My thought process during the end of ME3. (SPOILERS)

[MomoElektra]

If this is true, you can expect some continuation from the Destroy ending.

I really like this explanation. Still is a cop out since they didn't include it, but it makes a nice story. Really really nice.

 

[Vuljatar]

I don't mind the destruction of the citadel and the mass relays. That makes sense. I do have a problem with the implication that all synthetic life would be wiped out as well. That doesn't logically follow, and also seems pointlessly spiteful to the player after all you have accomplished.

My biggest problem, however, is the Synthesis ending. It's just fucking magic. No science, just magic. No explanation, just magic. Mass Effect is comparatively hard sci-fi, and there is no place in hard sci-fi for magic.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

interesting theory

Now this is what I'd like to be true. Shepard fighting indoctrination throughout the entire game. Bioware did say something like "if you knew what we're planning you'd hold on to your ME3 copy forever'. I want this to be true, but I will not accept any theory because I don't want to be disappointed again.

 

[RatRace123]

I didn't consider it when I was making the choice as I was really living in the moment at that point, as the ending sequence up until the holographic Reaper child thing was done exceedingly well, but yeah... I let the quarians (and Tali) die to give the Geth a chance to live... and then I'm given the choice to kill 'em anyway.

I kinda felt like a dick after that, not just for the Geth's sake but also the quarians as it means they died in vain.

And choosing the control the Reapers went against my Shepard's principles and proved the Illusive Man right, and also would've made me a hypocrite for arguing with him.

I like the ending mostly, at least I like the idea that destroying the Mass relays breaks the cycle, and I think the ending would've been more effective if it had gone for more of that angle.
Basically as soon as the catalyst started talking the story started getting really really muddled.

Also I don't think we should've been given an explanation as to why the Reapers do what they do. They were more effective when they were just incomprehensible, scary, giant robotic fiddler crabs.

 

[Karathos]

By the way guys, for those of you who don't like the ending, there's something else that is extremely likely. Shepard was indoctrinated/passed out before he got up to the Citadel or before the Catalyst lifted him up.

Here's some hints at that:

-During Shepard's final dream with the child, chatter can be heard over the radio about nobody making it to the beam. Shepard is still in London.

-Shepard wakes up after Destroy, because the Reaper's hold is diminished. Shepard does not awake in the other 2 "endings" because you are fully indoctrinated by the choices you made to allow the Reapers to win. "Assuming Control!"

-When Anderson calls for Shepard at the beginning of the game, when Shepard is talking to the child, Shepard turns back and the child is gone. Shepard has been "snapped out of it".

-When Shepard turns towards Anderson after being "snapped out of it", a growl is heard. In the third novel, when Greyson resisted the reapers they would make a growling noise once they realized they didn't have him under complete control.

-When Shepard catches the child in the final dream, they are both engulfed in flame. Going with the child (the
reapers) means Shepard's destruction.

-Shepard has spent alot of time around Reapers. Soveriegn, various Reaper artifacts, the Human Reaper, 2 Reaper destroyers, the Artifact from "The Arrival." Its foolish to assume there is not some level of indoctrination.

-When Shepard wakes up at the end of Destroy, he/she is waking up in London, after being hit with the laser.

In fact guys, the fact that the child even appeared could be a major hint to it being a dream, since Shepard had continuous, reoccurring dreams after the child died.

If this is true, you can expect some continuation from the Destroy ending.

I want to believe that, because I just can't accept the ending in it's current form for obvious mentioned reasons

- Relays being destroyed meaning the universe I loved for three games is pretty much gone.
- Quarians and Turians pretty much as good as dead due to being stuck hundreds of years from their homeworlds.
- Synthetics being killed, which means everything I've done for the Geth during two ME games is for nothing.
- Completely arbitary jungle-crashlanding-ending.
- SPACE MAGIC 8DDD

The list goes on, but those are just off the top of my head.

Basically as soon as the catalyst started talking the story started getting really really muddled.

Pretty much this.

Every person I've discussed the ending with has said some version of "Alt-F4 when Shepard passes out at the console and that's a good ending.". That scene where Anderson and Shepard sit down and look at the view would've been a perfect ending.

Shepard shoots The Illusive Man / talks him into commiting suicide. He activates the console, the Crucible starts firing. He sits down, wounded, talks to Anderson until the man dies. And if you had a high enough score, you get the "perfect" ending where the Normandy manages to fly in at the last second and pick up Shepard and the dead Anderson. A montage alá Dragon Age: Origins is shown, including Anderson's funeral, Shepard's and love interest's settling down / wedding / something along those lines. CLOSURE.

But no, instead they brought in some damn god-child AI thing that has never before been mentioned or even hinted at for the whole series.

 

[Neonsilver]

The endings are bad, there is no reason that all synthetic life hast to be destroyed. The catalyst controls all reapers so it should have some kind of killswitch, let the reapers kill each other or just let the reapers fly into the next sun.

There is no reason for the relays to be destroyed when you chose the control option. The catalyst controls the reaper the whole time, so why should they be destroyed when shepard becomes part of the catalyst.

Why does Shepard has to sacrifice himself for the synthesis ending, it's not like there is not enough organic material on the citadel to create this new DNA.

The destruction of The Citadel and Mass Relays was necessary to free galactic civilization from the Reapers path so they could make things their own way and not the way the reapers wanted.

Not destroying the relays would only mean that the civilization of the galaxy would continue down The Reapers chosen technological path, which is to say a dead end one, and would make killing the reapers meaningless because we would still be constrained by their limitations, and would mean the civilizations of the galaxy are still slaves, but what makes it worse is now they are slaves to a salve master who is already dead.

You have a point there with destroying the relays. But this would only work if organics of the current cycle are wiped out with them. They used the mass effect technology for years, even if they have to rebuild everything, they will still use this technology.


It dosn't make sense that anyone of your sqad is suddenly on board of the Normandy, Joker wouldn't have the time to pick up anyone from the earth and I doubt they would flee from this fight, just like Joker wouldn't flee.
Since the planet they land seems to be free of any destruction, it's possible that they land on an uncolonized planet and just the crew of the Normandy might be to few to start a working colonie.

There is no closure about what happens with the species. The father and son in the end could be any species with an anatomy similar to humans, it could be a new intelligent race (Liara distributed/planned to distribute information about their ciycle in case they couldn't defeat the Reapers).


The endings are just unsatisfying. And that all three are mostly identical except for the color of the explosions doesn't help.

 

[WanderingFool]

The destruction of The Citadel and Mass Relays was necessary to free galactic civilization from the Reapers path so they could make things their own way and not the way the reapers wanted.

Not destroying the relays would only mean that the civilization of the galaxy would continue down The Reapers chosen technological path, which is to say a dead end one, and would make killing the reapers meaningless because we would still be constrained by their limitations, and would mean the civilizations of the galaxy are still slaves, but what makes it worse is now they are slaves to a salve master who is already dead.

That actually make sense, like Fridge Brilliance [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeBrilliance] kind of sense.

And now im slightly pissed as nobody has been arsed enough to even come out and say it.

Thank you for that.

Though still, Ive seen the endings, and compared to the previous two, it does seem to be utterly different to what you would expect.

 

[Karathos]

Just saw this posted on the Bioware Social Network. It's trying to be funny, but on the serious side it very clearly highlights how ridiculous the explanation the ending gives truly is.

 

[jensenthejman]

The ending makes the entire trilogy a big, gaping plot hole. Ugh, why bioware, why?

 

[wicket42]

snip

Hey SK, I have a hypothetical question for you.

If the Catalyst was cut out of the story entirely, and the crucible fired after Anderson died and destroyed the Reapers and the Mass Effect Relay system in the process, would you like the ending more or less than the current one?

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Hey SK, I have a hypothetical question for you.

If the Catalyst was cut out of the story entirely, and the crucible fired after Anderson died and destroyed the Reapers and the Mass Effect Relay system in the process, would you like the ending more or less than the current one?

Probably less because without the Catalyst, or something like it, the games gives no explanation on the Reapers.

They are Cthulu rip-offs which is a EXTREME cop-out. Anyone can just write "they cannot be understood"

As shitty as the explanation of why they exist may be, at least there is one. they at least attempted writing instead of having to get out of it Lovecraft style.

 

[llubtoille]

Funny, I own & have installed ME 1 & 2 (got 2 free from the DA2 deal),
pre-ME3 I'd been meaning to play them (increasingly before its release)
post-ME3, so glad I didn't XD
after reading about the endings, I know it would just make me depressed to play them, which is the opposite feeling I desire when playing games.
*bullet dodged*

 

[Smiley Face]

Yeah it's a bad ending horrible. It's poorly constructed, lacking choice. There is nothing wrong with relays, only thing that needed destruction is reapers.

Entirely wrong

the reapers built the Mass relays so that civilizations would develop technology from them, which is why all races ended up making almost the exact same technology, this dependance on the Mass Relays also causes races to limit what they make and what things they develop.

As long as the Reapers Mass relays existed the races would be limited by the limits the reapers put into the Mass Relays network.

Thinking that the mass relays aren't bad is ignoring the entire discussion with Sovereign on Virmire, and is going against a main theme of the game.

Actually LISTEN to what Sovereign says on virmire next time.

You've said this a few times, but... you're wrong. Yes, Sovereign says the Mass Relays and the Citadel exist to cause civilizations to develop along the path they develop. It's like if you're in a fight to the death, and you're offered a choice between a knife, a stick, and an AK-47 - except the other guy put a remote bomb in the AK-47 and didn't tell you about it.

But here's the thing - what Sovereign specifically means by that is that the purpose of the mass relays is to ensure that all advanced lifeforms find the mass relays, and colonize along them, and make themselves really easy to find and easy to reach, so they can be out in the open when it's time for harvesting - because if that didn't happen, they might become super-advanced and the Reapers might miss them. However, the fact is that, there is no reason to WANT the Mass Relays destroyed now that the Reapers are THERE, and if you can stop the Reapers, then they're a good thing - because once the Reapers aren't there, they aren't serving the Reapers purpose - the Reapers never expected to be beaten, the Catalyst freaking says so. So in other words, the mass relays are only bad until the Reapers find you - after that, the point is moot. It doesn't matter that there's a remote bomb in your AK47 AFTER you've shot the guy with the detonator, now you've just got an AK47. So yeah, people did listen to Sovereign, you're just wrong.


Anyways, my thoughts on the ending. I think the various endings have potential - the problem with them is that you're not given enough information on them. "Synthesis, you say?" Well what the HELL does that mean, glow-boy? The problem is that Shepard just sits there, doesn't ask any questions, get any info, and has no idea what the consequences could be. If they actually presented the options more clearly, allowed some questions and whatnot to be asked, they might actually seem more appealing. I mean, everyone's a cyborg all of a sudden? That could be REALLY interesting, and if they at least explained that, I might have been a lot more enthusiastic into going for it. Same with what exactly "controlling" the Reapers meant, because as has been pointed out, there's a lot of advantages. The "Death to Machines" option seems stupid and short-sighted, but that characterizes Renegade well, so I think it's apropos as is. There should be explanation, discussion - it's Mass Effect for goodness' sake.

That said, there's the problem that the endings available aren't all of the endings that should be available. There should be an option to try and convince glow-boy to call of the damn reapers on his own - no one has to die, no mass relays have to be destroyed. His whole point is that all synthetic life will try to destroy organic life, but on my file at least, the geth are living, non-breathing proof to the contrary - the geth only ever fought in self-defense or when under Reaper control - combine that with EDI, and I think there's a fairly convincing case for Shepard to make for "You're full of it, so stop and re-evaluate your genocide protocols". Also, if the kid's controlling the Reapers, blowing up the citadel might have given a huge fleet enough edge to stop the Reapers without setting their civilization back a thousand years. Those are some options that might have balanced out the ones they gave to make it a more balanced choice.

All that said, the glaring lack of exposition we get in the ending, as well as the forced choice of destroying the mass relays, seems to indicate that BioWare knows this info and intentionally left it out so they can put it in DLC. Which is a jerk move. Not the Mass Relays part, that's just them trying to shape whatever sequel they have in an obvious and ham-handed way.

That said, I don't HATE the endings, I just think they were poorly handled. I WOULD hate it if they intentionally made it bad so they can elaborate later in DLC, so we'll see.

EDIT: Also, they really should have done what they did in Dragon Age - say what happened to everyone because of what you did. You know, because that's what we actually care about. But again, there's the possibility they intentionally made the ending vague.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

Then I'm provided three endings.

1. Control the Reapers and call them off, destroying the relays and killing Shepard
2. Turn all life into this... synth-bio-hybrid stuff, and Catalyst calls off the Reapers and leaves
3. Destroy all synthetic life (including Reapers and Catalyst), destroying the relays. But the peace won't last, as "your children will build more and the chaos will return". Yet the Reapers won't since you destroy them utterly by doing this.

I just found this over on the Bioware forum: what if there was a fourth option? [http://social.bioware.com/poll.php?user=1183972&poll_id=29101] Basically, besides the crappy Control/Merge/Destroy choices, there could be a "Refuse" option. Shepard could point to the Geth and Quarians and/or Joker and EDI as proof that organics and synthetics can get along, then tell the Catalyst to piss off, and if your reputation is maxed out and you've got enough war assets, the Reapers are defeated by the fleet. My Femshep would totally have gone for that if it'd been available.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

The thing is though The Catalyst CANT stop the cycle, he commands them but can't just say "stop".

they even say that is why Shepard was needed and only Shepard could enact the choices.

 

[Karathos]

snip

The thing is though The Catalyst CANT stop the cycle, he commands them but can't just say "stop".

they even say that is why Shepard was needed and only Shepard could enact the choices.

True, but that's nothing but a massive cop-out in order to quickly explain why SHEPARD HAS TO MAKE THE CHOICE ZOMG D:

Like Smiley Face said, it's Mass Effect damnit, the last of a trilogy even. If they had to have some damn glowy-God-AI-child there, at least -also- tell people what the heck happened to the characters. The most frustrated people right now are long-time fans, because they've fallen in love with their favorite characters, and at the end of the game they are given no information as to what has happened to them.

Before the last fight you have tearful conversations with all your companions, especially Garrus' being very memorable and a real tear-jerker. I want to know what he did afterward.

Closure. The current endings don't have any of it.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

**Snip**

First off, I quite agree with your analysis of the endings. Rewriting the Reapers is clearly paragon - it was the Geth paragon option in ME2. Destroying all synthetics is clearly renegade (again, we already did this in ME2). Merge is... some sort of weird third option.

I thought the ending was fine - a little too Matrix for my taste (I hated that series), but oh well. It worked for the situation, anyway, and the Reaper insistence on "harvesting" people (rather than just murdering them) makes far more sense.

My main concern is actually for future Mass Effect titles. How are they going to have future ME games with the Relays down? Or are all ME titles going to take place prior to ME3?

I went in expecting Shepard to die and Earth to be destroyed - but the loss of the Relays surprised me. Not because it's illogical (it makes perfect sense) but because I assumed that Bioware was going to make more ME titles that used them.

 

[The_Lost_King]

One of the biggest themes of the series was how The Reapers had been controlling the evolution of all the galactic races across time using the Mass Relay and Citadel Network to force a technological and Societal path that they had chosen so they could destroy the races of the galaxy easier.

The destruction of The Citadel and Mass Relays was necessary to free galactic civilization from the Reapers path so they could make things their own way and not the way the reapers wanted.

Not destroying the relays would only mean that the civilization of the galaxy would continue down The Reapers chosen technological path, which is to say a dead end one, and would make killing the reapers meaningless because we would still be constrained by their limitations, and would mean the civilizations of the galaxy are still slaves, but what makes it worse is now they are slaves to a salve master who is already dead.

The only way it helps the reapers is the fact that they can cut off all communication and destroy the leaders. I don't see how it is a dead end. Plus now everyone who fought is going to die because they can't go back to their homes.

 

[RJ 17]

My main concern is actually for future Mass Effect titles. How are they going to have future ME games with the Relays down? Or are all ME titles going to take place prior to ME3?

As I mentioned in the breakdown of all the endings, the possibility is there for the relays to simply be rebuilt. No matter what happens, it's not like all technology suddenly vanishes from existence. There's still doctors and scientists to make technological advances.

With the Paragon and Synthesis endings, it's likely the Reapers could simply instruct the races on how to rebuild the relays (if not just rebuild them themselves), but even with the Destroy All Synthetics ending, it could still be done. It'll take a lot longer without the Reapers, but if the Protheans could build the Conduit, it's easy to imagine that the races of the galaxy could rebuild the relays.

Which in turn means that future ME games - if not prequels - can simply be skipped forward in time to a point after the relays have been reconstructed.

 

[RJ 17]

Just saw this posted on the Bioware Social Network. It's trying to be funny, but on the serious side it very clearly highlights how ridiculous the explanation the ending gives truly is.

Actually it's not hypocritical or nonsensical at all. All you have to do is put a little bit of thought into it.

If synthetic life kills all organic life and takes over the galaxy in a cycle...then there's no more organic life. Ever. It's gone. If the Reapers maintain the cycle, synthetic life never takes over, thus organic life is able to continue on. That said, it's quite obvious that the only way to maintain the cycle is with immortal synthetics, but they don't come to occupy planets and murder every sentient organic they encounter (as the evil Geth would, for instance), they come to harvest advanced organics while leaving the rest to grow for the next cycle. It's total destruction of all organics by the synthetics which leads to the end of sentient organic life vs destruction of advanced organics while sparing the primitive to grow into the next cycle. The difference: in one the future is ruled by synthetics, in the other the future is still ruled by organics, if on borrowed time.

I really don't see how so many people can't see how simple that really is.