User blog comment:Kaloneous/Mass Effect 3 Ending DLC Denied and PAX/@comment-2250460-20120408034258/@comment-4930593-20120408055534

After going thru the game a few times, I've come to the conclusion that Shepard really doesn't survive in any of the endings. Going back to the discussion the catalyst and Shepard have, the catalyst firmly believes that synthetic life and organic life cannot co-exist for long, hence the continuing Indoctrination of civilizations every 50,000 years. It offers three choices, but two of them are really just traps because the end result would be the continuation of the cycle.

First one is "control", which Shepard becomes the "new" intelligence that takes over the Reapers, it will also take over all synthetic life as well, thereby removing all free will that any AI may achieve. If any players fought to have the Geth survive as a race, this is actually a losing proposition. Eventually the Shepard intelligence will draw the same conclusions as it's predecessor and will start the cycles all over again..

The second choice is "destroy", this will eliminate all of the reapers, as well as all AI life, again a losing proposition for players who fought to give the Geth and EDI life thruout the series. What 's worse is the fact that the catalyst clearly says that civilization's children will repeat the same mistakes and that everything will happen all over again, repeating the cycles from the beginning.

The third choice is "synthesis", the one that the catalyst hadn't planned for and tells Shepard it was because of his/her actions in reaching the catalyst that a new option becomes available, one IT cannot initiate, mainly because IT still firmly believes that the two forms of life will destroy each other, therefore Shepard must take that "leap of faith" because of his/her belief that the two forms can co-exist.

We also see that there is an extended ending for the "destroy" option in that Shepard somehow survives the destruction of the Citadal and winds up back on Earth. But is that really Shepard we see there? All we see is someone wearing armor, carrying a set of N7 dog tags and taking a breath. For all we know this could be Major Coats or James Vega or some other Alliance soldier. You may recall that Shepard has synthetic implants within her body that could explain the reason as to why Shepard survives the explosion, except for the fact that the catalyst stated by choosing the "destroy" option, all Reaper/AI  technology would also be destroyed as well. This would include Shepard's implants.

So regardless of the choice, Shepard will not survive the decision made. But since this was suppose to be the end of the Shepard saga anyways, I'm fine with it. Thruout the series Shepard always had to make a choice and live with the consequences.

I think for the player, having the last choice be about how Shepard will be remembered is the ultimate ending for THIS series.