Mass Effect Morality thread
- Thread starter King Arts
- Start date
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
I didn't like the implementation of the renegade dialogue options. Sometimes I'd select a renegade option thinking that Shepard would take a harder stance on something or throw shade at someone, but then after I click it Shepard starts going fullblown asshole, which isn't what I wanted. And if you select the renegade option several times in a row, I start thinking "how did this guy get promoted this far up the chain? I know he's this super awesome soldier but you have to have a minimum amount of politeness".
TyrantTriumphant
Well-known member
For me, being a fullblown asshole is one of the appeals of Mass Effect.
King Arts
Well-known member
What I want to know is where the fuck is EDI in the blue ending? She should still be alive since it's not red, but she only shows up in green.
Yeah that is a thing. I thought Mass Effect 1 had the best dialogue since you could be a funny asshole and still good aka not commit genocide or kill people when it's not neccesary. And you knew most of the time what the option would be. 2 was the worst because your persuasion meter was tied to morality so if you picked too many red choices you were hurting yourself, 3 was in the middle. Still I prefer traditional dialogue options like Dragon Age 1 had instead of bioware's new system.
Destroy is the only reasonable option. The reapers are simply too dangerous to allow to keep around, particularly in synthesis where they're both still around and still under thier own control rather than hijacked by Shepard (though that's honestly the least of the issues with synthesis).
The fact it wipes out the Geth is IMO a bonus, since Bioware's "oh, look, the Geth are such good guys and never did anything wrong and are just being bullied by these irritational quarians" routine pissed me off to no end.
The fact it wipes out the Geth is IMO a bonus, since Bioware's "oh, look, the Geth are such good guys and never did anything wrong and are just being bullied by these irritational quarians" routine pissed me off to no end.
King Arts
Well-known member
That is another debate, Geth vs Qurians, also to cure Krogan genophage or not, and in the first Mass Effect to kill the Rachni or not.
I tried for peace with the Geth/Quarian bit, to get the War Assets.
Curing the Genophage was also never a question for me; Wrex and Grunt are bros and Eve is very, very wise.
Also never really killed the Rachni Queen, as she was as much a victim as anyone.
Though I would let Garrus shoot his squad's traitor.
The problem with the genophage cure is that it's one of those points where bioware's writing mangled the issue.
It's never clear exactly what the genophage did, but reversing it was more clear, it would restore the Krogan's natural birth rate. The one that was unsustainable and lead to multiple massive wars, there's nothing to suggest that issue has been fixed.
It's never clear exactly what the genophage did, but reversing it was more clear, it would restore the Krogan's natural birth rate. The one that was unsustainable and lead to multiple massive wars, there's nothing to suggest that issue has been fixed.
It sounded like the Genophage messed with krogan hormone levels, based on some of what Mordin said in 2 and 3, and that lead to mass infertility to make up for krogan hardiness.
As for 'fixing' the issue with krogan and war, 3's mission on Tuchanka made clear krogan had art and culture beyond war, and could again, but this time also had the bitter experience if the Genophage, Rachni Wars, and the Reaper War to show why conflict. As well, this time me the krogan had the ability to spread out off-world without it being so they could be cannon fodder and had the respect of the turians and humans for thier part in the Reaper War (the salarian leadership were still being fucktards for the most part, and the asari were nearly useless outside their few dreads and commandos).
Possibly, but there's other stuff that suggests different mechanisms. References to the frequency of stillbirths, of only some females being fertile, etc.
The problem isn't that krogan are uncultured goons that only like military stuff, if it was the turians would never be allowed on the council.
The problem is that regardless of thier culture, krogsn reproduce really really fast and have a long lifespan, and so will need more space and more resources as thier population expands, and there are very limited amounts of both at the scale we're talking about.
Krogan can have, what was it, like a thousand kids a year? Let's say it takes 5 years for them to mature (wiki says "fast" and offers nothing more concrete), and you drop 4 of them on a planet, two males and two females.
Ten years later, there would be 4 billion krogan on that planet.
Ten years after that, there would be 4 quadrillion of them.
That all assumes that the krogan are incapable of learning from the past, and that all krogan will have perfect fertility going forward, and will reproduce non-stop wherever they go.
I think this is one of the weaknesses in how they handled the writing around some biologic processes in ME; like the dextto-lrvo issues which were overhypes, when they should really just mean some foods act like sugars vs proteins and vis versa.
I recall from my playthrough that I Freed the Rachni Queen and Cured the Genophage. After the fact I then realized the Rachni can be a natural curb on the Krogan population. 
Ok, let's assume that some percentage are unsecured to conceive, and that they slow things down and wait a few years to settle down and have kids. So, instead of going from 4 to 4 quadrillion in 20 years, they go from 4 to 3.75 quadrillion in 30 years.....hooray? The root issue is still there, unsolved.
The only possible solution is that after a pair of krogan have kids, they sit those kids down a few years later and go "ok, so our biology evolved under an environmental where it was assumed that like 95% of our offspring would die before reaching maturity, and we have to stick to that or else we'll have an overpopulation crisis after like 3 generations. So only six of you are allowed to go to marry and grow and have children of your own, and the rest of you will have to be celibate forever."
That's probably not going to fly.
Stranger things have happened in Sci-Fi.
Perchance they insert a cybernetic/bio-mod that restricts reproduction?
Maybe one that only cycles to ON after a certain age?
Hell, maybe the Krogan leadership decides that you have to show your worth in order to pass your genes on. So you only get to reproduce if you do awesome stuff in your field. (Clans here we come!!!!)
Unrestricted birth and genocide are NOT the only options here.
Perhaps they could use some sort of virus to enact large scale generic modification to limit the krogam birthrate to a sustainable level?
Arlos
Sad Monarchist
Red, all others options feel cheap, tough I will admit I really hated the introduction of an « I win » button to end the series.
Geth is basically just the writers blatantly withewashing them after the first game, dunno why they did such an about turn on this, maybe they got a memo saying they couldn’t make AI too bad looking or something?
Even then, if you think a bit about it for a second, the Geth were pretty horrifying, after all, only a few millions Quarian made it out of the war, out of billions who stayed in Quarians space, wonder what happened to everyone else?…We certainly didn’t see a single one in ME3 🤔
My problem with the Genophage is that it’s an unfinished mess, like seriously, it basically work by letting the Krogan give birth to hundred of stillborn babies, that’s fucked up, I understand it was a war situation back then and they did what they could, but afterward they should have worked to make it more humane and sustainable for everyone, maybe tinker with the Krogan part that evolved to give birth to a lot of kids on a shitty planet because most of them died and just bring it down to more reasonable levels, similar to others council races? Instead of letting the situation sit like that for centuries (tough that seems to be a recurring theme with the council).
Geth is basically just the writers blatantly withewashing them after the first game, dunno why they did such an about turn on this, maybe they got a memo saying they couldn’t make AI too bad looking or something?
Even then, if you think a bit about it for a second, the Geth were pretty horrifying, after all, only a few millions Quarian made it out of the war, out of billions who stayed in Quarians space, wonder what happened to everyone else?…We certainly didn’t see a single one in ME3 🤔
My problem with the Genophage is that it’s an unfinished mess, like seriously, it basically work by letting the Krogan give birth to hundred of stillborn babies, that’s fucked up, I understand it was a war situation back then and they did what they could, but afterward they should have worked to make it more humane and sustainable for everyone, maybe tinker with the Krogan part that evolved to give birth to a lot of kids on a shitty planet because most of them died and just bring it down to more reasonable levels, similar to others council races? Instead of letting the situation sit like that for centuries (tough that seems to be a recurring theme with the council).
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Pretty sure that WAS the Genophage. If I were Krogan I would be EXTREMELY suspicious and paranoid about anyone coming to me with a genetic virus as a fix.
Yes. That was the joke.
