Why the ending did not work (repost)

How did Shepard not fix anything? Shepard went with a choice (out of several) that would alter the galaxy, to solve the biggest issue the galaxy had to deal with, how is that not fixing anything?

It's about the principal, not about the motive, so to speak. Shepard is using other beings to control, to do his/her bidding.

Well yes, you never said that directly, but the Reapers made the Geth slaves, weakening them effectively.

Destroy fixes things too. Mostly by attacking first causes, rather than just dealing with things as they are.

It's still an Anderson/"Paragon" choice, after all. It's not like it's destructive in some lulzy sense.

I'm not talking about speaking for Shepard. I'm talking about speaking for the game itself. It's pretty explicit, unfortunately. This isn't Minecraft or even TES. It isn't very open world. You have choices within reason, but when it's explicit, you have no choice but to oblige.

How about just join the millions who say they hate the ending? Instead of trying to make it something it's not. That's a fair stance to take, I would say. I'm just not one of them.

The good thing about the original ending is it was more implicit. But apparently people don't like that. But even so, these symbols (the ending choices) stood for specific things.

Perhaps there's something to each AI's "OS" that has similar brain activities and processes that can be targeted.

If you're simply targeting everyone with cybernetics, that's like killing everyone with an artificial limb. It means nothing. And Shepard was never a cyborg. It was a mindfuck, to make you doubt yourself. The whole game is meant to destroy your resolve. It paints a bleak picture in every respect.

Miranda herself regrets NOT doing that to you. She didn't put a control chip in your head. She was ordered to restore Shepard exactly as he was. TIM says the same, when you question him with a Renegade response on first meeting. Jacob doesn't either. He asks if you had any cool upgrades, but you don't. That's it.

Chakwas doesn't either. What are you even talking about?

Just because you have synthetic parts doesn't mean you're a computer. Even the damn cutscenes show that Lazarus was revitalizing things at a cellular level.

Not to mention you still have the Cipher somehow, Javik senses you as an organic too, high EMS shows you living (although you're so cynical you think Bioware is trolling people even then. Sigh).

That shows how unsophisticated it is at low levels.. it becomes more and more like a blunt instrument approach, I guess. It destroys a lot of the galaxy too. But at the highest levels, it's just AI. That's all I mean to separate from Shepard.

In addition to my other reasons, Harbinger has quite the fixation on Shep. If he/she was truly synthetic, I don't think they'd care.

The game is more flexible than people generally give it credit for.  It's not Minecraft (but you're not building personalities in Minecraft at all, are you?).

In the case of the Catalyst, the Catalyst does give Shepard the option to control the Reapers as he/she sees fit.  There are no conditions placed on that statement by the Catalyst. He doesn't say that Shepard has to preserve them, can't cause them to destroy themselves, can't destroy them himself/herself, etc. after taking control.  If Bioware was intending to "force" the player to consider control in only one way... 1) they would not have written two different speeches for that ending (paragon vs. renegade) and 2) they would have (or at least should have) explicitly put a condition into the Catalyst's statement.  They did not.

That the Catalyst is prepared to turn over the Reapers to Shepard to do with "as he sees fit" equates to a total surrender.  Whether he intended to or not, the Catalyst has given Shepard his sword... war over, good guys win.  Any dictator who is surrendering essentially says the same thing... He would not be happy about being replaced, but he hands over "control" of his empire to the other side. 

To me, that's pretty explicit.  After that, Shepard can do ANYTHING with the Reapers, he/she wants.  Is taking control "amoral" Certainly not if he/she believes (per Legion's loyalty mission in ME2) that you should not apply organic morality to synthetic issues (and it is certainly a choice in response that Shepard can make during that mission).  Is taking over leadership without a "vote" amoral?  That's a slightly different question - much more gray, depends on what your ideologies are.  Some people do feel that a "benevolent dictator" is the best form of government (not necessarily me - since I'm not telling you my ideologies here).

If we're going to say that the endings each represent a single thought by the developer and that is the only way one can ever possibly interpret them... welll, why do people keep going on about Indoctrination of Shepard over the whole game when it's explicitly stated on Thessia that Shepard is not indoctrinated and the Catalyst conversation even implies that the reason Shepard can take control of the Reapers is because the Catalyst does NOT control him yet.

I'm not going out of the realm of what's in the game here.  I'm just taking what the Catalyst said as face value.  He's explicit - He's saying - "If you take control from me, you can do with the Reapers as you see fit."  The price is only that Shepard can't stay in contact with organics; that is, he can't tell them he's now in control.

Yeah, but it hopes you die in all the endings yourself.

I have more respect for actual dictators tbh. They tend to fight to the end for their power and don't act like weasels, telling you to kill yourself instead, in some feeble attempt at screwing with your mind.

Hell, Hitler had the respect to off himself before any of that happened.

He doesn't have to say it. It's all there in how things are presented. Like the idea that you're partly synthetic... it's just there to remove your resolve. i.e. Screw with your mind.

I can say this is bullshit because it means nothing. High EMS Shep lives. This actually happens. I don't have to read into it.

Not to mention the big glowing pillar of light in the middle, called "ideal". That's more the developers screwing with people's minds though. The human mind gravitates towards symmetry.

Because 2 of the 4 do not directly address the social and economical problem between races.

Principal isn't a very good reason to me because it is based on principal that a lot of bad things still happen in the world because they can't find a rational reason to continue doing them. So they fall back to it is about principle.


Reapers never weakened the Geth when they made them mindless slaves. They actually improved them greatly but the price was total removal of individuality. Which was a price to far for Legion to accept. Which leads to Legion willingly assisting Shepard in freeing the Geth. Which has side effect of helping Quarians though that was clearly not it's main objective. Quarians only cared about what would save their own collective asses. Legion only cared what would save the Geth's collective asses.  Shepard needs both to take on the Reapers and so shouts to both sides to calm down for 5 seconds.

Ok, I'm going back through your posts trying to find the logic here. Because you lost me with that last response.

I said: he Catalyst offers options that go directly against all those things, and not only must you accept it, but embrace it as well. The Catalyst is the rational entity that has never evolved, sees everything as inevitable and doesn't understand what Shepard has done to get so far (and the writers probably forgot).

And you responded with: 'The Catalyst has also seen countless cycles repeat the same actions but with different faces. Which is also echoed in the game multiple times. They are living in a paradise compared to our current set up. The races of the galaxy have the literal entire galaxy to explore and expand on. No longer are they at a shortage of supplies or limited in space to grow. And yet the same old set ups still follow them. Conflict is rampant in the galaxy not just between races but between similar groups. There are massive multi billion dollar mercenary groups that earn a ton for violence and murder.'

The difference is Shepard.

And then you respond: 'Here is the thing though the galaxy was already heading down the path to destruction before Shepard was even a factor in the grand scheme of the galaxy. The Quarians created unintentionally I might add an entire race of synthetic life. Their responds to it was sheer fear resulting in them attempting to kill them. Which kick started a war which left their planets damaged and their entire race pushed to the brink of extinction. And in responds to that the Council had all AI's peaceful or not rounded up and killed again out of sheer fear of a repeat happening.

How is that even relevant to the point I made? The Catalyst never evolved. It didn't pay attention to the things Shepard achieved.

Also: 'ow and why was peace gained between Geth and Quarians. Everyone is so fast to point it out but never examine the reasons and effects behind it. Without Reaper intervention the Quarians would have completely wiped out the Geth. Due to their completely unprovoked attack on Geth controlled space. If the Reapers didn't attempt to completely strip all Geth of any free will they would have effectively wiped out the Quarians. And Legion wouldn't have wanted to assist Shepard because there would be nothing wrong in what they are doing to it.'

Like I mentioned before: The Geth almost annihilated the Quarians in the war that led the Quarians to flee to their migrant fleet.

But more importantly, I don't really get why brought that up in the first place. I was only stating that synthesism is horrible.

And then I said: Yes, and that's where Shepard came in, and mostly fixed it.

And your response: But Shepard didn't fix anything. Building the Crucible and attaching it to the Citadel doesn't fix the many social and political issues in the galaxy. The issues with S vs O are far more then that.

Social and political issues? Since when is Shepard a politician or did he/she get a degree in social studies? Shepard fights an enemy threatening the galaxy and tries to get people together for a common cause, fixing conflicts if possible, that's it. The scope of the game is limited to what BW dictates, it's not solving every issue in the universe.

And then you state: Because 2 of the 4 do not directly address the social and economical problem between races.

The games were never about solving everything. They were about uniting people as much as you can as a player, to fight a bigger threat. I don't remember there being economical issues, and if there were, how are they important to the central plot?



And I guess we'll disagree on what Control means, and how it affects principals.