The Ending to Mass Effect 3

And here we are, my post on the end of Mass Effect 3. If you don't want spoilers, turn back now. Then again this post is about the end of Mass Effect 3, if you don't want spoilers, why are you reading this? Anyway, I hadn’t even finished my first playthrough of the game when I started hearing of the complaints of the ending. Though it was mainly because Game Group went under, which meant that my pre-order of the N7 Collector’s Edition was cancelled, which lead to me pre-ordering it through Amazon, then payment issues lead to me getting the game about five days late. But I heard complaints about the ending two days before I got it, three days after the game was officially released. How people could have completed the game so quick is beyond me, since it took me a week or two to do it. Then again I only played the game for around two hours a day, combining it with multiplayer.

But yeah, “the ending sucks” was the message I got from everyone, with the main complaints concerning plot holes, lack of variation, and lack of closure. One guy apparently even went to the Federal Trade Commission to complain about the game. Which makes me think “Guys! It’s just a game!”.

 Eventually I came across the ending to the game, and...it’s okay. Yeah I don’t really see why people are making such a big deal over it, but at the same time I can see why they’re angry with it. I’ll start off with the mission to Thessia, since the asari councillor said there was something there which could help identify the Catalyst, the missing device to the Crucible, the prothean superweapon to be used against the Reapers.

However Kai Leng turns up and steals the Prothean VI Vendetta (the thing on Thessia) and takes it back to Cerberus. Jerk. Frustrated that Cerberus keeps popping up, the Normandy’s crew follows them to Sanctuary (Which turns out to be a Cerberus base), before following them to the Illusive Man’s base. According to the achievements, assaulting the base is the final assault, despite the fact that we still need to begin the final assault on Earth.

Anyway, after all that the Illusive Man has actually already fled, having gone to the Citadel, which turns out to have been the Catalyst, and has told the Reapers about this, which has led to the Reapers taking control of the Citadel and moving it to Earth. The Normandy then leads the largest military force, consisting of multiple species and fleets to Earth, needing to land at London in order to get to a teleporter which goes to the Citadel, since the Citadel has had its arms closed.

Now, it’s here where I saw a problem. While it is an awesome scene to see the Normandy arrive, then followed by the other fleets, then taking on the Reapers and the Oculus, one thing that runs through my head is “Where the Hell are the other forces?”. Seriously! The Alliance and Turian ships look similar so I kept getting them mixed up, I saw Asari and Quarian ships, but where are the Geth? Where are the Batarians? Volus? Elcor? The Krogan I can understand because EDI says that they don’t have military vehicles, and the Batarians were all but wiped out so I can understand that they didn’t have as many ships as they did originally. But where the Hell are all the other ships? I was hoping to see many different types of ships, but at the most we see four or five.

Heck, we only see one type of fighter planes amongst the fleet, the type we gain from the N7 mission where we attack a Cerberus fighter factory. What about the Geth fighter planes? What about the Turian fighters planes? I think I see some Asari helicopter fighters later, but in there’s still a lack of other fighter planes about. But again, seeing these two huge forces attack each other was immense.

Going beyond that we have our standard mission walkthrough. There is a point where we can interact with squad members and the surviving members of the suicide mission squadron from ME2, before beginning the final push. After surviving a ‘stand your ground’ part (Which for both my normal and insanity difficulty playthrough was very difficult), we finally get through to the teleporter. Then Harbinger shows up. F**k.

Harbinger pretty much blows the entire squad to Hell, save Major Coats who did the smart thing and ducked for cover at some point, Anderson who somehow made it to the teleporter, and Shepard whose shields and armour pretty much saved him from Harbinger’s lasers. At least I think that’s what happened, Harbinger’s lasers didn’t hit Shepard directly, yet it still managed to blast Shepard’s armour off and severely injure him.

Harbinger flies off, assuming that he just killed everyone there. Well, wouldn’t you? Anyway Shepard stumbles to the teleporter, killing some husks and a marauder on the way, before going to the Citadel, which really now does look like Hell now. Shepard continues to stumble to where Anderson has gone, where Anderson, and now Shepard, are under the control of the Illusive Man, who has had some facial work done. The Illusive Man tries to convince Shepard to join the Reapers, using his power to make Shepard shoot Anderson to try and help convince him, but Shepard refuses. The Illusive Man can then be killed, Anderson dies and Shepard opens the Citadel arms to allow Admiral Hackett to dock the Crucible.

Now comes the point when people start to get angry. Hackett tells Shepard the Crucible isn’t working, but Shepard falls unconscious. Shepard though just happened to have fallen unconscious onto a lift. The lift takes Shepard to...somewhere, where a ghost appears to Shepard. Well I say ghost, it turns out to be the Catalyst, using the outline of the boy who was killed towards the start of the game. The Catalyst explains that it created the Reapers in order to harvest advanced civilisations, in order to prevent said civilisations from creating synthetics which would destroy all life. The Catalyst offers Shepard a choice, destroy the Reapers and all synthetic life, control the Reapers, or create a new DNA hybrid of machine and organic. The first choice, Shepard has a chance for survival, but the other two Shepard dies (Or it’s presumed anyway), the Citadel and Mass Relays are destroyed, the Normandy crashes...the end.

I can certainly see why some people may hate it.

First of all, there’s no boss! After facing Saren/Sovereign in the first game, after facing the Human-Reaper in the second game, there’s no boss in the third? I was expecting to take on Harbinger, but he lives! He actually survives the conflict. Well, unless you select the destroy option. Well, I suppose Marauder Shields is considered to be the final boss since he can kill you. Originally the Illusive Man was suppose to be the final boss, with him turning into a monster. If you have access to the art book you can see the design, similar to a brute. However the developers decided against this and decided that the Illusive Man should use his greatest strength, his head. And it actually works.

 

We already saw the original (Illusive Man) idea happen with Saren, and it made more sense there; Saren was a powerful biotic, he was highly trained in combat and he was an expert marksman, it would make sense for someone like Sovereign to take direct control of him and change him into a truly powerful enemy. Don't get me wrong, the dialogue was great, but doing the same thing with the Illusive Man doesn’t seem right, as well as become a blatant copy of Saren (Though they did effectively do that with the Illusive Man killing himself).

And then we get to meet the Catalyst, who takes on the form of a kid. As stated, the Catalyst explains that it created the Reapers in order to harvest civilisations, creating more Reapers out of said civilisations, in order to prevent them from creating synthetics which would go on to kill all organic life. Many have asked why the Catalyst would create synthetics in order to kill organics so that they don’t create synthetics which would kill organics. I think...did I get that right?

But, let’s just remind ourselves of what Admiral Hackett said earlier in the game; “It’s easy to forget the Reapers don’t wipe out every species”, or like the Illusive Man says “If they wanted to kill all organics they’d do it,”. The Catalyst aims to preserve life, not wipe it out. It believes that it should harvest civilisations before they create synthetics in order to have life continue. While I do feel that the mystery behind the Reapers has now been ruined, I  now have my own theory on what the Catalyst and Reapers are after all of this information, which I’ll go over later.

The lack of endings, fine. After what...Casey Hudson (I think it was) said, yes the fans expected some very different endings. Honestly, it didn’t bother me, nor did Shepard’s death. Before the game’s release, I had a thought about what the endings would be and what the ending for my Shepard would be. And, in all honesty, the most obvious one I thought of was death. I always thought the most logical or best suited ending for my Shepard would involve his death. Yes, an ending where he lives would be great, but not in the way the developers intended.

You see, I didn’t like the ‘destroy the Reapers’ ending, since it would kill every synthetic in the galaxy, including EDI and the Geth. Wow. So, by choosing the ‘destroy the synthetics’ option, not only do you kill off the loveable EDI, you commit genocide against the Geths, a race who you spent two games with Legion trying to save and arrange peace with the other species, a race who Legion sacrificed himself to give sentience to. And you’re telling me that killing the Reapers would undue all that? No! I will not let Legion’s death be in vain! Of course all that depends on whether or not you let the Geth live earlier in the game.

 

The other two options, are kind of the same. You either control the Reapers, which for some reason kills you (Or from what I hear online, turns you into a Reaper), or you sacrifice yourself to change everyone’s DNA. Either way the Reapers go home, all that changes is the circumstance.

And then we get one of the plot holes which people mainly complain about. In all three endings, the Mass Relays are destroyed. And they don’t destroy the system. I’d like to think it’s because of the Crucible that the Mass Relays destruction doesn’t destroy the rest of the galaxy, but that’s not what annoys people. It’s the fact that the beam from the Relay/Crucible catches up with the Normandy...while it’s in warp between Relays.

Why the Hell is the Normandy there? Why did Joker retreat from the battle, after everything he has said in the game? How come he has some of the squad members with him? How could he just abandon Shepard? Those are some of the questions which people have been asking, and I did ask myself why Joker was there when I first saw the ending. But again, I wasn’t that fussed by it. When Shepard opened the Citadel arms and met the Catalyst, I saw outside that the huge fleet that I spent the entire game gathering together, appears to have been wiped out.

Yes, I saw Alliance ships, maybe some Turian ships and others in the distance, but that huge armada I gathered has effectively been dispersed. Since we do not see what happens with Joker or the squad members we don’t pick during the last selection, I can only assume that the others were pinned down by Reaper forces and Joker picked them up, before being forced to retreat through a Relay by, I don’t know, Harbinger or some other Sovereign-class Reaper. Although there is the possibility that a squad member who Harbinger fired at at the teleporter had apparently teleported to the Normandy. Again, possible off-camera antics. Yes, the developers just wanted the Normandy to crash land on a planet where signs of a new hope are shown, but we don’t really know what happens off-screen.

Why the Catalyst appeared as the child from the beginning of the game..no clue. The only reason I can think of, is that the Catalyst created the Reapers, which had the power of indoctrination, or rather the power to get into your mind. I can only assume that the Catalyst has the same type of power, used it on Shepard, saw the child in his mind, and decided that that was the best form to use to communicate with Shepard.

But here’s the thing which I really hated; there’s no CLOSURE! What I really loved about the Dragon Age: Origins end, was that whether or not the Warden died or not, we saw what the Warden meant to the other characters, we saw how the Warden has affected everyone’s lives, then we got an epilogue which told us what happened to everyone years after the game. And, whether you like Dragon Age 2 or not (I personally do, even if reusing the same dungeon was lazy), they did the same thing. While Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 did have the epilogue, we still had a conclusion, we saw Shepard and the other characters interact with each other, we had an aftermath.

Mass Effect 3 has NO aftermath! Yeah, the Reapers either die or go away, the Relays are destroyed, the Citadel is destroyed, Earth might be destroyed, but once Shepard makes his choice on the Catalyst, we don’t get a single line of dialogue until after the credits where this “Stargazer and child” talk about the Shepard, with the child asking for another story (Which seems to imply that Shepard’s story isn’t finished, even though it is). We don’t know what the other characters do after this war, we don’t know if Garrus does go to the beach, we don’t know what our romance option does when s/he finds out Shepard is presumed dead. Hell, we don’t even see if the other characters even learn that Shepard has died, or that the Reaper threat is over, or that the Citadel has been destroyed.

One of the more popular theories for the ending though is the Indoctrination Theory. For those who haven’t heard of the Indoctrination Theory, here’s a Youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythY_GkEBck). For those who don’t have the time, the Indoctrination Theory theorises that Shepard hallucinated the last segment of the game, as he was now under the control of the Reapers. Firstly, I do have to give a nod to the guy who put this video together for putting together a compelling and persuasive argument.

But I have to say, I don’t believe in it. Firstly, the Prothean VI, Vendetta, can detect indoctrinated individuals, prime example being Kai Leng, but doesn’t detect anything with Shepard. Some people argue that indoctrination is a long and timely process, and therefore the Vendetta would not have been able to detect it in Shepard, as he wasn’t fully indoctrinated. So what your telling me, is that the Protheans developed a VI which can detect a fully indoctrinated person, but not detect ANY hints of indoctrination? And about nobody seeing the kid? Anderson has left when Shepard hears the kid, and the kid has left when Anderson returns. The reason why nobody helps the kid on the shuttle? True, maybe they can't see him. Or everyone on that shuttle are jerks.

But what really gets me about this theory, is that many people have complained that their decisions in the game does not affect the outcome much; except whether or not you get the geth or the quarians or both join your cause, whether you help Wrex cure the genophage or follow the salarian Dalatress and get her fleet’s support, doing certain missions before they expire, whether the Earth gets destroyed, etc etc.

But if Shepard was indoctrinated and the ending was a hallucination, then that means that not only did every decision in Mass Effect 3 not matter, but neither did every decision in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. Every single decision, every single ally made, every single line of dialogue, would be completely, and utterly, pointless. Also, we really have no idea what truly happened. Did the Normandy crew actually survive? Did the choice actually make a difference? Did the Reapers actually survive and we only think we destroyed them? The Indoctrination Theory only raises more questions.

My own personal theory, is that a long, long time ago, an advanced species created the Citadel and the Mass Relays, and implanted the Citadel with the Catalyst, a form of VI (Maybe even an AI). The species tasked the Catalyst with devising a way to protect all life. An event however, similar to the Geth and Quarians going to war occurred, which the Catalyst saw as a recurring event; which it is, as Javik says a similar event occurred during his cycle, and humanity almost caused a technological Apocalypse with Project Overlord. The Catalyst therefore calculated that eventually, organics will create a synthetic life form which would go on to wipe out all life.

The Catalyst therefore designed the Reapers, somehow creating the first one (Most likely Harbinger, as he’s the most powerful) and harvesting current civilisations and creating more Reapers. Rinse and repeat. The Catalyst keeps ordering the Reapers to harvest civilisations, sparing the younger races in order to give them a chance; the Catalyst deciding every 50000 years on whether the current society is in danger of creating Skynet. So really, this is all the Quarians fault for creating the Geth (Even if the Geth don’t want to kill organics) and the humans for turning a human into an AI. There’s my theory behind the Catalyst and the origins of the Reapers anyway.

So is the ending to Mass Effect 3 the best? No. Do I hate it? No. Yeah the ending has problems but it’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. The developers have had so much hassle over this, they’re developing a download entitled ‘The Extended Cut’, where there’ll be extra cinematics and some closure to better explain the ending. The main problem, however, is that, as the last in the trilogy, there were high expectations on the game, especially the ending. The ending felt rushed, but it's not really something that frustrates me, it's just lacklustre.

Some people have even stated that they’re “no longer going to buy any downloads until the game’s ending is rectified”, the problem with this is that the Extended Cut and the only other proper DLC since the game’s release (The multiplayer DLC Resurgence pack) have been FREE. I am one of those people who think that people who put time, work and effort into something for us gamers, they should be paid for it. How would you feel about putting so much work into something, only to not get paid for it.

So, in short, it's disappointing, but not devastating. Whatever happens, let’s just hope that the Extended Cut gives us a more clarified ending.

P.S. Where were the Scions and Praetorians? And the Geth's Hopper, Armature, Colossus, and Juggernauts?