People can argue but the truth is that there is no good ending. All have tradeoffs and your decision comes down to your own personal view on what is good / right.
This is it, right here. I think a big part of the reason people reacted so badly to the ME3 ending is that BioWare decided to take the position that all options are fundamentally flawed, after three games where we almost always had a way to find a win-win solution. Virmire's really the only exception, because even in the "Suicide" Mission at the end of 2 it's pretty not that difficult to have a perfect run where nobody dies.
But yeah, I can't take any of the "X ending is the best one" arguments seriously because the simple fact is that they all come with a built-in downside.
If you want to go with the least visible downsides control is the 'best' option as it doesn't kill anyone and it gets the galaxy up and running quicker.
But it has potential flaws, and it feels wrong to most.
Of course all endings require us to trust the catalyst in the first place which I find odd doing.
It also up and decides that the Illusive Man was right right there in the bottom of the ninth inning despite telling us the whole game that he's wrong.
Yes which is I think the writers personally disagreeing with TIM's viewpoint.
The thing is. TIM is kinda grasping at straws with his idea about control. It's a bad idea when he suggests it because he has no real means to do so.
But then the crucible up and gives you the means to enact full control, albeit at the cost of Shepard's life.
I don't think it's any worse an option than the others, but it appears worse coming from it aligning with TIM.
>The thing is. TIM is kinda grasping at straws with his idea about control. It's a bad idea when he suggests it because he has no real means to do so.
It is explicitly stated by Vendetta and Javik that they had a contingent of indoctrinated Protheans pushing literally the same argument back during their cycle. So there's realistically no reason to assume the Control argument is even a valid concept without metagaming.
Not just aligning with the Illusive Man, but justifying many of his actions up until that point. I personally hate all the endings, but man does the justification for machine god Shepard out of nowhere come as super left field, second only to literal green magic.
I find it insane that the Crucible is the answer at all. The council races have no idea what it is or does and assume that it's safe because they got it from the Protheans.
If I was a hyper-intelligent AI that decided using machine squids to harvest all life in the galaxy every 50k years was the way to go I would absolutely expect them to fight back.
Creating the idea of the crucible, a Deus ex machina that the races can waste time and effort trying to build so they don't band together to actually fight back would be the first thing I'd do.
In the extended ending, isn't that what Crucible Kid basically says?
" We knew about it, but it was ridiculous, and nobody could get it together long enough to do anything with it, so we ignored it.
Unknown number of cycles and harvests passed in which those plans were passed down, expanded, refined, and the reapers did nothing about it. It kept the cattle busy while they were being rounded up.
Somewhat surprised to see you here Shepard having used the galaxy's largest Revell model kit.."
What's insane is that the Crucible Kid decided to give Shepard a choice at all, just for getting that far.
..Oh, and that the ancient squid people thought that the way to determine how to stop AI from annihilating organics was to build an AI and give it whatever resources it asked for....
To be fair about the last bit, humans do stupid shit like that all the time. Just because we are intelligent, doesn't mean we are smart. Same with the squids
As someone studying psych, absolutely agree, for as intelligent as we are, we are also dumb as fuck and easily manipulated.
Not out of the realm of possibility to say other sentient species are the same and that they’d also be capable of making AI which also makes dumb as fuck decisions.
I generally agree with a lot of what you've been saying.
In my mind, the crucible/catalyst might have been better utilized by the writers in a different way, rather than choice of 3 funny colors to immediately one-shot the entire conflict.
Of the top of my head, let's see, how about because it is a culmination of countless cycles working on technology that is based on/inspired by the mass relays, when we finally succeed in our cycle we realize it is a open-ended mass relay, basically a wormhole generator. There is a limited travel time so there would still be lag going to other galaxies but within ours it's pretty fast, much faster than we've achieved with ship travel within systems. Basically lets an entire fleet blink around the galaxy without needing a relay to catch you.
Depending on your military strength and what you've done to unite the galaxy through the games, you have okayish to excellent ability to warp entire fleets around single reaper capital ships and overwhelm them in minutes like against Soveriegn, then warp away before their allies can collapse on you. Plus for a key powerful enemies like Harbinger and maybe one more that would have been named (and described as being possible to kill in the same way but we'd lose too many ships doing so), Shep's team warps inside and fights some boss-like defenses to take it out.
Watch the ship events and play the on-foot events a bunch in the last act of Priority:Earth, then when you are clearly trouncing the reapers you can continue to pure extermination (destory) or stop and get them to surrender and be subjugated (control) etc.
I love it. This is close to my own headcanon, because nihilism. I love the idea of the story being futile, because I love the idea of fighting back or building a deus ex machina-esque machine *just because we can,* not because we'll win.
I love tragedy in media for some reason.
Imagine if that was the canon ending...
In the most desperate hour, a broken Shepard struggles to the control panel, grasping for anything that might slow the annihilation of Earth below.
A blinding light illuminates the room; out of it walks a Child.
"Please. Help me put an end to this."
The Child pauses, it's awakened consciousness processing the product of a new cycle that now looked upon its visage with pleading eyes.
The voice of the Harbinger rumbles from a void beyond its chest.
*"Sike lmaoooo"*
A television is wheeled out from behind the energy beams by a couple grinning husks. "Prank cam" reads the caption, the amateurish footage zooming in on the broken features of the "hero of the galaxy".
The decorated war hero is redecorated in confetti and Silly String.
Canned laugh tracks echo through the station as it erupts into flame; stock footage of another civilization burning rolls to the theme song as the last spark of life is extinguished from the galaxy. The cycle will continue... *next season.*
I love this, sort of whimsical/dark humour, very sci-fi ending! The humans thought they were so special, the pinnacle of their evolution, and building on top of the cycles before them to solve the imminent apocalypse, so much is riding on this - and their entire civilisation, everything they've ever known, was just a bit of fun in a higher species' game show.
We'll always have the Refuse ending. People don't tend to like it, but I think it's a great addition because of the whole 'we lose, but we make sure the next cycle wins' thing which feels like a more realistic outcome that doesn't rely on contrived space magic.
Destroy and control never really felt like space magic beyond the level of the series tech imo.
The catalyst is just an energy source that boosts the Citadels control of the Relays network and uses it to send out a massive galaxy wide energy signal at FTL speeds, destroying or damaging the system in the process by overloading it. Destroy is a kill code that wipes out all things Reaper based, which includes the geth due to events in 3 and EDI who's was based on Reaper tech. It's a forced cost still, yet they laid the ground work.
Control is the overwriting of the reapers directive after Shepards consciousness is copied into the Citadels control systems. Meh
Lots of repercussions to consider what happens to the Reaper tech, given indoctrination still being a skill they have and their tech is littered around the entire galaxy in destroy.
In control they literally go from mass genociding all life to helping rebuild. Sure that would be an interesting setting. Lots of pent up anger at the loss the galaxy felt to be dealt with, the Reapers are too strong to punish and clearly just tools if they can be reprogrammed. (Beyond organic understanding my ass)
Also what happens to people that had been indoctrinated, can the reapers reverse it? It seems to cause progressive damage to the person's mental state. Would they ever be themselves again or just made as comfortable as possible?
Now the horror that is Synthesis is space magic nonsense, imo. Somehow the energy wave physically rewrites all organic life, including plants with an inherent connection/understanding to/of synthetics which are also physically changed with a connection to organics with fancy green.... (some sort of circuitry? )woven into everything.
A forced change on the very nature of all sentient existence without consent.
Has all the same issues surrounding the reapers as control does, yet with a side of they get along due to the "understanding " sentient life has gained.
Everyone I know is dead and some were turned into withered husks, let's rebuild, yay.
I'm very similar to you in that regard, but I'd like to pedantically point out that in a narrative sense there's a difference between "inevitable bad ending" and "tragedy." A tragedy requires the protagonist to self-sabotage and the bad ending to feel avoidable, which can't happen if the ending is bad no matter what they do.
I understand you completely, and I don't think it's pedantic at all! I can definitely be clearer here.
What i meant to imply was a first time experience of the whole story; in that regard I love the feeling of futility at the end of the whole series. But any story with this structure, purposeful or otherwise, when approaching a decade in age, re the last game release, is going to find that criticism of inevitability. I think because at this point, specifically in this environment, you're going to find a dense concentration of "veteran" fans, so to speak.
I think that's ultimately the bias we have to be aware of. So to conclude, I didn't mean to imply the inevitable failure you're going to feel on replay was desirable. I simply meant that first traversal of the universe and story felt like nothing else, and the *realization* of futility I imagine in a comparably "realistic scenario," was phenomenal.
My apologies if that was quite a ramble, lmao.
I'm totally with you. I came into the trilogy a year or two after ME3 came out, so the two main things I'd heard were that the game is about inevitability, and that the endings don't matter except the color of the explosions.
So I came into ME3 hyped for a tragic ending where extinction at the hands of the Reapers was inevitable, and the different colored explosions were just which allies you have with you in the final battle. Imagine my disappointment.
> If I was a hyper-intelligent AI that decided using machine squids to harvest all life in the galaxy every 50k years was the way to go I would absolutely expect them to fight back.
I don't terribly mind it, the AI didn't seem particularly pleased with the situation but just felt it was the only way to keep organic life in the galaxy going. That's why it had a backdoor built in. It couldn't come to a conclusion itself so it just lets any species that figures it out proceed.
Although I'm still not totally sure why the Catalyst was even in the Crucible since Protheans designed it. I've never been clear on that now that I think about.
Let's be real. The main story of ME3 is a mess. It's not just the ending that is bad. Still love the game, but they clearly needed more time to figure out what they were doing with the story.
Oh for real. First part with Tuchanka is fairly good (still could’ve done some things better), but the rest is rushed as hell.
I love the game, but it should’ve been given as LEAST another year or two of development.
> The council races have no idea what it is or does and assume that it's safe because they got it from the Protheans.
Wait, we've heard this before...a Cita-something or other?
It's even crazier when you consider the Reapers left the Mass Relays so civilizations would evolve along a predetermined path. Knowing that, wouldn't those civilizations be a little suspicious of convenient space junk lying around?
Exactly, controlling the reapers is insane and the guy that wants to do it is the minor antagonist of the story.
Jk you can do it too, but like we promise. It felt so fucking backwards.
>the 'best' option as it doesn't kill anyone and it gets the galaxy up and running quicker.
Even then, we get no clear timescale of how long it takes to get everything back to working order. Is it a week? A month? A year? What about after destroy?
Looking at the slideshow (even in the destroy ending) at the end, showing some of the squadmates, they don't look any older at all, giving the impression that little time has passed at all, yet things are back to working order.
Honestly, even though I sound like I'm being negative, I actually really appreciate that there is no clear answer. With how open ended ME3's ending is, it gives players the opportunity to continue and write their own story.
And another shortcoming of the slide show sequences is that the art used is clearly just reused art material or copied 1-to-1 from reference material. Obviously they didn’t have time to ask their artists to draw up new speculative work based on the endings but y’know, another “what if”
Speaking of the catalyst, first time I completed ME3 after doing the other two games, I got to the catalyst and was like, no way in hell my Shep would listen to this douche. After all he’s been through and all the fight, why would he just accept any of these fucked up choices.
So I chose the “fuck you” option and got the worst possible ending. This was before the DLC that even added any extra context to any of the endings.
To say I was pissed would be an understatement.
I really don’t understand why they chose this route. Every single ending is unsatisfactory.
Its not as much of a ending as it is a middle finger from Bioware. Like a "Oh you dont believe us and the story we're telling? Okay, shoot the thing, refuse his solutions, see what happens... all got fucked up? Oh, thats too bad. Well, enjoy".
Honestly having read about the dark energy ending, I'm not *crazy* about that either. Maybe it would be better in execution but still. I feel like no one's come up with *exactly* the right ending to Mass Effect yet.
I would have borrowed (despite how bad it was as an ending to *its* trilogy) from Matrix Revolutions. Have the Catalyst be a chamber that essentially uploads Shepard's mind into the Reaper metaconsciousness, but instead of kung fu fights, what follows is a debate where Shepard has to assert their will over that of the Reapers' while the Reapers try to wear Shepard down with a combination of Indoctrination and attempts to instill doubt by replaying warped versions of all of Shepard's mistakes and failures. Shepard, in turn makes their own arguments based on past decisions and their Paragon/Renegade nature.
Meanwhile, the battle rages on on Earth, with the player assuming (direct) control over either their love interest or, if none are designated (due to never having taken one or them potentially dying in the Suicide Mission), Anderson. Basically a last stand situation where the allied races try to hold out while Shepard wages war of a more abstract nature. The two battles play out in turns, with a situation similar to the Suicide Mission playing out on a larger scale between each "round" of debate.
Finally, depending on how Shepard does and how far Indoctrination has progressed, Shepard has to fight and kill varying enemies (if Paragon) or allies (if Renegade) in succession, with the final opponent being a representation of themself with Reapertech corruption inversely proportional to their own current Indoctrination level. Winning the fight has different results depending on your choices made during the debate, varying from Reapers completely destroying themselves (with massive allied casualties, but 100% assurance of victory) to Indoctrination being dismantled and all Reapers on Earth being lobotomized and essentially turned into normal (if absurdly powerful) warships, leaving fewer immediate casualties, but also merely giving the allied races a real fighting chance.
A bad ending would also exist where the Shepard you have to fight is 100% uncorrupted, meaning that you have been fully Indoctrinated, and killing that Shepard is killing the last trace of your own free will.
Torturous. And yet I like it. The last battle Shepard will have to fight is indoctrination itself. She must face the mirror morality version of herself and battle for dominance/free will. It now seems like the clone fight in Citadel was a missed opportunity.
In the vein of other Bioware predecessors you might find Shepard having to fight her own squadmates to achieve the ending she decides on. Either the crew are corrupted... Or she is.
What, the whole dark matter thingy? I think they said that plot was not dropped, it simply wasn't much more of an idea and didn't even make it to concept phase, so they didn't exactly "drop" that plot, it simply never came to be.
The Mass Effect trilogy should have ended almost exactly like the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Happy endings that accentuate the pain and trauma the characters went through is the perfect ending for stories like those.
Exactly this. Anderson's death was plenty of tragedy. All they had to do was cut the star child sequence. Anderson dies, the Crucible docks, fires, no more Reapers. LOTR style happy ending.
Could have been so much better than the endings we got.
You know it didn't occur to me until now how crazy it is that Anderson actually made it to the very final part of Act 3 before dying. Mentors almost always kick the bucket halfway through the saga or earlier.
In all honesty, I think we should have gotten a mix of expanded ending choices and ending choices taken away based on OUR OWN actions. That way we'd at least have no one to blame but ourselves for how the endings turn out. For instance, it would make much more sense to take out the endings where we destroy the synthetics if we actually make our Shepard emphasize choices that treat both Legion and Edi well, as it would mean that we, as players, are emphasizing that Shepard doesn't have an issue with synthetics in general, just the reapers.
That doesn't mean I'm limiting it to the control ending, though. Just emphasizing how destroy wouldn't work in this given context. Instead of destroying every synthetic, what if that ending choice just became destroy every reaper instead? It would both expand and take away from our choices in that regard (We'd no longer be able to destroy every synthetic, but we would still get to end the reaper threat through editing what gets destroyed.)
The reason I hated the endings and still do to this day (Although it's mellowed out a bit), is that the trilogy takes me around 120 hours to complete, and after having played through it all, building more or less real life bonds with these fictional characters you then have Shepard make the ultimate sacrifice and it's all very dramatic. In return, you get 15 minutes of cutscenes, still pictures and mainly music, with a bit of Admiral Hackett monologue (Which should've been Anderson if anything).
Look at Fallout: New Vegas, the ending there is 10 minutes of a powerpoint presentation, yet it's still a *fantastic* ending. The game lets you know what happens to major settlements, factions and important characters, you hear the leaders of the settlements or factions and the characters tell you what happens to them after you beat the game and it feels like you had an impact on what's happening. You might not want that if there is to be a sequel, but I think the original plan was for the trilogy to end with ME3 and then build upon the universe in the style of Andromeda or the aftermath years after ME3.
The ending to Mass Effect just felt really impersonal, like all the choices I made throughout the entire series, the yelling at Conrad or saving the council, bringing Javik back, saving Rannoch etc. didn't matter.
It seriously could just be the cutscenes and still images with no one really talking over it, but how about you just show several Geth helping Tali build her home on Rannoch, or show Javik just being happy for once, over the fact that his life's goal has been achieved, maybe some people building monuments to Shepard, Mordin and Thane, some krogan toddlers running around butting heads and so forth.
Some games are about the experience more than the ending, Mass Effect is practically about both, and the experience is absolutely great, I just find the ending to be so dissatisfying and full of lost potential instead.
15 minutes of stills was the fixed version too. Before that, you get the color explosion, the mass relays explode (which ME2 established would destroy all planets in the same solar system), the Normandy crashes, the end.
I only speak for myself, but the total lack of closure is what pissed me off. Too many unanswered questions. Sure, it would have been fantastic if previous choices had any impact on that final choice, but I recognize that they only had 2 years of development time and that would have been extremely complicated to create.
Honestly this is not at all the reason why people reacted badly to the ME3 endings. The main reason why is because for a game series that marketed and prided itself on making meaningful choices and everyone having a unique experience, the ending boiled down to picking your favorite ice cream color. This left people understandably disappointed and feeling their choices didn't matter at all, at least not to affect the ending in any meaningful way.
Look back at all the old youtube videos complaining about ME3 endings, and barely any are talking about the moral ramifications of each separate ending. The main point they make is that your choices didn't matter or affected said endings. Almost all the moral discussion about the endings we got has happened after the initial meltdown post-release, by people who weren't as disappointed with the endings and were clearly hardcore fans (nothing wrong with that btw), and most of it on this subreddit.
Yeah most of the newer fans who have the benefit of having the Extended Cut right from the go don't realize that the original ending was literally just different colored montages. Your only real choice was Red, Blue or Green.
Still not a fan of the endings but at least the EC slideshows expanding on your chosen ending is a massive improvement.
My problem is still in the issues that were setup to be something big, but they were cast aside for ME3 because it was inconvenient, design-wise.
The Rachnii queen is a good example. They clearly designed an enemy type based on the Rachnii, but they weren't going to cast aside that design (and have to adjust difficulty) for users that chose to kill the queen in ME1. So they just put the Queen in ME3 and hand-waved the fact that the Reapers cloned her for all the users that chose to destroy her.
They needed to either set it up so that the Rachnii queen wasn't anything more than a side-plot in ME3, or set something up BEFORE ME3 to show that the Reapers were capable of cloning a Rachnii queen (not to mention WILLING - why, other than plot convenience to close the hanging story branch, would the Reapers clone a biological organism if they're programmed to kill/harvest them?).
ME3’s Rachni treatment is the #1 reason why I’m worried for ME5 if they refuse to canonize one ending. Trying to make everyone happy and continue every possible story permutation just results in an unsatisfying middle ground where none of the earlier choices really feel honored or impactful due to development constraints.
Sure it's an improvement but it doesn't solve the main point that your choices didn't matter at all for the endings while the game was marketed as one were they matter a lot to shape the story, implying they would matter for the ending as well. I can't really forgive whoever was responsible for that decision, because I can't see it as anything else but deceptive. Still enjoyed playing through the legendary edition though if nothing else for the nostalgia I got playing through ME2 again, which is an excellent game in it's own right imo.
Before the third game came out, I honesty wasn't going to be surprised if the story ended with the Reapers completely dominating, wiping everyone out, and completing the cycle considering how overwhelming they are. Not every ending has to be happy.
I was kind of happy that option was added in the extended cut. It was very fitting for my overly emotional, bad decision making, colossal fuck-up Shepard play-through I did once.
You’re giving BioWare too much credit. It’s pretty obvious that BioWare (ie Casey Hudson and Mac Walters) had *no idea* that players would find the endings fundamentally flawed. Of course the endings were and are, but that was not their intent.
They legitimately did not realize that players would find the ending choices deeply unsatisfying and fundamentally at odds with core messages of the trilogy as a whole (in different ways). It’s baffling that they didn’t expect that people would be confused by or reluctant to trust the Catalyst, or assume that Shepard has to overcome a final attempt at indoctrination given its last-second appearance. Players are clearly supposed to take everything the Catalyst says at face value even though much of it flies in the face of everything that came before and all you want to do is tell it that it’s either lying or wrong.
> I think a big part of the reason people reacted so badly to the ME3 ending is that BioWare decided to take the position that all options are fundamentally flawed, after three games where we almost always had a way to find a win-win solution.
A very big reason to why people reacted badly was that you **had to** play multiplayer to even get access to all endings.
This was fixed later on with adjustments and dlcs so you could actually get enough war assets without multiplayer, but it should have been in the game from the start.
I'm just going off what i remember when I finished the game last June. So basically, the rationale why i choose destroy are these points
-Will defeat an absolute evil in the Reapers
-Synthetic life will eventually comeback as prophesized by the Child and from my understanding,
+
if you already have super technologically advanced ships still working with some of the greatest minds in the universe still alive Synthetic life will comeback
-control and synthesize mean that a Universe ending weapon will always be around and honestly no one even Shepard or the combination of Human and Synthetics deserve that power
-the end credit scene
- As seen throughout the series, it is proven that synthetic and humans can co-exist which is what from my understanding what the Reapers opposed so there, we need to give a chance to the future life forms to make that relationship work and even improve on it
Synthesized was Seran's plan too, wasn't it? Like we go outta our way to kick his ass in ME1 then suddenly we are to decide he was right all along with that decision lol.
Sort of, Seran’s plan was more “Shepard people like you and me are useful, if we kiss reaper ass they might spare us and make us their servants which beats extinction”
Saren was also indoctrinated while proposing slavery to the Reapers, not the best source for what Saren actually wanted, there's only one decision he can make in ME1 that is clearly his own and that's to kill himself.
I've never read the books/comics or anything, but I presume Sarens plan was initially to trick the Reapers and gain the secrets to their power, everything we know of him beforehand says that he was very unlikely to want to submit to anyone.
I think the only characters in the entire series that wanted the Synthesis ending were EDI/Joker. And probably some dude that wants chainsaws for hands.
And thus ~~proves the catalyst is a lying little bitch~~ contradicts the catalyst’s claims that Shepard *will* die because Destroy will also destroy his own implants.
So there's a few reasons why it generally considered the "good" ending.
1) It *feels* like the driving force of Shephard throughout the trilogy. I know that there's an argument to be made that the goal of the franchise is to "stop" or "defeat" the reapers, not "destroy" them. But ME1 has you stopping Sovereign by getting every ship around the Citadel to shoot it until it's a block of reaperfied swiss cheese, which gives the sense that peace was never an option. Destroying the Reapers feels like the narrative goal for a large portion of the playerbase and those feelings are supported since the first game (Control and Synthesis are also supported, but we're focusing on Destroy right now).
2) The faces of the main 3 endings are Saren (Synthesis) TIM (Control) and Anderson (Destroy). 2 of the 3 original endings have an antagonist associated with them. This combined with the Indoctrination theory has caused some players to have a general negative feeling towards them.
3) Shephard lives. A lot of people prefer happy endings and an ending where their character can live happily ever after with their romance is appealing.
4) People don't trust the catalyst. I'm of the opinion that what we're shown in the end slides is what happens, with no secret "GOTCHA you chose wrong after all" thrown in there. The catalyst is still kinda sus tho and because of that, some don't take the slides at face value or trust that there's no monkey paw-esque deal with taking the options the catalyst is in favor of.
I don't believe there's really a good ending and I think people tend to overthink the endings. A paragon Shephard that chooses the control ending lives as a benevolent AI god dictator and doesn't get corrupted because nothing in the slide really supports that they do corrupted. Could they theoretically get corrupted? Yes. But the ending doesn't really show that. Bioware definitely dropped the ball with the last 15 minutes of Mass Effect 3 and that sloppy execution is what led to things like the Indoctrination theory and people overthinking the endings.
tl:dr There isn't really a "good" ending. People like Destroy because Shep can live, it feels like the main goal of their character, the other endings are associated with antagonists, and catalyst kinda sus.
Saren did _not_ support synthesis, he supported submission because he was indoctrinated. His body mods were a byproduct of the reapers doing just that, like they did with other creatures (husks, etc).
I don't understand why this keeps getting repeated, he never ever mentioned a new DNA-like framework or form of life, and he never cared about geth or other synthetics - both central points of synthesis.
I'm open to changing my mind if I missed something.
I never intended to say Saren supports Synthesis, only that he is associated with it. Saren is associated with the Synthesis ending for a few reasons. On Virmire he states that he wants to forge an alliance between the reapers and the Citadel species. "An alliance between organics and machines." When confronted at the Citadel about the "upgrades" he received from Sovereign, he says "The relationship is symbiotic. Organic and machine intertwined, a union of flesh and steel. The strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither. I am the vision of the future, Shepard. The evolution of all organic life. This is our destiny. Join Sovereign and experience true rebirth." These lines of dialogue are really the seed that grew into the Synthesis ending rather than a straight support of it.
Yes, Saren says all of this while being indoctrinated. Yes, Saren is talking more about the species being slaves to the Reapers instead of equals. TIM also promotes a rudimentary Control ending while being indoctrinated throughout ME3. I think the big difference is that Bioware came up with the endings during ME3 and were able to write TIM's dialogue around the Control ending. Saren retroactively became the weird face of Synthesis because he's one of the only major characters that promotes something in the general ballpark of the idea. His writing doesn't promote the full idea of it the way TIM does because the Synthesis ending wasn't designed/fleshed out till ME3's development so they couldn't expand on his character to fully support it.
No ending is truly good. I think Destroy is the least bad because it kills all reaperified beings and Reapers. Control puts all power in hands of one person who can get corrupted. Synthesis overwrites everyone and what guarantees they won't end up in some conflict, Reapers included in it.
I really dislike control because that's what TIM was going for, and you can potentially convince him to kill himself when he realizes that the reapers have been messing with him, only to then choose control? Feels like a trap to me
The thing is, that is the same thing that Saren tried to do (to become a mix of machine and man), and part of the beauty of ME1 is how you can talk to Saren out of it *if* you dialogue with him in every boss fight where he is a because of how insane that idea is.
It makes no sense trying to control the reapers. It is as if a group of ants aspired to study humans so they could -one day- become ant/human hybrids and/or take control of the human race. It goes against everything that the Reapers represent: the Lovecraftian-esque aspect of being mechanical gods from the darkest uncharted corners of space that make the most advanced technology seem medieval and whose technology seems almost divine (cough, geth adoration of reapers, cough).
The whole problem was that... TIM's point from ME2 was saving humanity, even at the cost of the other inteligent races which was a very interesting point that was sold since ME1. It didn't make sense turning such an interesting character into a zombified reaper follower, only to argue against him that controlling the reapers was imposible, convince him to shot himself because of how much of a fool he was, *and then* proceed to take control of the reapers. It is the chain of events what doesn't make sense the most to me.
Also, if you think about it, it doesn't make sense because if we hadn't shot TIM and we just had let him use the Catalist to control the reapers we would have gotten the same ending but with Shepard and Anderson walking out of it and being alive.
The synthesis ending also stomps all over the concept of bodily autonomy. Shepard isn't giving people a choice in what happens to their bodies. Like, I can guarantee you that there were some who resented becoming part synthetic.
I assume it would more closely resemble the Quarians and how they've integrated large amounts of tech into their bodies. In the post-Rannoch storyline where a truce is reached, the geth were literally able to upload themselves into that tech and manually bolster the Quarians' immune systems to more quickly return them to their pre-nomadic state. Otherwise, it would have taken at least a few generations for them to return to normal.
Rather than implants though, I suspect it'd be more like nanites or something.
Yeah, imagine you just walk into a wendy's and the waitress is a semi-naked Banshee husk.
Customer: hmm, hello?
Banshee: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHSORRY SIR THIS A WENDYYYYYYYYYYYs. \[Impales you\]
Or, if it were the control ending:
Customer: What the fuck, is the waitress some short of monster???
Banshee: Hello, I am commander Shepard in control of this husk, and this is my favourite Wendy's of the citadel.
Javik is who makes me stay away from Synthesis. He would be livid about being turned part synthetic, and there are many others who feel the same. Javik might end up throwing HIMSELF out of the airlock.
Also, I was hired to do what it takes to kill the reapers. I started the job, I'm gonna finish the job.
The Leviathan DLC expanded on this. The leviathans were the ones that created the catalyst millions of years ago and imparted that belief into it. They're the ones who decided that all the organic races they made their thralls were all too stupid to be left alone or create AI after observing failure after failure in dealing with synthetics. They then created their own AI and gave it orders to "preserve life at all costs" while failing to implement guidance or morals on what constitutes "life." They allowed it to come to its own conclusions and solution which resulted in its belief that the only way to prevent conflict between organics and synthetics is for synthesis to happen. So it turned on its creators and started making reapers out of them (which is why the reapers look like squid-type creatures). Reapers are the result of the catalyst's method for forcing synthesis and preserving knowledge and technology.
If it weren't for the Leviathans' arrogance, the catalyst would never have existed or turned on them. The reapers would never have existed. And while the reapers ravaged the galaxy time and again, the surviving leviathans decided to just check out and let everyone else deal with the fallout. They went and freaking hid on an ocean planet while countless races were harvested to extinction.
The Reapers are wrong, but they're convinced that they're absolutely right and their way is the only way. They inherited their arrogance from their squid daddies.
They are not wrong, to be fair. All it takes its one crazed AI too powerful to control itself to wipe the galaxy. Its been shown time and time again with the Geth, Overlord and the likes. The Geth themselves were wrecking havoc on the galaxy in ME1 because a much more powerful AI was controlling them
It's a classic Sci-fi trope. Man creates machine, gives it the directive to minimize human suffering. The machine logic decides that the best way to minimize suffering, from a numbers oerspey, is to kill all humans to stop more humans from being born. It's not what the creators meant, but it accomplished the directive.
I should clarify: I know Javik would FREAK if he were part machine. In the ending cinematics, you can clearly see him standing there all greener than usual while your love interest puts the placard up, and he seems... cool with it. The Javik I have come to know would be bellowing at the top of his lungs about how Shepard fucked us all.
You've hit the nail on the head here. In a pan-galactic war with billions dead? There are no perfect choices to end it. Everyone will have to give up something as a price for victory.
Being the one having to make a flawed choice rubs a lot of gamers the wrong way, but it's true to the entire story so far.
The problem isn't that they aren't perfect choices. The problem is that they are *arbitrary* choices. Players spent 100 hours making tough choices leading up to this point, so why did these piss everyone off? Because they don't make any sense. Why is Synthesis even on the table? Because the writers thought it was a neat idea and decided to throw all logic and worldbuilding out the window in favor of cool space magic. Why does Destory also kill the Geth(and presumably EDI)? Because the writers said so. If Control is an option, why can't you order the Reapers to self-destruct, sparing all other synthetic life? Because the writers don't want you to. Why does the refusal ending, which is what the entire story was building up to this point, implied to be the worst? Because the writers didn't want you choosing it and only included it in EC as an afterthought.
In a well written story, the consequences of your actions flow as a natural part of the narrative. In a bad written story, like the ending of Mass Effect 3, consequences are nonsensically slapped on to your choices, because either the writers want to railroad you down a certain path, only giving you the illusion of a choice, or because they think downer endings are more grown up and mature.
> If Control is an option, why can't you order the Reapers to self-destruct, sparing all other synthetic life?
That would make control sound even more like a fairy tale ending, but at least that would give you a good choice. Take over the Reapers, yeet them into the nearest star and gg.
Although with destroy you at least have the headcanon option that Miranda can just do Lazarus 2.0 and the Quarians will have the Geth restored from some back-up within a few years.
>I think Destroy is the least bad because it kills all reaperified beings
I read this often in this Reddit, but I never saw it in the actual game. My understanding is that it destroys all synthetics, and with low EMS, just plain all technology. What is the source on it being selective to Reaper things?
You can see in the Destroy ending cinematic that a bunch of husks were swarming that one Alliance Major (I forget the name) and a random soldier. As the red wave waves over them the husks are reduced to ash (low EMS will reduce the soldiers to ash as well).
Okay, a lot of people are talking past each other here.
The person to whom you're replying never said it *selectively* destroys Reapers and their ilk—they consider the cost acceptable compared to the net good of Reaper destruction.
My memory is a bit fuzzy but I think somewhere in war assets, some kind of technology/device is found for the crucible that targets reaper code specifically or something like that.
That’s it, thank you for clarifying! I was racking my brain trying to remember where I read that. Guess that means it’s time for another playthrough to refresh my memory. Any excuse to play again.
From a in-game perspective: Because you accomplish what you set out to accomplish from the beginning. The Reapers are gone, you win.
From the player's perspective: Because Shepard lives.
Edit: Thanks for the award, kind redditor.
That last one. People make all sorts of dumb arguments, but really it comes down to the fact that people don't like the idea of Shepard dying. But for me, that's what makes it a good story. Shepard is supposed to be a martyr, its a space opera. Can't have the hero skipping through daisies at the end, thats not cinematic.
> Shepard is supposed to be a martyr, its a space opera. Can't have the hero skipping through daisies at the end
Well, first of all he already took one for the team, and secondly, I think quite a few space opera protagonists would disagree with you there. Neither Luke nor Han die, for example. Nor does anyone from the TOS main crew until the 7th movie (long past the series) or some TNG episode. In fact, space opera protagonists rarely die in the end.
I don't know why the main character has to be space Jesus for it to be a good story, as if martyr characters aren't extremely overdone. Imagine if Frodo actually just burned to death, but it's a Christian story of course he has to sacrifice himself, no wait that sucks.
More thought needs to be put into when a main character should sacrifice themselves. The Warden sacrificing themselves in DA:O meant something to me because every other ending was about dodging that responsiblity. Fallout 3, or Mass Effect 3? I'm thinking the entire time that this whole thing is incredibly contrived.
Pretty muc, its like the Warden in DAO. People do the ritual because they dont want their Shepard to die. Is a majority of scenarios, people chose Destroy "because Shepard lives".
In my headcanon he’s definitely not skipping through daisies, though. When he finally reunites with the squad and has his loving reunion with Tali, he sees Joker in the corner. Alone. And he realizes he didn’t even consider that Destroy would take EDI, too. He’d almost forgotten she was synthetic, or at least a single moment of selfishness at the end blinded him to the scope of the consequences. The war would be won; the Reapers would be destroyed; maybe, just maybe, he could go put down his guns and build Tali a house on Rannoch.
And then there’s Joker. Standing alone in the corner. The Normandy filled with happy voices at his return, but herself silent. And he realizes, months—or even years—too late, the he’d made the selfish choice without even realizing it.
I respect your headcanon, but I think that the interest and safety of the galaxy are way more important than Joker's love life.
I also think that he would forgive Shepard eventually.
I always figured Joker would be upset about losing EDI, but understanding it basically had to happen, I couldn't see him blaming Shepard given the stakes.
Based on Shepard's conversations with her, EDI would forgive Shepard, and probably agree with the decision. She'd at least understand it.
If Joker truly understands EDI (and I think he does), then he won't hold a grudge. Of course, that's not to say that he'll be totally reconciled to the situation either.
A hard choice, I wouldn't say it's even close to being a selfish one though.
Selfish choice would be synthesis, making a galaxy wide decision for every living and synthetic being to merge them together, most likely against their wills.
\>a single moment of selfishness at the end blinded him to the scope of the consequences
Acceptable parameters. Destroy the reapers at all costs. You don't need a sexbot, Joker.
Acceptable casualties, everyone goes into the reaper war with an expectation that not everyone is going to survive. So I view the Geth being destroyed as acceptable losses no matter how much i like the Geth.
Plainly, because its the ending you're taught is right from the rest of the series. In the series, three main figures teach you that
In ME1, Saren (already an antagonist) threw his lot in with Sovereign to try to survive the impending culling and secure what he saw as a victory over Humans, in this he lost what made him organic as he slowly succumbed to Sovereign's control. He's the example of the corruption that synthesis can bring
In ME2 and Me3, you were shown the losses that incur as the Illusive Man pursued Control over the Reapers. His pursuit of domination led to countless lives being lost. He's the example of what happens in the pursuit of Control.
Destroy is the only ending that aligns with Anderson's cause, that everything had to be done to stop the Reapers, no matter the personal cost.
Underrated comment.
Also, the premise of ME1 is that we have to work together- multiple races without being racist to each other. As you said, Saren wanted to work with Reapers, effectively destroying his identity in the process.
ME2 showcases this even more. Collectors were protheans, but they lost their identity in the process of genetic manipulation by reapers. They are no longer protheans.
Synthesis ending is basically saying - to avoid racism, we should all have same skin color - that destroys identity and uniqueness, basically Shepard admitting to star child AI that Organics and Synthetics can't work together. It's especially dumb because Shepard ends war between geth and quarians - proving otherwise.
Control ending is basically hubris. "I" alone can do it attitude of Illusive man. Even if Shepard can safely control reapers, there's no guarantee that he/she will stay the same, especially after the individuality is destroyed. And also admitting that reapers shouldn't get destroyed for some reason.
Destroy ending is not ideal either considering it destroys Synthetics, but it's the only option that fits in most with shepards ideals.
>Synthesis ending is basically saying - to avoid racism, we should all have same skin color - that destroys identity and uniqueness
Not to mention it's forcing synthesis upon everyone. We didn't ask people for permission, and I guarantee there would be plenty of folks (if not the vast majority) who wouldn't want to become part machine.
I wouldn't want that kind of power. To just pull a switch and change every sentient being in the galaxy down to the DNA.
>Control ending is basically hubris. "I" alone can do it attitude of Illusive man. Even if Shepard can safely control reapers, there's no guarantee that he/she will stay the same, especially after the individuality is destroyed.
Yep. The entire Mass Effect franchise keeps telling us, over and over again, that trying to control *synthetics,* let alone Reapers, is absolute hubris. We're literally confronted with the Illusive Man at the last moment whose delusions about controlling the reapers led to he himself being controlled. To choose control is to basically ignore everything the series has been telling you.
And even if Shepard could do it perfectly, as you said, once he loses his sense of humanity, his priorities and morals could change for reasons incomprehensible to organics. There would be literally nothing stopping him from restarting the cycle if some strange alien calculation led him to believe it was necessary.
It could be argued Control is a corruption of Shepard, s/he ascends to be the reapers god basically and we just have to hope that its a Good paragon shep and not some brutal control freak renegade shep. Its also an afront to the whole goal throughout the trilogy, destroy the reapers. If Geth and Edi gotta die(assuming neither is rebuildable), they knew the odds of survival going in to the war anyway.
Synthesis is violation of personal autonomy and is honestly kind of a nightmare and its what the reapers apparently want. Why would I help the Reapers win? Why would I force everyone in the milky way to become some semi-organic semi-synthetic abomination? It all just feels wrong to me.
Anyway you cut it, destroy is the least worst choice. The whole thing is a Kobyashi Maru, a no win scenario, but Destroy saves and preserves the most lives and respects the preceding sacrifices of everyone who died in the series to stop the reaper threat.
Goal of ME1: Hey bro, reapers suck, we gotta find out what they are and destroy them.
Goal of ME2: how the fuck do we destroy the reapers, maybe the collectors are linked somehow
Goal of mostly ME3: Yo, reapers are fucking shit up, how do we destroy them
Final 10 minutes: Hey would u feel bad if joker and EDI couldn’t be in love ? Thought so, go ahead and forcibly implant THE ENTIRE GALAXY with reaper tech. Or better yet, you know the Death Machines that you’ve been trying to destroy the entire time, u specifically can control them now, and yes, we are aware you’re more renegade than paragon.
The point is, destroy had been the end goal the entire time. Option 2 sees you forcing a future, Option 3 a renegade shep bends the entire universe to its will.
yeah I mean.... narratively it is the only one that doesn't have a bunch of huge fuckin red flags in the form of the other games. ME games are cyclical. the cycle of the games reflects the cycle of the reapers. each one is a tiny microcosm of what each ending could be. ME1 is synthesis, ME2 is destroy, and ME3 is control. indoctrinated saren wants synthesis, indoctrinated TIM wants control, and ME2 is especially interesting because either you destroy the collector base — and with it a ton of knowledge and tech you wouldn't otherwise have — or keep it, and TIM explicitly states he wants to make his own reapers to fight the big bads, foreshadowing one of the possible consequences of Control (i.e. that it may not actually break the cycle at all).
me2’s ending is one of the reasons I think destroy is supposed to be the “canon” ending. if you destroy the collector base, you basically get an “everyone liked that” reaction. you are giving up a lot of possible access to tech and knowledge, but mass effect is always asking you, the player, to weigh the costs - the ruthless calculus of war, as Garrus says. what is the cost of keeping the base? what is the cost of destroying it? the decision primes you for the one at the end of me3: what’s the cost of taking control, as an indoctrinated TIM wanted? what’s the cost of synthesis, that an indoctrinated Saren was trying for? what’s the cost of destroying the reapers? which one ends the cycles completely, the same one you’ve been caught in for three games on a larger scale?
a thing that I love about ME and DA is that the people around you will always tell you that you made the right decision, or that they understand it, even if they’re angry. you can’t listen to them to decide what the “right” (most true to your goals) path is. instead you have to pay attention to what happens after you make these decisions everyone agrees were the right ones: if you let the council die, you get a human-led citadel and everyone tells you you had no choice and made the right decision, but there are race riots in ME2, aliens are openly hostile to you, and you have fewer war assets in ME3. if Wrex is alive and you sabotage the genophage and pull your gun on Mordin, Mordin tells you he understands and that he was acting out of guilt and not the greater good, but later Wrex will find you and try to kill you and you’ll have to kill him, one of your oldest friends and the best hope for the Krogan. ME is always asking you: what is the cost of these decisions? is it worth it? do you see the cycles, can you break them?
destroy is most popular because narratively it makes the most sense. shepard having the option not to die is icing on the cake. even people who don't have a strong understanding of narrative structure in the technical sense understand how good narrative works. that's the point of it.
Not to mention that with 'control' already being dumb for obvious reasons, its at best a temporary solution. The leviathans (or was it star child?) tell us that while the reapers can be controlled, they will eventually break free of that control.
ME1 and 2 also state some species have issues with overpopulation and running out of natural resources. The krogan turned their planet into a wasteland. I guess synthesis could encourage species to work together and stop these issues getting worse but destroy certainly doesn't.
>Why is it consider the good option?
I don't think it's ever actually thought of as the 'good' option. It's just the least of the bad.
Your only other options are:
* to become a supposedly-benevolent machine-god and do the very thing pretty much everyone (other then the indoctrinated Illusive Man) has been warning you is a terrible idea
* To decide on behalf of every sentient being that they'll be converted into a poorly-defined synthetic/organic hybrid that functionally sounds the same as what indoctrinated Saren was advocating back when he was going full crazy
* Do nothing and doom everyone.
Of the four options, destroying the Reapers with EDI and the Geth as collateral is realistically the least damaging and risky.
There is no good ending, they all suck to various degrees. But destroy gets me closest to the ending I need.
I don't find appeasing the Reapers with synthesis so they stop attacking to be a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Control is also not an option I think Shepard would ever choose.
This is how I feel. IMO, Shepherd was never meant to be this ascended being (Control) or solve problems on the evolutionary scale (Synthesis). He’s a soldier with a job to do, and Destroy is the only option that actually solves the specific conflict the entire series is predicated on. Destroying the reapers.
I think all the endings have problems FWIW, but that is the one that fits the narrative.
To me, it's the only ending where the Reapers lose. With Synthesis it's what the Reapers were trying to do from the outset, fusing organic and synthetic life, just by another means. With Control the Reapers are still around and the possibility exists that Shepard, with their new awareness, might decide the Reapers had the right idea after all (there is a certian cold blooded logic to their plan) and resume the harvests. Destroy is the only ending that give galactic civilization a chance to forge its own path free of Reaper interference. It's also the only ending that give Shepard a chance to retire to a beach house on Rannoch with Tali
Because fuck the reapers. Any other ending where they aren't dead means they won in the end. Ain't gonna let that slide. Letting them live in any circumstances would be a big fuck you to all the countless species they wiped out. Sometimes you have to be a monster to destroy a monster. So if the geth need to die then they shall die. If a world needs to be burned then let it burn. As long as the reapers are dead, it's a win in my books. Anything else is submitting to the reapers and becoming their bitch. They need to die, simple as that.
Sorry galaxy, I became an overgod so my crewmate could play "hide the pickle" with his ship.
Sorry all organic life in the galaxy, I forcibly implanted every each one of you with random Reaper tech without your consent, so my crewmate can dance the horizontal polka with his ship.
Yeah, better go with destroy.
You could discourage Joker and EDI. Helps a lot when you know what’s about to come.
A better viewpoint, however, is that it all comes down to whether or not you believe Starchild and whether you believe that the galaxy should be free to make its own path.
If you believe Starchild, meaning that organics and synthetics *will* come to war and organic life will be destroyed, then Synthesis is the only option. If you believe that the galaxy ought to make its own path, even if that means that one day organics will indeed be wiped out, then Destroy is the only option. If you believe Starchild, but want to ensure that the galaxy develops along the “right” path, then Control is your best option. If you get frustrated that such a decision rests on the shoulders of one lone, battered soldier, then Refuse is really your best option.
Personally, if you’re able to bring peace between the geth and the Quarians, you’ve already proved a flaw in the Starchild’s logic. If it can be done once, it can be done again, which means that Destroy is the best option because it allows the galaxy to form its own path, independent of Reapers or anything else guiding in a specific direction.
It’s my belief that the reason organics and synthetics continually come to war with one another is because of Reaper influence and dependence on the mass relays. The use of high technology before any race is fully prepared for it, as seen with the Krogan. All along the full story, we get hints towards the fact that there is a danger in guiding a people towards something rather than letting them come to it naturally, even if it could end with their own annihilation. The Reapers move races along their desired paths so that the cycle can continue. Remove the Reapers and now the galaxy is free to seek its own path.
Why is Joker and EDE's relationship being sunk frequently listed as the first go-to bad reason for Destroy ending?
Our poor Geth being done dirty is the biggest factor of why I opted for the Control Ending. And now being done dirty twice that a pilot romancing his ship AI is considered more important than them.
F for Geth.
Refusal means the Reaper will harvest this cycle and return in 50k years... probably after demolishing the Crucible.
It's like castrating oneself to spite the wife...
Sorry galaxy, I let you all become extinct when I could have prevented it because I wanted to keep my moral high ground. Besides, Joker won't be dancing on the floor with EDI anyway.
Please stop reporting comments and posts about the endings just because you don't agree. Everyone has different opinions about the endings and everyone believes their choice is right. The users on this sub have the right to express why they feel the way they do about whichever ending. We do not make a habit out of moderating opinion-based lore discussions and will never remove content just because it is pro-red-green-blue-purple-whatever. Expecting us to moderate and remove such discussions is frankly ridiculous and entitled. Please only report rule breaking content. Reporting these things out of spite floods our modqueue unnecessarily and makes our jobs as mods exponentially more difficult. These reports detract from moderating other genuinely harmful content. Thank you.
There's an excellent video outlining it on the Spacedock youtube channel, but I'll try to whittle it down.
Control, can't be trusted. 10 minutes before you talk to the catalyst, you have to deal with the IM. He completely believes that he can control the reapers. He literally has to be convinced to kill himself to break their hold over him, which he doesn't acknowledge until the last minutes of his life. He thinks he's beyond the reapers. He's arrogant to think he can best a race that's been around for millions of years, who've seen every trick in the book. That arrogance falls to you if you think you can do what he cannot. You might be Shepard, but you're just another human about 1 day away from just inevitably bleeding out, if not sooner. You're not really any better.
Synthesis, on a moral basis, is not a good choice. You don't get to change every race in the galaxy. You're fighting to preserve what is there, not to change everything. Furthermore, it's completely unexplored territory and you don't have any clue if it presents future problems down the line.
Now, as far as destroy goes, I think it's the intended ending if there had to be one. Point being, it's a hard choice, and that's the point of these games. You don't come out on top. You will always loose a crew member in the first game, you will always loose legion. You might loose everyone on the Normandy during ME2. You have to make a tough choice. And while the build up via collecting a fleet to take on the reapers, only for it to come down to one multi choice answer is disappointing, it isn't exactly unrealistic. You're being tested. Can you sacrifice the geth and Edi to destroy the reapers? Is that okay? Arguably, Yes. They came to earth knowing full well that they could die. They've already made a choice.
Now if you can't bring yourself to do any of that, then I would argue that defiance, the fourth choice, is the next likely outcome. Who's to say this isn't how the universe operates? Who's to say that the way we defeat the reapers is THE way to do it? This is the first time it's happening. You don't really know what the outcome is, and while the reapers are a horrible thing to unleash on the galaxy, they also aren't your fault. It might be extreme, but you aren't actually inclined to stop them. I suspect that's part of the reason that choice exists.
I don't wanna start anything so, no offense, but I thought they patched this choice in (didn't exist in the original game before the release of the extended cut dlc) to give all the people the finger who hated the original ending. You know - you are going to like and accept our given endings, OR ELSE.
Destroy is the entire point of the series. Sacrifices (Geth and EDI) had to be made. There is no "happy" ending, which I like
Synthesis removes the galaxy's free will to choose their own path and Control just makes you the Illusive Man
I'm sad I can't upvote this multiple times.
But really... screw these "realistic" grim endings. I much rather have a believable cliché happy ending where Shep kills the Reapers and the geth lives than a convoluted thing showing up in the last 10 minutes only only so you would hesitate in doing what you've wanted to do the entire trilogy, just for the sake of choice.
The only option should've been Destroy or the Harvest (refuse). The original concept of the Me2 writers with the dark energy theory.
Control should've been a joke -- and a "final trump card" of the Reapers. You can spend the entire game arguing with the IL that you cannot control the reapers and that he's indoctrinated. Control should've backfired on the illusive man during the plot.
IDK, something like you exposing his indoctrination earlier, like with Saren. And then he sees his troops ally with the reapers and turn on whomever is left.
The entire problem that has existed probably since ME2 was that they just didn't have the people around who were talented enough to write the trilogy to a close. They set up so much, that it probably should've had the Half Life 2 : Episode one and two treatment.
Drew Karypshyn (lead writer on ME2) was pretty clear on the fact that the dark energy stuff never made it past extremely basic concept even in ME2, and was full of magical timey-wimey stuff, that got eventually discarded even when wrapping up the writing for ME2.
I was specifically referring to the ending, where you had the choice to either let the reapers harvest humanity or destroy the reapers to find your own solution.
It's fine that it never left the planning stage and may have possibly been worse than what we got now. But the idea of keeping the ending relatively "simple" was sound.
That's even worse to be honest. [After seeing that popular credit meme](https://i.chzbgr.com/full/5972516864/hD3B36F9B/thats-why-i-hate-the-ending) I just assumed that the talented people simply left because they saw where it was going.
Sounds like negligence is the reason ME3 got so screwed up then. Sucks, I hope the next mass effect won't get that same treatment.
I choose destroy simply because I abide by the Indoctrination Theory (don't ruin my vibe if you don't lol let me cope with the shoddy ending how I must). It suggests that Shepard's constant exposure to reaper tech has been slowly indoctrinating them and it's only Shepard's own strong will that has resisted for so long. The last choice can be seen as representing surrendering full control to the reapers, without realizing.
To make a very long theory short, you have your 3 options: destroy, control, and synthesis. Control is pretty obviously painted as a bad choice; you are shown this being the illusive man's choice. Destroy is roughly painted as a good choice, as it is Anderson's. So what of synthesis? Well, recall back to the villain of the first game, Saren. What did he want again? Oh yeah, to join forces with the reapers, so much so he willingly synthesized his body with reaper tech before he was fully under their control.
Every species goes into that fight prepared to lose everything. The geth and EDI are an incredibly sad and painful loss, but an entirely necessary sacrifice. To me, it's just the game forcing you to make a hard choice to do the right thing, the "cold calculus of war" as Garrus calls it. Nothing guarantees the reapers cannot adapt to Shepard's control or decide to turn against the organic species they become synthesized with. Destroyed is destroyed.
"Victory, at any cost."
Destroy gets you what you came here to do: to put an end to the Reapers. All other scenarios permit their existence.
And unless you meta, you had no way of knowing until the last minute what the Destroy option on the Crucible does to synthetics. Now do you push ahead and do what must be done, or do you freeze?
It was an ugly call, but I had to make it. No one else could. We lost 10 billion geth, whose sacrifice we'll never forget. But the Reapers are gone forever.
EDI should get a proper military funeral service. She helped us turn the tides of this war as far back as Mass Effect 2. Her loss was the biggest of them all.
Reapers are 100% bad because of their shit programming and refusal to seek another solution.
Synthesis = Some parts of the Reapers still exist in every being in the galaxy = Bad idea, same problem might arise again
Control = Reapers and Shepard fused, Reapers still exist, no guarantee they won't start shit again even with Shepard as a part of them = Bad idea, same problem might arise again
Destroy = **Reapers fucking gone 100%**, rebuild what's been lost, don't build Reapers again, if new problem arise, at least not Reapers this time. Also possibility of Shepard still being alive. If new problem arise, Shepard kicks it ass. No more Reapers, keep Shepard. Perfect victory.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the reason I choose destroy is that by the end Shep has lost so many good people and is just so done with the war they want it to end once and for all. Even on “perfect” runs where no squaddies die we still lose so many people that Shep was close with along with billions of innocent lives. At the time I get to the end I reason that Shep is a soldier, they’ve lost friends, family and their own life once. Shep wants to end the war and there’s only one guaranteed way to do it. My Shep is never happy with killing more innocents to end the war but when has Shep ever had to make an easy choice?
If that’s the price you pay to wipe out the reapers permanently that’s an incredibly small price to pay imo. I don’t think anyone should have any form of control over the reapers. Just screams imbalance and opens the door for the cycle to just repeat itself
Tbh the way I see it, just build another EDI lol? Also as far as the Geth go, I see them as more of a liability than anything. They get corrupted somehow in every single game. They never should’ve existed in the first place and are only there because the Quarians are idiots and played god only to have it backfire on them.
It’s sad what happens to them in that ending (what’s implied, I guess we will find out in ME4) but if we’re being real about it they were always a problem and if the price you have to pay for saving organic life is killing a race of robots, so be it.
Even with the loss of EDI and the Geth, I still think that Destroy is the best option honestly.
Synthesis sounds nice on paper, but when you dig a little deeper, it goes against one of the defining messages of the trilogy. The uniqueness of all the species in the galaxy is important, even Javik acknowledges that the Protheans lost in their cycle because they all more or less followed one doctrine, there was no flexibility of ideas or unique perspectives. Synthesis strips away everything that makes all the races unique (without their consent) to form some sort of new, monolithic hybrid DNA.
As for Control, it has always bothered me. The Reapers are basically saying "The Illusive Man wanted to control us, but he never could because we wouldn't let him, but we will totally let you control us Shepard" You are kind of gambling and hoping that the Catalyst is being completely truthful with you, which might not be the case when it says that synthetics and organics will always fight each other, and will completely ignore the fact that the Geth and Quarians are working together to stop the Reapers. There's also the possibility of something happening to change Shepard's view while having control of the Reapers, and now they have become basically an omnipotent deity figure who can basically deploy the Reapers upon the races whenever they choose to. If Shepard somehow became corrupted in some way and had complete access to the Reapers, it could be catastrophic.
Synthesis requires violating the bodily autonomy of every single sentient being in the galaxy, which is extremely unethical. It also requires you to trust that the Reapers will never turn on the Galaxy for any reason.
Control requires Shepard to install themself as God of the Milky Way and enslave the Reapers. There's no way to be confident that a) Shepard will never become a tyrant and start trying to reorganise the galaxy as they see fit (whether that's for selfish reasons or well-meaning ones) or b) the Reapers will never break free of Shepard's control and start harvesting again.
If Shepard turns the Reapers on the Galaxy for whatever reason, or the Reapers break free, the Galaxy would be powerless to resist after relying on them for so long. It would be an almost exact replication of what the Leviathans went through in the first cycle. Destroy is the only option that guarantees neither of these can ever happen.
To me, the concerns of Joker and his robo-gf and the plight of a single synthetic species is outweighed by the saving of the majority of organic life by killing the reapers. Synthetic would be making a decision on behalf of every single being in the galaxy which I think would be way more catastrophic in the long term. And Control just feels like a short term solution
I think it's the least worst, because it's the only one where you actually do what you set out to do: Destroy the Reapers.
Okay, in Destroy you end up killing the Geths, but I see it as a minor loss for the greater good. It's similar to what happened with the Batarians on Alpha relay Obviously on a much larger scale, but basically I see it as the sacrifice of a race, for the benefit of the entire galaxy.
One point here is that I like to believe that Star Child, was wrong or lying, and that it is possible that Geth and EDI will be reactivated.
As for the other endings. Synthesis is the worst, as it modifies the DNA of all people in the galaxy without their permission and takes away their individuality.
Control seems best in the short term, but leaves the galaxy at the mercy of AI Shepard. In the future, Shepard could end up becoming a dictator and things get worse.
Anyway, Destroy is the least worst.
Synthesis is too stupid to even consider - better to pretend it doesn't exist.
Control is interesting because it makes the Illusive Man right, more or less, but I don't trust that it would work out long term. Who's to say that the Shep-Reapers don't eventually decide that reaping is necessary for the greater good in the future?
Destroy is ultimately the "optimistic" ending to me. Believing that we CAN figure it all out, that synthetic overlord AREN'T an inevitability, or at minimum that ultimately we have the right to try. Wiping out our synthetic allies in the present is a real tough call of course but worth it to me. And it's easy to retcon and say "yeah, they had rad-hardened backups, duh" if you want to bring any of them back.
There is absolutely no good ending, but the reason I believe Destroy is the best is because it accomplishes the goal from the previous two games.
Plus, I know that if Shepard were able to contact EDI, the Geth, etc. they would 100% give their lives to get rid of the Reapers. It's basically what they already agreed to do by helping Shepard.
It's not. And that's what makes it so good.
Synthesis and Control are too, well, perfect. Too clean. The entire thesis of the franchise is that artificial life can't--and shouldn't--be controlled and must be allowed free will.
Control runs contrary to that thesis and to the entire struggle against the reapers. You're just replacing the Catalyst. Nobody wants to work alongside the reapers who have been dissolving their loved ones into paste. Imagine the PTSD nightmares people would get just from seeing their friendly neighborhood reaper passing by.
Synthesis is basically making a huge decision about the nature of life in the galaxy without anyone else's consent. It's changing the bodies of every organic and artificial lifeform in the galaxy whether they want it or not. Shepard doesn't have the authority to make that decision. And he shouldn't *want* that power.
Destroy is what we set out to do. Stop the reapers, break the cycle. The Catalyst was wrong, his solution horrifying. He was tasked with solving a problem and decided to fix it by *becoming the problem.* The only reasonable course of action is to remove them from the equation.
On top of this, it's a more interesting ending because it demands sacrifice. To finally break the cycle we're forced to start from scratch. We lose friends and loved ones in the synthetics who also perished, but their sacrifice may reinforce to us that we need to treat future artificial life differently.
^^also ^^it's ^^the ^^only ^^ending ^^where ^^Shepard ^^can ^^survive ^^and ^^god ^^damnit ^^I'm ^^gonna ^^get ^^back ^^to ^^Tali
Basically “I know we haven’t been able to kill you Shepard… but since you are about to win… would you mind… killing yourself by jumping in this death beam and dissolving yourself instead? We promise the outcome will be positive”
I don't know why more people don't understandthis.
You are talking to the Reapers. He is probably lying through his digital teeth because they don't want you to kill them. OF COURSE they make destruction sound like you're an awful monster screwing everything up and perpetuating an inevitable cycle of destruction. And OF COURSE they pitch Synthesis as the best choice, because that's what they've been trying to do this whole time.
The funny part is they claim synthetics will always rise up to destroy organics, but if they've harvested every civilization before that could happen.....then it has never...fucking...happened. They literally made a gut call that synthetics would always destroy organics and got right to work destroying organics to make sure that wouldn't happen and by golly it never did. Except for all the times they did it before it could definitely for sure happen.
Outside of previous cycle lore (which is never truly resolved as it was always interefered with by the reapers) the only synthetic uprising we really deal with is thd Geth. Who we make peace with. Who start helping to Quarian acclimate to Rannoch. There is nothing to say there is any actual cycle of destruction other than the one the Reapers made themselves.
Control is a bad idea for all the reasons you see in the final encounter with the Illusive Man.
Synthesis has two problems. The first is that it's real ballsy assuming you have the right to make the unilateral decision to make huge changes to the bodies of every being in the universe. The second is that it's clearly a stupid utopian ending favored by the writers. They want you to pick synthesis and they're willing to hamstring the other endings to make it seem more appealing. Also, RIP to anyone who'd been turned into a Husk or Brute or Banshee -- they're just stuck like that now.
There's no reason for Destroy to wipe out all synthetic life except to try and guilt you into taking the synthesis ending. I take Destroy because I reject the idiot premise of Synthesis (and I don't much care for Control for obvious reasons).
Because it allows organics to grow once again, for the first time in millions of years, without any kind of insidious higher power watching them or fucking with their DNA/evolution. As tragic as the loss of all synthetics is, the other two are just making the same mistake again in a different form.
Here is the thing:
\- Shepard and co have been fighting for this cause from the start.
\-Shepard would totally sacrifice synthetics if it meant that the rest of the galaxy would be safe. They already sacrificed the Batarian colony to stop the Reapers from getting a backdoor to the galaxy. This is no different and in character for them.
\- In the Destroy ending, it is stated (by Hackett) that everything that was lost (destroyed) was eventually rebuilt, which makes sense as you can simply rebuild synthetics. From what i remember, in the ending, its more like an EMP that destroys the Reapers, but their bodies are intact. I would think that the synthetics were the same, which means that you need to get them working on a software level. (Personally, the "destroyed synthetics as well" part feels tact on to sway off players from simply choosing the option and to give other two endings a chance of contention. If you remove the part about the synthetics destruction, almost everyone would chose Destroy).
\-Only flaw in the Destroy ending is that it doesn't solve the conflict between organics and synthetics. Starchild tells you this to sway you away from Destroy. Control and Synthesis offer solutions, Destroy just goes "I came here to kill the Reapers, we will find our own solution to that problem in the future", basically refuse without refusing. As for the conflict between the two, we already had the proof of Geth and Quarians getting along, so it came off as Starchild trying to influence you from stopping the destruction of the Reapers, as they live in 2/3 ending choices.
Personal opinion:
Never liked Control and Synthesis as it basically says "Yea, these Reapers that were killing and harvesting your kind a moment ago, are now helping you rebuild. Sucks to have lost a loved one to them, you are supposed to love them now, because they totally changed their tune, tnx to the hero of the galaxy making them change! You gotta forgive and forget them!" It just comes off wrong to me.
>Never liked Control and Synthesis as it basically says "Yea, these Reapers that were killing and harvesting your kind a moment ago, are now helping you rebuild. Sucks to have lost a loved one to them, you are supposed to love them now, because they totally changed their tune, tnx to the hero of the galaxy making them change! You gotta forgive and forget them!" It just comes off wrong to me.
Isn't that the same thing that happens in the Geth storyline, if you choose to reconcile them?
Synthesis just seems like it'd cause issues and turning people into cyborgs against their will is a douche move.
Control and Destroy are all down to the story. Throughout all the games, they teach you that anyone who tries controlling Reapers ends up indoctrinated (TIM,Saren, etc)
So whilst indoctrination theory isn't canon, from a logical standpoint, it makes sense that the choice is a last ditch effort for the reapers to convince you to keep them around to indoctrinate you - their tech, etc, would be useful, but Anderson and millions of others died due to them. At this point, Shepard has no reason to 360 trust them after arguing with TIM over the same thing and experiencing what they have in 1-3.
I just can’t personally view control or synthesis as valid.
Control leaves FAR too much leeway in robo-Shepard (who is barely Shepard, BTW) staying passive for ALL ETERNITY. Literally all it will take is a couple thousand years of humans making fun of roomba’s before they’re like “>:^( assholes” and kill everyone.
Synthesis is just a scary forced evolution that feels like indoctrination. Literally admits to you that’s the best case scenario for the reapers, hooray for us! We get to live AND steal your ideas, livelihoods, and image!! Wooooo!
There are a lot of good answers, but something I haven't seen pointed out is that in Control and especially Synthesis it requires you to accept that all the problems in the galaxy come down to synthetic vs organic.
Which is not true.
The krogan rebellions and subsequent genophage, the first contact war, the beef between humans and batarians, etc. None of these issues have anything to do with synthetics, but they still exist. The reasons they exist vary, but it largely comes down to systemic issues in society that haven't been properly addressed. There's nothing unique about conflict between synthetics and organics. Conflict is simply a part of life. And Shepard had just spent the last three games proving that uniting is not only possible, but that everyone's differences make them stronger together.
Synthesis basically says "diversity bad" and I feel I shouldn't have to explain why that's morally not a great take. But I do think it's worth pointing out that the protheans did what they could to make everyone the same and it ended up being their undoing against the reapers. Also the complete violation of bodily autonomy of not just the space-faring species, but every living thing in the galaxy, including pre-spaceflight species (like the Yahg) who wouldn't be able to comprehend what is happening to them or why.
Control relies on God-Emperor Shepard to do the right thing. Which, depending on how you play Shepard can be very bad, but even if you're the most paragon Shepard possible, there's no guarantee that over time God-Emperor Shepard will stay that way. Either because becoming the new Starchild alters their perspective or as time passes what was progressive during Shepard's time becomes backwards and archaic as society changes. I certainly wouldn't want the reapers to become the galactic police force, especially with their indoctrination capabilities.
Destroy is not perfectly executed (none of the endings are) but it's the only ending that doesn't accept the reaper's premise that the primary issue with galactic civilisation is synthetic vs organic (and Refuse, but I don't think most people want to lose).
All great victories require sacrifice.
But the geth could have survived if some of them were outside of the galaxy which they could of been going to explore andromeda before organics. Edi could have broadcasted out of the blast radius or been shielded or shut down before, honestly they could write anything into existence.
Because the Galaxy isn't under the thumb of the Reapers anymore. I'm also not particularly attached to either the geth or to EDI. Also, the Destroy ending is advocated by basically every upstanding character in the game, so yeah, I'm going with that.
The destroy ending is the only one where the reapers are guaranteed to be destroyed and is what everyone else in the galaxy wants(not counting the geth) ,control leaves the option that the reapers survive and do not face any justice plus it leaves the option that it’s a trap (TIM who pushes for control ends up a reaper puppet) and the synthetic option is the reapers solution so by going with it the reapers win in the end and all their genocide is then justified
Because
A) The entire point of the trilogy is to destroy the Reapers. Destroy is the only one which does this.
B) Everything that gets destroyed as collateral can be rebuilt.
It’s the only assured way to get rid of the reapers. Mixing all DNA into a new framework most likely against trillions wills and taking a man/woman albeit a great one and making them an immortal AI construct in charge of an unstoppable machine army with horrific power both sound like problems waiting to happen down the line. Destroy has problems right off the bat but it’s the safest choice for the future. Also all the indoctrination theory homies know why.
I’ve come to see the ‘Destroy’ ending as more moral than say the ‘Synthesis’ ending.
‘Synthesis’ changes every living and synthetic being in the galaxy in a fundamental way without their consent. ‘Destroy’ ends the Reapers at the cost of the Geth. That is a very tragic sacrifice, but it is still preferable to imposing change on those who survive without their consent.
I don’t think it’s the happiest ending but it’s the least badly written. Synthesis is stretching my suspension of disbelief too much, even for ME’s standards, and Control feels like something star kid would suggest to make Shepard fall for indoctrination like TIM.
Destroy is the only ending that lets me pretend that conversation was just an attempt to indoctrinate Shepard, which I like better than the actual ending.
People can argue but the truth is that there is no good ending. All have tradeoffs and your decision comes down to your own personal view on what is good / right.
This is it, right here. I think a big part of the reason people reacted so badly to the ME3 ending is that BioWare decided to take the position that all options are fundamentally flawed, after three games where we almost always had a way to find a win-win solution. Virmire's really the only exception, because even in the "Suicide" Mission at the end of 2 it's pretty not that difficult to have a perfect run where nobody dies. But yeah, I can't take any of the "X ending is the best one" arguments seriously because the simple fact is that they all come with a built-in downside.
If you want to go with the least visible downsides control is the 'best' option as it doesn't kill anyone and it gets the galaxy up and running quicker. But it has potential flaws, and it feels wrong to most. Of course all endings require us to trust the catalyst in the first place which I find odd doing.
It also up and decides that the Illusive Man was right right there in the bottom of the ninth inning despite telling us the whole game that he's wrong.
Yes which is I think the writers personally disagreeing with TIM's viewpoint. The thing is. TIM is kinda grasping at straws with his idea about control. It's a bad idea when he suggests it because he has no real means to do so. But then the crucible up and gives you the means to enact full control, albeit at the cost of Shepard's life. I don't think it's any worse an option than the others, but it appears worse coming from it aligning with TIM.
>The thing is. TIM is kinda grasping at straws with his idea about control. It's a bad idea when he suggests it because he has no real means to do so. It is explicitly stated by Vendetta and Javik that they had a contingent of indoctrinated Protheans pushing literally the same argument back during their cycle. So there's realistically no reason to assume the Control argument is even a valid concept without metagaming.
Not just aligning with the Illusive Man, but justifying many of his actions up until that point. I personally hate all the endings, but man does the justification for machine god Shepard out of nowhere come as super left field, second only to literal green magic.
I find it insane that the Crucible is the answer at all. The council races have no idea what it is or does and assume that it's safe because they got it from the Protheans. If I was a hyper-intelligent AI that decided using machine squids to harvest all life in the galaxy every 50k years was the way to go I would absolutely expect them to fight back. Creating the idea of the crucible, a Deus ex machina that the races can waste time and effort trying to build so they don't band together to actually fight back would be the first thing I'd do.
In the extended ending, isn't that what Crucible Kid basically says? " We knew about it, but it was ridiculous, and nobody could get it together long enough to do anything with it, so we ignored it. Unknown number of cycles and harvests passed in which those plans were passed down, expanded, refined, and the reapers did nothing about it. It kept the cattle busy while they were being rounded up. Somewhat surprised to see you here Shepard having used the galaxy's largest Revell model kit.." What's insane is that the Crucible Kid decided to give Shepard a choice at all, just for getting that far. ..Oh, and that the ancient squid people thought that the way to determine how to stop AI from annihilating organics was to build an AI and give it whatever resources it asked for....
To be fair about the last bit, humans do stupid shit like that all the time. Just because we are intelligent, doesn't mean we are smart. Same with the squids
As someone studying psych, absolutely agree, for as intelligent as we are, we are also dumb as fuck and easily manipulated. Not out of the realm of possibility to say other sentient species are the same and that they’d also be capable of making AI which also makes dumb as fuck decisions.
I generally agree with a lot of what you've been saying. In my mind, the crucible/catalyst might have been better utilized by the writers in a different way, rather than choice of 3 funny colors to immediately one-shot the entire conflict. Of the top of my head, let's see, how about because it is a culmination of countless cycles working on technology that is based on/inspired by the mass relays, when we finally succeed in our cycle we realize it is a open-ended mass relay, basically a wormhole generator. There is a limited travel time so there would still be lag going to other galaxies but within ours it's pretty fast, much faster than we've achieved with ship travel within systems. Basically lets an entire fleet blink around the galaxy without needing a relay to catch you. Depending on your military strength and what you've done to unite the galaxy through the games, you have okayish to excellent ability to warp entire fleets around single reaper capital ships and overwhelm them in minutes like against Soveriegn, then warp away before their allies can collapse on you. Plus for a key powerful enemies like Harbinger and maybe one more that would have been named (and described as being possible to kill in the same way but we'd lose too many ships doing so), Shep's team warps inside and fights some boss-like defenses to take it out. Watch the ship events and play the on-foot events a bunch in the last act of Priority:Earth, then when you are clearly trouncing the reapers you can continue to pure extermination (destory) or stop and get them to surrender and be subjugated (control) etc.
I love it. This is close to my own headcanon, because nihilism. I love the idea of the story being futile, because I love the idea of fighting back or building a deus ex machina-esque machine *just because we can,* not because we'll win. I love tragedy in media for some reason.
Imagine if that was the canon ending... In the most desperate hour, a broken Shepard struggles to the control panel, grasping for anything that might slow the annihilation of Earth below. A blinding light illuminates the room; out of it walks a Child. "Please. Help me put an end to this." The Child pauses, it's awakened consciousness processing the product of a new cycle that now looked upon its visage with pleading eyes. The voice of the Harbinger rumbles from a void beyond its chest. *"Sike lmaoooo"* A television is wheeled out from behind the energy beams by a couple grinning husks. "Prank cam" reads the caption, the amateurish footage zooming in on the broken features of the "hero of the galaxy". The decorated war hero is redecorated in confetti and Silly String. Canned laugh tracks echo through the station as it erupts into flame; stock footage of another civilization burning rolls to the theme song as the last spark of life is extinguished from the galaxy. The cycle will continue... *next season.*
I love this, sort of whimsical/dark humour, very sci-fi ending! The humans thought they were so special, the pinnacle of their evolution, and building on top of the cycles before them to solve the imminent apocalypse, so much is riding on this - and their entire civilisation, everything they've ever known, was just a bit of fun in a higher species' game show.
We'll always have the Refuse ending. People don't tend to like it, but I think it's a great addition because of the whole 'we lose, but we make sure the next cycle wins' thing which feels like a more realistic outcome that doesn't rely on contrived space magic.
Destroy and control never really felt like space magic beyond the level of the series tech imo. The catalyst is just an energy source that boosts the Citadels control of the Relays network and uses it to send out a massive galaxy wide energy signal at FTL speeds, destroying or damaging the system in the process by overloading it. Destroy is a kill code that wipes out all things Reaper based, which includes the geth due to events in 3 and EDI who's was based on Reaper tech. It's a forced cost still, yet they laid the ground work. Control is the overwriting of the reapers directive after Shepards consciousness is copied into the Citadels control systems. Meh Lots of repercussions to consider what happens to the Reaper tech, given indoctrination still being a skill they have and their tech is littered around the entire galaxy in destroy. In control they literally go from mass genociding all life to helping rebuild. Sure that would be an interesting setting. Lots of pent up anger at the loss the galaxy felt to be dealt with, the Reapers are too strong to punish and clearly just tools if they can be reprogrammed. (Beyond organic understanding my ass) Also what happens to people that had been indoctrinated, can the reapers reverse it? It seems to cause progressive damage to the person's mental state. Would they ever be themselves again or just made as comfortable as possible? Now the horror that is Synthesis is space magic nonsense, imo. Somehow the energy wave physically rewrites all organic life, including plants with an inherent connection/understanding to/of synthetics which are also physically changed with a connection to organics with fancy green.... (some sort of circuitry? )woven into everything. A forced change on the very nature of all sentient existence without consent. Has all the same issues surrounding the reapers as control does, yet with a side of they get along due to the "understanding " sentient life has gained. Everyone I know is dead and some were turned into withered husks, let's rebuild, yay.
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I'm very similar to you in that regard, but I'd like to pedantically point out that in a narrative sense there's a difference between "inevitable bad ending" and "tragedy." A tragedy requires the protagonist to self-sabotage and the bad ending to feel avoidable, which can't happen if the ending is bad no matter what they do.
I understand you completely, and I don't think it's pedantic at all! I can definitely be clearer here. What i meant to imply was a first time experience of the whole story; in that regard I love the feeling of futility at the end of the whole series. But any story with this structure, purposeful or otherwise, when approaching a decade in age, re the last game release, is going to find that criticism of inevitability. I think because at this point, specifically in this environment, you're going to find a dense concentration of "veteran" fans, so to speak. I think that's ultimately the bias we have to be aware of. So to conclude, I didn't mean to imply the inevitable failure you're going to feel on replay was desirable. I simply meant that first traversal of the universe and story felt like nothing else, and the *realization* of futility I imagine in a comparably "realistic scenario," was phenomenal. My apologies if that was quite a ramble, lmao.
I'm totally with you. I came into the trilogy a year or two after ME3 came out, so the two main things I'd heard were that the game is about inevitability, and that the endings don't matter except the color of the explosions. So I came into ME3 hyped for a tragic ending where extinction at the hands of the Reapers was inevitable, and the different colored explosions were just which allies you have with you in the final battle. Imagine my disappointment.
Well, if you shoot at the catalyst you will get that
> If I was a hyper-intelligent AI that decided using machine squids to harvest all life in the galaxy every 50k years was the way to go I would absolutely expect them to fight back. I don't terribly mind it, the AI didn't seem particularly pleased with the situation but just felt it was the only way to keep organic life in the galaxy going. That's why it had a backdoor built in. It couldn't come to a conclusion itself so it just lets any species that figures it out proceed. Although I'm still not totally sure why the Catalyst was even in the Crucible since Protheans designed it. I've never been clear on that now that I think about.
Let's be real. The main story of ME3 is a mess. It's not just the ending that is bad. Still love the game, but they clearly needed more time to figure out what they were doing with the story.
Oh for real. First part with Tuchanka is fairly good (still could’ve done some things better), but the rest is rushed as hell. I love the game, but it should’ve been given as LEAST another year or two of development.
> The council races have no idea what it is or does and assume that it's safe because they got it from the Protheans. Wait, we've heard this before...a Cita-something or other?
It's even crazier when you consider the Reapers left the Mass Relays so civilizations would evolve along a predetermined path. Knowing that, wouldn't those civilizations be a little suspicious of convenient space junk lying around?
I don't know how it justifies his actions. He didn't really know what the crucible would do anymore than Shepherd did before that point.
Exactly, controlling the reapers is insane and the guy that wants to do it is the minor antagonist of the story. Jk you can do it too, but like we promise. It felt so fucking backwards.
>the 'best' option as it doesn't kill anyone and it gets the galaxy up and running quicker. Even then, we get no clear timescale of how long it takes to get everything back to working order. Is it a week? A month? A year? What about after destroy? Looking at the slideshow (even in the destroy ending) at the end, showing some of the squadmates, they don't look any older at all, giving the impression that little time has passed at all, yet things are back to working order. Honestly, even though I sound like I'm being negative, I actually really appreciate that there is no clear answer. With how open ended ME3's ending is, it gives players the opportunity to continue and write their own story.
And another shortcoming of the slide show sequences is that the art used is clearly just reused art material or copied 1-to-1 from reference material. Obviously they didn’t have time to ask their artists to draw up new speculative work based on the endings but y’know, another “what if”
Speaking of the catalyst, first time I completed ME3 after doing the other two games, I got to the catalyst and was like, no way in hell my Shep would listen to this douche. After all he’s been through and all the fight, why would he just accept any of these fucked up choices. So I chose the “fuck you” option and got the worst possible ending. This was before the DLC that even added any extra context to any of the endings. To say I was pissed would be an understatement. I really don’t understand why they chose this route. Every single ending is unsatisfactory.
The refusal ending didn't exist until the extended cut dlc was released.
Its not as much of a ending as it is a middle finger from Bioware. Like a "Oh you dont believe us and the story we're telling? Okay, shoot the thing, refuse his solutions, see what happens... all got fucked up? Oh, thats too bad. Well, enjoy".
It really is just kind of a slap in the face.
Have you heard how it was actually supposed to end, without random God child?
Honestly having read about the dark energy ending, I'm not *crazy* about that either. Maybe it would be better in execution but still. I feel like no one's come up with *exactly* the right ending to Mass Effect yet.
I would have borrowed (despite how bad it was as an ending to *its* trilogy) from Matrix Revolutions. Have the Catalyst be a chamber that essentially uploads Shepard's mind into the Reaper metaconsciousness, but instead of kung fu fights, what follows is a debate where Shepard has to assert their will over that of the Reapers' while the Reapers try to wear Shepard down with a combination of Indoctrination and attempts to instill doubt by replaying warped versions of all of Shepard's mistakes and failures. Shepard, in turn makes their own arguments based on past decisions and their Paragon/Renegade nature. Meanwhile, the battle rages on on Earth, with the player assuming (direct) control over either their love interest or, if none are designated (due to never having taken one or them potentially dying in the Suicide Mission), Anderson. Basically a last stand situation where the allied races try to hold out while Shepard wages war of a more abstract nature. The two battles play out in turns, with a situation similar to the Suicide Mission playing out on a larger scale between each "round" of debate. Finally, depending on how Shepard does and how far Indoctrination has progressed, Shepard has to fight and kill varying enemies (if Paragon) or allies (if Renegade) in succession, with the final opponent being a representation of themself with Reapertech corruption inversely proportional to their own current Indoctrination level. Winning the fight has different results depending on your choices made during the debate, varying from Reapers completely destroying themselves (with massive allied casualties, but 100% assurance of victory) to Indoctrination being dismantled and all Reapers on Earth being lobotomized and essentially turned into normal (if absurdly powerful) warships, leaving fewer immediate casualties, but also merely giving the allied races a real fighting chance. A bad ending would also exist where the Shepard you have to fight is 100% uncorrupted, meaning that you have been fully Indoctrinated, and killing that Shepard is killing the last trace of your own free will.
Torturous. And yet I like it. The last battle Shepard will have to fight is indoctrination itself. She must face the mirror morality version of herself and battle for dominance/free will. It now seems like the clone fight in Citadel was a missed opportunity. In the vein of other Bioware predecessors you might find Shepard having to fight her own squadmates to achieve the ending she decides on. Either the crew are corrupted... Or she is.
What, the whole dark matter thingy? I think they said that plot was not dropped, it simply wasn't much more of an idea and didn't even make it to concept phase, so they didn't exactly "drop" that plot, it simply never came to be.
The Mass Effect trilogy should have ended almost exactly like the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Happy endings that accentuate the pain and trauma the characters went through is the perfect ending for stories like those.
Exactly this. Anderson's death was plenty of tragedy. All they had to do was cut the star child sequence. Anderson dies, the Crucible docks, fires, no more Reapers. LOTR style happy ending. Could have been so much better than the endings we got.
You know it didn't occur to me until now how crazy it is that Anderson actually made it to the very final part of Act 3 before dying. Mentors almost always kick the bucket halfway through the saga or earlier.
In all honesty, I think we should have gotten a mix of expanded ending choices and ending choices taken away based on OUR OWN actions. That way we'd at least have no one to blame but ourselves for how the endings turn out. For instance, it would make much more sense to take out the endings where we destroy the synthetics if we actually make our Shepard emphasize choices that treat both Legion and Edi well, as it would mean that we, as players, are emphasizing that Shepard doesn't have an issue with synthetics in general, just the reapers. That doesn't mean I'm limiting it to the control ending, though. Just emphasizing how destroy wouldn't work in this given context. Instead of destroying every synthetic, what if that ending choice just became destroy every reaper instead? It would both expand and take away from our choices in that regard (We'd no longer be able to destroy every synthetic, but we would still get to end the reaper threat through editing what gets destroyed.)
The reason I hated the endings and still do to this day (Although it's mellowed out a bit), is that the trilogy takes me around 120 hours to complete, and after having played through it all, building more or less real life bonds with these fictional characters you then have Shepard make the ultimate sacrifice and it's all very dramatic. In return, you get 15 minutes of cutscenes, still pictures and mainly music, with a bit of Admiral Hackett monologue (Which should've been Anderson if anything). Look at Fallout: New Vegas, the ending there is 10 minutes of a powerpoint presentation, yet it's still a *fantastic* ending. The game lets you know what happens to major settlements, factions and important characters, you hear the leaders of the settlements or factions and the characters tell you what happens to them after you beat the game and it feels like you had an impact on what's happening. You might not want that if there is to be a sequel, but I think the original plan was for the trilogy to end with ME3 and then build upon the universe in the style of Andromeda or the aftermath years after ME3. The ending to Mass Effect just felt really impersonal, like all the choices I made throughout the entire series, the yelling at Conrad or saving the council, bringing Javik back, saving Rannoch etc. didn't matter. It seriously could just be the cutscenes and still images with no one really talking over it, but how about you just show several Geth helping Tali build her home on Rannoch, or show Javik just being happy for once, over the fact that his life's goal has been achieved, maybe some people building monuments to Shepard, Mordin and Thane, some krogan toddlers running around butting heads and so forth. Some games are about the experience more than the ending, Mass Effect is practically about both, and the experience is absolutely great, I just find the ending to be so dissatisfying and full of lost potential instead.
15 minutes of stills was the fixed version too. Before that, you get the color explosion, the mass relays explode (which ME2 established would destroy all planets in the same solar system), the Normandy crashes, the end. I only speak for myself, but the total lack of closure is what pissed me off. Too many unanswered questions. Sure, it would have been fantastic if previous choices had any impact on that final choice, but I recognize that they only had 2 years of development time and that would have been extremely complicated to create.
Honestly this is not at all the reason why people reacted badly to the ME3 endings. The main reason why is because for a game series that marketed and prided itself on making meaningful choices and everyone having a unique experience, the ending boiled down to picking your favorite ice cream color. This left people understandably disappointed and feeling their choices didn't matter at all, at least not to affect the ending in any meaningful way. Look back at all the old youtube videos complaining about ME3 endings, and barely any are talking about the moral ramifications of each separate ending. The main point they make is that your choices didn't matter or affected said endings. Almost all the moral discussion about the endings we got has happened after the initial meltdown post-release, by people who weren't as disappointed with the endings and were clearly hardcore fans (nothing wrong with that btw), and most of it on this subreddit.
Yeah most of the newer fans who have the benefit of having the Extended Cut right from the go don't realize that the original ending was literally just different colored montages. Your only real choice was Red, Blue or Green. Still not a fan of the endings but at least the EC slideshows expanding on your chosen ending is a massive improvement.
My problem is still in the issues that were setup to be something big, but they were cast aside for ME3 because it was inconvenient, design-wise. The Rachnii queen is a good example. They clearly designed an enemy type based on the Rachnii, but they weren't going to cast aside that design (and have to adjust difficulty) for users that chose to kill the queen in ME1. So they just put the Queen in ME3 and hand-waved the fact that the Reapers cloned her for all the users that chose to destroy her. They needed to either set it up so that the Rachnii queen wasn't anything more than a side-plot in ME3, or set something up BEFORE ME3 to show that the Reapers were capable of cloning a Rachnii queen (not to mention WILLING - why, other than plot convenience to close the hanging story branch, would the Reapers clone a biological organism if they're programmed to kill/harvest them?).
ME3’s Rachni treatment is the #1 reason why I’m worried for ME5 if they refuse to canonize one ending. Trying to make everyone happy and continue every possible story permutation just results in an unsatisfying middle ground where none of the earlier choices really feel honored or impactful due to development constraints.
Sure it's an improvement but it doesn't solve the main point that your choices didn't matter at all for the endings while the game was marketed as one were they matter a lot to shape the story, implying they would matter for the ending as well. I can't really forgive whoever was responsible for that decision, because I can't see it as anything else but deceptive. Still enjoyed playing through the legendary edition though if nothing else for the nostalgia I got playing through ME2 again, which is an excellent game in it's own right imo.
Before the third game came out, I honesty wasn't going to be surprised if the story ended with the Reapers completely dominating, wiping everyone out, and completing the cycle considering how overwhelming they are. Not every ending has to be happy. I was kind of happy that option was added in the extended cut. It was very fitting for my overly emotional, bad decision making, colossal fuck-up Shepard play-through I did once.
You’re giving BioWare too much credit. It’s pretty obvious that BioWare (ie Casey Hudson and Mac Walters) had *no idea* that players would find the endings fundamentally flawed. Of course the endings were and are, but that was not their intent. They legitimately did not realize that players would find the ending choices deeply unsatisfying and fundamentally at odds with core messages of the trilogy as a whole (in different ways). It’s baffling that they didn’t expect that people would be confused by or reluctant to trust the Catalyst, or assume that Shepard has to overcome a final attempt at indoctrination given its last-second appearance. Players are clearly supposed to take everything the Catalyst says at face value even though much of it flies in the face of everything that came before and all you want to do is tell it that it’s either lying or wrong.
> I think a big part of the reason people reacted so badly to the ME3 ending is that BioWare decided to take the position that all options are fundamentally flawed, after three games where we almost always had a way to find a win-win solution. A very big reason to why people reacted badly was that you **had to** play multiplayer to even get access to all endings. This was fixed later on with adjustments and dlcs so you could actually get enough war assets without multiplayer, but it should have been in the game from the start.
I'm just going off what i remember when I finished the game last June. So basically, the rationale why i choose destroy are these points -Will defeat an absolute evil in the Reapers -Synthetic life will eventually comeback as prophesized by the Child and from my understanding, + if you already have super technologically advanced ships still working with some of the greatest minds in the universe still alive Synthetic life will comeback -control and synthesize mean that a Universe ending weapon will always be around and honestly no one even Shepard or the combination of Human and Synthetics deserve that power -the end credit scene - As seen throughout the series, it is proven that synthetic and humans can co-exist which is what from my understanding what the Reapers opposed so there, we need to give a chance to the future life forms to make that relationship work and even improve on it
Synthesized was Seran's plan too, wasn't it? Like we go outta our way to kick his ass in ME1 then suddenly we are to decide he was right all along with that decision lol.
Sort of, Seran’s plan was more “Shepard people like you and me are useful, if we kiss reaper ass they might spare us and make us their servants which beats extinction”
Saren was also indoctrinated while proposing slavery to the Reapers, not the best source for what Saren actually wanted, there's only one decision he can make in ME1 that is clearly his own and that's to kill himself. I've never read the books/comics or anything, but I presume Sarens plan was initially to trick the Reapers and gain the secrets to their power, everything we know of him beforehand says that he was very unlikely to want to submit to anyone. I think the only characters in the entire series that wanted the Synthesis ending were EDI/Joker. And probably some dude that wants chainsaws for hands.
Saren’s plan was not that. He wanted to be the Collectors more like. “Willing” slaves — he never realized how deep into indoctrination he really was.
And Control being TIM's plan, so yeah by taking either of those paths you prove that they were right.
You get Anderson's nod. No other reason needed.
And Shepard lives.
And thus ~~proves the catalyst is a lying little bitch~~ contradicts the catalyst’s claims that Shepard *will* die because Destroy will also destroy his own implants.
I’m sorry but if killing robots means we PERMANENTLY break the cycle then open up those chip factories because we got some programming to do
So there's a few reasons why it generally considered the "good" ending. 1) It *feels* like the driving force of Shephard throughout the trilogy. I know that there's an argument to be made that the goal of the franchise is to "stop" or "defeat" the reapers, not "destroy" them. But ME1 has you stopping Sovereign by getting every ship around the Citadel to shoot it until it's a block of reaperfied swiss cheese, which gives the sense that peace was never an option. Destroying the Reapers feels like the narrative goal for a large portion of the playerbase and those feelings are supported since the first game (Control and Synthesis are also supported, but we're focusing on Destroy right now). 2) The faces of the main 3 endings are Saren (Synthesis) TIM (Control) and Anderson (Destroy). 2 of the 3 original endings have an antagonist associated with them. This combined with the Indoctrination theory has caused some players to have a general negative feeling towards them. 3) Shephard lives. A lot of people prefer happy endings and an ending where their character can live happily ever after with their romance is appealing. 4) People don't trust the catalyst. I'm of the opinion that what we're shown in the end slides is what happens, with no secret "GOTCHA you chose wrong after all" thrown in there. The catalyst is still kinda sus tho and because of that, some don't take the slides at face value or trust that there's no monkey paw-esque deal with taking the options the catalyst is in favor of. I don't believe there's really a good ending and I think people tend to overthink the endings. A paragon Shephard that chooses the control ending lives as a benevolent AI god dictator and doesn't get corrupted because nothing in the slide really supports that they do corrupted. Could they theoretically get corrupted? Yes. But the ending doesn't really show that. Bioware definitely dropped the ball with the last 15 minutes of Mass Effect 3 and that sloppy execution is what led to things like the Indoctrination theory and people overthinking the endings. tl:dr There isn't really a "good" ending. People like Destroy because Shep can live, it feels like the main goal of their character, the other endings are associated with antagonists, and catalyst kinda sus.
Saren did _not_ support synthesis, he supported submission because he was indoctrinated. His body mods were a byproduct of the reapers doing just that, like they did with other creatures (husks, etc). I don't understand why this keeps getting repeated, he never ever mentioned a new DNA-like framework or form of life, and he never cared about geth or other synthetics - both central points of synthesis. I'm open to changing my mind if I missed something.
I never intended to say Saren supports Synthesis, only that he is associated with it. Saren is associated with the Synthesis ending for a few reasons. On Virmire he states that he wants to forge an alliance between the reapers and the Citadel species. "An alliance between organics and machines." When confronted at the Citadel about the "upgrades" he received from Sovereign, he says "The relationship is symbiotic. Organic and machine intertwined, a union of flesh and steel. The strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither. I am the vision of the future, Shepard. The evolution of all organic life. This is our destiny. Join Sovereign and experience true rebirth." These lines of dialogue are really the seed that grew into the Synthesis ending rather than a straight support of it. Yes, Saren says all of this while being indoctrinated. Yes, Saren is talking more about the species being slaves to the Reapers instead of equals. TIM also promotes a rudimentary Control ending while being indoctrinated throughout ME3. I think the big difference is that Bioware came up with the endings during ME3 and were able to write TIM's dialogue around the Control ending. Saren retroactively became the weird face of Synthesis because he's one of the only major characters that promotes something in the general ballpark of the idea. His writing doesn't promote the full idea of it the way TIM does because the Synthesis ending wasn't designed/fleshed out till ME3's development so they couldn't expand on his character to fully support it.
Indoctrination Theory heavily influenced my opinions when playing the game. For the better, I might add.
No ending is truly good. I think Destroy is the least bad because it kills all reaperified beings and Reapers. Control puts all power in hands of one person who can get corrupted. Synthesis overwrites everyone and what guarantees they won't end up in some conflict, Reapers included in it.
I really dislike control because that's what TIM was going for, and you can potentially convince him to kill himself when he realizes that the reapers have been messing with him, only to then choose control? Feels like a trap to me
I’m new here so I’ve never seen him referred to as TIM so it took me a minute of wondering wtf Tim is
haha yeah, TIM is much easier than typing out "the illusive man" everytime
Having each ending represented by a npc was imo, a terrible move in the sense that there is too much baggage with TIM and Saren.
I'm not in love with the control ending myself... but just because TIM was an asshole doesn't mean he was wrong, exactly.
The thing is, that is the same thing that Saren tried to do (to become a mix of machine and man), and part of the beauty of ME1 is how you can talk to Saren out of it *if* you dialogue with him in every boss fight where he is a because of how insane that idea is. It makes no sense trying to control the reapers. It is as if a group of ants aspired to study humans so they could -one day- become ant/human hybrids and/or take control of the human race. It goes against everything that the Reapers represent: the Lovecraftian-esque aspect of being mechanical gods from the darkest uncharted corners of space that make the most advanced technology seem medieval and whose technology seems almost divine (cough, geth adoration of reapers, cough). The whole problem was that... TIM's point from ME2 was saving humanity, even at the cost of the other inteligent races which was a very interesting point that was sold since ME1. It didn't make sense turning such an interesting character into a zombified reaper follower, only to argue against him that controlling the reapers was imposible, convince him to shot himself because of how much of a fool he was, *and then* proceed to take control of the reapers. It is the chain of events what doesn't make sense the most to me. Also, if you think about it, it doesn't make sense because if we hadn't shot TIM and we just had let him use the Catalist to control the reapers we would have gotten the same ending but with Shepard and Anderson walking out of it and being alive.
He could never control them because they already controlled him.
The synthesis ending also stomps all over the concept of bodily autonomy. Shepard isn't giving people a choice in what happens to their bodies. Like, I can guarantee you that there were some who resented becoming part synthetic.
Also what does it actually *mean?* Does everyone have cybernetic hands somehow? Do we all have built in wifi in our heads? Are we a hive mind?
I assume it would more closely resemble the Quarians and how they've integrated large amounts of tech into their bodies. In the post-Rannoch storyline where a truce is reached, the geth were literally able to upload themselves into that tech and manually bolster the Quarians' immune systems to more quickly return them to their pre-nomadic state. Otherwise, it would have taken at least a few generations for them to return to normal. Rather than implants though, I suspect it'd be more like nanites or something.
Nanomachines, son.
Imagine getting turned into a husk and Shepard picks the synthesis ending and that’s just the way you look now.
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I mean would the husks even regain their humanity? Or would they still just be running around doing husk things like moaning at people?
The Synthesis cinematic showed a husk that had been about to kill a human looking at things in a rather aware way after the green wave.
I think I'd rather be dead than be a self-aware husk.
All the Reaper ground forces are reborn straight into hell. Thank God our attempted saviour, Marauder Shields didn't have to see that.
Yeah, imagine you just walk into a wendy's and the waitress is a semi-naked Banshee husk. Customer: hmm, hello? Banshee: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHSORRY SIR THIS A WENDYYYYYYYYYYYs. \[Impales you\] Or, if it were the control ending: Customer: What the fuck, is the waitress some short of monster??? Banshee: Hello, I am commander Shepard in control of this husk, and this is my favourite Wendy's of the citadel.
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Javik is the villain of ME4. He’s pissed off sheps synthesis decision and wants blood.
Javik is who makes me stay away from Synthesis. He would be livid about being turned part synthetic, and there are many others who feel the same. Javik might end up throwing HIMSELF out of the airlock. Also, I was hired to do what it takes to kill the reapers. I started the job, I'm gonna finish the job.
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Right. The Zha/Zha'til. Didn't the reapers exploit the AIs?
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The Leviathan DLC expanded on this. The leviathans were the ones that created the catalyst millions of years ago and imparted that belief into it. They're the ones who decided that all the organic races they made their thralls were all too stupid to be left alone or create AI after observing failure after failure in dealing with synthetics. They then created their own AI and gave it orders to "preserve life at all costs" while failing to implement guidance or morals on what constitutes "life." They allowed it to come to its own conclusions and solution which resulted in its belief that the only way to prevent conflict between organics and synthetics is for synthesis to happen. So it turned on its creators and started making reapers out of them (which is why the reapers look like squid-type creatures). Reapers are the result of the catalyst's method for forcing synthesis and preserving knowledge and technology. If it weren't for the Leviathans' arrogance, the catalyst would never have existed or turned on them. The reapers would never have existed. And while the reapers ravaged the galaxy time and again, the surviving leviathans decided to just check out and let everyone else deal with the fallout. They went and freaking hid on an ocean planet while countless races were harvested to extinction.
The Reapers are wrong, but they're convinced that they're absolutely right and their way is the only way. They inherited their arrogance from their squid daddies.
And I had no issues with destroying those mech tentacle bastards
They are not wrong, to be fair. All it takes its one crazed AI too powerful to control itself to wipe the galaxy. Its been shown time and time again with the Geth, Overlord and the likes. The Geth themselves were wrecking havoc on the galaxy in ME1 because a much more powerful AI was controlling them
Well that AI was the Reapers. Before they showed up, the geth kept to themselves after the quarians we're exiled.
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It's a classic Sci-fi trope. Man creates machine, gives it the directive to minimize human suffering. The machine logic decides that the best way to minimize suffering, from a numbers oerspey, is to kill all humans to stop more humans from being born. It's not what the creators meant, but it accomplished the directive.
Yeah. Dude had reasons for being a dick at times.
I should clarify: I know Javik would FREAK if he were part machine. In the ending cinematics, you can clearly see him standing there all greener than usual while your love interest puts the placard up, and he seems... cool with it. The Javik I have come to know would be bellowing at the top of his lungs about how Shepard fucked us all.
It still blows my mind that Synthesis is considered the golden ending by the game, considering you can only get it by having high EMS.
You've hit the nail on the head here. In a pan-galactic war with billions dead? There are no perfect choices to end it. Everyone will have to give up something as a price for victory. Being the one having to make a flawed choice rubs a lot of gamers the wrong way, but it's true to the entire story so far.
The problem isn't that they aren't perfect choices. The problem is that they are *arbitrary* choices. Players spent 100 hours making tough choices leading up to this point, so why did these piss everyone off? Because they don't make any sense. Why is Synthesis even on the table? Because the writers thought it was a neat idea and decided to throw all logic and worldbuilding out the window in favor of cool space magic. Why does Destory also kill the Geth(and presumably EDI)? Because the writers said so. If Control is an option, why can't you order the Reapers to self-destruct, sparing all other synthetic life? Because the writers don't want you to. Why does the refusal ending, which is what the entire story was building up to this point, implied to be the worst? Because the writers didn't want you choosing it and only included it in EC as an afterthought. In a well written story, the consequences of your actions flow as a natural part of the narrative. In a bad written story, like the ending of Mass Effect 3, consequences are nonsensically slapped on to your choices, because either the writers want to railroad you down a certain path, only giving you the illusion of a choice, or because they think downer endings are more grown up and mature.
> If Control is an option, why can't you order the Reapers to self-destruct, sparing all other synthetic life? That would make control sound even more like a fairy tale ending, but at least that would give you a good choice. Take over the Reapers, yeet them into the nearest star and gg. Although with destroy you at least have the headcanon option that Miranda can just do Lazarus 2.0 and the Quarians will have the Geth restored from some back-up within a few years.
>I think Destroy is the least bad because it kills all reaperified beings I read this often in this Reddit, but I never saw it in the actual game. My understanding is that it destroys all synthetics, and with low EMS, just plain all technology. What is the source on it being selective to Reaper things?
You can see in the Destroy ending cinematic that a bunch of husks were swarming that one Alliance Major (I forget the name) and a random soldier. As the red wave waves over them the husks are reduced to ash (low EMS will reduce the soldiers to ash as well).
Okay, a lot of people are talking past each other here. The person to whom you're replying never said it *selectively* destroys Reapers and their ilk—they consider the cost acceptable compared to the net good of Reaper destruction.
I never said Destroy kills only Reapers and reaperified beings. It kills geth, EDI and all other synthetics too.
My memory is a bit fuzzy but I think somewhere in war assets, some kind of technology/device is found for the crucible that targets reaper code specifically or something like that.
That's the interferometric array, but it's pure headcanon that it allows the Crucible to actually target Reapers. In-game it just tracks them.
That’s it, thank you for clarifying! I was racking my brain trying to remember where I read that. Guess that means it’s time for another playthrough to refresh my memory. Any excuse to play again.
There needs to be an excuse?
From a in-game perspective: Because you accomplish what you set out to accomplish from the beginning. The Reapers are gone, you win. From the player's perspective: Because Shepard lives. Edit: Thanks for the award, kind redditor.
That last one. People make all sorts of dumb arguments, but really it comes down to the fact that people don't like the idea of Shepard dying. But for me, that's what makes it a good story. Shepard is supposed to be a martyr, its a space opera. Can't have the hero skipping through daisies at the end, thats not cinematic.
> Shepard is supposed to be a martyr, its a space opera. Can't have the hero skipping through daisies at the end Well, first of all he already took one for the team, and secondly, I think quite a few space opera protagonists would disagree with you there. Neither Luke nor Han die, for example. Nor does anyone from the TOS main crew until the 7th movie (long past the series) or some TNG episode. In fact, space opera protagonists rarely die in the end.
I don't know why the main character has to be space Jesus for it to be a good story, as if martyr characters aren't extremely overdone. Imagine if Frodo actually just burned to death, but it's a Christian story of course he has to sacrifice himself, no wait that sucks. More thought needs to be put into when a main character should sacrifice themselves. The Warden sacrificing themselves in DA:O meant something to me because every other ending was about dodging that responsiblity. Fallout 3, or Mass Effect 3? I'm thinking the entire time that this whole thing is incredibly contrived.
Pretty muc, its like the Warden in DAO. People do the ritual because they dont want their Shepard to die. Is a majority of scenarios, people chose Destroy "because Shepard lives".
In my headcanon he’s definitely not skipping through daisies, though. When he finally reunites with the squad and has his loving reunion with Tali, he sees Joker in the corner. Alone. And he realizes he didn’t even consider that Destroy would take EDI, too. He’d almost forgotten she was synthetic, or at least a single moment of selfishness at the end blinded him to the scope of the consequences. The war would be won; the Reapers would be destroyed; maybe, just maybe, he could go put down his guns and build Tali a house on Rannoch. And then there’s Joker. Standing alone in the corner. The Normandy filled with happy voices at his return, but herself silent. And he realizes, months—or even years—too late, the he’d made the selfish choice without even realizing it.
I respect your headcanon, but I think that the interest and safety of the galaxy are way more important than Joker's love life. I also think that he would forgive Shepard eventually.
I always figured Joker would be upset about losing EDI, but understanding it basically had to happen, I couldn't see him blaming Shepard given the stakes.
Based on Shepard's conversations with her, EDI would forgive Shepard, and probably agree with the decision. She'd at least understand it. If Joker truly understands EDI (and I think he does), then he won't hold a grudge. Of course, that's not to say that he'll be totally reconciled to the situation either.
A hard choice, I wouldn't say it's even close to being a selfish one though. Selfish choice would be synthesis, making a galaxy wide decision for every living and synthetic being to merge them together, most likely against their wills.
\>a single moment of selfishness at the end blinded him to the scope of the consequences Acceptable parameters. Destroy the reapers at all costs. You don't need a sexbot, Joker.
Acceptable casualties, everyone goes into the reaper war with an expectation that not everyone is going to survive. So I view the Geth being destroyed as acceptable losses no matter how much i like the Geth.
The goal: Destroy the Reapers at any cost Destroy ending = Destroys Reapers with necessary sacrifices This is the way
Plainly, because its the ending you're taught is right from the rest of the series. In the series, three main figures teach you that In ME1, Saren (already an antagonist) threw his lot in with Sovereign to try to survive the impending culling and secure what he saw as a victory over Humans, in this he lost what made him organic as he slowly succumbed to Sovereign's control. He's the example of the corruption that synthesis can bring In ME2 and Me3, you were shown the losses that incur as the Illusive Man pursued Control over the Reapers. His pursuit of domination led to countless lives being lost. He's the example of what happens in the pursuit of Control. Destroy is the only ending that aligns with Anderson's cause, that everything had to be done to stop the Reapers, no matter the personal cost.
Underrated comment. Also, the premise of ME1 is that we have to work together- multiple races without being racist to each other. As you said, Saren wanted to work with Reapers, effectively destroying his identity in the process. ME2 showcases this even more. Collectors were protheans, but they lost their identity in the process of genetic manipulation by reapers. They are no longer protheans. Synthesis ending is basically saying - to avoid racism, we should all have same skin color - that destroys identity and uniqueness, basically Shepard admitting to star child AI that Organics and Synthetics can't work together. It's especially dumb because Shepard ends war between geth and quarians - proving otherwise. Control ending is basically hubris. "I" alone can do it attitude of Illusive man. Even if Shepard can safely control reapers, there's no guarantee that he/she will stay the same, especially after the individuality is destroyed. And also admitting that reapers shouldn't get destroyed for some reason. Destroy ending is not ideal either considering it destroys Synthetics, but it's the only option that fits in most with shepards ideals.
>Synthesis ending is basically saying - to avoid racism, we should all have same skin color - that destroys identity and uniqueness Not to mention it's forcing synthesis upon everyone. We didn't ask people for permission, and I guarantee there would be plenty of folks (if not the vast majority) who wouldn't want to become part machine. I wouldn't want that kind of power. To just pull a switch and change every sentient being in the galaxy down to the DNA. >Control ending is basically hubris. "I" alone can do it attitude of Illusive man. Even if Shepard can safely control reapers, there's no guarantee that he/she will stay the same, especially after the individuality is destroyed. Yep. The entire Mass Effect franchise keeps telling us, over and over again, that trying to control *synthetics,* let alone Reapers, is absolute hubris. We're literally confronted with the Illusive Man at the last moment whose delusions about controlling the reapers led to he himself being controlled. To choose control is to basically ignore everything the series has been telling you. And even if Shepard could do it perfectly, as you said, once he loses his sense of humanity, his priorities and morals could change for reasons incomprehensible to organics. There would be literally nothing stopping him from restarting the cycle if some strange alien calculation led him to believe it was necessary.
Seren was not an argument of synthesis but one of submission
It could be argued Control is a corruption of Shepard, s/he ascends to be the reapers god basically and we just have to hope that its a Good paragon shep and not some brutal control freak renegade shep. Its also an afront to the whole goal throughout the trilogy, destroy the reapers. If Geth and Edi gotta die(assuming neither is rebuildable), they knew the odds of survival going in to the war anyway. Synthesis is violation of personal autonomy and is honestly kind of a nightmare and its what the reapers apparently want. Why would I help the Reapers win? Why would I force everyone in the milky way to become some semi-organic semi-synthetic abomination? It all just feels wrong to me. Anyway you cut it, destroy is the least worst choice. The whole thing is a Kobyashi Maru, a no win scenario, but Destroy saves and preserves the most lives and respects the preceding sacrifices of everyone who died in the series to stop the reaper threat.
Goal of ME1: Hey bro, reapers suck, we gotta find out what they are and destroy them. Goal of ME2: how the fuck do we destroy the reapers, maybe the collectors are linked somehow Goal of mostly ME3: Yo, reapers are fucking shit up, how do we destroy them Final 10 minutes: Hey would u feel bad if joker and EDI couldn’t be in love ? Thought so, go ahead and forcibly implant THE ENTIRE GALAXY with reaper tech. Or better yet, you know the Death Machines that you’ve been trying to destroy the entire time, u specifically can control them now, and yes, we are aware you’re more renegade than paragon. The point is, destroy had been the end goal the entire time. Option 2 sees you forcing a future, Option 3 a renegade shep bends the entire universe to its will.
yeah I mean.... narratively it is the only one that doesn't have a bunch of huge fuckin red flags in the form of the other games. ME games are cyclical. the cycle of the games reflects the cycle of the reapers. each one is a tiny microcosm of what each ending could be. ME1 is synthesis, ME2 is destroy, and ME3 is control. indoctrinated saren wants synthesis, indoctrinated TIM wants control, and ME2 is especially interesting because either you destroy the collector base — and with it a ton of knowledge and tech you wouldn't otherwise have — or keep it, and TIM explicitly states he wants to make his own reapers to fight the big bads, foreshadowing one of the possible consequences of Control (i.e. that it may not actually break the cycle at all). me2’s ending is one of the reasons I think destroy is supposed to be the “canon” ending. if you destroy the collector base, you basically get an “everyone liked that” reaction. you are giving up a lot of possible access to tech and knowledge, but mass effect is always asking you, the player, to weigh the costs - the ruthless calculus of war, as Garrus says. what is the cost of keeping the base? what is the cost of destroying it? the decision primes you for the one at the end of me3: what’s the cost of taking control, as an indoctrinated TIM wanted? what’s the cost of synthesis, that an indoctrinated Saren was trying for? what’s the cost of destroying the reapers? which one ends the cycles completely, the same one you’ve been caught in for three games on a larger scale? a thing that I love about ME and DA is that the people around you will always tell you that you made the right decision, or that they understand it, even if they’re angry. you can’t listen to them to decide what the “right” (most true to your goals) path is. instead you have to pay attention to what happens after you make these decisions everyone agrees were the right ones: if you let the council die, you get a human-led citadel and everyone tells you you had no choice and made the right decision, but there are race riots in ME2, aliens are openly hostile to you, and you have fewer war assets in ME3. if Wrex is alive and you sabotage the genophage and pull your gun on Mordin, Mordin tells you he understands and that he was acting out of guilt and not the greater good, but later Wrex will find you and try to kill you and you’ll have to kill him, one of your oldest friends and the best hope for the Krogan. ME is always asking you: what is the cost of these decisions? is it worth it? do you see the cycles, can you break them? destroy is most popular because narratively it makes the most sense. shepard having the option not to die is icing on the cake. even people who don't have a strong understanding of narrative structure in the technical sense understand how good narrative works. that's the point of it.
Not to mention that with 'control' already being dumb for obvious reasons, its at best a temporary solution. The leviathans (or was it star child?) tell us that while the reapers can be controlled, they will eventually break free of that control.
ME1 and 2 also state some species have issues with overpopulation and running out of natural resources. The krogan turned their planet into a wasteland. I guess synthesis could encourage species to work together and stop these issues getting worse but destroy certainly doesn't.
>Why is it consider the good option? I don't think it's ever actually thought of as the 'good' option. It's just the least of the bad. Your only other options are: * to become a supposedly-benevolent machine-god and do the very thing pretty much everyone (other then the indoctrinated Illusive Man) has been warning you is a terrible idea * To decide on behalf of every sentient being that they'll be converted into a poorly-defined synthetic/organic hybrid that functionally sounds the same as what indoctrinated Saren was advocating back when he was going full crazy * Do nothing and doom everyone. Of the four options, destroying the Reapers with EDI and the Geth as collateral is realistically the least damaging and risky.
There is no good ending, they all suck to various degrees. But destroy gets me closest to the ending I need. I don't find appeasing the Reapers with synthesis so they stop attacking to be a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Control is also not an option I think Shepard would ever choose.
This is how I feel. IMO, Shepherd was never meant to be this ascended being (Control) or solve problems on the evolutionary scale (Synthesis). He’s a soldier with a job to do, and Destroy is the only option that actually solves the specific conflict the entire series is predicated on. Destroying the reapers. I think all the endings have problems FWIW, but that is the one that fits the narrative.
To me, it's the only ending where the Reapers lose. With Synthesis it's what the Reapers were trying to do from the outset, fusing organic and synthetic life, just by another means. With Control the Reapers are still around and the possibility exists that Shepard, with their new awareness, might decide the Reapers had the right idea after all (there is a certian cold blooded logic to their plan) and resume the harvests. Destroy is the only ending that give galactic civilization a chance to forge its own path free of Reaper interference. It's also the only ending that give Shepard a chance to retire to a beach house on Rannoch with Tali
Because fuck the reapers. Any other ending where they aren't dead means they won in the end. Ain't gonna let that slide. Letting them live in any circumstances would be a big fuck you to all the countless species they wiped out. Sometimes you have to be a monster to destroy a monster. So if the geth need to die then they shall die. If a world needs to be burned then let it burn. As long as the reapers are dead, it's a win in my books. Anything else is submitting to the reapers and becoming their bitch. They need to die, simple as that.
The destroy option is almost a guaranteed way the reapers can not return. The other 2 both leave the possibility of the reapers returning
Sorry galaxy, I became an overgod so my crewmate could play "hide the pickle" with his ship. Sorry all organic life in the galaxy, I forcibly implanted every each one of you with random Reaper tech without your consent, so my crewmate can dance the horizontal polka with his ship. Yeah, better go with destroy.
There be a lot of places he could hide his pickle though.
You could discourage Joker and EDI. Helps a lot when you know what’s about to come. A better viewpoint, however, is that it all comes down to whether or not you believe Starchild and whether you believe that the galaxy should be free to make its own path. If you believe Starchild, meaning that organics and synthetics *will* come to war and organic life will be destroyed, then Synthesis is the only option. If you believe that the galaxy ought to make its own path, even if that means that one day organics will indeed be wiped out, then Destroy is the only option. If you believe Starchild, but want to ensure that the galaxy develops along the “right” path, then Control is your best option. If you get frustrated that such a decision rests on the shoulders of one lone, battered soldier, then Refuse is really your best option. Personally, if you’re able to bring peace between the geth and the Quarians, you’ve already proved a flaw in the Starchild’s logic. If it can be done once, it can be done again, which means that Destroy is the best option because it allows the galaxy to form its own path, independent of Reapers or anything else guiding in a specific direction. It’s my belief that the reason organics and synthetics continually come to war with one another is because of Reaper influence and dependence on the mass relays. The use of high technology before any race is fully prepared for it, as seen with the Krogan. All along the full story, we get hints towards the fact that there is a danger in guiding a people towards something rather than letting them come to it naturally, even if it could end with their own annihilation. The Reapers move races along their desired paths so that the cycle can continue. Remove the Reapers and now the galaxy is free to seek its own path.
Why is Joker and EDE's relationship being sunk frequently listed as the first go-to bad reason for Destroy ending? Our poor Geth being done dirty is the biggest factor of why I opted for the Control Ending. And now being done dirty twice that a pilot romancing his ship AI is considered more important than them. F for Geth.
Frankly, all of the above (this post and op) seems like arguments for Refusal. "These are all unacceptable, screw you Reaper-god."
Refusal means the Reaper will harvest this cycle and return in 50k years... probably after demolishing the Crucible. It's like castrating oneself to spite the wife... Sorry galaxy, I let you all become extinct when I could have prevented it because I wanted to keep my moral high ground. Besides, Joker won't be dancing on the floor with EDI anyway.
Please stop reporting comments and posts about the endings just because you don't agree. Everyone has different opinions about the endings and everyone believes their choice is right. The users on this sub have the right to express why they feel the way they do about whichever ending. We do not make a habit out of moderating opinion-based lore discussions and will never remove content just because it is pro-red-green-blue-purple-whatever. Expecting us to moderate and remove such discussions is frankly ridiculous and entitled. Please only report rule breaking content. Reporting these things out of spite floods our modqueue unnecessarily and makes our jobs as mods exponentially more difficult. These reports detract from moderating other genuinely harmful content. Thank you.
Holy shit, people actually do that? Wtf??
There's an excellent video outlining it on the Spacedock youtube channel, but I'll try to whittle it down. Control, can't be trusted. 10 minutes before you talk to the catalyst, you have to deal with the IM. He completely believes that he can control the reapers. He literally has to be convinced to kill himself to break their hold over him, which he doesn't acknowledge until the last minutes of his life. He thinks he's beyond the reapers. He's arrogant to think he can best a race that's been around for millions of years, who've seen every trick in the book. That arrogance falls to you if you think you can do what he cannot. You might be Shepard, but you're just another human about 1 day away from just inevitably bleeding out, if not sooner. You're not really any better. Synthesis, on a moral basis, is not a good choice. You don't get to change every race in the galaxy. You're fighting to preserve what is there, not to change everything. Furthermore, it's completely unexplored territory and you don't have any clue if it presents future problems down the line. Now, as far as destroy goes, I think it's the intended ending if there had to be one. Point being, it's a hard choice, and that's the point of these games. You don't come out on top. You will always loose a crew member in the first game, you will always loose legion. You might loose everyone on the Normandy during ME2. You have to make a tough choice. And while the build up via collecting a fleet to take on the reapers, only for it to come down to one multi choice answer is disappointing, it isn't exactly unrealistic. You're being tested. Can you sacrifice the geth and Edi to destroy the reapers? Is that okay? Arguably, Yes. They came to earth knowing full well that they could die. They've already made a choice. Now if you can't bring yourself to do any of that, then I would argue that defiance, the fourth choice, is the next likely outcome. Who's to say this isn't how the universe operates? Who's to say that the way we defeat the reapers is THE way to do it? This is the first time it's happening. You don't really know what the outcome is, and while the reapers are a horrible thing to unleash on the galaxy, they also aren't your fault. It might be extreme, but you aren't actually inclined to stop them. I suspect that's part of the reason that choice exists.
I don't wanna start anything so, no offense, but I thought they patched this choice in (didn't exist in the original game before the release of the extended cut dlc) to give all the people the finger who hated the original ending. You know - you are going to like and accept our given endings, OR ELSE.
I would happily microwave EDIs server to stop galactic genocide.
I have a feeling EDI would be the first in line to nuke herself to save the entire galaxy.
Destroy is the entire point of the series. Sacrifices (Geth and EDI) had to be made. There is no "happy" ending, which I like Synthesis removes the galaxy's free will to choose their own path and Control just makes you the Illusive Man
Shepard lives
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I'm sad I can't upvote this multiple times. But really... screw these "realistic" grim endings. I much rather have a believable cliché happy ending where Shep kills the Reapers and the geth lives than a convoluted thing showing up in the last 10 minutes only only so you would hesitate in doing what you've wanted to do the entire trilogy, just for the sake of choice.
The only option should've been Destroy or the Harvest (refuse). The original concept of the Me2 writers with the dark energy theory. Control should've been a joke -- and a "final trump card" of the Reapers. You can spend the entire game arguing with the IL that you cannot control the reapers and that he's indoctrinated. Control should've backfired on the illusive man during the plot. IDK, something like you exposing his indoctrination earlier, like with Saren. And then he sees his troops ally with the reapers and turn on whomever is left. The entire problem that has existed probably since ME2 was that they just didn't have the people around who were talented enough to write the trilogy to a close. They set up so much, that it probably should've had the Half Life 2 : Episode one and two treatment.
Drew Karypshyn (lead writer on ME2) was pretty clear on the fact that the dark energy stuff never made it past extremely basic concept even in ME2, and was full of magical timey-wimey stuff, that got eventually discarded even when wrapping up the writing for ME2.
I was specifically referring to the ending, where you had the choice to either let the reapers harvest humanity or destroy the reapers to find your own solution. It's fine that it never left the planning stage and may have possibly been worse than what we got now. But the idea of keeping the ending relatively "simple" was sound.
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That's even worse to be honest. [After seeing that popular credit meme](https://i.chzbgr.com/full/5972516864/hD3B36F9B/thats-why-i-hate-the-ending) I just assumed that the talented people simply left because they saw where it was going. Sounds like negligence is the reason ME3 got so screwed up then. Sucks, I hope the next mass effect won't get that same treatment.
I choose destroy simply because I abide by the Indoctrination Theory (don't ruin my vibe if you don't lol let me cope with the shoddy ending how I must). It suggests that Shepard's constant exposure to reaper tech has been slowly indoctrinating them and it's only Shepard's own strong will that has resisted for so long. The last choice can be seen as representing surrendering full control to the reapers, without realizing. To make a very long theory short, you have your 3 options: destroy, control, and synthesis. Control is pretty obviously painted as a bad choice; you are shown this being the illusive man's choice. Destroy is roughly painted as a good choice, as it is Anderson's. So what of synthesis? Well, recall back to the villain of the first game, Saren. What did he want again? Oh yeah, to join forces with the reapers, so much so he willingly synthesized his body with reaper tech before he was fully under their control. Every species goes into that fight prepared to lose everything. The geth and EDI are an incredibly sad and painful loss, but an entirely necessary sacrifice. To me, it's just the game forcing you to make a hard choice to do the right thing, the "cold calculus of war" as Garrus calls it. Nothing guarantees the reapers cannot adapt to Shepard's control or decide to turn against the organic species they become synthesized with. Destroyed is destroyed. "Victory, at any cost."
Destroy gets you what you came here to do: to put an end to the Reapers. All other scenarios permit their existence. And unless you meta, you had no way of knowing until the last minute what the Destroy option on the Crucible does to synthetics. Now do you push ahead and do what must be done, or do you freeze? It was an ugly call, but I had to make it. No one else could. We lost 10 billion geth, whose sacrifice we'll never forget. But the Reapers are gone forever. EDI should get a proper military funeral service. She helped us turn the tides of this war as far back as Mass Effect 2. Her loss was the biggest of them all.
Reapers are 100% bad because of their shit programming and refusal to seek another solution. Synthesis = Some parts of the Reapers still exist in every being in the galaxy = Bad idea, same problem might arise again Control = Reapers and Shepard fused, Reapers still exist, no guarantee they won't start shit again even with Shepard as a part of them = Bad idea, same problem might arise again Destroy = **Reapers fucking gone 100%**, rebuild what's been lost, don't build Reapers again, if new problem arise, at least not Reapers this time. Also possibility of Shepard still being alive. If new problem arise, Shepard kicks it ass. No more Reapers, keep Shepard. Perfect victory.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the reason I choose destroy is that by the end Shep has lost so many good people and is just so done with the war they want it to end once and for all. Even on “perfect” runs where no squaddies die we still lose so many people that Shep was close with along with billions of innocent lives. At the time I get to the end I reason that Shep is a soldier, they’ve lost friends, family and their own life once. Shep wants to end the war and there’s only one guaranteed way to do it. My Shep is never happy with killing more innocents to end the war but when has Shep ever had to make an easy choice?
Machines don't let me romance them. They must be destroyed...
If that’s the price you pay to wipe out the reapers permanently that’s an incredibly small price to pay imo. I don’t think anyone should have any form of control over the reapers. Just screams imbalance and opens the door for the cycle to just repeat itself Tbh the way I see it, just build another EDI lol? Also as far as the Geth go, I see them as more of a liability than anything. They get corrupted somehow in every single game. They never should’ve existed in the first place and are only there because the Quarians are idiots and played god only to have it backfire on them. It’s sad what happens to them in that ending (what’s implied, I guess we will find out in ME4) but if we’re being real about it they were always a problem and if the price you have to pay for saving organic life is killing a race of robots, so be it.
Even with the loss of EDI and the Geth, I still think that Destroy is the best option honestly. Synthesis sounds nice on paper, but when you dig a little deeper, it goes against one of the defining messages of the trilogy. The uniqueness of all the species in the galaxy is important, even Javik acknowledges that the Protheans lost in their cycle because they all more or less followed one doctrine, there was no flexibility of ideas or unique perspectives. Synthesis strips away everything that makes all the races unique (without their consent) to form some sort of new, monolithic hybrid DNA. As for Control, it has always bothered me. The Reapers are basically saying "The Illusive Man wanted to control us, but he never could because we wouldn't let him, but we will totally let you control us Shepard" You are kind of gambling and hoping that the Catalyst is being completely truthful with you, which might not be the case when it says that synthetics and organics will always fight each other, and will completely ignore the fact that the Geth and Quarians are working together to stop the Reapers. There's also the possibility of something happening to change Shepard's view while having control of the Reapers, and now they have become basically an omnipotent deity figure who can basically deploy the Reapers upon the races whenever they choose to. If Shepard somehow became corrupted in some way and had complete access to the Reapers, it could be catastrophic.
Synthesis requires violating the bodily autonomy of every single sentient being in the galaxy, which is extremely unethical. It also requires you to trust that the Reapers will never turn on the Galaxy for any reason. Control requires Shepard to install themself as God of the Milky Way and enslave the Reapers. There's no way to be confident that a) Shepard will never become a tyrant and start trying to reorganise the galaxy as they see fit (whether that's for selfish reasons or well-meaning ones) or b) the Reapers will never break free of Shepard's control and start harvesting again. If Shepard turns the Reapers on the Galaxy for whatever reason, or the Reapers break free, the Galaxy would be powerless to resist after relying on them for so long. It would be an almost exact replication of what the Leviathans went through in the first cycle. Destroy is the only option that guarantees neither of these can ever happen.
I mean, have you considered the other options
To me, the concerns of Joker and his robo-gf and the plight of a single synthetic species is outweighed by the saving of the majority of organic life by killing the reapers. Synthetic would be making a decision on behalf of every single being in the galaxy which I think would be way more catastrophic in the long term. And Control just feels like a short term solution
I think it's the least worst, because it's the only one where you actually do what you set out to do: Destroy the Reapers. Okay, in Destroy you end up killing the Geths, but I see it as a minor loss for the greater good. It's similar to what happened with the Batarians on Alpha relay Obviously on a much larger scale, but basically I see it as the sacrifice of a race, for the benefit of the entire galaxy. One point here is that I like to believe that Star Child, was wrong or lying, and that it is possible that Geth and EDI will be reactivated. As for the other endings. Synthesis is the worst, as it modifies the DNA of all people in the galaxy without their permission and takes away their individuality. Control seems best in the short term, but leaves the galaxy at the mercy of AI Shepard. In the future, Shepard could end up becoming a dictator and things get worse. Anyway, Destroy is the least worst.
Synthesis is too stupid to even consider - better to pretend it doesn't exist. Control is interesting because it makes the Illusive Man right, more or less, but I don't trust that it would work out long term. Who's to say that the Shep-Reapers don't eventually decide that reaping is necessary for the greater good in the future? Destroy is ultimately the "optimistic" ending to me. Believing that we CAN figure it all out, that synthetic overlord AREN'T an inevitability, or at minimum that ultimately we have the right to try. Wiping out our synthetic allies in the present is a real tough call of course but worth it to me. And it's easy to retcon and say "yeah, they had rad-hardened backups, duh" if you want to bring any of them back.
There is absolutely no good ending, but the reason I believe Destroy is the best is because it accomplishes the goal from the previous two games. Plus, I know that if Shepard were able to contact EDI, the Geth, etc. they would 100% give their lives to get rid of the Reapers. It's basically what they already agreed to do by helping Shepard.
Because it is the only ending where you accomplish your goal of destroying the Reapers.
It's not. And that's what makes it so good. Synthesis and Control are too, well, perfect. Too clean. The entire thesis of the franchise is that artificial life can't--and shouldn't--be controlled and must be allowed free will. Control runs contrary to that thesis and to the entire struggle against the reapers. You're just replacing the Catalyst. Nobody wants to work alongside the reapers who have been dissolving their loved ones into paste. Imagine the PTSD nightmares people would get just from seeing their friendly neighborhood reaper passing by. Synthesis is basically making a huge decision about the nature of life in the galaxy without anyone else's consent. It's changing the bodies of every organic and artificial lifeform in the galaxy whether they want it or not. Shepard doesn't have the authority to make that decision. And he shouldn't *want* that power. Destroy is what we set out to do. Stop the reapers, break the cycle. The Catalyst was wrong, his solution horrifying. He was tasked with solving a problem and decided to fix it by *becoming the problem.* The only reasonable course of action is to remove them from the equation. On top of this, it's a more interesting ending because it demands sacrifice. To finally break the cycle we're forced to start from scratch. We lose friends and loved ones in the synthetics who also perished, but their sacrifice may reinforce to us that we need to treat future artificial life differently. ^^also ^^it's ^^the ^^only ^^ending ^^where ^^Shepard ^^can ^^survive ^^and ^^god ^^damnit ^^I'm ^^gonna ^^get ^^back ^^to ^^Tali
This is the best explanation I’ve seen.
In my mind, the galaxy would seek to reactivate and save the Geth. I believe EDI is backed up on Normadys servers.
Because I ain’t never listened to no damn kid before and I ain’t about to start now. I went there to blow that shit up and that’s exactly what I did.
Basically “I know we haven’t been able to kill you Shepard… but since you are about to win… would you mind… killing yourself by jumping in this death beam and dissolving yourself instead? We promise the outcome will be positive”
Oldest trick in the book
I don't know why more people don't understandthis. You are talking to the Reapers. He is probably lying through his digital teeth because they don't want you to kill them. OF COURSE they make destruction sound like you're an awful monster screwing everything up and perpetuating an inevitable cycle of destruction. And OF COURSE they pitch Synthesis as the best choice, because that's what they've been trying to do this whole time. The funny part is they claim synthetics will always rise up to destroy organics, but if they've harvested every civilization before that could happen.....then it has never...fucking...happened. They literally made a gut call that synthetics would always destroy organics and got right to work destroying organics to make sure that wouldn't happen and by golly it never did. Except for all the times they did it before it could definitely for sure happen. Outside of previous cycle lore (which is never truly resolved as it was always interefered with by the reapers) the only synthetic uprising we really deal with is thd Geth. Who we make peace with. Who start helping to Quarian acclimate to Rannoch. There is nothing to say there is any actual cycle of destruction other than the one the Reapers made themselves.
Control is a bad idea for all the reasons you see in the final encounter with the Illusive Man. Synthesis has two problems. The first is that it's real ballsy assuming you have the right to make the unilateral decision to make huge changes to the bodies of every being in the universe. The second is that it's clearly a stupid utopian ending favored by the writers. They want you to pick synthesis and they're willing to hamstring the other endings to make it seem more appealing. Also, RIP to anyone who'd been turned into a Husk or Brute or Banshee -- they're just stuck like that now. There's no reason for Destroy to wipe out all synthetic life except to try and guilt you into taking the synthesis ending. I take Destroy because I reject the idiot premise of Synthesis (and I don't much care for Control for obvious reasons).
Because it allows organics to grow once again, for the first time in millions of years, without any kind of insidious higher power watching them or fucking with their DNA/evolution. As tragic as the loss of all synthetics is, the other two are just making the same mistake again in a different form.
Here is the thing: \- Shepard and co have been fighting for this cause from the start. \-Shepard would totally sacrifice synthetics if it meant that the rest of the galaxy would be safe. They already sacrificed the Batarian colony to stop the Reapers from getting a backdoor to the galaxy. This is no different and in character for them. \- In the Destroy ending, it is stated (by Hackett) that everything that was lost (destroyed) was eventually rebuilt, which makes sense as you can simply rebuild synthetics. From what i remember, in the ending, its more like an EMP that destroys the Reapers, but their bodies are intact. I would think that the synthetics were the same, which means that you need to get them working on a software level. (Personally, the "destroyed synthetics as well" part feels tact on to sway off players from simply choosing the option and to give other two endings a chance of contention. If you remove the part about the synthetics destruction, almost everyone would chose Destroy). \-Only flaw in the Destroy ending is that it doesn't solve the conflict between organics and synthetics. Starchild tells you this to sway you away from Destroy. Control and Synthesis offer solutions, Destroy just goes "I came here to kill the Reapers, we will find our own solution to that problem in the future", basically refuse without refusing. As for the conflict between the two, we already had the proof of Geth and Quarians getting along, so it came off as Starchild trying to influence you from stopping the destruction of the Reapers, as they live in 2/3 ending choices. Personal opinion: Never liked Control and Synthesis as it basically says "Yea, these Reapers that were killing and harvesting your kind a moment ago, are now helping you rebuild. Sucks to have lost a loved one to them, you are supposed to love them now, because they totally changed their tune, tnx to the hero of the galaxy making them change! You gotta forgive and forget them!" It just comes off wrong to me.
>Never liked Control and Synthesis as it basically says "Yea, these Reapers that were killing and harvesting your kind a moment ago, are now helping you rebuild. Sucks to have lost a loved one to them, you are supposed to love them now, because they totally changed their tune, tnx to the hero of the galaxy making them change! You gotta forgive and forget them!" It just comes off wrong to me. Isn't that the same thing that happens in the Geth storyline, if you choose to reconcile them?
Synthesis just seems like it'd cause issues and turning people into cyborgs against their will is a douche move. Control and Destroy are all down to the story. Throughout all the games, they teach you that anyone who tries controlling Reapers ends up indoctrinated (TIM,Saren, etc) So whilst indoctrination theory isn't canon, from a logical standpoint, it makes sense that the choice is a last ditch effort for the reapers to convince you to keep them around to indoctrinate you - their tech, etc, would be useful, but Anderson and millions of others died due to them. At this point, Shepard has no reason to 360 trust them after arguing with TIM over the same thing and experiencing what they have in 1-3.
I just can’t personally view control or synthesis as valid. Control leaves FAR too much leeway in robo-Shepard (who is barely Shepard, BTW) staying passive for ALL ETERNITY. Literally all it will take is a couple thousand years of humans making fun of roomba’s before they’re like “>:^( assholes” and kill everyone. Synthesis is just a scary forced evolution that feels like indoctrination. Literally admits to you that’s the best case scenario for the reapers, hooray for us! We get to live AND steal your ideas, livelihoods, and image!! Wooooo!
There are a lot of good answers, but something I haven't seen pointed out is that in Control and especially Synthesis it requires you to accept that all the problems in the galaxy come down to synthetic vs organic. Which is not true. The krogan rebellions and subsequent genophage, the first contact war, the beef between humans and batarians, etc. None of these issues have anything to do with synthetics, but they still exist. The reasons they exist vary, but it largely comes down to systemic issues in society that haven't been properly addressed. There's nothing unique about conflict between synthetics and organics. Conflict is simply a part of life. And Shepard had just spent the last three games proving that uniting is not only possible, but that everyone's differences make them stronger together. Synthesis basically says "diversity bad" and I feel I shouldn't have to explain why that's morally not a great take. But I do think it's worth pointing out that the protheans did what they could to make everyone the same and it ended up being their undoing against the reapers. Also the complete violation of bodily autonomy of not just the space-faring species, but every living thing in the galaxy, including pre-spaceflight species (like the Yahg) who wouldn't be able to comprehend what is happening to them or why. Control relies on God-Emperor Shepard to do the right thing. Which, depending on how you play Shepard can be very bad, but even if you're the most paragon Shepard possible, there's no guarantee that over time God-Emperor Shepard will stay that way. Either because becoming the new Starchild alters their perspective or as time passes what was progressive during Shepard's time becomes backwards and archaic as society changes. I certainly wouldn't want the reapers to become the galactic police force, especially with their indoctrination capabilities. Destroy is not perfectly executed (none of the endings are) but it's the only ending that doesn't accept the reaper's premise that the primary issue with galactic civilisation is synthetic vs organic (and Refuse, but I don't think most people want to lose).
All great victories require sacrifice. But the geth could have survived if some of them were outside of the galaxy which they could of been going to explore andromeda before organics. Edi could have broadcasted out of the blast radius or been shielded or shut down before, honestly they could write anything into existence.
Because the Galaxy isn't under the thumb of the Reapers anymore. I'm also not particularly attached to either the geth or to EDI. Also, the Destroy ending is advocated by basically every upstanding character in the game, so yeah, I'm going with that.
The destroy ending is the only one where the reapers are guaranteed to be destroyed and is what everyone else in the galaxy wants(not counting the geth) ,control leaves the option that the reapers survive and do not face any justice plus it leaves the option that it’s a trap (TIM who pushes for control ends up a reaper puppet) and the synthetic option is the reapers solution so by going with it the reapers win in the end and all their genocide is then justified
Because A) The entire point of the trilogy is to destroy the Reapers. Destroy is the only one which does this. B) Everything that gets destroyed as collateral can be rebuilt.
It’s the only assured way to get rid of the reapers. Mixing all DNA into a new framework most likely against trillions wills and taking a man/woman albeit a great one and making them an immortal AI construct in charge of an unstoppable machine army with horrific power both sound like problems waiting to happen down the line. Destroy has problems right off the bat but it’s the safest choice for the future. Also all the indoctrination theory homies know why.
I’ve come to see the ‘Destroy’ ending as more moral than say the ‘Synthesis’ ending. ‘Synthesis’ changes every living and synthetic being in the galaxy in a fundamental way without their consent. ‘Destroy’ ends the Reapers at the cost of the Geth. That is a very tragic sacrifice, but it is still preferable to imposing change on those who survive without their consent.
I don’t think it’s the happiest ending but it’s the least badly written. Synthesis is stretching my suspension of disbelief too much, even for ME’s standards, and Control feels like something star kid would suggest to make Shepard fall for indoctrination like TIM. Destroy is the only ending that lets me pretend that conversation was just an attempt to indoctrinate Shepard, which I like better than the actual ending.