590 réponses à ce sujet

[angol fear]

The trap doesn't work well though. It reminds me of the end of Star Trek V.

 

At least I'd like to think Shep is about as sharp as Kirk.

 

I have to disagree. You can like or dislike it but the trap worked very well, I think. "Godchild", "space jesus" show that people only stay on the first impression. With the original ending most people didn't understand that it was an A.I., so they didn't understand they were trapped by their own representation and didn't go further (to think about element given). They think their first impression/interpretation is the "good" one. But to see the trap, and to understand it, you need to go back to the writing for the ending. 

So we can ask why this trap? In Mass Effect 1 the Citadel was first something "good", but in the end we find out that it's reapers technology and the citadel is actually a trap. So our representation is what traps us. the whole trilogy is based on representation/ point of view (the reapers that are synthetics then organics and synthetics, you became Cerberus agent while in the first game they were some extremist, the geth and quarians, the reapers no longer bad guys etc...).

The ending is supposed to be "high level" that's why it works on implicit and paradox. These two are here to make the player think. "High level" don't need everything to be explained (the player can understand by himself, so that's why it uses implicit) and it seems to contradict because it paradox (it goes against what you think). So this religion theme has got an implicit problematic : will the player be trapped or not by his own representation? Will higher being, high level turn into religion?

 

In Star Trek, it is explicit that religion is indoctrination (a word mostly used for politic and religion). In Mass Effect it's not indoctrination, it's implicitly :will the player see more than the first impression he has? In stark trek you've got the answer during the events. In mass effect, the answer about religion theme is far before and during the trilogy in an implicit way. This makes the player need to have some critical distance to understand and he needs to understand by himself.

 

 

@Ithurael, thank you! I'll put a marker when it will be finished.

 

#4 structure:

 

"However, the as I stated, I had no issue with the logic of the catalyst. It is fine for a villain to have circular logic. That is fine. The issue I have raised is not with the Catalyst in thematic sense, but in narrative sense."

 

I never said that you have a problem with the catalyst logic. But his logic is implicit. Just like when he says "chaos. the created etc..." there's a blank between chaos and the other sentence. The player has to understand how the catalyst comes to that conclusion so the description of the organics between them and the organics and synthetics is here to show why there could be a no turning point (synthetics evolve faster and can wipe out organic life in the end so the solution the catalyst found out is to not reach that point).

The circular logic is here because it's a game about circles and during the game there are many circles (cycles; movement from the citadel to come back to the citadel; the source of our problem, the catalyst, is our solution).

 

"the catalyst's existence and the justification of that existence and the in universe plausibility of that existence is NOT implied by the structure presented by the past three games nor by your examples."

 

I think that the catalyst existence is implicit with the "being of light" I quoted that we can see in Mass Effect 1 and 3. But we can add what Vendetta says on Thessia : "I believe the reapers are only servants of the pattern. They are not its master."

At 5:15

 

Sure it doesn't say that there's an A.I. but Vendetta makes the player think about the possibility that there's something or someone behind the reapers. And we can add an interpretation that is created only when we finish the game : the dream sequence can be seen as some kind of trauma, Shepard running to the past, but it can also be seen as a run to the future, Shepard trying to reach the catalyst with the kid's appearance and when he reaches it he will burn, die with the catalyst. this one is just an interpretation but the game was written to create some ambiguous meaning with the dreams. the dream sequence is an implicit foreshadowing of the ending that can be understood this way only when the player is at the end (just like most clues, you can understand them only when you're at the end).

[God]

I just think the player needs to see that "chaos" isn't a bad thing. It's the nature of life. The people most at risk of the "trap" are people who are against chaos, and kind of think like the Reapers already.

 

The thing is, this is an appeal to nature, a logical fallacy. Just because something is some way doesn't necessarily meant that it has to be or should be that way. Especially when we have a capacity to overcome the chaos and turn more towards order.

[KaiserShep]

We can certainly attempt to control some things, but we'll never control it all, at least not for lack of trying. The notion of chaos that the story here pushes is bogus, however. When something speaks of chaos like some sort of catch-all term for "inevitable badness that'll end us all", it's all just vague gobbledegook that makes for serviceable scifi exposition from a seemingly all-seeing antagonist.

[God]

Yes, yes... I expected a reply from God.

 

Go organize a bedroom. Leave the galaxy alone, man.

 

Nope, I think I'll try and make things the way they need to be. With less chaos.

 

The fact that you don't have an adequate reply speaks more than the vague derision. 

[God]

We can certainly attempt to control some things, but we'll never control it all, at least not for lack of trying.

 

I think we can, given enough time and energy. Nor is the effort to control generally disingenuous. Why not have more control? We create a greater capacity to survive, manipulate, and thrive.

[God]

I don't need an adequate reply. I hate this ****. I have zero respect for it. That's my answer. I will fight it and ruin things.

 

Then it's an inadequate answer. An appeal to emotion. There's not rationality or sense (and thus efficiency and thought) behind it.

[KaiserShep]

I think we can, given enough time and energy. Nor is the effort to control generally disingenuous. Why not have more control? We create a greater capacity to survive, manipulate, and thrive.

Like I said, we can certainly try. Just the same, I fully expect our species to go extinct just like everything else, whether it be hundreds, thousands, millions or even billions of years from now. But, in the meantime, we can party down, for science, of course.

[God]

Of course, it's an appeal to emotion. I'm supportive of chaos, after all. It is always going to be more primal/primitive.

 

Why? Why not be more cerebral and complex? 

 

Think of what we could accomplish if we left our humanity behind.

[God]

Like I said, we can certainly try. Just the same, I fully expect our species to go extinct just like everything else, whether it be hundreds, thousands, millions or even billions of years from now. But, in the meantime, we can party down, for science, of course.

 

I think we have the capacity to be gods. To transcend mortality through technology and order. To transcend the human element and become something more, something greater. If we do go extinct, it will be because we have outgrown humanity. Post-humanism. Transhuman. We would have no need of a physical body. Beings of the abstract and non-corporeal. It's possible.

 

Synthesis represents that future.

[txgoldrush]

I have to disagree. You can like or dislike it but the trap worked very well, I think. "Godchild", "space jesus" show that people only stay on the first impression. With the original ending most people didn't understand that it was an A.I., so they didn't understand they were trapped by their own representation and didn't go further (to think about element given). They think their first impression/interpretation is the "good" one. But to see the trap, and to understand it, you need to go back to the writing for the ending. 

So we can ask why this trap? In Mass Effect 1 the Citadel was first something "good", but in the end we find out that it's reapers technology and the citadel is actually a trap. So our representation is what traps us. the whole trilogy is based on representation/ point of view (the reapers that are synthetics then organics and synthetics, you became Cerberus agent while in the first game they were some extremist, the geth and quarians, the reapers no longer bad guys etc...).

The ending is supposed to be "high level" that's why it works on implicit and paradox. These two are here to make the player think. "High level" don't need everything to be explained (the player can understand by himself, so that's why it uses implicit) and it seems to contradict because it paradox (it goes against what you think). So this religion theme has got an implicit problematic : will the player be trapped or not by his own representation? Will higher being, high level turn into religion?

 

In Star Trek, it is explicit that religion is indoctrination (a word mostly used for politic and religion). In Mass Effect it's not indoctrination, it's implicitly :will the player see more than the first impression he has? In stark trek you've got the answer during the events. In mass effect, the answer about religion theme is far before and during the trilogy in an implicit way. This makes the player need to have some critical distance to understand and he needs to understand by himself.

 

 

@Ithurael, thank you! I'll put a marker when it will be finished.

 

#4 structure:

 

"However, the as I stated, I had no issue with the logic of the catalyst. It is fine for a villain to have circular logic. That is fine. The issue I have raised is not with the Catalyst in thematic sense, but in narrative sense."

 

I never said that you have a problem with the catalyst logic. But his logic is implicit. Just like when he says "chaos. the created etc..." there's a blank between chaos and the other sentence. The player has to understand how the catalyst comes to that conclusion so the description of the organics between them and the organics and synthetics is here to show why there could be a no turning point (synthetics evolve faster and can wipe out organic life in the end so the solution the catalyst found out is to not reach that point).

The circular logic is here because it's a game about circles and during the game there are many circles (cycles; movement from the citadel to come back to the citadel; the source of our problem, the catalyst, is our solution).

 

"the catalyst's existence and the justification of that existence and the in universe plausibility of that existence is NOT implied by the structure presented by the past three games nor by your examples."

 

I think that the catalyst existence is implicit with the "being of light" I quoted that we can see in Mass Effect 1 and 3. But we can add what Vendetta says on Thessia : "I believe the reapers are only servants of the pattern. They are not its master."

At 5:15

 

Sure it doesn't say that there's an A.I. but Vendetta makes the player think about the possibility that there's something or someone behind the reapers. And we can add an interpretation that is created only when we finish the game : the dream sequence can be seen as some kind of trauma, Shepard running to the past, but it can also be seen as a run to the future, Shepard trying to reach the catalyst with the kid's appearance and when he reaches it he will burn, die with the catalyst. this one is just an interpretation but the game was written to create some ambiguous meaning with the dreams. the dream sequence is an implicit foreshadowing of the ending that can be understood this way only when the player is at the end (just like most clues, you can understand them only when you're at the end).

This.

 

There is foreshadowing of the ending, and this is one moment.

 

Another, pay attention to what exactly the Rannoch Reaper says if you don't blow him up Renegade style. Forshadows the motive of the Reapers.

[God]

+1 for crackpot theories!

[Display Name Owner]

This.

 

There is foreshadowing of the ending, and this is one moment.

 

Another, pay attention to what exactly the Rannoch Reaper says if you don't blow him up Renegade style. Forshadows the motive of the Reapers.

 

To be honest, yes it was foreshadowing, but it was pretty simplistic and shallow foreshadowing. And, I mean, this is in the third game of the trilogy, the one where their motive is revealed. It's not exactly a major accomplishment to drop some foreshadowing that late into the story. They also spend 3 games going on about how it's "beyond your comprehension", when it turns out to be... absolutely comprehensible.

[angol fear]

To be honest, yes it was foreshadowing, but it was pretty simplistic and shallow foreshadowing. And, I mean, this is in the third game of the trilogy, the one where their motive is revealed. It's not exactly a major accomplishment to drop some foreshadowing that late into the story. They also spend 3 games going on about how it's "beyond your comprehension", when it turns out to be... absolutely comprehensible.

 

Actually their motive is revealed indirectly since Mass Effect 1 : "to protect organic life from synthetic "machine devils."

I think people overestimate the foreshadowing concept : it has nothing to do with quality. Foreshadowing depend on the intention, the aesthetic. If we take a look at Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, there is no foreshadowing. This short story doesn't need one to be a great story. I think what people expect with "foreshadowing" is explicit foreshadowing that creates no suprise. That's what Hollywood is doing for many years now (and with Disney le level of reading will get lower and lower), that's how people get used to read. The foreshadowing in Mass Effect 1 is hidden then in Mass Effect it's explicit but discreet so that the ending can still be a surprise. The ending is supposed to be the big revelation, and if we know everything before the ending, well, the twist isn't a twist.

And from what I saw these last three years (people on many forums), no it's not absolutely comprehensible (Com = with , prehendere =take). The extended cut would not be needed by many.

 

 

@Ithurael,

 

"Look for a logical flow of events that are clear to the reader by the end the story
 - By the end we have a retcon and narrative inconsistencies
 - The catalyst presence is not implicitly written, nor inferred by the past 2 and 3/4's games
 - there is a completely out of universe option presented to the player that  has neither in universe plausibility nor possibility
 - All options lead to the death of the galaxy no matter what (as shown by the lore)
 - Squad mates magically teleporting to the Normandy and surviving the galactic holocaust (not implicit writing here, just artificial) Implicit is derived from what we know. From the nature of something. And, up to the beam run, Normandy was rejoining sword. No word was given that normandy would evacuate anyone."

 

-yes we have a retcon, but the ending was made to have a reatroactive reading on the trilogy. For the inconsistencies, I disagree.

-I've answered this one.

-I think you're not talking about destroy or control but synthesis. The idea of merging organic with synthetic is here since the first game. It has "failed" many times but it was here. And for the plausibility, I think that there are a lot of things in whole trilogy that have as plausibility as synthesis.

-yes all options lead to the death but I don't see how it is a problem : a serious narration try to deliver a message, when you change an ending you distort the message. Imagine you take Romeo and Juliet and change the ending : they live happily.... well it's not the same story at all. that's why it's really hard to create different ending with the same message. Some people wanted Shepard to live, but at the same time the game was saying that Shepard would die. Mass Effect is written like a tragedy : the notion of fate is very present. It's here from the beginning of Mass Effect 1 till the end.

-here I agree : squadmates teleport. But at the same time, I know why they have done it : the purpose is to have the player very close to Shepard. The run to the beam is a moment when each character is "alone". You can't take care of the other, you have to think about the mission and to try to survive to reach the Citadel. The problem is how to make squadmates being rescued without breaking the rythm? The answer is : that's impossible. And we saw it with the extended cut. This moment is separated in two parts. It breaks the rythm for something that is a "detail". But people didn't see it this way. In this moment people prefer to have a problem of narration than a problem of "plothole" (it's one of the very few moments where I can say that there is a plot hole). It's supposed to be a rush, and now we have time to save our squadmates. Here is a reader's choice, not a writer's choice.

 

 

 "- While I have been on a rant about narrative I should also mention mechanically none of our war assets made any kind of difference in the gameplay of the final mission. Though this is a mention only and not significant to the narrative structure but more to the Themes of galactic alliances and the game mechanics."

 

I understand that point. I was surprised too. But when we see how Mass Effect is going it's not the direction taken. The fact that the war assets could change the final mission means that we could see a lot of elements of the battle. We would have something that would be less focused on Shepard. Shepard, since Mass Effect 2 started to get bored of all this (trying to stop the reapers, fight against something that still coming), that's something he/she says to Liara in Lair of the Shadow broker. The dream sequence, in Mass Effect 3, show an affected Shepard. The priority Earth mission isn't what people expected because the music and everything is supposed to create an non-epic (when it still something epic) fight. No glory, it's just about going and kill. Something quite boring (but the mission isn't boring itself, but that's my opinion), like Shepard feels it. You feel alone with your two squadmates. You don't know what is happening outside your mission, that's really focused on your character. You don't even feel you're going to win against the reapers.

 

"4. Don’t say it, illustrate it.

Nowhere in ME1-3 are we shown that the catalyst couldn't open the arms to the citadel during sovereigns assault"

 

I agree, it's shown nowhere but why would he try to open the arms? The catalyst doesn't think like an organic. The reapers are his solution, the catalyst has no ideology, he doesn't want to prove something, he doesn't think he is right. He is just doing this. Now the solution isn't the one who control the solution. I mean I feel like the catalyst is more an observer during the trilogy. He never acted. He just watch his solution. And if his solution doesn't work then he would try something different. That's what he did in the end, he proposes to Shepard to destroy the reapers (which means that he doesn't think that he is right or that his solution was the best). When Shepard tried to activate the crucible and fainted, it's the catalyst who woke him up. It's the catalyst that made Shepard access to him. I think that if he would have helped Sovereign, then he would be implicated in his own solution, so he would be thinking that he was right, and he would be trying to defend his solution. That's not what the catalyst is at all. He just let the reapers (the solution) do what they have to do (the harvest) and if the solution doesn't work any more, then he has to find another solution. If the reapers fail it means that the solution doesn't work.

 

"no where during the ending of priority earth are we shown how are squad mates got on the Normandy"

 

Agree for the original ending. But this doesn't make an ending bad just because you don't know how. But yes in the original game it was a problem (but I still think that it's a detail).

 

"no where in ME3 are we shown how the destruction of the relays =/= mass genocide"

 

The destruction of the mass relay is shown and there is no mass genocide because it's not powerful enough. But Sovereign said something interesting : "Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, your civilization develops along the paths we desire." Which means that the destruction of the mass relays means the destruction of the basis of the civilization. I'm not saying that it's impossible to recreate that technology, or that we will turn into prehistorical men, I'm just saying that civilizations will have to go through a "dark age".

[GalacticWolf5]

Actually their motive is revealed indirectly since Mass Effect 1 : "to protect organic life from synthetic "machine devils."

 

Uh, no. That was about the beings of light.

 

 

Klencory is famously claimed by the eccentric volus billionaire Kumun Shol. He claims that a vision of a higher being told him to seek on Klencory the ''lost crypts of beings of light.'' These entities were supposedly created at the dawn of time to protect organic life from synthetic ''machine devils.''

His once-ridiculed visions of "beings of light" protecting organic life from synthetic "machine devils" don't seem quite so far-fetched now. His private army of mercenaries are well-established on the planet, waiting for husks to come knocking in on their door. In all likelihood, they will be obliterated by the molten metal of a Reaper orbital bombardment, on its way to somewhere important.

 

The only thing we can assume from this is that ''machine devils''= Reapers

[angol fear]

Uh, no. That was about the beings of light.

 

 

 

The only thing we can assume from this is that ''machine devils''= Reapers

OK, then I'll explain :

 

He claims that a vision of a higher being told him to seek on Klencory the ''lost crypts of beings of light.'' These entities were supposedly created at the dawn of time to protect organic life from synthetic ''machine devils.''

 

"...Beings of light. These entities..." "These entities" refers to "beings of light".

"...these entities were supposedly created..." If they were created it means that they are synthetics, so the "beings of light" are synthetics.

"...created at the dawn of time..." so it's maybe (because of the "supposedly") one of the first organic race that created these  synthetics.

"... to protect organic life from synthetic..." this is why it was created, their purpose.

"..."machine devils"..." this is interesting because it's a quotation. Is it what the higher being told him? Or does it refer to the program. In any situation, it's always an organic point of view. (if it's the program, it's how those who created these entities, the Leviathans, saw the problem).

 

But here there's the "beingS" (plural) problem. If we imagine the context : the Leviathans understand that, unlike organics wars, a conflict between organics and synthetics could wipe out organics races. So the problem is how to find a solution quickly because if synthetics are created they evolve faster than organics. They saw it as a major problem. If they saw it as a real serious problem, I don't think that they would only create one A.I. to find a solution. Several A.I. make several possibilities and a better chance to solve the problem. Now did they created at the same time, one after another, I don't know and it's not relevant for Mass Effect trilogy (Shepard's) story. All these questions are just background questions, and the answers are just details.

 

In Mass Effect 3 we've got the same "Beings of light" message quite late in the game (in the middle of the game). If it was a problem they could have changed "beings" to "being" or just remove it and put another description. Why did they put a description like this :

"don't seem quite so far-fetched now"

when they could put something to say that it was a wong track? They did just the opposite saying that the player had to think about this track.

 

 

That's how I read it. You consider "machine devils" to be the reapers, it means that during the battle against the reapers, the Leviathans tried to create "beings of light" to protect them against the reapers. that's another possibility but I don't think that during a war against synthetics you create a synthetic to save you. It's a possibility of interpretation, of seeing it, but I'm less convinced by this one because it's the Leviathans who created the A.I. If this one turned out to be a threat, why creating other A.I.? they would deliberatly create other potential threats.

And another thing : with the Leviathan DLC, the Leviathans don't consider the A.I. to be an mistake. So how could they be considering the reapers to be "machine devils". They don't see the A.I. as a devilish synthetic. I think Bioware didn't do inconsistency here with the DLC.

 

 

PS : And I forgot to talk about something very important : "lost crypts of beings of light". The word "crypts" refers to religion.

[countofhell]

angol fear wrote this:

"Sure it doesn't say that there's an A.I. but Vendetta makes the player think about the possibility that there's something or someone behind the reapers."

 

Exactly the same as i was thinking about back in 2012 march when i was played the game. Since i was preordered Mass Effect 3 for the PS3 some things where blurry for the first time and the ending was a bit like a vision because not all the ending scenes happen in present but in the future.

And the final picture was clear for me when i met the Catalyst. This is the "guy" that got to be the master of the Reapers.

[angol fear]

@Ithurael,

 

 "looking at the execution of the ending we see - upon objective review - that it seems to break the one true law of storytelling: Don't break the illusion"

 

First there is no objective review. We all know that. We can be the more objective we can (a critic can be more objective than most people but he isn't objective. And there are some critics who don't try to be objective), but there is no objective review.

Second, there is no rule in storytelling. "Don't break the illusion" doesn't work. In the XXth century there are books that break with the illusion, it's their aesthetic. So these book are bad? I disagree. The "don't break the illusion" rule only apply for one aesthetic. that's why from my experience, If I have to tell some rules I would say : no rules, only coherence.

And for Mass Effect, I seriously think that the illusion isn't broken. It's only the habit of reading that makes people have expectations on the writing and on how it has to be written.

 

"To say that all art is good art because it is art is not only pretentious...but provably false."

 

I never said that.

 

"While I do say that ME3 - and just about anything is really art - I can say that there is an objective difference between Objectively Good art and Objectively Bad art. And this difference does not apply to the Themes or concepts of the Art, but rather how it is executed or presented.

In that presentation - ME3 objectively failed."

 

Mmmmh... I really dislike the way your saying that (as if I was a child, while you're talking about something I'm working in for many years now). So before saying it's good or bad we have to see if the intention and the writing are coherent. If these two are coherent then if the reading doesn't see it, then it's the one who failed.

Lately we're working on the reception but it doesn't mean that it's the most important point. Actually reception is how to make sense. But the reception is only a possibility of making sense. Text is a word that comes from "textus". Like the cloth it's made of many lines. One text is several possibilities. But all these possibilities can be created only because the text can create them in the reception. (I don't count irrelevant reading, off the subject to be one the possibilities that the text can allow). So to see if something is good or bad, you don't have to see if it satisfy yourself. You have to see what the intentions were and if it succeed. There will always be people who won't understand, that's why saying that most people didn't understand so it's bad, that's totally absurd.

 

So let's take a look at Mass Effect  :

 

It's a story about cycles and to break the cycles. But to break the cycle you need to step away, to see the big picture. Shepard in the end needs to get to a higher level to break the cycles (you can't break a circle when you're in the movement). That's why stories about brealing cycles (like the Snowpiercer, a film, or Bloodborne, ps4 game) are working on implicit endings. In the end the character is supposed to get to a higher level but if it's only the character, there's a problem of form : the story is a basic story about transcendance without the notion of transcendance being integrated to the story. For any seious writer, if you tell a story about transcendance, you have to make the reader/spectator/player get involved in that movement. Otherwise you completly fail in why you're telling that story.

So the ending of Mass Effect was based on implicit, just like the other stories about cycles. It's about implicit and paradox. So the ending is here to make the player think and imagine. So the ending is here to have Shepard who breaks the cycle and the last choice is the only one to get free, and the ending is here to have the player who make a choice and get free from the narration (which is the circle imposed by the storytellers, so the developers).

But if in the end, the high level is a conversation where all is explained just like the lower level, then there is no difference and you don't make the player get to a higher level. No difference between high level and Shepard's perception of the event before reaching the catalyst, this means that the reapers are not higher beings, they have the same perception than we have. In Mass Effect 1, Sovereign talked about the difference to perception, so it was implicitly about low and high level. So in the end you have to reach the high level to break the cycles.

That's why in the original ending you can't say to the A.I. that you refuse his choices : Shepard has to understand, the player has to understand. He can disagree, but the most important is to understand. It's quite similar to Alan Moore's Watchmen's ending : only the human perception refuse to understand and refuse to break the cycles.

 

 

"I dare say I don't think you will make it as a writer.
Ten to one I fear you will respond with your usual gusto and poison the well on nearly every citation I make or write off everything I say as "trying to please everyone". If that is really your view..then you failed the FIRST aspect of story writing: Define and Know your audience
http://betterwriting...audience-first/
If your audience - as defined by you - does not want to be pleased...then you won't sell very many books.

Whew...

Cheers!"

 

Oh that's quite harsh. I hope you understand that I'm usually arrogant only because most people here are very pretentious (they really overestimate themselves and their knowledge which are for most people just lessons or wikipedia).

And indeed , I don't sell many books and I won't sell many books, in a way, we can say that it's because that's my choice. If I wanted to sell books, I would write novels, and I would write them in a way people are expecting it (i know how to do it). But I prefer to write and trying new possibilities of relation between non-narrative and narrative structures, I prefer to write in rewriting genre. I do work like Nicolas Winding Refn. Writing in a experimental way doesn't mean that only very few people can appreciate. It's not because we're working on experimental structures that we don't want a large audience to appreciate.

I actually dislike the "define your audience" because it sounds to me like "follow the recipe to please people and make money". Sorry but for me it's more "write the story you want to tell, if you like it some peopel will like it too". But I know that writing is an industry, I just don't want it to be only that. I totally understand why some people write to make money and I don't blame them, I would do the same if I was living on my writing.

 

----END-----

 

PS : And if they wasn't a problem in popular writing and reading, we wouldn't hear George Lucas or Simon Pegg complain about it. I'm not talking about people who are supposed to be "elitist", I'm talking about George Lucas, who has created with Spielberg, what Hollywood is now (while what they did was far better than what we've got) and Simon Pegg, a scenarist and actor who worked on films based on popular culture.

[GalacticWolf5]

OK, then I'll explain :

 

He claims that a vision of a higher being told him to seek on Klencory the ''lost crypts of beings of light.'' These entities were supposedly created at the dawn of time to protect organic life from synthetic ''machine devils.''

 

"...Beings of light. These entities..." "These entities" refers to "beings of light".

"...these entities were supposedly created..." If they were created it means that they are synthetics, so the "beings of light" are synthetics.

"...created at the dawn of time..." so it's maybe (because of the "supposedly") one of the first organic race that created these  synthetics.

"... to protect organic life from synthetic..." this is why it was created, their purpose.

"..."machine devils"..." this is interesting because it's a quotation. Is it what the higher being told him? Or does it refer to the program. In any situation, it's always an organic point of view. (if it's the program, it's how those who created these entities, the Leviathans, saw the problem).

 

But here there's the "beingS" (plural) problem. If we imagine the context : the Leviathans understand that, unlike organics wars, a conflict between organics and synthetics could wipe out organics races. So the problem is how to find a solution quickly because if synthetics are created they evolve faster than organics. They saw it as a major problem. If they saw it as a real serious problem, I don't think that they would only create one A.I. to find a solution. Several A.I. make several possibilities and a better chance to solve the problem. Now did they created at the same time, one after another, I don't know and it's not relevant for Mass Effect trilogy (Shepard's) story. All these questions are just background questions, and the answers are just details.

 

The Leviathan says they created one intelligence.

 

In Mass Effect 3 we've got the same "Beings of light" message quite late in the game (in the middle of the game). If it was a problem they could have changed "beings" to "being" or just remove it and put another description. Why did they put a description like this :

"don't seem quite so far-fetched now"

when they could put something to say that it was a wong track? They did just the opposite saying that the player had to think about this track.

 

Why would they change it? They don't need to change anything, because the Beings of Light are not the Catalyst.

 

That's how I read it. You consider "machine devils" to be the reapers, it means that during the battle against the reapers, the Leviathans tried to create "beings of light" to protect them against the reapers. that's another possibility but I don't think that during a war against synthetics you create a synthetic to save you. It's a possibility of interpretation, of seeing it, but I'm less convinced by this one because it's the Leviathans who created the A.I. If this one turned out to be a threat, why creating other A.I.? they would deliberatly create other potential threats.

 

Well the Leviathans did

 

Maybe it was them who made the beings of light, maybe another species from their cycle. We don't know anything about them.

 

And another thing : with the Leviathan DLC, the Leviathans don't consider the A.I. to be an mistake. So how could they be considering the reapers to be "machine devils". They don't see the A.I. as a devilish synthetic. I think Bioware didn't do inconsistency here with the DLC.

 

Why would the Catalyst try to protect us from the Reapers when it control the Reapers itself? The Beings of Light are not the Catalyst.

 

 

Beings of Light = Synthetics created by a species to protect Organics from the ''machine devils'' or maybe a species similar to the Virtual Aliens who wants to protect Organics from ''machine devils''

 

Machine Devils = Reapers and maybe even other Synthetics.