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[Stegoceras]

Just curious how people wanted to have it end. Sorry if this thread has already been created(which is likely) but these forums are to out of control to find anything.
Was thinking about as how I would like to see the ending bits of Mass Effect 3 to have played out without altering the current story too much and how it would be a bit more in line with the pretty well-made Mass Effect 2 endings.

The start of the Battle
Immediatily EMS would come in to play, preferably divided into ground and space forces, depending on the number of space forces you either get a cinematic with high/medium/low losses on your side and vice versa on reapers.

Ground battle
Same for ground battle, high number of ground forces gives you less casualties and gives you a cinematic where groups are managing to hold their ground against the reapers, with a low ground EMS they'd be overrun.

Battle vs the Reaper
Again if you forces were overrun in the ground battles before then it plays out pretty much as is, if not, you get less enemies. Also it would have been cool to include some special assests here like Zaeed, who could give you cover from a near by building or something, taking out an enemy here and there.

Run for the beam
Again higher EMS gives a bigger group in the run for the beam and vehicles and shuttles might keep the reaper firing at you busy while your groups make their run. The higher the ground ems the more men will make it to the beam. Low score, only your team + anderson, up until high score, your team, anderson, maybe some special assets (for example Jakob/miranda leading a team ex-cerberus or Grunt and a bunch of Krogans) of and a big group of different allies.

Wards fighting
Now I would deviate from the orignal story a bit here, since the beam sort of transports Shepard to a random location, I wondered if it wouldn't be more fun to have everyone enter into the wards, where they have to do a bit of fighting to regroup and then grab some vehicles to make for the center. However Harbringer is right there, in the center of the Citadel like Sovereign in the first game and he start opening up on you. Thus you get a railshooter where you try to do as much damage to Harbringer from the back(top?) of a speeder while fighting of the ocassional Harvester and or other reapers skirting the Wards rooftops your zipping between. This ends with arriving at an entrance to the presidium where the teams splits up and the largest group remains back to hassle Harbringer. Special characters like Grunt and his Krogan team and such follow you while the more generic troops stay behind and hold the line.

Presidium battles
Fist arriving at the part of the presidium you stumbles into reapers and then slowly shift towards Cerberus who are trying to maintain control of the center tower. The more of the special assets you have the more help you get with the Ceberus fights. Cerberus brings in some really nasty indoctrinated troopers here if you saved the collector base in ME2. Eventually making your way to the tower, everyone stays back to keep your entrance free while your selected teammates and Anderson head for the controls. Along the way some obstacle stops your teammates from continuing and you and Anderson go on alone.

TIM Face-off
Facing off with TIM plays out in the same way. Shepard opens the Citadel, with or without Anderson alive.

Harbinger face-off
Depending on your space force EMS, the damage you have dealt on Harbinger during the Wards fight and how big your remainig ground force team was that you left behind to fight him, a cinematic plays off where Joker leads the attack on harbinger, resulting either in it's destruction, it being crippled or it fending off the attack. Whatever the outcome Hackett comes in and urges shepard to look for another way to fire the Crucible.

The Ultimate Reaper
Shepard find the switch leading towards the upper level, where he can see the crucible and the citadel connect (aka starchild room) and meets a holographic vision of a reaper, who explains that the Citadel is sort of a giant Reaper. A "lenghty" conversation ensues wherein the reaper explains the situation of how the were created and that the maintain the cycles to allow other races to develop without being overshadowed, he then overs the 3 options.

Depending on you actions in previous games you can waylay his argument for all options. If you made Saren realize his wrong ideas you can show the folly of the syntehic solution, if you destroyed the collector base and oppossed TIM, you can show the wrong ideas behing control and if you saved the Geth from annihilation you can show that Synthetics and Organics can live in peace. If you refuse all 3 options and with a bit of insight on the Crucible's function Shepard will contact EDI over the comm and will try to work out a new option, one that allows them to shut down the Reaper's code through the Citadel Reaper (or disconnect them from their central command wich would make them retreat or something, sort of Paragonish solution) as a side effect though this would mean that not only the reapers would shut down or stop working but that also the mass relays and Citadel will shut down (over time).

This will of course not sit well with Citadel Reaper who will order Another nearby reaper to open fire on Shepard. Either Harbinger of if he is defeaten another reaper in the viccinity. This will destroy the bridge Shepard is standing on and dangle him on the end, grasping on for his life. Just as he is about to fall a hand grabs him. This basically could be anyone at this point (Anderson if he is still alive, your love interest if he/she is still alive, or one of your teammates that was most used or at random). Depending on which reaper made the shot the outcome is a bit different.
- An undamaged Harbinger, Shepard is rescued but your rescue team is blasted in the next shot, Shepard manages to fire off the Crucible and dies.
- A Crippled Harbinger, Shepard is rescued, Harbinger can't fire again due to damage, Shepard fires the Crucible and then dies of his wounds.
- Another Reaper, low EMS score, Shepard is rescued, One of your saviour gets fried in a next shot pushing shepard out of the way, Shepard fires Crucible, Shepard lives.
- Another Reaper, High EMS score, Shepard is rescued, Reapers is hammered by the fleet and can't fire another shot. Shepard fires Crucible. Shepard lives.
Plenty more possibilites to come up with I think.

Aftermath
Journalist starts talking (possibly Diane Allers) about the aftermath, how the Relays are shutting down and although scientist are trying to reverse the process, many species are making their way back to their own galaxies to prepare for the oncoming seclusion of the galaxy, images are shown from around different worlds where some races are shown to be rebuilding. Cue to Shepard standing on earth with his love interest (if both survived) saying goodbye to some of their alien allies (Garrus/Wrex/Samara/Etc) who are mass-leaving in their ships to return home and possibly never be able to return. All the while around them reconstruction is starting to take place. If Shepard died we see Joker and EDI saying goodbye to allies and while in the background reconstruction is begginging and a sherpard statue is being built.

Cue to credits and add in the old man bit and I feel it all would be a whole lot more satisfying. It still has some mayor illogicalities and assumptions but to me an ending likes this would feel bittersweet instead of just bitter.
   
So for those who have made it through what is probably going to be my longest post ever, how do you think it should have ended? Please share your stories/ideas and or comments...

[walrusVI]

I'll just do a quick summary here.

Besides war assets affecting the battle for eart in cutscenes and during gameplay my main changes would occur starting at the charge for the beam.

Shephard and squad make the run to the beam and succeed, within the citadel they hold an intense but brief fight with reaper forces-introduce a new husk variety here maybe- before sucesfully making it to the arm controls. Here they open the arms and the crucible docks.

The crucible then spacemagics, I haven't given enough thought to the details, in such a way that Reaper consiousness is no longer able to reside within a reaper shell. The reapers facing destruction, choose to make a move like EDI an inhabit either husks (which get upgraded) or pre-built synthetic bodies. Allows for a confrontation with Harbringer where defeating him isn't impossible, and the war gets turned into a ground war with areas of orbital bombardment. Missions take place on key planets to prevent the Reapers from making new dreadnoughts, huskifying the mother of all Threwsher Maws...etc.

The Illusive Man creates a fleet by making it possible, via research on the schematics of reapers we saw or the Human reaper remains, to crew them with Human pilots. This would have been hinted throughout the game. Final battle is a threeway fight between Cerberus, the Galactic Alliance, and remenant Reaper forces.

There also would've been a subplot thoughout the game that indicated that the Illusive Man knew he was facing onset stages of indoctrination and had found a way to delay it while a seperate research team created an AI large enough in scope/power that would allow him to resist indoc. I guess it would be applied through his implants.

Not sure if that would have worked for everyone, the final battle would have parts that played like the suicide battle. Also: Reapers painted in cerberus colors would be cool.