Quote from: Spike;557690Which I think is the killer. If the game built to the nihilistic* ending, with some sort of thematic 'enjoy what you can in the face of obvilion' theme, then while it would be a hard sell to people, that might actually be fine, if unpopular. On the other hand we have instead a late addition McGuffin ( the Crucible) that you have to activate at the end, and it restricts you to three versions of I Win that happen to, almost as an afterthought, contradict the rest of the series
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And the Crucible plot point continues this, a weapon built every cycle, improved every cycle, the plans passed along by each failed generation to the next, saying 'We can do this'... of course, at the end its all fucked by the Star-Child and the Three Colors of Stupidity (seriously: You die if you chose Destruction because when you shoot the switch it blows up. Something you know it will do thanks to a flash-forward. You have a gun, but you have to walk up to it until you are six feet away? Seriously?  Who designed this again?)
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And seriously: If you buy the Reapers as some sort of Divine agency, then the Crucible is a divine test, to see if sentient life is worthy of... something. Which, unless the Star-Child is lying (which would be a stupid plot point since the game ends at that point anyway), you pass just by being there and making a choice at all.  So, in your analogy, God says if you can use the crucible (you did) than sentient life has evolved enough to make its own way in the galaxy now. Too bad that all those choices you made earlier will be wiped out in the meantime, but.. uh... the next ones, yeah... those are totally free.

That is completely consistent with the way the game progresses, which of course means that I can understand why people think it sucks.

It's consistent because of the nature of the Crucible itself. Its very focus is the Citadel, which has been a tool of the Reapers since the creation of the cycle, hell, it is a Reaper. In a way, the Crucible is a way to compel the Reaper consciousness (Catalyst), to act against its own interests and conception of existence. A conception that it has borne for likely millions of years or longer. The Reapers are victims of the cycle they created, carrying out their self-appointed task over and over, never able to see things any other way.

Ultimately Shepard gets the power to force the Reapers to change or end their own existence, but you simply can't break untold eons of stasis without repercussion, especially since the Reapers are part of the process.

In the game you get to break the cycle, and the echo of that break is harsh, but it does make sense, and at the end you find out that the galaxy gets to plot its own course.

Except for Synthesis, I still think it's dumb. If you ask me, Reconciliation would have been an option that would both represent the spirit of Synthesis, but would be more consistent with many of the idealistic choices that could be made in game.

James, I think there is something of a slight misconception here. I don't think too many people object to the actual choices on offer. ME2&3 build up to a long standing conflict between attempting to destroy the Reapers or Control them, though the game itself rewards you constantly for reconciling opposed enemies.

Aside from truly shoddy presentation and follow through, however there is the atrocious handling of 'unexpected side effects'.

There is no reason, for example, to expect that destroying the reapers would undo the literally years of effort at reconciling the Quarians and the Geth... by exterminating the Geth. We know, are told constantly, that the Geth are not actually Reapers, not Slaves of the Reapers, not actually affiliated with teh Reapers. We learn, in fact, that as Synthetic beings they too are involved with a conflict between becoming slaves and tools of the Reapers to survive or remaining free and trying to make their own way...


... Oh, my bad, I just wiped you out. Side effect, buddy, nothin' personal.

Or, for example, why would you think wiping out the Reapers would cause you to murder one of your own crew, EDI?  I mean, you may have just spent the entire game helping her understand what it means to be human, to become a better 'person'.

Oh, I'm sorry... I just shot you in the face by killing the reapers. Silly me.


It is unnecessary, gratuitous and, as far as I can tell, more or less unintended (since, you know, ME hasn't exactly been shy up to this point about hammering home consequences. Showing the Geth falling over dead, EDI shorting out etc would be right in line with the game if they meant that to happen...).

Likewise... you have pretty much wiped out the quarians too, right after you help them get their homeworld. I mean, ships are blown right out of space, and their entire fleet, their entire race! is right there fighting the reapers for survival when you pull that trigger and... oops, my bad, did I just exterminate ANOTHER race?  I'm sooooo clumsy!


I mean: If this were deliberate, if this were intentional that might be a bitter pill to swallow, but at least we'd think the writers were aiming high. But they seem oblivious to it, which means its just really damn sloppy writing.. from a series that has proven much better than that.

I haven't played ME3 at all but I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying the thread so far. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.

Quote from: Benoist;557942I haven't played ME3 at all but I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying the thread so far. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.

:hatsoff:

I think there are some reasonable in-game explanations for some of your points regarding the Destroy option. Based off the Catalyst's monologue on the Crucible, I think it was clear that the destructive wave affected anything Reaper*.

Quote from: SpikeThere is no reason, for example, to expect that destroying the reapers would undo the literally years of effort at reconciling the Quarians and the Geth... by exterminating the Geth. We know, are told constantly, that the Geth are not actually Reapers, not Slaves of the Reapers, not actually affiliated with teh Reapers. We learn, in fact, that as Synthetic beings they too are involved with a conflict between becoming slaves and tools of the Reapers to survive or remaining free and trying to make their own way...

During the Rannoch mission, a part of giving the Geth their free will is to allow the geth to receive upgrades from Legion. These upgrades happen to be Reaper code.

Quote from: SpikeOr, for example, why would you think wiping out the Reapers would cause you to murder one of your own crew, EDI? I mean, you may have just spent the entire game helping her understand what it means to be human, to become a better 'person'.

A running theme about Cerberus is their interest, and willingness to research and adapt Reaper technology. IIRC, EDI was based off Reaper tech scavenged from Sovereign. It's the same reason why the Destroy option may be hazardous to the "resurrected through superior technology" Shepard.

Quote from: SpikeLikewise... you have pretty much wiped out the quarians too, right after you help them get their homeworld. I mean, ships are blown right out of space, and their entire fleet, their entire race! is right there fighting the reapers for survival when you pull that trigger and... oops, my bad, did I just exterminate ANOTHER race? I'm sooooo clumsy!

No argument there. Maybe I'm forgetting something, but I still don't know how your crew goes from having the crap blasted out of it by Harbinger to escaping on the Normandy.

I think it was intentional, but there is a definite sense of the rushed in the ending, which led to these holes, and the lack of a clear epilogue.

*As a matter of fact, I think it's reasonable to say that every race has been getting a technological leg up each cycle not just from the prior purged races, but from the Reapers too through the relays and the Citadel. It's a small flight of fancy, but what's not to say that every sufficiently advanced Synthetic AI/VI is either using or unconsciously copying the Reaper template? It certainly feels that way in the game.

Quote from: Benoist;557942I haven't played ME3 at all but I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying the thread so far. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.

As a member of the loyal opposition, I hope I was able to contribute!

Absolutely. The back-an-forth makes it worth it IMO.

This thread is making me pay extra attention through the 1-3 replay I'm doing right now. And not just because the first time I accidentally gave Shepard a soul patch on his chin, and by the time I noticed it in ME 2, I couldn't take it back, causing me no end of annoyance.

The small things matter you know.

Quote from: JamesV;557973I think there are some reasonable in-game explanations for some of your points regarding the Destroy option. Based off the Catalyst's monologue on the Crucible, I think it was clear that the destructive wave affected anything Reaper*.

More than that it will destroy 'most of your technology', which definitely includes anything using Mass Effect fields (ie everything), and ALL synthetic life (which explicitely, deliberately, includes EDI, who does not have Reaper Code, which is why she only exits the crashed Normandy if you chose Sythesis (also: Everyone on the Normandy is fucking doomed, crash landed with no functional technology on an unsettled alien world? Joker's barely able to walk with advanced medical help, fer christ's sake! No one has space technology to rescue them. Fucked, I tells ya, Fucked!)

QuoteDuring the Rannoch mission, a part of giving the Geth their free will is to allow the geth to receive upgrades from Legion. These upgrades happen to be Reaper code.

I believe, though I am not sure, you can side with the Geth AND not give them reaper code, if you kill the Quarians, but I haven't played out that way. Regardless, the Star-Child pretty much tells you Synthetic Life is Fucked if you don't chose synthesis (Wiped out or Enslaved to Reaper-Shepard).

QuoteA running theme about Cerberus is their interest, and willingness to research and adapt Reaper technology. IIRC, EDI was based off Reaper tech scavenged from Sovereign. It's the same reason why the Destroy option may be hazardous to the "resurrected through superior technology" Shepard.

True, but you don't die to your choice but to bad interface design. IE the conduit explodes when you shoot it, you burn up in the big green energy beam as you fall to your death, or your body is electrocuted while your mind is uploaded to Reaper-Shepard (Not that R-S is made clear until the expanded ending download.).  At no point do you die of your half-synthetic body frying out.  Like I said: WHo designed this fucking thing?!

QuoteI think it was intentional, but there is a definite sense of the rushed in the ending, which led to these holes, and the lack of a clear epilogue.

Yes, and the massive, free expanded ending download more or less proves point. It doesn't actually change anything, but it does manage the narrative better, which is a big improvement.

Quote*As a matter of fact, I think it's reasonable to say that every race has been getting a technological leg up each cycle not just from the prior purged races, but from the Reapers too through the relays and the Citadel. It's a small flight of fancy, but what's not to say that every sufficiently advanced Synthetic AI/VI is either using or unconsciously copying the Reaper template? It certainly feels that way in the game.

I'd posit that all VI's are inherited tech as well, making the Reaper 'fear' of unavoidable war between biological life and created synthetic life a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I'm not sure I'd go so far as to suggest that the Reapers were feeding additional tech. WIth at least 37 million years of cycles (based on the age of the damaged Reaper in ME2), they've had something like a thousand cycles to refine their trap.  Arguably the only reason this cycle is different is because the Protheans sabotaged the Citadel during their Cycle, left clues about it, and Shepard stopped Saren and Sovereign personally, forcing the remaining reapers to make a long slow journey the hard way from the depths of space instead of popping in unannounced all at once.

Haven't played this yet, but according to this, they did more then just expand the endings, they made some key changes to things raised in this thread.

Quote from: Spike;557690Yes, I do focus on resolving the Quarian/Geth Conflict, mostly because two of the three colors of victory render the entire conflict resolution moot.  (...)

THe other conflict is the Krogan Genophage, and making peace between the Krogan and the Turians is central to that (and possibly betraying the Krogan to recruit the Salarians... as well).

This breakdown of the game makes it really clear: The ending almost seems to be designed specifically to render the choices you've made and all the things you've accomplished in ME3 irrelevant. No matter which ending you choose, you've rendered either the outcome of either the Quarian/Geth conflict or the Krogan Genophage irrelevant. And most of the endings wipe 'em both out.

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;557709But fatalism isn't about the Reapers winning or losing, it's about being unable to change our destiny.

Which is why the "Mass Effect is about fatalism, so the ending is OK" argument doesn't hold any water. The entire ending, despite its thematic incoherence and deep structural flaws, is entirely about changing destiny. At the macro-level, you have a Crucible which can only exist because of a multi-cycle struggle to change destiny. At the micro-level, Shepherd makes a choice which irrevocably changes the destiny of the universe.

Quote from: Spike;557837See, I don't understand where exactly you get that whole fatalistic, predestination thing from anyway. So far the best I can manage to grok your argument is that the Reapers have been successfully baiting sentient life for millions of years, thousands of cycles, and destroying them.

Fair questions.
 
1) Predestination.
I don't see a "god with a plan" or a puppet master or any of that. Sure, the Reapers play at being god. They try to embody that puppet master god role, but if Soverign's death and non-resurection proves anything it's that the Reapers are mortals, not true God. And anyway, the diologue wheel gameplay clearly shows that you are free to make choices.
 
2) Fatalism.
Do I see anyone with a death sentance in Mass Effect? Absolutely! I've already been roundly critizised for basing everything on the Reapers, so it should suffice to say yes the Reapers hand out death sentances on a galactic scale and leave it at that. Beyond them, you, the player hand out death sentances. You choose, over and over, which group to exterminate for the good of the surviving group. Sometimes it's to an entire species, sometimes it's a potential species
 
Mass Effect has more genocide than any other sci-fi franchise or game I'm aware of.  Not just the pre-history with the Reapers, not just recent galactic history. The interactive story spoutds genocide. It's constantly asking questions like, "Hey, as long as you're here on Noveria looking for your friend's mom would you like to commit Genocide?" And when it's not offering the choice to commit genocide, its something analogous to genocide. Exterminate one of these cities to save the other. This one guy in a coma isn't hurting anyone, wanna kill him or let him suffer?
 
So there's the simple fatalism. All those races, groups and individuals get death sentances -- they're dooomed. But there's also a more complex kind of fatalism that peaceful coexistance automaticaly leads to strife. I'm thinking particularly of the Asari. An old, wise matriarchal race and suddenly they evolve into what the game calls "demons" that rampage around the galaxy eating peoples souls. There are only three solutions presented in-game, and all of them are killing. There is no option for peaceful co-existance. (We are told that some of the offscreen demons choose to live apart and be the last of their line, but there are strong paralells between genocide on a race v.s. genocide on a species.)
 
So, what kind of ending is acceptable to me? First of all, I like what Mass Effect does with fatalism. On one hand you have fatalism proper with the wholesale destruction of entire civilizations including their ideas and historys. Against it, you have the few surviving traces of those civilizations. The oldest (and my personal favorite) is the ancient civilization that shot a super-railgun. Everything about them and their railgun has been totaly erased but the slug-holes remain 37 million years later. The Protheans managed to pass along information that survived their destruction. The Rachni saved one queen. And on a personal scale Matriarch Bensotia passed on vital knowledge with her dying breath after a life enslaved. And my favorite moment in Mass Effect, Commander Shepard saves his crew from the collector attack and with his dying action saves Joker.
 
That's the kind of ending I expect from playing ME1&2. That at the end of the whole story, Shepard, his crew, his ship, his race, and his galactic alliance fail in their struggle to survive. And yet they pass something forward. They make their mark, however tiny, that persists long after they are forgotten.
 
That's what I understood and expected. But from what I've heard the internet hates it.

MA: I find a game that consistently offers me choices, even (or especially) hard choices with specific outcomes is the opposite of a fatalistic design.

I don't see having meaningful outcomes or painful choices as inherently fatalistic.

That I can chose (and should chose... the game does make it the 'right' choice in several ways) to Save, rather than exterminate the Rachni, the lack of a third option doesn't bother me. One, because ultimately there are only two choice (passing the buck isn't a choice, its just giving it to someone else), and further: its a game, there are limits to freedom inheren to the medium.  Within the imposed constraint, the story is not itself markedly constrained or fatalisic thereby.

And there are many more complex choices than the Rachni.  Resolving the Geth and Krogan storylines both require a number of choices spread over two games (which is, I think, minor evidence in favor of a theory that true multi-game epic arcs were not, actually, planned from the beginning...).  Not keeping the Genophage research, wiping the Heretic Geth in ME2 means you don't actually get certain options. Saving the Krogan but betraying them is a bit more complex than not saving them.

Going back to the ending: Staring some 20 years ago, with the first Fallout (as I recall), at the end of the game you got a bunch of one line narrative comments about the after effects of side quests completed or not, references to your characters actions and so on, a process that has been repeated in every edition of the game since then.

Mass Effect should have been able to evolve this relatively simple concept for the entire series, at least for the big choices.

I think they have the technological capability to give you a happy ending but lack the motivation.

Re: fatalism. I looked it up and wiki says there are two meanings: what I mean and the exact opposite. So avoiding the f word, what I mean is that however important or significant you or your character think the choices are, galactic history is a harsh judge. Two options or a thousand, either way, it's nigh impossible to leave a lasting legacy in the Mass Effect galaxy. That's a feature not a bug. It is very very good to feel small and insignificant in a game on galactic scale.

Removing the forever from "happily ever after" would be sufficient, but removing the happy (via endgame genocide, galactic isolation, etc.) drives the point home w a sledgehammer.

From my point of view, such an unsatisfying ending is a feature not a bug.

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;559235So avoiding the f word, what I mean is that however important or significant you or your character think the choices are, galactic history is a harsh judge. Two options or a thousand, either way, it's nigh impossible to leave a lasting legacy in the Mass Effect galaxy. That's a feature not a bug. It is very very good to feel small and insignificant in a game on galactic scale.

That's pretty much what I felt at the end of the game. Shepard made all the "right" choices, but that doesn't mean that the circumstances break in his favor. Ultimately the best weapon against the Reapers was also a tool of the Reapers, shaping in a hard way how things ended. However that hard ending wouldn't even be possible if it weren't the efforts made over the three games.

Shepard gets to change the galaxy, in a pretty meaningful way if the Stargazer is right. In exchange for that, it swallows him whole, and leaves a wound in the galaxy. Compared to the Reapers, it's a wound worth taking.