38 réponses à ce sujet

[themikefest]

The conversation with the catalsyt starts @10:15

[Farangbaa]

Nothing about 'that' in there.

[themikefest]

. In the original ending my Shepard asked the catalyst something. He answered that the Reapers where not aware of him being in charge . He let the reapers ,Harbinger, Sovereign ,believe that they where in control . That is why he did not signal, give the reapers no fuel for deduction. But that is my way of explaining things.

The catalyst didn't mention that. Look at the video I posted above.

[uberman409]

Here's the real issue with the ending.
 

Using your imagination, you can explain/handwave/interpret the endings however you want. By looking at previous lore, you can justify any of the endings as the best. However that's stuff that we as players bring to the table. You can say that Destroy is the best because that's what you intended to do, or that Control is the best because etc. etc. etc. The problem lies, ultimately, with the way BioWare frames it on a philosophical level.

 

The entire trilogy, dozens and dozens of hours of time spent, is full of some of the better writing to emerge in gaming. That writing portrays a world of complexity, where every decision must be balanced for its costs and its benefits, and often there isn't an explicitly correct answer - only a least worst. For a case study of this complexity, let's look at how the game handles the subject of the Genophage. In the first game, we learn the most about it through Wrex, a victim of its horrors. He wants a better world for his people, he understands the fighting is pointless - but he also understands the fatalism inspired by the Genophage. On Virmire, we as an audience and as participants, who have spent hours with Wrex as a character and have developed that connection, can empathize with his agony at the subject of Saren's labs. After all, here is the key to fixing centuries of the slow death of his species, in the hands of the man he is sworn to fight - very tragic. But we see the complexity there, we see a situation in which a man is caught between fighting someone he knows he must fight and possibly saving his species. Completely reasonable.

 

Mass Effect 2, we get Mordin Solus, who when spoken to demonstrates that even Salarians feel remorse. His loyalty mission is one of the best written missions in the series because of the complexity - because he believes that what he did was right for the context, logically, but still emotionally challenging. Hard to see the pile of dead babies, as I think it was put. And again, in ME3 if he survives ME2, he continues to be one of the best written characters. His humming as he strides to his end - great! All good stuff. But it's because of the complexity of the story arc, of the subject matter.

 

And taken as a whole, the Genophage is a complex issue. There are real reasons that BioWare presents for and against it. When the Salarians went through with it, it was looking like the Turians might not be able to win a conventional war, and it's stated a few times that the Krogans were willing to commit genocide and kill civilians to win. This wasn't a nice conventional war, this was dirty. On the other hand, the solution was almost genocidal in its scope, in the results of the infertility. When in ME3 you're given the choice with regards to the Genophage, there is a very real argument in favor of deceiving the Krogans so they think they're cured - after all, the Krogan Rebellions were notoriously bloody, and even if Wrex has survived it's uncertain how successful the Krogan will be at not being genocidal assholes. It's easy to let the fact that Wrex is a bro color that historical tidbit.

 

So what's the point of that diatribe? Simply put, Mass Effect has a massive hard on for complexity. There is no utopian solution. There are ideals, there are attempts to make things better, solutions and compromises are reached - but they are never the ideals themselves, they only approach the ideals. Reality is gritty, difficult, complex, hard to accept. In the Suicide Mission, people die, and if you hold off to complete one more mission, you'll lose part of the crew. There isn't always a happy ending. On top of all of that, people have agency. You have to make choices, you have to compromise, and you have to live with the consequences of your actions. Mordin Solus lives with the consequences of his Genophage modifications; the player lives with the consequences of the choices he made in the Suicide Mission, who he chose to save in the first game, etc.

 

And it's amazing, and beautiful, and works great -for the most part, God some of those Romances are tacky- up until the moment you get to the ending, when suddenly the complexity is stripped away. Suddenly, the agency is stripped away.

 

You are presented with three choices, one of which is Synthesis. Of all the lazy writing in the ending, this might be the laziest. Instead of addressing the philosophical issues of the idea, the assumptions and the questions you're presented with the idea itself. It IS Utopian. The player chooses Synthesis, then organics and synthetics and reapers live happily ever after, the end. Indoctrination goes away, war goes away, and even the Krogan become architects and artists. Happily, ever, after. 

 

Now, disregarding player rationalization, BioWare very clearly presents this as the best choice. Minimum damage to the mass relay networks, it requires the most War Assets to even unlock, and it results in a Utopia. Mass Effect goes from a Gray and Grayer world in which the Genophage could be considered a reasonable solution, to a world in which Krogan frolic through meadows and build pretty buildings and go out for non-alcoholic beverages with Turians and Salarians and Geth.

 

What does this say about the previous 98% of the Mass Effect series? Regardless of how we as players interpret any of the endings, what does it say about the themes of the Mass Effect series if BioWare presents the ultimate correct answer after dozens of hours telling us there aren't any?

[dreamgazer]

Utopias rise, utopias fall, and life stagnates. Reapers are still around, and can still blast anything with a laser shot if they get moody.  Organics and synthetics are forever altered, for better and for worse. Wouldn't really call that the "correct answer", and you certainly don't have to believe the Catalyst's word that it's the ideal solution.  There will be difficulties in all the endings, but BioWare wasn't interested in presenting more "grimdark" in the EC.  

 

Same assumptions can be made about the OGB in Dragon Age, too, despite the epilogue never suggesting any negative repercussions. 

[AlanC9]

So what's the point of that diatribe? Simply put, Mass Effect has a massive hard on for complexity. There is no utopian solution. There are ideals, there are attempts to make things better, solutions and compromises are reached - but they are never the ideals themselves, they only approach the ideals. Reality is gritty, difficult, complex, hard to accept. In the Suicide Mission, people die, and if you hold off to complete one more mission, you'll lose part of the crew. There isn't always a happy ending. On top of all of that, people have agency. You have to make choices, you have to compromise, and you have to live with the consequences of your actions. Mordin Solus lives with the consequences of his Genophage modifications; the player lives with the consequences of the choices he made in the Suicide Mission, who he chose to save in the first game, etc.

Wait, what? It's perfectly possible, even easy, to get through the SM with no casualties whatsoever; remember, you can do all the loyalty missions before Reaper IFF. And Rannoch damn well does have a utopian solution.

I consider the first of these a design fault, and I can see a case for calling the second a design fault too. (Didn't David Gaider say something to that effect?) But as designed, ME lets you dodge consequences as often as it makes you suffer them.

[Cheviot]

Honestly, this was the only part of the ending that really bothered me.

I think the Catalyst did nothing because it couldn't.  After going through the Conduit in Priority: Earth, Shepard finds himself in a corridor full of dead bodies being processed by some Keepers.  Anderson and Shepard speculate that a new Reaper is being made, but I think it is the Catalyst being activated by the processed dead.  This explains why it can't do anything; when the Protheans made the Keepers unable to be controlled by Soverign, they also accidentally made it so the Catalyst couldn't be brought "back to life".

[Massa FX]

I don't remember the catalyst saying the Reapers were unaware of it being in charge. But then again, I was embroiled in a WTF? stupor during most of the conversation in pre-EC. Coulda said that... I guess.  Just don't remember this.

[mybudgee]

Lol

[Cervurs]

Hello,

 

I have got a question is the end of Mass effect 3 is still changed by a DLC or is it permanently so? Because I was very very disappointed with the end. I hope you can help me further.

 

Thank you in advance

[Iakus]

Hello,

 

I have got a question is the end of Mass effect 3 is still changed by a DLC or is it permanently so? Because I was very very disappointed with the end. I hope you can help me further.

 

Thank you in advance

The Extended Cut adds about ten minutes of more "stuff"  Questions can be asked of the Catalyst which will result in vague answers. a few changes between Low and High EMS battles.  But the endings are still the same.  Just more detailed.  Enough to show you don't blow up the galaxy no matter what you do.  Yay I guess. 

 

So if you're looking for an actual good ending, sorry.  Players don't get that kind of agency in this RPG.  But if you're on a PC there are mods that can change it.

[Cervurs]

Thank you for the answer. It is very sad that such a good game like Mass Effect probably never gets a dignified end.

[Raizo]

http://img.gawkerass...pg/original.jpg

That looks surprisingly authentic. That area Reperised Salarians would have fit right in with ME3's cast of rogues.

I don't like ME3, I've made that clear on many occasions. ME3's ending adds to my dislike of the game although I find that ME3's ending is relatively low down on my list on grievances.

I always assumed that the Reapers had a leader and I always knew this was a fight that wasn't going to be won by conventional means, I always assumed ME3 would end with Shepard either destroying the Reaper's leader or begging/forcing him to put a stop to the cycle. I also assumed that Shepard would not survive ME3. So for the most part ME3 does not end all that different from what I thought.

My issues with ME3's ending arise from shitty writing, a lack of closure for my squad mates and the the shirty nature of the 3 choices I am offered. It's bad enough that all of Priority Earth is so generic and anti climatic but everything that happens after the beam run feels like it happens in another game altogether, I felt like Alice going down the rabbit hole to wonderland. All the scenes with Shepard, Anderson and TIME are poorly animated, poorly written and poorly delivered in terms of performance. The Starbrats scenes are better written but by the time I get to him my mind and my heart are no longer taking part in the game so all I hear is gibberish and all I feel is disgust. As for the lack of closure, I want to know what happens to the squad mates I fell in love with and spent time with over the course if 3 games, what happened to them after the war, who went where and did what and what did I get, I get squat. As for the choices, I'm not comfortable with Synthesis, I can't and will never pick Control because that's just wrong and picking Destroy makes me a hypocrite ( so much for preaching about peace to the Quarians and the Geth and achieving it and then wiping out all the Geth ).

[Nuclear]

Thank you for the answer. It is very sad that such a good game like Mass Effect probably never gets a dignified end.

Pretend Priority: Earth was a dream and then dream of your own, it will do it more justice.