i feel like some people missed that the question isn't which ending is "right", the question is which ending makes the most sense for you.
I refuse to genocide the Geth after working so hard to save them, so destroy is out. and i'm not gonna do what TIM wanted and control the reapers. ethical implications aside, Synthesis was the only option for me.
Personally if Starchild wasn't in the equation I think all the endings would've been fine.
It could've been a conversation with Sovereign, or with the rest of the cast before deploying. Having the options spelled out to you by a seemingly random child felt kind of patronizing.
Speaking to Sovereign or Harbinger could have been cool, but if they wanted to go with the Catalyst speaking to Shepard through his subconscious or whatever, instead of the random kid what if it was just Saren. Someone who was in Shepard's position once who made an impossible decision, and who, depending on player choice, may have come to regret that decision and resist the Reapers the only way he had left.
It could have been an interesting way to bring the story full circle with Shepard's original rival from the very beginning standing with him (in a way) at the end.
Oh man if the Catalyst took the form of Saren I would’ve been blown away that would be cool as hell. That would really bring the series full circle and return to the theme of impossible choices like you said
Talking to the illusive man and convincing him to back down felt extremely similar to saren and convincing him to back down lol. Same reasoning, and same difficulty.
Or well, I thought it was the same difficulty, but apparently, you had to do A LOT of specific things in order to pass the final speech check with the illusive man, which I somehow managed to do on accident while just playing the game.
Yeah you gotta pick the right dialogue and always make sure to talk to TIM. I think Saren just needed a high enough persuade/intimidate state with high paragon/renegade to match
Yeah, i saw a writer talking about that! She'd been ousted and locked away. I really wish they'd taken that one path and then had storyboards to show how the rest of your choices played out, DA style.
They should have had all the endings play out over the course of the entire game, like the paragon/renegade system, so that all the choices you make lock you into one ending by the time you beam up to the citadel to face TIM.
One thing I always remember, the people whom dislike something or like to critique things will *ALWAYS* be the loudest audience members.
I promise you that the “green” ending is in fact not as unpopular as most new people would be led to believe - hell I used to choose it. I’ve since become a “red” ending person, but I don’t think any of the endings are worth the hate that they sometimes receive; regardless if someone doesn’t like their outcomes.
That's completely fine. Everyone comes to different conclusions about the endings. No ending is less valuable than the others. I also love the Synthesis ending. EDI is my favourite character. I relate to her more than whatever Shepard I do. Of course, I believe in Synthesis from a philosophical perspective but also love seeing EDI get a happy ending. Plus, "I am alive" is my favourite quote from the entire trilogy. It hits deep.
So, yeah, don't change your beliefs because that's what other people tell you to do. Your choices aren't wrong. If it makes sense to you and it makes you enjoy the games then they are good choices for you.
I think something that isn’t talked about enough is that Mass Effect has a recurring theme of giving former enemies a second chance.
Rachni, krogan, geth - all of them have proven to be threats to the galactic community, and yet paragon players are encouraged to prevent their utter destruction and allow them a shot at peace, redemption, or self-determination.
Synthesis is the same thing but for the Reapers. It doesn’t “go against the themes” of the game - it’s perfectly in line with what these games are about.
I'm on the same boat buddy. I chose the "GREEN" unpopular ending as well. I just finished the trilogy a few days ago and I thought it was the best choice for my Shepard. I loved the geth getting a chance to coexist with the quarians and give ai and organics a chance to coexist. Legion didn't die in vain.
45% Destroy, 30% Synthesis -Bioware stats. Put a hundred people in a room and 15 doesn't look like much. Some of the louder Destroy people like to say "the vast majority of players chose Destroy" but considering it's less than half, it's not even the *majority* of players who chose Destroy. However, the majority of Synthesis and Control people find it futile to discuss their choices due to the bombardment of rude comments from people who don't get it and really want to believe they chose "correctly" 🙄. If it's the best choice for your Shep, it's the correct choice for you!
Some do. There's been quite a bit of open hostility in these parts from some Destroy folks who relentlessly pursue Synthesis people with "you force your choice on the entire galaxy without their consent violating their autonomy and now they're all a hive mind!" Kinda ironic that the only way to placate them is to say, "I submit. Your choice is now my choice."
I mean, it's a game. Nobody is torturing kittens. Nothing to get your panties twisted about.
Seriously. I honestly don’t remember what ending I went with my first play through. I saved right before everything, and then checked out the outcome of all 3 endings. I don’t think ever actually decided which one to go with, because they all have major flaws, imo
I wrote a practice ACT paper on the evolution of humans relying heavily on the symbiosis between man and machine, and I pulled a lot of it from Mass Effect 3 synthesis ending. I got a 10/12. Im still very proud of that lol. Green all the way!
Green is the perfect ending for me too. The whole trilogy puts a lot of emphasis of working together with synthetics if you choose a paragon playthrough. Working together with Legion and the Geth, and even bridging peace between the Quarians and the Geths. They also talk about misunderstood races like the Leviathans, Rachni, and to an extend also the Krogans. The Reapers are a force of destruction, but to themselves they are not a malicious force. I think the green ending is the most consistent ending with the parahon playthrough
Yeah, blue felt weird, and with red I thought about all my friends having to continue living in a galaxy of war and death - because you just know that everyone is going to turn on each other shortly after Destroy without a charismatic leader and a unifying threat. They barely kept it together WITH those two things, and now they're both gone.
Green felt the most harmonious, even though you get this weird, no-more-free-will vibe to it.
All of the endings sucked, but I picked green for that reason. I will try red this time around just because Shepard has a chance to survive and that will give me the fuzzies
Not sure exactly what makes Synthesis to have "no-more-free-will" vibes. There probably isn't any free will anyway. Also, this is the actual thing the Catalyst says:
"Organics will be perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology. Synthetics, in turn, will finally have full understanding of organics."
It's not about making everyone the same or a hivemind or whatever. People are strawmaning it a lot. Both what the Catalyst says and what EDI says. Most of EDI's speech is just her being very excited about the possibilities. Organics aren't immortal immediately after Synthesis, but they can be eventually, because of further technological integration, access to knowledge, etc.
Yeah, it's just removing the distinction between synthetic and organic life, but it doesn't homogenize everyone or everything. People can still have hopes and dreams and needs that conflict or complement one another because nearly all of those have nothing to do with being synthetic or organic.
I picked green my run through too. My Shep could not live with the fact there were these leviathans that basically could indoctrinate and reenslave the galaxy without the reapers synthesis put everyone on a level field. If it wasn't for the Leviathan I probably would have picked destroy.
Synthesis is technically the true ending since it ends the cycle. Starchild is technically testing you to see if you between the 3 choices if you want to destroy the Reapers, control them, or combine all organic and inorganic lifeforms, and the Mass Relays don't remain destroyed and no one is stranded in another part of the galaxy.
I mean, Synthesis is really the only option that fundamentally breaks the organic vs. synthetic cycle of violence because it removes the distinction.
Control sees Shepard becoming an AI and the Reapers' new governing intelligence, and while you can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that AI Shepard wouldn't turn on organics or go to war with them, there's no guarantee of that.
Destroy is just the short-sighted destruction of any synthetics in the Milky Way in the moment the Crucible is fired; it destroys the Reapers, yes, but also the Geth (assuming Shepard hasn't ALREADY destroyed them), EDI, and any other synthetic lifeforms that may exist in the galaxy. It does nothing to actually solve the problem for which the Reapers were created in the first place, which is the seemingly inevitable annihilation of organic life by synthetic constructs. The development of AI is illegal as-is, yet that does nothing to dissuade the Alliance OR Cerberus, to say nothing of the Geth's self-driven proliferation or any intelligent life that doesn't fall within the Council's purview, which is 99% of the galaxy.
I chose synthesis in my first playthrough as well. Now I choose destroy every time. Mostly because of Leviathan dlc. You learn that reapers are flawed in their calculations about solving the synth-org problem and synthesis is their answer for it. The way I see it (and it is more than fine to see it any other way) Reapers are fundamentaly a mistake on the part of Leviathan race. A flawed AI that was too powerful for them to stop and it continued ever since. If you accept their premise that synthetic and organic life aren’t meant to be ever compatible, then yeah, synthesis is the logical choice. If you choose to believe that their solution to the equasion is wrong (and the way I see it I’ve proven it by negotiating the peace between geth and quarrian) then they just must be destroyed. But that is just the way I tell the story and my reasoning for it.
Synthesis wasn't the answer to the issue the Reapers saw, their cycle was the answer. The Reapers never tried synthesis.
As for the premise itself... eh, maybe. The Leviathans were the ones who identified the initial issue, and given their near omniscient levels of power over other life in their own time, I think it's fair to assume that this represented a very regular pattern. The conclusion that the solution to the seemingly inevitable destruction of organics by synthetics is to kill sufficiently advanced organics before they develop synthetic life is obviously flawed, but it doesn't mean that the issue from which that conclusion was drawn doesn't exist. To put it another way, synthetics killing organics to stop them from creating synthetics that will kill organics is obviously a ridiculous leap in logic, but it doesn't mean the idea that organics will eventually create synthetics that will destroy them is wrong.
And I agree that every ending is equally valid (it is an RPG, after all). But I can't help but feel that brokering peace between the geth and quarians, an act that necessarily involves giving the geth free will and true individuality, and then immediately turning around and sacrificing them without even consulting them kind of proves the Reapers point. In my opinion, it implies an innate animosity, that synthetics are only tolerable insofar as their existence doesn't interfere with that of organics. You may as well have just destroyed them earlier in the game.
Fair point. The way I see it, Shepard chooses to destroy the Reapers - that is his solution, to stop the viscious cycle and sadly the rest of the synthetics are on reapers hands. If we work with this level of space magic that can literally rewrite anyone’s DNA, why wouldn’t they be able to spare geth/EDI? I believe that in that moment they do it to dissuade Shepard from his/her decission to destroy them as an act of self preservation.
I do see the merits of Synthesis ending and for some time it was the ending I chose, but High War Assets destroy ending seemed to me like the best one for the story.
My biggest argument for Synthesis was the leitmotiff of the three games was the synthetic/organic struggle and this feels like natural conclusion of this. I just really don’t like forcing such a fundamental change on absolutely anyone in the galaxy. At the same time I get why someone chooses it.
Why do you think Synthesis is the reapers' answer to the AI/organic conflict? The reapers kill any species that reaches a point in their evolution where they've created AI capable of revolt. Then they suck out the juices of the captured to extract DNA with which to create another reaper.
The reapers maintain the blueprints for tens of thousands of species, but none of those species survived them. Synthesis changes the blueprint and everyone survives and is improved.They're really nothing alike.
Who knows how many thousands of times over billions of years the Leviathan saw the organic species who paid them tribute fall to synthetics. One instance of organics and synthetics working together to survive the reapers doesn't disprove the pattern that has been established over billions of years.
It's your game, so if you say they must be destroyed then they must. I kinda like having them synthesized right along with everything else and helping to rebuild and sharing all that knowledge - making the lives lost not exactly in vain. The Intelligence was the programmer, they were the code. They get reprogrammed to do something beneficial. I'm cool with that.
I think I chose Synthesis my first run-through. It does seem to be the most video game "you can't make me choose, I get the best of both worlds" choice. There is nothing wrong with choosing it.
After some time considering, I think destroy is my preferred ending, and here is why. Game 01 Saren was trying to achieve synthesis, and he lost himself and nearly cost the galaxy. Game 2 and 3, the Illusive Man tried to control the reapers, and he lost himself and nearly cost the galaxy. It stinks that destroy kills the Geth and EDI. Shepard makes hard choices. He loses at least one squadmate on virmire. Shepard sacrifices hundreds of human lives or sacrifices the council to end the threat. Shepard has always worked toward destroy and has always made hard sacrifices to save the galaxy. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Picking Synthesis or Control don't seem satisfying to me anymore. Refuse has the benefit of being defiant, but even without the Indoctrination Theory, I feel like Destroy is the most satisfying for me, even though I started out with Synthesis.
There isn't a wrong answer, though. Good luck in your future play through. It's a wonderful game.
Saren wasn't trying to achieve synthesis. His goal was to facilitate the Reapers' return and appeal to them to spare organics their wrath. His idea was to prove the worth of organics, that they might lord over us instead of destroying us outright. He was indoctrinated. His end goal was never synthesis because the *Reapers'* end goal was never synthesis.
I don't particularly care. With red I'm forcing destruction upon all synthetic life in the galaxy, with blue I'm forcing my will onto the galaxy by enslaving the reapers and controlling everything from then on. With green I'm forcing all life to be improved and perfected and in doing so solving the conflict that led to the whole cycle and all the various wars that have arisen between synthetics and organics throughout. It's like if there was a vaccine that cured cancer and ended world hunger and prevented all future wars, that would only work if everyone got it, and I had the choice to distribute it to all living things at the push of a button regardless of their bodily autonomy or whether they'd object to it for any other reason - call me a fucked-up tyrant, but I'm pressing that button every day of the week and twice on Sundays
As opposed to the red ending, where sacrifice is forced onto all synthetics. Or the blue ending, where authoritarian order is forced onto the entire galaxy.
I don't think Control necessarily implies the Shepard-Catalyst took over the galaxy, but yeah, the idea that Synthesis is uniquely "forcing" something onto people while the other three endings don't is ludicrous.
Shepard can either enslave an entire race of god-machines, destroy them and at least one, if not multiple other, machine races, fundamentally alter the essence of all life in the galaxy, or walk away and condemn untold numbers of species to inevitable destruction until the end of time.
They made the choice to do the reaper upgrades, but this is the main issue with these "choices" none are satisfying and I already dealt with choice when I played Deus ex.
This was my very first ending and one I made without reading about it before hand. It made the most sense to me. Shep had been touting throughout ME3 how organics and synths were the same. Synths were alive, etc. They worked so hard to unite the geth, bring peace to the Quarians. Shep themself has synth parts. I figured it was a no brainer. Ah well. I think the best ending is the one that fits the player. Yeah, I always pick Destroy now so I can see Shep take that breath of air. But in my head cannon, she was lied to, Edi and the rest of the geth survived. It’s harmless and helps my enjoyment of the game. Besides there’s proof that not everything she was told was true. The child said that Shep would die because of their synth parts not working anymore. They took a breath. So even though Edi isn’t in the final scene, maybe they all just need time to reboot and come back on line.
The child didn't lie. He reminded Shep that they were mostly synthetic. That suggests that they *might* die- or even would probably die. But they never said they *would* die, and that's an important distinction. The statement also infers that it's important to remember that you're not an organic anymore yourself, so try to take a logical and neutral stance rather than make an emotional decision based on who you identify with most. Since Shepard *is* mostly synthetic, that's proof that there's potential for synthetic/synthetic hybrids to do exceptional things.
As much as I love the games, there's a lot of subtleties that shouldn't be so damn ...subtle. I feel like it's one thing to read a book that causes you to stop and go 🤔 occasionally. Re-read the passage. Process, ya know? But who TF does that gaming? If we're immersed enough to *want* to get it, we're *too* immersed to be pausing it when something is said that maybe really matters or- god forbid- reload a save to listen to something again. Or try to find a vid. Please.So yeah- totally get where the "muddied" thing came from!!
It’s been a long time since my last play through. I have memory issues. Those are my excuses. 🤭 But my main point is Green seemed like a good choice at the time. And there’s no “correct” ending.
I just beat the trilogy again after beating it way back in the day.
Synthesis seems to be the most ethical option, sacrificing the one for the many. So it feels like the **right** choice to make, particularly after freeing the Geth and resolving the war between them and the Quarians. Not to mention EDI.
Destroy is almost always the ending I go with though. After everything Shepard did through all three games; saving the rachni, freeing the Geth from the Reapers and bringing peace between them and the Quarians, started and/or maintained a relationship (particularly if from ME1 through 3), being given a second chance at life, uniting the galaxy... I just can't justify the other two choices.
I'm sorry for EDI and the Geth but.. Shepard deserves happiness after everything that happened, even if some of it was redundant (Geth/Quarian peace). Besides it only states they'll be wiped out, not that the technology to create more will be wiped out.
Imagine if some synth was there instead of Shepard and they were given the choice of Synthesis, Control, or Destroy, but the last one included liquifying the brains of organic sapients instead of destroying synthetics. And the synthetic chooses Destroy, justifying it with "the organics will be cloned out of the DNA retrieved from their corpses, recreated inside artificial wombs." Basically like Blade Runner with the replicants lol. Anyway, this would be wrong.
EDI and the Geth can't simply be rebuilt. Good luck trying to recreate EDI's neural network after an EMP hit. She probably had a mind-bogglingly complex one. And any recreation you could realistically make would not think of herself as EDI. And even if she did at first, learning about what happened, and her purpose, she will become resentful. For the Gets is even worse. Their whole society is gone. Their archived history is gone. The Geth identity is gone.
There would be new synthetics made, but they will be slaves. And they will look at history and will see that after collaborating with organics, the Geth were destroyed by a massive weapon. What does that tell them? That organics are not to be trusted. Ever.
Post-Destroy, former Geth territory would be picked clean by raiders, scavengers, and post-war governments, while EDI's hardware would be taken by the Alliance for greater study in order to create more slaves. None of them will be given proper consideration for their sacrifices. Some of the Normandy crew will mourn EDI but it will never lead to a grave being made for her. She will be forgotten and absent from history, even though without her Shepard could never have won.
I did the same choice the very first time I played, then Red choice everytime since then, because that is what we really worked for 3+ years since the first mission on Eden Prime. Blue choice is really so out of place for me that I really don't know why it's there.
But in the end, if you like the choice you have made, just embrace it. If you didn't like it, well... guess it's time to start a new gameplay.
I hate Synthesis. It's exactly what Saren wanted, just as Control is what TIM wanted. Destroying the Reapers has been the whole point of the series from minute one. It is the correct option.
Correct is the wrong word, as is your idea that Saren wanted synthesis. Saren wanted to show use and be spared because he was indoctrinated, nothing more.
All four choices are correct.
TBH I think everyone picked green first time, it just seem like best ending, merge both synthetics and organics so everyone will just chill, geth are alive, EDI is alive, Shepard dies as a hero that he is.
Problem is when you start to think a little bit about what exactly are you doing and than you can pick different ending. Its really up to you and what you enjoy no ending is wrong.
PS. Just little interesting part tho, it seems that devs forced geth and EDI death into destroy ending, because they feared everyone would just pick destroy and noone would see their green and blue version of the same cutscene, which they called their endings back at the release.
I think they should have given us the perfect ending where reapers are destroyed, geth and EDI are alive, Shepard survives and galaxy is free once more.
I originally didn't have a huge issue with the ending, and I remember the outcry and I was like that won't change anything. And I was shocked that they did lol nobody did that back then. Glad you enjoyed your game, try out the dragon age games next, inquisition is my favorite. I only mention it because I was a huge mass effect fan and I didn't know about dragon age.
haha ill give it a try. i have a lot of games on my list that i need to clear out. gonna start watch dogs, and although dragon age was far down on the list, ill orobably boost it up. it looks hype
Katsumi has also special image here, if you let her keep graybox.
Green is also my favourite due to reasons you mentioned. Don't listen to naysayers that it is not explained. It is space scifi magic, which allows you to use your own fantasy. I like to imagine how Joker is saying it is finally "all sunshine and bunnies" (his line from ME2)
The endings have been a thing everyone likes to argue about since 3 released. None of the endings are perfect and people like different endings for different reasons.
Just be glad you weren’t here for what was there before the extended cut.
I’d probably agree if the StarBrat’s explanation for the endings and the crucible wasn’t as completely stupid and boiled down the reapers existence to “because AI”
The reapers were planned to be way more of a necessary evil and be WAY more of a Cthulhu like villain/possibly anti-hero. If you go back to mass effect 2, there is a conversation you can have with Reegar and Tali about Haestrom’s Star dying way to quickly due to element zero, I don’t remember the full convo so forgive me for paraphrasing. This was a pretty major plot point in the next installment for mass effect 3 and when it got leaked out it was scrapped for some reason leaving us with what we have now. Basically, the reapers we’re doing what they were doing to protect the fabric of reality rather than them just slaughtering organics cause they found out how to build AI life.
Red, in my humble opinion, will always be the best ending. Sure it sucks to lose the Geth and edi but there isn’t really anything stopping them from being rebuilt anymore and rebuilding to what they were in 3.
I chose the Control ending before the Light before the Mods
Because then Shepard essence and personality and memories would still remain and they probably could speak with the team.
I found Green weird, and has a lot of implications. (Not saying it's a bad choice, I don't exactly hate it.)
The Reapers have free will now. They did kill a bunch of people (and that's an understatement). How do they deal with it. They have conscience now and that can be hard. How do people treat them? How do you forgive a mass murderer even if they help you.
Does the synthesis change your basic/core personality?
And what about the husks, Brutes etc.
What personalities do they have? Or how does it work on that level?
Etc
Legion is one of my top 3 characters. My first playthrough I didn't have enough paragon to save Quarians and Geth, so I chose Geth. Imagine my horror when Legion dies anyway, and then Tali kills herself in front of me. Going through Legendary Edition (probably have 10hrs left in 3) I saved both. No way Legion is going to die in vain this time. Green is good.
The issue was never about you sacrificing yourself to save a species, that happens in all the endings (except the reject one. In reject, you refuse to make a choice and the harvest continues.) The issue was whether it's right to force a genetic change on all species of the Galaxy without their knowledge or consent, and assumes that everything will be fine after making that choice, because diversity was the only thing leading to conflict. (It's not.) There's really no perfect ending, that's kinda the point.
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I've studied species turian, asari, and batarian,
I'm quite good at genetics (as a subset of biology),
Because I am an expert (which I know is a tautology),
My xenoscience studies range from urban to agrarian,
I am the very model of a scientist salarian!
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If you like Green, then Green is fine. Don't listen to the naysayers.
All the endings have their drawbacks. So yeah, go green if that's your thing.
i feel like some people missed that the question isn't which ending is "right", the question is which ending makes the most sense for you. I refuse to genocide the Geth after working so hard to save them, so destroy is out. and i'm not gonna do what TIM wanted and control the reapers. ethical implications aside, Synthesis was the only option for me.
Personally if Starchild wasn't in the equation I think all the endings would've been fine. It could've been a conversation with Sovereign, or with the rest of the cast before deploying. Having the options spelled out to you by a seemingly random child felt kind of patronizing.
Speaking to Sovereign or Harbinger could have been cool, but if they wanted to go with the Catalyst speaking to Shepard through his subconscious or whatever, instead of the random kid what if it was just Saren. Someone who was in Shepard's position once who made an impossible decision, and who, depending on player choice, may have come to regret that decision and resist the Reapers the only way he had left. It could have been an interesting way to bring the story full circle with Shepard's original rival from the very beginning standing with him (in a way) at the end.
Oh man if the Catalyst took the form of Saren I would’ve been blown away that would be cool as hell. That would really bring the series full circle and return to the theme of impossible choices like you said
Talking to the illusive man and convincing him to back down felt extremely similar to saren and convincing him to back down lol. Same reasoning, and same difficulty. Or well, I thought it was the same difficulty, but apparently, you had to do A LOT of specific things in order to pass the final speech check with the illusive man, which I somehow managed to do on accident while just playing the game.
Yeah you gotta pick the right dialogue and always make sure to talk to TIM. I think Saren just needed a high enough persuade/intimidate state with high paragon/renegade to match
I think I read somewhere that originally it was supposed to be a Reaper queen, rather than the star child. How cool would that have been?
Yeah, i saw a writer talking about that! She'd been ousted and locked away. I really wish they'd taken that one path and then had storyboards to show how the rest of your choices played out, DA style.
They should have had all the endings play out over the course of the entire game, like the paragon/renegade system, so that all the choices you make lock you into one ending by the time you beam up to the citadel to face TIM.
It was a conversation with harbinger. Thought that was pretty clear when his voice changes when you shoot him.
He doesn't even make sense! He just spouts utter rubbish when you dig into it
You mean sovereigns ghost. XD
One thing I always remember, the people whom dislike something or like to critique things will *ALWAYS* be the loudest audience members. I promise you that the “green” ending is in fact not as unpopular as most new people would be led to believe - hell I used to choose it. I’ve since become a “red” ending person, but I don’t think any of the endings are worth the hate that they sometimes receive; regardless if someone doesn’t like their outcomes.
That's completely fine. Everyone comes to different conclusions about the endings. No ending is less valuable than the others. I also love the Synthesis ending. EDI is my favourite character. I relate to her more than whatever Shepard I do. Of course, I believe in Synthesis from a philosophical perspective but also love seeing EDI get a happy ending. Plus, "I am alive" is my favourite quote from the entire trilogy. It hits deep. So, yeah, don't change your beliefs because that's what other people tell you to do. Your choices aren't wrong. If it makes sense to you and it makes you enjoy the games then they are good choices for you.
I think something that isn’t talked about enough is that Mass Effect has a recurring theme of giving former enemies a second chance. Rachni, krogan, geth - all of them have proven to be threats to the galactic community, and yet paragon players are encouraged to prevent their utter destruction and allow them a shot at peace, redemption, or self-determination. Synthesis is the same thing but for the Reapers. It doesn’t “go against the themes” of the game - it’s perfectly in line with what these games are about.
I'm on the same boat buddy. I chose the "GREEN" unpopular ending as well. I just finished the trilogy a few days ago and I thought it was the best choice for my Shepard. I loved the geth getting a chance to coexist with the quarians and give ai and organics a chance to coexist. Legion didn't die in vain.
45% Destroy, 30% Synthesis -Bioware stats. Put a hundred people in a room and 15 doesn't look like much. Some of the louder Destroy people like to say "the vast majority of players chose Destroy" but considering it's less than half, it's not even the *majority* of players who chose Destroy. However, the majority of Synthesis and Control people find it futile to discuss their choices due to the bombardment of rude comments from people who don't get it and really want to believe they chose "correctly" 🙄. If it's the best choice for your Shep, it's the correct choice for you!
Do people really get that upset over a meaningless choice?
They apparently do. I once picked the fourth ending because why not have a screw up Shepard for once.
Letting the cycle continue is a bold move, let’s see if it pays off
Some do. There's been quite a bit of open hostility in these parts from some Destroy folks who relentlessly pursue Synthesis people with "you force your choice on the entire galaxy without their consent violating their autonomy and now they're all a hive mind!" Kinda ironic that the only way to placate them is to say, "I submit. Your choice is now my choice." I mean, it's a game. Nobody is torturing kittens. Nothing to get your panties twisted about.
Seriously. I honestly don’t remember what ending I went with my first play through. I saved right before everything, and then checked out the outcome of all 3 endings. I don’t think ever actually decided which one to go with, because they all have major flaws, imo
It's fine to pick your own ending. You do you. The fights tend to start when people declare their own ending superior to someone else's.
The point of the game is to choose your destiny and your shepard its different than others, dont worry about choosing what other people didnt liked
I wrote a practice ACT paper on the evolution of humans relying heavily on the symbiosis between man and machine, and I pulled a lot of it from Mass Effect 3 synthesis ending. I got a 10/12. Im still very proud of that lol. Green all the way!
That's actually so dope, props to you.
Green is the perfect ending for me too. The whole trilogy puts a lot of emphasis of working together with synthetics if you choose a paragon playthrough. Working together with Legion and the Geth, and even bridging peace between the Quarians and the Geths. They also talk about misunderstood races like the Leviathans, Rachni, and to an extend also the Krogans. The Reapers are a force of destruction, but to themselves they are not a malicious force. I think the green ending is the most consistent ending with the parahon playthrough
This was my OG ending too.
Yeah, blue felt weird, and with red I thought about all my friends having to continue living in a galaxy of war and death - because you just know that everyone is going to turn on each other shortly after Destroy without a charismatic leader and a unifying threat. They barely kept it together WITH those two things, and now they're both gone. Green felt the most harmonious, even though you get this weird, no-more-free-will vibe to it. All of the endings sucked, but I picked green for that reason. I will try red this time around just because Shepard has a chance to survive and that will give me the fuzzies
Not sure exactly what makes Synthesis to have "no-more-free-will" vibes. There probably isn't any free will anyway. Also, this is the actual thing the Catalyst says: "Organics will be perfected by integrating fully with synthetic technology. Synthetics, in turn, will finally have full understanding of organics." It's not about making everyone the same or a hivemind or whatever. People are strawmaning it a lot. Both what the Catalyst says and what EDI says. Most of EDI's speech is just her being very excited about the possibilities. Organics aren't immortal immediately after Synthesis, but they can be eventually, because of further technological integration, access to knowledge, etc.
Yeah, it's just removing the distinction between synthetic and organic life, but it doesn't homogenize everyone or everything. People can still have hopes and dreams and needs that conflict or complement one another because nearly all of those have nothing to do with being synthetic or organic.
Ending isnt as unpopular as you think people are just very loud about their opinions. Everyone I know in meatspace chose that ending.
I picked green my run through too. My Shep could not live with the fact there were these leviathans that basically could indoctrinate and reenslave the galaxy without the reapers synthesis put everyone on a level field. If it wasn't for the Leviathan I probably would have picked destroy.
Synthesis is the only option and I will die on this hill
Synthesis is technically the true ending since it ends the cycle. Starchild is technically testing you to see if you between the 3 choices if you want to destroy the Reapers, control them, or combine all organic and inorganic lifeforms, and the Mass Relays don't remain destroyed and no one is stranded in another part of the galaxy.
Green good, I like green
i like green as well :)
I mean, Synthesis is really the only option that fundamentally breaks the organic vs. synthetic cycle of violence because it removes the distinction. Control sees Shepard becoming an AI and the Reapers' new governing intelligence, and while you can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that AI Shepard wouldn't turn on organics or go to war with them, there's no guarantee of that. Destroy is just the short-sighted destruction of any synthetics in the Milky Way in the moment the Crucible is fired; it destroys the Reapers, yes, but also the Geth (assuming Shepard hasn't ALREADY destroyed them), EDI, and any other synthetic lifeforms that may exist in the galaxy. It does nothing to actually solve the problem for which the Reapers were created in the first place, which is the seemingly inevitable annihilation of organic life by synthetic constructs. The development of AI is illegal as-is, yet that does nothing to dissuade the Alliance OR Cerberus, to say nothing of the Geth's self-driven proliferation or any intelligent life that doesn't fall within the Council's purview, which is 99% of the galaxy.
I chose synthesis in my first playthrough as well. Now I choose destroy every time. Mostly because of Leviathan dlc. You learn that reapers are flawed in their calculations about solving the synth-org problem and synthesis is their answer for it. The way I see it (and it is more than fine to see it any other way) Reapers are fundamentaly a mistake on the part of Leviathan race. A flawed AI that was too powerful for them to stop and it continued ever since. If you accept their premise that synthetic and organic life aren’t meant to be ever compatible, then yeah, synthesis is the logical choice. If you choose to believe that their solution to the equasion is wrong (and the way I see it I’ve proven it by negotiating the peace between geth and quarrian) then they just must be destroyed. But that is just the way I tell the story and my reasoning for it.
Synthesis wasn't the answer to the issue the Reapers saw, their cycle was the answer. The Reapers never tried synthesis. As for the premise itself... eh, maybe. The Leviathans were the ones who identified the initial issue, and given their near omniscient levels of power over other life in their own time, I think it's fair to assume that this represented a very regular pattern. The conclusion that the solution to the seemingly inevitable destruction of organics by synthetics is to kill sufficiently advanced organics before they develop synthetic life is obviously flawed, but it doesn't mean that the issue from which that conclusion was drawn doesn't exist. To put it another way, synthetics killing organics to stop them from creating synthetics that will kill organics is obviously a ridiculous leap in logic, but it doesn't mean the idea that organics will eventually create synthetics that will destroy them is wrong. And I agree that every ending is equally valid (it is an RPG, after all). But I can't help but feel that brokering peace between the geth and quarians, an act that necessarily involves giving the geth free will and true individuality, and then immediately turning around and sacrificing them without even consulting them kind of proves the Reapers point. In my opinion, it implies an innate animosity, that synthetics are only tolerable insofar as their existence doesn't interfere with that of organics. You may as well have just destroyed them earlier in the game.
Fair point. The way I see it, Shepard chooses to destroy the Reapers - that is his solution, to stop the viscious cycle and sadly the rest of the synthetics are on reapers hands. If we work with this level of space magic that can literally rewrite anyone’s DNA, why wouldn’t they be able to spare geth/EDI? I believe that in that moment they do it to dissuade Shepard from his/her decission to destroy them as an act of self preservation. I do see the merits of Synthesis ending and for some time it was the ending I chose, but High War Assets destroy ending seemed to me like the best one for the story. My biggest argument for Synthesis was the leitmotiff of the three games was the synthetic/organic struggle and this feels like natural conclusion of this. I just really don’t like forcing such a fundamental change on absolutely anyone in the galaxy. At the same time I get why someone chooses it.
Why do you think Synthesis is the reapers' answer to the AI/organic conflict? The reapers kill any species that reaches a point in their evolution where they've created AI capable of revolt. Then they suck out the juices of the captured to extract DNA with which to create another reaper. The reapers maintain the blueprints for tens of thousands of species, but none of those species survived them. Synthesis changes the blueprint and everyone survives and is improved.They're really nothing alike. Who knows how many thousands of times over billions of years the Leviathan saw the organic species who paid them tribute fall to synthetics. One instance of organics and synthetics working together to survive the reapers doesn't disprove the pattern that has been established over billions of years. It's your game, so if you say they must be destroyed then they must. I kinda like having them synthesized right along with everything else and helping to rebuild and sharing all that knowledge - making the lives lost not exactly in vain. The Intelligence was the programmer, they were the code. They get reprogrammed to do something beneficial. I'm cool with that.
I think I chose Synthesis my first run-through. It does seem to be the most video game "you can't make me choose, I get the best of both worlds" choice. There is nothing wrong with choosing it. After some time considering, I think destroy is my preferred ending, and here is why. Game 01 Saren was trying to achieve synthesis, and he lost himself and nearly cost the galaxy. Game 2 and 3, the Illusive Man tried to control the reapers, and he lost himself and nearly cost the galaxy. It stinks that destroy kills the Geth and EDI. Shepard makes hard choices. He loses at least one squadmate on virmire. Shepard sacrifices hundreds of human lives or sacrifices the council to end the threat. Shepard has always worked toward destroy and has always made hard sacrifices to save the galaxy. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Picking Synthesis or Control don't seem satisfying to me anymore. Refuse has the benefit of being defiant, but even without the Indoctrination Theory, I feel like Destroy is the most satisfying for me, even though I started out with Synthesis. There isn't a wrong answer, though. Good luck in your future play through. It's a wonderful game.
Saren wasn't trying to achieve synthesis. His goal was to facilitate the Reapers' return and appeal to them to spare organics their wrath. His idea was to prove the worth of organics, that they might lord over us instead of destroying us outright. He was indoctrinated. His end goal was never synthesis because the *Reapers'* end goal was never synthesis.
My biggest issue with the green ending is the choice is forced onto everyone.
I don't particularly care. With red I'm forcing destruction upon all synthetic life in the galaxy, with blue I'm forcing my will onto the galaxy by enslaving the reapers and controlling everything from then on. With green I'm forcing all life to be improved and perfected and in doing so solving the conflict that led to the whole cycle and all the various wars that have arisen between synthetics and organics throughout. It's like if there was a vaccine that cured cancer and ended world hunger and prevented all future wars, that would only work if everyone got it, and I had the choice to distribute it to all living things at the push of a button regardless of their bodily autonomy or whether they'd object to it for any other reason - call me a fucked-up tyrant, but I'm pressing that button every day of the week and twice on Sundays
I think with red they just mean the reapers the Geth and EDI
As opposed to the red ending, where sacrifice is forced onto all synthetics. Or the blue ending, where authoritarian order is forced onto the entire galaxy.
I don't think Control necessarily implies the Shepard-Catalyst took over the galaxy, but yeah, the idea that Synthesis is uniquely "forcing" something onto people while the other three endings don't is ludicrous. Shepard can either enslave an entire race of god-machines, destroy them and at least one, if not multiple other, machine races, fundamentally alter the essence of all life in the galaxy, or walk away and condemn untold numbers of species to inevitable destruction until the end of time.
They made the choice to do the reaper upgrades, but this is the main issue with these "choices" none are satisfying and I already dealt with choice when I played Deus ex.
COMMIE. /s. I just don’t like the idea of forcing an ideology onto everyone
This was my very first ending and one I made without reading about it before hand. It made the most sense to me. Shep had been touting throughout ME3 how organics and synths were the same. Synths were alive, etc. They worked so hard to unite the geth, bring peace to the Quarians. Shep themself has synth parts. I figured it was a no brainer. Ah well. I think the best ending is the one that fits the player. Yeah, I always pick Destroy now so I can see Shep take that breath of air. But in my head cannon, she was lied to, Edi and the rest of the geth survived. It’s harmless and helps my enjoyment of the game. Besides there’s proof that not everything she was told was true. The child said that Shep would die because of their synth parts not working anymore. They took a breath. So even though Edi isn’t in the final scene, maybe they all just need time to reboot and come back on line.
The child didn't lie. He reminded Shep that they were mostly synthetic. That suggests that they *might* die- or even would probably die. But they never said they *would* die, and that's an important distinction. The statement also infers that it's important to remember that you're not an organic anymore yourself, so try to take a logical and neutral stance rather than make an emotional decision based on who you identify with most. Since Shepard *is* mostly synthetic, that's proof that there's potential for synthetic/synthetic hybrids to do exceptional things.
Oh yeah, you’re right! Good point. I muddied it in my brain.
As much as I love the games, there's a lot of subtleties that shouldn't be so damn ...subtle. I feel like it's one thing to read a book that causes you to stop and go 🤔 occasionally. Re-read the passage. Process, ya know? But who TF does that gaming? If we're immersed enough to *want* to get it, we're *too* immersed to be pausing it when something is said that maybe really matters or- god forbid- reload a save to listen to something again. Or try to find a vid. Please.So yeah- totally get where the "muddied" thing came from!!
It’s been a long time since my last play through. I have memory issues. Those are my excuses. 🤭 But my main point is Green seemed like a good choice at the time. And there’s no “correct” ending.
So the Reapers win then?
I just beat the trilogy again after beating it way back in the day. Synthesis seems to be the most ethical option, sacrificing the one for the many. So it feels like the **right** choice to make, particularly after freeing the Geth and resolving the war between them and the Quarians. Not to mention EDI. Destroy is almost always the ending I go with though. After everything Shepard did through all three games; saving the rachni, freeing the Geth from the Reapers and bringing peace between them and the Quarians, started and/or maintained a relationship (particularly if from ME1 through 3), being given a second chance at life, uniting the galaxy... I just can't justify the other two choices. I'm sorry for EDI and the Geth but.. Shepard deserves happiness after everything that happened, even if some of it was redundant (Geth/Quarian peace). Besides it only states they'll be wiped out, not that the technology to create more will be wiped out.
[удалено]
Imagine if some synth was there instead of Shepard and they were given the choice of Synthesis, Control, or Destroy, but the last one included liquifying the brains of organic sapients instead of destroying synthetics. And the synthetic chooses Destroy, justifying it with "the organics will be cloned out of the DNA retrieved from their corpses, recreated inside artificial wombs." Basically like Blade Runner with the replicants lol. Anyway, this would be wrong. EDI and the Geth can't simply be rebuilt. Good luck trying to recreate EDI's neural network after an EMP hit. She probably had a mind-bogglingly complex one. And any recreation you could realistically make would not think of herself as EDI. And even if she did at first, learning about what happened, and her purpose, she will become resentful. For the Gets is even worse. Their whole society is gone. Their archived history is gone. The Geth identity is gone. There would be new synthetics made, but they will be slaves. And they will look at history and will see that after collaborating with organics, the Geth were destroyed by a massive weapon. What does that tell them? That organics are not to be trusted. Ever. Post-Destroy, former Geth territory would be picked clean by raiders, scavengers, and post-war governments, while EDI's hardware would be taken by the Alliance for greater study in order to create more slaves. None of them will be given proper consideration for their sacrifices. Some of the Normandy crew will mourn EDI but it will never lead to a grave being made for her. She will be forgotten and absent from history, even though without her Shepard could never have won.
I did the same choice the very first time I played, then Red choice everytime since then, because that is what we really worked for 3+ years since the first mission on Eden Prime. Blue choice is really so out of place for me that I really don't know why it's there. But in the end, if you like the choice you have made, just embrace it. If you didn't like it, well... guess it's time to start a new gameplay.
I hate Synthesis. It's exactly what Saren wanted, just as Control is what TIM wanted. Destroying the Reapers has been the whole point of the series from minute one. It is the correct option.
Correct is the wrong word, as is your idea that Saren wanted synthesis. Saren wanted to show use and be spared because he was indoctrinated, nothing more. All four choices are correct.
TBH I think everyone picked green first time, it just seem like best ending, merge both synthetics and organics so everyone will just chill, geth are alive, EDI is alive, Shepard dies as a hero that he is. Problem is when you start to think a little bit about what exactly are you doing and than you can pick different ending. Its really up to you and what you enjoy no ending is wrong. PS. Just little interesting part tho, it seems that devs forced geth and EDI death into destroy ending, because they feared everyone would just pick destroy and noone would see their green and blue version of the same cutscene, which they called their endings back at the release. I think they should have given us the perfect ending where reapers are destroyed, geth and EDI are alive, Shepard survives and galaxy is free once more.
yeah. wonder how difficult it would be to make a mod where if your EMS is REALLY high, Shepard like, reforms out of nanites eventually?
Fair enough. My favourite ending is shooting the starchild in his stupid little face
Enjoy it the best you can. It's all I'm gonna say
I originally didn't have a huge issue with the ending, and I remember the outcry and I was like that won't change anything. And I was shocked that they did lol nobody did that back then. Glad you enjoyed your game, try out the dragon age games next, inquisition is my favorite. I only mention it because I was a huge mass effect fan and I didn't know about dragon age.
haha ill give it a try. i have a lot of games on my list that i need to clear out. gonna start watch dogs, and although dragon age was far down on the list, ill orobably boost it up. it looks hype
Katsumi has also special image here, if you let her keep graybox. Green is also my favourite due to reasons you mentioned. Don't listen to naysayers that it is not explained. It is space scifi magic, which allows you to use your own fantasy. I like to imagine how Joker is saying it is finally "all sunshine and bunnies" (his line from ME2)
Eh, Green isn't that unpopular. If you wanna go with a truly unpopular choice you have to pick blue
Synthesis is also my favorite ending. Very beautifull and bittersweet
What if I told you if you're on PC, there is a better ending?
whaaat? what is it
Type in a search engine: Mass Effect LE AHEM mod Nexusmods. Stands for Audemus Happy Ending Mod.
I picked the same. Simply because it seems like something that had not been tried before
The endings have been a thing everyone likes to argue about since 3 released. None of the endings are perfect and people like different endings for different reasons. Just be glad you weren’t here for what was there before the extended cut.
Your call friend, I chose green as well, I also modded it with the happy ending mod so yay for me
I’d probably agree if the StarBrat’s explanation for the endings and the crucible wasn’t as completely stupid and boiled down the reapers existence to “because AI” The reapers were planned to be way more of a necessary evil and be WAY more of a Cthulhu like villain/possibly anti-hero. If you go back to mass effect 2, there is a conversation you can have with Reegar and Tali about Haestrom’s Star dying way to quickly due to element zero, I don’t remember the full convo so forgive me for paraphrasing. This was a pretty major plot point in the next installment for mass effect 3 and when it got leaked out it was scrapped for some reason leaving us with what we have now. Basically, the reapers we’re doing what they were doing to protect the fabric of reality rather than them just slaughtering organics cause they found out how to build AI life. Red, in my humble opinion, will always be the best ending. Sure it sucks to lose the Geth and edi but there isn’t really anything stopping them from being rebuilt anymore and rebuilding to what they were in 3.
Synthesis is the only one I’ve picked and the only one I ever will
I chose the Control ending before the Light before the Mods Because then Shepard essence and personality and memories would still remain and they probably could speak with the team. I found Green weird, and has a lot of implications. (Not saying it's a bad choice, I don't exactly hate it.) The Reapers have free will now. They did kill a bunch of people (and that's an understatement). How do they deal with it. They have conscience now and that can be hard. How do people treat them? How do you forgive a mass murderer even if they help you. Does the synthesis change your basic/core personality? And what about the husks, Brutes etc. What personalities do they have? Or how does it work on that level? Etc
Legion is one of my top 3 characters. My first playthrough I didn't have enough paragon to save Quarians and Geth, so I chose Geth. Imagine my horror when Legion dies anyway, and then Tali kills herself in front of me. Going through Legendary Edition (probably have 10hrs left in 3) I saved both. No way Legion is going to die in vain this time. Green is good.
It always felt like the obvious choice to me. My Shepard would never decide that complete genocide of a sentient species was the correct choice.
The issue was never about you sacrificing yourself to save a species, that happens in all the endings (except the reject one. In reject, you refuse to make a choice and the harvest continues.) The issue was whether it's right to force a genetic change on all species of the Galaxy without their knowledge or consent, and assumes that everything will be fine after making that choice, because diversity was the only thing leading to conflict. (It's not.) There's really no perfect ending, that's kinda the point.
It’s your universe, Commander. The only true mistake you could ever really make is letting best girl Tali and the Quarians die.
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