2012-06-28, 11:47 | Link #3241 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: East Cupcake
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(Truthfully, I do not understand how anyone really thought Shepard would win. The Races have only been preparing for a large war for 5 or so years, and considering that they only came together within the last few months of that preparation, it was very unfeasible for them to have actually been able to launch an offensive or defensive that would have destroyed all (or at least most) of the Reapers (I could expect them to save a few systems, but not the galaxy). They simply didn't have the technology or the man power to defeat the Reapers.) Now that is the real dilemma. Bioware has, essentially, created a game that you cannot win. Frankly, I do not know why they went out of there way to create such a game. While it is nice to have an interesting story, it would have also been nice to have created a believable 'positive' conclusion to the story.... |
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2012-06-28, 12:03 | Link #3242 | ||
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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So I guess my point is that what isn't unusual is the bad odds; what is unusual is that this is a rare time when the chance of victory is literally zero. Quote:
The only consolation is the rejection ending. That by refusing to comply, Shepard played the part instead as another link in the chain to Reaper's ultimate defeat by a successor civilisation. (And no, Destroy ending is not a "good" ending. It is only "good" if you think like a Reaper.)
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2012-06-28, 13:08 | Link #3243 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: "Sacrifice one to appease the few."
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The Volus have no real military yet the Reapers couldn't even take their planet even though only a paltry Turian force was there. |
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2012-06-28, 13:35 | Link #3244 | ||
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
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Also, given the state of the races in the galaxy there is no logical storywriting way that can give the combined galactic fleet a chance of conventional victory against the Reapers, given how powerful a single Reaper is both on-screen and off, which has been shown from ME1 to ME3 in quite consistent fashion. The Reapers aren't invincible, but they still have the overwhelming advantage in not only numbers but tech and logistics. This is Bioware simply solidifying that fact: without the Crucible, the galaxy loses *period*, and that was well before the Extended Cut, so the implied "dissatisfaction" here is rather false. The one time that an ending actually progresses from the logic laid out by the games, and it's called illogical. Quote:
The only planets you can read ingame that have held long against Reapers are either those that the Reapers pretty much ignore, send paltry amounts of forces to, or have massive Turian deployments. Everywhere else the Reapers have unequivocally triumphed over.
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2012-06-28, 13:40 | Link #3245 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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Why are you still talking about the Crucible like it is some sort of trump card? The Crucible is just where the leader of the Reapers reside. Shepard's only job in the game is to negotiate the terms of surrender. I do not see any of the three official endings as a victory, as each are to the Reaper's benefit. Kill all synthetics is following the original Reaper mandate. Fuse all life into hybrids is turning everyone into Reapers. Mind melding Shepard into the Reaper hive mind is what the Reapers wanted ever since ME2, that's why they wanted his corpse so badly. Tell me again, how was the Crucible suppose to help Shepard win?
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2012-06-28, 13:45 | Link #3246 |
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
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It's quite simple. For the sake of this particular argument, my definition of "Victory" is militarily: basically, stop the Reapers from wiping out all life in the galaxy, which is pretty much how many of the characters in the game see it. Only Shepard talks to the Crucible and gets the lowdown of the Reaper's entire deal. Outside of that, the galaxy outside knows nothing of the Reaper's intentions or whatnot, and so care not for the method of how they're stopped, merely that they are.
All three are "Victories" in the sense that all of them basically stop the Reapers from killing everyone, which fulfills that particular condition, and thus can be considered "Victories" in the above definition. Everything else is just moral gravy to be discussed on forums like this one. If I was going to be killed by a man and had only a moment to spare, I don't care if it was all in his plan for me to kill him: I'll be alive because I defended myself and killed him first, his reasons be damned. It'd be said if my best friend had to be killed in the process yes, and would dampen that feel of surviving, but at the end I'd be alive, and all I can do is just live to the best of my ability for his sake as well.
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2012-06-28, 13:52 | Link #3247 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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However, if you actually care about defeating the Reapers for what they do, then none of the three options are victories. As I say, I find it no different from signing terms of surrender. It would be like if I pay a mobster every month so he wouldn't take my money by force; I am still being robbed, just willingly. "Giving the Reapers what they want" is not a victory. That is the exact opposite. If you obey orders in exchange for not being killed, then you have been enslaved.
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2012-06-28, 14:01 | Link #3248 | |
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
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As to the "upkeep", the Reapers aren't mobsters demanding a monthly upkeep though. They're more like robbers who demand your money in exchange for your life - you make a one-time payment (in this case, Shepard and/or Synthetic Life), and then they'll leave you alone forever. Hell, in the case of the Control ending, the robbers can even be ordered to fix the window they just broke. Sure, I lost money, but I'm alive at least (this is actual standard advice police will give to someone in the event of a robbery).
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2012-06-28, 14:21 | Link #3249 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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Complete destruction of an innocent sentient race is not a payment. Mutation of all life in the galaxy into the Reaper's image is not a payment. Having Shepard recruited into their ranks is not a payment. That's called LOSING. "Do anything they want as long as they don't kill us" means you lost. The Reapers are only truly defeated in the Refusal Ending. Not what I want, but I will take it. Because it proves that the Reapers ARE wrong, and that they have no moral mandate other than superior fire power. That they are crazy and nothing they say makes sense. So to follow their orders in any way is inviting insanity.
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2012-06-28, 14:36 | Link #3250 |
User of the "Fast Draw"
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In the end not a fan of playing ball with the Reapers. Should have scrapped the whole Crucible idea and just built a few more battleships, would have been more enjoyable going all out than playing around. Agree that joining the Reapers, destroying the Geth, or abusing the galaxy on a genetic level is hardly the way I'd have written an ending. All of them are bad it's just a decision of how bad. Really it'd be hilarious if in a few years in the control ending, Shepard was overtaken by the Reapers and they went right on back to what they were doing in the first place.
Agree it's better to just give the god child the middle finger and take a seat. Better to go out guns blazing and taking out every Reaper possible to give the next generation a much easier time when it comes to winning.
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2012-06-28, 16:04 | Link #3252 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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It is obvious by now that the ME3 writers do not truly think of the Geth as sentient. The whole point is that they judged the Geth as a threat and must be killed, and the Reapers are carrying out that wish as divine mandate. A bit hard to aim for global harmony when the Gods are racist.
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2012-06-28, 16:20 | Link #3253 | |
blinded by blood
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I'm still really convinced that the decisions for the end of ME3 were borne from a) Bioware ran out of time and EA wouldn't allow another extension and push the release date back again, b) Casey Hudson is a colossal tool, c) Drew Karpyshyn left Bioware and the writer who replaced him is incompetent and d) EA wants to wring the ME franchise dry until no more money comes out of it.
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2012-06-28, 18:15 | Link #3254 | |
Adeptus Animus
Author
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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It's a far-reaching consequence that deserved at least a bit of attention. But it's not even mentioned after you make the choice. At all. |
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2012-06-28, 18:32 | Link #3255 | |
Carbon
Join Date: Nov 2003
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and you also see EDI's name on the memorial scene
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2012-06-28, 18:35 | Link #3256 | |
Carbon
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Why else is synthesis such a perfect Disney ending?
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2012-06-28, 19:08 | Link #3257 |
User of the "Fast Draw"
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What does that have to do with anything? Legion can die(assuming he can survive at all) well before the final battle and EDI isn't a Geth. None of that actually relates to the point of glossing over the Geth as a whole race. Of course considering the glowing boy's lack of acknowledging the Geth as hurting his argument, I'm not surprised Bioware as a whole pretty much ignored that entire issue. After all this DLC was to try and appease fan anger so that we'll come back to buy more of their games.
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2012-06-28, 20:52 | Link #3259 |
blinded by blood
Author
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Yeah, it's interesting how in the first two games (which had Drew Karpyshyn's writing influencing the tone) the idea of "synthetics and organics can work out their differences" was a major theme, especially in ME2 (where the geth aren't the primary enemy). Karpyshyn left partially through ME2's development.
The original plan for ME3's story was to be something about dark energy that'd make the Reapers basically into the Antispirals and Kyuubey combined, rather than "anti-Skynet" that they are in the actual ME3. The hard turn "against" coexistence toward the end of ME3 is just indicative of the change in narrative direction toward a more typical Hollywood-style "robot apocalypse" story. This sort of thing always frustrated me, an avid fan of Asimov's works where robots and AI aren't automatically considered the villains. It's a major plot point of the book I'm working on as well--one of the two main characters is an artificial intelligence and a large part of the early story revolves around her development as a person. I went into the work trying to prove that AI isn't automatically good or bad, but like any other intelligence, it depends on the person--and the person in this case just wants to be treated with the same respect any other good person would be. Legion and the geth always struck me the same way. The geth didn't want war; it was forced upon them.
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2012-06-29, 04:32 | Link #3260 |
Adeptus Animus
Author
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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ME3 also had "synthetics and organics can work out their differences." Hell, the entirety of Rannoch was centered around that. They just tossed it out the window in the last ten minutes. Legion flashing on the screen doesn't really matter, since that was referring to his sacrifice to allow the geth to become individuals. A sacrifice you destroy in the red ending.
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effect, games, mass |
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