User blog comment:Diyartifact/Shepard's adversaries/@comment-3581090-20120409174351/@comment-1388547-20120409221616

I think the choice you described is more or less the choice we were given (though it wasn't implemented very well in the game, and I just don't *trust* what the Catalyst Kid tells me). I would have liked to see something more like what you're saying, though, with TIM free of indoctrination and acting according to his own motivations. (And maybe a Renegade interrupt to stop TIM from being the one in control of the Reapers and leave them in Shep's hands.)

Personally, I'd rather have had the final moments of the game run like this: Anderson arrives at the control console before Shep, and is ambushed by TIM. Anderson and TIM have shot each other and are critically injured by the time Shep arrives, and can't get up off the ground to operate the console. Shep opens the Citadel arms, and the Crucible comes online. Just as in the current ending, the Crucible can't fire without input at the Citadel end of the connection. TIM tells Shepard that he has a revised firing protocol (or whatever) with him that will allow Shepard to control the Reapers, while Anderson urges Shepard to stick to the original plan and destroy them. Shepard chooses, we get red or blue color-coded space magic, and then 10-15 minutes of epilogue telling us how our decisions affected the fate of the galaxy.