Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[F'Angus]

I actually quite licked the ending... a little sacrifice for the greater good.. yes Shepherd dies BUT the universe is saved, the Reapers are gone, and life goes on! I call that a victory.

I actually quite licked the ending... a little sacrifice for the greater good.. yes Shepherd dies BUT the universe is saved, the Reapers are gone, and life goes on! I call that a victory.

I licked an ending once and it was awful.

EDIT: Liked not Licked, haha Thanks

 

[SajuukKhar]

And that would mean the pulse wave has the power to destroy a solar system. It doesn't matter if you convert the power of a nuclear bomb into alpha radiation, beta radiation, gamma radiation, heat, electricity, or kinetic energy, it's still the power of a nuclear bomb.

It has all the total power of a nuclear bomb, yes, but it is possible to turn said nuclear energy into a energy type that doesn't actually harm organics/synthetics.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

We don't know if they stay there, after all the Normandy appears to be mostly intact.

They don't really have much of an option. Even if they got it up and running again, their range would still be limited by their fuel reserve and the lack of mass relays. Where would they go?

Nor do we know if the planet was uninhabited either. Maybe they landed on a planet with an asari colony

True enough, but judging from the scene itself, they are alone. There aren't any indications to the contrary.

 

[Immsys]

I haven't played any of the Mass Effect games, but by God. Just so you all know, the majority of this thread reads like the worst amount of bitching I have ever, ever seen. Really unless the ending of Mass Effect 3 butchered several of your close relatives, most of these responses really are quite unfounded. yes congratulations, choice is not what you always get, indeed something that you rarely get, yet that does not justify complaining of this magnitude over a decision writers made. Be unhappy about it, fine. Better than fine in fact, opinions are what makes life interesting; but at least make them slightly coherent and less... childish. Stop saying that everything has to be "the way it was promised" and that the Mass Effect world isn't "the way it should be". To all those that are complaining: you are not the arbiter of what the Mass Effect world should or should not be, that is up to the people who made it. Be unhappy with it, fine. Stop demanding that it must be changed. Also those who would have preferred a happy ending, stop acting like you are the only group in existence. There are people who enjoy sad endings as well, you do not get the privileged of having your preferred ending every time just because. Responses such as "I uninstalled the game because I'm so unhappy" or "The Mass Effect world is ruined for me" are not appropriate. Welcome to a world where there can be tragedies and the ending is rarely satisfactory, or as most people call it, reality.

 

[synobal]

We don't know if they stay there, after all the Normandy appears to be mostly intact.

They don't really have much of an option. Even if they got it up and running again, their range would still be limited by their fuel reserve and the lack of mass relays. Where would they go?

Nor do we know if the planet was uninhabited either. Maybe they landed on a planet with an asari colony

True enough, but judging from the scene itself, they are alone. Their aren't any indications to the contrary.

Yes but we don't know these things. I find it amusing that everyone jumps automatically to the assumption they are now preforming a nontelevised version of Gilligan's Island with Liara as Ginger and Joker as Gilligan.

 

[KingofMadCows]

And that would mean the pulse wave has the power to destroy a solar system. It doesn't matter if you convert the power of a nuclear bomb into alpha radiation, beta radiation, gamma radiation, heat, electricity, or kinetic energy, it's still the power of a nuclear bomb.

It has all the total power of a nuclear bomb, yes, but it is possible to turn said nuclear energy into a energy type that doesn't actually harm organics/synthetics.

Except what can and cannot harm things is not a matter of type but amount. The light from a single 60 watt lightbulb isn't going to hurt you but if I shine a million 60 watt light bulbs at you, you'll be blinded and die of heatstroke.

Similarly, a little bit of that energy wave might not harm organics but if it has the energy to destroy a solar system behind it then that's like someone shining a couple hundred trillion 60 watt light bulbs on you.

 

[synobal]

And that would mean the pulse wave has the power to destroy a solar system. It doesn't matter if you convert the power of a nuclear bomb into alpha radiation, beta radiation, gamma radiation, heat, electricity, or kinetic energy, it's still the power of a nuclear bomb.

It has all the total power of a nuclear bomb, yes, but it is possible to turn said nuclear energy into a energy type that doesn't actually harm organics/synthetics.

Except what can and cannot harm things is not a matter of type but amount. The light from a single 60 watt lightbulb isn't going to hurt you but if I shine a million 60 watt light bulbs at you, you'll be blinded and die of heatstroke.

Similarly, a little bit of that energy wave might not harm organics but if it has the energy to destroy a solar system behind it then that's like someone shining a couple hundred trillion 60 watt light bulbs on you.

You have to be careful with bringing Hard Physics into a science fiction that is obviously not intended to be a hard scifi.

Sure what you say is technically true but we don't understand physics in the mass effect universe nor can we start to pretend to understand exactly what sort of energy release happened. Maybe most of the energy was evenly distrusted across the galaxy so that what normally would of destroyed a solar system simply damage some space ships.

 

[tendaji]

Which brings me to the root of my problem. Why did it have to destroy the relays? Why couldn't it be enough to kill the Reapers but not destroy the Relays? Why did we have to shoehorn that in? Galactic civilization is destroyed, countless people are stranded away from the rest of their species, the lack of travel and communication will lead to economic collapse, many people starving because they can't get the levo or dextro food that they need because of their location, wars may break out, the Krogan in the galaxy are stuck on the planets that they're on and the Genophage has been cured, so they're going to run out of space REAL fast, and god knows where all the people in orbit above Earth are supposed to go or what they'll eat. Also, the Geth get killed, EDI is dead, I went to the trouble of getting the Quarian homeworld back and now they'll never get to see it again, and Garrus and Tali will probably starve on that planet that they're on.

This ending is chock full of Fridge Horror, this is why I hate it so much, especially when we were promised a definitive happy ending. This is the best ending the game has to offer and it is not happy.

Well this about it, when the Catalyst shoots off that wave of energy to hit the relays, that's a power that is effectively overloading and converting the energy from one form (the FTL energy boost for extra fast space travel) and changing it to (Insert 1 of 3 types of conversion energies here). The energy is changed and expelled by the Mass Effect Relay, using up all the energy that was built into the relay, causing it to destabilize and fall apart.

I personally think it was interesting to have a destruction in terms of Bioware's decision of the Mass Effect Relays, but then again, it does make sense, if you are to live without the cycling of the Reapers, then you should live without any influence of the Reapers.

Galactic Civilization will still exist, just not as confined as before, instead of settling in mostly uninhabitable places across the Galaxy, species will have to rely on settling only within their means.

The thing about the krogans is that they will have to evolve to become less fertile (sorta like how the genophage acted but naturally). In the 2nd game it was discussed how uplifting the krogan was bad because they hadn't evolved past their angry and need for war, which allowed for high breeding numbers so they could constantly fight.

In terms of the Quarians, we don't know if their entire race was at the fight, when you talk to Tali after completing the mission, she talks about how people on Rannoch are learning how to farm, and integrating geth into their suits to help with immunization. So we could easily assume that the entire Quarian race isn't at the battle.

1- if the point of the gaurdian/catalyst etc is to maintain organic life by culling it whenever it reaches a certain point, why did it not destry the relays eons ago if that seems to be the "only way" that this society will set its own destiny.

The point of the Catalyst is to prevent organic life from creating synthetic life that ends up destroying all organic life. They basically decide that 50,000 years is long enough for the species that were not culled to have gotten to the point of developing AI. And if you had to cull the life of advanced species, it would be easier to have a road map that details exactly where they should be settling, otherwise there could be so many hiding spots out there in the galaxy.

2- How could an ending that would clearly lead to the death and struggle of several main characters and entire races (as stated from the quoted poster) be seen as palatable for even the "good" ending.

Because it would be good in terms of seeing the earth simply being destroyed, or not having the manpower to fight the final battles. It's more of a Pyrrhic victory, one that game at almost too great of a costs, but the battle was won and life will be able to go on, possibly with the life of Shepard still in it.

3- What about the significant plot holes involving the normandy, why it was in the middle of a relay jump and why certain people get off. The clear Deus ex Machina that is the star child and its unexplained/unfathomable powers that could be fairly described as space magic( one wave engulfs the entire galaxy while at the same time merging synthetic and organic life...?)

The Citadel has always been a station of incredible lore. I'm pretty sure there are stories about it having dark energy within its bulkhead. The Citadel could have been built with this in mind, seeing as every cycle seemed to add a little bit more to the Crucible. I mean the catalyst said that they used the Reaper cycle because that was the only effective route until the current cycle. Which was basically known to happen sooner or later.

As for merging synthetic and organic life, if there was a massive wave of energy and the correct stimuli that went with it, it isn't that hard to believe chemical bonds could be produced between organic an inorganic chemicals, creating a partially synthetic creature. And see as the energy from the Mass Effect Relays was expending in this transformation, I could see it possibly occurring.

4- What about the general lack of content for the ending in that the cinematic and aftermath is highly abbreviated and (at least in my opinion) really is not befitting to end a 3 game epic. It is completely accurate to say that all you get is Shepard's ending sequence, 3 variation of the reapers leaving/dying/stopping, jokers race against the relay, and 3 variations of the normandy opening up with different combinations of who comes out. I know that the ending is meant to be ambigous, but how is that appropriate for this type of game/story?

*shrugs* To be honest, I really don't know, it would be interesting to have been in that meeting that was discussing the final scenes of ME3 just to see what kind of mindset they were in when they were brainstorming.

I'm still conflicting on the ending, on one end I understand it, on the other end I would have liked to actually see an ending. But at least this way I could just imagine it ending in my own way, instead of being told what they did afterwords.

 

[eventhorizon525]

I haven't played any of the Mass Effect games, but by God. Just so you all know, the majority of this thread reads like the worst amount of bitching I have ever, ever seen. Really unless the ending of Mass Effect 3 butchered several of your close relatives, most of these responses really are quite unfounded. yes congratulations, choice is not what you always get, indeed something that you rarely get, yet that does not justify complaining of this magnitude over a decision writers made. Be unhappy about it, fine. Better than fine in fact, opinions are what makes life interesting; but at least make them slightly coherent and less... childish. Stop saying that everything has to be "the way it was promised" and that the Mass Effect world isn't "the way it should be". To all those that are complaining: you are not the arbiter of what the Mass Effect world should or should not be, that is up to the people who made it. Be unhappy with it, fine. Stop demanding that it must be changed. Also those who would have preferred a happy ending, stop acting like you are the only group in existence. There are people who enjoy sad endings as well, you do not get the privileged of having your preferred ending every time just because. Responses such as "I uninstalled the game because I'm so unhappy" or "The Mass Effect world is ruined for me" are not appropriate. Welcome to a world where there can be tragedies and the ending is rarely satisfactory, or as most people call it, reality.

Actually, my complaint boils down to how Bioware basically took a story that had been building (quite well) two games, had an amazing lead in to the finale, then pulled an ending that reflected relatively little of your previous choices despite what Bioware had promised along the way. Yes it was within their rights to do this, but it is well within my rights to be annoyed about it. They aren't going to change it, but I can still have my opinion on what was done well and what was done poorly.

Also could we please stop with the good ending == happy ending? A good ending == well executed ending for the universe, yet a decent number of arguments are focusing on the happy/sad deal (though Bioware did promise a happy ending, though what that can be interpreted as is up for, well, interpretation).

 

[Deathninja19]

But the ending contradicts what happened in "The Arrival" DLC. The destruction of the Mass Relay in "The Arrival" unleashed enough power to destroy a solar system. If all the Mass Relays are destroyed, then every solar system with a Mass Relay is also destroyed.

Also, the synthesis ending makes no sense even with Mass Effect's magic science. How does the radiation magically rewrite everyone's DNA to contain synthetic components without killing them?

The good parts of ME3 are great but bad parts of ME3 reminds me of a lot of the dumbest stuff in Star Trek. The way they wussified the Reapers is a lot like what Voyager did to the Borg. They built them into this massive unstoppable force but had no idea how the heroes were going to beat them so they dropped their IQ by about 90%. The whole synthesis ending reminds me a lot of terrible episodes like "Genesis" and "Threshold" where the "science" part of "science fiction" is screwed up to such an unbelievable extent.

The Mass Relay in Arrival had a fully working element zero core, the relays at the end of Mass Effect 3 had used up all their energy with their pulse waves that enact whatever choice you made.

why do people constantly ignore the glaring difference?

Hey don't accuse people of ignoring something, I'm still waiting for your explanation about why the Reapers don't use non-violent ways to invade.

Nonviolent invasion, heh that is kinda funny. Also hippy reapers don't make for good story telling.

More than one way to skin a cat my man, why damage what you are trying to save it goes against the point of trying to 'protect' sentient life.

And no it does make good storytelling, it makes a bad action game but it's fine storytelling. Actually I take it back it made a good game called Mass Effect 2 where the Collectors and, through proxy, the Reapers were using non-violent means to kidnapp colonists. Why not do that again, sure the stasis bugs were neutralised but the Reapers could have easilly come up with a new non-violent way.

It wasn't nonviolent, they turned those people into sludge of some sort, and maybe you missed those piles of corpses in the collector ships too.

You harvest with a scythe and trust me they were harvesting.

Non-violent means I mean, look they are trying to turn sentient life in to that sludge to preserve it, which is stupid but whatever, so why kill these things that you are turning in to sludge if you want to preserve it. You could say you can't make an omlet without breaking a few eggs but the way the Reapers act there won't be any eggs left.

The Reapers just don't make sense, it was Bioware trying to do a unique spin without thinking about the logic behind the Reapers actions in ME1 and ME2. You can't look at those 2 games and say Bioware had planned the Reaper's origins from the begining, it stinks of retcon and because of poor planning the whole series starts to peel away everytime you try to analyse it. I don't care how the game ended I just care about how little the Reapers make sense.

Indeed the reapers don't make sense because they are machines, they see organic life as organic life, they don't really make a distinction between individuals. That is why them actually addressing Shepherd as Shepherd is a huge deal.

In the reapers mind they are saving 'organic' life by destroying all the civilizations that are advanced enough to make synthetics that might one day destroy all organic life. The reapers in their mind are the good guys because they are trying to preserve 'organic life' as a whole.

It doesn't matter if they routinely commit galaxy wide genocide every 50k years.

They also excuse this by saying they are turning people into the ultimate form of evolution, the ultimate beings. Creating a deity out of the collective members of an entire race. It is totally messed up logic but it is machine logic that is alien and foreign to us. Something the reapers always were.

Out of all the aliens in Mass Effect the Reapers are the most Alien.

Then if the Reapers are machines why are they protecting sentient life from potential other machines, it makes no sense. Why don't the Reapers just come in and destroy AI when it gets too powerfull?

Most importantly of all, why were the Reapers using the Geth, AI in its purest form, as puppets? If the Reapers are afraid of AI, then the Geth are their anathema. It's just another case of the Reapers of ME3 not making sense with the Reapers of ME1.

You can say they are alien and that would be fine if their motives were shrouded in mystery but ME3 tells us clearly what the Reapers are and what they want and there is a huge disonance between what they say they are and what they are doing in the game.

Captcha: Hoity-toity, yep that's me

 

[feeqmatic]

-You crew survives and made a colony

I feel I need to chime in here, because that is really the most horrible implication of the whole ending.

How many crew members does a ship the size of the Normandy have? You could be very generous and say about 25 (and I think that is really stretching it), and even then it wouldn't matter in the long run. You simply wouldn't have enough genetic material to keep a diverse population for more than a few generations, eventually leading to extensive inbreeding. And considering the loss of FTL, this could go on for centuries.

But that is just the long run consequences, because what about Joker and his disease? I can't imagine him lasting long in a small society with limited resources. And what about Tali and Garrus who aren't able to eat the same food as humans? Are they just going to starve slowly to death? What about the homosexual crew members who will probably be forced to procreate against their sexuality?

All of these implications are one of the main reasons why many people doesn't like this ending. The fact that they happen to involve some of the characters that the players have grown attached to over the years just amplifies this feeling.

Ya I kinda disagree with the whole 'your crew survives and makes a colony. We know they landed (some what roughly) on a planet. We don't know if they stay there, after all the Normandy appears to be mostly intact. I sort of doubt they made a colony there, unless a large portion of the fleet that was fleeing the blast also landed there and there was some reason to say, or they just couldn't leave.

Nor do we know if the planet was uninhabited either. Maybe they landed on a planet with an asari colony


I'd like to think I just did.

You gloss over the Tali/garrus die/ how did certain people end up on the ship in the first place but at least you came clean a bit. It is a clear sign of honest criticism over fanboyism. So with that understood, do you see why some players are disappointed with the ending if not just on this issue?

 

[Hypermini]

Maybe that might of helped with all these gripes, but where people see 'doom and gloom' in these endings I see possibilities all of them very exciting and I can't wait for the next story in the Mass Effect universe.

I agree with you completely, i can see that in terms of new lore for the universe breaking the status quo of reaper technology was by far the best thing and presents inummerable possibilites, the whole series was about breaking the status quo and you essentially achieve that with this ending. in the future you could have any number of new scenerios,new art styles, new unknown techonolgies. its impossible to predict what bioware will do next and thats exactly what i (and most likely bioware when that sat down and discussed this) want.

the only slight criticism is that this was the end of this story arc, and the end should have been made more clearly to round the triology off nicely, i mean if theyre supposedly catering to new players i cant imagine what theyll take from this ending. Simply, though it doesnt bother me it wouldve saved all this fuss and a massive campaign for more endings on all these forums had they comunicated it all properly.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Except what can and cannot harm things is not a matter of type but amount. The light from a single 60 watt lightbulb isn't going to hurt you but if I shine a million 60 watt light bulbs at you, you'll be blinded and die of heatstroke.

Similarly, a little bit of that energy wave might not harm organics but if it has the energy to destroy a solar system behind it then that's like someone shining a couple hundred trillion 60 watt light bulbs on you.

The problem with that analogy is that we don't know
1. what type of energy it is
2. how much of said energy would be needed to hurt us
3. what the spread of the pulse is

There wasn't a mass relay for every single solar system and so each pulse would have had to cover multiple systems in order to reach everyone.

spreading the energy of a supernova across many systems diminishes its destructive power significantly.

 

[synobal]

-You crew survives and made a colony

I feel I need to chime in here, because that is really the most horrible implication of the whole ending.

How many crew members does a ship the size of the Normandy have? You could be very generous and say about 25 (and I think that is really stretching it), and even then it wouldn't matter in the long run. You simply wouldn't have enough genetic material to keep a diverse population for more than a few generations, eventually leading to extensive inbreeding. And considering the loss of FTL, this could go on for centuries.

But that is just the long run consequences, because what about Joker and his disease? I can't imagine him lasting long in a small society with limited resources. And what about Tali and Garrus who aren't able to eat the same food as humans? Are they just going to starve slowly to death? What about the homosexual crew members who will probably be forced to procreate against their sexuality?

All of these implications are one of the main reasons why many people doesn't like this ending. The fact that they happen to involve some of the characters that the players have grown attached to over the years just amplifies this feeling.

Ya I kinda disagree with the whole 'your crew survives and makes a colony. We know they landed (some what roughly) on a planet. We don't know if they stay there, after all the Normandy appears to be mostly intact. I sort of doubt they made a colony there, unless a large portion of the fleet that was fleeing the blast also landed there and there was some reason to say, or they just couldn't leave.

Nor do we know if the planet was uninhabited either. Maybe they landed on a planet with an asari colony


I'd like to think I just did.

You gloss over the Tali/garrus die/ how did certain people end up on the ship in the first place but at least you came clean a bit. It is a clear sign of honest criticism over fanboyism. So with that understood, do you see why some players are disappointed with the ending if not just on this issue?

With as far as Tali or Garrus dying I dunno, for all we know the synthesis thing from that ending means they don't need food any more. Maybe in the other ending they do die. I don't know.

With regards as to how the Normandy gets up there and how everyone gets on there I assume that there is some time lost at some point. Either when Shepherd gets beamed up, or when the crucible is preparing to fire that they evacuate and retreat. After all if a big weapon is about to fire are you going to stick around and see if it works? or high tail it and come back later to poke at the ruins and see if it worked.

I'm certainly not a fan boy of Bioware, I really do like their Mass Effect setting though and am a big fan of the trilogy.

 

[feeqmatic]

What i really dont get is how doing this helps them set up future IP than it would have if they had just kept the universe status quo and created a new thred within the galaxy as a whole to revolve the future games around

 

[SajuukKhar]

What i really dont get is how doing this helps them set up future IP than it would have if they had just kept the universe status quo and created a new thred within the galaxy as a whole to revolve the future games around

Because they can now set a game 300 years in the future were civilizations are just rediscovering Mass Relay tech of thier own.

Imagine how wildly different each colony of man could turn out after 300 years of isolation from Earth.

Same with every other race.

There are more possibilities now then there would have been had they kept the status quo.

 

[theonecookie]

Except what can and cannot harm things is not a matter of type but amount. The light from a single 60 watt lightbulb isn't going to hurt you but if I shine a million 60 watt light bulbs at you, you'll be blinded and die of heatstroke.

Similarly, a little bit of that energy wave might not harm organics but if it has the energy to destroy a solar system behind it then that's like someone shining a couple hundred trillion 60 watt light bulbs on you.

The problem with that analogy is that we don't know
1. what type of energy it is
2. what the spread of the pulse is

There wasn't a mass relay for every single solar system and so each pulse would have had to cover multiple systems in order to reach everyone.

spreading the energy of a supernova acorss many systems diminishes its destructive power significantly.

1)Its a type of radiation seeing as that,s the only way to get energy through a vacuum
2) the spread is everywhere there's a mass relay

so everybody's vaporized or has cancer of course its more likely to be the completely unforeshadowed space magic

 

[Hypermini]

anyway to put it bluntly people:

1) destorying the relays =/= that galactic civilsations are cut off forever, if the protheans can make a relay so cna the others with time. think of the relays as the best anti-reaper tool to hand, the 'mass effect' killed the reapers (i apolgise for the cheesyness)

2) Reapers have always functioned on twisted logic, thats why throughout the series you as shepherd have gone out your way to prove their logic wrong. so when you say 'they dont make sense' your right they dont, if they did you wouldnt want/ need to stop them!

3) If you take what i say in number 1 for fact you can have your cake (of everyone surviving, killing all reapers and if you really want even shepard surviving) and eat it. Yes, its not a pretty looking cake and the presentations terrible but its still there and tbh the galaxy was doomed so what did you expect?

4) yes bioware have been a little off the mark in not doing a ruddy epilogue properly and hinting that the questions that should have been answered in said eopilogue will probably come with dlc but other than that i dont see the problem.


i can infer what i believe to be the ending, you may argue it shouldnt be necessary to have to work out the ending and to some extent i agree but this was still a great game overall.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Stop saying that everything has to be "the way it was promised" and that the Mass Effect world isn't "the way it should be".

Mass Effect 3 was advertised by BioWare as a "satisfying conclusion" were "your choices matters." Judging from the reactions they have failed to deliver this to many of their costumers.

EDIT: Just to clarify: I don't agree with "good ending = happy ending" either. I really just think that a franchise selling itself on "choice", should be able to accommodate the people who want a happy outcome.