(Spoilers) Mass Effect 3 Ending is Evil

[elvor0]

Space magic? We accept lightsabers, matter beaming regularly, and in Mass Effect we accept mass relays, element zero, dark energy and biotics and we call the ending, the combined technology of countless millions of minds across millions of years, paired with the power of the ancient mass relays, "space magic?" That's where we suspend disbelief? Really?

Let's not forget Arthur C. Clark "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

In the end, Mass Effect 3 was tremendously enjoyable. No, it was not faultless early on and there are some horrible mistakes made by Bioware/Electronic Arts in regards to rushing and DLC, but the final product, viewed away from that context was, for me, a definitive modern RPG experience.

And, frankly, if you can hear the words "had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong" and you aren't affected by that, you have no soul. (Personally, I never got the next comment validly (had to watch it), but when Mordin screams "I made a mistake!" it was one of the hardest things I've seen in a game, realizing how conflicted his character really was.)

Well played, well played. You're bang on, obviously there were other ways of the story ending, but it was always going to be a choice machine. Your point about Shepard may be bad ass, but to say SHE was the only one capable of stopping the reapers at the very end after millions of years is hitting the nail on the head. She's not Superman, she's a damn good soldier and she gives people hope, but it was always about unity, about everyone coming together to stop the reapers.

And yeah, I mean seriously guns fire miniature black holes, and there's a radioactive rock that gives people the force, yet a highly advanced millions of years old machine race having a highly advanced weapon is silly? I mean come on. At least the crucible has a precedent to work by speculation(nanotech(Synth), highly advanced EMP(Destroy) or just taking over the reaper AI(control)), it's not /that/ far fetched when you take every other Sci Fi work into account, on the other hand the whole idea of the mass effect field is total troll science; a magic rock that lowers or raises the mass of an object through electricity? Get outta here. If we're talking suspension of disbelief Element Zero is fucking up there, they use it for absolutely everything in the ME universe, medicine, bullets, the force, armor plating, FTL travel, red sand, fucking toothbrushes.

Though they could've done more to hint at the existence of the Crucible before it just appeared in ME3.

 

[CloudAtlas]

So, WHY should i trust the catalyst on its theory that syntetics ALWAYS destory their creators? How is destroying both a better solution?

But you don't have to! You can choose Destroy! If you choose Destroy, organic and (future, new) synthetic life still exists, and without the Reapers, there is no all-powerful entity to prevent the destruction of organic life by synthetic life to happen in the future. You trust that organic life will find a way, that it's not bound to happen... or you leave worrying to future generations.

The Cayalyst say though that it is inevitable that synthetic life will want to wipe out all organic, yet it doesn't.

Its premise is faulty from the start because it doesn't want to wipe out all organic life.

Surely if it were inevitable then the best thing for it to do would be to fly the Citadel and the Reapers into the nearest sun. After all it knows organics have no chance to battle the Reapers, it could be the cause of the very thing it claims to be trying to stop.

In short as soon as you add the Catalyst itself as part of its equation as to why it harvests, the whole thing starts to fall apart.

The Catalyst saw synthetics wiping out organics, or at least attempting to, an unspecified number of times. We have to assume that it saw it happening often enough so as to come to the conclusion that it's always bound to happen with sufficient certainty. And since it's a highly intelligent VI, it's probably safe to assume as well that it knows at least as much about statistics as our present-day statisticians do.

Again, this does not mean that every synthetic race will always eventually wipe out organic life. The Geth do not even disprove that every synthetic species will always wipe out organics, as it could still happen in the future. Anyway, it's enough if there's a chance of it happening in any given instance. No matter how small this chance is, over time, the number of created synthetic species approach infinity, and thus the probability of one species of synthetics wiping out organics approaches 100%. That's just the laws of probability. And it's not just a hypothetical exercise: as we are told, it did happen in the past. And that's why the Catalyst's logic makes sense. It might not be perfect, but it definitely has a high degree of internal consistency. And it's solution of this problem is logical too, and it's also a solution that seems to work very well. It might just not be a very moral one.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Space magic? We accept lightsabers, matter beaming regularly, and in Mass Effect we accept mass relays, element zero, dark energy and biotics and we call the ending, the combined technology of countless millions of minds across millions of years, paired with the power of the ancient mass relays, "space magic?" That's where we suspend disbelief? Really?

One of these things are not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong.

But seriously, the difference is that lightsabers and the force or warp cores and transporters (or biotics and element zero for that matter) are all introduced in the beginning of the story, where the framework of their respective universes are still being set up. Introducing a machine in the 11th hour that doesn't seem to work within the established framework of the universe, with the transparent and specific purpose to solve the plot, is not comparable.

And the raison d'etre for the Reapers' existence is already foreshadowed in the Leviathan DLC, not just at the very end.

You can't retroactively foreshadow something. It just doesn't work that way.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Space magic? We accept lightsabers, matter beaming regularly, and in Mass Effect we accept mass relays, element zero, dark energy and biotics and we call the ending, the combined technology of countless millions of minds across millions of years, paired with the power of the ancient mass relays, "space magic?" That's where we suspend disbelief? Really?

One of these things are not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong.

But seriously, the difference is that lightsabers and the force or warp cores and transporters (or biotics and element zero for that matter) are all introduced in the beginning of the story, where the framework of their respective universes are still being set up. Introducing a machine in the 11th hour that doesn't seem to work within the established framework of the universe, with the transparent and specific purpose to solve the plot, is not comparable.

The Crucible as "some kind of super weapon" is introduced in the very first hours of Mass Effect 3, you're repeatedly talking about it, and you gradually learn more about everything. The realization that something seems to be missing some time later, then you learn that indeed something is missing, something called the Catalyst, and when we learn that the Catalyst is actually the Citadel, and that it needs to be linked with the Crucible, we're still not back on Earth.

And how the Crucible&Catalyst actually work, they use well-established technology with the Mass Relays for transmission. The red beam of Destroy is not very different from EMP, something like "uploading" someone's consciousness in Control happened before, and Synthesis' admittedly fuzzy fusing of synthetic and organic life, well, it's not the first time something similar happened - look no further than Shepard herself.

Edit: elvor0 pretty much already said as much.

I'm not saying it's all executed perfectly, not at all. But to claim that everything just came out of nothing right at the end is simply factually untrue.

And the raison d'etre for the Reapers' existence is already foreshadowed in the Leviathan DLC, not just at the very end.

You can't retroactively foreshadow something. It just doesn't work that way.

I have to look at the story as it is now, and this story that includes all DLC, even though I know that this does not retroactively change anyone's experience with the game as it was released.

 

[votemarvel]

The Catalyst saw synthetics wiping out organics, or at least attempting to, an unspecified number of times. We have to assume that it saw it happening often enough so as to come to the conclusion that it's always bound to happen with sufficient certainty. And since it's a highly intelligent VI, it's probably safe to assume as well that it knows at least as much about statistics as our present-day statisticians do.

Again, this does not mean that every synthetic race will always eventually wipe out organic life. The Geth do not even disprove that every synthetic species will always wipe out organics, as it could still happen in the future. Anyway, it's enough if there's a chance of it happening in any given instance. No matter how small this chance is, over time, the number of created synthetic species approach infinity, and thus the probability of one species of synthetics wiping out organics approaches 100%. That's just the laws of probability. And it's not just a hypothetical exercise: as we are told, it did happen in the past. And that's why the Catalyst's logic makes sense. It might not be perfect, but it definitely has a high degree of internal consistency. And it's solution of this problem is logical too, and it's also a solution that seems to work very well. It might just not be a very moral one.

The Catalyst states it is inevitable.

If it is inevitable then eventually the Catalyst and the Reapers will attempt to wipe out all organics.

So the Catalyst's own logic suggests that it will eventually try to wipe out all organics because it is inevitable.

How can you not see the flaw in its argument?

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Synthesis' admittedly fuzzy fusing of synthetic and organic life, well, it's not the first time something similar happened - look no further than Shepard herself.

It is quite frankly not comparable. Shepard is the result of a several year-long medical experiment (but that whole Project Lazarus business was the weakest plot point in ME2). Synthesis is the result of the End-o-Matic 3000(tm) somehow being to detect living beings all over the Galaxy and instantly changing them at a molecular level. It's magic, introduced at the last moment, and makes no sense in the framework of the established "science" of the ME universe.

 

[votemarvel]

If you were in Shepard's position in real life, you'd do it. If you were standing on the deck of the Crucible, you would not agonize this long about the potential moral dilemma.

I would however spending more than a few moments wondering if I could trust the enemy leader on the methods to stop said enemy.

No in fact I wouldn't. I would assume the enemy leader was lying to me in an attempt to make me fail.

"You're an AI huh? So where's your core at?." Something along those lines is what I'd be asking.

 

[CloudAtlas]

The Catalyst states it is inevitable.

If it is inevitable then eventually the Catalyst and the Reapers will attempt to wipe out all organics.

So the Catalyst's own logic suggests that it will eventually try to wipe out all organics because it is inevitable.

How can you not see the flaw in its argument?

Look, I see what you're getting at, I do. And my beef is not with the people who point out the cracks in the reasoning of the Catalyst, but with those people who claim it doesn't make any sense at all and that's why it's all shit and everything.

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

Your argument above is entirely correct. Now one could argue that Reapers are not synthetic, but a mix, and maybe not life at all, but that would be beside the point, I think.
If we assume that the Catalyst's assessment of the problem is valid, and the solution to preemptively wipe out all life is valid too, that still leaves the question who should be the one implementing this solution. The Catalyst may have been faithful to its imperative so far, but a simple software error or something could change that, and as time approaches infinity, the likelihood of that happening approaches 1. To assume that this couldn't happen to oneself is nothing but hubris. And, yea, that's a good reason to destroy the Reapers at the end, other than the somewhat selfish desire not to be annihilated, and pretty much also the big drawback of the Control Ending.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Synthesis' admittedly fuzzy fusing of synthetic and organic life, well, it's not the first time something similar happened - look no further than Shepard herself.

It is quite frankly not comparable. Shepard is the result of a several year-long medical experiment (but that whole Project Lazarus business was the weakest plot point in ME2). Synthesis is the result of the End-o-Matic 3000(tm) somehow being to detect living beings all over the Galaxy and instantly changing them at a molecular level. It's magic, introduced at the last moment, and makes no sense in the framework of the established "science" of the ME universe.

It's probably pointless to argue. While fusion between synthetic and organic elements is not new, you're right that nothing resembling the precise way of how the two are fused has been introduced before, and it does look quite magical. It's not exactly my preferred ending either, and that's one of the reasons, and if that's too far removed from what else there is in the universe for your taste, that's just it.

 

[lapan]

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

But we have no way to confirm those observations. For all we know it could be entirely talking bullshit to us.

Yes, the ending doesn't leave us any other choices anyways, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

 

[Alarien]

The only solid "11th hour" or deus ex argument for ME3 that I've seen really is the one about synthesis. It is literally the only subject that only comes out at the very end. The Catalyst itself is the subject of the entire 3rd game, fully 1/3 of the series. By that very fact, any argument against the Catalyst itself being deus ex or 11th hour is downright silly. Destroy has been the subject since Mass Effect 1. Control is considered a subject throughout all of Mass Effect 3. Synthesis comes out at the very end.

Is that bad?

This is a matter of, again, perspective. If you feel that it's bad, fine. I don't. I personally dislike deus ex machina solutions, but I don't see synthesis as such since there are a few well established themes that make this feel far more inevitable as a solution. The first is the inevitability of conflict of synthetic vs. organic. (And, seriously, people need to stop with the Geth/Quarian OMGPROOF argument that this throws the logic all out of whack. As someone else pointed out, the direct observation of millions of years by the Reapers supports the inevitability argument. Anomalies do not prove the argument invalid. The Geth are an anomaly.) The second is the Catalyst. We've spent the entire game knowing "this thing must do something pretty awesome, but we have no idea what it is." So... it's ok for it to do what you expected (i.e. Destroy the Reapers), but it's not ok for it to do something you didn't quite expect. I thought "not quite sure what to expect" was actually a theme of pretty much every single conversation concerning the Catalyst's function throughout the entire game? For it to be ultimately capable of doing only one thing (i.e. destroy) which you expected all along, would be kinda sad development. The final theme, and this is one that I think has been kicking around since Mass Effect 1, is "why is this cycle different?" Why are we going to play out the final cycle (we know it's going to be the last one right?... right?) and how is it different from the countless failures that came before? Destroy and control are hardly revolutionary ideas. Certainly someone thought of them before. So... the difference is humans? That's pretty arrogant and would lead me towards the hatred I feel towards ethnocentric garbage I see in movies like Avatar and The Last Samurai. We're humans (American in the case of that goddawful Cruise movie), and we're just better than you, so we'll win this time! Wow, how... awful. So, it is Shepard? Is Shepard the savior? That would be pretty pathetic as well. Vast nth-illions of people have died to the Reapers, but we have Shepard who's going to pull it all off on his/HER own, because no one has ever tried to do this coalition building thing before and no one is that bad ass. Blah.

Synthesis, to me, works because it addresses the thing about "this cycle" that sets the cycle apart. It is the "new answer" that the starchild has been waiting for. Does that work for you? No? That's fine. It's a matter of opinion. For me, it felt perfectly reasonable and not a last minute rushed excuse for an answer. It also doesn't render Destroy or Control necessarily wrong. Mass Effect is inevitably about choice and regardless of the countless arguments about choice not playing a part in the series, you still get the choice at the end, for what you want.

This is also why I really wish they would drop the franchise now. Anything that occurs after the events of Mass Effect 3 must render a decision on the "canonical way" that the story ended. That would, to me, be the thing that ultimately renders all of the choices for each of our journeys through the game meaningless.

 

[Alarien]

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

But we have no way to confirm those observations. For all we know it could be entirely talking bullshit to us.

Yes, the ending doesn't leave us any other choices anyways, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

I meant to throw my thoughts into this ring earlier as well. Addressing the many arguments that boil down to "why the hell would we believe the starchild? Who knows if he's lying? Also, including the side argument/logic that Shepard is at the end choice and the Reapers can't stop him directly so the starchild is trying to subvert Shepard into choosing a specific path.

Basically, the counter argument is "why the heck would the starchild need to lie to Shepard?"

If you work on the assumption/argument that Shepard has reached the terminus and the Reapers feel a need to subvert him, that assumes that they have no way to simply STOP him. But that also flies in the face of the fact that Shepard was passed out, bleeding out on the floor of the Citadel "control room," not in contact or even view of the "win machine" and that some force, presumably the starchild brought him up. If the Reapers feared Shepard using the machine, the most effective thing for them to do would have been ... exactly nothing. He'd likely have died on the Citadel floor while the fleets died around him. The Reapers win again. Also, in control of the Citadel, the Reapers clearly have the ability to manipulate the very structure of the Citadel, as seen in all the shifting of walls. So... could they not have done that in a way to specifically bar Shepard from the control area, or just outright kill him/her?

No, the logical explanation is that the starchild wanted Shepard to access the machine in the end, as summed up by the very simple statement that we can continue to reference: "my solution will no longer work." Basically, he has stated that despite any steps backwards or slow down, Shepard/humanity/organic life's very presence on the control platform of a completed Crucible/Citadel machine indicates that, given the countless cycles over countless future eons (anyone remember the 100 monkeys, 100 typewriters, infinite time -> Shakespeare quote?) some race will eventually complete the Crucible/Citadel, possibly before the Reapers can stop it, and the solution of the Reapers will be rendered an ultimate failure.

Seeing this play out in the current cycle, and Shepard reaching nearly to the terminus (before collapsing in a dying haze) is the proof it needs that a "new answer" is required.

So, how does this suggest that, perhaps, the starchild is not simply lying? Well, why would it need to? If it could render Shepard a non-issue by not doing anything, or out right killing him, then why bother lying? Why bother bringing him to the win machine? The starchild has had his AI logic/answer proven an inevitable failure. Its mandate still exists, but it needs a new solution that it cannot come up with on it's own. There is no motivation here to lie to preserve the existing cycle solution. It simply has no need to do so. The starchild knows what the machine can do and it knows that each of these solutions are potentially going to be effective. It also knows that it cannot decide (or it would likely have already done so).

Now, we move into personal theory, the above is just a logic game. To me, at least, it's clear that the starchild/AI logic is incapable of having a correct answer to the synthetic/organic problem because it lacks full organic understanding/perspective. This was exactly the argument made throughout the entire 3rd game concerning the Geth. It was the entire arc of EDI's development. In the Mass Effect mythos, synthetic AI will seek to gain an understanding of what it means to be alive and it wants to gain organic perspective to help do that. The starchild lacks this. It needs an organic perspective to find the solution and Shepard represents that. It needs to fulfill it's mandate and it needs organic perspective. It needs Shepard to know the truth about the Catalyst, so lying makes absolutely no sense.

My $.02 on that subject, though the way I write, it's more like $1.50.

 

[CloudAtlas]

The argument of the Catalyst, that it's bound to happen that it's bound to happen that synthetics will wipe out organics at some point in the future has a lot of merit. It's internally consistent, and this assessment is based on empirical observation. It's also a hypothesis that cannot, by definition, be proven to be untrue, no matter how many people believe to have done so.
The solution to this problem, to sort of preemptively wipe out all advanced life, also makes sense, it's just pretty drastic - in particular from the point of view of those about to be 'harvested'.

But we have no way to confirm those observations. For all we know it could be entirely talking bullshit to us.

No, we don't. We have some evidence, but no definite proof. We just have to make a decision under uncertainty. What's bad about that?

Edit:

(a lot)

Interesting perspective. Always something new to learn, it seems.

 

[Animyr]

You don't have to accept the Catalyst's logic - you can shoot at it, or refuse to make a decision, and bear the consequences.

What I meant by "accepting the Illusive Man's argument resp. the Reaper's argument" was more, how should I say it, acceptance at a deeper, thematic level. With Control, you do, in the end, what the Illusive Man has always wanted from you, and what you have rejected all the time before. With Synthesis, you agree that there can be no peace between Synthetics and Organics and that's why the only solution (other than extinction) is to eradicate the distinction.

And you don't have to buy any of what the Catalyst tells you anyway. You can just do what you came to do in the first place - destroy Reapers, and be done with it. At any cost.

Yeah, I kinda lost the thread of my original statement. And it's clear you don't understand my point.

Let me retry. Throughout the game, both Shepard and the player are shown over and over that rational and friendly discourse can build a bridge over every gap presented to them. They can refuse to do that, of course, but that choice is almost always shown to be the bad one. The message is clear; as varied as life is, we?re not so different that we can?t get along. We?re only enemies if we choose to be.

Then the catalyst pops in and say "yeah, all that? Not true. You are enemies whether you like it or not.?

You already agreed that the theme of unity, as something that is both desirable and feasible, is omnipresent. So, yes or no...do you agree that the catalyst?s stance is utterly antithetical to that of the story at large? Because it is. And yet all four of the endings have Shepard, and thus the player, spinning on their heel and implicitly agreeing with the Catalyst, throwing out all of their struggles and experiences and acting on the grounds of a few lines of exposition. No ending has the player embracing the differences between life forms. You can only destroy or erase these variations, or let the catalyst destroy them for you.

The question of synthetic and organic life, what is life, what is sentience, and so on, I didn't feel that this stopped being part of the game after the Quarian-Geth conflict. It's just such a prominent one over the course of all 3 games.

In what sense? If you mean that ending the geth war didn?t resolve the issue for ever and ever, for all time, sure. But for the intents and purposes of the story at hand? It?s wrapped up pretty definitively. Either the two sides are reconciled, or one is completely gone. Either way, the conflict is over. Either the catalyst's problem doesn't exist, or his solution is unnecessary (we got rid of the problem ourselves, without reapers or the crucible).

Remember, the reapers don?t count here either. I already explained this. None of the races or conflicts we actually know and have interacted with are relevant! That leaves us with long-defeated synthetics in the distant past, and a theoretical synthetic race that doesn't even exist yet as the basis on which to base our ending decision.

As for my point about the problem disappearing, I was just pointing out that there are other issues. In fact, the Krogans are shown to be even more threatening to the galaxy than the geth, and the implication that your resolution of that issue is a temporary one is far stronger there then it is with the Geth, or any non-reaper synthetic. So if non reaper synthetics are the greatest threat to galactic peace, then why does the story present, at length and in depth, greater threats to galactic peace then non-reaper synthetics? This is what I mean when I say that the ending feels like it belongs in a different story.

Maybe it's not the pinnacle of storytelling, but how are you supposed to show events that happened many millions of years ago? And the raison d'etre for the Reapers' existence is already foreshadowed in the Leviathan DLC, not just at the very end.

Well, throughout the trilogy you discover evidence of the Prothean race everywhere you look. Their existence factors in the plot, the characters (Liara is a Prothean scholar, for instance) and the lore (prothean relics are very valuable). They take great pains to let you know these guys existed even if they?re long dead (and that?s before you meet Javik). Yet these synthetic wars, which the ending revolves around and which motivates our villain, get only a few lines of exposition. You see the discrepancy here?

And secondly, you could sidestep the issue of ?showing events that happened many millions of years? ago by not making the ending revolve around them in the first place. You know, keep the action focused on the story we actually just saw, not one that's only mentioned by a few times by minor characters? To say that it's "not the pinnacle of storytelling" is a huge understatement.

As for Leviathan, it's far too little far too late. The ending should have resolved the conflict put forward in the previous three games, not the conflict put forward in a small post-launch expansion.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

You can try all you want to justify the Catalyst in a vacuum, but that doesn't stop from not fitting in with the narrative. Its introduction is literally the point where the narrative collapses in on itself. It conflicts in every way the previous portrayal of the Reapers, it creates plot holes in its relation to ME1, and it robs Shepard and by extension the player of any agenda, reducing both to simple battery deliverymen, that are only allowed to "win" as an act of charity.

Now, we move into personal theory, the above is just a logic game. To me, at least, it's clear that the starchild/AI logic is incapable of having a correct answer to the synthetic/organic problem because it lacks full organic understanding/perspective. This was exactly the argument made throughout the entire 3rd game concerning the Geth. It was the entire arc of EDI's development. In the Mass Effect mythos, synthetic AI will seek to gain an understanding of what it means to be alive and it wants to gain organic perspective to help do that. The starchild lacks this. It needs an organic perspective to find the solution and Shepard represents that. It needs to fulfill it's mandate and it needs organic perspective. It needs Shepard to know the truth about the Catalyst, so lying makes absolutely no sense.

But if you actually offer any other perspective than what it restricts you to (although the only counter-"argument" Shepard is allowed to make is very unimpressive), it kills everyone anyway out of what can only be described as petty spite, and you get a glorified game-over.

 

[CatComixzStudios]

I have actually studied the endings in more detail than was probably needed, and figured out alot of the remaining things that still bother me, even after the extended cut. I even made my own versions of the endings because I'm a diehard fanboy with no life and an unnatural love of this series.

I've been waiting for a chance to break this baby out. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wC-nAKzqvQnQli8Py5busUkYFiHQmfEXVIxzZ457GHY/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Alarien]

Animyr, I don't follow your unity argument. First off, the argument you present is really only valid insofar as it addresses organic races, however, I think you missed a major point that all that unity stuff and using discourse to bridge gaps is really only valid in the context that the game presents it and the game presents it in the context of universally perceived assured total annihilation. So, given the context of "we're all going to die," then it is possible for species to overcome their differences and achieve some form of general united purpose. Organic life needs an Catalyst (pun, sorry) for your the unity theme of Mass Effect to be valid.

However, the argument is countered when the Reapers are not a looming presence. The presence of the terminus systems, the First Contact War, the Skillian Blitz, the Human-Batarian conflict and the subsequent secession of the Batarians from the Council are all things that indicate that, given a different context, conflict is going to be part of the norm. I don't even think we need to put this into context of the Mass Effect world to see the validity of this argument. We can just look at our own news.

Further, trying to bring this to the main theme of Mass Effect 3, that of organic-synthetic conflict, we have only the direct observation of the Geth. However, keep in mind that no matter how paragon you were and how well you ended the Geth-Quarian crisis, you had to either commit a form of genocide OR a form of mass brain-washing to see it through to that "happy" conclusion. We cannot forget the events of Mass Effect 2 and the Geth - Heretic internal conflict. This suggests that an entire mindset that was counter to that of the main Geth as well as organic life could not be simply fixed via discourse. It had to be eliminated entirely, via one means or the other.

Maybe I'm just seeing your argument wrong, but I don't think Mass Effect was ever leading us to the conclusion that unity was even a realistic goal. It happened in this cycle only by huge effort and strength of character and in the context of impending doom, but even then it wasn't fully achieved. Not everyone agrees to help, no matter what you do (much of the Salarians, in my game). Not everyone can be cajoled or coerced into helping (Geth Heretics). Even internally, humanity couldn't get it together (Cerberus). I don't think unity as a final solution was ever going to be some form of goal for the game or series, so the fact that it is not part of the finale choices, other than the outcome of Shepard's journey and who joined him in the final battle, doesn't really impact the story to me.

Umm, Blachman...

I won't argue that the Catalyst appearing in ME3 creates some prior plot holes. Yeah, it does, because it wasn't part of the original narrative. I assume you know what the original narrative and ending were about, so I won't recount it, but in my own opinion (and I really like Drew Karpyshyn, a lot) the original ending was just plain bad. It was too dark, too depressing, and the final choice would have rendered much of the game and any replays with a certain hopelessness. I like hope in my games, even if it's just an illusion. I'm ok with the Catalyst. It creates dark, relatively bright, open, or even somewhat off-the-wall ending possibilities. So there are a few plot holes. NONE of them are particularly earth-shattering.

It does not collapse the narrative for me, it seems to follow just fine. It does not rob me of Shepard's agenda. I fail to see how it does that. I always felt that, in the face of the Reapers, Shepard was just going to be a form of deliveryman, rather than the anti-Reaper Rambo. His agenda seems clear in all 3 games: find a way to stop the Reapers, do his best to see that that way succeeds. That's an agenda and it follows in all 3 games.

And yes, if you choose to do nothing or shoot the starchild in the head, the Reapers win. Of course they win, this cycle. The reason is that the cycle will be preserved for the time being, but the observation of the progression of organic resistance to the Reapers has already shown that, eventually, the situation will occur again, with a new "Shepard" at the win machine and, eventually, one of these Shepards will choose. The cycles will continue until an organic representative makes the choice that needs to be made. It doesn't have to be Shepard, it's just that Shepard is the final proof and the first faced with the choice. I don't see what your argument is here.