User blog comment:The Milkman/Indoctrination Theorists Say the Darndest Things/@comment-3469974-20121021084225/@comment-24174486-20121021201546

"How am I supposed to just assume the fate of the Normandy exactly?"

Well, in the original endings, you see if any survivors come out, and you can see the impact of your choice upon the Normandy members. For all of the insisting that the endings are exactly the same, some people don't seem to acknowledge that EDI's fate is completely different in each ending.

"It's not even made clear in the original ending how the Mass Relays don't blow up the entire galaxy."

I have to be blunt here, but this complaint is easily one of the most ignorant attacks on the ending. It presumes that, because an asteroid smashing into the Alpha Relay which is specifically described as containing more energy than any other relay causes a supernova, an ancient device that is made to transmit energy through standard mass relays will have exactly the same effect. It's like arguing that the same thing will happen to a lightbulb if the power goes out or you smash it with a sledgehammer.

There is a plausible explanation for it. If your EMS is high—thus the Crucible was properly constructed and defended—then the Crucible works properly. If your EMS is lower, then imperfections in the Crucible cause damage to the galaxy from its activation. It's why the ending where the galaxy sustains massive damage is the lowest variation of the ending which results in the destruction of the mass relays.

Any way you look at it, it's a "because A happening to B causes C, X happening to Y obviously causes C" argument. There's no reason to presume that the activation of the Crucible will have exactly the same impact as smashing an asteroid into a supercharged mass relay.