Mass Effect 3 Plot Holes (Explanation?)

[honestdiscussioner]

In the past, Shamus Young on The Escapist has posted what he felt were plot holes and blatant contradictions in the Mass Effect universe. It was my personal opinion then, and now, that he was being a complete idiot. Not that I contend there were no plot holes or errors in the game, but that the ones he pointed out were easily explained by anyone that paid half attention and did not require any psychiatric drugs to function normally.

It is in that spirit that I bring to you what I personally perceive as some of the plot holes in ME3. I do this with the knowledge that I may have totally missed something, and I am not asserting that these are blatant plot holes that make Bioware out to be some mentally deficient entity that didn't give a %#!%. That may very well be the case, but I refuse to say it is without getting some feedback from a group of people such as yourselves. If there are any explanations, please feel free to post them, or add on any additional ones (maybe I have an answer to them).

Let the games begin.

Oh, and . . . spoiler alert.

The biggest thing for me, was the idea that there was a AI on board the Citadel which was responsible for creating the Reapers. That fact alone was okay, but it contradicted virtually the entire premise of ME1. If you recall, Saren needed to find the conduit to find a way onto the Citadel. This was to activate the Citadel as it could function as a gigantic Mass Relay and all of the Reapers would come pouring out, taking out the seat of galactic power. This was normally accomplished by sending a signal to the Keepers, but the Protheans in the previous cycle prevented this from happening.

So why couldn't this ancient AI do it? Was it utterly cut off from the systems? That sounds unlikely.

Next, why in the world would this AI believe that organics and synthetics couldn't get along, RIGHT AFTER SHEPARD NEGOTIATED A PEACE TREATY WITH THE QUARIANS AND GETH. Okay, so not every Shepard did that. There are numerous outcomes, but the Geth seemed actually pretty peaceful towards organics, only really defending themselves from attacks. This utterly contradicts the line of reasoning used by the AI.

Another problem with this Catalyst AI. The entire galactic fleet could not stand against the Reapers. Yet the only solution the AI had that utilized them was to have them pop up every 50,000 years to wipe out organic life advanced enough to create an AI. Why in the blue hell could they not have used them simply as a police force. Even if they had started from the Cycle we are familiar with. The Asari discover the Mass Relays, and the "Reapers" are waiting there. They explain to the Asari that they built the Mass Relays, and that they are welcome to use it. The price is that they live under "Reaper Law" which is basically "thou shalt not create AI". Organics can war with each other as much as they wants, just don't cross the AI boundary. But no, the only solution for the ultra intelligent AI was simple "Hey, let's pull a Hitler every 50,000 years.

You'll note by now that all of these have to do with the Catalyst AI. This goes along with my general assertion that Mass Effect 3 is a FUCKING AWESOME GAME, until the last five minutes.

I will edit these if I or anyone else comes up with more.

 

[Vault101]

Indoctrination theory makes everyhting makes sense

without it...well if they are going to keep the ending at face value then I want somone from Bioware to actually explain it

none of this david lynch crap

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Well they are plotholes but they could be explainable

1. It is entirely possible that The Catalyst had some sort of safety switch in its programming that prevented it from opening the relay itself as a measure in the case it may go rouge and to prevent a early false start on the invasion

2. Making peace with the Geth does not prove anything for or against the catalyst's reasoning. There is no evidence that the peace will last, that the Geth wont go evil one day, that some future synthetic race could be reasoned with, that THOSE synthetics wont try to kill everything, so on and so on. All the Geth peace shows is that peace with the Geth was made because they had a common enemy to fight. Admittedly The Ctalyst provides no proof to to his point, but the games offer no proof against it eiather.

3. As explained in ME1 by vigil The Reapers harvest races and materials from worlds to keep themselves alive during their 50,000 year stasis. The amount of matierals they need to stay alive when in sleep mode is quite large.

Keeping the reapers constantly active as a police force would cause an exponential increase at the rate in which habitable worlds need to be drained for more resources. This exponential increase in resource harvesting would mean habitable worlds would become uninhabitable significantly faster and would eventually cause a war between Organics who want said resources and The Reapers who need them to keep going, which would require the Reapers kill mot organics anyways.

Not only that but leaving organics at a technological level were they could remake AI quikcly means the rate at which new AI is made is drastically increased, and as such the rate in which said AI race might beat The Reapers is also increased.

What they do is the most resource efficient method and causes he lowest probability of what they are trying to stop form happening.

 

[Leodiensian]

1) What if the Catalyst AI couldn't activate the Conduit because it was dormant at that point? Perhaps it was sleeping until the Crucible "activated" it, or it is programmed not to wake up until the end of a Reaper harvest, so as to begin the next cycle anew. Perhaps Saren's activating the Conduit would also activate the Catalyst and because Shephard stopped Saren, it was not until the Crucible that the Catalyst woke up?

(Lot of C words. Make of that what you will.)

2) Remember that Mass Effect is set at the end of a cycle that has been going on for millions of years and several sources (Vendetta the Prothean VI, the Star Child and I think Harbinger) confirm that things repeat from cycle to cycle - several of which are attributable to the Reapers, but not all. One of those things that has been repeated hundreds of times over millions of years is (we are lead to believe) synthetics going to war with organics.

(This is pretty ass-pull extrapolation, if I'm honest, but still my interpretation

3a) Rules get broken, no matter how much power the rulemakers have. Murder is illegal but people still murder. And again, the Reapers have (allegely) seen this pattern repeated thousands of times over millions of years; organic life inevitably creates synthetic life. And it's usually by accident! (See: the Geth) Saying "don't create AI" isn't really a valid solution any more than you can solve a game of dice by saying "don't roll snake eyes".

3b) Reapers don't so much care about individual organic lives - even organic lives by the billions - as they care about "organic life" as a CONCEPT; organic life existing is okay by the partially-organic Reapers, but they consider it inherently chaotic and when you get enough chaos going in one place, bad stuff happens. That's what they're safeguarding from (what they percieve as) an existential threat - the creation of synthetic life is the sign that the chaos has grown too large to be manageable. To the Reapers, it's not so much a harvest as pruning back a tree's branches.

3c) Because galactic genocide is part of the Reaper's biology and their life cycle. They feed on the materials they get from the harvest, and they reproduce using the genetic material of the dominant species at the time the cycle ends. In order to do what you're proposing, they'd have to both starve to death and sterilise themselves at the same time. Which I don't see happening.

Yeah, I'm pretty much playing Devil's advocate here.

 

[Erttheking]

I would like to point out the ending that the original writer of Mass Effect had planned. Remember that sun on halestrom? It was part of a dark energy crisis that was slowly building up over millions of years and would eventually destroy the milky way. The Reapers are trying to stop it, but they have failed to discover a way to. So they harvest the strongest races of the galaxy, pooling their combined intellect into trying to find a way to prevent the dark energy crisis. Because of Humanity's genetic diversity, the Human Reaper was the Reapers best hope for stopping the crisis, but you blew it up. The scene with the Catalyist was supposed to give you two choices once you had learned all of this.

A. Let the Reapers harvest Humanity and leave the fate of the galaxy in their hands

B. Destroy the Reapers and put your trust in the races of the Milky way and that they will be enough to stop the crisis.

...I have no idea why they binned this ending.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I would like to point out the ending that the original writer of Mass Effect had planned. Remember that sun on halestrom? It was part of a dark energy crisis that was slowly building up over millions of years and would eventually destroy the milky way. The Reapers are trying to stop it, but they have failed to discover a way to. So they harvest the strongest races of the galaxy, pooling their combined intellect into trying to find a way to prevent the dark energy crisis. Because of Humanity's genetic diversity, the Human Reaper was the Reapers best hope for stopping the crisis, but you blew it up. The scene with the Catalyist was supposed to give you two choices once you had learned all of this.

A. Let the Reapers harvest Humanity and leave the fate of the galaxy in their hands

B. Destroy the Reapers and put your trust in the races of the Milky way and that they will be enough to stop the crisis.

...I have no idea why they binned this ending.

Because it was leaked.

 

[Leodiensian]

Even the leaked dark energy ending feels kind of meh to me. Sure the dilemna's a bit better, but it still has the problem of the last-minute "we're not really the bad guys!" ass-pull.

 

[Erttheking]

I would like to point out the ending that the original writer of Mass Effect had planned. Remember that sun on halestrom? It was part of a dark energy crisis that was slowly building up over millions of years and would eventually destroy the milky way. The Reapers are trying to stop it, but they have failed to discover a way to. So they harvest the strongest races of the galaxy, pooling their combined intellect into trying to find a way to prevent the dark energy crisis. Because of Humanity's genetic diversity, the Human Reaper was the Reapers best hope for stopping the crisis, but you blew it up. The scene with the Catalyist was supposed to give you two choices once you had learned all of this.

A. Let the Reapers harvest Humanity and leave the fate of the galaxy in their hands

B. Destroy the Reapers and put your trust in the races of the Milky way and that they will be enough to stop the crisis.

...I have no idea why they binned this ending.

Because it was leaked.

So we can pretty much blame the shitty ending that we got stuck with on the leak?...pardon me I gotta go punch something.

 

[tendaji]

Well for the 2nd point, the Geth are only the first synthetics created that have consciousness. We don't know how stable that peace will be, because its a first time deal. For all we know someone does something stupid and war is declared on the Geth forcing them to act out in defense. But also what if more Synthetics are created that are much more hostile than the Geth and do want to wipe out everyone and everything?

For the third point, the Citadel races are forbidden from creating AI, it's against the laws for the species. Yet we have evidence that the Alliance was working on AIs (Luna Base/EDI) and were in direct violation of that rule. So even if the Reapers were a police force, that wouldn't stop people from breaking the rules to try and have superior power over another.

So we can pretty much blame the shitty ending that we got stuck with on the leak?...pardon me I gotta go punch something.

Yeah the fans that discovered the leak cried out about how terrible it was, as well as the presence of a prothean in the game so much in November. If only they knew...

 

[Erttheking]

Even the leaked dark energy ending feels kind of meh to me. Sure the dilemna's a bit better, but it still has the problem of the last-minute "we're not really the bad guys!" ass-pull.

At least it was somewhat foreshadowed with Halestrom's sun, Mordin remarking about humanity's genetic diversity and the whole "Reapers are your salvation through destruction" I'd take that over "I heard you don't like to get killed by synthetics, so I made synthetics to kill you every 50,000 years". Also it didn't make the Reapers "good guys" it just shifted them from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Evil.

 

[SajuukKhar]

At least it was somewhat foreshadowed with Halestrom's sun, Mordin remarking about humanity's genetic diversity and the whole "Reapers are your salvation through destruction" I'd take that over "I heard you don't like to get killed by synthetics, so I made synthetics to kill you every 50,000 years". Also it didn't make the Reapers "good guys" it just shifted them from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Evil.

I dont know, as it is now the reapers aren't really "good guys".

They are still killers on a mass scale, who dont even bother to tell others why they are being killed 99% of the time, and dont even try to find other solutions.

 

[Leodiensian]

At least it was somewhat foreshadowed with Halestrom's sun, Mordin remarking about humanity's genetic diversity and the whole "Reapers are your salvation through destruction" I'd take that over "I heard you don't like to get killed by synthetics, so I made synthetics to kill you every 50,000 years". Also it didn't make the Reapers "good guys" it just shifted them from Chaotic Evil to Lawful Evil.

It's still really flawed. First of all, it's at the end of a big saga, which is when you don't want moral shades of grey in your villains. You want fucking Sauron. You want the half-dragon, half-ogre, rapist Republican demon elemental-embodiment-of-evil that you can throw everything at and have a nice big heroic self-sacrifice so someone can lean on the saddest piano keys you have. That's simply more cathartic an experience.

Second, it doesn't make fit with what we already know; if the Reaper's harvesting plan was to put together a brain trust, why did they dumb down and enslave the geth? Geth are literally nothing but a species-wide light-speed brain trust! Sure they don't have genes, but if a brain trust is all you're really after then synthetics are the better option to organics for some pretty obvious reasons.

Finally, it means that the 'ultimate menace' of the entire series? Is a naturally occuring phenomenon, a faceless, voiceless menace which you really can't get invested in and even WITH foreshadowing came way too late in the day to feel like anything OTHER than an ass-pull. It's the equivalent of the H.G Wells War of the Worlds "common cold kills the aliens" twist. It's a huge anticlimax which does not lend itself at all to the finale of a trilogy.

 

[SajuukKhar]

What they should have done is have Shepard tell The Catalyst to F off then yell "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE"

And then have a giant robot appear out of nothing and just facepunch The reapers.

Also add in some "we will pierce through your methods and grab a hold of our own path" yelling in there.

because... no one has done that using the same plot..... right? /sarcasm

 

[ResonanceSD]

Indoctrination theory makes everyhting makes sense

without it...well if they are going to keep the ending at face value then I want somone from Bioware to actually explain it

none of this david lynch crap

Yeah, "IT WAS ALL A DREAM" really makes sense, especially when it's a giant handwave/middle finger to the audience.

 

[Vault101]

Indoctrination theory makes everyhting makes sense

without it...well if they are going to keep the ending at face value then I want somone from Bioware to actually explain it

none of this david lynch crap

Yeah, "IT WAS ALL A DREAM" really makes sense, especially when it's a giant handwave/middle finger to the audience.

it doesnt matter how incomprehensible it is...its ART and if you dont lovie/get it then your just a pleb....obviously

I would prefer if it was all a dream (getting hit by the beam and onwards)

hell in "destruction" you see shepard "waking up" on wht clearly isnt the citadel..how does anyone explain that?

and a whole bunch of other stuff

essentially Im saying indoctrination theory fixes everything

 

[Klatz]

The Reaper solution to the apparent inevitability of the synthetic domination is just too much of a tautological train wreck. A synthetic AI foresees the inevitable destruction of organics and therefore prevents it by creating a synthetics (the Reapers) to destroy organics... Regardless of how's it's rationalized it's still destruction of an organic species when it's harvested. At best it's an involuntary assimilation.

On top of that huge black hole in reasoning you add in a lack of meaningful distinction between the endings. Lame.

It's just a bad, contrived ending plain and simple.

Also no mention of the Catalyst AI in the previous Mass effects, particularly from the Prothean VIs? No warning at all that heh the Citadel houses the created of the Reapers, you'd think that'd be crucial information that would be relayed. It just smacks of a last minute genesis. If there had been foreshadowing that would have ameliorated some of the lameness.

 

[SajuukKhar]

So? If you're gonna change the ending, you do it right and follow Valve's example. Which ended delaying the game for 2 years, but it was AWESOME.

Valve hasn't changed the ending to a game, besides portal but that didn't delay anything.

they did throw out all of Portal 2 but that was the entire game.

Also valve are what I call "accidently great" most of the time they do good they didnt even think it would be good.

 

[Vegosiux]

1. It is entirely possible that The Catalyst had some sort of safety switch in its programming that prevented it from opening the relay itself as a measure in the case it may go rouge and to prevent a early false start on the invasion

You do realise that just implies the existence of yet another galactic entity we never heard of? Something that created the catalyst that created the reapers that-gods, I'm getting a migraine.