Mass Effect

[toxicitizen]

Well I just finished my PS3 run and managed to keep everyone alive. So, yay!

 

Now all that's left is to buy Arrival and get ready for ME3.

[Strangelove]

Is it bad that i don't hate the illusive man? I actually agree with most of the stuff he did in me2. Most of it i found to be justified. According to forums and polls, im supposed to hate him. Weird.

[Pirandello]

According to forums and polls, im supposed to hate him. Weird.

And yet, even if you did agree with most of IM's decisions in ME2, I wonder what could have caused him to put you on his blacklist and send his army of henchmen to kill you in ME3.

[jimmuhpage]

I have two theories:

 

1. The most likely one. TIM has been indoctrinated. Either since the events of Evolution, the second comic series; or since the operations into the Collector base after the third book or during the events of Invasion, the third comic series. And now that it has kicked in full gear, Shepard must be stopped.

 

2. The slightly creepier one. I'll spoiler just in case I'm right (probably not):

 

 

TIM has shown in the third book that he is acutely aware of how important it is to destroy any piece of uncontrolled Reaper technology. It is possible that the Lazarus project used Reaper tech to bring Shepard back at the cost of being innately indoctrinated to some extent. Now that TIM doesn't have control over Shepard, s/he must be eliminated.

 

It raises the question as to why he would try to kill him/her while Shep is trying to stop the Reapers, but maybe he suspects Shepard doesn't even know s/he is unwittingly helping them. I figure that could be a big, if cliche, twist. What if at the end of ME3, Shepard realizes s/he is essentially a Reaper and must choose to join the Reapers or destroy them, and by extension, him/herself? I doubt BioWare would do it, but it would be nice to have more "evil" options, akin to KotOR's destroy the Republic, rule the Sith ending.

 

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Sounds cool. I'm all for pushing video games to extreme boundaries.

Edited November 1, 2011 by Faiblesse Des Sens

[Hot Heart]

From what I've read about that new comic series featuring Aria, the situation with Cerberus and TIM sounds a little more complex.

 

As regards to Jimmuh's point, even if it would be cool and interesting, I doubt we'd see something so extreme in the main Shepard story. I'd love to be wrong though.

[toxicitizen]

Wait, what? Cerberus wants to kill you in ME3?

 

Wish I'd known that before ending this run, damnit! Wouldn't have been so nice to them and sure as shit wouldn't have given them the Collector's station!

 

Up to this point, like Strangelove, I didn't hate Illusive Man. The only aspect of Cerberus I didn't agree with was how their operations are all separate and generally unsupervised, which can lead to shit like

 

(Overlord spoiler)

 

forced experimentation on an autistic test subject. I figured this was more the asshole scientist's fault than it was Cerberus'...

 

 

But other than that, I could get behind the whole pro-humans things, so long as it doesn't get all racist and anti-aliens.

[TheMightyEthan]

Wait, what? Cerberus wants to kill you in ME3?

 

Wish I'd known that before ending this run, damnit! Wouldn't have been so nice to them and sure as shit wouldn't have given them the Collector's station!

Well, at least it's truer role-play this way. Shepard didn't know Cerberus would turn on him in the future, so he shouldn't have been acting based on that information.

[toxicitizen]

Wait, what? Cerberus wants to kill you in ME3?

 

Wish I'd known that before ending this run, damnit! Wouldn't have been so nice to them and sure as shit wouldn't have given them the Collector's station!

Well, at least it's truer role-play this way. Shepard didn't know Cerberus would turn on him in the future, so he shouldn't have been acting based on that information.

That's true, but now I feel like a sucker!

[Waldorf and Statler]

Don't. It makes your Shepard more human. Just like in Mass Effect 1 you had no way of knowing that sending the troops to help the Council wouldn't harm you in anyway, you had no way of knowing that they giving them the base would be harmful. Think about it.

 

1. You need all your troops against a godly enemy, politics takes a backseat to life.

 

2. You need to be prepared as much as possible on whatever you can learn about the reapers, learning of their technology is a good way.

 

I can almost swear to you that if you saved the Collector's base, like myself, you will most likely have a way to gather the intel Cerberus has gotten from it and it will be REALLY useful. There's no way in hell there won't be a resolution to the Cerberus betrayal.

[Pirandello]

Wish I'd known that before ending this run, damnit! Wouldn't have been so nice to them and sure as shit wouldn't have given them the Collector's station!

That was my default choice, anyways (blowing up the station). In my experience, reverse-engineering any type of technology from your enemies' arsenal will only have bad results. Boom goes the station. Better safe than sorry.

 

You want tech? Advance our own. Build bigger guns. Better shields. Cooler ships. We don't need no stinkin' Reaper tech to get things done.

Edited November 1, 2011 by Pirandello

[Waldorf and Statler]

Except that you don't have the time to advance your technology enough to beat them. Reverse Engineering could at least tell us more about them. Recent example would be that Battle LA film.

[Hot Heart]

It could be handy but I think, for a lot of people, there is the whole Saren business in their minds, making them a bit wary of messing with that stuff.

[TheMightyEthan]

I saved it in my Renegade playthrough and blew it up in my Paragon playthrough, obviously.

 

I think in my do-whatever-the-hell-I-feel-like playthrough I saved it, but I don't remember for sure. I think though that I decided the risk was worth it if it could tell us something that might stop the Reapers from wiping out all life in the galaxy. Worse case scenario is the same result anyway, so whatever.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, my logic for not blowing it up wasn't that we could use their tech. It was that we could study it to find out as much as possible about the Reapers.

[Vargras]

It's been asked by lots of folks if we could know WHY TIM and Cerberus turn against you in ME3, but Bioware has been very hush-hush about everything, in an effort to keep most everything about the game a surprise for people.

 

Casey Hudson tends to refer to it as the "element of discovery".

 

Basically, we have to wait for the game to come out.

Edited November 2, 2011 by Vargras

[Waldorf and Statler]

The only logical excuse, besides the man turning into a special-ed student and forgetting Shepard is the last hope for humanity and/or the other races, is that he was replaced by his evil clone The Mussive Illan

[Strangelove]

Mass effect 2 is 19.99 on psn, same as retail. Psn is really starting to get its shit together lately.

[Vargras]

The only logical excuse, besides the man turning into a special-ed student and forgetting Shepard is the last hope for humanity and/or the other races, is that he was replaced by his evil clone The Mussive Illan

 

Oh you.

 

Honestly, based upon some of the novels, Cerberus has been experimenting with Reaper technology for a very long time. They're aware of indoctrination and its effects, and I think it may be possible that they thought of themselves as "being above it" - essentially, they thought they had tamed it and SURPRISE, they hadn't.

 

As I said before, we're all very curious to know why Cerberus turned on Shepard.

 

Assuming you played Paragon, Shepard basically "steals" the Normandy and all crew on-board, though they hardly seem to protest. In this case, it does make sense that Cerberus would turn on you - after all, Shepard himself/herself was a multi-billion credit investment, not to mention the time and resources poured into the new Normandy, as well as all crew involved. However, if you played Renegade, it doesn't quite explain why Cerberus turns against you. I imagine we'll all find out once the game is out.

 

 

It's also possible that TIM has gone the same path that Saren took, in that by attempting to bargain with the Reapers, he's attempting to save humanity (Saren obviously wasn't trying to save humanity, but it's the same thought-process. Save what you can). Given Cerberus' goals, it would be almost ideal to have every other race BUT humanity eliminated.

Edited November 2, 2011 by Vargras

[Waldorf and Statler]

I used to think that, but unless the man has gone crazy I don't see how attacking earth and killing thousands of humans is a way to protect it. If the reapers were attacking everything BUT humans I could see it.... but until then I'm hoping the IM was simply indoctrinated.

Edited November 2, 2011 by Jesus Christ

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I think the fact that you guys are thinking along these different pathways is enough to get me excited.

[Waldorf and Statler]

I think that you thinking that we're thinking these different pathways is making ME excited.

[Hot Heart]

I think that you thinking that he's thinking that we're thinking along these different pathways is making me excited.

 

Also, these pretzels are making me thirsty!

[Vargras]

Wrex dressed as Tali for Halloween.

 

Your argument is invalid.

[Maritan]

So Hardcore...