The Final Choice In Mass Effect 2 Is Horseshit: A Diatribe

[NicotineStainedSoul]

I just finished mass effect 2 for the first time tonight, and I struggled with the final decision. It did seem that my first choice playing as a renegade character (after all the pushing people out of windows, punching people and just generally being a badass) would be to say f**k it, blow it to hell like ive done with every situation thus far. and it seemed strange to me that doing so would be a paragon choice.

But, when you think about cerberus, they will use anything, no matter how potentially dangerous... even EDI was made from things salvaged from the remains of sovereign and while that didnt turn out badly, imagine them with the technology to enslave entire civlisations stolen from the collectors. With the intentions of cerberus, delivering anything into their waiting arms while it might prove very effective at fighting the reapers would ultimately be used for worse. Once the reaper threat is annihilated, what will cerberus then do with the technology to enslave and destroy whoever they wanted? especially with their xenophobic views. I hardly think the illusive man would then put it on the shelf and say "job done". They would use that technology, how would they be able to resist using it for selfish ends.

 

[zHellas]

Weighty Snip

It's fine. I just asked what your point was because I honestly couldn't tell.

 

[Thanatos5150]

There's a flaw in your argument. Cerberus is the only organization that can copy the IFF and reach the base to begin with. By the time the Alliance or council could also produce them (assuming you give the original to them) Cerberus would have the area completely secured and keep everyone else out.

I don't remember anything about them copying the IFF. I know they found it, but after that all the original people on the Reaper corpse was, well turned into Husks.

The only one that was able to make any sense of the thing was EDI.[/quote]

Wrong. (Paragon ending assumed here. Potential Spoilers. You have been warned.)
Commander Shepard is the only guy with the IFF, and the ability to use the IFF. The Illusive Man is no longer capable of contacting the Normandy the second Shepard tell his crew to shut the transmitter down. Shepard is the only man holding Joker's loyalty. Joker is the only pilot badass enough to make it through that debris field. The Normandy is the only ship with those badass shields that LET Joker through the Debris field. If all else fails, the Normandy is also the only ship with EDI for point-and-data perfect piloting through.

There should be no reason Shepard has to default to Cerberus. None. The ONLY thing that Cerberus has over any other organization is they know where the Omega-Nine relay leads, and already believe Shepard, but they're still kids on Halloween asking for candy. They get no preferential treatment.

 

[DarkLordofDevon]

The most irritating part is that isn't the black and grey morality you see elsewhere in the game that leads to hard decisions. This isn't even a Black and White/Paragon and Renegade decision. This is a logical/illogical choice. With the palettes switched.

Now tell me I'm right so I feel better about myself.

The problem isn't just using the technology. It's giving the technology to CERBERUS. CERBERUS, the people who experimented with Rachni, Thorian Creepers and other monsters which they ALL FAILED TO CONTROL.
Even if they did control it, Cerberus is now the most powerful entity in the galaxy since they can build Reapers. Imagine how that will go post-Reaper war.

 

[archvile93]

There's a flaw in your argument. Cerberus is the only organization that can copy the IFF and reach the base to begin with. By the time the Alliance or council could also produce them (assuming you give the original to them) Cerberus would have the area completely secured and keep everyone else out.

I don't remember anything about them copying the IFF. I know they found it, but after that all the original people on the Reaper corpse was, well turned into Husks.

The only one that was able to make any sense of the thing was EDI.

Wrong. (Paragon ending assumed here. Potential Spoilers. You have been warned.)
Commander Shepard is the only guy with the IFF, and the ability to use the IFF. The Illusive Man is no longer capable of contacting the Normandy the second Shepard tell his crew to shut the transmitter down. Shepard is the only man holding Joker's loyalty. Joker is the only pilot badass enough to make it through that debris field. The Normandy is the only ship with those badass shields that LET Joker through the Debris field. If all else fails, the Normandy is also the only ship with EDI for point-and-data perfect piloting through.

There should be no reason Shepard has to default to Cerberus. None. The ONLY thing that Cerberus has over any other organization is they know where the Omega-Nine relay leads, and already believe Shepard, but they're still kids on Halloween asking for candy. They get no preferential treatment.[/quote]

Renegade, you fucked up and dies ending shows several Cerberus Vessels aproaching the base while the Illusive man watches from his holagram. Also, if Cerberus was incapable of reaching the base why would they care about it at all? The shields your ship has are not prototypes, any ship could have them with adequate funding. Joker only went through the debris field because the ship was under attack, with the collectors dead I doubt those Oculus drone would be a problem, assuming they're still active. The IFF is what allows the pin point acurracy necessary to survive the trip, not EDI.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

I'm one of the few insane people who thinks that was actually a good part of the story, for reasons contained within this huge post;

Spoiler: Long and not entirely relevant to this thread

Many people have wondered why the Reapers constantly allow civilizations to build itself up, only to swiftly destroy it. There are many theories as to why. You could think that the Reapers are just using organics as a food source, but arguably there are easier ways to cultivate and sustain organic food than allowing civilizations to constantly evolve and then fall. Rather I think they do it because the Reaper's culture involves preserving the most advanced and valuable species for eternity as Reapers. Reapers are not one single species, but rather a combination of all species ascended into a higher form of life. The best the galaxy has ever produced, all united under one banner.

The Reapers were not just trying to build any ordinary Reaper. They wanted to build a Human Reaper. Not to lead a massive attack against the Citadel, but rather becuase this is the Reaper's culture. They believe Humans are the species with the greatest potential. If they were just trying to build a generic Reaper, they could have used any species. Arguably it would be a lot easier to target something other than human colonies. But they specifically wanted to turn humans into the Reapers. Think about Harbinger's dialogue. He refers to the process of turning humans into genetic paste to fuel the larva's growth as "ascension". Why use that word in particular? Why not call it "assimilation"? Or "consumption"? "Ascension" implies that they are raising humans to be what they consider to be a higher form of life. They see value in humans.

But what about Sovereign? He didn't seem to like organics at all. Why turn them into Reapers. Well I believe that the Reapers may have considered the current organic "crop" to be a failure, not worthy of being turned into Reapers. This could be for a number of reasons. I think it's because the galaxy had a very diverse category of sentient lifeforms, with no one species appearing to be dominant. The Protheans appeared to be the undisputed rulers of the galaxy at the time of their downfall. This is the Reapers idea of the perfect organic race to harvest. One species that follows their predetermined line of technological advancement, rather than a handful of species that all do so at the same time. So the Reapers were all set to just wipe every race out and start from scratch. What changed this? Well humans killed a Reaper. The game often alludes to the idea that by killing a Reaper, we grabbed their attention. To delay the extinction cycle and kill a powerful Reaper in the process would probably interest them. So Harbinger now thinks that humans are worthy of ascension into the ultimate life form.

If you're wondering why they didn't do this to the Protheans, it's because the Prothean Reaper failed. Instead they turned them into the Collectors, so that they would still serve a purpose.

In short; Reapers wanted to create a Human Reaper for cultural reasons, not military strength.

That's consistent when you take a few pieces of evidence...

Spoiler: Response, but a massive spoiler as well.

Legion asserts that the Reaper known as Sovereign was a composite entity of thousands of minds working as a collective. It's possible that a Reaper is a kind of hive mind constructed of the minds of an entire civilisation. Add in to this that the concept art for the human Reaper showed it being a part of a regular Reaper:

and it's likely that the human reaper is actually the norm for Reapers. Perhaps Sovereign was 'anonymised' so that no one would realise what it was or maybe Sovereign's parent species just doesn't look like anything we'd recognise.

What the hell is Sovereign? Im glad someone finally addressed the question. If all reapers are based on an organism that sovereign squid thing was weird as. I think that they take the most promising race and collect it into a hivemind by which they become a higher form of life or "multiple platforms" as legion puts it. Protheans was no contest but the humans and the other species squabbled and faught for dominance, a councel being the least usefull thing to decide which species is strongest. Would soveriegn not have used the turians? He did select one as his representative and at the end his avatar.

Harbinger actually gives reasons for not using the other species to create the Reaper. You rarely hear them though, since they are just a part of his mad babbling that you're to busy to listen to since he's lobbing energy balls at you. He says that Turians are "to primitive". Not entirely sure what that means, though it could refer to their culture, biology, or something else. What really matters though is that he thinks humans are the best, which is probably because of our rapid technological advancement and Shepard's Reaper slaying powers.

Mordin kind of addresses why humans are special: genetic diversity. As he has observed, there are, in statistical terms, a mean and standard deviation for expected traits and abilities in organics in the galaxy. Almost all species are clustered around the mean, meaning that you can predict what a species, for example, biotic abilities are fairly accurately just because they belong to that particular race. Humans, on the other hand, may have lower innate abilities on average but we possess vast differences in ability, a high standard deviation. This means we have the potential to be a lot higher than the other races in abilities.

Edit: The choice system isn't Good/Evil. It's Mother Teresa/Harry Callahan. No matter what you do, you almost always, for lack of a better phrase, "doing the right thing." The only difference is whether you save them or slay them.