Contains Spoilers- Need emotional support from like minded individuals

Thank you for your opinion, I didn't start this thread to debate all the crappy endings, it was to find others to talk to about what I experienced emotionally. However I did invite anyone to come and enjoy the post. It seems to me that Refuse would have been your better ending because your favorite race would have lived on in a perfect galaxy, because organics will always fight and have conflict with each other. Even the blended machine people will fight with each other. Basically all these ends are a For right now fix. green Krogan will still fight, that is what they are bred to do. there is no perfect utopia not with organics.
I am sorry that I feel that the machines are an acceptable loss to save the many and preserve life the way it is. And to be super technical, none of these races should have even been up lifted by the reapers. So for me, killing off the murderbots and loosing the geth is what feels right to me. 

You have good questions on the Destroy ending. I wonder myself if anyone else is still alive on the Citadel once the arms closed. I know we're beamed into an unfamiliar place on the Citadel, but I wonder that if anyone was still alive on the Citadel, would they be able to get to you if you're in an area they don't even know exists? We see a Keeper in there, so I wonder what will happen to them, perhaps they can communicate with each other and without their Reaper shackles communicate with those on the Citadel to lead them to where Shep is?

I am a fellow Destroyer here. My (mostly paragon) Shepard will not choose destroy lightly. It is simply the only one of a bunch of bad options he can take at this point for several reasons:

1. The catalyst is not necessarily a trustworthy exposition giver to my Shepard. Metagame the endings all you want, at the time Shepard has to make the choice and gets all the information from the Catalyst, there is no guarantee that starkid doesn't still underhandedly promote a hidden agenda of the reapers. That means that even choosing destroy is not necessarily going to work as expected but at least it is the option that will not have Shepard unwittingly collaborate with the reapers. It is also the one the catalyst tries to talk you out of the most, which in itself makes it more likely to succeed in ending the cycle the catalyst promoted.
Of course, there is also refuse but at this point, the game did make it clear over and over again that without using the crucible, we never stood a chance in the first place, so there really is nothing to win by refusing at this point.


Synthesis is even worse IMO, as it violates every individual on a most basic level. And even though the ending slides show that somehow, everything seems to work out for the best in Synthesis, even then, I don't buy it. The galaxy in Mass Effect has been shown to be too big and too diverse for me to believe that everyone will just accept a fundamental change of their own body on the cellular level without issues. What about religiously inclined people, more nature-connected people, hell, what about simple Luddites? I may not agree with their belief system but according to everything my Shepard said before in this game (not to mention my personal stance as a player), I have to respect their world views nonetheless. I cannot see everyone just being happy, I always have to think about those people who would feel really violated, trying to claw their own green eyes out.
And that's not even mentioning all those pre-spaceflight species, that don't even have context to this change and wouldn't know what's going on. How traumatic must that be?
The only way I could see this work would be if Synthesis also imposes some sort of mind alteration, which would be even worse. It would erase individuality altogether to some extent. IIRC, the catalyst says that it would impose some form of understanding but even that means that it enforces a way of thinking onto trillions of individuals. I'd rather hold with Legion there, who said that (paraphrasing) how we build our future is just as (if not more) important as getting there in the end.

The way I see it, there are two huge negatives to destroy:
a) Loosing the geth and EDI. As for EDI, I know that she would be the first to agree with my Shepard to choose destroy. In the conversations you have with her, she tells you outright that when she learned what it means to choose for yourself, to be an individual, she realized that it was the most precious thing in the universe and that she would rather die then to give that up again. Well, now she is being sacrificed to ensure that this kind of freedom of choice is maintained for others and I am convinced, if she was there, she'd do it in a heartbeat.
The geth are a more complicated story. In the end, as I wrote in the beginning of the post, it boils down to the least of a bunch of bad options and I will not deny that the geth are a tough issue with Destroy.
b ) We destroy the reapers which apparently hold the knowladge and combined racial identity of a whole bunch of otherwise extinct species. However, I will argue that the knowladge alone is not as precious as one might first think. Remember, those species developed in the same cycle structure as ours did, they dropped into the same trap of relying on reaper technology as we did. Their knowladge will not differ all that much from ours in a pure sense of technology. So what about their individuality and culture. Well, again, that's a tough one but my impression at least is that there cannot be that much left of it. After all, the reapers seem to all act in perfect unison under the directives of the catalyst. They do this after the species, the reaper comes from have themselves experienced the horrors of a reaper invasion and harvesting. How all those different species could maintain their previous self awareness and still follow along is just not believable in the end. So I don't quite know what kind of Gestalt intellect really resides in those reaper forms but I am not convinced that the original species is really maintained. Assuming that the catalyst control the reaper form but some identity is still lying underneath, the only way to even have the possibility to get to it would be though Synthesis (Control would just maintain whatever force is controlling them under new management). And then it would become a trade off of maintaining some vague idea of a past species vs. the violation of every individual we know exists here and now. My Shepard would not be willing to make that gamble with the lives he promised to protect earlier (and nothing was ever promised to the reapers btw).

So there you have it. it's far from an ideal situation but weighing all those factors, there really was only one way to go in the end.

You are welcome. Thank you for being civil while discussing this. 

As for Refuse, no that's easily my least favorite. It sacrifices everyone for nothing, a much worse version of Destroy but with no gain. And the next cycle just uses the Crucible anyway. So I don't know what you mean about them living on in a perfect galaxy? 
I do agree that there wouldn't be an utopia. In fact that's another reason I prefer Synthesis is because it opens up so many possibilities for storytelling that wouldn't be possible in Destroy, Control, or Refuse. 
By none of these species should have been uplifted by the Reapers, who do you mean? 

Maybe a lot more are fine, than we are led to believe by the starbrat.

They'll be fine.

No they won’t. The Legendary Edition still has them dead, and that was the definitive version of the story. They fixed nothing, ruined some things that were good, and now have thrown the trilogy away.

I forgot about Wrex. Thank you. Yeah he’d de dead too.
The lore says they are naturally able to use their biotic. Liara being equipped amps in ME1 was gameplay-lore segregation (equipping amps at all was considering in lore swapping them is a very dangerous surgical procedure). And people can make something without needing it for themselves.

bayni: Your first forum community is the BSN? Now that’s definitely diving in at the deep end - we’re always about one comment away from a full on brawl around here! 

I kid of course! It’s a fun place to hang out, though it definitely has its own unique brand of forum insanity to deal with. Welcome to the crew! 

And just like the knight who uttered those words, they are ones that will always be that way and never heal.

I think it would have changed little. The death of war criminals who killed entire towns of civilians and expecially kids and simple tourists ina rebellion when they could just download themselves on the computer of a ship and leave Rannoch is no big deal. And, is how I see the Geth, as much as I like them. War criminals at the very least.

English is not my language, and I may have read wrong. Still doesn't change how I think about how it would have changed if the Destroy had a slide with offline Geth to make their destruction more effective.

As for others...well, is a war. Losses are expected. The entire game go on and on and on about how many losses we are going to have to win this war for survival.