Given the lore inconsistencies in the Citadel DLC are atrocious, and since weapons in that DLC can be used in the ME3 campaign.... that means that the ME3 campaign isn't real, too! This could lead to Everything After Eden Prime is a Hallucination.
The lore is a zany free-for-all, after all. 
I felt more depressed from reading that than from finishing the trilogy
Mine's pretty depressing too, for some people anyway.
So as we all know, selecting the Destroy ending with sufficient Effective Military Assets results in the strong implication that Shepard is still alive, to the extent that the LI is telepathically aware of this on the Normandy due to Space Magic.
So, what does everyone think happens? Shepard only takes a final breath before dying? Shepard gets up and waits for someone to find them and finally retires?
Seeing as Shepard is almost certainly not going to be appearing in the next Mass Effect, its up to us what we think happens to our Shepard, at least for now. So what do ya'll think?
Personally, I'm a firm believer that Project Lazarus and the influence of the Crucible extends Shepard's lifespan significantly and there are a whole load of small blue children repopulating the galaxy and pretending to dig for ancient ruins in National Parks, but I am a fan of happy endings.*
PS. If there is already a post on the forums like this, feel free to ignore this. I apologise for cluttering and not being more thorough in my search.
Keep fighting the good fight!
* On an even nerdier scientific note, I don't think this is so implausible. If Project Lazarus is a success, the ramifications for establishing more efficient metabolic pathways and therefore reducing oxidative stress on somatic cells is huge. Would this have the consequence of reducing the rate of telomere shortening? I'm only a High school Biology student, but then who knows with all this space magic going on?
Literal View of things:
-LI 'knows' of Shepard being alive just as Loyalty can affect someone barely surviving a cutscene encounter. That is, the LI has enough hope for Shepard's survival, that they won't accept him being dead. So the Normandy leaves (especially clear in EC) to find him.
-Shepard lives. We can imagine that he dies, and that can apply in our game (the ending was open by design), but the scene itself would only be put there in order to encourage a hope that Shepard survived in some way.
-Shepard may or may not get up. I like to think that the more Renegade Shepard is (and especially the less allies alive and that he's close to), the more likely that he got up out of rubble himself, digging through it, while the more Paragon Shepard is, the more likely that a hand came down to pick up up. The merged version of this would be that Shepard tries to dig out, and ends up more trapped, yet he thankfully arrives at the right spot where allies can find him and pull him out, as he is helped along (doing a walk that is reminiscent of the ME1-ME2 victory walks/struts) by his LI or closest friend/ally.
-In lower EMS, we do not have the hope that Shepard made it. However, we can still imagine he did, if we wish.
-Conversations prior to the ending at least allude to what Shepard may be doing if he survives. He could retire. He could continue to kick ass. Or he could do a form of both. ME3 does include more of a theme of 'legacy' to things, and I wouldn't be surprised to see at least one major location (perhaps N7 related) end up named after Shepard, akin to Grissom Academy.
-I think that Shepard is enough of an augmented person (he isn't 'a synthetic', but synthetic technology was utilized in reconstructing him) that he very well may live on for even more decades than a regular human, though this is left to our imagination. We can imagine Shepard to live a normal lifespan with say, Kaidan/Ashley, or imagine him to last some decades longer than that with Liara (finishing up her Maiden stage at least? perhaps?).
-High EMS versions of all endings (and even 'Low' EMS Control) imply, to various extents, this galaxy's civilization uniting (to at least some more significant extent than before) and advancing past the Reapers' tech wall. Even in Destroy, this may mean that forms of anti-aging technology could be developed. We just have to imagine (thus lines like EC Hackett's 'just imagine what we can do now that they are defeated'). However, it does seem that the Destroy galaxy will advance SLOWER than in Control and Synthesis, keeping things with a much more 'mortal' tone, so I don't at all expect Shepard to live forever, and perhaps not for more centuries. I'm definitely thinking that it is possible that he lives 'safely' past 100 though - something considered more normal for humanity in that century anyway (at least for the wealthy? I forget).
Personal Ideas of things:
-ME3 (and perhaps beyond) was all actually a world in a Reaper that was a reconstruction of memory (of an actual war) and several other major sources, and therefore is its own storyline that runs parallel/contrary to what we'll see in the next game.
-Therefore, the 'Shepard' that 'wakes up' in the ME3 ending is not exactly 'our' Shepard. There was no 'real' Shepard at this point, only the 'one we got'. And whatever wakes up after Destroy isn't 'our Shepard', but as an extended form of the ME1-ME2 change of Shepards (after ME1 Shepard 'died'), we may see 'The Shepard' continue for 'One More Story'. A new, yet optionally old returning protagonist.
-The choice at the ending of this virtual experience determines the composition of a new created Reaper, powered by the 'device you call the Crucible'. The experiment of the Cycles is wiped, and instead of the big colored waves, the 'real world' experiences only a shutdown of the Reaper control signal and a birth of a new Reaper that may be able to encourage the 'new solution' (Destroy/Control/Synthesis) to a wrecked galaxy. That would make ME3 a 'dream', that we can now make into a 'reality'.
-So Destroy has the 'N7' character wake up, and perhaps be customized on whether he remembers Shepard's Journey or not (a lot of optional conditions that doesn't hugely impact the main storyline's progression), and the story of Mass Effect continues. You can endeavor to reconnect with some form of the friends/allies/loves you met, even in a setting that feels strange and alien compared to what you thought was true before.
-Blue babies still possible? Blue babies still possible. Just not as we thought they would be.
You can utterly ignore the 2nd part of this post, but at least the 1st part (Literal) is IMO a pretty good guess at the post-Destroy life for Shepard.
Incorrect. A characters story will never truly end until they are dead. Until they finally die and stay dead they will never be left alone. Look no furthre than the Warden from DAO. S/he has not been seen for two games and still fans won't shut the f*ck up about her/him. They cling to their past characters like to a plank of wood after a shipwreck and whine every single time anything Dragon age related that doesn't feature the Warden is released. Seriously the fandom made me hate the Warden and hope that all versions of her/him are still somehow alive will be killed offscreen by getting trampled to death by a horse.
That's why Shepard should be dead in ME4 no matter what. Otherwise Shepard fans will never ever shut up about her/him and constantly whine "Why is my Shepard not in ME4. S/he would totally get involved in this. [Insert new protagonist here] is a failure. Shepard was more badass, s/he killed the Reapers and survived. Bioware sucks."
I disagree. I think in this case fans will be happier if the Shepard story is barely mentioned again, as this will not conflict with the ideas they generate about the ending.
I think you're partially right when you say a character's story only ends when they die: (although in many cases it can continue long after they are dead) the difference is in who tells the story. JK Rowling will probably never write another Harry Potter book, and so for her perhaps the story is over. But fans will always consider what happens next to Harry, imagine future adventures. That's what makes stories and art and culture so compelling to me. There is always so much more than the artist ever intended
That's just my opinion, of course. Feel free to disagree
I think both 
Given the lore inconsistencies in the Citadel DLC are atrocious, and since weapons in that DLC can be used in the ME3 campaign.... that means that the ME3 campaign isn't real, too! This could lead to Everything After Eden Prime is a Hallucination.
Hellz yeah! 
Charm/Intimidate only opens up after the first screech of Sovereign.
We're already being 'changed'. 
How did you manage to muscle through the entire trilogy? XD
Let alone hang on and remain on the board commenting in threads like this?
The same way I, and many, MANY others, managed to play through all the God of War games despite despising Kratos with every fibre of our being, the setting and gameplay kept me constantly coming back, not the boring ass protagonist(or in Kratos' case, psychotic protagonist) or any of the supporting characters.
That's all it takes for me to like a video game, a good setting and/or good gameplay, that's all I need. Make the protagonist and supporting characters as unlikeable as you want, that won't prevent me from playing your game.
Given the lore inconsistencies in the Citadel DLC are atrocious, and since weapons in that DLC can be used in the ME3 campaign.... that means that the ME3 campaign isn't real, too! This could lead to Everything After Eden Prime is a Hallucination.
And that leads us so far down the rabbit hole we find ourselves stuck and in need of a rescue crew with an excavator to dig us out. I personally wouldn't want to even try to stretch things out that far.
And that leads us so far down the rabbit hole we find ourselves stuck and in need of a rescue crew with an excavator to dig us out. I personally wouldn't want to even try to stretch things out that far.
Even in my craziest thoughts about the series, I'd rather ME1 be relatively untouched. That isn't to say that stuff couldn't be retroactively 'understood' about it (indoctrination, time travel, virtual universes, etc etc etc) - but I don't need ME1 to be heavily involved with it all, just as I don't need DAO to be involved with all this latest stuff for Dragon Age.
I like them being what they are - more contained introductions to a world being built by Bioware.
I guess what I'm saying is that no one should ever ever HAVE TO go to ME1 to understand anything about what is happening (assuming something crazy is even happening). We can look back and go "Oh, okay, that makes sense in a way, but it wasn't necessary for me to look at it."
So while I wouldn't automatically oppose a "___ since Eden Prime!" extreme theory being true, I also wouldn't support the idea being "Oh if you paid attention to ____ in ME1, you'd know!".
I certainly wouldn't support something so... basic (for lack of a better word) as Everything After Eden Prime is a Hallucination. Just that being alone as a big reveal would be both tacky and lazy.
I like Kratos
I think you and the GoW devs are the only people who share this opinion
Literal View of things:
Personal Ideas of things:
You can utterly ignore the 2nd part of this post, but at least the 1st part (Literal) is IMO a pretty good guess at the post-Destroy life for Shepard.
I like it a lot! Especially the idea of different salvations for Renegade and Paragon Shepard 
I'd also really like to see your personal Idea of things being considered for ME4, but unless you get employed by Bioware very soon I don't think it'll be happening
PS Blue babies are always possible.
Modifié par Reedirector, 22 février 2015 - 04:43 .
I like it a lot! Especially the idea of different salvations for Renegade and Paragon Shepard
PS Blue babies are always possible.
Yeah as far as I've seen, and as far as Bioware has allowed people to see - it could still be anything. We see a Mako. We see a supposedly N7-connected (whether officially or unofficially) 'Hero', who appears human or human shaped. We see large landscapes. We see a galaxy map, and theorize about that shadow in the right corner maybe being a Prothian.
So basically, we've seen next to nothing, and we still don't know the title.
This could mean anything from "We've left the trilogy behind and are making a nearly totally new canon to things that just 'feels' like the experience of the previous games in a lot of ways" to "*insert crazy ideas from SwobyJ*". Or anything else. We have so little to go on. It could be a near total reboot, or a continuation-but-very-fresh-this-time. Or both. So far, what I've seen can either easily go with my crazy ideas, or go completely against them.
It is a frustrating state, but I'm a bit glad that it'll likely end or lessen by the end of this year, minimum.
I'm at least getting to the point where I'll take anything, as long as the info is released. Even if its a totally 'Literal' take on things and no IT or Otherwise theory applies as true. Now whether I'd spend a single cent on it is another matter, but at least I'd not feel so frustrated with things. (Not impatient per se)
It doesn't matter at this point. We'll never know TC. Because Bioware. All because Bioware.
They trolled us basically. They left us a small glimmer of hope but refused to follow up on it all because......they're ****ing sadistic? They're evil? They like to see us squirm? Because artistic integrity? WHO THE **** KNOWS.
Also, you'll get insulted on here for enjoying happy endings. According to many people on here, being a happy ending lover is akin to being a Disney movie-watching oaf who can only enjoy endings if they're saccharine. Which is just insanely untrue. Asking for closure on High EMS destroy isn't asking for too much and it certainly wouldn't be saccharine.
It's amazing that they didn't think the High EMS Destroy ending (unlike the other endings) needed an upgrade in the Extension DLC. You're telling me the ONE ending (out if 4) that results in Shepard being alive didn't deserve a bit more closure? It didn't deserve a different cinematic? One that wasn't just a disappointing rehash of an existing 5 second cliffhanger? A cliffhanger that had NO PLACE being at the end of a series that Bioware had repeatedly said would be the end of Shepard's story?
If we're never going to hear or see Shep ever again WHY would have it been so terrible to show him or her being found by the crew? Or waking up in a hospital bed? If the player liked the idea of destroy but really wanted shepard dead, guess what? That's already an existing ending choice! Vagueness has no place in an ending people specifically picked to have shepard survive in, ESPECIALLY if there is an alternative ending of the same choice that has shepard die!
People weren't complaining that they were required to headcanon what shepard did afterwards, they were mad that shepard's survival was treated like an unimportant easter egg. I know I was.
The thing is, if you take Mass Effect 2 & 3, insert them into the moment between shep being buried in the rubble at the end of mass effect 1, and him waking up and walking out of it, then it all fits quite nicely. (if you make the correct choice - fan fiction or not) Mass Effect 1 remains intact - and mass effect 2 and 3 take place in that moment where shepard is buried and if he makes the right choice he wakes up.
Problem solved. Bring on mass effect 4.
The thing is, if you take Mass Effect 2 & 3, insert them into the moment between shep being buried in the rubble at the end of mass effect 1, and him waking up and walking out of it, then it all fits quite nicely. (if you make the correct choice - fan fiction or not) Mass Effect 1 remains intact - and mass effect 2 and 3 take place in that moment where shepard is buried and if he makes the right choice he wakes up.
Problem solved. Bring on mass effect 4.
Except that whole part about a war for a whole game that didn't happen at all and why the hell did I buy this game if I didn't get anything I was being told I was buying and why should I care about the next game then?
I think the surviving the Destroy ending is BS. Shepard is practically more of a cyborg than a human after the start of ME2, the catalyst even states it, saying that Shepard would be killed as well in the Destroy choice due to his upgrades; his augmentation would be either "deactivated" or decimated from the pulse (not to mention he would probably be vaporized by that massive explosion on the citadel after it fires the beam). I don't even understand why they included it if they wanted to move on from Shepard's story. Sure its a nice idea that he lives the rest his life peacefully but its just another cog in the mess of lore that formed with the ending.
Except that whole part about a war for a whole game that didn't happen at all and why the hell did I buy this game if I didn't get anything I was being told I was buying and why should I care about the next game then?
Meh, I still wonder about the bolded part anyway, so no change there
I think you and the GoW devs are the only people who share this opinion
Ehh there is some interesting stuff about his character, the problem is that they kep using Kratos over and over. I just bailed after GOW3, three games (or five counting PSP titles) with him was more than enough, people have been begging for new protag in the universe for a long time
Meh, I still wonder about the bolded part anyway, so no change there
No no, I can at least understand misdirection, guile, etc. Using lies to obfuscate the real story of a game is something I see as remotely acceptable, at least if there's a plan behind it (still waiting).
Using lies to obfuscate the whole game is past where I draw the line. The whole thing was the protagonist lying in rubble in ME1-land? Plz.
And I'm koo koo myself.
I think the surviving the Destroy ending is BS. Shepard is practically more of a cyborg than a human after the start of ME2, the catalyst even states it, saying that Shepard would be killed as well in the Destroy choice due to his upgrades; his augmentation would be either "deactivated" or decimated from the pulse (not to mention he would probably be vaporized by that massive explosion on the citadel after it fires the beam). I don't even understand why they included it if they wanted to move on from Shepard's story. Sure its a nice idea that he lives the rest his life peacefully but its just another cog in the mess of lore that formed with the ending.
Literal view of things: Shepard's synthetics were targeted, it saw that there was no Reaper code (the thing that the Crucible was intending to destructively hit, but had various degrees of capability to detect), and the target moved on. The explosion from the Crucible, due to the burst of energy that couldn't be regulated at its source, is just far enough from Shepard that he isn't killed by it, but he is nearly killed by the resulting collapse of that part of the Citadel.
Basically, yes, it is hard to believe that Shepard made it, but like the anomalous everything with him, and the very remote chance of surviving Harbinger's beam, Shepard was that one sliver of a chance over billions of years, of being that one person who would survive such an explosion from the Crucible. lol
HOPE. A couple of ME3's biggest themes were Unity and Hope, and Shep surviving Max EMS Destroy was an expression of the Hope (as opposed to ME2's theme of Loyalty) that Shepard can hold onto, along with his allies and the wider galaxy.
It is easier for me to believe he's in/waking up from a virtual world TBH. But still, I can see how Shepard could survive a Max EMS Destroy ending more than a lot of BSNers do, I guess. It is just an outright gamble (in the narrative) - outright symbolized by the casino in Citadel DLC, imo.
I think the surviving the Destroy ending is BS. Shepard is practically more of a cyborg than a human after the start of ME2, the catalyst even states it, saying that Shepard would be killed as well in the Destroy choice due to his upgrades;
Actually, it only points out that Shepard is partially synthetic. The intention of that line seems clear but it still didn't actually say he'd die from it.
Actually, it only points out that Shepard is partially synthetic. The intention of that line seems clear but it still didn't actually say he'd die from it.
This is one point of contention I have with the ending, and I think it's due to the writers switching up the meaning of the word synthetic between the description for destroy and the description for synthesis. I don't believe it's the intent, but it does make it seem as though the Catalyst is contradicting itself.
In destroy, the Catalyst seems to imply that anything synthetic, up to and including the cybernetics and artificial organs Shepard has, will be destroyed. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, since it's also clearly trying to talk about synthetic life alone.
In synthesis, the Catalyst states an inverse to this, mentioning how intelligent synthetics are already such a huge part of galactic everyday life, which isn't really true as the only AI that we really have in our day to day life is EDI and the Geth. EDI was only created 3 years previously, and the Geth were, until a few months prior, an isolationist species that had been closed off from the galaxy for the last 300 years, and had been, in the eyes of the galaxy, actively hostile every time they reappeared. It backs this up by implying that it means anything synthetic at all, such as the implants Shepard has.
Just a little hole in the writing.
I think what you're seeing is the consequence of 5 million people with 5 million different Shepards that all have different headcanons and no way for Bioware to give all those different Shepards due justice (that's not a consequence of time or money... simply a matter of a detailed ending that takes headcanon into account is logistically impossible).
The more detail you go into, the more you ****** off large swaths of people screaming, "THAT'S NOT HOW MY SHEP WOULD DO IT!" Hell, you see that sentiment shouted from the mountaintops already in ME3, and that had the most robust dialog of all three games. The Bioware team simply couldn't manage headcanon, it was literally impossible to do so within the constraints they had. And considering that's it clear they were already up against the wall with player agency and options... you wanted them to take a stab at wrapping it all up for you?
I don't know if leaving it all open and thus leaving pretty much EVERYONE dissatisfied to some degree was the way to go... but I also don't pretend that there was ANY option that was going to be sufficient for even a simple majority of players. It's a lose/lose situation on Bioware's end, and really no sense to dive down that rabbit hole considering all the other things they had to pare down just for the game to be playable in any reasonable form.
Except that whole part about a war for a whole game that didn't happen at all and why the hell did I buy this game if I didn't get anything I was being told I was buying and why should I care about the next game then?
Well because herp derp reapers that's why. Also (headcannon) if it were indeed a battle taking place at an instant in time (ME1) then it's really relevant because it dictates what state shep is after he walks out the rubble.
so you have 3 endings - 3 potentially different kinds of shep walking out the rubble.... if you take mass effect 1 as a standalone game (which i believe someone from bioware said it could be taken as)
If you didn't play 2 or 3 then shep is (insert default here)...
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