But I suppose the thing to note here is that I don't feel that either Control or Synthesis will necessarily lead to technological dark ages. Control - in the original ending - was the only one where the animation cut off before the relay exploded, which, along with the Citadel not exploding, implied to me that the relay network was damaged, not destroyed. Synthesis always felt as though the loss of the relay network would be counterbalanced by the unimaginable personal leaps in evolution/tech advancement in a way I struggle to think of as a "dark age" even if there's more difficulty in long-haul interstellar travel.
I recall after the original ending, things were confusing. There was no dark age implied in Control, no, but Synthesis painted a different picture. My personal interpretation was almost exactly like yours right from the start - that the potential of new technology and self-directed evolution would more than make up for the loss of the relays. However, I also felt that was beyond mere interpretation and more along the lines of plausible headcanon, since the exposition didn't mention such possibilities in a single word. I don't know if you played the OE, but the advancement-related stuff was added with the Extended Cut, and the term "new ascension" was from the leaked game script but it was cut for the published game. There were more hints like that in the leaked script, which lead to the impression, if you knew the leaked script, that everything related to advancement was carefully purged before the game was published, leaving the nonsensical idea of "a new DNA" that would unify synthetics and organics on a biochemical level. Not because I consider that impossible, but because a synthetic based on a DNA-analogue would be functionally indistinguishable from an organic, with all the problems supposedly resolved by Synthesis reappearing.
It's quite likely that my personal history of reception - first the leaked script, then the OE, then the EC, influences how I continue to think and feel about the endings. I was ready to embrace the EC when it came out, and in some way I did, but while it anchored radical advancement and self-directed evolution in the epilogue, unfortunately it didn't do away with the biological nonsense and it was still not possible to rationalize the implementation of Synthesis in in-world logic. It was a religious metaphor *alone*.
Yes, absolutely. People often talk about how Synthesis is immoral because you're forcing a change on nearly every sentient being. But any choice Shepard makes at that point - including nothing - will affect every living being. Synthesis, like transhumanism in the real world, is both fascinating and frightening, and I say that as something of a transhumanist myself. In a sense my fascination with it is from an evolutionary perspective: I think it's inevitable. Our evolutionary niche is tool-building. Using our brains to create technology to compensate for our physical limitations is what we, as a species, have evolved to do. Logically, the ultimate extension of that is us eventually creating a machine that no longer needs us and/or is capable of self-improvement, or incorporating technology into our physical existence on an increasingly radical basis. The idea of being able to consciously direct our evolution rather than adapting generationally, without conscious planning, to our environment, is incredible, but also terrifying when we consider how poor our judgement has sometimes been, particularly with regards to medical ethics and economic justice when it comes to access to healthcare and technology. But either eventuality is a paradigmatic shift that will change our civilisation as we know it.
I had mentioned that as a reply to those who claimed that Synthesis was a cloudcuckoolander's "paradise" ending. Whoever has ever read transhumanist SF can't fail to notice that the possibilities are as much terrifying as promising. But in order to accept that, you had to accept that Synthesis was designed for those themes in the first place, and even while I wanted to believe that, I had my doubts until the EC came out, exactly because of those purged references I mentioned above.
I also agree that this kind of advancement is inevitable, should we survive, as a species, the way there. It was another idea I brought up against the detractors' claims that ME3's Synthesis wasn't necessary because we could get there on our own: yes, we could start on that way, but would we survive the pitfalls along the way? The idea was that the synthetic/organic conflict would claim us as victims before we could advance enough to resolve it on our own. You see, I actually had a lot of positive imagery for the endings and I still have. I've always said I was fine with the final choice and most of its implications, only the implementation carried themes nullifying the thematic direction of the concept that was still recognizeable under all the stupidity.
I definitely read the final scene differently to you. I mean it's deliberately vague - it's hard to know whether the old man is treating space like a fairytale because he's educating a young kid, and wants to impress on him the wonders and scope of space, or if it's because space has become something of a fairytale. I suspect that's because it has to fit with all three endings. You have to be able to believe that that's a Grandpa from an ending where the Reapers were destroyed and the galaxy plunged into a technological dark age. You also have to be able to believe it's part-synthetic Grandpa who might be sharing illustrations of Shepard's story from historical documents wirelessly with his grandson via the nanotechnology in their bodies.
But from my perspective, the old guy knows that there are billions of stars, orbited by planets, housing life. This is a society at least as educationally advanced as 20th century Earth, possibly much more so. If they wanted to hammer home that space travel was more or less lost, then his response to "when will I get to see the stars," would perhaps have been, "one day, I hope," not "one day, my sweet".
It's certainly possible to interpret it that way, though 20the century Earth wouldn't be enough IMO. Meanwhile, my impression was carried mostly by the absolute lack of anything technological in both of the post-Event scenes, suggesting what I called "technological innocence". All the technological items we see are from the soon-to-be-destroyed old world, and either get destroyed or rendered nonfunctional (the Normandy didn't take off again until after the EC).
I find your reaction to synthesis and its religious implications understandable, even though I don't entirely agree. I say entirely because one of the biggest reasons I dislike the Extended Cut was the way it attempted to make synthesis seem like a less ethically complex decision. I mean, I, personally, found it joyful and exhilarating but I'm aware - and my Shepard was aware - that she was making a huge determination with regards to the fate of, well, everyone, essentially without their consent. But the game didn't baby us and hold our hands when we held the fate of the Krogan or the Geth or the Quarians, when we had to make unilateral decisions about their fate, and it didn't need to here either.
I think you have to see the EC Synthesis in the context of people's reaction to the OE Synthesis at the time. I don't think I've ever seen such hate for anything else on the forums. many people were absolutely determined to see it in the worst possible way, to the point that those like me, equally determined to take something positive away from the story, were forced into a siege mentality. I certainly felt like I was under siege for a while with my two Synthesis threads, and I was relieved that the EC made it abundantly clear that we didn't all become all Reaper minions. I think EC Synthesis is ambivalent enough with its very visible theme of "joining with the Other", and the Other aspect being painted in eerie green light, particularly with the Ex-Reapers still around.
I know Shepard's sacrifice was intended to be seen in a positive way, but I'm about as non-religious as it's possible to be and the mystic saviour imagery did more to offend my genre sensibilities. Religion certainly has its place in SF as a very common phenomenen in human societies, but implying there's a literal metaphysical truth in the idea of salvation through sacrifice, that the act of sacrifice itself, rather than that which made it necessary, carried salvation, no, I don't think that idea, shown as more or less true, belongs in the genre. And yes, it did come across that way, exactly because there was no connection between the act and its outcome that could be rationalized through in-world logic. More than any other ending, implementing Synthesis - whether by accident or intention - was painted as a metaphysical act, and the nonsense in the exposition contributed to that impression. So when I composed my image of the post-Synthesis future, I had to to a lot of mental acrocbatics around that, and in fact I rarely wrote anything about how I thought Synthesis actually worked.
Synthesis went from being an option which was presented without moral comment, except for the moral questions raised within Shepard herself (or her player), in the original version to being... I don't know. Some confused mess where the Catalyst tries to explain how it didn't work before because people "weren't ready" but "you" are ready now? Like, does that mean Shepard is ready? That the vast and diverse societies in the galaxy are all, magically, somehow ready because...that sounds nicer? Some hearts-and-rainbows feel-good dodge? It felt like the Catalyst might as well have pulled out a giant "NOT RAPE!" sign in response to all the offensively inappropriate comparisons* that were being made by the fandom at the time. For me that's what shifted it into the realms of...not exactly messianic weirdness, but certainly something adjacent. "Oh but it's different for you because you're just so special and awesome everyone'll be fine with it!" It was...juvenile.
I don't really disagree with that - see my comments about the context of the EC above. I would like to add, however, that there was a reason why people reacted like they did at the time: the Reapers claimed the themes of radical advancement and self-directed evolution for themselves, and it was implied that they were still around, if not controlled by the Catalyst any more because that was destroyed. So though it was, in my opinion, perfectly clear that Synthesis wasn't intended to be seen in such negative light, people had a point when they said it came across to them that way nonetheless. In addition, transhumanism had been a positive theme in ME1, between the common genetic engineering of soldiers and the explicit recognition of biotics relating to transhumanism, and some of that remained in ME2, but things changed, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that either Casey Hudson or Mac Walters hated the idea. I don't know if you know that a cut Codex entry explicitly discussed the idea of a technological singularity. That, too, was cut from the published game, as well as an explanation of the Reaperization process in terms of destructive uploading which was replaced by something more mystical that reeked of vitalism in ME2's ending. All that contributed to the impression that thematic references to transhumanism had been carefully purged, to be either dropped completely or to be replaced with nonsense. In fact, I'm reasonably sure that's exactly what happened. There were too many hammers driving the same nail home.
***I had to remove your statements about BSG because the forum didn't allow me as many quotes. Consider them quoted***
While indeed, I feel ME3 made a similar mistake as BSG. It's one thing to use religious imagery, but quite another to assert a metaphysical dimension of sacrifice, which ME3 did not just with Shepard but also with Legion.
But in the same way that we can say that political differences are responsible for most wars, it's not the concept of a political opinion that is the issue, if only because we can't avoid having those. It's how we react to and deal with those differences that matters.
With my evolutionary take on transhumanism and our relationship to technology because we are tool-builders, I'd argue the same applies here. We can't avoid the prevalence of technology in our lives, and it probably shouldn't be "death and taxes" it should be "death and technology". Ever since we developed opposable thumbs, this is the basket in which we've placed all of our eggs. Still, the end result is either our obsolescence or changing ourselves radically. That creates inherent conflict. The prevalence of these themes underscored, to me, that this was the central question of the game, but not what the correct reaction was.
I felt the options we had in addressing the conflict were adequately wide-ranging not to impose moral judgement. Destroy favours returning to our organic roots. Synthesis favours embracing our synthetic future. Control provides a policing mechanism powerful enough to maintain the status quo. Thesis, synthesis, antithesis.
Oh, don't misunderstand me. When I say the story of the ME trilogy was implicitly traditionalist, I *exclude* the endings. I'm not sure if I said it here, but when I claim the endings didn't fit the story, I often add that I'd have liked a different story that supported the concepts of the endings more, rather than different endings. Because you know, the story that cames before, that *does* have the moral commentary the endings avoided. The genophage is implied to be evil and aspects of the lore are ignored to make it appear more so, Miranda's genetic engineering isn't thematically disassociated from the supremacist ambitions of her father, Okeer is painted as an assh*ole. Also, ME3 has some balancing elements like the geth/quarian symbiosis (which creates its own problems), but the main problem remains: the narratively dominant representatives of the idea "join with technology" remain the Reapers.
I never understood the comparison of Saren's goals or the Reapers' methods with Synthesis because it seems to me self-evident that there's a huge gap between turning someone into a techno-zombie without free will, and giving someone a nanotech upgrade in a way that doesn't seem to affect their personality or autonomy. To put it another way, I feel it's like saying an operation to remove an appendix before it bursts is the same as disembowling someone. Both involve cutting up your midsection and pulling out some of your guts, but the purpose and context could not be more different.
I think the comparison is made because in both cases it's forced. I'm more consequentialist than most, so my primary concern is the outcome, but in my experience most people are different. And consider: even if you're open to the idea of joining with technology, you'll certainly think long about who you're going to trust with, say, putting chips into your brain. We've spoken of the implications of Synthesis as being both joyful and terrifying, and the line is thin: trust the wrong people, and you'll end up as a mind-controlled slave. And the Catalyst did many things, but inspiring trust is not one of them.
So, in a way I understand why people feel that way. What I don't understand is why they continue to think along the same lines once they've had time to reflect on things. On reflection, it's very clear that the outcome is mostly good.
The Eden imagery I do find very interesting and I can see why it could play poorly. But in the Synthesis ending, particularly, I feel that there's something very interesting going on in its juxtaposition with the very start of the game. Eden Prime presents paradise doomed by technological "knowledge" in the form of the beacon. Here technology (knowledge) is external and malignant. Synthesis ends with a synthetic and a (now predominantly) organic couple positioned as Adam and Eve, in a new world where technology (knowledge) is literally painted across your skin; technology has been internalised and is not portrayed as a corrupting influence. To me, at least, the visual message is that in breaking the cycle, we restart it in a healthier place. This Eden does not demand the separation of technology and knowledge from innocence. It is no longer a polluting force.
As I see it, innocence is a state of mind we left behind when we started to reason and realized that neither we nor the world are perfect. As such, I don't see it as a desirable state. I don't suppose you know the fantasy trilogy "The Winter of the World" by Michael Scott Rohan? Therein, one elder power attempts to bring humanity back to a state of innocence, and the result is - not surprisingly to me - that those people affected by the scheme lost the ability to reason and to affect their environment. For me, technology and innocence can't be reconciled, not because technology is polluting, but because creating it requires reflection and a clear recognition of the imperfection of everything. That's why I didn't like the Garden Eden imagery.
In terms of literary criticism I have a lot of time for reader-response theory, which holds that the intentions of an author aren't as important as the reader's perceptions of them. I'm sure that part of my ability to embrace that uncertainty is related to my perceptions of their intentions too.
Though it does raise an interesting question. If we both believe that "there is no predefined meaning in the world" (which yes, is one of major pillars of existentialism), but we also believe that a story will always hold signifiers dropped - intentionally or otherwise - by the author, is it possible to tell a story that engages with the idea of meaninglessness? If it isn't, and if that's a major feature of our universe, that's...a strange situation to be in, given the function of stories in our society as things that help us discuss and form opinions on our world.
LOL, that's an interesting question. Hmm....I don't know the answer, but I suppose a story could show widely varying themes and consider widely varying message, which all come to mean nothing in the end. It would require some very careful writing, if it can be done at all. However, excuse me if I'd rather not experience such a story as its protagonist in a game. The meanings I give my actions, whether in stories or otherwise, may be irrelevant in the end, but they're nonetheless important to me. That it's created rather than found doesn't necessarily make an idea less powerful. It just serves to remind me that I have no claim to others' minds.
I don't think I have anything to add here that I haven't already covered in my monster reply, but I did want to thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and thoughtful response. Your feelings on the way synthesis was presented as superficially progressive, but subtextually regressive, for instance, were particularly interesting.
Thank you as well. It is rare that we can speak of the ME trilogy that way and discuss these philosophical issues in depth. If anything, ME3 spawned these debates, and that makes it apparent that I did take away something good from it after all
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And all these cutscenes where you behaved like a moron.
Even if the follow up writers want to keep as close as possible, there are differences. 
