ME3 Indoctrination theory analysis

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Well, I've been trying not to hold out too much hope for this theory until I see some conformation from some kind of authority. But I will say a lot of it fits, especially for an internet theory. The current endings are just so... empty, and are so full of holes that it really does seem like someone deliberately tried to make it seem unreal.

That said, as Godawful as the endings are, I won't consider it to be the end of the world, or even the ruination of the game/franchise. The fact is, all things considered, I still love the game. Yes, the endings suck, so very very hard, but that really is the ONLY thing I didn't love about the game, and the previous two installments are brilliant too, so I refuse to let the ending, as retarded as it is, overshadow all the good there is across the three games. I hope they will be some twist of fate that gives the franchise the ending it deserves, but if there isn't I can make peace with that.

*hold me Liara :'(

 

[CAMDAWG]

"good" ending (blue) one is about controlling the Reapers. The very same thing that The Illusive Man thought he could do. And that was considered the wrong choice all along.

-The "bad" ending (red), is actually the one that makes you do what you've been trying to do all along. It's what the game was all about. And now it's presented with a color that represents a bad moral choice (sneaky Bioware).

That's actually the good choice. We've just been manipulated into believing it is the bad one because Bioware knows that we think red color symbolizes bad moral choice. They manipulated with us like we were sex slaves.

As much as I want indoctrination endings to be true, I don't buy this argument. If you choose destroy, EDI and all the geth die as well as the reapers. If you control, no one dies. Not even the "stored life" in the reapers. Having them correspond to TIM and Anderson the way they did might suggest that everything's mixed up, but I think it's more likely that bioware were just trying to make something not quite so ostensibly paragon or renegade.

For me, the biggest factor is the breath following the destroy ending. Provided that is in in fact shepard, and not some random other marine, that would mean that he destroyed the citadel, it exploded with him on top of it, he then fell to earth, and was covered by rubble. There is ABSOLUTELY no way that he could survive this. Yes, it's shepard, and yes he's been killed before, but think about it. If somehow he suvives the explosion from the citadel, he then has to go through reentry into earths atmosphere, he then has to survive the imapact with the ground. And then he has to surivive the impact from all the rubble. Not to mention he's already almost dead. That's a defining point for me. If it somehow plays into a further explanation, then sneaky bioware, but well played. If not, then it just demonstrates the crappy writing in the last few minutes.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

The more I think about it the more plausible it seems.
Plus, remember guys. "Even you are partly synthetic". By all accounts, if this was real, Shepard should be dead. Dead dead. But I'unno.

That was the part that really made me think there might be some substance to this theory. If what the 'Catalyst' tells you is true, then there should be absolutely no hope of survival, no matter what option you choose. So how come you can (seemingly) survive the Destroy ending is your war assets are high enough? Plus, in the end cutscene, you see the Citadel get wreathed in fire and break up. Shepard, right in the epicenter, already mortally wounded and with his armor destroyed, would have absolutely no chance of surviving that right, unless it wasn't actually happening?

Edit: "see red" OK, these weirdly topical captcha's are now starting to freak me the fuck out! How the hell are they doing this?

 

[Waaghpowa]

--

I'm all for the indoctrination theory as me and a friend have been talking about the possibility between the paragon/renegade choices, endings and the child being simply a hallucination. Also when you consider, in my ending at least, none of the companions I went with died in the end and ended up on the normandy when it was stranded.

I also like to bring up the possibility that when shepard got hit with the laser in the end, it knocked him unconscious where he experienced a coma like dream which is where the ending comes from. Each choice represents the strength of Shepards will to resist the Reaper indoctrination. Control and synthesis both being, essentially, what the reapers wanted, where destroy represents the repears failure to break his will. Also when you get the "real" ending for having a high galactic readiness, shepard wakes up in the rubble. Now what does this mean? does it mean that everything was destroyed or is he simply waking up from the blast he took on earth and the reapers actually won?

 

[Lunar Templar]

However lets say your proposal is true, that would mean the deliberately withheld vital content from the game, the ending, so they could hold it to ransom for more cash. While EA seems capable of anything, I really doubt they would stoop that low.

it's EA, they would, you know they would. they don't respect the intelligence of they're customers at all, so it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

 

[rcs619]

Yeah, I'm hoping for the indoctrination theory too. There's just so many little things that seem to point towards it. The ending just does not make sense on so many levels.

Why is the supreme reaper AI looking like a kid? Other than to try and earn some sympathy?

Why is there human lettering in a previously unknown portion of the citadel?

The Citadel was made BY the reapers. The crucible was made completely separately by many different people. Why would there be control panels on the Citadel that control the Crucible? Why does one of them require you to shoot it? No one, much less the reapers, would ever design that. The choices have to be symbolic, not literal.

The reversal of Anderson and TIM's alignment, the piles of corpses, the fact that the SAME trees from your dreams are right by the beam.

It just doesn't add up. If it were one or two things, I would dismiss it as wild fan-theory, but there does seem to be something more to the ending than the face value.

It would make sense in-character for Harbinger as well. It tries to hit Shepard, and everyone else, to prevent them from making it to the conduit. The reapers have no idea what the crucible does, and NOTHING like this has ever happened to them before, Harbinger was in panic-mode.

...But he misses Shepard (maybe on purpose, maybe accidentally). All the humans rushing to the beam have been dealt with, and Shepard is half-dead and buried under some rubble. She is no longer a threat to him or the Reapers. Let's not forget that, one, reapers are notoriously arrogant and dismissive of organics and two, Harbinger has a personal score with Shepard. He doesn't want to just kill her if he can help it... he wants to break her, to twist her, to destroy her hope.

If her perceives the threat as gone, why wouldn't he revert to his original plan of indoctrination? Hell, for all we know, the events with the catalyst could have happened in the span of a few seconds inside Shepard's head. There are a lot of ways to handle things.

It's all just speculation, but it is damned interesting. Personally, I just want a final fight with Harbinger. He needs to pay. The Protheans, Kaiden, Mordin, Thane, Legion and all the others. Harbinger's gotta go boom before this series can properly come to an end

 

[Lithan]

Just read all the "cryptic" tweets.

I Still think they lazed out, rushed it out the door thinking "Hell with it maybe it'll fly". And now they're O SHIT O SHIT'ing because the only websites not calling them assholes for this ending are calling their customers whiny bitches who only want a happy ending... aka party-liners who haven't got a clue. They LUCKED into this whole indoctrination possibility through pure chance thanks to some incredibly lucky screw-ups from their laziness... and I'm betting now that they run with it, and get a chance to fix their mistake with DLC, possibly (probably) getting it bought and paid for by selling it to us. And fact is, I'm so disappointed with the ending, at this point I wouldn't care all that much. Though it would/will DEFINITELY reduce the likelyhood I'll ever buy anything from them ever again if they do charge for it, seeing as 'it' will be the end that should have shipped with the game.


Have no doubts, they are capable of a decent end and I expect one. They just screwed up massively on this one.

 

[Darkmantle]

um...

The problem I have, is that the didn't give us an ending then. and will LITERALLY charge us to finish the game. That's what's offensive to me.

Although, I will stick to my guns. if they release a free DLC that contains the real ending, I forgive them completely.

you know thats not going to happen.

Hence I said "if" not when

 

[Cranky]

I also like to bring up the possibility that when shepard got hit with the laser in the end, it knocked him unconscious where he experienced a coma like dream which is where the ending comes from. Each choice represents the strength of Shepards will to resist the Reaper indoctrination. Control and synthesis both being, essentially, what the reapers wanted, where destroy represents the repears failure to break his will. Also when you get the "real" ending for having a high galactic readiness, shepard wakes up in the rubble. Now what does this mean? does it mean that everything was destroyed or is he simply waking up from the blast he took on earth and the reapers actually won?

Yeah, I've pondered this outcome as well, and that 2 second scene of Shep waking up may be more than we think.

 

[Major_Tom]

I've been reading some of the massive 500-page indoctrination thread on the BSN and I don't think they've mentioned this: If there is no indoctrination, if the starchild is not the construct of Shepard's mind then why is the Citadel AI (VI or whatever the hell that thing is) in the shape of that kid only Shepard saw back on Earth? How would it know about him?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I've been reading some of the massive 500-page indoctrination thread on the BSN and I don't think they've mentioned this: If there is no indoctrination, if the starchild is not the construct of Shepard's mind then why is the Citadel AI (VI or whatever the hell that thing is) in the shape of that kid only Shepard saw back on Earth? How would it know about him?

Exactly. It's because someone is in his head.

 

[Jaeke]

I felt so dumb the first time i made the control ending, don't blame me, it was a combination of me still being shocked and confused from the horrible monstrosity that was in front of me and sleep deprivation (it WAS 3:30 a.m.), note: this was before the indoctrination theories started, and I just saw blue and said "oh look, Paragon". The next day I immediately went back and chose destruction i still felt guilty for letting my Shepard down.

I do think the Indoctrination Theory is true, Im just not sure if that's a good thing or not. Either we have the crappiest ending of all time, or the biggest rip-off of all time
.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It must be nice to be able to just turn off all critical thinking skills and just react emotionally at everything. You're like a 16 year old girl on her sweet 16 when she doesn't get the car she wanted. Can you just for a second stop whining and try to analyze the ending? Maybe you'll actually contribute something useful to one of these topics for a change.

Oh the irony. xD

Hey might think he's being a dick about it, but to me atleast, it seems like you are gripping at straws while he is more likely to be right.

If this is supposed to all be some kind of Mindfuck, it's all in his head ending, why wouldn't they just come out and say after this huge backlash? That will still mean that they did a bad job of conveying that to the player. So, yeah, it seems like you are trying to trick yourself into believing that the ending had some kind of hidden meaning to justify that it was apparently shitty.

Now, before you get on me, I don't play Mass Effect. But I have been watching this entire ordeal and have thus read up on the series a bit. This could absolutely be possible, I just don't see anything that is really their supporting it. You are literally filling in the holes, bending the reality to fit the theory instead of the other way around.

Like you said, you don't play Mass Effect. No one is bending the reality.

The reality is that Bioware pretty much confirmed single player DLC. The reality is that no one will buy single player DLC unless it's the one that fixes the ending. The reality is that EA loves to milk fans with DLC. The reality is that Bioware said "if you knew what we're planning, you'd hold on to your Mass Effect 3 copy forever".
Taking all that into account, you can't honestly say that someone is bending the reality to fit the theory. We're simply using what we know so far to generate a theory that makes most sense.

And don't use the word literally when you don't know what it means.

 

[Alandoril]

I've been analyzing the indoctrination theory and I am starting to believe it might be true. A lot of things about Mass Effect lore seem to suggest that. It's really the most logical explanation.

Consider this:

"good" ending (blue) one is about controlling the Reapers. The very same thing that The Illusive Man thought he could do. And that was considered the wrong choice all along.

-The middle ending is the most vague one of them all and it's basically making Shepard kill himself. Or is he allowing Reapers to implant him with Reaper tech the same way Saren allowed Sovereign in ME1?

-The "bad" ending (red), is actually the one that makes you do what you've been trying to do all along. It's what the game was all about. And now it's presented with a color that represents a bad moral choice (sneaky Bioware).

That's actually the good choice. We've just been manipulated into believing it is the bad one because Bioware knows that we think red color symbolizes bad moral choice. They manipulated with us like we were sex slaves.

The last sequence wasn't a choice of ending at all, it was a battle of will. Choosing the red ending, Shepard survives if your EMS is over 5000, and he wakes up in a pile of rubble. The Citadel was destroyed in that ending. No one could have survived that. Especially not without any armor in space.
And do you really believe that someone can write an awesome script and then ruin it completely in the last 5 minutes? Or is it possible that we are missing something? Especially since EA and Bioware are big on DLC's.

There is another thing to consider. If you remember in ME2 derelict Reaper level, Cerberus scientists went crazy. Even a 37 million years old derelict Reaper was able to manipulate their thoughts. God only knows what Harbinger is able to do to your head.
We can definitely expect him to be able to implement false memories into our mind. That would also go along well with what Sovereign said about Reapers being beyond our understanding.



I would like to hear your own thought about the indoctrination theory. Do you think it's plausible? Why? Why not? And if you have something to add that would be nice.

All very good points, but yes, it is actually possible for game writers to come up with an excellent and then ruin it in the closing sequence. In fact,most games written in this generation have cop out endings. Either because the writers find themselves in over their heads (as is clearly the case with Mass Effect 3, it seems like they just had no idea how to actually end the story) or they are setting up for sequels/IP expansions.

 

[weirdee]

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9727423/1

That's the thread I've been reading.

After taking a long, hard look at it, I've decided that there is too much evidence for it to not be true.

You have all been played. Played HARD. Like "Stairway to Heaven" from under the fingers of an infinite amount of people learning to play guitar. You simply do not realize it yet.

I can only hope to scrape at a mere shred of the amount of magnificent, maddened glory they have created.

I mean, reading your responses, it's so awesome how they've done this. You've accepted the 'inevitable' so easily that when they've documented the game's history, it's gonna be studied by academics for years.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

snip

Stargazer can be real and set in the distant future even if the endings were perfect. He doesn't even say if space travel is possible or not. We just assumed it's not because of the ending. But it can mean anything, really.
And I didn't say "I don't know - therefore indoctrination" I said "I don't know - therefore THEORY"
I'm not trying to make theory into a fact.

And news posted here didn't say a god damn thing about the ending being their final choice. They just defended what they've done, saying how that's what they wanted to do. They never said that future DLC won't be set after the ending.

Besides, it's only a matter of time before we see if the ending was real or not.