Heh, I don't really understand what this English literature professor example has to do with what I said, sorry.
And while I have never read Dan Brown (but assume it's terrible since you mock it
), we all have our guilty pleasures. Hell, I could never understand why someone would like Twilight, but plenty people do. So they just have fun with it.
Nothing really, but you got my point anyway: It is just an example of someone who could have a low opinion of you for liking certain things that he considers to be bad, like dime novels, or - in my example - would get such a reaction from his own social network. I don't think this way, neither do you, it would seem. This applies to the ME:3 ending as well. And this is one of the most postmodern statements that both ME:3 and this thread contain. 
Which is misrepresenting the motives of the Catalyst. We start forest fires to prevent worse forest fires you know.
Why can't the Catalyst create a new solution all by itself?
It needs Shepard to enact synthesis due to him being both organic and synthetic at this point. It won't destroy itself and it already controls the Reapers. So, by itself it cannot use the Crucible.
Why doesn't' the Catalyst foil all plans for the next cycle?
That would have to be making massive changes to the cycle. Never mind the fact that he wants organic civilizations to use the relays and evolve on the Catalyst's terms.
Organics are too resourceful because the Reapers are not infallible. EDI even suggests the Reapers aren't infallible
Yes, that's the in-game explanation. The ME series was set up as a kind of fantasy or soft sci-fi, not hard sci-fi. It creates an interesting world based on fuzzy and somewhat shaky pseudo-scientific explanations, much like Star Trek. The point is, once this world is in place, you better not break your own rules, especially not in the last scene, and certainly not in order to achieve resolution. Based on its own standards of reasoning and lore, most of what is said and happens in the last scene (and some before) is singularily unconvincing. The Reapers cannot achieve better control of the next cycle because...they are not infallible? They are still vastly superiour, in every relevant aspect. Why does the Catalyst need civilizations to evolve to a point where they can use the relays? Why does it have to wait thousands of years after that? If its goal is to prevent synthetics from wiping out organics, it could start the harvest at a pre-space-faring state of all societies, no? Would be safer anyway.
And again, why do you have to accept these assumptions as truthful? Your Shepard can still think it's a load of bull. Nowhere does Shepard say "Ooh, you're right!" to the Catalyst, quite the contrary. When the Catalyst says that the Reapers were the only solution, Shepard says "You said that before. But how do the Reapers solve anything?" Implying that Shepard asks "why are the Reapers attacking us right now when you claim this is your exact problem? Shouldn't we be at peace if they are your solution?"
The Catalyst then goes on explaining its equation and the organic/synthetic problem, that the Reapers preserve them before they are forever lost to this conflict, and Shepard does actually reject it, saying that they're at war with the Reapers right now. And after the Catalyst says that Reapers and organics might be in conflict, but that Reapers are not interested in war, Shepard doesn't really buy it, "I find that hard to believe.". That shows me that Shepard isn't really convinced about this problem or the solution to it. And then finally when Shepard says that the Catalyst is taking away their future and hope, it sounds to me as if this is what you and me say. We can take care of ourselves. Why do we need the Reapers?
At least it could be interpreted that way I believe.
True, as I said before one can make a lot of sense of the Catalyst with the hypothesis: It is an AI that has to act within contraints put down in its programming, which itself cannot alter.
Here is the problem: Given the transition from vanilla ME:3 to ME:3 with the EC, obviously the intentions of the writers were to "clarify" that everything in the Catalyst scene is real, and that everything it says should be accepted at face value. It would have been really cool to see the ending as you do, that we find out that the Reapers operated on a hypothesis that has been proven wrong, and maybe was wrong from the start, but that with all their alleged intelligence they were unable to debunk it, by design. It's not what the writers had in mind, and it shows. If they had, they would have written it very differently, for sure. They way it was written, Shepard becomes an audience character who is only present to channel the questions of the player, while the Catalyst becomes a manifestation of the narrator created to make sense of...some stuff. Shepard is Watson and the Catalyst is Holmes. The reader is not supposed to question the credibility of Holmes after he has solved the crime, and the story is over.
Maybe I'll try another playthrough with proper indoctrination by you, anyway .
Retour en haut
but still better than giving up because an ant with a pistol thinks so. Advanced life will show up in a few million years probably anyways.
I also only found out recently that the coup was Udina's attempt to overthrow the council in order to send more fleets to help Earth. There was a codex entry on it.
