Mass Effect 3: It's not the endings, its the final battle (And synthesis)

[JediMB]

The "worthy" species becomes a full-fledged Reaper. The other races are harvested into the lesser Destroyers.

The Codex mentions this, in case you didn't bother reading it out of fear that it would hurt your complaints.

And you are completely missing the point. Spider Reapers where not a thing in ME2, they were completely made up for the purposes of ME3, when harbinger said "only humans will be ascended" he meant exactly that, and that every other species will die. It wasn't until ME3 when the writers pulled yet another minor ret con and changed that just because.

How does it make sense that other species are suited to making a spider reaper but not a regular one? What is the mechanical or molecular or whatever difference that requires a specific species for sovereign class reapers? What traits do humans have that other species do not that make them suited for sovereign class reapers as opposed to other races? These are questions the narrative never bothers to address, it's just lazy.

Precisely. Harbinger was abundantly clear about the worthlessness of the other species, while humanity were the only ones worthy of "salvation through destruction" and the various other phrases he used to describe being turned into Reaper goo. Because supposedly we were genetically superior to all the other races.

Also worth noting is that the Harbinger also looked down on the Geth; seeing them only as disposable tools. Yet again a far cry from what the sentiment the Catalyst expresses at the end of ME3.

EDIT: And Sovereign. That guy really despised organics. He didn't exactly seem like the type who'd want to save us all.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Before I go on ignoring my own advice, just a thought:

I think we can all acknowledege that, whatever our feelings about the Mass Effect series (huge fans, can't stand it, whatever) it was written by multiple people over several years and as a result its story, lore and universe is filled with contradictions, plot holes, retcons, knowledge gaps and inconsistencies. Unless someone high up at Bioware decides to come out with some definitive Word of God, a lot of what we're discussing here will never be answered definitively.

So how about we try to take a few deep breaths and maybe have a laugh or two while we talk about all this?

(sigh) If only you knew that not even BW can make sense OUTSIDE their fiction....

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mass-Effect-3-s-Ending-Has-Been-in-the-Works-for-Many-Years-BioWare-Says-255935.shtml

The only definite Word of God is the one from Casey Hudson, since he is the that worked since Baldur's Gate and has the final word on what stays on the final product. As demostrated by the fact that even in the final hours of ME3, he told Walters to keep the ending "to a high lvl" AND ordered to have the Anderson final scene to be even shorter several times.

But not all species had a say in the choice to synthesize. Only one species made the choice, and even then, it was one person among billions of human beings. It would actually make more sense if it were only humans being systhesized, because that is consistent from Mass Effect 2.

Agreed, and it's another reason I hate synthesis - what gives Shepard the right to turn the entire universe into toasters with feelings?!?

The right to make the world of Fallout possible? or because he/she thinks that Toasters are funny?

Ignoring that Sovereing wasnt a very nice person when refering to organics, i think you are reffering to the fact that The Catayst said: "You may be in conflict with the Reapers, but they are not interested in war", right?

Acutally, I'm mostly referring to Leviathan, which explicitly stated that the Reapers / Catalyst were created to save organics from AIs. The fact that they didn't program them well enough / the Reapers twisted that mandate around into harvesting said species for their own good doesn't change the fact that they still think they're doing this for the good of the organic species.

In that context, I choose to write off the other quotes from Sovereign / Harbinger to the effect of "we are the vanguard of your destruction", "we will destroy you" etc as either artistic licence or translator failures

Even if the machines think that they are doing it for everyones own good, i still dont see how did they get to the conclusion that this shit is INEVITABLE (An Absolutist Statement that defies all probabilty, and that a machines should be able to calculate ASAP and notice that such conclusion is made of shite), AND that the best solution is to just liquify everything instead of just EMP the Synthetic agressors or give organics the tools they need to defeat those synthetics.

As for the "traductor malfuction" it seems too brillaint of a twist for BW to pull off. When i read that from you, an idea like this came: The Protheans, in their hubris and not being able to cope with having their Empire being defeated by these machines that didnt want to submit to their will, they left technology behind for "Universal Traductors"....but with a few changes. Since nobody bathes an eyelash on how everyday technology works, kinda like how nobody gives 2 fucks about how the Keepers work along as they work and make their lives easier, The Protheans played a gambit to make the traductors DELIVERATELY give false information when talking to Reapers and viceversa. This way, the other races from next cycles will think they are a threat and try to wipe them out before they get a chance to fix this misunderstanding.

Basically, The Protheans are the real bad guys whose hatred and cunning, made a plan to convince other cycles after them (and who knows how many other cycles will fall into this trap if we didnt notice this), to wipe this insolent creatures from existance for even DARING to resist to their might. All while trying to pretend that they were the best civilization EVER, that wouldnt harm a fly, to get fanboys like Liara do their dirty work of avenging them.

The reason Javik doesnt know this is because he was born when the plan was already in motion, and the atrosities commited by the Reapers were just a counter to everything the Prothean did to the Reapers FIRST. He is not lying to you, he geniunelly believes the bullshit that its own civilization came up, and the pain and suffering that he experienced is real.

All this bloodshed, all this waste of lives, because of a simple and insignificant thing that no one pay attention in their lives but use it constantly. It will fit with the idea that Casey Hudson was trying to acomplish when he said it in "The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3" on how technology affects our lives. Instead of space magic, he should have used something so harmless to ilustrate how DEPENDANT is people from technology to do everything easier in their lives, and how, if one or more of those end up failing, society and civilizations can crumble in a matter of seconds.

That is true horror. Not the fear of The Unknown as Cosmic Horror stories with Lovecraft tend to be, but the horror that our mere perception of the world around us is just a lie that we keep telling ourselves out of convenience and to protect us from going insane. Kinda like how Immanuel Kant said that God MUST exist because its "Morally nessary" for IT to exist, it is morally nessary to lie ourselves into thinking we KNOW the world and how it works, or else civilization will not be possible.

Anyway. That idea needs some polish to be effective.

 

[AD-Stu]

Before I go on ignoring my own advice, just a thought:

I think we can all acknowledege that, whatever our feelings about the Mass Effect series (huge fans, can't stand it, whatever) it was written by multiple people over several years and as a result its story, lore and universe is filled with contradictions, plot holes, retcons, knowledge gaps and inconsistencies. Unless someone high up at Bioware decides to come out with some definitive Word of God, a lot of what we're discussing here will never be answered definitively.

So how about we try to take a few deep breaths and maybe have a laugh or two while we talk about all this?

(sigh) If only you knew that not even BW can make sense OUTSIDE their fiction....

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mass-Effect-3-s-Ending-Has-Been-in-the-Works-for-Many-Years-BioWare-Says-255935.shtml

The only definite Word of God is the one from Casey Hudson, since he is the that worked since Baldur's Gate and has the final word on what stays on the final product. As demostrated by the fact that even in the final hours of ME3, he told Walters to keep the ending "to a high lvl" AND ordered to have the Anderson final scene to be even shorter several times.

It doesn't really matter what they said before the game was released - the reality is what they did release is filled with contradictions, plot holes, retcons, knowledge gaps and inconsistencies. Claiming that end result is what they planned all along only makes it worse, if it proves to be true

And it doesn't change the fact that there still hasn't been any Word of God (from Casey Hudson or anyone else) on pretty much any of the issues people are nitpicking over in this thread.

So again let's all take a breath and maybe try to have a little fun with this?

 

[AD-Stu]

And yet every attempt to claim such contradictions and inconsistencies either relies on a) ignoring all of the times the games answer these questions and b) pretending not to know the answers that you can't have possibly not heard in the games.

I haven't heard a single claim of "plot holes" that didn't rely on ignorance and lying.

That's because your refusal to acknowledge them is as single-minded and slavish as the "ignorance" you're claiming other people are displaying

It's an admirable quality, you're obviously a huge fan of the series (as I am, and as most of the posters in this thread clearly are - let's try to remember that). Here's just one example from this thread alone:

How does the plot of Mass Effect 1 make sense after the revelation of the Catalyst? In ME1, we get told by Vigil that a handful of Prothean scientists survived the Reaper invasion, and were able to fiddle with the Citadel to stop it working as a relay for the Reapers. But Vigil never mentions the Catalyst at that point. How did the Protheans manage to sabotage a sentient and virtually omniscient space station from within, leaving it unable to fix itself? And given that they did, how did they manage it without even noting the Catalyst's existence and leaving it with Vigil?

The Protheans sabotaged the Keepers. When it was time for the cycle to begin, the Reaper vanguard would send a signal to the Keepers to have them trigger the Citadel Relay. The Protheans altered the Keepers so that the Keepers would not respond to the Reaper signal, hence their need to have someone else activate the Citadel Relay - Saren and his geth army.

I can absolutely accept that the Protheans from Ilos were cut off from the rest of their species so they never heard about or stumbled across the Catalyst.

But whichever way you look at it there's still a plot hole here. The most powerful AI in the universe lives on the Citadel, is the Citadel, and we're supposed to believe it doesn't have the power to activate its own mass relay just because the Keepers were sabotaged? That it doesn't have the power to undo the changes that the Ilos Protheans made? That it couldn't get in direct contact with Sovereign or the other Reapers and say "hey you're running late, what gives?"

We either have to believe that, or believe that the Catalyst saw all of the above going on and just chose to do nothing, when effectively all it had to do was flick a switch to keep its carefully-planned solution on track. Neither situation makes sense, as Geo Da Sponge brought up a week ago.

After a week, the best argument anyone has been able to offer in response is "maybe the Catalyst was in sleep mode", which is pure speculation (even if it was speculated by someone who worked on the first game) with no basis in the story or established lore of the game. If the best solution relies on speculation, then it's a plot hole - and a pretty big one at that. And even if it were established, it still makes no sense for the most powerful AI in the universe to 1: need to go into sleep mode in the first place or 2: not put in a failsafe.

You can't close a plot hole with an even bigger plot hole

And FWIW, I'm someone who's argued against the existence of the previous version of that plot hole (ie: those who argue that Saren's pursuit of the Conduit in ME1 is pointless because as a Spectre he could've just walked into the Council chamber any time he pleased).

 

[AD-Stu]

The only possible way this makes any kind of sense is that the Catalyst has no direct control over, and no communication with, the Reapers.

Exactly - covering the plot hole involves making a bunch of assumptions (none of which are supported by any material in the games, books, comics or other media AFAIK), and those assumptions are all based on incredibly smart AIs doing incredibly stupid, illogical things.

I'm guessing that, if Saren tried to walk into the Council Chambers, even before he was marked as going rogue, everyone would wonder what the hell he was doing tampering with the Citadel's main control panel.

For maximum chance of success, he needed an army with him. And the best way of getting a hostile army onto the Citadel was through the Conduit.

That was exactly my assessment of the situation too. I know it's not based on in-game material or anything, but it at least seems likely and reasonable that C-Sec or somebody would turn up and start asking questions if Saren wnadered into the Council chamber and started pushing buttons...

 

[JellySlimerMan]

At the very least, the Reapers could've modified the Charon Relay to only allow Reapers through (a bit like the Omega 4 Relay, though maybe this too could be circumvented with a Reaper IFF device).
Doing this would still allow the Reapers to come and go, if they needed to.

That is one of the things that would make the mechanics i mentioned (where you get to decide where the resourses are alocated and what to mass produce) more awesome. By mass producing the IFF for all the fleet, not only they will be harder to spot by the Reapers but you could use the Relay Network even if the they shut it down ASAP they entered the galaxy and reach the Citadel.

Now you may say that, if the Reapers shut down the Relays before you mass produce IFFs, then how are we going to get resourses en masse to produce ANYTHING at all? good question. And the only answer i can give is.......we should have prepared for that in ME2.

The overarching plot should have been like this:
ME1: Discovering the Reaper threat
ME2: Preparing for it
ME3: Stopping it

What we go was:
ME1: Discovering the Reaper threat
ME2: Daddy issues are a top priority over galactic extintion
ME3: Prepare and stopping the threat while its already happening

We should dwell into how could Shepard prepare before ME3, how he could have used either TIM or The Shadow Brooker Liara to gather info and resourses. How Shep could have prepared before visiting The Derelict Reaper so you dont end up destroying another evidence that points out to the existence of the Reapers to The Council (TIM even says that "If you think you can convince them, then by all means do it". But the prick doesnt even mention that, by getting close to TDR, the shield activate and the only way to escape it is by destroying the Core with the Reaper too. If he had mention how the scientist or the scouts of his organization that found TDR, managed to escape the last time the corpse did that, then we both would be morning the loss of something so valuable as a Reaper corpse.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

We should dwell into how could Shepard prepare before ME3, how he could have used either TIM or The Shadow Brooker Liara to gather info and resourses. How Shep could have prepared before visiting The Derelict Reaper so you dont end up destroying another evidence that points out to the existence of the Reapers to The Council (TIM even says that "If you think you can convince them, then by all means do it". But the prick doesnt even mention that, by getting close to TDR, the shield activate and the only way to escape it is by destroying the Core with the Reaper too. If he had mention how the scientist or the scouts of his organization that found TDR, managed to escape the last time the corpse did that, then we both would be morning the loss of something so valuable as a Reaper corpse.

That is the true failing of the franchise. While internally most of the games stand well, as a total narrative it falls apart. The first game establishes the threat but in order to allow the second game to proceed as it did, the entire galaxy had to pretend to not believe in the Reaper threat. It was demonstrated that Reapers are real incontrovertibly and yet only one organization actually does a thing about it, an organization that places Shepard in more or less the same position he did before - no one will believe him because this time he is working with terrorists.

The first game demonstrated just how terrifyingly powerful a reaper is. Cut off and otherwise occupied Sovereign destroyed a number of cruisers before the combined efforts of two fleets bring it down. The second showed no significant progress save a small upgrade in firepower and a handful of actions that act as force multipliers for infantry units (the heat sinks specifically if you take the lore at its word). Neither was a tremendous advance as the Thanix cannon simply let a frigate carry firepower equivalent to a heavy cruiser and the latter produced a small but tangible bonus in total volume of sustained fire an infantry unit could achieve. At the end of the game it is revealed that there are countless thousands of Reapers. With the action we saw in the first game the reapers have the edge in pure terms of firepower.

Yet what could have been the saving grace was that the Reapers should have taken years if not decades to arrive. When you see them begin moving towards the galaxy, they sit at tens of thousands of light years distant. With no adequate explanation, they manage to cover a distance that would take generations without mass relays in months.

In order to achieve something resembling thematic consistency would have required a tremendous change in the game. The third game would need to take place over the course of decades rather than months. In that time, alliances could be forged, ships could be built, and the galaxy could stand united in the face of the unstoppable. The actions of the Protheans, Shepard and the rest would actually have a dramatic impact on the end of the game. It would allow one to more readily account for actions the player previously took. Saving the Destiny Ascension would make it far easier to convince the Asari of the threat. The status of the Collector Base could dramatically alter perception of the end threat. Cerberus could actually advance to something more than mustache twirling villain and fill the role of ruthless but prudent rather than simply going for ruthless brutality. In the end, your actions would ultimately determine what you have to spend in the coming war. What shipyards exist, what tonnage you can put in a fight, what technology they have etc.

But the problem is this game would not make a solid rollercoaster shooter and Shepard could not act as a mere avatar. In short, the game that resolves the narrative problems would not be a Mass Effect game even if it told a good Mass Effect story.

All told, if you want to hunt down the origianl source of the problem it's that you ask one person to halt a threat that a thousand civilizations had not managed to even slow. In tens of millions of years they best anyone ever did was buy time. The first game could be a personal story as could the second. The last game, though, wasn't a story meant for one man or woman. It was the collective tale of the twilight of a dozen species. Examining how we banded together to fight against the encroaching darkness is the more important part.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

SNIP

You are quoting the wrong person

Also, about convincing the Asari Council, why wasnt there an option to let her see our mind so she can experience the Cypher and the Prothean visions?? maybe an older asari like Samara could have helped making the vision a lot less fussy. After all, the Protheans went out of their way to show us those images, so they MUST be important in some way. I doubt the Protheans will show us that just to presume their power of Cinematic Storytelling with the almighty and ancient Prothean technique know as "Shaky Cam".

 

[FavouriteDream]

The problem with the Mass Effect series is that the writers didn't listen in high school and didn't create a beginning, middle and end to their story before writing it. It is painfully obvious that during the time of ME1 - the developers had no fucking idea how ME3 would end. It seems as if they were on a totally different tangent on all three games. That's why the story feels so disjointed after finished in the last game.

I don't know much about the series and I'd love for someone to prove me wrong here, but I think my senses are accurate.

 

[AD-Stu]

The problem with the Mass Effect series is that the writers didn't listen in high school and didn't create a beginning, middle and end to their story before writing it. It is painfully obvious that during the time of ME1 - the developers had no fucking idea how ME3 would end. It seems as if they were on a totally different tangent on all three games. That's why the story feels so disjointed after finished in the last game.

I don't know much about the series and I'd love for someone to prove me wrong here, but I think my senses are accurate.

Yep, they're accurate.

A big part of that though is that the series changed lead writers along the way. ME1 was lead by Drew Karpyshyn, ME2 was lead by Drew Karpyshyn AND Mac Walters, and ME3 was lead by Mac Walters alone. It seems pretty obvious that those two had different ideas on where the series should go / end up and I think it's reflected in the finished product.

 

[Monster_user]

I suppose one of the biggest problems I have with it, is that I don't believe a word out of Harbinger's, excuse me, Starchild's mouth.

Why can't people use the proper name for the Catalyst? Does calling it "Starchild" negate all of the foreshadowing for it and its role in the story in their minds, justifying their whining and lying that there is no foreshadowing for the ending?

See, the problem is that something Else was foreshadowed. Actually, a lot of other possible endings were foreshadowed, but I can't find evidence that the "literal interpretation" of the ending was foreshadowed.

And why do people pretend that the Catalyst and Harbinger are one and the same when there's absolutely nothing that gives any basis to this claim?

A few questions.

1. Do you know how Harbinger operates? How Sovreign operated? Their M.O.?

2. Do you know what the Reaper's goals are?

3. Do you know what the Reaper's attack strategies are?

4. Do you know what the underlying themes of the various Mass Effect story arcs are? Each world has an arc, each race's story has a moral, or it has an ethical dillema. What are they?

Next.

1. Why are Reapers designed to "Indoctrinate"?

2. Why do Reapers indoctrinate?

3. What are the symptoms of indoctrination?

4. Was the entire ending Literal? Or was there some other meaning, some artistic representation of something that wasn't "Literal".

I don't subscribe to the Indoc Theory anymore, it doesn't quite fit with the ending. I feel that the ending is an artistic version of something else that is "really" going on. What does it really mean though? Is is supposed to be open to interpretation?

The ending can't be literally true.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

OP, are you still alive? because here is something it may interest you. A possible explanation of why the endgame (the londondon part) turned out the way it is. Its quite a wild guess but let me elaborate by beggining with this:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11154234

Read the part of: "What was up with the Rachni story? Why did we get railroaded?"

Welcome to game development. In some games (Alpha Protocol) they make a bold choice where some decisions can knock entire missions out of the story. At BioWare, we never want people to be locked out of content due to a decision several games ago. We just didn't have the resources to do an alternate for the Rachni mission, so we decided that the Rachni mission could occur whether or not players saved the Queen.


If it was the fear of not having the content be seen by people that didnt play the game before, that motivated the developers into having this mission regardless if you save the Queen or not (in one case she is a cloe and the other is the real one, but the plot on that part of the game remains the same)

We could guess that the Endgame got the same threatment by having the mission play out the same but only a few minor things added to ensure the players that, yes, your choices DO matter. See? there is a Geth now that you saved them in this playthrought, even if its presense doesnt mean anything nor can you use their unique abilities like the hivemind aspect...that they probably dont have anymore since they are "True AI" with free will, nor can you make use of the Geth VR Matrix machine to erase Reaper code without killing the Geth itself. Their presense its set dressing.

Now, here is the part that offends me the most: Why didnt EA ASSUME ARTISTIC CONTROL of Bioware to make sure that they went ahead and let the new people get a bad ending for not playing the trilogy previously?? think about it, any moneygrabbing douchebag will find this idea worthy to make even more money, you market the 3rd game as the best to start over and THEN you bitchslap those news to the series with this:


EA: "You didnt play the whole trilogy? well, you get the bad ending because you didnt gathered enough allies to defeat the Reapers, you dummy. Dont look at me like that! dont you see by the sales number and the popularity of the series, that EVERYONE and their mom played ME series? (i am not shitting you: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Blog/BiowareAccordingToMom) Its not faulthy design, its an artistic choice to let the trilogy end in a logical conclusion, and its clear that you wont defeat the Reapers if you dont plan ahead. So why not buy our Collector Edition of the ME trilogy so you can get nice goodies that no one else has and finish the game in time, before your friends notice how much of a loser you are for not jumping the "popularity bandwagon" like everyone else. You dont want to look like an idiot with everyone who completed the game, right??

So, do we have a deal? yes?.... that is a good boy. You are now an adult. An adult that understand that the only way to succeed in life is to sucumb to the pressure of the masses."

Oh EA, why did you stop being your stereotypical stupid self?

If they had gone ahead with it, Bioware could have fleshed out the branching of the game for the people who DID complete it, and leave the new people stuck with a default ending. Instead, everyone goes on the same railroad of the plot with a few extra lines there and there.

 

[Emiscary]

For me, it was about the endings. And they let me down about as easily as a free fall from a jet liner without a parachute. I went from denial to depression to apathy to a complete refusal to give Bioware the light of day so long as I live after sitting through them.

Don't tell me that "the final battle" (y'know, the lame ass desperate siege scenario I've played through in every single RPG I've ever played) made the series. It didn't. It didn't even make the game.