For the uninitiated, massive "should have been" spoilers ahead.
I said it best on my Facebook page last week, so I'm reposting it here.
===
I
prefer the "Drew Karpyshyn" ending. He was the original story writer
for the first Mass Effect, and left halfway through the second for
another project. Apparently his ending was supposedly leaked at some
point during development of ME3, and in
order not to simply produce what everyone was expecting, they changed
it. Don't know if that's true or not, but if so, then the Karpyshyn
ending is vastly superior story writing.
In Mass Effect 2, some
of the missions involving rescuing Tali center around the Haestrom star
aging faster than it should, which is leading it to aging into its Red
Giant phase literally millions of years before it should. It's hinted
that they think dark matter is responsible, but they're not certain how.
That was supposed to be part of the endgame component for ME3.
In the Karpyshyn ending, the Crucible is a master killswitch for the
Reapers. The Citadel has long been established as their trap for
sentient species, so the various previous civilizations came upon the
idea of using the Citadel as a massive signal booster to fire the
killswitch code. When you get to the endphase, Harbinger, or some other
Reaper, reveals why they're doing what they're doing.
According
to the Karpyshyn ending, Mass Relays produce dark matter as a side
effect of their operation. It's a waste product. Unfortunately, the
stuff is also age-accelerating stars. The Reaper-creators eventually
realized they needed a creature who could go into the center of the
galaxy and do... *something* (It's never explained in the article I read
what that something is,) which can only be accomplished by a race with a
certain extra genetic diversity. This is important because their Reaper
shells are partly organic, but the average Reaper donor species is too
genetically narrow, and is prone to easy influence by the radiations of
the location where the change needs to be made.
Introduce
Humanity. In Mass Effect 2, while on the Terminus station, it's revealed
that humans are immune to the virus sweeping the corridors because the
species is far more genetically diverse than most species, and thus, a
targeted virus is almost certainly not going to be effective against
them. It's a trait that only humanity has of all the races in the
galaxy.
The Human Reaper under construction at the Collector
base was therefore the Reapers' attempt to build a Reaper with an
organic core which would be immune to the effects none of the other
Reapers can deal with. Of course, this will, if not completely wipe out
the human race, then at least cost the species between 50 and 75% of the
entire racial population to empower and activate this Reaper, so it can
go fix the problem.
The Karpyshyn ending, therefore, was
supposed to require the player to make a horrible choice. One worthy of
the end of the entire trilogy. Do you A) Allow the Reapers to harvest
over two-thirds of your own species, in order to create a super-Reaper
which can fix a problem they can't, and in the process, end the culling
cycle because it's not necessary anymore? Or do you choose B) Kill the
Reapers, save Earth, and *hope* you and the council races can figure out
what the Reapers were talking about before Mass Relays destroy all life
in the galaxy.
In that ending, the reason for the 50,000 year
cullings was that the Citadel would assess all available sentient
species in a prearranged time frame. If none of the available races had
the necessary genetic diversity to create the Reaper hybrid they needed
to fix the problem, they'd cull the galaxy and let nature take another
stab at creating the adaptable race they needed. Still a horrific thing
to do, but it makes *sense* in context.
That would have been
the ideal ending, and one they should have gone with. To borrow a line
from the Krogan Warlord in Mass Effect 2, "It has *weight*."
===
By contrast, this is the ending of ME3 as it currently stands:
![[Image: 443369f615bcc0428c62bdd48fd5327cc4572b95_r.jpg]](http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/forumimportfiles/443369f615bcc0428c62bdd48fd5327cc4572b95_r.jpg)
That pretty much sums it up, I think.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
I said it best on my Facebook page last week, so I'm reposting it here.
===
I
prefer the "Drew Karpyshyn" ending. He was the original story writer
for the first Mass Effect, and left halfway through the second for
another project. Apparently his ending was supposedly leaked at some
point during development of ME3, and in
order not to simply produce what everyone was expecting, they changed
it. Don't know if that's true or not, but if so, then the Karpyshyn
ending is vastly superior story writing.
In Mass Effect 2, some
of the missions involving rescuing Tali center around the Haestrom star
aging faster than it should, which is leading it to aging into its Red
Giant phase literally millions of years before it should. It's hinted
that they think dark matter is responsible, but they're not certain how.
That was supposed to be part of the endgame component for ME3.
In the Karpyshyn ending, the Crucible is a master killswitch for the
Reapers. The Citadel has long been established as their trap for
sentient species, so the various previous civilizations came upon the
idea of using the Citadel as a massive signal booster to fire the
killswitch code. When you get to the endphase, Harbinger, or some other
Reaper, reveals why they're doing what they're doing.
According
to the Karpyshyn ending, Mass Relays produce dark matter as a side
effect of their operation. It's a waste product. Unfortunately, the
stuff is also age-accelerating stars. The Reaper-creators eventually
realized they needed a creature who could go into the center of the
galaxy and do... *something* (It's never explained in the article I read
what that something is,) which can only be accomplished by a race with a
certain extra genetic diversity. This is important because their Reaper
shells are partly organic, but the average Reaper donor species is too
genetically narrow, and is prone to easy influence by the radiations of
the location where the change needs to be made.
Introduce
Humanity. In Mass Effect 2, while on the Terminus station, it's revealed
that humans are immune to the virus sweeping the corridors because the
species is far more genetically diverse than most species, and thus, a
targeted virus is almost certainly not going to be effective against
them. It's a trait that only humanity has of all the races in the
galaxy.
The Human Reaper under construction at the Collector
base was therefore the Reapers' attempt to build a Reaper with an
organic core which would be immune to the effects none of the other
Reapers can deal with. Of course, this will, if not completely wipe out
the human race, then at least cost the species between 50 and 75% of the
entire racial population to empower and activate this Reaper, so it can
go fix the problem.
The Karpyshyn ending, therefore, was
supposed to require the player to make a horrible choice. One worthy of
the end of the entire trilogy. Do you A) Allow the Reapers to harvest
over two-thirds of your own species, in order to create a super-Reaper
which can fix a problem they can't, and in the process, end the culling
cycle because it's not necessary anymore? Or do you choose B) Kill the
Reapers, save Earth, and *hope* you and the council races can figure out
what the Reapers were talking about before Mass Relays destroy all life
in the galaxy.
In that ending, the reason for the 50,000 year
cullings was that the Citadel would assess all available sentient
species in a prearranged time frame. If none of the available races had
the necessary genetic diversity to create the Reaper hybrid they needed
to fix the problem, they'd cull the galaxy and let nature take another
stab at creating the adaptable race they needed. Still a horrific thing
to do, but it makes *sense* in context.
That would have been
the ideal ending, and one they should have gone with. To borrow a line
from the Krogan Warlord in Mass Effect 2, "It has *weight*."
===
By contrast, this is the ending of ME3 as it currently stands:
That pretty much sums it up, I think.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.