I agree. The Prothean VI was more aware of what was happening on the current cycle than the Catalyst was. All the Catalyst did was speak some nonsense about how the created always rebel against their creators, even though it supposedly created the Reapers.

Yeah, even though the dogma that was supposed to justify the reapers' actions has a hole the size of a dreadnought by that point the catalyst is still going on about it.

Some cheap writing there, that's what it is. Avina cold have been assigned the catalyst's role, it wouldn't make any difference.

Actually, that's the thing that bothered me because he did explain everything. The Reapers were going on and on since the first game that their motives were so complex that our tiny human brains could never understand them. In comes the Catalyst and he explains it easily, he believes that every organic civilization will arrive at a point that it will create a synthetic life form that will rebel against its creator and wipe out every organic from the galaxy so he created the Reapers to stop organics before that happens. How is that difficult to understand?
I don't agree with their logic but I can understand it quite well. Never mind that the Geth never rebelled against the Quarian but acted in self defense. They even had the opportunity to get rid of them for good but decided not to on their own. As Shepard I even got them to stop their war but I guess that didn't happen because the Catalyst says it can't be done.

You know what ending I dreamed of? That the cycle was unavoidable. That Shepard would go so far to only know the everything will happen again and the whole advanced life forms in galaxy wiped out.

It would be awesome. To be another form of life that thought they can defeat the reapers to only fail. Just like it happened thousands of times before.

I agree about the Catalyst explaining everything though. You could say he just explained it in simple words, but there's no actual content to prove that. Just like it is with indoctrination theory.

Really hope to see ending DLC coming soon...

You're confusing "hold the line" cheap with cheap cheap.

How do you know the catalyst could destroy the galaxy ? How caould you possibly know what it wanted or didn't wanted to ?

And sure i undrestand the reapers, they know just about the same as to why they do what they do as the catalyst does or Bioware's writers do, zilch.

Maybe because not a single civilization in million years managed to stop them? Just saying.

It would be awesome to discover even though humanity went further than any other species ever in the history of the universe, it still wouldn't be enought to beat the superior intelligence.

Just like with Babel Tower (?) in the Bible, when God was like "WTF are you kidding me with this shit?" can be compared to the Crucible.

RANTMODE:ON
Looks like you guys missed one of most annoying parts of the ending - we THE synthetics kill you and turn you into dirt that is used as engine for synthetics so other evil synthetics don't kill you. Seriously WHAT THE FU**K???
FFS, Geth show that organics and synthetics can work together so Reapers are you f* serious? -.-
RANTMODE:OFF

Seriously, hated every single moment of ending. I feel like I wasted 100+ hours to get streamlined into 3 endings that are same for all. And I wanted to play it so hard, I even got it before it was released in Europe...

The ending was awesome, but the epilogue sucked, if you get my drift ;-).

The reapers could destroy the galaxy, that's what you mean, not the catalyst. Yeah, the reapers are portrayed as having the potencial to be able to destroy the galaxy, true, when you said the catalyst could do it i thought you meant something else, like 'personnaly', simply by virtue of its 'divinity' like a true manifestation of power would be able to.

btw, the catalyst tells you the reapers are its solution to the problem it perceives withinin the confines of its faulty dogma. You have no way to determine if that's true You have no way to determine if both catalyst and reapers aren't just employees of some yet unknown player. You have no way of knowing if the catalyst is simply an out of whack unshackled AI. You have no way of knowing anything because what little comes out of the catalyst's mouth it's tainted by virtue of being presented as unquestionable, cue Shep being ushered to the RGB tubes. On top of everything else that was a quite loud FU to what the character was all about troughout the trilogy.

Well, the Catalyst created the Reapers and basically controls them, so I assumed he's more powerful than all of them?

And why do you need all the answers? You really think that if they explained even MORE powerful entity was behind all this, it would be better and players would be satisfied? really?

You can do only what the Catalyst let you to do. Three choices, and nothing more. It's his mercy to all galaxy life. This is how I perceive this, and I don't really know why you don't see it. For me, it's not even exaggeration, like with indoctrination theory ;P

And again, the best ending for me: the cycle is inevitable. The catalyst looks at the crucible, laughs his ass off and destroys the galaxy. This would be awesome for me. I don't like all those "we were unbeatable through millions of years but now they have Shepard so we surrender".

Oh, there was some silly thing with the Catalyst. He said that the cycle won't work anymore but this is the thing he should explain. Because I don't know why it wouldn't work.

Maybe I am trying to explain somehow this silly ending, but I feel better with myself with that explanation, so, you know.. :P

The Starchild had 14 lines of the dialogue that was it. I'd much rather Shepard told it to go screw itself. I reject all your options. You want to destroy us fine, I've brought a force with me. Let us both sit here and watch what happens.

Cheap writing is including a character like the Starchild at the very last minutes near the end of a series. The cycle wasn't inevitable The Protheans altered this one and the Crucible was refined over many cycles. Shepard has already proven that organic and artifical life can coexist with the Geth and EDI. So even what the Starchild says regarding that is complete crap.

Just saying: "It's science fiction, anything is possible" is a cheap cop-out, it goes back to narrative consistency again. Also that's not what any form of science fiction is, even space opera.

EDIT: In addition to only having 14 lines of dialogue, Shepard couldn't even argue with it or tell it to go to hell. Again basically railroaded into an ending based on false premises that wasn't narratively consistent. I've not even mentioned that they've basically combined the nedings of Deus Ex Machina and Battlestar Galactica, they couldn't even be original with their railroading.

Well, what about the game would end when Admiral HAckett says Crucible don't fire and Shepard doesn't know what to do?

For me it would be another epic ending.

Also , I think the cycle was inevitable, because every "generation" added something more to the crucible and it still wasn't enought to destroy the Reapers. I hoped that it will be the same this time - that even Crucible + the Citadel wouldn't be enough.

But maybe I'm a fan of not-so-happy-endings. I have enough of stories "you can't change your fate, it is already written, it will happen, there's nothing you can do" and then the hero does.

From the very first game it was said "You are already all dead." This is what I would want to see. Really.

That would be slightly better, but basically leave too much hanging. The central conflict of the entire series being unresolved.

An acceptable ending for me - though I'd still prefer something else - would be, if after dealing with the Illusive man we see Shepard and Anderson bleeding out, watching what's happening outside, just after Shepard managed to activate the Crucible, with only the Reapers being destroyed, not the Mass Relays or the Geth. Though that would still leave plotholes like how they managed to move the Citadel.

Possibly with some Fallout style narration about what happened to your companions and how your actions affected the galaxy following your death.

EDIT: I don't mind, sad, downer. everybody-dies or bittersweet endings. Some of my favourite endings have been those. I have a problem when that ending doesn't flow based on the rest of the story or when it's done to appear grimdark or edgy or for whatever other cheap reason.

If they don't improve I'm just going to consider Shepard dead at the end of ME1 - the cutscene sort of set that up at the start anyway - having saved the galaxy, with the Reapers safely asleep or locked out of the galaxy.

Nah, I meant entire player interaction would stop. After this message, that Crucible don't work, you would see cinematics how reapers destroy the crucible and entire galaxy armada. Or you would watch entire civilization annihilation through Shepard's eyes.

Bam, end of everything. Maybe in next 50,000 years another civilization will figure out what is missing in Crucible.