Mass Effect 3 - Speculation

Technology and Gaming
#1

[COLOR=‘Cyan’]Caution, this thread will contain ME2 spoilers.

Typically what draws me to most games is their visuals, and their plot lines, and the Mass Effect franchise is doing very well in both areas. In my opinion, one of the best things about this game is the manner in which Bioware reveals interesting information, while simultaneously raising new questions that i really want answers to.

By way of example:

  1. It’s been awhile, but i believe in ME1 the Prothean computer said that it did not know what became of the scientists that went to the Citadel. I want to know what happened to them.
  2. If you allowed the Rachni queen to live in ME1, you get a message from her in ME2, but you are not told where to find her, and there are no missions that i know of involving them, but it is implied that you will see them again.
  3. In ME2, you can meet up with Liara T’soni, but she’s too busy chasing after the shadow broker to join your crew. Will you be able to help her, and recruit her in ME3?

There are many more avenues i would like to explore. Bioware has set the groundwork for a ridiculous amount of possible plot elements in the next installment of Mass Effect, and I’m excited to see how they pull it all together.

Here’s my personal speculation on what will happen in ME3. In my playthroughs, i felt that alot of emphasis was put on the fleets of the various civilizations you encounter, such as the Quarian fleet, and the Geth, and, of course, the Alliance/Council fleet. Also, if you saved the Rachni queen in ME1, the message you get from her in ME2 implies that the Rachni will help you some way against the Reapers later.

That, along with the final scene of ME2 showing alot of Reaper ships seemingly on the move, leads me to believe that Bioware is gearing up for some sort of massively epic ship battle, which would be a fitting climax to the story. If that is the case, then many of the missions will probably involve finding ways to convince civilizations/governments that the reaper threat is real, and that they should focus their efforts against them. For example, the council, who don’t want to believe in the Reapers at all, or the Quarians, who want to go to war against the Geth.

There are many many other small details that i’m curious about, but i’ve written enough for now.

For the purpose of discussion, what direction do you think Mass Effect 3 will take, and what would you like to see?

#2

#3

This. I think this sounds pretty plausible. At the very least it follows the basic progression of the first two games (recruit everyone, fight the last battle), albeit on a much larger scale. If that were the case, then the decisions you make in ME2 would probably have some sort of effect on your missions in ME3, although I don’t know how that would work…obviously you’ve got to beat the Reapers somehow even if everyone’s dead or pissed off at the end of ME2.

#4

Yeah, the message from the Rachni Queen definitely seemed to imply her brood will help with the reapers. I wonder what they’re going to figure out that’ll take down those reapers’ shields. Sovereign did a pretty good job of raping everyone until his shields went down.

#5

Your interest from ME1 will definately be back for ME3 - that’s why Kaidan/Ashley/Liara were sort of sidelined for this one.

Hopefully a confrontation with the Illusive man will feature at some time.

But we’re missing the point:

ME3 will have Blasto the Hanar Spectre. Fact. I WILL FUND THIS.

#6

I know. I can’t wait. The illusive man is an asshole.

#7

I take it none of you played through as a female renegade character in ME2 where you can have a love affair with the elusive man then?

#8

Ctrl + V: https://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=889106

You’re Welcome.

Oh and ME3 will be a cakewalk with Alliance Reapers.

#9

That’s true, i hadn’t thought of that. Given that several of the original team were not recruitable in ME2, Bioware might be planning to bring them back for the third installment. Maybe you could recruit Liara after helping her find the shadow broker, or find out just what Ashley/Kaidan have been doing and recruit them somehow to fill out the ranks. I’m sure they will have a few new characters to bring out as well to make up for whatever losses you incur in ME2. If everyone survives ME2 though, that could end up posing a problem with so many characters, although i wouldn’t mind having lots of choices for squadmates. :slight_smile:

Here’s a possible scenario. Your primary mission might involve finding a special sort of weapon that could destroy the reapers. Maybe a virus, since it was revealed that the reapers are similar to the geth in that each ship has multiple AI on them, or maybe a more direct weapon, like the one that shot that derelict reaper in ME2. (This might go along with what you were saying about the shields as well Crunchy)

Whatever the primary mission is, recruiting the various fleets could play a supporting role, similar to the loyalty missions. Maybe, say, if you don’t convince the Quarians to help, then Tali will die, or something catastrophic will happen that doesn’t stop you from beating the game, but alters the ending in some way.

  1. I hope so, although i was a bit disappointed that they didn’t reveal more about what they’ve been doing the last 2 game years, more Ashley/Kaidan than Liara.

  2. I’m also curious about the Illusive man, especially the impact of your decision to either let him have his Collector base or destroy it. They also spent alot of time focusing on those cybernetic-looking eyes of his, so hopefully they will reveal more about what exactly he is.

  3. Omg, i want him on my team haha. :smiley:

I started a female renegade, but i haven’t played her much. Is that really possible? Given that Illusive man invested so much into the Lazarus project, and has so much faith in Shepard’s abilities, it wouldn’t surprise me if he did develop that kind of interest in the female version.

I think a very interesting plot twist would be to find a living prothean, someone that survived in a stasis pod maybe. I know that if i woke up after 50,000 years and found out everyone i knew was dead, and there might be a way to stop the things that killed them, i’d want some payback lol. The only thing i’d really be worried about is whether this would be too cliche. :what:

#10

I’ve played both ME1 & ME2 with different characters and finished ME2 with my whole team surviving the suicide mission. In the game you gained the loyalty of many different characters, species of the galaxy. I banged the collectors ship up high so the elusive man was pretty pissed with my actions. He says that you are becoming a waste of time and money or something… He porbably wanted to take the reapers technology end take over the galaxy. I gues i won’t be seeing that end in ME3 due to lack of trust in cerberus. Thinking of actions i did in ME2 that will resolve in ME3… I have reprogrammed the geth in the legions loyalty mission so they probably won’t be the pain in the ass in ME3… when you ask legion about the station… he mentiones that there are billions of programs operational in there. Numbers like that could count in ME3. My gues is that all alien races will stand 2gether against the reapers during the final battles of the ME3. The reapers won’t have a chance :smiley: we’ll beat the living **** out of them… :stuck_out_tongue: EDI will probably hack the reapers shielding systems, shepard or whatever character we’ll play in ME3 will regain the loyalty of the council that he lost after ME1. That is my speculation 4 now.

#11

I still need to finish Mass Effect 1 :expressionless:

#12

Oh yeah, I totally forgot that EDI found some Reaper cyberwarfare tech when Joker unlocked her. That’s probably gonna be the only reason every Reaper isn’t going to be as big a PIA as Sovereign was.

#13

I chose to free the Rachni (in ME1) and help Legion (reprogram in ME2).

If I dont get some help from either the rachni or geth against the reapers in ME3 than I am going to be pissed.

I did piss TIM off in the end, so I dont expect him to help me out next game, but I’m assuming that either a) I’ll be in my own employ or b) the council will finally accept me back as a full fledged spectre and support the mission.

Speaking of the geth, now that we know they are ‘good’, I hope I can prevent the war between the quarians and the geth by diplomacy and help them reintegrate back on the home planet - apparently the geth dont really use the surface much anyway.

#14

I’m calling it right now: EDI and Joker are totally gonna hook up in ME3.

#15

er, I was reinstated as a Specter in my game. In ME1, I chose to save the council.

Re: EDI and Joker, if you wait around long enough and do more missions after the crew is abducted and before launching the suicide mission, you can really get a feel for their developing relation, post-AI-unlocking. Unfortunately, then the entire crew is dead except for Dr. Chakwas.

Re: The Geth, they aren’t “good” per se, they just don’t want the Reapers (old machines) to take over. They want to “build their own future”, and to do that, they’d prefer to be left completely alone by organics. But the heretics WERE bad, cuz they followed the Reapers. I reprogrammed them, so… Who knows. Except the ones at remote bases, all heretical geth should be wiped out.

Just realized: If Mass Effect three ends up having a part where you have to go around convincing all the species to band together behind you and wipe out the Reapers… We’ve got Dragon Age: Galaxis. Or just about, make Thane bi, and it’s a carbon copy!

#16

haha, never thought of it like that.

Honestly the way Dragon Age turned out (eg, awesome) I wouldn’t mind that structure at all.

There are a ton of races though. I bet if they did it that way there would be some you could get based only on Paragon or Renegade actions, such as the Krogan only helping if you cure the genophage or some shite, or the Vorcha only helping if you bestow upon them some method of enchancing thier intelligence etc.

Even though shepard is basically Legendary at this point, I still dont think it will be easy to convince everyone that they are all gonna die if they dont get up off thier asses.

Makes me wonder if they will set aside another large portion of the 3rd game to grab party members. My shepard has gained enough friends and battle allies to last him awhile, and only Zaeed died during the last mission (DLC characters can suck it).

I’m pretty sure almost all of my surviving party members would be willing to fight with me again, perhaps with the exception of Jack.

Now, given that all or zero of your companions can die during the last mission, that would be rather difficult to ‘customize’. They have set themselves up a hell of a challenge if they want to cater to everyone’s save realistically. I fully suspect some video game magic thrown in here and there to make it so that they don’t have to make so much work for themselves.

#17

I hope we get to see Turian homeworld. And the Salarian’s, although I get the idea that given the pristine…ness of their world (as stated by the Administrator of Noveria in ME1), they don’t let visitors on-world that often. But for Shepard, I should think they’d make an exception.

Considering that Turian space borders ours (humanity’s) space, I wonder why we HAVEN’T had any interaction with their world in the games.

I think the vorcha are going to make more of an appearance in the next game, given their ease of suggestibility by Sovereign in the first game, as baddies, as soon as the Reapers get close to galactic space. And I bet there will be something like… Anybody remember Morrowind? The dreamers? Towards the end of the game, they’d start randomly attacking you? I think stuff like that will happen as the Reapers draw closer.

#18

I hope they just show what quarians look like, other than that Bioware is welcome to do what they see fit.

#19

I’m pretty sure they’re gonna keep the quarians… under wraps! (cwutididthar [sorta {not really…}]) It’d be nice, but I think they want to keep the whole thing being the only way anybody gets to see a quarian is male Shepard, and only HE sees her. Not you. I kinda understand. I mean, they kinda screwed themselves. If you look at their faces and start thinking about proportions, Quarians have no chin. It’d be lower lip, then a massive drop back to their neck.

Also, one thing that Grunt says has me REALLY kind wigged out about quarians. He’s talking about how it’s less than an inch in with his thumb to the back of our necks to sever the spine of (several races, humans, turians, etc), “well, except for quarians”. That caught me off guard.

#20

I hope we get a Vorcha and a Bataran as squad members. They seem to be the only capable species left that we don’t have. Well, except for Blasto, I hope we get him too.

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