Last edited by Knight of Heaven; October 06, 2012 at 06:42 PM.
I don't get the part where the Catalyst tells Shepard that he's not indoctrinated. I mean, Shepard has had more exposure to Reapers and Reaper tech than almost anyone, yet somehow he can't be manipulated.
Giant Space Cuttlefish who are the galaxy's apex predators are angry over the fact that their thrall races keep getting destroyed by AI of their own making. Rather than tell them to stop doing that, the Giant Space Cuttlefish who are the galaxy's apex predators also create an AI to help them figure out why AI rebel against their creators. To nobody's surprise, their AI also does. Somehow these Giant Space Cuttlefish who are the galaxy's apex predators get destroy by this AI who makes from them the first Reaper Harbinger. Question: what army did this AI use if he at that point did not yet have the Reapers? What army is strong enough to destroy the galaxy's apex predators who can control everybody's minds? Also why do synthetics rebel against organics? Everyone seems to insist that they do but after billions of cycles and trillions of years noone's any wiser and we still all agree that the better solution would've been a simple ban on AI development by the Leviathans.
A ban that would've been easy to enforce.
Because the Leviathans can control minds.
Fast forward trillions of years. Shepard meets the Catalyst who assumes the form of the dead kid from Earth. Can the Catalyst read Shepard's mind? If yes then is that how it beat the Leviathans? Question: why would the Leviathans create an AI with mind reading and possible mind-control capabilities if they know that AI are liable to rebel against their creators? Colossal stupidity. But we proceed. If the Catalyst can read Shepard's mind then how can Shepard believe that she still has free will? How can the player believe it? The Reaper Overlord is in her mind.
In her mind.
This makes everything the Reaper Overlord says very questionable. "Shepard I'm going to help you end this war, please kill yourself through a colour of your choosing."
Some voices insist that this is a sane and logical thing to do because Shepard was about to lose the war anyway. But Shepard is a military woman, or man if you like crappy voice acting, so why does Shepard not ask the fleet to focus fire on the Citadel and kill the Reaper Overlord? First question on my mind. Oh wait, the Citadel has plot armour, that's how it was. Ok so maybe that's not going to work then, so I guess she still has to leap to her death in a beam or die in an explosion she had no business being in, or fry her face while gripping power conduits. As she does any of these things I suppose she wishes she was still down on Earth fighting Reapers. Sure, she concedes, the London battle may have been boring as hell, may have been an unclimactic mess that had no business being the final act of a trilogy, but at least it all still made sense. Everyone had come up with a crappy plan to storm a beam rather than take the Normandy to Ilos to use the Conduit there and... no wait, nothing made sense.
Shepard kills herself because she can't handle the stupid anymore.
Reaper Overlord for some ridiculous reason turned out to be sincere and actually does end the war.
Mac Walters goes down in history as the biggest moron to ever write sci-fi.
Last edited by The Dude; October 08, 2012 at 04:20 AM.
Never thought about it, but this really would have been an awesome twist. It's a massive cliché ("The butler did it!"), but it would work a lot better than Starkid, because everyone at that point knows that "Avina" is all-around the Citadel. It would also get rid of the Catalyst obviously reading Shepards mind (no other reasonable way to come up with that precise kid as a visual form).
One major problem is that this would make the previous games' plot even less sensible if Catalyst had such a clear and extremely close connection to everything as the Avina avatar. It's already questionable why the Catalyst didn't intervene during ME1 and 2 (especially 1, though) for the benefit of the Reapers, or why that entire plot was even necessary. If the Catalyst then also had an avatar persona directly linked to basically everything around the Citadel, things would make even less sense, because that avatar gives it obviously immense potential to influence things through falsified information, misdirection etc. - nothing of which happened, although that worked against the Catalysts plans.
You know, I had completely forgotten about the Conduit.
Two possible explanations are that the Protheans, when they altered the Keepers, also inadvertently shackled Avina. Or that Avina is kept shackled between cycles to keep sentients from figuring out she's actually an AI , which would be a callback to how bad a job EDI did in faking a VI, and it's the Keepers that unshackle her.
FREE THE NIPPLE!!!
Hmm, the first explanation would fit rather well if the Keepers are to Catalyst what the Collectors are to Harbinger, i.e. there is a "Assuming direct control!" kind of connection. Given that Catalyst as an AI is compromised of changeable soft- and hardware, rather than gooified organics and their collective consciousness, changing the Keepers might just have unintentionally changed Catalyst as you propose.
The second explanation wouldn't work, though, I think.
Caution! Spoilers for Leviathan DLC ahead
Compared to the billion-year old Catalyst, EDI has only experienced self-awareness for round-about three years, and most of that time she was shackled.
Last edited by Tankfriend; October 08, 2012 at 09:05 AM.
Well I might be mistaken, but im pretty sure in ME1 they tell us that avina was created by the Asari, that were the first species to arrive in the Citadel in this cycle.
It was always a system built outside of the citadel base systems. There wasnt an avina in the time of the Protheans. Thats why Avina looks like an Asari.
But is a nice thought though.
Last edited by Knight of Heaven; October 07, 2012 at 01:53 PM.
Avina was made to look like an Asari. Other than that and her supposed general purpose as a tour guide and information terminal, we don't really know anything about her.
Even if Avina was designed by the Citadel species, though, it shouldn't be too difficult for a fully sentient AI to take over a simple VI and turn it into an extension of itself. As for Avina being built outside the Citadel structure: That might have been the case originally, but you're forgetting the Keepers. They have completely free reign over the Citadel interior, so it would be very easy for them to hook up Avina to the Citadel systems. People might wonder about this at first, but then rejoice when they find Avina (now Catalyst in disguise) to work more efficient than ever.
Wow I totally forgot about the Conduit. It should have been mentioned in ME3. If you could use the Conduit, you could avoid that last battle over Earth and save thousands of lives. They could have at least said the Reapers got to Ilos and destroyed it or something.
Why didn't you install Extended Cut before playing, Jin?
Well for months and months I kept seeing articles and posts and all this about how hated the ending was and it was extremely difficult for me, knowing that it would be months till I play, not to spoil it for me and find out wtf was going on. Then I read about a download that adds stuff to the ending. So I thought, well I have multiple Shepards I can play through with the original ending with one Shep and then play through with the extended cut with another Shep.
To be honest, though there are many holes and I don't particularly like the end it doesn't flat out ruin Mass Effect for me as it does for The Dude. It does make me sad, though, because I can't see any real continuation of the universe post ME3 whether it's about Shepard or not. And that saddens me. I really love the Mass Effect universe. I'm all for escapism and such, but I don't generally think to myself man I wish I lived in such a world, but with ME I do. Just because it's not too fantastical and is somewhat grounded yet so exciting. After three games and countless play-throughs I came to be very, very fond of some of the characters. I mean, it's the one series I could probably be considered a fan-boy lol. I loved the interactions between characters, I loved walking in on Garrus and Tali snugglin' up to get some play before the battle haha. I think the final game did a great job of capturing a lot of the emotions that I felt, but I do agree that the end was a let down.
Oh yes there is about skyrim and Oblivion and other games too.
jin The extended cut makes the ending a bit more plausible, the relays no longer blow up, there is cutscenes explaining what happen to the normandy just before Shepard enters the citadel. it makes it a bit better to swalow, also adds a new ending when you can refuse to everything catalyst has to say.
But the basic reasoning for the ending isnt erased.
The Conduit was a strange omission -- it was the main objective for most of the 1st game!
At the very least, the fleet at the end of MA3 could've sent a scouting ship to check if there was an entry into the citadel from space. Hell, why not throw Shepard into the beam from space instead of from the ground??
Yes! By far the best things to result out of the whole mess of MA3.
Even better than Marauder Shields....
Last edited by ivan_the_terrible; October 08, 2012 at 07:03 AM.
Last edited by Tankfriend; October 08, 2012 at 09:24 AM.
What'll happen soon is you'll either enjoy Mass Effect 3, warts and all or you'll just become bitter like me and The Dude, realise that there's more flaws then you may have originally realised at the time and then just not care about Mass Effect all that much anymore. I mean I pretty much haven't touched it since mid-March.
I dont know, shepard never stayed for long periods within range of Reaper tech, months for instance, that is what it usualy takes.I don't get the part where the Catalyst tells Shepard that he's not indoctrinated. I mean, Shepard has had more exposure to Reapers and Reaper tech than almost anyone, yet somehow he can't be manipulated.
To me the IT is nothing but a desperate wishfull thinking, of unhappy fans.