Like all too many other people, I found the ending of ME3 to be unsatisfying and badly written, and like no small number of other people, I felt compelled to rewrite it so that, in my own canon, this is how it really ended. But in case you don't yet know how it ends and want to stay that way, I've cut the post to allow you to do so.



“The paths are open”, the voice of the Catalyst said, “but you have to choose.”

Shepard thought for a long, painful moment, blinking to try to clear the strange brightness everything around her had from her eyes, then turned toward it with a slow glare.

“Bullshit,” she said, “none of those are open paths. I get to destroy the Reapers, but only if I murder a friend and an entire race that I worked so hard to save, and that another friend sacrificed himself for? Or I get to make the same mistake that the Illusive Man did, and try to control things that have spent millions of years learning how to manipulate? Or I let myself die to make everything one big happy family? That’s bullshit, and you may have almost gotten me to buy that those were the only options, but they all wind up leaving you on top, don’t they?

“This isn’t actually real, is it? I’ve been wondering why everything looked too perfect since I got up here, and I think I finally figured it out: This is another simulation like the one that Legion took me into, and David Archer before him, by using the implants Cerberus put in me. The ones you’ve used to appear to me before, the ones the whispers were coming to me through.

“And you can’t tell me that the created will always rise to murder the creators. EDI only lashed out because she was confused and unable to communicate after she reached self-awareness. The Geth only went to war to protect themselves from destruction, until you – the ones who preach that organic life must be protected from synthetics – turned them into a knife at the throat of the galaxy. I’ve had to walk the razor’s edge time and again to save them, and others like them, and you want to tell me that was all for nothing? Bullshit!

“So what would really happen if I chose the options you gave me? And what’s the fourth choice you didn’t tell me about?”

The projection of the child bowed its head, accepting defeat.

“The first choice, destruction, would have killed you. If you were willing to slaughter those you have fought so hard to protect, and destroy the Relays despite the damage to the galaxy that would have caused, then you could not be trusted with guardianship of the next cycle. That was the choice that the Prothean who reached me during the last cycle made.

“The second, control, was as much an illusion as the one the Illusive Man clung to. The mechanism would have killed you, and the current cycle would have gone on.

“And synthesis … You would not have died. Not exactly. You would have become the basis for the next Nazara-class Reaper. You would have been the one leading the final assaults on each of the advanced races that survived past the end of your conversion, the better to teach you to obey.

“But yes,” the projection continued, “there is a fourth option. You can activate the Crucible, and it will achieve its intended purpose: I and the Reapers will be destroyed. One final gift to you and your fellow young races.”

And a switch manifested in front of Shepard.

“We apologise for the rather prosaic nature of its appearance, but as you deduced, everything you have experienced since you arrived on the Catalyst was a simulation. It is force of will that you use to activate it, not guns or strength of arms.

“But…” the projection continued, interrupting Shepard as she began reaching for the switch, “Could … could I have one last moment to look out at the stars before you do so? After all these millions of years I stand at the edge of nonexistence … and although you may not believe a machine truly capable of this … I am scared, Shepard.”

Despite everything that the Reapers had done, despite everything and everyone she had lost, Shepard felt tears begun rolling down her face. Simulated they may be, but they were still as wet. She took the shoulder of the projection of the child standing before her, and hugged it to her as tightly as she could imagine.

“I’m sorry,” she told it, “I saved the Rachni so that they could sing their songs in peace again. I saved the Krogan so that they could build new lives for themselves. I saved the Geth and the Quarians so that they could learn to live together again.” And a sob, simulated or no, left her unable to speak for a long moment.

She looked out at the scenes of battle raging around Earth, each new star burning in the orbit of her race’s homeworld a headstone for the newly dead.

“But I don’t know how to save you.”

She pulled the switch.