As we know, the Reapers are essentially each a nation, who interacts and acts as a single entity, a single voice.
So, what if building a Reaper required a Focus, an individual whose will is so strong that it will subdue many others without damaging them first?
It would make the Collectors killing Shepard and trying to recover the body at the start of ME2 an appropriate strategy: they were trying to obtain what would have made a great Focus for the new Reaper they were building.
It would also explain the interest in the Virmire survivor: they thought Shepard out of reach, so they went for another good candidate.
Now, add to this: what if the Crucible was a Reaper trap, just like the Citadel?
It would explain why it wasn't found before, during the time that the Mars archives were studied: it simply wasn't there.
This would make it a strategy for handling the resistance during the Harvest: have the cycle's races pool everything in an ultimately useless (for them) device, an effort which may even let one or more leaders emerge, someone with a will and a charisma such to make them great potential Foci (for those that do not know, it's the plural form of Focus) for new Reapers.
Far from being a superweapon, the Crucible could be a chassis, the core in which a Focus is uploaded and to which the other organic minds are bound, and around which a new Reaper is built.
Now, with this premise, how would Shepard's last trip to the Citadel go?
First of all, Harbringer shooting without the intent to kill Shepard and not trying to destroy the Normandy would make sense: it didn't want to scrap a ship full of people whose will was trained and shaped by Shepard's example, nor did it want to kill Shepard - not yet, not this way.
Shepard manages to board, and confronts TIM. TIM would have been another great candidate for a Focus if he didn't ultimately succumb to indoctrination, letting his will be bound and proving to not be strong enough.
So, Shepard instead keeps resisting and is finally brought to the Catalyst. I like to imagine it as Avina rather than the boy, but it's mostly personal preference.
They talk, mostly saying the same things as in the game, and then Shepard chooses.
It's a moot yet fundamental choice: if Shepard chooses either Control or Synthesis, then he's readied him/herself to become a Reaper.
A will like Shepard's who is even WILLING to become a Reaper?
A Focus like that, which you don't even have to damage and rip apart to finally upload?
Yes, please! What a fine Reaper would that make!
For this to work, though, it has to be actually a choice: there must be an option to escape that destiny, and it has to be refused for the Focus to actually willingly accept the idea of becoming a Reaper.
That option would be Destroy: if chosen, the tube would blow up killing Shepard, who would be then collected and ripped apart so that a suboptimal Reaper could still be built, as per ME2's beginning original plan.
But Shepard survives and managed to escape; the assault on the Citadel is called off, albeit not without heavy losses.
The morale is low, despair is everywhere, then an idea: what if the Reapers do not know of the Catalyst?
What if they are not aware that they are coerced into Harvesting, even though they feel nothing but contempt for organics.
Thus, a new plan: exposing the Catalyst to the Reapers, and have them break free from its conditioning.
What have we to lose? They are killing us anyway... but maybe, just maybe, without the compulsion to Harvest, they'd leave us alone, maybe go back to sleep in Dark Space or go explore somewhere, who cares? The important is that they might consider this war a waste of energy and effort and stop killing us.
So the final part of the plot would be about Shepard trying to find a way to contact Harbringer, maybe even boarding it, and convince it of the Catalyst's existence, and maybe even help the Reapers break free from its shackles.
What do you think about this?
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