Sfdebris.net

I've mentioned before that I HATE the ending of ME3 due to it ignoring player choice, shifting the focus away from Shepard and rending everything you've done throughout the Trilogy pointless but one thing I don't see covered often is how the ending is, IMO, a complete cluster F#(k with themes.

The main conflict between Shepard and the Reapers is NOT Organic Life vs. Artificial Life, the main conflict is the Reapers want to destroy EVERYTHING. The Geth will NOT be spared by the Reapers, they are (to the Reapers) just another race to be used and then discarded when of no further use like anyone else. Those who try to serve the Reapers willingly are ALL doomed to die because the Reapers DON'T CARE!!! It is made clear that ALL life will be destroyed by the Reapers and anyone who thinks the Reapers can be reasoned with or that they place value on certain life forms are deluded and will be killed or harvest like everyone else...

And then comes the Ending of ME3 which goes "Nope this is all about Organic vs. A.I. and the Reapers are trying to make peace by killing everyone... Because you THAT makes sense!!!"

The point of everything leading up to this moment was that the Reapers were coming and that we needed to work together or try to survive at any cost to stop the Reapers. THIS is the main theme of the 3d game, stated at the start by you. And then the ending tosses that all aside because the developers decided to just redo the Quarian/Geth war only now with a Little Blue Troll who gives you one of three choices and tells you that you were wrong about what the game was about and that it's really about THIS thing.

Have I mentioned that I hate this ending? I hate ending.

My interpretation was always that Little Blue Troll was just an idiot and a fanatic who shouldn't be trusted. The leaked script and extended cut where he has no real arguments if Shepard asks questions seem to confirm this, and the Leviathan account of Reaper origin backs it up.

The whole "preservation through Reaper" plan always reminds of a bit from the old Dilbert animated show where Dogbert is concerned about a computer takeover and launches a plan to "save" humanity... "In the sense that I save stamps or save old bottles".

It also matches up with SC's justification being that cycles tend to follow predictable patterns, when it was so obvious that the Reaper cycle and the technology trap they use is the cause that Sovereign openly boasts that they were doing it on purpose.

I would have gone full esoteric.

The Reapers save the minds of everyone they harvest and put them all in Lotus Eater Machines.

Imagine realizing every Reaper you destroy contains an entire civilization.

CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:11 pm I would have gone full esoteric.

The Reapers save the minds of everyone they harvest and put them all in Lotus Eater Machines.

Imagine realizing every Reaper you destroy contains an entire civilization.

Yeah; I would have gone for something like this. Plus making the threat stupid excessive (i.e. send a hundred to harvest the galaxy while they have trillions). And instead of "the endless conflict between AI and Organics" it's instead "the endless conflict between all species versus all species". There, you pull out all the stops, and point out every instance where species are running roughshod over another (i.e. Rachni, Krogans, Geth/Quarians, First Contact War, Council getting destroyed, etc.)

And then you get three options. You can take the "agree" ending where you agree with the Reapers and allow them to proceed. You can take the renegade ending where you wipe out the hundred Reapers and bank on having enough time to prepare for the coming wave of more reapers. Or you can take the paragon ending and persuade the reapers to give the galaxy time to prove that the galaxy can live in peace.

Or they could have done something even more interesting, and had the Reapers be an attempt to induce peace in the galaxy by giving the various species a reason to band together and overcome their differences. From the point of view of an ancient, elder race of aliens, the lives lost in the Reaper attacks may be inconsequential compared to changing the destiny of the galaxy.

Imagine that the various Old Ones endlessly fought each other, until eventually several races each formed alliances and ultimately fused, resulting in two opposing sides that ended when one side was exterminated. The victor grieved for the loss of potential inherent in the defeat of its opponent, but could find no plausible alternative resulting in all the races coming together. When new technological species began to arise, the sole survivor decided to play the "bad guy" in an experiment to determine if a common enemy could motivate otherwise incompatible species to find common ground.

I don't know if that's a 'good' story, but I think it's better than the one they gave us.

Although my biggest problem with the ending is that it simply leaves me very, very pissed off (which is why I reject the "it's about the journey" argument - that one would work if I just felt "meh" at the end) you certainly raise a valid point. Of course you can reject the Catalyst's argument by choosing Destroy (with added contrived Negative Consequences (TM), just because there have to be some), but that doesn't change the theme change.

The Reapers' approach to their "solution" - basically be incredibly unpleasant - doesn't help fit in with their supposed goal which just makes it even more out of the blue. As Shepard points out to the reaper on Rannoch (IIRC) the species it was supposedly made up of is long dead. They're all just Reapers at that point.

The Reapers have exterminated who knows how many cycles of species so its interesting to note that is a hard pill to swallow. HOWEVER, I do think they could have also done the Babylon Five bit where Sheridan tells the First Ones off.

Shepherd: "We're united as one against you. No, we probably can't defeat you but you've had hundreds of cycles where you had every advantage fighting us. We will make you bleed and we will destroy some of you. Maybe a lot of you. What is your so-called superior immortal lives worth? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? You can fight us and maybe even win but it will require sacrifice and losses I don't think your race can stand. There's an alternative, though. Go back to whatever hell you came from and leave us the fuck alone."

My issue with the ending of ME3 isn't to do with the RGB choice at the end...it's that it ignores the thematic elements of the entire trilogy. The series is about Shepard working to create alliances and build bridges between cultures. In ME1 it's less prevalent because the game's focused on setting up the world of Mass Effect, but even in that there are a lot of moments where Shepard is working to heal old grudges and allow different cultures to come together to face a bigger threat.

ME2, it is literally the point of the game on a smaller scale, as the Collectors and whatnot are just the driving force behind Shepard bringing together a dozen individuals then helping to resolve their long-standing issues so they can come together as a team and, in the final mission, defeat the Collectors if she makes the correct choices as a leader. Without using a walkthrough, it requires simply doing the loyalty missions, paying attention to the wants and desires of the companion characters and their personalities, then using that to make sure they all work together in the best way.

In ME3, almost every single mission is about Shepard solving decades, centuries, sometimes millennia old grudges and discord between cultures in order to bring them all together to face this foe. She goes around righting wrongs from many generations ago to make sure that everyone can work together to stop the Reaper invasion.

And what's the finale? Shepard. Alone. Making a multiple choice decision. One that affects every single living being in the galaxy. With no input from anyone else.

"But it's a video game, they can't represent bringing all those different aliens together in the game!" Except we know it can happen because it's been done before. By BioWare. Dragon Age: Origins has you running around fixing everyone's problems so that the humans, elves, dwarves, and mages can come together and fight the Darkspawn. And it was done in a way that was satisfying in theme, in story, and in game mechanics.

The only thing that fixed this problem for ME3 was the Citadel DLC. THAT had the theme of Shepard having brought all these people together, the companions from all three games in one place on one adventure. THAT is the thematic closure to the game. The actual ending? That's just wrapping up the plot and frankly, if I wasn't planning to do a video about Mass Effect, I wouldn't even bother playing it and just end the game on the hangover after the party.