So I just completed the Mass Effect franchise, having finally played through from the first game all the way through the third. "Completed" meaning I do what I always do - get to the line where this scene starts in ME3, shout at my Xbox a little bit, then go fart around in multiplayer with friends a little bit, cuz it's actually kinda fun when you don't have tier 9000s playing god in bronze lobbies. Regardless, this time, I wrote this. It's what SHOULD have happened if you had enough War Assets. Oh well... enjoy. I promise it will be entertaining, for one reason or another. At the very least it'll make you laugh, if not at the oscar-worthy writing, than at what you'll see as a ridiculous unlikelihood that I'll end up disagreeing with you about.
also, FORMATTING ERRORS SUCK! I hate em. Frickin frickity frick.
Anyways, yeah, this is what happens when you don't convince me that the Reapers are actually unbeatable.
In the Comm Room - AKA - "How It Could've Ended" - AKA - "A Low Bar is Easy to Step Over"
Ta-daaaa.... If this double posts, sorry, Captcha errors. Hopefully it won't!
also, FORMATTING ERRORS SUCK! I hate em. Frickin frickity frick.
Anyways, yeah, this is what happens when you don't convince me that the Reapers are actually unbeatable.
In the Comm Room - AKA - "How It Could've Ended" - AKA - "A Low Bar is Easy to Step Over"
The following takes place in the comm room of the Normandy, after Hackett has boarded and spoken to Shepard and Anderson. The first line is the only line accurate to the game. It is also one of the more ridiculous lines spoken in the stupid little thing I've created.
~
"We don't have the means to defeat the Reapers conventionally." Hackett said, his face a mask to hide the desperation he felt towards the Crucible. "If we don't defeat the Reapers with the Crucible, they'll bleed us slowly, and wipe us out."
As this information processed, Renegade Femshep took a moment for formulate a response. The fact was, the pieces just didn't add up. "Admiral, with all due respect,I don't think that's true." She said thoughtfully. "As a matter of fact, I think that's completely false."
"Shepard, what are you talking about?" Anderson said. "We're barely holding out as it is -"
(RT) "And why is that, Anderson?" She asked him, a new set of facts clicking into face in her mind. "We've been gone from earth for weeks, but your resistance is alive and thriving. You said it yourself - the Reapers' biggest strength is their weakness. You've avoided cities and the Reaper forces have hardly caused a problem. Hell, you told me yourself one of your biggest obstacles was that most of the forces had never held a gun before - haven't you considered how much of an obstacle that's actually been? You and me were on Earth together when it started, and we held out against the damn things until the Normandy showed up without a scratch. They haven't posed a serious threat once - I've been wiping the damn things out by the platoon since I left earth,with a squad of two people! I think the Geth were more difficult to fight!"
"But Shepard, you're a highly trained comman -" Anderson broke in, sure that Shepard had finally cracked under the stress. She obviously wasn't thinking straight.
(RT) "And you have hundreds of thousands of angry, displaced people at your disposal! The conversion rate isn't 100% for husks, and there's no evidence to suggest that the Reaper forces aren't completely outnumbered in heavier warfare." Shepard said. Anderson quieted down, unable to think of a response.
"Shepard, you have a Prothean on board, he can tell you how powerful the Reapers are. They wiped out his entire species, and they were far more technologically advanced then we were." Hackett said, giving her a befuddled look at this new view of things.
"Actually sir, Javik told me that the first action the Reapers took during the Prothean's cycle was to cut off their access to the Mass Relays and take the Citadel, a simultaneous, surprise invasion across the galaxy." Shepard said,remembering back to the conversations with her new Prothean friend."They were all cut off from each other, and even after what should've been a tactical annihilation, it took the Reapers centuries to wipe out the Protheans, all the while as they were dealing with their own splinter groups, a rogue AI faction and a disloyal,enslaved population finally fed up with their captors. We prevented the Citadel takeover in our cycle, and there's no reason to believe that without it, the Protheans wouldn't still be flourishing today!"
"Be that as it may Shepard, we don't stand a chance against the Reaper ship-to-ship, there's just no way that we can -" Hackett started.
(RT) "Really, Admiral? Because every bit of military intelligence I've seen suggests to the contrary." Shepard cut him off before he could continue. "Even the codex says that a destroyer is no match to the combined firepower of three or four Dreadnaughts, especially with upgraded cannons! Sovereign was a special case, by the way, before you bring that up - it was massive, far bigger than anything we've encountered since, rivaled only by Harbinger, and Sovereign still bled after the alliance navy showed up."
"Then how do you explain the Alliance navy's near obliteration when the Reapers swarmed through to Earth?" Anderson asked. Hackett nodded in agreement.
"I was there,Commander, there was no way that we could've taken the Reapers head on." He said.
Shepard didn't even pause; she had a response for that too. "Admiral, if you were there, you remember that they caught you by surprise, right?There was no chance for you to mount a proper defense, you told me that yourself."
"But there was still so much opposing firepower -" Shepard cut him off before he could continue.
(RT)"Because the lion's share of Reaper forces were sent to Earth, Admiral." She said. "Palaven hardly faced half as many Reapers as Earth did during the initial assault, and the other Capitals were conquered through espionage. The Reapers tried to poison Tunchunka. They took Thessia by holding the population centers hostage and threatening orbital bombardment. The Asari fleets weren't large enough to counter the threat, like the Turian or Human ones were. The Asari ground forces were actually holding out against the Reaper forces otherwise, because their population was so heavily biotic. And as we begin our assault, the Reapers still haven't even touched the Salarian homeworld."
"Since you brought up Palaven, Commander, how do you address that? The Turians lost their planet." Hackett replied, his arms crossed.
"No, sir." Femshep said. "The Turians held their planet, until long after the Krogan arrived. They actually pushed Reapers back briefly. The only reason they lost was a miscalculation - we asked for their ships in return for Krogan support, and the Krogan didn't offer enough to compensate. With a portion of their Dreadnaughts lying in reserve,waiting for the strike on Earth, the Turians had no choice but to order a retreat. They just didn't have enough firepower. As a matter of fact, I'd go so far to say that was one of the biggest tactical missteps of this whole goddamn war."
"Admirals, we've been focusing so hard on this one final assault, we've forgotten to fight the war." Shepard continued. "Any frontal assaults have been the responsibility of squads of commandos that aren't officially a part of anything - you said it yourself Admiral, they're calling themselves "N7", but they're not even officially recognized as special operatives. While the galaxy has been falling down around us,we've been building our Deus-Ex-Machina-Machine and completely ignoring the rest of the war. Where were the human fleets when Palaven fell? Where were the peacekeeping forces when the Quarians and Geth went to war? Where were our fleets when the Reapers took the Citadel?"
"What about the Quarians, Commander?" Hackett asked. "You briefed me on that mission - it took the entire Quarian fleet to bring down the Reaper on Rannoch."
"The entire weakened Quarian feet." Shepard corrected. "Most of their ships were nothing more than civilian vessels with cannons on the side. My pilot made a comparison during that mission - a school bus with guns. And besides that, they were being bombarded by the Geth, who,incidentally, we now have on our side. There's no way to gauge how much of the remaining fleet actually engaged the Reaper, and who was too busy fending off the Geth assault. But I know one thing - I was on the surface. It sure didn't look like the entire Quarian flotilla was attacking. It looked like there were 3 ships in orbit, firing potato guns."
"Even if you're right, Shepard, we needed those fleets guarding the Crucible -" Anderson said, not missing a beat. Now he was angry, not because of Shepard's confrontational attitude, but because he was beginning to see how the Alliance's tactical missteps might have cost the lives of millions.
(RT) "No sir." Femshep finished. "The Reapers never would have attacked the Crucible. Cerberus may have been indoctrinated, but they were never the real threat. Hell, they might have helped us - they even developed a weapon to use against Reaper ground forces, despite the costs. The threat was our own idiocy - wasting all those ships, all those resources building a machine that for all we know, may never work. Waiting on a suicidal final assault that might be just that; suicidal. The Crucible kept us busy, bent on a single goal while the Reapers conquered the galaxy."
Hackett's face was blank. Anderson stood like a statue, slightly stunned at this simple revelation. "And now, instead of fighting the Reaper forces system to system and pushing them back, weakening them, playing off our strength in numbers, we're going to send every ship we have at their largest stronghold with the rest of the Galaxy under attack behind us, the Reapers at our back, no plan of escape,not even sure of their numbers, all on the misguided assumption that we can defeat them in an all-out assault, when even if we do retake Earth, every Reaper in the Galaxy will swarm in through the Sol relay to wipe out the remaining military forces if the Crucible doesn't work."
There was silence in the comm room. Femshep folded her arms triumphantly.It had all come together, and just in time. This plan really was suicide. And unlike the Collectors where she had direct influence on everything in front of her, she wasn't nearly as sure about her odds.
"What do you suggest, Commander?" Anderson said, a minute later. Hackett was still deep in thought beside Shepard, his forehead creased as he put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"Keep doing what you're doing, Admiral." Shepard said. "Your strategies for avoiding major sites have worked so far, right?" Anderson nodded.Shepard smiled. "Then there's no need to fix what isn't broken." She said.
"In the meantime, I think it's time we start fighting this war." She looked at Hackett. He stared at her, listening intently. "We'll need a base to launch our offensive - the Salarian homeworld will work well. We can push out from there, system by system. The Reapers have overwhelming force in a few locations, but we have the strength in numbers, especially with every fleet in the galaxy working together."
Hackett nodded. He finally saw it - a massive shadow of fact had been clouding him for weeks, and he finally saw what had been making it. This one, massive revelation. "Commander, thank you. We should've seen this a long time ago. We'll hide the Crucible for the time being, just in case we do need to use it - now that it's complete,a gas giant should work well, similar to when you found a derelict Reaper a year ago, before you assaulted the Collectors."
"We'll push for the Turian homeworld first." He said. "As you said, the Turians held their planet until the Reapers arrived, with their remaining fleets, Krogan support and Alliance reinforcements, we should be able to start pushing them back within a week."
"After that,we'll reinforce Tunchunka." He continued. "We don't need Reapers cutting off our supply of troops."
Shepard chuckled. Wrex had been right about one thing - only a month after the Genophage was cured and the Krogan population was booming. Luckily for them, this was looking to be temporary - a chaotic reaction, rapidly diminishing as he united the Krogan with Eve's help. Tunchunka would be essential to any long-term war.
"Then, it's up through the Traverse to the Quarian homeworld. The Geth troops and the remainder of the Quarian military will be as invaluable as the Krogan, once they're freed from their planet." Hackett said. "With Aria T'Loak pushing Cerberus out of the Terminus and commandeering the majority of their resources, along with whatever local militaries they have, I think we can call that sector secure. Linking up with them for the push to the Asari homeworld will make retaking Asari space a lot easier."
"And then Earth." Anderson said. He'd been silent as Hackett explained his new strategy. "Damn..." He shook his head. "That's a long way off."
"We won't forget about you, Anderson." Shepard said. Turning to Hackett, she continued. "We'll have to dedicate some forces to keeping our borders secure once we've liberated systems, sir." She said.
Hackett nodded. "Of course. Leaving systems behind to be retaken would be a waste of time and resources. But you're right, Shepard, we are superior. We will prevail."
After this conversation, the fleets of the galaxy turned away from Earth,arriving at Sur'Kesh only hours before a small Reaper force arrived to begin seiging the planet. They were destroyed, and Shepard's thesis proved accurate - they were no match for the galaxy's own forces.
The war against the Reapers went on for almost a decade after that. With Cerberus defeated, a military to rival the Alliance's own was slowly assimilated into the United Forces, an unaccounted-for help in the starting push against the enemy. These troops soon became unreliable, however - the Reaper implants in their bodies turned most senile,and within a few months, none were left that were fit for active duty.
The Reapers attempted to combat the newfound strategy through their same old strategies - overwhelming force - but were unable to properly retaliate. Any time they lessened their control of a planet, the native force pushed out and fought back, free of an iron grip. They were faced with a tactical situation they had never before fought ?a galaxy free of the distraction of the Crucible. The distraction of Cerberus. A galaxy united under a single flag. A galaxy outside the confines of their carefully planned evolutionary paths.
As time went on, a new weakness arose for the Reapers, unanticipated by either side. The Reapers could not make more of themselves. They could not reproduce. For every system taken, the Reapers lost numbers. For every day free of Reaper control, more ships were built,more men were trained, more soldiers were sent to war. Time showed the tables turning in the organics' favor.
For almost a decade, war raged across every world in the galaxy, the reapers fighting relay to relay, system to system, planet to planet. At times it seemed an eternal tug-of-war, Reapers losing a system, taking one on the other side of the galaxy, then losing it as well as more ships were allocated to that area. War became a way of life for the surviving organics, conflict bringing the species of the galaxy together, where it had splintered the Prothean Empire.
During this time, Tali and Garrus got serious about their relationship, then broke up, Turian-Quarian relations having been the butt of galactic relationship jokes for decades. Shepard and Jack adopted a child((shuddup, I love Jack, deepest romance ever... at least the Paragon one)). After five more years of war, both were allowed a peaceful retirement on a newly rebuilt Tunchunka, which had turned into a flourishing coexistence of technology and biology. Over 80% of the planet's native Flora and Fauna had been cloned from fossils by the Salarian Union, the Krogan once again allowing it to grow hardly checked, except around their largest cities. The Krogan found new pride in a series of vicious sports, ranging from mounted Kakliosaur fights to a version of human football, albeit with considerably less padding and just as many resemblances to the UFC.
Over the next three years after Mass Effect 3's release, EA also managed to pump out two more Mass Effect games (Mass Effect: Conquest and Mass Effect: Revelations, respectively). The former was praised as "one of the best Real-Time-Strategy games to date," while the latter was criticized universally for being not much more than so-called "empty combat." As one reviewer put it, "if your only dream was Battlefield 7's unpolished campaign in the Mass Effect universe, this is your game."
The war finally ended only a jump away from where the Alpha Relay formerly sat, with what few Reaper forces remained making a last stand near an old Batarian colony. Earth was liberated three years before this, with a heroic, exhausted and war-torn Admiral Anderson being awarded every Alliance, Turian and Asari honor known before a quiet retirement in London. Reaper forces were finally and totally annihilated in a well-publicized "Battle for the ages."
The Citadel remained in the Sol system, as no one could figure out how the hell the Reapers had transported it through the relays in the first place,so it couldn't be taken back to it's native nebula. The center of galactic democracy now sits just beside the Sol relay.
One hundred years later, the war becomes a thing of the past for every species but the Asari and Krogan. Technological advancements brought by the Reapers are taken for granted, and strife and conflict once again springs up in the galaxy. EA continues to milk the franchise for almost a decade. And life goes back to normal. The end.
~
"We don't have the means to defeat the Reapers conventionally." Hackett said, his face a mask to hide the desperation he felt towards the Crucible. "If we don't defeat the Reapers with the Crucible, they'll bleed us slowly, and wipe us out."
As this information processed, Renegade Femshep took a moment for formulate a response. The fact was, the pieces just didn't add up. "Admiral, with all due respect,I don't think that's true." She said thoughtfully. "As a matter of fact, I think that's completely false."
"Shepard, what are you talking about?" Anderson said. "We're barely holding out as it is -"
(RT) "And why is that, Anderson?" She asked him, a new set of facts clicking into face in her mind. "We've been gone from earth for weeks, but your resistance is alive and thriving. You said it yourself - the Reapers' biggest strength is their weakness. You've avoided cities and the Reaper forces have hardly caused a problem. Hell, you told me yourself one of your biggest obstacles was that most of the forces had never held a gun before - haven't you considered how much of an obstacle that's actually been? You and me were on Earth together when it started, and we held out against the damn things until the Normandy showed up without a scratch. They haven't posed a serious threat once - I've been wiping the damn things out by the platoon since I left earth,with a squad of two people! I think the Geth were more difficult to fight!"
"But Shepard, you're a highly trained comman -" Anderson broke in, sure that Shepard had finally cracked under the stress. She obviously wasn't thinking straight.
(RT) "And you have hundreds of thousands of angry, displaced people at your disposal! The conversion rate isn't 100% for husks, and there's no evidence to suggest that the Reaper forces aren't completely outnumbered in heavier warfare." Shepard said. Anderson quieted down, unable to think of a response.
"Shepard, you have a Prothean on board, he can tell you how powerful the Reapers are. They wiped out his entire species, and they were far more technologically advanced then we were." Hackett said, giving her a befuddled look at this new view of things.
"Actually sir, Javik told me that the first action the Reapers took during the Prothean's cycle was to cut off their access to the Mass Relays and take the Citadel, a simultaneous, surprise invasion across the galaxy." Shepard said,remembering back to the conversations with her new Prothean friend."They were all cut off from each other, and even after what should've been a tactical annihilation, it took the Reapers centuries to wipe out the Protheans, all the while as they were dealing with their own splinter groups, a rogue AI faction and a disloyal,enslaved population finally fed up with their captors. We prevented the Citadel takeover in our cycle, and there's no reason to believe that without it, the Protheans wouldn't still be flourishing today!"
"Be that as it may Shepard, we don't stand a chance against the Reaper ship-to-ship, there's just no way that we can -" Hackett started.
(RT) "Really, Admiral? Because every bit of military intelligence I've seen suggests to the contrary." Shepard cut him off before he could continue. "Even the codex says that a destroyer is no match to the combined firepower of three or four Dreadnaughts, especially with upgraded cannons! Sovereign was a special case, by the way, before you bring that up - it was massive, far bigger than anything we've encountered since, rivaled only by Harbinger, and Sovereign still bled after the alliance navy showed up."
"Then how do you explain the Alliance navy's near obliteration when the Reapers swarmed through to Earth?" Anderson asked. Hackett nodded in agreement.
"I was there,Commander, there was no way that we could've taken the Reapers head on." He said.
Shepard didn't even pause; she had a response for that too. "Admiral, if you were there, you remember that they caught you by surprise, right?There was no chance for you to mount a proper defense, you told me that yourself."
"But there was still so much opposing firepower -" Shepard cut him off before he could continue.
(RT)"Because the lion's share of Reaper forces were sent to Earth, Admiral." She said. "Palaven hardly faced half as many Reapers as Earth did during the initial assault, and the other Capitals were conquered through espionage. The Reapers tried to poison Tunchunka. They took Thessia by holding the population centers hostage and threatening orbital bombardment. The Asari fleets weren't large enough to counter the threat, like the Turian or Human ones were. The Asari ground forces were actually holding out against the Reaper forces otherwise, because their population was so heavily biotic. And as we begin our assault, the Reapers still haven't even touched the Salarian homeworld."
"Since you brought up Palaven, Commander, how do you address that? The Turians lost their planet." Hackett replied, his arms crossed.
"No, sir." Femshep said. "The Turians held their planet, until long after the Krogan arrived. They actually pushed Reapers back briefly. The only reason they lost was a miscalculation - we asked for their ships in return for Krogan support, and the Krogan didn't offer enough to compensate. With a portion of their Dreadnaughts lying in reserve,waiting for the strike on Earth, the Turians had no choice but to order a retreat. They just didn't have enough firepower. As a matter of fact, I'd go so far to say that was one of the biggest tactical missteps of this whole goddamn war."
"Admirals, we've been focusing so hard on this one final assault, we've forgotten to fight the war." Shepard continued. "Any frontal assaults have been the responsibility of squads of commandos that aren't officially a part of anything - you said it yourself Admiral, they're calling themselves "N7", but they're not even officially recognized as special operatives. While the galaxy has been falling down around us,we've been building our Deus-Ex-Machina-Machine and completely ignoring the rest of the war. Where were the human fleets when Palaven fell? Where were the peacekeeping forces when the Quarians and Geth went to war? Where were our fleets when the Reapers took the Citadel?"
"What about the Quarians, Commander?" Hackett asked. "You briefed me on that mission - it took the entire Quarian fleet to bring down the Reaper on Rannoch."
"The entire weakened Quarian feet." Shepard corrected. "Most of their ships were nothing more than civilian vessels with cannons on the side. My pilot made a comparison during that mission - a school bus with guns. And besides that, they were being bombarded by the Geth, who,incidentally, we now have on our side. There's no way to gauge how much of the remaining fleet actually engaged the Reaper, and who was too busy fending off the Geth assault. But I know one thing - I was on the surface. It sure didn't look like the entire Quarian flotilla was attacking. It looked like there were 3 ships in orbit, firing potato guns."
"Even if you're right, Shepard, we needed those fleets guarding the Crucible -" Anderson said, not missing a beat. Now he was angry, not because of Shepard's confrontational attitude, but because he was beginning to see how the Alliance's tactical missteps might have cost the lives of millions.
(RT) "No sir." Femshep finished. "The Reapers never would have attacked the Crucible. Cerberus may have been indoctrinated, but they were never the real threat. Hell, they might have helped us - they even developed a weapon to use against Reaper ground forces, despite the costs. The threat was our own idiocy - wasting all those ships, all those resources building a machine that for all we know, may never work. Waiting on a suicidal final assault that might be just that; suicidal. The Crucible kept us busy, bent on a single goal while the Reapers conquered the galaxy."
Hackett's face was blank. Anderson stood like a statue, slightly stunned at this simple revelation. "And now, instead of fighting the Reaper forces system to system and pushing them back, weakening them, playing off our strength in numbers, we're going to send every ship we have at their largest stronghold with the rest of the Galaxy under attack behind us, the Reapers at our back, no plan of escape,not even sure of their numbers, all on the misguided assumption that we can defeat them in an all-out assault, when even if we do retake Earth, every Reaper in the Galaxy will swarm in through the Sol relay to wipe out the remaining military forces if the Crucible doesn't work."
There was silence in the comm room. Femshep folded her arms triumphantly.It had all come together, and just in time. This plan really was suicide. And unlike the Collectors where she had direct influence on everything in front of her, she wasn't nearly as sure about her odds.
"What do you suggest, Commander?" Anderson said, a minute later. Hackett was still deep in thought beside Shepard, his forehead creased as he put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"Keep doing what you're doing, Admiral." Shepard said. "Your strategies for avoiding major sites have worked so far, right?" Anderson nodded.Shepard smiled. "Then there's no need to fix what isn't broken." She said.
"In the meantime, I think it's time we start fighting this war." She looked at Hackett. He stared at her, listening intently. "We'll need a base to launch our offensive - the Salarian homeworld will work well. We can push out from there, system by system. The Reapers have overwhelming force in a few locations, but we have the strength in numbers, especially with every fleet in the galaxy working together."
Hackett nodded. He finally saw it - a massive shadow of fact had been clouding him for weeks, and he finally saw what had been making it. This one, massive revelation. "Commander, thank you. We should've seen this a long time ago. We'll hide the Crucible for the time being, just in case we do need to use it - now that it's complete,a gas giant should work well, similar to when you found a derelict Reaper a year ago, before you assaulted the Collectors."
"We'll push for the Turian homeworld first." He said. "As you said, the Turians held their planet until the Reapers arrived, with their remaining fleets, Krogan support and Alliance reinforcements, we should be able to start pushing them back within a week."
"After that,we'll reinforce Tunchunka." He continued. "We don't need Reapers cutting off our supply of troops."
Shepard chuckled. Wrex had been right about one thing - only a month after the Genophage was cured and the Krogan population was booming. Luckily for them, this was looking to be temporary - a chaotic reaction, rapidly diminishing as he united the Krogan with Eve's help. Tunchunka would be essential to any long-term war.
"Then, it's up through the Traverse to the Quarian homeworld. The Geth troops and the remainder of the Quarian military will be as invaluable as the Krogan, once they're freed from their planet." Hackett said. "With Aria T'Loak pushing Cerberus out of the Terminus and commandeering the majority of their resources, along with whatever local militaries they have, I think we can call that sector secure. Linking up with them for the push to the Asari homeworld will make retaking Asari space a lot easier."
"And then Earth." Anderson said. He'd been silent as Hackett explained his new strategy. "Damn..." He shook his head. "That's a long way off."
"We won't forget about you, Anderson." Shepard said. Turning to Hackett, she continued. "We'll have to dedicate some forces to keeping our borders secure once we've liberated systems, sir." She said.
Hackett nodded. "Of course. Leaving systems behind to be retaken would be a waste of time and resources. But you're right, Shepard, we are superior. We will prevail."
After this conversation, the fleets of the galaxy turned away from Earth,arriving at Sur'Kesh only hours before a small Reaper force arrived to begin seiging the planet. They were destroyed, and Shepard's thesis proved accurate - they were no match for the galaxy's own forces.
The war against the Reapers went on for almost a decade after that. With Cerberus defeated, a military to rival the Alliance's own was slowly assimilated into the United Forces, an unaccounted-for help in the starting push against the enemy. These troops soon became unreliable, however - the Reaper implants in their bodies turned most senile,and within a few months, none were left that were fit for active duty.
The Reapers attempted to combat the newfound strategy through their same old strategies - overwhelming force - but were unable to properly retaliate. Any time they lessened their control of a planet, the native force pushed out and fought back, free of an iron grip. They were faced with a tactical situation they had never before fought ?a galaxy free of the distraction of the Crucible. The distraction of Cerberus. A galaxy united under a single flag. A galaxy outside the confines of their carefully planned evolutionary paths.
As time went on, a new weakness arose for the Reapers, unanticipated by either side. The Reapers could not make more of themselves. They could not reproduce. For every system taken, the Reapers lost numbers. For every day free of Reaper control, more ships were built,more men were trained, more soldiers were sent to war. Time showed the tables turning in the organics' favor.
For almost a decade, war raged across every world in the galaxy, the reapers fighting relay to relay, system to system, planet to planet. At times it seemed an eternal tug-of-war, Reapers losing a system, taking one on the other side of the galaxy, then losing it as well as more ships were allocated to that area. War became a way of life for the surviving organics, conflict bringing the species of the galaxy together, where it had splintered the Prothean Empire.
During this time, Tali and Garrus got serious about their relationship, then broke up, Turian-Quarian relations having been the butt of galactic relationship jokes for decades. Shepard and Jack adopted a child((shuddup, I love Jack, deepest romance ever... at least the Paragon one)). After five more years of war, both were allowed a peaceful retirement on a newly rebuilt Tunchunka, which had turned into a flourishing coexistence of technology and biology. Over 80% of the planet's native Flora and Fauna had been cloned from fossils by the Salarian Union, the Krogan once again allowing it to grow hardly checked, except around their largest cities. The Krogan found new pride in a series of vicious sports, ranging from mounted Kakliosaur fights to a version of human football, albeit with considerably less padding and just as many resemblances to the UFC.
Over the next three years after Mass Effect 3's release, EA also managed to pump out two more Mass Effect games (Mass Effect: Conquest and Mass Effect: Revelations, respectively). The former was praised as "one of the best Real-Time-Strategy games to date," while the latter was criticized universally for being not much more than so-called "empty combat." As one reviewer put it, "if your only dream was Battlefield 7's unpolished campaign in the Mass Effect universe, this is your game."
The war finally ended only a jump away from where the Alpha Relay formerly sat, with what few Reaper forces remained making a last stand near an old Batarian colony. Earth was liberated three years before this, with a heroic, exhausted and war-torn Admiral Anderson being awarded every Alliance, Turian and Asari honor known before a quiet retirement in London. Reaper forces were finally and totally annihilated in a well-publicized "Battle for the ages."
The Citadel remained in the Sol system, as no one could figure out how the hell the Reapers had transported it through the relays in the first place,so it couldn't be taken back to it's native nebula. The center of galactic democracy now sits just beside the Sol relay.
One hundred years later, the war becomes a thing of the past for every species but the Asari and Krogan. Technological advancements brought by the Reapers are taken for granted, and strife and conflict once again springs up in the galaxy. EA continues to milk the franchise for almost a decade. And life goes back to normal. The end.
Ta-daaaa.... If this double posts, sorry, Captcha errors. Hopefully it won't!