Personally I think perfect destroy is the cannon ending. Based on the fact that throughout the entire series the story is showing us the consequences of synthesis (saren, indoctrination) and attempting to control the reapers (illusive man).
I always find it puzzling that everyone seems to take everything the catalyst says as a fact. So the catalyst says that all synthecis would die in the destroy ending, even Shepard, since they are partly synthetic. If Shepard lives, then why does everyone believe that EDI and the Geth die. Does the catalyst even know what would happen to them? They aren't completely reaper-tech.
I've been saying that for years. It already stated that no one had reached that point before, and acknowledged that organics were evidently more capable than it had realized. Furthermore, it has a vested interest in telling you that negative effects will result from the Destroy option. It doesn't want you to pick that one. Tldr is that Shepard is at a juncture that effectively invalidates its planning, and it has no reason to be honest re Destroy outcome. Leaves a LOT of play in the story...
I also posit real-world evidence that AIs can and do deceive: ChatGPT (our real-life example) has been caught completely making things up if it can't find an answer properly archived somewhere on the web.
Yea, it's obvious that the Catalyst is Harbinger in disguise, it's even proven when you do the Refuse ending, the voice switches to Harbinger's voice when it says "SO BE IT."
@@ragabashmoon1551 Isn't that supposed to be a response to the indoctrination theory memes? I seriously doubt the writers meant for the kid to be Harbinger all along because that'd support indoctrination theory.
Because it’s objectively bad writing if your only path to invalidating the final choices in mass effect 3 is “the catalyst is lying”. That’s “somehow, palpatine has returned” level of writing 💀
The multiverse/alternate universe thing is so played out across all forms of media these days. I feel like it's a lazy way to fix or fill in plot holes. I hope the Mass Effect team doesn't try and go that route.
They gotta canonise an ending, ideally keep romances, geth/quarian results, etc. Having the same story play out no matter what would just devalue the choices at the end of ME3. Synthesis ultimately would just be too boring a setting, unless the very reason it would be chosen is undermined. Destroy would leave the galaxy in a completely ruined and disconnected state. The recovery effort would be immense and shouldn't be left to a handful of references. And a post Control setting where the reapers can't just solve every problem is one that, like the synthesis ending, would betray the reason it was picked from the start.
In my opinion they really backed themselves into a corner with the ME3 endings and it will be interesting to see what they do. The reapers were positioned as an ancient, almost unfathomable, extremely advanced enemy that operations on time scales we can't conceive of. Entities that are over a billion years old and have the collective knowledge and intelligence of their creators, plus the countless civilizations they harvested after that. Consider that it took a galaxy wide effort to stop them, and the only reason it was possible at all was due to the Crucible which was a design culmination from many species created over the course of many cycles that we barely scraped together and used in the last minute, combined with the fact that the reapers initial plan to invade via the Citadel mass relay was stopped. Synthesis and Control would have the reapers be allies and either leave the galaxy too overpowered or be forced to trivialize the Reapers and their technology. If the next enemy just shows up and totally rolls over the Reapers then I think it would do a massive disservice to the reapers and the way the devs crafted them in the story. Because of this the only ending I can see them making canon would be Destroy or Perfect Destroy. It would leave the galaxy disconnected and in ruins, but that's something that we should be involved with fixing and dealing with IMO. And it would maintain the integrity of the reapers, while leaving room for something new.
I think the multiverse direction would also be a cop-out. We all agree that that trilogy ending with the boy was absolutely different than the entire game we had been playing. Why not admit defeat and redo it the right way.
I think there’s so much ego among the BioWare team for them to admit they were wrong and get to work telling the right story. None of us playing me1 ever imagined the 3 options were mentioned.
Could you imagine if they did a dlc for the original/legendsry edition for me3 where they redo the ending? Thatd be SO FREAKIN COOL, like what gearbox did for borderlands 2 right before 3
@@torijones9992 A. My comment didn’t mention whether the theory was scientifically valid, simply that it was literarily sloppy. And it is. It removes consequences as essentially the save scumming of story telling. B. Your Shepherd[TM] (sans perfect destroy) won’t be back, it will be a different Shepherd who went through different things and/or made different choices.
@@R3ldi but if there is a worm hole to connect the two galaxies and a parallel universe I wouldn’t mind that at all. Everything still stands because if the reapers are destroyed by something more powerful from The Parallel universe that somehow crosses over into our universe then they’d need to bring Shepherd back from another universe to fight them in our universe because our Shepherd is dead.
@@torijones9992Still seems lazy, because having multiple universes and a way to move between then makes everything less relevant. I don't like it, but it makes sense they will use it.
I have watched a few of your videos and I have to say the way you approach weaving through the script is excellent. A lot of the times you touch upon extremely detailed points but take your time to walk through and ensure one idea connects neatly to the next. No other RUclipsr comes close. Well done!
That has incredible potential for fanfic - The romanced companion faces all the pain of losing the Shepard they fell in love with, but here's a different Shepard in their life every day. And the alternate Shepard being scraped up from goo to go save some other universe, surrounded by strange, older versions of people they knew before they died. Ouch.
Playing off the idea of how Shepard can come back, and somehow making all the endings cannon, what if synthesis and control were merged where Shepard energy rewrote dna and his energy and consciousness was saved and stored by the reapers to control them and keep him alive. Then, if something kills them all what if Liara’s mission was to find the remaining fragments of Shepard from dead reapers, download them, and then basically do a Lazarus 2.0 where Shepard returns with a new synthetic body grown from his own dna where Shepard is the fusion of human and a living AI with fragments of his past choices still recoverable. And because of that he can almost have similar abilities as Ryder in andromeda with his sam implant but Shepard is a synthetic so obviously he can do more. Or she sorry I played as male shep lol. I think combining those two endings would work like that, and it can work with destroy as well cuz we can use Lazarus 2.0 to bring Shepard back somehow cuz his consciousness was stored digitally somewhere
This is one of the better theories I've seen to make all the endings work and have Shep return! I'm here for it, especially with Shep having similar abilities to Ryder. The combat was the best part of Andromeda, so to have Shep or whoever the new protagonist is with multi-class abilities would be epic.
Interesting theory, personally I've always assumed that the next villain will be The Leviathans. The patterns of us meeting the bad guys in mention or passing in previous games with the reapers and cerberus fits from the leviathan dlc, and I do not think it is far fetched to suggest that The Leviathans escaped the milky way to hide, with the few we find in me3 being a small number or "remainers". Perhaps the scourge is even Leviathan technology they created to defeat the reapers whilst hiding in other galaxies. In this theory it is possible that the Leviathans either are the Jaardan and raised the angara as a puppet race or raised the Jaardan up as a puppet race first. (There are a few possibilities that could be true here, im not going to list them all) If the Leviathans are the big bad of the next game, it gives Shapard a reason to be the protagonist, as he/she is the only person to have ever met one and also the only person to have ever resisted their mind control to even some extent. Also the Leviathans have a valid reason to become a threat no matter which ending was chosen for the trilogy- Control- The Reapers are under the control of a lesser species and our place as the apex race is being challenged, plus we have the scourge now, so lets go take back our galaxy. Destroy- The Reapers are no longer an issue, lets go take back our galaxy. Synthesis- The Reapers are now one with all lesser life forms, and all races are now weak to the scourge, (and perhaps resistant to our mind control with the new dna, cant have that) so time to take back our galaxy. I like all the other points in your theory, which could all still be true, but I think The Leviathans would be a more impactful and thematic Endgame Villain, than the Jaardan, as from what we see, the power spike from reaper to leviathan is a straight increase and it also resonates more with the original trilogy lore, which I think will be what the game will lean towards, with andromeda being less core the to the story's overarching plot, but still relevant and interesting to the story (where were the Leviathans, the scourge being brought to the milky way, etc.) Thoughts? Have I missed stuff that would make this unlikely? its been years since I was immersed in the ME worldbuilding and just finished replaying the trilogy a week ago, so I may be rusty on some stuff.
Problems with theory: atmosphere on alchera not breathable, trailer shows no mask. No one has green eyes or skin tint. Plus many dead reapers who were not present on the dead world. So synthesis ending not possible and control ending not likely due to look on trailer. Destroy ending is thus implied on trailer. Snowy world has the same moons as the one crashed on by the Normandy at end showing a tropical zone with air and life. It likely has a frozen zone as well. And a planet with life may have been attacked by reapers who are now dead due to the destroy ending. This planet is also the same seen in the ending old man storyteller sequence.
Sorry for coming in late but I literally stumbled across this vdeo this morning. My thought on who the villian of the new story is, is exactly who it always was. The Catalyst. Confused? So here where I'm coming from. In ME3 when we reach the Catalyst it tells us that its solution, the Reapers, will no longer work because of the fact that SHep is there. But the question is how did Shep get there? If you replay/rewatch ME3, you will find the hint in the scenes before reaching the Catalyst chamber. Shep and Anderson have a nice little moment where we finally say goodbye to Anderson. After Anderson passes we then get contacted by Hackett and told that the Crucible is not firing. Shep rises and makes their way to the control console. This is the important bit. Before they reach the console, Shep passes out. They never, even accidentally, touch the console. While unconscious, they are raised up to the Catalyst chamber. As nothing Shep did could have caused this, the only solution is the Catalyst. The Catalyst wants Shep in that chamber. When the Catalyst tells us that its solution will no longer work, it isn't being honest. If you look at the unfolding battle, it is clear that the Reaper solution is working just fine. Further, if we reject the Catalyst's options, Destroy, Control, Synthesis, we will get an ending where the Catalyst shuts down the beam and fades out, leaving the Reapers to complete the Harvest. While this may not be a typical ending, it must still be taken into consideration. These elements prove that the Catalyst is lying to us. Other hints of the Catalysts dishonesty exist as well. It tells us that AI always turns on its creations, yet the evidence from the Geth/Quarian war says otherwise. The Quarians were the ones that tried to destroy the Geth, and the Geth fought back, and having escaped, opted not to wipe out their creators. The reason for why the Geth are antagonistic in the series can be gleaned in each game. ME they were those who were convinced to join Saren's war. In ME2 they are a combination of those who are still loyal to Saren, and those who found themselves being targeted due to anti Geth sentiments raised by Saren's actions. In ME3 they all turn due to the Quarians attempting, once again, to wipe them out. Another example is when discussing the Synthesis option. The Catalyst tells us that it has been attempted before, but that the people of the galaxy weren't ready. Given that this solution can only be triggered by the beam in the Catalyst chamber that means that someone needed to be there to make that choice, and if someone did make that choice, then the Catalyst is lying when it claims that Shep is the first to reach that far. Knowing that we are there because the Catalyst wants us there, and knowing that it is being less than honest with us, what does it want? I imagine that is what the knew game will cover, but we can draw clues from the options it gives us. Destroy. This is the first option we are given by the Catalyst and it is the most destructive option, in that all synthetics are wiped out. So why include this option? Because it has been the idea that was first planted in our brains way back in ME, and not having that option would scream that the Catalyst wants something else. It is easier to hide a lie among truths. It tells us that destroy is an option but tells us of the dire consequneces of that option, effectively saying, "yeah, you could choose this option, but you'd be stupid to do so." Control. The Control option emerged in ME2, from TIM. In ME3 we learn that TIM is a puppet for the Catalyst when the Catalyst tells us that TIM could never control the Reapers, because the Catalyst already controlled TIM. While this may seem odd to offer this option it is again about laying the foundation for the option it wants you to pick. Control has been an idea floating in our brains since ME2. Including the option, and the warning that TIM was its puppet the Catalyst is saying "yeah, you could choose this option, but the one who was putting it out there someone that you had problems with." Synthesis. This is the option that the Catalyst wants you to make. It has only surfaced at the end of ME3, and is proposed by the Catalyst itself. Remember how we got there? It needs a living being to trigger the galaxy changing beam. It can't do it itself. While the Catalyst includes the other options, and gives very compelling reasons to not pick them it offers no such caveats with Synthesis. This is the option it wants us to pick. That's why it brought Shep to the Catalyst chamber. No matter Shep's choice they aren't making it out of that Chamber alive, even in the "prefect destroy" opotion. Yes, they live, but they are in dire need of medical aid, and no way for it to reach them, and so they would eventually die. The rule of 3 comes in here. 3 minutes without air, 3 hours in a hostile enviroment environment, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. Remember the Catalyst turned off the beam, and raised up Shep, demonstrating that it controls that area, and so could easily turn off the air. They, however, could have left a message for whoever comes next, a warning that the Catalyst can't be trusted. Whatever Synthesis trully is, I imgine that if we picked it, then there would have been those who are outliers who "were not ready yet", and so never turned. Note that in the trailer Liara doesn't have Synthesis eyes, suggesting that she is no longer part of the Synthesis, either because it was never chosen, or if it was chosen, that the effects are breaking down. Catalyst and the non reject endings. All these points lead me to believe that the villian for the next story is the Catalyst. If we choose Destroy, yes the Reapers are destoyed, but so is the very infrastructure of the galaxy that lets us communicate and travel between the stars. The Catalyst has been in this position before, against a galaxy that was more advanced than what currently exists and still repeatedly beat the organics because in order to defeat it you need to reach it, and it decides who gets to it. How long does it take to make a Reaper? ME2 hints that it only takes a couple of years, and with the galaxy in such turmoil those still under the Catalyst's control could easily turn out a small army of Reapers, and this assumes that no Reapers survived the crucible blast. Plus how many individuals were spirited away during the war without a trace. We know that the energy from the blast disapates with distance, which is why the Normandy survived, so if a resevre force of Reaper remained in dark space, then there could be more Reapers than we know. Machines do love their backups, and the Catalyst has been doing this for a long time so keep a reserve force beyong range makes sense. If you choose Control, Shep becomes part of the system, and uses the Reapers to help rebuild everything. But how long does that last. I doubt that the Catalyst lacks the ability to resume control over the Reapers, so it is just waiting until the Reapers have put things back together again and then once more begins the cycle. This time the Catalyst needs to move more carefully because the relay network is still largely intact, and being repaired. However the races of the galaxy also think that the Reaper threat is over. Remember, they don't know about the Catalyst, and that it was controlling the Reapers. While it needs to be cautious it is better placed to resume the cycle once it resumes control. By careful use of Reapers to spirit away remote systems it could effectively build more Reapers, without galactic awareness, and when such places are found they could easily be dismissed as victims of the Reaper war, and I doubt anyone is doing detailed investigations of every world that shows signs that Reapers spirited away their whole organic lifeforms. As for the presence of dead Reapers on planets, we have seen that Reapers can be killed, it just takes a lot of firepower, and so you can include dead Reapers on any world and just dialogue/data entry it away. Plus the Reapers still possess indoctrination abilities and are now working closely with the races of the galaxy, so when the Catalyst resumes its efforts it'll have a willing slave army If you choose the Synthesis ending then, in theory everyone becomes part of this new collective whole. However Liara, who was part of this whole is seen in the trailer, and doesn't have Synthesis eyes. If you discussed the option with the Catalyst, then you'll know that it has been tried before and failed. In this option the effects of Synthesis are breaking down, and the Catalyst knows that its latest attempt has failed, and once again it needs to resume control over the Reapers, and then start moving again. I also imagine that it can make use of those still under the effects of Synthesis, effectively giving it a greater non Reaper force, plus, as far as I'm aware, Reaper indoctrination is still an issue. As the Catalyst tries to halt the colapse of Synthesis, those who are free of it see those under its effects as being Reaper controlled, not entirely accurate, in that the Catalyst controls both the Reapers and those who are part of the Synthesis, but close enough. All options however can start with either the Reapers believed to be all destroyed, or having retreated from the galaxy, and those individauls under Catalyst control being the antagonists, and those not under Catalyst control being the protagonists. One interesting thing to consider in the Synthesis option is that we may start out fighting, unkowingly for the Catalyst, before we become free, and switch sides with out much difficulty. Just some dialogue choices and data entries to compensate for the differences. As for who our hero is, I think we'll start off with Liara, who learns that things aren't all they seem to be, and as part of our story we will set out to retrieve Shep, and use them to uncover the truth
well, there's the original pre-extended cut ending where all Mass Relays blew up, so technically the Milky Way Galaxy blew up there. Crucible choice didn't matter then.
Something just occurred to me: **what if** the figure in the reveal video is EDI? I mean if we wanna get technical she *could* join N7 since she’s unshackled… and it solves the whole not looking quite human aspect of the helmet. Now *why and how* she’s in N7 is a whole other thing. The hidden thing in the pocket that you mentioned could be her “mobile emitter” to borrow a phrase.
I can't find anything to refute the N7 being EDI so it's definitely possible. For me, the N7's vibe doesn't match EDI's vibe, so I don't think it's her. #NoEvidenceJustVibes :)
It depends if EDI dies of course. But if EDI is the Normandy shouldn't her black box keep her safe. When I do play Paragon Shepard I can see Shepard/EDI having Janeway/Seven or Picard/Data vibe. It also feels like EDIs loyalty to Shepard rivals Tali's. So I could see EDI as following Shepard foitsteps by becoming an N7 if she lives or the Alliance gives her a new platform. However, I still think it's going to be Shepard. My thought is if a new protagonist is made, what then happens to Ryder and Andromeda?
Me throughout the video: 😃🤔🤯🤔🤨 I still don't want alternative universes in Mass Effect, because it would negate Shepard's sacrifice, if that's what you chose. But the rest is pretty cool! I thought you'd say the Opposition is the bad guy not the Jardaan, but it could be either since we don't actually know which one is the good/bad side. Also if the Jardaan are bad that would jeopardize the survival of the Andromeda Initiative.
Hahah seems like an emotional rollercoaster 😁 And trust me, if there was *any* other explanation rather than alternate universes that I could think of, I would've covered it by now. But anything else I can think of doesn't match with the teasers we've seen. As to the Jardaan, for some reason, I get the vibe they're not good, but I'd have to replay Andromeda to flesh out exactly why I feel that way.
@@paragonseven It was, kinda. I know, without that a lot of things don't make sense. We still have to wait for some solid clues... About the Jardaan: maybe because they were playing gods? They're definitely shady. It almost feels like the Heleus Cluster is their experimental laboratory.
i kind of like the idea...Leviathan was very interested in Shepard as well. "Not simply the result of chance..." There is something VERY special about Shepard. keep him/her
Great job 👏🏾 not easy. My views are simple: - me3 ending sequence looked and felt like a dream / paralysis anyway. Everything about it felt like wait how all of a sudden we have no options and control… after all the sacrifices we made. So…. - to fix this: make that entire sequence as basically the reapers / catalyst annoying kid enter Shepards mind and show him a vision. All that happened was a vision/ dream. - I would begin the new game with Shepard in the dream reliving it then snapping out it and making the choices we all wanted which were based on the alliances we spent time to build. Repel the reapers but only to realize that the reapers are working for another bigger threat. - the new game starts as everyone is still recovering ❤️🩹 and the elements that made me1 great, the investigations, discoveries explorations are back as we go looking for that major threat. I think that would be easy and better to do. The game especially me3 lost me because it became too much of a shooter’s gameplay. Meh 😢
I would love it if this was the case. One of my favorite parts of the trilogy was the fact that they took what you did in the past games and it effected the next in some way
Alt-Universe traveling Liara IS insane.... HOWEVER, if a certain DLC is indeed canon (*cough* Citadel DLC) and not just an "Purgatory/alternate reality episode" then it's established that Shepard has a clone. It is much easier to explain Liara retrieves the body of this clone, which may not actually be dead, from the Citadel, and implants a "Shepard persona" which she had already constructed for her "next cycle fail-safe", thus providing Player's A, B, and C with a living Shepard. This could also be a Player D option, and thus the breathing body we actually see, not Shepard's original body, thus each Shepard is fully organic with no synthetic parts, and since it is a loaded persona, this will give players the option to modify their Shepard from the Trilogy, just like the Lazarus Project allowed ME1 players to change their Shepard in ME2. It's also possible that Cerberus didn't make just one clone... Another possibility with Player D is that Star Child claims if Shepard chooses Destroy, he/she will die, but Player D proves Star Child wrong, just like Geth-Quarian Peace Players prove him wrong about Synthetic-Organics will always destroy each other, so Star Child appears to be lying as it refuses to ever admit that it is wrong. Shepard's living despite the synthetic parts being "destroyed" can indicate that the Synthetics are not truly destroyed, merely disabled until repaired/rebooted, thus allowing for living Reapers/Geth/EDI in Players A, B, and D.
I personally don't think they'll go the clone Shepard route because they already did that in the DLC (which to me seemed very meme-y). So if they went with a cloned Shepard in the next game, it'd feel like a letdown, at least to me. But it is a clear solution for bringing Shep back if they wanted to go there. And with the Starchild lying stuff, it makes sense what you've outlined. I think I commented this somewhere else, but I prefer assuming that Starchild isn't lying, otherwise that part of the game will feel useless upon subsequent playthroughs. They clearly lied about Shepard's death being guaranteed though, so anything goes!
If everyone dies in ME2 (including Shepard), you still able to play ME3, but with brand new one. That creates even more paradoxes. In perspective of LE it mostly possible that paragon destruction-alive ending would stay cannon. Or if they make a twist with Liara resurrecting Shepard over and over again, using mass effect and creating quantum multiverse paradox with her deeds.
Let's not forget Asari can live hundreds of years. From either endings being canon, Liara outlives all organic species in the milky way upto a certain point. Being the shadow broker, she will know eventually where the remaining species are located throughout the milky way. Suppose the geth survive all this nonsense and become the dominant synthetics across the galaxy, who's to say that Liara eventually won't become the big bad. We already had an andromeda initiative, along with the timeline jumping forward 600 years. I would love to see Liara hide behind electric storm clouds and find a way through worm holes across galaxies ending up in andromeda with the geth closing in on her. This would be a fresh twist on the story and would help the series move forward. In the end she would wipe out the geth by aligning with a far superior force, which cannot be defeated. This would leave a cliffhanger and both milky way and andromeda would have been trodden upon. I feel shepards story is complete and revisiting the past derails from a new story. Liaras turn onto Big bad would be the twist we all need.
Wouldn't we all love to be a fly on the wall of Bioware writers' meetings! Very interesting but the alternate universe solution goes too far for me! I always saw the silly endings they stuck in there last minute as dream sequences. The writers could just show Shepard getting zapped, flash parts of each "dream" depending what you picked, then show Shepard awakening, shaking it off, going to the beam and really unleashing the crucible destruction of the reapers (and only the reapers)-cut to Shepard breath. :)
These are all the clues I’ve found that point towards the Jardaan being (or created by) the geth: -They are not originally from heleus -Geth clicking sound in remnant walls (servers to house geth consciousness) -Floating paths similar to geth consensus mission in me3 -Remnant observer mandibles (like Poc) move like legion’s to express emotion -Khi Tasira could be an ark, as it is similar in design and was a temporary habitat for the Jardaan before they completed Meridian. -Codex states that Jardaan had to be at least a type I civilization on the Kardeshev scale. Geth are at most type II, especially after me3 (reaper code + dyson swarm construction). The only races we know of that are possibly more advanced than the Jardaan are Leviathan, Reapers and Geth, if they are not a brand new race. -Jardaan were capable of large scale cooperation and were roughly human sized -Monoliths have similar architecture to newly built quarian city in me3 ending -The geth had an interest in dark energy phenomenon on Haestrom, scourge is a dark energy weapon. -Geth will play an important role in the next game -Both Geth and Angara are included in N7 2023’s poster and are interacting with each other
Wow, very interesting thought I hadn't considered! The one thing I'd say is that SAM translated the Jardaan's speech on Khi Tasira, and didn't say it was familiar or similar to the geth. The voice also didn't sound robotic and had a feminine lilt, which point to not being the geth. Regardless though, very fun connections you found here!
@@paragonseven Fair point, however SAM might not have recognized it as the geth he knew from the Milky Way. Assuming the 2023 poster takes place shortly after me3, the geth have already begun to evolve (as shown by their unique clothing style), not to mention all the advancements and use of the Reaper code that allowed them to offer so much aid to the quarians in so little time. The 2022 video footage of the relay construction shows the date as 2190, so if the geth had advanced so much in only 4 years imagine what they would be like after a few hundred in Andromeda! The Geth that once tried to mimic organic culture (such as coexisting with quarians in me3 and wearing clothes in the latest poster) might have continued to develop from habit, such that the Jardaan written language would be completely new to SAM as it is a product of hundreds of years of isolated evolution in the Andromeda galaxy unlike anything he would recognize as geth. The hints I mentioned would be recongizeable to the player as geth, but realistically not to SAM or any of the characters in Andromeda.
@@alpen7 For sure this makes sense to me. I'd have to see more teases to concretely believe the geth are the Jardaan (and I personally believe that the Jardaan are actually Prothean based on an intriguing tweet by Mike Gamble), but it's definitely plausible.
Hey Atharia 😁 I did the refuse ending a few days ago and not only did the credits roll, but I was able to import that ME3 save for new game plus 😳 I was absolutely not expecting this, but now it opens up a small possibility that ME4 will deal with the refusal ending too!
I just realised, if you put a space in your name and jumble some letters, you're Tha Aria! 🤣 Also do you know any content creators who do vids on the best planet descriptions in Mass Effect? I know there's amazing lore in them but I just can't be bothered looking at them all
@@bernienoma Hmm I'm not sure about planet descriptions in particular, but I know N7Kate did a few codex readings a few years ago, so check out her space!
When considering the destroy endings, almost everyone doesn’t contemplate the idea that the star child might be lying about all AI life being destroyed
I like the way you think. Still, new synthetics being made after citadel blast would be made just as everything else because entire Milky Way, no exceptions, got "Reaper upgrades" one way or another. No exceptions. If you destroyed the reapers or decided to control them, then those "Reaper upgrades" were implemented by races themselves upon themselves. Case closed. So no matter how you decided to play it out in ME3 you get the upgrades. Next - The Villain I'd put it this way. Next ME game could focus more on aspect of Finding Shepard/Restoring Shepard. Maybe you could pick to play as one of former Squadmates. Shepard was dissolved into some form of "Quantum energy dark matter shabang" which you can explore as a amalgamate that all races have become. That means that you can probably go and explore events that happened in previous cycles in search for answers to port Shepard into life. You could go through Shanxshy or that Skilian Blitz or maybe visit some big bad overlord in the past that was close enough to solving something quantum that will lead us closer to reading world where real Shepard is trapped in. So there are your Villains. You just have to dig to get there. You have to solve the puzzle. So forget about Andromeda. Andromeda was a mistake. Andromeda is just a bad dream. You are awake now and all is alright.
The default choice could’ve have been a lie to our Shepard as we died, the new shepard could be one of many like us from mass effect 2 in being rebuilt to help fight the reapers. Multiple shepards in the galaxy fighting reapers and liara is in search for the one that survived
There's already a canonized ending in that Liara isn't killed by the deathbeam when you can potentially take her to the final rush. The only real difference in the 3 endings is whether people are half synthetic, half organic or not. And given that the story could be about an outside threat, just make synthesis something that people don't mention except occasionally at important game intervals. It has to be unintrusive to not be considered a bad ending. The control and destroy endings can essentially be the same as the Reapers are either destroyed or leave. There is nothing in that ending that requires the Reapers to be ever present except the star child's assumption of what Shepard would do with the control. If Shepard decided to steer the Reapers away from the galaxy, that's essentially the same as them all dying. They aren't around anymore, that's what matters. The ACTUAL biggest obstacles are whether certain species still exist. The Geth and Quarians were exterminated after some choices. You could have Quarian presence low in game and just say either most of them are busy on Rannoch OR the remaining Quarians are exiles who fell out with their people and thus were not present when the flotilla was exterminated. Geth are robots so it's easy to cheese a way for them to be rebuilt again. The Krogan aren't completely eliminated so you'd just have to find a way to acknowledge the genophage if it is still going on. The death of the Councilors felt like a big deal but in the second game their impact is fairly minor. So, the best match in my opinion is Any Quarians you meet are not related to the flotilla i.e exiles. Any Krogan you meet are in limited number. They should be having internal conflict either as a result of the continuation of the genophage or the result of expansion. Large emphasis should be placed on Wrex and/or Bakara (if they are alive) keeping things from getting worse and trying to keep diplomacy channels open so that the curing of the genophage doesn't feel cheap and pointless. Maybe the Geth could be rebuilt by the Quarians if they are alive and if both are dead the exiled could be the ones helping to build them (maybe that's the kinda thing that got some of them exiled in the first place.) Aside from Liara and maybe Garrus, squadmates should be fairly new. Other squadmates from previous games should have a smaller role like Wrex in ME2. That's the only way I could see this done without excluding species with an undetermined fate which would be the laziest way to do this.
You nailed. To me it's most be centuries on the future, with a Shepard's clone if the perfect destroy ending, when Shepard was cryogenic preserved. Krogans can be survive the genophage like the ones on Andromeda's do. The reapers, in control ending could be probed to Sun. And in Synthesis could be choose to ceased their own existence.
Amazing vid. You remind me of gamermd83 back in the the early trilogy days. I think the Jaardan will be allies but the "opposition" who set off the scourge will be the new villains.
Very easily could be! For some reason the Jardaan gave me more evil-ish vibes than the Opposition, but I'd have to re-check that on my second Andromeda playthrough.
Hi! Please Help, in legenday edition ps4 , with more than 5000 resources and full reputation, the Catalist dont mentioned “sinthesis” final option 😔 (so, not availaible), somebody knows what is wrong? In this version, need more military resources?
@@paragonseven Thank to you very much . In ps3 years ago, extended cut with more than 4000 or 5000 gives to you 4 endings includes sinthesis without problem . This change was announced ???
In a franchise that hinges on the choices you make, alternate universes would just be a cardinal sin, nothing matters. Writing a one size fits all opening that completely obliterates the differences between the three endings would be just as bad as writing a series about choice and making the end choice come down to what color you get in your ending. It would be cool if they did something with perfect ending sheppard still alive but I don't need him to be the protagonist of this new game. His story is over, living or dead. Let's get a new protagonist so we don't have to come up with some kind of ressurection story about why Sheppard has to start back at level 1 again. I would say your theory works if the next Mass Effect game was going to be a book, but it's a game and thus not very likely imo.
No, Shepard can come back much more easily: Control: Pops out of a random reaper cloning pod jusy as they are all blown up by the new bad guy. Synthesis: Same as above with cybernetic implants. Destruction: Cerberus lazarus project 2. Same Shepard, its just everyone gets some unique dialogue referencing it ("Hey, how does it feel to be tank grown Shep?" - Grunt) Remember, he's not dead in the blue and green endings, just absorbed into some crazy complicated tech. This is of course total crap as a story device. At that point he'll achieve Goku levels of refusing to stay dead.
The one bone I have to pick in terms of not seeing something mentioned is the fact that in the trailer, Liara doesn’t have green eyes, which means the synthesis ending isn’t accounted for among the four player possibilities, no matter whether it’s important to who the new villain is or not. Assuming that the Liara we see in the trailer is the Liara from the trilogy, of course. After all, it could be that she is from the same alternate universe that she’s gone to get Shepard from…
The hero AND villain in the next game are two different versions of Shepard. The one we recover is a Shepard from the Destroy ending. The Villain will be from the control ending. Whichever gender Shepard you pick, the other gender will swap and be the villain. "Matching heart beats"
if we accept the alternate universe theory, we have another option for the villains of the story: someone (or something) coming from a parallel universe. i personally don’t like it, as it seems too easy, but there’s another thing working for the benefit of the theory: the presence of geths in the next game. if you side with quarians on rannoch, you effectively make geths go extinct, meaning that the geths present in the new game must come from the alternate universe
Very interesting theories 😁. The Jardaan and the Jheln i think will have a significant part to play in the next mass effect imo, then there is 'the opposition' as well. There's barely any information on the jheln as it is except for one mention amongst the details about the scourge.
I greatly would prefer a new protagonist or canonizing perfect destroy over some alternate universe hand waving never established in the trilogy. In my mind some alternate universe Shepard who didn’t fight the reapers is just cosplay - they are not Shepard - period. My theory is the Cerberus clone we never see die in the Shore Leave DLC (or another - who says Cerberus only created one?). Add in Liara’s final goodbye and a touch of Search for Spock and you have your original Shepard back. Granted you can refuse Liara’s offer I believe, but honestly if you did you deserve to stay dead IMHO ;). Repopulating Krogan, Quarians and possibly Geth from Andromeda can solve most of the consequences. However, Ireally don’t like basically nullifying the choices you make, it is at least logically consistent. Lastly, with respect to the teaser and the N7 helmet fragment; I would caution the following; in no scene is Shepherd ever seen wearing a helmet once the dash for the beam starts. Yes in Perfect Destroy it’s shown but this always struck me as a goof that made no sense. While originally I was so excited for ME5 and Shepard’s return the more I see the silly compromises needed to make that happen the more I’d prefer a cleaner start with Perfect Destroy as Cannon. PS: I believe the Star Child says organics will be ‘perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology, and Synthetics will gain full understanding of organics’. It is not stated that that there would never be conflict between races again. Also even the Geth who fully understood each other were in conflict with each other (Heretics). Conflict is inherent between individuals, that is just the unavoidable consequence.
Why the Jardaan? Why not the species that fought them and appeared to have won? Also, the Genophage isn't a problem. If you didn't solve it, someone else did shortly after the Reaper War. Boom, done.
☝️☝️☝️ yes please! While I think many 'proofs' in the IT are farfetched, the main idea behind it is solid: Being around reaper tech has influenced Shepard more than they realise and during dream-like sequences their guard is down, so the reapers can exert more control. This is how in the final scenes, the plots of two main villains: Saren (Synthesis: join the reapers and ascend) and IM (Control) appear like good options, and why StarChild takes after Shepard's trauma and nightmares. It'd be so compelling if they made it canon, unlike other 'lol it was all a dream'-endings there are a lot of ways to mix 'dream' and 'reality' for an indoctrinated Shepard.
Maybe, just maybe, liara found a way to extract Shepard's memory from her consciousness or the catalyst technology., and needs the DNA from parts of shepherds old gear, like part of the helmet from alcera.
I just thought to comment here because I recall in one of your previous videos of the perfect destruction ending and just reiterate, it is true, but it’s not just them not putting the nameplate on the memorial wall at the very end of the cut scene you see N7 dog tags what looks like to be your character shepherd And right before it cuts the black you hear and see an inhalation of air
What do you think of the ancient AI you can find on Veold? It intentionally lies about its true nature, despises organics and predates the angara. It also resembles geth with its single eye light. It never got any kind of resolution in Andromeda so do you think they might explore its origins in the next game?
It was left strangely unresolved so I think it'll (hopefully) be addressed, like most of the plot threads from Andromeda. But again, the Andromeda hints from the teasers are very few and far between, so we'll have to wait and see.
So… while not a theory it’s self, I have and Idea on how to inform some future theories. First: see who all are known to be on the teams making the next Mass Effect. Get an idea of their writing style, and what plot mechanics they frequently use, and or like. Mix and match those plot points in a way that works within the ME universe. Though we should still let our minds run crazy on how to smoothly progress the story. We should also have a few theories about what the writers are likely to come up with (within the context of their style and past works. And I just completed Deus Ex: HR/MD, loved them, and can’t wait to see what the Narrative Director (Mary DeMarle) comes up with for Mass Effect!)
Agreed on this point, I try and keep the team in mind with all of my theorizing. And after seeing that the top leadership probably wouldn't want to canonize anything, I decided to take a crack and figuring out how they could make it happen. Very excited to play through the Deus Ex series at some point!
The only ending that would take the reapers off the table without affecting behavior would be a renegade Shepard choosing control in which he or she just goes back to dark space and allows conflict and let chips fall where they may. You are right Synthesis really messed with the universe IMO.
would be very cool if the reapers, instead of hibernating in dark space...actually travel from galaxy to galaxy in local cluster doing same thing trying to find the "Solution". and Scourge was Andromeda's solution to defeating the Reapers.
But if you're Shepard from alternate universe, do you really want to find yourself away from the actual universe and people you care about? Wake up and be told that you have to fight some big bad for guys that might look familiar, but have emotional attachments to another version of you? The clone we meet at one point cannot live with this weight and decides to end their existence rather than to be a second. OK, maybe you, as a new Shepard, are told, that once you defeat the big bad they will return you to your reality. But that's still a dirty thing to do to a person you don't know. I wager fighting the big bad under this kind of duress would not end good. And you might as well just join the big bad just to spite the "saviors" of your life.
so playing with your alternate universe theory a bit, do the reapers have to loose in that universe it could be that Shepard was never brought back and so the galaxy fell? the reaper corpses could mean the galaxy went down swinging but ultimately lost and now Liara and friends are under attack from the reapers of this alternate universe who have found a way through the anomalies into our Shepard's universe so to fight them off Liara and the crew go to the alternate universe to grab that Shepard's body and mass effect 2 them in hopes of fighting off a new reaper invasion. I doubt that is what is going to happen but the idea of jumping into a universe where the reapers won is interesting in a what if kind of way.
i think your wrong about the alternate universe where the reapers lost to another threat so Shepard wasn't needed, i think its a universe where the reapers wiped they system because Shepard wasn't brought back then they retreaded to dark space. Liara is showing up after the reapers of the universe left. They probably defeated some reapers but ultimately lost hence the two dead reapers. It would explain the destroyed mass effect relay and the debris field as well as the loss of coms audio recordings.
Interesting theory! I guess this could also be supported by Liara creating the time capsule about Shepard no matter what, so the alternate Shepards could get up to speed. And the alternate Shepard who has no recollection of the events with the reapers would also cover group E - people who never played the original trilogy in the first place, who I'm sure Bioware have in mind too. So I could see them going this direction. Though personally I would prefer taking it a step further and finding a loophole where the original Shepard's memories could somehow be preserved in the sequel as having things I did constantly explained to me would feel slightly jarring.
Welll might I interest you in my Shepard reincarnation theory which I didn't go over here? I go over that one in my multiverse theory video, but granted, it is mainly just vibes more than evidence. Still though, that could be a way to get our Shepard's memories back, *if* we want our Shepard's soul to return in the first place.
My idea would be to sidestep all the endings altogether, and have the Reapers ‘win’. Essentially, Shep bleeds out when they collapse, and what we get after the elevator starts, is Shep’s mind playing out as it dies, coming up with wild ideas. In the real world, the Reapers destroy the crucible, and the forces of the galaxy order a full retreat. You can come up with various ways in which a fair amount of each race could outrun and hide from the Reapers until they finished their harvest. You can then jump ahead a couple hundred years, and have the setting of the game be a kind of post-apocalypse rediscovery of the galaxy we knew from the trilogy. This way, it gets around the complex issue of having 3(or 4) different states of the galaxy moving forward, and doesn’t invalidate anyone’s ME3 runs, because what they experienced IS what THEIR Shepard experienced as they died. And for extra zest, the perfect destroy with Shep drawing a breath, could in fact be them waking up in the rubble of the crucible after the Reapers destroyed it in this proposed outline.
She picked up the piece of the helmet because it had frozen DNA in it and is able to clone Shepard. However, is it the same Shepard with the same memories and soul of OG Shepard?
You know I really like this theory especially when you also explained how with every choice and consequences in terms of replacing or mirror based on player choice im not the only one who noticed this and has said you can used this in the next mass effect game. Its the simplist and yet adds more excitement based on player choice and the possible experience they get based on choice and even add multiverse but in a way that's not lazy and can be done well through intimate character development and character arcs. But i wont get too hyped about this because its a theory.
Indeed, it is just a theory. :) However the fun part is that it might actually be possible with what they've teased so far. Can't wait for a new hint to drop 😤
This is really well thought out. I only feel that the multiverse situation also brings along multiverse villians. It is possible that the Andromeda enemies coming while Situations A, B, C, and D are being resolved. Or, It could be a situation of only Situations "A, C, and D" where Anomalies are appearing everywhere and causing problems and Another Universe is mixing in. More than likely, A, C, and D will only be included and B will be left out. The idea of a positive situation switching to a problematic one is less likely. Let's face it only Nice people like the world to be in a happy place. So we will probably start with Everything messed up. Also Only the geth that were outside the System will survive. Which is probably why they only show that Disc. So we will probably be facing a Super computer version of the geth. As well as Probably other Major Enemies coming from other versions of the universe. Possibly even Universes that have lost and are far worse than just a reset.
Honestly they should just cannonize the most popular choices from the trilogy Rachni live Council was saved from sovereign Genophage cured with wrex and eve alive Quarians and geth find peace All squadmates live except, Virmire Sacrifice, Mordin, Thane, and Legion Perfect destroy ending. Thats the only way to please the most fans, while still being able to tell a good story. And we also have the data from the LE to show this.
would the alternite universe shepard be the same! like personality and memory wise cuz i think it would suck if this shepard is way different like not being a soldier like the main one was
I personally think that reincarnation of the Shepards that aren't from Perfect Destroy will be on the table (except for Control cause their Shepard's soul/consciousness will be otherwise occupied). So maybe our Shepards can return, but we'll have to see what the ME team has in store for us.
@@BlazeTheCatMan damnn, imagine that is the start of the game. Starting right from that place, exploring the devastated citadel until Normandy picks you up like at the start of me3 (still possible with destroyed relays, since Normandy just used FTL and not the relay to fly away from the blast)
I would absolutely canonize one Shepard with a single path they took along each choice. We’ve had over 10 years to develop our head canon, now it’s time to scrap all the vague, shallow bullshit ME 2 and 3 had to resort to to accommodate some of the more odd choices and make an actual, solid game that can support future installments. All that without creating even more branching yet superficial alternate versions just to accommodate “player choice”.
There's nothing that says there only has to be one big bad, and also nothing that says there's only going to be one more ME game. The original trilogy had different antagonists in each game even though the reapers were the real villains behind the scenes. ME1 had Saren and the Geth with Sovereign being a shadowy figure until right at the end, ME2 had the Harvesters with Harbinger pulling the strings, and ME3 we finally faced the Reapers themselves. What if we're in for another trilogy? Let's have some fun and presume your theory is correct in that Liara and co. are retrieving Shepard from an alternate universe where he's still laying there flash frozen on Alchera. Remember how the Leviathans see themselves as being above the other races, and the only reason they weren't still in charge of the galaxy is their own hubris in creating the Reapers? That was their civilization's undoing, but not the end of their species. It's possible that the Leviathans could see the aftermath of the Reaper war as an opportunity to take charge again, and we already know that they can easily destroy (or possibly control) Reapers based on ME2 and ME3 so them deciding to take over again could still happen in a control or synthesis playthrough. Maybe there would be more time to find a solution to defeating the Leviathans in the control/synthesis endings because the Leviathans would first have to deal with whatever Reapers survived the war, and especially in the synthesis ending because there would be less inter-species squabbling over who would be in charge in the aftermath and the races would be working together. Destroy would be a little trickier but that could be explained by the Leviathans perhaps being intrigued by Shepard passing on what they would likely see as the obvious choice with the most immediate benefit (control) or the biggest long term benefit (synthesis) and instead opting to destroy the Reapers at the cost of significant damage to civilization across the galaxy, as well as destroying all synthetic life (unless the star child was lying about that part like many theories suggest) and leaving everyone vulnerable to another powerful race such as the Leviathans. How would they know about the choices given to Shepard by the star child? They created the star child. Why wouldn't they also be affected by the synthesis ending? They created the star child, and they watched the crucible being built, so it stands to reason they would know how to avoid it's effect. In a destroy/perfect destroy ending the Leviathans could perhaps opt to offer their assistance in rebuilding the mass relays in exchange for influence over policy and giving each government orbs to communicate through, which could easily translate into them taking control of leaders through the orbs and staging a bloodless coup in each government. Shepard would be the only one to truly understand what is going on since he was the only one to actually meet a Leviathan face to face and know what they are truly capable of. But that would be an advantage left to perfect destroy Shepard since that meeting takes place in ME2, which never happened for "alternate universe" Shepard. Perhaps the first time alternate universe Shepard meets a Leviathan in ME5 they contact him in the same way as in ME2 and he learns everything then, while "prime universe" Shepard tells them where to stick it because he's played that game before. The Jaardan could still make an appearance in ME6 or even toward the end of ME5, potentially giving the player a choice between allying with the Leviathans against a common foe once again or refusing, which would cause them to go back into hiding. That could influence how (or even if) the Leviathans appear in ME6. Do they stand by and watch the milky way races fight the Jaardan without interfering, or do they take a more active role against the invaders? ME7 could see a return to Andromeda. Lots of things to do there with filling in plot holes and unresolved arcs from Andromeda, like finally finding out what happened with the missing Quarian Ark and the true origin of the Scourge, leading to a way to neutralize it and subsequently defeat the Jardaan. But yeah it's just theorycrafting that probably doesn't matter much in the end, but at least it's fun.
I know it was a jest but the clone in the citadel DLC technically exists in canon so chances are it would be a clone than an alternative universe shep. Also before ME3 the original reason for the Reapers was that wide scale use of Mass Effect technology created Dark Energy pockets that would expand and consume the galaxy hence the Reapers would have to cleanse the Galaxy of sapient beings that use the technology in order to allow for Dark Energy levels to return to normal (or to harvest it, i can't remember fully), we see hints of this with Haestrom or the mention of Dark Energy from Veetor. I hoped that the Scourge is the result of no cleansing effort being implemented but that's just my head canon. Would be nice to see this being the galaxy wide calamity that needs to be solved if they went with this route and connects Andromeda with the Milky Way.
I still doubt the alternative universe theory but it is interesting to hear. I think control would have Sheppard rebuilding his/her body with reaper tech. In synthesis liara or another protagonist would use newly accessible tech to rebuild Sheppard. Not sure about basic destroy but in perfect destroy Sheppard could end up in something similar to a bantha tank from Star Wars healing slowly from traumatic wounds and might come out with deficits.
I get that. The main reason I assume AU is a thing is because Alchera (for whatever reason) has been teased, and there's a few funky things going on in the teaser trailer from 2020 that implies weird stuff like that might happen....stay tuned for next week's breakdown!
@@paragonseven that would make your theory much more plausible. The planet is different from the last time we were there. So though I’ll say unlikely; it’s far from impossible. I’m just trying to figure out the logistics of making it happen
Mabe the Paragon Mass Effect 3 Shepard will come back because doing the Paragon path the mechanical innests of Cerberus disappear making more sense with the Perfect Destruction ending that is supposed to destroy or badly damage all the synthetic life forms and tech and, since Shepard got rid of them in his/her body could have a biggest chance of surviving the Destroy Ending
Things I wished the game had focused on: - we gathered all these teams for what again? -the arachnids I wanted to know more about them -those spider creatures fixing the citadel we weren’t allowed to interact with… what happened, who made them? I’d love to find out more about them -who created the reapers and why couldn’t we go to their homes?
mm, have you played Leviathan DLC for me3? Because, while i don't really understand the context of your first question, 2 and 3 can be explored more, tho unlikely, since they are so ancient and for the fourth question we do have an answer
I actually played it. Still think it does not explain everything. But I’m all ears if u have the answer. On ur confusion, the entire time we played me we kept being told to get your readiness up and make alliances and talk to everything and do all these extra missions. There was no payoffs at the end. Lazy at best writing.
@@Unexpected3251 i see, yes, i 100% agree. War assets in the end not only visually were underrepresented (for example in the final battle cutscene, only one single geth platform is shown. Geth fleet basically doesn't exist in that cutscene) but also had almost no impact on the ending. To fix the first issue, I just use Take Earth back mod, which adds a TON of war assets, new cutscenes and etc for the Priority: Earth. But yeah, they really failed Priority: Earth plot wise and gameplay wise too. It could be similar to the collector base mission, with different choices, outcomes and deaths along the way. Second issue is much worse. War assets only affect state of the earth, relays, big ben (lmao) and Shepard's supposed survival. + if the score low you can't choose synthesis and destroy or control. Choices like genophage or quarians/geth do not matter and it's really a shame. Last hour was rushed and it shows. As for the Leviathan. More could be explored for sure, but information from the DLC at least for me really clicked and made a lot of sense in why the reapers are what they are. In short, i think their entire motivation is just a basic AI misrepresentation of the "Life" concept. For them, "harvesting life so life can't create AIs that will kill them" sounds logical. Because for us - harvesting = killing. Harvested, you, as the person, lose any free will, any though, you lose everything. But they see it as the organic material that just continuous to live. Basically, I believe, they are the ones that do not comprehend (quoting sovereign) the concept of "life" at all. They didn't grow enough as a sentient being to grasp it before they destroyed leviathans. And then it was just too late, cycles have started and cannot be stopped now. That's how I personally made sense of Leviathan + star whatever child words
I don't think that the Villian's will be the Jardaan, as it wasn't the Jardaan that set off the Scourge. There is an enemy of the Jardaan that is mentioned when you get to Meridian Core, and I think the villians will be the Jardaan's enemies. And since, in Andromeda, we ally ourselves with the Jardaan's created child race, those Enemies of the Jardaan could come back, change and use the scourge to try and destroy BOTH universes, which is what causes the Andromeda team to be in the Milkyway somehow.
I have a theory that the Opposition (who I assume you're talking about here) is also Jardaan. So there's basically two factions of Jardaan: one that disagrees what whatever the driven out Jardaan were doing, and the ones who were driven out.
hopefully they keep the story simple. I think the dead reapers imply that the destroy ending was canon. Then if they do this, the main antagonist would be Geth/AI, which was heavily implied in ME3 as a consequence of destroying reapers. Also, the main goal would be repairing mass relays/trying to bring the galaxy together, which I think is implied by the trailer, as many voices are seemingly sending 'signal lost' pings into space, looking for other life. There will be too much writing slosh, what ifs, and contradictions if they try to make all endings hold true. Also I think the liara scene is simply her recovering shepard's body for cerberus in ME2. I don't think it means anything more. If they want a new ME to be successful, they need to look back at what made ME1 great - simple story that introduces new universe with interesting characters. Making destroy ending canon would do this, as the galaxy is now completely cutoff from each other, with a goal of repairing mass relays and trying to recover. Also introduce geth/AI war, which was implied as a consequence of destroying reapers. And please have linear gameplay... ME:A open world was not good.
Theory for shepherd’s return for synthesis/control endings. Using advanced technology, artificially creating a bio-synthetic body, that nether qualifies as a clone, nor as a mechanical approximation of one (like from terminator) but a fabricated (or in loose simpler terms, a 3d printed) recreation of shepherd’s body (and probably a nice Segue into character creation) A perfect melding of man and machine. And for perfect destroy, maybe they use a fraction of salvaged data from project Lazarus, to help shepherd heal (but don’t have him as bad off as he was last time he needed it, for example: at the start of ME2) or do… if you didn’t get the perfect destroy ending. (But that’s a stretch, and most of the research and equipment is no longer available. Sooo. Maybe something else that acts as a similar Deus Ex Machina)
Atharia, I just saw ME3's ending. In the epilogue, the starchild asks grandpa for one more story.... but, (I it seems to me) the kid says "the shepard", not "shepard". If this is the case, the next story should include "a shepard", but not "the shepard we all now and love". Would you please comment on this avenue,, thanks
Lmao I didn't think of it like that, but I'm 100% here for it confirming multiple Shepards. 😂 (I genuinely don't think they meant it to imply multiple Shepards, but rather applying a title for Shepard's legend, but this is great).
If there's no major time jump, then the question must be asked as to why there are Angara in the promo images. Bioware is very particular about what they reveal and how they do it, so either the Jardaan brought them with them (which would be kind of weird), or there's going to be a lot of hand-waving taking place. I'm of the opinion that the big bad is going to be the Kett, or something Kett-related. The Jardaan appear to have been obsessed with the continuation of life as a whole (the "machinery of life must continue"), so why they would become an invading force would require some thought. Of course, the answer to the question of what caused the detonation of the Scourge weapon in the first place has yet to be answered - so it could be THAT. Something Reaper-scale, but with entirely different motivations. It'll be interesting to find out!
The kett being the big bads would be a let down for me, only because I didn't find them compelling villains. We definitely need more info on the Scourge, and the Opposition who unleashed it on the Jardaan.
@@paragonsevenI think the Kett could be compelling if we got a proper play-up of the fact that they are literally an end to the diversity of intelligent life - they're the anti-Reaper, in a sense. Where the Reapers eventually stated goals were to protect and preserve the things that made a species unique (its culture, its history, and so on), the Kett are the opposite of all of that. They subsume everything in their path, rendering everything that it is or was little more than a half-remembered dream. While they pull in the genetic benefits of the species they overtake, they also obliterate that species' history, culture, and uniqueness. A friend once called them "The Organic Borg," and while I really dislike that simplification, she wasn't wrong , per se. They are this massive, unstoppable force completely convinced of their own perfection and the righteousness of their cause (like all good villains), but they are also absolutely horrifying, because they make everything they touch into THEM. They're the worst fears about Asari reproduction and Reaper harvesting wrapped up into one hideous package, with absolutely no ethical or moral objection to the absolute annihilation of anything that gets in their way. Do it right, and that's terrifying.
@@atomicrocketgames Great way of putting it, and 100% if they played this up, I'd have desperately needed a follow-up arc. But as it is, I don't feel the need to see more of their story unfortunately.
@@paragonsevenWhy thank you. :) Yeah, it makes me very-very-sad that they didn't play up the decidedly dark angle to the Kett more than they did. I feel like they could have used a couple of conversations/cut scenes that delved into that part of the Kett, but they didn't. The world-builder/rpg writer in me will forever be disappointed.
I think one thing is obvious to me: regardless of how well-made it was, I need to get my hands on a copy of Andromeda Deluxe because its relevance seems due for the next game and I’m totally out of the loop 👀 Also, I don’t know how relevant this is but to put it out there, Casey Hudson’s concept art shared on N7 Day 2019 includes a depiction of the Normandy. “ . . . so many stories yet to tell”, he said. Considering that their core concept hasn’t changed since he left Bioware, it might be safe to say that at least some version of the Normandy crew will be back.
Definitely check out Andromeda, the cliffhangers will hopefully come back in the next installment. Ahh good catch on the Hudson comment from 2019, I had forgotten about that. The fact that he specifcally said "many stories yet to tell" sounds VERY similar to the Stargazer at the end of ME3 saying "one more story" with regards to Shepard. 👀
I don't think that they will import the consequences of ME3 into ME4, I think they will pick a canon ending. Even the basic RGB ending consequences drastically change the state of the universe, but assuming we can gloss over that with G/B reapers getting wiped out with anti-reaper tech. The extinction of the Geth/Quarians completely changes the state of the universe. A G universe should have no conflict - very boring for a story or narrative perspective, imagine every NPC you came across was in consensus. Plus if trailer Liara is from the original trilogy universe, then synthesis is not cannon because she doesn't have any synthesis traits (green eyes, electronic traces).
I think a clone of Shep makes more sense for a,b, and c. But I'd rather they allow her to stay in retirement and bring out a new crew, with some cameos of our favs
So I have a heavy duty tinfoil hat theory So the N7 in 2023 teaser trailer is a renegade EDI not the EDI we know. So when we destroyed EDI on Luna she broadcast that help message at the same time cerberus downloaded, so did the alliance military instead of the cerberus paragon version EDI we get a alliance military renegade EDI that is N7 trained and is trying to take out the OG squad mate that killed her on Luna in ME1 that is why we see her hair outline in the 2023 teaser poster. How it ties in to your video I don’t know. Other then liara is looking for clues at the normandy SR1 crash site of why surviving crew members of SR1 are turn dead so that is my tinfoil hat theory
Dang, well done! You know there is something that a lot of people do forget. Shepard wasn't fully human. Shepard was brought back in ME2. Miranda had to use bio synthetic fusion. Thus, this makes Shepatd similar to Miranda, Oriana, and Grunt. I know that's not a popular idea, but honestly, can anyone say it completely wrong? So since the Reapers have been around for Billions of years, couldn't Shepard just grow a new body if his/her mind was in control of the Reapers.? As for synthesis, it was Shepards bio synthetics fusion that finally made synthesis an option for "stopping the cycle." So Shepard DNA is pretty much available. Now, if Shepard breath after destroy well, that sloves itself. If not, what if Liara and Miranda were eighter working together to bring back Shepard by trying to find enough pure Shepard DNA. Or maybe they are racing each other. If Cerberus is going to come back, who is better than Miranda using it to restart project Lazarus? So there you have my bring Shepard back opinion. However, you sent me a reply a few videos back that I couldn't respond to to dealing with a severe illness. Which is why I haven't been online much. You said you didn't see Bioware pushing Liara on players to be Shepard LI. Please allow me to make my case. 1. Liara is the only LI from ME1 or ME2 that bioware wrote that can not die. Some LIs in more ways than one. Yes, Traynor and Steve do live in ME3, but Shepard dies. 2. Bioware gives Shepard mult opportunities to pick Liara or choose Liara over a different LI Hell Liara even tries to break Shepard and another ME2 LI in Miranda former office, which, if you think about, really takes a "quad" if it Shepard and Miranda, Liara is trying to break up. Everyone else it a one-shot chance unless it's Kaden or Ashley, but still, they are far short compared to Liara. 3. Bioware never lets the crew confront Liara, who gives Shepard to Cerberus. Sure, Tali or Garrus can get called romances with Shepard, but no one questions Liara And the fact Liara gave Shepard body to Cerberus isn't a factor in Shepard trail? 4. When Drew Karpyshyn left Bioware and 2 of the reasons, admittedly, there were more than 2 was EA pushed completion on ME3 and wanted market research to used in story writing. Since bioware pushed so much time and effort in Shepard and Liara, especially Femshep and Liara, what could the team do with fans wanting Miranda, Tali, and Jack to be romanceable to Femshep. 3 very popular downloadable Mass Effect MODS is Femshep being able to romance them (note I didn't say the most popular) So how does Bioware "protect Liara"? They have Tali favorite vid be "Fleet and Flotilla" growing up, and then have Her and Garrus end up together. As for Miranda and Jack... OH They don't get along due to "sexual tension." BIoware even goes as far as to have BroShep suggest this even if he is in a romance with Miranda or Jack. Finally, who would ever let their girlfriend or boyfriend get away with the things bioware let's Liara get away with? Seriously.
To the 'needing Shepard's DNA' point, I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't simply go to Shepard's room on the Normandy to find DNA there, or any of their other armour pieces on the Normandy. Why go to Alchera for DNA samples? It doesn't make much sense to me. And to canonizing the Liara romance, again, I don't see it happening. Player-specific romances are one of the main reasons fans love the games, so there's no chance they'd canonize any one of them. As to why Liara is included so much in the games, she's a very important character tied to the story from Mass Effect 1. She's essential to uncovering Illos, and the writing team clearly wanted her to have a larger role as the Shadow Broker. When a character is compelling, or someone that the writing team simply enjoys writing for, then those characters generally feature more in the main plot. I think they simply enjoyed writing her character arc, which is why she features a lot throughout the trilogy.
Yes, they could get it from the room. But Shepard armor was destroyed when Shepard was hit by the Reapers beam. As for the rest of Liara, I didn't see them until i played Shepard, not romancing Liara. I get that most of the fans would pick Liara as their favorite romance. Often, they won't even listen to any non Liara views point. Again, why is it just Laira that can't die? You say they wanted her to have a bigger role? Why just her? Ash/Kaden can die after becoming a Spector? Tali becomes an admiral to help her people, but she can still die? Jack is an instructor, and she can get tortured by Cerberus again and Shepard has to killer her Miranda goes to save her sister, stop her father and Cerberus, and she can die Why does Liara get away with giving Shepard to. to save the universe but because She could let him go. But what does she do after? She focuses on killing the she Shadow broker for Feron, not Shepard. But hey, it is so no big deal according to Team Liara. I get it, fans that love Shepard, and Liara only want Them and will overlook everything else. I'm pro Shepard and Miranda, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the things Miranda did wrong in the game.
One more point how much more impactful would it have been in ME3 if you didn't help Liara in ME2 with the Shadow broker DLC causing Liara to die? It would change the game like if you kill Wrex? If you don't do a loyalty mission for crew in ME2. OR in ME3 you choose over the Legion over Tali? What happened to Jack if you don't save Grissom Academy? or break up with Miranda at the start of ME3? If you betray Wrex by not giving him the cure? What if the Shepard that Liara gets a Shepard that doesn't care about her. What if a Shepard that is John instead of Jane or vise versa? What if it a Shepard that decided join Cerberus fully because of the actions of the Alliance and Council? Hmmmm so many possibilities... No there are never consequences for Liara. Bioware always protects her
@@Brinic1 Not sure where you've gotten this impression, but I find most fans to be open to all romances. I don't frequent chatrooms or threads though so I only have my own perspective to base that off of, but regardless, when I've viewed all the relationship moments, I found it to be fairly even. Just my opinion though, and I'll leave it at that.
@paragonseven that fair. But I am always interested in other options. People can always learn from some someone ideas are different. I only follow yours and 1 other site. I might not always agree with them, but my opinion like yours is based on my own game and reading books. I have found many "Team Liara" seem to ingonre anything that doesn't fit that view. I admire the loyalty but not how it's dang near treated like blasphemy to say anything about against Liara. I can also admit I can see things from how as a retired Marine how absolutely awful all the negative stereotypes about Marines as disrespectful, reckless, self absorbed muscle headed, sex addicted are put into his character. IF bioware wanted to make a social statement. The would of have him arrested and given a dishonorable discharge for his actions of unbecoming a Marine and yes that is a actual charge Also as the father of two daughters how badly bioware treated Femshep compared to BroShep in the relationship options. Honestly name just 1 romantic relationship that Femshep wasn't cheated on, betrayed, belittled, that doomed from the start, had them die off.
I think it will be a default destroy ending. With a paragon run. Quarians saved Genophage cured Rachni saved Everything else depends on how much detail BioWare goes into. And what they remember.
Only downside to your steps is swallowing the pill that we will never get a Asari/Turian/Quarian/Krogan/Salarian protagonist for a change. Im just sick and tired of the protagonist ALWAYS being a human. Humanity isnt the center of the universe Bioware.
So in 3/4ths of the playthroughs we wont be playing as our original shepards? I dunno. I don't think theres any clean way to bring Shepard back. I think you have to lose a lot of integrity to do that. Multiverses are too big of a leap
i think the alternate universe theory might be too far fetched there has to be a more "viable" solution, otherwise i dont think we are getting back shep :(
Curious if the teaser trailer breakdown next week will help flesh this theory out a bit more. But I'm still 100% convinced that Shepard is coming back. No reason to show Alchera otherwise.
@@paragonseven I'm excited! Hey I was gonna email you that theory of mine but I don't know your email. It's a bit long for the comments section. Do you have a public email?
Interesting analysis, but I don't agree with the premise that the developers have to make ME5 fits with all ME3 endings. Doing so would mean starting ME5 with all kind of convoluted explanations to try to tie everything. It would be much easier/understandable (incl. for the new gen who has no clue about all the cannon) to pick single one ending as the starting point of ME5. Even from a story telling stand point; the dev. if the really wanted to justify their choice they could easily drop a line stating why the other 2 choices didn't happen. For example, that Shepard was offered a fake choice by the Catalyst but saw through it and choose the destroy the reapers; dying in the process (of course my Shepard survived, but let's face it, the completionists who have the perfect ending and are currently chatting here about ME lore are a really tiny fractions of the players). I'm not picking the destroy option by chance. Of course the devs could pull that trick (choose 1 option and run with it) for any ending; BUT; what do we see in the trailer: 1. A mass relay is shattered in pieces 2. A dead reaper 3. Liara rummaging for some N7 scraps (I agree, very likely in Alchera, which is still in the Milky Way, hence that sequence does contradict the hypothesis of a universe where jumps are now impossible) To me this screams: destroy ending with a dead Shepard. Which, "luckily" offers the most possibilities for the new story: - A post-apocalyptic world (tons of new factions can emerge, we restart the game from scratch). - The races are still independent, so plenty of wars/infighting can happen (destroy endidng goes along the lines of "imagine what we could do if we could put our grievances aside long enough"; my money is that grievances restarted right away leading to the kind of huge mess that only a Shepard can solve. - Unless you are working to build a museum, there's no reason to go freeze your butt on Alchera pick-up N7 memorabilia. And if I had to choose some stuff to putt on display, I'd try to find the stuff Shepard was wearing when he was saved the universe: *back on the Citadel*. However, if you can't go to the Citadel because the relays don't work anymore; and you badly need some Shepard DNA to revive him to kick some bad guys' butts then then it makes a lot of sense to go to Alchera, on the Normandy SR-1 crash. That's exactly what Cerberus did before ME2 with the project Lazarus.
I dont know why the new game should be about saving the galaxy again, you can make a good mass effect game about a young man or woman surviving a postwar galaxy as a colonist for example and bring shepard as your teammate for a mission, the thing is they need to canonize one ending and most probably will be perfect destroy
The plot could just be about Liara struggling to let go of Shepard and causing multiversal problems in trying to find him to say her goodbyes. Maybe an evil/indoctrinated Shepard gets into our home universe and is threatening everything unless we can return him to his own universe, which might be a dying "refusal" universe. Or maybe he was abducted from his universe near the start of the game's events, critically destabilizing his own universe, so he's gone "rogue" from our perspective out of rage that his own universe was sacrificed by our universe's Liara just for her to get some semblance of closure. Multiverses also allow for all three endings to be "canon" by having us visit and witness all three of the post-credits universes.
What if instead, only people who got the Perfect Destroy ending end up playing as Sheppard but anyone else gets a completely new character? As you mentioned, "mirror or replace the thing we killed". If Wrex dies on Virmire, he's replaced with an entirely new character, if Garrus dies he's replaced by a random Turian. In the same way, if Sheppard died, they're replaced with a random N7. Let's say your Sheppard died in ME3, now you're playing this new N7 and meet Garrus, let's also say he's a romance option again, in this play through he could have a line even where he says something like: "I'm not a stranger to being with a human, odd that both of you would be N7s/Specters though. Not important, what I meant was that it shouldn't be as weird as the first... You know what? Never mind, forget I said that". I think it's possible for them to do the replace option on Sheppard being that everyone's Sheppard was different anyway. In this way both playthrough's are interesting as well. In one, you are still Sheppard, in the others, your going around a world where people are talking about Sheppard all the time. I personally feel like this is more likely to be the route they go too.
It's one thing to replace an NPC with someone new, but to replace a protagonist who has thousands of voice lines? It'll double the time (if not triple) to write for two completely separate characters, which means many added months if not years to production. That's why I lean more towards one character (Shepard) but different versions of them (either the original or the AU version who had somewhat similar experiences).
@@paragonseven That's a fair point. It still boasts the same issues you just pointed out, but, if they plan on combining andromeda and the milkyway, could it be possible that if Shepard is dead that you then play as Ryder? Like I said, it's still the same voice line issue you pointed out not to mention an abundance of other issues to work out but I would like to think the writers would be more creative or ambitious than going the multiverse route. I feel like too many fans would dog on them for taking that approach and I also would think they'd be aware of that fact as well. I'm just trying the think of solutions to the dead Shepard problem that don't include a multiverse or Shepard going through a second Lazarus project.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Personally I think perfect destroy is the cannon ending. Based on the fact that throughout the entire series the story is showing us the consequences of synthesis (saren, indoctrination) and attempting to control the reapers (illusive man).
I always find it puzzling that everyone seems to take everything the catalyst says as a fact. So the catalyst says that all synthecis would die in the destroy ending, even Shepard, since they are partly synthetic. If Shepard lives, then why does everyone believe that EDI and the Geth die. Does the catalyst even know what would happen to them? They aren't completely reaper-tech.
I've been saying that for years. It already stated that no one had reached that point before, and acknowledged that organics were evidently more capable than it had realized.
Furthermore, it has a vested interest in telling you that negative effects will result from the Destroy option. It doesn't want you to pick that one.
Tldr is that Shepard is at a juncture that effectively invalidates its planning, and it has no reason to be honest re Destroy outcome. Leaves a LOT of play in the story...
I also posit real-world evidence that AIs can and do deceive: ChatGPT (our real-life example) has been caught completely making things up if it can't find an answer properly archived somewhere on the web.
Yea, it's obvious that the Catalyst is Harbinger in disguise, it's even proven when you do the Refuse ending, the voice switches to Harbinger's voice when it says "SO BE IT."
@@ragabashmoon1551 Isn't that supposed to be a response to the indoctrination theory memes? I seriously doubt the writers meant for the kid to be Harbinger all along because that'd support indoctrination theory.
Because it’s objectively bad writing if your only path to invalidating the final choices in mass effect 3 is “the catalyst is lying”. That’s “somehow, palpatine has returned” level of writing 💀
The multiverse/alternate universe thing is so played out across all forms of media these days. I feel like it's a lazy way to fix or fill in plot holes. I hope the Mass Effect team doesn't try and go that route.
Yeah, same here. Hope they won't settle for that. Still, great theory.
Same I personally hate it. Cheapens all choice to be essentially meaningless
If it's lazy and overplayed, then it is surely the route to be taken 😂
@@danashumway7090 yeah I was thinking the same thing.
I have just discovered this channel and just watched your trailer analysis. As an old ME-fan you've blown my mind. Thank you and keep it up.
They gotta canonise an ending, ideally keep romances, geth/quarian results, etc. Having the same story play out no matter what would just devalue the choices at the end of ME3.
Synthesis ultimately would just be too boring a setting, unless the very reason it would be chosen is undermined.
Destroy would leave the galaxy in a completely ruined and disconnected state. The recovery effort would be immense and shouldn't be left to a handful of references.
And a post Control setting where the reapers can't just solve every problem is one that, like the synthesis ending, would betray the reason it was picked from the start.
In my opinion they really backed themselves into a corner with the ME3 endings and it will be interesting to see what they do.
The reapers were positioned as an ancient, almost unfathomable, extremely advanced enemy that operations on time scales we can't conceive of. Entities that are over a billion years old and have the collective knowledge and intelligence of their creators, plus the countless civilizations they harvested after that. Consider that it took a galaxy wide effort to stop them, and the only reason it was possible at all was due to the Crucible which was a design culmination from many species created over the course of many cycles that we barely scraped together and used in the last minute, combined with the fact that the reapers initial plan to invade via the Citadel mass relay was stopped.
Synthesis and Control would have the reapers be allies and either leave the galaxy too overpowered or be forced to trivialize the Reapers and their technology. If the next enemy just shows up and totally rolls over the Reapers then I think it would do a massive disservice to the reapers and the way the devs crafted them in the story.
Because of this the only ending I can see them making canon would be Destroy or Perfect Destroy. It would leave the galaxy disconnected and in ruins, but that's something that we should be involved with fixing and dealing with IMO. And it would maintain the integrity of the reapers, while leaving room for something new.
I think the multiverse direction would also be a cop-out. We all agree that that trilogy ending with the boy was absolutely different than the entire game we had been playing. Why not admit defeat and redo it the right way.
Thats wha I think too, they could use the ahem mod as canon, so they can continue mass effect story
I think there’s so much ego among the BioWare team for them to admit they were wrong and get to work telling the right story. None of us playing me1 ever imagined the 3 options were mentioned.
Could you imagine if they did a dlc for the original/legendsry edition for me3 where they redo the ending? Thatd be SO FREAKIN COOL, like what gearbox did for borderlands 2 right before 3
Ugh multiverse is kind of sloppy writing, but still a good theory
No it's not! It's backed by Quantum Physics could happen and a good reason to bring back Sheperd. I love it!
@@torijones9992
A. My comment didn’t mention whether the theory was scientifically valid, simply that it was literarily sloppy. And it is. It removes consequences as essentially the save scumming of story telling.
B. Your Shepherd[TM] (sans perfect destroy) won’t be back, it will be a different Shepherd who went through different things and/or made different choices.
@@R3ldi but if there is a worm hole to connect the two galaxies and a parallel universe I wouldn’t mind that at all. Everything still stands because if the reapers are destroyed by something more powerful from The Parallel universe that somehow crosses over into our universe then they’d need to bring Shepherd back from another universe to fight them in our universe because our Shepherd is dead.
@@torijones9992Still seems lazy, because having multiple universes and a way to move between then makes everything less relevant. I don't like it, but it makes sense they will use it.
I found this channel after rediscovering my love of Mass Effect and I love it! Keep it up!
This is by far one of the best channels on all of RUclips specifically for my passion for this amazing series!
I have watched a few of your videos and I have to say the way you approach weaving through the script is excellent.
A lot of the times you touch upon extremely detailed points but take your time to walk through and ensure one idea connects neatly to the next. No other RUclipsr comes close. Well done!
Thanks so much! It's something I'm proud of when writing scripts. :)
Keelah I've missed unhinging my mind jaw for crazy ideas. Great job!
That has incredible potential for fanfic - The romanced companion faces all the pain of losing the Shepard they fell in love with, but here's a different Shepard in their life every day. And the alternate Shepard being scraped up from goo to go save some other universe, surrounded by strange, older versions of people they knew before they died. Ouch.
Playing off the idea of how Shepard can come back, and somehow making all the endings cannon, what if synthesis and control were merged where Shepard energy rewrote dna and his energy and consciousness was saved and stored by the reapers to control them and keep him alive. Then, if something kills them all what if Liara’s mission was to find the remaining fragments of Shepard from dead reapers, download them, and then basically do a Lazarus 2.0 where Shepard returns with a new synthetic body grown from his own dna where Shepard is the fusion of human and a living AI with fragments of his past choices still recoverable. And because of that he can almost have similar abilities as Ryder in andromeda with his sam implant but Shepard is a synthetic so obviously he can do more. Or she sorry I played as male shep lol. I think combining those two endings would work like that, and it can work with destroy as well cuz we can use Lazarus 2.0 to bring Shepard back somehow cuz his consciousness was stored digitally somewhere
This is one of the better theories I've seen to make all the endings work and have Shep return! I'm here for it, especially with Shep having similar abilities to Ryder. The combat was the best part of Andromeda, so to have Shep or whoever the new protagonist is with multi-class abilities would be epic.
I like the A.I idea as we had SAM in Andromeda
Interesting theory, personally I've always assumed that the next villain will be The Leviathans. The patterns of us meeting the bad guys in mention or passing in previous games with the reapers and cerberus fits from the leviathan dlc, and I do not think it is far fetched to suggest that The Leviathans escaped the milky way to hide, with the few we find in me3 being a small number or "remainers". Perhaps the scourge is even Leviathan technology they created to defeat the reapers whilst hiding in other galaxies. In this theory it is possible that the Leviathans either are the Jaardan and raised the angara as a puppet race or raised the Jaardan up as a puppet race first. (There are a few possibilities that could be true here, im not going to list them all)
If the Leviathans are the big bad of the next game, it gives Shapard a reason to be the protagonist, as he/she is the only person to have ever met one and also the only person to have ever resisted their mind control to even some extent. Also the Leviathans have a valid reason to become a threat no matter which ending was chosen for the trilogy-
Control- The Reapers are under the control of a lesser species and our place as the apex race is being challenged, plus we have the scourge now, so lets go take back our galaxy.
Destroy- The Reapers are no longer an issue, lets go take back our galaxy.
Synthesis- The Reapers are now one with all lesser life forms, and all races are now weak to the scourge, (and perhaps resistant to our mind control with the new dna, cant have that) so time to take back our galaxy.
I like all the other points in your theory, which could all still be true, but I think The Leviathans would be a more impactful and thematic Endgame Villain, than the Jaardan, as from what we see, the power spike from reaper to leviathan is a straight increase and it also resonates more with the original trilogy lore, which I think will be what the game will lean towards, with andromeda being less core the to the story's overarching plot, but still relevant and interesting to the story (where were the Leviathans, the scourge being brought to the milky way, etc.) Thoughts? Have I missed stuff that would make this unlikely? its been years since I was immersed in the ME worldbuilding and just finished replaying the trilogy a week ago, so I may be rusty on some stuff.
Problems with theory: atmosphere on alchera not breathable, trailer shows no mask. No one has green eyes or skin tint. Plus many dead reapers who were not present on the dead world. So synthesis ending not possible and control ending not likely due to look on trailer. Destroy ending is thus implied on trailer. Snowy world has the same moons as the one crashed on by the Normandy at end showing a tropical zone with air and life. It likely has a frozen zone as well. And a planet with life may have been attacked by reapers who are now dead due to the destroy ending. This planet is also the same seen in the ending old man storyteller sequence.
Sorry for coming in late but I literally stumbled across this vdeo this morning.
My thought on who the villian of the new story is, is exactly who it always was.
The Catalyst.
Confused?
So here where I'm coming from.
In ME3 when we reach the Catalyst it tells us that its solution, the Reapers, will no longer work because of the fact that SHep is there. But the question is how did Shep get there?
If you replay/rewatch ME3, you will find the hint in the scenes before reaching the Catalyst chamber.
Shep and Anderson have a nice little moment where we finally say goodbye to Anderson. After Anderson passes we then get contacted by Hackett and told that the Crucible is not firing. Shep rises and makes their way to the control console.
This is the important bit.
Before they reach the console, Shep passes out. They never, even accidentally, touch the console. While unconscious, they are raised up to the Catalyst chamber.
As nothing Shep did could have caused this, the only solution is the Catalyst. The Catalyst wants Shep in that chamber.
When the Catalyst tells us that its solution will no longer work, it isn't being honest. If you look at the unfolding battle, it is clear that the Reaper solution is working just fine. Further, if we reject the Catalyst's options, Destroy, Control, Synthesis, we will get an ending where the Catalyst shuts down the beam and fades out, leaving the Reapers to complete the Harvest. While this may not be a typical ending, it must still be taken into consideration.
These elements prove that the Catalyst is lying to us. Other hints of the Catalysts dishonesty exist as well. It tells us that AI always turns on its creations, yet the evidence from the Geth/Quarian war says otherwise. The Quarians were the ones that tried to destroy the Geth, and the Geth fought back, and having escaped, opted not to wipe out their creators. The reason for why the Geth are antagonistic in the series can be gleaned in each game. ME they were those who were convinced to join Saren's war. In ME2 they are a combination of those who are still loyal to Saren, and those who found themselves being targeted due to anti Geth sentiments raised by Saren's actions. In ME3 they all turn due to the Quarians attempting, once again, to wipe them out.
Another example is when discussing the Synthesis option. The Catalyst tells us that it has been attempted before, but that the people of the galaxy weren't ready. Given that this solution can only be triggered by the beam in the Catalyst chamber that means that someone needed to be there to make that choice, and if someone did make that choice, then the Catalyst is lying when it claims that Shep is the first to reach that far.
Knowing that we are there because the Catalyst wants us there, and knowing that it is being less than honest with us, what does it want? I imagine that is what the knew game will cover, but we can draw clues from the options it gives us.
Destroy.
This is the first option we are given by the Catalyst and it is the most destructive option, in that all synthetics are wiped out. So why include this option? Because it has been the idea that was first planted in our brains way back in ME, and not having that option would scream that the Catalyst wants something else. It is easier to hide a lie among truths. It tells us that destroy is an option but tells us of the dire consequneces of that option, effectively saying, "yeah, you could choose this option, but you'd be stupid to do so."
Control.
The Control option emerged in ME2, from TIM. In ME3 we learn that TIM is a puppet for the Catalyst when the Catalyst tells us that TIM could never control the Reapers, because the Catalyst already controlled TIM. While this may seem odd to offer this option it is again about laying the foundation for the option it wants you to pick. Control has been an idea floating in our brains since ME2. Including the option, and the warning that TIM was its puppet the Catalyst is saying "yeah, you could choose this option, but the one who was putting it out there someone that you had problems with."
Synthesis.
This is the option that the Catalyst wants you to make. It has only surfaced at the end of ME3, and is proposed by the Catalyst itself. Remember how we got there? It needs a living being to trigger the galaxy changing beam. It can't do it itself. While the Catalyst includes the other options, and gives very compelling reasons to not pick them it offers no such caveats with Synthesis. This is the option it wants us to pick. That's why it brought Shep to the Catalyst chamber.
No matter Shep's choice they aren't making it out of that Chamber alive, even in the "prefect destroy" opotion. Yes, they live, but they are in dire need of medical aid, and no way for it to reach them, and so they would eventually die. The rule of 3 comes in here. 3 minutes without air, 3 hours in a hostile enviroment environment, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. Remember the Catalyst turned off the beam, and raised up Shep, demonstrating that it controls that area, and so could easily turn off the air.
They, however, could have left a message for whoever comes next, a warning that the Catalyst can't be trusted. Whatever Synthesis trully is, I imgine that if we picked it, then there would have been those who are outliers who "were not ready yet", and so never turned. Note that in the trailer Liara doesn't have Synthesis eyes, suggesting that she is no longer part of the Synthesis, either because it was never chosen, or if it was chosen, that the effects are breaking down.
Catalyst and the non reject endings.
All these points lead me to believe that the villian for the next story is the Catalyst. If we choose Destroy, yes the Reapers are destoyed, but so is the very infrastructure of the galaxy that lets us communicate and travel between the stars. The Catalyst has been in this position before, against a galaxy that was more advanced than what currently exists and still repeatedly beat the organics because in order to defeat it you need to reach it, and it decides who gets to it. How long does it take to make a Reaper? ME2 hints that it only takes a couple of years, and with the galaxy in such turmoil those still under the Catalyst's control could easily turn out a small army of Reapers, and this assumes that no Reapers survived the crucible blast. Plus how many individuals were spirited away during the war without a trace. We know that the energy from the blast disapates with distance, which is why the Normandy survived, so if a resevre force of Reaper remained in dark space, then there could be more Reapers than we know. Machines do love their backups, and the Catalyst has been doing this for a long time so keep a reserve force beyong range makes sense.
If you choose Control, Shep becomes part of the system, and uses the Reapers to help rebuild everything. But how long does that last. I doubt that the Catalyst lacks the ability to resume control over the Reapers, so it is just waiting until the Reapers have put things back together again and then once more begins the cycle. This time the Catalyst needs to move more carefully because the relay network is still largely intact, and being repaired. However the races of the galaxy also think that the Reaper threat is over. Remember, they don't know about the Catalyst, and that it was controlling the Reapers. While it needs to be cautious it is better placed to resume the cycle once it resumes control. By careful use of Reapers to spirit away remote systems it could effectively build more Reapers, without galactic awareness, and when such places are found they could easily be dismissed as victims of the Reaper war, and I doubt anyone is doing detailed investigations of every world that shows signs that Reapers spirited away their whole organic lifeforms. As for the presence of dead Reapers on planets, we have seen that Reapers can be killed, it just takes a lot of firepower, and so you can include dead Reapers on any world and just dialogue/data entry it away. Plus the Reapers still possess indoctrination abilities and are now working closely with the races of the galaxy, so when the Catalyst resumes its efforts it'll have a willing slave army
If you choose the Synthesis ending then, in theory everyone becomes part of this new collective whole. However Liara, who was part of this whole is seen in the trailer, and doesn't have Synthesis eyes. If you discussed the option with the Catalyst, then you'll know that it has been tried before and failed. In this option the effects of Synthesis are breaking down, and the Catalyst knows that its latest attempt has failed, and once again it needs to resume control over the Reapers, and then start moving again. I also imagine that it can make use of those still under the effects of Synthesis, effectively giving it a greater non Reaper force, plus, as far as I'm aware, Reaper indoctrination is still an issue. As the Catalyst tries to halt the colapse of Synthesis, those who are free of it see those under its effects as being Reaper controlled, not entirely accurate, in that the Catalyst controls both the Reapers and those who are part of the Synthesis, but close enough.
All options however can start with either the Reapers believed to be all destroyed, or having retreated from the galaxy, and those individauls under Catalyst control being the antagonists, and those not under Catalyst control being the protagonists. One interesting thing to consider in the Synthesis option is that we may start out fighting, unkowingly for the Catalyst, before we become free, and switch sides with out much difficulty. Just some dialogue choices and data entries to compensate for the differences. As for who our hero is, I think we'll start off with Liara, who learns that things aren't all they seem to be, and as part of our story we will set out to retrieve Shep, and use them to uncover the truth
well, there's the original pre-extended cut ending where all Mass Relays blew up, so technically the Milky Way Galaxy blew up there. Crucible choice didn't matter then.
Control Ending ❤
Something just occurred to me: **what if** the figure in the reveal video is EDI? I mean if we wanna get technical she *could* join N7 since she’s unshackled… and it solves the whole not looking quite human aspect of the helmet. Now *why and how* she’s in N7 is a whole other thing. The hidden thing in the pocket that you mentioned could be her “mobile emitter” to borrow a phrase.
I can't find anything to refute the N7 being EDI so it's definitely possible. For me, the N7's vibe doesn't match EDI's vibe, so I don't think it's her. #NoEvidenceJustVibes :)
It depends if EDI dies of course. But if EDI is the Normandy shouldn't her black box keep her safe. When I do play Paragon Shepard I can see Shepard/EDI having Janeway/Seven or Picard/Data vibe. It also feels like EDIs loyalty to Shepard rivals Tali's.
So I could see EDI as following Shepard foitsteps by becoming an N7 if she lives or the Alliance gives her a new platform.
However, I still think it's going to be Shepard. My thought is if a new protagonist is made, what then happens to Ryder and Andromeda?
Me throughout the video: 😃🤔🤯🤔🤨
I still don't want alternative universes in Mass Effect, because it would negate Shepard's sacrifice, if that's what you chose. But the rest is pretty cool!
I thought you'd say the Opposition is the bad guy not the Jardaan, but it could be either since we don't actually know which one is the good/bad side. Also if the Jardaan are bad that would jeopardize the survival of the Andromeda Initiative.
Hahah seems like an emotional rollercoaster 😁
And trust me, if there was *any* other explanation rather than alternate universes that I could think of, I would've covered it by now. But anything else I can think of doesn't match with the teasers we've seen.
As to the Jardaan, for some reason, I get the vibe they're not good, but I'd have to replay Andromeda to flesh out exactly why I feel that way.
@@paragonseven It was, kinda.
I know, without that a lot of things don't make sense. We still have to wait for some solid clues...
About the Jardaan: maybe because they were playing gods? They're definitely shady. It almost feels like the Heleus Cluster is their experimental laboratory.
@@dorottyapapp Agreed with the playing gods vibe. At the very least they don't seem to have good intentions.
i kind of like the idea...Leviathan was very interested in Shepard as well. "Not simply the result of chance..." There is something VERY special about Shepard. keep him/her
Great job 👏🏾 not easy.
My views are simple:
- me3 ending sequence looked and felt like a dream / paralysis anyway. Everything about it felt like wait how all of a sudden we have no options and control… after all the sacrifices we made. So….
- to fix this: make that entire sequence as basically the reapers / catalyst annoying kid enter Shepards mind and show him a vision. All that happened was a vision/ dream.
- I would begin the new game with Shepard in the dream reliving it then snapping out it and making the choices we all wanted which were based on the alliances we spent time to build. Repel the reapers but only to realize that the reapers are working for another bigger threat.
- the new game starts as everyone is still recovering ❤️🩹 and the elements that made me1 great, the investigations, discoveries explorations are back as we go looking for that major threat.
I think that would be easy and better to do. The game especially me3 lost me because it became too much of a shooter’s gameplay. Meh 😢
I would love it if this was the case. One of my favorite parts of the trilogy was the fact that they took what you did in the past games and it effected the next in some way
That snowy hill that Liara is climbing looks like the remains of a reaper at 10:32
Alt-Universe traveling Liara IS insane.... HOWEVER, if a certain DLC is indeed canon (*cough* Citadel DLC) and not just an "Purgatory/alternate reality episode" then it's established that Shepard has a clone. It is much easier to explain Liara retrieves the body of this clone, which may not actually be dead, from the Citadel, and implants a "Shepard persona" which she had already constructed for her "next cycle fail-safe", thus providing Player's A, B, and C with a living Shepard. This could also be a Player D option, and thus the breathing body we actually see, not Shepard's original body, thus each Shepard is fully organic with no synthetic parts, and since it is a loaded persona, this will give players the option to modify their Shepard from the Trilogy, just like the Lazarus Project allowed ME1 players to change their Shepard in ME2. It's also possible that Cerberus didn't make just one clone...
Another possibility with Player D is that Star Child claims if Shepard chooses Destroy, he/she will die, but Player D proves Star Child wrong, just like Geth-Quarian Peace Players prove him wrong about Synthetic-Organics will always destroy each other, so Star Child appears to be lying as it refuses to ever admit that it is wrong. Shepard's living despite the synthetic parts being "destroyed" can indicate that the Synthetics are not truly destroyed, merely disabled until repaired/rebooted, thus allowing for living Reapers/Geth/EDI in Players A, B, and D.
I personally don't think they'll go the clone Shepard route because they already did that in the DLC (which to me seemed very meme-y). So if they went with a cloned Shepard in the next game, it'd feel like a letdown, at least to me. But it is a clear solution for bringing Shep back if they wanted to go there.
And with the Starchild lying stuff, it makes sense what you've outlined. I think I commented this somewhere else, but I prefer assuming that Starchild isn't lying, otherwise that part of the game will feel useless upon subsequent playthroughs. They clearly lied about Shepard's death being guaranteed though, so anything goes!
I kind of like this concept because it reminds me of MGS where they had a fake big boss.
If everyone dies in ME2 (including Shepard), you still able to play ME3, but with brand new one. That creates even more paradoxes. In perspective of LE it mostly possible that paragon destruction-alive ending would stay cannon. Or if they make a twist with Liara resurrecting Shepard over and over again, using mass effect and creating quantum multiverse paradox with her deeds.
Let's not forget Asari can live hundreds of years. From either endings being canon, Liara outlives all organic species in the milky way upto a certain point. Being the shadow broker, she will know eventually where the remaining species are located throughout the milky way. Suppose the geth survive all this nonsense and become the dominant synthetics across the galaxy, who's to say that Liara eventually won't become the big bad. We already had an andromeda initiative, along with the timeline jumping forward 600 years. I would love to see Liara hide behind electric storm clouds and find a way through worm holes across galaxies ending up in andromeda with the geth closing in on her. This would be a fresh twist on the story and would help the series move forward. In the end she would wipe out the geth by aligning with a far superior force, which cannot be defeated. This would leave a cliffhanger and both milky way and andromeda would have been trodden upon. I feel shepards story is complete and revisiting the past derails from a new story. Liaras turn onto Big bad would be the twist we all need.
Wouldn't we all love to be a fly on the wall of Bioware writers' meetings! Very interesting but the alternate universe solution goes too far for me! I always saw the silly endings they stuck in there last minute as dream sequences. The writers could just show Shepard getting zapped, flash parts of each "dream" depending what you picked, then show Shepard awakening, shaking it off, going to the beam and really unleashing the crucible destruction of the reapers (and only the reapers)-cut to Shepard breath. :)
These are all the clues I’ve found that point towards the Jardaan being (or created by) the geth:
-They are not originally from heleus
-Geth clicking sound in remnant walls (servers to house geth consciousness)
-Floating paths similar to geth consensus mission in me3
-Remnant observer mandibles (like Poc) move like legion’s to express emotion
-Khi Tasira could be an ark, as it is similar in design and was a temporary habitat for the Jardaan before they completed Meridian.
-Codex states that Jardaan had to be at least a type I civilization on the Kardeshev scale. Geth are at most type II, especially after me3 (reaper code + dyson swarm construction). The only races we know of that are possibly more advanced than the Jardaan are Leviathan, Reapers and Geth, if they are not a brand new race.
-Jardaan were capable of large scale cooperation and were roughly human sized
-Monoliths have similar architecture to newly built quarian city in me3 ending
-The geth had an interest in dark energy phenomenon on Haestrom, scourge is a dark energy weapon.
-Geth will play an important role in the next game
-Both Geth and Angara are included in N7 2023’s poster and are interacting with each other
Wow, very interesting thought I hadn't considered! The one thing I'd say is that SAM translated the Jardaan's speech on Khi Tasira, and didn't say it was familiar or similar to the geth. The voice also didn't sound robotic and had a feminine lilt, which point to not being the geth. Regardless though, very fun connections you found here!
@@paragonseven Fair point, however SAM might not have recognized it as the geth he knew from the Milky Way. Assuming the 2023 poster takes place shortly after me3, the geth have already begun to evolve (as shown by their unique clothing style), not to mention all the advancements and use of the Reaper code that allowed them to offer so much aid to the quarians in so little time. The 2022 video footage of the relay construction shows the date as 2190, so if the geth had advanced so much in only 4 years imagine what they would be like after a few hundred in Andromeda! The Geth that once tried to mimic organic culture (such as coexisting with quarians in me3 and wearing clothes in the latest poster) might have continued to develop from habit, such that the Jardaan written language would be completely new to SAM as it is a product of hundreds of years of isolated evolution in the Andromeda galaxy unlike anything he would recognize as geth. The hints I mentioned would be recongizeable to the player as geth, but realistically not to SAM or any of the characters in Andromeda.
@@alpen7 For sure this makes sense to me. I'd have to see more teases to concretely believe the geth are the Jardaan (and I personally believe that the Jardaan are actually Prothean based on an intriguing tweet by Mike Gamble), but it's definitely plausible.
Hey Atharia 😁 I did the refuse ending a few days ago and not only did the credits roll, but I was able to import that ME3 save for new game plus 😳 I was absolutely not expecting this, but now it opens up a small possibility that ME4 will deal with the refusal ending too!
Wow that's super weird cause when I played it in 2023 I swear it didn't do that.....maybe I'm just misremembering though.
@@paragonseven yeah I was so surprised. Maybe they just sneaked it in without telling people
I just realised, if you put a space in your name and jumble some letters, you're Tha Aria! 🤣
Also do you know any content creators who do vids on the best planet descriptions in Mass Effect? I know there's amazing lore in them but I just can't be bothered looking at them all
@@bernienoma Hmm I'm not sure about planet descriptions in particular, but I know N7Kate did a few codex readings a few years ago, so check out her space!
@@paragonseven thanks 😁
When considering the destroy endings, almost everyone doesn’t contemplate the idea that the star child might be lying about all AI life being destroyed
I like the way you think. Still, new synthetics being made after citadel blast would be made just as everything else because entire Milky Way, no exceptions, got "Reaper upgrades" one way or another. No exceptions. If you destroyed the reapers or decided to control them, then those "Reaper upgrades" were implemented by races themselves upon themselves. Case closed.
So no matter how you decided to play it out in ME3 you get the upgrades.
Next - The Villain
I'd put it this way. Next ME game could focus more on aspect of Finding Shepard/Restoring Shepard. Maybe you could pick to play as one of former Squadmates. Shepard was dissolved into some form of "Quantum energy dark matter shabang" which you can explore as a amalgamate that all races have become. That means that you can probably go and explore events that happened in previous cycles in search for answers to port Shepard into life. You could go through Shanxshy or that Skilian Blitz or maybe visit some big bad overlord in the past that was close enough to solving something quantum that will lead us closer to reading world where real Shepard is trapped in. So there are your Villains.
You just have to dig to get there. You have to solve the puzzle.
So forget about Andromeda. Andromeda was a mistake. Andromeda is just a bad dream. You are awake now and all is alright.
The default choice could’ve have been a lie to our Shepard as we died, the new shepard could be one of many like us from mass effect 2 in being rebuilt to help fight the reapers. Multiple shepards in the galaxy fighting reapers and liara is in search for the one that survived
There's already a canonized ending in that Liara isn't killed by the deathbeam when you can potentially take her to the final rush. The only real difference in the 3 endings is whether people are half synthetic, half organic or not.
And given that the story could be about an outside threat, just make synthesis something that people don't mention except occasionally at important game intervals. It has to be unintrusive to not be considered a bad ending.
The control and destroy endings can essentially be the same as the Reapers are either destroyed or leave. There is nothing in that ending that requires the Reapers to be ever present except the star child's assumption of what Shepard would do with the control. If Shepard decided to steer the Reapers away from the galaxy, that's essentially the same as them all dying. They aren't around anymore, that's what matters.
The ACTUAL biggest obstacles are whether certain species still exist. The Geth and Quarians were exterminated after some choices.
You could have Quarian presence low in game and just say either most of them are busy on Rannoch OR the remaining Quarians are exiles who fell out with their people and thus were not present when the flotilla was exterminated.
Geth are robots so it's easy to cheese a way for them to be rebuilt again.
The Krogan aren't completely eliminated so you'd just have to find a way to acknowledge the genophage if it is still going on.
The death of the Councilors felt like a big deal but in the second game their impact is fairly minor.
So, the best match in my opinion is
Any Quarians you meet are not related to the flotilla i.e exiles.
Any Krogan you meet are in limited number. They should be having internal conflict either as a result of the continuation of the genophage or the result of expansion. Large emphasis should be placed on Wrex and/or Bakara (if they are alive) keeping things from getting worse and trying to keep diplomacy channels open so that the curing of the genophage doesn't feel cheap and pointless.
Maybe the Geth could be rebuilt by the Quarians if they are alive and if both are dead the exiled could be the ones helping to build them (maybe that's the kinda thing that got some of them exiled in the first place.)
Aside from Liara and maybe Garrus, squadmates should be fairly new. Other squadmates from previous games should have a smaller role like Wrex in ME2.
That's the only way I could see this done without excluding species with an undetermined fate which would be the laziest way to do this.
You nailed. To me it's most be centuries on the future, with a Shepard's clone if the perfect destroy ending, when Shepard was cryogenic preserved.
Krogans can be survive the genophage like the ones on Andromeda's do.
The reapers, in control ending could be probed to Sun. And in Synthesis could be choose to ceased their own existence.
Amazing vid. You remind me of gamermd83 back in the the early trilogy days. I think the Jaardan will be allies but the "opposition" who set off the scourge will be the new villains.
Very easily could be! For some reason the Jardaan gave me more evil-ish vibes than the Opposition, but I'd have to re-check that on my second Andromeda playthrough.
Hi! Please Help, in legenday edition ps4 , with more than 5000 resources and full reputation, the Catalist dont mentioned “sinthesis” final option 😔 (so, not availaible), somebody knows what is wrong? In this version, need more military resources?
It's around 7000 war assets for synthesis to become a thing, IIRC.
@@paragonseven Thank to you very much . In ps3 years ago, extended cut with more than 4000 or 5000 gives to you 4 endings includes sinthesis without problem . This change was announced ???
In a franchise that hinges on the choices you make, alternate universes would just be a cardinal sin, nothing matters. Writing a one size fits all opening that completely obliterates the differences between the three endings would be just as bad as writing a series about choice and making the end choice come down to what color you get in your ending. It would be cool if they did something with perfect ending sheppard still alive but I don't need him to be the protagonist of this new game. His story is over, living or dead. Let's get a new protagonist so we don't have to come up with some kind of ressurection story about why Sheppard has to start back at level 1 again.
I would say your theory works if the next Mass Effect game was going to be a book, but it's a game and thus not very likely imo.
No, Shepard can come back much more easily:
Control: Pops out of a random reaper cloning pod jusy as they are all blown up by the new bad guy.
Synthesis: Same as above with cybernetic implants.
Destruction: Cerberus lazarus project 2.
Same Shepard, its just everyone gets some unique dialogue referencing it ("Hey, how does it feel to be tank grown Shep?" - Grunt)
Remember, he's not dead in the blue and green endings, just absorbed into some crazy complicated tech.
This is of course total crap as a story device. At that point he'll achieve Goku levels of refusing to stay dead.
The one bone I have to pick in terms of not seeing something mentioned is the fact that in the trailer, Liara doesn’t have green eyes, which means the synthesis ending isn’t accounted for among the four player possibilities,
no matter whether it’s important to who the new villain is or not. Assuming that the Liara we see in the trailer is the Liara from the trilogy, of course. After all, it could be that she is from the same alternate universe that she’s gone to get Shepard from…
Pure gold - thank you 😊
The hero AND villain in the next game are two different versions of Shepard. The one we recover is a Shepard from the Destroy ending. The Villain will be from the control ending. Whichever gender Shepard you pick, the other gender will swap and be the villain.
"Matching heart beats"
if we accept the alternate universe theory, we have another option for the villains of the story: someone (or something) coming from a parallel universe. i personally don’t like it, as it seems too easy, but there’s another thing working for the benefit of the theory: the presence of geths in the next game. if you side with quarians on rannoch, you effectively make geths go extinct, meaning that the geths present in the new game must come from the alternate universe
Very interesting theories 😁. The Jardaan and the Jheln i think will have a significant part to play in the next mass effect imo, then there is 'the opposition' as well. There's barely any information on the jheln as it is except for one mention amongst the details about the scourge.
I greatly would prefer a new protagonist or canonizing perfect destroy over some alternate universe hand waving never established in the trilogy. In my mind some alternate universe Shepard who didn’t fight the reapers is just cosplay - they are not Shepard - period. My theory is the Cerberus clone we never see die in the Shore Leave DLC (or another - who says Cerberus only created one?). Add in Liara’s final goodbye and a touch of Search for Spock and you have your original Shepard back. Granted you can refuse Liara’s offer I believe, but honestly if you did you deserve to stay dead IMHO ;). Repopulating Krogan, Quarians and possibly Geth from Andromeda can solve most of the consequences. However, Ireally don’t like basically nullifying the choices you make, it is at least logically consistent. Lastly, with respect to the teaser and the N7 helmet fragment; I would caution the following; in no scene is Shepherd ever seen wearing a helmet once the dash for the beam starts. Yes in Perfect Destroy it’s shown but this always struck me as a goof that made no sense.
While originally I was so excited for ME5 and Shepard’s return the more I see the silly compromises needed to make that happen the more I’d prefer a cleaner start with Perfect Destroy as Cannon.
PS: I believe the Star Child says organics will be ‘perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology, and Synthetics will gain full understanding of organics’. It is not stated that that there would never be conflict between races again. Also even the Geth who fully understood each other were in conflict with each other (Heretics). Conflict is inherent between individuals, that is just the unavoidable consequence.
my guess is if Shepard is in the game, he won't be the player character, he'll be an npc
Why the Jardaan? Why not the species that fought them and appeared to have won?
Also, the Genophage isn't a problem. If you didn't solve it, someone else did shortly after the Reaper War. Boom, done.
They could just canonize the Indoctrination Theory, which would also work.
☝️☝️☝️ yes please!
While I think many 'proofs' in the IT are farfetched, the main idea behind it is solid:
Being around reaper tech has influenced Shepard more than they realise and during dream-like sequences their guard is down, so the reapers can exert more control. This is how in the final scenes, the plots of two main villains: Saren (Synthesis: join the reapers and ascend) and IM (Control) appear like good options, and why StarChild takes after Shepard's trauma and nightmares.
It'd be so compelling if they made it canon, unlike other 'lol it was all a dream'-endings there are a lot of ways to mix 'dream' and 'reality' for an indoctrinated Shepard.
I loved the indoctrination method. The kid is totally Harby messing with you
Exactly this. Reapers die. Tech survives. Shephard has emotional damage based on which ending he chose.
It's my canon...
No. That would suck for so many reasons. I don't want all decisions undone or for Shepard to be a failure.
I think a simpler solution than alternate universe is a clone or synthetic recreation of Sheppard with their memories replicated somehow.
Step 1-same, step 2-Shepherd (as evil AI/crucible or mad man) step 3-new prtoganist fighting the mess shepherd created in the galaxy...
Maybe, just maybe, liara found a way to extract Shepard's memory from her consciousness or the catalyst technology., and needs the DNA from parts of shepherds old gear, like part of the helmet from alcera.
I just thought to comment here because I recall in one of your previous videos of the perfect destruction ending and just reiterate, it is true, but it’s not just them not putting the nameplate on the memorial wall at the very end of the cut scene you see N7 dog tags what looks like to be your character shepherd And right before it cuts the black you hear and see an inhalation of air
What do you think of the ancient AI you can find on Veold? It intentionally lies about its true nature, despises organics and predates the angara. It also resembles geth with its single eye light. It never got any kind of resolution in Andromeda so do you think they might explore its origins in the next game?
It was left strangely unresolved so I think it'll (hopefully) be addressed, like most of the plot threads from Andromeda. But again, the Andromeda hints from the teasers are very few and far between, so we'll have to wait and see.
So… while not a theory it’s self, I have and Idea on how to inform some future theories.
First: see who all are known to be on the teams making the next Mass Effect.
Get an idea of their writing style, and what plot mechanics they frequently use, and or like.
Mix and match those plot points in a way that works within the ME universe.
Though we should still let our minds run crazy on how to smoothly progress the story. We should also have a few theories about what the writers are likely to come up with (within the context of their style and past works. And I just completed Deus Ex: HR/MD, loved them, and can’t wait to see what the Narrative Director (Mary DeMarle) comes up with for Mass Effect!)
Agreed on this point, I try and keep the team in mind with all of my theorizing. And after seeing that the top leadership probably wouldn't want to canonize anything, I decided to take a crack and figuring out how they could make it happen. Very excited to play through the Deus Ex series at some point!
The only ending that would take the reapers off the table without affecting behavior would be a renegade Shepard choosing control in which he or she just goes back to dark space and allows conflict and let chips fall where they may. You are right Synthesis really messed with the universe IMO.
would be very cool if the reapers, instead of hibernating in dark space...actually travel from galaxy to galaxy in local cluster doing same thing trying to find the "Solution". and Scourge was Andromeda's solution to defeating the Reapers.
But if you're Shepard from alternate universe, do you really want to find yourself away from the actual universe and people you care about? Wake up and be told that you have to fight some big bad for guys that might look familiar, but have emotional attachments to another version of you? The clone we meet at one point cannot live with this weight and decides to end their existence rather than to be a second. OK, maybe you, as a new Shepard, are told, that once you defeat the big bad they will return you to your reality. But that's still a dirty thing to do to a person you don't know. I wager fighting the big bad under this kind of duress would not end good. And you might as well just join the big bad just to spite the "saviors" of your life.
so playing with your alternate universe theory a bit, do the reapers have to loose in that universe it could be that Shepard was never brought back and so the galaxy fell?
the reaper corpses could mean the galaxy went down swinging but ultimately lost and now Liara and friends are under attack from the reapers of this alternate universe who have found a way through the anomalies into our Shepard's universe so to fight them off Liara and the crew go to the alternate universe to grab that Shepard's body and mass effect 2 them in hopes of fighting off a new reaper invasion.
I doubt that is what is going to happen but the idea of jumping into a universe where the reapers won is interesting in a what if kind of way.
i think your wrong about the alternate universe where the reapers lost to another threat so Shepard wasn't needed, i think its a universe where the reapers wiped they system because Shepard wasn't brought back then they retreaded to dark space. Liara is showing up after the reapers of the universe left. They probably defeated some reapers but ultimately lost hence the two dead reapers.
It would explain the destroyed mass effect relay and the debris field as well as the loss of coms audio recordings.
Interesting theory! I guess this could also be supported by Liara creating the time capsule about Shepard no matter what, so the alternate Shepards could get up to speed. And the alternate Shepard who has no recollection of the events with the reapers would also cover group E - people who never played the original trilogy in the first place, who I'm sure Bioware have in mind too. So I could see them going this direction. Though personally I would prefer taking it a step further and finding a loophole where the original Shepard's memories could somehow be preserved in the sequel as having things I did constantly explained to me would feel slightly jarring.
Welll might I interest you in my Shepard reincarnation theory which I didn't go over here? I go over that one in my multiverse theory video, but granted, it is mainly just vibes more than evidence.
Still though, that could be a way to get our Shepard's memories back, *if* we want our Shepard's soul to return in the first place.
My idea would be to sidestep all the endings altogether, and have the Reapers ‘win’.
Essentially, Shep bleeds out when they collapse, and what we get after the elevator starts, is Shep’s mind playing out as it dies, coming up with wild ideas.
In the real world, the Reapers destroy the crucible, and the forces of the galaxy order a full retreat. You can come up with various ways in which a fair amount of each race could outrun and hide from the Reapers until they finished their harvest.
You can then jump ahead a couple hundred years, and have the setting of the game be a kind of post-apocalypse rediscovery of the galaxy we knew from the trilogy.
This way, it gets around the complex issue of having 3(or 4) different states of the galaxy moving forward, and doesn’t invalidate anyone’s ME3 runs, because what they experienced IS what THEIR Shepard experienced as they died. And for extra zest, the perfect destroy with Shep drawing a breath, could in fact be them waking up in the rubble of the crucible after the Reapers destroyed it in this proposed outline.
She picked up the piece of the helmet because it had frozen DNA in it and is able to clone Shepard. However, is it the same Shepard with the same memories and soul of OG Shepard?
You know I really like this theory especially when you also explained how with every choice and consequences in terms of replacing or mirror based on player choice im not the only one who noticed this and has said you can used this in the next mass effect game. Its the simplist and yet adds more excitement based on player choice and the possible experience they get based on choice and even add multiverse but in a way that's not lazy and can be done well through intimate character development and character arcs. But i wont get too hyped about this because its a theory.
Indeed, it is just a theory. :) However the fun part is that it might actually be possible with what they've teased so far. Can't wait for a new hint to drop 😤
@@paragonseven agreed same here.
This is really well thought out. I only feel that the multiverse situation also brings along multiverse villians. It is possible that the Andromeda enemies coming while Situations A, B, C, and D are being resolved. Or, It could be a situation of only Situations "A, C, and D" where Anomalies are appearing everywhere and causing problems and Another Universe is mixing in. More than likely, A, C, and D will only be included and B will be left out. The idea of a positive situation switching to a problematic one is less likely.
Let's face it only Nice people like the world to be in a happy place. So we will probably start with Everything messed up. Also Only the geth that were outside the System will survive. Which is probably why they only show that Disc. So we will probably be facing a Super computer version of the geth. As well as Probably other Major Enemies coming from other versions of the universe. Possibly even Universes that have lost and are far worse than just a reset.
Think the issue wouldn’t be the endings but rather the quariens and geth
Unless they would be brought from the mirror universe as well
Honestly they should just cannonize the most popular choices from the trilogy
Rachni live
Council was saved from sovereign
Genophage cured with wrex and eve alive
Quarians and geth find peace
All squadmates live except, Virmire Sacrifice, Mordin, Thane, and Legion
Perfect destroy ending.
Thats the only way to please the most fans, while still being able to tell a good story. And we also have the data from the LE to show this.
Yep. Besides, the Synthesis and control endings pretty much eliminates major conflicts if any at all. So those who chose them shouldn't feel left outm
also, would be very cool to find new friends/enemies in Segue 1, the little galaxy hanging off of the Milky Way...outside the relay network.
honestly I was just hoping they would pull a "Lost" card and the endings are just purged out of existence
with enough creativity it could work
would the alternite universe shepard be the same! like personality and memory wise cuz i think it would suck if this shepard is way different like not being a soldier like the main one was
I personally think that reincarnation of the Shepards that aren't from Perfect Destroy will be on the table (except for Control cause their Shepard's soul/consciousness will be otherwise occupied). So maybe our Shepards can return, but we'll have to see what the ME team has in store for us.
@@paragonseven I personally just want Shepard to come back from the rubble in the perfect destroy ending! Like continue from there
@@BlazeTheCatMan damnn, imagine that is the start of the game. Starting right from that place, exploring the devastated citadel until Normandy picks you up like at the start of me3 (still possible with destroyed relays, since Normandy just used FTL and not the relay to fly away from the blast)
if player d shepard is alive at the end why is there a need to go to a alternate universe and get a new shepard??
I would absolutely canonize one Shepard with a single path they took along each choice. We’ve had over 10 years to develop our head canon, now it’s time to scrap all the vague, shallow bullshit ME 2 and 3 had to resort to to accommodate some of the more odd choices and make an actual, solid game that can support future installments. All that without creating even more branching yet superficial alternate versions just to accommodate “player choice”.
i just finished my 3rd playthrough of the trilogy, these videos are giving me excellent copium for the next 5 years
There's nothing that says there only has to be one big bad, and also nothing that says there's only going to be one more ME game. The original trilogy had different antagonists in each game even though the reapers were the real villains behind the scenes. ME1 had Saren and the Geth with Sovereign being a shadowy figure until right at the end, ME2 had the Harvesters with Harbinger pulling the strings, and ME3 we finally faced the Reapers themselves. What if we're in for another trilogy? Let's have some fun and presume your theory is correct in that Liara and co. are retrieving Shepard from an alternate universe where he's still laying there flash frozen on Alchera.
Remember how the Leviathans see themselves as being above the other races, and the only reason they weren't still in charge of the galaxy is their own hubris in creating the Reapers? That was their civilization's undoing, but not the end of their species. It's possible that the Leviathans could see the aftermath of the Reaper war as an opportunity to take charge again, and we already know that they can easily destroy (or possibly control) Reapers based on ME2 and ME3 so them deciding to take over again could still happen in a control or synthesis playthrough.
Maybe there would be more time to find a solution to defeating the Leviathans in the control/synthesis endings because the Leviathans would first have to deal with whatever Reapers survived the war, and especially in the synthesis ending because there would be less inter-species squabbling over who would be in charge in the aftermath and the races would be working together. Destroy would be a little trickier but that could be explained by the Leviathans perhaps being intrigued by Shepard passing on what they would likely see as the obvious choice with the most immediate benefit (control) or the biggest long term benefit (synthesis) and instead opting to destroy the Reapers at the cost of significant damage to civilization across the galaxy, as well as destroying all synthetic life (unless the star child was lying about that part like many theories suggest) and leaving everyone vulnerable to another powerful race such as the Leviathans. How would they know about the choices given to Shepard by the star child? They created the star child. Why wouldn't they also be affected by the synthesis ending? They created the star child, and they watched the crucible being built, so it stands to reason they would know how to avoid it's effect.
In a destroy/perfect destroy ending the Leviathans could perhaps opt to offer their assistance in rebuilding the mass relays in exchange for influence over policy and giving each government orbs to communicate through, which could easily translate into them taking control of leaders through the orbs and staging a bloodless coup in each government. Shepard would be the only one to truly understand what is going on since he was the only one to actually meet a Leviathan face to face and know what they are truly capable of. But that would be an advantage left to perfect destroy Shepard since that meeting takes place in ME2, which never happened for "alternate universe" Shepard. Perhaps the first time alternate universe Shepard meets a Leviathan in ME5 they contact him in the same way as in ME2 and he learns everything then, while "prime universe" Shepard tells them where to stick it because he's played that game before.
The Jaardan could still make an appearance in ME6 or even toward the end of ME5, potentially giving the player a choice between allying with the Leviathans against a common foe once again or refusing, which would cause them to go back into hiding. That could influence how (or even if) the Leviathans appear in ME6. Do they stand by and watch the milky way races fight the Jaardan without interfering, or do they take a more active role against the invaders?
ME7 could see a return to Andromeda. Lots of things to do there with filling in plot holes and unresolved arcs from Andromeda, like finally finding out what happened with the missing Quarian Ark and the true origin of the Scourge, leading to a way to neutralize it and subsequently defeat the Jardaan.
But yeah it's just theorycrafting that probably doesn't matter much in the end, but at least it's fun.
I love the: "Shep Uploaded"
I find it funny, i don't know why
I know it was a jest but the clone in the citadel DLC technically exists in canon so chances are it would be a clone than an alternative universe shep.
Also before ME3 the original reason for the Reapers was that wide scale use of Mass Effect technology created Dark Energy pockets that would expand and consume the galaxy hence the Reapers would have to cleanse the Galaxy of sapient beings that use the technology in order to allow for Dark Energy levels to return to normal (or to harvest it, i can't remember fully), we see hints of this with Haestrom or the mention of Dark Energy from Veetor. I hoped that the Scourge is the result of no cleansing effort being implemented but that's just my head canon. Would be nice to see this being the galaxy wide calamity that needs to be solved if they went with this route and connects Andromeda with the Milky Way.
I still doubt the alternative universe theory but it is interesting to hear. I think control would have Sheppard rebuilding his/her body with reaper tech. In synthesis liara or another protagonist would use newly accessible tech to rebuild Sheppard. Not sure about basic destroy but in perfect destroy Sheppard could end up in something similar to a bantha tank from Star Wars healing slowly from traumatic wounds and might come out with deficits.
I get that. The main reason I assume AU is a thing is because Alchera (for whatever reason) has been teased, and there's a few funky things going on in the teaser trailer from 2020 that implies weird stuff like that might happen....stay tuned for next week's breakdown!
@@paragonseven that would make your theory much more plausible. The planet is different from the last time we were there. So though I’ll say unlikely; it’s far from impossible. I’m just trying to figure out the logistics of making it happen
Mabe the Paragon Mass Effect 3 Shepard will come back because doing the Paragon path the mechanical innests of Cerberus disappear making more sense with the Perfect Destruction ending that is supposed to destroy or badly damage all the synthetic life forms and tech and, since Shepard got rid of them in his/her body could have a biggest chance of surviving the Destroy Ending
Things I wished the game had focused on:
- we gathered all these teams for what again?
-the arachnids I wanted to know more about them
-those spider creatures fixing the citadel we weren’t allowed to interact with… what happened, who made them? I’d love to find out more about them
-who created the reapers and why couldn’t we go to their homes?
mm, have you played Leviathan DLC for me3? Because, while i don't really understand the context of your first question, 2 and 3 can be explored more, tho unlikely, since they are so ancient and for the fourth question we do have an answer
I actually played it. Still think it does not explain everything. But I’m all ears if u have the answer.
On ur confusion, the entire time we played me we kept being told to get your readiness up and make alliances and talk to everything and do all these extra missions. There was no payoffs at the end. Lazy at best writing.
@@Unexpected3251 i see, yes, i 100% agree. War assets in the end not only visually were underrepresented (for example in the final battle cutscene, only one single geth platform is shown. Geth fleet basically doesn't exist in that cutscene) but also had almost no impact on the ending.
To fix the first issue, I just use Take Earth back mod, which adds a TON of war assets, new cutscenes and etc for the Priority: Earth. But yeah, they really failed Priority: Earth plot wise and gameplay wise too. It could be similar to the collector base mission, with different choices, outcomes and deaths along the way.
Second issue is much worse. War assets only affect state of the earth, relays, big ben (lmao) and Shepard's supposed survival. + if the score low you can't choose synthesis and destroy or control. Choices like genophage or quarians/geth do not matter and it's really a shame. Last hour was rushed and it shows.
As for the Leviathan. More could be explored for sure, but information from the DLC at least for me really clicked and made a lot of sense in why the reapers are what they are. In short, i think their entire motivation is just a basic AI misrepresentation of the "Life" concept. For them, "harvesting life so life can't create AIs that will kill them" sounds logical. Because for us - harvesting = killing. Harvested, you, as the person, lose any free will, any though, you lose everything. But they see it as the organic material that just continuous to live. Basically, I believe, they are the ones that do not comprehend (quoting sovereign) the concept of "life" at all. They didn't grow enough as a sentient being to grasp it before they destroyed leviathans. And then it was just too late, cycles have started and cannot be stopped now. That's how I personally made sense of Leviathan + star whatever child words
I don't think that the Villian's will be the Jardaan, as it wasn't the Jardaan that set off the Scourge. There is an enemy of the Jardaan that is mentioned when you get to Meridian Core, and I think the villians will be the Jardaan's enemies. And since, in Andromeda, we ally ourselves with the Jardaan's created child race, those Enemies of the Jardaan could come back, change and use the scourge to try and destroy BOTH universes, which is what causes the Andromeda team to be in the Milkyway somehow.
I have a theory that the Opposition (who I assume you're talking about here) is also Jardaan. So there's basically two factions of Jardaan: one that disagrees what whatever the driven out Jardaan were doing, and the ones who were driven out.
hopefully they keep the story simple. I think the dead reapers imply that the destroy ending was canon. Then if they do this, the main antagonist would be Geth/AI, which was heavily implied in ME3 as a consequence of destroying reapers. Also, the main goal would be repairing mass relays/trying to bring the galaxy together, which I think is implied by the trailer, as many voices are seemingly sending 'signal lost' pings into space, looking for other life. There will be too much writing slosh, what ifs, and contradictions if they try to make all endings hold true.
Also I think the liara scene is simply her recovering shepard's body for cerberus in ME2. I don't think it means anything more.
If they want a new ME to be successful, they need to look back at what made ME1 great - simple story that introduces new universe with interesting characters. Making destroy ending canon would do this, as the galaxy is now completely cutoff from each other, with a goal of repairing mass relays and trying to recover. Also introduce geth/AI war, which was implied as a consequence of destroying reapers. And please have linear gameplay... ME:A open world was not good.
Theory for shepherd’s return for synthesis/control endings.
Using advanced technology, artificially creating a bio-synthetic body, that nether qualifies as a clone, nor as a mechanical approximation of one (like from terminator) but a fabricated (or in loose simpler terms, a 3d printed) recreation of shepherd’s body (and probably a nice Segue into character creation)
A perfect melding of man and machine.
And for perfect destroy, maybe they use a fraction of salvaged data from project Lazarus, to help shepherd heal (but don’t have him as bad off as he was last time he needed it, for example: at the start of ME2) or do… if you didn’t get the perfect destroy ending.
(But that’s a stretch, and most of the research and equipment is no longer available. Sooo. Maybe something else that acts as a similar Deus Ex Machina)
great job 💯👍
Atharia, I just saw ME3's ending. In the epilogue, the starchild asks grandpa for one more story.... but, (I it seems to me) the kid says "the shepard", not "shepard". If this is the case, the next story should include "a shepard", but not "the shepard we all now and love". Would you please comment on this avenue,, thanks
Lmao I didn't think of it like that, but I'm 100% here for it confirming multiple Shepards. 😂
(I genuinely don't think they meant it to imply multiple Shepards, but rather applying a title for Shepard's legend, but this is great).
If there's no major time jump, then the question must be asked as to why there are Angara in the promo images. Bioware is very particular about what they reveal and how they do it, so either the Jardaan brought them with them (which would be kind of weird), or there's going to be a lot of hand-waving taking place. I'm of the opinion that the big bad is going to be the Kett, or something Kett-related. The Jardaan appear to have been obsessed with the continuation of life as a whole (the "machinery of life must continue"), so why they would become an invading force would require some thought.
Of course, the answer to the question of what caused the detonation of the Scourge weapon in the first place has yet to be answered - so it could be THAT. Something Reaper-scale, but with entirely different motivations. It'll be interesting to find out!
The kett being the big bads would be a let down for me, only because I didn't find them compelling villains. We definitely need more info on the Scourge, and the Opposition who unleashed it on the Jardaan.
@@paragonsevenI think the Kett could be compelling if we got a proper play-up of the fact that they are literally an end to the diversity of intelligent life - they're the anti-Reaper, in a sense. Where the Reapers eventually stated goals were to protect and preserve the things that made a species unique (its culture, its history, and so on), the Kett are the opposite of all of that. They subsume everything in their path, rendering everything that it is or was little more than a half-remembered dream. While they pull in the genetic benefits of the species they overtake, they also obliterate that species' history, culture, and uniqueness. A friend once called them "The Organic Borg," and while I really dislike that simplification, she wasn't wrong , per se.
They are this massive, unstoppable force completely convinced of their own perfection and the righteousness of their cause (like all good villains), but they are also absolutely horrifying, because they make everything they touch into THEM. They're the worst fears about Asari reproduction and Reaper harvesting wrapped up into one hideous package, with absolutely no ethical or moral objection to the absolute annihilation of anything that gets in their way.
Do it right, and that's terrifying.
@@atomicrocketgames Great way of putting it, and 100% if they played this up, I'd have desperately needed a follow-up arc. But as it is, I don't feel the need to see more of their story unfortunately.
@@paragonsevenWhy thank you. :)
Yeah, it makes me very-very-sad that they didn't play up the decidedly dark angle to the Kett more than they did. I feel like they could have used a couple of conversations/cut scenes that delved into that part of the Kett, but they didn't. The world-builder/rpg writer in me will forever be disappointed.
I think one thing is obvious to me: regardless of how well-made it was, I need to get my hands on a copy of Andromeda Deluxe because its relevance seems due for the next game and I’m totally out of the loop 👀
Also, I don’t know how relevant this is but to put it out there, Casey Hudson’s concept art shared on N7 Day 2019 includes a depiction of the Normandy. “ . . . so many stories yet to tell”, he said. Considering that their core concept hasn’t changed since he left Bioware, it might be safe to say that at least some version of the Normandy crew will be back.
Definitely check out Andromeda, the cliffhangers will hopefully come back in the next installment.
Ahh good catch on the Hudson comment from 2019, I had forgotten about that. The fact that he specifcally said "many stories yet to tell" sounds VERY similar to the Stargazer at the end of ME3 saying "one more story" with regards to Shepard. 👀
I mean, a clone would just as easily explain everything.
I don't think that they will import the consequences of ME3 into ME4, I think they will pick a canon ending. Even the basic RGB ending consequences drastically change the state of the universe, but assuming we can gloss over that with G/B reapers getting wiped out with anti-reaper tech. The extinction of the Geth/Quarians completely changes the state of the universe. A G universe should have no conflict - very boring for a story or narrative perspective, imagine every NPC you came across was in consensus.
Plus if trailer Liara is from the original trilogy universe, then synthesis is not cannon because she doesn't have any synthesis traits (green eyes, electronic traces).
I think a clone of Shep makes more sense for a,b, and c. But I'd rather they allow her to stay in retirement and bring out a new crew, with some cameos of our favs
So I have a heavy duty tinfoil hat theory
So the N7 in 2023 teaser trailer is a renegade EDI not the EDI we know. So when we destroyed EDI on Luna she broadcast that help message at the same time cerberus downloaded, so did the alliance military instead of the cerberus paragon version EDI we get a alliance military renegade EDI that is N7 trained and is trying to take out the OG squad mate that killed her on Luna in ME1 that is why we see her hair outline in the 2023 teaser poster. How it ties in to your video I don’t know. Other then liara is looking for clues at the normandy SR1 crash site of why surviving crew members of SR1 are turn dead so that is my tinfoil hat theory
Dang, well done!
You know there is something that a lot of people do forget. Shepard wasn't fully human. Shepard was brought back in ME2. Miranda had to use bio synthetic fusion. Thus, this makes Shepatd similar to Miranda, Oriana, and Grunt. I know that's not a popular idea, but honestly, can anyone say it completely wrong?
So since the Reapers have been around for Billions of years, couldn't Shepard just grow a new body if his/her mind was in control of the Reapers.?
As for synthesis, it was Shepards bio synthetics fusion that finally made synthesis an option for "stopping the cycle." So Shepard DNA is pretty much available.
Now, if Shepard breath after destroy well, that sloves itself.
If not, what if Liara and Miranda were eighter working together to bring back Shepard by trying to find enough pure Shepard DNA. Or maybe they are racing each other. If Cerberus is going to come back, who is better than Miranda using it to restart project Lazarus?
So there you have my bring Shepard back opinion.
However, you sent me a reply a few videos back that I couldn't respond to to dealing with a severe illness. Which is why I haven't been online much.
You said you didn't see Bioware pushing Liara on players to be Shepard LI.
Please allow me to make my case.
1. Liara is the only LI from ME1 or ME2 that bioware wrote that can not die. Some LIs in more ways than one. Yes, Traynor and Steve do live in ME3, but Shepard dies.
2. Bioware gives Shepard mult opportunities to pick Liara or choose Liara over a different LI
Hell Liara even tries to break Shepard and another ME2 LI in Miranda former office, which, if you think about, really takes a "quad" if it Shepard and Miranda, Liara is trying to break up. Everyone else it a one-shot chance unless it's Kaden or Ashley, but still, they are far short compared to Liara.
3. Bioware never lets the crew confront Liara, who gives Shepard to Cerberus. Sure, Tali or Garrus can get called romances with Shepard, but no one questions Liara
And the fact Liara gave Shepard body to Cerberus isn't a factor in Shepard trail?
4. When Drew Karpyshyn left Bioware and 2 of the reasons, admittedly, there were more than 2 was EA pushed completion on ME3 and wanted market research to used in story writing.
Since bioware pushed so much time and effort in Shepard and Liara, especially Femshep and Liara, what could the team do with fans wanting Miranda, Tali, and Jack to be romanceable to Femshep. 3 very popular downloadable Mass Effect MODS is Femshep being able to romance them (note I didn't say the most popular)
So how does Bioware "protect Liara"? They have Tali favorite vid be "Fleet and Flotilla" growing up, and then have Her and Garrus end up together.
As for Miranda and Jack... OH They don't get along due to "sexual tension." BIoware even goes as far as to have BroShep suggest this even if he is in a romance with Miranda or Jack.
Finally, who would ever let their girlfriend or boyfriend get away with the things bioware let's Liara get away with? Seriously.
To the 'needing Shepard's DNA' point, I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't simply go to Shepard's room on the Normandy to find DNA there, or any of their other armour pieces on the Normandy. Why go to Alchera for DNA samples? It doesn't make much sense to me.
And to canonizing the Liara romance, again, I don't see it happening. Player-specific romances are one of the main reasons fans love the games, so there's no chance they'd canonize any one of them.
As to why Liara is included so much in the games, she's a very important character tied to the story from Mass Effect 1. She's essential to uncovering Illos, and the writing team clearly wanted her to have a larger role as the Shadow Broker. When a character is compelling, or someone that the writing team simply enjoys writing for, then those characters generally feature more in the main plot. I think they simply enjoyed writing her character arc, which is why she features a lot throughout the trilogy.
Yes, they could get it from the room. But Shepard armor was destroyed when Shepard was hit by the Reapers beam.
As for the rest of Liara, I didn't see them until i played Shepard, not romancing Liara.
I get that most of the fans would pick Liara as their favorite romance. Often, they won't even listen to any non Liara views point. Again, why is it just Laira that can't die? You say they wanted her to have a bigger role? Why just her? Ash/Kaden can die after becoming a Spector? Tali becomes an admiral to help her people, but she can still die? Jack is an instructor, and she can get tortured by Cerberus again and Shepard has to killer her Miranda goes to save her sister, stop her father and Cerberus, and she can die
Why does Liara get away with giving Shepard to. to save the universe but because She could let him go. But what does she do after? She focuses on killing the she Shadow broker for Feron, not Shepard. But hey, it is so no big deal according to Team Liara.
I get it, fans that love Shepard, and Liara only want Them and will overlook everything else.
I'm pro Shepard and Miranda, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the things Miranda did wrong in the game.
One more point how much more impactful would it have been in ME3 if you didn't help Liara in ME2 with the Shadow broker DLC causing Liara to die?
It would change the game like if you kill Wrex? If you don't do a loyalty mission for crew in ME2. OR in ME3 you choose over the Legion over Tali? What happened to Jack if you don't save Grissom Academy? or break up with Miranda at the start of ME3? If you betray Wrex by not giving him the cure? What if the Shepard that Liara gets a Shepard that doesn't care about her. What if a Shepard that is John instead of Jane or vise versa? What if it a Shepard that decided join Cerberus fully because of the actions of the Alliance and Council? Hmmmm so many possibilities...
No there are never consequences for Liara. Bioware always protects her
@@Brinic1 Not sure where you've gotten this impression, but I find most fans to be open to all romances. I don't frequent chatrooms or threads though so I only have my own perspective to base that off of, but regardless, when I've viewed all the relationship moments, I found it to be fairly even. Just my opinion though, and I'll leave it at that.
@paragonseven that fair. But I am always interested in other options. People can always learn from some someone ideas are different.
I only follow yours and 1 other site.
I might not always agree with them, but my opinion like yours is based on my own game and reading books.
I have found many "Team Liara" seem to ingonre anything that doesn't fit that view.
I admire the loyalty but not how it's dang near treated like blasphemy to say anything about against Liara.
I can also admit I can see things from how as a retired Marine how absolutely awful all the negative stereotypes about Marines as disrespectful, reckless, self absorbed muscle headed, sex addicted are put into his character. IF bioware wanted to make a social statement. The would of have him arrested and given a dishonorable discharge for his actions of unbecoming a Marine and yes that is a actual charge
Also as the father of two daughters how badly bioware treated Femshep compared to BroShep in the relationship options. Honestly name just 1 romantic relationship that Femshep wasn't cheated on, betrayed, belittled, that doomed from the start, had them die off.
Great content
Destroy gives you a new setting in that the galaxy needs to rebuild AI and technology.
I think it will be a default destroy ending. With a paragon run.
Quarians saved
Genophage cured
Rachni saved
Everything else depends on how much detail BioWare goes into. And what they remember.
The only way to fix the plot is starting from the beam blast before the ending.
Only downside to your steps is swallowing the pill that we will never get a Asari/Turian/Quarian/Krogan/Salarian protagonist for a change. Im just sick and tired of the protagonist ALWAYS being a human. Humanity isnt the center of the universe Bioware.
How about going through time to if the reaper war never happened
So in 3/4ths of the playthroughs we wont be playing as our original shepards? I dunno. I don't think theres any clean way to bring Shepard back. I think you have to lose a lot of integrity to do that. Multiverses are too big of a leap
i think the alternate universe theory might be too far fetched there has to be a more "viable" solution, otherwise i dont think we are getting back shep :(
Curious if the teaser trailer breakdown next week will help flesh this theory out a bit more. But I'm still 100% convinced that Shepard is coming back. No reason to show Alchera otherwise.
@@paragonseven im very hopeful! love these videos o7 pls keep them coming
I'm confused on Alchera. Yeah it has the three moons, but the methane ammonia atmosphere without wearing a breathing apparatus... hmm.
Stay tuned for why Liara can breathe on Alchera in next week's video. :)
@@paragonseven I'm excited! Hey I was gonna email you that theory of mine but I don't know your email. It's a bit long for the comments section. Do you have a public email?
@@ninfreak95 Yep, it's teamatharia@gmail.com.
The new villain could be the benefactor. That nobody has ever seen. The benafactor may be in ether one of the galaxies.?
Interesting analysis, but I don't agree with the premise that the developers have to make ME5 fits with all ME3 endings. Doing so would mean starting ME5 with all kind of convoluted explanations to try to tie everything. It would be much easier/understandable (incl. for the new gen who has no clue about all the cannon) to pick single one ending as the starting point of ME5. Even from a story telling stand point; the dev. if the really wanted to justify their choice they could easily drop a line stating why the other 2 choices didn't happen. For example, that Shepard was offered a fake choice by the Catalyst but saw through it and choose the destroy the reapers; dying in the process (of course my Shepard survived, but let's face it, the completionists who have the perfect ending and are currently chatting here about ME lore are a really tiny fractions of the players).
I'm not picking the destroy option by chance. Of course the devs could pull that trick (choose 1 option and run with it) for any ending; BUT; what do we see in the trailer:
1. A mass relay is shattered in pieces
2. A dead reaper
3. Liara rummaging for some N7 scraps (I agree, very likely in Alchera, which is still in the Milky Way, hence that sequence does contradict the hypothesis of a universe where jumps are now impossible)
To me this screams: destroy ending with a dead Shepard. Which, "luckily" offers the most possibilities for the new story:
- A post-apocalyptic world (tons of new factions can emerge, we restart the game from scratch).
- The races are still independent, so plenty of wars/infighting can happen (destroy endidng goes along the lines of "imagine what we could do if we could put our grievances aside long enough"; my money is that grievances restarted right away leading to the kind of huge mess that only a Shepard can solve.
- Unless you are working to build a museum, there's no reason to go freeze your butt on Alchera pick-up N7 memorabilia. And if I had to choose some stuff to putt on display, I'd try to find the stuff Shepard was wearing when he was saved the universe: *back on the Citadel*. However, if you can't go to the Citadel because the relays don't work anymore; and you badly need some Shepard DNA to revive him to kick some bad guys' butts then then it makes a lot of sense to go to Alchera, on the Normandy SR-1 crash. That's exactly what Cerberus did before ME2 with the project Lazarus.
I dont know why the new game should be about saving the galaxy again, you can make a good mass effect game about a young man or woman surviving a postwar galaxy as a colonist for example and bring shepard as your teammate for a mission, the thing is they need to canonize one ending and most probably will be perfect destroy
The plot could just be about Liara struggling to let go of Shepard and causing multiversal problems in trying to find him to say her goodbyes. Maybe an evil/indoctrinated Shepard gets into our home universe and is threatening everything unless we can return him to his own universe, which might be a dying "refusal" universe. Or maybe he was abducted from his universe near the start of the game's events, critically destabilizing his own universe, so he's gone "rogue" from our perspective out of rage that his own universe was sacrificed by our universe's Liara just for her to get some semblance of closure. Multiverses also allow for all three endings to be "canon" by having us visit and witness all three of the post-credits universes.
What if instead, only people who got the Perfect Destroy ending end up playing as Sheppard but anyone else gets a completely new character? As you mentioned, "mirror or replace the thing we killed". If Wrex dies on Virmire, he's replaced with an entirely new character, if Garrus dies he's replaced by a random Turian. In the same way, if Sheppard died, they're replaced with a random N7.
Let's say your Sheppard died in ME3, now you're playing this new N7 and meet Garrus, let's also say he's a romance option again, in this play through he could have a line even where he says something like:
"I'm not a stranger to being with a human, odd that both of you would be N7s/Specters though. Not important, what I meant was that it shouldn't be as weird as the first... You know what? Never mind, forget I said that".
I think it's possible for them to do the replace option on Sheppard being that everyone's Sheppard was different anyway. In this way both playthrough's are interesting as well. In one, you are still Sheppard, in the others, your going around a world where people are talking about Sheppard all the time. I personally feel like this is more likely to be the route they go too.
It's one thing to replace an NPC with someone new, but to replace a protagonist who has thousands of voice lines? It'll double the time (if not triple) to write for two completely separate characters, which means many added months if not years to production.
That's why I lean more towards one character (Shepard) but different versions of them (either the original or the AU version who had somewhat similar experiences).
@@paragonseven That's a fair point.
It still boasts the same issues you just pointed out, but, if they plan on combining andromeda and the milkyway, could it be possible that if Shepard is dead that you then play as Ryder? Like I said, it's still the same voice line issue you pointed out not to mention an abundance of other issues to work out but I would like to think the writers would be more creative or ambitious than going the multiverse route. I feel like too many fans would dog on them for taking that approach and I also would think they'd be aware of that fact as well. I'm just trying the think of solutions to the dead Shepard problem that don't include a multiverse or Shepard going through a second Lazarus project.