@N7:

I shed tears during that scene, and seeing Garrus comfort Edi on the synthesis ending was...amazing.

Synthesis was the shittiest ending I've ever encountered.  I chose 
it by accident on my first play through & was totally disappointed 
with this stupid, ME 3 universe killing ending.  If they were going 
to create a new ME after ME 3 & they used Synthesis, it would be 
the shittiest expansion that we could ever have!   If the whole  
galaxy is in perfect harmony where is the story??   Utopias are 
boring & stupid & as unrealistic as it gets since there is nothing 
in real life that exists in that sort of non-violent vacuum. 

Just finished the game today. I was going for the control option because what's cooler then becoming an immortal god. However, I thought you made the choice after running to the beam and ended up running straight to the synthesis option like an idiot. Synthesis feel too perfect for me and basically killed any possibility for a sequel since it's everlasting peace now.

Couldn't resist (mind the pun)

I accidentally did refuse, turned around and shot the kid for fun... and yeah

I finally picked ME3 back up with the EC and i wish i did this earlier, i actually really like the new ending. I felt it brought closure instead of just leaving me holding the bag in the end, you know what all the races are up to and get to see what your party members are doing, that's pretty much all i could ask for.

I also played a shit ton of multiplayer so i had 100% readiness which i didn't do previously, so all is forgiven(kinda).

The mission was always to destroy the Reapers. We didn't need a cack handed explanation as to their motivations, as was made abundantly clear by Sovereign in ME1: -

The god child is up there with midichorians as completely unnecessary plot devices. There never needed to be any other option than destroy.

@Kadayi said:

The mission was always to destroy the Reapers. We didn't need a cack handed explanation as to their motivations, as was made abundantly clear by Sovereign in ME1: -

The god child is up there with midichorians as completely unnecessary plot devices. There never needed to be any other option than destroy.

The options were all in Sheppards head... it was a dream!

Finished it just now and went with destroy. The whole series is based on the idea of beating the odds, changing fate when everybody tells you that you can't and proving to the reapers/starchild that they are wrong and that this cycle is different. Starchild says himself that the solution won't work anymore but he still tells me that there will be no peace if I destroy the reapers. Well, fuck him then. All in all I really liked the extended cut and if this would have been the endings to begin with it would have been fine with me (I also had no problems with the Deus Ex choose buttons ending, so I don't mind having only four choices).

It is horrifically dissapointing that the majority of people have chosen Destroy, well, that's what happens when people don't understand what they're playing.

@feliciano182: I'm more horrified by the number picking Synthesis, playing God with all creation and doing it when what I'm doing to them isn't clear? No thanks. The amount of body horror, of having your body changed against your will, and how poor a solution that seemed as creation can manage to kill itself just fine even when you're alike, made it my least favorite choice.

I might have gone for control if I could have used that to have the Reapers destroy each other. It deals with them, without the downside of destroying other AI.

Refuse ends up being my preferred choice, with Destroy after that. There was no reason at all Shepard should trust this thing it admitted created and commanded the Reapers, so it felt beyond stupid to take any of it's options for as much of a long shot fighting them without the Catalyst was. Yes, even thought it meant stuff would go on another cycle or two and I wasn't happy with how Shepard argued with the Starchild, that's still the option I'd go with.

Destroy feels the most humane and ethical out of the Catalyst choices, which is... yeah, that's really horrible. I hated the amount of death and genocide that would mean, but better dead than being mind controlled or changed into something you're not. They would still die themselves, with their free will intact.

I chose Destroy, The Reapers need to be dead. I get that I was killing a sentient race, but let's be honest: The Geth are assholes. They stole the Quarians home planet, and I don't want to hear any nonsense about how it was their fault, if my toaster asked me whether or not it had a soul, I would smash the shit out of that thing. And even if you buy into the idea that the Quarians weren't doing the right thing by trying to eliminate a force they created that could potentially be a very hostile threat to the entire galaxy, the Geth didn't even need or use Rannoch, so they could've just let the Quarians have it back after the war, but they didn't for 300 years, and that did some awful things to the Quarians as a species. And if that wasn't enough, the second the Quarians threaten them again, they side with the most evil beings in the galaxy who are hellbent on destroying all life. And I'm not going to buy the whole "Well you didn't give us much choice!" argument either, they could've just lobbied for peace, given the Quarians back the planet that they weren't even using, and gone to any of the dozens of planets that their species alone is capable of utilizing and never interacted with any of the other alien species again. And that's not even mentioning the whole Sovereign debacle. So yeah sucks for EDI, but I'm not exactly going to cry over the loss of the Geth, based on past behavior they've made it clear they'd do the same thing if the tables were turned.

Synthesis and Control felt too much like playing God to me. I'm not about to force a decision like the permanent alteration of all life as we know it onto everybody, and I'm sure not going to turn myself into an immortal AI in control of the most powerful destructive force in the universe either. I just don't trust the control ending one bit, the voice over sounds so menacing. Reject is a cool ending, but I think with the Yahg being as close to space travel as they are, with no other sentient species to stand in the way, and an entire 50,000 years before the reapers come again, that's probably not going to be a very happy cycle.

@Renachan:

I'm more horrified by the number picking Synthesis, playing God with all creation and doing it when what I'm doing to them isn't clear? No thanks. The amount of body horror, of having your body changed against your will, and how poor a solution that seemed as creation can manage to kill itself just fine even when you're alike, made it my least favorite choice.

This is an opinion I've heard many many times, to which I always repond with the same argument that remains uncontested:

How many decisions in both Mass Effect 1 and 2 did you make that had galaxy-spanning consequences ? What right did Shepard had to release The Rachni Queen ? To kill The Council ? To give the Collector Base to Cerberus ? To cure The Genophage ? To Destroy the quarians ? To change the code of organics and synthetics ?

Mass Effect, is, and always was, about making hard decisions in the face of unacceptable, terrifying consequences, it is no different to choose Synthesis, specially when, of all the decisions, it offers the best consequences, it ensure the reapers will never be a threat, and it bypasses the evolutionary short-comings of organics by making them and synthetics becomes just living creatures; I mean, you can't know if, in Control, Shepard will snap and doom the galaxy to The Reapers' destroying anyone again for endless milennia, and what about Destroy ? You've only terminated the reapers, but in the process you have only achieved the future extermination of organics by synthetics.

And even then, without accounting all of the above ? What about transhumanism ?

Refuse ends up being my preferred choice, with Destroy after that. There was no reason at all Shepard should trust this thing it admitted created and commanded the Reapers, so it felt beyond stupid to take any of it's options for as much of a long shot fighting them without the Catalyst was. Yes, even thought it meant stuff would go on another cycle or two and I wasn't happy with how Shepard argued with the Starchild, that's still the option I'd go with.

Why did you trust Vigil the first time ? Or EDI ?

Aside from that, what you've basically done is delayed The Crucible's activation, that ending only demonstrates that Shepard did nothing but letting somebody else make the same choice fifty thousand years later.

They would still die themselves, with their free will intact.

What proof is there that people's free will has been tampered with ?

Ofcours control!:D

I would have to go with shepard survives reason being the only way I see bioware getting more out of this franchise is to go with shepard's romance creating off spring which in turn becomes the protoganist and in the following game if you got the shepard survives ending you get to meet your former M.C in Me4.