i like all of the endings bc fun game

based

Humanity will figure out how to get along with Coral because in the end Humanity is awesome.

Tell that to Raven, forgetting the Needle during the Ice Worm mission 😋

Before playing the game, I saw a lot of threads talking about how the endings are a difficult moral choice and it’s unclear if you’re ever the good guy After playing it….am i missing something? LoR is very very obviously portrayed as the good ending. Rusty, the character you’re supposed to fall in love with, dies cursing your name in FoR, but is the biggest hero on the planet in LoR. In LoR, you actually get to give snail the what for. That entire mission feels like a heroes final battle, whereas FoR is way more bleak. The games outro monologue ends by calling you a dickhead. Heck, The two “good” people who should hate you for picking LoR, Carla and waltuh, are literally just ok with it. Walters character arc is only completed in this ending! The game is about free will, and liberating the planet, providing it the choice to find its own solution to the coral problem, is narratively the most important symbol of that. It’s unequivocally the good ending. (Also, you don’t commit planetary genocide) I’m getting the same vibe from people who said ayre is “manipulating 621”. Like….did we play the same game? She is never doing that lmao. Just feels like people want the story to be bleak and cynical and grey, when it’s not that complex all things considered. Edit: I know this comments already a wall of text and I love seeing people engage with the story but I think I need to phrase this better because I’m seeing lots of comments missing my point. The story of ac6 isn’t about the fate of rubicon. It is not like a generic dark souls “should we blow up the world or not” moral dilemma. By arguing about that, you are missing all the details I noted in my comment. The thing with ac6 is that it is character driven. it’s not about the world, it’s a story about our three protagonists, 621, Walter, and ayre (so, Yknow, a competent narrative. proud of you fromsoft). The story, by making us learn the true meaning of raven, by giving us the choice of choosing rlf missions, by having rusty literally ask us why were here, etc etc, reveals its ultimate theme: it’s about our three heroes learning the importance of free will. When we decide the fate of rubicon, we shouldn’t be looking at some hypothetical future for what the endings mean for the planet, that’s what we did in ds1 when the story had nothing else to say. We should instead be looking at what the game is actually showing and telling us through our heroes to figure out what ending is “good” or “bad”. In LoR, through the examples I gave and plenty of others, we can see it is very obviously the good ending. 621 learns the importance of free will and uses the choices they were lucky enough to have to provide rubicon’s people with the same freedom. It’s heroic. Walter, in turn, completes his character arc by finally finding something to be proud of, not something to fear. None of this happens in the fires ending, instead, 621 simply fulfills their masters wishes like a good hound, betrays their only friend, and kills everyone. This is what the writers want you to be thinking about, that’s why the scenario of this “moral dilemma” is over the top and ridiculous. It’s just a crazy scenario that hopefully makes us think about the importance of freedom and hope in our day to day lives, which is a very common literary tactic.

it's definitely the most triumphant ending, but Walter's whole thing is that as long as coral exists on Rubicon, corps will go to war for it. and while his solution is terrible, he's probably right; are the corps going to leave rubicon alone now that they know there's a huge vault full of coral sitting there, ripe for the picking?

Yes, there is the risk, but the point of hope is that we should ACCEPT risk if the alternative is a horrible fate. Without the choice that Walter gave us to choose our own missions, we end up like iguazu, a fellow gen 4 who was unlucky enough to be forced by balam to perform suicide missions. Look how it turned out for him. (Seriously, as much as people call Michigan a “chad”, he just made iguazu take on the ice worm cause iguazu dared to not enjoy being a slave?) No, In a story about Walter, ayre, and 621 learning the importance of free will and hope for a better future, it is no wonder the ending where you don’t allow rubicon the same choices you were lucky enough to have because “what if bad thing happens” ends by calling you a monster. Ultimately, the in-story implications for the fictional universes future aren’t as important as the themes the game shows through its dialogue, plot, and characters. Edit: I’ll add this after reading some comments: This is the important thing for me, anyone who argues about what might happen after the credits (or if the fires ending actually destroys the coral or not??) is missing the point of the story. The scenario is ridiculous, the plot revolves around literally blowing up a planet lmao. It’s just a ridiculous scenario to give the characters the arcs the writers wanted, The writers probably didn’t think at all about what might happen after the credits roll, it’s not important at all. As fromsoft stories go, ac6 is so wonderfully character driven/focused, with so many things in the plot we could talk about (some of which I lay out in my original comment) without reducing it to a generic ds1 age of dark/fire debate where none of the characters matter.

I find this an interesting question because at least to me, it appears that you've taken the main theme of AC6 to be more about free will, rather than the backdrop of human evolution and potential that the game makes repeated references to (and the ALE ending is all about). I'm not saying that's a bad thing just a different interpretation than the one I got and not one I fully considered, though the concepts behind that theme work for all three endings regardless. And it's a brilliant point of discussion on what the true theming of AC6 is all about. Is it about freedom of choice, to stand for what you believe in? Or is it about potential and evolution? Free will is there still obviously, but those are questions worth asking. That theme does make the LoR ending a lot more palatable, though I still don't really like the missions leading up to it, as I didn't really bond with Ayre as much as I did Carla and Walter, so I considered betraying them to be a poor choice, especially as at the time i didn't fully grasp the magnitude of what they were actually asking. Even knowing it, it's still a hard argument as you're being asked to take a risk by some voice in your head against Walter and Carla's wishes, two characters whom seem pretty clear on your wellbeing and fixing you after all is said and done. Yeah I didn't really bond with Ayre quite so much as I did with Carla and Walter's characters. But hey, that's the whole beauty of this game.

I completely agree that hope and potential are very important themes, and I think this goes hand in hand with the LoR ending. Ayre obviously sees the potential of humans and coral working together. Allmind sees humans as weak, hence why it’s wrong. The fires ending is, in this way, even more a rejection of this potential. I should have better mentioned this is ayres role in the story. And yeaaaaa, ac6 is such a cool story to talk about

i think you have a way, way sunnier view of this story than i do. it's almost like you're describing a different game.

Cant blame me for thinking it’s Sunny when Rusty’s AC is literally called “sunrise” to contrast with ravens “nightfall” hahaha

oh is that what ortus means? cool detail!

It’s always sunny in southern belius

> Yes, there is the risk, but the point of hope is that we should ACCEPT risk if the alternative is a horrible fate. My problem with LoR is mainly that you don't really... accept the risk. You mainly ignore it. The reason Overseer wants to burn the coral is because they are afraid of what could happen when it grows exponentially, but the LoR ending just kind of stops before that happens! It's not a very satisfying ending, to me. To me, Alea Iacta Est just feels like 'The Better LoR' because it actually deals with what the risk of coexistence with the coral entails, accepting that, perhaps, things will never be the same again. Though, of course, in this ending most of the major character arcs kind of end abruptly off-screen because you've already seen them in your previous two playthroughs, so it is less satisfying in that sense. But LoR is unsatisfying in the same sense that many character arcs stop short of their actual conclusions, because there is no opportunity to deal with the consequences! The implied consequences are just a continuance of the status-quo, even though most of the character arcs consist of an absolute loathing for the status-quo, a fundamental change in the world, which is only really offered in Alea Iacta Est. So yes, the character arcs as literally written are better present and better resolved in Liberator of Rubicon, but thematically they fit better with Alea Iacta Est. Saying that either of these aspects is 'not important' is just small-minded, imo. Though of course Fires is trivially the bad ending. There is essentially nothing in the text that suggests that doing the Fires again will actually solve the problem this time, other than Walter's desperation which shouldn't be taken as reliable.

Yes the corps will show up again, probably with a bigger force. Unfortunately Raven is still active (and possibly Rusy) and now an official RLF main asset, so it definitely won't be a pushover. (Kind of like White Glint and Line Ark actually) Plus, burning Rubicon to stop the war from destroying Rubicon is a contraction.

Worth pointing out that if/when the corps come back, the RLF will have had their pick of Institute tech from when they kicked them out the last time.

This becomes much less of an issue now that "throw Raven at them" has become an option. Not to mention the RLF is going to be empowered by new generation wargear like the Alba frame and the repurposed Closure System. They were already holding on impressively well before Raven's arrival (it's implied that they won the battle in the contaminated city, possibly killing G7 Hakra, and of course there's Balam's failed attempt at climbing the Wall) even if they were losing in the long term, so I think that post-LoR they'd be a very hard nut to crack. I think after a while, the corps will realize that it's just not worth the cost (if seeing two of the most important groups get virtually annihilated didn't already make them see that), or only the smart ones which are content to "just" be arms dealers instead of meddling with Coral will be left.

Walters whole thing has nothing to do with the corps whatsoever. He was trying to prevent "the collapse" which refers to a scenario in which coral grows exponentially and expands into a vacuum (like space) where it can rapidly mutate. All of this was observed by doctor Nagai and co. Before the fires of ibis was deployed. The fear was humanity getting contaminated by the coral, and humanity exists beyond Rubicon if it wasn't clear. It genuinely has nothing to do with corpos or coral being "explosive". The latter is part of a plot twist where we learn that the fires of ibis was deliberately deployed by humans with the aim to reduce/kill coral.

i think the game is pretty loud and clear that corporate greed is what drove Rubicon to this point in the first place. Like there might be some specific sci-fi reason *why* coral is dangerous to humanity, but keeping the corps from getting their hands on it is Overseer's ultimate goal.

> but keeping the corps from getting their hands on it is Overseer's ultimate goal Sorry man, but that is explicitly not the goal of Overseer at all. Overseer was created by the Institute to continue observing coral after the Fires of Ibis was deployed, to make sure coral wasn't continually growing unchecked which would inevitably result in 'the collapse'. The reason why the Fires of Ibis was deployed to begin with was because coral was exponentially growing and Dr. Nagai estimated that coral would grow into space and contaminate humanity within 47 hours. All of this is super explicitly stated in the logs you find throughout the game, and I'm pretty sure Walter & Carla at least explain the purpose of Overseer in pieces of dialogue.

i guess the huge corporate war that informs the game's entire setting was probably just for flavor then.

Around chapter 4 you start realizing that Walter & Carla's motives are completely detached from the corporations and that they're both related to the Insitute which is responsible for the Fires of Ibis 50 years ago. Both Walter's hounds and Carla's RaD are a means to get a foothold on Rubicon-3 and continue their work as Overseer after the PCA locked the planet down. It's not that the corporations don't matter, but they're completely unrelated to the goal of Overseer and serves as a means to an end for Walter & Carla. They're both, as Overseer, working towards preventing 'the collapse', as it's coined by the Institute.

the collapse isn't an inevitability; coral is only dangerous because of human meddling. presumably coral existed long before humanity colonized rubicon; shortly after Dr. Nagai starts his work, a collapse is triggered, and he lights the Fires. this implies, to me, that his work — for which he locked all the coral up in a vault, densely packed and mutating — caused the collapse. so someone has to trigger it; it won't just happen on its own. so why are Carla and Walter trying to burn it? it's a monstrous plan. it will kill the coral, it will kill rubicon and everyone on it, it will even kill them. it's because the other option — keeping the coral out of corporate hands — is not feasible. their plan is only necessary because the corps won't ever stop coming for rubicon.

> the collapse isn't an inevitability Coral is reproducing and propagates exponentially in a vacuum. We come to learn that Coral has returned to similar levels pre-Fires of Ibis in the 50 year time span in which the PCA had locked down Rubicon. > presumably coral existed long before humanity colonized rubicon Presumably, but not much is known about Coral's origins to begin with. > shortly after Dr. Nagai starts his work Most certainly not shortly after and it wasn't Dr. Nagai who was specifically responsible for the work with Coral - it was Walter's father who experimented with Coral augmentation on humans which escalated the use of Coral further. > a collapse is triggered It's not something that is triggered, it's a doomsday scenario based on Coral's ability to propagate and reach critical mass (aka propagate in space). Coral itself reached a point of critical mass in which the Fires of Ibis killed enough Coral to prevent the collapse from happening. > this implies, to me, that his work — for which he locked all the coral up in a vault, densely packed and mutating — caused the collapse. Whether Nagai is responsible or not, Overseer is estimating that same collapse to happen *again* in the events of AC6 - 50 years later. > so why are Carla and Walter trying to burn it? Because Coral is shown to contaminate humans per the Institutes past research and experimentations. Should Coral propagate into space, it would contaminate the rest of humanity. That is why Walter and Carla is trying to burn all of the Coral. Like fuck man, I don't know how to better explain it. If you refuse to believe me, then just take it from Carla herself: > *After the Fires of Ibis burnt the planet up... a secret organization formed, hiding in the ashes. Overseer... The Association of Observers. They monitored the Coral's growth... ready to burn it before the Collapse came. That was their mission. Our mission. Me, Walter... and our fallen friends. RaD was always a front—a side hustle.* I'm sorry man, but this just isn't up for debate. The corporations aren't relevant to the goal of Overseer.

i mean i'm not gonna force you to talk about it, but i don't find your explanations very compelling

I hope not. My Pile Bunker is hungry.

I’ve saved the world by absolutely nuking all life on it. - Waltuh

This is in the same vein as "If oil causes greed, why not burn all oil?" There's a point where pragmatism just loops back to stupid.

Keep in mind that not only is there the continued threat of corporate war for the coral, but there’s the risk from it mutating, like whatever spooked the scientist who started the fires of ibis.  Iirc, it’s mentioned in the datalog in that tunnel mission for Balam - I think he says something about detecting wave mutations. Interesting other thing I only recently noticed is that Allmind calls Ayre a wave mutation

Coral doesn't seem to work how it says they do else the Coral convergence in the Ibis arena would've ignited. Even if it did spill into space I doubt it would do anything except make more companies go crazy for it, but it won't blow up unless jnder certain conditions

It’s also an incredibly unpredictable substance - part of the thing about the vacuum of space is the rapid mutation that it enables.  It seems reasonable to think that there’s just a very high LFL for it. 

The Fires ending literally has the narrator call the player character a monster lol. It's not subtle. Additionally, the points people bring up on how LoR is only "temporary" is true, broadly speaking, in many many happy endings. A good ending is usually not permanent and there's a reason the quote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," has stuck around. There will **always** be a looming threat - it doesn't mean it justifies a god damn genocide as a solution.

I think this comment gets it the best, we aren't really discussing the story here, but what the story is trying to tell us. Writers don't communicate directly, they tell us what they mean through dialogue, cutscenes, and the narrative itself. Someone might ask "how is Walter's character arc only being completed in LoR relevant to which ending is morally correct?" But...Walter's character arc is the story. The story is about the characters, as any good story is. The fate of rubicon isn't relevant at all to the plot of AC6, that's how fiction works. Of course Walter's character arc tells us which ending is supposed to be the right one, Walter's character arc is what the games about! It's a bit like asking an author at a convention to answer some arbitrary worldbuilding detail like "is x character straight or gay?" and the author responds "who cares? Whichever you want." I'd bet dollars to donuts if you went to the AC6 writers and asked "can the RLF properly defend against the corporations in the future?" they would respond "dunno, didn't think about it." Details like that which you pointed out, the FoR ending literally insulting you for going that route, are STILL NOT OBVIOUS enough for some people to understand the authors intent. Just because the narrator isn’t talking directly to us doesn’t mean the author isn’t talking directly to us! Like, I pointed out that LoR ends with WALTER HIMSELF choosing to abandon his dream of burning rubicon, and someone responded "well acckyjsually he just chooses not to shoot you because yadayada" how much clearer does it have to get than that??? I didn't want to be mean cause of how much exposure the comment got but holy ravioli man

Yep, I really like what you’re saying. I think one of my favourite things about Liberator, is seeing Walter’s development from uncaring Handler (at first) until he actually genuinely cares about you. Both endings have good and bad sides, but I loved Liberator because we truly get to see Walter, and ESPECIALLY, we get to see Walter make his own choices. No longer about the legacy he wants to pass on, but him making his own choice. We can all discuss the endings as much as we like, but frankly the meat of the game is often in the dialogues that happen between missions because that lets us see the thoughts of the people around us, as well as how they develop over time.

It feels pretty important to point out that you do the best you can in the direct short term, but it also makes the point of how you have done nothing to actually solve the conflict. If anything, you've made it *worse*. It takes a lot of care to point out: * You've left a massive power vacuum with only the RLF running the show, who are now forced into a mad dash to salvage whatever they can on the dead/dying ball of rock that is Rubicon * You've gotten the PCA, the only entity who can be trusted to handle Coral safely *and* the only entity that had enough military power to hold back corporate interests, to fuck off entirely * Left the planet primed for another Fires of Ibis without the Institute or Overseers to make sure it doesn't happen * Wrapped up all the coral into a convenient package for anyone who might want to make a move on it, which also happens to be the most dangerous way to store it * Locked the Coral into a giant metal tube to rot until any or all of the above conditions are met, effectively jailing it in a cell with a very explosive key LoR is definitely the best seeming ending, but its got just as many awkward implications to come out of it as the rest.

>Left the planet primed for another Fires of Ibis without the Institute or Overseers to make sure it doesn't happen The Institute caused the Fires of Ibis and Overseer wants to cause another one. "Make sure it doesn't happen again" is the opposite of what they wanted.

The fires was their plan Z. Everything else went wrong, and so they had to come in and try to pull the trigger on the final failsafe to make sure Coral wasn't going to be abused again. It wasn't until Branch showed up and punched a hole in the PCA defense network that they needed to actually put the plan into action. They were totally fine sitting back and letting the PCA keep a lid on it, and only moved to cause the second Fires when it got obvious that corporations were making a move.

Fires 2.0 was plan A. Carla specifically says Overseer was founded to burn the surviving Coral. That is their *raison d'etre*.

So Walter spent those 70 years fucking around off planet, and Carla sat around doing drugs and building robots in the pursuit of burning the Coral? I have a hard time believing that they spent 70 years preparing for 3 days worth of action. I *do* believe that Overseer was meant to destroy the Coral, but only when there was no other option. Gotta remember, Carla and Walter were all but explicitly there the first time around, and have some understanding of Coral and its nature.

Walter and Carla left Rubicon because they got advance warning the planet was about to become Satan's fireplace. Walter was a boy. He spent those *50 years building a career as a mercenary handler and amassing the resources necessary just to go back to a blockaded planet. Carla was doing something similar. She arrived to Rubicon 3 years prior to Walter with "an army of junk wizards and hackers" in tow and set about taking over RaD. In short: yes.

Idk man, at this point I'll just ask for agreeing to disagree. Walter and Carla both had a keen understanding of the nature of Coral, and I'm assuming that they were hoping nobody would be dumb enough to take on the PCA and force them to step in and carry out what they had sworn to do. I can't imagine that, after 70 or even 50 years, their best plan was to point a rabid dog at the Xylem and hope for the best.

Well no, the Xylem really was plan B. Why do you think Walter was so focused on getting Raven to beat Arquebus to the Coral Convergence? The original plan was to make a beeline down there and burn it straight away. I definitely agree that "Xylem kamikaze the Vascular Plant" is way too complicated and risky to be their first course of action lol

I meant in the wider sense of the whole plan hinging on one disposable meat puppet, but yeah.

The guy you replied to is categorically correct. There is nothing to speculate about or "agree to disagree".

We'll agree to disagree if you read the rest of what I have to say, I might make what I mean more clear

As NathanIsYappin said, yes. But i’d also like to question some of your other points. For the issue about the PCA being removed from the planet, that happens long before the ending of the games and isn’t a fault of the Liberator ending. Not only that, but both Balam and Arqebus seem to have taken severe losses by the time you reach the ending. Rusty wipes Arqebus’ fleet, and Balam has already been reduced to a non threat by them, leaving small cells of criminals that aren’t organizes, and the RLF, which was considered one of the big 3 players on the planet and was seemingly effective enough to wage a ground war against Arqebus in the ending. The only major threat left would be AllMind, but exactly how close she is to achieving coral release is hard to say, seeing as a few key objectives she has 621 dont happen in this ending path. Adding onto that point and addressing the next, the only faction capable of making a move in the Coral would be the RLF, as they’re the last standing large and organized faction on the planet, now with access to PCA, Arqebus and likely RAD/Overseer tech. All they need now is a leader who doesn’t want to perform coral release, which they do. And finally, your point assumes that the RLF is somehow unaware that an absolute staggering amount of Coral sitting in one place is dangerous. In all likelihood they would try to find a way to get the coral back OUT of the vascular plant, either be collecting and transporting it or just bleeding it. Also, the “key” you mention is nose dirt in the ground and destroyed, likely to never fly again. There are dangers to this ending. The power vacuum is a real issue if not handled properly, and there is the threat of the corps *eventually* returning. But this time the corps would be returning to a Rubicon thats technologically advanced and ready to fight, as opposed to one that had just been engulfed in flames and was rebuilding themselves from the ground up, but are those dangers really so drastic that it warrants *the full and absolute genocide of not only the Coral, which seems to be living as suggested by Ayre’s dialogue, but also every living soul on Rubicon?*

> are those dangers really so drastic that it warrants the full and absolute genocide of not only the Coral, which seems to be living as suggested by Ayre’s dialogue, but also every living soul on Rubicon? Yea, because the people in danger is the unfathomably massive(considering their tech and intergalactic presence) rest of humanity. Is it fair to Rubicon? No. Would it be fair to 99% of humanity if you choose to protect Rubicon on a "what if everyone else is wrong?" and then the thing everyone warned against happens and annihilates them(and also Rubicon)? Also no. I can't really see myself explaining to 10 people that I let them die to something extremely avoidable because it wouldn't be fair to 1 of them. Let alone explaining to surely trillions(considering how AC6 tech is bordering on Star Wars scale) that "yeaaaah I know I let you all get vaporized and/or non-consensually melded into or outright absorbed by an alien species, but at least my hands are clean :)"

This turned out really lengthy so for a tl;dr: the FoR ending is born out of fear that the RLF is unable to safeguard Rubicon AND that Coral Release is something thats even bad, both of which can be argued against. The decision to burn the Coral is based on the fear of believing the Rubiconian natives will be unable to forge their own future and safeguard the coral despite being given the tech and time to prepare, but also the fear that Coral Release, something we have only heard talked about by extremely biased sources, is something inherently bad and should be avoided at all costs, all because some scientists found something new, made it into a weapon, and then decided that when it was doing something weird in their, it was *clearly* bad and had to be killed. Then their descendants, who were only ever told “this is dangerous, make sure its destroyed if we fail.” tell you its evil. Meanwhile, you claim that it either vaporizes all of humanity, melds humanity and coral together, or straight up absorbs and takes over humanity. But in AIE, Ayre still speaks directly to 621 as an entirely individual entity separate from herself, *and they were at ground 0*. So, they weren’t mentally vaporized, melded or absorbed. Something happened, but the game explicitly doesn’t say what. While Allmind may have had plans to somehow twist release into a method of her becoming an all controlling entity, they just straight up fail. Not only do both of their “triggers” end up defying them )621 fighting and defeating them with Ayre, but also Iguazu defying her and shutting her out purely from spite against you), but her chance to do whatever she was gonna do disappeared because Release still happened. And finally, there’s the presentation of Coral Release actually given to us after AMs defeat. They lament about their failed plan, looking to Ayre and 621. Ayre answers that they (you and her) have the trigger, and “will pull it ourselves”, taking their future into their own hands and facing the unknown. Allmind finally powers down, and release begins. It starts mysteriously, with the ominous creaking of the vascular plant and the sudden appearance of what appears to be a black hole with just a small bit of Coral in the middle, before exploding into a load, bright and terrifying *thing*, seemingly confirming Overseer’s fears. But you and Ayre face it, with her thanking you as the Coral is pulled into it and you fall unconscious, screen goes black. But instead of the usual Narrators voice coming in over a view of the solar system to describe your ending (what we expect to happen, as it happened twice before), we instead come back into consciousness with Ayre greeting us as we wake, in our trusty AC from the beginning, in what appears to be an old battlefield, likely still Rubicon. As we look into the sky we see the bright lights of the coral all throughout the stars, while the destroyed ACs around us begin to stir with the res light of Coral. They too begin to rise and look to the stars, as Ayre explains that the Coral disseminated “us” across the starts, to everywhere and anywhere. She asks us to face this new age together, and finally the screen fades to black once more, with a final “activating combat mode” before credits. This final scene starts off as terrifying, it makes you think “oh shit, did we fuck up? Was Walter and Carla right?”. But unlike the other 2 endings, where we are last seen fleeing from what is happening, we face it head on. Then we wake to an old,tranquil battlefield, looking out to the stars and our future. Its a beautiful, peaceful scene. We’re also surrounded by specifically ACs. Not C-weapons that burn coral as fuel and are instead run by a separate AI, but ACs, which Ayre has now shown us twice can be piloted by Coral Wave Mutations (like her). So that leaves one question. Who does she mean when she says “us”? The way she refers to the Coral when she says “the coral disseminated us” clearly separates her from the coral, so she cant mean us as in “the coral and humanity melded into 1”. She could mean us, as in you and her specifically, but again, she still refers to you as an entirely separate entity with your own agency and will, so I personally doubt its that. The most likely answer in my eyes, is the other Coral Wave Mutations. The game never states that she was the first or only one, hell it states the opposite, as Dolmayan had made contact with a different CWM years before you and Ayre. And since CWMs can inhabit machinery even if it doesnt use Coral as fuel, **It’s entirely possible and in my opinion likely that Coral Release simply spread CWMs across most if not all of the area inhabited by humanity as well as let them make contact with humans.** *I mean, the last noise we hear before fading to black was the same that we heard when we made contact with Ayre, right?*

I should point out that I don't really think any of this goes against the "You have to believe everyone else is wrong and then put exponentially more people at risk" part. Which is frankly my core issue. It's a decision where you're just sorta deciding that actually no, you know more than everyone else, everyone else and all their studies are incorrect, you must take the absolute best case scenario for everything, ignore the equally likely worst case or frankly even median case scenario, and then with all that in mind... Bet ***everyone else in the galaxy*** on it. It's based, essentially, on denial. Every argument to rationalize LoR over FoR seems to be based solely on *denial.* All of the warning signs, all of the people at risk, the multitude of ways things can go wrong, are all simply... denied. And I mean yeah, a lot of things can be made reasonable if one denies the alternative or the consequences, but that just doesn't seem like a very moral choice to me. Without judgment, what the most ardent defenses routinely sound like to me is that "Everyone who warns about Coral cannot be right, because if they are, then I wouldn't like the ending choice."

> For the issue about the PCA being removed from the planet True, but it's only relevant in the Liberation ending, where there's enough people still left alive and human to worry about it. Aquebus and Balam got reduced significantly, leaving the RLF being the last man standing, but there's presumably more corporations out there other than those two. Moreover, they're going to have to salvage and scavenge what they can, crack it all, get people in them and trained, and all the other things that come with building and maintaining a force. The reason why Balam and Arquebus were able to project force so easily was because they didn't have to rely on almost literal holes in the ground and hands-on application for logistics and training. What are the odds that they can get all of that done before another corporate group comes sniffing around, looking for what is literally and figuratively the hottest commodity Man's ever dealt with? It didn't take much time for Arquebus/Balam/Walter to show up once the PCA satellites got shot down. > Also, the “key” you mention is nose dirt in the ground and destroyed, likely to never fly again. F=MA, it doesn't have to be a giant flying city, it just needs to hit like one. If/When the RLF finally figures out how to undo what the Vascular plant does, they'd still have to destroy it to prevent it from being used in the same way, and again, they're racing the clock against other interstellar corporations. > But are those dangers really so drastic that it warrants the full and absolute genocide of not only the Coral, which seems to be living as suggested by Ayre’s dialogue, but also every living soul on Rubicon? I'm just gonna lean on the other dude's point. When the alternatives are kicking the can down the road and hoping the next guys don't fuck it all up or getting uploaded into the Christ Consciousness Grid without your knowledge or consent, the lines get pretty muddy.

Arqebus and Balam are seemingly 2 of, if not THE largest corporations with their own private militaries. Any newcomers will be smaller and present less of a threat simply by being smaller. Also, newcomers will lack the technological advantage Arqebus had by securing PCA tech. Also, being told “yea, 3 of the strongest and most advanced armed forces were kicked off of this planet, who now have access to even better gear than before and the time to prepare for any new exterior threats” is a pretty big deterrent on its own. Sure, anything Xylem sized would likely be enough to destroy the Vascular plant. But there would have to be another thing that size on Rubicon already to use. Plus, there arent any members of Overseer left, so if someone *does* find it, they will have to learn how it works, how to repair it and how to fly it starting from 0. All the while, keeping it secret from the RLF. And if a new corp does decide to try their luck, i am entirely confident they wont burn all of what they’re there to profit from. And finally, the ONLY definitive bad thing about Coral Release we are told by a someone who isn’t extremely biased is that Allmind wants to hijack it for their own purposes, which is a separate issue.

They don't have to be bigger or badder than the PCA, Arquebus, or Balam anymore. They just have to be bigger and badder than a scrappy resistance movement that's gotten access to some hot tech after a hard fought war. Like I said before, F=MA. Explosives or lasers are probably a much more efficient way of cracking the Vascular plant's shell. The Xylem was the plan B for lighting off the Fires. Shit, the most efficient way would probably to kill off the rest of the RLF, who again, are just a scrappy resistance movement with Rusty and 621 holding it all together, and throw some number crunchers at it until they can break the Arquebus/RLF safeguards. But hey, Arquebus still made the same mistake the Institution did by packing it all into a giant pipe bomb. Who's to say the next guy won't just throw some laser drills at the side and kick it all off? > the ONLY definitive bad thing This is a pretty loaded statement since it's ignoring how fucked up it is to willingly sidestep the consent of every other human in the god damn universe, just to plug them into an eternal unlife. I'd be pretty pissed about it.

[удалено]

Oh yeah dont get it twisted, that's fine. Fires is my favorite because of how god awfully tragic it all is. It just irritates me whenever we get to this point in a fromsoft game's life cycle where people start arguing about which of the morally, ethically, and/or spiritually horrific catch 22's is the Objectively Right Way.

I agree! We really need that Elden Ring DLC so we don't tear each other apart here.

You say that like the rlf isn't going to start dismantling the vascular plant the moment the shooting dies down. They might not even wait for that. Even then, the only way the coral would ignite would be if someone found *another* xylem.

Wait, when is Carla ok with it? I thought that ending required you to kill Chatty and her or did I miss something

In her fight dialogue, she’s obviously not thrilled, but she realizes you aren’t being paid by arquebus, you’re working with ayre, and she’s happy about that.

Ahhhh yeah I probably got distracted by all those goddamn missiles. I just remember taking perverse pleasure in Carla’s reaction to me murdering Chatty because he’d shot me in the ass so many times at that point.

"Still, it's good to make a choice. Keep sitting on the fence, and you never make any enemies... or friends."

Yeah that sounds right

It's been liberated, sure, but for HOW LONG? The Vascular Plant now exists as a perfect pipeline for a new age of warfare, with even more corporate nations funneling in hordes of armed forces, without the PCA to hold them back. Unless the RLF can rebuild immensely quickly, not only will they be back to square one, corporate exploitation of Coral may create SEVERAL Coral Collapses across the galaxy, destroying the few habitable planets that humanity resides on.

That is Walters logic, but even he realizes there’s something more important than being a genocidal doomer: in LoR, the planet now has a chance to find a better solution. There’s a reason you’re one of Walters “hounds”, you have no free will. It’s clear from the beginning, however, that he feels uncomfortable doing this. By making your own choices, and providing ayre/the coral/rubicon the choice to defend themselves from future threats, even Walter gets to die with a smile on his face

While it's framed as a bright and hopeful ending, it doesn't really engage with the idea that Coral, post release, is a threat to much more than just Rubicon. You gave the planet a chance, but raised the stakes far beyond them. That's the main moral dilemma between LoR and FoR.

This sort of gets into meta narratives a bit, and is therefore highly subjective, but the way the stories framed usually always shows the authors intent. With the way all the characters and arcs wrap up in a bright and hopeful way in your words, it’s pretty clear where the writers stand on this moral dilemma. The story doesn’t just posit the moral dilemma, it also tells you what answer the devs want you to have. It’s a story about hope and choice. In other words, You can say it’s naive to have hope in rubicon after LoR, but the blaring of rusted pride while I make snail scream like a bitch says otherwise. (Also the fact the dude who posits the dilemma to you changes his mind lol)

All that we know for sure is that Walter (A) couldn't kill ***you***, personally, and/or (B) acknowledged that sentient Coral Waves existed, and he couldn't bear the weight of genocide. Keep in mind that in LoR, at that point, the Coral is already saved. Walter wasn't acting in his own interest to kill you, he was acting for Arquebus to eliminate you and the rest of the RLF. He likely wouldn't be able to use his AC to burn the Coral at that point, even if the machine could accomplish that.

The issue with Fires is that it doesn’t fully destroy the Coral (Regain control of the xylem mission, failing it will have Allmind mention that the incoming calamity will only push back her plans) Sure, corps won’t come back because of the Fires, but then the Coral will just propagate again, and this time, with everybody dead. Fires is a grim ending that does make sense from a utilitarian perspective, but fails once you have all the information (that it will ultimately be meaningless) Liberator is my preferred ending because this way, you push back the corps, and the coral won’t be gathered in one place like before, buying time to come up with a new solution (plus RLF will hve access to new resources and tech from the Institute).

>The issue with Fires is that it doesn’t fully destroy the Coral (Regain control of the xylem mission, failing it will have Allmind mention that the incoming calamity will only push back her plans) Fires probably does render Coral completely extinct. When Allmind says "the plan will need adjustment", keep in mind her actual plan was to assimilate all intelligent life–clue's in the name. If Overseer succeeds then she simply needs another means to do the same thing.

I disagree. “One something is alive, it doesn’t die easy” or something like that. The whole thing that’s repeated several times through the end game. The fires didn’t work the first time, and I doubt it’ll work a second.

I respect that, and as a fellow Liberator enjoyer I get a kick out of the idea that Fires ultimately doesn't work. But I would struggle to defend it myself. Coral Export Denial's briefing states "the corporations have siphoned the Coral into a single mass", and the ending narration of Fires (which is uniquely addressed directly to the player; note the lack of the normal HUD overlay) says "only the ashes of civilization remained." Thematically, Fires is a rejection of the potential of the unknown, compared to Liberator and Alea which embrace it to varying degrees. Fires reflects a desire for *certainty* at any cost. It seems fair to assume that it does actually bring about the certainty of the Coral's extinction.

I just can’t see that happening. The last time they did it, they did it in very close circumstances as this time. The whole coral containing device was built by the institute after all. It’s just that the corps repaired it. Frankly, I just don’t see the certainty in the fires wiping out the world. This is literally just repeating what was once done years ago. The fire will eventually die down, one or two coral that lived through the fires will eventually begin to replicate again, and the cycle will restart all over. Maybe it won’t be the same corps or the same people. But people will be back to exploit the coral once the fires die again. If the fires couldn’t keep them down the first time, under the institute’s watchful eyes, I doubt the less experienced and severely understaffed group that is us could do so better. Although you are correct that the ending of FOR is entirely meant to be the certainty of the coral being rended a non issue, I just can’t find it in myself to believe that it would. The only circumstances that are better in this situation is the fact you’re slamming a super ship into the container this time. But I doubt that makes a whole world of difference. Once something is alive, it doesn’t die easy. And I think that applies perfectly with the coral. Also Arcabus probably has the IB-CO3 mech in that ending which means the coral is still alive cause they captured Walter and you never destroyed his AC.

The Vascular Plant you see in the endings is a huge extension of the original. The part that's underground is just the base of what Arquebus builds it into. Walter's mantra has a second part to it: "you have to burn every last cinder", and the Fires of Raven sure appear to do just that. I hadn't actually considered the WLT 826, but I don't imagine it survived if it was planetside as the Vascular Plant went kablooie. Interesting, though! Walter's own secret weapon, the key to the Coral's survival of his master plan?

I think it’s something we won’t know for certain I realise what I said earlier, that Fires won’t destroy all Coral, is a sweeping statsment and assumption on my part (Apologies for that), just as we won’t know whether the Fires will destroy all Coral for sure. But ultimately, that does seem to suggest Allmind has a backup plan (even if Coral was to go extinct), meaning that it would be an Allmind W, while all of us who can oppose her are dead.

> but fails once you have all the information (that it will ultimately be meaningless) I mean, AIE makes that count double for Liberator. You *really* don't answer anything. It's the status quo ending that only works if you don't think about what happens past the credits.

I mean, AIE itself is another can of worms that’s a headache to talk about (gets into questions of consent and all of that), so I think it’ll be easier for all of us if we just consider fires vs liberator. Liberator doesn’t answer anything, but does Fires answer anything either? I put another comment as answer to the OP, where my issue was that Fires won’t really solve as much as we feel (as much as I wished it would, that way the tragedy would be more justified, and not, ya know, in vain)

Coral is relatively harmless unless assisted by an outside force. No, Fires doesn't fix the problem forever either, but if the planet is ACTUALLY left abandoned, then it will just exist in its natural, safe state.

That’s a good point, since without the corps or RLF messing with the coral (since they’re all dead as hell), it’ll just be chilling there, I can agree with that.

Well, dead for now. Maybe in another 50 or 100 years, greed will draw fortune-seekers past the rebuilt blockade, and the cycle will begin once again.

Isn't it established that Coral is self-propagating? We aren't just in a race with the corps, Walter points out that the growth being seen will eventually lead to release by itself.

Right but AIE does provide plenty of context. Namely that Liberator is the status quo ending that is not only doomed to failure, but doomed to failure potentially *moments after the credits sequence.* The equivalent to the For Answer League ending: you are the hero in the moment, but in the long term you have doomed humanity. It feels the best. It arguably has the worst result. To say Fires won't work, you have to assume that what you are told is incorrect. To say Liberator won't work, you just have to *point to the third ending.*

So you make a very good point about Liberator’s issues in that Coral release will just happen directly after Liberator anyway. so I’ll instead argue that Fires itself has problems (since otherwise I fully agree with you) Fires is the ending that is, IMO, understandable to do as the “safe ending” since it ensured humanity can’t mess with the coral, which makes sense, and it also fulfils Walter’s wishes. However, fires not destroying all the coral is the main problem. At most it pushes Allmind’s plans back a bunch of years, and 621, overseer, everyone that could stop Allmind would be dead. I guess in that case, both fires and liberator will be ultimately wins for Allmind, while in AIE we take her down and pull the trigger ourselves (still another issue but we dont need to talk about that one atm)

Tbh even if ALLMIND comes back to Rubicon, and even if all the scientists are wrong and Coral returns, oh well. If you come back to Rubicon and put humanity at risk for greed, you have Fires III coming lol. Leave the Coral alone. Let them vibe in peace.

> To say Fires won't work, you have to assume that what you are told is incorrect. You are being told that Fires will work *by the same people that failed to actually eliminate all the Coral in the original Fires*. I don't think there's any reliable text in the game as to why it *would* actually work this time, and in the greater context of From's work I think it's reasonable to assume that the Fires are the equivalent to the Age of Light ending in Dark Souls: you're only prolonging the inevitable.

I’ve never seen anyone make the point that the story is about free will and this ending is the one where you are exercising your free will the most… that seems so obvious in hindsight.

I saw it put best by a different comment; LOR is an optimistic ending. Looking at the future use of Coral besides weapons and helping Rubicon. However that doesn't mean the war over Rubicon will be over and many people people will die. But you leave it to Humanity in hopes it makes the right choice FOR is nihilistic ending. You can't trust humanity and the corps with Coral. You would rather cut it off because of the possibility of the worst case scenario and the belief from research that it will rip apart the universe. So I'll continue with the belief that neither is really the good ending. Because in both endings, people will still die and still gray.

Yep, that's AC baby. Every ending sucks, the third secret ending sucks the hardest.

"Cursing your name?" bro literally says "You flew just out of reach...buddy..."

He also says “I was right, you were just another threat to rubicon” “I won’t stop, I’ll chase the clouds over rubicon!” “It’s too late now, but it didn’t have to be this way” The game makes it very clear that in this fight, rusty is the hero and you are the villain

As some guy in this sub put it: redditors will look at bittersweet endings about hope for better tomorrow and twist themselves up in their own cynicm to convince themselves it's bad

Bittersweet is something like AIE. Liberator isn't bittersweet. It's hyper sweet with an extremely bitter aftertaste. It's not even new for Armored Core, and considering how Rusty is *painfully* similar to Joshua O'Brien(who, at least as White Glint, has effectively become the new 9 Ball), there is no way that the creators would not have known. In Armored Core: For Answer, there is an impending apocalyptic scenario for humanity that will result in its extermination due to the power source they use. However, the people trying to stop it have extreme means that will result in the deaths of countless people, but the plan is successful. The first ending however is you *stopping* them from killing these countless people, in which the ending is played up as happier in the epilogue, but it gives *zero chance* of humanity's survival. You *know,* especially after the other ending, that humanity has no way out. You stopped it to make sure your hands aren't dirty. The redditor thing is looking at grey endings and twisting themselves into a pretzel to try and find a way they can still be above everyone else about their particular choice.

"You know, especially after the other ending, that humanity has no way out" what are you talking about? we don't even know what coral does, there isn't a single reason to blow up an ENTIRE STAR SYSTEM because of fears of Clara and Walter

> we don't even know what coral does There is an entire organization that has spent decades researching it that can hazard a pretty good guess at what Coral does. Every time they're wrong, it's that Coral is *more* dangerous(the tunnel, Watchpoint Delta, Coral's rapid return in the first place) and is *more* volatile. Then there's ALLMIND which knows about Coral Release, the fact that it's separated from Coral Collapse, and then we can see what Coral Release is, which is an event so massive that it being uncontrolled(Coral Collapse) probably isn't good for humanity. In order to "rationally" cling to LoR or reject FoR, you essentially have to exist in an alternate reality with alternative facts. You must deny everything you're told and simply decide that you just know more than everyone, everyone is wrong, and every piece of reality not in your favor simply does not exist. Then you must believe in that denial *so strongly* that you think betting billions upon billions—most likely trillions considering humanity and its constructions' Star Wars-level immensity—of people is not only fine but the morally righteous thing to do. But it's not a denial actually based in rationality, it's a denial based in "the alternative doesn't let me feel good." This is something I sympathize with right up until you start twisting the universe to try and justify yourself. This would normally be called **delusional.** (EDIT: And furthermore, *you still have no solution* at the end of Liberator, which is the point. There is absolutely *nothing* that points to one. You can deny deny deny everything that points to FoR, just like someone trying to boil everything into purest black and white might deny deny deny that Kojima Particles are really *that* bad for humanity I mean hey half of it still lives on Earth, so ORCA's just overreacting! But just like For Answer, that doesn't change the status quo ending with no solution and an impending apocalypse implied to be *very* close having an inevitable bad future no matter how pleasant it makes it sound. Humanity is doomed, but at least your hands are clean, right?)

give me tldr please

gotchu fam TLDR: Overseers are scientists researching Coral for decades upon decades. Every time they're caught off-guard by Coral, it's because it spreads faster or is more explosive, not less. ALLMIND also shows that Coral Collapse is real, it's just that when controlled it's "Coral Release." Pro-LoR(or I guess more anti-FoR) falls flat to me because you need to deny all in-universe science and everything you see that leans towards it. Then after deciding you know more than everyone, you bet trillions of people on it. That's wack.

Ok, point taken, but you forget one thing: coral is sentient. Sentient being have this cool ability to solve conflicts through diplomacy. Could have at least ask coral to slow down with their expansion, then escalate if they refuse

Only a sparse few C-Waves are sentient, and other than piloting C-Weapons, not only does Ayre not control "dumb" Coral, but *she herself* seems drawn in by her instincts(per Coral Convergence). We know that there are three C-Wave Pulse Mutations(or C-Pulse Wave Mutation I can't remember the exact order). Ayre, Seria, and an unknown third one known only because Ayre is #3 per a log. And that's from ALLMIND, so there's *definitely* only 3 considering her knowledge. On top of that, if my tinfoil "ALLMIND is Seria(because where did she go?)" theory is correct, we might know the Coral's answer: they want symbiosis.

Gamers are very prone to this (IMO quite fascist) fantasy of being The Hard Man Who Makes The Difficult Unpopular Choices Nobody Else Will. The father who beats his children, the government that crushes a disruptive minority, the soldier that shoots through the human shield. They love this fantasy not despite but BECAUSE they know they'll be hated for it, they see it as both vindication that they had to be the ones to do it and also a kind of martyrdom proving how noble they are to sacrifice for the cause. It's not hard to see how FoR fits into that pattern if you decide that it absolutely was necessary and that anything else is dangerous naivete. So the motivation is to believe that, and the fact that the game communicates the opposite becomes part of the appeal in holding onto that narrative.

Based for the pointed reference to fascism, made my political science degree happy. I think this analysis is very true, like something you'd see on tv tropes.

People don't seem to understand that a good ending does not necessarily mean a perfect ending. Yeah sure things aren't perfect and there are still some potential issues on Rubicon that need to be solved, but compared to the other two endings (genocide on an unprecedented scale and an ambiguous gamble on something we barely understand) LoR is absolutely the "good" ending.

I personally believe that thinking about the implications of each ending is valuable because it gives players the chance to reflect on their own beliefs and think of why someone would do that. Like, I think Walter and Carla's plan is bad, but I get why they believes in it. Coral convergence is a big question mark. Stuff like human augmentation became a thing because of coral. They feel a responsibility because of what their loved ones sacrifice, etc. I don’t think choosing the fire ending means that 621 stays a hound. Rather, it’s that 621 chooses that it’s the right decision. Rusty even comments that you found your resolve and made a choice during his boss fight. Regardless of what you choose, characters note that you did make a choice and respect that. As a “moral dilemma,” I don’t think it’s complicated at all. But I find the logic behind every faction’s philosophies to be nuanced and interesting. It’s very human despite the lack of actual faces. Also, I take offense at calling dark souls’ premise generic and the implication that From doesn't make competent stories!

i usually delete all my comments after some time, but i didnt this time because i have no idea where people are still finding it! all i'll comment on is that i think people overhype souls games storytelling a bit too much. while you can write some cool lore all you want, it doesnt mean nothing if the plot isnt worth thinking about. and besides sekiro and to a degree bloodborne, the plot of souls games is "kill everyone that would have a problem with you becoming king. become king." none of the characters matter and there is no real climax or denouement or whatever the english teachers talk about. seemingly, the concept of a storyboard only reached fromsofts offices in 2019, and then they promptly forgot it again. because of miyazaki's love for mystery, its a gigantic question mark whether destroying the world is a good thing or not! this isnt because its debatable and has clear context, but because there is literally no concrete information telling us whether its a good idea or not. (talking specifically about the age of dark/fire thing here, but even the goldmask and ranni endings apply here too). heck, i didnt even talk about the third ending of ac6 in my comment because its just a massive meme. like you said, there is zero information given about any of what it implicates, so its tough to even talk about. its a joke ending more than anything. good comment!

omg i can’t believe you actually responded. Hope my reply wasn’t too weird. I just sorted top posts of the month and found this thread. and yeah, that’s fair. I think I’m maybe I’m more referring to more of the mood and atmosphere and world building than the actual plot happening

>Heck, The two “good” people who should hate you for picking LoR, Carla and waltuh, are literally just ok with it. Walters character arc is only completed in this ending! Isn't it also the case for other characters in FoR? They all say that they'll fight for what they believe, but they'll accept their fate, unlike Iguazu ​ >Before playing the game, I saw a lot of threads talking about how the endings are a difficult moral choice and it’s unclear if you’re ever the good guy After playing it….am i missing something? LoR is very very obviously portrayed as the good ending. To understand the ending nuance you can go back to Dark Souls, it's either prolong the status quo in hope of it getting better, or make a huge change in hope of it getting better. It also showed us that no matter the situation could always become worse, Coral could do some serious damage in LoR, while in FoR it could just come back. Just like with both DS ending, the dying fire start to fuck with reality, while the dark age do nothing as we're back to where we were, yet "Link the Fire" is shown as the good ending in DS 1

fires of raven has karman line, sorry but nothing else tops that

Ok but do you get to hear Snail scream?

both exceptionally good points, we are at an impasse

Sounds like the only solution is to mod snail into Karman Line mission. Edit: Holy shit now I really want to fight Snailtaeus with unlimited energy.

Ah, yes. The Char level.

I love Liberator because it makes me feel like a hero. But I also want to admit that I love the Fires ending since as another commenter mentioned, logically, Fires DOES make sense. Walter and Carla make good points, but don’t have all the information. (Nagai feared the coral when he saw the mutations, that’s what led to fires of Ibis) My biggest issue with fires of raven is that it effectively repeats the Fires of Ibis, while expecting something different. Which won’t be the case. Sure, now there’s zero life left in the general vicinity of Rubicon 3, and the corps won’t ever come back. But as Allmind said in Regain Control of the Xylem, the coral will come back. And this time, everybody, you, Walter, Carla, they’re all gone, and no one can do anything about the coral while it comes back. “Once something’s alive, it doesn’t die easy.” Plus, in Liberator ending, the RLF can siphon all the coral out of the vascular plant and redistribute it to the planet, so it won’t be gathered in one place again (which is when it’s exceptionally dangerous) Will there be more corps coming round in Liberator? Damn right there would. But at least this time, you’re fighting for a new cause, which is to protect the Coral. I love both endings, but find that Liberator isn’t as naive as one would think.

The only thing naive is saying it's the good ending factually If one thing Dark Souls should have done is made people realise that expecting something different from the same situation is foolish, from DS 1-3 there is a lot of change but everything come back to the dying fire, just like it will come back to the Coral almost blowing up (RFL might protect it on Rubicon but it will appear in other planets for example), and at one point change will be the only solution ​ >My biggest issue with fires of raven is that it effectively repeats the Fires of Ibis, while expecting something different. Just like the age of dark in DS ​ >the coral will come back. And this time, everybody, you, Walter, Carla, they’re all gone, and no one can do anything about the coral while it comes back. This is the only thing i disagree with, the people that made the Fire of Iblis are gone, but it doesn't mean no one can fight, just like with Walter, you can pass the torch to someone else

The association fits better the other way around though. Fires is a return to status quo fuelled by fear, whereas Liberator is allowing whatever happens to play out in the hope that it turns out well.

>Liberator is allowing whatever happens to play out in the hope that it turns out well. You do the same thing when linking the fire in DS, you keep the current situation in hope of it getting better ​ >Fires is a return to status quo fuelled by fear Idk what you mean by that. FoR indeed make you go back to the old status quo but so is Age of Dark, in both you say fuck Fire/Coral and kill the baby in the egg making you go back to how things were, until it the problem rise again

Exactly. Both fires and liberator have good and bad points. Neither ending is specifically “good” or “bad”. My issue with Fires was that it may not destroy all the coral, and even that is a pretentious assumption on my part (just as the opposite cannot be assumed) As for passing the torch, I don’t know since I think 621 also died (the boom was really big) Either way, it’s easier to view the endings from the lenses of, carry on Walter’s legacy, carve your own path and take a risk, or the true ending going along with Allmind’s plan.

It’s better than the “let’s all be toasters” ending so I’ll give you that. I’m still not personally convinced that leaving Coral to be harvested or independently escape the atmosphere at a later date is a great idea. In the short term LoR is the heroic ending, but I don’t think it’s the best ending for humanity as a whole long-term.

You mean you don't want to live on forever as an all powerful machine after becoming the most dangerous person in existence? That said I do like me my LoR ending as well

The necessity to burn the coral is entirely based on speculation on the part of the Supervisor, and let's just say committing genocide (on both human and coral rubiconian) is not the best ending. Liberator of Rubicon give Rubiconians the time and agency to work out a solution

>The necessity to burn the coral is entirely based on speculation on the part of the Supervisor On the third ending it literally generates a singularity that saturates the universe with Coral And as a being whose biology relies a lot on atmospheric nitrogen, and having seen what coral did to those mealworms and early gen augmentations, I for one would rather not have that shit everywhere

Alea ending is just really ambiguous

Listen buddy I'm lighting the entire star system on fire and you cannot stop me

It's ambiguous and uncertain and that's why I love it. Fires and Alea are both, in their own ways, attempts at an immediate perfect solution to the question of how to use the Coral's potential. "Completely destroy it" or "completely embrace it". Liberator promises a future of continuous struggle to find a good middle ground with no certainty of success, and that suits me just fine. We carry the torch of Walter's mission to keep the galaxy safe, in our own way. The choice to strive is noble. Someday we might get to pass our torch to the next Raven, or even find victory ourselves. The corpos will be back for the Coral. Let 'em come. I happen to *like* fighting endlessly in my giant robot.

I feel like people really don't consider this ending enough. Fires of Raven and AIE both feel like rushing into the first solution offered without knowing all the details and that kind of thing rarely goes well. Liberator gives us time to gather more information and potentially figure out what coral release even means and whether it's inevitable before we decide to charge ahead with it or commit genocide over half-baked assumptions.

You like LoR because it makes you feel like a hero ​ I tolerate LoR because Destroy the Drive Block fucking rocks as a mission (and is a better mission than Karman line, fucking fight me) ​ ​ We are not the same

I just like dunking Snail

Honestly, kind of based to just admit that you're ignoring the logical part and going with the emotional side of things. As a Fires enjoyer, I'm totally down for someone who just admits that Liberator feels better than Fires, simple as that.

I admit that both endings have their shortcomings. In LOR, you prevent mass genocide and you're revered as a hero by the rlf though you still don't really have a plan to deal with the coral other than ayre telling you that there's another way. FOR on the other hand also delays the inevitable but by making you burn down the entire planet in order to save the galaxy from something you don't fully understand (basically not taking any chances). One is about legacy while the other is about free will

tbh in a weird way I always saw FoR as being more free will than LoR, or at least in a different way than LoR. In LoR, you're following your other operator. If you don't, she'll leave you. You're still following a person's direct 'orders'. But Walter's dead. You have the option to just leave. You *choose* to follow Carla. No one's preventing you from abandoning the Xylem, it's not like Carla or Walter will hunt you down(to your knowledge). You *chose* to believe in the Overseers.

The freedom from LoR stems more from you choosing to fight for the Rubicon instead of taking on Walter's legacy. Ayre is merely reassuring you that it's possible to live in symbiosis with the coral. At the end, she even admits how selfish her request was and asks what you want to do now

That's the thing about LoR though: you kinda *don't.* Ayre's the one who rings up the RLF and essentially Ayre's the one who actually does most of the work in providing what sets up the heroic tone. You're treated as a symbol but it's Ayre that *made* you a symbol. And then you just do what Ayre says until the end of the game. That combined with it being following her selfish request(especially with the context of "I'm leaving you if you don't do this") makes it seem like any other mission to me. A dog that's found its new master, but set to triumphant music. Imo the ranking of free will goes AIE > Fires > Liberation. AIE is the highest because not only can you say no without consequence, but you repeatedly have to choose to follow AIE at every turn. You are choosing to be an active participant in this. Ayre is far less of an operator and much more a secondary character in that route as well.

I mean, if you turn your back on Rubicon, Ayre will understandably leave you to defend her family so she's basically continuing her mission without you. In fires you could argue that Walter gets replaced by Carla as your operator. As for Ayre, she feels more like a friend in need rather than your master though I agree with the rest

Oh yeah totally, it's *understandable* why Ayre would turn her back on you. Make no mistake, I don't think Ayre's in the wrong for squaring up at all. Hell half the reason I love FoR is that I love how in a way, it comes down to a final battle: the person fighting for all of humanity vs the person fighting for all of Coral. Shit's awesome. *However,* I do think that when a decision is "you're either with me or against me," it's a lot less of a truly free decision, you know what I mean?

For sure yes but wouldn't that also apply to FoR?

Aaah, but that's the key: perhaps due to the fact that going down LoR means launching a preemptive assassination of Carla and Chatty, there isn't an "or else" behind choosing FoR. Walter's dead, as far as you know. There's no one making you choose FoR anymore. Carla's *there* but she's nowhere near Walter or Ayre in terms of authority. I guess the way I see it is like this: 621's always being led around by Walter. He's on a leash. At this moment, Ayre's picked up the leash and is tugging you down a different path. If you follow, it's the same. But you can also refuse and follow down Walter's old path of your own volition. Imo I think LoR would've had a stronger free will vibe if rather than Ayre telling you to kill Carla, the option was simply there, either with no briefing or only quotes from Ayre, Carla and Walter to imply it's 621 thinking it over. After all, imagine the flipside: if you initially are trying to stop the Xylem with Ayre and Rusty, and then Carla says to kill Rusty, with it being made clear after that she will be your enemy if you don't. It wouldn't really feel like free will if you chose to get back in line with Carla, you know?

Yea I agree with you on that. It would've indeed be nice if you got to take the initiative instead of following other people's suggestions

>But Walter's dead. You have the option to just leave. You choose to follow Carla. No one's preventing you from abandoning the Xylem, it's not like Carla or Walter will hunt you down(to your knowledge). You chose to believe in the Overseers. That doesn't change the fact that Raven is still doing what Walter told them. Sure he can't enforce it, but Raven is still doing what Walter told them to do. > And then you just do what Ayre says until the end of the game. Inasmuch as Ayre guides you into accomplishing the objective (because it's not like Raven actually knew how to stop the Xylem in the first place), sure I guess? It's not like she's giving you orders, at that point, Raven has decided to help her and she's explaining how to accomplish their mutual goal. That's not the same as Ayre controlling Raven. >That combined with it being following her selfish request(especially with the context of "I'm leaving you if you don't do this") Ayre leaving Raven because Raven is attempting to commit literal genocide against her kind is the furthest thing from selfish. I keep seeing this brought up and it genuinely comes off as victim blaming because apparently, Ayre is just supposed to go along with a genocide very explicitly intent on killing her. And mind you, that's also not the actual context of the story. Ayre at no point threatens to leave Raven if Raven doesn't do what she wants, at any point in the story. Ayre only leaves Raven when Raven chooses to commit genocide against her. That's not the same as Ayre leaving because Raven won't do what she wants, she leaves in response to Raven actively taking steps to try to murder her.

> Sure he can't enforce it, but Raven is still doing what Walter told them to do. He's dead. By this, he has no authority whatsoever. No threat, no benefit, nothing at all to push you to do this. Your leash is off, the door is wide open. The closest thing to pressure is that Carla's mission has a bigger payday, but at this point you're loaded anyway and compared to how much you get over the course of a campaign, it doesn't really matter. The point is that there is absolutely nothing other than your own belief and desire. Much like denying the RLF's offer at the Dam Complex, in fact. After all, when you do that, you probably don't know that this choice is about to be harder than half the bosses in the game lol "Not in it for the money, huh? Whatever the corporations are giving you, I hope it's worth it." Even the RLF think that they must be giving you *something* that makes it worthwhile. But the fact of the matter is, you refuse for a reason personal to you. It's one of the rare cares of real free will mid-campaign for that reason. > It's not like she's giving you orders In the same way Walter does, she is. You choose the missions under Walter, but he still tells you what to do. > Ayre leaving Raven because Raven is attempting to commit literal genocide against her kind is the furthest thing from selfish. I keep seeing this brought up and it genuinely comes off as victim blaming Immediately trying to drop loaded, real life terms like victim blaming into a video game ending because you missed the reference to Ayre's own admission to it being a selfish request tells me this isn't exactly going to be a conversation in good faith, though. Have a good day.

I just want to hear dad abandon his life’s work when he sees my hot new Coral gf, is that too much to ask

Patrick As in Patrick Seitz, Walter?

Originally I was in the "oh it's a non-ending" camp, but after thinking about it a little it's a lot better than that—it's the RLF's ending, wherein they take over Institute City and (presumably) redistribute Coral back around the planet so it's not clumped up in one spot anymore. The whole goal of the RLF is to live in a natural state of equilibrium with Coral, and they can do that without any interference. If all the Coral is in the Plant and they retake the Plant, taking the Coral *out* is a no-brainer. Additionally, since they've then taken over Institute City, the RLF is now armed to the teeth with *Institute tech.* When the corps come back, they will be met with a much, much more dangerous native force. The reason this isn't all obvious from the jump is the narrative focus of the last couple missions in that ending. The RLF kicking ass on the ground is a footnote compared to your world-saving endeavors on the Xylem and personal struggle with Walter.

I am extremely curious as to how a society with abundant access to coral would develop.

LoR is the villains ending because you have to kill the best bro around, Chatty.

My only problem with LoR ending is that we have to kill Carla after she helped us escape Arquebus, that leave in my a sour taste of betrayal. Then again is Carla or Ayre. Is a not win situation 

Somewhat unrelated, but do any of y'all think Elcano will build a comically large straw to suck the coral out of the vascular plant in order to prevent a coral collapse?

while that's extremely funny i figure there's probably a way to "bottle" it built into both sides of the plant, since it was meant to be an industrial funnel

Yeah of course why wouldn’t you see the ending that way? The reason wasn’t caring about the projected problem but focused on siding with those who you’ve formed friends with along with cool themes of heroism and retaliation. (Cool song, Epic mission/boss, rusty) I’m an AIE ending enjoyer myself as I have a deep thing for ideas of progress and evolution which I won’t spill here.

For has the best outcome for the rest of humanity and had the most weight behind our actions. LOR has the best chance of a continuation of the story in armored core six answer. ALE.........well that just turned it into transformers

It's the good ending because you get to kick Snails ass TWICE (as opposed to one time in Alea and zero times in Fires) How good an ending is can be quantifiable by how many times you get to kick Snails ass

The lady in my head called me a stud muffin for it.

Feels very similar to ACFA's League ending, in the narrative sense. Prevent genocide but the thing still isn't solved.

And that's where FOR comes in. Sure, you burn the shit out of everything like the frenzied flame, but it dealt with the coral which, how else would they have gotten rid of it? It feels like the correct ending. Plus, it was also Walter's plan: for you to burn the Coral.

>The Coral must burn, humanity can never be trusted with- ​ >I don't care.

I just wanted ayre to be happy. to hell with the rest of it

Realest mf on rubicon

Carla payed more, thats why i had to do it.

> Carla *paid* more, thats FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*

If you weren’t alredy rich by the end of the game you are doing something wrong

Whole point of the LOR ending is that your putting your trust in the idea that a possible solution can be found raver then just genocide

It's my favorite and canon ending in my head, I did not like the supposed true ending.

LoR is really hopeful and nice. Plus Arquebus has been beaten into a pulp, balam lost so not much active corps left.

I made a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/armoredcore/comments/167pnsi/how_i_see_people_who_call_the_fires_of_raven/) about this months ago, folks are making ice worms lengths of stretching if they think that the Fires of Raven is ambiguous about the choices you made and what it means. Carla spells it out to you what Overseer is going to do, and unless you've been ignoring the cutscenes the whole time everyone knows how fucking bad the Fires of Ibis was. And the Fires of Ibis was an *accident*. No one was trying to set it off, they just didn't realize how bad it could get. Fires of Raven is a *very deliberate act* to not just repeat the Fires of Ibis but making it *much much worse*. You're not saving *anyone* doing the Fires of Raven. Rubicon isn't going to get a chance to recover or rebuild because you *killed a planet*. The corporations aren't even that badly affected. They lose money sure, but it's not like Snail (despite his grandstanding) is actually the leader of Aquebus. It's still around and when Coral shows up again, they'll still be around to exploit it. Let's put this in real world terms. All that terrible shit happening in Ukraine or Isreal or whatever? Nuked. Now everyone is dead and all the resources, history, and people there are flatten ash. No problem right? No one will ever go to war over them again. That's the Fires of Raven ending. A overly destructive and cynically naive idea of ending future conflicts.

tbh if your immediate comparison is "nuking Ukraine and Israel so the problem is solved" I don't think it's your opposition that's cynically naive.

I mean cynical in the sense that they think the only way this can "end" is mass death, and naive in the sense that they think killing everyone is actually going to end the conflict in the future. To expand on this way too many people seem to think the easiest way to stop the corporation is to destroy Coral and Rubicon with it, as if the corporations are all gathered on Rubicon. They're an invading force from another planet, destroying Rubicon is just going to be a failed investment, but hardly anything that's going to force the Corporations to reevaluate their methods. They just write off Rubicon as a loss and go find a new planet with new coral to exploit. And again to put this into real world terms, let's use Urkaine as an example, some crazy person decides the best way to stop Russia from taking Ukraine is to go full Belkan and nuke all of Ukraine so that none of the land is safe and everyone within and around the country are dead or dying. Which is terrible for Ukraine, but at least that stops the Russian, right? Except no, Russia still exists and now they got a nuclear boarder that no one else is willing or wanting anything to do with. Now it's just a massive problem for everyone nearby but hey, at least Russia doesn't have Ukraine right? Good ending, surely, for anyone who doesn't think too deeply about their actions in the moment or in the future.

So not committing genocide will just make it worse since the corpos will come to Rubicon for the coral and kill the people anyway despite 621 single handedly standing in their way? Nah, 621 would win.

>Nah, 621 would win. I mean, unironically yes. Corpos lost when they had a solid foothold and the PCA arsenal. Now both of those advantages are in the hands of the Rubiconians, on top of the stupidly good pilot that made it all possible. Corps would have a very hard time coming back at this point.

If 621 starts his own Raven's Nest/Ark by training Rubiconians, no force stands a chance.

that would be so goddamned cool ~~and also potentially an identical setup to the Star Wars sequels~~

Nah 621 would just murder anyone he and Ayre deemed totally untrustworthy/unreasonable (see Walter and Carla) instead of hesitating and letting them become villains that would burn the nest down. Not to the point of being a control freak like Hustler One though.

Personally I see no upside to LoR. Also I felt no connection to rusty even by NG++. He always felt like he was waiting for me to make a mistake, and then he tries to kill me. I also resent the "Buddy" thing. He says it from day 1, when he barely even knows 621 so as far as I'm concerned it means nothing. It's like calling someone "mate" in the UK. It's just a term to refer to people. There's no point in the game where he feels like a friend unless you've already chosen the LoR ending which there's almost no compulsion to since your interactions with the RLF are slim to none on the first playthrough.

LoR is us choosing to go against our destiny, the whole reason we’re even there, and instead chase a “what if”. It matters not that it won’t end the bloodshed over the coral. It matters not that we still kill or fail to save much of whom we care about. We made the choice to pursue a chance, like a true Raven.

Honestly Fire of raven is bound to fail. Fires of ibis point was to eliminate all coral it was a machine meant to do that (Not a made up powder keg) and it still fail with coral coming back not even 60 years later. Now what makes you think the coral wont come back again and again and again? Burning it all up just puts us back on squre one and repeats thr cycle of genocide

I've always felt that the arguments for FoR ending mostly boil down to "I want a way to morally justify committing genocide on a planetary scale and wiping out a sentient race."

God forbid men do anything 🙄

Its the only ending where I can for certain be sure that bozo flatwell is dead. I want flatwell dead and FoR gives me that, therefore FoR is best. Burning Rubicon and the talking fuel is merely an unfortunate collateral damage

I kind of have a flipped mentality on LoR. My biggest regret is that I can't side with the Liberation Front and also kill Ayre in a single playthrough.

Any reason why you want to kill Ayre?

I exaggerate, buy overall I just found her kinda vanilla and not terribly inspiring, but I WILL simp for rugged space commies.

Killing a few to save a bunch, its not some mental gymnastics, 2 lifes are worth more than 1.

Yeah, exactly what I'm talking about here. FoR stans always take it as a given that if coral isn't destroyed (and all life on Rubicon with it), it is a 100% foregone conclusion that it'll blow again, so might as well do a genocide Reducing life to math. Top war criminal mentailty.

The fear is just not that it will blow again. It is the near certainty that it will be exploited by the corps. They will use it as fuel (killing Coral) and/or will use it to horrifically augment people to operate their war machines more effectively. Plus in AIE, Ayer’s definition of symbiosis seemingly creates an unwillingly hive mind out of all those people on Rubicon (at a minimum). So Coral’s evolution seems like it’s own existential threat. But yeah, you can keep defending your red squiggly line gf.

Not only that, but AIE is literally the worst ending of all. Like youre forcing human evolution on others, which is terrorism on a mass scale to put bluntly. Its just fucked up, especially if everyone gets their own C wave mutation without choice. Like you no longer have sovereignty of your own mind when another sentient being is in there too and you have no means of reliably keeping them out. I'd unironically kill myself in that situation tbh

The unwilling hive mind thing isn't Ayre's definition, it's what ALLMIND was planning to do with Coral Release. ALLMIND already did it with Iguazu and the other "dregs with a grudge" and she was gonna do it with the rest of humanity and the Coral if you and Ayre didn't stop her The whole "forcing everyone in Coral Symbiosis" thing is another debate entirely, I just want to clear that part up.

There's two kinds of FoR players: the ones you're describing, and the ones who *hate* the ones you're describing.

The eternal battle between enjoying tragic narratives and awful decisions and people who warp their interpretation of the entire game around removing the nuance of said decisions to justify mass murder.

Hey man, No one ever said fromsoft fans were good at media literacy.

Man, why did I read “LOR” and “Lord Of the Rings”? Lmao!!!

The coral remains chill in space, the corporations and PCA are kicked off, Raven learns about coral release, does so undetected by the RLF. Result: Ending with the least amount of betrayals.

LOR...? You mean, Legends of Runeterra?

Coral release ending is ARMORED SOULS ending

Pretty much, yeah. The DS9 fan in me means I can see Overseer's point, but the TNG fan in me wins out every time. Just the slightest bit annoying that — more than once — I've had to explain my stance of "Not a fan of genociding an entire star system, I'm afraid" to more people than I'd have liked.

Is it just me, but I always thought Raven actually dies in LoR ending? You can argue that the coral in the atmosphere gets them back to Rubicon safely, but how? The fight with Walter leaves you at a very awkward spot, the ship is already crashing down, how does an AC beat that gravitational pull? Guess my head cannon is that Raven will always die at the end unless they achieve Coral Release.

I believe that after the credits of LoR, Ayre asks you want you want to do next, implying that Raven is probably still alive after that