[Megathread] Mass Effect 3

[rol3x]

I expect it will still be a bad ending just a better explained bad ending but I am willing to give it a shot for my love of the series.

[Duncanîdaho]

I don't think Hacket would needlesly throw their lives away. If the crucible is about to enter in and theirs little that the flight can do more other than get slaughtered by the reapers, it would be prudent to call for them to fall back and let the "space magic" happen.

Their lives are already committed, he's not throwing away anything. They are defending it to the last man, they have no choice. It's the only option to counter galactic annihilation.

Look at it from Hacket's POV. They cut a path through the Reaper lines to get the Crucible to the Citadel. Their fleet is now surrounding the Crucible trying to block every shot the Reapers are firing at it. The Reaper's are surrounding them, trying to get to the Crucible. Any ship that he orders to retreat, is one less ship blocking a Reaper Beam from hitting the Crucible.

First they are waiting for the Citadel arms to open, taking massive losses every second. Finally they open, "Yes, Shepard did it, he must be on the Citadel!". Now, he sees the Crucible connect. Fleet still has to protect it while it's sitting there. If he calls them back, the Reapers will blow it up immediately. Nothing happens so he radios Shepard. Shepard responds with nonsensical babble. Now what would you do as a general?

Order your fleet to retreat? Officially getting the crucible immediately destroyed as your ships move off, and dooming the galaxy in the process.
Or do you continue to have faith in the man that got you to where you are now? You know he is at least alive and will be trying to his dying breathe to get that thing working. You have no idea how much more time he needs.

Any good general would take the second option. At this point(pure speculation) he may even order the Normandy to go back through the Reaper lines(since it's the only ship that can make it for sure) and get to the Relay and escape to warn the galaxy that the mission may have failed.

Then once it's activated, it immediately fires in like 5 seconds. No ship would have had time to get to the relay at that point.

[Glorious Leader]

Their lives are already committed, he's not throwing away anything. They are defending it to the last man, they have no choice. It's the only option to counter galactic annihilation.

Look at it from Hacket's POV. They cut a path through the Reaper lines. Their fleet is now surrounding the Crucible trying to block every shot the Reapers are firing at it. The Reaper's are surrounding them, trying to get to the Crucible. Any ship that he orders to retreat, is one less ship blocking a Reaper Beam from hitting the Crucible.

First they are waiting for the Citadel arms to open, taking massive losses every second. Finally they open, "Yes, Shepard did it, he must be on the Citadel!". Now, he sees the Crucible connect. Fleet still has to protect it while it's sitting there. If he calls them back, the Reapers will blow it up immediately. Nothing happens so he radios Shepard. Shepard responds with nonsensical babble. Now what would you do as a general?

Order your fleet to retreat? Officially getting the crucible immediately destroyed as your ships move off, and dooming the galaxy in the process.
Or do you continue to have faith in the man that got you to where you are now? You know he is at least alive and will be trying to his dying breathe to get that thing working.

Any good general would take the second option. At this point(pure speculation) he may even order the Normandy to go back through the Reaper lines(since it's the only ship that can make it for sure) and get to the Relay and escape to warn the galaxy that the mission may have failed.

Then once it's activated, it immediately fires in like 5 seconds. No ship would have had time to get to the relay at that point.

A good general/admiral reacts to the changing situation and adjusts plans depending on how the battlefield changes. Shepard is dead at this point, or at least they think he is and it makes very little sense to needlessly die if the plan has failed. It's a much better to regroup and replan, hence the retreat order. Again the reapers didn't attack the crucible at all. In fact none of their decisions with the crucible make any sense. They don't consider it a threat and they don't consider the races of the galaxy a threat. If they did why move it to earth and keep it in the galaxy?

[Duncanîdaho]

A good general/admiral reacts to the changing situation and adjusts plans depending on how the battlefield changes. Shepard is dead at this point, or at least they think he is and it makes very little sense to needlessly die if the plan has failed. It's a much better to regroup and replan, hence the retreat order. Again the reapers didn't attack the crucible at all. In fact none of their decisions with the crucible make any sense. They don't consider it a threat and they don't consider the races of the galaxy a threat. If they did why move it to earth and keep it in the galaxy?

They know Shepard's alive. He responded to Hacket's radio. It was more rambling then speaking, but he did respond. Your right in the fact that they do not consider the forces of the galaxy a threat. That is why they moved it to Earth. There are billions of people living on the Citadel of which they are going to harvest to make a human Reaper. Earth is also the best place for human stock. The reapers have all the humans in one place so they can make a human Reaper quicker. This is also probably why they attacked Earth first. Like in ME2 how they were using the collectors to build one for them, even before the invasion starts. For whatever reason they are trying to get this human Reaper made ASAP. That seems to be their motives to me, behind their movements. This cycles reaper is already overdue almost like 2000 years.

There is no regrouping or re-planning either. If this plan fails the galaxy is effectively doomed. Also, any ships he orders to retreat also has to go back through the Reaper lines head on to get to the relay. That's called a suicide run, especially if like your saying, they are not even targeting the crucible and are picking off the fleet. You think the Reapers are just going to let what's left of the fleet fly right through their lines? The galaxies fleets probably lost at least half it's ships by that point, they can't punch through the Reapers lines again with what they got for a retreat anyway.

[Glorious Leader]

They know Shepard's alive. He responded to Hacket's radio. It was more rambling then speaking, but he did respond. Your right in the fact that they do not consider the forces of the galaxy a threat. That is why they moved it to Earth. There are billions of people living on the Citadel of which they are going to harvest to make a human Reaper. Earth is also the best place for human stock. The reapers have all the humans in one place so they can make a human Reaper quicker. This is also probably why they attacked Earth first. Like in ME2 how they were using the collectors to build one for them, even before the invasion starts. For whatever reason they are trying to get this human Reaper made ASAP. That seems to be their motives to me, behind their movements.

There is no regrouping or re-planning either. If this plan fails the galaxy is effectively doomed. Also, any ships he orders to retreat also has to go back through the Reaper lines head on to get to the relay. That's called a suicide run, especially if like your saying, they are not even targeting the crucible and are picking off the fleet. You think the Reapers are just going to let what's left of the fleet fly right through their lines? The galaxies fleets probably lost at least half it's ships by that point, they can't punch through the Reapers lines again with what they got for a retreat anyway.

That's the point. The reapers are intent on chasing the fleet out and don't pay any attention to the crucible. Partially because Harbinger is there wiping out anybody who attempts to run through the beam. Also I don't think they know sheps alive after the beam hits. The only contact that they have with him as far as I know is AFTER the arms open up. At that point it's safe to assume hacket realized shep must have made it through and opened the arms. I still see little point in not ordering a retreat if it looks like the mission has turned south. It's hardly better to just throw ships and lives away even if retreating and regrouping won't make a difference. It's vastly better strategically then just dying.

[Duncanîdaho]

That's the point. The reapers are intent on chasing the fleet out and don't pay any attention to the crucible. Partially because Harbinger is there wiping out anybody who attempts to run through the beam. Also I don't think they know sheps alive after the beam hits. The only contact that they have with him as far as I know is AFTER the arms open up. At that point it's safe to assume hacket realized shep must have made it through and opened the arms. I still see little point in not ordering a retreat if it looks like the mission has turned south. It's hardly better to just throw ships and lives away even if retreating and regrouping won't make a difference. It's vastly better strategically then just dying.

Well what happens is Shepard opens the arms, collapses and has that talk with Anderson. Hacket then radios him telling him the crucible isn't working and is something on his end. Shepard then responds with a bunch of babble, maybe he's just injured and can't talk. He at least knows Shep's alive and doing work. He got the arms open after all. What your saying and partially what I said is why I don't think he would order a retreat. They will get absolutely annihilated getting back to the relay, I doubt any ships would make it especially if that's what the Reapers want. Hacket knows the fleets trapped.

His best option in my opinion is to hold the line for Shepard and hope. Also like I speculated earlier as a backup plan, just send the Normandy through the relay(they can get to it cause of stealth and speed) to go tell the galaxy the Reapers have won and to try and come up with ways for getting information to the next cycle. The Normandy would be the ideal ship to have in a Reaper winning the war situation and the only one capable of making it back to the relay. Any other ship that would survive the battle would be useless in the long run if the Reapers won the war or the battle for Earth at least.

[Glorious Leader]

Well what happens is Shepard opens the arms, collapses and has that talk with Anderson. Hacket then radios him telling him the crucible isn't working and is something on his end. Shepard then responds with a bunch of babble. He at least knows Shep's alive and doing work. He got the arms open after all. What your saying and partially what I said is why I don't think he would order a retreat. They will get absolutely annihilated getting back to the relay, I doubt any ships would make it especially if that's what the Reapers want. Hacket knows the fleets trapped.

His best option in my option is to hold the line for Shepard and hope. Also like I speculated earlier as a backup plan, just send the Normandy through the relay(they can get to it cause of stealth and speed) to go tell the galaxy the Reapers have won and to try and come up with ways for getting information to the next cycle.

He knows shep is alive AFTER the arms have opened or they assume it was his who did it at any rate. When he gets hit by the reaper beam and is knocked out the most likely assumption is that hes dead. The best plan isn't simply to hold out for a miracle and it's not to hang out in the solar system while they fleet gets beat up.

[Duncanîdaho]

He knows shep is alive AFTER the arms have opened or they assume it was his who did it at any rate. When he gets hit by the reaper beam and is knocked out the most likely assumption is that hes dead. The best plan isn't simply to hold out for a miracle and it's not to hang out in the solar system while they fleet gets beat up.

I doubt anyone on the ground is communicating with the fleet. First off when Harbinger breaks off with some other Reapers, Hacket just tells some fleet ships to try and stop them and buy hammer more time. Why would he not warn the ground team Reapers were landing? I don't think Hacket even knows Hammer got wiped out. As evidenced by the fleet battle going on in the windows of the room your in with godchild. There is definitely still a fight going on surrounding the Citadel. When Hacket sees the arms open, he thinks everything has gone according to plan. Which actually, it kinda did lol. Next to the crucible/citadel powering up Hiccup.

Go to the 10 minute mark in this video and watch for a couple minutes. It's clear they can't communicate with them.

[lokithor]

For some reason I have a feeling that there will be a couple more DLC's to reunite you with your crew.

Either way I want my fanboy happy ending where were all one big happy family. Plus I want to see Shep and Liaras kid lol

[Dannoson]

Personal conspiracy theory: Indoctrination theory is correct.

There are way too many coincidences, details, even logical loopholes that can be explained by this theory. I won't get into the details of it here though.

In addition, Bioware is watching this whole thing ever since the first cries of rage appeared (might be an exaggeration though). Maybe even since they released the game. Certainly since the thing blew up in their faces. In this thread Bioware responded to the Twitter incident within an hour of it happening (about halfway down the first page).

I also seem to recall hearing that they were working on something for the dissatisfied customers a week or two ago. They said something like "Wait and see. We are working on something. You will be surprised/pleased." Or something like that.

In the PAX panel, they glossed over the question about indoctrination, without answering, right? (I didn't actually watch it, just heard about it from you guys) Why do you think they glossed over the question? If they had absolutely no intention, nor had they ever intended, to use indoctrination, they would have just flat out said no. Instead, they give out double-speak answers that mean nothing (and the ones who posed those idiotic questions are likely satisfied by said answers).

Conclusion: Bioware made the ending this way on purpose. It was always their intent to release the "true" ending, or an addition to it, via DLC. Furthermore, the "true" ending involved indoctrination.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty annoyed that we cannot have a small feature at character creation to make important decisions. I really do not have my ME2 save anymore and just can't be bothered to play the game while missing out on a ton of stuff, whole characters thrown to the garbage bin.

about the ending, people are in denial.

[Kaneiac]

I'm pretty annoyed that we cannot have a small feature at character creation to make important decisions. I really do not have my ME2 save anymore and just can't be bothered to play the game while missing out on a ton of stuff, whole characters thrown to the garbage bin.

about the ending, people are in denial.

Elaborate on what you mean by denial, I'm pretty curious. If you're talking about the indoctrination thing, I agree. If you're talking about people genuinely unsatisfied with it, well, not sure what to say.

And in terms of save, just use a save editor or something. Not that difficult - there's dozens and dozens of saves to choose from and you can even make your own.

[Deleted]

I personally want to know how the com is working after shep was deepfried enough to completly vaporize his armor.
His armor kept him from being splattered all over the planet in ME2, and the laser vaporized a similar armor.
Yet his communicator is working?

Screw the armor, just strap a bunch of coms to the soldiers and send them out, they can survive taking reaper lasers in the face, the husks cant do shit.

[Nerraw]

One thing people forget about Joker is the time that has passed between the Citadel firing and the time he's in transit in the relays. Assuming the beam from the Citadel travels at the speed of light, it would take several hours for it to reach the Charon relay. Taking the average distance between Pluto and the Sun, which is around 5.5 billion km, and taking the speed of light into consideration, which is 300.000 km per second, one finds that it takes around 5 hours for the beam to reach the relay. That's a lot of time that hasn't been accounted for.

[inboundpaper]

So anyone find an effective strategy for gold yet? I got to wave 8 and we just got gibbed by phantoms. In an unrelated note I want to cause bodily harm to the guy who gave phantoms a ranged attack.

[Nerraw]

Interesting unofficial interview with Patrick Weekes at PAX:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...54234#11154234

Keep up the hope!

[Deleted]

So anyone find an effective strategy for gold yet? I got to wave 8 and we just got gibbed by phantoms. In an unrelated note I want to cause bodily harm to the guy who gave phantoms a ranged attack.

Gold Geth, Firebase White, Salarian Engineer, camp the bottom room placing the decoy at the crossroads inside the room.

Or get lucky with people who know how to cc the dangerous stuff.

[Notos]

Interesting unofficial interview with Patrick Weekes at PAX:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...54234#11154234

Keep up the hope!

Damn, there was a whole lot of "We bow before our EA overlords" in there. Resources resources resources.

I'm very glad he touched on some of the stuff I was wondering about, especially that a lot of the people on the Citadel survived.

I still want a boss battle with Harbinger though

Edit: Also, if they had just done an interview like this at the outset, they could have averted a lot of the raging. I guess they really did have an evil plan to rile the fans up. Also, I want my Ken/Gabby dialogue NAO!

[NatePsy]

NSFW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crgEI...5F47067D6FD4FC

[Deleted]

Why can't it be the 10th now
Back to farming credits for when it is.