Create your own Mass Effect 3 ending

[DioWallachia]

You could just, you know, play the game?

There is a game in that glichfest that makes all choices both in the game AND from the rest of the series completely pointless without proper context?

Here is my ending: Since The Crusible looks like a microphone, i say that the ending will involve killing The Reapers with the POWER OF ROCK!!!!!!!!


SHEPARD USES "FACEMELTER"!
ITS SUPER EFECTIVE!

 

[DioWallachia]

Cut the Daniel wannabe out of the one we got and go straight to destroy. Or everyone dies if you have low EMS.

My ending:

Same as the one Bioware had. Nothing wrong with it. People are just whiny.

Well people are just whiny. But there is a lot wrong with it.

Why is it that people NEVER see something so obviously bad when they see it? maybe they are in denial saying "naaaaaaah, no one will be stupid enough to make an ending THAT bad. People are THAT whiny"

 

[DioWallachia]

Not my creation but I totally would play the shit out of mass effect 3 time and time again if this was the ending.

Spoiler: This would be perfect

Well, Gurren Laggan also used THE POWER OF ROCK so i guess that it also count as an ending.

 

[FrostyChick]

When the Reaper beam hits Shepard, he wakes up to find out that he's actually a Victorian detective. All of the people he met on his adventure are people of interest in a large scale embezzlement case he's currently working on.

All the content of the 3 games has been a crazy dream brought about by the stresses of his job. After he wakes up he has his breakfast mid way through he realises that his employer (whose dream version was the Illusive Man) is the one who is responsible for stealing thousands from the banks (we're going period values here). The Reapers (real world version being some high level crime organisation) were just a cover all along and nothing more than background noise.

 

[DioWallachia]

Right, just like a way to defeat the Reapers was the focus of the entire journey of Commander Shepard.

This is actually pretty debatable. The plot kinda skips around over the course of the three acts because they had to shove the second game in somewhere.

and it was always going to be a plot device. Fuck, as I already said it did come down to a plot device at the end of Mass Effect, and I didn't see anyone complaining about how contrived and bullshitty that was despite the fact that it was never once explained or even mentioned at any other point in the game.

I complained. That was the very first thing that stuck out to me! In the end I guess my issue was less it being there and the way they implemented it. It felt more like the writers had an "Oh, shi- Uhm, okay this is what we'll do.." moment.

And why does it matter how early in the story the one ring is introduced? It's a completely arbitrary plot device, it's never explained to us how it works or why it's so important.

I reject the notion that Tolkien's work would have been no better or worse off if The One Ring was introduced sometime near the middle or end of the journey. You'll really have to explain how that would work to me. The Crucible is actually far FAR more asinine than the ring.

The entire basis for the crucible even existing is absolute nonsense and is far and by the least obvious but most insane and utterly contrived and stupid thing to come out of ME3.

Lets not forget that one CAN actually win agaisnt the reapers with conventional weapons if it wasnt for the sheer stupidity on the writing in regards with the alliance researchi and manufacture of the following:

1)More weapons like the Thanix Cannon. They already have those on fighter jets and one would think that they at least try to test if it is useful or not.

2)The dead Spider Reaper that we killed with the Quarian fleet that they could just, you know, research its armor to know how to penetrate it or make more of those on our own. Lets not forget the INFAMOUS killing of the Spider Reaper on London with the Cain, who makes the entire previous fight kite silly when we could just use heavy weapons instead.

We are constantly being told that we CANT WIN without the Crusible and yet there is proof that we can.

 

[Vuliev]

Cue THE MEANING OF TRUTH.

Harbinger breaks off from the Reaper surface contingent to attack the Normandy. Shepard orders the Normandy to intercept. Shepard spacedives out of the Normandy toward Harbinger.

Harbinger: WATASHI WA SHINEN! SHINENZUUUUUUU!
Shepard: SHEPARD PAUUUUNNNNCHHHHHHHH (Explosively punches Harbinger right in his massive face)
Joker: Commanderu!
Harbinger: BWEEEEUUUUUUUUUUUGGHHHHHHHHHHH

Shepard, bathed in golden light, smiles in triumph as he/she ascends to a higher plane.
Harbinger explodes, and the blast destroys all the Reapers--the light is seen throughout the universe.


Captcha: upvote this. Yes, Captcha, I agree.


EDIT: Alternatively:

Shepard: SHEPARD PAUUUUNNNNCHHHHHHHH
Harbinger: OH SHIT

Everything explodes, and the light is seen across the universe.

Spoiler: For those that don't know what I'm talking about:

 

[Mr Companion]

A long forgotten race was combat training droids for military spacecraft. Their Ai was adaptive to enhance training realism and difficulty. Eventually the AI achieves singularity, and begins to ask what does it truly mean to improve an organics survival longevity when (either) the universe shall one day collapse in on itself/ an even greater threat attacks/ they develop rebellious synthetics of their own? The conclusion is to become as strong as possible, to kill those not even strong enough to survive the harvest, and wait until "crops" spring anew with the defective strains wiped out.

And at the end when you somehow defeat them, they concede you have proven this cycle worthy of continuation.

See even that is better than what the "professionals" came up with Christing hell guys its not hard so glad I stopped playing after ME2 when it became clear the main story was falling apart.

 

[Terminal Blue]

This is actually pretty debatable. The plot kinda skips around over the course of the three acts because they had to shove the second game in somewhere.

I don't have a problem with this, because the alternative is cliffhanging, which in a game with a development time of a year or more is just plain annoying.

Each game in the series needed to be a definitive ending, the way to do this was to structure the story episodically, with each game representing a phase in an overall narrative leading towards the ultimate goal. The destruction of the reapers.

I complained.

Well, I suspect you're one of very few. Expecting purely naturalistic storytelling in what is ostensibly space opera with very clear larger than life elements strikes me as setting yourself up for disappointment.

How did you deal with the existence of the Asari? How did you get through project Lazarus without puking? How does the ability to alter the mass of an object let me throw someone into the skybox? Mass effect might make the occasional pretence of social realism, but really, it's no better than Star Trek (which I might add made far more routine and offensive use of contrived plot devices) and should probably be enjoyed on much the same level.

I reject the notion that Tolkien's work would have been no better or worse off if The One Ring was introduced sometime near the middle or end of the journey.

So the contrived plot device which mysteriously saves the day without any explanation is less contrived because the entire story revolves around it from the very beginning?

If Frodo rather than Bilbo had encountered Gollum and found the ring during the course of the journey, all other circumstances being the same, would it have made a significant difference beyond allowing people who hadn't read the Hobbit to have some idea what was going on? For that matter, is the phial of Galadriel more contrived than the ring because it crops up well into the journey? Because that's pretty much a perfect example of a device which is just there to defeat one particular bad guy (or girl).

The entire basis for the crucible even existing is absolute nonsense and is far and by the least obvious but most insane and utterly contrived and stupid thing to come out of ME3.

Why?

It makes perfect sense within the rules which the Mass Effect universe has laid down about how the extinction cycle works.

Now, it may not be as down to earth and sensible as reviving people who have been exposed to vacuum for days, transmitting memory through genetic material, the overall physics facepalm which is biotics or giant robot squid armies with mind control radiation, but hey.. I don't think that one bit of silliness in the Mass Effect universe is suddenly going to turn it into some kind of overblown space opera, do you?

 

[prophecy2514]

-Shepard faces off against harbinger and the illusive man mexican standoff style
-Shepard shoots Tim but ultimately loses against harbinger, but is saved by a stamping herd of angry elcor.
-Shepard rides off into the sunset on an elcor's back with his love interest.

The End

 

[Athinira]

Pretty simple.

1) During the raid on the Illusive Mans station, it would turn out when Shephard confronted him that he ultimately wasn't indoctrinated and under Reaper control, and that he truly believed he could control the reapers. While Shephard and him are arguing, the Reapers suddenly bust in from FTL, catching the attacking fleet between the station and themself. The Illusive Man at this points try to exercise his control plan over the reapers while Shephard battles Kai Leng. The Illusive Mans plans fail, and he breaks down as the Reapers bombard both the station and the human fleet. At this point Shephard has the option to either enlist his help or kill him and take over Cerberus.

Why?
Because i feel that Indoctrination has become a bad cliche of the series. It would be refreshing for once to have the game fool us into believing someone has been indoctrinated (because until that point, everyone and their dog has been), only to reveal that for once it was simple uncontrolled ambition that was the reason.

2) The Crucible is simply a weapon that can kill reapers off relatively easily. Reapers are never explained and the idiotic crucible child doesn't exist. Cleansing the galaxy of reapers would still be a slow task that will take years to finish, but with the Crucible it's ultimately going to happen, and Earth is still saved.

Why?

"This isn't rocket science. Mysteries lose all the appeal the instant you explain them."
- Yahtzee, Condomed 2 review

Like Sovereign said in Mass Effect 1 "We... simply are." Point being that i feel that the Reapers was an enemy that would have been better off staying (mostly) unexplained. The devs should have picked up on this little cue rather than explain the reapers with some kind of godly entity.

3) Shephard needs an actual Battle with Harbinger.

Not giving us any Harbinger in ME3 (with the exception of running towards a portal while he is throwing pot-shots at you) is the worst tease I've ever experienced in my life. He has been set up as such a massive influence and villain in ME2 and is pretty much non-essential in ME3. Terrible storytelling right there.

4) More epilogue containing Shephard (alive).

Why? Well if anyone here has played Baldur's Gate 2 and romanced someone, you should know then that when you finish Throne of Bhaal, you get an epilogue containing the continued life of you and your love interest.

This is one of the things Mass Effect is sorely lacking. Why go around romancing your crew members, when you aren't gonna see an outcome or a future together anyway? Many fans have expressed disappointment with the fact that they were really hoping to see how Shephard and their love interests would continue their life (for example, watching a cutscene of male Shephard and Tali building a home on Talis retaken homeworld).

Also, this goes hand in hand with us needing more endings with Shephard alive (and kicking). Now, normally I'm not the guy to claim that every game should have happy endings. The Galaxy at War system, however, changes that.
Since it's a way to quite clearly measure your progress against the reapers (War Effort), it sets up the expectation that if you work off your ass hard enough, do all sidequests, and get as much readiness rating as possible, you can see a (semi)good ending. But after you've worked your ass off to maximize all of this, the game kicks you in the nuts anyway and gives you a shit ending. Not acceptable. Period.

Oh yeah, and the Indoctrination theory that so many people used to fantasize about can take a ferry out of this world. It was a terrible theory before Extended Cut was released, and I'm happy that Extended Cut put a bullet to it.

 

[Athinira]

Since the problem begins at the beginning of the game, "Hey look we found a MacGuffin we know nothing about, but we're not allowing you any alternatives", that entire arc would have to be rewritten, really. The "rejection" ending added by EC would have been tolerable if it involved a few scenes of actually showing the final stand of the galactix fleets, but for it to be decent, we'd have to have had the option to not waste resources on the Crucible in the first place.

Not really. There is nothing wrong with a MacGuffin if it is implemented properly, given reasonable weight and added in a convincing fashion.

Amongst MacGuffins, the Crucible was a very well-made, well-introduced, well-explained and - above all else - believable MacGuffin. That is, right up until the ending of course where they totally blew it.

Captcha: pitter patter <-- Might not seem interesting, but "Patter" means "Boobies" in Danish. So... BOOBIIIES!

 

[Athinira]

snip

And this is where I disagree. I don't think the crucible was well executed or implemented or even all that believable.

And why not?

I read the rest of the thread and your argument with the other guy, where you explained you were hoping for Anderssons hopes to be true - That the Reapers could be defeated simply by the entire galaxy uniting. And like the other guy, my conclusion is the same: was never going to happen.

It was very obviously just wishful thinking on Andersons (and your) part. While the human fleet was the main attacking force against Sovereign in ME1, other fleets participated as well, and then there was the fact that the Sovereigns shield went down when you defeated Saren (which was dubious). It was quite obvious that once you are facing thousands of Reapers (if not tens of thousands, they never were exactly numbered), it was gonna be a losing battle without an ace in the hole.

Now as for the Crucible, i don't really see how you find it unbelievable. The Mass Effect universe established very early on that the technological advancement of humans (and other races too) were based on discoveries of civilizations that came before that. As ME1 explained, humans originally developed FTL drives and other Mass Effect-based technologies, based on their discoveries on Mars. There is no reason why the Crucible should be unbelievable in that context either.

Then there is the ongoing war effort throughout the game, where your efforts add to the project (although not VISIBLY, which i think is rather unfortunate and would have enhanced the connection). You find engineers and science teams from all kinds of different races that help out on the project, in addition to better technology for it.

In fact, the only bad things about the Crucible i can pinpoint on it is all related to the horrible ending. Up until that point, it did a very good job to keep me motivated and immersed throughout the game. So I'd appreciate it if you would explain what you consider so horrible about it.

 

[Terminal Blue]

As silly and stupid as Project Lazarus was, it doesn't come close to the idea that The Crucible (A weapon built up by multiple species over the course of many thousands upon thousands of years who all somehow instinctively knew to just keep adding one piece at a time) is somehow the end all be all answer to the reapers, even though throughout the game we regularly see reapers being taken down by more conventional methods.

No, actually we don't.

There is one single shot depicting a reaper capital ship being visibly damaged. It occurs during the final battle. Every other time we see one in action, every character involved talks about how much they're being walked over with ease.

Then there's this:

Okay, so you saw a couple of reaper destroyers get blown up (one under really bullshitty circumstances, I will admit). Those things are the cannon fodder, constructed from races not deemed worthy of preservation, they're still meant to be a match for citadel fleet capital ships, and then there's the basic problem that there are an obscene amount of them. Enough to invade and occupy the entire galaxy simultaneously and yet win on every single front. Go back to the point just after the assault on the final Cerberus base and look at the galaxy map.

I don't see how you could have played through the game and somehow got the impression that things were going well. The entire alliance navy gets routed during the intro sequence, an entire fleet sacrificed just to buy the others time to retreat. Palaven, along with the most powerful military in the galaxy, is burning within a couple of hours. You get a ringside seat to watch the Asari, the best individual soldiers in the galaxy, being walked over without pause for breath. I don't understand where this point which says "don't worry, you can win this!" is meant to come, because I certainly never saw it.

And actually, I thought that was the greatest strength of the game. That scene where Shepard was trying to persuade those Asari commandos on Thessia to keep fighting, even knowing that they were going to die, because it might buy him/her enough time to get to the temple and learn about the mysterious wild card which might just save their species from extinction. That pretty much summed up the emotional tone of the entire game as far as I was concerned.

 

[RatRace123]

If I'm just fixing the ending and not the whole game then:

I would redo the final mission on Earth and actually have you assist in the planning out of the attack; like a large scale version of ME2's last mission.

And during the ground assault you're aided by all the troops that you've picked up over the game, so you get some quarian troops getting some husks off your back. You see an asari vanguard going toe to toe with a banshee, and if you've got them you actually get to see krogan riding on dinosaurs.

So anyway, the fight on Earth is changed, but the end result is still basically the same as the one in game up until Shepard talks the Illusive Man down or just shoots him.
The game ends with Shepard and Anderson having their conversation again, and as the two lay dying the Crucible is fired.

The Reapers are wiped out, and the Star Child is never brought into the picture and you never learn the origin or purpose of the reapers.

My preferred ending does have Shepard dying, just to complete the whole Jesus allegory thing. And afterwards you get different epilogue cutscenes, reflecting your choices throughout the entire trilogy.

 

[Athinira]

Firstly I would have been perfectly happy with the cycle continuing anew and Shepard losing. It would have been a fine portrayal of futility, and how you can't escape fate

You would. Most other people, however, wouldn't. I think Shamus Youngs article explain this point perfectly well (if you haven't read it [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/9506-Mass-Effect-3-Ending-Controversy], i suggest you do. It's 5 minutes of good reading):

"You should have some kind of point you're trying to make. If your point is, "Life sucks, nothing makes sense, and you'll never know what happened" then you had better brace yourself for some push-back, because people know this already. They experience it every day in real life, and they probably aren't looking for more of the same in your entertainment product.

A "life sucks" conclusion can work, but you probably don't need a long story to tell that tale. You can tell the story of "Life sucks, nothing makes sense, and you'll never know what happened" in fifteen or twenty minutes. If you stretch that out over an hour and a half movie and spring that on them at the end, then you should expect some people to be angry. If you take that message and spread it out over three movies, then you're a sadist. And if you spread that message out over three 30+ hour videogames, then you are going to end up with what we have here, which is people so frustrated and angry they will try to file an FTC complaint because they hate your art so bad.

the point I was making is that scenes like Shepard using yet another magic Mcguffin to take down reapers makes the whole idea of "We need the crucible to defeat the reapers!" feel a bit disingenuous.

I disagree.

I'm not going to say that there aren't other paths that couldn't have been explored. Another option could have been for Shephard to find some weakness in the Reapers to use against them, but honestly i see this as even more unbelievable than the Crucible, and in the end, it's just another MacGuffin chase. Also, consider that the Reapers have repeated the Cycle thousands of times, including on races stronger and more intelligent than humans, so someone should have latched on earlier.

Another option could have been to lure the Reapers into a trap - for example, luring them into a Supernova. That option doesn't make much sense either unfortunately. Thousands of Reapers are spread out over the entire Galaxy burning planets, and it's hard to imagine finding something that could motivate them to all run into the same trap at the same time.

My problem with the Crucible is that as I said already, it completely tops the list in contrivances and stupid crap out of all things in ME as a whole.

Imagine if a race of aliens designed one piece of a weapon and then buried it in the desert before going extinct. million years later another alien just happens to dig it up and knows instinctively to add another piece to something when it doesn't even know what it is.

Repeat this process a few times until there's only one piece left to add and a human just happens to find it and knows exactly what it is and that it still needs one piece to function.

Well, the entire idea is that sooner or later, someone was going to find the last piece. BioWare could have made the game without humans, and made us play some alien race instead. I'm wondering in that case if you would have said "Repeat this process a few times until there's only one piece left to add and a [Insert new playable alien race here] just happens to find it". You see my point? You are essentially complaining that the story of the Mass Effect games takes place during the time where the last piece is found, and that it happens to be humans who does it. I'm sure BioWare could have made you play a Protean during the last cycle instead, but it wouldn't have been an improvement. The thing about stories is that they tend to take place (or be told) when interesting or out-of-the-ordinary things happen )

They also tend to involve humans given that it's important that a story resonates with it's audience. It's easier to make people resonate with our own race rather than other races. You might as well complain that Star Wars has humans in it, even though it takes place in a galaxy far far away and a long long time ago (likely before real humans even existed in our galaxy).

 

[Athinira]

Alright, I still don't really care for the crucible but I see your point and am willing to accept it. Though one thing they could have done instead: A turncoat wayward reaper....Maybe? I dunno, I guess me going to such lengths to argue logistics and technical logic in a universe based around a completely fictional element is missing the forest for the trees isn't it?

Whether or not the story is fiction isn't really relevant. Many true/factual stories from the real world are given the same kind of scrutiny from people who refuse to believe them (and many fictional stories in the real world is given way too much weight because you can still convince people that they're real).

People don't really care for realism. What they do care about, however, is consistency. A good story can be entirely fictional and still immerse people (or even make them believe it's real) if it has a consistent and easy-to-understand universe (or is based on consistent principles), is told in a consistent and competent fashion, and if the events and characters can be related to. Take Mass Effect fields for example. They are entirely fictional and not compatible with the laws of physics in the real world, but because their mechanics are explained so well in the games, people can form logical connections based on that knowledge, and play along with the story all the way.

Btw, this was also one of my grievances with the ME3 ending. When they introduced galaxy-wide energy novas that could insane things (like making everyone half synthetic-half organic on an intergalactic scale), they essentially turned the games from Mass Effect to Magic Effect, breaking the logic and limitations they had established around Mass Effect fields and therefore the consistency of the mechanic used in the games up until that point.

Ultimately i think it's an interesting topic to argue, because the discussion goes beyond Mass Effect and centers around relevant real-life topics like storytelling (and how not to cock it up BioWare style).

 

[PunkyMcGee]

i'm not sure if someone said this yet but:
"Turns out we put your butt on wrong and,
He's, She's, He's....got a front butt"

 

[Olas]

I've given it some thought and this is what I've come up with.

Instead of imitating the kid on earth that we saw for 2 seconds and don't care about, the catalyst would take up the appearance of a character that Shepperd had romanced or gained a strong loyalty to in the game(s) beforehand. When asked it will explain that it chose to take a form it thought Shepperd would be comfortable with. Shepperd then has the option to get angry and tell it to stop imitating the character, if he does so it will revert to it's original form: which resembles a member of the species that first built the reapers and the Citadel (possibly similar to a keeper but more evolved).

The catalyst will then explain that the reapers were created to protect the galaxy. Not from warring synthetics though, but from annihilation due to weapons of inter-stellar destruction that super advanced races eventually develop. It explains that as races advance their technology gives them more power, power to do good, but also power to destroy. The species that created the reapers had created weapons so powerful that they could actually collapse whole stars using dark energy, ending all life in an entire system with the mere pressing of a button. The galaxy was soon plunged into a sort of galactic cold war where any major conflict could end up decimating the entire galaxy.

After a particularly close call, in which two opposing political groups started a war that destroyed 2 planetary systems and nearly escalated into a full-scale dark energy war, (essentially a galaxy level "nuclear war") their species decided that, since war of some kind would always be inevitable, the only way to preserve the galaxy and life as a whole was to wipe out or "harvest" races that became too advanced before they could develop technology of such widespread destruction. The reapers were designed to enforce this, and for 2 billion years have been keeping the galaxy artificially primitive, and therefore harmless on a galactic scale.

The reapers can detect whenever a dark energy bomb is being used anywhere in the galaxy, and when they do they begin their invasion. In this instance it was the Geth who were experimenting on such a device on the star Dholen, which is the cause of it's rapid maturation as mentioned in ME2.

The catalyst then gives Shepperd 2 options:

1. It explains that the crucible is an effective but crude tool. If Shepperd activates it it will undoubtedly destroy the reapers, but also the citadel, mass relays, and most advanced technology along with killing any synthetics such as the Geth. The losses from this will be enormous and the galaxy will be plunged into a temporary dark age, but the many species will endure and live to rebuild everything. Essentially this is the destroy ending.

The Catalyst warns Shepperd that without the reapers the species of the galaxy will be doomed to evolve along the paths they have before and that weapons capable of total destruction will reemerge. It therefore offers him an alternative choice.

2. If he doesn't activate the crucible and allows the cycle to continue, the catalyst will let him pick a handful of people to spare from the destruction. The catalyste will tell Shepperd the name of a habitable but undeveloped planet which the reapers will not attack. He's allowed to take up to 1023 other intelligent lifeforms to that planet in secret to live out their lives in safety and peace. The rest of the galaxy will fall, but Shepperd will be able to save everyone he cares about from the games. It's worth noting that this is the only possible way to save ALL the main characters.

3. Shepperd can also choose a third option, which is to defy the wishes of the catalyste and let the allied forces he's ammassed try and fight the reapers on their own without activating the crucible. This is the most complicated ending because the outcome depends on how strong your forces are.

EDIT: This ending should also include a last boss fight with Harbinger on the citadel, as the catalyst will obviously want Sheppard dead. I'm thinking it should involve the MAKO since I loved that thing.

a. Having only the minimum or close to minimum number of forces means the reapers win easily, everyone dies, and the cycle continues.

b. If you're well above the minimum but still less than half capacity then the battle is long and ardous and all but a few of the supporting cast will die. The reapers' numbers eventually dwindle to nothing, but not before wiping out most life in the galaxy in the fight. The galaxy is in ruins and only a few billion humans, asari, and turians remain. Shepperd dies and is mourned by the few surviving characters along with everyone else.

c. If the forces are above half capacity but still not full then the fight is long and hard but the reapers are eventually defeated with about half the cast dying. The galaxy afterwards has sustained enourmous losses from the fight but there are also many people left and it is a solid victory for the alliance. Shepperd lives.

d. If you have near or completely maxed forces the victory is surefire and the reapers are utterly destroyed. A few cast members will still die but only a couple and the galaxy is left mostly intact, if a bit worse for wear. Shepperd lives.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end we get to see what has happened to all the surviving characters years later. If you choose the DESTROY option the surviving characters are stranded on earth and are trying to rebuild civilization there. Legion and EDI both die obviously and Tali succumbs to infection but the rest of the cast survives.

If you choose to SURRENDER to the reapers to save yourself and friends, the ending shows all the cast living on the world they've been granted in a primitive but stable society. All of the characters are there along with other members of their family/clans. While extremely somber at the loss of the galaxy to the reapers, the characters at least have hope for a future of peaceful future on this planet and are even optimistic about repopulating and rebuilding the galaxy in the far distant future. If Shepperd had a romance at the end of ME3 and the romance character is human or asari we find out that he and the romance have had a child.

If you choose to FIGHT, well CHRIST this is getting way longer than I intended, I basically already explained those already, just use your imagination for the rest.

 

[Jason Rayes]

.. I'm thinking it should involve the MAKO since I loved that thing.

Whoo, I'm not the only one who didn't hate it

 

[Terminal Blue]

Imagine if a race of aliens designed one piece of a weapon and then buried it in the desert before going extinct. million years later another alien just happens to dig it up and knows instinctively to add another piece to something when it doesn't even know what it is.

That's not what the catalyst said happened, and you know it.

Let's look at the actual "big ideas" behind the game, because there are some.

1) There is an extinction cycle which has successfully wiped out all advanced species in the galaxy for countless millions of years.
2) The extinction cycle works because the technology of all those species is based on reaper tech. The existence of the Mass Relays and the citadel "imposes order on the chaos of organic evolution", as Sovereign puts it in ME1.
3) However, each new civilization builds its spacefaring society on the ruins of those who came before. There is always an ancient species who mysteriously vanished 50,000 years ago and left a few relics behind. Presumably, this prevents them from ever looking too deeply into who built the mass relays.

So, we have two main technological influences on the Mass Effect galaxy. The Reapers, who are always constant, and the Protheans, from whom humans actually learned how to use Mass Effect fields and acquired the crucible plans.

What were the two technological influences on the Prothean empire. Again, the reapers, the technological constant, and the Inusannan, the species they copied and from whom they acquired the crucible plans.

The crucible is the cumulative result of each civilization's attempt to defeat the reapers (generally too late). It is not just species building random components by instinct. It is always the same device with the same purpose, but each species has modified the design in accordance with their own unique technological focus (you know, the thing the sovereign claimed doesn't exist) until it's no longer just an inferior copy of reaper tech like everything else in the mass effect galaxy but something entirely new.

This is why the completion of the crucible marks the failure of the cycle, and why the catalyst doesn't just go "fuck this" and vent the atmosphere. The "chaos of organic evolution" has won out, and if it doesn't do so this cycle it will do so again because it's not completely controlled. The crucible is living proof.

This idea of technological determinism versus technological plurality is a pretty big deal in this setting. It's such a big deal that legion, walking infodump that he is, actually spells the whole thing out repeatedly in Mass Effect 2.

Which isn't actually in keeping with the general theme of the series (Shepard getting his friends together to do the impossible) but that's besides the point.

I don't particularly see how it's incompatible.

Besides, I'm pretty sure that was only the local plot of Mass Effect 2.

Were all the reapers there as well?

Nope. A casual glance at the galaxy map and the fact that in the crucible firing sequence we see them on other planets clearly indicates otherwise.

They're still annihilating Palaven, Tuchanka, Thessia and all the other battlegrounds in the galaxy.

Further more, it was clearly established that striking a reaper in it's eye thing while it charges will fuck it up, but at no point was this clarified or expanded upon.

No it wasn't.

For one, the capital ships don't have "eyes". As you can clearly see, their main guns are mounted on little protrusions where the mouthparts would be on a squid.