mdqp said:
SS2Dante said:
First of all, Shepard is not 'indoctrinated' in the way everyone seems to think. The way I've described it to others is that the Reapers have found a crack in the armour, and are trying to worm their way in. 'Mild' describes the state Shepard is at roughly, but I'd class it as 'mild mild' at the start of the game unless you kept the collector base. If Shepard was as bad as you think, he'd no longer want to harm the reapers. That's the first step in anyone who I'd class as actually indoctrinated. It begins with wanting to control or use them, then moves to full submission when the process is complete.
And no, I am not. It has ALWAYS been my position indoctrination is the opposite of a binary state (please read back and you will see this). If it was binary then the whole theory would fall apart. In fact, I just read the quote you cited. I said exactly this. Did you misread?
Nor did I say it reads indoctrination at a binary state. I said that YOUR argument says this. I argue that anyone who has been around reaper tech is at least SLIGHTLY indoctrinated (mild mild mild), and therefore since you say it should have picked up Shepard, it also should have picked up the squadmates, who fly around with a reaper IFF. It did not, therefore it must have a cutoff point of indoctrination. Binary, says your argument.
You misread (or didn't explain yourself properly): you said that the VI can't read low level indoctrination, so this means that you are saying that the VI reads it as binary (either is high and it sees it, or not), this, despite the nature of the indoctrination, as you presented it (you are assuming that the VI reads it at the exact level that fits with your idea, neither more or less sensitive). You are saying mild, but your Shepard is seeing ghosts, having nightmares, and in the end imagines a whole unreal experience, which speaks of something more than mild (and if it is mild, than the ending has no meaning, because Shepard could still fight the indoctrination. It has to be a turning point, necessarily close to the edge, for it to be meaningful, at least in the mind of Shepard). If you claim that the indoctrinaction works at distance and develops this quickly over such short periods, I don't know what to say.
SS2Dante said:
Actually there are two ideas about this. Someone had a look at this and was wondering why the Reaper didn't target the Normandy. You are stationary and well within range, with an open hatch. It's incredibly odd that the Reaper attacked the shuttles when it could have attacked the Normandy (and I imagine every reaper knows the normandy

). This would imply the Reapers know what they are doing to Shepard, and so deliberately attacked the shuttle. This seems less easy to believe than the other idea, that Shepard knew there was no way in hell a small shuttle could fly away from the Reaper standing over it. I think we ALL knew what was happening to that shuttle.
Probably the Reapers targeting can't find the stealth vehicle Normandy, especially considering the whole hell going on out there. If they had a clear shot, they would have simply killed you, if they have a minimum degree of intelligence. We don't know anything about what the Reaper could target, or what could happen before it fires, not in such a scenario (I actually thought that one of the shuttle would have managed to escape, for example). I don't believe that subconscious plays seer.
SS2Dante said:
The child is the human personification of Shepards hopelessness and despair. Shepard is unaware the child is not real. Having the child on Thessia would be downright admitting the child is a ghost. After that it loses all power, both to Shepard and to the player. We ARE NOT MEANT to figure this out on our first playthrough. And yes I am aware I am presenting my ideas as facts, but since I assume you've all read the article you know my stance. It would be incredibly tedious to have to repeat my basic premise every time. I'm doing enough repeating as it is.
But I didn't speak about the child. I am telling that he has no visions outside of the dreams of anything unusual, after Earth, for a long time (if we believe your theory). Why would it stop at that? Why he can't have some visions of Turians or Asari? Why doesn't he get other symptoms? It doesn't look like the indoctrination is doing its job, most of the time. Only by playing detective, one gets a certain amount of (arguable) hints, and even those are open to debate.
SS2Dante said:
Speaking of repeating, this question. I've answered this at least 7 times by now. You may not be aware of this, but the only other variable that decides your ending is whether or not you kept the collector base. Now, my premise has always been, as you stated, that the more powerful your army the more force is in the indoctrination, and the more hope you have (hence the surviving under red ending with enough WA). Therefore, on the lowest score of EMS, they are barely trying at all, and you are hopeless. In this state, it defaults down to Shepard's original choice at the end of ME2. If you already began the process of control (keeping the base), control is what you get. If you destroyed it, destroy is the only option you get (fight a losing battle). I want to point out that the fact this is another place the theory could have been broken. If it had been ANY other choice that influenced this situation it wouldn't fit. Instead, we default to essentially the same choice we had in the previous game.
Why would you be hopeless, if they aren't trying? What, Shepard can gauge perfectly the chances of his winning the reapers (that should always be 0, unless the prothean final weapon works), and gets depressed because of it? The in-game mechanic is one thing, but I don't think Shepard does it with this in mind (it's always a desperate attempt). Plus, you are arguing that only by getting all possible endings one can gather enough infos to make an educated guess about the meaning of the game? That isn't sound writing. There are only three options, and synthesis is usually high on the points you need to make, the fact that the game defaults to control or destroy means nothing, it's just a connection with the previous game.
Now, given any higher war assets, we always have both the control and fight, regardless of our collector base choice. This makes perfect sense with IT, but not with the literal ending.
SS2Dante said:
You've accused me of changing my stance twice here. On the first occasion you are patently wrong, and on the other you have either misunderstood or are mistaken. You have an entire thread to look through for proof that this has been my consistant stance. I feel like I need to make a graph of what I expect the endings to be. (by the way, the guides that have given me the endings I have used to justify my theories predictions are rather broken and incomplete. If you can show me any ending at all (there are 16) that doesn't match my theory, it is broken.
You wrote this, and it seems to me that it contraddicts the facts, and your position later on (if I misread/misunderstood, I apologize):
"Ah, right, sorry, had this conversation before with other, people, keep forgetting which bits I've talked about with whom. There is only one situation my theory says that you could not get the option for blue. Apart from this I agree, blue should always be a choice. The one time you don't get blue should be at low EMS, having saved the collector base. This is the only situation where your Shepard has willpower and they are not actively trying to indoctrinate you. Conversely, if you kept the Collector base, you've got low willpower, so you should only get the blue ending."
SS2Dante said:
The Phantom Menace was a bad film. This was a good game. It was a GREAT game. That's why the ending is so odd and out of place. If the writers were that bad it would be reflected elsewhere. This is not what happened. Instead we have an incredibly well written, epic game, right up till the last few minutes. Everyone has a self-contradictory view of the writers. Either they are good, or they are awful. If they are good, even the most half cocked ending they had wouldn't be full of plot holes. It might be short and disappointing, but it would make sense. if they were bad, this would be reflected at some point other than the few minutes that contain the entirety of the plot errors. You are positing a theory that does not conform to the evidence at all.
I think we disagree on this being a great game, as I told you before, so I think it's easier to understand why I don't find your theory very likely. Also, I find the ending bad anyway, since it would mean that the authors decided to go on a self-indulgent ego-trip, without bothering to let you know what happens: do the Reapers win or lose? What happens to your crew? What happens to earth? What does the crucible do? Etc... It becomes a journey inside Shepard's mind, and it isn't even the full tour, but a short mix of his fears/hopes and the Reapers indoctrination. You don't know what Shepard will leave behind at all (since the Stargazer always appears, we must assume that your indoctrination doesn't affect the future events at all, making it completely pointless, leaving us in the dark as to what Shepard did to make it possible for the Reapers to lose. Furthermore, how can it be a story told to a child, if the last part happens in Shepard's mind? We have to make other assumptions, concerning the fact that we got to see Shepard's story, why the Stargazer only knows a part of it, but the way it is shown seems to imply that we were playing the story he was telling).[/quote]
(Quote fail

)
Ok, these will be my final posts, as I think you'll agree the arguments in most of this thread are reaching the point of becoming circular. And honestly my fingers are sore
Ok, I think we both agree about indoctrination being analogue rather than digital, somewhere our lines must have been crossed. What brought this up is you said the Prothean VI should have been able to tell Shepard was indoctrinated. I make no claim to know how much exposure is necessary for the VI to pick up on it, but it had no problem with 3 people who travel with a reaper artefact, and are therefore at least very slightly suffering indoctrination. This implies it is not foolproof, so I don't see a problem with it not picking up Shepard. By the way, as I tried to make clear, I think 'indoctrinated' as most people understand it manifests as a desire to help, or at least not harm, the Reapers. Anything before that I would not really class as indoctrinated (and as we've seen, the first stages do not manifest as that desire, but instead come in the form of odd mental episodes as described above). Perhaps we need another word, to prevent confusion.
The only two things we know about the Normandy's stealth systems is that they keep all heat inside, and that they do not render the ship invisible in the visible spectrum. Since the hatch was open and it's pretty likely Reapers can see the visible spectrum (Geth can, for example) I'm not sure how convincing I find the stealth argument. Still I admit, this is a scene in which we can do nothing but speculate, as interpretation is everything and solid evidence just doesn't exist
Because humanity is Shepards weak spot. The entire focus of the game is on retaking Earth, and Shepard is human, therefore the personification of Shepards fear and doubt is human. Having the child change species or whatever not only ruins the symbolism but it implies intelligence on behalf of Shepards subconscious. It's also important that the child only appears on Earth because this is the moment when Shepard is most vulnerable, watching his/her home being utterly destroyed. At least on Palaven and stuff the shock of the invasion had worn off. The only other point I can think of in the game that comes near this moment in terms of Shepards depression/weakness is Thessia, and in fact it's directly after Thessia that we have the conversation between Shepard and the LI, where Shepard is examining his/her N7 helmet and saying "I thought I heard it crack during that last fight", and during this scene the dream changes to the other Shepard hugging the child and them smirking at you as they burn.
I'm not saying Shepard can gauge the gradual differences, but can tell when there's no hope. Anyone playing the game knows that launching the invasion with minimum war assets is near suicide, so why shouldn't Shepard? It means you've failed in uniting the galaxy. Also, this is another point where people are ignoring seemingly arbitrary points and decisions (which do not exist any any game, period). The way the endings are carved up makes very little sense. It's basically random what choices you get. High war assets means you get synthesis, but why does it mean that? why does the decision involving the collector base only get involved at low war assets? Any why that particular decision? People keep claiming lazy/rushed design and I keep saying that this is the exact opposite of that. Lazy/rushed design would have all endings open all the time. The other variables already change the ending cutscene, so why have they also made them affect the choices you are presented? The truth is everyone is just shrugging their shoulders at this and murmuring about bad writing, but not actually answering.
I think we've both misunderstood at some points
Ok, but at that point we're arguing about ending quality, not ending discrepancies. Personally if IT turns out to be true I'm classing it as the best ending of any game I've ever seen, because it succeeds in the basic goal and strength of videogames as an art form - total immersion and interactivity. Besides which, if IT was right then this isn't the "end" anyway.
(by the way, about what the crucible does - the only explanation in the whole game (before the ending) is when the Prothean Vi says it enhances Dark Energy transmissions. This not only contradicts the literal ending but also ties into Tali's research project from 2. Apparently they dropped the Dark Energy storyline after the leak, but if so, why keep this line? And do not say no-one noticed, because they would have done.)
The Stargazer scene is a framing device. For all we know, Commander Shepard never existed, but this mans tale is just a mixture of various myths of his people. It calls into question absolutely everything in the story, so I don't see it as a point in anyones favour, literal or not.
Right, ok, I'm afraid I shan't be posting in this anymore (after I catch up with a few others), it's distracting me too much from work and stuff
So, it's been fun talking with you

(feel free to respond to this by the way, if you want to, but don't be offended that I don't reply

)