Forum:Is it just me or has ME1 stopped to make sense given the ME3 outcome?

--Bitter arron (talk) 22:29, April 22, 2013 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole plot of ME1 has now stopped making sense after we know what happens in ME3. To be honest ME1 already made less sense after ME2, but I could live with that. Let me explain what I mean:

In ME1 we learn that Sovereign was left behind to tell his fellow Reapers to come out of dark space to annihilate everyone once they reach a certain level of evolution. But to do that he needed the Citadel to send this signal.

Question 1) Why does Sovereign need the Citadel? Answer: How do the Reapers get to the Milky Way? The use the Mass Relays. Why can't Sovereign just use the Mass Relays himself to get back and tell his fellow Reapers? But let's just say he was too lazy and wanted to call them instead. Question 2) If the Catalyst controls all Reapers, as it says, why all the fuss with Saren and ? Answer: Either just tell Sovereign to tell the other Reapers, or, since ALL Reapers are controlled by the Catalyst, just tell them to come back. But let's just say the Protheans really found a way to outsmart the Catalyst and disable any signals to the Reapers...

Question 3) Since both Sovereign and Catalyst failed and were not able to send a signal to the other Reapers, how did they know it was time to come back? Answer: They found out through the Collectors, since they had control over them for the last 50000 years, in which case what's the point of Sovereign being there. But let's just say they didn't use the Collectors for this and just come back exactly every 50,000 years anyway... (in which case ME1 makes even less sense)

Question 4) If the Catalyst apparently lives on the Citadel already, why the need for Sovereign or Saren to take control of the Citadel? Answer: There is no need for either of them. The Catalyst seems to be able to indoctrinate people by itself, so why not just indoctrinate the whole Citadel? Or even if it can't do that, why not just kill everyone on the Citadel by for example venting the whole atmosphere? The Catalyst obviously lived on the Citadel for thousands or millions of years, it must have control over it.

Thoughts???


 * A quick reply from someone who is admittedly not an expert on series cannon.

1. The Citadel is the only Mass Relay linked to where the Reapers are, because they are scared of being found too soon. Without it they need to travel conventionally so in addition to being scared, they are lazy. 2. Sovereign needed a way to regain control of the Citadel because the Protheans reprogrammed the Keepers enough that they flubbed the recall protocol. 3. Harbinger was using the Collectors to harvest random races until he found the The One which would be the ultimate form for the current cycle. Because of this the Reapers knew it was time, but they were waiting for the limousine to arrive to take them to the red carpet instead of having to spend nearly a year walking. 4. The Catalyst is a synthetic. It has a plan and follows it by rote until it hits an unrecoverable fail. Ever write a computer program and realize it did what you told it to do, instead of what you wanted it to do? XD. GRPeng 17:52, March 25, 2012 (UTC)


 * Harbingers motives with the Collectors would have made sense if they had stuck with the Dark Energy storyline and not changed it to the technological singularity storyline.--Xaero Dumort 18:06, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

The honest overarching answer is Bioware likes money in order to make money they make arguably great games. The development teams change between games different writers want to explore different tangents, things get forgot or even cut outright, and what you end up with are plot holes and entertaining game play. Here is a big one why does the geth dreadnought have hallways and useable consoles? The geth are software only occupying hardware(bodies, turrets,and ships) in order to acomplish an assigned task ie; kill Shepard to death. A geth body does not need to use consoles to do anything the software would just merge with the collective and imput any commands directly much more efficently. The only reason it has hallways and consoles is so you can infiltrate it shoot your way through and ultimately destroy it as part of the geth master play to suck as hard as possible.

^Actually, the geth still need hallways and elevators for their mobile platforms and the moving of materials. Ladders are still a bit of a stretch though, and I agree with you on the multitude of consoles. --2290Shadow 10:28, April 5, 2012 (UTC)

1: The mass relays don't all connect to every other mass relay. The one through the Citadel was unique, because it lead to where the Reapers were basically in a state of hibernation. As Vigil said, they're vulnerable at this time. Having the return route in the Citadel was done because this was inevitably designed to be the heart of galactic civilization, as Vigil said.

2: Return through conventional means would take a lot of time. The distance between galaxies is enormous. We don't actually know how long it would have taken to return conventionally, only that it was a bit over 2 years before they got back to the edge of the galaxy. They may have been in transit for hundreds of years anyways. The Citadel would have remained the best tactic for making the process of defeating galactic civilization quick.

3. The biggest issue, IMO, was this, which was in ME2. With the Collectors, why WAS Sovereign necessary? Regardless of the outcome of 3, that never made sense. And why didn't Sovereign enlist their aid in retaking the Citadel, since they were much more powerful and more advanced than the Geth? I could see their purpose being to basically gather basic information on genetic material from the current cycle with Harbinger's oversight only occasionally active, but I thought ME2's plot invalidated ME1 more than anything in 3.

4. I was pretty sure that it was because the Catalyst wasn't on. It would have no reason to be active during the thousands of years of waiting. It was off for the same reason Sovereign wasn't active the entirety of the time between the destruction of the Protheans and the current attempt at destroying galactic civilization. They were able to activate him when they retook the Citadel in 3. It isn't stated, but it makes sense. Zero132132 18:15, April 5, 2012 (UTC)

^ I was under the impression the catalyst was always on and aware pulling the strings so to speak. He says as much when you talk to him that is in control of the reapers. He only appears because the crucible is attached and is about to be activated interrupting the current cycle. Which is why he makes some sh*t up on the spot and gives you 3 arbitrary choices that all kind of suck.

The motivations of characters and their actions in the first 2 games conflicting with the Glitterchild conversation 5 min before the end of the third dont matter anymore because BioWare decided that they wanted to retcon the whole series--MrRabbitSir 16:21, April 9, 2012 (UTC).

I think 1. and 2. have been answered well so I won't go into those. With 3. however I think you may have missed some stuff. Harbinger and Sovereign throughout Mass Effects 1 and 2 have continually stated that they 'work in the shadows' and 'have been a constant' for a long time. They are practised at this cycle and have gotten better every time. Sovereign was there because he was their plan for getting quickly through to the civilisations. Sovereign was there because he was the only one who could send the signal to the keepers to activate the mass relay. The collectors wouldn't even know where to begin to have that capability, they are simply a dead, slave species that are mindless drones, subservient only to the reapers and unable to think for themselves. All they know is the job that they were given, to covertly collect DNA samples of the latest civilisations so as not to draw attention and make the reapers aware of the actions of the universe. Once Shepard destroyed Sovereign, (or humanity if you want to get technical.) They caught the reapers attention and they decided that their next form would be from the DNA of humans. They got the collectors to focus and intensify their efforts, starting to kidnap whole colonies, which in response drew attention to them, which they weren't meant to do, they really only even found them in the first place because of unseen circumstances, (after all they didn't expect or predict that a quarian would be among the colonists.) They were the reapers phantom force, working in silence and subterfuge. The galaxy already knew that the geth were a noticeable threat and they got them involved because they would be useful puppets and as such still keep the collectors out of the focus.

As for the catalyst conundrum (sounds like a party game.) the real concern is that all it can control is the reapers, it can't do anything else. The only reason that the catalyst can talk at all to Shepard is because of the Crucible being plugged in. It shows the catalyst that civilisation can get to it and it takes a personification to speak. It has to defend itself in the only way it can, through deception. Because it's biggest defence hasn't been it's far reaching control of the reapers, but in it's secrecy. It just realised the jig is up and says you can merge with us, you can be assimilated among us or you can destroy us, (he really makes a point of trying to make this sound like the worst idea doesn't he?) and he is out of options. We are left with three options because we've driven the catalyst to these three options. Personally after reading and playing all the stuff that explains how the star child is one lying piece of shit I really do like these endings, it's one last deception from the reaper collective that you have to overcome.--Bitter arron (talk) 22:29, April 22, 2013 (UTC) Bitter_Arron 23:26, April 22, 2013 (UTC).

I think that for the most part, it all adds up. IF anything, ME2 is the random side story that has nothing to do with anything important. As for the catalyst, sovereign said in ME1 "We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution....", that's all we got because ME2 decided not to reveal anything anything new about the reapers as far as their motives/origins are concerned. So it was explained in ME3. That is the nutshell version of what was revealed to us at the end of ME3.

"...organic evolution...", that is defined by continually advancing technology. That is defined by how we try to better the quality of life through technology, through the use of MACHINES. It's all about technology. Something that is one of the biggest things to consider about organic evolution. It's a given, we will advance technologically in an attempt to better our lives. Every time someone refers to the catalyst as "star child" or "god child" or some other moronic name like that, i cringe a little inside. It's like so many people reacted as if the catalyst was NOT a machine. As if it was some random being interfering with life in the galaxy. It's not. Im sorry, but for lack of a better way of putting it, anyone assuming it was some "godchild" was being just plain dumb. It was obviously a machine intelligence. It was created by life that occurred naturally in the galaxy. When it comes to the whole "organic vs. synthetic conflict" it's again, like people are claiming that the catalyst has no stake in that. That life should be able to sort this out on its own. Why are people excluding the creation of the catalyst and the reapers from the sorting process? Life has gone this way on its own. When organic species reach a certain level of technological advancement, it starts to have negative effects on them. One of the steps in organic species technological advancement is the creation of artificial intelligence. This is when things really start to go downhill, for obvious reasons.

It's just funny to me how picky/choosy people are about what they are willing to suspend disbelief about and what they aren't within the same story. Anyone that claims that the crucible is "space magic" but then is completely ok with FTL travel is being ridiculous, or a hypocrite even. What we know in real life about FTL travel(because we have made particles reach that speed) says that once that speed is reached, time actually slows down for whatever is traveling at that speed. So if a life form were to travel at that speed for 10 years, it would only age 5 years as compared to the rest of the galaxy. So if one can suspend their disbelief of that for the sake of the story, why can't they do it for a machine that uses tech from billion year old sentient machines? Probably because they don't know that about FTL speed. Which is an explanation for how many people reacted, but not an excuse. Same thing can be said for any movie about artificial intelligence, time travel, multiple dimentions, etc. By the logic that the the crucible is "space magic", one with that attitude should by definition not like the majority of science fiction. Science FICTION, there is a certain suspension of disbelief that comes with it.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke. It was something he abided by when he wrote science fiction, because it's true. The crucible is not space magic, it's just sufficiently more advanced.

If you were to travel back in time 300 years and show someone a TV, they would think it's magic. No matter how much you tried to explain to them as to why it's not magic, they are incapable of understanding because it is based off of something that they have not encountered yet. The same applies here. Even the characters in this story admit that they don't fully understand the citadel which is obvious since they let a docile alien species that they are incapable of communicating with work on it. Both hackett and the catalyst say the crucible is basically just an energy source. It utilizes the citadel and relays to do its thing. The citadel and relays, which were created by billion year old sentient machines that have been controlling the evolution of life in the galaxy for that long. Of course its "beyond our comprehension" because the life of this cycle is merely 50K years old in comparison and bases the majority of its major technology off of something it did not create itself. That it stumbled upon in space(the mass relays).

I think people are just used to having their hand held through the majority of video game stories, being told what to kill and being told they are awesome for doing so in the process. Which is why things like the indoctrination theory arose. Things like that are an attempt to turn this into a typical "good vs evil/hero vs villain" scenario when it is nowhere near that simple. Especially when you consider the scale of this, that it has to do with the very evolution of life in general as we know it, the level of control over said evolution and life that was established about the enemy in the first game, and actually put some thought into the very scenario of creator/created relations, i.e. the organic synthetic conflict. I also think many people don't like the idea that this is just what happens when organics create artificial intelligence because it's not clear cut and basically implies that organic life is somewhat at fault for putting themselves in this situation. When "fault" isn't even the best way to describe it because the conflict is not intentional. It's just a product of technological advancement.

It wasn't done in the best of ways because it required DLC to get the full explanation, but even then all any DLC did was elaborate on what the original ending already told us. Apparently some people needed more. Either way, it adds up and appears to actually consider some real science having to do with what we know about the universe in the process. Look up the drake equation to see what I am talking about when it comes to organics vs. synthetics. This story is one of the few video game stories that didn't devolve to shooting the bad guys to death. God forbid we have a story that requires more than a miniscule amount of thought from the viewer.

Ok Edgecrusher, you're going to have to relax because while you do clearly have arguments, you're coming across as rather butt hurt. You didn't make the games, you didn't write the ending so you certainly have no reason or right to take this as personally as you clearly have. It's fine to have a different view to other people in regards to this game, I do all the time, but it's not fair at all to attack people for their views and treat them like idiots. After all the 'Star Child' is a referential joke to 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the 'Star Child' is the most advanced creature that is a melding of organics and technology and is advanced beyond the meaning of anything. And I've never heard anyone call it a 'god child' if they do then you're right they are a moron.

And don't start throwing Arthur C Clarke references into your arguments thinking that it adds weight, that's the lamest trick in the book, reminds me of when Twilight kept including excerpts from Wuthering Heights, come up with your own arguments and strengthen them yourself or go home.

Nobody playing this game expected a black and white 'shoot this and done' ending Crusher, (they wouldn't be fans of the games if they did.) and to suggest that just because we weren't fans of the ending we just wanted a simpler ending that was easier to understand because apparently we're 2 years old and just ate glue, is so presumptuous that it borders on the level of dickhead. We just wanted an ending that didn't come entirely out of nowhere, which is exactly what when the ending came at first without the extended cut or the extra DLC was exactly what it was. It felt like what it probably was, which is rushed. Because it wasn't even really explained, nobody is going to like an ending that immediately changes the way you feel about the game with absolutely no foreshadowing and no context behind it. It doesn't take into account any of your previous actions (which I get on a story level) but it just doesn't work on a gaming level. You have to feel like everything you do affects something in a game like this. At this point in time it just felt like out of left field, high minded, pseudo intellectual bullshit.

Now that a lot more explanation has gone into it I like the ending a whole lot more, although I hate the fact that EA practically made Bioware extend the ending so if you want the whole explanation you have to pay extra for it. That is nothing short of satanical money grubbing and I hope EA dies a painful and lengthy death for that and a whole lot more travesties that that company keeps making us suffer through.

Mass Effect is one of the greatest game series in the world just simply for the fact that it reaches on a completely intellectual level as well as just a game, (seriously me and my room mate have philosophical discussions all the time that get started off by this game). We love these characters because they aren't just avatars for the game play, they are fully developed people with their own motivations and quirks, (after all, nobody can tell me they didn't love Mordin singing Gilbert and Sullivan.) But the best thing about it as well is that it is so ambiguous that it can be interpreted in practically any way, which is why I would happily accept any form of sequel to the Mass Effect universe, they have made a playground that our imaginations can go wild in and it is glorious.

So don't try to peg people in for wanting to ask questions about this universe and to discuss things by just calling them idiots. This game is about a universe of different views and it takes as much to understand it. --Bitter arron (talk) 12:19, May 4, 2013 (UTC)

I did not mean for it to come across like that so if it did, I apologize. I too have amazing discussions because of this game. I was only trying to make the point that the idea of the ending being completely random in comparison to the rest of the series is unfounded. In ME1, the protagonist(shepard) asked the antagonist(sovereign, meaning the reapers) why they were doing this. Sovereign responded and what we were told in the end is a direct reflection of that response. Sovereign said "We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution...." The ending is reliant on what the enemy is and always has been(machines), a very basic and common sense fact about where they had to have originated from(meaning someone had to have built them and with a purpose, by definition thats what a machine is), and what we were told by the enemy in the first game. Organic evolution is reliant on technology, and the enemy in question here just happens to be... machines. Which ARE technology. When I finished the first game my thoughts were:

Who made the reapers and why? The fact that they are machines made me ask this and I expected to find out why in the end.

How are we supposed to stop them considering how much it took to stop just sovereign? they control the evolution of life in the galaxy, humanity or any other species likely wouldnt even exist or if they did they wouldn't exist in anywhere near the same capacity. Which brings me to the relays...

Why leave the relays behind and allow for the species of a cycle to make contact with each other and eventually unite to oppose them? Because thats exactly what happened at the end of ME1. We are only able to put up a fight because of what they have left behind. If the life of each cycle was scattered throughout the galaxy and unable to make contact with each other, the reapers have virtually no opposition. Not to mention what its done for the life of each cycles technological advancement. Can you imagine where the life of each cycle would be technologically if we had no mass effect tech to work with? The opening text of the entire series is about how humanity discovered the relays and it moved our technology forward drastically. This all suggests there is something more and says something about the enemys level of control over life in the galaxy.

I also put a lot of thought into sovereigns comment "we impose order on the chaos of organic evolution..." Why have the protagonist(shepard) ask why and have the antagonist(sovereign) respond... if it was to mean nothing?

I thought about what organic evolution was. I had considered everything from the reapers claiming that we are destroying the universe by multiplying/spreading and using up resources from planets, to them claiming that we are a threat to ourselves... which is essentially what it turned out to be. They are driven by what an advanced organic race saw many species do, create machines that then destroyed them. They exist to do what in simplest form is protect organic life from destroying itself with its own technology. The technology in question being the artificial intelligence organic species eventually create. The difference is, and the thing that people seem incapable of distinguishing is, the preservation of organic life "in general" as opposed to individuals or even individual species. It was tasked with preserving organic life AS A WHOLE, not the individual lives or species that existed at the time of its creation/solution.

This is similar to the AI viki in i,robot. It was governed by rules for protecting humanity and it ultimately decided that we were a threat to ourselves.

As for the catalyst itself, BIG surprise the machines are governed by a central intelligence, that's a common thing in science fiction. Though I do think that it should NOT have looked like a human child. Either way, they are and always have been machines. Half of this stuff was practically predictable if one took the fact that the enemy is machines into account. Again, I don't mean for that to come across as aggressive or even mean, but the information needed was and has been there the entire time. Again, the enemy is and always has been machines. There are certain things that are dictated by that fact without the story having to directly spell it out in simplest form. That fact and the conversation with sovereign are foreshadowing, even if some find it too subtle.

With the crucible and the Arthur C. Clarke quote, again it was only to make a point. Characters in the story outright say the crucible is essentially just an energy source, meaning that what happens at the end is a result of the citadel and the relays. Which again, are tech that comes from something FAR more advanced than us and again, the story tells us that.

If you want an overly "sciencey" explanation, read this: http://galacticpillow.com/2012/04/02/editorial-the-reapers-advocate-a-different-take-on-the-mass-effect-3-ending/

If anything, ME2 is where the deviation in story/character started. So we have ME2, which is what people seemed to cling to over what the first game established. The collector plot is interchangeable with anything else that would require recruiting such a team to complete. It's almost completely irrelevant to what the first game established. It advanced nothing significant about the reapers. It didnt do what the second entry in a trilogy should do, advance the main plot. That being the reapers. ME1 ended with the attitude of warning/preparing the galaxy for the eventual invasion. Anderson even says as much in the final dialogue. Instead however, shepard suddenly decides saving remote human colonies over that idea of warning/preparing the galaxy. While ME2 gave us interesting info like insight on the protheans and is arguably the best in the series as far as individual characters and their stories goes, ME3 brought the story back to what it started with, the reapers, their eventual invasion, and saving the galaxy.

ME1 and ME3 is about the reapers, and considering what info we were given, matches up. ME2 is about the collectors and ONE reaper using them for an almost completely unknown reason. It equates to what is filler until the eventual invasion the first game VERY much said was going to happen. Why so many people seem to have allowed that story and its antagonist take precedent over what the first game established is beyond me.

Again, was it handled in the best of ways? No. I think the corresponding DLC is proof of that. Though I think leviathan is proof that fans sort of forced their hand in providing such a detailed explanation. I never expected to meet the creators of the catalyst/reapers and while I REALLY enjoy the insight it provides, it feels forced to me. I just can't help but feel like it wasn't THAT hard to put 2 and 2 together considering what the enemy is and always has been, machines. Youre right, people view things differently. But the most important thing about the enemy is that they are machines and that dictates certain things that aren't debatable. Unless someone would rather have gotten no real explanation as far as the reapers motives and origins. In that case, that is a whole other conversation as that is an individual preference. All I can say in that case is that I am glad the story didn't devolve to that.

I often get told that I'm looking too deeply into it, that I'm putting too much thought into it. The only appropriate response I can think of for someone that says that is, perhaps you are putting too little thought into it.

This is all relevant to the main plot aspect of the game regarding the reapers. I am in NO WAY attempting to say the game is perfect. Certain seemingly important choices ended up not mattering other than a war asset number, or were essentially ignored(morinth). The final combat portion of the game was pretty standard and anti-climactic as it was basically just a longer than normal version of most of the missions in the game, fighting reaper ground forces with 2 squad mates. To me it seemed that we were preparing for a large scale assault to reach the conduit and that last mission even seems like there are parts of it in which something was going to happen originally. I think what the citadel DLC gave us in terms of characters and and romances would have been better placed during that final mission. I don't think characters romanced from ME2 were handled all that well unless it was a character like tali or garrus that originated in the first game and remained squad mates through the entire series.

But as far as the main story goes involving the reapers, the basic information to put 2 and 2 together with what we were told at the very end is and always has been there.

It's a curious thing really, that all machines are technology but that not all technology is machines. That's the little crucial thing that means reapers have to place their dependence on. They know how to deal with a mass relay based universe and so left the mass relays to subtly control the way technology progresses. Because if the mass relay wasn't technologies catalyst then there's no telling how technology would react to this. They may have giant spike machines for all we know.