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[Valmar]

The catalyst never said it was the Citadel. It only said the Citadel was part of it. The Leviathans made the Catalyst. The reapers built the citadel later.

 

 

Am I a prosthetic leg if I attach one to me? That's the way I see it. The Citadel is nothing more than a prosthetic that came later, and that still allows for what the first game talked about to happen [Protheans severing a connection between the Keepers and the Citadel]

 

The catalyst is apart of the citadel. In the same sense EDI is apart of the Normandy.

 

Your prosthetic leg analogy does not suit the context, imo. We are organics. The catalyst is an AI. We're drastically different.  It isn't like a human strapping on a plastic arm and saying "now I have a hand!" It's an AI. Any system it integrates itself to becomes it. Legion's body is technically not Legion, either. Its just a platform that carries the legion programs around. The platform is just "a part" of Legion. Yet it still has full control over the body. The catalyst, the AI reaper god, is the citadel yet it has no control over its basic functions? It isn't even like it was built without control, either, since the citadel is a reaper construction.

 

The catalyst built the citadel and installed itself into it and yet didn't give itself admin privileges? It needs to have a vanguard reaper to monitor everything and send the signal to activate ITSELF (as it is the citadel)? What?

 

None of it makes any sense.

[Fixers0]

I'd say Mass Effect began to fall apart post-ME1, the Revelation novel is still tolerable, but the introduction of the comic book series, the other spin-off works and finally Mass Effect 2 were devestating to the series.

[KrrKs]

I'd say the first really big scratches appeared at the DCS mission in ME2: "They are going to attack earth" or something similar

Second notable mention to Harbys trashtalk, but the rest-awesome of the game held it pretty much together.

 

As for the ME3 Catalyst:

Apart from what Shotgun Julia and Valmar said, this line is it for me (the 'Solution'):

 

We harvest advanced civilisations, leaving the younger ones alone

 Ok? Even if we take the 'problem' of mass genocidal AI as given and accept that the harvest somehow preserves species, this statement is simply wrong and a Lie!

 

As per several Planet descriptions in ME2 (I believe also in ME1) Reapers are responsible for the orbital bombardment of several pre-spaceflight civilisations!

At least one bronze-age civilisation among those. A single Reaper could have landed and harvested the entire population, orbital bombardment is unnecessary in this case.

The only reason to bombard such a civilisation would be to either destroy them completely _{(nice 'harvest' - or was that the 'leaving along' the AI spoke of?)} , or to hide evidence of said civilisation and the harvest. If it is the second one the reapers failed remarkably _{(Thanix bombardment marks on garden planets are oh so common, pluspoints for still leaving behind evidence of the inhabitants)}!

 

Even if I disregard that, the 'solution' just does not work as solution to the 'problem' (it isn't even a bad solution, its only bad).

To prevent the (non harvest)destruction of species, the Reapers built the relay network, thus making it much easier and likely for less advanced and civilized* species to come in contact with one another and begin a genocidal war among themselves, ending in the (non harvested) destruction of one side!

 

If a species builds an AI force that is able and willing to wipe its creators out, the thread that this AI will wipe out other species is with relay network much higher than without!

 

Without the Relays, the probability of different sentient species coming in contact with another would be way lower. And if they establish some form of contact, the longer civilisation period needed to establish this makes it more unlikely that they attack the other side.

 

The relay network would only make sense, if the Reapers would use it as a detection system and immediately begin the harvest of any species advanced enough to use a relay. Instead the Reapers hide for ~50K years.

 

This means [headcanon ahead!] that the cycle is not about preservation, but to make sure that harvest-able species are widespread enough to build a minimum number of new Reapers per cycle. At the same time the species are (very likely) not technological developed enough to pose a real threat to the Reaper forces.

In short, the cycles are about reproduction -nothing else.

 

 

*Common theory that technological progress and civilisation development (getting more peaceful) are somewhat interconnected. I believe Mordin said something similar in regard to the Krogan, so the theory seems accepted in the MEU.

 

 

I 'fix' it by imagining that Sovereign is the Intelligence[...]

Nice headcanon_{(may I steal it?)}!

The only problems that I see are that the Catalyst speaks completely different than Sovereign, and that the Citadel would have needed the proper equipment to run a Reapermind, without actually doing so before Sovereign connected. Then we are again at the point of: "If it can, why doesn't it do it that already?"

 

Edit: I'm fully aware that I just posted in the other thread that I'm tired of ending discussion...

Modifié par KrrKs, 22 février 2015 - 01:57 .

[KaiserShep]

So maybe the reapers were basically galactic cancer, or an infestation of parasites.

[angol fear]

lol ME2 was great and is considered to be the best ME game

 

No, it is not considered the best Mass Effect, it is the one that the players like more than the others.

[Reedirector]

The first story is a 1970s sci-fi action drama. ME2 is a late 1980s sci-fi action movie filled with one liners. And ME3 is a late 1990s verson of the same. Then the writers tacked a 2011 BS ending on it.

 

This encapsulates the changing tone of the series perfectly.

[Reedirector]

When the Catalyst mentions the Control Ending, "the grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass." I stop paying attention. CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE appears in large text and a third-person view of my lifeless body is all that remains

 

If it was possible for The Reapers to police the galaxy and prevent Synth/Org conflict without harvesting/murdering organic life, why didn't they just get on with it?

[God]

When the Catalyst mentions the Control Ending, "the grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass." I stop paying attention. CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE appears in large text and a third-person view of my lifeless body is all that remains

 

If it was possible for The Reapers to police the galaxy and prevent Synth/Org conflict without harvesting/murdering organic life, why didn't they just get on with it?

 

Because it's a perpetual status quo that wouldn't really stop chaos in the long term, just delay it. 

 

That's one reason I don't think control would work if the catalyst were to implement it. 

[Valmar]

lol ME2 was great and is considered to be the best ME game

 

It's a bad habit to put your opinion out as if it is objective fact.

 

 

This coming from someone who actually did like ME2 the best.

 

 

If it was possible for The Reapers to police the galaxy and prevent Synth/Org conflict without harvesting/murdering organic life, why didn't they just get on with it?

 

They tried many solutions. None of them lasted. The catalyst is immortal and over a billion years old, afterall. Those are some long standards to judge somethings success. Everything is relative, right? If solution A resulted in peace for 10k years we'd probably consider it a win. Afterall, are we to be expected to plan or even care about the peace of our civilization 10k years in the future? We have more immediate concerns. The catalyst doesn't have such a limitation on time. 10K years of peace mean nothing to a being that exists outside the confines of time. Its just a bat of the eyelash to it. It wants a more permanent solution.

[Linkenski]

lol ME2 was great and is considered to be the best ME game

Don't speak for everyone. I agree but I know a lot of people (especially in here) bash ME2 a lot for plot-related reasons. I don't disagree but ME2 is amazing to me and the best in the series even if the plot was a bit too straightforward and Shepard died with no meaningful reflections or ramifications. (but such ideas were on the table. Drew K said "We thought maybe Shepard is a cyborg")

[ImaginaryMatter]

Don't speak for everyone. I agree but I know a lot of people (especially in here) bash ME2 a lot for plot-related reasons. I don't disagree but ME2 is amazing to me and the best in the series even if the plot was a bit too straightforward and Shepard died with no meaningful reflections or ramifications. (but such ideas were on the table. Drew K said "We thought maybe Shepard is a cyborg")

 

ME2 is my favorite game in the series but it's central story is weak (luckily, it's only a small part of the actual game). The plot is just silly bananas and it kicks off the anthropocentrism, over centralization of Shepard, galactic apathy, Cerberus, and other sorts of poorly justified elements that eroded the central Reaper story.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Of the three games, ME2 is the most fun to play. You get to be Arnold in space. It ranks as the #1 sci-fi action adventure game made to date. Yet it contributed little if anything to the overarching plot of the series. Mass Effect 3 because of that stupid ending is not even on the top 20 list. Most people who played it traded it after one play through.

 

The threads of the story start to unravel around Rannoch. Why didn't Shepard see the Quarians without their suits in the Geth Consensus. Legion's explanation was bogus. It was artistic laziness. Bioware simply didn't want to have another graphic model for the quarians, plus it might have garnered sympathy for them to see them as other than suit rats. The unraveling began in full force at Thessia when Ashley makes Liara look like a dumb ass in the Temple of Athame. Come on, the Shadow Broker couldn't be that naive. Then Sanctuary where we discover the experiments about the control signal. We're being force fed information from then on. And isn't it obvious in London, that we're going to die? And Anderson gives us the most asinine battle plan - "You have to get to that beam, so, Shepard, I'm sending you up the middle where the resistance is the heaviest." Then the flipping mako. Then the Normandy parks right in front of Harbinger where EDI must troll him showing us how stupid the reapers really are. "Save us." Harbinger says, but Bioware says it's just reaper noise, but the ITers say it's not. We fight our way past Marauder Shields and the Three Husks (new band name), go up the beam and we have a gun with infinite ammo that doesn't shoot anything. The keepers in the corridor are invulnerable. Saren was able to shoot keepers, but Shepard? Shepard had wuss bullets while Saren had boss bullets, so no effect on the keepers. We could shoot Anderson and The Illusive Man though. Get out of my movie! And how did Anderson make it up there without a scratch? More things are unraveling.

 

Actually I take it back. It fell apart when the magic elevator appeared and the fade to white. Hudson and Walters were trying to do a meeting with The Architect in The Matrix: Reloaded. They failed.

 

I don't think the EC dialogue improved the ending: bad ending is bad. I think the EC dialogue only extended the agony. I thought the from a cinematic viewpoint that the original beam run was better the the beam run in the extended cut. The Normandy's rescue of your team is even more ridiculous and digs a deeper hole. When Omega came out I didn't do the EC dialogue for the catalyst conversation because I saw no point in challenging the thing. Why prolong it? Get to the point. Keep it high level. Get it over with. After playing a story for 160 hours, I wanted more than pick your favorite color and a slide show. That is not art. Nor was the original ending.

[SwobyJ]

So maybe the reapers were basically galactic cancer, or an infestation of parasites.

 

It can be argued that any living species are parasites on their environment, to whatever extent.

 

Reapers may be this as well, but to an apex extent.

 

Yes, we can see them as the enemy, or how they see themselves - our salvation. Or whatever other POV.

 

But it would seem that beyond anything else, they endeavor to just make more Reapers.

 

Then again, what are OUR justifications for being the cause of extinction (directly and indirectly) of thousands of species?

[TMA LIVE]

It doesn't fall apart. It's just annoying you can't get the details that matter. Like how synthesis does what it does? Where the Catalyst was during ME1 and ME2, and why it played no part in those games? Why is the Catalyst still harvesting after the Geth have been destroyed? There are answers that make sense with the current ending, but none are told.

[Vazgen]

I think people are beating air now, because the horse is long beaten to dust and winds scattered it. 

Anyway, no, it doesn't fall apart. Unless you count Lazarus Project and being railroaded into working with Cerberus as falling apart. Both feature the same amount of plot holes, space magic and taking the control over our character away. 

[parico]

It falls apart when you get to the beam and go on the citadel.  That's when I just turn the game off they should have stuck to original plan with dark energy being behind the reapers it made more sense. 

[parico]

lol ME2 was great and is considered to be the best ME game

 

depends on who you ask I hate me2 its just loyalty missions mindless planet scanning and the combat and maps are annoying. You had too many squad mates and none are well developed.  I think ME1 was best game it set the rest up and at the time was a huge step for RPGs  Me3 had great combat and a good story up till the end so I still rate it above ME2 

[ZerebusPrime]

Is it wrong to say Priority: Earth?  The whole slog through London was eerie, claustrophobic, and oddly isolating; you could very easily forget just how many soldiers were nearby until Shepard calls on them to all open fire... which may have been the whole point to the eeriness, claustrophobia, and feeling of isolation given the likelihood of indoctrination signal sources throughout London.

 

Then again, maybe that was fine.  Maybe it all fell apart when Cerberus went kookoo for cocoa pops to the level where their actions no longer seemed to even benefit themselves.  Sur'Kesh would have been fine if we had found out that Cerberus had made a backroom deal with the Dalatras, but alas no real explanation was ever given.  On Mars, wiping out the databanks before the Reapers could capture them actually makes sense... if that's what they were doing, except that doesn't seem to be quite it.  Invading the Citadel could have been a master stroke if Cerberus had used the opportunity to hide heavy weapons, equipment, and soldiers onboard ahead of an inevitable Reaper takeover of the station... but no it seems they just wanted to take out the Council leadership for reasons unfathomable.

 

And then again once more, maybe that's beside the point.  For the Catalyst conversation, things are 'off' the very moment Shepard asks the kid if he knows how to stop the Reapers, as opposed to asking the kid why the kid is in the form of the kid; that's a relic from the original ending wherein Shepard seems unable or unwilling to really question anything of his decision chamber experience, acting a lot like how Shiala described herself back in ME1 when she listened to Saren.  But really, things fall apart at 2:05, when the Catalyst fails to see itself as a synthetic wiping out organic life.  And don't get me started on trying to solve things by having Shepard electrocute herself or jumping into a particle beam, or Shepard thinking she can control the Reapers when The Illusive Man couldn't not moments before.

[Linkenski]

I thought the plot started having a weird empty flavor to it after Thessia. It just felt rushed and didn't hit the spot like ME1 or ME2 did in their endgames.

[Pasquale1234]

They tried many solutions. None of them lasted. The catalyst is immortal and over a billion years old, afterall. Those are some long standards to judge somethings success. Everything is relative, right? If solution A resulted in peace for 10k years we'd probably consider it a win. Afterall, are we to be expected to plan or ekhe catalyst doesn't have such a limitation on time. 10K years of peace mean nothing to a being that exists outside the confines of time. Its just a bat of the eyelash to it. It wants a more permanent solution.

The harvest isn't a permanent solution, either. Thus, cycles.

From the Catalyst's perspective, what's the difference between policing conflict every 10k years and harvesting every 50k? More reapers? Organics don't evolve enough to do things differently?

[Valmar]

It falls apart when you get to the beam and go on the citadel.  That's when I just turn the game off they should have stuck to original plan with dark energy being behind the reapers it made more sense. 

 

Personally I always felt the dark energy ending had as many plotholes as the original.

 

 

The harvest isn't a permanent solution, either. Thus, cycles.

From the Catalyst's perspective, what's the difference between policing conflict every 10k years and harvesting every 50k? More reapers? Organics don't evolve enough to do things differently?

 

I know it isn't permanent. I said it was looking for a permanent solution, not that it found one. The reapers are just the most efficient option available to them right now.

 

Instead of always coming back every 10k years and fixing a problem that keeps occurring why not just come back and prevent the problem from ever showing up in the first place. The thing about synthetic conflict is that it is a controllable factor. Organics fighting against organics? Nothing much you can do about that, its nature. Synthetics however? They're not natural. They're a variable that you can completely remove from the table. The solution to this conflict is rather simple, really. Just don't make synthetics. Synthetics are not a natural phenomenon. So if you want to keep synthetics from wiping out all organics... don't build synthetics.

 

The reaper's designed the cycle in such a way that, generally speaking, they arrive and harvest advance races before they reach the point of building those synthetics. Those relatively few are then harvested and the cycle is allowed to start fresh and new from the start. Another 50k years free and open to future civilizations and races to grow and thrive. Real big-picture stuff. In comparison to all the life that is left to grow for generations, 50k years worth... those who are harvested represent a very insignificant number. Dust in cosmic winds and all that.

[Massa FX]

Arrival. I have to say that's when I questioned Hackett's involvement, perspective and attitude.

 

If you don't do Arrival, it falls apart with Anderson "The shiite you've done..." speech. Then with Kai Lang and Shepard not taking a shot and watching her friend get knifed.

 

It then completely disintegrates during Priority Earth.

 

And the kick in the arse, the boom of doom... is the catalyst.

 

Aw.. heck. There's really too much to single any one thing out.

[WizzyWarlock]

It falls apart when you get to the beam and go on the citadel.  That's when I just turn the game off they should have stuck to original plan with dark energy being behind the reapers it made more sense.

Personally I think they shouldn't have made any excuses or reasons, we should have just known that the Reapers are coming, they want to wipe us all out, end of detail. I was actually expecting it to be like that, especially after ME1 where Sovereign said they were beyond our comprehension. If that's the case, how can the Leviathan and Catalyst explain their reason with a couple of minutes of talk? It's dumb.

Just leave them as beyond our comprehension, as vicious machines bent on the destruction of all civilizations.

[SwobyJ]

Personally I think they shouldn't have made any excuses or reasons, we should have just known that the Reapers are coming, they want to wipe us all out, end of detail. I was actually expecting it to be like that, especially after ME1 where Sovereign said they were beyond our comprehension. If that's the case, how can the Leviathan and Catalyst explain their reason with a couple of minutes of talk? It's dumb.

Just leave them as beyond our comprehension, as vicious machines bent on the destruction of all civilizations.

 

lol

 

"We are infinite."

 

*blows Sovereign up*

 

Trope averted in the first game.

 

(EDIT: Though I do have my theory that Sovereign is what becomes known as the Catalyst and is ultimately testing everyone, so I guess trope is continued and reinforced if that's somehow true!)

(EDIT: To clarify, I mean the concept that what Reapers say is necessarily absolutely true. "We are beyond your comprehension" needs only to be true about ME1 Shepard, not ME2 or ME3 Shepard. ME3 Shepard can learn. ME1 Shepard was unwilling to learn.)