firehawk12
Subete no aware
What would be awesome is if they said you had to buy the Mass Effect anime to get a code to download the real ending. SYNERGY.
Mass Effect 3 SPOILER THREAD: LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE
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FrontalMonk
Banned
not really prominent?
two of the MAIN antagonists are indoctrinated! the key factor with each encounter being that they don't realize it...did you never question how Shepard manages to find himself around reapers or reaper technology for so long without succumbing to ANY effects?
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
A combination of East and West to discover the truth. Penned by Hideo Kojima.
Thats my quick view on the subject if this whole indoctrination thing turns out to be true. If it is BioWare are geniuses and tricky motherfuckers of the highest level.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Wiggum2007
Junior Member
All your dead squad mates whisper to you during that dream. I heard Kaiden, Jack, Samara, and Jacob, who all died in my previous games. Maybe Grunt or Wrex was dead in their game and they mistook their voice for Harbinger.
UnluckyKate
Member
God, I would buy that.
Raiden takes over in the next DLC.
It was all a dream isn't a inherently bad trope. No trope is, it depends on the way that it's used.
I definitely believe in indoctrination if only because of the hints suggesting it with no real contradictions to it, or atleast nothing that has occured to me (if anyone has an idea of why the indoctrination theory does not work, please, speak up, I'd love to hear it because it'd be conclusive proof that bioware messed up rather than have this be a twist that the entire internet has to work in unison in order to solve). None of the hints for it are definitive, but the sheer overwhelming volume of them convince me it's true. And like I said, if you have evdience to the contrary, speak up, because I'm going crazy and beginning to like the ending after all.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I wasn't sure I was hearing it until post Rannoch, when I heard Legion's "Shepard-Commander, help us" or something like that.
bigace33
Member
At this point, as long as they change it I don't care. As it stands now, we have one of the lamest game endings ever experienced.
Yup they can use whatever excuse they want to be able to go back and re-do it into a great ending.
Even then it'll take time for me to erase this one mentally but I'll get there.
heliosRAzi
Banned
Relatively prominent. In Inception and Total Recall, it was always brought up to the main characters. Always. There was never a moment where it was never in the back of your mind.
In Mass Effect, I did question how Shep could be around so much Reaper tech and not get indoctrinated, then I remembered that Bioware killed him at the beginning of the second game and no one treats his resurrection as something miraculous. I then remember that the reason for the entire series is an awkward "solution" to synthetics. Things get brought up, set up, and then dropped. Everything points to Bioware being lazy and crappy at writing.
If anything, the moment the "dream" begins should be at the beginning of ME2 since he died.
You missed my point. The work required to modify the ending is minimal. That's why it works. From what I can see, that scene was easy to fix.
Comparing it to what Bioware would need to do in order to change the endings is insane. It's a total rework of the animations, the cut scenes, the voice work.
It's never going to happen. You guys are in for one hell of a deception.
Warrior_Keoni
Member
Empty Space
Member
The answer to this depends on how soon we see a trailer for an indoctrination ending, if one exist. If it really is in a like month time frame I'd be inclined to believe they planned it out if the turn around was that fast.
Also god this thread is the greatest example of desperately grasping at straws ever.
Lifejumper
Member
Another interesting point made in favor of the indoctrinated theory. Its kinda creepy how it all fits.
bsn said:
UnluckyKate
Member
I read all these theory, debates, and fanfic or evidence online and I came to the only possible solution :
Bioware had no clue on how to end the series so they just made it the vaguest possible, then wait for the outcry and fan abnoxious delusions for explanations. Then they will copy what people will make up about the ending and then release it as DLC
Bioware had no clue on how to end the series so they just made it the vaguest possible, then wait for the outcry and fan abnoxious delusions for explanations. Then they will copy what people will make up about the ending and then release it as DLC
I can remember hearing Thane, Wrex (well, generic Krogan voice
), Mordin, and Legion. A few others, but were so quiet (and only the 1 word), that they became hard to decipher who the voices were.Lifejumper: Totally didn't connect the "walls are moving" bit, back with the dead reaper scientists in ME2.
LightofRohan
Member
So I've been reading everything about this for a while, so it indeed is indoctrination at the end. And it seems likely Bioware will release the end, due to time constraints ect. I think this is amazing. Hopefully everyone doesnt jump down their throats for this...
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Well, the Citadel is totally reconfiguring itself at that point...
Its pretty unmistakable
Empty Space
Member
I don't know if I saw a bunch of walls moving I would point them out as clear identifier of where I am.
LightofRohan
Member
Yea... it's no where that easy. If the DLC releases at the end of the year, then I'd wager you are right. And they would not take such an expensive gamble to appease the hardcore.
I don't believe you were indoctrinated the entire time. Just when you get knocked out on Earth and that giant reaper is standing above you.
To be fair to this thread, it's not that different anywhere else on the internet.
Shepard has always been indoctrinated since encountering Sovereign in ME1! So the VI didn't say he/she was indoctrinated to lure him/her into a false sense of security!
heliosRAzi
Banned
It's getting ready for the flavor blast
I think it's only a matter of time until this indoctrination DLC happens.
Then we'll spend years debating whether Bioware intended it to be like this or they turned out to be the luckiest bastards ever with like 20 things that just happened to all point to Shepard being indoctrinated.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Never
This reminded me of MGS3's river of sorrow.
So if we take cues from that, we're currently playing Big Shep, and in the next game we'll be playing as Solid Shep and Kai becomes an ali. Because it's all a fanfiction.
That's my biggest fear, but it would take so much work for them to do anything.
Vire
Member
Haha, indeed. I think you are totally right about it being unintentional, but at this point I don't really care.
NeoGAF's motto has never been more appropriate:
Believe.
I don't think Shepard is indoctrinated for the entire game (if he was at all). It is possible if we follow the theory that the little boy is a tool the Reapers are using to attempt to indoctrinate Shepard, but he has been resisting it successfully.
Only at the end, when he is right in front of Harbinger, and "shot" with the laser, does the full indoctrination process begin. According to the theory anyway.
or you know
they play the cutscene of shepard breathing in
waking up and just run the new dlc they made from there
they dont have to change the ending at all, they just add new shit on top of it. just like f3 didnt change the ending up to you blacking out at all either, they just didnt run the credit sequence and played the new shit from then
heliosRAzi
Banned
Shouldn't Kai be Vamp?
FrontalMonk
Banned
Maybe things ended up being a little understated, but basically every single character that knew Shepard in ME1 was either shocked to see he's alive, or had heard he was alive and could scarcely believe it. The question always came back to "what else did Cerberus do to you that you don't know about?" and it was hammered into you repeatedly by Kaidan/Ashley in ME2 and 3. To say that no one treated his resurrection as something miraculous is just patently false.
And maybe I'm getting a little meta here, but any of the hints in ME3 of indoctrination are really subtle...as they should be. The hints are much more pronounced in the citadel at the ending though. All that was missing was an exchange like this:
Shepard: You're indoctrinated, Illusive Man!
TIM: No, Shepard, you are the indoctrinated.
And then Shepard was a zombie.
Saw the ending a couple of hours ago.
My major gripe: Teamwork was always a big theme in every ME game. And Shepard proved himself as a great leader. Most of the time, he was more diplomat that soldier.
And yet, in the final minutes of the trilogy, Shepard alone holds the fate of the entire galaxy in his own hands and becomes a martyr.
I can live with all that deus ex machina crap and strange cryptic endings. But this really bothers me. I just doesn't fit with the rest of the series and Shepard as a character.
My major gripe: Teamwork was always a big theme in every ME game. And Shepard proved himself as a great leader. Most of the time, he was more diplomat that soldier.
And yet, in the final minutes of the trilogy, Shepard alone holds the fate of the entire galaxy in his own hands and becomes a martyr.
I can live with all that deus ex machina crap and strange cryptic endings. But this really bothers me. I just doesn't fit with the rest of the series and Shepard as a character.
LightofRohan
Member
This all really comes down to timing and quality. If Bioware releases the DLC 6 months from now and it's shoddily put together (more than usual) with lot's of dialogue missing; then it's obviously was a scramble attempt. If this comes out however next month and it's fairly pact/put together and free -- it's obvious it was their intention along. This next month will prove to me, if they are completely confused how to do this story or they are way on top of it.
I'm glad of all this though, my favorite series is not fully over yet! Or at least I assume so.
But it wouldn't make any sense that Shep gets indoctrinated only to then snap out of it simply to continue a different ending.
But who's cyborg ninja?
He ascends reality, changing from Jesus (a unifying force) to God (choosing the fate of the universe).
It's obvious that it only detected Shepard being indoctrinated as Kai Leng walked into the room, and its warning that an indoctrinated person had entered was actually aimed at Shepard.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
You're leaving out the option that the VA and all of this are already done, and were done before the game was complete, though.
Vire
Member
If it comes out next month, I would be absolutely blown away, because that would mean Bioware intended to do this all along.
It's incredibly risky, but also incredibly genius if true.
I like Bioware and all, but I don't give them that much credit.
Hey remember how we totally fucked with your mind and sent you into that spiraling, deep, dark depressing? Psych! Here's some DLC!
The only way I would have believed it was all a dream or the result of some indoctrination was if they didn't show the scene on the winter planet at the very end and if they had clearly showed it was earth during the secret scene (and if that scene was available for every endings).
With what I've seen it's simply bad writing. The scene at the end is basically identical to the ending scene of DAII where Varric tells Cassandra the final part of the story. No matter what you did in the game a big unavoidable event happened anyway. In DAII it was the mages' revolution and in ME3 it's the end of space travels. Varric is simply telling the story like the old grandfather was telling a story to the kid.
It was fairly easy to show it was all a dream but they didn't so it's simply bad writing. I really don't care about that scene in the rubbles as nothing confirms it was on earth anyway. The only evidence I saw is that the rubbles are made of concrete or that you breathe. So what? I mean they were already very lazy copying some desktop picture to do the winter scene at the end and photoshopping a stock picture to do Tali's face so the guy making the 2 seconds scene probably never saw the space god temple or that scene was maybe not even supposed to be used for that anyway. Moreover, in ME1 when you beat Saren you're also udner a pile of concrete so there's obviously concrete on the Citadel. It was super easy to show Major Coats or even Anderson pulling you up (he should be alive if it's a dream) but they didn't. Breathing doesn't mean it's on Earth either. For all I care I've never seen the Citadel completely blown up either.
Moreover you "wake up" before the winter scene so the last part is clearly not a dream and even confirms space travel is no longer possible.
With what I've seen it's simply bad writing. The scene at the end is basically identical to the ending scene of DAII where Varric tells Cassandra the final part of the story. No matter what you did in the game a big unavoidable event happened anyway. In DAII it was the mages' revolution and in ME3 it's the end of space travels. Varric is simply telling the story like the old grandfather was telling a story to the kid.
It was fairly easy to show it was all a dream but they didn't so it's simply bad writing. I really don't care about that scene in the rubbles as nothing confirms it was on earth anyway. The only evidence I saw is that the rubbles are made of concrete or that you breathe. So what? I mean they were already very lazy copying some desktop picture to do the winter scene at the end and photoshopping a stock picture to do Tali's face so the guy making the 2 seconds scene probably never saw the space god temple or that scene was maybe not even supposed to be used for that anyway. Moreover, in ME1 when you beat Saren you're also udner a pile of concrete so there's obviously concrete on the Citadel. It was super easy to show Major Coats or even Anderson pulling you up (he should be alive if it's a dream) but they didn't. Breathing doesn't mean it's on Earth either. For all I care I've never seen the Citadel completely blown up either.
Moreover you "wake up" before the winter scene so the last part is clearly not a dream and even confirms space travel is no longer possible.
Why wouldn't it? You would have to break the indoctrination process, which means you never get fully indoctrinated, to continue the game. The indoctrination theory is that everything after the beam of light from Harbinger is an illusion. It is in Shepard's head, and part of the final indoctrination process. Not real.
heliosRAzi
Banned
In ME2, no one treated his resurrection as something miraculous. Everyone is basically "Hey, Shep. How are you doing?" The VS on Horizon was mad at you because you didn't contact them in two years and there was no option to tell them, "Hey, I was dead. Now worship me for I am the Shepherd reborn."
You are Space Jesus and no one cares.
You're right: they shouldn't hit you over the head with the hints, but it doesn't work in this game because it's not a game where you question reality. In Inception, you question whether Cobb's reality is the correct reality. In Total Recall, you question whether or not it was a vast plan to keep three-titted aliens from breathing suitable air.
In the end, according to the theory, if Shep was indoctrinated, he is still lying on Earth while everyone dies around him. Nothing is accomplished.
LightofRohan
Member
Yea. That's brilliant.
Also having the high EMS makes the kid say, "Wake up" instead of "why are you here?" is pretty trippy indeed.
I think this would have worked better if the the Destroy ending was available if you have 100% ect. instead of the completely wrong one...
That makes no sense. Do you just say that the original ending was all a dream? Every single part of it?
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