To start of, spoilers, run away from the forums, the trailers, the internet if you haven't finished that game yet. Best thing I did for ME3 was a complete media black out so STAY AWAY.

For the others interested in what exactly happens at the end of Mass Effect 3 here's a complete analysis (warning, it's even bleaker than you though it was):

From the point were Shepard gets hit by the reaper laser (possible dream state after that, unlikely but possible):

The 2 squadmates you chose for the mission retreat by shuttle to the Normandy and leave Shepard to die (that part is non-sense on 10 billion different levels but it's the only really contrived part of the ending).

Shepard makes it up the beam. Dialog boss fight with the illusive man (kind of clever for a final showdown, no gunplay, just dialogue wheels). Final moments with Anderson. Second black out (possible dream state after that, unlikely)

You meet with either god, a ancient VI or AI from a long gone civilization, the last of a race of AIs or a child made out of stars, I don't know. The important thing is, you make a decision about the future of the galaxy. In the end that choice is less meaningful than it seems and here's why:

In all 3 endings the relays are destroyed after the ''choice shockwave''(controlling the reapers, destroying them or synthesis). From the explosion that the Normandy tries to outrun at the end (coming from either the sol relay or the citadel not the choice shockwave which is harmless to them) we can safely assume that the entire fleet, reapers, allies and solar system are vaporized in a split second.

Proof: we can determine that the explosion traveled several light years chasing the Normandy (the closest system is light years away and the Normandy clearly crash-lands in another system). With simple math, since the energy dissipates really fast with a spherical blast and it still powerful enough to critically damage the Normandy light years away from the origin, all matter close to this origin point is likely turned into a goo of plasma.

That means your friend who didn't make it to the Normandy, the entire allied fleet and earth you spent an entire game trying to save are no more after the end of ME3 (bummer huh?)

Furthermore, depending on the size of the explosion from the relays we can assume that the state of other systems in the galaxy isn't that much different.

There is another explanation of course but it doesn't make sense. We could assume that Joker fled to the Sol relay for no apparent reason and that the Normandy is tying to outrun a Mass Relay directional blast after the relay explosion. Pretty stupid but could be true.

So anyway, the superior capabilities of Joker and speed of the Normandy are almost enough to escape the blast.

Your crew crash-lands on a mysterious new planet.

Fast forward at least 30 years, the crew (com officers, privates, squadmates) have rebuilt a new society on this new planet (the same planet the crew crash lands on, same sky). The story of how shepard saved the human race is now legend. The End...

So yeah, even if it's on of the most depressing ending to any fiction I have ever seen, it's still not that bad. Sure, after that one, no mass effect ever again but aside from that and the stupid retreating squadmates (see beginning of post) I'd say it's a good ending to an epic saga.

EDIT:

After reviewing comments and theories from you guys I can see 3 possible ways to explain the Normandy bit. For the part where squadmates retreat to the ship @huntersq theorized ''From all that, it is understandable that Shepard's squad retreated back to the Normandy. They are being overwhelmed on Earth, Shepard is already in the Citadel, Teleport beam no longer working (again, speculation).''

For the Normandy:

1- The rest of the ending after one of the 2 black outs is all a dream and it's going to be retcon with DLC (keep dreaming, no pun intended)

Pros: some people will stop bitching?

Cons: It was all a dream! would be the laziest and shitiest way to end Shepard's journey. Also, the epilogue and ending cinematic would be there for no reason.

2- The mass relays explosions destroys most of sentient life in the galaxy (see explanation up there ^)

Pros: No contrived explanation for why the Normandy is running from an explosion

Cons: It doesn't fit tonally with the rest of the ending (marines cheering on earth). Also, EVERYONE IS DEAD.

3-Joker took the Normandy to the Sol relay (that part is not shown in the ending cinematic) before the relay explodes and the relay explosion. With that theory the realay explosion is directional blast that travels between relays destroying them but leaving the systems intact. The ''mass tunnel'' collapses mid flight and the Normandy is left stranded in a unknown system.

Pros: Everyone is not dead.

Cons: you have to come up with a pretty contrived explanation for why joker took the relay, leaving Shepard behind. Normandy leaving the system isn't shown in the ending cinematic.

So, which one do you prefer. Every one of these theories has flaws but there is no other explanation... at least that I could come up with.

The cinematic with the cheering soldiers illustrates that the energy blast does not roast the entire solar system, it just does whatever magic nonsense the Star Child said it was going to. The Relays are a means of propagating the magic throughout the galaxy, and the Arrival canon of what happens when a Relay blows up is handwaved, or changed based on the energy being directed in a controled chain reaction. Don't be silly.

@Encephalon: than what is the Normandy running from exactly?

The choice shockwave (didn't find a better name) is before the relays and the citadel explosion. So I guess everyone is happy before they all die... this is even more sad now

Everything involving the Normandy is the writers bending over backward to force some deep Garden of Eden nonsense. Come on. I'll be the first to admit that the ending is bad, but it's clearly not meant to be apocalyptic on a galactic scale.

that flame, fire, whatever, that the Normandy is trying to outrun, I think is not the explosion you suggest. 
 
What it appears to be is that while the Normandy was in motion within the relay, in super speed, the relays  starting blowing up. So that flame chasing the Normandy is the relay tunnel collapsing. They plotted the journey through the relay and then midway through the relay blows up. So the Normandy was going in extreme speed and now it is coming to a sudden stop... the ship probably could not handle the extreme change and started breaking up. 
 
Why was the Normandy in the relay? Left Shepard behind? Odd. In the final run towards the beam, the squad members are shown later on as being on the Normandy when it crashed on a planet.  Didn't they run towards the beam too?    

Godammit you guys, I spent a long time trying to make sens of this ending but you've convince me. This shit just dosen't make ANY SENSE AT ALL.

It has more plot holes than heavy rain for god's sake. The music was pretty good tough

What's the purpose of this thread? The OP reads like a fourth grade book report...

@Kevin_Cogneto: NO U

The part where the squad mates retreated to the shuttle and end up on the Normandy makes sense, If you think about the situation they are in.

- They know that Shepard ended up in the Citadel (as General Hackett was communicated with Shepard in the Citadel).

- They are being attacked on all fronts as the reapers were heading back to the Earth's surface.

- The teleport beam no longer works after Shepard and Anderson was teleported (I am only speculating this because this is the only reason I can think of why none of Shepard's squad followed suit like Anderson did)

From all that, it is understandable that Shepard's squad retreated back to the Normandy. They are being overwhelmed on Earth, Shepard is already in the Citadel, Teleport beam no longer working (again, speculation). Once the Citadel opened up, one would think that Shepard's squad would want to reach Shepard through the Normandy, thus all his mates are in the ship.

Why the Normandy ended up in a Mass Relay when it is being destroyed is beyond me though... erm... Story convienance? TBE (to be explained) in DLC? It's a prequel to Assassin's Creed's Garden of Eden? It all makes sense!

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a second, people. These guys wouldn't create a fantastic universe just to say, "Fuck it," at the end of a trilogy. I would like to think that there is much more in store for Mass Effect, and this will, in the end, be explained (unlike the LOST ending). I'm not one of those guys saying, "There's a meaning to it!" No, this simply must work out in the end. This is Mass Effect, God dammit! Plus, I didn't read three novels, beat three games, and love every part of everything just to see the idea of this universe go flying out a window!

I didn't feel like finding a better place to post this, so there you go. Anybody agree that there's more to this, and that many people are over-analyzing the ending?

EDIT: Bottom line: keep your save files.

@Evilmetal: I'm not sure that space works that way, even in science-fiction. I also think that they were running away from the "blast" thing.

Lastly, unrelated to what I was saying, what was with that after-the-credits scene? I think that some people thought that it was some old guy making up a story for his grandson. When I saw it, I figured that it was a guy that had lived through the events and was telling his grandson about it, simple as that. Furthermore, "Shepard has become a legend" doesn't sound like a make-believe story. You know what I mean by that.

I'm sorry@VodkaMedia: but the more I think about it and the more the let's flee trough the sol relay part is unexplanebale non sense just there to create a garden of eden alegory

Simple; Joker was trying to save EDI. And before you say "but her robot body was on Earth at the end," recall from the beginning of the game that she said the majority of herself still existed within the Normandy. And even if you want to argue that the part of her that was in the body is now lost forever, she's an advanced AI so it's not unreasonable to think that she'll eventually be back to normal from what still remained of her on the Normandy.

People say the ending is stupid, yet they can't even see that 1+1=2.

I know it's a video game, but it's also a piece of science fiction. I know you're used to Caw a Dooty, but if you're going to play a very heavy scifi game, fucking think for yourself. Everything isn't always spelled out in black and white in works of fiction.

@ShaggyChu: How does Joker know what the choice shockwave (thank you @pyrodactyl, that's what I'm going to call it forever, now) would even do? And if he did know what it would do, why does he fly away to save EDI even in the blue and green variations, where the choice shockwave poses her no harm whatsoever?

Also shame on you for pulling that terrible Caw a Dooty shit

@Kevin_Cogneto: I have to agree. Never have I cringed at so many blatant spelling errors. Even the most simple of minds can use spell check. What the fuck is wrong with people?

@huntersq said:

TBE (to be explained) in DLC?

Why didn't you just type out 'to be explained'?

@ShaggyChu:

You sure do come off as a condescending asshole when you're wrong and you talk down to people. Joker has no clue what Shepherd is about to unleash on The Citadel so he would have no reason to think that EDI would be in danger, and in two of the endings EDI isn't in danger. Oh, and way to throw that "caw a dooty" bullshit in there, really proved to me that you're a mature individual who only enjoys the most refined video games.

@WalkerD said:

@huntersq said:

TBE (to be explained) in DLC?

Why didn't you just type out 'to be explained'?

"TBE in DLC" sounded cooler in my head~

@huntersq: I can appreciate that.

Just tell me why it was a child....I dont care if it's supposed to be god why does it manifest as a child?

Now I'm getting confused. I just bet the game and went through all the stuff you guys said (although I think I misunderstood what the game was telling me about the choices at the end). But did I see something nobody else did? Did nobody else notice that Shepard is alive at the end? When the camera cuts to her and you see and hear her take a breath?

It seems like kind of a big point to go unsaid.

@Sgtpierceface said:

Now I'm getting confused. I just bet the game and went through all the stuff you guys said (although I think I misunderstood what the game was telling me about the choices at the end). But did I see something nobody else did? Did nobody else notice that Shepard is alive at the end? When the camera cuts to her and you see and hear her take a breath?

It seems like kind of a big point to go unsaid.

Apparently, that is a ending special sequence if you have over 5000 military strength in readiness before you attack the illusive man. a quick search through youtube can find a footage of a figure wearing burned up N7 Armour in rubble slightly twitching showing signs of life.

I haven't gotten over 5000, and I presume alot of others didn't either, so most of us might not have seen this "special ending" and could neither confirm or deny Shepard being "alive" or not. (however, from my ending of synthesis, it didn't make any sense for shepard to be alive because he joined the lifestream, conscious, terra, whatever the hell that is...)

However, whether or not Shepard is alive at the end is moot. The biggest problems of the ending is because of the "cyclical theology" that makes no sense, attempts to break away from fate (the cycle), a "higher power", war between creator and created, sacrifice of the few for the many, the garden of Eden metaphors, etc. The ending was trying to draw on too many of these theologies and with too short of an exposition (basically everything is addressed in the last 10 minutes of the game) that it felt convoluted and at first viewing/playing felt that it is executed badly.

I am sure that like any good book, with subsequent play throughs, the game would make more sense. I do remember very subtle hints of each aspect during the game that the ending was trying to convey. But there is no denying the question of "WHY WAS THE NORMANDY ESCAPING IN THE MASS RELAY AND ABANDONING SHEPARD?!?!?!"

@Vinny_Says said:

Just tell me why it was a child....I dont care if it's supposed to be god why does it manifest as a child?

Because of its totally juvenile and fallacious logic.

Okay a little more seriously, so that Shepard considers the options it's presenting to him/her and doesn't immediately decide to kill the genocidal creature.

What the hell is with Synthesis anyways? What a shitty way to go, apparently nothing really happening. Reapers leave, Shepard's either dead or embedded in AI, and Joker's got a mission off-planet. Also, am I the only one who thought the old guy at the end sounded a lot like the Illusive man?

I was satisfied. You guys are crazy for raging like that over the endings. What did you want? A happy bullshit ending like that of Harry Potter? Fuck that.

Everything after you get hit by Harbinger's laser takes place inside Shepard's head.

TIM's choice (Control) and Saren's choice (Synthesis) are presented by the kid as the good choices, while he presents the 'destroy' choice as the bad one. That's of course only an interpretation, but if you listen to his dialogue I think you'll agree.

The kid is a Reaper (harbinger?). He says "I know you've thought about destroying US"

If you listen very carefully to the kid's dialogue, you can hear that Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer are also reading the lines. I'm not making that up. Jennifer Hale is in the left ear, Mark Meer in the right. That further suggests that it's just inside Shepard's head.

When you pick Synthesis or Control, Shepard drops her gun, which is symbolic of giving up. In the Destroy ending, Shepard shoots the power conduit, which makes no sense in the context of triggering the crucible, but it's a rebellious act and represents Shepard breaking free of Harbinger's attempt to indoctrinate her. If you pick the Destroy ending and have high enough EMS, there is a cutscene where Shepard wakes up in London.

Indoctrination is described in the codex as making the indoctrinated think that the Reapers are divine, that they have a good purpose and that you must help them. Throughout the games we also learn that it causes strange dreams, and hallucinations, ghostly images etc.

Shepard's dreams could be PTSD, but it could also be the Reapers beginning to invade her mind. Each dream gets increasingly dark, and in the later ones you see those black smoke pillars kinda shaped like humans. When TIM is controlling you in the end, you see kind of similar black lines invading the screen. It's not super similar, but maybe something.

Also, throughout ME3 there is a constant theme of questioning Shepard, whether she's herself, if she's felling alright, if she's still Cerberus etc.

Some people also speculate that the kid is a pure hallucination from the beginning. He runs through a locked door into the house that gets blown up, after he says "you can't help me" (which is a weird line for a kid), Anderson calls your name and you snap out of your thoughts. Strange reaper noises can be heard at that point (quite different from the other ambient reaper noises). In the 3rd book that's described as happening when Greyson is fighting his indoctrination. Furthermore, no one seems to ever interact with the kid, or even notice that he's there. When he boards the shuttle, no one helps him even though it's a freaking kid! Everyone else gets helped aboard.

@kyrieee: God damn it. I think the kid WAS a hallucination now. A method of indoctrination that the Reapers exert on Shepard to stop him/her killing the Reapers.

God damn it.

Game of the year. (Although the endings were still bad.)

@Vinny_Says said:

Just tell me why it was a child....I dont care if it's supposed to be god why does it manifest as a child?

The closest explanation I can come up with to that question is that the Reaper VI took on a form that was familiar to Shepard. Why it choose that particular memory I do not know. It's sort of the same thing that happened on the Tron level when removing the Reaper code from the Geth. Legion was showing Shepard recordings from several years in the past when the quarians created the Geth, but the Quarian's still appeared in their body suits because that was how Shepard perceived the Quarian's at large.

@kyrieee said:

Everything after you get hit by Harbinger's laser takes place inside Shepard's head.

TIM's choice (Control) and Saren's choice (Synthesis) are presented by the kid as the good choices, while he presents the 'destroy' choice as the bad one. That's of course only an interpretation, but if you listen to his dialogue I think you'll agree.

The kid is a Reaper (harbinger?). He says "I know you've thought about destroying US"

If you listen very carefully to the kid's dialogue, you can hear that Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer are also reading the lines. I'm not making that up. Jennifer Hale is in the left ear, Mark Meer in the right. That further suggests that it's just inside Shepard's head.

When you pick Synthesis or Control, Shepard drops her gun, which is symbolic of giving up. In the Destroy ending, Shepard shoots the power conduit, which makes no sense in the context of triggering the crucible, but it's a rebellious act and represents Shepard breaking free of Harbinger's attempt to indoctrinate her. If you pick the Destroy ending and have high enough EMS, there is a cutscene where Shepard wakes up in London.

Indoctrination is described in the codex as making the indoctrinated think that the Reapers are divine, that they have a good purpose and that you must help them. Throughout the games we also learn that it causes strange dreams, and hallucinations, ghostly images etc.

Shepard's dreams could be PTSD, but it could also be the Reapers beginning to invade her mind. Each dream gets increasingly dark, and in the later ones you see those black smoke pillars kinda shaped like humans. When TIM is controlling you in the end, you see kind of similar black lines invading the screen. It's not super similar, but maybe something.

Also, throughout ME3 there is a constant theme of questioning Shepard, whether she's herself, if she's felling alright, if she's still Cerberus etc.

Some people also speculate that the kid is a pure hallucination from the beginning. He runs through a locked door into the house that gets blown up, after he says "you can't help me" (which is a weird line for a kid), Anderson calls your name and you snap out of your thoughts. Strange reaper noises can be heard at that point (quite different from the other ambient reaper noises). In the 3rd book that's described as happening when Greyson is fighting his indoctrination. Furthermore, no one seems to ever interact with the kid, or even notice that he's there. When he boards the shuttle, no one helps him even though it's a freaking kid! Everyone else gets helped aboard.

Wow that actually makes more sense than anything I've come up with.

I gathered the image of the kid was just a form the catalyst took talk to Shepard, I guess i was expecting a bad ending from all the hate online, even trying to avoid it I still knew that people didn't like it, so when I finally beat the game I was expecting far worse. Narrowing it down to 3 choices, Light/Dark/Gray did seem like a letdown, and the biggest failing was the lack of difference between the three endings, I went to youtube and found the other endings just to see how they were different and finding they were all the same, minus the color and who gets out of the ship, That's the part that I'm disappointed in.

I was enjoying everything up till the beam hits and everyone is burned to a crisp.

@phrosnite said:

I was satisfied. You guys are crazy for raging like that over the endings. What did you want? A happy bullshit ending like that of Harry Potter? Fuck that.

People aren't bothered about it being bleak, they're bothered about it being shit.

You can do a story that isn't happy without totally fucking everything up ya know, Halo: Reach did a far better job at depicting one bleak situation.

@Encephalon said:

And if he did know what it would do, why does he fly away to save EDI even in the blue and green variations, where the choice shockwave poses her no harm whatsoever?

I haven't seen the blue and green endings yet, so I don't know.

Everything you already knew:  None of it makes sense and then no time is given to explain what you just saw.  The End.
 
The beginning and the end of that game are nowhere near as polished as the rest of it and there must have been some real time management problems and some higher up just said, 'No more time. Ship it.'

Plenty of explanations that actually make sense going on at the official forums.

Plenty of explanations that actually make sense going on at the official forums.

@kyrieee said:

Everything after you get hit by Harbinger's laser takes place inside Shepard's head.

TIM's choice (Control) and Saren's choice (Synthesis) are presented by the kid as the good choices, while he presents the 'destroy' choice as the bad one. That's of course only an interpretation, but if you listen to his dialogue I think you'll agree.

The kid is a Reaper (harbinger?). He says "I know you've thought about destroying US"

If you listen very carefully to the kid's dialogue, you can hear that Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer are also reading the lines. I'm not making that up. Jennifer Hale is in the left ear, Mark Meer in the right. That further suggests that it's just inside Shepard's head.

When you pick Synthesis or Control, Shepard drops her gun, which is symbolic of giving up. In the Destroy ending, Shepard shoots the power conduit, which makes no sense in the context of triggering the crucible, but it's a rebellious act and represents Shepard breaking free of Harbinger's attempt to indoctrinate her. If you pick the Destroy ending and have high enough EMS, there is a cutscene where Shepard wakes up in London.

Indoctrination is described in the codex as making the indoctrinated think that the Reapers are divine, that they have a good purpose and that you must help them. Throughout the games we also learn that it causes strange dreams, and hallucinations, ghostly images etc.

Shepard's dreams could be PTSD, but it could also be the Reapers beginning to invade her mind. Each dream gets increasingly dark, and in the later ones you see those black smoke pillars kinda shaped like humans. When TIM is controlling you in the end, you see kind of similar black lines invading the screen. It's not super similar, but maybe something.

Also, throughout ME3 there is a constant theme of questioning Shepard, whether she's herself, if she's felling alright, if she's still Cerberus etc.

Some people also speculate that the kid is a pure hallucination from the beginning. He runs through a locked door into the house that gets blown up, after he says "you can't help me" (which is a weird line for a kid), Anderson calls your name and you snap out of your thoughts. Strange reaper noises can be heard at that point (quite different from the other ambient reaper noises). In the 3rd book that's described as happening when Greyson is fighting his indoctrination. Furthermore, no one seems to ever interact with the kid, or even notice that he's there. When he boards the shuttle, no one helps him even though it's a freaking kid! Everyone else gets helped aboard.

Holy shit. This actually makes a lot of sense.

@kyrieee: Your post actually seems to make sense, everything being inside Shepard's head and/or effects of indoctrination. If RED ending is supposed to be the only one that shows Shepard breathing does it mean that galaxy is back to Geth are evil stance or is it just supposed to imply that he/she is fighting and breaking the possible indoctrination.

If they showed Shepard alive with other endings it would suggest the hallucination/mind trip theory makes actually sense. Shepard weights the options and then wakes up after being blasted by Harbringer. Everything after that has been just a "bad trip", corpse tunnel, Andersson & Sheen and ghost kid with his space slot machine. It still leaves the Crucible + Citadel thingy and how it will end Reapers really hard to explain but still it would be there....having most endings being fake outs is bad design if anything. (Persona 3 had one, it made sense and I kinda liked it too. If you kill the Nyx avatar the game skips ahead few months and the world supposedly ends while everyone is oblivious to it and you get credits, it is non-conventional one but it is proper ending still)

I may have to quickly restart it and check the ghost kid scene again from the beginning if I can catch that "Strange reaper noises can be heard at that point (quite different from the other ambient reaper noises)" you mentioned.

Btw if you are all the way Renegade, why would ghost image of a kid slow Shepard's actions at all? Having sacrificed entire races to death and letting civilians and uninvolved people get killed is no biggie but that ghost image of a kid he saw on earth, oh snap! Among other things that make no sense...

How many of you thought about shooting the ghost? I did after I checked second ending and started to go through them in my head, Paragon -> Green.

Aren't Mass Relays supposed to be instantaneous? That's how they were shown as being in ME1 and 2.

I think Shepard died the moment Harbinger's laser struck, i don't see how anyone could survive that with only a few bruises and part of their armor disintigrated. Everything inside the Citadel was Shepard in stuck in limbo. I know that sounds a lot like LOST but that's what i believe anyway.

@xyzygy said:

Aren't Mass Relays supposed to be instantaneous? That's how they were shown as being in ME1 and 2.

They are! I don't know where people came up with the "traveling through the Relay" theory, in the escape scene you see Joker frantically working at the controls(trying to squeeze more power out of the engines likely). Since he obviously had no idea what the Crucible Shockwave would do, he just set a course out of the system and tried to fly away as fast as he could.

@phrosnite said:

I was satisfied. You guys are crazy for raging like that over the endings. What did you want? A happy bullshit ending like that of Harry Potter? Fuck that.

Aren't we past the whole "I'm super tough and like gritty endings! Everything isn't a fairy tale you damn pansies!" thing, really?

I don't think many people here are really complaining about the tone of the ending, I'm perfectly fine with it being morbid, I just wish it was better, something that would actually fit with the grand series and fiction they have developed, it's a very very weak ending to what has, for the most part, been a solid and well-written story.

@Jedted: I always thought that they "just" greatly increased travel speeds (having trip from edge to edge of galaxy taking days/weeks instead of you know, eternity) but if they are actually instant then ok. Still it makes no sense that Joker & co crash on other planet which clearly isn't in Sol system.

Anyone interested in the Hallucination/Indoctrination Theory can read more about it here. I sincerely thought it was desperate and crazy myself before I realized that all of the points they're making fill in nearly every plothole.

@Jedted said:

@xyzygy said:

Aren't Mass Relays supposed to be instantaneous? That's how they were shown as being in ME1 and 2.

They are! I don't know where people came up with the "traveling through the Relay" theory, in the escape scene you see Joker frantically working at the controls(trying to squeeze more power out of the engines likely). Since he obviously had no idea what the Crucible Shockwave would do, he just set a course out of the system and tried to fly away as fast as he could.

When you enter the Omega 4 Relay in ME2 you spend the travel time with your love interest. It's a few hours to the centre of the galactic disc so i assume that, depending on where you're traveling to, it can take a great deal of time.

@khidi said:

I may have to quickly restart it and check the ghost kid scene again from the beginning if I can catch that "Strange reaper noises can be heard at that point (quite different from the other ambient reaper noises)" you mentioned.

Here's a link for you, you hear the noises at about 11:30:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zRLwo-wAvI

Here's another link, in which you can hear Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer's voices for the kid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gssML_aVmk

At 1:35-1:40 you can hear both quite clearly. You hear Jennifer Hale in the left ear, especially when she says "alone". Mark Meer is tricker, but he's there in the right ear.

@khidi said:

@Jedted: I always thought that they "just" greatly increased travel speeds (having trip from edge to edge of galaxy taking days/weeks instead of you know, eternity) but if they are actually instant then ok. Still it makes no sense that Joker & co crash on other planet which clearly isn't in Sol system.

They're not instant. They provide "instantaneous" travel across the galaxy, but if you read how mass effect fields work in the codex, you'll find that the relays lower a ship's mass to practically nothing, which makes it possible for the ship to travel so fast that it seems instantaneous. A trip between systems may take seconds or minutes, across the galaxy may be a few hours.

@Potts said:

@khidi said:

@Jedted: I always thought that they "just" greatly increased travel speeds (having trip from edge to edge of galaxy taking days/weeks instead of you know, eternity) but if they are actually instant then ok. Still it makes no sense that Joker & co crash on other planet which clearly isn't in Sol system.

They're not instant. They provide "instantaneous" travel across the galaxy, but if you read how mass effect fields work in the codex, you'll find that the relays lower a ship's mass to practically nothing, which makes it possible for the ship to travel so fast that it seems instantaneous. A trip between systems may take seconds or minutes, across the galaxy may be a few hours.

My point being is that they've never shown a ship actually traveling through a Mass Relay corridor(just entering and exiting the Relay) so that's a pretty wild speculation of what Joker was actually doing.

the energy is dispersed through the relays, the relays break, not explode. SOL and other solar systems are fine.

There is also the fact that the synthesis of organics and synthetics is a large reason Saren gives in his speech for joining the reapers during the last fight in Mass 1. Sorry, don't have a link to a video.

@Jedted said:

@Potts said:

@khidi said:

@Jedted: I always thought that they "just" greatly increased travel speeds (having trip from edge to edge of galaxy taking days/weeks instead of you know, eternity) but if they are actually instant then ok. Still it makes no sense that Joker & co crash on other planet which clearly isn't in Sol system.

They're not instant. They provide "instantaneous" travel across the galaxy, but if you read how mass effect fields work in the codex, you'll find that the relays lower a ship's mass to practically nothing, which makes it possible for the ship to travel so fast that it seems instantaneous. A trip between systems may take seconds or minutes, across the galaxy may be a few hours.

My point being is that they've never shown a ship actually traveling through a Mass Relay corridor(just entering and exiting the Relay) so that's a pretty wild speculation of what Joker was actually doing.

In ME2, it shows them flying through the Mass Effect corridor when they go through the Omega 4 relay, but it's pretty brief. It's just before they come out in the core.