Mass Effect Ending Spoiler Thread

[FunkMonk]

Some interesting reactions to the ending:

http://youtu.be/xL2nQfAsReM

http://youtu.be/LHreafiT2oE

Superman 

[garbon]

http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/4199/motivator1b2e6e231f3635.jpg

My eyes or maybe it was just wishful thinking that it would poke them out.

[Queequeg]

Tali has a ton of cybernetic implants.  She should not survive the anti-Reaper ending.

But she does!  Jesus, fuck that ending.

Was anyone else also expecting to see a lot more of the allied forces?  I was really disappointed that I didn't see a single reference to the Rachni-seeing a Rachni ship take down a Reaper would have been fucking awesome.  Or see a Geth Prime take on a Banshee.  Or something.  I created a fucking United Nations.  I'm Eisenhower with a goddamn laser rifle.  I expected to see multiethnic forces fighting.

[viper37]

Tali has a ton of cybernetic implants.  She should not survive the anti-Reaper ending.

But she does!  Jesus, fuck that ending.

Where do you get she has cybernetic implants?

Was anyone else also expecting to see a lot more of the allied forces?  I was really disappointed that I didn't see a single reference to the Rachni-seeing a Rachni ship take down a Reaper would have been fucking awesome.  Or see a Geth Prime take on a Banshee.  Or something.  I created a fucking United Nations.  I'm Eisenhower with a goddamn laser rifle.  I expected to see multiethnic forces fighting.

Yeah, I would have like that too.

[Neil]

Was anyone else also expecting to see a lot more of the allied forces?  I was really disappointed that I didn't see a single reference to the Rachni-seeing a Rachni ship take down a Reaper would have been fucking awesome.  Or see a Geth Prime take on a Banshee.  Or something.  I created a fucking United Nations.  I'm Eisenhower with a goddamn laser rifle.  I expected to see multiethnic forces fighting.

Yeah, that would have been way cooler.  I think that disk space became a factor on that.

Well, after finally finishing the game, I found that I liked the ending, for the most part.  Going back to status quo antebellum would have been a little weak an achievement for having saved not just civilization, but all future civilizations as well.

[garbon]

Well, after finally finishing the game, I found that I liked the ending, for the most part.  Going back to status quo antebellum would have been a little weak an achievement for having saved not just civilization, but all future civilizations as well.

Going to a BSG back to the basics isn't really interesting though.

[Neil]

Well, after finally finishing the game, I found that I liked the ending, for the most part.  Going back to status quo antebellum would have been a little weak an achievement for having saved not just civilization, but all future civilizations as well.

Going to a BSG back to the basics isn't really interesting though.

See, but that isn't the case.  Although losing the mass relays (and to a much lesser extent, the Citidel) is certainly going to change galactic society, element zero and FTL technology still exists.  Sure, you might not be flitting off to Rannoch to visit Tali's new house in a day, but you can trek across the Milky Way in a year or so.  Trade and civilization will endure.  And even then, it's not like the Mass Relays could never be duplicated by anybody who wasn't the Reapers.  We know that the Prothean civilization built at least two mass relays, and that the ancient Protheans weren't tremendously far ahead of the more advanced species of the modern galaxy, such as the asari.

Really, this is a much more upbeat ending than the one I originally thought we were going to get, where the Mass Effect was damaging to the universe, and the Reapers were synthetic space environmentalists, destroying civilizations to prevent their overuse of element zero from ripping apart stars, Haestrom-style.

[garbon]

Does all of that FTL tech still exist? It wasn't entirely clear to me what counts as synthetic life and what doesn't, considering that they highlighted Shepard's artifical organs.

Also who is going to trek across the galaxy in a year or so? Seems like things are going to be much more localized for quite some time until they re-design suitable technology. Given that Thessia was all but destroyed (as well as other homelands of more advanced groups), it'll take quite some time to get back up to where they had been (especially given that Asari technological prowess was due to them hiding a prothean beacon).

[Neil]

Does all of that FTL tech still exist? It wasn't entirely clear to me what counts as synthetic life and what doesn't, considering that they highlighted Shepard's artifical organs.

Also who is going to trek across the galaxy in a year or so? Seems like things are going to be much more localized for quite some time until they re-design suitable technology. Given that Thessia was all but destroyed (as well as other homelands of more advanced groups), it'll take quite some time to get back up to where they had been (especially given that Asari technological prowess was due to them hiding a prothean beacon).

I'm pretty sure that your desktop computer isn't alive.  Besides, I took the 'control the reapers' option, as I was pretty sure that the destruction option would be either immoral (I'd always treated the geth as persons, to the point where I couldn't rewrite them in ME2) and the synthesis option was disgusting.

I would imagine that the Quarrians will do so, since they have to get back to Rannoch from Earth.  The asari easily could, what with their enormous lifespans.  Still, the funny thing about technology is that it doesn't matter how you get it, once you've learned it it's yours.  It doesn't matter how the asari gained their prowess, simply that they're very technologically proficient.  And there is a large grouping of scientists out there already, who built the Crucible.  The scientific knowledge of the galaxy lives on, and they're already assembled.

[garbon]

I'm pretty sure that your desktop computer isn't alive.

Like I said it wasn't clear to me what counts being alive. Does a VI count as alive? If the option isn't chosen, the Geth don't even really exist as individuals.

It also isn't clear to me how much of Earth has been destroyed given London vs. the tropical paradise. I'm not sure I buy that it would be very quick to mine the necessary materials to build technology? Where even are the scientists that built the Crucible? Are they anywhere near by? Floating about in space somewhere?

Besides couldn't something similar be said for BSG? It isn't as though those individuals suddenly lost all knowledge, though they were smacked back further with almost no tech and very few people.

[Neil]

I'm pretty sure that your desktop computer isn't alive.

Like I said it wasn't clear to me what counts being alive. Does a VI count as alive? If the option isn't chosen, the Geth don't even really exist as individuals.

It also isn't clear to me how much of Earth has been destroyed given London vs. the tropical paradise. I'm not sure I buy that it would be very quick to mine the necessary materials to build technology? Where even are the scientists that built the Crucible? Are they anywhere near by? Floating about in space somewhere?

Besides couldn't something similar be said for BSG? It isn't as though those individuals suddenly lost all knowledge, though they were smacked back further with almost no tech and very few people.

No, the whole point of VIs is that they aren't alive.  They're sophisticated chatbots.

We know that even though Earth's population centres have been ravaged, there is a very large and capable technological base in orbit, in the form of the united battlefleets of the galaxy, of which the Alliance is the largest and strongest part.  If they were able to mine enough materials to build the Crucible, I doubt that simple industrial processes are beyond them.  I don't think the location where the Crucible was built was ever mentioned.

The difference in BSG is that they chose willingly to embrace barbarism.  The Mass Effect peoples are going to try and rebuild, whereas the BSG peoples are going to destroy themselves, forget everything they've known and hope and pray that if they stay weak and inoffensive that the Cylons won't exterminate them.

[Legbiter]

See, but that isn't the case.  Although losing the mass relays (and to a much lesser extent, the Citidel) is certainly going to change galactic society, element zero and FTL technology still exists.  Sure, you might not be flitting off to Rannoch to visit Tali's new house in a day, but you can trek across the Milky Way in a year or so.  Trade and civilization will endure.  And even then, it's not like the Mass Relays could never be duplicated by anybody who wasn't the Reapers.  We know that the Prothean civilization built at least two mass relays, and that the ancient Protheans weren't tremendously far ahead of the more advanced species of the modern galaxy, such as the asari.

Really, this is a much more upbeat ending than the one I originally thought we were going to get, where the Mass Effect was damaging to the universe, and the Reapers were synthetic space environmentalists, destroying civilizations to prevent their overuse of element zero from ripping apart stars, Haestrom-style.

Your fanfic is more hopeful than mine. In it stranded krogan get hungry and eat the rest of humanity.

[Neil]

See, but that isn't the case.  Although losing the mass relays (and to a much lesser extent, the Citidel) is certainly going to change galactic society, element zero and FTL technology still exists.  Sure, you might not be flitting off to Rannoch to visit Tali's new house in a day, but you can trek across the Milky Way in a year or so.  Trade and civilization will endure.  And even then, it's not like the Mass Relays could never be duplicated by anybody who wasn't the Reapers.  We know that the Prothean civilization built at least two mass relays, and that the ancient Protheans weren't tremendously far ahead of the more advanced species of the modern galaxy, such as the asari.

Really, this is a much more upbeat ending than the one I originally thought we were going to get, where the Mass Effect was damaging to the universe, and the Reapers were synthetic space environmentalists, destroying civilizations to prevent their overuse of element zero from ripping apart stars, Haestrom-style.

Your fanfic is more hopeful than mine. In it stranded krogan get hungry and eat the rest of humanity.

Except nobody is actually stranded.  Everybody keeps forgetting the existance of faster-than-light travel.

[viper37]

Besides couldn't something similar be said for BSG? It isn't as though those individuals suddenly lost all knowledge, though they were smacked back further with almost no tech and very few people.

In BSG, they chose to abandon all technology and destroy all their fleets.  This is quite different.

[Queequeg]

Interesting.  Would Earth then be populated with the survivors of the fleet until the development of Mass Relay technology? There would presumably be a lot of empty spaces to fill on earth.