Do you prefer ANDROMEDA? or Milkyway?

Maybe I misunderstood I thought that’s what you were suggesting?

One last thing if there were a post-ME3 MW setting. The Council has to be disbanded. Completely. Not just adding the krogan, volus and elcor, but disbanded. They're proven ineffectual and unwilling to do whatever it takes to defend the galaxy. They remain self-centered and less willing to do what it takes than humanity (who, depending on your choices in ME1, are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good). No, they need to go. I don't know what would replace them but we can't have them anymore. At the least, the asari need to be booted, since they only agreed to help when their own backs were against the wall. (The turian councilor found a way to help, even if he couldn't do it himself. The salarian STG and some of their own forces also agreed to help, because they knew that some whiny dalatrass shouldn't get her way when it hurt others. Wouldn't punish the entire race just because of her.)

Yeah. They're long-lived and not unaware of how things go. They keep killers with "astronomical body counts" a secret because it would hurt them. So, yeah, I'd punish them. At the very least, their vote would count for less.


That could work.

Yes. 

Was it ever mentioned how many knew?

If I had mine way, having an very indoctrinated Liara as a Leader of an important Siari Temple and a true prophetess of The Cult of The Shepard. Then having sects of The Cult of Shepard that are reflective of the all 4 endings and many in-jokes about the Fan Community within those sects. I would have Henry Lawson as a major villain thru out and able to see why he lasted so long. Reapers upgraded him to expand his life and a major leader with New Milk way government.

Having our favorite characters as gods or demons within their worships services. For example, having T.I.M. as a Demon and Shepard would be treated like a god.

Well having a new PC (a potential veteran of the Reaper War) disputing the Cult of Shepard's theology. It could be ranging from An Ex Alliance Marine to a Cerberus Agent(i am biased towards The Cerberus Phantom) to a Mercenary to C-Sec Security Guard to other several thousand potential Player characters, the players can see thru

I agree that I would have not put that scene in the game, but its there.  Nothing against Aldrin voicing the guy.

I have nothing against them not bringing back Shepard, but if they do have a new main character, I like to have new characters with no one from the trilogy making any appearance.

"We" being the survivors.  Also, I didn't say there would be no authoritative figures but they'd have to be composed of beings who looked at the greater good rather than only looking our for their own asses.  There's repeated evidence that the Council is useless, will put their heads in the sand, and unwilling to help when needed.  That was in every game of the OT.

So, given that some type of central authority would exist (in whatever form it comes), the asari have some sort of punitive action taken against them.  I have to tell you, I'm not the forgiving type when it comes to the potential death of trillions.  It's why Destroy is also my only option.

By that logic though, every race should be punished since all governments of the races do shady things and keep it secret to not look bad. For example you say you'd forgive the salarians, and yet their government has done far worse than the others like experimented on other races and developed ways to eliminate them, the Genophage being the most infamous since it was actually used. Then there are the turians whom kept things like a planet-cracking bomb buried on Tuchanka hidden for over a millennium. And even the newcomer humans have done a lot of things that we see throughout the games that they keep hidden so it doesn't hurt their standing, from illegal experimenting with AI or super soldier programs to sending satellites armed with nukes being launched and so forth. So why the hypocrisy of punishing one race but not the other despite both being "guilty" of the same crime: their government keeping secrets about shady things not just from the rest of the galaxy but even their own people? Hardly seems fair to punish billions of civilians for something they had nothing to do with. 

While I would like to see the Andromeda story properly concluded, I’ve always strongly preferred the Milky Way. There was still limitless room for new stories. For me, much of the unique appeal of ME was the near future timeline and playing in our own stellar backyard. It was not too far into the future, not too far away. The fully developed society that had existed since before humans built any recognizable civilizations on Earth was well imagined and executed. We lose many of its strengths and advantages (in mood, tone, story advantages) when we try to transplant the story to Andromeda.

In 2013 (2014?), before we knew for certain that Andromeda was the new setting, we had some lengthy discussions on the oBSN regarding our hopes. We’d heard of the “Pathfinder Initiative”, and I liked the idea. I’d hoped we’d be part of an exploratory mission venturing through newly activated Mass Relays or even going off the Relay system. I love the idea of venturing into the unknown, and even being cut off from the rest of galactic society for a time. There’s a world of difference in tone and goals, though, between my imagined MW Pathfinder game and the Andromeda Initiative game we received. In my game, we’d have been trying to get back home, either immediately or eventually. In Andromeda, we are trying to establish an entirely new home. The differences are night and day. Also, a bit off topic, I’d hoped for a grittier, more true-to-life shift in tone. Instead, we got a cheerier, happy go lucky tone. I think that’s one of the biggest miscalculations they made. The tone fell flat for many with whom I’ve spoken or whose posts I’ve read.

They were afraid to alienate gamers by choosing a “canon ending”. They’d have gotten over it for a good, new ME game. They alienated far more by changing the winning formula too much.

I'm not talking about the beacon.  I'm talking about the Ardat-Yakshi.

We are, however, now in a post-Andromeda reality.  It happened, the AI went to Andromeda.  That's part of the ME lore now.  Just abandoning the Andromeda story... treating it like it never existed... is not a solution.  It's just adding another insult to the franchise.

So, the only alternative that gets us back into the Milky Way is to now connect the two stories.  The timeline now is 632 years after Shepard fired the crucible unless they go a step further an introduce a time warp of some kind to erase that 632 years.  I think that erasing that 632 years would be worse than merely acknowledging that much time has passed in the Milky Way... changing things in that galaxy.  With that much time having transpired, I see no reason to insist that what choice Shepard made needs to be made so obvious that they have to declare one ending canon and, in so doing, completely invalidate the other too. 

To me, the preferable choice now is to change the Milky Way enough that they can acknowledge any of the endings through a verbal or datapad easter egg that is sensitive to whatever the player puts in as their previous ending decision.  The ending is acknowledged, just not in an obviously visual way or a way that greatly affects the progression of the new story.  Furthermore, the people in the AI are definitely unchanged by the Crucible and, therefore, can be introduced back into the Milky as the basis for preserving the old species of the Milky Way while, at the same time, introducing new species within the Milky Way (species descending from the old ones, but having been changed by an apocolypse that followed sometime after the time period shown in the EC's slides).  Artifacts from the past prior to the crucible being fired would still exist... we could find remnants of the Temple in Thessia for example and perhaps discover or muse about the beacon there in different ways.  The relays would still be there... we might have to figure out how to repair them to make the active again resulting in us opening up relays that were not open in the OT AND reactivating relays disabled by the crucible.  I just don't see how moving the timeline forward 632+ years precludes us being tasked with the sort of exploration you're describing.

The salarian government has a much larger body count on their hands than the asari do with the Ardat-Yakshi. At least they try to contain them and thus try to eliminate the risk. And again, the civilian population doesn’t have a say and many asari even think they are just a superstition.