A More Realistic Ending to Mass Effect 3 (w/ the events of Leviathan
and all previous DLCs in the franchise in mind)
To start, spoiler alert if you haven’t finished the Leviathan DLC or Mass Effect 3 don’t read this.
I own every DLC and whenever I play this once amazing trilogy I play every mission to the
fullest and on Insanity. After my first play through of Mass Effect 3 I was enraged after all my choices, my full readiness, and my max troop level even being enhanced by N7 Special Forces did nothing. I was forced to choose between what I and most of the fan base believed and most likely still believe to this day to be the worst endings possible for their beloved franchise. The three choices that to this day make me cringe. To destroy all technology, kill my friends and allies the Geth, and to stab Joker in the heart by killing EDI and stranding them on a planet to rot until the end of their days with no way to leave. To infuse everyone with my DNA to appease the Reapers and that short minded childlike AI just so that no one dies. Ruining the diversity of life and most likely creating a potato famine effect to the entire know galaxy. My science based mind to this day will still not let me choose this path. Finally having the choice to become the guardian of the galaxy, to control the Reapers, and to shape the future. Seemingly the only acceptable cause if you thought as I did that you could easily create a mechanized Commander Shepard and upload your new AI self into it; to live out your days watching over the galaxy and living with your romance. In making this choice you end the evil space child’s plan of the cycle, yet not destroying the technology of the Reapers. Allowing for greater advancements in all forms of life including synthetic, and embracing your role as the Shepherd of the universe.
My thoughts were that you had two ‘throw away’ endings and a possible life as an AI, similar to how EDI lives. Yet after testing all the endings, I noticed that Bioware had rewarded those that chose to destroy all technology with life after the end of the credits and hope for an appearance in the rest of the Mass Effect universe, while giving the other endings no closure. Besides this end is extremely unlikely due to the amount of trauma that Shepard would have to endure to survive the destruction of the Citadel and atmospheric reentry. Let alone what Shepard already survived getting to the Citadel.
Like many I wanted closure or possibly a different ending entirely. I wanted to see what my choices had done in the universe. Since that was the selling point of Mass Effect 3 and they stated it quite a bit in Tweets and other media forums. After watching the different paths that you could go down in compilation videos on YouTube and on my own play throughs it became evident that what Bioware had sold us was a lie. There was no weight to the choices that you had made in previous games. At the time I thought this was just a way to make those who hadn’t bought the first two games and their respective DLC not feel left out of the loop or entitled to buy two hundred some odd dollars’ worth of extra content. As time passed though I felt more and more cheated out of all that money and time I had spent on this franchise and felt that I should have a different/better ending than those just starting their story on the last chapter. With all the rage that was online at the time I felt that they needed to add something more, let us fight.
Let us see the Quarians take down the reapers with a fleet that in Bioware’s own words takes days to pass through a relay. I then started to wonder why the entire ‘last stand’ fleet comprised of not only the entire Quarian fleet but all of the fleets of the know galaxy headed to Earth took only a few seconds to pass through the relay. Then I started to think of the sheer power of that fleet’s weapons, the Normandy SR1 tore through Sovereign’s armor like butter in the first game. If all we had to do was to find a weapon to take down shields, we should have just gone and built ship scaled arc projectors that were introduced in Mass Effect 2 DLC. Besides Normandy SR2 shot clean through the Collector’s Ship even with shields up due to the strength of the Thanix Cannon. (Find a way to explain to me why the Reapers wouldn’t affix their own shield technology on the Collector Ship) So under that reasoning the Normandy SR2 and all other ships with Thanix Cannons can cut through Reaper shields. With that in mind the Kwunu, the Volus’s only dreadnaught, which was created by the Turians and given multiple Thanix cannons could in theory tear apart any Reaper vessel. If you doubt that the Thanix has this power and believe that Reaper shields could still hold, then tell us why the Kwunu or the Thanix Cannon itself was never used in the end cut scenes, and besides it wouldn’t matter because this shield issue could easily be remedied if all ships including fighters had arc projectors on board.
I then watched the Indoctrination Theory Documentary and saw many points and plot holes that needed to be fixed, and thought that with the extended cuts additions something may be done. I am not a believer of the Indoctrination Theory but the documentary brings many issues to light and after watching it and seeing some of the tweets made by Bioware there seems to be a major disconnect between what they believe they are giving us and what is actually present in the final product. Jessica Merizan said to Scott Kenyon’s tweet, “hope you answer this/see it! EDI getting out of the Normandy in the destroy option? Is this a glitch/bug?” that, “nope not a bug. EDI wasn’t created with Reaper Tech.” Yet after the extended cut dlc with the destroy option Geth and EDI don’t show up in any of the cut scenes or in the memorial service for Shepard. So we know that Bioware isn’t perfect and has some issues with their endings here. However I don’t believe that Bioware would gamble their entire fan base on a false ending that is actually a hallucination or a Reaper made dream.
Looking beyond the flaws of the original game’s ending and fast forward to where we are now in the events after
meeting the creators of the Reapers, the issues become much larger and plan B’s to destroying the Reapers become much more realistic and undeniable. In the events of Leviathan the race that created the Reapers instantly disables a Sovereign class Reaper in orbit of a planet with the aid of their orbs. They also tell Shepard that they created a corrupt AI that is the Reaper’s leader or some kind of overlord that controls them. So Shepard should have no illusions about what kind of AI the child at the end is, and instead of attempting to reason with a corrupt AI should be attempting to find the off switch or creating a large enough hole in the AI’s hardware with a Carnifex with infinite ammo to make it inoperable. The alternative ending / plan that comes to mind with this kind of real, battle tested weapon given to us by Leviathan is that with a few orbs on board of the Normandy Harbinger could have been stopped before it got to Earth’s surface, and Shepard and the rest of the Hammer ground forces could go to the Citadel, make the Illusive man shoot himself in the face and apologize for failing humanity, listen to the Reaper AI, find its hardware and destroy it in theory making all Reapers inert. No program = no show, and if that doesn’t work out, have a backup plan and load every ship in the ‘last stand’ fleet with a few orbs and disable the Reapers. A Reaper can’t out turn a fighter and when Guardian lasers have all the evil red eye probes destroyed there is no threat to a fighter squadron.
This isn’t that insane of an addition to the ending. If the Leviathan mission was accomplished early on why
wouldn’t they do this? Put yourself is the situation that we are faced after failing to gain information on the Catalyst on Thessia. Why wouldn’t you create a backup plan in the off chance that Shepard couldn’t get the information from the Cerberus base in time? It would make sense to use a battle proven weapon against the Reapers when you have one, and what better time to use it than in the last battle for the galaxy. Instead mention of Leviathan and the idea of using the orbs never comes back up (other than a short comment made by the star child) in the game after the mission itself. If Leviathan is meant to be seen as a finished DLC pack and not some codex entry about the Reapers and their creators I would suggest some major improvements to the entire game.
Possible additions
beyond Plan B and overhaul:
Plan C: Speak with Leviathan for more than seven minutes and figure out the Reaper’s weakness and how the
Leviathan race fought their own creation in their own war. Have at least another conversation with Leviathan, you can’t just create a major character like that and never speak with them again. Well I guess if you take into account the Rachni…(Hint hint some more conversations with the Rachni would be great)
Plan D: After already gaining the super weapon orbs so early on in the game spend all resources on another lost
cause other than the Crucible, possibly towards figuring out what the heck happened on Rothla. If you can destroy a planet you can easily destroy a Reaper.
Plan E: Use misinformation stating the location and existence of the Crucible early on to lure out Reaper forces,
make them go to a predetermined relay have an asteroid ready to fire and blow the relay once Reaper forces are there. If that doesn’t kill them find a way to fire thresher maws from a cannon. (What, it worked on Tuchanka, lol)
Plan F: Do something other than throw all your forces away in a face to face fight with the Reapers. Fight in
the asteroid belt beyond Mars with frigates and fighters in the first wave. Then fire from afar with dreadnaughts to take down Reapers weakened by the asteroids.
Plan G: Make more M-920 Cains which one shot a Reaper Hellfire cannon which seemed very similar to a Reaper destroyer. So instead of the entire Hammer ground force being wiped out by one destroyer as was shown in the cut scene because they decided to fire small arms at a Reaper for whatever idiotic reason, someone other than Shepard might kill a Reaper in this universe. Also leading to the possibility of Shepard and the Hammer ground forces getting to the Citadel faster and allowing them to accomplish their goal.
I don’t know if you guys have the point yet or not but my point is that the ending that you have provided makes no sense at all and anyone with any ounce of military thought would have created a much better last push. Hell I would rather sacrifice the entire Sol galaxy with an asteroid to the relay if it meant destroying the Reapers, and that is the kind of mindset that those individuals facing the end of the galaxy should have had.(Best renegade option ever) Having everything ride on Shepard is just unbelievable to me. I respect your artistic interpretation for the ending of one of the best games of all time, but it doesn’t come close to the greatness I was expecting. I don’t expect you to change it, just add to it. Even with one DLC you have given us you have created a whole different avenue for defeating the Reapers, or at least getting to the Citadel. The necessity for action on this matter is even more strengthened when you take into account that you said that Leviathan would change the ending. Yet all that was added was that one comment from star child.
Side Note:
Having my effective military strength bar maxed out before even going to Menae gives me pause as to what exactly I am doing wasting my time uniting the galaxy. And for individuals like IAMxSHADRACH who have such a high N7 level (23,000 or so while I’m writing this) what point is there to even doing any of the side quests. My point being the N7 special ops team should probably be removed from the game, unless there is some insane value at which the united forces somehow steamroll the Reapers with ground troops.
Modifié par SilentJohn1, 22 février 2014 - 05:54 .
Retour en haut
