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Darc Requiem said:
Scoobes said:
Darc Requiem said:

4. People were pissed off at the plot holes. ME2's Arrival DLC established that an exploding Mass Relay has the force of Super Nova. No matter what ending you choose all the relays are destroyed. Which means nearly all life in the ME Galaxy should have been wiped out. The Normandy was with the combined Galactic Fleet above Earth and suddenly it's at FTL out running some explosion. One of, or in some cases both, squadmates you take into the final battle on Earth exit the Normandy's hatch after it crashes. That's not even possible. The Illusive Man controlling Shepard and Anderson was plot hole. Indoctrination has never worked that way throughout the entire series. The reason the Catalyst gave for creating the Reapers made no sense. To stop synthetics from wiping out organics, the Catalyst creates a fleet of synthetics that wipe out organics. The ending literally made no sense. It reminds me of the Mass Effect Deception debacle.

Not sure if we're still doing spoiler tags so I covered part of my post.

Just a comment on a few of the plot holes you mentioned:

1. Supernova's (whilst huge) aren't that big and there aren't that many mass relays. There would be plenty of life left after the destruction of all the mass relays.

2. The Normandy suddenly appearing in FTL with members of the crew (including those that were down on Earth) points to a gap in time that I think will probably be filled with the DLC. As it stands, it seems pretty random, although I'd guess it was trying to outrun a mass relay explosion... but yeah...

3. The reasoning the Catalyst gave was to prevent further chaos a complete and all out war would bring. My understanding was that in a 50,000 year cycle organics become too advanced and will lead to a completely chaotic situation whereby organics and synthetics battle continously for millenia. This is heavily hinted towards by the Geth and Javik's complete distrust of synthetic life.

The Reapers pupose is to massacre advanced organics, not battle them in war. Anyway, the fact that Shephard made it into that room in the Citadel showed the Catalyst that the organics of this cycle had advanced to a point where the Reapers were now redundant and wouldn't be able to prevent the chaos they were originally designed to.

This of course leaves more questions as to the nature of the Catalyst.


1. You are forgetting that most of the relays are in habitable systems. The Charon Relay is in the Sol System. So Earth and the entire solar system should be wiped out. Be that is it may the entire combined Galactic Fleet, Normandy included, would be destroyed when the Charon Relay explodes. This would be the case for all of the homeworlds of all the major races, if they some how managed to avoid the shockwave. They'd have no homes to return to. Pretty massive plot hole.

2. The Normandy FTL scene just isn't possible. It would require insanely precise timing and that's the least of it. Joker would have to break off from battle and some how manage to pick up the squadmates Shepard brought with him. I say somehow because Harbinger is sitting right there and it appeared that everyone except Shepard was killed by Harbingers attack. If they managed that impossible feat they'd have to get to Charon Relay before Shepard activates the Crucible.

3. The Catalyst created the Reapers to wipe out advanced organic life so that advanced organic life wouldn't create synthetic life that would wipe out organic life. It's nonsensical. They kill organics because organics might create synthetics that kill organics. Plus the Catalyst being the Citadel it self and the brains behind the Reapers contradicts ME1's plot. The Citadel itself being intelligent would make the Keeper's pointless and Sovereign monitoring the progress of organics pointless.

Every indication we have is that the Reapers massacre organics in war every 50,000 years. There are planets all over the Galaxy in ME that have descriptions of orbital bombardments. The derelict Reaper of ME2 was decimated in a War. As was the Leviathan of Dis, that ultimately doomed the Batarians.

1. Yes, most are in habitable systems, but we also know many worlds have been colonised outside of the range of supernova scale blasts.

2. That's assuming no time lag. I'm suggesting there's a time gap between when Shephard reaches the catalyst and making a decision to the events we see. That's the only way I can personally see it occuring in a sensical scenario.

3. The wars last only a century or so. Even the Protheans didn't last far beyond that period. Compared to a 50,000 year cycle that is only a snaphot of time. If organics were to create synthetic life like the Geth, with technology more in line with their own, the war would be far longer and therefore more chaotic. Also, we can't be 100% sure that it's the Citadel that is sentient. The nature of the catalyst is still a huge unknown; it could have simply been projecting an image when Shephard entered that room and be something else entirely.