Armored Core: For Answer Ending C Discussion

A while ago back on For Answer's YMMV page there was a Dark Messiah entry that argued some interesting points, but was deleted due to Natter about the implications what do you think about this argument tvtropes?

Here is the original text:

"* Dark Messiah - Possibly the player from For Answer in ending C. Although you go on to kill more people than any one person in history, but you are only killing all the people who live in the Cradles. In case you've forgotten who exactly lives on the Cradles, it was mostly just the Corrupt Corporate Executives who made up the League; AKA the bastards who were responsible for two awful wars that dismantled the nations of the world and made Earth into the awful state it is in both politically and ecologically; and all the rich snob friends of the League members. Sure, in the end, a lot of people die, but the people who lived in the polluted hellscape that was Earth are finally out from under the thumbs of the League and their wars for the resources of the Cradles, Earth's ecosystem may finally get the chance to heal its self up since Kojima Particle Weapons can't be used by the now dead League, and the future of mankind will almost certainly never see the rise of corrupt corporations with too much power ever again due to the injustices of the League."

edited 15th Oct '12 7:15:00 AM by ShimonSays

I feel like the Dark Messiah trope was more applicable as a whole to the ORCA ending. Sure, the Cradles go down anyway, but at least there was a reason behind it (the Cradles causing even more pollution and radiation poisoning). The C ending just seems to be killing people For the Evulz and not for any real higher goal.

Then again, the Protagonist's motivations in any AC are up to individual interpretation.

Ending C is pretty much just For the Evulz. The ORCA ending brings down the Cradles, too, but not in a way that guarantees the death of everyone aboard (there's a major difference between gliding down to a crash-landing and being blown out of the sky 7,000 feet up), and for the purpose of unblocking access to space (to ensure humanity's survival and future). Old King just ups and decides that killing 100 million people in a few minutes for its own sake is a good idea. The way he basically reacts to the massacre with just mild pleasure and amusement (and nothing else) is basically proof of that.

ORCA even states (publicly) that all of humanity must make horrible sacrifices to ensure humanity's future, and that the Necessary Evil situation arose because everyone is to blame in the first place. In other words, all humanity allowed the corporations to rise to power and desecrate the Earth; now the only way to survive is to sacrifice millions of lives to create that future (or rather, sacrifice millions instead of letting them slowly die in the near future from the spread of contamination to the skies).