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[Nobrandminda]

No, this thread has nothing to do with the "How it should have ended" series.  This is just my idea for how ME3 should have ended.

After mulling it over for a while, and thinking about all of the things that are wrong with the ending, I finally decided to actually stop and think about what I would have done differently.  Sure I could tear it down, but there was always a part of me going, "Okay wiseguy, what would you do?"

I set two rules for myself.  First off, I kept roughly the same format.  That means that as much as I would like to throw the little glowing Star Child onto a cutting room floor made out of nails, he's still there, just heavily revised.  Secondly, I changed the Reaper's motivation to the leaked "Dark Energy" ending because it made more sense to me.  I just fleshed it out somewhat.  If can read about the Dark Energy motivation here:

http://www.ign.com/b...lers.250066288/ 

HERE WE GO

Firstly, and this is probably my most arbitrary change, but I would move the Kai Leng fight from the Cerberus station to the Citadel.  It's not that I don't like the fight in TIM's throne room, honestly it's an impressive set piece.  It's just that there Kai Leng is the closest thing the game has to a Final Boss Fight, and there are approximately 90 minutes of game left afterwards.

Instead of Kai Leng, Shepard and company can either fight off some mooks, or maybe TIM has the room wired to explode and forces them to quickly evactuate.

Once you get to earth, Shepard has to make a series of choices, calling in reenforcments in order to progress.  If this sounds like a rehash of ME2, that's because it basically is, just with much higher stakes.  While an incorrect choice in ME2 could get Garrus or Legion dead, a poor decision here will result in the extinction of the Turians or the Geth.

I'll give just one example.  Shepard encounters a situation that requires biotic support.  The ideal choice would be for Shepard to call in Asari Commandos, or the Grissom Acadamy students.  Non-ideal choices would be something like a Krogan or Drell assassins.  If Shepard makes the correct choice, he/she and the squad simply move forward to the next obsticle.  If Shepard makes the wrong choice, either due to a failure to reqruit the correct army, or a simple failure in judgment, than the Reaper forces overwhelm their position, taking out a substancial chunk of the galactic fleet and killing off one of your squad members for good measure.

Every one of these reenforcement drops costs War Assets.  Whether or not this is explicitly stated anywhere in game doesn't matter.  Each time Shepard calls in reenforements, it uses 500 Assets.  Since there will be X number of situations where Shepard needs to call in support, having less than 500 times X resources results in the "Epic Fail" ending.  Shepard calls in reinforcements, but Hackett says that they simply can't do it.  The fleet can't survive and reenforce Shepard's position at the same time.  This is followed by a cut scene of the reapers killing Shepard and laying waste to earth.

Let's say for now that there are 5 instances where Shepard needs to call in help to reach the Reaper tower, meaning that the player needs 2500 resources to reach the end(approximately the same number as is needed to unlock the main three endings now).  There is a reward for having more than 5000 resources, just like there is in the real game, but we'll come to that later.

Harbanger is there, but unlike in the real game, he fails to hit Shepard or his party.  Like with the Kai Leng change, it isn't that I didn't like that part, it's just that Shepard needs to be in fighting shape for the boss fight that's about to happen.  Also, Shepard's party goes with him because it bugged me that Shepard was alone for the final part of the game when that has never happened before.  It also clears up the oddity that in the real game your party just sort of disappears when you start running toward the tower.

The next part plays out almost identically to the real game:  Shepard finds Anderson and TIM.  TIM forces Shepard to shoot Anderson.  Shepard convinces TIM to kill himself (unless you somehow failed to get a high enough Reputation).  The only difference is that Kai Leng is there, and after TIM kills himself, Leng attacks.  The fight plays out much as it did before.  It even ends the same way with him trying to stab Shepard in the back while he is focused on the computer console.

Anderson gets in his "best seats in the house" line before he dies, Hackett tells you that the Crucible isn't working, and Shepard and crew get beamed up to meet the Catalyst.

If there is one change I would make to the Catalyst, it would be to change its appearance from the little boy (whose death simply did not carry the emotional weight that it should have) to the person who died on Virmire.  Or its appearance could shift between different people who have died such as Mordin, Thane, and anyone who died in the Suicide Mission at the end of ME2.

The Catalyst explains that the Reapers are trying to stop the destruction of the Galaxy from dark energy.  The Crucible was one possible solution to ending the threat, but somehow organics got a hold of the plans and have been tinkering with it cycle after cycle thinking that it would be the key to their saving them from the Reapers.  Even with the Catalyst, it won't be able save the galaxy from dark energy annihilation, but by building it we've done something no other race has done across countless cycles.  We've managed to not only build, but also deploy a super weapon of near unimaginable scope, and we've done it while fending off the Reaper invasion which in and of itself is no small feat.

The Catalyst takes the time to answer any lingering questions (possibly after a persuasion check when he tries to pull that "Our motives are beyond your comprehension" crap again) such as:  What was up at Halstrom?  Why didn't you create a Prothean Reaper?  Why did you start the Rachni war?

Having been impressed by your resolve, the Catalyst offers you a choice.

Paragon ending:  Destroy the Reapers and have faith that the races of the Galaxy will be able to stop the Dark Energy threat.  The catalyst muses that your uncompromising courage may just be enough to pull it off before allowing you to activate the Crucible and destroy the reapers.

Afterwards, Shepard talks to various leaders about the Dark Energy threat, and they give us their assurances that they will NOT repeat the mistake of the first game by ignoring Shepard's warning and vow to do whatever it takes to save the galaxy from one more threat.

5000 War Asset Bonus (with no sub par choices on earth):  A flash forward to some time in the future showing the combined forces of the galaxy controlling the dark energy threat.

Renegade ending:  Let the reapers win.  Sacrifice humanity to stop the dark energy threat.  The Catalyst points out that this war has in fact set back the reapers, despite their overwhelming power, and they will need to quickly regain lost resources in order to get back on track.  Shepard responds that they have all the resources they need right here.  The combined forces of the galaxy are right here waiting to be harvested.  Shepard's companions will probably protest at this point, possibly to the point that you will have to kill one or two of them to follow through with the plan.  The Catalyst compliments you on your ruthlessness before turning the power of the Crucible on the galactic fleet...

Alternatively, for Renegade players who aren't completely heartless, there could be a variation on this ending where Shepard gets the Catalyst to promice to spare as many people as it can and still acomplish their goals.  Humanity will still be harvested, but maybe the crew of the Normandy will live on.

5000 War Asset Bonus (with no sub-par choices on Earth):  See the Reaper fleet, lead by the newest reaper designated "Shepard" conquering Dark Energy.

This ending fixes what are, to me, the three biggest flaws with the current ending.

1.  The reaper motivation makes sense, or at least it is consistant with the theme of the game.  The synthetic vs organic motivation is outright contradicted by EDI, the Geth, and to some extent Shepard himself.

2.  Choices matter.  The endings are actually different, and not just slight variations on a theme.  You actually feel like the fate of the galaxy hinges on your decisions during the assult on earth.

3.  Closure.  We actually get to see how our final choice plays out.  In the real ending to ME3, it ends before it has a chance to answer any of the nagging questions like; are the people of the Galaxy really just stuck on Earth?  What happened to the crew of the normandy after they crashed?  Who's alive and who is dead?

[Thomas Abram]

Please move into one of the mega threads. You don't need your own.

Locked.