What are your too ***SPICY*** to handle hot takes of the trilogy?

Or history is already cyclical and we are screwed anyway.



Not that I actually believe that, more of an optimist myself.

It will never not amaze me that people believe that's what happened but I'll digress before I get this thread locked. 

Now this is the spicy I was looking for!

the only question I need to ask is, "How much popcorn?"

i am not opposing in bring that as well. *checks if there is Reaper Indoctrination Devices*

Very well said. Robs me of much of what I wanted to say. I'll add a few.

Udina is actually Shepard's friend and faithful ally in ME1
If you visit the Citadel after completing each plot mission and talk to him he'll make a unique comment on the Council's reaction to your decisions. In every case he defends you despite the Council always criticizing. Unfortunately, you can't visit him directly after completing the last mission before the end of the game triggers. Hence most people won't ever see his comments on Virmire. If you do Virmire as soon as its available though he will remark that the Council is talking about Shepard possibly being mentally unstable. This is presumably still true if you did Virmire last so it gives a bit of context for his decision to side with the Council in locking down the Normandy and grounding Shepard. One gets the impression they might have been thinking that Shepard isn't right for the drop and so Udina agreeing to ground Shepard for the time being is sensible politics to avoid humanity being disgraced and Shepard kicked out of the Spectres.


Tali and Garrus were ruined by their popularity
Tali has no compelling plot reason or character motivation to be in ME2. She really should not have been a squadmate at all and instead only had a cameo if/when you visit the Migrant Fleet. If a quarian character was necessary for the story then this character should have been new and probably a quarian exile. An exiled quarian who is notorious on the Migrant Fleet fits better thematically with the rest of the squad in ME2 who are all oddball people with questionable reputations and affiliations.

Garrus had his entire character arc from ME1 undercut and removed by ME2. A cheeky reference is even made to this in the Shadow Broker DLC and it is referenced again in ME3. I'll give Bioware some credit in that Garrus is a lot of fun to interact with in ME2 and perhaps that justifies his inclusion but personally I'd rather stay true to characters and their arcs rather than succumb to fanservice.


Wrex would not want to cure the Genophage
I could make a thread about this but I'll be brief here: if you pay close attention to Wrex's arc in ME1, his actions in ME2, and think logically about the krogan's predicament then it should be abundantly clear that curing the genophage is a bad idea and that Wrex would not want to do it. He wouldn't want to do this because he knows better and curing it would also undermine his own hold on power among the krogan.


The quarians did nothing wrong in attacking the geth
Either on the eve of the Reaper War or 300 years ago during the Morning War. I made a thread about this, but the short version is that in both cases it is simple self preservation. People it seems are willing to recognize the geth's actions in terms of self preservation but never the quarians because... reasons, I guess.


Paragon Shepard is a reckless idiot that survives and thrives via' writer fiat
Most Paragon decisions are logically flawed but everything always works out anyway because it just does. Releasing the rachni queen should have caused a lot of problems even in the best case scenario. People who argue for her release don't realize what kind of destabilizing element they are releasing into the environment. Even if the rachni are peaceful this time just their very existence, which will presumably be an entire civilization in the future, will complicate things. They'd affect colonization, the economy, and the balance of military power. Again, that's assuming they are peaceful.

Letting Balak go in Bring Down the Sky is very foolish and demonstrates weakness. What's to stop Balak from pulling the same sort of strategy again and again? You don't give in to threats and ultimatums like that unless you want to invite more of them. You blink, you lose.

Saving the Council demonstrates that Shepard isn't focused on the moment and/or doesn't appreciate the stakes of the current situation. If Sovereign is not destroyed then every sentient species capable of space travel is doomed. The Reapers will enter through the Citadel relay and its over, the Reapers win. So Shepard saving the Council with thoughts of how they might be useful later is very flawed. All that should matter in the moment is stopping Sovereign and everything else is secondary. Now I've participated in countless discussions over the years and I understand the arguments that some people make in favor of saving the Council from a tactical standpoint, but the way the narrative is presented, the way the choice is framed, is that you are saving the Council at the expense of facing Sovereign with a weakened force. That was the writer's intent.

Letting Legion rewrite the geth empowers the geth, who are not allies and have only ever demonstrated hostility to organics. It also ensures that Legion gains a lot more from this arrangement than Shepard or the rest of the galaxy do. It's a very poor strategic decision.

Blowing up the Collector Base is frustratingly foolish. I've debated it to death and never seen a good argument for destroying it. The fact is, everyone is out-matched by the Reapers and this is a Reaper factory. It's the best chance we could ever hope for to reverse engineer their technology, which is vital to survival. Even just studying the wreckage of Sovereign provided useful technology so this factory should be life changing. Blowing it up to spite TIM is just petty and concerns about what Cerberus will do with the base are short sighted. Better to have Cerberus screwing up with the base than not having it at all. Better a Cerberus caused disaster of some kind than total extinction when the Reapers show up.


Asari are lame
Boring lore, boring design, silly biology. Very rarely are the asari ever presented in an interesting way, those whole two cases being the bartender on Ilium and the grieving mother, also on Ilium. What makes them interesting is that their long life spans are used to point out to the player just how that colors their view and experience of the world and it is something a human can't quite relate to. It's unique and very welcome. Otherwise the asari are a Star Trek reference that should have been left on the cutting room floor.


Jack is badly designed character for Mass Effect
I'm talking visual design. It is ridiculous the way she is dressed in this space cover shooter. As a general rule every squadmate in the series should have been designed with some kind of plausible space suit in mind like they were in Mass Effect 1. Having anyone run around topless with all that skin exposed just diminishes the sense of realism and immersion in the game. It also contradicts the tone and presentation of the first game. Every game in the series should relatively consistent in terms of style and tone. The catsuits are borderline and high heels in combat (this is Miranda and Samarea's sin) are a big no no. Utterly dumb.


Liara is badly written character
She barely even has a character. In each game we get a new character who has the same voice, name, and face, but everything else is different. If there is no consistency in her personality, which frames how she sees and responds to the world around her, then how can we even consider her the same character? She's as badly written as Cerberus, maybe even worse. It all goes down hill with the ME2 prequel comic about Shepard's body. Why it was she was chosen as the main character for that story is beyond me because she makes no sense. ME1 Liara would never have struggled moving on after Shepard's death, especially after getting access to Ilos and knowing the truth about the Reapers. She was a very emotionally mature young woman and while sad, would have have had the strength and motivation to move on with her life. This would also have been a much more logical use of her character considering the events of ME2 and the revelation about the Collectors. It's also laughable that she becomes an information broker and badass in ME2 because, again, that's not consistent with how she was portrayed in ME1. In the original game she is mild mannered, awkward, and thoughtful. She's not the kind of person to manipulate or threaten others. It'd make about as much sense if we met in ME2 and she was big and buff and explained that she had suddenly decided she want to play American Football and took a bunch of steroids. Or maybe she does pro wrestling. Or perhaps now she's a botanist. Perhaps she sells real estate? A cop? Fireman? Exotic dancer? Drives heavy equipment? Reporter? Directs movies? Any of these make just as much sense.

I agree...that's nightmare fuel and a cursed image if I ever saw one

Mein Kampf is what you are thinking. And good link about Cerberus as well.

Is it wrong that I really want to see this as a TV series, now?

Yeah.... I am done talking about history with you. It is clear we are on a different level there.

You refuse to acknowledge my point. So I will shove it in your face - Mengele was the diabolical mad scientist that experimented on and tortured the captured peoples in the camp. TIM does the same thing, to his own people. This is exactly why ignorance of history is dangerous, so thanks for completely ignoring me at every step of this conversation and choosing to argue because it's cool. You have proven my point quite well.

edit: also, don't accuse people of being holocaust deniers. It wasn't only ethnic/racial reasons for the Holocaust, and nobody denied anything. You literally don't know what you're talking about.

Not sure it's going to get the official endorsement of the Tolkien estate though.
Personally I like the asari angle of essentially if you've got a massively long life your life path has a lot more room for going off slumming it before you have any serious career thoughts