The Problem With Earth

Again, I don't think this is going anywhere. Blame it on my debate skills if you like.

I'll tell you what... I'll let it lie.  I've got other things to do anyways.  See you, perhaps, in another couple of months.

I actually wasn't referring to you.  I was trying to say that while some people are perceived to be aggressive but not, others are very aggressive.  I wasn't placing you in the aggressive category.

Shepard took out the batarians.  To be fair, the Reapers originally intended to take out the leaders of the galaxy.

Yeah that scene had me wishing I could smack my in-game avatar, especially the whole "double it for Earth" bit. 

Really Shepard? Earth has an inferno, double the size of Russia & Europe combined, raging across it's surface? Earth is really putting up so much resistance that the Reapers are literally glassing portions of the ground? Please, Earth's defenses offered less protection than a wet napkin. The fact that it fell so quickly and so easily meant that vast swathes of its infrastructure were left intact. Unlike Palven, and the Turians, who was actively resisting, and still hotly contesting the system; effectively stalling the Reapers' advance for other parts of the galaxy. The fact that Shepard shifts the discussion back to Earth almost immediately after Garrus mentions that his father and sister are still down on the Turian home world is just rubbing salt in the wound really.

In the tactical sense, Earth offered nothing to the rest of the galaxy for the entirety of ME 3. BioWare must have realized the tactical fallacy of calling for players to 'Take Back Earth' when it held no significance in the unified war effort and so had the plot Reapers move the Citadel into low orbit at the eleventh hour as last minute justification for going there. Prior to that, the prospect of "taking back Earth" was beyond foolish for anyone with any sort of military mind.

Pulling valuable resources out of active combat over contested points (i.e. Palven) to go charging for a target deep behind enemy lines, and with no means of helping the war effort once liberated is something highly emotional civilians would want, not something hardened military commanders would agree to. It would be like the Allies pulling out all support from D-Day, the Battle over Britain, and the Western Front to launch an all-or-nothing assault on Axis forces occupying Poland. Sure they might take it back, but then what good will it do, aside from wasting valuable equipment and personnel on a fool's errand?

That can't be the case. The final battle happening at Earth is present in the earliest leaked script outline, which predates any marketing materials.

Design documents show that Bio designs around emotional beats; this has been the case since NWN1 if not before. The battle for Earth is just something they wanted to do. Whether or not it made military sense probably never really came up. If you want to say that this is a problem with their house style, feel free.

So what? Anderson is right when he said Earth will need help. So Shepard heads out into the galaxy to get whatever/whoever help he/she can. Yes Shepard exaggerates a bit, but wouldn't you to get help for your homeworld and save your species? No one forced the other species to go to Earth to save it.

Are you sure? If anyone mentions Earth, it's James when they face a few husks after Garrus mentions his sister and father.


Ok. Lets say the Citadel is taken to Palaven, then what? Will it be some turian that comes up with a plan to get to the beam? Will it be some turian on the Citadel that Shepard talks with instead of Anderson? I would be ok with that since it would be turians getting killed on the beam run instead of humans.  

Let's be real. Shepard is the driving force for stopping the Reapers. Without Shepard, the galaxy was going to crumble. So if Shepard has more peace of mind if Earth is saved, and so is able to perform better, then it's the best option. Was a turian trying to save the galaxy or just Palaven? Salarians? No, too caught up in trying to hide. Asari? Don't make me laugh. They didn't life a finger until Thessia came under attack. Screw the rest of them. Shepard is human and so will put human interests first. Anyone arguing otherwise is kidding themselves.

True, but at the same time the series reiterates again and again how um, "humanlike", the various alien species are. At this point in the trilogy Shepard likely counts many of their alien squad mates as friends and possibly has had an alien as a lover at some point in time. In a sci-fi setting like this I'm not so sure you can put the same value on that, though it would certainly still apply to some characters, like Ashley in ME1 and certain renegade Shepards.

And even if Shepard is attached to Earth, they shouldn't prioritize it receiving assets over any other planet unless there's some tactical reason for this to be the case. The ending gave there a reason to be at the last minute sure, but everything until this point indicated otherwise. If the game had showed Shepard struggling with fulfilling their duty to the galaxy while Earth was ranked as low priority then I'd be less critical. So I guess my criticisms are more related to how heavy handed the auto dialogue was in the third game more than anything.

I agree that the Citadel shouldn't have been moved, it would have been much, much hard for the galaxy to try and take back the Citadel to plant the Crucible if it was just floating in space in the Widow Nebula, and (like you said) BioWare could have used the Conduit on Illos to great effect rather than moving it to Earth for the feelz.



And I'm sure that the residents of any planet under siege or being occupied by the Reapers feels the same way too. Still doesn't change the fact that outside of the Reapers moving the Citadel there, Earth was about as useful to the war effort as Karshan was. At least Palven was still being actively contested.

If that's the case why not move it to Karshan?

Its even farther behind enemy lines and has zero planet-side resistance left, the entire population either being dead or converted to husks.

Reapers also blew up Shepard's ship spacing him with an air leak so he would die of asphyxiation while his body floats towards a planet, before reentering the planet's atmosphere and impacting the ground at terminal velocity.