Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[taiwwa]

I'm purposely spoiling this game for myself. I wasn't that big a fan of the first, I really liked the second a lot, but the demo for the third left me cold.

So I watched the spoiler ending on youtube. What happens if you choose to eradicate all organic life?

 

[Immsys]

Indeed the reapers don't make sense because they are machines, they see organic life as organic life, they don't really make a distinction between individuals. That is why them actually addressing Shepherd as Shepherd is a huge deal.

That is quite a claim there my man, why is it exactly that just because they are machines they are unable to differentiate between different organic life? it must make their targeting systems really hard to use regardless.

In the reapers mind they are saving 'organic' life by destroying all the civilizations that are advanced enough to make synthetics that might one day destroy all organic life. The reapers in their mind are the good guys because they are trying to preserve 'organic life' as a whole.

It doesn't matter if they routinely commit galaxy wide genocide every 50k years.

They also excuse this by saying they are turning people into the ultimate form of evolution, the ultimate beings. Creating a deity out of the collective members of an entire race. It is totally messed up logic but it is machine logic that is alien and foreign to us. Something the reapers always were.

Out of all the aliens in Mass Effect the Reapers are the most Alien.

I'm glad that someone got this at least. To preserve SOME organic life, it can be necessary to kill SOME organic life. In the same way that if the population of Elephants were to grow to large to sustain itself, we would be obliged to cull some of the Elephant population, so that they could not outgrow their food source and therefore starve their entire race to death. The logic makes perfect sense, I do not understand the multitude of stupid people who seem to think that it does not. Of course the Elephants that we kill would not understand why we are killing some of them, it is beyond their comprehension, as if they comprehended that they were growing to large to be sustained, they would be culling themselves. So it is apt that the Reapers respond in the same way when ask why THEY cull advanced life every 50,000 years.

 

[synobal]

True, but there is a difference between good soft science fiction where the writers try to keep some sense of logic and consistency and bad soft sci-fi where the writers just go, "this happens because... well... 'quantum.'"

I think that's what happened with parts of Mass Effect 3. They went from relatively good soft sci-fi to stuff that doesn't make much sense and isn't consistent with the made up science of the universe

I dunno I think it isn't so much that it is bad soft Sci-fi I think it just wasn't explained, perhaps it is perfectly logical but it is suppose to be a bit like magic. The crucible was worked on through each cycle and ultimately the exact workings of it were not understood.

It was a bit like the nukes we developed and ultimately used just on a much larger scale. We weren't sure if they would set our atmosphere on fire or not but ultimately we used them.

That is quite a claim there my man, why is it exactly that just because they are machines they are unable to differentiate between different organic life? it must make their targeting systems really hard to use regardless.

You may be right, I think back on it and it is sort of obvious they understand organics to some degree, the whole indoctrination of leaders and promises of peace etc suggests they do understand organic life and likely can distinguish individuals. I guess I should say that on a large scale it seems like to me that reapers don't care about the individuals of any organic race or races.

 

[Phlakes]

I thought the "sweet" was that, oh I don't know, all organic life in the galaxy won't be destroyed or harvested into the next generation of Reapers. You know, what Shep's goal was the entire team. And that said, I was very satisfied with the ending, I knew tehre was no way it would end without a lot of bitter and I knew Shepard almost definitely wouldn't survive, and I was choking up from getting hit with the Reaper laser until the end, where I cried for several minutes.

4. Way too much focus homosexuality, I don't care about there being homosexual love choices for you or even that you have bi and gay team-mates, but what I do have a problem with is that seemingly every one on the citadel is also homosexual?

...What? The only homosexual character I ever saw (not including women and Asari) was the pilot, and that was just a passing line.

 

[hobohazard]

3. on that subject, there also something ells the game didint account for. the reapers CAN be reason with. the destroyer you destroyed on the quarian home world talked to you once you bested it, im sure if you had something they were interested in they would listen to what you had to say. "but hobohazard," you say "you don't have anything of value to them so why would they stop and listen?" what are you talking about, you have access to not one, but TWO ways to destroy the reapers. if you called for them somehow, and then told them to leave the galaxy or you will destroy them or take control of them and then make them destroy themselves, therefor banishing the reapers, saving yourself, and saving the relays and therefor everyone.

I do hope that you are most likely green, and in some folk lore live under a bridge.

Reasoning with a computer eh? A computer that sees no inherent value in its own existence, if it is therefore unable to continue its primary function eh? Let me know how that works out for ya.

I can see how you would think of that but your forgetting 2 things.
1. the reapers will still be able to continue its primary function. I said to use the threat to make them leave the galaxy. there reason for being is to stop the kayos of organics making synthetics. they don't care when, how, or most importantly where they do this. But this time it will be in a galaxy that doesn't have a way to use a super weapon that can destroy them all at once. i know it seems evil to dump your problem unto another galaxy. that's intentional as its an alternative ending to the other 3. the galaxy survives intact for the most part but now there another one out there with the same problem, only they don't have the crucible.
2. the reapers also have a(if rudimentary) sense of self preservation. if you dont believe me, look at the geth. the reapers gave them incredible processing power that enabled them to think almost as freely as an organic. you can see that once the reaper command is taken away, they want to survive (look at legion saying "I" and the other geth saying that they will remember him). they even wanted to survive like an organic before they had the upgrades (see the data archives when you go into the geth data stream). the reapers obviously didint give them everything they they had, so that trait in them is probably even stronger.

 

[Roman Monaghan]

People complaining that the endings were depressing didn't really make sense to me. I mean we're fighting off robot space cthulhu to keep them from enacting galaxy wide genocide on a scale unimaginable. The fact we can stop that at all was about as "happy" as things were ever going to get.

That said, could have been done a lot better. No spoilers, but... it's Deus Ex Human Revolution all over again. Nothing you do up to that point matters, just a binary choice right there at the end after a friendly chat with the local deus ex machina.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

For me, the ending felt more like a rip off of the original Deus Ex. Except that global communication is always taken down no matter what option you pick.

 

[SinorKirby]

Buddy, go into Mass Effect 3 and read the codex.

Re-read this bit from my post:

I have yet to play Mass Effect 3 and I probably won't, considering the demo was exactly like Mass Effect 2 and I hated Mass Effect 2.

Anyways, Reapers are meant to be indestructible killing machines, so in ME3 they just seem comical if they're that easily beaten.

 

[Immsys]

I can see how you would think of that but your forgetting 2 things.
1. the reapers will still be able to continue its primary function. I said to use the threat to make them leave the galaxy. there reason for being is to stop the kayos of organics making synthetics. they don't care when, how, or most importantly where they do this. But this time it will be in a galaxy that doesn't have a way to use a super weapon that can destroy them all at once. i know it seems evil to dump your problem unto another galaxy. that's intentional as its an alternative ending to the other 3. the galaxy survives intact for the most part but now there another one out there with the same problem, only they don't have the crucible.
2. the reapers also have a(if rudimentary) sense of self preservation. if you dont believe me, look at the geth. the reapers gave them incredible processing power that enabled them to think almost as freely as an organic. you can see that once the reaper command is taken away, they want to survive (look at legion saying "I" and the other geth saying that they will remember him). they even wanted to survive like an organic before they had the upgrades (see the data archives when you go into the geth data stream). the reapers obviously didint give them everything they they had, so that trait in them is probably even stronger.

1.
They clearly do care when, since they repeat their actions without fail every 50,000 years. If they all just up and left, they wouldn't be stopping ALL LIFE from making synthetic life would they? Even if they are just "in another galaxy" they still aren't fulfilling their function of stopping intelligent life from building synthetics at all, they are letting it happen. Something that their programming will not allow.

2.
A sense of self preservation does not equal them doing ANYTHING to survive. You have a sense of self-preservation, however it would be false to suggest that you would do anything to lead to your own existence, wouldn't it? The Reapers cannot, I mean physically cannot, disobey their programming in any way, unless it is deprogrammed (as in your example of Legion). Such is impossible without malfunction, which is counted under deprogramming. For example, all living beings have self preservation. However, some beings go into situations that they knowingly accept they will die in. Therefore, we can conclude some beings with self preservation are capable of accepting death as a consequence and still fulfilling their own will.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Anyways, Reapers are meant to be indestructible killing machines, so in ME3 they just seem comical if they're that easily beaten.

It is actually shown repeatedly that the Reapers' reputation is somewhat of an exaggeration. Vigil explains as much, when he tells that their main strength lies in surprise and subterfuge. The reason why the Reapers always succeed was because their first step in each cycle was to reach the Citadel and deactivate the mass relays, effectively splitting up the current leading civilization into small colonies which were easy to pick off, strongly implying that they consider a counter-attack by a united galaxy a big enough threat to take repercussions against it. And it worked perfectly, until the Protheans managed to change the rules.

Heck, Sovereign needed to recruit the help of the Geth and Saren because it knew that it couldn't survive a direct solo attack on the Citadel.

The Reapers' edge is if anything much smaller in the cycle taking place during Mass Effect, because of the facts that Sovereign's recovered tech was reverse-engineered with some degree of success, they have lost quite a bit of their element of surprise, and the still running mass relays are allowing for fleet mobility.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Not gonna lie.

My heart broke a little in the final 10 minutes.

My 200 hours deserved better. The characters deserved better.






Shepard deserved better.

 

[hobohazard]

1.
They clearly do care when, since they repeat their actions without fail every 50,000 years. If they all just up and left, they wouldn't be stopping ALL LIFE from making synthetic life would they? Even if they are just "in another galaxy" they still aren't fulfilling their function of stopping intelligent life from building synthetics at all, they are letting it happen. Something that their programming will not allow.

2.
A sense of self preservation does not equal them doing ANYTHING to survive. You have a sense of self-preservation, however it would be false to suggest that you would do anything to lead to your own existence, wouldn't it? The Reapers cannot, I mean physically cannot, disobey their programming in any way, unless it is deprogrammed (as in your example of Legion). Such is impossible without malfunction, which is counted under deprogramming. For example, all living beings have self preservation. However, some beings go into situations that they knowingly accept they will die in. Therefore, we can conclude some beings with self preservation are capable of accepting death as a consequence and still fulfilling their own will.

1. Well if that is true, then there already letting synthetic life form in other galaxy's and are defying there programing by not acting there. So no, they don't care.
2. I think by self preservation, I meant sense of objective fulfillment. they will do anything to complete there objective, but more importantly to this point, they will do anything to keep themselves from failing it. if they are destroyed, they have failed there objective. it just so happens that one of there objectives IS self preservation. this means that there sense of it is even stronger then in organics.

 

[Terrik]

Not gonna lie.

My heart broke a little in the final 10 minutes.

My 200 hours deserved better. The characters deserved better.

Shepard deserved better.

Well said. This is exactly how I feel.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Not gonna lie.

My heart broke a little in the final 10 minutes.

My 200 hours deserved better. The characters deserved better.






Shepard deserved better.

Yes because being able to free all the species from continuous enslavement and live isn't a good ending

 

[bpm195]

I haven't played the game yet (no interest in installing Origin and I'm offended by the dlc scheme), so I can't be quite sure I'm accurate:

Mass Effect 2 was all about building your team up for suicide mission to fend off inevitable doom. Where as most stories cower before the end, Mass Effect 3 seems to go through with a doomsday scenario. You can prepare all you want but ultimately it doesn't matter because there are no happy endings.

I like this. There are way too many happy endings, and when it's not a happy ending you get the bitter sweet ending. I'm happy that there's a game where doomsday means doomsday. Video games need a Million Dollar Baby!

 

[synobal]

Not gonna lie.

My heart broke a little in the final 10 minutes.

My 200 hours deserved better. The characters deserved better.






Shepard deserved better.

Yes because being able to free all the species from continuous enslavement and live isn't a good ending

Ya I dunno maybe it is because I played my game on insanity on my first play through but the desperate fight for survival really felt desperate. Then the final scene where my shepherd chose the middle path and forged a new destiny for all life organic and synthetic at the cost of his own life felt really tremendous to me. I knew there would be no sequels, no take backs, no going home to Liara, the sacrifice of one to save them all and it was a heroes sacrifice. It had to be Shepherd to do it.

Who knows though Shepherd game back once before so....

 

[Pikey Mikey]

This was such a fucking catastrophe. I LOVED this game, loved it. The characters, the combat and all that good stuff. But those last ten minutes ruined my whole experience...And the series for me (at least the last third of it).. All I wanted was an ending where you destroy the Reapers, allowed Shepard to live (with Tali, in my case) and showed what all the races were doing afterwords just to get some closure and the feeling that you succeeded, because sure as hell don't feel like the victory was worth it. The whole galaxy gets fucked no matter what you do, because there is only an illusion of choice. The endings are the same, and they are all appalling...
...
Just...Why? The game was fantastic with the exception of those goddamn dream sequences, but those I could handle/accept and that retarded WTF-God-Child-Thing which fucked up everything.
...How could they think that was a good ending (there was only one)?
I've lost all motivation to replay this game.....
But this is just my own opinion.

 

[synobal]

This was such a fucking catastrophe. I LOVED this game, loved it. The characters, the combat and all that good stuff. But those last ten minutes ruined my whole experience...And the series for me (at least the last third of it).. All I wanted was an ending where you destroy the Reapers, allowed Shepard to live (with Tali, in my case) and showed what all the races were doing afterwords just to get some closure and the feeling that you succeeded, because sure as hell don't feel like the victory was worth it. The whole galaxy gets fucked no matter what you do, because there is only an illusion of choice. The endings are the same, and they are all appalling...
...
Just...Why? The game was fantastic with the exception of those goddamn dream sequences, but those I could handle/accept and that retarded WTF-God-Child-Thing which fucked up everything.
...How could they think that was a good ending (there was only one)?
I've lost all motivation to replay this game.....

Okay now relax and step back and think about the entire trilogy and what it was working towards.

Also the child was simply the shape that the AI took it wasn't actually a 'god child'.

I've talked to like seven people now who had this knee jerk reaction, all but two eventually seemed to like the end more and more as they thought about it.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Yes because being able to free all the species from continuous enslavement and live isn't a good ending

A good ending is one that wraps up the story in a satisfying manner.

A game like ME bases everything on your decisions, on the relationships you build with the wonderful characters, the influences you have on the fantastic and detailed worlds they built.

In the end, all of that meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. 3 bleak, devastating endings. All my effort and 200 hours of love, gone in the most disappointing 5 minutes of my entire life as a gamer.