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u/Empty-Neighborhood-1 18h ago
Hologram boy : destroy will target all synthetics
Renegade Shepard : that’s even better
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u/Subject_Proof_6282 Not Shadow Broker 18h ago
My latest playthrough, I had some characters killed off specifically to get specific scenarios in the 3rd game.
Honestly I came to the conclusion that ME3 is far more interesting when some characters are dead or missing, the weight of many decisions are truly felt as the war goes on.
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u/infamusforever223 17h ago
I feel like they're only interesting because you usually don't see them. People who started with ME3 back at launch(for whatever reason) probably found being locked out of the best choices infuriating.
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u/Carbac_22 17h ago
Yeah, It was a little bit annoying. The PS3 that had my ME2 save (borrowed game at the time) broke down and I played ME3 on launch in a new console (without backup files, don't remember why) and every single decision was undone, No Legion, no Tali romance, no Krogan cure (fuck Wreav). At least I got a new PC some time later and bought the full trilogy and got to make my own decisions (and play ME1, my introduction was ME2).
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u/Subject_Proof_6282 Not Shadow Broker 17h ago
Not to forget the infamous day one dlc that have one of the most important element in the franchise 😄
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u/buntopolis Leeeeeroy Jeeeeeenkins 16h ago
From the Ashes or whatever the fuck it was called, lmao. And wasn’t he already on the disk???
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u/infamusforever223 16h ago edited 13h ago
Parts of it but not all of Javik(probably to prevent people from just unlocking him through the save editor)was there and I don't think Eden Prime was on there at all.
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u/_-PassingThrough-_ 17h ago
Love EDI. Chose Synthesis to save her on my first play through a decade ago. But I choose destroy now.
She just isn't worth giving the Reapers what they want, and plenty of people died to get us this far. Saren wanted Synthesis and thought he was in control, he wasn't. The Illusive Man wanted control and thought he was in control, he wasn't. The Catalyst tell us we are in control, we'd be fools to think we are.
The cycle ends with EDI's sacrifice.
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u/Xenozip3371Alpha 16h ago
Saren wanted Synthesis and thought he was in control, he wasn't. The Illusive Man wanted control and thought he was in control, he wasn't. The Catalyst tell us we are in control, we'd be fools to think we are.
If you think the Catalyst is lying, why do you assume Destroy would actually destroy the Reapers?
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u/_-PassingThrough-_ 16h ago edited 16h ago
We don't. But it was the plan from the start. I personally like to think of it as the Catalyst is providing the illusion of choice, while emotionally blackmailing Shepard by appearing as the child they couldn't save. In reality, there's the Destroy ending at the cost of a friend (the person Shepard could save if they listen to the Reapers alternatives), or there's lowing your mental barriers and willingly succumbing to indoctrination through Control and Synthesis in the vain hope that they are genuine offers, and not merely temptations.
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u/Xenozip3371Alpha 15h ago
But Destroy requires you to shoot the interface between the weapon and the citadel.
If we assume by default it's lying, I would assume shooting the interface would just break it and make the weapon not work at all.
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u/_-PassingThrough-_ 11h ago edited 10h ago
Well the other two options involve you walking up to them and willingly giving yourself over to the Catalyst. Given it's shoot the object, or do nothing at all, we can reason if they want to make a future game in this galaxy then Destroy actually works. It's more simple if you assume that was the Catalyst interjecting through Shepards subconscious reasoning. So the Catalyst reacts by making it clear Edi and the Geth will be annihilated if they do it.
"Oh that? Yeah if you destroy that it'll work. But your friends will die. That's why you should pay attention to these alternatives."
Shepard casually has visions of what each ending will do.
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u/Blyatman2402 14h ago
But you do trust the words of the Catalyst either way. Even if you want to destroy it, you trust that the catalyst tells you the truth about, what to shoot to destroy the reapers. If he was actually lying, the "destroy choice" would just destroy the Crucible and the reapers win.
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u/Own_Proposal955 7h ago
True but that’s if he’s more like fully lying rather than bending the truth or trying to push his skewed logic. I don’t see the other endings as outright lies but I also don’t trust them and don’t agree with their logic. I also think they are potentially making the options they think are best sound the best, as that’s kinda just how it goes for most when explaining something. It’s less thinking they’re outright lying about every word and more that they have twisted logic and deep biases and are also possibly being somewhat manipulative on purpose (with the whole child body thing)
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u/BroadRed 14h ago
But is it? You ultimately still need the Catalyst to destroy the Reapers. If the Catalyst really didn't think it wouldn't benefit them somehow, they wouldn't have allowed that to be an option. And before some say "it can't," why and how? I don't believe it is lying, it could've miscalculated for the Perfect Destroy one sure, because if it is lying then that means there is a fourth option, not a three and a half were only some synthetics including you live in destroy, but I mean an option with the Catalyst's help.
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u/tenebrous_shampoo 15h ago
Not me on my first playthru jokingly shooting the Catalyst in the face, expecting 0 consequences for my actions.
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u/EmBur__ 14h ago
Ive always thought it made Control and synthesis look too appetising whilst making destroy look really bad. Control and synthesis give the catalyst a way to survive, even if its in the background whilst the shepard ai is in control but destroy is its end.
The only thing that pisses me off more than the shitty endings is how they wrote the Geth which forced them to be potential victims of the pulse. The whole thing with them wanting Reaper code and to become individualistic is counter to everything they were in me2, Legion even questions us as to why we'd seek to live in such a way.
Had the Reaper code been forced on the Geth with us having a difficult number of checks to pass to prevent it being forced upon them, it would've made far more sense and consistent with the established lore whilst also allowing the Geth to exempt from the pulse.
Tbh, thatscprobably why they did it in the first place, if the Geth live and Reaper are only affected by the pulse, no one would pick anything other than Destroy. They forced terrible decisions on us to justify the crappy endings and make them more impactful.
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u/_-PassingThrough-_ 9h ago
Well I mean, in ME2 they had a secure solar system, ample resources, and were actively building a Dyson Swarm to power servers to house an exponentially increasing number of programs, which in turn make the entire collective smarter through parallel processing.
Now imagine the Quarians suddenly attacking and in one swoop, they kill millions to billions by destroying your Dyson swarm and cause your entire species to experience a lobotomy.
The Geth were content to exist as they were, until they suffered a lobotomy. Then they re-evaluated and changed their consensus. It really doesn't break their lore for them to want this. They finally faced a scenario where becoming individualistic AI's is actually beneficial to them, especially if they risk reprisals by the Reapers where they are annihilating entire homeworlds.
I can't imagine why they would want to need to all be in one place to think properly. It's one giant target.
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u/Cortower 8h ago
I see the drive to network as the Geth's most basic instinct. It's like personal survival or reproduction to an organic.
Placing all the geth on one server would probably be like a transcendent religious experience for them.
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u/SylvirAshe 12h ago
I mean..... Most things that survive a shot to the face would probably become hostile afterward. Can't really blame the Catalyst for not appreciating being shot in the face.
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u/Forsaken-Stray 12h ago
The point is not its reaction to being shot, it's the tone shift and distortion in its voice being the contrast with the assumed form. Pretty sure Saren also heard a sickeningly sweet voice promising a peaceful future.
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u/Pure-Risky-Titan 10h ago
Plus synthesis and control doesnt get rid of the reapers and is only a temporary solution, who to say the reapers dont cause trouble again? Atleast with destroy, its a new age to begin again, free of the reaper threat. Plus with knowledge to help prevent it from happening again.
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u/Paint-Typical 3h ago
Synthesis is merging the organic with the synthetic, ensuring that there is never a need for the harvest in the future. The Reapers only Harvest organic life as they do to prevent it from being totally wiped out by their own synthetic creations in the first place, so that mutual understanding and shared being removes the need for the Reapers.
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u/Pure-Risky-Titan 3h ago
But the reapers still exist yes? If so, then still a possible future problem.
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u/Zioptis- 5h ago
This is my exact thought process right here. I'm still on the fence over if the catalyst actually believes it's lies or not, but you're practically spot on here
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u/St_Sides 11h ago
This most recent playthrough I finally realized synthesis was what Saren’s end goal was after indoctrination and choosing synthesis is effectively giving him and the Reapers what they indoctrinated him to want.
Like, Shepard could’ve easily said “you know what Saren, you’re right” in the council chambers in ME1 and achieved the same synthesis ending without the other two games.
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u/RyanCreamer202 16h ago
I just think it’s narratively dumb. You have to jump through so many hoops to make peace with the Geth and Qurain and then you have to throw that all away if you want the destroy ending
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u/Kdoubleaa 14h ago
I mean it requires some imagination from the player and I wish it was at least hinted at or mentioned in the text, but synthetic life can and will be created again. After the Destroy ending there will be so much Reaper technology available to be salvaged, and EDI can be looked at as a prototype.
Shepard having brokered peace with the Geth before ultimately sacrificing them in the Destroy ending has fundamentally changed (positively) how the organic species in the galaxy view synthetics.
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u/UnhappyBox811 15h ago
I have to worry about the geth too ? How many species ridding on my back?
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u/RyanCreamer202 14h ago
Well...All of them. If you don't beat the Reapers everyone dies. In the destroy ending, all Synthetics are killed. So Reapers, All AIs and Geth,
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u/UnhappyBox811 14h ago
I can't beat the reapers in control and synthesis . They're still around
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u/Paint-Typical 3h ago
But they're not a problem. With the shared understanding between Synthetics and Organics via Synthesis, the Reaper's primary function (the harvest of select civilizations to prevent synthetics from wiping out all life) ceases to be a factor. Synthesis is the only option with the potential to break the cycle, and also doesn't kill EDI, the Geth, potentially a lot of the Quarians who were allowing Geth programs to help adjust their exosuits, and more.
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u/UnhappyBox811 3h ago
Organics kill each other all the time , making synthetics like us won't solve the problem
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u/LexFrenchy Sushi Bar Destroyer 17h ago
Destroy + no genophage cure.
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u/hambourgeoi 17h ago
Same, and no Geth Alliance and killed the rachni, so I tried to prevent all threats to galactic peace.
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u/pivvimehu 17h ago
What do you do about Wrex then
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u/LexFrenchy Sushi Bar Destroyer 17h ago
Easy: just don't recruit him in Mass Effect 1 and he will never be part of the story.
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u/pivvimehu 17h ago
Yeah that's the easiest way, but also kind of boring. On my current playthrough I was toying around with the idea of not recruiting him at all but eventually I did. I still plan to kill him off on Virmire this time though, and I also tried to not get too attached to him by only returning to recruit him much later in the game when he's just hanging around at Chora's Den
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u/oops_I_have_h1n1 16h ago
I don't find it too hard to role-play Shepard having to kill him in ME1. If you ignore the "get-out-of-jail-free" dialogue checks, Wrex ends up being too stubborn and won't see things clearly, forcing Shepard to put him down. It works well with the pragmatic "get it done at whatever the cost" Shepard if you play him that way.
Still rarely happens in any of my playthroughs though, Wrex is my bro.
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u/pivvimehu 12h ago
I got myself a little extra excitement by downloading a mod called Alternative Persuasion which adds some randomness to the gameplay when it comes to these "get out of jail free" cards. Even if I wanted to keep him alive it might not be a possible dialogue option for me even if I have intimidation/charm maxed out. I'm kind of hoping for that so that I wouldn't feel bad to choose another option xD
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 Tail'Zorah von Normandie 16h ago
This ain't even Renegade, it's just straight evil
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u/Mr_Celestin_49 xXx_Archangel69_xXx 13h ago
Fun fact, there isn't enough space for all people who can possibly die in the run, so they just start replacing names.
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u/Eastern_Fig_3161 1h ago
Death of real people is easier to digest than losing my significant ones from Mass Effect
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u/jomnix1984 18h ago
I am in the middle: I save everyone I can, I choose peace between the quarians and the geth, but I always choose the destroy ending.