If you were obscenely rich and had obtained the rights to the Mass Effect franchise what would you d

I'd start from scratch. And ditch the retarded "trilogy" nonsense. A trilogy only makes sense when you have only 3 games worth of story. The nature of ME's story makes for a scenario in which 3 games could never be enough to tell it logically from Eden Prime to Battle over Earth. And I'd actually plan the series out from beginning to end BEFORE I made the first game.

What Bioware did was make a game. Then make a sequel which ignored/tosses away the gains of the first and accomplished nothing, not forwarding the plot at all really. Then made a final entry that relied on a deus ex machine, a McGuffin and basically had to contradict or make irrelevant all previously established lore to rush a conclusion that was not properly set up. Yes, the games were fun but the plot progression was beyond amateurish and the people involved in crafting the plot have no business considering themselves professionals.

This is true.  But then they should just take a page out of Disney and render the entire Shepard trilogy "Legends"

Remaking a very different me3 at the very least, if not remaking the whole trilogy with improvements.

I'd go with Harebrained Schemes, myself.  But I can respect that choice.

Well, considering it's 100 years later and mankind spreads like a time lapse wildfire, I guess none of them? It'd probably just be closest to what a post-Destroy or Control is like way off in the future, with no actual reapers around and possibly the inclusion of geth, who would just be allies with the quarians since that's the only way for them to survive and have the quarians remain a fixture. Obviously it would just require a fair bit of handwavium so that we can keep all those precious species and such, and just say "Oh we fixed most of the relays, now shut up about it".

Well, that's really neither here or there. What matters is the more immediate effect on their society once they figure out that this "cure" isn't really working. They'd just go back into decline and go back to being roving mercenaries, bringing them back to square one, only this time, the rachni will be eyeing their planet as a new place to colonize and there's diddly squat they'd be able to do about it.

If I was dirty rich I'll make destroy canon and continue after ME3. Shepard is the main character, save milky way from within, force alliances after every race are going out for themselves, (Find new races) all the squads me1,me2 and me3 helping shepard get around faster in an ill broken galaxy, new enemies from Andromeda galaxy or another galaxy, they come after the milky way launched the ARC's ( described as Flashes of lights from multiples world's) now they know how to find Milky Way and want resources or to make a New empire. All the ship's missing in the game have been slaved and forced to work for them, slaves are forced on telling secret and infiltrating ... etcetera

Full reboot. I would start with the First Contact War. It always bugged me only 30 years had passed between first contact and ME1 - too short for humans to gain the kind of clout necessary to be where they are at the start of ME1. There's a couple of game's worth of story there. The first seeds of the Reaper mystery would be sown here. Perhaps we'd witness and/or participate in the creation of Cerberus.


The next batch of titles would start with Sheppard's origin stories (think DA Origins - either one of the 3 origins mentioned - as a an intro) and would end with the Reaper war which would conclude with the deactivation of the relays rather than their destruction (either you fail to get the means to deactivate the network and your civilization collapse or you succeed and get a lease on time) - stranding pockets of citadel people and/or Reapers in far flung corners.


The final batch would cover the aftermath. Without the Citadel, its governing intelligence (no *not* the star kid bullshit - but that premise would have worked had it been properly fleshed out and not cooked up the weekend before launch) and the relay network, the Reapers would be isolated and could no longer launch coordinated attacks. In effect the 'harvest' would be halted. Some of them would end up being overwhelmed (Leviathans, Rachni, Geth, large pockets of Citadel forces), some would go on destroying anything in their path. But their overarching goal would be to re-establish unity among themselves before resuming the offensive - or perhaps re-assess its necessity? You would be one of the survivors, doing guerilla-style hit-and-runs, salvaging tech, discovering ways to cancel out indoctrination, while all the while fleeing the disaster (most core worlds were wiped out during the initial phase of the attack - think BSG here) and making for the farthest sectors of the Milky Way where no relays were ever built. Essentially - run and hide while hoping to find something to turn the tide. And thus the whole 'suspension of disbelief' of crossing into dark Space to another galaxy would be avoided.


*sigh* Oh well - I don't have the money to pry EA/Bioware's greedy paws away from either this franchise or Dragon Age so...

As one who really likes origin stories, I typically don't like to hang on to any particular protagonist for too long. I enjoy watching them start from no-name to somebody. By the end of the trilogy, Shepard is practically Jesus. There might even be a cult out there that worships him/her after the reaper war. It's just too much.