Lily Venus said:
Is anyone else amused at all of the people who didn't even try to answer the question?
mfeff said:
Because if we completely disregard a major part of the Catalyst's views on the Reapers, then its views on the Reapers make no sense!
Ending-basher logic!
I think I get what you are getting at... now assuming I had actually mentioned the catalyst or tried to explain for or construct a counter against whatever it said in expository dialog, then there would be a case for a strawman on my part.
Unfortunately I didn't actually mention the catalyst. I simply referenced a highly parallel material that the trilogy pulled from, and how that story arc was handled at the end of the 3rd season of a 5 season show.
What I "did" do was explain the bits that one would expect to have been tidied up at the end of the third game. Those bits where not tidied up, and where demonstrably utilized to perform magic tricks within the exposition. The third game is simply loaded with LAPD.
Lazy Ass Plot Devices
As far as "ending-basher", sure no problem... being that you brought it up I will discuss it some.
About 20 percent of the way into the product I started laughing at what I "figured" the ending was going to be. It is telegraphed with the "kid" as a Chekhov's gun, and reinforced with a notion of PTSS and recurring nightmare.
I was bashing on the ending as a form of therapeutic comic relief well before I completed the game. Narrative, like dominoes follows a structural pattern. Especially true with Bioware narrative which is essentially hero's journey 101.
When breaks in pattern occur it is only a matter of time before the "deus ex machina" comes calling.
Let's see... Cerberus and it's proliferation simply exist to give the player something to shoot at, similar to how Aliens: Colonial Marines introduced a man shoot. Now the player has a disjointed villain. Map design was uninspired. Hit box detection was rather clumsy. The Prothean was clearly removed from the product and had to edited back in, but that is typical for Bioware. Recycled assets, reversed textures all smack of rush job. Reduced conversation options. Long exposition that does nothing to drive the plot.
My assertion is that a lack of assets is what gives you repeating fights with space ninja, narrative was reconstituted to explain the discontinuity between modules, Hacket exposition is a good example...
It was all pretty obvious to me.
The Reapers while vulnerable (in cannon) to traditional military force now take on a supernatural ability to simply "not be defeated". Essentially ME3 not only retcons the universe, but it retcons itself during it's own exposition.
Lacking a weakness in the villain can generally only be resolved by supernatural forces.
It was painful to play this thing. Not talking about the narrative, the game just was not that good.
I think "they worked with what they had on hand", the creative process for much in the way of "new" was gobbled up by outsourcing or gimmicks. There was a lot of effort to sort of paper up the cracks. E for effort.
If you need to categorize me then please, by all means, put me in the camp of those who think that ME3 was a rushed POS from beginning to end. I am very comfortable occupying that place.
Then again...
So was Dragon Age 2, So was Star Wars... it's a trend not an exception.
As far as answering the OP question?
The game does not commit, why should I? Only after the fact on the message boards and pax was it even addressed. This is outside of the "context" (contained in the text) of the released product. It is whatever "they" say as a means of damage control, if it is not in the game it is not in the game.
Anything to the contrary is no better than a fan fiction.
My conclusion stands as a perfectly valid answer.
It is whatever you want it to be, because the staff that made it never addressed it within the product.
Now if you like it as it is, that is fine. Not telling you what to like, not telling you what you may or may not explain of the presentation within the game.
1=2 is a perfectly valid logic statement. If 1 = 2 Then 3 Else 4. This corollary statement provides context which justifies the logic.
I am not "ignoring" the catalyst perspective. I am calling into question the basis of it's corollary rationalization within the context of the Mass Effect Universe as it was presented over the course of 30-40 hours of prior experience.
The catalyst logic fails the rationality that was presented within the trilogy, thus it is categorically a "supernal explanation", and takes on a special ontological primacy.
This is sometimes referred to as "The Liar's Paradox", "The incompleteness theorem", or "The Halting Problem".
The burden of proof lies on the Catalyst to justify it's position, it skirts this through it's ontological status as being for all practical purposes "divine".
This is "essentially" the original philosophical exploration "of the first game". Now sitting around and waiting (in the scene) after the content patch "fixes" this by degrees, the cycle repeats with Liara and a cube.
However, the whole setup destroys the agency of the Reapers which are essentially the 'sovereign' made quite figurative, an exception to the internal logic of the series.
Accepting the lazy rationalization of the catalyst we are co-opting and subtlety agreeing with it's premise and conclusions.
There is only "power", "synthesis", "destruction", or reboot da' matrix for another go'round. The circular reasoning of the catalyst is often referred to as the "first serious problem of the neophyte philosopher", that of the "infinite regress".
13 lines of dialog is simply insufficient to have adequately made the case.
If Casey Hudson insist on playing the roll of the matrix architect that's fine. He is certainly within his right to do so. Within his right to end the series however he sees fit, take art from albums toss on a snow effect and call it a day. Loot the ending of Deus Ex... whatever... Dive headlong into philosophical nihilism with "meta" in his pocket.
Great!
I reserve the right to disagree, to ask "why", and to point out "why I think" it went that way. Drawing my own conclusions from my own experiences and perspectives.
I seriously doubt that what they wanted to make and what they made where the same thing. Folks left Bioware as an employment related to this. That is "meta" we can all take to the bank.
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