Poll: What would your mass effect 3 ending be like?

[Grivahri]

I go first.

I would have wanted to see my war assets in action. For example thousands and thousands of rachni storming a reaper, volus bombing, elcor tanks kicking ass. Zaeed leading the blue suns eclipse and blood pack, shouting while they desperately try to kill a reaper. Geth and Quarian working together. Wrex leading hordes of krogan on the ground with Grunt. Primarch Victus giving orders to his fleet to fire.

Joker on the Normandy shooting harbinger with the thannix cannon to save Shepard after he breaks the indoctrination. And joker will die by harbinger unless we have the geth or another important war asset to attack the harbinger. Shepard will then run to the beam and if war assets are insufficient Garrus will sacrifice himself so Shepard can get through the beam. Shepard then fights through hordes of brutes and banshees to get to the citadel tower (which will mirror the first game). In the citadel tower the illusive man is waiting. He has been upgraded like Saren and still thinks that he is in control. Final boss maybe? If you didn't destroy the collector base TIM will be more powerful (upgraded by the reaper tech) and he will kill both your squadmates before he dies. Illusive man dies and Shepard goes to the control panel. Harbinger appears as a hologram presenting the final twist (dark energy maybe). Shepard tells him to fuck off and opens the arms. When the arms open Harbinger is right outside. He begins shooting his beam at Shepard while Shepard is running back the way he came trying to avoid certain death. The crucible moves towards the citadel and Hackett orders every fleet to attack Harbinger. If you have don't have enough assets Harbinger will kill Shepard. And more importantly if you saved the council in the first game they will send their fleets to attack harbinger as well. If you let them die in ME1 you will die. The crucible finally connects and the crucible sends out a beam that deactivates every reaper in the galaxy.

This is the ending I wanted to have, or at least the best happy ending:

Shepard is met by millions of cheering people. He shake andersons hand. No words can describe how much they respect each other. Garrus sees his father who says that he is proud of him. Wrex shouts "Shepard" and hugs him. Shepard embraces liara and later the rest of his friends. The other species once enemies shake hands and hug (Wrex and Victus etc.). The council are there as well. The screen cuts to black.

7 years later.

Tuchanka. The turians and the krogans are working together to rebuild the planet to its former glory. Wrex teaches his son Mordin how to hunt and how to fight with honor. He meets Grunt with his boy. Grunt explains that he has found an honorable enemy to fight. He will train his son Shepard to fight and together they will kill the mother of thresher maws.

Rannoch. The geth and Quarians are rebuilding their country. Tali is finally finished building her house. Garrus asks her why she still has her suit on since her immune system is adequate enough for rannoch. She removes her suit and we get to see her face.

We get to see Jacob and his family living on earth, Miranda and her sister together, zaeed living on omega with aria maybe, jack teaching students, ashley or kaiden commanding a fleet, james serving as an N7, joker and EDI on the normandy.

Citadel. Shepard and liara and their blue daughter stands in front of a statue of Shepard. Shepard is retired and lives with liara on earth, spending his time drinking beer on the beach with Garrus while their children play. Their daughter asks children questions and Shepard answers. Shepard's actions have been acknowledged and he finally has time to rest.

Yes maybe this ending is cheesy (maybe even ewok dancing cheesy) but it is the personal ending that I wanted. Shouldn't it at least be possible? I find it very sad that after all the shit Shepard went through he has to die (and ruin the future of everyone). He deserves acknowledgement, a reunion with his friends and some rest.

 

[SpaceBat]

Everything up until Anderson's death stays the same. Shepard is about to get tricked by the starchild. Then this happens:

Shepard wakes up, defeats the reapers, Becomes neighbors with Maurader Shields (which we thought had died), raises blue children with Liara, destroys his liver after holding everyone up to their promise of buying him something to drink after it's all over.

The end.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

An ending that wouldn't make people moan and complain about it this much :\

 

[sshakespeare]

I can accept the 3 colours of ending (doesnt mean I like them) but dont have Joker and the Normandy running away from the fight for no reason makes no sense

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'm okay with the notion of sacrifice, but I *would* like to have a couple plot holes explained. I'd like to know how my Shepard's mate ended up on the Normandy even though she was on Earth, and I'd like to know that there's something beyond "Space Magic" to support the Synthesis ending - something along the lines of synthetics like Geth or EDI being so advanced as to have the potential to come full circle and essentially be considered as biologically equal to organics. Nanotech or the like.

An epilogue would also be nice; some sort of generic aftermath text that you'd see if you don't care to download DLC to know what's happening afterwards. Being told "You won! Now buy some DLC, trololololol!" will simply not do.

I'd cross my fingers for a narrated cutscene, but I won't get my hopes up.

CAPTCHA: lets eat
Why, what a wonderful idea! Too bad the roast isn't quite cooked yet.

 

[Ryanrulez5]

I go first.

I would have wanted to see my war assets in action. For example thousands and thousands of rachni storming a reaper, volus bombing, elcor tanks kicking ass. Zaeed leading the blue suns eclipse and blood pack, shouting while they desperately try to kill a reaper. Geth and Quarian working together. Wrex leading hordes of krogan on the ground with Grunt. Primarch Victus giving orders to his fleet to fire.

Joker on the Normandy shooting harbinger with the thannix cannon to save Shepard after he breaks the indoctrination. And joker will die by harbinger unless we have the geth or another important war asset to attack the harbinger. Shepard will then run to the beam and if war assets are insufficient Garrus will sacrifice himself so Shepard can get through the beam. Shepard then fights through hordes of brutes and banshees to get to the citadel tower (which will mirror the first game). In the citadel tower the illusive man is waiting. He has been upgraded like Saren and still thinks that he is in control. Final boss maybe? If you didn't destroy the collector base TIM will be more powerful (upgraded by the reaper tech) and he will kill both your squadmates before he dies. Illusive man dies and Shepard goes to the control panel. Harbinger appears as a hologram presenting the final twist (dark energy maybe). Shepard tells him to fuck off and opens the arms. When the arms open Harbinger is right outside. He begins shooting his beam at Shepard while Shepard is running back the way he came trying to avoid certain death. The crucible moves towards the citadel and Hackett orders every fleet to attack Harbinger. If you have don't have enough assets Harbinger will kill Shepard. And more importantly if you saved the council in the first game they will send their fleets to attack harbinger as well. If you let them die in ME1 you will die. The crucible finally connects and the crucible sends out a beam that deactivates every reaper in the galaxy.

This is the ending I wanted to have, or at least the best happy ending:

Shepard is met by millions of cheering people. He shake andersons hand. No words can describe how much they respect each other. Garrus sees his father who says that he is proud of him. Wrex shouts "Shepard" and hugs him. Shepard embraces liara and later the rest of his friends. The other species once enemies shake hands and hug (Wrex and Victus etc.). The council are there as well. The screen cuts to black.

7 years later.

Tuchanka. The turians and the krogans are working together to rebuild the planet to its former glory. Wrex teaches his son Mordin how to hunt and how to fight with honor. He meets Grunt with his boy. Grunt explains that he has found an honorable enemy to fight. He will train his son Shepard to fight and together they will kill the mother of thresher maws.

Rannoch. The geth and Quarians are rebuilding their country. Tali is finally finished building her house. Garrus asks her why she still has her suit on since her immune system is adequate enough for rannoch. She removes her suit and we get to see her face.

We get to see Jacob and his family living on earth, Miranda and her sister together, zaeed living on omega with aria maybe, jack teaching students, ashley or kaiden commanding a fleet, james serving as an N7, joker and EDI on the normandy.

Citadel. Shepard and liara and their blue daughter stands in front of a statue of Shepard. Shepard is retired and lives with liara on earth, spending his time drinking beer on the beach with Garrus while their children play. Their daughter asks children questions and Shepard answers. Shepard's actions have been acknowledged and he finally has time to rest.

Yes maybe this ending is cheesy (maybe even ewok dancing cheesy) but it is the personal ending that I wanted. Shouldn't it at least be possible? I find it very sad that after all the shit Shepard went through he has to die (and ruin the future of everyone). He deserves acknowledgement, a reunion with his friends and some rest.

Out of all they endings i have heard this ending is epic totally wished how it would of ended for me.

 

[Eamar]

I don't think a ret-con would help anything, so I'd like more options. Specifically an options/options where you get to refuse to go along with the Starchild's bullshit. That doesn't automatically mean a happy ending- even if it ends in disaster, that's what my Shep would have done and would therefore be more satisfying.

 

[Fappy]

I was bored last week and made a pretty lengthy fanfiction ending. I haven't gotten around to the epilogue yet but I suppose I'll post it here. Keep in mind that this is my personal on-the-fly fanfiction ending for one of my Shepards and I in no way expect anything like this from Bioware (though It'd be awesome ). Exported from Word totally fucks up the formatting so hooray for Google Docs! Also I've been writing nothing but DnD quest notes for months so I have gotten in the ugly habit of writing things present/future tense... just try to ignore the inconsistent and rambly-esque style.

Linky: https://docs.google.com/open?id=12HZpDZ1fIqn9OtU5MlGHLaKZIBrkKvtBSBBFa8-krEX-YHUraZryhqN7bUyS

 

[Aeriath]

Really, all I'd like is an ending with either some closure or explanation. Oh, and I'd rather Shepard wasn't responsible for the destruction of every star system with a mass relay in it, because that totally overshadows my Paragon choices with about 7 trillion Renegade points.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I am fine with the current ending, so long as something is done to explain/clarify the Joker scene and how your crew members got back to the Normandy.

A scene that explains what is going on (I don't think Casey Hudson intended for Joker to be fleeing the battle - I think it came off that way because they never bothered to explain what was actually going on) and how the crew got back on the Normandy (particularly since the game implied that everyone who charged the pillar of light died) would do wonders.

And yes, an epilogue would be nice. Although, considering what I've heard about the "guy and kid talking about 'the Shepard'" bit, maybe I'm wrong in that assumption.

Since I picked Control, I'd like to see something that reflects Shepard controlling all teh Reapers. Personally, I want to see Shepard flying around as the hive-mind of the Reapers, doing cool Shepard things as the new galactic over-god.

FemShep's voice: "Assuming direct control." And then all the husks in the area glow red and start rebuilding damaged buildings or something civicly minded like that. Meanwhile a fleet of Reapers repair/build a new Sol Relay.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I would have been happy if we got to see our war assets in play. Because what we got in that battle was pretty cheap, half of my fleets didn't even get a cutscene.

I'd also have liked an 'ME2 suicide mission' style mission where i get to command some assets and my squad because honestly that was one of the coolest parts of ME2.

I'd also of liked some kind of epilogue, perhaps with the things you mention like Wrex on Tuchunka and Tali on Rannock etc... but i wouldn't necessarily of needed Shep to live, i kinda thought she'd die so i was prepared for that... but i was expecting some kind of epilogue at least.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

It starts at the final rush to the Citadel Beam. You, your squad and Admiral Anderson, along with various ground forces make a final push to get to the beam with Harbinger continuing to fire one laser after another at you. In the process, several of the tanks upend, forming very sparse cover along the way. If your timing is right, you and your squad work their way to the beam and throw themselves into it, transporting yourself into the Citadel, while Anderson decides to stay behind and coordinate the ground forces still on Earth. Depending on your Ground Assets, he either dies fighting, or merely ends up heavily wounded, but alive and able to survive.

On the Citadel, you have to work your way to the arm controls, similar to the push at the end of the first Mass Effect. However, instead of fighting Geth, you wage a battle on two fronts, with Reaper Forces and Indoctrinated Cerberus troops working together to take you down. Every now and then you get a moment to breathe where you contact both Anderson and Hackett, catching glimpses of the war both on the ground and in space, watching whatever fleets you may have gathered fighting back. Depending on your War Assets and Military Strength, the front lines are either held steadily, being pushed back, or utterly decimated.

You continue your push to the control room, wading through Cannibals and Troopers, as well as having to push past everything that Cerberus and the Reapers have left, including waves of Phantoms and Brutes, Banshees and Atlas'. When you finally reach the control room, you have the option of leaving one to both of your squadmates to guard the rear while you deal with an Indoctrinated Illusive Man. If you leave one, they are sure to die as Reaper forces push up to flank you, and if you leave both, they have a chance to survive, despite being heavily wounded. If you take them with, the final battle against the Illusive Man is more desperate as a last wave of heavy hitters from both sides rush to stop you.

The Illusive Man himself is careful, using tech powers as well as personal guards to distract you, while he has extremely powerful shields and a heavy weapon of his own to bear on you. At key moments, you have the chance to try and talk him out of this, and depending on both responses and reputation, you can distract him, slowing his attacks and visibly weakening his own resolve. If weakened enough, the Illusive Man falls quickly badly wounded and calling out either that the destruction of the Reapers is condemning the human race, or reflecting that Shepard may have been right all along. Shepard then finishes him, and strides to the control panel, war-weary and mourning his or her squadmates, had they died.

Shepard opens the Citadels arms for the Crucible to dock, which it does. It activates, almost acting like the electric guitar to the Citadels amplifier, which both magnifies and directs the Crucibles energy towards the Reapers. Depending on whatever War Assets you gathered for the Crucible itself, it will be heavily damaged in the first pulse of energy, destroying itself and heavily damaging the Citadel as well as killing Shepard and his squad (had they survived), but destroying most of the Reapers around Earth in the process. If you gathered some, then it will only be unable to fire another pulse, while leaving the Citadel intact. If you gathered most to all, the Crucible is able to fire multiple pulses, destroying all of the Reapers in the immediate star system, as well as wiping out a far amount of the husks on Earth.

After, we either see the remaining ships in your fleets and the men on the ground, or their remains, depending on your Effective Military Strength. Those that gathered a sufficient amount see the men rejoicing at their victory, as well as the beginnings of the rebuilding efforts. If you haven't you are forced to see what is left of the Reapers in other systems or even in the proximity of Earth continue to eliminate organic life in the Galaxy.

Assuming that you managed to save the Galaxy from the Reapers, the brunt being destroyed while the rest are systematically taken out, and if your Shepard survived, he or she gets a chance to retire with their love interest, if you had one. Otherwise, Shepard and those who died on their crew is memorialized as heroes. You are then treated to several short cinematics that highlight members of Shepards crew and where they ended up, as well as the various races and their homeworlds as they rebuild.

At the moment, I can't really think about other details, such as what happens to this or that, where else Harbinger would enter into it, or other plot holes I know this would have. But, I feel this would have been satisfying, and could have fit. But, I could be wrong. Thats just me.

 

[scorptatious]

I'd be fine with the current ending. So long as Bioware adds some sort of epilogue that talks about what happened to the galaxy and my squadmates based on my choices. Hell, a rolling text screen would do. So long as it makes the choices I had to make throughout the series mean something.

I guess a little bit of explaining to what happened during the ending may also be in order as well.

Also, if I was able to get my Shepard to survive, I want him to find Tali and have them build a home together. And my Femshep should be able to find and marry Garrus and adopt a little krogan as well.

Maybe I'm asking a little too much in the last bit, but it's nice to dream.

 

[putowtin]

Amanda Shepard retires somewhere warm and tropical with Garrus and live off the royalties from the vids!

That's my ending and I'm sticking to it!

 

[Kyle Mulderick]

Grivhari, I dont think I couldve come up with anything better. Mechanically, it's outstanding how you incorporated the war assets and previous decisions into your survival probabilities. Just swap Liara for Tali and I got my new ideal ending. And let Garrus and Liara hook up...

 

[KingofMadCows]

I think the problem was making the game about a full scale Reaper invasion in the first place.

They built the Reapers up to such an unbeatable threat that it really made no sense how a full scale Reaper invasion with thousands of Reapers couldn't just conquer the galaxy in a few days. So in order to make the Reapers not annihilate everyone in two days, they had to make the Reapers really dumb and introduce a bunch of plot holes.

It would have made far more sense if the events of ME1 and 2 had set the Reaper invasion back much more where they can only send a small invasion fleet of maybe a few dozen or a hundred Reapers while the bulk of their fleet remains stranded in dark space.

Their goal should have been the same as Sovereign's, take over the Citadel so they can activate its Mass Relay and call the rest of the Reaper fleet from dark space.

The attacks on the various worlds should have been a feint, to draw their fleets away from the Citadel. In fact, it should have been part of the Reaper's plan to let Shepard gather a fleet to retake earth. While the bulk of the galaxy's forces are attacking earth, the Reapers assault the Citadel.

The final battle would not be won with a deus ex machina but a desperate all out assault where everyone is fighting tooth and nail for their survival, engaging in suicide attacks to ram into Reapers, using high yield nuclear weapons that irradiates their own ships, with a contingency plan to blow up the Mass Relay to prevent the Reapers from activating the Citadel.

There could then be an ending where the Reapers are defeated for the time being but their fleet is still out there and will reach the galaxy in a few centuries using conventional FTL. Shepard's journey would be over but the story isn't and there's the potential for a lot of sequels.

 

[Aabglov]

The big gun everyone has been working on turns out to not work, the alliance refuses to help Shepherd so he has to go it alone. Then, as the Normandy is preparing to launch their one-ship offensive, Joker slams on breaks and Shepherd is thrown out the window where he prepares to personally fist-fight each Reaper into submission. However, he quickly discovers his fists are no use against space ships so he pulls out a guitar and ROCKS THEM TO DEATH! This part would have an optional mode to play with a rock band controller.

 

[Grivahri]

It starts at the final rush to the Citadel Beam. You, your squad and Admiral Anderson, along with various ground forces make a final push to get to the beam with Harbinger continuing to fire one laser after another at you. In the process, several of the tanks upend, forming very sparse cover along the way. If your timing is right, you and your squad work their way to the beam and throw themselves into it, transporting yourself into the Citadel, while Anderson decides to stay behind and coordinate the ground forces still on Earth. Depending on your Ground Assets, he either dies fighting, or merely ends up heavily wounded, but alive and able to survive.

On the Citadel, you have to work your way to the arm controls, similar to the push at the end of the first Mass Effect. However, instead of fighting Geth, you wage a battle on two fronts, with Reaper Forces and Indoctrinated Cerberus troops working together to take you down. Every now and then you get a moment to breathe where you contact both Anderson and Hackett, catching glimpses of the war both on the ground and in space, watching whatever fleets you may have gathered fighting back. Depending on your War Assets and Military Strength, the front lines are either held steadily, being pushed back, or utterly decimated.

You continue your push to the control room, wading through Cannibals and Troopers, as well as having to push past everything that Cerberus and the Reapers have left, including waves of Phantoms and Brutes, Banshees and Atlas'. When you finally reach the control room, you have the option of leaving one to both of your squadmates to guard the rear while you deal with an Indoctrinated Illusive Man. If you leave one, they are sure to die as Reaper forces push up to flank you, and if you leave both, they have a chance to survive, despite being heavily wounded. If you take them with, the final battle against the Illusive Man is more desperate as a last wave of heavy hitters from both sides rush to stop you.

The Illusive Man himself is careful, using tech powers as well as personal guards to distract you, while he has extremely powerful shields and a heavy weapon of his own to bear on you. At key moments, you have the chance to try and talk him out of this, and depending on both responses and reputation, you can distract him, slowing his attacks and visibly weakening his own resolve. If weakened enough, the Illusive Man falls quickly badly wounded and calling out either that the destruction of the Reapers is condemning the human race, or reflecting that Shepard may have been right all along. Shepard then finishes him, and strides to the control panel, war-weary and mourning his or her squadmates, had they died.

Shepard opens the Citadels arms for the Crucible to dock, which it does. It activates, almost acting like the electric guitar to the Citadels amplifier, which both magnifies and directs the Crucibles energy towards the Reapers. Depending on whatever War Assets you gathered for the Crucible itself, it will be heavily damaged in the first pulse of energy, destroying itself and heavily damaging the Citadel as well as killing Shepard and his squad (had they survived), but destroying most of the Reapers around Earth in the process. If you gathered some, then it will only be unable to fire another pulse, while leaving the Citadel intact. If you gathered most to all, the Crucible is able to fire multiple pulses, destroying all of the Reapers in the immediate star system, as well as wiping out a far amount of the husks on Earth.

After, we either see the remaining ships in your fleets and the men on the ground, or their remains, depending on your Effective Military Strength. Those that gathered a sufficient amount see the men rejoicing at their victory, as well as the beginnings of the rebuilding efforts. If you haven't you are forced to see what is left of the Reapers in other systems or even in the proximity of Earth continue to eliminate organic life in the Galaxy.

Assuming that you managed to save the Galaxy from the Reapers, the brunt being destroyed while the rest are systematically taken out, and if your Shepard survived, he or she gets a chance to retire with their love interest, if you had one. Otherwise, Shepard and those who died on their crew is memorialized as heroes. You are then treated to several short cinematics that highlight members of Shepards crew and where they ended up, as well as the various races and their homeworlds as they rebuild.

At the moment, I can't really think about other details, such as what happens to this or that, where else Harbinger would enter into it, or other plot holes I know this would have. But, I feel this would have been satisfying, and could have fit. But, I could be wrong. Thats just me.

Interesting. I like how you imagined the final push towards the tower. Fighting two forces at once, getting updated by Hackett and deciding whether squadmate(s) should hold off the enemies while you take on TIM. Maybe the "citadel run" could be the suicide mission of ME3. You face a ridiculous amount of enemies as you push towards the tower. Maybe your entire crew should be with you and you choose three teams. One team that holds off the right flank, the other the left flank and the remaining two goes with you. Then depending on your war assets, previous choices and how you construct the teams your crew will live or die. I wonder if the developers even considered making endings like these.

 

[mgs16925]

I think it just needs to be explained better and show the results of the choices and what's going on with the Normandy.

I still interpret the ending as "the few people who aren't killed directly by the relay explosions are trapped in the Sol system or on the jungle planet with the Normandy and all starve to death." Basically the entire supporting cast was already dead, killed when the Reapers took the Citadel.

I'm pretty sure that isn't what they were going for, but from what we got I don't see how else to interpret it. I don't buy the Indoctrination idea simply because absolutely nothing else in this series has ever been remotely subtle, and definitely not to that degree.

 

[Jadak]

They all would have died moments after the fleets arrived near Earth, blown out of the sky on approach.