[cDnStealth]

Originally Posted by Henry Fool

Spoiler!

I agree about that ambiguous nature of the Crucible. It seemed to me that apart from the general weariness and guilt over leaving Earth behind, there was some other nagging thought at the back of Shepard's mind. They were building something they didn't understand. They were fighting a conventional war against something they didn't understand. And the world had already been lost.

I hear complaints about the "star child" and it's hard to discern how much of it is genuine criticism and how much is simply angry rhetoric. The fact that the Catalyst was self-aware was a revelation but not what I would call bad writing. The larger design had already been hinted at on Thessia and they didn't know what they had built in the Crucible and what the Catalyst really was. The fact that it chose to speak to Shepard in the child's form is beside the point. It could have been any form.

It's not like what he tells Shepard is anything radically new either. The child just explains their motivation, tells her that their solution won't work any longer, and presents the options for ways to change the situation.

I chose the synthesis ending and my immediate emotional reaction to it was very strong. The crucible introduced a third option that was excluded before. There was the destroy option, the red one, represented by Anderson; and there was the control option, the blue one, represented by the Illusive Man. This echoes the binary choice that the game's moral system was based on. Those two are basically the options given to Shepard in ME2 when he has to decide about the rogue Geth. The green option is not middle ground, it's something genuinely different, and it ends the cycle as Shepard is absorbed into the machine's energy. I thought it was very fitting.

I understand that people might not feel satisfied on a concrete narrative level. Questions about what happens to other people are left unaswered. But to me it's Shepard's story: she is gone and we're left with what she knows, or what she hopes will happen, which is that life continues. We don't get to join the crew again because Shepard doesn't. It's a hollow feeling but appropriate.

So life gets to go on without the threat from the Reapers. Even though the relays are gone and the civilizations are cut off from each other, they get to build their own destinies without outside control. I think it's also fitting that the relays that made it all possible and which were used as a tool of control are destroyed in the end.

It's not an ending that blew my mind on some theoretical level, but it's natural enough. By the time Shepard gets to the final place, she basically has nothing left, she's broken, whatever life she ever had is gone. It works on an emotional level. It feels like a real death. You really feel the horrible fact that she'll never get to see the people she cares about again. She won't know what happened to any of them. All she knows is that she can make some kind of desperate final decision with absolutely no guarantees.

I'll start off with saying I harbor no anger towards Bioware for the ending they put in. It's there but I don't have to like it. I disagree with you here.

Spoiler!

I think it's bad writing to introduce a character in the final 5 minutes of a story but I'll put that aside for arguements sake. Now, I get to the Crucible and this god tells me that organics and synthesis cannot coexist peacefully. Oh really? Then why did I just end the Geth/Quarian war? It's not just a momentary cessation of hostilities in order for us to fight the Reapers. The war is done and they've made peace with each other. Having something tell me that it's impossible completely flies in the face of what I've just accomplished. I've proved that it's possible.

I have to be honest, I had a real hard time deciding which of the 3 endings I'd go with. Allow me to explain my difficulty and why I feel that the endings just don't work for my character.

1. Control the Reapers. My Shepard is pretty adamant that controlling the Reapers is the wrong course of action. He doesn't believe it's possible and even if it is, that we are not ready for that kind of power. So that ending was pretty much out of the question for me.

2. Synthesis. The trilogy has highlighted how individually we are weak but together our diversity makes us strong. Shepard defeated Sovereign, Saren and the Collectors with a team comprised of various races, backgrounds and beliefs. He's done the impossible because he's had the support of different species. This option is telling Shepard that diversity is a weakness. That if he makes everyone the same, they'll all get along and be better for it. He cannot accept that. Not given his personal experiences.

3. Destroy Synthetics. This is the only realistic option my Shepard is presented with and even then it goes against what he believes in. Shepard finishes his mission by destroying the Reapers leaving everyone as they are. However, he has to sacrifice his allies, the Geth, who he believes have every right to an existance and to which he just spent part of the game defending.

None of these choices are ones I think my Shepard would choose which is why I would have liked a 4th choice. Do nothing. I am serious. I've said this already but I spent 3 games building alliances and the entire 3rd game securing war assets. Shepard has personal proof through experience that everything the god tells him is wrong. So instead he decides to take his stand here and now. If the Reapers wipe out everyone then at least they went out on their own terms. Shepard doesn't bend to anyone and he believes that nothing is impossible to accomplish. Why all of a sudden does he just gives in at the end? It doesn't make sense. It's completely contradictory to his character. I'd be more satisfied if the game ended with Shepard and Anderson dieing on the Crucible after they activated it.

Even worse is that with the mass relays destroyed it's probably more than likely that everyone will die anyway. What happens when supplies run out? Many of those alien races cannot survive on human food and it will be impossible for them to get back to their home systems.

I don't know, it felt like a completely different team of writers took over in the end. But you're absolutely right, it is Shepard's story. That's why I dislike the ending because it fails to take into account his character.