You run in to the Illusive Man again, but he slips away (Kill him in DLC)
You run in to Jacob and Miranda and try to convince them to leave Cerberus. Jacobs joins you but Miranda is hesitant, and just when you think you got her, Liara shoots her in the back.
Mortin cures the genophage.
Wrex and Grunt show up, but Wrex dies and Grunt becomes leader of the Krogan.
Garrus becomes commander of C-Sec and makes his father proud.
Ashely/Kaiden replace Anderson on the council when Anderson dies in one final glorious battle on Earth
Joker brags about his iEDI
Tali is known as the hero of the Quarian for finally eliminating all the Geth with the help from Legion (DLC)
A cure for Thane is found, but he dies saving Jack from Cerberus
You and Liara make blue alien babies and cruise the galaxy in the Normandy (there is also a three-way with Kelly)
heh, I'll think of some other things for the other squad mates sometime
Based on my play-through you were correct on exactly none of those.
1. Only encountered TIM at the end at which point he killed himself. 2. Jacob and Miranda left Cerberus on their own. Liara never even met Miranda. 3. Modin* would have cured the genophage had I not shot him. 4. Wrex has been dead since half way through ME1 and Grunt was never a Krogan leader. 5. Garrus don't give a fuck about C-Sec. 6. Anderson was never appointed to the council in the first place and neither was Ashley. 7. Joker wants robo-babies or some shit but I wouldn't say he brags about it. 8. Tali helped unite the Geth and Quarians. 9. Thane got stabbed. Jack was nowhere near him. 10. Liara is forever alone and Kelly is so dead it's not even funny. 11. Nope
He died but nothing about him being on the council was right. I'll give you half a right for calling Anderson's death if you want. (Unless indoctrination theory). Not sure what you mean by iEdi but I don't remember him saying anything like "hey check out how awesome my "something related to EDI" is"
Yeah, I'm only seeing two - Mordin cures the genophage, and Joker sexytimes with EDI.
Illusive Man doesn't slip away Jacob and Miranda both left Cerberus, neither come with you Grunt doesn't lead anything Garrus /quit C-Sec Nobody replaces anybody on the council, and Anderson doesn't die on Earth, if we're being technical I don't really know about the Tali and the geth one; I know she kills herself if you save the geth and aren't pro enough to talk her out of it, but I don't know about the other side Thane dies incredibly sadly Liara is an on-again-off-again bitch that asks if you want to stay together when you meet in the beginning, then ignores you until the end, when she acts like you're just friends.
All solid predictions, but I am interested in your fourth - are you calling the Anderson and Tali ones correct?
You run in to the Illusive Man again, but he slips away (Kill him in DLC)
You run in to Jacob and Miranda and try to convince them to leave Cerberus. Jacobs joins you but Miranda is hesitant, and just when you think you got her, Liara shoots her in the back.
Mortin cures the genophage.
Wrex and Grunt show up, but Wrex dies and Grunt becomes leader of the Krogan.
Garrus becomes commander of C-Sec and makes his father proud.
Ashely/Kaiden replace Anderson on the council when Anderson dies in one final glorious battle on Earth
Joker brags about his iEDI
Tali is known as the hero of the Quarian for finally eliminating all the Geth with the help from Legion (DLC)
A cure for Thane is found, but he dies saving Jack from Cerberus
You and Liara make blue alien babies and cruise the galaxy in the Normandy (there is also a three-way with Kelly)
heh, I'll think of some other things for the other squad mates sometime
Matt, there is a known bug with the Liara LI storyline in which she forgets all about LotSB rekindled romance. Also, Tali doesn't kill herself (or even try) if your Reputation is high enough. Legion sacrifices himself Grunt leads a pack of commandos when you meet the Rachni Queen again
I think the indoctrination theory is true, and as a result of the fan outrage, the first DLC to be released will be a free epilogue with 3-5 hours of content.
*I* really hope that "Man, we got you guys good. It was indoctrination, guys. Check out these threads." DLC was all part of the plan and is explained in April.
I cannot possibly imagine that if it was really indoctrination, they will charge for the remainder of the story. I CAN imagine that if it wasn't. I guess we'll see, but I'm really gunning for the "my God, they're bloody geniuses" angle here.
I recently spent more time thinking about this whole ending thing and have come to this characteristically sarcastic conclusion:
After three games and more than 90 hours of a grand narrative, convincing characters and superb writing, the only logical explanation for the last 30 minutes must be incompetency. Nothing else could be the truth.
Some time ago there was a thread on (I think) Kotaku that was supposedly made by a writer for Bioware who claimed that the last part of the game was written solely by Casey Hudson and one other high level member of Bioware with no imput from any other writers. It was a rather detailed and believable complaint about the writer's problems with the way it happened and what resulted from that meeting. The thread was deleted a day or two after it showed up. Was it deleted for being created by a troll or deleted to save said writer's job? We may never know.
There was another such thread on the Penny Arcade forums. Essentially it boils down to the fact that someone said every other piece of writing was pushed through peer review for accuracy etc, but Casey took the ending and ran with it without any sort of review.
It wasn't a wholesale condemnation, but basically said Casey was too smart and thought everyone would "get it"...then went on to describe some of the most badass plans in history.
Edit: Apparently the "original" ending involved dark matter and how the Reapers were attempting to stop it from destroying things in the end...and you had to make that sort of choice.
Just finished ME3 and loved the ending. Skimmed this long thread, sure I've missed things.
Anyway, I picked synthesis. It's where the story was going for my Shep from the beginning. So, maybe that's why I have no problem with it. I've read this story before, but I like the way Mass Effect played it out.
That the above would repeat inevitably with every sufficiently advanced civilization is also a common plot. (BSG's "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.")
What made a nice spin for me in the Mass Effect universe, though, was the way they screwed with the scale of things. Every time the story gave you a perspective, you later learned it was wrong by another factor of 10 or 1000. Protheans were the precursors - but no, they were just the last cycle of who knows how many. There's Saren, and he's bad - but he's just a thrall to Sovereign. Sovereign's pretty nasty - but wait, he's just one of a horde waiting in dark space. Oh shi--
Here's a too-long-for-a-comment bit of fan fiction that explains why I loved the ending:
Well, the synthetics came to regret that decision. Maybe they were starved for innovative input after destroying their creators, maybe they learned empathy too late, whatever. The universe sucked for a few million years as they waited for life to reboot itself.
So, in the meantime, they decided: Never again. They would manage the continued existence of sentient organic life in the galaxy. And, they decided to do this by pruning off the advanced top end - both organics and their current round of synthetic creations - before things got unstable enough to risk permanent galactic extinction or sterilization. Kill a few billion periodically to save trillions in the future.
Now, the problem with this stable state is stagnation. Nothing ever progresses beyond the billion-year-old peak of development that the Reaper synthetics represent. On and on until the heat death of the universe. But, as fearfully awesome as they are, they'll never get any more interesting. They'll never leave to explore other galaxies or check out neighboring universe branes or whatever.
So, without a stabilizing force, life in the galaxy (ie. chaos) would recreate the conditions to self-sterilize by way of their creations. But, with a too-successful stabilizing force (ie. order), nothing ever progresses.
Choose to destroy or control the Reapers, and you've probably just started the clock again on galactic sterilization.
But, consider synthesis. Find a way to combine the creative organic with the patient synthetic. Keep the organics from burning themselves out, but harness the innovation and progress as a slow burn. Imagine developments more awesome than Reapers, rebuilding not only all the Mass Relays that were blown out, but inventing more impressive ways to defeat space and time. Maybe the next level doesn't even need Mass Relays and new intelligent vessels could create cross-galaxy conduits. Adventure!
Anyway, if you made it to the end here, thanks for reading my rambling. Now I go to bed.
So, you say Saren is bad, and then you pick Synergy, the exact same thing he was trying to do...
TL;DR: Saren was a punk, and got punked. Shepard changed the Reapers' minds about organics by getting the galaxy together and shoving Crucible straight up their Citadel ass.
I think synthesis is what Saren wanted to achieve, but he failed. He wasn't strong enough, was too single-minded, didn't value life in general, and was very speciesist where he did. He never convinced the Reapers that his cycle of organic life was anything special. So they just smiled and nodded and indoctrinated him into the tool they needed to wrap things up for the next go around.
Shepard, on the other hand - at least mine, anyway - managed to: Unite an entire galaxy of organics against the Reapers, something even Javik admitted had never happened before. He ended centuries' old wars, made the Genophage cure happen, and brought a mini-synthesis to the Geth and Quarian. He never submitted to the Reapers, and proved that he was slowly but surely learning how to destroy them, even if it was one at a time.
Like the glowy kid said, old solutions wouldn't work any more - Shepard had convinced them through his actions. The last cycle had almost gotten the best of them, and now the current one had thanks to Shepard. If they retreated and tried again to maintained status quo, then the next cycle would have found Liara's beacons with the legend of Shepard and really beaten the crap out of them.
So, unlike Saren, Shepard was the real deal and came as a complete surprise to the Reapers. Sure, what he managed to do was to cap off millions of years of effort across cycle after cycle of failed organic civilizations - but he, unlike Saren, actually did it.
Comments
if you did the Zaeed loyalty mission in ME2, you'll notice the planet has 2 moons and lush jungle
1. Only encountered TIM at the end at which point he killed himself.
2. Jacob and Miranda left Cerberus on their own. Liara never even met Miranda.
3. Modin* would have cured the genophage had I not shot him.
4. Wrex has been dead since half way through ME1 and Grunt was never a Krogan leader.
5. Garrus don't give a fuck about C-Sec.
6. Anderson was never appointed to the council in the first place and neither was Ashley.
7. Joker wants robo-babies or some shit but I wouldn't say he brags about it.
8. Tali helped unite the Geth and Quarians.
9. Thane got stabbed. Jack was nowhere near him.
10. Liara is forever alone and Kelly is so dead it's not even funny.
11. Nope
Hiding things is not bragging about them. Also, how did they get Shepard to look up and read the text?
Illusive Man doesn't slip away
Jacob and Miranda both left Cerberus, neither come with you
Grunt doesn't lead anything
Garrus /quit C-Sec
Nobody replaces anybody on the council, and Anderson doesn't die on Earth, if we're being technical
I don't really know about the Tali and the geth one; I know she kills herself if you save the geth and aren't pro enough to talk her out of it, but I don't know about the other side
Thane dies incredibly sadly
Liara is an on-again-off-again bitch that asks if you want to stay together when you meet in the beginning, then ignores you until the end, when she acts like you're just friends.
All solid predictions, but I am interested in your fourth - are you calling the Anderson and Tali ones correct?
Also, Tali doesn't kill herself (or even try) if your Reputation is high enough. Legion sacrifices himself
Grunt leads a pack of commandos when you meet the Rachni Queen again
I WAS TOTALLY RIGHT
Oh man I knew it! There IS a Reaper on Earth!
back on topic.
where do we think bioware is taking the game from here?
I cannot possibly imagine that if it was really indoctrination, they will charge for the remainder of the story. I CAN imagine that if it wasn't. I guess we'll see, but I'm really gunning for the "my God, they're bloody geniuses" angle here.
It would give me the warm fuzzies inside and shut *everybody* up.
After three games and more than 90 hours of a grand narrative, convincing characters and superb writing, the only logical explanation for the last 30 minutes must be incompetency. Nothing else could be the truth.
It wasn't a wholesale condemnation, but basically said Casey was too smart and thought everyone would "get it"...then went on to describe some of the most badass plans in history.
Edit: Apparently the "original" ending involved dark matter and how the Reapers were attempting to stop it from destroying things in the end...and you had to make that sort of choice.
Anyway, I picked synthesis. It's where the story was going for my Shep from the beginning. So, maybe that's why I have no problem with it. I've read this story before, but I like the way Mass Effect played it out.
Creations destroying their creators is an old scifi standby. (See also: BSG, Planet of the Apes, Frankenstein)
Creations stepping in and doing nasty things in the name of what's best for the creators at a species level is another well-used trope. (See also: Asimov's Robot stories)
That the above would repeat inevitably with every sufficiently advanced civilization is also a common plot. (BSG's "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.")
What made a nice spin for me in the Mass Effect universe, though, was the way they screwed with the scale of things. Every time the story gave you a perspective, you later learned it was wrong by another factor of 10 or 1000. Protheans were the precursors - but no, they were just the last cycle of who knows how many. There's Saren, and he's bad - but he's just a thrall to Sovereign. Sovereign's pretty nasty - but wait, he's just one of a horde waiting in dark space. Oh shi--
Here's a too-long-for-a-comment bit of fan fiction that explains why I loved the ending:
Some organic intelligent species spawned synthetics, maybe billions of years ago. Presumably, they fell into conflict. I'd guess the synthetics won by sterilizing the galaxy. All development of life was pushed back to square one with randomly combining amino acids.
Well, the synthetics came to regret that decision. Maybe they were starved for innovative input after destroying their creators, maybe they learned empathy too late, whatever. The universe sucked for a few million years as they waited for life to reboot itself.
So, in the meantime, they decided: Never again. They would manage the continued existence of sentient organic life in the galaxy. And, they decided to do this by pruning off the advanced top end - both organics and their current round of synthetic creations - before things got unstable enough to risk permanent galactic extinction or sterilization. Kill a few billion periodically to save trillions in the future.
Now, the problem with this stable state is stagnation. Nothing ever progresses beyond the billion-year-old peak of development that the Reaper synthetics represent. On and on until the heat death of the universe. But, as fearfully awesome as they are, they'll never get any more interesting. They'll never leave to explore other galaxies or check out neighboring universe branes or whatever.
So, without a stabilizing force, life in the galaxy (ie. chaos) would recreate the conditions to self-sterilize by way of their creations. But, with a too-successful stabilizing force (ie. order), nothing ever progresses.
Choose to destroy or control the Reapers, and you've probably just started the clock again on galactic sterilization.
But, consider synthesis. Find a way to combine the creative organic with the patient synthetic. Keep the organics from burning themselves out, but harness the innovation and progress as a slow burn. Imagine developments more awesome than Reapers, rebuilding not only all the Mass Relays that were blown out, but inventing more impressive ways to defeat space and time. Maybe the next level doesn't even need Mass Relays and new intelligent vessels could create cross-galaxy conduits. Adventure!
Anyway, if you made it to the end here, thanks for reading my rambling. Now I go to bed.
I think synthesis is what Saren wanted to achieve, but he failed. He wasn't strong enough, was too single-minded, didn't value life in general, and was very speciesist where he did. He never convinced the Reapers that his cycle of organic life was anything special. So they just smiled and nodded and indoctrinated him into the tool they needed to wrap things up for the next go around.
Shepard, on the other hand - at least mine, anyway - managed to: Unite an entire galaxy of organics against the Reapers, something even Javik admitted had never happened before. He ended centuries' old wars, made the Genophage cure happen, and brought a mini-synthesis to the Geth and Quarian. He never submitted to the Reapers, and proved that he was slowly but surely learning how to destroy them, even if it was one at a time.
Like the glowy kid said, old solutions wouldn't work any more - Shepard had convinced them through his actions. The last cycle had almost gotten the best of them, and now the current one had thanks to Shepard. If they retreated and tried again to maintained status quo, then the next cycle would have found Liara's beacons with the legend of Shepard and really beaten the crap out of them.
So, unlike Saren, Shepard was the real deal and came as a complete surprise to the Reapers. Sure, what he managed to do was to cap off millions of years of effort across cycle after cycle of failed organic civilizations - but he, unlike Saren, actually did it.