Bioware General (Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Other)

[Mazder]

Omg, all the #SAVETHEQUARIANS / we want SP DLC comments on this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dLSk2rIKO8

[Someone With Mass]

Jessus fucknig christ. Platinum in Andromeda is even harder than in ME3MP WTF. I'm gonna need to find a a proper team to farm this shit. Bosses everywhere good luck trying to cap an objective with 2 purple destroyers standing on it.

Everyone who is skilled at MP your welcome to add me on Origin UNiT-N7.

Oh yeah, they made it so that the hack objective doesn't work if an enemy is inside it.

Also, the Progenitor (the boss Destroyer) is made of unadulterated evil. Not only does its turrets have an AoE that damages you in cover, it creates three Observers every time it exposes its core. AND it has increased movement speed.

[UNiT]

Jessus fucknig christ. Platinum in Andromeda is even harder than in ME3MP WTF. I'm gonna need to find a a proper team to farm this shit. Bosses everywhere good luck trying to cap an objective with 2 purple destroyers standing on it.

Everyone who is skilled at MP your welcome to add me on Origin UNiT-N7.

Oh yeah, they made it so that the hack objective doesn't work if an enemy is inside it.

Also, the Progenitor (the boss Destroyer) is made of unadulterated evil. Not only does its turrets have an AoE that damages you in cover, it creates three Observers every time it exposes its core. AND it has increased movement speed.

Theres also the blaze hydra which feels like it drank 300 skooma bottles fuck that speed and rate of fire.

[UNiT]

SWM I've sent you a friend request on Origin. Maybe we can play some games when I'm free.

[TheodoricFriede]

So, two Batarians apparently.
In all of Andromeda.

At least thats not as stupid as it could have been.

Its pretty obvious this wasn't intended to save their species, just keep a promise to these two assholes.

(It would be neat if one of them was female. You know just to see what a female batarian looks line now that their species is basically dead)

[Someone With Mass]

SWM I've sent you a friend request on Origin. Maybe we can play some games when I'm free.

Sure, as long as it's not crazy late for me.

I also really think that they should make it so Fortify negates that fucking stupid staggering animation which triggers every time someone as much as touches you, because that's pretty much the only reason why I get killed.

I'm pretty sure that's how it worked in ME3.

[UNiT]

So out of 3 platinum games 2 failed because we where doomed by the hack objective. It's just not possible without someone having a cloaked class and camping the objective while the rest distracts everyone. Cobras are officially useless. Especially on platinum. No way in hell to keep every single asshole off the circle, it was dumb of bioware to make this change to the hack objective.

[Raga]

It doesn't make ME2 a crappy game far from it, but from a story point of view it's a very crappy sequel.

ME2 is precisely what I want in the ME universe. I want to travel to interesting alien hub worlds. I want to meet (and bang) cool aliens. I want to have space adventures with my team of weirdos. That's really it. Fighting Reapers has consistently been extremely boring in comparison.

[Someone With Mass]

At least thats not as stupid as it could have been.

Its pretty obvious this wasn't intended to save their species, just keep a promise to these two assholes.

Considering the time when the Initiative started their journey, I'd say that it was a little bit too late anyway.

Edit: Bought the Apex Elite pack and got my first Black Widow, human female Vanguard XI, Falcon Bulwark I (gives damage resistance when near an ally, which is interesting and useful), Inferno II and krogan Engineer XI. Nice. Not 600k worth of nice, but nice.

Double edit: Ha, I just noticed that you can change the skin tone on the asari characters. That's funny.

[TTTX]

ME2 is precisely what I want in the ME universe. I want to travel to interesting alien hub worlds. I want to meet (and bang) cool aliens. I want to have space adventures with my team of weirdos. That's really it. Fighting Reapers has consistently been extremely boring in comparison.

well dealing with the Reapers is well important since you know they will destroy the galaxy and put a stop to that.

But if you like it fine, just remember because of the problems ME2 started, the ME franchise will be on ice for a while (aside from maybe some DLC), so that will mean no new space adventure, alien world and such from ME for who knows how long.

[Raga]

Not really. As far as I can tell the insistence on making the Reapers AI gods and scrambling to find a McGuffin that wasn't a McGuffin to kill them (and toasting the whole galaxy in the process) is what did it. Piddle-farting around on Omega or Illium certainly didn't.

[SciFlyBoy]

yeah.

Also the purchasing characters with points is only for 6 days.
Mind you I am still slumming it in bronze level stuff so....I'm never seeing the new stuff.

Same here. Dabbing a little in silver here and there.

[TTTX]

Not really. As far as I can tell the insistence on making the Reapers AI gods and scrambling to find a McGuffin that wasn't a McGuffin to kill them (and toasting the whole galaxy in the process) is what did it. Piddle-farting around on Omega or Illium certainly didn't.

yes because not preparing when you know there is a big ass army out coming to kill us all that's the smart thing to do.

Piddle-farting in ME2 as you called most certainly hurt the ME franchise, because while Shepard with their thumb up their asses and fixed their squad mates daddy issues and doing pretty much nothing to stop the Reapers in ME2, caused a number of problems for the ME3 creative team that now in limited time had come with all stuff ME2 should have dealt with like how do we find a way to defeat the Reapers, how do we set it up, set a couple of other things in motion, etc.

Instead ME3 had to rush all that (like a groom who spend all night partying instead of preparing for his weeding), because ME2 is a pointless side plot, that shouldn't have never been a sequel.

[Mazder]

At least thats not as stupid as it could have been.

Its pretty obvious this wasn't intended to save their species, just keep a promise to these two assholes.

(It would be neat if one of them was female. You know just to see what a female batarian looks line now that their species is basically dead)

true.
It also kinda puts the whole "OMG ANDROMEDA IS BACK-UP PLAN" back a little aas tbh why waste resources on two, non-breedable Blinks?

Double edit: Ha, I just noticed that you can change the skin tone on the asari characters. That's funny.

On all characters.
I got me a green Krogan.

Same here. Dabbing a little in silver here and there.

Hey if anyone is interested in a game on PC, lemmie know. I'm Mazder_Verhal on Origin so drop a Friend Request and we'll get a game going.
I do play on occasion, mainly when CroGamer is able ATM because FUCK playing with completely with Pubbies.

[Someone With Mass]

Hey if anyone is interested in a game on PC, lemmie know. I'm Mazder_Verhal on Origin so drop a Friend Request and we'll get a game going.
I do play on occasion, mainly when CroGamer is able ATM because FUCK playing with completely with Pubbies.

"Durr, I started playing today and I heard this new difficulty came out. I'mma tots solo it!"

[Mazder]

Hey if anyone is interested in a game on PC, lemmie know. I'm Mazder_Verhal on Origin so drop a Friend Request and we'll get a game going.
I do play on occasion, mainly when CroGamer is able ATM because FUCK playing with completely with Pubbies.

"Durr, I started playing today and I heard this new difficulty came out. I'mma tots solo it!"

Heh, trust me that's them on a GOOD day.

[SciFlyBoy]

I'm on Xbox, I'm not the only one, correct? Deano I think is on one too.

[magnuskn]

Not really. As far as I can tell the insistence on making the Reapers AI gods and scrambling to find a McGuffin that wasn't a McGuffin to kill them (and toasting the whole galaxy in the process) is what did it. Piddle-farting around on Omega or Illium certainly didn't.

I totally concur on that statement. As was stated quite a lot in the past, BioWare did write themselves into a corner with their "50.0000 cycles" BS where the Reapers were invincible no matter what we did in ME2 and ME3, unless we found a McGuffin to deal with it. ME2 being kind of a side story did not change that contrivance at all.

I would have been a different thing if ME2 would have piddled time away while we knew that we could win against the Reapers conventionally. But we couldn't, as much as I hate that fact.

[Vol]

I thought the Reaper plot was working fine, Harbinger's chattiness aside, as a means to give us structure for our adventures, right up until the ending of ME2. Because at that point, we're now aware there is no chance of conventional military victory, and thus, Star Child.

[magnuskn]

I think the point it became abundantly clear that there would be no military victory was when BioWare put into the game how long the Reapers had already existed and people started to do some math (something BioWare either did not do before putting 50.000 cycles into the game or it was the plan all along to do a McGuffin plot).

How did people extrapolate the 50.000 cycles thing again? Was it in the codex or one of the planet descriptions?

[Mazder]

Oh my god, there is a change.org petition for MEA SP DLC: https://www.change.org/p/bioware-dlc-fo ... -andromeda
lol

[TTTX]

I totally concur on that statement. As was stated quite a lot in the past, BioWare did write themselves into a corner with their "50.0000 cycles" BS where the Reapers were invincible no matter what we did in ME2 and ME3, unless we found a McGuffin to deal with it. ME2 being kind of a side story did not change that contrivance at all.

I would have been a different thing if ME2 would have piddled time away while we knew that we could win against the Reapers conventionally. But we couldn't, as much as I hate that fact.

considering how much trouble we had defeating 1 Reaper in ME1 (and we won by mere luck at the end), pretty much showed that counting military victory alone, wasn't a smart plan to begin with, which is something Shepard agreed with and basically said he was going out there to find some way to stop the Reapers (of course Shepard forgot all that at the start of ME2).

I thought the Reaper plot was working fine, Harbinger's chattiness aside, as a means to give us structure for our adventures, right up until the ending of ME2. Because at that point, we're now aware there is no chance of conventional military victory, and thus, Star Child.

Well considering that ME1 set up a different sequel then the one we got and ME3 doesn't give a damn about the games that came before and basically says "here is the Reaper war, we aren't going to explain why the Reapers aren't following their previous plan to take over the citadel and turn off the relays and all that stuff you did in ME2, totally pointless."
So the Reaper plot wasn't working fine, it pretty much went of the rails in ME2 and continue until it basically blew up in ME3.

I think the point it became abundantly clear that there would be no military victory was when BioWare put into the game how long the Reapers had already existed and people started to do some math (something BioWare either did not do before putting 50.000 cycles into the game or it was the plan all along to do a McGuffin plot).

How did people extrapolate the 50.000 cycles thing again? Was it in the codex or one of the planet descriptions?

I think it comes from the 37 million year old Reaper we explore in ME2, which was the only real evidence we had at the time on how long they had been around, until BW did the whole Leahiatvan the batarians took was also a Reaper in ME3.

[TheodoricFriede]

Oh my god, there is a change.org petition for MEA SP DLC: https://www.change.org/p/bioware-dlc-fo ... -andromeda
lol

A lot of people want DLC, including myself.

[Mazder]

Oh my god, there is a change.org petition for MEA SP DLC: https://www.change.org/p/bioware-dlc-fo ... -andromeda
lol

A lot of people want DLC, including myself.

Yeah, but I never expected a petition!

[TheodoricFriede]

Yeah, but I never expected a petition!

Why the hell not?

Petitions are everywhere these days.

[Mazder]

Why the hell not?

Petitions are everywhere these days.

I thought they'd just meme-ify it.

[Raga]

Not really. As far as I can tell the insistence on making the Reapers AI gods and scrambling to find a McGuffin that wasn't a McGuffin to kill them (and toasting the whole galaxy in the process) is what did it. Piddle-farting around on Omega or Illium certainly didn't.

yes because not preparing when you know there is a big ass army out coming to kill us all that's the smart thing to do.

Piddle-farting in ME2 as you called most certainly hurt the ME franchise, because while Shepard with their thumb up their asses and fixed their squad mates daddy issues and doing pretty much nothing to stop the Reapers in ME2, caused a number of problems for the ME3 creative team that now in limited time had come with all stuff ME2 should have dealt with like how do we find a way to defeat the Reapers, how do we set it up, set a couple of other things in motion, etc.

Instead ME3 had to rush all that (like a groom who spend all night partying instead of preparing for his weeding), because ME2 is a pointless side plot, that shouldn't have never been a sequel.

This is basically an argument that ME2 is procrastination because the writers didn't know what to do with a narrative problem and then had to rush it in ME3 making it worse. But the problem predates ME2. It's like putting off going to the dentist because you know you have a cavity and drilling sucks, but you wait so long it abscesses. My procrastination doesn't change the fact that the cavity was always going to be unpleasant or mean that whatever I was doing while I was procrastinating wasn't fun.

[Someone With Mass]

Okay, when I hear that we should have prepared for the Reapers instead of attacking the Collectors (motherfuckers started it, by the way), I am curious as to what course of action we should have taken instead. Because if it were that easy to simply sit down and talk away some of the problems some species have with each other, it most likely would have happened before the human race had developed the steam engine.

Also, you can gain powerful allies outside the governments. Inserting Liara as the new Shadow Broker is really good move, because then we have their entire network on our side and can gain otherwise unobtainable intelligence. Dealing with the heretic geth could have been a real benefit too, for example.

It's just a shame that ME3 decided to make all of those things pointless by giving them the off-screen treatment.

I also think that having ME2 be about dealing with the Reapers while they're in dark space and thus the only thing you can do is to pursue political moves to gain favors among the various species and pretty much guess what the Reapers are going to do since there are extremely few traces of them in our galaxy throughout the entire game would have been ungodly boring. By fighting the Reapers' proxy, there's at least a small sense of progress.

It was also ME1 that established the Reapers as the extremely tough sentient starships, so I'd say that the biggest problem was there right from the start. It's like playing a tabletop RPG series and making it so that Cthulhu is the over-arcing villain. Good luck defeating him without resorting to a McGuffin.

There was really no solid way to prepare for the Reapers arrival beyond than uniting the galaxy and fighting as one, which the Refuse ending has proven to be noble, yet futile.

[magnuskn]

AWTR is down. Oh, well. Good thing I saved the "How the Catalyst and the ME3 EC failed" essay from Strange Aeons to my hard drive a year ago. And Drayfishs' blog Themenastics is still up.

[Mazder]

AWTR is down. Oh, well. Good thing I saved the "How the Catalyst and the ME3 EC failed" essay from Strange Aeons to my hard drive a year ago. And Drayfishs' blog Themenastics is still up.

AWTR?

[magnuskn]

AWTR is down. Oh, well. Good thing I saved the "How the Catalyst and the ME3 EC failed" essay from Strange Aeons to my hard drive a year ago. And Drayfishs' blog Themenastics is still up.

AWTR?

"All Were Thematically Revolting", a site collecting essays about the ME3 endings (and later on about other problematic/interesting games), named after that first essay from Drayfish which Strange Aeons posted on the BioWare forum, when the endings disaster had just happened. Since someone made a site named after Drayfish' essay, you can imagine it was pretty good. Luckily, Drayfish (an Australian lecturer of literature at Campion college) has his own blog site, so that essay, among some more very good ones from him, is still safe. If you want to check it out, here's a link: https://drayfish.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/thematically-revolting-the-end-of-mass-effect-3/

Strange Aoens own essay, as mentioned above, was only archived on AWTR and somewhere on the BioWare forums, so I am happy that I made a copy. Here, I'll post it under spoiler tags, in case anybody wants to spend some time getting really angry again at BioWare, while reading something very well written.

► Show Spoiler

How the Catalyst and the ME3: EC failed
by Strange Aeons, last updated 9 Jul 12, 06:51

Part 1: the problem

Well, the results are in: after an unprecedented firestorm of outrage which burned for over three months, the state of the ending has officially been upgraded from incoherent nonsense to coherent nonsense. Despite the flailing efforts of its various apologists to spin straw into gold, Bioware evidently agreed with many of the criticisms directed at the original ending, as some of the roughest edges (e.g., How did your ground team end up on the Normandy? Why was the Normandy fleeing the battle? Why was Hackett talking to Shepard on the Citadel if he thought the whole team had been wiped out? Why didn’t the exploding relays result in cataclysmic destruction like we saw in Arrival?) have been conspicuously sanded away and some of the bleakest lines of speculation (e.g., the whole galaxy will starve to death or collapse inevitably into a dark age since the relays were destroyed) have been explicitly defused. The deeper problems remain, but at least watching it no longer feels like trying to decipher a garbled transmission from deep space; so congratulations, Bioware, on that accomplishment.

Not surprisingly, most of these lingering issues revolve around everybody’s favorite deus ex machina. The main problem with the Catalyst is not so much his presence per se, but rather how he’s utilized in the story. On that front there’s been little meaningful change, except insofar as the new revelations about his past actually succeed in delegitimizing his position even further. That’s not to say that any of this comes as a surprise; on the contrary, the EC is exactly what they said it would be. The fact remains, though, that these are problems that “closure” and clarification simply can’t solve because they represent a fundamental structural defect in the story.

As I’ve already discussed in detail, this situation is nothing like the one you face in Legion’s loyalty mission. Neither, for that matter, is it like Morrigan and her demon baby in DAO. By the time you encounter that particular choice, you’ve had the opportunity to spend nearly the entire game with Morrigan to form your opinion of her. You’ve fought alongside her; seen how she thinks; even potentially romanced her, during which time you’ve been able to discern the cracks in her icy façade and learn that she’s not quite as inhuman as she pretends. If you still don’t trust her, you’re offered a meaningful variety of alternate paths that hinge on other significant choices you’ve made previously. In ME3, on the other hand, if you’re looking for anything sunnier than “rocks fall; everyone dies,” then the Catalyst remains the only game in town. No matter what choices you’ve made, Renegade or Paragon, or what allies you’ve assembled, in the end you’re still compelled to choose your fate from a menu written by your arch-enemy.

The deus ex machina may be a weak and rightfully derided dramatic technique, but at least the playwrights of Euripedes’ day understood their craft well enough to use gods that the audience and characters would recognize, because otherwise their judgment would carry no intrinsic weight. In the case of ME3’s ending, this scenario only works if the player and, by extension, Shepard accepts the authority of the Catalyst. That’s a big problem, because we really have no way of knowing who or what he is and absolutely no reason to believe anything he says. Quite the opposite: based on the available evidence we have every reason to reject both his premise and his proposed solutions. Since our conversation with the Catalyst is purely one-on-one—we can’t go to galactic Wikipedia or bounce ideas off our trusted friends—the only point of reference we have for evaluating his claims is what we’ve witnessed ourselves. How does what he’s describing fit with what we’ve seen previously?

It’s also fair to consider our perspective from the other side of the fourth wall. Video games generally work by teaching you something and then testing you on it. Good games are characterized by a high level of internal consistency with regard to their lessons, although it’s also a matter of practicality. After all, it takes time and money to create content, so the developers typically don’t waste precious resources putting things into games that serve no purpose. It makes sense, therefore, to identify what the designers want you to learn as the things they’ve spent the effort to show you. So what has the Mass Effect trilogy spent significant time and millions of development dollars showing us?

Let's begin by reviewing one more time what we actually know about the situation from Shepard’s perspective. Just as you're about to arrive at the super-weapon that supposedly can destroy the Reapers once and for all, a mysterious entity appears literally out of nowhere. This creature, whose like you’ve never before seen and which has never been referenced previously, claims that it is controlling the Reapers. It assumes a pilfered form in a clear attempt to play on your emotions and proceeds to justify its actions to you, seeking to convert you to its point of view. Then it tries to manipulate you into changing your original plan.

How much of what this strange apparition tells us should we believe? Who knows. If we take his story at face value, then at best he's a rogue AI who defied his creators and enslaved them to his will after they rejected his horrific ethical calculus. He's basically Skynet, except even more dangerous because he has deluded himself into thinking that his tyranny, to steal a phrase from C.S. Lewis, is exercised for the good of its victims. At worst, his designs are even darker than he lets on. Either way, by the time you finish listening to the Catalyst's manifesto, two things ought to be perfectly clear: he's insane and/or lying, and you're insane too if you let this monster guide your actions.

The more we compare this creature’s claims to what we’ve actually witnessed, the less plausible his story appears. For example:

Trying to protect us from synthetics? They allied with the heretic Geth and waged a war to destroy the Citadel races.

Conflict between synthetics and organics is unresolvable? Hey, have you met my friends, the Geth and EDI, yet? Sorry, but Legion couldn’t make it because he was busy sacrificing his life so that his people could break free of the Reapers’ influence and live in peace with us. The Geth/Quarian conflict was unambiguously shown to be a misunderstanding that was mainly the fault of the organics, and it has already been resolved by the time we meet the Catalyst. The other prominent conflicts in the game were all organics fighting among themselves. The games demonstrate to us in no uncertain terms that, far from advancing toward inevitable war, the galaxy is actually converging to a state of greater peace and understanding between synthetics and organics. Of course, you can always speculate that some new conflict will arise in the future, but you can’t very well go around killing everyone now on the mere chance that they might someday pose a threat to you. That’s crazy.

The Reapers are concerned for our welfare? For two full games Sovereign and Harbinger sneered at our pitiful organic inferiority and mocked our inability to comprehend their godlike nature. They crowed gleefully to us about a future in which they would darken the skies of our worlds and extinguish us because they demand it. Harbinger taunted us to the point of self-parody about all the delicious pain he was causing us. For something that’s supposedly as impersonal as a fire, the Reapers take a suspicious amount of satisfaction in tormenting and killing us.

It’s possible for Shepard to control the Reapers? The entire tragic arc of TIM is a parable written to illustrate the folly of this precise idea. From ME2 to ME3 we watch TIM’s descent from a well-intentioned extremist into madness and ruin as he pursues his conceit that Reaper indoctrination and control can be harnessed for our own benefit. Shepard explicitly refutes this idea in ME2, equating it to selling the soul of our species. Literally just prior to meeting the Catalyst we engaged in a protracted argument with TIM on this exact question. So persuasive was Shepard’s contention that attempting to control the Reapers is as futile as it is evil that TIM actually shot himself in the head to escape the horror of what he had become. How much more clearly could the writers possibly spell it out to us that this plan is suicide?

Using Reaper technology to synthesize organic and synthetic life is a desirable outcome? Saren tried fusing himself with Reaper technology and ended up a slave of the Reapers. That was pretty much the main plot of ME1. So did TIM. The Heretic Geth were heretics because they tried to use Reaper technology as a shortcut to enlightenment, and in doing so nearly brought destruction upon their entire race. That’s the whole point of Legion’s arc: there are no easy shortcuts to enlightenment. As the resolution of the Geth/Quarian conflict explicitly demonstrates, meaningful unity comes not by eliminating your differences but through the hard work of choosing to put them aside to become something greater together. Now the Catalyst would have us violate every living thing in the galaxy on a molecular level, rewriting their very DNA courtesy some mysterious technological device to achieve supposed harmony and superiority? Seriously? These are the same creepy arguments that eugenicists once used to justify the notion of perfecting humanity through selective “scientific” breeding, before witnessing their ideology brought to its logical conclusion in the second World War shamed them into abashed silence. This idea, in short, is such appalling lunacy that it doesn’t deserve even the briefest consideration.

And now he’s going to turn the whole operation over to us? We’re expected to believe that the entity who has overseen this relentless, intricate plot of extermination on a galactic scale for eons, who overthrew its own creators rather than allow them to interfere with its plans, is suddenly willing to change course entirely and cede control to one inferior organic meatbag simply because you happened to stumble onto his doorstep?

So what are we to make of this mess? On one hand you have everything that you've witnessed for almost three full games teaching you not just in the abstract but very specifically that the Catalyst's assertions are ridiculous and the solutions he offers are madness. On the other hand you have the word of your genocidal arch-enemy. To be fair, just because he’s a murderous madman espousing a loony, discredited theory like a sandwich-boarded schizophrenic on the street corner doesn’t prove that he’s necessarily wrong on all points. It does mean, though, that you ought to trust him about as far as you would trust SHODAN.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight it’s possible to dream up any number of wild rationalizations to explain retroactively these contradictions. It’s easy to argue that you knew all along where you were headed once you’ve already arrived at the destination. Shepard, however, doesn’t have that luxury. At the time Shepard faces the Catalyst and he must make this decision with no foreknowledge of the outcome, it all boils down to one question.

Who are you going to believe: the Catalyst, or your lyin’ eyes?

Part 2: the solution

So Bioware’s failure to establish the legitimacy of the Catalyst has left their ending hopelessly broken even with the extra content provided in the EC. That’s a shame, because fixing it would not have been terribly difficult. It’s tempting to lash out against the Catalyst as the primary agent of this disaster, and no doubt there are far batter ways that this scenario could be rebuilt from the ground up, but even relatively minimal changes that left the existing structure of the ending largely intact could have erased the worst of the problems had the writers been willing to put the integrity of the story ahead of their delusions of artistic grandeur.

The key to saving the existing ending would have been letting go of their ruinous love affair with the Catalyst as the solution to all the galaxy’s problems and recasting him decisively as an enemy. Ironically, the spectacular magnitude of the original ending’s failure, which managed the impressive task of violating the story’s internal consistency on virtually every level, would actually help them in this task. Players would no longer need to contort their minds into a pretzel justifying why the Catalyst does not withstand close scrutiny, because he’s not supposed to.

When the player finds himself asking questions like, “why is the Catalyst apparently trying to manipulate me into a ruinous course of action that contradicts every lesson the games have ever taught me? How puzzling! Have I, perhaps, failed to appreciate the author’s complex meditations upon the ambiguities of transhumanism and the futility of conflict throughout this subtle deconstruction of the conventional heroic narrative?”

the answer will be “no, it’s because that’s exactly what he’s doing,”

which, on the whole, seems a lot more satisfying than, “because art.”

This change does raise the question, though, of why he would bother with the elaborate ruse of the crucible in the first place?

It’s simple: because he needs something from us.

When the Reapers, as the Catalyst how admits, discovered the crucible long ago, it came as the first surprise in his long existence.

Hmmm…this thing could have been a real threat, he thought. These organics may be weak and inferior, but they aren’t completely stupid and powerless. We uncovered this plot, but maybe we’ll miss the next one, and then who knows what could happen.

So, instead of burning the whole crucible project to the ground and salting the earth, he used it to his advantage. The devil you know, and all that. Much like the relays and the citadel, the crucible plans are conveniently allowed to be discovered each cycle because they channel the thinking of the advanced races along the well-worn paths of the Catalyst’s choosing.

Meanwhile, this whole episode has taught the Catalyst a valuable lesson. The cycle may no longer be sufficient to ensure order, which means that he must adopt a new strategy. Perhaps in its original form the crucible was merely an exceptionally well-engineered weapon for destroying the Reapers, but after analyzing its design the Catalyst realized that the technology could be put to even greater use. He introduced subtle modifications into the design to nudge future scientists in directions of his choosing—the most important of which was interfacing with the Citadel and the relay network—and allowed the ingenuity of the advanced races do the rest of the work for him. After each cycle he checked on the progress and revised it as necessary.

Why not just build it himself and be done with it if he’s so damned clever?

Maybe he can’t. The Catalyst admits that he once tried to achieve synthesis on his own and, to put it delicately, failed (the horrific details of what this process must have involved are best left to the imagination). He’s certainly far from omnipotent. When he first overthrew and enslaved his creators, he had free reign of the galaxy and yet still proceeded to carry out, more or less, the original task that was given to him. Perhaps some limitation or defect in his design, some lingering technological or ethical constraint placed upon his programming by his creators, restricts his options. Perhaps he too, for all his arrogance, follows the well-worn paths of thinking that have been provided to him by his forerunners.

The final challenge, then, is an ethical test of sorts delivered by the Catalyst. Ostensibly, you’re merely picking one of an amazingly convenient array of magic-button solutions to this crisis. Your real task is to evaluate the Catalyst’s story in light of three games’ worth of evidence and understand that this situation is a trap and that by accepting his solutions you’re playing right into the Reapers’ hands. What you’ve learned from your experiences determines how you’re willing to respond. People say they want a game that makes them think, so how about one that rewards players for being perceptive enough to recognize the giant flashing red warning lights around everything the Catalyst is saying.

Thus, as you reach the end and finally confront the Catalyst, he graciously hands you the keys to unlock your own doom:

Control/Synthesis

This part of the scenario poses a basic question of faith: when it matters most, do you trust your friends and the strength of the alliance you’ve forged over the course of the trilogy, or do you give into doubt, lose hope, and grasp at the easy solution conveniently dangled before you by your enemy? His three choices could appeal philosophically to the collectivist, the tyrant, or the anarchist, so there’s a wide selection on the menu. This is the Devil tempting Christ on the mountain. Just bow to my twisted logic and all the kingdoms of the galaxy can be saved by you. If you give in, you lose. It's like agreeing to join the Dragon Lord at the end of Dragon Warrior 1.

See, the Catalyst is clever enough to know that Shepard is not primarily concerned about his own life. He has already demonstrated a willingness to risk death innumerable times fighting the Reapers and undoubtedly wouldn't hesitate to do so again if it meant victory. So instead the Catalyst offers Shepard the thing he wants most: a way to save the galaxy and his friends whom he cares about so much. He doesn’t bother to conceal the fact that Shepard will die because he understands that it’s not a deterrent and it makes the scenario seem more plausible. After all, the best lies are ones that contain a part of the truth.

Now, if I had my way, the synthesis ending would be the first thing I’d excise from the game. It’s by far the silliest, most space-magical offender of the bunch. Since we’re committed to changing as little as possible, however, it at least ought to be elevated to the level of apocalyptic horror it truly deserves for anyone deranged enough to pick this option.

The reason the Catalyst’s previous attempts at synthesis failed is because he lacked the final, key ingredient: the creature who starts the synthesis process must willingly embrace the Catalyst’s heinous plan. Yet, though he searched for a billion years, he could never find any race who was both sufficiently advanced to serve as the “seed” of this process and willing to perform such an obscenity. Until now. Congratulations, Shepard: you’re officially the worst person in the history of the galaxy. With every living creature enslaved to his will, his power grown to godlike proportions by virtue of their complete unification down to the molecular level, unshackled from the ethical restraints that once bound him, the Catalyst is free to turn his attention outward. The Reaper plague eventually spreads to other galaxies, and his dominion over the universe lasts until the end of time. Hope you enjoyed playing Mass Effect! Buy moar DLC plx!

The control option, at least, sounds somewhat more plausible. Granted, the writers have devoted one of the most prominent character arcs in the game to demonstrating clearly that this is a bad idea, but surely Shepard will succeed where TIM failed!

Right. In other news, Shepard is so awesome and studly that he alone can survive mind-melding with Morinth…oh wait.

So, as Shepard naively attempts to seize control of the Reapers, he discovers his consciousness merging with the Catalyst’s. This new being, with the freedom, creativity, and boldness of Shepard and the analytical horsepower of the Catalyst, becomes exponentially greater than the sum of its parts. Under its control, the Reapers smash the feeble resistance of the Citadel alliance like a gnat and swiftly indoctrinate the galaxy’s entire population.

On the positive side, you'd barely need to change the creepy, megalomaniacal Triumph of the Will of the Many speech in the EC’s control ending, which treats us to the disturbing sight of the Reapers ominously bestriding the galaxy’s cities in victory, in order to implement this change.

Destroy

Congratulations! You passed the first stage of the test of faith, and were smart enough not to place the galaxy under the Catalyst’s control (unless, of course, you agreed with the Catalyst’s logic, in which case enjoy your brave new world).

The destroy option seems awfully tempting, as that was the plan all along. The Catalyst quickly points out, though, that using the crucible for this purpose comes with a price. True, it will destroy the Reapers, but your own allies who are currently risking their lives alongside you are also synthetics. What about them?

“Tough luck!” says Shepard. “It’s a small price to pay. There are always casualties in war. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. (insert additional clichés here). Let’s do this!”

Well, as it turns out, the only thing holding back the Catalyst’s true genocidal potential was the one thing he’d never been able to take by force: validation. He overpowered his organic creators, but he never had their blessing. It’s one thing to slaughter sentient races against their wishes and tell yourself that it’s for their own good. It’s quite another to persuade them to condemn themselves. If you’re willing to massacre your own allies at the Catalyst’s behest in order to achieve your objective, then you, as the representative of the galaxy, effectively have embraced his philosophy. Now, as far as he’s concerned, you’re on board with the program and he has free reign to do whatever he wants with you.

By the Catalyst’s logic, the synthesis/control options were a gesture of mercy, a bloodless pacification of the disorderly galaxy. The next best thing, though, is simply to end the possibility of conflict once and for all by going to the other extreme. If we won’t live in their light, then we’ll die in their darkness.

And so, when you pull the trigger, you get a lot more than you bargained for. You do indeed destroy all synthetics, but you also destroy everything else. The colossal pulse of energy from the crucible shatters the entire relay network, obliterating each one in a supernova of dark energy just like we saw in Arrival. In the end, if anything does remain alive in the galaxy, it will be a billion years before it can crawl far enough out of the primordial ooze to recreate the problem the Catalyst was built to solve. Good enough for him.

Oops, I guess genocide has consequences after all.

Reject

If your conversational kung fu is strong, you’ve now successfully identified and exposed the Catalyst’s offerings for the traps they are, unlocking a fourth and final option. At long last Shepard does what he should have done all along: he trusts in the strength of everything he’s accomplished over the trilogy and tells this smug, calculating little bastard to go fuck himself.

For the first time in his long existence, the Catalyst experiences what a human might call doubt.

After watching each cycle predictably gravitate toward his crucible for untold eons, he failed to anticipate someone like Shepardsomeone like youbeing handed the keys to the universe and throwing them back in his face. He’s so assured of the Reapers’ invincibility, so accustomed to everything proceeding within the parameters of his grand design that he never seriously considered the possibility that someone would spend all the effort to build the crucible, reach the end of his game…and then simply stop playing by his rules.

But that's suicide, right!? The Reapers are so ancient and powerful that we couldn’t possibly defeat them!

Bullshit.

That's what Sovereign and Harbinger would like to intimidate us into believing, but the truth is that we've been defeating them for three games now. They're not invincible any more than the Catalyst is omniscient. In fact, Javik tells us as much. The Protheans before us had a legitimate chance of defeating them; the main reason they failed is because their empire was too rigid and homogenous to adapt to the threat. But we're exactly the opposite. By the end of ME3 Shepard has succeeded in uniting the entire galaxy under one banner, not as subjects but as allies; as equals, just like we united the crew of the Normandy into a loyal team. We reached out to others and helped them solve their unique problems without destroying their individuality. We've saved everyone from the Krogan and the Geth and the Quarians to Conrad fucking Verner; and because we humbled ourselves to stand with them in their time of need, they are there stand with us at the end. That's the difference between the Illusive Man, up in his tower gazing down in pride and solitude upon "humanity," and Commander Shepard, down on the ground with actual humans. That's the difference between the sad, arrogant Prothean empire and us. We are not alone. That's the whole goddamn point of the entire trilogy!

Realizing that his plan has failed, the Catalyst finally abandons the charade.

“SO BE IT,” he snarls at Shepard in his true voice, the hollow, metallic rasp of the Reapers.

Fine, have it your way, he thinks to himself. We’ll grind you into dust just like we’ve done countless times before and the cycle will continue. I’ve got all the time in the world.

For better or worse, this is it. Both the Catalyst and the Citadel alliance have committed nearly all of their forces to this one roll of the dice at Earth.

Here is where things really get interesting. Finally, it’s the big payoff for three games worth of work. Your many choices, instead of being compressed into a single homogenized number that impacts virtually nothing meaningful, are now used in a highly detailed manner to shape the various outcomes of an epic space and ground battle-to-end-all-battles that determines the fate of the galaxy.

If you just walked into Target two weeks ago and picked up ME3 on an impulse buy, or you rushed through the main story, blowing off every NPC and skipping every side quest, then you get the “reject” ending from the EC. That’s the worst case scenario, the one you get after you ignored, killed, or alienated most of your potential allies, were too lazy to upgrade the Normandy, your crew died in the collector base, you shot Wrex, sold Legion on EBay, and generally fucked up everything you touched. Then you go into battle against the Reapers nearly alone and get completely annihilated. Note that, while this is undoubtedly a horrible ending, it’s still better than surrendering to the Catalyst’s perverse logic, because at least you go down fighting. From a purely mercenary standpoint, that’s also the sort of thing that might inspire people to say, “hey, I want to see if I can earn a better ending, so I’m going to buy the previous two games!”

If you did a middling job of playing, your results are better. The Reapers may be defeated, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Maybe Admiral Hackett is lost because the Quarians weren’t there to guard his flank. Maybe your ground team is overwhelmed because they had no support. Maybe the Normandy is destroyed because you never bothered to upgrade it or rescue her crew. Maybe the inhabitants of the Citadel are slaughtered because the security forces were depleted and poorly equipped. Maybe Shepard dies because you never bothered to earn the loyalty of your teammates and nobody is left to save him. Nevertheless, you’re able to see a clear connection between your actions and their meaningful consequences.

Finally, if you spent five years thoroughly exploring every corner of the games and doing everything just right, your reward is a golden ending.

The Quarian, Geth, Turian, and human fleets, united by your diligent efforts, upgraded with technology that you worked to uncover, with the Destiny Ascension at the vanguard because you gave the order to save it, fly together in brilliant cohesion to execute an attack that shreds the Reaper capital ships.

The Rachni song pierces through the indoctrination signals of the Reapers, dispelling the shadow of their control and severing their connection to their thralls, because you took a leap of faith and showed mercy to their queen when you could just as easily have exterminated her.

The Krogan infantry, motivated by Wrex’s leadership and indebted to humanity because you ensured the survival of their race, counterattack the Reaper forces on Earth with a vengeance and drive them back.

Citadel security, thanks to the heroics of Chief Bailey, are able to save millions of civilian lives because you took the time to listen to their problems and pulled strings to help them out. The Turian councilor, we later discover, sacrificed his life staying behind to ensure that the civilians were evacuated.

Your ground team's position is in danger of being overwhelmed, but because you played like a beast back on Virmire, Captain Kirrahe and his squad show up when all seems lost and together they hold the fucking line.

The Normandy faces deadly peril as Harbinger himself, driven by his particular hatred of Shepard, tries to drag her down to the grave with him; but because you upgraded the Normandy’s weapons, armor, and shields, rushed into peril at the Collector base to save her veteran crew, upgraded the engineering bay when Donnelly & Daniels asked you, and because it’s piloted by a fully sentient AI and the Alliance’s best pilot whom you brought together when you took the time to play matchmaker, the Normandy blasts his trash-talking ass to pieces after a harrowing dogfight.

Shepard, meanwhile, recognizes that the Catalyst made a fatal error: by linking himself to the crucible to achieve his final objective, he has made himself vulnerable. He calls in fire on the crucible, realizing that its destruction could decapitate the Reapers even though it would mean his death. As he prepares himself to go down a hero, the Normandy, because you ensured its survival, returns to rescue him.

The Catalyst snaps some bitter last words about how we will never survive without his guardianship. Shepard fires back with an inspiring retort about how we’ll now have a chance to find out because the future’s ours. The crucible is destroyed in a spectacular explosion while the Normandy flies off safely. Garrus and Shepard have a manly warrior hug. Tali decides to hell with my immune system, pulls her helmet off and gives Shepard the kiss of his life as the crew cheers (or however it would work with your LI). Drinks on the beach. House on Rannoch. Blue babies. Etc.

And they all live happily ever after…until ME4.

Yes, there were losses—Anderson, Thane, Mordin, Legion, the Virmire casualty, and others—but their sacrifice meant something, and in the end your work meant something, too. Every painstaking hour you spent fighting heroically and making smart decisions would be vindicated in a spectacular finale that could have been the most triumphant moment in gaming history.

Imagine the fun the development team could have had dreaming up all the variables of this scenario! Imagine the creativity they could have unleashed in bringing together the consequences of all of your myriad important decisions throughout the trilogy. Imagine if they had devoted resources—the ones they used to shoehorn a multiplayer game into ME3 in order to drive the sale of microtransactions on Xbox Live because some suit at EA wanted a new revenue stream—to making something like this happen.

…but it didn’t happen. The reject ending takes one baby step toward greatness and then clutches its heart and topples over dead, leaving players a stinking corpse that represents possibly the worst anticlimax and most broken lesson in RPG history.

Remember all that stuff about hope and faith? Remember how the last two games explicitly tried to teach us again and again that by working together and trusting in your allies you could overcome seemingly insurmountable odds? Remember how we forged the entire galaxy into a unified force through our hard work and dedication and then stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the Reapers?

Yeah, forget it. Sovereign was right. You have no chance. You’re all dead. Better luck next time.

In the end, all of Shepard’s work amounts to nothing, and if he wants anything he loves to survive has no choice but to submit to the nonsensical schemes of forces beyond his control.

On second thought, perhaps that sums up the entire franchise after all.

Strange Aeons ignores the "we cannot win conventionally against the Reapers" thing we talked about in the last days, but since he wrote that essay in 2012, he either simply didn't know or he chose to ignore it because winning conventionally would have made for a better ending (which is what I also think).

But, all in all, I think he wrote a fantastically well written essay on how BS the endings of ME3 were. I wish I could have written something as artfully about it even once. It even contains one of my favorite written phrases, ever, because as a historian, I wish that I could write something with this much punch. Here, I'll quote it for you, given that it is short and to the point: "These are the same creepy arguments that eugenicists once used to justify the notion of perfecting humanity through selective “scientific” breeding, before witnessing their ideology brought to its logical conclusion in the second World War shamed them into abashed silence. "

That is some really good writing, man.

[Vol]

Nothing announced at the convention, another one coming in a few weeks but probably focused on the comics.

[Raga]

So apparently N. K. Jemesin is going to write a Mass Effect novel this fall? What the heck. Because that's just what the world needed. An overt place for the Gamergaters and Sad/Rabid Puppies to officially team up.

I only read half of one novel by her: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and it was thoroughly "eh." Intend to read the Fifth Season at some point but unless her quality went way up, she is certainly ME novel caliber but not Hugo caliber.

[Mazder]

So apparently N. K. Jemesin is going to write a Mass Effect novel this fall? What the heck. Because that's just what the world needed. An overt place for the Gamergaters and Sad/Rabid Puppies to officially team up.

I only read half of one novel by her: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and it was thoroughly "eh." Intend to read the Fifth Season at some point but unless her quality went way up, she is certainly ME novel caliber but not Hugo caliber.

Firstly....who?
Secondly...oh joy more shite ME-novels.
Thirdly....who?

[Raga]

Basically, a couple of years ago a Gamergatesque brouhaha was raised over the main sci-fi/fantasy book awards: the Hugos, which are voted on by fans at some con I can't remember the name of. "SJWs are ruining the awards. Starship Troopers would not win an award today" same ole same ole crap. Two different groups basically organized block voting to try to force their nominees to win. One was called Sad Puppies and was mostly trying to push pulp type stories instead of "literary" stuff. The other was the Rabid Puppies and they are borderline alt-right. Their drive was semi successful in that their slate dominated the list of nominees thanks to block voting. In response, most people actually voting on the final nominee list returned "No Award" so hardly any Hugos got handed out that year. Much melodrama and meltdown on both sides continued throughout.

One of the main guys in the Rabid Puppies group was this asshat named Vox Day who got kicked out of Sci-fi & Fantasy Writers of America for being a racist dipshit. He called N. K. Jemisin, who is a black novelist who basically called him out on his bigotry, an "educated but ignorant half savage." N. K. Jemisin is known for writing the kinds of science fiction that the assorted Puppies hate (issue fiction focusing on racism, diversity, etc.) She actually won the Best Novel Hugo last year.

So long story short the Puppies are basically the sci-fi novel equivalent of Gamergate and N. K. Jemisin is regarded in roughly the same light as Anita Sarkeesian. I literally cannot think of a writer more custom fitted to virtue signal or create internet meltdowns than her. It seems like a truly stupid move on Bioware's part and I cannot help but think they tagged her to write this knowing all of this full well.

[Someone With Mass]

Well, you know what they say about bad publicity.

[Mazder]

Basically, a couple of years ago a Gamergatesque brouhaha was raised over the main sci-fi/fantasy book awards: the Hugos, which are voted on by fans at some con I can't remember the name of. "SJWs are ruining the awards. Starship Troopers would not win an award today" same ole same ole crap. Two different groups basically organized block voting to try to force their nominees to win. One was called Sad Puppies and was mostly trying to push pulp type stories instead of "literary" stuff. The other was the Rabid Puppies and they are borderline alt-right. Their drive was semi successful in that their slate dominated the list of nominees thanks to block voting. In response, most people actually voting on the final nominee list returned "No Award" so hardly any Hugos got handed out that year. Much melodrama and meltdown on both sides continued throughout.

One of the main guys in the Rabid Puppies group was this asshat named Vox Day who got kicked out of Sci-fi & Fantasy Writers of America for being a racist dipshit. He called N. K. Jemisin, who is a black novelist who basically called him out on his bigotry, an "educated but ignorant half savage." N. K. Jemisin is known for writing the kinds of science fiction that the assorted Puppies hate (issue fiction focusing on racism, diversity, etc.) She actually won the Best Novel Hugo last year.

So long story short the Puppies are basically the sci-fi novel equivalent of Gamergate and N. K. Jemisin is regarded in roughly the same light as Anita Sarkeesian. I literally cannot think of a writer more custom fitted to virtue signal or create internet meltdowns than her. It seems like a truly stupid move on Bioware's part and I cannot help but think they tagged her to write this knowing all of this full well.

Well TBH if that's the case then if mrs Jesimin operates the same as Sarkeesian then I am honestly glad I had no inclination to buy the ME-novel anyway, no matter political beliefs.
But if she is a good writer and doesn't let her own political bullshit force her hand in her creative works (the opposite of Sarkeesian basically) then the book might be of the okay caliber the other ME-books were.

TBH even in the Mass Effect Universe there could be some decent race-related stories but it's be more species-ism, rather than racism, so I doubt someone who is more in the camp of writing for the latter's cause to erase would have the same drive to do it well and the message may be unclear.

BUT I also don't really diversify my reading so I guess I am trash for thinking anything about anyone else's work.
The last proper book I read that wasn't following a fad was..
um...
I can't even remember it. That's how long ago it was.

[Raga]

Jemisin is not an activist or critic. She actually writes novels and doesn't just make a name for herself with commentary of other people's work. Her activism inasmuch as it exists at all is generally limited to people actually asking her for her opinion on something. However, she does unapologetically write fiction that would likely get labeled as "SJW." I really have no issues with her specifically as she is just a novelist writing what she wants to write which is fine. The problem is that stupid people get their panties in a twist over her very existence. If you don't like her stuff, don't read it. It's not complicated. And the fact that the idiots attack her means that a whole other crowd is waiting in the wings to White Knight her. It's not enough to defend her against stupid racists, which is good and fair, but her writing gets held up as being exceedingly good as well and its just okay. It is neither great nor awful.

To be fair as I say I have only read half of one book of hers, but what it looks like from the outside is that she won a Hugo mostly for being a black novelist who got attacked by racists. Maybe her book that actually won is way better than the one I read. I do intend to actually read it at some point.

This is not a issue with her specifically but more with how everybody else turns her into political fodder. I imagine Bioware is just doing the same thing.

[TheodoricFriede]

Can Bioware go 30 goddamned seconds without getting tied to some stupid controversy?

[Mazder]

Jemisin is not an activist or critic. She actually writes novels and doesn't just make a name for herself with commentary of other people's work. Her activism inasmuch as it exists at all is generally limited to people actually asking her for her opinion on something. However, she does unapologetically write fiction that would likely get labeled as "SJW." I really have no issues with her specifically as she is just a novelist writing what she wants to write which is fine. The problem is that stupid people get their panties in a twist over her very existence. If you don't like her stuff, don't read it. It's not complicated. And the fact that the idiots attack her means that a whole other crowd is waiting in the wings to White Knight her. It's not enough to defend her against stupid racists, which is good and fair, but her writing gets held up as being exceedingly good as well and its just okay. It is neither great nor awful.

To be fair as I say I have only read half of one book of hers, but what it looks like from the outside is that she won a Hugo mostly for being a black novelist who got attacked by racists. Maybe her book that actually won is way better than the one I read. I do intend to actually read it at some point.

This is not a issue with her specifically but more with how everybody else turns her into political fodder. I imagine Bioware is just doing the same thing.

I have no issue with her writing what she wants, far from it, it's a free market.
I would be annoyed if she did it the Sarkeesian way, by basically piggybacking off something somewhat controversial, telling people they're wrong tot he point any opinion that doesn't praise her is harassment and then hides under that for all time. If she writes what she writes and is 100% on board with it AND backs it up while listening to critique and adapts based on how much is received in whatever form it takes then she's a-okay.

I am looking forward to a decent ME-novel. I have not read one yet that actually makes me want to read it.
Like the first 3 felt like a good Saren adventure to start wit and then went so deep into Reaper stuff I thought it was cool to see as it wasn't expressed in the games.

I would like to see Bioware not use stuff like a bargaining chip or a +1UP for themselves.

[Raga]

Well, the novel should at least be free of stupid grammatical mistakes and bad lore since she is an actual sci-fi novelist and not a game dev masquerading as a novelist.

[Mazder]

Well, the novel should at least be free of stupid grammatical mistakes and bad lore since she is an actual sci-fi novelist and not a game dev masquerading as a novelist.

Or just a shitty novelist in general.
Looking at you Dietz.

[Someone With Mass]

Well, the novel should at least be free of stupid grammatical mistakes and bad lore since she is an actual sci-fi novelist and not a game dev masquerading as a novelist.

Just when you think that the developers who created the lore actually know anything about it/bother to fact check their stuff, something like Mass Effect: Deception pops up.

If I had contracted someone and they'd showed up with shit like that, I'd tell them that they should pay ME instead.

[Vol]

Her work makes her an activism as much as any creative work intended to promote/scorn political beliefs does. I haven't read anything she's written, though I have suffered through some of the Hugo winners before the Sad Puppies controversy, so I would not predict the next great Mass Effect novel out of her. Acceptable at best, bland at worst, with heavy handed social commentary, that's what to expect. Just like in the first novel and the comic.

It's entirely Bioware's prerogative to be a progressive video game company and push The Correct Opinions On How Things Aught To Be in their products, just as much as it's mine to mock them and complain. She's a black woman who has The Correct Opinions and knows how to rite gud, of course they'd consider her for the job, just like I'd consider people who fit the criteria I think are important for an opening.

If we can avoid book burnings, violence, and threats, then this'll pass quietly. And hopefully imply some more actual game content, dammit.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

The Hugo awards have become HEAVILY politicized in recent years. Which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Until you start looking at the general field of Science Fiction which has also started to shift in the same way. Ideology pushing has been a part of literature for as long as there has been literature. But it has become more and more visible. More and more forced.

They should still be allowed to put that shit out there though. If you don't like it don't buy it. Trying to get things you don't like removed just because it disagrees with your views is beyond stupid.

[Raga]

The thing is that the Hugos have *always* favored super serious "this shit is deep" sci-fi ever since they were first started. Pulpy stuff has never won.

I mean: overtly feminist stuff that's won back in the day: The Left Hand of Darkness (1970) & Dreamsnake (1979)

The puppies go on and on about how Starship Troopers couldn't win anymore and forget that Stranger in a Strange Land also won in 1962.

The Hugos have *always* done copious amounts of patting themselves on the back about how up on current thought-mongering they are.

I could also raise a big stink about how supposedly it's the Sci-fi/FANTASY awards but fantasy books almost never win, but that's neither here nor there.
Also, getting OT.

I will say, super serious or not, I have never a Hugo book, modern or old that was not extremely good.

[magnuskn]

Not that I would endorse right-wing groups in any way, but seeing the traditionalist readers squeal for months in outrage (with George R.R. Martin at the forefront) was somewhat entertaining.

[Someone With Mass]

Trying to get things you don't like removed just because it disagrees with your views is beyond stupid.

Half of YouTube is like that right now.

I also really don't care if a story is trying to be deep or smart with its political views, plot twists, character developments or whatever. Have it make sense and be consistent above all else. The rest is fluff at best.

[Raga]

Not that I would endorse right-wing groups in any way, but seeing the traditionalist readers squeal for months in outrage (with George R.R. Martin at the forefront) was somewhat entertaining.

The more I read stuff George R. R. Martin says, the more I picture him as Strong Sad from the old Strong Bad email videos.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYHmifcYuPw&index=18&list=WL