[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by veist

I loved it right until that final scene, which was just like "wow, really? " Trying not to spoiler it and I mean I still loved 99% of the game, I put 40hrs into it and besides maybe one or two spots the game just barely lets you come up for air its so well done.

There's a fascinating theory:

Spoiler!

...that the very end of the game isn't actually the game's end, that what we're playing through right now is Shepard fighting indoctrination.

Which sounds batshit crazy on first glance, but there are some things that don't make sense.

The gameplay is completely different after you're hit by harbinger's beam. It's almost exactly like the dream sequences during the game. You're moving in slow motion. If you turn around you see trees that look vaguely familiar. You have unlimited ammo.

When you get to the citadel it just doesn't look like the citadel. You can't shoot the keepers.

How is TIM able to control Anderson? I get how he can control you, but Anderson? How? And speaking of Anderson, how does he even get there? And why isn't he in as bad a shape as you are? You've had your armor completely destroyed and you're in the remnants of your uniform. He's in what looks like a clean uniform, seems to be completely okay until whatever happens to him happens at the platform.

Shooting TIM is a renegade choice. And unless you have really high reputation, there is no paragon choice that allows you to live. If you don't shoot him the game ends. If you use the paragon choice (I'm told, I didn't have high enough reputation) he shoots himself, in a scene eerily reminiscent of Saren. Which makes me wonder if all of this is built from Shepard's memories.

The choices the catalyst gives you don't make any sense. If you go by the colors laid out, red to the right, blue to the left, Destruction of the reapers, the goal you've been going for for three games is renegade. Now maybe that's because it requires the destruction of the geth and EDI, but it just doesn't make sense. Control is said to be the paragon choice, but again, that doesn't make sense. Everything about TIM and what he was doing was renegade. I personally believe the synthesis choice, which I believe builds upon the lessons learned from the quarians and geth is the true paragon, but still it seems odd the way they're laid out. Why is destruction red? Is the catalyst trying to trick you? He seems to be doing a sales job. If you think of it in terms of Harbinger trying to indoctrinate you, than synthesis or control would be the equivalent of giving in, and destruction would be fighting, which leads to the final point...

The most interesting point to me is this one: if you do the destruction ending and have high enough EMS (4000-5000, something in there, I didn't get that high), you get an additional scene after the Normandy crash. You see N7 armor, and then a breath. It looks like Shepard is alive, and it looks to be on the ground in London.


Now, personally, I think the ending is what it is. I don't think Bioware's going to come out with anything more (it would be pretty amazing if they did, though...) and I think people are trying really hard to rationalize an ending they either don't like or don't understand. But it is...interesting. There is definitely a part of me that wonders. Because it does seem...off somehow.


My personal pet theory is that you don't even wake up in london; you wake up on eden prime and nothing from any of the games actually happened. Which would be totally, wonderfully evil on Bioware's part.


But I think the end's the end and people are in denial.