What is your Shepard's morality?

If by hero you mean a doormat.

Renegade is the only one with backbone. Though the way people write about it, are they actually counting decisions like Save or Kill Rachni as Renegade and Paragon options and basing Paragon/Renegade off of that? 

Such as?

This sounds like a discussion between hardcore democrats and republicans...both are equally incapable making compromises for the greater good.

Best example of this is the Collector base decision.

Destroying (paragon) it is given no rational justification*, just some "i WoNt LeT fEaR cOmPrOmIsE wHaT i aM" moralizing nonsense, which is the dumbest reason I've ever seen to throw away a chance to gather a ton of data on a technologically far more advanced enemy (akin to capturing a Nazi aircraft production facility and detonating it instead of studying the advanced tanks/planes etc inside because Nazis are bad).

Doing so renders the entire ME2 main plot pointless and sets the narrative back to where it was in ME1 where you are no closer to finding a way to defeat the Reapers. It shouldn't have even been an option.

*there is a semi rational justification in keeping the base away from Cerberus, but given the Normandy is the only ship with the IFF that can navigate the Omega 4 Relay, you wouldn't actually need to destroy the base to do this. Paragon Shep is a retard in this scene though, and he doesn't think of or Express this rationalization.

That's one thing I deeply appreciate about Andromeda and 3. Not having to stay blue or red to get those sweet sweet points to talk better.

I have a lot of Shepards. My favorite is a by-the-book professional who ends up a fairly purple paragade. Next favorite, after too many runthroughs, was a snarky Shepard where I just went for the wiseass lines and options (neutral, paragon or renegade) who ended up as a pretty purple renegon.

I like different personalities on my Sheps. I don't know that I've EVER done pure renegade or paragon. Sometimes paragon is a bit too lawful stupid and renegade too petulant manchild. Depends.

i disagree. Both my true blue paragon and my much more practically minded paragrade both destroys the base. We know what Reaper tech does to people. At that point its well established thanks to the derelict reaper et all. The game might not express that aa justification word for word, but its still there.

That, plus Cerberus' established goals and their track record with any tech more complicated than a toothpick.

That would be more rational than "This place is too tainted to study because *insert unarticulated principles and moralistic whining*"....

but it's not a concern voiced by Shep or any of the 12 squadmates, so it's basically a rationalization that doesn't exist in the story according to whoever wrote it. You aren't being an idiot by picking the option, but Paragon Shep is absolutely acting like an idiot when picking it.

and really, it's Reapers themselves that cause indoctrination. The better shooty guns (Thanix cannons), Mass Relays, FTL drives and other tech we got from them don't seem to cause it despite all being "Reaper tech".

Indoctrination doesn't seem to be a function of the specific Collector tech anyway, or we aren't shown it doing so despite oppourtunities (the captured colonists and crew that are later freed).

The problem is that the time for disagreeing with Cerberus goals would've been the start of the story not after working for and helping achieve all their goals up to this point. Paragon Shep still ends up looking like a moron here.

Though as I stated before this false dichotomy set up of "blow up base" or "give base to Cerberus" is stupid in the first place. Should have been give it to Cerberus or Alliance/Council given Shep is the only one with an IFF to get there.

Killing them and upgrading your tech level to have a better chance against their masters does it better. It's not like you lose anything.

Yes the Reaper tech AI is quite capable. Great argument for refusing to study other tech because of unarticulated moral principles.

That's not a bad point actually. I think I will have to replay Leviathan to be sure because some of the details are fuzzy to me however I do remember specific shielding was involved in such cases, even Bryson...if I remember correctly...had a shield around just a Reaper tenticle trying to prevent it from...doing what it does so once more even inanimate damaged looking Reaper tech can maybe indoctrinate...or he was being overly cautious.

However it should be noted given Cerberus's track record this could also be taken into account. Given how many of their projects in both ME 1 and ME 2 ended up turning on them, and given Shepard's likely knowledge of such projects, makes it just another point to consider against giving them the base.

But there's also the Object Rho, which has no drive core but can still indoctrinate people (and talk smack with Harbinger's voice, somehow).

They really didn't set consistent rules with this stuff.
It's also a post-hoc justification, I'll admit.

Really, there were many points in the story that could've used 4+ dialogue options instead of 2. ME3 in particular suffers from this, but the Collector base decision is  almost as bad as anything there. You either waste the base entirely for no good reason, or hand it to an organization that may do something competent with it (e.g. Lazarus cell), or may catch an idiot ball and get all their guys killed (e.g. Everyone in Cerberus that isn't the Lazarus cell), albeit a Paragon might also still see that as a plus.

Needed to be an option to contact Alliance or any of your other potential allies  at this point (Council, Geth/Quarian etc.) or even keep the base for yourself. It's not like anyone else can get through the Omega 4 relay without the Normandy's IFF (until the ME3 writer forgets this detail and has Cerberus somehow going there and salvaging stuff regardless of your decision)