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Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:The only ending that isn't morally justifiable is Destroy, because you commit genocide on a people you've spent hours of game time proving are people. Control is rolling the dice that you can benevolently master the Reapers, and Synthesis is the nonsensical everything-is-perfect-now tidy bow ending intended by the developers to be The Best
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Jun 28, 2016 18:52
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what I wanna know is: if you choose Synthesis, which of the following things are now sentient: Husks/Cannibals/Marauders/Banshees/Brutes The human gun on a Cannibal's arm Scions are three husks fused together -- are they three people now? Does one husk control the legs? Praetorians are thirty husks fused together -- do they get 30 votes in Space Democracy? also in Synthesis do the Reapers get tried for Space War Crimes, or is everyone just cool with them hanging around
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Jun 28, 2016 19:04
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Pattonesque posted:also in Synthesis do the Reapers get tried for Space War Crimes, or is everyone just cool with them hanging around This right here is what bothered me. We may treat the Germans as valued trading partners now but even with the Soviet Union hanging over our head we still tried their leaders for war crimes. The game's explanation? "Oh well now we're all the same and value everyone's input!" Unless synthesis somehow wipes memory just being OK with the Reapers would never happen. Destroy is the only logical ending.
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Jun 28, 2016 19:08
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Pook Good Mook posted:This right here is what bothered me. remember that in Synthesis you win by fundamentally rewriting your DNA so that the Reapers no longer consider it necessary to kill you pretty messed up imo
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Jun 28, 2016 19:11
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Milky Moor posted:Eliza the Chatbot told me she is intelligent. This does not prove anything. Like I said, something that claims to be intelligent where we can't prove why it's doing so. Eliza is a chatbot - we know exactly how its code works and can clearly see what's going on inside. The Geth beat their creators' unified planetary empire, had a civil war, built half a dyson swarm, and have been doing god knows what to their code in total solitude for hundreds of years. It's not that they can't be dumb machines, just that it'd take a long time to learn enough about them to tell the difference. Of course the narrative pretty clearly pushes that the universe's AIs are the real deal, and given that ME people can go faster than light I'm not going to argue. exquisite tea posted:I don't think the starkid is bluffing at the end. If I remember correctly he begins by saying something like "your actions have caused us to rethink our programming" which indicates that the Crucible was designed by the Reapers themselves as some kind of galactic failsafe against reap.exe, and this is the first cycle to actually complete it. It's just introduced in a poorly explained and incredibly hacky way so a lot of people miss that aspect. Oh yeah, starkid thinks peace is a better way of preserving life. It doesn't mean the original idea of somehow uploading people by melting them worked. It was probably tortured AI logic when your creators literally can tinker with your brain while it's running, or hell maybe starkid got religious and thinks everyone's soul is still in the goop. TBH I 'miss' that aspect because I choose to ignore it  I already don't like the way all endings basically play into what the reapers want. It's even worse if you take it as literally the entire trilogy being their puppetmaster plan to ~make us ready~lalalalala unreliable narrator lalalalala michael kirkbride lalalala
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Jun 28, 2016 19:12
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Strategic Tea posted:TBH I 'miss' that aspect because I choose to ignore it That's why destroy is the correct ending. If the universe really misses them they can recreate the Geth. The Reapers are so unabashedly evil, illogical, and incoherent that they have to be destroyed.
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Jun 28, 2016 19:16
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He gazed up at the enormous ship. Three years it had taken him to learn what kind of guardian spirit was hidden beneath the dark carapace. O cruel, hubristic science! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the purity of flesh! Two blood-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over AI. He loved the reapers.
Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 19:20
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Pattonesque posted:what I wanna know is: if you choose Synthesis, which of the following things are now sentient:  "________________/  It says a lot that husks are the *least* hosed up implication with Synthesis...
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Jun 28, 2016 19:26
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Yeah, Brutes are a Turian mounted upside down on top of a Krogan then smushed into shape.
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Jun 28, 2016 19:43
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The Starkid didn't lie; the Reapers are an attempt to figure out a permanent solution to the "Synthetic and organic races inevitably come into conflict" problem. If I understood things right, it took until this cycle for the Crucible to be fully built, have the potential Reaper-stopping ideas coded into it, and actually get attached to the Citadel to provide the Reapers the alternatives. The Crucible is basically the galaxy's biggest idle game in existence, each cycle got a little bit more along the way with it before the reset. The Starkid/Reapers are basically machines who can't not reap every cycle, and I took it that the Crucible was required to make it stop for a second and examine alternatives. It's not entirely sure how the alternatives will pan out - its not omniscient - but it has a decent idea on what'll happen for each. Refusal's outcome is "Alright, fine, if you're not going to give us new instructions, we'll just do the same ones we've always had. Maybe the next guy'll have the stones to make a decision." MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 20:05
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MisterBibs posted:The Starkid didn't lie; the Reapers are an attempt to figure out a permanent solution to the "Synthetic and organic races inevitably come into conflict" problem. If I understood things right, it took until this cycle for the Crucible to be fully built, have the potential Reaper-stopping ideas coded into it, and actually get attached to the Citadel to provide the Reapers the alternatives. The Crucible is basically the galaxy's biggest idle game in existence, each cycle got a little bit more along the way with it before the reset. It's entirely possible that this is the authors' intent, but it doesn't work as written. For starters, Synthesis is complete bologna. It makes so little sense that it's baffling that someone managed to write it down without stopping himself, let alone go through the entire writing, recording and programming process and put it in the final product. The only example of major synthetic/organic conflict in the current cycle can be settled peacefully, and there's a fair amount of evidence that it could have been avoided in the first place if the Quarians had reacted differently to the Geth awakening. Also, if the Starkid actually wants to accomodate Shepard, there's no need to force her to press the "kill all robots" button. It could just make the Reapers self-destruct, or fly off into dark space and create a society of their own, or do any of the many things you can do in the universe that don't involve committing genocide. It's what a reasonable Shepard would do in the Control ending, anyway, and Starkid claims it would prefer not to be overwritten by the Shepard AI or whatever.
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Jun 28, 2016 20:53
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Those are indeed legitimate criticisms of the ending choices as they are logically presented. However, I would like to propose one alternate explanation: video games.
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Jun 28, 2016 20:55
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Kajeesus posted:For starters, Synthesis is complete bologna. It makes so little sense that it's baffling that someone managed to write it down without stopping himself, let alone go through the entire writing, recording and programming process and put it in the final product. As I said before, Synthesis is the  ending. It's the weird, unconventional ending. It's no different than Deus Ex's Helios endings. Kajeesus posted:The only example of major synthetic/organic conflict in the current cycle can be settled peacefully, and there's a fair amount of evidence that it could have been avoided in the first place if the Quarians had reacted differently to the Geth awakening. Shep temporarily getting the Geth and Quarians to work together, under the immediate threat of annihilation, is nothing compared to the Reapers (and the Reapers creators, with the right DLC) telling you from personal knowledge that synthetic and organics are unable to live together. It is an objective truism in the Mass Effect universe. Kajeesus posted:Also, if the Starkid actually wants to accomodate Shepard, there's no need to force her to press the "kill all robots" button. It could just make the Reapers self-destruct, or fly off into dark space and create a society of their own, or do any of the many things you can do in the universe that don't involve committing genocide. I believe it's explicitly said that Starkid cannot do that, it requires someone to change things. It was designed with one goal (saving organics from themselves) that it cannot deviate from, and requires someone else to change the universe enough to provide a solution: destroy synthetic life, control it, or undercut the inherent conflict. MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 21:21
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MisterBibs posted:Shep temporarily getting the Geth and Quarians to work together, under the immediate threat of annihilation, is nothing compared to the Reapers (and the Reapers creators, with the right DLC) telling you from personal knowledge that synthetic and organics are unable to live together. It is an objective truism in the Mass Effect universe. It's like evolution: go back to a time period before flight evolved and say "welp poo poo nothing has ever flown so it won't ever" and then murder everything before things have a chance to work themselves out on their own and of course nothing is going to fly. But left alone things did evolve and flight became possible. 50k isn't even a heartbeat in a galactic timescale. Plus the fact that Shepard got the Quarians and Geth to coexist, even under duress blows up the absolutist statement "organics and synthetics can never exist side by side." Yeah they can, maybe it takes pressure but it's possible.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:42
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SubponticatePoster posted:The Leviathans created the Reapers because they hadn't yet seen a situation where organics and synthetics could coexist so they made the Reapers. No, the Leviathans created the Reapers because every time their client organic races created synthetic races, the two fought to the death. Every time. As the Leviathan says, dead races don't give tribute. You're attempting to claim that the Mass Effect universe is one where organics and synthetics can co-exist, an assertion discounted by those with the history and intelligence backing them up. That's temporarily ignoring the pan-game enemy whose existence is based on an inherent inability for organics and synthetics to exist together. SubponticatePoster posted:Plus the fact that Shepard got the Quarians and Geth to coexist, even under duress blows up the absolutist statement "organics and synthetics can never exist side by side." Yeah they can, maybe it takes pressure but it's possible. An alliance forced upon the two based on an outside threat doesn't change anything. Do you read those "unlikely animal friendships" stories and cite them when someone has the audacity to claim that lions eat boars? Do you just ignore when a chimp tears the face off of a human because man and chimp are totally supposed to live together, maan?
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Jun 28, 2016 22:59
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It's an objective truism that completey goes against 2.9 games of starry eyed 'we are stronger together and must put aside our differences'. It also goes against the parent/child stuff that they went all in on with 2 and 3. Does Jacob's dad kill him and retire to rape island? Does Mordin give up on the Krogan even when you put a gun to his head? Hell even loving Samara kills herself rather than harm her non-psycho-murderer daughter. There is no such thing as an objective truism in Mass Effect. They could launch a Dragon Age crossover because Mass Effect Fields opened a portal into the fade and absolutely no amount of political/logical/'scientific' reasoning could say otherwise. Because it's a made up place where people can generate gravity and travel faster than light. There is no point working out whether an AI could fit into human society because the only Mass Effect plot test is 'what Bioware says goes'. We just get to decide if it's good or if it's horribly jarring.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:03
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*extremely writing tutor voice* show, don't tell
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Jun 28, 2016 23:16
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Pattonesque posted:*extremely writing tutor voice* show, don't tell That's really the crux of it. We're told things in the last 15 mins that don't jive with what we've been shown in the past 100hrs of game, so Star Kid comes across as a big stupid liar regardless of whether or not it "knows better" or not. (he is a big stupid liar)
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Jun 28, 2016 23:44
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Strategic Tea posted:It also goes against the parent/child stuff that they went all in on with 2 and 3. Does Jacob's dad kill him and retire to rape island? Does Mordin give up on the Krogan even when you put a gun to his head? Hell even loving Samara kills herself rather than harm her non-psycho-murderer daughter. Be careful. Jacob either arrests his father, abandons him to a lynch mob or encourages him to commit suicide. Samara does kill her daughter, Morinth, the one that she loved most. Mordin will kill Maelon if you don't stop him. Rael'Zorah makes his daughter complicit in war crimes. Miranda does not reconcile with her father. Jack does not reconcile with Cerberus. Shepard defies The Illusive Man in both ME2 endings.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:52
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The ME3 ending was so good people are still discussing it all these years later.
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Jun 29, 2016 00:24
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The best sequels are all ones with plot lines that start with "Hey nerds, gently caress you" and undo, rewrite or ignore the events from the first. e: xcom2 was brilliant it say fyou but it also said "You are bad at this game"
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Jun 29, 2016 01:03
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MisterBibs posted:No, the Leviathans created the Reapers because every time their client organic races created synthetic races, the two fought to the death. Every time. As the Leviathan says, dead races don't give tribute. "their" Does not mean that it is a universal truth for everything everywhere. Also lol, they were mad because their slaves kept dying and they needed someone to wipe their asses. Really good reason to unleash genocide for millions of years. quote:You're attempting to claim that the Mass Effect universe is one where organics and synthetics can co-exist, an assertion discounted by those with the history and intelligence backing them up. That's temporarily ignoring the pan-game enemy whose existence is based on an inherent inability for organics and synthetics to exist together. quote:An alliance forced upon the two based on an outside threat doesn't change anything. Do you read those "unlikely animal friendships" stories and cite them when someone has the audacity to claim that lions eat boars? Do you just ignore when a chimp tears the face off of a human because man and chimp are totally supposed to live together, maan?
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Jun 29, 2016 01:30
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Turdis McWordis posted:The ME3 ending was so good people are still discussing it all these years later. 
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Jun 29, 2016 01:41
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you're ALL wrong, the best option is in fact Rejection because that means humanity dies out fake edit: my Mass Effect 4 conspiracy theory is that the Tempest hit a comet or something on the way to Andromeda which sent it hurling backwards towards the Milky Way
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Jun 29, 2016 01:54
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It's not like organics have a good track record of living peaceably with other organics. Why is there a distinction between that and wars against synthetics?
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Jun 29, 2016 02:16
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On the subject of ignoring the events of ME3, I can't decide if I'm excited or cautious about Andromeda. It seems like things are possibly pointing at dual main characters, one N7 and one Pathfinder. Seems strange, but then again lots of books/movies with multiple POV characters work, so why not video games. It also sorta solves the problem the first game suffered from with: why am I exploring poo poo while I'm supposed to be in hot pursuit of a super villain? Send one character off in hot pursuit and shift POV to the other doing the equally important exploration stuff. There is potential to cover more total story, since they can play POV tricks to skip scenes and tell you about them next POV transition instead of needing to make assets and a level for a relatively minor but important plot point without making it obvious that they skipped over it, or subjecting you to a relatively boring section. Basically the entire game is the Suicide Mission. Would also help mix things up with companions, since you'd get to interact with four favorites instead of just two. It sounds good on paper, but I'm not sure I'm feeling it though. Especially in an RPG that cleaves so tightly to the choices made by a character. Breaking it up into two characters might just make that weird.
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Jun 29, 2016 02:55
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Strategic Tea posted:It's an objective truism that completey goes against 2.9 games of starry eyed 'we are stronger together and must put aside our differences'. Children believe in silly things. The ending is the adults sitting Shep down and telling him that, sorry, but Santa Claus doesn't exist, there is no Easter Bunny, and your assumption that your Cycle will do things differently is wrong. Deal with it, grow up, and make an adult decision. SubponticatePoster posted:"Every time" There's an ending for this childish "gently caress You, Dad, I'll never treat my kids like you're treating me!" belief. It results in every race in the galaxy dying and someone else making an adult decision the next time around. SubponticatePoster posted:Yes it does. Because what you keep saying is that "organics and synthetics can never live together." Well that's clearly bullshit because they can, they just did, they can continue to do so in the future. Will they? Who knows. We know they will not, as this is the Mass Effect universe, and organics and synthetics can never live together, as told by those with the historical knowledge. If there was an alternative option, the Reaper Cycle would not be exant in the three games we're discussing. MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 03:56
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gently caress the Starchild and gently caress the Reapers After all three games, no way was I ever going to choose Control or Synthesis. The only options I was ever going to make were sending those bastards to robot hell or do nothing. Do I feel bad Edi and the Geth got killed in the crossfire? Yeah, but in a war, especially one with giant robot Cthulhus who turn the dead into cyborg zombies and your plan to stop them is building a thing you know nothing about but you think will stop them, nothing is going to come out of it completely fine. But I sincerely believe this cycle is different. In the end they put aside their grievances aside and toppled what was almost like 'god' of the ME universe. If they can break out of that cycle of SgtSteel91 fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 04:47
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Did you guys really start again?
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Jun 29, 2016 04:53
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A synthesis universe also rewrites the DNA of plants. And hats. Are we supposed to consider those as equal to other races as well?
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Jun 29, 2016 04:55
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MisterBibs posted:Children believe in silly things. The ending is the adults sitting Shep down and telling him that, sorry, but Santa Claus doesn't exist, there is no Easter Bunny, and your assumption that your Cycle will do things differently is wrong. Deal with it, grow up, and make an adult decision. That's a really poo poo metaphor. By your logic all parents should shoot their children in the leg at the age of 16 and scream "WHY THE gently caress DID YOU TRUST ME!? WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!" This is a story written by people and pulling a swerve in the third act that doesn't fit diagetically with the precedent set by the previous ones is bad. It's also super unsatisfying as a game. If they had set some sort of precedent for this being a war of attrition with hard choices then maybe, but at every point up to the end you can bypass those choices with prepardeness, skill, or just sheer force of will. Saying "yeah no that doesn't work anymore choose one of the options I put forth because I am right." isn't good writing. Kurieg fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 05:13
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They should have added another ending where Shepard says "wait, if you're the Citadel, then if I blow up the Citadel you die too" and the kid says "No you can't do that" and then the final boss of the game is you fighting off 500 Keepers to make it to the big red self destruct button.
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Jun 29, 2016 05:35
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Ice To Meet You posted:They should have added another ending where Shepard says "wait, if you're the Citadel, then if I blow up the Citadel you die too" and the kid says "No you can't do that" and then the final boss of the game is you fighting off 500 Keepers to make it to the big red self destruct button.
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Jun 29, 2016 06:38
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Lt. Danger posted:Be careful. There's conflict, but only very rarely is the solution made out to be one where the parent wins. They're almost always the villain, and if there isn't a reconciliation then they're usually 'overthrown'. (Not aimed at Lt Danger but:) And I don't think there's anything mature or clever about ending an idealistic story with 'you were blinkered all along put away childish things and murder civilisations with us'. That's not maturity; it's cheap teenage cynicism :thisisthenewshit: Imagine if Star Wars ended with Vader going 'lol grow up Luke I'm dead inside', followed by a resounding empire victory. Then a military historian scrolled through some ~tactical realism~ tech specs explaining why an x wing could never take down the death star and the rebels were dumb to think otherwise. "Nevermind that it came in the last ten minutes of the trilogy. That showed a deep commitment to the realism of the Star Wars universe! X wings can't blow up space stations (usually). It is a fundemental law of the setting - the historian said so!" Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 06:49
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MisterBibs posted:Children believe in silly things. The ending is the adults sitting Shep down and telling him that, sorry, but Santa Claus doesn't exist, there is no Easter Bunny, and your assumption that your Cycle will do things differently is wrong. Deal with it, grow up, and make an adult decision. So is the Starkid a broken AI that is incapable of not committing genocide even though that violates the spirit of its prime directive, or is it a rational actor with perfect judgment that is based on knowledge it's just not particularly inclined to discuss with you? I don't see how it can be both.
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Jun 29, 2016 06:58
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quote:Imagine if Star Wars ended with Vader going 'lol grow up Luke I'm dead inside', followed by a resounding empire victory. Then a military historian scrolled through some ~tactical realism~ tech specs explaining why an x wing could never take down the death star and the rebels were dumb to think otherwise. I always thought of it as a bit like Luke reaching the throne room only for Darth Vader to say 'actually this whole trilogy was really about Marxism, only by killing Princess Leia and the Emperor can we build a perfect society' and Luke just goes 'sure I guess why not' and the movie ends with a title card saying 'and everything was ok forever'
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Jun 29, 2016 07:04
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Just a reminder that MisterBibs is one of the most dedicated gimmicks in the history of the Internet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71RJJ0umdjQ&t=3844s
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Jun 29, 2016 07:07
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Strategic Tea posted:There's conflict, but only very rarely is the solution made out to be one where the parent wins. They're almost always the villain, and if there isn't a reconciliation then they're usually 'overthrown'. Okay? I'm not really certain what argument is being made here or by others in the thread. Intergenerational conflict is a thing The Reaper solution contains but does not resolve it (and is morally repugnant) Shepard, as hero, is uniquely positioned to resolve intergenerational conflict properly
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Jun 29, 2016 08:41
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Milky Moor posted:Just a reminder that MisterBibs is one of the most dedicated gimmicks in the history of the Internet.
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Jun 29, 2016 09:06
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Lt. Danger posted:Okay? I'm not really certain what argument is being made here or by others in the thread. Dad Effect
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Jun 29, 2016 09:11
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