Wilson was an agent for the shadow broker. This was revealed in lair of the shadow broker dlc. The shadow broker became an enemy of Cerberus after they had taken Shepard’s body from him. Wilson was probably ordered to wipe out the facility so that Shepard would be returned to the Shadow Broker and then be sold to the collectors.
Wilson was also greedy. On a terminal in the first office that you come to, where the two Mecs were crawling on the floor, Wilson comments about the cost of the project and how little he is being compensated... comparatively.
Also, though it may have been part of his original plan, he wasn't the one who sabotaged the mechs. That was actually Maya Brooks, who we don't meet until much later in ME3. Presumably, Maya thought it would be easier to bring Shepard's clone to the shadow broker instead, since stealing the real Shepard would mean contending with Miranda. To cover her escape, she sabotaged the mechs sooner than Wilson planned, which is why Wilson didn't have control over them.
I thought the same thing for awhile. Otherwise, how did they get the thorian creepers and rachni long before everything went to shit? At the very least the were working together.
Wilson wanted money. He mentions on a recording that the cost of the project was already over 4 billion credits, and that no one cares that they are over cost. " I don't know where the boss gets his money, but I wish he would kick a little of it my way more often". The Shadow Broker mentions that the Collector offer for Shepard's body was too great a sum to pass up, so paying off Wilson would not have been a problem. If Wilson had died in the attempt, the Shadow Broker saves some credits. If he lives, he can still serve the Broker in Cerberus, be pursued by Cerberus, or killed, all of which could have benefited the Broker. Wilson was a pawn on the board
I think he was a shadow broker agent. In the DLC, after you kill the shadow broker, when you read the console entries for Cerberus, he mentions that Wilson has failed or something along those lines.
I have such a hard time not being reminded of that one clip of Bailey in Mans1ay3r’s Gamerpoop series. “I’d like to wedge my fingers between Shepard’s ass cheeks… Guess I need to tell my wife a few things.”
@@jacobchinn8593 It'll be a crime against good writing if Bioware doesn't have the Leviathans(using an uplifted Yhag as their thrall species) as the next big bad guys in the Milky way story. Especially after all the foreshadowing in ME:3 for both the Leviathans and Yhag. I have a gut feeling they're gonna shoehorn the Andromeda plot into ME:4.
Dark Energy comes from the intergalactic void, right? Maybe Sovereign or the geth tried to add mass to Dholen to get it to supernova and possibly knock the mass relay closer to the edge of the galaxy (similar to what happened to the Ilos relay in ME1). IIRC, Haestrom's sun was heating up well before the events of ME2, so it could have been an early plan by Sovereign to reach his fellow Reapers. It doesn't really explain how they brought in the dark energy except via some mysterious advanced technology. Of course, there is the leaked theory that dark energy is an unintended side effect of widespread mass relay use...
That's a stronger possibility than what mine was I thought he was jealous of Miranda taking over the Lazarus project because she was a smarter and better person so to get back at her and to get back at everyone he destroyed the station and tried to kill everyone
@@BubbleGum566 thought so... no idea why I asked because I'm going to start New Game+ for Mass Effect 2 in Legendary Edition so I could have just waited until then.
Conrad Verner was also tied to the Dark Energy plot point. If you do all the necessary steps in all three games, and that he survives and has a positive outlook on you by being nice to him all the way up to ME3, and you complete ME1 missions Rita's Sister, Gavin Hossle, and Matriarch Dilinaga’s Writings and buy in ME1 the Elkoss Combine Armory License. You get the best possible ending for Conrad and the Dark Energy Dissertation War Asset worth 5 points. It may not be much but the lore and story points are still awesome.
did anyone else really like her? I dont know why but for a side character who only had a minor role in the series (although that was a pretty big one on a hub world in ME1) I really liked her because she had a lot more personality and a pretty interesting backstory unlike 99% of side characters in the trilogy. basically I'm saying I wish we got more Gianna Parsini's and less Dianna Allers.
@@rehm402 well veetor doesn’t get brushed off that easily if you choose to send him off with tali later in the game he shows up in talis loyalty mission in the court case if you choose to rally the crowd but as for if you choose to sending him to Cerberus I don’t know he probably gets assfucked by some doctor cause Cerberus is humenocentric leave it up to your imagination I guess
According to Mac Walter and Patrick Weekes a majority of the people on the citadel had a "bad time" but everyone with a name survived the Reaper occupation
Reminds me of Galaxy Quest... Jason Nesmith: You're not gonna die on the planet, Guy. Guy Fleegman: I'm not? Then what's my last name? Jason Nesmith: It's... uh... uh... I don't know. Guy Fleegman: Nobody knows. Do you know why? Because my character isn't important enough for a last name, because I'm gonna die five minutes in!
Thats dumb. The reapers could have just shut off the air or vent the whole station. Once the reapers had control there was no reason any of the citizens should have survived.
Gotta remember that Sovereign had to physically be in contact with the citadel to use it back in ME1. Assuming that rule still applies in ME3 and that the Citadel Defense Force put up a decent fight, there's plenty of time for some people to escape the citadel
There's no doubt that the whole thing after Harbinger's beam feels like a dream sequence, but BioWare officially dismissed the indoctrination theory. However, who's to say that Shepard has to be present physically to interact with the crucible? What if Harbinger purposefully shot around Shepard while instantly vapourising everyone else because he wanted to knock Shepard out rather than kill him/her. Why? So while Shepard gets knocked unconscious, their mind gets uploaded to the crucible. That would explain the infinite ammo, Anderson and Illusive Man getting there before Shepard, and the fact that Shepard suddenly gains the ability to sprint when choosing synthesis despite being injured. So when you choose control or synthesis, Shepard's mind is permanently uploaded to the crucible and the body is left behind, while choosing destroy your mind is returned to the body back on Earth, and hence Shepard wakes up. This radical hypothesis still has some holes, like what actually happens when you choose the reject ending, but at least it allows me to make some sense of the things that happen.
Bailey and Aria and others organizing an armed resistance on the Citadel, and then possibly a mass evacuation when the fight is lost, would make a pretty awesome fan-fic, in the right hands, of course.
Honestly, should have been in game! In my opinion, they should have made some ways to play with other characters! Like, after doing some priority missions some consoles in the war room would have been available to use and making it possible to link with some missions aside the Normandy! Ex: play as Anderson on Earth and do some guerrilla missions there; Or as Bailey fighting Cerberus before Sheppard arrival on Citadel; Or as Aria/Bailey fighting some reapers forces and evacuating the Citadel (like u said); etc. I know is EA 's fault but they lost so much potential / history in that game! Lack of N7 / Thessia / Palaven / Cerberus base missions; (Like BigDan said) lack of mysteries being solved; Lack of systems to explore and worlds to save (would have been good to do some missions in Elcor's homeworld); Lack of enemies (more corrupted aliens: an Elcor / Quarian / Salarian reaper).
Biggest mystery: Both in ME1 and ME3 ending, Citadel is under serious attack. But we can clearly see the cities of the wards down there. All the lights up, cars are moving on the highways, business as usual. What’s the deal with that?
@@prich0382 If a 2km big alien ship appears above your city, and a whole fleet of other ships starts to shoot at it, you would be shelter in place within minutes, and not be on the roads…
@@juzoli Considering it's in space so no sound and you don't spend all you life outside and also don't always look up or across, yeah hardly anyone would notice. The citadel is huge, dwarfs any events that go on.
The best version of the destroy ending is one of the reasons why the Indoctrination Theory became popular. The idea is he never did go to the citadel, and it was all in his mind, fighting indoctrination.
Except he isn't indoctrinated, you do Thessia shortly before all this and the Prothian VI detected no Indoctrinated people until that Cerberus dude turned up
@@jordanleveritt7028 not saying he was, especially after BioWare confirmed that they didn’t designed an indoctrination theory in the end. They admitted that it’s very good though but it wasn’t their intention. I’m just pointing out that the plot holes and the kinda meh to choosing one’s color left a sour taste for the end of the game. The indoctrination theory was an example of folks who took that sourness and tried to fix it to something more palatable and stay in-game explanations.
I’ve noticed that the two piles of bodies you encounter when you wake up after Harbinger’s blast can now be seen just after you commence the run. This is also the case if you play it on the earlier 360 version (and Sheps eyelids and lashes remain normal for the entire game) , so BioWare are clearly messing with the story,and not just with the legendary version. The new Destroy ending where the memorial placard is not put up is also now on the 360 ending. Shep is also clearly blown backwards on the Destroy choice, rather than enveloped by the explosion ( may have always been the case, but I just never noticed it before ). I use Xbox,so PC gamers could compare versions better than me. I suppose that they are sorting out the lore and canon for the next game. But it does get a little disturbing,especially seeing it on the older version of the game. Much visit the original 1 and 2 at some stage to see if changes there also. Still can’t work out how I survived a direct hit from Harbinger, when I was blasted to pieces several times on Ranoch by a much lesser Reaper.
Maybe Bailey and the rest are still fighting Reaper thralls while Shepard chooses one of the endings. If Shepard chooses the destroy ending Bailey finds and saves Shepard from the rubble
A lot of people wish that Bioware stuck with the "dark energy" plotline for ME3, but... reading what the devs had to say about it, it really did not sound thought out at all. I don't think the ME3 ending would be less controversial if they went for it. I just realized fate of the Citadel is hinted at the end of Arrival. If you run out of time, you have some hallucinations, which includes a Reaper stomping around the Citadel. I always thought that Wilson landed on the Shadow Broker's payroll, but I don't think that's confirmed anywhere, now that I think about it.
Regarding shepard surviving I always thought all of his enhancements after he was resurrected might have helped him/her with it. How exactly I don't really know.
Actually the uh reaper AI/child at ME3 ending explains that if you do the destroy ending its destroys all synthetic life, and says to Shepard, "even you are part synthetic" implying that it would also kill Shepard. I always thought that line should mean more you know.
@@eefer5416 Not really the same "synthetic" stuff in Shepard, it's mostly bone braces, maybe replaced.bones, not like there's robotic joints or stuff in him
But didn't the 'AI' in Project Overlord link into Shepard towards the end of the mission? Giving Him/Her all those sci-fi visions and what not, idk the extent of the replacement parts Shepard has but if that was a thing. Maybe there was some stuff in the brain that was added to an extent? (I recall there being a disagreement Miranda had regarding the lack of 'mind control' in Shepard ironically thanks to TIM) P.S sorry I'm late to this one lol
There is a clue to Wilson's Betrayal. One of the computer entries you can find during the opening mission has Wilson talking about how much money is being spent on Project Lazarus, and he says something about how he wishes they would throw more of the money his way. So, money is the key, and the Shadow Broker provides it.
3:30 Unless something came up on Omega and Aria left a few hours/days before the Reapers took over the Citadel to deal with it. 3:46 Regardless of whether this ever gets confirmed, it's a great head canon.
Wilson was a broker plant, you can read a few lines about him in one of the Broker's dossiers. Given the ties between the Broker and the collectors and Wilson's hinted greed, this was probably a move by the Broker to prevent Shepard's ressurection, perhaps with a bonus for Wilson if he could give Shepard's body to the Broker. And speaking about Cerberus front companies, take a look at the cut logo of Binary Helix, it's on the wiki and eerily similar to the symbol of cerberus.
So this channel popped up in my feed the other day and it rekindled my love for this series. Just picked up ME Legendary today. Looking forward to starting this adventure once again! Cheers!
Well... that can apply to Aria at least who could have returned to Omega to deal with an emergency (maybe Harrot found out that Cerberus had damaged her couch during their occupation).
Andromeda is so all over the place... every time they introduce something new they break like 10 other things established in the last 3 games. I still can't get over the "ships need water ezo and ICE to function" promos lol
Bioware really screwed up in not making Andromeda as a "one off" complete story. They bit more than they could chew in setting it up as a multi-game arc, especially after losing their best writers from the original trilogy at that point. I'm hoping that Bioware isn't going to compound this mistake by attempting to force a connection between Andromeda and the Milky Way.
I never even considered that ExoGeni was a Cerberus front but now it makes sense 100%. As for Wilson, I guarantee part of it was being spurned by Miranda rejecting him. If you listen to the messages around the facility he's mad that Miranda won't "show him appreciation for everything he's done" kind of sealed the deal
Shepard survives because he grew up watching videos of Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris and every 80's action movie star. After that elite training it was quite easy really.
I love your videos, Big Dan. They feed my current ME obsession and you seem like a genuinely cool guy to boot! It's fun speculating on these things, although I do wish the ending was more concrete and satisfying (don't we all?). But it's like you said in another video- you just have to start over to chase that empty feeling away X) Anyway, keep up the good work!
I imagine its a similar situation to when the Geth attacked the citadel. There's only so many options for escape once you evacuate the citadel. Much like the council in ME1, by the time you've made it to a shuttle or ship youre already surrounded with no where to go. But instead of just Sovereign assaulting the citadel, its several reapers.
These definitely were some unanswered questions that we never got answers to, maybe we might get some answers when the next Mass Effect game comes out to some of the unanswered questions.
When you play the UNC: Cerberus quest in ME one of the labs you destroy has Thorian Creepers that you have to destroy which pretty much confirms they own Exogeni
It's definitely possible ExoGeni was Cerberus. However, in my recent playthrough of ME1, I managed never to encounter Cerberus despite having done so all prior playthroughs. But, for the first time ever I encountered a remote ExoGeni station where the scientists were trapped by Thorian husks. When I tried to bring them in, they opened fire, and we fought to the death.
Regarding the citadel, on the EA site where you can create your own poster of mass effect, you can chose a background: citadel, omega etc. and one of those backgrounds was named “captured citadel” where you can see damaged citadel with reapers searching for survivors. Sorry for mistakes, was typing it in a hurry
I recall that, in Lair of the Shadow Broker, you can find a document that shows Wilson was a Shadow Broker mole, and once Shepard came back to life, the Shadow Broker ordered a hit, thus the mechs rampage at the beginning of ME2.
My 5 Mass effect mysteries, some more serious than others : 1.-Why Udina betrayed the Alliance and the council? Not even Shepard or Hackett seem to have a clue of why 2.- Did the Volus pizza delivery guy get paid at the end? If not, why he left the pizza in the first place? 3.- Could Fem Shep and Garrus really make a human-turian hybrid? 4.- Why the Bioware shop doesn't release more body pillow covers on their site? Thinking about getting the one of Tali (seriously lol) 5.- The most important for me , Is Big Dan indoctrinated? He would definitely tell us , Right? Someone has to ask the real question, jk. Good work Big Dan, I really enjoy your videos. Have a nice day .
Wilson's betrayal is basically the Shadow Broker's deal with the collectors. There's a recording of Wilson wanting more money for himself and it is a well known fact that collectors can do transactions with sapient individuals for credits.
Hey dan, can we get a video of you talking about canon? What do you suspect bioware will make canon and what not. What do you think of the concept of canon? Im so curious.
@@BigDanGaming Oh looking forward to that then. I have seen a notable shift on social media over the last few years, people seem more accepting of A canon for the game. Which makes me happy because tbh its inevitable. I remember going onto r/masseffect a few years ago and i asked about a canon, i got SO much hate instantly, people telling me i was ruining their game. So i left the sub for what it was. Dove back in with MEL and i see people openly talking about canon without the hate. So much better!
Haestroms sun and the whole dark energy storyline was unfortunately dropped and changed to magic space child when Drew Kapyrshen left/forced out. the leaked script for the 3rd game looked amazing, especially the ending with working with the reapers as one of the options to save the galaxy. such a shame. Casey Hudson overruled alot of Mac Walters attempts to continue the story, and Mac eventually left aswell.
And here we go again, people blindly repeating same misconceptions over and over again without a single desire to personally check it. The so called "leaked plot" is a gigantic XML-dump of literally every single text line from ME3 without an actual key to decipher it. It's so mixed up and convoluted with technical stuff that not a single person for a span of over 10 years actually bothered to cross check it with what we really got in the game. This leak is still available for download if google it for 5 minutes or so, so go check it out yourself. And guess what? This leak still doesn't mention "dark energy ending" at all! If you do a little searching - you will actually find that the only difference between leaked and released ending is the absence of synthesis ending. That literally it. And yeah, about that "looked amazing" thing. All we know about "dark energy ending" is a couple of vague sentences from Karpyshin himself after which he quickly admitted that this ending was scrapped almost instantly and was hardly ever fleshed out by writing team. Everything else you heard about it are fans speculations and fan-fiction. Plain and simple. What you likely "know" about the darck energy ending is likely has almost nothing to deal with the real plans BioWare had anyway.
Then I guess you didn’t see Drew Karpyshns interview confirming the whole thing, and expanding on the dark energy story continuing from halestrom, ending in a decision to betray humanity and turn them into a reaper to save the galaxy. I suggest you read his interview and Subsequent AMA. There a great read.
@@2Wheels1rider I've read it. And yeah, Karpyshin himself admitted that: "I find it funny that fans end up hearing a couple things they like about it and in their minds they add in all the details they specifically want. It's like vapourware - vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out". It's as simple as it sounds: the whole dark energy thing was just a simple idea, a plot pitch that was scrapped very early (to cite the man himself: "Again it's very vague and not fleshed out, it was something we considered but we ended up going in a different direction"). Karpyshin mentioned it in one interview and then fans went literally crazy, screaming right and left how the ending was changed midway when it's simply not true.
Was that the 2013 or 2017 interview? As I’ve only read the 2017 as couldn’t find an archaic the earlier, but I get your point yes an interview can turn into a game of Chinese whispers, and turn a grenade into a nuke 😂
I think the dark energy plot was revisited in ME:A with the scourge. It was a dark energy field that really messed a lot of things up. Not to mention how it affected the weather on all the planets visited in the game. And only ‘fought against’ if you will, via the special underground tomb switches or whatever. 😂 (I forgot the names of those things). 😂
I say everyone on the Citadel was evacuated to somewhere else when the Reapers moved in and took it to Earth's orbit. With destroy and synthesis endings it was rebuilt but with control ending the Reapers took it with them back to Serpent nebula (unless it was shown on Earth's orbit).
Regarding Exogeni, I think the second Mass Effect book explores how Cerberus is funded in brief. They control a lot of shell companies and invest in other legitimate businesses. Exogeni is one such business that TIM has a large amount of investment in as it furthers his goal of human expansion.
Maybe is as simple as the part where he is didn't explode or fully explode because it didn't take that much damage and he was not affected by the red energy because from what is seen in the red ray it only affects non-organic synthetics, so Shepard survived.
Wilson was one not happy Miranda didn't take to him, and two didn't feel he was compensated fairly, most likely made a deal with Shadow broker. Exigent, definitely a Cerberus front. The most unanswered question I myself would like to know is of Banes, from Mass effect 1 you learn from helping Dr. Michelle
“Some of the devs said” is not exactly the definition of canon:D They just wanted you to feel better about them… Honestly how and why would they survive? It would be a massive humanitarian action from the Reapers to save millions of Citadel residents in such a short time… Billions have died from the Reapers already, a few million more is not a big surprise…
@@juzoli well if TIM took over the controls he might have closed and deliver the Citadel all the way to Earth (why the Reapers didn't disabled the Mass Relays after them is beyond me) and as the Reapers needed to prepare for the Alliance Fleets they just focused on closing the arms after trying to fight our Citadel Defense Force. I don't doubt some people managed to escape the Citadel as the Reapers were taking over it but didn't had time to pursuit them and when Shepard opened the Citadel arms they could have been evacuated by ally ships.
@@luisemoralesfalcon4716 TIM didn’t have any control over the Citadel, and absolutely no means to move it anywhere:) He just sneaked in to set up his device to control the Reapers (which was later used by Shepard in Control). After opening the arms and firing the Crucible they had close to zero time to evacuate. And destroy would likely killed most, even with high War Assets if they were that close to the epicenter. But ME4 might explain it away that some has survived. Control/Synthesis might have many survivors.
@@juzoli that's true, but you haven't seen how desperate individuals move when the option to leave comes remember this: the time from when the arms were opening to when the Crucible fired depended on how long Shepard took to talk with the Star Brat and the Reapers were holding back for Shepard to make his choice.
Fact: when Shepard was rebuilt by Cerberus, Miranda did in fact make a certain modification. She implanted a highly advanced technological forskin for Shepard and in cases of extreme danger his glorious earthling forskin would deploy an umbrella like shield. Now you know.
It’s good to see so many people talking about Mass Effect again. My personal all time favorite trilogy of games. The more people that get to play and love them the better.
I suppose that Shepard survives because he is not really in the "arms" of the citadel, but in the sphere itself, which is not exploded and is not damaged by having the necessary war points. Sorry if my english is not too good
Nah, you missed the biggest mystery of them all. How were the Leviathans simultaneously smart enough to develop a galactic empire, but simultaneously so unbelievably stupid to think that creating a synthetic race with no oversight was a solution to "how do we stop this endless cycle of synthetic races obliterating their creator organic races?"
I recently finished the legendary edition trilogy playthrough and thought just this. You’ve seen all these civilizations fall to the synthetics they created and thought to create your own thinking they wouldn’t turn against you 🤦♀️. Also the huge flaw in star child’s strategy to harvest each cycle since they thought that synthetics would eliminate all organics if they didn’t. Why wipe out any trace of past civilizations? “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it”? Even the current cycle saw the geth uprising and outlawed AI creation. Wouldn’t the following civilizations know better than to repeat the same mistake? Maybe I’m just an idealist lol.
@@febentesfaye612 Hmm i always thought it was because of the secrecy... if they didn't wipe out everything, next cycle can find out about them far sooner than they wanted to... History of the galaxy could be totally different if Asari weren't so dumb and told the rest od the galaxy that they have functional prothean beacon... They could prepare for war, but instead, Asari needed to "feel superior" to everyone else... it was just like Jaavik said... Asari abuse the knowledge of his people to make themselves superior to the rest... That is thing i want to see... after the war, when I would personally tell everyone that Asari are indirectly responsible for billions of the deaths during war. Gosh, i want ME3 DLC, where i would be able to rub it into their faces... Seclude them from the rest of the galaxy, and if they would have a problem, my pals Krogans and Turians will explain it to them...
The Destroy Ending with Shepard make no sense though. Unless he got beamed back down, he would have been spaced, and he didn’t even have a space suit and he was right in front of a massive explosion.
Either the blast create a portal with the explosion or the reaper child protect him from the blast like cortana did to chief in halo 4. This are my headcanon
For the Citadel one, in my mind I just assumed everyone was evacuated. Like, someone saw that a reaper was on the way, warned the Citadel and then they began the process of evacuation. That's my own theory anyway.
I always wondered why there was still an elevator from the Earth to the Citadel after the victory. If the galaxy environment is still orbiting Earth that means humans have become the dominant species in the galaxy!
@@davidnavarro4821 Not really. Sure the gatatic Capital orbits earthbutit's moot if the galactic community ever decided to kick humanity out of the Galactic Council
One mystery I'm curious about is with the Turian platoon mission on Tuchanka. How did Cerberus know about the bomb buried deep in Tuchanka? And how did the Turians know that Cerberus knew?
This was one of the issues I had with ME3. Cerberus seemed to know everything and were everywhere. They were supposed to a pro-human terrorist group yet by the time of ME3, they've become an omnipotent army capable of challenging all the major powers. Stupid.
At some point during ME3, Shepard actually says "Cerberus sure like their sleeper agents" With humans gaining access to more power in the Galaxy, due mostly to Shepard in ME1, Cerberus agents can infiltrate a lot more places. When everyone is supposed to be openly cooperating to save the Galaxy, classified information is a lot easier to come by.
@@wintertrooper7918 True as well. *Spoiler alert* Though i never liked him, i still believe Udina had humanity's best interests at heart, but he didn't make it easy.
@@CleavingRay of course but his biggest problem was his moral myopia he hated all the things the council was doing yet never once said anything about how often humans did those very same things
That "failed" Krogan was interesting because he was obviously a pipe hitter. I'm guessing he lacked the "genetic memories" and instincts present in Grunt.
Actually in one in-game plot, it was mentioned that the reapers drew energy from dying stars and used to fast forward the supernova process by harnessing the radiation and solar energy from them. This is the most probable factor for the Healstrom star to die.
I could be remembering this incorrectly, but isn't there a datapad you can find during the Mars mission in ME3 showing correspondence between the Mars base and Exo Geni? I think Exo Geni was trying to offer them products or tech, but they kept refusing. With the Cerberus attack happening later on, this seems like too much of a coincidence. Maybe the delivery would've been Cerberus' way of infiltrating the base instead of, or in conjunction with, having their agent on the inside
In my opinion, it's heavily implied everyone on the citadel parished due to the reapers. Earth was taken before anyone even knew reapers were there, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Citadel was in the same boat. Especially when you consider that the reapers still have possible elements inside the Citadel with the keepers.
Shepard surviving feels more like Bioware throwing a Bone to the fans jut to calm the fires about the stupid ending... there is little to no justification for him surviving.
Regardless of ending choice, there is no reason for any remaining people on the Citadel to organize against the reapers. In the destroy ending, there are no reapers. In the control ending, they are shown to leave - they are controlled, presumably not a threat, and the remaining people have much more pressing concerns. In the synthesis ending, everyone is "friends" and now have full understanding of each other - the reapers were NEVER an actual "enemy" of intelligent life (it wasn't "personal") they were only doing what they were created to do. Once synthesis occurs, the mandate of finding a way to save organic life has been fulfilled - reapers have no cause for any hostile actions. The newly "synthesized" organics now have full awareness that the reapers were only carrying out orders and see that the reapers are no longer a threat. Presumably, prior to synthesis, the reapers were not true AI - the catalyst wouldn't create them to be an equal - but after synthesis they become true AI with a special "bond" to the newly synthesized organics - so they assist in rebuilding. Sure, some speculation there, but the ME universe pretty much demands our own "interpretations". So, yep, my opinion - just as likely "wrong" or "right" as anyone else's.
Actually, i believe that regardless of canonical plot, Mass Effect is forced to take Shepard-Indoctrinated path into ME:Next. Cause in ANY other way ME3 final will look just rubbish development.
It would be great if we started the game with a small intro with Liara and then it shows us how Priority Earth would actually feel like as Bioware originally planned it and then we get to make the choices. Have the game import all that happened until the moment Shepard destroyed the Reaper Hadex cannon.
He stopped a reaper plot to turn Palavens population into husks right after the 1st contact war. With Saren of all people. That’s when both him and Saren first became exposed to reaper tech and both set off on their own quests to figure out what was going on and stop them. And both slowly but surely got indoctrinated.
I thought the Dolan sun was something to do with the mass effect 2 ending when the reapers come because in the end shepherd looks at the sun and next the reaper arrives.
Wilson was most probably the hidden mole for Yahg Shadowbroker . In the end the area where Shephard and Anderson were beamed to was the protein vats and hidden command center created by the Reapers....used for most probably processing victims and remains to protein fluid necessary for Reapers as stated in Mass Effect 2 collector base. Javik did say the prothean leadership was anhilated in similar way, so it means that the AI intelligence responsible for such destruction was always present deep in the citadel basement....directing the keepers and the Reapers in a pattern. The Perfect Trojan Horse.
1- The star of haestrom was a part of the dark energy plot, which was scrubbed due to BioWare's genius. There's another place where I believe Giana Parsini also tells you on Illium that she's studying The effects of Dark Energy. The original plot was scrubbed but they didn't bother to remove its traces from ME2. 2- The place where you go on the Citadel full of corpses wasn't originally supposed to be the citadel, it was supposed to be a reference to a type of Reaper ships called "Processors" hence Anderson's comment about 'Reminds me of your description of the collector base' once again, Bioware's genius thought they could reuse assets with no one paying attention. As for what happens to the people on the Citadel, then unless you picked the control ending then few of them would survive as regardless of your Military effectiveness, as soon as it fires the beam to the mass relay (Destroy/Synthesis) the Citadel blows up to pieces. 3- ME1 had this thing that tied anything related to unethical experimentation to Cerberus, Rachni, Thorian, whatever you want. As you said, there is no clear evidence of their ties as far as I know. However what I have noticed is that BioWare did everything they could to reduce the importance of ME1. You'll notice that in ME3 any war assets tied to ME1 were minimal at best. Even the Rachni queen. 4- As someone else said, Wilson was working for the Shadow Broker, which makes sense. Since the SB was very upset that Liara and Feron managed to steal Shepards body and therefore he couldn't hand it over to the Collectors, so it was his Plan B. And through the Audio recordings you can conclude that Wilson while working on a massive project, wasn't paid as generously. So it was probably only for some credits that he did what he did. 5- The Last 20 minutes of ME3 are devoid of all kinds of common sense. there are dozens of questions that were asked that didn't have any answer (hence the rise of the Indoctrination Theory which - while interesting - failed to cover the plot holes) how could Shepard breath in space, where the hell did he get a carnifax gun with unlimited ammo, where the hell did this Synthetics/Organics thing come from, why the hell is Shepard talking like a vegetable instead of arguing like he or she usually does, what are these flashbacks of Anderson shooting the red tube or The Illusive man taking control in the other side, dozens of questions remain un-answered, so "How Shepard survived the blast" is just another non-sensical thing that happened in the end.
2) what happened to the people on the Citadel - In 2012, Bioware writers said there were bunkers on the Citadel where people like the Council, Bailey, etc., went and hid. ... and Mystery #6) During the ending, why didn't Shepard's pistol kill any of the Keepers on the Citadel? Answer: We weren't supposed to test that. But the real answer to all the mysteries: Bad Writing Theory. Don't get me wrong. I love the series, but the writing doesn't get an "A" from me.
Shepard surviving truly doesn't make sense. I honestly think it was never intended to be more than an easter egg because it's pretty clear from the dialogue and overall how the morality is written into the game that Synthesis is supposed to be the best ending.
Its not supposed to make sense its still a game & the Main Protagonist has more willpower to survive than anybody else in the galaxy. Zaeed says something similar on his loyalty mission in ME2. I can’t remember the exact quote but Shephard says to him “How did you survive a bullet to the head.” Zaeed retorts “You survived getting your ship blown up, you can survive anything with enough will to live.” Its not word for word but that’s pretty much what he says. Synthesis dissolves you completely & Control pretty much does the same. High EMS Destroy is just a big blast that destroys reaper code so it is possible for Shep to survive with enough Willpower.
Sheperd Didn't survive in the any of the endings. They added his survival like a year later because of fan blowback like a year after release. War assets might be taken into effect after they added it. But originally it didn't matter even if you maxed them.
If you read the codex about shepards body. it says his bones are unbreakable, due to his upgrades. Shepard is not a regular person from 2 onwards he is faster stronger and more durable than a normal human. Plus the part where sheard is in the citadel is still intact after the expolision. You see it in the vid you showed, so its unlikely the expolision reaches Shepherd. Therefore giving him with his enhanced durability the chance to survive
In ME2 when you recruit Tali she makes a remark about Cerberus being behind the Thoriun on Feros which gives evidence that Exo Geni is a Cerberus front.
My theory on Shepard’s survival is just that his resurrection fitted him with so much machinery and electronic failsafes that, while Shep isn’t an AI or anything, his body still has some kind of neural jump start system. He’s probably burned all to hell, but his necessary organs are all nice and cased inside some blast resistant coating. I mean... certain bullets are made to take down inorganic enemies because they have resistances to regular types of damage right? Maybe our enemies have to use those kinds of bullets to actually kill Shep and he can barely survive the Citadel explosion. We never have a great explanation as to why Shep’s scars glow, unless he’s got some serious mechanical insides, right? This is just my theories. Feel free to ignore me.
With the Haestrom's Sun plot, I bet it got scrapped (along with the original ending) after the ME3 leaks. I think the original plot was gonna be that the use of mass effect technology was increasing the amount of dark energy in the galaxy, and thus speeding up the ultimate death of the universe (see Haestrom's star). Thus when the effect of mass effect technology becomes too great, the Reapers come to wipe out the life forms using the mass effect tech in order to, quiet literally, save the universe from dying. If this was true, then this IMO adds a great Lovecraftian element to the Reapers and would be a much better ending than what we got.
For Mass Effect 2. I think there was alittle bit of an inside joke with Wilson. Jenkins was killed off in the very beginning in Mass Effect 1. An the only thing I can think of about Wilson being a traitor. He had to be some sort of deep cover agent for the Shadow Broker, or double agent. In the comics for Mass Effect. The Shadow Broker was trying to sell Shepards body to the Collectors. That's the only thing I can think of.
Fun fact: Wilson wasn’t shot by the mechs. He shot the other Cerberus members in the room with him, then shot himself in the leg to make it seem like he got wounded in a fight with the mechs. The mechs wouldn’t have shot Wilson in the leg and then walked away, they were shooting to kill.
The game does say what happens to Kelly she was killed by Cerberus when they attacked the Citadel. The side characters say this when you go back to where she was
Oh and as for Wilson, it's very hinted at in the audiologs that he was not just jealous of not being paid enough or getting as much attention as Miranda but that he had tried to "woo" her at some point and she turned him down coldly. It seemed like his motivation most lied in killing Miranda and destroying her pet project in the process to just get complete revenge against her and the Illusive Man.
@Big Dan Gaming What I would like to know is what's up with the Prothean spheres? One gives you visions of a primitive human, the other transmits a wave of incomprehensible data. You never hear about either again as far as I know. Would love an episode about that!
I really like the dark energy plotline and discussed it a lot even before the original script was leaked. Of course, we can't get any specific details from ME in-universe explanation and we also don't have many details about processes behind the real stellar evolution (including subgiant and red giant branches). But it gives as some freedom. So, I come up with an idea, that mass effect fields affecting nuclear forces, making it harder to overcome Coulomb barrier and sustain thermonuclear reactions. This fields might be randomly generated by the stars if they accumulated enough eezo in their cores (so they basically become Disruptor torpedoes on steroids). In nature similar effect occurs only when the main sequence star exhausted supply of light elements (not enough hydrogen and too much helium + some heavier elements) in its core and can no longer extract energy through conventional way.
My theory about Wilson is that he wasn't really the traitor. We never get even a chance to ask Miranda how she knew that it was him, or question the whole situation at all. I believe it was all actually part of Cerberus' plan to get Shepard on their side. Instead of waking him/her up calmly and giving him/her a chance to think things through, which might have led to him/her rejecting their collaboration and turning on them, they put him/her in a life or dead situation to hit the ground running again and instinctively accept that Cerberus is on his/her side. Miranda killed Wilson to pin things on him as an escape goat and avoid further questions. I know this is probably not accurate and there are better explanations for Wilson's betrayal, this is just my head canon.
3 games worth of saving people and doing there fetch quests on the Citadel and presumably everyone dies off screen. Couldn't even be bothered to give Kelly Chambers a decent send off.
A thing that really does not make sense is the "Human Reaper", first of all it looks like a human, but all the other reapers look like leviathans, even on the inside of destroyed reaper we don't see huge bodies of other species, the second issue is: why humans? Wouldn't be Asari the most avanced civilization of the reaping cycle, the one who rediscovered citadel, but we don't know about any attempt of creating an Asari, Turian or Salarian reaper due to "genetic diversity" of humans, that is almost useless in creating a single, non reproductive being. The fate of the other people on the Citadel is either escaped or killed, Shepard explores just a tiny part of the Citadel, the one accessible from Earth, so is pretty natural finding only humans in that specific part
In the final cutscene of ME2 (and in the game over screen for Arrival) we do see Reapers with differing designs so the developers were presumably planning to showcase some more appearances, but development was rushed so I guess they resorted to copying and pasting the Sovereign model. As for why humans, I think that was going to be a major plot point in the unused dark energy storyline. So as it stands in the current game, I guess we just have to assume that Harbinger took the death of Sovereign personally. And from the few conversations we have with him it’s clear he’s a sadistic little shit so twisted revenge isn’t too far off the table.
@@EditedAF987 yes, humans destroyed Sovereign, but not on their own, they used a ship made with Turian technology, and in a joint operation with Asari and Salarian forces, we know also that people from other species were bought by the collectors, but there is no evidence of an attempted reaper creation, just husk-like (and collector like) creatures, about the dark energy, it wasn't the only scrapped idea, they thought also about making Shepard an alien (ignoring the human mother still alive with the spacer background) but they did not implement it because was too similar to Darth Revan's story in KotOR
For the shape/structure of the Human Reaper, I think it's mentioned that each Reaper's exterior looks like Leviathan/Harbinger whereas their core is modeled after the species that created them. As for why Humans, Harbinger has several combat lines about Shepard's companions but only some of them make sense (eg: saying that the Drell lack sufficient numbers to form a Reaper) others are similar to your point regarding the fact their creating a single being (eg: viewing Salarians as being useless due to short life spans and seeing genetic traits like Quarian immune systems or Asari melding to be weaknesses) but I rationalise that as being viewed in the lense of potential Husks for the coming harvest given how Harbinger also says "considered due to cybernetic augmentation" for Tali, his comment regarding Legion/the Geth as "an annoyance, limited utility." lines up with how Sovereign viewed the Heretics in ME1, once again it ties into the comment on Thane as the more Drell the Reapers turn into Husks, the less there are to make a Reaper, and the line directed at Jack - "great biotic potential." - hints at intentions to turn her into an enhanced version of a Scion. That said, the line directed at Garrus is just pathetic and seems like the writers ran out of ideas as Harbinger just labels the Turians as too primitive even though they're more advanced than Humans, codeveloped the Normandy SR1, gained a seat on the Council and were able to salvage and reverse engineer Sovereign's main weapon to make the Thannix Cannon (with the one on the Normandy two shotting a Collector Cruiser... but that could just be down to Garrus and his 1000 hours of calibrations).
As dismial as this thought is...I feel like even if Baily and Aria put up valiant resistance, that they'd still get overrun. And if the citadel blows up? Wouldn't be surprised if the majority of survivors die.
It's likely that the whole thing about Haestrom's Sun is a butterfly effect of using the Crucible, since the Crucible is the largest dark energy device ever known to be made and, according to Conrad Verner's dissertation and the research you help him with, dark energy can even affect the space-time continuum. It can be possible that Haestrom's sun was directly affected, either by being temporally displaced or a burst of dark energy went back in time... or even that the sun was damaged by a previous cycle's failed attempt at making/using the Crucible.
The citadel didn't completely explode but there were numerous explosions I assume Shepard survived due to a combination of the enhancements from Lazarus as well as pure luck
Wilson was an agent for the shadow broker. This was revealed in lair of the shadow broker dlc. The shadow broker became an enemy of Cerberus after they had taken Shepard’s body from him. Wilson was probably ordered to wipe out the facility so that Shepard would be returned to the Shadow Broker and then be sold to the collectors.
I was about to say exactly this.
Wilson was also greedy. On a terminal in the first office that you come to, where the two Mecs were crawling on the floor, Wilson comments about the cost of the project and how little he is being compensated... comparatively.
@@josephallard6394 So, Wilson is Cerberus' Nedry.
Also, though it may have been part of his original plan, he wasn't the one who sabotaged the mechs. That was actually Maya Brooks, who we don't meet until much later in ME3. Presumably, Maya thought it would be easier to bring Shepard's clone to the shadow broker instead, since stealing the real Shepard would mean contending with Miranda. To cover her escape, she sabotaged the mechs sooner than Wilson planned, which is why Wilson didn't have control over them.
Holy shit that is very possible
Now that I have come to think of it, Exogeni surely feels like a Cerberus front organization.
Unfortunately, they were a Council front
A council front for what?
Probably had inbeded agents at least
I thought the same thing for awhile. Otherwise, how did they get the thorian creepers and rachni long before everything went to shit? At the very least the were working together.
I just always assumed they were Cerberus?
Wilson wanted money. He mentions on a recording that the cost of the project was already over 4 billion credits, and that no one cares that they are over cost. " I don't know where the boss gets his money, but I wish he would kick a little of it my way more often". The Shadow Broker mentions that the Collector offer for Shepard's body was too great a sum to pass up, so paying off Wilson would not have been a problem. If Wilson had died in the attempt, the Shadow Broker saves some credits. If he lives, he can still serve the Broker in Cerberus, be pursued by Cerberus, or killed, all of which could have benefited the Broker. Wilson was a pawn on the board
Read my mind.
And it looked like Wilson tried to kill him by waking him up early.
I think he was a shadow broker agent. In the DLC, after you kill the shadow broker, when you read the console entries for Cerberus, he mentions that Wilson has failed or something along those lines.
I read 'Wilson wanted money' and assumed you meant Andrew Wilson, ea president
@@titularhero I can see where one might confuse EA with Cerberus, but in no way is Ceberus that evil or greedy!
Bailey was a legend, I hope he survived.
I love Bailey. Totally agree.
Isn't he present in one of the ending slides if your EMS is high enough? Thought I saw him among others but could be wrong.
I have such a hard time not being reminded of that one clip of Bailey in Mans1ay3r’s Gamerpoop series. “I’d like to wedge my fingers between Shepard’s ass cheeks… Guess I need to tell my wife a few things.”
@@Road_to_Dawn Lol stop
He's in the frackin' ship!
I think the scrapped "Dark Energy" plotline should be used for ME4
It would be a great way to rebuild the Relays and the Citadel post a high Destroy ending.
That'd be a cool arc. "Ah, we've destroyed the Reapers, broken the cycle, and we all live happily ever after. Dark awhat now? Aww shit."
I bet they will incorporate leviathan with it too. Maybe some technology they invented runs on dark matter
I've been thinking that as well.
@@jacobchinn8593
It'll be a crime against good writing if Bioware doesn't have the Leviathans(using an uplifted Yhag as their thrall species) as the next big bad guys in the Milky way story. Especially after all the foreshadowing in ME:3 for both the Leviathans and Yhag.
I have a gut feeling they're gonna shoehorn the Andromeda plot into ME:4.
The issue of Haestrom’s sun is certainly an interesting thing. I wish they would have continued the dark energy plot!
With the next Mass Effect game taking us back to the Milky Way, they just might!
Wasn’t Dark matter a major plot point in Andromeda?
@@unbreakablelag Not in the same way as Haestrom's sun.
I agree I thought that was so interesting
Dark Energy comes from the intergalactic void, right? Maybe Sovereign or the geth tried to add mass to Dholen to get it to supernova and possibly knock the mass relay closer to the edge of the galaxy (similar to what happened to the Ilos relay in ME1). IIRC, Haestrom's sun was heating up well before the events of ME2, so it could have been an early plan by Sovereign to reach his fellow Reapers. It doesn't really explain how they brought in the dark energy except via some mysterious advanced technology.
Of course, there is the leaked theory that dark energy is an unintended side effect of widespread mass relay use...
Wilson was a shadow broker agent iirc, so its possible he was under orders to sabotage the lazarus project so the broker could recover shepard
That's a stronger possibility than what mine was I thought he was jealous of Miranda taking over the Lazarus project because she was a smarter and better person so to get back at her and to get back at everyone he destroyed the station and tried to kill everyone
Just like Corporal Jenkins, Wilson was to die early just to be replaced by another Squad member with the same abilites.
Does Wilson have Biotics or is it just Overload he shares with Miranda?
@@Jedi_Spartan Its just overload.
@@BubbleGum566 thought so... no idea why I asked because I'm going to start New Game+ for Mass Effect 2 in Legendary Edition so I could have just waited until then.
He’s an Engineer not a Sentinel.
@@xenon8117 yeah, they both share overload. The point was he was meant to be replaced.
Conrad Verner was also tied to the Dark Energy plot point. If you do all the necessary steps in all three games, and that he survives and has a positive outlook on you by being nice to him all the way up to ME3, and you complete ME1 missions Rita's Sister, Gavin Hossle, and Matriarch Dilinaga’s Writings and buy in ME1 the Elkoss Combine Armory License. You get the best possible ending for Conrad and the Dark Energy Dissertation War Asset worth 5 points. It may not be much but the lore and story points are still awesome.
My man Verner has a PhD in Physics
Gianna Parasini mentions dark energy, too. She says her next assignment has something to do with it when you see her on Illium in ME2.
she got turned into a husk. I'm joking, I wished she at least made a cameo appearance at he citadel like Jenna who worked at Choras Den
did anyone else really like her? I dont know why but for a side character who only had a minor role in the series (although that was a pretty big one on a hub world in ME1) I really liked her because she had a lot more personality and a pretty interesting backstory unlike 99% of side characters in the trilogy. basically I'm saying I wish we got more Gianna Parsini's and less Dianna Allers.
@@rehm402 well veetor doesn’t get brushed off that easily if you choose to send him off with tali later in the game he shows up in talis loyalty mission in the court case if you choose to rally the crowd but as for if you choose to sending him to Cerberus I don’t know he probably gets assfucked by some doctor cause Cerberus is humenocentric leave it up to your imagination I guess
That “clean out dead fish” clip at the end gave me PTSD
According to Mac Walter and Patrick Weekes a majority of the people on the citadel had a "bad time" but everyone with a name survived the Reaper occupation
The reapers respects famous people.
Reminds me of Galaxy Quest...
Jason Nesmith: You're not gonna die on the planet, Guy.
Guy Fleegman: I'm not? Then what's my last name?
Jason Nesmith: It's... uh... uh... I don't know.
Guy Fleegman: Nobody knows. Do you know why? Because my character isn't important enough for a last name, because I'm gonna die five minutes in!
Thats dumb. The reapers could have just shut off the air or vent the whole station. Once the reapers had control there was no reason any of the citizens should have survived.
Gotta remember that Sovereign had to physically be in contact with the citadel to use it back in ME1. Assuming that rule still applies in ME3 and that the Citadel Defense Force put up a decent fight, there's plenty of time for some people to escape the citadel
Bad Time?
*Megalovania Intensifies*
I actually love the idea of Bailey and Aria teaming up to lead a reaper resistance
"How on Earth did Shepard survive?"
The answer is in the question.
There's no doubt that the whole thing after Harbinger's beam feels like a dream sequence, but BioWare officially dismissed the indoctrination theory.
However, who's to say that Shepard has to be present physically to interact with the crucible? What if Harbinger purposefully shot around Shepard while instantly vapourising everyone else because he wanted to knock Shepard out rather than kill him/her. Why? So while Shepard gets knocked unconscious, their mind gets uploaded to the crucible. That would explain the infinite ammo, Anderson and Illusive Man getting there before Shepard, and the fact that Shepard suddenly gains the ability to sprint when choosing synthesis despite being injured.
So when you choose control or synthesis, Shepard's mind is permanently uploaded to the crucible and the body is left behind, while choosing destroy your mind is returned to the body back on Earth, and hence Shepard wakes up.
This radical hypothesis still has some holes, like what actually happens when you choose the reject ending, but at least it allows me to make some sense of the things that happen.
nice logic man. and dont mind the others. bioware never dismissed ind.theory. their response was VERY vague on purpose.
@@GTAVictor9128 Probably felt like a dream sequence because he/she was severely injured and close to passing out.
@@GTAVictor9128 I actually like this theory. Way better than the indoctrination theory in my opinion.
@@GTAVictor9128 Ooooh I like this - my new headcanon. Shepard's brain has been scrambled multiple times, who's to say what's possible?
Bailey and Aria and others organizing an armed resistance on the Citadel, and then possibly a mass evacuation when the fight is lost, would make a pretty awesome fan-fic, in the right hands, of course.
Honestly, should have been in game! In my opinion, they should have made some ways to play with other characters! Like, after doing some priority missions some consoles in the war room would have been available to use and making it possible to link with some missions aside the Normandy! Ex: play as Anderson on Earth and do some guerrilla missions there; Or as Bailey fighting Cerberus before Sheppard arrival on Citadel; Or as Aria/Bailey fighting some reapers forces and evacuating the Citadel (like u said); etc.
I know is EA 's fault but they lost so much potential / history in that game! Lack of N7 / Thessia / Palaven / Cerberus base missions; (Like BigDan said) lack of mysteries being solved; Lack of systems to explore and worlds to save (would have been good to do some missions in Elcor's homeworld); Lack of enemies (more corrupted aliens: an Elcor / Quarian / Salarian reaper).
Biggest mystery:
Both in ME1 and ME3 ending, Citadel is under serious attack. But we can clearly see the cities of the wards down there. All the lights up, cars are moving on the highways, business as usual. What’s the deal with that?
The universe may be in danger, but a man's gotta work
I mean stuff doesn't stop, the ME1 scenario was a suprise attack so not much has changed in a short time. ME3 will I've never noticed
@@prich0382 If a 2km big alien ship appears above your city, and a whole fleet of other ships starts to shoot at it, you would be shelter in place within minutes, and not be on the roads…
@@juzoli Considering it's in space so no sound and you don't spend all you life outside and also don't always look up or across, yeah hardly anyone would notice. The citadel is huge, dwarfs any events that go on.
@@prich0382 Citadel was closed, so it was right above everyone…
The best version of the destroy ending is one of the reasons why the Indoctrination Theory became popular. The idea is he never did go to the citadel, and it was all in his mind, fighting indoctrination.
Give it up, shephard was not indoctrinated no matter how much people cry for it
Except he isn't indoctrinated, you do Thessia shortly before all this and the Prothian VI detected no Indoctrinated people until that Cerberus dude turned up
@@jordanleveritt7028 not saying he was, especially after BioWare confirmed that they didn’t designed an indoctrination theory in the end. They admitted that it’s very good though but it wasn’t their intention. I’m just pointing out that the plot holes and the kinda meh to choosing one’s color left a sour taste for the end of the game. The indoctrination theory was an example of folks who took that sourness and tried to fix it to something more palatable and stay in-game explanations.
I’ve noticed that the two piles of bodies you encounter when you wake up after Harbinger’s blast can now be seen just after you commence the run. This is also the case if you play it on the earlier 360 version (and Sheps eyelids and lashes remain normal for the entire game) , so BioWare are clearly messing with the story,and not just with the legendary version. The new Destroy ending where the memorial placard is not put up is also now on the 360 ending. Shep is also clearly blown backwards on the Destroy choice, rather than enveloped by the explosion ( may have always been the case, but I just never noticed it before ). I use Xbox,so PC gamers could compare versions better than me. I suppose that they are sorting out the lore and canon for the next game. But it does get a little disturbing,especially seeing it on the older version of the game. Much visit the original 1 and 2 at some stage to see if changes there also. Still can’t work out how I survived a direct hit from Harbinger, when I was blasted to pieces several times on Ranoch by a much lesser Reaper.
@@Chu_on_This honestly, I’d take the bullshit endings Bioware gave us (except for the rejection one) over this theory.
Maybe Bailey and the rest are still fighting Reaper thralls while Shepard chooses one of the endings.
If Shepard chooses the destroy ending Bailey finds and saves Shepard from the rubble
A lot of people wish that Bioware stuck with the "dark energy" plotline for ME3, but... reading what the devs had to say about it, it really did not sound thought out at all. I don't think the ME3 ending would be less controversial if they went for it.
I just realized fate of the Citadel is hinted at the end of Arrival. If you run out of time, you have some hallucinations, which includes a Reaper stomping around the Citadel.
I always thought that Wilson landed on the Shadow Broker's payroll, but I don't think that's confirmed anywhere, now that I think about it.
Regarding shepard surviving I always thought all of his enhancements after he was resurrected might have helped him/her with it. How exactly I don't really know.
Actually the uh reaper AI/child at ME3 ending explains that if you do the destroy ending its destroys all synthetic life, and says to Shepard, "even you are part synthetic" implying that it would also kill Shepard. I always thought that line should mean more you know.
@@eefer5416 Not really the same "synthetic" stuff in Shepard, it's mostly bone braces, maybe replaced.bones, not like there's robotic joints or stuff in him
@@eefer5416 I feel like it was just synthetics with Reaper tech in them, I.e. EDI and the Geth.
@@DaneWinter1213 yeah, that is what it meant I guess.
But didn't the 'AI' in Project Overlord link into Shepard towards the end of the mission? Giving Him/Her all those sci-fi visions and what not, idk the extent of the replacement parts Shepard has but if that was a thing. Maybe there was some stuff in the brain that was added to an extent? (I recall there being a disagreement Miranda had regarding the lack of 'mind control' in Shepard ironically thanks to TIM)
P.S sorry I'm late to this one lol
There is a clue to Wilson's Betrayal. One of the computer entries you can find during the opening mission has Wilson talking about how much money is being spent on Project Lazarus, and he says something about how he wishes they would throw more of the money his way. So, money is the key, and the Shadow Broker provides it.
3:30 Unless something came up on Omega and Aria left a few hours/days before the Reapers took over the Citadel to deal with it.
3:46 Regardless of whether this ever gets confirmed, it's a great head canon.
Wilson was a broker plant, you can read a few lines about him in one of the Broker's dossiers. Given the ties between the Broker and the collectors and Wilson's hinted greed, this was probably a move by the Broker to prevent Shepard's ressurection, perhaps with a bonus for Wilson if he could give Shepard's body to the Broker. And speaking about Cerberus front companies, take a look at the cut logo of Binary Helix, it's on the wiki and eerily similar to the symbol of cerberus.
I like to think that Project Lazarus had some unknown side effects that lead to Shepherd now being essentially immortal.
So this channel popped up in my feed the other day and it rekindled my love for this series. Just picked up ME Legendary today. Looking forward to starting this adventure once again! Cheers!
I like to bury my head in the sand and think that all those characters I’ve met on the Citadel got away safely and lived happily ever after lol
Well... that can apply to Aria at least who could have returned to Omega to deal with an emergency (maybe Harrot found out that Cerberus had damaged her couch during their occupation).
The biggest mystery of Mass Effect is if Turians have the same parts as you know....nevermind.
Just don't swallow
Drinking Garrus juice is your lifelong dream, not mine!
@@vitanksi
"Garrus, am I your dirty little secret"
Would need "calibrating" 😏
@@sgt.squirtle2528
“What do you think Garrus?”
“Damn whore”
Andromeda has more loose ends than the entire trilogy
Andromeda's ending clearly indicated that there would be a sequel
@@beansoverlord5157 I know, really sucks all the most intresting storylines were saved for a sequel that didn't happen.
Andromeda is so all over the place... every time they introduce something new they break like 10 other things established in the last 3 games.
I still can't get over the "ships need water ezo and ICE to function" promos lol
No shit. It had one game, of course it would have loose ends.
Bioware really screwed up in not making Andromeda as a "one off" complete story. They bit more than they could chew in setting it up as a multi-game arc, especially after losing their best writers from the original trilogy at that point.
I'm hoping that Bioware isn't going to compound this mistake by attempting to force a connection between Andromeda and the Milky Way.
I never even considered that ExoGeni was a Cerberus front but now it makes sense 100%. As for Wilson, I guarantee part of it was being spurned by Miranda rejecting him. If you listen to the messages around the facility he's mad that Miranda won't "show him appreciation for everything he's done" kind of sealed the deal
He was also a bit salty about his pay. He just felt underappreciated by Cerberus overall.
Shepard survives because he grew up watching videos of Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris and every 80's action movie star. After that elite training it was quite easy really.
I love your videos, Big Dan. They feed my current ME obsession and you seem like a genuinely cool guy to boot! It's fun speculating on these things, although I do wish the ending was more concrete and satisfying (don't we all?). But it's like you said in another video- you just have to start over to chase that empty feeling away X) Anyway, keep up the good work!
Thanks! Glad you're liking the videos!
Regarding the Citadel question I would imagine that if people saw a fleet of reapers approaching them, they would start evacuation efforts.
I imagine its a similar situation to when the Geth attacked the citadel. There's only so many options for escape once you evacuate the citadel. Much like the council in ME1, by the time you've made it to a shuttle or ship youre already surrounded with no where to go. But instead of just Sovereign assaulting the citadel, its several reapers.
These definitely were some unanswered questions that we never got answers to, maybe we might get some answers when the next Mass Effect game comes out to some of the unanswered questions.
When you play the UNC: Cerberus quest in ME one of the labs you destroy has Thorian Creepers that you have to destroy which pretty much confirms they own Exogeni
It's definitely possible ExoGeni was Cerberus. However, in my recent playthrough of ME1, I managed never to encounter Cerberus despite having done so all prior playthroughs. But, for the first time ever I encountered a remote ExoGeni station where the scientists were trapped by Thorian husks. When I tried to bring them in, they opened fire, and we fought to the death.
Regarding the citadel, on the EA site where you can create your own poster of mass effect, you can chose a background: citadel, omega etc. and one of those backgrounds was named “captured citadel” where you can see damaged citadel with reapers searching for survivors. Sorry for mistakes, was typing it in a hurry
Thanks, do you have the link?
I recall that, in Lair of the Shadow Broker, you can find a document that shows Wilson was a Shadow Broker mole, and once Shepard came back to life, the Shadow Broker ordered a hit, thus the mechs rampage at the beginning of ME2.
My 5 Mass effect mysteries, some more serious than others :
1.-Why Udina betrayed the Alliance and the council? Not even Shepard or Hackett seem to have a clue of why
2.- Did the Volus pizza delivery guy get paid at the end? If not, why he left the pizza in the first place?
3.- Could Fem Shep and Garrus really make a human-turian hybrid?
4.- Why the Bioware shop doesn't release more body pillow covers on their site? Thinking about getting the one of Tali (seriously lol)
5.- The most important for me , Is Big Dan indoctrinated? He would definitely tell us , Right?
Someone has to ask the real question, jk.
Good work Big Dan, I really enjoy your videos. Have a nice day .
Question no. 2 is the biggest question in Mass Effect history
I thought it was confirmed Wilson was a Shadow Broker agent, he probably got blackmailed by the Shadow Broker to sabotage Shepard’s revival
Big Dan I absolutely love your videos about mass effect. Please don’t stop. You’re the man!
Wilson's betrayal is basically the Shadow Broker's deal with the collectors. There's a recording of Wilson wanting more money for himself and it is a well known fact that collectors can do transactions with sapient individuals for credits.
Hey dan, can we get a video of you talking about canon? What do you suspect bioware will make canon and what not. What do you think of the concept of canon? Im so curious.
Funny you mention that because tomorrow's video is going to go into some of the canon for the next Mass Effect game
@@BigDanGaming Oh looking forward to that then. I have seen a notable shift on social media over the last few years, people seem more accepting of A canon for the game. Which makes me happy because tbh its inevitable.
I remember going onto r/masseffect a few years ago and i asked about a canon, i got SO much hate instantly, people telling me i was ruining their game. So i left the sub for what it was. Dove back in with MEL and i see people openly talking about canon without the hate. So much better!
Haestroms sun and the whole dark energy storyline was unfortunately dropped and changed to magic space child when Drew Kapyrshen left/forced out. the leaked script for the 3rd game looked amazing, especially the ending with working with the reapers as one of the options to save the galaxy. such a shame. Casey Hudson overruled alot of Mac Walters attempts to continue the story, and Mac eventually left aswell.
unfortunately that's how it is a shame I really liked the leaked script
And here we go again, people blindly repeating same misconceptions over and over again without a single desire to personally check it. The so called "leaked plot" is a gigantic XML-dump of literally every single text line from ME3 without an actual key to decipher it. It's so mixed up and convoluted with technical stuff that not a single person for a span of over 10 years actually bothered to cross check it with what we really got in the game. This leak is still available for download if google it for 5 minutes or so, so go check it out yourself. And guess what? This leak still doesn't mention "dark energy ending" at all! If you do a little searching - you will actually find that the only difference between leaked and released ending is the absence of synthesis ending. That literally it. And yeah, about that "looked amazing" thing. All we know about "dark energy ending" is a couple of vague sentences from Karpyshin himself after which he quickly admitted that this ending was scrapped almost instantly and was hardly ever fleshed out by writing team. Everything else you heard about it are fans speculations and fan-fiction. Plain and simple. What you likely "know" about the darck energy ending is likely has almost nothing to deal with the real plans BioWare had anyway.
Then I guess you didn’t see Drew Karpyshns interview confirming the whole thing, and expanding on the dark energy story continuing from halestrom, ending in a decision to betray humanity and turn them into a reaper to save the galaxy. I suggest you read his interview and Subsequent AMA. There a great read.
@@2Wheels1rider I've read it. And yeah, Karpyshin himself admitted that: "I find it funny that fans end up hearing a couple things they like about it and in their minds they add in all the details they specifically want. It's like vapourware - vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out". It's as simple as it sounds: the whole dark energy thing was just a simple idea, a plot pitch that was scrapped very early (to cite the man himself: "Again it's very vague and not fleshed out, it was something we considered but we ended up going in a different direction"). Karpyshin mentioned it in one interview and then fans went literally crazy, screaming right and left how the ending was changed midway when it's simply not true.
Was that the 2013 or 2017 interview? As I’ve only read the 2017 as couldn’t find an archaic the earlier, but I get your point yes an interview can turn into a game of Chinese whispers, and turn a grenade into a nuke 😂
I think the dark energy plot was revisited in ME:A with the scourge. It was a dark energy field that really messed a lot of things up. Not to mention how it affected the weather on all the planets visited in the game. And only ‘fought against’ if you will, via the special underground tomb switches or whatever. 😂 (I forgot the names of those things). 😂
I say everyone on the Citadel was evacuated to somewhere else when the Reapers moved in and took it to Earth's orbit. With destroy and synthesis endings it was rebuilt but with control ending the Reapers took it with them back to Serpent nebula (unless it was shown on Earth's orbit).
Unsolved Mysteries, aka Abandoned Plot lines, well some of them.
i just heard that dialogue with reegar for the first time the other night, he's honestly one of my favorite side characters within the trilogy
Regarding Exogeni, I think the second Mass Effect book explores how Cerberus is funded in brief. They control a lot of shell companies and invest in other legitimate businesses. Exogeni is one such business that TIM has a large amount of investment in as it furthers his goal of human expansion.
Maybe is as simple as the part where he is didn't explode or fully explode because it didn't take that much damage and he was not affected by the red energy because from what is seen in the red ray it only affects non-organic synthetics, so Shepard survived.
Wilson was one not happy Miranda didn't take to him, and two didn't feel he was compensated fairly, most likely made a deal with Shadow broker.
Exigent, definitely a Cerberus front.
The most unanswered question I myself would like to know is of Banes, from Mass effect 1 you learn from helping Dr. Michelle
In an interview some of the devs said everyone on the citadel survived when the reapers took over it was at a con.
“Some of the devs said” is not exactly the definition of canon:D
They just wanted you to feel better about them…
Honestly how and why would they survive? It would be a massive humanitarian action from the Reapers to save millions of Citadel residents in such a short time…
Billions have died from the Reapers already, a few million more is not a big surprise…
@@juzoli Yeah fair enough.
@@juzoli well if TIM took over the controls he might have closed and deliver the Citadel all the way to Earth (why the Reapers didn't disabled the Mass Relays after them is beyond me) and as the Reapers needed to prepare for the Alliance Fleets they just focused on closing the arms after trying to fight our Citadel Defense Force.
I don't doubt some people managed to escape the Citadel as the Reapers were taking over it but didn't had time to pursuit them and when Shepard opened the Citadel arms they could have been evacuated by ally ships.
@@luisemoralesfalcon4716 TIM didn’t have any control over the Citadel, and absolutely no means to move it anywhere:) He just sneaked in to set up his device to control the Reapers (which was later used by Shepard in Control).
After opening the arms and firing the Crucible they had close to zero time to evacuate. And destroy would likely killed most, even with high War Assets if they were that close to the epicenter. But ME4 might explain it away that some has survived.
Control/Synthesis might have many survivors.
@@juzoli that's true, but you haven't seen how desperate individuals move when the option to leave comes remember this: the time from when the arms were opening to when the Crucible fired depended on how long Shepard took to talk with the Star Brat and the Reapers were holding back for Shepard to make his choice.
Fact: when Shepard was rebuilt by Cerberus, Miranda did in fact make a certain modification. She implanted a highly advanced technological forskin for Shepard and in cases of extreme danger his glorious earthling forskin would deploy an umbrella like shield.
Now you know.
this has the "Master Chief's armor jerks him off" energy
It’s good to see so many people talking about Mass Effect again.
My personal all time favorite trilogy of games.
The more people that get to play and love them the better.
I hope Bioware would sort out all these loose ends in the upcoming sequel.
highly doubtful... they just make more loose ends
I suppose that Shepard survives because he is not really in the "arms" of the citadel, but in the sphere itself, which is not exploded and is not damaged by having the necessary war points.
Sorry if my english is not too good
You should be sorry
Nah, you missed the biggest mystery of them all. How were the Leviathans simultaneously smart enough to develop a galactic empire, but simultaneously so unbelievably stupid to think that creating a synthetic race with no oversight was a solution to "how do we stop this endless cycle of synthetic races obliterating their creator organic races?"
I recently finished the legendary edition trilogy playthrough and thought just this. You’ve seen all these civilizations fall to the synthetics they created and thought to create your own thinking they wouldn’t turn against you 🤦♀️. Also the huge flaw in star child’s strategy to harvest each cycle since they thought that synthetics would eliminate all organics if they didn’t. Why wipe out any trace of past civilizations? “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it”? Even the current cycle saw the geth uprising and outlawed AI creation. Wouldn’t the following civilizations know better than to repeat the same mistake? Maybe I’m just an idealist lol.
@@febentesfaye612 Hmm i always thought it was because of the secrecy... if they didn't wipe out everything, next cycle can find out about them far sooner than they wanted to... History of the galaxy could be totally different if Asari weren't so dumb and told the rest od the galaxy that they have functional prothean beacon... They could prepare for war, but instead, Asari needed to "feel superior" to everyone else... it was just like Jaavik said... Asari abuse the knowledge of his people to make themselves superior to the rest...
That is thing i want to see... after the war, when I would personally tell everyone that Asari are indirectly responsible for billions of the deaths during war. Gosh, i want ME3 DLC, where i would be able to rub it into their faces... Seclude them from the rest of the galaxy, and if they would have a problem, my pals Krogans and Turians will explain it to them...
Even the wise cannot see all ends.
Alright I finally subscribed. Long overdue. Your videos are incredible and have expanded my love for this franchise. Keep it up!
Thans Mac!
The Destroy Ending with Shepard make no sense though.
Unless he got beamed back down, he would have been spaced, and he didn’t even have a space suit and he was right in front of a massive explosion.
Either the blast create a portal with the explosion or the reaper child protect him from the blast like cortana did to chief in halo 4. This are my headcanon
@@N7_Bunny You know it was only an easter egg brought on by fan demand right?
@@lordinvictus793 yes thats why i say its m'y headcanon
@@N7_Bunny it’s in my head movies. But this movie makes my eyes rain!!! 😭
For the Citadel one, in my mind I just assumed everyone was evacuated. Like, someone saw that a reaper was on the way, warned the Citadel and then they began the process of evacuation.
That's my own theory anyway.
I want to correct that the Citidel did not blow up in the destroy ending as in the Extended Epilogue; we find it fully repaired and tethered to earth.
I always wondered why there was still an elevator from the Earth to the Citadel after the victory. If the galaxy environment is still orbiting Earth that means humans have become the dominant species in the galaxy!
@@davidnavarro4821 Not really. Sure the gatatic Capital orbits earthbutit's moot if the galactic community ever decided to kick humanity out of the Galactic Council
One mystery I'm curious about is with the Turian platoon mission on Tuchanka. How did Cerberus know about the bomb buried deep in Tuchanka? And how did the Turians know that Cerberus knew?
This was one of the issues I had with ME3. Cerberus seemed to know everything and were everywhere. They were supposed to a pro-human terrorist group yet by the time of ME3, they've become an omnipotent army capable of challenging all the major powers. Stupid.
At some point during ME3, Shepard actually says "Cerberus sure like their sleeper agents"
With humans gaining access to more power in the Galaxy, due mostly to Shepard in ME1, Cerberus agents can infiltrate a lot more places.
When everyone is supposed to be openly cooperating to save the Galaxy, classified information is a lot easier to come by.
@@CleavingRay especially when you have an ally on the council
@@wintertrooper7918 True as well. *Spoiler alert*
Though i never liked him, i still believe Udina had humanity's best interests at heart, but he didn't make it easy.
@@CleavingRay of course but his biggest problem was his moral myopia he hated all the things the council was doing yet never once said anything about how often humans did those very same things
in ME2 in the mission to get grunt i wonder what happened to the tank-breed krogan that we talked too he seems really cool
That "failed" Krogan was interesting because he was obviously a pipe hitter.
I'm guessing he lacked the "genetic memories" and instincts present in Grunt.
Actually in one in-game plot, it was mentioned that the reapers drew energy from dying stars and used to fast forward the supernova process by harnessing the radiation and solar energy from them. This is the most probable factor for the Healstrom star to die.
I could be remembering this incorrectly, but isn't there a datapad you can find during the Mars mission in ME3 showing correspondence between the Mars base and Exo Geni? I think Exo Geni was trying to offer them products or tech, but they kept refusing. With the Cerberus attack happening later on, this seems like too much of a coincidence. Maybe the delivery would've been Cerberus' way of infiltrating the base instead of, or in conjunction with, having their agent on the inside
In my opinion, it's heavily implied everyone on the citadel parished due to the reapers. Earth was taken before anyone even knew reapers were there, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Citadel was in the same boat. Especially when you consider that the reapers still have possible elements inside the Citadel with the keepers.
Shepard surviving feels more like Bioware throwing a Bone to the fans jut to calm the fires about the stupid ending... there is little to no justification for him surviving.
Regardless of ending choice, there is no reason for any remaining people on the Citadel to organize against the reapers. In the destroy ending, there are no reapers. In the control ending, they are shown to leave - they are controlled, presumably not a threat, and the remaining people have much more pressing concerns. In the synthesis ending, everyone is "friends" and now have full understanding of each other - the reapers were NEVER an actual "enemy" of intelligent life (it wasn't "personal") they were only doing what they were created to do. Once synthesis occurs, the mandate of finding a way to save organic life has been fulfilled - reapers have no cause for any hostile actions. The newly "synthesized" organics now have full awareness that the reapers were only carrying out orders and see that the reapers are no longer a threat. Presumably, prior to synthesis, the reapers were not true AI - the catalyst wouldn't create them to be an equal - but after synthesis they become true AI with a special "bond" to the newly synthesized organics - so they assist in rebuilding. Sure, some speculation there, but the ME universe pretty much demands our own "interpretations". So, yep, my opinion - just as likely "wrong" or "right" as anyone else's.
Actually, i believe that regardless of canonical plot, Mass Effect is forced to take Shepard-Indoctrinated path into ME:Next. Cause in ANY other way ME3 final will look just rubbish development.
ME3 finale was a bit rubbish you have been Stock homed syndrome
It would be great if we started the game with a small intro with Liara and then it shows us how Priority Earth would actually feel like as Bioware originally planned it and then we get to make the choices. Have the game import all that happened until the moment Shepard destroyed the Reaper Hadex cannon.
TIM mentions that he has been studying Reapers his whole life....How long did he know about them ?
I believe since the First Contact War, that's when he got his glowy eyes.
He stopped a reaper plot to turn Palavens population into husks right after the 1st contact war. With Saren of all people. That’s when both him and Saren first became exposed to reaper tech and both set off on their own quests to figure out what was going on and stop them. And both slowly but surely got indoctrinated.
I thought the Dolan sun was something to do with the mass effect 2 ending when the reapers come because in the end shepherd looks at the sun and next the reaper arrives.
Wilson was most probably the hidden mole for Yahg Shadowbroker .
In the end the area where Shephard and Anderson were beamed to was the protein vats and hidden command center created by the Reapers....used for most probably processing victims and remains to protein fluid necessary for Reapers as stated in Mass Effect 2 collector base. Javik did say the prothean leadership was anhilated in similar way, so it means that the AI intelligence responsible for such destruction was always present deep in the citadel basement....directing the keepers and the Reapers in a pattern.
The Perfect Trojan Horse.
I wanted to explore more about Haestorm’s accelerating death. It was thought to impact the main ending if they explored it
1- The star of haestrom was a part of the dark energy plot, which was scrubbed due to BioWare's genius. There's another place where I believe Giana Parsini also tells you on Illium that she's studying The effects of Dark Energy. The original plot was scrubbed but they didn't bother to remove its traces from ME2.
2- The place where you go on the Citadel full of corpses wasn't originally supposed to be the citadel, it was supposed to be a reference to a type of Reaper ships called "Processors" hence Anderson's comment about 'Reminds me of your description of the collector base' once again, Bioware's genius thought they could reuse assets with no one paying attention. As for what happens to the people on the Citadel, then unless you picked the control ending then few of them would survive as regardless of your Military effectiveness, as soon as it fires the beam to the mass relay (Destroy/Synthesis) the Citadel blows up to pieces.
3- ME1 had this thing that tied anything related to unethical experimentation to Cerberus, Rachni, Thorian, whatever you want. As you said, there is no clear evidence of their ties as far as I know. However what I have noticed is that BioWare did everything they could to reduce the importance of ME1. You'll notice that in ME3 any war assets tied to ME1 were minimal at best. Even the Rachni queen.
4- As someone else said, Wilson was working for the Shadow Broker, which makes sense. Since the SB was very upset that Liara and Feron managed to steal Shepards body and therefore he couldn't hand it over to the Collectors, so it was his Plan B. And through the Audio recordings you can conclude that Wilson while working on a massive project, wasn't paid as generously. So it was probably only for some credits that he did what he did.
5- The Last 20 minutes of ME3 are devoid of all kinds of common sense. there are dozens of questions that were asked that didn't have any answer (hence the rise of the Indoctrination Theory which - while interesting - failed to cover the plot holes) how could Shepard breath in space, where the hell did he get a carnifax gun with unlimited ammo, where the hell did this Synthetics/Organics thing come from, why the hell is Shepard talking like a vegetable instead of arguing like he or she usually does, what are these flashbacks of Anderson shooting the red tube or The Illusive man taking control in the other side, dozens of questions remain un-answered, so "How Shepard survived the blast" is just another non-sensical thing that happened in the end.
2) what happened to the people on the Citadel - In 2012, Bioware writers said there were bunkers on the Citadel where people like the Council, Bailey, etc., went and hid. ... and Mystery #6) During the ending, why didn't Shepard's pistol kill any of the Keepers on the Citadel? Answer: We weren't supposed to test that.
But the real answer to all the mysteries: Bad Writing Theory. Don't get me wrong. I love the series, but the writing doesn't get an "A" from me.
The Council knew about the Thorian for years. Spread the truth
"How did Shepard survive?"
*NANOMACHINES SON!*
Shepard surviving truly doesn't make sense. I honestly think it was never intended to be more than an easter egg because it's pretty clear from the dialogue and overall how the morality is written into the game that Synthesis is supposed to be the best ending.
Its not supposed to make sense its still a game & the Main Protagonist has more willpower to survive than anybody else in the galaxy. Zaeed says something similar on his loyalty mission in ME2. I can’t remember the exact quote but Shephard says to him “How did you survive a bullet to the head.” Zaeed retorts “You survived getting your ship blown up, you can survive anything with enough will to live.” Its not word for word but that’s pretty much what he says. Synthesis dissolves you completely & Control pretty much does the same. High EMS Destroy is just a big blast that destroys reaper code so it is possible for Shep to survive with enough Willpower.
Sheperd Didn't survive in the any of the endings. They added his survival like a year later because of fan blowback like a year after release. War assets might be taken into effect after they added it. But originally it didn't matter even if you maxed them.
I'd like to know more about the race that first developed the crucible.
Good point, also there seems to be a lot unknown about the "keepers" scuttling around subtlety maintaining the Citadel.
@@Cyclone718 I wonder if they (keepers) were that race, before they were harvested.
@@BoyeeSmudger hmmm could be
If you read the codex about shepards body. it says his bones are unbreakable, due to his upgrades. Shepard is not a regular person from 2 onwards he is faster stronger and more durable than a normal human.
Plus the part where sheard is in the citadel is still intact after the expolision. You see it in the vid you showed, so its unlikely the expolision reaches Shepherd. Therefore giving him with his enhanced durability the chance to survive
In ME2 when you recruit Tali she makes a remark about Cerberus being behind the Thoriun on Feros which gives evidence that Exo Geni is a Cerberus front.
and the fact that a lot of exogeni stuff goes wrong and nothing is done about it makes this more believable
My theory on Shepard’s survival is just that his resurrection fitted him with so much machinery and electronic failsafes that, while Shep isn’t an AI or anything, his body still has some kind of neural jump start system. He’s probably burned all to hell, but his necessary organs are all nice and cased inside some blast resistant coating.
I mean... certain bullets are made to take down inorganic enemies because they have resistances to regular types of damage right? Maybe our enemies have to use those kinds of bullets to actually kill Shep and he can barely survive the Citadel explosion.
We never have a great explanation as to why Shep’s scars glow, unless he’s got some serious mechanical insides, right?
This is just my theories. Feel free to ignore me.
TIM might be major shareholder in Exo Geni so that makes him have enough pull to divert all incoming resources
I'm still intrigued by what is going on with Banes and who it was
I am surprised you didn't mention Ploba. ME1 really sets that up like it might be something huge only to never mention it again.
With the Haestrom's Sun plot, I bet it got scrapped (along with the original ending) after the ME3 leaks. I think the original plot was gonna be that the use of mass effect technology was increasing the amount of dark energy in the galaxy, and thus speeding up the ultimate death of the universe (see Haestrom's star). Thus when the effect of mass effect technology becomes too great, the Reapers come to wipe out the life forms using the mass effect tech in order to, quiet literally, save the universe from dying. If this was true, then this IMO adds a great Lovecraftian element to the Reapers and would be a much better ending than what we got.
For Mass Effect 2. I think there was alittle bit of an inside joke with Wilson. Jenkins was killed off in the very beginning in Mass Effect 1. An the only thing I can think of about Wilson being a traitor. He had to be some sort of deep cover agent for the Shadow Broker, or double agent. In the comics for Mass Effect. The Shadow Broker was trying to sell Shepards body to the Collectors. That's the only thing I can think of.
Fun fact: Wilson wasn’t shot by the mechs. He shot the other Cerberus members in the room with him, then shot himself in the leg to make it seem like he got wounded in a fight with the mechs.
The mechs wouldn’t have shot Wilson in the leg and then walked away, they were shooting to kill.
The game does say what happens to Kelly she was killed by Cerberus when they attacked the Citadel. The side characters say this when you go back to where she was
Oh and as for Wilson, it's very hinted at in the audiologs that he was not just jealous of not being paid enough or getting as much attention as Miranda but that he had tried to "woo" her at some point and she turned him down coldly. It seemed like his motivation most lied in killing Miranda and destroying her pet project in the process to just get complete revenge against her and the Illusive Man.
@Big Dan Gaming
What I would like to know is what's up with the Prothean spheres? One gives you visions of a primitive human, the other transmits a wave of incomprehensible data. You never hear about either again as far as I know. Would love an episode about that!
They give war assets in mass effect 3
I really like the dark energy plotline and discussed it a lot even before the original script was leaked. Of course, we can't get any specific details from ME in-universe explanation and we also don't have many details about processes behind the real stellar evolution (including subgiant and red giant branches). But it gives as some freedom. So, I come up with an idea, that mass effect fields affecting nuclear forces, making it harder to overcome Coulomb barrier and sustain thermonuclear reactions. This fields might be randomly generated by the stars if they accumulated enough eezo in their cores (so they basically become Disruptor torpedoes on steroids). In nature similar effect occurs only when the main sequence star exhausted supply of light elements (not enough hydrogen and too much helium + some heavier elements) in its core and can no longer extract energy through conventional way.
Also, I'm sorry if I made you suffer. English isn't my first language. 😅
My theory about Wilson is that he wasn't really the traitor. We never get even a chance to ask Miranda how she knew that it was him, or question the whole situation at all. I believe it was all actually part of Cerberus' plan to get Shepard on their side. Instead of waking him/her up calmly and giving him/her a chance to think things through, which might have led to him/her rejecting their collaboration and turning on them, they put him/her in a life or dead situation to hit the ground running again and instinctively accept that Cerberus is on his/her side. Miranda killed Wilson to pin things on him as an escape goat and avoid further questions.
I know this is probably not accurate and there are better explanations for Wilson's betrayal, this is just my head canon.
3 games worth of saving people and doing there fetch quests on the Citadel and presumably everyone dies off screen. Couldn't even be bothered to give Kelly Chambers a decent send off.
A thing that really does not make sense is the "Human Reaper", first of all it looks like a human, but all the other reapers look like leviathans, even on the inside of destroyed reaper we don't see huge bodies of other species, the second issue is: why humans? Wouldn't be Asari the most avanced civilization of the reaping cycle, the one who rediscovered citadel, but we don't know about any attempt of creating an Asari, Turian or Salarian reaper due to "genetic diversity" of humans, that is almost useless in creating a single, non reproductive being. The fate of the other people on the Citadel is either escaped or killed, Shepard explores just a tiny part of the Citadel, the one accessible from Earth, so is pretty natural finding only humans in that specific part
In the final cutscene of ME2 (and in the game over screen for Arrival) we do see Reapers with differing designs so the developers were presumably planning to showcase some more appearances, but development was rushed so I guess they resorted to copying and pasting the Sovereign model.
As for why humans, I think that was going to be a major plot point in the unused dark energy storyline. So as it stands in the current game, I guess we just have to assume that Harbinger took the death of Sovereign personally. And from the few conversations we have with him it’s clear he’s a sadistic little shit so twisted revenge isn’t too far off the table.
@@EditedAF987 yes, humans destroyed Sovereign, but not on their own, they used a ship made with Turian technology, and in a joint operation with Asari and Salarian forces, we know also that people from other species were bought by the collectors, but there is no evidence of an attempted reaper creation, just husk-like (and collector like) creatures, about the dark energy, it wasn't the only scrapped idea, they thought also about making Shepard an alien (ignoring the human mother still alive with the spacer background) but they did not implement it because was too similar to Darth Revan's story in KotOR
For the shape/structure of the Human Reaper, I think it's mentioned that each Reaper's exterior looks like Leviathan/Harbinger whereas their core is modeled after the species that created them.
As for why Humans, Harbinger has several combat lines about Shepard's companions but only some of them make sense (eg: saying that the Drell lack sufficient numbers to form a Reaper) others are similar to your point regarding the fact their creating a single being (eg: viewing Salarians as being useless due to short life spans and seeing genetic traits like Quarian immune systems or Asari melding to be weaknesses) but I rationalise that as being viewed in the lense of potential Husks for the coming harvest given how Harbinger also says "considered due to cybernetic augmentation" for Tali, his comment regarding Legion/the Geth as "an annoyance, limited utility." lines up with how Sovereign viewed the Heretics in ME1, once again it ties into the comment on Thane as the more Drell the Reapers turn into Husks, the less there are to make a Reaper, and the line directed at Jack - "great biotic potential." - hints at intentions to turn her into an enhanced version of a Scion. That said, the line directed at Garrus is just pathetic and seems like the writers ran out of ideas as Harbinger just labels the Turians as too primitive even though they're more advanced than Humans, codeveloped the Normandy SR1, gained a seat on the Council and were able to salvage and reverse engineer Sovereign's main weapon to make the Thannix Cannon (with the one on the Normandy two shotting a Collector Cruiser... but that could just be down to Garrus and his 1000 hours of calibrations).
As dismial as this thought is...I feel like even if Baily and Aria put up valiant resistance, that they'd still get overrun. And if the citadel blows up? Wouldn't be surprised if the majority of survivors die.
It's likely that the whole thing about Haestrom's Sun is a butterfly effect of using the Crucible, since the Crucible is the largest dark energy device ever known to be made and, according to Conrad Verner's dissertation and the research you help him with, dark energy can even affect the space-time continuum. It can be possible that Haestrom's sun was directly affected, either by being temporally displaced or a burst of dark energy went back in time... or even that the sun was damaged by a previous cycle's failed attempt at making/using the Crucible.
Shepard survives getting shot by Harbinger, so it wouldn't surprise me if he survived the Citadel blowing up.
The citadel didn't completely explode but there were numerous explosions I assume Shepard survived due to a combination of the enhancements from Lazarus as well as pure luck
My theory is that The Crucible creates a protective bubble at its core, which protects Shepard as he/she falls to Earth 😸