Support NeoGAF

[Achtius]

Part of the weirdness, I think, is that you can control just the Reapers...or you can wipe out all synthetic life? How is that really an equivalent choice?

Wiping out synthetic will protect the organic (i don't buy that argument), but harvesting the organics is the reaper's weird way to preserve a species (i don't believe it does, as the species no longer have free will). so either way, it's a bunch of baloney.

He didn't.

When humans finally put the citadel inside the crucible, they have check mated the reapers.

Remember somewhere in the game, it is said that reaper uses the mass relay to guide how technology advances (I think this is correct,correct me if i am wrong), so it's totally within Reapers's plan to allow the lowly organics to think they are creating a superweapon to defeat the reapers, when in truth, it does nothing. They just want to bring the dominate species the ultimate despair when the crucible does not work as intended.

Disclaimer: Nothing I said make sense anymore. I am going to bed

 

[Almighty]

How did they move the Citadel to Earth? Does it have engines?

I just assumed all the Reapers grabbed and pulled or pushed it there.

 

[littleworm]

That is too much work. Just wiping out a ton of people is so much easier.

Agreed, so why not just kill everyone and be done with it? Or they could use indoctrination on everyone and have peace?

 

[ElFly]

How did they move the Citadel to Earth? Does it have engines?

The citadel had a mass relay inside it.

 

[alerus]

I should take your opinion serious when I find it to be moot considering that the gap between synthetics and humans is much more complex? The number one reason against coexisting is that it never has worked. While it could this time, the evidence is hard against it, agree?

How is it much more complex? Unless you can specify what the differences are and why those differences are insurmountable, your argument reduces to "they're different and therefore cannot coexist."

I'm aware the story says they cannot coexist. I'm saying that's a remarkably stupid idea, one that Bioware didn't even want to follow in their own game up until the end when they introduced it. It's a concept completely divorced from the themes in the rest of the games (or at least ME2 and the rest of ME3).

 

[Shepard]

The citadel had a mass relay inside it.

Makes sense, I had totally forgot about that!

 

[Dresden]

How did they move the Citadel to Earth? Does it have engines?

SPACE MAGIC

The citadel had a mass relay inside it.

or this.

 

[LuchaShaq]

My ideal ending would be

Get such a massive fleet that all the reapers come to sol to prevent the crucible from firing.

Retreat most of the ships carrying dignitaries like the primarch/wrex/council in the middle of battle. Maybe include most of the normandy crew getting out.

A select few like shep sacrifice every planet in the sol system including earth by using the crucible to destroy the sol relay (or causing the Sun to supernova instantly like the sun in the ME2 tali mission was going to sooner than expected using dark matter?) and killing all of the reapers.

Bad endings - Less important people escape.

Benefits as a franchise to end this as the good ending?

- Shepherd dead so any future games have a semblance of cannon so there are not tons of possible shepherd's that players want represented fairly.

- All the other mass relays still exist so any future games can still function as games.

- Tons of space racist humans due to sacrifice of the sol system, cerberus has new leader + massive influx of new recruits due to hatred due to losing earth.

- Most of the loved characters like Garrus/Wrex/Tali alive to do spinoffs or appear as npcs in future games.

- An actual fucking conclusion

- Shep still gets to be space Jesus.

Negatives

- Some people will still be mad if there isn't a super happy ending...fuck them

- Some won't have interest in the universe if shep is gone.

- Don't get to jerk off about speculation while your fans want to lynch you?

 

[SerArthurDayne]

The citadel had a mass relay inside it.

That is like eating your own head, I think.

Ending idea

Wow. I basically had this same idea five minutes ago. Bittersweet, get most of the Reapers there, take them out. Not ideal, but good.

 

[Y2Kev]

He didn't.

When humans finally put the citadel inside the crucible, they have check mated the reapers.

Organics won.

What happens next is that the catalyst tries a final gambit by trying to trick shepard into letting them go, or at least, letting them fuse organics and synthetics via their space magic. But the crucible still does its intended goal, and destroys the citadel and the mass relays.

No, not the actual Crucible. The sort of platonic crucible. The design for it. The catalyst designed it. Or whoever created the catalyst designed it. Why?

Makes sense, I had totally forgot about that!

It doesn't really. The relay isn't above earth. How did it get right above earth? Did they pull it? Or then it does have engines and it flew a little ways.

 

[Futurevoid]

How did the previous species even know about the Catalyst?

They didn't. Up until the final missions, the assumption was that the Protheans designed it. You then discover that it's creation has been done piece by piece by many different species over the many cycles of the universe. The Protheans were on the verge of completing it and lost the war. They left VI's however to help the next cycle. It wasn't until humanity looked to complete it and found the VI that revealed the Catalyst was Citadel (which turned out to be partially correct).

 

[MiamiWesker]

The whole Geth is peaceful thing is way too simple of a view. Yes the Geth are peaceful, but the second they were threatened by the Quarians they went into war mode and destroyed them and took over their planet. Now there is peace but what happens when some stupid organic species tries to take over, or starts some war. The Geth will once again see that the best course of action is to destroy the organics, eventually it will get so bad that the Geth will reach the conclusion that organic life is too much of a threat.

Organic life will never live in peace. It is 100% true that we are chaos, we start wars, we fight each other, that will never change. Peaceful AI will be provoked and will be left with no choice.

 

[Zeliard]

How did the previous species even know about the Catalyst? Then to top it off, it's some vent hoodie kid... Protheans were smoking some good stuff to know that would help the fight against the Reapers.

Dunno that they knew what the Catalyst was exactly, did they? Just that there was some odd missing piece. The Protheans eventually figured it had something to do with the Citadel but couldn't pinpoint what exactly.

 

[Karl2177]

That is like eating your own head, I think.

This. So much. And I totally attempted to eat my own head.

 

[Y2Kev]

The whole Geth is peaceful thing is way too simple of a view. Yes the Geth are peaceful, but the second they were threatened by the Quarians they went into war mode and destroyed them and took over their planet. Now there is peace but what happens when some stupid organic species tries to take over, or starts some war. The Geth will once again see that the best course of action is to destroy the organics, eventually it will get so bad that the Geth will reach the conclusion that organic life is too much of a threat.

Organic life will never live in peace. It is 100% true that we are chaos, we start wars, we fight each other, that will never change. Peaceful AI will be provoked and will be left with no choice.

They defended themselves. The Quarians retreated. The Geth did not pursue. The Geth did not look to destroy the organics at all though. Only the heretics under reaper influence--you know, the synthetics designed to protect the organics by killing them-- were ever even aggressive.

All this is telling me is that organics need to be wiped out, not synthetics.

 

[ElFly]

No, not the actual Crucible. The sort of platonic crucible. The design for it. The catalyst designed it. Or whoever created the catalyst designed it. Why?

Well I guess that during the countless cycles someone figured out that the citadel was the head of the reapers. Maybe the reapers pouring out of there tipped them out, and besides, everything surrounding the citadel and the mass relays is suspicious.

 

[littleworm]

No, not the actual Crucible. The sort of platonic crucible. The design for it. The catalyst designed it. Or whoever created the catalyst designed it. Why?

Javik states that it's is the creation of many organic cycles, some cycle way way back came up with the idea somehow, and the protheans, designed the final build but by that time it was too late, so they left it for this cycle to find and build.

 

[Shepard]

It doesn't really. The relay isn't above earth. How did it get right above earth? Did they pull it? Or then it does have engines and it flew a little ways.

There's a mass relay "close" to the sol system. Makes much more sense than just carrying it through all the way.

 

[hateradio]

The whole Geth is peaceful thing is way too simple of a view. Yes the Geth are peaceful, but the second they were threatened by the Quarians they went into war mode and destroyed them and took over their planet.

It wasn't the second they were threatened. The Geth left, Harbinger came in, indoctrinated some, and then the fighting began.

Reapers caused the cycle and they dammed everyone for it.

 

[Shepard]

It wasn't the second they were threatened. The Geth left, Harbinger came in, indoctrinated some, and then the fighting began.

Reapers caused the cycle and they dammed everyone for it.

No, the first geth quarrian fight had no influence of the reapers.

 

[hateradio]

No, the first geth quarrian fight had no influence of the reapers.

The Quarians started the fight, and the Geth left.

 

[Zerokku]

Interesting tidbit from the Indoctrination Theory thread on BSN.

The chain reaction destroying the relays starts in the Viper system. Aka the system that blew up from the mass relay destruction in Arrival.

Gonna chalk it up to Bioware just not paying attention to their own lore like half of the ending already, but yah.

 

[Karl2177]

There's a mass relay "close" to the sol system. Makes much more sense than just carry it through all the way.

That's still a long ass ways to carry the Citadel. From Charon to Earth that is.

 

[SerArthurDayne]

No, the first geth quarrian fight had no influence of the reapers.

Which is why they are dumb, and their plan is dumb. Geth could have killed everybody if they wanted to. That Dreadnought was damn near invincible.

 

[littleworm]

No, the first geth quarrian fight had no influence of the reapers.

Yes, and once the Quarians retreated, the Geth remained peaceful for 300 years till Sovereign came along in ME1.

 

[Achtius]

No, the first geth quarrian fight had no influence of the reapers.

but the geth LET quarian ESCAPE when they were no longer a threat to their existence

It's been stated 5 times now.

 

[Dresden]

No, the first geth quarrian fight had no influence of the reapers.

The first "fight" where the Geth ended up fighting for their survival, and chose to let their creators live in the end?

 

[MiamiWesker]

Agreed, so why not just kill everyone and be done with it? Or they could use indoctrination on everyone and have peace?

Yeah the whole Reaper plan sounds like something created by AI. It is ruthless, emotionless, it is more about numbers and calculations than it is a good solution. Maybe the species that were building the reapers made some "good AI" to help, this AI was programmed specifically to make sure life remains in the galaxy. The best scenario it came up with is this weird cleansing thing. The AI never wanted to interfere with life, it never wanted pure extinction, it just saw the cleansing as a necessary step to keep organic life going.

 

[Alucrid]

The whole Geth is peaceful thing is way too simple of a view. Yes the Geth are peaceful, but the second they were threatened by the Quarians they went into war mode and destroyed them and took over their planet. Now there is peace but what happens when some stupid organic species tries to take over, or starts some war. The Geth will once again see that the best course of action is to destroy the organics, eventually it will get so bad that the Geth will reach the conclusion that organic life is too much of a threat.

Organic life will never live in peace. It is 100% true that we are chaos, we start wars, we fight each other, that will never change. Peaceful AI will be provoked and will be left with no choice.

Uh...you went inside the Geth's consciousness, right?

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

That's still a long ass ways to carry the Citadel. From Charon to Earth that is.

the codex describes it as a ship, I believe.

 

[Almighty]

The whole Geth is peaceful thing is way too simple of a view. Yes the Geth are peaceful, but the second they were threatened by the Quarians they went into war mode and destroyed them and took over their planet. Now there is peace but what happens when some stupid organic species tries to take over, or starts some war. The Geth will once again see that the best course of action is to destroy the organics, eventually it will get so bad that the Geth will reach the conclusion that organic life is too much of a threat.

Organic life will never live in peace. It is 100% true that we are chaos, we start wars, we fight each other, that will never change. Peaceful AI will be provoked and will be left with no choice.

Well what did you really expect the geth to do? Let themselves be wiped out by a bunch of over reacting Quarians. Once the Quarians fled they didn't pursue and wipe them out like I assume they could of done at that point easily. The they just kept to themselves for the next three hundred or so years.

 

[Zeliard]

The Geth are all a bunch of Legions now. They're cool peeps.

 

[Escape Goat]

That's still a long ass ways to carry the Citadel. From Charon to Earth that is.

What carried it? We see nothing that would be powerful enough to haul something as big as the Citadel. Do they even have tractor beams? Or they hitch it to Harbinger and he chugged along for a couple weeks to get to Earth with the help of some space magic.

the codex describes it as a ship, I believe.

Would be the simplest explanation. Its more fun to think its sloppy writing.

 

[Karl2177]

the codex describes it as a ship, I believe.

The fuh? ME1 describes it as a mass relay to dark space.

 

[Lich_King]

Just finished... I don't think endings are so bad to file complaints to FTC and BBB, but the game could have been so much more.

Illusive man is wasted completely. I thought he was supposed to be the third force. Instead, everything in galaxy is black and white - you either obey Shepard or the Reapers. Also space anime ninja, except even anime doesn't do that anymore.
Reapers are not explained fully. Why is there xzibit child AI in Citadel? Sovereign info ruined, making human reaper before invasion makes no sense, etc.

My ending: Shepard makes it to the Citadel and opens it up, but Illusive Man gets to Crucible faster, and, using his research, gets control over Reapers and starts synthesis for himself, becoming Perfect Human-Machine. Then you get to kill him and turn off Reapers, or you can join him (or kill him and take his place) and make new Nazi Human Empire Prothean-style but with Reapers to control every other race and legendary Shepard to pacify rebellions. Endings get altered according to decisions made previously.

Probably should make up another ending but too late to think and grief hasn't settled in fully yet.

 

[SerArthurDayne]

What carried it? We see nothing that would be powerful enough to haul something as big as the Citadel. Do they even have tractor beams? Or they hitch it to Harbinger and he chugged along for a couple weeks to get to Earth with the help of some space magic.

They got it there damn quick. I was gone for about two hours, plus travel time. So a couple of days?

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

The Geth are all a bunch of Legions now. They're cool peeps.

who will totally destroy all Quarians because they were shooting. That too, is kind of weird.

 

[MiamiWesker]

but the geth LET quarian ESCAPE when they were no longer a threat to their existence

It's been stated 5 times now.

And later the Quarians came back to fight again. And some organic race would fight them at some point cause that is what we do. At some point the Geth would simply say fuck this, they are too big of a threat, lets get rid of them so we can finally be in peace.

 

[Alucrid]

And later the Quarians came back to fight again. And some organic race would fight them at some point cause that is what we do. At some point the Geth would simply say fuck this, they are too big of a threat, lets get rid of them so we can finally be in peace.

Err, no. Everything we saw about the Geth in this game (the non-indoc ones) says the opposite.

 

[ElFly]

The citadel and the mass relays were created by the reapers. The civilizations that used them did not know a lot about those. This is stated way before it's even revealed that the protheans weren't the ones that created the citadel.

So it isn't unthinkable that it had a propulsion system, capable of moving it to the nearest mass relay (there's one next to the citadel) or using it's own mass relay, and then being flown to the earth.

Don't really think that the citadel getting to earth is a plot hole.

 

[Shepard]

That's still a long ass ways to carry the Citadel. From Charon to Earth that is.

Yep, still better than carrying it from Widow.

Which is why they are dumb, and their plan is dumb. Geth could have killed everybody if they wanted to. That Dreadnought was damn near invincible.

Yes, and once the Quarians retreated, the Geth remained peaceful for 300 years till Sovereign came along in ME1.

but the geth LET quarian ESCAPE when they were no longer a threat to their existence

It's been stated 5 times now.

The first "fight" where the Geth ended up fighting for their survival, and chose to let their creators live in the end?

Yet they almost wiped their creators and took their homeworld. The Geth aren't just peaceful creatures: why didn't they leave the moment they felt threatened by the Quarrians?? Besides, the Geth were only the initial synthetic life form, who knows in what they were going to turn into.

 

[MiamiWesker]

The Geth are all a bunch of Legions now. They're cool peeps.

Until someone tries to kill them or control them. They didn't have some don't kill organics program installed. They simply want to help and be at peace. The second they are threatened they will defend themselves.

 

[Dresden]

Until someone tries to kill them or control them. They didn't have some don't kill organics program installed. They simply want to help and be at peace. The second they are threatened they will defend themselves.

So basically, they're just like the organics.

 

[jackdoe]

The citadel and the mass relays were created by the reapers. The civilizations that used them did not know a lot about those. This is stated way before it's even revealed that the protheans weren't the ones that created the citadel.

So it isn't unthinkable that it had a propulsion system, capable of moving it to the nearest mass relay (there's one next to the citadel) or using it's own mass relay, and then being flown to the earth.

Don't really think that the citadel getting to earth is a plot hole.

Nope. The plot hole is the Reapers attacking Earth first instead of the Citadel (as they had no problem capturing it) or the Reapers not disabling Mass Relays once in possession of the Citadel.

 

[Achtius]

I give up, I am going to bed

 

[Zeliard]

who will totally destroy all Quarians because they were shooting. That too, is kind of weird.

Well if they don't strike back the Quarians decimate them. The Quarians were clearly in the wrong on that one. That's why you have to tell those foolish admirals - with both the Paragon and Renegade options - to stand down if you want peace between the Geth and Quarians.

 

[littleworm]

Yeah the whole Reaper plan sounds like something created by AI. It is ruthless, emotionless, it is more about numbers and calculations than it is a good solution. Maybe the species that were building the reapers made some "good AI" to help, this AI was programmed specifically to make sure life remains in the galaxy. The best scenario it came up with is this weird cleansing thing. The AI never wanted to interfere with life, it never wanted pure extinction, it just saw the cleansing as a necessary step to keep organic life going.

I guess, but this would also mean that Sovereign is lying and the Reapers are not the pinnacle of life because they are still flawed. Really there is no answer that anyone could come up with as to why the Reapers do what they do. The best and simplest answer is that they are concerned about their own survival.

 

[LuchaShaq]

Yeah the whole Reaper plan sounds like something created by AI. It is ruthless, emotionless, it is more about numbers and calculations than it is a good solution. Maybe the species that were building the reapers made some "good AI" to help, this AI was programmed specifically to make sure life remains in the galaxy. The best scenario it came up with is this weird cleansing thing. The AI never wanted to interfere with life, it never wanted pure extinction, it just saw the cleansing as a necessary step to keep organic life going.

Imo the reapers were the original cycle's geth and just grew stronger and stronger over millions of years of stealing new tech to bolster themselves when organics developed it/they tried to develop it themselves.

 

[Escape Goat]

Until someone tries to kill them or control them. They didn't have some don't kill organics program installed. They simply want to help and be at peace. The second they are threatened they will defend themselves.

They got free will installed. They each can make a choice as individuals now. And what species wouldn't defend themselves against an aggressor?

 

[MiamiWesker]

Err, no. Everything we saw about the Geth in this game (the non-indoc ones) says the opposite.

So when they are attacked they will simply shut down and do nothing? Also this assumes the Geth don't advance anymore, which will lead them to view things differently.