misfit119 said:This was a confusing read. It seems to drift a bit but I think I get what you were going for. If I misconstrued something feel free to correct me, good sir! It's debating about video games, nothing to be taken too seriously.
That said I respectfully disagree. Let me explain why ME3 actually ruined my ability to look back and think of the journey as anything other than sour fruit at this point.
I didn't expect the game to be tailored to my save file. I didn't expect every decision to from ME1 down to have an impact on ME3's ending. What I overall did want was a story that actually made sense when taken as a narrative whole. Looking back at the games from the start you can see that the whole "Organics will always be destroyed by their Synthetic creations" theme does run through the games. Notably in the Geth. They were a huge threat in the first game, then in the second game we learn that they could easily turn to servants of the Reaper's again and become a galactic threat with them doing so in the third.
But when you actually look back at the story, knowing what you know by the end, it actively makes the journey even stupider. Every time you fought the Geth in ME1? The fault of the Reapers. Hostile Geth in ME2? Those same stupid idiots who worked for the Reapers. Fighting Geth in ME3? Hey, it's the Reaper's again! But wait, here comes Shep! He stops the Geth in the first one, can peacefully, or not, deal with them in the second and bring the entire war to a peaceful resolution in the third if he really tries. Organics will always be destroyed by their creations... unless someone actually intervenes and stops it.
Beyond a few AI in the first game most of the synthetics work just fine and are some of the nicest people in the series. At no point do we see synthetics run amok without something prompting it. The narrative of the games just doesn't support the Reaper's thesis. This is a massive problem for the entire premise of the series in retrospect.
Because of this the whole thing was, pardon my french, fucked once they decided on what the Reaper's whole schtick was. The whole organics must be murdered to preserve them is just so inanely overdone in fiction and stapling it on to the Reaper's just ruined them. The Reaper's should have a point. There should be some logic to them. There should be a cold, calculating logic to their actions if they're going to be these massive AI ark type entities. But since the games don't support their actions it makes them look like malfunctioning AI. It reduces the destroyers of galaxies to bad programming errors. It just... argh!
I actually bought the trilogy for PS3 and just can't bring myself to start playing it because, as a writer, this narrative clusterfuck just stops me dead in my tracks.
I also massively have a problem with how the endings are framed. Except Control. It makes complete and utter sense in the context of the narrative and fits the games.
* Destruction: Destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy. What? Why? Why not just destroy the Reapers? Why is this idiotic child telling me that I can either let the Reaper's do their thing or destroy ALL synthetic life in the galaxy? It always felt really forced and like the developers wanted to take the obvious choice and make it harder by saying "But if you destroy them you'll kill EDI and she's awesome!" That's some hack writing right there.
* Synthesis: Okay, this is the one that really always gets me frothing at the mouth. Shephard is choosing to make a change to the entire universe, at the prompting of the little idiot, that will alter the galaxy on a fundamental level. Without their permission. With no real knowledge of what it will do. All you get is a "It'll stop the cycle. Somehow. Shut up and kill yourself already." It's the laziest of writing and it does nothing to actually make this ending compelling beyond it being the hardest one to unlock.
Yes, this happens every time someone opens themselves up to debate on the endings, why do you ask?
The reapers do have a point though. They don't just obliterate everything once they feel it's been long enough. They have given each cycle of life a certain amount of time to create a society that The Reapers then judge and determine to eliminate it or not. In the scope of the series there has only been one decision made by the Reapers, that of elimination, but that does not mean that another outcome isn't possible.
The Reapers even left the Mass Effect relays for each civilization to use in the hopes that an intergalactic society could be created that was up to their standard.
As for the endings:
*Destruction: Destroying all synthetic life has an incredibly wide-ranging impact than destroying the Reapers. Since the geth, especially the rogue Geth, have such a close connection with the Reapers it would be reasonable to think that Reaper tech could live on through the Geth. Not to mention the Humans themselves have even sought to integrate Reaper tech into their own VI's (think the Rogue VI mission in ME2, I believe). In contrast, we have seen this time and again with the Reapers eliminating organic life time and again. As far as we know they failed at least once because the Prothean's managed to save some of their species. While it is an incomplete option given the game itself has already created room for error because a Prothean survived the Reapers, if this is the route you were going to choose you would absolutely need to eliminate all Synthetic life to cleanse whatever systems you had of any possible Reaper tech to prevent something like this from happening again.
*Synthesis: I do agree that this is the worst of the endings primarily because it pretty well equates to indoctrination. Or at least it's a gateway to such an event happening, and it would be a disaster for the entire universe.
*Control: Again also not a very good option. What makes you or anyone else think they are capable of controlling a Reaper? Look at what happened to Saren, he was a great Spectre and he thought he was working with the Reapers the whole time but that was clearly not the case. Again, in my mind this choice just equates to indoctrination.
*Refusal: The added choice. Personally, this is the choice I made (after the DLC came out) which agreed with the Shep I played throughout all 3 of the games. Previously I had chosen destruction. This ending is much more in line with the history of the Mass Effect games up to that point. The cycle continues and eventually when enough information is discovered/built up throughout the cycles the Reapers are destroyed, knowing you had in large part to do with that.
I don't really understand why you keep referring to this "little idiot" sure it is a VI of a kid but he is far from an idiot. He is a representation of literally all the information all the cycles have built up over time.