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

[SonOfVoorhees]

My point is this. Reapers come through Citidal Mass Relay. But in ME1 the Protheans mess up a normal Reaper invasion causing them to go to plan B. Now what would plan A have been? Maybe they appear there to talk directly to the council? Maybe they explain and give a choice?

I also wonder if the Reapers, leaving the mass relay gates behind make a self full filling prophecy - organics use gates and Reaper tech, that tech leads to creating synthetic life before we are evolved and intelligent enough to have that power to create. So there will always be Geth in some form because of the tech the Reapers leave behind.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I thought Joker fled because he was trying to save EDI - but then he would have no knowledge of your choice so it doesnt make sense.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

I'm fine with the ending because Bioware did hint that they wanted to keep this universe for later games. These endings effectively destroy any detailed historical significance of Shepard and his choices so they could actually make a new game a 1000 years down the timeline or so without being bogged down by the various ways the main structure of the galaxy could be different.

If these somewhat questionable endings where the only way to allow the mass effect universe to continue I'm OK with that.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

A civilization created the child AI (citadel) the Reaper and the Mass Relay's.

Now, why the child. It's probably the Citadel reading Shepard's emotions/mind/whatever and taking a form that he will understand. Shepard was beaten up and he lost all hope. He was thinking how he couldn't save anyone. He though about the child.

So the Citadel AI took the from of the child.

Why didn't it help the Reaper in the first part? The Child AI probably doesn't much control over the Citadel. If it had, it would have simply killed Shepard before he even close to the control panel. It was probably added by the creator to explain to the race why the cycle has to end.

Joker/EDI and Quarian/Geth are just few example in a long lasting war with each other. The Geth are synthetics. They will think logically. If they ever need to have war with the organics, they will. But the organics are illogical. They will wage wars for unimportant things. Hell, wars were waged because just 1 woman. They are currently in an alliance (and only if you played your cards right) because both races are in danger. The Geth know that the Reaper will try to make them their slaves and destroy them at the end of the cycle. They have every reason to fight the Reaper. It's just that they have a commune enemy that they are in peace. Do you really think that the peace would last long?
I do think that the Geth wouldn't start a war, but I do think that the other, organic, races would either try to take over their territory, them or just start a war. The Geth will defend them self.

Also, about the Arrival.
In that DLC, you destroy a Relay with physical damage. That disables the magnets on the 'mass field' (dunno what the blue mass is called) which expands with extreme speed and caused insane damage. The blue mass is something like plasma. Those magnet keep it in one place and concentrate the energy in the mass relay.
But at the end of the game, the Citadel sends one orange beam to the Mass Relay. I think that the beam does 2 things.
First it sends a command to send the same beam to the next relay. This causes the chain reaction.
The other action is that it changes the blue field into an orange. This also probably changes it's characteristics.
Now when the self destruction command starts, the blue field is released. Unlike the blue one, this one doesn't deal huge physical damage, but more of an EMP style damage.

That's why the solar systems aren't destroyed.


Just my opinion about the whole stuff.

EDIT: Also, there is a HUGE difference between the Geth killing organics and the Reaper doing the same.
The Reaper will NEVER extinct all organics life. The will harvest advanced organic life when other, less organic life have a change of evolving further.
On the other hand, we don't know what the Geth or other synthetics could do in a war. They could kill ALL organic life forms. Not just advanced but all. The Creator though that organics and synthetics can't co-exist. So they separated them. The allow organics to live until the point where they could do something seriously retarded and then "restart" the universe.

EDIT2:
Stop calling it space magic. Even the best scientists of the universe don't fully understand how the Mass Relays work. They don't know anything about the Keeper, the Citadel and about many other things. The reaper tech. is thousand times more advanced than the best tech the other races have. BioWare didn't explain how it all works but they don't really have to. Did they explain how the Citadel work? No? But why isn't anyone crying about that?

Yes, it would be nice to know exactly how it worked, but it's also nice to have some holes to fill with your imagination. Filling all holes in a huge story like Mass Effect would require another 10 parts of the game just to explain shit, without any story. Just explaining stuff.
Sorry, but you guys ask to much. Don't be a ***** and turn on your brain cells. I remember the old time where I even had to imagine the whole story for a game and I still have fun. You guys have everything, don't like it a bit and now you QQ.
Lets call the wambulance. (ノಠ益&#3232ノ彡 uıɐɹq

 

[TotalerKrieger]

The endings are terrible, Matrix: Revolutions terrible. It was such a cowardly unimaginative way to write endings for such an epic story. The are so many plot holes and questions left unanswered. I can't say I desired a "riding off into the glorious sunset with love interest in tow" ending. I would have been perfectly fine if Sherpard died in most if not all endings (it would be hard to imagine him returning to a normal life after all that).

The AI child was pretty lame (bit of a sci-fi cliche as well), as he left the player with more questions than he answered. LAZY WRITING.

The galactic dark age would have been fine if it was one of several posible outcomes, not all of them. LAZY WRITING.

The Normandy being stranded on a distant planet would have been fine if it was one of several posible outcomes, not all of them. (Why do they seem happy about being stranded on a potentially uninhabitable planet? I am not sure why Joker ran away in the first place...?) LAZY WRITING.

The colour coded "energy" was ridiculously stupid. Synthesis is a cop-out ending that would required a lot more explanation/detail to actually work. Control is kind of nonsensical, as Shepard's motivations and the consequences of his actions are not properly explained (I went to all this trouble to rid the galaxy of the Reapers...ah fuck it, getting them to leave for a while is good enough. Is Shepard now some sort of immortal "Kubrick-esque star child" able to use the Reapers for his own purposes?) Destroy is the only one that is straightforward enough to really make any sense, but it like the others is an "uncertain future" type ending, perhaps suited as the neutral or renegade choice. ONCE AGAIN LAZY WRITING.

All the endings just leave the player feeling like..what was the point? Where is the sense of conclusion? or any sort of satisfaction? Shepard and crew might as well just saved themselves the trouble and commited one big murder-suicide. Come to think of it Matrix: Revolutions had a better ending...

EDIT: The Quarians might be able to survive stranded in Sol. Tali mentions in ME1 that the flotilla uses self-sufficient onboard farming. Presumably they would share this tech with the other races unable to eat earth food. All in all it's a bit a stretch though.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

-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!

Huh ... space ponies ... sure, why not. I can buy that

 

[Right Hook]

1) So the Mass Relays are destroyed in every outcome. Doesn't this mean the united galactic flotillas I gathered are stranded on Earth? If so, the Quarians, Volus and Turians are screwed because there is no dextro-amino (or whatever it was) food for them.
Essentially yes, when their food on the ships runs out they'll die, unless one of the other solar systems in the sol galaxy has a planet that can support them, which is probably unlikely.
2) How does Shepard survive in space without any air? I didn't see a dome or ... anything that would indicate there was air during your conversation with the Deus Ex Child
Don't overthink it man, he's in a very advanced area, there kind be some kind of atmosphere or something, focus on the more obvious flaws.
3) So ... the synthetics are destroying organics in order to prevent synthetics from destroying organics ... To quote GLaDOS "Don't think about it, don't think about it ..."
I guess he just means that the reapers preserve organic life by only taking out the big time species and letting the little ones live, while a different type of synthetic would wipe them all out, it's not great writing by any means.
4) Why can't I use Joker/EDI or Geth/Quarians as an argument agains the God Child's logic?
There are so many times I haven't been able to say the things I should be able to say, when Miranda died in my playthrough she was my woman but that is basically instantly forgotten by most of the crew and even Shepard himself, they left out way too much but that's because the scope was so grand.
5) The God Child said that someone built the Reapers ... when? And for what purpose?
Good question, look for EA to answer that in the future by taking more of your money.
6) Didn't Arrival teach us that destroying a Mass Relay will result in the destruction of an entire solar system? Is that sill valid here? (Why not?)
I would assume it is not valid because this is a controlled destruction, the relay fires all of its energy off into space and doesn't simply explode into the system, the relays were meant to be dismantled this way.
7) What happened to my squadmates in the final mission? Did they really just abandon one of their closest friends? And why was Joker fleeing from Earth?
They were trying to get away from that shockwave I guess, for me none of the members I took on the final mission showed up in that cutscene (I took Garrus and Liara but saw EDI and Javik) but if you did see members who were with you in those last moments, yeah that's messed up but who knows what was going on, maybe they were forced into a retreat.

Destroy
1) So I destroy every piece of machinery in the galaxy, sending every known race back at least 1000 years (or so). But what about the Quarians and the Volus? They can't live without their suits. So if I choose this option, I'm committing double genocide ... (to my wife no less)
I think you only kill synthetic intelligence, AI's not VI's and certainty not all electronics, your toaster on the Normandy will still work fine.
2) The Geth also die ... but didn't Tali said that the Geth blur the line between synthetic and organics?
Nope, they be fucking robots, forget all the moral and philosophical choices you made up until this point, why? Because fuck you, that's why.

Control
1) So ... WHY is the cycle inevitable again? Quarians and Geth? Joker and EDI? ... nothing?
No, dude, just get to the ending, you think space kid wants to talk philosophy with you all day, end the damn game.

Synthesis
1) How does this actually work?
Very carefully
2) If everything is part synthetic now, and everything is part syntetic, do those units have souls?
Yes, obviously, I originally thought it was going to be more like Deus Ex style synthetic/organic mix, which is why this ending appealed to me.
3) How do different races react to this?
Wait for the inevitable DLC or failing that, the book
4) How do the quarians survive?
Sythesis probably fixes their immune system by incorporating awesome apple products into their bodies, Iimmunity, who wouldn't want that?
5) How does this affect the culture and life of everyone? Is there piece now? Are there wars? Does this affect emotions? Love, Hate, Fear, Friendship?
Cough, cough, DLC/book/machinima series/Mass Effect cereal, you'll get that answer somewhere.
6) Does this affect intellect? Does it make everyone smarter?
I'd assume so, imagine having a calculator in your brain, you'd make math your *****.

 

[Palfreyfish]

solar systems in the sol galaxy has a planet that can support them, which is probably unlikely.

Sol ain't a galaxy, it's a solar system, the Galaxy is the Milky Way, at least to humanity anyway. And the solar system doesn't have any planets that can support Quarian/Turian life, so yeah, if the Quarian food ships are destroyed, then the Turians and Quarians are fucked.

 

[Aurgelmir]

So... um... why is Synthetic life worth less than organic life?

I mean I did all I could to give the Geth equal rights... sorta turned out bad for the Quarians... The Geth gained "life" so why are they less than me?

If the synthetics will destroy all life in the galaxy then that is jsut the natural order of things imo.

So yeah I feel the logic at the end was sort of silly, considering so many conversations prior to the end was showing us some synthetics are not out to kill the organics. (Geth only fight because they are a.Heretics or b.being attacked by Quarians)

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

snip

Oh that was so fun to read, you made my night. You, are f*cking awesome!!!

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

So... um... why is Synthetic life worth less than organic life?

I mean I did all I could to give the Geth equal rights... sorta turned out bad for the Quarians... The Geth gained "life" so why are they less than me?

If the synthetics will destroy all life in the galaxy then that is jsut the natural order of things imo.

So yeah I feel the logic at the end was sort of silly, considering so many conversations prior to the end was showing us some synthetics are not out to kill the organics. (Geth only fight because they are a.Heretics or b.being attacked by Quarians)

Hey, I'm still trying to figure out how destroying organic life is protecting the destruction of organic life. Also, if the Reapers keep leaving Mass Relays around OF COURSE it's gonna be the same cycle! Geez, you'd think a race of Giant Space Squids of Death would be a little more intelligent ...

 

[Right Hook]

solar systems in the sol galaxy has a planet that can support them, which is probably unlikely.

Sol ain't a galaxy, it's a solar system, the Galaxy is the Milky Way, at least to humanity anyway. And the solar system doesn't have any planets that can support Quarian/Turian life, so yeah, if the Quarian food ships are destroyed, then the Turians and Quarians are fucked.

Yeah, I caught my mistake after I wrote it but didn't feel like correcting it, hard to believe I took an astronomy class in college, huh?

 

[Right Hook]

snip

Oh that was so fun to read, you made my night. You, are f*cking awesome!!!

Thanks man, you asked some really good questions. Damn, these endings have depressed me, Mass Effect came out in November 2007, I feel like my entire life after this point has now become a lie.

 

[Palfreyfish]

solar systems in the sol galaxy has a planet that can support them, which is probably unlikely.

Sol ain't a galaxy, it's a solar system, the Galaxy is the Milky Way, at least to humanity anyway. And the solar system doesn't have any planets that can support Quarian/Turian life, so yeah, if the Quarian food ships are destroyed, then the Turians and Quarians are fucked.

Yeah, I caught my mistake after I wrote it but didn't feel like correcting it, hard to believe I took an astronomy class in college, huh?

Nah, it's fine everyone slips up at some point. Some, like Bioware, slip up something huge

Also, in answering all of those questions, I pretty much agree with everything you said, however there's a compelling theory that Shepard, and to an extent, the player, has been indoctrinated, in Shep's case by the Reapers, and in ours' by Bioware.

The theory is something along the lines of 'Shepard's experiencing hallucinations of the God Child, as no one else sees the child, and at the end, the god child is a manifestation of Shep's indoctrination. The same people who came up with this theory also suggested that Shepard hallucinates the whole ending sequence, and the Blue and Green endings are the indoctrination taking hold, and the Red one is Shep fighting the indoctrination and "winning".

Actually, I'll just link you to the first page of the thread on the Bioware forums. [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9727423/1]

That should explain what I'm trying to say in better detail

 

[Right Hook]

Nah, it's fine everyone slips up at some point. Some, like Bioware, slip up something huge

Also, in answering all of those questions, I pretty much agree with everything you said, however there's a compelling theory that Shepard, and to an extent, the player, has been indoctrinated, in Shep's case by the Reapers, and in ours' by Bioware.

The theory is something along the lines of 'Shepard's experiencing hallucinations of the God Child, as no one else sees the child, and at the end, the god child is a manifestation of Shep's indoctrination. The same people who came up with this theory also suggested that Shepard hallucinates the whole ending sequence, and the Blue and Green endings are the indoctrination taking hold, and the Red one is Shep fighting the indoctrination and "winning".

Actually, I'll just link you to the first page of the thread on the Bioware forums. [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9727423/1]

That should explain what I'm trying to say in better detail

I saw an explanation of this ending earlier but not in so much detail, I like this idea but I don't think Bioware was intending this, they might use it now and act like it was their plan but I don't think they has this idea in mind. It could make for some decent DLC but honestly I'd still be pissed, I wanted an ending right out of the box, not this controversy. If the DLC they make has nothing to do with adjusting after endgame stuff, I seriously won't buy any of it because with an ending like this, nothing that happened before matters to me anymore.

 

[Palfreyfish]

Nah, it's fine everyone slips up at some point. Some, like Bioware, slip up something huge

Also, in answering all of those questions, I pretty much agree with everything you said, however there's a compelling theory that Shepard, and to an extent, the player, has been indoctrinated, in Shep's case by the Reapers, and in ours' by Bioware.

The theory is something along the lines of 'Shepard's experiencing hallucinations of the God Child, as no one else sees the child, and at the end, the god child is a manifestation of Shep's indoctrination. The same people who came up with this theory also suggested that Shepard hallucinates the whole ending sequence, and the Blue and Green endings are the indoctrination taking hold, and the Red one is Shep fighting the indoctrination and "winning".

Actually, I'll just link you to the first page of the thread on the Bioware forums. [http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9727423/1]

That should explain what I'm trying to say in better detail

I saw an explanation of this ending earlier but not in so much detail, I like this idea but I don't think Bioware was intending this, they might use it now and act like it was their plan but I don't think they has this idea in mind. It could make for some decent DLC but honestly I'd still be pissed, I wanted an ending right out of the box, not this controversy. If the DLC they make has nothing to do with adjusting after endgame stuff, I seriously won't buy any of it because with an ending like this, nothing that happened before matters to me anymore.

It would be nice if it was their plan, because then at lest we'd know we were getting a proper ending later down the line... But yeah, unless the DLC adds to the ending, I don't really see a point in it either.

 

[Megalodon]

Damn, these endings have depressed me, Mass Effect came out in November 2007, I feel like my entire life after this point has now become a lie.

Amen to this, that ending was a fucking betrayal.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

snip

Oh that was so fun to read, you made my night. You, are f*cking awesome!!!

Thanks man, you asked some really good questions. Damn, these endings have depressed me, Mass Effect came out in November 2007, I feel like my entire life after this point has now become a lie.

There's still a part of me that believes this was all Reaper indoctrination and they will release the REAL NON-SHITTY endings on DLC. I'm gonna pirate them, of course, no way I'm paying extra for something I've already spent three games' worth of money on

 

[AD-Stu]

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.

While it's tempting to think this is the explanation, I simply can't believe it. I mean, they went to the trouble of getting Buzz freaking Aldrin of all people to voice the final words. They chose to put the Normandy wherever it ended up, even though it made no sense. They could have added an extra 20 minutes of dialog to the ending and I still don't see what they could have come up with that would have made it alright.

For better or for worse, stupid or otherwise, I believe this is the ending they meant to make.

 

[Right Hook]

I believe this is the ending they meant to make.

I agree, I don't know what they were on at the time but I think this was legitimately the way they decided to end it. My only hope is now they'll realize how stupid it was and fix it.