Huge Mass Effect Journal; Journey's End
What a ride!!!
So last time I posted, I didn't realize just how close I was to endgame. I figured I was getting pretty close because my side missions list got shorter and shorter, but I wasn't expecting it to be almost right around the corner after the geth and quarians.
I pretty much did renegade options with Cerberus simply cause I didn't want their dumbasses to get in my way. Glad to avenge Thane. He needed it. Kai Leng been dubbed as the "stupid ninja dick for all those stupid ninja bitches" (multiplayer phantoms are a pain in the ass and quite numerous).
The Prothean /asari connection was interesting to see though I can understand why it upset Liara as much. Personally, finding out that humanity owed its advancement to alien intervention, I would feel honored that they decided we were worth their effort in the first place. However, I am also very open-minded about what our "gods" could be: I consider myself spiritual but not really religious.
Cool finding out EDI was originally the VI on Luna. That was a bitch of a mission! As an adept with light armour and pistols, Shepherd could only take one hit with a rocket before he was dead. I tried so many times to get that one done before I decided fuck it, come back later before the endgame. Always wanted to know what the deal was with that VI.
Now the biggie.
Endgame.
The Last thing I could have expected Mass Effect to let me do was to end this war the way I wanted to end it.
It was one of those "Damn this game" moments because I know, no matter how many times I play it through (I'm expecting at least one or two replays). There is a chance I will not be able to pick the other three possibilities.
At the middle of the second game, I figured that the Reapers were a race of sentient cyborgs who every 50,000 years came out of their "hibernation" to go through their reproductive cycle; which happened to be facilitated through the conversion of all organic life in the galaxy. Preserving the lesser species so that there would always be a constant supply of raw materials, at the same time ensuring their dominance over the organics. Similar to the Borg from Star Trek. (Z admitted to me last night that she was so close to laughing her ass off when I told her this because she knew how close but so far away I was from what was really going on)
Nothing I encountered in the third game gave me any doubt I was right, including the Reaper on Rannoch that you get to talk to.
Then you find out the Citadel (not Shepherd as I thought) was the Catalyst and that the Crucible, a giant battery to facilitate it, as Sovereign would have been. Then you find out the Reapers were a solution created long ago to cyclically end the war between synthetic and organic races by preserving organics in Reaper form (basically giant archives of DNA and memories) before their races are ultimately wiped out to save them from extinction. This makes me wonder just how many atrocities their creator race witnessed before this became their only viable solution!
At the same time it makes Sovereign's destruction tragic because you now know that was not simply a hateful synthetic life you ended but the destruction of all that was left of an ancient race of people who, as it was put by Legion a Reaper's mind is unknowable, overpowering and immense; people who may have had some form of consciousness and awareness that is simply incomprehensible to you. How many lives were ended with his destruction? Perhaps as they gifted Legion with the key to granting the geth fully actualized existence; there is ultimately some form of consensual coexistence after Reaper indoctrination and inclusion?
However, listening to the AI give Shepherd his options. I had been convinced the only way to deal with the Reaper threat was to destroy them, however there was no way in hell I united the quarians and geth, only to deal a blow to the galaxy that wiped out all synthetic lifeforms. It would have made Legion's sacrifice meaningless. I wouldn't do that to my friends. Why here in this virtual world?
I have to admit, becoming the Reaper and controlling them was very tempting.
However, as soon as the AI on the Citadel mentioned synthesis and explained what that was, I knew that was my choice. There could be nothing else.
As I explained my feelings for synthetic life in the other Mass Effect journal: http://slipstreme.livejournal.com/30818.html
The seamless symbiosis of man and machine would the ultimate in a dream come true for me. There could be no other form of existence so close to feeling the heartbeat of the universe itself IMO, then being one with creator and created. A heightened existence where the mysteries of how a machine thinks are common knowledge and that life as we know it is not constrained to mere dictionary definitions. As it is I see mankind heading in that direction.
There are several possibilities.
From a war similar to this one (or the Borg), to simply using cybernetics as tools or worse, becoming a lot like the Empire of Man from Warhammer 40K; machine beings whose xenophobic nature make us the cosmic douchebags of the galaxy bent on control and destruction.
However I can only hope that it could end as this one did; a greater understanding, where the bond between organics and synthetics is appreciated and natural.
Also, this opened up a whole new possibility for me. Liking the Reapers as I do the geth and everyone else. As soon as I saw that immediate ceasefire of hostilities as everyone, husk or living, just suddenly "got it" and put down their weapons. To EDI's epilogue, mentioning that the Reapers were helping rebuild the very things they had just destroyed.
Also Marauder/Turian now k thnx. After the war is possible yes? :P
Now it's time to get me some Mass Effect books.
So last time I posted, I didn't realize just how close I was to endgame. I figured I was getting pretty close because my side missions list got shorter and shorter, but I wasn't expecting it to be almost right around the corner after the geth and quarians.
I pretty much did renegade options with Cerberus simply cause I didn't want their dumbasses to get in my way. Glad to avenge Thane. He needed it. Kai Leng been dubbed as the "stupid ninja dick for all those stupid ninja bitches" (multiplayer phantoms are a pain in the ass and quite numerous).
The Prothean /asari connection was interesting to see though I can understand why it upset Liara as much. Personally, finding out that humanity owed its advancement to alien intervention, I would feel honored that they decided we were worth their effort in the first place. However, I am also very open-minded about what our "gods" could be: I consider myself spiritual but not really religious.
Cool finding out EDI was originally the VI on Luna. That was a bitch of a mission! As an adept with light armour and pistols, Shepherd could only take one hit with a rocket before he was dead. I tried so many times to get that one done before I decided fuck it, come back later before the endgame. Always wanted to know what the deal was with that VI.
Now the biggie.
Endgame.
The Last thing I could have expected Mass Effect to let me do was to end this war the way I wanted to end it.
It was one of those "Damn this game" moments because I know, no matter how many times I play it through (I'm expecting at least one or two replays). There is a chance I will not be able to pick the other three possibilities.
At the middle of the second game, I figured that the Reapers were a race of sentient cyborgs who every 50,000 years came out of their "hibernation" to go through their reproductive cycle; which happened to be facilitated through the conversion of all organic life in the galaxy. Preserving the lesser species so that there would always be a constant supply of raw materials, at the same time ensuring their dominance over the organics. Similar to the Borg from Star Trek. (Z admitted to me last night that she was so close to laughing her ass off when I told her this because she knew how close but so far away I was from what was really going on)
Nothing I encountered in the third game gave me any doubt I was right, including the Reaper on Rannoch that you get to talk to.
Then you find out the Citadel (not Shepherd as I thought) was the Catalyst and that the Crucible, a giant battery to facilitate it, as Sovereign would have been. Then you find out the Reapers were a solution created long ago to cyclically end the war between synthetic and organic races by preserving organics in Reaper form (basically giant archives of DNA and memories) before their races are ultimately wiped out to save them from extinction. This makes me wonder just how many atrocities their creator race witnessed before this became their only viable solution!
At the same time it makes Sovereign's destruction tragic because you now know that was not simply a hateful synthetic life you ended but the destruction of all that was left of an ancient race of people who, as it was put by Legion a Reaper's mind is unknowable, overpowering and immense; people who may have had some form of consciousness and awareness that is simply incomprehensible to you. How many lives were ended with his destruction? Perhaps as they gifted Legion with the key to granting the geth fully actualized existence; there is ultimately some form of consensual coexistence after Reaper indoctrination and inclusion?
However, listening to the AI give Shepherd his options. I had been convinced the only way to deal with the Reaper threat was to destroy them, however there was no way in hell I united the quarians and geth, only to deal a blow to the galaxy that wiped out all synthetic lifeforms. It would have made Legion's sacrifice meaningless. I wouldn't do that to my friends. Why here in this virtual world?
I have to admit, becoming the Reaper and controlling them was very tempting.
However, as soon as the AI on the Citadel mentioned synthesis and explained what that was, I knew that was my choice. There could be nothing else.
As I explained my feelings for synthetic life in the other Mass Effect journal: http://slipstreme.livejournal.com/30818.html
The seamless symbiosis of man and machine would the ultimate in a dream come true for me. There could be no other form of existence so close to feeling the heartbeat of the universe itself IMO, then being one with creator and created. A heightened existence where the mysteries of how a machine thinks are common knowledge and that life as we know it is not constrained to mere dictionary definitions. As it is I see mankind heading in that direction.
There are several possibilities.
From a war similar to this one (or the Borg), to simply using cybernetics as tools or worse, becoming a lot like the Empire of Man from Warhammer 40K; machine beings whose xenophobic nature make us the cosmic douchebags of the galaxy bent on control and destruction.
However I can only hope that it could end as this one did; a greater understanding, where the bond between organics and synthetics is appreciated and natural.
Also, this opened up a whole new possibility for me. Liking the Reapers as I do the geth and everyone else. As soon as I saw that immediate ceasefire of hostilities as everyone, husk or living, just suddenly "got it" and put down their weapons. To EDI's epilogue, mentioning that the Reapers were helping rebuild the very things they had just destroyed.
Also Marauder/Turian now k thnx. After the war is possible yes? :P
Now it's time to get me some Mass Effect books.