Why indoctrination theory doesnt work

You can find him on Twitter cianmaher0. Share Share Tweet Email. Related Topics Game News. Cian Maher Articles Published. In fact the soldier standing guard is actively looking for enemies at the perimiter until the child gets on, before signalling the pilot to take off with a punch to the door. The dreams are explained in the game as being a result of Shepard's deteriorating emotional and psychological state.

When creating a new Shepard, the player is able to select a psych history background, but no matter which one the player chooses, it is made clear that the losses and sacrifices are starting to take their toll on Shepard. In game this manifests itself as nightmares. Shepard has nightmares at key points during the game whenever an important character dies. The first one is after the child dies in the beginning, followed by more nightmares after Mordin, and Thane's deaths in my playthrough at least.

In the dreams Shepard chases after the child but is never able to save him from the flames. It's clear imagery. We also see ghosts of the many faceless civilians and soldiers that have died along the way. As I mentioned in point 1. Saren, Benezia, TIM. It is established canon that there is no indoctrination "attempt" or "trial". A Person simply becomes indoctrinated, and once that happens, he does not simply break indoctrination and return to normal through sheer will.

It is a permanent condition. Even if the whole ending sequence was some kind of test for Shepard, successfully breaking out of Indoctrination would leave Shepard a broken shadow of his former self.

Essentially a brain dead husk. This leaves no room for continuation of Shepard's story. I don't know what to say about this really We wont know one way or another until said "real ending" DLC is proven true or false. It seems very tin-foil-hat-ish to me though. I mean really? Would they risk an entire franchise on some marketting ploy? It's simply a visual representation of shepard being disintegrated in the process of becoming "reaper king".

Pretty much just straight forward logic here The pistol has infinite ammo for gameplay purposes. It would serve no purpose to having you fail during the important closing sequence because you ran out of ammo.

People are reading too far into this mechanic. Conclusion: Overall, the only way the Indoctrination Theory would work, is if Bioware retconned nearly everything that is established in the lore about indoctrination.

The theory says that Shepard is indoctrinated some time after the Harbinger Beam. I don't think Bioware went that far out of their way to disprove the theory though, I think it becoming less plausible post-Extended Cut was simply a bi-product of them just fixing a lot of the illogical or out of place elements in the story, giving it a somewhat less dream-like quality.

PrivateIronTFU said:. Yeah, The game came out like 6 months ago and the Extended Cut was 2 months ago. Its time to stop. I will have to agree. Dumb topic. Most other places celebrate the indoctrination theory as proof to how dedicated a fanbase can be. The indoctrination theory is no different than the millions of millions of theories on the ending of Inception, the ending of The Thing or so on and so forth. People can get really attached to these things.

There are a huge amount of videos on the theory and quite a lot of them are still right to this day. Nothing about the original ending made sense. Who what when why where.

None of it added up and there were gaps. So, the fanbase filled these gaps on their own to make the game more interesting. The theory did a lot more for Bioware than they would probably care to admit. Look at Koobismo's alternate ending comics on deviantArt edited. He's actually had the voice actors take a look and pledge their support of what he's doing Jack's voice actor, for instance, who has an hour long interview with his team on dA. It gave the game a whole new level of exposure and made it a heated topic of discussion for months after the game came out.

Then the Extended Cut came out and made the ending better than it was. Which, funnily enough, looking at the old endings, they weren't ever really as bad as I remember them. It's all in the heat of the moment. So, in closing, dumb topic No offense , the indoctrination theory was a fun little fanbase created, fanbase approved experiment that ended up giving Mass Effect 3 more exposure than it would have gotten, and showing just how creative and dedicated a fanbase can be.

Proven wrong? I don't think Bioware even knew what it was, and to me it seemed like they just made an ending that intentionally wasn't as players thought it could have been. I think the indoctrination theory was interesting, and for all the points made, it could have been, but once the new endings were made, they took some stuff out, and added stuff in to deliberately make it so the Indoctrination theory was incorrect. The one thing I don't like about this thread is that it's directed incorrectly.

You don't just say that the people that thought what it was are fools, because what it was could have very much been what it was, but because Bioware changed it to what it was It's like you don't even get it. Personally, I didn't hate the ending as much as others, but still. I don't think anyone that believed it was the theory should feel like idiots at all, there's absolutely no reason for it. Did anyone else feel this way?

I mean, now that I think about it, not only did it clear the ending up, but it made it percent clear that it's not the indoctrination theory, like that was the focus. There are very subtle things at the end, like one line that the Illusive man says, he said something like "I'm controlling you! Exactly, except for the fact that I think that the indoctrination theory idea was deliberately thrown out the window by Bioware, kind of in a "Ha, fans think they can come up with such a clever idea?

Not in my game! There were a lot of major and minor details that helped make it not be the theory. I agree about the tone of this thread though. Wow, a new thread on the ending of Mass Effect 3! I'm sure this will lead to interesting conversations that we all haven't heard a billion times! Boy, I sure can't get enough of talking about the ending of Mass Effect 3. N7 : This fan-base created fan-base approved experiment would not have been so bad if the indoctrination theorists did not come to various forums and try to shove that theory into everyone else throats as the truth, all the while claiming either superior intelligence or superior knowledge of ME universe.

Hence the lash-back of gloating. Because the indoc. In all cases actual events stop at Shephard being knocked out by the lazor beam, and are a hallucination from then on. It was the very core of the theory.

Needless to say, this has been over analyzed to the point of absurdity. This is all fine and dandy, but I feel as though the initial message was lost. Not just the IT, but the message Bioware wanted to get across. We didnt really give the IT a chance Just like how they tweeked the script after it was leaked, this demand for an Extended Cut probably threw a wrench in the works.

Also, people dont know that the EC was made my a different team than the one that made the original ending. I fear the ending theme of surreal, dream-like, indoctrination attempts may become literal space magic showcases. Soo after Shepard gets hit by Harbinger, hes unconscious maybe near death? Everything that follows is the subconscious struggle to get him to submit to indoctrination. I personally beleive the 'hallucination' begins after Shep passes out the second time, but Ill get to that in a sec.

Anderson and TIM supposedly each represent a side of Shepard's psyche, while he must choose between them. This scene is beautiful, because Shepard overcomes or dies. After this scene, the true test presents itself. Shepard, after watching Anderson die, crawls toward the main control panel, but passes out a few inches short.