I Have Obtained ME 3 Ending Enlightenment, A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE QUESTIONING THE ME 3 ENDINGS!

[BloatedGuppy]

Fallout *3* at least had the decency not to string you along for *3* games.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Seriously though, no, I hear what you're saying, but still. Hyperbole serves no one. It's not the worst ending. It's a confusing, questionable ending made orders of magnitude more annoying by the high level of emotional investment many of us had in these characters and this universe.

You want to see a proper fucked up ending? Play Ultima IX. Try being strung along for nine games over 20 years. And then being served up a game so bad it makes Mass Effect 3's ending look like Planescape Torment.

You kids today.

 

[wicket42]

Joker's question to Liara seems to remain unanswered after she yelled "I will not tell you if my 'hair tentacles' can move!"

She answers that question if you support joker! They're semi cartilaginous and don't move

 

[Greatjusticeman]

I just wanted to pop in here and say good post, OP. This is an ending to think about and that's something a lot of people aren't doing.

Shepard's story ended when he died. Everyone what's to know what is happening now around the galaxy. Well, is it that hard? Everyone is rebuilding and coming together. That's what happens when a crisis ends. You don't need blocks of text or cut scenes, it's obvious and there.

Also, guys, the AI that Shepard talks to at the end is the Catalyst. Not space god, not kid god, not spacekidai god....the Catalyst, it literally calls itself the Catalyst. A lot of you aren't even paying attention.

 

[AD-Stu]

Just a few thoughts

Uh...you're missing a few.

1. Shepard, after being "hit" by Harbinger's laser, awakens. She's carrying an unfamiliar pistol, and wearing unfamiliar armor. Someone suggested her armor was "melted off", but anything hot enough to melt off her body armor would most certainly have killed her, or at least severely burned her. Why the change of clothes/weapons on Shepard?

I'm willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt based on the Rule of Cool / practicality / whatever you want to call it. They obviously had to build a new model for the eight-tenths-dead Shepard. I think we have burned to hell armour because it looks cool, and if it's inconsistent with the armour we were wearing previously it's for practical modelling reasons.

4. In the "good" ending where Shepard lives, you're given an image of a battered/bloody Shepard lying in some rubble, taking a breath. Shepard was just on board an exploding citadel. "Lying in some rubble" seems an unlikely result of an exploding Citadel. Are we to believe she went through the atmosphere?

In that version, I think the Citadel still had a few of its arms attached at the end of the explosion. I'm assuming Shepard is still in the wreckage of the Citadel at that point.

Agree absolutely with all the other stuff you raised. And I've gotta ask one more too:

Where the hell are they on the Citadel that Shepard, Anderson and the Illusive Man can be breathing without helmets? Even after the arms open, or Shepard goes up to what has to be the exterior of the station? I guess we could explain it with mass effect fields or something, but in the first game when we left the elevator to run up the side of the tower we had to wear suits and helmets.

 

[AD-Stu]

You want to see a proper fucked up ending? Play Ultima IX. Try being strung along for nine games over 20 years. And then being served up a game so bad it makes Mass Effect 3's ending look like Planescape Torment.

You kids today.

I've deliberately avoided Ultima IX for all these years - not for the ending, but because it's apparently so horrible to play and look at. Having a bad ending is just in line with the quality level of the rest of the game from everything I've heard

It does make me wonder something though: despite all the leaks and discussion before launch I successfully made it to the end of ME3 without spoilering myself. What I'm wondering now is if I had have spoilered myself, would it have softened the blow? Would the ending have hurt less? Or would it just have tarnished the rest of the game, which up until that point was pretty much the greatest thing I'd ever played? Nothing I can do about it now I guess

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

1: To me it looked like she was wearing N7 armor that was broken and covered in blood.

2: It is unclear how long Shepard was out of it when struck by the lazer. When she awakens, you hear the radio saying that the entire assault force was oblitherated. It's possible (though I admit unlikely) that your squadmates retreated.

3: Tell me, if you're engaged in a space battle and you see a massive space station connected to for all you know could be a giant doomsday device suddenly explode and unleash an enormous shockwave...would you just sit there and hope it has no effect on you? Or would you take the fastest ship in the galaxy you're currently piloting and try to outrun the blast?

4: Sure Shepard can survive a fall from orbit. Why? Because she's Commander Frickin' Shepard. Same way Master Chief can survive a fall from orbit because he's Master Frickin' Chief. Shepard rode that wreckage right back to Earth and smashed it into Harbinger's face. Alright, I'll give you this one. I'm not trying to say the writing of the endings was brilliant, I'm just filling in the holes created by the crappy writing.

5: Haven't seen it, but it shouldn't be there. That's a genuine mistake.

6: In order to maintain the energy needed to blast off and bounce around throughout the galaxy, I'd imagine the blast absorbs most of the energy contained within the relay. From what I remember it looked like the energy within the spinning things of the relay is what gets shot off to the next relay.

Well, 5 out of 6 isn't too bad. Really I agree completely with conclusion #2 from your post. As I had mentioned, everything in my OP was 100% speculation. It was how I explained everything to make the endings make sense for me by following logic (with a little creative liscensing). Obviously I have no way to prove that Bioware intended any of the things within my OP, but I do think there's more evidence to support my claims than there are to support the Indoctrination theory.

If the Catalyst is there to sustain organic life, why use the reapers to harvest advanced civilsations, instead of destroying the rebelling synthetics?

If my child goes crazy and tries to kill me with a pair of scissors, are you going to kill me and my kid or are you going to take the scissors away?

No one ever said that whoever started the Cycle, constructed the Reapers, and programmed Space Baby to run everything weren't a bunch of dicks.

 

[Fappy]

Fallout *3* at least had the decency not to string you along for *3* games.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Seriously though, no, I hear what you're saying, but still. Hyperbole serves no one. It's not the worst ending. It's a confusing, questionable ending made orders of magnitude more annoying by the high level of emotional investment many of us had in these characters and this universe.

You want to see a proper fucked up ending? Play Ultima IX. Try being strung along for nine games over 20 years. And then being served up a game so bad it makes Mass Effect 3's ending look like Planescape Torment.

You kids today.

Well it is the worst ending I have ever experienced in a game. Not so much due to its content but rather how it completely and utterly raped my expectations and nearly ruined the previous two games for me

 

[AD-Stu]

You want to see a proper fucked up ending? Play Ultima IX. Try being strung along for nine games over 20 years. And then being served up a game so bad it makes Mass Effect 3's ending look like Planescape Torment.

You kids today.

Well it is the worst ending I have ever experienced in a game. Not so much due to its content but rather how it completely and utterly raped my expectations and nearly ruined the previous two games for me

Guppy can probably correct me on this, but I think the Ultima series at least had the decency to foreshadow its ending a game or so out. Here's what I remember of it:

Spoiler

For whatever reason an evil being called the Guardian is threatening the existence of Britannia. He's the main antagonist of the last three games. The player character, the Avatar, has always come to Britannia from our world through some magic or other in times of need.

I'm pretty sure we've found out by the end of Ultima VIII that the Avatar and the Guardian are effectively two sides of the same coin, and that for the Guardian to be eliminated as a threat to Britannia, the Avatar will have to go too. You certainly find that out in Ultima IX well before the final scene. So unless I'm remembering incorrectly, you get fair warning. And aside from actually dying, you still end up a total world-saving hero with no ifs, buts or caveats.

Compare that to ME3, where all this stuff gets sprung on us literally at the last second (Shepard probably dying was foreshadowed, but not the rest), combine it with the fact that the developers were telling us in the leadup that there would be a range of endings (Richard Garriott never did that, IIRC) and... yeah, I think my point is I agree with you absolutely.

 

[DustyDrB]

Why would Shepard just go along with the Star Child thing? He/she spent the entire trilogy spitting in the face of god-like entities that said that what he was doing was useless and that he had no chance.

Actually...the catalyst is an AI. Which gives you even less reason to go along with it. "Oh...we're totally doing all this because we're really good guys. Promise". Uh huh.

Maybe that's part of the reason why the ending doesn't bother me all that much. I can just say the AI was lying and manipulating Shepard by taking the form of that kid, all in the name of self-preservation. Though the bigger part of why it doesn't bother me so much is that the rest of the game is so freaking great.

 

[Smiley Face]

First, I would like to point out that, regardless of whether your interpretation of things is correct (and for the most part, I think it probably is), the fact remains that all of this information is derived from lots of hard thinking and a fair bit of speculation - the very fact that so many people are so conflicted over this is a large clue to the obvious fact that the Endings were not well executed. The information needed to understand the choices you're presented with is very spotty and unclear. Secondly, it breaks with the tone of the game because Shepard just takes this blatant lack of information at face value, and doesn't ask for any clarification for this INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT CHOICE. I mean, Shepard can ask for clarification for EVERYTHING, why not now? And thirdly:

Now, in regards to what I've noticed is the biggest and most common complaint about the endings: all the choices you made in the previous 3 games have no effect or purpose, the endings completely negate them. This simply is not true. Stop and think about what the ultimate goal behind all your choices was. What destination were your choices driving you towards. ME 3 shows us that the purpose behind every decision you made is to build the united galactic fleet. This fleet serves absolutely one purpose, and it is not utter destruction of the Reapers (which I imagine most people thought it would be). The sole purpose of the united galactic fleet was to build, guard, and ultimately deliver the Crucible to the Catalyst...in that sole mission, the fleet succeeded.

No. That's what YOU think the ultimate goal behind all the choices were - but the ultimate goal behind stopping the Reapers, and in our Shepards' pushes for galactic peace/human dominance, is to shape the futures of the various races and cultures of the galaxy, and the specific characters. That's what it's about, that's why we want to stop the Reapers, and that's why the ending is unsatisfying - because the questions we have about what ultimately matters are largely ignored.

 

[Bluesclues]

I just wanted to pop in here and say good post, OP. This is an ending to think about and that's something a lot of people aren't doing.

Shepard's story ended when he died. Everyone what's to know what is happening now around the galaxy. Well, is it that hard? Everyone is rebuilding and coming together. That's what happens when a crisis ends. You don't need blocks of text or cut scenes, it's obvious and there.

Also, guys, the AI that Shepard talks to at the end is the Catalyst. Not space god, not kid god, not spacekidai god....the Catalyst, it literally calls itself the Catalyst. A lot of you aren't even paying attention.

Not sure if trolling, or missing the point entirely.

First off, depending on how you played and which ending you picked, you get a cutscene that hints Shepard survived. So saying that "Shepard's story ended when he died" is just a lazy copout that doesn't even apply to everyone. So it is a valid concern to know what exactly happens to him/her, especially since scientifically, how he/she survives doesn't make a lick of sense and is poorly explained anyway.

Second, no, it's not obvious and there. Why would you immediately assume that with The Reaper issue taken care of one way or the other that the universe just instantly falls back into the norm, and everyone lives happily ever after? Excuse me if I sound harsh but, do you even understand the implications every ending provides with just the destruction of the mass relays alone? Do you realize that a majority of the species that your fleet was comprised of is now stranded in the solar system, some of them without the appropriate food source they need to survive? Or the billions of life forms in the other galaxies who are now stranded, without transport or their world leaders? So no, you DO need walls of texts and cut scenes to provide information on how everything worked out; that's the purpose of an EPILOGUE, in case you didn't know. It's meant to tie loose ends, and the endings to ME3 lack this action.

Third, and this is the part where I seriously start to consider the possibility of you just trolling; The Catalyst is a metaphysical, self-entitled keeper of order in the universe via Reapers, who takes the form of a child. Aka, a god child. I don't understand how you don't get that. You seem to be taking the information provided to you by the game very brief but literal. Just because he says he's the Catalyst, doesn't NOT make him a god child. Quite literally he states that his entire purpose is to bring order to chaos, using methods that he and his creators deemed best to prevent the permanent extinction of organic life at the hands of synthetic life...by using synthetic life to pacify, for lack of a better word, all advanced organic life. So again, for lack of a better phrase, he's playing GOD with anything that has a heartbeat. Why? Because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

All these reasons and more are why people have an issue with the endings to begin with, and why your argument of "you people are just not paying attention" is completely flawed. The issue that seems to be escaping your line of vision is that people have paid more attention than you have. And that's not me trying to be a dick, unless you're just trolling, in which case, it is.

 

[The Genius]

Fallout 3 leaps immediately to mind, and that's staying inside the last few years.

Spoiler

Fallout 3's ending had the decency to tell you what happened after your actions. Funnily enough, for all the people saying ME3's ending is perfect with Shep making the ultimate sacrifice, F3 did the same thing but better. Ignoring the ridiculous Fawkes issue, the lone wanderer gives his life to save The Capital Wasteland and realise his parents' dreams. In story terms, it makes sense. Having a world based entirely on science suddenly shift jarringly to the realm of magic in the last 10 mins is a terrible betrayal of the audience and something a good author does their best to avoid.

While there is alot of overreaction on the net about this, it is not without some merit. If a book pulled the same trick on me at the end, I would never read it again and be very wary of anything else the author produced after it.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Maybe the writers at Bioware threw out their original script because they thought, "woah this makes way too much sense, the Reapers are supposed to be incomprehensible beings to our tiny organic minds, lets make an ending that makes no damn sense to most people"

I wouldnt have had as much of a problem if it just showed the consequences of your actions

 

[Seanfall]

Uhm, I pretty much agree with everything you've said.

I will raise one point however, and that is that you didn't touch upon one problem people have with the Reapers' motivation.

People sometimes complain that the motivation for the Reapers to destroy every spacefaring civilization doesn't make sense because at this moment in the cycle synthetic life has either been mostly destroyed or has made peace with their creators. While that is indeed true, it doesn't really matter to the Reapers. It would be weird for the synthetics to rebel within a cycle, since the Reapers specifically come to prevent that. They have chosen an interval of 50,000 years. That is presumably just time enough to give civilizations time to grow and expand and enjoy the spoils of space, but not enough time for synthetics to actually start wiping the organics out.

There's another thought though, and it touches on why Shepard is the one to make the final decision. The Catalyst tells you that by Shepard being there, she/he invalidates the Reapers' existence. This makes sense because the Reapers are the ultimate synthetics. And Shepard, by being able to unite the galaxy and defy all odds (and with a little help from the previous cycles), has shown they can eventually be beaten. Which means the Reapers are eventually proven wrong.

The Catalyst tells you this pretty literally, and this is also why Shepard is the one making the final choice of how to free the galaxy from the Reapers. As the Catalyst explains, Shepard has proved the Reapers wrong and made them obsolete. Now the galaxy can choose it's own path to move on. And to do that, the Mass Relays need to be destroyed. Yes, this means sacrificing a lot, but it ultimately gives the galaxy a fresh start.

In short, the Reapers being wrong about everything is not a plothole or bad writing. In fact, I find it rather beautiful.

Yes but the EXTIENCE of the space child IS a plothole. Since he's there in the Citadel controlling the reapers he could have just opened the mass relay in ME1.

 

[Seanfall]

Fallout *3* at least had the decency not to string you along for *3* games.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Seriously though, no, I hear what you're saying, but still. Hyperbole serves no one. It's not the worst ending. It's a confusing, questionable ending made orders of magnitude more annoying by the high level of emotional investment many of us had in these characters and this universe.

You want to see a proper fucked up ending? Play Ultima IX. Try being strung along for nine games over 20 years. And then being served up a game so bad it makes Mass Effect 3's ending look like Planescape Torment.

You kids today.

I egerally await the Spoonyone's utter decimation of that game.

 

[Joccaren]

1. My problem isn't with 'little Timmy', as we are now calling him, 's reasoning, but with his methods.
Here is a question posed to Timmy, and to a 3 year old child:
"Organics will always make Synthetic Machines that go evil and try to wipe out Organic Life. What should we do?"
Timmy:
"Harvest Organic Life every 50,000 to stop Synthetic life from destroying it"
3 Year old Child:
"Kill the bad things"
As we can see, a 3 year old child has come up with a better course of action: Wipe out the 'bad things', aka: Kill the Evil Synthetics. Why it is instead necessary to destroy Organic life is beyond me. It is a flaw not in the reasons, but in the method.
2. The problem is that your choices have no effect in the end, only in the story. In the end, all your choices are turned into a numerical value. That is all. Many people would have preferred to see things in the fight cutscene: Rachni engaging the Reapers, the Destiny Ascension blowing a Reaper to shreads, Geth ships defending the Destiny Ascension they once tried to destroy - things that show that your choices made a difference, rather than simply numbers. And then, an epilogue that tells you what your choices did to affect galactic civilization. As it is, the ending is so vague I wouldn't be incorrect in saying all life was destroyed by Dark Energy, but the Normandy was wormholed to an alternate dimension where it was kept safe from this affect, albeit alone.

Out of time, may continue later.