Let me first start this off by saying that I have no intention of talking about whether the choices Bioware has made regarding the ending. I also apologize for those that feel rather tired about the whole topic; I wanted to wait until the forums died down a bit on ME3, but it seems like it won't happen soon.
What I wanted to do was ask everyone's choices at the end, why they chose these choices, and what they expected at the end.
I played a paragon male Shepard, with an Earthborn Survivor background. I envisioned him as a hardened, but ultimately tired man, sick of the blood and filth he's seen and experienced in his younger days. They did not turn him to bitter cynicism, however. It only made his resolve for peace even stronger. After being granted spectre status and tasked with saving the galaxy from the Reapers, he's always done what he could to preserve as well as save: he chose to save the rachni queen (twice) and cure the genophage because he couldn't bare the prospect of genocide; he saved the council, because they were civilians who were symbols of order in the galaxy; he destroyed the heretic geth, because he couldn't bring himself to rewrite their programming like the Reapers would indoctrinate humans; he destroyed the collector base, because he saw it as an atrocity, something that corrupts and tarnishes the sanctity of life by its mere existence. Is he naive, shortsighted, idealistic? Perhaps. Probably. But he was resolute, steadfast in his belief that we can be better, and that was one of the many reasons why I loved my Shepard.
When the end came, Shepard had done everything "right". He had cured the genophage and stopped the war between the Quarian and the Geth. Only the Reapers stood in his way for what he had believed to be a peaceful future. Then the choices came.
(I should probably say that a lot of what comes after is due to the fact that it was pretty late when I came to the ending, and I misunderstood various parts. But this isn't about what you felt after making the decisions, but what you chose, why, and what was expected)
Destruction was first off the table. Shepard had done everything to save the Geth, to understand what they truly were, as beings of life, not machines. If he were to choose to kill them, he would be committing genocide, as much as he would have were he to kill the rachni queen.
Synthesis was a tough choice. I had understood the option to be the third way out, where the cycle would break by blowing up the mass relays (without understanding that every option would blow up the mass relays), killing all organic and synthetic life from the galaxy. But where there were still possibilities of life, it would start anew, in new forms of both organic and synthetic nature, a hybrid that entailed a wholly different beginning, uncertain, but with hope. This would fit in with the utopian tendencies of my Shepard, but he would be forced to destroy everything he had worked to save. Everyone he knows and loves, sacrificed for something so unsure of succeeding.
Thus, the choice fell to Domination. It was repulsing (given that this was TIM's choice), but my Shepard would be different. He would gladly sacrifice himself, if he could only control them, even for a minute, to disable the Reaper armada and give the forces he had rounded up to destroy the Reaper threat once and for all, if not outright making them destroy each other. The future would be secure with minimal damage to the current galactic society, all for the price of Shepard's life.
So I chose the "blue" option, fully expecting a tragic end to the galactic hero, but a victory for the world at large. Needless to say, the ending didn't live up to my expectations, but I don't believe it cheapened my own expectations nor my investment in the story (if only because I've deluded myself into believing the ending didn't happen).
What did you choose out of the three options given (Domination, Destruction, Synthesis)? Why did you choose it and what did you expect out of that choice? In short, what kind of a person was your Shepard?
What I wanted to do was ask everyone's choices at the end, why they chose these choices, and what they expected at the end.
I played a paragon male Shepard, with an Earthborn Survivor background. I envisioned him as a hardened, but ultimately tired man, sick of the blood and filth he's seen and experienced in his younger days. They did not turn him to bitter cynicism, however. It only made his resolve for peace even stronger. After being granted spectre status and tasked with saving the galaxy from the Reapers, he's always done what he could to preserve as well as save: he chose to save the rachni queen (twice) and cure the genophage because he couldn't bare the prospect of genocide; he saved the council, because they were civilians who were symbols of order in the galaxy; he destroyed the heretic geth, because he couldn't bring himself to rewrite their programming like the Reapers would indoctrinate humans; he destroyed the collector base, because he saw it as an atrocity, something that corrupts and tarnishes the sanctity of life by its mere existence. Is he naive, shortsighted, idealistic? Perhaps. Probably. But he was resolute, steadfast in his belief that we can be better, and that was one of the many reasons why I loved my Shepard.
When the end came, Shepard had done everything "right". He had cured the genophage and stopped the war between the Quarian and the Geth. Only the Reapers stood in his way for what he had believed to be a peaceful future. Then the choices came.
(I should probably say that a lot of what comes after is due to the fact that it was pretty late when I came to the ending, and I misunderstood various parts. But this isn't about what you felt after making the decisions, but what you chose, why, and what was expected)
Destruction was first off the table. Shepard had done everything to save the Geth, to understand what they truly were, as beings of life, not machines. If he were to choose to kill them, he would be committing genocide, as much as he would have were he to kill the rachni queen.
Synthesis was a tough choice. I had understood the option to be the third way out, where the cycle would break by blowing up the mass relays (without understanding that every option would blow up the mass relays), killing all organic and synthetic life from the galaxy. But where there were still possibilities of life, it would start anew, in new forms of both organic and synthetic nature, a hybrid that entailed a wholly different beginning, uncertain, but with hope. This would fit in with the utopian tendencies of my Shepard, but he would be forced to destroy everything he had worked to save. Everyone he knows and loves, sacrificed for something so unsure of succeeding.
Thus, the choice fell to Domination. It was repulsing (given that this was TIM's choice), but my Shepard would be different. He would gladly sacrifice himself, if he could only control them, even for a minute, to disable the Reaper armada and give the forces he had rounded up to destroy the Reaper threat once and for all, if not outright making them destroy each other. The future would be secure with minimal damage to the current galactic society, all for the price of Shepard's life.
So I chose the "blue" option, fully expecting a tragic end to the galactic hero, but a victory for the world at large. Needless to say, the ending didn't live up to my expectations, but I don't believe it cheapened my own expectations nor my investment in the story (if only because I've deluded myself into believing the ending didn't happen).
What did you choose out of the three options given (Domination, Destruction, Synthesis)? Why did you choose it and what did you expect out of that choice? In short, what kind of a person was your Shepard?
