How Would You Write the Ending to Mass Effect 3?

[Kahldris71]

In Short Form i was disappointed with the ending so i wrote my own, i encourage you to do the same. Mine is Paragon Beck Shepard. Enjoy and don't forget to post your own and comment on mine.

Spoiler: The Real Mass Effect Ending

Shepard, forever composed even under immense pressure managed to convince the illusive man, like Saren before him, that he had become a the tool of the reapers aiding in the destruction of the very people he so dearly wanted to help. Shepard bears witness to a face no person has ever seen, The Illusive Man is defeated his disgust at what he has become apparent across his features. With a sigh of resignation, he places the barrel of his pistol to his temple. ?It?s in your hands now Shepard, I?m counting on you? and? I?m sorry? He pulls the trigger, his eyes locked on Shepard?s as he slowly collapses to the floor. Shepard opens the Citadel, allowing The Crucible to be maneuvered into position. Exhaustion seeps through Shepard? it?s over the Reapers will be defeated, he slumps beside Anderson who has only now managed to pull himself into a sitting position. Anderson utters what will be his last words, ?I?m proud of you son.? His eyes fix on earth rotating slowly through the window, slowly the light in his eyes dims and then goes out. Shepard closes his eyes, allowing the murky darkness to claim him, he has earned his rest. However before the darkness comes, Shepard is summoned by Hackett. Shepard! The Crucible, It?s not working! Shepard, it?s on your end. Shepard groggily drags himself toward the control panel, but his mind is confused already wrapped in the embrace of the darkness, teetering on unconsciousness Shepard?s beleaguered mind clings to the images of his crew, of his love Liara of the friends who gave their lives so he could have this chance, he has to carry on, it has to be him, someone else might get it wrong. Clinging to the memories of Mordin, Legion, Thane, and Ashley he pushes himself up lest their sacrifices be in vain.

But he is not where he was, the room has disappeared, a boy, a familiar, yet alien boy is staring at him. ?Ah, Shepard you recognize me. For I am the Catalyst of your mind, I commend you Shepard, none before you have made it this far. The odds were stacked against you, and yet you prevailed where thousands had failed before you. We tried to break you Shepard, first Sovereign then Harbinger, when they failed I intervened myself, torturing you with dreams of those you couldn?t save, and yet you pushed on, brokered peace between the Turians and the Krogan, The Geth and the Quarians, saving the Rachni from extinction, all to prevent the cycle that has endured for millennia. But you face one last choice Commander Shepard. Do you destroy all synthetic life, or do you attempt to claim my power for your own? Remember Shepard, I an AI selflessly save you from yourself, if I didn?t harvest you organics, you would simply destroy yourselves, like the race that created me did. Choose wisely Shepard, for you don?t have much time. Shepard pauses a moment, then his eyes hardens, he smiles wryly at the AI, ?There is a parameter which you haven?t thought of.? AI ?Oh, What pray tell is that?? ?You brought me here to toy with me, both choices lead to death, but I?m done playing by your rules. HACKETT OVERLOAD THE CRUSIBLES EEZO CORE!! THE AI CONTROLLING THE REPEARS IS BUILT INTO THE CITIDEL! OVERLOAD IT NOW!! Hackett: ?Shepard, that end all life in the Sol System, how could you even suggest that Shepard!? Shepard: Sometimes we have to make hard choices, Hackett, if we don?t the galaxy dies. Make a run for the mass relay; you should make it before it detonates. Those still on the planet earth are about to make the ultimate sacrifice for the galaxy, make sure they are remembered. Hackett: No Shepard I cannot. Shepard: Hackett on my authority as a specter of the Citadel council I hereby order you to overload that core. Tell Liara, I love her and our unborn daughter. Tell my crew, to meet me at the bar when they are able. Shepard Out.

By this point the AI is beside itself, screaming at Shepard. AI: There is no third choice! You must choose! Fear quivers through the synthetics voice. But its cries and rants go unheard, because there is nobody left to hear them.

Shepard regains consciousness in the med bay of the Normandy, surprising himself as his memories come rushing back. Panic consumes him until Dr. Chakwas calms him. Dr. Chakwas is quick to reprimand him for attempting to sit up. So he sits, unable to speak due to the breathing tube asking with his eyes. Then the med bay door opens revealing the entire crew, who immediately rush to his bedside. All of them begin to talk at once, Liara pretending to be angry, Garrus chiding him about trying to get the best seat at the bar. They are cut off abruptly as Dr. Chakwas shoos them away. She sits and calmly explains how he was rescued. Joker smashed the Normandy through the bubble above Shepard, While Javik and Garrus jumped from the Normandy grabbed Shepard, pressing a mask to his mouth and were yanked back to the Normandy using the winches normally used for shuttles. Dr. Chakwas: Time to rest Commander, I for one believe you?ve earned it.

Capthca: On Cloud Nine, Sounds like a nightclub on Omega.

Edit: Cut the last Paragraph and it is a better ending. i was tired when writting after having played for 20 hours straight.

 

[Vrex360]

***Spoilers be warned***


Some cynical hate filled part of me actually kind of likes the fact that the Mass Effect 3 ends shittly. Largely because as an Ashley fan I've had to live for five years with 'lol duh stupid ***** dead virmire lols' and the ever present fanboy arguing of 'MY LOVE INTEREST BETTER THEN YOURS BECAUSE etc' that I've had to be on the recieving end of for all that time and after one particular scene in Mass Effect 3 that are making the trolls and haters and fanboys of other characters even MORE obnoxious... I dunno it's kind of gratifying to know that for all their talk of how great and better then Ashley their love interest is, we all get an equally shitty ending no matter what so there isn't even a reason to argue anymore.
I guess what I'm saying is one tiny sociopathic bitter part of myself when reading Tali/Liara/Miranda fans crying about how the ending screws them over after all the times they've made fun of me, sometimes thinks to himself:
Oh what? You killed Ashley in Mass Effect 3? Well enjoy that smugness while it lasts before your Shepard is forever alone and your love interest is destined to starve to death on Planet Deliverance, *****.

***spoilers end warning***

But of course I am a nice person at heart so I'm largely able to bury that hateful part of me because I want everyone to be able to have a happy ending or at least an ending that at least feels like all of your efforts were worth it. I'm not asking for a disney style ending where Shepard and Ashley cuddle together declaring their love in the form of a heart warming musical number with all the cast doing choregraphed dances in the background on the corpse of Harbinger (though now that I think about it I wouldn't mind that.
Maybe just the destroy ending minus the loss of the relays and geth. The thing is even without all the bullshit extra tragedy added to it the ending is still not going to be cheery. Billions have died across the galaxy, many main characters will have given or just lost thier lives in the process, it may take centuries to completely recover from the damage and the political situation of the galaxy will be unstable for decades.

What I want would be some kind of ending that gives hope. To feel like all the sacrifices and losses weren't in vain, that they actually accomplished something. I want to see my favorite characters alive and well and especially know that after the two years that seperated them AND Horizon, Shepard and Ash can finally have a real life together (it isn't fair that they can lose each other TWICE) and most importantly that my choices actually AMOUNT to something. That all the thought and emotional investment I made making those decisions was actually worth it. Because with the endings as they are right now it doesn't matter how many war assets I have and all the choices may as well have been coin flips for all their significance.

If I had to frame it, it would look like the ending of Serenity. Rebuilding the Normandy, a memorial to heroes fallen. Some foreshadowing of the uncertain future ahead, the final 'goodbye' shots of all the Normandy crew. Shepard having a final bro fist with Garrus and giving Ash a pat on the rump which is followed by a 'I'll meet you in my quarters' sort of thing. The ship then flies up and flies off into a relay into the wild blue yonder, leaving the audience to wonder what adventures await the intrepid crew of the Normandy now.

Something like that would be fine. As it stands I might just have to settle for getting the Ash, Garrus and Shepard Play Arts Kai figures when they come out and pretend that they were sent to a sort of heavenly afterlife for icons of popular culture (namely my upstairs study).

 

[Corax_1990]

Since I played Paragon the entire time through all three games, i'd have made it something like this;
Shepard and Anderson sit down after defeating the elusive man, Anderson finaly dies with some heartfelt final words exchanged between him and Shepard, something like, Anderson - "You did a good job son, finished the fight after all", Shepard -"Rest well my friend, you earned it", or something similar.

Id then have Hackett chime in over the com with something like "The crucible is in place but nothing is happening" (like the actual ending), but then have Shepard stumble over to a control console and start up the firing sequence for the crucible, only to have Sovereign (who, being the leader of the Reapers deserved at least a SINGLE line of dialogue in the game) appear in front of the Citidel and try to mind control Shepard in order to stop him. This is where your choices over the three games come into play, depending on your actions (good or bad) and who you saved for the final battle would dictate the ending.

Pure Paragon would see Shepard shake off Sovereign's control telling him that he has sacrificed enougth and would not stop until the galaxy was safe from the reapers, that he is doing this for every life the reapers have ever taken, he then powers up the crucible, which fires a shockwave tailored to specifically target the reapers, crippling them (eliminating their shields, weaponry and basically shutting their bodies down, like you do to the Geth). This would be done as a cut scene that shows clips of every (or a good few) race that helped design the crucible over the past million years (like the Prothean VI stated it was) and the crucible firing, using the mass relays to send the shockwave/laser/pulse all over the galaxy, with clips of each world showing the reapers disabling and the allied forces desroying them (Earth, Palaven,Tuchanka etc.) We then cut back to Shepard who has his last words with Sovereign (some final bad ass line that would summarise Shepard, like "You were an unstopable force, an unreleting enemy with no mercy or fear, but you made one mistake.......... You picked a fight with me", cheesy I know but still bad ass), before he orders Hackett to fire on Sovereign and end the reaper threat for good.

We then get the end credits we deserved, Sheppard reunited with his love interest, meeting back up with all his living friends (having that drink with Garrus, visitng Tali at her new home, seeing Wrex rebuld the Krogan, getting presented with the galaxies biggest medal for saving everyone with all your surviving allies and pals from ME1 & 2 in attendance). You can then have the old man telling the kid the story of Shepard (imply its one of Shepards decendants, great-grandson or something).

Since ive not really put the time into playing renegade that ending would be similar but more brutal, even giving the option to control the reapers and dominate the galaxy for mankind or even just make Shepard overlord of all (I mean hell, renegade Shepard has earned it).

Not only would that ending satisfy everything I wanted and expected for the ending, it would have tied up ever plot point, every character and race would be shown and our choices on them would be clear and it would give Shepard the ending he deserved. On top of all that it would leave the god damn Mass Effect universe intact for any future game set there, instead of what they gave us, a dead Shepard, a stranded normandy crew (with a good half of your crew either dead or doomed to die) and what is effectivly the end of the Mass Effect universe as it is known to its fans (no more Citidel, no more mass relays and no more Shepard).

 

[taiwwa]

I always like it how in epic sci-fi you talk to a child-like force that is causing all of the chaos around. Like in the matrix when the machines make a massive baby face. Or Babylon 5 when Sheridan meets the old ones. Or Battlestar Galactica where it turns out that one of the cylons is basically angry at its creators Because all of this wrong can only be caused by an infantile force, since a mature adult recognizes the harm caused by his actions.

So...

I would have tried to make more threads of the story. I also would have changed the character of Shepard a little so that he isn't so damn serious all the time. REaly, the guy kind of sucked.

But otherwise the same

Then again, I didn't play the game at all. I'm basing this entire post on spoilers I've found on youtube

 

[endtherapture]

I would have the reveal that the entire Reaper War was just the biggest practical joke in history played on Shepard by the Galaxy. Jenkin comes back and starts laughing at Shepard "YOUR FACE WHEN I GOT SHOT THIS WAS ALL A JOKE" and everyone just laughs at Shepard for being so serious about the thing and he gets all sad.

 

[taiwwa]

Or how about this: it gets revealed that Shepard is actually some crazy person who just imagined the Reapers. And what's really been going on is that he's been a serial killer who has murdered hundreds of people across the galaxy.

on that note, wasn't there like some fantasy story about a paladin who destroyed evil, only at the end of the story to be revealed that he had been enchanted by some evil sorceror and so what he thought were evil undead turned out to be his own kin?

 

[Monkeyman O'Brien]

Aint played it yet but this is the ending I wanted long before anyone knew jack about the actual endings.
The prothean super weapon[footnote]Yes, I knew there was gonna be a super weapon. There always fucking is.[/footnote] turns out not to work. It was just a wild goose chase. So in the end, no matter what you do, no matter how much you prepare, no matter what choices you made or who you gathered to your side, the reapers win.
So in the end you are left with 2 choices. Join the ragged group of fleeing refugees trying to run and hide from the reapers or make your last stand and die fighting like a hero taking on a never ending swarm of enemies, your allies falling one by one until you are left all alone fighting as it fades to black.

 

[CommanderL]

The crucible worked it used the mass relay inside the citadel to shoot back the reapers into dark space -or a black hole- the distance they have to travel will at least take them five years to return after which a giant battle is waged with the great fleet all the races made working together the flagship is the shepard the most advanced ship ever build

 

[CommanderL]

The crucible worked it used the mass relay inside the citadel to shoot back the reapers into dark space -or a black hole- the distance they have to travel will at least take them five years to return after which a giant battle is waged with the great fleet all the races made working together the flagship is the shepard the most advanced ship ever build

or it would just shoot down the reapers after wards there would be a cutsence of a huge parade on earth followed by a funeral for all the dead then a cutsence of rebuilding

 

[Kahunaburger]

I guess what I'm saying is one tiny sociopathic bitter part of myself when reading Tali/Liara/Miranda fans crying about how the ending screws them over after all the times they've made fun of me, sometimes thinks to himself:

This basically sums up why I'm actually pretty okay with a downbeat ending. I'm not a fan of any of the LIs, but something about all the people on BSN whining about what happens their space waifus fills me with evil glee.

 

[synobal]

The endings are perfectly fine. I wouldn't of changed anything about them.

 

[FateOrFatality]

I would end the game by having Shepard destroy the Reapers and then die from alcohol poisoning.

Seriously, there was so many people that offered to buy Shepard a drink "when this was all over". It was inevitable really.

Just thought I'd say - and I'm trying not to be too harsh here - but there is a reason you guys aren't proffessional writers. The vast majority of the endings you've proposed are even worse than what we have now. I'm not defending Bioware's endings, just saying that you'd be even more unhappy if you got some of the cliche and "everything worked out in the end!" endings people have put forward here.

I figured it was unfair that I criticised others without giving something of my own, so here is my idea for an ending. You lose. The combined fleet kills many Reapers, but the Prothean weapon was a trap the Reapers have been using for thousands of years, tricking organics into building but all it does it use up their resources and hurt them (like it releases a massive EMP that the Reapers are resistant too or something).

Your final quest is to leave information for the next cycle. Protect them from the Citadel trap, warn them about the Crucible, leave information about the Reaper's capabilities and tell Shepard's story. Could be very emotional and bring back a lot of nostalgia of your choices throughout the games, etc.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I would have changed the credits with an open rebellion by Bioware against EA:

"There. We did exactly as you requested, and destroyed our credibility to line your pockets.
We gave you Mass Effect and yanked the fans around by the dick for 5 years, exactly as you wanted.
We gave you Dragon Age, and fuck you for making us rush the sequel.
We created TOR; for all we care, you can hire some Programming Major college students to run the damn thing.

In short: We quit. We want to go back to making the games we want to make, instead of jumping through your hoops and ending up as another headstone in your graveyard of developers."

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

***Spoilers be warned***


Some cynical hate filled part of me actually kind of likes the fact that the Mass Effect 3 ends shittly. Largely because as an Ashley fan I've had to live for five years with 'lol duh stupid ***** dead virmire lols' and the ever present fanboy arguing of 'MY LOVE INTEREST BETTER THEN YOURS BECAUSE etc' that I've had to be on the recieving end of for all that time and after one particular scene in Mass Effect 3 that are making the trolls and haters and fanboys of other characters even MORE obnoxious... I dunno it's kind of gratifying to know that for all their talk of how great and better then Ashley their love interest is, we all get an equally shitty ending no matter what so there isn't even a reason to argue anymore.
I guess what I'm saying is one tiny sociopathic bitter part of myself when reading Tali/Liara/Miranda fans crying about how the ending screws them over after all the times they've made fun of me, sometimes thinks to himself:
Oh what? You killed Ashley in Mass Effect 3? Well enjoy that smugness while it lasts before your Shepard is forever alone and your love interest is destined to starve to death on Planet Deliverance, *****.
.

hah funny, in an odd way i do have that very small shred in my brain also..but it is buried deep beneath the paragon in me.

OT: i don't NEED the perfect ending, sure it'd be great to have the option... but to be realistic, i wouldn't mind a ending like in the new star trek movie when george kirk dies saving the crew and his wife/child, as if shepherd took control of the normandy while everyone else escaped and somehow the weapon was an infection for reapers, and that if he was able to hit one of them, then it would be like a hive mind and they would all be annihilated across the galaxy.