fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3307 ]

[ SECRET POST #3307 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3307 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 078 secrets from Secret Submission Post #473.
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.

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Mass Effect!! I have... reservations about Andromeda, which has nothing to do the ending to ME3 (which I was... actually okay with? with ... certain exceptions which had more to do with the fanbase*) and everything to do that I'm worried about my favorite species since either or both of them can end up extinct by the end of ME3 (quarians and geth, hahaha).

But if it's good, I'll play it. If it's not good, I'll probably still play it, because Mass Effect.

*Synthesis apologist 4lyfe. I hate fucking Destroy Ending with a passion. And see, the fun thing is that I probably wouldn't hate it so much if it wasn't for how the fandom treats it. It's a perfectly good choice, but it only makes sense for a very Renegade Shepard imo. It's the violent, pyrrhic victory appropriate to the violent, win-at-all-costs kind of person that Renegade Shep is. And yet so many people try to justify picking it for their paragon Sheps simply because it's the ending where Shep might survive. It got to the point where it was an instant backbutton if a fic turned out to be post-Destroy instead of literally anything else - hell, invent your own happy fix-it ending where everyone lives, I don't care, but do not throw the geth and EDI under the bus just so your OTP can get their happily ever after. It's not a happily ever after. It's terrible and sad and a very heavy choice to make (as are any of them) and making happy post-Destroy fic where everything is fine is the WORST.

...aaanyway, Destroy was such a popular choice in the fandom that I'm afraid Andromeda will lean in that direction, even though it RUINS EVERYTHING AND IS TERRIBLE. I know Bioware has apparently held to not picking a canon ending, but... ugh.

I should probably bring some positivity back into this reply after that rant, so... quarians! I love them! In fact maybe my #1 desire for Andromeda is a romanceable male quarian lol. And despite the clusterfuck that was ME3, the thing that redeemed it all for me was the Rannoch missions. They are incredible. Sometimes I load up a save from that point and play through them all on their own. The geth and quarian story is just so incredibly beautiful and hits all my buttons and makes me cry and ugh. I will also maintain that the quarian admirals are incredibly well-written, deep and consistent characters and that this probably came about entirely by accident. (And not without a few hiccups - poor Xen, you were so shafted in ME3.)

I really should buy all the DLC I don't have and replay the whole series in preparation for Andromeda. Only I can't decide how to play - first playthrough I was a paragon Femshep who romanced Garrus. Now I can't decide between giving the Kaidan romance a try or romancing Tali, or whether I should be Femshep or MShep. Or what class to play as. So many choices.

RE: Destroy Ending, don't forget Indoctrination Theory which is just butthurt fanbrats wanting to justify picking Destroy and not feeling bad.

Indoctrination Theory has already been shot down by Bioware, too.

Ehhhhhh, I didn't like Destroy either, but Synthesis was just flat-out fucked up. You forced a complete physical overhaul onto literally every living creature in the galaxy, with zero consent, based on the word of some entity you'd literally just met. I didn't trust the StarChild, I'd been given no reason to. Up until that point, everything had pointed to "destroy reapers -> peaceful galaxy", there's no reason to flip your thinking on it in less than five minutes.

All three endings were terrible, because of that nonsense deus-ex-machina creature. The appropriate ending was Shepard sitting with Anderson, watching the victory you'd ensured for the galaxy, and dying beside him.

Oh yes, none of them were set up particularly well. I still think I like what synthesis represents more than synthesis itself - there could easily have been a "peace" option that ended in something resembling synthesis generations down the line, not the weird deus ex machina that we got. Thematically it's still the most appropriate, which is why the execution is so weird and frustrating. Don't even get me started on Control and how dumb it is (oh sure, with the Illusive Man it's proof he's crazy and evil, but it's okay when WE do it!)

But it's still better than destroy. That's how much I hated destroy. :I

DA

It kind of feels to me like the whole 'btw it'll also kill EDI and the geth' thing was kind of chucked in last minute because the writers looked at their test audiences and realized that almost no one was going to choose either of the other options. Especially since they swore up and down that no, none of the choices destroy the mass relays (unless you have approximately 0 war assets and then you can only choose Destroy and it blows up everything), which are...also Reaper tech. AKA the entire reason Destroy is supposed to nuke your synthetic buddies. Okay then.

The way you feel about Control is how I feel about Synthesis (and also Control), though - Saren attempted to integrate with the Reapers in order to make sure at least some of the galaxy survived. It was proof that he was crazy and Indoctrinated and evil...but if we do it, it's okay and everything works out? What the shit?

It didn't feel like it to me. I mean, by that logic, Legion was chucked into 2 last minute because he changed the information about the Geth so drastically.

You met Legion at the midpoint of a three-part trilogy, and the new information he brings plays a significant role in the third game, regardless of whether you keep him or ship him off to be experimented on by Cerberus.

That's a bit different than something that comes up amidst a storm of nonsense in the last five minutes of the trilogy.

To be fair, you then got a good long while to decide whether Legion was what he appeared to be or if it was a big stunt on the part of the Geth or what-have-you. You had no such time with the StarChild. It was just...oh hey literally everything you've been told so far is wrong and I'm totally right so listen to me! now please just roll with this staggering new information and decide the fate of the galaxy. :)

To be fair, the Mass Relays do stop working in the Destroy ending. They don't blow up, but they're also effectively nuked in the sense that, IIRC, they stop functioning entirely.

No, they're not - in all of the endings, they're damaged but can be repaired. They're only rendered completely nonfunctional if they explode in the low war asset ending.

Eh, I don't agree with that last bit. Nothing ever pointed directly to that, and the games had previously already introduced us to the idea that you don't always have complete information. See: Legion. Why would you take his word and welcome him onto the crew when ALL of your experiences with the Geth so far have been negative? Yes, he saved you once, but he could easily be trying to trick you.

So the whole "BTW your option to destroy the Reapers isn't going to just destroy them" isn't too surprising to me. The entire point of the ending was to make you think instead of blindly choosing the "LOL KILL THEM ALL" option. You have to weight the information you're given. You have to decide what you think would be best.

None of them are perfect, no, but I figured that was done on purpose. You basically have to have faith that your ending will turn out for the better. At least in Synthesis, it's only an option because the universe is actually prepared for it (keep in mind that most species have some degree of biotics already and were well on their way to Synthesis as they were).

keep in mind that most species have some degree of biotics already and were well on their way to Synthesis as they were

Stupid question, but is that what Starbrat meant when he said that other cycles weren't ready? That they didn't have enough biotics or tech??

I know talking about the endings has been done to death, but please, have a seat.

I think it's really cool how we're pretty much the opposite in terms of Synthesis vs. Destroy. I personally chose Destroy, not only because Shepard MAYBE survives, but because I'd become so indoctrinated with the idea that the Reapers HAD to be annihilated, no matter what. I play almost exclusively a paragon Shep (90% of renegade options make me feel like an asshole), but Destroy was a no brainer for me; I had been fighting these murderous giant space squids for three games, hell yeah I'll blast them back to the Stone Age.

but do not throw the geth and EDI under the bus just so your OTP can get their happily ever after.

Yes, this bothered me SO FUCKING MUCH. I hesitated on Destroy because I love the geth, I love Edi, and I don't want either to die. I get that this is a war, and casualties are a thing, but fuck.... So many people have already died, and the relays get severely damaged which is utterly devastating for all of the civilizations involved. Isn't that enough hurt, Bioware?? Did you really have to bring genocide into the equation??? Why do you make me hurt?????

Side-note: I've seen some people mention this special upgrade for the Crucible that likely made it so that the EMP exclusively targeted Reapers, sparing the geth and Edi. It'd be nice if Word of God could confirm that to be the case, buuuuut...

I liked Synthesis initially. It seemed like it was the happier ending of the three. But I thought about it some more, and I got super skeeved out by how intrusive it is. So here we have one person, making a decision for trillions of people about what to do with these monsters. One Person chooses an option that makes it so that every living being in the entire galaxy has their DNA altered without their permission. Oh, and now you get to live with the same things that tried to kill you. And Lucy the Husk? Well, at least now she's not gonna try to eat your face anymore. Overall, all the changes were definitely for the better, but I have a hard time being okay with something like that happening on such a massive scale. I also have a hard time believing that a future with Reapers would even be a good thing in the long-run.

Either way, we'll never know because Bioware doesn't want to fix the giant clusterfuck of an ending they created.

If it makes you feel any better, the fact that they moved the next installment to another galaxy millions of light-years away is a pretty good indication that all three endings (and that bullshit refusal non-ending, THAT IS NOT AN ENDING IT DID NOT HAPPEN) will get ignored. They have been very adamant about this being its own game, and not a ME4.

hell, invent your own happy fix-it ending where everyone lives

There's a mod for that! I haven't bothered with it, though. I've heard that ME is a notoriously mod-unfriendly game.

ANYWAY

In fact maybe my #1 desire for Andromeda is a romanceable male quarian

OMG KAL REEGAR PLS. Maybe he got aboard the ship taking everyone to Andromeda, and he becomes part of your crew once everyone's arrived and is woken up from cryogenic sleep. I KNOW IT'S A PIPE DREAM BUT I CAN DREAM, RIGHT???? It'd be super cool if we got to interact with a quarian that wasn't a techie. I'd love if there was a quarian biotic, but I'll take a soldier ~~like Kal Reegar~~.

There's going to be at least one krogan*, despite the fact that you could completely screw them over in ME3 (like with the geth and the quarians). Maybe a quarian or two, and a super flexible geth, managed to stow away aboard the ship?? Idk, I hope they show up, too. I loved the geth so much. ;u;

They did SUCH good job with the writing on the Rannoch missions. I was crying the entire time. Those missions, and the Tuchanka missions, were the highlight of ME3 for me. I cried even more during Tuchanka. I am the biggest sap.

*I'm just happy that there's a krogan squadmate. It could be the shittiest game for all I know, but I am so delighted about having a krogan on my team again. I fucking love those guys, and I absolutely HATED how everyone in the galaxy kept treating them (especially after you find out the reason why they got uplifted in the first place. Fuck you, salarians).

nayrt!

the ending makes me so mad because the game goes out of its way to show how peace can be forged between synthetics & organics (the joker/EDI pairing, that you can convince quarians & geth, of all races, to get along, etc), then the kid at the end just goes "no that's wrong we're destined to be enemies 5ever!!!"

and i mean, really? that's totally bullshit. maybe i'd believe that in ME1, but the other two games prove that idea completely wrong. so stop lying, go away and give me the real ending, please???

my ending of choice is control, by default, just because i refuse to pick the genocide option, and synthesis creeps me the hell out. i'm not gonna forcibly change the essence of every living creatre ever! my shepard was paragon, anyway, so i'm just gonna assume that she'll handle the reapers responsibly.

but yeah, most of the time i pretend the ending never happened, which seems like the best way to go about things, hahaha. and at least the game is still replayable despite the ending (unlike life is strange, ughhhh).

i mostly try to ignore reading up too much on new games before i play them because i don't want to end up spoiled (or get my hopes up too high), but i really hope they strike a good balance with including new races without forgetting about the old ones? i also hope they don't go all hardcore about picking & enforcing canon choices for the major parts of the last games (like the endings or the genophage stuff, like you mentioned); i mean, what's the point of playing a game about choice if the company's just going to override everything you choose?

in any case, i'm going to wait at least a couple months after it comes out to see what the reception's like before deciding whether to buy it or not. also, that way, if i end up hating it at least i won't have paid full price!

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[ SECRET POST #3307 ]

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