Poll: indoctrination theory and you

[suitepee7]

so i finally got around to watching the documentaries on indoctrination theory, all three of the meaty buggers, and naturally i got the urges to replay mass effect from start to finish again.

but the documentaries make a big point of saying at the end of the 3rd one that the guy making it is a critic of IT, and was simply reviewing evidence for and against, which led him to believe in it, despite his initial misgivings.

so what do you believe? for me, there was one bit of evidence which won me over (i'll spoiler it below), and i'm pretty happy about it. there are a lot of factors which could point towards IT being legit, but a lot of it could also be incompetence/laziness, but this one piece of evidence turned me. i do have one question though

Spoiler: question relating to the destroy ending

if you pick destroy and shepard wakes up breathing, won't the reapers just win anyway? shepard won a personal battle yes, but there is still an invasion going on...

Spoiler: the piece of evidence

so yeah, the star child won me over to IT. several reasons really that are in the documentary, but the two which stick out are:
1) he gets really mad and his voice changes if you refuse to choose
2) he refers to the reapers as 'we'. wouldn't this mean he is a reaper himself?

disclaimer: i am aware this topic has been covered before, but didn't want to necro any old threads and most of them had no poll or very vague ones

 

[RJ 17]

so i finally got around to watching the documentaries on indoctrination theory, all three of the meaty buggers, and naturally i got the urges to replay mass effect from start to finish again.

but the documentaries make a big point of saying at the end of the 3rd one that the guy making it is a critic of IT, and was simply reviewing evidence for and against, which led him to believe in it, despite his initial misgivings.

so what do you believe? for me, there was one bit of evidence which won me over (i'll spoiler it below), and i'm pretty happy about it. there are a lot of factors which could point towards IT being legit, but a lot of it could also be incompetence/laziness, but this one piece of evidence turned me. i do have one question though

Spoiler: question relating to the destroy ending

if you pick destroy and shepard wakes up breathing, won't the reapers just win anyway? shepard won a personal battle yes, but there is still an invasion going on...

Spoiler: the piece of evidence

so yeah, the star child won me over to IT. several reasons really that are in the documentary, but the two which stick out are:
1) he gets really mad and his voice changes if you refuse to choose
2) he refers to the reapers as 'we'. wouldn't this mean he is a reaper himself?

disclaimer: i am aware this topic has been covered before, but didn't want to necro any old threads and most of them had no poll or very vague ones

Well ignoring the fact that the Extended Cut basically disproves the IT by making the literal interpretation the official canon, there's still just as many holes in the IT as there were with the literal interpretation (pre-IT).

The first and biggest point - and one that you, yourself, bring up - is if the IT is true, no matter what happens the Reapers win the war and this cycle is completely doomed. If you choose blue or green, apparently both of those are "trap choices" that lead to you being Indoctrinated. Game Over, you lose. If you pick Red, you supposedly break out of indoctrination and that's why you get the little extra "gasp scene". But, as you pointed out: that means that Shepard is laying broken and bloodied on a battlefield being overrun by Reapers. No one made it to the beam. The Crucible was never fired off. Game over, you lose.

As for what you say about the Star Child, he DOES come out and tell you that he represents the collective consciousness/intelligence of all the Reapers. So yeah, saying that he, himself, is a Reaper wouldn't be far off. He also specifically says that linking the Crucible up to him has altered the variables in his solution and presented opportunities for new solutions. That's why he's offering to help you. All he has ever wanted is for his prime objective (ensuring that organic life is never completely wiped out by synthetic life) to be ensured and completed. With new possibilities to complete that objective, he offers you the choice. If you refuse that choice, then he's going to just keep on doing what he's been doing...meaning the Reapers win and the cycle just continues on.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

A friend of mine made a SUPER persuasive argument in its favor.

Personally, I think it's a neat idea and a valid interpretation. I just prefer to think that my shepard

Spoiler

Hijacked the reapers and became the immortal guardian of the universe. This would fit really neatly into the way I played him (A death seeking Atoner type).

Although, him being bamboozled and becoming indoctrinated works well with that as well since after Torfan, and the Batarian relay forced him to make the tough call that got so many people killed, he would never want to make the "big picture" choice (where the galaxy is saved, but countless people die) again if there was a better option, especially one where the only one to be sacrificed was him.

Even if hijacking the reapers turned out to doom the universe, I still hold that it was the only choice my Shepard could have made.

That kinda threw my friend for a loop, as he didn't role play shepard at all. XD

 

[suitepee7]

A friend of mine made a SUPER persuasive argument in its favor.

Personally, I think it's a neat idea and a valid interpretation. I just prefer to think that my shepard

Spoiler

Hijacked the reapers and became the immortal guardian of the universe. This would fit really neatly into the way I played him (A death seeking Atoner type).

Although, him being bamboozled and becoming indoctrinated works well with that as well since after Torfan, and the Batarian relay forced him to make the tough call that got so many people killed, he would never want to make the "big picture" choice (where the galaxy is saved, but countless people die) again if there was a better option, especially one where the only one to be sacrificed was him.

Even if hijacking the reapers turned out to doom the universe, I still hold that it was the only choice my Shepard could have made.

That kinda threw my friend for a loop, as he didn't role play shepard at all. XD

it's a nice idea, but my version of roleplay takes a hit in ME2, where i need certain paragon/renegade scores and have to shy away from the other choices. just had my conversation with mordin, about the genophage, and shepard is so... dickish towards him about it (on paragon anyway).

Well ignoring the fact that the Extended Cut basically disproves the IT by making the literal interpretation the official canon, there's still just as many holes in the IT as there were with the literal interpretation (pre-IT).

The first and biggest point - and one that you, yourself, bring up - is if the IT is true, no matter what happens the Reapers win the war and this cycle is completely doomed. If you choose blue or green, apparently both of those are "trap choices" that lead to you being Indoctrinated. Game Over, you lose. If you pick Red, you supposedly break out of indoctrination and that's why you get the little extra "gasp scene". But, as you pointed out: that means that Shepard is laying broken and bloodied on a battlefield being overrun by Reapers. No one made it to the beam. The Crucible was never fired off. Game over, you lose.

As for what you say about the Star Child, he DOES come out and tell you that he represents the collective consciousness/intelligence of all the Reapers. So yeah, saying that he, himself, is a Reaper wouldn't be far off. He also specifically says that linking the Crucible up to him has altered the variables in his solution and presented opportunities for new solutions. That's why he's offering to help you. All he has ever wanted is for his prime objective (ensuring that organic life is never completely wiped out by synthetic life) to be ensured and completed. With new possibilities to complete that objective, he offers you the choice. If you refuse that choice, then he's going to just keep on doing what he's been doing...meaning the Reapers win and the cycle just continues on.

well point 1 doesn't disprove IT, just means the ending is really bleak if it is true. i doubt a lot of people thought about it though, because it really doesn't leave you with a happy ending. still, i'd rather have a grim ending that makes sense in my mind, rather than a bittersweet ending that just leaves me irritated.

the second point you make is all completely sound, but it still leaves me doubting because the star child is essentially the reapers collective minds. this means that they can't really be trusted to be honest with you, so we have no way of knowing if they're outright lying to us about everything. the documentary does a better job of explaining this than i can to be honest, but i'm well aware the theory isn't perfect which is why there are so many (including yourself) who flat out don't believe it. i believe it because i think it is a better fit, but that's just me

 

[RJ 17]

well point 1 doesn't disprove IT, just means the ending is really bleak if it is true. i doubt a lot of people thought about it though, because it really doesn't leave you with a happy ending. still, i'd rather have a grim ending that makes sense in my mind, rather than a bittersweet ending that just leaves me irritated.

the second point you make is all completely sound, but it still leaves me doubting because the star child is essentially the reapers collective minds. this means that they can't really be trusted to be honest with you, so we have no way of knowing if they're outright lying to us about everything. the documentary does a better job of explaining this than i can to be honest, but i'm well aware the theory isn't perfect which is why there are so many (including yourself) who flat out don't believe it. i believe it because i think it is a better fit, but that's just me

One of the main criticisms about the ending was that it completely negates all of your choices...that nothing in you do in any of the games matter. I actually have an argument against that, but that's not entirely on-point here. What is on point is that if you believe in the IT theory, then that - more than the literal interpretation - DOES completely negate everything you've done in the series. It means that you're doomed from the start. Nothing you do matters at all because the hero is Indoctrinated and the Reapers are going to win no matter what. That isn't just a bleak ending, that's a terrible ending, and I'd argue it's a bigger "fuck you!" to the audience than anything that can be pointed at in the literal interpretation. There's plenty of stories out there where the hero dies at the end, but it's part of a sacrifice that makes everything all good in the end. That's what this story was meant to be. It wasn't meant to be "The good guy dies, the bad guys win. The end."

Again, there's the fact that the IT is completely disproven by the Extended Cut basically coming out and saying "No, what you see is what you get, this all actually happens." As for the Reapers lying to you, the Leviathan DLC confirms Star Child's story as being true.

I know I'm bringing in DLC to an argument about the ending which happens before the DLC was released, but that's the problem you face by starting a topic about an old theory that was made to explain quite specifically the shortcomings of the ending as it was originally released. With more/new information available (that is, the DLC addition to the story), we see that the IT really was nothing but a pipe-dream of people trying to make sense of what they saw to be intentional gaps in the ending when, in reality, it was just shoddy execution/various plot holes coming to the surface.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I'd call it grasping at straws, but someone else actually used that term and I don't like stealing ideas. I liked the ending but thought that the indoctrination theory was just really boring, amongst other things. Shep as a hero was much better storytelling than him as some crazy idiot.

 

[Clowndoe]

One of the main criticisms about the ending was that it completely negates all of your choices...that nothing in you do in any of the games matter. I actually have an argument against that, but that's not entirely on-point here. What is on point is that if you believe in the IT theory, then that - more than the literal interpretation - DOES completely negate everything you've done in the series.

Thanks for this. I knew right away I didn't like indoctrination theory because of this. I also think it's too far-fetched for Bioware to have intended this all along, considering how adamant they were about the literal interpretation being the correct one. Moreover, I'd be annoyed to find out the whole game was lying to me all along, that all I've seen is a lie, that I - as Shepard - had no control over the story (even less so than in the original cut), all on account of an unreliable narrator. Might as well wake up and tell me it was all a dream.

 

[ThriKreen]

Fun fact to consider: what if the reason the Collector's (Reapers) were so interested in Shepard in ME2 was because...

Spoiler

*gasp* S/HE WAS IMMMUNE TO INDOCTRINATION?

 

[MysticSlayer]

I think the post-credits Stargazer Scene sort of destroys any notion of IT being real.

Anyways:

Spoiler: the piece of evidence

so yeah, the star child won me over to IT. several reasons really that are in the documentary, but the two which stick out are:
1) he gets really mad and his voice changes if you refuse to choose
2) he refers to the reapers as 'we'. wouldn't this mean he is a reaper himself?

Spoiler: Keeping up with the spirit of spoilers.

1. That's not real evidence for IT. Voice changes from a computer program doesn't mean much.
2. He's the collective conscious in control of the Reapers. Of course he is going to say "we" when referring to the Reapers because, technically, he's their central mind. I still don't see how this supports IT.

 

[Hades]

I never bought the indoctrination theory for a second but I do feel its very significant. To me so many people grasping at all straws they can find in an attempt to get at least some logic out of that ending just shows how badly Bioware has failed.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

There are several problems with the theory. To start with the meta problem, were the theory true, it means there is literally no win condition for the game as each of the final choices result in the fulfillment of the reaper plan to kill everyone and thus is a non-choice in every sense. I could go into an extended explanation dismissing each of the claims in turn that are often made but I've already done this on more than one occasion so I'll just respond to these two.

1) he gets really mad and his voice changes if you refuse to choose

If you assume the theory to be True, it means that each of the choices offered is a non-choice. None of them offer any threat. During this time, Shepard himself has been effectively neutralized and, as the last hope to activate the Crucible, that means simply delaying Shepard would be in line with his goals. My getting "angry", it is implied that refusing to chose runs contrary to the Catalyst's goals and, as such this point is a mark against the theory.

2) he refers to the reapers as 'we'. wouldn't this mean he is a reaper himself?

The catalyst created the reapers and is the driving intelligence behind them. He's very forthcoming with this information. Indeed, he makes the claim that the reapers serve the ends of preserving advanced organic life which was precisely what the Catalyst was created to do. While there is room to debate just how valid this method of "preservation" is, being classified as the originator of the Reapers does not, in itself, lend credibility to the theory.

 

[Asita]

Uh, wasn't a major part of IT the idea that the ending supplied at release was a red-herring meant to mimic indoctrination on the player by manipulating you into effectively tying the figurative noose around your own neck? That the actual ending was being temporarily withheld to facilitate that and would be released shortly after launch?


That aside, as interesting as the concept sounded, I was critical of it from Day 1. The 'support' they cited seemed far too desperate far too often and the crux of the notion required a plot twist that only the early players would ever experience.

That said, it is worth noting that the idea wasn't totally baseless (Still wrong, but it's not out of left field). Apparently the devs had planned for an indoctrination sequence in the last minutes of gameplay until late in the development cycle when the idea had to be dropped due to technical issues with making that gameplay mechanic work properly. It's therefore not surprising that some of the foreshadowing for that remained in game and was latched upon by the playerbase.

 

[white_wolf]

Not again! Look BW may have wanted to do the whole shep becomes indoctrinated they obviously wanted to go there in some way after Arrival and him being made into a cyborg but with the leak and rewritting of most of ME3 that too went away in almost every scene and the scenes that couldn't be redone ended up as nonsensical messes because they were shoehorned into conversations that weren't made for their use. In short IT doesn't hold water and was not their intent once 3 got the script changes.

 

[boradam]

Honestly, I never really cared or felt rage at the end of Mass Effect 3. I was perfectly fine with it, but I read the Indoctrination Theory and felt it gave the entire game a new feel to it -- one that matches the tone and bleakness of invasion and war.

I think the post-credits Stargazer Scene sort of destroys any notion of IT being real.

If you look at it from the perspective of the Indoctrination Theory, it's something that the Reapers are showing Shepard to keep him passive, from remembering that there's a fight going on. It's sort of like the Sloth Demon from Dragon Age when you first enter the fade, it's to keep you occupied and from being able to realize what's actually happening.

Spoiler: Keeping up with the spirit of spoilers.

1. That's not real evidence for IT. Voice changes from a computer program doesn't mean much.
2. He's the collective conscious in control of the Reapers. Of course he is going to say "we" when referring to the Reapers because, technically, he's their central mind. I still don't see how this supports IT.

Again, this is from the perspective of Indoctrination Theory:
1. If it had the ability to manipulate it's appearance and voice, why would it be that of a child Shepard saw? That's manipulative, it could just as easily have shown someone like Anderson, Saren, or even a Reaper (given that is what it controlled or supposedly created).

2. If the Starchild was their central mind (the force giving commands and orders) than that means it was controlling Harbinger, Sovereign, and all the other Reapers. It chose a child's form to manipulate Shepard's desire to protect humanity and Earth, which to me just seems like complete smoke and mirrors to keep him from remembering that the Reapers -- something it controls and created -- murdered millions of humans, and untold races before them. (I'm not saying it's true, but that's what I take from I.T.)

I'm just posting this so you can kind of see how I.T. people think.

 

[hawkeye52]

Just to get this out of the way to begin with. I don't believe in the IT and think it doesn't make any sense when in regards to some of the more blatent things in the game then the subtext that people think to be there which probably isn't.

In relation to the second piece of evidence related. The reapers are a self governing species with almost robot like functioning due in part to their reaperisation process. So they would relate to themselves as we anyway.

Also if the reapers had truly indoctrinated shepard then their would be no player. If the reapers had indoctrinated the player then what about those who don't care for the story and are just playing for the gameplay (such as myself) surely I wouldn't have been as effected. Anyway on top of that. Why would it give a destroy option at all. Why not just control or synthesis. Imo destroy was by far the worst option out of the lot purely because if it did happen as the starchild said it would then it would practically obliterate everything and kill off 90% of the population of the galaxy and make many planets uninhabitable after that ending the cycle for everyone anyway.

What the reapers gave Shepard at the end of the game was choice. Indoctrination allows for no choice. It is assumed that you will pick one option anyway so why present others that tempt. Of course that would have made for an even shittier game ending.

In short if you want to read about indoctrination go read about any of the minor religious suicide cults that have picked up over the years or go read over (from what I understand) Enders game or any extreme political ideology ranging from extreme capitalism-extreme communism and how they deal with education. Don't look for it in a somewhat mediocre game that stands out as good because we only have CoD to compare to it.

 

[Nosirrah]

*sigh*
Can we PLEASE just SHUT UP about this bloody game? The ending wasn't very good, I get it, but it's a fictional bloody universe where nothing actually happened. Now please, just stop talking about the bloody thing.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

It's a really cool example of reading deeper then the given plot and analyzing meaning where the author may not have intended meaning to be.

But there is no way in hell Bioware ever intended it, and the extended cut pretty much killed it.

 

[Fox12]

It's a nice theory, but it's wrong. Lets accept it.

The saddest thing is that the game was SO CLOSE to being my favorite game of all time. I laughed, I cried, I was blown away. Even the death of the Illusive Man was PERFECT. All the game had to do was blow up the Reapers, maybe kill of Shepard, and roll the credits, and it would have had me. Somehow they dropped the ball.

Lets move on, I've played better games before and since.