127 réponses à ce sujet

[JThompson6577]

IF I were to guess, I'd say the biggest reasons to kill him in the opening are to first; cut Shepard off from his former life in such a way that he is forced to work with Cerberus and two, to drive home that you can die in this game if you aren't prepared.



By killing and resurrecting him after two years, you cast doubt on him within the game. All his friends and colleagues that aren't part of the squad have a perfectly valid reason to think that he's betrayed what he stood for. At the same time, Shepard now has a reason to grow to trust Cerberus because they are (potentially) Shepard's biggest ally now.



As for the second reason. I went in to the game relatively unspoiled. I knew that the overall plot is a suicide mission and Shepard could die so seeing him spaced in the first ten minutes made me step back and say "Okay, I really could die if I don't put the work in."



If I were to guess.

[Gavinthelocust]

Because Shepard is Jesus and they couldn't wait the three years for his return.

[mopotter]

Some of your ideas are interesting.  I didn't like having to work for Cerberus, but I can see why they did it the way they did.  It forced Shepard to work with Cerberus.

I don't think Shepard would have agreed to work with Miranda or Jacob/Cerberus just because they say they need help.  And if for some reason Shepard did agree, I think Anderson and the council; would have been in on it.  There would be no reason not to talk it over.  The council would not be happy but they would say the same thing.  bla bla bla stay out of the civilized sections do what you need to do, keep us out of it.  Anderson might have said something about watching your back and your a spector, the alliance can't be involved.

There would be no reason for the LI to think Shepard is a traitor. And while Kaidan/Ash could have been sent on a separate mission, You wouldn't have had the meeting between LI and Shepard which I found very interesting and am looking forward to working things out with Shepards LI in the future.   

The squad could have split up except I think Shepard would have known where Garrus was and with Liara, if  Shepard hadn't died she wouldn't have had to go after the shadow broker. 

But the real reason they did it this way is in one or more of the writers heads and who knows if we will ever know why.

There are things I'd like them to have done differently but  they didn't kill of ME1 LI and as long as they don't require Shepard or the LI to have sex with someone else so they don't die in ME3 I'll probably be happy.   

[Xeranx]

I think they could have done the same thing with a coma. The idea that only two years had passed between the destruction of the Normandy and Shepard's time on an operating table, I guess(?), makes it safe to assume that Cerberus found him/her relatively quickly.



Cerberus could have been monitoring geth appearances as well as the alliance possibly looking for more reaper technology that might be beneficial to them and humanity. Cerberus finds the distress beacon and arrive just as the collectors leave the area or the collectors aren't in the area when they get there. They find Shepard on a course towards a nearby planet and rescue Shepard just before he/she enters the planet's atmosphere. Shepard is unconscious and has internal injuries that need to be repaired. From there what happens to Shepard is all based on what TIM decides he wants the story to be. He can tell his employees about the nature of Shepard's injuries, have them exaggerated, or not say anything at all letting people come up with their own theories which leads misinformation being thrown about like a session of the game telephone. TIM can tell Shepard anything he wants to after Shepard wakes up. Miranda can be in on it and Jacob can be kept in the dark because of his nature to tell the truth. Everything proceeds from that point on as normal.



The only thing that could be different is that instead of Liara bringing Shepard's body to the Shadow Broker, Liara works for the Shadow Broker in order to get information on what happened to Shepard's body. She said it herself, "I couldn't let go".

[Lalandrathon]

Having Shepard die and be rebuilt means he owes his existence to a bunch of total ****s which makes for a more compelling story in a way that he wouldn't if they'd merely saved his life in a less radical way.

[Xeranx]

[quote]Lalandrathon wrote...

Having Shepard die and be rebuilt means he owes his existence to a bunch of total ****s which makes for a more compelling story in a way that he wouldn't if they'd merely saved his life in a less radical way.[/quote]

So that would be Shepard weighing the price needing to be paid based on the heroics used to rescue him/her?  A saved life is a saved life isn't it?  If I wait for your body to come to shore and resuscitate you or jump in the water, pull you in and resuscitate you does it really matter?  Either case you were unable to render any aid in your resuce and I saved you.  For all you cared you were dead, right?

quote]justinnstuff wrote...

[quote]Time Well Spent wrote...

It's a simple way of bring Shepard's stats back down and enabling a rejig of his face/powers if you wanted, plus it made for a hell of an opening [/quote]

This in a nutshell.
[/quote]

I still think that could have been solved by having Shepard in a coma since two years later he/she would have to reacclimate themselves to walking, running, and combat.

Modifié par Xeranx, 22 mars 2010 - 05:10 .

[Lalandrathon]

Xeranx wrote...

Lalandrathon wrote...

Having Shepard die and be rebuilt means he owes his existence to a bunch of total ****s which makes for a more compelling story in a way that he wouldn't if they'd merely saved his life in a less radical way.

So that would be Shepard weighing the price needing to be paid based on the heroics used to rescue him/her?  A saved life is a saved life isn't it?  If I wait for your body to come to shore and resuscitate you or jump in the water, pull you in and resuscitate you does it really matter?  Either case you were unable to render any aid in your resuce and I saved you.  For all you cared you were dead, right?

The thing is if Cerebus merely saved Shepard's life, he has a *choice* to be with them. If the situation were equivalent but Shepard were merely in a coma, he would owe them less because anyone else could have done the same. Nobody else could or would have conducted the Lazrus project to bring him back from the dead.

[TrueHD]

I'd imagine that someone brought it up in a meeting and everyone said "rad idea, bro."

[Hurbster]

It also ties into the apparent retconning of Cerberus into something other than complete bastards. Which then gets ignored no matter how much my 'sole survivor who has just been given a grenade launcher' would like to ... discuss it.

[Sad Dragon]

Never actualy thought about it that much, but now that i have i see more flaws to it then the original "plot device" i thought it to be. Since Bioware wanted the game to be dark they could have "shoehorned" you into actualy desiding to work with Cerberus as basicaly the whole galaxy has turned their back on you. Not going to extrapolate on that idea cause this is not what the topic is about.



So to give you an awnser: Lazy writing and a convinient plot device.



/TSD

[Suron]

justinnstuff wrote...

Time Well Spent wrote...

It's a simple way of bring Shepard's stats back down and enabling a rejig of his face/powers if you wanted, plus it made for a hell of an opening

This in a nutshell.

learn to read....no it isn't.

[Terraneaux]

Lalandrathon wrote...

The thing is if Cerebus merely saved Shepard's life, he has a *choice* to be with them. If the situation were equivalent but Shepard were merely in a coma, he would owe them less because anyone else could have done the same. Nobody else could or would have conducted the Lazrus project to bring him back from the dead.

No, he still doesn't owe them anything.  It's not like they called him up in the afterlife and were like 'Hey Shep, we wanna bring you back to life, but if we do you owe us and need to work for us.' and Shep agreed.  Instead, they just brought him back - and then expected him to act very grateful to a bunch of murderers and terrorists.

[GnusmasTHX]

Suron wrote...

justinnstuff wrote...

Time Well Spent wrote...

It's a simple way of bring Shepard's stats back down and enabling a rejig of his face/powers if you wanted, plus it made for a hell of an opening

This in a nutshell.

learn to read....no it isn't.

Learn to read, yes it is.

It's their way of explaining why Shepard has no stats at the start of the game, when he was Weapon X in the last. An in-story reason why Shepard can change classes. And yes, changing classes is an in-story thing, not so much changing appearance.

If you were a biotic in ME1, people acknowledge you were, and thus, story-wise, the change of class is story-included. There was no special dialog for the unexceptional classes like Engineer, Infiltrator, or Soldier, but it can be assumed that since biotic dialog was included, that characters do recognize your class in ME1.
         - And by extension, it can also be assumed that returning characters notice the difference in your abilities in ME2, and choose not to talk about it. Is that really surprising though? They don't talk about  OR EVEN TO each other, why start up a useless conversation about a class? "So Commander, you're an X when you used to be a Y..." "Yes." - (The only explanation is Lazarus Project, so why bother having the conversation at all...)

You're saying they "could have" done it this way, without killing him, is not contradictory to the above comments. It's an alternative to their explanation, not to the reset of stats.

Basically you're not arguing the results, but the means they achieved them. Which is Grade-A nitpicking at its finest. Either way, stats are reset and people depart. In summation you're saying: "Why isn't the story this way like I want it to be?"

Modifié par GnusmasTHX, 22 mars 2010 - 07:42 .

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Terraneaux wrote...

No, he still doesn't owe them anything.  It's not like they called him up in the afterlife and were like 'Hey Shep, we wanna bring you back to life, but if we do you owe us and need to work for us.' and Shep agreed.  Instead, they just brought him back - and then expected him to act very grateful to a bunch of murderers and terrorists.

So if someone spent 4 billion credits and two years bringing you back from the dead, you would not give them five minutes of your time to listen to anything they might possibly have to say? This is interesting news.

Let's talk about the Council's history:

1. Rachni Wars- Fighting a losing battle against the Rachni, they used an army of Krogan to drive the Rachni to the brink of extinction. If you choose to kill the Rachni queen, they actually chastise you that it was not your decision to make them extinct. So not only are they murderers, but they're hypocritical murderers.

2. Krogan Rebellions- Now that the heroes of the last war are the new aggressors and they are once again losing, the Council is screwed. They decide to allow the Turians to launch biological warfare on the Krogans, acting as if they had never aided them during the Rachni Wars. And in addition allow the Turians a spot on the Council for their (seemingly) act of Genocide. Wonderful.

3. Creation of the Spectres- They also established a group which answers to no law or person except the Council's authority. Yet Spectres are also only selected from Council Races, cementing the balance of power heavily in the Council's until Shepard.

Hmm, considering this track record, I don't think my Paragon Shepard would have decided to aid the Council at all against Saren, let alone become a Spectre.

[mortons4ck]

Suron wrote...

what i mean by "why" is.....why was it
necessary to kill him then bring him back?

Because the opening sequence was written and directed by Joss Whedon.

Modifié par mortons4ck, 22 mars 2010 - 07:53 .

[Terraneaux]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Terraneaux wrote...

No, he still doesn't owe them anything.  It's not like they called him up in the afterlife and were like 'Hey Shep, we wanna bring you back to life, but if we do you owe us and need to work for us.' and Shep agreed.  Instead, they just brought him back - and then expected him to act very grateful to a bunch of murderers and terrorists.

So if someone spent 4 billion credits and two years bringing you back from the dead, you would not give them five minutes of your time to listen to anything they might possibly have to say? This is interesting news.

If I also had firsthand evidence that they were traitors, terrorists, and murderers, than I wouldn't.  If it was just someone random then I would see what was up.  

Let's talk about the Council's history:

1. Rachni Wars- Fighting a losing battle against the Rachni, they used an army of Krogan to drive the Rachni to the brink of extinction. If you choose to kill the Rachni queen, they actually chastise you that it was not your decision to make them extinct. So not only are they murderers, but they're hypocritical murderers.

2. Krogan Rebellions- Now that the heroes of the last war are the new aggressors and they are once again losing, the Council is screwed. They decide to allow the Turians to launch biological warfare on the Krogans, acting as if they had never aided them during the Rachni Wars. And in addition allow the Turians a spot on the Council for their (seemingly) act of Genocide. Wonderful.

3. Creation of the Spectres- They also established a group which answers to no law or person except the Council's authority. Yet Spectres are also only selected from Council Races, cementing the balance of power heavily in the Council's until Shepard.

Hmm, considering this track record, I don't think my Paragon Shepard would have decided to aid the Council at all against Saren, let alone become a Spectre.

Saren was also a threat to humanity in particular, at least as far as anyone knew, so it was important to stop him for humanity's sake as well.  It's not like you don't get to sell the Council down the river later anyway.  I agree, Council history is basically a long sequence of the Asari and the Salarians backstabbing and manipulating the other races.

[smudboy]

OP is correct.

Deus Ex Machina in the first 20 minutes. Killing off the protagonist and resurrecting him in an unexplained and unbelievable fashion to give some excuse devoid of conflict to join a terrorist group from ME1 that was pure evil. The two characters (Liara and Miranda) who have info on this have virtually no exposition aside from audio/video logs about technobabble that doesn't explain how this miracle is even possible.  Shepard doesn't give a royal flip and has the personality of a dry piece of bread. (Aside from that kink in their shoulder.)

BioWare, this is not good writing.

Modifié par smudboy, 22 mars 2010 - 09:31 .

[77boy84]

Because they're having Shepard become more and more like Saren throughout the trilogy.

That, and the opening scene where you die was ****ing incredible.

[SimonTheFrog]

The Enkindler wrote...

I don't think the team would split up unless Shepard was dead - even if the Normandy blew up and the Council for some reason would revoke Spectre status. Knowing Shepard, they'd probably still follow him around as their own merc band.

Killing Shepard is a good story decision because it takes care of multiple things at once -
It makes the Collectors a threat - they are more powerful than you can handle and manage to blow up the Normandy and kill you. It also makes it personal. It also introduces the Collectors to new players.

As Cerberus is the one that manages to find you and bring you back, it gives you the scope to work with them. They are already an established organisation the player will recognise from ME1 and also has the kind of resources that can bring people back from the dead - weird tech that respectable organisations like the Alliance wouldn't deal with - I can't see the Alliance spending billions bringing back Shepard. They'd probably just pay for a funeral.

The two year gap, as well as representing real time between game releases, gives a chance for things in the ME galaxy to progress and give you new things to discover - the changes to the team members, e.g. like Tali finishing her pilgrimage and getting an adult name, Garrus quitting C-Sec, Wrex building a new Tuchanka - without the presence of Shepard you get more profound changes than I can forsee with Shepard being around during all that time.

It also gives Liara that cool spin-off comic series.

Plus Anderson explains that the Citadel isn't completely fixed yet either - being dead for a few years seems to have been worth it to skip seeing a ton of "under construction" signs while wondering around a ruined Citadel. You also want to see some of the changes like more humans in C-sec establishing themselves and the anti-geth customs checks.

Being bio-enhanced was also a good excuse to do new types of upgrades like the heavy skin weave for health points instead of having lots of armor types like in ME1 to buy. I don't know if a living Shepard would have agreed arbitrarily to get implants of stuff just for the sake of it. Being resurrected and having them already put in is a good way to just force it.

I think Doctor Chakwas says it best during her drunk speech that Shepard is the centre of the whole group and the only way they would have split up is his/her death.

It's an interesting list.
But i can't shake off the feeling that many points you say are "solved" by the death-scene are as questionable as the death itself.

I can understand that BioWare wanted to make a new setting for ME2, namely make way for the "Dirty Dozen"-theme. So, they needed to get rid of the old crew plus create a semi-criminal environment in which recruiting characters like SuZe or Zaeed (and others) are acceptable. This would have been weird in the military alliance environment where everything is done by the book. It's the "get things done no matter what"-sub-theme. So, they yanked Cerberus out of the magic hat as the antagonist to the Citadel and tell the player every five minutes that this is what Cerberus is about: getting things done, even if it means using questionable means. 
I'm fine with that in theory.

But why Cerberus? Why not create a new organization instead of repurposing the stupid villain-du-jour from ME1? They yanked the Collectors out of nowhere too, its not like they care much about the trilogy aspect in the first place. Cerberus was not semi-criminal with generally good intentions in ME1. They were just criminals. All the "good" facets suddenly are told the player in ME2 and he won't even get prove or convincing explanations why Cerberus didn't have ANY good features back in the old days. But i'm wandering off...

Anyway, death made the path clear for this organization which gets things done.
Also it alienated the old buddies and made path clear for the new ones.
And it made respeccing the character + the looks logically 
And yeah, it created an intro with a certain impact and was heavily used in viral marketing or just plain marketing.

BUT!
Was it really necessary to kill Shepard and let him rot on the table for two years? I mean... i know how a dead mouse stinks after 1 day when my cat brought it in. And i'm not even doubting the ability to regrow organs and stuff if you have the genetic material. I doubt that higher mental abilities, the personality and the memory are really that exciting after hitting ground from space and lying to rot for months. Jeez.. this is silly beyond even being funny. 

I don't think it would have been necessary. A coma would have done nicely (the collectors involvement is still possible, of course). The comatic Shepard could have been kidnapped by Cerberus (although i'd have prefered some other organization) and forced to work with the organization after waking up with something (former crew as hostage? something like that) and all the arguments we are hearing anyway: "we get things done etc etc". This would have made all four advantages possible. 

Bottomline: i think it would have been better to create a new organization for the role Cerberus has now (because they couldn't change the way Cerberus was depicted in ME1, now could they?) and it would have been much more elegant and less cringeworthy to have Shepard be in coma and not dead after impact with some planet.

[Larask]

I agree with you. It wasn't necessary to kill Shepard to tell a similar story. However, I would describe that as bad writing either. The devs wanted to make ME2 a darker story, and this was part of it. It also adds a lot of emotion in many of the characters from ME1. It also allows the devs to explore more in the ME universe, such as the Shadow Broker.