I Have Obtained ME 3 Ending Enlightenment, A MUST-READ FOR ANYONE QUESTIONING THE ME 3 ENDINGS!

[BloatedGuppy]

You're probably right. He definitely did say that about the synthesis option as well, that was just an assumption on my part because I picked "destroy" and died.

But no, it's still not a plot-hole. According to SajuuKhar (and he has the facts on his side!), everyone in the galaxy of Milky-Way is colossally stupid. So there, that's why Shepard walked into the explosion.

Catalyst makes it clear that you're dead no matter which option you pick. He makes a point of noting that you are part Synthetic now when he's spelling out the "kill all Synthetics" option.

It's why the indoctrination theory is semi-compelling. Because Rubble Shepard taking that tentative breath should only really be possible if Shepard is waking up on earth after fighting through indoctrination/hallucination.

Of course it's manifestly more likely that someone just got lazy, but I guess we can always hope.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

From the (enormous) indoctrination speculation thread on the Bioware forums:

Full Comprised List of Evidence for New Comers:
1) The Theory isn't "Shepard has always been indoctrinated since the beginning of ME3". Its "Harbinger is attempting to indoctrinate Shepard AFTER Shepard is hit by the beam".
2) The moment Shepard wakes up, Coats reports that nobody made it to the Conduit, yet Shepard is walking towards it.
3) Depending on your EMS, you'll either see your squadmates dead (low) or not there (high).
4) Despite that area being completely destroyed, there are three trees in the area.
5) You have unlimited ammo through the game, even when you're at the Citadel and there's nothing to shoot at.
6) Shepard's Gun = Shepard's Willpower
7) Once you're inside the Citadel, Anderson says he followed you in. Yet, he gets to the console first and if he did indeed follow you in, why did he not report to Coats that Shepard and him are heading inside?
8) All the dead bodies have the same face and are bald.
9) Anderson notes that the walls are moving. Recall back to the Derelict Reaper in ME2. If you listened to the logs, the scientists noted that they had shared memories, the walls moved, things appeared, etc. It can also be noted that Anderson says "it's dark like the Collector base".
10) Parts of the citadel look like parts from the Shadow Broker base.
11) You may have noticed "1M1" on a part of the Citadel. To your left, it's "1M1". To your right, it's reversed/mirrored. "1M1" is also a part of optics.
12) Illusive Man appears out of nowhere.
13) There are "oily, black" lines around the screen whenever the indoctrinated Illusive Man speaks or does something significant.
14) Despite the Citadel being closed, you can see cars driving in the back ground.
15) If you choose the Paragon route, Illusive Man will commit suicide a la Saren style.
16) Hackett talks to the Commander while on the Citadel... but it was reported that no one made it. So how did Hackett know Shepard was in the Citadel?
17) When lifted up, the Starchild is a "ghostly presence".
18) Depending on your EMS, the Starchild will either say an angry "Why are you here?" (low) or a calm, yet commanding "Wake Up" (high).
19) The Starchild's voice is a mixture of MaleShep, FemShep, and the child's VA. Some claim you can also hear Harbinger.
20) The Starchild puts emphasis on how bad that Destroy ending will be by noting that you would kill synthetic life, including the Geth. He also mentions that Shepard is partially synthetic, implying you will die as well.
21) The Starchild will hesitate his answer when Shepard asks "And the Reapers will obey me?". He pauses for 2 seconds and then says "Yes".
22) The Starchild will say that Synthesis is the final stage of evolutionary life. This is what the Reapers always wanted.
23) By choosing Control or Synthesis, Shepard will die regardlessly. This means Shepard lost and he is fully indoctrinated.
24) Control's color is blue (Paragon) while Destroy's color is red (Renegade). Harbinger is tricking not Shepard, but the PLAYER that Control is the good ending.
25) Destroy ending is the only ending where Shepard is alive/wakes up.
26) The Normandy scene is a way for Shepard to imagine that the people closest to him are okay and that they landed on a sunny, lush planet, filled with necessary things to sustain life. Many crewmembers through out ME2 and ME3 have said they would have wanted to go somewhere "sunny" or to a "beach" (yes, there's a beach on that planet).
27) Shepard wakes up back on London because the Citadel wasn't made out of concrete. You can also hear the wind in the background. There is no wind in space or the Citadel.
28) James Vega at one point mentions "Do you hear that humming noise? Or is that just me?". EDI will also says that the Normandy still have the Reaper IFF.
29) The Dreams will get more and more details as the story progresses. At first, it's just the child you're following. The second one has whispers and "oily, black, ghostly" figures. The third one has more ghostly, black figures and more whispers. In my playthrough, I heard Liara's and Kaidan's whispers, saying "Shepard". The final one ends with Shepard hugging/embracing the kid, smiling as they both get burned.
30) Shepard has been more exposed to Reapers and Reaper tech than anyone else on the squad.
31) Notice how no one notices the child throughout the game. No one helps him get on the shuttle and Anderson doesn't ask Shepard what Shepard was doing.
32) A scared child wouldn't say "You can't help me". They would say "Help!", "Save me!", and/or "I'm scared!".
33) When Shepard turns away from the child in the beginning, you can hear a growl. In the ME Novels, Paul Grayson would hear growls when he snapped out of it. The growl is a different sound than what Reapers normally make.
34) The kid disappears in the duct, with no noise or anything.
35) In the ME artbook, the child is "the face of humanity of one that Shepard couldn't save". In a way, the Reapers (or Harbinger) is using the child to taunt Shepard, saying he cannot save them. In ME2, both throughout the main campaign and Arrival DLC, Harbinger said it is inevitable that Shepard will lose.
36) Notice how Harbinger barely speaks in ME3, yet he was a huge role in ME2. You only see Harbinger for a good minute, but he flies away when you wake up. The Child is actually Harbinger, playing on Shepard's emotion to show how weak Shepard is and that he will fail.
37) The reason why Harbinger didn't kill Shepard or force him to choose Control or Synthesis is because Shepard is still resisting. Harbinger then tries another tactic: Persuasion.
38) Indoctrinate has been a huge role throughout the ME universe. However, it is more prominent in ME3.
39) If you choose Control or Synthesis, look at Shepard's eyes. They will turn exactly like Illusive Man's and Saren's. Thus, Shepard has been indoctrinated.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Stupidest plot hole of all, is why the hell did Shepard walk right into the explosion radius while shooting the red cable.

Because he listened to your song about him one time too many

That would do it alright.

But no, it's still not a plot-hole. According to SajuuKhar (and he has the facts on his side!), everyone in the galaxy of Milky-Way is colossally stupid. So there, that's why Shepard walked into the explosion.

Can't argue with that

 

[Immsys]

this simply does not justify taking away the standard popcorn cinema victory.

I spent 31 hours gathering support from the whole galaxy and instead of getting an epic showdown i get pre a rendered space battle that does not show all the forces i gathered, then i am thrown into an epic ground offensive where there was a golden opportunity to have a goddamn heroes moment for say, the geth prime army i "recruited" to air drop into the scene with the missile trucks to mow down the attacking reaper forces while saying "sheppard commander, we will assist".
Then we get harbinger landing his ass in front of us and there is jack shiite we can do, the scene does him no justice and it leads to the most flow breaking, spirit destroying ending anyone could have created. Instead of one last argument with TIM and then a boss battle for the citadel control which leads to sheppard opening the arms so the crucible can come in and fuck the reapers over and then proceed to massive celebrations followed by epic epilogue sequences leading into a popcorn ending, we get some meta bullshit right out of someones ass. This is like the matrix movies.


screw this, for 3 games we have been building up to an epic slugfest versus mecha Cthulhu and then we are treated to this meta crap.


And the games have been fun to play, i don't understand why they had to do this and ruin it with such a jarring ending. it sapped the will out of me to play my other sheps, because THERE WILL BE NO DIFFERENCE! Whether i played an antagonizing asshole sheppard or saint sheppard the do gooder, there is no point. It only affects cameos!

For gods sake man, please please please just grow up. Listen to yourself, getting upset because an ending had depth and sacrifice, rather than a dull samey unoriginal "GOOD GUYS WIN BAD GUYS LOSE AND GALAXY IS SAVED" scenario. Honestly, this is getting out of hand, posts like this are really ruining the reputation of people who play games. This ending made you THINK about what you had to do, and consider the MOTIVATION behind the Reapers, rather than them just being stupidly evil for no reason, which would have made no sense whatsoever.

Your demand for a "popcorn ending" is sadly just childish, you seem incapable of enjoying intellectual depth or indeed any depth in storytelling at all. Instead of relishing the idea of your views being challenged, and perhaps even changed, you instead come here to complain because the ending isn't the safe, predictable and completely bland ending you anticipated.

 

[boag]

Asari? these bitches are now the de facto salve whores of the Galaxy because not only did they keep their Protean info a secret and used it to lord it over the rest of the species, but they also FAILED to do anything good with it for more than 1k Years, while their little sluts went off to whore themselves around the Galaxy, so if they like being little whores, then they will have no problem being the fuck toys of every other species.

You know, you could have made this exact point without all the misogyny and anti-woman slurs like ***** and whore. Just saying.

Sorry for the Hyperbole, it just intrigues me what stupid move they pulled, for that the Prothean VI revealed, the Asari knew of the Reapers for thousands of years and never said anything about it.

this simply does not justify taking away the standard popcorn cinema victory.

I spent 31 hours gathering support from the whole galaxy and instead of getting an epic showdown i get pre a rendered space battle that does not show all the forces i gathered, then i am thrown into an epic ground offensive where there was a golden opportunity to have a goddamn heroes moment for say, the geth prime army i "recruited" to air drop into the scene with the missile trucks to mow down the attacking reaper forces while saying "sheppard commander, we will assist".
Then we get harbinger landing his ass in front of us and there is jack shiite we can do, the scene does him no justice and it leads to the most flow breaking, spirit destroying ending anyone could have created. Instead of one last argument with TIM and then a boss battle for the citadel control which leads to sheppard opening the arms so the crucible can come in and fuck the reapers over and then proceed to massive celebrations followed by epic epilogue sequences leading into a popcorn ending, we get some meta bullshit right out of someones ass. This is like the matrix movies.


screw this, for 3 games we have been building up to an epic slugfest versus mecha Cthulhu and then we are treated to this meta crap.


And the games have been fun to play, i don't understand why they had to do this and ruin it with such a jarring ending. it sapped the will out of me to play my other sheps, because THERE WILL BE NO DIFFERENCE! Whether i played an antagonizing asshole sheppard or saint sheppard the do gooder, there is no point. It only affects cameos!

For gods sake man, please please please just grow up. Listen to yourself, getting upset because an ending had depth and sacrifice, rather than a dull samey unoriginal "GOOD GUYS WIN BAD GUYS LOSE AND GALAXY IS SAVED" scenario. Honestly, this is getting out of hand, posts like this are really ruining the reputation of people who play games. This ending made you THINK about what you had to do, and consider the MOTIVATION behind the Reapers, rather than them just being stupidly evil for no reason, which would have made no sense whatsoever.

Your demand for a "popcorn ending" is sadly just childish, you seem incapable of enjoying intellectual depth or indeed any depth in storytelling at all. Instead of relishing the idea of your views being challenged, and perhaps even changed, you instead come here to complain because the ending isn't the safe, predictable and completely bland ending you anticipated.

I think at least opening up the choice to have the Happy Ending everyone is puppies, rainbows and unicorns should have been available, I mean the whole game was about giving the player choice, and in the last moment the choice taken away, and instead a quandry is put in its place.

 

[Immsys]

There's also the fact the game very well contradicts itself.

"The Reapers do this because without it Technology will destroy organic life. It's unavoidable"

Several Hours Earlier.

Shepard sees how the Geth purposely didn't continue war with the Creators/Quarian, and can actually bring the two together in peace once again.

The game itself gives good reason to believe the very "inevitability" we're supposedly acting to prevent in the final act isn't an inevitability.

Here we run into a logical problem. What you have given an example of is ONE synthetic race that is willing to live in peace with organics. This does not prove that ALL synthetic races are willing, or indeed capable, of living in peace with organics. Just because it is possible not to, does not make it not inevitable.

 

[Immsys]

Asari? these bitches are now the de facto salve whores of the Galaxy because not only did they keep their Protean info a secret and used it to lord it over the rest of the species, but they also FAILED to do anything good with it for more than 1k Years, while their little sluts went off to whore themselves around the Galaxy, so if they like being little whores, then they will have no problem being the fuck toys of every other species.

You know, you could have made this exact point without all the misogyny and anti-woman slurs like ***** and whore. Just saying.

Sorry for the Hyperbole, it just intrigues me what stupid move they pulled, for that the Prothean VI revealed, the Asari knew of the Reapers for thousands of years and never said anything about it.

this simply does not justify taking away the standard popcorn cinema victory.

I spent 31 hours gathering support from the whole galaxy and instead of getting an epic showdown i get pre a rendered space battle that does not show all the forces i gathered, then i am thrown into an epic ground offensive where there was a golden opportunity to have a goddamn heroes moment for say, the geth prime army i "recruited" to air drop into the scene with the missile trucks to mow down the attacking reaper forces while saying "sheppard commander, we will assist".
Then we get harbinger landing his ass in front of us and there is jack shiite we can do, the scene does him no justice and it leads to the most flow breaking, spirit destroying ending anyone could have created. Instead of one last argument with TIM and then a boss battle for the citadel control which leads to sheppard opening the arms so the crucible can come in and fuck the reapers over and then proceed to massive celebrations followed by epic epilogue sequences leading into a popcorn ending, we get some meta bullshit right out of someones ass. This is like the matrix movies.


screw this, for 3 games we have been building up to an epic slugfest versus mecha Cthulhu and then we are treated to this meta crap.


And the games have been fun to play, i don't understand why they had to do this and ruin it with such a jarring ending. it sapped the will out of me to play my other sheps, because THERE WILL BE NO DIFFERENCE! Whether i played an antagonizing asshole sheppard or saint sheppard the do gooder, there is no point. It only affects cameos!

For gods sake man, please please please just grow up. Listen to yourself, getting upset because an ending had depth and sacrifice, rather than a dull samey unoriginal "GOOD GUYS WIN BAD GUYS LOSE AND GALAXY IS SAVED" scenario. Honestly, this is getting out of hand, posts like this are really ruining the reputation of people who play games. This ending made you THINK about what you had to do, and consider the MOTIVATION behind the Reapers, rather than them just being stupidly evil for no reason, which would have made no sense whatsoever.

Your demand for a "popcorn ending" is sadly just childish, you seem incapable of enjoying intellectual depth or indeed any depth in storytelling at all. Instead of relishing the idea of your views being challenged, and perhaps even changed, you instead come here to complain because the ending isn't the safe, predictable and completely bland ending you anticipated.

I think at least opening up the choice to have the Happy Ending everyone is puppies, rainbows and unicorns should have been available, I mean the whole game was about giving the player choice, and in the last moment the choice taken away, and instead a quandry is put in its place.

Why? To pander to the people who refuse to understand that rarely do things work out in a "happy" ending, to the degree that they laughably demand it to be changed? The choice is NOT taken away, that is untrue. You are given three choices, the only choice taken away is to have a predictably bland "good guys win bad guys lose" situation, which is to me incredibly apt.

 

[boag]

Asari? these bitches are now the de facto salve whores of the Galaxy because not only did they keep their Protean info a secret and used it to lord it over the rest of the species, but they also FAILED to do anything good with it for more than 1k Years, while their little sluts went off to whore themselves around the Galaxy, so if they like being little whores, then they will have no problem being the fuck toys of every other species.

You know, you could have made this exact point without all the misogyny and anti-woman slurs like ***** and whore. Just saying.

Sorry for the Hyperbole, it just intrigues me what stupid move they pulled, for that the Prothean VI revealed, the Asari knew of the Reapers for thousands of years and never said anything about it.

this simply does not justify taking away the standard popcorn cinema victory.

I spent 31 hours gathering support from the whole galaxy and instead of getting an epic showdown i get pre a rendered space battle that does not show all the forces i gathered, then i am thrown into an epic ground offensive where there was a golden opportunity to have a goddamn heroes moment for say, the geth prime army i "recruited" to air drop into the scene with the missile trucks to mow down the attacking reaper forces while saying "sheppard commander, we will assist".
Then we get harbinger landing his ass in front of us and there is jack shiite we can do, the scene does him no justice and it leads to the most flow breaking, spirit destroying ending anyone could have created. Instead of one last argument with TIM and then a boss battle for the citadel control which leads to sheppard opening the arms so the crucible can come in and fuck the reapers over and then proceed to massive celebrations followed by epic epilogue sequences leading into a popcorn ending, we get some meta bullshit right out of someones ass. This is like the matrix movies.


screw this, for 3 games we have been building up to an epic slugfest versus mecha Cthulhu and then we are treated to this meta crap.


And the games have been fun to play, i don't understand why they had to do this and ruin it with such a jarring ending. it sapped the will out of me to play my other sheps, because THERE WILL BE NO DIFFERENCE! Whether i played an antagonizing asshole sheppard or saint sheppard the do gooder, there is no point. It only affects cameos!

For gods sake man, please please please just grow up. Listen to yourself, getting upset because an ending had depth and sacrifice, rather than a dull samey unoriginal "GOOD GUYS WIN BAD GUYS LOSE AND GALAXY IS SAVED" scenario. Honestly, this is getting out of hand, posts like this are really ruining the reputation of people who play games. This ending made you THINK about what you had to do, and consider the MOTIVATION behind the Reapers, rather than them just being stupidly evil for no reason, which would have made no sense whatsoever.

Your demand for a "popcorn ending" is sadly just childish, you seem incapable of enjoying intellectual depth or indeed any depth in storytelling at all. Instead of relishing the idea of your views being challenged, and perhaps even changed, you instead come here to complain because the ending isn't the safe, predictable and completely bland ending you anticipated.

I think at least opening up the choice to have the Happy Ending everyone is puppies, rainbows and unicorns should have been available, I mean the whole game was about giving the player choice, and in the last moment the choice taken away, and instead a quandry is put in its place.

Why? To pander to the people who refuse to understand that rarely do things work out in a "happy" ending, to the degree that they laughably demand it to be changed? The choice is NOT taken away, that is untrue. You are given three choices, the only choice taken away is to have a predictably bland "good guys win bad guys lose" situation, which is to me incredibly apt.

They choice is taken away, in the end these 2 conditions are fullfilled in every ending, Reapers are gone and the Galaxy is left without Mass Relays, any of the choices you are given, fail to present the player with any consequence to actions, because it omitted having an epilogue to explain what happens with each choice you pick.

If it had an epilogue, then I agree there would have been a choice in the end, as how its stand now, everything anyone says (aside from Bioware themselves) is pure speculation, and for a game series that asks you to invest 90+ plus 200+ USD on it, that's a pretty unsatisfying move.

 

[ClockworkSailor]

You know aside from everything else all the plot holes and gimmicks I would have been happy with a change of one cut scene and the addition of one more. Instead of the scene where Normandy outruns the blast and you get to see (in my case) Joker, EDI, and Garrus climb out into the happy sunshine you get the full crew and surviving members of the team and crew in front of the damnable depressing wall on crew deck putting Shepard's name on the wall and maybe some tidbits about how we did good. The one I want is closure for the love interest. I don't know about you but over the course of the three games I became heavily invested into both my paragon Femshep and my renegade MaleShep and their interpersonal relationships. Bioware almost got me to cry when my FemShep gave Garrus her goodbyes before launching the attack on the beam teleport thingy. What truly broke the game for me was I had no resolution about it. Anything would have been better from Garrus drinking and shooting targets with an empty rifle beside him or him in a bar drinking alone and the rest of the team shows up to comfort him. Its still preset its still completely cinematic but it at least shows that the personal interactions you, as Shepard, indulge in have a lasting impact on the story enough to warrant a wrap up. And that is what made me mad about the whole thing. I have come to expect bad endings in games but normally Bioware always makes good on delivering personal closure even at the expense of world closure and this time I got neither

 

[Darkmantle]

this simply does not justify taking away the standard popcorn cinema victory.

I spent 31 hours gathering support from the whole galaxy and instead of getting an epic showdown i get pre a rendered space battle that does not show all the forces i gathered, then i am thrown into an epic ground offensive where there was a golden opportunity to have a goddamn heroes moment for say, the geth prime army i "recruited" to air drop into the scene with the missile trucks to mow down the attacking reaper forces while saying "sheppard commander, we will assist".
Then we get harbinger landing his ass in front of us and there is jack shiite we can do, the scene does him no justice and it leads to the most flow breaking, spirit destroying ending anyone could have created. Instead of one last argument with TIM and then a boss battle for the citadel control which leads to sheppard opening the arms so the crucible can come in and fuck the reapers over and then proceed to massive celebrations followed by epic epilogue sequences leading into a popcorn ending, we get some meta bullshit right out of someones ass. This is like the matrix movies.


screw this, for 3 games we have been building up to an epic slugfest versus mecha Cthulhu and then we are treated to this meta crap.


And the games have been fun to play, i don't understand why they had to do this and ruin it with such a jarring ending. it sapped the will out of me to play my other sheps, because THERE WILL BE NO DIFFERENCE! Whether i played an antagonizing asshole sheppard or saint sheppard the do gooder, there is no point. It only affects cameos!

For gods sake man, please please please just grow up. Listen to yourself, getting upset because an ending had depth and sacrifice, rather than a dull samey unoriginal "GOOD GUYS WIN BAD GUYS LOSE AND GALAXY IS SAVED" scenario. Honestly, this is getting out of hand, posts like this are really ruining the reputation of people who play games. This ending made you THINK about what you had to do, and consider the MOTIVATION behind the Reapers, rather than them just being stupidly evil for no reason, which would have made no sense whatsoever.

Your demand for a "popcorn ending" is sadly just childish, you seem incapable of enjoying intellectual depth or indeed any depth in storytelling at all. Instead of relishing the idea of your views being challenged, and perhaps even changed, you instead come here to complain because the ending isn't the safe, predictable and completely bland ending you anticipated.

It's not that it's a pyrrhic victory. It's that it's a badly written pyrrhic victory. Worse, it's a badly written pyrrhic victory that relies on a deus ex machina. That's why I don;t like it.

Unless of course the "indoctrination" theory is correct, at which point I retract my dislike, because that would be clever. But this ending on it's own, taken at face value, feels like an ass pull.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Another good post from the 8 billion page long indoctrination thread...

You're getting your literary devices mixed up. The Crucible is not deus ex machina, it is a MacGuffin. It's largely irrelevant except as a plot device. It is the exhaust port on the Death Star.

The narrative of ME3 is not about finding the Crucible, it is about building the greatest alliance ever seen in the galaxy (which the Crucible, as a plot device, allows to happen).

Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a "god from the machine" is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story.

This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game?

In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character's personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you.

The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist.

But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion's messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst's claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false.

The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!).

CHOICES DON'T MATTER

Again, you're missing the point. No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending.

And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a **** if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don't affect your ending at all. Who gives a **** if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They're all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He's either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway.

And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don't matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she's a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for.

You accept Space Hitler's premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer.

How does it matter in the slightest that I've done the frickin' impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set "Love and compassion" as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of "AI will always rebel" to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says "AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem". And I go "yessuh"?

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO SAD

It's not sad. You are being incredibly myopic and dismissive of our experiences by reducing it to "y every1 has 2 diezorz?". The ending of the story is not actually sad, it's just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes.

The part that's sad and what's tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making **** up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way.

This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it's attempting to solve.

Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia.

I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don't do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this.

TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn't get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose"

 

[Nimcha]

Another good post from the 8 billion page long indoctrination thread...

Not a bad post at all, but most of it has already been explained multiple times. From the Reaper motivations to the choices mattering after the ending to the Catalyst making sense.

I hope, in time, people will start to actually think about all this and come to the conclusion that it's really not a bad ending at all, as I have.

 

[Seanfall]

From the (enormous) indoctrination speculation thread on the Bioware forums:

Full Comprised List of Evidence for New Comers:
1) The Theory isn't "Shepard has always been indoctrinated since the beginning of ME3". Its "Harbinger is attempting to indoctrinate Shepard AFTER Shepard is hit by the beam".
2) The moment Shepard wakes up, Coats reports that nobody made it to the Conduit, yet Shepard is walking towards it.
3) Depending on your EMS, you'll either see your squadmates dead (low) or not there (high).
4) Despite that area being completely destroyed, there are three trees in the area.
5) You have unlimited ammo through the game, even when you're at the Citadel and there's nothing to shoot at.
6) Shepard's Gun = Shepard's Willpower
7) Once you're inside the Citadel, Anderson says he followed you in. Yet, he gets to the console first and if he did indeed follow you in, why did he not report to Coats that Shepard and him are heading inside?
8) All the dead bodies have the same face and are bald.
9) Anderson notes that the walls are moving. Recall back to the Derelict Reaper in ME2. If you listened to the logs, the scientists noted that they had shared memories, the walls moved, things appeared, etc. It can also be noted that Anderson says "it's dark like the Collector base".
10) Parts of the citadel look like parts from the Shadow Broker base.
11) You may have noticed "1M1" on a part of the Citadel. To your left, it's "1M1". To your right, it's reversed/mirrored. "1M1" is also a part of optics.
12) Illusive Man appears out of nowhere.
13) There are "oily, black" lines around the screen whenever the indoctrinated Illusive Man speaks or does something significant.
14) Despite the Citadel being closed, you can see cars driving in the back ground.
15) If you choose the Paragon route, Illusive Man will commit suicide a la Saren style.
16) Hackett talks to the Commander while on the Citadel... but it was reported that no one made it. So how did Hackett know Shepard was in the Citadel?
17) When lifted up, the Starchild is a "ghostly presence".
18) Depending on your EMS, the Starchild will either say an angry "Why are you here?" (low) or a calm, yet commanding "Wake Up" (high).
19) The Starchild's voice is a mixture of MaleShep, FemShep, and the child's VA. Some claim you can also hear Harbinger.
20) The Starchild puts emphasis on how bad that Destroy ending will be by noting that you would kill synthetic life, including the Geth. He also mentions that Shepard is partially synthetic, implying you will die as well.
21) The Starchild will hesitate his answer when Shepard asks "And the Reapers will obey me?". He pauses for 2 seconds and then says "Yes".
22) The Starchild will say that Synthesis is the final stage of evolutionary life. This is what the Reapers always wanted.
23) By choosing Control or Synthesis, Shepard will die regardlessly. This means Shepard lost and he is fully indoctrinated.
24) Control's color is blue (Paragon) while Destroy's color is red (Renegade). Harbinger is tricking not Shepard, but the PLAYER that Control is the good ending.
25) Destroy ending is the only ending where Shepard is alive/wakes up.
26) The Normandy scene is a way for Shepard to imagine that the people closest to him are okay and that they landed on a sunny, lush planet, filled with necessary things to sustain life. Many crewmembers through out ME2 and ME3 have said they would have wanted to go somewhere "sunny" or to a "beach" (yes, there's a beach on that planet).
27) Shepard wakes up back on London because the Citadel wasn't made out of concrete. You can also hear the wind in the background. There is no wind in space or the Citadel.
28) James Vega at one point mentions "Do you hear that humming noise? Or is that just me?". EDI will also says that the Normandy still have the Reaper IFF.
29) The Dreams will get more and more details as the story progresses. At first, it's just the child you're following. The second one has whispers and "oily, black, ghostly" figures. The third one has more ghostly, black figures and more whispers. In my playthrough, I heard Liara's and Kaidan's whispers, saying "Shepard". The final one ends with Shepard hugging/embracing the kid, smiling as they both get burned.
30) Shepard has been more exposed to Reapers and Reaper tech than anyone else on the squad.
31) Notice how no one notices the child throughout the game. No one helps him get on the shuttle and Anderson doesn't ask Shepard what Shepard was doing.
32) A scared child wouldn't say "You can't help me". They would say "Help!", "Save me!", and/or "I'm scared!".
33) When Shepard turns away from the child in the beginning, you can hear a growl. In the ME Novels, Paul Grayson would hear growls when he snapped out of it. The growl is a different sound than what Reapers normally make.
34) The kid disappears in the duct, with no noise or anything.
35) In the ME artbook, the child is "the face of humanity of one that Shepard couldn't save". In a way, the Reapers (or Harbinger) is using the child to taunt Shepard, saying he cannot save them. In ME2, both throughout the main campaign and Arrival DLC, Harbinger said it is inevitable that Shepard will lose.
36) Notice how Harbinger barely speaks in ME3, yet he was a huge role in ME2. You only see Harbinger for a good minute, but he flies away when you wake up. The Child is actually Harbinger, playing on Shepard's emotion to show how weak Shepard is and that he will fail.
37) The reason why Harbinger didn't kill Shepard or force him to choose Control or Synthesis is because Shepard is still resisting. Harbinger then tries another tactic: Persuasion.
38) Indoctrinate has been a huge role throughout the ME universe. However, it is more prominent in ME3.
39) If you choose Control or Synthesis, look at Shepard's eyes. They will turn exactly like Illusive Man's and Saren's. Thus, Shepard has been indoctrinated.

If we have to live with the endings I hope that this is case that it is a trick a trap by the reapers. Of course that means if you picked any but 'destroy' you failed. Or at the very least are fuuuuuuuuuuucked. I remember that Martin sheen in the Voice cast revel trailer said. "I'm not done yet."

 

[Quellist]

All I can think about this whole thing is 'Fuck, these guys sound just like the "Wolves/Inhibitors" From the Revelation Space series by Alistair Reynolds'

Now we know their motivation its just waaaaay too similar to be a coincidence.

 

[Darkmantle]

Another good post from the 8 billion page long indoctrination thread...

Not a bad post at all, but most of it has already been explained multiple times. From the Reaper motivations to the choices mattering after the ending to the Catalyst making sense.

I hope, in time, people will start to actually think about all this and come to the conclusion that it's really not a bad ending at all, as I have.

I feel like you read the post, and missed the point. The post is outlining CLEARLY why it's bad and what everyone's real problems with it were. Ya know, just clearing it up for the thick-headed who do not understand our dislike of the ending.

 

[madmurch]

I have observed many similarities between the Mass Effect series and Babylon 5 (two personal favourites: one has Project Lazarus whilst the other has a Lazarus Project, and both have an ancient force representing Order conflicting against Chaos over thousands of years), which made me wish that there had been an option to defy the Catalyst in the same manner that Sheridan defied the older races in B5. Had there been an option to reject the Dominate/Destroy/Amalgamate options imposed by the godlike and callous aliens and demand freedom from their meddling (I do love his immortal line, "Get the hell out of our galaxy!"), I would have been a very happy chap.
Or maybe not, considering the ending videos were rather poor. I wouldn't have minded the Dominate/Destroy/Amalgamate options if each had led to an interesting, heartwarming and distinctive ending to the game. Instead, assuming you had a decent amount of war assets, you get a virtually unchanged video of Earth being saved and your friends getting stranded. Was there any explanation for why the Normandy was traveling through a Mass Relay just before the relay system was annihilated? And why on Earth (or the blasted ruins of Earth) did Bioware chose to withhold information about what happened next? Perhaps they're planning a new game in the universe (or some DLC) and want to keep their cards close to their chest, but I was at least hoping for a Return of the Jedi style montage of shots of the survivors of other planets celebrating their victory / survival. Not much point in curing the genophage or getting the quarians and geth to co-operate if we never get to see the consequences of such deeds.
At the very least, the troops whom you had recruited (Krogan soldiers, Geth Primes, Elcor and Hanar tag-teams) could have appeared in the battle for Earth to help Shepard out. I was expecting this to happen throughout the last few fights, and I see from comments above that other people had harboured similar hopes. And they could have made it possible to get the very best ending without having to play multiplayer modes or iOS games to increase your Galactic Readiness score, as I thought Bioware had promised last year. And given the role of informing Shepard about his final options to Harbinger rather than that little boy (I would have loved to hear a Reaper sounding ashamed at having failed its mission). Ah well, never mind. I'm sure the next epic sci-fi RPG trilogy will hit the nail upon the head.

 

[saleem]

From the (enormous) indoctrination speculation thread on the Bioware forums:

Snippety Snip

You know reading this idea is actually plausible. I dont know if anyone has noticed but ALL the default endings are the renegade one's - you kill the council, you save the collector base - That would make the Destroy ending the canonical one if the trending continues.

So the question remains is everyone in sword and hammer STILL fighting the reapers while your out cold and duking it out with Harbinger in your head? Is the ending of ME3 just one big dream sequence leaving the door open for DLC to come in and finish it off?

Nah that would be too much to hope for wouldnt it.