User blog comment:Damous/Why Bioware has NOT betrayed us/@comment-70.241.85.106-20120312214254

The only problem with any of the above theories is this. If Shepard chooses Synthesis (Green Space Magic) or Control (Blue Space Magic) he is not seen as waking up, and the cutscene rolls with Stargazer and child. But if you choose destruction (Red Space MAgic), Shepard recovers from the rubble.

This causes a Time paradox. Shepard can either effectively fight Indoctrination, or submit to it unwittingly. But, destruction results in the supposed returning to London, Shepard breathing, whilst the other choices advance the timeline to where Shepard is gone. This states that the indoctrination fails if you choose destruction, and the Hallucination is over and that all events in the timeline were dreamed up. But if you go along with the indoctrination, this causes the events of the timeline to become reality, and the Reapers win in real life.

It's confusing. I don't know if I'd rather go along with the Space Magic ideal, and just say that Bioware made an excellent game with an incredibly open ending, or do I hope and believe that they're geniuses who have come up with an idea I've never fantasized as possible. So, we come up with a few options for the future.

1. Bioware and EA are tricky devils. Instead of making a complete game, beginning to end, they decide to hold out on the fan-base and not give them the hole storyline. They instead do the unthinkable and make the ending, the ACTUAL legit ending, a DLC, or perhaps as a patch. If the DLC is free, or it is implemented as a patch not far down the road, then the population will more than likely recognize Bioware as innovative and down-right incredible developers. If EA and Bioware charge for this DLC, then it might result in the highest grossing DLC to date, or it may fall flat, being labled completely unnecessary, resulting in Bioware to become the scum of the galaxy. 2. The ending is just that, an ending. You, the consumer, get to use your imagination to dream up your ideal ending, what happened to your LI, whether your crew formed a new colony on a lost planet, and how the races fared in the end. This leaves the world wide open to possible futures for the ME universe, or perhaps it was just a botched job on trying to bring "closure" to a seemingly endless tale. Speculation required. 3. The continuity of the trilogy into a saga. Mass Effect 4, where you life life on Earth. The fleets are decimated, the races oppressed, and Earth the prison cell for the galaxy to be processed into reaper form. (This is far from believable, but you can always hope, right?)

Maybe all we're trying to do is make sense out of a senseless ending. Or try to imagine the ending as we hoped it would all be. It doesn't matter if you think the ending is atrocious, mind-boggling, or terrific, it just matters that when we try to rationalize what we saw into something coherent, something went wrong. The future promises answers. That, or heartbreak.