Make your own Mass Effect 3 ending snippets

[Dr. Paine]

Having finally beaten the game... I was pretty okay with the ending, honestly. Not perfect, but it sure as hell wasn't disappointing. But my personal, 'impossibly good' version (of the Destroy ending) would likely go as such:

-More questioning of the Child, though I did note that it itself pointed out that the cycle was no longer an option. When it was created, it was a viable one, but with all that happened in the events of Mass Effect, it's not any more.

-A way to simply destroy the Reapers. Or... hell, I'm even fine with saying that it only targets Reaper-like intelligence/synthetic signatures. Which, for all we know, EDI and the geth have advanced beyond, since it's shown they're also capable of compassion, forgiveness, etc that the Reapers don't seem to have. ... I couldn't kill the synthetics, damn it (I really did enjoy the synthesis option, but for my 'ideal' ending, destruction without hurting EDI or the geth is necessary).

-I would have preferred the Normandy/crew remain on Earth, so having them there. Quarian liveships would remove at least a fair bit of the whole 'what would they all eat' issue, and since the geth were already helping the quarians re-adapt to the homeworld, they could certainly help with adapting to/rebuilding Earth. I can also see massive-scale terraforming of Mars, too, just to give everyone some extra space- and who knows, maybe there, there's schematics on the Conduit (I honestly can't remember if the archives were destroyed back in the beginning of the game. But for these purposes, they're not), which helps lead to re-creating the Relay system.

-Make it clear that the Relay explosions would not destroy their systems, as the energy was turned into something compeltely different, all that would happen was some space debris.

-Krogan babies, maybe Mordin-the-girl-krogan working in a lab and humming something. Rachni, asari, geth and krogan (due to skills and lifespans) on stations as they rebuild the Relays. Some small follow up on the individual characters- personally, I don't have many ideas on what it'd be, aside from like... Liara's father (I can never remember how to spell her name) getting a long-overdue apology for her suggestion to build their own Relays, and leading the first push to rebuild them. Miranda and Oriana leading a refugee camp for all species. A turian on Omega (which, as it always has, has gone back to being a violent hellhole) praying to the spirit of Archangel, to give him (or her) the strength to defend the innocent of the station. Eventually, Liara having a spot on the Council, leading to...

-However many centuries or even thousands of years later: The galaxy is as peaceful as it'll ever be- the geth are still as helpful as ever and have a joint embassy with the quarians on the new Citadel, the majority of krogan are still cool, etc. But there might be krogan splinter groups trying to invade everything might be a problem, the batarians might be completely losing their crap from slowly going extinct, I dunno.
But for one day, all that seems to cease, and all attention is focused on Kajhe. Shepard was found alive in the rubble, but she was still incredibly injured, and lived only three months after the end of the war. As decreed in her will, she was cremated and her ashes have been preserved until interstellar travel was once again possible. If, by everyone busting their chops and working ceaselessly, it's only a thousand or so years later, Counselor (and by now, Matriarch) T'Soni giving a eulogy for her (if it's so much later... why not Zoidberg EDI?), before releasing the ashes into Encompassing.
And because they deserved their happy ending... somewhere in the galaxy, a human Spectre and her drell boyfriend raise a toast as they watch a live feed of the presentation, before going back to whatever target they've been pursuing.

... yeah, even if she lived, my Shep would never have had a nice little 'reunite with LI' ending. So I'll go with the thought of her dying a legend, but the various reincarnation/wheel of life thing being right, and allowing her and Thane another chance.

And man, that turned out cheesy. ._.

 

[w00tage]

I want to meet Bioware's quality of storytelling all the way, so this - http://www.gamegrene.com/node/714

Spoiler

"Rocks fall, everyone dies"

Nah, that was Obsidian.

Though they atoned for it with the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansions, which were ball-shatteringly amazing.

Yah I know it was Obsidian that made it, but you have to remember they had a pretty close relationship with Bioware people-wise. I would not be surprised to learn that Obsidian people talked over their ideas with Bioware people as a matter of course. I note a marked resemblance in story between NWN2 original and ME1 in terms of what the player was given and told to do, so I was extending that a bit here

 

[blind_dead_mcjones]

remove the god-child nonsense completely for starters. shepard activates the crucible, which causes the reapers mass effect cores to exponentially increase their mass/felt density to the point that they impact in on themselves/implode/tear themselves apart under their own weight.

shepard then passes out from his/her injuries, flash forward to a a few months later where the various stages of rebuilding is shown along with where the various other characters are, cut to inside the normandy where its buisiness as usual for the crew, cut to port observation deck where the squad members are playing cards, then a cut to the starboard observation deck where shepard and his/her love interest are just relaxing on the couch, one arm slung around each other, gazing out the window into space. then it fades to black and the credits roll.

 

[Kif]

I would have kept everything up to and including the Illusive Man, then I would have had Shepard pass out, and wake up with Hacket in his ear saying Shepard do you read me the Crucible isn't doing anything etc.

Shepard would wake up surrounded by Keepers, the keepers as one voice would through a conversation explain how the Reapers had created them (organics) but could not create organic intelligence so they gave them machine intelligence.

Keepers maintained the Reapers, relays and Citadel. Then they became aware and rose up against their creators. The Reapers and the Keepers both realised that created will always try to wipe out creators and realised the solution to survive is wiping out intelligent species and enslaving them, Keepers realising this is what the Reapers would do and realising the Reapers would strike back at them created the initial plans for the crucible before the Reapers removed their voice (intelligence).

Hacket would warn Shepard that whatever he's gonna do he needs to do it fast because Harbinger is on his way. Shepard would ask the Keepers if the Crucible works and can be used, they would say the design has changed it is not yet integrated with the citadel and will only work at partial power. They need time to integrate it.

In comes Harbinger, commence last boss fight. Protect Keepers from Reapers and dodge Harbinger attacks whilst occassionally pushing a panel to fire the crucible at partial power at Harbinger. When it's looking grim in comes Normandy and (depending on who you have managed to save employ during the game) a number of other ships to help.

Eventually the crucible brings and ships bring Harbinger down (I realise that sounds similar to ME1, but maybe that's a good thing), one last Reaper conversation cause I do love em. Harbinger exclaims that Shepard is only delaying the inevitable, created will always fight creators, Shepard replies with stuff based on the current Geth situation, Harbinger dies.

Shepard is given the option by the Keepers to either control or destroy the Reapers... Queue massive cutscene depending on choice dead Reapers (personally I would have them just become inactive rather than explode then you can show the fleets finishing them off an celebrating) or turning light blue (the good colour) and then flying away. Following would be a Fallout style sequence of vids / images about and narrated by the species, friends, followers explaining what happened during the final battles and after the Crucible fired the last one explaining what happened to Shepard.

Took me 5 minutes to think of that, it's not great, would need fleshing out, it may have holes and it has to include their contrived notion of bringing order by killing everyone as it appears throughout the game... but to my mind that would have been a much better ending than the one I saw on screen.

(BTW, this is all paragon based don't have the time or energy to think of neutral / bad and to fill in the details of cut scenes of your friends / crew and species outcomes).

 

[phereck]

shepard discovers that the catalyst is really the power of friendship, he uses the power to blow up everything and goes back to earth and eats a cheeseburger and a awesome hard rock song plays in the background
(credits)

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I'm actually writing my own ending at the moment based off of the indoctrination theory. I'm going to have everything look bleak: The last Quarian in Tali's unit gets killed and she by herself, the last of Grunt's company is overrun and Grunt is left to face down several Brutes alone, Miranda in the claws of a Banshee, the portal up to the Citadel is closed and everyone's losing.
Radio transmission:
"Shepard? Is that you?"
"Bailey? Holy hell, you're alive? Where are you?"
"Me and a lot of other people are inside the Citadel. Once those Reapers showed up, we closed the arms. They got a lot of their troops in, but we've kept them back so far. Had no idea what was happening until we heard your transmission to open fire. We're holding out, but it's a losing fight in here. Heard you need the arms open. We can do that."

Cut back to hopeless situations, and depending on renegade or paragon, things play out as follows (I'm going with Paragon): Tali is saved by several Geth Primes dropping from orbit. Grunt takes down one final brute, then Rachni Brood Warriors show up to help him, Jack and her students arrive in time to stop Miranda from being impaled. Stuff like that. I wanted to see the alliances that I built up come in to actual play and help each other, especially ones where the two factions hated each other until Shepard brought them together. Ultimate displays of unity.

 

[winginson]

The main thing I want is a decent epilogue showing the galaxy rebuilding, probally under the leadership of your followers.

Also I liked the Reapers motivation, it made perfect sense. By periodically wiping out all advanced organic life, they stopped the advanced species from creating synthetics that would wipe out all organic life.

 

[JasonKaotic]

Instead of the 'I AM TEH CATALYST!1' bullshit and choosing one of three endings that each punched the player in the bollocks with one of three different knuckle paddings, the whatever-it-was-called just blowing up all the Reapers and having a nice powerful ending that leaves the players drained of everything other than satisfaction would be nice.

I literally just finished ME3 10 minutes ago, so as you can probably guess the disappointment is still fresh in my mind. I fucking loved Mass Effect 1 and 2, and 3 seemed pretty much perfect, and it all felt like it was leading up to an insanely great ending, but then we just got... that.
Ugh.
I was at least hoping to see some touching aftermath. I especially wanted to seehow things went with my Shepard and Tali, what happened on Tuchanka and Rannoch afterwards, how things got rebuilt, etc. But instead we got... that. Just... wow.
I'll stop moaning now. I just needed to vent. God.
Edit: And how the hell did Joker survive that crash if he can't even walk around the ship without breaking his legs?

 

[J Tyran]

If I was going to re-write the Mass Effect 3 ending it would be like this:-

warning, wall-o-text incoming

To begin with I would separate the EMS into two groups, Fleet strength and military strength. Fleet strength would be how many ships you have and how powerful they are. Effective military strength would be the strength of the ground forces available, have some of the use units actually show up during the conduit run too.

The better the EFS (effective fleet strength) the more ground forces you can deploy in the assault on London. A really low EFS would mean that there was no way Sword fleet could punch through the Reapers and allow Hammer or Shepard to land and begin the assault, this would end the game there and then with a cut scene showing everyone and everything getting destroyed and maybe a vision of the Reapers harvesting the galaxy similar to the one in the Prothean beacon in ME1. This would be the first epic fail ending.

Intermediate EFS would mean the fleet would just barely distract the Reapers long enough for Shepard and some of Hammer to land. This would reduce the EMS and lose you some of the units. The ground assault would be similar to the way it is now but with some changes. The higher the EMS the more units would attack the conduit with Shepard, some of the unique units you rescue or get assigned to you by the side quests during the game would help along the way.

For example you could have Asari commando snipers help support the IFVs against infantry attack meaning more survive. Geth primes could help you reprogram the missile launchers to kill the Reaper Destroyer faster and save more units for the conduit run. Like the way the Normandy upgrades and team choices work during the suicide mission in ME2.

Low EMS and having few units during the conduit run would result in the second epic fail game ending. Intermediate EMS would mean Shepard would lose lots of squad mates, the higher the EMS the more survive.

Right now for the actual endings.

If you had a rubbish fleet and military strength you can end up with one of the epic fail endings, first epic fail ending is the fleet getting annihilated and the Reapers being unchallenged. The second epic fail ending is Shepard getting swarmed under and killed in the Conduit run, but a single alliance marine makes it through onto the Citadel. The lone Marine opens the arms and activates the Crucible, victory! Except it isn't, remember how Shepard was doubtful about the Crucible? He said "we could be children playing with a loaded gun" well he was right, the crucible was a scorched earth weapon designed by an organic race millions of years before. They believed that the Reapers needed to harvest organics in order to survive. The Crucible was a super weapon that used the Mass Relays to deliver an energy pulse across the galaxy to kill all sentient life and deny them the harvest.(Halo ftw)The Crucible activates and wipes out everyone, if the Quarians didn't kill the Geth the Reapers wipe them out and leave for Darkspace to wait the longer than usual time(millions of years instead of 50,000) to begin another cycle

The other endings are, indoctrination, paragon and renegade.

Renegade and paragon ends are when Shepard and a single squad mate (either Liara, Tali or EDI, the smart ones) makes it onto the Citadel and is confronted by the Illusive man, a hologram of Harbinger and a third variable character. Harbingers there to smack talk and promise Shepard pain, not having him in the end sucked he needs to be there. The Illusive man tries to explain to Shepard that it really is possible to control the Reapers and they are desperate to stop him. He shows Shepard some data and a device that can do it, the smart squad mate checks it and its true and you can also use the control signal to overload and destroy all the Reapers, the smart squad mate also realizes what the Crucible really is. Harbinger smacks Shepard some more claiming that the Illusive man and your squad mate are wrong. Have some backwards and forwards dialog and maybe a fight, Shepard and TIM getting attacked by some husks.

Then depending up on how paragon or renegade Shepard has been across the game(if possible all three games) TIM tries to activate the control signal and take over the Reapers himself and Shepard will either kill him and take control himself (renegade) or he can stop TIM and activate the overload to destroy them all (paragon). If Shepard is renegade enough maybe the squad mate could try and stop Shepard taking control of the Reapers because that would be to much power for one man, and he could react violently to the interference.

Now for the indoctrination ending, during the game have Shepard face several "indoctrination checks" to determine his indoctrination score. it would be affected by certain actions like trying to salvage that Reaper corpse that the council offered Shepard a citadel store discount for if the destroyed it, you could use the dreams to, or tracking down the source of the buzzing on the Normandy and finding it is a piece of Reaper tech hidden since the collectors boarded the ship. Loads of little checks like that would affect the score.

The Score would ultimately determine who was the final character on the Citadel with TIM, low score would be someone random that Shepard would have little reason to trust and a higher score would be someone like Admiral Anderson who Shepard trusts a great deal. This character would attempt to finish indoctrination of Shepard by convincing him that the Illusive mans control solution is dangerous and needs to be destroyed. This would be resolved through conversation and paragon and renegade choice, a renegade Shepard would try shooting the 3rd char to see if they where real etc. Either a really low or a really high indoctrination score would default the outcome to either believing this 3rd char or ignoring it.

If Shepard does destroy the gadget and data the Illusive man brought Shepard gets a cutscene showing the Reapers eventual victory and a repeat of the Prothean Beacon vision from the first game. The Screams and harshness of the vision would give weight to the failure ending.