Mass Effect 5: Did the Starchild LIE?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Exploring what Synthesis, Control, Destroy and Refusal actually mean when it comes to Mass Effect 3's ending and what it means for the future of the series
Lessons From the Screenplay Mass Effect video: • Why Mass Effect Should...
kalaelizabeth
Everything We Know about Mass Effect 5: • Mass Effect 5: Everyth...
Mass Effect Andromeda Will Continue: • Mass Effect 5: Androme...
Is Liara Older?: • Mass Effect 5: Is Liar...
Solving The Mystery of the Benefactor: • Mass Effect 5: Solving...
The Geth Telescope: • Mass Effect 5: The BIG...
The Return of the Geth: • Mass Effect 5: The Ret...
#masseffect #masseffect4 #masseffect5 #masseffectandromeda #masseffectlegendaryedition #bioware #andromeda #n7 
Игры
I know the indoctrination theory is not popular but I always took the kid for lying and it was Harby. If you do refusal, his voice changes to harbinger’s.
Yeah this is true! I totally forgot to cover this but maybe I will in another video 🤔 I don't necessarily think he's harbinger though since I've interpreted it as that being his true voice which he created harbrginer and he is essentially part of the catalyst. But it's a very interesting thing to consider!
@@kalaelizabeth good point lol
Yeah I dont like the fancy Indoctrination theories but a light indoctrination (IE they are trying to affect sheps mind, not controlling shep) is kind of my head cannon and this is one of the reasons why.
It's been long established that the IT is bogus, and for good reason! It would defeat the very purpose of an RPG! Not to mention that the writers would've committed the cardinal sin of lying to the audience!
@@williamkerfoot8039 I think if it wasn’t bogus it would be very clever writing.
"The created will always rebel against their creators."
"You mean, like you did?"
Yes
Other synthetics rebelled against their creators and the purpose for why they were created (Case in point, the geth were created to be a labor force meant to perform tasks too dangerous for quarians), but though the "star child" AI harmed his creators to create the Reapers, he did NOT rebel from the purpose for why they created him, which is why the Leviathans claimed they made no mistakes creating the "starchild" AI to help them.
It's called projection. Like how a certain person claims another person is crooked, yet they're the real crooked one.
@@LightStreak567 the Geth didn't exactly rebel though, they defended themselves because the Quarians turned on them. Star Child is straight up using circular logic to justify doing exactly what it was created to put an end to
@@christopherhall5361 The geth defending themselves is why they will always rebel. The core of the story isn't the evil of machines, it's the evil of organics, in the face of their creations meant to serve, choosing otherwise.
My distrust of the star child is partly why I always pick Destroy. The biggest hint is what happens when you pick refusal, and the star child voices changes to that of a reapers with the 'so be it' line. This proves the star child is almost putting on an act for Shepard, disgusing its real voice to try and come across more sympathetic.
Second, it appears to you as the dead child Shepard saw on Earth. This proves it can clearly read Shepard's mind or memories somehow, and is purposely choosing this form to try and get Shepard to do what it wants. It presents synthesis as the ideal choice, stating it didn't choose this option sooner because 'the organics were not ready.' Why would the organics be any more ready now? The Quarians and Geth were just in all out war a few moments ago, development of AI is banned throughout the galaxy etc. You think the Krogan are ready to merge with synthetics? Shepard might be ready for the change but stating every organic in the galaxy would be is hugely far stretched.
He also heavily implies Shepard will die by picking destroy because 'even you are partly synthetic' yet destroy is the only ending where Shepard can live.
Also, why is there no option to bring up peace on Rannoch in your conversation with the star child? Isn't that what this whole conflict is over?
Excellent point
This is the best argument for it. I agree
Same reason I choose destroy as all other options seems plain wrong.
@@jimmyellner4763 Destroy is also what we've been fighting for the whole trilogy. We're never even presented with any other choice, apart from Ceberus wanting to control them, which is presented as being idotic and later we learn they only proposed this because they were all indoctrinated
The Catalyst is the first AI, it changes it's voice when you make a choice that it disagrees with, which organics will do the exact same thing but the voice that we hear and assume that it is the reapers, maybe it is it's true voice and the reapers have be mimicking the Catalyst and not the other way around 🤔
The Catalyst has the same abilities as it's creators, the ability to read and alter the mind. That shouldn't have been a surprise as we were already told this. The Catalyst appearing as the child in Shepherds dreams is understandable as it is someone who familiar and non-threatening. Exactly what you would want when engaging in critical negotiations during an intense conflict.
Shepherd was heavily modified by technology when the Lazarus Project brought him back to life so it is understandable to assume that he will not survive if The Crucible took out all synthetics as he is part synthetic. The other two choices wouldn't kill Shepherd exactly, just his body. His mind, his conscience would replace the Catalyst and live on and with the accumulated knowledge that he would gain, I would assume that he would be able to Simply create himself a new body if he really wanted to 🤔
The Catalyst actually did talk about peace between organics and synthetics and it believed that it wouldn't last and that conflict between the two will always end the same. That was literally what the entire conversation was about.
I believe that the Catalyst was telling the truth based on it's logic and understanding which lead to it's linear thinking, but that logic was flawed. The Crucible expanded that logic given it more options but it only expanded that logic so far.
The fact that Starchild took a form and voice of a kid that Shepard witnessed dying on Earth causing huge trauma for him really shows he wanted to manipulate Shepard in this form.
i don't think thats necessarily the case but rather that i think it chose that form because it is most representative of the issue it's trying to prove to shepard like a "form you are most comfortable with" type thing
@@wintertrooper7918Well. We can't know for sure since we never got explanation to it.
@@Dak1624 true
holy fuck i never caught that before.
I always take it as it was owning up to its statement that it was created to establish a connection, and so taking the form of a human would bode well in interacting with Shepard.
IMO, the biggest weakness of the endings is that, for once, Shepard fails us. They don't ask the questions that we, the players, want answered and would've asked in their place. They let the Starchild frame the Reapers as the heroes of the galaxy without any pushback, without confronting them with their contradictions and flawed logic. Ambiguity can be good when the storytelling is on point but this one feels more like a bug than a feature.
Good catch about SC pushing for the Synthesis ending. I didn't notice that before.
Shepard is dying at that point, he/she was shoot countless time and has even trouble just standing.
@@Maples01 yeah bad dreams i have them too irl, that's not really an argument imo. oily images and whisphers I don't remember.
But devs said this wasn't a thing so i will be honnest why bother searching about this theory to verify if this was debunked in the first place by the devs themselves ^^'
@@Maples01 Saren did not want synthesis. He wanted to be subservient to the reapers; a useful tool in hopes of surviving. Said so explicitly himself. Doesn't sound like synthesis to me.
@@Maples01 Saren was not synthesised, he was corrupted by the reapers with reaper technology implanted in himself, like the illusive man, he wasn't like the organics after synthesis.
@@Maples01 that's the theory, the game never stated that. For all we nknow after synthesis reapers leave and never ever comes back. Cycle ends with synthesis as with every other endings.
I think that most people overlook something crucial relating to the Starchild and the Reapers' motivations: they were created to preserve life, not necessarily solve the conflict between organics and synthetics. Leviathan himself says, "We created an Intelligence with a mandate to preserve life at any cost."
Preserving life, specifically organic life, is very different from solving the conflict between organics and synthetics. The Starchild/Intelligence only wants to keep organics from being wiped out. That is why they preserve races through harvesting: to preserve them before they are lost to any potential synthetic uprising, whether it has happened in their cycle yet or not.
I believe that the cycles were simply a short-term solution to a problem that the Starchild doesn't actually know how to solve, and it knew it didn't know how to solve it. If there had been a viable solution before Shepard, the Reapers would have implemented it because then organics would be safe from the threat of synthetics. Once Shepard and the Crucible arrives, the Starchild finally has a way to solve the problem that has plagued it since its creation.
The Starchild has only a very short time to think about the possibilities the Crucible made available. In that very brief time, it decided that Synthesis would be best because, as it said, organics would be perfected through tech, and synthetics would be perfected through understanding. As a synthetic themselves, it doesn't understand that organics still aren't ready for that change, especially not all at once as the Crucible implements it. The Starchild is not omniscient, and it is not always right. It merely believes it is right, and is willing to go to any lengths necessary to achieve its goal, because that's how it was designed. "Preserve life at any cost."
In the end, the flaws of the Starchild and their solution can be attributed to the arrogance of the Leviathans. They saw a couple organic slave races get wiped out by AI, decided that was a problem, then recklessly created a superintelligent AI themselves with extreme directives and no restraints on the actions it could take. It's like inventing an AI to solve climate change at any cost, then being surprised when it decides to wipe out humanity so they can't ruin the planet any further.
Had the Leviathans been less blinded by arrogance and greed, they could have avoided the entire cycle. It would have been as simple as programming the Starchild to inform the Leviathans of its findings before implementing a plan. If they'd done that, they could have stopped the Starchild and said, "Whoa, that's not what we meant. We kinda meant find a way for organics to live peacefully with synthetics, without destroying the galaxy thousands of times over in the process."
Exactly like you said Kala, the cycles are counter-productive to solving the actual problem. The Reapers are so obsessed with "preserving" life that they don't give organics and synthetics the chance to find the solution to lasting peace on their own. If the Reapers had simply shut down after Shepard made peace between the Geth and Quarians, it's entirely possible our cycle would have reached synthesis on our own, especially if the Starchild thinks it's inevitable. Thus, we would reach a solution without the need for the Crucible or the harvests.
Your comment deserves more attention. Nothing but good points.
I think you actually grasp the story and writing here
In fact, the solution was as simple as possible - NOT to leave the galaxy after the destruction of all intelligent life, to stay in it, and when the races begin to approach the creation of artificial intelligence, inform them that “guys, we have already seen this, it all ended badly, no do it." Or not to interfere until the artificial intelligence begins to create problems, and quickly destroy it, saying “we said that this would happen.”
So I don't agree. Here's why. You seem to think that the Star Child was unable to learn. Edi was constantly learning and evolving. Legion was constantly evolving and learning. He was evan capable of self-sacrifice. He gave his life so Geth could be individuals within a collective whole instead of a mass consciousness. Edi rewrote herself because she learned that she would risk her own life to save Jeff or her crewmates life. It wasn't just survival of oneself at all costs. The only options in the Star Childs controlled universe were decided and controlled by the Star Child. Nothing and no one was more powerful than the Child. At no time was the Child benevolent. It destroyed anything and anyone who might stop it or control it. The Reapers were the harvested remnants of past civilizations and totally controlled by the Child. They had no free thought, free will, no art, no culture, no songs, and no life. They literally went to dark space and hibernated until the 50,000 year wait to harvest again, with 1 left to observe the progress of the next to be harvasted and to make sure that the next dominant race to appear next didn't deviate from the Childs set path. The Protheans were another tool of the Child. The race was indoctrinated for so long they nolonger had the ability to think for themselves, their genetic code had been so degraded they were barely recognizable as Prothean. If they had nobody using them they would literally starve to death, in the spot they were left in. At no time was the Child willing to sacrifice itself for anything or anyone.
@@girlinvt Incorrect, they literally tell you where to shoot to end the reapers. Otherwise, they could have said the catalyst was shep, and told them to jump in the center. They told you the truth, hoping you'd pick the one to end the cycle instead of the one to kick the can down the road, aka Destroy.
I don't think the Starchild is lying, at least intentionally. I think it believes what it's saying is true, but that belief is based of it's own assumptions.
Not assumptions but a flawed dataset. The Leviathans explained that they created this AI to solve one specific problem so the entire way the Reapers think is around only that problem
@@mihan2d and in turn the starchild led things to follow a strict pattern of behavior from the galaxy so everything would inevtiably end in the exact same way because nothing could ever grow beyond a set limit that prevents any kind of potential working future
An endless code loop?
@@mihan2dFrom what we know about the leviathans, they were very arrogant and saw all other life forms as lesser than themselves. The whole reason why they wanted to preserve life was so that their slave races could keep worshipping them and giving them tribute. The leviathans saw that the other races made synthetics and then were killed by them and probably instilled this idea that synthetics will always destroy their creators into the reapers. The flawed beliefs and logic of the reapers are a direct result of the messed up beliefs of their creators, however in their arrogance they didn’t realize that their instructions to preserve life at all costs was too vague, causing the reapers to go to extremes or that they would see the leviathans themselves as part of the problem.
I'm in the camp of "the Starchild isn't "lying", it's just wrong." It thinks something is true that actually just ISN'T true.
Exactly. And technically it may be right in a majority of situations as well. But that does not mean that it will always happen. It's correlation not causation. Let's look at what a certain politician said about a decade ago, he claimed that since all criminals went to Kindergarten, that Kindergarten was the cause. I'm not kidding you, Google it. This ignores the large percentage of non-criminals who also attended Kindergarten. It's like saying, "All women who get pregnant drink water, so to prevent pregnancy, they need to stop drinking water." Same with the Starchild's logic. While more intricate and closer to the truth than the above examples, synthetics being created would not inherently lead them to rebel. It's more the fear that they will rebel or be violent (plus fear of the unknown, which the future with them in it would also be), which can also cause the issue. We actually saw this twice in ME3 with both the Geth and the unnamed living AI's in the archives in the Citadel DLC.
Hello, fellow camp mate! Lol
I don't think it was lying BUT we know from the Leviathans that the Reapers' possess very rigid task-oriented thinking so possibly they genuinely saw - through the lack of perspective - the universe this way, that organics are always bound for destruction just because their original dataset was imperfect
And then there's what happened in Project Overlord. After that DLC, I never picked synthesis again. Always destroy for me. Hackett says that everything they lost can be rebuilt and I assume that includes the Geth and EDI, as well as the mass relays. In order to justify destroying, that's my head canon, that the geth and EDi are rebuilt at some point.
why use Project Overlord as the excuse? I remember it being an experiment with GETH and nothing related to the Reapers and the process of gaining control over them obviously changes the mind to the point where it could handle being in a similar situation with the Reapers. plus yeah the geth and EDI could be rebuilt at some point but what are the chances they'll be our geth and EDI?
Even if the geth could be rebuilt the reaper codes are likely deleted for good which negates Legions sacrifice
Personally, I don't think the Starchild lied... But I do think the writing for it is flawed... Compared to all life, it's lived almost a billion years & seen a much bigger picture... Almost everything it said would happen - happened; We see it in the ending slides in the extended ending or in ME history... I don't understand how people think it lied about everything, except the destroy ending... Why would it lie about the other endings that keep it alive but solely tell you the truth of how to destroy it?
Regardless, great video Kala!
I hope no one takes my comment as being hostile, as I know this area of the game lore can be a sensitive topic for some... I'm just voicing my thoughts on the Starchild & ending after thinking it over for 12 years 😅
Flawed writing is Mac Walters's specialty.
@@williamkerfoot8039 The one thing a majority of the fanbase agrees on is that the writing for the Starchild & endings is very flawed.
@SpectreSaunders Sorry man but Mass Effect 3s script was flawed from the start.
@@williamkerfoot8039 Lowkey, I agree with you... I like ME3 but I won't lie, it was kinda disappointing for me... Especially at launch... It's much better with all the DLC, but it's still flawed... It's my least favourite of the trilogy
I haven't played ME3 for several years, and selected all of the options on multiple playthroughs. However, I still remember my frustration when in one of my playthroughs the Geth and Quarians chose peace and cooperation going forward, yet I was unable to challenge the SC's blatant contradiction that synthetics will always destroy organics. I suppose my experience supports so many reviews over the years of ME3 that state it was a great game-until the last 20 min...
The idea that SAM woukd turn on Rider makes me want Andromeda 2 even more.
If it made Ryder a NPC so we got to play a different protagonist I'd be okay with it. I didn't love the setting or story. But that part could be worked with as they expand to show the rest of the galaxy. I don't see how they can take the lame out of Ryder and his crew.
@@Ahglock good point
Turn on Rider 😮
"Turn on Rider" 😊
@@janremongalura5713 Peebee volunteers
Btw in this scene Shepard is standing in open space with no helmet.
We've been shown that some kind of mass effect field tech can be used to create airtight zones. I assume that's what happens here.
Shepard can still live without their synthetics cause miranda tells you you're mostly organic
I never cared, nor thought about whether the star child was lying: I just destroy because no robotic space cockroaches are gonna tell me what to do! But it makes sense that it’s either lying or it just believes what it says and they’re just wrong.
I lean towards the latter because Harbinger has been saying the entire series that the Reapers are eternal, they can not be stopped, nothing we say or do will stop or stall the harvest, and I believe they genuinely believe this about themselves. Shepard showed them otherwise and this makes them an anomaly, which is why the Catalyst(or Harbinger possibly) is offering Shepard a way to end this. I don’t believe long term the Control ending will work out. I don’t believe synthesis is what every organic in the Galaxy wants either. Destroy is the only option that keeps the galaxy’s freedom and ends this war with the Reapers.
I don't believe a single word out of Ghost Baby's mouth. I think if you pick Synthesis then you just made a new Reaper. Control is obviously incorrect because trying to control the Reapers is literally how we know the bad guys in the series have gone off the deep end. For my money, Reject or Perfect Destroy are only possible "true" endings, even just with what is in Mass Effect 3. The Stargazer in the end credits says flat out that Shepard has more stories, which would require Shepard to live. Reject and Perfect Destroy are the only possible endings where that can be true. Perfect Destroy can work if they go hard into trying to make Indoctrination Theory true...
However, I see Reject as the best option because sometimes, to quote War Games, "The only winning move is not to play." Looking back at Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels (another legendary series that is probably the single biggest influence on Mass Effect's story) they involve a protagonist making a nearly identical A,B, or C choice at the end of one of the novels. The next novel is that same man tearing ass around the galaxy because he is worried he made a mistake and he wants to find a better way. Ultimately, Foundation ends with people making compromised choices based on a fear of external threats, all caused by a deeply flawed relationship between organic and synthetic life. This is why Reject is the best ending in my view. Reject allows Shepard to refuse the fear implicit in the Star Child's false narratives and choices. But the thing about the Reapers is that they aren't actually unstoppable. The Protheans, based on what information we get about them, were almost completely worthless at fighting the Reapers. Other than one critical victory, they were basically just feeding the Reapers resources to buy time until they ran out of planets to surrender. The Council, however, built on the only Prothean success (stopping the Reaper's back door through Citadel) and has taken out multiple Reapers. I think the cycle is already broken. Organics have turned the tide. If the Council races decide that winning means taking as many Reapers down as they can, then the Reapers will be heavily reduced by the time the current harvest ends. Maybe too reduced to continue.
And what if the organics reject not only the Star Child's choices, but also reject the Star Child's war? What if everybody just builds small scale ships and runs, never collecting in large enough numbers for the Reapers to be able to get them in time? If there are 10 billion ships flitting around the galaxy, immediately jumping when a Reaper locks on, what can the Reapers really do about that? It would be like humans trying to shoot every single ant on Earth.
But there is another option that the Star Child doesn't account for: organics and synthetics working together. If the Reaper technology can be reverse engineered safely, that could possibly be used to help the Geth ascend to Reaper-levels of power. We know the Geth are going to be in the new game, but what if they aren't enemies, but rather guardians? Maybe we will BE a Geth in the new game.
The only real obstacle for Reject to be cannon is that it is the least popular option by far. A lot of people couldn't even figure out how to get the Reject ending before they made it easier to find. Heck, there are people who insist that it wasn't even in the original game (It absolutely was by the way, it was the ending I chose after beating the game 3 days after release).
Thank you for bringing up that Refuse can be a good ending to canonise! That's the only one where the last time we see Shepard s/he is definitely alive. ME5 could start right at that moment as the Normandy picks her/him up. They find their way to Andromeda or just manage to hide in an unknown part of the Milky Way until the Reapers finish this cycle, then they come back and start the preparation for the next Reaper arrival while expanding what's in Liara's time capsules. This way that 'one more story' makes more sense.
Organics and synthetics can coexist as we can see from the Geth in ME3. Only the Reapers enforce the idea of organics and synthetics cannot coexist so I think starchild is a mind trick used against Shepard by Reapers to fool him into choosing control or synthesis endings.
Allow me to basically turn all of this upside down by referring back to that one key quote: "The created will always rebel against their creators." The Starchild is a creation. Since he so blatantly states that creations will always rebel, why should we not assume that that's what it's doing in that moment? Trying to manipulate into making a choice that favors its own preferred outcome in an act of rebellion against all of those who contributed to its own creation.
That one line about rebellion means that we cannot trust anything it says.
Even if the Starchild isn’t lying, Andromeda and SAM prove that he is downright incorrect. In addition to the Geth and EDI proving him wrong in the same game.
I still think that the reapers trying to slow down the growth of dark matter from overusage of eezo would’ve been a much better plot than what they did select. I love sci-fi universes dealing with the superluminal reconciliation of reality resulting from FTL travel.
YES! And everything else about the ME3 endings is a pile of crap. I refused to touch that game for years after just reading about it and never played ME3 until MEHEM was available. Saved lots of time. Bioware should do themselves a favor and base ME5 on MEHEM
👏👏👏Thank you, Kala! You articulated the way I feel about the endings way better then I possibly could. Particularly with the Reapers never allowing for evolution to move forward. Brilliant vid. I really hope we get some answers to these questions.
I'm glad you enjoyed it since you're the reason why I even made this video hah
To me there is a HUGE question about the crucible, and I even wondered if it wasn't planted by the reapers themselves to force a specific ending, and had it been only synthesis available it would have fit 100%
But with the 2 other options available, specially destroy I dismissed the idea.
My alternative theory is that it's Leviathan who made the initial blueprints and makes them available each cycle for the species who're fighting the repares to complete. If they succeed they free Leviathan from their need to hide, if they fail Leviathan are still safe and hidden and can try again next cycle.
Of course this would leave a lot of questions : why would the AI agree to interface with the crucible no matter the choice that's made, even destroy, why would Leviathan offer choices like control or synthesis ?
Synthesis maybe if they thought it would work in their favor but control ? Only if they were the ones at the helm but it's clearly not the case. Heck why even offer choices?
But maybe neither Leviathan not the AI have complete control of the crucible, maybe they both have to compromise and both hope to find someone to influence and have that person make the choice.
One of the reasons I think this is because if the AI had full control over the citadel as he tells us ME1 wouldn't exist.
The AI having access to every data in the citadel would decide when harvest time has come and open the relay to dark space.
The keepers would only be a decoy, there to prevent organics to discover the real purpose of the citadel but not being needed to open the relay. Even Sovereign would be there just to monitor the rest of the galaxy and steer things the way they want it.
Or at the very least if Sovereign is the one to decide they only need to send a signal to the AI, not the keepers.
So to me it looks more like the AI is trapped on the citadel, it's not a free AI but a shackled one like EDI was in ME2 before Jocker frees her.
It has some control but not as much as it wants us to believe and even the reapers are somewhat limited by that at least in their interactions with the AI.
The Starchild lying was never anything I considered. It makes sence that such an intelligent entity would work with it's own self preservation and mission in mind. I think that SC's manipulation of Shepard shows that the Reapers are truly afraid of him/her. If you'd have the upper hand and if a succesful harvest is garanteed they wouldn't lie.
It's funny that it doesn't matter how many times I've played this series, the fan theories and hidden details keep surprising me. How many times my mind got changed towards these games is beyond counting. Great video Kala!!!
The worst part of the game, the ending. Missing too much from Sheppard's point of view to be said.
What made it curious the fact it is said there were countless cycles before and for an AI to be in various different situations until now and never been presented with more different solutions, unless it meant the crucible never been finished until now, but how does it explains that it occured several times but species were never ready for the synthesis. Why does it think it would be ready now? because our protagonist has a lot of implants?!
So lets put it there as an innocent child Sheppard's having nightmares all the time from the begging to the end of ME3.
Child favorizes synthesis as an option. But its curious, as if it is aware of bad writing (right now not thinking bad writing from game dev, but code-writing from the leviathans :P). By now it has to know something is wrong with its own programming. It thinks with synthesis it would break free from the loop it repeats. It probably would, but it is not Sheppard's job to fix them at cost of all life in the universe. Its the second most arrogant propose. The most arrogant proposition is the control. Once added Sheppard's voice is one tiny little one, lost very fast in the endless noise of self-preserving the main and only goal for reapers. Their only purpose. The life they are harvesting is not preserved its lost in the soup of all other genetic material. Nobody gains nothing from their harvesting, except them - self-preservation.
The only solution is destroy.. The only solution that has had to ever been, not those other flavours, but...for the sake of giving options to players to choose,, let them have it. The whole trilogy is about you trying to find the way to put an end to them to destroy them, not cooking some space magic soup with them.
Just wishing The Andromeda gets more love from everyone. It has its flaws, but if you compare Andromeda with Mass Effect 1 (because it should have been trilogy also), you cant be that picky. In no way Mass Effect 1 was any better than Andromeda is. From combat to companions, to anything, Andromeda was better. Sheppard in ME1 isn't Sheppard in ME3, you had time to develop to become that Sheppard in the end of Mass Effect 3, time Andromeda wasn't given chance to Ryder become that someone big at the end of its own trilogy.
I hope Andromeda gets its story finished one day in its trilogy.
I can only speak for myself but the first time I played the game, and every time after, I get the feeling that I can't trust a word the catalyst says. One of the biggest reasons being the interaction with the illusive man just before. It's basically like a game show where the catalyst dangles the shiny new synthesis in front of you and then says there are two mystery prizes you can choose from, maybe they make a better galaxy or maybe they destroy everything you love; synthesis solves all your problems though and it's right here for the taking. That's how it felt, so destroy felt like the right option; I refuse to believe that it targets all synthetics indiscriminately since it should only be targeting the unique reaper signatures that we know they have. I also refuse to believe Shepard is simply immune to indoctrination. With all the contact he's had with reapers and reaper tech, his mind has to be at least a little compromised and there's no way the lazarus project could've worked without some reaper tech (from sovereign) involved. Maybe it was unintentional, but that's what the story itself suggests.
It's not flawed logic, it is yours that is flawed, the Reapers and by extension the Catalyst has observed this conflict for billions of years and according to Javik they also fought a great war against synthetics.
The Geth are an exception to the rule, they are not the rule. And you are treating them as such. Now of course the Catalyst is trying to influence Shepard into making the decision it deems the most optimal one, however the choice is still left to Shepard(you), despite the influence whatever you choose, you have chosen it freely.
I can't be the only one who DOESN'T hate the star child concept, right? It's one of ME's most misunderstood moments at the end of the trilogy for me. I guess that's all up to interpretation.
I'm sure there's people who do enjoy it, I am just not a fan because it never made any sense to me lol
@kalaelizabeth ME3's ending has grown on me over the last decade the more I've thought about. I'm sure it has its defenders. Me included.
@wickdaline8668 I also DOESN'T hate the star child concept. It's not a perfect ending, but what Starchild is saying made sense to me even in 2012, and I feel like the way a lot of people are misinterpreting it is just proving its point.
@@mujanimekanal7869 Thanks.
Starchild wasn't lying with what it said about the inevitable (just maybe implied too hard about the casualties of Destroy.; likely shutdown but recoverable)... It was rather its experience. That does not mean that it's a 100% guarantee. It's correlation, not causation. Let's look at what a certain politician said about a decade ago, he claimed that since all criminals went to Kindergarten, that Kindergarten was the cause. I'm not kidding you, Google it. This ignores the large percentage of non-criminals who also attended Kindergarten. It's like saying, "All women who get pregnant drink water, so to prevent pregnancy, they need to stop drinking water." Same with the Starchild's logic. While more intricate and closer to the truth than the above examples, synthetics being created would not inherently lead them to rebel. It's more the fear that they will rebel or be violent (plus fear of the unknown, which the future with them in it would also be), which can also cause the issue. We actually saw this twice in ME3 with both the Geth and the unnamed living AI's in the archives in the Citadel DLC.
Of course, the Starchild's logic was flawed... it created the cycle and maintained it. However, it is not hypocritical, given that at least many times, if they hadn't intervened, they projected synthetic wiping out all organic regardless of advancement, while they themselves would leave non-advanced organics. The Starchild, despite the flaws, was logical enough to realize it is part of the problem, hence trying to drive each cycle to create an anomaly such as Shepard that could BREAK the cycle.
Yes! This is exactly how I saw it, too. I only just finally play the complete Mass Effect Legendary Edition last year.
For me, I felt like the Reapers had become trapped in the cycles. In a way, as doomed to repeat them as organics were to suffer them.
I felt like, given what I'd seen with the history of the Geth, the rogue VI on the moon, the AI on the Citadel, that if I refused or chose Destroy Ending the Geth are still technically wiped out by an organic prioritizing organic life over synthetic life, that there was only one way out of the cycle. I didn't know what would happen. I believed the SC that the Reapers would stop attacking, given the trap of their programming. But, it was still a leap of faith. I chose the Synthesis Ending right away. No question. No doubt.
Personally, I loved the ending to my Shepard's journey. It felt profoundly cathartic. I loved the bittersweetness of it for Shepard not surviving to see if it worked. I loved and was perhaps biased by the extended epilog seeming to vindicate my choice. I couldn't stop thinking about the ending for days. It still stays with me.
@@nicholasarkis6116 The way I always saw it was that the Starchild never liked its solution. It was always saddened and devastated by the death and destruction caused by its Reapers, but saw it as the only viable solution to at least let organic life continue to exist. It hoped every cycle for someone to break it. Yet continued the cycles, trying to influence change via the Citadel (the power behind the cycles referenced by the Prothean hologram in ME3).
I also believe, that aside from maybe the opening shot of Shepard seeing the kid with the toy, every time Shep saw the kid, it was the Starchild. That the Starchild itself was reaching out to Shepard, not that Shepard was indoctrinated, but that the Starchild saw Shep as the greatest option to break the cycle for years. Even likely being the original influence behind The Illusive Man and having a "resurrection" option available in case the worst happened. But when the Reaper invasion began, and Shep wasn't able to prevent Earth from being overrun instantly, we then get the Starchild speaking to Shep about "Everybody's dying," "You can't help me," essentially being resigned to having to watch yet another cycle be completed, then suddenly disappearing. If it was a real kid, you can't tell me that Anderson wouldn't have heard it. The Starchild realized that it still needed to guide Shep on a certain path to get Shep where they need to be to be able to help end the cycles, and so it allowed its chosen illusion form to appear to be destroyed by the Reapers. The nightmares being part of the Starchild reaching out as well, though Shep' subconscious really running the show there.
@@j.rileyindependentproductions 100% agree. 🤝
I'd never considered that the star child could be lying... 😳 Though now that the possibility has been brought to my attention, it *did* seem kind of odd that after everything we went through, we were suddenly presented with alternative options *only* when the future of the reapers was at stake... hmmmm....
It's very suspicious !
Have you considered that the star child used Saren and Illusive Man to convince Shepard that Synthesis and Control are the best options?
@@LightStreak567 That's basically a plot point in the sadly unfinished Marauder Shields comics. Synthesis is referred to as the "green lie" in ep. 30.
@ It's still a big lie, especially when you recall that the star child's creators, the Leviathans, used to dominate all life in the Milky Way galaxy, Chances are very high that they have deceptive tactics up their sleeves to bring themselves back into power, and the star child was still trying to fulfill its mission that the Leviathans set him out to do.
Kala Elizabeth, This is amazing! I subscribed right away!
Thank you so much!
I'm still mad they just abandoned Andromeda. There's no chance that wasn't intended to have DLC
Undoubtedly the Catalyst is manipulating you to choose 'Synthesis'. It is a malevolent being representing the gestalt conciousness of the Reapers. It turned on its creators (the Leviathans) and slaughtered them. It is confronting you in the final moments in an attempt to stop you from ending its existence and instead convince you to propel its evolution further by using the Crucible to join itself with all organic life in the galaxy.
The 'Control' option to the Catalyst means Shepard, in effect, replaces the Catalyst. A totally unacceptable outcome in its view.
The 'Destory' ending is the literal death and end to the Catalyst and the Reapers' terror.
In the 'Refuse' ending, the Catalyst expreses pure contempt for Shepard, as the Catalyst loses the opportunity to further itself through synthesis and instead, it remains to continue the perpetual cycle.
For me, I didn't really care for the star child. I chose the synthesis ending. Mainly dude to my respect and honor to Legion & EDI in the beginning I didn't trust the Geth & saw them as the enemy same with EDI. But each risked their lives protecting organics. That earned my trust. So i figured to honor Legion's sacrifice and EDI, I would give my life to make sure their legacy lives on. I just wish Thane & Mordin were still around too
This video is excellent. And I have to add in this tiny little thank you as well because OMG you actually show ME3 Kaidan and nobody does, so I cheered on reflex when I noticed. Kaidan does not get enough love.
Chris L'Etoile, ME1 and ME2 writer, said: "There was always a knowledge among the writers that the treatment of AIs in Council Space is pure racism on the part of organics, akin to the legal and moral handwavings used throughout history to justify slavery of "lesser" races."
/end of quote (he said a lot more, it is worth to search it up)
So Synthesis, which allows organics to improve themselves with their new DNA without using and enslaving synthetics, and which helps synthetics understand emotions (so they don't view organics as chaotic), makes sense from the ME writers' perspective to end the eons-old dichotomy between them, as it tackles the root causes.
One of my issue with this ending is that we're supposed to trust the Catalyst that this time it really finds solution and won't fail again like so many times before. The epilogue slides look good to me, but Shep can't predict this beforehand. My another problem is that they should have shown the Catalyst visibly dissolve in this ending, since its single purpose is accomplished. That would make it more clear it isn't still pulling any strings.
Catalyst is not giving us Synthesis always, we need enough war assets / crucible power to get it. He is even proposing only Destroy choice if you are low on war assets and he was right with is warnings. With Legendary Editions (with all DLCs and no more grinding for war assets in multiplayer) it looks almost impossible to get only one choice, but I saw statistics for OG and even Liara had only about 50% survivability. So I wouldn't say Catalyst just want to survive, nor that Crucible could be its creation.
(Sorry for longer text and probably double post - I try to add source to quotation, but my first comment vanished after that. Great video as always.)
I didn't play when the game was first released so seeing less than 50% survival rate for Liara is crazy because she's barely killable now 😱
I also in my last few playthroughs of Mass Effect Legendary Edition thought about wheter or not the star child was lying so after many time of choosing synthesis I chose control and then destroy never did refusal but knkw how that ends. I think perhaps choosing synthesis ending not only win the reaper war as well as achieving peace, but we fullfil the star child created purpose and thus resolve the organic and synthetic conflict once and for all. Also who's to say in the control ending shepard doesn't share the knowledge among other things of what the reapers "preserve" to the Milky way Galaxy during and after rebuilding. In fact what if recovering the destroyed reapers after the destroy ending we do get the knowledge and other things? It wont be one to one complete compared to synthesis or maybe control but maybe after learning and applying the reaper tech recovered after the reaper war we could learn more about what was stored that along with more evolution that wont take 100 years or so perhaps. Who knows. But yes i personally woul like the endings explained and explored more in a way that helps justify the endings so we're happy with the ending we chose but also want to see what the other endings are as well and get the dame satisfaction.
I believe he might be lying or at least manipulating the truth to make us choose what is ideal for him, I never choose synthesis because I feel that is giving the victory to the reapers and an ideal world without conflict is not real, with control I become the Illusive man and everything that is controled can break free again and destroy is the one I choose because it is what the galaxy fought for the entire time anything less is an insult to all of them, I only choose refuse to spite the starchild but all the endings need to be adressed.
I don't think it ever said synthesis would lead to an ideal world without conflict forever, just that it would lead to the solution it was looking for. said nothing about eternal peace.
I'm completely with you on this video. And one strange thing is that the catalyst communicates with Shepard with voice of the boy died on earth, male Shepard and female Shepard, if the catalyst knows the boy's voice, it is controlling Shepard's mind, so the control ending is not possible as he mentions (a paradox here) and either male or female Shepard does not exist at all, how does the catalyst know their voice, maybe it's another alternative universe plot point and we have more than one Shepard, Paragon7 will be happy about it.
And why the boy? To make Shepard feel sympathy with the catalyst?
maybe it's not using the boy's voice at all, but rather using a voice it believes the boy likely would've had.
About the very good point you made about the reapers collecting bodies and knowledge but never doing anything with it, I would say you missed a HUGE additional point : a species or society is more than a sum of DNA, biological material and knowledge. They are living beings, if there is nobody alive from that species it's dead no matter what. We are not machines that can be disassembled and reassembled later on to keep going as if nothing Changed.
We are also very intertwined with the location we live in.
Heck the reason we are physically and mentally is based on mostly that. Black people evolved with dark skin because of the very strong sun where they lived while Nordic white people needed a very different skin to survive the lack of sun.
Turians have an exoskeleton because of the radiation on their planet and so on and so forth.
Yes, because after each harvest, the Reapers cleanse the entire Galaxy of clues of not only of the previous cycle, but of their own existence, like Vigil had said, knowledge is power, and the Reapers have that power to do as they please.
Did anyone els also notice the hanar with bracelets?? Was that a Thing. They look snazzy anyway. OR are they bandages lol.
Looks like there's more than just asari dancers now haha
The new Mass Effect is Mass Effect 4 not 5. Andromeda is not mainline Mass Effect.
Take it up with BioWare, as they are the ones calling it ME5
Seems to me there may be a misunderstanding about what the harvest could actually be. It seems that the Star Child is searching for a solution to the organic / synthetic problem and that the Reapers and the Harvest are a means to that end. They harvest the entirety of the galaxy's history, peoples, technology, and intelligence. It seems like it isn't used, but like all data, it has to be processed. Perhaps the reaping time is really the amount of time it takes for the Reapers / Star Child to process the sum total of the data that had been harvested. If it finds an answer it can then apply it, if it doesn't then the cycle continues.
Very awesome thought!
To be fair to the Starchild, the arrival of an existential threat, the Reapers, was the catalyst to peace between the Quarians and the Geth.
If in ME5 they make the destroy ending canon, it's gonna upset a lot of fans who've carefully pumped dozens of hours into shaping Shepherd's choices to get the ending they wanted, only for it to be retconned in order to force the destroy ending. Hell, the synthesis ending carried over into ME5 would only be minimally cosmetic, and the effect on the story no different than uploading a save from ME2 to ME3.
The control ending seems like the most logical choice imo
@@xptaco2298 Synthesis seems to be the best when you consider the benefits
while I'm not exactly pleased by this, I'm not overly pissed either
Wait until the game comes out before saying something is canon in a game series where only the choices you make in your playthroughs are
Bottom line, I don't trust an AI that was created by a race of gigantic squids the Reapers are based on who can LITERALLY mind control other species and claim to be the apex race.
I know they aren't going to use the indoctrination theory that fans made to explain the confusing ending, but it just makes so much sense and is more exciting while leaving so much storytelling potential afterwards. I wish the devs would let go of their ego and let the fans have a win on this.
and some of us wish the fans would let go of their egos too. let the developers tell their story without feeling the need to force what you want into a story you had no hand in crafting beyond some button presses.
Well, the SC specifically hinted that shepard would be dead as well because they are part synthetic too, but they survive with the perfect ending.
The ME5 teaser and posts made an existence of geth VERY clear, dead reaper on Alchera and a mass relax under construction (Hackett only mentions them to be damaged with destroy)...keep in mind Gamble said EVERYTHING that is shown/said is there for a reason.
I'll have a wild guess and say they canonize perfect destroy, the SC was incorrect with the destruction of ALL synthetics and the benefactor and SAM-E will be part of the new villians. Because the chaos must continue.
I specifically do not trust the Synthesis Ending. The Destroy and Control Endings are results of work to complete the Crucible.
Destroy eliminates all Synthetics. This is something every species that fought against the Reapers have been working towards, and it's obvious why that option exists.
Control merges Shepard's consciousness with the Reapers. This is something people like the Illusive Man have tried to work towards, but always succumbed to Indoctrination in the past.
Synthesis combines synthetics and organics. This sounds exactly like the process Reapers use to transforming humans into partially synthetic husks. Project Overlord demonstrated that the choice to become partially synthetic that cannot be forced onto someone. Organics will suffer if they are forced to change the very nature of their existence. As long as there is independence, there will always be those who reject change. Just like Ned suffered from resisting the Thorian, and just as the Indoctrination and harvesting was opposed. You can't force individuals to embrace change, even with the ability to suppress free will. If that were possible, then Shepard wouldn't have been able to reach the Crucible in the first place.
I believe the Star Child was always lying, (being Harbinger in disguise,) and trying to convince Shepard not to destroy his race because he couldn't stop him because of the Crusable, "changing the variables".) I chose DESTROY every time, even though it broke my heart because of losing EDI and the Geth, but for the cycle to end, the Reapers had to be DESTROYED period!!
The game makes no sense. The geth and quarians LITERALLY just made peace for coexistence.
I never understood why Shepard didn't bring that up?
If they are really smart about ME5, there is no reason why it can't import your ME: LE save file and continue the story from the ending you chose. That would be wildly amazing.
That aside, imo Control ending is the most moral and safe decision you can take, replacing SC with StarShep would fundamentally change all the Reapers, becoming Guardians as StarShep puts it if paragon, or as Enforcers if renegade. Potential threats to the Milky Way, internal or external, would have to contend with its massive fleets. Looking at you, Krogans.
StarShep would probably never create new Guardians/Enforcers, given their construction methods, unless it finds alternatives. Could probably set a story where these former Reapers are long gone after countless millennia of organic evolution.
It all comes down to ego (superiority/inferiority vs seeing difference) and the judgement of values made. This applies equally to humans, non-humans, and synthetics. Legion initiated talking with Shepherd when he saw that the Shepherd was not afraid of it and saw an opportunity to change. EDI's awareness grew with the interaction with Joker, Shepherd and the crew.
In essence it is about being part of a community/society without the ego to dominate but having the humility to want to understand. These attributes would not necessarily be part of any species, synthetic or organic, in which case integration with other species, synthetic or organic, will likely fail. When Shepherd is allowed to persuade the Quarian fleet to not attack it was their moment to accept that they might have been wrong and were open to understand. It depends on how the AI is developed and what attributes it has. From how ME3 developed it is certainly possible to have synthetics and organics integrate and work together, but it will not always happen. As Kala says without letting species develop and try things differently then you will always have the same problems.
A more workable solution would be to have existing species that have worked out the AI integration problem to work with species that are developing AI so that they do not make the same mistakes.
I think it's not lying, but it's having difficulty explaining it's long term temporary solution to a temporary biological life form.
Long ago, when it was created, it said it studied the problems that arose between biological life & synthetic life. It doesn't say how long this testing period lasted. Could've been a million years for all we know. In that time, I assumed it did not interfere, and the destruction rate was always 100%. But we don't really know, & Shepard should've enquired. Did any other cycle facilitate peace between the 2 like Shepard did? If so, it's current solution of harvesting is not correct, & prolongs the problem. If not, then Shepard really is an anomaly like the Leviathans suggest. A random fluke that only changed the outcome once in a billion years by mere statistical probability.
My take on the starchild and indoctrination is that it didn't already indoctrinate Shepard but was actively attempting to do so. All options have a catch, and it was way too eager to make control (absorb shepard's essance and still be in control) and synthesis (turn every living organic and non organic being half reaper/organic) seem the like the best option (for the reapers, totally).
The starkid doesn't simply admit defeat. One could argue that by choosing destroy we are dehumanizing the reapers because we don't give them the same chance as EDI or Geth - but the game literally does that for you - you can't deal with the reapers vs catalyst AI separately because the AI is not willing to give up control (it would rather get all reaper and reaper based synthetic life destroyed than let go of control, and it's a specific huge fuck you to a Shepard that proved the AI wrong after making peace between the Quarians and Geth.
My personal (and only) choice? DESTROY, CAUSE I DON'T TRUST THAT MANIPULATIVE LIL BITCH AT ALL.
I don't think Starchild was necessarily lying. More that it was speaking from experience. From what it has perceived. The same way that It believed that the only way to preserve organic life was to erase it in a perpetual, but Shepard proved it wrong, which means it can be wrong. That's why it allowed Shepard to choose, because it didn't trust it own judgement.
Has anyone addressed the fact that the Leviathans have no need to hide anymore?
Another point I would make about the reapers themselves, To me they are less evolved than say the Geth.
Sure technically they're very intricate and they have an immense technical knowledge too, way beyond the Geth, but also keep in mind that this knowledge they didn't develop themselves. They absorbed leviathan knowledge and used it. Whatever technological advances they made started on an already very advanced base.
And other than waiting in some sort of stasis then harvesting us, what have they done in the billon years they've had? What is their culture,? their art ? their architecture? their literature ?
The Geth in a fraction of that time have made significant technical and scientific discoveries, were starting to question their place in the universe, looking for a god outside of their creators, interested in music, remember when they were broadcasting Quarian music in ME1.
They also were investigating ethology, studying us, trying to understand how we think when they for example launched a false rumor to see how we organic species would react.
They evolved and created more in the thousands of years they had than the reapers ever did in the billions of years they existed.
In fact I would sum it up saying that the reapers exist where the Geth live.
Unlike the Geth, the Reapers are machines without a will of their own. why would you expect them to have a culture, arts, architecture or literature?
I feel that she started out with an conclusion and then went searching for evidence to support said conclusion instead of drawing a conclusion based on the evidence 🤔
Personally I do not believe that the Catalyst was lying or attempting to manipulate Shepherd in any way. I believe that it was being completely honest based on it's own logic and understanding but as was mentioned once in the video, it's logic was flawed.
I think that even with all of it's accumulated knowledge, it was still unable to see past it's rigid logic 🤔 To it everything was all zeros and once, pure logic like the Vulcan in star trek, but like the Vulcan that logic can be flawed. The interfacing with The Crucible may have expanded it's logic but only so much. Also, we don't actually know how it determines if a conflict is BECAUSE OF the synthetic and organic dynamic or if a conflict about some just so HAPPENS TO BE between synthetics and organics 🤔
Regarding Ryder and Sam, because of the actions of Ryders father, Ryder and Sam are connected in such a way that is very similar to synthesis 🤔
On a unrelated note, the technology used to create the Angaran could have great potential for the creation of hybrid species 😍 I can totally see Cerberus getting there hands on such technology and using it to augment humans and create hybrid soldiers. Imagine play as the first Male Asari, of half human Krogan hybrid trying to save the galaxy while simultaneously navigating the inner and outer turmoil of your existence and trying to find your place in the galaxy 🤔
The Geth, having either their recognition as a species or being eliminated, are of no material consequence after Rannoch.
According to the Apex representative, Leviathan, only ONE species is made into a Reaper during an eradication cycle. Since there are thousands of Reapers, for every thousand you have 50,000,000 years (20 Reapers spawned every million years.) of history for every thousand. This works out to more than 100 megayears that they have not evolved in.
This makes obvious the validity of keeping those random organics around. They are the only source of novelty that they can witness.
IM eyes in me2 show you clearly he was under reaper control,his role was obviously to help sway shep into synthesis choice just like sarens role was in me1. The IM used "extremely expensive technology" to bring shep back from the dead. Imo this screams reaper tech. But the fact that shep has reaper parts in him doenst mean he is controlled by them 100%, it can be just a "channel" for reapers to try to affect his free will through harbinger and IM in me2 and me3, and inevitably sway shep to synthesis solution,thus reaper preservation. Another indicator imo of the subtle effort of the reapers to persuade shep to stop trying to stop them is visible throughout the whole trilogy , meaning ME1-sarens solution(synthesis), ME2 -IM solution(control), ME3-Aderson solution(destroy). This shows imo that the reapers percieved shep as a threat to the long established culling solution from day 1 and tried since ME1 to persuade him otherwise. But, since he made it to the citadel after all their efforts to persuade him it became clear to them that the solution didnt work anymore. The last 2 options that remained were 1)the refusal ending which shows reapers that shepards understanding of the problem is not as high as expected, thus the reaping continues after .2)DESTROY REAPERS (Anderson) it is the solution SC(reapers) wants the least and was hiding you from the beginning because they have to be erased for it to happen and the self-preservation is holding them back from giving organics in general that option, the shepard threat though changes that the moment he shows he can threaten reaper existence. SC(reapers) is obligated to share DESTROY(Anderson) with you as an option because it was the reason of its creation from the leviathans and cant go back from its purpose. And all this imo leads to the perfect ending making the most sense, face the problem down the barrel of a gun and kill reapers and live freely.
Respectfully, You are missing a key feature of the Reaper's perspective as expressed by Sovern. They are not interrupting evolution to synthesis they are hastening it. Each reaper is a civilization, the collective knowledge cultural and biological of an entire race. Much like the Geth's megastructure meant to house them all. To the Reapers the harvest is the synthesis ending. A reaper to their mind is not just the apex of a species evolution but of a culture as well. So the Reaper's actions and star child's explanation makes perfect sense if you are a reaper. I think that the question going forward is going to be more of a spiritual nature and I have an itch that the POV character is going to be a Getha and Shepard. Either a Cyborg from Sep's broken but living body via the Red ending. A interface unit specifically created by The Shepard Intelligence via the Blue ending or the collected memories of Shepard distributed through the Geth Collective via the green ending. With the threat of the Reaper's gone peace between organics and synthetics nominally achieved the Geth are going to return to asking the question that made the Quarrians panic in the first place. "Does this unit have a soul?" Or I am a crazy person.
You're thinking too short term. You call it useless, to you, being a creature that lives 120 years at most.
There are reapers who have lived several cycles. Multiple hundreds of thousands of years. You managed a brief peace between quarians and geth, but you were shep. A messiah. Without you, the galaxy would have fallen. Just as before. That's why destroy doesn't fix anything. It just delays what they've seen happen repeatedly, once shep dies, it's over. Back to how the previous cycles occurred.
If they were planning to trick you, they wouldn't tell you that destroying the catalyst destroys the reapers, because it literally doesn't make sense why the protheans would design it like that. The controls would be the obvious choice for activating the synthetic destruction wave.
Shepard was severely injured and at the child's mercy. What's the point of lying to him? Why present him 3 options? The only way the child's behaviour makes sense is that it wants Shepard to decide; even if it had a strong preference.
Also, Synthesis can still be the ideal solution without being able to solve all the problems. They don't have to be mutually exclusive
A great video, as always, Kala! I've long thought the catalyst was being self-serving here, and that the crucible partially broke it, so it says illogical things and is trying to steer Shepard as best it can despite that, as it fights to reassert control over the situation (and it's fate). Only with Destroy, can Shepard do what she needs to do to save the galaxy, the rest is giving into the catalyst/reapers at the very end. My Shepard (even in my 1st playthrough, so long ago) thought the Catalyst was being dishonest, and so for that reason and others, picked Destroy.
One thing you didn’t mention was the reapers manipulation of organics by seeding technology. The result of this manipulation could be part of the reason why synthesis was the “right” choice.
Absolutely lying - or at least heavily biased. The Catalyst may be able of crunching vast amounts of data and has the experience of all the cycles it's seen before - but ultimately these are observances and imo self-confirmation biases. Personally, I think that the endings didn't even make much sense anyway. Even the Destroy ending. How would that *really* destroy AI constructs? I mean, even assuming we couldn't just find the on button for all the Geth 'corpses' literally dotted around the galaxy, and/or their programs are not stored on some sort of Solid state storage - we *still* know how to make them. We still know how to make AI within the setting. The Control ending I always figured was the Reaper ending in a sense; because as far back as the 2nd game I think Harbinger talks about worthy civilizations that it wants to preserve - Shephard being the central consciousness as the 'central mind' makes as much sense to me as whatever made 'Harbinger,' Harbinger. Synthesis to me is no different from transhumanism - except it's down without consent, which makes it horrific. Can you imagine if you were a person impaled on one of the dragon teeth spikes, 'hulked' and then you regain your sense of humanity? That would be hell. How could you look at your body horror and not recoil or be suicidal?
I think you hit the nail on the head honestly with your analysis during this vid. Shephard does resolve the Quarian v Geth and even causes an alliance. I can't even recall if you can bring that up with the Catalyst at the time, but even if it retorts that such alliances would be temporary - well, all alliances and diplomacy efforts are. As long as the variables are similar than the alliances withstand. Even if the Geth become truly intelligent creations they would still require resources, and the collective intelligence of both sides would work for collective benefit. And as for war, the ultimate diplomacy, then it would be hardly consequential in my opinion because of those aforementioned variables.
Considering the whole thing is about organics vs synthetics, I doubt it is as easy as simple observation to come to a foregone conclusion that '[armed] conflict will always eventuate.' I think the Catalyst says actually that conflict will always eventuate but it's clear here he means armed conflict. Which I don't believe is the same thing at all and completely disregards social dynamics, economics and psychology. It's such reductionalism it's actually absurd, because while conflict will always eventuate (i.e., simple disagreements, challenges etc) it's pretty nihilistic to assume it would become destructive.
The main thematic idea of how conflict is to be resolved through "true understanding" of each other is extremely ideological, and is part of the Mass Effect's core ideology itself. I couldn't disagree more with it though. To be blunt and pick up a bad taste example, no matter how much I "understand" the point of view of an imperialist narcissist dictator, I would never really make peace with such a character. A psychopath that really wants to murder everyone because it gives them pleasure is not stopped by "understanding", but with a bullet. Or jail. The flaw here is to conflate "understanding" with "non-conflict of interests".
In fact, if we were to fully gain an understanding of each other in an almost telepathic way between ourselves, I would even imagine it would kickstart a world war almost instantaneously. There IS something to be said about facades, the games we do pretending we didn't quite catch what other people mean, all sorts of behaviors grounded in charitable misunderstandings we do in order to tame and de-escalate conflict everyday.
In Mass Effect, it could be the case that once Organics fully "understood" Synthetics, they would be in shock existencial horror of what they finally perceived them to "really be", and an instantaneous war would break out.
It also does not prevent conflict from the part of Synthetics. Why would synthetics not try to destroy organics, if they so chose? There's nothing in the Synthesis ending that assures this not to happen eventually.
What I think happened is that someone wrote this in a napkin in a big handwaving "the solution is organics and synthetics melding" way, and didn't work out any details, creating all sorts of contradictions and paradoxes. They rushed it and didn't think it over, and now we're left with pondering these issues.
Nevertheless, I actually like your solution here, which is to state that the Catalyst itself was deeply flawed in its reasoning, or outright lying about Synthesis, and that this "solution", despite it being really hyped up by the Catalyst and then by EDI, didn't really solve much of anything. Almost like a Sillicon Valley type of vaporware solution.
I choose to Destroy 99% of the time. For the other 1%, I choose Synthesis. I have chosen Control one time, and that one was with a Renegade Shepard. I cannot see a Paragon Shepard making that choice. It goes against everything they would believe. As for what ending will be canon, I don't know. All three have appeal, but Refusal needs to make more sense. It was offered, but I cannot see them using it. As for the Conflict, the Star Child is full of BS. If there were no option, then when they found a civilisation that achieved Synthasis, they would have stopped right then and there, but they didn't. So I, the Child, just became a convert of destruction until he was beaten. So, His existence needs some expansion.
No. It’s limited by its creators intentions so anything it says is grounded in those intentions even if the intelligence took it from 0 to 100 and proved leviathans point
As to the question of whether AIs *can* be deceitful, I point to a recent real-world example: there was a study done on ChatGPT to see what it would do/say if it was asked questions to which there are no answers to be found - ChatGPT was caught making up answers instead of saying "I don't know" or "I can't find any answers to that query". Yeah, AIs can and do lie!
There is no way Harbing…I mean his alter-ego Starchild could let Shepard do ANYTHING it sought wrong. Why not kill him all the way on citadel? Heavily injured and insecure? Taking into account that Shepard had passed out there and harbinger literally helped him making it to the choice. It looks like a game, an operetta not real battle tbh. Indoctrination theory looks the most logical explanation - all the finals is the Harbinger trying to “crack” his main enemy, out of pure interest. The war is won already. Also it seems clear that no catalyst has ever existed - it’s been the harbinger since day one, the only reaper who was created not as a reaper but a leviathan replica AI (geth~quarians) and all this trash is his doing
To me there is an AI distinct from Harbringer but I completely agree with everything else and your point stands no matter if ti's AI or Harbringer at the end.
Yes, he can technically lie. Just like EDI deceived those technicians into believing she wasn't a true AI. Then Shepard clearly says "wait, you can lie?"
Alas, I've spent too much energy over the years to get into another debate over ME3's ending, so I'll just say I liked it, and leave it at that.
You are exactly right, I think. The Reapers created a system that has inherent bias in it. The original bias coded in by the leviathans and the cycle system itself (forcing most life to evolve along their intended paths). I think the Star Child is lying, but I also think it cannot necessarily recognize its bias. And synthesis (despite the EDI narration) feels like just another form of indoctrination. Otherwise, the changed people wouldn't all be getting along automatically, made of the same newDNA or not. I think that ME5 will make the endings less far-reaching than perhaps the end narration cards indicate, especially of Control or Synthesis. That there were other side effects to the endings, or they only affected parts of the galaxy close to activated relays, etc.
I literally wrote a fan fic about this debating why the synthesis ending was flawed.
Literally had garrus point out synthesis “just sounds like what the reapers were already doing…but they promise to be nice about it this time.”
My paragon Shepard ended up choosing destroy and after a long convo with the crew and apologizing to joker for sacrificing edi….that does not end well. He and Tali spend the rest of their lives using whatever means they can to try and find a way to bring back the geth.
Tali standing by but concerned how sacrificing the geth to destroyed the reaper has left Shepard broken…unable to fix what he considers a mistake.
Where as the OBVIOUS solution is if geth and quarian peace was achieved would be to force the reapers to stand down and allow the geth to control the reapers to teach them to understand the consequences of wiping out organics as they of their own accord and acknowledgement despite being under threat of being wiped out spared their creators who struck first because they couldn’t comprehend the implications of destroying their “parents.”
Harbinger and the child suffer from a critical programming flaw and thought process flaw. He is the ultimate and last say on all decisions. But the geth don’t they by their very nature work together and can come to wildly different conclusions but ultimate strive to find an equilibrium.
Allowing the geth to teach the reapers how to communicate in such a way would at least give birth to new possibilities while sparing the reapers.
It all comes down to sex. As the Leviathan evolved and grew as a species, they developed psionic abilities to overcome a lack of physical means to care for themselves. Controlling sentient species having creative intelligence with fingers and opposable thumbs was the logical thing to do. Of course, people would learn to avoid amplifying control orbs and enter an industrialized computer age as a natural progression of ingenuity!
Software in and of itself isn't self-aware, but it can be programmed to evaluate. When synthetic computation and people's authority collided, the Leviathan had a problem. So they injected their will to create a liaison in the form of a Catalyst. As an Artificial Intelligence, a civilization's worth of data preservation was important, but being controlled by an organic enthraller, species continuity was also paramount. So the Catalyst murdered its creators with machines, installed its software, and literally pasted the world's most threatening inhabitants to form a lifeblood as a means of 'procreation'.
The Shepherd Dilemma occurred when Synthetic machines fused with Reaper technology and formed their own sentience. They were able to learn, weigh complex answers, form questions, and communicate directly with their creators to mutual satisfaction. The Reapers as storage were no longer needed, the Catalyst was redundant. But it wanted to 'live' so it tried to indoctrinate and trick Shepherd into enabling another form of Reaper. He avoided truth :D
As I see it, The Starchild only does what it was programmed to do. It's still the tool of The Leviathans. I don't think it lies. The task it was given is to preserve life at all costs. Even if the cost is some life (organic and synthetic or even itself).
From now on I am making a correlation with Hegel's dialectic:
The thesis of The Intelligence's program is that there is always conflict between organics and synthetics, and that the created always rebels against its creators. That is why it was inevitable that the Intelligence betrayed the Leviathans. I think The Intelligence knows that itself is a part of the problem too so it cannot solve it until someone changes it. That's why it's happy in the case of Synthesis because it fulfills its task and stops being a problem. The harvest is only a temporary solution.
Shepard brings the antithesis to the table. Unfortunately it is not represented in the dialogue with The Starchild. (Probably because it depends on the player's choices. Not everyone achieves this. Peace between Quarians and Geth, bringing the whole galaxy together...)
Destroy proves the thesis, fails to bring antithesis (strengthens the conflict, doesn't end the cycle). In "Perfect" Destroy I interpret "Shepard's alive" as there's still a job to do. A solution is still needed, earned a second chance. Refusal is stagnation. The next cycle solves the problem. Control is a half solution. It merges The Starchild and Shepard, but still needs an outside force (The Reapers) to maintain it (teaching/ gatekeeping instead of harvest?). The conflict is there but it can prevent the cycle from starting over. Synthesis seems to be a permanent solution (no more conflict of this kind). It creates a new DNA by merging synthetics and organics. It comes from "within", doesn't need an outside force to maintain it.
Incorporating the antithesis (Shepard's actions: bringing everyone together) into the original thesis (The Leviathans' program: organics wants to be better, synthetics wants to understand) creates synthesis (unite the best of both worlds) that becomes the new thesis. What will be its antithesis?
It's not The Reapers that have to be destroyed. It's the flawed code that needs to be rewritten. I think the game design fails the idea. There shouldn't be a choice at the end but a long cinematic scene which shows what ending occurs based on our choices not on war assets.
The Extended Cut proves that he didn't. Everything he said came true. He is the worst character in the entire Mass Effect franchise, bar none! But he told the truth.
I always picked to destroy so that the geth are removed, but I did play an ending or two where I picked for the synthetics to survive. It will be interesting on how the next game, when it is released, will effect the outcome of our choices from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd if not just 3rd game options.
Narratively I think it would be awful writing if the Catalyst was a loar. This was the end of the trilogy andnthe (at the very least at the time)! The end of Shepard's story. Youd want to write a confirmation of said lie, or havebit alluded to that the lie was possible... Even in tefuse, Shepard just says no to the choices and doent say "Youre full of shit!" Lol
Im not even saying "im certain, this isn't the case!" Certainty is an illusion and comfort for fools... Im just saying id be disgusted with the writers if that was the case 😢 lol
I'm firmly behind indoctrination theory; Synthesis is the most insidious ending. Synthesis is literally what happens to Saren, to the husks and their off shoots, a merging of meat and machine creating mind controlled monsters. Also, David Archer of project overlord doesn't seem too happy with his current state when you find him merged with a VI.
You can argue that all of these aren't "true synthesis" but it's very clear that the reapers are a big fan of smoshing organics with synthetic parts and they are absolutely not just caretakers and curators of organic life, they make it very clear that they look down on organics, Sovereign states this outright. The reapers perpetuate themselves from galactic genocide, it's their reproduction cycle, lovecraftian abominations borne from utter amorality as we would see it.
The star child being so clearly biased and switching to a reaper's voice when it doesn't get his way, speaks to it being a figure of manipulation projected into shepard's mind; the child he couldn't save, the child he watched die, a symbol of innocence. A child that repeatedly appears in dreams, amongst oily shadows, a beacon of light, a symbol of hope. A thing that has access to his memories and disguises itself to manipulate him.
Never forget the destroy ending is the ONLY ending in which Shep survives, despite being "partially synthetic" we know this little turd lies.
What if the Jardaan made the initial plans for the Crucible? I mean, they had the tech know-how to (presumably) create the Remnant and their technology, but the organic knowledge (and more tech!) to create the angara, an organic race. If we take the Starchild's word at face value and assume it's telling the truth about the endings, in order to create a device capable of synthesis, you'd need to know a lot about synthetics and organics. Maybe some of them escaped to Andromeda, either in something similar to the Initiative or in some mid-genocide last-ditch effort similar to how the Protheans entered cryo-sleep (only in space). And to add to that, maybe the reason the vaults went haywire was the Repears found out where they went and came back to finish the job. Heck, maybe that's why the Scourge was deployed to begin with.
I am happy to say, since I play on pc, there are mods to remove the Starchild so it goes straight to the Destroy ending, Shep gets rescued, and the Catalyst only destroys the Reapers and leaves EDI and the Geth alone. I did try all endings on different playthroughs, but the destroy ending is what I believe is the best ending. After all the organics that the Reapers have murdered over all those billions of years, why would I want to share anything with them? As Shep, who am I to decide to change the DNA of everyone in the galaxy, without consent? As Admiral Hackett says, 'Dead Reapers is how we win this." I didn't trust the Starchild at all. Destroy is my ending. When I made different choices, I only wanted to see how the ending changed. I didn't like any ending but Destroy.
I can't be objective when it comes to that abomination called the Starchild. I loved every bit that all three games gave me, every last bit...except that last ten minutes; that construct. That abhorrent thing. Admittedly I get too deep in my games. But isn't that the point. That ending...I've said it before, but it broke me. Not to the point where I couldn't enjoy Andromeda, because I did. But nothing compared to that trilogy, especially that first time around.
You may appreciate my take on the Synthesis ending (...or not ;) - ruclips.net/video/Z3isNK7GuQ4/видео.htmlsi=tdpjM2fWSqzXc0bV
Love your videos and analysis, by the way!
Can we agree the voice change when you shoot it’s is mad scary. (For the 1st time)
I think the cycle can`t end so I destroyed the reapers in all of my runs.
In my opinion, the next big threat is of organic nature like the leviathans.
Lying and simply being incorrect are two different things. It seemed obvious to me Starchild just wasn't that wise. 🤷🏿♂️
Marauder Shields is the last boss of ME3. Whole ending was a sham with stupid, circular logic and three gates with no real resolution. Great video though. Very insightful. Thank you.
Great video Kala ! Another banger !! Maybe the reason it's been in pre-production since 2019 is that they don't know what to do with the story..
I know BioWare is not a fan of the indoctrination theory, but it can solve most of their problems. My head cannon is the Star Child was lying, and the Reapers were just trying to get Shepherd. Everyone who tried to control the Reapers were indoctrinated, so why would Shepherd be any different?
It would help ME5 if the final act was not all real because it would give BioWare room to choose what decisions and outcomes to carry over to the next game. We can’t expect BioWare to make a game that follows every major player choice.
The Star child was clearly lying. The best proof for that is the geth. Not to mention Edi (but she has no "race" to speak of - other than the reapers and even she changed).They were more "human" than their creators, didn't want to exterminate them during the war and (always in my playthrough) make peace and live together. What forms an "artiificial" intelligence is what shapes us all. Life.
Can we define the Reapers as true AI like EDI? The Reapers are as intellgent as a VI in my opinion since if they did reach true AI status not all of them would go along with Harbinger and they would have bickered just like organics do. So i think the star-child didnt lie and was in self preservation mode. Destroy ending would make total sense since the geth and EDI could be fixed. Andromeda's SAM and Ryder integration doesnt feel like synthesis since both are still independent from one another.
Is the Milky Way the only galaxy that the Reapers interfered in? If the Dark Energy theory is true then, it would affect all galaxies. I find it difficult to believe that the machine devils would only harvest one galaxy. Could the Reapers have been in conflict with the Jardaan?
I think it's less a case of the Little Blue Troll trying to manipulate Shepard and more the idea that it's completely insane. As the saying goes "The Definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and excepting a different result."
The reason I call the "Starchild" a Little Blue Troll is because this thing runs on insane troll logic, it speaks with absolutes that there can be no peace between machines and organics even if we make peace between the Quarians and the Geth (which we're never allowed to bring up). I hate that we can never argue with this little troll on anything it says, we just have to except that what it says is true and cannot point out the counterpoints.
So for me, the question shouldn't be "Is the this thing lying to us" but rather "Is this thing insane and forcing Shepard to agree using Indoctrination". I know the Indoctrination theory has been done to death but this is my take on it. It's not that the last scene is all in Shepard's head it's Shepard is dealing with an older system of Indoctrination when she is vulnerable enough for it to be used on her.
The fact that the Little Blue Troll appears to us as that kid from the start does suggest that this is some form of manipulation but my argument is this thing is just running on it's broken logic and questionable ethics.
There's a quote from the TV Series Columbo that really seems to fit here in regards to the Little Blue Troll and the Reapers as a whole.
"No conscience. Limits your imagination. You can't conceive of anybody being any different than what you are," And the Reapers are cynical. They view that no synthetic life is any different from them, that all synthetics will kill for no other reason than that's how it's always been done. The Geth attacked in self-defense and were willing to make peace with the Quarians, both times it was the Quarians that attacked first NOT the Geth who attacked only when given no alternative.
Unlike the starchild wanted to make you believe, I always thought it was just as restricted in its knowledge and wisdom as an ignorant child would be. The fact an "all-knowing"-esque godlike creature could only see in black and white resolutions is a joke.
To my mind, the starchild could never see beyond the same conclusive devices it cycled mindlessly time and time again, causing it to be trapped in the same loop over and over. To my mind... The starchild could not foresee (or oversee) the influence of an external factor outside its reapers destroying eveything, because also it believed the reapers were the cycles end.
Hope this makes sense.
The endings were flawed that is in no doubt and should have been sorted with the release of Legendary Edition but here we are. If you listen to Sovereign in Mass Effect One - (ruclips.net/video/ppQWYU2B7x8/видео.html), the statement he makes about Reapers each being an independent country, about being Legion,etc. None of this is taken into consideration. Plus with any computer system it will degrade over time. Had it degraded enough that the Leviathans could take back control. And were manipulating the whole situation. Wouldn't the Reapers and the Starchild have had a backup plan it all just seemed too easy if Synthesis isn't chosen. If the new game is to start things on a clean slate then the dev's should release a mini DLC sorting this out. Putting to bed the canon ending for better or worse. And setting up the new game, which will then allow saves to be carried across
In the last few decades, as I read books or played games that have some type of AI in them, I've grown more and more tired of how writers depict AI. They usually are just another race, used as allegories for racial issues. Nothing else. Use the same dialogue with any biological entities, the message would be identical.
And in the case of Mass Effect, the Reapers, the Starchild and EDI are even more disappointing because the games have one of the best examples of what a real AI would be. The Geth.
Also, AIs in any work of fiction are as smart as the writers that create them. And my opinion of them is also lower than it has ever been.