Banana Scoop

If you’ve finished the Mass Effect 3 campaign, you know that the extended cut was released last Tuesday for US and Canada to possibly fill any plot holes some [all] players wanted.  There have been an entire mess of theories arising, the most popular being the indoctrination theory, which in short was the idea that the entire final 30 minutes or so were simply an illusion and that you were in Shepherds mind fighting of metaphors for indoctrination.  Was that Bioware’s actual intention?  Does Shepherd still have an enemy to fight?  If you haven’t read up on the theories yet or are just curious to what my take on the series is, I suggest you continue reading below.  But beware, if you’re still interested in picking up the series, mass [lol] spoilers ahead.

I got home late on Tuesday when the DLC was released, so I was anxious to download the fairly large (almost 2 whole Gigs) file.  After the absurdly long 30 minutes it took to download and install, I had to go back and select the career Shepherd that I had actually finished the campaign with, which was last played all the way back in March.  I selected to restart the final act, and only learned upon after completing the whole game, that changes were made as early as infiltrating the Cerberus base.  I thought carefully about if I really wanted to play what was likely 2-3 hours of gameplay just for a few cut scenes and decided against it.

So if you’ve played the game, restarting the final mission starts you off mere feet away from the beam after your squad was bombarded with the Reaper blast.  You carefully fight your way through some husks and an annoyingly strong Marauder before beaming you up to the nasty crypt of a Citadel.  It was already a rush of nostalgia seeing my old Shepherd’s face, one I haven’t seen in nearly 3 months.  But what proceeded was a large rush of complex emotions that stemmed me to restart another Campaign [more on that below].

After catching up with Andersson again, we verbally fought with The Illusive Man, and another gush of emotions rushed through me as I felt as weak and powerless as my dying Shepherd.  I was looking for points and key moments that supported the indoctrination theory and grinned at the idea that it truly might be the correct theory.  But when it came to Paragoning the sh!t out of the Illusive Man, Anderson died in my arms and I was lifted to the battlefield to converse with Space Child.

His conversation was annoyingly long and I was already tired of waiting.  So when he was done talk, I made my way towards my final goal when I wanted to give him one more piece of my mind, so I quickly turned around and fired a shot from my side arm at his adorable ghost head.

Big Mistake.

“So be it,” he said.  Before turning away and a massive tremble shook the screen.  I turned off the Playstation.  Big Mistake.  I wasn’t aware about this new [is this confirmed to be a new part?] refusal ending.  As I reloaded my screen and pressed resume, I saw that the choice was already made and to restart would put me back to the beam again.  I almost wanted to let this be the decision I would ultimately go with because in truth, it’s what MY Shepherd did.  But no, I was too stubborn.  I restarted from the beam again and sat through all those conversations again.

And then it was time to choose.  In my previous campaign, I chose Synthesis, the most common sense and morally correct option.  The Indoctrination theory would leave me to believe that Destroy was the right choice for the ultimate ending.  And Control wasn’t even in the cards for me at that point.  I almost chose Destroy to get the best ending any video game had the potential of having, but I knew in my gut that wasn’t what my REAL Shepherd would’ve wanted.  So I limped my way into the blue vat and watched myself deteriorate in the name of all organisms.

And then the emotions started coming back.

Mordin.  Legion.  Thane.  Anderson.  All those who died for me came back as a rush of goosebumps filled my skin.  I saw the fleet pulling out and the look on Joker’s face knowing that I couldn’t come back.  They pulled out one by one, and I saw how the entire galaxy reacted to the change.  The Krogan cheering in victory and the scene where the man was fighting the Husk were new scenes and both equally powerful in the overwhelming message of victory at last.

All was well in the world as my entire crew left the ship in the random jungle area.  This was all added content that really wrapped up the idea that my crew wasn’t stranded on some random planet.  I began to get curious with the rest of the world, and then it was satiated at the voice of a familiar friend.  EDI began talking about what had happened.  How all organisms have become ‘perfect’ and that the road to progress was infinite.  We saw images of my friends of the past, and even another unmasked Quarian here and there.  The biggest gut wrenching moment was when my romance interest, Liara, carried my name to the plaque of our lost friends.  It was heartfelt and full of emotion, and her hug with EDI didn’t make it any easier.  The galaxy was truly at rest and EDI’s emotional response led me to believe the choice I made was truly the best.  It was a truly a good ending.

So what about the Indoctrination theory?  Turns out it wasn’t true after all.  Immediately after watching my true ending, I went to Youtube and found the Destroy and Control Endings.  I watched the Destroy ending first to prove that if it was the Indoctrination theory, but it turns out it wasn’t.  What we got was a largely less satisfying wrap up by Admiral Hackett talking about how although the galaxy is in ruins, there’s hope that we get learn from all this.  It was disappointing largely because there wasn’t any true reassurance that the galaxy would be at peace.  Sure they survived, but just as the Reapers served their original purpose, how long would the peace last?  However, it was nice to see this ending carry the idea that Shepherd could still live through it all.

I truly believed that this ending couldn’t be as bad as the control ending.  I always felt as though this ending would make Shepherd like the Illusive Man, under the delusion of being able to control the Reapers.  But as I watched this ending, I quickly found out that I was wrong and this Ending probably is my favorite and most logical ending.  Don’t get me wrong, the synthesis ending was good.  But it was too good.  It was too perfectly cheesy and made for a rather dull conclusion.  What made the Control Ending better is that while the sense of political strife and potential future destruction was still there, Shepherd is there in the strangest way possible to stop anything that may occur.  He was God, or even better, a Reaper.  His control over the Reapers gave the idea that he would forever watch over the Universe and protect it, largely what we as the gamer have been doing for nearly 60-90 hours with him.  But as we played him in the games, we were restricted from saving everyone due to being only human.  But with Shepherd as a Reaper, the idea that he had the power to do anything to save the galaxy set my mind at ease.

Everyone’s journey with Mass Effect 3 is different.  Whether or not you read this post before or after you played it, your approach to how you command Commander Shepherd is a highly emotional experience.  There are a number of people still at conflict with this ending, but I think given the high level of emotional satisfaction I got, I think this is as good as anything we’ll ever get.  Wrapping up how someone spends 60-90 hours is highly dangerous in how you execute and Bioware knew that.  By releasing this DLC, they calmed some of the tides they created, but even they knew not everyone would be happy.  I personally found it to be exactly what I needed to put my Shepherd to rest…

At least until soon after I started another campaign on ‘Insanity’…Just so I can feel all those feels I have before.

And this time, I’ll make the right decision.