A lot of these comments give very good alternatives for the ending. I'm surprised that many of these are BETTER than the endings we are presented.
Jandau said:
I don't think you should be able to win conventionally, if for no other reason than because it would then be the "BESTEST ENDING!!!" and would render all the other endings utterly pointless. This way, it's actually a choice.
It's not the "bestest ending". In Control and Synthesis, the galaxy gains the Reapers' collective knowledge and technology, pushing them to new heights of technological capabilities. Beating them conventionally removes that. In addition, beating them conventionally means losing millions, possibly billions more lives. It's only superior to the Destroy ending because it a) leaves the relays and technology intact, and b) doesn't wipe out the Geth and EDI.
nikki191 said:
you are looking at a military force that has been exterminating and harvesting the most advanced intelligent civilisations for millons of years. we arent even at the point of technology the protheans had at their height so i dont see how we could win conventionally.
in the long run they will win a war, they harvest millons of people a day. and a military cant hold off forces like that
The Protheans were sneak-attacked, their central command was wiped out, their communication lines were cut, and Javik specifically states that the unified nature of the Prothean military caused it to collapse, since they had never considered fighting a force like the Reapers. Their own tactics were turned against them. In addition, the Protheans were at a lower technological level than this cycle, since we had an opportunity to analyze Sovereign and potentially the Collector base.
The Reapers would eventually lose to a conventional army. Why? Because making new Reapers takes hundreds of millions of hosts, who must all be of the same race. Reapers cannot increase their numbers unless they have already won the war. In addition, Reapers don't have spaceports to repair their damage, relying presumably on a slow self-healing ability internally. On the other hand, conventional ships can be repaired at dry-docks and set back into the fight. Finally, Reapers are static, they do not improve over time. However, conventional ships can be upgraded with better weapons, better shields, and possibly even manned through VI/AI, thus removing the loss of life to the equation. The Reapers would eventually be surpassed technologically.
Overall I think that a conventional victory was what fans wanted, but the writers (I'm looking at you Casey Hudson) decided against it, instead giving us a "Rocks fall, everyone dies" ending. Personally I would have loved it if the Crucible was another Reaper trap, designed to drain the resources of the remaining survivors and place their fleets in one place so the Reapers could take them all out at once. That would have been BRILLIANT. Then, having Shepard give a rallying speech to the fleet, saying that they're going to wipe the Reapers out no matter what, then watching a Cutscene that changes based on your EMS, that would have been a goddamn ending. Plus, it makes Kei Leng the final boss of the game, something I can live with (he reminds me a lot of Saren in the way that Shepard encounters and fights him).
That's all I have to say about it. I'm done with the Mass Effect series. I don't think this has redeemed the ending enough to make me want to purchase future Bioware products. Like Forbes said, "Too little, too late".
