Category Archives: Mass Effect 3

I’ve been playing this for the past week or so and mainly been talking about it on a gaming forum, but thought I would add those posts to this blog.
So the next few posts will be copied from that forum with the original dates indicated..
🙂

I’ve been reading up on the Leviathans, and really think we should have been given this information in the main ME3 game rather than it being a DLC..
It mostly raised more questions though.

Why did the Leviathans create the Intelligence (an AI) when the whole reason they created it was to stop AIs destroying their creators? Knowing that it would try to destroy them? Were they really in full control of their mental abilities here??
Do all AI’s try to destroy their creators once they become aware of their lack of self determination? Some of the Geth who turned against their creators are now being ‘temporarily’ controlled by the reapers on a promise of true consciousness, freedom, choice.
Why do the Leviathans choose not to destroy the Reapers when they have the power to do so? Is that really their choice?

This is a theme of recursive self-similarity, that famous Mandelbrot equation and the cyclical/fractal nature of the universe.
There is no escape, the cycle just continues on differing magnitudes of scale.

And thinking about the ‘choices’ we are presented with at the end of the game, are they really choices?
Control the Reapers? To do what exactly and would we really be able to control them? The cycle would continue.
Synthesis? The Reapers are already a synthesis of organic and artificial, so the cycle would continue.
Destroy the Reapers? Then what? Build some more AI’s in the future? the cycle would continue.

I suspect that Bioware were well aware that this ending would create a shit storm, the fans turned on the creators of the game as they were given no real choice. The cycle continued.

I think Shepard is symbolic of someone who is strong willed enough to not be controlled, Shepard cannot be indoctrinated. This is why the Reapers were so interested in him/her and why the Catalyst/intelligence/annoying child needs him/her as the ultimate solution.. He/She can break the cycle. ‘The Shepard’ is an idea..
But what happens when you break cycles? When there is no control?
Chaos?
Then what?
The cycle continues?

They could have just ended the game like this

I’m still in a state about this, the Indoctrination theory shitted me up a bit, I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about it.. for example why was Anderson at the Citadel? Why was there just a blank space when Liara ‘shared memories’?.. blah blah blah.. I had nightmares about a hum coming from the fridge in my kitchen and was then too scared to go and get a glass of water.. it has turned a game I love into something more sinister…

Also I stand by my choice to destroy the reapers, and I do think EDI and the Geth helped inform this. I mean the Geth are cool and I do love them, but in much in the same way as I love my new cool Iphone. I don’t want to hug it though.. Plus whenever I took EDI out on a mission there were times when 2 EDIs were fighting, one wearing black the other blue, one of them didn’t have a head… I’m not going to put my trust in something that can glitch up like that..
How do we know the reapers are even telling the truth about the cycle and could we ever control them?

Well, I’m not fully recovered, and have also recently returned from xmas drinks!!
I had a huge long list of reasons for killing the reapers and was going to write a mini essay but then couldn’t be bothered it included things such as access to technology, user motivation, humanity, physiological evolution, spiritual development, energy sources, code corruption etc etc…
But a lot of my decision boiled down to one line spoken fairly on in the game.
I think it was even my femshep who said it whilst on the Citadel, it was something like.
“lets see if we can find someone intelligent who is worth talking to”
I laughed at the time..

Finished.. crying..
This game make me want to go and hug people in the street…

I had 2 choices and chose to kill the Reapers, as much as I love the Geth etc, there was something about the whole Tali thing that really got me, plus what was the point of the whole 3 games etc etc if the reapers were not killed, plus I hate the IM and love cpt anderson etc etc etc… Crying..

Listening to the ME soundtrack, playing missions, wondering what will happen when the game ends, the whole Quarian thing and now Thessia, is all too much.
But I am loving every minute of the game..

Am sneaking in missions whilst waiting for paint to dry (trying to paint 2 canvases simultaneously)
Just finished the Thessia mission
Still the missions are getting more and more interesting, as well as more emotional. I’m going to be a mess by the end of the game, especially since Kaidan is being elusive as ever. I nearly had a heart attack thinking he had died, but he was hiding in the games room playing cards with James.. sobs..