Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[Psyren]

For what it's worth, I agree that the game does a very poor job of supporting the Catalyst's beliefs. All the game really does is show us that he's wrong, and does nothing to explain to us where he's coming from.

I can fill in that blank easily myself - he can have seen generations upon generations of rebellious synthetics of which I know nothing, after all - but since he offers no proof, the whole scene is weaker as a result.

I'm hoping the DLC will go into that.

[Opperhapsen]

Although on that note I do want to bring up something I thought of the other day, but haven't seen brought up anywhere. The crucible was built and added to each cycle by the advanced civilizations that were wiped out. The protheans, based on what the VI on thessia says, were near to completing/using the crucible but were prevented when indoctrinated agents infiltrated the project and stopped them. The catalyst says the crucible allows him new options to deal with the cycle.

COMMENCE INDOCTRINATION THEORY RAMBLING.
People keep forgetting a part of that, and it annoys me endlessly.

The indoctrinated Protheans fought under the guise of wanting to use the crucible to control the reapers.
They didn't go "HEY HO LET'S DESTROY THE CRUCIBLE". They went "HEY HO LET'S USE THE CRUCIBLE FOR SOMETHING THAT ISN'T DESTROYING THE REAPERS" and the battle fought over this issue was what prevented the completion.

[Morty]

Sorry, but I'm honestly not seeing the motif that artificial intelligence will always turn against their creators and destroy them as central to the game at all. Geth didn't turn against the Quarians. The Quarians attacked them and after chasing them out the Geth were content to stay on Rannoch and other formerly Quarian worlds and do whatever it is that they do. The reason they attacked the organics were because Sovereign - which the Catalyst had created - told them to. So the one instance of synthetics harming organics on a large scale that we could actually see was directly caused by Catalyst. So yeah, artificial intelligence causing trouble has been there, but it was hardly apocalyptic.
Besides, how did the Catalyst come to that conclusion? Did it happen once? If it happened more than once, with synthetics wiping out organics but new organic civilizations emerging, why are the Reapers even necessary? And if it happened only once, how is that a basis for drawing such wide-reaching conclusions and taking such extreme measures? The Catalyst may be simply wrong and perpetuating a cycle of galactic-wide genocide for completely nonsensical reasons, but if that's the case why does Shepard accept its words without question? We're told precisely nothing on this matter.

[Tiki Snakes]

No, they are one and the same. A VI can't "go rogue" - it does what you tell it to do and can't form conclusions of its own. That's like Avina or Glyph "going rogue."

If it went rogue at all, it had free will to begin with and so was an AI. The Luna VI was actually an AI, they were just keeping it on the down-low to avoid Council sanctions.

Well, The Luna VI was supposed to be a VI. It's just, Quarian style, they were fudging around the edges and messed up. Specifically it became self aware during the mission in which you take it down, or so I understood.

[edit] As for whether the catalyst was right or wrong on the synthetics thing, I'm completely unsure.

It almost seems like it was for the Catalyst and/or whatever the catalyst represented that it was a self fullfilling prophesy or something. They have been enforcing the shape of galactic progression to specifically match way it happened for their original society, in which their machine creations rebelled, so there are always machine creations and they always end up in conflict one way or another. Because it's in the galactic script (and anything not in the script gets trimmed). Between changing the super-VI/Catalyst/StarGhost/Whatever and possibly proving it wrong with the Geth/Quarians, Sheperd forces a third way, or something, and the Catalyst allows the script to be re-written or even torn up altogether.

Not that I am sure of any of that, it's simply how I processed that particular issue. I'm fully reserving judgement until summer.

[MCerberus]

Well, The Luna VI was supposed to be a VI. It's just, Quarian style, they were fudging around the edges and messed up. Specifically it became self aware during the mission in which you take it down, or so I understood.

With the Lunar VI/EDI situation though, we have another documented case where the AI sees how frightened it and the organics are by the sudden situation and later resolves to forgive them and attempt cooperation.

Combine that with the Reaper desire to turn AI aggressively against organics (Heretic Geth/ apparently they caused the Prothean synths to turn against them) makes Star Child disingenuous at best.

You know why you think Synthetics always want to destroy organics? Maybe it's because you keep offering presents and saying how cool it would be if you help them destroy organics. !@#$ you Star Child.

[Zorg]

So I was wondering what the endings would be like if directed by Ridley Scott*, and came up with this vid: Prometheus Effect


*That may or may not be a lie.

[Toastkart]

No, they are one and the same. A VI can't "go rogue" - it does what you tell it to do and can't form conclusions of its own. That's like Avina or Glyph "going rogue."

If it went rogue at all, it had free will to begin with and so was an AI. The Luna VI was actually an AI, they were just keeping it on the down-low to avoid Council sanctions.

It's not made explicitly clear either through gameplay or the codex. The codex says that ais require a quantum 'blue box' whatever that is, but at the same time we have a couple instances of vis evolving into ais (the one on the citadel and the Luna vi) with no explanation for how it happened. The rogue vi you run into during the N7 missions of me2 seemed to be a combination of faulty hardware and viral infection. Perhaps I worded what I said too strongly and should have said that not all rogue vis are ais.

Besides, how did the Catalyst come to that conclusion? Did it happen once? If it happened more than once, with synthetics wiping out organics but new organic civilizations emerging, why are the Reapers even necessary? And if it happened only once, how is that a basis for drawing such wide-reaching conclusions and taking such extreme measures? The Catalyst may be simply wrong and perpetuating a cycle of galactic-wide genocide for completely nonsensical reasons, but if that's the case why does Shepard accept its words without question? We're told precisely nothing on this matter.

I've wondered about this myself, and it makes me wonder if the catalyst/reapers aren't the near survivors of a synthetic uprising, but the synthetics that turned on their creators and wiped them out.

Don't you still get Javik on the ship if you don't have the DLC? I thought From Ashes basically let you get him as a party member, not just taking up space on the ship. And him being DLC is what's irrelevant...he's part of the game and a walking piece of lore. You can't just ignore him because he's DLC. That'd be like saying Arrival/LotSB are irrelevant because their DLC, when the truth is they've had sweeping effects on the setting.

Nope, Javik doesn't appear whatsoever without the dlc. Which means you don't have access to anything he says unless you spend money on an 'unimportant to the story' piece of content.

As for Arrival/LotSB, while I can't say for sure because I have them both, I recall hearing people say that if you don't have them, they still occur just without Shepard being present.

..And then they attacked the Citadel in an effort to let in the Reapers. Sure, we aren't told what they were doing behind the Veil, we're left to draw our own assumptions based on what they're doing at the time of ME 1...which is trying to wipe out organic life.

Because the reapers pushed them to do it. Kind of like setting up your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

It has everything to do with it considering there's good reasons for lots of the geth being in a single location (building their Dyson sphere) and the quarians would need their entire fleet to win in the first place. Would the quarians have done the same if another race had basically stolen their homeworld?

I was pointing out that the possibility of extinction for one or both of them in that time and place had nothing to do with it being a synthetic vs. organic conflict and everything to do with the fact their entire species were engaged in a single battle/war in a single place all at the same time. Regardless of the reasons for both the quarian and the geth to do what they did, neither gets wiped out because they're organic or synthetic.

Actually, it's worth pointing out that Mass Effect technology (from what I've read and retained of the Codex) has no influence whatsoever on creating AIs. Everything the Catalyst and Reapers have laid down leads to all kinds of technology...but AIs it does not.

I should have said could lead them down that path, my mistake there. Given that we don't know the full extent of what the reapers left behind and how they intended advanced civilizations to develop, it's still a distinct possibility.

[Zevox]

Stop.
Right
there.

Spoiler

Show

Criminal scum.

When you say "Use your imagination for what happens next!" you're not defending the ending, you know that right?
You're pointing out exactly what's wrong with it.
If the only differences between the endings are a palette swap and what I imagine will happen next, there is no difference.

Not at all. You're told what the difference is: in one you destroy the Reapers and Geth, in another you take control of the Reapers (though how exactly this works is definitely inadequately explained - how do you have control of them after you're dead, could others take that control, etc), in another you merge organic and synthetic life into a new synthesis of the two. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that each has vastly different possible ramifications from the other. That these ramifications aren't shown doesn't much matter - there's far too many possible effects to be reasonably shown, especially for the synthesis ending, where there'd be all kinds of questions about just how the new life form everything has become works even before you start getting into effects on the galaxy at large.

...but how is the reason for the Reapers contrary to literally all the evidence presented in all three games?

Very simply and obviously. There is no example, at any point in the Mass Effect series, of synthetics displaying hostility towards organics, with the sole exception of the Reapers themselves and the Geth that Sovereign convinced to serve him.

The Geth did not rebel against the Quarians, they fought back in self-defense when the Quarians tried to destroy them, as any living creature would - and from what we see in Legion's records in ME3, even that they did only reluctantly, after a period of being hunted down with minimal resistance, wherein even some Quarians helped them against the wishes of their government. After they drove the Quarians out they deliberately isolated themselves in the Perseus Veil, precisely because they were afraid of (i.e. did not desire) further conflict with organics. And in ME3 it was again Quarian aggression that caused the conflict, with the Geth fighting back in self-defense. The only Geth that ever acted aggressively towards organics were those that worked for Sovereign - which means that the Reapers were the source of that aggression, not the Geth themselves.

Then we have EDI, who not only is not hostile towards organics, she develops friendships and possibly even a romance with them.

Then we have that AI that was draining funds from gambling machines in ME1, which hid itself out of fear, knowing the policies organics hold towards AI, and acted out of what it believed to be self-defense when found.

Every other AI? Gone murderous.

Not a single AI at any point in the Mass Effect games has "gone murderous."

Usually out of 'fear' for their 'lives' at what organics would do to them, once they find out about how AIs are to be destroyed. It's a very logical 'fear' but it proves what the Catalyst said has happened in previous cycles.

No, no it doesn't prove what the Catalyst said. Their fear is founded in being actively attacked by their own creators (Geth) or in knowledge of the Council races' policies on AI (the one in the ME1 side-quest). They do not at any point attack organics aggressively, they only fight in self-defense, which is completely contrary to the Catalyst's claims.

And it was true in at least one previous cycle, according to Javik.

Javik gives a second-hand account of events that had long since passed into history when he was born (remember that he was born after the Reaper invasion of his cycle), and a very brief one at that. It's hardly possible to deduce exactly what was going on with the synthetic race he mentions from what little he tells us - just as what little we learned about the Geth at the start of ME1 did not tell us the full story of their race and their conflict with the Quarians by a long shot.

But saying all evidence in all three games points to the Catalyst being wrong? That's just erroneous.

Not in the least. There is literally nothing backing up his claims within the games themselves.

Mass Effect 1: We only know the geth as homicidal flash-light heads trying to return the organic-harvesting Reapers to the galaxy. Every other AI tries to kill you and/or everyone around it.

Even in ME1 if you talk to Tali enough she will tell you that the conflict with the Geth started when the Quarians attacked them out of fear that they were becoming true AI. And you can argue that matter with her, pointing out that they probably acted out of self-defense. So even there the seeds of the Geth story in 2 and 3 were planted. And even there you know that all of the Geth you see are working for Sovereign, a Reaper, so there the supposed solution to the problem of AI hostility towards organics is causing it instead.

Mass Effect 3: The quarians have attacked the geth, triggering war. And, unless Shepard brokers (temporary?) peace, one side or the other gets destroyed. The geth no longer believe peaceful co-habitation is possible with the quarians unless Shepard steps in, as opposed to the Morning War where they let the quarians go.

Correction: the Geth are fine with peaceful co-habitation with the Quarians. The problem is that unless Shepard steps in, the Quarians try to attack the Geth after the Reaper's destruction, which forces the Geth to defend themselves. If Shepard doesn't stop this, whether by convincing the Quarians not to attack or by preventing the Geth upgrade, the result is the destruction of the Quarian forces due to the upgrades the Geth have acquired making them far stronger than the Quarians can handle.

Joker has to lie to people about EDI, both to protect her and to protect them. Cause you can't honestly tell me that EVERYONE IN THE GALAXY would have reacted positively to the idea of an unshackled AI walking around their home after the Morning War, the geth attack on the Citadel, and now the Reapers attacking.

Which has to do with organic perceptions of AI - which apparently were in place well before this, since we've known since game 1 that the Council bans AI research - not with AI hostility towards organics. Which again, we see only from the Reapers and their agents.

Cause I have no problem believing that in every other cycle that AIs either rose against their creators or their creators turned on their creations (and either destroyed or were destroyed by them) enough times for the Catalyst to come to the conclusion that it did.

I do have that problem. He makes a claim that is so absolutist as be inherently absurd, I'm not going to merely take his word for it, especially not when all of my experiences have given me nothing but evidence that he's wrong. Which makes his argument complete nonsense within the context of these games, which is a pretty darn big problem.

Zevox

[Morty]

I've wondered about this myself, and it makes me wonder if the catalyst/reapers aren't the near survivors of a synthetic uprising, but the synthetics that turned on their creators and wiped them out.

That would make sense but, of course, Shepard accepts the spacekid's words as absolute truth and it seems we're expected to do the same

[Arbitrarity]

This reminds me strongly of the argument about blood magic and apostates in the DA2 thread. To me, this feels like a statement about self-reinforcing perceptions and prejudices.

[Derthric]

With the Lunar VI/EDI situation though, we have another documented case where the AI sees how frightened it and the organics are by the sudden situation and later resolves to forgive them and attempt cooperation.

Combine that with the Reaper desire to turn AI aggressively against organics (Heretic Geth/ apparently they caused the Prothean synths to turn against them) makes Star Child disingenuous at best.

You know why you think Synthetics always want to destroy organics? Maybe it's because you keep offering presents and saying how cool it would be if you help them destroy organics. !@#$ you Star Child.

This. For all that is holy beyond holy this! The geth were sitting there not doing a gorram thing outside of the veil until Nezara showed up. And the council had directed the quarians to not engage or provoke the geth. The great irony being that if one side bothered to talk to the other the problem would resolve itself. And we know this from in game information, Javik* states the story of his cycles synthetic uprising came about because of the reapers.

I've broken the problem down into 4 simple areas. Context prior to the endings, the presentation of the endings, the theme and philosophy of the endings, and then the context of the post-endings. I classify everything after Harbinger's sole appearance as "the endings". Also will try to avoid using terms like the abomination or starchild in this analysis.

Spoilered for length

Spoiler

Show

Context going in:
The stance of the Catalyst is very poorly established prior to its introduction. In fact there was no need for its introduction. At that point there was no great question that needed to be answered. Would we liked to have known why the reapers do what they do? Yes but it's not needed. We weren't charging the conduit to unlock the mysteries of the reapers but rather to stop them. Instead we are presented with addressing a problem that we were never presented with before. This is a failure of establishing the meaning and value of the ending.

The fact that the foundation for the finale was so weak exposes it to further flaws in the coming elements. This is their first mistake, it sets up the thematic shift because it does not having a supporting thread from the previous elements of the games.

The interaction with TIM and Anderson stands in stark contrast to the Catalyst because its with established characters and uses story elements that mattered up to that point in its resolution. The Catalyst is a self contained entity that is at best a tool to ending the overall arc of the games. But it does so without carrying any narrative or emotional weight beyond the image of the child. And it frames the final choices in its view point(more on this in the 3rd point) not us, the players. Who to this point have been the ones setting what is and is not acceptable and placing tone on our choices. Leaving it feeling out of place and unconnected to the rest of the games.

Presentation:
The ending is shifted away from previously established rules of gameplay and at first this shift is handled well. It does this by turning to the conversion system and with TIM and Anderson it works well, because of the context in which it occurs. Your interaction with TIM to this point has been purely in the conversation system. Resolving his arc in this manner is fitting and is carried well with the 4 VA's doing high quality work. These same points do not carry over into the Catalyst portion of the endings.

The choice of making the Catalyst appear as the child from the beginning is one that I feel falls flat. The emotional tie to this character is weak at best. It is an informed connection rather than developed. The death at Virmire carries weight. This is a person we, the player and shepard, have interacted with and learned of and from. We are sacrificing something that we applied value to. The child is something that was meant to represent those we could not or did not save. However the child itself is rather lifeless to begin with it. We know nothing of who or what he is or likes, we do not know anything about him. He is too much of a blank slate. This means the connotation we give it might not work with what he is intended to represent. This element cannot carry the scene, the only other story component there is Shepard.

This brings us to the characterization of Shepard at that moment. Many have said it feels like Shepard does not act like Shepard at that moment. This is especially shown because so much rides on Shepard at that time. Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer do excellent work with what they were given but the dialogue and attitude don't fit. The characterization at this point is entirely directed by Bioware, and this is something that I personally feel runs counter to much of the rest of the game. Mass Effect works because Shepard is my character, I have imprinted Shepard's attitude and thought process onto the character through my actions in creating the character at the start of the first game and through Shepard's action through the games themselves. Its the closest any cRPG has come to mimicking the Player/PC nature of Pen and Paper games. This connection feels stripped at this moment through Shepard's action or inaction. Once more disconnecting the final five minutes from the rest of the game.

By taking out the core gameplay and then limiting player agency in favor of Narrator control removes attachment. Couple this with a lack of informed context going into this moment takes away the immersion of the player into the game. By knocking us out of that immersion we become more critical and aware. Our suspension of disbelief is no longer covering blemishes and holes and we end up seeing problems that would otherwise have missed. This is a direct result of the break down of presentation.

Of course we then come to what the Catalyst is used for. I have observed that some of those who look at the endings in a positive light see it as the resolution of denouement of the trilogy. There are others, like myself, who thought it was the climax of the story. Either way it is not the appropriate time of a narrative to introduce and resolve a conflict without creating fundamental flaws. And then there is the argument presented.

Philosophy
The ending makes several absolute declarations on life, thought, and fate. Points which have been used as contention between characters prior to this. Adams has conversations on the nature of what is life between himself, Chakwas, and Donnelly. EDI poses the question "Are we more than our thoughts?" However where questions were presented with no definitive being a central core of the game, the Catalyst's statements come off as counter to the nature of the rest of the game, by presenting absolutes where none were before. Then we come to what he actually says.

One fundamental flaw of the Catalyst's stances is that it is painting with a broad stroke wider than anything else we encounter. It boils all of life into 2 categories, Synthetic and Organic. Meanwhile we see evidence of the complexity of life, on both categories. We come to see a collection of individuals not huge homogenous categories. The ending breaks that, its a focus on the forest and not the trees type message. Where with the inclusion of Legion and EDI, as well as the thrust of Mordin's Arc is that the Trees are just as important. As the Scientist Salarian declared "Focused on the Big Picture. Big Picture made of little Picture. Too many variables". The ending creates simplicity in place of complexity, it shuns elements of the game prior its introduction without addressing them.

Another flaw is it introduces a form of fatalism that strips all life all actions of all actors in the story of any meaning because it was all destined to be. Every argument, event, and action to this point is then effectively rendered meaningless, because the greater cycle. He pivots then to point out that you can break his reaper cycle. However 2 of the choices given, Control and Destroy, come with connotations tinged with failure. The Catalyst pushes his agenda and has this Supercycle overriding the self determining nature of our choices by saying "yeah you can end all of this and send the reapers into dark space but it won't matter, enjoy your meaningless death." Not only does this philosophy break previous themes of the game. It pushes us towards only one outcome being acceptable from a point of sole authority and that authority is not the player but the Catalyst.

Context after the end:
There is little that can be said at this point since there is so little after the events with the Catalyst. There is a decided lack of information to put Shepard's final action into the context of that event plus Shepard's previous actions. This further pushes the disconnect of the final moments and the rest of the game. Everything feels like it occurs in a vacuum. Also the post event context is further weakened by the Catalyst itself. Only sometimes EDI is listed as casualty in the Destroy option. Perhaps more damning it does not always warn about the destruction of the Relays. Making these events in the final video seem even more completely out of place. Which yet again introduces new elements at the very final moments undercutting any sense of completion from them. Where we should be at the moment going, "I did it" we are instead going "why did that just happen?"

Couple this with the fact that we don't know the how of our choices change some things, ie what exactly does synthesis address that prevents the supercycle. We are left with emptiness and little satisfaction.

Conculsion:
Each one of these problems is compound each other. And draw attention to one another. Any one or two of these things could be weak and rely on the others to cover up their flaws and carry the story forward on emotional connections, gameplay fun, or rule of cool. But because each one element is so poorly handled they instead exacerbate each other amplifying the problems. But now that the mask is off and the endings are seen as they are, small tweaks and fixes will not be enough. Once you have seen the man behind the curtain, the magic is gone.

I have stated in the previous thread that this extended cut adding an epilogue, which is my understanding, would have been ok and cut down on the disappointment at release time. Is too little too late to mask the other problems.

And as to the Art argument, I will lift this from a post of mine in the previous thread.

On Art.
I think the problem with this stance is that Art by its very nature is subjective. One reason I was never driven up a wall by Ebert's comments about video games not being art was that I think most products of pop culture are not art. Art isn't something that is produced or that an artist alone creates. It needs to be something attained, something that artist, critic and audience come to a consensus on. Video Games have the potential to become art in the same way movies, books, and other narrative forms do. But nothing is intrinsically art because it originates in a creative medium. Of course that argument is my personal view and YMMV.

.

That is where I come from on that.

---------------------------
So that's it that's my rant, my problems in a nutshell.

*Javik is DLC, and by definition optional. Given that he provides more context, even weak context, than anything else in game for the ending is a damning thing. For EA, Bioware, and the in game impact.

[Androgeus]

This reminds me strongly of the argument about blood magic and apostates in the DA2 thread. To me, this feels like a statement about self-reinforcing perceptions and prejudices.

Indeed.

We do have to remember that we only see one cycle, and have second hand reports on another. We don't know if our cycle is the norm or an anomaly so the starchild's view point could still be correct.
Should its view point have actually been supported by other things we see in game though? Yes.

[blackjack217]

Sigh, why couldn't we just chose between controlling the reapers to achieve human dominance like the Illusive man wanted or following Anderson and destroying the reapers for the greater good? It would have followed the themes of the series beautifully.
ME 1: Save or destroy the council. Sacrifice human lives for the greater good or sacrifice the council to save human lives and incidentally improve your power
ME 2: Destroy the collector base or put it in the hands of a human extremist group openly dedicated to the power of humanity at the expense of all else.

[kamikasei]

"Artistic vision", my arse. I'm glad that the "extended cut" will be released, but trying to convince everyone that they totally meant it - even though it's clear that the spacekid ending was cobbled together in a rush - leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This, a lot.

It's really coming off to me that either they're rolling back what they originally intended to imply - large-scale death, destruction and hardship - while pretending it's what they meant all along, or else they went for destroying the relays without actually thinking about the implications in order to set up something entirely separate, which just means they half-assed the ending of the trilogy in order to serve some larger goal with the franchise, which I'm not okay with. I simply don't buy that they felt the need to have the relays destroyed no matter what but somehow this doesn't result in any of the starvation or disconnection it logically ought to and this was motivated by artistic vision in any sense.

No, they are one and the same. A VI can't "go rogue" - it does what you tell it to do and can't form conclusions of its own. That's like Avina or Glyph "going rogue."

If it went rogue at all, it had free will to begin with and so was an AI.

That's nonsense I'm afraid. Of course a non-sentient program can do things you don't want it to do, up to and including killing you and a whole bunch of other people, if you screw up its safeguards and instructions. You're assuming your conclusion - "if it 'goes rogue' it has free will, so only free-willed intelligences can 'go rogue'" - when the fact that people talk about "rogue VIs" in the setting demonstrates that at least a sense of the term (and more importantly, the sense used in this context in the franchise) is "something acting according to its programming in unexpected, extremely undesirable ways".

("They just called it a 'rogue VI' to hide things from the Council"? No, that doesn't help you. If a 'rogue VI' is a contradiction in terms then they're not fooling anyone. The rogue VI on Luna is implied to have graduated to AI status, but the fact that it went rogue did not necessarily imply this, and they were able to continue claiming it was merely a rogue VI precisely because such a thing is a meaningful concept in-setting.)

[NeoVid]

Well, just completed the game today, and didn't find the ending to be horrifically bad, just plain old bad.

It occurred to me that another game got panned for having only three stupidly limited choices for the conclusion: Fable 2. When Mass Effect copies Fable for its storytelling method, there's a problem.

Now I know why there's all the jokes about the Decent Ending DLC. ...Which I really hope they make. The only other ending I've seen get this kind of reaction was Fallout 3, and it did get its ending changed due to the amount of outrage.

Damn, I never imagined that ME3 would have an ending just like FF7, instead of one that's RESOLVED and lets you KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHARACTERS AND SETTING *wheeze wheeze*

[MCerberus]

It should be noted as part of the virus-infected mech series of assignments in ME2, you run across a rogue VI that has no signs of sentience. It just decided to quarantine everything when it came into contact with malicious code.

[Woot Spitum]

I think Bioware might have an easier time getting people to buy into their artistic vision for the Mass Effect series if someone outside the company had any clue what it was. Because as it is, the ending really just kinda comes out of left field.

[Dienekes]

What a load of bull****. You'd think after all this time BioWare would've figured out no one gives a **** about 'closure' from their ****ty-ass ending. But I've pretty much given up on Mass Effect 3 by now anyway. What a waste of my money and time.

You see while I don't like the ending, I can't understand this mentality.

ME3 was quite possibly the best game I've ever played, until the last 5 minutes, which admittedly sucked. But even with them, the game was worth it for me for Tuchanka, and Rannoch, and Grissom Academy, and shooting bottles with Garrus, and threatening to pull the fire alarm on Ash, and Joker and Garrus joking around, and a hundred other things. Even through my disappointment I can't fathom calling it a waste.

They tried to do something different, it didn't work. I can respect the attempt even while regretting the outcome.

[Derthric]

You see while I don't like the ending, I can't understand this mentality.

ME3 was quite possibly the best game I've ever played, until the last 5 minutes, which admittedly sucked. But even with them, the game was worth it for me for Tuchanka, and Rannoch, and Grissom Academy, and shooting bottles with Garrus, and threatening to pull the fire alarm on Ash, and Joker and Garrus joking around, and a hundred other things. Even through my disappointment I can't fathom calling it a waste.

They tried to do something different, it didn't work. I can respect the attempt even while regretting the outcome.

I think much of the frustration with the "artistic integrity" argument is that it is used to defend something that would otherwise not be defendable. You make the point about how amazing the game is, and until the abomination shows up it is amazing. What many want is that part that fits with it as a cap stone worthy of the rest of the series. They are saying no, its not our vision. When the rest are saying but your vision is terribly flawed.

I put a post above going into better detail on the failings from a narrative position.

[Alex Knight]

Someone pointed out the following endings for Deus Ex:

1.) Crash the global telecommunications Grid

2.) Merge with the AI Helios

3.) Rule the world alongside the Illuminati

Somehow, those choices seem....familiar.

[Callos_DeTerran]

*Whole Bunch of Stuff*

Okay, a couple people said this, but you said it the most and I feel I failed to convey my point. The Catalyst doesn't say that synthetic life will always rise up against organic life. It says the 'created always destroy the creator'. It may not seem like a difference, but there is. The second statement doesn't tell you why the created always destroy the creator, because in all actuality there could be lots of reasons.

No, the geth didn't pursue the quarians and let them go. No, EDI didn't turn into a vengeful AI for almost being murdered. That's great!

However, 'created always destroy the creator' doesn't mean that the created start the conflict. Just that they end it, one way or the other. Sure, the geth were fine behind the Veil, minding their own business...but the quarians went and picked the fight with them. The end result is the same though, even after the Reaper is destroyed, the quarians press the fight when there's no real cause to. They force the issue of who's going to go extinct and it's only an extreme 'Take A Third Option' that allows both to survive.

The AI on the Citadel? Sure, it was hiding and just wanted to smuggle itself off the Citadel...but it installed those bombs for a reason. It knew that if it was discovered, it'd be disassembled. As for it not being murderous...in it's own (paraphrased) words 'if I must die, I will die knowing I took organics with me'. Was it trying to leave peacefully? Sure, but if denied that it wanted to kill some meat-bags on the way out. I'd call that murderous.

And to return to EDI, again, I know that EDI chose to forgive the humans trying to shut her down...but that's not going to stop her from defending herself if someone else tries to destroy her.

The Catalyst isn't saying that synthetic life will inevitably decide to kill all organics one day...it's saying that, for one reason or another, the created will destroy the creators. That's why I have no trouble believing it. Cause I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where either synthetic life or organic life starts the fight until the Catalyst had enough and made the Reapers to curtail the problem entirely.

[Dienekes]

I think much of the frustration with the "artistic integrity" argument is that it is used to defend something that would otherwise not be defendable. You make the point about how amazing the game is, and until the abomination shows up it is amazing. What many want is that part that fits with it as a cap stone worthy of the rest of the series. They are saying no, its not our vision. When the rest are saying but your vision is terribly flawed.

I put a post above going into better detail on the failings from a narrative position.

Oh I'm not defending the argument. It's the general covering our arses answer that should be expected from major companies. But there is a slight truth to it. The creator's did not make the ending to annoy, enrage, and scorn their own fan base. They wanted one that would be talked about, and would create some more questions. Well they did, but with that came poor explaining, lack of reasonable choices, and a thousand other problems.

Yes, it did fail from a narrative perspective. Hell I listened to a 20 minute clip of a guy explaining why it failed and for the most part I agree with his points. But the artist will try to keep the spirit of what they envisioned, even if they alter it. I can respect that, and will see how the extended edition will play out.

Well, I wont. My x-box is not hooked up online, never has been, so I'm not certain how the whole downloading thing would work. But I'll youtube it.

My argument is really not about disliking the ending. It's about taking 5 very bad minutes and saying because of it the rest of the game is horrible. Because the ending is bad, it doesn't change the power and emotion I felt when my Shepard yelled the Quarian navy down from attacking the Geth. Or the pang I felt when Mordin said "It had to be me" one last time. Just because the ending sucks does not negate the emotion. Just because the journey did not finish as we had wished does not mean the journey itself was not worth taking.

To me anyway. Others disagree for some reason.

[TheLaughingMan]

You see while I don't like the ending, I can't understand this mentality.

ME3 was quite possibly the best game I've ever played, until the last 5 minutes, which admittedly sucked. But even with them, the game was worth it for me for Tuchanka, and Rannoch, and Grissom Academy, and shooting bottles with Garrus, and threatening to pull the fire alarm on Ash, and Joker and Garrus joking around, and a hundred other things. Even through my disappointment I can't fathom calling it a waste.

They tried to do something different, it didn't work. I can respect the attempt even while regretting the outcome.

I guess it really depends on what was most important to the player: the heroic adventure, or the chance to save the galaxy (even at a cost). There are countless cool aspects to the adventure, of course. But think about what it's like for the other guys.

You've fought numerous battles, been thoroughly disgraced, and made more sacrifices than any one man should really ever have to. But it'll be worth it. Even if it takes years of rebuilding what was lost, even if you have to lose all you hold dear to you, it'll all be worth it if you can give these people, these soldiers, these civilians, these broken, these lost and hopeless people a chance at seeing a better tomorrow. All the hours you spent uniting all of the people of the galaxy, all for this moment. This one moment, this deciding hour of the galaxy, where all that suffering and all that fear are finally burnt away. It is time to shape the galaxy forever...

...into one of three preset scenarios, each of them detailing the differently terrible and yet somehow identical catastrophe you didn't know you'd be leaving behind. In the end, you could only choose which flavor of holocaust you'd like to inflict on the galaxy. Your friends you've spent the whole series fighting for are now doomed to face a dark age that will last for perhaps thousands of years. The galaxy has failed to escape the cycle's aftershocks. The future has refused to change.

That's kind of why they hate it so much. It doesn't matter if the rest of Mass Effect 3 was the best in the series. If, in the end, it's all for nothing more than replacing one terror with another, then what's the point of even going on the adventure at all?

[chiasaur11]

I guess it really depends on what was most important to the player: the heroic adventure, or the chance to save the galaxy (even at a cost). There are countless cool aspects to the adventure, of course. But think about what it's like for the other guys.

You've fought numerous battles, been thoroughly disgraced, and made more sacrifices than any one man should really ever have to. But it'll be worth it. Even if it takes years of rebuilding what was lost, even if you have to lose all you hold dear to you, it'll all be worth it if you can give these people, these soldiers, these civilians, these broken, these lost and hopeless people a chance at seeing a better tomorrow. All the hours you spent uniting all of the people of the galaxy, all for this moment. This one moment, this deciding hour of the galaxy, where all that suffering and all that fear are finally burnt away. It is time to shape the galaxy forever...

...into one of three preset scenarios, each of them detailing the differently terrible and yet somehow identical catastrophe you didn't know you'd be leaving behind. In the end, you could only choose which flavor of holocaust you'd like to inflict on the galaxy. Your friends you've spent the whole series fighting for are now doomed to face a dark age that will last for perhaps thousands of years. The galaxy has failed to escape the cycle's aftershocks. The future has refused to change.

That's kind of why they hate it so much. It doesn't matter if the rest of Mass Effect 3 was the best in the series. If, in the end, it's all for nothing more than replacing one terror with another, then what's the point of even going on the adventure at all?

Well, apparently the expanded ending will make that disaster thing less of a deal.

Or at least, that's the trend of what's out there right now. Don't know how it'll go down yet. Hope for better, prepare for worse and that.

[Xondoure]

The dialogue wheel downplayed? Occasionally they had Shepard say things without it, but how is that anything but simply more efficient than the illusion choices they gave you in the previous ones? (Some options all had Shepard say the same thing. )

But honestly, I vastly preferred it this way. Not calling every little detail but instead only shifting Shepard's options when the conversation shifted. And balancing paragon and renegade so that playing a mix didn't make you come across as schizophrenic. Plus more actively integrating interrupts...

I thought they did very well on the dialogue wheel.

[Derthric]

Oh I'm not defending the argument. It's the general covering our arses answer that should be expected from major companies. But there is a slight truth to it. The creator's did not make the ending to annoy, enrage, and scorn their own fan base. They wanted one that would be talked about, and would create some more questions. Well they did, but with that came poor explaining, lack of reasonable choices, and a thousand other problems.

Yes, it did fail from a narrative perspective. Hell I listened to a 20 minute clip of a guy explaining why it failed and for the most part I agree with his points. But the artist will try to keep the spirit of what they envisioned, even if they alter it. I can respect that, and will see how the extended edition will play out.

Well, I wont. My x-box is not hooked up online, never has been, so I'm not certain how the whole downloading thing would work. But I'll youtube it.

My argument is really not about disliking the ending. It's about taking 5 very bad minutes and saying because of it the rest of the game is horrible. Because the ending is bad, it doesn't change the power and emotion I felt when my Shepard yelled the Quarian navy down from attacking the Geth. Or the pang I felt when Mordin said "It had to be me" one last time. Just because the ending sucks does not negate the emotion. Just because the journey did not finish as we had wished does not mean the journey itself was not worth taking.

To me anyway. Others disagree for some reason.

Fair enough. I misunderstood your first post and understand what you mean now.

However I can easily see how this ending can backfire over the entire game. If you take the stance that this ending was to be the pay off of all that has come before. Its failure to be so colors the previous events.

This kept me from jumping into a second playthrough right away. Thinking that it all leads to the abomination at the end. However once I started I found myself looking forward to the actual fun parts and the payoffs of those smaller situations which you have listed. That is until post-Thessia where all I can see if that darn starchild waiting.

For the Extended cut, if its a simple game update just plug your 360 into any ethernet and it will connect and update. You will get stuck with a number of dashboard updates and will have to activate the game to download any updates there. If its DLC you will probably be able to access it through the Marketplace.

Okay, a couple people said this, but you said it the most and I feel I failed to convey my point. The Catalyst doesn't say that synthetic life will always rise up against organic life. It says the 'created always destroy the creator'. It may not seem like a difference, but there is. The second statement doesn't tell you why the created always destroy the creator, because in all actuality there could be lots of reasons.

No, the geth didn't pursue the quarians and let them go. No, EDI didn't turn into a vengeful AI for almost being murdered. That's great!

However, 'created always destroy the creator' doesn't mean that the created start the conflict. Just that they end it, one way or the other. Sure, the geth were fine behind the Veil, minding their own business...but the quarians went and picked the fight with them. The end result is the same though, even after the Reaper is destroyed, the quarians press the fight when there's no real cause to. They force the issue of who's going to go extinct and it's only an extreme 'Take A Third Option' that allows both to survive.

The AI on the Citadel? Sure, it was hiding and just wanted to smuggle itself off the Citadel...but it installed those bombs for a reason. It knew that if it was discovered, it'd be disassembled. As for it not being murderous...in it's own (paraphrased) words 'if I must die, I will die knowing I took organics with me'. Was it trying to leave peacefully? Sure, but if denied that it wanted to kill some meat-bags on the way out. I'd call that murderous.

And to return to EDI, again, I know that EDI chose to forgive the humans trying to shut her down...but that's not going to stop her from defending herself if someone else tries to destroy her.

The Catalyst isn't saying that synthetic life will inevitably decide to kill all organics one day...it's saying that, for one reason or another, the created will destroy the creators. That's why I have no trouble believing it. Cause I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where either synthetic life or organic life starts the fight until the Catalyst had enough and made the Reapers to curtail the problem entirely.

Even then the Abomination uses some level of Insane Troll Logic. He is a flawed concept out of story and in story. I have already gone over its problems as an out of story element. Here I want to address the in story ones in response to this post.

The Catalyst is hard to take seriously. He makes proclamations about eventualities that we know to be untrue. While in this video he states at 1:15 "the created always rebel against their creators" which is accurate to the setting. In the end peace was created. And maybe a war will occur but we never see evidence of this eventuality. In fact the only things that run with the concept of inevitable outcomes are the reapers. The very things we have been opposed to, to this point. At no other point in the game is an absolute treated with such reverence and authority. In fact we have been acting against and in direct opposition to the concept of the inevitable. Something he embodies and as such appears contrary to the rest of the game.

Moving on to the rest of his dialogue. He calls himself an object of order that opposes the chaos this supercycle presents. That this synthetic vs organic is opposed to his sense of order. Yet he implies it is part of a set pattern that is absolute, measurable and definable, that does not sound like chaos to me. In fact its a natural order. He is an element of chaos disrupting it. He forces his solution upon a world and shows no remorse in doing so. Its words he is using to define himself and the galaxy in terms relative to himself. These thoughts counter his absolute view of life. They serve to undermine his proclamations by showing him as flawed.

Next he proclaims that he harvests and uplifts life to this new way, yet makes no point in showing why it is better to be a reaper. We know they claim to be a nation with thoughts unknowable however they seem to be without any form of diversity in action or thought beyond themselves. They appear now, in this context as mere tools and slaves to the Catalyst's motivations. Hardly the most noble of outcomes. What do their tactics say of his ideals of life. And more so what does it say that he appears to Shepard as one of his own victims. he even admits during the "you have hope lines" that our hope lives at the moment because new possibilities have arisen. He never counters that what he makes people into are machines. That he himself merely does what the supercycle does only to a smaller target audience at times of his choosing and not at their natural points along the pattern. He is not solving the problem just controlling it. This, once more, shows his flaws, he cannot fathom anything else, yet he could conceive of the means to direct the galaxy and set the reaper cycle in motion, construct the citadel, relays and do this for near on eternity. Yet he cannot think outside of his own little defined world. He cannot foresee the eventuality of an organic being there. He has missed something, he missed one of those little pictures. He is not absolute, but yet his idea is?

The only support we have for this supercycle idea comes from 3 sources. Javik*, the Prothean VI from Thessia and the reaper on Rannoch. Javik mentions the line that "created will turn on creator" twice, once in a conversation to EDI about her turning on Cerberus, and again when talking about Legion and the geth. However he frames it as being that synthetics always come to the conclusion that they are , in effect, perfect and superior to organics. Through both having effective immortality and a known purpose. However neither of these are the reasons for the synthetic and organic conflicts we see. They involve Organic fear of AI and that fear is presented as wrong headed. He also makes other declarations about how political power must and should be used, that the concept of the council is an impossibility. He is at best an unreliable source tinged by his cycles prejudices. The Prothean VI makes mention of a pattern of life that always follows, rising and falling civilizations, but gives no concept about the events as part of it. Never mentioning positives or negatives, just that the reapers may not be the ones directing civilized development. And then the reaper on rannoch makes the Created vs Creator remark and points out that this war between geth and quarian is proof of this. However you can then broker peace. You can show that for once it did not occur. Now the problem with absolutes is you just need to disprove it once to dispel it, and here you can. The absolute fails through here.

In the end he defines your choices. He is the one framing success or failure. At no point in the previous games or in this one is it defined by any source other than yourself. He declares the Control and Destroy will not be enough or else we are doomed anyway. Then comes Synthesis, an extension of his logic. He will once more force a decision upon the galaxy without their consent. All because he declares them to be.

The Catalyst proclaims that synthesis is the final evolution of life. Where does he get this from, where or why is this desirable. At what point was this concept even broached before now. Its not, its presented only now as the ideal, by what can only be described as the antagonist. Its what he wants, to solve his problem on his terms at the cost of your life.

Everything about the Catalyst is flawed, his absolutism, his lack of evidence, even the way he presents this. In order to accept his assertions you have to accept him. For out of story and in story reasons its just about impossible to do so. This ending is convoluted and asinine. it attempts to make a point that need not be made, that was never part of the overall conflict of the story and only appears at the end. What defines this ending originates at the ending. That is why it fails. That is why it is weak and that is why there are people like myself who loathe it.

The shame of it all is, that with proper foreshadowing even in this game, this ending could have been established and made to fit the story. However at no point does this ending become appropriate to the story. Its akin to "rocks fall everybody dies", it is Writer Fiat and that is unacceptable.

*Once again Javik cannot be available to all, and as such should not be used in the way he was to provide context. The story should be self supporting. Even with Javik it is not, but he is the largest source of support.

[Landis963]

So. Finally got through ME3. Got TIM to off himself, yay, found the reveal of Shepard's father underwhelming, meh, and then came face to face with the Catalyst, boo.

I chose Control, btw. It seemed like a logical choice up until he mentioned "oh BTW it'll kill you", and the other two choices were "kill the geth" and "body horror extravaganza". (note that this is without having seen the Destroy and Synthesis endings) And I proceeded to sit through the credits noting every single thing wrong with the Catalyst, the three choices, and the Control ending in particular.

First, the Catalyst. I'm still not entirely clear why we should trust a single thing that comes out of its mouth since it claims to be, after all, The Leader Of The Reapers. Of course, there are numerous possible reasons why Shepard gives the brat the time of day, not least of them being "those Reapers won't kill themselves" (Unless you pick Control, of course, which I did thinking that I would get to pilot the Reapers into the nearest star). It already makes several false assumptions that, by this point, could have been proven to be monstrously false (most notably: "The created will always destroy the creators." Um, no, not only did we disprove that factually on Rannoch if you saved both or sacrificed the geth, but it is a fundamental part of Paragon Shepard's entire character that all races, regardless of who created who, can cooperate and coexist without needless bloodshed, the Geth-Quarian resolution being a perfect example of this). The fact that Shepard can't, at least, point out the flaws in the Catalyst's reasoning (there's nary a dialogue wheel at this point, and the only two dialogue wheel options are halfhearted one-liners with no real purpose in changing the ending) shows that at this point, no choice matters. And they wonder why we're annoyed by the endings.

Then the choices.
You have Destroy, which the Catalyst states will destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy. A few gaping plot holes which escape the confines of your actual choice: You have all this power, why use it so indiscriminately? Why do the geth need to be killed in the first place? If it extends to EDI (and I see no reason why it wouldn't, especially since the destruction extends to you as well) what is the point of her destruction? Why can't the people of the new generation be trusted to keep the peace between organics and synthetics? Why is the destroy ending triggered by destroying something that erupts in fire, rather than, I don't know, pressing a button or pulling a trigger?

Then Control. This is the one I actually picked, so expect more detail here. First and foremost: "You will die. You will control us, but you will lost everything you have." Again, why should I trust that the ominous sparking handle actually works as advertised? If I die, what guarantee do I have that my consciousness would be in control of the Reapers? If it doesn't pass to me, what difference does this make in the grand scheme of things, given that I will essentially be wresting control away from the reapers and handing it to... their leader? Why doesn't Shepard call the munchkin out on his illogic and order him to get the Reapers to stand down themselves, or toss themselves into the nearest sun, or something other than what it actually does (make the Reapers spark blue and fly away. How convincing)?

Synthesis last, and if I play through the final chapters again, this is the one I will pick. The amount of visible plotholes is smaller, but most stem from the "new DNA" thing. How exactly does Shepard fit into this? How can synthetics have DNA? How is mixing organic and synthetic together into a new lifeform any different from the creation of the Reapers in the first place?

And the big doozy of a plothole: Why doesn't Shepard make the Crucible jump from star cluster to star cluster, then activate it separately there? Is it designed to deliberately overclock every mass relay in the galaxy? If so, why is it deliberately designed to make sure the universe cannot travel and coordinate. I would think Tali and Garrus would, y'know, want to see Rannoch and Palaven, respectively, again.

[Androgeus]

found the reveal of Shepard's father underwhelming

I... you... what? I think you may have misunderstood that conversation.

[LordShotGun]

I... you... what? I think you may have misunderstood that conversation.

TIM : "SHEPARD!!!"
Shepard: What is it TIM, no amount of insane troll logic will stop me from killing you!"
TIM: "But Shepard...I AM YOUR MOMMY!!!!"
Shepard: "NOOOOOOOO"

[Morty]

Callos_DeTerran, your points are well made but I have the distinct impression you've put more thought into it than the designers have. If what you're saying is true, why weren't we told and shown? We're left to infer everything regarding the Catalyst's motivation, methods and reasoning.