14 réponses à ce sujet

[sambshep]

In the end, you have to board Harbinger, retrieve a "catalyst" from within to complete the crucible, but have to do so under a time limit or you become indocrinated. Given that Saren was riding along with a Reaper it's reasonable to assume you could board a Reaper, and since Harbinger had been built up throughout all of ME2, it's far more sensible to have it as the final boss of the game.

[chidingewe8036]

In my headcanon ending the ending chamber is actually a dream sequence Harbinger creates in Shepard's mind after they encounter each other in a building fight a la garrus and the gunship fight in MASS EFFECT 2, during the fight Harbinger destroys the building Shepard is in which collapses around him (the breath scene location) Shepard then while unconscious Harbinger enters his thoughts testing him making him believe the Citadel is the key to defeating his armies. If my Shepard chose Control he would wake up indoctrinated, Harbinger's slave in a sense, if he chose Synthesis Shepard would wake up and The Reapers would have assimilated everyone, but by choosing destroy he would pass the test defeating Harbinger's mental trap, he would  wake up wounded but as himself, he would be found by one of his companions, finish the fight, and destroy the Reapers with the might and cooperation of all the races together...........that is what MASS EFFECT should have been about to begin with, bringing a galaxy together to fight an all powerful enemy and winning conventionally but only if everyone worked together and either solved or put their differences aside for the sake of survival. Bioware tried to make something that was too deep and thought provoking they should have just kept it simple, bad call on their part unless they plan on blowing our minds with this next trilogy by revealing something major that connects to Shepard his allies and companions' story and or add to that not horrible but weird clearly last minute ending. 

            

The Citadel DLC I headcanoned as well, I just pretend everyone is getting together AFTER the war is won as opposed to before. I just don't believe nor like the fact that Shepard is partying in Anderson's suite while he is busting his you know what on earth, that just seems kinda stupid and wrong. I appreciate Bioware doing what they did but the way they did it was pretty much just a throw in story wise to give us more time with our companions and love interests..........I think they forgot about Kelly Chambers "sigh" Bioware.

 

I did not really answer your question OP but this is my "what if" ending scenario, which personally I think sounds a lot better than what they came up with originally.

[Excella Gionne]

I fell asleep while doing the Reaper IFF, and Shepard was still not indoctrinated. Maybe the timer is just a lie! 

[bunch1]

Reapers are at least 37+ million years more advanced than organics (going by ME2). Doesn't really fit. Not to mention, conventional victory was hammered in repeatedly during the game to be impossible. The refusal ending is the same. Want to defeat an enemy with millions of years headstart on you conventionally without using the Crucible? Sorry, not going to happen.

 

Reapers aren't 37 million years more advanced then organics, their 37 million years older then organics, there is a huge difference.  Rember that most of a reapers time is spent sleeping in dark space inbetween cycles and that their is no real differnce in 1 reaper dreadnaught to another dispite the hundres of thousands to millions of years between their construction.  Reapers simple do not andvance their own tech since it is suppior to organics their is no reason to.  At most I would say their more around 100-500 years ahead of organcis and I base this mostly on the fact that the Protheans were able to build a small scale mass relay, which is really the pinical of reaper tech, and the modern organics are geting close to their level but still not that advanced. 

 

My problem with the refusal ending is that they showed reapers can be damaged and killed by conventinal means thorught the games, in the first one is near impossible but reverseing Soverign tech allowed them to cut through their barriers and blow whole limps off and destory them just a few years later and since we know that reapers are slow since it took them hundreds of years to wipe out the protheans it is technicale possible that they can be defeated in stright battle without a des ex machia and that would have been so much more satisfying to me.

 

As to the OP, it wouldn't really be a boss battle though since once your inside Harbinger wouldn't be able to do anything to you except sends hords or minions at you and we already did do that in ME2.  That is ultimitly the problem of building up gieant ships as your bad guys, you cant actualy fight them in game which is why we had Saren, the collectors, and the Elusive Man.

[bunch1]

Sounds too cliche and predictable to me.

And finding blueprints for a machine that can suddenly win an unwinable war and kill off all of the machines that have been wiping out organics for millions of years and doing it in only a couploe of months isn't.  Honestly, the crucible bothered me more then the actual ending since it was just so convenient, I try to ignore when I play.

[ImaginaryMatter]

And finding blueprints for a machine that can suddenly win an unwinable war and kill off all of the machines that have been wiping out organics for millions of years and doing it in only a couploe of months isn't.  Honestly, the crucible bothered me more then the actual ending since it was just so convenient, I try to ignore when I play.

 

Ya, as far as the contrivance scale goes the Crucible isn't much better than conventional victory. Maybe, it's an inherent flaw with setting up eons old, AI, eldritch, robot gods as the main antagonists but you're going to hit that speed bump no matter what you do. For a game though that is build around gathering military assets one comes off as a much better way to end a story.

[AlanC9]

My problem with the refusal ending is that they showed reapers can be damaged and killed by conventinal means thorught the games, in the first one is near impossible but reverseing Soverign tech allowed them to cut through their barriers and blow whole limps off and destory them just a few years later and since we know that reapers are slow since it took them hundreds of years to wipe out the protheans it is technicale possible that they can be defeated in stright battle without a des ex machia and that would have been so much more satisfying to me.

There are two problems with this argument. The first is logical, the second is game design.

The logical problem is that the harvests are only slow because the Reapers are taking them slowly. While the Reapers are willing to blast low-population worlds from orbit, they take the time to harvest the population of the major worlds. Earth would take ten years to harvest, and Palaven probably more, but the Reapers could burn the life from both in ten minutes if they felt they needed to.

But that's trivial, since Bio could easily retcon the Reapers down to a strength where the galaxy really can beat them. (They were already substantially retconned down from ME2 with the introduction of the destroyer-class Reaper, which made the armada we see in the final cinematic much less powerful than it would have been if it was composed of a few hundred Sovereigns.) You'd need to rewrite Reaper actions in the game a bit, but we're redesigning the game anyway.

The game design problem, simply, is what does Shepard do in the final stages of the war? There's a reason why ME1 , ME2, and ME3 are all structured around Shepard pushing a "win" button of some kind. It's the same reason that four out of six Star Wars movies have battles that are won in the same fashion. Though it's interesting to think of a hybrid RPG/strategy game -- maybe Paradox could handle the strategy side?

There's also a drama problem, since conventional wars almost always end with a long, drawn-out grind after the winner is already obvious but there's nothing to do but play it out. I suppose this could be written around in some fashion, though.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

There are two problems with this argument. The first is logical, the second is game design.

The logical problem is that the harvests are only slow because the Reapers are taking them slowly. While the Reapers are willing to blast low-population worlds from orbit, they take the time to harvest the population of the major worlds. Earth would take ten years to harvest, and Palaven probably more, but the Reapers could burn the life from both in ten minutes if they felt they needed to.

 

That is incorrect. According to the information we were given on Cronos Station, the harvest of our species was nearly complete. It took mere months. We got our asses kicked. Property values on Earth are cheap. The number of people left is probably similar to Fallout. The place is a wasteland. Imagine NYC population 150,000.

[AlanC9]

That is incorrect. According to the information we were given on Cronos Station, the harvest of our species was nearly complete. It took mere months. We got our asses kicked. Property values on Earth are cheap. The number of people left is probably similar to Fallout. The place is a wasteland. Imagine NYC population 150,000.

If you like, though I'll take the Codex version over a vague contradction from Vendetta. For purposes of this thread it doesn't matter-- a faster harvest of Earth means that the Reapers will win even faster. Although it does make me wonder exactly what went on in the Prothean cycle.

At least it'll be possible to land a good apartment in Manhattan after the Reaper War.

[ImaginaryMatter]

If you like, though I'll take the Codex version over a vague contradction from Vendetta. For purposes of this thread it doesn't matter-- a faster harvest of Earth means that the Reapers will win even faster. Although it does make me wonder exactly what went on in the Prothean cycle.

At least it'll be possible to land a good apartment in Manhattan after the Reaper War.

 

I'm guessing the Protheans were some sort of exception, Javik at one point says they had the technological capacity to defeat the Reapers.

[bunch1]

There are two problems with this argument. The first is logical, the second is game design.

The logical problem is that the harvests are only slow because the Reapers are taking them slowly. While the Reapers are willing to blast low-population worlds from orbit, they take the time to harvest the population of the major worlds. Earth would take ten years to harvest, and Palaven probably more, but the Reapers could burn the life from both in ten minutes if they felt they needed to.

You are right in that they could simply burn every world they come across of they chosse to and end all advanced life in the galaxy in a few months or years, but they don't.  And more important they can't.  They may be sentiant machines but they are still bound by their programs which require them to harvest all organics to preserve them.  And since we learn in ME3 they are under the control of the star child anyway since he seems willing to let organics have chance they he would keep them harvesting no matter what the organics did.

 

 

There's also a drama problem, since conventional wars almost always end with a long, drawn-out grind after the winner is already obvious but there's nothing to do but play it out. I suppose this could be written around in some fashion, though.

Yes, wars are usually over before they end but in many there is a turning point battle, Gettersburg or Stalingrad for example, that can be influenced by 1 unit or 1 man.  The epiluge can be used to wrap up the war and how they hunted down the reapers while leaving the possibility of few escapeing and hiding somewhere biding there time out there for future games.

 

 

I recall Anderson mentioning a Prothean superweapon early in ME1. This was before you go to Eden Prime. They didn't call it the Crucible, but yeah, it was foreshadowed. 

That was actually just Anderson's paranoid fear over what was contained inside of the becon of Eden Prime, no one had been able to acess and thus no one knew what was in it.  He was afraid a warlord from the Terminus Systems was aquire some advanced tech and use it to attack Human worlds along the border.  As for the crucible, Liara tells you herself in ME3 that the plans come from the Mars Archive.