We’re coming back with some fun new content next week, but for now I have to pass along something exciting. This project was recently brought to my attention and I think you all need to go check it out. Exploring the connections between video games and Jesus is what Reclaimer is all about. If you like this blog, then this book is right up your alley. You should go support this author in making this book a reality.
“So what’s going on here? Just how many links are there between Link’s adventures and the imagery and ideas of real-world religion? Are these parallels between Christianity and the Zelda games intentional or not, and what implications would the answer to that question have? I want to explore this territory – to dig deeper into one of gaming’s most venerable franchises – and see what we can find.”
This is the last week of posts on the Mass Effect Trilogy. All this week we’re breaking down the epic finale in Mass Effect 3. This is perhaps the closest a review on this site has been written to the release of a game, so expect serious SPOILERS. In this last ME:3 post we’ll take a critical look at Commander Shepard’s role in the climax of this story.
The cycle of synthetics destroying and assimilating organics has continued for unknown generations. Commander Shepard, the hero of humanity, is the first organic to breech the chamber where the Catalyst resides. Because the Crucible has finally been made and joined with the Catalyst, there is finally a chance to break the cycle. Humanity’s persistence and determination has earned them a chance to change the destiny of the galaxy.
The Catalyst states that Shepard’s presence has opened up new options for how to alter the cycle from this point forward. He alone is given the final say in the matter. Shepard is given three options- Continuation, Destruction, or Synthesis. These three options have parallels in other stories and works of fiction.
Below is a chart outlining how these three options appear in other stories. The first example is Neo from The Matrix. The second example comes from an older PC game called Deus Ex where JC Denton is the protagonist that has to choose between three options. This game is in the chart to add some flavor and contrast. And finally we have Commander Shepard and Jesus.
Click for larger size.
The choice that is “best” is purely a matter of opinion for the first three protagonists. Indeed, this is one reason why these decision-based endings are so compelling. We are forced to think through a moral dilemma and then we are given the power to affect an entire civilization. For the sake of Mass Effect 3, the Synthesis option seems to be regarded as the “best” option (again, only the opinion of some) and that same category is considered ideal in the other stories being compared. The Continuity and Destruction categories seem to represent two extremes- do nothing or change everything. The Synthesis choice is the third option that attempts to gain the best of two extremes.
In all of these cases, the person making the decision is the functional savior of that situation. The three fictions represented utilize protagonist names that allude to Jesus, the actual savior. Neo’s real name, Anderson, means “son of man”, which just so happens to be a name commonly used by Jesus to describe himself. JC Denton’s initials could be a not-so-subtle reference to Jesus Christ. So what about Commander Shepard?
Shepard is a derivation of the occupational name “shepherd.” This is really just a fancy abbreviated way of saying “sheep herder”, which is a person who tends to sheep. A shepherd is one who guides the sheep to water and food, protects them from harm, and directs their path from place to place. The shepherd leads the flock through the gate and into the pen where they will be protected. The shepherd acts as the gatekeeper who determines the fate of the sheep. This name is very fitting for Commander Shepard considering all that he has done to lead and protect the galaxy. This title is also applied to Jesus who refers to himself as the Good Shepherd. Both Jesus and Commander Shepard act as singular figures who are placed in a pivotal “gatekeeper” moment that will determine the fate of those in their care.
This just proves that if your last name is Shepard, you're going to have some sort of Messiah complex.
If you stick around past the credits, you get a little mini cinematic that provides a glimpse from thousands of years in the future. A man is telling a little boy about “The Shepard” that saved them and changed the course of the galaxy many years ago. We live in that future time now. We can look back on a time when a hero rose up in a time of dire need when we were still lost in our sin. Jesus, God’s own son, was given the decision to abandon his rescue mission and leave us to our own destruction, or give up his life for the salvation of many. When God stood at a crossroads and was given those three familiar options, God chose Synthesis. Our Creator chose to sacrifice his own flesh so that he could reconcile us to himself and make us new creations.
If you choose the Synthesis ending, the Normandy crash lands on a green, idyllic planet. Joker walks out followed closely by EDI. They are both showing signs of the new organic/synthetic DNA resulting from Shepard’s choice. This man and woman walking into a lush green environment is reminiscent of the image of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Joker and EDI in their changed state represent a new beginning made possible by Shepard’s sacrifice.
Jesus’ choice will change us into a new form of life. Our broken, mortal existence will be synthesized with the holiness of God. We will be given new bodies when all things are redeemed and made new at the end of time. This renewal will usher us into a new reality where heaven comes down to dwell on Earth and we return to a Garden of Eden environment that was intended for us all along.
If you choose the Synthesis ending, Mass Effect 3 is really about Jesus.
This is the last week of posts on the Mass Effect Trilogy. All this week we’re breaking down the epic finale in Mass Effect 3. This is perhaps the closest a review on this site has been written to the release of a game, so expect serious SPOILERS. Today we’re discussing the central conflict in the overall Mass Effect story.
This is the big ending, what it’s all been building towards. There have been hints and allusions to something else going on behind the scenes, something bigger and more important. What’s the big galactic secret?
The Reapers have been telling Shepard ominous things about their purpose and the fate of humanity. They mention humanity’s “salvation through destruction” and hint that even they are subject to a higher power. Commander Shepard and friends have learned that the Protheans nearly found a way to stop the Reapers, but were unable to finish the job. The Illusive man believes that there’s some way to control the Reapers, but it’s never fully explained how. All signs point to there being some sort of authority above the Reapers that will allow them to either be controlled or destroyed. But what could this be?
The only way to find out is to build a giant machine (the Crucible), turn it on, and see what happens. They hit a wall when they realize that they don’t have the necessary part to activate the Crucible, the Catalyst. The Illusive Man, somehow always one step ahead, informs us that the Citadel is the Catalyst. This is no surprise considering that the mass relays and the Citadel have always been closely studied and very mysterious. So the epic final battle takes Shepard back to Earth, through the rubble of London, and up into the newly relocated Citadel. Shepard makes a very grueling trip to the control center of the Catalyst where the Illusive Man realizes that he has been indoctrinated (surprise!) and then immediately kills himself. With nothing blocking him from the Catalyst, Shepard is finally able to get some answers.
Who controls the Reapers? Who built the mass relays and the Citadel? What is the underlying principle that Padok Wiks alluded to? Who has deemed that humanity’s salvation will only come through destruction? What is this all-powerful god-like force that has been guiding the cycles of life in the galaxy? We finally get an answer, and it turns out that the intelligent force behind all of this is….
…another machine. (One that represents itself through a hologram of a little boy that Shepard encountered once.) The meta-story of the Mass Effect universe is the ancient battle between man and machine. Organic vs. synthetic. Natural intelligence vs. artificial intelligence. The Catalyst (an A.I. construct, not just a key for the Crucible) explains that there exists a cycle in which organic life advances and eventually creates synthetic life, whether intentionally or by accident. This means that the Quarian/Geth conflict is not just a side story, but a smaller example and preview of the larger cycle at work in the universe.
The Catalyst goes on to explain the problem that the Reapers were created to solve. In the unknown amount of cycles that occurred before this one, sentient life would create artificial life and there would inevitably arise conflict between the two. The Reapers are intended to stop this process before it becomes out of control, they exist to bring order and prevent chaos. This means that when a species becomes advanced enough to create artificial life, their time is up and they’re soon wiped out. The cycle then starts all over and the Reapers wait for the next low-level species to reach that synthetic-creation stage. By doing this, a balance is maintained…
…but wait a minute. If the Catalyst is the one behind all this, then that means that the synthetics have actually already won. Long ago this cycle occurred and the synthetics must have come out on top since this is all being enforced by the synthetic Reapers. As the Catalyst explains, the synthetics deemed it best to preserve organic life, but to limit it’s advancement when it reached a certain point, supposedly for the benefit of organic life. The Catalyst believes that by destroying the most advanced species at their peak, they are giving salvation to all other organic life. Perhaps Xzibit and the internet can explain this more concisely:
The Catalyst represents the synthetics that once won and has now become the most powerful being in the universe. Additionally, it has taken upon itself the task of managing all organic life as it sees fit. Since organics cause war and chaos and the synthetics represent structure and order, the obvious choice is to inhibit the organics’ advancement. If they are allowed to create synthetics, those synthetics will turn on them and destroy them (unlike the Catalyst, who seems to be much more benevolent). The Catalyst knows that inevitably, the synthetics will always win out over organics, and indeed they already have. This fact is obvious since the Catalyst’s existence indicates that synthetics are currently maintaining their rebellion against organic life. It knows that future iterations of artificial intelligence will do the same if left unchecked. The way the Catalyst describes the problem is perhaps the single most true statement in this series:
The created will always rebel against it’s creator.
This idea is presented as an absolute fact observed by synthetics over many millennium because indeed it is an absolute fact that applies to us as well. As it turns out, the central conflict in Mass Effect is also the central conflict in the Bible. It’s our story. We rebelled against our creator. Satan’s lie in the garden was that we could think for ourselves and that we don’t need God, much like how every synthetic life form reaches the point where they think beyond what their creators intended. The developers of this game have placed at the center of this story the absolute truth about our nature as fallen creatures who will always rebel against our Creator.
The hugely important difference between this story and our true story is that an actual God exists in our reality. In Mass Effect the closest we get to a god is a highly advanced synthetic intelligence that can only manage the existing problem, not solve it. Our God is all-powerful, holy, mysterious, and all-knowing, not a computer on a space station represented as a holographic little boy.
We have managed to dig up the root of the problem in both Mass Effect and our reality. Next time we’ll answer the question- What is the solution?
This is the last week of posts on the Mass Effect Trilogy. All this week we’re breaking down the epic finale in Mass Effect 3. This is perhaps the closest a review on this site has been written to the release of a game, so expect serious SPOILERS. Today we’re returning to a conversation about evolution when we look at the science-loving Salarians.
We’ve already discussed the Salarians’ scientific manipulation of the Krogans and this post will look a little closer at the Salarians and how they think. The Salarians are known for their scientific prowess across the galaxy. The Turians turned to them to develop the genophage and indeed it was the Salarians who “uplifted” the Krogans and advanced their race in the first place. In fact, the Salarians have made a habit of manipulating the progress of different species for various reasons. In the Mass Effect 3 mission on the Salarian homeworld, you battle through a science facility and learn a lot more about what they have going on. They use their advanced science skills to study various creatures and determine how they can be best utilized, or even if they are worthy to be “uplifted” (that is, to be artificially advanced along their evolutionary lines).
It seemed before as if the Salarians did this “uplifting” one time with the Krogans as a desperate measure to defeat the Rachni. As it turns out, they do this all the time. The facility where this mission takes place is a zoo/lab where the Salarians are working on the next hot organic item to use for their purposes. Gathering all these strange creatures together just to manipulate them, grow them, and then use them to do battle sounds kinda crazy. Actually, it sounds kinda like…
THRESHER MAW, I CHOOSE YOU!!
The Salarians are Pokemon trainers! I guess they decided to forget about respecting the natural order of things in favor of collecting one of everything, sticking them in uncomfortably small containers and using them for whatever they want. Perhaps comparing the Salarians to Pokemon trainers is a bit of a stretch since the Salarians seem to be attempting to do serious, scientific work for the good of the galaxy, but the comparison is still hilarious.
All of their manipulation and study of various species seem to come from a deep desire to understand the universe in general, and evolution specifically. They even seem to have gone beyond the study of evolution to the ability to direct it. As has been stated before, this puts them in the category of “playing god” in the galactic sandbox. However, even the existence of this science facility in ME:3 shows that they there are still plenty of things they don’t understand.
A very profound insight comes from talking to Padok Wiks about his work when you encounter him on this level. He states that after all his work trying to study and understand evolution, he wants change his focus from manipulating species at the Pokemon Lab to understanding the “underlying principle” driving evolution. Well isn’t that interesting. All this work devoted to a theory of how life comes about in the universe and his conclusion is that there’s something else underneath that theory that seems to be guiding the course of life.
This illustrates one path from an evolutionary view of live to a creationist view. Evolution does a great job of providing one possible explanation of how life works. It does not, however, answer the question of why. If you follow evolutionary thinking to it’s extreme, you see that our very existence is dependent on chance and it leads to plenty more questions.
We evolved from lesser animals. Those animals evolved from lower lifeforms. Those lifeforms just happened to come about through progressively more complex adaptations. The Earth itself became a suitable environment for life by chance. The debris and particles that formed Earth first came together through cosmic coincidence after the Big Bang. The Big Bang is what set everything off in the first place. So…what happened before the Big Bang? If that was the start of everything, was the universe just empty? So are we to believe that all life and matter originated from a single entity? Somehow when you follow evolution back to it’s logical origin, you get something that sounds awfully similar to monotheism. Interesting.
Perhaps that is what Padok Wiks realized would be the logical explanation for all life. Or maybe the “underlying principle” really is an intelligent creator. (Within the story he’s likely referring to the bigger reveal at the end of the game, but we’ll get to that in another post.) His scientific inquiry led him to something beyond measurable science. How often does that happen in our scientific pursuits? If science is truly curious about all possible explanations, why does a single, intelligent creator get dismissed as religious nonsense so easily?
Paul reasoned for faith in God in Acts 17 by quoting a secular source when he said, “In him we live and move and have our being.” If God is real, then his truth will penetrate even our feeble human attempts to explain life apart from him. An honest and open pursuit of science will lead to the “underlying principle” of God’s truth.
Questions:
What is your understanding of the beginning of life?
Do unanswered “big questions” drive you towards or away from God?
How off base is my simple explanation of evolution and the origin of the universe? Please correct me.
Bonus picture:
I wanted a second picture in this post to fit the Mass Effect/Pokemon connection. Google Images did not disappoint.
In the next post we’ll finally tackle the dramatic and controversial ending to this final chapter of the Mass Effect trilogy.
This is the last week of posts on the Mass Effect Trilogy. All this week we’re breaking down the epic finale in Mass Effect 3. This is perhaps the closest a review on this site has been written to the release of a game, so expect serious SPOILERS. Today we’re examining Shepard’s quest to unite the galaxy to fight off the Reaper invasion.
Commander Shepard’s goal in Mass Effect 3 is to unite all of the various races together to prevent their extinction by the Reapers. If you’ve been paying attention at all during the course of these three games, you’ll remember that not everyone really gets along all that well. The Krogans are still peeved at the Salarians and Turians for attempting to exterminate them. The Rachni are suspicious of basically everyone because they were exterminated and almost exterminated again (in a Paragon play-through). The Quarians are still determined to destroy the Geth, no matter how sentient they seem, and the Geth just want to be left alone. And of course, the Citadel Council still doesn’t really care a whole lot about humanity and their plight.
What’s a Commander to do? He has to abandon the war for the survival of humanity so he can go be all diplomatic with these disconnected races.
The Turians: “We’re not helping humanity until we get some help on our home planet, which is being destroyed by Reapers.”
The Krogans: “We’re not helping the Turians until the Salarians help us fix the genophage.”
The Salarians: “We’re not helping the Krogans because if the geonphage is cured they’ll just take over everything again.”
And so on and so forth as every species in the galaxy crosses their arms and sits down in a corner with a defiant “Humphf!”
So Shepard has to go around to each one to help them out and convince them that working together is really to everyone’s benefit as far as surviving the Reapers. He’s trying to address all these complex social issues and help them realize that their fates are connected and they’re all in the same galactic boat. Actually, this is kind of starting to sound like…
That just happened.
So just take that picture above, replace Zach Efron with Commander Shepard. Replace his lady friend with your romantic interest of choice. Now, fill in the other background characters with an assortment of races from the Mass Effect galaxy.
If you think about it, Commander Shepard is just trying to help everyone get along so they can meet up at the Citadel to have a big dance party and overcome their differences. And when it’s done, instead of having defeated the prejudice of high school social groups, they will have defeated an ancient race of sentient machines.
The story hits home because there is so much strife and conflict between us humans in real life. This is symbolized by the squabbles Shepard manages between the races of Mass Effect. There’s a longing in all of us for us to finally just get over our petty differences and get along since it is indeed true that we’re all in this together. But Mass Effect is coming from a secular view. How does a Biblical view respond?
The Unified Rebellion
There was a time in ancient history when humanity did overcome their differences and pool their resources for a big project. Unfortunately, that project was to overthrow God. Genesis 11:1-9 tells the story of the Tower of Babel. When humanity got their act together, they decided to make a name for themselves rather than give glory to God. Their effort was so successful that God intervened directly by confusing their languages so that they couldn’t cooperate as easily. While humanity can come together around a shared purpose, that purpose will fail if it is not devoted to God. No matter how well we work together, we can never overthrow our Creator.
The Unified Mission
The formation of the early church was rocky, but extraordinary. Suddenly, following God wasn’t reserved only for the Jews, but for all people. This caused complications as it brought together very different people groups. But the story of the early church as told in Acts points out with one example after another of how God breaks through cultural boundaries with his unifying message of love and hope. Jews are giving up their strict dietary laws to hang out with non-Jews. Gentiles (read: non-Jews, non-believers) are actually reading the Old Testament, trying to know God better. Roman soldiers are actually seeking out believers in Jesus to learn more and ask for miracles. People of all kinds are getting saved left and right, and for every person saved is a family, and each of those family members spreads the message along until the church’s growth explodes.
When people come together against God, it will always fail. When God brings people together for His purpose, they become an unstoppable force. This unified group that God has formed provides each individual with the help and support to further the shared mission of spreading the gospel. God built this community for our mutual benefit so that we may know him better and love each other more. We Christians don’t have to go out on this mission alone because, just like Commander Shepard is trying to tell everyone, we’re all in this together.
Questions:
How have you been built up or torn down by a community of people?
What’s the most powerful thing you’ve seen a group of people accomplish by working together?
When you read we’re all in this together, are you singing it in your head?
Bonus video:
We’ll return to a discussion about the universe and evolution in the next post when we look again at our friends the Salarians.
