evilthecat said:
If you want to believe that go ahead.
Personally, I believe that Raiders of the Lost Ark ended with the ark of the covenenant resurrecting dinosaurs which the Nazis then rode into battle in a glorious crusade to conquer all of Europe because yay nazis! But don't mind me, now I'm off to complain about how the depiction of the nazi velociraptors was totally unsatisfying.
Yeah. That's the exact same thing. Nice try, but arguments generally must be logical to matter at all.
evilthecat said:
Or to put it another way. The fact that shepard's crew hesitate to put his or her name on the memorial wall, followed by the shot of shepard breathing in rubble, clearly indicates that Shepard survived. If you want to believe otherwise, I don't see why your opinion should be considered relevant since it clearly has nothing to do with the narrative which appeared on screen.
Think about what your saying here. Why would the crew be hesitant to put the name on the memorial wall? If Shepard lived, then they definitely fucking wouldn't. There'd be no question. I don't see what your love interest looking wistfully at Shepard's name before mounting it has to do with anything. So what the hell is the point of that little breath at the end there? Look, if an ending is just going to give me a second of footage that
implies that a big, dramatic thing might not have actually happened, I can't really act on that. The rest of the piece acts as if Shepard is dead, it makes absolutely zero fucking sense that Shepard would be alive, and literally the only piece of evidence suggesting that he IS alive is that tiny half breath he takes, which is probably followed by some off-screen spluttering and then death.
You can't just throw in this big huge implication about something major and character related without explaining it or giving any context to it. That is called bad writing. They threw in that hidden breath just so they could have a little shroud of enigma to hide behind and shirk some criticism. Non-committal endings are shit because they don't give closure. I want to know why Hackett's big voice-over that narrates the next few months doesn't mention Shepard.
evilthecat said:
All except one (which is the Destroy ending with low war assets).
Since the destruction of a mass relay releases enough energy to obliterate a star system, their destruction would wipe out most life in the galaxy.
To be fair, it was actually the retake mass effect guys pointed that one out, but it's good Bioware took it on board and actually cleared up the rules of their own universe. It's pretty coherent now.
I rewatched them to be sure, and I'm pretty sure you can see the Charon relay falling to pieces as the glow goes through. Maybe they aren't all destroyed and I just assumed they hadn't changed that, but it sure looks the same. Either way, I always assumed that these Relays didn't wreck the shit of every solar system because it was a controlled demolition or something. Fair enough.
evilthecat said:
The catalyst explains that it has tried to initiate synthesis in the past but it failed because organic life was not evolutionary ready for the transformation. The catalyst judges that life is now ready, which is why it's willing to try again.
Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of Space Magic bullshit.
Organic life not fully evolved? That makes zero sense because let's not forget that we are only as evolved as the last cycle, or the one before that, because every cycle is purged at the same point in it's evolution. So there's no reason for us to be any more evolved than any other cycle, so I don't see why Synthesis would work now and not before. I can't really argue that though because I have no idea how Synthesis works or even really what it does because the very concept of it is such cock-and-bull fairy tale logic that it's impossible to define. "Blending Machine and Organic DNA" is a ludicrous ending for Mass Effect, because it makes no sense. I'd be as satisfied if Star Child told me he was going to turn the reapers into fairy dust while Shepard sat there clapping his hands and saying "I do believe in star-child, I do, I do!". And the cutscenes at the end don't clear anything up. Synthesis doesn't seem to have changed anything beyond turning everything green and made the Reapers friendly. So it's basically the control ending except it doesn't evolve equally stupid ghost Shepard.
Also, you didn't answer my question as to why Shepard has to sacrifice himself.
evilthecat said:
The catalyst also explains that in order to initiate synthesis it needs an organic lifeform to form part of the template which life will now take. Since it itself is a machine, it has the machine part, but it doesn't have the organic part. This is why it needs Shepard to sacrifice him or herself.
... Wait, I'm still confused. Let me zero in on exactly what's got me stumped.
evilthecat said:
it has the machine part, but it doesn't have the organic part. This is why it needs Shepard to sacrifice him or herself.
Oh, right, silly me. I forgot that Shepard is the
only organic thing in the universe. For fuck's sake! If Star-Child suddenly "deemed organic life worthy" why didn't he just throw a fucking carrot down there? He could have done it whenever he wanted! I assume Shepard is perfect because he's half organic, half synthetic, but so are tons of people in this galaxy! Star-Child could have easily whipped up an organic/synthetic hybrid. Pick one of the millions of husks down there! Anyone! Why does Shepard matter? If Star-Child wanted to do the synthesis thing, why did it wait until the Galaxy was almost ravaged? It could have done it whenever it wanted! It could have done it cycles ago, instead of killing everyone before they could reach the evolutionary peak it demanded. The whole damn thing makes absolutely no sense, which is why synthesis is such an unsatisfying end - We just haven't a damn clue what it actually is. Why is that? Because it's waaaaaay out there, it's closer to magic than mass effect has ever been. Everything else that's soft Sci-Fi in Mass Effect is related to Mass Effect technology and there's probably a few pages in the Codex about it, this is just a giant glowing tube that can permanently change all life in the galaxy in a really vague way and can also affect non-living things like Reapers, so basically it alters reality, so basically this thing is God.
evilthecat said:
Also, someone needs to explain to all those singularitarians how "living forever as a godlike machine" = "death". It might break a few hearts, but the truth must be heard!
I guess you are referring to the Control ending here? Well, yes, Shepard did die. He also just uploaded his brain into an AI or something. I mean, I guess that's what happened. All I actually saw was Shepard holding two metal things and then getting fried to a crisp and then in the next scene he's commanding the Reapers from some immaterial form. I have no idea what the causal relationship is between these two events but apparently they are linked. Or maybe there was a scene missing in the Extended Cut I watched. But yeah, Shepard is like... Ghost-Emperor of Space or something. I guess you could say that maybe he didn't die, but was granted immortality. I really shouldn't have to explain why that's an incredibly dumb ending for a series that is generally grounded in a speculative realism.
So maybe don't count that as a Shepard death. I assumed that he just copied his brain to lead the Reapers, which is a pretty tyrannical move.
This reminds me of something else - Since the destroy ending is stupid and randomly demands that I murder a species I've spent three games befriending, why wasn't I allowed to pick the control ending and then tell the Reapers to self-destruct? Or kill themselves, or fly into a sun or something? Because that is the first fucking thing my Shepard would do, I can tell you that. This is a guy who firmly believes that no one man should have the power to rule a country on his own, let alone command an army capable of razing the Galaxy to nothingness.
So I get Space Magic that ruins the consistency of the universe AND a narrative choice that destroys the morality of my character, ALL AT THE SAME TIME? Oh boy.
Haven't bothered getting the extended cut thing and I won't, it was fine as it was 