Logic (or lack of) in Mass Effect 3's endings

[Madman123456]

I've read quite a bit of Ending Discussion now. I'm still not buying it, Origin and all that Jazz, you've read the Arguments about by now and if not you probably don't care about it.

I would want the Option of making a super happy ending with Flowers, sunshine and rainbows coming out of everyone's ass. I want options for everything to make every possible shade of "happy" ending, but three or four options would suffice. One "bad" Ending where everything dies, one "happy" ending where i'd like a very well hidden deus ex machina to make everything good and two "bitter sweet" Endings in the middle where i didn't have this or that from previous games or did it wrong or something.

I'd want the Option of a good Ending and for People who theorized the some Things happening in the Endings that weren't bad; i want to see that.

I didn't buy the first two Games for the Story. I bought them for the Stories and the diversity of them and i don't want to see the Characters end up stranded somewhere, knowing that trillions will die if only because they're in a remote System.

 

[eventhorizon525]

Just a heads up, we already have this thread. Last time I checked it had at least 400 replies, and a lot of the same arguments come up (for both sides, with a few people in particularly showing up in both threads). Probably make more sense to just continue this topic in the created thread rather than adding even more ME3 threads.

 

[Abedeus]

"Okay, guys, how do we wrap up 5 years worth of an amazing video game series and 90 hours of gameplay?"

MAGIC.

"But.. it's SF... in the future, with space ships and shit..."

SPACE MAGIC.

"Uhh. What about alternatives, choices, morality?"

COLOR-CODED SPACE MAGIC.

"BRILLIANT!"

 

[TaboriHK]

After what, 7 years, how is it exactly that the people at Bioware wrote this and then decided it was good enough? Where was my option to be Shepard, who has defied what everyone has told him for literally years, to tell God Kid, "I reject your conclusions about our society. I came here to destroy the Reapers, not obey you. Get out of my way." Instead, I either kill one half of society or the other? And in either case, get absolutely no explanation whatsoever about what happens after?

I cannot stress enough how much a boring, predictable happy ending would have made me happy. Just let me kill the Reapers, and start my life. And the kicker is this game was amazing until the last five minutes.

There are no words that can sum up the level of disappointment that I feel.

 

[Terminate421]

I chose to destroy the Reapers:

For starters, tech isn't destroyed, the soldiers weapons still work and the systems aboard the normandy work. The normandy crashed only because of them being in the middle of the Relay (For some odd reason) mid-jump.
Tali was also still alive after the ending as was Garrus's visor thing so that means the tech still works.

Second, I worked all that game to destroy the reapers, am I a hypocrite to say "Yes I want to control them all of the sudden?" Or even then, doing the DNA thing doesn't do anything at all, what was the purpose behind that method? Create a new reaper?

Third, the reasoning behind the reapers makes no sense, by harvesting organics, we put their material into squid-vaults which destroy shit. The reason behind this is to prevent uprising? The geth and quarian war pretty much says no to that, if I could end the fighting on both sides and both sides benefit now, then we have a system that works.

Lastly, I do feel that it doesn't consider my other choices, I know that they all do effect the ending, but in no way the ending to Mass Effect 2's did. Mass Effect 2 had the best ending out of all three, not only for its proper build up, but it ended the way I wanted it to, not in a "Fuck you, end society in three different ways"

It was abrupt, though I do want to know what happens afterwords.

 

[Karathos]

It wasn't that complicated. The cycle & the reapers were presumably created by the same people who created the mass relays, the citadel & the child AI. The aim was to ensure synthetics would never wipe out all organic life in the universe permanently by destroying advanced civilizations before this could come to pass, storing them in reaper form (which is why nearly all reapers being squid like makes little sense). Essentially it was all based on the assumption that as long as organics and synthetics are separate they cannot coexist & coming to this conclusion the creators put this plan into place.

The creators did not however create the crucible, which introduced a variety of different solutions which are acted out by Shepard.

...............dear gods................... someone.................. who isnt so blinded by hate and dreams of space-waifus................ that they can actually make a coherent though.............. instead OF ME HAS PLOT HOLES RAGE RAGE RAE?

I didn't think it was possible.

I recall you posting in my thread, and I recall putting forth quite a few coherent thoughts regarding why the ending doesn't make sense.

But way to go being hostile for no reason.

 

[Matt King]

This thread is Spoilered already, but I'll be going to into very specific ending details, so I'm gonna spoiler tag this anyway

Spoiler

Hallucination is part of my personal theory. Think about it. The only person who takes notice of or interacts with the kid is Shepard, you see him in a vent, and he vanishes without a sound when you look away for a second. Even when he is struggling to get on board a shuttle, no one even looks at him. Then there's the odd dreams, which the kid and Shepard are the only 'real' things. then the God Child at the end takes the form of said kid even though he's never even met Shepard before. This leads me to a conclusion that The Kid never existed. He is a figment of Shepard's imagination, a hallucination caused by all of the pain and loss he has experienced over his life finally breaking his mind. This reaches the final snapping point in hte final push, he's just lost two very close friends back on Earth, and after defeating The Illusive Man, which is taxing even if you don't shoot him yourself.

And finally, after killing TIM, Anderson, your father-figure throughout all three games, succumbs to his wounds and dies. All of this snaps Shepard's already beaten mind, and his fractured mind creates the illusion of the God Child as the Reaper's Indoctrination is finally able to get a foothold. This hallucination offers three choices. Control and Merge didn't actually do what Shepard thinks they do, and he is either killed or processed and the ending cutscene is created by his own mind fabricating an ending. And destroy is Shepard fighting the indoctrination and firing the Crucible, with himself maybe dying in the process.

I am aware my idea has more holes in it than swiss cheese, but you have to admit it's more solid than the LOLSPACEMAGIC we're currently stuck with.

to you sir, i say thank you, i just finished the game and believed it to be perfect except for the ending but because of the ending i lost the will to replay it, but because of you, with your ending that makes sense i can now enjoy the game again and love every minute of it


(except for that prick kai leng )

 

[Something Amyss]

-If the God child is in control of the Citadel, why did Sovereign need Saren in ME1? If the God Child is in control of the Reapers, why didn't HE just control the citadel?

Because ponies.

I'm just amazed that the writers of the Mass Effect series nicked Professor Frink's extrapolation of chaos theory.

Professor Frink warned us! He warned us all!

 

[Lithan]

If I ever wanted a games ending to crap in my mouth, well I can say I got my wish.

You spend Three games, a half dozen DLC's and what $200 or so all told user investment to develop a story, a universe, and a cast of characters that the player cares about, almost certainly one who the player's character is "in love" with, and you end it with...

God's a robot who's been stalking your dreams. He wants other BIG robots to kill you so that other small robots don't. But you're so uber cool that he's gonna let you decide between three apocalypses. In the first you send existence back to the stone age, most likely killing asstons of everything in the process, then synthetics kill everything a few millennia down the road. In the second you kill yourself and you get to ass up his plans and basically play god with the universe from then on. In the third "right" choice. 99.9% of everything dies, the stuff that doesn't gets megadosed on hallucinogens and grows circuitry on their skin... which makes them part organic part synthetic, thereafter... utopia... Oh ya, but you're dead. And your lover gets to have three ways on an uninhabited planet with a cripple and a spaceship.


In the words of Jack... "Hey Bioware! Fu... nevermind."


Seriously, if this ending is cause they rushed it out the door and couldn't find people with brains instead of drugs and "artistic visions" to write their endings for them, it makes me appreciate blizzard and their "done when it's done" policy.

 

[Lithan]

I don't play Starcraft for the story. I don't think there's a person out there who plays mass effect NOT for the story.

Final mission is "take any 2 squadmembers with ya, dont matter who, stand on this gun for 20 minutes killing shit... then walk real slow for another 20min listening to anderson talk... then this ending?

Part of the game they should have spent more time on than the rest of the game combined and they gave us this.

 

[Lithan]

I should also note. I did everything. I had a legit perfect ME2 save. I did EVERY mission. Found EVERY artifact. And was Maxxed out Paragon and I would have been a solid bubble or two beyond maxxed out if it were possible.


I still couldn't use the final Reputation options against the illusive man. No clue why. I spent an extra three hours going back to the save where I had initially visually maxxed paragon and making sure EVERYTHING got done (that's why I was 1-2bubbles over it) the first time I saw that greyed out and Anderson collapsed. Got back, still greyed out, he still collapses... gets up "Guess it don't matter... odd", then he dies. Then they crap on every decision I EVER made in the entire series. Every last one, completely, 100% irrelevant.

Tried not shooting the illusive man. Maybe using the "bad guy" button screwed me. "Mission failure"! Lol Wat? So a paragon apparently can not win this game. Best as I can tell you have to use the Renegade click to kill Illusive Man or he shoots you...

of course that is actually better than sitting through this ending.

 

[Cenzton]

I should also note. I did everything. I had a legit perfect ME2 save. I did EVERY mission. Found EVERY artifact. And was Maxxed out Paragon and I would have been a solid bubble or two beyond maxxed out if it were possible.


I still couldn't use the final Reputation options against the illusive man. No clue why. I spent an extra three hours going back to the save where I had initially visually maxxed paragon and making sure EVERYTHING got done (that's why I was 1-2bubbles over it) the first time I saw that greyed out and Anderson collapsed. Got back, still greyed out, he still collapses... gets up "Guess it don't matter... odd", then he dies. Then they crap on every decision I EVER made in the entire series. Every last one, completely, 100% irrelevant.

Tried not shooting the illusive man. Maybe using the "bad guy" button screwed me. "Mission failure"! Lol Wat? So a paragon apparently can not win this game. Best as I can tell you have to use the Renegade click to kill Illusive Man or he shoots you...

of course that is actually better than sitting through this ending.

Dunno why you're having problem with the Paragon issue, I too collected everything and had maxed out rep and had no issue selecting the Paragon path with the Illusive Man.

 

[Harry Snell]

Having the ending ruined like it was is even more painful considering some of the other stuff you do in that game that gave it an epic conclusion feeling. My personal favourites;
Getting Quarians and Geth all loved up.
Saving the Krogan from slow extinction.
See Grunt walk out of a Reaper Rachni cave like it ain't no thang.
Punch the sodding Quarian Admiral (the Heavy one) in the stomach.

I wasn't expecting "The Reapers are dead, let's all go home", but I was expecting something suitably grand and awe-inspiring to match the feel of the rest of the game. Instead I got some Deus Ex (and didn't even get the cool glasses!) and LOLSPACEMAGICLOL.
Even worse when they tell me to continue the legend in DLC. Yeah...that's not happening.

On a side-note... did Liara make a baby from you? (I had Ashley as my bed warmer too) When she grabs you just before Hammer deploys.

 

[Taloula]

Just a thought but the child at the end isn't really a child its just a projection of what shepard could process talking too (a bit like the matrix thing most mainly a psychiatric thing during trauma, as she was fighting on earth and thinking about all that was lost its most likely thats the reason its him.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Mass Effect has, since it's beginning, been an experiment into the concept of continuitous player agency - that is, that players will have the decision to make large or small changes to the story and it's details as it progresses along it's narrative arc, and that these decisions will be respected over the course of the trilogy. This has been the expectation from day one and thus far has been the most successful of Bioware's forays into continuitous player agency. Dragon Age followed a similar idea thread but did not center on a central character which the player maintains agency over, rather it is a set of different tales and different characters placed in the same World Setting in which player agency has ripple effects on that setting.

One of the problems of course, with any game that focuses on Player Agency, is that the same thing will mean different things to different people. People have expectations based on 'their' story, and the way you avoid stepping on 'their' story is to maintain player agency and give them the free will to choose their outcomes. This creates certain limitations on you as the author - you must maintain contingency plans for every player agency point you provide. Certain narrative and organizational devices can make this much easier, such as a binary 'morality' system (paragon/renegade points) and condition flags (companion loyalty/approval). This allows you to frame the narrative arc that your players will undergo while providing the illusion of complete choice. While this form of Player Agency is by design limited (your arc of control is more akin to 180 degrees than 360 degrees of movement, if you follow) it is an effective way of allowing your players to exercise their agency over the narrative while still establishing a general story arc which you can follow and plan for.

Over the past three games Bioware has done what, in my opinion, can be considered a masterful job of faithfully representing the continuity of player agency, referencing player choices in meaningful and meaningless ways via datapoints. Mass Effect 3 was the penultimate example of this, borrowing choices from the previous two games to almost completly form the narrative arc of the third - that is, your choices have finally become the definition of the setting (wether or not you saved the council, the rachni, etc) influences the characters that appear and how events play out in these games. Mass Effect 3 is exceptionally well polished (barring some frustrating bugs and annoying UI and quest tracking issues) and represents the continuity nerds wet dream - a universe of their own creation, the punultimate choose your own adventure.

However...

In the last 10-15 minutes of the game there was an abrupt genre convention shift (more in line with the metaphysical pulp sci-fi of the 1900's than the Space Opera / Military Drama we had thus far experianced), a fundamental violation of one of the tenants of the Writer-Reader contract. This abrupt genre shift has left fans feeling disoriented, confused, and dissapointed - which swiftly leads to bitterness and anger. Their suspension of disbelief and expectations have not been adequatly serviced, and thus the ending causes the story of Mass Effect - from beginning to end, from 1-3 - to fail. Many are now observing plot holes and inconsistancies - those plot holes were always there, but were forgiven. However a bad ending damns a story, it causes a blowback in the reader where their tension and emotional involvement does not achieve catharsis and they're left to take it out on the author.

And this is why, I, and many thousands of other individuals have been so upset by the ending to Mass Effect 3. Our genre expectations and player agency have been violated, the finale of the story is uninfluenced by the continuity of our decisions and follows an unfamiliar narrative trend.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I personally didn't have too much trouble with the ending in itself.

It's open to perspective and it leaves quite a lot (in parts, too much) to think about.

I believe the god child was a consciousness which took on a form that Shepard had been thinking of recently, something that was in part what this entire mission was about (Saving the child and ergo humanity).

What I really disliked was the massive plot hole with the Normandy, all your squad were behind you only a few minutes ago and Jokers fleeing from Earth? Makes sense.

I can get over the copy-pasted endings, I can deal with the relays being destroyed (even though it strands every alien on Earth with no feasible way to get home in their lifetimes) and Normandy crashing on some habitable planet, it's far from perfect, but I can deal with it.

What continually annoys me the most the more I think about it, is how the endings don't reflect the last 90+ hours you've spent with Shepard.

Like, really? I've been with Shepard and his/her crew since the beginning, survived suicidal missions, brokered peace between entire civilizations, uprooted men of power and even spent time helping out those with inane tasks, such as scanning for a scientist, and none of it made a damn bit of difference.

The ending should've been more tailored, even if each ending had the same general theme, just little scenes, extra dialogue, different occurrences, to show that they recognise I saved the Rachni twice, that I didn't let a single person die on my trip to the collector base.

I still love Mass Effect and I know I'm going to have even more playthroughs of each game, but the ending disappoints me...

Such a shame.

 

[Bvenged]

Yeah, I want... very much want... a new ending branch with some answers attached, but as a patch or expanded as a worthy piece of DLC that expands the game further/adds more multiplayer (and a party system).

I think if Bioware just turn the whole thing after Shepard collapses after the final illusive man and Anderson moment, into a hallucination, an expansion can take it place instead; shepard gets healing or recovers strength to actually end the reapers.

Á la F3: Broken Steel.