User blog comment:Legionwrex/Why Destroy is the worst ending (besides refusal)./@comment-5503561-20120713130737/@comment-127338-20120713221317

It is questionable "What" actualy is synthetic life... as Tali pointed out Geth are not hardware- they are pure software- they are not bound to single platform. They can effectively download into anything with sufficient computing power... in the end they are just bunch of 1 and 0 on your hard drive being procesed by processor as program. Your brain doesn´t work any differently... only use ions instead of electrons.

So to technicaly wipe out the all geth, one would necessarily have to effectively wipe out all computers in the galaxy to be sure none remains... and well... that DIDN´T happen in destroy. Just simple fact that Hacket´s fleet is still flyable a FTL worthy somehow proves that. Not to mention vast majority of soldiers had some implants... yet you see NONE dying.. almost all biotics in the galaxy had some brain implants to boost their powers... yet one sees an Asari commando unit (all Asari are biotics) to easily stand through the most efficient "destroy wave"... if it even shorted out they should lay at minimum with spasm problems... They did not.

There is one another option btw... that Catalyst did not actualy fully understand technology it was interfaced with. "Control" option was probably possible even without catalyst, and most likely even "destroy" option was there without interfacing with catalyst (probably really really restructive versions). And it only truly added "synthesis" option. (which still is complete slap into face of any estabilished physics of the setting)

After all Crucible was technology develeped by few races which realized that citadel is Mass relay and can be utilized to send destructive wave energy through network... But since all races in previous "cycles" lost acces to relay network they still lacked option to deliver it to Citadel anyway... so it was never really attempted.

So yes... destroy does have consequences, but while it probably easily wipes out all geth physical platformrs, those few inside quarian suits should be fine. (Since I can not possibly imagine how energy wave can recognize bunch of bits on some hard drive and discriminate one computer program from another... and quarian suits do work after "softed" destroy), also I havent seen any soldier of biotic actualy dying from best destroy wave. (and sufficient statistical sample of Asari was exposed... not to mention Wrex... he is also a biotic) So "genocide" is effectively limited to reapers, (And well in my book that constitutes at best smashing a gravestone of wiped out civilization which can finaly rest in piece... loved when Shep said that on Rannoch) and really massive sarcrifice on Geth and EDI part, but as I say... it is illogical for those in normal computers to be wiped out if other software survives.