Atmos Duality said:
RJ 17 said:
For starters, he isn't foreshadowed in the first game, he's foreshadowed when you're going to Thessia in ME 3 to get the Prothean VI you need to finish the Crucible. And it's not a vague foreshadowing either, the VI quite specifically tells you that something has to be controlling the Reapers.
Huh. I haven't played ME1 in a while. I'll have to rewatch the videos for when Shepard's crew encounters the Reaper persona the first time.
In any case...it was foreshadowed at the last second. Not in the series.
Making that point unique to ME3 makes it lean even further towards my theory of rushed development rather than planned for the series. Believe me; I'm no stranger to improvisation in writing (or acting).
Indeed, it is foreshadowed towards the end of ME 3, my point was that it WAS foreshadowed. But again, I'd argue that if you put some thought into the story as a whole, it should be clear that the Reapers are the tools of something else. Something had to start The Cycle for some reason. By the end of ME 2, we know how Reapers are made: liquify a civilization, combine it with tech, and out pops a new Reaper. So how did the first Reaper get made? Either an entire civilization decided to liquify itself, or something else liquified them. This is a question that is raised at the end of ME 2 when we learn the Reaper-making process.
That said, however, while Timmy himself isn't foreshadowed, the fact that the Reapers are serving some greater purpose is. As I've mentioned, throughout the entire series, every Reaper you talk to refuses to shut up about the fact that you cannot possiby comprehend their motivations or reasoning. And at long last, in the climactic scene of the trilogy, you get to learn what those motivations and reasons are.
Secondly, the kid quite clearly tells you what his motivation is: prevent conflict between organics and synthetics. If there's no organics or synthetics to fight one another (i.e. because they've been harvested) then he considers his objective complete. As I said, it's the classic theme of an AI killing it's creators because it was following it's programming/purpose too well. He was tasked with a problem: "Solve the problem of "inevitable" conflict between synthetics and organics." Well one solution to that problem certainly is to just remove the organics and synthetics.
So the solution to the contradiction is "Fatalism solves everything".
...Yeah, looking over the ending videos on youtube again, I see your point.
My fault for looking for some sort of meaning in this mess.
Goddamned fool am I for bothering to do so; it's an EA game. Depth takes time effort and creativity, and those are the antithesis of EA's game-factory business model.
The solution to the problem is something an AI, or more likely a VI that evolved into an AI the way EDI did, cooked up when tasked with the problem of "prevent conflict between organics and synthetics". Again, Timmy specifically says that he tried other solutions but none of them worked. Fatalism isn't the answer to the contradiction, the contradiction only exists in the way that we interpret it. Again, from Timmy's perspective, he's doing exactly what he was programmed to do: prevent conflict. To his logic, if there's no organics or synthetics to be fighting each other, there's no conflict. Problem solved. That seems like the cold, calculating logic of a AI/VI, doesn't it? Again I point to the example of a cleaning robot killing it's master since it is programmed to keep the house clean and the source of all the messes is the master. Remove the source of the problem, and there's no more messes. The robot has accomplished it's purpose.
And finally, the Reapers aren't working under contradictory logic when you take into consideration their motives, which is to say, Timmy's motives. While we see what he does with the Reapers as wholesale, mindless slaughter ("killing us with synthetics so we won't kill ourselves with synthetics"), he sees it as saving the entire galaxy (preserving us in Reaper form - thus technically still existing - so we don't kill ourselves with synthetics) from wiping itself out. It's a matter of perspective. The fact that so many of us gamers seem to have missed this simple observation certainly does make "You cannot possibly comprehend our motivations" as the Reaper mantra hold true for both the characters and the players.
Characters, yes. Players, no.
Rule #1 for any sort of writing: Have a point. Have a purpose. No matter how vague or interpretative, just have one.
If your plot doesn't have a premise, it has no meaning and does nothing but wastes the audience's time (and before anyone comments about it, if you think games are solely designed to waste time, don't even try it. It's a non-argument and a terribly outdated method of thinking).
"Crazy AI kills everyone" isn't a premise for the audience (we cannot relate to it), it's a Sci-Fi cliche' that's been done to death.
I'm not saying that Bioware has the best writers, but where as a lot of people look at Timmy and say "lazy writing device", I look at the general reaction to Timmy and say "lazy audience reaction".
I'd argue that the audience is correct on the premise that Star Child is a lazy plot device, but a necessary device because the REST of the plot is lazy.
Ultimately, the point boils down to this: Star Child needs to exist so that there is a chain of command to provide the player with faceless mooks to shoot. I don't see any further point to it than that, because the question that caused people to take grievance with the plot doesn't actually matter.
So all of that effort put into making the lore the characters memorable, was just a huge waste of time and resources. That's the real tragedy of the Mass Effect series.
Both of these apply to the "lazy audience reaction". Pretty much all my arguments have been formed by simply putting some thought into the story itself, this is the same process I used to accurately predict the EC endings 6 days after the game came out and long before the EC was even being considered.
There is a point to the plot. The plot is that there has been the cycle of mass extinction that has gone on throughout the galaxy's history. No one knows why it happens, it just does. Timmy gives you the "why": it's his solution to the problem that he was tasked with. The point of the plot is the fight for survival against forces greater than you. All Timmy does is give motivation to those forces so you now understand why you're in this fight to begin with. I'd argue that any other ending the game any other way would make the plot pointless as you never learn why the Reapers are invading, and as such it is just a story of "Big Bad Spaceships Are Coming, Kill Them Or Be Killed."
All you have to do is keep in mind that it's a matter of perspective. From our perspective (player and character), nothing Timmy says or does makes sense. But from HIS perspective, everything he does makes perfect sense. It's the best solution that he was able to find. Failure to realize this is the sign of a lazy audience that doesn't want to put thought into putting all the pieces together.
But I do want to ask you something. A lot of people complain that Timmy is just a fountain of exposition and they don't like such a story-dump. Well alright, then just how WERE we supposed to learn all that crap?
I'd say the answer to that question doesn't actually matter, because it's like arguing over the intricate nature of shit. Its texture, its smell, its coloration, maybe some commentary about indigestible additives... but why bother? It's still shit.
If I were to humor you about it, I'd say that the Reapers shouldn't have been mooks to anyone else. Adjust the motivation of the Reapers so that less exposition is required. No central AI guiding them. No Star Child.
Their purge process should have been one of a self-sustaining nature. They harvest the finest and fittest intelligent species that the galaxy has to offer (through Indoctrination), and devour/purge everything else so that they can remain at the top of the food chain. They then go dormant to let the "cattle" repopulate over the course of the next 40-50k years.
Cliche'? Yeah. It's been done.
But the motivations are kept simple and rational. It avoids the extremely-tired, extremely-stupid Fatalist-AI nonsense (the problem with purely-fatalist agendas in the hands of god-like entities is that it makes no fucking sense for them to do it in cycles, or via elaborate machination. Change the IFF of all the Mass Relays to be like the Omega Relay. There. I just won the war once and for all.)
Plus, it gives the Reapers a rational reason to develop a slower agenda rather than just warping in out of the black and sacking the place wholesale; they want the pick of the litter (ME1 and even ME2 foreshadowed this).
It keeps to the original premise of 1970s Sci-Fi throwbacks without going too deep into pretense (as ME3 did). It isn't deep or thought-provoking, but it isn't based on the concept of total-insanity driving the plot either.
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for the record, when I first beat ME 2, that's actually what I thought the purpose of the Cycle was: the Cycle is just the Reaper life-cycle, and harvest times = "mating season". Come in, devour all advanced life and tech, build new Reapers, leave and go dormant so that the next harvest can grow, thus allowing the creation of more Reapers.
However, such is something that we (as players and characters) could easily understand. Reapers are a form of life, all life reproduces, they need to harvest us in order to reproduce. Ok. Got it. While this does simplify the plot, it also completely negates the mystery behind the Reapers. It'd mean that every time they talk about being unknowable they're just pissing in the wind and telling us a lie. Their motivations had to be deep and convoluted or they lose their air of superiority. They're not some unknowable ancient force of destruction, they're just a bunch of robots seeking to make more of themselves. What's so hard to understand about that? Nothing. But it lowers the value of the Reapers as characters.
And this ties back in with my "lazy audience" argument. You're faulting Bioware for trying to go for depth and thought-provoking themes, and your criticisms stem from a simple lack of perspective. Yes, it is indeed cliche for an AI to follow it's purpose too well and ultimately kill it's masters. But then again, what ISN'T cliche anymore? To use a cliche to describe this, "There's nothing new under the sun." It all connects if you're willing to just put some thought into it.
ME 1 establishes the fact that every 50K years, the Reapers arrive and rock everyone's world. Liara even mentions that according to her research, the Protheans weren't the first race this happened to, that their civilization was built upon the graves and ruins of a civilization that came before them. This establishes the fact that it is indeed a repeating cycle, that the Protheans weren't the first to get wiped out. However no one knows why this cycle of extinction continues to occur.
ME 2 sticks out as a classic Part 2 of a trilogy in that it doesn't necessarily add to the plot as much as the first and third installments, however it carries the plot from the first installment to the third installment and usually has some kind of big revelation. "No,
I am your father!!!" The ME 2 "I am you father" moment is when we learn why the Collectors were in business: they're making a human Reaper. How are Reapers made? Liquify a species.
ME 3, at last, gives purpose to the question raised in ME 1: Why is this all happening? Why does this cycle exist? The answer: the twisted logic of an AI think that it's doing what it was made to do while disregarding the fact that organics don't enjoy being killed because to him, he's not killing them, he's preserving them. "But "twisted logic of an AI killing off its masters" is suuuuuuch a tired theme!" Yeah, well so is "Generic race of evil things from space come down to harvest us for resources." After ALLLLLLLL the build-up in ME 1 and 2, are you honestly going to tell me that you would have been satisfied with an ending that equates to "Yeah, they just use us to make more of themselves. Essentially it's like Independence Day, only with space robots instead of space aliens."?
