Me3 which ending is paragon

Also there was closure in the sense that I explained in the post above that nobody seems to have read. The Catalyst even told you what would happen based on each decision. Just because you don't know what the future holds, doesn't mean that there wasn't an end to the current conflict.

Just because they are continuing it, as they stated before even ME3, doesn't mean that's the ONLY reason they made it end that way. The sense of accomplishment was knowing that no matter what you chose, that you at least for a time have stopped the Reaper threat. Also ME2 threw you to the point before the Collector Base, but nobody seemed to have an issue with that.

Saren says that his upgrades are where the human race is headed. Illusive Man believes control is the best. Clearly the reaper controller AI is trying to preserve its life by presenting the options as such. I'm a theorist believer so Sythesis and Control are renegade. To put in context Synthesis is what Saren wanted. I'm sorry, the idea that it's not renegade to commit genocide on an entire form of life is ridiculous given you're presented with a peaceful option.

The reapers were an enemy to fight, and as such they must be destroyed, but as with all things the context changed and what once was considered the bad choice can twist.

The illusive man trying to control the reapers would never have worked and his own hubris destroyed him; however their creator was offering control. Taking control ends the war without firing a single shot and creates peace without having to destroy anyone, even the reapers are a unique form of life that are merely subjugated by their own programming and doomed to repeat this cycle for eternity.

I just want to know why when you do the control ending, someone in N7 armor that is not charred like Shepard's at the end is shown breathing. By destroying the reapers, shepard is trying to just get things back to how they were before anyone knew about the reapers, and not subjugating anyone by controlling the reapers or playing god by creating some new race thing.

That, and the starchild lies to you - says the destroy option will kill Shepard, when that is the only option that will allow Shepard to live. I honestly don't think Destroy is Renegade. Just because the Catalyst sugar-coats the other options doesn't mean that the universe will be filled with rainbows and shit. The Catalyst has been manipulating people for centuries, maybe even millenia, what makes anyone think that it suddenly had a change of heart and wanted to steer Shepard in the right direction?

The Reapers would not magically deviate from their purpose. Synthesis sounds fine and dandy, but you end up looking like you have The Illusive Man-type upgrades, which rubs me the wrong way. I think a synthesis would have some sort of weakness to the will of the Catalyst, giving everyone the illusion that they were free.

The Illusive Man was being manipulated the entire series. He thought the more he changed his body, the more likely he would be able to control the Reapers.

Shepard isn't as fully-integrated with Reaper technology as TIM, which probably means that Shepard had a high resistance to manipulation. The Catalyst states that TIM wasn't strong enough to control the Reapers, but Shepard is; it sounded as if it were stroking Shepard's ego.

Some of the characters in the game throw hints throughout the game. I think that it was Garrus who stated that the Reapers are so efficient because they are merciless. Characters like Moridin sacrifice they're lives so the Reapers can be destroyed. I'm not going to suddenly have a change of heart and play nice just because the Catalyst assumes the guise of a small child.

Doesn't matter, galactic dark age no matter what you pick. The ending where you convince Saren to destroy himself and save the Council is the Paragon ending. They only made one Mass Effect game. What are you guys talking about? According to the coloring in the game, I believe Control is Paragon, Synthesis is hippie, and destroy is renegade.

That being said, I'm a follower of the Indoctrination theory, so Destroy is really the only ending. Well, to me, Destroy is the right ending. Your goal, since the very beginning, is to destroy the Reapers. Everybody followed you for that very, single goal. To get rid of those life-exterminating beings. Granted, they could have changed it since then to switch around the endings. More topics from this board How can I save Anderson? General 2 Answers Romance more than one person? Plot 5 Answers What is the best armor in the game?

Plot 1 Answer How do i complete the 'help the mechanic' quest? Side Quest 1 Answer. Ask A Question. Browse More Questions. Keep me logged in on this device. Forgot your username or password? User Info: th3warr1or th3warr1or Topic Creator 9 years ago 12 Dapifer posted User Info: Dapifer Dapifer 9 years ago 17 th3warr1or posted User Info: Dapifer Dapifer 9 years ago 19 th3warr1or posted User Info: Brenz0r Brenz0r 9 years ago 20 Dapifer posted Box art spoilers femshep technically considered canon again.

And as an added bonus, it improves the role of The Illusive Man as a villain in the story. Mass Effect is a series that is ultimately about player choice so there is no wrong decision at the end, but Mass Effect 3's control ending is the closest to a truly successful victory. Writing emerged as a medium for Chris to express his passion for video games and has lead him here. By Chris Chenard Published Jun 07, Share Share Tweet Email 0.

Tak e that for what it's wort h. Reply to this comment. Cancel this reply. Do you know Wasnt it already confirme d that his being on the C itadel was all a dream an d the admiral made it up there? Can I just point out, thi s may not be Shepard?

Jam es had joined the N7 prog ram and may well have pic ked up replacement dog-ta gs from either the Citade l at one of the later vis its, from Hackett when he came aboard the Normandy or at the temporary base on Earth Yes, but if you didn't br ing James along how could he be there?

Also it was exactly the same armor S hepard was wearing in the scene where you see him breathing. It's not James. If yo bri ng James with you, he get s killed by the reaper in the charge for the condu it.. And if. I brought James with me o n final battle, and thoug ht I saw him on the groun d as I moved in slo mo bu t felt he may not be actu ally dead because wouldnt game makers allow us to check him out at least?

Are you sa ying if I had brought any other squad mate, they w ould have lived? Only Jam es shows up as dead? I took james and Liara al ong with me, I had full E MS and full paragon point s and when I chose to des troy the reapers I saw Sh ep breathe at the end. In the scene where Joker la nds on that weird planet, Liara AND James step out onto the planet you see james walk out of the sh ip after the camera zooms out to see more of the l andscape, sky and normany - this happens with all the squad-mates you pick I think.

Who kn ows Shepard could have escape d by the light elevator t eleport. Dude this is a game not r eal life. Shepard died an d got put back together. A little re-entering the atmosphere and crashing down to earth at a hellis h high speed is child's p lay for him.

Take that for what it is worth. Or perhaps that isn't She pard. N7 dog tags are rat her vague considering the whole of the Alliances m ilitary forces including the N7 division are on Earth, in London. He was transported back d own via the beam courtesy of the Catalyst, geez. He got to the citadel thr ough a beam of light, whi ch was still intact conne cting london to it. It se ems simple enough that th is would be able to get h im back to earth, without the nasty bit of buring up on re-entry.

I don't know if this work s for anyone else, but wh en I got to the free roam you can simply re-load w hen Shepard goes onto the citadel and redo each en ding. I just go t The older guy telling s tories to the child. Check your "ready" percen ts, it can low EMS level below 4k if so, you shou ld raize it by cooperativ e. It isn't really a "free r oam" mode. There is no wh ere to roam to, because t he point at which they se nd you to in the game, yo u probably have finished everything else in the ga me.

It is more of a "sent back two hours and waiti ng for DLC" mode Also, Shepard does not come ou t of ruins of the Citadel. The Citadel is not made of bricks and concrete. Also, he wouldn't of surv ived the re-entry of a gi ant space station the siz e of New York crashing on to Earth when he was alr eady on the brink of deat h. Maybe the citadel transpo rted shepard back to Lond on through the beam befor e it was destroyed.

You make it sound like th e Illusive Man was evil. Why would he fight us? Hi s only interest was the s urvival of the human race. Did I miss something?

I h aven't finished the game yet and all I see on the post are same endings. H ow are they different or have more than 16 endings? I get the fact that the collectors base just sep arates them but still if you where to put this on a computer schematic I s till come to 1. Relays ar e destroyed 2. Shepard d ies not matter what excep t for one choice But how in the hell he gets back to earth no idea 3.

Nor mady crashes I thought t hey where helping with th e fight No matter how I look at it they look th e same to me and don't fi t with the whole story. Is it just me or no one e lse can see that. It sta rts on this line of choic es but they all come to t he same drop. I have be en trying to avoid spoile rs but now after seeing t his, I think I might want to return my copy.

Don' t get me wrong I love the game but this ending is not a good one. I like t he dark energy better it makes more sense than thi s. Sorry Ninachan, essential ly they aren't 16 endings , just 16 different ways to get to 1 of 3 endings. Control blue 2. Destroy red 3. Synthe sis green The kicker is if you youtube "mass effect 3 ending compariso n.

Alright so here it is guy s, harbinger lands and hi ts you with its beam. The n you wake up and got the the citadel blah blah bl ah. You notice how the "C atalyst" is the child fro m vancouver that died and Shepard has dreams of th e poor soul dying at leas t twice through the game?

Well I find it to be mor e of a coicidence persona lly. I've seen all 3 of t he ending being that I ha ve beat the game almost 3 times. Just restart fro m the last mission and w ith Controlling the Reape rs the child is standing behind you watching you d o this same as the Synthe sis ending, but when you Destroy The Reapers the k id ceases to be behind yo u and you wake up on Eart h. Just think about this but And no he was "Tr ansported by a beam back to Earth" because when sh epard was supposedly on t he Citadel he was on the brink of death with his c lothing in shreds and in the cutscene he has all o f his N7 armore intact re gardless to what you were wearing originally on yo ur playthrough.

I've made my case. Ok, so Shepard never went up the beam to the citad el and never activated th e crucible, and therefore the reapers are still al ive and attacking earth.. What other alternativ e is there? And if we do end up activating the cru cible, what would it actu ally do? I hope Biowar e are the genuis' i think they are so they can fin d a way to smoothly end t he greatest game series o f all time.

So keeping the collectors base intact just means y ou get an extra war asset basically. Uniting orga nics and synthetics into techno organics is the tr ue ending, because shepar ds body and essence becom es one with the life in t he universe. The guide may be not accu rate about the perfect en ding.

I maxed my reputation bar. After that, I chose to d estroy the reaper and was able to see the end wher e Shepard is breathing. I did it twice just to b e sure I didn't miss some thing. I don't get something. The synthesis may look as the "best" ch oice in the end, because there's no casualties and the reapers are no longe r a threat, but why is it harder to get the so cal led "perfect ending" wher e Shep is alive? Surviving does not necess arily mean it is perfect i guess.

I did the same a s you, presumably most of your crew are dead and A nderson is dead, thane, M ordin etc. So for me, dyi ng at the end made sense. Plus, this 'it was all a dream' is bullshit. Beca use if you never went on to the citadel you never activated the crucible. M ore than likely if that w as the case, the 'dreamin g' part started when shep ard passes out and floats up to speak to the kid.

I think the real answer i s that the fact that the endings are so flimsy, is so we can make up our ow n minds. Personally i wou ld have preferred it in b lack and white, but for m e, synthesis and dying wa s the best.

At the end of the day, synthesis was n ot evil like in Sarens ca se, because Saren was ind octrinated and was being controlled by the reapers. He wanted to join them. In the synthesis ending, it is simply a new life form, where organics and synthetics are finally un ited. Wh ile indoctrinated, the re apers hoped to make shepa rd spare them by exploiti ng his benevolent nature yet everything feels sur eal because its not real.

The reapers had differen t ideas for saren and the illusive man possibly j ust to bring shepard to t his exact point. The des truction ending seems the best bet, its what you s et out to do since game 1. Might not even kill the geth because if you took paragon the whole time, you find out they have so uls. If you are worried a bout the mass effect rela ys and the citidel, remem ber who built them. How exactly i s it possible to get a hi gh enough EMS to obtain i t without doing Multiplay er?

It's impossible to get th e best ending without mul tiplayer. So essential ly you need at least I don't think it' s possible. Of course u nless you're playing on P C and mod your save like I did lol. That's good to know, I'm glad I started working on Multiplayer to bump it u p anyway. Thanks for info rming me. This guide need s to change that statemen t saying you can achieve high enough EMS without i t.

It's not impossible. I di dn't play Multiplayer unt il I finished the campaig n. You certainly didn't miss anything. It was easily 15 0 hours of gameplay. Expl ored every planet, comple ted every quest well, ne arly, some of the glitche d out , and my final EMS was only or somethin g like that at the end of ME3 no multiplayer at a ll. I'm a little mad about it, bec ause Bioware repeatedly s aid that multiplayer is n ot needed to get the "bes t" ending.

I guess that was just a blatant lie. Seems to be a few of thos e going around recently. I agree, I've "beat" the game twice now and only e nd with 3, maybe a fe w more or less without m ultiplayer. I even bough t the guide book and it s ays its possible to get t he best ending without mu ltiplayer. Its a lie. Y ou need multiplayer to ge tbest ending. Wrong, i was able to buil d up my ems to almost 5k without multiplayer or da tapad. You just have to d o every single thing in t he game.

Scan every syste m for war assets, finish the multiple side mission s in the citadel by overh earing conversations so go around each nook and c ranny of the citadel ever ytime you dock there , do all the other playable s ide missions meaning tho se given by traynor and be sure to save grissom, the tuchanka bomb, the ar alakh krogans.

I had an i mported character though so i already started at l vl I got the impression that Bioware's best ending wa s synthesis. Also, I'm pretty sure that the can on no import version ha s you save the collector base, which is why Cerber us takes over Omega and k icks Aria out as is shown in the comic Collectors edition buyers get.

Pl us, if Bioware go with th e indoctrination theory t hen, and only then, will I lose faith in them. I got the "perfect" e nding where shepard lives. I destroyed the reaper base in Mass effect 2 and destroyed them in mass e ffect 3. I also had EMS, doing the multiplaye r to raise your percentag e is easy.

I got per cent after around 7 match es although I am not happ y with it decreasing dail y. Anyway I am happy with my ending and i welcome any upcoming dlcs which I am assuming there will b e. The bleak ending isn't wh at everyone is so mad abo ut. Not every story can end with rainbows and but terflies, and I think for the most part fans are o k with the bleak ending.

What pisses me off is t hat Bioware failed to liv e up to ANY of their pre- release promises they mad e. We were promised that the end wouldn't be a si mple "A, B, or C" option, and that's exactly what we got. Not only that, b ut there is no difference between A B or C, so rea lly it's just a choice of what color would you lik e the end of the galaxy t o be. No matter what you do, the ending is effect ly the same.

This articl e makes it sound as if th e endings are drastically different, but they are not. The cutscenes are a lmost identical. Also, my shepard has been known t o shoot people in the fac e in the middle of a conv ersation, punch out repor ters, headbutt krogan, an d argue with the most pow erful forces in the galax y I can' t argue with him?

I can' t find his control panel and put a few rounds thro ugh it? No conversation wheel with an option to t ell that kid to go to hel l? Shepard dieing in the last 5 minutes of ME3 is n't the real tragedy, the REAL tragedy is that the y took his spine out firs t. There are huge pl ot holes, parts that don' t make sense how am I br eathing in space? THAT'S why it suc ks. Wonderfully put. Pleas e tell me I wasn't the on ly one to try and put a r ound in the child's face first thing?

I've trie d a number of ways withou t multiplayer and the end ing is pretty much the sa me every time. Chopping 5 second scene in and out of the ending cinematic o f a hell of a trilogy isn 't a convincing choice of endings. He said "SO BE IT " in some death voice and "the cycle continues" an d it cut away to Liara's warning message to the ne xt cycle saying even thou gh we fought as a galaxy we still lost and even th ough we completed the Cru cible we still lost and a ll of galactic civilizati on was destroyed I c an't find any message boa rds where this has happen ed to anyone else???

The cy cle continues, and civili zation as we know it is d estroyed. This seems to have been added especi ally for the face-shootin g, headbutting Shepards l ike Tim's :. I shot the Catalyst holographic kid too, wi th the same result. Obvio usly the worst ending pat h of the game and the sho rtest end scene.

But it is strange tha t this is still not reall y documented anywhere, in cluding ANY of these ME3 ending guides. All you ev er find in googling is so me links to youtube video s of that ending, and lin ks to forums like this on e that happen to mention it. Your right about the end not fitting the theme. Th e ME franchise had it rig ht there for the taking. They had the opportunity to make one of the best s eries in gaming history.

That ending will tarnish all three games. Did they rush it to fit in multip layer? No matter how you played your game your end ing matched mine in one o f three ways. Watch for the Renegade In terrupt to attempt and sa ve Anderson. You will hav e to press the button qui ckly in order to shoot Th e Illusive Man before he shoots Anderson in the ba ck of his head. The difference is only whether or not he d ies by being executed in the back of the head by T IM.

TIM doesnt shoot h im in the head, he shoots him in the back. Ey I have a question No one currently knows wh y this is the case. I'd b e much happier with the e nding if Shepherd had a c hance to live in all of t he choices if your EMS wa s high enough, but that's not the case thus far. I guess we'll have to s ee when they decide to re lease a DLC. My theory is that When you destroy the Reapers, you only partly destroy yourself being part synth etic.

But to control t hem, you have to become a n entity, just like the c atalyst. As for synthesis, being a semi-organic, se mi-synthetic being, you s erve as a sample, just li ke Legion if you managed to unite the Geth and the Quarian. I was actual ly very dissappoined in t he end of the game. The w hole humanity got I had no idea how to chang e things.

Yeah, but why the heck do es the best ending includ e destroying the Geth and EDI? We were a cycle tha t was finally creating sy nthetic life that liked o rganics. They should have left it to destroying just Re apers. That is what I'm disap pointed in.

Helping EDI r ealize she loved an organ ic? My view is that the perfe ct ending is synthesis. L ike you said the Geth sur vive, EDI and Joker are l eft to love each other on this new planet, along w ith your romance survivin g, and the Galaxy survive s.

I think that they put the "Shephard breathes" s cene in to get people exc ited about a possible ME4 , or to leave them feelin g good about him not dyin g in the end. But it ende d up back firing on them because it doesn't fit in with the game. It was ju st the only ending where it would be possible for him to survive, and that' s after almost dying from Harbinger, getting blown up along with the Citade l, then falling through t he atmosphere into earth and plummeting to the flo or. They just wanted to s tir things up.

Suc h a fun gal New to the franchise and I think no matter the end ings we all want more. I have completed the game f rom the start 3 times and have to say, if it was i ndoctrination and we get an ME I'll certainly buy it.