The elephant in the room

Actually, four of them predate the ending: Shepard/Garrus cybernetic reconstruction, geth-consensus journey, quarians (outfitted with a suit laden with cybernetic devices), biotics (outfitted with implants).

That Kasumi EC picture just builds off of what was there before the ending. Her and her partner's neural-implants are a working form of "synthesis."

So too does the EC geth-quarian peace picture. You could say the same will exist in Control, and would have existed in Destroy if it did not wipe out the geth, which is fair enough. Then again, there is a faction of Destroy supporters who are pretty anti-synthetic/AI. This speaks more to that.




I think post-cyberpunk would be a more accurate designation.

As for BioWare's inent, meh. Sometimes their intent is too overpowering for me to work with, like Liara canon waifu. I cannot re-frame that into something more palatable, the way that has been written. So, she's a creep, despite my best efforts.

Synthesis is fairly open-ended though. It's a little kooky, sure, but I can work with kooky.


Nope. No synthetic limbs for Shepard; Destroy-wave eradicated all robotics! 

The presence of the anti-synthetic thematic message in Destroy does not depend on Shepard being anti-synthetic. It's evident in the way the ending was designed, with Shepard losing their synthetic aspect in Destroy to become an organic human again and losing their organic aspect in Control to become a synthetic entity infused with Shepard's values. As much as Control tells you "Organics can't manage themselves without a synthetic overseer", Destroy tells you "Synthetic life is not true life" (or more specifically "Only organic life is true life", which amounts to the same), no matter what *your* Shepard's reasons for making their choice were. This is one of the main reasons I can't choose Destroy, the other one being the message "What we don't understand is better destroyed" which has been present since ME1.

Why do I say these things are present regardless? Because themes aren't present in the in-world perspective, they only become apparent through our, the players', interaction with the strory. If you are familiar with certain philosophies and how they're anchored in cultural memory through works of art, you can't fail to spot them in the ME games. This is actually a large part of why the endings didn't work for so many people. If you completely locked out the fact that you're interacting with a story and stayed completely in the in-world perspective, the fact that the Catalyst was the main expositor of the endings wouldn't be such a big problem. It would simply be a bad hand you'd been dealt, and you'd be expected to make the best of it, and luck would have it that the outcome is good in the end. In the in-world perspective, you do win, because you can take the endings literally without any contamination by themes present through reception of real-world philosophies by the player. However, in the storytelling perspective the scenario tells you the Catalyst wins, not you, and all choices are contaminated by association with Reaper methods.

And no, you shouldn't shut that perspective out, because it is how stories become meaningful for us. Of course different people will notice different themes to a different degree, depending on their socialisation, education and experience of other stories, but that perspective does always exist. If you don't notice it, it's even possible you're influenced by themathic messages you're not recognizing anyway, because this is one of the ways our cultures indoctrinate us with their prevailing values. It is one of the social functions of storytelling. Unlike Reaper indoctrination, you can escape that, but only if you're aware of it. 

   

Sorry, but I disagree. I don't see any concrete indication in the destroy ending that tells me Shepard is losing the synthetic aspect to "become an organic human again".



Sorry, but I have to disagree again. This isn't about me headcanoning what my Shepard thinks. It's about what's actually being said by Shepard. As far as I know there is no dialogue or symbolism in the destroy ending that supports the claim you're making.

The Catalyst says that all synthetic life will be destroyed if you so choose, followed by "even you are partly synthetic". It's completely clear that this it exactly what will happen.


It's implicit in the *whole* setup. If you can't see the ending balancing between Destroy and Control as pro-organic and pro-synthetic, consider how the Synthesis epilogue implicitly claims that synthetics are only truly alive here, which means they aren't in the other endings. By choosing Destroy, you reinforce it. By choosing Control, you may or may not deny it but give the new synthetic overlord dominion anyway. You can't even escape it in Synthesis, though there it becomes irrelevant.

Interesting discussion. Personally, I choose Control. 

Destroy seems appealing. And that's what we wanted from the start - destroy those damn Reapers. That was my first option. But does it really solve anything? Destroying synthetics? I doubt that. Would life develop more naturally? No. It would just be a step back. Reminded me of Battlestar Galactica. But that would be unnatural. People and other races already evolved.

I didn't even consider Synthesis. Kid said it's an ideal option, but he also admitted that organics surprised him. He's not God. He's just a product. He can't predict the future.

Some people say control is risky, cause Shep (or in my case Femshep) would go bad one day. I don't buy that. And she's not gonna rule the galaxy. She's gonna protect it. Leaving Reapers alive a risk? Depends who rule them. They screwed their creators, but their creators weren't Shepard. She (or he) is an anomaly. She broke the cycle. Reapers always said people couldn't comprehend their plan, but they where stupid in their own way. Organic life took them by surprise. Shepard becoming a powerful entity allows all races (including geth) to get on with their lives, without destroying a natural order of things. And why would she sentence synthetics to death? It's a Blade Runner issue. She built an all-race army, because she could see the big picture, while others couldn't. That's why if anyone should control the Reapers, it's her (or him). Come on. Don't fear the Reaper.

But I agree that this ending only makes sense for a particular Shep. 

The Reapers affected life of all races for thousands and thousands of years. Life wouldn't develop more naturally. It's too late for that.

And you think Shep taking control wouldn't change things for better?

The only thing that is completely clear from that is the implication that Shepard may die as well because (s)he's partly synthetic.


That's only one way to look at it. Sure, you can do that. But I don't see it that way. For me the bottom line is that the Reapers should be gone. If it takes sacrificing synthetic life altogether to do that, so be it.

See, to actually be able to have this debate at all there's the other complication. Do you even trust the Reaper AI and its motives? That's what makes this debate so hard to have. There's more than one way to look at the ending.

I can only see a super intelligence posing as an innocent child from my very dreams. Humans are naturally inclined to trust children and see them as unbiased, innocent. That alone is extremely manipulative. Then this thing is also trying to convince me that the Reapers actually have a necessary purpose, and that getting rid of them would be a mistake. But does this rhyme with what we've seen from the Reapers so far? Think back to the words of Sovereign and Harbinger. They look down on organics. They only look for the strongest species to harvest and let them "ascend" just to strengthen their numbers and solidify their position of power. And then that AI is also trying to talk me into killing myself off, and last but not least it's playing to my ultimate human weakness of always wanting to save everyone.

Regardless of whether you believe it's indoctrination or not, these things are repeatedly foreshadowed in the game. There's a LOT of talk about sacrifices and humans always wanting to save everyone.

I didn't come this far to let this thing change my mind at the last instant. It's happened to a lot of people before Shepard. I can only see a Reaper's suggestions, which "can manipulate victims into betraying friends, trusting enemies, or viewing the Reaper itself with superstitious awe. Should a Reaper subvert a well-placed political or military leader, the resulting chaos can bring down nations."

Actually, speculation is that it was more like a billion years.  However, the society's will evolve on their own naturally now.  The Reapers didn't harvest the races of the current cycle, meaning that their worlds aren't going to be devastated and empty for a long time to come.  (Planet scanning shows us interesting info about planets that probably once had sentient life but show evidence of ancient destruction.)  Nevertheless, the races will move on as they see fit.  The Reapers have stopped being a factor.  Perhaps, as Matriarch Aethyta suggested, the Council races will choose to build their own mass relays.  They can also now the Omega 4 relay as a basis for traveling further than ever (Andromeda, anyone?).  They're more free than they've ever been before.

It really makes me wonder what they're smoking..

They might as well make games where I become buddies with Jeffrey Dahmer. Or some other freak who plays with dismembered bodies.

Also, I compare saving Maleon's data to approving of Dr. Mengele. Yet that's supposed to be the good choice in this series.

Can't agree about the natural evolution thing, but I see your point. Guess people wouldn't argue so much about the finale if it was more like ME2 and all the best characters were involved.

Kaidan explained that one on Eden Prime, ME1 when we first encounter husks: psychological warfare.

Garrus reiterates this in ME3 in his convo with the exceptionally naive Ensign Copeland, and calls it a "brilliant tactic if you think about it."

It's not like they were trying to create works of art and screwed up. They were trying to create monstrosities and succeeded. In spades.