The first is here, and the second is here.
Unmarked spoilers of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 (including DLC)!
Storyline, final battle, post-game, and multi-player theories are here. General, squad, and romance theories are here.
Storyline
OR, they are still part of the Reaper fleet, but, the true motives of the Reapers being unknowable to organics, it fits into the Reapers' plans for some of them to fight back, anyway.
Both of these explanations allow for the Indoctrination Theory to take place, or not. Either way, they offer an explanation to make the ending, as well as the motives of the Reapers, slightly less retarded.
We're aware this is ignoring a LOT of expanded universe, but hey.
- Harbinger, realizing Shepard and Anderson made it to the Catalyst and could not be stopped, immediately ordered several fellow Reapers to begin modifying their remaining payload of husks and/or prisoners and to jump to nearby universes. WE WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY.
- The first was ordered to modify its Adjutants to speed up its Reaperization process, immediately both converting the infected and Indoctrinating them as well and to begin the cycle anew elsewhere. Lacking enough Reaper parts, the Reaper and Harbinger, believing it would be ironic (and a fitting continuation of the cycle), made the Adjutants biological in nature. Testing on the prisoners on-board was near-instantaneous: like a flood had enveloped them. So they were deemed.
- The next few gathered and decided to use an even smaller way to Indoctrinate, and holding the last few Collectors, they were modified as well. The Reapers decided to terraform and use a planet as the base of their operations. Unfortunately, with limited resources, this would take a very long time. Over time, the new Collectors - dubbing themselves the "Chimera" - rechristened the Reapers, now converted to biological matter, as "Angels".
- The next ship contained no husks, but plenty of Indoctrinated humans and aliens. Harbinger gave it the tools to construct a modified Mass Relay that allowed it to gather enough energy to rip into other realities, and sent it to another universe - and modified smaller Reapers to accompany it and spread their Indoctrination. Christening itself the "Combine", it began to spread its forces among less advanced civilizations, one even a human civilization itself. The Reaper sent an Indoctrinated scientist to prepare this human civilization for its coming: a scientist named Dr. Wallace Breen.
- The next reaper wasn't so lucky, but it did have some genetic capabilities. Though it was badly damaged and quickly "dying", it modified its materials to become a self-replicating parasite, capable of adapting to a species to destroy them, and very hard to destroy. (Harbringer really was obsessed with having organics destroy themselves with organics.) These parasites were deemed "X" by the local civilization, a Prothean/Raloi offshoot calling themselves the "Chozo".
- The final Reaper contained a great number of Asari prisoners, but its cargo of turian, krogan, and human were liquefied. The Reaper, also dying, liquefied the Asari and formed a miniature Reaper of sorts: "Myrrah", or so the base subject called itself, and gave her the knowledge to continue making husks. It taught "Myrrah" swarm tactics, like the Earth insect known as "Locusts". Myrrah thought this appropriate, and named her Reaper faction the "Locust", vowing, despite her lessened resources, to destroy the local human planet, a place called Sera.
- Hey, how about the Shivans? Haestrom's sun destabilizing may have been a Reaper effort to see if they could accelerate the rate in which a star dies, and the Shivans may have been indoctrinated several millenniums before the Protheans. This could explain one of the things about how the sun in Capella had gone supernova in a matter of hours in the Freespace 2 ending.
- Or the Strogg, which are also a race of militant, genocidal machines who inflict horrendous torture and convert organics into their foot soldiers.
- Think about it. After the final battle there are millions of aliens from all of the major races stranded in the Sol system, plus the ruins of the old capitol are floating in orbit above Earth. Even if they did repair the Citadel, with the mass relays gone, they might not be able to move it back where it was before - and with the relays gone the non-geth/quarian races might not have enough supplies for the long flight back home.
- The final battle and endings of the gave take place in a sort of Reaper Instrumentality into which Shepard has been assimilated. The ending choices represent Shepards response to Instrumentality: The destroy ending represents Shepard rejecting it, the control ending represents Shepard striving to dominate it, and the synthesis ending is Shepard embracing it. CONGRATULATIONS Shepard!
- Jossed by recent demo videos, which have the Reapers attacking Earth while Shepard's trial is in progress.
- Jossed, since in the DLC you whack the Broker dead and have Liara take his place. If you didn't play it then Liara raided the lair alone and lost Faron.
- Logic would dictate that the krogan can fight effectively in space. How else could the Rebellions last for centuries?
- Krogan fight in space by being launched at the enemy via torpedoes. Individually.
- The above troper just made my day.
- KROGAN BRAND BOARDING TORPEDOES: Putting the PARTY back in BOARDING PARTY!
- Krogan fight in space by being launched at the enemy via torpedoes. Individually.
- It is, in fact, entirely likely that you have actually been doing this since Mass Effect. The Rachni Queen on Noveria? If you save her, she sends you a message in Mass Effect 2 telling you that she's rebuilding her race and will fight for you when the Reapers arrive. During Tali's loyalty mission, if you suggest to the quarian admirals that they should seek peace with the geth, they'll do exactly that come Mass Effect 3, and you'll already have the Migrant Fleet and Legion's true geth on your side. If Wrex survives Mass Effect and you do the loyalty missions for both Mordin and Grunt, thus eliminating some of Wrex's rivals, you'll also start the game with the Krogan armies on your side too. Although it's quite possible that this outcome will occur even if Wrex dies, since Shepard's actions on Tuchunka in ME2 will have left Urdnot Wreav equally indebted to Shepard.
- You're forgetting the batarians. They will be the biggest pain in the ass to recruit, and will probably only agree after their colonies start getting slaughtered by someone not Shepard. Either they're the last race you recruit or there are consequences if you wait too long to recruit them. Like what happens when you wait too long to get your crew back in ME2: the longer you take, the more of their colonies get slaughtered, and the less they can contribute when you do recruit them. But if you get them early, they give you the biggest bonus out of anyone. But it'll be a major bitch to do it.
- Several are likely for returning squadmates for ME 2, to make room for new characters, or simply to provide a badass sendoff on a particular Wham Level. Imagine, if you will, Tuchanka under attack, fire raining from the sky, armies of husks and indoctrinated krogan assaulting Urdnot's compound, and then Wrex and Grunt pulling Back-to-Back Badasses, Dual Wielding krogan shotguns, blasting scions, maybe even siccing a Thresher Maw on something before eventually they realize that all hope is lost, yell some ancestral krogan war cry, and then krogan-charge headlong into their opponents as the screen fades to black.
- A particular one that struck This Troper as a Moment of Awesome would make an excellent Wham Cutscene: The Citadel under seige by an overwhelming Reaper attack force, maybe civilians evacuating to Ilos through the Conduit, and possibly a mission into the Citadel core (fighting off waves of keepers?) to unlock any possible defenses. However, it all proves naught, and as Shepard & Co. leave through the Conduit, the Council/Human Council decide to stay. And then, as the Reapers descend, the turian Councilor simply looks up from the Presidium at the massive shadow blocking out the sky, and delivers his immortal line, "Ah, yes, Reapers." He then triggers the overload of whatever MacGuffin is powering the Citadel, destroying the station and the entire Reaper attack force with it.
- Better: The human councilor gives the universes greatest "What the hell were you thinking" glare then quotes the Turian Councillor and sets off the MacGuffin.
- The ultimate Tear Jerker/Moment of Awesome : The Reaper fleet engages the Quarian fleet while they hold the line. After a hard fought battle with thousands of Quarians dead and the Reapers are about to break through, the entire Geth armada comes out of FTL and launches a suicidal assault that absolutely curb-stomps the Reaper forces attacking the Quarian fleet. If Bioware is reading this page then PLEASE make it so.
- If you screw up negotiations with the quarians, some of the Migrant Fleet will start firing on the geth, causing them to either return fire or back off, resulting in the Migrant Fleet's destruction.
- The Earth escape mission which opens the game. Thane and Mordin, both with their limited life spans, elect to stay behind to hold off the Husks while the Normandy escapes. Mordin goes down quickly and eventually we see a final image of Thane, standing alone atop a pile of dead husks, watching the Normandy break atmosphere and escape, knowing he's finally atoned.
- Mordin definitely isn't on Earth at that point, as he's encountered later on.
- If Legion sacrificed itself to save Tali. Tali is going to town with her shotgun blazing when a bunch of troops land behind her. Suddenly Legion runs in front of Tali mowing the soldiers down with his assault rifle while getting hit with an insane amount of fire. Upon seeing it become horribly damaged Tali runs to Legions side.Legion: Creator Tali'Zorrah, DO Geth have a soul? We have not run processes concerning "death", Geth have never regarded it as a possibility, but we find ourselves... afraid. We are afraid of death. Do we... Do I.. have a soul?
Tali: Yes Legion... Yes, you have a soul. All things that live do.
Legion: Then I am not simply a machine? I am truly alive?
Tali: Of course you are. You are alive. How could you not be? You are my friend.
Legion: I, Geth, am alive. Thank you, Creator Tali'Zorah. I hope you are correct... (static as systems fail) - Given Bioware's history with Mom's, on the raid of the Illusive Man's hideout when he is about to kill Shepard then Hannah jumps in the way of the shot sacrificing her life to save the life of her child then Shepard gives a [[:Big"NO!"]] then go's into [[:Unstoppable Rage]] and then kills him with a point blank shot to the head then starts to cradle his/her dying mother and she is giving a [[So Proud Of You Final Speech]] and the rest of the crew that was participating enters at the last moment and the camera pan's to the back of shepard and hannah say's "I love you and I am very proud of you" then shows shepard shedding a [[single tear]].
- If you cheated on your ME1 love interest and failed to make up with them, then there will be a situation where they coldly leave your current LI to die. However, if you DID earn their loyalty again, they'll try to save your current love interest instead, which may or may not result in their own death. If you stayed faithful to your ME1 love interest, then the situation is reversed, and whichever possible ME2 LI you were closest to will sacrifice themselves instead.
- There will indeed be many sacrifices. Some heroic, some pointless, all tragic.
- If the player gets an ending where the Reapers are defeated and the upper structure of the Alliance is at least somewhat intact, the Alliance brass will reward Shepard with formal command of the Normandy and a promotion to Captain to boot. Shepard's technically a Lieutenant Commander, and under U.S. Navy protocols, the promotion would be a two rank jump, but under the circumstances, what with saving the galaxy from total destruction and all, it's the very least they could do. If Shepard beats the Reapers but dies in the process, the Alliance will make the promotion posthumously in honor.
- There is a list of actual ranks in the Alliance Navy on the ME wiki, just fyi. Also, if you save the galaxy, forget captain—you deserve to be an Admiral! Or maybe you can become the next Human Councilor!
- Anyone who survived the first two games will help or hurt you in some capacity. The game will either start or end at Earth. Oh, and as per the Mass Effect 2 ending the Reapers will get a humanoid Reaper built by the end of the game. Renegade Sheperd may or may not finally get to do a Heel–Face Turn.
- Keeping your love interest from all the way in the first game will have a massive payoff. Oh, and one possible ending is to marry a squadmate of your choosing.
- It doesn't matter how long you've had a love interest, if you remain loyal, you get to marry them.
- Alternatively, if you play things right, you can get the Tecnhci Solution if you cheated.
- Keeping your love interest from all the way in the first game will have a massive payoff. Oh, and one possible ending is to marry a squadmate of your choosing.
- The Reapers coming to beat down the organics, regardless of whether you were a total Paragon, gaining the loyalty of the rachni (via queen), possibly geth (via Legion or their own will), etc etc, largely because Shepard will go off to discover the Reapers' origin.
- This will then culminate with Shepard pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment, infiltrating the 'Boss' Reaper, and then... lecturing him to death, pointing out the flaws within its plan (going with the Well-Intentioned Extremist theory... that or pointing out that it was made by organics (since machines are made, not born/created - that logic).
- If you did enough research, the Reaper explodes. If you don't (or did not get sufficient evidence), then it will culminate with a massive boss battle with a Reaper-Mech.
- And Wrex will save you with the Krogan-statue-mech.
- And if you Logic Bomb the Reaper, Cerberus will hijack it.
- And you will still have the sudden genre shift to mecha battles.... with Shepard in the Statue of Liberty.
- This Troper prefers Rodina Mat' Zovyot!, as she has a sword.
- Shepard will have to choose between the two, then fight in it against the other. Which will be piloted by the Illusive Man. In a three-way fight against the Reaper-Mech.
- Of course, Liberty Enlightening the World is headless, thanks to D Onovan Hock.
- She was restored.
- This Troper prefers Rodina Mat' Zovyot!, as she has a sword.
- By now people have noticed the "four main quests to complete, SURPRISE Reveal after the third, and then upshift into the endgame" formula that Bioware uses for its biggest hits like Knights of the Old Republic, the original Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins. (Disclaimer: I have never played Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, or indeed finished Dragon Age: Origins, so I do not know if those actually subvert the formula in any way.) Mass Effect 2 mucked with that a little bit by making the majority of the quests largely focused on the characters before upshifting into the endgame. It follows, then, that Mass Effect 3 will not adhere to the aforementioned formula in the slightest. Sure, it'll be about Shepard's final battle against the Reapers, but you won't be gathering allies like Dragon Age or MacGuffins like Knights of the Old Republic. It will be this crazy new formula that no one is expecting and will blow everyone's minds. Extreme divisiveness will ensue, and no one will be sure quite what to make of it all, but the game will receive several confused Game of the Year nominations because of it.
- My personal prediction? Galaxy-wide Real-Time Strategy. When the Reapers attack, Shepard will be promoted to Admiral and given the task of guiding Alliance and Citadel forces across the Milky Way to ward off the scuttlefish overlords before it's too late.
- Sorta confirmed! It's an optional thing that allows Shepard to coordinate galactic resources to achieve "Galactic Readiness". You have earned the right to yell out "called it!"
- Nah, just kidding. Bioware will come up with something more original than that.
- I WANT that as a spinoff game.
- Please, Bioware, do this. The way I play Shepard is a weird combination of Paragon and Renegade that largely consists of using Renegade methods but going Paragon on the big choices and being good to the crew and allies. I want the opportunity to do this.
- But doesn't a player already know why Shepard acts as he does? Wouldn't you already understand your Shepard's motivations and reasoning?
- Yes, but there's a difference between what the player knowing the character's motivation and the character acting that way. Outside of a few instances Shepard hasn't really gone into the hows and whys of how s/he acts and when s/he does it normally doesn't affect much beyond a few lines of dialogue. But imagine combining the epic Paragon Speech against Al-Jilani with the heartfelt intimacy of catching-up with Liara at the end of Liar of the Shadow Broker. That's what this would be: no moral choices, no Paragon/Renegade, just Commander Shepard talking about being Commander Shepard.
- Please, Bioware, do this. The way I play Shepard is a weird combination of Paragon and Renegade that largely consists of using Renegade methods but going Paragon on the big choices and being good to the crew and allies. I want the opportunity to do this.
- It will involve the Leviathan of Dis, and will eventually come down to a Sadistic Choice between brokering peace (which preserves the batarian military for the fight against the Reapers, and limits the suffering of innocents) or helping the Alliance to conquer baterian space. To make it harder the mission will feature at least one villain who will get away with it if you broker peace, and sympathetic batarians who will die if you allow the Alliance to win. No matter what you choose at least one character will say What the Hell, Hero?.
- That feels like something that should be left to later games in the franchise, rather than the game that's supposed to revolve entirely around the Reapers.
- ... This is the last game in the franchise. Bioware keeps going on about how much the story can diverge because there's nothing after ME3.
- Dude... I just realized. The batarian-human war will be part of the MMO!
- Remember, the batarians possess the Leviathan of Dis, a vast organic dreadnought. Given what we've learned about the Reapers it is almost certain that it is somehow connected to them, and given the batarian love of taking slaves I wouldn't be surprised if they've been repairing it over these past years.
- It's a corpse. Reverse-engineering it, on the other hand...
- Although the Leviathan hasn't made an appearance, the batarians are indeed out for blood following "Arrival", what with Shepard blowing up one of their star systems and all.
- The Levithan does get mentioned. It was based on Reaper Tech and indoctrinated the Batarian Hegemony.
- That feels like something that should be left to later games in the franchise, rather than the game that's supposed to revolve entirely around the Reapers.
- No loyalty missions for anybody.
- Confirmed!
- Things aren't looking exactly confidence-inspiring with the Council or the Alliance, but the geth, and potentially the rachni and the krogans are more than happy to offer a hand in the coming war. Maybe in Mass Effect 3 you get to convince the batarians and the vorcha to join the party, and then finally triumphantly march to the Council with an entourage of everybody they wanted to keep a million miles away from the Citadel.
- Nope. Every race is fighting as hard as it can against the Reapers.
- Well, this (usually as the 11th-Hour Ranger) and a romantic subplot are Bioware's two favorite tropes that drift from game to game with no aversions. Note that Legion doesn't count as this, because they were never even tangentially evil to begin with. And while we are on Bioware tropes, there will be a character that can say "Well, fuck this, I don't like you, Shepard. I quit."
- Confirmed, several characters can inadvertantly turn against Shep forcing him/her to kill them.
- Sure, it'd be a blatant reuse of the trope that the second game was pretty much entirely based around. However, it was a good way to emphasize that your decisions can have real consequences in the game world, and it is in fact possible to screw things up so badly that you won't make it out alive. The worst ending of the second game had everyone dead but Joker. Following the Rule of Cool and up to eleven, then, the worst ending of the entire series will end in total, complete, abject failure — the Reapers destroy the Alliance/Citadel fleets, Harbinger executes Shepard personally, Earth is harvested and destroyed, and the Reapers retreat back into dark space for the next 50,000 years to wait for the next poor bastards to rise out of the primordial muck. But that's only if you screw up all the story missions.
- Not to mention having all of Shepard's fish die. That was a bad day, all things considered.
- I'd say the real Bad End involves Shepard being indoctrinated and helping the Reapers wipe out the galaxy.
- Many but not all can die if the wrong choices were made.
- Including Earth. Once again you can have Everybody Lives ending if you're really good and do everything just right, but otherwise you're going to lose entire civilizations. In the worst case scenario only the quarian Migrant Fleet and whatever refugees manage to band together with them succeed in fleeing the known areas of the galaxy to seek a new home, while the surviving Reapers ravage their home planets, while in the best you'll get away with the loss of a few small colonies.
- This troper envisioned a scenario whereby you use Conduits to move troops between multiple worlds. Having the rachni, geth, and/or krogan on your side will make it possible to get an Everybody Lives ending.
- Remember that old ME1 "Signal Lost" advertising campaign? I think it is VERY likely that ME3 will include the loss of at least a few planets.
- I'm pretty sure only colony planets would be doomed by the plot no matter what you do, but you'll have the oppurtunity to save the home planets of every race.
- This option will not be Paragon or Renagade since both are actually heroic. You will also be made into a Reaper.
- The worst Bad End involves Shepard getting indoctrinated while still remaining competant. Then the galaxy dons their brown pants.
- You do NOT have to start a new save file, in fact, there is no choice to. Instead:
- The turian Councilor will stand on a balcony of the tower as the Reaper Fleet approaches. "Ah, yes," he will say as they approach, "the 'Reapers'. We have dismissed that claim." As he says this, the fleet disappears from existence. The credits roll.
- You win at life forever.
- The turian Councilor will stand on a balcony of the tower as the Reaper Fleet approaches. "Ah, yes," he will say as they approach, "the 'Reapers'. We have dismissed that claim." As he says this, the fleet disappears from existence. The credits roll.
- BioWare really wants player decisions to have an impact throughout the entire trilogy and, although we got a taste of what they meant by that in the second game, they've stated they're going all out for the third. Highlights most likely include:
- Everyone survived the suicide mission only if you imported a game with the No One Left Behind achievement. Otherwise, only the potential love interests survived.
- Shiala will be a recruitable love interest, but only if you spared her in the first game and helped her with her quest in the second.
- Gianna Parasini will be recruitable, but she'll only be a love interest if you're male and helped her with her quests in the previous two games.
- The rachni will show up as Big Damn Heroes during the final battle, but only if you spared the rachni queen in the first game. Otherwise, Shepard will be faced with a Sadistic Choice.
- The choices you made concerning the rachni, the genophage cure, the Migrant Fleet, the geth and the Collector base will most likely differ from the default decisions in the final game and will help or hinder you during the final battle since it will determine how many allies you have.
- If you stop Garrus from killing Sidonis he will come back in ME3 and pull a Heroic Sacrifice saving Garrus' life. Otherwise he dies or Shepard is faced with a Sadistic Choice.
- The family members of the person you left behind on Virmire will confront Shepard at his/her trial at the beginning of ME3.
- And the survivor will show up to defend you after being a dick when you met on Horizon.
- In other words:
- Another excuse for a Bag of Spilling is added.
- They've said they don't want to do that.
- And it was greatly jossed. If you import a save from Mass Effect 2, Shepard starts at the level that he was in the end of the second game.
- Liara will be the only returning party member, since she's the only one guaranteed not to be dead. The others will have token appearances only, as Ashley/Kaidan/Wrex did in Mass Effect 3.
- The Virmire Survivor and Garrus (if he survived the suicide mission) have also been confirmed.
- As well as Tali. Wrex, Mordin and Legion make appearances and help with the plot, but we don't know if they'll even be temporary squadmates. I'd put money on the rest of the ME2 crew to show up as well for at least a cameo role. I would also think that the potential Love Interests might play a significant role.
- The choice to save the Citadel Council or not continues to affect absolutely nothing important. As will the choice to give the Collector Base to Cerberus.
- If they died, you meet their replacements in the third game. Cerberus salvages a different part of the Human-Reaper depending on if you spared the base or not. It can be recovered as a war asset later.
- The rachni, if saved, will make only a minor appearance. Maybe a short encounter between Shepard and the queen in which (s)he can convince them to help against the Reapers, followed by their ships participating in the background of some big multi-species fleet cutscene(s) later. This will not affect the outcome of any battle.
- Alternatively, the rachni will turn out not to be as extinct as everyone thought and the only difference between saving the queen or not is if the rachni representative you inevitably must convince to help already knows Shepard or not.
- An artificial rachni queen is created by the Reapers if the real one is killed. If you spare this one, then you will regret it. However, sparing the real queen will help you.
- The choices to rewrite the geth heretics or to give Tali's father's research to the Admiralty Board mean nothing. There will be a war between the quarians and the geth, and Shepard must end it one way or another to get one or both to help against the Reapers.
- Seems to be confirmed. A mission in ME3 is going to involve resolving the geth/quarian conflict.
- Rewriting the heretics hinders you in the third game.
- The genophage will be cured regardless of your choices. Shepard must somehow prevent the krogan from getting all conquest-happy and convince them to help with the Reapers.
- Curing the genophage is a major objective, but you can choose whether to or not. Depending on choices in the previous games, this turns out either to be a good or a bad idea.
- Another excuse for a Bag of Spilling is added.
- I'd like to point out that ME3 is designed to be playable and replayable by even players who have never played ME1 or ME2. Whether or not you imported save data and what you did in it will only affect how difficult it is to achieve certain goals, not whether or not you can.
- Normally, Alliance dreadnoughts are named after mountains, while carriers are named after famous humans. However, construction on the carrier SSV Newton had only begun at the time of the Battle of the Citadel, enough that it could be re-purposed as a dreadnought. It was to be renamed McKinley, but the crew vetoed the idea, as the "Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space" speech is legendary among Alliance gunnery crews. After the XO apparently threatened Admiral Hackett with a copy of the Principia, the original name was retained.
- Servicemen Burnside and Servicemen Chung will be the main gunners. Eventually their sensors will get damaged to the point where one of them will say to the other to 'just eyeball it!'
- EDI will leave the Normandy in Joker's capable hands and hijack the Newton's systems after A) a bunch of the crew gets spaced, specifically the bridge personnel and weapons operators or B) after it gets hijacked by the indoctrinated Cerberus, in which case EDI spaces them. And then she murders some nearby Reapers, possibly a Heroic Sacrifice if you screwed things up.
- A ship named Newton would probably be a carrier. The different classes of Alliance ships have different themes. Dreadnaughts are named after famous Earth mountains, carriers are named after scientists. It will still be the deadliest sonova bitch in space, because carriers (and their many hangars of small fighters) are a human innovation and a zillion tiny targets may prove to be more dangerous to the Reapers than a giant ship that can be killed in one blow.
- Unfortunately such a ship never appears. Shame as it might have been a good joke to write in.
- One which can only be viewed if the player plays Shepard solely as a Paragon or Renegade through all three games. In either case, both possible endings will show the galaxy 50,000 years from now, roughly around the time of the Reapers' next cycle.
- The Paragon variant will show humanity's descendants fulfilling much the same role as the Protheans did for whatever sapient species have sprung up this time around. The Citadel will have been retired as a center of galactic civilization and alternatives to Mass Relays will have been discovered. Furthermore, the predominant religion of this utopian society will be a form of monotheism venerating the god who stood against the Machine Devils from Beyond The Stars and drove them back into the darkness whence they came forevermore. Though his true name has long since been lost to the sands of time, the peoples of the galaxy have christened their Messiah the Shepard.
- I award you the extranet
- Conversely, the Renegade version will show a galaxy much as it was during the height of the Prothean empire: a single species as the dominant power in the Milky Way, with a civilization spanning thousands of worlds and capable of wonders beyond imagination. And at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished as the keepers - newly resubjugated - receive the signal from the current vanguard and open the relay to dark space, allowing the Reapers to come pouring through. At the head of their illimitable fleet is the greatest and youngest among their number, a butcher of worlds and civilizations even before their conversion to a perfect, mechanical existence... the second Human-Reaper, Shepard.
- "There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own, you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Shepard. And this my is my favorite species to harvest."
- That sounds more like a Bad End than a Renegade end. For Renegade, humanity would be the dominant—and perhaps only—sentient race in the galaxy. They would remember Shepard much more realistically than your Paragon ending religion, as a legendary war hero who saved humanity in spite of the rest of the galaxy's complacency. At around the 50,000 year mark, they wouldn't be preparing their defenses—they'de be going on the offensive, going into dark space to murder the Reapers once and for all. Or perhaps to start colonizing other galaxies.
- The Paragon variant will show humanity's descendants fulfilling much the same role as the Protheans did for whatever sapient species have sprung up this time around. The Citadel will have been retired as a center of galactic civilization and alternatives to Mass Relays will have been discovered. Furthermore, the predominant religion of this utopian society will be a form of monotheism venerating the god who stood against the Machine Devils from Beyond The Stars and drove them back into the darkness whence they came forevermore. Though his true name has long since been lost to the sands of time, the peoples of the galaxy have christened their Messiah the Shepard.
- For a Paragon ending, there's a quiet scene of a uniformed person (human male or female, or an asari) at a memorial to the Normandy (both of them) in a garden with a statue of each of the team members, with Shepard's in the middle, of course. A junior officer runs up and informs the officer that there's been a call for help due to an unexpected threat from a newly opened mass relay, and calls him/her Captain Shepard. The captain looks up that the Shepard statue, says "I have to go, Mom/Dad" (thus the possibility of an asari) and cuts to the bridge of a multispecies-crewed ship, including unmasked quarians, as he/she assumes the command position and gives the order to go. Outside shot of an obviously powerful warship named Normandy hitting the mass relay and flashing out.
- Thus achieving the Triple Crown of Heartwarming, Awesome, and Tearjerker.
- And then a piece flies off the ship, so we get Funny as well.
- Thus achieving the Triple Crown of Heartwarming, Awesome, and Tearjerker.
- Confirmed. An old man relaying the tale of Sheperd and his/her crew to a young audience. The old man being voiced by Buzz Aldrin.
- Seriously. Let's look at most major results of your actions as a Paragon. Council: saved. Krogans: more likely to be your side, thanks to Wrex. Rachni: on your side. Geth and quarians: are going to stop the war, on your side, both. Collectors' base: destroyed. Am I the single person who sees a severe disbalance here? Seriously. You've got, like, half the galaxy of friends. Thus, there will be a major help for Renegade or backfire for Paragon Shepard. Say, the Collectors' base containing a lot of immensely useful technology which will help to destroy the Reapers. The Council being indoctrinated by Reapers. Some treachery. Et cetera.
- As one of the purported strengths of the Mass Effect series is that Paragon and Renegade are equally effective, this would only work if there was an enormous backfire for Renegade Shepard too. Say, humans defeat the Reapers but are then turned upon by the rest of the galaxy and exterminated. Otherwise, I'm of the opinion the "major help" for Renegade Shepard would involve the entirety of the human race.
- And that's exactly what I'm implying: equally effective. By now, they are not equally effective. Renegade's actions already result in a major backfire: you have neither Council nor the rachni on your side, plus dealing w/ krogans, geth and quarians is harder. The sole thing that will help you on your quest is the Collectors' base.
- A Renegade solution to the quarian's/geth might not be as lopsided as it initially appears. It's somewhat implied during Tali's loyalty mission that Rael'Zorah's team was very close to a huge breakthrough in hacking the geth (and Legion's mission shows that it is possible to "brainwash" the geth). A Renegade could still easily have the quarians and their geth legions onside.
- I don't think Mass Effect is there on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. Paragon actions might appear to backfire, and the reapers will cackle at Shepard for his naivety, but a second later, there would be a huge Big Damn Heroes moment as the rachni warp in, the geth sacrifice themselves to shield the Migrant fleet, and the turian councillor fights off his indoctrination, seizes a pack of grenades, and throws himself into the Reaper core. If they wanted to balance it, the obvious answer is this: the Paragon has more resources, but s/he also has more s/he wants to defend. A Renegade would be quite happy if Earth is all that's left of the galaxy. The Paragon wants to get everyone through this in one piece.
- The geth sacrifice themselves to shield the Migrant fleet, if BioWare is reading, that could become the best Tear Jerker, Heroic Sacrifice and Moment of Awesome ever.
"Does this unit have a soul?"- At above: This Troper actually almost cried just thinking about it. D'awww.
- This troper can picture that: Legion is fatally injured with Tali as the only squadmate on-hand. Legion: Creator Tali'Zorrah, DOES Geth have a soul? We have not run processes concerning "death", Geth have never regarded it as a possibility, but we find ourselves... afraid. Do we... Do I have a soul? Tali: Oh, Legion... Yes, you have a soul. Legion: Thank you, I hope you are correct... (static as systems fail)
- One possibility: the Council will be actively hostile towards Paragon!Shepard in Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. He'll have the combined forces of the krogan, the rachni, the geth and the quarians on his side, ready to fight the Reapers. That sort of large-scale preparation would be impossible to hide. I can see some people in the galaxy starting to call them "Shepard's Fleet." The Council, who still don't beleive in the Reapers, will assume Shepard is plotting a coup, and will send numerous Spectres or even a fleet to stop him. A big challenge for Paragon Shepard will be convincing the Council races to join up with him. Whether or not the Alliance is on your side depends on who you put in the Council seat.
- Oo. Do we get to play a mission where we need to fight off multiple Spectres at the same time? I likey.
- Renegade Shep could have the same help as Paragon Shep, actually. If pro-human and saving Reaper tech, humanity ends up being a heavily mechanized and cyborgized race - in place of say, geth, you'd have husks. In place of krogan, scions. Sure, you'd be giving up people but that's kind of the Renegade hat - doing whatever it takes to win.
- As one of the purported strengths of the Mass Effect series is that Paragon and Renegade are equally effective, this would only work if there was an enormous backfire for Renegade Shepard too. Say, humans defeat the Reapers but are then turned upon by the rest of the galaxy and exterminated. Otherwise, I'm of the opinion the "major help" for Renegade Shepard would involve the entirety of the human race.
- Surprisingly enough some Paragon actions DO come back to haunt you. Saving the Heretic geth makes taking a third option in ending the Geth/Quarian conflict much harder. In a small scale not telling Kelly to change her identity while she is on the citadel causes her to be executed when Cerberus raids the Citadel to kill the council.
- Although saving the Heretics does pay off slightly in the end if you do succeed at making peace between the two groups or picking the geth; depending on whether you save or rewrite them one of the groups will lose and the other gain 150 military strength, balancing the two out, but once the geth join you they get a small strength bump from their higher numbers.
- Methods may involve getting shot in the back by an alien teammate, getting impaled by the final boss, falling to his doom (again), or having a literal bridge drop on him. Why? Just to teach a lesson to those who think that being a dick to the rest of the galaxy pays off. Sorry, but there needed to be some balancing out of the "Things won't end well for Paragon Shepard" theories...
- I doubt it. The pure Renegade path will probably lead to all the other races dying in the fight against the Reapers, leaving humanity indisputedly in charge. They could possibly be the only sentient species in existance when the dust settles.
- The Council, and the turian Councilor in particular, have always been massively dismissive of Shepard's claims through the first two games. In the end, this is going to bite them in the ass, as Mass Effect 3 is going to at some point reveal incontrovertible proof of the Reapers to them, and they'll realize they've been wrong the entire time.
- This will possibly happen when the Council receives word of the Reapers attacking and utterly destroying some worlds, at which point they'll call back Shepard to grovel. The Paragon option will be to righteously declare how they were wrong and that they have to listen to him now.
- The Renegade option, however, will be a truly epic sarcastic smackdown where Shepard verbally rips them to pieces in a blow-by-blow accounting of all their failings, noting that "obviously, since Reapers can't exist, these attacks are clearly the effect of my delusions becoming so strong they warp the fabric of reality!" The salarian and asari Councilors will note that this is all the turian Councilor's fault. Shepard will likely make use of airquotes at some point.
- Said Renegade option will be labelled "Ah yes, Reapers" on the dialogue wheel.
- This will not be the option, as the Renegade option will be to simply say "screw you" and disconnect. The "ah yes, reapers" option will be in gold and will require at least two levels each of Paragon and Renegade.
- Alternate idea: as Reapers besiege the Citadel, the turian Councilor calls Shepard to ask for help. Renegade Shepard replies "Ah, yes, Reapers. We have dismissed that claim." and cuts him off, leaving him to die.
- Renegade Shepard? My Shep is as Paragon as they come and I'm *still* choosing this.
- Seconded!
- I'd be satisfied if Shepard greeted them with "Ah yes, 'Councilor'" complete with quote fingers.
- Shepard will also have the option of publically raking the Council over the coals for their negligence. The galaxy will lose faith in them, leaving Shepard and (maybe) the human Councilor effectively in charge. On the other hand, Shepard could choose to encourage the galaxy to stand united behind the the Council and fight together against the Reapers.
- Nothing as extreme as suggested but the councilors will come to the realization that whenever they doubted Sheperd in the past, he/she was actually 100% correct. This time they trust you without the need for a mountain of concrete evidence.
- Remember him from the first game? How before falling into his spiteful slump, he was fairly respected? Well, why can't he show off WHY he got that position in the first place by being the first of the Citadel military to mount a competent defense against the Reapers? Further, having enough respect for Shepard that he believes whatever warning is sent about the mechanical monsters, and immediusiately sets up the trenches so to speak, all while the Council balks?
- Septimus is never seen again.
- General Septimus returns in a side quest on the Citadel, where he is attempting to stop Blue Suns. His full name is revealed: Septimus Oraka.
- Seriously. In first game you had to perform a small surgical strike into the enemy territory to kill Saren. In the second game you had to act secretly and perform a small surgical strike to destroy the Collectors' base. Thus, having a small party of crazy killers was entirely justified (Mordin was the sole person who wasn't needed to be a killer, but still was one).
- But in the third game another swarm of mooks to secretly fight through is just stupid, because you killed the Collectors, you destroyed the heretics, and the Reapers don't need another bunch of slaves, as they are coming themselves to kill organic stuff. You are very likely to stop working with Cerberus, thus you don't have a powerful organization at your hand which will help you gather an army... and they were never powerful to begin with.
- Thus, you need to gather a mini-organization yourself. Recruting people will still have a major influence, but who said that some guy must be proficient in killing things to help you on your quest? He may stay on a planet to help you, he can become a part of your crew and stay on a ship, or you can take him to the planets as a specialist, not as another badass.
- Some of these will be.
- The survival of the first game's Love Interest or the second's.
- How would this one work for people that didn't carry a love interest over from either game?
- They just won't get this choice.
- That is one hell of a way to punish cheaters.
- The survival of humanity or the Citadel.
- The survival of the geth or the quarians.
- The survival of the krogans or the rachni.
- The survival of Shepard or at least one planet.
- The survival of the first game's Love Interest or the second's.
- What do I mean? Each of the allies you gain over the course of the games will work with someone(and someplace) you're already familiar with to stop a splinter fleet of Reapers, each led by a "Harvester Lord".
- Omega: Clan Urdnot, alongside Aria (really Wrex's old rival) and her mob, as well as possibly the salarian STG. Reaper: Purgator= "Even by our standards, you are rejects. Worthless life. Your only salvation is destruction..."
- The Citadel: The Rachni Swarm, alongside Citadel forces(turians and asari). Reaper: Executor: "Pathetic. Millions of years, and you mortals haven't bothered to try something new. These insectoids will not save you..."
- Vague? Extremely! But much as the first game made a good effort to build up the geth as huge colossal pricks only to subvert it with Legion, way too much effort has gone into vilifying the batarians without some kind of payoff. My guess is a Neutral Good batarian crewmember, possibly a batarian abolitionist or freedom fighter. The Codex suggests that the reason batarians seem so evil is because the only representatives we see are the evil government and the criminals who escaped the planet. Alternatively, there may be some kind of batarian civil war - possibly the Reapers approach them with false promises of crushing humanity underfoot, much as they did the heretic geth.
- Mr. Lawson, Miranda's father, who is rather ticked at Shepard for meddling in his family affairs.
- If Miranda survives, you can get a mission to deal with him. Either because you blew up the Collector base (with Miranda's support) or just because they're indoctrinated, Cerberus tells Mr. Lawson where Oriana is. You either try to prevent him from getting her or rescue her after she's kidnapped.
- The Shadow Broker, Liara's hunted them down and now it's payback time for the body snatch incident along with Thane's wife.
- Jossed. If you complete "Lair of the Shadow Broker", after which The Shadow Broker (AKA Liara) is now on your side.
- Cerberus, of course.
- Cerberus is confirmed by Bioware to want Shepard dead. They've been indoctrinated.
- Another Ardat-Yakshi.
- The only other two in the galaxy are Samara's imprisoned daughters.
- Those are the only ones Samara is aware of. Doesn't mean there aren't more.
- Or the Reapers go out of their way to indoctrinate them. And then you have t help Smara kill her other two daughters, provided she survived ME2.
- You fight numerous indoctrinated Ardat-Yakshi throughout the game. Including Morinth if she survived.
- The only other two in the galaxy are Samara's imprisoned daughters.
- The batarian higher-ups.
- The mission to get them on your side will be the last or at least the hardest. They have a bad history with humanity in general and with Shepard in particular, sometimes all the way back to Shepard's origin.
- Nope. The batarians have pretty much collapsed due to being the first to suffer Reaper attacks.
- A faction of quarians led by Admiral Xen who is about to take control over the geth by force and then dominate the galaxy.
- The quarians aren't really after galactic dominance, they just hate the geth and want their homeworld back. At best Xen will be your biggest opponent if you try to get them to ally with the geth and may try to kill you and any Admirals that support you (Koris).
- Doesn't happen.
- All of them will have an option when they're defeated to either finish them off in the name of justice/revenge/prevention of future acts or keep them alive in exchange for something that might help against the Reapers.
- A Terminus Systems alliance group who is hellbent on making the Alliance pay for the humans killed during the Collectors incident (there were no survivors from the Collectors Reaper process IIRC, only Shepard's crew avoided the fate), led by human survivors, they plan to destroy all mass relays.
- Actually, a couple colonists did survive. At least, if you hold off on going through the Omega-4 Relay, the pods that would normally hold your crew hold colonists, instead.
- Doesn't happen.
- Really, they'll need a ship and just making the Normandy bigger and stronger again would be just lame. Could be:
- A Reaper does a Heel–Face Turn.
- EDI takes over a Reaper with the anti-Reaper algorithms mentioned in ME2.
- Someone repairs the derelict Reaper you got the IFF from, possibly with parts salvaged from Sovereign's remains.
- Might be tough, seeing as how it's crushed by the gas giant.
- The Reaper will have a female humanoid avatar who is available as a squad member.
- If this is true, there's some epic foreshadowing at the end of Mass Effect 2: that music that plays as the Reapers move into view? The ending of "The Normandy Reborn". Oh yeah.
- Funny but Jossed. The Alliance takes apart the Normandy SR-2, studies it, and put it back together. And they keep EDI! But yeah, you get the Normandy SR-2.
- They did this with Ashley/Kaidan, and what better way to impress upon the player that sacrifices have to be made, than to kill one of the 2 characters who will have gone through the entire game.
- How about no. That one achievement we all know about greatly improved replayability. BioWare can't be that stupid.
- I don't think I know about it. Unless you're talking about the one related to the Suicide mission?
- How about no. That one achievement we all know about greatly improved replayability. BioWare can't be that stupid.
- When Shepard died at the beginning of ME2, it caused the Normandy crew to fall apart and scatter to the four winds. In order to make sure that doesn't happen again, you'll be able to choose one of your squadmates *cough*Garrus*cough* to take over the group should anything happen to Shepard. Naturally, near the end of the game there will be a section where Shepard is incapacitated and you'll have to play as whoever you chose earlier for a short time.
- Miranda is already your XO, providing she survived. Garrus is unlikely to be your second-in-command - a turian in charge of a human vessel looking to save humanity from the Reapers is unlikely, even if he is completely awesome. If someone had to be put in charge of the galaxy-saving in Shepard (and Miranda's) stead, it would probably have to be Joker. He's not an action guy, but he is badass as all hell.
- It's awesome just because it's unlikely. The Normandy's task is to save the galaxy, not merely humanity, and that's why putting the turian in charge would be heavily favoured by Paragon Shepard. Garrus is the strongest example of a party member trying to follow in Shepard's footsteps, even gathering a multi-species band to fight injustice in his absence. He's the perfect successor to a Paragon Shepard. It's worth noting that Miranda and Garrus are both approved fire team leaders at the end of Mass Effect 2, and hence, if this WMG is correct, both good leader choices.
- Ashley or Kaidan could also work, if they return as squadmates.
- Kaidan now holds the rank of Staff Commander, so it's likely he comes back as your XO, Miranda having left to do her own thing or being sent elsewhere by the Alliance. If Kaidan survives, then he is the same guy he was in ME1 and a great Executive Officer. If he died, the replacement is a stick-in-the-mud regulations-before-everything Frank Burns look-a-like that everyone hates.
- Kaidan/ Ashley is made a Spectre, so I'd say it's an even match between them and Garrus. Miranda is capable, but doesn't engender and loyalty based on her personality.
- Choosing anyone else won't be bad, but your social options will be limited.
- I'm sorry, you don't think making Jack your XO might have negative consquences?
- Jacob's a decent possibility. Experienced Alliance soldier, experienced Cerberus operative, and he mentions that he has captained a ship before back when he was a Corsair.
- Captain Anderson (If he's in the squad) would be a pretty decent choice.
- Miranda is already your XO, providing she survived. Garrus is unlikely to be your second-in-command - a turian in charge of a human vessel looking to save humanity from the Reapers is unlikely, even if he is completely awesome. If someone had to be put in charge of the galaxy-saving in Shepard (and Miranda's) stead, it would probably have to be Joker. He's not an action guy, but he is badass as all hell.
- Harbinger (noun): a person or thing that foreshadows or foretells the coming of someone or something. You could easily argue that Harbinger is foreshadowing the Reapers' return, but this was pretty much a given. In ME3 Harbinger will be The Dragon to the true Big Bad, the leader of the Reapers.
- He's the Big Bad. The codex also reveals that he is both the oldest and most powerful Reaper of them all.
- Confirmed: Harbinger and all the other Reapers are all servants of the Catalyst, the AI that lives in the Citadel and controls the Cycle.
- The best possible Paragon ending (if you do everything right, and are somehow able to save the Galaxy with as little loss of life as possible, are able to fully do your romance option and survive, all while not being a complete maniac-asshole..) will see:
- You getting a big parade.
- The Citadel Species becoming a political entity that is something akin to The Federation of Star Trek fame. You get a choice that lets you either become its first President, its first Admiral or you can simply retire.
- The Keepers, finally free of the Reapers' will and modifications, regain sentience and reveal the secrets of the Citadel to the Galaxy.
- Joker's Vrolik Syndrome is cured.
- You and your romantic option get married (if possible).
- And then, maybe a year or two later, you are honored as the now-unified Citadel Fleet unveils it's new flagship: "Normandy-3". Shep glances at his/her Wife/Husband/Whatever (if Shep is male and married to a human or asari, the wife will be noticeably pregnant, same goes for a Fem Shep and a asari), and then at Joker, and then at the other Squad/Crew members from the past 3 adventures who are still alive, and then says: "Well, a ship like this... it'll need a good crew." Maybe it'll be meant as a joke, maybe it is meant as a wish or a order... but no matter what, one thing is clear: The Adventures Never Truly End.
- Shepard dying in bed after a long life.
- Maybe you get your crew together to exterminate the Reapers in dark space? Even with the most powerful galactic alliance, the best I expect is to drive them away. Unless they'll die if the have to retreat to dark space again, in which case they'll fight to the last Reaper.
- If you chose Paragon, and destroyed the base, the game starts with you storming Cerberus main base of operations and capturing TIM as well as key members of the organisation, deciding whether to turn them over to the Council, or excecute them yourself, as your first Paragon/Renegade choice in the game. After which your ties to the Alliance, and the Citadel are restored (along with your spectre status if you didn't already get it back), and you're promoted to Captain.
- Staff Commander, actually. Shepard is a Lieutenant Commander (which are usually referred to simply as Commander).
- While that's the situation in the first game, we have no idea if that's the same for the second. Staff Commanders are usually referred to as just Commanders; and after what Shepard did, then a promotion is the least s/he deserves. Not to mention they could just skip that rank and make him/her a Captain without being a Staff Commander first.
- They technically could, but one would wonder why (other than bestowing upon him a rank that sounds more badass). If there were a promotion in between games, we would have probably been told, but I have to admit that can't be ruled out.
- Staff Commander, actually. Shepard is a Lieutenant Commander (which are usually referred to simply as Commander).
- If you went Renegade and turned the base over to Cerberus, the game starts with you storming Cerberus main base of operations and usurping TIM as it's leader, sparing him and making him your subordinate, or killing him face to face, as your first Paragon/Renegade choice in the game. After which you have effectively taken over Cerberus, and they grow to become a force rivaling the Citadel in power thanks to the Collector tech.
- Both are equaly effective in furthering your goals, just one is the 'do it right, not fast' path the other is the 'ends justify the means' path.
- Actually, either way, it starts with you on Earth, under trial.
- Also, much of Cerberus has been indoctrinated. No word of TIM's condition, though.
- ...Shepard will be somehow be removed from play, by being mortally wounded or suffering a Heroic BSoD, leaving it up to your crew to move on with the game for a good deal of time without you.
- But, just when all hope is lost, Shepard will reenter, save the day, the crew, and be ready to continue the fight.
- Hmm... maybe you get to play as the Love Interest, who goes out and kicks ass, but gets pinned down/ cut off/ captured, and Shepard goes in and rescues them. Or maybe S Hepard's the one who gets captured amd the Love Interest rescues them?
- It'd be like the "fight off Morinth" scene, though much grander in scope. Here's a scenario as an example: During a major battle, Shepard takes a squad to board an enemy Reaper and destroy it from inside. As you fight through the Reaper's crew and onboard defenses, the Reaper will slowly try to indoctrinate you and your teammates. (Picture something like the Scarecrow sequences from Batman: Arkham Asylum: you're walking along shooting things, something mind-bending and horrifying happens as your mind unravels, and suddenly it shifts back to normal.) Once you reach a critical part of the ship, you'll be hit with a particularly strong wave. The only to beat it is by having sufficient Paragon/Renegade points, otherwise you'll get a Game Over as Shepard is fully indoctrinated. But even after you fight off the indoctrination, your squadmates won't have the same luck as they start to succumb. You'll have to snap them out of it, which will only be possible if you have an absurdly high Persuade/Intimidate score and if the squadmates are loyal. (It'll be easier if one of your squadmates is your Love Interest.) If you succeed, the spell is broken and you kick Reaper ass together. If not... your teammates draw weapons and turn on you, forcing you to kill them in a boss fight.
- If you'd get an automatic Game Over for insufficient Paragade points, wouldn't that make the game Unwinnable for players who for some reason or another don't have a high-enough Paragade meter? For the sake of Gameplay, that's doubtful to be implemented unless the required Paragade needed is relatively low for that part of the game, it's an end-game Non-Standard Game Over equivalent to going through the Omega-Relay unprepared or something else.
- Oops, didn't think of that. Ah well.
- Alternatively, Shepard resists the indoctrination anyway, but a high Paragon/Renegade allows you to help your squadmates resist it. Otherwise, you're forced to kill one or both.
- Why is a Game Over at that point a game breaker? If you're going through something as major as fighting off indoctrination, it would probably be at the end of the game, after you've been slowly exposed to more and more Reaper tech.
- If you'd get an automatic Game Over for insufficient Paragade points, wouldn't that make the game Unwinnable for players who for some reason or another don't have a high-enough Paragade meter? For the sake of Gameplay, that's doubtful to be implemented unless the required Paragade needed is relatively low for that part of the game, it's an end-game Non-Standard Game Over equivalent to going through the Omega-Relay unprepared or something else.
- Actually, it is possible to kill her by taking her to the final boss un-loyal or leaving her behind to Hold the Line with insufficient backup. That said, her plot armor is a sure sign that she will play a big role, and getting her killed will probably have a large effect on how ME3 plays out.
- Debatable. While this troper thinks Miranda will have an important role to play (Connected to the Illusive Man, a Love Interest, and her father is implied to be a pretty powerful individual), it's possible the only she survives as long as she does in the Suicide Mission is that she has unique dialogue throughout it.
- I'm skeptical on this one because while you were a semi-charred corpse after your orbital re-entry, your friend was at or near ground zero of a nuke. I'm pretty sure your buddy is little more than vapour. Maybe that's the Renegade reaction to the situation *Ashley pops out and confronts you. You gun her down without missing a beat. When the Illusive Man goes all "What the Hell, Hero?", you point out that "Ashley" there was some clone and likely mind controlled to boot*.
- Maybe they could wear a Cool Mask to hide their scarred face?
There is no other force as powerful as the mass effect in its titular universe. It is fundamentally a part of it; no other element is more essential in making the fiction work. It seems fitting, then, that the nature of the series' namesake—its origins and relation to the Reapers, as well as the workings of the mass relays—be explored in detail during the events of Mass Effect 3. I predict that not only will element zero, the mass effect, and the mass relays play a large role in the overall plot, but will be essential to its conclusion. Note that the relays have played a key role in the finales of both games. In fact...
- Or the game could have you slowly enabling humanity to develop an alternate form of FTL travel in sidequests throughout the game, leading to the game's big Paragon/Renegade choice, where either you share this new technology with the other species before destroying the relays to ensure a peaceful coexistence or keep it for humanity and establish a new galaxy-spanning human empire, as humans are the only ones who can travel the great distances required to keep the other species in line.
- Partially confirmed, both endings destroy the network
- No! I don't want Joker to be Too Cool to Live!
- Why would the Council want to openly betray and sabotage humanity of their own free will? They're jerks, and I wouldn't be surprised if they made your job harder, but they're first and foremost politicians. Openly and publically leaving an entire species to to be assimilated/destroyed by the Reapers would lose them countless points among the public, especially those who like humanity and don't want to see them destroyed. And besides, humanity is now part of the Council, so they're obligated to try to help them in some capacity. Will they try to get in Shepard's way for stupid reasons? Quite possible. Will they become a group of moustache-twirling villains for no good reason? Unlikely.
- Confirmed. According to German gaming magazine Gamestar, not only are the Citadel races ignoring your pleas from the beginning, they claim they have nothing to do with this war. That is until the Reapers come knocking on their doorstep as well.
- Why would the Council want to openly betray and sabotage humanity of their own free will? They're jerks, and I wouldn't be surprised if they made your job harder, but they're first and foremost politicians. Openly and publically leaving an entire species to to be assimilated/destroyed by the Reapers would lose them countless points among the public, especially those who like humanity and don't want to see them destroyed. And besides, humanity is now part of the Council, so they're obligated to try to help them in some capacity. Will they try to get in Shepard's way for stupid reasons? Quite possible. Will they become a group of moustache-twirling villains for no good reason? Unlikely.
- Jossed, Earth is definitely under invasion at the start of the game. No avoiding it. Earth is under attack, and you have to hurry your ass off-planet to not die.
The Reapers may or may not do the same for the Keepers, though they won't be as prominently featured. The "may not" part is because the Reapers could just fix the Keepers after they retake the Citadel.
- Yes, it does.
- You actually start on Earth.
- For crying out loud, do some research about MRCAs before posting theories of an MRCA being a specific, fixed individual.
- I went back and did some research and I'm not sure what the problem is, if you're saying that there couldn't have been a single common ancestor and that there had to be several, I'm okay with that, and now that I think about it it makes sense to use several modified humans to spread the desired traits faster (for the sake of diversity they are not identical clones spread over a large area, but different individuals that carry desirable traits, and the traits they carry can be different too). Also to add to the details that point to the Human/Prothean connection, after defeating the Shadow Broker you can have a conversation with Liara where she says that the the Shadow Broker believed there to be something else the Protheans left behind.
2. Being the Grand Finale, the "Holy Shit!" Quotient is going to be at all-time high with plenty of twists and turns, and it would make for a good Wham Mission.
3. It would help set up a personal conflict in the storyline.
- Except that you just watched a nuke go off right next to them in the cutscene of the first game. Sorry but the one you left on Virmire is dead for good.
- Look again, a good several moments passes (perhaps more given the jump between the Normandy taking off and it actually showing up above the planet) between the last time you see said squad member and the explosion. In a science fiction setting, that's about all it requires.
- It's totally implausible to outrun the blast radius of a 20 kiloton nuke when you were sitting right next to the bomb itself a few moments earlier then it detonated. The Reapers are advanced but not omnipotent. Unless they somehow found DNA in the hyper radioactive ashes that was once your teammate... You might not want to believe it but this troper would be 120% certain that Ashley/Kaidan is deader then dead.
- It was a Reaper artifact in Arrival, not a piece of a Reaper, so it may have been designed specifically to indoctrinate people. But it's certainly possible the Council is at least mildly indoctrinated, as other WMG's have suggested.
- Dude, a millions of years old dead Reaper managed to mind-fry a Cerberus team, what's to say a recently dead one won't do that to the Council?
- Well remember that the more control exerted over an indoctrinated, the less effective they are (mild to moderate indoctrination like Saren was still functional and rational, up to the slaves on Virmire that are little more than cattle). I'd say any indoctrination to the Illusive Man is probably between moderate where the Reapers are controlling his actions and ordering his men through that, to complete enslavement.
- Or maybe the Illusive Man has been indoctrinated the entire time, and was actively working against Shepard in ME2. Without constant monitoring by the Reapers, he is left with just instructions to waste all Cerberus funds on long-shot schemes. As we know from ME1, that is what he's been doing for a long time (rachni experiments, husk experiments, etc.). One of his long-shot schemes was to blow billions of credits on bringing a single person (Shepard) back to life. To his surprise, it works, and so he sends Shepard off to work against the Collectors. TIM is under orders not to work against the Reapers, but since he can plausibly deny 'knowing' that the Collectors serve the Reapers, he can work around his orders. As you go through the game, he is more and more strongly indoctrinated by the Reapers (once Harbinger finds out what he's done), and is increasingly unhelpful, throughout the missions. 'Forgetting' to mention what he'd agreed to do for Zaeed and Kasumi, baiting Horizon with Shepard's friend, and that sort of thing. Once he is more indoctrinated (whether ordered to sabatage Shepard, or just made to greatly overestimate Shepard's abilities) he sends Shepard blind into a blatant Collector trap. Shepard escapes. Then he sends Shepard to investigate the derelict Reaper, knowing full well what happened to Chandana's team, and expecting that Shepard will be trapped and killed. Shepard escapes, and prepares to take the fight to take the fight through the Omega 4 relay. Once Shepard survives the trip there (in a ship that Cerberus had made to be vulnerable to Collector weapons just like the original, though Shepard might have done some upgrades himself) Harbinger cannot let this go on, and takes complete control of TIM. TIM, now a near-mindless slave of the Reapers, point-blank orders Shepard to preserve the Collector base (for the Reapers, though he doesn't say it). And now, in ME3, TIM is a Reaper agent, and is commanded to stop Shepard at any cost.
Having forseen the immanent fusion of our galaxy with Andromeda, the first coalition of space-faring races decided to create massive Sower bodies for themselves, fusing the collective knowledge of their races together into metallic shells to weather the coming storm. They went into the Dark Space outside the Milky Way to avoid the collision, and created the Citadel to ensure they could return after long periods spent inactive so that they could induct the advanced races who had uncovered the station into new Sowers. These periods of inactivity would help fend off the madness and mental degradation of waiting for millenia with nothing to do.
The ultimate plan was to take the "seeds" of knowledge and genetics of the entire Milky Way galaxy, then "sow" them into the new one created by the collision with Andromeda.
However, the second wave of space-farers were unconvinced, and refused to be inducted. After fruitlessly trying diplomacy, the Sowers, resolving to save them from themselves whatever the cost, created the process of Indoctrination to force them to do so. However, they quickly discovered that removing a creature's free will left it mad and useless, unable to be inducted. Finally, in an act of perfect desperation, they proved that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and, over the objections of some Reapers, fought a quick and decisive war against the stubborn settlers, forcibly inducting them. However, the process was much more painful than a willing fusion, and created terrible residual memories that slowly drove these new Reapers mad.
In time, the later Sowers were forced to purge their organic memories to avoid madness. They have long since decided that only the "worthy," the genetically strong, are to be forcibly inducted into their ranks, rechristening themselves the Reapers.
Furthermore, this happened multiple times, and unforeseen problems in the Hive Mind software has led to mnemonic degradation. The Reapers have long since forgotten why they do what they do, and only repeat that organics will never understand them. Their disgust for the geth is rooted in their inability to assimilate them.
The less-mad original Sowers have almost entirely been trapped within a prison formed from setting their eezo cores to produce gravitation, forming the planetoid shell that is Klencory around them, by their maddened progeny. Due to greater processing power and longer periods of inert "recharge time," they are much saner than their brethren, and are attempting to free themselves by mentally contacting a sensitive individual with the resources to dig them out.
- I would actually bet a large amount of money this is what it turns out to be. Nicely done, good sir.
Similar to the above Well-Intentioned Extremist WMG, the Reapers' origins and goals concern the protection of life in the galaxy.
Having reached (what they considered) the 'pinnacle of evolution' millions of years ago, the original Reapers were faced with the inevitability of stagnation and decline of their empire, and old age and death on a more personal level. Furthermore, it seemed increasingly likely that the mass effect technology on which their empire was based had a destabilising effect on the very fabric of the galaxy, as can be seen in the premature ageing of Haestrom's sun. After years of frantic study, they discovered a way around these problems.
By abandoning their individual bodies and transferring their consciousness into grey goo housed within huge space-faring machines, the Reapers achieved a form of transcendence and immortality. In the words of Arthur C. Clarke, 'They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships. ' Then, by withdrawing from the galaxy itself for thousands of years at a time, the Reapers allowed the galaxy to recover from the effects of sustaining great civilisations, and allowed new forms of life to develop and flourish.
From their aeons-spanning point of view, sentient life and galactic civilisations rise, decline and fall in the blink of an eye, leaving all of their achievements to go to waste. This is why the Reapers, unlike Clarke's Firstborns, have taken a somewhat more proactive stance on other lifeforms' development. Not only do they encourage civilisations to develop along predetermined lines with the relay network and possibly even playing the role of 'enkindlers' in the same way that the protheans helped the hanar, the Reapers decided to intervene whenever a civilisation reaches its zenith and make others 'become like they are,' by force if necessary.
Consequently, Harbinger's comments about ascension and being our salvation through destruction are in fact truthful. Even if they kill half the galaxy in their invasion, they will consider it a huge success if they can indoctrinate and raise the other half to Reaperhood. Even if all forms of sentient organic life are wiped out as the Reapers return it would not be a complete loss for them, as they would at least succeed in preventing the destruction of the galaxy's stars and planets through the overuse of mass effect tech, allowing the cycle of civilisation's rise and fall to begin anew.
Therefore, the final conflict in Mass Effect 3 will be whether to accept or reject this Assimilation Plot, leading all remaining sentient life in the galaxy to a new existence in Reaperified transcendence, or to convince them to leave and allow the current civilisation to follow its own path.
Naturally, this kind of ending to the Mass Effect saga would be one heck of a Mind Screw, inevitably culminating in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQvPFNjxxU0.
- Confirmed
- Considering that the game opens with Shepard standing trial for the events of Arrival, it makes sense. After all, Saren's SPECTRE status was revoked for attacking one colony, and Shepard DID kind of blow up an entire solar system.
- Eerily close to being confirmed. We know those worlds are going to be battlegrounds in the war against the Reapers, and Casey has vaguely said that the Reapers are trying to harvest organic life, and not specifically humans. Whether this is just to not spoil ME2's ending or if it becomes a plot point remains to be seen.
- Shepard fails to convince the quarians, and they sit the war out. Shepard might still be able to save the geth, gaining them as an ally, but not the quarians.
- Shepard agrees with the quarians, gaining them as an ally, but losing the geth.
- Shepard convinces them, gaining both as allies. (Paragon)
- Shepard decides to use Admiral Xen's approach, and hack the geth. This gains both as allies, with the geth under quarian control. (Renegade)
- And when they do, the batarians will stun everyone by actually managing to Hold the Line against the Reapers... by deploying [[masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Leviathan_of_Dis the Leviathan of Dis]] and letting it kick Reaper ass.
- Can you imagine how hilarious it would be to have 'Killed 300,000 batarians' and 'Stole an Alliance Warship' next to, say, 'Smuggled contraband into Noveria'?
- 'Punched out reporter'.
- 'Twice'.
- 'Punched out reporter'.
- Remember how the Prothean researchers who survived on Ilos went to the Citadel through the conduit, with Vigil unaware of what happened afterward? He suspected they just starved to death, but who is to say they didn't find some way to survive and spend the remainder of their lives whipping up some serious anti-Reaper tech for future civilizations? Liara even mentions in Lair of the Shadow Broker that the Shadow Broker suspected there was more out there to be found, beyond the beacons and the warning, which seems a serious bit of foreshadowing. Otherwise, I can't imagine how all the Big Damn Hero moments in the world could overcome that entire Reaper fleet when all it took was one Reaper to nearly wipe out the combined naval might of the Citadel races.
- The yahg, at least, are confirmed.
- Gameplay footage shows a 600' Reaper mech get hit with an orbital bombardment. And then continue chasing you. So, yeah, pretty tough either way.
- Choosing to save the rachni means that Wrex is unable to properly unite the krogan (why would they side with the guy who helped bring back the rachni?), meaning that you do get a nice force of rachni, but a much smaller krogan army. Killing the Rachni Queen makes Wrex and you look much better in the krogan's eyes, meaning you have a much larger krogan force.
- Gaining the help of the geth is even more problematic. The Citadel Species are shocked at your brazen alliance with what seems to be a major force of geth, and you are very likely to lose almost all support from the quarians. In game terms, you get a very dangerous fleet of geth, but allying with the quarians is significantly harder, along with reduced support from the Citadel.
- Siding with the quarians, on the other hand, also arouses suspicion amongst the other races. Choosing them as allies reduces your support from the other races.
- Punching that reporter in the face reduces your support from the Systems Alliance. ;)
- Or INCREASES the support. They all know she deserved it.
- (Alternate: you kill TIM but get to choose one of them to step up to the leadership and/or kill the other. More friendly, but less of a Player Punch. Which is why it's less likely.)
- It's doubtful that Miranda and/or Jacob are indoctrinated. Miranda openly quits Cerberus if you take her with you to the final battle and destroy the Collector Base, and Jacob was never really loyal to Cerberus to begin with, so it's likely that he ditches them as well. If there was any time for Indoctrination to kick in, that was it, and they were with Shepard 100%.
- Having Miranda or Jacob replace the Illusive Man is an interesting proposition, though. It would depend on how many of Cerberus' operatives were exposed to indoctrination. If it was just TIM and some of the higher ranking operatives, then having Cerberus' resources under a more Shepard-friendly leadership would be very helpful, but if they're all indoctrinated then it would be better to destroy Cerberus entirely. Hoo boy, not sure which of those would be Paragon or Renegade...
- He does opt to stay behind to rally humanity.
- Alternatively, Mordin might make a third version that makes all krogan fertile, but they don't give birth to thousands at a time, and gives them Vulcan-like reproductive tendencies (a cycle that occurs every few years). Basically a fertility rate comparable to the rest of the galaxy.
- Alternately alternatively, Mordin won't be able to cure the genophage entirely, but will make a major dent in its efficacy by undoing the changes he and his squad made, allowing the krogan to adapt to the genophage naturally over time like they were doing before. You'll then be able to offer this cure to the leader of Clan Urdnot in exchange for their help against the Reapers. Wrex, naturally, will accept it right away (a partial cure is better than nothing), while Wreav will need some convincing before he'll accept.
- I can see this as a sort of balancing act; in the grand scheme of things, Paragon options will help the larger mission by having more allies fight the Reapers, but you won't see the benefits of this except in the occasional cutscene. Instead, you'll be forced to fight a wider variety of husks/indoctrination victims than if you tried to go it alone and made Renegade choices. It fits well with the selfless paragon/selfish renegade pattern, and it doesn't necessarily favor one side over the other.
Paragon: Plus: you get lots of extra allies that will make the fight against the Reapers far less devastating on your side. Minus: so many allegiances on the map will mean lots and lots and lots of interspecies feuds, so you'll have to spend most of the game putting out fires so they'll work together before it's too late. There could even be wars started.
Renegade: Plus: fewer species to contend with means you won't have to spend so much time on diplomacy, along with there being less species for the Reapers to indoctrinate/huskify. Minus: cutting out the grudge middleman leaves all those species free to focus their energy directly on you, and fewer allies means a bloodier campaign against the invasion.
Kinda like that. And Paragade or Renegon won't be risk-free either; actually, I think that could potentially turn out more dangerous than either straight playthrough. Sparing rachni + killing Wrex + destruction of genophage cure + allegiance with salarians = new Krogan Revolutions.
- Interestingly, BioWare has said that going all Paragon or all Renegade in ME3 will lead to you losing. Slightly unrelated to what you're saying here, though.
- It did get a mention in the Shadow Broker dossier on Cerberus, saying that Cerberus has infiltrated Trident's security forces. BioWare might pull a Klendagon and have it be important.
The differing sexes amongst Cerberus's army are no problem: Miranda and Oriana prove it's possible to create an Opposite-Sex Clone in the ME universe, and that's without Reaper technology. Imagine what could be done with Reaper aid.
Each soldier in the Cerberus army is implanted with a quantum entanglement device allowing them to remotely be controlled from a master controller (most likely a Reaper). Should this controller be destroyed, the soldiers will all "shut down" and go into a state of hibernation, doing absolutely nothing except standing still and breathing.
- Confirmed, actually. BioWare has said that you can't win with pure Paragon or pure Renegade.
- When was this? Link please.
- What if "her" name is Lilith, and considers humanity as the new possible reaper(and is a shoutout to a forum thread about a reaper assuming complete control and demanding babies)?
- The giant Mass Accelerator which killed the Derelict Reaper. Note that Cerberus has already found this (the Illusive Man said so, but his team hadn't gotten it working yet), so it should be relatively easy to track down some Cerberus files, and then take out the gun's defenders.
- The ever-popular "lost crypts of beings of light" in Klencory.
- The ability to weaponize more Mass Relays, as you did in Arrival.
- A cloned/revived Leviathan Of Dis.
- Possibly some sort of Prothian device stepping up from the Obelisk in 1 and the sphere thing from Firewalker, though this is more likely to be a side bonus than part of the main mission.
- Maybe. The newly appointed Major Kirrahe appears in the Surkesh part of the Demo whilst Cerberus attacks and the crew acknowledges that a traitor must have led Cerberus there. In fact, this fits perfectly...
- Was the result of someone/thing launching a Reaper into it. Just because it'd be funny.
- The sun *is* a Reaper!
- The sun is being artificially destabilized by the Reapers to produce a supernova to make more element zero.
- The Reapers are huge and monstrous, but not mindless monsters. They fight smart and they set all kinds of traps (the Citadel, the Reaper IFF). they know the power of intel—their typical plan has them assassinating galactic leadership on the Citadel *and* hacking into all of their databases so they can find all the colonies. Sice they can't get to the citadel, they instead go for the Shadow Broker's base for its intel. This is why Liara is free to join you—her base is gone.
- Even worse, anyone giving intel to the Shadow Broker is actually giving that intel to the Reapers.
- You will eventually get a mission to help Liara out by reclaiming her base.
- And one of the bad ends includes Shepard succumbing to it and becoming the Reaper's point man, like Saren but infinitely more competant.
- You would probably avoid this by having a high Paragon or Renegade score, which allows you to assert your own identity and shake off the affects, at least temporarily.
- The scene I see is Shepard aboard a Reaper, and he's been stuck their long enough for the Indoctination to begin. He's desparately struggling to get to its power core and blow it up. If you don't have enough Paragon/ Renegade, you succumb to it and start serving the Reapers. If you are Paragon/ Renegade enough, you keep control long enough to detroy the Reaper and yourself with it, but the rest of the galaxy is safe. There would be better ways to end the game, namely with Shepard surviving, but they would require more effort.
- Probably as pundits on some talk show or the news. At the very least, they'll be dueling via their reports. They'll be discussing Shepard's trial and his allegations about the Reaers, with Wong supporting you and al-Jilani being her punch-worthy self. If you played ME1 and helped Wong with her reports, she will punch al-Jilani for you.
- And my money is on the same things the Reapers used to be, only less lucky.
- Every race will have some sort of issue that Shepard needs to sort out so that they will join the fight against the Reapers. For the Hanar it's a religious one. In Cerberus Daily News, there are reports by Dr. Kenson (from Arrival DLC, but they take place before she leaves) that prove that the relays predate the Protheans. This is obviously met with skpeticism/ outrage by the Hanar, but at least one Hanar religious leader argues that it's not heresy to say that the Enkindlers were themselves Enkindled by whoever created the relays.
- The arguement at this point is that, in a twisted way, the Hanar may legitamately worship the Reapers. So if you are really evil, you could wind up murdering one of the most peace-loving species in the galaxy. Or at least waves of badass Drell assassins.
- Another possibility s that the Drell will support you but the Hanar don't, leading to a possible schism.
- Not unlike how Lair of the Shadow Broker included an exchange between Shepard and Liara over how hacking was easier with omni-gel ("A lot of people weren't happy about that change!"). They could easily make fun of how everyone hates James Vega just from his picture and how his mere presence will singlehandedly destroy Bioware as a company, for instance.
She's been punched in the face by practically every Citadel race, most notably a Krogan, AND Commander Shepard. Surviving looking no worse for ware. Its just now, with everything going to hell does her badass trait get noticed.
- Yes, actually.
Storyline - Final Battle
- ...instead Shepard will later re-materialize as a near omnipotent/omniscient god-like being ala Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. This will also unlock an optional god mode cheat for the new game+
- Except that it's possible to achieve Synthesis AND to still have had wiped out the Geth.
- If this seriously happens I'm killing everyone.
- Seconded.
- The Shadow Broker is actually in the Hourglass Nebula, and TIM moves his station around. Hawking Eta also has Klendagon (with the Great Rift).
- For example, if you chose to spare the Rachni Queen, she will bring a fleet of loyal rachni to help you in the final battle. Likewise with Cerberus, as implied above.
- Conversely, this implies that playing hard and fast with the Renegade options through all three games, alienating almost every potential ally, will cause you to lose the trilogy and force you to replay - from the beginning - as a Paragon.
- Alternatively to the conversely, a Renegade path Shepard will have a different, smaller set of allies and need to pull a serious One-Man Army act.
- Corollary to the alternatively: the Renegade options have a strong bias towards Earth First politics. You can win the trilogy as a Renegade, but that involves bolstering humanity to new xenophobic lows. Winning actions include: subverting the Citadel to humanity's ends with a human only Council, utilizing Cerberus' black ops resources to steal tech and ships from other species (especially turian dreadnoughts), inciting a human expansionist effort into salarian, asari, and turian space, raising the species-wide military recruitment rate much higher than 3%, subjugating the Migrant Fleet, enslaving the geth, exploiting the krogans with false or otherwise promises of a genophage cure, and so on. Sure, you'll destroy the way half a dozen distinct species live their lives, but Earth made it out okay, right?
- 2nd corollary to the alternatively: a Renegade Sheppard can, with much maneuvering, let the Alien species get pounded to dust by the Reapers. Then, when the aliens have weakened the Reapers, the Alliance fights them and, after suffering heavy losses, prevails. This way, the Reapers will be destroyed and all the aliens will be so weak that they will be unable to prevent a galaxy-wide takeover by Humanity. A paragon Sheppard, by contrast, will unite all (or most) alien species with the Alliance to fight the Reapers at once, spreading out the losses and ultimately ensuring a lower death toll on the Galaxy. This will make a Human takeover impossible, but it will enhance the reputation of Humanity among the aliens, who will switch from resentment to admiration. These options would balance the effectiveness of Paragon and Renegade choices as well as being in line with the general ruthlessness and pro-Human agenda of the Renegade path, and the general compassionate and inclusive nature of the Paragon path. Also, in line with the general suckiness of the Neutral path, a neutral set of choices will result on the worst balance of alien power to alien friendliness toward humans.
- Conversely, this implies that playing hard and fast with the Renegade options through all three games, alienating almost every potential ally, will cause you to lose the trilogy and force you to replay - from the beginning - as a Paragon.
- For example, if you chose to spare the Rachni Queen, she will bring a fleet of terrifying rachni to destroy you in the final battle. Likewise with Cerberus, as implied above.
- Conversely, this implies that playing naively and irresponsibly with the Paragon options through all three games, sparing the many threats to the galaxy, will cause you to lose the trilogy and force you to replay - from the beginning - as a Renegade.
- Alternatively to the conversely, a Paragon path Shepard will have a different, smaller set of allies and need to pull a serious One-Man Army act.
- Largely Jossed. The single largest enemy force that could stand out in contrast to a Reaper army, the rachni, are on your side should you spare them. Now, smaller enemies like Balak or the gang member from the Earthborn background may come back as enemies, but they're hardly the world shattering event that the ending of Mass Effect 2 is.
- Conversely, this implies that playing naively and irresponsibly with the Paragon options through all three games, sparing the many threats to the galaxy, will cause you to lose the trilogy and force you to replay - from the beginning - as a Renegade.
- It fits the theme of the game perfectly thus far: Paragon and Renegade actions have largely the same positive results, but go about it in different means. While a Paragon Shepard rallies all the various races that are indebted to him together like a big Space Messiah, the I Did What I Had to Do Renegade Shepard coerces them into joining him against their will. So s/he threatens the krogan with orbital bombardment from the blockade fleet, s/he uses the cloning technology from Noveria to make an army of slave rachni, s/he uses either the Cerberus or quarian virus to brainwash the geth into helping etc. etc.
- The final battle of the first game was against a mutilated Saren acting like a Geth Hopper on steroids; the final battle of the second game was against a Reaper human larva that kind of acts like a giant 25%-formed Terminator. It's hard to see how Bioware can top this unless they throw in a space battle against a fully-grown Reaper itself (probably Harbinger), and given how awesome the Normandy is and how powerful it can be when in Joker's hands...
- Yes, this would be essentially exactly what Star Fox Adventures did. No, it probably would not be received well either. No, when has that ever stopped videogame developers?
- Somehow, I don't think of BioWare as "just another videogame developer."
- Well, space combat has been confirmed. If Halo: Reach could do it...
- Star Wars: The Old Republic, also developed by part of Bioware, has a Star Fox-esque shooter as it's daily quest, and fighters have been seen often in trailers.
- Yes, this would be essentially exactly what Star Fox Adventures did. No, it probably would not be received well either. No, when has that ever stopped videogame developers?
- The Reaper fleet engages the combined might of the Council races (who've been rallied by Shepard during the course of the game) in the Sol system. The Reapers have set a course straight for Earth because that species really worries them after what happened in the first two games. At first the defense fleet gets its butt kicked, but then the rachni pull a Big Damn Bugswarm. That's not enough to cause a dent in the Reapers yet, though, but that's alright, because Shepard and company arrive onboard a protype geth ship (having convinced them to join the fight as well) designed to interface with Reaper AI. Knowing by now that each Reaper is composed of a collective of different programs, Shephard and crew enter a virtual simulation of their minds and beat down the Reaper programs that favour destruction, forcing the nicer programs to take control. The result is that slightly less than half of the Reaper fleet turn on themselves, reducing their numbers to something realistically beatable by our low-tech heroes. Seriously, Legion's explanation of Reaper AI just seems like such a huge Chekhov's Gun.
- And since you can't be in two places at once, which one you choose to complete first will be Mass Effect 3's Sadistic Choice.
- If you go to the Citadel first (Paragon option), you can head off a massive Reaper assault before they have a chance to reach any of the other races (cue the biggest Gondor Calls for Aid sequence by anyone ever), but by the time you finish at the Citadel and get to Earth, it's already been mostly decimated by a smaller Reaper group which the combined allied fleets of the galaxy finish off easily. Humanity will recover eventually, but their place at the forefront of galactic power would come to an end, leaving the door open for new races to take the spotlight, some of which you had a hand in supporting.
- If you go to Earth first (Renegade option), you can stop the Reapers from destroying Earth, but at the cost of the Council and any allies you might have made throughout the course of the game. Using the technology from the Collector Base (or elsewhere if you destroyed it in Mass Effect 2), humanity finds and hunts down the remaining Reapers, eventually filling the power vacuum left by the Council and becoming the galaxy's dominant race.
- Alternately, neither choice will necessarily be Paragon or Renegade. Paragons will have perfectly good reasons to go to Earth (there are more lives there to save, and it's been hit harder than the Citadel, whose defenses have had time to prepare, etc.), while Renegades will have their own reasons to stay at the Citadel (it's the best place to fend off a Reaper attack, and it's the central hub of the Relay network, etc.). And since this will be at the end of the game where you probably won't need to make any more Charm or Intimidate options, the final choice won't contribute to either side; whether your actions fit with being a Paragon or Renegade is entirely up to you.
- Paul Grayson. He's a human being implanted with Reaper Tech, if that isn't an opportunity for an epic Augmented-mano a Augmented-mano then tell me what is?
- Alternately, the Illusive Man will send him to kill Shepard in DLC or Mass Effect 3 as punishment for both of their betrayals.
- Jossed. He is killed in Mass Effect: Retribution.
- It has been many times remarked on this page that by the time of Mass Effect 3 Shepard will have a huge number of allies that can include:
- The krogan
- The rachni
- The Migrant Fleet
- The geth
- The Citadel
- The Alliance
- Conceivably the Blue Suns if you killed Vido Santiago
- And with the latest DLC, you also get the new Shadow Broker, aka "Dr. Liara T'Soni".
- In the final sequence you will choose armies of your allies to perform specific tasks, like choosing specialists in the Suicide Mission. Choosing the wrong army to do the wrong task will get them all killed. If all of them die, consider yourself the new Protheans.
- Something like "Let billions of humans die, or let billions of aliens die". Because Bioware is evil like that.
- Or "let your love interest die, or let the entire crew of the Normandy die." There would probably be a way around it, though.
- Agreed, considering that BioWare loves to Take a Third Option. Given the nature of the trilogy, however, you'll probably only get that option if you made certain decisions in the previous games.
- They've already presented that option: saving the Destiny Ascension versus focusing attacks on Sovereign. Besides, that's not a very effective Paragon/Renegade choice: either one is legitimate, since the loss of life is the same either way. If they did decide to go that way, the decision is more likely to be letting billions of aliens die or letting millions of humans die. Since Renegade Shepard tends towards human supremacy, it fits the pattern better.
- Each decision is not legitimate: either you save the Ascension and give Sovereign more time to open the Relay, or you focus on Sovereign, giving him less time and attacking with more ships. A few thousand lives vs trillions? Yes, in hindsight, you know you can do both and stop Sovereign, but not at the time.
- Or "let your love interest die, or let the entire crew of the Normandy die." There would probably be a way around it, though.
- Honestly, judging from the 37 million year old failed attempt to destroy the Reapers, the ending should be as bleak as possible. Why? There is no reasonable chance for them to fight back, except with a MacGuffin, which would be an awful Independence Day style ending. Remember how the single alien survivor from ME1 was able to hide from the Reapers because he was not in their database on the Citadel? Chances are the Illusive Man has some sort of back-up "Noah's Ark" program that the Reapers will never find and you're not informed of it at all, but you are given the chance to fight the Reapers or to hide on the "Ark." Both cases, trillions die, but the races live on, and your decision is to die, trying to somehow stop the Reapers from ever returning or to live and have them return in 50 000 years to murder trillions once again.
- Why would the 37 million years of failure mean this one will happen? Remember the Reapers' main plan, to shut down the Citadel, and therefore the relay network (isolating each planet to be destroyed one by one) didn't work, the Protheans saw to that. Their vanguard (Sovereign) is dead as a result of Shepard. Their attempts to use the Collectors to make a new Reaper also failed, due to, once again, Shepard. There are also a sizable number of spacefaring species this time around as opposed to just one like when the Protheans were around. Uniting them all together, there is at least a fighting chance.
- In the Overlord DLC, the rogue VI briefly incapacitates Shepard via his cybernetic implants. Sovereign was able to control Saren via his impants, and it's not unlikely that there's some Reaper tech in Shepard. In the game's final minutes, the Reapers assume control of Shepard in the same way Sovereign took over Saren, burning away his flesh and leaving nothing but the metallic skeleton. The player takes control of the Love Interest and it's up to them to kill Shepard and win the battle. Seriously, people don't come back from the dead. There are going to be consequences other than a few scars.
- How about your Distaff Counterpart? I just think it would be a great way of having both M!Shep and Femshep interact the last game, but have the Reapers control them. They would be your opposite in every way. You get to try letting them understand your reasoning, but all they will know is that you're in the way. No one gets in Shepard's way. In the end only one Shepard will walk out alive. Either that or upon meeting the Universe will implode from too much Shep Badassedness. I'm not good at elaborating, but that's the basic idea.
- Of course, this only happens if you chose the most Renegade option at every dialogue choice and performed every Renegade interrupt over the course of all three games.
- And if the final boss is a certain reporter.
- In Mass Effect 2, Tali is investigating their old homeworld's sun that's dying a hell of a lot earlier than it should. The final battle will involve luring the reaper fleets to the system and then cause the sun to supernova.
- Actually, it wasn't their homeworld, just one of their former colonies.
- A great way of ending would be to make Sol go supernova. Sure, Earth is fried, but then so are the Reapers. No idea if that would be Paragon or Renegade. Don't do it and the Reapers might hit other worlds before you can stop them. Do and and... no more Earth.
- Like this:
- If you were a Renegade who let the Council die and made Humanity the de-facto leaders of the Galaxy, the final fight will be in the Sol System (or, alternatively, a location that is on the invasion route to the Sol System, see below).
- If you had the Council saved and Humanity became merely a part of it, then it will take place near the Citadel (sort of like the ending of ME1... or at least on the way to the Citadel.
- If you made friendly with the geth the final battle actually ends up in geth Space, as the geth have been able to slow down the Reapers enough where it is possible that the Organics could send reinforcements that could help turn the tide once and for all. Needless to say, the Organics are.... heavily reluctant, so whether the "Old Machines" are stopped depends heavily on what races and/or organizations Shepard is able to rally together. If not enough are gathered, the Reapers proceed to either Earth or the Citadel.
- And the best one won't be Paragon or Renegade. If you did everything you could to stop the Reapers, regardless of alignment (for instance, you saved both the Council AND the Collector Base in the same playthrough), the payoff will be that the Reapers will be stopped with minimal casualties. Shepard, the Normandy, and most of your allies will survive.
- Well the danger there is Collector tech is pretty much Reaper tech, what with them being slaves and all. Just as likely saving the Collector base indoctrinated the Cerberus personnel that went to search through it in the first place.
- Confirmed. There will be a bad ending for people who rush through the game, as there was for those who rushed through ME2. Also, since you'll be fighting Cerberus, giving them the Collector Base is almost certainly a bad idea.
- Well the danger there is Collector tech is pretty much Reaper tech, what with them being slaves and all. Just as likely saving the Collector base indoctrinated the Cerberus personnel that went to search through it in the first place.
- The best Paragon and Renegade endings will still result in the defeat of the Reapers, but not without some sort of loss. As a Paragon, you may have to sacrifice yourself to save the Normandy crew. Renegade Shep may have to sell out your allies to keep humanity safe, etc.
- And the worst ending, if you took too many shortcuts throughout the series (losing squadmates in ME2, killing off the Council, destroying the Collector base, etc.), will result in the complete victory of the Reapers.
- Confirmed by Bioware. There will be multiple endings based upon your actions throughout the entire trilogy including the DLC.
- Sadly Bioware decided to take back what they said and jossed it.
- Now that he is no longer in the Council (if he was in it), he will rejoin the Alliance, and he will be promoted to Admiral. Being a former member of the Council, or knowing about the Reaper threat from the beginning, he will be the Alliance and Citatel's choice to lead the allied fleet against the Reapers.
- When the Reapers finally come knocking right next door, the Councilors will start with the initial Oh, Crap! sentiments and begin falling apart before Udina decides "Screw it" and decides that since being "diplomatic" with them (as he has been for quite a while now) is useless now, it's time to drop the act and take control of this Failboat. He gets their act together, makes them acknowledge the Reaper threat and makes them more cooperative towards Anderson and Shep.
- Except that he's a Reaper denier too. Forget about his Normandy lockdown in ME1 so quickly did we?
- I see that more as political posturing, he didn't believe Shepard about the Reapers either, and why should he? I can see it as being a good cover for being a Reaper agent, but more likely he was just kissing up to the Council just to increase his political clout regarding a threat he doesn't think exists.
- Except that he's a Reaper denier too. Forget about his Normandy lockdown in ME1 so quickly did we?
- They've just done the deed; Morinth has a look of surprise and excitement on her face because Shepard JUST SURVIVED MATING WITH AN ARDAT-YAKSHI WHICH IS PHYSIOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. Because Shepard is the shit.
- That is a pretty disturbing image if you let Samara bash her head in.
- Alternatively, if Morinth is dead, Shepard will instead be in bed with Samara's other two daughters, AT THE SAME TIME!
- There's already something important to the plot there (or not, depending on your choice): the Collector Base.
- Actually, the volus is an eccentric billionaire who had a dream telling him to look for "beings of light to fight machine devils." Arguably, it could be more important than the supergun.
- The supergun mentioned in Klendagon's info is stated to have been found by one of Cerberus' science teams, but is inoperable.
- So the Illusive Man says, at least.
- The krogan and the rachni
- Obviously, the krogan will be pissed if you spared the rachni. Will that affect their willingness to fight for you? Can the rachni build up a force strong enough to significantly assist you within three or four years? Will the Council races trust them if they demonstrate they can? Will your relationship with Wrex help the krogan put aside their differences? What about Grunt? Will the rachni be able to prove their goodness?
- its gonna be Krogan/Salarian. for the whole genophage thing
- Given the krogan Proud Warrior Race status, I doubt they would hold a grudge against the rachni. Salarian / Krogan is the conflict.
- its gonna be Krogan/Salarian. for the whole genophage thing
- The quarians and the geth
- How much of the quarians seek peace with the geth, like Zaal'Koris? Will destroying the rogue geth make you go up in the eyes of the quarians? Will reprogramming them cause Admirals Daro'Xen and Han'Gerrel to join in an unholy political alliance against the empowered "geth threat," especially if you accidentally allowed Xen to retrieve Rael's research by covering it up? Will Tali assist you in settling disputes? How about Legion? If you got them to make nice after completing both their loyalty missions, will they call the quarians and the geth to work together? How much of the geth will be willing to help you?
- The Council
- Will saving the original Council damage your cause, as they try their best to keep the existence of the Reapers quiet? How many claims can they believably dismiss? Will a Citadel led by a human-dominated Council be at all willing to fight for a human's cause? Will a human-led, but still relatively balanced, Council have a better time of it?
- What, Paragon Shepard can't do a Bring It and a Take That! in the face of death? It just might involve a bit more talking first.
- Renegade Shepard's last words to his crew will be, "Punch Khalisa for me." Paragon Shepard's last words will be, "Make sure Kelly feeds my fish."
- Hello. I'm the Doctor. This is Shepard. Basically... RUN.
- The Doctor won't be yelling at the Reapers. He'll just be holding a screwdriver.
- And smiling.
In the end of Mass Effect 3 in order to stop the Reapers Shepard will be left with only the option of forcing them back into deep space and destroying/deactivating the mass relays cutting the council races off from each other forcing them to find alternative methods of FTL travel but permanently putting a stop to the reapers cycle of terror through technological dominance the epilogue will be millions of years later the races have re-found each other and various species have blossomed into millions of new species all with wildly different advanced technologies just as the reapers reenter the milky way to find themselves at a disadvantage.
- Extremely doubtful. A big theme in Mass Effect is having individuals and races as a whole forge their own path rather than following someone else's guidelines. ME1 provides a deconstruction of Precursors: the Protheans are Benevolent Precursors, but the Citadel and the mass relays that everyone credits them for were actually left by the Reapers as an elabrate trap. Part of that trap was to lead technological development in a direction the Reapers desired. In the second game (especially with Arrival) we see more of indoctrination, which is the Reaper's way of cutting out the middle man to get people to do what they want. All of Mass Effect is about asserting your independance (Paragon: you can't intimidate me to change my morals/ Renegade: nobody tells me what to do), so there is no way they're going to undermine it with a Deus ex Machina wonder race that you wake up to fix everything for you.
Possible moral choices include delaying it so as many as possible can get off the station first, or blowing it immediately before the Reapers figure out what's happening.
- And as Arrival showed, destroying a regular Mass Relay has the destructive force of a supernova. Imagine the destructive force of destroying the incredibly large and much more powerful Relay that is the Citadel.
- Not only that, but the Citadel contains massive amounts of information about the current races of the galaxy as well as the controls to the Relay Network. No doubt the Reapers want both of these badly. It would therefore be sweet irony to catch the majority of the Reapers in their own trap by blowing it up in their face just when they thought they've won.
- Entirely possible, given where the name "Qwib-Qwib" comes from. Read the trivia section for details.
- No. No, I wouldn't. Not that it would make this any less awesome.
- Turian Councilor: Ah, yes, "Reapers". We have dismissed this claim. With 0.85c kinetic broadsides.
- Or if he ended up starting that orphanage, he'll end up fighting and dying to save the kids and get them out by buying time for some shuttles to take off before getting overrun by husks or indoctrinated humans.
- Not as far fetched as you may think. Current (unconfirmed) details about the ending say that playing straight paragon or renegade will not yield the best ending of the game. maybe some neutral responses or a paragade mix will be necessary for the best ending.
This makes use of existing knowledge of the Reapers, makes the final battle a real fight rather than a cutscene, and results in Shepard personally killing the Reapers.
What happens is that some of the Reapers escape Shepard's onslaught, hiding in uninhabited systems and the like. In future Mass Effect games, these "rogue Reapers" could serve as antagonists in their own right. The threat of galactic extinction is ended, but the Reapers live on.
Also, one ending might have the Reaper fleet deciding to retreat, perhaps seeking out another galaxy rather than face annihilation at Shepard's hands. While this would deprive us of the opportunity to wipe them out, we would get to see the humiliating sight of the Reapers fleeing.
- Additional support for this theory: whoever you select as Councilor in the first game, his Rousing Speech to the Council at the end has him promising to "drive the Reapers back into dark space." He says nothing about "blowing them to hell" or anything like that.
- Hm. It would be hard to balance right - remember, the game designers have said they want to reward doing side-quests. If one cannot do all side-quests, because that makes one a reaper, then that would add a large guessing element into deciding which side-quests will be important enough to the end-game to be worth the cost in time, and which of them won't. If one can do all side-quests... what will 'taking one's time' mean?
- The basic idea is that you can't complete every single sidequest and still get the Golden Ending, like what happens if you delay in saving the Normandy crew in ME2. You would have to prioritize which missions will give you the most benefit for the time it takes to finish them, and that means you can go back on subsequent playthroughs, do things in a different order, and possibly get a different final outcome. Once the endgame is finished and the Reapers are no longer a threat, you can go back and finish anything you left behind (assuming that you didn't let Shepard get indoctrinated in the meantime).
- Except in Mass Effect 2 you could do every single sidequest.
- By deliberately ignoring the Derelict Reaper until all those sidequests are done. This way you have a much longer time frame to get things done before the consequences start to set in, but the timer itself is unavoidable because it's set at or near the start of the game, not the end of it.
- Except in Mass Effect 2 you could do every single sidequest.
- Actually, we may as well just give up now that the Reapers have access to TV Tropes.
- It'd indeed be a great example of Lovecraftian horror in a game... If Mass Effect was a Lovecraftian Horror based series. The tone of the other two games is set far more on the idealistic side of idealism vs. cynicism, even for Renegade choices, for that to be the case: this'd just end up as an awkward tonal shift.
- We're already starting to see some.
- Confirmed. Shepard either gives up his physical body to take command of the Reapers (Control), or gets disintegrated to power the fusion of organic and synthetic life (Synthesis). The Destroy ending also kills Shepard, unless you have sufficient War Assets.
- In other words, just like Mass Effect 2's finale? (Space battle against Oculi and Collector ship, land battle against husks and Collectors, squadmates hold the line, then final battle against human-Reaper larva)
- Extremely likely given Harbinger's name literally means "that which fortells the coming of something."
- Male!Shep + Kaidan + Jacob = Attack of the Mr. Fanservice!
- Sentinel!Shep + Kaidan + Miranda = Sentinels save the galaxy!
- Somehow, that reminds me of this.
- Shepard + Grunt + Wrex = Two krogan.
- Make that Shepard a Vanguard, and you have Team CHARGE!
- Elcor Commander: With unhinged fury: Kill them all. Show no mercy.
- And then you get to fight alongside the elcor.
- Sure, that would only be the slowest battle in the history of gaming.
- From the ME Wiki: "Elcor warriors don't carry small arms; their broad shoulders serve as a stable platform for the same size of weapons typically mounted on Alliance fighting vehicles." It would be awesome.
- Sure, that would only be the slowest battle in the history of gaming.
- Jossed
- Josed.
- Earth is sacrificed to defeat the Reapers
- The most obvious solution is to ignite Sol into a supernova. This would destroy the Reapers, killing billions of humans but saving most organic life in the galaxy. It doesn't have to be blowing up a sun- the Earth itself is also a viable option. Alternatively, like the one below, Earth is sacrificed to destroy a small distraction force.
- Forces are rallied to defend Earth, but it turns out that it's only a distraction.
- A small force of Reapers are defeated at immense cost and Earth is saved. However, it turns out the main force is heading for other targets, such as the Citadel or other homeworlds. With those fleets out of the way, the Reapers easily win. There is still an opportunity to continue from here, however, such as remnants fighting a desperate war against the Reapers.
- The war against the Reapers is won, but at the cost of virtually all intelligent life in the galaxy
- Everybody Dies. Maybe this involves Heroic Sacrifice, or simply a long, drawn-out war. The relays and Citadel may also take a hit in the process. On the good side, the Reapers are gone, and the next evolution of life blossoms. I can see this ending with epilogue thousands to millions of years in the future, possibly digging up archaeological evidence of the fight against the Reapers.
- The war against the Reapers is lost, but they Fling a Light into the Future
- Similar to what the Protheans did. Maybe they destroy the relays or Citadel, or leave technology or information behind. After this, it can really end two ways. The good version is that it works, and the next evolution of life successfully destroys the Reapers. The bad version is that it doesn't work- turns out that this is part of the cycle.
- The war against the Reapers is simply lost
- They fought hard, but in the end, it didn't matter. The might of the Reapers could not be matched- defeat was inevitable.
- Jossed by Bioware. It will be brutal and hard fought but Hudson promised a Good Ending to the story if everything was done right.
- They lied. There was no happy ending at all.
- Until the Extended Cut.
Post-Shepard Mass Effect
The main trilogy may spell the end of Shepard's arc, but that won't spell the end of Mass Effect.- The yahg will also be shown in ME3. I would guess as enemies.
- More like evidence that there were heretic Reapers. I doubt the main Reapers would let dissidents within their ranks.
- I am imagining that the Reapers we know are like destructive little children, and either their mothers or their wives get pissed off that their little Reaper-kins are extinguishing that nice species again. Why can't they all just get along?
- Jossed. The main writer said all the Reapers are bad.
- But not all of them agree with the cycle, if the Leviathan DLC has anything to say about it.
- The Leviathans aren't actually Reapers. They're the beings that created the Catalyst which created the Reapers. Btw, the Leviathans are arguably just as evil as the Reapers.
- But not all of them agree with the cycle, if the Leviathan DLC has anything to say about it.
- Unless they decide on a relatively canon storyline. The further into the future they set it, the less they need to worry about a canon story.
- Or they could simply make it a game played in universe. I wana play alliance corsair,personally.
- Or, going off of the prequel idea, a game based around the geth uprising on the quarian homeworld. They've made plenty of references to it. Why not make a game around it? You'd play either side, and the story would change based on whether you were geth or quarian, due to the whole "one side of the story" thing.
- The fall of the Protheans (prologue/tutorial).
- The rise of the Turian Hierarchy.
- The Rachni Wars.
- The Krogan Rebellion.
- The Geth Rebellion.
- The First Contact War.
- Some conflict that takes place after ME 3 (expansion).
- Considering that both endings have the Mass Relays destroyed and the "bad" ending knocks civilization back a few tech levels there probably will be several interstellar wars between the various colonies of the former Citadel races
- Further, it will be called Mass Effect: Archangel.
- No, it will be called Mass Effect: Interregnum
- Confirmed in the Extended Cut DLC.
- Likewise, there will be a point in game where Lamb will meet Shepard, in a way reminiscent of Shepard meeting the Catalyst (bonus points if the game takes the opportunity to address complaints of how this event was executed in ME3). Depending on the choices across the games, Lamb and Shepard will either see eye-to-eye (for better, or for worse), or will call each other out: a Paragon!Lamb will consider a Renegade!Shepard to be a Broken Pedestal, while a Paragon!Shepard will consider a Renegade!Lamb to be A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil.
- The races will reverse engineer Reaper technology/find blueprints to make new Mass Relays
- The Normandy fled Earth because Shepard secretly told Joker to do so in the event of his death, as it's already established in conversation that Shepard's stress levels are monitored, so there is some basis for this. Perhaps being hit by Harbinger's beam screwed up the systems.
- Jossed. They (reluctantly) flee Earth because Admiral Hackett orders the fleet to withdraw once the Crucible is activated.
- Any squad members with you when you're attacked by Harbinger get picked up by Alliance forces/Joker, as we do not see them get hit during the beam assault, so it's feasible they took enough cover, were only grazed/injured as opposed to disintegrated or some such.
- As unlikely as it'll be, there will be text epilogue for major characters and races a la Dragon Age: Origins, if not full blown cutscenes. Again, Bioware's claim will be something along the lines of "This was our intended vision, how could you not see this?"
- The scene with the Stargazer and Child will be explained as being 50,000 in the future, showing that the Reapers really did not win/that the endings were not indoctrination
- It's not really Ass Pull when the suggestions fit in the witnessed scenes quite well. Most of the suggestions are quite plausible, although I'm more inclined to think that the Mass Relays will be reverse-engineered from the blueprints of the Crucible, which explicitly uses the same technology, and that Joker and co. left as a secret contingency plan to seed information to the raloi and the yagh, and any other pre-spaceflight species they could find so they would be ready for the next invasion. And as for epilogue, one has explicitly been promised, though whether it'll be text or full-blown cutscenes is anybody's guess. It's unlikely that the stinger will actually be explained though; it really has no need for clarification.
- Just for a gratuitous Cruel Twist Ending.
After the Mass Relay Network is gone, the next few generations of Earth will have to make their way through the galaxy again, and from the ruins of the network is subspace. Eventually, they couldn't find nodes that would lead them to the other races' homeworlds (and presumably they faded from existence), and eventually found the Vasudans, which were initially hostile at first (hey, if anyone read the lore or scraps around here, some relay gates were closed because their destinations were uncharted and potentially hostile).
Multiplayer Guesses
- Another likely possibility is that each player will choose their option and it will randomly determine who actually speaks, which is the system they're using for Star Wars: The Old Republic.
- Better yet, you can add them to your squad! they will join you on the next misson shepard undertakes, but be unavailable in multiplayer until they are taken on that mission.
- Partially jossed. The multiplayer characters never appear in person in the single player, but promoting them turn them into War Assets, so they do "appear as elite mooks", in a way.
- Before you dismiss this as being too crazy, remember what Legion said about how relying on the technology of others blinds you to alternatives. After relying on the relays for interstellar travel for thousands of years, the firing of the Crucible and the destruction of the relay network has left galactic civilization free to explore other possible methods of transportation.
Like EDI in Mass Effect 2, it still had a will of its own and could express its own opinion (trying like mad to make the Destroy Ending seem bad to save itself) but had no choice but to serve Shepard at that point. It doesn't let Shepard win at all.
- This actually makes a lot of sense. When the Player doesn't have enough EMS to achieve Synthesis (the one ending the Catalyst actually favors), the Catalyst acts really grouchy and irritated towards Shepard.