(Spoilers)Mass Effect 2 ruined the Franchise, 3 was continuation of that

[Psyren]

Thank you!

Okay, quick question then. Why didn't it stop you? Particularly if you don't have the ability to choose anything other then Destroy?

Because you successfully attached the Crucible. That gave you a brief window to override the Catalyst's original programming - much like the brief backdoor Vigil gives you to override the Citadel systems in ME1. He brings you up there because he needs a new command, chosen from one of the several options the Crucible provides. This is why the Crucible's structural integrity matters; if it's too damaged, it can only offer one option (Destroy, and low EMS Catastrophic Destroy at that.) Get it there in a few more pieces, and it can do Control too. Do a better job than that, and Synthesis is available. Choose nothing, and the window closes, forcing the Catalyst back to its original programming of reaping advanced sentients.

It's also the reason why he gives you all the options - the Crucible is making him do so. If he was really malicious and running the show, he'd simply say "Congratulations Commander, you've successfully attached the Synthesizer! Right this way please..."

(Or, you know, leave your gormless behind to bleed out on his floor at the bottom of the elevator as stated.)

[Forum Explorer]

Because you successfully attached the Crucible. That gave you a brief window to override the Catalyst's original programming - much like the brief backdoor Vigil gives you to override the Citadel systems in ME1. He brings you up there because he needs a new command, chosen from one of the several options the Crucible provides. This is why the Crucible's structural integrity matters; if it's too damaged, it can only offer one option (Destroy, and low EMS Catastrophic Destroy at that.) Get it there in a few more pieces, and it can do Control too. Do a better job than that, and Synthesis is available. Choose nothing, and the window closes, forcing the Catalyst back to its original programming of reaping advanced sentients.

It's also the reason why he gives you all the options - the Crucible is making him do so. If he was really malicious and running the show, he'd simply say "Congratulations Commander, you've successfully attached the Synthesizer! Right this way please."

Makes sense. A shame it really didn't get explained that well in the Star Child scenes. Much like describing what Synthesis was. The Star Child is the absolute weakest part of the ending, and really I'd scrap it entirely and completely redesign it if I could.

On a side note, I still find the whole scene of the Normandy running away from the Catalyst's activation to be really stupid. It's going to hit the entire galaxy Joker, you know that. Where the **** are you going?

[Psyren]

Makes sense. A shame it really didn't get explained that well in the Star Child scenes. Much like describing what Synthesis was. The Star Child is the absolute weakest part of the ending, and really I'd scrap it entirely and completely redesign it if I could.

EDI does talk to you about transhumanism. You also get a nice preview of it if you make peace between the Geth and Quarians; it's telling that they feature prominently in the Synthesis ending for that reason.

On a side note, I still find the whole scene of the Normandy running away from the Catalyst's activation to be really stupid. It's going to hit the entire galaxy Joker, you know that. Where the **** are you going?

He was ordered to retreat. Did you play Extended Cut?

[Serenity]

Synthesis is silly, but I disagree about Control.

When TIM talks about it, yes it's stupid, but that's because of his motives and how he's gone about pursuing it. TIM is a supremely ambitious man, and allowed his greed to overrule his prudence, taking risks with poorly understood enemy technology to try to forcibly take control even though he should have known the risk of becoming Indoctrinated instead.

The Star Child is an entity that has you at its mercy, and offers you Control when if it wanted you dead it could have just let you bleed out on the floor below. It is an entity that gives you answers, for the first time giving you a reason for why the Cycle exists, a reason that, as flawed as its logic might seem, does fit and explain the Reapers' actions. And part of that reason is a motive, a reason for why it would be willing to accept transferring control to you. The Star Child has no need to lie to you, you are too injured and poorly armed to stop it from doing whatever it wants to, and the option of Control fits a cohesive picture of the whole Reaper situation that you knew had to exist but never had the information to see before that moment.

The Star Child doesn't give you answers. The Star Child gives you *nonsense*. Its logic is more than flawed--the premise is false, and the conclusions don't follow from the false premise, let alone reality. The Reapers *are* the issue they claim to be trying to solve. They are the *only* AIs in the entire series that have been violent without provocation. The Geth acted in self-defense against the quarians and then declined to finish the job, content to remain in peaceful isolation. The embezzling AI from ME1 was reacting to the fact that its very existence carried a death sentence for it if found by the council. EDI is a hero through and through. And the Heretic Geth only ever threatened organics *because of the Reapers*. If protecting organic life from rogue AIs is the Reaper's actual goal, than they should have been attacking synthetics and leaving organics alone, or at most attacking people who studied AI, rather than waging campaigns of galactic genocide. In short, if the Star Child isn't lying, it is utterly insane and divorced from reality. The only way Control fits into a 'cohesive picture' of the Reaper situation is that maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to order every last Reaper to fly themselves into a black hole--if you trust that the insane, genocidal AI is really handing you control, that you won't be indoctrinated like literally *everyone else* who's tried anything like this, that the Star Child's delusions won't prove infectious, that it will still be you in control of the Reapers when your consciousness is digitized, and that the temptation ofthat kind of power won't be too much.

[Serenity]

EDI does talk to you about transhumanism. You also get a nice preview of it if you make peace between the Geth and Quarians; it's telling that they feature prominently in the Synthesis ending for that reason.

You mean the character and plot arc resolution that prove the Star Child's premise is utter nonsense, and that synthetics and organics are perfectly capable of peaceful coexistence?

[Forum Explorer]

EDI does talk to you about transhumanism. You also get a nice preview of it if you make peace between the Geth and Quarians; it's telling that they feature prominently in the Synthesis ending for that reason.



He was ordered to retreat. Did you play Extended Cut?

Sure. Those were both pretty good scenes. But perhaps I'm not being clear. I did not connect the dialogue of the Star Child to transhumanism at all, or even to just being friendly with EDI and making peace between the Geth and Quarians. Because there really wasn't a lot, and I actually had to look up the synethsis ending because it was maybe impossible to get to if you didn't play multiplayer, so I didn't see it until much later.

I think so. That doesn't really change my point. And at best it just shifts the blame from Joker to whoever gave that order.

[Erloas]

The destroy ending is the "I can't really decide what to do, so I'll take the simple choice" ending.

The control ending is the renegade ending, it ignores all of the lessons of the many conflicts of the story and acts like you can do better. That you won't make the same mistakes the reapers made, or the genophage made, or the geth/quarian's made, or TIM and all of the ethical and moral failings of the council, Cerebus, and pretty much every other group that has any power.

The synthesis ending is the paragon ending. It is realizing that all life, AI and organic, has value and perserving life is more important than "winning." It is realizing that the programming behind AI and the programming that is genomes and evolution, are really not that much different. It allows both AIs and organics to continue to be unique, and to change, but the underlying "mechanics" are now the same so the reaper programming can no longer tell which is which and one race or group can't claim they're "true" and everyone else needs to die/be under their control.

The star child realizes the flaw in the reapers design, but without the crucible it has no way of changing that. It knows that sooner or later the reapers are going to fail, because "life finds a way." That while Shepard might not pick the right option, it is at least a lot more likely than if almost anyone else had the choice, especially with how bad it would be if someone like TIM got control. There is a "leap of faith" in believing what the Star Child tells you, but it is pretty clear it has no reason to lie to you and if it didn't want you there you would be dead instead. There is no need to indoctrinate you when they have otherwise already won and you're half a step away from dead.

[Serenity]

The destroy ending is the "I can't really decide what to do, so I'll take the simple choice" ending.

The control ending is the renegade ending, it ignores all of the lessons of the many conflicts of the story and acts like you can do better. That you won't make the same mistakes the reapers made, or the genophage made, or the geth/quarian's made, or TIM and all of the ethical and moral failings of the council, Cerebus, and pretty much every other group that has any power.

The synthesis ending is the paragon ending. It is realizing that all life, AI and organic, has value and perserving life is more important than "winning." It is realizing that the programming behind AI and the programming that is genomes and evolution, are really not that much different. It allows both AIs and organics to continue to be unique, and to change, but the underlying "mechanics" are now the same so the reaper programming can no longer tell which is which and one race or group can't claim they're "true" and everyone else needs to die/be under their control.

If I believe that both organic and synthetic life has value, than shouldn't I be preserving them as *themselves*, able to coexist in all their diversity, rather than forcing them to change in unknown ways to be the same, all to solve a 'problem' that only exists in the mind of an insane, genocidal AI?

Look, clearly the writers wanted Synthesis to be a golden ending where EDI's organic enough for Joker to screw and Tali's synthetic enough not to worry about her immune system or dextro/levo differences. But they took no time to develop it as a concept, so it's vague and just as easy to read as a nightmarish violation of individuality. And it has no instinctive connection to solving the problem of the Reapers without the Star Child's nonsensical explanation of their motivations, which just makes it worse because it's giving credence to delusional 'logic' that has perpetrated eons of genocide and denigrates EDI, Legion, and the hard-won Geth-Quarian peace.

[Name_Here]

What was so bad about Control? The Catalyst tells you that it wouldn't work for TIM because he was indoctrinated. If it truly wanted you to fail or die, it could have just left you at the bottom of the elevator to bleed out.

The running theme throughout the series is that the Reapers corrupt and then dominate everyone and everything they come into control with. That even them being non operational doesn't stop that from happening. So hey plug yourself into their mainframe no reason to think that won't go perfectly to plan.

As for Synthesis, literally the only downside is that nobody could choose to opt out. I don't really understand why anyone but a Luddite would choose to, but liberties are liberties.

It makes no sense when you know anything about biology. Now we're talking about space magic in it's silliest form so I assume it's supposed to work perfectly but I just couldn't get past the idea of how biological life and synthetic life are very finely balanced in how they work. So space magic combing the two perfectly for everybody in the galaxy over multiple species was just a silly idea. In the end it didn't matter since synthesis was the exact same ending as destroy but there you go my problem with it.

[Aotrs Commander]

I am the very last person to be either luddite or anti-transhuman, but I found the very idea of synethesis to be increasingly abhorrent the more I thought about it.

That said, I found the ENTIRE CONCEPT/THEME of organic and technological life being unable to co-exist deeply offensive and speciesist from the get-go (on top of utterly ludicrous in context); before even adding in the complete revision of the entire natural world in all its glory to something else and let alone the body horror.



The Crucible as dues ex machine was not the problem with the ending - everything else about the themes, the choices, the way it was protrayed and the way it was executed WAS.

[Hunter Noventa]

There's an interview somewhere with the writer who included that dark energy stuff in ME2 talk about having been forced out and replaced for ME3, which is at least part of why the ending is so screwed up and about a conflict that doesn't really exist.

[Psyren]

You mean the character and plot arc resolution that prove the Star Child's premise is utter nonsense, and that synthetics and organics are perfectly capable of peaceful coexistence?

Until we achieve the singularity, organics will never stop trying to control synthetics or make their own subservient versions. The benefits of doing so are just too great. Synthesis simply moved up the timetable.

The running theme throughout the series is that the Reapers corrupt and then dominate everyone and everything they come into control with. That even them being non operational doesn't stop that from happening. So hey plug yourself into their mainframe no reason to think that won't go perfectly to plan.

If they wanted to defeat me they could have just left me on the floor.

[Name_Here]

If they wanted to defeat me they could have just left me on the floor.

I don't think that was within their power since the last thing that happens before the elevator is shep activating the crucible which then the platform rises. I mean the ending is a complete mess so that might be what we're supposed to get out of it but it definitely not what I got out of that conversation that the catalyst had done anything to bring you there.

[Psyren]

I don't think that was within their power since the last thing that happens before the elevator is shep activating the crucible which then the platform rises. I mean the ending is a complete mess so that might be what we're supposed to get out of it but it definitely not what I got out of that conversation that the catalyst had done anything to bring you there.

Shep didnt activate the Crucible, s/he merely opened the arms. Rewatch the video Douglas posted.

[Anteros]

If they wanted to defeat me they could have just left me on the floor.

Most people don't buy into your idea that the benevolent star child rescued you there. Even if I'm willing to believe that he operated the elevator...apparently Shep was about to get back up anyway as shown by the fact that he immediately gets back up right after the elevator moves him, and is then able to survive a point blank explosion. Your whole premise that Shepard would have just laid there and died has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.

Even if we do accept your flawed premise, there's still no reason to assume that the clearly insane AI that's been trying to genocide the entire galaxy is suddenly acting benevolent for no reason. The Reapers are clearly shown over and over to go out of their way to indoctrinate valuable targets to their cause, and there is no target in the entire universe more valuable to them than Shepard. Barring some sort of massive head injury, there's just no way that Shepard should believe anything the AI says is anything but an indoctrination attempt.

We spent 3 whole games seeing that literally every single person who tried to work with the Reapers on any level has their mind dominated by them. We fight an indoctrinated TIM 30 seconds before meeting the Star Child. Everything the Star Child tells you about the AI-organic conflict is contradicted by the entire story thus far. I literally have too many AI fighting on my side against the Reapers to count. Not a single thing that Star-Child tells you is supported by what you've seen in the games or the narrative to that point. Nor has the narrative given you a single reason to work with them instead of ignoring them at any point. The only reason anyone would ever listen to anything it has to say is that they are completely insane, or the player is using meta-knowledge that it's the end of the game and the devs probably aren't trying to trick you.

[Serenity]

Until we achieve the singularity, organics will never stop trying to control synthetics or make their own subservient versions. The benefits of doing so are just too great. Synthesis simply moved up the timetable.

A statement without evidence, contradicted by the Geth/Quarian peace. Even further without evidence is the premise that the creation of synthetics inevitably leads to genocidal war upon organic life, contradicted by EDI's unswerving loyalty and the fact that the Geth very specifically refrained from attacking the retreating quarians in the Morning War. And even accepting those two obviously false premises, creating your own synthetics to genocide organics to prevet synthetics from genociding organics is an utterly ridiculous response.

[GloatingSwine]

Everything the Star Child tells you about the AI-organic conflict is contradicted by the entire story thus far.

Notably, no AI we meet in the series that isn't driven by a Reaper ever acts in anything other than self defence.

[Psyren]

Most people don't buy into your idea that the benevolent star child rescued you there.

Oh? Got a survey of all the players supporting that assertion, do you?

And even if you were correct, I wouldn't actually care about a bunch of people that are out to accentuate everything negative they can about that scene anyway.

Even if I'm willing to believe that he operated the elevator...apparently Shep was about to get back up anyway as shown by the fact that he immediately gets back up right after the elevator moves him, and is then able to survive a point blank explosion. Your whole premise that Shepard would have just laid there and died has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.

Got up... and then done what exactly? Shepard themself says they don't know what to do to activate it where they're at, and the controls appear to be upstairs where the kid is. And as the kid scene shows, waiting for longer than a few minutes results in the Crucible being destroyed, so you wouldn't even have time to eat Anderson's corpse or whatever else you're imagining would happen there.

Even if we do accept your flawed premise, there's still no reason to assume that the clearly insane AI that's been trying to genocide the entire galaxy is suddenly acting benevolent for no reason.

It's not "for no reason." There's a clear reason, you successfully plugged in the USB Crucible and now the death program is asking for user input. It's your Shepard's choice to provide that input, or not.

[Forum Explorer]

The Crucible as dues ex machine was not the problem with the ending - everything else about the themes, the choices, the way it was protrayed and the way it was executed WAS.

Yes, this very much. The Crucible itself isn't a problem. And the end result is merely mediocre. But basically things go to **** the instant the Star Child appears and last right up until you make your choice. It does not blend with the story well at all. It's hamfisted and incoherent, has no build up to it, and has basically nothing to do with any of the characters you've been interacting with up to then. And some of the things it says are outright contradicted by the events in the story.

[Serenity]

Synthesis is clearly intended to be the golden ending. But it's so vague, nonsensical, and disconnected from the entire story so far that it's not understood, talked up so much by a plainly villainous character that it seems like there must be a catch, involves making fundamental but unknown alterations to all life in the Galaxy, which is kind of crazy to be doing out of hand, and requires accepting the premise of the Reaper's insane solution to a non-existent problem.

Control would be the ideal solution, as a back-door Destroy option--take control, tell the Reapers their mission is over, unnecessary, and nonsensical, and to kindly go throw themselves down the nearest black hole. If you could believe for one second it would actually work, and literally the entire franchise tells us it won't.

Destroy is objectively monstrous, thanks to the added price tag of killing the Geth and EDI. But it is the closest the game allows you to come to rejecting the Star Child's delusional premise out of hand, and the only one that is sure to solve the only real problem, i.e., that Reapers exist.

I don't mind that the Crucible was an out of nowhere Deus ex Machina button. I mind that the writers clearly minded it so much that they felt they had to sabotage victory in an effort to make it more complicated than that. I don't mind transhumanism as a Golden Ending, I mind that it had nothing to do with the rest of the plot, and actively contradicted it in key parts. I don't mind that Shepard dies at the end, but I mind that Shepard cannot die heroically.

[Anteros]

Oh? Got a survey of all the players supporting that assertion, do you?

And even if you were correct, I wouldn't actually care about a bunch of people that are out to accentuate everything negative they can about that scene anyway.

Is one needed? You're basically the only person I've ever seen try to argue this point, while the number of people I've seen arguing that Star Kid can't be trusted has been in the hundreds if not thousands. I highly doubt your own experience is any different. What do you want? A scientific study? You know good and well that your pet theory isn't common. You're just being difficult.

Got up... and then done what exactly? Shepard themself says they don't know what to do to activate it where they're at, and the controls appear to be upstairs where the kid is. And as the kid scene shows, waiting for longer than a few minutes results in the Crucible being destroyed, so you wouldn't even have time to eat Anderson's corpse or whatever else you're imagining would happen there.

Yeah, I'm sure Shepard couldn't have figured out to shoot something or to push the literally glowing lever right in front of him without help. Nevermind the fact that he already figures out how to do each thing on his own because the crucible doesn't tell him anything other than that the options exist. So ultimately, your whole argument is built around the idea that Shepard is too stupid to operate an elevator. Are you even listening to yourself?

It's not "for no reason." There's a clear reason, you successfully plugged in the USB Crucible and now the death program is asking for user input. It's your Shepard's choice to provide that input, or not.

That isn't even the justification present in the game itself where Star Brat says he's going to turn over control to you because you made it to the central chamber so he's scared his old methods won't work anymore.

[Lethologica]

Various thoughts:

(a) Starchild would be a lot more tolerable if some endings would let him be wrong. Obviously a Shepard who made a hash of the galaxy and deep-sixed the Geth should only harden Starchild's justified conviction that organic-synthetic conflict is inevitable. But a Shepard who united the galaxy and solved the Quarian-Geth conflict should really be able to either persuade Starchild that organic-synthetic conflict is not inevitable, or refute Starchild's convictions and get the result he wants anyway. The game should give some Shepards the ability to showcase their faith in life to find a way.

(b) Apart from the bodily autonomy thing (which I think is unsolvable), Synthesis should be the logical extension of Geth-Quarian harmony. Coexistence leads to cooperation, leads to union, leads to integration - and the Geth-Quarian relationship is positively racing down that path. But because Starchild insists on inevitable synthetic-organic conflict regardless of Geth-Quarian harmony and then points to imposed Synthesis as a solution, it reads as saying "You can't get there just by making peace with difference, you have to become the same," which mucks up the message completely.

(c) Another issue, larger in scope, is that while the organic-synthetic relationship is clearly a major element in the games, it's not the major element, compared to cooperation among different civilizations more generally. A series that wanted the primary conflict to be about the organic-synthetic relationship should have had a much broader spectrum of synthetic beings, and relationships with synthetic beings, which permeated the series, rather than confining that dynamic to particular races and particular sections of the galaxy, plus a couple individual entities. Given the series' actual focus, Starchild's vision should be a much more generic neo-Luddite apocalyptic claim that advanced civilizations produce advanced conflict and thus advanced calamity which could wipe out any chance of future civilizations, such that the Reapers were needed to keep things under control. It should not be a specific claim that the advanced calamity will be robots taking our jerbs. (One other obvious candidate for advanced calamity, for example, would be the genophage going out of control.)

[Serenity]

Various thoughts:

(a) Starchild would be a lot more tolerable if the some endings would let him be wrong. Obviously a Shepard who made a hash of the galaxy and deep-sixed the Geth should only harden Starchild's justified conviction that organic-synthetic conflict is inevitable. But a Shepard who united the galaxy and solved the Quarian-Geth conflict should really be able to either persuade Starchild that organic-synthetic conflict is not inevitable, or refute Starchild's convictions and get the result he wants anyway. The game should give some Shepards the ability to showcase their faith in life to find a way.

(b) Apart from the bodily autonomy thing (which I think is unsolvable), Synthesis should be the logical extension of Geth-Quarian harmony. Coexistence leads to cooperation, leads to union, leads to integration - and the Geth-Quarian relationship is positively racing down that path. But because Starchild insists on inevitable synthetic-organic conflict regardless of Geth-Quarian harmony and then points to imposed Synthesis as a solution, it reads as saying "You can't get there just by making peace with difference, you have to become the same," which mucks up the message completely.

(c) Another issue, larger in scope, is that while the organic-synthetic relationship is clearly a major element in the games, it's not the major element, compared to cooperation among different civilizations more generally. A series that wanted the primary conflict to be about the organic-synthetic relationship should have had a much broader spectrum of synthetic beings, and relationships with synthetic beings, which permeated the series, rather than confining that dynamic to particular races and particular sections of the galaxy, plus a couple individual entities. Given the series' actual focus, Starchild's vision should be a much more generic neo-Luddite apocalyptic claim that advanced civilizations produce advanced conflict and thus advanced calamity which could wipe out any chance of future civilizations, such that the Reapers were needed to keep things under control. It should not be a specific claim that the advanced calamity will be robots taking our jerbs. (One other obvious candidate for advanced calamity, for example, would be the genophage going out of control.)

You make me wish this forum had 'Like' buttons. Especially your commentary on why Synthesis rings really yucky, which gets at a lot of stuff I don't think I've been able to articulate quite right myself.

[Forum Explorer]

Various thoughts:

(a) Starchild would be a lot more tolerable if the some endings would let him be wrong. Obviously a Shepard who made a hash of the galaxy and deep-sixed the Geth should only harden Starchild's justified conviction that organic-synthetic conflict is inevitable. But a Shepard who united the galaxy and solved the Quarian-Geth conflict should really be able to either persuade Starchild that organic-synthetic conflict is not inevitable, or refute Starchild's convictions and get the result he wants anyway. The game should give some Shepards the ability to showcase their faith in life to find a way.

(b) Apart from the bodily autonomy thing (which I think is unsolvable), Synthesis should be the logical extension of Geth-Quarian harmony. Coexistence leads to cooperation, leads to union, leads to integration - and the Geth-Quarian relationship is positively racing down that path. But because Starchild insists on inevitable synthetic-organic conflict regardless of Geth-Quarian harmony and then points to imposed Synthesis as a solution, it reads as saying "You can't get there just by making peace with difference, you have to become the same," which mucks up the message completely.

(c) Another issue, larger in scope, is that while the organic-synthetic relationship is clearly a major element in the games, it's not the major element, compared to cooperation among different civilizations more generally. A series that wanted the primary conflict to be about the organic-synthetic relationship should have had a much broader spectrum of synthetic beings, and relationships with synthetic beings, which permeated the series, rather than confining that dynamic to particular races and particular sections of the galaxy, plus a couple individual entities. Given the series' actual focus, Starchild's vision should be a much more generic neo-Luddite apocalyptic claim that advanced civilizations produce advanced conflict and thus advanced calamity which could wipe out any chance of future civilizations, such that the Reapers were needed to keep things under control. It should not be a specific claim that the advanced calamity will be robots taking our jerbs. (One other obvious candidate for advanced calamity, for example, would be the genophage going out of control.)

I would've changed the angle entirely, and really explored the whole 'Reapers are made from people' thing. In their mind they aren't exterminating the galaxy, but uplifting and preserving it. Each Reaper remembers everything that every single person that made up it's composite body does. That each Reaper lost is the death of a culture or civilization of it's own. They begin their invasion because too many races are on the brink of extermination, the Krogan, the Quarians, and the Rachni. Their argument is that life either wipes itself out, or eventually becomes stagnant like the Protheans. The old must be cleared away, for new life to flourish and evolve.

[Psyren]

Is one needed? You're basically the only person I've ever seen try to argue this point, while the number of people I've seen arguing that Star Kid can't be trusted has been in the hundreds if not thousands. I highly doubt your own experience is any different. What do you want? A scientific study? You know good and well that your pet theory isn't common. You're just being difficult.

The folks posting on a message board about a game are more likely to be the outraged ones. The only difficulty I'm having is getting you to understand that.

Yeah, I'm sure Shepard couldn't have figured out to shoot something or to push the literally glowing lever right in front of him without help. Nevermind the fact that he already figures out how to do each thing on his own because the crucible doesn't tell him anything other than that the options exist. So ultimately, your whole argument is built around the idea that Shepard is too stupid to operate an elevator. Are you even listening to yourself?

I'm listening to you saying that shooting an elevator with no other controls will surely work.

That isn't even the justification present in the game itself where Star Brat says he's going to turn over control to you because you made it to the central chamber so he's scared his old methods won't work anymore.

"Made it to the central chamber" how? An elevator with no buttons right?

[Lethologica]

I would've changed the angle entirely, and really explored the whole 'Reapers are made from people' thing. In their mind they aren't exterminating the galaxy, but uplifting and preserving it. Each Reaper remembers everything that every single person that made up it's composite body does. That each Reaper lost is the death of a culture or civilization of it's own. They begin their invasion because too many races are on the brink of extermination, the Krogan, the Quarians, and the Rachni. Their argument is that life either wipes itself out, or eventually becomes stagnant like the Protheans. The old must be cleared away, for new life to flourish and evolve.

I think that's a fantastic way of examining the Reapers specifically. What I'm not sure about is how to make that resonate with the rest of the story. I don't remember much in Mass Effect that touches on the ability of new life to flourish in the presence of old life.

For example, if the galactic society were heavily hierarchized around the age of different civilizations, and conflicts revolved around old established civilizations getting pissy about upstart displacement, or something along those lines, then the Reaper-gardener motif has something to bounce off of. We get some of that with humanity and the Council races, but not enough to support a general "new life vs. old life" theme.

I bet a story along those lines could work really well, though. There's real tension to explore there, and it's not just "good Shepards know the Reapers are wrong."

[Forum Explorer]

I think that's a fantastic way of examining the Reapers specifically. What I'm not sure about is how to make that resonate with the rest of the story. I don't remember much in Mass Effect that touches on the ability of new life to flourish in the presence of old life.

For example, if the galactic society were heavily hierarchized around the age of different civilizations, and conflicts revolved around old established civilizations getting pissy about upstart displacement, or something along those lines, then the Reaper-gardener motif has something to bounce off of. We get some of that with humanity and the Council races, but not enough to support a general "new life vs. old life" theme.

I bet a story along those lines could work really well, though. There's real tension to explore there, and it's not just "good Shepards know the Reapers are wrong."

It's a pretty extensive change that would need to be worked on throughout the whole story. But it could be implemented into nearly every conflict. The Quarians sought to stifle the Geth because they feared they'd be replaced. The Salarians shut down the Krogan because they were outpacing everyone else's growth. It just really doesn't work with the Ranchi.

[Erloas]

I think that's a fantastic way of examining the Reapers specifically. What I'm not sure about is how to make that resonate with the rest of the story. I don't remember much in Mass Effect that touches on the ability of new life to flourish in the presence of old life.

For example, if the galactic society were heavily hierarchized around the age of different civilizations, and conflicts revolved around old established civilizations getting pissy about upstart displacement, or something along those lines, then the Reaper-gardener motif has something to bounce off of. We get some of that with humanity and the Council races, but not enough to support a general "new life vs. old life" theme.

That was literally like half of the story and sub-plots of the first game.

Jack and the other bionics was a huge morale conflict even for just humans, the work of Cerebus, the conflict between the Geth and Quarians, Krogan and Salarian, the opulence of the leaders versus the slums many people are living in. It wasn't just AI versus organic, it was conflict between anything different. While Shepard patched up many of the existing problems, there were still people actively working against those fixes and there may have been nothing to stop them later. Depending what Shepard choose to do, many of those conflicts wouldn't have been resolved, in a beneficial way to all parties, in many play throughs. It stopped the reapers by subverting the intent of their programming, because now nothing fits their targeting. But the end result was a lot more wide-spread than simply beating the reapers.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Is one needed? You're basically the only person I've ever seen try to argue this point, while the number of people I've seen arguing that Star Kid can't be trusted has been in the hundreds if not thousands. I highly doubt your own experience is any different. What do you want? A scientific study? You know good and well that your pet theory isn't common. You're just being difficult.

Count another I suppose, I just grew tired of defending an ending I outright enjoy seven years ago when it first happened. Psyren obviously hasn't and more power (and respect) to him for that.

[Douglas]

Thank you!

Okay, quick question then. Why didn't it stop you? Particularly if you don't have the ability to choose anything other then Destroy?

Because its primary motivation has nothing to do with its own survival, or the survival of the Reapers. It is trying to solve a specific problem, currently has only a temporary patch job solution, and that patch job is failing. You getting to where you are is not some incredible fluke, or at least not just that, it's the continuation of a general trend - cycle after cycle, the design for the Crucible gets discovered, refined, improved, and hidden away for the next cycle to find, while attempts to build and use it get closer and closer to success. The Reapers failing, and failing soon on the time scale of their cycle, is inevitable. It needs a new solution, it doesn't have one, and it's not likely to come up with one before the Reapers get outright defeated. If you pick Synthesis, that's its perfect ideal solution from its perspective. If you pick Control, then maybe your fresh perspective will think of something it did not. If you pick Destroy, then at least the organics of the already technologically advanced current galactic civilization will have some breathing room to figure something out, with all existing synthetics gone.

The Star Child doesn't give you answers. The Star Child gives you *nonsense*. Its logic is more than flawed--the premise is false, and the conclusions don't follow from the false premise, let alone reality. The Reapers *are* the issue they claim to be trying to solve. They are the *only* AIs in the entire series that have been violent without provocation. The Geth acted in self-defense against the quarians and then declined to finish the job, content to remain in peaceful isolation. The embezzling AI from ME1 was reacting to the fact that its very existence carried a death sentence for it if found by the council. EDI is a hero through and through. And the Heretic Geth only ever threatened organics *because of the Reapers*. If protecting organic life from rogue AIs is the Reaper's actual goal, than they should have been attacking synthetics and leaving organics alone, or at most attacking people who studied AI, rather than waging campaigns of galactic genocide. In short, if the Star Child isn't lying, it is utterly insane and divorced from reality. The only way Control fits into a 'cohesive picture' of the Reaper situation is that maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to order every last Reaper to fly themselves into a black hole--if you trust that the insane, genocidal AI is really handing you control, that you won't be indoctrinated like literally *everyone else* who's tried anything like this, that the Star Child's delusions won't prove infectious, that it will still be you in control of the Reapers when your consciousness is digitized, and that the temptation ofthat kind of power won't be too much.

The Reapers are the only AIs that Shepard has encountered that have been violent without provocation. The Star Child's goal and logic is based on millions of years of history, against which the current cycle is one tiny blip on the record.

The premise is based on facts that you cannot verify, not false. The conclusions are observations of facts that you cannot verify, not purely logic, flawed or not. The Star Child's goal is not to protect organic life, but to protect the existence of organic life - to prevent 100% genocide of all organics - and if it allowed organics to develop without limit then they would eventually develop technology capable of producing synthetics that the Reapers are unable to stop.

The Star Child has a great deal of historical knowledge that you do not, and a set of values and priorities fundamentally different from yours. That is not the same as it being insane or divorced from reality.

Finally, if Control is a trap, then why wouldn't Destroy also be a trap? The choice isn't really "Control, Synthesis, or Destroy", it's "Action A that will supposedly result in Control, action B that will supposedly result in Synthesis, or action C that will supposedly result in Destroy". Yes, the Star Child doesn't verbally tell you what the actions are, but you see visions of them as it's describing the outcomes, and the only way Shepard could know what to do is if those visions aren't just an out of character thing to inform the player. If you don't trust that at least something the Star Child told you is true, then you don't even have the ability to choose an ending at all.

Most people don't buy into your idea that the benevolent star child rescued you there. Even if I'm willing to believe that he operated the elevator...apparently Shep was about to get back up anyway as shown by the fact that he immediately gets back up right after the elevator moves him, and is then able to survive a point blank explosion. Your whole premise that Shepard would have just laid there and died has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.

Even if we do accept your flawed premise, there's still no reason to assume that the clearly insane AI that's been trying to genocide the entire galaxy is suddenly acting benevolent for no reason. The Reapers are clearly shown over and over to go out of their way to indoctrinate valuable targets to their cause, and there is no target in the entire universe more valuable to them than Shepard. Barring some sort of massive head injury, there's just no way that Shepard should believe anything the AI says is anything but an indoctrination attempt.

We spent 3 whole games seeing that literally every single person who tried to work with the Reapers on any level has their mind dominated by them. We fight an indoctrinated TIM 30 seconds before meeting the Star Child. Everything the Star Child tells you about the AI-organic conflict is contradicted by the entire story thus far. I literally have too many AI fighting on my side against the Reapers to count. Not a single thing that Star-Child tells you is supported by what you've seen in the games or the narrative to that point. Nor has the narrative given you a single reason to work with them instead of ignoring them at any point. The only reason anyone would ever listen to anything it has to say is that they are completely insane, or the player is using meta-knowledge that it's the end of the game and the devs probably aren't trying to trick you.

The Reapers have not been trying to genocide the entire galaxy - they only target spacefaring races. There's quite a bit of evidence from earlier in the series that this isn't just a matter of not having gotten around to the rest yet, too. The Asari, Salarians, Quarians, and Yahg all already existed in the previous cycle, and were all left untouched even when the Reapers gained total control of the galaxy and completed the cycle.

Indoctrinating Shepard at an earlier point, especially at the start of ME3 or before, would indeed have been an incredibly valuable achievement. At the point of meeting the Star Child, however, it would be entirely superfluous. The pan-galaxy fleet is already assembled, already there, and already locked in battle with the Reapers, it's too late to derail that. An Indoctrinated Shepard would not meaningfully help the Reapers win that battle, and once the battle is won then there's little use for him because the resistance forces committed the bulk of their military to that single battle. It's a case of a single battle deciding the war, because whichever side loses will have too little left to continue to pose a threat. The window of opportunity for Indoctrinating Shepard to be useful has already passed.

And if it is an Indoctrination attempt regardless? Then you can't trust that the "Destroy" action will actually do anything you want, much less what the Star Child said it would, either.