1106 réponses à ce sujet

[KaiserShep]

"To bring the galaxy together" fits better to Mass Effect 3 than the other, I think.
Leviathans don't see the A.I. as an error.
It's normal you didn't see organic/synthetic thing coming, because it was written to be a "twist", something that force you to read again the whole trilogy but from what you know about the ending. That's why I said that you were not supposed to replay it just like the first time you played it. The whole writing (of the entire trilogy) is based on retroactive reading (it's explicitly works this way since Mass Effect 2).

The trilogy was clearly written with no set direction for its story. ME2's biggest story point was the reapers' specific focus on humans, which may or may not have tied to the multiple hints dropped about dark energy. When looking at this "twist" and then looking back on the previous games, it's really only ME1 that gives any material to this at all, while ME2 provides precisely squat and actively undermines it altogether. It's as if the trilogy was leaning toward the idea that differences can be overcome, only to have a gotcha that is literally based on "because reasons".

The fact that no one seems to flip out about an autonomous AI running an advanced warship and there's nary a complaint from crew members about it, one of which ends up getting feelings for, kind of takes the bite out of the story. Characters get over their hangups way too quickly to sell this "inevitable" conflict.

[Il Divo]

 

 

 

Why couldn't it act? Why wouldn't it want to? We are no longer talking about a passive, automated process but instead an active, planning "person". The Catalyst's very existence brings up these extremely important questions. They are too fundamental to the plot of the first game to simply ignore. Heck, why didn't it act throughout Mass Effect 3? The Prothean intervention probably could be a good reason, but that needs to be explained, not left to the audience to induce. It's too big a question.

 

This is a huge part of why I dislike Leviathan's exposition. Admittedly, it gives us a justifiable reason to believe the Catalyst's claims, but it gives the Catalyst too much autonomy. On top of that, it makes me further question the Control Ending. If the Catalyst could take down their entire empire via drones, why didn't he simply implement Control as his solution right at the start, since he supports it on the Citadel?

 

What changed between the Leviathan take-over that made Control unappealing then but satisfactory now?
 

[KaiserShep]

Regarding the prothean sabotage, the presence of the catalyst just seems weird, like it just watched the whole thing go down and didn't do anything about it. For something that apparently dismantled its creators' empire, it sure was an ineffective device in and of itself. It didn't even create failsafes.

[Danadenassis]

Lots of love, some politics and furthering, not only the main character's goals, but companion goals and romances they might have in a possibly neverending adventure.

[Daemul]

That's largely how I felt regarding a lot of the ME3 decisions. I think in general it also comes down to Renegades simply being willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, so with those terms presented by the Catalyst, they're more likely to say "it is what it is" where as a Paragon isn't content with that. So I think that's an accurate assessment. ME3's ending could arguably be considered a reversal of roles at the 11th hour where suddenly the Paragon approach is denied victory. 

 

Yeah this is me, I'd already gone through the previous games compromising so when the choice came up at the end of the trilogy I was already used to having to deal with situations like that, to steal Bisons line, for Paragons it was the most important day of their lives, for neutrals and Renegades it was Tuesday. I was fine with the ending when I finished the game for the first time, I had chosen Control since I had actually agreed with TIM's views throughout the game, it was just his methods that I had issues with, so when I could choose to control the Reapers without all the baggage that TIM brought I was pleased. 

 

It wasn't until I logged onto BSN the day after I finished the game that I discovered the ending fiasco, I had come online to talk about how cool it was that the Catalyst had taken the image of the child from Shepards head and taken it as its form like the alien in the Sci-fi movie Contact did and how cool it was that we got to control the Reapers, and all I saw were people demanding that Bioware change the ending lol. I was not expecting that at all. 

[Dantriges]

Regarding the prothean sabotage, the presence of the catalyst just seems weird, like it just watched the whole thing go down and didn't do anything about it. For something that apparently dismantled its creators' empire, it sure was an ineffective device in and of itself. It didn't even create failsafes.

 

It seems to share some of its creators blindspots. IIRC the most likely way to build an AI will probably be mapping it after our own thought processes. If the Leviathans did the same, that thing is probably the electronic equivalent  of a giant pompous, arrogant, jerk with a penchant for "nothing can go wrong." The Leviathans we met were like this, and they got thoroughly spanked by the Catalyst, driven to hide somewhere and never dared to show up again in a billion years.

 

Could be that the Catalyst powered down, because it has massive power requirements, which cannot be hidden. Running its hardware must suck several fusion reactory dry or so. And perhaps most of the hardware is the collective Reaper network and it´s dumb as a brick without them or at least "feels" like it´s dumb as a brick. Still doesn´t explain why it hides in the Citadel in the first place and "arrogance" as the explanation  not to have the option to power up from standby in case of problems (and have a stack of hunter-killer drones nearby) sounds a bit unsatisfying. Ok, hiding suveillance cams on the Citadel is risky, but someone tampering with the Master Control unit should raise an alert.

[angol fear]

The trilogy was clearly written with no set direction for its story. ME2's biggest story point was the reapers' specific focus on humans, which may or may not have tied to the multiple hints dropped about dark energy. When looking at this "twist" and then looking back on the previous games, it's really only ME1 that gives any material to this at all, while ME2 provides precisely squat and actively undermines it altogether. It's as if the trilogy was leaning toward the idea that differences can be overcome, only to have a gotcha that is literally based on "because reasons".

 

You have no evidence about the "no set direction" (and what was said by Bioware shows that you are wrong, but you need to know how writing works). If you think that people can create trilogy saying :"hey guys, let's do a trilogy!- Cool what's the story?-I don't know we'll improvise." If you think so then you are very naive.

[Il Divo]

You have no evidence about the "no set direction" (and what was said by Bioware shows that you are wrong, but you need to know how writing works). If you think that people can create trilogy saying :"hey guys, let's do a trilogy!- Cool what's the story?-I don't know we'll improvise." If you think so then you are very naive.

 

See, this is interesting, because that's exactly what the Mass Effect trilogy feels like to me: overly ambitious plot decisions that have to be axed because the writers didn't take into account their overall implications, space magic quite frequently as a solution, Cerberus' inconsistent characterization throughout the entire trilogy, and lack of planning for ME2 leading to the Crucible as our method of defeating the Reapers.

 

If this is what's considered planning a trilogy, then I'd say they did a horrific job.

 

 

[saladinbob]

So retcons are good now? Or are you under the unfounded delusion that they planned the entire trilogy this way from the start?

 

Depends on what you're retconning. I'd be happy as Larry if they retconned that crap ending.

[Natureguy85]

Yeah this is me, I'd already gone through the previous games compromising so when the choice came up at the end of the trilogy I was already used to having to deal with situations like that, to steal Bisons line, for Paragons it was the most important day of their lives, for neutrals and Renegades it was Tuesday. I was fine with the ending when I finished the game for the first time, I had chosen Control since I had actually agreed with TIM's views throughout the game, it was just his methods that I had issues with, so when I could choose to control the Reapers without all the baggage that TIM brought I was pleased. 

 

It wasn't until I logged onto BSN the day after I finished the game that I discovered the ending fiasco, I had come online to talk about how cool it was that the Catalyst had taken the image of the child from Shepards head and taken it as its form like the alien in the Sci-fi movie Contact did and how cool it was that we got to control the Reapers, and all I saw were people demanding that Bioware change the ending lol. I was not expecting that at all. 

 

I've always felt it was a big problem that they don't allow you to consider TIM's position as possibly good. That's why Control didn't make sense. In Mass Effect 2 you could be supportive of Cerberus.

 

I didn't like that the Catalyst took the form of the child. While it is a reasonable assumption, it wasn't clear that it was from Shepard's head because Shepard didn't react. Jodie Foster's character reacted in Contact and they discussed it.

 

You have no evidence about the "no set direction" (and what was said by Bioware shows that you are wrong, but you need to know how writing works). If you think that people can create trilogy saying :"hey guys, let's do a trilogy!- Cool what's the story?-I don't know we'll improvise." If you think so then you are very naive.

 

Not be circular in reasoning. but the evidence is a trilogy that clearly wasn't planned from start to finish.

 

In all seriousness, the ending doesn't fit with Mass Effect 1. Harbinger and the Catalyst don't fit with Sovereign's contempt for organic life. Sovereign called it a "genetic accident".  The second chapter that didn't advance the story in the least bit.

 

You're right that they don't totally wing it, but that's more for each individual game. They could easily start the first game and not be sure how they want to end the 3rd. The end of Mass Effect left thing pretty open for them to go in many different endings directions. The Matrix could have been just one movie and ended fine right there. Vader wasn't Luke's father when Star Wars was made.

[Synthetic Turian]

If it wasn't for multiplayer, I probably wouldn't even like Mass Effect as much as I do right now.

[fraggle]

I don't know, did the Catalyst "rebel" against the Leviathans? Leviathan uses the word "betrayed" I think, but also says the AI is doing what it is supposed to do. Anyway, for the most part it probably does start with a betrayal or uprising. This is just a guess, but I think it's reasonable based on what the Catalyst says. However, while his logic may be sound that Synthetics will surpass organics, it is a leap in logic to say that means they will destroy organics. It may happen, but he doesn't establish a causal relationship. Instead, he has a second claim; that organics and synthetics will always conflict. Since synthetics surpass organics, the synthetics will win. It is this second claim that is questioned by the events of this cycle. This is separate from the issue of how the "solution" makes no sense for the supposed problem. The Catalyst was not right about the Geth. Their actual "rebellion", not shutting down, was peaceful. Remember the Geth in the Consensus record. He just sits there asking what he did wrong. Unless I am forgetting something, they didn't react with violence until threatened with it. It wasn't like in "The Matrix" premise story where a robot murdered his human family, including their cat for some reason, when they tried to turn him off.

 

I guess the Catalyst didn't really rebel against them, it just thought of them as being part of the problem, part of this mandate they gave to the Catalyst, yet it shows the potential it has by wiping them almost out. I think the Catalyst uses a few terms to describe this synthetics problem, surpass, rebel, turn against, wipe out. I guess not all fit each case, but likely at least one of them becomes true according to the Catalyst.

Yeah, and they still think the Catalyst serves its purpose as their tool, but that it hasn't found its ideal solution yet.

Well, I do agree with you that it has these claims that it cannot prove for the future. That's why I brought in this programming type, because that sounds exactly like what happens in the game. After its creation, the Catalyst collects data and analyzes it, it has direction both from Leviathans' programming and its own research that synthetics in the past either rebelled or wiped out organic life; surpasses them. So it takes these as evidence that it must logically happen always this way, it - as you say - has this claim. Likely it saw something in its data, in the synthetics' (processing) power that must have made it think they are superior/will develop superiority over organics. Maybe exactly because it itself is a machine and saw how it was able to surpass its organic creators.

Yes, the geth's rebelling was peaceful, of course. But... being told to shut down they refused to do so. They refused, they disobeyed, and that's why I think the term rebelling fits and can be used here. Rebellion doesn't always have to mean it's going to end bloody. It can be any form of resistance, I think.

It's a sad story about synthetics gaining awareness, doing nothing wrong really, and being attacked out of fear, but the geth should have shut down when being told so in order to disprove the Catalyst's logic. Nothing wrong with the fact they didn't, after all they just want to live as well, but I'm trying it from the Catalyst's point of view too.

(Btw, this doesn't really have to do anything with this discussion, but I'm also really looking forward to the Detroit game by Quantic Dream which tells a story of synthetics living amongst organics. A synthetic that gained awareness begged her creators to not "kill her off", and they granted it. I can't wait to play this and see their approach on this theme.)

 

Yes, because of the "feel" I got from the scene and the game. Interestingly, back then I couldn't have explained all the issues I have with the ending. I didn't know as much about story telling as I do now and it would be awhile before I would really dig into it to see what the problems were. However, it always felt wrong. I wasn't satisfied. Something wasn't right. My reaction was "That was it? That's the end?"

 

As for what Shepard has seen, it depends on when we ask. At the start of ME3, Shepard has only seen how much it takes to kill one Reaper with pre-Thanix weapons. This is a flaw that goes all the way back to Mass Effect 2. This cycle is the only one that has both destroyed a Reaper and had time to look at it and reverse engineer technology from it. They can use the Reapers' technology against them in a way the Reapers never had to deal with. And while they largely did nothing with the two year gap, they not only developed the Thanix cannon, but put it into wide spread use. This should have had a great impact on their ability to fight the Reapers, especially when the gun is put on fighters. This should have put conventional victory back on the table. Now, ME3 does make it extremely difficult to kill the Reapers you do, taking it off the table again, which is a decision I question. They aren't consistent about it though. I don't know what Thanix missiles are, but I have a hard time believing 2 of them are more powerful than a mass effect gun that strikes with force so large that it must be described in terms of nuclear bombs.  And really that Reaper on Earth is only stunned by them and is destroyed by explosives.

 

Hm well, as you can see I was satisfied with how it ended. It appealed to me. Shepard and I just wanted to end this Reaper war. I didn't feel the need to ask about more things than Shepard already did, I didn't want to argue with the Catalyst about having just made peace on Rannoch, because well... what happened in its past could've happened, just as well as it could still happen in the future, which I couldn't know at that point of course. But that's not what I had to deal with anyway. I had to deal with the "right now", not the past, not the future. I had to do something about the Reapers as long as the Crucible was still intact and working.

 

I wouldn't know how strong a Thanix missile really is, and I don't know how possible conventional victory would've actually been with the provided weaponry by the 3rd game, but they set up the Reapers as pretty strong and our leaders as pretty much... ignoring the threat. Had they prepared, reverse engineered, who knows. But they didn't, like you said. You can question this decision of course, but for myself, I think what we got is consistent with what we experience in the trilogy throughout.

There are threads about this topic already and I never participated, simply because I wouldn't know where to begin justifying a conventional victory within the game. I just can't see it somehow. I guess we'd also have to keep in mind that the ones we actually did take out in ME3 were all the small Destroyers. They can be taken out conventionally, but it might be the sheer numbers that makes it impossible. And then there's still the Capital ships with a very high number and a lot more resistance to gun fire, with pretty devastating weaponry themselves.

 

Yes, but the Quarians need to look at the situation with fresh eyes as well. None of them do this.

 

I have no problem with the Catalyst saying the synthetics were going to kill all life in every other cycle, even if it is an assumption on his part. The issue is that we can not argue for the current cycle being different.

 

You don't have to tell me that I agree, but there are a lot of people who'd need to see things with fresh eyes in general, yet they do not. Seems pretty normal though. Even within the fanbase there are enough people that want to get rid of the geth instead of giving them a chance. It all depends on how each individual thinks about it. Some might want to kill them off because they see them as too dangerous. Others sympathise with them. Same stance as in the game, there are mixed opinions on that.

 

I can see that, that's what I gathered from a lot of discussions about the ending already, but... I'm not even sure how you would convince the Catalyst. To be honest I can't see it. It sees its logic as absolute true, how would you even start trying to convince it? I mean, yeah, maybe it would see the truce between quarians and geth, but they are the only case it has seen vs. its past experience/programming during Leviathan's time. Here's a post that expresses much better what I'm thinking about this.

 

Why couldn't it act? Why wouldn't it want to? We are no longer talking about a passive, automated process but instead an active, planning "person". The Catalyst's very existence brings up these extremely important questions. They are too fundamental to the plot of the first game to simply ignore. Heck, why didn't it act throughout Mass Effect 3? The Prothean intervention probably could be a good reason, but that needs to be explained, not left to the audience to induce. It's too big a question.

 

You know I have no real answers for that, as it's not explained. Oh well, you do have a point that it's a big question that could/should've been explained, but if people can come up with an explanation I don't really have a problem with it. I like Dantriges' approach, or several others I've read in the past.

What do you mean by why it didn't act during ME3? During the end or doing something to the Citadel earlier on? Not that I can answer it, my guess would be because it still thought it can win this (coming back to the arrogance topic); but I'm curious nonetheless.

 

It is killing everyone. Sure, their "essence" is preserved, but that needs more explanation for us to understand how it could ever be a positive. The problem is that they started with a science fiction story and then tried to insert meta-physical ideas. This is why they talk of preserving essence and adding Shepard's "energy" to the Crucible.

 

However, the Reaper's motivations, while potentially interesting, are irrelevant. Their actions are worth opposing. I know the Dark Energy plot was never fully developed, but that framework at least had a real reason that we might see the Reapers as necessary. This crap the Catalyst spews is not that.

 

I didn't mean it's a positive for us, it's seen as a positive by the Reapers. They don't understand why we organics perceive what they do to us as something negative. Yeah, it's true about the meta-physical ideas, but I didn't mind them at all.

This again shows me that the 3 endings we got are tied to this question, and I think they do question if the Reapers are necessary. In their current form, I'm saying no.

You say the Reapers' actions are worth opposing. Yes, they are. Thus we get to deal with them in 3 different ways. You can think of reasons to justify each ending depending on your own taste, even forgive the Reapers and join machines and organics if you wish to do so. But you are right, they are not necessary and that's why we need/get to deal with them one way or another. I'm going as far as to say that the Crucible being our weapon shows we don't need the Catalyst around in its current state, that indeed, its hypothesis might not be true at all and that's why we got that weapon, because countless civilisations before us thought the same way and aimed at destroying (or controlling) the Reapers.

And for those who believe in the conflict, or in not compromising their Shepard's principles, there's Refuse.

With the Dark Energy ending... I don't know, I think it would've been less exciting to me to be honest, even though it doesn't sound bad or anything and I likely still would've liked that explanation. While it would've given the Reapers a real reason why they would've been necessary, I actually preferred what we got.

 

Stories are not the same as real life. They have an author planning things out. Having something unexpected is fine, but we have to be able to go back and see how we went from point A to point B.

 

You were right about the theme until Virmire. Then it changed to Reapers vs everyone. Then Mass Effect 2 changed them to cyborgs, throwing organic vs synthetic right out the window.

 

Sure they are not the same, but why can an author not plan it considering real life events? With what the Catalyst reveals about the past, it gives us the reason for the Reapers, and while unexpected, I am able to see why it created them in the first place and why our story played out as it did, why we are in this position we're in.

So doesn't point A lead us to point B?

 

The Catalyst doesn't take into account that AI have free will.  They don't have to do anything any ore than organics do.  The geth could have wiped out the organics, but chose not to.  EDI changes her programing to reflect goals she gives priority to.  

 

Synthetics may choose to serve, or not.  Maybe choose to rebel, or not.  May choose to preserve life or not.  Just as a human, a krogan, or a quarian may choose.

 

I know, I just try to get behind the Catalyst. I know many hate it, but somehow I find its concept interesting and I generally like to try and see things from different perspectives (what can I say, I'm just not a very hateful person).

Of course I don't agree with it at all that synthetics necessarily always rebel or whatever, but it's interesting to me why it would see things the way it does.

And actually, your last line sums up why I think the Catalyst is not needed and it's better to get rid of it. Life, both synthetic and organic, will find its way and should be treated as equal. If they fight they fight, but it's no different than organics fighting organics, and even if synthetics would indeed surpass organics, at least it happens without one individual setting the course for the whole galaxy and it's the organics' own fault being wiped out

 

Could be that the Catalyst powered down, because it has massive power requirements, which cannot be hidden. Running its hardware must suck several fusion reactory dry or so. And perhaps most of the hardware is the collective Reaper network and it´s dumb as a brick without them or at least "feels" like it´s dumb as a brick. Still doesn´t explain why it hides in the Citadel in the first place and "arrogance" as the explanation  not to have the option to power up from standby in case of problems (and have a stack of hunter-killer drones nearby) sounds a bit unsatisfying. Ok, hiding suveillance cams on the Citadel is risky, but someone tampering with the Master Control unit should raise an alert.

 

You know, while maybe it's unsatisfying, I have thought a lot about that arrogance thing, too. Maybe it "calculated" things again and thought out a master plan it thinks is foolproof.

I like your idea about the powering down. Another explanation I really liked is that it is dormant to also preserve energy which would be pretty much the same as powering down. The Catalyst might have slept through the time where the Protheans were able to change the signal. They only did change the signal after the prothean harvest was over, right?

The Catalyst leaves this seemingly great haven for all species to discover and populate, it's defendable, almost indestructible and it is a safe place for the Catalyst itself because no one who settles down there would likely destroy/try to destroy such a place and would never anticipate an AI living in there somewhere when its trap snaps. It needs to ensure it's not found, otherwise a cycle might be able to leave a warning to the next to not populate or even to try and destroy the Citadel.

But that can only happen if the Catalyst stays hidden and doesn't give itself away somehow. Maybe that could be a reason why it somewhat limited itself and instead created pawns like the Keepers to take care of things for it. It's a thin argument, even though... if the Reapers weren't as stupid as to miss the Protheans hidden away on Ilos, our cycle would've gone down just the same as each before, so maybe the Catalyst had a good plan after all. It seemed to have worked for a long time, hehe.

 

See, this is interesting, because that's exactly what the Mass Effect trilogy feels like to me: overly ambitious plot decisions that have to be axed because the writers didn't take into account their overall implications, space magic quite frequently as a solution, Cerberus' inconsistent characterization throughout the entire trilogy, and lack of planning for ME2 leading to the Crucible as our method of defeating the Reapers.

 

If this is what's considered planning a trilogy, then I'd say they did a horrific job.

 

I'm pretty sure they didn't know some, or even the majority of things when starting the first game. Actually, Drew Karpyshyn talked about it in one of his blog entries, and it's clear that the writing team cannot plan everything ahead exactly as they want, it's simply not possible. But they oriented themselves on key themes, namely organics vs. synthetics, Reapers, mass relays.

Cerberus was a throwaway enemy in ME1, but they decided to make them play a bigger part at some point and I liked how it turned out.

I also think that doing what they did, in a way maybe for the first time, connecting a tremendous amount of dialogue, dialogue choices, options, different outcomes etc, stretching over 3 really big games, and with sometimes little time for development, it was still a huge learning process for them. They were inexperienced in the Trilogy department, right? At least with 1 protagonist spanning over 3 games?

The Suicide Mission and who could potentionally be dead/not recruited alone was enough trouble for them considering ME3 and they also said they definitely learned from that.

They had ambitious plans and didn't have time to finish some things properly, which shows, however for what the ME trilogy did, I think it turned out amazing. Not saying it's perfect, no game ever is I think, but they did a lot of things right to keep people interested and invested, even the ones that disliked the ending, to replay the games over and over again. I must say I've never had that happen in such an extreme way, and despite all its flaws, the trilogy became my favourite gaming experience so far.

 

 

Geez, that was way too long. If anyone is tired of these long posts we can always change to PMing.

[Dantriges]

You know, while maybe it's unsatisfying, I have thought a lot about that arrogance thing, too. Maybe it "calculated" things again and thought out a master plan it thinks is foolproof.

I like your idea about the powering down. Another explanation I really liked is that it is dormant to also preserve energy which would be pretty much the same as powering down. The Catalyst might have slept through the time where the Protheans were able to change the signal. They only did change the signal after the prothean harvest was over, right?

The Catalyst leaves this seemingly great haven for all species to discover and populate, it's defendable, almost indestructible and it is a safe place for the Catalyst itself because no one who settles down there would likely destroy/try to destroy such a place and would never anticipate an AI living in there somewhere when its trap snaps. It needs to ensure it's not found, otherwise a cycle might be able to leave a warning to the next to not populate or even to try and destroy the Citadel.

But that can only happen if the Catalyst stays hidden and doesn't give itself away somehow. Maybe that could be a reason why it somewhat limited itself and instead created pawns like the Keepers to take care of things for it. It's a thin argument, even though... if the Reapers weren't as stupid as to miss the Protheans hidden away on Ilos, our cycle would've gone down just the same as each before, so maybe the Catalyst had a good plan after all. It seemed to have worked for a long time, hehe.

 

It probably has to power down a lot of hardware, there is no external energy source like a local star, no real setup to collect all the energy and somehow I doubt that the Citdel stores fuel for 50.000 years of continous operation. Even if it´s only the AI running, the power requirements of its hardware are probably enormous, even considering that it´s a future computer. And well, considering that some ideas about real enormous artificial superintelligences involve  Dyson swarms, you could make an argument that it can´t hide everything on site and most of its processing power is stored in the Reapers (and well, being the collective intelligence of all Reapers ponts in that direction)

 

Oh and a 1000 petawatt or so, disappearing somewhere would probably raise suspicion. Someone has to shuttle all the fuel there after all and pay for it. 

 

You could perhaps explain away why it´s hidden, it get s more thin when you reach the question why it doesn´t have any kind of backup plan or ability to react at all. Or any ability to monitor its surroundings. You could probably hide any reports on what´s going on in the maintenance operations of the Keepers, they are still operating computer equipment after all.

You could probably explain quite a lot of stuff surrounding the Catalyst and how it stayed hidden. Some explanations would be a bit thin perhaps, but at least it wouldn´t look like they got the idea at the last minute.

The problem is, that they never explained stuff, so they could do this "oh, what a twist." You don´t have to show all your cards and let the pieces fall into place or so, after the reveal. ME 2 or so would be a good place to  do some questline similar to scan the Keepers and find out more about the Citadel´s inner workings without actually revealing everything. You found out that the Citadel was built by the Reapers after all.

Perhaps some quest to demolish the darkspace relay for good.Stuff like why some parts of the Citadel are inacessible and some stuff that looks harmless but then it turns out the Keeper maintenance log backup archive is also the infodump for the Catalyst (in ME 3). Some stuff that let the puzzle pieces fall into their places when Starkid says, the Citadel is part of me.  Like a giant d´uh and you thought you were done when you disabled the dark space relay mechanism.

 

But well. you can´t do that, if you don´t know that you will hide an AI on the Citadel in ME 3, when you write ME 2.

[Iakus]

 

I know, I just try to get behind the Catalyst. I know many hate it, but somehow I find its concept interesting and I generally like to try and see things from different perspectives (what can I say, I'm just not a very hateful person).

Of course I don't agree with it at all that synthetics necessarily always rebel or whatever, but it's interesting to me why it would see things the way it does.

And actually, your last line sums up why I think the Catalyst is not needed and it's better to get rid of it. Life, both synthetic and organic, will find its way and should be treated as equal. If they fight they fight, but it's no different than organics fighting organics, and even if synthetics would indeed surpass organics, at least it happens without one individual setting the course for the whole galaxy and it's the organics' own fault being wiped out

 

I do hate the Catalyst.  I hate everything it stands for.  I hate its stubborn insistence on imposing its will even as it knows its solution won't work.  I hate its refusal to simply let the galaxy figure its own problems out, to let people discover their own place in the universe, even though that's been a driving theme for both organic and synthetic life throughout the trilogy.  I hate how it says "pick one of these awful solutions or we murder the galaxy"  So much for free will, for organics or synthetics.  

 

And I hate how if we don't like it, we're just "confused" or "sad" or "need closure" Perish the thought the endings might just suck!

[Dantriges]

Yeah we can headcanon everything we want to explain stuff, but in the end Shep still stands there, listening to the Catalyst´s sermon and the objections you can do sound more like "mommy, I don´t want to go to bed." Not that we should expect the catalyst to give in, but at least telling it that it´s totally bonkers and provides nothing to back up its claims would be nice. But no, thanks for the enlightenment I go jump into that beam , now, touch the live current, shoot some tube.

[Natureguy85]

I can see that, that's what I gathered from a lot of discussions about the ending already, but... I'm not even sure how you would convince the Catalyst. To be honest I can't see it.

 

My reference point is President EDEN from Fallout 3. It is a long video, but it will frame the situation. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, the main point is here. The video is of the "Science" check. I couldn't find a video for the "speech" check, but it's basically convincing him that he's bad at running things and to shut down his group before things spiral out of control.

 

 

You know I have no real answers for that, as it's not explained. Oh well, you do have a point that it's a big question that could/should've been explained, but if people can come up with an explanation I don't really have a problem with it. I like Dantriges' approach, or several others I've read in the past.

 

Because it isn't our job to write the story or speculate on the answer to major plot questions.

 

 

I didn't mean it's a positive for us, it's seen as a positive by the Reapers. They don't understand why we organics perceive what they do to us as something negative. Yeah, it's true about the meta-physical ideas, but I didn't mind them at all.

This again shows me that the 3 endings we got are tied to this question, and I think they do question if the Reapers are necessary. In their current form, I'm saying no.

You say the Reapers' actions are worth opposing. Yes, they are. Thus we get to deal with them in 3 different ways. You can think of reasons to justify each ending depending on your own taste, even forgive the Reapers and join machines and organics if you wish to do so. But you are right, they are not necessary and that's why we need/get to deal with them one way or another. I'm going as far as to say that the Crucible being our weapon shows we don't need the Catalyst around in its current state, that indeed, its hypothesis might not be true at all and that's why we got that weapon, because countless civilisations before us thought the same way and aimed at destroying (or controlling) the Reapers.

And for those who believe in the conflict, or in not compromising their Shepard's principles, there's Refuse.

 

Yes, but the Catalyst has to convince Shepard to go along with it. It has to convince Shepard, and the player, why it's plan shouldn't be opposed. Shepard already answered "Is submission not preferable to extinction?" and the answer was a resounding "No!"

 

The ways in which we get to deal with the Reapers come from the Catalyst, which controls the Reapers. That alone is somewhat problematic. The bigger problem is that I can't explain why or how these options even exist, let alone why they are offered to us by our enemy. Destroy is obvious. Control was not set up properly for it to be something Shepard would ever choose. He just shot TIM after telling him Control was a terrible idea because they weren't ready. Most players I've seen explain choosing Control say it's because they don't want Synthetics to die as they do in Destroy. And Synthesis was utter nonsense.

 

You are right that the fact that we now have a "kill all Synthetics" weapon does make the Reapers unnecessary, so why isn't it an option to just keep going and keep this in our back pocket?
 

 

 

Sure they are not the same, but why can an author not plan it considering real life events? With what the Catalyst reveals about the past, it gives us the reason for the Reapers, and while unexpected, I am able to see why it created them in the first place and why our story played out as it did, why we are in this position we're in.

So doesn't point A lead us to point B?

 

When things happen to you in real life, you don't get to know all the details. However, in a story, all the causes of an effect can be known because the author is creating them. While I want most stories to be realistic, I don't want them to be real life. Anyway, for reasons we've discussed, such as questions about previous plots, I don't see why the story played out as it did. Point A doesn't lead to point B, and we can not look backwards from point B to see point A.

 

 

 

And actually, your last line sums up why I think the Catalyst is not needed and it's better to get rid of it. Life, both synthetic and organic, will find its way and should be treated as equal. If they fight they fight, but it's no different than organics fighting organics, and even if synthetics would indeed surpass organics, at least it happens without one individual setting the course for the whole galaxy and it's the organics' own fault being wiped out

 

And this should have been an option in the game, but it wasn't.

 

 

You know, while maybe it's unsatisfying, I have thought a lot about that arrogance thing, too. Maybe it "calculated" things again and thought out a master plan it thinks is foolproof... if the Reapers weren't as stupid as to miss the Protheans hidden away on Ilos, our cycle would've gone down just the same as each before, so maybe the Catalyst had a good plan after all. It seemed to have worked for a long time, hehe.

 

This is why I call the Catalyst a VI, not an AI. It shows no ability to think beyond it's programming, as opposed to EDI, the gambling AI, or Legion.  It can't account for the "variables" changing.

 

 

 

They had ambitious plans and didn't have time to finish some things properly, which shows, however for what the ME trilogy did, I think it turned out amazing. Not saying it's perfect, no game ever is I think, but they did a lot of things right to keep people interested and invested, even the ones that disliked the ending, to replay the games over and over again. I must say I've never had that happen in such an extreme way, and despite all its flaws, the trilogy became my favourite gaming experience so far.

 

Yes, Mass Effect was a great series and they did a lot of good with it. They created a universe and characters that people really loved. Then they shoved it all to the side for a preachy, philosophical ending that made no sense. They ruined it.

 

 

 

It probably has to power down a lot of hardware, there is no external energy source like a local star, no real setup to collect all the energy and somehow I doubt that the Citdel stores fuel for 50.000 years of continous operation. Even if it´s only the AI running, the power requirements of its hardware are probably enormous, even considering that it´s a future computer. And well, considering that some ideas about real enormous artificial superintelligences involve  Dyson swarms, you could make an argument that it can´t hide everything on site and most of its processing power is stored in the Reapers (and well, being the collective intelligence of all Reapers ponts in that direction)

 

Oh and a 1000 petawatt or so, disappearing somewhere would probably raise suspicion. Someone has to shuttle all the fuel there after all and pay for it. 

 

You could perhaps explain away why it´s hidden, it get s more thin when you reach the question why it doesn´t have any kind of backup plan or ability to react at all. Or any ability to monitor its surroundings. You could probably hide any reports on what´s going on in the maintenance operations of the Keepers, they are still operating computer equipment after all.

You could probably explain quite a lot of stuff surrounding the Catalyst and how it stayed hidden. Some explanations would be a bit thin perhaps, but at least it wouldn´t look like they got the idea at the last minute.

The problem is, that they never explained stuff, so they could do this "oh, what a twist." You don´t have to show all your cards and let the pieces fall into place or so, after the reveal. ME 2 or so would be a good place to  do some questline similar to scan the Keepers and find out more about the Citadel´s inner workings without actually revealing everything. You found out that the Citadel was built by the Reapers after all.

Perhaps some quest to demolish the darkspace relay for good.Stuff like why some parts of the Citadel are inacessible and some stuff that looks harmless but then it turns out the Keeper maintenance log backup archive is also the infodump for the Catalyst (in ME 3). Some stuff that let the puzzle pieces fall into their places when Starkid says, the Citadel is part of me.  Like a giant d´uh and you thought you were done when you disabled the dark space relay mechanism.

 

But well. you can´t do that, if you don´t know that you will hide an AI on the Citadel in ME 3, when you write ME 2.

 

There's no indication this is necessary. We have no idea how long a Mass Effect core lasts. We know the one on the derelict Reaper was still intact. We don't know what sort of core the Citadel runs on, but we do know that it must be enough to power a giant Mass Relay. Sure, there are possible explanations, but it is up to the game to give us one, not on us to speculate.

 

I was very disappointed that we never explored the hidden areas of the Citadel. I thought that was where the Conduit would take us. As much as I love that the little Mass Relay monument was actually something, I was disappointed that we just went where we'd already been. Then when we got to a hidden area in ME3, it made no sense.

[Dantriges]

An Eezo core generates a mass effect field but AFAIK they are not power plants.

 

The idea was that they made some exposition but without revealing that hi, there´s an AI on board. Could have been an option, if they were really determined to implement it on the Citadel to fill in some of the areas where we only have speculation..

[Natureguy85]

An Eezo core generates a mass effect field but AFAIK they are not power plants.

 

The idea was that they made some exposition but without revealing that hi, there´s an AI on board. Could have been an option, if they were really determined to implement it on the Citadel to fill in some of the areas where we only have speculation..

 

True, but they are the only thing resembling a power generator on the ships we see. Who knows. Although they do talk about Relays having to be "opened", as if the Reapers leave them off but turn over local control to each Relay. They never explain how they activate them though.

[ForgottenWarrior]

The fact that they moved to a completely new galaxy tells that better than anything else. They can say whatever they wan't about their artistic integrity, but actions says otherwise. It says "We screwed everything with those endings".

[angol fear]

The fact that they moved to a completely new galaxy tells that better than anything else. They can say whatever they wan't about their artistic integrity, but actions says otherwise. It says "We screwed everything with those endings".

That is how you interpreted it but it is totally wrong. It only means to start from the beginning because people would complain if they didn't do it. I am pretty sure andromeda is made in order to please people. Basic writing, you will love it !

[Natureguy85]

That is how you interpreted it but it is totally wrong. It only means to start from the beginning because people would complain if they didn't do it. I am pretty sure andromeda is made in order to please people. Basic writing, you will love it !

 

Where did you get the idea that people would complain if it was in the Milky Way again? That is the galaxy that has everything that made the series Mass Effect. Not only is there no reason for there to be Mass Relays in Andromeda, the only Quarians, Salarians, Krogan, Asari, Turians, etc. that will be there are the ones that are on the Arc or whatever.

 

Now that I think of it, when they were discussing which races would be carried forward into the next game, Quarians were one of the ones they considered dropping. That would be foolish. There is so much mileage to be had from the idea that they are all migrants now.

[angol fear]

Where did you get the idea that people would complain if it was in the Milky Way again? That is the galaxy that has everything that made the series Mass Effect. Not only is there no reason for there to be Mass Relays in Andromeda, the only Quarians, Salarians, Krogan, Asari, Turians, etc. that will be there are the ones that are on the Arc or whatever.

 

Now that I think of it, when they were discussing which races would be carried forward into the next game, Quarians were one of the ones they considered dropping. That would be foolish. There is so much mileage to be had from the idea that they are all migrants now.

 

More than three years after the ending, you still complain (at this level can we still talk about complains?) about it very actively. People think that Bioware had a lesson to learn. If they did their game in the milky way without changing anything about the ending (they won't do that, Extended Cut was enough, it changed the ending to fit the players expectations without changing too much their story), if they show that they don't change the ending anymore, people will say : "Bioware didn't learn their lesson". Don't tell me it won't happen this way, take a look at the whole forum and at your own posts, there are evidence everywhere here.

They needed to start a new game in a new galaxy to make the players here think "maybe" instead of "go to hell Bioware, you're still trolling me, you ruined my life etc...".

[Natureguy85]

More than three years after the ending, you still complain (at this level can we still talk about complains?) about it very actively. People think that Bioware had a lesson to learn. If they did their game in the milky way without changing anything about the ending (they won't do that, Extended Cut was enough, it changed the ending to fit the players expectations without changing too much their story), if they show that they don't change the ending anymore, people will say : "Bioware didn't learn their lesson". Don't tell me it won't happen this way, take a look at the whole forum and at your own posts, there are evidence everywhere here.

They needed to start a new game in a new galaxy to make the players here think "maybe" instead of "go to hell Bioware, you're still trolling me, you ruined my life etc...".

 

Oh, you mean because of what they would have to do in light of the endings to ME3. I thought you meant just because it was in the Milky Way. Interestingly, you just admitted that the reason they moved to Andromeda was because they couldn't make it work in the Milky Way, as Forgotten Warrior said.

[Ahglock]

The fact that they moved to a completely new galaxy tells that better than anything else. They can say whatever they wan't about their artistic integrity, but actions says otherwise. It says "We screwed everything with those endings".

Meh. More likely it's because the 4 endings are so radically different there isn't a easy way to continue without picking a canon ending or jumping enough time forward that a galaxy change is actually the smaller change.

I'd be okay with a canon ending, but much of the vocal fan base wouldn't.

[Dantriges]

BW isn´t a monolithic entity. Could be that some people think the endings are fine, some people don´t. And BW tried to keep decisions from the former games, it´s probably one of the things a lot of people like, who bought the products in this franchise. As Ahglock said, they are vastly different. That they tried to circumvent the ending canon problem doesn´t necessarily mean that they think the endings are bad. But could be that some people changed their mind when they started working on the product. They still leave a lot of material behind, that people drawed to the setting. It´s a bigger gamble than a "regular" sequel in the Milky Way.