mountain of salt
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The Mass Effect Community Thread
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mountain of salt
Melchiah
Member
What exactly is said in the end? Can't watch it right now, as my girlfriend is sleeping.
There's enemies that drop from ships with Cerberus logos on them. I don't believe it since it sounds like complete bullshit, especially when "the enemies are a cross between vorcha/collectors."
I want nothing to do with Cerberus, just my personal feelings.
taken from reddit. slipped my mind that some might not be able to watch that video, or maybe just don't want to.
Most of that is either stuff we know or something which could easily be true, except the Cerberus logos. It's possible this is real and they just mistook the alien logos for Cerberus logos due to similarity, because the whole point of this is to distance the new games from the old trilogy.
TC McQueen
Member
It's entirely possible that they're using Cerberus stuff as placeholders for testing.
Elysium-777
Member
I'd actually be glad if Cerberus were in the game. It would be nice having more people that are pro human in the new Galaxy.
Eh, I'd say Cereberus was vaguely xenophobic and crossed the line into being blatantly xenophobic in ME3. "Pro-human" is s bit of a sugar coating.
I'd have the same reaction initially, but thinking about it: The leadership is going to be different and it's not like your player character isn't going to be sent by the council.
Separating Andromeda from the original trilogy shouldn't mean (or shouldn't have to mean) cutting out every familiar element that can be spared. That's wasteful, from a narrative standpoint.
As long as the illusive man isn't at the masthead, I don't really see an issue with including a Cerberus. Especially when another group with the exact same views and approach would almost inevitably pop up anyway. I think you could argue making that group a new incarnation of Cerberus makes it inherently more interesting in that it gives them a pre-established history to play off of.
This is my guess. I think they want to have the animations for the enemies to be dropping in, but didn't have the assets for the real crafts ready so they tossed in the Cerberus stuff from ME3 which is already rigged for that. The guy mentioned that it sounded like a lot of visual assets were missing.
Cerberus was right.
Don't believe the slanderous bullshit smear campaign put on by the STG.
Let me alpha test Bioware. I know read you this thread. I have references.
Still. Grains of red sand and whatnot.
Don't believe the slanderous bullshit smear campaign put on by the STG.
I need to play this game and MP mode in particular as soon as possible please.
Let me alpha test Bioware. I know read you this thread. I have references.
That was so dumb.
Still. Grains of red sand and whatnot.
renegade_dewitt
Member
I don't care about the Cereberus bits thats mentioned, but just as an enthusiastic Mass Effect fan, I am glad to get some concrete (however skeptical) news about the gameplay implementation that Bioware is thinking of putting into this next iteration in the Mass Effect franchise. Because Bioware has been radio silent about the game for so long, I am just glad that something has finally (possibly) leaked about the game.
Yeah!
Yeah!
They apparently did some work porting ME3 stuff to Frostbite early on to get a feel for the engine.
Nostremitus
Member
Because those assets existed and would have allowed one team to go ahead and get to work while another team was still creating the new assets.
The Artisan
Member
i misread eatchildren's OP, I thought at first that it was his youtube video.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I would be very much OK if they brought ME2 Cerberus back. ME3 Cerberus needs to stay dead and buried.
The Artisan
Member
what exactly do you mean? it's the same cerberus, just in a previous game their (unfortunate and most expected) motives weren't revealed until later.
do you mean cerberus in a similar vein as to how they were in Me2?
Ganzlinger
Member
It's different, mate. Cerberus and the Illusive Man in ME3 are indocrinated. The Galaxy is going to end and you have Cerberus troops fighting you to the death. In a sense, they give you more trouble than the reapers. That would never happen with Cerberus from ME2.
The Artisan
Member
So it's the indoctrination that changed cerberus from Me2 to Me3, huh. How exactly did it come down to that?
I didn't want to think they were gonna do the obvious indoctrination with them from the get go but since they did I figured they were indoctrinated since the end of Me2 since TIM wanted you to preserve the collector base.
The Illusive Man was always indoctrinated. That's why his eyes are like that.
It's covered in the comics. Cerberus was always evil.
The Artisan
Member
honestly wish they hadn't done that. like, who didn't expect cerberus to be what they were in Me3, you know?
Jack Harper was indoctrinated for years prior to ME2 iirc.
The Artisan
Member
you read the books?
Cerberus is just a symptom of the true sickness, which is brainwashing plots. Always boring because there can't be a real ideological conflict if one side isn't acting autonomously. I'm borderline always tempted to headcanon that TIM mostly believed what he was doing was right, and that it wasn't until he experimented on himself that the Reapers truly controlled his mind. Then on Earth he snaps out of it a bit.
The ending where you shoot TIM is way better than getting him to shoot himself because of this. He looks at the Earth and says, "I wish you could see it like I do, Shepard." omg ideological conflict! It encapsulates the "I respect you but can't agree!" relationship that the two had and doesn't end up just a retread of Saren.
The ending where you shoot TIM is way better than getting him to shoot himself because of this. He looks at the Earth and says, "I wish you could see it like I do, Shepard." omg ideological conflict! It encapsulates the "I respect you but can't agree!" relationship that the two had and doesn't end up just a retread of Saren.
The Artisan
Member
I think you're right, in that he thought he was right about what he was doing with the whole end justifies the means things.
As for what he said about the earth, it being so...perfect. He said that when the fucking world was on fire. I didn't know to interpret it.
I think that was part of the point. The vanguards of synthesis and control were at the end of the day- just indoctrinated; Javik himself points out part of the reason they failed in the last cycle were insurgent groups who were indoctrinated into believing control could ever work.
And then control ends up being a valid solution.
.... god, the ending of ME3 was so poorly done.
I'm still convinced that Control and Synthesis are just figments of his/her imagination. No writer could be so stupid to spend 3 titles and extended universe content to hammer at the point that control/synthesis don't work... only to make it work.
The Artisan
Member
early on I saw on the internet people saying synthesis=what saren wanted, and he was indoctrinated and control=what TIM wanted, and he became indoctrinated as well.
I guess that is a slightly nicer way of putting it.
aka the indoctrination theory?
Sort of? Indoctrination theory is needlessly complex- the video on it is like 30 minutes long. All it really boils down to for me is that the control/synthesis endings are just reaper imaginations. All they really forgot to do for those endings is have a post-game message saying that it's a bad end and the reapers actually won that cycle.
The Artisan
Member
do you mean the documentaries? each of them were easily over an hour and a half, I think. but one of the main points were that yeah, synthesis and control were no nos.
Just as imaginary as destroy which just blew up reapers and the gates in a way that didn't kill everything else... somehow.
The whole ending was a dream.
In my all important headcanon Shepard saw the opportunity to spare the legacy of trillions of sentient beings. The Reaper machine gestalt is destroyed allowing the collected civilizations to enforce their own will again. Some Reapers press the attack, others join you, some self-destruct and still others run away to complete their own goals.
It's basically the opposite of what happened to the Geth in ME3 :\
The whole ending was a dream.
In my all important headcanon Shepard saw the opportunity to spare the legacy of trillions of sentient beings. The Reaper machine gestalt is destroyed allowing the collected civilizations to enforce their own will again. Some Reapers press the attack, others join you, some self-destruct and still others run away to complete their own goals.
It's basically the opposite of what happened to the Geth in ME3 :\
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
No. You have no idea what I mean.
I am referring to the fact that Cerebus was very interesting and well written in ME2. You got to see things from their perspective and you could in some ways like the Illusive Man, although know he wasn't trustworthy. They were very intriguing. It felt like a "greater good" to work with them.
In ME3 on the otherhand they were written as this ridiculously silly supervillain group. Not likeable, not one bit of sympathy for their motives. Completely wasted.
They did the same thing to Udina. He was always an interesting character until the the third one where they just turned him into a silly bad guy.
My god ME3 was so badly written.
The Artisan
Member
Hence, me asking you the question...
man, this is exactly what I was thinking. I agree. And that is basically what I meant in my post, I just didn't write it out as well.
EMPs destroy electronics now without harming people, having a better one destroy reapers/AIs and leaving people alone is probably the most normal thing in the ME universe.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Cerberus was never sympathetic. Not really. These are the same guys who did a huge number of horrible things to people, including possibly Shepard. The Illusive Man talked a good game and that was about it.
Except there's no particular reason to think that Reaper tech would be vulnerable to EMPs.
Really, they're all dumb endings. Changing the Destroy ending to be Reaper-Specific and axing the others would work. Also tie the Warscore more closely to your completion and choices across all three games.
Melchiah
Member
I still hold the later added refusal option as my personal canon. It also reminds me of the
end of Shadow war
Cyber Caesar
Member
I wish we could get a spin-off game in this series. Something non shooter.
My point is that if there are pulses that destroy electronics and leave organic tissue intact now, why would it be dumb to have a super-EMP take out Reapers, AIs, and everything else leaving people alone?
Incidentally, they don't necessarily need to kill the Control/Synthesis endings, just make them a type of "bad-end" like Shepard dying in the ME2 suicide mission.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Well, if you'd really like, I can come up with some technobabble explanation about spintronics, but the short version is that it's needlessly convoluted. Make the Crucible a little bit less magic, just a bigass FTL transmitter that can speak directly to the Reapers and tell them to blow themselves up.
Control I think might have a place as a "power of temptation" that gives either a utopian or dystopian epilogue thing depending on whether you were Paragon or Renegade (in specific instances, I think), but Synthesis? Naw, son.
It's a bigger version of a thing that exists now. If nothing else, it's the most grounded thing in the series.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I mean... I guess? It's grounded in the sense that it's a thing that exists in the real world, but it doesn't make a lot/any sense as a thing in ME.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Thats the thing. Illusive Man was charismatic and you felt like he was somebody who understood what it took to win. Unlike ME3 they just made them into the an unlikeable crazy killing machine.
Having Kai Leng didn't help either.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Having Cerberus all be indoctrinated and evil was the worst thing that happened to them IMO. They were much more interesting when they were a ruthless/unethical pro-humanity organisation than when they were just glorified husks. I was working with them in ME2 to get shit done, knowing that the alliance would inevitably break down at some point after the Reapers were defeated, but it was just another missed opportunity in ME3 to sweep them under the carpet and have them be one of the main bad guy factions.
Something like a Control ending sounds like something right up Illusive Man's alley. The Destroy ending might be something some of the Quarians would be pushing for. I wish we had to earn our endings by taking different paths in the series, not just that they were neatly laid out in front of us regardless of what came before. Maybe instead of just the star child giving you A B and C, you had to unlock the Control ending by giving the Collector base to TIM and making a few other choices through ME3.
Illusive Man's development from ME2 to ME3 reminds me of the Prophet of Truth in Halo 2 and 3, and that makes me sad.
I really, really hope BioWare leaves human enemies out of Andromeda. Or at least leaves them in the backround, like Cerberus in ME1 (and maybe ME2).
Ganzlinger
Member
Well, that's lame. As stated above, making them with their own ideology was much better for storytelling than being puppets of reapers all along. What a shame.
Cyber Caesar
Member
I got the impression the Illusive became indoctrinated in the third game. His prohuman ideals were still present even once he is indoctrinated or no?
Ganzlinger
Member
That's the impression I had from the games. But other users are saying they were indocrinated prior to the events of ME2 if you read the books/comics.
It all reminds me of this:
Commander Funke approves.
I'd really like a total clean-slate start. Cerberus coming back is no deal-breaker, but it's like The Reapers coming back. I'm beyond ready to move on.
Destroy is the cheap expedient solution. Destroy is the bad ending. Sacrificing a few to save the rest is what Saren would do. Even worse it's what the Quarians would do. The Quarians are awful. Put in the context of sacrificing the memory of every cycle since the beginning to save the current one my Shepard needs a better solution.
Control Harbinger.
Destroy the Reaper gestalt.
Free the Reapers.
A galaxy filled with Reapers with competing motivations and whatever civilizations will be awakened by an end to the cycles. Title Card. Mass Effect 4: Awakening.
Mindlog headcanon refuses to acknowledge those terrible comics and some of the other ancillary stories for that very reason. A fledgling humanity stumbles its way through the dark and accidentally violates one of the most sacred rules of a vast interstellar alliance. War ensues. After peace is restored some human agents resolve to never be caught off-guard again. They want to be prepared by any means necessary. This premise is solid without any need to retroactively introduce Reapers. I really disliked how they kept trying to blow out the First Contact War into something bigger. Bioware spent quite a bit of time exploring STG as the Salrian 'by any means necessary' and then threw Cerberus under the bus. No, thank you. Stricken from headcanon.
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