errare humanum est

In addition to my “the Reapers intentionally allowed the Crucible to be developed over many cycles so they could find organics who could fight against synthetics on their own OR have the wisdom to evolve via Synthesis” theory, I’d like to add another crazy theory.

The Reapers are not managed by the peoples they once were, but by shackled AIs, the “leader” of which is the Citadel AI / “Starchild.” I came up with this while reading the ME timeline on the Mass Effect wikia–particularly the 6000 BCE entry, which states that a civilization of more than a billion individuals constructed an AI-managed starship with a virtual world managed by supercomputers to allow them to escape the imminent explosion of their sun.

This comes from ME2′s “Cerberus Daily News,” although it sounds very similar to the foreshadowing we saw in some of the planetary descriptions from ME1, like the Leviathan of Dis or the numerous dead planets that have traces of pre-prothean civilizations that had all been wiped out.

Although this plot line was never mentioned in ME3 (huge shock), we should assume since it isn’t explicitly mentioned that the virtual aliens were not targeted by the Reapers (ME3 did do a pretty good job of mentioning past events and persons, even minor ones, albeit through emails and news items).

So, does it make sense that the Reapers could be simply managed by AIs who just wish to avoid synthetics killing all organic life? There’s a huge difference between an AI that would manage a body made from the genetics of an entire species and an AI that is attacked by its creators and is forced to fight back, possibly against all organics.

Also, an additional question/plot hole (from ME2, though!): Sovereign. He’s described as a ship multiple times–not only from someone who assumes anything traveling through space is a ship, but by those who saw his “schematics,” like Saren at the end of ME: Revelation. Sovereign obviously has structures within him that allow organics to treat his body like a ship, so why was the dead Reaper in ME2 different, and why could we not fight within a Reaper capital ship body in ME3?
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EDIT: More crazy theories

I presented a theory to Reddit wondering if inactive mass relays would still be present after the ending. The response I got was very cool, with only one person responding.

So, I’ll just add another here. This is another one I got while replaying ME1. We all assume that part of the “clean up” process for the universe is to use the Reapers to upgrade FTL flight speeds so we can get peoples to their native planets sooner. So I wondered… The Reapers spent at least ~2.5 years traveling through dark space without mass relays–in other words, using their FTL drives. Think about that, though. Current FTL drives used by the organic species need to be discharged every 15 hours or so, usually through a planet’s magnetic field. BUT, how many planets are out there in dark space, especially ones with sufficient magnetic fields? I’d say close to none. Therefore, we can assume that Reaper-derived FTL drives would not only be faster than ones currently in service, but may be able to greatly extend or eliminate the need to discharge, meaning continuous FTL speeds.

Listing things concerning my interpretations and assumptions about ME3′s ending which have been confirmed by various official sources.

1. A SomethingAwful poster apparently had a relatively long discussion with ME3 writer Patrick Weekes over the PAX East weekend where it was confirmed that the mass relays overload at the end, not explode uncontrollably.

2. I didn’t note this here, but in a post on Reddit I had noted that one of the first things released would be a new multiplayer mode– this was announced at PAX East (Resurgence). However, in the same post I assumed that the first planned DLC would be announced before the revised ending, which has proven untrue (unless you count From Ashes).

I guess EA announced that there will be a free DLC with added cinematics that better explain/clarify the events of the ending. This is cool, because it means the endings stay the same (I’m guessing to set up for a post-Shepard -trilogy game/s) but we will know what the fuck kind of shit the writers were smoking.

I look forward to seeing how accurate my interpretation of the ending is, and then rubbing it in the face of everyone who downvoted and saged me.

Seriously, though, I’m happy with this. A lot of fans are satisfied–at the moment. I can see the shitstorm reviving once it’s released and still doesn’t spell out things enough for everyone or doesn’t add enough closure for every character ever mentioned. Plus this means all your choices in the other two games still won’t amount to shit.

The more I think about it, the less convinced I am that we’ll enjoy an ending to ME3.

Why? The main story arc is awful.

In ME1, you have to track down Saren and defend the Citadel from Sovereign. Excellent. No qualms, although it’s fairly obvious that the team didn’t expect a sequel to be green-lit.

In ME2, you have to find a way through the Omega-4 relay and destroy the Collector base. I’ve always had a vague dislike of this. ME1 makes it pretty clear that the Reapers can only get out of dark space by using mass relays, not “well, they can, but it will take a while.” Why did Sovereign have to make moves himself and use the geth when the Reapers have a perfectly horrible army of Collectors? In any case, you win in the end.

In ME3, the main story isn’t “beat the Reapers” like it should be. It’s “build the Crucible.” The asari have been studying prothean ruins for thousands of years. Even Liara, a leading researcher, barely knows anything about them. Suddenly in ME3, there’re just tons of people who can translate the language and crack prothean programs wide open for all to see. The same for Reaper tech: Reapers are beings beyond our comprehension, yet the omnitool can recover Reaper tech that’s just sitting around? And how the hell did every species in the galaxy keep the Crucible a secret from both the Reapers and Cerberus, who pretty much know everything an hour before it happens?

The Catalyst isn’t the deus ex machina–that’s the Crucible. Especially since it was found on Mars. ME1 makes it sound like there was a very small amount of recoverable information found in a data cache, that being mass effect physics. Now it’s this huge library that just happens to have the super-secret plans for a Reaper-destroying ultraweapon. Now, the Reapers did such a good job wiping out the protheans and every prior civilization that all races are convinced in ME1 that the legendary protheans made everything. How the heck did they just happen to miss this Mars facility, the only base the protheans had in the system?

Then you have to think about the construction. Suddenly, after two years of pleading, every species suddenly decides to believe every word Shepard says. We’ve gotta NOT build ships to defend ourselves but instead funnel all our best scientists, engineers, builders, and money into this huge THING that we just found out will stop the baddies from killing us more.

Ignoring bad writing (which I really want to), this all points toward my theory that the Catalyst wants organics to have the chance to evolve and it just took a long damn time to happen.

I would like have liked ME3 to be about understanding the Reapers while kicking their asses. Palaven, Sur’Kesh, Tuchanka and especially Rannoch were all fucking excellent in my book. I don’t even mind Cerberus being half of the antagonism, although I wish there was another agent besides Kai Leng, and I wish the Illusive Man was a boss character and not just a rehash of Saren in the end. But ditch the Crucible/Catalyst–No, we can even keep the Catalyst if fighting it turns the Reapers off or makes them disappear forever. Have it be about dark energy instead of the “Yo, Dawg” killing organics with synthetics to save the organics from being killed my synthetics. We know eezo is made when matter interacts with stars going supernova. We know there’s something wrong with a number of stars aging prematurely and we know dark matter is related. There was a lot of info in the rescuing Tali in ME2 which should have foreshadowed the ending. The Catalyst doesn’t want to kill all civilizations, but the dark matter needs to regenerate or some shit because using mass relays depletes it, so we just load all peoples into living machines once in a while instead. You got your turn, now get to dark space so the next kids can play. If we need some deus ex machina, make it about balancing the equation between relay usage and dark matter generation.

…and the events leading between Shepard being hit by Harbinger’s beam and waking up aboard the Citadel, as well as the concerns over exploding mass relays.

We have to assume that Shepard was either knocked into the transport beam or pushed into it by Anderson. We know for a fact that Harbinger breaks off his attack once Shepard is down. Perhaps Shepard was clinically dead for a minute or two–he was in rough shape, after all. In any case, he is knocked out and makes it onto the Citadel. Anderson either sees him get knocked into the beam and follows or pushes Shepard’s body into the beam and then follows. In each case he’d let Hackett know what was up. An additional line of dialogue when Shepard wakes up of something like, “Good, you’re finally awake” would have solved the issues people have with Anderson getting to the control center first.

As for your two comrades, everyone is ordered to pull back. Maybe they help Anderson before the Normandy picks them up–surely Joker would break off from attacking for a few minutes to pick up his close friends who are lost without (a) Shepard to follow.

And as for him “running away” from the fight, he does no such thing. He’s out there fighting, suddenly the Reapers turn green and stop fighting. They’re in full retreat. The battle is won! Shepard did it! But we can’t detect his life signs anymore, and then the Citadel starts opening. You can see the energy radiating off the petals before the thing fires. EDI realizes something big is about to happen. Is it the Reaper’s special, final attack? Better get the hell out of Dodge.

Joker warns what’s left of the fleet and books it. Whether he goes through the Charon relay or not, he’s running the Normandy’s engines at max speed or higher, but the energy wave is traveling using mass effect physics and easily overtakes the ship, causing it to crash land on a terrestrial planet.

Finally, as for the mass relays: There is a difference between something losing containment due to massive trauma and something being shut down and self-destructing (Control) or releasing its energy in a wave (Destroy or Synthesis) and then exploding. In both cases, the destruction was intentional and the bulk of the energy stored in the relays was already used up. Slamming an asteroid into the relay obviously released all its energy in an explosion rather than spreading a wave of energy.

I’m just trying to work this out in my head without relying on others’ thoughts too much. I’m not even bothered by anything except the conversation with the Catalyst, as far as the ending goes and discounting any plot holes or broken promises concerning past choices.

Who made the Catalyst, the Citadel? The same age of civilization who made the mass relays; this much we know.

We know the basic Reaper System consists of the following: a vanguard, the Citadel mass relay and its Keepers, and an army of Reapers in dark space. Somehow this continued unhindered for millions, if not billions (as speculated by the Leviathan of Dis, ~1 billion years dead), of years.

The vanguard left within the galaxy monitors the advancement of civilization, moving into action once a certain level has been reached by beginning to move pawns via indoctrination, setting up the cycle to be reaped, and eventually send a signal the the Keepers on the Citadel to open the Citadel mass relay and allow the Reapers to move into the galaxy from dark space. By the time of the human cycle, the Keepers that maintain the Citadel had been modified by the Prothean scientists from Ilos so that the signal would not be accepted. This delayed the vanguard, Sovereign’s, plan, and the Keepers still maintain the Citadel’s operation, as they must since it houses the Catalyst. It’s assumed that the Keepers were one of the first races indoctrinated and dominated by the Reapers, since they are necessary for the Reaper System and are supposedly as old as the Citadel itself. We can assume Sovereign tried to send the signal before having a need for a high-power agent like Saren, who comes in contact with a Reaper artifact in 2157.

The first backup plan is a simple one and was probably used in prior cycles, albeit for different reasons. Sovereign needs someone who can take control of the Citadel and open the relay manually so the Reapers can jump into the system. The geth also fracture at this point, with a minority aligning themselves with Sovereign under the control of his agent Saren due to “religious” beliefs. This backup plan fails when Saren is defeated, followed quickly by Sovereign’s defeat before the Citadel relay can be opened.

So far, everything makes perfect sense. ME1 was this much of the story.

Beyond this basic system and its backup, we have the Collectors, the Omega-4 relay, and the Alpha Relay. The Reapers have apparently given up on gaining control of the Citadel (for using as a relay, at least, or perhaps gaining control of someone able to gain access to the most important levels of the station would have taken too long) and begin to move toward the Milky Way galaxy under their own power. Since the codex notes that the Collectors have been seen once in a while since ~1600, we can assume they were used by Sovereign to obtain live samples of species to gain some understanding of their level of advancement. Even characters we meet in ME2 have heard of them as rumors, with some mercenary groups even having made direct deals with them in the past. We can assume the other Reapers were able to communicate with Sovereign instantaneously via quantum communication and chose humanity as the species which would ascend in this cycle. We can also assume the Reapers had some kind of epiphany when fighting the Protheans and realized that the Protheans would complicate things even into the next cycle since they took control of them, modified them, and kept them holed up outside the Omega-4 relay for ~49,000 years.

Now things begin to get really dicey as we can no longer make further logical assumptions. The Collectors lash out and kill the one who defeated Sovereign, Shepard. The Collectors begin constructing the core of the next Reaper, the human proto-Reaper, under the direction of the Collector General, who is under the direct control of Harbinger, supposedly the Reaper “leader.” This raises the question of whether the Collectors were really under the Reapers’ control, or were they just indoctrinated and following the commands of their leader, who was under direct control? That aside, we can assume that the Illusive Man was not indoctrinated at this point, as he brings Shepard back to life at great monetary expense. It is assumed that Cerberus got a hold of much of the remnants of Sovereign, and also assumed that this tech was used to bring Shepard back to life. I don’t, however, believe that the tech inside his body is Reaper-based, at least not directly. The understanding of such tech was comparatively low at the start of ME2.

It is now assumed that the Reapers give up on re-killing Shepard and instead take a great deal of interest in him. Why? Because he exemplifies the will of organic species? Was the Catalyst watching him already at this point?

In any case, it is assumed that the Illusive Man becomes indoctrinated during the events of ME2 for the simple fact that he is a very powerful person who happens to be around lots of Reaper tech, and probably because he is in close contact with Shepard. He tricks Shepard on several occasions, putting him in danger to gain a better understanding of the Reapers and their technology. In the eyes of the Reapers (or perhaps the Catalyst), if Shepard dies, then he’s out of the way and was unworthy. If he lives, he grows even stronger, grows stronger ties to the other races, and grows closer to the Illusive Man. This is exemplified at the end of ME2 when you can choose to destroy the Collector base or hand it over to the Illusive Man. By this point the Illusive Man is pretty well indoctrinated, as seen when he begins to believe that he can control the Reapers. They play on his wish for human domination by dangling powerful weapons just out of reach.

We must assume that the whole Collector thing was to simply test Shepard. The Reapers were not directly involved. Earth was not in immediate danger, nor were any of the Alliance bases or colonies. These were just humans living out on the asscrack of the galaxy, where they knew the dangers. But Shepard goes out of his way to defeat the Collectors and save a small percentage of humanity. The Collectors did not have the numbers or ability to take Earth. One ship and one base? No, they would not have been successful in completing the human Reaper. Even if they did, then all the Reapers would have to do was attack the shit out of every single planet, no need for further harvesting, making husks, and all that. Orbital bombardment would be all they needed. This method is much easier, but it doesn’t go along with the idea that the Reapers have infinite patience and take centuries to do their thing every cycle.

At this point, things are a bit iffy but still fairly straightforward. Another backup plan comes into play with the Arrival DLC. I really want to call the whole thing contrived and obviously made for the DLC’s purposes only, but it rolls directly into ME3. According to canon, the DLC is to be played after beating the Collectors. A Reaper artifact straight up shows an Alliance scientist that the Reapers are close to using this nonstandard relay in a Batarian-controlled system to speed into the galaxy. We can only assume this is for the sole purpose of having Shepard intervene. If he does nothing, the Reapers arrive in the present. If he does intervene, he sees this vision and destroys the relay, delaying their arrival by six months. Is this another test by the Catalyst, one meant to see if Shepard is willing to sacrifice organic lives to stop even more deaths? Since there’s no real choice and Shepard must destroy the relay, it was obvious that the writers were already taking control of the story from the players at this point.

Finally, we come to ME3. The Reaper System, the backup of Saren opening the Citadel relay, the backup of the Collectors jump-starting the harvesting, and the backup of the Alpha relay. We can basically skip most of ME3 since the Reapers don’t communicate much with Shepard. The Reapers lead Shepard through trials, making him jump from A to B to C via fighting with Cerberus. Through the Illusive Man, Shepard is led to believe that the building and completion of the Crubicle and the discovery of its Catalyst are of tantamount important, since it will “defeat” the Reapers. Again, we know the Reapers have an interest in Shepard and once more test him by fire. If he dies, he’s not worthy of activating the Crucible. If he lives, as he does, he is worthy of deciding the fate of all organic life.

A slight plot hole: Udina was indoctrinated. Why not just have him open the Citadel relay? Depending on your choices, he’s either an Ambassador for all of ME2 or Councillor. Both high-power positions. Maybe there needs to be a Reaper present when the relay is opened to send the signal…

This much makes sense in a detached sort of way, when it’s typed out like a school report on a historical event.

The game forces us to assume that the Catalyst (and thus the Reapers it controls) has been waiting for a cycle with an individual with the charismatic power of Shepard. I’m hearkened back to Xenosaga, where the entirety of the universe is reset at a certain point to stop the destruction of the physical universe until the changes pile up enough that the beings in control of the system can finally be convinced that life is strong enough to find another way to avoid the “inevitable” destruction of the physical universe. The Catalyst is the being behind the shadows, organizing things so subtly that no one suspects its existence (not even the writers).

We must assume it was waiting for an individual like Shepard. Why else would the Reapers leave behind enough evidence each cycle for the next cycle’s organic life to not only gain access to mass effect physics and the relays/Citadel, but also pass along the plans to “defeat” the Reapers? Why not just destroy the mass relays to begin with? The technological growth of advanced civilizations would happen at a much slower rate, and we could assume this would lead to any synthetic life that was created to be created with a much better understanding of what it is. Or it’d be like the Matrix. Either way, why not just avoid these issues by destroying the mass relays? Or even by getting rid of/denying access to all the element zero in the galaxy?

The Reapers and the Catalyst want someone to complete the Crucible. The question is: WHY?!

Ignoring the origin of the Citadel, relays and Catalyst for a bit, and assuming the Catalyst wishes for a cycle when an organic life will reach it and choose the future… why? It says its reasons for allowing the ascension of one species and annihilating the rest are twofold: to clear the path for new civilizations and avoid an inevitable future where synthetics destroy all organic life.

Let’s look past the cyclical logic of having synthetics destroy organics so that organics won’t be destroyed by synthetics for a tick. Wanting to pave the way for new species to rise naturally is, on the surface, quite a noble goal. Look at what happened with the salarians and krogan. The krogan were uplifted by another organic species, and it turned out badly. The Catalyst assumes this would be the case when any underdeveloped but intelligent species comes in contact with a space-faring species, perhaps from firsthand experience, and thusly clears the way every so often for new species. To the Catalyst, the ends justify the means. It’s the logical thing to do and it is proven to work, so there’s no need to change it.

It’s second reason is a lot more complicated, if we let it be. A Reaper is an entire race which was harvested and refined into one living synthetic body. We can assume it is similar to a geth server, with many individuals/programs but no actual individuality. We must also assume the Catalyst has indoctrinated these consciousnesses into believing its plans are correct–since the Reapers are living machines, they must think in a logical manner and would likely come to the same conclusions as the Catalyst, so indoctrination may not even be necessary. Catalyst, more than likely, doesn’t even have direct control over the Reapers but acts in a role more like the president does for the military. It’s in control and has supreme authority, but since the goals and motives are the same, the Reapers act, for the most part, independently, reporting in to their leader when necessary and following general orders.

We can only assume that the conflict that the Catalyst works to avoid would not only wipe out sentient life, but all organic life. Plants, animals, developing species. Everything. Is this an environmentalist message from the writer(s) involved? Again, the Catalyst works toward making the cycle of organic life continue: If synthetics that would eventually destroy all organic life and for all intents and purposes kill the whole galaxy for all time and eternity, that seems like an appropriate goal. It’s methods are questionable, that much is obvious, but how else can the eventual annihilation of galactic life be avoided?

The answer is, mixing synthetic and organic life. This is where I object, and this is where space magic takes a firm hold.

Consider the geth: A race of sentient synthetic lifeforms that only responds to attacks with defense (excluding the heretics). They were in the process of building a superstructure out in space that would eventually house all geth programs. Legion, a collection of a thousand programs, is on the very verge of sentience when Shepard reactivates him on the Normandy. Why else would it be unsure or unwilling to explain why it attached a piece of Shepard’s N7 armor to itself? It doesn’t even understand, but the geth had a rudimentary understanding the charisma associated with Shepard, even by simply monitoring comm traffic. When Legion keeps some of the Reaper upgrade code within itself, that’s because it wished to become closer to understanding organics like Shepard. It eventually is influenced by Shepard on an even deeper level and gains self-awareness, choosing to sacrifice itself so that its code may be disseminated to all geth. The geth are then a species all their own, no longer a conglomeration of processing power. They grow into AI–and not ones that wish to destroy, but rather live in harmony with organics. The Catalyst sees this happen, and the game assumes you won’t destroy them to also destroy the Reapers. EDI is a similar case, in that she is first unshackled from her programming constraints and eventually shapes herself into a synthetic life which mirrors the organic mind to the point that she falls in love.

Synthesis is what the writers wanted people to choose. Destruction would kill a species you helped gain sentience and an individual you have a deep connection with. Control is a somewhat viable option, but the Illusive Man’s dialogue is supposed to sway the player away from such an option. Why should we do what he wanted? Can an organic life form really control the Reapers without being indoctrinated, either directly or indirectly? What I mean is, who is to say that Reaper-Shepard would not eventually come to the same conclusion as the Catalyst did, or come up with an even worse solution?

Yes, the execution of showing the Synthesis is poor. My theory does not explain why the mass relays had to be destroyed, unless the reason is simply that they broke down spreading the space magic that changed all organics into hybrids. I still don’t understand what the Catalyst is, unless it’s what became of the previous organic who made the choice and chose control. I still can’t explain who made the mass relays and the Citadel, or how they can be used to rewrite all lifeforms across a galaxy. However, I think explaining the Catalyst’s motivations and dialogue are a big step toward understanding the ending.

The biggest issues left after the origin of the set pieces is the outcome. Even with the best ending, Synthesis, interstellar travel is impossible. Everything Shepard fought for outside of getting rid of the Reapers is rendered pointless. We can assume levo and dextro amino acids have been replaced in the hybrid bodies’ DNA, so eating any food available should no longer be an issue for those species stranded on strange worlds, but even so… Many quarians will never get to live on their reclaimed homeworld, even Tali. Jacob will never see his child. Miranda will never see her sister again. Ashley/Kaidan will never see her/his family. Liara, hmm… I guess she does get to relax and not be the Shadow Broker anymore. Javik never gets to repent at his comrades’ graves and then commit ritual suicide. Wrex will never see his children or race thrive, if he did survive Earth (it’s kind of implied he gets killed, right?). James will never be an N7 soldier. Garrus will never gain the leadership position he deserved or put that bronze statue at the top of the Presidium. Jack, I dunno, she’ll never find peace. Aria will never retake Omega. Shepard can never be more than a soldier in his own eyes, can never settle down with the one he loves.

But we admit Shepard’s story had to end, and we were told the ending would be bittersweet, but the endings which force the destruction of the mass relays and Citadel are unnecessary and, worst of all, unexplained. Is the Stargazer scene implying that life found another way to traverse between systems at an adequate speed? If so, it was poorly done. We have human-like life continuing at some point in the future, happily, with the vague possibility of space travel. All it tells us is that people know about Shepard and what he did. He was not forgotten in the sands of time.

The ending was too jarring for people. I felt some pretty deep despair when Shepard got swallowed up by Harbinger’s beam–not because he seemed to die, but because I assumed my teammates were following and got killed. At that point, I figured I’d just gotten them killed for making a wrong choice somewhere. It was also emotional for me when Shepard disintegrated into the beam (Synthesis end) because I expected such an ending from the start. But after some reflection, I’m left with the same dissatisfaction as most others.

First off, let me say that I did get a little spoiled as to the ending before I got the game, despite my best intentions. I clicked on a link, not realizing it was ME-related, and saw something about Shepard becoming the “Star Child,” a reference to the end of the book/film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I expected throughout the game that Shepard would sacrifice himself for the galaxy’s sake, likely disseminating his “essence” throughout the galaxy to somehow get rid of the Reapers. Heck, I thought for a long time that Shepard himself or his life force was the Catalyst. And since that was indeed one of the options, purportedly the “best” option that not all players would unlock, that was the choice my Shepard made. What more fitting end could there be for the man who singlehandedly saved the fucking day left and right, who was in love with the Normandy and could unite age-old enemies through guts and actions rather than political maneuvering?

This ending itself satisfied me personally, but I suspect this is because I have a history of anime and JRPGs, where having metaphysical or spiritual deus ex machinae mixing in with hard sci-fi is prevalent. Maybe this makes me more accepting of Shepard’s end.

I do have some doubts about the ending itself, rather than the outcome. At first I thought, hey, a mass relay has the energy to destroy the system it’s in, as seen in the Arrival DLC for ME2. However, it’s clear this energy was used to disseminate whatever the hell the Citadel/Crucible did in the ending you choose.

Some questioned how Anderson ended up on the Citadel, uninjured, and made faster progress than Shepard. Well, Shep got knocked the fuck out, who knows how long he was laying there? How exactly Anderson got past Harbinger is a mystery, I’ll admit. One could assume that he saw Shepard get blasted into the beam, informed Hackett, and then followed, perhaps while Harbinger was concentrating elsewhere, which would explain why he was uninjured.

How was the Illusive Man there? Well, Reapers moved the Citadel. It’s under their control–just like the Illusive Man (by the way, it bugs me that no one ever really cares to dig deeper into who the hell he actually is). They let him on board in case Shepard got onto the Citadel.

Next I wondered about FTL communication. The different systems are now more or less unreachable, but should they not be able to be contacted via the quantum communications systems used to prevalently in ME3? The one Anderson used on Earth was still in use on the day the party assaults Earth, so the chances of it not surviving in the Synthesis ending are slim. The councilors also had them, and not necessarily on the Citadel. This remains a question to me.

Next, the final scene after the credits… What planet does that take place on? You’d assume Earth, but it’s a planet with a second moon that is terraformed or something. I would have liked if this scene featured an old man and child from the race of Shepard’s love interest (though I must admit I romanced no one in ME1 and Tali in the other two games, and the scene really could have been Quarians without suits since they resemble humans in skin/hair color and I could not tell anything about their legs or hands.)

My issue with the ending is this: the motivation behind the Reapers.

In ME1, Sovereign tells us that the Reaper’s reason for wanting to destroy life in the galaxy are impossible for organics to understand. We’re also led to believe that each Reaper was made from whatever species was chosen from a particular cycle to be “elevated.” But the end of ME3 introduces an AI, the Citadel itself, that says it made and controls the Reapers. And its reason for wiping out all advanced civilizations every cycle? So there wouldn’t be an inevitable war between organics and synthetics, which would lead to the death of all organic life.

Why does this even matter, especially in a cycle where there’s already been war between the quarians and the geth? Killing and distilling an entire species, while at the same time killing all others, into a single synthetic being is better than organic life eventually being killed by synthetics? I have issue with this, as the reasoning seems quite tenuous, and I believe this would have been helped if the AI’s origins were more evident–or if the existence of something controlling the Reapers was even slightly hinted at before the very end.

We have to ask: Who made the Citadel+AI and mass relays? It’s at the root of this issue and never mentioned, even vaguely. Do we assume the very first civilizations advanced enough that creating the mass relays was their doing? The Prothean scientists were obviously close to this level technologically, since they were able to create a small prototype on Ilos, albeit a one-way relay. And do we then assume they built the Citadel as their seat of power, which was the converted into the “Reaper system” once it was clear that those organics would be annihilated by the synthetics they had created? We would then also have to assume that this first civilization would have turned itself into the first reaper, perhaps Harbinger. How misguided and desperate would this race have had to have been to not only choose that destiny–but also force the same destiny on all subsequent cycles of organic life? This could be a game in itself, the story of how the basis of these things came to be. Or a book, which would probably be better. Assuming all this, then, was/were the second cycle’s civilization/s defeated by a single Reaper? Did this first civilization assume/predict that their system would be beaten, someday? You can’t tell me that the Reapers never found out anything about the Crucible over the course of the many cycles it took to design. And it’s not like the Citadel-AI is hostile to Shepard–rather, it has a predetermined, prepared choice for Shepard to make.

I was also surprised at the Normandy’s scene after the Synthesis happens. When the AI said that life as Shepard knew it would cease and new life would appear with a new “DNA” with a mixture of organic and synthetic, I almost thought it meant effectively killing everyone and everything so that things would be Reaper-free in the next cycle and onward. Instead, we just get organic life with some green stuff on them. EDI seemed totally unchanged–I thought she would appear more organic, since Joker appeared more synthetic. Nope.

The other option is what I’ll call the “Xenosaga explanation”: The AI on the Citadel was created–or perhaps initially upgrade from a VI–by the subconscious will of all organic life to protect itself. This seems highly ridiculous and absolutely clashes with the story Mass Effect paints.

I wonder what the DLCs will be. Extra missions here or there, inserted into the story? Boring. And it’s not as if they could pull a FO3 and say “oh, hey, Shepard really didn’t die and he’s got one final mission herp de derp.”

If they do rewrite the ending to appease the angry fans… how can they write and ending that will satisfy everyone? I think most people expected the Crucible to simply erase the Reapers from existence, which is, really, a boring end–though I can’t help wanting an ending with Shepard and his love interest living a happy, normal life.

I will say that ME3 was the best game of the three in terms of gameplay and characterization. It’s clear this is Shepard’s story now, and I liked that he was not the unstoppable battle-winner he was in the previous two games. He’s very human in ME3. The unique dialogue with his love interest isn’t just when you talk to her/him on the Normandy–it’s there almost any time they are together, once the romance is cemented. I loved Tali’s flirtiness and sense of humor she had when talking with Shepard, as well as the more sensitive stuff like after you kill the Reaper on Rannoch. I liked that you choose your teammates, choose the weapon loadout, actually have a scene on the shuttle, a personal relationship with the pilot, and then jump off. It’s all very linear and real, which I love. No more going directly from the galaxy map, to orbit, to choosing to land, and then magically on the ground.

Resource scanning was a total pain without the wikia. I wish the map would show you where you had already scanned, especially since you have to evacuate the system once the Reapers are alerted and come back after doing a mission–a.k.a. an hour or two in-game-time later. I also wish they would fix the store menus in the PC version and have the missions give incremental updates like the previous two games. It was not fun to write down whatever I found so I could cross-reference with the journal or run around every level of the Citadel until I found the right person.

EDIT: I did actually think of a way for Bioware to redo the ending without fucking things up. If we assume “Reaper indoctrination” is really the Citadel-AI’s doing, who’s to say that everything that happens after Shepard finds Anderson at the control panel and he begins to feel himself come under the influence of whatever just happened in his head? The AI (or maybe Harbinger) makes him go through this stuff and choose something to judge him as the avatar of all organic life. If you choose destruction, you have an epic final battle with Harbinger using something awesome found at the Citadel. If you chose to control the Reapers, uh… I don’t know how to continue that logic. If you choose Synthesis, hm… You fight the Illusive Man, that was just a cloned/artificial body or some shit.

Or you could even start back when he seems to get hit by Harbinger’s death beam on Earth. Perhaps everything following that was a construct of the AI, or the Reapers, or of Shepard’s own mind. We can cite Anderson’s line when he says something about how the corridor he’s in looks a lot like how Shepard described the Collector ship. Uh… no, it doesn’t. Fuck, I dunno, but if my bosses were telling me to redo the end of this game, that’s the easy way out.

EDIT2: Apparently there’s this thing going around the fandom called Indoctrination Theory that states Shepard was under Reaper control for most if not all of ME3, similar to the Illusive Man. I don’t really agree with that, although it is a tempting way out. But as I’ve said, I have no issue with the game or really with the endings. Or even with the Citadel-AI, honestly. Its motivations for making and controlling the Reapers, yes, that’s my issue. It makes little sense, and Bioware can’t just come out and explain it because EA can make money if it’s shoveled into a DLC.

Another thought for a DLC that can explain things while in the course of ME3: Someone finds a Prothean relic somewhere, so Shepard & Co. are dispatched to find out if it can help against the Reapers. Only Shepard can understand it since he has the cipher from ME1, similar to what we see in the already-released DLC. I thought of this while considering the Crucible. We finally find out, oh, it’s the Citadel! It’s mentioned in the first game (and possibly the second, CBA to find out) that the Keepers maintain the Citadel, that no one knows how it really works, and that there are inaccessible places and black boxes abound. I was a bit confused in ME3 when Cerberus retreated using the Keeper tubes, but by then the Illusive Man was already indoctrinated and thus the Citadel-AI let them have full access. Anyway, the Crucible is the Citadel, which is also this AI that made the Reapers. The Protheans knew the Citadel was the Catalyst based on the knowledge SOMEHOW passed on to them. How the Reapers miss this information every cycle is a mystery, perhaps on purpose. Anyway, just have a series of flashbacks to some Prothean scientists talking about the Crucible and the Catalyst, maybe the ones on Ilos, trying to figure out how the weapon is supposed to work and why it’s supposed to work. Ugh, no, this is terrible… Sounded a lot better before I put any thought into it.

EDIT3: lol, I’m being way too serious about this.
My rebuttals to the “Indoctrination Theory” vid

The dreams are simply Shepard’s fears. He’s scared that he won’t be able to save everyone this time, even himself. That’s all.

Anderson doesn’t notice the boy because he’s preoccupied with moving forward and staying alive. Shepard is just following him at this point and has the free moment to notice the kid 8 feet down a duct and try to coax him out. Same on the shuttle–he jumps on, but everyone else is just concerned with their own well-being.

He’s not immune; he just wasn’t around the stuff long enough. Most people who are indirectly indoctrinated (i.e. just from being around a Reaper or artifact without being actively targeted) took weeks for the effects to take hold of their minds. A couple hours here or there were not enough for Shepard to be indoctrinated. No one else on his team is indoctrinated, why should be be?

If the trees are anything more than a coincidence, I would say that the level of deepness in the ending is really, really out of line with the rest of the series. No real evidence against the trees.

Infinite ammo? I used like 10 rounds on the three husks and one Marauder, a normal amount for a pistol clip. Perhaps Bioware did not expect people to stand there shooting nothing.

You still have to go through the kill chamber and then cross that chasm. Since we do see a Keeper or two in the kill chamber, we can assume this is part of the inaccessible part of the Citadel, which is probably linked together with the actual controls and black boxes that run the place.

There are waaaaay more corpses on the Citadel because the Reapers were using it to harvest people. Anderson even asks Shepard if they were growing a Reaper in there. It’s also noted at Sanctuary that not everyone is suitable to be harvested or turned into husks.

He didn’t. Shepard was knocked the fuck out. Anderson followed him into the beam after Harbinger turned his attention elsewhere. Shepard then wakes up and Anderson makes contact. Boom. Plus Anderson is uninjured and able to walk faster.

How did Hackett know? Anderson radioed before he got into the beam.

The dude is pretty banged up. Isn’t it natural that he was bleeding the whole time and didn’t notice until he sat down and relaxed? You don’t really see where Anderson is shot or where Shepard is bleeding from.

That is an oversight by someone at Bioware. My squadmates were Garrus and Liara. Joker, EDI, and Tali got off the Normandy in my playthrough.

Except the relays don’t explode uncontrollably. If you choose Synthesis, the mass relays disseminate the DNA-changing magic light across the galaxy and then break down. If you choose Destroy or Control, they auto-destruct, which is considerably different from the relay going out of control due to extreme damage as in Arrival.

Another oversight by the programmers in this rushed ending, I would say. I don’t even know why you need to be able to shoot after you get on the Citadel. Plus Keepers are invincible.

The growl is the Reapers trying to get into his head. You can see black tendrils around the border of the screen when this happens.

I finally finished my replays of 1 and 2, and fought my way through installing Origin. I plan to journal my thoughts on the game as I play through. Somehow I’ve managed to avoid spoilers except for the fact that people hate the end, lol. I’m writing this as I play though, so expect many edits.

First off, I know the ME2 DLC “Arrival” made this very clear, but it feels like the player has been kind of backstabbed by having the Reapers show up on Earth in the opening minutes of the game. In ME1, shutting down the Citadel gate saved teh galaxy. In ME2, the Reaper Harbinger uses the Collectors to start building a human Reaper. Shepard and crew go on a “suicide mission” (as the characters and game itself call it directly) and saves teh galaxy again (or at least saves humanity at large). But the start of this game is basically saying the player did all that for nothing, because the Reapers expected this and would find a way through, somehow.
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And he just leaves. This isn’t the Shepard we’ve played in the past two games. Or rather, I guess he was never in that sort of situation, but it seems wrong for him to just run away at the first chance. It would’ve been better if he was on the Citadel when the attacks happened, went to leave, and then turned around, but I guess then we would be pretty far from the first “mission.” Feels a lot more scripted than the other two games at this early point.
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We’re relying on the Protheans once again, huh? For doing so well against the Reapers, they sure did fail hard. Odd how Bioware has gone back to giving experience points for doing individual things rather than giving a bulk amount for completing a mission again. Hurr durr Illusive Man is a dick, I wonder if the whole opening plays out differently if you supported Cerberus at the end of ME2? Probably not.
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Apparently the choice to choose who became the human councilor at the end of ME1 was not important…
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Alliance News Network has overtaken Galaxy News? WHY. No reason for this. The changes to the Normandy are enough to throw me off but similar enough that I can still get around easily. Weapon upgrades are not well explained. Interfaces are obviously optimised for consoles–you have to mouse to what you want, move perfectly to the right until you’re clear of the button, then go and hit confirm. If you mouse over what you want and click it, then go to confirm (like you naturally would)… well, the click does nothing. Character power upgrades got a nice boost from my results in ME2, and my level even carried over (although ME2 was capped at 30 when you could easily have hit higher with the replay bonus %). The War Room is an odd addition but probably necessary. War assets… I dunno. I assume rather than building a team and then making them loyal like ME2, you go around and build up your allies by system or race or something. It was a nice touch that Shepard’s quarters are the exact same, AND you can find your model ships and space hamster around the ship. I just wonder where his old N7 helmet and the Prothean relic went to.
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I think my first mission I chose when I finally got control of the Normandy was the day 1 DLC (free w/ CE), so YMMV. The enemies seem a lot less predictable than previous games. Engineers make much-more-difficult-to-kill turrets instead of combat drones. It also explains why the Protheans from the beacon visions and Ilos look nothing like the Collectors (i.e. modified Prothean husks), which is nice.
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About 10 hours in now. I’m glad Shepard’s quick exit from Earth is addressed–often. His character design seems tired, unsure, much different from the previous ones. Especially his eyes. The mouth animations seem worse than ME2 somehow. I have much less to whine about this far into the game than the start. I understand now why Cerberus had to be evil: otherwise we’d fight nothing but different Husks. There are a lot of missions, some important and some not, but they all go toward your “war assets.” I just wish they were on separate tabs like previous games instead of having the codex merged into the journal. One repeatable glitch I’ve experienced: When I die in the middle of a mission and “resume,” I can no longer change things via hitting Shift to bring up the powers/ammo/weapons menu. It comes up, but clicking does nothing. While not a huge issue since I can still use hotkeys for powers/ammo and the mouse wheel for weapons, it’s annoying and an obvious glitch. I also had one during a conversation with Liara where Shepard turned his attention to Glyph for a bit. He should’ve turned his head back to Liara, but instead he tried to follow Glyph as it went back off screen, which led to the rest of his conversation being held with his head totally turned away from Liara.

Oh, and is it just me, or does EDI’s white alternate costume have a really, really obvious cameltoe? -______-;
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Jeez, do they throw the romance right in your face compared to the first two games. It’s not like there’s a definite area where it starts; like, in the previous games, I knew you couldn’t ask certain questions or make certain comments and romance would never come up with that character. But this time, you basically just sit down to talk once with one of these characters you’ve watched through two previous games, then all of a sudden I feel bad because I don’t want to be gay with Kaiden. Seriously, I felt bad that there was no way to avoid being asked out by Kaiden without ignoring him for the rest of the game, and the brief disappointment on his face when Shepard sadly says he’d rather be friends… Nothing wrong with the question, of course, but I wish there was some warning, or some more graceful way to avoid the issue like with Liara, or a bromance option like with Garrus. I just want to romance my waifu Tali again.
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Finally met Tali, glad to see the additional dialogue option that lets me immediately jump into the relationship I started in ME2, but a bit upset that I did my best to convince the admiralty that war with the Geth was stupid yet they still went for it.
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I like how your message thing blinks now when there’s something to read. I also like that there’s a freaking VI to feed the fish in your cabin when I forget like I did in ME2 and walk in to dead fish one day. Don’t like how, in space/weightless environments, the little pieces of debris flying around just no-clip through your character. In ME2′s opening, the debris is an actual object and float away if you walk into it. Also don’t like how there are tons of Ardat-Yakshi when Samara specifically says in ME2 that there’re only three. But I guess we needed more super-powerful enemies. Fighting two at once was rough.
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Oh lordy, there’s special flirty dialogue with Tali during the quarian mission. I’m in heaven~
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[22:14] <&Merines> FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
[22:15] <&Merines> they don’t show Tali’s face AGAIN
[22:15] <&Merines> crying tears of rage over here
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Never mind the above~
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I’ve finished the game and decided to stick with the ending I chose, especially since the game resets you back before you assault Cerberus HQ despite the fact that it saves right after you get the choice to make. I will sum up my thoughts on the game in a subsequent post, but I will say that people’s hatred of the ending is stupid. I rather enjoyed the one I chose/got.
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So, a list of fixes I wish for:
1.) Fix store menus on PC
2.) Fix glitches in scripted conversations where Shepard/others focuses on the wrong thing, or the other character is standing in the wrong place and rolls their eyes back into their heads or something equally creepy as well as sometimes not appearing onscreen at all.
3.) Return the F key to being break cover when enemy is not close enough for it to be a melee attack. I often find myself using Space bar instead, which sometimes breaks cover and sometimes makes Shepard do a roll or go to cover across the doorway, etc.
4.) Bring back the hand-holding updates to the journal. In both other games, your journal missions had the + next to them which would allow you to check your progress and what to do next. I’ve found myself writing down what I find while scanning planets so I can check my journals and see who the hell I’m supposed to bring it do. There’s no menu for these items, so if the player forgets what they picked up, they have to go around on every level of the Citadel and try to talk to everyone there until the right person is found. Very annoying and a departure from the easy-to-find info from the other games.
5.) Again in the store menu, I often see weapon upgrades that I think I already have. It’d be nice if there was a simple icon or something to let me know if I have something similar or better already. Or if the game really does know and just offers the next best thing (as it seems to do with the procurement stations on the Normandy), it’d be nice if that were noted somewhere. I guess Bioware assumes you know what you’re doing by now as there’s no section of the codex for commands or such that you’ve learned (as a replacement for tutorial guides).

One final thing before I forget: while the ending was fine for me, after a little reflection I believe the outcome was not the thing most people hate. I will finally be able to read all these rants and such to find out.

Recently got promoted to a full time position. Not time to upgrade my PC again just quite yet, just bought a car last fall… Animu.

Cromartie High (full series)
Gankutsuou (all but disc 5)
Diebuster (full series)
Gundam 00 S1 (full season)
Gundam 0079 (full series, SUBBED FUCK YES)
Occult Academy pre-order (full series)
Terra e… Part 2

All for $250. I watched Cromartie on Netflix a while back and loved it, want to watch it again. Same with Gankutsuou. I’ve had Lunar’s Diebuster release since it was released but never the official ones. Will look great with my Gunbuster box. Gundam 00 and Occult Academy are shows I fansubbed and enjoyed, so I may as well pay for it. 0079, I have the whole dubbed season (although three discs are DVR copies), but I’ve never seen it subbed! And I needed Toward the Terra Part 2 (volumes 3-4) to finish my collection.

I feel good! Also fate/zero BD box 1 ships next week, which cost more than all this shit combined!

Note to Bandai: I would buy Gundam 00 S2 if it were on Blu-ray! Same with Darker than Black S1/S2! The physical media is not that much more expensive than DVDs these days. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t release shows that actually produced in HD with an HD media. Well, DtB is Funimation IIRC, which makes even less sense since they do DVD/BD releases for everything.