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I know there have been conflicting views on the ending, and the game turned out fairly sad for me (fave charcters died :( ) but the end seemed reasonable to me

what are your thoughts

Not so bad. Played it straight four times already from 1 to 3, all characters in the final battle surviving. Only chose Destroy once, didn't feel right. I got the Quarians and the Geth to make up, and then I turn 180 degrees and wipe them out. Not to mention that despite all they've done, the Reapers are still the last remnants of civilizations going back 37 million years - how different would that make Shepard from the Reapers? Control wasn't any better, civilization still remained in the Reapers' technological trap even though they're under Humanity's control. Synthesis was the best. Organics and synthetics become one, the galaxy is free of the technological trap, Reapers leave to find a new purpose and explore the rest of the universe, and best of all, EDI and Joker embracing at the end made Mass Effect 3 the first game to make me cry.

Well, all three endings completely ignored all the choices that I made through all three games, and differed pretty much only by the colour of the explosion they used, despite through development/marketing telling us that we would have "dramatically different endings depending on the choices we made" and that "it would not simply be a choice between endings A, B and C"...

So yeah, I was not a happy camper, even without the crappy nonsensical star child kak being spouted at the end.

I picked the destroy option in the end, didn't feel right controlling them considering that was the illusive man wanted to do. And it didn't feel right to do synthesis considering that what in part the Reapers want to do (cannibals, husks, banshees etc). So went for destroy, felt like the most "right" action but that's just me.

SilverMK2 wrote:

So yeah, I was not a happy camper, even without the crappy nonsensical star child kak being spouted at the end.

Actually what he said made a lot more sense than the indoctrination theory some people keep spouting.

Does this really require another thread?

The ending is absolutely horse gak, can we not move on yet?

Lets look at the positives, I don't know about other people but I'm sick to death of people still bitching about the ending. I did it but after a couple of days the anger was gone. Sure the ending could of been a hell of a lot better, but everyone knows that! So please lets not let this turn into a Mass effect 3 ending sucks! thread like so many others.

While the ending was horrifyingly BAD

I chose destroy, Tali being my love interest the Geth surviving were really only a background thought, not to mention Red was the only one that lets Shepard survive so I chose it.

And even if Shepard dies no matter what end, at least I took those mother 's with me.

Alexzandvar wrote:While the ending was horrifyingly BAD

I chose destroy, Tali being my love interest the Geth surviving were really only a background thought, not to mention Red was the only one that lets Shepard survive so I chose it.

And even if Shepard dies no matter what end, at least I took those mother 's with me.

To each their own, I suppose. Synthesis for me, and Tali/Kaidan (male and female respectively, abhor the deviant) as love interest.

Oh look its THIS thread again...


INDOCTRINATION THEORY seriously it makes so much sense for it NOT to be true, if its not I will never have faith in any writer again. NO ONE would willingly create an ending with so many plot holes and inconsistencies and expect people to enjoy it. The whole fact people think the ending is "real" shows that the "indoctrination" has been convincing. IF bioware made it painfully obvious you (Shepard) were being indoctrinated you (he) would have immediately noticed and resisted the indoctrination.

There an HOUR and 20 min documentary explaining it in tedious depth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caAqFFhBn2U

Or if you prefer heres a vid showing what they COULD have done with a few simple changes to make the ending 1000x better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08xoVKHgNg0

vodo40k wrote:Oh look its THIS thread again...


INDOCTRINATION THEORY seriously it makes so much sense for it NOT to be true, if its not I will never have faith in any writer again. NO ONE would willingly create an ending with so many plot holes and inconsistencies and expect people to enjoy it. The whole fact people think the ending is "real" shows that the "indoctrination" has been convincing. IF bioware made it painfully obvious you (Shepard) were being indoctrinated you (he) would have immediately noticed and resisted the indoctrination.

There an HOUR and 20 min documentary explaining it in tedious depth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caAqFFhBn2U

Or if you prefer heres a vid showing what they COULD have done with a few simple changes to make the ending 1000x better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08xoVKHgNg0

Compared to a theory disappointed fans came up to whine and make Bioware change the ending, the Catalyst makes so much more sense.

To be honest, I don't hate the ending as much as I used to. Its still a crap ending that doesn't stack up to the rest of the series but, its not that bad.

Tadashi wrote:Compared to a theory disappointed fans came up to whine and make Bioware change the ending, the Catalyst makes so much more sense.

I wish I had been smoking whatever you were when I watched the ending

Spoiler:

The Catalyst probably learned from bitter experience (like the Geth) that organics and synthetics are incapable of long-term co-existence. Even the in-game Codex states that no one knows how long the Geth and the Quarians can co-exist on Rannoch. It's just like in reality, once the common enemy disappears, allies can and do become enemies. So, the Catalyst put in place the Reaper Cycle of Extinction to prevent organics from creating synthetics, by turning organics into synthetics (Reapers) after a certain point. The Catalyst does not direct this, he just observes. In between his lines, one can imply that his personal opinion is that while the Cycle was ideal, he still didn't like it.

Although it would have made more sense for a highly advanced civilisation to, oh, I don't know, maybe guide and intervene when civilisation tipped too far into the synthetic/organic balance. But hey, they seem happy enough when organics are controlling the galaxy, wiping out other sentient beings if they don't want to be their slaves (protheans), so maybe they aren't too bothered about life in the galaxy at all...

SilverMK2 wrote:

Tadashi wrote:Compared to a theory disappointed fans came up to whine and make Bioware change the ending, the Catalyst makes so much more sense.

I wish I had been smoking whatever you were when I watched the ending

You just have to look at it from the Catalyst's perspective.

Advanced organic civilizations create synthetic life, who destroy their creators. This probably happened to the Catalyst, and as a sign of remorse, decides not to let it happen again. It brings into motion the Cycle of Extinction, using Reapers (probably without their knowledge) to harvest and preserve the gestalt racial consciousness of advanced organic civilizations before they create synthetic life, leaving the primitive races to grow and prosper only to be harvested in turn. It's ideal, but grotesque. When the Crucible docked, and Shepard, an unindoctrinated organic, arrived, the Catalyst saw a chance to find a new, ideal, and less grotesque solution: destroy the synthetic life, and restore the previous cycle the Catalyst and the Reapers had disrupted; replace the Catalyst and choose whether or not to continue the Cycle and use the Reapers for another purpose; or bring about synthesis - technological singularity - ending both Cycles at once. Obviously, I chose synthesis.

Spoiler:

The Catalyst probably learned from bitter experience (like the Geth) that organics and synthetics are incapable of long-term co-existence. Even the in-game Codex states that no one knows how long the Geth and the Quarians can co-exist on Rannoch. It's just like in reality, once the common enemy disappears, allies can and do become enemies. So, the Catalyst put in place the Reaper Cycle of Extinction to prevent organics from creating synthetics, by turning organics into synthetics (Reapers) after a certain point. The Catalyst does not direct this, he just observes. In between his lines, one can imply that his personal opinion is that while the Cycle was ideal, he still didn't like it.

Although it would have made more sense for a highly advanced civilisation to, oh, I don't know, maybe guide and intervene when civilisation tipped too far into the synthetic/organic balance. But hey, they seem happy enough when organics are controlling the galaxy, wiping out other sentient beings if they don't want to be their slaves (protheans), so maybe they aren't too bothered about life in the galaxy at all...

That was the same excuse used by the Spanish to wipe out the native South Americans. That same policy practiced by the Old Ones led to the War in Heaven. Benevolent guidance more often than not leads to disaster, while outright conquest leads to unification and peace, like the Roman Empire and the Protheans. And the Collectors came to be because the Protheans' genetic code was unsuitable for Reaper construction.

Is your ending unbearably bad? Please go through this checklist to see!

-Final battle with generic mooks rather than the established big bad: Check
-Last minute change in tone from the entire series: Check
-Inconsistencies and easily spotted plot holes: Check
-Sudden massive focus on a theme that was at best very very weak for the rest of the story: Check
-Sudden change in the nature of the antagonists, barely even hinted at before: Check
-All these (bad) plot developments taking place entirely via a new character spouting exposition: Check
-Massive change in characterization of protagonist with no explanation: Check.
-Ignores established Canon on behavior of key elements in the universe: Check
-Whole thing is a particularly lazy Deus ex Machina: Check

Wow. You did pretty everything you possibly could wrong. I mean the only thing could do worse is actually not have the ending provide a conclusion for the vast majority of your characters. Oh wait...

I see what you did there. And its brilliant.

Chongara wrote:
-Final battle with generic mooks rather than the established big bad: Check

They broke cliche, something wrong with that?

-Last minute change in tone from the entire series: Check

Really? The truth behind the Cycle of Extinction actually fits. Order is imposed on the chaos resulting from organics developing dangerous technologies rampantly

-Inconsistencies and easily spotted plot holes: Check

You mean the Illusive Man taking control of Shepard and Anderson's motor systems? Easy. The nervous system is bioelectric in nature. No stretch to see how advanced cybernetics can't jack that.

-Sudden massive focus on a theme that was at best very very weak for the rest of the story: Check

See above.

-Sudden change in the nature of the antagonists, barely even hinted at before: Check

The Reapers are apparently unaware of their creator, who doesn't actually do anything other than observe and wait until a new solution better than the one it came up with presents itself.

-All these (bad) plot developments taking place entirely via a new character spouting exposition: Check

Exaggerated. The Catalyst was a perfectly fine way to explain the truth behind the Cycle.

-Massive change in characterization of protagonist with no explanation: Check.

Is that so now? I fail to see how Shepard's decisions at the end are against his character. He's a hero, he knows what must be done, and once he knows the truth, even he can see that despite everything, the Catalyst simply did the best it could. It wasn't a god, and so wasn't perfect, and Shepard can't blame it for that.

"You have hope, more than you know. The fact that your here, the first organic ever proves it. But it also proves that my solution isn't ideal anymore." - the Catalyst

The Catalyst accepts its failure and lets Shepard, the one who defeated him, accept the burden of finding a way to break the original Organic-Synthetic dichotomy.

-Ignores established Canon on behavior of key elements in the universe: Check

How? The Reapers' back story was only revealed by the Catalyst. And it answers why the Collectors would even need to use organic DNA to build a Reaper, otherwise the Reapers could just build another Reaper with a 'generic' AI running it.

-Whole thing is a particularly lazy Deus ex Machina: Check

Fine with it.

Wow. You did pretty everything you possibly could wrong. I mean the only thing could do worse is actually not have the ending provide a conclusion for the vast majority of your characters. Oh wait...

Synthesis ending was pretty conclusive, especially where EDI and Joker embrace.

Oh wow, how pathetic. People are actually defending the ending.

Its bad, plain and simple. It's been admitted by the PEOPLE WHO MADE THE GAME that the ending was bad.

I've already said my sources and reasonings a hundred times in earlier threads.

Its just another example of EA fething something up.

The dark energy ending would have worked so much better, i.e being consistent with hints placed throughout the rest of the series and shedding some genuine light on the reapers.

=/ It was too lacking in content and open ended to the finale of a game like Mass Effect 3. Everything leading up to it was great, but it just halted the pace of everything when it suddenly dropped into essentially pressing a big red shiny button that said "win" (.......if the "win" could even be considered an ending). The big with Aldrin after it was fine, but I just felt that the actual three endings needed to be explained more (....the Renegade ending, ie kill the Reapers, is penned as Anderson, the Paragon's choice, as is the Blue ending the Illusive Man's choice. So is that to make the player question their own belief system when the moral endings are turned on their heads?). ....Just way too many questions where it should be answering them.

Oh and on endings. Anderson dying if you got a perfect Paragon score (as in chose Paragon options in every game), whereas he doesn't die if you got a bad score, annoyed me to no end. Such a great character, and not to say his death scene was lacking (the Illusive Man's too were moving), just that it felt as though Bioware were piling on deaths to make the game seem even more tragic (a la Harry Potter....). =(

Terrible.

Ignoring that Priority: Earth as a collection of missions was possibly the least polished and boring addition to any game I've ever played, the real cherry on top is basically the entirety of the last five minutes.

Nothing makes sense. Ignoring that the very existence of the Catalyst makes me question the point of the previous two games, and that it taking the form of the dream kid is laughably unsubtle, its motivation is simply moronic.

Synthetics always trying to wipe out all organic life, and who can't be stopped? Please, I have been paying attention to your game you know, BioWare, I'm capable of logical thought. Talk about betraying your own themes. It's just so amazingly stupid I just ignore it even exists as an element of the plot.

The three choices? Wow. Again, ignoring the fact that the pressence of Control and Destroy as part of the Citadel should have warning bells chiming, they're all just stupid.

Destroy has an arbitrary and despicable cost attached to it.
Control essentially runs counter to, hmm, maybe everything you do concenring Cerberus.
Synthesis is just....... I don't know what to say. Who would ever choose this? The details are so slim on the ground. You realize that by choosing this one you're imposing the beliefs of the Catalyst on every living thing?

Epilogues? BioWare laugh at the concept.

No, instead, we have a completely pointless scene where your crew teleports aboard the Normandy and Joker runs away, to end up stranded on an unknown planet where either Garrus and Tali will die, or everyone else will. The symbolism couldn't be more obvious.

I don't want to think of how pretentious the stargazer scene is.

There are more issues, but I fear I'd be here till the horns of the horsemen sound talking about it.

It's just generally horrific, overall.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tadashi wrote:

Chongara wrote:
-Final battle with generic mooks rather than the established big bad: Check

They broke cliche, something wrong with that?

To replace it with another cliche. That is boring.

-Last minute change in tone from the entire series: Check

Really? The truth behind the Cycle of Extinction actually fits. Order is imposed on the chaos resulting from organics developing dangerous technologies rampantly

HA.

The Catalyst's order is imposed due to an unproven hypothesis. That's just the logic.

The central conflict changes to something laughably stupid and unsupported.

-Sudden change in the nature of the antagonists, barely even hinted at before: Check

The Reapers are apparently unaware of their creator, who doesn't actually do anything other than observe and wait until a new solution better than the one it came up with presents itself.

Before : Malevolent robots inspired by Lovecraft's work, that need no motivation for us to fight them. They are evil, they commit horrendous atrocities and murder trillions due to their hubris.

After : The flawed solution to an unproven hypothesis, the mooks of some random AI thing we've never seen before. Their evil nature contradicts their purpose.

-All these (bad) plot developments taking place entirely via a new character spouting exposition: Check

Exaggerated. The Catalyst was a perfectly fine way to explain the truth behind the Cycle.

An expository tool would be, but not one like the Catalyst, especially considering it makes no sense at all.

-Massive change in characterization of protagonist with no explanation: Check.

Is that so now? I fail to see how Shepard's decisions at the end are against his character. He's a hero, he knows what must be done, and once he knows the truth, even he can see that despite everything, the Catalyst simply did the best it could. It wasn't a god, and so wasn't perfect, and Shepard can't blame it for that.

"You have hope, more than you know. The fact that your here, the first organic ever proves it. But it also proves that my solution isn't ideal anymore." - the Catalyst

The Catalyst accepts its failure and lets Shepard, the one who defeated him, accept the burden of finding a way to break the original Organic-Synthetic dichotomy.

Meekly goes along with what the enemy tells her, despite the flaws.

Shepard, as in the Shepard I've been roleplaying for the past ninety hours, would not do that.

-Whole thing is a particularly lazy Deus ex Machina: Check

Fine with it.

Then I don't care about your opinion on the matter.

Wow. You did pretty everything you possibly could wrong. I mean the only thing could do worse is actually not have the ending provide a conclusion for the vast majority of your characters. Oh wait...

Synthesis ending was pretty conclusive, especially where EDI and Joker embrace.

Please, elaborate on what exactly happens with synthesis.

In-game facts please, not your own warped headcanon.

Medium of Death wrote:Does this really require another thread?

The ending is absolutely horse gak, can we not move on yet?

You still haven't played the game, and have the nerve to say the "ending is absolutely horse gak"?

I liked the ending, and all of my choices mattered. Of course, like with anything, there are minor details where I would've done it differently, but overall it was an amazing end to a wonderful journey. Very emotional, dramatic, and most of all it didn't feel like your average cliché end. Which is, I suppose, why a lot of people seem to have a problem with it. Judging by the threads on the BSN, many fans wished for a "Disney-style" happe end where their awesome indestructible hero saves the day and everyone goes about their business as if nothing happened. Instead we got a vulnerable Shep who (depending on what choices one has picked) sacrifices him- or herself to achieve a key victory that still comes with a huge setback. Realistic, heroic, different, dramatic, daring ... yet probably not the whiteknight'ish "it's all gonna be okay tomorrow" stuff people were hoping for. Reminds me of the rage concerning Ned Stark's death in Game of Thrones, actually.

As for my personal ending:

For my playthrough (only did one so far), Shep chose Destroy - in her mind, it was the only way to make sure the Reapers would never be a threat again. Control might have enabled her to achieve the same result, yet there was that lingering suspicion that the merger could end up with her being altered by the Reapers instead of assuming complete control. In the meantime, Joker dodged Reaper fighters to move the Normandy closer to the extraction point, where the few survivors of the ground forces awaited pickup by shuttle. Given their fighting spirit and aggression, I don't think any of the krogans made it. Same as Vega, Ash or Javik, although I'll admit that I'm merely adding them to the bodycount because deaths make it feel more realistic, these three are the sacrificing types, and I don't care about them too much. I think Vega died providing covering fire for a squad of retreating Alliance Marines; that would fit him well. Cortez didn't survive the Hammer drop-off; it was only later that I learned he can actually survive depending on an earlier dialogue option.

As the Crucible fired its beam, Normandy was already back in the air and approaching the Relay, together with a portion of those ships that had survived so far. In an eery replay of the Alliance's first retreat only months earlier, a portion of the fleet stayed behind to keep the Reapers busy and allow the others to escape. The turians in particular proved their honour once more as they insisted that their forces would provide the bulk of the sacrifice, whereas the Quarian Flotilla reluctantly pulled back first, intending to save as much of its civilian ships as possible. The Destiny Ascension remained at Earth as well, with Matriarch Lidanya adding the awesome power of its impressive main gun to the turian dreadnoughts. The Citadel flagship's kinetic barriers began to buckle under the onslaught, but just before the Normandy made the jump, it managed to cripple another Reaper by blasting through its vulnerable weapons port just as the enemy ship prepared to fire.

The Crucible's blast hit the Normandy in mid-transit, crippling half its electronic control systems and frying its AI. With all servers and backup blades being hit simultaneously, EDI simply ceased to exist. Thrown out of the Relay slipstream and stranded in a star system with no knowledge of their exact position, Joker confirmed the existence of a habitable planetoid in their vicinity. As FTL jumps without VI support were deemed too risky and the ship was already in a bad enough shape, it was decided to land on the planet and use it as a base until repairs could be completed. Controlling the ship's descent without a flight computer was a nigh-impossible feat, but Joker managed to pull it off and set down the SR-2 in a relatively safe way. As shown in the cinematic, Joker, Garrus and Liara leave the ship, but other survivors like Traynor would follow them soon. The group begins to set up a basecamp at the foot of the ship and, realizing that they are cut off from the rest of the galaxy in terms of communication, prepare for a longer stay.

Over the course of the next couple thousand years (which is when the post-credits Stargazer scene takes place), this small community becomes an independent colony, first turning into a village, then a city-state, with remote outposts set up for resource gathering slowly growing into larger communes as well. Liara, having been pregnant from "embracing eternity" with Shepard, gave birth to twins, who in turn became the origin of a now-sizable asari subset of the otherwise human-dominated population. Guided by the wisdom of a Matron-turned-Matriarch Liara, the people adopt the asari model of e-democracy and manage to avoid conflict. Even as its people grow apart, they remain united in their spirit. The mother of Shepard's kids manages to live for another 997 years before dying in her sleep, a content smile on her lips.
Unfortunately, with Garrus and Tali being the only members of their respective species on this world, there are no turians and quarians around, although they have spent their final days as a pair of lovers. Both of them continue to be revered for their part in the legend of the Shepard.

After many generations of hardship and rebuilding, the scientists of this world have come close to a breakthrough in drive technology that will finally present a veritable alternative to traditional FTL engines, enabling travel to faraway worlds outside the local cluster, whose barren planetoids are already being visited by small mining vessels searching for deposits of element zero. The colony's ultimate plan is the construction of a spaceship as large as the legendary Normandy, whose ancient wreck remains preserved in a temple. Estimated construction time is 20 years. On the local extranet, human and asari philosophers publicly debate the prospect of re-establishing contact with their distant genetical relatives, with historians and sociologists suggesting their theories of what may have become of them, or the possible difficulties renewed diplomatic contact might pose. A number of conservatives oppose the project, argueing that nobody knows what they might find out there and that it could put every human and asari on this world at risk.

iproxtaco wrote:The Catalyst's order is imposed due to an unproven hypothesis.

I wouldn't call it "unproven" given what is hinted at having led to the creation of the Cycles. And sure, one might challenge the Catalyst's conclusion, given that it's still just a "maybe" and no certainty. But that doesn't change that it's a risk that can be avoided. The Cycles ensure the continued existence of life itself. Breaking the Cycles means that the current species will be allowed to flourish. On the other hand, if in a thousand or ten thousand years there's a synthetic race committing galactic genocide, it'll be on Shep's hands now.

Personally, I'd rather have explained it with the organic races becoming more dangerous to themselves, though. Scientific advances enable the option for destruction on a horrible scale, and there are evidence throughout the ME universe of past-Cycle releases of WMD destroying entire planets. A finite number of planets that can no longer be colonized and are lost "to life" forever. And we've seen this starting in the current Cycle again. Culling the intelligent species once they develop the capacity to make the galaxy unhospitable would make sense, if one were to focus on preserving life itself rather than individual forms of it.

iproxtaco wrote:Shepard, as in the Shepard I've been roleplaying for the past ninety hours, would not do that.

lol - as opposed to what, exactly? Sitting in a corner, sulking?
Shep was presented with a couple of options and picked the one he/she thought was best. Just as it happened throughout all three Mass Effect games. This ain't no sandbox universe; you are and have always been playing along a pre-defined arc. The options presented at the end of ME3 are actually a whole lot more freedom than you had in any of the other games before, keeping their repercussions in mind.

As for the whole "indoctrination theory" that some people keep clinging to, it can easily dismantled by the simple fact that we're seeing the ending not from a first person (manipulable) view but rather third person record, as it was passed down through the generations. In case anyone missed it: what you see is what the so-called Stargazer is telling the kid in the post-credit sequence, just like your actions in Dragon Age 2 were Varric telling Cassandra what happened. As such, any "hidden secrets" people are inserting into the sequence are wishful thinking, for if the Stargazer as the one telling the story knew about it, he'd have made it more obvious. And logically, if he did not knew about it, then he would not have inserted it into the story we are watching at all.

PS: my Shep actually got the "breather" cutscene, but I choose to ignore it - imho, having her die right there makes for a more dramatic and thus ultimately better exit for this character than any of the alternatives.

I think the point is no GOOD ending of a game should force you to cling (like myself) to a theory or force you to come up with your own justification and backstory for the end. Bioware/EA was obviously too shortsighted to see that the majority of players would not understand the ending for what it was (whatever "it" is). Nobody (who does not support the indoctrination theory) seems to come up with the same justification for the ending, everybody having their own interpretation. Perhaps this is what Bioware wanted? More than likely, however the tone of responses haven't generally been content and happy speculation (while giving a satisfying ending in the process) but seem to be a desperate groping in the dark to try and make sense of the pile of nonsense that was presented to us while breaking the promises made over the course of the previous two games.

Six words.
"Tell me about the Shepherd again."

The way the ending lines up, it very much makes it seem as though we've played it through and made the hard choices...
That last bit is what defined a galaxy.

Shepherd isn't just a man or a woman at this point. Shepherd has become a legend. A figure of myth, of whom stories are told. A figure who has done so many miraculous things that their exploits are the things which are told to children, to show them that the galaxy is tameable.
That one person can make a difference, if they are willing to fight for it. If they are willing to sacrifice for it.

Kanluwen wrote:Six words.
"Tell me about the Shepherd again."

The way the ending lines up, it very much makes it seem as though we've played it through and made the hard choices...
That last bit is what defined a galaxy.

Shepherd isn't just a man or a woman at this point. Shepherd has become a legend. A figure of myth, of whom stories are told. A figure who has done so many miraculous things that their exploits are the things which are told to children, to show them that the galaxy is tameable.
That one person can make a difference, if they are willing to fight for it. If they are willing to sacrifice for it.

Ill say I enjoyed that as well, although it was somehow ruined by the immediate "BUY DLC!!!" message afterwards.

Lynata wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:The Catalyst's order is imposed due to an unproven hypothesis.

I wouldn't call it "unproven" given what is hinted at having led to the creation of the Cycles. And sure, one might challenge the Catalyst's conclusion, given that it's still just a "maybe" and no certainty. But that doesn't change that it's a risk that can be avoided. The Cycles ensure the continued existence of life itself. Breaking the Cycles means that the current species will be allowed to flourish. On the other hand, if in a thousand or ten thousand years there's a synthetic race committing galactic genocide, it'll be on Shep's hands now.

Personally, I'd rather have explained it with the organic races becoming more dangerous to themselves, though. Scientific advances enable the option for destruction on a horrible scale, and there are evidence throughout the ME universe of past-Cycle releases of WMD destroying entire planets. A finite number of planets that can no longer be colonized and are lost "to life" forever. And we've seen this starting in the current Cycle again. Culling the intelligent species once they develop the capacity to make the galaxy unhospitable would make sense, if one were to focus on preserving life itself rather than individual forms of it.

My thoughts exactly. The Catalyst is not a god. He never was. It's even doubtful the Reapers knew who created them and simply assumed they always existed, unaware that their creator was watching and waiting for someone to come up with a better solution. The Catalyst did the best he could - it was grotesque and monstrous, but it ended/disrupted the previous Cycle where organics created synthetics who then destroy their creators.

I won't criticize why people choose their endings. The epilogue made it clear that many years in the future, as Kanluwen noted, Shepard is no longer a person. He/She is a legend, whose story has been elaborated upon and changed by whoever is telling it. If Shepard were truly indoctrinated, he/she would never have become a legend. Indoctrination is just an excuse by childish people who want a happy ending over a heroic ending and a new beginning. True, separating Shepard and Tali was a bit heartbreaking for me, but I got to see Joker and EDI together at the end, and that's enough for me.

Needed more Alien sex.

The ending was most certainly gak, as were several other aspects of the game.

For the most part I dont feel like adding to this conversation but here is a question.

What was the Citadel doing at Earth? How did it get there?

I understood it is the Catalyst but how did it get there? Last I checked, it was under control of C-Sec, the link to the Reapers had been broken so it is physically impossible for the Reapers to control the Citadel. The only way to do it is manually from inside the Citadel and no one was in the position to do that.

Also what happened to everyone on the Citadel? Did they ALL die? (The Council, Bailey, Aria, etc...)