Mass Effect Thread

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by DAISHI

You know what I really dislike about the ending? The game essentially makes you play multiplayer to get the better version since it adds so much to war assets. I hate multiplayer.

SECONDED. With a vengeance. It forces those mechanics into a strictly single-player game, and I hate them for it.

That doesn't veil the shittyness of the endings though.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by dahoughtonuk

You only have the reapers word for that. Sorry can;t trust him. But civilisation utterly destroyed never to rise again can be trusted due to the last ending, assuming it's not just a tall tale.

Repears' word? The child isn't an expression of the Reapers, they're an expression of those who created the Reapers. The Reapers were their solution to a galaxy-wide robot apocalypse.

One option destroys all the Reapers and most advanced technology. The scene with the child shows that "The Shepard"(clever, the one who shows the galaxy the way forward) saved sentient life from the cycle by:

1. Controlling the Reapers. This sends the Reapers away, but according to the child, breaking the cycle in this way leads to an inevitable war between synthetics and organic life.

Shepard disagrees.

2. Destroying the Reapers, and all senthetic life with it. This option removes the Reapers from the equation entirely, kills off the Geth, destroys a lot of technology. But in the end, it saves many lives, and gives the universe a chance to rebuild.

3. Combining synthetic and organic life. The idea is that, by removing the created/creator, synthetic/organic distinction, all life can continue in a new step of evolution and coexist peacefully because they are all the same. This option is definitely the worst thought-out(and has some terrible implications, especially when we consider the Human/Robot relationship has always been used in science fiction as an allegory for race-based slavery), and seems to stem from a desire to create a "good" ending that the child can agree causes peace without at the same time killing the Geth and setting technology back. Still, the core theme in the ending is a good one: By realizing we are all the same, we can peacefully coexist. They just go the sci-fi route of including a sciencey piece of technology at the center of the lesson, which in this case comes off weak. Honestly, I feel like the "Control the Reapers" option is close enough to this without the scary implications, and they really should have given the qualities of this ending to that one in a more explicit way.

All the endings set civilizations back a lot of years, yes. But the Reapers winning does that anyway, that's sort of what the Reapers DO. There are no Mass Relays and as such there won't be a gigantic, pre-built technological jumpstarter floating in every system, but now the organic life as is has a chance to build their own future in all of the endings, in a way that they definitely did not before. Nothing is predetermined for them, because the cycle is broken.

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

The hero attempts to save the universe, the attempt fails, a god-like creature appears that hasn't said a word before and essentially solves the situation for the hero. That's Deus Ex Machina without a doubt.

It was of course clear from the beginning of ME3 that they were building a machine with an unknown purpose. They weren't building the god from the machine though. That one's always been there and has been orchestrating all these cycles of almost-genocide as his "solution" to preventing complete genocide (?!?).

The child is a VI. That's it. It could have just as easily been a computer monitor with three buttons on it. The hero didn't fail, the hero built the Crucible. The Crucible hadn't activated because you need to make the choice of what Crucible Beam to fire.

Everything follows what you would expect from the plot of the game up to that point. Shepard fights, Shepard builds machine, Shepard pushes one of two/three buttons on said machine. The child is just a VI that is used to explain the buttons.

[dahoughtonuk]

Did you miss the fact he's supposed to control the reapers? Ergo -cannot trust.

What's the best way of preventing the resistance when the civilisations manage to come together? Destroy how they managed it. The cycle may not be broken in any of the endings.

Decisions do not matter is the important part, and the hidden ending explains it a a tale told around a fire. This is bad enough but all the endings are the same with a paltte swap. I'm glad I didn't buy the game, depsiute having the others.

ME1 what is the difference between a trap and a fortress?
ME2 Should we learn from others despite the possible cost?
ME3 Technology is bad.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by dahoughtonuk

Did you miss the fact he's supposed to control the reapers? Ergo -cannot trust.

You're going to have to explain how this sentence makes anything remotely similar to sense and logic.

What's the best way of preventing the resistance when the civilisations manage to come together? Destroy how they managed it. The cycle may not be broken in any of the endings.

Er, what?

Destruction: There are no Reapers, thus no Reaper Cycle.

Control: Reapers leave, don't kill everyone. If they wanted to kill everyone, and the Crucible wasn't keeping them from killing everyone, then Joker/EDI/Squadmates wouldn't be in the ending cutscene, nor would we be able to see the ending bit with the old man and the child.

Synthesis: Joker/EDI, Old Man/Child, thus Reapers again don't kill everyone.

Decisions do not matter is the important part, and the hidden ending explains it a a tale told around a fire. This is bad enough but all the endings are the same with a paltte swap. I'm glad I didn't buy the game, depsiute having the others.

The "tale around a fire" bit isn't a "hidden ending", it shows up after the credits regardless. It shows that humanity survives and continues to dream about a future in the stars thanks to Shepard's actions. It says that details have "been lost" over generations, which I'm guessing is their way of fudging the need to clean the slate for future Mass Effect media. Shepard having become a legendary figure in the distant future doesn't mean he wasn't REAL, it's simply a matter of him becoming larger than life, like a leader of an ancient civilization.

The core ending decision is a good one, the expression in the form of palette swaps is a matter of poor execution of a good ending.

[KuroShiro]

Don't know how damning this really is, but it certainly does not inspire confidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRRpGlmtws8

[Alcoremortis]

I really want to know if there's an option where, if you do the minimum amount of effort to reach an ending, the Reapers win. For me, this would at least give me the satisfaction of doing something by getting the endings described.

Though I am in favor of a patch or something that contains a short Fallout-style epilogue where you find out what happens to all the characters and civilizations.

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

The child is a VI. That's it.

Originally Posted by Mass Effect Wiki

The Catalyst is the master AI that controls the Reapers [...] When encountered by Commander Shepard, the Catalyst represented itself using a hologram, taking the form of a young boy

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

It could have just as easily been a computer monitor with three buttons on it.

Originally Posted by Mass Effect Wiki

The Catalyst serves as the architect and overseer of the Reapers and their cycle of destruction. [...] the Catalyst was tasked with solving a dire problem: the inevitable creation of synthetic intelligence by advanced organic civilizations, and the equally inevitable conflict that results.

The kid is, for the purposes of this story, as I have previously stated, a God. Without this God and his enormous powers inside, the Crucible machine is obviously worth shit.

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

The Crucible hadn't activated because you need to make the choice of what Crucible Beam to fire. [...]Shepard fights, Shepard builds machine, Shepard pushes one of two/three buttons on said machine.

Originally Posted by Mass Effect Wiki

if Shepard's "Effective Military Strength" score is low enough that the player is on track to the worst ending, the Catalyst will not offer a choice; the Catalyst will automatically assume that Shepard either wants to destroy the Reapers (if Shepard destroyed the Collector Base during the suicide mission) or wants to control the Reapers (if Shepard preserved the Collector Base during the suicide mission). No "merge" option is provided.

It is a god-like machine that at will giveth and taketh away the options the Crucible has to offer. It renders to and/or pressures on Shepard a decision that it SHOULD make itself, given that the problem-solving is what it was created to do. Case closed.

[KuroShiro]

So wait, they are machines that wipe out organic life to avoid having organic life wiped out by machines? Yes... it all makes sense now

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

So wait, they are machines that wipe out organic life to avoid having organic life wiped out by machines? Yes... it all makes sense now

Yes, that's it. To avoid the conflict between man and machine, billions of billions of living creatures are wiped out at regular intervals. All for the prosperity of... ah, I don't know. So much sense.

The Reapers have once told Shepard that he/she would not understand their harvest. Well, it seems like he/she could eventually understand after only a simple two-minute explanation. Why Shep didn't answer appropriately with "That's bullshit", I will never understand.

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by Mass Effect Wiki

The Catalyst serves as the architect and overseer of the Reapers and their cycle of destruction. [...] the Catalyst was tasked with solving a dire problem: the inevitable creation of synthetic intelligence by advanced organic civilizations, and the equally inevitable conflict that results.

Oh, I see. Mass Effect 3 is trying to be Battlestar Galactica. Okay.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

Oh, I see. Mass Effect 3 is trying to be Battlestar Galactica. Okay.

To be fair, in a lot of ways it is actually more like Gateway.

[Alcoremortis]

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

To be fair, in a lot of ways it is actually more like Gateway.

I've never seen Gateway. Actually though, reading it again, ME3 seems a bit more of some weird love-child of Battlestar Galactica and the Matrix.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by Alcoremortis

I've never seen Gateway. Actually though, reading it again, ME3 seems a bit more of some weird love-child of Battlestar Galactica and the Matrix.

Gateway is a series of books by Frederick Pohl, wherein humanity discovers an abandoned space station (Gateway) constructed by a mysterious unknown race which allows for interstellar travel. The main crisis of the series is a group of mysterious machine intelligences coming to wipe out all life in the galaxy. ME diverges from it in a lot of ways, but yeah...

[Farlander]

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

Don't know how damning this really is, but it certainly does not inspire confidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRRpGlmtws8

That only proves that the character is in the game, but not the DLC (which, btw, has to download 700 mb of information or something like that, so it's NOT on the disc and it IS downloadable). Which doesn't contradict what BioWare has said. Some people mention that there was a leak of the script regarding the Prothean/DLC stuff last year. Well, that ALSO doesn't cotnradict what BioWare has said. Plus, people already have said that changing the line only adds the character to the party, no missions or out of combat dialogue.

Game development of a massive game is a very complicated process. The way it could go down is that, having a script and a character ready, people at BioWare have estimated that they may need to push the certification date further so all content would be included. So they took the least complete/important (otherwise known as the most optional) feature they had planned and scheduled to fully develop it during the certification process and release it as DLC. No contradictions or bullshitting there.

Now, mind you. I do not agree with the fact that it's a PAID DLC. In fact, I REALLY dislike paid DLCs. I think paid DLCs should be more akin to the expansion packs of old, while small DLCs should be more similar to bonus stuff that would be added to patches in the days of old. For free. And Mass Effect 3 Day 1-DLC is not a huge amount of content, it doesn't deserve to be a paid-for-DLC. More than that, I believe that if it would be a free DLC, there would be absolutely no complaints at all from the consumer public. In fact, they'd be HAPPY. Like, 'Whoah, not only do I get a full game, but also a free DLC for no extra fee?! GIVE ME TWO!'.

[Chyron8472]

I am not reading this thread because I don't want to spoil the story of ME3 for myself. However, I am in here to say that there are various games which I have played in the past that people hate on., so I'm also going to judge the game for myself after I play it (which I fully intend to do.)

All I'm really saying is: Haters gonna hate.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

Mass Effect Wiki]The Catalyst is the master AI that controls the Reapers [...] When encountered by Commander Shepard, the Catalyst represented itself using a hologram, taking the form of a young boy

I'm not sure where they got this information. The child acts just like the Protean "personality Imprint" VI at the end of the first Mass Effect.

The kid is, for the purposes of this story, as I have previously stated, a God. Without this God and his enormous powers inside, the Crucible machine is obviously worth shit.

Before the kid shows up, you expect to build a machine that can destroy or control the Reapers. After the kid shows up though? You have this weird magical device that can control or destroy the Reapers! Woah! Totally OUT OF NOWHERE.

The Catalyst serves as the architect and overseer of the Reapers and their cycle of destruction. [...] the Catalyst was tasked with solving a dire problem: the inevitable creation of synthetic intelligence by advanced organic civilizations, and the equally inevitable conflict that results.

Oh! I see! It's bad because it's able to explain things!

It is a god-like machine that at will giveth and taketh away the options the Crucible has to offer. It renders to and/or pressures on Shepard a decision that it SHOULD make itself, given that the problem-solving is what it was created to do. Case closed.

It..."Giveths" the options of the machine that we knew we were building from the first few minutes of the game, giving us the options that are hammered into your head repeatedly every step of the goddamn way. This is like complaining every time Aladdin makes a wish(despite genie mechanics being laid out quite early in the story). The machine we knew we were building was built and gave us the choices we expected. The twist is that it can talk. A computer that can TALK in Mass Effect?! How absurd!

Synthesis coming from EMS is likely an expression of Sheperd "adding" the option of cooperation through getting a really solid group of guys to work together. It should probably be able to come from making choices that allow the Geth and Quarians to cooperate and/or advancing the Joker/EDI romance, honestly, but the core idea here is actually fine.

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

So wait, they are machines that wipe out organic life to avoid having organic life wiped out by machines? Yes... it all makes sense now

Yeah man, that's really stupid. It's like fighting fire with fire, which never works.

The child hologram quite flatly states that they see themselves as agents of preservation while allowing organic life to continue to exist and grow in variety, which is a very literal evolutionary stance. The way they see it:

Universe sans Reapers
Organics live on planets.
Organics advance, build robots.
Robot apocalypse happens.
No more organic life anywhere

Universe with Reapers
Organics live on planets
Organics advance
REAPER ATTACK
Old organics preserved in Reaper form
Primative organics get to live

Synthetic life isn't able to reproduce or change in the traditional evolutionary stance, and if you see the overall goal of organic life as being able to reproduce and change for the better, then yeah, the plan of those who built the Catalyst makes sense, though only IF robot apocalypse is inevitable. The Catalyst is a bit genre-savvy, and realizes that yeah, in sci-fi universes the robots ALWAYS REBEL.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

Yeah man, that's really stupid. It's like fighting fire with fire, which never works.

Ah, argument from analogy, we meet again.

...
No more organic life anywhere
...
Universe with Reapers
...
Primative organics get to live

And here is the big logical flaw. Without reaper technology, FTL travel would be impossible in the galaxy as it is so any synthetics created would be confined to a single planet. If FTL travel was developed, what possible reason would synthetics have to go around to primitive worlds squashing all life? It just seems stupid.

[Rather Dashing]

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

Ah, argument from analogy, we meet again.

The analogy works. Just saying "Killing to avoid killing? That's stupid!" is completely idiotic without further clarification. We hunt deer to keep them from assured self-destruction, and that follows the exact same logic being lampooned here.

And here is the big logical flaw. Without reaper technology, FTL travel would be impossible in the galaxy as it is so any synthetics created would be confined to a single planet. If FTL travel was developed, what possible reason would synthetics have to go around to primitive worlds squashing all life? It just seems stupid.

You don't need a single race of synthetics, just multiple races of sentient organics. Organic species continue along the same curve, eventually make sentient synthetics, and incite robot apocalypse. The Mass Relays make sure that the Reapers know where everybody is roughly around the time they make these robots because, you know, once you control the trade network, you control the civilization. Otherwise, you'd just have organic species after organic species being destroyed by the genre they inhabit.

[GaryCXJk]

To me, it all sounds like BioWare is pulling a Molyneux. I mean, they advertise Mass Effect as a series where everything you do has direct consequences to the rest of the game. Which should have included the final ending. Instead it sounds like a cop-out where every action you previously did in all of the three games were for naught. Or at least made as if whatever you did didn't matter.

I mean, look at it this way. Let's say Notch was a bastard. He let you build up your world, fight monsters to create a Nether Portal, meanwhile building up a huge village. Then, at the end, you fight the Netherdragon and defeat it. Now instead of just spawning a dragon egg and allowing you to see the three(?) minutes long ending sequence it teleports you to your house, which is now ON FIRE. FILLED WITH CREEPERS. AND HALF OF YOUR VILLAGE IS FILLED WITH TNT. Yes, all the work you put into your house, your village, the world itself, it has all been for naught, because now you'll need to clean up the mess the fire and all the creepers and TNT left.

On second thought, pretend I never written it down. I'm pretty sure Mojang is crazy enough to actually do this.

Or, in a more extreme case, after the ending of Minecraft it all ends up being a dream. You wake up at your original spawn, and the rest of the world AND your inventory isn't there anymore. It's like you started a new save.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by Rather Dashing

The analogy works. Just saying "Killing to avoid killing? That's stupid!" is completely idiotic without further clarification. We hunt deer to keep them from assured self-destruction, and that follows the exact same logic being lampooned here.

Arguments from analogy are inherently flawed because no matter how similar two different situations may seem, they are never exactly the same. I.E. we hunt deer to ostensibly keep them from dying from overpopulation, reapers hunt organic life to keep them from being killed by synthetics.

You don't need a single race of synthetics, just multiple races of sentient organics. Organic species continue along the same curve, eventually make sentient synthetics, and incite robot apocalypse. The Mass Relays make sure that the Reapers know where everybody is roughly around the time they make these robots because, you know, once you control the trade network, you control the civilization. Otherwise, you'd just have organic species after organic species being destroyed by the genre they inhabit.

This still doesn't address how what the reapers do is in any way different from what synthetics would do otherwise. They wipe out all organic life advanced enough to potentially be capable of wiping themselves out. Low-tech civilizations would be spared either way, and the cycle would continue in the same way regardless of whether the reapers were there or not.