The smallest possible change to fix the ending

Smallest change? Why not use the ending the player learns after the coup? I call it Hacketts ending. After Shepard passes out, and the arms to the Citadel are fully opened, the crucible fires the red wave destroying the reapers. It gets rid of dumb, dumb and all that other crap.

I still think that one of the War Assets Shepard picks up should have been more influential in the story than just a numerical value (the following comes from the Mass Effect Wikia War Assets/Crucible section):

Interferometric Array (Requires: The scanning of the planet Eletania, Hercules, Attican Beta)
"Normally interferometric arrays are used to analyze planetary landmasses, or to determine the astrophysical properties of stellar systems. The powerful array salvaged from the Hercules system can be used for something much more ambitious: the Crucible tunes into the mass relays' command switches. Installing the interferometric array into the Crucible's systems results in a real-time map of the entire galaxy, including the position of each and every Reaper in the Milky Way."

With that information on such just a random Asset the player and the Allied Fleets should have focused on diverting the energy against those signal and asides, we can get our hands of some Reaper Fragment code in either the Geth Collective or the Spectre Requisitions office now, the code is only used to deliver it to an Asari War analyst so she can predict Reaper Fleet movements. Those two things right then and there should have been warning enough for the Citadel occupants that the Reapers were in their way to take the station as Shepard was spending some quality time with his/her LI and while he was getting to The Illusive Man office.

Be aware that the description of the Interferometric Array doesn't list the Geth or EDI as part of the Reapers. As I acquired both that WA and the Reaper Code fragment I though to myself: "Well with the Catalyst the Reapers are bye bye so let's meet up TIM wait, WTH is happening? Why was all this a surprise, who is this blue kid?"

Okay but that's a way bigger change. I was thinking about the most realistically feasible change, i.e. the smallest possible, to make the ending passable.



While I agree about the middle finger bit, I don't mind having a refuse option that results in failure. Both adventures I mentioned in my post have that. But they also have a refusal win option. I'm wondering what you think about the ending idea I described above?

Your ending requires writing new dialogue to accommodate the change. themikefest 's ending just requires deleting things, with nothing new being created. In terms of the work required, his change is quite a bit smaller than yours.

I see your point about not wanting to choose an ending that the villains provided to you, but to me that ending already exists in destroy. That's literally what Shepard set out to do, whether Starkid wants to complain about it or not. The only dumb thing about destroy is that the red beam is somehow the only one that can't tell the difference between a geth and a reaper. And I'm happy to just ignore that inconsistency until a mod comes out for MELE to make it make sense again. 

How would a beam of energy tell the difference between anything at all? It's not conscious or something.

Space magic like everything else? Calibration of the crucible's beam generator? How the hell should I know? It has been said in ending discussions that the control beam would result in reapers only -- not all synthetics -- being controlled, but the destroy beam would result in the destruction of all synthetics. So the control beam can differentiate, but the red beam can't. Inconsistent space magic is the worst kind.

I agree that it's all silly. But I think the inconsistency just boils down to Bioware wanting to give people a reason to not pick destroy, so they make destroy kill our robot friends. I reject Bioware's reality and substitute my own

Scrap everything from the beginning of ME2 forward and start fresh from there.

ME2 really carries part of the blame, it: relegated A/K to a cameo apperance only to have the players deal with the rushed conflict in ME3, remebered in Arrival DLC that they Reapers existed, forgot to expand on options (Batarians could have been contacted by Shepard as he explained them the truth and you would need high Paragon/Renegade scores to secure an Alliance and deal with the problems between the humans and Batarians (small scale only to see it grow or be destroyed in ME3)), Anderson reacts indiferent when we destroy/spare the Collectors Base.

Not only that, but incorporate the Keeper Quest from way back in ME1 having a more significant impact. Combine these three things: the Keepers, the Conduit and Vendetta to have the best ending possible.

Pretty much the Anderson scene could have happened as we finished the business and went back to Earth only to find him severly injured. As Shepard took his team to Illos Hackett lead the Fleets to Earth and not all of Shepard crew went with him: Garrus gets to lead the assault to destroy the Hadex Cannons and we end up meeting him at Earth with Vega and Tali with a few ME2 characters launching a two prong attack to pin the Reapers on Earth.

We find limited resistance on Illos as the Cerberus members are the ones who served under Shepard, if they survived, while hunting the Collectors. Depending on how are their indoctrination levels, if at all, Shepard can convince them to assist him or leave them tied up inside a bunker. The assault proceeds as you described only that we also run into Anderson as he launched the Beam Run himself and the characters you sent to assist hik only survive with a high War Asset count but wounded. TIM issue is resolved and then with the following: Vendetta intel, Keeper data and dialog we deal with the Reaper.

I thought it became non-functional, though I can't say why I think that way. Even so, the Conduit is on Ilos. It's also one-way.