ya know.... i would call Mass Effect the best story in existence if any of that was true and was made clear in the game itself

as it stands its just, to me, some angry fanboys WAY over-analyzing things


however, thats one well put together video and if THAT was the ending that shipped in the game that woulda been pretty awesome  

 

Agreed...although I would still like to know the fate of the earth. I don't feel like I "took earth back" as stated by the trailers.

 

I don't know, that video makes everything make so much sense. I mean, think about it.

Spoiler

Shepard disappears for 2 of the endings(i.e Indoctrinated). The Destroy ending, he appears on the ground, where you take the Reaper blast to the face. All the things add up. How the hell did Anderson get ahead of me, so many of those things that happened, I seriously questioned when I was playing. If TIM tried to take control, how could he still be alive? Then talk to me about it. I may not have gone as indepth of though as that video, but the things add up.

It has me convinced, I think that is what is really going on, and BW was expecting rage from fans. So, they hid the truth, in order to release more DLC. A clever plot...

 

I've been thinking about the ending, and here are my more complete thoughts.

Spoiler

So everyone runs to the citedal portal light, Shepard gets blasted, along with most other people, and with the reapers around, the ground assault is called off. Shepard is presumed to be dead, but Anderson, also injured, sees Shepard get up and he follows him in the light.

Shepard wakes up in that hallway of hell, Anderson came up a little farther ahead- closer to the platform, which he explains to Shepard. Shepard, walking ahead, acknowledges seeing what Anderson saw, so we know there didn't need to be multiple entrances to that platform.

During the time Shepard was thought dead, or while he was out on the citadel, the Normany, in Stealth mode, makes a pickup of the crew where they fell back to.

Back on the citadel, the whole shepard/anderson/Illusive man thing plays out. The Crucible attaches to the citadel, nothing happens. Shepard is hurt bad, Hackett calls, Shepard passes out. The AI that controls the reapers, which was brought up earlier in the game by the Prothean beacon on Thessius, lifts Shepard up to the Crucible. Using whatever power it has over organics and synthetics, he makes sure Shepard stays alive to talk to him. He takes the form of the child that's been haunting Shepards mind to connect better to him. He explains in not so clear terms that the crucible was a safegaurd- if organics were able to build it and connect it to the citedal, then he knows his reaper plan of stopping chaos while conserving organics through making them into a reaper will no longer work. So yes, he designed the crucible to have the ability to change the course of the galaxy. Shepard is deemed worthy of making the choice, and so he does.

The Normandy in the meantime, being controlled by EDI and Jeff, knows shits going down and when the crucible begins powering up, they decide to hightail it through the relay since it's possible that whatever destroys the reapers would destroy other synthetics. The fourthcoming explosion was designed by the AI controlling the reapers to take out the mass relays as well, which were also created by him, so I'm sure he made it so they wouldn't destroy the systems they were in.

This is how I interpreted it. I really don't think it's a bad ending at all, though of course I would have liked to see more, so I do hope future DLC shows us more, but I don't want the story to change. I also know a lot of people are upset about how their choices didn't have much of an impact, but you know, I found most of the impact during the actual game of ME3. Who you had alive, who you treated badly, that all comes back around during the game, and it wasn't just saved for the finale. I was pretty satisfied with most of the answers, and everyone said their goodbyes BEFORE the final battle. The ony thing left were the reapers themselves. (ok, not every plot point from previous games was addressed but a lot were). By the end, the reapers were dealt with, and Earth was no longer at threat from them and was free of their grasp. The Sol System will be chaotic for a while, as will most other systems with no relays, but the Reapers were the point of the trilogy, and odds are, the galaxy was going to be changed. This trilogy is just not about what happens after the reapers are dealt with.

So... that's why I thought it was fine. If they want to explain things better then great, or show more scenes, then awesome. I really just don't want them to make it "happier" or actually alter the story.

 

That's pretty much exactly how I took it LP

May not be the best of endings but it works out fine enough for me. I don't really feel like there is a huge need to go back and rewrite the ending, BUT I do find the indoctrination theory to be pretty fascinating so if they decide to write that in with the dlc ill be fine with that too.

Its still a friggin epic game right to the end

 

Definitely epic the whole way through.

Spoiler

As far as indoctrination goes, I could see the child being a representation of Shepard resisting it, or the form it manifests in Shepard, and the Spirit child at the end being the AI's final attempt at fully indoctrinating him. If they decide that's what it was, I would still like the choice you make to still be real. So if the indoctrination works, Shepard would choose control or synthesize, while if you destroy then you resisted. I'm not keen on the theory that "none of it is real after he collapses".

 

Spoiler

If indoctrination is true, and I'm convinced it is, I like how ME3 ends with Shepard waking up taking a breath...fast forward to the scene of the old man and the kid asks “tell me another story about the Shepard”. The old man reply’s with “Its getting late, but ok. One more story.” I'd like to think his next story is about the events of ME4

 

I wish some of the little stuff had been brought up. Like the mysterious skull in ME1 (was it a skull from the

Spoiler

mounts you can get for the krogan?)

. The Prothean Relic from ME1 (giant chrome sphere) and the smaller version you can get in ME2.

I really wish Wrex was part of the squad too. I wanted to see if the theory that Aria T'Loak was the

Spoiler

merc Aleena from Wrex's story in ME1

.

 

Oy vey...

 

Hey, i'm planning to get two on PS3, and i'm wondering if that pre-comic is a code or on the disk? I'm not sure if i'll be forced to get it new.

 

So I also just finished it today. The Indoctrination video is very interesting, unfortunately it sounds too complicated (i.e. too smartly thought through) to be truth. Sometimes the fans put far too much thought into it than writers.

Spoiler

When I got to the final choice I stood there and had to think for a good minute or two...I had no idea which was the "right, good, paragon" choice. In my head i saw the left "control" choice was colored blue, so I went that way. After the ending I watched the other endings.

While none of the endings stood out as "Good", the one thing that annoyed me was that IN ALL ENDINGS the Mass Effect Relay system is completely destroyed. No matter what you do, or have done, the galaxy is still screwed. So happy that the Krogan/Turians/Salarians and the Quarians/Geth were able to put aside their differences...cause that huge armada of all of them that came to Earth will be living together forever now. They can't go home.

I'm not marching with torch and pitchfork...but I was very unsatisfied with the ending.

Also didn't realize until the credits rolled and seeing voice credits that I never actually got the Kisume DLC...so she's not in my universe. Where did she play in ME3? Did I play a mission where she was replaced with someone new?

 

Spoiler

About Kasumi, I don't think she would have been replaced with anyone. There's a small side mission on the citadel with her and a Spectre Salarian, but outside that she only goes on to the crucible. She's not involved with any of the main missions.

 

The universe isn't screwed after ME3, its just given a chance to rebuild itself without the artificial advantages the Mass Relays brought to the table.

It also doesn't allow the Krogan to go nuts again for a while. (assuming you did everything you could for them).

Plus scientists understand Mass Relay technology, if the Protheans built the conduit, how long will it take for another race (ie the Asari) to rebuild the network? I'm guessing well within Liara's lifetime.

Part of me is sad about Bioware being forced to create a new ending. I must be one of the few people who came away from ME satisfied.

 

Well, I'm with you. *possible spoiler if you haven't beaten it*I also agree that with the Quarians, some Salarians, Turians, Asari, and humans, a way to travel from system to system can be created without relays.

 

about the ending theory:

Spoiler

The best way to understand the indoctrination theory isn't to watch a video, but read this compiled post at the bioware forums. There's a lot of visual evidence that supports it, such as the eyes at the end, which there's no explanation for outside of the indoctrination theory.

 

see what you wanna see?

*shrug*

i dunno. until Bioware steps up and says "THIS IS WHAT THE ENDING MEANS. THIS IS WHAT WE WERE GOING FOR" all this indoctrination stuff is just a bunch of fanboys putting a square block through a round hole trying to make sense of their nerdrage

i'm not denying there's some holes in the ending but DAMN is that a lot of stuff we're just supposed to "know" and surmise based on what was presented in the shipped game [dlc or no]. All this making sense of the theories just sounds like way too much to have been done on purpose   Credit where credits due, but Bioware aint THAT good xD

 

Let's call Mass Effect 3 for what it is a poorly executed series finale. That in all rights deserves a redux.

 

Let's just say this- I take the ending for what it is on the surface, for better or worse. If you want to believe a different theory out there that makes you like it more, then that's fine- but if you feel that way, would you really want Bioware to come out and explain it? Any book or movie and some games that have vague parts or endings generally works out better when you DON'T have the straight up answer explained to you by the author/director. It's left to your imagination, and that's probably more fun then them saying "no, you're wrong, it's actually this."

 

There's a line between cleverly ambiguous and mysterious and deliberately obtuse and non-sensical. It would seem for most of the players, ME3's endings landed squarely in option 2.

Power to you for being able to penetrate whatever layers of what I percieve to be preposterous bullshit that covered the endings but I ultimately thought it was a pissweak way to end a series that has been the best sci-fi in recent memory.

There's also been some wank at the Escapist about this being a violation of their artistic integrity in allowing the fans to rewrite the ending: this is a flaming pile of rubbish. I don't want to rewrite the ending, I'm asking that their paid and professional writers go back and fix the mess two of their less intelligent colleagues left them and us with. In fact when I read that post that said the ending was not peer reviewed like everything else; I believe it.