User blog comment:The Milkman/Extended Expectations, Part II/@comment-4939034-20120628162507/@comment-4237253-20120629200249

I don't think that's much of a mystery. The epilogue is just showing hope for the future, you don't have to look more into that. If you want to get analytical about it, it's more likely that the breath scene takes place before all the stuff shown in the slideshow.

More importantly however, people should no there is really zero wiggle room for future instalments. Mass Effect is done. Finished. BioWare shouldn't make any more Mass Effect games, because they've essentially written themselves into a corner. The endings to Mass Effect 3 are too far-reaching. The only way any kind of sequel would work is by taking one choice and making it canon, because there's no way BioWare could account for all the differences between Control, Synthesis, Destroy, and Rejection. Keep in mind that the writer(s) wasn't/weren't able to make our choices matter after the first two games, and those had extremely contained endings. If BioWare couldn't do their jobs correctly with this game, you can bet they'll do an even worse job in the next one.