Mass Effect: Andromeda Pre-Release Thread

[Jarmaro]

Why would Reapers influence Rakhni? It didn't have any sense before harvest. Civilizations must've been untouched.

The Rachni queen in ME1 discusses "a tone from space that hushed one voice after another". It also refers to it as "a sour yellow note". In Mass Effect 3, the Queen says "But the machines came... They heard our song. The Shriek of their sour notes drowned us out", when discussing the Reapers controlling them. It's pretty clear that as of ME1 they definitely intended for the Rachni wars to have been initiated by the Reapers. The obvious assumption is that the Rachni were supposed to take control of the citadel, which would allow the harvest to begin. The Citadel species were already around for 500 years at that point.

In the Leviathan DLC, Dr Bryson speculates that the Leviathans may have been in control of the Rachni, however the "Rachni activity" filter proves to be useless for finding them, so his theory has no support behind it.

But Rachni taking control over citadel has no sensw. Reapera didn't need them. At that point they didn't know portal isn't working, why would they waste precious lives they wanted to harvest just to let Rachni win war? They had nothing from it.

 

[Prime Junta]

News flash, nothing in the ME universe makes a lick of sense.

ME1 had so little of it that a clever GM could still have stitched it together. It completely collapsed into rubble in ME2-3. It's well past the point that even clever ex post facto rationalisations can work. The only way to approach this series is to switch off your long-term memory and most of your critical faculties. There is fun to be had that way.

 

[Jarmaro]

News flash, nothing in the ME universe makes a lick of sense.

ME1 had so little of it that a clever GM could still have stitched it together. It completely collapsed into rubble in ME2-3. It's well past the point that even clever ex post facto rationalisations can work. The only way to approach this series is to switch off your long-term memory and most of your critical faculties. There is fun to be had that way.

I think it was designed that way. Not to make long term sense, but just to look as if it had sense. Much easier to make. And it seems it profits.

 

[donkeymong]

Regarding the Mass Effect 1 plot: Saren couldnt open the portal alone, the Sovereign was needed and had to dock inside the Citadel for
doing so. Thats why there is a cutscene with the killed Asari with a broken neck (Citadel Flight Control) and another one with the Reaper crushing other ships in its way to reach the station
before the arms are closed. So more attention to details please.
And no, not even a Spectre like Saren couldnt have convinced the Council to let a dreadnought of unknown origin, bigger than the Ascension, dock at the station before researching it first in a safe space.

 

[RRRrrr]

Regarding the Mass Effect 1 plot: Saren couldnt open the portal alone, the Sovereign was needed and had to dock inside the Citadel for
doing so. Thats why there is a cutscene with the killed Asari with a broken neck (Citadel Flight Control) and another one with the Reaper crushing other ships in its way to reach the station
before the arms are closed. So more attention to details please.
And no, not even a Spectre like Saren couldnt have convinced the Council to let a dreadnought of unknown origin, bigger than the Ascension, dock at the station before researching it first in a safe space.

If I recall corectly, Sovereign opening the portal manually was needed because the Protheans sabotaged the citadel portal, which is normally opened by a simple signal from distance. This was why an attack on the citadel was needed.

 

[Morality Games]

Looks like girl in dad's suit. This is so stupid it's funny
It seems they are just twileks copy. I hoped for something original...

And a retcon,again: Ai was outlawed in council and alliance space, only cerberus build and used it.

That's not a retcon, that's an established feature of the Mass Effect lore since the first game.

A.I. research is totally illegal because of the Geth genociding the Quarians.

Although "only" Cerberus is a bit of a stretch, since Shepard knew what he was talking to immediately when he saw EDI in ME2. I assume every race had/researched A.I. on the sly.

 

[Jarmaro]

A.I. research is totally illegal because of the Geth genociding the Quarians.

More spiecifically, to not let this happen again.

 

[HansDampf]

They made them even more special in ME2, Harbringer says their gens are "unique" among other developed civilizations or something like that.

IIRC, in Drew Karpyshyn's original plot outline the Reapers were trying to prevent some Dark Energy expansion that was being caused by excessive use of Mass Effect technology. It would eventually consume the entire galaxy and render ME technology useless (including Mass Relays). They could only push it back every 50,000 years and wipe out all technologically advanced civilizations. But human DNA was supposed to be special in some way, very diverse or something, and the Reapers thought that with the help of a Human Reaper they would finally be able to stop the Dark Energy expansion for good. At the end of ME3 Shepeard would have had the choice of either sacrificing humanity to create the Human Reaper, or destryoing the Reapers and likely dooming galactic civilization.

But that's just from my vague memory. Might have been a dream.

 

[Freddie]

Just watched #2 trailer or whatever. Nope. Sci-fi Mass Effect 1 is still gone. Alien sex simulator peppered with defeating a super evil guy is still here. Fuck this shit.

Alien sex simulator peppered with defeating a super evil guy sounds like mass effect 1. Lesbian Alien sex even managed to anger Fox News if memory serves correctly.

This was already covered in this thread, but again it was just a some SJW at the time making a lot of noise about it because she saw it as a way to market her new book. She later admitted that she hadn't even played the game before she went on her rampage.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Regarding the Mass Effect 1 plot: Saren couldnt open the portal alone, the Sovereign was needed and had to dock inside the Citadel for
doing so. Thats why there is a cutscene with the killed Asari with a broken neck (Citadel Flight Control) and another one with the Reaper crushing other ships in its way to reach the station
before the arms are closed. So more attention to details please.
And no, not even a Spectre like Saren couldnt have convinced the Council to let a dreadnought of unknown origin, bigger than the Ascension, dock at the station before researching it first in a safe space.

Saren doesn't have to convince the council to let the Reaper dock peacefully, although that could have been arranged**. Sovereign can just bum rush the Citadel like it does in the game anyway. The thing you avoid needing, though, is Saren's entire game plan of assaulting the Citadel via the Conduit with a Geth Army. He doesn't need that, all he needs to do is walk to the council chamber area where he is allowed and start tapping once Sovereign has attacked. If you tenuously assume that somehow the citadel flight control is of vital importance, Saren can smuggle geth shock troops onto his own personal ship (or ships) anyway, or better yet, hire some human mercenaries (that are implanted with reaper tech to make them super tough, like Saren was) to just wander into citadel control and start blasting while Saren directly walks to the more critical council computer area. Fuck, maybe you don't evne need them. Maybe Matriarch Benezia, famous and influential Asari Matriarch, walks into the control station, who would doubt her? Why would anybody suspect her?

** If you want a more subtle plan, then Saren simply says "hey guys, I found an in-tact Prothean dreadnought, check it out!" and the all of the council scientists who go to check it out become indoctrinated. The indoctrinated scientists say "woah this is legit, it's amazing!" How difficult do you really think it's going to be for them to let Sovereign dock on the Citadel, even if it takes months or years? Important dignitaries have reaper artefacts from the ship given to them as gifts. I mean, that's assuming you need mind control to let it dock, but why would you? What reason to prevent it would they have? It would be a pretty big deal to discover and the Council would be quite proud of it. Sovereign's plan took decades as it is. Prior to Saren's quest to find the conduit, nobody except a few minor academics theorized that the Reaper's existed, nobody had any reason to think there was any threat, and Saren was the Council's golden boy.

All Sovereign has to do is shut up for 5 minutes and not boom "WE ARE THE HARBINGERS OF YOUR DESTRUCTION. YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT. YOU WILL END BECAUSE WE DEMAND IT" in an obviously evil voice.

 

[Freddie]

Regarding the Mass Effect 1 plot: Saren couldnt open the portal alone, the Sovereign was needed and had to dock inside the Citadel for
doing so. Thats why there is a cutscene with the killed Asari with a broken neck (Citadel Flight Control) and another one with the Reaper crushing other ships in its way to reach the station
before the arms are closed. So more attention to details please.
And no, not even a Spectre like Saren couldnt have convinced the Council to let a dreadnought of unknown origin, bigger than the Ascension, dock at the station before researching it first in a safe space.

If I recall corectly, Sovereign opening the portal manually was needed because the Protheans sabotaged the citadel portal, which is normally opened by a simple signal from distance. This was why an attack on the citadel was needed.

Yeah, that's how it was. Protheans sabotaged the control and that's why Sovereign had to dock. Originally Sovereign shouldn't have role at all but once space faring civilisations found the Citadel it should activated automatically at some point (detail unknown) and summon Reaper fleet in. Sovereign was just a back up and Rachni were just one plan it had plotted to take control over Citadel.

IIRC, in Drew Karpyshyn's original plot outline the Reapers were trying to prevent some Dark Energy expansion that was being caused by excessive use of Mass Effect technology. It would eventually consume the entire galaxy and render ME technology useless (including Mass Relays). They could only push it back every 50,000 years and wipe out all technologically advanced civilizations. But human DNA was supposed to be special in some way, very diverse or something, and the Reapers thought that with the help of a Human Reaper they would finally be able to stop the Dark Energy expansion for good. At the end of ME3 Shepeard would have had the choice of either sacrificing humanity to create the Human Reaper, or destryoing the Reapers and likely dooming galactic civilization.

But that's just from my vague memory. Might have been a dream.

Yeah, I'm not sure what role 'human genetic diversity' (LOL) was supposed to play in his original plan, but it's mentioned somewhere in ME2. Dark Energy expansion was happening it was somehow related to usage of mass effect technology (relays) IIRC, hence the purge every space faring civilisation every 50.000 years. Also some quests... Tali was doing research on dark energy when you go to recruit her, and there are couple of other things that remained in ME2 from Karpyshyn's original draft. He had also plans for the endings like you described. Perhaps EA or BW team wasn't very receiving to idea at the time, Walters took over and then look what happened.

Seriously, I think there were other possibilities. Biotics were obvious, Quarian / Geth perhaps other, but we will never know.

 

[donkeymong]

He has too, the cutscenes were shown for a reason. And back in the day, Citadel Security wasnt as inept as in Mass Effect 3, were Cerberus could
invade even with mechs, lol. There were snipers in the council chambers(mentioned by Wrex) and, of course, other Spectres. So Saren needed a Geth army and a possibility
for a suprise attack. And Sovereign needed a possibility to dock before the flight control closed the arms. And no one could claim to figure outprothean tech in month when they couldnt figure out the relay tech(believed to be prothean) after years of research. That would be suspicious ...

 

[donkeymong]

That with the human genetic diversity was funny, by the way, regarding the fact that the diversity is rather low even compared with chimps, because the homo sapiens
had a near extinction event in the past...

 

[Freddie]

That with the human genetic diversity was funny, by the way, regarding the fact that the diversity is rather low even compared with chimps, because the homo sapiens had a near extinction event in the past...

Yep, no wonder the last battle in ME2 was so retarded.

This gets me back to siblings in ME Andromeda, but let's leave that alone for now.

Somehow the AI / Datalink thing made me think about Walters and his love for Cerberus. What if these settlers are actually some goons working for Cerberus or some of it's cover businesses, a bit like Miranda and Jacob in ME2.

Would that be something idiotic? Yes, indeed, would it be beyond Walters / BW that this might actually be a good plot twist...

 

[RRRrrr]

IIRC, in Drew Karpyshyn's original plot outline the Reapers were trying to prevent some Dark Energy expansion that was being caused by excessive use of Mass Effect technology. It would eventually consume the entire galaxy and render ME technology useless (including Mass Relays). They could only push it back every 50,000 years and wipe out all technologically advanced civilizations. But human DNA was supposed to be special in some way, very diverse or something, and the Reapers thought that with the help of a Human Reaper they would finally be able to stop the Dark Energy expansion for good. At the end of ME3 Shepeard would have had the choice of either sacrificing humanity to create the Human Reaper, or destryoing the Reapers and likely dooming galactic civilization.

They should have gone with something like this (the entropy part, not the "human genetic diversity" idiocy). I had forgotten the whole "stop AI from advancing" shit that is beyond retarded.

All Sovereign has to do is shut up for 5 minutes and not boom "WE ARE THE HARBINGERS OF YOUR DESTRUCTION. YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT. YOU WILL END BECAUSE WE DEMAND IT" in an obviously evil voice.

So cringe worthy, especially considering the later games. The whole thing was pointless since the Reapers were coming anyway, in fact the whole Sovereign fiasco was what caused the current civilisations to be ready for their attack. Again, I wish the whole Reapers storyline ended with Mass Effect 1, I always assumed it would be millions of years until the Reapers could possibly arrive.

 

[Durian Eater]

IIRC, in Drew Karpyshyn's original plot outline the Reapers were trying to prevent some Dark Energy expansion that was being caused by excessive use of Mass Effect technology. It would eventually consume the entire galaxy and render ME technology useless (including Mass Relays). They could only push it back every 50,000 years and wipe out all technologically advanced civilizations. But human DNA was supposed to be special in some way, very diverse or something, and the Reapers thought that with the help of a Human Reaper they would finally be able to stop the Dark Energy expansion for good. At the end of ME3 Shepeard would have had the choice of either sacrificing humanity to create the Human Reaper, or destryoing the Reapers and likely dooming galactic civilization.

That's not quite as terrible as the story we ultimately got. (Although still not a patch on Star Control. And even that was better due to the implementation than the concept.)

From what little we've seen of this game, it seems like it's going to have both of Bioware's boring villain tropes again: Dude Who Got Corrupted Grasping Ultimate Power and Ancient Evil Awakens. I understand that no one over there can write, and EA wouldn't want them to if they could, but these glorified B-movie plots are getting stale.

 

[pippin]

Do not overrate ME's story. When the first one was released,ME2's story was a paragraph and ME3's was a line. They hate the bed because they lacked proper planning. And before EA they were already a respected developer completely capable of pulling off a trilogy on their own. That's how big KOTOR was.

 

[J1M]

Regarding the Mass Effect 1 plot: Saren couldnt open the portal alone, the Sovereign was needed and had to dock inside the Citadel for
doing so. Thats why there is a cutscene with the killed Asari with a broken neck (Citadel Flight Control) and another one with the Reaper crushing other ships in its way to reach the station
before the arms are closed. So more attention to details please.
And no, not even a Spectre like Saren couldnt have convinced the Council to let a dreadnought of unknown origin, bigger than the Ascension, dock at the station before researching it first in a safe space.

If I recall corectly, Sovereign opening the portal manually was needed because the Protheans sabotaged the citadel portal, which is normally opened by a simple signal from distance. This was why an attack on the citadel was needed.

Yeah, that's how it was. Protheans sabotaged the control and that's why Sovereign had to dock. Originally Sovereign shouldn't have role at all but once space faring civilisations found the Citadel it should activated automatically at some point (detail unknown) and summon Reaper fleet in. Sovereign was just a back up and Rachni were just one plan it had plotted to take control over Citadel.

IIRC, in Drew Karpyshyn's original plot outline the Reapers were trying to prevent some Dark Energy expansion that was being caused by excessive use of Mass Effect technology. It would eventually consume the entire galaxy and render ME technology useless (including Mass Relays). They could only push it back every 50,000 years and wipe out all technologically advanced civilizations. But human DNA was supposed to be special in some way, very diverse or something, and the Reapers thought that with the help of a Human Reaper they would finally be able to stop the Dark Energy expansion for good. At the end of ME3 Shepeard would have had the choice of either sacrificing humanity to create the Human Reaper, or destryoing the Reapers and likely dooming galactic civilization.

But that's just from my vague memory. Might have been a dream.

Yeah, I'm not sure what role 'human genetic diversity' (LOL) was supposed to play in his original plan, but it's mentioned somewhere in ME2. Dark Energy expansion was happening it was somehow related to usage of mass effect technology (relays) IIRC, hence the purge every space faring civilisation every 50.000 years. Also some quests... Tali was doing research on dark energy when you go to recruit her, and there are couple of other things that remained in ME2 from Karpyshyn's original draft. He had also plans for the endings like you described. Perhaps EA or BW team wasn't very receiving to idea at the time, Walters took over and then look what happened.

Seriously, I think there were other possibilities. Biotics were obvious, Quarian / Geth perhaps other, but we will never know.

The whole "original dark energy dna vision" thing has drifted way too far into "internet rumor that certain individuals wish were true" territory. Without a primary source from Drew, you can't piece together scraps from projects he didn't work on to prove some sort of suppressed, yet unified, plot line.

Furthermore I'd argue that said rumored plot is beyond terrible. At the same level as what they went with instead for ME2 and ME3. Or indoctrination theory fan fiction. I find it hard to believe that the guy responsible for the decent world-building in Mass Effect 1 would come up with something that pathetic.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Furthermore I'd argue that said rumored plot is beyond terrible. At the same level as what they went with instead for ME2 and ME3. Or indoctrination theory fan fiction. I find it hard to believe that the guy responsible for the decent world-building in Mass Effect 1 would come up with something that pathetic.

It's certainly not an improvement, you're right there. They're both extremely bad plot resolutions. In the dark energy theory one it's that reapers are giving the ME tech to people which causes the problem, then killing them to reset everything to zero, in the hope that some day some species might come along that can help them out? Why humans would be able to do this is explainable without an extreme plot contrivance and a healthy dose of technobabble.

ME1 was writing cheques that it couldn't cash. If the Reapers are "beyond our comprehension", then they are also beyond the comprehension of the writers, and thus you're writing a pile of nonsense if you ever intend to delve into their actual origins and motivations. The only way to avoid this is to never explain it. No solution that Drew could have come up with would have been truly satisfying based on that initial promise. The best he could hope for was "not completely batshit stupid".

The Reapers themselves appear to be a riff on the "Inhibitors" from the Revelation Space series of novels. Obviously ancient precuror race is a time honored trope, as is ancient evil sealed in a can, but the similarities are fairly striking. The humans discover a precusor race that has suffered a cataclysmic extinction event, and it's not the only one. They find a large, obviously artificial construct, and then discover that it's actually a beacon, which when activated will alert "The Inhibitors", a truly ancient group, which have been around since the first civilizations of the galaxy appeared, and whose task it is to wipe out advanced civilizations and then erase all traces of their own existence before retreating into hiding again and waiting for the next lot to emerge. By leaving beacons around, curious young species will seek them out, and activate them unintentionally signalling their destruction.

Just as in Mass Effect, this is a scary and intimidating foe. Frighteningly advanced, conventional warfare seems impossible. The motivations for the Inhibitors are also eventually revealed - in the distant future, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are going to collide (this is true in real life also). Their job is to limit the spread of organic life and keep its technology from becoming too sophisticated so that it will be easy to perform their eventual goal of shepherding the two galaxies into a merger that will preserve the planets and stellar bodies for long term viability in supporting life. They believe that the presence of large numbers of space faring civilizations will make this task too difficult as they will resist the changes that need to be made and interfere with their mass-scale stellar engineering projects. As far as motivations go, this isn't "completely terrible" like Mass Effect wound up being, but it's still not good because you can easily ask questions and poke holes in the reasoning of these allegedly hyper advanced beings.

 

[Freddie]

Regarding the Mass Effect 1 plot: Saren couldnt open the portal alone, the Sovereign was needed and had to dock inside the Citadel for
doing so. Thats why there is a cutscene with the killed Asari with a broken neck (Citadel Flight Control) and another one with the Reaper crushing other ships in its way to reach the station
before the arms are closed. So more attention to details please.
And no, not even a Spectre like Saren couldnt have convinced the Council to let a dreadnought of unknown origin, bigger than the Ascension, dock at the station before researching it first in a safe space.

If I recall corectly, Sovereign opening the portal manually was needed because the Protheans sabotaged the citadel portal, which is normally opened by a simple signal from distance. This was why an attack on the citadel was needed.

Yeah, that's how it was. Protheans sabotaged the control and that's why Sovereign had to dock. Originally Sovereign shouldn't have role at all but once space faring civilisations found the Citadel it should activated automatically at some point (detail unknown) and summon Reaper fleet in. Sovereign was just a back up and Rachni were just one plan it had plotted to take control over Citadel.

IIRC, in Drew Karpyshyn's original plot outline the Reapers were trying to prevent some Dark Energy expansion that was being caused by excessive use of Mass Effect technology. It would eventually consume the entire galaxy and render ME technology useless (including Mass Relays). They could only push it back every 50,000 years and wipe out all technologically advanced civilizations. But human DNA was supposed to be special in some way, very diverse or something, and the Reapers thought that with the help of a Human Reaper they would finally be able to stop the Dark Energy expansion for good. At the end of ME3 Shepeard would have had the choice of either sacrificing humanity to create the Human Reaper, or destryoing the Reapers and likely dooming galactic civilization.

But that's just from my vague memory. Might have been a dream.

Yeah, I'm not sure what role 'human genetic diversity' (LOL) was supposed to play in his original plan, but it's mentioned somewhere in ME2. Dark Energy expansion was happening it was somehow related to usage of mass effect technology (relays) IIRC, hence the purge every space faring civilisation every 50.000 years. Also some quests... Tali was doing research on dark energy when you go to recruit her, and there are couple of other things that remained in ME2 from Karpyshyn's original draft. He had also plans for the endings like you described. Perhaps EA or BW team wasn't very receiving to idea at the time, Walters took over and then look what happened.

Seriously, I think there were other possibilities. Biotics were obvious, Quarian / Geth perhaps other, but we will never know.

The whole "original dark energy dna vision" thing has drifted way too far into "internet rumor that certain individuals wish were true" territory. Without a primary source from Drew, you can't piece together scraps from projects he didn't work on to prove some sort of suppressed, yet unified, plot line.

Furthermore I'd argue that said rumored plot is beyond terrible. At the same level as what they went with instead for ME2 and ME3. Or indoctrination theory fan fiction. I find it hard to believe that the guy responsible for the decent world-building in Mass Effect 1 would come up with something that pathetic.

Well, there at least used to be a forum where certain people used to write, etc. Not Drew himself though, I don't think I have ever ever heard rumours that he had said anything that that could be seen as violation of NDA. Then last time someone's identity leaked when someone just had to play fucking amateur detective and tout it everywhere... it was on Penny Arcade forums, posts of course disappeared and I haven't seen or heard anything from inside BW after that.

But how I see things, this isn't anything like indoctrination theory, which was some sort of cult.

What comes to rest. Argue what you like. I was a bit shocked myself when I read the plans of ending, but then I don't actually see it's worse than what we got. Dark Energy plot would had at least tied to Reapers in ME2, meaning ME2 would had served something in trilogy. Ending would still had been be fuck you, more or less, but simple solutions like limiting usage of Mass Effect relays, alternative technologies would make alternative where galactic races must find a solution workable. Instead we got Cerberus, daddy issues and bit more Cerberus and in the last game Cerberus fucking everywhere. I wonder how much less disjointed experience ME3 would had been if it had 33 - 50% less Cerberus.

What comes to endings there has to be some sort of conclusion but journey is often more interesting than arrival. What happened was that after promising start, BW failed to deliver on both accounts. Now what would be really interesting is what happened inside BW. It's their own franchise to milk, no need to ask things from Disney, or Universal or anyone, nor to pay royalties. Get a hit and you earn by licensing tie in products to others. But that's not what happened, ME isn't that successful franchise because they shoot themselves into foot in their main job, which is to deliver great gaming experiences, then they dropped the ball in damage control too. These guys were not beginners, so why why did this happen?

What comes to game plots and shit... My take on ME: Andromeda, there are colonists, there are these scouts, new frontier, unknown beings are present, so native Americans, it's a Western. Probably the safest formula to reboot the franchise.

 

[J1M]

Assuming that reapers needed to be present at all in a Mass Effect sequel is the same mistake Bioware made.

 

[HansDampf]

Also some quests... Tali was doing research on dark energy when you go to recruit her, and there are couple of other things that remained in ME2 from Karpyshyn's original draft.

I remember now. That was the star that unexpectedly went supernova despite its young age.

I don't think any motivation for the Reapers would/could have been compelling. If they are "beyond our comprehension", it would have been better not to reveal their motivations at all. But the Dark Energy thing was at least hinted at. You never see any indication that synthetics could overrun the galaxy. The Geth were willing to live in peace and were only violent under Reaper control or in self-defense.

 

[Freddie]

Assuming that reapers needed to be present at all in a Mass Effect sequel is the same mistake Bioware made.

My point is based to ME1 as it was, not as it perhaps should have been. Build up was just too big to ignore the Reapers in sequels.

I remember now. That was the star that unexpectedly went supernova despite its young age.

I don't think any motivation for the Reapers would/could have been compelling. If they are "beyond our comprehension", it would have been better not to reveal their motivations at all. But the Dark Energy thing was at least hinted at. You never see any indication that synthetics could overrun the galaxy. The Geth were willing to live in peace and were only violent under Reaper control or in self-defense.

The eliminating AI plot was afterthought to replace the dark energy plot, so like I mentioned earlier, we got the alternative and I don't see it's much better.

I think if they done ME2 differently, get hints from Derelict Reaper or somewhere about Leviathans, have Leviathan quest in ME2, keep Harbinger in game but far more distant, have Arrival DLC kind of sequence in the Collector base instead of human Reaper and have your epic conversation with Harbinger there. So many ways to build it actually, but no... Cerberus and daddy issues. What exactly was wrong with Karpyshyn's much lower key Cerberus?

For ME3 thinking of various races strong / weak points and that because Prothean sabotage cycle was late, space faring races were more advanced than during previous cycles, I can see a way to get out of the corner and some of it happened, but what we practically got was the battle for Earth... that was like three relatively empty stages on Earth.

Reapers in last act, let's see what we had since ME1, arrogance is one trait that goes from Reapers to Leviathans so a flaw, we can use that. With that their feeling of immortality and superior intellect, which with their tactics was based in elimination of competition before anything could grow to be a threat, so no need for evolution. We saw Sovereign going down. So we don't need to think of a God. We may ask how God might think in sense that some of their technology was so advanced (nanites) that they were almost indistinguishable from magic, but in practice we need to think creatures that considers themselves Gods.

Reapers motivation, well there needed to have something, but be that elimination of AI's or dark energy there could be other factors, fear, hubris, whatever. Things that start to unfold in the final chapter so we don't have only a story of our hero, but also the enemy and that's possible because they are not Gods, but being that may appear to be ones, who may even feel themselves Godlike, but in the end, flawed and mortal. We might also have a room there for something nice about biological and synthetic consciousness. Oh, scratch that, we got sexbot, I mean EDI, already. How nice that at least someone thought of that.

It's pretty funny if you think how much was after all left in the game but how it falls to pieces because there's two villains, two story arches that are competing. Reapers and TIM / Cerberus. That they appear to be the same is IMO just a patch work. So couple of thing that stands out, that someone wanted to tell his story, have his 'iconic' Kai Leng character happen, have AI plot that doesn't make sense. The same lead writer who was writing plots for ME comics while game didn't had an ending.
Other thing is resource / DLC management. Arrival was only story piece that really progressed the trilogy's main story arch, it was DLC. In ME3 there was Omega, which again could have been used to set beginning to end of Cerberus storyline but no...

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I think if they done ME2 differently, get hints from Derelict Reaper or somewhere about Leviathans, have Leviathan quest in ME2, keep Harbinger in game but far more distant, have Arrival DLC kind of sequence in the Collector base instead of human Reaper and have your epic conversation with Harbinger there. So many ways to build it actually, but no... Cerberus and daddy issues. What exactly was wrong with Karpyshyn's much lower key Cerberus?

For ME3 thinking of various races strong / weak points and that because Prothean sabotage cycle was late, space faring races were more advanced than during previous cycles, I can see a way to get out of the corner and some of it happened, but what we practically got was the battle for Earth... that was like three relatively empty stages on Earth.

In my opinion, you can salvage the series quite well just by modifying the third game. ME2 was sub-optimal from a "setting up the conclusion" angle, but it did give us material to work with. Haestrom's sun dark energy subplot could have been used as a way for the Reapers to return (perhaps new mass relays are created by collapsing stars using dark energy stuff), or it could have been used as an insight that would help defeat the Reapers. Cerberus was working on gathering technology and weapons that could help end the Reaper threat in one way or another, they were studying the giant reaper killing gun that knocked out the Derelict Reaper in ME2, and they may or may not have access to the in-tact Collector base. The council races had access to technology salvaged from Sovereign at the end of ME1 - the "Thanix Gun" you get in ME2 as an upgrade for your ship is a Turian weapon reverse engineered from Sovereign's main gun, and more than doubles the firepower of an equivalent conventional mass driver weapon.

If you want to dig really deep in the lore, there's a planet called "Rothla" that was accidentally shattered and turned into a debris field by a Krogan experiment centuries ago. There's the Leviathan of Dis (which was re-purposed for Leviathan dlc) which could have done something for the main story. There was even like a Cerberus daily news thing once where they mentioned that the Batarians had set up some giant orbital solar laser grid or something (I can't find this anywhere, but I distinctly remember it from back in the day).

You talk about how this cycle's reaping is late, allowing the council species to tech up, and that's exactly how half of a victory should be explained. Not just have they had a chance to tech up naturally, they have access to Reaper corpses and other advanced precursor technology. They have advanced warning. The Relay network is still under their control because it nolonger responds to Reaper commands, meaning that the Milky Way's species can actually coordinate with each other, unlike previous cycles.

There's also another annoyance we can solve pretty easily. Why didn't the Reapers just fly back to the Milky Way hundreds of years ago when they first woke up? Apparently it only takes a few months, and there's no negative consequences. But what if there were? What if the Reapers can't fly back to the Millky Way without major negative consequences, which is why they hesitated for so long? Drive cores need to be discharged as they build up huge quantities of electricity during their operation. In Dark Space, there's nowhere for them to do this. So imagine this instead - half of the Reapers need to shut down, and have their drive cores cannibalized by the remaining Reapers. This allows them to swap the drive cores halfway through the very long journey, and make it the whole way. The rest of the Reapers are still "alive", just in hibernation, but they are completely out of the fight until the Galaxy is pacified and the Citadel reconquered.

Since the Prothean sabotage blocked them, Shepard foiled their 2 shots of getting back into the Milky Way, they can now only bring half their force to bare. The Galaxy can coordinate in theory because the Mass Relays still work. They have access to more advanced technology. They have a few ideas for superweapons that might be able to help win a fight or two. It would be tough, but feasible to win, assuming the Galaxy can keep its shit together and work past their petty disputes.

It's not Shakespeare, but it's an "okish" plot that avoids star child crap, reliance on a never before referenced deus ex machina ("The Crucible") and references things established in the series for its resolution.

 

[Freddie]

I think if they done ME2 differently, get hints from Derelict Reaper or somewhere about Leviathans, have Leviathan quest in ME2, keep Harbinger in game but far more distant, have Arrival DLC kind of sequence in the Collector base instead of human Reaper and have your epic conversation with Harbinger there. So many ways to build it actually, but no... Cerberus and daddy issues. What exactly was wrong with Karpyshyn's much lower key Cerberus?

For ME3 thinking of various races strong / weak points and that because Prothean sabotage cycle was late, space faring races were more advanced than during previous cycles, I can see a way to get out of the corner and some of it happened, but what we practically got was the battle for Earth... that was like three relatively empty stages on Earth.

In my opinion, you can salvage the series quite well just by modifying the third game. ME2 was sub-optimal from a "setting up the conclusion" angle, but it did give us material to work with. Haestrom's sun dark energy subplot could have been used as a way for the Reapers to return (perhaps new mass relays are created by collapsing stars using dark energy stuff), or it could have been used as an insight that would help defeat the Reapers. Cerberus was working on gathering technology and weapons that could help end the Reaper threat in one way or another, they were studying the giant reaper killing gun that knocked out the Derelict Reaper in ME2, and they may or may not have access to the in-tact Collector base. The council races had access to technology salvaged from Sovereign at the end of ME1 - the "Thanix Gun" you get in ME2 as an upgrade for your ship is a Turian weapon reverse engineered from Sovereign's main gun, and more than doubles the firepower of an equivalent conventional mass driver weapon.

If you want to dig really deep in the lore, there's a planet called "Rothla" that was accidentally shattered and turned into a debris field by a Krogan experiment centuries ago. There's the Leviathan of Dis (which was re-purposed for Leviathan dlc) which could have done something for the main story. There was even like a Cerberus daily news thing once where they mentioned that the Batarians had set up some giant orbital solar laser grid or something (I can't find this anywhere, but I distinctly remember it from back in the day).

You talk about how this cycle's reaping is late, allowing the council species to tech up, and that's exactly how half of a victory should be explained. Not just have they had a chance to tech up naturally, they have access to Reaper corpses and other advanced precursor technology. They have advanced warning. The Relay network is still under their control because it nolonger responds to Reaper commands, meaning that the Milky Way's species can actually coordinate with each other, unlike previous cycles.

There's also another annoyance we can solve pretty easily. Why didn't the Reapers just fly back to the Milky Way hundreds of years ago when they first woke up? Apparently it only takes a few months, and there's no negative consequences. But what if there were? What if the Reapers can't fly back to the Millky Way without major negative consequences, which is why they hesitated for so long? Drive cores need to be discharged as they build up huge quantities of electricity during their operation. In Dark Space, there's nowhere for them to do this. So imagine this instead - half of the Reapers need to shut down, and have their drive cores cannibalized by the remaining Reapers. This allows them to swap the drive cores halfway through the very long journey, and make it the whole way. The rest of the Reapers are still "alive", just in hibernation, but they are completely out of the fight until the Galaxy is pacified and the Citadel reconquered.

Since the Prothean sabotage blocked them, Shepard foiled their 2 shots of getting back into the Milky Way, they can now only bring half their force to bare. The Galaxy can coordinate in theory because the Mass Relays still work. They have access to more advanced technology. They have a few ideas for superweapons that might be able to help win a fight or two. It would be tough, but feasible to win, assuming the Galaxy can keep its shit together and work past their petty disputes.

It's not Shakespeare, but it's an "okish" plot that avoids star child crap, reliance on a never before referenced deus ex machina ("The Crucible") and references things established in the series for its resolution.

Yeah, that's pretty good example how BW's problem wasn't that there weren't places to take to story to escape the corner, but there was something else that went terribly wrong at some point. And good catch regarding that Batarian missile defence array, didn't recall that at all. I think it's destruction was explained by indoctrinated Batarians or something.

It's sort of mindfuck to think about how much worth there would have been in brand recognition which could have been somewhere like Microsoft Studios Halo and Gears of War with advantage of multi platform audience. How many dream of having a shot in something like that.