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[GM Jaken]

I'm new to the forums, so if this has come up before... then whatever.

So, lemme run down some of my thoughts on to why everytihng goes to hell in the end.

FACT 1: Shepard was rebuild by Cerberus.
FACT 2: Throughout ME3, Shepard questions what they did to him in the above fact.
FACT 3: The Illusive Man wanted the real Shepard, not a slave to Cerberus.
FACT 4: We never learn how Cerberus was always one step ahead of us.
FACT 5: Despite everything Shepard has been through, he follows Catalyst blindly.

Now, let me throw down some speculation.

Speculation: Form a theory or conjecture about a subject without firm evidence.

Assume The Illusive Man made a few tweaks to Shepard during Fact 1, but not enough to disrupt Fact 3.  Perhaps he hooked up Shepards robo-eyes (since theres no way Shep's eyes could survive a vacuum) to a video feed, which allowed him to always know what Shepard was doing throughout ME3 (solving the question presented by Fact 4).  Additional, he imbedded a baseline for indoctrination within Shepard*, not enough to actually control, but just as a safeguard for the future.  Afterall, why not have the hero of the galaxy on a leash?  And if not that, then at least it will make him slightly more agreeable.  Whatever happened, it made Shepard have just enough doubt of himself to allow Fact 2, like, say, a hint of indoctrination.

Flash forward to the final moments of Shepard.  He just took out The Illusive Man (in whatever way you choose - I shot him).  He and Anderson and having one last moment of relaxation as they believe they did it.  In my playthrough, it seemed Anderson dies there, and then Shepard blacks out - or did he die?

Assume Shepard died, or was literally about to.  Then Hackett goes "oh noes, it ain't doing anything!"  Now, during Shepard's encounter with TIM, he is put under some serious influence by TIM, to the point where he points a gun at Anderson.  This points back to the bolded statemate marked "*".  If the imbedded indoctrination was already there, it would be easier to manipulate Shepard with TIM's super mind powers (or whatever the ****).  Now, Shepard's imbedded indoctrination has already been tapped in to.  Hackett's voice jump starts Shepard, but he lacked the strength to do anything.  Suddenly (again, for posterity, this is speculation), the indoctrination within Shepard kicks in - after all, he needs it to stand up and move over to the console.  Under its control, he moves to the console and is transported up to the room of the Catalyst.

Now, Shepard is in the early stages of indoctrination.  We've noted throughout the series that in the earliest stage, the person is more willing to obey suggestion (throw-back to Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan).  Now, the Catalyst - while still altered by the Crucible - detects his gulliability.  So, the Catalyst sees an opportunity to arrive at a new solution with the changes the Crucible added to his... um... program?  The Catalyst knows that without the Mass Relays, the organics can't leave their region of space (or not without spending a long time in transit).  He offers up three(or fewer) sh**-tastic choices, and the indoctrinated Shepard goes "oh, okay, cool."

All of these choices provide the Catalyst with a new solution to his problem.  Shepard, the real Shepard, would have told the Catalyst where to stuff it and take his chances fighting the Reapers.  But, since Shepard is indoctrinated, he goes along and chooses one of these options.

In the end, Catalyst wins.  His technology is purged from the galaxy, and the organics across the galaxy get BLOWN THE F*** UP WHEN ALL THE RELAYS EXPLODE (kinda like Arrival... 'member all those dead Batarians when ONE exploded?).  It wasn't what Catalyst wanted, but he got the last laugh (as it were) and beat Shepard in the end.

So, under this speculation, there is no "good" ending.  We lost.  And even if this isn't correct, the fans still lost anyway, so it doesn't really matter.  Maybe this can provide a more (but still dreadfully wrong) correct way of viewing the ending instead of our Sheps' just going "eeeeeeeeh F it."

Thoughts? Flames?

[dave1904]

I think your getting to complicated(it makes sense but still far fetched), i think the end was just bad writing. It is laziness because ME is based on choices and those choices should have led to failure or success. Three major outcomes should be enough
1)Failure
2)Success with a lot of losses including shepard squadmates LI etc. depending on the things you do but you could still survive
3)Success with minor losses perfect game
It would only need to be like me2 with the loyal squadmates

[GM Jaken]

I agree, I was just speculating on what we got.