User blog comment:ZyLogic/Mass Effect fans deserve nothing more/@comment-4950455-20121010033309/@comment-4950455-20121012084024

He was responding to a previous comment regarding why fans disliked the endings.

And yeah, the Extended Cut definitely retconned the fate of the relays more than it clarified it, as such. I have the distinct impression that it was the original intention of the writers, or at least some of them, to destroy the relay network for good. It was only when this and the unpleasant implications of it - shockingly enough - went over poorly with the fans that they backpedaled and had there be much less devastation in the EC (unless your EMS was low).

But whether that's true or not, there is a pretty clear difference between seeing parts of the Charon Relay fall off in the Extended Cut and seeing it vanish in a gigantic explosion in the original endings.