There's one convo with Astarion that's one of my favorites that I haven't seen mentioned or discussed yet happens (I assume) if you have high approval with him but play a good-aligned character. (This is at 60+ approval, start of Act 2.) It's probably because it's not a romantic cutscene so it doesn't get mentioned as much as the others (or because he's racist in it and some of y'all don't like to acknowledge that he has character flaws), but I think it's vital to his character and to explain his early relationship with a good-aligned Tav.
I would like to break it down a little, step by step. Because we are all cringe here.
First, he claims to feel a connection between Tav and himself, and the reason for this is because he believes he's identified "ambition" in Tav (and I'll explain why he's wrong later, but that's mostly headcanon territory, so we'll ignore it for now).
But, there's also clearly something holding Tav back from realizing their full potential, which is their naivete.
"Just that you ... have a big heart. You like doing what's right."
(The animations and voice acting here make him look and sound so fucking condescending, 10/10.)
However, Astarion doesn't tell them this is wrong, or that he disagrees. He implies it's a flaw, but doesn't state it outright. That's dangerous territory, see, and might predispose them to get defensive and reject what he has to say next.
No, he tries (and fails in my case, but it's cute that he tries, bless him) to manipulate Tav by appealing to that big heart of theirs.
"So I was thinking, what would be the right thing to do when we get to Moonrise Towers? When we come face-to-face with whoever is controlling the parasites in our heads."
"I'm just saying there's an opportunity here. If we can control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe and liberate the world from this evil."
See what he's doing? You like doing what's right, so what would be the right thing to do? We can keep ourselves safe. Liberate the world from evil.
It's very blatant, but he's trying to appeal to Tav's good nature by framing his questionable ideas as something that will benefit the greater good, something that's morally righteous that they would agree with.
And of course, it's incredibly funny when you ask how he thinks you'll do that, and he fumbles and admits he's not a "details person," but it's also revealing.
He thinks he's found in Tav ambition, when all he's actually found is ability. Tav exercises power proficiently, while Astarion does not. If he had the authority they have, he'd let ambition drive his actions, which is why he assumes that's what drives Tav when they exercise their power. A good-aligned Tav has very little ambition, I'd argue, but they have plenty of opportunity to exercise their power, which they do when their hand is forced.
So what Astarion is saying is, in effect, hey, you have power, I have ambition. Will you please use your authority/ability to do what I want? Here's how it'll totally be for the greater good, I prommy.
This is brilliant writing, and I really applaud Larian for managing to walk that fine line of making Astarion so sympathetic while he's literally trying to manipulate the player character. Because when I first got this convo, my thought was both "wow, I adore how blatant and terrible his manipulation attempts are, it's kind of endearing" and "he's so terrified, it's genuinely quite tragic."
If we control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe. This works only somewhat as an appeal to good-aligned Tav, because it could also potentially sound very selfish, especially if Tav is the self-sacrificing sort. So notice how, when he says "liberate the world from evil", it sounds kinda tacked-on, an afterthought designed to bury his main goal, which is keep "ourselves" (i.e. himself) safe. Like, yes, this will keep us/me safe, but if you're not into that, then it'll totally help the world, too! It doesn't quite work, because he still sounds ironic and like he doesn't believe they'd be liberating anything from any evil (work that 10 Charisma, boy), but that's the intent, I think.
Does he want power for power's sake? Yes. Is he gleefully powerhungry? Absolutely. But he's also fucking terrified, and that slips through just a little bit, even behind the smug and confident facade.
He's trying to get Tav, whom he's seen exercise their power over others, to lend some of it to him, so that he may never fear anything ever again.
All of this from a short, smug convo where he admits he's too stupid to figure out how to fulfill his dreams of world domination.
Agree with the OP that it's a very entertaining scene with some delightfully bad manipulation. Almost as bad as Vampire Ascendant's "Become my spawn and I will totally turn you into a full independent vampire later. We mustn't rush these things. But I totally will."
Something that just clicked in my head while reading through this is just how bad he is at manipulating people. To like, an almost absurd degree. I saw a couple of old DS9 gifsets cross my dash recently and was reminded in Garak of, oh right, that's what a good liar looks like. And it's so wildly opposite from... everything that Astarion does that I was almost taken aback? But honestly it makes sense if you think about it. Good manipulation, genuinely effective manipulation, is all about reading people and understanding what makes them tick. Successful persuasion is about figuring out what people want, and then presenting your argument so that it seems in line with what they want, so they've already done half the work of convincing themselves for you.
Astarion is so far removed from that kind of measured empathy that he genuinely can't compute how other people work, I think. In the above you can see him struggle to bridge that gap and try to present it from Tav's point of view, but he doesn't actually get it and that shows through so badly that the whole thing falls apart. It's sort of fascinating looking at his various seduction routines (and how quickly they fall apart in the Karlach origin romance, when they don't apply) because he's so clearly working off a predetermined script. It honestly almost cracks me up because I've never seen a character who so clearly got to his current level of proficiency purely by trial and error rather than any actual skill. As soon as he's required to go off-script and forced to improvise his whole shtick falls apart, because he lacks the deeper understanding required for genuine charisma.
Man, I have known some charming-ass motherfuckers in my life - I married into a whole clan of them - and you know what they're all good at? Making you feel like the most important person in the world. Tired, obviously practiced lines are the complete antithesis of that, but Astarion's never had to find that out because he doesn't need to charm people for more than an evening.
Also, not for nothing, but there would have been a certain amount of self-selection involved in all his previous efforts, in that he was only targeting people who a) already found him beautiful, b) were either drunk or at least willing to let him get them drunk, and c) either didn't have the experience to see through his lines or were the type to enjoy lines as long as the face that delivered them was pretty enough. He wasn't grabbing randos off the street; his victims were targeted, to find the people most likely to fall for his charms just long enough to get them back to the palace. For all that people talk about Astarion in terms of his trauma, I think it's a mistake to forget the part where he's also a predator, and an extremely effective one too. And, like most predators, he's honed his technique into a hyper-specific methodology that falls apart once he's removed from his natural habitat.
Or– the Catalyst is manipulating Shepard the entire time it talks and Bioware shouldn’t have proven it right with the stupid monologues and slideshow we get after dealing with it.
Or the Second– I dissect most of the sentences the Catalyst utters.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about what was happening within EA and Bioware at the time of them developing Mass Effect 3. I am a hater in this. I will be shit talking, I will be repeating things, and I am angry about this.
word count: 5.2k
I also have a transcript of the entire conversation with the Catalyst where I have a comment for practically every single thing it says if anyone is interested in seeing me at my more unhinged.
Huge thank you to my friends and also @yellingaboutmasseffect and @jtownnn for looking this over for me <3
The crucible and the Catalyst are stupid for much the same reasons; there is no foreshadowing anywhere to imply that these two plot items ever existed. The game goes so far as retconning previously established lore to have these things exist. To have the crucible blue prints be in the Mars archives completely throws away what Anderson says in ME1: how what they found was a “small data cache.” He implies that humanity, and presumably the rest of the Council species, already learned all they could from it. This helps add to the significance of why the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime is so important and why it had the attention of the Citadel Council. The Catalyst does much the same thing with ME1, in a completely worse way. When we meet the Catalyst, we are in the final act of the final game. Loose ends should be tied up, questions should be answered, and yet we are left with more questions–very big and impactful questions–and terrible answers if we are given any.
Before I delve fully into how the Catalyst throws ME1’s plot down the garbage chute and into a dumpster fire, I want to briefly talk about what else it does with ME1 and its established lore. We learn that the harvest is started from the Citadel as it’s an enormous mass relay and that the arms’ controls are in the Council Chambers. So, why the fuck are we in this fuck ass room that’s seemingly in space? What is this and where the fuck is Shepard? Why can Shepard breathe in a room that doesn’t look like it’s pressurized? This is an entirely new part of the Citadel that we’re never introduced to even though we really should have picked apart the Citadel after ME1. Why are we here instead of coming full circle, being stuck in a cycle, and having it be in the Council Chambers? If it’s because they didn’t want to repeat ME1’s final battle and such, too bad! They paralleled TIM and Saren. They paralleled the beam and the Conduit. So, I don’t understand why they didn’t do it again with the setting. It would make sense at least.
Now, onto one of the worst transgressions the Catalyst commits with its mere existence. The third sentence out of this thing’s mouth is “It’s my home.” The Citadel is its home. IT’S BEEN HERE THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME!? Has it been AWAKE this entire time? If it has been, why in the ever loving fuck did ME1 happen at all? Why did Sovereign have to use Saren and the Geth to activate the Citadel relay? Why even leave behind a vanguard to watch over the cycle and determine when it’s ready for the harvest when the Citadel is a part of the Catalyst–“No, the Citadel is a part of me” (Catalyst)–and thus, it has all the data it should need to determine when the harvest starts.
The Citadel is Reaper tech and the Catalyst controls the Reapers, even embodies the “collective intelligence of all Reapers,” (Catalyst) it can do whatever it wants with the Citadel, I have no doubt about it. It can keep the arms closed so the crucible cannot dock, it could have opened the arms for Sovereign, it could have activated the Citadel relay. It believes so assuredly in its solution, why not do it for this harvest?
To go even further back, why not stop the Prothean scientists who stopped the Keeper signal in the first place? That is what caused ME1 to happen in the first place, why Sovereign had to use the Geth and Saren. The Catalyst just lets this happen for some reason.
The game doesn’t answer any of this. It doesn’t deflect, it doesn’t do any further retconing, it doesn't even give a throwaway comment about the Catalyst hibernating, it gives nothing. For that, I’ll never forgive it.
My first piece of evidence about how the Catalyst is manipulating Shepard happens immediately. It appears as a child. Generally, children are regarded as innocent, naive even, that they are good. The game even does this in the very beginning! It makes Shepard pay attention to a child in the middle of a warzone, and then feel guilty when the child dies. Shepard has nightmares about this child who is now a metaphor for the destruction of the galaxy, and what Shepard must give up in order to win the war–whether the player plays as paragon or renegade, hard choices–“ruthless calculus,” (Garrus ME3)–are made. The catalyst appears as not only a child, but the specific child that Shepard is having nightmares about. How am I not supposed to believe that it’s not only manipulating Shepard, but isn’t using the powers of indoctrination (WE SEE DARK SQUIGGLES IN THE TIM CONFRONTATION, WE SHOOT ANDERSON!) to learn about this child? (the subtitles also tag the catalyst as “Child”. Just to nail the point further).
The next piece of evidence of manipulation is what is said in response to Shepard asking if it knows how to stop the Reapers. “Perhaps. I control the Reapers. They are my solution.” It says perhaps. PERHAPS? Even if the crucible didn’t exist, I do not believe that there is no possible way for the Catalyst to stop the Reapers. It embodies the collective intelligence of all Reapers! It can simply give a cease and desist order, tell them to go back to hibernating in dark space, or better yet, just send out a kill code. The Catalyst just doesn’t want to do any of that. Personally, I think it wants to kill Shepard again. And remember, dear readers, SHEPARD DIED BECAUSE OF THIS FUCKER. I also hate the way it says “perhaps.” It’s a little son of a bitch and I hate it with everything in my heart. PERHAPS!?
It describes what the Reapers are for by saying that they are its solution to “chaos,” which is just ridiculous. It’s so fucking dramatic because it says this over its shoulder while walking away from Sheaprd. This is the first sign that the Catalyst is actually an idiot and not more than an AI, which it claims it is later on. I’ll get there, I promise. It has been around for a very long time. Millions of years, eons as it itself claims. And, dear reader, need I remind you that eons is not a measly couple million years. It’s old as fuck and it’s this fucking dumb. So, it has been operating from somewhere between a long time and forever and yet, AND YET, it hasn’t learned anything about the nature of life; about how it is chaotic. Nature and evolution will always find a way. I guess I can’t necessarily blame it as it uses evolution as a tool, to paraphrase Leviathan. But, given that it’s more than a simple AI, one would think that it learns, like we see with Edi and the Geth. It should have learned to take a step back and observe but it did not. So, it is, quite literally, an idiot.
Another example on how the Catalyst manipulates Shepard is that it gives a bunch of absolute statements (only a sith deals in absolutes) and never provides evidence to back up any of its claims. It doesn’t even go the easy route of stating the Geth and Quarians! (and if someone says it’s because there are different outcomes to that, so help me god–)
The first of these statements we get is “The created will always rebel against their creators.” WRONG. Entirely and purely wrong. The Geth did not “rebel” against the Quarians. They asked a question–that to our knowledge was never forbidden for the Geth to ask–and the Quarians decided that in response, they should just start killing everything (the Catalyst and the Quarians have that in common, it seems). So, the Geth, understandably, defended themselves. Now, I know nothing about statistics but I would be very hesitant to speak in 100% guarantees in these matters, not factoring the Geth’s existence.
Another way the Catalyst manipulates Shepard is how it talks about the harvest. (Isn’t it interesting that it never uses the word kill when referring to the harvest, but what created synthetics do to organics is unacceptable to it. Even though it made ‘organic’-synthetics to… kill organics.) The first time it does this is when Shepard asks, “By wiping out organic life?” after it explains that the Reapers are a way to stop the rebellion of the created. Its response to Shepard’s question is: “No. We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone.”
The Catalyst is (willfully) misinterpreting Shepard. The Catalyst and the Reapers do indeed wipe out organic life every cycle. Shepard did not use “all” which would explain why this is its response. Even if Shepard did say all, the Catalyst still wipes out all organic life, it’s just not in one fell swoop. (go fuck yourself you [the Catalyst] disingenuous piece of shit).
It also uses the word “ascend” to describe the harvest, “We helped them ascend so they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form.” It says this in response to Shepard stating, “But you killed the rest.” It uses the word ascend, because its connotations are positive. The harvest, in no way, shape or form, is positive. The Catalyst is murdering people, not helping them. It admits itself that it changes people’s forms. We see how it does this in ME2 on the Collector base. This statement also throws in another reason it’s doing so that is never brought up before nor after this singular statement. “Make way for new life.” IS THE CATALYST FUCKING THANOS NOW? I’m sorry, are we running out of planets in a fucking galaxy? I thought the problem the Catalyst was created for was the conflict between organics and synthetics, not fucking over population. Pick a struggle.
I’m gonna tap into this exchange which happens immediately after the above quote: “I think we’d rather keep our own form.” / “No, you can’t…” ON WHO’S AUTHORITY? A fucking asshole AI that can’t see past it’s own stupidity? That hasn’t ever shown itself to the galactic public? Who was created by ego-maniacals hiding in a fucking ocean for eons because they got their asses so throughly beat they gave up and Shepard had to shove their spines back up said asses? This AI that doesn’t understand how organics work? I don’t fucking think so.
The next two sentences continue to prove how stupid it is. I’m gonna break down each one. Firstly, “Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics.” WRONG AGAIN! The Geth did not pursue the Quarians after they kicked them off Rannoch. The Heretics left the Veil BECAUSE THEY WERE APPROACHED BY THE REAPERS. The Catalyst gave them means, opportunity, and motive to go out killing organics. It created the situation that it proclaims to stop! The player is supposed to trust this!? To listen to this!? To agree with it? enter Elastigirl “I don’t think so” gif
The second sentence is as follows, “We created the cycle so that never happens.” It’s a moronic solution. The Catalyst created Reaper tech, it turned the Leviathans’ own thrall power against it, “evolution is its tool” (Leviathan ME3), and yet it cannot come up with any other solution. If it actually cared about this conflict, it would have done something about the Quarians and the Geth. It would not have furthered the discord between synthetics and organics. The Catalyst sucks at its job. The purpose of a system is what it does. Stafford Beer, British theorist, states that there is “no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” The Catalyst has consistently failed to solve this conflict. Since it came up with this harvest cycle and the Reapers–which is when the Leviathans were still the apex species so fucking forever ago–it has not tried anything else. It implies later in the conversation when talking about synthesis that it has tried a “similar solution in the past” but that it failed. Does it ever explain why? In actual detail? No. Frankly, I don’t put much stock in any other solution it has tried because this is the best that it can do.
“I was created to bring balance, to be the catalyst for peace between organics and synthetics.” GREAT JOB YOU’RE DOING BUDDY. And also, to be nitpicky because I’m petty, more accurately, you were created with the “mandate to preserve life at any cost” which this solution is definitely not doing. I will get into how this isn’t preservation like it claims later on. I promise I pick that apart too.
Here is the exchange where it claims it’s more than a simple AI. “So, you’re just an AI?” / “In as much as you are just an animal. I embody the collective intelligence of all Reapers.” I’ve already explained how it’s fucking stupid, I just wanted to show the quote. Also, the quote where it states it’s the collective intelligence of all Reapers.
Another piece of evidence towards its manipulation is this exchange “But you were created.” / “Correct.” / “By who?” / “By ones who recognized that conflict would always arise between synthetics and organics.” I don’t know about you, dear readers, but to me, this implies some sort of benevolent overlord created the Catalyst because it doesn’t want organics and synthetics to kill each other. (but organics killing each other, and presumably synthetics killing each other is perfectly fine). At least, before I played the Leviathan DLC, this was 14 year old me’s interpretation. It fails to mention that these people wanted the conflict to go away because “tribute does not flow from a dead race,” according to Leviathan.
A couple sentences later it mentions its supposed other solutions. “But our efforts always ended in conflict, so a new solution was required.” The Catalyst never offers any evidence. It just keeps making grand statements like this is a law of the universe, like gravity, like it’s Sir Isaac Newton. NO EVIDENCE, NO CASE.
You have the choice to talk about Leviathan with it and what Shepard says is just useless? I mean, Shepard proves that it doesn’t have any remorse or compassion at all. But we can already gather that from… everything else it does and says. The Catalyst says “The flaws of [Leviathan’s] organic reasoning could not perceive this.” Right, it’s only organic reasoning that’s flawed here and nothing else. Sure.
The player can also ask about the Crudible, which is really the only time we get actual information about it but it’s coming from this stupid ass liar. Also, need I remind you dear readers, THAT IT’S THE FINAL HOUR OF THE FINAL GAME AND WE’RE NOW GETTING INFORMATION ON WHAT THE FUCK THE CRUCIBLE IS/WHAT IT DOES. Also, the entire reason this thing even exists is because we “can’t win this conventionally” according to Hackett and I don’t agree with that. I really don’t but that can be a separate thing entirely.
Now, here is what the Catalyst has to say in response to Shepard’s prompt. “The device you refer to as the Crucible is little more than a power source. However, in combination with the Citadel and the relays, it is capable of releasing tremendous amounts of energy throughout the galaxy. It is crude, but effective and adaptive in its design.” Okay. Let’s break it down.
It releases energy… that can change the DNA of every living thing in the galaxy and can upload Shepard’s consciousness to the Reaper hivemind.
WHAT THE FUCK?
The relays are just fucking mass shifting slingshots, and the Citadel is a mass relay and space station. There is nothing to indicate that these pieces of technology do anything more than what the previous two games establish. The crucible is a fucking power source. By that description it is only giving the power for something to do its function. SINCE WHEN COULD THE MASS RELAYS AND CITADEL DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS? It’s almost like, maybe, Shepard should have investigated the Citadel when they learned it was Reaper tech! That might have helped. Couldn’t have hurt!
It’s crude, huh? CRUDE!? And yet it does all this! It changes the Catalyst and offers “new possibilities”. It’s crude though. Okay.
ITS NOT LIKE THE GAME FUCKING TELLS US ANYTHING MORE!
When Shepard asks who made the crucible, it responds with: “You would not know them, and there is not enough time to explain.” I’M SORRY, DOES THE CATALYST HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE? PERHAPS IT WANTS TO GET BACK TO THE GALAXY WIDE CULLING IT RUNS. And Bioware, why in the ever loving FUCK do you MAKE Shepard ask a question you not only don’t answer, but does so in a way that pisses all over the player. Of course Shepard wouldn’t know them, the Catalyst destroys information about the previous cycles. “Not enough time to explain” GO FUCK YOURSELF BIOWARE.
The Catalyst also implies that the Reapers who “cleanse the galaxy of clues,” (Liara, ME1) who are “relentless and utterly thorough” (Vigil ME1) who are so patient and immortal missed the Crucible plans! “We believed the concept had been eradicated.” There is precedent here with the Prothean scientists but since Bioware discards that, I will too in this instance. Get better at your job Mac Walters and I won’t be so mean to you.
Back at the dialogue wheel, if the player chooses Reapers, they get this delightful statement from the Catalyst. “[Leviathan] did not approve, but it was the only solution.” Once more implying other solutions were examined and that this is the best it can do. That it only wants this solution. IT DOESN’T EXPLAIN ANYTHING!
It also states “The Reapers are a synthetic representation of my creators.” Wrong again! Capital class ships made from a species are organic-synthetic. THE GAME DOESN’T REMEMBER ITS OWN FUCKING LORE! It drives me fucking batty.
Another example of the Catalyst giving an absolute: “The result is conflict, destruction, chaos. It is inevitable.” WRONG! It’s not inevitable. Not if the Catalyst stops organics from building AI. The Catalyst has the power–and the arrogance–to step in when AIs are created. The same thing that Shepard does to achieve peace between the Quarians and the Geth. Thank you Bioware, for proving me right.
Now, I get to talk about the meat of this thing. Which is this quote: “Reapers harvest all life—organic and synthetic—preserving them before they are forever lost to this conflict.”
“All life” SO IT ADMITS THAT IT KILLS EVERYTHING! It can’t even remember its own deflections! One can say that it clarifies “all life” with “organic and synthetic” but it could have used advanced civilizations which it used before! So HA!
IT'S LATER! “Preserving them” PRESERVING? Melting people down into mush–murder–to be indoctrinated into a Reaper hivemind and forced into a Reaper body is not preservation. Let’s turn to our good friend Merriam-Webster for a definition! Preservation is “The activity or process of keeping something valued alive, intact, or free from damage or decay.” The Catalyst quite literally does none of these things.
Alive: it kills people
Intact: it melts them down, changing their form irrevocably
Damage: THEY’RE FUCKING DEAD
Decay: the mush they’re turned into is ORGANIC!
We all saw the collector base. We all saw how horrifying and terrible that was. IT'S NOT PRESERVATION.
The Catalyst is annihilating and eradicating entire civilizations from existence. We barely have any insight into the Protheans, and practically nothing about species older than them! The Catalyst does not want the people in the current harvest to know more than what it deigns to give them– for example, making the current cycle think the Protheans created the mass relays and the Citadel.
“Forever lost” The Catalyst MAKES THEM forever lost! See above! Now I ask if there’s a database somewhere that holds all the information about every single species it kills. Because it seems the only thing that is stored is the one (1) selected species to turn into a Reaper and these Capital ships are PUT ON THE FRONT LINES! Harbinger is leading the fucking army! We see Reapers die.
What happens to all the other species that are not chosen to get melted down?
After this, Shepard can then ask: “We’re at war with the Reapers right now.” / “You may be in conflict with the Reapers, but they are not interested in war.” … The Catalyst’s entire response is preposterous.
“You may be” MAY BE? FUCKING MAY BE? I’m sorry, is Shepard not burnt to the nine layers of hell and back because of Harbinger’s beam? Has Shepard not lost people to the Reapers? Has Shepard not fucking DIED because of the Reapers? Is Shepard hallucinating Harbinger, Sovereign and the Rannoch Reaper shittalking them? Are they hallucinating every single Reaper in the galaxy right now killing people? “MAY BE IN CONFLICT” ??? They are killing people! They are turning people into monsters, and indoctrinating them!
“Not interested in war” Admittedly, they apparently do not follow the belief that synthetics(Reapers) will always rebel against their creators (The Catalyst). That's not the war they are interested in, but they are interested in war. Sovereign “the vanguard of your destruction” seemed pretty interested in starting this extermination. Practically every single line of Harbinger in ME2 screams it’s interested in killing Shepard and starting the harvest.
Go fuck yourself, Catalyst, you’re a gaslighting prick.
Thankfully, Shepard points this out with a simple “I find that hard to believe.”
It continues to show how stupid it is and how it’s trying to manipulate Shepard by stating, “When fire burns, is it at war? Is it in conflict? Or is it simply doing what it was created to do? We are no different.” I assure you, dear reader, it is different. The Reapers are independent, each a nation, free of all weakness, the pinnacle of evolution, and the Catalyst itself embodies the collective intelligence of all Reapers. The Reapers and the Catalyst are not the same as a chemical reaction. They are sentient. Fire is not. That’s a very easy difference to spot. Also, with this the Catalyst tries to foist off responsibility about all this when it’s been so proud and confident in its solution. It can’t have both.
Now is where I rip into each ending! They all either one, shouldn’t work the way they do, or two, shouldn’t be proven right/okay/that it’s a good decision/ends well.
Destroy: “It is now in your power to destroy us. But be warned: others will be destroyed as well. The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetics will be targeted.” Right. “Will not discriminate” Okay. WILL NOT FUCKING DISCRIMINATE?! Even though it can do the two other endings? It is powerful enough to do all that, but it won’t target only the Reapers? Even when the Catalyst EMBODIES THE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF ALL REAPERS. Okay. Why is it only acting like it's a mere crude power source when it's for the option that Bioware has been grooming players to choose since the prologue of the very first game? Peculiar, isn’t it? It doesn’t explain why either. (I’m not gonna bring the level of war assets into this).
Control: “You could use the energy of the Crucible to seize control of the Reapers.” I thought it was a power source! IT’S A GODDAMN POWER SOURCE! HOW DOES IT DO THAT!? We did not see any proof that TIM was correct throughout the entire game; in fact, we spent the entire game telling him he’s wrong! It’s not like Sanctuary is explained. “...[TIM] could never have taken control… because we already controlled him.” (Catalyst) How am I supposed to believe that the Catalyst is not trying to do the very same thing right now? The Catalyst wants Shepard to “lose everything that you have” and to lose their body and connection to their people, but it’s okay! Because Shepard’s “thoughts” and “memories will continue”. Because Shepard will control the Reapers… By entering the fucking hivemind? Dear readers, we all know what happens whenever someone interacts with Reaper tech! It doesn’t go any other way! IT DOESN’T EXPLAIN HOW! YOU CAN’T HIDE BEHIND THE CRUCIBLE WITH HANDWAVEY SCI-FI MAGIC BIOWARE WHEN YOU VERY EXPLICITLY STATE ITS A CRUDE POWER SOURCE GO FUCK YOURSELF
Who’s going to control Shepard? Where are their checks and balances? There are too many what ifs in this.
What’s going with the Geth and Edi? Does Shepard also control them because of the Reaper code they have within them? Does Reaper God Shepard leave them alone? Does Edi have some special connection with ‘Shepard’ now?
If Shepard is not controlling the Geth, why are they not shown interacting with the quarians?
What happens with the Reaper ground troops? Are they sentient? Do they just run and hide in the sewers? Do they help rebuild? Does Shepard kill them?
Synthesis: “Add your energy to the Crucible’s. The chain reaction will combine all synthetic and organic life into a new framework. A new… DNA.” // “The energy of the Crucible, released in this way, will alter the matrix of all organic life in the galaxy.”
Fucking WHAT!?
HOW DOES IT DO THAT??
IT'S A POWER SOURCE?
WHAT PART OF THE CATALYST/THE CITADEL CAN DO THAT? WHAT IS THIS? WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?
WHY IS SHEPARD’S ENERGY THE LYNCH PIN FOR THIS TO HAPPEN? HELLO???
Secondly, this is altering the DNA of every single living thing in the galaxy and Shepard can just… do that. We have spent countless hours in three entire games stopping the Catalyst from doing the exact same thing. The husks, the collectors, cannibal, ravagers, brutes, marauders, and banshees. And now it’s suddenly okay!
“Organics will be perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology. Synthetics, in turn, will finally have full understanding of organics." And what exactly is this “synthetic technology”? REAPER TECH? We all know what happens with organics and Reaper tech. PLEASE BIOWARE A SHRED OF INTELLIGENCE IN HOW THIS ALL WORKS, I BEG OF YOU. Secondly, sometimes you don’t understand things. The thing about living is about discovery and being curious and learning. If synthetics just get this innate knowledge because of this magical beam blast full of dead Shepard they lose that aspect of life. They lose the chance to come up with their own perspective. That is a monopoly, uniformity WHICH IS NOT NATURAL!
It also is a blend of organic and synthetic… where is the synthetic aspect coming from? Is it perhaps Reaper tech? Y'know the thing that indoctrinates everyone? ITS NOT LIKE THE GAME SAYS ITS NOT!
Here is where it states it has “tried… a similar solution in the past.” OH? FINALLY! Please, tell me all about this, I would like to know how it didn’t succeed and why the Catalyst thinks this time it will. What’s different about it? What’s the same? How long ago? How many trials? Did it have a control group? Where’s the data? Oh… oh, it’s not gonna tell us? THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND FUCKING AROUND IS WRITING IT DOWN. WHERE’S YOUR ANALYSIS FUCKER!?
It explains that it has “always failed” because “organics were not ready.” How were organics not ready then, but ready now? If Shepard went to anyone else and told them that they were gonna change the DNA of everyone in the galaxy because the leader of the Reaper hivemind told them it was the “ideal solution” they would be executed on the spot for indoctrination, are you joking?.
The Catalyst goes on to state that “Synthesis is the final evolution of all life.” First, since the Catalyst plays with evolution like a nine-year-old and barbies, I don’t trust anything it says about evolution. Secondly, if this is true, why not just let it play out then! Evolution is natural. Doing this willy-nilly without any input is not.
“The paths are open. But you have to choose.” Or I can just shoot the Catalyst in the face, making it drop this innocent act, and refuse to participate in its asinine game. Which is also kinda ridiculous because Shepard–after everything they have gone through–can just go nah. Which whatever.
Edi’s voice over for the synthesis is… weird!? They’re insinuating that she’s now alive and not alone… when she wasn’t! She literally tells Shepard on earth “But only now do I feel alive. That is your influence.” SHE WAS ALREADY ALIVE AND FREE AND THINKING FOR HERSELF WHAT THE FUCK!? WHY DID YOU THROW AWAY HER CHARACTER ARC FOR AN ENDING THAT SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED.
Also, to me personally, her voice sounds different during her voice over. More robotic and dull. Close to how she sounds if Shepard doesn’t have conversations with her.
And the implications of the Reaper ground troops getting sentience as well… are they okay? Do they need therapy? What’s going on with them?
So. The Catalyst is clearly an idiot with a moronic “solution” that doesn’t solve anything, and it's manipulating Shepard the entire time. Why in the ever loving fuck is it right about the ramifications–or lack thereof–about the different endings?! The very ending of the game doesn’t satisfy me, and it most assuredly doesn’t satisfy the questions that the ending provokes! There’s so much left unsaid, unknown, very important, very plot heavy questions that are left dangling.
The game is good at having Shepard and the player face the consequences for their decisions and all the different choices they can take. It’s paramount in ME3. How to truly get the cure, how to achieve peace between the Quarians and the Geth, etc. Sometimes, these consequences are bad! And yet… there aren’t bad consequences to these endings that aren’t dependent on war assets. That–the war assets being a deciding factor–makes sense. The endings themselves don’t besides destroy. Why are control and synthesis even an option!
Take out control and synthesis and the fucking Catalyst and merely have the player’s level of war assets make it so the crucible takes out just the Reapers or more in its beam blast. Simple! Why complicate it? Why add two other endings that one (synthesis) doesn’t have any foreshadowing towards and two have the player be against the entire third game?
And we get… a voiceover and a slideshow of our companions and the general state of the galaxy.
A fucking slideshow.
THE ENDING OF A GAME IS TO WRAP EVERYTHING WRAP AND EXPLAIN IT. FOR ALL THE THREADS TO COME TOGETHER TO FORM A BEAUTIFUL TAPESTRY. NOT FOR YOU TO THROW THE TAPESTRY INTO A SHREDDER, DUCK TAPE IT, AND THEN PASS IT OFF.
This is ridiculous.
*I have now seen the original ending cut scene, after you make your choice.
Archaeologists: “Uhhhh, there’s still a lot of debate about how effective leather armor really could have been on a battlefield. Alas, we shall never know.”
Punks: “Hey, fresh cut, the boneheads carry knives sometimes so make sure and lift a good leather jacket. It’ll save your life.”
Layers layers layers! Slashes won’t do shit even to most t shirts but a stab will ignore the shit outa your leathers. Layers will keep the blade from getting as deep as it otherwise would and gives more for it to snag on if it serrated.
Armour has always been about layers.
Example 1200s minor noble: linen shirt, gambeson (layered and quilted linen with wool insulation), chain mail, surcoat, arming cap, helmet, coif, bigger helmet.
Another example Alexander era Macedonian hoplite: linen tunic, greaves, 1" of tightly pressed and laminated linen, helmet (probably with some sort of arming cap/padding inside), big ass shield.
Yes! Cloth is hard work to cut with a knife. When they were trying to ban (sword) duelling in Europe, they banned people from carrying around shields/bucklers, so your defensive tool was a cloak wrapped around your non-sword fist, with plenty of loose fabric to catch your opponent’s blade. You might get your cloak torn, but you’re less likely to get your skin sliced up, and that’s the important thing.
You know what is a surprisingly amazing material for armor?
Silk.
Silk.
The Mongolians used silk vests because silk isn’t broken by an arrow, and you can use the silk to gently pull the arrow back out, even if it’s barbed. They also often used silk as the backing for leather armor.
The first bulletproof vests were made in Japan and Korea. Out of, yup, silk. Silk could stop black powder bullets, but was rendered obsolete by higher powered modern firearms. A combination of silk and metal was experimented with, but dropped because of the expense of silk.
Franz Ferdinand was wearing one such vest when he was assassinated, but it didn’t help because of where he was hit.
The US military is now looking into something called Dragon Silk, which is spider silk made by GMO silkworms, to make body armor that might be more comfortable than the current kevlar vests.
You want proof about silk being able to stop an arrow? Try sewing it with the wrong machine needle in place. I have shattered – literally shattered – needles that were too thick. They just will not pass between the tightly woven fibers, even when in a machine that can go through your actual fingers. And that was just a lightweight taffeta, not something woven to be intentionally impenatrable.
It is horrible at stopping slashes, though. Whether by the blade of scissors, roller cutter, or well honed dagger or sword, it just falls to pieces like it never meant to be whole in the first place. This is, again, where your layers come in – a nice heavy leather for slash damage, a dense silk for piercing. You probably want to put something under it though, silk against sweaty skin is unpleasantly sticky. It *clings*. Eww.
This is, again, where your layers come in – a nice heavy leather for slash damage, a dense silk for piercing. You probably want to put something under it though, silk against sweaty skin is unpleasantly sticky. It *clings*. Eww.
This is where linen, hemp or even nettle (no, it doesn’t sting) comes as the next-to-skin layer; comfortable, hard-wearing, easily washed and not even unusual: “linens” was period-speak for “underclothes” for centuries.
All three are made the same way, more or less, involving a technical vocabulary of retting, beetling, scutching, hackling etc.; look it up.
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* The wooden scutching-knife may be and IMO almost certainly is an ancestor of the “Dussack”, a German / Central European training weapon (the real thing would have been a Messer, a large fighting knife). Compare this illustration from a fight manual ca.1570…
…to a couple of modern repro dussacks…
…and finally to a couple of painted antique scutching-knives from Sweden, one marked 1918, so the shape hadn’t changed much in 300 years….
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Any fabric where the washing instructions are “boil until clean” will be OK as bottom-layer armour. That’s how its laundry labels say to treat top-quality Irish damask linens inherited from my Mum, so fabrics like hemp or nettle certainly won’t come to harm.
Your characters may interpret it this way: those who boil their under-tunics the night before combat seem to drive off a lot of infection demons and make wizard healing a bit easier.
Finally, a memorable side-note that has literally nothing to do with fabric armour or indeed fabric of any kind: in 1806 (or ‘08) MP and ex-military surgeon Humphrey Howarth was challenged to a duel.
That morning he washed thoroughly all over, then proceeded to the duelling ground in his coach - stark naked, knowing from his experiences as a military surgeon that cloth fragments forced into a wound were the primary cause of fatal infection.
Whether from embarrassment or because it was now A Silly Thing, his opponent Lord Barrymore called the duel off…
also to stick up for archaeologists: fabric and leather armor doesn’t keep well the same way metal and ceramic does! even metal flakes away. and until fairly recently, archaeologists didn’t have particularly sophisticated tools to check for traces of fibers. they basically had to just dig up an area and hope to guess what was there from the shape of the rust or the bones or the shards of ceramics. this was why finding tombs has always been so exciting: it’s a room full of stuff that hasn’t totally rotted away, ideally with paintings on it showing living people wearing perishable goods like fabric.
armorers and archaeologists and historians have been debating about leather armor not in terms of was it good at being armor– modern leather gloves, boots, and jackets do a great job!– but whether or not any given civilization would have found it cost effective to use leather for protective equipment. some civilizations don’t have very many cows to spare. some have plenty. some could never hope to afford enough silk to let mercenaries have it; some mercenaries made a point of wearing gaudy patchwork silks and fabrics as a point of pride, some have historically exported the massive amounts of silk they had.
leather rots, especially leather that is continuously exposed to rain and sun and blood and stabbing. it’s not so easy to patch. it needs to be tanned and cured and oiled and maintained carefully. does leather make good armor? sure! is it what any given fighter would have been equipped with as the most effective protective gear for the time, geographical and economic climate, and contemporary weapons technology?
archaelogists aren’t being overpaid dipshits when they tell you they can’t say for sure.
Fun fact: You are part of keeping a fandom alive. Every interaction, every person in a fandom has their own part to play. If that’s reblogging art, fanfics or making cursed edits, that’s good enough.
Random Inara lore drop no one cares about but it came up when writing the Act 1 timeline for my WIP fic series and talking with her companions about her bg. While she work(ed) on her own for 85% of the time as a wandering Ranger/Monster Hunter in a "Toss A Coin To Your Witcher" style, that when inara need(ed) support for a job (bc fighting liches on her own is the bitches, pun intended) she had it, due to being part of a monster hunter guild (Read: a witcher-esque group of 20-30 ish ppl of all ages, classes and races, loremaster and hunter alike) The guild's hq is in Comyr, because that is quite central to a whole lot of areas in Faerun, and large enough to have such a thing headcanoned into the place lol.
It is called the "Comyr Centipedes." One of the best guilds of its kind there is, highly reliable with jobs when hired, and has a very good reputation in the populace. Long period of initiation too newbies too that Inara also ran through some fifty years ago with her dragonborn paladin mentor Jalen, because they want to ensure whoever applies meet their high standards. and they are able to survive longer than a week.
The name, well, because stomp stomp on monsters (duh!) and because I needed a good lore reason for the tattoos on her cheeks that i randomly picked months back 😂 Thus i have now this one, lmao.
It's wasn't mandatory for members to have the guild tattoo on their cheeks, others have it on their torso or around the biceps etc, but Inara lost a bet back then, and also thought why not. Since it may keep her ambitious mother in Evereska from further introducing her to marriages candidates to tie her down, if she does look more like a war-hardened soldier or something 😆 Which didn't work as well as hoped, but that is a story for another day haha.
Because chapter 2 of Yabbin is taking forever and multiple edits to get it how I want, I've not had much to post here. In its place, let's go through a few facts and background details about Jen that people don't necessarily know
Initial Creation
I created Jen before completing Act 2 with my first character; hence why she has a few similarities to characters introduced in late Act 2 and beyond XD
Paladin was on my list of classes for my first character, but I chose Ranger instead; the Oathbreaker subclass seemed interesting to me, but I was disappointed at the time I couldn't choose it at character creation
Thus, my second character was going to romance Astarion and thus be a paladin; I didn't need to choose half-elf to get the weapon proficiencies with the class but I didn't know that at the time
Being a paladin, I knew Jen would use body type 3 making her about as tall as Karlach
Original Ideas
Jen was a Devotion paladin but I had plans for her to briefly become an Oathbreaker around the goblin camp and then change to a Vengeance paladin
She would have had a minor crisis about this, but this has carried through to her current character worrying about being able to adhere to her oath/the high expectations because of it
Story Development
Because I made Jen a half-elf, I realised that even if cured of vampirism, Astarion would live five times as long as her
Thus I began to look for ways in which she might extend her lifespan - and almost settled on Jaheira giving Jen the Rite of the Timeless Body scroll, along with Jaheira giving Astarion a means of curing his vampirism ("To you, I give mortality; and to you, I give a millennia")
I was tempted for a vague moment to restart and make Jen a Durge but nothing came of that
I went on a wiki walk and found information on aasimar and thought it'd be a fun side-note if Jen had an aasimar ancestor just for Astarion to go "urgh, of course you've got a celestial ancestor"
That very quickly turned into Jen's father being the celestial ancestor as I had very little written about him
I made the quip about him being busy with celestial duties and oops it's suddenly twenty-five years later
Final Decisions
I decided that if Jen is half-elf half-celestial? Why wouldn't her celestial heritage give her another 33% year to her life? She went from a lifespan of ~150 years to 1000 because of that decision
Jen's father is indeed a celestial, though this isn't known and they think instead he just upped and disappeared one day and Jen's aasimar heritage is from his side of the family
It did take me a while to settle on what celestial race Jen's father was, Ghaele or Shiradi were possible options, but I settled on Movanic Deva
When Jen meets Aylin, she gets identified as an aasimar but her abilities are locked/limited for an unknown reason, and it takes a while for Jen to be able to use them
She finally meets her father post-game when he travels to Baldur's Gate to investigate rumours of a huge war between vampire clans for newly-vacant territory
My quite different rendition of the Bite Nite™ and beyond it, because you have to respect the classics. Or rather steal one wheel off its car and run away with it, and let the disaster feline gremlin actually deal with the consequences of his bite-y actions. As in what to do when you, as newly outed vampire, accidentally have slurped dry the one person in camp willing to help in spite of everything?
(2/6 chapters published, 8k words thus far)
[...] “I didn’t…don’t want to hurt you. I am just… so hungry, but I’m too weak to hunt.” Blinking, his eyebrows shot up and Astarion was frantic to elaborate, to correct himself. “I mean… I haven’t killed anyone, if that’s what you are thinking.“ A scoff, laced with bitterness for reasons unknown. “Not for food, anyhow. I feed on animals instead. Rabbits, deer, boars, whatever I can find.”
“I know.” His head snapped up at her due to the admission, and Inara snorted in return. Well, he hadn’t been exactly subtle in sneaking out of camp either. The only question remained as to why? Why hadn’t Astarion killed them all in their sleep in the past five nights and drained them dry already? Why was he going through the trouble to leave camp in secret and hunt animals for blood, risking detection each time? Something wasn’t adding up. This vampire in front of her… wasn’t exactly vampire-ing. Not according to the books she’d studied, anyhow.
The vampires in there were described as inherently evil, twisted creatures. As unfeeling, very manipulative and cunning. And without a soul, ever-hungry for blood, possessions and power, too. Whereas… Astarion, well, was more of an annoying runt, a lost stray pretending to be a roaring manticore. His ego and snobbishness was, anyhow. Not exactly—
His chuckle tore into the momentarily silence between them. “Well, I have indeed underestimated you then.” He mock-bowed his head. “My apologies.”
