"Shepard.. nothing's happening.. it must be something your end.. maybe you need to take the elevator we made the crucible activate then go to one of the three activation points we made without any idea why or what they do, and which we decided not to tell you about. Protip, shoot the tube (but stand far enough away)".
Bioware, 2012: Mass Effect 3 Directors Cut.
Too bad Shepard didn't pass out 10 feet to the left or right of the platform.. Of course I wouldn't be surprised if there's another platform that would float up with Shepard.
Well...there is what the game shows and tells us and what we choose to headcanon or as Robo says 'Interpret'
I wont need to chop this up individually because it's basically just one long point, rather than a bunch of individual ones.
Your first part is that you find it implausible, but not impossible. That's fine.
Your second part, about the activation, you question whether or not they would assume the Catalyst would give all the answers. Well we know from the end that the Crucible forces him to give the answers. He states it changed him (altered his programming in other words) so it not only allows Shepard to chose, it allows Shepard to replace it or even destroy it, despite it not wanting either of those things. Even if destroy is the only option the Catalyst is forced to tell you about it.
That would mean that the designers never assumed the Catalyst would give all the answers, it would most likely mean the designers knew the Catalyst would give all the answers, seeing as though they designed the Crucible to alter its programming.
You say the two suggestions are equal in validity, as they're both speculation, but when it comes down to it one suggestion is implausible but not impossible and doesn't cause contradictions within the plot, and one does. If the Catalyst could control its surroundings then why didn't it (do this and that, contradictions with Sovereign arises, etc, etc), whereas if it wasn't the Catalyst controlling those things and was instead a function of the Crucible, those contradictions and inconsistencies aren't present. That alone suggests they aren't equal in validity.
You don't have to believe one or the other, but if your interpretations causes inconsistencies that another interpretations solves, then it's not a problem with the work, it's a problem with the interpretation.
It does seem to lead towards inconsistencies though or at least the same level of contrivance that comes with assuming the Catalyst did such and such. The Crucible apparently doing all this stuff leads to questions about why the creators didn't do this and that. If the Catalyst is apparently doing all this stuff it leads to questions about why the Reapers didn't do this and that. Either way leads to more speculation, handwaving, implausibilities, etc. Like, the Catalyst having limited control over certain parts of the station -- mainly those limited to make the plot work -- seems implausible too, but I'm sure someone has a reason for that; like perhaps the Leviathans installed some weird blocks and it came up with the Keepers to get around it or... something like that.
In either case the game should have explained, just like how the EC explained that activating the Crucible didn't wipe out most of the galaxy when the Relays exploded. There is a plot hole that even two years after the release of the story no one quite has been able to fill in. Even people who even lie close together on the spectrum of how they feel about the ending don't have a coherent view or answer. And even if someone has a not impossible theory for how a hole can be filled that is available on an internet forum, that doesn't make the hole any less excusable. Either way the game has a large and confusing gap that is never explained by the story.
The original endings showed that the writers did not consider a wide range of things. This is probably one of them.
@ Bad One: To be frank, it's crap. You've come up with a solution that, in the two years that the game has been out, no one else has seen. No statements or evidence exist from the creators of Mass Effect that support your interpretation. In fact your very ideal of 'interpretation' is wrong.
I disagree. I don't believe that, in two years, you never once considered the Crucible being the thing that activates the elevator. You saw how it only activates after the Crucible docks, and you know that the choices are options the Crucible presents, yet you're saying you never saw what was right in front of you.
Why has this not been brought up on here? The same reason why people sometimes say the Catalyst is a Deus Ex Machina, despite knowing it's not. The same reason why people said EDI could survive the Destroy ending and no one attempted to find out if that was actually the truth until I came along. The same reason why people refer to the Catalyst as anything but the Catalyst. The same reason why people hide knowledge of the Child's Play statement about the Retake movement. My pessimistic view, backed by all of this and much, much more, is that people want to bash Bioware at any moment they can get, even if that means hiding information, not mentioning information, or just downright lying.
I don't for one second believe you, who seem to have put a lot of thought into your point, never once considered it was the Crucible in the two years you've spoken about the ending.
As for your statement that "no statements or evidence exists for your interpretation"? Ditto. That leaves us with interpreting it based on the information we have. One causes contradictions, the other doesn't.
You're overthinking the entire premise to justify it. BW did not put that kind of effort into the ending. And you're making a claim that since it can't be inherently disproven, in lieu of truth it must be true. It's not.
Everything you said to me wasn't on me; It was on you. My claim is based on what is the simplest to see. BW didn't put effort into their ending. It doesn't reconcile with the existing problems of the prior Reapers in ME1 and ME2. Everything I said was basically what you've been saying, and I'm pointing out the lack of logic on what you've been saying. You've either been misinterpreting me or twisting my words, but you were turning it back on me and saying I was responsible for it.
You aren't making the theory fit the evidence, you're making evidence (as well as the evidence) to fit your theory. As I said, you're also using the clarification fallacy: You really can't be proved right. You're just saying you are right because you can't be proved wrong either.
Incorrect. See how you've resorted to trying to interpret Bioware, because you couldn't actually contradict anything I said about the Crucible? You say I'm making evidence to fit my theory, when all I'm doing is speculating on the evidence provided (like you) and coming to a conclusion.
Yours is it's the Catalyst. Therefore contradictions.
Mine is the Crucible. Therefore no contradictions.
I'm not saying that you can't believe it's the Catalyst, you can, you just have to accept that your interpretation has contradictions and there are other interpretations which don't cause those. Complaining about the writing in the end because your interpretation is causing errors or plot holes doesn't mean it's a problem with the writing, it means it's a problem with your interpretation.
Why did the reapers need Sovereign to open the Dark Relay in the Citadel if the Catalyst has lived there the whole time? Why didn't the Star-Child open the Dark Relay himself? What was the point of anything that Sovereign did in the first game?
Bad writing, that's why. It's probably best to give up on answers to these sort of questions and except that ME3 was a massive screw up that has tarnished the series.
It does seem to lead towards inconsistencies though or at least the same level of contrivance that comes with assuming the Catalyst did such and such. The Crucible apparently doing all this stuff leads to questions about why the creators didn't do this and that. If the Catalyst is apparently doing all this stuff it leads to questions about why the Reapers didn't do this and that. Either way leads to more speculation, handwaving, implausibilities, etc. Like, the Catalyst having limited control over certain parts of the station -- mainly those limited to make the plot work -- seems implausible too, but I'm sure someone has a reason for that; like perhaps the Leviathans installed some weird blocks and it came up with the Keepers to get around it or... something like that.
Well not really. You could say the designers did include that information, but it was lost in the billion or so years of being passed down, the same way the information about what exactly the Catalyst is was lost. That's not even an inconsistency, there's evidence that the design of the Crucible was added to (you can even make small improvements to it during the course of the game) and had information lost (what the Catalyst is for example).
Your reason for the Leviathans installing some weird blocks, well you'd need evidence for that, that's the difference. You could come up with a theory, but that theory would have to be based on evidence.
The evidence that it's a function of the Crucible is: It happens after the Crucible docks, the Catalyst doesn't seem to be able to exert any control over the Citadel's functions, and things like the designers knew about the consoles that activate Control and Destroy despite both of them being in the Catalyst's chamber.
You could come up with a theory about anything, but you'd need evidence to support it along with it not contradicting anything in the game.
In either case the game should have explained, just like how the EC explained that activating the Crucible didn't wipe out most of the galaxy when the Relays exploded. There is a plot hole that even two years after the release of the story no one quite has been able to fill in. Even people who even lie close together on the spectrum of how they feel about the ending don't have a coherent view or answer. And even if someone has a not impossible theory for how a hole can be filled that is available on an internet forum, that doesn't make the hole any less excusable. Either way the game has a large and confusing gap that is never explained by the story.
The original endings showed that the writers did not consider a wide range of things. This is probably one of them.
Assuming those "speculations for everyone" notes are real, and how open to interpretation the rest of the end is/was, chances are questions like this were deliberately left vague. A lot of people love trying to figure things out based on evidence, heck look at Lost for example, a widely popular show that spent 6 years letting people figure things out based on evidence. Being part of that fan club I can tell you that a lot of it didn't come as a surprise to the people who looked at the clues. Heck they gave the answers to plots that wouldn't be brought up until seasons later.
So the point there is, you seem to think it's a mistake that's not "excusable", but chances are it was deliberate so people would spend their time speculating and talking, because a lot of people enjoy doing that.
You mean like how Shepard was immediately believed about the Beacon and a full and comprehensive investigation into this Reaper phenomena was launched right away on the Citadel and other relevant Prothean ruins or sites of previous mass extinction? Oh wait.
Organics can search the Citadel all they want, they won't find the holokid unless he means to be found, or unless they know enough to search for an AI. And if they know to search for AI they know to build it and it's time to harvest them anyway.
And they eliminated Xen's quest from ME3 because if they put it in the game, they would have forced Shepard to kill her or stop her and chain her to the Crucible project, because if she had succeeded she would have found the Starchild, and we would have known it controlled the reapers. We would have destroyed it. That would have destroyed the craptastic ending we got. That's why Xen's Quest on the Citadel was cut from the game. The dialogue was on the game disk.
Oh? Never heard of that, got a synopsis?
Xen had asked Shepard for Spectre approval for some experiments she was running that were essential to the war effort. This is done in the Spectre Armory. Shepard gets two messages for approval. One for the experiments and one to bring some gear aboard the Citadel. The gear is Geth platforms that she's loaded some AI sniffing VIs onto and when they find AI nodes, they are supposed to set off an alarm of some kind. Some of them start blowing up. Shepard is called in to stop Xen and arrest her for "Illegal AI Experiments." She refuses to cooperate saying that her research leads her to believe that something on the Citadel is very important and could affect the entire war effort. "You'll all be crying to me when your worlds are in ashes, wishing you let me finish." Shepard can either shoot Xen (renegade ass hole) or haul her off to the Crucible (Paragon). She'll do this if you've made peace or not. If you sided with the Quarians she'll complain that there Gerrel left nothing of value for her to use against the reapers. If you sided with the Geth, she managed to escape and while she's angry, she's still looking at the big picture of fighting the reapers.
That's the gist of it.
This is on the PC disk. There's a thread on the old forums about this, and it's back in March or April 2012. "Xen's Cut Quest".
I imagine because there would be a large number of us who would want to side with Xen and let her finish her mission. My Shepard was a pragmatist and would have done so. That Shepard would have found Starbrat. "Admiral Hackett, we've got a problem. Admiral Xen located a very large AI on the Citadel. I had EDI run some scans and she's localized what she's been calling background radiation from the Citadel emanating from this source.
"Given the evidence we have about the Citadel being a mass relay leading to Dark Space from our suit recordings of Vigil, and given that's how the Reapers got in here, and given that Sovereign was trying to let them in that way three years ago, when Xen and I put all this together, she thinks this thing controls the Reapers. I think we should nuke the damned thing."
Hackett: "But isn't the Citadel invulnerable?"
Shepard: "Only when it's closed and and from the outside. From the inside it's vulnerable. The Destiny Ascension is right outside. The AI is in the Tower. I say we evacuate the Tower and have the Destiny Ascension blast it to Kingdom Come, Sir."
Yeah, found the thread. Looked very interesting, I wonder why they cut it.
Add the forced "Kill Xen" or "off to the Crucible" to the Starchild ending and you'll have your reason. That's why they cut it.
Well not really. You could say the designers did include that information, but it was lost in the billion or so years of being passed down, the same way the information about what exactly the Catalyst is was lost. That's not even an inconsistency, there's evidence that the design of the Crucible was added to (you can even make small improvements to it during the course of the game) and had information lost (what the Catalyst is for example).
Your reason for the Leviathans installing some weird blocks, well you'd need evidence for that, that's the difference. You could come up with a theory, but that theory would have to be based on evidence.
The evidence that it's a function of the Crucible is: It happens after the Crucible docks, the Catalyst doesn't seem to be able to exert any control over the Citadel's functions, and things like the designers knew about the consoles that activate Control and Destroy despite both of them being in the Catalyst's chamber.
You could come up with a theory about anything, but you'd need evidence to support it along with it not contradicting anything in the game.
Assuming those "speculations for everyone" notes are real, and how open to interpretation the rest of the end is/was, chances are questions like this were deliberately left vague. A lot of people love trying to figure things out based on evidence, heck look at Lost for example, a widely popular show that spent 6 years letting people figure things out based on evidence. Being part of that fan club I can tell you that a lot of it didn't come as a surprise to the people who looked at the clues. Heck they gave the answers to plots that wouldn't be brought up until seasons later.
So the point there is, you seem to think it's a mistake that's not "excusable", but chances are it was deliberate so people would spend their time speculating and talking, because a lot of people enjoy doing that.
Well sure. The Leviathan's created the AI knowing full well that like all other AIs it could very well turn on them. Because of that they placed limits on it, even it's programming could be considered another limits of sort, so it's not like this is anything new.
Well the platforms leading to the Control and Destroy options only rise up after the Catalyst is done talking, was that done by the Catalyst or the Crucible? the timing seems to suggest the former.
The problem with Mass Effect is that consistency isn't exactly a priority for the writers which is the main problem. The rest of the game, especially parts like Tuchunka, Rannoch, and Cerberus have lots of these examples; and then there's all the stuff that happens between games and in the alternate media. Why I'm bring that up is because the story doesn't have the integrity to stand up to close scrutiny and this level of speculation, we know next to nothing about the Crucible for example, and what the game tells us seems highly unlikely and that's before we even start speculating about the elevator.
Interesting. I never knew about the cut Xen quest. A shame, that sounds like it would've been interesting. If it's on the disk maybe modders can bring it back?
Anyway on the subject of finding the holokid early, I was going to make another Javik Breaks Mass Effect joke but then I realized it would go deeper- if Protheans have pseudo-touch clairvoyance, wouldn't they have gotten bad vibes the moment they set foot on the Citadel? Javik can sense ME2 crew members that were just sitting around in their quarters but no one in his race got an inkling of the trillions of lives that must've been extinguished in the Citadel in all the thousands of years they wondered around in it? Or not one of them touched a Keeper?
This whole thread is like a giant attempt to explain things that should have been resolved and/or already made clear in ME3. The fact that this discussion is still going on is testament to how much of a train wreck Glowjob's script was.
Well sure. The Leviathan's created the AI knowing full well that like all other AIs it could very well turn on them. Because of that they placed limits on it, even it's programming could be considered another limits of sort, so it's not like this is anything new.
Well in this situation it would be new. It wouldn't make sense for them to create an AI that would have limits on how much it's able to control something they never knew about and didn't exist (the Crucible). It would also contradict the fact that their lack of AI limits, brought upon by their hubris, is exactly what caused their downfall and therefore the Reapers.
They never believed the Catalyst could turn on them, that was pretty much the point in the Leviathan DLC.
The Catalyst is clearly following it's coding to find a solution to its problem, but it has very little, if any, limits on how it goes about this. Saying they gave it a small amount of control of the Citadel to somehow "limit" it out of fear that it might rebel isn't supported by evidence. In fact it's directly contradicted by the entirety of the Leviathan DLC.
Well the platforms leading to the Control and Destroy options only rise up after the Catalyst is done talking, was that done by the Catalyst or the Crucible? the timing seems to suggest the former.
The problem with Mass Effect is that consistency isn't exactly a priority for the writers which is the main problem. The rest of the game, especially parts like Tuchunka, Rannoch, and Cerberus have lots of these examples; and then there's all the stuff that happens between games and in the alternate media. Why I'm bring that up is because the story doesn't have the integrity to stand up to close scrutiny and this level of speculation, we know next to nothing about the Crucible for example, and what the game tells us seems highly unlikely and that's before we even start speculating about the elevator.
Crucible by the looks of it. It rises when you're ready to choose, which is when you approach it and/or stop talking to the Catalyst. Seeing as though it reprogrammed the Catalyst to tell you about the options it presents, it's not that big a leap in logic to say it takes a cue from the Catalyst as to when it's done explaining. That wouldn't even need VI level of programming to do, you could program something like that (a cue I mean) with todays technology.
As for your last paragraph, we don't really know if the story has the integrity to stand up to close scrutiny and this level of speculation. Unfortunately fans don't seem interested in speculating. Look at Massively above who claims to either have not considered the Crucible in two years, or who did consider it instead decided to not bring it up because it would cause speculation and might stop people being able to bash Bioware. Look at King Mark or Kel Riever above who don't even try to speculate, instead they just came in and bashed Bioware because lol.
You say it can't stand up to close scrutiny, I say we don't know that because people are far more interested in bashing Bioware due to faulty interpretations of what they saw in front of them. People would rather bash that scrutinise. They would rather hate than speculate (lolrhymes). I love speculating, I love trying to figure out things, but unfortunately too many people on these forums would rather just bash Bioware and hate.
You say it can't stand up to close scrutiny, I say we don't know that because people are far more interested in bashing Bioware due to faulty interpretations of what they saw in front of them. People would rather bash that scrutinise. They would rather hate than speculate (lolrhymes). I love speculating, I love trying to figure out things, but unfortunately too many people on these forums would rather just bash Bioware and hate.
Partially correct. Partial fanboi blindness.
First off, sorry, fans who purchased the game aren't the problem. People have jobs because those fans bought a game. And if those employees lose jobs at some point because they didn't listen to the fans who got angry at their product, they are dumb employees.
Second, people as far as I can tell would have preferred to like ME3 rather than bash it. Since it wasn't good, I see no problem whatsoever by taking the second option as the best way to get value out of the ME series now.....
While your reasoning is off kilter, I agree that ME3 can't really stand up to close scrutiny. I also agree that if you like to explain things that weren't explained, then it is going to be wildly entertaining. That doesn't mean BioWare did its job. It doesn't make you a better person. It does mean that you stand to be entertained by the lack of information provided in the game. Expecting others to enjoy the same level of mystery isn't really healthy, especially since while the amount of loopholes surely entertains you, it just as surely infuriates people who expected completion from a product that stated it was the last of the series.
Mind you, I don't even really care two flyer F's how the elevator activated and why. That's just the kind of thing that is too minuscule to care about in my book. It is the greater, much simpler, set of flaws which I find unacceptable. I can totally live with not knowing how the elevator was powered.
It's the Imagination Elevator. Save a Dream.
The thread is more like a bunch people claiming "if it's not explained word for word OR if it's left unexplained, then it doesn't make sense and is simply bad writing."
Sums it up nicely.
No, that's hyperbole which is doing exactly what you are accusing someone else of doing. In other words, you are being a hypocrite aka an elitist.
Which, actually, is fine by me. As long as you don't actually believe you hold any moral high ground. Welcome to the cesspool!
it's no different than your very first post on this page. "This thread is like...."No, that's hyperbole which is doing exactly what you are accusing someone else of doing. In other words, you are being a hypocrite aka an elitist.
Which, actually, is fine by me. As long as you don't actually believe you hold any moral high ground. Welcome to the cesspool!
-Snip-
There's no constructive discussion that'll be able to take place between us. If your mindset has warped you into spending more time hating a series than you did playing it, with no want to do anything else, nothing good will happen between us.
Move on.
Seriously. Move on.
No seriously, move on, do something more productive with your time.
Until then, don't quote me with pointless responses.
There's no constructive discussion that'll be able to take place between us. If your mindset has warped you into spending more time hating a series than you did playing it, with no want to do anything else, nothing good will happen between us.
Move on.
Seriously. Move on.
No seriously, move on, do something more productive with your time.
Until then, don't quote me with pointless responses.
LOL!
I think you're the one upset here. In fact, I think you are doing exactly what you don't like other people doing, and that is hating.
So, I'll just go on quoting you. Mostly for entertainment now 
@McFly. I'm not going to say trying to find the source of the elevator movement isn't digging, because it really is. But while there may be some digging in the original post, it comes off more as an attempt for the poster to figure out why he was unhappy with the game. And that's what comes across. Nothing wrong with that intent. And thus, why 'dig' into his post? Better to address the general intent.
I know, then we wouldn't have anything to talk about. But just sayin...
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