Question about an element of Mass Effect 3 ending and the hatred towards it.

[worldruler8]

Which is another problem with Space Ghost Timmy: people don't like how you can't tell him to fuck off because "Look at the peace I brokered between the Geth and Quarians! The Geth aren't inherently hostile, in fact they're willing to bend over backwards to make peace with organics!!!"

Don't forget EDI's extremely compasionate outlook on organics. Or the fact that the game doesn't have any sythnetics that feel a need to destroy organics, except Reapers...

Sounds like it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Fragged_Templar]

I wouldn't say I disliked the catalyst, its just that the catalyst seems misplaced. His sudden appearance as the mastermind of the entire "cycles of eradication" concept is just weird, the logic seems flawed, or incomplete.

He says organics and synthetics can never co-exist...

Spoiler

and yet the quarians and the geth are cooperating... the geth are in fact helping the quarians so much that they can start living on their home planet without their protective suits

Another point is that none of his points or arguements can de debated or even evaluated, this gives the player a feeling of things being unresolved, in all the other ME games the convictions and logic of the antagonists could be countered and in many cases refuted, but with the catalyst we are forced to simply accept what he tells us.

Also as must be mentioned the lack of recognition of shepard's war efforts... the intel you receive about your fight against the reapers in the game and the impression you get from the cutscenes don't match. The games tells you, you are holding steady and winning in key locations, and yet the cut scenes shows your fleets being cut to ribbons, granted that maybe be the reality of war, but where is the subtlety, the finesse... If there is one thing we can trust in human nature, it is that when backed into a corner, humans are willing to exploit any and all advantages.

Another point entirely, that I felt was left unexplored after the first game is that Sovereign states that the mass effect relays are left behind in order to guide the technological evolution of the sentient species. As far as I can tell this has worked, all the organics weapons are ineffective against the reapers... Because they are based in the technology the reapers know... IE their own. If on the other hand human (for ease of arguement) is left to run rampant, imagine what kind of weapons technology humans would end up developing. Anti-matter weapons, or even harnessing the mass effect relays themselves as massive cannons.

I guess the point I'm laboriously trying to make is that shepard can't argue,debate or refute any of the catalysts statements or claims, this breaks the molds from all the other mass effect antagonists, making him seem misplaced and awkward.

 

[RJ 17]

Which is another problem with Space Ghost Timmy: people don't like how you can't tell him to fuck off because "Look at the peace I brokered between the Geth and Quarians! The Geth aren't inherently hostile, in fact they're willing to bend over backwards to make peace with organics!!!"

Don't forget EDI's extremely compasionate outlook on organics. Or the fact that the game doesn't have any sythnetics that feel a need to destroy organics, except Reapers...

I know this is getting technical, but there IS that AI in the Citadel computers in ME 1 that tries to blow you up once you find it. But yes, I definitely see what you're saying, the current Cycle has no examples of a synthetic society that actively and openly desires hostilities with organics. Only Reaper controlled Geth, but they don't count since they're controlled by the Reapers.

 

[jklinders]

Lazy writing is lazy writing no matter what critically acclaimed game it happens to be in. G-man was retarded and unnecessary (sorry Valve fans) and the endings to both (especially the second) Deus Ex Games were rather contrived.

Don't have any point of reference on the other, but if they use Deus Ex Machinas then they probably had crap endings too. If you don't have a way to write yourself out of a situation then you either keep working at it until you do have a way or expect to get criticized.

In many cases it is better to leave stuff unsaid and let the viewer work it out for themselves then to try to give a tell all and do it half assed.

At the end of the day though, and I am speaking only for myself, I got a little steamed at the ending because I actually CARED about the game. I didn't care about these other games in the same way so they got more latitude to screw it up. It may not seem fair, but the higher you raise a bar and people's expectations the harder you should expect it to land on your head when you screw it up.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

The Catalyst turned the Reapers from the most terrifying and mysterious villains in entertainment into bumbling idiots serving the whim of an even bigger idiot.

Thank you, gav, for summing up my beef with the glowing little sh*t better than I ever could.

 

[Screamarie]

I personally wasn't necessarily offended by having the catalyst there. Fine, you want to put in a god like being, fine...but you're going to have to do it right.

See my problem is that though the catalyst is supposed to be a god-like being and he's pretty much got all the cards here...his logic is flawed. Okay, God-like being with flawed logic. That actually is kind of cool! You should set him straight, tell him to fuck-off, something!

But instead you give INTO his flawed logic and do things his way.

The entire series was based around pointing out and defying flawed or injust logic and beliefs. About creating harmony and peace between everyone as best as you can. Then it gets down to the last few minutes and not only do you just go along with the bad logic, you then proceed to not even question it!

That's bad writing in my opinion. If you're going to put in a God-like figure, then you have to either make him right and it's okay to do as he says or you have to make him wrong and then give a way to defy him. If you make him wrong and then don't defy him or at least question it, then you yourself are doing something wrong and blindly so.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

For a start, in all your examples that I'm familiar with the omnipotent being is foreshadowed. For instance, the G-Man has been present throughout the Half Life games. Imagine if he had showed up put of absolutely nowhere at the end of HL2. It would have been incredibly stupid... like ME3.

Second, the Catalyst is utterly unnecessary. I've seen an edited fan ending where they just skipped the space kid altogether and cut straight to the destruction (red explosion) ending. It was a significant improvement.

Third, he does an extremely poor job of resolving the overarching plot of "stop the reapers". He only has 15 or so lines to explain the reapers motivations and then differentiate the three endings.

Fourth, he supplants the central conflict of the game ("stop reapers") with an almost entirely new one ("saving organics from their synthetic creations"). You do not introduce and then resolve an entirely new narrative conflict in the final ten minutes of a bloody story... not unless you're a gibbering idiot anyway.

Lastly... well... it's a fucking glowing kid turning up out of nowhere to present the end-o-tron 3000. I shouldn't have to explain why that sucks donkeys from a narrative standpoint.

Plus, y'know, complete lack of closure, gaping plot holes and no accounting for player choices.

I feel everything I would have said, has been said.

Bioware snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on this one. Still gets me irksome to this day.

 

[JamesStone]

Actually, I don't have a problem with the Catalyst. I have a problem with the only reactions to it Shepard can have. I haven't been calling it "God child" like others have. Why? Because it is an AI. It is a Reaper AI. It is a Reaper AI telling you that you don't have to destroy the Reapers. It is a Reaper AI telling you that you don't have to destroy the Reapers when you are on the cusp of doing just that. And it does this while trying to manipulate Shepard by sort of "taking the form" of the child he feels guilty of not being able to save.

Why the hell would Shepard believe anything it says?

The only options you have are to blindly accept its claims and pick one of the options offered to you by a freaking Reaper AI.

It might have been good if we had to option to tell it to shove off, or to convince it that its claims that an synthetic-organic peace is impossible are wrong...or if the dozen shots or so that I put into its head actually killed it or at least initiated a hostile encounter.

That's why I'm so inclined to believe that that is just Harbinger trying to indocrinate Shepard, and that Bioware is holding the DLC to focus all our hate into it, giving it free publicity, so when they reveal the "true" ending, it will look like a gigantic diamont compared to this POS. But that's just me being naive. Most likely, Bioware had pure, dumb luck when people developted the "modified" indocrination theory, and they are just refusing to admit their ending sucks. Oh well.

OT: Basically, most of the things I meant to say is what this guy said. But I have one last thing to add:

The "saving organics by killing the biggest species so Synthetics don't anhiallate ALL the organics" is a cool idea, but it needed much more depth. Instead of a dive into the theory of enthropy, we have this glowing kid, that is a vision of what represents Shepard's failures, controled by a Reaper AI. That's just rushed out BS.

 

[ultramarine486]

I know this is getting technical, but there IS that AI in the Citadel computers in ME 1 that tries to blow you up once you find it. But yes, I definitely see what you're saying, the current Cycle has no examples of a synthetic society that actively and openly desires hostilities with organics. Only Reaper controlled Geth, but they don't count since they're controlled by the Reapers.

I thought that AI wanted to blow you up because you found him embezzling money or something and he didn't want Shepard to run off and tell anyone. If I recall correctly most interactions with AIs in the first game was hostile due to the fact that the laws stated AIs couldn't be allowed to exist. The AI on the moon is a good example as it gained sentience and the MO for situations like that was to shoot on sight. Most AIs acted more along the lines of self preservation then malice.

 

[Avatar Roku]

I know this is getting technical, but there IS that AI in the Citadel computers in ME 1 that tries to blow you up once you find it. But yes, I definitely see what you're saying, the current Cycle has no examples of a synthetic society that actively and openly desires hostilities with organics. Only Reaper controlled Geth, but they don't count since they're controlled by the Reapers.

I thought that AI wanted to blow you up because you found him embezzling money or something and he didn't want Shepard to run off and tell anyone. If I recall correctly most interactions with AIs in the first game was hostile due to the fact that the laws stated AIs couldn't be allowed to exist. The AI on the moon is a good example as it gained sentience and the MO for situations like that was to shoot on sight. Most AIs acted more along the lines of self preservation then malice.

We have more insight onto the Luna AI than you think, that was EDI (you find that out from talking to her in ME3). She did not attack because of the laws, she attacked because she gained sentience right in the middle of a live fire exercise and was VERY confused, so same basic concept.

 

[RJ 17]

I know this is getting technical, but there IS that AI in the Citadel computers in ME 1 that tries to blow you up once you find it. But yes, I definitely see what you're saying, the current Cycle has no examples of a synthetic society that actively and openly desires hostilities with organics. Only Reaper controlled Geth, but they don't count since they're controlled by the Reapers.

I thought that AI wanted to blow you up because you found him embezzling money or something and he didn't want Shepard to run off and tell anyone. If I recall correctly most interactions with AIs in the first game was hostile due to the fact that the laws stated AIs couldn't be allowed to exist. The AI on the moon is a good example as it gained sentience and the MO for situations like that was to shoot on sight. Most AIs acted more along the lines of self preservation then malice.

Actually, as the scene goes, the AI in question reveals that he framed his creator and had him arrested by C-Sec. And do you remember why the AI was embezzling money in the first place? It intended to buy a ship, upload itself to that ship, and fly off to join the Geth in their war against organics (as lead by Saren and Sovereign, of course).

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

BioWare 'fans' seem to be uniquely petulant in terms of how their IP's are treated, and I'm not sure why. I think every user who bombed DA2 and ME3's reviews on Metacritic should be hunted down, and fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. (thank you Matt Groening) It's a GAME, bitches - get over it. Both are superb releases in their own right.

I've explained why I quite liked ME3's ending, so I won't repeat myself. But I think the so called fan reaction is pathetic, and no matter how many whiny posts I read I still don't understand it.

 

[luckshot]

BioWare 'fans' seem to be uniquely petulant in terms of how their IP's are treated, and I'm not sure why. I think every user who bombed DA2 and ME3's reviews on Metacritic should be hunted down, and fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. (thank you Matt Groening) It's a GAME, bitches - get over it. Both are superb releases in their own right.

I've explained why I quite liked ME3's ending, so I won't repeat myself. But I think the so called fan reaction is pathetic, and no matter how many whiny posts I read I still don't understand it.

that description could be placed on any fan base

as for myself most of the game was great, however the ending was extremely terrible

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Let's rewrite your argument and see where it goes so horribly, horribly askew.

P1: Geth, EDI, and Reapers are all synthetics.
P2: Geth and EDI share some traits, specifically honesty.
C1: All synthetics share some traits, specifically honesty.
C2: The Reapers are honest.

P1: Already wrong. It has been hammered into our heads throughout ME2 that the Reapers are organic-synthetic hybrids. They are not pure synthetics like the Geth of ME1/ME2/some of ME3. There are bound to be differences, otherwise the point would not have merited making.

P2: Also wrong. EDI, a true synthetic, is not always honest, as ME2 and ME3 have demonstrated. She constantly makes jokes in the form of deceptions and manipulations, and in ME3 she was able to steal the Normandy by lying about Joker's role aboard the ship.

Your premises do not support your conclusions. Without P2 you cannot have C1. Without C1 you cannot have C2.

Never mind that even if the Reapers were synthetic and not synthetic-organic hybrids[/b], the Star Child is not a Reaper. We have no idea who or what he is and how he operates, other than the fact that he was created, which could mean a thousand different things, among them that he is yet another synthetic-organic hybrid which does not operate under standard synthetic rules (which don't exist anyway because EDI has broken them).

Again, you assume the Star Child is lying. Why, exactly, would he lie? He doesn't see himself as wrong in his actions. He is just giving Shepard the facts.

You are right about EDI, but EDI is a special case due to her experiences with organics, Joker, and Shepard. The Reapers do not have this experience. Their whole experience, as far as we know, has been "Get rid of Organics every so often".

But it really all boils down to whether you assume the Star Child is lying. You clearly do. I do not. This changes the nature of the ending both ways, but neither interpretation is wrong. Just pick what makes you happy, and if you are incapable of enjoying it then simply move on.

I love how you completely ignore everything else that said and just default to 'Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.'

 

[The Metalist]

I dislike the Catalyst because it adds a rediculous amount of plot holes.

There is no reference to it anywhere, you'd think Avina would have some idea of it.Sovereign claims that all reapers are independant. Harbinger is the leader of the reapers, it even says so in the codex. The Geth themselves disprove any arguement the Catalyst makes. The Catalyst doesn't expalain the origin of itself or the reapers, or what relation he has to them other than "I control them".

There's also likely plenty more that I can't think of right about now.

I also don't like it how Harbinger was sidelined after all of his build up in ME2.
Would of been nice if he at least gave a "This hurts you" before firing his laser.

That is what I don't like about the Catalyst specifically.
I have more greivances with the ending as a whole, but that is not whats being asked.