9 - Mass Effect 2 - Mythic Mind Games

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind Games, where we discuss
video games through the lens of the Christian humanities. I'm
doctor Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. All right,
welcome back to our short series on Mass Effect. As
we get into Mass Effect too. Today, we're going to

(00:25):
just continue going through the same kind of routine we've
been doing, where we'll just go around and talk about
whatever general thoughts you wanted through out there to get
it started. We'll follow those wherever it leads. I think
i'll start this time.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
So I just.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
I'm about two thirds away through my second replay of
this game. I was open to finished it before this conversation,
but there's other stuff to do. But in my estimation,
this is probably the least philosophically heavy of the three.
Maybe some of you will disagree with me on that,
but I feel pretty solid in that take where I

(01:01):
feel like that the first one really sets up obviously,
the lore sets up these themes of like you know,
Fate and destiny and Ai and you know, the major
elements of the series. And then I feel like in
the third game we're gonna get into that on a
deeper level. In the second game, I feel like it's
a lot of breadth but not quite as much depth,

(01:24):
and so I feel like it's probably the most entertaining
for me. I like the large cast of characters and
all that that entails, but as far as the actual
main plot of the story, it's pretty thin, and so
that's sort of my initial thoughts here. It's fun, a
lot of breath. I feel like it's not quite as
heavy on an intellectual level, which isn't necessarily an insult

(01:47):
for a video game, but I'd be interested to see
what some of you think about that. I'll just go
around as to have to hear. Michael, you want to
lead off with some thoughts about this game.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
I mean that's that's basically exactly correct. A mass effect too,
is the Dirty Dozen and Sci Fi right. It's you
get together a group of complete misfits. Most of them
probably have a criminal record somewhere, right, but they're all specialists.
You convince them all to do their job, you deal
with their personal demons along the way and some uh,

(02:22):
and then send them on the suicide machione. You're right,
it's it's a simpler game, but I think the the
breadth of the characters really really stands out, and I
think that's a reason why a lot of people list
listen Mass Effect to is their favorite. Is there's just
it has a really colorful cast of characters that are
just really entertaining to spend time around. Some excellent voice

(02:43):
acting too, you know, some characters like fine, who you
just you just hear that slightly processed gravelly voice, you know,
and anytime you start talking about them. There's just some good,
good characters here.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, as I'm doing this round with a more of
a pluralistic kind of mentality, the spreading out to the
aliens and it that's second game in particular, I think
it requires a lot of playthroughs to character engagements. Yeah,
I think that's fair analysis, all right, Megan, tell us
some thoughts about this game.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Sure, I know it has often been said, maybe even
by me, that it's the best of the trilogy. I
think narratively, it has great pacing, the tightest storyline, satisfying
ending depending I guess some how you play your cards
throughout the throughout the game, but it doesn't suffer from

(03:36):
the conclusive catastrophe that Mass Effect three does, So I
understand why people like it so much. It is very fun,
and I'm trying to think if I would say it
lacks depth or maybe relative to the other three, I
see why you say it. I do think that putting
your protagonists in the position of now working for a

(03:57):
terrorist humanity first organization does play a similar move that
Kotor two does, which is call into question, Okay, you're
working for this previous group, but how tight are their ethics?
Is this a valid secondary approach? Are these you know,
the other good guys and they just have a different
view or are they actually just you know, racist terrorists.

(04:20):
I think there are some valuable questions that the game asks.
I appreciate the varied personalities of the characters, and I
appreciate especially that Bayra at this time didn't compel you
to like every single person. I played through Vail Guard
when it came out just about after it came out
in this past what October November, and that was a

(04:41):
game from Bira that was suffering from These are your
friends and you're all just one big family. Know these people,
you are invited to dislike them because they have very
different personalities. So I understand why there's the comment of
maybe it lacks depth relative to the other two. But
there's there's some interesting narrati of stuff happening in the
second game that I really appreciate.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, you definitely deal with the ideology versus pragmatism of
you know, is it okay to work with bad people
for good ends? And I mean, to be fair, I
think that within the game, at least more or less
up to the end. I mean, obviously, you know, the
Elusive Man isn't necessarily a great guy, but you have
reason to think that maybe Cerberus as an organization isn't

(05:25):
entirely evil, Like, there are many decent people who are
working for Cerberus that that you engage with. And so
I mean there, I think that there's room within this
game at least to justify, you know, working with this
guy if this is what it's going to take to
save the galaxy. And yeah, I mean maybe we can

(05:46):
follow up on what we think about that on a
you know, on our own stage. I mean, we don't
need to get like hyper political, but I mean just
that that basic question of you know, is it okay
to form those kinds of alliances with people that you
don't miss Salian doors in order to accomplish some mutual
aim together. I think it's a question that's worth asking.
On a very practical level, David, tell something about this game.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yeah, I really liked Michael's Dirty Dozen analogy that that's
pretty good. But there are some really really interesting characters
on the team, like Fain that we mentioned, and Legion
and Grunt and even Jack to certain degree, even though
it's a little little stereotypical, little hot topic employee about her,

(06:33):
But there's some depth if you actually pursue your relationships
and the missions that you go on with the the
individual people there, loyalty missions. But yeah, on a just
a surface level, I liked the improvements to the combat,
you know, the you Andrew didn't really experience just how

(06:56):
weak the combat was in Mass effect one at launch.
The Legacy edition fixed a lot of that. But the
addition of these clips that are basically heat disposable heat
syncs as an excuse to make guns suddenly have AMMO
and better cover fighting and things like that, I thought
We're interesting and it is more mission based, and you

(07:21):
literally have been brought back to life by this person
who you normally would not have aligned yourself with, which
which adds interesting tension and options for you during the game.
So yeah, everybody always says it's their favorite. I guess
I'm not really the kind. I like to take the
three as a whole. You know, it was always meant

(07:43):
to be a trilogy, so I really see them all
as one for the most part. But yeah, it is
a really good, solid game and pretty straightforward and how
to work your way through it. But oh, I didn't
even mention Grunt. I think Grunt is a really interesting
character study as well, but we can talk more about
the characters later.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, he's a fun character, and I do kind of
appreciate when they try to jokingly explain away the differences
in how things work, you know, across games. And just
just today I did the the Shadow Broker mission again
when Leara is doing the hack on the door and
you know, Shepherd's like, you know, it wasn't so much easier.

(08:22):
We could have slap some momny gel on here. It's
kind of fight the way they try to work that in.
Ian tell us something about his game.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
So I just played it for the first time. In
the last two weeks. You guys talked me into trying
to play the game so I could do the podcasts
and I had a good time. I did play it
completely on casual. I am not interested in achievements or
beating the game on insanity. I just wanted to get

(08:55):
a flavor for the game and what the ideas and
characters were. I still stand by I enjoyed the gameplay
ideas of the first game. I don't like AMMO. I
prefer the overheating mechanic, but I think the execution was
much more polished, so I'll give it that. The structure

(09:17):
of the game is both extremely satisfying and extremely frustrating.
It's extremely satisfying to meet this group of really broken characters.
And if you're playing mostly Paragon, I think I got
one bar of red and then full blue because I
was brewed to the elusive man in every conversation, is
why I got one bar of red. As a Paragon,

(09:39):
you basically help a bunch of people become better people
like you form a team, and I really enjoyed that
it had a lot of sort of firefly vibes, and
you form a crew that all works together, all different
functions and motivations and all their own missions, and you
keep getting interrupted by this incredibly boring zombie monster room

(10:00):
that I don't care about. The only motivation that made
any sense to me by the end of the mission
was revenge because they blew my ship at the beginning.
They didn't do a good job of making me care
that the Collectors are killing colonists, and the fact that
I'm working for the Elusive Man just makes me really grumpy.
And I said this last one, but I say it
even more for this game having played through it. The

(10:22):
Illusive Man isn't just evil, he's incredibly incompetent. He stabs
me in the back in the middle when I go
on the Collector vessel for no good reason, and then
he wants me to clearly collect dangerous technology for him
to use what I already know he's stabbing me in
the back. So he's just the most incomferent terrorists and

(10:43):
I resent being forced to work for that guy.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
No, to clarify, you don't care when humans die. That's
what I heard there.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
That is motivation and death lives.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
So you're actually on the side of the collectors. That's
the issue.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
No, the Collectors want to collect the death and the
Trurians too. I'm against the Collectors and they blew up
my ship.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
But those colonists.

Speaker 5 (11:10):
No, the colonists. Why should I care about them? I've
never talked to them. I've never had a relationship with them.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
This reals some interesting ethical questions. Yeah, you're okay with
genocide as long as you've never talked to them before.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Okay, you know you might have more in common at
the Elusive Man than you once thought.

Speaker 5 (11:31):
I'm confident though I won zero casualties.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Fair enough, I guess. Yeah, my first go round, I
did not have zero casualties. You know, I never looked
ahead at white leads to White, so I was definitely
surprised when I lost some people at the end. So
I look forward to seeing some of them in the
third game this time around, Kit Trick, When you tell

(11:56):
us something about this game.

Speaker 6 (11:59):
Well, i's who did you lose?

Speaker 1 (12:02):
But no Tally and a couple others that I actually
can't remember it because I didn't really hang out with
them time around anyways.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, could that would be crushing?

Speaker 5 (12:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Crushing?

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Really did not see that coming.

Speaker 6 (12:18):
I Yeah, that was my first time playing Mass Effect too,
was going through the suicide mission lost Tally.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, and I was very intentionalbout making sure that Legion died.

Speaker 6 (12:30):
See I for some reason at one point I keep
like pause, reload, this isn't gonna happen again. Also Legion
in this time then Legion died, so you know the
choices that you actually do get around at that point.
I'd say overall for this game, everything was an upgrade.

(12:52):
As I said before, I played it on the Xbox,
so the entire system was a delight. Except for one
thing that I noticed is from the first game to
this one is there's not enough. It just felt much
more bottlenecked. You're definitely this is definitely a rail game.

(13:16):
This is one where you go mission mission mission, and
everything seems smaller, even though you're in this whole new
place that is the tournament Terminus system, and you don't
have all the the niceties that you had in the
first game because everything else was a little more structured.
This is more outlaw base. So I think this one

(13:41):
that was the biggest culture shock to me for this
game was not being able to actually fully see everything.
Even when you're looking behind Shepherd's back. It just is
it seems like Shepherd's bigger and everything else just got smaller.
So that was a little bit of a downer for me,

(14:02):
and that I mean, the romances, the voice acting that
they put into it. The voice actors, how many of
them are from sci fi series already got three Trisha Helfer,
Carrie and Moss and who plays the CEO from Battle
Circle Actica, who plays Lieutenant Bailey, any Who's they're all

(14:25):
part of the sci fi world already, and just bringing
those in to make everything just really boosted it. Along
with the cinematic views. Everything they did inside the game
to make it look more like a movie was incredible.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, I think that it does generally have a more
of a movie kind of feel in that, as you said,
the scope seems to be a little bit smaller, more
of a you know, more of a real line that
there's It's a lot more kind of action based, more
more fast paced, I would say, whereas you know the
story it's a little bit more meandering atle bit more

(15:04):
slow in the first game, which you would expect in
the first game first, you know, the beginning of any series.
But I feel like even a third one as well,
it's a lot more meandering, a lot more exploration involved,
whereas this is more you're being pushed in these directions
though that I will say there's a lot of be
entering for the you know, scanning planets, and that is

(15:25):
so boring. Yes, I mean, I'm doing a lot of
this's go around because I want to make sure my
my ship is in top shape. Learned that lesson, but
it's just a boring little mini game that I was
glad to see go when I started the third game.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
Yet most people hated exploring these randomly generated planets with
the the make go or whatever it was in the
in the first one, and then they replaced it with
an odd mineral scanning mini game in this one. But
I do think that led to feeling a bit smaller
as well, because there were far fewer planets that you

(16:03):
actually land on and have anything.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
To do well, even the primary planets. You know, in
Mass Effect one, you get down, you get out, there's
a vehicle section, so you see more of the context
of the interior locations that you visit. Simply just creates
a bigger feel and removing the vehicle sequences, you know,

(16:27):
by and large restricts the world to what you were
exactly what you were saying over seperd shoulder, Well.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
What else be able to say?

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Well, I I'd like to talk about the characters because
I think they're the heart of this game, and my
favorite has got to be Faine. I think he's such
an interesting character because he's this drill assassin and he
has this terminal disease from being rescued by the hand

(16:59):
r and spending too much time on the hen our
home world that damaged his lungs. But the fact that
he retains their old polytheistic religion and he you know,
he prays to different deities for different reasons depending on
what he's doing. And you can press him on how
do you reconcile your beliefs with you know, being a

(17:24):
gun for hire basically, and he said, well, in my religion,
your body is separate from your soul, and your body
is more of a tool, like a weapon that you're utilizing.
But then the drill all have perfect recall of everything
that happened in their lives, and so he is haunted

(17:46):
by a perfect recollection of everyone whose life he's taken,
so he can't really faithfully live out the philosophy that
he claims to hold, so it makes for an interesting
aspect of his care.

Speaker 5 (18:03):
Yeah, I agree. I think Than is definitely one of
the most complex of the world building and new characters
in the whole setup of your characterisation. I kind of wish.
I like that you get to talk to his son
as his loyalty mission, but I feel like it would

(18:25):
have been nice if his loyal mission had involved going
back to his home planet and dealing with Hannard drew
relations so you could actually see that. But I get
that would be pretty difficult to That would be a
big break in the gameplay style, but I think that
would have really built on a strength they had there.
My favorite character was Garris. I just liked getting to

(18:47):
use him again and really digging into that continued friendship
between him and Shepherd. I like the Turian culture. I
watched a couple of videos that said that the Tourias
are kind of based on Romans slash Japanese Empire sort
of structure, and I can definitely see that. As someone
who enjoys the more order based and rule following type things,

(19:14):
Garris's attempts to negotiate his culture and his desires was
very compelling to me.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
You know, I was just gonna say that yours seems
to be a general fan favorite. I actually find him
kind of boring. Personally, I don't know. Maybe maybe I've
an entertained Andrew. I mean, I guess that might have
something to do with it. I mean, based off what
David said about than this one, I would like to

(19:46):
export a little bit more. I just started paling around
with him. I haven't done his loyalty mission yet, but
he definitely interesting character. And I really appreciate when the
characters bring in not just different personalities, but that the
different kind of root philosophy and religious syste I mean,
even based off you know what you were just saying
about how there's kind of this dissonance between the soul
and the body in the way that they pair out

(20:07):
their morality. I mean, it makes me think of the
old heresy. Yeah right, it's some of the the old heresies.
I mean, like, you know, there's certain certain forms of
narcissism which would not just say the body is evil,
but basically the body is unimportant, therefore it doesn't matter
what you do with it, and so that that idea
is definitely pretty much rooted in certain primary world beliefs.

(20:31):
And I wonder I would love to talk to some
of the BioWare writers about where who who are these people? Like,
are these people who have actually, you know, really studied
religion and philosophy or or are they pulling out of
something secondary. I feel it could be really fascinating to
speak with one of them and I know that, Oh

(20:54):
who's who's that? That that main guy Drew, Yeah, that's
that's the one I've I've been tempted to shoot him
a message and see if I can get him on.
I know he's done stuff like that before, but I
know that'd be a big reach, but well, who.

Speaker 5 (21:09):
Knows, not that big a reach. He has been pretty
interactive with fans.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, so we'll see. It's something I've entertained at least,
Michael O. We can say before I cut you.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Off, I was gonna say about Garris is you know,
I don't didn't much care for Garrison. The first one,
he's just he's just the he's the cop that's frustrated
by the rules, you know, in the first mass effect,
and you know, you get to know him more in
the second one, and then he's he's back. He's because

(21:44):
he's part of the core group that never leaves. Was
it just he and Tally that that that that are
across all three games? I understand why people really love
him by mass Factory, even though he's not one of
my personal fans favorites, but the fact that he's just
that constant presence, and you know, he's got that great

(22:06):
scene in the third one where they're up on one
of the bridges in the citadel where they're not supposed
to be and they're shooting cans, you know, and I
get it. I totally get it. He's not a favorite,
but I definitely get it. My favorite from Asfect two
has probably got to be Morden Mordan Solace. Not from
a gameplay perspective, I don't I don't really think the

(22:29):
tech characters are all that interesting, even though they're useful.
They're just not interesting from a gameplay perspective to me.
But you know, from the he ties into some of
the core aspects of the setting, with the the the
Krogan and the why did I suddenly forget what species

(22:50):
Morten and someone helped.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Me Solarian Hilarian.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
There we go with the the the way the Solarians
created the genophage to wreck the coreans uh reproductivity, and
the way that Morden over Mass Effect two and then
especially three deal with the the guilt of doing that.

(23:14):
It makes for a very interesting character, especially because you know,
for a while you don't see any kind of guilt.
It's almost like a defiance, and then you peel off
that scab and then it's like, yes, this is actually,
this is actually a big deal to him. So I've
just really enjoy the way the character ties to a
core piece of mythology in the series.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, I do think he's definitely somebody who has I
think more of a character arctic than the others in that,
you know, in his companion question and Mass Effect two,
I mean, you know, he's willing to kill his former
student who's trying to erase the genifage, whereas then he's gonna,
you know, come all the way around in third game.

(24:00):
All right, Megan, looks like you had something to say.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, I can't decide. I really enjoyed Jack And actually,
in one of my replays as a male, I romanced her,
and I think her arc fortunately or unfortunately, becomes a
little more pronounced and enjoyable if you romance her, because
you get to see the full vulnerability and softness that

(24:26):
she ends up developing over the course of the game.
Although I enjoy that you have to refuse to sleep
with her in order to get to that point, and
so I do think there's a depth there. Some people
have said like, oh, you're just curing her by sleeping
with her, Like that's I don't think that's actually how
it plays out. It's a funny joke, but it's not real.
But Samara, who is not a big fan favorite and

(24:48):
not even a favorite of mine, I do think, speaking
of these new philosophical systems that we get introduced to,
she's a just a car. She's got this very rigid
ethical system that she operates on, got a judge dread personality.
Well in job, really, I think I think that's really interesting.

(25:09):
But I'm curious to know what people's least favorite characters are.
And you can't say Jacob because everybody's least favorite, So
somebody besides Jacob.

Speaker 6 (25:18):
I was gonna take Jacob as a better favorite.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Love to hear it.

Speaker 6 (25:26):
Okay, the Loyalty mission. The Loyalty mission is very twisted
and like the first time, I just it's still is
haunting to me, even going back and playing the other ones,
but the first time hitting it up and being like, okay,
he's created his father's created this harem and is the
only one left and it's just playing it off. And

(25:48):
he goes there and you can let him be super
upset and his dad doesn't even know him. It's great.
I do really just like the way that whole thing
played out, even though it's abhorrent.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, Jacob doesn't get a fair shot because Jacob is
filling a very important storytelling role and he feels the
same role that James Vega does in Mass Effect three,
and that is the the onboarding character for people new

(26:21):
to the game. Starting at that point, there's more explanation
that comes about the world and what's going on through Jacob.
In the early phases of Mass Effect two, like you
would learn, you learn more about the world and what's
going on from Jacob. It's the same way with James
Vega in Mass Effect three that they don't really get
a fair shot because they have a specific role within

(26:43):
the narrative and it has to do it because it's
video game.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
So it's a really good point.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
I don't know, James has a ton of personality and
Jacob has absolutely none.

Speaker 5 (26:54):
Wait wait, I thought that we couldn't say Jacob.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
He was agreeing that he was the least favorite.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
I was assuming, Yes, I was. I was projecting onto
all of you that you were going to say he
was the least favorite, and obviously I was. Yeah, I
was speaking ill of him prematurely, but.

Speaker 6 (27:13):
As a squad member. No, and only early on because
of the h Birama.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
But other than that, I really got to say, least
favorite is probably Samara. For me, I just I don't know,
I just I just don't find her very.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
I think she's a little more interesting.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah. Maybe it's just because she's kind of annoying to
bring along and and she's just I don't know, maybe Samara.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
No, this is what I'm talking about though. In the VI,
when I made my first comment that the game doesn't
invite you to love absolutely everybody, and you can actively
be annoyed by people, I I thing I think is
very interesting. I didn't. I had a lot of disagreements
with him and oh my conversations Legion I think is
an abomination. I never liked him even was no conversation, Yes, exactly,

(28:12):
that's the problem. No, but I think the character is
really interesting. We haven't talked about Miranda. Nobody's U. Okay,
So I was the obvious love interest of the game.

Speaker 5 (28:24):
For well, I'm a film player, so she wasn't a
love interest for me. But my actual least favorite was
Zaid And I know he's DLC, but I regret doing
his loyalty mission because I did not want those I
did not want those renegade points for letting all those
people burn to death. That was horrible. And he's a

(28:44):
really boring character. But he's DLCD, so he doesn't really count.
Although I will say one of my favorites was actually Consuming,
who's also DLC, and I thought she was really funny.
Of the main non DLC characters, I would say Miranda
is probably my least favorite, partly because, and this is
very shallow, but I loved evonstro Howsky in Chuck and

(29:08):
so seeing her with black hair is too weird. So
it was just very strange looking at Sarah, but black
hair also her character. I like the sister angle, but
I don't I don't feel I never got involved in
her character emotionally. She never really gets that emotional when

(29:32):
she talks about her father, her sister, and so she
just I would never want to take her anywhere. I
never liked to pick her for anything, So she's probably
my least favorite of the main character.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
The most interesting thing about Miranda is actually if she
was the love interest in the second game and if
you basically choose someone a different girl in the third game.
And there's this scene. My wife on a when she
did a male Shepherd play through one time, saw the
scene and there's this really heartbreaking scene where Miranda is

(30:08):
like really just crushed by it. And it's very interesting
because it's a it's a very well acted humanizing moment
and you can see that she's just heartbroken over it.
So after that scene, I liked her a whole lot more.
I was like, Oh, Okay, that works. That that's that
helped humanize the Uh I'm so mad because I'm too
pretty and too perfect exactly.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
So that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, I was
gonna say she was my least favorite character because she's
a video game character that is designed to be attractive
to men, and the end game backstory is that she's
genetically designed to be attractive to men, and I just
don't find that appealing at all. I Mean, Tally is
the only romance interest of any value, and that's also

(30:56):
so sweet. Yeah, Tali's Tolly is the only I don't
I feel like she's the most normal I was gonna
say human being. She's not a human being, but like
the most just normal person without any kind of really
weird issues or hang ups I think in the story
to me, and that's probably why I always found her
more normal.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
She's got too much little sister energy for me for that.
But you know, and Garis has big brother vibes. You
got the two that are always with you. You got
the sister and the brother vibes.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
So yeah, in my very pro human first run, I
feel kind of bad and when Ashley Miranda, Ashley feel bad,
mak her to cry. But you know, to go off
of what Ian said about Zayid, I mean, he very
much strikes me as a more shallow version of Candoras

(31:51):
that you know, he's just this kind of I don't know,
very you know, militaristic mercenary type, but he's just there's
nothing really there but beyond that, I mean, I have
to say my least favorite is Legion. I appreciate what
they're trying to do, but at the same time they're

(32:12):
trying to give you this friendly gath well literally directly
quoting scripture. It's like, this is Legion, Like, how is
that supposed to be your friend?

Speaker 2 (32:22):
He is?

Speaker 1 (32:22):
That's making said he's abomination, like he is not something
that should exist, let alone be in close proximity to you.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
It's just a metaphor because he has like over a
thousand you know, Gath platforms or Guth programs inside his platform,
where a normal Gath only has like a hundred, and
so he's like, yeah, that is an acceptable metaphor. I'll
take that name. But yeah, it is a demonic reference.
I get that. But I've always loved Legion. I find

(32:49):
him fascinating. I love how if you press him on
why he's taken a piece of year old in seven
armor to repair himself, he just says there was a whole,
And then if you press him farther, he's like, no, no,
further data, Like he can't explain it. It's not a
logical choice that he made, and I think that makes
it a little bit more interesting. But also just from

(33:12):
an aesthetic level, I love the design of the Gath
and the way that all of his face parts move
around when we're talking to him. I think it's pretty cool.
But yes, it's Ai.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Ai is bad.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
I get it, but I think he's a pretty cool character.

Speaker 5 (33:24):
No, Ai is good. He'd use your friend.

Speaker 6 (33:31):
Yeah, they go ahead?

Speaker 3 (33:33):
No, no, go ahead?

Speaker 6 (33:34):
Okay for a legion, I mean, is he a messiah figure?
Though in this is he a one that is trying
to I'm saying he sorry, but I'm gonna have to
get over that.

Speaker 5 (33:51):
Is appropriate in this case.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
He uses plural most of the time. He does say
we most of the time. I think there are places
where the script screws up and he uses a singular,
but generally it's plural.

Speaker 6 (34:04):
Right, And heways is Lesion a Messiah figure in the
way that I mean his loyalty mission is about heretics, right,
He's trying to bring about a overall change to his
death the ones that can actually follow and lead. And

(34:28):
one of the reasons he has the ends in armor
is because we as we talked last time, Shepherd is
a christ like figure in the resurrection part and then
being brought up to the throne room of the elusive Man,
which if you look at Revelation four, Revelation four six,

(34:49):
and before the throne was something like the sea of glass,
like the clearest crystal that is his throne room something.
Side note, you can also see an alien covenant at
the very beginning. It's just that is the image of
a god, not like that. Another moment with the Elusive Man,
you can see Halo in the omni screen behind him.

(35:12):
They shoot him low, and he just has this overall
deity to him. So when it comes to Legion being
the one that's trying to bring about his own people
more than Shepherd, but still trying to be Shepherd in
that way, I'd say that, Yeah, there's some sort of
Messiah complex in him.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah, it's good good observations.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
There, Messiah, I say, Antichrist.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
So yeah, well that might be a more conversation for
Massivefect three as well. Yeah, which is significantly more interesting
if Legion is still alive. Andrew, just for reference that
those the the geth Corey and storyline is definitely more
interesting with Legion.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Oh, some version of him does come back if you
kill him off.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, I'm trying to remember the specifics I've only I
don't think i've ever played it like that, but I
know i've seen the clips of it. David shaking his
head down there.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
I just realized that even in my renegade playthroughs. I've
never had Legion die. I hadn't seen what would happen
if that occurs. That's interesting.

Speaker 6 (36:25):
I killed off everyone in my last playthrough. The speech
where he stands up there with two people on the sides,
and then he's only speaking to two people. Really weird.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Have you ever seen there's an ending where everyone dies,
including Shepherd in Mass Effect too? You can if you
get everyone killed on the suicide mission. Shepherd misses the
jump at the end, and it's like he's like telling Joker,
like tell them they're coming whatever. Then Shepherd falls to
his death, and at the end, instead of Shepherd looking

(36:55):
out over space, it's like Joker over all of these coffins,
and then Jokers looking out like now it's Joker versus
the universe. You said something, Mandre, but I didn't hear it.
Did anyone there?

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Good?

Speaker 1 (37:08):
So, how would that ending import into the third game?

Speaker 2 (37:11):
You can't.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
You can't.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
It's over game ends. Yeah, it cannot be imported. That's
definitely one to look up on YouTube and not spend
an entire game playing deliberately badly enough to engineer that
depressed ending.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
So so I am curious there's So there's a lot
of very anti Legion guys here, which sad is me
because I think Legion's really cool, but no one's taking
my edbait, like why are you so anti Legion but
don't have anything to say about Edie.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
I'm anti ED as well, but the third game, Yeah,
I was about to say, I'm not really anti ED
until the third one, you know. Okay again, So what
I said on the last podcast is, more often than
not artificial intelligence and sci fi doesn't when when when
it's asking that question of oh can a I be alive,
it's not really so much exploring what does it? How

(38:09):
does that happen? How would you know? Because no one
understands the breath of life? Right, So that's that's not
really something we can understand, but it's usually right, it's
usually more an exploration of human uh, human characteristics and
and what what what is it? What is it to
be human? And so you know, that's what the Ed's

(38:32):
story is is looking at some of those aspects of
humanity and it's you're right, it's just a lot more
pronounced in in three than it is two. So say
what what you got? What you got about Edi? Into
e Ian. What do you got since it's fresh for.

Speaker 5 (38:51):
You, I think, I mean, I come at it from
a if it's truly AI, and it's not just an
l L M an l L I think is a parasite.
But if it's truly AI in that it has a
quantum or geometric leap from any kind of pure calculation
into having something that I would argue has the characteristics

(39:15):
of life, which means that it is a person, then
you have to judge it on its actions. And both
Edie and Legion act like people, which to me, I
think puts them in that sci fi exploring humanity rather

(39:36):
than this is how I would respond to Rock or chat,
GBT or any of the lms that we're currently dealing with.
I just think it's a different category of character, and
so I don't Maybe it also reflects the fact that
I read a ton of like I Robot and other
Asthma short stories, and he was really pro robot in

(39:56):
those books, and I kind of still have a a
nostalgia for friendly Robot characters from that period of my life.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
And I think it is okay, and for the for
the sake of science fiction or fantasy for that matter,
it's okay to engage with fiction on its own terms,
even if you know, you don't say that we think
that that kind of AI is possible, that we're you know, discussing, Okay,
is this is this a sapient sentient creature? You know?

(40:28):
Is this is this a moral rational creature? You know,
even if we don't think that's the case in the
real world, it's it's perfectly okay to to play with
those ideas and accept them within fiction, within the terms
of that world. And in that case, yeah, I think
I think Legion is interesting. I don't. I don't. He's

(40:49):
not like one of my all time favorite robots or anything.
But in the case of Legion, what makes him interesting
is he he is still very alien. You know when
he when when he starts talking about how there's uh,
how many basically how many copies of the guest software
are running on this one platform, right that is you

(41:11):
that is that is not you know, C three p
O right there. You know, that is something that is
far more more alien in nature. But you know, within
the within the mass efect universes. Is interesting to see
how legions continual exposure to humans and other human like

(41:32):
aliens makes him more human over the course of it,
and you know, he begins to adopt more human mannerisms
and and and things like that. Yeah, that's that's always
That's always a fun that's always a fun part of
sci fi. You know. That's that's like, I mean, if
we want to, we we drag some C. S. Lewis
into it. It's like talking about how how pets, you know,

(41:54):
how how I pets?

Speaker 5 (41:55):
Is?

Speaker 2 (41:55):
That is that in mere Christianity, the part about pets
becoming more becoming more human like is it for loves it.
While It's been a while since I've read either of those,
but basically become more the the animals that have more
exposure to humans become more human like in their behavior
and emotions and the way that they the way that

(42:21):
they approach any sort of moral type situation.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
So now, but of course, the key difference there is
for for lewis there's never that leap from the animal
to the human, as much as as they may grow
I mean even I mean, yeah, I guess that's what
I'd say about that. And I agree with you that
we can accept the rules of a fictional world. I mean,

(42:45):
you know, you're reading fantasy you know, we can accept
the right use of magic in certain context within this
world in a way that we wouldn't necessarily approve over
or seek out in the primary world. But I think
that it becomes more difficult to parse that out. We're
dealing with sci fi that's dealing with things that at
least running parallel to our current real world conversations. I

(43:06):
think that's when to become difficult, where philosophy and fantasy
or you know, fiction gets kind of blurred a little bit.
You know, I can't help but to see the progression
of and I know we're focusing on two right now,
but Edi in two to three and the relationship that
it forms with a joker like I can't help but
to think about like this new Grock companions that Elon

(43:28):
must have thrown out there, these semi pornographic things that like,
obviously we see where this is headed, this trajectory that
we're headed in. We see what plays out in Mass
Effect two with Edie. I mean that I can't help
but to make these real world connections and see like
how dangerous this is, especially coming from a story that's

(43:50):
obviously being very approving of this. You know, we'll talk
about this more we get to the third game, but
even still, like the Paragon, thing to do is to
totally affirm this relationship that Joker has with this AI.
And obviously there is a philosophy here playing this game
that I think is at best dangerous in I mean,

(44:12):
really it's just materialistic, that it's roots, it's nominalistic. Is
there really are no universal standards, it's just kind of
whatever is whatever, which I think is I mean, you know,
maybe Michael can push me back on this, but I
think part and parcel of true sci fi where it's
driven by science, science itself, which is materialistic in nature, right,

(44:34):
that that's what science is, which I don't think science
is bad, but when science becomes the basis for the
framework of I think that's where things become dangerous. And
I think that's where we get the warning that sci
fi has to offer us.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Right exactly. And when I say to when I say
to accept it within the premise of the world, I
don't necessarily mean that you walk out of it having
changed anything about you the way you viewed the prime world.
But it's it's still you, it's still has there's some
value to engage with fiction as it presents itself and

(45:09):
then then you can judge it afterwards. But if you
but if you if you approach it and say, well,
that's not that's not the way it is in the
real world, then then then you you you're refusing to
engage with with the work as it stands, and you
might be missing something that it has to say good
or bad in this case, which I think, you know,
I think most of us are going to rather disagree

(45:31):
with with you know, some of the ed type stuff
and stuff like that. Right, That's that's that's totally fine
that I think you should and I would hope that
a lot of people, maybe not everybody, but I hope
that a lot of people are playing question some of
those things. And that's you know, that is a utility.
As you know, Andrew was talking about on Twitter today.
This this this one of these chief functions of science

(45:54):
fiction is to warn. And that's absolutely the case. There's
a number of reasons how science fiction kind of ended
up in that that whole. One of them, I think
is in some ways that the luminaries that shaped the
genre in the past were you know, materialistic, very worldly men,

(46:20):
whereas you know, fantasy was inoculated by numerous deeply religious
men and deeply philosophical, deeply you know, thinking men like that.
So fantasy took this inoculation that protected it from some
very bad ideas for a long time. It's obviously that
inoculation is wearing off tremendously right now. You know fantasies

(46:44):
and dire straits too. But you know, so that's that's
one reason that science fiction took this negative world path.
But just the very nature of since most sci fi
looks forward, right, You're going to image in a world
in the future. It's a story. So you need something
to go wrong, you need some sort of conflict, so

(47:05):
you usually almost always are imagining the world going wrong
in the future.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
So, by its very nature, even when written by a Christian,
science fiction is usually cautionary, right, because it is the
future is wrong. Here's why you don't want to Here's
why you don't want to end up down this path.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Yeah. I think that one of the best ways of
framing sci fi verse fantasy and nature is I mean C. S.
Lewis's his Ransom series, I mean, or even just that
hideous strength. You've got sci fi and Belbury, you've got
fantasy s A and AM's oh yeah, right, like that science,
you know, I understood principally as the manipulation or the

(47:45):
mastering of nature. Right that, left to its own devices,
is going to go wrong. You need that metaphysical structure
to guide the direction of science. And that's why I
would argue that sci fi inevitably moves into at its best,
at least moves into a cationary direction, because you know,
even if you have somebody who tries to create a
very inspiring, hopeful sci Fi tale, I would argue that

(48:09):
there's something wrong with that person that inevitably what the
presenting is going to be something macrobial to something dangerous,
because science can't provide tay loss. And so if science
is framing the story like there's nowhere good, it can
go because science can't account for goodness. It's it's a tool.
And so that's why I mean, I just I'm not
I'm basically I'm echoing much of what you said there,

(48:31):
but I think that, yeah, sci fi by itself, it
tends towards the dystopian because it has to, because it
can't account for the good. But I'll stop talking now, and.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Well, and that's funny too that you say, at its best,
And what's funny is that even at its worst, it's
usually still provides that very same service as at some service,
as cautionary tale. It's like, you know, there there there's
an entire, sub entire subgenre genres of sci fi. It's
like you think about cyberpunk, right, cyberpunk there's it doesn't

(49:09):
exist for any reason. But to basically say that transhumanism
is a nightmare, and you know, corporatism is awful, and
any there's nothing about you know, there's nothing. What am
I trying to say, there's nothing uplifting? Yeah, well, no
uplifting because you could, I mean, I guess you could

(49:30):
in theory, you can tell some some story of rejection
of these these things within it. But it's always this, this,
this nightmarish thing. So I mean you say, even at
its best, I say, even at its worst, it's usually
still presenting that same uh, that same framework. But that's interesting,
you say, uh, metaphysical physical or materialists and metaphysical. One

(49:57):
of the ways that I've always liked is differentiate between
the two. Is that that that's that science fiction is
usually uh Man's conflict and relationship with nature, and by
nature I mean reality versus whereas fantasy is usually man's
conflict in relationship with SuperNature, you know, which is very

(50:18):
very very similar to that dichotomy that you were saying
of materialist and metaphysical.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Right, or as Tolkien says that in when we enter
into fairy, it's actually fairy that's hypernatural, that reveals our
supernatural nature. And so it's actually a way of demonstrating
of revealing our agency and the significance of the decisions
that we make because we are ontologically separate from the
world that's around us. And that's why he calls it

(50:46):
the perils realm, because this is where you could lose
or find yourself.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
That reminds me, and that also this also reminds me
a little bit of I think it's something that Dorseton
Scott Card says, who who is you know, mostly sci
fi writer. He written some fantasy, but you know he's Mormon,
so he is religious. He I think he says that
you can have as much talk about religion and sci
fi as as you want, but the second that you

(51:10):
confirm that there is any form of deity, you've you've
stepped into fantasy. You know, you can. You can talk
about you know, you can have aliens with all sorts
of gods and things like that. But the second you
confirm that any of those things are true and they
step into the story, you've crossed over into the realm
of fantasy, which again falls into the same framework we've

(51:30):
been talking about it.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
And that makes sense because they're not materialistic and science
deals with matter, which.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
You know, and and so from the Christian perspective of
dealing with sci fi, how does how do you?

Speaker 1 (51:39):
How do you?

Speaker 2 (51:40):
How do you deal with those things? Is you can write,
you can still write stories of people and faith and
things like that, but you cannot have it's it's it's
more walking. It would have to be story was of
walking in faith without sight, And the second that you
confirm that site, then you've crossed back over across the line,

(52:00):
back over into fantasy again.

Speaker 6 (52:03):
In Revelation, the one thing that's called out is those
who have here ears, let them hear, And we're also
called those with eyes to see, let them see. But
at the end times, at where everything is in the
next when Christ returns, people are only called to say,
if you have ears to hear, let to hear. So

(52:26):
that's insightful.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
So I'm wondering, where do you see these worldview questions
really popping out in Mass Effect to itself, or do.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
You I wonder, actually, I think to redeem Mass Effects
to status as the least philosophically a deep game, I
think maybe a little more implicitly, but the game seems
very I think it's interested, at least somewhat in the

(52:59):
question of what the human soul is, whether or not
there is a soul. You start the game by getting resurrected,
and do I think the game adequately deals with what
that means. Not really, but the question is there, and you,
also with Legion later on, start to have questions inviting
is he human? What does it mean to be human?

(53:22):
We've already talked about this a little bit more, but
I think more than you might anticipate or might see
on first pass of Mass Effect too. I do think
the game is invested a little bit and what it
means to be human, what it means to be sentient.
Because you have this human first organization, why is that
a priority versus other aliens? What does it mean to
be a conscious being? Is your body tied in with

(53:46):
your soul? We talked about that with Thanes, So I
do think actually the question of the soul, what it means,
whether we have it and who has it, is actually
something that comes up repeatedly and mass effect too.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Yeah, I would just argue that in the way that
is answered, it comes up pretty definitively in materialistic terms,
I would say, I mean, even the the Resurrection of Shepherd,
it seems like they just I mean, they do they
just rebuild him, like yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
A handwave admittedly, yeah, but still yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
But yet at the same time the game, you know,
there's always this one of those nightmare questions on sci
fi is when you go through the Star Trek teleporter,
are you still you on the other side or have
you died? And are you just a a reassembled at
molecular level copy a few right, That's always one of

(54:38):
the the nightmare. There's your light again, Andrew.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah, I don't know, something weird with this light.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
That's always one of the question the questions of sci fi,
you know, because what is the Star Trek transporter? Sending
your soul to the Star Trek doesn't tend to actually
ask that question, although it does usually have all sorts
of weird nightmare fuel with the teleporter, they know it's
a weird technology and has all sorts of horrifying implications.

(55:07):
But with the case of mass effect, you have Shepherd
is very very dead. They have Shepherd rebuilt, and it
never does question is this a different Shepherd? Right, there's
never the game that's beyond the scope of the game.
The assumption is that this is Shepherd, which implies in
some level, I would say, the existence of a soul

(55:28):
because it's still Shepherd. There's there's not a well, we
made a clone of Shepherd, right, That's not That's not
what the game is saying. And so will I agree
that the the level of of thought that it's put
into it is certainly more than somehow Palpatine has returned.
It's it's it still seems to imply that that there

(55:50):
is something more than just you know, a colone of Shepherd.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
And you know what's striking me that I think is
really intriguing. I don't know what to make of it
quite yet, because I thought about it a lot. But
if you're renegade, unless you get this little perk, in
which case your whole scars are reconstructed. If you're renegade,
your body starts to break down visibly, especially in the face.
What do we make of that? What is it about
being I don't renegade isn't quite evil, but it's the aggressive,

(56:17):
domineering kind of personality that says, no, you're starting to
break down. You're no longer integral and whole because of
what you're doing. There's there is some aspect of morality
that's interested and tied into the body and the spirit
simultaneously that says, Okay, you act this way, you perform
this way, your body's going to respond. I don't think
it's entirely materialistic, is what I'm saying by pointing out

(56:40):
the whole facial scarring renegade tissue.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
I do think that's an interesting angle that they take,
and I'm sure it's partly just, hey, we got to
find out a way to make the character look different
if they go dark like in Kotor, But yeah, because
eventually your eyes are glowing red, and yeah, it's it's
pretty interesting look.

Speaker 5 (57:02):
But I think the writers Mass Effect are very They're
definitely building on the foundation of Asthmav and Heinlein, who
pretty much rejected any kind of religion. Pretty consciously, but
they also clearly seem to be aware of contributions from
people like Paul Anderson and maybe even C. S. Lewis.

(57:26):
There's some kind of Louisian touches to some of the
characters and dialogues you have, because a lot of the
aliens have religion, and there's not a mocking of those
religions outside of maybe the r So I think that
there's a sense in Mass Effects that everyone is searching

(57:50):
for meaning beyond, and it's not just like a Cthulhu.
Oh all religion is actually tied back to the reapers,
so it's all an evil trick. Like I think that
there is more of a good faith effort by the
writers to allow room for belief. But I also think
it's clear that none of the writers were believers themselves,

(58:12):
at least not in a way that impacts the writing.

Speaker 6 (58:15):
I can see, well, they can't escape it. I mean,
they do end up with the cyclical fashion which would
come from reincarnation, whereas everything is going to continue again,
but that's also a sci fi trope in other things.
But no, I think that from our last talk, it
just hit me more so that this is an apocalyptic tale.

(58:37):
This is the end of all things, and Shepherd's just
warning everyone they're coming, They're coming. This is the final
uh push for the Great Commission, if you will. But
especially in the third game, Yeah, it's very apocalyptic, right,
So this is the second game really just kind of
brings about like just putting the pieces together. And Ian,

(59:01):
I'm gonna try to get you over to the Colector's
side as an interesting villain because in Revelation nine six
and in those days, people will seek death and will
never find it. So the Collectors are the Prothian. They
were collected, they were kept alive for fifty thousand years

(59:25):
or so, and they will never actually find death of
themselves because they are under the influence and the overall
control of the wickedness of the Reapers themselves, Reapers, which
are technically celestial in a way. They're falling angels. They

(59:48):
live out beyond light, beyond everything else, and they've just
seek to consume. They've consumed the Prothian, they can assumed humans.
That's what we see in the Final Thing where they're
trying to rebuild themselves in Man's image. They're actually bringing
about that whole thing. So they're trying to take back

(01:00:11):
what is part of creation. The writers can't escape what
is creation, even though they tried to push it further
and further away, they will always have to go back to,
you know, the true myth.

Speaker 5 (01:00:26):
So I'm looking forward to playing the DLC where you
get an actual prothean on your team in Mass Fact three,
because I think that's gonna maybe retroactively make me care
more about these boring crab people.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Yeah, hey, get him early and take him out with
Leara as much as you can, because it's pretty hilarious
a lot of the time.

Speaker 5 (01:00:49):
But Leara is like also my least.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
Yeah, I know, except she keeps saying what she believes
she's an expert in, and him actually being of the
race that she claims to be an expert in. He's
constantly correcting her, and it's pretty great.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
It's pretty fun.

Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
That sounds actually really lalious.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Okay. I will generally come to Ian's defense that the
Collectors in general are less interesting villain than the Reapers.
It's the you know, it's the step down from you
step down from Cosmic horror to the the middle manager
that's been hired by the Cosmic Horror. Right. So, but again,

(01:01:30):
so the narrative just doesn't really focused on them hardly
at all. You're right, they step in for those brief moments.
It really is more about the the the characters. And
I'll even say this, Sovereign is not Sovereign. Harbinger is

(01:01:50):
significantly less cool than Sovereign, like in in every way
the Sovereign's aloofness, the the much more terrifying like like
digital processing of Sovereign's voice. Harbinger is just not as
not as cool. So I will definitely agree that mass

(01:02:11):
Effect to is a step down in the villain department
compared to one and three. So I'm gonna fully stand
with you in there. I'm not I don't I don't
hate them or anything, but it's just that's just not
where the focus of the game is on. That's that's
not the star at all.

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
True.

Speaker 6 (01:02:26):
But they are corruption of what was Yeah, yeah, yeah,
what they're trying to actually create. Sure as villains, I
mean they have wings, proteins don't have wings.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Yeah, I mean they're bug zombies. That's that's all they are.
I don't know. They don't do it for me either, or.

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
Just count crowd people. This is what I keeps saying.

Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
It is that the it's revealed that the the Reapers
aren't giant squid monsters, that that is a race from
a previous cycle that was like the best that they'd encountered,
and so they took that form. I'm remembering that ride,
aren't they. Yeah, And so that's why because Humanity forwarded

(01:03:11):
their attempt in the first game, they've taken an interest
in humanity and began to try to make a human Reaper.
I think it's a I think it's a clever bit
of sci fi writing.

Speaker 7 (01:03:21):
And just like human superiority, right right, Finally the Reapers
get it, except that it's super easy to kill that thing. Yeah, yeah,
But I mean it is cinematically interesting when you're fighting
this thing when it emerges or when it wakes up,
right when we are not really sure what's gonna happen.
I mean, obviously playing the game, you know it's going

(01:03:41):
to wake up. But it is a good cinematic movement.
Even though I definitely agree across the board that the
villains are just not as interesting this time around. I
mean that none of the collectors have any agency, so
you're not dealing with real characters. They're just blank fodder.
And then Harbinger himself not that interesting. Overall, Again, I

(01:04:05):
enjoy this game. I think it's to me it's perhaps
the most fun, but it also feels the laziest to me.

Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
Yeah, I think as a puzzle, like putting it together
in your head is really satisfying to get your crew,
to get them loyal and then hit this mission. But like,
what does it mean? It doesn't change anything in the
overall arc, right.

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
But it is a great build of the tension when
you actually go through that relay not knowing what's going
to be on the other side. All of the sequence
of events from then on is just really gripping and interesting,
and I think they did a great job with it.

Speaker 6 (01:04:49):
They were all different writers as well. They went through
production like big production challenges for this one. The head
writer moved one guy I guess broke a hand or
something in a skating accident and can only type with one.
So like, there was a lot of different minds going through,

(01:05:13):
especially at the last final mission that was a completely
different team that they had to pull in from. I
believe Dragon Age.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Yeah, I would like to quickly say that I want
to revise my statement. It's not the laziest, but I
would say it's the most inconsequential, and that's what knocks
it down for me. That's a better way forraming what
I'm trying to say.

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
What's a hard spot to be in because you're not
introducing the stakes with the initial takeover that you have
as you know, the potential ending of Mass Effect one,
and you're not having the absolute apocalyptic world ending scenario
of Mass Effect three. So what do you do in
the middle. And I think it did a great job,
like I think, as much as you can do with
that kind of awkward pacing. Whereas its place in the

(01:05:52):
overall trilogy, the a prep game like we're preparing for
Game three. I think navigating that many any different interesting
characters with their own arcs and having good performances, good dialogue,
improving on combat. I think Mass Effect two's place could
have been very forgettable otherwise, but I do think the

(01:06:14):
characters and I think that the story, the action packed,
fast paced nature of the story really saved it. Because
you can have a game like Dragon Age two that
was very inconsequential and was a major flop, and this
was no dragon Age too. This was a great game
that a lot of people, myself included, really enjoyed. But

(01:06:35):
I think the story, in the characters' stories individually really
save it from what could have been a very mediocre
place in the trilogy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Well, narratively, mass Effect to You're right in a lot
of ways, it is a repeat of Mass Effect one
on some level. So think about it like this. The
Reapers are hyped as the villain. We cannot we cannot defeat.
You know that that That is one thing that I think,

(01:07:05):
and we'll talk about this with the ending, with the
ending of Mass Effect three, I'm sure. But one thing
that Mass Effect one and two are abundantly clear with
is that there is no conventional victory possible over the Reapers. Right,
there is no way that the Galaxy wins a war
against the Reapers. It's a it's a it's a losing
battle no matter what. So Mass Effect one is a

(01:07:26):
desperate hail Mary to stop the Reaper's primary method of return. Right,
Mass Effect two is basically Plan B. Plan Plan A
is gone south. So now we're gonna go with Plan B.
We're gonna, we're gonna introduce, we're gonna basically, we're gonna

(01:07:46):
we're gonna manufacture a new reaper, right, it's it's still
just both game games one and two are kicking the
can down the road of we can't beat these guys,
but we can at least stall them, and and even
so much as and we haven't talked about it that
every has everybody played the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect two? Yes, okay,

(01:08:08):
so that's the one.

Speaker 6 (01:08:09):
Where they throw the asteroid into the mass effect relay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Yeah, so basically you know that it's a a a
kind of prologue to Mass Effect three? Almost is what
the Arrival DLC of Mass Effect two is?

Speaker 5 (01:08:23):
Does it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Does it take place after the end?

Speaker 6 (01:08:26):
I don't know, technically came out afterwards?

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
Yeah, it came out like a full year after the
game was released.

Speaker 4 (01:08:31):
But you can't do it at any point.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
You can do it earlier, okay, and you get to
kill a lot of baetarians, but which it introduces, by
the way, like we haven't seen batarians before that? Well,
I said, but isn't it the batarians? Yeah, we've seen
a few. We've seen them.

Speaker 4 (01:08:47):
Anyway, do we see him in this game?

Speaker 6 (01:08:49):
In this one? They're mostly.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Yeah, Okay, the Arrival is almost a plan. See, it's
the plans. See, okay, here's here's the next method, but
it only kicks the can down a couple of months,
and the insinuation at the end of at the end
of arrival is they're coming. This was the last this

(01:09:14):
was the last staw. It doesn't matter what you do,
They'll be here soon, you know. So that that's that's
where mass effect two is. It's it's just that continuing
at kicking the can down the road to the point
of realizing there's nowhere else to go. We cannot delay
this any further. They're here, you know. Which is mass
effect three is they're here. That's my defense of its

(01:09:36):
place and the trilogy.

Speaker 6 (01:09:38):
And then the Patarians did show up and bring down
the sky DLC another asteroid.

Speaker 4 (01:09:43):
Okay, so that's what I was confusing it with.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Okay, that's what you're thinking about.

Speaker 6 (01:09:46):
Yeah, okay, yeah, two asteroids, both involving Batarians.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Look, it just so happens that throwing a whole lot
of massive things works really well in physics. So it's
a great solution to many problems. If you've got a space.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Civilization, just just throw a rock at it, especially in
a game called mass effect. Right, it's not the whole point. Yeah.
I mean, having only played the Legendary, I have no
idea what's DLC and what's not.

Speaker 6 (01:10:13):
But Overlord was the DLC arrival in the Shadow Broker
or got it?

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
And I do, Michael, I appreciate you sometimes bringing us
back around to how these characters play important story aspect,
you know. And that's one of the things I like
about Legion is he gives or it gives a voice
to what we're just you know, malevolent cannon fodder. In

(01:10:41):
the first game, we can actually talk to them and
learn something a little bit about them, which I find interesting.

Speaker 5 (01:10:48):
David Legion uses they then pronouns personal privilege.

Speaker 4 (01:10:55):
Yeah, and I will. I will grant them that pronoun
because it makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
But you know, it's really funny. I was thinking about
when we were talking about religion and how basically Mass
Effect doesn't ever kick religion any of its religious characters
for being religious. You know. I was thinking about that
this was a game that appeared at the last possible
moment than it could have before, so many more things

(01:11:21):
would have gone wrong with it, and the pronoun thing
is what made me think that.

Speaker 5 (01:11:25):
Well, you can see it coming in three you can't
you can't hear it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
But but what I mean, so many more things. What's
what's what's the date on through twenty twelve? Yeah, you know,
once you hit fifteen and Obergefeld, it's it's the gloves
are off on everything, you know, entertainment wise. Right, So, and.

Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
To Andrew's point about how it's the paragon thing to
just be hey, hey, I love is love and we
we just you know, you've got to affirm it. It
keeps going more and more, and I you know, we
can blame BioWare, but also the fans have been ridiculous
in that capacity.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
I remember in Mass Effect Andromeda they introduced a character,
a male character on your team, and there was a
public outcry that you could not be in a gay
relationship with this new alien, Like they were mad that
he was straight. So they had to patch it so
that you could have a gay relationship with this character.

(01:12:27):
It's just absurd.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Yeah, it's hard to navigate these conversations to see where
the pressure is coming from. Are we dealing with numbers
or simply volume. I think that's that's difficult to navigate.
I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, I've been playing
the oblivion to type a body or something.

Speaker 5 (01:12:48):
Yeah, I think it's really some very very savvy activist
groups that figured out a way to get access. I
mean they had a godsend and a couple of major
figures who immediately formed relationships with game devs, which meant
that there was a lot of creationive games that did

(01:13:11):
not have an audience.

Speaker 4 (01:13:13):
Yeah, like the most recent I haven't played it, Megan,
I think you said you played it to the most
recent Dragon Age God.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Yeah, I've played it. I've played it, and I pre
ordered it, so I bought it full price and I
think it goes for like ninety nine cents now or
the problem I am part of the problem. No, I listen, listen.
I love this that trilogy, and it's a different conversation.
But yeah, I think what's striking and why I keep
harping on the characters being so excellent in this game

(01:13:45):
and how you can just dislike people that is very
much an impossible feature in Vailguard. You know, this is
what when did I Aspect to come out twenty twelve, No? Nine, ten, ten,
We're now forty Execume out last year fourteen years or
removed from Mass Effect too and Vail Guard wants to

(01:14:07):
make similar moves. I don't know if we've played it.
I don't want to spoil anything, but the end sequence
is similar to the end sequence of Mass Effect two
in that you have to be very strategic in your
companions where you're sending them off to. I'll put it
like that. You also have a big cast of people
and you're invested in their personal problems. Let's say so
if you zoom out. There's a lot of similarities between

(01:14:29):
Mass Effect two and Dragon Age Veil Guard. How it's executed.
Between the two games, however, very different. You have actual
personalities and people. We have different religions and philosophies that
are not always palatable, and that is okay. You can
keep them as companions, but you can actively just dislike
people and it's not seen as a bug in your

(01:14:52):
experience versus Vail Guard. I think your achievement when you
get all of your companions is something like found family,
Like you have a found family amidst the chaos, like
I don't know these people, and I don't like they're
not even my found friends, like they're my found family.
But it's hard to see where bio ware has gone

(01:15:13):
because BioWare has always prided itself on excellent character relationships
and dynamics and squad numbers all that, and I think
you need to have characters that you can dislike or
even hate in order for that to work. I think
there's this developing idea now that you should enjoy all
the characters because you just love them so much and
they're all just quirky and fun and interesting. But I

(01:15:36):
think you have to hate some of them in order
to love the others that you actually get to enjoy
and remember. Yeah, So I think that's my retroactive look
at Mass Effect too. Why I cherish it even more
is because it's executed storytelling on a character development level
that I'm not sure that BioWare is going to be
able to do it again, at least not with their current team.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
You know, you talk about not with their current team,
and we talk about it happening, you know, these games
being made in the kind of the last window they
could have. And Ian talked about activists and you know
sometimes you hear talked about the uh, you know, tumblification
of entertainment, right, and we you know, those people that

(01:16:20):
aren't really part of that tumbler sphere use that very negatively,
but it's a very real thing that happened starting around
twenty fifteen. You know Western animation companies, you know, you
start talking about your your Steven universes. In those places
they hired people from Tumblr. Massive amounts of talent was

(01:16:43):
hired out of Tumblr. It also happened in the video
game industry. And it also I've had someone confirmed to
me recently it also happened in Hollywood that they hired
a lot that Hollywood was mining Tumblr for talent in
this period. And so what you happened? What did you
have in Tumblr? You had these very hyper focused fandoms,
very hyper focused on on LGBT stuff, very focused on shipping,

(01:17:09):
culture and things like that. So you wonder how what
happened to BioWare. Well that that's that's very a real
part of it is where the talent pool came. You know.
One of the big one of the big indications over
the last decade that that BioWare has really been a
pill a shadow of its former self is how many

(01:17:30):
little indie studios were were always hyping former BioWare devs, Right,
there were so many little indie games We're talking Oh
the former these three former BioWare devs, these three former
these how does everybody have former BioWare devs? Who's left
at BioWare? And what's what's turned out is basically nobody,

(01:17:53):
you know, nobody's left there is there unfortunately, which is
how Vilguard happened, is you know, the talent. And that's
the same thing with Hollywood. Why is Hollywood? What it
is is the talent's gotten replaced with I don't want
to say Tumblr entirely because it's obviously not just that,
but it's not not that either. You know, that's a

(01:18:14):
real tumblification, is a real thing that has happened, and
it shows, it really shows in some of these industries.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Yeah, that's definitely one thing that I've really enjoyed about
playing these mass effect games. You're not having played them before,
so that they're they're fresh to me. Is it feels
like a game does maybe fifteen years ago, Like you
can see certain things, certain paths starting to be laid out,
but we're definitely not there yet, Like it feels like
a different time. Whereas we'll talk Dragon Age in its

(01:18:47):
own right another time. For sure. I love Dragon Age.
The first three games. I have not touched the fourth
I refuse to pay full price. I'll get on the
next team sale just so I can, you know, complete
it and talk about But I feel embarrassed having seen
trailers for that game, everything that comes out, it's so
just awful writing, and you know, not having played it personally,

(01:19:10):
I can I can see you know what Megan's talking about.
How we have just this philosophy of you know, superficial
tolerance that actually forbids real relationships because everything just gets
glossed over. You're not allowed to actually see people. You're
only allowed to see an object to affirm, you know,
it's you're not actually engaging with a real person. And

(01:19:33):
so games have become so much less grounded and just
reality that you can't have effective storytelling, you can't have
effective relationships. It just feels like you're being fed propaganda,
which obviously is what a certain corner of the market
has a taste for, in large part because they don't
necessarily know that there is anything else. I'm talking about

(01:19:54):
this in another context, but you know when I teach
my State University philosophy students that nearly all of them
come to my class thinking everything is just artificial. You know,
everything's subjective, nothing is actually real. Everything is whatever you
view it as. And so let's just have these rosy
glasses on and that's what the world is. And Yeah,

(01:20:15):
as soon as I start giving them hints that maybe
there's such a thing as reality and that you can
actually move places and some of those places might be
better than where you currently are, it's like they've never
even heard that before, because the entire life they've been
fed to this propaganda of just everything is nothing and
you know, it's all subjective, it's not real. But once

(01:20:35):
they start to get hint of that, it's actually refreshing
and they recognize this is exactly what they've wanted to know.
They can actually aspire to something. And so it's so disappointing,
not just from an entertainment angle, but it's saddening for
the condition of the modern human soul that we're so
out of touch with reality that we don't even know

(01:20:57):
when we're being fed at this superficial propaganda, despite the
fact that we all hunger for something more. And so
I look forward to getting more into that when we
get to Dragon Age. But I guess we can pull
back to master effect If anyone has anything else to
say about this game, well.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
I mean, we didn't really talk about Grunt at all.
I do think his character is interesting, brings up questions
about what makes you who you are. You know, he's
bred in a tank. He hasn't been through the things
that a normal Krogan has been through, so they reject him,
and he frankly rejects himself. He doesn't feel you know,

(01:21:35):
he has these urges, but he doesn't have the experience.
And I just think, you know, as you do his
loyalty mission, you get the opportunity to help him gain
some of his own pride, of his race and all that.
But I do I found that fascinating. And another thing
that this game made me think of back on Fane

(01:21:56):
and his memory is how the older I get, the
more I realized that the fading nature of our memories
is really a gift from God, because without you know,
if we could remember everything perfectly the way than does,
you'd never be able to get over grief or any

(01:22:17):
kind of difficult aspects in your life that you know,
the passage of time. You have to be able to
find a new normal in order to get past those
sorts of things. So, yeah, I don't really have more
to say than that, but it just it kind of
drives that point home that yeah, we sometimes I wish
I could remember things more clearly, but then I realize

(01:22:38):
it's actually often it's a blessing that we can't.

Speaker 6 (01:22:42):
Just be nice to articulate everything the way Than does
in his memories.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
Yeah, the other person we didn't talk about much was
actually Tally, and I was actually thinking about her somewhat
because of what Megan was saying with you know that
you don't have to like everybody in mass effect too,
and and and a bunch of these crewmates are not
close to each other or Shepherd at all. There's not

(01:23:09):
this is this is not a found family game, right,
And and I hate that we have that. We we
all roll our eyes at the term found family now,
because you know, found family should be a redemptive thing
for people that have broken families, that they can still
find hope and and and love and a place in

(01:23:30):
this world. Right this should be this should be a
Christian trope, but it has been completely you know, flipped
onto this place you can reject your earthly family and
and and find something else. So I hate that but
that actually is what what Tally's trope is. But in
a in a way that lands very well because she
you know, we get to spend all this this time

(01:23:51):
at the at the the Quarrian feleet, which is kind
of this this one of the more interesting, you know,
social settings of the Mass Effect universe, and ultimately she
has to leave it and she her name changes to
because their name is their name, their last name is
of the ship basically, so she was Tally zoravas Neema

(01:24:13):
and because she's basically kicked off of her ship, she
becomes Tally's Zora vas Normandy, you know, because the Normandy
is now her ship. So there is this this this
found family aspect to Tally's story where you know, Shepherd
is part of her family. His ship is her ship,
and it's just it's nice, It's really I know why
Tally is just such a favor because she is just

(01:24:36):
such a sweet character. You know, she's just so likable,
and she goes through a lot and she finds a
new home. So they could they used to be able
to write good fine found families. Where I was going
with that, Megan, what I what I was thinking about.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
I agree with Tally's story. Although I'm noticing now thinking
like there's a lot of absentee fathers in mass effect too,
or daddy issues with you have or evil you have, Miranda,
you have, Tolly, you have I don't know if you've
count grunts kind of creator Mike Jacob you have. Yeah,

(01:25:10):
And this is I don't know what that's about.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
Jack is familyless. Yeah. Uh, Samara is the the the mother.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
The mother and the father in some way, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Right, but you know what I mean, you know what
I mean that she's the parent in this case with
with kids.

Speaker 3 (01:25:26):
With issues, Yeah, parents and children.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
Than is also a parent one.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Yeah, he's the bad father, right right, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
Look, there's the thing, though, is that the lack of
parent is so common in fiction for so many reasons.
I mean, it is a it's it's it's obviously not
a universal experience, but but everybody hits a point of
discovering that their parents are human, and so, you know,

(01:25:58):
troubled relationships with parents is is is. It's not necessarily
a universal experience, but it's something that everybody can at
least identify with in the in the over a course
of a story. But also for purely practical reasons. It's
it's always a great source of drama. And if you
happen to have younger characters, I'm sorry, but no good parent.

(01:26:19):
Let's their twelve year olds go on an adventure, So
there's a reason why the parents are.

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
Dead, right, It's a good psychological mechanism, narrative mechanism to show, Okay,
you are now individuating and going off and discovering your
call and your adventure and who you are as an
individuated adult. So it's it's useful. It's just there's a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
There is a lot of it's a lot of dead to.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
Be doing, yeah, or being absentee interesting.

Speaker 6 (01:26:45):
I just want to criticize every Pokemon game, every ten
year old.

Speaker 5 (01:26:53):
I did kind of want to comment on. We've talked
a lot about AI, but there's another technology that's really
prevalent this game that I feel like should have been
leaned on a bit harder, and that's a genetic engineering.
Both Miranda and Rex their whole stories revolve around being
genetically engineered and the ethics of that, and I think

(01:27:15):
there should have been more questioning of whether tho's I mean,
there's a bit there's a little bit in grunt story,
but no one ever questions if Miranda should be human,
whereas I feel like more people probably should. And I
wish there had been some kind of interaction between Grunt
and Miranda because they have the same basic backstory of
evil dad slash crogan warlord creates perfect human slash Crogan.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
Yeah, Shepherd too is also a bit of a reconstruction.
I don't know if we would count him or her
in that engineering in that yeah so, but yeah, you're right,
the game isn't as suspicious as like I might want
it to be. Of Okay, so how much genetic engineering
do you get before you are no longer a crogan

(01:28:03):
or a human? Or maybe there? The game is, I
don't know, not really suspicious of like racial essentialism, but
like what does it mean to be the most perfect
of X thing? And we find that with Grunt and
with Miranda, it's getting away from the father figure that
wants the racial essentialism or wants the superhuman, the ubermensh
kind of figure to go do your masculinity proving grounds

(01:28:27):
quest or go.

Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
Be with your sister and have a normal person.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):
Yeah, I'd be more a normal person exactly. Yeah. So,
I don't know if that reads to me as like
suspicion of the technology, I would.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Say inherently, it feels like there's at least some level
of suspicion, even if a full exploration of it does
end up being outside the scope of the game is presented.
But I would say there's at least a healthy level
of oh, it's implicit, sure, right, you don't ever get
a feel good story about, you know, the father engineering

(01:29:01):
the perfect daughter. That's not what's being presented, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:29:06):
I just think that with a lot of genetic engineering
in the news these days, in a similar right to
me as large llms and AI assistants, I feel like
Christians should be thinking about that as well, in terms
of the warnings that sci fi can provide us.

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
Just say no to transhumanism, Just say no.

Speaker 5 (01:29:33):
I mean, I'm going to get the Internet in my
brain when I can, because that means I can read
while I'm walking.

Speaker 3 (01:29:38):
But well, I think IVF is also a very relevant
technology that a lot of people are actively suspicious of
and should be not enough. But we see that with
the jenif age as well, and that's a place where
we're really suspicious of what does it mean to manipulate
the whole genetic outcome of a species, not just of

(01:29:59):
an individual. So maybe because it's a species, that's why
we're like, oh, and that's bad, that's genocide. We don't
like it. That's why we're more overtly suspicious of it.
But yeah, now that I'm thinking of it, I think
the game does critique genetic modification implicitly in some areas,
but definitely more forcefully with the genophage, which overall, I

(01:30:21):
don't think you can play the game and you're allowed
to have an opinion about the genof phage. It's not
it's bad. You know, you can kind of help implement
it as a pragmatic thing, or help sustain it as
a pragmatic decision in a third game. But I don't
think the game ever is ambivalent about the morality of
the genophage, which is a good thing. You know that

(01:30:42):
we're saying, hey, it's not good to wipe out civilizations,
is not good to stop people from giving birth. Declining
birth rates are bad, you know. That's again, should we
have a could we have a game that says that today?
I don't know, But we had it then I think
that's good. Yeah, there is a lot of suspicion there
with genetic modification birth rates, and I think that speaks

(01:31:06):
to IVF concerns today.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
Yeah, I mean I don't think that the developers would
be willing to directly engage with that, obviously, but on
a principled level that you know, grunt Miranda, I mean,
obviously we're a Shepherd. I mean, anyone who kind of
falls into this category of being constructed in some way,
shape or form, like we're meant to affirm their personhood

(01:31:31):
while the same time potentially questioning how it came about.
I think that there's plenty of room for doing that,
and I think there's plenty of room for doing that
with IVF that you know, somebody born to IVF like
they're a real person. But at the same time we
can question the practice.

Speaker 4 (01:31:45):
Right, And I don't think it's an accident that it
is not good guys who bring Shepherd back to life,
you know, so that it's not really celebrated. It's just
Shepherd finds himself back alive and that's what he's got
to deal with. And I do feel like the sequence
shows like dead veins having life brought back to them,

(01:32:07):
so he's not really quite the ship of Theseus that
somebody on Star Trek who's been transported is. But yeah,
it's still an ethical question of resurrections most fiction. I've
always fund it fascinating how much fiction avoids resurrection, Like
it's just almost an understood that when you're dead, you're gone,

(01:32:28):
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
And I.

Speaker 4 (01:32:30):
Don't think it's a respect for Christ's resurrection story, but
I do think it's interesting how much people shy away
from it, and reasonably so.

Speaker 2 (01:32:40):
Except for genres that are should be more shy of it,
like comic books, true right, you know. My advice to
people writing stories is that if you feel you have
to bring a character back from the dead, it should
be only once in the entire setting, and it has
to mean something. You cannot do it again again because

(01:33:02):
I mean, you're, you're, you're, it has resurrection must mean something.
If you make resurrection mean nothing, you are not writing
a true story. That's that's just all there is to it.

Speaker 4 (01:33:16):
It works in Dragon Ball Z because they they they
have it. They have a whole after life that's built
into the story, you know, and it becomes an interesting
plot element. But it does crivialize death.

Speaker 2 (01:33:26):
Right, But I was about to say, in that case,
when you when you systematize it, is it even resurrection?

Speaker 4 (01:33:33):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:33:34):
In some cases someone just suddenly has a halo and
that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:41):
Well, we've been we've been going for an hour and
a half or so. I think that I mean pretty much.
I think anything that we have to discuss will be
directly relevant, if not more so for must effect three
at this point, and so I think we'll go ahead
and wrap it for now. Appreciate everyone here, and I'm
sure that I will see you while again next time
as we wrap it up, and I think we have

(01:34:03):
a lot of interesting things to talk about for mass
effect three. In fact, I'm very impressed with what we
came out with for mass effect two. So I don't know,
maybe I need to review my initial opening statement here.
All right, Well, thanks again and I will see you
all next time. All right, thank you for listening. And
I should mention that if you notice that dropping the

(01:34:26):
sound quality of my outro here, it's because the cord
on my good microphone just broke and so I'll need
to replace that soon. But anyways, thank you for listening
to our conversation on mass effect two. Stick around here.
Make sure you're subscribed so you catch Mass Effect three
in a couple of weeks from now going back to
an every other week basis, although you will get a

(01:34:46):
new episode over on the Mythic Mind Movies and Shows
podcast next week for the as we continue our Star
Wars series, although the next thing that you'll get out
from us is over on the main Mythic Mind podcast
on Monday, you will be getting the next conversation on
the on Augustine's Confessions from our book club, and so

(01:35:07):
make sure you subscribe to all three Mythic Mind podcasts
Mythic Mind, Mythic Mind Games and Mythic Mind Movies and Shows,
or if you want to get all of that into
one feed early and ad free, then head over to
patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind sign on any level.
Also as a reminder, starting at the beginning of August,
we have our course on Plato Stoicism until we have faces,

(01:35:29):
and if you want to enroll in that, you have
a couple options. For one, you can either just purchase
the course outright, you can become a Tier three patron,
whether monthly or annually, we'll give you access to that
or Yeah, there's that all right, So you'll you're here
here from us next on Monday over on Mythic Mind.

(01:35:49):
Until then, Gospeed

All Episodes

9 - Mass Effect 2

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}9 - Mass Effect 2