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

Der Wahnsinn wrote:
At this point, I have no idea why they did Mass Effect 3 ending in the way they did .....*snip*..... but making something like IT then ...... nothing ??? just crappy cop out, I will say again what hell is going on ? They left us giant pile of shit.

One, this is neither here nor there but the theory is actually a thesis. IT is basically a crowd sourced research paper about a video game. The conclusions vary, but indoctrination being heavily at work is at the core of all of them.

Next, you need to remember that there was a huge shitstorm when ME3 was released. There was a lawsuit. EA stepped in and seemingly put a gag order into place to keep staffers from talking to the fan base. BioWare lost its creators. Dogs and cats were renting apartments, etc. To say that an immediate followup was hampered as resources were thrown at the Extended Cut would be simply stating the obvious. This is purely conjecture, but I'd wager that an intended "real ending" DLC was both planned and canned. We got the Citadel DLC instead because the sheople needed a feel good sense of closure*.

Now, having a story both planned and canned is hardly unusual in any entertainment medium. As often as not something good comes out of it down the road. I'm trying very hard to keep my fingers crossed, but.... ugh.


* Remember that the Citadel DLC has both an overt IT segment (Armax Arena) as well as a "there's no way this is actually happening" sense to the plot with hints of something more sinister... we dissected it on these forums somewhere. Basically Shepard is actually in a rubble strewn crater starving to death or at least that was my takeaway.

Der Wahnsinn wrote:

At this point, I have no idea why they did Mass Effect 3 ending in the way they did. I mean we can agree that IT is very obvious, it is still called theory just because it was never "officially" stated that this not theory, but true. After five years .... new IP, aka Mass Effect: Andromeda, and very pleasing statment to all IT people, that stament is: "go fuck yourselves". They are being pussies and avoid sane, normal people at all cost. I can understand things like "leave something in the plot at end that we can continue the story further to make more games, (from business perspective),  but making something like IT then ...... nothing ??? just crappy cop out, I will say again what hell is going on ? They left us giant pile of shit.

The case for I.T or something along those lines was very strong to the point that only someone who has no clue about the ME lore can say they don't see it. Denial is another subject altogether so we don't have to dive into that.

Final hour app confirms at some point Bioware wanted Shepard to lose control and be under direct reaper control, Bioware drops it citing game mechanics didn't work as they envisioned. What was that angle about? I.T? Because there sure as hell is a lot more of that stuff still left in there for us to come out with all this speculations and theories. We may never know. A lot of the original people have left Bioware. When staff changes new people often tend to try and stamp their mark quickly usually ending up trying to be different, in the process stamping over the established lore. It is inevitable. It's just how things work in any industry these days especially software development. Bioware keeps preaching a lot of their new staff are original ME1 fans who took up game dev as a profession focusing on software/computer graphics/computer science streams as they went for college for their degrees. Thats all nice to talk about reality is far from that rose tinted version they presented. A lot of young graduates know money is hard to be made in the game industry, always involves unpaid overtime and sacrificing a lot of their weekends. In the west work life balance is very important unlike the overworked staff in the east who don't seem to care for their health and focus on getting the job done no matter what (Samsung & Huawei good examples of this)

It is the reality loyal fanbase of the trilogy has to come to terms with now, the franchise is now ruined due to a multitude of reasons. Bioware can call it ME or whatever but it isn't that anymore, EA just sees an IP they can milk until it faces the Dead Space franchise' fate. A small consolation might be if in some few years from now some former Bioware employee or even a current one admits I.T was the intent and it failed because they messed up on how they handled it or something along those lines. We can speculate what and how it all messed up but what does it matter? it is messed up and thats the bottom line.

The chance to fix things is still there but that ship is about to sail with them planning 2 more games in the Andromeda setting, thats like another 6-8 years from now. The only chance is for ME:A to bunk in sales and EA pulls the plug, offers the IP for sale in 5 years time. Naw too many groupies and unpaid SJWs to defend it and force the casuals to into buying it, it will sell, for now.

Thanks for the analysis, some things are just too hard to understand for sane, good people especially while those monstrosities are done by greedy evil people. It is always sad to see, how a good franchise is going down and down and ..... yeah here we have an interesting point, it will be the bottom and that basically means the end of the IP, or milking the series as much as it is possible. Both of this options sound similar but there is one huge difference, one means just end, no more new games, movies, books whatever, the second means expect to see this title/brand everywhere and expect every possible shit. I've seen many good titles that became dead (Half-Life) or are to this day milked to the death (Tomb Raider). I'm very glad that new DooM is a DooM, they made brillant job with it, I love it.
But enough those titles are just my personal opinion if you like new TR, good, whatever, I don't want to make off topic and to start debate about other games. I just can't believe how they (EA, BioWare or someone else, doesn't matter) wasted that huge potential with Mass Effect. They had chance to do something that no one has ever done, prove IT then real ending, huge surprise, one big WTF, huge ad, Mass Effect ? what is this all about with that IT and awesome ending I must check that out. After all they could do tons of games, like Garrus chronicles ( The story of Garrus in the C-SEC), or something like that, Mass Effect is a big universe, has a good characters, all they need to do is use them properly.
But no, everything fucked up, the old good stuff has been thrown away, and new shit has been made, very fucking genius.
And now, about any Mass Effect 4 hopes or whatever, time is running out or maybe it's now out of time. What do I mean ? Mass Effect is not like DooM  or Mortal Kombat, where simple reboot is possible,  just put demons and kill those motherfuckers or put Scorpion and Sub-Zero and give them meat to beat.
Here we have three games with additional story content like comics, books. Story mainly depends on players choices, each playthrough is different, personal. A fourth game means enormous challenge for everyone who is willing to do that game. That also means game target is to reach specific group of people. Newcomers are also welcome, but it would be the best for the them to start it from the beginning. Basically, less potential money from company perspective. Game industry loves realy fucking loves, speed invesment - speed income; any long term income is rarely welcome. So if BioWare has zero plans to shock us in a good way in this year, I say take your shovel and dig in your Mass Effect. EA is not going to sell ME brand even if, the price would be too much, but even even even if someone will buy it, it is going to take some time to produce next game. And like I said time is critical here. The more time passes without any good news about ME the more good people lost all interest in that franchise. And no one is going to make a game for tiny group of people. A shit load of money would be need to produce Mass Effect 4, also for that you need a very good programmers, I can't even imagne ME4 without save import feature, ...... ok ok not going into technical bullshit. So yeah as a fans of trilogy we are in the deep shit.
Maybe Andromeda will not be a bad game. But for fuck's sake it has "Mass Effect". Anyone who expects to see something from the original title is going to see huge stinking cock at monitor or TV.  Sad but true.

Be careful not to fall prey to the negativity echo chamber, Der Wahnsinn.  The next game is not yet out.

EDIT:

It's dated June '12, too.  I wonder if IT actually inspired that comic.

A new story trailer has just dropped



In addition to his weird bone halo, the big bad seems to have wings too to complete the angelic allusion.

Side note, the word Anchon meant ruler in Greek, apparently, but it was also a word for angel among the Gnostic Christians according to Wikipedia. Or, more specifically, the servants of the Demiurge - a false god that supposedly created the physical world. Perhaps Bioware are adding some Judeo-Christian mythology to the mix?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon

Eryri wrote:A new story trailer has just dropped

[snipped youtube Link]

In addition to his weird bone halo, the big bad seems to have wings too to complete the angelic allusion.

Side note, the word Anchon meant ruler in Greek, apparently, but it was also a word for angel among the Gnostic Christians according to Wikipedia.

And still I am not hyped, not at all.
I don't even know if it because they never (oficially) confirmed IT...everything I've seen so far just looks incredibly bland and boring. Maybe instead of calling it "Mass effect: Andormeda" they should have just called it "Andromeda" make up an all new lore (since they seem to be partially doing that anyway) and be done with it.
I'm trying not be negative before I have actually played it myself (I'll probably play it on a friend's ps4 before even considering to buy it...and even then I'll wait for pc reviews) but so far they've been making it really hard.
I guess I'll just have to accept it for what it seems to be...a (soft) reboot.

That armor/body suit, Ryder is wearing looks fucking terrible. Sure it's probably just a civi type one..but ugh. The AI armour looked alright, but it looks like he's wearing plastic.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, i'm not hyped...it doesn't feel like ME at all. :(

..our super-duper clever AI SAM, which was created by daddy perfect soldier and scientist, and everything in the world all rolled up in one...

AIs and AI research was illegal in the Mass Effect universe, as far as I recall?

jojon2se wrote:..our super-duper clever AI SAM, which was created by daddy perfect soldier and scientist, and everything in the world all rolled up in one...

AIs and AI research was illegal in the Mass Effect universe, as far as I recall?

Don't think about it..it's clear Bioware devs haven't.

It does seem to be a somewhat generic action space opera. The Reaper horn at about 30 seconds in when the bad guys appeared seems now to be a stock sound effect for any old villain, unfortunately. The dialogue's a bit silly too, imho. "I don't need an army, I've got a Krogan"... hmm.

That new trailer, hmm not bad, looks like a decent game.... but there is that HUGE "but" and that is again "Mass Effect" in the title remove it. Just new game that is taking place in some fancy space universe, that does not sounds so bad. In terms of new "Mass Effect" I think I made my point few times here. But in the nutshell, there is too much I would even say there is a shit load of things that are against Mass Effect Lore.
Oh and yeah, that guy Ryder and his Krogan. Right..... his companion on the edge of extinction. I do not know what Krogan is doing here (I really like Krogans, but their fate was chosen in Mass Effect 3), anyway I really, really do not want to see any bullshit explanation about them (somehow I'm preparing my brain for that).

WeAreHarbinger wrote:That armor/body suit, Ryder is wearing looks fucking terrible. Sure it's probably just a civi type one..but ugh. The AI armour looked alright, but it looks like he's wearing plastic.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, i'm not hyped...it doesn't feel like ME at all. :(

Actually, "looks like he's wearing plastic" sounds A LOT like Mass Effect 1 armor, especially the light armor.

Point of fact, it looks reminiscent of Light Explorer and Light Onyx Armor from ME1 to my eye.

Cora Harper? Well, now! There's only one other Harper I know in Mass Effect series and being a former private investigator IRL I simply do not believe in coincidence anymore. Bitch's Cerberus cheerleader. Gotta be daughter to Mr. Big Kahuna himself, I wager. Hell, girl was on my Ryder's 'hit-list' even before I've learned her name. Now? Now I'm roughly 15% more into her! D:

Below the pic representing the approximate amount of the fucks I give about Ryder's Squad.

-Ryder twins born on the Citadel.
-Born on same year as the ME sideplot of illegal AI research being started by the Alliance, by a guy who was among first to meet Sovereign, and the same year the Leviathan-Reaper was discovered by the Batarians.
-N7 father, veteran of the First Contact Wars (where TIM and Saren's brother were affected by Reaper tech) is especially interested in the use of 'artificial intelligence for human advancement'. He takes the effort to informally train his children.
-'SAM', Simulated Adaptive Matrix. Represented by big blue shape.
-SAM is confirmed AI, not VI.
-Synced with senses and mental state. Designed by Alec Ryder. Signals to node in Ark ship. It changes how the Pathfinder perceives their environment. It seems like it may speak as a disembodied voice within the Pathfinder.
-All members of the team have these implants. They're all connected to one ship intelligence. And the connection is two-way.
-This is all supposedly technology that was possible to be deployed before ME3, and maybe have developed before ME2. Somehow.
-They're part of 'something bigger than themselves'.
-Possible emergence of Cerberus logo on the AnIn one at the end. Or a vagina. Or whatever.
-Cora Harper. Jack Harper. Eva Coré. EDI. With her appearance and likely age, it may mean something. Or it may mean nothing to do with anything Cerberus.

MRW an ME:A trailer comes out

that trailer just kinda left me cold.

New Liara, new Jacob, new Shepard, new Miranda...

Meh..

I have no problems with SAM. It's great to share my thoughts with my squadmates. It's good that SAM has my back. And I have to keep thinking these things because SAM is always listening.

I don't recall TIM ever mentioning himself having a family. I don't think they are related.

magnetite wrote:I don't recall TIM ever mentioning himself having a family. I don't think they are related.

His Shadow Broker dossier gave him a habit of playing tennis with supermodels, IIRC.

magnetite wrote:I don't recall TIM ever mentioning himself having a family. I don't think they are related.

Yes, because TIM not mentioning family in the brief appearance we saw of him before he went full Cigarette Smoking Man and yet there actually being some is the least believable part of this flustercuck.

Heheheheheheheheh. Look at her chin. She could be TIM's clone in the same way Miranda was cloned from Henry Lawson's DNA.

Rifneno wrote:

magnetite wrote:I don't recall TIM ever mentioning himself having a family. I don't think they are related.

Yes, because TIM not mentioning family in the brief appearance we saw of him before he went full Cigarette Smoking Man and yet there actually being some is the least believable part of this flustercuck.

I also don't recall anything mentioned in the novels or comics about a family. So it's safe to assume he doesn't have one.

That and there's easily more than one person with the last name Harper on Earth.

TIM and CSM aren't the same. TIM is the leader of Cerberus; CSM is not the leader of the syndicate. TIM doesn't have a son who pretended to work for him, then turned his back on his father, who was later shot for his treachery. TIM wasn't killed multiples times in the trilogy and brought back each time. Etc, etc, etc.

Only thing they have in common is they wear suits, drink, and smoke a lot.

magnetite wrote:I also don't recall anything mentioned in the novels or comics about a family. So it's safe to assume he doesn't have one.

That and there's easily more than one person with the last name Harper on Earth.

1. The comic "Evolution" is the only thing that deals with Jack Harper before he became The Illusive Man.  I'm not arrogant enough to pass off my assumptions as facts but I think it's very likely he severed any ties with family when he turned into a Bond villain with a stupid pun name about his anonymity.  It is not a fair assumption that he doesn't have any family just because a comic about a mercenary in the First Contact War didn't mention them.

2. Are you kidding?  This isn't real life, this is fiction.  There's two reasons they'd use that name: either story related purposes, or one of the higher ups really, REALLY liked it for whatever reason.  Smart money is on the former.