they have anything resembling sentience, self-awareness, higher level intelligence, etc.

I also believe the Reaper mind is somewhat Organic. If I recall in ME2 the orginal explantion for the Reapers were that they were pure tech but contained the uploaded minds of the target race through the process of deconstructive analysis, this explanation was then specifically cut and replaced with Reapers being an amalgam of organics and technology. Since the Reapers are specifically refered to being organic/synthetic hybrids I think it makes sense for their minds to also be partly organic.

[CronoDragoon]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...
This is a semantics arguement, but wouldn't that still be an explanation?

Hell, as someone with a philosophy degree I can tell you semantics is virtually half of every argument (the definition of terms).

By explanation what do we mean? I have been using explanation to mean "explaining the motivation of the Reapers." In other words, the why of the cycles. If the story asserts that Reapers have a nonlinear view of time and that therefore we cannot understand why they act the way they do, then we have actually precluded the possibility of an explanation of the why.

"Long-term physical effects of the manipulation are unsustainable. Higher
mental functioning decays, ultimately leaving the victim a gibbering
animal... Slow, patient indoctrination allows the thrall to last for
months or years."

Yeah, indoctrination of the level of billions of years such as the Reapers would have been subjected to is impossible for an organic mind, agreed. So either 1) they aren't indoctrinated or 2)they aren't organic minds. I believe #2 for a reason I'll explain below.

Granted the Collectors were able to somewhat circumvent this problem, but I don't believe they have anything resembling sentience, self-awareness, higher level intelligence, etc.

This is a whole new can of worms, but the whole "Awakened Collector" thing introduced with MP disagrees. I'm fine with not taking MP lore seriously, though.

I also believe the Reaper mind is somewhat Organic. If I recall in ME2 the orginal explantion for the Reapers were that they were pure tech but contained the uploaded minds of the target race through the process of deconstructive analysis, this explanation was then specifically cut and replaced with Reapers being an amalgam of organics and technology. Since the Reapers are specifically refered to being organic/synthetic hybrids I think it makes sense for their minds to also be partly organic.

But we've seen how the slushie process works. There's no "brain" left there; it's all reduced to indeterminable matter. This tells me that whatever intelligence they are getting from the brain takes place before the slush, not after.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 06 février 2014 - 06:57 .

[Iakus]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

iakus wrote...
Yep, that stupid audience just doesn't get it.

Well if you truly "get it," then my remark should not bother you in the first place.

CronoDragoon didn't take offense.

That you assumed yourself to be part of the "stupid audience" (your words) says it all.

Your response:

No it wasn't, unless you are referring to level of audience misunderstanding/obtusity surrounding it

implies that the main reason the Leviathan/Catalyst explanation is disliked is the audience "not getting it"  I and others do, in fact get it.  And dislike it regardless.  HEck I dislike it more in "getting it" because I find teh reason stupid.  Leviathan was just another attempt to prop up an already fail explanation.

Implying (falsely) that ignorance is the reason for the dislike is doing nothing more than insulting the intelligene of the audience. 

[FlyingSquirrel]

A few scenes come to mind:

1) Corporal Toombs - He apparently stands in the back room with a gun at Dr. Wayne's head just waiting for Shepard to walk in even while there's audible gunfire just down the hallway, he says he doesn't have a problem with Shepard despite his mercs doing their best to kill Shepard's squad, and then they start talking as if Shepard was on Akuze even if you don't have the Sole Survivor background.

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

3) MSV Estevanico - There isn't actually much "writing" here, I suppose, but the whole premise is just stupid to me. There are no survivors, no information of any particular use to Shepard, and nobody even asking that the site be investigated, and yet Shepard risks his/her life by going alone and on foot inside a structure that's about to fall off a cliff.

[AlanC9]

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

I'm not sure "extrajudicial" is a useful concept there.

[ImaginaryMatter]

I dislike defining terms. I'm use to things being more clear cut (physics and engineering).

My main thing is why bother giving them a brain at all? Why just not make the Reapers high functioning VIs? Having sentience doesn't seem necessary for the Reapers to function at their jobs, mainly shooting stuff and acting as containers for processed races. As we see in Leviathan the Catalyst previously had some sort of non-Reaper helper that managed to defeat the Leviathans and everything else in that cycle, by comparison beating the other cycles would seem like a cinch compared to that, so it's not like Reapers were needed for fighting. And it seems like it would have been safer to leave the processed races out in dark space at Reaper HQ.

Edit: Yes, I do pretty much ignore the MP as lore. The Awakened Collector seems especially retcon-ish.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 06 février 2014 - 07:23 .

[von uber]

AlanC9 wrote...

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

I'm not sure "extrajudicial" is a useful concept there.

This is exactly the problem with the ME morality system. You can choose a Renegade response to her - 'I'm not the victim you thought i was' - i.e. showing your power over her and her inability to affect you - then the 'Renegade' option is to kill Samara. Stupid.
The problem is that the very definition of renegade would have you join the Reapers:

1. a person who deserts and betrays an organization, country, or set of principles.
2. or having treacherously changed allegiance.

[Derpy]

AlanC9 wrote...

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

I'm not sure "extrajudicial" is a useful concept there.

I just found that scene to be very creepy and it was a pain in the butt to deal with.

[Jadebaby]

Everything in ME1 and 2..... I've tried really hard to find even one flaw as severe in ME3 but I can't. It's flawless

[AlanC9]

Nate_Assassin wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

I'm not sure "extrajudicial" is a useful concept there.

I just found that scene to be very creepy and it was a pain in the butt to deal with.

My point was that there was no judicial system to be outside of. Samara's actions are 100% legal under asari law, and I don't think she's breaking any Omega statutes... if there even are any to break.

[FlyingSquirrel]

AlanC9 wrote...

Nate_Assassin wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

I'm not sure "extrajudicial" is a useful concept there.

I just found that scene to be very creepy and it was a pain in the butt to deal with.

My point was that there was no judicial system to be outside of. Samara's actions are 100% legal under asari law, and I don't think she's breaking any Omega statutes... if there even are any to break.

Samara's actions might be legal under asari law, but most of the time, there is still a Paragon option to object to that sort of thing. Shepard can make the same point when they first find Samara on Illium and she kills the merc who won't answer her questions, and every other time that one of the squadmates plans to execute somebody in a loyalty mission, there's an interrupt or a dialogue option to prevent it (Garrus/Sidonis, Miranda/Niket, Mordin/Maelon, Jack/Aresh). That "end of the line, Morinth" line is kind of jarring in comparison with those other scenes.

[grey_wind]

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Nate_Assassin wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

I'm not sure "extrajudicial" is a useful concept there.

I just found that scene to be very creepy and it was a pain in the butt to deal with.

My point was that there was no judicial system to be outside of. Samara's actions are 100% legal under asari law, and I don't think she's breaking any Omega statutes... if there even are any to break.

Samara's actions might be legal under asari law, but most of the time, there is still a Paragon option to object to that sort of thing. Shepard can make the same point when they first find Samara on Illium and she kills the merc who won't answer her questions, and every other time that one of the squadmates plans to execute somebody in a loyalty mission, there's an interrupt or a dialogue option to prevent it (Garrus/Sidonis, Miranda/Niket, Mordin/Maelon, Jack/Aresh). That "end of the line, Morinth" line is kind of jarring in comparison with those other scenes.

How do you propose dealing with Morinth if not by killing her?

[FlyingSquirrel]

grey_wind wrote...

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Nate_Assassin wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

2) Morinth's Apartment - Both moral alignments get some pretty bad writing here. A Paragon Shepard ends up party to an extrajudicial execution, and a Renegade Shepard decides that a hedonistic serial killer is "more useful" on a suicide mission than a justicar.

I'm not sure "extrajudicial" is a useful concept there.

I just found that scene to be very creepy and it was a pain in the butt to deal with.

My point was that there was no judicial system to be outside of. Samara's actions are 100% legal under asari law, and I don't think she's breaking any Omega statutes... if there even are any to break.

Samara's actions might be legal under asari law, but most of the time, there is still a Paragon option to object to that sort of thing. Shepard can make the same point when they first find Samara on Illium and she kills the merc who won't answer her questions, and every other time that one of the squadmates plans to execute somebody in a loyalty mission, there's an interrupt or a dialogue option to prevent it (Garrus/Sidonis, Miranda/Niket, Mordin/Maelon, Jack/Aresh). That "end of the line, Morinth" line is kind of jarring in comparison with those other scenes.

How do you propose dealing with Morinth if not by killing her?

Just turn her over to asari authorities. I mean, the asari must have a way to capture and imprison biotic murderers rather than just executing them on the spot. Otherwise I have a hard time seeing how they would have evolved into the stable e-democracy that they seem to be.

Or, at the very least, Shepard could attempt this even if Samara disobeys and kills Morinth anyway, along the lines of how the Ashley/Wrex situation can play out on Virmire if you pick the wrong dialogue. It's more Shepard's attitude that seems out of place from a Paragon perspective.

[ImaginaryMatter]

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

Just turn her over to asari authorities. I mean, the asari must have a way to capture and imprison biotic murderers rather than just executing them on the spot. Otherwise I have a hard time seeing how they would have evolved into the stable e-democracy that they seem to be.

Accept Samara is acting within Asari law isn't she? Samara is Asari authority. For escaping the monestary it seems like Morinth has some Asari version of terminate with extreme prejudice applied to her.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 06 février 2014 - 11:18 .

[ImaginaryMatter]

StreetMagic wrote...

You don't need to be Renegade to recruit Morinth. It follows the same strict requirements for Paragon too.

I suppose the Paragon reasoning can be gleaned from Shep's dialogue with Samara. If you notice, some Paragon responses to her bring up things like "Is it so wrong to want freedom?" So I imagine a Paragon who saved Morinth would be on the radical end of "chaotic good" and felt an individual's rights to freedom were the real issue here.

I think recruiting Morinth falls outside of the parameters of Paragon and Renegade.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

iakus wrote...

Your response:

No it wasn't, unless you are referring to level of audience misunderstanding/obtusity surrounding it

implies that the main reason the Leviathan/Catalyst explanation is disliked is the audience "not getting it"  I and others do, in fact get it.  And dislike it regardless.  HEck I dislike it more in "getting it" because I find teh reason stupid.  Leviathan was just another attempt to prop up an already fail explanation.

Implying (falsely) that ignorance is the reason for the dislike is doing nothing more than insulting the intelligene of the audience. 

You see an implication that isn't there, then. "Dislike" has got nothing to do with this. It's got nothing to do with any plot point that is misunderstood. Common misconceptions exist everywhere among this fanbase. As a non-ending related example: Indoctrination. I've seen time and again that many people think they "get" it ... and demonstrate otherwise.

Saying they don't get it means just that: they don't get it. It "implies" nothing -- not about what they like, and not about how smart they are.


What's more: your response is the kind of knee-jerk reaction typical from the hardcore anti-ending camp. One guy so much as tells another that their criticism against the ending isn't valid and **BOOM** it's OUTRAGE TIME!!!! BioWare says something innocuous like: ~the fans didn't react the way we expected, we'll fix it with this free DLC" and the response from this lot is like: "What ... are they calling us STUPID??? HOW DARE THEY!! It's OUTRAGE TIME!!!!"

If you're going to be insulted by any remark that stands in the way of your hatred, then by all means, rage your heart out. I know I, for one, am frickin tired of this routine and tired of these "fans" altogether. And no, I won't blame the developers instead of you just because they didn't give you the ending you wanted. Your actions are your own. Period.

That's it for me, I'm done here. Good day (or not, since that goes against being upset/outraged and everything).

[George Costanza]

It's definitely everything to do with the Crucible in ME3. It's an absolute car crash of bad logic, bad writing, bad bad bad. Bad.

First, you have plans for a superweapon, capable of defeating the Reapers, that just turns up out of the blue five minutes after the Reapers invade. It's ridiculously convenient, and basically a deus ex machina. Oh ****, the Reapers are here, all is lost, what are we going to do? Funny you should ask, I just happen to have found plans to a smart bomb that will kill them all. Jackpot.

From there it actually gets worse. The Crucible plans are for a device so ingenious that it can wipe out the Reapers, yet the plans are somehow so simple to understand that despite language barriers we can build the device in a matter of months.

When the plans are in hand, plans that are missing a key component I might add, the Alliance decides to pool an incredible amount of resources into building the thing during the middle of biggest galactic war in history. Imagine if someone had walked into Churchill's office in the middle of World War II and said, "Alright Winston, I've got these plans for a device that I think might wipe out Hitler and his chums. They're written in a language we don't understand, and it's missing a component vital to making it work, but I suggest we spend millions of pounds, and thousands of man hours to build it in the hope that we can figure out how to get it working and just hope that it does what we want it to". I highly doubt Sir Winston would have sat back in his chair, cigar in hand, and like a portly Captain Picard say, "Make it so".

Then there's the whole issue of why the Crucible has never been mentioned before when it really should have. Obviously they'd not come up with the idea for giant space maraca until writing ME3, and so mentioning it in earlier games would be impossible, but it does make previous parts of the earlier games silly. The main offender is on Ilos, talking to the Prothean VI. The Protheans were building the device but never finished it. They (like us) saw the worth of the device and started construction, believing it to be a valuable weapon, yet when they programmed the VI to spill the beans on the conduit and the nature of the Citadel, they didn't see fit to mention the weapon that could wipe out the Reapers. Nonsensical on repeat playthroughs.

Who knew the Citadel was needed to fire the weapon? The people who designed it surely must have known. You don't design a car before you know what an engine is. You don't build a car and then say, "Boy, I hope someone comes up with some kind of device to power this thing." It makes no sense. So they must have known. It must have been designed with the Citadel in mind. So why was the Citadel not part of the plans? Why was the information regarding the key component of the device hidden separately from the rest of the plans?

Who are the race that were so technologically advanced that they could build a weapon that could not only destroy the Reapers, but could also fundamentally alter DNA? How were this race so far beyond the races we know, but unable to beat the Reapers? If Synthesis is what the Reapers want, and this unknown race invented the means to achieve it, why didn't the Reapers let them do it? And why was Synthesis ever included as an option? Nobody knew the true purpose of the Reapers until Shepard spoke with the Catalyst. The designers of the Crucible wouldn't know that altering all DNA to bring us closer to our AI friends would end the war, so why was it even an option?

And then, and this is always the one that annoys me most, we get to the absolutely absurd nature of the device itself. The Crucible is, quite simply, the most ridiculous superweapon ever devised by anyone. Ever. First, it has three firing modes offering entirely different outcomes. Why? Who was designing this device and decided that it should offer the user three different possible ways to end the war? How does that make sense on any conceivable level? And then the nature of how to fire the weapon only exacerbates the issue.

"Sir, we've done it! We've designed a weapon to kill the Reapers!"
"Huzzah! So all we have to do is hook this thing up to the Citadel and then press the button an-"
"Button?"
"Yes, press the button and th-"
"No sir, there's no button."
"Excuse me?"
"There's no button."
"So we fire it remotely?"
"Nope."
"Okay, so how do we fire this thing?"
"You're gonna love this sir. Someone has to get inside it and shoot some tubes. Walk right up to them and BLAM BLAM BLAM. Then it goes off and kills all the Reapers."
"......"
"Sir?"
"You're fired. You're all fired."

You can pretty much do that exact routine for the other two outcomes too. Why was this device ever built with three possible methods of ending the war? And why was the method of firing this weapon so illogically devised? It just doesn't make any sense. At all. Not even as science fiction.

The reason for all this, of course, is that Bioware backed themselves into a corner by planning a trilogy but not planning any further than the end of each game. By ME3 they decided to come up with a Reaper off switch but being introduced so late and having to wrap the series up, it simply creates more problems than it solves.

It's a real shame because I think the majority of ME3 is really good. But practically all the bad stuff stems from the introduction of this ludicrous weapon.

Modifié par George Costanza, 06 février 2014 - 11:55 .

[Necroscope]

Here we go again, 2 years later and people are still equally shocked at how illogical and absurd this whole [Edited to remove inappropriate language] with the Crucible is. And I can't blame them, as I'm still shocked myself.

Modifié par BioWareMod01, 07 février 2014 - 04:20 .

[AlanC9]

Necroscope wrote...

Here we go again, 2 years later and people are still equally shocked at how illogical and absurd this whole with the Crucible is. And I can't blame them, as I'm still shocked myself.

You planning to actually play here, or are you just going to keep posting that the ending is bad because reasons?

Modifié par BioWareMod01, 07 février 2014 - 04:20 .

[von uber]

The Crucible only makes sense if you headcanon that harbinger is subverting it's operation through the citadel by introducing two new firing modes. The concept of using the master relay to spread the energy can be slightly handwaved (falls within 'err... yeah, ok'). Three firing options isn't.
Problem is: if Harbinger is subverting it;s use, why keep the original mode of destroy the reapers? Lack of time maybe?
Who knows?

Next problem is to explain that in lore, if Harbinger said "This massive weapon will destroy us. However I have adapted it to do this too."

Hmm. Sort of hinted at.

Also this relies on the starkid pretty much being Harbinger and not some additional enemy.

Hmmm.


Nope, still a mess. Leviathan throws that theory out of the window unless you assume the master AI is Harbinger, It does speak with its voice if you refuse.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Seriously, why didn't they just leave it as a big weapon that fries everything once Anderson dies and the Shepard hits the console. Reapers remain relatively mysterious, game has semi coherent ending, job done.


And people complain about bloody Liara when there's that bollocks to think about.

Modifié par von uber, 07 février 2014 - 12:43 .

[AlanC9]

George Costanza wrote...
First, you have plans for a superweapon, capable of defeating the Reapers, that just turns up out of the blue five minutes after the Reapers invade.

"Five minutes" is hyperbole, right? Hackett, Liara, and TIM knew about the plans well before Shepard hears about them.

Imagine if someone had walked into Churchill's office in the middle of World War II .....

That's not a great metaphor, since Churchill wasn't facing imminent and certain defeat. How about Hitler's office in January 1945?

[Necroscope]

AlanC9 wrote...

Necroscope wrote...

Here we go again, 2 years later and people are still equally shocked at how illogical and absurd this whole clusterfuk with the Crucible is. And I can't blame them, as I'm still shocked myself.

You planning to actually play here, or are you just going to keep posting that the ending is bad because reasons?

You have a few reasons listed in this thread, if you're dumb enough not to see them then it's your problem, not mine.

Modifié par Necroscope, 07 février 2014 - 12:55 .

[AlanC9]

Necroscope wrote...


You have a few reasons listed in this thread, if you're dumb enough not to see them then it's your problem, not mine.

So you're letting other posters do the work? OK, but then why are you here?