Be a leviathan, have the power to psychically influence organic lifeform's thoughts, and then instead of dissuading them from creating synthetics, create an AI that kills all organics and synthetics starting from you.
The Catalyst: I have found the solution for the synthetics always destroying the organics. Shepard: By brokering the guaranteed peace between both by mutual respect and support, right? ... Right?
I don't think Catalyst would support this argument because in the future AI would try to take over again, be it 100 or 1000 years, and they would always have chances of succeeding
The Catalyt's argument seems flawed. Why would the Reapers have need of Sovereign, who aligned with Saren and the Geth, if they were simply "doing what they were created to do"? Aren't the Geth the very synthetics the Reapers were intended to protect organics from? I understand the eventual indoctrination of Saren and the Illusive Man as being a part of their integration process, but why even bother using them if they were not interested in causing more conflict then necessary?
The shot where the Catalyst says "I am the catalyst for peace between organics and synthetics" as you get a shot of the absolute destruction in the background speaks volumes. He's full of shit and knows he's moments from losing if he can't convince Shepard not to destroy the reapers
Yeah but the Catalyst says they had already successfully indoctrinated the Illusive Man. There was no point in letting him find a "new" solution at that point
Star Child: all synthetic life will kill organic, it is inevitable and nothing has ever happened to prove otherwise Shepard, who united the Geth and the Quarians: Well yes, but actually no.
Do you think an entity that lived for hundreds of thousands years care about some one truce? This is as stupid as saying "we managed to reach peace once on earth so it means there will never be any other war, ever"
Catalyst question: This is profoundly stupid. The only thing that makes sense is that the catalyst was created to be a bonding element ... Of..... Profoundly stupid ideology between organics and synthetics. See how easily I'm lost Bioware in stupid??! Reapers question: that doesn't explain it at all... What? The concept of it being created to represent their creators that oversaw the conflict of synthetic and organic life is stupid unless you rephrase that by saying something smart about the subconscious shadow and corruption., which this is too profoundly stupid to do. Leviathan question: redundant Shepard, prior to the question, asks who their creators are. After repeating itself FIVE TIMES "By those that recognized...." Profoundly stupid. It was created to solve the problem of organics vs synthetics to over see the relations of organics and synthetics by those that recognized the relations of organics and synthetics.... What?? This is just reaching. Crucible: oh hey it's barely a battery. I'll repeat myself instead of giving any new information because it's profoundly stupid, in a profound way that makes it stupid.
tbh i always found the kids solution and reasoning flawed, its also inconsistant with sovereign statement that all life was evolved to serve their own ends from ME1, the kid said he was exterminating all life and reforging it into reapers to save it, but he didnt mention that there would need to be an end one day to rebuild all that was lost to reaper form, the problem is that he was storing everything in reaper form and squiriling it all away with no end goal in mind, not one he spoke of, these cycles were pointless
All life in the galaxy evolves and develops on the paths laid out for them by the reapers so that they are easier to control and destroy. The purpose of the reapers is to simply protect organic life. They capture and catalogue them and then wipe out the intelligent ones and let new life grow. Their goal is to prevent the destruction of all life by synthetics. He explains this all
I don't get all the hate for the ending. The Reaper army was simply too strong. Their Blitzkrieg made victory via warfare impossible. The Leviathan were beyong any current life forms in power and abilities. I always believed that ending it wanted was the merging of synthetics and organics. The destruction ending, control ending, and refusal endings were the less desirable ending. It had the power, it always had the power. It follows with the narrative throughout the game, the war is unwinnable, only the superweapon can win it. Well, this is how.
So basically, there's no real point in doing the Leviathan DLC, because we don't even see them playing a part despite the fact that they can each take out one of the big Reapers alone.
Funny thing about the catalyst is that it’s the literal problem put in place to fix said very same problem yet the crucible was too stupid to realize it was literally the same problem it sought to eradicate. Not to mention that bitch lies to you all synthetics don’t die I saw Edi alive
3:33, the Reapers are not interested in war? So, apparently the Reapers are called the Reapers because they are soooo peaceful. All that combat and suspense with the Reapers because the cocky Catalyst killed them against their will and turned them into war machines. Peace? Preservation? Yeah right? The explanation only gets worse when the Catalyst explains how and why Harbinger was made to begin with: People begged this Catalyst to solve conflict, the Catylist saw them as part of the problem the people wanted to be solved, and thus made them into Harbinger. And the irony of it all is that Catalyst made both Harbinger, Leviathon, and the rest of the Reapers…to end conflict. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! The GCN dude was right to tear this Catalyst a new one for about 30 minutes.
the kid and the stupid dreams annoyed me so much that on my first trilogy play-through i shot him as i walked towards the destroy ending and almost choked when it was a bad end
That’s the 2nd worst ending in my opinion 1. Destroy- this is what Shepard set out to do 2. Control- you don’t alter people’s minds 3. Synthesis- you’re literally doing what Saren was trying to do 4. Refusal- just plain stupid
This ending is total dogshit, The Leviathan has to be an organic life form if it was capable of creating another life form. So for Star Child to say that Reapers are a preservation of Organic life to make space for others is nonsensical. They were created by organic life, obviously the highest levels of existence can co-exist.
Honestly guys the ending for Mass Effect 3 still fails, despite all the edits, extended cuts & DLCs from Bioware, here's why. Leviathan in the DLC talked about how there were many minor civilizations back in ancient times, which ended up destroying themselves due to their creation of AI machines. Leviathan said his own race decided to create its own AI, to help figure out a way to save lesser civilizations/ lesser forms of life from going extinct, kind of like how we humans create animal reserves on earth to preserve endangered animal species. At some point the AI, for some inexplicable reason, perverted the idea of "preservation of life at any cost," and saw its creators as an obstacle to this mission, and wiped them out. That part is still yet to be explained. Not that it needs an explanation, it's just bad writing by this point. The best explanation I can come up with is this: the Reapers were given an objective by their creators, that organic species who developed a true Artificial Intelligence would inevitably endanger their own existence. Then the Reapers pervert this logic by extending it multiple times... First, an organic race that created AI would also become dangerous to other organic life around it. Second, an organic race that made ANY AI in general, was then considered dangerous. And finally third, since OUR creators are organics who had created AI, they will also inevitably become a danger to themselves and other organic species around them, and so they too must be eliminated. Again, at the end of the day it's just bad writing. By this point in the story Bioware had written themselves into a corner. The Reaper mythos and their origin story could've gone in a better direction, or just left unexplained outright. Anything to get us away from this lame conclusion to the biggest question of the entire series.
Well the original ending was supposed to be different, they had to rethink everything at some point, and with different people. I kind of understand this ending but it's indeed, far from "logical"
@@protonjones54 At some point they were planning to have it revolve around the dark matter energy that was uncontrollably consuming stars, expanding upon what we have seen on Tali's Horizon mission
If 'synthesis' is a solution to the problem, why didn't this kid do that in the first place? How does controlling the Reapers solve the problem? Couldn't the Reapers just be guardians that protect organic life from synthetic life? If the catalyst can destroy all synthetic life when destroying the Reapers, why doesn't it just do that every time synthetics arise? Oh, because the crucible 'changed' him and created new possibilities and can't do them himself because... And why would the kid even tell you how to destroy the Reapers if that brings about his apocalypse? Sounds like a really dumb AI.
Reapers are just pawns, all they want is to continue the harvest and assimilate races into Reaper form, pretty incomprehensible reasoning to an organic because it makes no sense to people who value individuality
So would it be possible for EDI to be restored? After all, it was created by Cerberus and now all its data is in the possession of the Alliance, would it then be possible to recreate it, since they can restore the technology?
Control! Aaaaaall the way! As HUGE fan of the M.E. universe who has played the trilogy countless times i tend to choose Control more often than destroy or Synthesis. With Control everyone survives Organics, Synthetics EVEN Shepard as the new Catalyst. Yeah Yeah i know i know he survives on the Destroy ending as well of you have enough Alliance, but is it really worth it? You killed the Geth, EDI among every other Synthetic life in the galaxy.
This. Control is the only choice that makes sense. Synthesis is losing our humanity and if the Catalyst pushed for this choice its because that's the one that saves his ass. With control everything stays the same but now someone good controls the reapers. It means Shepard can act as a deterrent if people try to create AIs. Reapers get their original mission of protecting organic life but without rebelling. Problem fixed.
Before Mass effect finished production Mass effect 1 I wanted to do synthesis ending of Mass effect 3. Life is boring with primitives. But with my friends I wanted to be the light dude out of boredom.
So, while it's been a minute now I will say this: The Star Child as the antagonist at the end is BS. For say, an Earthborn Shepard. Why would (s)he care about some random kid getting zapped? Considering ANYONE from earlier could've been a better candidate to break Shepard. Or the Colonist Shepard. Add in the Sole Survivor background and there would be an extensive list of familiar faces to break Shepard down. As for Spacer, eh. Fk Spacer background. But yeah, a run and gun ending where your squad would die one by one would've made for a more impactful ending. Especially if the love interest made it with you to the end, only to be cut down by TIM. But, while not a satisfactory ending. It was an ending.
Stupid circular logic. This thing should've at least adressed the quarian/geth conflict resolution and say that they saw that in other cycles but it never lasts or something like that. Or better, why don't do they kill the synthetics instead of their builders? And why left behind technology that will end up accelerating technical evolution precissely towards the creation of synthetics? And how do they know synthetics kill ALL ORGANIC LIFE instead of just their own creators leaving the rest of the galaxy alone? Oh, and the "you would not know them and there is no time to explain" is just the cherry on top of the asspull from nowhere that is the weapon
This plot is so stupid. If he is the Citadel why did Sovereign need to come back to let the other reapers in? The catalyst could’ve done everything from the beginning. It’s also annoying how every Reaper has been talking about us being pointless, our death and destruction, but star kid comes along and tells you how you have choice and hope. It’s such a bizarre flip flop. I wish they kept the original plot
BioWare gave us choices at the end of the trilogy but according to the ME5 teaser trailer, your preference doesn't matter: the canon choice is the destroy ending. Another middle finger to us.
That's been the case from the get go. ME1 whether you save or abandon the council nothing dramatically changes, ME2 whether you destroy or keep the collector base nothing dramatically changes...
Be a leviathan, have the power to psychically influence organic lifeform's thoughts, and then instead of dissuading them from creating synthetics, create an AI that kills all organics and synthetics starting from you.
Honestly, I didn't know this happened until I did it and then had to reload the save
The Catalyst: I have found the solution for the synthetics always destroying the organics. Shepard: By brokering the guaranteed peace between both by mutual respect and support, right? ... Right?
I don't think Catalyst would support this argument because in the future AI would try to take over again, be it 100 or 1000 years, and they would always have chances of succeeding
The Catalyt's argument seems flawed. Why would the Reapers have need of Sovereign, who aligned with Saren and the Geth, if they were simply "doing what they were created to do"? Aren't the Geth the very synthetics the Reapers were intended to protect organics from? I understand the eventual indoctrination of Saren and the Illusive Man as being a part of their integration process, but why even bother using them if they were not interested in causing more conflict then necessary?
So much synchronicity
The shot where the Catalyst says "I am the catalyst for peace between organics and synthetics" as you get a shot of the absolute destruction in the background speaks volumes. He's full of shit and knows he's moments from losing if he can't convince Shepard not to destroy the reapers
111 xo
Honestly the catalyst should've been Kaiden or Ashley....
The result of a writers ego. Someone wrote it to be incomprehensible and then someone else thought he could do better.
The AI and its goals should have stayed incomprehensible.
Bullshit
The Synthesis is the final evolution of all life. The paths are open, but you have to choose - The Catalyst
WaKe Up, Daddy!
The kid helped shepard because he was the first to reach there, but didnt illusive man was there as well?
Yeah but the Catalyst says they had already successfully indoctrinated the Illusive Man. There was no point in letting him find a "new" solution at that point
Star Child: all synthetic life will kill organic, it is inevitable and nothing has ever happened to prove otherwise Shepard, who united the Geth and the Quarians: Well yes, but actually no.
Do you think an entity that lived for hundreds of thousands years care about some one truce? This is as stupid as saying "we managed to reach peace once on earth so it means there will never be any other war, ever"
This and Crying suns are the best approaches I ever seen regarding Godlike AI scenarios.
Ceau Adriane
noroc
Catalyst question: This is profoundly stupid. The only thing that makes sense is that the catalyst was created to be a bonding element ... Of..... Profoundly stupid ideology between organics and synthetics. See how easily I'm lost Bioware in stupid??! Reapers question: that doesn't explain it at all... What? The concept of it being created to represent their creators that oversaw the conflict of synthetic and organic life is stupid unless you rephrase that by saying something smart about the subconscious shadow and corruption., which this is too profoundly stupid to do. Leviathan question: redundant Shepard, prior to the question, asks who their creators are. After repeating itself FIVE TIMES "By those that recognized...." Profoundly stupid. It was created to solve the problem of organics vs synthetics to over see the relations of organics and synthetics by those that recognized the relations of organics and synthetics.... What?? This is just reaching. Crucible: oh hey it's barely a battery. I'll repeat myself instead of giving any new information because it's profoundly stupid, in a profound way that makes it stupid.
Synthesis, the greatest ending to a story that i have ever saw in 26 years playing video games.
tbh i always found the kids solution and reasoning flawed, its also inconsistant with sovereign statement that all life was evolved to serve their own ends from ME1, the kid said he was exterminating all life and reforging it into reapers to save it, but he didnt mention that there would need to be an end one day to rebuild all that was lost to reaper form, the problem is that he was storing everything in reaper form and squiriling it all away with no end goal in mind, not one he spoke of, these cycles were pointless
All life in the galaxy evolves and develops on the paths laid out for them by the reapers so that they are easier to control and destroy. The purpose of the reapers is to simply protect organic life. They capture and catalogue them and then wipe out the intelligent ones and let new life grow. Their goal is to prevent the destruction of all life by synthetics. He explains this all
I don't get all the hate for the ending. The Reaper army was simply too strong. Their Blitzkrieg made victory via warfare impossible. The Leviathan were beyong any current life forms in power and abilities. I always believed that ending it wanted was the merging of synthetics and organics. The destruction ending, control ending, and refusal endings were the less desirable ending. It had the power, it always had the power. It follows with the narrative throughout the game, the war is unwinnable, only the superweapon can win it. Well, this is how.
So basically, there's no real point in doing the Leviathan DLC, because we don't even see them playing a part despite the fact that they can each take out one of the big Reapers alone.
Chaos still in fashion
Funny thing about the catalyst is that it’s the literal problem put in place to fix said very same problem yet the crucible was too stupid to realize it was literally the same problem it sought to eradicate. Not to mention that bitch lies to you all synthetics don’t die I saw Edi alive
3:33, the Reapers are not interested in war? So, apparently the Reapers are called the Reapers because they are soooo peaceful. All that combat and suspense with the Reapers because the cocky Catalyst killed them against their will and turned them into war machines. Peace? Preservation? Yeah right? The explanation only gets worse when the Catalyst explains how and why Harbinger was made to begin with: People begged this Catalyst to solve conflict, the Catylist saw them as part of the problem the people wanted to be solved, and thus made them into Harbinger. And the irony of it all is that Catalyst made both Harbinger, Leviathon, and the rest of the Reapers…to end conflict. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! The GCN dude was right to tear this Catalyst a new one for about 30 minutes.
at this point shepard is the most powerful being in the galaxy
i love that the game used anderson and the illusive man for their respective endings
the kid and the stupid dreams annoyed me so much that on my first trilogy play-through i shot him as i walked towards the destroy ending and almost choked when it was a bad end
I chose Synthesis
That’s the 2nd worst ending in my opinion 1. Destroy- this is what Shepard set out to do 2. Control- you don’t alter people’s minds 3. Synthesis- you’re literally doing what Saren was trying to do 4. Refusal- just plain stupid
This ending is total dogshit, The Leviathan has to be an organic life form if it was capable of creating another life form. So for Star Child to say that Reapers are a preservation of Organic life to make space for others is nonsensical. They were created by organic life, obviously the highest levels of existence can co-exist.
Honestly guys the ending for Mass Effect 3 still fails, despite all the edits, extended cuts & DLCs from Bioware, here's why. Leviathan in the DLC talked about how there were many minor civilizations back in ancient times, which ended up destroying themselves due to their creation of AI machines. Leviathan said his own race decided to create its own AI, to help figure out a way to save lesser civilizations/ lesser forms of life from going extinct, kind of like how we humans create animal reserves on earth to preserve endangered animal species. At some point the AI, for some inexplicable reason, perverted the idea of "preservation of life at any cost," and saw its creators as an obstacle to this mission, and wiped them out. That part is still yet to be explained. Not that it needs an explanation, it's just bad writing by this point. The best explanation I can come up with is this: the Reapers were given an objective by their creators, that organic species who developed a true Artificial Intelligence would inevitably endanger their own existence. Then the Reapers pervert this logic by extending it multiple times... First, an organic race that created AI would also become dangerous to other organic life around it. Second, an organic race that made ANY AI in general, was then considered dangerous. And finally third, since OUR creators are organics who had created AI, they will also inevitably become a danger to themselves and other organic species around them, and so they too must be eliminated. Again, at the end of the day it's just bad writing. By this point in the story Bioware had written themselves into a corner. The Reaper mythos and their origin story could've gone in a better direction, or just left unexplained outright. Anything to get us away from this lame conclusion to the biggest question of the entire series.
Well the original ending was supposed to be different, they had to rethink everything at some point, and with different people. I kind of understand this ending but it's indeed, far from "logical"
@@OzonePro2 What was the original plan for the ending, do you remember? I might've heard about it before
@@protonjones54 At some point they were planning to have it revolve around the dark matter energy that was uncontrollably consuming stars, expanding upon what we have seen on Tali's Horizon mission
@@OzonePro2 oh that's right yeah I've heard about that. Bringing back the dark energy plot would make for a good central story arc in mass effect 4
If 'synthesis' is a solution to the problem, why didn't this kid do that in the first place? How does controlling the Reapers solve the problem? Couldn't the Reapers just be guardians that protect organic life from synthetic life? If the catalyst can destroy all synthetic life when destroying the Reapers, why doesn't it just do that every time synthetics arise? Oh, because the crucible 'changed' him and created new possibilities and can't do them himself because... And why would the kid even tell you how to destroy the Reapers if that brings about his apocalypse? Sounds like a really dumb AI.
If you think this ending is poorly written, you're stupid. That's just a fact. Doesn't matter whether you like it or not.
FART!!!!
Wrex: come on shepard we're gonna take down the leviathan and i'm helping
Sovereign: you are ants to us. You cannot comprehend our goals Idk man, sounds pretty comprehendible and fucking stupid.
Reapers are just pawns, all they want is to continue the harvest and assimilate races into Reaper form, pretty incomprehensible reasoning to an organic because it makes no sense to people who value individuality
Feak this endings.
So would it be possible for EDI to be restored? After all, it was created by Cerberus and now all its data is in the possession of the Alliance, would it then be possible to recreate it, since they can restore the technology?
Years later... Still, I don't buy its arguments and the choice presentations. I choose our own future every time. Adiós kid.
Chad
@@batman_2004 Also, a murderer, liar, saint, depressed, offender, patient and rage filled... After all, humanity must be extinguished.
Control! Aaaaaall the way! As HUGE fan of the M.E. universe who has played the trilogy countless times i tend to choose Control more often than destroy or Synthesis. With Control everyone survives Organics, Synthetics EVEN Shepard as the new Catalyst. Yeah Yeah i know i know he survives on the Destroy ending as well of you have enough Alliance, but is it really worth it? You killed the Geth, EDI among every other Synthetic life in the galaxy.
This. Control is the only choice that makes sense. Synthesis is losing our humanity and if the Catalyst pushed for this choice its because that's the one that saves his ass. With control everything stays the same but now someone good controls the reapers. It means Shepard can act as a deterrent if people try to create AIs. Reapers get their original mission of protecting organic life but without rebelling. Problem fixed.
Before Mass effect finished production Mass effect 1 I wanted to do synthesis ending of Mass effect 3. Life is boring with primitives. But with my friends I wanted to be the light dude out of boredom.
Really wish the star child was avina the citadel ai
What a disapoiment that the leviathan didn´t appear floating: "Destroy The betrayer piece of filth "
So, while it's been a minute now I will say this: The Star Child as the antagonist at the end is BS. For say, an Earthborn Shepard. Why would (s)he care about some random kid getting zapped? Considering ANYONE from earlier could've been a better candidate to break Shepard. Or the Colonist Shepard. Add in the Sole Survivor background and there would be an extensive list of familiar faces to break Shepard down. As for Spacer, eh. Fk Spacer background. But yeah, a run and gun ending where your squad would die one by one would've made for a more impactful ending. Especially if the love interest made it with you to the end, only to be cut down by TIM. But, while not a satisfactory ending. It was an ending.
Stupid circular logic. This thing should've at least adressed the quarian/geth conflict resolution and say that they saw that in other cycles but it never lasts or something like that. Or better, why don't do they kill the synthetics instead of their builders? And why left behind technology that will end up accelerating technical evolution precissely towards the creation of synthetics? And how do they know synthetics kill ALL ORGANIC LIFE instead of just their own creators leaving the rest of the galaxy alone? Oh, and the "you would not know them and there is no time to explain" is just the cherry on top of the asspull from nowhere that is the weapon
"Commander throw it in airlock" "No, don't" "Aaaaaaa"
Reapers: I am inevitable, we are solution Shepard: And I am commander Shepard
Even if I get everything right in a run, I always destroy the Reapers. On general principle; Fuck 'em.
This plot is so stupid. If he is the Citadel why did Sovereign need to come back to let the other reapers in? The catalyst could’ve done everything from the beginning. It’s also annoying how every Reaper has been talking about us being pointless, our death and destruction, but star kid comes along and tells you how you have choice and hope. It’s such a bizarre flip flop. I wish they kept the original plot
BioWare gave us choices at the end of the trilogy but according to the ME5 teaser trailer, your preference doesn't matter: the canon choice is the destroy ending. Another middle finger to us.
That's been the case from the get go. ME1 whether you save or abandon the council nothing dramatically changes, ME2 whether you destroy or keep the collector base nothing dramatically changes...