Ascension or fossilization?

Space Magic...

You should've went with Space Magic too.

I'm not seeing the joke. We can talk again once *you* have offered a rationalization that sounds like SF.

You came across as dismissive, but I don't hold grudges. Not in things like this, anyway...

A for the matter in question, yes, a lot of things are nonsensical beyond recovery, but worldbuilding is my passion. Much of my enjoyment of SF and fantasy comes from deciphering their worlds, and so I like it when I can make sense of those things that aren't beyond recovery. About the worst thing SF writers can do, from my perspective, is to casually disregard the rules they set up for their worlds earlier. There is quite a bit of that in ME2 and ME3 as well, unfortunately, only that in ME2 it didn't affect main plot - such as it was - much. 

Here are a few big ones:

ME2: "thermal clips" - their tortured rationalization for a return to classic ammo mechanisms made no sense, given that the old system was so much more efficient, and what's even worse, it replaced something new and interesting with something conventional and boring.

ME3: Legion's "personality dissemination". It was established that geth are software entities who freely share all kinds of data between themselves, and then they brought up this idea just to shove another heroic sacrifice down our throats. I felt like being force-fed crap.

ME3: ME2 established the geth life as a different but "existentially valid" form of life. In ME3 they're suddenly only "real life" if they acquire human-like individuality.

There are minor examples as well, like some human colonies in ME2 suddenly having a population of a few billion after 35 years of colonization. In ME1, they had, much more plausibly, populations of a few million.

It's been a while since I played an ME game, so I don't recall it all, but I'm sure you'll find more examples in Shamus Young's excellent Mass Effect Retrospective, which I recommend to everyone. Be warned though, he goes into some detail.

Well I understand... to be serious. I think it's the cause of a lot of frustration. I just know I'm happier when thinking of things on more gameplay or emotional terms. But I have my limits too.

As I progress through Shamus' piece I'm getting closer to Straykat's bitter sarcasm about 'space magic'... What a stinking mess this trilogy turned into! We blindside ourselves to the deplorable whole by focusing on the shining tidbits that litter the ground here and there.

Eh I've never been impressed by it. Comes off more as a self important person attempting to prove how smart they are.


My perspective it 9 out of 10 complaints are from people who are forcing a specific view point due to role playing and trying to force the game into that view point and when it doesn't match up with exactly how they want it to go then it is the game's fault.

When ME1 came out, it felt like someone's first attempt at an SF story. Clumsy and occasionally unintentionally funny, but you could see they made an effort. Back then, I thought of what this could become as the developers gained experience. And then it was all abandoned in the games that followed.

I make the distinction between aspects I find problematic, where I think there's something wrong with the game, and aspects I simply hate. Things like the plot hole created by the Catalyst ("why was it inactive in ME1") belong to the former category. You can clearly see they had no idea about how the trilogy would end when they made ME1, and they didn't even care enough to offer a plausible retcon in ME3. Maybe they didn't even rememeber. The best example of the latter category is DAI's Trespasser. It's quite good as a story and well-written by the standards of video games, but I still hate the outcome.

As for forcing a specific view, there was a shift in storytelling style between ME1 and ME2. Of course those who liked the old one, like me, tend to complain about what the trilogy had become. It felt like a broken promise at the time. Had I known, back in 2008 when I bought ME1, what it would become, I would've never started playing it.

They did grow as developers. There is a marked improvement with each subsequent game. A problem arises because they started going down a new story path then due to internal problems they had to try and steer back to the original path. Which creates some problems with the game story. Not really a lack of growing and learning but internal problems that caused some hiccups.

Catalyst causes no plot holes. In fact it's existence fixes the super massive plot hole from ME 1 just by existing in the first place. The entire set up of the Citadel being a massive dominate relay that the Reapers actively invite species to settle on. Who then sets it off remotely. And yet some how thousands of years of living on it no race ever becomes aware of what it really is.  Once you get into ME 2 with the Omega Rely it becomes even more idiotic.  The sheer existence of the Catalyst on the Citadel how ever makes it far less idiotic by a very wide margin.

The existence of the Citadel to act as a giant protector of the Catalyst makes sense. Inviting people to live on it make sense because it means it would be less likely to be attacked/left undefended. Ensuring the organic races of the galaxy keep it save. Giant mass relay still doesn't make sense but it being a first hit location of past harvests is meant to secure the catalyst in case during the events of the harvest what the Citadel really is is found out.  The Reason the Reapers leave the Citadel alone until TIM tells them about the Crucible and the final piece they need is the time they attack, capture it and bring it to Earth which is one of their strong holds. Well behind their own lines.

The lack of action is simply because the Catalyst design the station for it to respond to him. That set up would give away there is something more to the station. The entire reason the Keepers were created was to maintain the Citadel. And to respond to the Reaper signal to activate the Rely. The entire plot of the series is based on the Protheans altering that signal so the Keepers no longer respond to it. Keepers no longer respond to the signal and suddenly the Keepers no longer respond to the Catalyst. And the Keepers stick to auto pilot actions of maintenance. Which is part of what Sovereign was attempting to fix while connected directly to it. But Shepard interrupted the connection.