216 réponses à ce sujet

[dreamgazer]

ME1s ending isn't anywhere near the same conceputal scale as ME3s
 
I'm not sure I understand the comparison you're drawing. Which of ME3's choices are you comparing to?
 
Destroy?

Control does the same thing. Soldiers celebrating, bathed in blue light as the Reapers ascend.

But yes, ME3 is a larger-scale version of ME1's ending: forced high-death sacrifice to eliminate the enemy, with familiar faces being held at gunpoint. Which makes sense, given the increase in scale for the Reapers and how they're ingrained in the galaxy's functionality.
 

If so that's more like saying "everyone with a particular skin pigment in the galaxy will be killed". Do you still feel comfortbale with that collateral damage assessment? Because I don't.

Funny, because that's actually what Drew Karpyshyn wanted for his dark energy ending decision: the sacrifice of humanity or almost certain extinction.

Also: Skin pigmentation =/= Synthetic life. Overloading synthetic processes is the discussion, not specific organic racism. False equivalence.

But yes, I'll choose this "genocide" over the extinction of all organic and synthetic life in order to eliminate the Reapers, and I consider it a victory. If organics desire to recreate these synthetic lives afterwards, it's on them. The geth and EDI are unfortunate losses during wartime, but ones the galaxy can assuredly recover from and build upon.
 

Nope.  ME1's victory involves the deaths in the thousands, mainly people who die fighting the Reapers.
 
ME3's Destroy ending exterminates entire species.   All synthetics everywhere die.  Even those who had nothing to do with the war.  And they die by Shepard's hand, not by the Reapers'...tentacles.
 
That's a HUGE difference.

Tens of thousands.

It's a bigger threat, but the moral dilemma is actually quite similar. Also, don't forget the geth's synthetic perspective on necessary destruction and benign anthropomorphism. "That is ... logical."

But, you even have a way of opting out of mass death in ME3's ending, if you so desire. Not so for ME1.

[KaiserShep]

Scorched Earth is acceptable?
 
So, you're the player and there's an H5N1 outbreak in New York. The solution dreamt up in Geneva is that we need to prevent it spreading beyond the US borders, howver the people of the US don't like that idea and are struggling to escape. So to save the planet, you nuke the US.  Youve destroyed the H5N1 outbreak threatening the planet, at the expense of the US, saving the French, Brits (thanks by the way), Germans, Africans, Russians etc.. basically everyone else. Still OK?

Scorched earth is certainly preferable to total extinction, especially since the technology exists to endure it, but in any case, the earth is clearly livable and salvageable in the epilogue, at least in the high-EMS ending.

As for that example, I don't think it really compares well to the final decision's dilemma. Is destroying the geth equal to destroying the United States to contain a disease? Can any epidemic really do so much damage in that particular society that quarantine is utterly impossible? If things got so bad that it came down to nuking an entire country, it's presumed that there are no viable alternatives. This isn't the case with the reapers, save for refuse, but you can avoid the whole pesky genocide thing, and even force the very things trying to kill you to help rebuild.

[wolfhowwl]

As far as scorched earth goes, it could have been much worse (or better ).

 

In a final act of defiance, the races of the galaxy use the power of the Crucible to trigger an overload of the Relay network. The Citadel, its twin in dark space, the fleets, the Reapers, everything within range of a Relay are annihilated in an instant.

 

But the Reapers are defeated. Some day new life will grow in the galaxy and find the sundered remains of the Relays and wonder what happened, never knowing of what was sacrificed so they could have a life free of the Reaper threat.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

Scorched Earth is acceptable?

 

So, you're the player and there's an H5N1 outbreak in New York. The solution dreamt up in Geneva is that we need to prevent it spreading beyond the US borders, howver the people of the US don't like that idea and are struggling to escape. So to save the planet, you nuke the US.  Youve destroyed the H5N1 outbreak threatening the planet, at the expense of the US, saving the French, Brits (thanks by the way), Germans, Africans, Russians etc.. basically everyone else. Still OK?

 

Why does it have to be the U.S? And if it was in the U.S. (the one time I thank god for our 'cowboy independence') why would we let the outside interfere in our affairs over this issue? We'd take care of it on our own. Plus, do you know U.S. geography? New York is in the Northeastern United States, and pretty separate from the rest of the country. And we are a BIG country. You would, by no means, need to nuke the entire U.S. (or even the entire Eastern seaboard). And our people wouldn't be panicking to escape everywhere else. We aren't the U.K, or France, or Germany, or Italy. You're talking about destroying a very sizable country, the third-largest in the world(and probably Canada along with it since Canada is rather close to New York, what with New York State sharing a border with Ontario, and going by your logic, all of Canada, the second-largest country in the world), and destroyed two countries with a combined population greater than half the size of the European union.

 

Btw, try it and we'd fire back. Unlike most other countries, we don't give our launch codes to the U.N. If we're going out, we're taking you all with us.

[KaiserShep]

^And then there's that.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

Wow. So, the no-win scenario... people are just like that so get used to it...?.

 

you're telling me we should expect that or conform to it?

 

SAM's fired at airliners are fine, because we should expect barbarians to behave like barbarians, and we need to be prepared to destroy the odd village to prevent it happening again? That is HORRIFIC logic. What's happened to people's moral compass. Is it suddenly unfashionable?

 

That wasn't anybody's reasoning. And yes, the no-win scenario exists, and in the context of the game, we are powerless to do anything otherwise. We have absolutely zero chance to defeat the Reapers without using the Crucible one way or the other. And to be frank, that's the way it should be.

 

You've essentially created a scenario that isn't related to terrorists shooting down MH17 and interposing it with said event.

 

To that end, as to what happened to everyone's moral compass, everyone has a different one that points in a different direction. And some directions point towards better things than others. Morality is like a spectrum. There is no white or black or grey. It's all a different color. Some people have a red vs. blue sense of morality. Some have a green morality. To some people, as long as the barbarians are eliminated, the job is accomplished. Doesn't matter how they get there or what they do to get there.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

^And then there's that.

 

What can I say, the U.S. is the center of the World.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

I think you missed my point and I apologise if you took offense. It's like the scene in "of mice and men" where Crick is discussing with Lenny about being left behind.

When you change the subject being sacrificed for "the greater good" it can change the perspective. The analogy being drawn was "what if the Geth in this context represented a current day country like the US".

 

"If we're going out, we're taking you all with us"

 

So when the catalyst fires, the Geth put up a shield that reflects it back and destroys all biological life in the galaxy as well.

 

If it makes you more comfortable you can chage the nation states involved?

 

Yes, please. Make it... shoot, make it New Zealand. I didn't miss the point, I just objected that it would be the U.S. Plus, we're stubborn and petty and magnificent enough bastards that we'd make sure you hurt just as bad if not worse.

 

The Geth in that context don't represent the U.S. They're more akin to Japan.

 

I know what sacrificing for the greater good is. And the U.S. is a part of that greater good. So the U.S. gets spared.

[AlanC9]

These are fairly silly grounds for objecting to the hypothetical, you know.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

These are fairly silly grounds for objecting to the hypothetical, you know.

 

I'm not opposed to the hypothetical at all.

 

I'm just opposed to the U.S. being the one that has to suffer for it, and giving a likely response by the U.S. government.

[Daemul]

Seriously, just pick Control if the Destroy ending bothers you so much. No one dies and the Mass Effect universe remains intact.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

Seriously, just pick Control if the Destroy ending bothers you so much. No one dies and the Mass Effect universe remains intact.

 

It's somehow akin to slavery, according to some people.

 

Of course, they don't realize that slavery can actually be seen as a defensible action. Like anything, it's not inherently terrible and bad and immoral and unjust.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Seriously, just pick Control if the Destroy ending bothers you so much. No one dies and the Mass Effect universe remains intact.

 

Plus, in Control you can head canon that Shepard just orders the Reapers to self-destructs and then just down loads himself into a robot body.

 

Perfectly happy ending and you get to subvert the Catalyst!

[Iakus]

Plus, in Control you can head canon that Shepard just orders the Reapers to self-destructs and then just down loads himself into a robot body.

 

Perfectly happy ending and you get to subvert the Catalyst!

Except that's exactly not what the Shepalyst says.

 

The Shepalyst will "guide" the galaxy as the techno-god of Space Cthulhu.  The galaxy cashes in its free will to not die.

 

bad as Destroy is, this is worse.

[Hello!I'mTheDoctor]

Except that's exactly not what the Shepalyst says.

 

The Shepalyst will "guide" the galaxy as the techno-god of Space Cthulhu.  The galaxy cashes in its free will to not die.

 

bad as Destroy is, this is worse.

 

You're hardly cashing in your free-will in Control. And free-will is one of the most complicated and complex ideals around. There's plenty of arguments out there against variations and aspects of it that have been shown to have substance to them. Not everybody deserves it. Hell, when most or all people have it, you're looking for trouble. You seem to think everyone will have a chain put around their neck and spend the rest of eternity working constantly and forever to achieve the wants of the Reapers.

 

Your interpretation of Control is just as problematic as Kaiser's. And he acknowledges that his is headcanon. You don't.

[JasonShepard]

Both great responses! I'm afraid it's probably coming back to this for me (and apologies to anyone bored with the flogging of this particular dead horse)

In all honesty - my first playthourgh of ME3 (after 10+ playthorughs of 1 and probably 20+ of 2) there was no epilogue, because it was before the EC.

 

High EMS destroy, there's a moral line I just can't cross. Especially without _knowing_ what the outcome will be. and it does feel like scorched earth to me - destruction of a specific ethnic group in order to save other groups. Mandatory destruction of all synthetic intelligence. If you bracket "synthetic intelligence" and the replace it with some other current day ethnic, biologic or faith grouping it's completely abhorrent as a concept - at least to me.

 

Without the "It'll be alright - honest" added by the EC - control is just too much to take on trust for me. Who's to say it'll do what the catalyst says, and there isn't a #sleep 900; rm -rf /download/*; shutdown -r now, and then the invasion just carries right on.

And synthesis - well, that's making everyone a borg. Was that the plan from "the machines" all along? I can't trust it on no knowledge, background info or evidence. 

 

Sorry - I just can't trust it, not after so many hours that don't back it up to be something "inherently trustable". That's like trusting facebook with all your personal details and then expecting that they're not running a psych experiment on you.

 

So refuse.. (post EC) Defeat this time but the next guy chose better than you so - haha! thanks for playing! Oh well, I'm clearly rubbish then. I'll go and play something else.

 

You'll genuinely pick Refuse rather than any of the other options? You refuse to trust the Catalyst that much?

 

How, exactly, is using the Crucible going to make things any worse? If we don't use the Crucible WE LOSE. Everyone you care about dies. What, exactly, could be worse than that?

 

With Destroy - some people live. The majority live. At the very least, that's better than Refuse on a sheer numbers game. I hate to bring it down to cold hard logic, but, well, that's exactly what I'm doing. So you feel guilty about sacrificing the Geth to win - at least you're alive to feel guilty about it. If you'd picked Refuse, neither you nor the Geth would be alive.

 

With Control - you're arguing that it might not work? That the Catalyst might just shut you down and resume the invasion? Okay, that's a possibility but it's still no worse than Refuse. It might work - in which case: Hooray! You've saved everyone! Now just don't go crazy with power! Or it might not work - in which case at least you tried. With Refuse, everyone you care about definitely dies. With Control, they might not.

 

With Synthesis - which would you rather: Death, or to become a cyborg? Sure, you don't fully understand the technology behind it, you are changing people without their permission - but remember that the alternative is death. There's the possibility that Synthesis might remove people's free will, but on a values basis I see that as equivalent to death, and otherwise - the Reapers stop fighting us, and everyone has new abilities now. How bad can it be?

 

In short - with Refuse, we lose. With the Crucible, no matter what you pick, we might not. So by that logic alone, I can't understand picking Refuse.

[JasonShepard]

Except that's exactly not what the Shepalyst says.

 

The Shepalyst will "guide" the galaxy as the techno-god of Space Cthulhu.  The galaxy cashes in its free will to not die.

 

bad as Destroy is, this is worse.

 

You're reading a heck of a lot into one word there. Admittedly, pre-EC Control was more flexible with regards to headcanon, but the EC speech itself still has a lot of wiggle room.

 

For example, the Shepard-AI might have the Reapers repair the galaxy, offer advanced technology to where it could be of use, as well as insights into past civilisations (there's your 'guardianship' and 'guiding' of the many, but without the dictatorship that people seem determined to interpret), before dismantling the Reaper fleet once the galaxy is back on it's feet. I don't see that series of events contradicting anything in the speech. And the galaxy retains its free will.

[CronoDragoon]

ME1s ending isn't anywhere near the same conceputal scale as ME3s

 

Correct, but that works both ways. In ME3 you sacrifice more to defeat a vastly more overwhelming, numerous, and powerful threat.

 

There's two questions here that are not the same at all, when it relates to the endings:

 

1. What would you be willing to do if this were an actual choice? Would you use the Crucible?

 

and

 

2. Is this a satisfying ending to the series?

 

My answer to the 1st is that you must use the Crucible or you are a coward. You asked about the US: if a virus is - somehow for the purpose of this hypothetical - guaranteed to wipe out the entire world unless the US is nuked, would I - as a US citizen - understand the decision to do? Absolutely. If the choice is between letting everyone die and letting some die, then there is no choice. You sacrifice the minority even if it haunts you in your dreams.

 

And that's just dealing with Destroy, the only ending with actual, hard consequences instead of philosophical, existential, or speculatory ones.

 

For 2, my answer is that only Control is a satisfying ending narratively, depending on your Shepard. Destroy can be if you killed the geth anyway/don't like AI, but otherwise if you made peace there's too much contradictory thematic information flying around. And Synthesis is just a very strange ending that needed way more integration into the plot previously.

 

Control can easily be construed as a pure Paragon ending. Self sacrifice? Check. Risking disastrous future consequences to correct a present/past wrong? Check (rachni, genophage). And as Jason has pointed out, the Control speech isn't nearly as damning as some would have you believe. Protecting the galaxy can mean many things, and slavery isn't necessarily one of them.

[KaiserShep]

Sorry - I just can't trust it, not after so many hours that don't back it up to be something "inherently trustable". That's like trusting facebook with all your personal details and then expecting that they're not running a psych experiment on you.

 

So refuse.. (post EC) Defeat this time but the next guy chose better than you so - haha! thanks for playing! Oh well, I'm clearly rubbish then. I'll go and play something else.

 

Trust is not really relevant though, because your options are let everyone die or take a chance that [almost] everyone can live. At that point, what could the Catalyst possibly do that's any worse than what it's already doing to the galaxy?

[wright1978]

 
Sorry - I just can't trust it, not after so many hours that don't back it up to be something "inherently trustable". That's like trusting facebook with all your personal details and then expecting that they're not running a psych experiment on you.
 
So refuse.. (post EC) Defeat this time but the next guy chose better than you so - haha! thanks for playing! Oh well, I'm clearly rubbish then. I'll go and play something else.

Catalyst is fundamentally untrustworthy IMO, so refuse is the only real choice without having to do severe mental gymnastics I could see any Shep I develop being able to pick.

[KaiserShep]

It doesn't take mental gymnastics to work around the idea that doing nothing equals certain death.

[ImaginaryMatter]

It doesn't take mental gymnastics to work around the idea that doing nothing equals certain death.

 

One of the thoughts that always occurred to me was what if the Catalyst was trolling. Like what if there was an actual button to press or the Crucible just needed to finish installing the right driver (or what were the options on the other side of the chamber?), and the Catalyst was trying to convince Shepard to sabotage the project.

 

I would like to think someone telling me to shoot a fuel line would raise an eyebrow or two.

[KaiserShep]

The problem with that idea is that one of the potential options simply involves jumping into a big energy beam. A puny human dissolving in a giant laser is not likely to sabotage anything, and the Crucible should still fire as planned if it was just charging up or installing the KILL_REAPER drivers. So at that point one might think that the Catalyst was simply trying to get rid of Shepard, but if that was the case, instead of having a magic elevator take him/her to the platform, just jettison the body into space. If the Catalyst really wanted to trick Shepard into sabotaging the Crucible, it would only need to present a single path, not three. After all, it's not like Shepard has any way to know otherwise.