Everything Wrong With Mass Effect 3 Redux by GCN

1) the catalyst has always known that the crucible existed... at least the designs of a previous version of it. So it is not a complete novelty for him.

2) The catalyst evidently has, like all AI and sentient beings, "sensors" that allow it to detect and analyze the outside world. As it is able to understand to have in front of it Shepard and what shepard can or can't do (even without controlling it), so it can be able to understand to have in front of it the Crucible and what it can and can't do.
Moreover, the Catalyst was created with precisely this purpose: analyze, calculate, collect datas, evaluate variables, make simulations. No surprise he's able to understand what the crucible is.

3) actually, he is not able to interface with it. Not actively at least.
He told Shepard that: the crucible provides new possibilities, but I can't make them happen.
A face scan technology can "interact" with my face, passively interface with it, recognize that my face is indeed a human male face and analyze every small detail and expression of it, but it can make my face smile of cry or split.

Drumroll and fanfare have worked wonders in countless circus gigs.

but all the advancend tech in the galaxy is based on reapers technology.
so yeah, they are fucked indeed, like all those who came before

I do not believe that the crucible is such a mystery for the catalyst, just an effective assembly of technologies and materials that the catalyst already knows.
that's part of the masterplan: "your civilization develops along the paths we desire"




mmm no, as I've said, after the reapers took over the citadel at the end of ME3, nothing prevents that whatever the protheans scientists did to the keepers and the citadel signals has finally been removed/undone, and so catalyst has been restored in all its previous functions, thus having now a relevant degree of control over the citadel and the surroundings.

During the priority earth, nothing forbids the catalyst from having:
- control over reapers (in the "weaker" form of collective intelligence, but control still)
- control over the arms of the citadel (temporally override by Shepard)
- control over the the elevator and the platforms
- control over its systems of short-range and long-range scanner, data collection, perception and evaluation of the external world, calculation of the variables, strategy, simulation, planning abilities (additionally, being the collective intelligence of the reapers, is safe to assume that he knows everything that every single reaper knows)
- the ability to interface (dialogue) with organic and the crucible

the only thing that the catalyst explicitly admit it can't do, is that he cannot make the new solutions provided by the crucible happen.
not even that it can't interact or interface with the crucible: just can't personally make its "possibilities" come true.

For that, it needs Shepard special DNA/organic energy (green magic), or Shepard memories and thought (blue magic), or a demonstration of willingness to use the crucible in all its destructive power (red magic)

With this last interpretation, if we really want and need to, we can even assume that the catalyt is practically omnipotent during priority Earth.
He controls everything, the reapers, the citadel, the crucible, sees everything, knows everything, can interface with everything

the crucible docked.
according to catalyst calculations, this changed the variables, and shows that the reapers won't work anymore (why or how it reached that conclusion, or why he is so sure about it, we do not know, but ehy, so be it)
There are new possibilities.
But to walk these new paths, an act of will by Shepard is necessary.
The free will of an individual cannot be forced.
It is something precious, unique. Not even the most omnipotent and intelligent entity in the galaxy can recreate it artificially.

The only thing we must assume that the catalyst cannot do during the Me3 finale, is to replace Shepard's free will. That's it.
If Shepard (in the name and on behalf of this cycle) refuse to adress the Chaos Problem, the catalyst will turn off the crucible and the harvest will continue to the bitter end.

I disagree. The Catalyst is what turns the ending from a boring cliche into the ending I actually rather enjoy.

kalreegar, you're my boy, so I won't argue with you anymore.

Syntesis has 2 main phases.
1. The organic energy of a single individua, is added to the crucible and spread through the galaxy
2. Every single living being is instantly affected and changed on a DNA level, from the mighty leviathan to the humble midge

The first phase needs a ready, willing individual who freely chooses synthesis and transmits his special essence, his imprint, to the whole galaxy.

The second phase is obviously and necessarily forced, it would make little sense if every leaf, every moss, every sardine, should be ready and could choose if accept or refuse a heavy genetic modification..

Save for one problem, machines don't have DNA.

So, how are AI's effected?

What is this framework thing mentions? Don't know. Don't care. Shoot the tube. There you go. No need to worry about the framework crap.

Someone mentioned somewhere MEA is the Synthesis ending turned real. IMO it isn't.

SAM and Ryder haven't become a single entity with mixed physiology and hybrid DNA. SAM does have some measure of influence and control over Ryder's physiological functions, but Ryder's mind is still their own. That is to say, SAM cannot influence Ryder in any way, only offer his opinions and suggestions when prompted or whenever it's opportune (or at least that's what we are led to believe).

The relationship between SAM and Ryder is, according to SAM himself, one where SAM is an OBSERVANT. He learns and grows from Ryder's experience. He's not an active participant (save when prompted to do so, as in the case where he stopped their heart and then brought them back to life). He's not the co-pilot in this AI+organic experiment. He's a passenger in the backseat of a car, one who MIGHT take the wheel with the driver's full consent should the need arise.

Suffice to say, SAM and Ryder aren't a single entity. They are two beings joined in mind in a symbiotic relationship where the AI takes the submissive role of offering support. SAM can exist without Ryder, but due to how Alec modified him, the Ryder twins cannot exist without SAM anymore - although they still retain their full mental faculties and remain otherwise unaltered by SAM's presence in their brain -, proof that AI and organic haven't joined together to form a new hybrid form of life as it happens in the Synthesis ending.

Plus everything that Starkid says is suspect, look at Saren, he promoted the Green. And what happened to him again?

sorry but it was forced, the original endings were white Reaper wins Shepard dies along with everyone else and blue Shepard dies only and red the destroy Shepard and everyone lives so with the great cupcake controversy came green in the director cut

The Collectors have cybernetics as well, I think?