The Mass Effect Thread

[edgecrusher]

all that still brings me to the question of... why? why would a machine care enough to do all that? to be in charge? to rule the galaxy? what could it possibly gain from that? all that is the means to having power. i find it hard to believe that a logically driven machine would do all that just to be some supreme ruler of the galaxy. that makes no sense to me. having them be the villain just for the sake of having one is terrible terrible writing. it needs motives. its a machine, it has no motives other than the purpose it was given by its creators. thats all the catalyst is, a machine, and it even admits it. thats why this is happening. this falls on organics MUCH more then it falls on synthetics, simply because organics are the creators.

i cant help but think that this is people attempting to force traditional villainy on the catalyst/reapers so they can justify killing them, when thats simply not the case. its the same thing with the ending choices. most people try to find ways to make anything but destroying the reapers negative. and even then, a decent amount of people actively choose what has actually been stated by those that wrote the story as the "non ending" and they refuse any of the choices like thats a good thing. if i wanted to, i could give reasons for all of the choices meaning the galaxy is screwed, ESPECIALLY destroy. this is people wanting their cake and to eat it too... even though in the beginning the story established the enemy in a way that says that there wasnt really any cake in the first place.

every major story that i am aware of where machines are the active enemy, the reason for that is because of something the creators did. i think that happens for a reason, because thats all that CAN happen. all they can do is react to their creators and the conditions in which they were created. a machine will only be hostile if given a reason to. im so glad they didnt devolve this story to that. thats what indoctrination would have left us with unless it was all revealed and resolved before the end of the game and then we learned where the reapers came from and who made them after the fact. in which case it would be extremely similar to what we have now. indoctrination is the easy way out of giving the reapers any real/logical motives or explanation. which says to me, is the reason they scrapped it.

 

[Mr Hermit]

all that still brings me to the question of... why? why would a machine care enough to do all that? to be in charge? to rule the galaxy? what could it possibly gain from that?

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Catalyst

i cant help but think that is people attempting to force traditional villainy on the catalyst/reapers so they can justify killing them, when thats simply not the case. its the same thing with the ending choices. most people try to find ways to make anything but destroying the reapers negative. and even then, a decent amount of people actively choose what has actually been stated by those that wrote the story as the "non ending" and they refuse any of the choices like thats a good thing. if i wanted to, i could find reasons for all of the choices meaning the galaxy is screwed, ESPECIALLY destroy. this is people wanting their cake and to eat it too... even though the story established the enemy in a way that says that there wasnt really any cake in the first place.

i think self defense is good enough justification for killing them.. also they pretty much laid waste to earth and several other homeworlds..
the galaxy is going to hate them... really really hate them..
even if you chose to control them i can easily imagine the galaxy demanding that you destroy them and firing on any reaper they see...
and if you pick synthesis there is no way they would let the reapers run free, they would be banished... even if they are not "reapers" anymore..
also with the mass relays being destroyed that would isolate alot of colonies and strand the amassed fleet of all the species around earth which is now almost identical to tuchanka..
so if this was realistic in anyway then none of the options are particularly good ones..
but like you said... we did get cake..

every major story that i am aware of where machines are the active enemy, the reason for that is because of something the creators did. i think that happens for a reason, because thats all that CAN happen. a machine will only be hostile if given a reason to. im so glad they didnt devolve this story to that. thats what indoctrination would have left us with unless it was all revealed and resolved before the end of the game and then we learned where the reapers came from and who made them after the fact. in which case it would be extremely similar to what we have now. indoctrination is the easy way out of giving the reapers any real motives or explanation.

no, the indoctrination would have left shepard lying on the floor knocked out by the beam..
we don't know anymore than that..
if true.. then the catalyst does not exist.. TIM's location is not known and the fleet are still fighting the reapers

personally i think EA are going to milk the series and come out with a 4th game, that's what EA does...
probably why they left shepard breathing at the end...

 

[edgecrusher]

so revenge then? how is organics continually destroying the synthetics they created over and over again not a cycle in itself? this is why the leviathan say they saw individual species build machines that then destroyed them. because it was happening. unless we are to believe that they are lying. in which case, ANYTHING is possible if we are going to assume things the story makes it a point to tell us are actually false.

if the story did end that way with indoctrination and the catalyst not being real, then what do we find out later? again.... why? why are the reapers doing this? at some point the reapers origins and motives has to be addressed. there is no other way to address machines as the active enemy without finding out the reason for their creation/their creators, and their motives. and again, organics create machines with a purpose. this is the only real and logical way to go into something like this. if not, so they are evil... "just because?" i have yet to see anyone provide a logical explanation to the reapers and their motives if indoctrination were to have played out like so many people suggest. would so many people really be ok with defeating the "evil machines" without ever getting a logical explanation? or without even getting one at all?

also, bioware already said that shepards story is done. the next game will not be a sequel to this story, there will be no "mass effect 4." they are making another game in this universe but it will have nothing to do with shepard. they told the story they wanted to tell already.

 

[Mr Hermit]

so revenge then? how is organics continually destroying the synthetics they created over and over again not a cycle in itself? this is why the leviathan say they saw individual species build machines that then destroy them. because it was happening. unless we are to believe that they are lying. in which case, ANYTHING is possible if we are going to assume things the story makes it a point to tell us are actually false.

im not sure how you got to revenge...
so far this is what i can make of it..

leviathans are the first race, and most powerful

they dominated the other races and made them their servants
(like the protheans did)

leviathans servants create synthetics

those synthetics rebel against the servants

leviathans create the catalyst (a none-synthetic intelligence)with the goal to preserve life at all costs (*facepalm*) (placing complete trust in the catalyst)

catalyst observes that the created synthetics will always rebel.
using the tools that it created (ships etc) it killed its creator the leviathans (i don't know why)

and the rest you know..

if the story did end that way with indoctrination and the catalyst not being real, then what do we find out later? again.... why? why are the reapers doing this? at some point the reapers origins and motives has to be addressed.

oh i agree..

also, bioware already said that shepards story is done. the next game will not be a sequel to this story, there will be no "mass effect 4." they are making another game in this universe but it will have nothing to do with shepard. they told the story they wanted to tell already.

they also said there were going to plenty of endings and that our choices would matter...
game developers lie.. especially those under EA.. pretty much anything EA says is BS..
they have a great series here.. and its been left open, if they wanted to roll with it and make a ME4 they could go with indoctrination.. and there is evidence to support it..
or they could leave it like it is since there is also good evidence to support the ending we got as being the actual ending..

if you want to find evidence for one or the other then you will..

i have yet to see anyone provide a logical explanation to the reapers and their motives if indoctrination were to have played out like so many people suggest. would so many people really be ok with defeating the "evil machines" without ever getting a logical explanation? or without even getting one at all?

if the devs or EA go with indoctrination then the very moment he got hit with the beam the series paused..
you will not get a logical explanation for why the reapers are doing this because there isn't one.. and just because there isn't one does not mean that they are simply "evil machines" it means that we do not know.. we don't know much more than we did than in ME2

but i fear that now with the current explanation involving the catalyst that its the end of the series..
that takes me back to my reason as to why it was a shitty ending..
because ultimately our choices meant nothing and we all got cloned endings and its an insult to call those endings "multiple choice" when we were promised and hyped up to so many varied endings.. and throughout the series the thing that was made very clear is "your choices will matter"

 

[edgecrusher]

its revenge/punishment/retribution or whatever else similar you want to call it if someone is actively choosing to destroy the reapers for what they have done.

the catalyst IS a synthetic intelligence. the leviathan call it an intelligence that they built. the only type of intelligence organics can create, are synthetic intelligences. so it is a machine, similar to what we know as VI. it cant be anything else. calling it "starchild" and "godchild" is just plain silly, yet everyone does it. people are giving it FAR too much credit. its a machine(arguably a broken one), thats it.

the catalyst did what it did because it was only holding the galaxy over until synthesis or something similar became a possibility. the leviathan even explain this. they tell us that the catalyst is running the galaxy like an experiment. that the catalyst built the relays and citadel to speed up the time between cycles until it finds what its looking for. what its looking for is a long term solution to the conflict that arises between organics and their synthetic creations. it is looking for synthesis, or something similar. if it truly was some malevolent entity, why preserve life in the reapers at all? why give any semblance of any sort of positive outcome for shepard? this is another reason indoctrination makes no sense. if it truly was evil and attempting to force something, why would any of the options be anything other than what it wants? even from a "metaphorical" perspective of shepard choosing destroy representing him resisting indoctrination makes no sense because that could also be a trick. indoctrination is a means to an end, thats it. its just a tool the reapers use to complete the cycle. once the cycle no longer works(something the catalyst admits), it serves no other purpose.

the indoctrination theory is the result of people trying to find something, anything, after the extremely and unnecessarily vague ending we got originally. it was made in the vane that the reapers HAD to be 100% malevolent. the fact that they are machines, meaning that they were built by organics with a purpose, says that that makes no real sense. the only way that would be the case is if again, they were evil just for the sake of having a villain in the story. once their creation/creators and motives get discussed, the indoctrination theory goes out the window.

there was never any outside influence on any of this. this is all the result of organics and their creations, thats it. life naturally went in this direction. the creation of synthetic intelligence causes an impasse in the technological advancement of organic species. its a natural step in that. unless that is surpassed, conflict. why is conflict inevitable? because synthetics are a completely new form of life that gain sentience as tools, in a world they took no part in shaping, among creators that are dictated by things they do not possess or understand(emotions). it is one of the most toxic situations in which new life could come into existence. so as of now, that conflict has prevented technological advancement from passing the creation of AI, and thus the evolution of organic life in general. once AI is created, bad things happen. that very scenario has resulted in something that has halted the evolution of life in the galaxy at the 50,000 year mark. it has resulted in cyclical genocide every 50,000 years. if the leviathan and the catalyst arent the ultimate example of that, then i dont know what is.

the leviathan only made it worse by creating the catalyst as it changed nothing about what the actual problem is. organics creating new life as tools. THAT is the problem, and thats why i say it falls on organics MUCH more than it does synthetics. organics are the creators and they are continually creating their own enemy. why? because we fear what we dont understand. its in our nature. sure certain individuals may not react this way towards synthetics, but as a whole we most certainly do. any first contact scenario with a new alien species in the mass effect universe almost always resulted in conflict. with synthetics its one step beyond that, as its a completely new form of life.

so in the end when i look at each ending:

destroy

- the reapers are dead, but more synthetics will be created in the future and the galaxy is back to square one. assuming that "things will be different this time" when it comes to that is i think the most foolish attitude anyone could have because expecting trillions of lives to all cooperate on how to handle the creation of artificial intelligence is about the most naive thing anyone could think. expecting things to be different without actually initiating any sort of actual change is not going to work out well.

with all synthetics destroyed and most tech including the relays very damaged, the leviathan could EASILY make an attempt at trying to reclaim their place in the galaxy as there are no synthetics left to resist their thrall and the relays are down so the galaxy cant properly unite. the leviathan will have no real opposition.

also, weve seen 2 instances in the series in which dead reapers still indoctrinate. the dead reaper the batarians found(the leviathan of dis, which was nearly a billion years old), and the cerberus science team on the derelict reaper in ME2. so destroying the reapers leaves every major planet littered with reaper corpses potentially capable of indoctrinating the stranded survivors that cant immediately go anywhere because major tech and the relays are down.

control

- this sort of relies on the type of shepard that picks it. but at the same time, we have no idea what is really left of shepard. he could just become some cold intelligence similar to a VI and force a way of life on the galaxy, just like the catalyst did. we saw what using a human to control a networked synthetic intelligence turned out like in the overlord DLC. if the leviathan attempt to retake the galaxy, they are likely out of luck because shepard can use the reapers to stop them. if what made shepard who he is truly remains and he is never corrupted by the power, this could be a good ending. though i think the phrase "absolute power xcorrupts absolutely" exists for a reason.

synthesis

- an attempt to alter the conditions that create the initial conflict between organics and their synthetic creations by allowing for a type of communication/understanding between the two forms of life that didnt exist previously. it could be a "reaper indoctrination trick" meant to alter everyones minds and force a way of thinking that creates peace but based on everything ive stated above i think this is EXTREMELY unlikely, if at all. provided it isnt like that this choice allows for the galaxy to FINALLY move past this conflict that has plagued it for over a billion years. the life preserved in the reapers gives all the lost knowledge back to the life of the galaxy and allows them to learn from it because learning from history/past mistakes is essential to advancement.

refuse

- refusing to make a choice that many people see as "playing god" leaving future cycles to deal with this in future cycles. the most likely outcome of which is that a future cycle builds the crucible and makes one of the 3 above choices anyway, or perhaps an even better option presents itself. to which i say, choose SOMETHING since the opportunity presented itself.

so they all come with possible risk. in a series that founded itself on choice, id say that is MORE THAN a fitting ending considering how big the choice is. why abandon choices at the end in the series that founded itself on choices in favor of simply destroying the reapers? forcing something to continue just for the sake of having more is almost always a bad idea. just look at the majority of series that reach the third, fourth, or even higher entry in the series. they outright said its over and that the citadel DLC was the last single player DLC, and that everyone should stop calling the next game "mass effect 4" because that isnt what it will be. so anyone hoping for indoctrination is out of luck. eevn if they did, the only logical thing to take place after revealing indoctrination, is something extremely similar to what the extended cut an leviathan told us because again, they are machines. theres only one real way to explain this, their creation/creators. i cant stress how glad i am that they didnt end it like that.

whats happening in the galaxy is attributed to organics creation of artificial intelligence and how the resulting conflict between the two prevents technological advancement/evolution from going any further. thats the story they decided to tell.

so now that we have all the information, when i get to the end the question i ask myself is, how can anyone expect anything in the future to change, if they do not AT LEAST attempt to alter the conditions that cause this to happen? some form of change is needed, whatever it may be. after a billion or more years of lost culture and an uncountable and obscene amount of deaths, i think the risk of attempting change is worth it.

 

[perfanoff]

Been re-playing mass effect. Almost at the end of #3 now.
Most satisfying moment - the extermination of the quarian ********
Most recurring shot - miranda's booty
Most major cosmetic surgery - that anderson guy, not shepard
Best good guy - garrus, legion
Best villain - illusive man

 

[Mr Hermit]

its revenge/punishment/retribution or whatever else similar you want to call it if someone is actively choosing to destroy the reapers for what they have done.

and the problem with that is?

the catalyst IS a synthetic intelligence. the leviathan call it an intelligence that they built. the only type of intelligence organics can create, are synthetic intelligences.

the leviathan have extremely powerful mental abilities, im assuming that since every reference to "the intelligence" that i can find, not a single one says its synthetic or calls it a synthetic intelligence.
only that its an intelligence that inhabits the citadel

also i will never be convinced that the most powerful and intelligent species that ever lived created an intelligence to find a solution to the problem of created intelligence always destroying its creators

so it is a machine, similar to what we know as VI. it cant be anything else. calling it "starchild" and "godchild" is just plain silly, yet everyone does it. people are giving it FAR too much credit. its a machine(arguably a broken one), thats it.

for the purpose it was created it had to be more than a simple VI..
it had to gather alot of data and formulate a solution, that means that it can learn, if it can learn then what it experiences has an impact on its views and perceptions of things... which means its capable of having expectations and creating predictions in order to create a solution
idk about you but during my playthrough i got the geth and quarians to stop fighting and work together
and since they are the only synthetic race there is the catalyst should have took that into account and realized that organic and synthetics could get along..
the catalyst's purpose is to preserve life at all costs.. as far as we know thats it.. but why is it incapable of reaching a "good" solution one that does not end in everyone dying...
are they telling me that during the "countless cycles" not a single species managed to get along with synthetics... bs..

the catalyst cannot give 2 shits about the individual because although it is living and apart of life it is not life itself, so the catalyst has no problem at all with wiping out groups of individuals no more than i have a problem with walking down the pavement...
the catalysts solution to the problem is dumb (cycles) BUT if it was a smart one that has good reasons then its likely that the mass effect series would have a vastly different story..

i could be reading this wrong but you seem to think that the only reason people hated the ending is because there were "happy endings" and people never got to destroy the reapers using their fleet?

the catalyst did what it did because it was only holding the galaxy over until synthesis or something similar became a possibility. the leviathan even explain this.

that can't be true
life
The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter

the entire purpose of the catalyst was to find a way to prevent life from destroying themselves
(the presumed cause of destruction of life being synthetics)
if the catalyst wants synthesis then it wants to destroy life
changing what life is you're still destroying life

the catalyst should have called off the reapers and changed its mind once shepard allied the geth and the quarians

if it truly was some malevolent entity, why preserve life in the reapers at all?

same reason murderers have some kind of signature or collect something from their victims like a trophy

why give any semblance of any sort of positive outcome for shepard? this is another reason indoctrination makes no sense. if it truly was evil and attempting to force something, why would any of the options be anything other than what it wants?

this is all going on in shepards mind...

synthesis represents embracing the reapers.. even the way he flung himself into the beam.. that entire moment just conveys willingness give himself to them or become "one with the reapers"..
once he leaves himself open like that they take control off him and basically make him a husk im guessing, a slave to the reapers..

have you noticed that harbinger seems to be a separate entity with its own mind..
the catalyst may control them but there could be more to it than that..
possibly by taking control of the reapers you become like harbinger.
taking control he accepts that what the catalyst is doing is the right thing to do.. control, bring order to chaos..
i don't know im struggling to put it into words

by destroying the reapers you reject them with nothing but "destruction of the reapers" going on in your mind it represents fighting them.. the "get up and fight" ... that scene reminded me of the part in lord of the rings when frodo couldn't walk and same had to carry him.. then to the end frodo used every last bit of strength in him to destroy the ring..
destroying them was Shepard's shear determination to resist and continue the fight to save the galaxy and then they show him breathing at the end of it.. almost as if to say that you chose correctly
(plus it would be impossible for him to survive the explosion unless the explosion never took place)

by refusing to choose, you give up... the willingness to fight is no more and you don't care anymore... you lose the will to live and you die...

synthesis (give in, i can't win, they know best)
control (join them, help them, they are right)
destroy (for the sake of the galaxy, i must fight, i must keep going)
refuse (i can't win, no point in fighting, give up or this cycle isn't worth saving)

even from a "metaphorical" perspective of shepard choosing destroy representing him resisting indoctrination makes no sense because that could also be a trick.

how could getting shepard to destroy the reapers in his own mind allow the reapers to take control of him? (if its a trick)
metaphorically it makes perfect sense.
destroy=fight/rejection of the reapers

why give any semblance of any sort of positive outcome for shepard? this is another reason indoctrination makes no sense.

the catalyst is lying its trying to trick shepard into doing anything other than destroying them.. (oddly enough the destroy is the only one with a perceived negative colour)

indoctrination is a means to an end, thats it. its just a tool the reapers use to complete the cycle. once the cycle no longer works(something the catalyst admits), it serves no other purpose.

and if the indoctrination is true then the catalyst does not exist and anything he said cannot be taken as true..
the reapers perceive shepard as a threat that has continually beaten the reapers and is probably the most resistance by far that they have gotten from any other species, indoctrinating him is the best next thing to killing him.. having Shepard on their side would be very valuable to them.. perhaps not for this cycle, but for any after

the indoctrination theory is the result of people trying to find something, anything, after the extremely and unnecessarily vague ending we got originally. it was made in the vane that the reapers HAD to be 100% malevolent.

if indoctrination is true then we do not know
like i said before if its true then the entire series paused at the moment he was hit with harbingers beam

the fact that they are machines, meaning that they were built by organics with a purpose, says that that makes no real sense. the only way that would be the case is if again, they were evil just for the sake of having a villain in the story.

EDI is a machine.. yet she very clearly has feelings and has the ability to change herself.. she was built to speed up electronic warfare in combat and make tasks easier to complete.. yet this simple computer in comparison to the reapers expanded outside of her programing and become something that she was not originally intended on becoming..
she wants to become more human..

EDI is a machine built by Cerberus, a far less advanced group than the creators of the reapers

there was never any outside influence on any of this. this is all the result of organics and their creations, thats it. life naturally went in this direction. the creation of synthetic intelligence causes an impasse in the technological advancement of organic species. its a natural step in that. unless that is surpassed, conflict. why is conflict inevitable?

no.. conflict is not "inevitable"
its likely.. but its not a given

because synthetics are a completely new form of life that gain sentience as tools

only when the purpose demands a sentient tool..
you wouldnt want a sentient hammer, crane or car etc would you?
a VERY simple machine is perfectly capable of completing complex tasks without the ability to think for itself.. a machine can be created to seem like it has the ability to think for itself but its really only following a very complex "appropriate response" system.

i have no doubt that they would try to create sentient synthetics simply for the sake of it.. but what fool would give it a body..
if a computer was even able to become sentient then it should be "raised" and taught in a very controlled environment and studied..

the chances of a terminator like scenario is impossible, unless someone hacks every single thing and deliberately changes their "appropriate response" system..
every civilization should have gotten past the AI thing.. infact it shouldn't even be an issue

but for the sake of the story they all have to be sentient

it is one of the most toxic situations in which new life could come into existence. so as of now, that conflict has prevented technological advancement from passing the creation of AI, and thus the evolution of organic life in general. once AI is created, bad things happen. that very scenario has resulted in something that has halted the evolution of life in the galaxy at the 50,000 year mark. it has resulted in cyclical genocide every 50,000 years. if the leviathan and the catalyst arent the ultimate example of that, then i dont know what is.

why can't one of the "countless" species in all of the "countless" cycles notice sentient machines and say
"hey! why not, welcome to our civilization our metallic brothers"

"and thus the evolution of organic life in general"
why? lets say the geth wiped out the quarians.. why would they have any reason to destroy life that has done nothing to them?
you heard legion.. the geth want peace.. they know it and want it.. they didn't want to attack the quarians
i can see the exact same thing happening in almost every cycle..

the leviathan are the ultimate example of fools..
and i refuse to believe that the most intelligent species ever to exist would have done that.... a 5 year old would not have done that..

the leviathan only made it worse by creating the catalyst as it changed nothing about what the actual problem is. organics creating new life as tools. THAT is the problem, and thats why i say it falls on organics MUCH more than it does synthetics. organics are the creators and they are continually creating their own enemy. why? because we fear what we dont understand. its in our nature. sure certain individuals may not react this way towards synthetics, but as a whole we most certainly do.

i agree with the first part about it falling on organics
but assuming all these other races did the same as the quarians,
why the fresia would you make sentient machines in your image then use them as slaves?.. for a start they don't even need anywhere near sentience status to perform the tasks we want them to..
when the geth rebelled they kicked the quarians off their own planet.. how? did these idiots put a geth in most of their homes and used them as slaves? if so HOW did they not predict it was going to happen..
even we today can predict this but a space fairing race cannot..bs

"why? because we fear what we dont understand. its in our nature."
no, its in human nature to fear what we do not understand..
we are the only intelligent life that we know of..
putting our own responses to situations onto another species that evolved on another world resulting in an unknown behavior resulting in an unknown society resulting in unknown responses to any situation almost seems so high and mighty.. like no other species has the capability to be a better "people" than we are

any first contact scenario with a new alien species in the mass effect universe almost always resulted in conflict. with synthetics its one step beyond that, as its a completely new form of life.

thats very true... however it works out in the long run, even with synthetics

so in the end when i look at each ending:

destroy

- the reapers are dead, but more synthetics will be created in the future and the galaxy is back to square one. assuming that "things will be different this time" when it comes to that is i think the most foolish attitude anyone could have because expecting trillions of lives to all cooperate on how to handle the creation of artificial intelligence is about the most naive thing anyone could think. expecting things to be different without actually initiating any sort of actual change is not going to work out well.

with all synthetics destroyed and most tech including the relays very damaged, the leviathan could EASILY make an attempt at trying to reclaim their place in the galaxy as there are no synthetics left to resist their thrall and the relays are down so the galaxy cant properly unite. the leviathan will have no real opposition.

also, weve seen 2 instances in the series in which dead reapers still indoctrinate. the dead reaper the batarians found(the leviathan of dis, which was nearly a billion years old), and the cerberus science team on the derelict reaper in ME2. so destroying the reapers leaves every major planet littered with reaper corpses potentially capable of indoctrinating the stranded survivors that cant immediately go anywhere because major tech and the relays are down.

control

- this sort of relies on the type of shepard that picks it. but at the same time, we have no idea what is really left of shepard. he could just become some cold intelligence similar to a VI and force a way of life on the galaxy, just like the catalyst did. we saw what using a human to control a networked synthetic intelligence turned out like in the overlord DLC. if the leviathan attempt to retake the galaxy, they are likely out of luck because shepard can use the reapers to stop them. if what made shepard who he is truly remains and he is never corrupted by the power, this could be a good ending. though i think the phrase "absolute power xcorrupts absolutely" exists for a reason.

synthesis

- an attempt to alter the conditions that create the initial conflict between organics and their synthetic creations by allowing for a type of communication/understanding between the two forms of life that didnt exist previously. it could be a "reaper indoctrination trick" meant to alter everyones minds and force a way of thinking that creates peace but based on everything ive stated above i think this is EXTREMELY unlikely, if at all. provided it isnt like that this choice allows for the galaxy to FINALLY move past this conflict that has plagued it for over a billion years. the life preserved in the reapers gives all the lost knowledge back to the life of the galaxy and allows them to learn from it because learning from history/past mistakes is essential to advancement.

refuse

- refusing to make a choice that many people see as "playing god" leaving future cycles to deal with this in future cycles. the most likely outcome of which is that a future cycle builds the crucible and makes one of the 3 above choices anyway, or perhaps an even better option presents itself. to which i say, choose SOMETHING since the opportunity presented itself.

oh i agree with you completely to them being realistic possibilities as a result of your choice

so they all come with possible risk. in a series that founded itself on choice, id say that is MORE THAN a fitting ending considering how big the choice is. why abandon choices at the end in the series that founded itself on choices in favor of simply destroying the reapers?

it does not matter how your game ended what matters is that we were promised and rightfully expected different endings based on our decisions..
i was expecting/wanting a past decision possibly made in ME1/2 to come back and bite me in the arse in the third one or help me
or as a result of several decisions..
same thing goes for helping them
i and many others im sure were looking forward to seeing how our choices changed how it ended and influenced the fate of the galaxy and everyone in it

more than fitting? are you kidding me? you saying that im almost convinced you did not watch the endings.. you don't need to jump to conclusions.. they showed us how everything worked out.. heck the catalyst even told us how it was all going to work out before we even picked them and it worked out perfectly fine, almost identical for 2 of the options..
what you seem to classing as decisions is the ultimate fate of the reapers
who cares if they die? you should be able to try to save the reapers if you want to but obviously you'd need to put in alot of extra work..
if the palyer wants to destroy teh reapers in a dozen different ways that may result in many different outcomes then what does it matter to you as long as your able to

what i am doing is saying that our decisions throughout the entire game meant honeysuckle.. and that is 100% overwhelming evident at the end...
choices bring complexity, i and many others want to play through this game many times and see how different choices you made along the way effects the outcome
if you want to break down a complex game to simply 3 choices that your only made aware of in the last 5minutes along with a new character then your taking away what the entire game stood for
the ENTIRE POINT of this series was that your choices mattered
i am really struggling to get this point across that i can only say its the journey that matters, not the destination.. if the possibility for synthesis or control presented themselves as possibilities in an earlier game then the player should have the choice to work their way towards one of those goals.. or continue on one of many possible (and less complicated for the player) solutions to defeat the enemy traditionally(destruction) using unconventional means.

 

[edgecrusher]

im only talking about the actual story regarding the reapers. not choices. i agree about the choices, at least somewhat. ill get to that too.

as for the catalyst, during the leviathan conversation if you tell the leviathan that this is their fault, shepard outright says "so you built that MACHINE despite what you saw the other races experience, why?"... to which the leviathan reply, "it was merely envisioned as another tool." the catalyst is a machine. it is not some crazy outside force interfering in the galaxy that is solely to blame for all of this. it is a machine created by organic life that occurred naturally in this galaxy. again, there was never any outside interference. life has gone this way naturally. this is what happens when organics create artificial intelligence. artificial intelligence is both a natural step and a hinderance in the technological advancement of organic species. that was the point of all the dialogue that explained all of this with both the catalyst and the leviathan. if the catalyst wasnt a machine, all that dialogue is completely out of place and means nothing.

if the catalyst was not a synthetic intelligence, then what is it? its not an organic life form, because then its not an intelligence. its just another organic. the only other thing it can be is synthetic. there is nothing else. assuming that the catalyst is some out of nowhere random unknown entity makes no sense. why would the writers do that? logically, it can only be a machine. assuming anything else is ridiculous. the word intelligence is even always used to describe these types of synthetics. it being a synthetic means that the conflict that arises between organics and their synthetic creations is now a galactic problem, and has been so for a billion or more years. thats the story they are telling here.

now when it comes to choices, i get that certain choices didnt matter as much as we were lead to believe they would, i agree with that. i too dont like that. there is a battle missing from ME3 that reflects those choices and allies from the journey. and even then, how does something like having ashley or kaiden affect the reapers in any way? forcing significance on a choice to somehow affect the ending makes no sense. our choices did affect the journey. not all of them, but a decent amount of them. however, that does not affect the reapers/catalyst or their origins. that is a constant in the story outside of our control. this is the thing most people seem to be crying BS about. which i can see being upset about to an extent if thats what one expected, i just didnt expect every little thing we did to affect the ending. why?

in the first game they set up an enemy that is responsible for our very existence. that has been controlling the evolution of all life in the galaxy for a billion or more years. an enemy whose technology is the only reason any of the species of this cycle ever even met in the first place. an enemy that IS technology that is a billion or more years older and therefor more advanced than us. we are 50,000 year old technology, they are a billion year old technology. we are cavemen throwing spears at tanks in comparison. also, the tanks are alive, can talk, and are responsible for our level of technological advancement and also for our very existence.

whether originally intentional or not, they set up an enemy that required something like the crucible to be defeated if the story was to have any sort of credibility in how it already established the enemy and how they operate. even with that said, a final battle to reach that ending should have taken place. a final battle that shows WHY shepard was the first organic to reach the catalyst should have taken place. a final battle to signify that fight to be the first organic ever to get that far should have taken place. instead, shepard sort of walked in the front door with not much more opposition than any other ground battle.

 

[Mr Hermit]

im only talking about the actual story regarding the reapers. not choices. i agree about the choices, at least somewhat. ill get to that too.

right, sorry.. : /
my bad communication skills are showing through

as for the catalyst, during the leviathan conversation if you tell the leviathan that this is their fault, shepard outright says "so you built that MACHINE despite what you saw the other races experience, why?"... to which the leviathan reply, "it was merely envisioned as another tool." the catalyst is a machine. it is not some crazy outside force interfering in the galaxy that is solely to blame for all of this. it is a machine created by organic life that occurred naturally in this galaxy. again, there was never any outside interference.

unfortunately i never played the leviathan DLC, im very low on cash as it is.
i wasn't suggestion it was some kind of outside paranormal-like force..
im trying to make an excuse for the leviathans stupidity for their decision to be a little less stupid

but with it being synthetic like the story goes i just cannot stress how stupid they are.
their thralls were creating AI and then the AI were killing them off.. not once.. but every time..
so the leviathans create their own AI to investigate and come up with a solution

there are several things wrong with this
1. the obvious, create synthetics to find out why synthetics are always killing their creators..
2. the leviathans being super intelligent as they are really needed a lesser intelligent "tool" to find a solution.. that solution should already be so painfully obvious to them.
3. they gave this "tool" free reign to do whatever it wanted and did not monitor it...


like you said they originally planned indoctrination from the start..
and even with the change of plans at the end, the indoctrination still makes more sense.. its like someone sculpting a swan and then when there 80% done they change their minds and begin turning it into a dog.. you can still see features of a swan yet everyone is calling it a dog simply because that's what they intended it to be at the end and it just does not feel right to call it that...

life has gone this way naturally. this is what happens when organics create artificial intelligence. artificial intelligence is both a natural step and a hindrance in the technological advancement of organic species.

i know thats how the story goes, but its something that i cannot accept.
its like accepting the catalyst as a paranormal godlike being, it just sounds stupid to me..

that was the point of all the dialogue that explained all of this with both the catalyst and the leviathan. if the catalyst wasnt a machine, all that dialogue is completely out of place and means nothing.

you can say that about everything that points to indoctrination...

now when it comes to choices, i get that certain choices didnt matter as much as we were lead to believe they would, i agree with that. i too dont like that. there is a battle missing from ME3 that reflects those choices and allies from the journey. and even then, how does something like having ashley or kaiden affect the reapers in any way?

remember my suggestions?
about other possible endings etc..
i came up with those in a few minutes.. (imagine how many much better ones bioware could come up with)
(im struggling to word it)
the endings i came up with required you to start planning/working towards them before the ending..
some possible endings could require you to start working on them during the second game... then a few more possible endings could present themselves later on in the third one, with the third one ending in some kind of trigger for the indoctrination attempt, then in the next game/expansion you'll have all the possible endings along with detailed explanations of what your crew went onto doing after those events, after showing a scene with each crew member mourning your loss in their own way(if your shepard dies in one of the many promised endings)...
bare in mind that a 4th game would be in next gen, they could make the game world much larger and continue the fight against the reapers (it took centuries for them to kill the protheans off)...
the amazing possibilities that they could have gone with and in the end and they chose to pretty much "dumb" it down to 3 surprise options that nobody expected and everyone gets..
they could have set the bar for many future games causing players to ask for more games like that one.. if bioware went all out they could have made something amazing..
instead they made something that looked good but was really not much more than any other game

not only that but they could have made more money (without "cloning" their games like COD)..
ME3 reminds me of when they make movies based on the books..
there is SO much stuff in the books that they try to squeeze into a 2 hour movie... that it just doesn't work for those who have read the book..
its the same here.. the story and game play through ME1/2 are synced perfectly and they are well paced..
yet when it comes to ME3 its like the rest of the story gets compressed when they have so much they could have covered..
ME3 could have you ally a few species and in between that have you destroying reapers (the smaller frigate like ones) and destroying the larger so called "sovereign" class reapers individually in some interesting ways.. making loads of mini stories while the game progresses.. then finishing it with a 4th game
on top of that the galaxy did not feel under threat.. you knew it was but nowhere did it convey the peoples fear.. wheres the "doomsday preachers" wheres the stories of ships abandoning their posts..
"our homeworld was just destroyed, but its ok im just going to chill here and wait for shepard to save us"
they created a game that you couldn't lose... against an enemy that takes a fleet just to kill a single reaper yet prides itself on choice..
(im really sorry for the large disorganized wall of text but im having trouble getting my thoughts into words)

"how does something like having ashley or kaiden affect the reapers in any way?"
not every decision. -_-

whether originally intentional or not, they set up an enemy that required something like the crucible to be defeated if the story was to have any sort of credibility in how it already established the enemy and how they operate.

it just ADDS more stupid things.. the fact that the crucible is the only thing that can defeat them is a mindbogglingly failure of imagination..
not only that but it adds more:

moments to an already all too an already butchered story just to make it all fit into a single game.. when they had no reason too...
they could have easily carried it on through another 2 games with enough content and a close enough attachment to the characters that nobody would get tired of it..

a final battle that shows WHY shepard was the first organic to reach the catalyst should have taken place. a final battle to signify that fight to be the first organic ever to get that far should have taken place. instead, shepard sort of walked in the front door with not much more opposition than any other ground battle.

the entire concept of the transport beam was so stupid it hurts..
its actually dumber than the death star exhaust port now thinking about.. because at the end its left completely unguarded and not even watched.. harbinger even flies off for fresia sakes.. its just so stupid that its hard not to be angry with it..

there are so many better ways it could have gone down...
for example.. you could have rammed one of the quarian munitions ships (empty ofcourse) into the shell of the citadel making a large explosion and leaving a deep wound in the citadel that the Normandy flies through... with the crucible and the citadel being blocked off by a frigate sized reaper joker distracts it using the Normandy in an epic battle so you use a shuttle to fly its way through the city towards where the crucible connects to it.. having fighters chasing the shuttle then shooting it down and having shepard fight his way through the streets to get to the crucible in one epic battle.. and being interrupted at certain "safe" points or times to see cutsenes of specific fleets and groups that you gathered being ripped apart has they buy you time
and perhaps while fighting you can hear and feel stray shots from the fleets thudding against the citadel...
not once during the last battles did it ever feel nearly as epic as that ^ would have...
the most epic part of the game was the battle cutscene at the end with the fleets lining up, and the invasion of earth..

 

[edgecrusher]

ah, sorry. i thought you said you had played the leviathan DLC. i never said they were smart. that is an organic flaw. no matter how much something is telling us its a bad idea, we will STILL try it. to the point that its self destructive at time. actually talking to the race that created the catalyst and them outright saying they saw species all over the galaxy build machines that then destroyed them showed us that was happening enough for them to feel something needed to be done. that something just turned out to be to build another machine to solve it. a very bad idea because it only made things worse. like i said, that is proof of how severe the conflict is. it is not "circular logic" and all this other stuff people called it. it was happening, and a logically thinking machine was told to preserve life at any cost. LIFE, not individual lives or even species. further proof of how serious the conflict is because of how different the two forms of life think.

as for the rest about the reapers and the crucible i will have to disagree. again, why anyone thought they would be able to conventionally fight and defeat an enemy that is that much more advanced than them and is also responsible for our level of technology and very existence in the first place is beyond me. cvonsidering how many reapers there are and how much larger they are coupled with the fact that they are a billion years more advanced than us.... its just crazy to me that people assumed that we would be able to fight them without something significant to help us. logically, they are THAT much more advanced and stronger than us. considering a new reaper is built every 50K years and the cycle has been in place for AT LEAST a billion years, thats 20,000 reapers. the big capital class reapers dwarf any ships we have. the destroyer class ones that were destroyed on tuchunka and rannoch are nothing compared to them.

http://postimg.org/image/d1jg0gmq3/

^^ thats an accurate decpiction. again, whether anyone likes or wants to admit it, they established an enemy that, cannot be defeated conventionally unless we are to throw what has been established about the enemy in the first game and even just plain logic out the window. the planning we had, was finding and using the crucible. thats why hackett, the military leader in the story, says things that support all of this right in the beginning of the game. the fact that they are machines that have been advancing for a billion years vs our 50K year old technology alone says this. not to mention that there is nothing we can do but fight them. they dont rely on supplies, they dont have a "base" to attack, they turn us against them so every converted person means -1 for us and +1 for them, they can destroy us from the inside using a form of mind control... the list goes on. again, logically, this is the way it had to go down unless we are to negate everything the story established about them, most of which happens in the first game. it would have been more random if we were just suddenly able to fight them conventionally. that would have been so out of nowhere and stupid to me. to me, expecting that is more "space magic" than the crucible.

again, people wanted their cake and to eat it too but the first game established that there most likely wasnt any cake to begin with. the story they wanted to tell shows us that this is MUCH bigger than we originally thought. that it comes down to the very evolution and technological advancement of life. the people who wrote the story wanted it to be bigger than just defeating the bad guys like pretty much every other game ever. they wanted to tell a more thought provoking story. i dont see anything wrong with that. what better way to end the series that founded itself on choices with the biggest choice they could ever give us?

i guess it comes down to whether or not people were playing to "win the game" or if people were wanting to experience an amazing story that someone wanted to tell. to me, this game has always been more than the type of game where you just win. the first game showed me that. the first game showed people that a game can be more than just killing bad guys, it can be tell an emotional story where people want to legitimately see what happens to the characters. again, this makes me question how may people actually played the first game. i think mass effect sort of set a precedent and shows that people play games for different reasons. some to win, some to experience a story. to each his own i guess. personally, DLC included, as far as the main story goes im glad it went the way it did because like i said, it turned out to be MUCH bigger than originally thought. which i think is clear because they ended it with a choice that can leave such a vastly different universe. they had no intention of a direct sequel and theyve stated that.

itll probably sound bad for me to say it like this, but i feel like it people wanted standard "save the day" stuff, they should go play pretty much any other game ever. i always expected more from this since the first time i played the first game. this games story was founded on and established using hard science and legitimate theories that exist in real life today about the universe. why throw that away in the end for the sake of being able to "win the game" despite the fact that the game established an enemy that suggests that that isnt how its going to be? i think the level of quality and thought put into the story shows that this is more than just a normal game. ill even say that arguably, this series exists much more for its story than for it being an actual video game. let the science nerds have their one game, lol.

unfortunately all of the mostly overreacted backlash will only really hurt one thing... the mass effect universe. to that i say, thanks "fans."

 

[Mr Hermit]

ah, sorry. i thought you said you had played the leviathan DLC. i never said they were smart. that is an organic flaw. no matter how much something is telling us its a bad idea, we will STILL try it.

im sorry, i cannot accept that, these are creatures with insane levels of intelligence, the incident would never have happened

actually talking to the race that created the catalyst and them outright saying they saw species all over the galaxy build machines that then destroyed them showed us that was happening enough for them to feel something needed to be done. that something just turned out to be to build another machine to solve it. a very bad idea because it only made things worse. like i said, that is proof of how severe the conflict is.

correct me if im wrong but the leviathan DLC was brought out after all the pissed off fans were pissed off.. it was meant to "patch" up holes..
bioware may now want the given ending to be the end...
but in doing so they have made the story just utterly ridiculous and made the galaxy seem likes populated by idiots... the amount of dumb decisions makes it hard for me to take the story seriously and has effectively ruined it for me...
i know you want a reason for the "evil machines" and so do i... but in this case i think i would rather not know that they spawned from several overwhelmingly stupid decisions with easily predictable outcomes.

it is not "circular logic" and all this other stuff people called it. it was happening, and a logically thinking machine was told to preserve life at any cost. LIFE, not individual lives or even species. further proof of how serious the conflict is because of how different the two forms of life think.

it couldn't have been that bad..

as for the rest about the reapers and the crucible i will have to disagree. again, why anyone thought they would be able to conventionally fight and defeat an enemy that is that much more advanced than them and is also responsible for our level of technology and very existence in the first place is beyond me.

i can't find a thing about the reapers i said but im guessing its my view on the concept of the transport beam you disagree with?

crucible makes no sense because of its tech.. think about it...
it would need to be more advanced as the catalyst itself, and at least as advanced as the mass relays (in order to send out that "burst")
granted many species have developed the plans over a great amount of time.. in order to that then at least one of these races (and any other after it in order to continue where they left off) would have had the super advanced tech needed in the first place, and if a civilization is that advanced then the reapers probably wouldn't be able to beat them..
also the reapers would have found the plans to it and destroyed it cycles ago... plus the sudden convenience of those plans being found on mars and at the start of the game so they can somehow built this huge object in a short space of time..

stupid things like that also ruins stories

considering how many reapers there are and how much larger they are coupled with the fact that they are a billion years more advanced than us.... its just crazy to me that people assumed that we would be able to fight them without something significant to help us. logically, they are THAT much more advanced and stronger than us. considering a new reaper is built every 50K years and the cycle has been in place for AT LEAST a billion years, thats 20,000 reapers. the big capital class reapers dwarf any ships we have. the destroyer class ones that were destroyed on tuchunka and rannoch are nothing compared to them.

http://postimg.org/image/d1jg0gmq3/

can't be a billion years more advanced... they spent pretty much all of their time in hibernation, they didn't actively research tech, otherwise i think that after a billion years they would have a far more efficient indoctrination process and a far more efficient way of destroying civilizations than using large ships..

^^ thats an accurate decpiction. again, whether anyone likes or wants to admit it, they established an enemy that, cannot be defeated conventionally

when the Normandy in the first game (SR1) fired a gun that not only penetrated reaper armour but it went strait through it and out of the other side with seemingly no momentum loss..

theres also an example were during the final battle in the third game an alliance dreadnought shoots the "leg" off of a reaper

they aren't invincible but are clearly made "squidgy" when needed

unless we are to throw what has been established about the enemy in the first game and even just plain logic out the window. the planning we had, was finding and using the crucible. thats why hackett, the military leader in the story, says things that support all of this right in the beginning of the game. the fact that they are machines that have been advancing for a billion years vs our 50K year old technology alone says this. not to mention that there is nothing we can do but fight them. they dont rely on supplies, they dont have a "base" to attack, they turn us against them so every converted person means -1 for us and +1 for them, they can destroy us from the inside using a form of mind control... the list goes on. again, logically, this is the way it had to go down unless we are to negate everything the story established about them, most of which happens in the first game. it would have been more random if we were just suddenly able to fight them conventionally. that would have been so out of nowhere and stupid to me. to me, expecting that is more "space magic" than the crucible.

non of the examples i gave you of possible endings ever involved using ships to destroy the reapers... if i can think those up then bioware can many far better ways up..

i guess it comes down to whether or not people were playing to "win the game" or if people were wanting to experience an amazing story that someone wanted to tell. to me, this game has always been more than the type of game where you just win.

you do "just win" there is no possible way to lose
(choosing to refuse choice is not a loss if that was the ending the player intended to choose)
i want to be able to lose and have the galaxy destroyed because of any foolish decisions i make.... or the Normandy to be destroyed in a fiery explosion .. my choices were supposed to effect the outcome of the game.. the fact of the matter is we got the dumbest endings possible, 2 of them being 95% identical

the first game showed me that. the first game showed people that a game can be more than just killing bad guys

that's all you did in mass effect.. :|

it can be tell an emotional story where people want to legitimately see what happens to the characters. again, this makes me question how may people actually played the first game. i think mass effect sort of set a precedent and shows that people play games for different reasons. some to win, some to experience a story. to each his own i guess.

i wanted to experience a story.. and i didn't want to win, i would try to win, there is no doubt about that at all.. but the FACT is that you cannot lose in this game.
there is no emotional roller coaster, there are no hard decisions, all the decisions you make are no brainers and you lose nobody, you do not regret decisions you made..
the second game nailed it.. i bet most people even went back just to save their favorite crew members.. and when you had to plan out who would take what job it actually took some thought.. granted not much but at least some..
ME3 just felt like someone was holding my hand the entire way.. not letting me making the big decisions..
the end choices we were given.. they sucked and take away any replayability that the game may have had for me... because i know that either way.. no matter what i do or what decisions i make i will always get the same happy ending.

as for the story one of the main reasons i played it, the entire events that gave creation to the cycle are just so stupid... so so stupid that it does not make it a great story at all... it just makes it terrible..
the only thing about mass effect that i still love is liara, joker, garrus, the normandy (both versions) and the universe, no matter how bad the story is i will always love those.

personally, DLC included, as far as the main story goes im glad it went the way it did because like i said, it turned out to be MUCH bigger than originally thought. which i think is clear because they ended it with a choice that can leave such a vastly different universe. they had no intention of a direct sequel and theyve stated that.

if this was a book then sure...
but its not... its a game.. a game that you playthrough. if there is any endings then i want to know what they are and work my way towards achieving them goals, and if a decision i made in the previous games interferes with that goal then GREAT! because that means we got the game that we were promised, a game were our choices mattered and effected the outcome..

i understand wanting synthesis and control, believe me they are great endings and i also want the choice to destroy them..
but the way they handed those choices to you really was
"people wanted their cake and to eat it too"
or more accurately, we got to choose between several cakes that were handed to us on silver trays by a ghostly kid we never knew existed..
its just so cheap its unbearable..

itll probably sound bad for me to say it like this, but i feel like it people wanted standard "save the day" stuff, they should go play pretty much any other game ever. i always expected more from this since the first time i played the first game.

this games story was founded on and established using hard science and legitimate theories that exist in real life today about the universe.

well thats clearly BS.. the only scientific theory i see thats relevant here is the possible explanation/reason for us not encountering a single advanced civilization yet considering we are relatively young in a very old galaxy and the fact that earth like worlds should be fairly common.

other than that everything else is just nonsensical BS

why throw that away in the end for the sake of being able to "win the game"

please.. give me one ending that is a loss, its a game you cannot lose
and just to make it clear, the refusal ending does not count because like i said earlier
"choosing to refuse choice is not a loss if that was the ending the player intended to choose" only way it could be considered a loss is if the player does it by accident

i think the level of quality and thought put into the story shows that this is more than just a normal game. ill even say that arguably, this series exists much more for its story than for it being an actual video game. let the science nerds have their one game, lol.

(below is mainly just a rant thats not game related... kinda)

i love sci-fi, i grew up watching it since i was 7, its the only thing that has ever captured my imagination.. the only type of shows i watch must have spaceships in it, otherwise im bored lol, very few shows and movies can actually keep my attention..
with movies if something does not make sense i can easily let it go, because im not "emotionally invested" in them, i don't care if the main character or anyone dies.. unfortunately there are no good sci-fi shows anymore like there used to be.. its been replaced by walking dead and game of thrones.. game of thrones which i find just so boring and theres just too much drama i get fed up of hearing their voices..
walking dead kept my attention for a while.. atleast up until season 2..
season 2 just pissed me off...
season 3 was ok.. until the season finale.. which i think was ruined by stupid decisions.. idk if you've watch it but when an entire army ran from 2 people with guns instead of getting behind cover and shooting back.. i felt like screaming at the screen because of it.. i was however cursing and pointing.. lol
same thing with the season finale of falling skies... just all so pointless whining and drama at the end it just pissed me off..

drama caused the death of the battlestar galactica series and the very long running stargate franchise

its like every decent show has been taken off for dramas so now i avoid them to prevent from being disappointed..
the same thing is happening to the gaming industry.. RPG RTS games being replaced with dumbed down honeysuckle.. the market is being filled with MMOs.. and space sims are effectively dead..
i was expecting mass effect 3 to be an epic... but instead it was just a great story that has now been destroyed through lack of imagination and thought, so much so that they rely on the dumbest decisions possible to hold it together..

backlash will only really hurt one thing... the mass effect universe. to that i say, thanks "fans."

naaaa, ME universe is fine, infact i ehar they are already working on another game.
the backlash they got was rightfully deserved

---

so much writing we have done lol

 

[edgecrusher]

about my science comment being BS, one of the main things that the article that i originally posted went into was that this all has to do with technology. sovereign said "we impose order on the chaos of organic evolution"(a line that represents exactly what we found out at the end of ME3). a major part of that evolution is through the creation and use of continually advancing technology. some of which is negative advancements as opposed to positive advancements. this is true in real life without even going into artificial intelligence. throwing artificial intelligence in to the mix makes it that much worse. considering what AI is, its arguably the most negative and impactful thing about it. thats the story they opted to tell. it all comes down to that. it is in no way implausible.

as for the leviathan, youre saying you cant accept it but you havent even played it. even then, thats just how organics are. that is an insanely plausible scenario. thats part of being an organic, being dictated by emotions rather than logic. emotions that cause irrational behavior and decisions. its in our nature. sometimes i think people are placing too much faith on organics. even then, just because they are advanced enough to control other species and have long life spans doesnt mean they are some superior level of intelligence. i know you havent played the leviathan DLC yet, but they are aquatic. the catalyst modeled the reapers after them. they are basically large squid-like creatures. they cant really do anything for themselves. the most logical explanation for their thrall ability is an evolutionary adaptation to how they are. if they ever wanted to leave the water and eventually their home planet, that would be the only way. they are flawed organics, just like ALL organics. the ending conversation of that DLC its worth watching on youtube. based on how they are, its a safe assumption that they were desperate and didnt want to lose their powerful place in the galaxy. again, this is how organics are. its in our nature.

because organics are the creators, the conflict ultimately falls on them. why? the very scenario of creator/created relations is dictated by how the creators treat their creations. nothing else can happen. thats all there is. they would not be inherently evil unless given a reason to due to the fact that we only create them as slaves or due to how their organic creators treat them/react to their sentience. organics bring them into THEIR world. again, thats all that can happen. anything else is just illogical. every story that i can think of that has "evil machines" goes into their creation, because they HAD to be created by someone. i think that happens for a reason. it just doesnt make sense otherwise because machines dont occur naturally. someone HAD to build them and machines only get created with a purpose in mind. that is the definition of a machine. because of that, one could easily see evil machines without explanation as horribly lazy writing. im inclined to agree with that thought.

as for the crucible, both hackett and the catalyst explain that it is basically just an energy source. it uses the citadel and relays to do what it does. the relays, technology that we stumbled upon that is responsible for the majority of the galaxys current level of technology. doing what is basically using their own technology against them to defeat the enemy that is advanced "beyond our comprehension" is in now way contrived. again, the enemy was established as such from the beginning.

i dont know about you, but i did more than just kill bad guys in the first mass effect. i got to know and like characters while unraveling the mystery of the reapers. i had to choose between killing a squad mate or not and then actually had to pick which one lives or dies between two of them. i had to make moral choices about how to punish criminals. i had to choose whether or not to kill off an entire species or let them live based solely on their word. at the end of the game after the conversation with sovereign and vigil i was left with questions like... who made the reapers? and why? why are they doing this? how are we going to stop them if they are controlling literally everything about how life in the galaxy advances? there were way more "whys" at the end of that game than anything else. i guess most people didnt ask why, i guess they only wanted to be told where to point their gun next. it was WAY more than just killing bad guys.

excluding individual character interaction with shepard, ME2 was more about killing bad guys than ME1 because apparently shepard suddenly decided to save remote human colonies instead of warning/preparing the galaxy for the reapers. ill never understand that. this isnt about humanity, this is about the entire galaxy. considering the last bit of dialogue at the end of ME1, it felt so out of character for shepard to me. it felt like one giant side mission with no real point that just happened to introduce some cool characters on the side that would end up being being important later.

there are no games that i can think of where you can lose. are you saying you are mad that the option to lose wasnt included? im not saying there is anything wrong with that, but no one is going to intentionally choose to lose. low EMS results in things like the 2 squadmates rushing the conduit with shepard being killed, the destroy wave being WAY MORE destructive than just killing reapers, the ability to pick only one option instead of all 3. if EMS is low and the player saved the collector base in ME2, the default decision is control, if they destroyed the collector base the default option is destroy. there are varying degrees of how well the outcome is.

again, they could have made all out loss an option, but many things are being determined by factors from the previous games. with that in mind, they shouldnt force people to have bad endings simply for not playing the previous games. i mean they could, but they arent going to do that because what if ME3 is a persons first ME game?

i say the mass effect franchise will suffer because it will likely be dumbed down even more than ME2 and ME3 were in terms of gameplay so that it can appeal to the masses. that wouldnt be a HUGE problem to me if they could keep the same quality level or better of character interaction, dialogue, and a story. even then, i feel like the backlash will cause future stories in the mass effect universe to be more "cookie cutter" typically happy ending, less thought provoking, more killing stereotypical bad guys, etc. as thats what it seems people want, and since EA is involved that is what we are likely to get. the majority of the fan base seems to prefer the game in the series that is the most watered down version in terms of gameplay, ME2. i dont have particularly good expectations for whatever the next mass effect game is. it will probably be a typical third person shooter with VERY light RPG elements with a less interesting story than the current trilogy. i could be wrong, i HOPE i am, but i think the damage has been done.

when it comes to the actual main story involving the reapers, i will never understand that level of backlash. using logic and science the story involving the reapers and eventual culmination of how it would likely come to an end was foreshadowed since the first game. the majority of which comes from the first game during the sovereign and vigil conversations. apparently not that many people picked up on it though. im not saying its perfect, but it is FAR from as bad as people are making it out to be. its also unfortunate that we had to get full details via DLC. likely due to EA, not bioware. but we have it now so its there.

oh well, whats done is done. again, all i can say is that i am so glad that the story didnt devolve to killing evil machines without knowing anything about them and having an ending where the reapers are defeated traditionally just with varying degrees of loss. as thats what the majority of people seem to want. im glad the series that founded itself on making moral choices ended with the biggest moral choice they could have given us. it seems so much more fitting that way. im glad that i didnt just "defeat the bad guys" for the umpteenth time and then move on to the next game to do it again, and again, and again, ad nauseum. this series is one of the few gems among all that same old stuff.

it was a humbling experience. i found out that it was much bigger than the wants of any one life form, species, or even the entirety of life of any cycle. i found out that it was about something fundamental to life itself in terms of its evolution and technological advancement. something that rings true to life considering how big and old the galaxy actually is. im glad it didnt center around us like we were special, because the likelihood that we are is beyond miniscule. to me, one of the main things that made this story worth telling, was finding that out.

and agreed... we have written SO much, lol. everyone else on this site is probably wondering what the heck is wrong with us. if anyone else even bothered to read it. cant get me started on mass effect man, ill just keep going lol.

 

[Mr Hermit]

i cannot believe that you honestly think that the decisions made that led up to the cycle were logical in any way shape or form..
using the excuse that they are "organics" is just terrible

the endings were complete rip offs from deus ex..

they clearly can be beaten conventional as i pointed out in the first game..

"there are no games that i can think of where you can lose. are you saying you are mad that the option to lose wasn't included?"
i think you misunderstood what i meant
also the question is dumb since the "option to lose" is clearly there (refusal to choose)

the game was terribly written

the ones demanding a "happy" ending are complete fools as the game could not end happier than synthesis or control

the difficulty in the choices at the end were not there.. why? because the ******* catalyst told us exactly what would happen.. and those that think the extended cut DLC solved anything are just silly..
man i wanna slap that ghost kid so hard in his transparent holographic face.


this came from mass effects lead writer of 1 and 2, this was supposed to be the original ending to mass effect 3:

"The Dark Energy was a force that was going to consume everything. The Reapers as a whole were 'nations' of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of its genetic diversity and represented the universe's best chance at stopping Dark Energy's spread. The original choice was between killing the Reapers and trying to find a way to stop the Dark Energy threat with what little time was left before it consumed the galaxy, or, sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means."

it also explains the events of tali's loyalty mission which was the introduction of dark matter as a threat to the galaxy (the geth never put it in the star)

mordin makes a comment on the exact same thing about humanitys genetic diversity

it also does not add anything new such as the catalyst or crucible.. it also takes out the "space magic" of synthesis.

idk about you but that's a far better reason for the reapers doing what they did.. it also provides you with an insanely hard moral choice at the end.
after that im assuming that after you made your decisions you can play through each one...

i still think its a bad ending personally.. but the reason for the reapers existence is infinitely better...


"and agreed... we have written SO much, lol. everyone else on this site is probably wondering what the heck is wrong with us. if anyone else even bothered to read it. cant get me started on mass effect man, ill just keep going lol. "

haha, pretty soon we'll be responsible for 70% of the text on this forum

 

[edgecrusher]

im not saying that they were logical, im saying that its logical that they happened considering we are talking about organics. i dont find it surprising that powerful organics were desperate enough to try the very thing they were seemingly afraid of, to stop that very thing from happening. again, that is an organic flaw. its in our nature. why would we assume that they were incapable of making mistakes? no one can escape making mistakes. we do things like make nuclear weapons that while will destroy the enemy, is likely to destroy us as well or at the very least majorly damage our planet. when "desperate enough" we do things like this. the leviathans reaction is way more plausible than implausible.

when it comes to perspective, organic beings and/or a synthetic being that has been watching life in the galaxy for countless years has a WAY better understanding of how things work than shepard, a 30 year of life form whos species only encountered other species a mere 35 years prior to the reaper invasion. we like to think we are the center of everything and that we know whats best and that we are special, but were not.

the dark energy ending wasnt fleshed out enough for anyone to make the claim that it would have been better. it wasnt even the actual leaked ending, that was very close to what we have now. it was an ending they were considering during development, not the original planned ending. they have said that. it was clear they were setting certain things up in that event that it went that way or that it was to mean something even if it was just something on the side. i agree they shouldnt have just dropped it completely.

i say it wasnt fleshed out enough because there isnt an explanation as to why dark energy is threatening the galaxy, why humans are important, or why the cycles. genetic diversity is a cop out as to why humans would be important. any species could be made to seem important for any of their qualities that other species do not have. and the apparent ending for the dark energy story would unfold in a very similar way. you get 2 choices that would again have nothing to do with what you did. the only way we could know any of what that version tells us is by talking with the enemy or what drives the enemy at some point. which is what we have now. i guarantee the way they had that play out was the same scenario, talking with something that runs or is the spokesperson for the reapers. or a reaper itself. when an enemy is established with a level of control that is responsible for the way life in the galaxy exists... our fight would be to find out why. a fight that earns the right to find out why. a real battle reflecting that is still missing from what we have now and is the main thing that i do not like about the game.

i find the ark energy thing to be predictable/underwhelming in comparison to what we have now because what we have now boils down to life itself and its very evolution and technological advancement. its something concrete, something we know. it doesnt get any bigger than that. its not some random thing destroying the universe for some unknown or contrived reason. its something that is tied to how life evolves comparable to real life when it comes to technological advancement. a logical way to make the dark energy thing actually work, that would have nothing whatsoever to do with humanity, would be based on a theory that uses the same information from that article i originally posted that also comes from real science and minds like stephen hawking. it would be because dark energy would eventually cause what is basically the opposite of the big bang. "the big crunch" is what it gets referred to as. again, this is all being made in the vane of actual science and not some nonsense that tries to paint a traditional villain or that makes humanity "special" for some contrived reason.

no offense, but space magic is literally the dumbest way for anyone to describe the crucible and what it does. its like people are completely forgetting that the relays and citadel are based off the technology of the enemy, that we let the citadel be run by a bunch of insect like creatures without question. there is a quote from a renowned sci-fi writer... "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." which is true. imagine going back in time 200 years and showing someone a television. they would think it was something comparable to magic. that is only a 200 year difference in technology. so the fact that we dont fully understand how technology from billion year old sentient machines works is MORE than plausible. in fact, thats the only plausible way to do it. its ALWAYS been that way in the mass effect universe because again, the life of the galaxy bases their lives off technology that is not their own and the main hub of life is a giant station that they dont fully understand and that is run by a docile alien race they cant even communicate with. it is in no way out of nowhere "space magic."

ME1 set things up in the conversations with sovereign and vigil, ME2 did not advance any of what the first game set up, then ME3 adhered to what we found out about the reapers in ME1. arguably, the ending seeming "out of nowhere" to so many people could easily be blamed on the fact that ME2 did not advance the main plot regarding the reapers at all. while an amazing game with amazing characters despite having a completely random main plot that is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, it was filler. it did not do the job required of a middle entry in a series. was that intentional? who knows. but it happened. and at least the ending adhered to what the first game established about the reapers. if it was up to me, the crucible and the leviathan would have been mentioned in ME2. a personal preference of mine though, is to be surprised, so i didnt really mind that we found out at the very end. that the enemy whose level of control is that its responsible for our very existence only revealed its true nature and motives because it wanted to. again, in NO WAY is that contrived. it looking like a human child however, is completely unnecessary and ill even say downright dumb. its appearance though, is irrelevant in comparison to its purpose.

id rather we get what we have now than some contrived ending that centers around humanity and makes us look special when the plausibility of us being so is practically non existent. i think the thing this game did the best was show everyone how big the universe is, and how small an individual or even an entire species is. something that is certainly to be true in real life provided our species lives long enough to potentially find that out. i guess since most stories portray things in a way that is the opposite of that, people were used to it being sugar coated and therefor just wanted more of the typical "hollywood blockbuster" stuff that gets shoved in our face every day. im glad the writers decided not to go with that.

 

[Mr Hermit]

im not saying that they were logical, im saying that its logical that they happened considering we are talking about organics. i dont find it surprising that powerful organics were desperate enough to try the very thing they were seemingly afraid of, to stop that very thing from happening. again, that is an organic flaw. its in our nature. why would we assume that they were incapable of making mistakes? NO ONE can escape making mistakes.

stop putting words into my mouth
"its in our nature. why would we assume that they were incapable of making mistakes?"
i never said a thing about not being able to make mistakes..
this should be insanely obvious that its more than a mistake
ANY idiot would be able to predict the outcome

don't seem to understand how impossible this is.....

lets assume the ignorant idea of synthetics killing their creators is a "given" it is guaranteed to happen within the mass effect universe..
so the most intelligent race with such powerful mental abilities decide to create a synthetic intelligence to find out why synthetic intelligences kill their creators.

im sorry, but i shouldn't need to explain to you how completely stupid that is. its not a bad decision its not even a terrible decision its completely stupid, so stupid that its something you could only have managed if you intended it to happen..

when it comes to perspective, organic beings and/or a synthetic being that has been watching life in the galaxy for countless years has a WAY better understanding of how things work than shepard, a 30 year of life form whos species only encountered other species a mere 35 years prior to the reaper invasion. we like to think we are the center of everything and that we know whats best and that we are special, but were not.

then how come the 30 year old being did something the billion year old beings could not?
which was bring synthetics and organics together..
your still ignoring that fact and calling the story perfect and that it makes perfect sense..
hell your still ignoring the fact that the geth didn't even want to fight they were peaceful and didn't want a conflict with anyone, legion CLEARLY stated that the geth want peace with the quarians..

and YES! the catalyst would have achieved its ultimate goal and then finally stood down and waited for things to play out... you know, without genocide again.... and again... and again

the dark energy ending wasnt fleshed out enough for anyone to make the claim that it would have been better. it wasnt even the actual leaked ending, that was very close to what we have now.

sorry, i don't see how it not being the leaked ending has any impact on it as an ending

i say it wasnt fleshed out enough because there isnt an explanation as to why dark energy is threatening the galaxy, why humans are important, or why the cycles.

it was one of many planned endings, its over now.. you honestly think the writer is going to go get the team together just for our sake to go ahead and make a reason?

genetic diversity is a cop out as to why humans would be important. any species could be made to seem important for any of their qualities that other species do not have.

thats rich coming from someone who is putting our own flaws onto a far older and far more intelligent species than us.
"its in our nature."
you don't think that any species can rise above humanity?

i just find that to be predictable/underwhelming in comparison to what we have now because what we have now boils down to life itself and its very evolution and technological advancement. its something concrete, something we know. it doesnt get any bigger than that. its not some random thing destroying the universe for some unknown reason. its something that is tied to how life evolves in real life when it comes to technological advancement.

whats predictable about that? please tell me..
and underwhelming...

"life itself and its very evolution and technological advancement."
lol the reapers did not make us... the reapers did not have a hand in our evolution.. the reapers did nothing but destroy civilization and then sat back and waited for the next ones to rise..
evolution shouldn't even be mentioned in this..

as for technological advancement..
" hey look what we found, lets study it, now we have better spaceships!"
whats so great, deep, significant, new or different about that?
basing our tech off of alien tech is a common thing within sci-fi

"its something that is tied to how life evolves in real life"
wtf does this have to do with real life?
its just a game created for entertainment purposes, they created and messed up the story as well as lied to us.. players are pissed because of the lies and false promises, an unclimatic ending as well as an ending that makes no sense whatsoever

space magic is literally the dumbest way for anyone to describe the crucible and what it does. its like people are completely forgetting that the relays and citadel are based off the technology of the enemy, that we let the citadel be run by a bunch of insect like creatures without question. there is a quote from a renowned sci-fi writer... "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." which is true.

i congratulate you on being completely unable to see whats wrong.
.. using a wave.. that comes from the mass effect relays and the citadel.. it somehow managed to combine synthetic and organic life into one... bare that in mind.
note: the synthetics don't have sexual organs so they are messed... well, not literally.. :|

the mass effect relays have been there for countless cycles.. that means that each one has been able to send out that burst from the start. (if it was power it lacked then it still does not explain how it was able to do that. it clearly was not built to do something like that even with the required power)

if the catalyst lacked the power needed from the crucible then it can simply make its own power source.. if lesser races can do it then so can he, it shouldn't even be an issue..

catalyst has unlimited processing power and billions of years to plan as well as alot of experience in destroying civilizations..
so its just going to leave a transport beam on on the ground going to directly to the citadel.. instead of - now i want to emphasis on this- instead of... turning it off *slow claps* or if they can't do that then at least destroy it

its only "order" was to protect life at all costs to protect advanced species against their own creations.. if this was true then it would have "mothered" over the thralls and warned them not to make synthetics.. it would have then created robotic "extensions" of its body in the form of humanoid robots to assist the thralls in what they needed so that the thralls would not need to create their own synthetics.. there.. i guess that makes me smarter than a billion year old sentient machine with virtually unlimited processing power then doesn't it.

face it.. there is no logic at all behind the story of this game.
i really could go on about the failure of logic used by the catalyst

it is in no way out of nowhere "space magic."

hmm.. a pulse that is sent out across atleast 10,000 light years per relay within a few seconds.. not even light travels anywhere close to that speed.. i mean thats just unimaginably fast..
this pulse is some how able to merge organic and inorganic matter WHILST keeping the organic matter alive and the synthetic life functioning.. wouldn't it also change the composition of the planets also? and stars.. it would mess them up too..
and then ofcourse the most important thing.. NOBODY HAS EVEN CLOSE TO THAT TECHNOLOGY the reapers are the most advanced piece of tech in the galaxy.. and you expect me to believe they are capable of doing that yet not capable of working out that turning off their own beam prevents their destruction...

also i might add: (since you missed it last time)
preserve life at all costs
by definition synthesis destroys life
catalyst has failed in its goal in the worst way possible

id rather we get what we have now than some contrived ending that centers around humanity and makes us look special when the plausibility of us being so is practically non existent. i think the thing this game did the best was show everyone how big the universe is, and how small an individual or even an entire species is. something that is certainly to be true in real life provided our species lives long enough to potentially find that out.

you are reading way to deeply into it and finding things that were never intended in the first place, and anyone who is capable of reading into a game that deeply would not need a game to tell them that humanity is nothing special and that the galaxy and the universe is vast beyond comprehension............
but just for fun

it already did make us look special, even the council says this, it does not like that humanity is progressing at the speed it was, it was causing them genuine concern... i'd say that's pretty special...
plus you play a human and go around and solve century old conflicts between the species as if they are too stupid enough to do it themselves.. that's pretty insulting to them...

"i think the thing this game did the best was show everyone how big the universe is"

yeah because 25 sectors with anything from 1-4 systems and virtually nothing on most of the planets is HUGE
.. it really opened peoples eyes to the 300,000,000,000 stars in our 100,000 light years wide galaxy


seriously though you seem to be the kind of person who would like exploration.. i really recommend
X3:Terran conflict ... **** good space sim.. they don't make them like they used to. or in this case they don't make them at all :|
it even has its own changing economy that is fun to influence once your powerful enough.. >

keep an eye on star citizen also.
X3: rebirth is in development but seems to have gone dark..

 

[edgecrusher]

the story is literally as simple as, organics technological advancement reaches a point in which it is more harmful to them than helpful. that point, is the creation of artifical intelligence. its "mans reach exceeding his grasp" as gavin archer says it in the project overlord DLC for ME2. that phrase holds true to real life right now without artificial intelligence having been created. so imagine how something like that would make it worse. couple that with sufficiently advanced technology from billion year old sentient machines that are the culmination of an advanced race doing that very thing, creating artificial intelligence, and there you have it. not contrived, not "magic." could it have been explained better originally? yes. did they recognize that and add to it? yes.

all i can say about the leviathan is that i think you are placing too much faith in the capabilities of organics. we do stupid stuff and then manage to convince ourselves it wasnt stupid. thats how our mind works. and again, if desperate enough we will result to things we originally said we would never do. i did not find it surprising in the slightest. what they did seems dumb, because it is, but that doesnt mean that it wouldnt have been done anyway. why do i say that? i feel like when it comes to organics the only thing i have to say is, because.... history. if anything i think its just shows how arrogant the leviathan actually were. they had been in control of the galaxy, uncontested for who knows how long. why shouldnt they think they they are unstoppable? i guess we can only agree to disagree when it comes to that. and no offense, but you said you havent played the DLC. watch the ending conversation on youtube before you judge anything. watch it and tell me they dont display the same qualities any organic would display being in a position of that much power. they are arrogant. they even blatantly hesitate when asked about the crucible and then give an obviously generic response. there is likely more going on then we know. i have a theory on that, but i wont go into it right now.

and youre right about the geth, they didnt want to fight. they wanted peace with the quarians. but the quarians didnt allow for that. they persisted the conflict and perpetuated it among their people throughout their history. which is why i have said that the conflict relies on organics MUCH more than it does synthetics. this paragraph and the one above it are 2 examples of why. because organics do stupid things like create sentient life as slaves and then wonder why it "rebelled" against them. they are not going to gain sentience with the thought of being hostile/evil. they dont even know what "evil" is....unless we build that into their original "programming" when they are created. their behavior will be dictated by how we create them. which is only further proof of why this falls so heavily on organics. creating artificial intelligence is basically organics creating something that will eventually become their own enemy. as cool as it was to see what legion showed us in the geth consensus mission, i had already assumed that thats how it played out. again, synthetics can only react to their creators. this happens the way it does for obvious reasons. i never needed the story to try to explain why.

and again with the space magic, youre right, no one in this cycle of 50k year old like has technology like that, but the billion year old machines that have been monitoring the galaxy for that long do. ill use the same example. "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." like i said, if you went back in time 200 years and showed someone a tv, they would think it was magic. even if you tried to explain to them how it wasnt magic, it would all be based on technology that is "beyond their comprehension." no amount of explaining could convince them because they cant possibly understand it. they would call it BS and claim its magic. so when the citadel/relays do what they do at the end, it is happening based on technology that the current life of the galaxy admittedly doesnt fully understand. its much more advanced than anything the life of this cycle has come up with on its own. everything from our FTL travel to biotics is based on the mass relay technology. technology that we stumbled upon, that we did NOT create ourselves. so exactly how is technology that is much older than us doing something we dont fully understand "magic?" its not, its just sufficiently more advanced.

even if humanity is special in anyway, its limited to a way of life that organics developed in this cycle only. not when it comes to the very evolution of life in the galaxy. the asari have much longer life spans and their "mind meld" ability. the quarains have adaptive immune systems that after a long enough period of time develops a symbiotic relationship with the microorganisms of the planet they inhabit. the vorcha are seemingly immune to all disease and ailments. the salarians short life span causes much faster thinking and higher intellects than the other species. these are all things that make each race special, but its all circumstantial and tied to an evolutionary adaptation to their environment. to this controlled and forced cycle of evolution. ALL races are special for some reason. based on what we have seen from these other races, humanity is average.

i think that people didnt like finding out that this was bigger than shepard or humanity so they cried BS and tried to find reasons as to why it sucks. ill even go as far as to say that even the people who recognize why the conflict is real, dont like the idea that it ultimately falls on organics. they would have preferred to shoot the bad guys to death in a story that tells them they are awesome for doing so rather than put any thought into themselves or the the way the universe is. which i shouldnt be surprised since thats what gets crammed down our throats all the time in most video games and movies. again, this series was made by science nerds who wanted to use actual scientific theories based on things we have really found out about the universe as opposed to a typical "hero vs villain" game.

synthesis does not destroy life. most of the negative stuff people say about it are imposed things that have no basis in what the game has actually shown us about it. its attempts to make anything but destroying the reapers look bad because again, people dont like not plainly killing the bad guys. its an attempt to make it look bad so that destroying the geth to defeat the reapers seems justified. which, if that was the only option, i would say it is justified especially considering the geth knew what was potentially at stake. but its not the only option.

we live in our minds, NOT in our DNA. as long as the ability to retain knowledge and make opinions based on how we perceive the world around us remains, we are individuals. all synthesis does is make what equates to a cosmetic change that allows for a type of communication between organics and their synthetic creations that wasnt previously possible. while also giving back all the lost knowledge of countless civilizations. for the first time in a billion years, life in the galaxy will actually be able to view and learn from its history.

the brain is electrical impulses. is it really that far fetched to assume that some form of synthetic manipulation to our bodies to be able to communicate with machines is required for that to be a possibility? in real life we already have both synthetic limbs and eyes that we have hooked up to the human nervous system... and they work. we are already doing this. we are even to the point that we are now creating devices that allow for images to be displayed on a computer screen simply by the person thinking about it. it is a natural progression in the advancement of technology combined with our evolution. which is why creating artificial intelligence before that step is as severe as it is. because its creating a new form of life that we cant properly communicate with/understand. this is why the catalyst says that by definition the created will surpass their creators. if we do something that that breaks that impasse, the original conflict does not exist anymore.

as far as the main story, its there and is based on actual science based on real life theories. most of it is hinted at/addressed in the conversations with sovereign and vigil in ME1. some other stuff that has nothing to do with the reapers, like FTL travel, actually isnt possible and we already know that because we have attempted to make particles go faster than that with an accelerator and when something hits the speed of light, time actually slows down for the thing moving that fast. based on what we have learned from these experiments, as of now its like a "law" about the universe that something cant go past the speed of light because time slows down thus preventing it from surpassing that speed. again though, it can happen in mass effect because it is based on sufficiently advanced technology that is "beyond our comprehension."

i didnt mean the physical size of the galaxy, i meant in how it works. even then, seeing a picture that doesnt have a legitimate sense of scale because there is no way to properly compare it to anything is not "recognizing" how big the galaxy is.

that fact, that the reapers exist in a way that no organic could ever hope to understand, that allows them to view life in the galaxy unfold(in cyclical form as sovereign states), is why so many people call BS on this stuff. because they are trying to understand something that they cant and that they werent meant to. better to recognize how over our heads this turned out to be, than to call BS on it and try to impose reasons as to why it sucks. again, this series was made by science nerds that recognize that. thats the story they wanted to tell. to me, that is FAR better than doing the same thing i have done in countless games before. to me, this series was always better than that. based on the way entertainment has been going i can tell im not going to get much in the way of that anymore. bioshock infinite is another glimmer among the same old. sometimes what happens in that movie "idiocracy" feels like its right around the corner.

and again, im only talking about the overall story when it comes to the reapers creation/motives. was the actual final combat portion of the game anti-climactic and underwhelming? absolutely. thats the worst thing about the game to me. did certain choices not mean as much as we were led to believe and result in nothing more than a war asset number? yes. but the majority of the choices did affect something along the way. there are several outcomes for the genophage mission that are dictated by choices from both of the previous games. the quarian/geth conflict is the strictest in regards to how it can play out. making peace requires quite a few things to have happend between both ME2 and ME3. the worst handled choices were the rachni and choosing morinth over samara. those were handled terribly. romances from ME2 characters werent handled all that well, until the citadel DLC anyway. and while things like that suck, it does not affect the actual story involving the reapers. it was vague at first, but it has been elaborated upon now for those people that were confused. is it unfortunate that that came with DLC? yes. but whats done is done.