Five Ex-Bioware Devs Talk About Mass Effect 3's Ending

Did you have any detail about what the three would be like? If so, how different was your version vs what is currently in ME3?

6 lines of dialogue and an e-mail across an entire game is not a plot.  There is literally 0 actual references to it. It plays 0 part of the over all story. It was literally a year AFTER I beat the trilogy that I even learned that there was suppose to be a plot there. ME2 it literally never expands beyond a reason for Tali to be on Halestrom.

Can't wait to relive this discourse again.

If Indoctrination Theory became canon, whom shall replace Shepard to defeat the Reaper?   A proper troll answer is Cerberus. Cerberus is a proper troll answer to any Mass Effect related questions.  It will be cool if they went with Cerberus with a Cerberus Phantom.   Lets face it, Cerberus Phantom is an pain in the ass Cerberus enemy NPC that had knock many players on their asses and why not be one for the hell of it with all their known abilities. 

Well i have one of my ideas that My Cerberus Phantom Commander after saving Shepard from Collector due to Liara contacting him during Collector, was looking for the connection between Collectors and a New Reaper Faction. He bumps into Alec Ryder(you can as Alec Ryder for a bit during a certain mission while Cerberus Phantom Commnader was in another fighting). Alec Ryder says that Cerberus Phantom Commander looks familiar like an old N7 that he once knew.  A Black Talons Platoon was tasked to destroy Andromeda Initiative but they were defeated by Both of Cerberus Phantom Commander and his team and Alec Ryder and his team. Yes Cerberus Phantom Commander can asked Cora Harper if she is related to T.I.M. and yes you can flirt with her as well. 

Bit of Cerberus Phantom Commander's history: he was involved in the older generation of N7 like Alec Ryder and David Anderson.  And Cerberus offer him a job and able to be converted into a possible super soldier/assassin. Also he did went thru the process and gotten de-aged due to unknown reason during the project.  Cerberus Phantom Commander and his team assassinated several allies of Saren and took care of Black Talon platoon that Saren had hired by the Suggestion of Sovereign. 

Tessa is one of Cerberus Scientists that did develop the Cerberus Phantom Project and she becomes friends and possible love interests of Cerberus Phantom

Nearly ten years on...in one respect it's actually a good thing though.

Ugh Synthesis? If god put a gun to my head then ordered me to choose between the Synthesis ending, and The Last Jedi, i'd tell him that he already knows my answer and to just squeeze the trigger.

I don't think that's how it's meant. If Niobium is the cut-off-point, it's the old "on 3 or after 3"-question.  Anyways: the idea explains, that the organic parts of Reapers and Husks would be fried because of being surrounded by a lot of heavy metal. A piercing might hurt, but unlikely kill you. Also: if you know beforehand what the crucible is designed to do, you can plan your tactic accordingly. So if space ships could crash when hit by the beam, your plan of course would account for that to keep casualties as low as possible.

Building more knowledge throughout the game about what the crucible does - to the point that you know in theory what it should do - would've been a great step to the right presentation. The crucible should've only be designed to do one thing - beat the Reapers - with unavoidable casualties and unforeseen side effects as downsides.

The catalyst could then still reveal himself as the control unit of the Reapers to try to convince Shepard of another way (letting him/her control them) with less casualties/side effects but the risk of later power abuse (if Shep can take control, someone else with other goals can). To take control, Shep wouldn't fire the crucible, but simply getting an access code/or something similar from the catalyst and instructions on how to use it. Basically the catalyst giving Shep another option, because it knows that the crucible will otherwise destroy them. A plus would be if Shep would've to go on one final mission with that access code (to get to the terminal where it's usable). That could either be on the citadel or maybe on the lead reaper (boarding that one to switch the reapers off would've been a great finale IMO).

Synthesis would be revealed as what the Reapers are trying to do and would happen if Shep refuses destroy or control.

So basically in destroy  you complete the plan the galactic community came up with, in control the catalyst gives up beforehand but with the risk of future power abuse and synthesis (in this build-up) is letting the Reapers win.

i would like to add i agree with the notion and often argued it myself about how the whole game was an ending. the entire game had moments in it that was affected by previous decisions made in 1 & 2, from which companions make an appearance to small stuff, like conrad surviving if you did the jenna quest. there are so man variants throughout the game which is i think what casey hudson meant back when promoting the game when he said it will have 1000 choices taking into account. i don't know if it that much cause i never counted, but it might be. mass effect 3 gives your choices throughout the trilogy weight even if it only have three endings. and i would like to remind everyone that KOTOR only had two ending light vs dark side that completely disregarded if you commited to one and chose the other and it still didn't make any of the choices made throughout the game feel any less meaningless.

It has been a while since chemistry class but Niobium has an atomic number of 41.  Gold has an atomic number of 71 and gold is often used in circuitry.  Iridium is another common material used in weapons in mass effect.  Meaning anyone with an Omni-Tool or say a gun in their hand would be blasted with fatal radiation as the Crucible fires off.  Anyone close enough to someone with an Omni-Tool or a gun in their hands would be blasted by lethal radiation.  Out right killing or subjecting 90% of the galaxy to a quick and painful or a slow and agonizing death.