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Game Theory: PROVING Mass Effect's Indoctrination Theory! | Mass Effect 3

May 01, 2020
What if we just give a discount? Of course, it just talks into my console here. I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite show on the internet. Oh, Commander Shepard, I bet you say that to all the creators. *Introduction to

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* Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the beginning of flame wars on the Internet! I am your lightning rod for hate on the Internet. Let it flow through me! And I'm sure today will be no different because we will be tackling one of the most infamous and controversial theories in all of video

game

s. With Mass Effect Andromeda simply entering our systems and quickly leaving after you're scared off by faces that exist only in the most uncanny valleys, as low a point as this is for the series, it can't compare to The True Lowest Point: the end of the original trilogy.
game theory proving mass effect s indoctrination theory mass effect 3
Because if you thought running around Citadel 2.0 like you had to poop was the lowest this series has ever gotten, just taste the crushing blow that comes with a series that ramps up the importance of your choices over three epic games only to receive an ending with NO. final boss and all those carefully crafted choices that amount to a "lightning of different colors" flying through the sky. It's like a disappointing PSA "The more you know." And now, five years later, with all the dust settled, the series moving forward, and all the gamer fury focused on the new installment, I thought now was the perfect time to look back and give Indoctrination Theory the theoretical treatment of games proper, coming to a final and definitive conclusion now that all of the revised endings and DLC for the original trilogy are available.
game theory proving mass effect s indoctrination theory mass effect 3

More Interesting Facts About,

game theory proving mass effect s indoctrination theory mass effect 3...

Now, despite all the fuss about rolling in "astral hay" with sexy blue aliens, the Mass Effect trilogy is, at its core, about Commander Shepard's quest to stop an invasion of galaxy-destroying creatures called Reapers, constructs ancient ones designed to purge civilizations when they have become too advanced. ME1 is an interplanetary quest for Saren, a good guy gone rogue and brainwashed by the Reapers. The final battle against him plays out like a thrilling showdown or complicated negotiation, as he weaves in and out of the control of his own mind. Mass Effect 2 is a race for ownership of Reaper technology; a race against a mysterious figure known as "The Illusive Man", who seeks to control Reaper technology and make humans the species that rules all others in outer space.
game theory proving mass effect s indoctrination theory mass effect 3
That game ends with an epic boss battle inside an abandoned Reaper, and you have to decide whether the Illusive Man takes over their remaining technology. And Mass Effect 3 is when the Reapers finally arrive on Earth and, wow, we get REKT! But through countless sacrifices, the galaxy unites to activate "The Catalyst," the only weapon that could stop the Reapers. The game ends, not with a traditional boss fight like the first two, but with a very long and confusing chat with a hologram. A hologram that is a little boy. After talking to this kid long enough to get you on some watchlists, as well as a surprise party with Chris Hanson, he informs you that you have three options to finish the game: You can destroy the Reapers, along with all the other intelligences synthetics in the galaxy, you can control the Reapers by turning them into your own personal army/police force or you can Synthesize, turning everything in the galaxy into a synthetic/organic hybrid, because yes, apparently that is something that is not only possible, but It can also be achieved by simply shining a bunch of green lights on people. "Oh, look at her pretty, bright, futuristic green eyes.
game theory proving mass effect s indoctrination theory mass effect 3
The future is cool." Man, if every time someone was flashed with a machine, nightclubs would have people walking around with blenders fused to their foreheads. Anyway, make your choice, indicate the respective color light and WOW END, VERY SATISFIED. When Mass Effect 3 was first released, this ending felt like a slap in the face. It seemed bad to many people. I mean, we walked from one end of the galaxy to the other over three games, fighting armies of robots, zombies, zombie robots, dismantling crime syndicates, headbutting Krogan, and shooting a Reaper in the FACE , just to The game ends with a conversation with a holographic boy and three color-coded options?!?
And it didn't just seem bad to me because of the brevity. There was just something…off about the whole thing. What Starchild said made no logical sense. The order of events began to become confusing. Characters began to appear in places that logically didn't work and everything was presented as someone lost in the fog. Both from an auditory and visual perspective, but also the animation began to become strange and unnatural. And remember, this was FIVE YEARS AGO, when games had good animation, well... well. Fans felt a "disturbance in the force" that told them there was more to this than it initially seemed.
There had to be. There HAD to be, so a veritable army of Youtubers, Redditers and members of the Bioware forum joined forces to analyze the game, the series and the endings, frame by frame. And they came to a SPECTACULAR conclusion: the ending was a LIE! It was happening in Shepard's head! The final test of the game was not a traditional boss battle, but rather a "Battle of Wills": Shepard's mind fights against the

indoctrination

of the Reapers. And that's where I start. So what is

indoctrination

? Take it away, Mass Effect Codex. "Reaper indoctrination is an insidious means of corrupting Organic Minds, reprogramming the brain through physical and psychological conditioning using electromagnetic fields, infrasonic and ultrasonic noises, and other subliminal methods.
The resulting Reaper control over the limbic system leaves making the victim very susceptible to their suggestions. Organics undergoing indoctrination may complain of headaches and ringing or ringing in the ears. As time passes, they have the sensation of being watched and hallucinations of ghostly presences. Ultimately , the Reaper gains the ability to use the victim's body to amplify its signals, manifesting as "Alien Voices" in the mind. Indoctrination can create perfect Deep Cloaking agents. A Reaper's suggestions can manipulate victims into betray your friends, trust your enemies, or view the Reaper himself with superstitious fear. Should a Reaper subvert a well-placed political or political position? military leader, the resulting chaos can topple nations.
The long-term physical

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s of manipulation are unsustainable; higher mental functioning declines, ultimately leaving the victim a babbling animal. Rapid indoctrination is possible, but it causes this deterioration over days or weeks. The slow indoctrination of the patient allows the bondage to last for months or years." So, to summarize, it is a brainwashing that results from infrasonic sound, with symptoms including hearing humming sounds and seeing ghostly hallucinations. Other indoctrinated organisms can amplify the signal and THE most

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ive way to do this is slowly and steadily through repeated long-term exposure. And it's worth noting that indoctrination can occur not only by coming into contact with the Reapers themselves, but with any Reaper technology, and that includes, quote, "dead" Reapers.
We see this happen very clearly in Mass Effect 2. One of the side missions specifically has us hear about a team of scientists who were studying extinct Reaper technology and then went crazy. They started to see things and eventually killed each other. We even witnessed the changes that occur when two main characters are indoctrinated into these games! Do you remember Saren from Mass Effect 1? Canonically, he was indoctrinated to serve the Reapers and believed that, through cooperation with them, he could prove that organics were useful. "Once I understood this, I joined Sovereign, although he was aware of the... dangers." The Illusive Man, on the other hand, was also indoctrinated, but he believed that he could use Reaper technology to control them.
But in reality, they ended up being the ones who controlled it. "He could never have taken control because we already controlled him." Very clearly, indoctrination is something that is thoroughly developed in all three games in the series. This isn't some random codex entry that someone thought would be fun to add at the end. This is a ubiquitous motif in all three installments and we witness the effects firsthand as we see it infect other main characters. Ultimately, indoctrination is THE scariest power the Reapers have, even scarier than their ability to melt entire cities in mere moments, because even the act of fighting the physical threat of these aliens puts you in danger of the threat.
PSYCHOLOGICAL that they represent. . And, knowing this, you can already see the HUGE problem that Commander Shepard and his team face. Throughout the Mass Effect trilogy, Shepherd has had personal conversations with THREE different Reapers. He came into contact with and handled several dozen Reaper artifacts, came in close proximity to Saren's Sovereign ship, an active Reaper, and heck, he even ended Mass Effect 2 inside a dead Reaper who was shown to have indoctrinated people who had visited him! in the past! The writing is on the wall! By the time Mass Effect 3 arrives, Shepard should already be pretty indoctrinated. But that's not all, because Mass Effect 3 is a strange game, full of strange creative decisions that don't make much sense, or at least they don't until you consider Shepard's possible indoctrination.
Case in point: this kid. The ME3 tutorial ends with the Reapers' first attack on Earth. Shepard finds this kid, this random, nameless kid playing and then finds him hiding in an air duct once the Reaper attack starts. Since he doesn't have a name, let's call him "Hoodie." McBiscuits hoodie. Shepard turns around and little Hood McBiscuits does his best Batman impression by disappearing when Shepard turns around. Minutes later Hoodie McBiscuits reappears, but this time getting into a rescue vehicle. But my God, wouldn't you know? The vehicle is destroyed by a Reaper explosion, right in Shepard's line of sight. "OH NO!
SO SAD! VERY TRAGIC." RIP Hoodie, You Will Be Remembered. Now, for the rest of the game, Shepard is haunted by nightmares of greasy black shadows where he is forced to chase Hood as he flees. However, remember that this is a guy who sent his own crew members to their deaths. But OH NO, it's this random guy that keeps him up at night. And not only that, "McBiscuits" is such an important symbol for the game, but the Catalyst, the weapon built to take down the Reapers, speaks to Shepard taking the form of him. And at no point, AT ANY POINT, in any of this does Shepard question the Catalyst about his choice of form.
They never stop for a second to say, "Uh, hey, how can you look exactly like this little boy who's been haunting my dreams for weeks? Also, why do you turn into Lord of Cinder when I catch you?" But as random as these dreams seem, he shows that SOMETHING is in his head. The AI ​​behind Starchild, whether a force for good or evil, can CLEARLY access Shepard's brain, because she knows this form of "hoodie-wearing thug" is important to him. But before we dive head first into Starchild's final scene, because lord knows there's a lot to unpack there, let's take a step back and re-examine this hoodie that Cookie Son has been wearing since his first appearance because it's our favorite neighborhood .
Scamp hoodie... Well, it never existed in the first place. It is a construct implanted in Shepard's mind by the Reapers. The evidence is subtle at first, but UNDENIABLE once you start looking for it. One, no one, no one at all, in the entire game, sees or recognizes this child. At first he plays alone while Shepard watches, he is alone in the air duct while Shepherd talks to him; Getting on the rescue ship, these soldiers help everyone else get on the ferry and look how they don't help that kid. Either these soldiers have never heard of women and children or they are not helping because there is really no one there to help.
Consider this: during the air duct scene, his mentor, Admiral Anderson, calls out to Shepard and when he looks back, POOF, the kid has disappeared. It's mysterious how the kid pulled a David Blaine and escaped from a confined space so quickly, but even MORE interesting is that, in that instant, a nearby Reaper lets out a loud screech. Why does it matter? It's something the Reapers do in the book Mass Effect: Retribution, when they fail to indoctrinate another character named Paul Grayson. It would appear as if Shepard was falling under the Reapers' enslavement, but Anderson temporarily freed him, causing the boy to disappear and the Reaper to make that sound.
Now before we delve furtherdetails about that sound, I must first address the random dreams that come after this moment. Like I said from this point on, Shepard constantly has these nightmares with smoky black shadows. Well, wouldn't you know? But having shadow dreams is another byproduct of the Reaper indoctrination process. Rewinding to Mass Effect 1, a critical mission that spans the rest of the series involves Shepard deciding whether or not to kill Queen Rachni, mother of a species of creepy alien insects. Questioning her about the past violent actions of her species, the Queen mentions a strange, bitter tone coming from deep space.
A tone that made everyone obey. A bitter tone that led them to have dark dreams about a date: Now, back in Mass Effect 3, when we talk to Queen Rachni again, she talks about that bitter note again, only now it's more powerful and she says who it comes from . : A machine race. Later in the dialogue, it is officially confirmed. This race of machines that produce these bitter notes are the Reapers. So, putting the pieces together, the Reapers are trying to indoctrinate the Rachni with their infrasound. Those "bitter notes," notes that, as we learn in ME1, cause dreams with oily black shadows.
Shadows like those that appear in Shepard's nightmares. Sure, it COULD be a HUGE coincidence that the first time Shepard sees the boy, the day all these dreams are triggered, dreams that reflect the style of dreams other indoctrinated species have had, turns out to be the first day the boy appears. the reapers Yes, it could be, but it is NOT. And science shows why. Isn't it weird that Reapers make noises? It seems superfluous for a group of robots that probably communicate using ones and zeros with each other. Information in this way can move at the speed of light or faster.
Talking though? Sound? That travels much slower. Approximately 0.00015% of the speed of light. So why would robots choose to communicate this way? Simple: they don't communicate with each other. They are communicating with us. Specifically, with our brain through infrasound. Just like the codex says. Infrasound is some of the scariest things on our planet. If you need an example of why I did an entire episode on infrasound in my Mortal Kombat episode; Watching how infrasound can kill you. However, to summarize, for today's episode, they are sound waves that operate below 20 Hertz. Which is definitely outside the normal hearing range for humans, and it has been shown in study after study that sounds at those wavelengths, if at high enough volumes, negatively impact humans: from simple headaches to full-blown anxiety attacks, even seeing ghosts.
And if we look at the spectral analysis of Reaper's sounds, the truth becomes chilling. See all these bright colors down there? That's the low frequency range, that means most of the energy produced by Reaper vocalizations is in the 30 Hertz range and below. Seriously, I ran his sounds through a spectral analysis and this is what came up: infrasound and a lot of it. The Reapers literally write code into people's brains using sound and making them see things. Things like, oh I don't know, a little boy getting attacked while trying to escape the planet. Or, better yet, an astral projection of the child himself: the Starchild.
But obviously the question is how does that prove that the Reapers' arrival on Earth is what drives Shepard's indoctrination? Well, sound waves follow the inverse square law and, as a result, become exponentially less powerful the further you get from their source. This is why people need to be physically close to Reaper technology in order to feel its effects. And so, when they are super close, like your next door neighbor's dog that barks non-stop all night, the sound is super powerful and the effects are at their maximum. That's why the Reapers, now on Earth, can precisely control what Shepard sees whenever they want.
They've closed that distance, which is why Shepard's indoctrination is so strong throughout Mass Effect 3. Indoctrination is an ASSAULT on the will of the organics. And create an innocent victim who just happened to be in Shepard's eyes on the same day they showed up to harvest humanity? That's not a mistake. That is an intentional attack on Shepard to weaken him, to soften him. And you know what? He doesn't even stop there. Because now the time has come to address the end. Up to this point we've only looked at the evidence planted elsewhere in the series, but where it all falls apart is in the final hour of the game, where Shepard is struck by lightning from the sky and has heart-to-heart conversations. with Potter Puppet friends versions of key figures in his life, and he eventually becomes bored to death with our good friend Hood McBiscuits.
Only now it's a hologram. Like Tupac. But for now the editors are looking at me very badly to conclude, since making any video longer than 15 minutes causes them A LOT of stress. So hold tight my theorists, there's more Mass Effect on the way. But first, I have a question for you: Does your face look and feel like this after shaving? Well, now you can look and feel like this! That's right, you too can have Commander Shepard's strong, masculine, chin-smooth shave with the help of Dollar Shave Club, for just, get this, ONE dollar. All you have to do is go to dollarhaveclub.com/MatPat.
M-A-T-P-A-T And place your order. BOOM! Receive top quality razors delivered right to your door or your Citadel accommodation module every month. My name is Matthew Patrick and Dollar Shave Club is my favorite razor store on the internet. But MatPat, what do I get for that dollar? Well, great question, high-pitched, feminine-voiced viewer, let me tell you: you get any razor of your choice, so here's the pro tip on what you're going to do to maximize this deal. Go to the site and apply for The Executive. It's sturdy and legitimately the best razor I've ever owned. Plus, for that dollar, it also comes with four refills.
You won't find bargains like this in the Citadel, so don't get indoctrinated into the old way of getting razors. Welcome to the future of shaving, visit dollarhaveclub.com/matpat and try it for only one dollar. Also let me give you an update here on the schedule since I'm traveling for VidCon. I think there will be a Splatoon

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the week before part 2 of this one ends, so don't be mad at me if it doesn't show up next week. But hey, the Splatoon theory is really amazing, I'm really excited about it, it answers one of the biggest questions about that game, so it will be something to watch.
It will be good to hold you over until part 2 of this one. I just want to be upfront and honest with you as I know both sides can be frustrating at times. Please don't hate. I'm just trying my best to do this while I'm out of the country for VidCon, and Splatoon was easier to put together than Mass Effect 2. So anyway, if you don't. If you want to miss part 2 of this Mass Effect theory, it's as easy as hitting the Subscribe button. Hit him like Shepard hits a journalist at the Citadel. Oh, that's satisfying. And in the meantime, remember: it's all just a theory.
A theory of games. Thanks for watching.

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