The paths are open, but you must choose.
The Catalyst's words echo in Shepard's mind, keeping time with the merciless pounding in his skull. He feels tired, so very tired, like he could lie down and sleep for eternity. Above him, the Reapers continue to obliterate the galactic fleet. Perhaps the most impressive armada ever assembled by organics, it is nevertheless hopelessly overmatched. The battle rages against the backdrop of his home planet. Vast fires vitiate the body of Mother Earth, radiating like angry wounds. Hundreds of millions have already perished on the surface, and more die every moment he delays. Billions are depending on him.
Miranda is depending on him.
The Catalyst watches impassively, as if he has all the time in the universe. He does. The clock ticks only for Shepard. The Crucible remains undamaged for now, but the Reapers could break through at any moment and annihilate it. He wonders if he could save time by shooting the little bastard in the head. Would that end the Cycle? Would the Reapers just... stop? Slip into dormancy? Turn off their shields? That would be convenient. He raises his gun and points it at the child's face. No, not a child. Not really. A child wouldn't look back at him that way, almost smug in his lack of concern.
Shepard lowers the weapon. The Catalyst is just a holographic representation of the fucking kid that's been haunting his dreams for months now. He hasn't had a decent night's sleep since that day in Vancouver, when the Reapers descended from the sky. Why does the Catalyst look like that boy? Shepard has no shortage of questions, but too little time to ask them. He turns wearily and faces the apparatus. A walkway extends before him, splitting into three paths ahead. Each path ends with a different destiny, so near and so far away. Why is it only now, after all that he has overcome, after all that he has sacrificed, that he feels daunted? Steeling himself against the pain that permeates his body, he begins shuffling forward, dragging one foot in front of the other.
The paths are open, but you must choose.
There is still the matter of choosing. Damn it. Why couldn't the Crucible simply command the Reapers to self-destruct or fly into the nearest star? Why is he being forced to participate in a demented game show hosted by an arch-enemy he never knew existed? Did the designers even know what the device would do, or were they just following some desperate vision born of madness or divine inspiration? The Catalyst told him the Crucible was little more than a giant battery, and yet it had somehow "changed the variables." Is that really what the designers had in mind? Were they as crazy as the Catalyst?
The Catalyst is nuts, of that there can be little doubt. An ancient AI stuck in an infinite loop, executing the same faulty program every fifty thousand years. Force the technological development of organics down predetermined pathways, await the creation of synthetics, turn the synthetics against their creators, harvest the organics to protect them from synthetics, GO TO TOP. A prophecy doomed to keep fulfilling itself because the game had been rigged.
The Catalyst compared the Reapers to a cleansing fire, as if they were simply a natural disaster, possessing purpose but no direction. Shepard thinks that doesn't ring true. The Catalyst is their professed master. If the Reapers are a fire, then the Catalyst is a serial arsonist.
The paths are open, but you must choose.
He is at the trifurcation. The time to choose has come. He stops to consider.
If he destroys the Reapers, there will be collateral damage.
The Crucible will not discriminate. All synthetics will be targeted. Even YOU are partly synthetic.
EDI will die, and the geth will be eradicated. The same geth he had saved at unimaginable cost. He thinks his own death might be a mercy. At least he wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that he sacrificed the quarians for nothing. On Rannoch, Tali and her people died because he had been unable to save them from themselves. He remembers the moment when Tali removed her mask. He caught a glimpse of her face as she fell, just out of reach of his outstretched hand. She was beautiful. She had loved him once.
He betrayed her.
He has betrayed so many.
Shepard sacrificed the quarians to give the geth life. Legion sacrificed himself to give them a soul. Now he must render both sacrifices meaningless? He set out to destroy the Reapers, and the means is finally within his grasp. He can finish it, but the cost is exorbitant, monstrous. How would he be remembered for the things he has done? Commander Shepard, savior of the galaxy, murderer of friends, perpetrator of not just one but two genocides. Three, including the Reapers. He is surprised to find that he cares about his legacy. Miranda had been right about that too.
Destroying the Reapers isn't the only option.
He can replace the Catalyst, accomplishing what the Illusive Man never could. Control the Reapers, become the galaxy's next overlord. It is an idea not entirely without appeal. Order is something he has come to value. Not the order of the Reapers, but the order of peace and unity. But the thing taking control wouldn't truly be him. He would die, bequeathing the Reapers to a machine intelligence created in his image. Would a Shepard VI really be an improvement over the Catalyst?
There's nothing this galaxy can't beat if we work together! Except the Reapers. Have you seen the size of those things?
How long until his digital copy became corrupted by the taint of the Reapers, until errors crept into his own subroutines? A hundred years? A few thousand? Once everyone he had ever known was long dead, would he forget his kinship to them? How many petty conflicts would he witness before he decided to end the chaos? How long until he became the thing he once abhorred? Who would stop him once that happened?
Synthesis then.
The Catalyst called it the final evolution of all life. A merging of synthetic and organic, leading to a mutual understanding and a lasting peace. Shepard can't even begin to fathom the fantastical science behind it. It sounds like the ideal result, but how could he force such a thing? The question gives him pause. Does he have the right to alter the very design of life? To forcibly modify every living organism, from the most complex sapient creature to the tiniest microbe? It feels like a violation. Like the sort of thing Henry Lawson might have inflicted on his daughters.
And yet look how Miranda and Oriana turned out. Perhaps he is too mired in quaint human morality to properly consider the question. The stars and planets do not care about morality. Wouldn't he be a fool to pass up this once-in-forever opportunity, given the consequences of the other choices? Hasn't he already made dozens of horrific choices just to get here? Hasn't he been given implicit sanction by those who appointed him as their savior to make just this sort of decision?
An Alliance dreadnought explodes overhead, silent but brilliant. Thousands die to drive home the point that there is no time for philosophizing.
The paths are open, but you must choose.
Shepard looks back at the Catalyst, then to each terminus in turn. An understanding comes over him. His face tightens with resolve as he takes the first step down his chosen path.