Oh, god, I didn't expect someone to write a post just as long if not longer than mine, but I welcome it regardless.
BD Manchild wrote...
I really find it hard to take any arguments made my anti-Refusers seriously. I can see why someone would not pick Refuse, I really can, but every single anti-Refuse post I've seen on these forums has been nothing but ad hominem attacks and holier-than-thou petty insults, apparently unable to counter any argument against them without resorting to said insults and snobbery. The OP is no different, it just uses fancier words to call people who pick the Refuse ending murderers and the scum of the universe.
You know, Manchild, I'm right here. If you have something to say to me, say it to my face.
Okay, now that I've got that out of my system, let me try to articulate exactly why I picked Refuse. This isn't me saying Refuse is the right choice - as far as I'm concerned there is no "right choice" as the three main choices are morally repulsive, thematically revolting and embarrasingly bad from a literary standpoint, while Refuse is woefully rushed and even feeling flat-out insulting in its execution - this is just me describing the thought processes I - or, to be more specific, my Shepard - went through for each ending:
This is the consequence of the action in the universe, no different than the others.
Destroy: Not something my Shepard could do. After all of the time she had spent helping EDI to cope with emotions and evolve beyond her initial programming, and into ensuring reconciliation between the Geth and the Quarians, to ritually sacrifice them, even if the Reapers would die with them, was something she could not do. She'd already stated to Garrus that to reduce the war to maths would make them no better than the Reapers, so committing genocide on an entire species would be gross hypocrisy. Even leaving that aside, what of the long-term implications? If another race of synthetics arises and they inevitably find out that organics would gladly destroy them if it meant saving their own worthless necks, then they would attack organics, thus fulfilling the Starchild's prophecy without any Reaper intervention being necessary.
Control: Again, to choose this would be hypocrisy on Shepard's part. She'd stated repeatedly to the Illusive Man that no-one is ready to wield the kind of power he craves. How does she know something won't go wrong with the whole procedure? She knows it wouldn't be herself in charge; just a pale imitation that might not share her values completely. Even if she did retain control she is highly doubtful that anybody would want to be in the same space as the creatures that had slaughtered everyone they knew, so again conflict seems inevitable in that choice.
Synthesis: To her mind, the most disgusting choice of all. This is essentially acknowledging that the Catalyst's preferred solution is the right one; a solution to a problem which, as far as she's concerned, simply doesn't exist. Forcing that kind of change on everyone in the galaxy without their consent, bringing about what can surely only be stagnation, is reprehensible. Also, aside from sounding completely impractical with no idea of how it works, the way the Catalyst described it sounds suspiciously like indoctrination. What guarantees does she have that the Catalyst - who has basically admitted that it's the leader of the very things she's fighting against - is telling the truth? It's already given her reason to believe that it is untrustworthy, an AI carrying out insane instructions because its creators believed that every other race would fall into the same conflicts and would want this twisted version of immortality. Remember that Shepard doesn't know she's a videogame character, and thus has no reason to believe the Catalyst is right.
Shepard may not know that he/she is a videogame character, but he has no reason to believe the Catalyst is wrong, either. His programming is based on assumptions that have manifested themselves several times in the Mass Effect universe. As for the rest of this part of your post, I suggest you take your qualms with destroy, control, or synthesis elsewhere.
To her mind, none of the choices seem practical. That's why she refused to validate the Catalyst's twisted logic. She doesn't trust the Catalyst. She's not willing to sacrifice billions of Geth, even if the alternative is most likely extinction over the coming decades not only of the Geth but of everyone else. She doesn't believe she can control the Reapers or has any right to. She doesn't believe that even the Reapers' advanced science can change the DNA of every single organism in the universe nor does she believe that it's right for her to impose that on everyone else even if it did work. In any choice, even if what the Catalyst says is true, the foundations of post-war civilisation would be irreversibly stained.
So, what you're saying is that your Shepard believes that sacrificing lives is tantamount to sacrificing morals? No one said that fighting the Reapers would be easy, and no one said that the post-war civilizations would be left unscathed: changing an order that has existed for eons is going to drastically change the universe one way or another, and change all the political, social, and economical spheres of existence.
So she refused. As far as she's concerned the Crucible is a dead end. It's not going to do what she needs it to do. The Allies clearly didn't have enough time to study it and understand it well enough to make it into a tool that destroys the Reapers without harming anyone else. Instead she decided to commit to a long war, even if it's one that the Allies will eventually lose. Shepard is nothing if not a realist; the Reapers almost certainly will triumph and retreat back into dark space. However, with all the resources and allies she's gathered, plus the fact that this cycle has some huge advantages that no other cycle had - for instance, stopping the Reapers' surprise decapitation attack all the way back in ME1 - she's sure that the Reapers will suffer the greatest losses that they have ever had. Bruised and battered, the Reapers would be in a prime position to be finished off by the next cycle.
This outcome wasn't entirely unforseen by Shepard either. She knew that Liara was working on a backup plan. If the Allies are unable to defeat the Reapers in this cycle, she plans to ensure that the next cycle is not scrambling around, like Shepard was, trying to find obscure clues to their defeat. She's been gathering every scrap of anti-Reaper data up to that point and place it all in a position where the Reapers can't find it and still make it available to future races so that, next cycle, the spacefaring races will have millenia to prepare for the Reapers' return and finish them off once and for all, either by being able to figure out how to get the Crucible to destroy the Reapers without any drawbacks or by using something else entirely.
Admittedly, this is a different take on refuse than most of the refusers have had on these boards, and it's commendable. However, what makes you so sure that a solution other than what has been contrived for dozens of cycles (i.e. the Crucible) will be found in the next cycle? What makes you so sure that the next cycle will defeat the Reapers? How many more cycles will be extinguished? These are all uncertainties that none of the races right now are willing to face because their own survival is tantamount to themselves. What value do you place on life?
In choosing to refuse, Shepard doomed her cycle to almost certain defeat, but she did so knowing that the next cycle will have the tools to defeat the Reapers, without compromise. As far as she's concerned, the price of victory by bowing to the Catalyst's logic is far too high. By refusing to carry out the Catalyst's instructions, she shows that she's willing to play the long game, if that's what it takes to defeat the Reapers. Without Liara's knowledge and backup plan, such a choice would of course be insanity.
As far as I recall, Liara's intentions are to pass on the story of Shepard and the plans for the Crucible. All of what you said is something you're putting up to chance and chance alone. As far as we know, no one knows of the Shepard-Catalyst conversation other than Shepard and the Catalyst. What makes you so sure that the next cycle will have someone who will not choose destroy, control, or synthesis? What makes you so sure that the next cycle will bring up a solution other than the Crucible, the only documented way to stop them? The Crucible uses the technology of the Reapers against them. What makes you so sure that another method will work?
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