[Mass Effect 3] Conrad Verner

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. This first post on Mass Effect 3 will look at the bumbling supporting character Conrad Verner and his relationship with Commander Shepard.

Commander Shepard has a fan club, his name is Conrad Verner. There are many possible branching options in regard to this character, but for the sake of this post I will follow my experience in which I made Paragon choices and he was in all three games. Conrad’s story can be both a warning and an example for us.

The Warning

Hero worship is a very common concept for humanity. As long as there have been might warriors or inspiring leaders, there have been less-intelligent lackeys who will follow close behind. We all need heroes, as Aunt May so aptly points out, and this is the very reason why Cerberus resurrected Shepard in ME:2. The galaxy could only unite if there was a common hero that everyone would follow.

But there is a danger to putting any other human on a pedestal. Role models and mentors are great, but lifting someone up to the level of worshiping them, as Conrad Verner does, will lead to ruin. This level of hero worship is played out in many ways in our culture. Just think of Bieber Fever, the guy who’s car is covered in Obama stickers, the sports lover who has 14 versions of their favorite player’s jersey, any George Lucas/Star Wars fan before the prequel trilogy…and the list could go on.

The Christian thinker John Calvin said that the human heart is an idol factory. This means that if there’s something that we think is even remotely worth worshiping, we will do so to the extreme. For Conrad Verner, this was his downfall since his desire to emulate Shepard led to his gruesome death by bus accident in one possible outcome, or his involvement with Cerberus in ME:3. He caught wind that Shepard did it, so he did it too, only to find out that Cerberus was bad.

"I heard that you had jumped off a cliff and I was gonna do that, but then I heard you joined Cerberus so I did that instead."

Worship is not bad, but the object of your worship is important. Commander Shepard could be a worthy person to emulate, but Conrad mindlessly worshiped him and caused harm to himself and others. If you’re going to worship someone or something, make it be something that is perfect, unchanging, and lasting.

The Example

For all of Conrad’s buffoonery and mistakes, his character is masterfully redeemed in one possible outcome in ME:3. While he has joined Cerberus with their shady business, he has also made something of himself by obtaining a doctoral degree in xenoscience. Suddenly, Conrad has a little something to offer the galaxy.

In my playthrough, there’s this incredible scene where Shepard has a list of things he needs and Conrad just happens to have the corresponding information that Shepard is missing. It’s as if all of Conrad’s lifes’s work has led to this point where he interacts with Shepard and Shepard is able to use that towards the building of the Crucible. He has spent his entire life producing what amounts to be a few small things in the grand scheme of the saving of the galaxy. These bits of information only add a few points to the all-important Effective Military Strength bar. But Shepard is indeed able to use the information, despite it’s relative insignificance. That information is used to help the most important project for the survival of the galaxy.

There’s a popular story in the Bible of Jesus using a few fish and loaves to feed thousands of people, with enough food miraculously appearing for there to be leftovers. One minor detail in this story is that the original small amount of food was provided by a little boy. It was probably his lunch or the contents of a small grocery trip which Jesus took and made into a feast for what would otherwise have probably been a music festival.

The dynamic between Conrad and Shepard is reminiscent of how we relate to God. We have but little to offer the all-powerful God of the universe with our poor mortal efforts. In fact, God doesn’t even need us at all, but he chooses to use us anyway, just so we’ll be included. Like that boy, we only have a small contribution to offer. But that contribution placed in God’s hands can be multiplied exponentially through his power and for his purpose.

One thing Conrad Verner did get right was that he made his life’s purpose revolve around a person. When we do this, our time and energy and skills go towards the worship and advancement of that person. We must consider what will become of our contributions and what all of our sacrifices are going towards. Many of us will be like Conrad Verner and worship a person, but we must choose that person carefully.

Questions:

Who inspires you? Who do you worship?

What small contributions have you made to something that brought about more than you expected?

We’ll continue to look at the greater war effort in Mass Effect 3’s story in the next post.

[Mass Effect: Races] The Reapers

This is Mass Effect March! In honor of the release of Mass Effect 3, this entire month is devoted to digging into this epic trilogy. We’ll explore the different races, themes, and some major story arcs. At the end of the month we’ll cap things off with a week of posts on Mass Effect 3 to see how everything is resolved (or not). This week we examine the Reapers and begin to try to figure out their plans.

The Reapers are undoubtedly one of the most awesome and powerful enemies in gamer lore. They are machines, but they are also sentient beings. They walk the line between living beings and inanimate objects. This concept is so difficult to comprehend, the Galactic Council wouldn’t acknowledge them as a threat.

We learn that the Reapers destroyed the Protheans, the most advanced civilization at the time, and left behind less-advanced races like humanity. The Reapers follow a cycle in which they allow a species to develop and grow until they are eventually harvested by the Reapers when they come back. As we learn from Mass Effect 2, part of the Reapers’ plan is to use human bio-matter to build a special Reaper that they will unleash on humanity. This Reaper is human-shaped, just to add insult to injury.

"The Human-Reaper is people!!!"

This manipulation of life in the galaxy alongside the Protheans’ destruction and the Geth’s deification of them make them seem god-like within the Mass Effect universe. The game seeks to make the player feel a sense of powerlessness and dread at the thought of the Reapers because of their unstoppable power. Perhaps even instill a fear of…god?

But the Reapers are not gods. In fact, they’re just as mortal as the rest of us and they’re subject to the same constraints as the rest of the universe. They can’t be everywhere and do everything, so they have to manipulate others to accomplish their will. As we see with the Collectors, even that doesn’t always work out. The Reapers cannot create life, their history has shown that they only manipulate what life already exists. They can destroy life and encourage it’s re-growth in a certain direction using the mass effect relays, but they cannot make a new organic creature. They kill, then wait.

The Reapers are really nothing more than really advanced, efficient predators. There exists in the Mass Effect galaxy a giant complex food chain. The Reapers are undoubtedly at the top of that food chain. Like any predator, their survival is dependent on feeding on or using the creatures further down the ladder. In the end, their sole purpose is to dominate and consume. The Reapers have been described as looking squid-like because of the shape of their bodies and the tentacles. But based on their purpose and nature, they actually resemble something else: a reaching hand.

Nom nom nom nom Earth!

In the above image from the Mass Effect 3 trailer, the Reapers seem like giant hands reaching down to earth to take and consume. Is that really all that impressive? Is that the pinnacle of galactic existence? Granted they’re above us on the food chain, but they’re only just another creature doing what it must do to survive. Humanity’s survival or demise seems to rely on the appetite and desire of a more advanced predator in the environment. That makes their existence as well as ours equally meaningless, we’re both equal participants in a meaningless cycle. This evolutionary understanding of life leads to impotent “gods” and a sense of purpose that goes no farther than survival.

In spite of the world view in Mass Effect, our reality does have a God whose purpose far surpasses simple survival. The Reapers’ mythology echos that of Greek mythology where petty gods seem to “need” the devotion and praise of us mortals. Our God is not like that. He is one who is worthy and deserving of praise, but he by no means needs our worship. It is comforting to know that we have a God that exists happily on his own without requiring our devotion or efforts. A God who doesn’t need us is a God who is powerful enough to take care of us when we need him. Revelation 21:6 says, “And he [God] said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.'” God was before us and he will be there after us and so he is the only one capable of giving us the water of life.

There are some mysteries yet to be learned about the Reapers, but those must wait until Mass Effect 3.

Next time we’ll take one last look at the overall Mass Effect universe before diving into Mass Effect 3. The question at hand is this: What does it mean to live in a universe built on principles of survival?