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[Johnfalcon99977]

I thought the title would grab your attention.

I just want to show you this 20 minute video, called the Shepard Indoctrination Theory.

The short verison of it is: The reason the ending of Mass Effect 3 makes no god damned sense is because its all in Shepards Mind. The final sequence of ME3 is Shepards own internal battle aganist his own indoctrination.

If your not convinced, I reccomend watching this video which provides 10 great peices of evidence for the Theory.

What do you think, bay12? Could this be actually what happened? Or is it just a bunch of coincidences and Bioware actually just wrote a horrible ending? I would love to hear your opinions!

[mainiac]

[Exerosp]

I liked the ending. Somewhat... That you actually died atleast. Would be a bit cliché and the such if you just survived in every game, against strong foes. But from what I saw... How exactly did it docile-ize the reapers and make them fly away and yaddayadda by getting desintegrated in that Beam?

[cerapa]

I liked the ending. Somewhat... That you actually died atleast. Would be a bit cliché and the such if you just survived in every game, against strong foes. But from what I saw... How exactly did it docile-ize the reapers and make them fly away and yaddayadda by getting desintegrated in that Beam?

I like to imagine that it didnt, and that Shepard was just a dumbass who jumped into a random beam cause someone told him to. The destroy option was there so Shepard wouldnt get suspicious.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Well, given that I was still hearing the cries of "ME3's ending sucks" and the video only had 800k views out the millions who played ME3, you could've fooled me.

[Domenique]

As far as I could remember, the devs commented on this theory and gave something that I would call a diplomatic "no". It would really be awesome, but I'm guessing it's not the case. Here's the statement:

Gamble also talked about the indoctrination theory, however vaguely. “The indoctrination theory kind of illustrates again how committed the fanbase is. The thing is, we don’t want to comment either way, because we don’t want to be prescriptive for how people interpret the ending, especially with the Extended Cut coming out. We want the content to speak for itself, so we’re going to let it do so.”

sauce: http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/mass-effect-retaken-bioware-described-extra-ending-content-at-surprisingly-

[Sonlirain]

I'm quite sure the Indoctrination Theory is correct and all.
However the ending still sucks and i hope the DLC corrects this.

Why?

Even if you get the correct ending with Shep still being alive you don't get any information about what the hell happened to all your comrades. Assuming everything that you see in the ending cinematic is just a reaper induced vision (the relays didn't go pop) you get NO information whatsoever on what the hell actually happened.
I can only assume your dudes killed off the reapers if you managed to rally the entire galaxy against them but you get no explicit information about... well anything.
You're left blind not knowing anything because everything in the outro besides shep taking a gasp of air is most likely a reaper vision.

The idea makes sense but it really needs to be built upon if it has to pass as a ending to a 3 part series.

[Darkmere]

Yeah, they've very subtly implied that all that space magic crap did actually happen, and they're going to stay with it. The cynic in me expects their "extended ending" to be a 2-minute clip showing the rest of the crew walking off the Normandy at the end, followed by a giant trollface.jpg.

I'd love to be wrong, though.

[Domenique]

Well I guess there's not much to tell about them other than they're alive and stranded on an uninhabitate planet, I'm not sure what's to tell about them without making a new "Lost" series. They could've made them crash on earth, that would have made a lot more sense and it would be interesting to build on. Then again, I always saw Mass Effect as a space opera more than a sci-fi universe, that's why the whole "space magic" didn't really spoil anything for me.

[MorleyDev]

Then again, I always saw Mass Effect as a space opera more than a sci-fi universe, that's why the whole "space magic" didn't really spoil anything for me.

I always thought even a Space Opera would try and explain it with something like "It'll destabilise your neutrino field, bouncing the main deflector dish off the vertical refrigeration unit causing a dissemination of your core genetic material into the hardline mainframe of the cosmos using the tribble dark matter relay system to transmogrify it into the organic and synthetic beings dwelling within their range by quantum tachyons to re-engage the second refraction drive", or at least showing spinning things that make noises to do the stuff for smaller things like space travel or laser guns.

That's basically one of the criteria for making things science fiction instead straight up fantasy, science fiction pretends to explain things.

[Darkmere]

I still like George Lucas' explanation of why all that death star wreckage didn't land on Endor. You see, blowing up the station caused it all just get sucked into a wormhole and spit out somewhere completely harmless, somewhere else. Except all the bits that were burning up in the atmosphere. And Vader's hand, that safely made it somewhere else.

*cough* Anyway, I do still kinda see the "oh there was a space kid and he did all this... surprise! I guess... here'syourendingspickacoloryaybehappywheeee" ending as the creative equivalent of mumbling through that part of a song you forgot and hoping no-one notices. Except LOTS of people notice that you're Milli Vanilli faking it and you flop-sweat then run off stage and try to bribe everyone into liking you again and where was this metaphor going?

[nenjin]

Sort of sounds like a "it was all a dream" rationalization. A particularly useful one considering it would allow Bioware to then go back and write the "actual" ending. Looking from the outside in, at times it strikes me that some ME fans are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome

[Tilla]

Something that takes place entirely in the mind of the protagonist is a fucking awful ending for an epic trilogy.

[fenrif]

As has been said, I'm fairly sure there's no truth to the indoctrination theory. Bioware have said it's not intended (though all that was intended was "lots of speculation by everyone!"). I do find it kind of hillarious that there are plot holes so humongous that you can fit entirely new endings in there.

Something that takes place entirely in the mind of the protagonist is a fucking awful ending for an epic trilogy.

The first time in the history of narratives that "it was all a dream" is the better ending of the two choices?!

[nenjin]

A bit like the choice between getting hit by a bus and being set on fire.