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How do you feel about the ending?  

471 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you feel about the ending?

    • I love it.
      45
    • I like it as-is.
      59
    • I like the indoctrination theory.
      56
    • I like it, but the lack of closure bothers me.
      100
    • I dislike it, but I may like it with some elaboration and clarification.
      63
    • I dislike it, and hope they make a new ending.
      35
    • I dislike it, and believe the indoctrination theory.
      43
    • I hate it.
      70


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Mass Effect 3 had the same development time as Mass Effect 2, and they already had the groundwork for the gameplay established unlike the transition between ME1 -> ME2.

 

I don't think EA is to blame. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd blame it on the script leak causing them to make last minute changes (this is unconfirmed); if not that, then they prolly

 

it was mac walters and casey hudson, that is all

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If you take ten different players and have them play through ME 1 and 2 then up to the quarian/geth conflict in ME3 ... You're gonna get ten different endings to that chapter.

 

Did tali die? Did Tali even survive the suicide mission in ME2?

Did Legion sacrifice himself, or was he killed?

Had you saved the admiral on Rannoch?

How did Tali's and Legion's loyalty missions go?

Etc etc

 

Kind of the same with the krogan conflict as well.

Unless you have a perfect paragon playhough, everyone's story is different.

 

Yet the ending of the game has only four endings.

And none of your chces matter.

If you are renegade you get two choices (black and blue)

If you are considered paragon enough you get three (black, blue and red)

If you have enough military might, you get four (black, blue, red and green)

(Shooting the kid gives you the black ending)

 

None of your choices in any of the games (including the third) matter.

 

It SHOULD have been another suicide mission. Where if things hadn't gone exactly great leading up to the assault, people would start dying.

And if you had more renegade than paragon you'd get the renegade or black ending.

No choices there.

 

Reesolving the geth/quarian conflict admirably and keeping a close tab on EDI (and potentially doing the leviathan DLC) would give you the option to rewrite the reaper's codes so they stop, without killing all other AIs.

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someone just pointed something out to me on another forum. in ME2 the cerberus team was investigating a derelict reaper. it was dead for who knows how long... they still became indoctrinated by it. one of the audio/video logs has one of them saying something like "even dead gods dream." we have seen several instances of similar things throughout the series be it a dead reaper, pieces of one, or artifacts that do it. so with destroy.... there are now millions of reaper corpses and pieces capable of indoctrination all over every major planet. just some food for thought.

 

so the galaxy is left fighting indoctrination attempts and there are no synthetics left to resist the leviathans thrall so they could easily retake the galaxy if they wanted to. this choice just seems really bad to me at this point.

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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someone just pointed something out to me on another forum. in ME2 the cerberus team was investigating a derelict reaper. it was dead for who knows how long... they still became indoctrinated by it. one of the audio/video logs has one of them saying something like "even dead gods dream." we have seen several instances of similar things throughout the series be it a dead reaper, pieces of one, or artifacts that do it. so with destroy.... there are now millions of reaper corpses and pieces capable of indoctrination all over every major planet. just some food for thought.

maybe the BLUE/RED/GREEN magic lights cleansed them.

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maybe the BLUE/RED/GREEN magic lights cleansed them.

 

before i say anything i will admit that the ABC comment and no reaper on/off button comment was incredibly dumb on their part. who knows why they said it but they screwed themselves by saying it.

 

with that being said, the main things i see people say against the ending are that they dont like being forced how to stop the reapers as opposed to just fighting and winning, there is no post ending involving shepard, and choices not mattering as much as we wanted them to.

 

the first game established the enemy having a level of control we can barely fathom. we only exist because they have allowed it. we are only as advanced as we are because of technology they left behind. they are in control of our very existence. the enemy IS technology that is WAY advanced beyond ours. it also established them as machines. meaning that someone created them, and with a purpose.

 

ME2 happens and reveals nothing new in that regard when it comes to the enemy.

 

cut to ME3, we know next to nothing about them and in the beginning the crucible is introduced. so why exactly were people surprised that we werent able to just fight them normally? everything about them that has been established goes against that. regardless of what anyone involved in developing the game said prior to release, the story speaks for itself and takes precedent over random comments.

 

im not saying everyone HAS to like the direction it went. its subjective. but thats a preference, an opinion. i can say i get why people like things even if it is within my personal tastes and i dont particualrly care for it because of that. but that doesnt mean that it is inherently bad. this is no different.

 

whether intentional or not, the writers from the beginning set up an enemy that is essentially the most powerful they could possibly be without outright declaring them some form of gods. them being machines and having that level of control dictated a lot of what we were going to find out and how this was going to end.

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someone just pointed something out to me on another forum. in ME2 the cerberus team was investigating a derelict reaper. it was dead for who knows how long... they still became indoctrinated by it. one of the audio/video logs has one of them saying something like "even dead gods dream." we have seen several instances of similar things throughout the series be it a dead reaper, pieces of one, or artifacts that do it. so with destroy.... there are now millions of reaper corpses and pieces capable of indoctrination all over every major planet. just some food for thought.

 

so the galaxy is left fighting indoctrination attempts and there are no synthetics left to resist the leviathans thrall so they could easily retake the galaxy if they wanted to. this choice just seems really bad to me at this point.

 

Since you wanted more discussion on the matter I've been thinking about this. While I'm inclined to agree with Carmona's response (it would've been my answer too), we've already some hard evidence against this too. When Sovereign was destroyed in ME1, pieces of him scattered everywhere, with various parties scavenging them. We've not seen anything to indicate that these pieces caused indoctrination aboard the Citadel (unless this is what the DLC is about >.>), so it could be argued that destroyed Repears aren't capable of indoctrination.

 

Thinking about it further, it could be that indoctrination isn't tied to the body of the Reaper or the entity itself, but a specific mechanical function. which leads to the Derelict Reaper. Even if the Reaper itself was dead, its body was functional on some level. This Reaper was mostly intact, enough so that the core was producing a Mass Effect field. My guess is that some other "mechanical" aspect of the Reaper produces the indoctrination effect, not the entity as a whole. Object Rho is a good example of this, where indoctrination was present in an object rather than an entity; perhaps Reapers have similar devices aboard them that give them indoctrination capabilities, instead of it being tied to their conscience.

Edited by Veedrock
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Since you wanted more discussion on the matter I've been thinking about this. While I'm inclined to agree with Carmona's response (it would've been my answer too), we've already some hard evidence against this too. When Sovereign was destroyed in ME1, pieces of him scattered everywhere, with various parties scavenging them. We've not seen anything to indicate that these pieces caused indoctrination aboard the Citadel (unless this is what the DLC is about >.>), so it could be argued that destroyed Repears aren't capable of indoctrination.

 

Thinking about it further, it could be that indoctrination isn't tied to the body of the Reaper or the entity itself, but a specific mechanical function. which leads to the Derelict Reaper. Even if the Reaper itself was dead, its body was functional on some level. This Reaper was mostly intact, enough so that the core was producing a Mass Effect field. My guess is that some other "mechanical" aspect of the Reaper produces the indoctrination effect, not the entity as a whole. Object Rho is a good example of this, where indoctrination was present in an object rather than an entity; perhaps Reapers have similar devices aboard them that give them indoctrination capabilities, instead of it being tied to their conscience.

 

this is what i was starting to think as well. i guess it would depend on the level of destruction of the reapers because like you said, pieces dont seem to indoctrinate. for the sake of the story and what the epilogue shows im inclined to believe that indoctrination probably wont be a problem. though... the epilogue of destroy shows whole reapers just dropping to the ground, so its anyones guess.

 

i just thought id ask and see what people say. mainly because people seem to find something wrong with every ending and me not being a fan of destroy yet always having to often hear why the other choices are bad despite what the epilogues show.

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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  • 4 weeks later...

this is the most logical thing i have ever heard anyone say about the story/ending when it comes to the catalyst/reapers. best thing about it... it was all said before the extended cut and leviathan DLC.

 

http://galacticpillow.com/2012/04/02/editorial-the-reapers-advocate-a-different-take-on-the-mass-effect-3-ending/

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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this is the most logical thing i have ever heard anyone say about the story/ending when it comes to the catalysts/reapers. best thing about it... it was all said before the extended cut and leviathan DLC.

 

http://galacticpillow.com/2012/04/02/editorial-the-reapers-advocate-a-different-take-on-the-mass-effect-3-ending/

 

thank you very much for posting the link.

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thank you very much for posting the link.

 

youre welcome. i just like how it explains that a technological singularity is extremely plausible using science. or rather, the most plausible way this could have played out. the creation of artificial intelligence is a natural step in the advancement of technology for organic races and the active "enemy" of this story is a machine. that alone dictated A LOT about this without the story having to directly spell it out.

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  • 4 weeks later...
I am confused on exactly what happened in the ends. In control how did SHepard become a Reaper?

 

 

He did and didn't when he grabbed the pylons, the crucible did a full diagnostic on his brain. This took his memories, his emotions, who he was and put it into the crucible. It also destroyed him. When the crucible finally fired, it sent this information in the form of energy that targeted the Reapers. This information took over the collective Reaper connection and essentially a new AI was created that had control of the Reapers. This AI was imbued with Shepard's qualities and so the Reapers followed Shepard's ideas. so the Reapers rebuilt, helped, and became the galaxy's protectors, as Shepard was.

 

He wasn't actually a Reaper, Shepard died. A new AI was created from his mapped brain.

 

The destroy end is pretty obvious in what occurs, and Synthesis just had Shepard become the map for all DNA in the galaxy. The extreme energy from the Crucible was able to redesign everything. Trippy actually.

 

youre welcome. i just like how it explains that a technological singularity is extremely plausible using science. or rather, the most plausible way this could have played out. the creation of artificial intelligence is a natural step in the advancement of technology for organic races and the active "enemy" of this story is a machine. that alone dictated A LOT about this without the story having to directly spell it out.

 

After reading the article, I am going to have to agree with the author, a lot of people give a lot of reasons on why the ending is bad, but I think breaks down into the basic there wasn't a happy ending for Shepard situation. I get it, five years of attachment, but in modern fiction the hero always dies, and I guess people don't like that.

Edited by Zombiedrd
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i often get scrutinized when linking that article with people saying that the ending shouldnt rely on such knowledge/research of something. and i agree, for the most part. one could easily say that ignorance of something is not an excuse. though i dont think ignorance is the word to use here because of the negative connotation that comes with it. i only link that article because if someone looked at the story logically/basically, there is science to back it up. the ending and story in general is reliant on what the enemy is(machines) and a very basic and common sense fact about where they had to have originated from(machines are made by someone, and with a purpose). the ending relies on those basic things as opposed to being some typical good vs evil/hero vs villain scenario. apparently the majority wanted the story to devolve to that as opposed to sticking with what the series founded itself on, making moral choices. the story was never that simple and the choices throughout the series never were either. it was always sort of a gray area that relied on what the player thought as opposed to it being black and white as far as whats "right" and whats "wrong."

 

when i completed the first game i asked myself a few things.

 

who made the reapers and why? the fact that they are machines made me ask this and i expected to find out why in the end.

 

how are we supposed to stop them considering how much it took to stop just sovereign? they control the evolution of life in the galaxy, humanity or any other species likely wouldnt even exist or if they did they wouldnt exist in anywhere near the same capacity. which brings me to the relays...

 

why leave the relays behind and allow for the species of a cycle to make contact with each other and eventually unite to oppose them? because thats exactly what happened at the end of ME1. we are only able to put up a fight because of what they have left behind. if the life of each cycle was scattered throughout the galaxy and unable to make contact with each other, the reapers have virtually no opposition. not to mention what its done for the life of each cycles technological advancement. can you imagine where the life of each cycle would be technologically if we had no mass effect tech to work with? the opening text of the entire series is about how humanity discovered the relays and it moved our technology forward drastically. this all suggests there is something more and says something about the enemys level of control over life in the galaxy.

 

i also put a lot of thought into sovereigns comment "we impose order on the chaos of organic evolution..." that was the reason given by the enemy in the beginning. the enemy was asked why in the beginning of the series... and it responded. why have the protagonist(shepard) ask why and have the antagonist(sovereign) respond... if it was to mean nothing?

 

i thought about what organic evolution was. i had considered everything from the reapers claiming that we are destroying the universe by multiplying/spreading and using up resources from planets, to them claiming that we are a threat to ourselves... which is essentially what it turned out to be. they are driven by what an advanced organic race saw many species do, create machines that then destroyed them. they exist to do what in simplest form is protect organic life from destroying itself with its own technology. the technology in question being the artificial intelligence organic species eventually create. the difference is, and the thing that people seem incapable of distinguishing is, the preservation of organic life "in general" as opposed to individuals or even individual species. it was tasked with preserving organic life AS A WHOLE, not the individual lives or species that existed at the time of its creation/solution.

 

this is similar to the AI viki in i,robot. it was governed by rules for protecting humanity and it ultimately decided that we were a threat to ourselves.

 

as for the catalyst itself, BIG surprise the machines are governed by a central intelligence, because thats never been done before and makes no sense from a technical standpoint... they are and always have been machines. half this stuff was practically predictable if one took that fact about the enemy into account.

 

though i do think that it should NOT have looked like a human child.

 

so we have ME2, which is what people seemed to cling to over what the first game established. the collector plot is interchangeable with anything else that would require recruiting such a team to complete. its almost completely irrelevant to what the first game established. it advanced nothing significant about the reapers. it didnt do what the second entry in a trilogy should do, advance the main plot. that being the reapers.

 

it seriously makes me question how many of these people actually played ME1. or at least played it first i suppose. ME1 and ME3 is about the reapers, and considering what info we were given, matches up. ME2 is about the collectors and ONE reaper using them for an almost completely unknown reason. it equates to what is filler until the eventual invasion the first game VERY much said was going to happen. why so many people seem to have allowed that story and its antagonist take precedent over what the first game established is beyond me.

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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So, i've been thinking (it took me a while) and wanted to bring up something about the Indoctrination theory. Now before anyone says, I know Bioware said its not true, etc so this is purely to satisfy my own nagging thought. So basically, if you've seen any videos, etc on the theory, it claims that the child Shepard sees isn't real. Evidence for that is that no one but Shepard seems to see or acknowledge this child. If the Indoctrination theory isn't true, then did Bioware really fuck up the writing? I mean all those things which point to Indoctrination aren't true so therefore why are they so obvious? Another example would be at the very end of the game. When Shepard chooses Synthesis or Control, his eyes have that Indoctrinated look (May have that worng but i'm sure its there) while in Destroy they don't. Again, if i'm not talking crap, why is that there? If someone could elaborate on it then it would be helpful. I just don't want to believe there is so many story flaws throughout the third game, not just at the end.

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well there is the obvious, bioware said indoctrination was originally going to play a part, but then it didnt. some stuff may have been left in. especially since the majority of people think they were rushed to release it. meaning that all the "signs" are being taken out of context by many people that also claim it was rushed. which makes no sense to me.

 

its also possible that bioware did this intentionally for those that would have perceived the story in this way. the series has always been about making moral choices and there really is no "right and wrong" with most of them. its up to how the player perceives things. the ending is no different. there are MANY things that people see differently which in turn dictates their final choice. that is something that has always existed in the series so im not surprised they made the end the way they did in that regard. indoctrination theory being a possibility or not.

 

i never jumped on that bandwagon because that is actively choosing a non ending. especially since they have said that shepards story is over. im not one to headcanon future events so i never took IT seriously. i never could get myself to accept something that negates everything we were told about the reapers only for them to be left as inherently "evil" for an unknown reason. again, to me thats a non ending.

 

and now with the leviathan DLC it seems obvious that wasnt what they were going for. to me, it seems that people were doing what is essentially insisting that a character(catalyst) was lying for the sake of traditional villainy because they wanted to "win" even though it appeared the story was attempting to show us that it was about more than that. they obviously wanted the story to be bigger than the traditional/standard "good vs evil/hero vs villain" scenario. they rooted what was happening in the very evolution of life and its technological advancement. to me, that is FAR more interesting than shooting the bad guys to death for the umpteenth time. to each his own i guess.

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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  • 6 months later...
  • 3 months later...

It solved both the "false choice" problem (video games are scripted, finite, so are choices are never really free) with a narratively accurate explanation- when facing a galactic extinction event, how COULD it truly matter if you saved a bunch of Fero's colonists, etc, or not? Might give you different partners around you, or people to talk to, but no matter how important you are you are only one man/woman, and things were going to happen no matter what you did.

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I honestly didn't think it was that bad. The thing that bothered me the most the whole game was that annoying little kid that kept popping up. Like, were we supposed to care for him at all? Haha

 

That kid was the Duck Hunt dog. One Carnifex was all it would have taken...

 

I personally did not care for the endings at all. (Note: I've played only as FemShep, so my post will be based from that storyline.) It felt like Bioware wrote the story to be fairly linear all along.. as if FemShep were meant to romance Thane (with his ME2 posterchild and tragic story) with their ill-fated love. Then she were to die in the end to save everyone. Or if you chose someone else and had the max EMS, but chose to destroy the Reapers, you had the slim hope there was survival. It still felt too one-sided in the end.

 

When people delve time and emotional investment into a game, they want to feel like they make that difference.. Throughout the series, they were able to do that, but then had their hero/heroine die on them in the end, that was their despair. I think Bioware succeeded in the regard of passing along Shep's feeling of ultimate sacrifice to the player with the ending. The player was given a choice, but it wasn't the one they wanted... if that makes sense? (It's 5 am, please forgive my babbling.)

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  • 1 month later...

It's funny to me when I really think about it. People saying it was a contrivance and spouting the term Deus Ex Machina left and right. As if a "surprise" ending is "not allowed" or something. Even then, when it comes to a VERY basic storytelling point of view all I can think is...

 

So the giant space station made of an unknown material that we didn't build ourselves but found and know nothing about, that we let a race of docile alien creatures we can't communicate with that exist only here and aren't located on any terrestrial world maintain almost exclusively without question, that just so happens to be an enormous version of those other giant machines that we found and did not build ourselves made of that same unknown material that are the only reason we can travel the galaxy, all of which were put in place specifically for us to find as a means for controlling our advancement by the established enemy with unknown motivations... THAT station has some secrets. BIG surprise...NEVER saw it coming..... -_-

 

Another interesting thing is that in ME1 Avina talks about the Citadel tower having a room only accessible by the Keepers that houses the inaccessible AI core. Gee.... I wonder what's up there? lol

Edited by edgecrusher02
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  • 3 months later...

I loved the ending. I thought it was the perfect way to close out the series.

 

OT: So I have a question about achieving the "perfect ending" in which you have 5000-6000+ readiness and choose destruction. I just achieved peace between the Geth and Quarians and am wondering if choosing this option will kill all the Geth? It seems kinda horrible to get them to help me take Earth back and then wipe them all out. The reason I am asking is because I have heard that the destruction choice will kill EDI so it stands to reason it would kill all Geth too.

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  • 1 month later...

I think the story was fantastic - the games have repeatedly left me torn and regretting my decisions long after I made them, which is an incredible thing for a game to achieve. In my game, Tali threw herself off the cliff, and I sat for about 5 minutes after just wishing I could have chosen again.

 

It left me with that almost inexplicable feeling of knowing you've succeeded but left a numb, sad hole in me, thinking of the squad mates who died, or that I'll never see again. Unfulfilled satisfaction?

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  • 1 month later...

I just finished after all this time. I'd heard the hype but avoided the spoilers. Took the 'control' ending.

I think that a lot of excellent points have been raised, so I'll be as simple as I can. I knew Shepard wasn't coming out of this. The problem was just too big for the hero to come out clean at the end. Too much had already been sacrificed for there to be a happy ending possibility, and I had this figured out after the Reapers hit Earth in the beginning of ME3. Just like in GoW3, I saw the end coming and knew it for what it was. Ultimately, how else could you top having already died previously and have it mean anything?

I didn't care for the way the Catalyst was represented by a child. It felt like cheap theatrics. Speaking directly with Harbinger or the like would have felt more genuine.

The Mass relays are destroyed, intersystem travel is cut off, but the species are co-mingled in hundreds of different locations and the Citadel is still under control of the Alliance/Council/newly united species. I would have been more interested in seeing how this followed the ending than the stargazer scene. Concerned they didn't leave a good space to put ME4 (now in development).

Despite all this time I couldn't NOT chime in on this thread. The Mass Effect series is, on the whole, the best video game experiece I've had in 30 years of gaming. The universe in these games trumps Star Trek/Wars hands down to me. I would love to see this in other forms with other characters pre/during/post Shepard.

Edited by Ultramarine81
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