User blog comment:James12708/Possibility of a Mass Effect 4/@comment-5687135-20121031201025/@comment-5687135-20121101152523

Lily, look at Guerilla's response to understand constructive criticism. As for the refusal ending, Bioware also made it quite clear that they were happy with the original three choice ending they had originally. Then the fans stepped in. Bioware added an ending. They can still do the same thing. The Reapers couldn't be won with 'conventional' tactics. This does not mean they could not get desperate and use unconventional and whol extreme tactics to win. Ramming Reapers with Cruisers, detonating lost planets while Reapers were harvesting the population, or destroying some Mass Relays while Reapers were in the blast radius are just a few unconventional and controversial means of taking down the Reapers in unconventional means. But we're not discussing what Bioware will and won't do with ME3. We're disucssing th epossibilities of four. Take off your die-hard fan boy hat and enjoy imaginitive speculation. Get lost in the possibilities of "what if" without needing to pick at every detail. Just enjoy the creative process for what it is instead on trodding all over other people's musings.

Guerilla, I hadn't thought of the nanite thing. But I have to wonder if the races would settle for it. Here's a few thoughts on the standard races:

The salarians might be able to figure out a way to separate the technology from the organic safely if some so chose. While they have always relied on their intellect to survive, some may see synthesis as the ultimate embodiment of their cultures goals, while others see it as reaching the goal without the proper knowledge to wield it elswhere in the lives.

The Krogan might naturally purge themselves of the synthesis after a generation or two (they're supposed to be highly adaptable) whether they like the synthesis or not. One thing science fiction like to hammer away at is that technology, no matter how seemless or infinite in its knowledge and practice as it may be, can never truly cope with the free-thinking and living individuals. Working against the Krogan's natual ability to regenerate and adapt to new surroundings and toxic environments might actually be more than the synthetic pieces can handle. Maybe make it 'some things are just too dang stubborn to improve' sort of thing?

I can the the Quarians being pretty heavily divided on whether the forced synthesis is a good thing or not. We've seen plenty of Quarians who wanted the Geth destroyed. Some wanted the war to be over. Best case scenario after you free the Geth, you see Tali surprised at how much help they are. Some Quarians may see the synthesis as a blessing, a cure to their weaker immune systems. Others may see it as heresy, or the technic equivilant. After all, it's bad enough they gave the Geth free will, now they are forcibly fused with technology and are no better than the Geth they were just at war with. They may have lended their support to the Salarians who were researching a way to end the synthesis.

I think the Asari would find themselves with a huge culture shock when it comes to synthesis. After all, they were the cream of the crop before the synthesis. Now they’re just the same piece of bio-organic hardware as everyone else, just in a different shell. With synthesis, there’s nothing really stopping a Salarian from living just as long as an Asari or Krogan. The things that made the Asari special no longer matter. Even going to different species to get different pieces of DNA matters very little in the grand scheme of things since the synthesis has bypassed the entire evolution of their species and brought them to a forced conclusion. I don’t see this sitting well with some who believe their species should evolve the way it was meant to. Others might see it as coming to the same eventual end by bypassing all the messy parts in the middle.

Humans, as always, are going to be your mixed bag of opinions. Some will see it as an enhancement. Others will see it as religious blasphemy (my god didn’t make me this way). Others might believe it is a Reaper attack and either kill themselves or others in an attempt to fight back. Humans are the one race in the ME galaxy that still haven’t gotten themselves together culturally. The fallout from synthesis would be too crazy to really get into in a single post.

Turians are the one race I don’t see too much division on the subject of synthesis. A small portion might welcome it as it makes them better soldiers, but on the whole I think Turians would be wary about it. After all, they’ve been fighting husks, brutes, banshees and all sorts of amalgamations of the prominent races. Who’s to say this isn’t some WMD that has the immediate effect of fusing them with technology that the Reapers or someone else can then slowly, subtly take control over. They’re a very cautious, pragmatic, and look-before-you-leap species and there was nothing to warn them about this sudden change.

The star child believed synthesis to be the best solution. There would be peace. That's a presumptive statement. It can't say how organics would react to suddenly and focibly being fused with technology. Heck, it's logic made it turn against its creators and culled countless galactic civilizations. I don't think it can predict the different reactions of such diverse races as the ones we see in Mass Effect in such a simple statement. I think if ME4 were to take place a few centuries in the future you would still find some pure organics (even if you chose Synthesis) because while that may have been Shepard's choice, it wasn't everyone else's and they worked to undo what had been done.