29 réponses à ce sujet

[gldartt]

To figure out how it actually ends. So with Shepard drawing breath somewhere on Earth, and the Normandy on some planet somewhere, who's in command there? My first thought was Garrus, because Shepard always made him second team leader in ME2, but this is an Alliance ship, specifically, a Human vessel. Does he have official standing? Who's second in command? James?

[themikefest]

Shepard is on the Citadel

 

Normandy is a human ship. Garrus would not have any authority over anyone. It would either be Ashley or Kaidan. If neither of them are on the ship, it most likely be Adams

[gldartt]

Thank you. But where is the Citadel? Is it still in space, orbiting Earth, maintaining an atmosphere, or did it crash and burn (disregarding how Shepard would have survived that)? And, ironically, did it crash on top of London, just to add insult to injury?

[StarcloudSWG]

It's still in orbit. I take it you haven't downloaded and installed the Extended Cut yet?

[gldartt]

No, I have. I bought the trilogy and all the DLCs listed, but at the end, (remember, its my first play-through) there was just so much stuff blowing up and the Normandy running for cover, that I couldn't tell how the Citadel was damaged or why Shepard came to be lying in rubble at the end. I mean, shouldn't she be lying in front of the machine where she made her choice? I get that her cybernetics might be malfunctioning badly because of the pulse that destroyed all the synthetics, but for some reason, when I saw the final scene where she took a breath, it felt like she was back in London for some reason. I just couldn't figure out how she got there, or if it wasn't London, why the Citadel was so damaged around her.

[themikefest]

Mike Gamble tweeted Shepard is on the Citadel. The question is where are the Citadel does the breath scene take place?

[UpUpAway95]

No, I have. I bought the trilogy and all the DLCs listed, but at the end, (remember, its my first play-through) there was just so much stuff blowing up and the Normandy running for cover, that I couldn't tell how the Citadel was damaged or why Shepard came to be lying in rubble at the end. I mean, shouldn't she be lying in front of the machine where she made her choice? I get that her cybernetics might be malfunctioning badly because of the pulse that destroyed all the synthetics, but for some reason, when I saw the final scene where she took a breath, it felt like she was back in London for some reason. I just couldn't figure out how she got there, or if it wasn't London, why the Citadel was so damaged around her.

 

For all we can see, Shep could be lying in the rubble of the what's left of the machine that started the chain of destruction.  There are inconsistencies with the "breath" scenario in that if the pulse was essentially an EMP strong enough to wipe out all synthetics, then there is really no way Shep's (or anyone else's) cybernetics should still function at all.  Shep and a whole host of other organics (including biotic implants in their heads) should be dead, dead, dead.  Additional, no ships should fly, no computerized weapons or other tech should work, etc... but it wouldn't do if the destroy ending wiped out essentially everything, would it?

 

Regardless, the cutscene in the Extended Cut ending does so a severely damaged Citadel still orbiting earth.  As for the passing of command of the vessel, I think it would go to whoever took command or whoever the crew voted in to take command since the Alliance would, theoretically, have a lot of communications infrastructure to rebuild before it would be in a position to even locate the Normandy let alone enforce a command structure aboard it.  Personally, I'd vote for Garrus.

 

I have a scenario of my own where Miranda (who is conveniently not aboard the Normandy) uses her dad's resources to commandeer/fix a working ship on earth and gets to the Citadel first to rescue Shep (dead or alive)... and rebuild him/her yet again.

[gldartt]

Okay, well, this is good, I can work with this. Glad I asked, because I really did think Shepard had somehow ended up back in London. So it's good to know she's on the Citadel. I figure that perhaps the beam didn't actually penetrate where the control room was, and perhaps it was the most protected area of the station, therefore, Shepard could survive, albeit very badly injured because of the damage originating ...how?...the backlash of energy the crucible created within the arms of the Citadel? In any event, I can work around it with some fast and loose literary tap-dancing.

 

Leading to the next interesting question, would anyone else be alive on the Citadel? Aria? I mean, she's like a cockroach. Nothing would kill her. That's assuming she didn't smartly vacate the premises before the Reapers seized the Citadel and moved it. Or perhaps the Citadel is just chockful of people, presuming the Reapers just grabbed it in a big ol' tractor beam and dragged it to Earth as opposed to going to the formalities of actually boarding and taking it over. They just don't know Shepard is there because she's tucked away in some super-secret Reaper control room, while they're all cowering in the bowels of the station hoping the Reapers don't look their way.

 

I apologize if this has been covered in discussions from when the game first came out. I'm a little late to the party. I played Dragon Age and got bored one day after about my fourth play-through and started looking for another RPG that I might enjoy. I figured I couldn't go wrong with another Bioware game and while it took me some time to grow comfortable with the keyboard controls, once I got into it, (DA:O and DA II controls were very simple, while I was able to use a controller on DA:I rather than the key bindings.) I really enjoyed running through all three ME games in sequence. It was like an exceedingly long but very enjoyable movie where I could direct some of the action. Still prefer DA because I like bows better than guns and magic better than biotics, but I felt the story and the characters were better realized in the ME series, especially the relationships. Thank you for your patience and responses.

[UpUpAway95]

Okay, well, this is good, I can work with this. Glad I asked, because I really did think Shepard had somehow ended up back in London. So it's good to know she's on the Citadel. I figure that perhaps the beam didn't actually penetrate where the control room was, and perhaps it was the most protected area of the station, therefore, Shepard could survive, albeit very badly injured because of the damage originating ...how?...the backlash of energy the crucible created within the arms of the Citadel? In any event, I can work around it with some fast and loose literary tap-dancing.

 

Leading to the next interesting question, would anyone else be alive on the Citadel? Aria? I mean, she's like a cockroach. Nothing would kill her. That's assuming she didn't smartly vacate the premises before the Reapers seized the Citadel and moved it. Or perhaps the Citadel is just chockful of people, presuming the Reapers just grabbed it in a big ol' tractor beam and dragged it to Earth as opposed to going to the formalities of actually boarding and taking it over. They just don't know Shepard is there because she's tucked away in some super-secret Reaper control room, while they're all cowering in the bowels of the station hoping the Reapers don't look their way.

 

I apologize if this has been covered in discussions from when the game first came out. I'm a little late to the party. I played Dragon Age and got bored one day after about my fourth play-through and started looking for another RPG that I might enjoy. I figured I couldn't go wrong with another Bioware game and while it took me some time to grow comfortable with the keyboard controls, once I got into it, (DA:O and DA II controls were very simple, while I was able to use a controller on DA:I rather than the key bindings.) I really enjoyed running through all three ME games in sequence. It was like an exceedingly long but very enjoyable movie where I could direct some of the action. Still prefer DA because I like bows better than guns and magic better than biotics, but I felt the story and the characters were better realized in the ME series, especially the relationships. Thank you for your patience and responses.

 

I think the game's premise is that the Citadel residents were all "processed," along with a lot of earth's residents prior to Shep and Anderson taking the beam up themselves (ref: their radio conversation when Shep first comes to on the Citadel)... but I think it's still plausible that there may be survivors hiding out in pockets elsewhere on the Citadel.

[StarcloudSWG]

Okay, well, this is good, I can work with this. Glad I asked, because I really did think Shepard had somehow ended up back in London. So it's good to know she's on the Citadel. I figure that perhaps the beam didn't actually penetrate where the control room was, and perhaps it was the most protected area of the station, therefore, Shepard could survive, albeit very badly injured because of the damage originating ...how?...the backlash of energy the crucible created within the arms of the Citadel? In any event, I can work around it with some fast and loose literary tap-dancing.

 

Bad news for you, then. If you look up in the decision chamber, that's the Crucible *right above you*. This 'chamber' is actually open to space and is located at the very base of the Citadel Tower. Shepard is standing 'upside down' relative to the Presidium.

 

Presumably there are mass effect fields holding a breathable atmosphere in place.

[fraggle]

I think the game's premise is that the Citadel residents were all "processed," along with a lot of earth's residents prior to Shep and Anderson taking the beam up themselves (ref: their radio conversation when Shep first comes to on the Citadel)... but I think it's still plausible that there may be survivors hiding out in pockets elsewhere on the Citadel.

 

Patrick Weekes had confirmed it that we can assume all important characters are alive, and that the Citadel has shelters. So I reckon people like Bailey etc. are still alive. The thread can be read here, and here are his words about it:

"The Citadel has emergency shelters and kinetic barriers - even if it blows up, millions might survive. You should assume that everyone plot-important on the Citadel survived."

[taglag]

To figure out how it actually ends. So with Shepard drawing breath somewhere on Earth,

 

   That was not in the original version.

 

  This game for all the really good things in it always reminded me of Unreal2 which in its time was probably one of the better science fiction game I ever player. Right up until the end.

 

   The horrible ending of that one, made me never want to play it again. Its I know just a personal choice, but some things are hard to ignore. Any one who ever played Unreal2 will know what I am talking about in the ending of it, it was rather depressing.

[UpUpAway95]

Patrick Weekes had confirmed it that we can assume all important characters are alive, and that the Citadel has shelters. So I reckon people like Bailey etc. are still alive. The thread can be read here, and here are his words about it:

"The Citadel has emergency shelters and kinetic barriers - even if it blows up, millions might survive. You should assume that everyone plot-important on the Citadel survived."

 

I do have trouble reconciling how some mere kinetic barriers on the Citadel would survive the Crucible detonation... but the detonation is strong enough to "severely damage" all the Mass Relays across the entire galaxy.  Throughout the game, Shep uses a number of ways to cut through kinetic barriers to reach targets including mere weapons fire... just doesn't compute really.

[Matthias King]

Okay, well, this is good, I can work with this. Glad I asked, because I really did think Shepard had somehow ended up back in London. So it's good to know she's on the Citadel. I figure that perhaps the beam didn't actually penetrate where the control room was, and perhaps it was the most protected area of the station, therefore, Shepard could survive, albeit very badly injured because of the damage originating ...how?...the backlash of energy the crucible created within the arms of the Citadel? In any event, I can work around it with some fast and loose literary tap-dancing.

 

Leading to the next interesting question, would anyone else be alive on the Citadel? Aria? I mean, she's like a cockroach. Nothing would kill her. That's assuming she didn't smartly vacate the premises before the Reapers seized the Citadel and moved it. Or perhaps the Citadel is just chockful of people, presuming the Reapers just grabbed it in a big ol' tractor beam and dragged it to Earth as opposed to going to the formalities of actually boarding and taking it over. They just don't know Shepard is there because she's tucked away in some super-secret Reaper control room, while they're all cowering in the bowels of the station hoping the Reapers don't look their way.

 

I apologize if this has been covered in discussions from when the game first came out. I'm a little late to the party. I played Dragon Age and got bored one day after about my fourth play-through and started looking for another RPG that I might enjoy. I figured I couldn't go wrong with another Bioware game and while it took me some time to grow comfortable with the keyboard controls, once I got into it, (DA:O and DA II controls were very simple, while I was able to use a controller on DA:I rather than the key bindings.) I really enjoyed running through all three ME games in sequence. It was like an exceedingly long but very enjoyable movie where I could direct some of the action. Still prefer DA because I like bows better than guns and magic better than biotics, but I felt the story and the characters were better realized in the ME series, especially the relationships. Thank you for your patience and responses.

 

Like @Fraggle said, one could reasonable assume that at least some people survived. Where you go from there is entirely up to your artistic interpretation. Of the people who survived, Aria has a good chance of being one. She's shown herself to be a survivor's survivor, and she's incredibly powerful. It would take a lot to take her out even on her own. Even more if she had any kind of back-up.

 

That alone could make an interesting story, or at least a good section of your larger story. Aria and the 'resistance' trying to survive in the Citadel. You could really take your pick of who was with her for your story. As far as established characters, Bailey's probably a good one. He survived the Cerberus coup. I could see him partnering with Aria, at least to survive.

 

I'm trying to think of known characters who would have been on the Citadel during the final push. Aria and Bailey are about all I can think of. There are some of Aria's people, like Bray. You could assume he came with her when she returned to the Citadel after the Omega DLC. Kolyat might be there, I don't remember. And there are probably a lot of C-Sec agents.

 

You could use your imagination and introduce original characters alongside canon characters if you need or want to.
 

[fraggle]

I do have trouble reconciling how some mere kinetic barriers on the Citadel would survive the Crucible detonation... but the detonation is strong enough to "severely damage" all the Mass Relays across the entire galaxy.  Throughout the game, Shep uses a number of ways to cut through kinetic barriers to reach targets including mere weapons fire... just doesn't compute really.

 

If we take the derelict Reaper in ME2, this one looked pretty busted too, yet it could maintain its field for all these years. I assume the Citadel does something similar. Maybe Weekes was specifically talking about the shelters having these barriers for further protection.

 

Also, I somewhat still believe the explosion is not as severe as it looks. The tower is still standing in the end, and that was the central point of the explosion.

[gldartt]

You know, I like this. This is better. Originally I was just going to have her picked up by the Alliance, but it's a much better story for her to be picked up by Aria and the survivors on the Citadel, out of touch with the fleet still reeling around them. I don't know how long it would be before the Alliance would send someone to the Citadel, but figuring that the pulse maybe knocked out all the ship's electronics, etc, every single pocket of life in the immediate system would be too busy trying to survive themselves before they worried about anyone else, including a mostly dead weapon that's just drifting in their space. Though I imagine some nearby ships would do their best to dock with the Citadel rather than try to make it down to Earth. A whole new range of possibilities there. Thanks so much.

 

Meanwhile, the Normandy would be out of touch for awhile, too. It could be a year or more before they managed to fix the ship or even hear from the rest of the galaxy. Lots of angst for the love interest, of course. (Which is actually the whole point of the story.)

 

And come to think of it, maybe the reason she's crumpled in the catalyst control room (can I call it that?) is because her injuries just caught up to her. I mean, she was already beat up pretty good by the time she got there (Can I just say I didn't much like dragging myself around with only a pistol while husks came at me. I must have died six times before I made i through that little bit and I only had it set on casual.) And add whatever effect the beam had on her cybernetics and yeah, that makes for a really good barely-holding-onto-life there. There really doesn't have to be much damage to the control room itself. I mean, it's not like it's actually seen again after the beam goes off, right? (I really should play through that part again and really look around this time.)

[UpUpAway95]

The Citadel also has mass effect fields, and if we take the derelict Reaper in ME2, this one looked pretty busted too, yet it could maintain its field for all these years. I assume the Citadel does something similar. Maybe Weekes was specifically talking about the shelters having these barriers for further protection.

 

Also, I somewhat still believe the explosion is not as severe as it looks. The tower is still standing in the end, and that was the central point of the explosion.

 

Still, the Mass Relays are built around a huge Mass Effect core and able, according to the Wiki, to survive a blast from a supernova (although Arrival kind of also disputes this).  The Mass Relays are clearly described as being "severely damaged" by the Crucible detonation in the EC Destroy Ending and the Mass Effect core is clearly offline in those images.  As for the tower standing... pretty irrelevant since the Crucible detonation is clearly not a normal blast.  Had it been, the Mass Relays and Reapers would have suffered less and less damage the farther they were from the center of the blast and planets in the way in between would have absorbed the impact (and perhaps been thrown out of their orbits in the process).  A normal blast would have made the Tower more likely to have suffered the most damage being both close to the center of the blast and having an artificial atmosphere in place around it... allowing for both a blast wave and a blast wind.

 

What I'm saying is that organics without implanted cybernetics should not have needed the protection of a Mass Effect field to survive the crucible detonation.  They didn't need such protection on earth or across the galaxy either.  For anything synthetic (cybernetics and bio-amps included) there should have been no protection anywhere... and since the Mass Relays (which were the most evident ME tech) were shown as being "severely damaged" and with their ME fields offline, this "no protection anywhere" should also apply to any tech reliant on ME fields... which is about everything in the ME universe. 

 

In designing the ending, Bioware went too far, IMO... they should have left the Mass Relays themselves intact.  The conventional blast Shep triggered by stupidly using his weapon to start the Crucible detonation really had no point to it other than to give Shep the opportunity to die in that blast if the player's EMS was too low.  They should have also left a dividing line between cybernetic tech and AI tech.  Shep should never have been described as being "partly synthetic" since his brain functions were confirmed by EDI as being completely organic.  The crucible should have then clearly targeted only AI tech meaning it was something different than an EMP as well.  This would theen have meant that Shep's cybernetics should not have been affected by the crucible detonation and it wouldn't be a "break" in consistency for biotic amps to have been unaffected as well.  Under this scenario - EDI would have gone offline, but that should not have "crashed" the Normandy either since she wasn't supposed to be piloting the ship and her being offline certainly didn't affect the Normandy's functions during the Citadel DLC chase.

[StarcloudSWG]

EDI being destroyed does not affect the base functioning of the ship.

 

EDI certainly made running the Normandy easier for the crew, as she had complete oversight and control over the ship, but she was not actually necessary for the starship to function.

 

The crash had less to do with EDI falling offline and more to do with the Mass Relay tunnel collapsing behind the Normandy, something you can clearly see happening if you pay attention to the stars.

[UpUpAway95]

EDI being destroyed does not affect the base functioning of the ship.

 

EDI certainly made running the Normandy easier for the crew, as she had complete oversight and control over the ship, but she was not actually necessary for the starship to function.

 

The crash had less to do with EDI falling offline and more to do with the Mass Relay tunnel collapsing behind the Normandy, something you can clearly see happening if you pay attention to the stars.

OK, I can buy that... but it still doesn't explain why a weapon that both physically and functionally destroys Mass Relays (which operate around a huge Mass Effect core) does not affect the little Mass Effect fields now being described as protecting survivors on the Citadel (which is near the very center of the pulse) nor does it explain why such protection for organics is needed on the Citadel for them to survive and not on Earth itself. 

 

They needlessly blurred the lines they had created between mere cybernetics and synthetics when they had the Starchild say that Shepard was partially synthetic and created a discrepancy as to why then biotics (with their biotic amps - which are described as being cybernetic implants) were not affected by the crucible and now they're creating a second discrepancy by bringing up Mass Effect fields being what protects people on the Citadel.  Really, all the people on the Citadel needed to do was avoid being caught and "processed" along with the people who were being "rounded up on earth and sent up [to the Citadel] to be processed."  The conventional blast Shepard created need have only been large enough to kill him and no one else... had Bioware not decided to go the conventional "everything explodes" route to show destruction of AI intelligences across the galaxy.

[StarcloudSWG]

There's no real inconsistency here. What you see on the screen is that a> the Reapers die. b> Reaper creations die. c> AI that has Reaper pieces integrated dies. d> AI that has Reaper code dies. e> Nothing else stops functioning.

 

The conclusion based on the visual evidence given is that the Catalyst was lying and trying to confuse the issue by equating synthetic parts with synthetic intelligence and making broad sweeping statements about how other technology would be destroyed.

 

The actual *effect* of the Destroy wave / signal is only to destroy the Reapers and Reaper-derived synthetics. The reason the Mass Relays are wrecked has less to do with their origin and more to do with the titanic amounts of energy being channeled through them in ways the Relays were not designed for.

 

The Catalyst attempts to present itself as a "Reliable Narrator" but, being itself a character in the universe, is *not*. It is an "Unreliable Narrator." It has an agenda and uses the guise of neutrality in order to influence Shepard into following its agenda.

 

Its agenda, by the way, is very obviously 'finishing the job' and turning everything into a Reaper creature, plugging every sapient being and even down to *plants* into the Reaper mind-control and processing network. The Crucible does not change its goals, only the method available.

[UpUpAway95]

There's no real inconsistency here. What you see on the screen is that a> the Reapers die. b> Reaper creations die. c> AI that has Reaper pieces integrated dies. d> AI that has Reaper code dies. e> Nothing else stops functioning.

 

The conclusion based on the visual evidence given is that the Catalyst was lying and trying to confuse the issue by equating synthetic parts with synthetic intelligence and making broad sweeping statements about how other technology would be destroyed.

 

The actual *effect* of the Destroy wave / signal is only to destroy the Reapers and Reaper-derived synthetics. The reason the Mass Relays are wrecked has less to do with their origin and more to do with the titanic amounts of energy being channeled through them in ways the Relays were not designed for.

... but why would that "titanic energy" not affect Mass Effect fields (barriers) on the Citadel?  which are now allegedly what protects the organics on the Citadel from destruction.  The energy flowing through the relays isn't so channeled that it "misses" sections of the galaxy far far away - so why is Bioware suddenly making it seem necessary that the Citadel survivors somehow needed cover as if they were hiding from a conventional blast wave.  The premise of barriers being needed to protect survivors on the Citadel is simply an unnecessary complication.  They're protected because they're organic (and most non-biotic humanoids, like Bailey, would be completely organic).

 

The geth who are destroyed are not "reaper-derived synthetics."  They were created by the Quarians.  Yes, they were "contaminated" with reaper code, but then anything utilizing a Mass Effect field, regardless of who made it specifically, uses reaper-derived code/tech or are we forgetting the premise:  "Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology..." 

 

Of course, it is indeed possible to dismiss every premise in the game eventually as a lie... but why do it for something as small as needlessly giving the organics on the Citadel barrier protection from a blast that, as I said, really only needed to be large enough to injure or kill Shepard (depending on the player's EMS score)?  Personally, I tend to view the Starchild as a construct of Shepard's mind... merely a graphical representation of himself pondering his own options by recapping what he had learned before deciding what "work of noble note" he maybe could do before he died.  (The moment where he looks at the blood coming from his side being the moment he himself realizes that he was essentially already dead.)  Was then Shepard lying to himself?  Well, people do do that all the time.  Perhaps nothing actually happens at all... Shepard passes out and dies as Hackett is telling him the Crucible isn't firing and the rest is just the "light" he sees while dying.  Perhaps Shepard's "work of noble note" merely amounts to whatever he believed he had accomplished over his life (i.e. the decisions the player had already made to that point)... and the cycle [of life and death] just continues on as it had for Millennia.

 

OP:  The bottom line here is it's your fanfic... you can connect with and expand on the ending in any way you want really.  You might have to do some fudging, but there is a lot of latitude in how even ME3's heavily-criticized-for-lack-of-variance endings can be interpreted... and it's not like Bioware hasn't done a lot of fudging already.  Good luck with your story!

[gldartt]

Thank you. I'll let people here know when its done in case anyone wants to read it.

 

But yeah, a lot of it was really left up in the air. The more I research it, the more I discover how much leeway is available. Which allows for better post story telling, of course, but yeah, I could see why when it first occurred, most people were upset. I think it's actually easier to come late to the party as I did and just sort of take it as it is. Especially being able to play all three games one right after the other rather than say, spending a couple of years (?) after each one looking forward to the next, building it up mentally, only to be let down if it didn't quite live up to expectations. And because I knew the ending of ME 3 was somewhat esoteric when I went into it, and that people didn't like it for the most part (though I never found out exactly why so I wouldn't be completely spoiled), I could take the whole thing in stride.

 

I will miss Shepard, though. I really enjoyed the journey with her and the other characters, particularly Garrus, Liara, Miranda and Talia. I know the next one, Andromeda, isn't supposed to have much if anything to do with the first three, and while I can see how it goes (the same way I did with DA:I), I wouldn't have minded yet another game that explored Shepard and the Normandy's world.

[StarcloudSWG]

... but why would that "titanic energy" not affect Mass Effect fields (barriers) on the Citadel?  which are now allegedly what protects the organics on the Citadel from destruction.  The energy flowing through the relays isn't so channeled that it "misses" sections of the galaxy far far away - so why is Bioware suddenly making it seem necessary that the Citadel survivors somehow needed cover as if they were hiding from a conventional blast wave.  The premise of barriers being needed to protect survivors on the Citadel is simply an unnecessary complication.  They're protected because they're organic (and most non-biotic humanoids, like Bailey, would be completely organic).

 

The geth who are destroyed are not "reaper-derived synthetics."  They were created by the Quarians.  Yes, they were "contaminated" with reaper code, but then anything utilizing a Mass Effect field, regardless of who made it specifically, uses reaper-derived code/tech or are we forgetting the premise:  "Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology..." 

 

Because we see starships moving in a coordinated, controlled way in the post-Destroy epilogue. As a result, we know that mass effect related technology was *not* destroyed wholesale. Starships use the mass effect technology to move. They use it for kinetic barriers to prevent collisions from space dust.

 

Just because something is 'based on' someone else's technology does not mean it is *identical* to that technology. This is like claiming a wheel made of a wooden rim, lined with metal and spoked by wood, is identical to a titanium CNC milled wheel for a NASCAR racecar.

 

Directly Reaper-related stuff gets destroyed. Code, physical objects, whatever. If the Reapers made it or if it was stolen from the Reapers, it gets destroyed. Indirectly Reaper-related stuff does not.

[UpUpAway95]

Because we see starships moving in a coordinated, controlled way in the post-Destroy epilogue. As a result, we know that mass effect related technology was *not* destroyed wholesale. Starships use the mass effect technology to move. They use it for kinetic barriers to prevent collisions from space dust.

 

Just because something is 'based on' someone else's technology does not mean it is *identical* to that technology. This is like claiming a wheel made of a wooden rim, lined with metal and spoked by wood, is identical to a titanium CNC milled wheel for a NASCAR racecar.

 

Directly Reaper-related stuff gets destroyed. Code, physical objects, whatever. If the Reapers made it or if it was stolen from the Reapers, it gets destroyed. Indirectly Reaper-related stuff does not.

 

Well, at least I've got people thinking... which was really my intent here.  As I said to the OP, there's a lot of latitude to connect with ME3's endings in different ways depending on where your interests are.  My personal interpretation of the Mass Effect story lies in the phrases the game extracts from Tennyson, Whitman, Henley and Miller (The Crucible, 1953) not in discerning whether a wheel is made from wood or titanium... and I don't think it's fair to the OP to hijack this thread any further... "signing out... for the final time."

[gldartt]

Ooh, here's some more questions to ponder if anyone is so inclined.

 

When the Reapers harvest a planet, they devastate the actual inhabited parts, but they pretty much leave the rest of the environment alone, right? Also, they only went after planets with high level technology, right? They were supposed to leave the 'lesser species' alone. Of course, would that mean a Human colony operating at a twentieth century level (or below) would be left alone or would they harvest the colony just because they're Human and the Humans (along with the Asari, the Turians and the Krogen) were considered high level, regardless of how the individual pockets of species were actually living?

 

The planet the Normandy crashed on. Does anyone think it was one that was visited before or is it entirely new? How far did they get from the solar system? I assume they just jumped to hyper space rather than used the mass relay. (I just replayed the ending of ME3 and I don't think they used the relay, so they would have only gone to the next system or maybe the next one over. Which means, once the ship is repaired, it shouldn't take that long to return to Earth.)

 

(It's entirely possible I'm thinking out loud here as I write my story, but I enjoy reading speculation by people. I find the whole what the Crucible beam might or might not have destroyed fascinating. I don't consider that hijacking the thread. Rather, I find it a wealth of potential inspiration for plot points in the story. Hijack away.)

 

Also, EDI was destroyed because she included Reaper code? Is it possible any part of her would have survived? I know her name is on the Normandy DIA board, but the ceremony could have taken place before her potential survival was discovered. Discuss.   I mean, I like EDI, but I can live with her being dead, just for the Joker/Shepard angst, but is it possible for her to survive the Destroy Option at all? Also, what did the Lunar AI have to do with it? Was that in ME 2? I know EDI came from that AI but was that a mission that Shepard did and I just can't remember it?

 

Again, sorry if this has all been discussed to death, but surely I can't be the only newer player around interested in this stuff.