353 réponses à ce sujet

[Mcfly616]

Well, since starbrat was meant to be right about everything any galaxy in the ME-Universe has to walk down one of the following paths at some point:
- cyclic annihilation of all advanced species by reaper-alikes
- annihilation of all organics by sythetics
- control of everything by at least one starbrat-alike
- fusion of organics and sythetics

Anything else whould be an approval to the #1 argument against ME3s ending. BW can stall it for a few successive games, but since we have the same level of technology, maybe even a higher one, it has to happen soon.

So, they have to repeat it unless they want to retcon it.

 They don't have to do either. The thing about the trilogy is that even though it only took place over the course of several years, it dealt with events that had both roots and effects on a cosmic scale.

 

 

They've done their high-level narrative of the MEU. If they really wanted, they could tell standalone, self contained stories for now on. There's trillions of beings living out there lives, having their own adventures everyday. None of them being about saving all life in existence from an ancient cycle of extermination. They can stay in a point in the timeline where there is no world-eating threats, indefinitely. 

 

I do feel the Catalyst was written in a way that was meant to demonstrate that it knows what its talking about when speaking of the inherent organic/synthetic conflict and the solution to it.  I also think it'd be interesting to arrive in Andromeda just as that inevitability is reaching its fruition. But its not a necessity and they could easily avoid it forever, if they so choose.

[Felya87]

Beside, guilt isn't the only valid reason for a hero to sacrifice herself. Shepherd giving her life to save the galaxy is entirely in character, and consistent with the narrative of the series. That makes Shepherd's death poignant in my book, the exact circumstances of the endings notwithstanding.

For YOUR Shepard (is Shepard. Not Shepherd.) mine are ex street rats that entered into militar life just to have a full belly and run away from poverty. Not every Shepard is the same. Some are the selfless hero (boring in my opinion) some are just persons who value their lifes. If we can't play different characters, with different mentality, why playng a RPG with customizable character at all? In bioware games customization is not only How a character look, but How he/she acts.
If the "narrative" force me to play only one kind of character, I better play the last of us, or the uncharted games, or any other adventure game. At least they don't lie to me saing I have power over How is my character.

[AlanC9]

For YOUR Shepard (is Shepard. Not Shepherd.) mine are ex street rats that entered into militar life just to have a full belly and run away from poverty. Not every Shepard is the same. Some are the selfless hero (boring in my opinion) some are just persons who value their lifes. If we can't play different characters, with different mentality, why playng a RPG with customizable character at all? In bioware games customization is not only How a character look, but How he/she acts.

But you still have control over how your character acts. Here's the situation; deal with it.

Edit: Is Bio required to ensure that when your character does what he wants to do, he'll always get a result that he likes!?

[dreamgazer]

I'm not sure why Bioware seemed so determined to make the Reapers the "good guys" or a "necessary evil".  It's possible to write a compelling trilogy where the antagonist ends up morally ambiguous.  But ME1-3 was not that trilogy.  The developers spent 2.9 games dialing up the Reaper evil factor to 11.  Each act of each game presented us with yet another dastardly, abominable thing the Reapers did.  This was great for setting up the drama for the final showdown.  But it meant that the developers wrote themselves into a corner.  Given how much they had portrayed the Reapers as going out of their way to be evil (canibals, really?!) there was no way they were going to write a coherent twist ending where the Reapers "weren't so bad after all."

Hence why I'm not as harsh on ME3's ending, since it's based around a debatable "noble" agenda instead of something objectively beneficial and necessary.

[WillieStyle]

In some world-states, yes, it is appropriate.  but in others not so much.  Some players were telling a tragic tale of a flawed hero dying to save the galaxy.  Others want a more "heroic" character who leads the charge to victory.  Some played a selfless Shepard who gives his/her all. Others played just an ordinary human at the right place at the right time.

 

Absolutely no one who played the ME series played an ordinary human. Shepherd was "heroic" in the Greek sense (i.e. larger than life) no matter what decisions you made.  And one of those decisions we all made was to give our life to rescue the pilot of our ship a the beginning of ME2.  

 

[Edit]

Despite the myriad choices one could make during ME1-3, there were some characteristics that applied to all Shepherds:

-He was a consummate leader able to get a diverse crew to follow him to the ends of the galaxy.

-He was indefatigable, pressing on when any sane person would have given up.

-A massive risk taker with virtually no fear; willing to take massive risks like going into the galactic core to stop a threat to human colonies.

-He was willing to sacrifice almost anything to save humanity(Renegade)/the Galaxy(Paragon).

 

So I'm not buying claims that "my Shepherd" wouldn't have sacrificed himself.  Any Shepherd in ME1-3 would have given their lives if it was the only way to accomplish the mission.

[dreamgazer]

Absolutely no one who played the ME series played an ordinary human. Shepherd was "heroic" in the Greek sense (i.e. larger than life) no matter what decisions you made.  And one of those decisions we all made was to give our life to rescue the pilot of our ship a the beginning of ME2.

Shepard wouldn't have been on Eden Prime to sacrifice him/herself in front of the beacon had they not been a decorated N7 officer being considered for the position of the first human Spectre. There really isn't anything ordinary about Shepard, not from the beginning of the first mission in the trilogy and certainly not after the first mission's finished.

[AlanC9]

I'm not sure I'd frame it quite that way. Shepard knew he was taking a serious risk, but not that he'd certainly die.

[dreamgazer]

I'm not sure I'd frame it quite that way. Shepard knew he was taking a serious risk, but not that he'd certainly die.

Shepard hurls him/herself in front of alien energy that could've had any effect under the sun, sensing it was dangerous for K or A.

Dying as a result would be a prominent risk and a logical deduction.

[AlanC9]

Should've specified or quoted; I was talking about rescuing Joker there.

[Il Divo]

At least it played into a theme of some degree, one that indeed has been present in the series from the beginning.

I certainly would not have taken dark energy over the Catalyst and OvS. One may be a rehash, but the other involves fundamental plot holes and broken, circular logic that put everything in the shipped ending to shame.

 

If it's playing into the theme, then the cards should have been laid on the table far earlier. Organics vs. synthetics was always a secondary conflict, which was essentially resolved long before the ending.

 

That's the problem: The Reapers' sudden motive is treated as a revelation, suddenly elevating a secondary (not to  mention concluded) story-line to being of prime importance. As a theme, that might have worked if handled differently. We the players could have spent most of the trilogy or ME3 dealing with these sorts of questions. There are ways to handle this sort of story. Leaving it to the last 5 minutes of the game isn't one of them.  

 

 

That still makes them inarguable "good guys" and Shepard their antagonist, while also implementing some unusual and archaic pro-weapon themes. "No, seriously, we're different! Trust us! Let us live and keep our guns!" Not to mention further questions about why civilization wasn't cut down sooner, before previous devastating wars.

 

​Except none of your criticisms apply any less to the current Robot Genocide story. The very nature of the Catalyst's scenario is intended to portray them as, if not the good guys, then as morally grey at the least. It's just that the writers utterly failed to do that effectively.

 

In the case of the "Stop WMD's" scenario, that itself has been a very real concern and has relevance to quite literally every conflict featured in the trilogy, not just relevance of the Geth/Quarian conflict. Keep in mind you're also assuming that the wars you/we consider devastating are anything more than a blip on the Reapers' radar. I was thinking something much grander in scale than even the Genophage.

[Han Shot First]

I'm not sure why Bioware seemed so determined to make the Reapers the "good guys" or a "necessary evil".  It's possible to write a compelling trilogy where the antagonist ends up morally ambiguous.  But ME1-3 was not that trilogy.  The developers spent 2.9 games dialing up the Reaper evil factor to 11.  Each act of each game presented us with yet another dastardly, abominable thing the Reapers did.  This was great for setting up the drama for the final showdown.  But it meant that the developers wrote themselves into a corner.  Given how much they had portrayed the Reapers as going out of their way to be evil (canibals, really?!) there was no way they were going to write a coherent twist ending where the Reapers "weren't so bad after all."

 

They should have kept the Reapers as unambiguous villains that needed to be destroyed, ASAP. I'm all for shades of gray where appropriate, but the attempt in the last 10 minutes to paint the Reapers as more complicated than their portrayal in the 150 hours or so that preceded it, backfired. Up until the finale of ME3 the Reapers were Mass Effect's Orcs or Darkspawn. 

[AlanC9]

That's the problem: The Reapers' sudden motive is treated as a revelation, suddenly elevating a secondary (not to  mention concluded) story-line to being of prime importance. As a theme, that might have worked if handled differently. We the players could have spent most of the trilogy or ME3 dealing with these sorts of questions. There are ways to handle this sort of story. Leaving it to the last 5 minutes of the game isn't one of them.

Note that this is a conceptual problem with the entire series rather than ME3 in particular.

[AlanC9]

They should have kept the Reapers as unambiguous villains that needed to be destroyed, ASAP. I'm all for shades of gray where appropriate, but the attempt in the last 10 minutes to paint the Reapers as more complicated than their portrayal in the 150 hours or so that preceded it, backfired. Up until the finale of ME3 the Reapers were Mass Effect's Orcs or Darkspawn.

I dunno about that. It was pretty clear to me as far back as ME2 that the Reapers weren't simply alpha predators. Actually, I suspected this back in ME1, since Sovereign was either hiding something or didn't really know what they were doing or why.

[BabyPuncher]

They should have kept the Reapers as unambiguous villains that needed to be destroyed, ASAP. I'm all for shades of gray where appropriate, but the attempt in the last 10 minutes to paint the Reapers as more complicated than their portrayal in the 150 hours or so that preceded it, backfired. Up until the finale of ME3 the Reapers were Mass Effect's Orcs or Darkspawn. 

 

No they weren't.

 

The story went absolutely out of it's way to foreshadow that the Reapers were more than just killing machines. That they had some sort of meaningful purpose. All the way back from ME 1.

[78stonewobble]

I dunno about that. It was pretty clear to me as far back as ME2 that the Reapers weren't simply alpha predators. Actually, I suspected this back in ME1, since Sovereign was either hiding something or didn't really know what they were doing or why.

 

And it's bad when the explanation turns out worse than: "Oh, they think we taste like bacon." or "They're faulty." 

 

Which atleast makes sense. 

 

And no... it's not that the catalyst presented anything complex. It presented something illogical, that is incompatible with just a rudimentary understanding of the size of the universe and incompatible with ingame lore. 

 

But this has been mentioned many many times...

 

The lessons is: "Don't try to write smarter than you can (KISS principle)." 

[Obadiah]

...
And no... it's not that the catalyst presented anything complex. It presented something illogical, that is incompatible with just a rudimentary understanding of the size of the universe and incompatible with ingame lore. 
 
But this has been mentioned many many times...
...

For reference: Why the Catalyst's Logic is Right II - UPDATED with LEVIATHAN DLC

[AlanC9]

And it's bad when the explanation turns out worse than: "Oh, they think we taste like bacon." or "They're faulty." 
 
Which atleast makes sense. 
 
And no... it's not that the catalyst presented anything complex. It presented something illogical, that is incompatible with just a rudimentary understanding of the size of the universe and incompatible with ingame lore. 
 
But this has been mentioned many many times...
 
The lessons is: "Don't try to write smarter than you can (KISS principle)."

Even granting that, I still blame ME1 and ME2 for saddling ME3 with an impossible challenge.

[78stonewobble]

For reference: Why the Catalyst's Logic is Right II - UPDATED with LEVIATHAN DLC

 

Yawn, it isn't complicated and it doesn't need that wall of text and the wall of text can't save it. 

 

It's basically obfuscation (by analyzing to death what is said, when what is said, is pretty obvious) of the plot/logical problems, not a solution. 

 

 

Please elaborate on why his opinion or ideas are illogical.

 

I personally don't trust or believe anything it said to me. I want to know why people claim what he says is illogical, as well as why is it incompatible with the lore.

 

To keep it short as opposed to the above mentioned link. 

 

The reapers were created for the purpose of safeguarding organic life against the creation of a supremely powerfull artificial intelligence, which can wipe out all organic life. Yes, it technically says differently, but it cannot fullfill that purpose without fullfilling this one.  

 

The ability to wipe out all organic life, even if just within the milky way galaxy, would make this AI more powerfull than the reapers, by magnitude. 

 

There exists faster than light travel in the mass effect universe and the reapers have existed for around 2 billion years plus. 

 

If the reapers only reap the milkyway, they are an ineffective safeguard against a more powerfull AI hell bent on the destruction of all organic life appearing elsewhere in the universe. Meaning atleast a 2 billion light year radius of the milkyway multiplied by whatever is the maximum speed and range of FTL drive. A super powerfull ai there could arrive any second now and trash the reapers and then the organics. 

 

They are an ineffective safeguard against a more powerfull AI appearing in the milkyway itself. Since they would have to "reap"/check every single star system, planet, rogue planet, moon, asteroid, comet, flake of spacedust, cubic meter of space, where organic life might evolve and create aforementioned AI or is simply hiding from them. 

 

Actually... the only real defence would be to exactly create a godly universe spanning ai, that is friendly. 

 

Not to mention that the whole argument for creating the reapers for this purpose is on relatively spurious grounds. It's based on a few examples of limited conflict between organics and AI's. The Zha'Til, the Geth and EDI. There is no evidence whatsoever of an AI ever having wiped out all organic life (in the milkyway or the universe). Indeed the reapers wouldn't exist, if that were the case. Unless galaxy and/or universe wide extermination of all organic life is just something that happens once in a while and life can simply reappear as the god ai dances into the machine sunset nirvana. 

 

The whole purpose is an excersise in wastefullness and futility, which could have been avoided by thinking in this 1 simple truth into the plot. Space is big.... Really big... 

 

Seriously... All it took was opening an astronomy book after, what was it, 1922-1923, when hubble found out that universe consisted of more than the milkyway. 

 

 

Even granting that, I still blame ME1 and ME2 for saddling ME3 with an impossible challenge.

 

 

Njyah, reaper motivations would have been perfectly explained by "we taste like bacon to them", they be crazy/malfunctioning or that "they need us to procreate". Since the catalyst makes no sense... Crazy is still valid, but it's kinda sought without actual confirmation, unless you count his sisyphus solotion to a non problem. 

[Swordfishtrombone]

"We impose order over the chaos of organic evolution". The seeds for the Reapers having a "good guy" motive were planted from the beginning, and Karpyshyn clearly always had that idea in mind based on his ending concepts. At least the Reapers' motivations were debatable in the shipped ending, retaining some of their villainy. They came very close to being the literal saviors of the galaxy instead of heavy-handed sentinels overseeing the development of self-destructive technology.

 

The thing is, the reasoning that was supposed to make them the good guys was silly beyond belief. 

 

An analogous hypothetical may help to see the dysfunction:

 

"In human societies, it is inevitable that criminals will arise, and commit crimes that threaten the society. Thus it is only reasonable to periodically exterminate whole societies, so as to prevent criminals from gaining a foothold." 

 

Now that would be an incredibly silly argument to make. Why? Because to reign in criminals, you develop and maintain good law enforcement. You target the criminals, not the whole society. 

 

The same would be true for any entity that was created for the same reason the Reapers were created for - they are an immensely powerful force, so why not simply POLICE the galaxy, heading off any dangerous AI developments? Since it is within their power to wipe out all intelligences in the whole universe, it logically follows that it is in their power to achieve the much easier task of eliminating only the synthetic intelligences. Especially if they did their policing all the time, and would thus catch any new synthetic race before they got a foothold.

 

The availability of this rather obvious option makes the Reaper tactics look utterly absurd; are we to REALLY believe that a super-intelligent race like the Reapers could not figure out the concept of policing?

[dreamgazer]

If it's playing into the theme, then the cards should have been laid on the table far earlier. Organics vs. synthetics was always a secondary conflict, which was essentially resolved long before the ending.

Always a conflict, though, with complications throughout the entire trilogy.
 

That's the problem: The Reapers' sudden motive is treated as a revelation, suddenly elevating a secondary (not to  mention concluded) story-line to being of prime importance. As a theme, that might have worked if handled differently. We the players could have spent most of the trilogy or ME3 dealing with these sorts of questions. There are ways to handle this sort of story. Leaving it to the last 5 minutes of the game isn't one of them.

As Alan already stated, that's largely a trilogy issue and would've been a problem regardless. At least this conflict maintains a presence throughout.
​

Except none of your criticisms apply any less to the current Robot Genocide story. The very nature of the Catalyst's scenario is intended to portray them as, if not the good guys, then as morally grey at the least. It's just that the writers utterly failed to do that effectively.

Right, there's a very clear difference between "good guys" and "morally gray". Saving the galaxy from the spread of dark energy or WMDs? Good guys with an objective agenda. Lording over the balance between organic life and the synthetic creations that emerge from technological advancement? Morally gray with a disputable agenda. Also, the "philosophy" of this topic and the objectivity of other potential threats actually do make the criticisms apply less.
 

In the case of the "Stop WMD's" scenario, that itself has been a very real concern and has relevance to quite literally every conflict featured in the trilogy, not just relevance of the Geth/Quarian conflict. Keep in mind you're also assuming that the wars you/we consider devastating are anything more than a blip on the Reapers' radar. I was thinking something much grander in scale than even the Genophage.

Can't say I'm sad to see Mass Effect avoiding gun control and nuclear arms allegory, especially when it comes to how the last game would've dealt with that as an agenda to fix. Weapons are weapons.

[dreamgazer]

The thing is, the reasoning that was supposed to make them the good guys was silly beyond belief. 
 
An analogous hypothetical may help to see the dysfunction:
 
"In human societies, it is inevitable that criminals will arise, and commit crimes that threaten the society. Thus it is only reasonable to periodically exterminate whole societies, so as to prevent criminals from gaining a foothold." 
 
Now that would be an incredibly silly argument to make. Why? Because to reign in criminals, you develop and maintain good law enforcement. You target the criminals, not the whole society. 
 
The same would be true for any entity that was created for the same reason the Reapers were created for - they are an immensely powerful force, so why not simply POLICE the galaxy, heading off any dangerous AI developments? Since it is within their power to wipe out all intelligences in the whole universe, it logically follows that it is in their power to achieve the much easier task of eliminating only the synthetic intelligences. Especially if they did their policing all the time, and would thus catch any new synthetic race before they got a foothold.
 
The availability of this rather obvious option makes the Reaper tactics look utterly absurd; are we to REALLY believe that a super-intelligent race like the Reapers could not figure out the concept of policing?

Why would they police when they can swoop in every 50k years, deal with the situation, preserve important genetic diversity, and come back 49k years later for a new cycle of evolution to monitor? Sounds far more efficient, and much more indicative of machine logic that isn't interested in anthropomorphic morality. Organic life is a periodic chore for them; policing organic life would be an around-the-clock chore.

[Han Shot First]

No they weren't.

 

The story went absolutely out of it's way to foreshadow that the Reapers were more than just killing machines. That they had some sort of meaningful purpose. All the way back from ME 1.

 

There was nothing at all said about the Reapers' purpose prior to ME3. It was all left to speculation. Sovereign left it at, "You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."

 

The writers left the info dump on motives out of the first game, because they didn't yet know where they were going with the series. It was largely created on a 'make it up as we go' basis. 

 

The Reapers clearly thought they had a higher purpose, but that is common for nearly all villains in fiction. That the Reapers thought they were fulfilling some higher purpose, the details of which were not addressed in the first game, does not necessarily mean that they later needed to be written as anything other than unambiguous black hats.

 

I'd argue that having the Reapers repeatedly annihilating the galaxy to save it from a technological singularity was part of the problem with ME3's endings, and that Drew K's alternative...having the Reapers annihilating civilizations to prevent acceleration of the universe's heat death, would be worse. Of course that's just my .02, and there's nothing wrong with other people preferring a more morally gray depiction of the Reapers. It just isn't my preference, and I thought the writers going that route produced some of the problems with ME3's endings, such as the disappointing Catalyst reveal.

[kalikilic]

its rumored that lead writer Schlerf is not longer on Bioware's staff for ME:A. Just like how Weekes was no longer on staff prior to ME 3's release.

 

RIP this thread.

 

valiant effort though.

[SmilesJA]

Rest assured I don't think they're even interested of repeating that mistake again.