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[Arppis]

I want to talk of Mass Effect series and it’s lore and ending.
 

What I really liked about the series and it’s lore was the Reapers and how they are. I like HP Lovecraft’s stories and Reapers are really from those stories, well “inspired”. Let me explain:
 

I mean, they are these entities beyond our galaxy and their motives are beyond our understanding. Even their power is out of the scope of what the advanced technology galaxy has. And when you spend enough time close to them, their mere presence “charms” you, drives you mad and makes you do things they want. And ofcoruse, to top it up, nobody believes Shepard when he says that these ancient machines are comming to kill everyone and they have to be stopped.

They are like some ancient gods from Lovecraft’s works!
 

Reminds me of “Call of C’thulu”, especially the second game. Where you gain a small victory against Reapers, you are able to push them back and slow their advance. Just like in that story Lovecraft wrote, they have gained a small victory, they have knocked C’thulu down for the time beign. Nobody knows for how long, but they know... he will be back.
 

I think the 3rd game really ruined some of this magic they built up. WELL, I think the 2nd game painted the wrong picture in heads of the players. I think the people who made Mass Effect, REALLY wanted to make a Lovecraftian sci-fi story, where you wouldn’t get a happy ending. As humans you are really insignificant in front of the horrors of these universe, and you don’t matter, you are nothing but a speck of dust that can be easily wiped away. I think “Harbinger” in the 2nd game said this as well.

But when player plays these games, he/she feels like somekinda badass hero who can survive EVERYTHING. But this is really not the case! But they do paint this image, everything will be ok... And when it wasn’t at the end, when everything ended in a mindfuckery of an ending, leaving players desperate, to grasp WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO MY INVICIBLE HERO!? You are hit to the face that you are really insignificant little specc of dust, that has made a small dent against all the odds.

That helplessness is all what Lovecraftian stories are all about. I think the people who played these games really missed that, when they were building their perfect ending in their head.
 

Now alright, the ending of Mass Effect 3 wasn’t really that “great” imo either. But I liked how faithful it was to Lovecraftian lore. Even if it was that at expense of the characters, the world and the future of the game.

I think people saw it at the wrong light, they bought in to the “unbeatable hero” story. When they should have realized, that they are fighting against foes who are really out of their reach...

Any rate... I really disliked how they tried to explain Reapers too much in the 3rd game. I think it would have been better if most of the things would have been left in dark about them and they would have really been this big mystery that is left unsolved even at the end of the game.

 

I also hope that these Lovecraftian themes won't dissapear in the new game! I would like to see them expanded upon and created in better fashion. But it just might be that these things don't really fit into the "Heroic" character everyone wants so badly to see.

 

Shame about that, really. What you guys think of these themes in Mass Effect universe? You think they should be burried and left forgotten, or rekindled and reformed? Or maybe expanded upon and carried over form original series?

[Killroy]

Everyone already knows that the Reapers were supposed to be Eldritch horrors. The problem is that BioWare clearly doesn't know how to make that work. I would much prefer they do something new than retread old ground with a premise they've already failed to deliver on.

[Arppis]

Everyone already knows that the Reapers were supposed to be Eldritch horrors. The problem is that BioWare clearly doesn't know how to make that work. I would much prefer they do something new than retread old ground with a premise they've already failed to deliver on.

 

Yep, everyone knew, but forgot.

 

What kinda stories you'd like to see then?

[Killroy]

I don't want stories based around the idea of escalation. "The last game had an invasion of unstoppable Eldritch horrors, so the next one needs TWO invasions of unstoppable Eldritch horrors!" That's always a losing formula. Andromeda needs to shift away from the Reapers, and anything resembling them, and have a clear focus. I don't want another situation where the set up something in the first game without any clue as to where it's leading and then scramble to find a resolution at the last second two games later. A story focused on the races of the Milky Way attempting to settle in the Andromeda galaxy and meeting opposition from the natives is a perfectly acceptable and promising framework.

[DaemionMoadrin]

The only lovecraftian about the ME trilogy was how it drove thousands of fans into insanity. Judging by the current threads in these forums, that effect is still lingering.

[Vox Draco]

As a fan of Lovecraft myself I ... fail to see how the endings were in the vain of his work. Even executed better they failed at one thing: Too much exposition on behalf of hte translucent creeping Nyarlathotep-boy. I know only one story of Lovecraft where an Elder being was so talkative "Dreamsearch of the Unknown Kadath" ... And the ending simply didn't make me feel like a puny human soul in the vastness of space - but simply as if I was in a totally wrong game all of a sudden...

 

I really think Lovecraft would have done tremendously better in the end-writing - though probably even more depressing ^^ IInstead of a pile of rubble Shepard would have been seen last in a mental asylum, writing hieroglyphs on the wall with her own feces ...

 

The problem was, you are right on that, that a cool hero like Shepard and the eldritch horrors beyond our imagination won't work. Not in the hopeless vain of the Lovecraftian-way at least. But then I, though I got the lovecraftian touch of the Reapers, I never saw them as Uber-Elder-Gods. After ME1 I was totally under teh impression: Yeah, we are inferior - NOW. But let's see what the protheans have left us, and we beat em once, we can do it again. I was under the impression this was the way the story was supposed to go...Too bad ME2 didn't pick up on this (or added anything worthwhile to the story at all ^^)

 

TL,DR: Yeah, ME has some lovecraftian elements, but I see no justification in that for the weird way the story went and ended. And surely for Andromeda I hope they just leave this mess behind...

 

As a goody I'll however post the very song that surely had Bioware inspired for ME-series back then ...those lyrics ARE suspiciously spot-on ^^ Especially Madness will reign, terror and pain, woes without end ...Can't think of a better way to describe ME3 and the endings ^^