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

But it is a mini-relay. It didn't need to be powered indefinitely, like the Mass Relays, nor did it have the same traffic as one. Surely a one of burst wouldn't require the energy of an indefinitely running Mass Relay.


I'd assume it's Eezo powered, simply because it would need to use some, to manipulate mass. Like the Tantalus drive on the Normandy uses Eezo. Unless we are talking about eezo for mass manipulation and Helium 3 for propulsion. But the Mass Relays wouldn't need propulsion. But on the other hand, we don't know how they work. Saren would know, for working with Sovereign.


If the Protheans could make the Mini Relay from the same alloy as the Mass Relays, I assume they'd have to, then maybe it wouldn't need repairs. We've yet to see a Relay maintenance crew. Or any wear on any of the relays.


Maybe, maybe not.


Honestly, I don't recall if, when first playing it, I had the same reaction. It's been 13 years. But I'd assume Saren came just very well prepared. The bigger question is, if Sovereign has knowledge of the Mass Relays and the materials to make an entire installation, like the one on Virmire and therefore the resources, why not make a mini relay himself to blast him off to the Citadel. Surely it wouldn't take as long as the ... however long his search for the Conduit was. Less suspicious, too. But that doesn't matter, either, because the Reapers get there in 3 years, regardless. And by saying "it doesn't matter" I mean that it is, ultimately, inconsequential.


Does it? Kirrahe wouldn't even try to put a bullet into Kai Leng, when he was down, or in the open, when he retreated? He'd just let this guy walk off? Doesn't sound or look like an STG thing to me.

It’s best just not to think about the total scale of time when it comes to the longevity of the materials of all this reaper voodoo tech, much like how we just don’t bother to think about the lighter fluid in the lighters WALL-E collects. The mass relays themselves would need to be made out of puppies and magic to withstand hundreds of thousands of years of the brutal, neverending stresses of outer space, like gravitational forces, intense spikes and dips in temperature, radiation, etc.. It just works, because eye-fi magic.

Considering how Reapers build themselves, this could be accurate. 

Even then, eventually, every kind of material simply deteriorates. The very bonds that holds it all together inevitably start to come apart, and usually the material that comprises its power source goes first, since reactive matter that produces energy eventually loses its capacity to do so. Even something as nifty and quantum shielding could never protect anything from that. We just have to turn our brains off and accept this voodoo tech for what it is. 

Even that would eventually break down, because in the end, there’s no such thing as free energy. 

Well, for most of those 50,000 years the Mass Relays are off. For our cycle for example the Asari were the first to use them and find the Citadel in 580 BCE, meaning they were off for about 47,234 years or nearly 94.5% of the cycle.

Yea but that is still around 3,000 years of continual running at full power all the time.  Even if they are like 9 miles long that is a lot of fuel that would need to be burnt and even the most hyper efficient power generator is only able to extract a fraction of the over all power of the fuel.

I feel like this is one of those things where it’s best to have as few explanations of the details as possible, because it’ll inevitably start to fall apart under even the lightest scrutiny. Think of it like cars and gasoline in the zombie apocalypse. Gasoline has a shelf life of just a few months, and diesel possibly up to a year at most, after which it degrades and loses its combustibility. In a proper setting that actually accounted for this, people would have to resort to wood burning and using horses well within half a year if they want any kind of transportation, but in TV shows and some games you have people with generators and cars years after the infrastructure that kept these things running completely collapsed. 

Hepler's idea would have been cool and more science-y that magic-y.

Always imagined it would end it with an EMP / reaper destroying virus blast of some sorts in the "successfull" ending.

Since Bioware didn't (want) to touch the endings, I'll just have to continue to headcanon one of those (in no particular order), at least until we get the next/new Mass Effect game.

Dark Energy
Destroy
Hackett's ending
Hepler's ending
Indoctrination Theory