BassForever
Member
I feel like every time I open this thread and read the most recent page one or two more logical "another reason why that was dumb/made no sense" is brought up that I agree with.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread |OT2| Taste the Rainbow
- Thread starter Patryn
- Start date
Complistic
Member
hmm, at this point I'm really only mad at what they did with the normandy. If that scene is intended to just be a dream of shepard then I could probably get over it.
It ended The Cycle of genocide that had gone on for millions of years. That, to me, was the most Paragon thing any being has ever done in the history of the galaxy and worth the sacrifice.
You can't conclude it is impossible. I won't even go into the reasons. It's clearly possible. Just because we're told it's really hard? Like ending The Cycle is impossible? Sorry, I don't buy. But you know what. I don't even care. I don't care if the remaining life never again can travel to other systems. As long as it can survive, flourish and is safe from being destroyed in another 50,000 years.
I swear if I hear "Yes the choices mattered, look at all you did all game! lol" I'm going to go hulk smash on something.
With the ending the way it is, its the equivalent of saying that a murder victim's choice of meal an hour before they died mattered. Its like saying that my choice of a blue shirt today matters when I get hit by a speeding bus in an hour. You have to look at the big picture to decide on whether or not a choice matters, not the choice in a vacuum.
With the ending the way it is, its the equivalent of saying that a murder victim's choice of meal an hour before they died mattered. Its like saying that my choice of a blue shirt today matters when I get hit by a speeding bus in an hour. You have to look at the big picture to decide on whether or not a choice matters, not the choice in a vacuum.
hmm, at this point I'm really only mad at what they did with the normandy. If that scene is intended to just be a dream of shepard then I could probably get over it.
Indoctrination brethren, let us hold the line, for the day is coming when we will get our reckoning.
Complistic
Member
I dont actually think they're good enough to come up with the indoctrination theory. I can see them making the normandy scene the final thoughts of a dying shepard though.
CharmingCharlie
Member
That is obviously your take on things, I would argue it is a tragic ending the entire Mass Effect universe and galactic civilisation is completely destroyed. The fact we only ever get to see Buzz and the Brat at the end is a pretty big clue to me that there is very little life left in the galazy except for pockets like the planet the Normandy crashed on. If you choose the synthesis ending the whole adam and eve vibe you get points to that as well.
At the end of the day we won't know either way but if you go buy established lore in the Mass Effect universe then the only conclusion you can come too is that all life in a system with a relay is wiped out because when you destroy a relay it releases a blast wave that destroys the system.
I know I have stated that "systems with a relay" I am well aware of what happened with the Normandy crew which is why I said earlier that "Normandy could've been knocked out of the Mass Effect stream and ended up in a system without a Mass Effect relay and hence survived the relay's destruction".
Wow I was never a indoctrinationer but the dream foliage name is pretty interesting.
I love you. This is how I feel about the "Synthesis" ending.
hmm, at this point I'm really only mad at what they did with the normandy. If that scene is intended to just be a dream of shepard then I could probably get over it.
Could just be a copied texture from one of the dream sequences. I'm sure that they're used along the roofs in the Vancouver intro map too.
Complistic
Member
So shepard just happens to dream of the same foliage of the planet that the normandy crash lands on?
Coincidence?
Yes.
Its also where whores go.
Duebrithil
Member
Sovereign was left behind to asses the evolution of organics, and to send the signal to the Citadel that would open the mass relay to dark space.
Because Sovereign knew the Reapers would be stuck in dark space for a while longer and needed a ground force to take the Citadel and activate the relay.
As I understood frome ME1, only the prothean scientists on Ilos knew about the Keepers-Citadel-Reaper connection, and that group's presence wasn't know to anyone. The protheans that used the Conduit to modify the Keeper-Citadel variable died after doing so, and that knowledge remained hidden until Shepard found Vigil.
Maybe I remember wrong, but Sovereign sends Saren and a small amount of troops through the Conduit to take control of the Citadel, the Geth ships are there just to protect Sovereign and the Citadel while Saren does it's thing.
How do you create a zero-mass corridor through space? I just simply accept TIM threw enough money at the project to make some breakthroughs. Plus, 2 years is what took them to rebuild Shepard, but I assume once they got the body they could put it in some kind of stasis field.
My guess is that it's stealthier to cripple the race that poses the greatest threat to you through intermediaries. Other than that, no idea.
Well, the conversation with Javik seems to indicate that until the current cycle the Crucible was just a design, and information can survive from cycle to cycle as evidenced by the beacons and Vigil. If you mean why indoctrinated individuals didn't send that information to the Reapers, then I got nothing.
Isn't the only evidence of the battle with the Reapers the plans for the Crucible device? And people didn't seem to give high priority to the archives until after the events of Arrival.
Got nothing on that last one, but in any case I think that while you can have a wildly different universe from our own, it needs to be consistent with itself and that ending (the spacechild mostly) seemed to go against most of the things we learned on previous games.
The Elite
BOSS
Going back to the relay destruction thing, are we absolutely sure that they killed the majority of life in the systems that had one? The Arrival DLC is one thing, but this could have been a very different occurrence.
Since I never played the Arrival DLC, like I've said, I don't consider the systems with a relay to be destroyed in my ending. That thought never crossed my mind when finishing the game yesterday. Shepard simply stopped the Reapers and saved all space-traveling life in the galaxy. He also saved the ones who don't travel through space because they won't have to go through this shit when their time comes.
To me, that is a complete Paragon ending.
And for those who say he left the space-traveling races in a new dark age, like I've said, the other option is those same races would have been dead at the hand of the Reapers.
I'm not denying that shit is going to be really bad for the colonies, but consider the alternative - EVERYONE (space traveling) would be dead. And those who don't space travel would have to deal with this shit again in 50k years.
Shepard broke a cycle that has lasted a few hundred thousand years.
I hope, at the very least, they understand why we dislike the ending. Mass Effect's story is not infallible: it drops subplots, antagonists, did not have a stable story arc, and introduces two deus ex machinas in the third game of the trilogy. It does create an interesting world but the story within is a contrived, pandering guilty pleasure that we give time to because we're part of it and it's fun to play.
The ending pushed a plot device, made it about something we thought we already proved wrong, gave us some funny circular logic, and told us to choose. Forget not having the option to argue with the catalyst or finding a fourth option, the writers hit a magic answer button and decided to make stuff up on us. Writers all over the world wish they could do this and have people actually like it.
It's great that some of you accept the conclusion, but I assure you most of us wanted to as well. It was never about wanting a happy ending or filling up loose ends or even those choices (except synthesis; it sucks no matter what), it's about how insultingly lazy it came across to me and it was just too much for even my lowered gaming standards to tolerate.
Again, I didn't demand a new ending or feel entitled to more, I just thought it was bad.
The Elite
BOSS
Would you have been satisfied if you could have argued with the Catalyst for a better solution but the outcomes were ultimately the same?
What fourth option do you think would have worked?
"You got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em"
The Elite
BOSS
I'm pretty much expecting that at PAX.
As I said, I ultimately don't care (hence "forget") about those things; it's how we arrived there I take issue with.
gollumsluvslave
Member
Just finished it last night, and was a bit ho-hum; not a great ending, but certainly not as bad I was expecting.
The furore about the ending had me speculating that all 3 games were some glimpse into the future from the original Prothean beacon, and it was some kind of 'Dallas Dream'.
So from that perspective, I was expecting MUCH worse - to be honest it felt like it was almost a carbon copy of Deus Ex:HR's ending in terms of choices.
That said, Deus Ex is an appropriate reference, as the Star Child comes out of nowhere - I don't particularly like the Indoctriniation Theory, but it does make sense to me and addresses some issues:-
1. Star Child being a figment of Shepherds imagination / dream is more palatable - deals with the plothole that SC could have just let Sovereign into the Citadel in ME1.
2. After being hit by Harbinger, it is obviously a dreamlike vibe, very similar to the previous dreams, featuring 'the boy', would explain SC more readily.
3. The subtle differences in the endings make more sense, as there has been no ending yet.
Of course the downside of that is Bioware simply didn't finish the game properly...
Still, on the whole I was expecting much worse - I still think Bioshock has a worse ending than ME3 for example, and it didn't get ragged on to this extent.
The furore about the ending had me speculating that all 3 games were some glimpse into the future from the original Prothean beacon, and it was some kind of 'Dallas Dream'.
So from that perspective, I was expecting MUCH worse - to be honest it felt like it was almost a carbon copy of Deus Ex:HR's ending in terms of choices.
That said, Deus Ex is an appropriate reference, as the Star Child comes out of nowhere - I don't particularly like the Indoctriniation Theory, but it does make sense to me and addresses some issues:-
1. Star Child being a figment of Shepherds imagination / dream is more palatable - deals with the plothole that SC could have just let Sovereign into the Citadel in ME1.
2. After being hit by Harbinger, it is obviously a dreamlike vibe, very similar to the previous dreams, featuring 'the boy', would explain SC more readily.
3. The subtle differences in the endings make more sense, as there has been no ending yet.
Of course the downside of that is Bioware simply didn't finish the game properly...
Still, on the whole I was expecting much worse - I still think Bioshock has a worse ending than ME3 for example, and it didn't get ragged on to this extent.
InaudibleWhispa
Member
Unless you believe that synthesis messed with everyone's minds to make them forever peaceful, which would be even more disgusting than forcing everyone to become a hybrid against their will, then what exactly have you changed? Races will still hold grudges against others, wars will break out and worlds will build synthetic slaves as they always do because it's in their nature.
kingkaiser
Member
This so much! It is like the ending of the matrix trilogy, a clever and right idea but extremly poor executed.
heliosRAzi
Banned
Like I have said many times already, if you establish rules in your fiction and then something breaks those rules, there must be an explanation or else it feels like an ass pull
It happens whether or not you played the Arrival. Shep is grounded because she killed 300K batarians.
We had the collective might of the galaxy rolling with us, we could have destroyed them conventionally. Shepard does the impossible and that is canon with all Shepards.
Disheveled_Zen
Member
I was finally getting over the ending.
Then I found my way back in here.
I'm sad now.
Then I found my way back in here.
I'm sad now.
The Codex always mentions that destroying a relay causes a supernova regardless of you having played Arrival. I'm also almost certain that canonically, the Bahak system is destroyed through the Alpha relay no matter if you did it. Is the codex and dialogue of Batarian refugees also non-canonical in your ending?
No, I think the whole Catalyst thing was a mistake. In my opinion, Mass Effect's theme throughout the series remains "Hopeful Chaos defeats Hopeless Order" - life vs. death, agency vs. fatalism. Shepard is a big, violent, often stupid hero who overcomes gods and death itself out of sheer will. It's wish fulfillment-heavy, it's pulpy, but it works. Shepard doesn't go where the puppet master of the galaxy tells him to go; he makes his own way, always, because that's what he is about. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. That's pretty much why his final moments are painful to watch for some.
Then again, that's what you get for caring too much about a pulpy space opera series.
You are not giving anyone a choice. You are forcing every single race to become something different. When ME1 and ME2 showed my Shepard convincing everyone to work together in spite of their differences, to have the ending just scrap all that is kind of conflicting.
Ultimately, what it does is somewhat irrelevant. It's never going to be explored or mentioned in any other Bioware game. That said, it still feel like it's a poor ending.
Question is why would he need that? He already had indoctrinated Saren and a high ranking Asari official, and it was assumed that Sovereign was Saren's ship, which meant it had docked at the Citadel. Why create a ground force to take the Citadel, period, when he already had indoctrinated people who could come and go from the Citadel and when no one knew he was a threat? He could've just indoctrinated more people on the Citadel as sleeper agents, instead of risking exposing the Reaper threat.
The answers they have for most of that are fine on the surface, which is all they really need to be.
InaudibleWhispa
Member
It sounds like you're agreeing with me: that synthesis was a horrible ending choice.
The dark energy that would've exploded was instead sent out along the Relays with the colored energy you see and voided into dark space. Problem solved.
Any story, regardless of theme, should have a coherent ending.
But let's stay with space operas: why even attempt to explain everything? The titular Mass Effect and all technologies derived from it were coherent enough. There was no need to pile on more space magic on top of it.
Now, you are not wrong with what you say and there were definitely plot holes and inconsistencies littered throughout (which I found egregious too), but there was at least the possibility of a good conclusion to tie all those themes and character arc into a whole. But no. RGB.
It may be naive of me*, but: why not strive for something complete? Why make these shitty compromises when a better conclusion was within reach? They could have achieved greater coherency by intelligently pursuing what they were allegedly attempting to do: foster speculation, keep it 'high level' and vague. Instead we get half-explanations that make no sense the moment you consider them even a second time. Every scene beyond the scene where Anderson tells Shepard that he did good was a catastrophic stumble.
Why give the Reapers a motivation that makes them look like colossal idiots? Why pull the rabbit that is Space Casper out of the hat at the very end? Given his bullshit, why didn't they use the golden opportunity to hand wave a lot of the bullshit by having a typical conversation with Space Casper, something you're used to doing throughout the entire fucking series? so instead of release at the moment where everything culminates it leaves you with "...Huh? That's it?".
The most damning statement I can think of regarding the ending is this: The music that plays during the ending sequence was more enjoyable and had a greater impact on me than anything that was happening during the ending.
*And hilariously besides the point, since most of what's wrong with the ending doesn't even boil down to artistic intentions or possibly even ability, but simply poor planning, ensuing time constraints and the desire to finally be done with the series on the side of its creators.
How is this a paragon choice when it's clearly the most unethical? You're rewriting everything in the entire galaxy by force, and you have no idea how adding circuits will change organisms.
It's about as paragon of a choice as blowing up 400k batarians to stop the reapers from coming.
The cognitive dissonance was amazing, yes.
shinobi602
Member
hmm, at this point I'm really only mad at what they did with the normandy. If that scene is intended to just be a dream of shepard then I could probably get over it.
Oh shit...
sure, but then that's bad writing and they need to know it and own up to it.
to continue your QA:
writer: harmless space magic, problem solved
enthusiast: but that is objectively bad writing causing you to break the genre
writer: yes, the writing in the ending is sub-par for video games and sub par for the series. I apologize for the low quality writing in the ending.
enthusiast: okay, thank you for your professionalism. good day.
this.. this would be perfect.
Yeah. Yeah, I suppose that's... Yeah. Sigh.
Stupid video games.
Proves I'm not a complete cynic though. Not yet, anyway.
Wouldn't shepard be in his/her own dream, though?
hmm, at this point I'm really only mad at what they did with the normandy. If that scene is intended to just be a dream of shepard then I could probably get over it.
CharmingCharlie
Member
I have no doubt they will come up with a bullshit answer to all this. The only way they will be able to fix these endings and "clarify" them is if they bullshit their way out of it all with some rubbish like "Harry Potter did it so everything is wonderful".
However even if you ignore the "Relay's destruction" issue you are still left with the fact there is no longer any form of viable interstellar transport. All the ships around earth are now stuck that is all assuming they haven't crashed to Earth because as was CLEARLY shown with the Normandy the "space magic" does not like ship engines.
The ending of Mass Effect 3 is nothing but complete and utter devastation that completely and utterly destroys the Mass Effect universe. I think Shep would have done a better job just to have blown his brains out and let the next cycle have a go, they couldn't have done any worse than he did.
Not quite applicable, but I'll take it.
That's what a bittersweet or good ending sounded like, at least.
shinobi602
Member
Think on that.
Proponents of the Indoctrination Theory (aka there was no ending, Shepard's actually near death among the rubble in London still) believe in a dream ending too, essentially.
It wasn't the final game in a trilogy.
Pretty much how I feel. Bioware are so good that you can't help but care, and so awful that you can't help but feeling a pang of shame for caring. If that makes sense.
Duebrithil
Member
Well that's my main problem with the first Mass Effect, why wouldn't Sovereign use Saren or Benezia to activate the relay? That plan went out the window when Sovereign attacked Eden Prime, though. My guess is that Sovereign didn't really know what happened to the Citadel or the Keepers, and thus needed and organic agent to take and use the beacons. Of course by the time it learned what the problem was, the subtle approach was no longer an option.
In any case I do agree with you that we shouldn't expect infinite layers of depth while looking over details (although it would be nice if everything fit nicely), but ME3 ending throws things in your face that run contrary to what we've been hearing until then. Plus I still think that explanation for the Reapers existance makes them less of a threat and just tools of an entity that doesn't really explain anything (is it really better to have a mysterious unexplained entity explain the mysterious villains? I'd rather they just left the Reapers unexplained, simpler and leaves room to explore other possibilities).
StevePharma
Member
Man, I was so hoping for another one of those Powerful Sovereign/Harbinger speeches. Shit was great. Instead we get a half assed speech on Rannoch.
To me, the Reapers felt far more imposing and dangerous in ME1 (and to a degree in ME2). Sovereign pretty much screwed up the Citadel on his own. Thing was titanic in size and conferred a real sense of danger.
I didn't have that feeling at all in ME3. Swimming octopi following me around on the Galaxy Map didn't impose real danger to me, just annoyance.
The final space battle looked cool though. Wasn't a big fan that everything was centered around Earth, but it was expected. Before launch I had hoped we would get to play one or two missions on Earth and that the Final Battle would take place on the Citadel or in Reaper Space (like Shepard with a small strike team (Suicide Mission style) to hit the Reapers on their own turf). Your actions would then have impact on the grand space battle.
Basically Return of The Jedi (strike force on Endor and Giant Space Battle, but without the Ewoks
)
Alas, we got Vent-God.
To me, the Reapers felt far more imposing and dangerous in ME1 (and to a degree in ME2). Sovereign pretty much screwed up the Citadel on his own. Thing was titanic in size and conferred a real sense of danger.
I didn't have that feeling at all in ME3. Swimming octopi following me around on the Galaxy Map didn't impose real danger to me, just annoyance.
The final space battle looked cool though. Wasn't a big fan that everything was centered around Earth, but it was expected. Before launch I had hoped we would get to play one or two missions on Earth and that the Final Battle would take place on the Citadel or in Reaper Space (like Shepard with a small strike team (Suicide Mission style) to hit the Reapers on their own turf). Your actions would then have impact on the grand space battle.
Basically Return of The Jedi (strike force on Endor and Giant Space Battle, but without the Ewoks
)Alas, we got Vent-God.
Like I said, it ended The Cycle of genocide that had gone on for millions of years. Ending that saves the future generations/species/life from that threat.
I don't know, it felt complete to me. Prior to playing the game I assumed that given how the Reapers were built up and Shepard's storyline, that there would be some last minute explanation for Shepard to sacrifice him/herself to break the cycle.
The Reapers motivation reminded me of a short story by Philip K Dick. I can't remember the title of it, but it was post apocalyptic where a tribe sends a person every year to a computer AI that survived (and caused) the apocalypse to ask it questions. If the computer can answer, it desolves the man for energy, if it can't than it will the tribe alone. It will do that forever because it is programmed to until someone can stump the computer. The idea that an AI is sending the Reapers every 50,000 based on ages old programming didn't seem dumb to me, and once something (Shepard) fell outside of expectations then it required a new program. RBG to me was the way it tied the synthetic vs organic/creator vs creation themes together and I was happy with my choice.
I do think that part felt rushed, and left enough open to allow people to nitpick it to death. I do agree with the person though who said that Shepard would fight to the end on his own terms instead of accept the terms of the enemy. Given that you don't know what the Crucible does I just figured once you activate it Shepard is accepting whatever has to happen next. As far as he knows activating it will do nothing or kill everyone anyway.
A lot of you guys have been asking for a well-written defense of the ending. Here it is!
Badass Digest's Devin Faraci weighs in on the ending: http://badassdigest.com/2012/04/03/the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-is-spectacular/
I'll preface this by saying that Devin is one of my favorite writers on the web; he's never afraid to challenge your opinions. His deconstruction of the LOST finale is legendary and his interpretation of Inception will change the way you view the movie. He's an excellent writer, just don't get too butthurt when you disagree with him.
Badass Digest's Devin Faraci weighs in on the ending: http://badassdigest.com/2012/04/03/the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-is-spectacular/
I'll preface this by saying that Devin is one of my favorite writers on the web; he's never afraid to challenge your opinions. His deconstruction of the LOST finale is legendary and his interpretation of Inception will change the way you view the movie. He's an excellent writer, just don't get too butthurt when you disagree with him.
UnluckyKate
Member
I never understood that Garrus line " James told me this thing on earth, may the devil know you're dead half an our before you're in heaven ? " or something ?