Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[fenrif]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 I find myself bugged by lot's of things in other series of books, games, movies, sometimes it's just for interpretation. Like when Star Wars end, all we know about Luke is that he's the jedi guy, nothing more to add. Expanded universe showed more, but I never cared for it, so I left it for my own interpretation. In my opinion, not having closure is not a flaw but rather a choice of style.

Star Wars isn't an apt comparison because Star Wars wasn't about Luke becoming a Jedi. It's about good vs evil. Rebellion Vs Empire... And it ends when evil has been defeated. Luke becoming a jedi is as important to the overall plot of those movies as how yoda ended up living on Dagobah, that is to say not very important at all. The original films do a pretty good job of telling a story, with a cohesive beginning middle and end. The problem with ME is that it doesn't have a cohesive end, because the ending is so compeltely disconnected from everything that happens in the rest of the series, not only from a narrative perspective but also thematically and mechanically. There's a difference between an ending being open for interpretation, and a story having an end.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Shepard living in the Destroy ending requires a massive amount of war assets. The Citadel also happens to explode in the Destroy ending, and Shepard's not-dead body appears to be lying in very not-Citadel looking rubble, so we can assume he got off of the station by some means before that happens, likely succeeding because of how well-prepared Shepard's forces were.

Any time you have to assume critical plot points, like how someone escaped a life threatening situation, or ended up somewhere else "by some means" that's a sign of bad writing. It's called a plot hole.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Catalyst basically admits that Shepard building the Crucible and reaching it is proof that it's entire strategy to preserve both synthetic and organic life was wrong from the beginning. Hence why it allows Shepard to decide the new solution.

It's also not all about killing organics to keep them from building synthetics. The Catalyst says that it started the Reaper cycle so that it they take the organic species of a cycle and make them into more Reapers, allowing those species to be preserved so that new organics may develop and be preserved at the end of the next cycle.
It believes that conflicts of mutual destruction are the natural order between organics and the synthetics they create, so it tried to solve this through the Reapers.  The only issue is that, as before, it is wrong about this and basically gives up to Shepard's better judgement immediately. That Shepard can create peace between the Quarians and Geth is only further proof that the Catalyst was wrong all along.

That just leaves the question of what the new solution should be (Organics eliminate Synthetics, Organics dominate Synthetics, or Organics and Synthetics become one), which is why it's the ending choice.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Putting aside the problems with introducing a completely new (and hugely powerfull) character moments before the game finishes, the whole catalyst thing is so rife with plot holes and inconsistencies that it's baffling. Essentially it identified that synthetics and organics like to kill each other, decided this was wrong, so it built more synthetics to kill more organics because it liked organics more? Just try to parse that for a few seconds and you'll see why many people have a problem with this concept. Now throw in that his basic premise (organics and synthetics will murder each other) is demonstrably wrong and doesnt apply in just about every interaction between the two groups (even in ME1 when the geth were the main enemy... that was as a direct result of the catalysts actions) And you have to wonder how many other civilizations in the cycles before had perfectly peacable relations with synthetic lives, only for the reapers to come in and murder everyone/force them to fight because it's "inevitable."

The three choices you get for the ending are terrible as well. How about just letting synthetics and organics exist together, without merging them together? It was working perfectly fine untill you built super genocide bots to mess up the perfectly peacable civilization I'd spent 3 games building. How about just going "you know what, you're right, carry on with the reapers dude."  I mean that sounds like an outlandish choice, but if the whole premise behind the reapers and catalyst makes any sense at all (it doesn't) then that should be a viable option. How about deciding that organics are the problem and killing off all the species in the galaxy besides the Geth?

All of these are choices that not only should've been allowed for gameplay veriety, but also just make sense in the narrative you're presented with by the game. There are probobly more, these are just off the top of my head, but this is what people mean when they say the ending doesn't make any sense. The basic idea at the core of the reaper/catalyst plot isn't internally consistent. Let alone logical within the framework of ME3, or the ME series as a whole.

[scriver]

scriver: what other stuff? <_<

Well, there was some.. stuff.. way back... then...

* scriver gazes out over the horizont longingly

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Putting aside the problems with introducing a completely new (and hugely powerfull) character moments before the game finishes, the whole catalyst thing is so rife with plot holes and inconsistencies that it's baffling. Essentially it identified that synthetics and organics like to kill each other, decided this was wrong, so it built more synthetics to kill more organics because it liked organics more? Just try to parse that for a few seconds and you'll see why many people have a problem with this concept.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Reapers aren't present to kill organics. Killing organics is a side-effect of what the Catalyst wants them to do, and that is to harvest the advanced organic civilizations of a cycle and make them into Reapers. I forget if it's Sovereign or Harbinger that says this, but one of them mentions that each Reaper is "a nation onto themselves" and Legion goes into how the collective of a Reaper conscious is massive and unknowable, even to a Geth who's mind exists in a similar state. They're the people of entire civilizations consolidated together in a synthetic form.
The Catalyst wants everyone to be able to exist, but the whole thing about chaos and order it mentions is explaining how it believed through it's observations that synthetics and organics could never exist together without mutual destruction. So the Reapers take the advanced organic civilizations and make them synthetic once they reach the proper technological level to create galactic civilization ending ending organic vs. synthetic conflict. This way the organic civilizations can live on as Reapers and the Milky Way is free and open for the organics of the next cycle. The Yahg, for example, aren't targeted by the Reapers as they're low enough technologically to be part of the next cycle's species.
Now I know you're probably thinking that AI had existed in ME for a while before the Reaper invasion, and you are correct, but also remember that Sovereign had been attempting to open the Citadel Relay for a long time before ME1 (the Rachni War was his doing). It just so happens that Sovereign decided to go all in during the events of ME1 and died because of it, forcing the Reapers to enter the Milky Way on their own FTL drives. If it had succeeded back in the Rachni War humanity wouldn't even have gotten caught up in the current cycle.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now throw in that his basic premise (organics and synthetics will murder each other) is demonstrably wrong and doesnt apply in just about every interaction between the two groups (even in ME1 when the geth were the main enemy... that was as a direct result of the catalysts actions) And you have to wonder how many other civilizations in the cycles before had perfectly peacable relations with synthetic lives, only for the reapers to come in and murder everyone/force them to fight because it's "inevitable."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Geth being enemies in ME1 was a direct result of Sovereign's actions, not the Catalyst's. Even so, the Geth weren't all sunshine and rainbows. The Quarians definitely wronged them, but it's made clear that the Geth consciousness is willing to do anything to preserve themselves. They willingly ally with the Reapers in ME3 for that very reason, even though they know exactly how dangerous that is.
Anyway, Javik mentions that the Prothean Empire once subjugated a species that basically had the exact same story as the Quarians and the Geth, so that's at least two cycles where we have confirmed conflict between organics and synthetics.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The three choices you get for the ending are terrible as well. How about just letting synthetics and organics exist together, without merging them together? It was working perfectly fine untill you built super genocide bots to mess up the perfectly peacable civilization I'd spent 3 games building.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That would be great if not for the very fact that the Reapers are indeed present and are going to complete the cycle themselves if something isn't done to stop them. We don't have any evidence that the Catalyst can actively control the Reapers, in fact it outright tells Shepard that all of the options he/she has are things that it can provide but not do itself. We only know that the Catalyst originally created the Reapers and set up the cycle. They can't be defeated conventionally, as everyone says many times. No matter how much raw military power Shepard manages to consolidate the fact of the matter is that the Reapers have a massive technological advantage. Some of their technology is so advanced that the Codex describes it as "apparently breaking the laws of physics". It's like the Anglo-Zulu War. The Zulu were driven, strong, managed to obtain some of the British's weapons, and even won battles against the British Empire themselves, but at the end of the day the British were going to win no matter what happened.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

How about just going "you know what, you're right, carry on with the reapers dude."  I mean that sounds like an outlandish choice, but if the whole premise behind the reapers and catalyst makes any sense at all (it doesn't) then that should be a viable option. How about deciding that organics are the problem and killing off all the species in the galaxy besides the Geth? All of these are choices that not only should've been allowed for gameplay veriety, but also just make sense in the narrative you're presented with by the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now you're just ranting because you didn't like the ending. We both know that Shepard would never consider either of those options. One of the few constants in Shepard's character is how he/she is willing to stop the Reapers no matter what it takes. Renegade Shepard is just....significantly more violent about it.

[Ahra]

You really like Bioware dont you MSH? just saying, its like i am an steam powered games nerd.

[Gotdamnmiracle]

its like i am an steam powered games nerd.

how is babby formed

[Darkmere]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Harvesting organics: Why are the protheans now collectors instead of a prothean reaper? What about the batarians, were they harvested? If yes, where were they processed? The guess is the citadel... so why were duplicate facilites on the collector base? Why wasn't the citadel moved to Karshan if the goal is really to preserve everything? Palaven? That was already abandoned by fleets, survivors would be easy pickings.

Conflict is inevitable: Sure, except that the applicable galactic conflicts in this cycle (rachni, geth) were directly caused by the reapers. Sounds like Casper created problems to justify its solutions. Without reaper upgrades, there's no guarantee of a geth/quarian extinction event. This is doubly true if the harvest cycles predate creation of AIs (rachni wars as prelude to culling).

Sovereign isn't subject to Casper's will: That would have been a very interesting take, had it been mentioned at all. "This solution won't work anymore" could mean a lot of things, none of which are satisfactorily explained. The presentation implies this isn't the case, as "not working" only happens when Shep hitches a ride on the teleporter, which is only explained by guesswork that doesn't rationally fit the situation. At best, setting a plan in motion that uses synthetics to slaughter organics repeatedly is the very thing this "solution" is trying to avoid.

Shepard wouldn't do that: At any point before Casper, would Shep have considered TIM's "control" scheme to be valid? Yet, it's considered a viable ending in context. At any rate, there's still no reason to take the entity who open admits to wiping out organic civilizations repeatedly over millenia at its word. Any of those options could have killed Shepard or destroyed the crucible. Someone, somewhere, should have at least scanned it. The arms were open, everything was accessible. Just send a shuttle or something, ffs.

Don't like the ending: Yeah, things that don't make sense in context irritate me.

[Sergius]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 I find myself bugged by lot's of things in other series of books, games, movies, sometimes it's just for interpretation. Like when Star Wars end, all we know about Luke is that he's the jedi guy, nothing more to add. Expanded universe showed more, but I never cared for it, so I left it for my own interpretation. In my opinion, not having closure is not a flaw but rather a choice of style.

"This is the Death Star, a huge weapon of mass destruction. It's headed for Yavin, where it will destroy the rebel base, dealing a deathblow to the rebellion. We will send a bunch of fighters to stop it."

...fade to black... fade in to victory scene...

"We won! We saved the rebels!"

"Wait, did we stop the Death Star? Was it destroyed? Did they flee? If we didn't destroy them, are they going to try again?"

"Hey, we saved the base by some means, dude. Just kick back and relax, you can assume any outcome that you want to have happened."

"... didn't you die in the beginning of the movie during the princess abduction? I think Darth Vader cut you in half with his saber."

"Hey man, don't be hatin', obviously I survived by some means."

[Johuotar]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alright I played it, I liked it quite alot until I got to meet illusive man. Then I liked it a lot, I thought that "Hey, the ending isn't that bad!". But then the kid appeared... I knew after all those dream sequences that the kid means trouble. Facepalmed when I saw the kid appear. The choises felt confusing and repetitive. Jeff's skin is green? What? How about the choises we made in ME1 or ME2, I had to think what I wanted to do in both games. The games ended with difficult choises, but they were clear and fun. They could have unexpected consenquences but they were somewhat clear what would happen. ME3 ending choises were too alienating.

I think that they tried to make the ending really deep, but it backfired. The ending gave something to think about, but it wasnt satisfactory. I hated how the ending gave new questions. I hoped that reapers motives could not be understood, they would remain uncomprehensible, because of their weird morality. What I mean with that is that some questions would not be tried to be answered and new questions would not arise.

[Darkmere]

If you're going to post spoilers, spoiler tag em, yeah?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You really like Bioware dont you MSH? just saying, its like i am an steam powered games nerd.

This is not a fanboyish defense of Bioware or EA. Both have made mistakes, the latter more than the former, as organizations made up of people are known to do. The internet has launched a lot of complaints about ME3. Once I actually played ME3 I found pretty much all of those complaints lacking in substance, and am choosing to address that in this thread as I am a member of the community here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Harvesting organics: Why are the protheans now collectors instead of a prothean reaper? What about the batarians, were they harvested? If yes, where were they processed? The guess is the citadel... so why were duplicate facilites on the collector base? Why wasn't the citadel moved to Karshan if the goal is really to preserve everything? Palaven? That was already abandoned by fleets, survivors would be easy pickings.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is almost certainly a Prothean Reaper even if we don't see it. It isn't some one way choice between Reaper-Husk-Extinct. Check the Codex entries on the Reapers, it talks about their process. Some of the members of a species are liquidated in production facilities set up by the Reapers within their warzones so that they can be used to create more Reapers. Some members of the species are made into Husk variants to serve as shock troops for the Reapers. And everyone else dies. The Collectors had processing facilities and the Citadel might, but it's made clear through conversations throughout the game that the Reapers have processing facilities everywhere they go. Crush a species' military force, indoctrinate them into submission, and process everyone who's still alive into Reaper-juice.
The Citadel was moved to Earth because by that point Earth was deep within Reaper territory and the Reapers wanted to keep Shepard and the Crucible away from the Catalyst. Earth was where they were strongest, so they moved it to Earth.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Conflict is inevitable: Sure, except that the applicable galactic conflicts in this cycle (rachni, geth) were directly caused by the reapers. Sounds like Casper created problems to justify its solutions. Without reaper upgrades, there's no guarantee of a geth/quarian extinction event. This is doubly true if the harvest cycles predate creation of AIs (rachni wars as prelude to culling).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The original Geth conflict was caused by the Quarians freaking out and trying to kill them and any Quarians who sympathized with them once the Geth started displaying collective sapience. Sovereign is only responsible for creating the Geth Heretics.

And while the Reapers themselves are creating some of the very conflicts that the Catalyst created them to stop, you are failing to remember that the Catalyst was wrong. You can't ever lose sight of that while thinking about the continuity of Mass Effect. The Catalyst's analysis of the situation was incorrect. Flawed.

The Rachni Wars didn't predate AI. Given the timeline it probably was round when true AI could be created by the Citadel species. Hence why Sovereign started the whole conflict so it could access the Citadel Relay and call in the other Reapers. But that didn't work out.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sovereign isn't subject to Casper's will: That would have been a very interesting take, had it been mentioned at all. "This solution won't work anymore" could mean a lot of things, none of which are satisfactorily explained.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I actually agree with you that the explanation isn't satisfactory. But the Catalyst does say that it cannot enact the options it provides Shepard by itself, and one of those options is controlling the Reapers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The presentation implies this isn't the case, as "not working" only happens when Shep hitches a ride on the teleporter, which is only explained by guesswork that doesn't rationally fit the situation.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It outright says that Shepard is the first organic to ever enter that chamber, and that is evidence that the Reaper Cycle is flawed because an organic shouldn't be able to legitimately threaten the Reapers. Shepard is dying of bloodloss and the Reapers are still winning, but what happens when the next cycle find's Liara's box? And when the cycle after that gets whatever improvements that cycle made? Eventually the Reapers will be defeated, and that ruins the Catalyst's objective. "But the Destroy ending!" doesn't invalidate this because the Catalyst is giving up to Shepard's judgement. And if that judgement is eliminating synthetics entirely and hoping for the best, than the Catalyst is choosing to accept that.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Shepard wouldn't do that: At any point before Casper, would Shep have considered TIM's "control" scheme to be valid? Yet, it's considered a viable ending in context.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's a viable ending because it stops the Reapers. Stopping the Reapers is what Shepard wants more than anything, and all three endings do that in different ways. Letting the cycle continue or destroying organic life is handing Reapers victory.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At any rate, there's still no reason to take the entity who open admits to wiping out organic civilizations repeatedly over millenia at its word. Any of those options could have killed Shepard or destroyed the crucible. Someone, somewhere, should have at least scanned it. The arms were open, everything was accessible. Just send a shuttle or something, ffs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

No, Shepard really doesn't have a reason to trust the Catalyst, but he/she doesn't really have a choice either. Unarmored, nearly unarmed, and dying of blood loss while the Reapers kill everyone and the Crucible is unactivated is not a situation where Shepard has many options.

[fenrif]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 I find myself bugged by lot's of things in other series of books, games, movies, sometimes it's just for interpretation. Like when Star Wars end, all we know about Luke is that he's the jedi guy, nothing more to add. Expanded universe showed more, but I never cared for it, so I left it for my own interpretation. In my opinion, not having closure is not a flaw but rather a choice of style.

"This is the Death Star, a huge weapon of mass destruction. It's headed for Yavin, where it will destroy the rebel base, dealing a deathblow to the rebellion. We will send a bunch of fighters to stop it."

...fade to black... fade in to victory scene...

"We won! We saved the rebels!"

"Wait, did we stop the Death Star? Was it destroyed? Did they flee? If we didn't destroy them, are they going to try again?"

"Hey, we saved the base by some means, dude. Just kick back and relax, you can assume any outcome that you want to have happened."

"... didn't you die in the beginning of the movie during the princess abduction? I think Darth Vader cut you in half with his saber."

"Hey man, don't be hatin', obviously I survived by some means."

Darth vader built the death star because he knows planets will get blown up and he wants to stop that by blowing up planets!


In response to MetalSlimeHunt: (because buggar quoting all those seperate spoiler sections )

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The problems with the whole "each reaper is an amalgamation of an entire civilization" concept are many. Either the civilizations are destroyed and the reapers just contain their knowledge, which seems to defeat the entire point of having them in the first place, or they are some sort of hive mind of every member of that race. (This is also apparently what they are in the ME universe since they're pretty consistently presented as horribly evil. Otherwise the suggestion is that every civilization in every cycle before this one was generally evil.) If they were actually representative of the species they're supposed to be made of, then surely a large portion of them would rebel at the idea of what they are, and how they were created? And the fact that the catalyst cant controll them just adds further inconsistencies ontop of that because if they are entire races made into one sentient machine, then surely some of them would hate others based on racial prejudice from when they were alive? Some would refuse to take part in the cycles, some would fight against it, etc.

The catalyst having no control over them basically means that the entire system is intriniscly flawed and it's just random chance and dumb luck that it's progressed to this point with millions or billions of years of perfect operation. If there were problems previous to this cycle then shouldn't that fact alone have caused the catalyst to question his master plan?

My point about the endings is that there are more options available to Shepard and tha catalyst than those presented to the person playing the game. So the catalyst, who created the reapers doesn't have technology at a greater or comparable level to them? He couldnt share that with Shepard? I've allready talked about how ridiculous it is that he has no control over the reapers at all. But he couldn't use his massive technological powers to help defeat them in any way? Or even attempt to force a compromise or other solution, at all? Bearing in mind he literally created the reapers... none of them care about what he has to say? See what I mean about plot holes? This is another problem with introducing a last minute super powerfull character, it drastically changes what you know about the narrative and what is possible within the universe... and then ends it before anything can be examined or resolved.

As to the Geth/Quarian thing: Aside from the fact that rebelling against slavery and defending your lives is somehow morally dubious all of a sudden, the game pretty obviously presents them as non-bad guys in ME2. Their war with the Quarians is pretty much entirely the Quarians fault. And again, their alliance with the Reapers was as a direct result of Quarians attacking them, and killing so many of them that their intelligence was diminished. At any rate the entire history of the Geth is suspect due to having contact with a reaper before ME1 even starts. All we know is that the majority of Geth didn't want to join with the reapers, and weren't trying to murder every organic life form in existance. Also: anything Javik says is basically besides the point as he's DLC (had to look up who he was with google). If the games need outside information to make sense and explain plot holes then there's definatly more than bad writing to blame.

Now you're just ranting because you didn't like the ending. We both know that Shepard would never consider either of those options. One of the few constants in Shepard's character is how he/she is willing to stop the Reapers no matter what it takes. Renegade Shepard is just....significantly more violent about it.

Now you're just intentionally ignoring my point because you liked the ending. Stopping the reapers isn't the same as murdering them. My Shepard was basically Captain Picard 2.0. Remember how Captain Picard was always about peace with the Borg (ignoring the terrible off-character movies) and how he was willing to negotiate peace with the crystalline entity, which if you're not familiar was a creature that sucked the life out of entire planets... He was determined to stop them from causing harm, but he didn't want to kill them.

In a game where the central premise is that you can choose how your character acts and reacts, encouraging you to play in your own style, you're awfully quick to assume the way you played the game is the way everyone did.


Edit:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And while the Reapers themselves are creating some of the very conflicts that the Catalyst created them to stop, you are failing to remember that the Catalyst was wrong. You can't ever lose sight of that while thinking about the continuity of Mass Effect. The Catalyst's analysis of the situation was incorrect. Flawed.

This is one of the problems right here, if the underlying and central premise of the plot is that the super space being with the power to create essentially immortal space gods has gotten it so completely and obviously wrong, how can you take any of it seriously. Not once in the billion years since he started this has he even thought for a second he was wrong (despite copious evidence to the contrary in the few years we're privy to alone!)? Did he just not check up on any of this stuff in the interim? Is he MEANT to be kinda stupid and goofy? "oh shucks, i accidentally annihilated all organic life every 50,000 years! My bad!"

[scriver]

There need to be a Fanboy Fallacy Law, where the first person to imply or call another a fanboy (and thus wrong) automatically loose.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There need to be a Fanboy Fallacy Law, where the first person to imply or call another a fanboy (and thus wrong) automatically loose.

I didn't call anyone a fanboy. I was denying the implication that I was one for liking the ending to ME3.

[scriver]

You were rather the one being fanboy fallacy'd in the current discussion, MSH

[Darkmere]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For things Fenrif didn't cover:

The codex is also adamant about all the relays and citadel being prothean design. It's a fallible in-universe source. Those tentacle-beards ain't protheans. Also, the reapers are strongest at earth, which still has an active rebellion on the surface? That raises even more unfortunate implications, like how the largest fleet assembled in this (and if Javik is to be believed, possibly also the last) cycle can jump right into their strongest territory, where they're keeping their huge factory-thing, and shoot up the place. No border guards?

Rachni wars: krogan uplifted, rachni defeated, krogan rebellions, genophage. Wrex states the genophage is 1600+ years old. Legion's records from the Morning War are 290-ish years old. Rachni wars predated AI in this cycle. Further, remember what the geth consensus was doing in ME2? Cleaning up Rannoch. They didn't pursue the fleeing quarians out of the system, and when you first encounter geth, it's specifically stated that no one's seen them for many years. And then Sovereign accidentally all the heretics and they go around shooting at organics, which Legion, as a platform of the geth consensus, openly opposes.

If the Catalyst is wrong, and in fact cannot control the reapers, it's more guilty of this trumped up annihilation paradigm than all the organics that its slaughtered. Might have been a good point, but also not addressed in the 4 minutes or so we get to meet and (not) understand this universe-changing character.

Shepard is helpless:
Shep: *Boop* Shepard to Hackett...
Hackett: Hackett here, what's the situation?
S: Well, the citadel arms are open, I'm on that dongle-thingy bleeding out and Anderson's been gut-shot. Maybe someone out of the dozens or hundreds of people that have been building this thing for weeks can pop on down and take a look for the on-switch. Also, send a medic. And some fritatas.
H: Roger that. Hackett out.