The Ending

Couldn't agree more. From a certain point of view, the entire problem with the ending is basically that we capitulate to the enemy who flat out tells us they're right (new "solution" aside they never admit fault) and we just have to go along with it. Not only are they letting us win, but we're also implictly condoning what they've done.

I wouldn't hold my breath for this thread remaining civil though. I suspect that as we speak certain forces are converging, eager to pounce on any attempt to critcize the "art". Just keep cool and remember: some battles aren't worth fighting.

Pretty much.

I mean it's clear that Bioware had no idea where they were going with their story. So to wrap it up, they should have kept it simple. Get the job done. Go home. With various stages of success.

It's not exactly original, but it's an ending lots of people like, and you don't have to sweat making the incomprehensible comprehensible.

There's a reason I like to play with John P's alternative ending mod on PC. It is anticlimactic sure, but it doesn't damage the narrative by projecting all of ME3's focus to some new revelation that isn't really ever the one thing that binds everything together the way it pretends to be. Instead it has the touching scene with Anderson and then as soon as Shepard faints the crucible fires its EMP.

I do love the idea of having a hard choice at the very end though, I gotta say. I would've just prefered something less crazy and world changing, like "fire Crucible or not" upon learning that it will disable all Mass Relays and making organic civilization rely solely on their own technologies, because that is a really daunting outcome but potentially it could work, but it would just set us back.

The thing I love about the ending, casting "organics vs synthetics" crap aside IS the theme of created and creators (contradicting myself here? Hear me out...) in that I think the Reapers are God -- they created our society for us and without them who knows if the galaxy would've ever been united because we wouldn't grow as synchronously, but the catch is that the world is built so that it leads to the death of us eventually and then repeats almost like the cycle of a human being, being born by unknown godly forces (not the mom, but men and consciousness entirely, I mean) and then we die (consciousness) once we become too old due to the way nature works.

So there's kind of a beauty to it but it's also incredibly cruel, but there's also a sense of evil to this especially because Reapers are machines and not natural gods, so I really like the theme of created rebelling against creators when you put it that way, because we are not satisfied with the "natural" order we've been granted, and by choosing either ending (let's assume they didn't pander to us with EC) we remove the entire system the Reapers created unless we pick Control and we rid the world of the artificial natural order that was made for us, the one we've used and the one Protheans used; the one thing that made this entire franchise so special -- the ending HAD to involve this somehow IMO -- and once that is gone (That is, the setting of Mass Effect essentially!) we will start to thrive on our own terms.

I also like the imagery of synthesis for what it's worth, just not any of the dialogue that explains it or is attributed to it or the visual representation of how it physically works.

But the problem was always how swept up you are in the story and especially its characters near the end and how much the emotional aspect matters to you. This high-brow style, high-level ending comes almost out of nowhere and it's just hard to relate to it at all when it comes right after so much emotional baggage of saving entire civilizations and kissing your romantic interest goodbye and making a hundred handshakes with all your friends. That is what the story ended up being about, and the ending just doesn't quite fit the established tone and it just falls flat, really.

Sure it's boring, but at least it doesn't ruin the reapers and the amazing way they portrayed them in the first game.

It's not boring

Yes they are said to be one thing then portrayed to be another.  Sovereign claims the Reapers are X but it's actions make it seem like it should be wearing a helmet for special needs people. Because the basis of the plot is Sovereign sent out signal to Keepers and they didn't respond thus the Reapers were not called in from dark space. How ever the smartest way to go about addressing that is to send an indoctrinated agent onto the Citadel to examine the signal relay and report back any changes.  Then to go back and fix it so that way Sovereign can remote trigger the Reaper invasion.

Instead Saren who is Sovereign's indoctrinated pawn. Spends the entire game traversing the galaxy looking for something that isn't needed in the first place to solve the problem. And the only reason it even becomes vaugly plot important is due to several face palming moments from Saren. The whole grand scheme of Sovereign the mighty infinite and all knowing Reaper is a basic full out attack to dock with Citadel and manually fix the signal so it could call in the Reapers. The very thing it could have done from the start with Saren.  Thus rending the entire game as pointless series of events that only happen because of the ungodly level of stupidity on Sovereign's part.

Like and think what you want to but if your gold standard for how the Reapers are portrayed then the bar is set pretty low and I can't see how you can say the Reapers were reduced in anyway. Because ME 1 you could play a Benny Hill track for Sovereign and it would fit surprising well for the Reaper's actions



AI's misinterpreting their programing....ok. Tell me how would you go about creating peace in the Middle East? How would you deal with all the social/economical issues that have existed in one form or the other between the various tribes/sects that have existed for hundreds of years creating very steep and strong divides? How would you be sure that groups like ISIS or Al Quada could never take root or grow in those areas again?

What monolithic forces that made us fight each other?

Geth Rebelled against Quarians without Reaper influence. Like wise the Quarians attacked the Geth without Reaper influence. The Reapers "sided" with the Geth in that for the same reason they targeted the isolated Batarians as their first planet of invasion. 

TIM was indoctrinated not literally everyone else who helped him build Cerberus up. They were well aware of what they were doing.  From the companies funding Cerberus to wealthy people who made private donations (Miranda's Father as example) to the soldiers, spies and scientist who signed up for them. Notibly that not only does Miranda jump ship but there is a mission were you can save  a group of former Cerberus scientists and their families.  With absolutely no indoctrination Miranda's father scarifies thousands of refugees turning them into husks all in the attempt to learn how to control the Reaper Signal.

Rachni War was started because Salarian team was opening relays, crashed on the Rachni home world, was killed by them. Then they reverse engineered the technology and started to expand. While there is a case that Reapers influenced the war there is no proof they were the only cause of it. We have no idea at what time the Rachni Queen in ME 1 was in her egg. Before, middle or end of the war. Given Sovereign's track record any attempt to manipulate the Rachni would only occur after they showed their capabilities to push back the rest of the galaxy. After all it is pretty meaningless to attempt to manipulate a race that gets it's collective rear handed to it by literally everyone else.

Post Rachni War the Krogans caused their own problems by over breeding and causing ecological disasters on perfectly fertile planets. Then trying to forcefully take over others resulting in another war.  And resulting in the genophage being released. And thousands of years later the same old grudges were held like cherished toys by Krogan, Turian, Salarian and Asari. Garrus practically spits in Wrex's face in any situation were they can interactively talk in ME1. And on Tuchunka in ME 2 there are plenty of ambient conversations talking about how they would like to get off Tuchunka and make the Salarians and Turians pay.

The Batarians still hate and distrust humans to the point they specifically target human colonies for slave raids because the Council played a bit of favoritism. To the point one of their race and apparently a fairly high level government official decided that dropping a massive asteroid on a fertile planet was a fair responds. And when the Reaper invasion is going on and everyone is being fucked left and right they still try to steal supplies from other groups. Requiring Shepard to threaten to kick the Batarians off the Citadel with their Specter authorization to get them to calm the hell down.

And did you not see the Salarian STG base? All those creatures kept in containment so they could be used to disrupt/kill anyone they thought might be troublesome without being able to trace it back to them. And the fact every race would have one of those. Hell the Specter's exist as one of those set ups.

Did you not pay attention to Thane's loyalty mission? If you played it or not doesn't matter it is still a canon event. The guy his son was going to kill was campaigning for mayor position. Or at least something similar to it on a strong anti human platform. And he was very popular enough that in the post mission debriefing the message will actually say that they (Cerberus) will actually start to work with the ass hat that you had to interrogate earlier to counter it.  Or how about Tali's Loyalty mission. You know were her father was bringing Geth online only to experiment on them and trying to find the best way to kill and or hack them. An action that were it any organic race would be considered a war crime.

To even vaugly hint at the concept that the Reapers are this monolithic force responsible for all conflict in the game's galaxy from behind the scenes simply doesn't hold a drop of water in that glass. Influenced a few events yes. But the singular cause of all events. No. We cause the conflict between each other simply by existing.

So you are saying that the Reapers being far beyond our comprehension, meaning, they just kill everyone because they can and possibly have fun with it (or are bored, whatever), is better than to give them a reason as to why do it?
For me this is boring. If there's no motive in the Reapers' doing, why have them at all? I can't stand opponents that are doing evil stuff just for the sake of being evil. And I also don't see why I wouldn't understand them, why they would be beyond comprehension when there's nothing to comprehend about them in the first place.

I happen to love the ending exactly because they gave the Reapers a motive for the harvest. And as evil as some see the Reapers, I don't see it. Judging from a neutral perspective, they don't believe they do something wrong with their harvest. It might be wrong from our perspective, but not from theirs. In ME2, Legion mentioned something similar with the heritics and the normal geth. Both factions are right, neither result in error. Or something along those lines... I don't have the exact quote right now.

But... as I used to say many times before on the old board already, to each their own. It's a matter of taste, and I'm sorry you didn't like the ending you got. I loved it and am happy that the Reapers are more than just a big unknown.
And I bet that had BW gone the way that the Reapers are never properly explained, players would've raged as well because they got no 'proper conclusion' as to what the Reapers truly were.

It's not the harvest itself why I find the Reapers to be evil.  Sure, we would naturally not like it, but suppose from their perspective harvesting races is for "the good of the galaxy".  The part where it gets evil is that the Reapers go out of their way to create terror.  They don't just harvest, but they turn people into monstrous zombies.  They turn us against one another.  They go out of their way to make things are terrifying as possible.  It's the reason why their methodology could never been seen as anything but evil.

From what we know, the Reapers were experimenting all this time.  Each cycle was an experiment, which is why they created the mass effect relays to speed them up.  They were biding time until the could find a real solution.  The Leviathan says they haven't completed their task, ergo there's no solution in place.  Simply put, the Reapers could have poisoned atmospheres causes races to weaken.  Then harvest them all in one fell swoop.  Sure, it wouldn't be pleasant, but it wouldn't be centuries of inflicting horror on these races.

It sort of goes along with the idea that synthetics can't be trusted.  However, that removes the idea that they were ancient godlike creatures instead of poorly programmed machines.

Yeah, and that's what made it less than stellar for me. Going from portraying them as ancient godlike beings to... just a bigger version of the Geth.