Admiral Hackett: Shepard I need you to take care of this glass of water, you're the only one who can do it right.
Illusive man: Yes, I think it's morally correct to take away a glass of water from a child dying of thirst, but you don't have to agree with me.
Edi: This glass cup contains half of its volume worth of optimally mineralated water for human consumption.
Garrus: Can it wait for a bit? I'm-
Legion: Shepard commander, the volume of water is roughly 163.80083722 cm³.
Tali: This glass of water has enough pathogens to kill me.
Samara: I killed a person who drank water once.
Zaeed: I killed a person with a glass of water once.
Mordin: Primitive psychological test. Proven ineffective hundreds of solar years ago. Varren sexually transmitted disease on the Normandy a more relevant issue.
Joker: Ah thanks. [SLLURRRRPPPP]
Kasumi: [steals Joker's cup after drinking from it]
Grunt: [breaks it] It reminded me of my tank.
Jack: What is this? Why are you giving me this? Are you bribing me?
Wrex: Shepard.
Liara: [watches from Hagalaz and adds results from the test into their files]
Ashley: I can't believe Cerberus is bribing you with half a glass of water.
Miranda: Typical Alliance mindset. If we leave now I'll give you 5 glasses of water.
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Missions on Kadara involve a lot of Exiles, so it feels a lot more like a continuity of what we see in the Milky Way (with mentions of Cerberus, Citadel econemy, etc.).
The Cerberus scientists that we find on Kadara were fired for mind control research, so you see our favorite bad guy Illusive Man sending them a message:
I'll be honest, I don't believe for a second that they would be fired for that by TIM, even if there are others mental control tests done elsewhere. And the implications about Miranda bother me a bit. Even if she gave a direct order to stop it, this happens as Miranda is doing the Lazarus Project and a key part of her development in ME2 is slowly realizing all the awful things the Cerberus cells are doing, that they aren't the exception but the rule. Not sure if the timeline does her justice here.
Then you have the hackers who went after SAM and you can drop by and pretend SAM is dead. You find traumatized people there, and for a reason.
Laveria is a turian who is helping the hackers because her two sisters got impaled by geth when they invaded the Citadel. And you can see that Drack, in this mission, agrees with her and is very anti-AI, anti SAM. But one thing Laveria says stuck with me:
None of the geth who attacked the Citadel stopped the others from... hurting my little sisters.
Drack points out that people even have sympathy for the geth, as if they don't deserve it all. And honestly, two things can happen at the same time, but there's no real nuance there. You can just say SAM would have sympathized, but really there's no Legion there to explain why it happened the way it did and how the geth work, as they did in ME2.
But I hear what she said, it's still important to say it, and it matters in her perception of all things AI.
And then you have two datapads that I find interesting.
One about the Citadel economy:
I like that they acknowledge that a VI, especially rogue, would not be able to ignore news stories that a "non-synthetic stockbroker" would ignore and that they make decisions in "milliseconds" that affect every financial markets across Citadel space. Just "moving numbers around" while to non-synthetics "a decimal point can be the difference between riches and ruin."
The next datapad is honestly something that makes me wonder about its implications. Dr K. Nigh is very anti-AI, so the datapad is about AI being too smart, too "alien" to understand non-synthetics but she starts with this:
I forgot about this datapad's existence so I reread this like "I'm sorry... What????"
Can you imagine what it would be like?
How accurate is this? If very accurate, I think it would really help understanding many things about all the species. You would get why Elcor speak the way they do, because of the way they smell and everything they understand that no other species can't in one interaction.
Every diplomat showing up to the Citadel should probably try to experience this at least once.
And how far can you take this? Can you make people understand asari mind meld? Are the quarians included in this "sensory gallery"???
I watched a few videos last night after finally completing Mass Effect 3 to get a general idea of what specific issues people had with the various endings to the trilogy: Destroy, Control, Synthesis, & Refuse (I had heard about how widely despised ME3's ending was in passing for years...).
Needless to say, the consensus was all over the place. Here's both my general understanding of the controversy, as well as which ending I personally chose and my feelings about it.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
While almost everyone was opposed to the Control option since it effectively transforms Shepherd into a fascistic dictator who can use the Reapers freely at her whim, there was a lot of debate between the Destroy and Synthesis options. While some people argue that Synthesis was the ideal solution to stopping the Reaper's cycle of galactic extinctions since it helped preserve the existence of other synthetics like EDI and the Geth whilst also fostering further peace & understanding amongst all species across the galaxy, others argue that Synthesis is not only a violation of free will and bodily autonomy since it enforces the rewriting of everyone's DNA to remove genetic diversity (even though as a friend of mine so eloquently pointed out: "the Asari are still Asari and the Krogan are still Krogan..."). Essentially, those opposed to Synthesis argues that synthesizing organic & synthetic DNA is just giving into what both the Catylst & Reapers ultimately want, and that destroying the Reapers is therefore the only true moral option even if it means commiting genocide upon other robotic life forms. Conversely, those opposed to the Destroy ending argue that picking this option will not truly break the cycle since there's always the chance of humanity recreating something akin to the Reapers, thereby restarting the cycle once more. But on the other hand there's an additional 4th ending, Refusal, that's exclusive to both the original ME3 DLC and the Legendary Edition re-release of the trilogy. Picking Refusal, however, just results in everybody dying and the cycle of the Reapers' galactic harvest continuing once more.
Personally, it was a tough decision, but after accidentally getting the Refusal ending, I restarted the segment torn between Destroy & Synthesis, but ultimately chose Synthesis to prevent EDI and the Geth from dying. There was no way in Hell that I was even going to consider Control, since doing so would have validated the fascistic authoritarianism expressed by that bastard, the Illusive Man.
And ya know what? I actually kinda dig the synthesis ending!
It was honestly kinda neat to see the Reapers not only helping rebuild the planets they previously ravaged (as well as sharing their knowledge of the extinct cultures from previous galactic cycles), but Shepherd’s integration into the Crucible helping foster peace between synthetics & organics for generations to come. I personally interpreted the green holographic binary code that everyone receives through synthesis as something akin to a portion of Shepherd's consciousness & lived experiences imprinting onto everybody else. Based on my understanding, the various organic & synthetic alien races would maintain their original personalities & forms whilst having portions of either organic & synthetic DNA respectively added to the other’s genetic codes, whilst the disemmenation of Shepherd's consciousness into Crucible would inspire people to continue her legacy of encouraging galaxy-wide cooperation & understanding. I mean, the Catalyst did say that Shepherd's DNA would be disseminated through the Crucible's beam (although a lot of other players refuse to take the Catalyst at its word, viewing it as an unreliable narrator...).
Conversely, I felt like the Refuse ending during my initial attempt at the final mission was more narratively unsatisfying than Synthesis. The Refuse ending basically meant that all of the progress & relationships Shepherd established throughout her battles against the Reapers amounted to nothing (even though Leviathan described Shepherd as an “anomaly” in this specific galactic cycle; serving as a wild card that threatened the Reapers' system of control). At least with the Synthesis ending, I feel that there's room for interesting debates & nuanced discussions about the impact such a drastic change will have upon the entire Milky Way Galaxy.
The Synthesis ending FEELS like a major change to the status quo rather than being stuck in the previous cycles of control & extinction like Refuse, Destroy, and Control suggest...
Still though, it was to see Shepherd's girlfriend Liara mourn the loss of her lover. Especially since Shepherd's final goodbye to Liara reminded me of the final exchange between Makoto Yuki & Yukari Takeba from Persona 3 Reload before Makoto sacrificed himself to seal away NYX…
Controversies regarding Mass Effect 3's endings aside, however, I overall FREAKING adored this entire trilogy of games! Heck, both ME2 & ME3 now rank among some of my personal all-time favorite RPGs right alongside the likes of the Kingdom Hearts series, Persona 5 Royal & Persona 3 Reload, and Final Fantasy VII & VIII!
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listen i get that when cerberus brought shepard back the whole deal was "make her exactly as she was before" but ive taken it upon myself to occasionally do some renegade actions that ME1 shepard would have never done just to make cerberus think theyve fucked it up and that shes just slightly off
