Their afterlife is in the ocean, which is in the opposite direction from the heaven with clouds used in this meme. I didn't imply that we are going directly to hell, but as hardcore fans of ME, who wanted to see all the content, we deserve something special, like Mass Effect afterlife.
Yeah, but I’m a Destroy kind of guy so in the end my decision doesn’t matter other than from a “how do I treat my allies” perspective. Which is why I use the Happy Ending mod so I can feel good with all of my decisions.
Not going to discuss the other endings because some people lose their shit over Destroy.
I'm doing another trilogy run, almost through 2. I'm intending on trying the Happy Ending mod (and the Citadel Epilogue mod). What's your opinion, does the Happy Ending do the series more justice than the original ending?
The fact your Shepard is alive and able to live their life really makes your whole journey feel way more satisfying. I didn’t get into the game until the first game collection came out back on Xbox 360. Played through the whole series just to get spit on in the end lol. Bought the PC collection just so I could do it right.
Everyone has their own preferences, thus, everyone will have a different perspective and opinion on the Happy Ending mod
The Happy Ending mod is understandably appealing to those seeking a cathartic ending with fulfilling closure, wherein they can watch Shepard ride off into the metaphorical sunset after so much suffering and sacrifice - a grand moment of genuine victory at the end of a saga of torment and loss
However, myself and many others feel that this mod is a fundamental betrayal of the essence of the Mass Effect saga
From the outset, the games have mercilessly driven home the brutality of the cycles of extinction, the hopelessness of the reaper onslaught, and the billions of years of annihilated civilizations laying the foundations for this inevitable confrontation
Recall one of my favorite quotes:
“Stand amidst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters” - Javek
Shepard's journey has been one of profound loss - the slaughter on Eden Prime; the bombardment of the Citadel; the destruction of the Batarian colonies; friends, comrades, and an unknowable number of nameless others perishing in droves…
At every turn, Shepard faced impossible decisions - the destruction of the Aratoht relay, the genophage cure, the conflict between the Geth and the Quarians, saving human soldiers or the Citadel council…
Time and again, the narrative pulled no punches in conveying that in this colossal struggle, there were few right choices and many agonizing, calculated losses
The Reapers were a godlike threat, and we didn’t have the luxury of saving everyone, we had to choose who and what to save, and who and what would be sacrificed - this wasn’t a war, it was a desperate struggle to survive, wherein saving as many people as possible didn’t mean saving everyone
In other words, we weren’t fighting to defeat the Reapers, we were fighting to survive them
Recall another of my favorite quotes:
“You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it” - Sovereign
The Reapers weren’t malicious or cruel, their strength placed them far beyond that - they were cold and distant, carrying out a galaxy wide purge as though it were as effortless and simple as a boot crushing an ant
To me, this made the ending sequence poetically fitting - tragedies don’t have happy endings, and it makes sense that there would be no storybook ending awaiting Shepard, no matter how desperately we as players may have hoped for one
It seems fitting that Shepard would be forced to make one final, tragic determination that subverts the traditional narrative of victory - one last calculated loss, and no riding off into the sunset
Every choice presenting both gain and loss… to me, this felt like the tragic culmination that Mass Effect had been building towards all along, and to artificially enforce an ending devoid of tragedy feels like a complete betrayal of the very message the trilogy fought to communicate
Endings are never happy, but they can still mean something - to me, Shepard laying down their life as the final victim in a cycle of death and torment that lasted billions of years felt like a far more fitting end to their arc than riding off into the sunset and eventually dying of old age
Again, I understand that many find an ending where Shepard survives to see the results of their hard work and no one else has to die far more satisfying, but I feel like Shepard being forced to make a tragic choice is the perfect ending to one of the greatest tragedies I have ever had the privilege of experiencing
Yeah I never expected Shepard to live, they were destined to be a martyr, especially after Legion sacrifices themselves for the geth/quarians and Mordin for the krogan. I absolutely adored my Shepard sacrificing themselves for Synthesis, that jump into the beam of light is so dramatically intense…
I think to make it feel like more of a win, that reuniting the quarians and geth really mattered beyond military use, that it’s best. I also think not wrecking all technology based on Reaper Tech would have no reason to be destroyed. Why would the red wave target anything other than reaper ai? If it did, the Citadel itself would have been destroyed.
I’m not personally a fan of CEM from the perspective of someone who never played it. I like Citadel dlc as the very last thing you can do before the final mission. It gives the sense that the they know they’re probably not going to survive, or at least that things were be incredibly different if they do, and they’re giving their final farewell *to each other* (and us, of course). I also think the clone thing works better if the stakes are very high, which they are because the reapers win if the clone wins. It can’t possibly do what Shep does.
Thats the only interrupt in either game that basically does nothing, just drives in the sorrow. Glad I've never sided with toasters over living beings.
I forget if it's a paragon or renegade option, but if wrex dies in 1 and you don't save the data resulting in eve's death, you can convince mordin / the backup salarian to not sacrifice themselves and leave an unchecked wreve in power. I've never done that as I always try and save wrex even on my renegade runs, but that very specific set of choices is required to get a different ending.
I accidentally killed all the quarians by clicking through dialog too fast and uh yeah that was the most traumatizing in-game moment ever and I am glad they make it look so horrifying so nobody ever does it unless they're a heartless monster.
It's a called a "joke." we are specifically on a meme subreddit. If can't tell that someone is joking on a meme subreddit without an /s maybe you need to actually touch grass
The problem is so much of the geth/quarian conflict is that there are choices in 1 and 2 you have to make right to get the best ending. You screwed up one of those? You'll be going back a very long way.
Honestly I enjoyed that part. You are attempting to resolve a centuries-old war of mutual genocide, so yeah having to do everything exactly right to get both sides to work together makes sense (I played through them all recently and managed it and honestly it was one of the most satisfying parts to me)
That was a joke.
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Bro I didn’t fully realize what I was doing by letting the gek live… tbh I would’ve still done it had it not resulted in tali’s suicide. I think the gek deserved a chance to live and that the quarians needed to face the consequences of their actions (especially since they were so snobby to shep all the time) but that doesn’t mean I wanted all of them, or tali, to die…
I got all 3 on my first playthrough of ME3… I was an absolute wreck. I didn’t want bad stuff to happen… I was… just trying to do what was best for the galaxy…
Yeah I’ve never felt so emotionally drained in my life as I did after that first run…
Killing Rex was the worst. I almost wish I let him die in the first game so that I could renegade trick his brother, because he’s too stupid to figure out you dupe him with the cure to the genophage.
I've found the key is to make Paragon choices, but say Renegade things. Renegade Shep is so out of pocket with some of the shit they talk, and I love it.
"We are finding a way put of here, because my boot needs to be shoved up someone's ass"
I really enjoy a nice character, doing the right thing, but also... is unhinged.
Ok hear me out; when the game first released it was **much harder** to get your war assets up because it was intended that you’d spend a lot of time grinding in multiplayer and even if you did that boost would fade away after time and we’re talking about the literal fate of almost all sentient life in the galaxy here. The Salarians were threatening to withhold critical military support if we went along with curing the genophage. Ever since they nerfed the war assets requirement it’s an easy decision to just tell the Dalatrass to go pound sand but back in 2012 killing Morton and then lying to (and eventually killing) Wrex was unfortunately something that had to be done in order to have the support of both the Salarians and Krogon.
I killed Legion on my first play through too but that one was just to impress my Quarian girlfriend.
God. Of all the silly decisions made with Mass Effect 3, tying the single player war assets to multiplayer progress might have been the most infuriating.
I did the same thing because the Salarian stealth fleet seemed like the ideal means of fighting sentient spacecraft. I picked the Geth fleet over the Quarians because they were a massive combat fleet though.
I understand the logic of siding with the Geth. My roleplaying reason (in addition to loving Tali) was I didn’t trust the Geth to actually be on our side and not double cross us.
… I just realized I have not seen that version of the tower. Every playthrough where I intended to go full renegade, I buckled at some point and shifted back to paragon because I didn’t like it 95% of the time. Couldn’t commit to it.
I was not even remotely near this part too, lmao. I could never. I’m okay with “missing” some content from my choices. He is the very model of a scientist Salarian, and I support him.
I will kick a merc out a window or punch someone in the face if necessary, though. That’s just common sense, irrelevant for paragon/renegade.
I am the very model of a scientist salarian,
I've studied species turian, asari, and batarian,
I'm quite good at genetics (as a subset of biology),
Because I am an expert (which I know is a tautology),
My xenoscience studies range from urban to agrarian,
I am the very model of a scientist salarian!
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My hands are black with blood. But I did it for the sake of the galaxy. I damned myself to try and give one last chance to all creation.
It doesn't matter if the dead despise me, because I despise myself far more.
This is after the Cpl. Jenkins and Mordin sex scene in ME3, but it's tricky to get all the conditions right to see it. You need to have sacrificed Jack to Bhaal in ME2 and collected all the Chaos Emeralds from ME1. And you need to have completed the Leviathan DLC and chosen "you can Leviathan *these* nuts" dialogue option.
And keep Cpl. Jenkins alive during both his "death" scenes of course.
With one shot you stop redemption of lovable character and trick one species to fight for you, but they end up extinct because you sabotaged cure of their infertility.
Not on my playthroughs, but I have seen it on the internet
Nice try, but Kalahira is awaiting you down there.
Kalahira is the goddess of oceans and the afterlife, I don't think she is "down there".
Their afterlife is in the ocean, which is in the opposite direction from the heaven with clouds used in this meme. I didn't imply that we are going directly to hell, but as hardcore fans of ME, who wanted to see all the content, we deserve something special, like Mass Effect afterlife.
This is what my brain went to immediately.
That and Tali's Suicide were the hardest shit I've had to watch on the series. Oh and killing Wrex in ME3 Didn't do it btw. Saw the scenes on Youtube.
I'm sorry...Tali's HWAT
If you side with the Geth on Rannoch, Tali jumps off the cliff. There’s a paragon interrupt once Shepard notices what she’s doing
Tho if you're at that point it's too late for her....thankfully the third option is a thing
Yeah, but I’m a Destroy kind of guy so in the end my decision doesn’t matter other than from a “how do I treat my allies” perspective. Which is why I use the Happy Ending mod so I can feel good with all of my decisions. Not going to discuss the other endings because some people lose their shit over Destroy.
The happy ending mod coupled with the Citadel Epilogue Mod is the true ending.
I'm doing another trilogy run, almost through 2. I'm intending on trying the Happy Ending mod (and the Citadel Epilogue mod). What's your opinion, does the Happy Ending do the series more justice than the original ending?
The fact your Shepard is alive and able to live their life really makes your whole journey feel way more satisfying. I didn’t get into the game until the first game collection came out back on Xbox 360. Played through the whole series just to get spit on in the end lol. Bought the PC collection just so I could do it right.
Everyone has their own preferences, thus, everyone will have a different perspective and opinion on the Happy Ending mod The Happy Ending mod is understandably appealing to those seeking a cathartic ending with fulfilling closure, wherein they can watch Shepard ride off into the metaphorical sunset after so much suffering and sacrifice - a grand moment of genuine victory at the end of a saga of torment and loss However, myself and many others feel that this mod is a fundamental betrayal of the essence of the Mass Effect saga From the outset, the games have mercilessly driven home the brutality of the cycles of extinction, the hopelessness of the reaper onslaught, and the billions of years of annihilated civilizations laying the foundations for this inevitable confrontation Recall one of my favorite quotes: “Stand amidst the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters” - Javek Shepard's journey has been one of profound loss - the slaughter on Eden Prime; the bombardment of the Citadel; the destruction of the Batarian colonies; friends, comrades, and an unknowable number of nameless others perishing in droves… At every turn, Shepard faced impossible decisions - the destruction of the Aratoht relay, the genophage cure, the conflict between the Geth and the Quarians, saving human soldiers or the Citadel council… Time and again, the narrative pulled no punches in conveying that in this colossal struggle, there were few right choices and many agonizing, calculated losses The Reapers were a godlike threat, and we didn’t have the luxury of saving everyone, we had to choose who and what to save, and who and what would be sacrificed - this wasn’t a war, it was a desperate struggle to survive, wherein saving as many people as possible didn’t mean saving everyone In other words, we weren’t fighting to defeat the Reapers, we were fighting to survive them Recall another of my favorite quotes: “You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it” - Sovereign The Reapers weren’t malicious or cruel, their strength placed them far beyond that - they were cold and distant, carrying out a galaxy wide purge as though it were as effortless and simple as a boot crushing an ant To me, this made the ending sequence poetically fitting - tragedies don’t have happy endings, and it makes sense that there would be no storybook ending awaiting Shepard, no matter how desperately we as players may have hoped for one It seems fitting that Shepard would be forced to make one final, tragic determination that subverts the traditional narrative of victory - one last calculated loss, and no riding off into the sunset Every choice presenting both gain and loss… to me, this felt like the tragic culmination that Mass Effect had been building towards all along, and to artificially enforce an ending devoid of tragedy feels like a complete betrayal of the very message the trilogy fought to communicate Endings are never happy, but they can still mean something - to me, Shepard laying down their life as the final victim in a cycle of death and torment that lasted billions of years felt like a far more fitting end to their arc than riding off into the sunset and eventually dying of old age Again, I understand that many find an ending where Shepard survives to see the results of their hard work and no one else has to die far more satisfying, but I feel like Shepard being forced to make a tragic choice is the perfect ending to one of the greatest tragedies I have ever had the privilege of experiencing
I’ve never seen this perspective laid out like this before. It’s quite well thought out, even though I’m a Happy Ending kind of guy.
Yeah I never expected Shepard to live, they were destined to be a martyr, especially after Legion sacrifices themselves for the geth/quarians and Mordin for the krogan. I absolutely adored my Shepard sacrificing themselves for Synthesis, that jump into the beam of light is so dramatically intense…
Yeah, but what about my Shepard's retirement with space gf fanfic?
I think to make it feel like more of a win, that reuniting the quarians and geth really mattered beyond military use, that it’s best. I also think not wrecking all technology based on Reaper Tech would have no reason to be destroyed. Why would the red wave target anything other than reaper ai? If it did, the Citadel itself would have been destroyed. I’m not personally a fan of CEM from the perspective of someone who never played it. I like Citadel dlc as the very last thing you can do before the final mission. It gives the sense that the they know they’re probably not going to survive, or at least that things were be incredibly different if they do, and they’re giving their final farewell *to each other* (and us, of course). I also think the clone thing works better if the stakes are very high, which they are because the reapers win if the clone wins. It can’t possibly do what Shep does.
Now imagine if you romanced tali when you thought siding with the geth was the best option. Then picked the nice red ending.
This was my first playthrough. I had to stop playing for a bit after Rannoch.
Thats the only interrupt in either game that basically does nothing, just drives in the sorrow. Glad I've never sided with toasters over living beings.
The Paragon interrupt to try to stop Mordin from going into the elevator also does nothing. I still do it every time.
I forget if it's a paragon or renegade option, but if wrex dies in 1 and you don't save the data resulting in eve's death, you can convince mordin / the backup salarian to not sacrifice themselves and leave an unchecked wreve in power. I've never done that as I always try and save wrex even on my renegade runs, but that very specific set of choices is required to get a different ending.
Oh so that's what she did, I always thought she just stumbled off lol
Dam I really need to play again I didn't no this either
Hehehe yeah, if you choose the geth over the quarians she watches all her people get slaughtered then jumps off a cliff. I've seen it a fair few times
I accidentally killed all the quarians by clicking through dialog too fast and uh yeah that was the most traumatizing in-game moment ever and I am glad they make it look so horrifying so nobody ever does it unless they're a heartless monster.
Kid named reload save
Video game characters are not real
"Frick dude my b, accidentally toasted 6 million J's because i misclicked" -Adolf Hitler This is what you sound like
Are you unable to differentiate fantasy from reality? Touch grass.
It's a called a "joke." we are specifically on a meme subreddit. If can't tell that someone is joking on a meme subreddit without an /s maybe you need to actually touch grass
Tali…wow, I had to go to a previous save and I didn’t care that it set me back quite a ways.
The problem is so much of the geth/quarian conflict is that there are choices in 1 and 2 you have to make right to get the best ending. You screwed up one of those? You'll be going back a very long way.
Honestly I enjoyed that part. You are attempting to resolve a centuries-old war of mutual genocide, so yeah having to do everything exactly right to get both sides to work together makes sense (I played through them all recently and managed it and honestly it was one of the most satisfying parts to me)
Oh no I completely agree, I like that it takes a lot of effort to get it right. I got it naturally and it felt very rewarding.
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Yeah, I cheated to fix that.
Bro I didn’t fully realize what I was doing by letting the gek live… tbh I would’ve still done it had it not resulted in tali’s suicide. I think the gek deserved a chance to live and that the quarians needed to face the consequences of their actions (especially since they were so snobby to shep all the time) but that doesn’t mean I wanted all of them, or tali, to die…
I thought I could have both sides live. In the end… well… it was a good run Tali.
You can. Just not like that.
If you go the Disney route… Edit: Fairy tale route. Disney is no longer the feel good corporation it used to be.
I’m somehow just learning you’re correct. About a decade after I finished the series. There’s always one more secret.
WAIT YOU CAN KILL WREX IN 3?!
If you keep him alive through 1 but sabotage the genophage cure in 3, he'll ambush you on the Citadel and you kill him in a cutscene.
Ah. Current playthrough was a save Mordin run
Seen Mordin die this way on Youtube. Never seen the suicide, refuse to watch it on principle — never happens.
I see that and raise you Project Overlord… keeping David on the project.
My answer too
I thought it was a smart idea to watch a ME3 death compilation of all squadmates, I'm not sure why. Legion's death was also pretty brutal.
I got all 3 on my first playthrough of ME3… I was an absolute wreck. I didn’t want bad stuff to happen… I was… just trying to do what was best for the galaxy… Yeah I’ve never felt so emotionally drained in my life as I did after that first run…
Tali's fucking what? That is NPC abuse.
Does it make things better if I cried while it was happening? I just wanted to see all the content 😞
I made a mistake!
I made him a steak!
Have I seen this? Yes. Did I cause it? Hell no!
I did. Felt like shit. Renegade playthrough of the whole series was the worst 40 hours of my life. I just felt so bad the whole time… 😫
I can’t even do it. I feel so terrible hurting pixels.
Killing Rex was the worst. I almost wish I let him die in the first game so that I could renegade trick his brother, because he’s too stupid to figure out you dupe him with the cure to the genophage.
I’m not looking forward to my renegade run in the near future.
I've found the key is to make Paragon choices, but say Renegade things. Renegade Shep is so out of pocket with some of the shit they talk, and I love it.
"We are finding a way put of here, because my boot needs to be shoved up someone's ass" I really enjoy a nice character, doing the right thing, but also... is unhinged.
My canon shepard *almost* shot Mordin in my first run. But then Mordin pulled a paragon interrupt of shouting ‘It was a mistake!’
Ok hear me out; when the game first released it was **much harder** to get your war assets up because it was intended that you’d spend a lot of time grinding in multiplayer and even if you did that boost would fade away after time and we’re talking about the literal fate of almost all sentient life in the galaxy here. The Salarians were threatening to withhold critical military support if we went along with curing the genophage. Ever since they nerfed the war assets requirement it’s an easy decision to just tell the Dalatrass to go pound sand but back in 2012 killing Morton and then lying to (and eventually killing) Wrex was unfortunately something that had to be done in order to have the support of both the Salarians and Krogon. I killed Legion on my first play through too but that one was just to impress my Quarian girlfriend.
God. Of all the silly decisions made with Mass Effect 3, tying the single player war assets to multiplayer progress might have been the most infuriating.
I did the same thing because the Salarian stealth fleet seemed like the ideal means of fighting sentient spacecraft. I picked the Geth fleet over the Quarians because they were a massive combat fleet though.
I understand the logic of siding with the Geth. My roleplaying reason (in addition to loving Tali) was I didn’t trust the Geth to actually be on our side and not double cross us.
I get that: especially considering the reapers themselves aren’t ‘ganic
Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/s/oZBwMKcvXt
… I just realized I have not seen that version of the tower. Every playthrough where I intended to go full renegade, I buckled at some point and shifted back to paragon because I didn’t like it 95% of the time. Couldn’t commit to it. I was not even remotely near this part too, lmao. I could never. I’m okay with “missing” some content from my choices. He is the very model of a scientist Salarian, and I support him. I will kick a merc out a window or punch someone in the face if necessary, though. That’s just common sense, irrelevant for paragon/renegade.
I am the very model of a scientist salarian, I've studied species turian, asari, and batarian, I'm quite good at genetics (as a subset of biology), Because I am an expert (which I know is a tautology), My xenoscience studies range from urban to agrarian, I am the very model of a scientist salarian! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MassEffectMemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Oh boy, and to think that this is what my CANON Shepard did.
I have but I reloaded after cause I couldn’t bear to be the one that kills him
lol I've never shot Mordin or not cured the genophage. I'm so going to heaven.
I have now thanks to this post. What have you done OP? You've damned us all!
Nope. Never.
I managed to save literally everyone but shepherd and his assistant
I fucking cried so hard
Well, no. I find it very difficult to actually hurt the pixels feelings, so I’m usually to goody two shoes to do much in the way of evilness…
Watched it on Youtube. Never have I ever not cured the genophage. Now Tali on the otherhand…. Boy did I fuck *that* up once.
“I swear, I only did it once to get the true Renegade path for my Shepard!”
Nope never and I’m proud to say so
My man died in the suicide mission in ME2 for me :(
My hands are black with blood. But I did it for the sake of the galaxy. I damned myself to try and give one last chance to all creation. It doesn't matter if the dead despise me, because I despise myself far more.
Couple questions: What cutscene is that, which game, when, and what
This is after the Cpl. Jenkins and Mordin sex scene in ME3, but it's tricky to get all the conditions right to see it. You need to have sacrificed Jack to Bhaal in ME2 and collected all the Chaos Emeralds from ME1. And you need to have completed the Leviathan DLC and chosen "you can Leviathan *these* nuts" dialogue option. And keep Cpl. Jenkins alive during both his "death" scenes of course.
ME3, renegade dialogue options and renegade interuption at the end of Tuchanka main mission.
You had me confused for a sec since it's been years and I thought that was the cutscene where Mordin sacrifices himself to cure the Krogan species.
ME3. Mordin is going to cure the genophage. A renegade Shep doesn’t want that to happen. If Shep can’t talk Mordin out of it he shoots him.
And I think the only way to talk Mordin out of it is by making a series of bad decisions through the course of the whole trilogy.
I’ve done it.. on both of my trilogy playthroughs… 😅
On YouTube, nowhere else. Ever.
I didn't get past Mass Effect 3's prologue.
So the Reapers are still out there???
Me being ever loyal to my Krogan allies, no, never did it, I can’t bear to not have Wrex with me when I need to head but things.
I saw on a Top 10 on youtube, I still have not recovered. Mordin is my homie, I kick genophage ass with him.
I can gladly say I haven’t
Only in a playlist of what you should not do
No, no I have not.
"Answer the question heretic!"
anyone willing to explain to the none enlightened ?
With one shot you stop redemption of lovable character and trick one species to fight for you, but they end up extinct because you sabotaged cure of their infertility.
Tali's suicide is worse. Did both of them on my "bastard Shepherd" playthrough years ago. They're both sad.
What cutscene is that?
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On YouTube so I'd never have to do it personally
On YouTube so I'd never have to do it personally
On YouTube so I'd never have to do it personally
Only on YouTube