[Croc]

ME3 should have ended more or less like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_..._I_Must_Scream

Except the computer is the reapers.

[Meatvillain]

I appreciate that he isn't really throwing Walters under the bus like I'm sure a certain pocket of fans would love for him to because it would somehow prove to everyone that the ending was the worst thing ever. Dude sounds perfect reasonable and this is some interesting insight.

[Mxrz]

I started with 2 and then went back to the first one. The difference in Cerberus between the two was weird. Then 3 hits and it seem like it ignored 2 altogether. Which is annoying. I really liked nothing was as clear cut in 2, at least compared to 3.

[CorrisD]

The main problem with ME3 wasn't even about the size expansion of Cerberus as the game went to extraordinary lengths to establish how Cerberus got that huge overnight. The problem is that this was the central focus of the game even over the Reapers for the most part. Cerberus derailed ME3 as it became less about uniting the races and more about house-cleaning on the part of the humans. This made the game having a more terrestial feel compared to ME1 or even ME2.

Yup, for a such a build up over two games they sure throw most of it out the window and decide to shove Humans to the forefront of everything else, humans in Mass Effect if anything are the most boring part of the Universe.

I don't know about others but I didn't care about Earth through the first two games, we never got to go to Earth until ME3 and they managed to make it exceedingly meh when we did, more so because of the forced emotional bond with Earth and this kid they introduce out of nowhere just because they wanted us to care.
I cared far more about not wanting my team mates that I spent hours of each game with than one surprisingly boring level at the beginning of the third game.

Sovereign was a cool bad guy, Harbinger was a cool bad guy, Reapers were cool bad guys, yet besides some small models on the galaxy map chasing you around, them walking around being generally uninterested on levels, and the one you actually come into short contact with they kind of barely have a point in ME3.
What was even the point of building up Harbinger as this big bad guy in ME2, one of the oldest Reapers who was a mastermind behind the big problems in the galaxy if he takes a back seat in the big finale.

Ergh, I'm still kind of annoyed how they handled it all, lol.

[rozay]

What doesn't make sense about the dark energy ending to me is why bother leaving the trails of technology (biotics, mass effect fields) for each cycle to discover when they just made the issue worse? Unless they went through hundreds or thousands of species and finally decided humans were the right ones for the cause..

Yup, for a such a build up over two games they sure throw most of it out the window and decide to shove Humans to the forefront of everything else, humans in Mass Effect if anything are the most boring part of the Universe.

"Humans are special" didn't seem to be a focus at all in ME3 compared to ME2 where it was sort of front and center with the collector plot. I guess that's one thing I liked about the plot.

[JdFoX187]

One thing that I questioned throughout the whole series, and that I've discussed with friends before, is why did the Reapers even need an explanation? Sovereign says something in ME1 that their motivations and intentions are so beyond human understanding. Great! That's all you need right there. We don't need any sort of rhyme or reason. They're a plague that's coming to wipe out the entire galaxy and these species need to figure out how to stop them. I wouldn't mind throwing in some background info here or there on the Reapers, but never truly reveal their intentions. It seems a common trope in science-fiction writing, especially, to try to come up with some bullshit explanation when it's obvious the writer only threw it together at the last second because he/she felt the story needed one.

[MrTroubleMaker]

What doesn't make sense about the dark energy ending to me is why bother leaving the trails of technology (biotics, mass effect fields) for each cycle to discover when they just made the issue worse? Unless they went through hundreds or thousands of species and finally decided humans were the right ones for the cause.. "Humans are special" didn't seem to be a focus at all in ME3 compared to ME2 where it was sort of front and center with the collector plot. I guess that's one thing I liked about the plot.

It sounds just as dumb as the ending we got :/

[ThoseDeafMutes]

One thing that I questioned throughout the whole series, and that I've discussed with friends before, is why did the Reapers even need an explanation? Sovereign says something in ME1 that their motivations and intentions are so beyond human understanding. Great! That's all you need right there. We don't need any sort of rhyme or reason. They're a plague that's coming to wipe out the entire galaxy and these species need to figure out how to stop them. I wouldn't mind throwing in some background info here or there on the Reapers, but never truly reveal their intentions. It seems a common trope in science-fiction writing, especially, to try to come up with some bullshit explanation when it's obvious the writer only threw it together at the last second because he/she felt the story needed one.

If their motivations are incomprehensible to humans, then they're incomprehensible to the writers, and then we as the audience know that the writers were just making shit up. This is arguably just as bad as having a dumb reason that is entirely comprehensible to humans.

[JdFoX187]

If their motivations are incomprehensible to humans, then they're incomprehensible to the writers, and then we as the audience know that the writers were just making shit up. This is arguably just as bad as having a dumb reason that is entirely comprehensible to humans.

I would say the plausibility of robots that are millions of years old having intentions that we can't comprehend is a hell of a lot better than some half-assed explanation that sounds like it's ripped straight out of an Xzibit meme. The only reason the Reapers' ultimate "plan" is so incomprehensible is because no one can honestly believe that's what they're truly doing.

A talented writer, and I'm not passing judgment on those at Bioware, could craft a story where there are hints and tidbits to the overall endgame of the Reapers, but never truly reveal it. Let people fill in the holes themselves, it's much more interesting and engaging. As much as I respect Drew's talents, this ending sounds no better than the one we got. It just had a little more groundwork. What developers and writers should take from this is when you set out to do a "trilogy" or a set number of games/movies/books with an overarching storyline, you need to have an outline of where it's going to go and not just throw shit on the wall and see what sticks with each iteration.

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

I would say the plausibility of robots that are millions of years old having intentions that we can't comprehend is a hell of a lot better than some half-assed explanation that sounds like it's ripped straight out of an Xzibit meme. The only reason the Reapers' ultimate "plan" is so incomprehensible is because no one can honestly believe that's what they're truly doing. A talented writer, and I'm not passing judgment on those at Bioware, could craft a story where there are hints and tidbits to the overall endgame of the Reapers, but never truly reveal it. Let people fill in the holes themselves, it's much more interesting and engaging. As much as I respect Drew's talents, this ending sounds no better than the one we got. It just had a little more groundwork. What developers and writers should take from this is when you set out to do a "trilogy" or a set number of games/movies/books with an overarching storyline, you need to have an outline of where it's going to go and not just throw shit on the wall and see what sticks with each iteration.

I would have preferred this. When you set it up like they did in ME1, just about any explanation they give is going to fall flat.

[CorrisD]

One thing that I questioned throughout the whole series, and that I've discussed with friends before, is why did the Reapers even need an explanation? Sovereign says something in ME1 that their motivations and intentions are so beyond human understanding. Great! That's all you need right there. We don't need any sort of rhyme or reason. They're a plague that's coming to wipe out the entire galaxy and these species need to figure out how to stop them. I wouldn't mind throwing in some background info here or there on the Reapers, but never truly reveal their intentions. It seems a common trope in science-fiction writing, especially, to try to come up with some bullshit explanation when it's obvious the writer only threw it together at the last second because he/she felt the story needed one.

I too would have been fine without any real explanation for the Reapers. They painted as such a big bad guy that have been around for so long that really any other bad guy, if the series has any future games, will seem rather small and not that big of a deal comparatively.

[bigdaddygamebot]

oh my god

Bioware confessions are freaking me out.

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I would have preferred this. When you set it up like they did in ME1, just about any explanation they give is going to fall flat.

Which is why they never should have set it up that way in the first place. Everything in ME1 was promising shit that nobody could ever deliver on. It's just one more thing on the pile of things that ME1 did to set the franchise up to disappoint people on a scale that few games can hope to match.

It should have been obvious from the outset that the decisions you made could never deviate the story beyond trivialities until the end, but people still got pissed off when ME2 happened, and then again when ME3 happened. The game is filled to the brim with ambitious gameplay mechanics that ended up bombing hard because of it's scope, and we wound up with a game that was a shitty third person shooter, a drastically simplified RPG with too much irrelevant looting and tedious side-missions, had awful driving missions, featured a bad interface, and was a technical mess to boot.

[Trigger]

Bioware confessions are freaking me out.

It's like reading a Twilight/Hunger Games tumblr account honestly. Some of them are sweet though.

[Kai Dracon]

I would say the plausibility of robots that are millions of years old having intentions that we can't comprehend is a hell of a lot better than some half-assed explanation that sounds like it's ripped straight out of an Xzibit meme. The only reason the Reapers' ultimate "plan" is so incomprehensible is because no one can honestly believe that's what they're truly doing. A talented writer, and I'm not passing judgment on those at Bioware, could craft a story where there are hints and tidbits to the overall endgame of the Reapers, but never truly reveal it. Let people fill in the holes themselves, it's much more interesting and engaging. As much as I respect Drew's talents, this ending sounds no better than the one we got. It just had a little more groundwork. What developers and writers should take from this is when you set out to do a "trilogy" or a set number of games/movies/books with an overarching storyline, you need to have an outline of where it's going to go and not just throw shit on the wall and see what sticks with each iteration.

The "Dark Energy" ending conjecture actually sounds like it's lifted directly from Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series and the ancient recurring machine threat (sound familiar?) known as the Inhibitors.

The difference is, much as you say, Reynolds plays it smart. He set up a vast universe spanning mystery, but never drops all the pieces in one place and leaves out vast chunks - chosen carefully to leave out - that allows the reader to theorize about the ultimate aims of unknowable aliens (and other entities).

That's really the problem I had with the writing in all the Mass Effect games. The writing makes a pretense of imitating the style of contemporary 'new generation' intellectual space opera. But for the most part, it's as ham fisted as Gears of War. Better dialog much of the time, yes, and throwing around bigger ideas, yes... but the series always seemed to boil down to typical "Yo Joe" video game stuff at the end of the day.

[ThoseDeafMutes]

That's really the problem I had with the writing in all the Mass Effect games. The writing makes a pretense of imitating the style of contemporary 'new generation' intellectual space opera. But for the most part, it's as ham fisted as Gears of War. Better dialog much of the time, yes, and throwing around bigger ideas, yes... but the series always seemed to boil down to typical "Yo Joe" video game stuff at the end of the day.

Every problem can be solved by three dudes with guns and chest high walls! There really should have been more stuff to do in ME2 with the Normandy and its upgrades taking centre stage, and then in 3 there should have been fleet actions and stuff beyond the final suicidal charge at Earth. The Normandy is just a taxi to get you to places where you can be relevant, and the combined galactic fleet in ME3 is just a distraction for you to do your shit on the ground. It's terrible.

[beat]

What doesn't make sense about the dark energy ending to me is why bother leaving the trails of technology (biotics, mass effect fields) for each cycle to discover when they just made the issue worse? Unless they went through hundreds or thousands of species and finally decided humans were the right ones for the cause.

Yeah, this. The Reapers even said they established the Citadel, etc, so that civilizations would progress along patterns they'd established. It would have made no sense if ultimately they wanted people to stop using eezo/mass effect technology.

[Rufus]

What doesn't make sense about the dark energy ending to me is why bother leaving the trails of technology (biotics, mass effect fields) for each cycle to discover when they just made the issue worse? Unless they went through hundreds or thousands of species and finally decided humans were the right ones for the cause..

They'd only want the capable species to rise to the occasion and quicker than at their natural pace, so they accelerate everyone's development and take whichever species comes out on top. I still think the dark energy plot has more potential, though it's clear that it is underdeveloped in every area (no wonder, since they dropped it).

[mujun]

I really like that dark energy idea. It would have been cool to have the Reapers actually turn out to be the "good guys" and have them follow some sort of "we are dedicated to maintaining balance in the universe" ethos as a way to explain why they don't try to eradicate dark energy and the races that use it entirely.

[televator]

What?

[WonkersTHEWatilla]

In a funny and terribly adverse way, the ending of ME3 did fulfill the promise of this cg trailer for the original game, way back when: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2Vpcm8CYM

Ya can't win everything.

So much promise, so much potential.

[News Bot]

Yeah, this. The Reapers even said they established the Citadel, etc, so that civilizations would progress along patterns they'd established. It would have made no sense if ultimately they wanted people to stop using eezo/mass effect technology.

Before ME3, the Citadel and Mass Relays etc were created by the Protheans.

[CorrisD]

Before ME3, the Citadel and Mass Relays etc were created by the Protheans.

Err, Sovereign tells us himself they created the Citadel and Mass Relays in ME1.

[beat]

Before ME3, the Citadel and Mass Relays etc were created by the Protheans.

I thought ME1 had Sovereign say the Citadel, etc was created by Reapers? Hell, the whole point of ME1 was that the Citadel was secretly a giant mass relay for the Reapers' benefit. It totally wasn't built by the Protheans.

dammit, beaten.

[News Bot]

Huh, selective memory for me. Last thing I remembered was the Codex entries claiming "Protheans did it" for practically everything. My mistake.

[.GqueB.]

It wasn't any different either.

Never said it was different. But the further explanation helped that ending quite a bit IMO. Was it perfect? Of course not.

[_Keiichi_]

I'm glad you guys are liking that Bioware Confessions thing!




Sure, why not?

What?

[nel e nel]

The only other of his article's I've read is the 'intervention' for Lindelof (because of Prometheus), which seems to refute that at least: http://badassdigest.com/2012/06/17/f...-intervention/

I dunno, but I think you're missing the point of this article (or maybe I am). He's not calling for Lindelof to go back and retcon LOST the way that Bioware has done with ME3, he's saying that Lindelof needs to grow as a writer for future projects, and become better at telegraphing his ideas and themes.

FCH felt that the ideas and themes were telegraphed in ME3, you guys don't. I don't see what the problem is outside of your incredulousness that someone doesn't share the same opinion as you. Granted, he didn't need to stoop down to the same name calling that previous writers have, but that's the basis of his argument. He just doesn't feel that Bioware should have retconned anything.

That's where my issues on this whole debacle stem from, this refusal from both sides of the divide to have some discourse on the matter without it eventually degrading into this fight over who has the most authoritative reasons to be the winner. Most threads I've seen usually end up with people linking to articles by people more articulate than them saying

"THIS GUY GETS IT!"
"HE'S A PROFESSOR, SO WE MUST BE RIGHT!!!"
"THIS GUY IS VERBOSE AND DISAGREES WITH YOU, SO YOU MUST BE AN IDIOT!!!"
"IT'S IN THE CODEX AND IT'S INFALLIBLE!!!"

Re-reading parts of the spoiler threads last night (was trying to find that link to the BSN discussion with one of the Dragon Age developers) and one of the things I saw over and over again was "I still haven't seen anyone who likes it give a good reason for why they did." Why does it matter so much that they need to justify their taste to you? You can't just agree to disagree?

I respect that folks don't like the ending and wanted better connection with what the ending presented and what was telegraphed throughout the series, and I also respect that folks liked the ending and felt it was poetically ambiguous and profound.

WHY CAN'T EVERYONE BE LIKE ME! ;P

[nel e nel]

Err, Sovereign tells us himself they created the Citadel and Mass Relays in ME1.

True, but this is never reflected in the Codex, so if one doesn't remember the conversation with Sovereign (or didn't play ME1) it's not unreasonable to see how someone could miss this.

[Monocle]

Neither of the sequels fulfilled the potential of the original game. The Reaper and Prothean stuff in ME1 was very effective at conveying a sense of ancient mystery and impending doom. It gave the whole critical path momentum, darting about the edges of a grander history than the series ultimately realized. I think the trilogy would have had a much more satisfying narrative if the devs had written up a full story bible before making the first game and then stuck to it all the way through.

[TacticalFox88]

Neither of the sequels fulfilled the potential of the original game. The Reaper and Prothean stuff in ME1 was very effective at conveying a sense of ancient mystery and impending doom. It gave the whole critical path momentum, darting about the edges of a grander history than the series ultimately realized. I think the trilogy would have had a much more satisfying narrative if the devs had written up a full story bible before making the first game and then stuck to it all the way through.

This is what happens when you take the route of "Making shit up as you go and hope it makes sense in hindsight."

[DTKT]

I dunno, but I think you're missing the point of this article (or maybe I am). He's not calling for Lindelof to go back and retcon LOST the way that Bioware has done with ME3, he's saying that Lindelof needs to grow as a writer for future projects, and become better at telegraphing his ideas and themes. FCH felt that the ideas and themes were telegraphed in ME3, you guys don't. I don't see what the problem is outside of your incredulousness that someone doesn't share the same opinion as you. Granted, he didn't need to stoop down to the same name calling that previous writers have, but that's the basis of his argument. He just doesn't feel that Bioware should have retconned anything. That's where my issues on this whole debacle stem from, this refusal from both sides of the divide to have some discourse on the matter without it eventually degrading into this fight over who has the most authoritative reasons to be the winner. Most threads I've seen usually end up with people linking to articles by people more articulate than them saying "THIS GUY GETS IT!" "HE'S A PROFESSOR, SO WE MUST BE RIGHT!!!" "THIS GUY IS VERBOSE AND DISAGREES WITH YOU, SO YOU MUST BE AN IDIOT!!!" "IT'S IN THE CODEX AND IT'S INFALLIBLE!!!" Re-reading parts of the spoiler threads last night (was trying to find that link to the BSN discussion with one of the Dragon Age developers) and one of the things I saw over and over again was "I still haven't seen anyone who likes it give a good reason for why they did." Why does it matter so much that they need to justify their taste to you? You can't just agree to disagree? I respect that folks don't like the ending and wanted better connection with what the ending presented and what was telegraphed throughout the series, and I also respect that folks liked the ending and felt it was poetically ambiguous and profound. WHY CAN'T EVERYONE BE LIKE ME! ;P

Agreeing to disagree is boring. I'm still interested in a debate! I'm still baffled as what I see as obvious flaws and a rushed job can be seen as "profound" and "poetic".

But that debate will never be setted. :P

[MC Safety]

If their motivations are incomprehensible to humans, then they're incomprehensible to the writers, and then we as the audience know that the writers were just making shit up. This is arguably just as bad as having a dumb reason that is entirely comprehensible to humans.

It would have been perfectly fine if the Reapers had a motivation that was beyond us. It would establish them as a race that was wholly alien to everyone else, a sort of force of nature that came in and wiped everything out with regularity.

The problem is, and I've pointed to the Book of Job in the Bible before, you start trying to explain the inexplicable, and things get really, really dumb. BioWare's attempts to give the Reapers a backstory and motivation were failures.

It's dumb to have this race of superintelligent and genocidal machines and believe they'd operate under laws and principles -- or have motivations -- we'd understand.

[Lime]

That's where my issues on this whole debacle stem from, this refusal from both sides of the divide to have some discourse on the matter without it eventually degrading into this fight over who has the most authoritative reasons to be the winner. Most threads I've seen usually end up with people linking to articles by people more articulate than them saying

I already provided you with worthwhile arguments for why this isn't as clear-cut as "opinion 1 vs opinion 2". I can only guess why you choose to ignore or include my prior arguments in your post, since said post of mine goes against the discussion-hindering paragraph I am quoting now.

[CorrisD]

Neither of the sequels fulfilled the potential of the original game. The Reaper and Prothean stuff in ME1 was very effective at conveying a sense of ancient mystery and impending doom. It gave the whole critical path momentum, darting about the edges of a grander history than the series ultimately realized. I think the trilogy would have had a much more satisfying narrative if the devs had written up a full story bible before making the first game and then stuck to it all the way through.

This is really what it comes down to, if you are going to create a series designed as a trilogy with a continuing bad guy, you should have decided pretty much everything about them from the first game instead of making stuff up along the way and end up doing something you have to go back on.

But then it should have been obvious from ME1 and then ME2 when we found out Bioware hadn't even decided on what the Proteans look like, which is pretty silly considering their large part of the lore in the first game and the ME universe, then there passing mention of it in ME3 from Javik.

[Haunted]

Great interview. He seems like a considerate guy.

I kind of figured that they were making it up as they went along when the Cerberus of ME2 bared little to no resemblance of the Cerberus of ME1.

Yep, felt exactly like that when they were suddenly in such focus in ME2.

[Bisnic]

This is really what it comes down to, if you are going to create a series designed as a trilogy with a continuing bad guy, you should have decided pretty much everything about them from the first game instead of making stuff up along the way and end up doing something you have to go back on. But then it should have been obvious from ME1 and then ME2 when we found out Bioware hadn't even decided on what the Proteans look like, which is pretty silly considering their large part of the lore in the first game and the ME universe, then there passing mention of it in ME3 from Javik.

Everyone assumed Protheans looked like those creepy Ilos Statues with the giant very thin creatures with tubes going out of their heads. I guess after ME2 it was kinda obvious they would go with something more similar to Collectors if they were ever gonna show them. I suppose the "original" Protheans would have been too hard to animated, so they went with something smaller and more humanoid. Just like you never actually see a Hanar move.

[ThoseDeafMutes]

It would have been perfectly fine if the Reapers had a motivation that was beyond us. It would establish them as a race that was wholly alien to everyone else, a sort of force of nature that came in and wiped everything out with regularity. The problem is, and I've pointed to the Book of Job in the Bible before, you start trying to explain the inexplicable, and things get really, really dumb. BioWare's attempts to give the Reapers a backstory and motivation were failures.

I disagree, but I'm just repeating myself. The reason that "explaining the inexplicable" winds up being dumb is because things only seem inexplicable if there isn't a good explanation. So you wind up with bad explanations, by design. Inexplicable behavior and ambiguous behavior aren't the same, though, although they can serve the same function in a story, which is to obscure motives.

I would say that inexplicable motives tend to be contradictory or otherwise spurious, such that you can't think of any possible reasons for them to be acting the way they are. In contrast, ambiguous motives are the opposite, in that you can think of too many possible reasons for them to act some way, and can't narrow it down. Both are mysterious. The former results in fucking shitty bullshit when they try to explain it (because the writer arbitrarily decided on behavior without regard to motive), the latter results in satisfying conclusions to a mystery (unless there's plotholes or something).

I can point you to two different examples of media doing the same basic story arc that ME tried to do with the Reapers. The first has been mentioned in this thread, the Revelation Space series. The latter is Babylon 5's big 4 season story arc. I would argue that the former has some of the same problems that ME has, while the latter manages to avoid them mostly. Both of these works did it better than ME, because they featured enemies with mysterious motivations that, never-the-less, could be logically extrapolated from their underlying motives. This is better than just saying "Lol they're magic, I ain't gotta explain shit". I think that this attitude leads to terrible stories, on average.

It's dumb to have this race of superintelligent and genocidal machines and believe they'd operate under laws and principles -- or have motivations -- we'd understand.

No, it's perfectly reasonable to think they'd have motives we're capable of understanding. Super intelligent machines are the most likely things in the universe to have rational, logically consistent motives. If they aren't capable of explaining their motives to human-level intelligences in a concise, logical way (even if you have to boil it down to formal logic), then they're stupidheads. Rational motives come in the form of "I want X, and to achieve X, I must do Y". They can just outright state their own ethical system, which we could then use to determine what they would think is right or wrong in a given situation. Even if we humans don't agree, we can at least lay it out and comprehend it.

The notion that higher intelligences think in unknowable ways is a sort of romantic one that raises the spectre of Lovecraft and has strong religious overtones (i.e. the classic "god works in mysterious ways"). But in this case, mysterious and unknowable is just another way of saying arbitrary and unjustified.

[beat]

True, but this is never reflected in the Codex, so if one doesn't remember the conversation with Sovereign (or didn't play ME1) it's not unreasonable to see how someone could miss this.

It always disappointed me the Codex in ME1 didn't update when Sovereign turned all that history upside down.

But then in ME2 and ME3, even the mission summaries stopped updating at checkpoints and when the mission finished. I loved the journal auto-updating with new stuff.

[Jake Tower]

Ohohoh

[TheSeks]

Robo-Shep's smile will never stop being funny.

[nel e nel]

Agreeing to disagree is boring. I'm still interested in a debate! I'm still baffled as what I see as obvious flaws and a rushed job can be seen as "profound" and "poetic". But that debate will never be setted. :P

I hear you. I am just as baffled by people who don't like chocolate. But again, this just falls into the typical 'I can't understand why anyone else would feel differently about something than me' trap that is very easy to get sucked into.

The amount of people agreeing with you and citing academic traditions still doesn't account for individual tastes, and does not make one more...correct than anyone else.

[Jarmel]

I would just like to argue that the length of works matter as well. Having some unknown villain over the works of three games gets frustrating as you don't know why they're doing what they're doing for such a long period. I think if it was over 1 game, having the Reapers being some unknown force would have worked much better.

[MC Safety]

I disagree, but I'm just repeating myself. The reason that "explaining the inexplicable" winds up being dumb is because things only seem inexplicable if there isn't a good explanation. So you wind up with bad explanations, by design. Inexplicable behavior and ambiguous behavior aren't the same, though, although they can serve the same function in a story, which is to obscure motives.

It's hubris to think you will be able to put meaning to something that defies understanding. Simply, some things are bigger than you or beyond you. When you are faced with these things, your attempts to explain it away will fail.

The Reapers would have been fine as an enemy existing beyond our scope.

[Xero]

Why couldn't the reapers motivation simply have been just harvesting advanced civilizations? Or have them like brainiac with collecting species knowledge. Or simply destroying organics to prevent them from ever challenging them.

[beat]

It's hubris to think you will be able to put meaning to something that defies understanding. Simply, some things are bigger than you or beyond you. When you are faced with these things, your attempts to explain it away will fail. The Reapers would have been fine as an enemy existing beyond our scope.

Well, like ThoseDeafMutes said, that whole "defies your puny mortal comprehension" (I paraphrase) is a cop-out to begin with.

[Crewnh]

Why couldn't the reapers motivation simply have been just harvesting advanced civilizations? Or have them like brainiac with collecting species knowledge. Or simply destroying organics to prevent them from ever challenging them.

Because then Bioware wouldn't be able to make them seem like theyre doing it for our own good. Bioware wanted some kind moral ambiguity with them, instead we get idiotic logic.

[Riposte]

oh my god

Hold on a second...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8He3...tailpage#t=36s

Kind of looks like Elroy or w/e. Welp, character ruined twice over.