Poll: The Consequences of The ME III Endings

[AD-Stu]

Yeah, at least in the second one, you could go to the planet Shepard felt and read about it: The planet had almost no atmosphere, and as such, no air resistance, and Shepard wouldn't burn on reentry. What does Destroy has to explain Shepard surviving?

Shepard's death and resurrection at the beginnning of ME2 was a gigantic (and pointless) asspull too.

At least in the Destroy ending there's a sort-of logical sequence - Shepard is alive, Shepard sets off a great big explosion, Shepard somehow survives the explosion just barely because Shepard is a boss. Unlikely but it at least has some logical consistency.

 

[Britishfan]

Destroy is the worst by default since it is the only one that doesn't tell you what happens to the MAIN CHARACTER.

I don't know why Bioware thought it was okay to leave the beloved main character of 3 critically acclaimed games without explaining what happens to him or if he is even alive.

With enough war assets, he's alive; You seem him breathing in a pile of citadel rubble. Even without that you see you begin to burn away to kick start the "destroy" process, there is plenty to attack Bioware on in the endings, but this is not it.

 

[JamesStone]

Yeah, at least in the second one, you could go to the planet Shepard felt and read about it: The planet had almost no atmosphere, and as such, no air resistance, and Shepard wouldn't burn on reentry. What does Destroy has to explain Shepard surviving?

Shepard's death and resurrection at the beginnning of ME2 was a gigantic (and pointless) asspull too.

At least in the Destroy ending there's a sort-of logical sequence - Shepard is alive, Shepard sets off a great big explosion, Shepard somehow survives the explosion just barely because Shepard is a boss. Unlikely but it at least has some logical consistency.

I'm not saying it wasn't, I'm just saying it was a very small asspull when compared to surviving the point blank equivalent to a nuclear explosion, when he himself has synthetic parts based on Reaper tech. Project Lazarus was sort of an asspull? Yes, no denying that. But at least it was somewhat justifiable. There are tons of conditions which could make Shepard survive. The trauma unit in his suit, the planet (alleged by the info card) "soft" ground, the possibility of him being caught by the planet's gravity and becoming an artificial satelite...
The poin is, many things can be used to explain it and it's still consistent with the game.
Destroy is an illogical mess which follows a logical conclusion.
While Lazarus is a logical "leap-of-faith" which follows a somewhat asspully scenario.

Both are not very good, sure (although I still argue Lazarus was necessary to follow the plot, because I doubt Shepard would join Cerberus otherwise if they didn't do that big faffy act - by Cerberus' part - that was the ME2 crew recruitment), and, although Destroy more the Lazarus, both are an asspull.
But at least Lazarus isn't the best ending for the game.

 

[bug_of_war]

I always saw Destroy as the worst option, as it destroys all technology available to the galaxy. At least with Control and Synthesis there's hope of using the Reapers and their technology to rebuild galactic society and reestablish communication, but with Destroy it seems everyone's isolated from each other for a much longer time.

Heh, I actually saw destroy as the option with the most hope. While it does basically set the counter back to 0 it does show some semblance of hope that the galaxy will be fine. By Shepard killing the Reapers he is putting all his faith in the remains of the galaxy, and with all the species working together it would build stronger relations. I thought control was bad because as OP said, one man with all that power is not good. And synthesis effectively stops evolution, thus the progression of life is stopped, and a stagnated universe is not a good universe.

It's great that each ending actually gives off different vibes to different people, especially because it makes you decide which choice is the best, and shows that they didn't have to do the Extended Cut for some people to realise the actual depth of the ending.