fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3077 ]

[ SECRET POST #3077 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3077 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

[Lackadaisy Cats]

__________________________________________________

03.

(Gorillaz)

__________________________________________________

04.

(Tripping over you)

__________________________________________________

05.

[Stitchers]

__________________________________________________

06.

[Dragon Age]

__________________________________________________

07.

[The Mighty Boosh]

__________________________________________________

08.

[LOVE LIVE!]

__________________________________________________

09.

[Brooklyn 99]

__________________________________________________

10.

[Mad Max Fury Road]

__________________________________________________

11.

[Maggie Stiefvater]

__________________________________________________

12.

[Emily Alice Ovenden]

__________________________________________________

13.

[When Marnie Was There/Omoide no Marnie]

__________________________________________________

14.

(Rick and Morty)

__________________________________________________

15.

[Suppression]

__________________________________________________

16.

[Wall-e]

__________________________________________________

17.

[Ancillary Justice & Ancillary Sword]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 086 secrets from Secret Submission Post #440.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I liked Mass Effect 3 and thought the Synthesis Ending was the closest to a happy ending we were every going to get.

I also think Indoctrination Theory is a bunch of people trying to soothe themselves over picking mass genocide just to save Shep.

I'd argue that Synthesis is genocide as well, although the individuals live through the death of their races.

I don't see how it's genocide, due to the fact that... Everyone becomes like Shep has been since the very beginning of the second game unless you would also argue that it wasn't Shep. Half synthetic, half organic. That's all. They're still them, we still see them having the exact same personalities. Unless you're arguing for a Bodysnatchers-type thing, it makes no sense. They're still shown as being able to have children and such, there's nothing that says that they lost their genetic or even racial diversity. It's just this weird assumption fandom seems to have made in their outrage.

I just think people are misunderstanding what happened in that ending, overall, and don't seem to realize that the Catalyst outright states that it wouldn't be an option if the world wasn't ready for it.

I don't think the eons-old malfunctioning AI that thought the Reapers were a good idea because its creators were terminal failures at programming is really the most reliable arbiter of...anything, really.

It was accurate on everything else. And it wasn't really an arbiter, it just laid out the choices for you.

But look at it like this: in ME universe, a lot of people have something synthetic in them, whether it's a prosthetic, a biotic or something else. They were already well on the way to synthesis when they hit the mark that raised the Reaper alarm. Had the alarm been put off by another century or so, they probably would have reached synthesis anyway.

Honestly if I try to actually think about how Synthesis would work it cannot get over my suspension of disbelief. It's just way too out there.

Also I feel like Control Option isn't an option in itself because you create an AI--a program that isn't like EDI or the Geth if you help them, and would inevitably come to the same conclusion the Reapers did. It would just be a matter of when.

Basically, none of the options are 100% happy, never were going to be, and anyone who thought there would be a happy ending in all of this was kidding themselves when the entire series was building up to a literal war when a big message is that no one wins a war.

Do you think that was supposed to be the Big Message for the whole trilogy? I didn't really get that vibe.

It was an obvious Jesus metaphor from day 1 for me, what with Shepard being the name and you setting out to take on Reapers and stop a war. I think it was never meant to have a happy ending.

I'm not sure how taking out Reapers and stopping a war plays into a Jesus metaphor. If the only thing you've got going is the name and the (probable) self-sacrifice at the end then it's not a very thorough metaphor (not saying it's not present but Jesus metaphors are present in a bajillion characters in a bajillion canons and they don't always completely line up; I would not say it's the biggest part of Shepard's portrayal). I'm also not sure how the metaphor plays into a "no one wins a war" theme (which again I don't think is the overarching theme of the story, if there really even is one).

I don't think people are mad because the ending wasn't happy? I think they're mad because it was very badly written. I know that's why I don't like it. I was fully prepared for Shepard to have to die and being okay with that, so that's not the part that upsets me.

Re: SA

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-08 18:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: SA

diet_poison - 2015-06-10 06:22 (UTC) - Expand

The Indoctrination Theory is a bunch of people trying to reconcile the nonsensical shitshow that was ME3's ending with pretty much the entire rest of the trilogy. It has nothing to do with saving Shep - a lot of the people who subscribe to it would have been fine with the "good" ending requiring a heroic sacrifice, as long as the ending itself wasn't complete nonsense.

(And yes, ~space magic~ turning people into cyborgs is complete nonsense, that is not how DNA works, what the actual fuck.)

lol

And people can be brought back from the dead with science.

Also, to further my point: the fucking Mass Relays and biotics and all that? Wouldn't work in real life, either. My suspension of disbelief was pretty high. There's been space magic from the get-go. Mass Relays were never explained 100% just a "lol we found this and reverse engineered until we got useful shit and we think they may work like this but we're not sure because they're so fucking ancient." The fucking beacons were Space Magic and that was from the very first fucking mission of the game.

Also nevermind that Shep is basically Space Jesus and that was obvious from day 1. There's a reason they're named Shepard. It's real life nonsense, but makes sense in the game where you can somehow turn a burnt up not-even-recognizable-as-human corpse back into a living, breathing person. And not just that, the exact person who died.

Mass relays and biotics and cybernetic augmentation and weird telepathic shit were core conceits of the game from the very beginning. They functioned because the basic underpinnings of the setting said they functioned, and were built to make them function.

Genes, however, were presented throughout the entire game as...genes. If people wanted to alter them, they used retroviral tinkering or knockout factors or gene insertion. Within a reasonable degree of flex to account for a sci-fi game written by people who are not actually biologists of any stripe, DNA pretty much functioned like DNA, and was altered in a manner that could theoretically function as an extension of ways in which DNA is actually altered in actual organisms in actual labs. It didn't at any point in any of the games prior to the last 15 minutes of the third turn into computers, or even get mentioned as theoretically capable of turning into computers.

The magic green beam of cyber DNA wasn't a core conceit of the setting, wasn't in keeping with the way genetic augmentation actually worked in the entire rest of canon, and wasn't even really foreshadowed at all. It just came out of nowhere, and everyone was expected to nod along and agree because it's the ~good~ ending. Hell, the writers could have engaged either their brains or their editors for half a second and said "we're gonna alter people with nanotech, have fun now", and it would have at least been in keeping with the tech shown in-series (the husks, Shepard's resurrection), but they went with a suspension-of-disbelief-shattering space magic asspull instead.

Yes, an entire race being able to somehow have brainsex and then get pregnant with a child that is somehow the culmination of your entire ancestry's best traits and that is not bullshit space magic at all that makes perfect sense with genes being genes.

Re: Unpopular Opinions!

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-08 07:26 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Unpopular Opinions!

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-08 14:33 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Unpopular Opinions!

diet_poison - 2015-06-08 17:27 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Unpopular Opinions!

(Anonymous) - 2015-06-08 18:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Unpopular Opinions!

diet_poison - 2015-06-10 06:25 (UTC) - Expand

lol

All of the endings involved space magic. Synthesis was the one that had the highest level of woo, and control was likely the most realistic of a bad bunch.

But really, what did people expect from the sequel to a series where you defeat Big Bad by punching on Saren? Getting railroaded into a set of universe-changing options available through a dialogue wheel has been a staple since BGII.

Indoctrination Theory was a fun thought excercise when I first read it, not unlike the page one Mad Max "Immortan Joe had this working system and these dumb fucks ruined it" POV.

Then 5 minutes later I knew enough people were taking it seriously that it too would be fucked.

It was interesting at first until I realized it was born out of the desire to absolve themselves of the guilt of knowing they'd rather save the obvious Jesus metaphor than sacrifice themselves for the synthetic races.

Synthesis was really creepy but it was the least bad of the three choices.

However, I also liked Mass Effect 3. I guess maybe it counts as an unpopular opinion to say that, while I still hated the ending, it didn't ruin the entire game for me? I still love the rest of the game. ~~And I have fixit headcanons for the ending.~~

Edited 2015-06-08 04:41 (UTC)

Ahahaha, see, I don't think any of the endings were necessarily happy or good. The point was there was no 100% good ending and you're supposed to be conflicted and unsure. Synthesis is just the best option available.

Being conflicted and unsure at the end of an epic trilogy honestly sucks ass, anon. And being conflicted and unsure over four really shitty options is worse. Sacrifice is one thing, but options that all either involved a) total loss of everything, b) genocide or c) wacky, basically unbelievable, and also really creepy, asspulls isn't the kind of harrowing epic choice they could have made it in line with the rest of the game.

Except it's exactly in line with the rest of the game. The choices have always been similar, just on a much more minor scale. Like, seriously, go look back at it. The entire game is one person deciding the fate of literally everyone in the galaxy repeatedly, with no input from anyone else.

Re: Unpopular Opinions!

diet_poison - 2015-06-10 06:27 (UTC) - Expand

Tetralogy, or more depending on how much Bioware/EA is going to milk the rubes.

But my unpopular opinion is that Bioware painted themselves into a corner by establishing the Citadel/Mass Relays as a poison pill technology in Mass Effect, and then went into Indoctrination in ME2. There is no "good" solution that doesn't involve either control or elimination of the Reapers including Citadel and Relays.

One of the problems is that the few hints that Council races were reverse-engineering that technology ended up buried in the codex or three or four layers deep in dialogue trees. The end result is that most of the fandom ended up taking the "ancient alien, no mortal race could do this" hook line and sinker.

Edited 2015-06-08 22:15 (UTC)