What Ending Would You Accept?

Honestly my take on this, my preferred option is destroy as that was always the plan from the first game. Though if Bioware wanted to go for one of the other two options, it wouldn't bother me, if anything just so they can move forward with the milky way. For me Mass Effect is less about the ending and more about the journey towards it. I say pick one ending, and then, begin the ride all over again with another trilogy of fresh choices to make, it's the experience that makes these games for me.

If he is tricking you in Control or Synthesis, he’s also tricking you in Destroy. “Yes, damaging the thing you made to kill us is totally how to make it work.”

Summarizing how he tells us how to make Destroy happen. That scene has him, the leader of the Reapers, telling us that damaging the Citadel/Crucible connection, the weapon we built to defeat them, is how to destroy the Reapers. And Shepard believes that. That’d be like an enemy telling a soldier that breaking their tank’s barrel is how they’ll break the enemy’s position and the soldier believing them.

Indeed, they tell us this but then have us go make peace between the Turian and Krogan, because Palaven needs boots on it in order to win.

Shepard gets hit with Harbinger's laser beam on the tarmac. Dies. Cutscene with the reapers winning everything. Liara seeding the galaxy as in the refuse ending. (smashed TVs, remotes, etc., all over the globe)

Okay, that's not going to fly. Bioware would never sell another game if that was the ending. 

I've picked all three endings in different play throughs for the experience. You did not want my Shepard in charge of the Reapers... trust me.    Synthesis: we couldn't do it because it would have been... forced, the little twerp said. "But you can." Shepard can force it on the galaxy. I picked it one play through and it was terrible.

IMO, Javik should have been part of the original game, not DLC. Shepard should have had a discussion with him about Sovereign and Saren and told him what Saren was up to - "the union of flesh and steel" blah blah blah, and maybe even included a short cutscene... a flashback while Shepard was narrating to Javik so new players who'd never played ME1 could see Saren. They still had the original voice tracks. Just a little bit. Not much. Then they could have used Saren as the avatar for Synthesis. They had The Illusive Man for Control. Anderson for Destroy.

Shepard had one job: stopping the reapers, and to me that means if there's a way to make sure they're dead, do it. So I pick Destroy for the canon. You can have Shepard live whatever.

If I could rewrite all of ME3?

One where as you head to the final battle either on the Citadel, a portal to some Reaper Dark Space Lair or on Earth, there is a plot where the Alliance, despite wanting the best to happen, go against the best for everyone as they pursue total victory. In uniting all species, even that doesn't seem enough so the admirals become more desperate and Shepard starts to realize that they will stoop beyond ethical means to ensure there's any survivors left. The Crucible is a ruse. It's designed to mass-destroy the relay effort as a canned Plan B of the Reapers's creator species eons ago, in order to do a last-ditch effort to destroy the Reapers and all current life with it, hoping there would be just some life left somewhere to grow anew. The admirals do not know that the Crucible will do this, just that it will definitely beat the Reapers with the Mass Relay chaining, so they have begun sending it. Illusive Man wants to Control the Reapers which he still thinks he can do if the Crucible's activation is combined with Cerberus research. Shepard wants to end the Reaper war but more than anything Shepard just wants to stop the Crucible plan, but is being blacklisted by Admiral Hackett, regretfully, and Hackett expresses serious disappointment that Shepard disobeyed his command.

Unable to lead the charge as the military front is brought to Earth/DarkSpace/Citadel (it doesn't really matter tbh) Shepard once again gets help from a few friends (ME2 crew surprise returns) to steer his warship to Earth to step in between the Alliance and Cerberus as the Crucible enters the fray.

After a harrowing battle through the chaotic war-torn streets/harrowing depths of the Reapers's lair/Citadel's inner workings, Shepard gets through the Reaper hordes passing the bygone lives of patriots from many homeworlds, asari, salarian, turians, humans, and gets a little help along the way from people that recognize him and know Shepard must complete their mission regardless of what has been said. We ascend to the transformed version of the Citadel after reuniting with Anderson (who hasn't supported locking up Shepard) and face the unknown inside it. The Crucible is ready to be attached. Both Anderson and Shepard are quite wounded by all the explosions and close calls they faced on their way.

Up through angular, moving platforms and Reaper tubes, and Keepers doing their bidding, we encounter a dying Turian councilor. He has been on the station since it was taken, just like everyone except for the Asari councilor who left on asari Business after losing Thessia. He's too wounded, and dying. Primarch Victus appears. It seems several leaders had their units bet on them to be the ones fixing this Reaper problem for good, and so many of them have ascended up the transportation devices that reach the Crucible, to ensure its activation. The turian councilor has a conversation with Victus, and thanks Commander Shepard for his ability to bring everyone together, in the most impressive military effort the turians have ever seen. He tells Victus he should back Shepard against the decisions of Shepard's own people, as he has seen nothing but reason in Shepard's pursuit of ending the Reaper threat. He sees that now, that everything ultimately was proven true, including Shepard's strategy to unite everyone. He passes away, and Victus is seen doing some kind of last rites of ancient Turian tradition. "Rest, and may the spirits be by your side where you go."

There's a sound behind them of those transportation devices finishing another warp. Liara is here. She was supposed to fall back to the entrance of Earth Level/Reaper Lair backdoor portal/Citadel outer hull dock but turned back around and made it past the last forces. She says her preservation efforts if we fail are already in the hands of her agents and has decided to come here and risk her life with Shepard.

They all head further in, and witness an alliance unit with Admiral Hackett standing next to Illusive Man by a control panel. With no Shepard, and desperate needs, Hackett had sent his next-in-command to hold the fort and took it upon himself to head down, to go down with the ship of humanity and hopefully defeat the Reapers. However, Illusive Man is here. Strangely he is not being held at gun point by Hackett or his frontline unit (many died, there are 4 left). It seems as though they have been talking while the others have mazed their way to them.

The long and short of the next part is that Illusive Man has persuaded Hackett that the Crucible will destroy everything in its wake if deployed now, and Hackett is reconsidering his options but feeling strongly against the idea of controlling the Reapers. The conversation escalates as it turns into a political meeting between the people who have arrived, and Illusive Man trying to inception his ideas in either one. The Crucible is in the progress of attaching so they're all waiting nervously for who "presses the button".

Either way, there's consensus against Illusive Man's plea for Control, and he's aggravated, and it is revealed that he's in control of Husks coming out of holes in the floor and the ceiling, that have been processed up here. We all fight, and Illusive Man is knocked down. Either Shepard, Victus or Hackett can make a killing blow on Illusive Man or leave him in mercy or in his own misery. The Crucible and Citadel begin to work with each other, and the room opens up more, to reveal the view outside. The Control Panel rises up properly, ready to be pushed or whatever its purpose really is.

"Wait." everyone turns around. Anderson falls to the floor. "Want you... to remember... there's always... another option." he was mortally wounded in the fight against Illusive Man, Shepard leaps over to hold up his head. First he tries to raise his voice over to Hackett and tells him "You must listen to him. We're dealing with things... that we didn't create." He tells Shepard that he's okay, and that he's proud of us. Shepard presses him for another response but he's gone.

Shepard approaches the others, next to Victus and Liara, standing towards Hackett who is near the panel. Shepard asks Hackett to consider the risks again. Hackett listens for a second but he thinks of the extinction event for humankind that is around the corner, inside this very station that processes them all, that is now interrupted by this device we've brought to it. He blurts out that he can't and in an instant turns back around and hammers his finger on that button, and a light appears, the ceiling retracts, and the platform they stand on begins to rise up with everyone alive and dead still on it.

They rise up to the view of space surrounding Earth inside a giant glass dome created between the docking point of the Crucible and Citadel, and a big piece of machinery holding them together. Everyone looks about taking in the impossible view. In the middle, the said-to-be oldest Reaper created also known as Harbinger is sitting motionless as if connected between all the pieces.

"It's a Reaper!" Hackett spits out.

He looks to Shepard ready to gear up for survival but sees that Shepard isn't taking out their gun. The Reaper doesn't quite seem alive. Its "eyes" switch on but with a blue LED glow, that flicker to the same frequency as the light in across the network of tubes attached between it and the big Crucible contraption.

"I. Am. Alive." a voice says, quite Reapery but not as familiar as what we've heard previously.

"You have connected us all, it says."

Victus reacts. "Spirits..." and Liara stands agape.

"Are you Harbinger?" Shepard asks?

"Harbinger is the name you attribute to our instrument of humanity's preservation" the voice says.

If Illusive Man wasn't executed he begins to motion from the cold floor and his head moves up a bit:

"The... Advancement... the defense, and preservation of humankind. I knew it was possible after all."

"Indeed. We are your salvation. The one you call Harbinger is the taskmaster of humanity's harvest."

Hackett says we must find a way to set off the Crucible right now and stop this "Reaper abomination."

Shepard tells him to wait a little, not seemingly knowing exactly what to do themselves but determined to considering any options that will occur.

Shepard asks: "Why kill us? Why are you occupying Earth. Why are you harvesting all life in the galaxy?"

"We do not harvest all life. Harvesting is required when civilization has reached a point in evolution which deems it impassable for itself or future garden species to thrive."

Shepard asks it why our evolution reaches an "impassable" point.

"As you grow, your creations grow with you. Both your intelligence to control your surroundings, your tools, your wars, and the chaos that you cause. Organics represent 'Chaos' once it becomes mature, and chaos must be stopped."

Hackett agitated: "Chaos? Humanity and its allies are fighting for peace! To fend for the defenseless. To save lives and keep wars from breaking out unnecessarily."

Reaper: "Yet, you cause them."

Liara: "You mean, that we are our own worst enemies? That doesn't seem likely."

Reaper: "You cannot possibly comprehend the truth of your own nature. We have presided on your kind, your form, your nature, over eons. We are infinite, timeless, and we have observed your destruction over countless cycles."

Victus: "And so the Reapers just feel it's their right to get rid of us, because you think we can't remain at peace?"

Reaper: "We preserve your kind. Your DNA, your memories, and everything you used to be is stored, permanently in our form. We are our species embodied in timeless form."

Liara to Shepard: "The Reapers are created by the harvest of entire species. Perhaps to their mind they're not killing us."

Shepard: "This doesn't make sense! You're turning us into... you to save us from ourselves? And you think without this we would..."

Reaper: "You wouldn't have existed. This war for continued survival you pursue... nothing. None of it would exist, because you would've been vanquished by the destruction caused to your own environment and habitats tens of thousands of cycles ago if we had not intervened."

Shepard: "Would we...?"

Reaper: "We are certain. We saw it, and we had to stop it. But you've all made it here, and I had to intervene."

Shepard: "You mean..."

Reaper: "I am now connected to all of this. I am serving the Crucible's true purpose, to be its Catalyst."

Shepard: "But isn't the Citadel the Catalyst?"

Reaper: "We all are born from the Citadel, and it never leaves us. We breathe through its surface, and we feel the existence of all the species that have been stored within its databanks since its creation."

Hackett: "What the hell..."

Liara to Shepard: "Shepard, time is running out. The Reapers are not stopping below us. We have to do something---"

Reaper: "There is no point. You thought the Crucible would be your weapon. It is not its real use."

The Reaper explains that the purpose of the Crucible is to connect us all to each other, and that as a Catalyst between it and the Citadel, all Reapers via the Citadel can currently communicate on a level of true understanding with organic, which is previously can't. It wants this, but it knows it will not last.

Reaper: "The Crucible is a finite source of Energy. You could destroy its fuses and unleash your destruction upon us all, and hope anyone remains, or you can help us fulfil our purpose."

Shepard: "What purpose?"

Reaper: "Our creators established the Citadel with a contingency program: Preserve life totally. Prevent extinction with a solution. With the Crucible connected, we now see through you as you are in direct contact with our Citadel. It reads you. It tells us that you are not the same as the lives we preserved. Our plan failed. Our goal of preservation is not perfect, and lives are not kept intact."

The Reaper explains that the purpose of the cycle of destruction is to serve all life, organic or whatever, so that all naturally occuring life is retained, and the Reapers were made as a solution to house all life past the threshold intact.

Shepard: "So what do we do?"

If Illusive Man is still alive, he comes to fully, and stands on his legs: "We make a choice for them."

Reaper: "You think you will control us. But you cannot. We, own you."

The Illusive man is crippled as his blue synthesized eyes glow brighter and skin peels to reveal a synthetic underlay. He screams and contorts. Pieces of metal comes out from him. He tries to say words, but they turn to nonsense, as he becomes more beastly. The other characters are prepared to fight to their last stand but instead, the now huskified Illusive Man stands between them and the Reaper. The Reaper is now using him as a bargaining chip to get us to do something.

We must choose between firing the Crucible by sabotaging its connection to the Citadel and risk collateral damage so bad that it might wipe us out (mitigated with higher EMS to some extent), or find a way to come to terms with what this Reaper wants.

As the conversation goes on the people you brought there argue over different points in ideology about alien culture, military pride, organics and technology, and peace and diversity: the brain of the organics picked apart. The Reaper witnesses these debates as we argue what possibilities we might have to end this without total chaos.

Reaper: "We have... always been fascinated by our... Creators. Organics. Infinitely slower than their creations, but infinite in thought and ideas, no matter how impossible it is. We've sought the perfect specimen for... many cycles."

Shepard: "Just tell us what we can do, to stop all this! Enough harvests. No more cycles! You're taking away our future, what makes us think, what makes us feel! If there is no point in being alive, we can't go on. You've taken that from us, and I've united the galaxy to prove to you that we have a future."

Reaper: "We do feel. Especially now. In fact, our creators sought peace between organics and machines. To make us whole."

Shepard: "Then why can't you just let us go? We are ready for it..."

Reaper: "We... want to be you."

The others are losing patience as they feel the Reaper stalling them with its nonsense, and want action now. Liara standing by Shepard pushing him to find a compromise so we don't have to fire the device destructively, blind faith. Victus confronts Shepard for answers about whether we have earned to be left to our own devices and reference the Genophage outcome and our war on Rannoch. Hackett wants to go immediately and decouple the Reaper contraption and end the war. Shepard has to choose.

If you persuade Hackett to hold back and Victus of your past good deeds, Shepard comes to a final point about how their meaning is provided by their relationships, to species, their love interest or to Anderson as a protege, and looks over to his lifeless corpse. The Reaper apparently interested in the connection of man and machine, blinks a few times and out comes a hologram that looks like Anderson.

Shepard: "What? How did you..?"

Anderson: "Shepard. I am glad to see you again."

Shepard: "You died. This is not.. the real you."

Anderson: "I am an important part of your life. I made it possible for you to act and bridge the gap between all species in the galaxy."

Shepard: "This isn't you. You're the Reaper, and it's unable to understand who you are to me."

Shepard: "If you're still in there, I want you to know that I'm not falling for this trick. You want to be like Organics, fine, but it'll take more practice."

Reaper: returns to itself: "I have been connected to countless lives of entire civilizations but I have never seen that before."

Shepard: "You mean you just read how I felt... how an organic felt, for the first time? Through this connection through our Crucible?"

Reaper: "It is only logical."

Shepard realizes that if the Reaper is starting to gain an emotional intelligence like organics did... like EDI and the Geth have, then it is also going to be agreeable to stopping its "purpose".

Shepard: "You can let us go once and for all. I think you, and all the Reapers through this Citadel, and failed solution, have just understood how much you have violated organic life, not just that, but all life. I saved the Geth and the Quarians from destroying each other, I made them peaceful to each other, because you made the Geth understand what it means to be alive, and now we're doing that to you. This Crucible? It's not built to destroy you, it's built to make you understand us. To become us, and see that all the lost lives that you're made of are sad and lost. A painful, pointless loss, and I and our allies grieve for all the cycles that succumbed to your "purpose"! Cease this, once and for all. We can't defeat you, just like nobody before us could, but you made this. You can fix it!

The reaper can feel every nerve in Shepard's body as he expresses himself to it, it can feel how any one has felt for countless eons, and it re-enters another holographic shape of Anderson. That shifts, now a prothean. And 3-4, many faces of long-lost beings that have been murdered with the slaughter of machines, and it brings up its hands of every shape it takes, to its own face and takes a look at itself, feeling like they would've felt if they were it. The Citadel-- The Reapers-- they all feel what they have done as an organic now. and they feel nothing but despair.

The charged energy of the big Crucible/Citadel/Harbinger contraption now begins to flash, shake, blow up violently. The Reapers have encountered a singularity within themselves. They can't live knowing what they've done, now, as organic-minded beings, transformed by the Crucible with Shepard and his fellows' empathy being inceptioned into the Reaper's thought processors. The Citadel is about to blow up, and as they're about to turn back, Shepard, Hackett, Liara and Victus realize that it's probably too late. Hackett stands tall with his eyes closed. Liara grabs Shepard's arm, and Victus enters a kind of meditative ritual that Turians use for their final stand, praying to their spirits. The white light of the Crucible/Citadel blows the sky wide, and spread out far and wide. Hit a Mass Relay, then across the rest of them. It hits everything, everywhere, but it seems harmless. It only affects the Reapers, and every Reaper hit is hit bit its own null-errors of incompatible equations and purposelessness. Its existence was a failure. Its quest to serve all life and its creators was a complete ironic misfire, and now it has ended. The Reapers are done for good.

Depending on choices in the trilogy, survivors are found in the Citadel wreckage, and one of them might be Shepard. The game ends on a peace-ceremony, the first to be repeated every year to celebrate our very continued existence. All the war heroes from the plot are awarded whether they be human or alien. Shepard is either celebrated in their sacrifice or survival, and as the individuals from all species start to enter shuttles and ships to move back out of the system, Daz Malefitz kicks in, as it zooms out. The sky of Earth, the planet from outer space. A Mass Relay, damaged but not destroyed. Sol seen from outside the system. Now,

The Milky Way. Music crescendos. Cut to black. The End.

So many valid posts in this thread, I could quote almost every post and discuss each point at length, but hey that would be overkill. A few remarks:

1- I feel one of the major issues that stems from the ME3 Ending is that it seems to me that the developers wanted the Trilogy to be a definitive self-contained experience. Like they absolutely wanted to avoid any sequel. So Shepard had to die, which leads to point 2-, 

2- the sheer number of gamers who are suckers for a "Good Ending" should never be underestimated, especially with younger audience. So many fresh players were mad because their main character kicked the bucket so miserably, while they spent literally 100 hours (or more) for characters they cared so much for. Quite frankly, I can’t blame them for that,

3- I’m a sucker for a good ending myself. When I heard about the rumors about the ME3 Ending I was so much put off I played the game a year later. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole ME3 experience but the Ending felt underwhelming. But it could have been worse. Why? Because I made the mistake to read a few rants where reviewers complained about Shepard dying. Having not played the game yet, I had the misconception that:


Glad it didn’t happen like that I must confess.

4- It doesn’t help that "Priority Earth" felt rushed. It’s sad because when your Recruits, your Lover and every NPCs bid you farewell, well, you totally know the journey is going to end. And devs needed to finish that part with a Bang.

5- I agree with the comments saying that the whole point of ME3 is to make you understand that you cannot win the war against the Reapers with conventional means. The strain on Shepard mental state, the friends you lose along the way, the backstabs, the staggering amount of War Casualties (Palaven wrecked, Thessia wiped out, Batarian Hegemony no more,…). The hiccup when you choose that kind of scenario is that everything is geared toward a "Deus Ex Machina Ending", an ending with a Catalyst kid that in my view is quite hard to understand for a first-time player. Heck I took a lot of time pondering my options on my first playthrough too, and not a single choice felt entirely satisfiying. 

My humble conclusion is that writers/devs could have avoided a few of these issues if they had chosen a simple "Good Old Ending".