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Cabal Ties posted:I too felt immediately more drawn to the tong ending when playing the game but I agree with a lot of the comments about the Helios ending being the “best” ending but overall isn’t the three endings supposed to mean there is no perfect answer: Well, if we accept the Invisible War plot to suggest the results of each ending: 1. Tong's disruption basically occurred, and the same groups got in charge again. "Blowing it all up" does not = "will make better decisions next time", and arguably the same human issues that cause problems with society before are still going to be there doing the same thing even with a "re-do". Certainly blowing it up again in IW just leaves only a group of ruthless survivors of questionable humanity to take over, and they seem to have only done it because they can survive the hell humanity made of the Earth, not a strong recommendation there (I was going to discuss the Templar ending separately, but honestly it and the Omar ending kinda both can be summed up this way on reflection). 2. The Illuminati will keep on carrying on things as is still, no real improvements to society but it doesn't seem like they went downhill either. I think it's fair to argue the Deux Ex status quo kinda sucks though for a lot of people (almost everyone if free choice is a goal in your ideal of society, because the Illuminati de facto assumes free choice only belongs to a few "enlightened" souls). 3. The super-AI after much thought concluded it didn't want to be a remote god king ruling everybody and insists on integrating everyone. It's kind of left vague how much free will is left in that system obviously (or any regular human thought really, given the transhumanism here), but if we take what is said at face value then effectively everybody gets to choose how things go, which is certainly a lot less hierarchical than the other options. Helios's one act of domination would be forcing the integration, and if it would have respected at least a communal desire to "let me out of this loving mind net!" then that would reduce the unfairness of that. So I guess the real question as to whether or not the Illuminati or Helios endings are better boils down to whether you think humanity as is can be lead to utopia (so the primary flaw is just in the leadership and/or their ability to exert authority to do the "right" thing, and you've ideally fixed both with the Illuminati if you agree with this ending) or whether utopia would require re-defining humanity in some way a la Helios. By the nature of the game you are foisting your choice on everybody else in any event, so in that regard they all rather suck.
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Aug 4, 2023 22:00
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Soricidus posted:The Helios ending is clearly the worst. This AI has been watching JC the whole time as he smashes everything breakable in the world, deals drugs, hacks bank accounts, breaks into homes and steals everything that isn’t glued down, murders everyone he meets who doesn’t have plot armor, etc. And its reaction is to offer to merge with him and rule the world? Maybe “merge” means Helios evaluates decisions by “if JC opinion = yes, then correct answer = no”, and in the meantime it can keep JC Denton from wandering the streets randomly looting and killing people. One real question I have with the Helios ending; what the hell happens to Bob Page? Tong ending he obviously blows up, Illuminati ending I don’t recall it being specified but I certainly expect if nothing else Morgan would kill his rear end on general principle, but with the Helios ending Page just kinda gets ignored while pathetically whining to Helio “Don’t leave me!”, but what about after that? Did he just get left to starve in his little merger mechanism? Kinda dark if so.
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Aug 11, 2023 22:15
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