It's better to just pick one ending (and close the forums down 
) and do their absolute best to make it a great foundation to ME4, rather than try to please everyone by being insufferably vague about what happened in the aftermath and basically end up with a shitty sequel.
Synthesis isn't happening. Control can *maybe* happen - although that would mean the Reapers still exist somewhere.
Destruction rules. Destruction is number 1 and is the only way to go 
Everybody has a different opinion on what to do, so no matter what Bioware does, they will make some people unhappy.
Bioware could very easily hide all the endings in the plot of ME4 and make it ambiguous enough. The reapers did a real number on the galaxy, regardless of which ending, so much of the history is lost to time. Some may say that this is running away from the problem, or not satisfactory, but those reasons wont keep it from happening. They can just set it a few hundred years later.
There will certainly be a legend of the Shepard, but it will be vague. Everybody knows that Shepard saved the galaxy once, and that's all there is to it.
I vote they try to make an ambiguous story involving all 3 endings in a game taking place a century after ME3. It would be a massive undertaking to try an develop a whole new series that can use all 3 endings of the old series.
First of all, not all the relays activated as planned. So there are areas not effected by colored light. That leaves the door open for some things. That also allows for some galaxy travel. The relays do get repaired in 100 years, thanks to people finding how they worked. It is not disclosed whether or not reapers helped. You will find a large group of synthetic hybrid races, and that all of them seem to be from a similar religious sect. But whether these beings were created by the crazy light or went about doing this on their own due to their religion is not covered.
It is possible we might see other galaxies in Mass Effect, thanks to a super secret relay the reapers built that hops over to other galaxies. Thus these galaxies would be in the game along side ours, this is not the arc theory thing. Doing this allows for a lot of things. Much of the game takes place in the new galaxies, so the events of the Milky Way can be left behind. You are too focused on exploring, meeting new aliens, and other fun stuff to talk about things that happened 100 years ago. It may very well be the player character in this story who finds these relays.
By going to the new galaxy, you can have all kinds of cool ideas. There could be an invader angle to work on, as some species try to colonize it. Then you unknowingly uncover a new big bad guy, who threatens everything...again. And we have to remember, if there are relays to other galaxies, then there are certainly reapers in those galaxies as well. For the sake of plot, these reapers may not have been effected by events in the Milky Way (so the destruction ending is covered,) and have even evolved differently. But in a plot twist they wont be the bad guys. The magic of this plot twist is that it could just be Shepard's Reapers, but we will not know for sure.
That is how they can cover all 3 endings. I am not say this is what they'll do.
When it comes to the various species that Shepard could wipe out, they will mostly be MIA with little explanation. However, that does not mean will not see a character based off them. They can use any plot device as an excuse, like some character was in stasis and not effected by any possible extinction. The Krogan are plentiful enough in the series even with the genophage, they wont be going anywhere, but nobody will speak of it, either.
Everybody has a different opinion on what to do, so no matter what Bioware does, they will make some people unhappy.
Bioware could very easily hide all the endings in the plot of ME4 and make it ambiguous enough. The reapers did a real number on the galaxy, regardless of which ending, so much of the history is lost to time. Some may say that this is running away from the problem, or not satisfactory, but those reasons wont keep it from happening. They can just set it a few hundred years later.
There will certainly be a legend of the Shepard, but it will be vague. Everybody knows that Shepard saved the galaxy once, and that's all there is to it.
I vote they try to make an ambiguous story involving all 3 endings in a game taking place a century after ME3. It would be a massive undertaking to try an develop a whole new series that can use all 3 endings of the old series.
First of all, not all the relays activated as planned. So there are areas not effected by colored light. That leaves the door open for some things. That also allows for some galaxy travel. The relays do get repaired in 100 years, thanks to people finding how they worked. It is not disclosed whether or not reapers helped. You will find a large group of synthetic hybrid races, and that all of them seem to be from a similar religious sect. But whether these beings were created by the crazy light or went about doing this on their own due to their religion is not covered.
It is possible we might see other galaxies in Mass Effect, thanks to a super secret relay the reapers built that hops over to other galaxies. Thus these galaxies would be in the game along side ours, this is not the arc theory thing. Doing this allows for a lot of things. Much of the game takes place in the new galaxies, so the events of the Milky Way can be left behind. You are too focused on exploring, meeting new aliens, and other fun stuff to talk about things that happened 100 years ago. It may very well be the player character in this story who finds these relays.
By going to the new galaxy, you can have all kinds of cool ideas. There could be an invader angle to work on, as some species try to colonize it. Then you unknowingly uncover a new big bad guy, who threatens everything...again. And we have to remember, if there are relays to other galaxies, then there are certainly reapers in those galaxies as well. For the sake of plot, these reapers may not have been effected by events in the Milky Way (so the destruction ending is covered,) and have even evolved differently. But in a plot twist they wont be the bad guys. The magic of this plot twist is that it could just be Shepard's Reapers, but we will not know for sure.
That is how they can cover all 3 endings. I am not say this is what they'll do.
When it comes to the various species that Shepard could wipe out, they will mostly be MIA with little explanation. However, that does not mean will not see a character based off them. They can use any plot device as an excuse, like some character was in stasis and not effected by any possible extinction. The Krogan are plentiful enough in the series even with the genophage, they wont be going anywhere, but nobody will speak of it, either.
The endings don't lead to wildly divergent outcomes. Not really. The problem is the artistic licence they took to differentiate synthesis made it look absurd. Dial back the glowing green eyes and circuitry and the player will have no idea what Shepard did as future augmentation will happen regardless of shepards choices. No need to canonise a me3 ending if it can be done ambiguously in such a way that you could interpret any of them to be 'canon' .
Whether the Reapers were around to repair the Mass Relays has a big effect on what is the earliest time ME4 can be set. As for Synthesis, sure, the way it looked was dumb. But the concept isn't so easily ignored even if it didn't look like that. Remember that the whole point of it is the change went both ways. organics became partly synthetic. And synthetics became partly organic.
And no. There's no "need". It's entirely possible to have an ME4 in which the Mass Relays, the Geth, the Quarians, the Krogan, the Rachni, the Reapers, Earth, humanity or any character alive during ME3 don't feature into and give us protagonists utterly ignorant to the most basic facts of the Galaxys history. It's just massively preferable and gives the developers a lot more freedom to give us access to the whole ME-universe they've developed so far and give us fanservice with familiar characters if they did pick one ending.
Synthetics wouldn't become 'part organic' physically. They gain ' full understanding of organics' which I take to mean that they would share our thought patterns and emotions - probably because those are digital now for us too. The distinction between the two would be arbitrary as we would all be effectively synthetics now, synthetic-organics in some cases. If ME4 is set afterwards and the ending choice is referenced at all, even ambiguously that would pretty much mean assuming synthesis-by-default imo.Whether the Reapers were around to repair the Mass Relays has a big effect on what is the earliest time ME4 can be set. As for Synthesis, sure, the way it looked was dumb. But the concept isn't so easily ignored even if it didn't look like that. Remember that the whole point of it is the change went both ways. organics became partly synthetic. And synthetics became partly organic.
And no. There's no "need". It's entirely possible to have an ME4 in which the Mass Relays, the Geth, the Quarians, the Krogan, the Rachni, the Reapers, Earth, humanity or any character alive during ME3 don't feature into and give us protagonists utterly ignorant to the most basic facts of the Galaxys history. It's just massively preferable and gives the developers a lot more freedom to give us access to the whole ME-universe they've developed so far and give us fanservice with familiar characters if they did pick one ending.
Synthetics wouldn't become 'part organic' physically. They gain ' full understanding of organics' which I take to mean that they would share our thought patterns and emotions - probably because those are digital now for us too. The distinction between the two would be arbitrary as we would all be effectively synthetics now, synthetic-organics in some cases. If ME4 is set afterwards and the ending choice is referenced at all, even ambiguously that would pretty much mean assuming synthesis-by-default imo.
In any event it should be far enough along in the timeline that the reapers are long gone and augmentation of organics should be both ubiquitous and subtle. Should it be [possibly many] decades later, let's see some advances in technology and society without getting carried too away.
Synthesis might potentially lead to much. much faster advances in technology and society eventually in the future but in the beginning I doubt you could really tell the difference between early advances in society and technology in the other two scenarios and under synthesis. We don't need BioWare to flat out hit us over the head with an explanation and bold face tell us that a specific ending is cannon - keep us guessing and speculating for years, it's more fun that way.
I think they might just abandon all the choices and go with something else. Not sure how but that seems to be the most likely solution to their problem
I think they might just abandon all the choices and go with something else. Not sure how but that seems to be the most likely solution to their problem
I think they might just abandon all the choices and go with something else. Not sure how but that seems to be the most likely solution to their problem
I am hoping they are going to canonize control/destroy, a hybrid ending where reapers are basically set free from the Starbrat but are incapable of dealing with what they have done so they destroy each other. Still gives us the Shepard breath scene, EDI and Geth live but mass relays are damaged.
Also asari, humans and turians know how to build relays, or at least their cruder and smaller cousin the comm buoy, it says so in the Codex in ME1, entry about the FLT comms. It would be a challenge but since they already know the basics they can fix them on their own.
I assume you mean that ME4 should take place a 1500 years after ME3, cause otherwise the Krogan and Asari will remember whether the Reapers, were destroyed or got all friendly and nice and rebuilt the Mass Relays just fine. Any Krogan character should also know what happened with the genophage.
And you're no addressing the Synthesis ending. How do you make it ambigious whether it happened?
NPC 1: Hey, did we become part robot for while?
NPC 2: I don't really remember, but it still could have happened.
Is this what we want from ME4?
The answer is simple, NPC 1 and 2 will never have that conversation, because they had that conversation many years ago before your character was ever born. Why do they need to repeat it again? That happened in the past, and they are living in the present.
Whether you want it or not is irrelevant. Unless Bioware reboots the entire series from scratch, they have nowhere to go. Thinking they can somehow write an entire new trilogy that maintains pathways for all 3 endings is not realistic. Having ME4 take place in the past makes even less sense, humans haven't even been on the galactic stage that long. Placing it in parallel with the ME series would not be very sensible, either, how do you make it work with Shepard running around the galaxy? So the only real options are reboot or a few hundred years in the future.
The genophage could be cured by ME4, and how it got cured does not matter. The Krogan could have done it themselves for all we know, and they wont diverge how it got cured to you because you wont ask. You are a new character born in a different time, what do you care about Krogan history? The Asari might not talk about what happened hundreds of years ago, why would they? Its in the past, and your character in ME4 wont care about the past enough to ask. The relays will work, and again, your character wont care why they work, because they worked when you were born.
In other words, just because there are species that may have been alive and know what happened back then, that does not mean they will talk about it all the time. Its in the past.
If you think this sounds far fetched, just look around. The average American doesn't have a clue about the history of say, Japan, much less their own history. The average person in Japan or Europe probably can't name all the US presidents, or name a quarter of the 50 states. Many people don't care about things that happened before they were born, just like kids today have no idea what life was like before the internet, nor do they really care. The character you play as in ME4 wont care, they want to explore or accomplish whatever their mission is.
My character in ME4 is a historian, so there.
And considering how important the whole Reaper thing was it would be on people's talking agenda for a very long time. After all something happened in a province of Roman empire 2015 or so years ago that quite a lot of people still remember and it has left quite an impact on nearly every Earth culture. Now considering that in ME universe they already had computer records I would easily assume that there would be reliable recordings of what happened.
Whether you want it or not is irrelevant. Unless Bioware reboots the entire series from scratch, they have nowhere to go. Thinking they can somehow write an entire new trilogy that maintains pathways for all 3 endings is not realistic.
Giving up control of the series to BioWare was your first mista ... Oh, huh? Oh, yah.
Giving up control of the series to BioWare was your first mista ... Oh, huh? Oh, yah.
The cake was always a lie.
The answer is simple, NPC 1 and 2 will never have that conversation, because they had that conversation many years ago before your character was ever born. Why do they need to repeat it again? That happened in the past, and they are living in the present.
So basically don't talk about it? If we pretend it didn't exist, then it would go away?
Here's the plot for ME4:
There's a secret cabal of elite N7 troopers and politicians whose only goal is to stop people from talking about what happened after ME3. That way, there will never be a straight answer on how the original trilogy ended.
NPC 1: Hey remember when we got almost wiped out by squid-like super robots?
NPC 2: Yeah, and I remember that, I think they were called Rea *gets shot by a sniper*
NPC 1: What the... *gets shanked in the neck*
The endings don't lead to wildly divergent outcomes. Not really. The problem is the artistic licence they took to differentiate synthesis made it look absurd. Dial back the glowing green eyes and circuitry and the player will have no idea what Shepard did as future augmentation will happen regardless of shepards choices. No need to canonise a me3 ending if it can be done ambiguously in such a way that you could interpret any of them to be 'canon' .
When would Pyjaks or Vorcha evolve to be technologically augmented? What about plants? What if refuse was picked?
I just don't get this line of thinking. Why would you rather squash all the endings up and say there was not actually any importance to Shepard's choice rather than exploring what happens in ONE of them properly. I don't see this as respecting player choice at all.
I think much of ME3 can be done in a way you suggest. For instance there is no need to decide if Shepard was female or male. There is no need to decide on almost anything except for the Krogan/Genophage situation, the Quarian/Geth situation and the four ending choices.
The answer is simple, NPC 1 and 2 will never have that conversation, because they had that conversation many years ago before your character was ever born. Why do they need to repeat it again? That happened in the past, and they are living in the present.
Whether you want it or not is irrelevant. Unless Bioware reboots the entire series from scratch, they have nowhere to go. Thinking they can somehow write an entire new trilogy that maintains pathways for all 3 endings is not realistic. Having ME4 take place in the past makes even less sense, humans haven't even been on the galactic stage that long. Placing it in parallel with the ME series would not be very sensible, either, how do you make it work with Shepard running around the galaxy? So the only real options are reboot or a few hundred years in the future.
The genophage could be cured by ME4, and how it got cured does not matter. The Krogan could have done it themselves for all we know, and they wont diverge how it got cured to you because you wont ask. You are a new character born in a different time, what do you care about Krogan history? The Asari might not talk about what happened hundreds of years ago, why would they? Its in the past, and your character in ME4 wont care about the past enough to ask. The relays will work, and again, your character wont care why they work, because they worked when you were born.
In other words, just because there are species that may have been alive and know what happened back then, that does not mean they will talk about it all the time. Its in the past.
If you think this sounds far fetched, just look around. The average American doesn't have a clue about the history of say, Japan, much less their own history. The average person in Japan or Europe probably can't name all the US presidents, or name a quarter of the 50 states. Many people don't care about things that happened before they were born, just like kids today have no idea what life was like before the internet, nor do they really care. The character you play as in ME4 wont care, they want to explore or accomplish whatever their mission is.
That concept if Flawed. How can they not erect a memorial or a statue to someone who saved all of them from total annihilation? what the hell is that?! or atleast talk about that one dude or gal who saved their sorry little arses because they refused to listen to his or her warning for the past years?! even if it is set 300 years after the events of ME3 aliens all around the galaxy would still talk about the "shepard" and how the "shepard" saved them and re-built their colonies or gave back their planet. The term is not "FUTURE" but "ALTERNATE UNIVERSE + REBOOT / RESTART" this is what EA and BIOWARE WANTS so that they can continue the franchise because there is no other way to move forward without touching the story of Shepard whether directly or indirectly it's like avoiding Masterchief in the Halo series not talking about the 2nd generation spartan 117 for saving the universe 
while you play another spartan da hell
Having ME4 take place in the past makes even less sense, humans haven't even been on the galactic stage that long. Placing it in parallel with the ME series would not be very sensible, either, how do you make it work with Shepard running around the galaxy?
Humans have been on the galactic stage long enough to tell plenty of stories. And just because Shepard was the galactic messiah, doesn't erase the fact that there's billions/trillions of other beings in the galaxy with their own adventures taking place. Their own tales to tell.
or atleast talk about that one dude or gal who saved their sorry little arses because they refused to listen to his or her warning for the past years?!
Hmm Idk....maybe the same way you go through life, doing normal things and you don't talk about Jesus dying on the cross for all man's sins with every person you meet or share a moment with.
Seems doable.
Hmm Idk....maybe the same way you go through life, doing normal things and you don't talk about Jesus dying on the cross for all man's sins with every person you meet or share a moment with.
Seems doable.
There is a huge gap between never talking about it, and talking about it all the time.... Why do so many supposedly bright people always jump into this false dilemma nonsense? It's just stupid.
Hmm Idk....maybe the same way you go through life, doing normal things and you don't talk about Jesus dying on the cross for all man's sins with every person you meet or share a moment with.
Seems doable.
We talk about Martin Luther king, We talk about Winston Churchill, We talk about Michael Jackson, We talk about John F. Kennedy, We talk about Stalin, Lenin, Putin, We talk about Nelson Mandela, We talk about Che Guevara, We talk about Adolf Hitler, We talk about public figures all the time.
Shepard is more than a figure... he is a god damn hero. - Miranda Lawson.
So tell me now how the galaxy or yet the NEXT MASS EFFECT universe will not have an impact on Shepard directly or indirectly?
simple ALTERNATE UNIVERSE + REBOOT / RESTART
There is a huge gap between never talking about it, and talking about it all the time.... Why do so many supposedly bright people always jump into this false dilemma nonsense? It's just stupid.
who says you have to talk about it all? I have plenty of people in my life that I've known for years, with whom I've never discussed how WW2 shaped the modern world. Not stupid at all. Just because some guy saved the galaxy at one point, doesn't mean people living centuries and generations after the fact will give a damn or feel the smallest inclination to bring it up in conversation.
Point is, the topic is completely avoidable. It's not in any way a stretch of the imagination to go on a journey/adventure without Shepard ever coming up along the way.
We talk about Martin Luther king, We talk about Winston Churchill, We talk about Michael Jackson, We talk about John F. Kennedy, We talk about Stalin, Lenin, Putin, We talk about Nelson Mandela, We talk about Che Guevara, We talk about Adolf Hitler, We talk about public figures all the time.
Do you talk about these individuals every time you go on a road trip? Every time you go on vacation or take a drive with someone? Didn't think so.
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