User blog comment:Stabber ApSig/Mass Relays Gone, ME3 ending/@comment-80.223.165.229-20120310110355/@comment-82.131.106.219-20120311192639

Exactly. Destroying the relay = destroying the system (according to "Arrival"). And they were destroyed, you see them explode. No point imagining they were "disabled" or trying to dance around the issue. And since every major colonized or natively inhabited system had one then regardless of anything else in the game or story, you've just killed everyone everywhere. Even races that would only emerge in the next cycles. (there was a relay in our Solar system way before the current cycle began) BUT even if we are to ignore the explosion's consequences, without the relays most life in the galaxy is doomed. Distant colonies are most likely not self-sufficient. Most of any race's armada is stranded near Earth and some races can't even survive on our planet. (If the ships survived... The Normandy was trying to escape "something"... did that "something" destroy the other ships? And why was it running? If the green or blue explosions were bad then the Earth was engulfed in it anyway).