User blog comment:Kd82/ME3 Ending: what just happened?/@comment-63.248.1.34-20120314065653

I believe it was all a dream. Remember the beginning of ME2, Shepard died when he entered orbit with more armor and one could say better health. In the 4000-5000 ending Shepard wakes up from the crater in London apparently, and his armor in the same condition with no effects from the explosion and Shepard's body entering orbit. Not only that, all three choices destroy the relays. Relay destruction causes enough damage to annihilate everything in that system. That didn't if Shepard suddenly wakes up on Earth after his trip to the Crucible. So the reason I came up with was that you need all those war assets so that when you wake up the allied forces finished the job. If you had less that means that they couldn't get the Reapers away from Shepard and he/she dies. So that means if you chose death to all synthetics doesn't really mean death to all because it didn't happen.

So Shepard gets hit by Reaper laser, has a dream where he enters the Catalyst, the Catalyst is the kid from his dream, he gets put in a dilemma; but it was all a dream. In reality the Reapers died, the Geth lived, EDI lived and Shepard wakes up after the Reaper inducted coma. That is my theory and would make sense for a "perfect ending."