Originally posted by General Kaliero
For those of you complaining about the endings, I found a theory that, after taking theSpoiler:option myself, I fully support.
destroy the ReapersSpoiler:
Everything after Harbinger hits Shepard with its laser is a dream.Sounds like a really stupid cop-out, but think about it for a bit.
You get up, groggy and wounded, armor burned to an unrecognizable crisp. Pick up a pistol which hey, needs no reloading, that's weird. As you stumble towards the beam, you can hear radio chatter, people saying absolutely no one made it to the beam. What, can't they see you?
Then make it to the beam, and are transported to a part of the Citadel you've never seen before. As you walk forward, down a straight route with no alternate entrances, Anderson checks in, saying he's ahead of you, though he "followed you" into the beam (which is in itself strange since you never saw him after getting up). Then the Illusive Man appears, out of nowhere! Where'd he come from?! But he's there, since you knew he'd be there in the end.
All that plays out, you activate the Citadel, it links up with the Crucible, mission done! Only... it's not doing anything! So you crawl to the control panel... and fail to hit it. Flop down, conveniently onto an elevator that takes you up to... the Catalyst.
Which, conveniently, looks like the heartstring-tugging little boy you've been having nightmares about. And tells you that it controls the Reapers, and they're its solution to the inherent chaos of the universe, and without it organics would be completely destroyed.
It then gives you a choice. You can indeed destroy the Reapers, if you want. Just know that doing so will kill all synthetic life, which includes your new friends the Geth, and EDI, and remember that you're partly synthetic too, so you'll probably die! And to top it off, future organics will eventually create synthetic life and make the cycle begin anew. Gosh does that choice sound bad now!
But wait... you could try controlling the Reapers. Sure, the Illusive Man couldn't do it, but you might... you'll die, but the Reapers will obey your command. Oh, by the way, if you do that the mass relays will be destroyed, which will cut off all galactic travel and strand the species from one another.
And there is a third option: Synthesis. Combine your energy with the Crucible, become one with it, and ascend to merge all organic and synthetic life into a new cyber-organic form of existence. The relays will also be destroyed, but the cycle will end and you will have brought the galaxy to the "final stage" of evolution.
Those are the options presented. Now look at how they're presented. The Destroy choice is illustrated with Anderson, a true-blue Paragon and admirable man if ever there was one. But the option is presented in red, the traditional color of Renegade choices. By the words of the Catalyst, it is the absolute worst choice, killing yourself and millions of your allies to achieve a peace that won't last.
The Control choice is illustrated with the Illusive Man, who is a Renegade of the highest degree, willing to sacrifice anything and everything for his own personal goals. And you've probably argued against him already about why controlling the Reapers is impossible, and seen what happened to him when he attempted it. But the option is presented in blue, the Paragon color, and the Catalyst's words paint the choice as much, much better than simply destroying the Reapers. Notice too that when you ask the Catalyst for confirmation that you will control the Reapers, it hesitates before saying yes.
The Synthesis option is presented as the most noble and desirable by the Catalyst, with the only real negative being that the relays will be destroyed. But then... synthesis is what Saren was hoping to achieve in the first game. Synthesis is how the Reapers are born, turning organic matter into themselves. And the relays' destruction almost seems like a thrown-in comment by the Catalyst to make it look like there's some reason it shouldn't be the obvious correct choice.
WHAT IS THIS?!
You're still on Earth. Unconscious after the blast, and Harbinger is attempting to indoctrinate you. The radio chatter you hear is in fact real, and they have to assume you're dead. Everything on the Citadel is an imagined scenario, with Harbinger influencing your mind so that you'll lose the will to fight. This is further supported by how the EMS affects which endings are available for choosing. If you have really low military strength, the Reapers are winning so hard that they don't even need an indoctrinated Shepard to win, and Harbinger is straight-up mocking you with a fever dream of a change at destroying them. At higher military strength, your forces are doing well enough that indoctrinating you would give them enough of an advantage to likely win, so Harbinger offers choices that, through the image of the boy, look sympathetic and preferable.
And what actually happens? Well, in the Control and Synthesis endings, Shepard dies. But in the Destroy ending, and only in the Destroy ending, where you resist the indoctrination to give in to the Reapers and decide to keep fighting... if you've gotten your military strength high enough (meaning your forces can hold the Reapers off long enough)... Shepard takes a gasping breath and awakes, trapped in rubble. Concrete-and-rebar London rubble, not twisted metal Citadel rubble.
It makes far more sense than any of the three options actually being true. Expect DLC to unlock the true ending, a la Arrival.
Spoiler:
While that could be the case the fact that it completely makes any choice but destroy meaningless would be messed up. As well as having to pay extra for the ending would be really messed up and set a bad precedent for other companies if we all bought it. Post game dlc is fine but not when its required to finish the story. Arrival just set us up for 3 but the collectors story ended in 2, a dlc expanding from this theory would be an even bigger middle finger then bad endings.
Originally posted by jalek moyeSpoiler:
While that could be the case the fact that it completely makes any choice but destroy meaningless would be messed up. As well as having to pay extra for the ending would be really messed up and set a bad precedent for other companies if we all bought it. Post game dlc is fine but not when its required to finish the story. Arrival just set us up for 3 but the collectors story ended in 2, a dlc expanding from this theory would be an even bigger middle finger then bad endings.
It's a horrible situation, but this theory is, I think, better for the game itself.
I'd prefer more just be added to the endings. Making over half the last choices on disk not matter, is no one to fix the complaint about choices not mattering. The only getting to play the dlc if u did renegade with complete assets would be bad for the spirit of the game. Bad ending or not I personally can't get behind such a thing for the game. Not saying you are for it, but just saying I disagree that it'd be better for the game.
The choices still mattered for the journey, how you got to that point. Especially in ME3, where those choices are changing your war assets for better or worse throughout the game. The final choice is presented to you just like every other moral choice in the game. How do your choices "not matter"?
And forgive me, but how the hell is the
Spoiler:
Destroy ending the Renegade one? It's what Anderson would do, and it's been the mission for the whole trilogy.
Originally posted by General Kaliero
The choices still mattered for the journey, how you got to that point. Especially in ME3, where those choices are changing your war assets for better or worse throughout the game. The final choice is presented to you just like every other moral choice in the game. How do your choices "not matter"?
👆
Exactly.
And forgive me, but how the hell is theSpoiler:
Destroy ending the Renegade one? It's what Anderson would do, and it's been the mission for the whole trilogy.
Spoiler:
I wouldn't say it's the renegade option per se. However, it does seem to leave the galaxy in the worst possible scenerio.
Yes i love that the choices matter in the game, but I'm saying that if dlc continued off that dream idea, it would make the choice at the end meaningless because you could only play the ending if you made that particular choice. Only one path to finish the game, that's the part that I don't think is good for the game. Unless I'm misunderstanding the idea of how they'd do it.
Spoiler:
I was just labeling it as the game made it seem.
If they edited it so that there was a "paragon" choice that did it too I'd be ok. But as is maybe it's just me but one half resulting in game over over and the other being continue playing the game to a real ending doesn't sit right with me for this series. That's my issue since up until now there'd be both things for the major events.
Originally posted by Nemesis XSpoiler:
How is that the paragon choice if destroying the Reapers kills everyone else in the process? Not much hope left for humanity and every other race when you turn 'em into smoldering piles of ash.
Spoiler:
If you have high enough war assets, the blast only kills the Reapers. Since EDI can apparently survive to pop out of the Normandy with Joker, it would seem the Catalyst was full of shit. Besides, Anderson does it, and Anderson is a Paragon. And it's been your mission throughout the trilogy. Of course it's the Paragon choice.
Spoiler:
Does EDI really emerge from the normandy at the end if you choose the destruction ending? Either way, I don't consider it Paragon because you're wiping out an entire race in the process (the Geth), and if you played like I played, you saved The Geth and made them pretty much organics. The only pure Paragon choice is the synthesis ending, I think.
Mass Effect 3 was a beautifully made game with deep characters, story and heroics.
Then they took all of that but the opposite and made it the ending, but not just a ending, 3 equally horrendous endings riddled with plot holes.
The first 25 hours of the game were brilliant but this makes me not want to play it for a while. Piece of crap endings.
Spoiler:
The killing Reapers option is Renegade. The option is red, red = renegade in ME.