An Extended Author's Note:
To all of you, especially those who have followed this work since the beginning, thank you. I started this project by writing for myself – my need for closure, my anger at the ending – and have ended it writing for all of you. Your feedback and appreciation have been the fuel that kept me going. I would specifically like to thank "Prizzma" and "DarthCruciare" for their early praise, and my sole real-world reader, "Shadow" – who kept reminding me that they were characters, not just bodies to be posed according to my depraved whims.
I would like to take this opportunity to stand on my soap-box and point out some truly excellent works on this site that explore other stories, other ideas:
For the classic Femshep / Liara, I recommend two stories and authors. For a darker, somewhat more brutal take on the characters I cannot recommend "Glacial Fire" by the talented "Owelpost" strongly enough. For a lighter – if no less kinky – take on things, the excellent "Love Bound" series by "Jayden Scott" is an fun way to pass the time.
Femshep / Garrus is not one that appeals to me very strongly, but "Curiosity" by "Quondam" is a truly funny, interesting look at the relationship. It's an unusual perspective, and a good one.
Femshep / Traynor is the cutest pairing in the series, bar none, and it's explored in wonderful color by three stories – "Range Detail" by "Jayden Scott", which is a perfect one-shot; "Queen's Gambit Accepted" by "FahRENheit2006" – possibly the only story to make IP filtering seem exciting. "For Winners Only" by "Rae Itha" is another wonderful one-shot, far kinkier than the above thus far, and so perfect fodder. You may be noticing a theme.
"Armor" by "MountainGoats" is another Femshep / Tali fic, and it's shaping up to be everything I wanted my story to be, but better. I highly recommend it, and hope that it continues to update. "The Captain" by "Jayden Scott" helped inspire me to write a kinky fic of my own, and it's measurably better than my humble offering.
Mordin is a very hard character to write – even harder to write well. "The Importance of Thermal Clips" by "rent-a-bird" was perfect, and had me laughing hysterically for minutes.
I'm not sure how to categorize the very ambitious "Interstitium" by "AssaultSloth". His grasp of the characters' speech is impressive, but his ability to - to me, at least - accurately tell their personal stories is even more so. Most notably, this fic was the first I read that described how and why Cerberus would resurrect Shepard intact – and without space magic. I credit hi/r for their work, and formally note that their views on Shep's resurrection informed my own story. Many thanks, and equally recommended - the only reason it's at the end of this list of recommended reading is that it's _not_ about a relationship. Odd man out, but an excellent read none the less.
I hope that I didn't put-off too many people with my writing style. I knew that I could never string together a consistent story without jumping directly from interesting scene to interesting scene, because I'm rubbish at writing transitions. I also wanted to avoid two traps common in amateur writing; First, I tried to avoid novelizing the events already depicted and second, I tried to avoid writing scenes that didn't advance the story. The Mass Effect games are masterpieces of interactive storytelling, and I give full credit to their writing team (right up until the end). I didn't need to show some of the interactions, because the games did that for me. Mass Effect 3 was especially good about showing all the different character interactions in some way or another, so it didn't seem productive to rehash them. I cried – CRIED – when Mordin died, but that scene was perfect and powerful all by itself. I didn't need my ham-fisted attempt to cram it into my story just because it was powerful. Rather, I mentioned the event – and then used it as a stepping stone to continue telling THIS story, the story of Shepard and Tali. By the same token, some truly great scenes had to be omitted because they were parts of other stories – they didn't drive this one forward.
I thank you all – from the heart – for your attention and your approval. Thank you.
~ Cause and Author
What follows is the incredibly nerdy, somewhat technical, break down of exactly why I felt that the ending was a let down. If you've had enough of my stupid talking, you can stop here – I've said my peace. For the rest of you, read on!
My primary objection to the ending of Mass Effect was the total incoherence. This Google Doc: goo . gl / z7hxC makes a lot of truly excellent points regarding the events on-screen, and without rehashing their arguments I'd like to draw attention to some things. First, every time we have encountered the Reapers or their agents prior to the "Catalyst", they tell us that their purposes and ideas are so far beyond us that we wouldn't be able to understand them – then the Catalyst comes and says "oh, no, it's this perfectly simple thing I'm telling you, in two lines of dialogue." Second, the choices at the end: who, EXACTLY, built the magic reaper-destroying power conduit ON THE CITADEL? Where, EXACTLY, in the citadel's schematics are the two levers that – if the chosen magic human puts her hands on them – allow you to control the unstoppable killing machines? How, EXACTLY, does diving into a river of hot molten energy beam magically transform life? For that matter, what EXACTLY, is "Hybrid DNA", and how does it work? Are people suddenly computer programs, their bodies just like Geth Platforms? What process, EXACTLY, determines when a lump of metal and plastic is a tool and when it's a synthetic intelligence and ready for uplifting into hybrid DNA? Remembering that the Reapers built the Citadel, and that the Keepers remove or destroy any sign of previous inhabitants after each purge (with the notable - and sole - exception of the "Relay monument", which they might plausibly have mistaken for something that belonged there), why would the Reapers themselves build their own magic death switches?
Compounding that question, the Catalyst says that the docking of the Crucible has created new possibilities that didn't exist before. Why – aren't the reapers capable of building a crucible of their very own if they wanted? Couldn't they have done exactly this millions of years ago, when they first discovered the plans for the Crucible? And if these possibilities are so new, when and how did the magic buttons get built, installed, hooked up to the Citadel? You know, the magic buttons that perform a function that couldn't have existed before docking the Crucible?
Taken together, these questions paint a picture of the team behind the ending that is less than flattering. In order to not have a coronary every time I thought of it, I began this fiction seeking to look for logical, rational reasons behind the endings. No matter how hard I tried, no logical purpose exists for allowing someone to control the Reapers – no sentient creature would build in a "reprogram me for funsies" switch into its central control center - and the Reapers shouldn't have a central anything. Sovereign says that each Reaper is a nation unto itself; why would they have a master control center if they're all functionally independent?
No amount of science or biology could explain Hybrid DNA – so the synthesis ending gets chalked up to "Bullshit" as well. That leaves Destruction – which actually makes sense.
A weapon, designed and refined over the Eons, with one purpose: destroy the reapers. How? Massive energy pulse, tuned or directed at the level of sophisticated hyper-advanced hardware that makes up the Reapers, their constructs, and their troops. Okay – so the Crucible is a giant energy-field generator. So the original design is a one-shot device – big blast o' energy, and the nearest reapers are destroyed. That's no good – we see it using the relays in all of the endings; why? What if the crucible only works once? No, because no species would build a failure-prone magic weapon – that's stupid.
One explanation is that the Crucible would need to be built in secret, far from the Reapers. Once built, it would need to be taken into combat and used – but that's too risky. The device could be destroyed by Reapers, and then where would you be? No – the best use would be to somehow have it built far from the fighting, and work at a distance – which implies using the Relays, since every civilization that has ever contributed to this has used the relays and mass effect physics to get around. They wouldn't be capable of inventing any other kind of FTL travel, so it would have to be relays. And as we've already seen established in the series, the Citadel is the center of all relay travel – the Reapers usual MO is to hit the citadel first, cut off politics, trade, and communication, then shut down the relays for everyone but themselves – Javik, the Vigil VI on Ilos, and Sovereign itself all say the same thing. This implies that the Citadel is the heart of the relay network. So the weapon gets redesigned to use the Citadel to modulate the Relay network to get its reaper-be-gone beam to every part of the galaxy.
Okay – so far, so good. And in some low EMS endings, we see the relays destroyed – which is understandable, since low EMS means that the Crucible takes damage during the approach to the Citadel, so it's misfiring. Okay, that's easy enough to believe, and in high EMS endings the relays are fine except that their Eezo cores are gone. Not destroyed – we've seen what happens when a relay core gets destroyed, and this looks nothing like the Alpha / Bahak relay explosion. The eezo is just … gone. Why? Well, the galaxy is a huge place. The amount of energy it would take to create a burst of energy that goes everywhere is almost incalculable, and there's no way the crucible packs that much power. Again, we default to the most likely explanation: The Crucible's energy blast, modulated by the relay-controlling-citadel, consumes the Eezo core of the relay in order to repeat the signal to the next relay(s). Each relay consumed is basically starting the energy blast all over again – NOT transmitting the original blast through the relays.
Everybody got that? Good, there will be a test.
So, now we've established a logical reason for the crucible, how it would work, and why it does what we see it do ( in the only plausible ending ). But there's a few more things we have to explain. The Catalyst warns us that the Geth would be destroyed, as would Shepard. Why? Because they're synthetic? Let's back that up and look at it.
Since we're examining the crucible using logic and physics, we need to establish how it chooses its targets. It seems easy enough – examine enough pieces of dead reapers / husks / harvesters / etc and you'll find the common element or elements that make up Reaper tech. Something unique to them and only them, something they didn't use in the relays or the citadel. Why not the hyper-advanced Citadel or Relays? Because each cycle studies the relays and citadel, and learns _EXACTLY ENOUGH_ advanced science to get Mass Effect physics and relay travel down. In our own cycle, nobody even knows how the citadel works, or why, or what it's even made of – but the Protheans not only knew, they made their own mass relay (The Conduit from Ilos). Yet, even with the ability to build their own Relays, the Protheans were unable to defeat the Reapers.
Since the Reapers built all this with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of speeding technological development, we have to assume that they would build these things to be as primitive as possible while still working forever. If they built the relays and citadel the same way they built themselves, a clever enough cycle could build their own reaper-type starships and fight on equal footing – which is counterproductive. So the relays and citadel must be much more primitive than the Reapers themselves. So the crucible energy wouldn't destroy them – because they're not built like Reapers. Do you follow? If I build a laser that only melts "Metal 1" and point it at "metal 2", nothing will happen – even though they're both metals, metal 2 is different from metal 1, and so the metal-1-destroying-laser wouldn't do anything to it. For the same reasons, the Geth MUST be immune to the crucible. The Geth were built by the Quarians, out of local materials, and in the local style. They continued to build themselves in the same way, using locally available materials. Since the games tell us that the Geth are rarely seen outside the veil, we must assume that they use materials found in the veil. Since Rannoch was formed out of the stellar dust that makes up the rest of the Perseus Veil, we have to assume that they're using the same or similar materials as the original Geth, and Quarian spacecraft, and etc. Okay? If this is true, then why would our reaper-be-gone affect the Geth in any way? They're not built according to reaper spec, they're not built out of reaper metal or hyper-advanced tech – they're our very own technology. By the time the ending rolls around, the ONLY thing advanced about the Geth is that they've become truly sentient – thanks to Reaper code.
BUT! How could a blast of energy read a mind? How could it interface with the Geth and determine that they were using Reaper code? Code is software – software is 1's and 0's running on hardware. Hardware is voltage changes and soldered connectors – so how would the beam detect anything other than voltage changes? How would it know to melt the reapers and the geth, but not the starships of the organic races? Or their guns? Or their armor? Or their buildings? It's an inconsistency, so we must discard it. The Geth are fine – will be fine, unless they began using Reaper-material or metal or technology in their physical platforms.
Finally, Shepard. Full of cybernetics, and the Catalyst tells us that we're part synthetic as well – so we would be destroyed. Refering to the Geth argument above, I say no. If Shep was rebuilt using reaper parts, you'd be indoctrinated by the time ME3 started - just like the illusive man. If you were rebuilt using reaper-inspired tech, you'd be far and away more complex and more advanced technology than ever seen before. But that can't be true, for three reasons.
Reason #1 - Cerberus put you back together again. This means that their scientists had to have access to enough of this technology to be familiar with how it works – Shepard is incredibly valuable to them, they wouldn't risk fucking up and destroying you with technology they don't understand enough to use. Furthermore, you're revived to fight collectors – who are discovered to be Reaper agents fairly quickly. If Cerberus had enough reaper stuff around to build Shep out of it, they would be indoctrinated already – and they wouldn't want you to fight Reapers, or their minions.
Reason #2 – you can upgrade yourself. In ME2, you find upgrades for stuff – including yourself. This implies that whatever cybernetics you're made of, improvements can still be made. Since we're assuming that Reaper tech or reaper-inspired tech would be super advanced, this suggests that your cybernetics are at best advanced by our standards, but not bleeding-edge top-of-the-line – otherwise, improvement wouldn't be possible with our level of technology.
Reason #3 – Sheps implants are inconsistent with either husk-style implants or Dr. Eva Core's robot body. Dr. Chakwas can even do surgery to improve your appearance by tinkering with your implants – which suggests, at least to me, that your implants are not hyper advanced, just very thorough. We refer again to the Geth argument – how and why would the anti-reaper energy have any effect on non-reaper metal and parts?
I also rejected the idea that the Normandy would crash – why? No other ships crash, and the whole sequence is absurd. The games tell us that relay transit is nearly instantaneous, and of fixed speed. Why and how would the energy travel faster through a relay than the ship? And since the first thing Traynor tells you when you come aboard is that they pulled out all the Cerberus tech – everything that could possibly have been reaper-based or reaper-inspired – why would the beam do anything to the ship at all? This includes EDI – again, she's code stored in hardware. That hardware is advanced, but WELL within our own limited technological understanding (she was originally the Luna base VI, home grown). The exception is her body – obviously reaper-tastic, it would have been disabled by the energy just like the rest of the Reapers. EDIT: I forgot to update this note after I read more about EDI's creation. Her actual core computing hardware was built based on parts of Sovereign, so I concede that she might have been damaged by the anti-reaper beam. I chose to have said damage be non-fatal, because in the game she comments that her personality has spread to every system and subsystem in the ship. Still, any physical change at all would upset the quantum state, and would create a new personality. I hope I handled that well.
EDIT 2: It has also been pointed out to me that I never explained the Citadel opening. This was intentional; the careful reader will notice that I also didn't include any mention of Javik in the ending scenes. There are two ways to explain this; one, Javik is the one who makes it to the Citadel and opens the arms - he dies carrying out his revenge. Two, the Crucible - built to interface with the Citadel in a cycle when the citadel-first plan must have happened normally - transmitted the arm-opening code to the citadel and thus to the Keepers. After all, if the cycle that first incorporated the Citadel into the plans knew they needed it, they would also know that they needed to be able to control it. The Protheans eventually came to understand the Citadel and the Relays (including the ability to sabotage the communication between the Citadel, Reapers, and Keepers), so his doesn't seem too far fetched.
So there you have it – all the reasons I objected to the ending(s), and the things I specifically sought to address in my writing. I hope that I conveyed these assumptions in the text without having to explain them – it wouldn't have been in character for them to know how the device works, or why.