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The DARK ENERGY Plot/Ending in Mass Effect EXPLAINED
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 27. 02. 2021
- Mass Effect Legendary Edition - The DARK ENERGY Plot/Ending EXPLAINED
Some of you guys asked for this video, so here it is. My take on the Mass Effect Legendary Edition Dark Energy plot that Bioware first had intended to end the series with :)
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#masseffect #darkenergy #gaming
Given the lovecraftian influences that inspired the reapers perhaps they should have just gone with not giving a definite explanation for the them at all.
Agreed! This was basically how i felt since Sovereign :)
This is pretty much it. They're unknowable to us, even if there were words to explain what their motivations are, they still wouldn't make sense.
"Why?
"Purple yoghurt."
"That makes no sense!"
"Only to you."
@@lordofentropy hahah i get what you mean but please for the love of god, this needs to be included in a future game
"And such, the Church of the Purple Yoghurt was born."
It is not bad to explain the origin(s) and/or purpose of a great foe, @@MrHulthen. It is immensely tragic to make said great foe(s) so mundane that even a drooling idiot stops drooling to utter, "What the fuck is this shit?!". Man... Mass Effect 3 was a complete mess. I really wish Bioware would rewrite the entirety of ME3's storyline and this time make the story based on that Dark Energy idea. If I could I would copy and paste the link to my comment in a WhatCulture Gaming video from over a month ago about Mass Effect Legendary Edition. That comment was all about two overall two different story ideas. Too bad CZcams deleted my comments about two weeks after I made my comment. I had to split my post into two posts. Apparently CZcams does not like ebook length posts.
@@adamgray1753 haha damn, yeah youtube ain't always the best place for long posts. If you post it somewhere like Reddit, i'd give it a read! :D
I think the ending with dark energy couldâve been much darker and harder to choose. You can have Shepard choose between saving the universe and sacrificing everyone or killing the reapers now and dooming the universe later on. Couldâve been a much tougher choice
Nope. They got to go. How many trillions died? TRILLIONS..... countless trillions over a billion years worth of death and destruction that makes Armageddon seem tame. The endings? I chose Red.... they have to go.
Or do nothing...."so be it, the cycle continues"
Who says we have to win in the end? Would it be so bad for a game to give us a hopeless ending even after all we have done. Sure it will make our choices mean nothing in the long run, but they already kinda feel that way.
@@tikanni7251 Yes, actually it would be bad to make it all meaningless.
Just because the current product is bad doesn't mean it would be better to have an ending where it definitively would end up making your choices completely pointless. Hard choice != good ending, in fact I would argue it's a cheap way to score emotional points by having a "deep" sad ending than it is to just give us some payoff.
Darker but not better. So you get to choose between killing everyone in the galaxy, or killing everyone in the universe later on? It's a pretty useless choice, more symbolic than anything. This is a series about hope against the odds, not choosing between a bullet in your head or a bullet in your leg (where you bleed out 30 minutes later). That's not deep, it doesn't resolve anything about the series, and the fans sure as hell would not have liked it.
Can you imagine the shitstorm from having every single choice you have made become useless? And no, I don't mean useless in a "pick 3 colors" sort of way, I mean actually useless in that in any realistic, non-deus ex machina type game everyone in the series you know and love is going to die regardless of anything you picked in the previous games. Because the galaxy is sure as hell not going to find a solution to a problem a hyper-advanced AI/organic hybrid species could not solve for millions of years.
I guess the alternative is making it so that we have millions and millions of years before dark energy even becomes a problem, but then it makes the choice too easy and obvious. As it was, you apparently had "little time" before the galaxy was dead so it was hopeless.
@@tikanni7251 Yes. Yes it would. Not only would it be bad, it would be objectively worse than the ending we already got. The real world is hopeless and depressing enough as it is. I play video games to get away from that horseshit. I play video games so that I can save the day, be the big hero, kill the bad guys. I play video games to live the fantasy that I don't get to live in the dark, depressing, and infuriating real world. I have absolutely no desire for my favorite video game series to just become one big black pill about how everything is fucked and there's no future and nothing ever works out.
I disagree that the audience wouldn't understand the dark energy plot. People who play Mass Effect are sci-fi nerds, Not Call of Duty bro shooters.
and even if they are, they might just learn something other than "russia bad, america good"
I understood the concept of 'dark matter draining the universe of energy' even as a teenager so I really don't think it's that complex of a topic. Understanding exactly HOW it works is pretty complex, but getting the basic idea isn't.
I think writing it off as 'too smart' is lazy. You have to write it in a way that's understandable to mass audiences which can be done.
@@rayv98k when in reality, it's "Russia bad, America also bad."
@@mathewfinch I mean, if we're talking about reality, it's more like "There is no such thing as inherently good or inherently bad, and hardly any global conflict can be solved with everyone walking away happy."
@@michaelterry6576 It is interesting if you understand it, because scientifically it is complete bullshit:D
There is nothing to understand, because it is all made up.
And it is definitely not âtoo smartâ. Dark energy plot is just straight dumb. Of course it wouldnât be the first made up, baseless idea in scifi.
When you meet Giana Parasini in Illium during mass effect 2, she briefly mentions something related to dark energy đź
When you meet Tali for the second time in ME2 she also mentions Dark Energy being a cause for Haestrom's star being unstable.
@@1988mikey more specific it cause haestrom's sun to getting older way more faster than the usual.
Literally just replayed this part in legendary edition!
@@MissMikRoSaRikaKi yeah that's what it means when a star is unstable......lol
@@noobslayer10101 for you it's a common knowledge but not for everybody.
Although it might make the Reapers to be the "Good Guys", I see it rather as a gray area, as you still can't decide this fate for all life, that becomes a philosophical/existential/moral issue. With the Reapers gone, now organics/less evolved synthetics will have to make their own choices on how to deal with it, and wisely, or else the consequences will be dire (ME4 Choices). Dialing back the threat of the dark energy threat to just a galactic threat, rather then a Universal threat, would be a good solution to incorporate it. But that's just me.
Indeed. I'm actually hopeful for some sort of continuation on it for the next Mass Effect, but galaxywise that is :)
I agree, but would like to see the subject brought up in the series at some point.
Would have made more sense if the dark energy was killing stars and suns by aging them faster and causing an accelerated "heat death". Thus giving the reapers a purpose to survive in a cold and empty universe.
This would have made more sense. The plot device with Haestrom's star would back this up. That was kind of left open and never really addressed. And maybe it was just affecting the Milky Way Galaxy, not the entire universe. Like there's a buildup of dark energy in the galaxy or something.
@Darth Ruin but doesn't that mean that all the Reapers have to do is destroy or remove all Element Zero from the galaxy to stop the threat of it. Granted it would be nearly impossible to get rid of ot entirely, but wouldn't it be safer to just prevent people from messing with it the just Genocide, I mean, there just had to be other options to use. Right?
@@garrisonmoncher5461 if we are killing a galaxy to save the universe every so many years it becomes a bit pointless to not just wipe that galaxy out clean and make it a no fly zone for the rest of the universe. Or teach life to not be reliant on the eezo instead of leaving mass relays to encourage that reliance.
That makes zero sense, they left the relays deliberately to encourage tech to develop in a way that relies on element zero. If they were trying to stop that, they should have left tech that encouraged a different method.
@@shadenox8164 Wiping them out faster by knowing where they are is easier than hunting them down in a non-predictable pattern.
their motivations should have never been explained! like sovereign said "it not a thing you can comprehend"
I tend to agree sometimes with this thought. They were scarier when we didn't know. (I have a huge Lovecraft boner)
I see why people would prefer that, but I feel like that is a bad way to go.
Too often, people use "you cannot understand" as a way to handwaive someone who is evil for the sake of being evil.
Just someone who is the bad guy because they needed a bad guy.
It worked in me1 because saren himself had motivations that were explained, where sovereign was just kinda there and just evil. For the entire big bad of the trilogy, not having a reason seems a bit lame.
Personal opinion though. Take with a grain of salt
you cannot comprehend turning into AI is just bad (while being defended by an AI race) is the video game version of Game Of Thrones season 8.
@@workthroway283 đ
Or it was just something bsing you as Reapers have a major superiority complex.
The problem I see is that the Dark Energy plot doesn't change the ending, or more precisely it doesn't change how are you supposed to beat the Reapers.
I guess :)
That's the problem with every ending. The big criticism is that our choices don't matter. But I can't think of a way to make them matter that is much better than the extended cut. If your end goal is to beat the reapers what more can you do?
@@joshuasimons7883 The War Assets method of capturing your choices and weighing them all against each other was a good idea. Where Bioware messed up is not letting us see those assets in action in the end. We should have been able to see Quarian and Geth strike teams working together on Earth, or Krogans saving Turians on Palaven, or Rachni workers building the Crucible. That + Extended Cut would have left even the three endings we got feeling a lot more satisfying because it would show the theme of intergalactic cooperation that made our cycle different from all the others.
What Bioware should have also done is make the really big choices matter a lot more. Saving the Rachni Queen twice should have been a massive bump in War Assets that could make or break your ending, whereas destroying her twice would have done the same, but saving and then killing her or worse, killing and then saving the Reaper Breeder, would have resulted in far less or even punished you. Similarly, netraying the Krogan and them finding out about it should have not only made them withdraw from Earth, but forced the Turians to withdraw as well so they can protect Palaven, leaving Earth on its own. In effect, Shepard should be rewarded for being consistent, and punished for not staying true to their ideals (Paragon OR Renegade.)
@@joshuasimons7883 just like the Mass Effect 2 ending a suicide mission but on a galactic scale, instead of squad mates dying entire species going extinct. Taking into account your past actions throughout the trilogy to determine the effectiveness of your victory of if you win at all. In the bad side of spectrum you lose completely and everyone dies, the reapers won the cycle again. On the extreme good side of the spectrum you win, destroy the reapers and everyone squad mate, every species, etc live maybe even Shepperd if Bioware wasn't to much keen of having him dead anyway (but it would work as him sacrificing and become a galactic legend). It would be essential the same endjng, the same missions and objective (so not something impossible to actually build) but with enough variation of little details that would make every experience unique. At least at the first play through before players started to piece together what decisions cause what to game the system and get the ending they want.
@@PsyrenXY iirc the attaxk on Earth was meant to utilize all the war assets in a tangible way but most of the mission had to be cut because of time constraints.
I honestly preferred the dark energy plot specifically because it was so difficult to digest. The best part of the reapers was their Lovecraftian, ominous behavior, that their reason for the harvesting of sapient life was something an organic being couldn't comprehend. The idea that something that almost all sapient life in the galaxy used daily was ripping holes in reality and the reapers were created to "solve that problem by any means necessary" before reality is completely broken;. that feels like the perfect reason an organic couldn't comprehend.
The Reapers would need to be beyond conventional existence to address such a big problem as the Dark Energy plot. "We have no beginning, we have no end" implies they are paradoxical entities, that exist beyond the laws of time and space. Like that one doctor who episode with the tardis being re-engineered into a paradox machine so that future humans could kill their ancestors without suffering the paradox of killing themselves. In this way having no beginning becomes fact as they separated themselves from their original timeline and became ascendant to the point tracing a beginning is simply a memory and cannot be traced through any timeline.
On a similar note, the cycle may need to be an ability to restart the universe on their terms, same universe, just mixed up for different outcomes, evolutions, galaxies, etc. This way they preserve the species they harvest without destroying them in a paradox, every restart of the universe ends the timeline and restarts it (No beginning, no end, your timeline is forever dead, yet you still exist, you are all that remains). But this gets way too far into fantasy and space magic, but technically that is exactly what element zero is.
Very true. Well yeah, Eezo is similar to the Force but taken physical form, which as you say, is literal space magic. The Dark Energy plotline could very well have worked if they included what you just wrote :) Yeah i actually thought that the Reapers were absolute lovecraftian spacegods after ME1 & a part of me didn't "want" an explanation to them. It could be that it might've been what others felt aswell, which in turn made people disappointed at their motivation.
@@MrHulthen Even explaining it the way I have was difficult, the only real way of showing the scale of Reaper influence across the universe is to have one scene in Mass Effect be a scientific breakthrough where a Citadel-Esque space station lies in the Andromeda galaxy and other neighbouring galaxies with signatures popping up across the entire cosmic web painting a picture of the entire known universe; this says there is no escaping the Reapers. 200 million galaxies, 200 million Citadels, one for each paired with a Relay network.
Now this spells "We are infinite" God I would love to write this but I think its just too big.
Eh, I'm totally fine with the exclusion of time travel and universe restarts. It gets needlessly complicated quickly and brings up more questions than anyone could answer.
@@noblesseoblige319 Maybe that's okay, not all questions need answering, and I think it would be better it remains complicated to maintain this awe of Reaper power, something scary and unknown.
@@zacharyw.c8317 technically not, if the universe restarts, the origin is erased, effectively you become a timeless entity, tying your existence to an eternal point.
Not really related to the Dark Energy plot line, but I personally think it would of been better if we just got 1 ending where the reapers where destroyed like in the destroy ending (without it also destroying all AI like the Geth and EDI). Honestly having something like Mass Effect 1's ending where you could either just fight Seren or talk him out of it so he shoots himself would of be good. You could chose to either destroy the Reapers or you convince the catalyst that their solution is flawed. That way the options don't really come out of nowhere, and I always felt it was weird that in 2/3 ending the Reapers just lived and then chilled about helping the galaxy, when the whole point of the 3 games was beating the reapers and they where nothing but an antagonistic force.
While i get what you mean, logically its less sensible than even synthesis.
Reapers, and the leviathan AI itself are ancient AI. They cant evolve as for all intents and purposes, theyre already the perfect computer intelligence. So that alone makes development of emotions like the geth or edi not happening. From there, the reapers are driven by a moral purpose or emotional reasoning, Its cold computer logistics for them. A perfectly articulated speech wouldnt matter to them, only numbers would. Lastly, theyre still following an initiative given by the leviathans, so weâd have to be so logically convincing that we suddenly sway several million, possibly billion year old machines to suddenly stop their harvest.
I like the idea of the Reapers doing something to preserveing live by avoiding some cataclysm created by Dark Energy, it would be one of those "my goals are beyond your understanding" kind of situation. If we ignore the entire ME3 and build a new storyline for the 3rd game with that in mind, it could have gone smoother.
But that is not what we got, so a dak energy plot in the future could be good, but i dont think they will folow up on it.
True, it's somewhat Lovecraftian in nature & might have worked. They probably won't use it, but one can always hope :)
The Reapers motivations do seem to have been beyond the understanding of most players lol. Honestly their actions can be explained by two core beliefs:
1. That they must prevent the total extinction of all organic life
2. All civilizations (aside from the Reapers) are ultimately a threat to all organic life if they are allowed to become sufficiently advanced.
The Dark Energy stuff for ME3, @@veryanonymous3630, would of tied both points together quite nicely... if done correctly of course.
@@adamgray1753 So would anything else... if done correctly of course
@@veryanonymous3630 Thatâs assuming that the Catalyst is even correct in its assumptions.
Then there is the question as to whether or not having synthetics replace organics is inherently a bad thing.
What evidence is there that supports the claim that synthetics will always turn on their creators?
The past doesnât dictate the future. But letâs assume that it will happen again and again. How about a compromise, the reapers remain in the galaxy to wipe out synthetics whenever they attempt to exterminate organics.
Problem solved. Itâs called policing.
Itâs a better ending, they should have gone with the dark energy plot. Itâs far more complex and interesting.
I would potentially agree. I would welcome it being explored. Personally I feel like the explanation of "We're trying to solve dark energy, but don't really know how. Would you like to be harvested? Or inherit the problem" seems kind of loose and not deep. But the fact of the matter is that the original ending, post Leviathan, was actually interesting. The backlash it gets from people just stuck on indoctrination theory and not understanding why there wasn't 14 different endings is undeserved.
Well, @@ddrguy3008, the Indoctrination Theory stretches all three games. It would of most definitely humanized your Shepard character. If done correctly you would of been able to have a Shepard who ultimately went one of two ways -- willingly or unwillingly submit to your Indoctrination, or fight it off completely. If you succumbed to your Indoctrination the rest of your Shepard playthrough would of been increasingly more messed up in increasing ways. At a proper crucial point you would of betrayed your crew to the Reapers if you are Indoctrinated. At the same or similar point if you are not Indoctrinated you would inform your crew about the Reaper trap ahead in time none of them would be captured and worse.
@@ddrguy3008 I agree, if by the end of game working with the reapers would work toward the solution would be better. It would make the control ending more attractive.
@@adamgray1753 I'm not saying that it doesn't have it's legitimacies, I am just saying that the alternate more esoteric interpretation has more to offer in terms of resolution/a narrative conclusion.
I look at indoctrination theory the same way I look at Captain America in End Game with the hammer.
Can wield the hammer because he always could and just didn't want to hurt Thor's feelings = boring.
Wields the hammer as payoff to how incredibly monolithic and bland he is as an always good guy character/makes it as though the character built to something/that doing good things has a tangible payoff and will in the end save the long run of the day = not boring.
Indoctrination fall under the first one in a similar manner. Yes, you can construct across all 3 games reason to suspect succumbing to indoctrination and believe that the only way he beats it is through Destroy... OR
You can see Shepard for what he is as the avatar of his cycle and is able to not be taken by indoctrination theory and as a result alter those "variables" that results in him in the primary seat of making the grand decision. That this cycle was the 50,000 year dice roll that resulted in something different that the prior system couldn't justify continuing on as is.
Unless it turned out the dice roll also happened to produce whiney self aggrandizing control freak that doesn't like if he's given option but makes his own options. Because freedom and total autonomy.
In which case... So be it.
Reject ending.
Embrace robot monke harvest because ego.
@@matthewconnor6337 Oh, instead of just you're either on your own or get harvested? Yeah, I'd agree you could actually take the same approach that the original ending took (assuming you see the value in rejecting indoctrination theory by way of him defeating it) where the cycle has done enough to warrant an adjustment to the dark energy solution as it sits with just harvesting.
Unless I missed your point, which I may have.
Is this why we were introduced to the unexplored sun plot line on Haesfrom when we recruit Tali in ME2?
Yes, that was supposed to be explained if they went with the dark energy plotline
I feel like Dark Energy still has the same problem as the original ending of "lol the Reapers were good the whole time SIKE". The current ending is actually not too bad if you envision the Reapers as galactic caretakers, using the cycles to quite literally impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. Locking out technologies they deem too dangerous, either to galactic civilization or themselves from organic civilizations, and then coming in to harvest galactic civilizations at their apex to create room for new civilizations, or because they judge the existing cycle to have failed some sort of grand, galaxy-wide, eon spanning test. Their motivations perhaps being a myriad of things, or one unknowable one.
I feel like these endings where "lol, they were actually good" are just kind of predictable and uninspired. In hindsight, I'm glad Bioware ditched Dark Energy. The current ending, while not perfect, leaves a lot of room more room for interpretation than people realize.
I had no issues with ME3 endings except Synthesis. 4th ending (not doing anything) was a good thing to add since the game is so focused on decision making.
Synthesis is mind boggling stupid to understand, I understand Control ending because it's super advanced brain mapping, and I understand Destroy ending because it's galaxy wide EMP, I don't understand how Synthesis works.
Before Leviathan DLC (which most never played.) It made more sense than the original ending pre and post extended cut. Which was basically a poor sell on the idea that the machines were using broken cyclical logic and a semantic technicality (preserve life became preserve life in reaper form). Now if they'd applied the broken cyclical logic to the dark energy theme that would have held up better. personally the starchild scene was overkill. They should have just fired the crucible after Anderson died and let Sheps decisions decide if they live or die in the end.
The Leviathan DLC was awesome.
There was more to the dark energy problem that hadn't yet been discussed. This discussion here takes several leaps making assumptions about where that plotline was going. There could have easily been something that at least appeared to be unique about the Milky Way's situation that prompted the reapers to think they could make a difference and fix the problem. The whole idea was very interesting, and engaging, clearly since we're moving in on 10 years since ME3's release and we're still discussing it, and the RGB ending with the star child was just stupid, rushed, and an easy way to get the product out the door. Everything about ME3 was fantastic right up until you got on board the Citadel after surviving Harbinger. From that point on there was still at least a hour's worth of in-game content that needed to be created to give the trilogy its closure, as well as a setup for a larger story. Sure we "beat" the reapers, but were we right to beat the reapers? And what about the goals they were trying to accomplish? If those were indeed noble goals and we just beat them, now what do we do? We have to solve the same problem they were attempting to solve. I mean, never mind the fact that we didn't get the various outcomes that show what each member of the Normandy ended up doing after the war against the reapers, and we should have gotten that. The bigger issue is that the ending was rushed into a simplistic ending of "reapers bad, we kill, yay game over!" That is what should have been avoided from the point of view of a developer that makes games, has a fantastic IP and wants to keep it going for both their own sakes an the sake of the fans.
I just found the answer! Astrophage!
I'm reading Andy Weir's new book (the guy that wrote the book the movie The Martian, starring Matt Damon was based on) and he came up with the idea of single celled organisms that eat stars by living off their energy even in a vacuum. They're horrific, and they would plug right into this story so well it's uncanny. There's nothing the Reapers could do about them, they explain why the star was dying unusually fast in Talis story, and it would explain why the Reapers were so determined to harvest intelligent life and process them into creatures that could live in dark space.
It's brilliant and it's far more frightening than the reaper invasions. I have to get back to reading Project Hail Mary, the book is fantastic, but when Inheard the term astrophage I immediately thought of genophage and I made the connection in how these creatures eat stars with the anomaly Tali was observing.
I can't wait to see how they solve this problem, you know since they're eating Sol and thus life on earth will end if he doesn't do it and obviously he's going to solve it somehow.
"Sure we "beat" the reapers, but were we right to beat the reapers? And what about the goals they were trying to accomplish?"
You get to decide that.... if you agree with their goals that is what the synthesis ending is for.
If you don't agree that there needs to be a solution, as from your experience with the geth and quarians, then you can pick destroy .
It is weird that especially the ending was mentioned a in a lot of pre-release material, where they basically boasted how they meticulously crafted it and how each second of it was finetuned. It's one of the reasons why the indoctrination theory was so huge, there were so many weird things in the last hour of the game, some of which impossible to be accidents (like transparent trees in the reflections on the floor where you choose at the end etc). Also with high enough EMS the destroy ending actually seems to only destroy reaper technology.
Classic Sci-Fi "Galactic Barrier" trope would've been the perfect way to "contain" the dark matter problem to a localized front such as the Milky Way.
@@thewanderingvoice7349 To be perfectly honest, I don't know what the galactic barrier trope is. Can you explain it to my dumb ass? haha
personally i'd love the dark energy plot to be the canon ending for Mass Effect 3. from what i know of the original ending, the mass effect relays were what was causing the dark energy to be manipulated to the point of a near cataclysmic disaster hence why the reapers targeted the Milky Way galaxy. i still tell myself that Shepard was lied to at the end of Mass Effect 3 when he/she learns of why the reapers are invading. just didn't quite seem to be the best explanation or fitting excuse. i still love ME3 but i still think the dark energy plot would have been a better idea go go with. i also heard that they changed the ending because the original ending plot was leaked online. i still think they should've just ran with it anyway, people wouldn't still played the game for the same reason they'd have RE-played it; because it's an interactive experience.
Hm yeah, it would've been a better idea if they went with the actual Mass Relays & space travel as the actual cause, and not biotics. That would explain it better and make more sense as a localised thing.
Would you like a continuation on the plotline in the future? :)
Though it was the Reapers who built the Mass Relays. And it also doesn't rule out the fact other Mass Relay type devices could be built in other galaxies
That would make the reapers the stupidest, or most evil villain possible... it makes no sense...
Why they build the relay, and encourage everyone to use it, if that has negative effects? Just destroy the relays, and job done, no need to kill anything.
The canon explanation absolutely makes sense, and it is something which is a real life concern in the real universe. So it is not even a fiction, only science.
It would make perfect sense, @@juzoli, about the Dark Energy stuff *if* the Reapers were older than our current Universe. This would specifically mean they would have no beginning due to the fact their original creation no longer exists in our current Universe. This would hinge entirely on an Eternal Universe Theory. A theory where the Universe itself has no beginning nor end. It simply has one ultimate Cycle -- the Big Bang and the Big Crunch. Only known to the Reapers themselves why the Universe has such an eternal cycle. This would totally explain away their motives being far beyond the primitiveness of organics.
The Reapers could be the very entities that forced or caused the Universe to go into this Eternal Universe Cycle. The Eternal Universe Cycle could very well be due to one or more causes that is or are far beyond even them. That Sovereign bit about how there are realms far beyond the scope of organics that they might as well not even exist in ME1 would perfectly tie in with this Eternal Universe Theory. That there may be one or more unknowable dimensions where organics and/or inorganic beings can retreat to during the final stages of the Big Crunch. So when the next Big Bang Cycle happens once it is safe to do so the Reapers come back out up to completely unscathed into an entirely new and reborn Universe.
@@adamgray1753 Eternal universe theory has nothing to do with dark energy theory. Both could exist independently.
Eternal Universe indeed makes scientific sense, unlike dark energy. However Reapers are waay too primitive to survive the big bang. Maybe if they wouldâve been presented as some pure energy entities... And whoever are powerful enough to survive big bang, would care about us like we care about ants. So not much, and not in the way we saw. Everything in ME1, and especially in ME2 is in conflict with that.
The inevitable war with synthetics is still the one which makes most sense, and provides the best story. The only issue is the poor representation of the âcatalyst â as âstarchildâ. That just looked stupid.
The Starchild must be replaced by Harbinger. He's supposed to be the main Reaper.
Ehhh, @Garrus Vakarian. The Star Child was a cop-out, man. Get rid of the Star Child entirely. Make Harbinger the only Reaper able to have any interface with The Intelligence. Heck, make it clear in a few off hand comments with Admiral Hackett over the course of ME3 that there is a last ditch effort vehicle being worked on should all of this Catalyst stuff fall through after all. This last ditch effort vehicle being the same or a similar Ark type vehicle used in ME: Andromeda. This way your Shepard character and up to your entire crew and even the Normandy too will be loaded up in the Ark should the Battle For Earth wind up a bust.
@@adamgray1753 If the battle for Earth was a bust then your ark isn't escaping the Reapers. It only worked for the ones in Andromeda because they left while they were hibernating. The only possible maybe chance it'd have of escaping is if you launched it during the the battle and that's a pretty big if.
I came up with this awesome backstory where the catalyst were having different ideas but harbinger completely disagree with him and then betrayed him and imprisoned him and became fully in charge of the reapers which is how it should have happened.
The whole thing about "Players would have a harder time to wrap their heads around slow, all menacing, catastrophic consequences of biotics causing unrepairable damage to the universe." ...sounds so much like people's lack of mental ability to grasp climate chance through fossil fuels.
Game companies shouldn't underestimate the player base like that.
@@MrTigracho yes, they shouldn't.
Yet... There are ton of gamers (maybe a majority) that believes climate chance doesn't exist. Sooooo... đ
@@MrTigracho They shouldn't but I've seen enough people miss even obvious stuff that I wouldn't blame them if that even was their thinking. Which we're assuming at this point.
A very easy way to have fixed Mass Effect 3âs ending from the rather hamfisted âorganics vs syntheticsâ would have been once a certain species rose to a certain galactic level, it couldâve been they became a threat to themselves and all future life in the galaxy. It would allow a race to rise to and enjoy glory for a time, then be destroyed and forever preserved in a Reaper.
This wouldâve fit the theme of Mass Effect more with stuff like the Rachni War, Krogan Rebellions, Geth vs Quarians, etc. Shepard uniting all this disparate groups while keeping their individuality would be a direct refutation to the Reaperâs purpose.
And this was set up pretty well with Javik and Leviathan revealing that they were galaxy dominating empires who suppressed diversity and enforced conformity.
thats probably the best shit I ever heard but one problem, why invade the current cycle
@@colonel1003 You mean this past cycle? Going by my alt. ending and the Reaper's motives, they would still see the civilizations of the galaxy as still ultimately being a threat to all life, since in their view it was inevitable.
Especially likely see humans as the ones who would do it.
@@DeusExAngelo so they allowed the Protheans to become a galaxy wide empire but not Humanity or Turians because their alarm clock went off? it just sounds dumb,
now I imagine the reaper that was left behind in the Prothean cycle be like: âeyy yo, we got a galaxy empire, we outta do something about it nowâ
Reapers in dark space: *checks alarm clock* â5 more thousand yearsâ
If it was kept to the galaxy say "the constant use of element zero is causing our galaxy's stars to die quicker than they naturally would" that would've made enough sense, they could've even kept the leviathan dlc in too and just changed the bit about the thralls inevitably creating AI to them inevitably over relying on Eezo which ended up destabilising their suns, making the threat to ALL life more plausible. But they messed up by making this about the entire universe. Edit: they already did this with tali's recruitment mission in ME2
Leviathan cant know about the eezo issue and still stay hidden because staying hidden would be allowing the eezo issue to become more and more of an issue
the biggest issue i had with the ending was i just spent 3 hours proving that AI and Organics can live together by getting the good ending with the Geth and Quarians,
I didn't even get an option to say that i did so, the 3 endings also pissed me off as the only one where shep lives i have to undo all the good i did with the quarians and the Geth and kill them all, which doesn't make any sense, it was so very arbitrary and bullshit
also fuck star child, just have harbinger as the one talking to you and the main AI, it made more sense imo and would feel better given harbinger had been a big bad for 2 games (also have him show up more in 3)
I agree wholeheartedly! I too put so much effort into fixing the Geth/Quarian conflict only to have it fall apart in the end. Harbinger could easily also have been a great main villain but in the end, they just chose to make him a tool. Smh :(
Iâm with you 100%. I always thought that the star childâs logic was completely proved wrong by the fact that I always unite the Geth and Quarians. Also funny that youâre supposed to believe that synthetics will always destroy organics while having a synthetic crew member and an entire synthetic race as allies.
And if you think about it, the Geth wouldnât have even killed organics in ME1 if it wasnât for the Reapers. And they wouldnât have killed the Quarians in ME3 if it wasnât for the Quarians attacking them and the Reapersâ code. So basically the Reapers are the only ones causing the very problem that they claim will happen to our cycle.
Yes. It might have been nice to have Harbinger stocking the Normandy throughout the game. Even if it is not personally hunting Shepard and crew, have it known there are Reaper forces dedicated to the task. Harbinger should have been the Reaper destroying the shuttles as the Normandy fled. Then Shepard should have heard Harbingerâs voice saying something about how futile all his/ her efforts were.
It is weird that especially the ending was mentioned a in a lot of pre-release material, where they basically boasted how they meticulously crafted it and how each second of it was finetuned. It's one of the reasons why the indoctrination theory was so huge, there were so many weird things in the last hour of the game, some of which impossible to be accidents (like transparent trees in the reflections on the floor where you choose at the end etc). Also with high enough EMS the destroy ending actually seems to only destroy reaper technology.
@@caleg2256 "gotta cause the problem for the problem to exist for us to fix" -harbinger probably
You can't have the dark energy problem recur in ME4.
The Dark Energy is not a big problem, it's a galactic catastrophe. Something that even the most advanced civilizations on the Milkyway wouldn't be able to fix in their lifetime. Remember the main reason the Reapers were created was because they needed an immortal race to find a solution to the problem. In one of the scrubbed endings you could have had the choice to allow the reapers to complete their Humanoid Prototype in order to help fix this problem. This means that if you picked "Destroy" Then the problem will never be solved. The reapers are gone along with all the repository of knowledge they once had. a Colossal problem like the Dark Energy required a Colossal solution like the Reapers.
now that the conversation is on again i wanna say, if the reapers wanted to control the dark energy, thye should ahve destroyed the mass relays and the citadel, the bets way to keep the organics away from element zero
It's explained in game why they don't do this. If they destroyed the relays then the life in the galaxy would eventually rediscover eezo and the mass effect on their own but be difficult or impossible to find and navigate to, since their relays might be completely disconnected from the rest of galactic civilization. By centralizing FTL travel it allows for life that can use eezo to easily be tracked down and exterminated.
probably not since this is a remaster not a remake. It will make no sense for those who doesn't play the remaster and jump to 4
A remaster instead of a remake just needs more hard drive space. Are EA and Bioware software or hardware producers or are they involved in hardware producers? If it was a "new" game, then I would have expected more content.
the thing is reapers' reasons to do these things were supposed to be beyond the comprehension of Organic individuals, but that AI arises above their creators and leads to chaos is way too easy to understand and simultanously wrong, especially if you manage to make a peace between quarians and the geth. the conclusion the ending is still dum.
Imagine being one of the non-space faring species in the Milky Way Galaxy at that point in time. You are living your life then *boom!* out of the blue you are now up to brightly glowing green with one heck alot of electronics and mechanized parts in your body. You are thinking, believing, feeling, and living a suddenly an entirely new existence. An existence that is deeply frightening to you... until literally everyone else in the space faring species in the galaxy literally mind control you into deleting everything who you used to be. The Synthesis Ending is pure nightmare fuel, really.
@@adamgray1753 Itâs never implied that synthesis results in an individual losing their own thoughts, mind and consciousness. It puts everything on an equal playing field.
@@hawk66100 but theyâre essentially being genetically culled into internal genocide with the only exception being a silhouette of their phenotypical appearance of their own species, and what remains of their culture.
I'm glad they didn't take the dark energy plot. I think it would have destroyed the whole premise of the game. The Reapers were the epitome of Lovecraftian evil from the very beginning. It would nullify everything Shepard did to prevent them from reaping the sapient life of the galaxy. It wouldn't be more "gray", it would be unnecessarily edgy, and I'm sure it would have disappointed even more fans than the actual ending(s) did.
Other points that make it illogical:
Why should the Reapers leave the mass relays out for the civilizations to find and use instead of destroying them? Why did they leave their own demise out for sentient species to find? For them to abuse the dark energy even earlier? Why didn't they wipe out the Asari, a whole race of biotics, before they could learn to travel and colonize space? And without the reaper technologies left all over the planets the civilizations would maybe never even have invented ways to harness dark energy. At least the humans never did before they started to travel through the mass relay. Would have spared the Reapers countless reapings. But NOOOO, they invented the mass relays, which use reams and reams of dark energy, more than even quintillions of Asari, THEMSELVES!
Or ... why didn't they actually teach the species not to use dark energy instead of wiping them out every 50k years? If the Reapers in this scenario actually wanted to "save" the universe from dying too soon, they sure did a very bad job. Would make them even more faulty than in the actual plot.
Not to mention the fact that the potential danger of dark energy was never really discussed in the game until ... ME2, was it? On Haelstrom? It would have been pretty ... inconsistent for it to be so important for the ending.
I for one like the actual endings. I like it that the Reapers aren't perfect, eternal beings, but rigid machines and ultimately just a program gone rogue. Especially after the Leviathan DLC, it seems logical and comprehensible to me.
the "Mass" relays harvest dark energy but cannot stop it from expanding outside it's reach - so if anything mass effect ships are "shot" through dark energy areas via mass relay
Hey @MrHulthen I hope you are doing well. I loved the video. I honestly hope that the dark Energy plot continues in the next Mass Effect. I would like to see the ancient race from Andromeda Jardaan be a big influence on the Dark Energy problem. Maybe that's why they built the remnants?
Ooh that's a cool theory! I mean, why not? :D
@@MrHulthen Thank you :) I also would like to see who or what has started the exaltation and why. Maybe some of the plot holes in Andromeda aren't that bad after all. It leaves enough room for speculations and theories. Side note I started following you on twitter and I absolutely love your tweets already
@@nerdydude247 Yeah there were some cool ideas in Andromeda that deserves exploring. Haha wait what? I have no idea what i'm even doing on Twitter tbh, i literally have nothing to offer on that platform xD thank you tho, i appreciate the support
Here are the BIG issues with this plot:
- It is unprepared:
It never had any plot-lines. It has a couple of random mentions, but doesnât add anything to the conversations. It is not more than the words âdarkâ and âenergyâ being said, without any meaning. It only has a semi-major role in the Haestrom mission, but even there, it is entirely ignorable, the mission, and the consequences donât need it at all.
It is more like a backup plan from the beginning. It is common from the writers to have backup plots, just a few mentions about something, which likely will be forgotten, but may build on it if they run out of ideas.
These random mentions shouldâve been in ME1, give some bigger role to it in ME2, and then full on in ME3 to make it work.
- It is illogical:
Why the heck would the Reapers ENCOURAGE us to use eezo, if they will then punish us for using it? The Mass Relays are by far the biggest users of âdark energyâ. They ruined this plot before it existed, by Sovereign, who stated that they built the Relays themselves. -> this might be the biggest reason why they dropped this plotline
- It is unrealistic:
âDark Energyâ might be a real scientific phenomena, but that has NOTHING to do with how it is represented here. It has zero scientific basis, only borrowed the name. It is completely made up.
Also, the energy levels seen here are completely minor and insignificant compared to the energy of the universe, or even the galaxy itself. Drop in the bucket. The only thing which could scratch it are the mass relays, but even those are tiny.
Also Haestrom, it is a remote star, nothing is really happening here. If it would be related to eezo overuse, the neighborhood stars would be affected.
This was never meant to be a major plot line, and never thought out in the first place. Only a backup plan.
On the other hand, the issue with synthetics:
- Is integral part of the plot-line from day 1.
- It is logical. We see that AI and synthetics have issues repeatedly. Also the Reapers solution does actually solve this problem in a literal way. Stupid solution because it creates equally big problems, but thatâs not how they are programmedâŠ
- It is realistic. The idea that AI will surpass us is not a made up thing. It is an actual scientific concern. See âTechnological Singularityâ.
Whether or not you like the synthetics plot line, the âdark energyâ plot line is subpar in every single way. The only reason it is being discussed is because some people didnât like the actual ending, and likes to kick into it by preferring ANYTHING else but that, wether it makes sense or not. (Indoctrination theory is the most extreme example of that).
But this was not even the issue with the ending. The plot was perfectly fine. The real criticism against the ending were:
- Ending was rushed, so the last mission is far from the quality of the suicide mission, or citadel attack in ME1
- Starchild just looks stupid, both conceptually and visually We shouldâve talked to Harbinger.
- Previous choices didnât matter. -> it did though, as much as any other choices/consequences
- Red/Green/Blue ending -> it was fixed in Extended Cut, which is the canon ending now, so it makes no sense to discuss it in 2021
I completely agree, this plot line sounds really stupid to be honest.
The ine we got raises a actual philosophical question and also the reaper's motivation is in line with the purpose the AI was created for and also its creators: like the Leviathans it does not care for any particular Species, but just for the survival of organic life as a whole. It fulfills its purpose, you can't argue with that.
@@olegebloek
Yeah, like when I cut my grass, I still want an âorganicâ yard which is green, and not âsyntheticâ concrete. But I cut down anything which grows over 4 inches:D
It is one possibility at least. But it is also possible (even likely) that it was absolutely not the Leviathanâs intention. They just underspecified the goals of the Reapers when they created them. âPreserve organicsâ is an entirely valid goal, but underspecified. And the Reapers took it literallyâŠ
And since the Leviathans couldnât stop them at that point, they just went with itâŠ
So, I take it as a huge flaw in the Reaperâs logic. But it is NOT a flow in the gameâs logic, because this is an entirely reasonable and logical mistake. âPreserve lifeâ just have different meaning from different perspectives.
@@juzoli Also I think it kinda goes with the 'our goals are beyond your comprehension' theme. Like every previous synthetic, the Catalyst surpassed its creators. And maybe it came to the conclusion, that the harvest ist the best possible solution out of reasons we can't even fathom. I mean in the end even the all mighty Leviathans created synthetic life, so they quite literally were part of the problem they tried to solve with the AI.
So maybe the AI concluded that the creation of an synthetic species, that eill end all organic life one and for all will be just a matter of time.
OR I just spend to much time with the game and got indoctrinated...
@@olegebloek But we CAN fathom, we can understand it very well, it is not that complicated. We just donât agree with it. Lot of people accuses others with âyou donât understandâ when they DO understand, but strongly disagree. These 2 are easy to confuse.
The Reapers are classic victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect. We DO understand what they are doing, they are âpreservingâ life, to save them from synthetics. But they do NOT understand what life really is. (Legion has some interesting lines about these if you save 4-5 missions for after recruiting him). They are synthetics themselves, and donât understand that life is MORE than just the sum of the genetic material. Even if they save the memories and knowledge of the people, they still didnât save life. A person or a nation harvested by Reapers do not have any freedom any more, and probably doesnât have any conscious thoughts.
Also I wouldnât call it âsavedâ when they kill 9x% of people, and turn the small minority of survivors into liquid:D
So it is the Reapers who cannot âfathomâ and cannot âcomprehendâ it.
Only the Leviathans, their creators kind of understand it, but they are villainous themselves, and cannot do much about the situation anyway. And they are fine with the current status quo, they could live forever this way. Even though they end up helping, soâŠ
@@juzoli Well, to come back to the initial point of discussion: I think that we both can agree that the plot we got is way better that this dark energy nonsense...
Reapers from Mass Effect heavily remind me inhibitors from Revelation Space series. Inhibitors were basically such an advanced race they turned themselves into machines and harvested all advanced civilizations because once inhibitors were victorious in the long and bloody war they had with other advanced species and after that they decided they aren't letting any sentient life advancing to their level. Or something along the lines. It is simple, but it makes at least some sense.
Oh cool! I've heard some great stuff about those books, maybe i'll give em a read :D
@@MrHulthen wow i didn't expect such a fast response under a three months old video. I've found your channel several days ago, but i really like the stuff you post. Keep up the good work and hope you enjoy the books described above. I haven't read all of them, but those i did are honestly in my top hard sci fi pick for sure ;)
Funny thing is, you can actually use Dark Energy for information transmission, even holographic that would be perceived "real" if measured here. But entire real, physical spaceships? That's something else.
I've been wanting to make mass effect content on YT for so long, you give me motivation. really cool to see another mass-effect centric creator on the platform. great analysis!
Hey you gotta start with what you care about! I just enjoy talking about it, as you might have noticed since i tend to forget details & whatnot. Don't be scared of trying it out :)
The Dark Energy plot is pretty interesting, I hope the involve that plot somehow into future ME titles. Whether its ME4 or in titles afterwards. Will be very interesting to see what they do or don't with this theory.
I think the biggest problem with the dark energy plot is it directly contradicts the Reapers' previous motives
They built the mass relays and the citadel so that organic races would evolve in a pattern they could exploit, if they were worried about dark energy caused by mass effect usage why not just let organic races evolve without the relays so that alternate discoveries could be made
They basically stifled the ability for an organic race to come up with a solution, then harvest them for failing to develop one
Personally I prefer the ending we got, I just think it needed more time in the oven to shine
The problem with ME3âs ending isnât the 3 colors endings (even though I wouldnât have complained if there were more, or if they were more distinct), but the starbrat giving us a choice on what to do.
We should NOT have had a choice on what happened in the end of ME3. Not at this moment, at least.
Up to this point, weâd had 3 games to make decisions. The Green/Blue/Red ending should have been decided automatically based off the choices we made through our journey.
About the Dark Energy plot, thatâs something I had heard about, and as a matter of fact, I remember very well that I noticed hints about Dark Energy back in ME1 (a log about a planet being destroyed by it, iirc), and when ME2 gave us more infos about it through Taliâs recruitment mission, I was convinced this was where ME3 would go.
Seems like at the time I was right, but it was then changed.
You make a good point about that plot though: if itâs a universal threat, then what happens in the Milky Way isnât enough to change that.
But in that case, we could then imagine that there are Reapers doing the same thing (stoping organics from using dark energy) in all galaxies, effectively stoping the end of the universe from happening too fast, and the Milky Way managing to get rid of their own Reapers wouldnât change anything to the universal success of the Space Squid Machines, meaning that in the end, everyone is happy! Yay!
See? If I can come up with something, Iâm sure the professional writers at BioWare could have found a way to make the dark energy plot work out.
Haha! Thing is that while there are some smart people working at Bioware - the smartest people are usually fans like you :)
Pretty much because Mass effect fans think pretty much the same like the developers of BioWare themselves they probably had everything thought out right but due to EA's is scrutiny they had very little time to properly flesh it out I feel so sorry for how much the studio has fallen ever since Mass effect 3 rushed development hell đ„
I personally prefer the dark energy plot over the synthetic vs organic plot because Shepherd potentially has already shown that synthetics and organics can live in peace with the Geth and Quarians rendering the Reapers argument null and void and explaining it wouldn't be that hard they could've just say "the very thing that allows intergalactic travel to exist is the same thing that's accelerating the death of the galaxy" it would've been the toughest choice in the series allowing the current society to continue potentially to the end of everything or letting the Reapers to continue allowing life to continue.
P.S I'm sure anyone who has watched Gurren Lagann can see familiar plot points just replace "dark" with "spiral" and "Reaper" with "anti-spiral" and you have the plot for the second half of the series.
"Along the paths we desire...."
It's true that as many have pointed out, the dark energy plot line is problematic when you start wondering why Reapers would leave their technology lying around to be used by organics if it's so dangerous.
What I like about the synthetics vs organics motivation is how incredibly flawed it is. The Leviathans essentially programmed a synthetic to find a solution against itself - of course the conclusion would be nonsensical. The request in itself was unbelievably paradoxical. I find it fascinating because in ME3, it becomes obvious that the path to peace between synthetics and organics is to acknowledge their individuality, recognize them as people while accepting that they function differently. The Leviathans asked their AI to be an AI only, and to act on the premise that it would unavoidably destroy its creators. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Facing the very complex result of such a paradoxical demand is Shepard, who, no matter how you play them, has a very different way of working. Shepard addresses problems one at a time - they're a soldier, not a philosopher. They go to individuals, listen to their problems, and try to find solutions - whether it advantages everyone or no varies according to Paragon or Renegade. The incredibly complex problems of the Leviathans and the Reapers is solved when taken on a smaller scale. To the paradox of synthetic existence, Shepard finds a simple answer. Whether it's "they're people to me, and so peace can be achieved", or "destroying synthetics is the only way to save organics", in any case, it is implied that their solution is the best for today, and they will address future problems tomorrow, as they arise.
The ME3 endings are far from perfect and, in many cases, quite nonsensical (how are we able to rewrite everyone's DNA with a huge blast? Okay, the Crucible is Prothean technology, but I'm pretty sure even they didn't know how to do that), but the idea of Reapers being a symptom of organics' fear of synthetics is pretty good in my eyes.
Controversial opinion: The mass effect dark energy plot could work in a sequel for any ending of the OG ME3 trilogy
In the original plot by Karpishin which got leaked, Shepard had a choice of either destroying Reparers, and leave everyone deal with the dark energy problem themselves, or sacrificing humanity, due to our unique genetics (it was also the reason why Collectors were abducting humans specifically) in order to save the Galaxy. There was also a refusal option. I believe it was fair that the developers decided it was a hell of a choice, and some players might have found it too difficult.
Until ME3's ending the theory I had in my head was that the reapers were originally from another dimension. Sovereign hints at this with "there are realms you cannot even imagine". This would also make their "we have no beginning" line literally true, since they would not have a timeline that is part of our space-time continuum.
So they arrived in our universe, in our galaxy, and are now stuck. So they impose the cycle on it because they're trying to create a race that can solve the dark energy problem because that's their ticket back to their own realm. It makes the reapers much less altruistic. There's options for multiple endings for example maybe you sacrifice an entire species, or the mass relay network, to destroy them. Or do you make a deal with them and allow them to leave, and hope they don't come back?
EDIT: I actually just thought of this a second after hitting "Post"; the reason they are harvesting species to build new reapers is because they themselves are out of ideas. New reapers created from new species bring new perspectives, fresh ideas, things they had not considered or are even capable of considering. They're repeating the cycle and building reapers until they generate the solution.
They shouldâve combined the dark energy plot and indoctrination theory. They still can.
If ME3âs ending is Shepard indoctrinated, then it doesnât matter what he (we) thought The Reapersâs purpose was
When Commander Shepard talks with Conrad Verner, it sounds like the Crucible uses Dark Energy so it's still being used in that four choice ending lol đ
Red, Blue & Green, at least Shepard survives one of the choices right, so what colour represents the Refusal option so many fans seem to forget about. Shoot that catalyst star child sometime
which is why they should never have outright denied the Indoctrination Theory.
@@workthroway283 They damn well should have and they were right to. It was worse than what we got.
As a writer, I can see a way out of the dark energy quandary. if this "dark energy" is the 5th fundamental force of the universe. You DONT stop it. If the Reapers were trying to stop the inevitable, because they're immortal or some such like that, and they try to cull species before they produce more of it... that's just THEIR ego. They are trying to do a Sisyphean, impossible task. Yes, they are so advanced that they understood the inevitable big crunch, but the circular logic kicks in, if they decide that culling all life in the galaxy (if they think that the Milky Way is the only galaxy with life) is a solution. But is it a solution? Or just their vanity? It goes into the realm of hubris, the supposedly "superior" machines are just as foolish as mortals can be. It's a whole other set of themes.
That's interesting! Yeah that'd be a twist - you end with the choice of doing nothing because you can't. I like it :D
â@@MrHulthen The fight is still against the reapers who think they're doing a good thing, saving the galaxy and everything. But they're not. Because it's not going to work. They think the ends justify the means, but they're not. They're just committing genocide for nothing, of their own ego/hubris follies. Kind of like the Leviathans think they're the apex species because they were there first. They think they can fix what is really NOT-fixable.
The message ends up that... there is no stopping the big crunch, but what the Reapers do, the genocide, is still wrong. It separates the enemies here. The universe is just doing what the universe will do. But the Reapers are a present threat. It gives the Reapers a "beatable" quality, but at the same time, buts up into the crapsack reality of our cosmos. Which Bioware honestly like. They like crapsack worlds.
The reapers are these mad machines, fighting a Don Quixote crusade against the windmill of the "big crunch". The cyclical nature of the universe. You defeat and stop them. There is no stopping the big crunch, whenever it occurs.
Let's be real, there's a lot in the universe that goes in circles. Stars form, live, die, and then the same nebula might produce another star. Matter is recycled. It goes into the impersonal nature of the universe. And that it is ultimate hubris to try and change it. That's kind of a very old theme.
I should add that I realize I'm going way into the hard sciences here. Can't help it. While I'm a history grad, I've read a 800 page university level textbook on astronomy, just because I wanted to write sci-fi. Specifically, I do write fanfiction, Mass Effect at that. So I have a basic understanding of comparative planetology, star formation, cosmological theories, that sort of stuff.
Mass Effect is actually surprisingly high on the hardness scale of sci-fi. It's got real science behind it. Before the ME3 space magic softened the edges a bit. Some part of me wants to bring it back up to full hardness. If that makes sense. I realize I'm a peculiar individual.
Everyone was so mad at the ending of ME3, but I was okay with it from the start, because it was the close of the best video game series I've ever played. Yes, it could have been better, but I knew it was going to be difficult to wrap up multiple storylines for multiple possible choices made over the course of the game. So I had my expectations in check.
On my first playthrough with the Control Ending i liked the Ending too. Everyone is save and the Reaper can rebuild everything. After this Shepard can use the Reaper as neutral Police Force to keep Peace in the Galaxy. Or he uses the Reaper to explore other Galaxies, like Andromeda. For me still the best Ending.
@@Hoshpakk
Yeah but Shepard is dead in every ending but the red ending sometimes.
The dark energy plot was discarded because it was a stupid idea, which played close to zero role throughout the game, and they realized it...
They wonât put it back because:
- It would make the story worse
- They are very explicit that they are just updating the visuals of the game, and they change nothing
The thing is, screwing with dark energy may just be a localised (galactic) thing. In the Milky Way it seems like the Leviathans were the original civilisation and they directed all other civilisations along the path of their choosing, and so they brought in biotics and manipulation of dark energy, and as per the end of ME3, the reapers perpetuated that developmental pathway with the Mass Relays and the Citadel being the technological foundation of all advanced civilisations. In other galaxies advanced civilisations forge different paths and many, even most, may never go down the dark energy manipulation path. So the Reapers are not concerned about the rest of the universe, only the problem of the Milky Way galazy being torn to shreds with the destabilising effects of DE manipulation. The interesting thing about Haestrom/Dholen in ME2 is that this would appear to possibly be a cumulative effect of the millions of cycles that have gone before. There is no good reason to believe Dark Energy manipulation in the Asari cycle alone has caused this problem. So really Haestrom/Dholen is the canary in the coal mine to the Reapers that their plan isn't working. They haven't prevented a dark energy catastrophe they have only delayed it, and not for too many more cycles perhaps. But this is not a universal threat, it is only a threat in galaxies where the path of technological development arrives at manipulation dark energy. But that is clearly not necessarily going to happen everywhere.
ME Andromeda essentially affirms this. Mass Relays, biotics and using EEZO aren't a thing in Andromeda civilisations (or at least Heleus cluster civilisations). If the Milkyway races bring DE technology to Andromeda and clearly don't understand the destabilizing effect then this can create a disastrous situation in Andromeda after perhaps a few million years, i.e. no time at all on a galactic scale.
The Dark Energy plot is actually quite similar to the Warp Drive plot in Star Trek TNG. Warp technology destabilises space-time, therefore it's use needed to be constrained.
Drew, the writing team, and bioware as a whole had very little planned for this ending. And it was a topic very difficult to round out a conclusion from it. I honestly think the dark energy ending would have been worse. The extended and leviathan dlc really rounded out the ending properly but the star child was always a horrible idea. Wish the star child was a more stronger character and not voiced by a child
It was not a horrible idea. Thatâs false
Time for me, an internet nobody, to write this plot:
The Reapers were created by an organic race at their prime. They were a shining example of everything that most galactic civilizations want to become, and they treated the Reapers as equals. They were created as starships, but ships that shared a common cause with their creators and were a symbiotic race. The Reapers would sail the Creators through the stars and they shared a harmonious existence. However, a schism arose between the two races when the Reapers noticed that evolution was outpacing their technological advancement due to the organic ability to harness dark energy. It soon became clear to the Reapers that one day organics would achieve the command over time and space and would not need them anymore. This prompted a existential crises driven by the utilitarian nature of the Reaper AI (we will no longer be useful).
After coming to this conclusion, the Reapers carefully extinguished every Creator life in the galaxy and enshrined them in the first Reaper, Harbinger. In theory, the Reapers could bring them back with their genetic information and memory patterns once their mission was complete. Their mission was to bring equity to the universe, they wanted to see if any organic could create a TRUE symbiosis with their creations, their machines. So they let civilization rise using the tools of the Creator race (the mass relays and the citadel) and watched again and again as either synthetics killed unevolved organics, or evolved organics outgrew the need for tools and discarded synthetics.
This allows the plot of ME3 to remain largely the same. The three endings make sense now because Shepard can answer the Reapers in three ways: 1. They can override the Reaper AI (Renegade), converting them into docile useful tools. This basically says that the Reapers were right to fear organics, as we only have need of machines as tools. 2. They can obliterate synthetic life. This should be the "middle" option between Renegade and Paragon. It not only destroys the useful tools of our own creation, but also fails to see them as beings worthy of life. It's ultimately wasteful and should actually be the easiest option for a player. 3. They can finally create a true synthesis between organics and their creations that will last forever (Paragon). This will help the Reapers finally accomplish their mission. No more will organics fear their creations of vice versa.
It's still the three endings ME3 offers, but it justifies them. On top of that, the crucible should be a dark energy amplifier that is actually using the biotic field generated by the army Shepard brings to the battle. The more organics he brings to Earth's defense, the better options he has. The base power of the Crucible can kill Reapers, but it's extremely crude. The ultimate design of the Crucible basically gives Shepard control of one of the fundamental powers of the universe. He can use dark energy to influence space and time and make real changes in the galaxy. Star child could be replaced with a younger, less hardened version of Harbinger. He was originally a starship who loved seeing the stars with his Creator crew, and that sense of wonder and adventure is still present in him as he explains their sorrow over being slowly made obsolete by the powers the Creators were evolving.
I know that's a lot to read, but that's how this story can all make sense. The Reapers have a horribly misguided plan. Shepard can come along and punish them, or he can understand that their basic assumption was actually not wrong, just their way of "preserving" life and he can help them allay their fears forever.
That's actually pretty good pal
I would still prefer a "Dark-Mater Style ending" over the " SYnthetic vs organic" with our Blue Boy. It is so stupid and Boring and the game itself proves "this Solution" wrong!
The Geth did not want to eridicate its Creator (the Quarians). AND you can negociate Peace between them.
EDI represent the same possible coexistence.
I think the Organics vs Synthetics could work if, instead of the "choose" those 3 options, the end was determined by how much you managed to conciliate the two. Your relationship with EDI and peace between quarians and geth could prove to the Reapers that coexistence was possible (they could then decide to retreat forever or start cooperation with organics). If you weren't able to prove that peace was possible, then you would need to destroy Reapers with the Crucible, or lose to them (not by choice, but by failing) and all life is wiped out
@@Lucassalgado97 This sounds bether than Biowares Colour Choises -;- I could get partially behind it at least I would have the Impression , my Action would affect the ending .
@@mojom.9221 I second this! Couldn't say it better so thought I would enthusiastically concur.
@Mojo M. I agree with you. The Geth/Quarian conflict disproves the "logic" of the Reapers. Plus one of my main issues with ME3 on the whole is the theme of the previous two games was having different groups of people with different ideals banding together to take on an overwhelming foe in the Reapers. I wasn't going to get the LE edition, but I managed to get snag it on the cheap. Playing through the games again and outside of gameplay ME3 is just rife with problems. The other games were flawed but I still enjoyed them. I wish I could get a ME game that was like ME1 but had ME3's combat. I really hated the fact that ME1 is the only game that allows you spec out your squad. Only Shepard really gets to wear new armors and starting with ME2 your squad would be in toxic environments or the vacuum of space without being in sealed suits. Planet has a toxic atmosphere and your squad mates are wearing casual clothes and a breather mask -_-
This is actually the first good argument/explanation of the âdark energyâ plot Iâve heard and the game came out like 10 yearâs ago...
Haha i'm honored. Glad you liked it!
The best idea I ever heard for an ending of Mass Effect 3 was that the reapers were slaved to the catalyst. You break the connection and the reapers start destroying the citadel in revenge. Then, they just leave the Galaxy or go do whatever it is they want because now they are free.
I largely ignored the ending and chose destroy based on my own in-head non-canon.
- The leviathian was not telling the entire truth. Early on the first thralls created Advanced AI that managed to stop the indoctrination of the thrall race, so the leviathan created the reapers to cleanse the thralls and cycle it. The first few cycles went off without a hitch, but the reapers started to evolve and found out that biotics, eezo and FTL were causing an imblance in dark energy thus increasing the likelihood of a false vaccum occuring ripping the space time continium - even though the reapers use eezo to bind them to the will of Leviathan they believe they can mitigate or control it. Turns out the Leviathans nautrally produce eezo that allows them to have a quantum entanglement communication with organics so the reapers went after Leviathans too. The protheans got really close to figuring this out during their centuries long reaper war and coming up with a plan to stop it- hence the crucible, they used the thorian and a leviathan to engineer a form of quantum entanglement to activate the eezo throughout the galaxy binding all eezo together via QE. By launching this, it kills all sythentics that have a large enough amount of eezo (reapers fuel source basically), damages the relays heavily, damages some biotic organics (causes a small percentage to die) but largely leaves organic and synthetic life intact. This leaves the series open to a new trilogy whereby the Leviathans are now dominant apex race and begin to thrall organics causing a large scale organic civil war with the synthetics on the rise. They could do a new triology about this whereby first part is the rebuilding and outbreak of civil war, second part is the rise of good and bad AI to join the war and the third part is the resolution of the war and a new way to ensure the false vaccum is not introduced by the Mass Effect
I like it!
I like the dark energy plot it would have been more satisfying and it could have been a twist I would have appreciated. Let's say the reapers travel from galaxy to galaxy culling dark energy users to prevent the end of the universe. It would have explained their long absence and their destruction could have lead to a sequel where the races of the milkyway have to take on the reapers role of preventing universal destruction and begin travelling to other galaxies
which also gives the krogan a reason to not be sterile while also not repeating the rachni war historical fallout. They can be proud vanguard enforcers for any galaxy that ignores a forewarning message "You are endangering the universe in this way. you have X years to correct or resistance is futile"
@@workthroway283 The problem with that is, the reapers was the cause of the rachni wars to begin with. (Sour yellow notes)
@@MrWardragon no i mean how the krogan were uplifted to fight the rachni but afterwards aggressively warred with everybody else for planets as they reproduced too quickly to be contained. If you fix the genophage but dont have a big bad, its assured there will be another major Krogan Rebellion. However, if krogans are the bloodwave against other galaxies they have a population control.
Except Reapers built the relays which create dark energy. Why would they do this if they want to stop its use?
@@shadenox8164 well if that's true sometimes a little of something bad can do good but a lot will kill you
The dark energy plot was still stupid. Mass effect takes place in our galaxy. A relatively small spot in the universe. It's basically a grain of sand in a vast desert.
The issue of the reapers being restricted to the Milky Way highlights a couple of issues:
- in the Milky Way, technological advancement has been capped at a certain level for thousands of 50 000 year cycles. Why isn't Andromeda species massively ahead?
- or for that matter - why aren't they dominated by AI?
- if the technology level at the end of a cycle allows for travel between galaxies, shouldn't there be far more of it? Including to the Milky Way by species more advanced?
This could be another example of the Great Filter.
The idea that advanced civilizations reach a point where they fail if they can't overcome some sort of universal struggle. In Andromeda and in the Milky Way we see that artificial intelligences have been actively stunting the growth and development of various species for millions of years. This may be a thing true for all life holding galaxies. The amount of species that would be able to break through that filter and progress beyond may be so infinitely small that we would never encounter them. Or, so hyper advanced that we can't even recognize that they're life forms or even perceive their existence.
There's also the fact that the Reapers are not the technological stopping point of the current Milky Way. The Leviathans reached that filter after billions of years of unchecked technological advancement.
interesting theory but one problem. the reapers created the mass relays so them stopping the use of element zero is a null arguemement. all technology in common era mass effect (as stated by sovereign himself in mass effect 1) was based on reaper tech. they left the tech to influence our tech advancement and therefore when we find the citadel it enqbles them to know that their time to come back is coming.
Awesome stuff!
Thank you! : )
I think the ending they went with is a better concept. Conflict between advanced organic life and sentient machines they create is a more realistic and relatable concept; In some ways, this conflict is present in our daily lives, and there are notable examples of AIs producing negative unexpected results, such as when the youtube algorithm exhibited a tendency to radicalise viewers. It has also been a theme in science fiction for a long time. In comparison, the evolution of the universe occurs over timespans that are difficult to comprehend. It also seems that Bioware had a lot of handwaving involved in the dark energy plot, which would have made it awkward in practice. In retrospect, the issues with the ending to Mass Effect 3 are a result of time constraints forcing a underdeveloped ending, not a poor concept for the Reaper's motivations.
How is entropy any harder to grasp than A.I, Dark Matter, or any other Sci-fi concept presented in the series? Being in the genre of science fiction always entails a bit of brushing up on science. I don't think it would have been unreasonable to expect that fans of the series would do a bit of homework, given how much they already explain in the codex and logs.
True, but this could be their reasoning in my own opinion, ofcourse, it's probably some other reason since i'm a dummy
We are far closer to true AI then we are to understanding dark energy.
In my head cannon Shepher gets medically discharged from the alliance. They then ask him to be humanity's ambassador. Which he does for a few years. Then he retires to a small farm on Ranoc with Tali.
I love this breakdown thanks my friend
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The dark energy plot works best in my brain when the Milky Way is the center of the universe so that the reapers can use the center to expand from slash encourage the universe to avoid beginning itâs Big Crunch process. As long as the cycle continues, it feeds/releases dark matter into the universe so it can just grow exponentially forever. Restarting civilizations because the discovery era of element zero and all the experiments to refine and use it is what gives off the most dark energy so the cycle must continue. This is also to make sure every galaxy eventually has a reaper host of stewards.
You make some very good points, sir.
My big issue with the ending we got, is mostly on a narrative perspective. Mainly on the inclusion of the Rannoch plotline, wich is (in my opinion) one of the highest highs in terms of emotional impact from the whole trilogy. It becomes a problem on a narrative perspective because in the best ending possible for the Rannoch plotline, basically the whole moral conflit between synthetics and organics is been resolved. Sure, you could argue that maybe in the future it is inevitable that Quarians and Geth will collide once again, but that kind of far future "what-if-alism" can also be applied to the Tcuchanka plotline ("Can we really trust the Krogan will be nice and they really won't try to wipe us all out again in some distant future?")
So on these basis, if we leave aside the far future what-if-alisms, it means that the final ending we got, and especially the moronic circular logic presented by the starchild is devoid of any true impact. We ALREADY found a solution to the conflict, presented by the conflict between Quarians and Geth. It just doesn't pack the same strenght as an argument anymore.
You asked something very relevant. "How do we keep this problem localized to the Milky Way?"
Here's my idea, on the top of my mind.
Instead of using dark energy to state that it will TEAR the WHOLE Universe apart, it will create "rifts" (Like the scourge of Andromeda) that if uncecked will somehow allow entry to some other-dimension type entities. We keep these entities totally unknown and unknowable, in order to bring back the lovecraftian feel that Sovereign had in ME1... the only thing we know about these things, is that even the Reapers fear them, and they keep being "galactic janitors" in order to avoid the kind of dark energy drifts that could allow these entities entrance in our galaxy.
This way we can somewhat try to bring back the sense of cosmic horror, but at the same time give the Reapers a motive that TRULY feels important, scary, and does not rely on theoretical conflicts that have already been resolved by the narrative, and at the same time reframes the morality of the Reapers. By "harvesting" us, they are somehow allowing life to flourish in a natural way and trying to avoid some type of galaxy-wide complete life extinction that these "unkowable entities" might bring. These entities might not even WANT to kill us all. Maybe just their presence somehow breaks the laws of physics as we know them, and therefore nullify life as we know it (Both organic and synthetic).
Sorry for the long-ass comment.
My idea is kinda in the air, I know, and it's far from perfect, but still it might have been better that what we got while at the same time keeping the issues you brought forward in a maneagable format.
It probably would boil down the last choice to an extremely binary one.
Kill the Reapers, knowing that this will eventually mean dark energy rifts, entrance to certain entities and possibly the extintion of all life as we know it? Sure, you and your loved ones will survive, will go on to live long and fulfilling lives... but you know that EVENTUALLY, after many thousands of years (or less) all of that will come to an end.
OR... don't kill the Reapers, and allow them to complete the Harvest. Give your life up, give your loved one's lives up, but knowing that with this sacrifice at least the future will still see countless new generations, hopes, loves flourish in the thousands of years between harvests for possibly countless more cycles, until the universe just comes to it's natural end.
An issue with this ending, is (of course) how do we move on from there. Either you killed the Reapers, or you didn't. So, the big problem becomes.. either now you have to try to solve the problem that the Reapers were trying to solve, or just go back to your normal cycle of extintion.
UNLESS you somehow bring in something like the Leviathans (or some other weird stuff) into the equation to justify some kind of plot-point that is going to happen regardless of your ending choice
I appreciate your video and the arguments you presented.
Cheers.
Idk I disagree with the idea of "we already found a solution to the synthetic organic conflict" I see little reason to suggest anything has changed by making peace. It'd be liking pointing to the treaty of versailles and being like "A solution has been found to all human conflict, that will never be a threat to human civilization again." A blanket statement can't be made that the geth, let alone synthetics, will never pose a threat to organics in the future. There are many example of synthetics threating organics exist, the ME1 heretics joined sovereign against organics not because they were threatened, the geth were getting along fine in isolation, but because they wanted to, synthetics rose up in Javiks cycle, and their was conflict prior to the reapers hence why the reapers were created.
I also think it's unfair to ignore the future potential for conflict because the reapers work on large timescales, if the geth or another ai rise up in 10k years and wipes out the galaxy, well, that is what the reapers are their to prevent and their was nothing done in the third game to suggest that bigger problem was solved. Rannoch showed over a short period of time, basically a rounding error on galactic scale, the geth and quarrians don't have to kill each other, but that doesn't prove synthetic life isn't an existential threat to organics in the long run anymore than the treaty of versailles proved human conflict was a thing of the past.
@@Noschool100 Yeah, I get what you're saying.
But again, this is the type of scenario where you consider things in the immediate run or in the very very long run.
To give you an exampe... none of us really doubted curing the genophage, right? Or more precisely, many of us probably did, but in the end we cured it because we trusted Wrex and we needed the Krogans to fight alongside the Turians. If Wreav is in charge, though, we probably accepted the Dalatrass's offer and sabotaged it. That's short term thinking, because by that point we are trusting Wrex to keep the Krogans in check, but Wrex is already old, even if we win the war against the Reapers he will probably die in some decades, or a couple centuries. We can't really trust that whoever takes his place down the line will have the same policies, and we can't trully trust that at some point in the next few hundreds or thousands of years the Krogan will again start a galactic war.
Same goes with the conflict between Geth and Quarians. Many of us tried to push for a diplomatic solution between the two of them... but as you correctly pointed out, Javik told us about the synthetics problems they had in his cycle, a form of synthetic that existed in parasitic state to their organics hosts. To me that sounds eerily similar to SAM (from Mass Effect Andromeda), and if you achieved peace Tali tells you that some quarians are already allowing some geth to upload themselves into their suits to help with their immune systems.
That is the core conundrum, in my opinion. All of the choices we made, had a cost/effect to them. If we made all of these decisions (cure the genophage, peace between Quarians and Geth) the possible long term effects are nowhere near secure... BUT it allow us to have a LOT of strenght to throw against the Reapers to win against them.
But if we think long-term (thousands of years in the future), we probably will chose different things that in the NOW would leaves much weaker.
This is why I don't think the conflict is really centered around long-term planning vs short-term planning... but is a narrative one. All throughout the trilogy, the conflict was always organics vs synthetics. But then the lines began to blur more and more. First with EDI when she was bound by her programming shackles, then with Legion, then again when EDI acquired a body, and finally with the Geth/Quarian peace. Narratively speaking, the conflict stopped to be focused on the dicotomy between synthetics vs organics. In the NOW we already found peace, we united everyone, and the Reapers are the ultimate assholes wich we all banded together to defeat.
That's why bringing it back in the discussion with the catalyst, even in a philosophically way, has waaaay less impact, at least in my opinion. It would have had much more impact if the focus was centered around something entirely different... like the dark energy plot.
Imagine this. We went through the game, took all the decisions we took, all the galaxy is banned together... and then it turns out that the Reapers are REALLY protecting us, from the effects of decay. And all we did, all the s*** we went through to secure the fact that all the galaxy came together, it was in a way us fighting to destroy the ONLY thing that was protecting us against the assured destruction of life as a WHOLE, and not just us. We are basically fighting TO die.
I may be wrong, but I think that that revelations would have been a "Oh f****" moment much more impactful, than repeating again the "organics vs synthetics" conflict.
Anyway, thanks for you reply friend, have a nice day!
@@alphamorion4314 ya, but I still think it could have worked. To me the biggest problem was execution related. The geth/quarian conflict had elements there for considering your longterm consequences but the ending just doesn't flesh them out and think that could have added to the catalyst argument.
Maybe have other ai rise as people try to develop it since the geth were spared, have hectic groups form within the geth again, or somthing like that. The game could have done the same thing genophage, by giving the player a feeling of the long term implications of your actions. I sorta get why, I think it's down the the ending not having enough development time or resources but also, like you said, I think the devs wanted to player to feel good about helping wrex or helping legion save his people and not worry about the implications so the ending just brushes that stuff off, like "ya the krogan and synthetics are fine, don't worry about it".
So ya, the story we got didn't delv into the real long term implications but I think it could have and I think that would have really added to the ending we got, which is why I don't mind it.
Oh man I remember playing ME3 immediately after launch and the outrage the endings caused.
Now pull up a chair and I'll let you youngens know why the ending was so controversial even after the extended ending was released...
Picture it... Scicily 1893 lol I kid I kid.
The rage over the ending of 3 came down to what was essentially a decade of us being told that our choices will truly impact the story and have it all get boiled down to "What color tray do you want us to serve your meal of Liver, Onions, and Ramen noodles on"
As for the theoretical "Big Crunch" story line... yes there would have been a chunk of the playerbase who would still be confused by it to this day... so what I would like to see is... I want them to add in breadcrumbs for it within the remaster and ME4, potentially including information stating the extinction cycle sped up the process with the increased usage of Element Zero, not just from the Relays, and space flight, but also the large amount of biotics being utilized, and to really pull it in, have the space hazard from MEA be directly related to an experiment being ran to combat it prior to it being found that it could be weaponized. "Sorry I haven't played MEA in ages so my memory is fuzzy on it"
Now something I would be interested in seeing... for a number of reapers, have them land on uninhabited planets with ruins on them to reestablish the races they were formed from to help you combat the issue they themselves had caused by having the future game(s) be a type of cycle... hit a milestone of galaxy/civilization growth, get forced into a super suspended animation until you're needed again to clean up the mess that got created... rinse & repeat in various fun ways until you catch the attention of highly advanced species that dwarf the level the reapers are at and find out that they too are in a mad panic to fight back the forces of nature to survive this universal cycle and start rebuilding after the next big bang if they can't stop the big crunch.
What about the DLC Leviathan? If I recall, didn't they create the Reapers, be nice to see them integrated more into the ending or ME4.
It could be cool. I actually made a video about the Leviathans a while back! :)
perhaps they will try to regain the dominance they had lost to their creations, but after so long isolated they arent what they once were either.
I can't help but wonder why these questions keep popping up. It's a remaster, not a re-write. The plot's gonna be the same, it's just graphics and *maybe* some cleaned up gameplay mechanics from the first two games.
The question is more directed towards Mass Effect 4, but since Legendary edition is the "keyword" that people look for right now in regards to Mass Effect, i titled it with the ME:LE tag. So it's a bit clickbaity đ
@@MrHulthen Ahh, I see. I will confess, I haven't actually watched through the video yet. I should do that at some point when I'm not about to leave for work >_>
@@Blazieth Ahah alright. Please do! Thanks for the support & have great rest of your day : )
It's a bit difficult to inplement a plot this grand (even as a writer) but this is my take: the dark energy is an abundant energy source that reapers are advanced enough to control, and any civilization that becomes advanced enough to manipulate element zero is put on the path to later control the dark energy (since they are linked) unless they are wiped by those in control (i.e. the reapers). The reapers are then the Gods of the universe and they will let every civilization the chance to rise and fall whether they are synthetics or organics. And none should permanently rule over another in this way. Lastly, they use the dark energy to ultimately end the unvierse by accelerating it to a heat death, big rip, big crunch or big bounce which will ultimately end their rule as well. And the way they control is of course on a large scale basis so local phenomena like quickly aging stars etc is more like a side effect. With this in mind, they are the clock of every civilzation in the universe and the universe itself and they will not let the system they have created be challenged by any organic species that is prone to corruption.
This can explain their motivation in a dark energy plot, but it can still be a bit difficult to grasp the grandness of the universe when we in the games only explore the milky way. Here, my simple suggestion would be that they wipe civilizations all over the universe for about 50 000 years before coming back to milkyway, if the keepers have sent them the signal, and they do this by travelling with mass relays.
My biggest issue with the endings of Mass Effect 3 were that The games are built on making decisions and those decisions having effects down the line; the ME2 suicide mission and whether or not you survive it at all is dependent on your choices earlier in the game. And nothing you've done in any of the games has any relevance to the lead-up or ending of ME3
The issue with the endings we got was not the choices or the "circular logic". The logic can be explained and handwaved to work with ME1's established Reaper plot. The choices are unfortunate and a cause for personal complaint but the only thing that doesn't WORK about the endings is the supposition that the whole tale of the trilogy has been about the theme of "Organics vs Synthetics".
Sure, it comes up and is dealt with but it was subservient to the larger narrative about "Unity through Diversity". The point of the Geth and EDI story arc was only exploring the theme of inherent difference between "us and them" to bounce off a similar theme on Tuchanka between Krogan, Salarians and Turians, the idea of "what is diversity?" and for the Geth issue, it was the difference in fundamental sapience, but it comes to a conclusion by saying "We are different, but we are equal." Then the ending breaks this by saying "We are different, so we cannot be equal" and supposes that you MUST use an alternative solution to the Reaper Harvest to solve that problem. That is a direct contradiction of the story's themes and direction and it narrows the entire "tale" down to something that doesn't describe the adventure as a whole. It has a lack of context to the other themes in the plot, such as Tuchanka which was about the difference in evolutionary steps. The Krogan/Salarian is another analogue of "Created vs Creators" because the Salarians uplifted the Krogan and the Krogan helped until they rebelled because of a lack of cultural uplift. They were made advanced through materialism of technology and lacked the societal development to control themselves with it, which is a failure in evolution and a struggle between the sapience of different organics. The Ending supposes it is only "Synthetic life" that is the threat of this universe, and the only problem-space left in the story but as I said we already kind of dealt with that earlier, and it had a different spin on what Synthetic life really entails.
They are trying to conclude on a story that hasn't been written in the current endings. Sure it might've been better in some ways and Dark Energy might've had its own problems but ultimately I think the issue is that there's not enough seeding of the "Synthetics are the real threat" into the plot of the game, because it proves the opposite to be true throughout most of ME3, contradicting its own reasoning, and effectively making you solve a problem that does not exist, when it seems more convenient if the Reapers just shut themselves off because they are actually wrong about their assumptions. It might've been bad in the past, but it hasn't had any sign past this "extinction-terminus" in Shepard's life. The player has not seen the problem ensue, and the only times they saw something relevant to it, like on Rannoch, it was contradicted. The ending is FALSE. It doesn't summarize the adventure like an ending should.
I don't know how Dark Energy would've been hashed out if Drew had stayed, but it would have been bouncing off the foreshadowing already present in ME2. Cerberus's "mysterious" role but Illusive Man talking about "Advancement and Preservation" of humanity (familiar words...) sitting in his Reaper-imagery chair looking at a **dying sun**, and almost lures you into the processing lair of a human Reaper, a Reaper made from humans because the Reapers are laser-focusing on humanity **for some reason** while suns are prematurely aging.
The "Unite the Galaxy" theme would've remained the same no matter what, but maybe the Crucible had not been the crux of ME3, and Cerberus would've not sought "Control" but they would've most likely known since ME2 about the true purpose of the Reapers and slowly but steadily changing their words from "We fight for advancement and preservation of humanity" to "We must give humanity to the Reapers to make the perfect Reaper, to become the saviors of this world" and building up the signs that the universe is dying, then contrasting that with a choice between the player's emotional connection to their people or the responsibility to ensure that life goes on no matter what. Sentimentalism vs Existentialism. Sacrifice humanity (which seems inhumane) to attempt to save the universe, or go through with your original goal to stop the Reapers with your allies and friends because that's what matters to you. It would've been a binary choice between established themes put to their extremes. Pragmatism vs Idealism. The endings are actually similar, the difference is how ME3 does not make use of previous chapters (ME2) to continue building a story thread leaving it feeling rushed and once you get to the "Big Reveal" it feels disconnected and nonexistent in the previous chapters of the story, and despite it having some resonance with the dangers of AI shown in ME1, they ultimately pick the opposite direction throughout ME2 and ME3 by humanizing AI and then proving that the Geth/Quarians was just a situation like any other and the difference in sapience was only superficially the problem based on the prejudices of creators and distrust of created. The constellation didn't ring true, because it was not well established prior to the last 10 minutes of the story. The conclusion was false.
2:20 what if that was why the original AIs in the Leviathans cycle kept purging their creators. Then the Reapers original solution was as you say but when they went into dark space after the first culling the dark energy out there created by the Leviathans biotic powers the Dark Energy has an effect on the space time continuum or something that amounts to infecting the Reapers and thats why their reasoning seemed so inconsistent.
Since Sovereign was always the Reaper left behind to signal the other Reapers to come in it would be the least affected and would have retained the "original" purpose.
I don't like the dark energy plot line, I can't see that being handled in a way that doesn't feel contrived. Like consider in ME3 we learn the reason for the harvesting, then what? We let the reapers harvest us? go back to blow up/control/ or synthesis as a way to deal with it and end on a cliffhanger? We pull some contrived solution out of our ass that a million year old AI couldn't think of? it just doesn't seem workable to me.
I think it was supposed to be a bittersweet choice of an ending. If the dark energy theory were to be believed, (the galaxy collapsing from the overexploitation of dark energy) youâd be left with two choices:
Stop the reapers, save the galaxy you know, but dooming the galaxy to decay and collapse a few million years down the line.
Or
Let the harvest continue, sacrificing the your cycle but guaranteeing life for the galaxy and the countless lives that would come after.
@@gregmattes2119 I guess that coulda worked on a conceptual level.
Idk if i'd have liked that as an ending on a personal level as it leans way to into the bitter aspect of a bittersweet ending for me, i mean either let everyone die or doom the galaxy. I guess that's where I was going with rhetorically asking if we "We let the reapers harvest us?" ya, conceptually you could but it wouldn't feel very satisfying as an ending.
@@Noschool100 i am certainly a sucker for a bittersweet ending, but, if you think about it, mass effects big decisions have always been double edged swords with dire consequences.
You can let the Rachni queen live, but she might start another war down the line.
You can save the council and destiny ascension, but youâll suffer heavy losses in the attempt.
You can kill the collectors, leaving their base intact for humanity to study reaper tech, but leaving it in the hands of Cerberus.
You can stop a reaper invasion by destroying a mass relay, but hundreds of thousands of innocent batarians will die.
Iâm certainly biased, in respect to loving a good bittersweet ending, but the dark energy decision just seems to fit into the themes of ME so much better than the three decisions for me.
@@gregmattes2119 ya, a lot of progress in the game has come at the cost of lives but I think the ending we got does reflects that idea. Like you said we can destroy the reapers but at the cost of the geth and edi who use reaper tech. You can also control the reapers but at the cost of basically keeping the galaxy under the watchful eye of a super ai, and you can synthesis everyone to solve the problem but that comes at the cost changing peoples very being potientally against their will. The ending we have now isn't exactly happy and cost free.
Personally, I think it's pretty hard to pull off an unhappy ending in somthing like mass effect, or a lot of rpgs in general, that feels satisfying. Players in these games want to feel like they have agency so to have an ending that says nothing you do can can prevent a bad outcome is hard to make satisfying. Even when player's arr forced to face loss along the journey being able to achieve and ending that feels happy or at least a clear win state will help validate those sacrifices. Bittersweet or just outright unhappy endings work a lot better in controlled narratives where the player has little agency.
@@gregmattes2119 It doesn't make it bittersweet, it makes what we know about the Reapers really, really stupid. If dark energy is the problem, then they just left around a bunch of technology that encourages people to generate it. If you goal is to stop that, the first thing you'd do is get rid of the mass relays since those encourage people to use that kind of tech, not deliberately leave them there so that people will use it.
Someone or thing is forcing the appearance of dark energy, for what reason that is unknown. I think that would be a good puzzle to solve, (maybe)?
Definitely!
I'd just like to point out that in the trailer for Mass Effect 4 the camera specifically flies by the hourglass nebula. Seems pretty intentional.
In response to the critique that the reapers would need to harvest the entire universe given dark energy's universal effects, I guess the writers could have just implied that it can have localised impacts dependent on local activity. I.e. intensive biotic use in the Milky Way leading to Milky Way-specific issues such as suns dying too quickly as observed in Tali's recruitment mission in ME2 (which IIRC was an early foreshadowing of the Dark Energy plot). It's not scientifically sound, but there's usually a lot of leeway for these sorts of things in science fiction such as this. Good video btw.
"We're harvesting you organics because your use of the Mass Relays is accelerating the destruction of the universe."
"Okay, but you built the Mass relays. Can't you just shut them down?"
"Uhhh, we are beyond your comprehension!"
Yeah we should thank Casey Hudson for yeeting that into oblivion.
If they wanted something simple for general public, why not make Crucible an actual super weapon? A Giant Lazer that goes KABOOM and all reapers die and after that depending on your choices galaxy continues.
For example, if you've cured Genophage, but Eve died AND Wreave is a Leader of Clan Urdnot, then Krogans start another war. If you've saved Rachni Queen twice, Rachni finally get accepted into Galactic Alliance OR do something else, I dunno.
Like in Fallout games, depending on your choices, fates of your companions, yourself and entire Galaxy change. This would've been nice, simple and your choices would've had even bigger impact on the FUTURE of the Galaxy.
That would definitely be a good solution :)
Here's one thing you didn't mention which is the plot hole that I find breaks apart the dark energy ending. In Mass Effect 1, the Mass Relays and Citadels and strategically placed by the reapers to be discovered by organic life so that galactic society forms along paths they desire to improve the efficiency of the harvest. This means the reapers are effectively providing organic life all Mass Effect technology, and it is Mass Effect technology that is causing dark energy buildup in the universe? Why wouldn't the reapers just wipe out Mass Effect technology if that is the root of the dark energy problem? Why not destroy the Mass Relays if they are the largest source of dark energy before future organic civilizations grow to depend on their existence and instead discover a new way to harness FTL travel? Basically all the revelations of Mass Effect 1 become a glaring plot hole.
What might have been really interesting is if there was more significance to why the reapers were harvesting civilizations. They went out of their way, processed hundreds of thousands of humans, in order to create a human reaper. Why? It can't simply because they think that a human reaper would be helpful in the next harvest, as per Sovereign, Reapers are well convinced of their invincibility and inevitability of victory. So what's the real reason on why they would make one human reaper? The implication is this, there is some kind of true existential threat either to all organic life in the universe, or the universe itself. And the reapers are still looking for the solution by continuously harvesting the technological advancements of organics just before they can be wiped out by the synthetics that each cycle's organics created. The reapers are convinced that the Geth would have wiped out life in the Milky Way soon. But again what is the significance of the human reaper? The implication is not only are the reapers looking for a solution to the unknown existential threat through technological means, but biological ones as well. They must have believed, or had reason to believe, that somewhere in the genetic code of Humanity was the key to finding the solution to this unknown existential threat.
My problem with their motivation is the story isnât about that conflict. there are no examples of AI wiping out their creators. The geth fight in self defense until the reapers get involved.
The reapers were essentially trying to prevent a "grey goo" kind of future and it's honestly hard to blame them given how stupidly organics play with AI
I think it could be like this: Reapers are constantly calculating/computing solutions for the dark energy, and until they come up with one, they have to keep culling the spacefaring organics in the galaxy. However, they were originally designed by someone else, and have no innovative/original thoughts, so another reason to harvest organics is to absorb ideas from this cycle's organics so their calculations can be better. To me that's better than the Synthetics vs Organics ending we got, which wasn't very creative at all given how many other movies and games talked about this (also Geth-Quarian conflict was already enough). Again, this requires a lot of foreshadowing than what ME1 and especially ME2 did.
In that case, ME2 should've been about exploring the origins of protheans/collectors, and how they were super good at manipulating mass effect, so they became an ideal target for indoctrinations and harvests, as they would be valuable for the reaper calculations - Shepard's journey in ME2 would then be to discover more about protheans, culminating in destroying the collector base. Collector base can still be located at the center of galaxy, where the dark energy concentrates. But instead of simple harvesting human for a human reaper, it's a research station for collectors to study on dark energy on behalf of the reapers.
I honestly do not hate the endings we got in the final product. Anyone who says there's not much difference between the options, is clearly wrong - i think it makes a pretty huge difference what happens to the Reapers lol... a considerable impact on the galaxy.
Having a reaper squad for every galaxy would technically be possible. But how would the content of the leviathan dlc fit into this theory of âthe reapers mission is to prevent dark energy shenanigans of those pesky organicsâ?
Specially when they leave the relays around.
It seems a bit mind boggling how some people think this would make for a better ending despite the fact that it also doesnât take any of your previous choices into account which people were also upset about
I don't think we need a threat quite on the scale of dark energy or reapers for a couple of games. I'd rather they make a game where the space faring races goes to war against each other and it's up to the player to pick sides and build/rebuild alliances.
Maybe a faction of the Geth splits off and they are interested in war... maybe theres a coup detat on tuchanka and the Krogan rebelion 2.0 happens. Maybe the one of the council races have a falling out... Like the Turians and Asari are going at it for whatever reasons... Maybe all the "lesser races" are sick of the current council races running the show. Plenty of things you can do.
Very cool idea! Yes, being somewhat of a problem-solver & getting the galaxy to cooperate again could be fun :)
This makes an interesting point. After the Reaper fallout the council races will have effectively lost their control. Its possible the next MassEffect could have different aliens on top since this time they will all be (assumedly) space faring at the same time during the rebuild. We might see Vorcha and Krogan battling it out for dominance or the ones on the fringes of council space make their own council after recovering faster.
@@workthroway283 well the Krogan have tried before.
one of the main reasons me and my friends from the BioWare forums got upset about the ME3 ending was Casey Hudson himself. He had purposely promised that we werenât getting an A, B or C ending choice at the end of ME3. And itâs true. We didnât. We got Red, Blue, and Green. But we felt lied to and betrayed by this. Add to it the hopelessness of the ending that we got, where Shepard was dead, the relays destroyed so that the Turians and Quarians that werenât with their own people/systems would slowly die of starvation since the eventually would run out of food compatible with their biology, etc. That was corrected a few months later with the Extended Cut Ending DLC, but by then it felt too little too late and I was done with ME as a whole.
Now Iâm returning with LE and enjoying the story again and hopefully it will all make more sense and feel better with the Extended cut ending instead.
Tying a threat in one galaxy into a threat to the universe is a hard sell. You have that part right. However, turning the threat of dark energy into a local, rather than universal (pun fully accepted) threat could have been a way out. What if the use of dark energy, and specifically biotic power use were the problem. So, the Reapers wait until biotic species develop, and when the use of biotics hits some critical limit, then they harvest all advanced species. But, it would still require that the threat be local, possibly that the concentrated use of dark energy within the galaxy has the potential to create problems in the time/space continuum that would lead the the loss of all life in the galaxy...of course this would negate the Leviathan DLC, but it would create a plausible local threat while making it a galaxy wide issue. This just made me wonder if a race could cause the Reapers to awaken and return without reaching a high technological level, if they developed biotic powers early in their evolution, and they were very prolific breeders. Imagine a race with 7 billion biotics, but all on one planet, harnessing Dark Energy as a part of their day to day life. Could it ever be enough to trigger the Reapers?
Except that mass effect technology also does this and probably at far greater scales and the Reapers WANT people developing that tech.
Drew Karpyshyn said in the same interview how this ending probably would have utilized: one of the many choices at the end would be for Shepard to allow the harvest to continue, sacrificing present life so that all future life might be preserved, or to destroy the reapers and trust that humanity and the rest of the species currently in the galaxy might one day come up with a better solution.
The main problem with the Mass Effect 3 endings that the extended cut doesn't solve is that all three of them are objectively terrible and result in a horrific consequence.
-If you pick the destory ending, the only one that gives Shepard a chance to live, you also eliminate most technology. You commit genocide against the geth which have attained sentience, the quarians resettlement efforts are likewise set back for decades, the mass relays are destroyed, thus isolating huge chunks of the galaxy from each other and possibly dooming those pockets of life to face alone whatever instability is sure to follow.
-The control ending results in Shepard becoming a physical god that controls the destiny of all life in the universe going forward. Our hero ceases to live in any comprehendible manner and spends eternity enforcing their own vision of stability on the universe with an all-powerful force of Lovecraftian horrors.
-The synthesis ending, what Casey Hudson proclaims to be the best one, also definitively kills the hero, and violates the bodily autonomy of every single living thing in the entire galaxy against their will. This instantaneous transformation does not result in perfect harmony because it cannot. Innate prejudices against synthetics still exist, and those will not simply vanish by forcing everyone to be part synthetic. The idea that the creation of some sort of hive mind where everyone will understand perfectly everyone resulting in perfect enlightenment is just bonkers. That kind of societal restructuring cannot happen in an instant. Brains don't work that way.
I was not surprised at all to learn that Drew Karpyshyn had left the franchise part way through the development of ME2. It's fairly obvious when the sharp change in the direction of the story occurred if you are aware of that.
I wish I'd would but I doubt it, I think there just trying to get your save data updated so they can use it 4 the next ME game...
1) Not being understandable to "everyone" is not a valid reason for not using a good idea.
2) The reaper's logic IS circular and contradictory, and summoning a technomagical child using a device with plans passed by many different civilizations of other cycles (of which it was stated in game that there was no evidence of) was a far worse decision.
You donât need to stop the other galaxies from dying to the big rip. Even in ME we have barely explored the Milky Way let alone our local galaxy cluster that will merge one day.
It also doesn't help that the script for Mass Effect 3 was leaked, and Bioware had to remake a large portion of the game in a short amount of time.
A leak shouldnt cause massive changes like that. You dont rewrite a story because someone figures out where its going, you appreciate that they could understand the story well enough to pick up on it (or just ignore any who want to read the leak spoilers).
I remember the one mission from Mass Effect 2 on Haestrom where Tali tells us about dark energy affecting the life cycle of the local star. I think the dark energy problem could still be used as a more "local" or small scale issue. Only affecting our local star systems in the milky way. it could be expanded upon in a way that could still be digestible to the normal person (dark energy could be causing stars and other things to have problems), while still giving the option to investigate deeper and get more information on what it all means. it could either be a major plot point or just a side mission. but I think it would be cool if they expanded upon it.
It can't be the Reaper's motivation thought as they WANT mass effect technology to be developed as part of their plans.
@@shadenox8164 I never said anything about the reapers. I'm talking about what they could possibly do in this new mass effect game coming out.
I'm still waiting for mas Effect to explore the massive areas of the Milky Way galaxy that are unexplored as stated in the original trilogy.
Perhaps this is where it will all lead up to with Andromeda and 4 and whatever is to come next. I think the more we were going to find out about the Jarduun in Andromeda is that they were a species that succeeded an exodus from the Milky Way. Between the cloning with memories, the machines, and that AI... I think they had been preparing for War. (A war against WHAT?) So much potential. I can come up with like 10 different plots and 50 different endings depending on the variables.
Which is always how I thought ME should end. Three or five choices but depending on the variables leading up to them at least over 80 variations depending on all the choices throughout the game.
I personally wouldâve been all for the dark energy theory
The reapers motivation should've been left a mystery. They were always supposed to be just a synthetic malevolent bad guy who had evolved past human concepts of morality. The why wasn't as important as the fact that they were bad and you had to stop them. The explanation the player came up with in their head was always going to be better than whatever motivation that game presented.