What is starchild: again a full answer to this would take way too long, I'll link my other posts if you really want, but in short I think that he is a mental representation of the Reaper presence in the Citadel, and most of what he says is literally true. He appears as the child from Shepard's dreams because he is portrayed in a innocent light due to the fact that the Reapers are trying to indoctrinate Shepard. He is meant to appeal to Shepard's sense of guilt, just as the Reapers' previous indoctrination attempts appealed to Saren's sense of fear and The Illusive Man's lust for power. So really, the starchild isn't really there, it's Shepard's imagining of a physical form of the Reaper voice trying to indoctrinate him.
If you don't agree that Shepard is being indoctrinated here, then the Starchild would still be an AI with the collective intelligence of the Reapers, though this doesn't explain why he resembles the kid from the dreams.
I've already explained multiple times that this indoctrination theory makes little sense considering we've been told that Shep is, in fact, free from indoctrination. However, if we were to take that as a possible falsehood, then this still doesn't make sense. Why would the Reaper presence on the citadel give you information about how to blow up all the reapers? If the reapers have a presence such as this on the citadel, why did the first game happen? Why did the second game happen? They literally didn't need a third party to open the citadel for them, they already have a mental presence there. (and you can't deny that it controls the citadel, it lifts shep up there on its own) The collectors arc didn't need to exist either.
Even if we were willing to accept these things, this is awful writing. It's making a villain that literally can't feel remorse, but without any motive, making said villain give the hero the only weapon that can kill him. So we call it indoctrination. But if the indoctrination is true - there is only one "right" choice in the end. Destroy. That stands against the entire series' theme of "there are no 'right' or 'wrong' choices"
Galactic conflict, genocide and racism: what I am saying is that... just because the various races you saved / rallied are fighting together now, doesn't necessarily mean that they won't, post-Reaper war, destroy each other just as the Starchild said they will. The reason I chose Destroy is because I think it is not my (or Shepard's) place to decide this, and if ultimately, various life forms will destroy each other, then that's what will happen, but I'm not going to assume it or pre-empt it. I'm going to give them the chance to prove the Catalyst wrong.
The point being, that I'm not saying Geth or Quarians or Humans are inherently evil and want to destroy each other; just that it is possible that they may eventually destroy each other, and it's not "all the Geths' fault" or "all the Quarians' fault", but maybe the fault of some subset of individuals, or maybe even more tragically, no-one's fault at all.
It's kind of like with real wars, e.g. WWII, you could argue that it was Hitler's fault, or certain politicians' fault when making post-WWI or even pre-WWI decisions, but if you argued that "it's the Germans' fault" or something, I think this would be a rather misguided argument. I'm not saying that's what you're saying btw, not at all, I'm just trying to elaborate on my point.
We have the same point, then. You said that this devalues Shep's journey and says that he actually hasn't proven anything. That's not correct, for the very same reasoning that you're using. If this devalued everything, there would be no reason for the starchild talk. If starchild legitimately believed that Shep's journey meant nothing because there still is the ever looming question of all out war - then he wouldn't give Shep the chance to change anything. Instead, starchild offers 3 "solutions" and it should be noted that not one of these three solutions lead to anything better - so they aren't solutions. The Starchild is incredibly contradictory. If the main point of contention is that all life will eventually kill each other, then not one of these solutions is necessarily going to work. Destroy leaves the universe doomed to the same fate it was before, only without synthetic presence. Synthesis does not completely halt racial tension. Control only leaves Shep a galactic dictator.
Again, you've created an ending that doesn't make much sense, is bleak and contradicts itself. It's true, I didn't expect Shep to live through the ending, however they should have removed this entire talk completely, rather than creating these new concepts that come across incredibly confusing and self-contradictory. You can keep a bleak ending where there is no "right" choice, whilst still allowing for the same ultimate result. I'd argue that Dragon Age had an ending that was leagues better. In the end - the archdemon died no matter what you did. However, the ending still had an incredible amount of variance based upon what your final decisions were on all of the subplots before it. The choices that changed the ending all culminated to the last hour of the game, but they all made a real difference, and they all left a sense of what you did throughout the game mattering. Here, you had several different ways to go:
-Hero dies, Archdemon is dead.
-Alistair dies, Archdemon is dead.
-Loghain dies, Archdemon is dead.
-All live, Archdemon dies, there is now a baby being held by a rogue witch somewhere.
-If alive, Alistair becomes King.
-If alive, Hero becomes King. (If both alive you still choose between one or the other)
-There is no King.
-Anora is queen with or without Alistair.
-Hero is queen with or without Alistair.
These are the endings you can get only considering the king/queen role and who dies. If I were to add in the effect these last choices can have on all your party members, their relationships, what their status in the kingdom is, where things end up going, etc. The list would get much longer.
But none of these choices are correct. If you get everyone to live, you've left a royal blooded child with a witch who's motives are very questionable. It's not exactly a good thing that you did this. There's still that sense of "Well I might have fucked things up" but there's no confusion. You made these choices, you caused this to happen. In ME3, starchild makes the choices for you, and merely presents them to you, and they all ultimately lead to the same ending with 0 differences outside a color pallet swap.
It's not satisfying.
Why does the Crucible have 3 counter-productive and ridiculous choices: well actually I think it only has one choice (Destroy the Reapers), and the other choices involve not using the Crucible but instead joining the Reapers, but that would take a long time to explain. Again, if you care, I'll try my best.
I know this theory rather well, and put quite simply, BioWare has already trashed that theory with its added endings. The only choice that leads to guaranteed peace is control. And that control ending leaves Shep (or at least the remnants of his/her thoughts) to pretty much be a galactic dictator.
But even if that theory did hold up - again, this is incredibly terrible writing and I can't see it as anything else. Proposing a single choice out of three as correct in a trilogy where choices are presented in a way where there's no "correct" answer is quite simply
very lazy. Lauding it as anything else is simply forgiving Bioware for being very lazy on that front. And if we're going to say that yes, this was indoctrination, and you've overcome it by destroying all the reapers! You have created a villain that explicitly gives you three choices - one of which will kill it. If this is the truth of the matter -
why would it have proposed the destroy option to you in the first place? If Shep is, in fact, being indoctrinated, the reapers (or mental representation thereof) would not outright give him the information he needed to take them down. If it did, you're once again contradicting every single action the reapers have taken up to this point. The most we can view this as is a test to Shep's will. And he passes that test by picking destruction. But if we passed that test, Shep isn't indoctrinated, and the reapers aren't dead... Then the game hasn't ended. This isn't an ending.
So the reasoning goes, that I chose Destroy because, while I couldn't predict the future, I'd rather give living beings the chance to live in harmony, rather than assume that they need to be controlled, wiped out, or assimilated. And I believed this firmly enough that I was willing to destroy synthetic life forms to do so. It's a terrible choice, but it is one foreshadowed by Chakwas and Adams on the Normandy earlier, and one that I spent a long long time thinking about.
Then what about legion? What about the peaceful geth? What about EDI?
They have all been proven to not be the aggressors. They have entire long story arcs dedicated to them. Yet you are once again committing Genocide and killing innocents to protect those less innocent.
In other words, you made a choice that is in your words to give all living things a chance. Yet you failed to give half of said things that chance. The entirety of ME3's plot and part of ME2's plot (and its dlc) had a running theme to teach you that synthetic life and organic life are one in the same, because they are just that: life. Synthetic life forms are still life forms, so you in fact have not given living beings a chance to live in harmony. The ending that correctly would give them that choice would be "synthesis." Synthesis isn't assimilation from one side or the other. The fact that you think so - leads me to believe the Starchilds lack of explanation was too much even for you - who is defending it.
