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[WiiredShawn]

Because I think the point is that the synthesis ending is supposed to be pretty tempting. The reapers leave, you have a mix of synthetic and organic life that essentially does away with the conflict between the two, and everyone is happy...

...except that the ending destroys all the Mass relays, so everyone is fucked!

The choice is total shit. There's no heavy moral choice to make. "Sacrifice everyone or sacrifice yourself?" That's a choice i can get behind. Nope, instead you just sacrifice everyone anyway, no matter what, and Shepard doesn't seem to have a problem with fucking over everyone royally by destroying the mass relays.



That's not true! The beam is blue instead of red!

If you take the ending literally, yes, this is what happens and it's shit. But if it's hallucination/indoctrination, then none of what happens after Shepard stands up from the beam attack is real. The relays aren't actually destroyed, but rather, that is what Shepard imagines (or the Reapers cause her to imagine) because of what the Catalyst says. But why do we need to trust the Catalyst? Why can't the starchild simply be a red herring, trying to lead Shepard toward indoctrination and away from the "Destroy" ending?

The Halucination magic beam reminds me of that one medical panel in the IFF Derelict reaper mission.

I had totally forgotten about that, but it could add to the point quite nicely. If a dead Reaper can hack into your dreams, then what can a live Reaper do? It could manipulate. I think it's interesting, too, that the beam which Shepard supposedly rides to the Citadel is surrounded by what appears to be Reaper arms. She is a couple of yards away from Reaper tech, which makes it entirely possible for it to exert power over her weakened state.

 

[Xena]

Its an extended version of the conversation with Anderson at the end. He asks Shepard if he has ever thought about having kids.

I imagine that whole thing would be really awkward if you romanced Tali or Garrus.

When my female Shep is saying her last goodbye to Garrus, they do talk about kids. Garrus say something about settling down with her and seeing what a baby half human half turian would be like. Then my shep immediately says they'd better off adopting... lol. That scene was so good.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

I don't think the civilizations are "fucked." I mean, ships can travel between nearby systems with relative ease.

Yeah, but it's like if global communications suddenly failed today, along with all airplanes, trains, ships powered by anything other than wind, etc. Oh, and all the world's capitals and food supplies are smoldering ruins.

 

[John Rabbit]

so i haven't played this game and really didn't intend to, but for anyone who's beaten it, is the ending synopsis on wikipedia accurate? because if so that's pretty goddamned amazing.

 

[kinoki]

Okay, before I get more stupid discussing this series (sans ME1):

• Indoctrination is a fail-safe built into the reapers. So that no organic could out-smart them.
• The reapers, mass relays, citadel and even the cruicable was built by a proto-civilization.
• These dudes made a judgement call that never in galaxy history would there be peace between organics and mechanics.
• If organics and mechanics, by some freak accident like Shepard, could get along you could either choose to destroy all life in the universe replacing them with a hybrid or destroy all mechanics.

Is that about right?

 

[thetrin]

I don't think the civilizations are "fucked." I mean, ships can travel between nearby systems with relative ease.

Really? You have the entire fleets of several civilizations unable to return back to their home planets. Now everyone has to rebuild their civilizations without their entire population to help, and the Asari, Krogan and Turian fleets stuck in the Sol system will have to basically build new homes in the surrounding systems because they can't get home...oh yeah, and they don't have the supplies to build a civilization because I don't think they thought the mass relays would all explode at the end of the battle.

Okay, before I get more stupid discussing this series (sans ME1):

• Indoctrination is a fail-safe built into the reapers. So that no organic could out-smart them.
• The reapers, mass relays, citadel and even the cruicable was built by a proto-civilization.
• These dudes made a judgement call that never in galaxy history would there be peace between organics and mechanics.
• If organics and mechanics, by some freak accident like Shepard, could get along you could either choose to destroy all life in the universe replacing them with a hybrid or destroy all mechanics.

Is that about right?

The crucible was iteratively designed by every civilization that ever faced the reapers. The crucible that the Alliance actually builds is the work of countless other civilizations that were eventually destroyed by the reapers.

The whole motivation for the reapers is stupid. It's not unknowable or incomprehensible for our little brains. It's just plain stupidity. It would be nice if they had some actual unknowable purpose (like for instance being galactic custodians that clean up planets when the fungus (aka organic life) get too out of hand).

Nope, instead, they are synthetic life saving organic life from OTHER synthetic life by exterminating said organic life. Because that makes any fucking sense.

 

[Vamphuntr]

But that's the thing: Shepard wasn't hit by the beam. Watch the scene again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBHY44zOe4s Shepard is a number of feet back from the beam - close enough to be damaged by the explosion, but not enough to be disintegrated. Considering the kind of shit Shepard can live through normally in the game, it's not farfetched to believe she survived this explosion, albeit barely. But it is very, very impossible to survive an explosion in your face, while physically weak, and then survive plummeting to Earth from an exploding space station without a helmet.

You're grapsing at straws, really. It's also impossible to survive being spaced and yet they revived Shepard in ME2. Even if his body should be disintegrated by entering the atmosphere of the planet his body crashed on. It's not like the series was always logical with such things. So Mass Effect 3 and ME2 are a huge hallucination while Shepard is being spaced out in ME2?

If they wanted a dream ending they would have explicitly made it so and there would still be a backlash because nothing is resolved. That means that you never confronted the illusive man, you never learn what the reapers want and are and you spent 75 hours of your life to make decisions that had no impact on the ending. They wouldn't also have added the sequence with the kid and grandpa in the end talking about the starts and other worlds if it was a dream.

Moreover, your dream sequence implies the catalyst lies and he doesn't. If you blow up the reapers, EDI will never show up during the ending sequence with the Normandy. She's toasted. I tried all three endings and for both the synthesis and control ending I get Joker, EDI and Kaidan in the end but in the destruction one I get Joker, Kaidan and Garrus.

There's no magic dream sequence. The Illusive Man is in the citadel in the end because he is indoctrinated by the reapers and they let him pass to get rid of Shepard in the eventuality he reached that spot. Since he's now a half reaper, he can indoctrinate/control both you and Anderson. You can break of his will either by forcing him to suicide by shooting him.

 

[WiiredShawn]

Okay, before I get more stupid discussing this series (sans ME1):

• Indoctrination is a fail-safe built into the reapers. So that no organic could out-smart them.
• The reapers, mass relays, citadel and even the cruicable was built by a proto-civilization.
• These dudes made a judgement call that never in galaxy history would there be peace between organics and mechanics.
• If organics and mechanics, by some freak accident like Shepard, could get along you could either choose to destroy all life in the universe replacing them with a hybrid or destroy all mechanics.

Is that about right?

The first one, yes, it seems so. The second one, not quite - Sovereign claims that the Reapers built the Citadel and Mass Relays, while the Crucible has apparently been worked on by multiple civilizations across time. If there is some "proto-civilization," we are never told about it, which leads to the third point. We don't know of any such "dudes" - only the Catalyst claims that peace is impossible. The trouble is, assuming the first point still holds, why should we trust the Catalyst? What prevents him from being the voice of the Reaper, trying to indoctrinate a weak Shepard using the image of a child she has thought about all game long?

 

[Blue Ninja]

What the flying fuck

 

[Psychoward]

What the flying fuck

lol

 

[EmCeeGramr]

What the flying fuck

 

[ape2man]

Yeah me too.

You paid 60$ to not have an ending at all. I doubt even EA would try that. The reason you only see your corpse moving in the destruction ending is because it's the only one where you corpse is still intact. In the synthesis one you are pulverised into magical pixie dust and in the other one you become a reaper.

any way BioWare is DEAD to me because of this ending. i can't even play Mass Effect 1 and 2 anymore because of this ending... fuckkkkk.

 

[megalowho]

Trying to figure out what, if anything, were the affects of indoctrination on Shepard and his crew over the course of the game. So you meet the vent kid on Earth and watch him die. Shepard's already felt some effects of exposure to the Reapers in ME2, and the "nightmares" in ME3 are the seeds of indoctrination being planted around the feeling of saving that kid. Chasing, burning in a fire, voices, running to another Shepard, Reaper noises, all that hokey stuff. I don't think they ever explain exactly how indoctrination works, even in Sanctuary, but once the dreams start they've got their hooks in you.

You go on your mission to save the galaxy and fight the Illusive Man, feeding into the Reaper plan of divide and conquer. The Illusive Man is heavily indoctrinated but also on the right path - the Reapers can be controlled and potentially exploited for untold power, if you lack the morals required to figure out how. His intentions are to save the galaxy as well, same with Saren.

Stuff happens, Shepard tries real hard but blacks out in London in front of Harbinger before reaching the Citadel space train. From this point on you're potentially interfacing with the Reapers and living out the endgame under their influence. Or it's possible that everything in the Citadel with Anderson and the Illusive Man is legit, and only after falling at the controls are there are they able to get into your head.

The Catalyst aka God appears manifest as the child from Shepard's nightmares. The Reapers don't actively have control over Shepard, as he never became fully indoctrinated, so you have some freedom of choice in there. Their existence is defended as a long term galactic solution to save organic life from being fundamentally erased by synthetics, but now that the Crucible is complete and you stand before them the cycle is broken. You're given one final test to choose a new solution for the galaxy.

The cannon answer appears to be to resist temptation and destroy them, since Shepard actually regains consciousness after his divine encounter in that scenario. The other two could be red herrings in a Reaper fever dream, at the very least it feels like the Catalyst is steering you away from simple destruction. I'm surprised there wasn't an option to let the harvesting of this cycle continue in order to ensure that organic life in some form and the mass relays live on, or at least a full on push for Shepard to give in to indoctrination. It's such a cool concept, to not have it directly affect you or your crew members in a meaningful way felt like a waste of a story arc.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

I didn't go back to the Citadel after doing the medi-gel thing. Does this mean I now cannot recruit my partner in crime Conrad Verner?

It's shitty enough that Dr. Michel apparently got wasted in the attack too. As was Barla Von and Kelly. FFFFFFFFFFFF..

 

[Petrichor]

Why do so many people see the catalyst as some kind of god or supernatural entity? Why can't it just be the central reaper AI?

 

[Digishine]

I didn't go back to the Citadel after doing the medi-gel thing. Does this mean I now cannot recruit my partner in crime Conrad Verner?

It's shitty enough that Dr. Michel apparently got wasted in the attack too. As was Barla Von and Kelly. FFFFFFFFFFFF..

I replaying the game for a 2time and actually u can save Kelly from the Citadel U only need chose to say that she needs to change her name & look when u see her for the first time in the game

 

[diamondstar]

Can someone please answer this...Did I blow up a Reaper with a single nuke
from the M-290 Cain?

 

[Vamphuntr]

Can someone please answer this...Did I blow up a Reaper with a single nuke
from the M-290 Cain?

It's not a reaper, it's a canon you blow up.

Oh and where do you guys meet Kelly? She was alive in my ME2 game and I never saw her. Import glitch I guess. I did get the two engineers and Chakwas back though.

The Conrad Verner thing was hilarious. He has a Ph D in Dark Energy studies :lol. He also asks for the matriach writings you collected in ME1 and the licences you bought in the first game.

 

[Metroidvania]

I still can't wrap my head around the whole "Yo dawg I heard synthetics kill organics, so we, the ancient supreme civilization, made some reaper synthetics to kill all organics to prevent you from creating synthetics that kill you."

We have no evidence of this point of synthetic killing singularity other than the reapers themselves. Very little in the ME universe hints at this (one or two mentions of AI's going berserk in ME1 is all I can think of, maybe Project Overlord to some degree), which is why it's such a smack in the face to have it as the logic behind the ending choices.

EDI did hypothesize that only a truly collective consciousness that could not achieve 'awakening' as individuals like herself or legion, would ever reach that singularity point.

Why do so many people see the catalyst as some kind of god or supernatural entity? Why can't it just be the central reaper AI?

Harbinger's the Boss Reaper. The Catalyst says it controls the reapers.

 

[Ros8105]

Why do so many people see the catalyst as some kind of god or supernatural entity? Why can't it just be the central reaper AI?

Because it's able to turn everyone into robot-human hybrids via green explosion magic stuff. seems pretty supernatural to me.

 

[mxgt]

So what difference does Effective Military Strength actually make?

I had 3500 or something before the end mission and had access to all 3 'endings'. I'm guessing if the bar isn't full you don't get access to all 3?

 

[diamondstar]

It's not a reaper, it's a canon you blow up.

Oh and where do you guys meet Kelly? She was alive in my ME2 game and I never saw her. Import glitch I guess. I did get the two engineers and Chakwas back though.

The Conrad Verner thing was hilarious. He has a Ph D in Dark Energy studies :lol. He also asks for the matriach writings you collected in ME1 and the licences you bought in the first game.

Was it a Reaper cannon because it looked like one. And was it ever explained why nukes don't kill Reapers or was it just not ever mentioned?

 

[Hypertrooper]

What was the purpose of the Human Reaper again?

And why does no Reaper use their arms or tentacles to shoot like the Sovereign did?

 

[Petrichor]

Really? You have the entire fleets of several civilizations unable to return back to their home planets. Now everyone has to rebuild their civilizations without their entire population to help, and the Asari, Krogan and Turian fleets stuck in the Sol system will have to basically build new homes in the surrounding systems because they can't get home...oh yeah, and they don't have the supplies to build a civilization because I don't think they thought the mass relays would all explode at the end of the battle.



The crucible was iteratively designed by every civilization that ever faced the reapers. The crucible that the Alliance actually builds is the work of countless other civilizations that were eventually destroyed by the reapers.

The whole motivation for the reapers is stupid. It's not unknowable or incomprehensible for our little brains. It's just plain stupidity. It would be nice if they had some actual unknowable purpose (like for instance being galactic custodians that clean up planets when the fungus (aka organic life) get too out of hand).

Nope, instead, they are synthetic life saving organic life from OTHER synthetic life by exterminating said organic life. Because that makes any fucking sense.

It does make sense, for reasons discussed exhaustively in the last couple of pages.

Who creates synthetics? Organics

So what determines how powerful synthetics are? The technological prowess of the organic civilisations that create them

Assuming synthetics with a certain threshold of power would lead to the extinction of all organic life, what's the best way to prevent this from happening, waiting until said doomsday synthetics are created, or killing advanced organics before they can create them?

It makes sense.

 

[WiiredShawn]

The first one, yes, it seems so. The second one, not quite - Sovereign claims that the Reapers built the Citadel and Mass Relays, while the Crucible has apparently been worked on by multiple civilizations across time. If there is some "proto-civilization," we are never told about it, which leads to the third point. We don't know of any such "dudes" - only the Catalyst claims that peace is impossible. The trouble is, assuming the first point still holds, why should we trust the Catalyst? What prevents him from being the voice of the Reaper, trying to indoctrinate a weak Shepard using the image of a child she has thought about all game long?

You're grapsing at straws, really. It's also impossible to survive being spaced and yet they revived Shepard in ME2. Even if his body should be disintegrated by entering the atmosphere of the planet his body crashed on. It's not like the series was always logical with such things. So Mass Effect 3 and ME2 are a huge hallucination while Shepard is being spaced out in ME2?

If they wanted a dream ending they would have explicitly made it so and there would still be a backlash because nothing is resolved. That means that you never confronted the illusive man, you never learn what the reapers want and are and you spent 75 hours of your life to make decisions that had no impact on the ending. They wouldn't also have added the sequence with the kid and grandpa in the end talking about the starts and other worlds if it was a dream.

Moreover, your dream sequence implies the catalyst lies and he doesn't. If you blow up the reapers, EDI will never show up during the ending sequence with the Normandy. She's toasted. I tried all three endings and for both the synthesis and control ending I get Joker, EDI and Kaidan in the end but in the destruction one I get Joker, Kaidan and Garrus.

There's no magic dream sequence. The Illusive Man is in the citadel in the end because he is indoctrinated by the reapers and they let him pass to get rid of Shepard in the eventuality he reached that spot. Since he's now a half reaper, he can indoctrinate/control both you and Anderson. You can break of his will either by forcing him to suicide by shooting him.

It might be grasping a little bit, I admit, but that might be just because the writers thought themselves too clever and didn't make this explicit enough. It's just as easy to believe that they crafted this clever ending and then neglected to make it clear, as it is to believe they made a shitty ending and thought people would be okay with it.

In this interpretation (remember, I've never called it anything more than that), your decisions do impact the ending. If you built your EMS high enough, Shepard can survive the Destroy ending - only if you're strong enough, and only in that ending. Why would that be? Because your forces were strong enough to win, allowing Shepard to wake up rather than be annihilated. It's not perfect, but it's something.

Also, this interpretation assumes that the Catalyst is not a real thing, but a manifestation of Shepard's memories being exploited by the Reapers for indoctrination. If follows, then, that whatever happens after you choose is also not real, but Shepard imagining the impact of her decision. The Catalyst can still lie about EDI and the geth being destroyed, but Shepard imagines that the Catalyst is correct; she takes his words at face value, when there is no reason to do so outside of being indoctrinated. Notice how in the "best" Destroy ending, you see people (and not EDI) walking out of the ship, but in the "bad" Destroy ending, no one leaves the ship. This could be a symbolic gesture: if you were strong enough, and Harbinger knows it, he tries to convince Shepard that he was right about synthetics being destroyed as a ditch effort at mockery; but if you're not strong enough, no one leaves the ship because actually, the assault failed on Earth and likely everyone died.

As far as TIM, why do we have to assume he is actually there? Because he appears to be in front of us? He is indoctrinated, but what is to say that he actually made it, or that the Reapers didn't already dispose of him, and that his appearance is part of the manipulation? And if the Catalyst is misleading Shepard about Harbinger's control, why can't the Illusive Man's "exerted influence" (in the form of the shadowy substance on the screen) simply be Harbinger deflecting his influence on to another person, a person that Shepard wants to see?

I admit that it's difficult to reconcile that sequence with the kid and grandpa. It's possible to say that it's part of Shepard imagining her influence in the far, far future. That's about all I can say about it right now; personally, I still think the scene detracts more than it adds.

However, I'm still surprised people accept the Cataylst's words without question. Why should we? Everything he says is a deflection of Shepard's goal. He takes a form that Shepard wants to see, a form that is easily manipulated. Shepard is literally lying a few yards away from Reaper tech - the same Reaper tech that we know can infiltrate people's minds and manipulate their thoughts. It's a completely thematically relevant idea that uses a common narrative trope - that of the red herring and unreliable narrator.

 

[Vamphuntr]

Was it a Reaper cannon because it looked like one. And was it ever explained why nukes don't kill Reapers or was it just not ever mentioned?

The game refers it as the "hades cannon". It's the same color as the reaper though :lol.

Nope they don't explain why they resist nukes.

 

[GrandHarrier]

The game refers it as the "hades cannon". It's the same color as the reaper though :lol.

Nope they don't explain why they resist nukes.

Probably the same reason they resist metallic slugs launched to a fraction of the speed of light.

 

[vitaminwateryum]

The game refers it as the "hades cannon". It's the same color as the reaper though :lol.

Nope they don't explain why they resist nukes.

It had the little bug legs as well. One of the weirder moments in the game. Where the hell are reapers getting "Hades Cannons" from? They're big robots with fucking lasers, why would they also have big cannons?

 

[JWong]

Did anyone also think that the Citadel was going to be a weapon once they revealed the Crucible?

I was like "it's pretty fucking obvious".

 

[XANDER CAGE]

As far as TIM, why do we have to assume he is actually there? Because he appears to be in front of us? He is indoctrinated, but what is to say that he actually made it, or that the Reapers didn't already dispose of him, and that his appearance is part of the manipulation? And if the Catalyst is misleading Shepard about Harbinger's control, why can't the Illusive Man's "exerted influence" (in the form of the shadowy substance on the screen) simply be Harbinger deflecting his influence on to another person, a person that Shepard wants to see?

Because, through what the series has shown us, a person cannot be "not there" without being a very obvious hologram. We also shoot him/get him to shoot himself, and a very dying Illusive Man tells us some Very Real Things about his worldview as he's dying, if you shot him. The game has also shown us what a lucid dream is like for the characters. If the entire ending doesn't really happen, it contradicts things the audience has been shown thus far. We are also shown plenty of events that aren't from Shepard's perspective, which would be rather odd if we were supposed to be locked into his indoctrinated consciousness. Does his head have several camera crews inside it? Stories, movies, etc that pull this "it was all a dream" thing typically are a bit more thorough and clever about dropping hints that make the audience say "oh, now I get it" and not leave it up to them to build a flimsy house of cards out of wishy-washy "clues".

There is simply no precedent for any of these ideas. It's wishful thinking, plain and simple. Unless Bioware were to go back and drop in *actual* hints throughout all three games that something like this was possible, suggesting the ending was hallucinatory simply makes no sense. Ultimately, what would the point of the ending being a hallucination? The game promises a fight against the Reapers, and while the ending sucks it at least delivers that.

Did anyone also think that the Citadel was going to be a weapon once they revealed the Crucible?

I was like "it's pretty fucking obvious".

Yeah, and did anyone notice how the Citadel has now been used as an "it was this thing all along!" reveal twice?

 

[megalowho]

I still can't wrap my head around the whole "Yo dawg I heard synthetics kill organics, so we, the ancient supreme civilization, made some reaper synthetics to kill all organics to prevent you from creating synthetics that kill you."

We have no evidence of this point of synthetic killing singularity other than the reapers themselves. Very little in the ME universe hints at this (one or two mentions of AI's going berserk in ME1 is all I can think of, maybe Project Overlord to some degree), which is why it's such a smack in the face to have it as the logic behind the ending choices.

EDI did hypothesize that only a truly collective consciousness that could not achieve 'awakening' as individuals like herself or legion, would ever reach that singularity point.

I think it's a little bit bigger than just organics vs. synthetics, it's order vs. chaos. Allowing the natural evolution of both to go unchecked might not result in the destruction of organic life, but the potential for such an outcome alone means that hitting a reset button every 50,000 years is preferable for the creators of the Reapers. The paths of the mass relays, deciding what species live and who is harvested, all of that is part of a pattern that has apparently worked out for quite a long time before Shepard. Pretty sure the Reapers eventually harvest synthetic life along with organics too, to maintain order for the next cycle.

 

[JDSN]

Holy shit, the "It was all a dream"people are worst than the "femshep is true shep" crowd.

 

[dragonelite]

What was the purpose of the Human Reaper again?

And why does no Reaper use their arms or tentacles to shoot like the Sovereign did?

Yeah just rewatched the Space battle which i imo find the best cutscene in this game im i love space battles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVKgVZzdoIo&hd=1

 

[Vamphuntr]

As far as TIM, why do we have to assume he is actually there? Because he appears to be in front of us? He is indoctrinated, but what is to say that he actually made it, or that the Reapers didn't already dispose of him, and that his appearance is part of the manipulation? And if the Catalyst is misleading Shepard about Harbinger's control, why can't the Illusive Man's "exerted influence" (in the form of the shadowy substance on the screen) simply be Harbinger deflecting his influence on to another person, a person that Shepard wants to see?

It was really him. When you beat Chronos Station the protheans VI tells you he told the reapers about your plan and escaped. Which is hilarious as they should have know what was the crucible about. In ME1 the VI Ilos tell you that every cycle they steal all intel and techs from people and yet they've missed that one.

They probably seduced/controled the Illusive Man to go there simply because he knew what was about to happen. They had him go inside close the citadel arms so the Crucible couldn't be put in place. They need to have someone inside to do it just like they needed Saren to close them in ME1. The Illusive Man thought he would be strong enough to resist the indoctrination and double cross them and use his plan to control the reapers but he wasn't strong enough. The reapers on the other hand, can use him to protect the inside of the citadel if someone makes it in.

I mean do you really think Bioware wrote something that deep? When did the reapers impersonate someone again? It's basically the same as Saren but TIM decided to get the implants by himself to understand the tech better.

 

[LordCanti]

Probably the same reason they resist metallic slugs launched to a fraction of the speed of light.

Space Magic.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Holy shit, the "It was all a dream"people are worst than the "femshep is true shep" crowd.

At least FemShep exists!

 

[dgrdsv]

I still can't wrap my head around the whole "Yo dawg I heard synthetics kill organics, so we, the ancient supreme civilization, made some reaper synthetics to kill all organics to prevent you from creating synthetics that kill you."

Why do you even try? It's clear as sky that this is just bullshit made up by someone who saw BSG and is incapable of using his own imagination. It has no roots in the whole ME trilogy -- if anything the trilogy prooves this wrong.

Hell, I've just came up with a good reasoning behind Reapers that might've truly been beyond the comprehension of sentient organic life. Let's just say that Reapers = phagocytes of the universe. And then there's the original Drew K.'s dark energy idea that could've probably tie nicely with the whole biotics and, well, mass effect things. Instead we've got this generic and illogical crap about machines saving organics from total exctinction by other machines via killing advanced organics so that they can't make advanced machines. There's nothing to wrap your head around here. It's just bad plot.

 

[BeesEight]

It does make sense, for reasons discussed exhaustively in the last couple of pages.

Who creates synthetics? Organics

So what determines how powerful synthetics are? The technological prowess of the organic civilisations that create them

Assuming synthetics with a certain threshold of power would lead to the extinction of all organic life, what's the best way to prevent this from happening, waiting until said doomsday synthetics are created, or killing advanced organics before they can create them?

It makes sense.

The Reaper's don't make sense, as I've pointed out even earlier in the thread.

I've noticed your argument relies heavily on the Reapers actually not being intelligent. For a lot of their "theory" to work, they can't have a sentience to plan or evaluate situations. This is clearly not the case and the game makes it quite explicit of that fact. So, the views of the original creators doesn't matter since the Reapers, as an autonomous collective, can have their own thoughts.

Now, the Reaper's original statement is that synthetics WILL turn on organics and try to wipe them from the universe. This statement has no precedent and BioWare would have to set this situation up in their own universe. It could work as a theme, but the only examples we have in the series of this occurring runs counter to this theme. EDI and the Geth both exhibit peaceful and co-operative tendencies.

The Lunar VI wasn't a complete AI and even then there were questionable situations rising up to its decision to annihilate the entire base. So BioWare did a terrible job of even setting up the Reaper motive before they sideline the player in the last five minutes with it.

And this isn't even approaching the fundamental question of what is "organic" and what is "synthetic." There is a hard distinction made between the two without any thought as to what it means. Take a look at Shepard who has so many cybernetic implants that he's more 'machine than man' by the end of the series. Almost all these 'organic' species are cyborgs in the Mass Effect universe with the Quarians and Volos being the most obvious example.

And why would the Reapers even consider organics worth saving? As already mentioned, they're an autonomous species. The beliefs of their creators means nothing. Especially since they're proporting that synthetic life will rebel against the beliefs of their creators anyway (unless BioWare is arguing that ultimately every technologically advance civilization is nihilistic and secretly seeking its own destruction).

The ending is bad and illogical. There's no two ways about it. BioWare put very little thought into it and it shows. The attempts to rationalize are ultimately going to fail because it doesn't make sense.

 

[Metroidvania]

I think it's a little bit bigger than just organics vs. synthetics, it's order vs. chaos. Allowing the natural evolution of both to go unchecked might not result in the destruction of organic life, but the potential for such an outcome alone means that hitting a reset button every 50,000 years is preferable for the creators of the Reapers. The paths of the mass relays, deciding what species live and who is harvested, all of that is part of a pattern that has apparently worked out for quite a long time before Shepard. Pretty sure the Reapers eventually harvest synthetic life along with organics too, to maintain order for the next cycle.

True enough, but in the end, that order versus chaos argument still boils down to Shepard caving in to the Catalyst's choices. There's no option to tell him to go fuck himself, no bartering, no real dialogue, no paragon-renegade options to make your 'choices' matter, which is why the ending is so out of place. You've always had a precedent for a chance, either through dialogue or combat. Now, you have nothing but terms dictated to you.

Assuming synthetics with a certain threshold of power would lead to the extinction of all organic life, what's the best way to prevent this from happening, waiting until said doomsday synthetics are created, or killing advanced organics before they can create them?

It makes sense.

But who put the creators of the reaper in charge of policing the entire universe? Who's saying that their method is A) based off some infallible evidence that this WILL happen, and B) that the reapers are in fact the only way. We have no evidence of either in any of the ME games. Your assumption is based off of information that the player is never given in any of the games, we are only taking some mysterious Reaper Controller's word for.

As someone else posted, why not just have the reapers remain a constant presence over organic life and prevent machines from getting that far? In essence, being active master of the universe rather than passive observers until the extermination timeline rolls around. That would make more sense then letting life build up, only to tear it down in an endless cycle, at least, for me.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Holy shit, the "It was all a dream"people are worst than the "femshep is true shep" crowd.

This is all part of the coping mechanism to deal with the grief of the shitty endings. They are currently at the "bargainning" stage.

 

[Petrichor]

The Reaper's don't make sense, as I've pointed out even earlier in the thread.

I've noticed your argument relies heavily on the Reapers actually not being intelligent. For a lot of their "theory" to work, they can't have a sentience to plan or evaluate situations. This is clearly not the case and the game makes it quite explicit of that fact. So, the views of the original creators doesn't matter since the Reapers, as an autonomous collective, can have their own thoughts.

Now, the Reaper's original statement is that synthetics WILL turn on organics and try to wipe them from the universe. This statement has no precedent and BioWare would have to set this situation up in their own universe. It could work as a theme, but the only examples we have in the series of this occurring runs counter to this theme. EDI and the Geth both exhibit peaceful and co-operative tendencies.

The Lunar VI wasn't a complete AI and even then there were questionable situations rising up to its decision to annihilate the entire base. So BioWare did a terrible job of even setting up the Reaper motive before they sideline the player in the last five minutes with it.

And this isn't even approaching the fundamental question of what is "organic" and what is "synthetic." There is a hard distinction made between the two without any thought as to what it means. Take a look at Shepard who has so many cybernetic implants that he's more 'machine than man' by the end of the series. Almost all these 'organic' species are cyborgs in the Mass Effect universe with the Quarians and Volos being the most obvious example.

And why would the Reapers even consider organics worth saving? As already mentioned, they're an autonomous species. The beliefs of their creators means nothing. Especially since they're proporting that synthetic life will rebel against the beliefs of their creators anyway (unless BioWare is arguing that ultimately every technologically advance civilization is nihilistic and secretly seeking its own destruction).

The ending is bad and illogical. There's no two ways about it. BioWare put very little thought into it and it shows. The attempts to rationalize are ultimately going to fail because it doesn't make sense.

We're told explicitly that the reapers are controlled by a singular intelligence (the catalyst), I'm not sure there's much evidence throughout the series to counteract this. Where is it stated that they're an autonomous species (and if it is stated at some point, why does this contradict what the catalyst says? If you're referencing the conversation with sovereign, has it ever crossed your mind that lies and intimidation could play a key role in shaping how organic civilizations respond to the reapers?)

I agree that there is no precedent within the Mass Effect universe for the synthetics vs organics problem, and I agree that this is a fundamental flaw with the denouement. But the reaper solution does (assuming they're all controlled by a unifying intelligence) solve the problem of preventing apocalyptic synthetics from being created, regardless of whether or not these hypothetical synthetics would actually destroy all organic civilisation. All that is neccesary for the explanation of the reapers to be logically sound is that whoever created the reaper cycle believed that the hypothetical doomsday synthetics would eradicate organic life.

 

[mc emcee]

It's pretty clear that shepherd wasn't hallucinating when he met TIM because he could kill you if you don't shoot him first . However, I do think shepherd is in another reality after Anderson dies partly do to the fact he's talking in space and the echo effect they use when he talks.

 

[LumpOfCole]

It would be like Reboot having an end where Bob is confronted by the User saying that the system just has to be reformatted every 5 months or else chaos will come to Mainframe.

 

[syoaran]

What the.... hell. There are bad endings, then there are really bad endings. And then there is Mass Effect 3.

Really enjoyed the story up until that final sequence, and now its just soured the entire experience for me.

The crazy people asking for a DLC pack to release an ending that doesn't suck just got one more vote

 

[WiiredShawn]

Because, through what the series has shown us, a person cannot be "not there" without being a very obvious hologram. We also shoot him/get him to shoot himself, and a very dying Illusive Man tells us some Very Real Things about his worldview as he's dying, if you shot him. The game has also shown us what a lucid dream is like for the characters. If the entire ending doesn't really happen, it contradicts things the audience has been shown thus far. We are also shown plenty of events that aren't from Shepard's perspective, which would be rather odd if we were supposed to be locked into his indoctrinated consciousness. Does his head have several camera crews inside it? Stories, movies, etc that pull this "it was all a dream" thing typically are a bit more thorough and clever about dropping hints that make the audience say "oh, now I get it" and not leave it up to them to build a flimsy house of cards out of wishy-washy "clues".

There is simply no precedent for any of these ideas. It's wishful thinking, plain and simple. Unless Bioware were to go back and drop in *actual* hints throughout all three games that something like this was possible, suggesting the ending was hallucinatory simply makes no sense. Ultimately, what would the point of the ending being a hallucination? The game promises a fight against the Reapers, and while the ending sucks it at least delivers that.

The third game provides all the evidence you need: the dream sequence chasing the kid around. The kid "isn't there," but Shepard chases it anyway. Also, in ME2, it's clear that Reapers can tamper with people's memories: when searching for the Reaper IFF, the scientists both have the same memory about the same wife, which is impossible.

The third game shows us what a regular dream is like, not what a hallucination is like. We also know that indoctrination warps people's thoughts, turns them against their wills.

Again, there is no necessary reason to believe you are actually shooting the Illusive Man, just like there's no reason to believe Anderson made it to the beam in one piece. Of course TIM says things that sound like him - Shepard knows enough about him to imagine his reaction, and the Reapers know enough about him to fake his reactions in Shepard's head. There is no contradiction here - only a lacking sense of intent on the part of the writers.

I'm not arguing that it's handled perfectly, because it's not - if it is true, then it is far too nebulous (clearly, or people would be more willing to entertain the idea). But nothing about it runs counter to the themes of the game, or the logic of the universe, or even the idea of "fighting a Reaper" at the end. In this interpretation, you are fighting a Reaper, but in the most personal way - in your mind, against indoctrination. Isn't that less cliche than the military bravado option?

 

[Metroidvania]

All that is neccesary for the explanation of the reapers to be logically sound is that whoever created the reaper cycle believed that the hypothetical doomsday synthetics would eradicate organic life.

But we aren't shown any evidence of this, so why should we believe it? The Catalyst is pretty similar to Big Boss at the end of MGS4 without the heavy exposition.

It boils down to the question of why should we take the catalyst's word for it? Why are these the only 3 choices we have? What then was the point of collecting the entire galaxy in a giant military force?

It clashes against the entire theme of the rest of the game, especially since we are being shown in ME3 that the reapers are not indestructible, only to be told in the last 5 minutes (at least with the current endings,) it's assumed we can't beat the reapers through conventional means at all, thus the need for the catalyst.

On another note, check out the Blasto lines. Definitely some buddy cop lines in there.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

It would be like Reboot having an end where Bob is confronted by the User saying that the system just has to be reformatted every 5 months or else chaos will come to Mainframe.

*Luke enters the Emperor's throne room, Emperor nowhere in sight*

Hologram of That One Dead Ewok: Hello Skywalker. You see, the Force, will always destroy the galaxy. That is why we, the True Sith, created the Empire and destroyed the Jedi. However your overcoming the Dark Side proves that our method is flawed. You may choose to destroy the Death Star creating an anti-Force wave that removes the Force from the galaxy, tell us to lay down our arms, or make all beings into Jedi. Also, hyperspace technology will be destroyed.

Luke: Okay.

*cut to Millennium Falcon, suddenly carrying the ground team, suddenly fleeing Battle of Endor, being knocked out of hyperspace and crash landing on an alien world. Han, 3PO, and Lando's alien buddy get out and smile.*

*Fade to George Lucas telling child that that's sort of what happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away*

 

[BeesEight]

We're told explicitly that the reapers are controlled by a singular intelligence (the catalyst), I'm not sure there's much evidence throughout the series to counteract this. Where is it stated that they're an autonomous species (and if it is stated at some point, why does this contradict what the catalyst says? If you're referencing the conversation with sovereign, has it ever crossed your mind that lies and intimidation could play a key role in shaping how organic civilizations respond to the reapers?)

Yes, I am talking about the conversation with Sovereign. That conversation and the one with the Catalyst are incredibly contradictory. But even if you suppose they are a mindless species of robots (only according to the Catalyst and not Sovereign and Harbinger), then the Catalyst is still an AI capable of thought free of its original creator. What purpose would that Catalyst even have for making Sovereign lie to such an extent?!

This is retconning of the worst kind.

I agree that there is no precedent within the Mass Effect universe for the synthetics vs organics problem, and I agree that this is a fundamental flaw with the denouement. But the reaper solution does (assuming they're all controlled by a unifying intelligence) solve the problem of preventing apocalyptic synthetics from being created, regardless of whether or not these hypothetical synthetics would actually destroy all organic civilisation. All that is neccesary for the explanation of the reapers to be logically sound is that whoever created the reaper cycle believed that the hypothetical doomsday synthetics would eradicate organic life.

That's just passing the buck. Why does the original creator think this? All this creates is the issue that the original creator of the Reapers was acting illogically and doesn't make the Reapers themselves any more logical.

 

[indigo-cyclops]

We're told explicitly that the reapers are controlled by a singular intelligence (the catalyst), I'm not sure there's much evidence throughout the series to counteract this. Where is it stated that they're an autonomous species (and if it is stated at some point, why does this contradict what the catalyst says? If you're referencing the conversation with sovereign, has it ever crossed your mind that lies and intimidation could play a key role in shaping how organic civilizations respond to the reapers?)

I agree that there is no precedent within the Mass Effect universe for the synthetics vs organics problem, and I agree that this is a fundamental flaw with the denouement. But the reaper solution does (assuming they're all controlled by a unifying intelligence) solve the problem of preventing apocalyptic synthetics from being created, regardless of whether or not these hypothetical synthetics would actually destroy all organic civilisation. All that is neccesary for the explanation of the reapers to be logically sound is that whoever created the reaper cycle believed that the hypothetical doomsday synthetics would eradicate organic life.

Lies and intimidation seem like something organic life would use explicitly. For a synthetic to show said traits wouldn't that mean they are sentient? The concepts sometimes aren't always clear to me but a machine capable of consciously lying and intimidating per interaction seems completely free of machine restraints controlled by one super machine...

 

[Petrichor]

As someone else posted, why not just have the reapers remain a constant presence over organic life and prevent machines from getting that far? In essence, being active master of the universe rather than passive observers until the extermination timeline rolls around. That would make more sense then letting life build up, only to tear it down in an endless cycle, at least, for me.

They have to cull organic civilisations because it's organics who create synthetics. If they just kept destroying the machines organics produce, leaving organics to develop, a time would eventually come where organics had become so advanced that the synthetics they build would be more powerful than the reapers, compromising the cycle.

Regarding them disappearing into darkspace, the reaper cycle relies on them vanishing into legend, and organic civlisation being unprepared for them. If they were constantly there, organics would be able to research and harness the advanced technology the reapers consist of and potentially overrule them.

I honestly don't like the ending, but I do like the explanation behind the reapers, and I do appreciate that it's logically sound. If only the whole franchise had been designed with this in mind so the themes could have been woven throughout the series rather than it just coming out of nowhere, it could have been very interesting.

Lies and intimidation seem like something organic life would use explicitly. For a synthetic to show said traits wouldn't that mean they are sentient? The concepts sometimes aren't always clear to me but a machine capable of consciously lying and intimidating per interaction seems completely free of machine restraints controlled by one super machine...

Really? EDI is capable of telling jokes in the fiction of Mass Effect. I don't see how it's such a stretch for synthetics to see the tactical advantage of having an enemy believing that a fallacy is in fact true.