As many of you know, a vast majority of the Mass Effect fanbase is neither amused nor satisfied with the ending of the sci-fi trilogy that we have sunk countless hours into. Yet there are those who do not understand why myself and so many others are complaining. After all, the Reapers have been destroyed (or just sorta flew away, that?s a victory right?), and the day has been saved. Your goal from the very beginning of the series was to eliminate the Reaper threat, and you certainly accomplish that in the end (or maybe not so much), so why all the complaining?
I won?t even get into why the different means of ?defeating? the Reapers make no sense (that?s another article for another time), but I will go into why no matter what you do, you won?t find an ounce of what could be considered closure or satisfaction from the ending.
The Normandy and Your Friends
For starters, your crew and loved ones, the people you?ve come to know and bond with from the first game are marooned on a tropical paradise planet. Except for aliens like Tali and Garrus, who?s dextro-amino based DNA would make such a world a poisonous wasteland, unable to eat any food, drink any water, or be exposed to the flora and fauna for too long for risk of a bad allergic reaction that would surely result in death.
Even with them aside, what do we know of the fate of our friends other than they?re stuck almost assuredly forever on a jungle rock with very little supplies? The most closure we can get in that respect is that after the credits, we get the ?stargazer? ending, where a grandfather (voiced by Buzz Aldrin) tells his son (or grandson) the story of ?The Shepard? in a snowy field featuring the same two moons as are visible when the Normandy crashes.
So does that mean that they survived and single-handedly repopulated a planet, or were there other people there already? And if they did repopulate the planet, I damn well want to know if my love-interest had anything to do with it.
It?s entirely possible, because when I saw Liara and Garrus exit the Normandy (I had them in my party during the run to the conduit, how the hell did they get on the Normandy?), they simply stumbled off the ship, staring blankly into the horizon. The first thing I thought when I saw Liara stare off into the distance was ?***** ain?t even crying for me?. I sacrifice myself for the good of the galaxy and I don?t even get to see what the person I?ve carried a meaningful relationship spanning three games thought of my death. Or does she even know I?m dead?
Considering that the game teases you with images of Joker, Anderson, and your love interest as you make the ultimate sacrifice, it almost seems like a slap in the face not to show us what our friends reacted to our loss after we paid the ultimate price to save them.
Rebuilding a Broken Galaxy, and Earth: Why Using the Crucible Wasn?t Worth the Cost
Secondly, with the Reapers gone, the civilizations of the galaxy now have a new, even more daunting task ahead of them; co-operation and rebuilding.
At least, that?s what would?ve happened if using the crucible hadn?t detonate all the mass relays leaving the single largest fleet ever assembled stranded above a ruined Earth. This creates an incredible number of problems, each of which make the Reaper invasion and near genocide of the entire galaxy look trivial in retrospect.
That huge multi-racial fleet with people numbering almost assuredly in the high billions (not mentioning the forces groundside) cannot possibly be sustained on a planet as ravaged and poor as Earth is now, and there are no planets within FTL distance that are habitable.
Everyone is screwed, and there is very little chance of further cooperation now that shit has hit the fan. Every race will undoubtedly look out for themselves, with a large majority of these people either starving to death, or dying in one of the inevitable wars for what little resources there are.
But even barring Earth?s current situation, we have to consider the fate of the rest of the galaxy.
Right off the bat, any space-stations, planets, or anything in a star system that was near the mass relays are gone. Dead. Many people will argue that we don?t know if the destruction of the relays here will be on the same scale as the explosion of the relay in Arrival (which is said to be able to destroy an entire star system), but I?m confident in the fact that if you can see the explosions from outside of the galaxy, it?s pretty fair to say that the death-toll would be staggering.
And what about the planets and peoples that we saved along the way?
With the krogan stuck on Tuchanka, they?ll almost assuredly war with each other again, seeing as how Wrex is stranded on Earth, thus perpetuating the cycle of death and destruction that is so pervasive in Krogan society, especially when there are fertile females to be fought over. We never get to see Krogan babies, or how Wrex and Eve led their people after brokering peace between themselves and the salarians. So they?re doomed.
The quarians have finally taken back Rannoch, and depending on what you did, possibly with the help of the Geth. For the sake of my argument, I?ll assume the Geth and quarians kissed and made up. I speculate that since the Reapers left Rannoch alone for the most part, maybe the Quarians decided to leave a good deal of their people groundside, and with the help of the Geth, maybe they have begun rep-opulating and rebuilding their long lost homeworld.
That is if the blast from the crucible didn?t destroy the Geth like the god-child told you it would. If that is the case, then not only do the Quarians not have the extra help, but you have effectively comitted genocide against a race that had just found a place among the other civilizations of the galaxy.
But as it is, significant number of their population (including civilian ships) are stranded over by Earth. It looks to me like the Quarians got off easy.
Thessia is in ruins. Not a single asari remains there. It is a smoking corpse and a charred shell of what it once was.
Omega was right next to a mass relay?
Palaven was again, not only taken by the Reapers, but like the asari, most of their people now reside on or above Earth. Again, no happy ending here.
The other races, like the salarians, get off rather easy, with their planets still managing to have a stable number of people and an un-raped/pillaged planet as far as we know.
However, all considered, with the mass relays gone, the galaxy can no longer function as it did previously. Everything about the Mass Effect universe has been undone, and the races and various civilizations of the galaxy are doomed in a huge way.
So there you have it, the most disappointing ending to not only a wonderful sci-fi trilogy, but for all intents and purposes, also the ending to the Mass Effect universe itself.
The Mass Effect universe is, in not only my opinion but many others too, one of the most unique and expansive sci-fi universes that I?ve been able to interact with and influence, but the chances of seeing anything Mass Effect related in the future is now effectively zero.
It?s the most flat and disappointing ending to not only a trilogy, but an expansive IP as well. A double-critical failure on such a level that has fans clamoring for a change, and while BioWare has responded that they?ll do what they can to expand upon the ending and provide more closure, the question of whether or not it will be satisfactory still remains.
Here are but a few things I wanted to see either during the course of Mass Effect 3 or in the epilogue:
My love interest and I settling down (Where are my blue babies?)
Krogan babies
Tali working with her people and the Geth working toGether
The civilizations of the galaxy rebuilding
Hanging out on the beach with Garrus
Earth healing
Aria taking back Omega
Instead all I got for my troubles is a cutscene where grandpa tells little Billy that ?the Shepard? was a pretty cool guy.
Thanks, BioWare.
I won?t even get into why the different means of ?defeating? the Reapers make no sense (that?s another article for another time), but I will go into why no matter what you do, you won?t find an ounce of what could be considered closure or satisfaction from the ending.
The Normandy and Your Friends
For starters, your crew and loved ones, the people you?ve come to know and bond with from the first game are marooned on a tropical paradise planet. Except for aliens like Tali and Garrus, who?s dextro-amino based DNA would make such a world a poisonous wasteland, unable to eat any food, drink any water, or be exposed to the flora and fauna for too long for risk of a bad allergic reaction that would surely result in death.
Even with them aside, what do we know of the fate of our friends other than they?re stuck almost assuredly forever on a jungle rock with very little supplies? The most closure we can get in that respect is that after the credits, we get the ?stargazer? ending, where a grandfather (voiced by Buzz Aldrin) tells his son (or grandson) the story of ?The Shepard? in a snowy field featuring the same two moons as are visible when the Normandy crashes.
So does that mean that they survived and single-handedly repopulated a planet, or were there other people there already? And if they did repopulate the planet, I damn well want to know if my love-interest had anything to do with it.
It?s entirely possible, because when I saw Liara and Garrus exit the Normandy (I had them in my party during the run to the conduit, how the hell did they get on the Normandy?), they simply stumbled off the ship, staring blankly into the horizon. The first thing I thought when I saw Liara stare off into the distance was ?***** ain?t even crying for me?. I sacrifice myself for the good of the galaxy and I don?t even get to see what the person I?ve carried a meaningful relationship spanning three games thought of my death. Or does she even know I?m dead?
Considering that the game teases you with images of Joker, Anderson, and your love interest as you make the ultimate sacrifice, it almost seems like a slap in the face not to show us what our friends reacted to our loss after we paid the ultimate price to save them.
Rebuilding a Broken Galaxy, and Earth: Why Using the Crucible Wasn?t Worth the Cost
Secondly, with the Reapers gone, the civilizations of the galaxy now have a new, even more daunting task ahead of them; co-operation and rebuilding.
At least, that?s what would?ve happened if using the crucible hadn?t detonate all the mass relays leaving the single largest fleet ever assembled stranded above a ruined Earth. This creates an incredible number of problems, each of which make the Reaper invasion and near genocide of the entire galaxy look trivial in retrospect.
That huge multi-racial fleet with people numbering almost assuredly in the high billions (not mentioning the forces groundside) cannot possibly be sustained on a planet as ravaged and poor as Earth is now, and there are no planets within FTL distance that are habitable.
Everyone is screwed, and there is very little chance of further cooperation now that shit has hit the fan. Every race will undoubtedly look out for themselves, with a large majority of these people either starving to death, or dying in one of the inevitable wars for what little resources there are.
But even barring Earth?s current situation, we have to consider the fate of the rest of the galaxy.
Right off the bat, any space-stations, planets, or anything in a star system that was near the mass relays are gone. Dead. Many people will argue that we don?t know if the destruction of the relays here will be on the same scale as the explosion of the relay in Arrival (which is said to be able to destroy an entire star system), but I?m confident in the fact that if you can see the explosions from outside of the galaxy, it?s pretty fair to say that the death-toll would be staggering.
And what about the planets and peoples that we saved along the way?
With the krogan stuck on Tuchanka, they?ll almost assuredly war with each other again, seeing as how Wrex is stranded on Earth, thus perpetuating the cycle of death and destruction that is so pervasive in Krogan society, especially when there are fertile females to be fought over. We never get to see Krogan babies, or how Wrex and Eve led their people after brokering peace between themselves and the salarians. So they?re doomed.
The quarians have finally taken back Rannoch, and depending on what you did, possibly with the help of the Geth. For the sake of my argument, I?ll assume the Geth and quarians kissed and made up. I speculate that since the Reapers left Rannoch alone for the most part, maybe the Quarians decided to leave a good deal of their people groundside, and with the help of the Geth, maybe they have begun rep-opulating and rebuilding their long lost homeworld.
That is if the blast from the crucible didn?t destroy the Geth like the god-child told you it would. If that is the case, then not only do the Quarians not have the extra help, but you have effectively comitted genocide against a race that had just found a place among the other civilizations of the galaxy.
But as it is, significant number of their population (including civilian ships) are stranded over by Earth. It looks to me like the Quarians got off easy.
Thessia is in ruins. Not a single asari remains there. It is a smoking corpse and a charred shell of what it once was.
Omega was right next to a mass relay?
Palaven was again, not only taken by the Reapers, but like the asari, most of their people now reside on or above Earth. Again, no happy ending here.
The other races, like the salarians, get off rather easy, with their planets still managing to have a stable number of people and an un-raped/pillaged planet as far as we know.
However, all considered, with the mass relays gone, the galaxy can no longer function as it did previously. Everything about the Mass Effect universe has been undone, and the races and various civilizations of the galaxy are doomed in a huge way.
So there you have it, the most disappointing ending to not only a wonderful sci-fi trilogy, but for all intents and purposes, also the ending to the Mass Effect universe itself.
The Mass Effect universe is, in not only my opinion but many others too, one of the most unique and expansive sci-fi universes that I?ve been able to interact with and influence, but the chances of seeing anything Mass Effect related in the future is now effectively zero.
It?s the most flat and disappointing ending to not only a trilogy, but an expansive IP as well. A double-critical failure on such a level that has fans clamoring for a change, and while BioWare has responded that they?ll do what they can to expand upon the ending and provide more closure, the question of whether or not it will be satisfactory still remains.
Here are but a few things I wanted to see either during the course of Mass Effect 3 or in the epilogue:
My love interest and I settling down (Where are my blue babies?)
Krogan babies
Tali working with her people and the Geth working toGether
The civilizations of the galaxy rebuilding
Hanging out on the beach with Garrus
Earth healing
Aria taking back Omega
Instead all I got for my troubles is a cutscene where grandpa tells little Billy that ?the Shepard? was a pretty cool guy.
Thanks, BioWare.
