Age_of_Truth
[12] Conqueror
Damn it I am losing my life to this discussion. Thanks for replying. I'll try to explain what I think as concisely as possible, because it does actually counter your points, though I don't know if I'll have the skill to describe it well enough...
Shepard is not indoctrinated yet. In the previous games, all who had a prolonged exposure to Reaper stuff were victims of the side effects of indoctrination (like ringing in the head, even voices, etc.) but that doesn't mean they were actually indoctrinated yet. Shepard is the victim of a more effective indoctrination attempt in the final scenes because he is within a Reaper being formed (the Citadel) and is in a physically and mentally weakened state. Her/his resistance is weak at this point, and more open to the suggestibility of the Reaper effect.
Explaining the next bit will be tough, because the way I understood it is quite different to anything I've seen suggested by anyone else. But I'll try.
Do you remember how Vigil (the AI) can be understood by Shepard and squad on Ilos, even though they know nothing of Prothean language? And how Shepard is mentally engaged with the Beacon at the beginning of ME1? It may not 'speak' to her, but she understands somewhat a massive wave of violent, omnicidal thoughts coming from the beacon, like a pure rage, a pure bloodlust. Well, I think that the Crucible communicates with her in a similar way, as she appoaches the console. So actually, she understands how the Crucible works because it communicates with her, not because the StarKid tells her.
Aargh this is gonna be tough. There's a lot of stuff to cover, and if I miss anything, I will totally fail to explain what I mean. Apologies in advance if this happens. And the order in which I try to explain stuff could be vital.
Right. The 3 options. Like I said, I don't think these are Crucible options. Or Citadel options. I think that:
You understand how to activate the Crucible. The Reapers don't want you to do this. The Reaper AI on the Citadel is awoken by your presence on the control panel. It resembles the form of the boy because, as I must've said before somewhere, it is trying to indoctrinate Shepard by appealing to a sense of guilt, and of preserving innocent life.
The Kid doesn't activate any control panel. Shepard falls unconscious while trying to reach the controls after Anderson dies. IMO, this is where the true hallucination begins. The elevator is a visual metaphor for Shepard ascending to a higher plane of consciousness: she does "Wake up", but when she does, she's full-on hallucinating, seeing tubes, a StarKid, and a big metal non-existant room. I think the room is a combination of the Citadel control room and the site of the Citadel beam on Earth.
The Kid is not in control of anything. Shepard is in control. She can activate the Crucible. But she's nearly dead, and subject to a full on indoctrination attempt by a Reaper. She's hallucinating, in masses of pain, and doesn't know wtf is going on. This Kid appears knowing all the answers, and she talks to it, trying to understand what all this is. Because remember, no-one knew exactly what the Crucible was or how it worked, and this kid seems to be the one who can explain it.
So, what are the other two options then?
Control is, imo, the act where Shepard turns away from the controls, and submits to the AI's suggestion, that she instead merge with the Reaper and become a master of the Reapers. It's giving her a non-violent option (a Paragon option) that doesn't involve murdering anybody. So she would basically connect herself to the Citadel to become a new Reaper.
Synthesis is more complicated. It's actually suggesting that she can alter all galactic life. This is basically a choice of a God. It's so extreme that any explanation would raise eyebrows. The way I see it, Shepard would here submit to the Reapers, but would still use the Crucible, and the Reapers could then use the technology of the Crucible to send a different signal across the Mass Relays - one that would meld synthetic and organic life.
So, in this way, the Kid has no power at all. It was dormant throughout ME1 and 2, or at least unable to control the Citadel in any meaningful way. The Prothean VI explained that the signal Sovereign wanted to use to contact the other Reapers no longer worked in ME1, and that the Keepers had to do it themsleves after evolving in some way.
So the Kid has to convince Shepard to take actions it sees as advantageous. It cannot mislead Shepard about the Destroy option, because she actually already intuitively understands this, but sees it as an option presented to her by the Kid because of the massive hallucination.
Finally, about there being only one 'right' choice.
Firstly, you could make a fairly basic argument and say, well the Easter Egg ending of Shepard surviving is only offered if you choose Destroy and raise a strong enough army. I think that's a bit weak, so I want to suggest something different: that there isn't necessarily a 'right' choice.
Just because the idea of indoctrination is possible, doesn't mean you are actually being indoctrinated. You could say that, though the Reaper is offering extreme solutions, maybe you do actually agree with those solutions. Without going into too much detail, or this post will never end:
Control - the Business Magnate's choice. Reapers are too valuable an asset to destroy. This way, the technology and vast historical knowledge of prior advanced races is preserved via the Reaper intelligence, and what's more, Shepard gets to direct them as he sees fit. So he can be benevolent and not kill everybody. Win win.
Synthesis - the "Celebrator of Life"'s choice. The future of life is inevitably to evolve into more and more advanced forms, and this way, we get to skip that gap now, and give all living beings the chance to live in a new, massively advanced galaxy, where the distinction between synthetic and organic life is gone.
Refuse - the Moralist's choice. It is no place for Shepard to make a choice like this. It goes against all moral principles. He will not become a God, or commit genocide. It is abhorrent. He'd rather lose the battle and let all advanced civilisations die, making way for less advanced races to begin anew, than make this choice.
Destroy - the Soldier's choice. Shepard came here to destroy the Reapers, and that's what he's gonna do, be damned with these consequences and alternate options.
So, I chose Destroy because I felt this was no decision for a person, me, Shepard or anybody to make, but refuse was a coward's way out, and ultimately I felt it was better for some to die than everybody to die, even though I had fought so hard to give synthetics a fresh chance, and that the war couldn't have been won without EDI.
But you could equally back the other decisions. You could say that Shepard had the chance to build a new future for the galaxy, and recklessly threw it away by Destroying the Reapers. You could even say that Shepard and Anderson were indoctrinated by Allied war propaganda, claiming that the only victory was the survival of the human race, or council races, etc. etc.
Phew. Well I hope I presented this properly. I'm not at all expecting to change your mind, just hoping that I've managed to properly explain what I thought at the end, and why some of the things you brought up don't conflict with this version of events.
I've been over the StarChild options. The point about proving people can live in harmony etc. is that we haven't proved that. War may start again after the Reaper war, and ultimately everyone might kill each other. I don't see how you can 'prove' that this is not the case. There is no proof of any kind.
Unfortunately I can't join you on the Dragon Age comparison because I didn't play it (just the demo).
In terms of solutions, the Kid admits that the current solution (cycle of galactic murder) isn't working, because now the advanced races are in a position to defeat the Reapers. He points out that Destroy won't work, because the races will be left to kill each other, as he understands it. And Control will not change anything in terms of Synthetic and Organic life still being at odds with each other. This is why he proposes Synthesis, where all galactic life would be massively and equally advanced, and therefore in terms of his programming, the inevitable conflict between more advanced life forms and less advanced life forms will never happen. This is his 'New Solution'. I'm not saying it will actually work, but according to the principles he set down, this is a logical solution.
In answer to the rest, I'm not saying that one choice is correct, but to claim that a correct choice implies that the writing is lazy... this doesn't really make any sense. There is no logical path from having constrained choices => lazy writing.
If you can write a story with a conclusion that invites this much speculation, intrigue, and emotion, then I would congratulate you. I certainly wouldn't call it lazy writing.
And considering how demonstrably un-lazy the Bioware writers had been up to this point (scientific codex entries, planetary descriptions, in-game story changes to make your choices in previous games affect the new ones), I do not understand how anyone can genuinely think, "Oh and suddenly Bioware got lazy". ESPECIALLY when you consider how much they responded to player feeback and using it to tailor the experience in the sequels. And ESPECIALLY when you consider the fact that those same people have come out and said they are proud of the endings, and will not change them, in spite of the backlash. The laziness argument is borderline crazy.
It's an extremely tough choice. I don't think there's a clear moral answer here, this really is 100% down to the ethical values of the player.
The way I thought about it, when confronted by the StarChild, was directly influenced by the argument between Dr. Chakwas and Engineer Adams on the Normandy.
Adams said all life is equal. Synthetics are capable of the same emotions, free will, and thought as organics. Humans and other organics are themselves machines, in that they have pre-programmed responses to certain stimuli, such as pain, fear, etc. I think he even says something about it being inevitable that organics will evenutally engineer themselves to be indistinguishable from synthetics.
Chakwas said no, you can't value synthetics over organics. They're machines that we built. Their emotions and thoughts are just products of the physical programming written by organics. Organic life is something natural, and life is something special, not creatable. You can't devalue real life to be sacrificed in order to save machines.
I spent absolutely ages trying to decide who to side with. A lot of these conversations got me pacing up and down, but this one... I walked around the Normandy, talked to other crew members, and even just stood there, all the while trying to decide which point was stronger.
In the end, I sided with Adams, because I agreed with a lot of his points, and felt it was a dangerous thing to devalue free, thinking life forms just because they didn't resemble our own, weren't made in the same way. Chakwas just brushed it off by saying to Sheprard, "Well you would say that, you're part machine after all" or something.
But I had a really dark feeling come over me when I did agree with Adams. Because I realised that the implication of what I said was, that if it came down to it, I would allow all organic life to eventually die so long as synthetic life still remained. Which meant a galaxy populated only by computers. And I just felt incredibly uncomfortable with this, as if I'd turned my back on humanity and organic life, and sort of gone mad.
Which is why, when the end came round, I couldn't choose an option that meant ending the death of organic life, and the death of the human race and the other advanced races in this scenario. I'm not saying this is a perfect or correct solution, not at all, but it's just my thought process when Shepard was faced with that final choice. I'm not dismissing the Geth or EDI, I could write another essay on how horrible it was to effectively shoot EDI dead without her even knowing it, but the other choices were even worse, for reasons I hope I've managed to explain previously.
I'll try to make 3 overall points first, because they're really important in how I see the endings, and may explain why I disagree with your counter-arguments without having to address them directly:
1: The idea of indoctrination is quite blatantly suggested throughout the series, and especially by the conversation with Illusive Man immediately before the final confrontation. I am not saying that an indoctrination attempt is definitely happening; but I am saying that Bioware quite obviously intended this to be a possible interpretation. It wasn't even subtle. It was clever enough that you might not get it the first time, but the idea that Bioware never even imagined that the final conversation could be interpreted as an indoctrination attempt is absolutely ludicrous. It is only one step short of being slammed in the player's face with a big mallet.
2: This is probably most important. I want to steer clear of discussion of 'Indoctrination Theory' or 'Literal Theory' or any other Theory. My interpretation and your interpretation most likely cannot be labelled as such. Labelling a personal set of opinions about something under a header like this is so intellectually redundant, it genuinely makes me rage. I got sick of learning about some philosophical ideas at University where many of the students, and even some of the teachers, merely aligned themselves with one of the headings that supposedly collected all the beliefs of a particulat point of view. This kind of mentality is virtually redundant and completely fucking stupid, and I want to avoid getting into that argument here.
In the ME context, what I mean is that I'm not supporting IT or any other established theory. I'm just saying how I understood the events at the end of ME3. My interpretation doesn't fit neatly with IT or anything else. What I am saying is that I value your criticism (I sound like such a douche saying that, but it's honestly true, I just can't think of a better way to say it), but that your criticism should be directed at what I say, not at a general IT theory or any other implied set of opinions.
3: The way I see it,
> the StarKid is a Reaper AI located on the citadel that has been dormant. Kind of like Vigil, the Prothean AI, in ME1. Though it is on board the Citadel, I do not think it controls the Citadel.
> the Crucible is an ancient weapon designed by various galactic races with one purpose: to destroy all Reapers via some energy blast directed through the Mass Relays. It was designed to fire this via the Citadel.
> the StarKid DOES NOT control the Crucible either. And the options it gives are not its own options. I'll try to explain what I mean a bit later. But in brief, the Crucible does not have 3 options, it only has one - an ON switch, which kills the Reapers as described.
Ok, with all that down, I'll try to address specific points...
1: The idea of indoctrination is quite blatantly suggested throughout the series, and especially by the conversation with Illusive Man immediately before the final confrontation. I am not saying that an indoctrination attempt is definitely happening; but I am saying that Bioware quite obviously intended this to be a possible interpretation. It wasn't even subtle. It was clever enough that you might not get it the first time, but the idea that Bioware never even imagined that the final conversation could be interpreted as an indoctrination attempt is absolutely ludicrous. It is only one step short of being slammed in the player's face with a big mallet.
2: This is probably most important. I want to steer clear of discussion of 'Indoctrination Theory' or 'Literal Theory' or any other Theory. My interpretation and your interpretation most likely cannot be labelled as such. Labelling a personal set of opinions about something under a header like this is so intellectually redundant, it genuinely makes me rage. I got sick of learning about some philosophical ideas at University where many of the students, and even some of the teachers, merely aligned themselves with one of the headings that supposedly collected all the beliefs of a particulat point of view. This kind of mentality is virtually redundant and completely fucking stupid, and I want to avoid getting into that argument here.
In the ME context, what I mean is that I'm not supporting IT or any other established theory. I'm just saying how I understood the events at the end of ME3. My interpretation doesn't fit neatly with IT or anything else. What I am saying is that I value your criticism (I sound like such a douche saying that, but it's honestly true, I just can't think of a better way to say it), but that your criticism should be directed at what I say, not at a general IT theory or any other implied set of opinions.
3: The way I see it,
> the StarKid is a Reaper AI located on the citadel that has been dormant. Kind of like Vigil, the Prothean AI, in ME1. Though it is on board the Citadel, I do not think it controls the Citadel.
> the Crucible is an ancient weapon designed by various galactic races with one purpose: to destroy all Reapers via some energy blast directed through the Mass Relays. It was designed to fire this via the Citadel.
> the StarKid DOES NOT control the Crucible either. And the options it gives are not its own options. I'll try to explain what I mean a bit later. But in brief, the Crucible does not have 3 options, it only has one - an ON switch, which kills the Reapers as described.
Ok, with all that down, I'll try to address specific points...
Shepard is not indoctrinated yet. In the previous games, all who had a prolonged exposure to Reaper stuff were victims of the side effects of indoctrination (like ringing in the head, even voices, etc.) but that doesn't mean they were actually indoctrinated yet. Shepard is the victim of a more effective indoctrination attempt in the final scenes because he is within a Reaper being formed (the Citadel) and is in a physically and mentally weakened state. Her/his resistance is weak at this point, and more open to the suggestibility of the Reaper effect.
Explaining the next bit will be tough, because the way I understood it is quite different to anything I've seen suggested by anyone else. But I'll try.
Do you remember how Vigil (the AI) can be understood by Shepard and squad on Ilos, even though they know nothing of Prothean language? And how Shepard is mentally engaged with the Beacon at the beginning of ME1? It may not 'speak' to her, but she understands somewhat a massive wave of violent, omnicidal thoughts coming from the beacon, like a pure rage, a pure bloodlust. Well, I think that the Crucible communicates with her in a similar way, as she appoaches the console. So actually, she understands how the Crucible works because it communicates with her, not because the StarKid tells her.
Aargh this is gonna be tough. There's a lot of stuff to cover, and if I miss anything, I will totally fail to explain what I mean. Apologies in advance if this happens. And the order in which I try to explain stuff could be vital.
Right. The 3 options. Like I said, I don't think these are Crucible options. Or Citadel options. I think that:
You understand how to activate the Crucible. The Reapers don't want you to do this. The Reaper AI on the Citadel is awoken by your presence on the control panel. It resembles the form of the boy because, as I must've said before somewhere, it is trying to indoctrinate Shepard by appealing to a sense of guilt, and of preserving innocent life.
The Kid doesn't activate any control panel. Shepard falls unconscious while trying to reach the controls after Anderson dies. IMO, this is where the true hallucination begins. The elevator is a visual metaphor for Shepard ascending to a higher plane of consciousness: she does "Wake up", but when she does, she's full-on hallucinating, seeing tubes, a StarKid, and a big metal non-existant room. I think the room is a combination of the Citadel control room and the site of the Citadel beam on Earth.
The Kid is not in control of anything. Shepard is in control. She can activate the Crucible. But she's nearly dead, and subject to a full on indoctrination attempt by a Reaper. She's hallucinating, in masses of pain, and doesn't know wtf is going on. This Kid appears knowing all the answers, and she talks to it, trying to understand what all this is. Because remember, no-one knew exactly what the Crucible was or how it worked, and this kid seems to be the one who can explain it.
So, what are the other two options then?
Control is, imo, the act where Shepard turns away from the controls, and submits to the AI's suggestion, that she instead merge with the Reaper and become a master of the Reapers. It's giving her a non-violent option (a Paragon option) that doesn't involve murdering anybody. So she would basically connect herself to the Citadel to become a new Reaper.
Synthesis is more complicated. It's actually suggesting that she can alter all galactic life. This is basically a choice of a God. It's so extreme that any explanation would raise eyebrows. The way I see it, Shepard would here submit to the Reapers, but would still use the Crucible, and the Reapers could then use the technology of the Crucible to send a different signal across the Mass Relays - one that would meld synthetic and organic life.
So, in this way, the Kid has no power at all. It was dormant throughout ME1 and 2, or at least unable to control the Citadel in any meaningful way. The Prothean VI explained that the signal Sovereign wanted to use to contact the other Reapers no longer worked in ME1, and that the Keepers had to do it themsleves after evolving in some way.
So the Kid has to convince Shepard to take actions it sees as advantageous. It cannot mislead Shepard about the Destroy option, because she actually already intuitively understands this, but sees it as an option presented to her by the Kid because of the massive hallucination.
Finally, about there being only one 'right' choice.
Firstly, you could make a fairly basic argument and say, well the Easter Egg ending of Shepard surviving is only offered if you choose Destroy and raise a strong enough army. I think that's a bit weak, so I want to suggest something different: that there isn't necessarily a 'right' choice.
Just because the idea of indoctrination is possible, doesn't mean you are actually being indoctrinated. You could say that, though the Reaper is offering extreme solutions, maybe you do actually agree with those solutions. Without going into too much detail, or this post will never end:
Control - the Business Magnate's choice. Reapers are too valuable an asset to destroy. This way, the technology and vast historical knowledge of prior advanced races is preserved via the Reaper intelligence, and what's more, Shepard gets to direct them as he sees fit. So he can be benevolent and not kill everybody. Win win.
Synthesis - the "Celebrator of Life"'s choice. The future of life is inevitably to evolve into more and more advanced forms, and this way, we get to skip that gap now, and give all living beings the chance to live in a new, massively advanced galaxy, where the distinction between synthetic and organic life is gone.
Refuse - the Moralist's choice. It is no place for Shepard to make a choice like this. It goes against all moral principles. He will not become a God, or commit genocide. It is abhorrent. He'd rather lose the battle and let all advanced civilisations die, making way for less advanced races to begin anew, than make this choice.
Destroy - the Soldier's choice. Shepard came here to destroy the Reapers, and that's what he's gonna do, be damned with these consequences and alternate options.
So, I chose Destroy because I felt this was no decision for a person, me, Shepard or anybody to make, but refuse was a coward's way out, and ultimately I felt it was better for some to die than everybody to die, even though I had fought so hard to give synthetics a fresh chance, and that the war couldn't have been won without EDI.
But you could equally back the other decisions. You could say that Shepard had the chance to build a new future for the galaxy, and recklessly threw it away by Destroying the Reapers. You could even say that Shepard and Anderson were indoctrinated by Allied war propaganda, claiming that the only victory was the survival of the human race, or council races, etc. etc.
Phew. Well I hope I presented this properly. I'm not at all expecting to change your mind, just hoping that I've managed to properly explain what I thought at the end, and why some of the things you brought up don't conflict with this version of events.
I've been over the StarChild options. The point about proving people can live in harmony etc. is that we haven't proved that. War may start again after the Reaper war, and ultimately everyone might kill each other. I don't see how you can 'prove' that this is not the case. There is no proof of any kind.
Unfortunately I can't join you on the Dragon Age comparison because I didn't play it (just the demo).
In terms of solutions, the Kid admits that the current solution (cycle of galactic murder) isn't working, because now the advanced races are in a position to defeat the Reapers. He points out that Destroy won't work, because the races will be left to kill each other, as he understands it. And Control will not change anything in terms of Synthetic and Organic life still being at odds with each other. This is why he proposes Synthesis, where all galactic life would be massively and equally advanced, and therefore in terms of his programming, the inevitable conflict between more advanced life forms and less advanced life forms will never happen. This is his 'New Solution'. I'm not saying it will actually work, but according to the principles he set down, this is a logical solution.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, the theory you are familiar with is not the theory I'm positing.
In answer to the rest, I'm not saying that one choice is correct, but to claim that a correct choice implies that the writing is lazy... this doesn't really make any sense. There is no logical path from having constrained choices => lazy writing.
If you can write a story with a conclusion that invites this much speculation, intrigue, and emotion, then I would congratulate you. I certainly wouldn't call it lazy writing.
And considering how demonstrably un-lazy the Bioware writers had been up to this point (scientific codex entries, planetary descriptions, in-game story changes to make your choices in previous games affect the new ones), I do not understand how anyone can genuinely think, "Oh and suddenly Bioware got lazy". ESPECIALLY when you consider how much they responded to player feeback and using it to tailor the experience in the sequels. And ESPECIALLY when you consider the fact that those same people have come out and said they are proud of the endings, and will not change them, in spite of the backlash. The laziness argument is borderline crazy.
It's an extremely tough choice. I don't think there's a clear moral answer here, this really is 100% down to the ethical values of the player.
The way I thought about it, when confronted by the StarChild, was directly influenced by the argument between Dr. Chakwas and Engineer Adams on the Normandy.
Adams said all life is equal. Synthetics are capable of the same emotions, free will, and thought as organics. Humans and other organics are themselves machines, in that they have pre-programmed responses to certain stimuli, such as pain, fear, etc. I think he even says something about it being inevitable that organics will evenutally engineer themselves to be indistinguishable from synthetics.
Chakwas said no, you can't value synthetics over organics. They're machines that we built. Their emotions and thoughts are just products of the physical programming written by organics. Organic life is something natural, and life is something special, not creatable. You can't devalue real life to be sacrificed in order to save machines.
I spent absolutely ages trying to decide who to side with. A lot of these conversations got me pacing up and down, but this one... I walked around the Normandy, talked to other crew members, and even just stood there, all the while trying to decide which point was stronger.
In the end, I sided with Adams, because I agreed with a lot of his points, and felt it was a dangerous thing to devalue free, thinking life forms just because they didn't resemble our own, weren't made in the same way. Chakwas just brushed it off by saying to Sheprard, "Well you would say that, you're part machine after all" or something.
But I had a really dark feeling come over me when I did agree with Adams. Because I realised that the implication of what I said was, that if it came down to it, I would allow all organic life to eventually die so long as synthetic life still remained. Which meant a galaxy populated only by computers. And I just felt incredibly uncomfortable with this, as if I'd turned my back on humanity and organic life, and sort of gone mad.
Which is why, when the end came round, I couldn't choose an option that meant ending the death of organic life, and the death of the human race and the other advanced races in this scenario. I'm not saying this is a perfect or correct solution, not at all, but it's just my thought process when Shepard was faced with that final choice. I'm not dismissing the Geth or EDI, I could write another essay on how horrible it was to effectively shoot EDI dead without her even knowing it, but the other choices were even worse, for reasons I hope I've managed to explain previously.
