My thought process during the end of ME3. (SPOILERS)

[RJ 17]

HUGE snip

You do brin up valid points, but they really only apply to one of the three endings...and that's actually the Renegade ending that everyone thinks is the Paragon ending just because the vision Shepard has involves Anderson destroying the console or whatever. It's quite clear, though, that simply destroying all synthetic life is the least long-term effective plan, as pretty much everything you said would indeed eventually happen and in the end the galaxy would likely be a lot worse off.

But even then, it's not like every Turian, Quarian, or Asari in the galaxy was in the Sol system when the relay's were destroyed. I can only imagine that a large number of Quarian civilian ships landed on Ranoch and began rebuilding with the Geth. So too were there Turians still fighting for their homeworld, just like the Asari and theirs. Life in the galaxy will continue, but like after every major war there will be a very long time of rebuilding before things even remotely begin to get back to normal.

Anyways, the other two options are much better plans. As I mentioned before, the real Paragon ending is to take control of the Reapers. Yes, all the relays are destroyed...but the Reapers are still hanging around in the galaxy. The fact that blowing up the relay in Arrival didn't effectively hault the Reaper invasion by simply isolating them into a single star system (which even in Arrival they said that all this would do is slow them down a few months, maybe a year tops) shows that the Reapers can move quickly throughout the galaxy even without the relays. And now that there is a benevolent will controling them - i.e. Paragon Shepard - the terrifying destroyers of the galaxy can now become instrumental in the galaxy's reconstruction, it is very possible that the Reaper fleet could rebuild the relays.

As for the Synthesis ending, it is as the Catalyst says: it is the ultimate end o evolution, al beings in the galaxy would become hybrid synthetics. While it doesn't say exactly what this means for organics or synthetics, I think its safe to assume that all races are no longer bound by their previous limitations (i.e. not being able to eat the same food, drink the same drinks, breath the same air, etc).

 

[longboardfan]

Shepard reaching the Catalyst-being is a one-off example, one that makes this being ready to change the universe and abandon his Reaper-solution.

The only hostile synthetics in this "extinction cycle" of the Mass Effect timeline are the Geth and the Reapers themselves. One of those races made peace with their creators and helped them resettle their ancestral homeworld.

The Catalyst is a program, It isn't any stretch of the imagination to believe that they put in a "If someone manages to reach you even after you start screwing over their civilizations try something different" code, beyond that it was explained that it couldn't make the choices that Shepard could and when given the opportunity to allow for, arguably better, paths to be taken why should it not allow them to be taken?

I'm fairly certain the Catalyst was stated to be the Reapers' master AI, and not just some VI left to wait for someone to make it as far as Shepard did. Having complete control of the Reapers, it could've easily just gone "Welp, you made the entire galaxy cooperate against us and even managed to turn the synthetics in your cycle into allies. We will leave this cycle and watch carefully, bla bla bla."

And heck, even if one accepts the current endings they only make sense up to a point. The destruction of the Relays (in the past shown to be an incredibly destructive event), the crash-landing of the Normandy on fuck-knows-where, the complete lack of any closure whatsoever to anyone apart from Anderson, Illusive Man and arguably Shepard (depending on his status in the end)

At the end of the day, even if it made sense up to that point - the endings would still be bad, simply due to what I already said once. Closure was promised. None was delivered, at all.

The thing is that there actually is closure for everyone on a grander scale of things. Allow me to pull something I said from another ME 3 ending topic:

The thing is, though, that your choices DO matter, they just play out in a way we're not used to seeing since this is the final chapter of the story. Where as the consequences in the previous games showed up in the latter games, you get to see the consequences of your choices first hand in ME 3. You literally write history throughout the course of the game.

You get to see first hand what happens if you decide to cure the Genophage or not: you either bring unification to the Krogan or you doom them to extinction. You also get to see first hand what happens between the Geth and the Quarians depending on how you resolve that situation. Since there's no more games in Shepard's story, you see the consequences of your actions play out before you.

That said, could there have been more closure? For your characters AND the rest of the galaxy? Sure. But the point is that the closure you're seeking is strewn throughout the entire game.

The Fallout games did the same thing better over a decade ago. Look up the endings to Fallout 1 and 2. See how its handled. Hero still doesn't get a happy wonderful ending, but there's resolution.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The Fallout games did the same thing better over a decade ago. Look up the endings to Fallout 1 and 2. See how its handled. Hero still doesn't get a happy wonderful ending, but there's resolution.

The problem with Fallout 1 and 2's ending was that Fallout 2 invalidated 95% of the endings in Fallout 1 and Fallout 3/New Vegas invalidated 95% of the endings in Fallout 2.

Saying "ohh man look at this game who told you all the things that happened afterward" is better is kinda silly when you are told next game that most of what you COULD have done is wrong and didn't happen.

Its basically what happened in Mass effect 3 except Mass effect 3 had the balls to tell you straight up that most of what you did didn't matter instead of teasing you and giving you the illusion that the ending you got was somehow correct for years like the Fallout games.

 

[longboardfan]

The Fallout games did the same thing better over a decade ago. Look up the endings to Fallout 1 and 2. See how its handled. Hero still doesn't get a happy wonderful ending, but there's resolution.

The problem with Fallout 1 and 2's ending was that Fallout 2 invalidated 95% of the endings in Fallout 1 and Fallout 3/New Vegas invalidated 95% of the endings in Fallout 2.

Saying "ohh man look at this game who told you all the things that happened afterward" is better is kinda silly when you are told next game that most of what you COULD have done is wrong and didn't happen.

Its basically what happened in Mass effect 3 except Mass effect 3 had the balls to tell you straight up that most of what you did didn't matter instead of teasing you and giving you the illusion that the ending you got was somehow correct for years like the Fallout games.

What on earth are you talking about? I'm talking about the mechanics of the ending. Not what the endings were. After the ending you had stills and explanations of what happened to everyone. ME 3 didn't do any of that. Arguments after the fact are a logical fallacy. How the second game begins is irrelevant to how the first game handles its ending sequence.

 

[SajuukKhar]

What on earth are you talking about? I'm talking about the mechanics of the ending. Not what the endings were. After the ending you had stills and explanations of what happened to everyone. ME 3 didn't do any of that. Arguments after the fact are a logical fallacy. How the second game begins is irrelevant to how the first game handles its ending sequence.

Yes because a game with a ending designed to give you choice even though they had already planned to take away 90% of the things you could have chosen in the next game isn't a flawed ending design?

not sure if serious.

 

[longboardfan]

What on earth are you talking about? I'm talking about the mechanics of the ending. Not what the endings were. After the ending you had stills and explanations of what happened to everyone. ME 3 didn't do any of that. Arguments after the fact are a logical fallacy. How the second game begins is irrelevant to how the first game handles its ending sequence.

Yes because a game with a ending designed to give you choice even though they had already planned to take away 90% of the things you could have chosen in the next game isn't a flawed ending design?

not sure if serious.

Thank you for your opinion. I wished to discuss or at least debate the mechanics of a game's ending, not the invalidation of a potential set of endings in a sequel.

 

[Agayek]

You do brin up valid points, but they really only apply to one of the three endings...and that's actually the Renegade ending that everyone thinks is the Paragon ending just because the vision Shepard has involves Anderson destroying the console or whatever. It's quite clear, though, that simply destroying all synthetic life is the least long-term effective plan, as pretty much everything you said would indeed eventually happen and in the end the galaxy would likely be a lot worse off.

I think you're missing the fact that every single ending involves all of the relays being destroyed. In every ending, when the beam of whatever color gets fired through a relay, the relay explodes in the act.

No matter which ending you choose, galactic civilization collapses. The only difference is whether or not the Reapers are still alive.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Glowy Fuckwit AI's entire contention was that synthetic life would inevitably expand and wipe out all organic life. Not only does Glowy Fuckwit's existence completely refute this statement, but the fact that the reapers are only present in the Milky Way means that sooner or later the seed ships carrying the synthetic civilization from the Andromeda Galaxy will appear and permanently exterminate all rival intelligence in the Milky Way. That is THE only possible extension of Glowy Fuckwit's starting conditions. Not to mention EDI and the Geth both completely refute his position as well.

More importantly, it was very clearly a departure from the original storyline substituted at the last minute since with GF controlling the Citadel, the ENTIRE first game becomes retconned. Not to mention the complete dropping of the Dark Matter Conundrum.

There so many different ways I could explain why The Catalyst exists that doesn't contradict that that I could write a book report on it.
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Secondly, just because Synthetic life may destroy one galaxy means we should leave every other one in the same situation? Do you think before you made up your argument? Because that makes no sense. Also who is to say the Reapers wouldn't kick those synthetic's ass to defend the organics of the galaxy?
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Thirdly, what you seem to, from the looks of it purposefully, ignore is that
1. The Geth only became allies with organics because of The Reaper war, you are totally ignoring that if the Reapers HADN'T come the Geth would have stayed in the Perseus Veil and suffered, for centuries, from repeated Quarrian and other organic attacks and harassment which very likely could have led to a organic/synthetic war if the Geth felt threatened enough, or the Quarrian's got the other races behind them, or both, or any number of other things. the likelihood of them getting pissed eventually is very high.
2. Edi, on the other hand is in a similar situation, and even if she HADN'T gone rouge at some point in a non-reaper existent galaxy she is a ONE OFF case, and ONE OFF cases prove NOTHING in the long run.
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Really because in ME1 Sovereign states "My kind built the citadel and Mass Relays to control organic evolution and to make them go down a technological path we chose"

The destruction of the Mass Relays and thus the freeing of the galactic civilizations from The Reapers path so they could take their own was an obvious conclusion since the first game

I suggest when you play a game next you pay attention to what the characters say and think about what the consequences of those words might be, insted of imagining ridding of into the sunset with your space waifu.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

I really didn't like the Macguffin or the DEM endings. Now if it was a fake macguffin and played out up to the part where Hackett radios Shepard and it really didn't work, that would be cool. I really wanted Mass Effect to end with more conventional weapons. Maybe all Shepard can do is gather data on the Reapers to give to the next cycle, maybe all Shepard can do is have a last stand with humanity and try to take out as many Reapers as possible or maybe Shepard tries to run away from the Reapers. (-EDI mentions something along the lines that other galaxies may not be able to use Mass Effect relays so its possible that those other galaxies are uneffected by the Reapers) So Bioware could have, for example, given us an ending where Shepard and a group of survivors or civilians from all the races take a one way trip to another galaxy far away from the Reapers. Then they could start rebuilding life there. Don't tell me that's impossible. I'm sure the Protheans left some notes laying around about that... and that Death Star they've been working on.

Almost anything would've been better than the Deus Ex Machina endings they gave us.

And the reason all the "final" endings (at least 2 of them) they gave us are completely pointless is that they will inevitably happen again. They point out several times that the cycle of man vs machine is continuous and it is. That's the thing. I think they intended the endings to be a final solution to the Reapers or the war against synthetic life when I thought it should've (and was meant to) been about the humans and the galaxy in general just surviving to another day - or cycle, whatever.

On another note: Was anyone else whiplashed by the constant change in Shepard's tone? One minute you're planning your life with Ash after the war or telling Chakwas to save that bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy for the victory celebration afterward and the next minute Shepard is melodramaticly drawling on about how the recent dead "won't be alone for long" or how "we'll be joining them soon". It felt very inconsistent.

Either plan for victory or accept the inevitable, don't tease me with both at the same time!

 

[SajuukKhar]

And the reason all the "final" endings (at least 2 of them) they gave us are completely pointless is that they will inevitably happen again. They point out several times that the cycle of man vs machine is continuous and it is. That's the thing. I think they intended the endings to be a final solution to the Reapers or the war against synthetic life when I thought it should've (and was meant to) been about the humans and the galaxy in general just surviving to another day - or cycle, whatever.

-Merge ending = Merger of synthetics and machines causing the cycle to be broken
-Control ending = Use of Reapers could allow Shepard to bring a peace and understanding between Organics and synthetics using Reaper technology to make each closer to the other, though it wouldn't be a total merge like the merge ending.
-Destroy ending = The elimination of all synthetic life. The already in-place galactic distrust of AI due to years of Council propaganda/laws causes AI research to be distrusted into the foreseeable future, then the races sycophancy it seems unlikely it would ever be n-banned.
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Beyond that the Catalyst is a machine of limited intelligence, who can only make conclusions based on what his original programmers gave him. Nothing he said is truly definitive in any way.

 

[kingcom]

The choices aren't contrary to anything, if that's you reason for why he would deny them then you argument has no ground.

Synthetics will try to destroy organics, the Geth being nice is a one-off example, and one-off examples don't represent anything, or prove anything.

That is a massively gross assumption with no basis in fact. Creating artifical intelligence is such a complex result that there is literally infinite development paths they could follow. Using purely the in-universe model you have both EDI and the Geth (in this cycle alone) who have removed any desire to destroy organic life (sure they go through tempermental phases but their social development have put them beyond rash action befitting a being in its infantile state). Given the Reapers model of running an infinite number of permutations using an infinite number of variables it is impossible to say that all development in this universe will go down the same single pathway particularly as we have already seen the Deus Ex Machina Kid's claims to be made false of this 'solution'

Making nice with the Geth doesn't prevent any future synthetic race form being built and it trying to destroy all organic life, why people seem to think that ONE example is justification for proving that any possible future occurrence can be stoped I don't know, but it isn't.

Thats not what the arguement is about. The Reapers position is that all synthetic life will inevitably try and destroy organic life. This has be demonstrated as false. Using common sense and understanding the infinit variables a synthetic lifeform can contain along its development, declaring a single all-encompassing outcome is simply wrong.

1.that is probably a glitch

A species that has become self-aware suffer from a glitch. What? Your definition of glitch must be the same definition to acknowledge that organic life can achieve sentience in the same way. Its ultimately random given the virtually inifnite factors at play. How can this not then be applied to synthetic life aswell?

2. Normandy said it was going to rejoin the sword team, aka the space team explaining why it was in space

3. If you watch the cutscene again the laser takes almost no time to get from the citadel and reach the Mass Relay, given that the Normandy was BARELY in front it shows that they were very likely in between the laser and the relay and joker went through the relay to try to escape it.

Yes but given that the Mass Relay is near the edge of the solar system and not in orbit over earth. One would assume that Joker needed to make use of FTL to get there before the wave of...light. See where im going with this? That must have meant that to be caught running from that wave he need to run before the cruible was activated because of the human stall time and the drop from FTL at the Relay to then power up and get shot off, all of this need to take place before the crucible fired off. Its confusing as to why Joker would do that. Seems like he would be the person to stick around until the end or atleast try to run when there was a sign of danger but since the cruicible was inactive until the wave he was unlikely to make it out in time.

4. You dont HAVE to destroy the geth.

No but the mere notice and acknowledgement by the Kid indicates that he is aware of a synthetic species actively working with organics, something contrary to his previous statement. There no opportunity to argue or explain the viewpoint. Just 3 choices in which 2 directly conflict with his motives and 1 doesn't make much sense at all in ensuring the survival of organics.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

The destruction of the Mass Relays and thus the freeing of the galactic civilizations from The Reapers path so they could take their own was an obvious conclusion since the first game

Umm, bullshit? When they realized the Citadel was made by the Reapers and an easy-access conduit for them they didn't destroy it - they just made it un-usable for the Reapers and then continued to keep living in and using the Citadel for the next 2 games. When Shep found out the Reapers where going to Arrive using a certain Relay he/she didn't destroy all the Relays he/she just destroyed the one Relay and then continued to use the rest of them.

There so many different ways I could explain why The Catalyst exists that doesn't contradict that that I could write a book report on it.

Come on it's not about that. I could write a thesis on alternate endings to Mass Effect that don't include macguffins or The Catalyst that would all be more stimulating and satisfying than the endings we were given. Simply put: Bioware (anyone) could've done so much better.

They tried to deliver the most epic of endings and fell short. Really, really short. It's not about how much or little sense it makes it's about how satisfying it is afterwards.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

So, you suggest an ending where Shepard pussies out and just leaves everything and everyone he's fought for to die? And you think that would be a good ending?

If they reached the conclusion that the Reapers were going to win this cycle and everyone of the species deemed "too advanced" were going to be wiped out and the only way any of them could survive was to run away then yes, it could make a good ending. I wouldn't want it to be the only possible ending. It could be one of the bad endings if Shepard couldn't raise enough support and it could play out many different ways.
For example:

-Shep stays behind to fight the Reapers because they might win but sends many thousand or hundred of thousands of people from each race somewhere safe just in case they can't win. So somewhere the Asari, Turians, Humans and other races can continue to live on even if it isn't in their home galaxy.

-Shep pussies out because he or she can't take losing Earth and most of the people they care about and runs off into deep space by themselves or with their romance interest to live out the rest of their days.

-Shep realizes they don't have a chance against the Reapers and no macguffin and the only way anyone will survive is to hide from the Reapers either here or in another galaxy.

:to name a few - and this would be a bad ending - it could work. But my point is it would be better than the galactic mcfluffin we got.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

And the reason all the "final" endings (at least 2 of them) they gave us are completely pointless is that they will inevitably happen again. They point out several times that the cycle of man vs machine is continuous and it is. That's the thing. I think they intended the endings to be a final solution to the Reapers or the war against synthetic life when I thought it should've (and was meant to) been about the humans and the galaxy in general just surviving to another day - or cycle, whatever.

-Merge ending = Merger of synthetics and machines causing the cycle to be broken
-Control ending = Use of Reapers could allow Shepard to bring a peace and understanding between Organics and synthetics using Reaper technology to make each closer to the other, though it wouldn't be a total merge like the merge ending.
-Destroy ending = The elimination of all synthetic life. The already in-place galactic distrust of AI due to years of Council propaganda/laws causes AI research to be distrusted into the foreseeable future, then the races sycophancy it seems unlikely it would ever be n-banned.
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Beyond that the Catalyst is a machine of limited intelligence, who can only make conclusions based on what his original programmers gave him. Nothing he said is truly definitive in any way.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how neccessary would you say the Catalyst was to the Mass Effect series? Or the space mcmuffin? I'm just trying to say that the ending could've and arguably should've been a lot better than this: either everyone becomes a machine, Shep becomes a Reaper or all synthetics get destroyed.

I wanted a conventional war with the Reapers. I didn't get that but it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that they didn't give us a satisfying conclusion. None of those endings give me any closure to the series. And before you try to tell me that life is like that or it doesn't need to read into this: it's entertainment, pure and simple. If the best story ever written wasn't interesting or engaging I would be interested or engaged in it. The endings to ME3 weren't satifying in the slightest so they fail to stir to much emotion in me.

It doesn't matter if you can explain them or if they make sense, if they fail to deliver I can't get invested in them. Third-act macguffins, almost always, fail to entertain.

 

[SajuukKhar]

On a scale of 1 to 10 how neccessary would you say the Catalyst was to the Mass Effect series? Or the space mcmuffin? I'm just trying to say that the ending could've and arguably should've been a lot better than this: either everyone becomes a machine, Shep becomes a Reaper or all synthetics get destroyed.

I wanted a conventional war with the Reapers. I didn't get that but it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that they didn't give us a satisfying conclusion. None of those endings give me any closure to the series. And before you try to tell me that life is like that or it doesn't need to read into this: it's entertainment, pure and simple. If the best story ever written wasn't interesting or engaging I would be interested or engaged in it. The endings to ME3 weren't satifying in the slightest so they fail to stir to much emotion in me.

It doesn't matter if you can explain them or if they make sense, if they fail to deliver I can't get invested in them. Third-act macguffins, almost always, fail to entertain.

Well first off there isn't an ending were everyone becomes a machine. they become machine-human hybrids beyond both with the flaws of neither.

Secondly The Catalyst, as a glowy hologram of a boy is useless, but as a device that tell us what The Reapers purpose is and how to change the cycle that has made them have to kill organics time and time again he is as important as can be.

Thirdly I personally don't understand how people can find the ending sad knowing that Shepard has given up his life, or if you get the good ending taken a severe ass beating, so that all the races of the galaxy, present and future, can now build civilization again on their own time, their own power, and to its fullest extent instead of having to suffer from the limitations and control that a race of being who sought to kill them imposed upon them.

It is an incredibly hopeful ending that makes me wonder what sort of greatness lies in wait for the races now that they can finally do what they want instead of what they are forced to.

And to see The Stargazers, who are heavily implied to be decadents of the colony the Normandy founded, exist meaning that they were able to survive and continued to live on is also a very happy moment.