User blog comment:StagedDom19/Missing the Main Problem/@comment-2256917-20120710190737/@comment-2256917-20120712183749

LIkewise, I enjoy "architectonic" reflections upon plots, themes, series, structure, etc.

I understand what you're saying about biotics, and your persuade me that the Mordin-is-the-guy-we-need-to-combat-the-bio-tech-of-the-Collectors plot point is eroded throughout the game, and the biotic solution seems a convenient replacement. Between Horizon and the Collector base, Mordin should have been developing more anti-Collector-swarm tech--it occurs to me just now that it could even have been further "tested" on the Collector Ship. All of this would've required only a few additional lines of dialogue, that's it. Hm...

Theme: the theme of fighting in face of hopelessness is actually really good. It's hard to know Bioware's intention since it's a collaborative effort, but still, I like it. It also makes sense today since, in face of modern terrors (nuclear or WMD annihilation, mass terrorism, global warming, etc.) and 20th century goals/tyrannies (world emprire...), there is the long-sighted view of hopelessness or futility, which is reflected in lots of "recent" films and books about dystopias and mass-annihilations (e.g., Mass Effect itself!). Besides, "suicidal odds" was the phrase of the day in ME2. So, yes, in that, as you say, ME2 captured it well enough in its own right, anyway, but it was sort of squandered in the series finale.

Anyway, I'm not convinced that ME2 as it were ruined the franchise (and I do not think you're saying that anyway), but, still, its story does seem somewhat tangential to the indisputable theme "fight the cosmicallly powerful Reapers". But why? I guess because nowehere is it really made clear why the Collectors present any integral threat to the galaxy: to human colonists, sure, and to earth, by extension. But what if the Collectors actually succeeded, and they made a full-blown human Reaper by the time the rest of the Reapers arrived? Would this single, new Reaper have presented any new threat? Maybe because it would have opposable thumbs, and have upright posture? I guess we're supposed to agree with the Illusive Man, in that humans are being specifically targeted because of their central role in stopping Sovereign; and from here infer the calculation, "If the humans are severely severely weakened (or destroyed) in advance, then the rest of the galaxy will be easy pickings." Still, such "divide-and-conquer" strategy is what happens in ME3 anyway (and happened to the Prothean empire, according to Vigil).

By the way: what you thought-up for the 2nd game (granting the organics-vs-synthetics theme) actually reminds of many scenes in the 3rd game (Legion asking Tali, again, about the geth question regarding soul; Shep. struggling and reflecting at the Cerberus station; and others). It's as though someone(s) thought that more of that should have been in the second game--so why not add it in the third?