Just to put everyones mind at ease THIS IS NOT AN INDOCTRINATION THREADD
 
Now that we got that outta the way I shall begin. This is something I just was thinking of last night and it seemed like a legitimate answer to a few things. What I'm referring to is this...  

• This also supports why the catalyst would try and convince Shepard to do either the control or synthesis endings because the Reapers would survive
• In defense of Reapers having a soul, they mention that they harvest the races they destroy. While it seems necessary to them to destroy any possible threat, they do preserve any species they destroy so they aren't entirely lost. (bit of a stretch I know, but thought I'd put it up anyway)

The Reapers were created to destroy and harvest. That's not remorse, that's doing what you were programmed to do.

That picture provides more explanation than the actual end of the game.

@Sackmanjones said:

@BraveToaster: They in fact say, they harvest other beings so they can live on. If they didn't give a damn then why would they do it in the first place? Yes I do see this one as more of a stretch than the rest but I still thought the other stuff is totally reasonable

They harvest beings so they can live on because that's what they were created to do. Remorse is felt when a person commits an act that they deem as bad. The Reapers think that killing advanced beings and harvesting them is good; therefore, they feel no remorse for their actions.

I thought Reapers are sentient being since they have individual name and ability to perform reasoning and belief system. But their limitation is that they can't evolve on their own, they'll need organic lifeforms to do what do best, evolving, then use those lifeforms knowledges and body structure (in this cycle they choose us) to continue their evolution process.

I'm tired already.

@darpa said:

I thought Reapers are sentient being since they have individual name and ability to perform reasoning and belief system. But their limitation is that they can't evolve on their own, they'll need organic lifeforms to do what do best, evolving, then use those lifeforms knowledges and body structure (in this cycle they choose us) to continue their evolution process.

I'm tired already.

I am too, and I could get into it upon further detail. I'll just keep it brief, Casey Hudson is just an arrogant deuchebag. He is completely out of touch with the development community and thinks what he says is gods word. He makes callous remarks and decisions about the series as if John Romero would back in the 90's ID days.

BTW I am no way affiliated with Bioware in any sort of way and never have been, I'm just expressing an opinion from what I have seen in podcasts and interviews. He's kind of like the owner of an NFL team saying that they will go to the Super Bowl on a sports radio show when you know that just won't happen by the tone of his voice.

The Catalyst is an amazingly advanced AI, a super-genius of super-geniuses. At some point the Catalyst came to the conclusion that organics will always seek to make better AI and that AI will eventually evolve to the point of determining organic life to be obsolete. Whether or not this is an accurate conclusion doesn't matter, even super-geniuses get it wrong some times, what matters it that the Catalyst feels self assured that it is right. Therefore it develops what it believes to be the optimal plan to ensure the continued existence of organic life. By eradicating specific organic races before they grow too far, It can act as gardener by essentially pruning the universe.

And the Reapers are the shears. They too are highly advanced AI, created powerful enough to properly execute the cycle but not sophisticated enough to disobey their prime directive. As his creations, the Catalyst is reluctant to discard the Reapers entirely but ultimately understands that they can no longer serve their intended purpose and therefore is willing to leave their fate in Shepard's hands.

As far as having their own soul, you're right that idea is a very huge theme of the entire series but it is not one that can be answered definitively. A Paragon Shepard may feel that the thought processes of synthetics mirror our own, with electrons bouncing around our brains / processors drawing on old data and reaching new conclusions. Therefore they too can be considered as living beings which makes certain choices like eradicating the heretics or eventually all synthetics morally wrong. On the other hand, a Renegade Shepard may feel that the keys are flesh and blood. No matter how advanced the AI, a machine is still a machine. They were made by organics as tools and tools don't have feelings, rights, and certainly not a soul.

So in the end, whether or not the Reapers have souls is a matter of opinion. But it certainly isn't a twist or hidden idea.

The problem that I have with that particular Xzibit picture, is that people use it to make fun of the ending while it completely ignores the whole point of the reapers. They only "reap" species of a certain intelligence level that have gained space travel and created synthetic life. Otherwise they would have killed humans, turians, asari, and salarians last cycle and that would be it.

The idea is that organics will create synthetics and then fight each other ending with the synthetics destroying every trace of organic life, due to deeming it obsolete. The reapers keep this from happening by only killing the "advanced" species and leaving the ones still banging rocks.

I agree with the points @StarvingGamer makes regarding the Catalyst and Reaper's roles and motivations and believe this was ultimately what Bioware were aiming to convey in the games ending. Their only failing was the way the presented this and the slightly anticlimatic decision that followed. With a little bit of tightening up how they handled this and the subsequent cutscenes it would have left less gaps which people are desperate to fill with theories that would ultimately make a huge deal less sense in the grand scheme of things if they turned out to be accurate.

I'm so tempted to make a list of all the plot holes in the end just to see if anyone can debunk all of them.

Your explanation does sound feasible. Although my big sticking point simply is the fact all this debate wouldn't be necessary if BioWare would've given us a true reasonable explanation. And that's what's missing entirely from the broken ending, an explanation!

Explain BioWare! EXPLAIN!

The problem that I have with that particular Xzibit picture, is that people use it to make fun of the ending while it completely ignores the whole point of the reapers. They only "reap" species of a certain intelligence level that have gained space travel and created synthetic life. Otherwise they would have killed humans, turians, asari, and salarians last cycle and that would be it.

The idea is that organics will create synthetics and then fight each other ending with the synthetics destroying every trace of organic life, due to deeming it obsolete. The reapers keep this from happening by only killing the "advanced" species and leaving the ones still banging rocks.

So were the Reapers going to kill the Geth too? The impression I was under was that they only targeted organic life, thus the Geth/Sovereign alliance, but what's the point of "pruning" the intelligent organic life if you're just going to leave behind the comparatively super-advanced Geth to dominate the galaxy after the Reapers go back to dark space?

So were the Reapers going to kill the Geth too? The impression I was under was that they only targeted organic life, thus the Geth/Sovereign alliance, but what's the point of "pruning" the intelligent organic life if you're just going to leave behind the comparatively super-advanced Geth to dominate the galaxy after the Reapers go back to dark space?

Real motivation for what the Reapers were doing:
- See Mass Effect 2
- Do not see Mass Effect 3 
 
:(

The Catalyst is an amazingly advanced AI, a super-genius of super-geniuses. At some point the Catalyst came to the conclusion that organics will always seek to make better AI and that AI will eventually evolve to the point of determining organic life to be obsolete. Whether or not this is an accurate conclusion doesn't matter, even super-geniuses get it wrong some times, what matters it that the Catalyst feels self assured that it is right. Therefore it develops what it believes to be the optimal plan to ensure the continued existence of organic life. By eradicating specific organic races before they grow too far, It can act as gardener by essentially pruning the universe.

And the Reapers are the shears. They too are highly advanced AI, created powerful enough to properly execute the cycle but not sophisticated enough to disobey their prime directive. As his creations, the Catalyst is reluctant to discard the Reapers entirely but ultimately understands that they can no longer serve their intended purpose and therefore is willing to leave their fate in Shepard's hands.

As far as having their own soul, you're right that idea is a very huge theme of the entire series but it is not one that can be answered definitively. A Paragon Shepard may feel that the thought processes of synthetics mirror our own, with electrons bouncing around our brains / processors drawing on old data and reaching new conclusions. Therefore they too can be considered as living beings which makes certain choices like eradicating the heretics or eventually all synthetics morally wrong. On the other hand, a Renegade Shepard may feel that the keys are flesh and blood. No matter how advanced the AI, a machine is still a machine. They were made by organics as tools and tools don't have feelings, rights, and certainly not a soul.

So in the end, whether or not the Reapers have souls is a matter of opinion. But it certainly isn't a twist or hidden idea.

@wmaustin55 said:

@StarvingGamer

The Catalyst is an amazingly advanced AI, a super-genius of super-geniuses. At some point the Catalyst came to the conclusion that organics will always seek to make better AI and that AI will eventually evolve to the point of determining organic life to be obsolete. Whether or not this is an accurate conclusion doesn't matter, even super-geniuses get it wrong some times, what matters it that the Catalyst feels self assured that it is right. Therefore it develops what it believes to be the optimal plan to ensure the continued existence of organic life. By eradicating specific organic races before they grow too far, It can act as gardener by essentially pruning the universe.

And the Reapers are the shears. They too are highly advanced AI, created powerful enough to properly execute the cycle but not sophisticated enough to disobey their prime directive. As his creations, the Catalyst is reluctant to discard the Reapers entirely but ultimately understands that they can no longer serve their intended purpose and therefore is willing to leave their fate in Shepard's hands.

As far as having their own soul, you're right that idea is a very huge theme of the entire series but it is not one that can be answered definitively. A Paragon Shepard may feel that the thought processes of synthetics mirror our own, with electrons bouncing around our brains / processors drawing on old data and reaching new conclusions. Therefore they too can be considered as living beings which makes certain choices like eradicating the heretics or eventually all synthetics morally wrong. On the other hand, a Renegade Shepard may feel that the keys are flesh and blood. No matter how advanced the AI, a machine is still a machine. They were made by organics as tools and tools don't have feelings, rights, and certainly not a soul.

So in the end, whether or not the Reapers have souls is a matter of opinion. But it certainly isn't a twist or hidden idea.

Thank you for this. This is concise and isn't grasping for straws like every other Mass Effect theorist.

Yet it is just as much a "theory" as any of the others. There is no more evidence that such an interpretation is correct as there is that the "indoctrination theory" is correct.

@BrockNRolla: Except everything I typed is simply a rewording of exactly what the Catalyst says at the end of the game.

@StarvingGamer said:

@BrockNRolla: Except everything I typed is simply a rewording of exactly what the Catalyst says at the end of the game.

And all your interpretation of its meaning is purely your opinion.

"The Catalyst is an amazingly advanced AI" - How do you know? It never mentions being an AI. It only says that it controls the Reapers. It could be part of an even grander alien race. It could be a "god" of some sort. It could be an amalgamation of all the Reapers in one. It could be a hallucination. There is no evidence to say that it is an AI, particularly not one that is separate from the Reapers.

"At some point the Catalyst came to the conclusion that organics will always seek to make better AI and that AI will eventually evolve to the point of determining organic life to be obsolete." - Or maybe just that synthetic life and organic life can't peacefully coexist. The war between the Geth and Quarian had nothing to do with determining organic life to be obsolete. It was simply that Quarians feared their creations after it began becoming self-aware. Further, who says the catalyst came up with anything? It keeps saying that this was "our solution." Is that a Reaper solution? A solution created by some other space-faring race? Your interpretation is valid, but it is merely one interpretation.

"[The Reapers] too are highly advanced AI, created powerful enough to properly execute the cycle but not sophisticated enough to disobey their prime directive." - Why do you think that? The catalyst says it controls them, but how does that imply anything about their sophistication? It even seems to refer to them when saying "we" throughout the conversation. But maybe it isn't referring to the Reapers at all. You're making a conclusion here based on what your perceive their relationship to be. Are the Reapers aware they are being controlled? Are they just unwitting pawns? Is the catalyst one-in-the-same with the Reapers? Who knows? No one knows for sure, because it's merely an interpretation.

On top of these interpretations, there is plenty the catalyst said that isn't explained by any of this. How has the crucible "changed" the catalyst? For that matter, why has it changed? What does that change imply? That it no longer has control and needs an agent to complete its final task? (This is the first time the crucible has been created after all, so if the catalyst is part of the Reapers, maybe it no longer has control over the situation.) What was it before if it has changed? Where did it come from for that matter? I don't see how it is necessarily "willing to leave their fate in Shepard's hands." Maybe there isn't any other option and it has nothing to do with willingness.

Your interpretation is as valid as anyone else's. I'm simply saying that these are merely your ideas; not a "correct" interpretation of the ending.