I am always for making up stuff that can explain the plot, so I don't have anything against gothpunkboy89's explanation here (although before, when it was the fan's fault, he readily admitted it was an absurdity, then he's trying to rationalize, it's comforting to see how at least people on this forum are consistent).
BUT there a couple of things to mention here:
- As you point out, just because we can come up with stuff why things might have worked, it still doesn't excuse that the writing team didn't tell us (and clearly never thought about it). Our efforts to repair this mess are fun for us but they are not part of this story, so don't make the writing any better.
- The fact that Harby doesn't shoot the Normandy isn't even my biggest problem with that scene. As gothpunkboy89 shows, it would have been easy for the writers to come up with some technobabble to make that work. No, there are two bigger problems, one small one and one big one:
The small one: If the Normandy could just fly to the beam, why not deliver troops there in the first place. I can rationalize this one away by assuming that somehow the situation changed (destroyer taken out, maybe more reaper air forces taken out at the time, ground atatck in progress) that allowed this but still, this is not made clear either.
The big problem: Why does Shepard even call for an evac at this point? During my game, my squad mates go down all the time during combat. I just finish the enemies of and rely on their suit's in build medical systems to revive them after the battle is done. I never call the Normandy for evac, it's not even an option for Shepard. And that's just the normal game, where often, evac might even be feasible and when there is no big time constraint. Now, here, we are at the end of all things. It is hammered down time and time again that "this is it". We make our good byes and everyone is clearly ready to die for the cause with the entire galaxy at steak (sorry, Shepard pun, had to be there
). Shepard is running toward Harbinger himself, but he made it, he is basically through the beam already but this is the point where he turns around and has the brilliant idea to call in the Normandy, which at the time is engulfed in the space battle that is going on overhead. What?!?
This is clearly not Shepard, this is some writer saying "hey, we messed this thing up before, how do we fix it with just adding 5 lines?"
And you are right gothpunkboy89, in retrospect, it might have been better not to "fix" it at all or to just let those two squad mates die but to quote Adam Jenson, we (the fans) never asked for this, we just stated the true fact that there was no explanation for the squad mates to get to the Normandy (among many other things). Saying that the fans are responsible for the evac scene as it happened, now THAT is absurd.