User blog comment:The Milkman/Extended Expectations/@comment-5124348-20120627014817/@comment-4950455-20120627232928

HAL was not a deus ex machina - you seem to be confusing the literal "god from the machine" meaning with the actual idea. In the original ending, the Catalyst does qualify in that it appears without any foreshadowing to resolve the entire plot. In the EC, however, it's made a lot clearer that the Catalyst isn't resolving a thing. It's the Crucible (which arguably is a deus ex machina within the context of the trilogy as a whole) that does everything. All the Catalyst does, ultimately, is infodump at you. I'm not calling it a good thing and it still would have been better cut out all along, but it's not a deus ex machina.