Why the ending did not work (repost)

I thought that TIM used the information he got from Vendetta to somehow access Citadel Control. He could have slipped onto the Citadel. I'm betting no one aside from higher level members of Cerberus even know what Jack Harper looked like. Come to think of it, it must have been extremely easy for TIM to get onto the Citadel.   Anderson...different story, but TIM made some sense to me.

Somehow, someway, he used the information that Vendetta had on the Catalyst to contact the Reapers while he was on the Citadel. When the Reapers showed up, they probably started reintegration of their systems with the Citadel. Since the Protheans insured that the Keepers couldn't send out the Reaper Dinner Bell, the Reapers might have needed access to Citadel Control first.  Sovy tried with Saren and if it wasn't for those meddling kids Shepard and CO, Sovereign would have been able to fully take control.   TIM could have given them that access. Perhaps that's why the Reapers couldn't do it sooner.

I'm not going to claim that it's the truth, but it was my takeaway when I beat ME3 recently. It's all in my opinion and to each their own. That sequence didn't entirely make sense then nor does it now. <shrug>

With the resources the Reapers have? However many zillions of husks? Even if they couldn't slaughter everyone on the Citadel, they should have been able to put a dent in it.


I mean, the Reapers managed to effectively destroy the entire Batarian Hegemony in a matter of months 

That's pretty much what I thought as well.

It's a part of a greater whole.  Namely Bioware insisting that these terribad endings are actually good endings, an we simply "don't get it"

They had enough Reapers and husks to harvest Earth.  Remember that big battle a tthe end?

They couldn't spare some to harvest a few million mostly civilians on the Citadel?  I mean, that's straight out of the Evil Overlord List:

I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

<puts on mod hat>

I can see a "What makes something/someone evil" debate incoming. It's a good subject of discussion, but it's one that can make folks passionate. Please keep it civil. Attack the words, not the poster.

Thanks.

I'm coming in as a poster, not as a mod.

The reason why Synthesis ulitmately sits poorly with me isn't just because of the thinly explained "space magic" that makes that work. I mean, yeah, it's silly. However, this is the same series that had a mind-controlling plant in the very first game. I think silly was reached pretty early on.

No, it's because of the implication that peace will rule and that the biggest wars won't be fought. The idea being that, because synths and organics understand each other, things will be okay. I disagree 100%. Having an understanding between the two types of people will not change mortal nature.

Take the Yagh, for example. So brutal that they slayed the contact teams from the Council, shown to be smart enough to have one become the Shadow Broker, and they are a pre-spaceflight race. Does the game really expect me to believe that they will somehow become better with this newfound tech in their DNA? That it will change the fact that they are considered probably one of the most barbaric and bloody races in the series?

Nice try, but I smell bullshit.

My rather mediocre mental capacity just doesn't cut it when trying to understand Synthesis and how it would happen.

The catalyst said something along the lines that every living thing's DNA would be altered to achieve synthesis. That's fine, but changing DNA can't produce synthetic implants - if said implants grew from the altered being's own body, they wouldn't be synthetic anymore, right? What happens to a human or other creature as it grows from a toddler to an adult being? Do the implants grow along with it - which would make them organic again? Do they have to visit a LIMB clinic every year to get fitted with bigger cybernetic parts that match their body size as they grow up?

I don't get it at all.

I have gone into this in considerable detail in my Synthesis compendium thread.

I think the "new DNA" is a metaphor. The problem is, the only way I can see to make people's natural bodies produce implants with their built-in biochemistry is to replace DNA by something better. That, however, would mean that the whole system for producing biochemical compounds would have to change as well. Synthesis would have to create a whole new biochemistry of life. While that's not completely unimaginable, it is a bit much to accept - it wouldn't be so much a change but rather a redesign from scratch.

Instead, I think that Synthesis will give everyone synthetic symbiotes which they will carry permanently in their bodies - similar to how some bacteria act as symbiotes without which a human body wouldn't work. These can be controlled to produce actual implants. The ability to control them has to be learned. Children are born with symbiotes inherited by the mother, and while growing up they learn to do something useful with them - or not.

I think my interpretation has several advantages:
(1) It is more plausible
(2) It means people's natural biochemistry isn't changed. Synthesis just adds things.
(3) It gives individuals more control about what they want to do with their bodies. Basically, you get more autonomy back for what Synthesis has taken from you by giving you these symbiotes against your will.


 

For that matter, how long are the drivers supported anyway?  

I'll re-phrase my last post... editing the text to how it should have been imo..

Javik: "At the end of the last cycle when the choice was made, an error was made in the assumption that life needs organics and synthetics to become one entity. Understanding others is a good thing, but when an organisms genetics are being hijacked by an AI's framework that in itself is a bad thing. The person choosing was lulled into the choice because it seemed the best choice as he was being bombarded by reaper indoctrination and pressured into a choice he was not in a fit state to make. He made the incorrect choice and doomed my people to the fate of enslavement and eventual destruction at the hands of the reapers. He chose Synthesis when he should have chosen to fight, this was a fight for the very survival of everyone and everything and at the final moment he buckled. The reapers convinced him and we all fell."
Shepard: "I think I know where this is going."
Javik: "The Crapalist then took action and seized all physical bodies in the galaxy. It could alter the genetic material at the deepest level using nanides. Don't forget the reapers work long term. Time is not important to them in the scheme of things. They are patient. In time, our offspring were molded into a slave race. Few organic traces were left. They were monsters. We ended up as monsters. "

Um, what? So, the Council teams didn't want to be slaves and they deserved to be slaughtered? Yeah, no. I can't see the reasonable logic in it. It wasn't "kicking a grandmother in the face," it was, "slavery or death." That's not a good example. It's no excuse to slaughter contact teams. This wasn't just once or twice.  I found them the most brutal and dangerous race in the series. Shame we only interacted with only one of them directly. I would have liked to see more of their actual culture in game.

We are pre-spaceflight. Right now, around us. ME:T is based upon our current future, using history from our time period in some case. You don't see most cultures demanding folks to become servants or die. That's extremely barbaric. My mind hasn't changed about the Yagh one bit.

I know what Synthesis might do. Smarter, faster, more adaptable. I do see your point. I still fail to see how increased intelligence and technology would change mortal nature. I could easily argue that such tech will eventually lead to increased war and bloodshed when the more brutal races show up. I'm enough of a cynic to where I can be a little bleak about human/mortal nature.

Here's my thing about the endings: I am not Shepard. Shepard is not me.

I say this because I've been expressing my views as as person and as a player. It's my own perception of the events and the message. That being said, my Shepards don't always think the way I do. My solider thought that the only way to stop the Reapers was to shoot the tube. She was exhausted, extremely hurt and wanted the damn babbling AI to shut up already. She was drained and felt that was the best way to go. Despite her pain about the fate of the geth and EDI.

My first Shepard wanted to do exactly what you are saying. Giving life in general more intelligence, power and understanding to create a new future. She was an Earthborn-War Hero that fell in love with Liara. She adored EDI, was amazed by the geth and believed in uniting the cosmos. All of that warm and fuzzy stuff. She jumped into the beam. That is not the only time I'm going to pick Synthesis either.

Me, as a person, doesn't see it that way. I find the idea a little disturbing to be honest. Giving someone more intelligence and capablities doesn't always make a better person. I have my reservations, as I've expressed in this thread. But again, I'm not Shepard. I've never been to space, nor been in war. I've never lost my family or have been the sole survivor of a terrorist attack (more or less.) I can't always approach the game based upon how I feel as a person. I approach the game to roleplay, to get myself into a different mindset. I actually have a Shepard planned that will go Synthesis, and I've got good RP reasons as to why.

Shoot, I recently read a very compelling thread that talked about why Control was a beneficial option. The folks in there having been giving their own POV about how the Shep-AI would remain stable and the galaxy is in much safer hands. Plus, waste not want not. The Reapers wrecked our planets, now Shep will happily pull their puppet strings and force them to rebuild what they destroyed.