718 réponses à ce sujet

[TheRevanchist]

Whether it was a primary or secondary element is up for debate. I'd consider organics vs synthetics to be more "primary" since it was referenced in all three games. Dark energy was not. 

There was some article allegedly by Patrick Weeks that claimed the endings were not peer reviewed. IIRC later it was said that it was not written by Patrick. Regardless, it has nothing to do with the point at hand. We were discussing the supposed narrative incoherence of the endings, not the way they were reviewed. 

As for "portraying a vague statement as an absolute proof of your insistence that the entire story was about this" it is exactly what you do with dark energy. Drew said it himself that it was "very vague and not fleshed out" yet you claim that it was the main theme of the trilogy. 

The Catalyst's action do follow logic. A twisted one, but still a logic a machine can follow. It is quite incompetent but that's the bane of any villain. 

 

The Dark Energy ending is commonly known to people who dug into the mess. it was fleshed out enough to have a basic premise of how it would work. In order for it to have even gotten that far it means at some point in development they were seriously considering the concept. The entire foreshadowing of ME2 implies this is where it was going. If we're being honest we know Weeks wrote that, he just said he didn't out of fear of being fired. Regardless of any of those things the ending is not logical. There are many many ways why that is. All of which has been articulated already.

[TheRevanchist]

The dark energy thing sounds interesting, but as far as I know, it was only mentioned once on Haestrom, or did I miss something? Also, I don't get how a human reaper would help with that?

 As for HOW the human Reaper would solve the problem? We can only speculate. The idea was not finished by the time Drew was transferred to SWTOR. 

[KaiserShep]

Veetor mentions it, Tali mentions it on Haestrom and later on the flotilla. There may've been other mentions but I don't remember, been too long since I last played ME2.

 

If you talk to Gianna Parasini on Illium, she also mentions that the corporations are also concerned about a dark energy problem. 

[fraggle]

If we're being honest we know Weeks wrote that, he just said he didn't out of fear of being fired.

 

No, we don't know. And we never will, as we are not Patrick.

[txgoldrush]

The use of ancillary material to explain away missing plot points in your game is a sign of poor writing. Redemption is excused because the game itself actually references and directly deals with it and it's consequences. But Homeworlds does not have that excuse. You may now proceed to explain why I am totally wrong.  

So the first Mass Effect is guilty? It to had ancillary material to tell how Tali got evidence against Saren and how she got to where you meet her.

 

Yes actually, the entire original ending was laid out by Drew after the fact. You would confront Harbinger, not a Starchild, and he would present the conflict to you. it would be made aware to you that the Human Reaper would, beyond doubt, solve the problem forever. This requires sacrificing all of humanity, including yourself. The alternatives would be to tell the Reapers to ****** off and you'll deal with it yourselves. However there is no promise that you can do so because the galaxy only has about 100 years left to find a solution when the Reapers needed billions of years to find one.  

 

There is no doubt it was a key element. It was not, however, the primary element. It was the B plot. Patrick Weeks made it clear the ending was not peer reviewed. The other writers weren't even informed of it until it was already implemented. He was not happy about the final result anymore than some of the fans were. You are portraying a vague statement as an absolute proof of your insistence that the entire story was about this. It wasn't. Even if it was, it does not change the illogical nonsense that the ending entails. He is a computer, governed by logic. Everything he does defies logic, not follows it.   

Quit backing your claims with conspiracy theories. From the interviews with Drew K, the Dark Energy plot was scrapped before he left the team. And the supposed Weekes post cannot be proven.

 

Ending bashers love to bring up Karpyshyn, but really, he is not on your side.

 

So what if it doesn't matter? Is there a reason the Catalyst can't tell me? That's my point. And you can let me decide if it will add to the story.

 

That's great that there's a reason Liara got to Mars. I assumed there was a reason, since she was there. That's not my point. My point is that we have no explanation for how we get the Crucible. Not to mention that if the Asari were the ones who were supposed to break the cycle then why aren't the plans near Thessia?

 

The Saren problem is a little "ehhh.. okay." I can more than live with it. I can also live with Liara stumbling on the plans. But there's no explanation for it. She says it's "process of elimination." Process of elimination based on what? On all the other ancient Prothean archives? On everything that's sitting in the Mars archives? I mean, really.

 

You know what wasn't a running theme throughout the series? That Shepard would have to be the one to solve a billion-year-old problem of organics vs. synthetics or that that's even what the cycle was built on. Again, what's wrong with organics vs. Reapers? It's a much simpler problem and avoids all the end-game shenanigans of, "You are the first organic to stand here."

Because its simply trivial due to the million year scope of the story. It doesn't matter who created it at this point.

 

Vendetta himself has info on the Crucible. He is the "Vigil" of the Crucible project. 

 

The running theme of the game trilogy was about decisions made that alter the lives and the destinies of others to achieve goals, for good or ill, and the consequences it brings, where the ignorant faces them horribly while the mindful are respected. Organics and synthetics are just part of this. In fact, the conflict Shepard has with TIM and the Catalyst in the end are conflicts of methods, not motives. Shepard actually really doesn't care about the Catalysts motives, that's why he doesn't argue against them.

[Vanilka]

Good Lord that was depressing. Mostly because I didn't play Mass Effect at all until two months ago. I played Dragon Age and the ending controversy spilled over into those forums so I wasn't unaware of it, I just never had to live through the massive disappointment. I knew about Star Child and "who the **** is this kid?" but actually seeing a pre-EC analysis was, well, depressing. I guess for me, when Star Child showed up I just thought, "oh, here's that thing that happens now" because I was obviously spoiled to hell and back for most of the series.

 

The one thing that really did bother me was exactly the two lines he was talking about. "Who built the Crucible?" "You wouldn't know them and it would take too long to explain." At no point during any of that did I think that perhaps taking five minutes to tell me about a super intelligent species that existed a million years ago would take too much time. Why am I all of a sudden on the clock? Not to mention that in every other cycle it took generations to wipe out the organics and we have to defeat the Reapers in like, three weeks? Why?

 

And the Crucible should not have been introduced the way it was. We've had access to the archives for decades and then Liara just stumbles across it "by process of elimination" (not explained well at all either) as an archaeologist and not even as a cool and secret piece of tech she found as the Shadow Broker? Or maybe the Illusive Man had it and it was part of the data that you uploaded to the Alliance back in ME2. And if you didn't upload it then TIM had it and you had to find a way to get it. Either way is better than, "it's this thing I found."

 

And YES! WHY DO I FIND OUT THAT THIS IS AN ORGANIC VS. SYNTHETIC PROBLEM IN THE LAST FIVE MINUTES? Shouldn't I have had clues throughout the trilogy? Nothing leads me to that point. I even built a truce between the Quarians and the Geth that directly contradicts Star Child. The first time I talked to Sovereign and asked him who built him, and he said something like, "No one, I just exist" I knew that wasn't true. If it's a machine it has to be built and if it's an AI it has to be programmed. So Sovereign was either lying to me or wasn't programmed to know who his creators were. Either answer is fine, but the resolution to that is simple. It's to change the code or destroy the machines. And this can be done in such a way that it doesn't boil down to Organics vs. Synthetics, and really can just be organics vs. reapers.

 

So, I was going somewhere with all that and I don't know where, but there it is. Yes, the ending is bad BUT! The series itself is actually really, really good and I'll continue to play it for a long time, ending be damned.

 

All of this. All of this and so much more.

 

However, indeed, as problematic as the ending is and as bad as the writing gets at times, the franchise is still enjoyable and I won't stop playing it just because it finally went full retard in the last ten minutes or so. Nevertheless, I hear you. ME3's ending must be the worst ending to a game I've ever seen in my entire life. And I've been playing games since I was like seven years old. And I've actually seen endings like "Rocks fall, everyone dies," and other deus ex machinas. Never before have I WTF'd harder. It's not the only part of the game where the writing is simply bad and contrived, but it's by far the worst of it all.

 

I don't know how people don't see the switch of themes and central conflict. I kind of envy them if they can find it in the franchise because I sure can't. Until the last moment, especially when you play for the very first time, you crawl up to that chamber with the Illusive Man and you're like "Must stop the Reapers, no matter what," because that's what the game was all about, what the franchise was all about... and then you pass out and space magic, deus ex machinas, and organics vs synthetics happen. Sure, synthetics vs organics is one of the many themes of the game, but the franchise was never about that. If anything, we've seen how organics prevail no matter what and how synthetics don't always mean ill. So Catalyst's problems come completely out of nowhere.

 

But I feel like I'm starting to repeat myself and I'm not going to go into it again. If anybody is interested in what I think, they can find the many posts I've made in this thread about these issues. Plus, the videos basically say everything that needs to be said, as well.

 

Either way, I'm sorry it was a disappointment for you, too. But I'm glad you're still able to enjoy the game. If you have the game for PC, I wholeheartedly recommend mods like JAM that remove the Catalyst.

 

 

Muahahaha! Just try to stop me.

 

The installation is simple as it comes with its own installation wizard.

 

I must say that the ending is so much more satisfying and so much less brain damaging without the Catalyst. There's so much less bullshit, no switch of themes and conflict, no more deus ex machinas, no synthetics vs organics, etc. I'm actually surprised how many issues disappear with just the Catalyst gone. The ending is actually pretty passable. And since the writer of the ending showed me they don't care, I don't care, either.

 

The only reason not to install the mod is if you want to imagine that Shepard dies despite the high EMS Destroy's breath scene, since this mod adds Shepard to the memorial scene with high EMS and that may be too much of a change/happy ending for some. There's still MEHEM which is a wonderful mod, as well, but Shepard's rescue scene on high EMS was a little bit too much for me, personally. However, they did an amazing job with the little they had. Depends on what you like, really. My sincere thanks to both of these people/groups for erasing bullshit out of my game with the little bonus of giving me the opportunity to see Shepard back together with their crew one last time, which many headcanon with the high EMS Destroy anyway.

[Dantriges]

Interesting, they mentioned that Origin Auto Update would overwrites the mod files. I still have auto update on and MEHEM is functional.

[Vanilka]

Interesting, they mentioned that Origin Auto Update would overwrites the mod files. I still have auto update on and MEHEM is functional.

 

You can disable the auto-update, though! If you do that, Origin will ask about whether or not to update should an update be available. Never had trouble with it. I'm running many mods. Especially textures and such. I'd lose my mind if it got randomly overwritten, lol.

 

To disable the auto-update, you go to Origin > Application Settings > General > Updates > untick "Automatically keep my games up to date".

 

They don't seem to update often anyway. I've seen one update in total since I first installed the game. That's... several months. Maybe that's why you've had no trouble. Either that or the updates didn't touch any problematic files.

[Monica21]

Yes actually, the entire original ending was laid out by Drew after the fact. You would confront Harbinger, not a Starchild, and he would present the conflict to you. it would be made aware to you that the Human Reaper would, beyond doubt, solve the problem forever. This requires sacrificing all of humanity, including yourself. The alternatives would be to tell the Reapers to ****** off and you'll deal with it yourselves. However there is no promise that you can do so because the galaxy only has about 100 years left to find a solution when the Reapers needed billions of years to find one.  

 

The only thing about the Dark Energy plot is that solving it sounds very environmentalist-y, and there are a lot of fans who may not have liked it because of that. Kind of like how people see Avatar has a really long infomercial to save the planet. (Which it is, but still.) I still prefer it to organics vs. synthetics.

 

The dark energy thing sounds interesting, but as far as I know, it was only mentioned once on Haestrom, or did I miss something? Also, I don't get how a human reaper would help with that?

 

Having just played ME2 for the second time last week, I was surprised that I noticed how many times Dark Energy was mentioned. It was an obvious dropped plotline.

 

Because its simply trivial due to the million year scope of the story. It doesn't matter who created it at this point.

 

The reason it's important is because I want to know how anyone figured out that it needed to be built and that it could be built. What race was advanced enough to draw up the plans but was either not able to build it or not able to talk to the Catalyst? If the Catalyst is the combined consciousness of the Reapers, how did it get on a machine built by organics? If it was the concept of organics, how were they intelligent enough to bring a Reaper consciousness to them? Or were the plans from the Reapers designed for a race that was sufficiently advanced to stop the problem? And why was this first race not successful if it was their creation, either from their own minds or from the minds of the Reapers? And if it was created by organics, how is it possible that the Catalyst is allowed to create new solutions?

 

I'm sure there a lots and lots of other questions I'm not thinking of, but these are problems that don't go away with, "It was a long time ago so it doesn't matter." It does matter. Everything about the Crucible's design and function matters but it's taken away from the player with one sentence from the Catalyst. "You wouldn't know them and it would take too long to explain."

[themikefest]

 The reason it's important is because I want to know how anyone figured out that it needed to be built and that it could be built. What race was advanced enough to draw up the plans but was either not able to build it or not able to talk to the Catalyst? I

Here's what I posted about who may of created the plans for the crucible

[Vanilka]

I still prefer it to organics vs. synthetics.

 
Agreed. As much as I hate the organics vs synthetics as the purpose of the Reapers introduced at the very end of the game, I think the dark energy thing would have to be much more fleshed out to work. What they did was that they dropped hints all over the place which is good, but they had no proper idea of what they were going to do with them anyway. (That's why you prepare everything in advance when you know you're going to make a trilogy! Not make it up as you go.) I don't think that introducing the dark energy thing instead of synthetics vs organics conflict at the end of the game would solve anything, imho. No matter the idea, it's too out of the blue at that point in the game. While it's all really cool... in theory, both concepts need to be properly dealt with as a threat throughout the franchise. The franchise needs to work its way to that point. Not be like, "Lol, so this is what it's all about," at its very end. And, personally, I feel that the dark energy scenario is dealt with even less than the organics vs synthetics thing.
 

I'm sure there a lots and lots of other questions I'm not thinking of, but these are problems that don't go away with, "It was a long time ago so it doesn't matter." It does matter. Everything about the Crucible's design and function matters but it's taken away from the player with one sentence from the Catalyst. "You wouldn't know them and it would take too long to explain."

 

I think the tragic thing is that given how "useful" the Catalyst's answer is, there's no point in having the question and answer there at all. It could've been replaced with something that actually serves some purpose. Not to even mention how freaking lazy it is to make a "Who cares?" kind of answer instead of actually trying to come up with something. Anything.

[fraggle]

The only thing about the Dark Energy plot is that solving it sounds very environmentalist-y, and there are a lot of fans who may not have liked it because of that. Kind of like how people see Avatar has a really long infomercial to save the planet. (Which it is, but still.) I still prefer it to organics vs. synthetics

 

Back to the old "matter of taste" problem I like "save the planet etc" themes, but I am super glad that it got dropped. Prefer what we got, because organics vs. synthetics still makes more sense and has way more foreshadowing to me when looking at the Trilogy overall.

 

The reason it's important is because I want to know how anyone figured out that it needed to be built and that it could be built. What race was advanced enough to draw up the plans but was either not able to build it or not able to talk to the Catalyst? If the Catalyst is the combined consciousness of the Reapers, how did it get on a machine built by organics? If it was the concept of organics, how were they intelligent enough to bring a Reaper consciousness to them? Or were the plans from the Reapers designed for a race that was sufficiently advanced to stop the problem? And why was this first race not successful if it was their creation, either from their own minds or from the minds of the Reapers? And if it was created by organics, how is it possible that the Catalyst is allowed to create new solutions?

 

Why do we need to see how it all started when this was probably a process spanned over a couple of cycles? I'm totally with txgoldrush here. This is purely something to still the player's desire to know more. Like a history lesson. It's enough to know it was started by races a long long time ago. It's enough that this design was born from an idea because of the Reaper threat. We also learn that various cycles added to the plans, so it's definitely a "group" effort. It's also safe to assume that some of these races were indeed very advanced or resourceful, but they all had a disadvantage we didn't have. They didn't know about the Reapers striking at the Citadel first, we were the first cycle to prevent that. And only thanks to the Protheans. Also you're forgetting one more thing. The Catalyst was assumed to be the Citadel, no organic ever met the AI Catalyst.

And what do you mean how is the Catalyst allowed to create new solutions? It is not. Quite the opposite actually. At least half of your questions can be answered or were touched on by the game.

 

I'm sure there a lots and lots of other questions I'm not thinking of, but these are problems that don't go away with, "It was a long time ago so it doesn't matter." It does matter. Everything about the Crucible's design and function matters but it's taken away from the player with one sentence from the Catalyst. "You wouldn't know them and it would take too long to explain."

 

Well... in the end, nothing gets taken away more from the player than before. This is still Bioware's game, story and dialogue. We don't have complete freedom in how Shepard reacts, we never had, so I'm not sure where the problem is here specifically. Because then it would also apply to many other scenes in the games.

[aoibhealfae]

Organics vs Synthetics has always been the main theme of the trilogy. The first game was the Geth. The second game was the Collectors (a mere Husks, engineered slave for the reapers) and then you've been fighting corpses implanted with Reapers tech throughout the third game. At least, the foreshadowing was there even if one were to ignore it.

 

And honestly, this is not that bad over the preferred ending of Dragon Age Origins which everyone raved for some reason...

Spoiler

It was either you or Alistair or Loghain would kill the Archdemon and you can only survive if you or the other two would conveniently impregnate a woman.

 

The story frack up even more if you're a girl and you romance with Alistair. Your future happiness together depends on whether you're willing to let your future spouse to have a demon baby the night before you're about to start a war.... yeah... Mass Effect is just mediocre..

[Vanilka]

Organics vs Synthetics has always been the main theme of the trilogy. The first game was the Geth. The second game was the Collectors (a mere Husks, engineered slave for the reapers) and then you've been fighting corpses implanted with Reapers tech throughout the third game. At least, the foreshadowing was there even if one were to ignore it.

 

Those were all sent by the Reapers, though.

 

EDIT: As for DAO endings, while I agree there are some plotholes and such, I still don't see how they're worse.

 

Spoiler

Your goal is to defeat the darkspawn and the Archdemon. You fight the darkspawn throughout the game. You witness the Archdemon yourself, so that you know it exists. And you end up doing exactly what you set out to do.

 

I'll take DAO endings over ME3's endings any day, any time, personally. Actually, I love how DAO's endings were handled, mostly.

 

And yes...

 

Spoiler

I let Alistair, who was my LI, shag Morrigan. It was mutually agreed upon and I don't really see such a huge problem in it. (Except the fact that nobody gets pregnant so soon. That's nonsense, yes.) Not that I don't worry about the old god baby to come bite me in the ass, but that's a risk I willingly decided to take.

[Monica21]

Why do we need to see how it all started when this was probably a process spanned over a couple of cycles? I'm totally with txgoldrush here. This is purely something to still the player's desire to know more. Like a history lesson. It's enough to know it was started by races a long long time ago. It's enough that this design was born from an idea because of the Reaper threat. We also learn that various cycles added to the plans, so it's definitely a "group" effort. It's also safe to assume that some of these races were indeed very advanced or resourceful, but they all had a disadvantage we didn't have. They didn't know about the Reapers striking at the Citadel first, we were the first cycle to prevent that. And only thanks to the Protheans. Also you're forgetting one more thing. The Catalyst was assumed to be the Citadel, no organic ever met the AI Catalyst.

 

I fail to see how this is a bad thing. This is a question posed by fans and then by Bioware via the EC, and the Catalyst didn't answer it. What I'm asking for is nothing more than the same kind of information I got from Vigil and Vendetta. I got a lot of the answers to "why"s from ancient VIs. I did not get any answers about the construction or planning from Bioware itself. It's this huge device that's dropped in our laps and never explained.

 

And yes, it does add new variables. The Catalyst tells you that he added new variables because you're different.

[fraggle]

I fail to see how this is a bad thing. This is a question posed by fans and then by Bioware via the EC, and the Catalyst didn't answer it. What I'm asking for is nothing more than the same kind of information I got from Vigil and Vendetta. I got a lot of the answers to "why"s from ancient VIs. I did not get any answers about the construction or planning from Bioware itself. It's this huge device that's dropped in our laps and never explained.

 

And yes, it does add new variables. The Catalyst tells you that he added new variables because you're different.

 

It's not a bad thing, it's just not really necessary. What does it help the story if you knew details about the cycles before us and how they added to the Crucible? Would you stop using it if you knew more? Or be more in favour? I just don't see the benefit of knowing. It doesn't matter because it's already too late. The Crucible has docked, Shepard has to act, whether he or she knows how the plans came to be or not. It does not help the current situation to ask stuff about the past when only the now matters.

 

No, the Catalyst does not add new variables. The new solutions were made possible by the Crucible, not the Catalyst. The Catalyst is merely presenting them, it cannot act on them. It tells Shepard when he/she asks why it's helping them.

[Gago]

IMO the stupidest reason to hate the endings is "they are all the same". This was true (more or less) for the original ones but some people are still saying this nonsense post EC. Whatever you are satisfied with the endings or not, they do not end the same way.

[Dantriges]

Could be interesting to know who is doing what and what´s actually going on when you talk with the Catalyst.

[aoibhealfae]

Those were all sent by the Reapers, though.

 

EDIT: As for DAO endings, while I agree there are some plotholes and such, I still don't see how they're worse.

 

Spoiler

Your goal is to defeat the darkspawn and the Archdemon. You fight the darkspawn throughout the game. You witness the Archdemon yourself, so that you know it exists. And you end up doing exactly what you set out to do.

 

I'll take DAO endings over ME3's ending any day, any time.

 

And yes...

 

Spoiler

I let Alistair, who was my LI, shag Morrigan. It was mutually agreed upon and I don't really see such a huge problem in it. Not that I don't worry about the old god baby to come bite me in the ass, but that's a risk I willingly decided to take.

 

I have three ending scenarios with my Lady Cousland and King Alistair and frankly it was all of it was bad.

Spoiler

With the vanilla version of The Dark Ritual, I really don't want to see Alistair grinning while Morrigan climbing over him. The only thing that saved the Dark Ritual for me was the modded version of it and I don't get demon baby-making rub on my face and it was done tastefully. But if I say no to Morrigan, she disappears, and I'm fighting a dragon without a mage, if I bring Alistair along to the final battle, he would rush ahead and kill the dragon for me. If I choose to leave him behind, I kill the dragon and got myself killed, Alistair preside over my bloody corpse and crying about how we could be happy together.

 

Either way, the only way to save your main character's life was a frickin mythical pregnancy?! The mother of all tropes. Meh of mehness... Morrigan's dignity... pffff...

[Monica21]

It's not a bad thing, it's just not really necessary. What does it help the story if you knew details about the cycles before us and how they added to the Crucible? Would you stop using it if you knew more? Or be more in favour? I just don't see the benefit of knowing. It doesn't matter because it's already too late. The Crucible has docked, Shepard has to act, whether he or she knows how the plans came to be or not. It does not help the current situation to ask stuff about the past when only the now matters.

 

What's the difference between talking to Vigil and just grabbing the data? Talking to Vigil isn't necessary either, but it does give you valuable information. It doesn't change what I do, but it does help the story that I know that Protheans survived the last harvest and altered the Keepers. But, it still has no bearing on whether I run up to the control panel and retake control of the Citadel. Knowing how the Crucible was designed would have no bearing on the fact that I have to make a choice, but having that information is valuable. It may change what choice I decide to make.

 

"It doesn't matter why" is my least favorite answer to anything because the "why" is what determines where we are now. Whether it's sitting at home playing a video game or whether it's Shepard standing in the Crucible deciding the fate of the galaxy. To say that it doesn't matter either because it was too long ago or because it's too late is short-sighted. "Why" is the single most important question Shepard can ask but it's hand-waved by a hologram.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Organics vs Synthetics has always been the main theme of the trilogy. The first game was the Geth. The second game was the Collectors (a mere Husks, engineered slave for the reapers) and then you've been fighting corpses implanted with Reapers tech throughout the third game. At least, the foreshadowing was there even if one were to ignore it.

 

I think ME made the mistake here that a lot of games do, presenting ideas in your game isn't the same as engaging an idea or having anything meaningful to say about it. Organics vs synthetics was mostly window dressing, something to be displayed but not discussed. In the first game you fight Geth, that doesn't say anything meaningful (especially when you look at it from the mechanical perspective where the fill the exact same role as organic opponents). By the time you get to Rannoch the Geth aren't so much a representation of Artificial Intelligence as they are a sci-fi-y version of an oppressed minority group; more akin to issues of race we deal with today than an exploration of how society would react to technology gaining sapience. Basically, the deepest you dig into the issue is Xan's believes about the Geth stemming from them being created by the Quarians to serve them (and Javik, but he is entirely optional).

[txgoldrush]

People need to play the side quest in ME1 called Signal Tracking again.

[Monica21]

People need to play the side quest in ME1 called Signal Tracking again.

I have played it. Probably everyone has played it. It's a very short side quest about a rogue AI. It's not a civilization like the Geth. It's just one AI that wants to install itself into a ship. How does this prove your point?

[Dantriges]

An AI cobbled together by a thief.

[fraggle]

What's the difference between talking to Vigil and just grabbing the data? Talking to Vigil isn't necessary either, but it does give you valuable information. It doesn't change what I do, but it does help the story that I know that Protheans survived the last harvest and altered the Keepers. But, it still has no bearing on whether I run up to the control panel and retake control of the Citadel. Knowing how the Crucible was designed would have no bearing on the fact that I have to make a choice, but having that information is valuable. It may change what choice I decide to make.

 

"It doesn't matter why" is my least favorite answer to anything because the "why" is what determines where we are now. Whether it's sitting at home playing a video game or whether it's Shepard standing in the Crucible deciding the fate of the galaxy. To say that it doesn't matter either because it was too long ago or because it's too late is short-sighted. "Why" is the single most important question Shepard can ask but it's hand-waved by a hologram.

 

But you only get the data through Vigil, no? It was designed specifically to aid non-indoctrinated bypassers and explain what to do with the data file that was left behind, or don't I remember that right?

But only to know which race created the plans in the first place? I really can't see how this would be valuable in this situation. Maybe the Catalyst spills out a name of a race you never even knew/heard of. Then what? How does it help which decision you would make if you knew about a race many many years ago? I don't see a connection here.

We are still talking about only finding out who designed it in the first place, right? Not what actually makes the Crucible work, because that's a whole different thing, haha.

 

 

About the topic on organics vs. synthetics. For me this really starts in ME2, but you need to also look at what happened in ME1. Looking back, we have the geth in ME1, rogue AIs on the Citadel and the moon. In ME2, the player will have to think about EDI, about what Legion tells you, what you learn about the geth from ME1, and make up their own mind if synthetics are to like or to trust. And this plays right into ME3, and each player participates in the organics vs. synthetics theme by choosing a side.