Okay, I'll play and I need input on this anyway.
I'd start my changes with Thessia. Kai Leng gets killed, but the interface with Vendetta is damaged during the fight and needs to be repaired on the Normandy. Working together, Javik and Liara repair the interface and learn that the Citadel is the Catalyst which the Crucible needs to function.
The Reapers besiege the Citadel during the Horizon Mission and eventually move it to Earth.
Despite the Victory Fleet's strength, Shepard wants to find a way to minimize casualties and decides that Cerberus' Data may be the best solution.
"For simplicity, we'll assume that Shepard's WA count is 7000+ with max readiness. So some outcomes will be less successful if the WA count is only moderate or low."On Horizon and Kronos Station, Shepard battles a clone based on whoever he left behind at Virmire and can either kill them or recruit them. EDI hacks the Illusive Man's files and discovers the lost astrochart logs of the first Normandy and through them brings up the coordinates to the Mu Relay and in adjacency, Illos.
Shepard, Hackett and Anderson hatch an idea to attack the Reapers and break their lines from multiple fronts.
Shepard and Hackett will lead "Sword Fleet" in a full frontal assault on the Reaper positions around the Citadel.
Meanwhile, Shepard sends Javik and three squadmates to lead half of the ground forces in the Victory Fleet aka "Anvil Team" to Illos in order to activate the Conduit and use it to teleport directly to the Citadel's Presidium. Once inside, Anvil Team will secure the main control area of the Citadel and open the Citadel's Arms.
When the Arms are open, Sword Fleet will deploy Hammer Team aka the other half of the Victory Fleet ground forces to reinforce Anvil Team and maintain control of the Citadel's vital areas. Shield Fleet will arrive and escort the Crucible until it docks with the Citadel and from within the Citadel, the Crucible sends the Reapers to kingdom come.
Great plan right? There's a catch.
First off, the Illusive Man will have already informed the Reapers about Illos and they're sending the remnant of the Collectors to secure the planet and use the Mu Relay to launch a giant asteroid into the Conduit.
While the Conduit is only a mini-relay, it'll still be devastating for the planet at least.
Now it's a race against time for Hammer Team to enter the Illos Archives and discover a way to reactivate the Conduit. Since he's a prothean, Javik picks up memories from the top scientists that helps him find a back-up battery for Vigil. Vigil is then placed into a portable accessory on one of the companions just as time is about to run out.
One of the squadmates other than the one carrying Vigil will have to stay behind with a contingent of troops to keep the Collectors from stopping Anvil Team while they enter the reactivated Conduit.
Said Squadmate holds the line long enough for the last of Anvil Team to enter the Conduit and the Collector asteroid is launched from the Mu Relay right into the Conduit.
Meanwhile, Sword Fleet engages the Reapers and holds up fairly well. Inside of the Citadel, Anvil Team groups up with the remnant of Citadel Security and proceeds to clean out Reaper forces on their way to the Control Center. They make it and the squadmate carrying Vigil plugs the VI into the Citadel interface, overriding Reaper control, activating the Citadel's defense and opening the Citadel's arms.
With the cost clear, the Normandy leads Hammer Team into the Citadel to reinforce Anvil Team while Sword Fleet continues plowing the road for the enroute Shield Fleet.
Shepard and squad meet up with the squad that lead Anvil Team and learn about what happened on Illos. Just then, a last hold-out of Reaper forces led by the heavily indoctrinated and altered Illusive Man ambush the Control Center and hold the Vigil Squadmate hostage.
Shepard can either allow his squadmate to die; motion for another squadmate to take out the IM while he's making a grand speech about controlling the Reapers; or can talk the IM into committing suicide. Whatever happens, Anderson is wounded in the concurrent but short gunfight and falls unconscious.
Realizing what Shepard is doing through the IM's last thoughts, Harbinger breaks through the Sword Fleet's Lines and lands on Citadel Tower. Shepard and Harby have one last banter with Harbinger subtlely acknowledging Shepard, but still affirming that he has to die. He then beam spams Hammer and Anvil Teams, but the joint efforts of the ground forces, the Normandy and Sword Fleet allows them to critically damage and cripple the reaper.
As Shepard lays wounded next to his equally wounded and unconcious LI (or favorite squadmate if the Li is the Vigil Squadmate or dead), a dying Harbinger speaks to Shepard and implores him not to leave existence naked before the "Growing Void". The Growing Void is actually the Dark Energy Crisis which the Reapers have attempted to prevent from reaching a precipice through the cycles.
Harbinger had been created from leviathan volunteers who wanted to ascend beyond the apex of the leviathans and created the mass relays and citadel for the usage of the leviathans. But after undergoing independent research, Harbinger discovered several stars that were prematurely dying due to rising levels of dark energy and if left unchecked would leave the galaxy uninhabitable and eventually destroy many more galaxies.
So Harbinger indoctrinated several leviathans and used them as figureheads to make the leviathans destroy each other and Harbinger would destroy or process the rest into more reapers. One of these reapers was Sovereign, who he left behind to observe the species that would rise up after the leviathans and signal the return. And so the cycles proceeded as they always did.
Until the Illos scientists screwed everything up.
Since discovering that the signal failed, Sovereign had attempted to correct the pattern before precipice approached, but always failed. When he died, Harbinger decided to lead the reapers in a zerg charge against the galaxy and had the Collectors take samples from multiple races to see which race was genetically favorable to be made into a reaper.
Humanity was that race and that was why the Collectors were abducting colonies and building a reaper within their base. But Shepard killed the unborn reaper and blew up the base and also blew up the Alpha Relay.
Now the precipice is barely a few decades away and without the reapers, Harbinger is certain that this cycle and the chaos of organic evolution has now doomed them to extinction. It then asserts that humanity must be harvested in order for the chaos to be used against the void. Harbinger then becomes silent, dies and it's corpse falls to the bottom of the Citadel shaft.
Shortly afterwards, the Conduit docks with the Citadel and Vigil becomes the interface for the "Connection".
The Connection is the means through which the Catalyst channels the power within the Crucible. As the interface, Vigil can translate the data within the Connection and give it to Shepard in an understandable format.
Why? Because the Crucible's design and features are based on numerous civilizations, each with their own method of communication and language that are all truly alien from one another.
Through some techno babble and explanation, Vigil explains that there are multiple functions for the Crucible and here we have our options:
A) Destroy: By channeling energy from dark space through the relay installed in it, the Citadel will generate a pulse which will destroy all reapers and reaper technology. Vigil warns that this may cause sustainable damage to reaper based objects such as the mass relays, mass effect related technology which itself is based on the mass relays and the Citadel itself.
Dominion: The reapers will fall under organic control through the Citadel and will obey commands as conveyed through signals given by the Citadel. Somewhat in a fashion to how Sovereign controlled the keepers through the Citadel. Since the reapers are no longer in control of themselves, they will lose the ability to indoctrinate organics.
C) Reconstruction: All reapers will be disabled and the Citadel will become a facility where the genetic paste of past cycles will be restructured into restored synthesized beings with free will, intelligence and the memory of their past life.
D) Sacrifice: By channeling energy from the dark space, the Citadel will fire a Mass Effect beam at the Earth which will create a forcefield that non-reapers cannot enter or leave. Thus preventing anyone from interfering with the reapers as they harvest earth's population to create a reaper intended to stop the Dark Energy Crisis.
E) Termination: Shepard shuts down the Mass Relay network and all technology that uses ME based technology and funnels its power into the Crucible which it then teleports it into Dark Space. Reapers and Victory Fleet remain intact, but without FTL or ME related capabilities. Without their ME cores, the Reapers will be pretty much defenseless, weakened and unable to move while the Fleet decimates them.
F) Refuse: Shepard chooses not to use the Crucible and opts for a conventional victory against the Reapers with the Citadel as a stronghold and forward command center. Outcome of this option will depend on WA count and Readiness meter and even then, a remnant of reapers will be able to retreat from the known reaches of the galaxy even with the Victory Fleet's heavily paid for success.
Shepard makes his choice and here's how it would play out.
Tier 1-high WA count: Shepard lies, Squad lives, Best possible outcome happens for each choice, Galaxy rebuilds and adapts.
Tier 2-moderately high WA count: Shepard dies, Squad lives, Second best outcome for choice, Galaxy mostly okay
Tier 3-moderate WA count: Shepard dies, Squad dies, second to worst possible outcome for choice, Galaxy mostly screwed
Tier 4-low WA count: Shepard dies, squad dies, worst possible outcome for choice, Galaxy screwed
Choices made throughout the trilogy will be shown in an epilogue in relation to the choice which you made on the Citadel.
For instance, if you picked Integration and made peace between Geth and Quarians, then you'll see them welcoming a long lost race on Rannoch.
Another example, If you picked Sacrifice and cured the Genophage with Wreav in command, Wreav claims Earth as a Krogan territory and sparks conflict with other races.
Or, if you pick Destroy and spared the Rachni Queen, the Rachni will enter cordial relations with the other species in the galaxy and sing songs about Commander Shepard.
Pick Refuse and Sabotage the Genophage? The Conventional Victory agaisnt the Reapers comes at a heavy cost including the extinction of the Krogan race.
Pick Sacifice and had Anderson as Councillor? He'll hold Shepard on trial for the mass genocide of the human population of Earth and become the leader of a fledgling humanity scattered across the galaxy.
If Shepard lives, then he'll be seen emerging from the Med Lab on the Normandy and greeted by his LI, everyone whose ever been on his squad and important npcs (assuming that anyone is even alive.
If Shepard dies, then it'll pretty much be the memorial scene in the EC only a few more people will be apart of it like Anderson if he's alive, Wrex, the ME2 crew and Shepard's LI will break down crying only to be comforted by the squadmate who was closest to Shepard.
If Tier 4, then Joker will be seen weeping at the Memorial alone amidst a wrecked and abandoned Normandy. When Life Support statistics reach critical levels, Joker makes his way to the airlock and locks himself inside. He then attempts to shoot himself but it fails and he can't even eject himself. He further breaks his limbs in frustration and sits there crying loudly while oxygen levels begin to fade.
Modifié par ShadowLordXII, 11 juillet 2013 - 07:57 .
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