User blog comment:The Milkman/Indoctrination Theorists Say the Darndest Things/@comment-5306852-20121022203436/@comment-1786741-20121024004221

And Milkman, surprisingly I have to agree with Lily here (shocker isn't it? XD) the Crucible is not a Deus Ex Machina for ME3 itself, you spend the entire game trying to build it. Though the Catalyst/Crucible COULD possible be seen as one when looking at the series as a whole. It does arrive relatively late in the series and the solution is relatively abrupt.