New guy here. Im glad I have found this site.

Glad you found the forum!

I'm still of the opinion that the Mass Effect series is one of the best video game stories ever told, and that opinion more or less stems from embracing the Indoctrination Theory.

I remember when ME3 came out - I was on the fence about it, held off from a purchase for a month or so. I read the raging about day one DLC, and then a week later I saw people raging about the three-colours ending.

Despite the anger going around, I picked up the game myself, and started playing it. From the encounter with the kid on Earth, I found myself questioning what I was seeing. Then the dreams started coming, and I was convinced something was going on. I finished the game (chose red), watched the breath scene and instantly jumped online looking for talk about hallucinations. It didn't take long to find.

After years of battling away in debate on the Bioware forums, it seemed to me that a quite lot of the hate for the Indoctrination Theory came from people who were unwilling to accept that others found the story engaging and enjoyed looking into it in detail. Then there was the inevitable clashing of heads with those who adopted Control or Synthesis as their ideal ending - if you follow the Indoctrination Theory, it pretty much follows that anyone choosing blue or green has been duped, and that's understandably hard to take.

But yeah, Bioware always had a habit of adding twists and turns in their games, and they've all but admitted that indoctrination was intended to play a part in the ending (with the player losing physical control of Shepard during the final sequences). They did something similar with their Neverwinter Nights DLC and the psionically-induced "victory feast".

ThatGuyYouKnow wrote:So for years I have been a ME fan just like all of you here. About 2 years ago I really got into the IT. I did a lot of research, viewed a lot of vids and read a lot of theories. I love IT, but what caused me to search for this group was the absolute hate for it. I had joined a group about 6 months ago. It was a discussion group, but I soon learned that its only a discussion group for a certain group of people. IT is so hated and causes so much anger in people. Why? I have no idea and as a ME fan I just wanted to discuss all aspects of ME with like minds. When it come to IT that is just very hard to do. I couldn't believe the level of anger and frustration that come from those on the other side. My post got deleted, my comments got deleted and my discussions. So Im sure a lot of you have been here much longer. Why is IT so hated?

Welcome!

About your topic, it bugs me a lot to find people that actually liked the ending and defend it all the way through.

If there is an argument to contest all of this and show why IT is true, there is one that is undeniable: Starchild.

Why and how the f* is the catalyst based on the model of the child that died on earth? Thousands/millions other children surely died during the war, why does he bothers shep so much? We dont have dreams about our squad that died on Akuze, right?

Even if the boy was that important for shep, no reference of this is made to anyone (Liara maybe i guess), how could the catalyst know by any means that the kid was that important? If they were in his mind, right? Exactly.

That is a part of what pisses people off. IT distorts all the information in order to fix the ending in its favor. Altho it does that in a excellent way, people tend to rage against it because it bends information of everything there is in the trilogy, and I must agree that some arguments are kinda nonsense. But without these kind of arguments, the theory still remains really strong and consistent, mainly because of the starchild. And I wont even talk about why the refusal ending has the starchild talking with reaper voice.

In the end, here is the only place you will be able to discuss about it without being flamed. Feel yourself at home here.

The guy who hands Hackett a note saying someone made it to the Citadel is the same guy who was killed in the beginning of the game. Pretty big hint something is off, intentionally.



Bald dude in the middle