Mass Effect 3 (Spoilers)

[PeZook]

Some people on other boards have raised a point that Bioware might just be fucking with people.

Because, well...let's see. The AI takes the shape of the boy Shep has failed to save. Uhh...how the FUCK does it know about him? Can it read minds? Then why does it even need to ask "Why are you here?"

Then Anderson: he's inside the station and on the move despite nobody else making it to the teleporter before Shep. Then the Illusive Man appears...somehow. It's like a collection of Shep's fears, hopes and nightmares all accost him. And of course the finale depends on the war assets you've collected? What?

So why not have it be a dream? It sounds lame, but the entire ending is so surreal that it's almost believebale!

I doubt this is so, because...Bioware...and yes, it sounds like people grasping at straws just to make up something better in their minds, but it's an interesting take

[Anacronian]

There seems to being a growing belief that the whole Citadel scene in ME 3 was just an hallucination or some sort of side effect of Shep being indoctrinated - people use the fact that if Shep survives he/she seems to wake up back in London as proof of this.

[Vendetta]

Look you fat fuck grow a brain, there is nothing limiting about the omega 4 relay, everybody can use it - what you need the IFF for is to exit with in the safe zone in the galactic core, Every fucking relay has drift of around a million km on exit the IFF just allow you to make a more precise exit - and let me repeat again - the omega 4 relay is open for everybody to use, This is the kind of things you would know if you fucking played the game now get it into your fat fucking nerd brain that the reapers can not shut down relays at a whim!

Of course, we always see people come out of relay jumps right next to the relay, but then we already knew that the story writers don't talk to the codex writers and none of them talk to the CGI guys....

[PeZook]

There seems to being a growing belief that the whole Citadel scene in ME 3 was just an hallucination or some sort of side effect of Shep being indoctrinated - people use the fact that if Shep survives he/she seems to wake up back in London as proof of this.

While it could explain things, it does leave kind of a sour aftertaste, doesn't it? Since the ending has just enough closure to make a "dream solution" seem exceedingly lame.

Personally I think it's just fans desperately wanting things to BE what they want them to be, and grasping at straws.

[Anacronian]

Look you fat fuck grow a brain, there is nothing limiting about the omega 4 relay, everybody can use it - what you need the IFF for is to exit with in the safe zone in the galactic core, Every fucking relay has drift of around a million km on exit the IFF just allow you to make a more precise exit - and let me repeat again - the omega 4 relay is open for everybody to use, This is the kind of things you would know if you fucking played the game now get it into your fat fucking nerd brain that the reapers can not shut down relays at a whim!

Of course, we always see people come out of relay jumps right next to the relay, but then we already knew that the story writers don't talk to the codex writers and none of them talk to the CGI guys....

In this particular case both the story writers and the Codex writers seem to be on the same page...rare but it happens.

[Anacronian]

There seems to being a growing belief that the whole Citadel scene in ME 3 was just an hallucination or some sort of side effect of Shep being indoctrinated - people use the fact that if Shep survives he/she seems to wake up back in London as proof of this.

While it could explain things, it does leave kind of a sour aftertaste, doesn't it? Since the ending has just enough closure to make a "dream solution" seem exceedingly lame.

Personally I think it's just fans desperately wanting things to BE what they want them to be, and grasping at straws.

If it turns out to have any merit i would like to nominate Bioware for the award of "Best trolling of fans".

Seriously i think the backlash from this would be of Epic proportions.

[PeZook]

In this particular case both the story writers and the Codex writers seem to be on the same page...rare but it happens.

It's more that they forget to talk to their CUTSCENE guys

Since yeah, Codex and story/dialogue match up here. For example, Joker is all smug in ME1 because he can keep drift below 100 000 kms for a long relay jump, and wants to show off to the Turian spectre aboard.

[Anacronian]

In this particular case both the story writers and the Codex writers seem to be on the same page...rare but it happens.

It's more that they forget to talk to their CUTSCENE guys

Since yeah, Codex and story/dialogue match up here. For example, Joker is all smug in ME1 because he can keep drift below 100 000 kms for a long relay jump, and wants to show off to the Turian spectre aboard.

Or the fact that the story explicitly tells us this is the case after the collector ship mission Here at 5:10

And by the way we never see the SR 2 exiting the Omega 4 relay.. so this might be a case where even the CGI guys were aboard...creepy but true.

[dragon]

Must have done something wrong somewhere as she got killed in the facility run by her father

edit I chose synthesis merging organics and inorganics into one was kind of interesting to see Joker with circuitry all over.

You need to warn her about Kai Leng and complete her loyalty quest in ME2 for her to survive. And I think you need to take the Paragon/Renegade interrupt on the dad.

Ahh I see. Kind of hard then as I have no ME2 saves to import.

[dragon]

Bah to slow on the edit. The person raving in the video about the fleet trapped at earth. Several times you have to travel to nearby systems in short amount of time without relays. So either this was limited to Normandy unlikly as the ship in the first ME had only Humand and Quarian tech. Granted the ships would have short range.
Anyone remember how many people lived on the citadel.

[PeZook]

13.2 million I think.

The fleet issue is kinda overblown, TBH. The Reapers didn't target agricultural areas, the Quarians lived aboard their ships for fuck knows how long,and there's dozens of stars within reach of the setting's slo-FTL where you could get raw resources to fuel industry with which to make hydroponic stuffskis.

Plus they were kinda mangled during the fight

[Anacronian]

Must have done something wrong somewhere as she got killed in the facility run by her father

edit I chose synthesis merging organics and inorganics into one was kind of interesting to see Joker with circuitry all over.

You need to warn her about Kai Leng and complete her loyalty quest in ME2 for her to survive. And I think you need to take the Paragon/Renegade interrupt on the dad.

Ahh I see. Kind of hard then as I have no ME2 saves to import.

you can go Here and download a save, Just browse until you find one that suits you.

[PeZook]

Oh, and it seems that you can hurl things with relays without a receiver station ; So as soon as the first relay is rebuilt they can send out some of the ships to other homeworlds and slowly reconstruct the network.

[Anacronian]

Oh, and it seems that you can hurl things with relays without a receiver station ; So as soon as the first relay is rebuilt they can send out some of the ships to other homeworlds and slowly reconstruct the network.

That's a leap in logic, Just because we don't see the Omega 4 receiving relay doesn't mean it's not there ..in fact it must be there since how else would the SR 2 come back from the galactic core?- It's a just a case like ME 1 where we rarely see the receiving relays.

[Omeganian]

Plus, there is the problem of actually building the relays.

[Zinegata]

It seemed to be alright with it. It's not like it did anything to stop the Crucible from docking with it, yet it supposedly had the Reapers move it out of worry? More on this coming...

Not really, it's implied that the rest of the fleet is out keeping the Reapers busy on the planet's surface - it's the only reason why the Crucible got through.

Also, it was Shep who activated the controls to open the Citadel.

The idea that it "allowed" the Crucible to dock with it is not supported by the facts. It may have by not activating any defenses (note the suspiciously empty interior of the Citadel except for corpses and TIM), but it's not an ironclad case and a lot of evidence contradicts this.

Thought this was obvious... guess not... The Citadel serves as the incubation chamber for new Reapers. That is why they send all the live and dead of the targeted race up into it. It didn't strike you that the Collector base had a similar silhouette once the Citade is in hatchery mode? That and they flat out say what the Citadel is doing there when you get your briefing. I doubt if the Reapers moved it there to avoid the Crucible at all, (as they didn't move it away once it was in system and they had plenty of time to get it away) and Alliance intel was wrong and they just moved it there because it was time to start making Reapers.

Again, this is not confirmed. And frankly, saying "The Citadel kinda looks like the Collector Base!" is flimsy evidence. So the Egyptians practiced blood sacrifices on their pyramids too because they look similar to Mayan Pyramids? That's an absured assertion especially considering both structure were built by the Reapers.

I'll admit that I initially thought that the Citadel would be a mass processing center too... but when you actually get inside (in a section of the Citadel Shep has never been) it's actually totally unlike the Collector base processing facility. People were put into a chamber (often still alive) and were melted down. All we see are piles of corpses. That's not what the Collector Base looked like from the inside.

[Zinegata]

Look you fat fuck grow a brain, there is nothing limiting about the omega 4 relay, everybody can use it - what you need the IFF for is to exit with in the safe zone in the galactic core, Every fucking relay has drift of around a million km on exit the IFF just allow you to make a more precise exit - and let me repeat again - the omega 4 relay is open for everybody to use, This is the kind of things you would know if you fucking played the game now get it into your fat fucking nerd brain that the reapers can not shut down relays at a whim!

Yep, exactly. Glad to see I'm not the only one who actually remembers key details about the game.

The Omega 4 relay wasn't special because the Reapers could turn it on or off with a whim. Anyone can use it - it's just that nobody comes back after using it - making it a one-way trip.

TIM then tells us that their theory is that there are special defenses on the other side of the relay, so you need to create a special IFF (c/o Mordin) to fool the IFF. This theory is all but confirmed once you go through the relay - as you run right into a debris field, which are presumably the previous victims of the defense system.

In short, the idea that the Reapers can turn relays off at a whim is completely unsupported by the facts. Omega 4 was an example of a relay with special defenses on one end to interdict any unauthorized passage (no different from posting a defensive battlefleet); but it is not proof that Reapers can turn a relay off. The relay was never turned off.

[Zinegata]

Some people on other boards have raised a point that Bioware might just be fucking with people.

...

I doubt this is so, because...Bioware...and yes, it sounds like people grasping at straws just to make up something better in their minds, but it's an interesting take

The theory is a bit more complex than that.

The idea is that it's a dream sequence to represent an attempt to indoctrinate Shepard. After Shep gets hit by the killer red beam, the Reapers find Shep and try to indoctrinate him/her.

And there's actually some solid evidence behind it. In particular:

1) Why do you have infinite ammo for a pistol that you were not even carrying at the start of the mission? (Counter argument: Bioware was lazy)

2) Why does the teleport beam only have minimal ground defenses? It's only defended by three Husks and a Marauder... when in the previous battle sequence you're fighting waves upon waves of enemy troops and they seemed without limit. (Counter argument... fuck it, just assume it's always Bioware was lazy unless I mention otherwise)

3) Shep gets shot by the Marauder - while his shields are down - and lives despite losing a huge chunk of meat/blood.

4) How the hell did Anderson get to the teleport beam ahead of you? For that matter, how did some of the other soldiers even get close to the teleport beam with several crates of supplies? You were mostly leading the pack - with the guys in front of you getting totally vaporized. For that matter, why are the dying soldiers near the teleport beam all sporting "regular" wounds (i.e. it looks like gun shots), while you're suffering from terrible laser burns? There are no other bodies of enemy troops around, so it couldn't have been last-ditch defenders.

5) Why was the Citadel completely undefended by ground troops except for TIM? Note that by comparison, the Collector base was full of troops - even though it was a confirmed processing center.

6) Why are there black lines / smoke around Shep - reminiscent of the indoctrination sequences from ME1 with Saren and Benezia involved?

7) Why does the Star Child take the form of the kid, when it's a part of Shep's memories? Did the Star Child scan Shep's brain... or is this actually just a continuation of the dream sequences you've been experiencing?

Finally - in the "Shepard lives!" cut scene, he's NOT in the Citadel. He's actually in a concrete location that looks a lot like the London hellscape.

Hence, the theory goes that the blatant silliness of the ending is because it's a dream sequence concoted by the evil Reaper AI. By blowing up the Reapers and rejecting the "cycle will repeat itself", you actually free Shepard from indoctrination... hence Shep is returned to reality in the London battleground, battered and bruised but once again free.

And by implication, it also means that the battle is actually still raging - and that having that high mil score is going to come into play for a Golden Ending DLC, because the rest of the galaxy was holding the line while Shep was shaking off indoctrination.

[Skywalker_T-65]

...You know...that makes a remarkable amount of sense...oh please God let Bioware be doing that...

[fractalsponge1]

The more I think about the ending the angrier I get about it. Such a great game ruined by such a stupid end...

[Galvatron]

Drew Karpyshyn says there's nothing to rumors that BioWare ruined the game after his departure.

Love it or hate it, we can all admit that Mass Effect 3's sudden third-act twist has proven rather controversial. Legions of unhappy fans have taken to the game's official message boards to lodge complaints and petition BioWare to "fix" the ending, with some going so far as to claim that the game's last fifteen minutes have tarnished the entire franchise forever.

In the wake of the controversy, Mass Effect's former lead writer Drew Karpyshyn has defended the game's conclusion, debunking claims that the ending was changed following his departure from the franchise.

Karpyshyn, along with Mac Walters, served as head writer on the first Mass Effect game and contributed heavily to the second before transferring to BioWare Austin to assist on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

A popular theory among disgruntled fans claims that Mass Effect 3's ending was hastily thrown together as a last minute replacement for Karpyshyn's much stronger intended finale, which centered around Dark Energy. A snippet explaining the original plot was posted to the Something Awful forums, attributed to a source inside BioWare:

The Reapers' goal was to find a way to stop the spread of Dark Energy which would eventually consume everything. That's why there was so much foreshadowing about Dark Energy in ME2.

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 it's genetic diversity and represented the universe's best chance at stopping Dark Energy's spread.

The original final choice was going to be "Kill the Reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy in finding another way to stop the spread with what little time is left" or "Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means.

But according to Karpyshyn, that so-called "original ending" was only one of several possiblities, and it certainly wasn't as definitive as some fans would like to believe.

"Dark Energy was on the table at one point," he wrote on Twitter, "but the original idea for the ending was all about Reapers and Mass Relays."

Though he's yet to play Mass Effect 3 for himself, Karpyshyn says the ending that made it into Mass Effect 3 is in line with what he'd planned for all along.

"From what I hear, the basic concept of the original ending is there, though some details may have been tweaked," he said.

Karpyshyn went on to express skepticism that his continued work on the franchise would have done much to change things one way or the other.

"Funny. Some upset fans say ME3 was awesome until the end ruined it. Claim it would have been better if I was still on the project. But fans upset about my [Knights of the Old Republic] Revan novel claim it was awesome until the ending ruined it. So maybe I wouldn't have made any difference."

So, there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. You're more than welcome to hate Mass Effect 3's ending — I certainly felt a bit let down by the whole thing. Just don't make Drew Karpyshyn a scapegoat in the process.

Telling us Bioware didn't ruin the ending while also telling us of the superior one he originally envisioned reeks of bullshit to me. See the comments section.

[PeZook]

Eck. If they make it so that Reapers win and kill off the dark energy if they harvest humanity, they'll need a bullshit reason for not doing the obvious and negotiating that they leave a breeding population behind to continue the species. AND the fact Reapers are gleeful psychopaths in pursuing their task would be even more jarring.

Unless you also have them live in constant pain or something, like the Ur-Quan. An entire race traumatized into insanity by what they had to do...

Plus I very very much dislike the "humanity is special" overtones. Out of the two concepts, I must say the current one is just slightly better.

Hence, the theory goes that the blatant silliness of the ending is because it's a dream sequence concoted by the evil Reaper AI. By blowing up the Reapers and rejecting the "cycle will repeat itself", you actually free Shepard from indoctrination... hence Shep is returned to reality in the London battleground, battered and bruised but once again free.

That would all make sense and actually be a pretty clever way to surprise everyone...if not for the following scenes with the normandy and the glowing tatoos etc - as I wrote, that's JUST enough closure to make a "hallucination" curveball incredibly lame.

[Galvatron]

Plus I very very much dislike the "humanity is special" overtones.

I don't mind it. We're not special because we love one another, make music or any of the other usual bullshit tropes. We're just genetically more diverse, which Mordin pointed out in ME2.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I've always thought the "humans are special because we're comparatively diverse" idea was one to be avoided. Not just because humans are rather homogeneous compared to other species on Earth, but because it sounds like code for "humans are special because we haven't been mixing our races for too long unlike all those aliens who've been in space for centuries".

[PeZook]

I don't mind it. We're not special because we love one another, make music or any of the other usual bullshit tropes. We're just genetically more diverse, which Mordin pointed out in ME2.

...and this gives us special power to save the universe.

That is the problem, not genetic diversity itself. Diversity might be just a result of not having a global civilization for thousands of years like other Council races.