The Illusive Man had been "tainted" by indoctrination for a lot longer than just his "final days" - since the First Contact War against the turians, in fact.
ME3: The argument for/against Indoctrination Theory (Spoilers)
- Thread starter Destructor
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I have difficulty in believing that the TIM was indoctrinated for decades.
There is a medical procedure called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. In this procedure, the doctor uses a device that sends electromagnetic signals to the brain of the patient. These signals alter the neurons in the brain, and has been proven in clinical trials to alter the morality of a person. The process is temporary for when the patient is no longer exposed to the devices he returns to normal, and requires constant exposure for the process to take hold. Reaper technology that indoctrinates individuals uses a similar methodology, as proven in the first game.
When I look at TIM's case, I know he is exposed to Reaper technology in the First Contact War, and, that for the time he is exposed, he is indoctrinated. Yet, when the war ended, he is no longer exposed to Reaper technology. So, I am thinking, based on the TMS, that TIM went through a process of returning to normal. Yet, Bioware claims that TIM never return to normal.
How did the Reapers maintain their indoctrination of TIM in the intervening thirty years between the end of the First Contact War and the Reaper War?
There is a medical procedure called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. In this procedure, the doctor uses a device that sends electromagnetic signals to the brain of the patient. These signals alter the neurons in the brain, and has been proven in clinical trials to alter the morality of a person. The process is temporary for when the patient is no longer exposed to the devices he returns to normal, and requires constant exposure for the process to take hold. Reaper technology that indoctrinates individuals uses a similar methodology, as proven in the first game.
When I look at TIM's case, I know he is exposed to Reaper technology in the First Contact War, and, that for the time he is exposed, he is indoctrinated. Yet, when the war ended, he is no longer exposed to Reaper technology. So, I am thinking, based on the TMS, that TIM went through a process of returning to normal. Yet, Bioware claims that TIM never return to normal.
How did the Reapers maintain their indoctrination of TIM in the intervening thirty years between the end of the First Contact War and the Reaper War?
That would presuppose that "paragon" and "renegade" are moral absolutes. I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think it's more that paragon is more passive, diplomatic, by-the-book and yes the more morally righteous whereas renegade is usually the more aggressive, direct, no nonsense, ends-justify-the-means and again, yes, morally grey option. In that context, the destroy option is the renegade thing to do as it take the geth down with the reapers and risks unleashing chaos and a permanent end to all orginic life (IF you buy starchild's BS of course.) Control is clearly the more peaceful and one might argue, selfless solution.
I agree with TheGodBen on this one. Of course it rather depends on your personal definition of evil and whether motivation or action is the more important factor.
I think the way TIM sees things, if he and Cerberus failed in their endeavours then all those people they murdered would be dead anyway. Better they die serving a higher cause than end up mulched into reaper paste.
He didn't commission all those horrors and atrocities because it made him feel good, he did it because (as far as he was concerned) it was absolutely necessary.
Put it this way, if TIM was evil, he wouldn't have been anywhere near as interesting as he was. A good villain should always believe that he's the hero of his own story.
Depends on what you mean by "tainted." Sure, he was exposed to reaper tech early on (hence the eyes) but it's still unclear exactly when the reapers took full control of him. My feeling is that it wasn't until he had those final cybernetics installed before going to the citadel. I'd be willing to bet he'd gotten as far as walking right up to that panel before either Anderson or Shepard arrived, only to find he couldn't push the button. Nothing up until that point makes sense unless he still had at least some influence over his own thoughts and decisions.
Further to what I said above, this also depends on the assertion that the dreams themselves are proof that Shepard is indoctrinated. They are patently not, ergo the trees being there in the final room is either a subtle reflection of Shepard's subconscious, or it's just the developers being cute.
Nowhere in the lore does it state that indoctrinated people have recurring nightmares. They have *waking* visual and auditory hallucinations. On the other hand, people who suffer from extreme trauma and stress are indeed know to have such nightmares. No giant eldrich cybergods required.
Also, while I'm at it; Vega's "do you hear that hum" line has nothing to do with indoctrination. The assertion that it is actually manages to be wrong in two distinct ways. Firstly, people who are indoctrinated don't vibrate, so if Vega is hearing something that isn't there, then wouldn't that mean that he's the one who's indoctrinated and not Shepard?
Secondly, while yes, methods of indoctrination dose include the use of infrasound, there's no way anyone would actually hear it. By definition, infrasound is sound below the frequencies audible to humans ears. What Vega is hearing is the noise from the massively oversized eezo core, bolted to the deck not ten meters from where he stands. We know this because *we can hear it too*.
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The problem is that the paragons telling you not to trust TIM didn't know what he knew, they didn't even know exactly what the Crucible was going to do. TIM did, and when you're provided with new information at the end of the game you realise that TIM's claims may have been correct all along. Who is to say that if Anderson or Hackett knew that controlling the Reapers was as simple as walking up to a console that they wouldn't have changed their minds and decided to go for it?
He was ruthless, he was a criminal, he deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison, but was he evil? As Reverend said, I think that's open to interpretation. Was he driven by ego, a lust for power, or was he genuinely doing what he felt was necessary to protect humanity? Perhaps a little of all three. But he did help Shepard when nobody else would, he did spend a vast fortune bringing Shepard back to life, thus saving galactic civilisation. He did some good things and he did some bad things. To me, he's somewhere between a villain and an antihero, which is why he's one of my favourite characters in the series.
So the torture that happens at Guantanamo Bay, the practice of extraordinary rendition, those acts invalidate the quest to prevent terrorist attacks? Don't get me wrong, I oppose those acts and think those involved should stand trial for human rights violations, but that doesn't mean that we should stop attempting to gather intel about future attacks altogether.
If controlling the Reapers allows for the reconstruction of the mass relays, and if it would aid in repairing the damage done to galactic civilisation, does it matter a damn that TIM once advocated it? Can't we admit that his motivation had merit even if his methods were unconscionable?
PS I picked destroy.
You seem to have misinterpreted my post, in this particular point.
TV shows and movies are linear. Indoctrination Theory is a forced linear path.
Mass Effect is branching. Shepard didn't get indoctrinated when you let the council die, when one of your squaddies died due to not being loyal enough, when he/she saved the Collector Base. I see no reason why the ending to ME3 should punish alternatives, when prior games in the trilogy had not done so, and had even encouraged alternate choice.
Its not a difference in complexity. Its a difference in presentation and technique.
But we're in practical agreement here- even if Shepard is not being 'indoctrinated', once you stipulate that the endgame may not have been 'real' in the literal sense, you're on the road to the events depicted therein as not having literally happened. This is the core of IT, even if the reasoning and conclusions are different.
Also, it's bad faith to say that the writer's were capable of putting such thought and subtlety into the 'catalyst takes place in Shepard's subconscious' storyline, but then to use the 'writers dropped the ball' argument to refute IT- if they're capable of one, they're capable of the other.
But that's basically the scientific method. We start with a premise: The ending to ME3 does not make causal, logical sense. We propose a theory to explain this: Indoctrination Theory. The theory gets tested- we weigh evidence for it and against it. If any evidence contradicts it, we dump the theory and try again. So far, I've seen no contradictory evidence. Things make sense under IT. They do not make sense under the literal interpretation. QED: IT is the leading theory. Evolution is only a theory, that doesn't make it wrong, it just means it's the best answer we have at the moment to explain the world.
Bioware would be insane to let the level of speculation about IT (seriously, the thread on the BSN is over 2000 pages long- 3x longer than the official 'ending feedback' thread posted by Bioware. Even Forbes has published articles about IT!) continue to the point it has without denying- unless it were true, in which case to confirm it would be to spoil it for people who have not played the game- no speculation for anyone!
But they have said that they stand by the ending and are not going to change it- they are adding additional sequences AFTER that sequence. IT accommodates this. The ending you want will not come to pass. But IT is an elegant, explicable way of showing what that sequence was *really* about- Shepard's soul.
Control and Synthesis are morally repugnant endgame choices, no matter what colour they were. This goes beyond the IT argument- you betrayed everything Shepard stood for if you followed those paths.
Can't put it better than that. To paraphrase Honest Abe: If that is not evil, nothing is evil.
I do sometimes feel like I am grasping at straws for IT, but I have to be honest- this feels like you are grasping at straws for IT not to be true. Yes, in isolation, the trees might be 'the developers being cute'. But when you combine the facts that: Indoctrination influences dreams; that the dreams Shepard has contain 'dark, oily shadows' in a forest full of trees; that the trees reappear in the same place that you encounter the child from those same dreams- I mean, these facts cannot be treated in isolation any more. They add up to something. They either add up to IT or they add up to 'a bunch of bugs and the developers putting in random shit'. I don't buy the latter and I'm amazed how hard people are shilling for it.
From The Arrival: “Kenson’s acting strange lately. Like she doesn’t care about the Project anymore. And I know I’m not the only one having those dreams. The Reapers are coming she says. But I’m not sure if I’m hearing fear or hope in her voice.”
"I woke up this morning in a cold sweat. The nightmare was back, the one with the enormous starship crawling through the Citadel and all my friends turning to dust. Even now I can see it in my mind. Why won’t this stop?”
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Arrival_(assignment)
From ME2: “Chandana said the ship was dead. We trusted him. He was right. But even a dead god can dream. A god — a real god — is a verb. Not some old man with magic powers. It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does. That's what Chandana didn't get. Not until it was too late. The god's mind is gone but it still dreams. He knows now. He's tuned in on our dreams. If I close my eyes I can feel him. I can feel every one of us.”
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Reaper_IFF
This is fair enough. And look, while I feel it is easier to imagine extended DLC that does adhere to IT, it is still hard to imagine how they deal with the 'Shepard is indoctrinated' options. But look- Saren was indoctrinated, but he was still somewhat in control- same with TIM. So even if you DO become indoctrinated, that need not be the end of the story- Shepard may be the first person in history to break free from indoctrination. So the branched endings may still exist.
Think about ME1- there is no way not to end the game without having defeated Sovereign. Likewise with ME2- chances are, you'll finish the game having defeated the Reaper/human hybrid. The branches are subplots in an overarching plot that is usually, basically, the same. Likewise for ME3, I think.
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Thanks for opening this thread. I’ve done some extensive research using the Mass Effect Wiki and have proved that Shepard has been indoctrinated with that info. I also work toward debunking the “Dream theory” as presented by Acavyos on Youtube. Check out the last of my four post series here:
http://tinyurl.com/7h5wyss
http://tinyurl.com/7h5wyss
That depends. I mean, Hitler was a vegetarian. If anyone complains about my mea-eating, I can always throw that back in their face, because it implies that vegetarianism leads to genocide.
Destroy means that you kill some bad guys and condemn a lot of people to slow death from starvation and disease because galactic infrastructure has just collapsed and a lot of colonies aren't self-sufficient, particularly in the wake of the Reaper Invasion (by this point some homeworlds won't be self-sufficient). Letting billions of people starve to death is hardly a good thing.
Control has the advantage of keeping all the tech intact and giving you a giant fleet to work with. The Reapers can immediately be repurposed for relief work. They can feed the hungry and provide medicine for the sick. Fewer people will die as a result. In the long term, it also gives you the ability to keep the peace and prevent opportunistic warlords from sweeping in and knocking over the crippled governments, which they certainly will do in the Destroy Ending.
And the Synthesis ending makes everyone super-powered immortal cyborgs who can beat down Korgans and Yahgs with their bare hands (except that the Krogans and the Yahgs are now super-powered immortal cyborgs, too, and that could cause problems later). I would say that being super-powered immortal cyborgs is a good thing and is generally preferable to not being super-powered immortal cyborgs.
I think you're making this overly complicated, actually. I'm fine with the idea that the starchild thing was shepard hallucinating and that he was grappling with indoctrination just like the illusive man (and had been for some time, which would explain those creepy dream sequences). It's possible the little boy was an hallucination all three times he is seen -- in the air vent, in the shuttle, and in ghost form on the Citadel -- and manifests as a sort of defense mechanism that Shepard is using to shield his own consciousness.
It's pretty clear, though, that starchild is leaning heavily towards control/synthesis. He doesn't seem to like the "destroy" option; more importantly, of the three, it's the only one that clearly seems to affect him, as he is seen flickering out of existence as Shepard blows up the conduit. In that case, the hallucination isn't just shepard's defense mechanism, it's also the Reapers' last ditch effort to prevent Shep from pulling the trigger on them.
It is especially significant that shepard appears to be alive -- somehow -- after the Citadel explodes. This doesn't seem too hard to explain to me, considering all the other crap shepard has inexplicably survived in the previous two games. But this is significant because of Starchild's line "You yourself are partly synthetic," implying that the "destroy" option is just as suicidal as the other two options. This means starchild is lying, or at least being intentionally misleading about shepard's options, and we therefore have to take EVERYTHING ELSE he says with a grain of salt.
The basic fact that the catalysts' reasoning is so completely asinine can't be ruled out either, much less the fact that Shepard has absolutely NO reason to take him at his word. He doesn't seem to question, for example, whether or not he's telling the truth about the Reapers obeying him (control option) or tat the synthesis thing will really change everyone's "DNA" instead of simply vaporizing him outright, or that blowing up the power conduit on the right will do anything OTHER than screw up the entire system.
If ghost boy is a figment of Shepard's soon-to-be-indoctrinated imagination, then all three options could be bogus and it's really just a choice between
1) Mentally surrender to the Reapers (control)
2) Jump into the power transfer beam and kill yourself (synthesis)
3) Shoot up a power conduit and blow up the crucible (destroy).
I've felt for a long time that this is some kind of trap; the Catalyst is full of shit, and even his explanation for why he's doing this doesn't make a lick of sense. Shepard's going along with it makes even less sense; this is the same Commander Shepard who argued face to face with a fucking Reaper, and suddenly he's picking options out of a hat from a suspicious hologram that claims to control the reapers. Seems to me like those three options are there to distract you and the only valid option is to whirl around and shoot glow boy in his lying little face.