No, not really. If it really did end with Tom CruiseWoodsey said:
still stuck in the prison-container things,
The Citadel at the end of Mass Effect 3 (spoilers)
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See, this is just another thing that makes the Indoctrination theory more plausible. If you pick the destroy ending and The Citadel blows up, how is there any possibility of Sheperd being alive?
Considering how many bugs there are in the game(such as Ken and Gabby's conversations not triggering if Ashley is dead), I'd say that's what it is.Frankster said:
I don't know whether to be upset that I got a bug (afterall, if that choice bugged, what other choices bugged?), or thankful that her death was quick and painless. Ugh.Frankster said:
(Again, link please.)Zhukov said:
And true, poor wording: it makes sense of what is there, but I would then conclude that the ending is then incomplete, which then (if rumours are to be believed) leads on to a rather angry discussion about the prevalence of DLC, but at least means that otherwise decent writers created an intelligent and well-thought out sequence, and didn't take on the writing ability of a 5-year-old.
However, it does rely somewhat on what people interpret to be the main themes of the game (and as much as people like to insist otherwise, they won't be the same for everyone). I've always felt that the overarching plot has been as prevalent as the inter-personal plot elements, and so its poor writing to not conclude both. It might be that BioWare considers it to ultimately be about Shepard, which is why they went with that ending: because they felt it was his personal fight against the Reapers which was more important. Obviously this doesn't seem to be the majority opinion, but that doesn't mean its not a valid interpretation.
A similar thing happened with Lost: many viewers felt the show was more about the mysteries than the characters, whilst many others didn't. It turned out that the writers felt it wasn't, and so wrote an ending which was far more concerned with the characters.
If you really want to believe that parts of Shepard's nightmares started popping into the scenery only after Harbinger knocked him out because the level designer was rather absent-minded, and that Anderson was completely absent from the one corridor that led to the control panel at the Citadel (which the Reaper beam just happened to transport people directly to), whilst the Illusive Man - who was not on Earth near the Reaper beam or in the one corridor - managed to sneak up on Shep and Anderson completely without warning, and that the bullet Shepard shot Anderson with actually bounced off of Anderson's armour and went back into Shepard (which he only noticed after Anderson 'died'), then fine. (Oh, and the fact that you see Shepard wake up in London if you max out your war assets or something like that.)
But you're ignoring a hell of a lot just so that you can say "no, they've lost all ability to write anything with any coherency and the ending is completely literal".
Well, the ending shows Shepard's eyes become like TIM's if you pick control or synthesis, so I can see some validity in it. As well, pulling out an indoctrination mechanic doesn't necessarily mean they pulled out the entire idea. The fact Bioware will neither confirm nor deny IT, I think, heavily suggests that it was involuntary.Zhukov said:
My biggest complaint with IT is that it would mean that Bioware withheld the ending to sell later as DLC - as well as already selling a vital part of the story as DLC already with Arrival.
If the end of Mass Effect 3 is an indoctrination story arc, the beginning was already sold as DLC and they had planned to extort the ending of that arc as additional DLC. Without these 2 DLCs, Mass Effect 3 still fails to deliver even assuming IT is true.
The 2nd imo. Bullet to the head is a mercy compared to what the reapers would have done. Had the ending taking account of your previous actions, you'd likely have found her body amongst the others in the ruined citadel.Tuesday Night Fever said:
And it's not like she gets any new dialogue after thanking you for making her change her name.
She just stays at the docks and repeats the same line over and over...
And yeh these types of bug seem to be common, had one happened to me aswell: my game thinks I've done the arrival and overlord DLC when I've done neither (only DLC i bought was kasumi) so was really confused when my sheperd met dr archer and acted like a judgemental prick over how he treated his brother. Only later did I understand what the fuss was about xD
According to a bioware twitter feed, like someone earlier mentioned, everyone that didnt manage to evacuate from the citadel in time are dead. Note the lack of details in that statement.
Its fairly clear a lot of people are dead, but the "evacuate" possibility leaves the door open for speculation on who actually survived. Bailey? Aethyta? The councillors?
I wont even list Conrad Verner as a possible fatality because if he died the universe would implode. If anything, he probably donned his Shepard N7 replica armor and helped evacuate as many as possible before the reapers took over the place. Coming dlc content, right there!
In the end, its all speculation to state who exactly survived and who exactly died. All Bioware seems willing to confirm is that maybe not -every- single soul you get to know on the citadel bought it. Maybe.
As for the citadel debris hitting earth as mega debris and causing destruction the reapers would be jealous off: Also speculation.
I've yet to see the citadel completly disintegrate into tiny bits, no matter the ending you choose(yes, you see large explosions and some of the arms flap about, but you dont see the entire station blowing up). Reason states that because Shep can actually survive, ON the citadel, it is still -somewhat- intact. If it would disintegrate into pieces, burn through earths atmosphere and hit the surface with the force of a million nukes, it would be fairly certain death even for Shep. I'd like to see him/her draw breath after such an impact.
Perhaps citadel debris is just flying around in orbit, although im not an expert on gravity and I dont if such huge objects would be sustained in orbit or if they're close enough to plummet into Earth's atmosphere. I dont know if some of the citadel's considerable mass effect fields are still functioning(which we know can suspend very large things in orbit) or if the explosions propell parts of the citadel away from earth or into earth.
And there isnt a whole lot to know, because we arent given a whole lot of information. So its ridicilously hard to draw any solid conclusions. Maybe that's intended in Bioware's mess of an ending, so we could write our own headcanon to fill things out the way we want them to. Who knows? Well, maybe Chris Priestly and co. knows, but who else?
Its fairly clear a lot of people are dead, but the "evacuate" possibility leaves the door open for speculation on who actually survived. Bailey? Aethyta? The councillors?
I wont even list Conrad Verner as a possible fatality because if he died the universe would implode. If anything, he probably donned his Shepard N7 replica armor and helped evacuate as many as possible before the reapers took over the place. Coming dlc content, right there!
In the end, its all speculation to state who exactly survived and who exactly died. All Bioware seems willing to confirm is that maybe not -every- single soul you get to know on the citadel bought it. Maybe.
As for the citadel debris hitting earth as mega debris and causing destruction the reapers would be jealous off: Also speculation.
I've yet to see the citadel completly disintegrate into tiny bits, no matter the ending you choose(yes, you see large explosions and some of the arms flap about, but you dont see the entire station blowing up). Reason states that because Shep can actually survive, ON the citadel, it is still -somewhat- intact. If it would disintegrate into pieces, burn through earths atmosphere and hit the surface with the force of a million nukes, it would be fairly certain death even for Shep. I'd like to see him/her draw breath after such an impact.
Perhaps citadel debris is just flying around in orbit, although im not an expert on gravity and I dont if such huge objects would be sustained in orbit or if they're close enough to plummet into Earth's atmosphere. I dont know if some of the citadel's considerable mass effect fields are still functioning(which we know can suspend very large things in orbit) or if the explosions propell parts of the citadel away from earth or into earth.
And there isnt a whole lot to know, because we arent given a whole lot of information. So its ridicilously hard to draw any solid conclusions. Maybe that's intended in Bioware's mess of an ending, so we could write our own headcanon to fill things out the way we want them to. Who knows? Well, maybe Chris Priestly and co. knows, but who else?
Here you go. Not maybe what you originally wanted to find out but it explains why the ending appears (Hint: It doesnt just appear, it is) very badly written. Some are stretching the meaning of ''badly written'' but most follow the cold hard logic of watching what is considered good writing.Woodsey said:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/preview?pli=1&sle=true
There is a reason people find the Indoctrination theory plausible. Not only do the ''evidence'' support it but people really, really do not want the series to end this way.
If Bioware really is masterminding this whole meta-ending thingamajig, good for them. If not well guess what? The fandom has a found a plausible fire exit that Bioware can use to regain some of their PR, they can just claim it WAS their idea all along and we most likely cant know for sure if they are telling the truth or not.
In any case how i see it, Bioware has nothing to lose and only to gain if they use the Indoctrination theory, no matter if it was their original planning all along.
For the note, i dont necessarily support the Indoc theory, i only see it as a ''Save-yourself-from-jail-card'' if they decide to go through with it. I rather they ereased everything after Shepard gets LAZ0R'D and come up with something better. Maybe actually using one of their original endings instead of constructing this frankenstein ending out of various ones they had planned.
Whilst listing lazily to the left to avoid a discussion about the ending, I do have this to say: Bioware still created a great game (albeit not as good as ME2 in my opinion), but yes, the ending was lazy and disappointing. However, I think that saying "yeah...Shep was indoctrinated" is even lazier, as it adds the whole 'it was all a dream' scenario. I'm all for a 'sad' ending...but the way it was portrayed just wasn't great. Saying that...I don't know what I want them to do to rectify it. I'm not sure if I'd rather them release DLC saying that Shep was indoctrinated, or if I'd rather they release an alternate ending...maybe one in which your decisions actually matter. I don't know.
ANYWAY ON TOPIC
I imagine everyone did die....I imagine that most people in the galaxy died to be honest. Apart from the crew of the Normandy, who now have to repopulate on whatever planet that was they landed.
On another note, I still can't get my head around how the Citadel works. Can someone explain? Am I missing something? Obviously it has artificial atmosphere and gravity, that's simple, but are there buildings and whatnot on all of the...sticky-out-bits? The bits that close? Surely this would mean that if you were standing on one and looked up, you'd see the opposite one above you? I'm aware that I'm probably being stupid here, but I don't get it.
ANYWAY ON TOPIC
I imagine everyone did die....I imagine that most people in the galaxy died to be honest. Apart from the crew of the Normandy, who now have to repopulate on whatever planet that was they landed.
On another note, I still can't get my head around how the Citadel works. Can someone explain? Am I missing something? Obviously it has artificial atmosphere and gravity, that's simple, but are there buildings and whatnot on all of the...sticky-out-bits? The bits that close? Surely this would mean that if you were standing on one and looked up, you'd see the opposite one above you? I'm aware that I'm probably being stupid here, but I don't get it.
That link doesn't take me to anything. And I've said as much earlier: whether they intended it or not doesn't matter. What's there has more than enough to sign-post the IT interpretation, making it intelligent and thematically and narratively cohesive, even if, in reality, it was blind-luck.BlindWorg said:
EDIT: Scratch that, yes it does. And yeah, this is what I've already said. If you don't agree with the IT then you have to willfully ignore a mountain of evidence and be willing to accept that otherwise decent writers lost their fucking minds for the last 10 minutes of the series.
The link I was asking for was when Zhukov said that BioWare had said they had plans for an indoctrination gameplay piece, but it didn't work when they came to try it, and that this somehow meant the whole IT was untrue. Now it seems more likely to me that they took the same concept and just applied it different; I asked for the link because he seems convinced that them not being able to get it to work in that way means they dismissed it completely.
"It was all a dream" endings are only really problematic if they're pulled out of nowhere. There was already a precedent for it in ME with Saren and the Illusive Man.JWRosser said:
It's also a source of some major plot holes. What happened to Bailey? To the Council? What about the many people on the Citadel? That part was never mentioned, and it bothers me that it was not deemed important in th final conclusion to mention the fates of some of th very importan characters of the game. Aria? Her domain? Purgatory? Where was that?
earth must have been completely destrpyed, along with the fleet in every ending but the control one
remember the mass relay blew up which would destroy the solar system, but also so did the citadel which is a gigantic uber relay, i imagine that would cause a bigger explosion
not to mention all mass relays blew up and most races home planets were in the same system as their mass relays, meaning palaven is also destroyed
remember the mass relay blew up which would destroy the solar system, but also so did the citadel which is a gigantic uber relay, i imagine that would cause a bigger explosion
not to mention all mass relays blew up and most races home planets were in the same system as their mass relays, meaning palaven is also destroyed
I was half convinced that it was gonna be the Keepers who ended up being Reaper spies, and they were the ones that made it possible.
Strange how they weren't killed.
Strange how they weren't killed.
According to the Codex of the first Game, the Citadel doesn't generate its "gravity" by mass effect fields but rather by rotating. At the end, the citadel isn't rotating. So no centrifugal force to stand in as Gravity, so any survivors of whatever happened on the Citadel would just flow to a "height" of 7 meters (which is, according to the Codex, the height breathable Atmosphere is maintained, higher Buildings have to have their own Protection against the vacuum), and then suffocate.
But then, since Bioware told us that Mass Relays explode in a Way that will destroy the entire Star System it wouldn't matter much. One could argue that these Explosions where different somehow and one may also argue that the starsystem erasing Explosion in "arrival" would be BS since the Mass Relay in the Solar System was somehow encased in enough Mass that this mass collapsed into a Sphere. Waaaaayyyyyy more Stress on anything then a big Rock colliding.
Whatever. In any case, the People on the Citadel would be rather inconsequential. I'd argue it would be next to impossible to create a "happy" Ending since pretty much every City on every Planet is in Ruins. 13.7 million more are dead? Boring!
But then, since Bioware told us that Mass Relays explode in a Way that will destroy the entire Star System it wouldn't matter much. One could argue that these Explosions where different somehow and one may also argue that the starsystem erasing Explosion in "arrival" would be BS since the Mass Relay in the Solar System was somehow encased in enough Mass that this mass collapsed into a Sphere. Waaaaayyyyyy more Stress on anything then a big Rock colliding.
Whatever. In any case, the People on the Citadel would be rather inconsequential. I'd argue it would be next to impossible to create a "happy" Ending since pretty much every City on every Planet is in Ruins. 13.7 million more are dead? Boring!
They probably will follow up by saying it was all indoctrination just to save their own hides at this point.Tank207 said:
There is a lot of "evidence" to support the theory, so whether or not they intended this I don't think we've seen the end of it just yet.