Mass Effect 3 Ending Discussion

[Combine 017]

The game itself was great, just the last 10-15 minutes of it went to shit real fast. I really like that indoctrination theory and that it was Shepard fighting against his own mind, but if thats true, why didnt they finish the game? Either way, they screwed up, but I still really enjoyed the game as a whole and look forward to some more DLC.

[Fox 6]

Just beat this thing. I am disappointed. I know I have defended this game bu to be fair everything but that last 10-15 minutes was the greatest gaming experience I've ever had. I really enjoy the ME universe and to see it get such a awful ending really sucks. I want closure dammit! What happens next? My Shepard is still alive because I gathered more than half of total galactic readiness, so I know there is more to tell. What happens to all of your companions that I have invested so much learning about and talking to and helping?

I dont get why it boiled down to how synthetic life will always rise up and become violent, so they need these cycles to keep things in check?

The let down comes from working so hard and then having such little closure and more "WTFs?" with the little boy AI and how Liara and Javvik ended up on the Normandy, and why was it in the middle of a jump!?!

And I chose to destroy the reapers, why the hell does that mean I have to kill the Geth too?!?!?

The scene after the credits was a nice touch.

Maybe I'm just sad that its all over? No more mass effect?!

Also, if your Shepard dies because you dont want to bother with gathering all the resources, how do you play the inevitable DLC? or will it just be for the co-op?

[Ginkasa]

If you load up your save again you'll notice it just prior to the Cerberus base mission (which was the point of no return) despite where ever your last save really was. This is to, basically, allow everyone to play DLC without having to start a new game. They will all take place prior to the battle for Earth.

[Combine 017]

Originally Posted by Fox 6

Also, if your Shepard dies because you dont want to bother with gathering all the resources, how do you play the inevitable DLC? or will it just be for the co-op?

Youre galactic readiness has nothing to do with Shepard living or dying. He lives if you destroy the Reapers, but dies if you choose the other options, no matter how many resources youve acquired. You should watch that indoctrination theory video, its pretty well done and explains what they think the last 10-15 mins were all about.

[Dylflon]

I ended up going the synthesis route since control was obviously going to be a fail choice and I didn't feel destroying all synthetic life was the answer either (would feel guilty killing EDI).

But yeah...I was expecting to defend the ending after beating this game but I don't really feel like I understand the effects of my final choice...

So um...yeah I dunno.

[Typhoid]

I want closure dammit! What happens next?

Wait for the plethora of DLC that will never stop being released.

I dont get why it boiled down to how synthetic life will always rise up and become violent, so they need these cycles to keep things in check?

What do you mean "you dont get it" - you literally don't comprehend the concept of it - or you don't understand why they chose that as the theme of the Universe?

Anecdotal assumption alert:

The AI/Organic thing has been addressed as at least a minor theme in the other games - look at the Quarians, they created the Geth to help - the Geth rebelled after gaining thought, and there you go - Mass Effect 1. Mass Effect 2 explored the fact the Geth might be synthetic but they're still "life", but not before a corporation tries bringing Shep back from the dead and making him a living-robot so he can start flying around the Universe with his living AI-ship, dealing with the fact there is an engineered species stealing people to make a giant robotic human simply because they feel superior to all other species and don't trust any of them with their own survival. Which makes "sense", considering you're controlling a human-robot who is flying in a living ship with a sentient robot on his team.
The alien species 'controlling the cycles' maybe views synthetic life as an abomination to real life, being that it is superior and a seemingly neverending threat to organic life because given enough time it will most likely decimate the species that created it if no outside help is thrown in.

It just seems to me that Mass Effect is "about" the combination of living creatures and computers [In the same way that Deus Ex is, but on a larger and more warped scale] - and the problems associated with it - they just fast forwarded thousands of years beyond the "Hey, we made a computer that can play Chess, and we can put a barcode in your arm" part.


I still do want to play the game and experience this horrible unsatisfying ending for myself to see how magnificently let down I'll be. I have yet to see a person anywhere online say "Yeah, I'm satisfied with this so far." - That just makes me want to play it so much more.

[Dylflon]

I slept on it. Maybe I'm okay with the ending. I feel satisfied with the sacrifice I have to make since breaking a cycle is a pretty big thing to do.

I think people aren't really used to melancholy endings. But I guess it's fair to not know who lived or too much about what happens because it's Shepard's story, and my Shepard died.

I'm wondering if my squad for the last mission got vaporized. I took Garrus and Liara like everyone else so I assumed they're pretty dead. But then Liara walks off the Normandy and I'm like..."how'd she get on there"?

Anyways, everyone in this story was alive at a very doomed point of history so to give the future a chance is not too bad an ending.

And since the mass relays are gone, I'm curious what would happen with all the fleets stuck in the Sol system.

[Combine 017]

For those who are curios or like me, will never be able to see the bad endings, heres a vid of every ending side by side.

[BreakABone]

Originally Posted by Dylflon

I slept on it. Maybe I'm okay with the ending. I feel satisfied with the sacrifice I have to make since breaking a cycle is a pretty big thing to do.

I think people aren't really used to melancholy endings. But I guess it's fair to not know who lived or too much about what happens because it's Shepard's story, and my Shepard died.

I'm wondering if my squad for the last mission got vaporized. I took Garrus and Liara like everyone else so I assumed they're pretty dead. But then Liara walks off the Normandy and I'm like..."how'd she get on there"?

Anyways, everyone in this story was alive at a very doomed point of history so to give the future a chance is not too bad an ending.

And since the mass relays are gone, I'm curious what would happen with all the fleets stuck in the Sol system.

Reminds me of this comic

[Fox 6]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Wait for the plethora of DLC that will never stop being released.




What do you mean "you dont get it" - you literally don't comprehend the concept of it - or you don't understand why they chose that as the theme of the Universe?

Anecdotal assumption alert:

The AI/Organic thing has been addressed as at least a minor theme in the other games - look at the Quarians, they created the Geth to help - the Geth rebelled after gaining thought, and there you go - Mass Effect 1.

Wrong about that. In ME3 you get the chance to see stored Geth memories and its the Quarians that start the war with the Geth. There are several memories but there are key ones where the Quarians are trying to shut a geth down (kill it) and the geth is just asking what it did wrong and how it wasn't broken, trying to figure out why they wanted to kill it. Further more it shows the Quarians murdering other quarians that sympathise with the Geth, and how the Geth remembered those organics that try to help and are grateful. The Geth only fight back after their creators literally start gunning down large packs of defenless units. This shows that the Geth (when not controlled by the Reapers) are not interested in rebelling. They were just defending themselves as any organic would too.

Mass Effect 2 explored the fact the Geth might be synthetic but they're still "life", but not before a corporation tries bringing Shep back from the dead and making him a living-robot so he can start flying around the Universe with his living AI-ship, dealing with the fact there is an engineered species stealing people to make a giant robotic human simply because they feel superior to all other species and don't trust any of them with their own survival. Which makes "sense", considering you're controlling a human-robot who is flying in a living ship with a sentient robot on his team.

1. Cerberus is not an evil corporation, they are just a group. Corporations main concerns are profits, cerberus' main concern is the advancement of the human race. They have shell corporatons set up to provide funding for them.

2. The illusive man never says he doesnt trust the other specials with helping in survival. He even openly supports getting the councils help when you ask him if you should try, and theres also the fact that a large portion of your team are aliens and how he is the one to suggest them and says they are the best, etc. He brings you back becuase no body else is doing anything about it. Sure he believes that humans deserve a better spot in the galaxy, but he trusts anyone that can help to fight the collectors, aliens included.

The alien species 'controlling the cycles' maybe views synthetic life as an abomination to real life, being that it is superior and a seemingly neverending threat to organic life because given enough time it will most likely decimate the species that created it if no outside help is thrown in.

That is debatable. Infact, the Quarians launch a war to retake their homeworld and are on the brink of victory when the reapers interfere and enhance the Geth. This results in the Quarians getting their butt whooped. So without the reapers, and or the higher alien species' intervention, the Quarians would have probably won the war.

Most of the reaper interaction is with organics, harvesting to build new reapers, indoctronation (which is a huuuuge part of Mass Effect), husks, etc. It seems that it came out of left field that all of this, in the grand scheme of things, is to prevent synthetics from rising up.

All I am saying is that it was a weird explanation for the Reapers and the cycles. It would have made more sense if they hadn't tryed to explain the reapers origins, and the whole cycle was just the reapers procuring the future of their species, ensuring their survival. Hell, I would've even bought that the reapers were created by the higher alien species so that they can ensure organic life continues, (ie: advanced space faring races would eventually use all resources and move on until there was nothing left.) by killing them all and resetting the cycle.

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Combine 017

For those who are curios or like me, will never be able to see the bad endings, heres a vid of every ending side by side.

Look, just because the designers didn't branch out into secondary colors doesn't mean the endings weren't vastly different.

On a serious note, I had no idea the endings were that similar. That is kind of ridiculous.

[Dylflon]

Now that I've read the indoctrination theory, it's very interesting to think that what plays out in the citadel is just a mind fuck to get Shepard to think on a different paradigm that helps the Reapers (like what happened with the Illusive man).

Are the reapers mind readers? That's the only way they'd know to make the little AI hologram that child. It makes more sense if it's taking place in Shepard's head since that kid is something she's been grappling with the whole game, he's always very much in her mind.

If this is the case, then my selection of synthesis could be playing into the reaper's hand now that I'm trying to compromise rather than stop them. Could that AI have been fucking with me and lying outright. Some of the things he said are out of line with the things the Reapers have said throughout the game.

The idea that this cycle preserves life could be the lie that helps fuck with Shepard's head enough to not destroy the Reapers while the Reapers could be acting in self interest to ensure that no being would ever advance enough to be on par with the Reapers.

Plus there's a lot of weird stuff that happened like Shepard's gun going off at Anderson, but Anderson not being wounded. Then later in the exchange Shepard is bleeding from the spot where it seems she shot Anderson.

The only thing I regret now is taking the two people I cared about most on the last mission since it seems they got vaporized.

I wonder how the rest of the people made out in the battle...


The more I think about it, the more I like how the game ended. It will be interesting to see what happens now that Bioware is adding to it.


The only thing I see as a failure is the fact that the final battle didn't involve many hard choices. I would have liked something akin to the last mission in ME2 wherein you have to organize squads to help you get to the beam. The last moments would have been a lot better if the game forced to make hard choices and sacrifice some of your friends for the sake of the mission. It doesn't seem as though that would have been too hard to do and I think a mission of this caliber would have limited a lot of people's disappointment with the end of the game.


Edit:

The biggest success of this game is that it's gotten all of us thinking about it a lot after finishing it. What other game can boast that?

[Dylflon]

Last stage of dealing with end of Mass Effect:

Played through ending again. Indoctrination theory is everyone just grasping at straws.

The ending was the ending. It wasn't the worst thing ever. Get over it, crybabies.

[Typhoid]

It would have made more sense if they hadn't tryed to explain the reapers origins, and the whole cycle was just the reapers procuring the future of their species, ensuring their survival.

I like the concept that they're doing it is because they're so technologically advanced that they feel so complexly superior to every living thing, and have a massive God complex. I think that sounds a lot cooler than them simply trying to survive.

Wrong about that. In ME3 you get the chance to see stored Geth memories and its the Quarians that start the war with the Geth. There are several memories but there are key ones where the Quarians are trying to shut a geth down (kill it) and the geth is just asking what it did wrong and how it wasn't broken, trying to figure out why they wanted to kill it.

They talk about that in ME2 too, if you talk enough with Legion. He plays the recordings for you.
So then after the Quarians tried to shut off (kill) that geth, the geth contemplated why they creators (Gods) were attempting to destroy them and rebelled, right?

Just because I said the Geth rebelled doesn't mean I meant they were the first to start the war - but they were still the synthetic ones to rise up and rebel against the organic creators.

1. Cerberus is not an evil corporation

I never said they were evil. I just said they were a corporation.


Anyways, all I was trying to say with my post before was my opinion on the theme of the series - that the whole Synthetic Life/Organic life and the struggles between them and combination of them seems to be at least a minor theme in the whole series - to me. Almost everything in that game is the cause, problem of, or the solution is some type of genetic engineering, and the struggles of choices between combining organic life with synthetic life, or altering organic life to become 'better'.

It seems to be about "At what point is too much". Look at the Illusive Man. He wants to secure the human race at the top of the Universal ladder- at what cost though - synthesizing people to make them stronger and better, essentially making them less organic, less 'natural'. Then there's the Solarians and the Genophage, and the fact the Krogan were genetically engineered in the first place, and then decimated afterwards with some genetic altering. And especially the shit the Reapers are pulling, and have previously pulled.

AI in the series was originally presented as evil with the Geth, but then slowly towards the 3rd game (to my understanding from playing to the second and from what I've heard about the 3rd) they try to make you understand that just because their life isn't organic, it's still life [Even through the course of 2, with EDI - she starts off with a sketchy sort of vibe to the character, but by the end of the game she has become very 'human' in her interactions, cracking jokes, getting to know the crew, and possibly even 'becomes' the ship - turning her into an actual physical object rather than simply data]- so is it morally okay to destroy them - when is it morally okay to stop genetic engineering, when is it okay to do it etc. Maybe it's just me who sees it that way, I'm not too sure.

The biggest success of this game is that it's gotten all of us thinking about it a lot after finishing it. What other game can boast that?

Even if that's not what they were going for at all, I definitely agree.

Hey Dylan, after you decide to be through with this abomination of semen-filled excrement [No rush] I call dibs - because I don't really want to drop 70 bucks on a game everyone has been shit talking for weeks - it's not a very good selling point.


*shrugs and walks away*

[Combine 017]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Hey Dylan, after you decide to be through with this abomination of semen-filled excrement [No rush] I call dibs - because I don't really want to drop 70 bucks on a game everyone has been shit talking for weeks - it's not a very good selling point.


*shrugs and walks away*

What the hell is wrong with you, you cant just say that without even knowing the facts, gawd, its only 60 bucks!