The elephant in the room

Because no one can play this game without making a thread on the endings, but I also didn't want to make another thread on the endings so I'll post my thoughts here. I see many debates over the endings, most cannot be resolved but I saw a recurring theme that I think solves a lot of problems for a lot of people. It can be said that all of this is purely headcanon, but what in ME isn’t? As far as headcanon goes I think this has some real weight behind it, so here goes:

A major problem people have with the destruction ending is that it seems needlessly bittersweet with the ‘thrown-in’ sacrifice of the Geth and EDI. I think what people miss here is that in ME if you play as a pure bad-dude or bad-girl renegade, hardcore Cerberus supporter, human supremacist, anti-alien, and anti-AI, which you can do… or if you are simply one of the many billions of people in the world who simply cannot grasp that a machine can be sentient and have reflected that belief in your play, there sacrifice is literally meaningless, to you they are technology and that is a perfectly valid standpoint supported by the game. If you actually believed that synthetics would always lead to war destroying all synthetics around now and regulating future AI development as is currently done, bar Cerberus, the renegade destroy option should be available, although might seem unnecessary as a renegade would have already destroyed the geth by now and there are no other known AI species, there is still EDI that a renegade might want to get rid of, I know some people wanted to throw her and her eva body out the airlock, not to mention other potentially dangerous AI in the galaxy which would presumably be targeted as well.

Some people have a hard time seeing why control is painted blue when Anderson is the known paragon shown to support the ‘renegade’ destruction while the known renegade, TIM, supports the apparently ‘paragon’ control. Others would, rightfully, be confused if the opposite were true. A pure paragon shepherd would have cured the genophage, and if unable to broker peace between quarrian and geth would have sided, perhaps surprisingly, with the geth (that’s based upon, among other things, the position of the dialogue choices). A pure paragon shepherd rewrote the heretics, and saved the rachni queen despite no evidence of a peaceful bug – the same as there was no evidence of a peaceful krogan. A pure paragon would have saved wrex but even if wreav were in charge would have cured the genophage. I’m saying this is an extreme but valid viewpoint that is supported by the game. Shepherd, no matter how bad the enemy gets, is unwilling to stop them by genocide, s/he always finds another way. It would be extremely out of character for this him/her to suddenly commit genocide on a species even as bad as the reapers.

I think these points were missed by a majority who chose always what they thought was right, or looked online to see what decisions they wanted to make, that there were extreme viewpoints supported by the game and it was the mix of them that actually gave you your experience. I think the developers knew this, and the story especially drove home an opposite point with TIM and Anderson supporting the opposite choices and that’s why they color coded it the way they did. That being said they realized the majority would not share these extreme viewpoints and that some people would want to play as cerberus loyalists and support TIMs control ending and some pure paragon players would be disappointed if they could not in good conscience destroy the reapers and support Anderson. They even made a separate control ending for renegade players. They made a separate destroy ending for if you fucked up your EMS and killed your crew, but I think they meant to make a separate destroy ending for paragons who did not believe the BS they were being told about synthetics always leading to organic extinction but wanted to destroy the reapers themselves anyway. I think the original cut included EDI walking out of the ship with high EMS intentionally and they dropped the idea for the extended cut because everyone was choosing destroy, they wanted it to be more of a sacrifice, and they probably took the opportunity to cut the potential work in half with only the one ending instead of two. Much to the disappointment of a majority of players who only wanted JohnP’s Alternate MEHEM. I don’t think there is really anything wrong with a majority players choosing destroy, a majority (92%) cured the genophage and they never ‘nerfed’ that. Really it would be surprising if even less than half did not want to destroy the reapers after three games. So, for destroy, high EMS/Paragon = laser blasts target reaper tech, high EMS/Renegade = laser blasts target reaper tech synthetic AI life (EDI/Geth use reaper tech, all mass effect tech based on reaper tech so likely all VI/AI based on mass effect/reaper tech), low EMS/renegade/paragon = laser blasts targets mass effect technology and blasts at catalyst site are powerful enough to target organics.

Why is destroy renegade? Renegade is focused on getting the job done, damned with collateral damage, i.e. damage to the relays, EDI, Geth, possibly earth, technology, and with no-nonsense towards what might be a threat in the future, i.e. destruction of rachni, geth, krogan, etc. Renegade actually always takes the safest route. Why is control renegade? If it were established that morinth were more powerful than samara and that she would be the greater asset to the suicide mission it would make sense for the renegade to choose her over samara (setting aside the threat the justicar code might pose to a renegade). Renegades recruit zaeed and appreciate his get the job done at all costs strategy. Paragons can only appeal to this side of him to gain his loyalty. Renegades are willing to sacrifice to gain advantage and power to complete the task. If the task is destruction of the reapers, a renegade is willing to sacrifice a lot to get that, but if the task is somehow bigger, like the protection and rebuilding, or further uplifting, of humanity or the galaxy, as per TIMs vision, then a renegade is willing to sacrifice a lot to get that. A renegade would be willing to control the reapers for the greater good if they saw that as their mission. then of course there is the paragon equivalents; follow Anderson, or control the reapers (like reprogramming heretics) to avoid having to genocide them.

And a word on synthesis, I think the catalyst AI has been synthesizing organics through the cycles but also processes them into reaper form, I think it has tried letting some of the species in each cycle preserve their forms for limited amounts of time, seeing how they live with synthesis and how they eventually abuse the power or destroy themselves for being unable to cope with the new existence, thus it reverts back to the controlled reaper forms. Shepherd asks who designed the crucible and the AI says you would not know them and there is no time to explain. I think that the AI has made many crucibles before and used it to force synthesis multiple times before, which ultimately resulted in the developed species abusing the synthesis power or destroying themselves for being unable to cope, resulting in their necessitated reaping. Organics in one of the cycles may have found a “spent cartridge” used on a previous cycle and thus began production and eventually passed the information down to the protheans. It works on reapers because it’s a reaper weapon, it works like a back door. As to why you need a high EMS to get the synthesis ending, it’s how you convince the AI that your cycle is worthy of being preserved in its current forms as opposed to being synthesized AND reaped you can be only synthesized because you have shown the AI that this cycle is capable of setting aside differences and working together. Unlike previous cycles that would be unable to cope and abuse the power, by working together you have shown that you can be trusted with the power. The problem here is that the AI is convinced by the cooperation AND by shepherds choosing this path, which is the AI believes that organics cannot be forced into synthesis they must choose it for themselves. The fault in this logic is that shepherd does not speak for all individuals of all species, the AI may not have a conception that shepherd does not act as a hivemind for all organics everywhere because frankly it’s a new scenario the AI has not experienced before, but one for which it has been waiting and planning. It tried synthesis forced and saw it fail, it then can only guess what the outcome may be if the organics chose it instead. And so it takes the risk. Again, only shepherd has chosen this, and in this scenario he’s now dead. All other organics have only ‘chosen’ this outcome insofar as they have chosen to set aside their differences and work together as opposed to abusing the powers they hold over one another.

Tl;dr: there is (or should be) a paragon destroy and a renegade destroy ending, same as there is a paragon control ending and a renegade control ending.

p.s. I chose destruction but headcanon I really appreciate control… because in my Andromeda headcanon my pathfinder is droping rachni and thresher maw eggs on uninhabited planet and his associated ark supports elcor, yahg, vorcha, varren, and geth. I love the idea of including a race made of individuals who are themselves entire civilizations. My headcanon for control is abit more complex, including new reproduction cycle for the reapers, to replace the previous cycle, now the sick, wounded, elderly of each civilization may voluntarily travel through the mass relays to a central location for a 60-85% chance (depending on age) of being compatible to be processed into immortal reaper form.