Your Mass Effect 3 Ending.

[Aabglov]

I think it should've gone like this:

Admiral Hackett informs you towards the end of the game that the Reapers have figured out the Crucible is going to destroy all reapers no matter where they are in the galaxy using the mass relays. He informs you that through a leak on your ship that they also have figured out the Catalyst is the only thing they need to stop that and so they take the Citadel (which they've heard houses the Catalyst) to earth and gathered every Reaper in the galaxy around Earth to protect it. Then, having only one move left, Shepard gathers every ally he/she's found and you begin a frontal assault. Then, surprisingly, the Normandy leaves formation several minutes early, but the rest of the fleet is ordered to stay behind.

You arrive through the relay to see about ten bazillion reapers huddled around earth. Instead of destroying you instantly, Harbinger comes forward to stare down your ship. He then opens a hailing frequency and you begin to talk. Shepard calls the entire crew to the cockpit to talk to the Reaper. It's here that Harbinger starts taunting Shepard, lots of "This hurts you" and "Your resistance is futile". Shepard shrugs it off, but then Harbinger reveals something shocking! The leak on your ship is your romantic interest (whoever that may be) and they've been indoctrinated since ME1. Then he says that the betrayal will cost you the war and laughs, if Reapers can laugh.

Then Shepard, probably drinking a BIG GULP full of brandy, begins laughing too. He/She then reveals that he/she knew their love interest was indoctrinated and used them to feed the reapers faulty intel. Shepard reveals that there is no such thing as the Crucible or the Catalyst. It was all a scheme by the Alliance to get the Reapers to capture the Citadel. Why? Because there was something on the Citadel. THE BIGGEST EMP EVER! Shepard detonates it remotely with one of those comical plunger detonators and all electronics in the solar system go offline for 15 minutes(but the mass effect relays don't for some reason). Then the alliance fleet moves in right on time, missing the blast. The ships, encountering no resistance from the offline Reapers, tear the Reaper fleet apart. 15 minutes later the Normandy boots back up, EDI may be lost during the EMP (maybe you can save her with enough war assets) and not a person is killed because the Reapers couldn't even fight back. Your love interest is saved because there are no longer Reapers to control them, everyone on earth has to buy new iPads, the Illusive man says he super sorry and everyone lives happily ever after. Also Kai Leng doesn't happen. Like, at all. Just isn't in the game. THE END

 

[chikusho]

You arrive through the relay to see about ten bazillion reapers huddled around earth. Instead of destroying you instantly, Harbinger comes forward to stare down your ship. He then opens a hailing frequency and you begin to talk. Shepard calls the entire crew to the cockpit to talk to the Reaper.

This is a good idea, but how about the reapers actually fearing the crucible?
Depending on what you've done in the game, you can actually negotiate a cease-fire with the reapers by threatening to destroy all of them. The might of all intelligent life-forms working together, and a weapon added to in each cycle, finally puts the reapers at a disadvantage for the first time. In being spared by the very same Shepard they've tried to (and actually succeeded to) kill for the past few years and whose planet they've demolished, evolve a shred of empathy to the creatures they've tried to harvest. Or you just fucking blast them all, renegade style.

Do this for each of the groups that are recruited by Shepard and have it have a bit more impact (like the suicide mission in ME2; maybe I get to choose that this group should do X while this group does Y).

This. This makes all the sense. I really hope this is what bioware had hoped to do, but were unable due to pressure from EA.

--
Regarding my ending, I had some thoughts about how the star child (or, a less stupid substitute) actually created and started the cycle of reapers due to faulty machinery. Like an out of control defense system, based around the combination of biological self preservation and cold machine logic. The reapers just take directions from this "star child equivalent", and it really does take the joined efforts of living and mechanized beings to overcome it.

 

[Olas]

A while back there was a thread asking [a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.388793-Create-your-own-Mass-Effect-3-ending?page=1"]essentially the same question[/a], so instead of retyping my entire answer, I'll just copy paste it from that thread. Warning it's not brief.

Spoiler

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 why 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: a leviathan.

The catalyst will then explain that the reapers were created to protect the galaxy. Not from warring synthetics, but from annihilation due to weapons of mass inter-stellar destruction that highly 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 galaxy wide dark energy war (a war that would have ended all life in the galaxy) 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 such dangerous and destructive technology. The reapers were designed to enforce this, and for 2 billion years have been keeping the galaxy artificially primitive, and therefore harmless.

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 1024 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 amassed 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.

 

[SecondPrize]

1. There's a big spehss fight with the reapers which is won thanks to some heroics by Shepard and the crew of the Normandy doing some heroic type stuff. The readiness you've built up determines our losses in the fight, with substantial losses even with full readiness. The thing we've been building is actually something we understand, which does something we understand. It's a death star, it fires a big laser. THis helps.
2. Same as above, but we lure a large component of the reaper forces to earth and then use the death star on it. Shepard and the crew you select for the mission will have been essential for the setting the trap and so get Alderaaned with everyone else.

I didn't need to have choice. I just needed for it to make sense.

 

[freaper]

So, I recently had the urge to play the Mass Effect trilogy again. I encountered a problem. The ending sucks so much that it made the playthrough seem pointless. The solution: I reject their reality and substitute my own! Willing the ending into non-existence was pretty easy (I had practice with Highlander 2). So this topic is about the rest of you who chose to do the same thing. What is your ending?
Mine:

Spoiler

The Reapers just "harvest" us every 50,000 years. They plant the "seeds", the Mass Relays and such, and the resulting civilizations are the crops. They store the cultures and technology and either destroy the races themselves or use them like the Collectors or make new Reapers. Sovereign was just being arrogant in the first game. I picture them to be like Brainiac. The "Star Child" and his disingenuous assertions? They don't exist. Yay!

At the climax of the game, if your galactic readiness is high enough, your armies beat the Reapers (albeit with heavy losses). It your galactic readiness is too low, then the Reapers win and the cycle continues. Turns out the Reapers aren't this unstoppable force after all. They haven't actually ever beat anyone in a straight up fight. They are used to ambushing the races through the Citadel and then cleaning up the resulting shocked, disorganized mess. The battle around Earth was the Reaper's Waterloo. Following that, we harried the rest of the Reapers until they retreated back into Dark Space. We stand ready, should they return.

Then starts the rebuilding. The asari are given a new world by the Council and the rest of the races head home to start rebuilding. The rachni help with the numerous construction projects. They rebuild in Maskim Xul, sending ambassadors to the Citadel and become a recognized member of the Citadel races. The Geth, Quarians, and Krogan are all eventually given Council seats, in large part due to their contribution against the Reapers. Ambassador Din Korlack was rushed to the hospital after suffering an aneurysm. The Krogan institute a birth limit (after a heated debate in the Council) to keep their population from exploding. The Citadel races, including humanity, are more trusting of each other than ever before.

Whether Shepard lives or dies is irrelevant. His legacy survives. But I like the idea of Shepard reclining on a beach next to Garrus taking shots at a Reaper hull in a ocean while saying things like
"THIS HURTS YOU."
"I KNOW YOU FEEL THIS."

Fin.

Woah. I reject their reality and substitute it with yours

I like how you still kept it bitter-sweet but made it more plausible. Where can I get this Real Cut of yours?

 

[T3hSource]

Ah, I remember making a thread just like this during the crysis of the ME3 ending
But Marauder Shields hijacked it....
My ending? Being on Rannoch with Tali and the geth. ^_^

 

[Abomination]

Control ending extended cut was the perfect ending for me.

Though I do wish the choices you made pre-battle had more of an effect. I want to see the Quarian and Geth fleets be shown to take down a few reapers together, having surprising success at first only to eventually be overwhelmed and forced to scatter.

I want to see a Grunt-led krogan assault squad land and make good progress only to end up fighting to a standstill, holding your left flank as you ready the missiles to take down a ground reaper. While at the same time a few geth primes hold your right flank with Quarian engineer support.

Once the ground reaper drops you get biotic artillery support for some time as you advance, it essentially hits enemies and effects them with Lift for teporary CC OR you get a 50% damage reduction for the combat depending on the choices you made with assigning the squad. If you didn't assign the squad you get no bonus.

Every combat area could have made use of the choices you made granting you extra assistance on the ground in some way or another.

Shit like that. It's simple.

 

[Project Nemesis]

My ME3 Ending? "Suck on this, motherfuker! *shoots* KABOOM!" I couldn't ask for a more fitting end for my Shepard.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Since ME1 pretty clearly establishes that only the sneak-attack on the Citadel and the Mass Relays all being turned off, trapping all the races separately, is the only reason the Reapers always win, by preventing that, the Reapers really shouldn't be all that big of a threat.

Thus, my ME3 ending is this:

Shepard collects resources, but instead of building the Crusible, Shepard has an entire army of upgraded Normandy-class ships built. Meanwhile, the entire Quarian fleet is turned into a massive Corp of Engineering (screw their weapons, we want their ability to build awesome stuff quickly) and refits the entire Alliance fleet with upgraded Shields (that Tali designed) and as much improved weapony as can be built quickly.

Meanwhile, Shepard has Tali unlock the secrets of the Citadel and use the Reaper's weapon against them - make it so that the Reapers CAN'T use the Mass Relays, trapping them, while the allied forces CAN use the Mass Relays. Thus we use their tactics against them.

The entire Geth fleet is sent in first to soften the Reapers up, then the Alliance, Turian, and Asari fleet hit them hard. The Krogans are used as a ground-invasion force rescuing captives being taken to Liquidification facilities, supported by Salarian covert forces acting as snipers and scouts.

Shepard leads an assault on the Earth-side Human Reaper facilities and plants explosives to destroy the new Human Reaper. He is confronted there by the Illusive Man - who has gone all Saren and turns into one of those Hopper-type Geth, boss style, as Saren did in the first game.

The Illusive Man, acting as the Mouth of the Reapers, tells Shepard that the Reapers are trying to "save" humans - by making them into Reapers. When a human is liquified, or Indoctrinated like he has been, their mind is added to the Reaper Collective. This will allow all humans to become immortal - a massive hivemind within their immortal Reaper body. They will be like the Geth - individual minds making up a greater whole.

Shepard says "fuck that" and kills the Illusive Man in a boss fight, then sets the explosives and escapes on the Normandy.

The attack on the Human Reaper draws the remaining Reaper Dreadnaughts to one point, in an attempt to protect it. Shepard finally orders in the Normandy Fleet (and all surviving members of the other fleets) to fight them. The battle is intense, but the Reapers fall. The destroyed Reaper ships crash into Earth, causing massive damage to the planet, killing millions on the surface, and spreading Element Zero into the atmosphere, exposing all life on Earth to its tumor-causing effects. Shepard's fleet wins the day, but Earth is hopelessly contaminated. Billions will die, and billions more will be ill for years.

And the next generation of humans born on Earth - those that don't die in the womb or shortly after birth - will ALL be Biotic.

This is the Good ending.

The Bad ending, if Shepard didn't collect enough resources, is that Shepard traps the Reapers in a few star systems (using the Tali on the Citadel option mentioned above) and then destroys the Relays in those systems, causing a super-nova like blast that will destroy all the Reaper ships - and tens of billions of innocent bystanders, including the entire population of Earth.

In the end (of either ending) a few Reapers escape, but most - their main force - are destroyed. The Reapers will never again be able to take on the entire Galaxy.

 

[Storm Dragon]

Spoiler: Click to read the best ending ever.

The fleet comes through the Charon Relay with the Normandy at the lead. And on top of the Normandy stands Commander Cassandra Shepard, arms folded across her chest and Blood Dragon Armor gleaming in the sunlight. When they reach the Reaper fleet, she picks out her target: Harbinger. Summoning up all of her biotic power, Shepard launches herself towards the Reaper at incredible speed. Then, with a single, mighty punch, she tears into Harbinger and out the other side. Shepard once again lands on the roof of the Normandy as the oldest of the Reapers explodes behind her.

The sight is so awesome that all of the remaining Reapers flee in terror, never to return.

Why yes, I have watched Gurren Lagann about five times. Why do you ask?

 

[redmoretrout]

Shepherd stops Saren and Sovereign from bringing the Reapers out of Dark Space in ME1. THE END

Both sequels felt very unnecessary to me.

 

[Ellen Barnard]

I hated the ME3 ending, for many reasons, but mostly since it fell so short of my expectations based on ME2. But not because it wasn't a rosy happy ending. The problem was that it hinged on a plot device that no one, in game or out, seemed to understand. Following is my attempt to build up an ending structure to satisfy different tastes, with sufficient plot resolution, but room for mixed results.

[spoilers]
I think successful plot devices fall in to two broad categories - complex devices that are fully explained, or simple devices that have a self-evident purpose. In ME1, there was the beacon, the cipher, and the conduit, all of which were reasonably simple. The beacon was an alien transmitter of visions - the cipher was necessary to make the beacon visions more readable. Given the background context of mass relays, the conduit was also easy to understand in the end. They even explained that it was one-way only. ME2 had the nefarious human kidnappings, that were eventually explained - they were building a human reaper.

ME3 - the Crucible was intended to stop the Reapers, somehow. Over the entire course of the game, no one ever manages to explain how it's going to work, or even how it's not going to work. It was a complex, alien device, but with the plans and all the experts you recruited, you could make some educated guesses. Does it include large quantities of explosive material - no, then it's probably not a giant bomb. A giant space-laser? A transmitter of some kind? Also desperately sad that no one on the engineering team noticed its five docking arms, of comparable size and shape to the OTHER giant space device, and put two and two together.

So - to change the ending, I would start by having a clear idea of what the Crucible actually does. Slightly arbitrary explanation: the Crucible mimics the technology used to communicate orders to the first Reapers (possibly based on the mysterious dark energy subplot that fizzled out). In theory it will allow new programming to be imposed on the entire Reaper fleet- however, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to power it, so the new command will have to be short and sweet. Borrowing from the original - the Citadel will act as a giant battery for it. This is the plan, though the actual command is undecided as yet. The player could be offered the choice of who to let in on this plan, cementing or damaging relations with the various factions.

Now for plot conflict, again an arbitrary mixture of ideas - TIM is also making a play for the Citadel, to use it to transmit his choice of instructions. Shepard and Co must fight TIM for control of the Citadel on the ground, and just to fudge things up even more, the plan has leaked to the Reapers, who are ALSO vying for the Citadel. Unfortunately, since it's their tech, the Reapers achieve control, and move the Citadel, passengers and all, to Earth. The fleet and Normandy follow, in a desperate attempt to punch through and use the crucible.

A CONTINGENCY PLAN is now formed - something lacking in the original. Since the Reapers are massed in the Sol system, failing all else, the fleet can destroy the Sol relay, Earth, and hopefully, the majority of the Reapers. This is what happens if your Effective Military Strength is poor. If you have a decent EMS, you can go ahead and try and connect the Citadel and Crucible - casualties depend on your resources. Possibly the geth and/or EDI, if they're friendly/still alive, can help you retake control of the Citadel. Ultimately you can choose what the Crucible relays to the Reapers, depending on how long you can hold the Citadel for:

* Low EMS - the Reapers selfdestruct on your command, doing substantial damage to Earth
* Medium EMS - most of the Reapers shut down benignly, although some selfdestruct (moral options include shutting them down permanently, deliberately burning out their circuits, etc; or shutting them down temporarily, ready to be rebooted at (and hopefully under) your command)
* High EMS - you successfully shut down the Reapers, with minimal damage, and have plenty of time to choose what to do with them. Besides the destruction meted out to reach this point, and all.
* Failure - the fleets and/or the Citadel can be destroyed by the Reapers before you get to implement your choices, or during your transmission, if you pick something more complicated than immediate selfdestruct.

The player can easily manipulate their EMS, to experience their preferred degree of success or failure, like in ME2. If you do every quest, and prepare like crazy, you can get a pretty assured win (though in ME2, I would still be on tenterhooks until the cutscene of joyous survival played). You can also fail on purpose, just to see what will happen.

On a side note, I would abandon the starchild - and the later stargazer and cute kiddie - as completely unnecessary fluff. My emotional investment lay with the characters developed over the trilogy, and the generic next generation evokes no sympathy whatsoever. It also undercuts the effectiveness of the much earlier child, killed off in the opening scenes - THAT was poignant, so stop there and don't milk it.

 

[aaronobst]

It already ends perfectly, if you swap the original ending with the end of the citadel DLC that is. You're left with a satisfying feel-good ending.