The litmus test

You've made your point repeatedly. I just disagree with it and don't see a point in continuing this discussion.

Point of fact, this applies to you as much as anyone.

No, you have to get that crap from Kadara that Suvi asked for in MEA for Movie Night. 

Never expected to continue the discussion. It was a last word bit giving another final example before dropping it.  But it is an interesting shift in narrative for stories were the hero or heroine in this case dies rather then gets the guy. Children's stories were much better in the old days.

When your using it as an excuse to back out of actually addressing valid points I'm making just because it would weaken or defeat your opinion. Yea not so much because that is a clear and obvious cop-out. And if you can't face or deal with someone potentially showing your opinions over a video game are flawed. How the hell are you suppose to deal with someone doing that to something really important in your life like government or health based issues? The USA right now is really showing the impact of this dig your heels in and ignore anyone who disagrees with your opinion set up.

Regardless of your political party and regardless of your thoughts on current POTUS the Russia investigation is a serious issue. And yet there are forces doing their best to discredit it at every turn. And worse yet they are succeeding with at least the core voting base of one of the political parties. So regardless of the out come for a fairly significant portion of the population all that propaganda while have the effect of seriously undermining the judiciary branch of government. And I mean beyond the already existing group of Alex John's cavalcade of crazy.  So when you actually have conversations with people who genuinely think this is some witch hunt meant to discredit the current POTUS because the FBI doesn't like him.  When you provide the proof and evidence gathered that shows even if Trump didn't personally do anything that people under him or people connected to those under him potentially did and thus the investigation is valid. It will either end with the person swearing at you or the false polite agree to disagree.  Which is code for "your proving me wrong so I don't want to talk to you or admit I might be wrong."

And all this ties back to the saying:

If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

If you can't handle discussions with simple stuff and avoid things that might prove you wrong over your opinion on a game. The inferiors aspect of how you behave. Then that seems to be a pretty good judge of character on how you will behave with important stuff IE relationships, government and health issues. The equals  in that statement.

Again, incorrect.  If the Reapers said, "just this one time we have to make a massive sacrifice for everyone to survive", maybe we could buy into it.  However, that's not what they're doing.  Their interest is solely in themselves (not the entire galaxy, except as it pertains to slave maintenance) and they do it repeatedly.  Destroy is a one-time option and, regardless of your unsupported claims, does not actually kill the entire galaxy.  Well, no, I should say with low EMS the devastation can be great but then that means playing a Saren-level Shepard anyway.  (Meaning, s/he's just as bad of a person as Saren ever was, pre-indoctrination.)  That kind of Shepard I would expect to give no fucks about the entire galaxy going down in flames.  However, I don't play that kind of Shepard.  I go for the high EMS and my game will show things getting rebuilt, see Shepard survive, see Miranda working alongside the Alliance, see Jacob teaching kids, see the krogan rebuilding their world for the first time in eons, see the quarians walking freely on their homeworld, see the Citadel restored...should I go on?  You want to paint it that it's a horror story following Destroy but the game just doesn't support what you say.

If you'd gone and said, "the game doesn't paint a bad picture for Blue and Green, either" you might have something.  I still think Control looks pretty bleak because I know I wouldn't care for enormous machines "watching over" me, never knowing for sure if they'd go on a rampage again.  Similarly, Synthesis only removes conflict between machines and organics.  In the end, we don't know the long-term ramifications, and certainly have no reason to believe war is done for - maybe not even war with the Reapers.  Since the Reapers seem to have gone off-plan anyway, who can guess what else they might think needs fixing?  Everyone being techno-organic or not, they're still massively more powerful. 

I'm presenting this in terms of why, as Shepard, I might not choose these options.  It's sort of off-topic to discuss the endings because when the choice is made we don't know the ramifications.  As Shepard, I can't trust the Reapers.  They're deceitful, the indoctrinate agent, and they've killed more organics than I even have numbers to come up with.  As Shepard, I was tasked with ending the threat of the Reapers and will do that to the best of my ability.  Any outcome where they continue to exist means they continue to be a potential threat.   Only one choice removes them and so it's the only option I can trust.

This is the exact reason why I choose destroy.

Mission Objective: Stop the Reapers.

Destroy Outcome: Reapers Destroyed. 


Mission Accomplished. 

I agree with that.

I will add another solution, Harbinger. ME3 plays out nearly the same, except your war assets will be for clearing a path to Harbinger to destroy him. The assets will also determine how  many squadmates the player has and how many will survive. Harbinger is destroyed, the rest of the reapers, now leaderless, head back to darkspace never to be heard from again. If the Leviathan dlc is completed, Leviathan confirms that destroying Harbinger would stop the harvest

While the indoctrination theory as a whole isn't canon, I like to headcanon that Shepard is fighting indoctrination in Mass Effect 3. Just the fact that that the Catalyst looks exactly like that human kid on Earth is suspicious to me, along with no one else seeming to see or interact with the kid when the Reapers are attacking.

Well it is possible to convince Saren and the Illusive Man to kill themselves, at least preventing themselves from continuing to be tools of the Reapers (not that it works with Saren, but he was already synthesized too much). But do we know for certain that indoctrinated individuals aren't "cured" if the Reapers are destroyed? I don't know enough about the lore to address that. For me it's just a fun headcanon though. I can pretend Shepard's indoctrination ends once she destroys the Reapers.

What is your proof they are solely interested in themselves? They are eternal and exist in such numbers to blot out the sky. They need nothing and gain nothing from the harvest. They could wipe out all life in the galaxy and nothing would be gained or lost for them.

Never said it would kill the entire galaxy only that it would be more interesting if it did. How ever it would kill all the technology in the galaxy. Which would have drastic and heavy consequences due to that. Because entire basis of society is now build on technology.  Removing all the technology from the galaxy would be the equivalent of removing all the load baring beams from a building. The result would be it collapses on it self and kills most of the people in it. And the rebuilding would take centuries as they would have to literally rebuild society from the ground up and rediscover technology. That was the implications of the destroy ending in the vanilla game. That is the ending and the consequences that they dropped to give people the happily ever after endings of the EC.  The wave was given space magic properties to only effect Reapers and some how not all the other Reaper technology the entire galaxy is build on. Suddenly technology they didn't understand it a simple fix it problem. All the problems and issues are hand waved away just as much as you like to complain about the Synthesis ending.  Only unlike that ending the hand waving makes even less sense due to the consequences of that choice that by every scrap of logic says should have happened but didn't.  The Reapers still exist and are capable of rebuilding the Mass Relays. Technology hasn't been effected so all the previous technology that society was build on is still there to be used and relied on.

The logic that because there is a chance they might decide to kill everyone can be equally applied to the Geth or Turian or Asari or Humanity or Krogan as well. Never know when the Asari might think something needs to be fixed and they are still massively more powerful then any other race. Best kill them all to prevent any problem from happening. TIM is walking proof that Humanity needs to be wiped out because never know if they get to powerful they might try to kill and subjugate all the other races. Synthesis is Liara's hypothetical conversation with EDI made reality. The fundamental nature of life has changed. Before 1+1=2 but now 1+1=3.  The entire point of the Harvest was to go after races hundreds or even thousands of years before they would reach the  point of no return for the conflict to escalate.  But now everything is different. All the old equations are useless like old medical papers declaring that the human body is full of humors that have to be balanced to be healthy.  It would take centuries for the Catalyst to see the effects and to study if other solutions would work. In that time the races would be more then able to advance in technology. Meaning even if the Reapers decided to attack again they would be met with an even more populated galaxy full of beings nearly if not on par with them in terms of technology.  At it's best it would be a costly war that would see the Reapers destroyed. At it's worse the Reapers would finally see there is no solution and would wipe out all life in the galaxy.  Leaving only the Reapers as eternal examples of the folly of organic life. Eternal proof organic was never able to stop it self from reaching to far and causing their own destruction.

The Reapers in their actions are no different then the actions of Black Ops or intelligence agencies on any living race. Deceitful, indoctrination of people to their believes and willing to murder at will. All knowingly done and with support from the governments of their races. The only difference is the scale as the Reapers have been around much longer they have a much higher body count.  Why is Humanity allowed to live when leaders knowingly and willingly will kill others to suit their needs? But the Reapers need to die when they do it?

A few points.  I'm not going to address everything.  I see how you're already wrong in multiple instances.  First, the Reapers do gain something.  They gain numbers.  Once upon a time, there was only the Intelligence.  It turned on its creators and made the first Reaper, Harbinger.  With every harvest, their numbers grow.  Hence, your assertion that they gain nothing is dead wrong.  They continue to grow more powerful with every cycle.

Second, it does NOT kill all technology.  Guns still seemed to work fine.  The Normandy got up and running.  The Citadel was rebuilt.  The mass effect relays were brought back online.  Everything in the slideshow suggests that, no, technology was not destroyed unless you chose the low EMS route.  In that case, you're playing Shepard as a total dick anyway so no surprise.

The rest is just bullshit.  None of the other races have the power or interest in doing what you assert.  The Reapers not only do but have been doing so for at least a billion years.  Sorry, buddy, but your arguments are completely false.  I'm not here to tell people not to like whatever ending they want or even argue with them over it.  You choose to argue and so here we are.  You've got no proof.  Accept that and drop the argument.  I can tell you flat out that I've never seen a single argument you've presented that has even remotely swayed me.  In fact, it's made me think even more about it to get why I'll never buy into what you're selling.  Mind you, I'm talking YOU specifically.  I give no fucks over what ending anyone chooses but you have made it your personal goal to convert everyone to your way of thinking.  How's that working out for you?