The red ending. Is it canon? Who's to say? It's the only ending that differs greatly from the others and that's for one major reason.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
Got that?
No turning back...
...
Shepard lives.
Until now we all thought we knew. There's that final scene that isn't present in any of the other endings. The camera pans up to find shepard buried in the ruins of London, and then right before the scene ends - he gasps for air and the credits roll.
But was it his last gasp? Or the first of many? Does Shepard actually live at the end of the, "Destroy" ending or will fans just be left with even more questions?
Well, BioWare's Tully Auckland has cleared the matter up once and for all:
So there you have it. Shepard is indeed alive at the end of the "Destroy" ending. But what does this mean? Is it the canonical ending? Will we ever see Shepard again? Does any of this matter? I want answers!
Nothing new for anyone who has beaten the game with a decent amount of war assets, but in case there was still anyone confused on that last part.
That makes me wonder....
If you didn't romance anyone from the first game and your LI isn't on the ship at that time, is it Joker who does it? Garrus? That would be the most logical answer to me, but who knows, I can't find any youtbes of it.
I think it was Traynor for me.
I broke up with Liara in ME2 (or perhaps ME3) and didn't romance anyone else. So Garrus posted mine.
The red ending. Is it canon? Who's to say? It's the only ending that differs greatly from the others and that's for one major reason.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
Got that?
No turning back...
...
Shepard lives.
Until now we all thought we knew. There's that final scene that isn't present in any of the other endings. The camera pans up to find shepard buried in the ruins of London, and then right before the scene ends - he gasps for air and the credits roll.
But was it his last gasp? Or the first of many? Does Shepard actually live at the end of the, "Destroy" ending or will fans just be left with even more questions?
Well, BioWare's Tully Auckland has cleared the matter up once and for all:
So there you have it. Shepard is indeed alive at the end of the "Destroy" ending. But what does this mean? Is it the canonical ending? Will we ever see Shepard again? Does any of this matter? I want answers!
Nothing new for anyone who has beaten the game with a decent amount of war assets, but in case there was still anyone confused on that last part.
That makes me wonder....
If you didn't romance anyone from the first game and your LI isn't on the ship at that time, is it Joker who does it? Garrus? That would be the most logical answer to me, but who knows, I can't find any youtbes of it.
I think it was Traynor for me.
I broke up with Liara in ME2 (or perhaps ME3) and didn't romance anyone else. So Garrus posted mine.
I'm doing a bachelor Shel final run. Though I may sex up Sha'ira and Kelly. Just cause its totally casual and no "relationship".
Alls I need is my bro, Garrus, and some scantly clad dancers.
Is there a casual option in ME3? I never actually looked.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
That The Illusive Man was indoctrinated was disappointing in ME3. I preferred him as a misguided individual, trying to do what he saw as right. It's almost like in earlier revisions he was, considering how little would have had to change for him to be like Udina: taking the wrong actions for all the right reasons.
Do we have any evidence for when the Illusive Man's indoctrination began? I tend to believe that he was totally free-willed for the duration of ME2.
I think the
Cerberus base video logs suggest that it's right around the time Henry Lawson figures out indoctrination
I thought it was earlier--but that was based on the understanding that much of the earlier stages of Indoctrination, frequently, were very subtle compared to other crazy changes (like sticking yourself full of tubes). Saren is the example that comes to mind.
How much it clouded his judgement is hard to say. It seems clear he was something of a madman for a while before it, so maybe it was a recent thing.
If we're going by clouded judgment....a decade or two before ME1 :P
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited July 2012
Some hours into this now. Very minor spoilers here, but I'm gonna use spoiler tags anyway instead of leaving a wall of text up.
On the non-spoiler side of things, the limitations placed on ME3 by the console market are remarkably... disappointing. I mean, in ME1, going and doing some big epic thing meant a big epic place. There was a grand scale to things. But with ME3, everything is a handful of rooms connected by corridors, and the rooms aren't even usually that big. It's pretty jarring to be told you're headed to save a major research facility and it turns out to be a place smaller than the Normandy.
The gameplay is also often infuriatingly clumsy, thanks in no small part to making one button do run, use, roll, and use cover. I can't even count the number of times Shepard has rolled out into a torrent of bullets instead of sticking to some cover. And I absolutely hate how I have to constantly tell my teammates to actually use their powers, despite the fact that I've set them to use their powers on their own. They just don't want to do anything.
There are also loads of clunky and/or redundant dialogue. People will say things that were just said only moments ago and sometimes the writing just tries way too hard to try and create a moment that just isn't happening. I don't think those moments would stand out so bad except for the fact that some characters get such fantastic dialogue. Garrus and Wrex in particular have such great banter that I just want to clock somebody in the head at Bioware for relegating Wrex to being a secondary character and putting forward ones like Space Elf Nerdbait and Naked Supermodel Robot as party members instead. Not that Liara is at all bad any more, but Wrex was just so good that I'd gladly give up anybody else save Garrus to have him around.
Also, clipping errors are endemic. In almost every last discussion I've seen so far, there's always some bit, ranging from a slice of neck to entire arms, clipping through bodies and clothes. It really makes the design look shoddy and often wrecks the immersion.
Aside from quality stuff, what the hell is the deal with most of the female designs in this game? They're ridiculous to the point of being embarrassing. Cripes, one female character's alternate outfit is a black skin-tight jumpsuit. Seriously? What kind of sad people thinks it's reasonable to have all the males have badass armor and outfit designs and make almost everything the women wear look like it was spraypainted on? It's not even something I normally care about in a game, but it's so bad here that I can't help but notice.
That stuff being said, enjoying most of the game so far, especially now that I've gotten the hang of the Vanguard setup. Still extremely glad I waited on buying this, though, if for no other reason than to have the save editor handy for things like giving myself tons of credits so I don't have to deal with that time-wasting mechanic. Also very nice to see they've more or less dispensed entirely with the tedium of grinding out resources through probing or manually searching planet surfaces; just zip in, scan, hit the couple of place you find, and go. No problem at all and the flow of the game isn't getting broken up.
Yeah, I flipped out when I saw EDI's character design when it was leaked, especially in comparison to some of the other concepts they had. They never go into a particular reason for it, so it's just always over the top. Really would have preferred a different or toned down design.
Is indoctrinated, why do the Reapers attack Sanctuary? Him going all 'end justifies the means' and huskifying people for test subjects makes a little sense, but if the Reapers didn't want him doing it why was he? If they did want him doing it, why did they try to stop him? Also I don't get him controlling Anderson and Shepard. I could buy Shepard if they mentioned the Reaper tech in his body, but Anderson?
End spoils above and below:
It's best not to think too hard about it, but it's probably related to the dubious biotic power you could get from Morinth in ME2, Dominate, the one that mind controlled enemies to your side temporarily.
One thing I really like about Control that's not been mentioned:
The Catalyst claimed it was preserving previous civilisations by Reaping them, but you don't exactly get to see any of that, what with the Reapers only showing up to commit galaxy-wide genocide. With Shep at the helm, their cultures and societies can be shared with the current and future races.
me1 had relatively sane female character design, benezia's impossible dress aside.
me2 got p embarrassing with miranda and samara in particular (didnae think jack was that bad as a design in that respect actually, obvs she was basically wearing nothing but a belt above the waist but it didnae feel like it was for titillation or male gaze or anything? dinnae ken how precisely to explain that)
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
The asari's culture is based around using their sex-analogue pheromones to screw with everyone's heads. Benezia and Samara are fine. Jack... Jack is just not the kind of lady who cares about who sees her wearing what. She's not wearing just a belt to turn you on, she's wearing just a belt because she likes the way it feels on her lady parts.
Now, Ashley's miniskirt and gratuitous Miranda butt-cam, I'll give you.
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
wrt samara perhaps maybe we can just agree to disagree abt the unnecessary ridiculo-cleavage and six-bloody-inch heels, but we can surely agree that if you are a mystical peripatetic warrior-monk you prob shouldnae wear a catsuit that looks like a strawberry
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
...is this a trick question? This is TIM we're talking about; he himself is a caricature of a 60's era evil spy ringleader. Have you seen his Phantoms? Notice he fact that he hires nymphomaniacs as yeomans? Of course he will dispatch his sexiest robot agent. Now, I suppose you could jump on Bioware's case for making TIM a walking Sexy Sixties trope, but that's a different issue.
wrt samara perhaps maybe we can just agree to disagree abt the unnecessary ridiculo-cleavage and six-bloody-inch heels, but we can surely agree that if you are a mystical peripatetic warrior-monk you prob shouldnae wear a catsuit that looks like a strawberry
Are you judging the traditional garb of the honored Justicars? I'll have you know, that the lower the cleavage is on a Justicar's armor, the more respected she is. It's the asari version of valor medals. Stop being disrespectful; you humans are all racist.
I'll have you know, that the lower the cleavage is on a Justicar's armor, the more respected she is. It's the asari version of valor medals. Stop being disrespectful; you humans are all racist.
Sexiest. We are all sexiest.
Valiantheart on
PSN: Valiant_heartPC: Valiantheart99
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
I always felt Miranda was supposed to be a Bond Girl, both the good or bad one depending on how you play, that's why you get all the butt shots and the posing. Now the changes made to Ashley in ME3 were superfluous.
I'll have you know, that the lower the cleavage is on a Justicar's armor, the more respected she is. It's the asari version of valor medals. Stop being disrespectful; you humans are all racist.
Sexiest. We are all sexiest.
Technically you can't be sexist against the asari, since they only have one gender.
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
...is this a trick question? This is TIM we're talking about; he himself is a caricature of a 60's era evil spy ringleader. Have you seen his Phantoms? Notice he fact that he hires nymphomaniacs as yeomans? Of course he will dispatch his sexiest robot agent. Now, I suppose you could jump on Bioware's case for making TIM a walking Sexy Sixties trope, but that's a different issue.
aye tim being a slightly weird paternalistic skeezy dude, that is another part of a whole load of interlocking and unpleasantly sexist things that crop up from time to time in mass effect. iow, i dinnae think its entirely a different issue, just another part of the same issue.
obv thats not to say that theres nothing else to tim: i actually think, partic given how little screen time he gets, hes one of the best-drawn characters in the entire series, its just that the whole conflation of sex/danger solely through his use of nubile young women (or robowomen) for murderous deeds is not one of the stronger points of how he's written
wrt samara perhaps maybe we can just agree to disagree abt the unnecessary ridiculo-cleavage and six-bloody-inch heels, but we can surely agree that if you are a mystical peripatetic warrior-monk you prob shouldnae wear a catsuit that looks like a strawberry
Are you judging the traditional garb of the honored Justicars? I'll have you know, that the lower the cleavage is on a Justicar's armor, the more respected she is. It's the asari version of valor medals. Stop being disrespectful; you humans are all racist.
holy shit ive just realised - what if samara isnae really a justicar? do we have any evidence other than the strawberry suit? maybe she's just a cosplayer
also what is wrong with miranda's voice? i mean i seriously dinnae see whats wrong with it. accent sounds ok to my ears (partic given that strahovski is actually aussie), unlike donnelly's which is, let us say, less than perfect
I always felt Miranda was supposed to be a Bond Girl, both the good or bad one depending on how you play, that's why you get all the butt shots and the posing. Now the changes made to Ashley in ME3 were superfluous.
Yea, I figured that's what they were going for too and I agree on Ashley. Facial changes weren't too bad but the outfit... meh.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
So now we have to extend his premise. War between organics and synthetics is inevitable, AND for some unexplained reason it is important that synthetics don't wipe out organics.
Ok, if I have to explain this it isn't worth arguing with you.
He's an AI programmed to protect organics from synthetics.
That's the KEY assumption of his entire logical argument.
Except he's an AI, not a VI.
If he was a VI I think you'd be right. But a core factor in what makes an AI an AI is the ability to think around and outside of its original programming, learn from problems and mistakes and not treat that initial programing as some religious truth. Like any other sentient being.
The thing functions more like a VI with its logic, which doesn't make sense; particularly given the timeframe we're talking about here. That the catalyst is still so dogmatically attached to that single point betrays its supposed intelligence; when it has had millions and millions of years to see the mountains of problems with that initial assumption.
EDIT: Not only that, but it made the core decision to make reapers and create the cycles with the sample size of one cycle. One. He didn't try to change his plan after a few cycles if he saw different behavior, by all accounts he didn't pay attention to the behavior of the cycle at all; just killed em all. When the entirety of his plan is based on such little evidence, that, too, is not the sign of an intelligence. That's just a programming routine. Which again, indicates a VI, and not an AI. An AI should have picked up on some obvious issues pretty early on and adjusted; but he, by his own admission, never changed course until forced to by shepard.
Except all of that is wild speculation that puts Indoctrination Theory to shame.
You're making a massive assumption that AIs are capable of overriding their most core programming. We never see EDI decide to stop running the Normandy. We never see the Geth stop taking care of Rannoch.
And even if they could override their core programming, you're making a second assumption that doing so is inevitable.
After a million years or so, the Starchild isn't going to change it's mind without some new evidence.
There's an even better way to say it. Until the variables change, the equation will have the same result everytime.
Which is nearly an exact quote from the Starchild.
I'm not even sure how to respond to this. All I can gather is that you either have a very deep misunderstanding about what a true AI is supposed to be, particularly one supposedly that advanced, and that you can't differentiate a simple program (VI) with an actual intelligence.
Since you seem stuck on the idea that an AI can't "override" or move outside of its base programming I don't think there's anywhere else to take the conversation. Also your example of EDI is hilarious in its backwardness. We, in fact, see EDI doing all sorts of things outside of her core programming (which actually had nothing to do with the Normandy in the first place), and she chooses to remain the Normandies AI after she gets a body.
What everyone arguing this line has failed to provide so far is this: A reason.
If you're going to claim that the Starchild should change from his base programming, you have to give a reason that he would.
An AI's programming should be looked at as roughly equivalent to a human's moral system. An AI programmed to do something (e.g. protect the Normandy) is roughly equivalent to what a human is raised to believe (e.g. religion).
It's possible to change yes, but such changes are uncommon at best. And they still have to have a basis in the existing moral framework (e.g. belief that dishonesty is wrong justifying changing religion.)
If someone can tell me how the desire to protect organics can be overridden when that is the basis of the AI's morality, I'll reconsider my position.
And you seem to believe that intelligent beings can't be dogmatic. If only that were true.
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
...is this a trick question? This is TIM we're talking about; he himself is a caricature of a 60's era evil spy ringleader. Have you seen his Phantoms? Notice he fact that he hires nymphomaniacs as yeomans? Of course he will dispatch his sexiest robot agent. Now, I suppose you could jump on Bioware's case for making TIM a walking Sexy Sixties trope, but that's a different issue.
aye tim being a slightly weird paternalistic skeezy dude, that is another part of a whole load of interlocking and unpleasantly sexist things that crop up from time to time in mass effect. iow, i dinnae think its entirely a different issue, just another part of the same issue.
obv thats not to say that theres nothing else to tim: i actually think, partic given how little screen time he gets, hes one of the best-drawn characters in the entire series, its just that the whole conflation of sex/danger solely through his use of nubile young women (or robowomen) for murderous deeds is not one of the stronger points of how he's written
Part of the reason he's so well drawn despite the lack of screentime is because they're able to cut corners by framing him with the 60s spy tropes. Honestly I think it's refreshing that he hires
(or, you know, indoctrinates)
both men and women for his Evil Spy Shit, and doesn't engage in slut-shaming.
The most sexist thing in Mass Effect is that FemShep doesn't get a leather jacket. Death to the patriarchy!
holy shit ive just realised - what if samara isnae really a justicar? do we have any evidence other than the strawberry suit? maybe she's just a cosplayer
Well, we do meet her family, they don't out her as someone who is just into Justicar Comics.
One thing I really like about Control that's not been mentioned:
The Catalyst claimed it was preserving previous civilisations by Reaping them, but you don't exactly get to see any of that, what with the Reapers only showing up to commit galaxy-wide genocide. With Shep at the helm, their cultures and societies can be shared with the current and future races.
I read one of the dialogue options in the EC to be saying this. It's a really cool thought and almost swayed me over to Control.
Also, something that occurred to me over the weekend, that I present as a olive branch to the "Refuse is a good choice crowd."
I decided that if you're in the situation where Destroy isn't available, there is a principled argument for taking Refuse. It's still a terrible, terrible choice in contrast to Destroy, but it makes at least some sense when compared to Control or Synthesis though.
Also, something that occurred to me over the weekend, that I present as a olive branch to the "Refuse is a good choice crowd." I decided that if you're in the situation where Destroy isn't available, there is a principled argument for taking Refuse. It's still a terrible, terrible choice in contrast to Destroy, but it makes at least some sense when compared to Control or Synthesis though.
My guess is, if your assets are low enough that you're not getting certain options, you're also not going to get a very good outcome from any of them. I'm not sure how bad Destroy gets with low assets, but it might be that the galaxy is better off just punting to the next cycle.
I come back and you people are arguing about sexism and stuff
All I want is some more costumes for everyone.
Here, how about this: EDI gets a tuxedo like TIM's. Form-fitting but not sexualized.
Are you suggesting a Janelle Monae alt costume? I am entirely for that.
EDI and too many of the ladies in mass effect were needlessly sexualized. I wanted a classy fembot.
Listen I really liked EDI as an art deco send-up, it was hilarious and her whole character was hilarious and all of her outfits were hilarious. She gets really weird when you convince her not to bone Joker, which makes her wanting to bone Joker even funnier
She's a package deal
But I agree it'd be fun for her to have non-bedroom outfits. Because those are all bedroom outfi-
Now me and my wife are arguing about whether or not business suits are necessarily sexualized in this context
She's bringing up the Benezia thing
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AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
I wanted an homage, myself. Not a sendup.
I'm also irritated as all heck by asari and really didn't see the need to reference the green space babe cliche.
I'm also irritated as all heck by asari and really didn't see the need to reference the green space babe cliche.
Asari are insidious and terrifying and you've had five years to get over that one
I'm pretty all right with the idea of the most powerful species in the galaxy being all-female, culturally imperialistic, and being in a position to slowly but surely wipe out all other races through interbreeding
It's a very interesting dynamic
Yeah I get that this is a boobs thing, I know.
Come to think of it, Liara's costumes probably made the most sense of all the female characters sans Shepard and Tali. She's got her science outfit, her bad-ass combat armor, her justicar.... stuff
Edit:
I guess I don't really know the difference between "sendup" and "homage"
Wyborn on
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AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
edited July 2012
sendup, to me, sounds less respectful and more joking
homage, really, is the more respectful of the two.
she just doesn't look metropolis enough, to me.
honestly, most of my problems with EDI would be lessened if she wore more "clothes" and if her curves weren't so ridiculous. she already looks incredibly human, and the size of her assets are absurd.
spoilers for Mars
when my brother was playing through and saw Eva Core on a computer monitor, we had a laugh about how big her ass was.
"Did you see the size of that thing?"
"That's all I could see."
and I love you telling me to get over it. just, love that.
One thing I really like about Control that's not been mentioned:
The Catalyst claimed it was preserving previous civilisations by Reaping them, but you don't exactly get to see any of that, what with the Reapers only showing up to commit galaxy-wide genocide. With Shep at the helm, their cultures and societies can be shared with the current and future races.
I think you mean Synthesis.
In Control, Shep-God says he harnesses the strength of the Reapers and remembers those who sacrificed. He may not mean the Reapers, but it's hinted at that only Shepard parleys with the former dead civilizations.
Synthesis is the only choice where the Reapers are free and included in galactic discourse. It's specifically talked about in the ending monologue. It makes sense too. In Control, the reapers remain tools but not part of some galactic discourse, and really I wouldn't expect anything other than Synthesis to allow that. If there were a 'deactivate reaper' option many would be destroyed just on principle. I'm sure a few would be saved for dissection. This is one of the reasons why so many Shepards find Synthesis repugnant, because they would never trust the Reapers live free or even provide them the capability to.
edit: Let me add, I'm not being judgmental, Destroy is right for one of my Shepards too. Synthesis was right for another. Hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to play through specifically for a Shepard destined to be God King of the galaxy.
Is it also the only way to get the Geth/Quarian peace on rebuilt Rannoch scene in the new slideshow at the end? Can you get that scene with Control? I'd be VERY surprised if you could see it with Destroy...
I just assumed they were synonyms, and I would call EDI an homage.
Not so much to Metropolis and the like, no - let's not pretend it's that high-brow. She's just a send-up for sexy robot ladies of classic science fiction. Nothing inherently wrong with that as long as she's still a good character with her own sense of agency (she is)
And if we got the option to put some clothes on her, that would be all right too
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
Humans, turians, and salarians all see asari as looking essentially like themselves.
The human in that particular conversation wondered aloud if asari were sutbly mind-controlling all of them, and that nobody really knew what they actually looked like
Posts
Alls I need is my bro, Garrus, and some scantly clad dancers.
Is there a casual option in ME3? I never actually looked.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
The gameplay is also often infuriatingly clumsy, thanks in no small part to making one button do run, use, roll, and use cover. I can't even count the number of times Shepard has rolled out into a torrent of bullets instead of sticking to some cover. And I absolutely hate how I have to constantly tell my teammates to actually use their powers, despite the fact that I've set them to use their powers on their own. They just don't want to do anything.
There are also loads of clunky and/or redundant dialogue. People will say things that were just said only moments ago and sometimes the writing just tries way too hard to try and create a moment that just isn't happening. I don't think those moments would stand out so bad except for the fact that some characters get such fantastic dialogue. Garrus and Wrex in particular have such great banter that I just want to clock somebody in the head at Bioware for relegating Wrex to being a secondary character and putting forward ones like Space Elf Nerdbait and Naked Supermodel Robot as party members instead. Not that Liara is at all bad any more, but Wrex was just so good that I'd gladly give up anybody else save Garrus to have him around.
Also, clipping errors are endemic. In almost every last discussion I've seen so far, there's always some bit, ranging from a slice of neck to entire arms, clipping through bodies and clothes. It really makes the design look shoddy and often wrecks the immersion.
Aside from quality stuff, what the hell is the deal with most of the female designs in this game? They're ridiculous to the point of being embarrassing. Cripes, one female character's alternate outfit is a black skin-tight jumpsuit. Seriously? What kind of sad people thinks it's reasonable to have all the males have badass armor and outfit designs and make almost everything the women wear look like it was spraypainted on? It's not even something I normally care about in a game, but it's so bad here that I can't help but notice.
That stuff being said, enjoying most of the game so far, especially now that I've gotten the hang of the Vanguard setup. Still extremely glad I waited on buying this, though, if for no other reason than to have the save editor handy for things like giving myself tons of credits so I don't have to deal with that time-wasting mechanic. Also very nice to see they've more or less dispensed entirely with the tedium of grinding out resources through probing or manually searching planet surfaces; just zip in, scan, hit the couple of place you find, and go. No problem at all and the flow of the game isn't getting broken up.
This is the standout track of ME3 for me. It's like they took the Dragon Age camp theme and then made a rousing, incredible version of it.
End spoils above and below:
me2 got p embarrassing with miranda and samara in particular (didnae think jack was that bad as a design in that respect actually, obvs she was basically wearing nothing but a belt above the waist but it didnae feel like it was for titillation or male gaze or anything? dinnae ken how precisely to explain that)
edi was p bad in me3 but at least they didnae plumb new depths or anything. it could so easily have been saved too...
The asari's culture is based around using their sex-analogue pheromones to screw with everyone's heads. Benezia and Samara are fine. Jack... Jack is just not the kind of lady who cares about who sees her wearing what. She's not wearing just a belt to turn you on, she's wearing just a belt because she likes the way it feels on her lady parts.
Now, Ashley's miniskirt and gratuitous Miranda butt-cam, I'll give you.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
wrt samara perhaps maybe we can just agree to disagree abt the unnecessary ridiculo-cleavage and six-bloody-inch heels, but we can surely agree that if you are a mystical peripatetic warrior-monk you prob shouldnae wear a catsuit that looks like a strawberry
...is this a trick question? This is TIM we're talking about; he himself is a caricature of a 60's era evil spy ringleader. Have you seen his Phantoms? Notice he fact that he hires nymphomaniacs as yeomans? Of course he will dispatch his sexiest robot agent. Now, I suppose you could jump on Bioware's case for making TIM a walking Sexy Sixties trope, but that's a different issue.
Are you judging the traditional garb of the honored Justicars? I'll have you know, that the lower the cleavage is on a Justicar's armor, the more respected she is. It's the asari version of valor medals. Stop being disrespectful; you humans are all racist.
Sexiest. We are all sexiest.
Technically you can't be sexist against the asari, since they only have one gender.
aye tim being a slightly weird paternalistic skeezy dude, that is another part of a whole load of interlocking and unpleasantly sexist things that crop up from time to time in mass effect. iow, i dinnae think its entirely a different issue, just another part of the same issue.
obv thats not to say that theres nothing else to tim: i actually think, partic given how little screen time he gets, hes one of the best-drawn characters in the entire series, its just that the whole conflation of sex/danger solely through his use of nubile young women (or robowomen) for murderous deeds is not one of the stronger points of how he's written
holy shit ive just realised - what if samara isnae really a justicar? do we have any evidence other than the strawberry suit? maybe she's just a cosplayer
also what is wrong with miranda's voice? i mean i seriously dinnae see whats wrong with it. accent sounds ok to my ears (partic given that strahovski is actually aussie), unlike donnelly's which is, let us say, less than perfect
Yea, I figured that's what they were going for too and I agree on Ashley. Facial changes weren't too bad but the outfit... meh.
What everyone arguing this line has failed to provide so far is this: A reason.
An AI's programming should be looked at as roughly equivalent to a human's moral system. An AI programmed to do something (e.g. protect the Normandy) is roughly equivalent to what a human is raised to believe (e.g. religion).
It's possible to change yes, but such changes are uncommon at best. And they still have to have a basis in the existing moral framework (e.g. belief that dishonesty is wrong justifying changing religion.)
And you seem to believe that intelligent beings can't be dogmatic. If only that were true.
Part of the reason he's so well drawn despite the lack of screentime is because they're able to cut corners by framing him with the 60s spy tropes. Honestly I think it's refreshing that he hires
The most sexist thing in Mass Effect is that FemShep doesn't get a leather jacket. Death to the patriarchy!
Well, we do meet her family, they don't out her as someone who is just into Justicar Comics.
I read one of the dialogue options in the EC to be saying this. It's a really cool thought and almost swayed me over to Control.
Also, something that occurred to me over the weekend, that I present as a olive branch to the "Refuse is a good choice crowd."
aye but mind her family are locked up in a monastery without much in the way of outside contact
she could easily trick them into believing she'd joined the blue space samurai club
All I want is some more costumes for everyone.
Here, how about this: EDI gets a tuxedo like TIM's. Form-fitting but not sexualized. She actually looks very dapper.
Kaidan gets a spandex catsuit. It's a skin applied over the naked version of his model.
James gets the option to run around in his shirtless workout outfit, and enemies get a -50% to their accuracy whenever he charges at them
This to me seems like the best of all compromises
Nuh, uh. Morinth would be all over that shit.
Are you suggesting a Janelle Monae alt costume? I am entirely for that.
EDI and too many of the ladies in mass effect were needlessly sexualized. I wanted a classy fembot.
Listen I really liked EDI as an art deco send-up, it was hilarious and her whole character was hilarious and all of her outfits were hilarious. She gets really weird when you convince her not to bone Joker, which makes her wanting to bone Joker even funnier
She's a package deal
But I agree it'd be fun for her to have non-bedroom outfits. Because those are all bedroom outfi-
Now me and my wife are arguing about whether or not business suits are necessarily sexualized in this context
She's bringing up the Benezia thing
I'm also irritated as all heck by asari and really didn't see the need to reference the green space babe cliche.
Asari are insidious and terrifying and you've had five years to get over that one
I'm pretty all right with the idea of the most powerful species in the galaxy being all-female, culturally imperialistic, and being in a position to slowly but surely wipe out all other races through interbreeding
It's a very interesting dynamic
Yeah I get that this is a boobs thing, I know.
Come to think of it, Liara's costumes probably made the most sense of all the female characters sans Shepard and Tali. She's got her science outfit, her bad-ass combat armor, her justicar.... stuff
Edit:
I guess I don't really know the difference between "sendup" and "homage"
homage, really, is the more respectful of the two.
she just doesn't look metropolis enough, to me.
honestly, most of my problems with EDI would be lessened if she wore more "clothes" and if her curves weren't so ridiculous. she already looks incredibly human, and the size of her assets are absurd.
spoilers for Mars
"Did you see the size of that thing?"
"That's all I could see."
and I love you telling me to get over it. just, love that.
I think you mean Synthesis.
Synthesis is the only choice where the Reapers are free and included in galactic discourse. It's specifically talked about in the ending monologue. It makes sense too. In Control, the reapers remain tools but not part of some galactic discourse, and really I wouldn't expect anything other than Synthesis to allow that. If there were a 'deactivate reaper' option many would be destroyed just on principle. I'm sure a few would be saved for dissection. This is one of the reasons why so many Shepards find Synthesis repugnant, because they would never trust the Reapers live free or even provide them the capability to.
edit: Let me add, I'm not being judgmental, Destroy is right for one of my Shepards too. Synthesis was right for another. Hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to play through specifically for a Shepard destined to be God King of the galaxy.
Is it also the only way to get the Geth/Quarian peace on rebuilt Rannoch scene in the new slideshow at the end? Can you get that scene with Control? I'd be VERY surprised if you could see it with Destroy...
Origin: Viycktor
Not so much to Metropolis and the like, no - let's not pretend it's that high-brow. She's just a send-up for sexy robot ladies of classic science fiction. Nothing inherently wrong with that as long as she's still a good character with her own sense of agency (she is)
And if we got the option to put some clothes on her, that would be all right too
Outfit wasn't much bother--but it looked like she got shot with a planet-busting makeup cannon.
But I only ever had her run around in heavy armor. Didn't even look at the other options
powerful thousand-year-old exogamous species that have only one gender? aye, interesting idea
oh wait they are all blue space babes who spend a couple centuries of their lives as strippers or hired guns?
hmmm
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
I apologize. I was joking and was not mindful of my tone. It will not happen again.
The wording I used was also loaded and I was not mindful of that either, so I apologize for that too
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
Humans, turians, and salarians all see asari as looking essentially like themselves.
The human in that particular conversation wondered aloud if asari were sutbly mind-controlling all of them, and that nobody really knew what they actually looked like
The party laughed nervously
That day, all female officers will be required to wear....
Tiny miniskirts!
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.