(XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV!

Pyramid Song.. Radiohead

"I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
And all the figures I used to see

All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little rowboat
There was nothing to fear, nothing to doubt"

how the fuck did i end up top with this?  

spotlessvoid wrote:When you introduce outside content to interpret fiction, particularly something as vast, vague, and contradictory as Christianity and it's texts, the danger of confirmation bias increases exponentially, especially when the work of fiction originates from  a  country who's cultural origins and language's etymology is largely inherited from that religion.

Basically, just because there are themes and names that can sometimes be attributed to Christianity doesn't mean there is authorial intent to relay a series of interconnecting clues pointing to any larger thematic or narrative meaning.

I agree, this is why my view on the thing is still a theory and will remain so until a very hypothetical confirmation.

But on the other hand, christian and jewish religious symbolism is so firmly rooted in occidental culture that it is tied to secular and general ideas which are absolutely not random. (same with more antic religion)
Judas and anything related to him = traitor
The citadel is a place of treachery coming from a totally unexpected corner
Geth did betray something or someone or are part of that treachery

Ark of covenant = contract, a pact
There is a pact between humans and something which thinks of himself as a god.

Heretic = divergeant from the main faith or ideas
It's possible non heretic geth do believe in another god than the reapers, not just in their own futur like Legion said (Legion who is keeping a lot of things from Shep BTW)

resurrected Jesus = savior
Shep is the key to save the galaxy resurrected by Cerberus which is guarding the passage between the realm of death and the realm of the livings = project codename Lazarus.

See, the use of religious elements convey a message which is not tied to christianity but to the ME story.
And it works the same with all the other allegories of other religions contained in ME. (at least that's what I think and my evidences are the ties between the asari and the Ancient Egyptian religion)

Rifneno wrote:tb;td.  Too bullshit; didn't read.

How are you gonna understand that game if you close yourself shut from others' ideas?

vlad78 wrote:

Rifneno wrote:tb;td.  Too bullshit; didn't read.

How are you gonna understand that game if you close yourself shut from others' ideas?

the only reason any of are on here at all is to debate what the fuck happened, and try and second guess what the feck was going through Mac the Hack's head when he wrote it.

Indoctrination explains it all. Will Hackboy have the bollocks to do a reveal tho?

vlad78 wrote:

Rifneno wrote:tb;td.  Too bullshit; didn't read.

How are you gonna understand that game if you close yourself shut from others' ideas?

This human is learning the power of copping out and shutting up. Already putting it to practical use. Impressive.

;)

smash016 wrote:That's a sound view, but I don't believe the average US game or work of fiction references Christianity and similar themes as prominently as ME.

Question remains, of course, what the intention is. Even if not a deliberate clue, though, an author's likely source of inspiration can be informative.

smash016 wrote:Coincidentally, the Crucible can't function without the Citadel, never could...

Assuming that the hallucination didn't start before that reveal. If it started anytime before Shepard retrieved the 'Prothean' AI from Cronos, then everything involving the Crucible is just the fevered insanity of a madman. Not unlike this "U GUISE, A CHARACTER WHO ONCE EXPRESSED BELIEVING A GOD OF SOME SORT SAW A TREE!" stuff.

>Songs

Proper thread for that.

vlad78 wrote:Judas and anything related to him = traitor
The citadel is a place of treachery coming from a totally unexpected corner

No it's not. The Citadel is a trap. It's no different than a hunter setting a rabbit trap in the wild. There is no treachery because there was no alliance. Judas was a trusted ally of Christ. The organic races using the Citadel were not even aware of the Reapers' existence, they certainly were not allied with them. A trap and a surprise attack are entirely different things than the betrayal of an ally. "It sure sucks to be the victim" is about the only thing the two scenarios have in common.

This is exactly why these theories are a joke, and a bad one at that. The reason the original IT threads were great is because we threw away garbage like this and focused on scientific method and good peer review. These "CHRISTNAITY R EVERYWHERE" posts are more a literalist parody of an IT'er than a real one.

This is why the scary door was made - for random ideas with no solid backing that aren't worthy of the real thread. Take this shit there.

Geth did betray something or someone or are part of that treachery

How do you keep affording so much acid?

resurrected Jesus = savior
Shep is the key to save the galaxy resurrected by Cerberus which is guarding the passage between the realm of death and the realm of the livings = project codename Lazarus.

Christ's main traits were being very peace-loving and preaching forgiveness and acceptance. He said "turn the other cheek" in that the proper response to being slapped is to let them slap the other cheek too if they wish rather than fight back.

Shepard is COVERED IN GUNS. Shepard has killed countless people and the so-called salvation he achieves is made through brutal, relentless determination to destroy his enemies at absolutely any cost.

Your analogy is hilariously bad and you should feel hilariously bad about it.

vlad78 wrote:How are you gonna understand that game if you close yourself shut from others' ideas?

Cute. Newbie's going to school me on lore. I don't know whether to laugh or hate.

Scientific method...

Bitch please. Knock it off.

And yeah, circular reasoning is not as universally applicable as you'd like. Too bad, cuz it makes for cool one-liners and gifs apparently.

Look, I'll just stop posting about stuff that doesn't fit the IT dogma. It's better for everyone. Let's stop pestering each other ok?

smash016 wrote:

Spoiler:

The London beam site? How?

vlad78 wrote:Judas and anything related to him = traitor

Ah, but was he? According to the gnostic gospels, the opposite was true. Judas was Jesus' favourite disciple, the only one to truly understand him; he was the only disciple who knew what was going to happen, and so Judas died in Jesus' place (some gospels say on the cross, some gospels say he was burned), so Jesus could live. So in this version, Judas is Jesus' saviour. This is also more or less what Muslims learn about Jesus.

I guess it depends which version of the story you want to believe. I mean, how far do you want to take this?

vlad78 wrote:The citadel is a place of treachery coming from a totally unexpected corner

I have protested this earlier. It is not a place of treachery. It's a trap. Totally different. The Reapers left the Citadel for organics to find. Organics who weren't even aware the Reapers existed. Organics started using it, and once the time was right, the Reapers would spring the trap. This is not the same as betrayal. A traitor is someone who pretends to be (or once was) your friend and then stabs you in the back. No such thing happened. The Reapers have never pretended to be our friends or allies.

With all respect, I think you're interpreting "betrayal" extremely liberally, especially if you're into etymology. IMHO.

vlad78 wrote:Ark of covenant = contract, a pact
There is a pact between humans and something which thinks of himself as a god.

What pact do you mean? The deal between Shepard and Leviathan?

Leviathans see themselves as the apex race. They never took the word god in their mouth. Neither did the Reapers, but at least we have the Geth heretics who regard them as such.

Rifneno wrote:

smash016 wrote:Coincidentally, the Crucible can't function without the Citadel, never could...

Assuming that the hallucination didn't start before that reveal.  If it started anytime before Shepard retrieved the 'Prothean' AI from Cronos, then everything involving the Crucible is just the fevered insanity of a madman.  Not unlike this "U GUISE, A CHARACTER WHO ONCE EXPRESSED BELIEVING A GOD OF SOME SORT SAW A TREE!" stuff.

>Songs

Proper thread for that.

vlad78 wrote:Judas and anything related to him = traitor
The citadel is a place of treachery coming from a totally unexpected corner

No it's not.  The Citadel is a trap.  It's no different than a hunter setting a rabbit trap in the wild.  There is no treachery because there was no alliance.  Judas was a trusted ally of Christ.  The organic races using the Citadel were not even aware of the Reapers' existence, they certainly were not allied with them.  A trap and a surprise attack are entirely different things than the betrayal of an ally.  "It sure sucks to be the victim" is about the only thing the two scenarios have in common.

This is exactly why these theories are a joke, and a bad one at that.  The reason the original IT threads were great is because we threw away garbage like this and focused on scientific method and good peer review.  These "CHRISTNAITY R EVERYWHERE" posts are more a literalist parody of an IT'er than a real one.

This is why the scary door was made - for random ideas with no solid backing that aren't worthy of the real thread.  Take this shit there.

Geth did betray something or someone or are part of that treachery

How do you keep affording so much acid?

resurrected Jesus = savior
Shep is the key to save the galaxy resurrected by Cerberus which is guarding the passage between the realm of death and the realm of the livings = project codename Lazarus.

Christ's main traits were being very peace-loving and preaching forgiveness and acceptance.  He said "turn the other cheek" in that the proper response to being slapped is to let them slap the other cheek too if they wish rather than fight back.

Shepard is COVERED IN GUNS.  Shepard has killed countless people and the so-called salvation he achieves is made through brutal, relentless determination to destroy his enemies at absolutely any cost.

Your analogy is hilariously bad and you should feel hilariously bad about it.

vlad78 wrote:How are you gonna understand that game if you close yourself shut from others' ideas?

Cute.  Newbie's going to school me on lore.  I don't know whether to laugh or hate.

1 - Circular logic hu?
What about 'I dont awn't to even consider your theory because I don't want to consider you theory.'

2 - About trees :
You're free to ignore coincidences which seem bigger than mere random events.
I call them potential hints.

If you agree to the possibility of some parts of the game to be a dream, then you simply cannot ignore symbolism and its potential use as a story telling device.
BTW the use of cultural references is as much a scientific study as can be concerning the analysis of a fictional story?

3 - Trap of treachery
Interesting semantic point, straight on point.
This is where the convenant takes place.

On one hand, Reapers created the citadel and the relays to channel the development of organics toward the desired path which leads to the harvest. It's indeed a trap. It's also a depiction of events ignoring the other protagonist.

On the other hand, we have potentially the leviathan (or leviathans) who's been uplifting and manipulating organics during each cycles in order to break those cycles and has been posing as a god and never warned organics about the citadel and the harvest for fear of being discovered because he knew he couldn't defeat the reapers before the current cycle.
If we speculate Leviathan made a pact with all organic civilizations (and perhaps even the geth) during their infancy helping them in order to use them as tools against the reapers, wouldn't keeping the secret of the citadel and the harvest be a betrayal?

Yes it would imho.
Would the decision of some geth to serve the reapers instead of the potential one legitimate god and ruler of the galaxy be a betrayal, yes it would.

- Jesus
Jesus main message was tolerance and love of your brethen. I totally agree.
But the Catholic church, the crusaders, the inquisition and every human who killed in his name beg to disagree.

I think the important element here is the notion of savior, not Jesus' ethic or philosophy.

Using JC in a fiction is not like using a package, you can use any part of his story you want.
Despite your objection, someone being resurrected and gathering 12 companions, is reminicent of Jesus Christ, it's an unescapable fact.

I do not discard the possibility of a coincidence but still.

And there's no blasphemy about it. God has probably better things to do anyway.

- I hope you do not presume to know me only by watching my number of posts and date of registration on this forum which is only a short lived digital avatar.
Do you?

DoomsdayDevice wrote:

smash016 wrote:

Spoiler:

The London beam site? How?

vlad78 wrote:Judas and anything related to him = traitor

Ah, but was he? According to the gnostic gospels, the opposite was true. Judas was Jesus' favourite disciple, the only one to truly understand him; he was the only disciple who knew what was going to happen, and so Judas died in Jesus' place (some gospels say on the cross, some gospels say he was burned), so Jesus could live. So in this version, Judas is Jesus' saviour. This is also more or less what Muslims learn about Jesus.

I guess it depends which version of the story you want to believe. I mean, how far do you want to take this?

vlad78 wrote:The citadel is a place of treachery coming from a totally unexpected corner

I have protested this earlier. It is not a place of treachery. It's a trap. Totally different. The Reapers left the Citadel for organics to find. Organics who weren't even aware the Reapers existed. Organics started using it, and once the time was right, the Reapers would spring the trap. This is not the same as betrayal. A traitor is someone who pretends to be (or once was) your friend and then stabs you in the back. No such thing happened. The Reapers have never pretended to be our friends or allies.

With all respect, I think you're interpreting "betrayal" extremely liberally, especially if you're into etymology. IMHO.

vlad78 wrote:Ark of covenant = contract, a pact
There is a pact between humans and something which thinks of himself as a god.

What pact do you mean? The deal between Shepard and Leviathan?

Leviathans see themselves as the apex race. They never took the word god in their mouth. Neither did the Reapers, but at least we have the Geth heretics who regard them as such.

I think I answered as well as I could in the previous post.

Maybe we should continue this behind the scarry door.

Smash:
No offense, but if someone bluntly disagreeing with you is enough to make you take your ball and go home.... well you know.

smash016 wrote:Scientific method...

Bitch please. Knock it off.

This is exactly why you're not fit to hold the jock strap of the original IT'ers.

vlad78 wrote:- I hope you do not presume to know me only by watching my number of  posts and date of registration on this forum which is only a short lived digital avatar.
Do you?  

Oh, no. I take in the whole picture. The registration date within days of a certain mod's dethroning, the Russian name, the insane troll logic theories, the hint of smugness... paints an interesting picture overall, I'd say.

Rifneno wrote:

vlad78 wrote:- I hope you do not presume to know me only by watching my number of  posts and date of registration on this forum which is only a short lived digital avatar.
Do you?  

Oh, no.  I take in the whole picture.  The registration date within days of a certain mod's dethroning, the Russian name, the insane troll logic theories, the hint of smugness...  paints an interesting picture overall, I'd say.

 
Well you're quick to judge according to some cliche and again you're wrong imho.

- A certain mod's dethroning : No idea what you're talking about.
If you're talking about this forum moderation's policy an philosophy, I'm not aware of anything special and if  I obviously crossed commonly accepted rules and I will gladly apologize if it is so.

- insane troll logic theories
I'd say much deeper and liberal analysis, the stubborn refusal to take anything as granted.  

- Russian name: could you be more specific? This is interesting.

- Hint of smugness?  
Probably because I'm convinced I'm not too far from the truth even if some (or many or even all) of my interpretations may be wrong.  

I totally accept critics and different ideas, I'll just tell you why I disagree and I also aknowledge I just make theories.
But I do not like the way you discard them without discussion and call them 'shitty ideas' or something like that.
If you ask me, IT is wrong because it is much too simple and starts much too late in the game and ignores so many things because it came to existence before the dlcs and without taking into account the whole trilogy.
Original IT was dead from the start, it must evolve because it showed part of the truth, live with it.

- And this is enough for you to draw an accurate portrayal of me?
Lucky you, I never met so proficient a profiler before.  

And last, Smash maybe a little touchy ATM (that's not his usual self), but don't get us wrong, we might not know or care to know every little meaningless details of the trilogy but we've dug  through it and speculated long enough to have our own educated opinion (and more).
We're not throwing ideas around lightly.

Vlad

Do you think the Sun is alive?

spotlessvoid wrote:Vlad

Do you think the Sun is alive?

On what basis would you say that.

vlad78 wrote:

spotlessvoid wrote:Vlad

Do you think the Sun is alive?

On what basis would you say that.

Your answer please

Don't stay stumped forever Vlad, that was an inside joke you aren't going to get

If someone is saying anadeus is aware can I just say I called it months ago. IT as a part of something much bigger? Called that as well. Much more going on than simple indoctrination.

dorktainian wrote:If someone is saying anadeus is aware can I just say I called it months ago. IT as a part of something much bigger?  Called that as well.  Much more going on than simple indoctrination.

I'm comfortable with never knowing what you're talking about Dork

spotlessvoid wrote:

vlad78 wrote:

spotlessvoid wrote:Vlad

Do you think the Sun is alive?

On what basis would you say that.

Your answer please

Don't stay stumped forever Vlad, that was an inside joke you aren't going to get

Are my available answers only yes or no?
Can I say maybe? or maybe not?
In mass effect or in real life?
Is it related to IT? to the sun behind TIM, to Tali's mission?....

Ok I jump, according to the standard definition of life. It seems not to be alive.
Unless you prove otherwise.

(why am I even starting this conversation here )

Touchy? Hmm... I prefer to think I'm responding in kind. They made me evil, Vlad. (Besides, had some "good times" with Valmar on Clevernoob, remember?)

There's probably a good reason some guys made the Scary Door subforum. And I really have no intention of disrupting the balance of power, so to speak, but one thing leads to another sometimes, you know? You start out discussing harmless stuff in this thread and before you know it Rifneno and his pusillanimous sidekick start busting your balls. For shits and giggles, I assumed, but it turns out they take this place pretty seriously.

Anyway, I plan to keep Scary Door stuff behind the Scary Door lest the atmosphere in here suffers because of my presence. Plus I like that place better anyway, obviously.

Feel free to think that means I take my ball and go home or whatever. We've been there, what is it, like a week ago? Please.

You know why I actually like Vlad? He doesn't get butthurt every time he's contradicted.

You repeatedly fail at backing up the wild speculation you condescendingly pass off as thorough analysis then cry about getting put on blast. Rub some dirt in it and move on. Not impressed with your countless hours of specualtion, many of us were there since Mark 1 and I guarantee our collective knowledge of the game dwarfs yours. You used pusillanimous wrong because it sure as hell doesn't describe me.

In the future, if you're going to present half baked ideas, try doing it with a little humility. The only one taken things too seriously is you. I'll concede to the shits and giggles part, you definitely provide the lols.

smash016 wrote:Touchy? Hmm... I prefer to think I'm responding in kind. They made me evil, Vlad. (Besides, had some "good times" with Valmar on Clevernoob, remember?)

There's probably a good reason some guys made the Scary Door subforum. And I really have no intention of disrupting the balance of power, so to speak, but one thing leads to another sometimes, you know? You start out discussing harmless stuff in this thread and before you know it Rifneno and his pusillanimous sidekick start busting your balls. For shits and giggles, I assumed, but it turns out they take this place pretty seriously.

Anyway, I plan to keep Scary Door stuff behind the Scary Door lest the atmosphere in here suffers because of my presence. Plus I like that place better anyway, obviously.

Feel free to think that means I take my ball and go home or whatever. We've been there, what is it, like a week ago? Please.

spotlessvoid wrote:You know why I actually like Vlad? He doesn't get butthurt every time he's contradicted.

You repeatedly fail at backing up the wild speculation you condescendingly pass off as thorough analysis then cry about getting put on blast. Rub some dirt in it and move on. Not impressed with your countless hours of specualtion, many of us were there since Mark 1 and I guarantee our collective knowledge of the game dwarfs yours.  You used pusillanimous wrong because it sure as hell doesn't describe me.

In the future, if you're going to present half baked ideas, try doing it with a little humility. The only one taken things too seriously is you. I'll concede to the shits and giggles part, you definitely provide the lols.

I wouldn't call this response pusillanimous, no. It's a lot different from what you usually say to me. I like this better.

Well, tell me, which countless cases of "wild speculation" did I fail to defend here? Is this about Meer's accent again or what...

And in what way do I sound condescending talking about it? This is honestly the last thing I expected someone to say about me. Why don't you look at how new people are treated here? Why do you think Vlad says I'm not being my usual self, when I spent hundreds of hours with him on another ME forum?

The problem often is, here and elsewhere, you explicitly present something as speculation, then the idea gets treated as physical evidence, and I should feel horrible. Well, no way. The only thing I should feel bad about in such cases is presenting speculation in a thread that might not be suited for it. Something for which I have repeatedly apologized, but threads derail in all kinds of ways.

I seriously dare you to list "failed" ideas of mine, and examples of me being condescending or passing lousy stuff off as "thorough analysis." We barely ever spoke to each other before our recent unfriendly encounters, don't judge me like you know me. And you certainly don't know Vlad, he just started posting here.

(edit) The more I think about it, the more I realize this was outright slander on your part. Absolutely baseless allegations. Let's just stop talking alright?

I really have no problem at all with Smash or vlad. I welcome new blood, even if that means more scary door stuff (which I'm not a huge fan of). I'm just trying to figure out what the hell they're talking about.

And I don't doubt you guys have digged deep into the lore, but at the same time I don't think this is a case of whose knowledge of the ME lore is more thorough.

It's all a matter of interpretation. Hell, I've filled pages and pages with dialogue quotes that I think have a double meaning or IT foreshadowing of some kind, but at the same time I fully recognize it's entirely possible that 99% of it can be chalked up to bias confirmation.

Is some of this symbolism coincidence? Probably. Is all of it coincidence? Probably not.

Is each and every little "lore breach" intentional and not due to simple human error or cutting corners of some kind? Probably not.

Some are willing to go further in their conclusions than others.

*shrug*

DoomsdayDevice wrote:I really have no problem at all with Smash or vlad. I welcome new blood, even if that means more scary door stuff (which I'm not a huge fan of). I'm just trying to figure out what the hell they're talking about.

And I don't doubt you guys have digged deep into the lore, but at the same time I don't think this is a case of whose knowledge of the ME lore is more thorough.

It's all a matter of interpretation. Hell, I've filled pages and pages with dialogue quotes that I think have a double meaning or IT foreshadowing of some kind, but at the same time I fully recognize it's entirely possible that 99% of it can be chalked up to bias confirmation.

Is some of this symbolism coincidence? Probably. Is all of it coincidence? Probably not.

Is each and every little "lore breach" intentional and not due to simple human error or cutting corners of some kind? Probably not.

Some are willing to go further in their conclusions than others.

*shrug*

About Lore breach.
I said it before but a lorebreach which is highlighted by something or someone saying the exact opposite a little before or after cannot be a mistake especially if it's important for the plot.

But I agree the game can't be perfect and I'm not in seeing intentional mistakes concerning technical bugs.