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MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#15751: Jan 17th 2023 at 7:52:10 AM

The topic ban on the ME 3 single player campaign ending has been lifted.

Macron's notes
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Resileafs I actually wanted to be Resileaf Since: Jan, 2019
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
#15753: Jan 17th 2023 at 7:55:50 AM

Dang, I guess we were all criminals for the last 600 pages.

shigmiya64 Somebody get this freaking duck away from me! from a settlement that needs our help, General Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
Somebody get this freaking duck away from me!
#15754: Jan 17th 2023 at 8:06:29 AM

I think Mass Effect 3's ending represents man's inhumanity to man

MightyKombat I am he as you are he as you are me and we are a from in mai mouffff (Ten years in the joint)
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are a
#15755: Jan 17th 2023 at 8:12:36 AM

And inhumanity to blue girls. And dinosaur people. And grumpy turtle men. And nomads in suits. And robots. And short people in suits. And whatever the vorcha are meant to be.

Are explosions science?
Eriorguez Since: Jun, 2009
#15756: Jan 17th 2023 at 8:13:43 AM

Space goblins that feel sorta therapsid-like.

FrozenWolf2 (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#15757: Jan 17th 2023 at 8:29:40 AM

and as we all know The Space Rodents of unusual size don't exist

This is an outrage against Luminara!
VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#15758: Jan 17th 2023 at 8:34:49 AM

I got bottom paged so I'll say this again here:

The Megaman X and Megaman Zero series did "Organics versus Synthetics" way better than what Mass Effect 3 did thanks to making that the point of their games as early as possible. And the sequel to those games, Megaman ZX, even has a much better take on and execution of the Synthesis ending than what M3 farted out.

Basically I'm not against "Organics versus Synthetics", I disliked how Bioware tried to cram it into the Mass Effect trilogy the way they did.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#15759: Jan 17th 2023 at 9:04:24 AM

Frankly, I feel like the Organics vs. Synthetics thing was done much-much better in...The Orville.

Part of what ruined the Geth plot for me was they kept retconning and retconning that the Geth were ever anything but innocent victims of Quarian aggression. The Kaylon, by contrast, are the exact same individuals as the Geth but their experience made then xenophobic and hateful.

And you know what? Mercer is the better paragon shepard for dealing with that hate.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from The Wiggle Room (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#15760: Jan 17th 2023 at 9:43:46 AM

> Dang, I guess we were all criminals for the last 600 pages.

edit banned is going to be full tonight!

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#15761: Jan 17th 2023 at 9:48:08 AM

Part of what ruined the Geth plot for me was they kept retconning and retconning that the Geth were ever anything but innocent victims of Quarian aggression. The Kaylon, by contrast, are the exact same individuals as the Geth but their experience made then xenophobic and hateful.

They didn't retcon anything about the Geth, ME 1 was very clear that the war was started by the Quarians when the Geth displayed sapience. That's why (as mentioned before) the Paragon option was to tell Tali that her people got what they deserved.

If anything ME 3 changed the plot by making the Quarians more sympathetic, before it was never anything other than the Quarians collectively trying to exterminate the geth. But 3 added some nuance by making the Quarians more realistically disunited, with a minority of dissenters who wanted to protect the Geth.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#15762: Jan 17th 2023 at 10:16:28 AM

[up]Yeah that. I think people keep saying the Geth were made more sympathetic because they just don't think about what Mass Effect 1 already said about the Geth conflict enough. All 3 did was give us a flashback corroborating it.

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#15763: Jan 17th 2023 at 10:18:56 AM

I suppose the question I would have asked Tali in 1 (I forget if this is actually an option) is “If they were showing signs of being sentient beings, why not just treat them like sentient beings?”

Oh God! Natural light!
PRC4Eva Since: Jan, 2001
#15764: Jan 17th 2023 at 10:23:07 AM

Innocent victims of X aggression don't leave X with less than 5% of their population after a war of independence that kicked X off their homeworld, along with attacking any ships that enter their space. Imagine if the Americans had done that to the British, or the Koreans to the Japanese, or the Vietnamese to the French.

Honestly, the more the sequels tried to hammer me over the head with "but ackshyually the quarians were wrong", the more it causes me to double down on on the opposite position. At the end of the day, all the quarians wanted to do was to turn off the machines they created after said machines exhibited unexpected behavior. I see no reason how that's any different from Microsoft taking Tay offline after it learned all the wrong things. Does Microsoft need to be expelled from Seattle for this heinous crime?

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#15765: Jan 17th 2023 at 10:30:17 AM

[up] Not quite the same scenario - the Geth and the Quarians shared the same homeworld, whereas the French, to pick one of those, had colonized Vietnam from afar.

And there’s a world of difference between “My computer shit itself, time to toss it in the trash” and “We accidentally created sentient beings, better get rid of them before the Council gets mad at us for keeping slaves.”

Oh God! Natural light!
Pokesamus Since: Aug, 2016
#15766: Jan 17th 2023 at 10:31:37 AM

I see no reason how that's any different from Microsoft taking Tay offline after it learned all the wrong things.

It’s this little thing called sentience and the right to live.

Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#15767: Jan 17th 2023 at 10:50:45 AM

And also, the Geth were learning about their mistakes after the deed was done and deeply regretted it.

The Quarians (at least the majority of them) didn't do that, they are all for repeating the past.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#15768: Jan 17th 2023 at 11:22:01 AM

Innocent victims of X aggression don't leave X with less than 5% of their population after a war of independence that kicked X off their homeworld, along with attacking any ships that enter their space. Imagine if the Americans had done that to the British, or the Koreans to the Japanese, or the Vietnamese to the French.

Innocent victims who have literally no collective sense of moral philosophy do.

If a child is attacked and has a weapon nearby they may use it, even if it's technically excessive. It's unreasonable to expect immature entities to react in a manner that reflects centuries if not longer of moral development. The Geth were not the Americans, they were not the Koreans, they were not any historical human nation. They were something entirely new that was pushed against a wall.

Of course they reacted in a manner that we wouldn't endorse, that's what happens when a new lifeform is faced with a threat. It overcorrects.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jan 17th 2023 at 11:23:22 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#15769: Jan 17th 2023 at 11:28:05 AM

I imagine one of the main reason why the Reaper's motivation was so disliked was because it felt extremely slapped on. Organic-Synthetic conflict was something that was only really a major thing with the geth and quarians, as well as a few minor quests in the first game. It would have been like trying to make the reapers harvest all life because of the rachni.

As for the immediate conversation, the geth really were never any more sympathetic than they originally were as much of the stuff from the third game had hints in the previous installments, such as the end of the geth invasion side missions in the first game and Legion mentioning the reason the Quarians panicked was because the Geth started asking if they had souls. I think the initial backlash against this supposed 'whitewashing" is because many players refused to see the geth as living things and placed the blame on them, regardless of what the quarians did.

[up] There's also the fact that the reason why humans find the killing of children so abhorrent is because we're biologically hardwired to nurture and protect them. An artificial intelligence wouldn't have this same "programming".

Edited by Kaiseror on Jan 17th 2023 at 1:30:25 PM

InkDagger Since: Jul, 2014
#15770: Jan 17th 2023 at 12:15:26 PM

A bit late to response here but I wanted to touch on it;

You are banking everything on a single Hail Mary without even knowing what it actually does. Your only evidence that it will help is the fact that previous Cycles all worked on it too.

And that's what cinches how stupid it is for me. They know it's an "I Win" button, but they don't know what the "I Win" button does. Ergo, why do they think it's an I Win button??? I cannot fathom how you could possibly know it's the big success answer to the problem, yet continuously not know *AT ALL* what it does until literally the last five seconds of the game. How are both of these true without contradiction??? How can you build and engineer something that you don't know what the end goal is?

A comedy film would ensure that this thing is actually the galaxy's largest cheese in a can.

I can only think of two Doyalist answers;

1) The writers themselves didn't know what it was. They needed an easy blanket win macguffin to throw at the conflict; to them Reapers are too big, badass, and scary to go down with anything of-this-universe (contrary to ME 1 and ME 2, but different topic). They wrote themselves into a corner and had to deus ex machina an answer; "We happened to find an Ultimate Weapon on Mars at just the right time". Because the writers don't know what the thing actually is or does, NONE of the plot can put any actual weight on The Crucible. It cannot be a major location. There cannot be conflict stemming from it. It needs to sit in a nebulous closet for the runtime or else spending more time around it makes it increasingly more obvious the writers don't know what it does.

2) The writers do know what it does, but knows the players will *hate* what it does. But since it's their vision for the story, they have to hide it until they absolutely cannot any more. If the game opened with "Hey, Shepard, this thing will let us control the Reapers! Isn't it so cool! Or we can merge all life in the galaxy into a synthetic hybrid *including with the Reapers*! Neat!", they'd probably sound really fucking nuts at best or like every other villain in the franchise at worst. The problems become a lot more obvious. Ergo, hide it as much as possible.

Casey Hudson ran his mouth implying the rather bitter tone of the ending was meant more as a lead into a ME 4 then wrapping up the Trilogy.

That's the other thing that has confused me nigh on a decade. Lead into ME 4? I... What vision did they have of this being an open ended sequel bait ending??? How does this lead into the next great adventure? Because with 3 (4) wildly different endings, I don't see how any of them would all lead into a single cohesive sequel entry.

It's something we've discussed with ME 5 on the horizon. I do not at all envy the writers who have to deal with such a massive and awful narrative fork. I don't understand how you could make these endings important enough to any sequel to justify their existence... but not important enough that they can't derail the narrative from each other.

As for "Why aren't squadmates in the dreams? Why child?", they needed a universal character to pile on all of the death and destruction. Because most characters have a nebulous state of Shrodinger's Cat, there was probably issue with ensuring every player had at least SOMEONE in the dead guilt ghost spot. They needed a lowest possible denominator and created one. And then piled on every lowest common denominator and easy "Please care about me as a tragically die" trope, starting with "Children are innocent and everyone should care about them at all costs". It's pure mechanical narrative function.

It's a child. It's a warzone. Death is tragic. All are true. I just hate the skeletal barebones execution of a plot function. Compare the child to... say, Sarah in The Last of Us. Same function but far far better execution. The narrative is also structured there to examine the dynamic of a parental figure to a child.

Don't ask me why they didn't just do the Virmire Sacrifice though? The one character *everyone* has dead. I guess maybe they felt they were hedging their bets too much on you feeling for something and a lot of opinions were "I killed Bland and Boring Kaidan or Space-Racist Ashley" and that would undercut the moment? But why not then include... colonists who go goo'd by Collectors or the Batarians that were massacred by Shepard's own hand and cast a wider net? What if it were your service history background for a shocking swerve into unexpected level territory?

Though that costs resources that ME 3 just didn't have after the development reboot. Variables are the point of RP Gs. Bread and butter. And the end should have the most reliance on varaibles and pay off. If you don't have the resources to pay off your variables, something has gone very very wrong in the production planning.

Edited by InkDagger on Jan 17th 2023 at 12:17:43 PM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#15771: Jan 17th 2023 at 12:36:53 PM

Innocent victims who have literally no collective sense of moral philosophy do.

Yes but the "most of the Quarians were genocided" doesn't get brought up in response.

The same argument could be used in Battlestar Galactica but you never lose the fact the majority of colonials were made into homeless refugees.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#15772: Jan 17th 2023 at 2:46:14 PM

Yes but the "most of the Quarians were genocided" doesn't get brought up in response.

Yeah, it would've been great if Quarian society hadn't tried to exterminate a newborn species.

If I were a Quarian civilian I'd really be pissed at the dipshits who started a horrifically unjust war and then got me killed.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#15773: Jan 17th 2023 at 3:36:11 PM

Yeah, it would've been great if Quarian society hadn't tried to exterminate a newborn species.

Let's just say I'd like some mention of the millions of dead newborns slain by the Geth and presumably billions of dead innocents gunned down by killbots. The Kaylon and Cylons killed a bunch of innocents (including children) and their story is stronger for acknowledging that regardless of how justified their war was.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
FrozenWolf2 (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#15774: Jan 17th 2023 at 4:50:10 PM

The problem with the Geth is the argument constantly keeps treating the Geth as though its only been a hundred years.

Like its just close enough to be in living memory not 300-400 years.

so the argument is "They were just Children then!" okay what about now

and the Narrative refuses to engage unless you just ignore it and then brings up their current transgressions after the fact.

Granted BW kinda had realized Legion couldn't keep doing Shepard commander you don't understand

For EVERY fucking negative thing the Geth had done.

It was the Heretics! Real geth are peaceful

Why you'd let them go that far

We didn't think they were doing anything wrong...

They killed millions and almost started The culling!

Shepard Commander You don't understand!

On The Geth's constant harassment of the Quarians when ever the find a planet they can colonize the Council won't boot them off, Tali mentions this in ME 2

Shepard Commander You Don't understand

The Geth constantly killing anyone coming into their territory regardless of their reasons

Shepard Commander You Don't understand!

Even if you want to use the Heretics as the easy wash your hands of it move... Legion's We didn't think they were wrong for pursuing their course of action paints the Geth in a very unflattering light

so of course the Narrative LASER focuses on BUT THEY WERE JUST CHILDREN! because bringing up what apathetic adults they've grown up into would kill the conflict.

_____

Look I'm tired of the But its Paragon to tell Tali off

cause you know telling a 16 year old every bad thing that happens to your race is Justified for the same Sin EVERYBODY in the Room will commit, The key difference is We got away with it.

and Shepard never makes that correlation cause that would require self awareness and Mass Effect is more on the self indulgent side of the writing scale then Dragon age

Dragon age would be kicking you in the Dick for the rest of the story

Shepard's genocidal choices are always painted as I did what I had to do, I couldn't take the risk

This is an outrage against Luminara!
RedHunter543 Crimson Paladin Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: Barbecuing
Crimson Paladin
#15775: Jan 17th 2023 at 4:54:00 PM

Dang, I feel like I'm in 2011 all over again.

"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"

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