Picked this up from BSN.

@7The Island Head

What if the Cruicble is the synthetic that kills all life in the galaxy????? And the Reapers are trying to stop you from making it! No one knows what the cruicble does so it probably is the synthetic that kills all the organics! It's the only thing that is built every cycle!

It explains everything!

As long as the plans for the crucible exist all life is at risk. Removing all copies of the plans would be impossible, for all it would take is one well hidden data drive and all organic life could be lost. The only sure fire way to protect life, is to prevent those with the capcaity of building the Crucible from having the resources to build it. So the reapers harvest all space faring races when the plans are rediscovered, to prevent them from building the machine that will kill all life, while preserving the essence of their civillization. The spare the none space-faring races for they do not have the means to build the Synthetic death machine.

Important dates
2148 - Humans discover the plans on Mars
2157 - Humans make contact with Turians
Information becomes interconnected -> the reapers learn that plans have been discovered
2183 - ME1 -> Sovereign is aware of that the plans have been found, tries to start the cycle
2185 - ME2 -> Harbinger attempts to construct human reaper -> this reaper with the collect knowledge of humanity would be put to use in finding the plans for the Crucible and destroying them.
2185- ME3 -> Liara finds the plans in Mars Archives, which have been so far overlooked -> DOOMS EVERYONE
-> Reapers use Cerberus to meddel with the construction of the Crucible -> Due human genetics TIM is hard to control


Who are the Reapers?
The reapers we probably the last creations of the orginal builders of the Crucible, who probably were killed by the Cruicble but somehow stopped it, probably by seprating Catalyst from it. The aliens that build the Crucible died, and realized with the plans of the Crucible would live on, an all organic life following them would find the plans and build their own destruction. Hence why the reaper cycles.


What about the ending?
The reapers are trying to control Shepherd to prevent him from activating the Crucible, but his will power is too strong. TIM, against his will, is guarding the Crucible, the reapers will make him kill Shepherd and Anderson preventing the activation of the Crucible. Joker once he realizes that the space magic is synethic death magic flees the scene, this makes sense.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10589333/1

.. Actually kind of makes sense.

No it doesn't. The crucible isn't built every cycle, the only cycle it was built in was the Prothean one (and they didn't finish it). The crucible research was begun many cycles ago and each cycle added onto the research and development. The game says this. To say nothing of the fact that creating reapers to stop the crucible - a non sentient device - makes no sense. And no one would try to build it if it werent for the reapers, so yeah.

1. I'm pretty sure the Crucible project started after the Reapers, though it's possible that the civilizations of Reaper creation-time started it.

2. The Crucible is made by civilizations to deal with the Reapers. If the Reapers wanted them to not make it, all they would have to do is stay in Dark Space.

3. As far as I know, there's nothing from ME1 or 2 that mentions the Crucible. Sovereign probably decided to start the cycle after taking notice of geth progress.

1. is possible, but it alone doesn't do anything to support this. The rest are enough to put this to rest I think.

Just incorporating the Indoctrination Theory doesn't make it any more compelling too.

If this was true why would the reapers:

• Tell you otherwise, directly.
• Harvest planets, kill lots and lots of people, long before anyone knows about the crucible
• Not just destroy the crucible plans permanently to make sure no further civilizations ever discovered it.

The Catalyst is controlling the show. It created the Reapers to prevent synthetics from wiping out organic life from the galaxy. The Crucible is just a red herring to lead each cycle of organics down a predetermined path to be harvested for preservation. Now that Shepard has managed to call the Catalyst's bluff, the Catalyst knows it can no longer continue with this method, so it calls on Shepard to decide a new direction for the galaxy. No bullshit indoctrination theory required.

I'm sorry, but the indocrination theory makes sense. This is a complete fabrication bred from false interpretations and ignoring facts.

@7The Island Head

What if the Cruicble is the synthetic that kills all life in the galaxy?????

Except it's clearly not. Everyone would die at the end of the game since it's activated no matter what ending you choose. This theory makes no sense.

What if it turns out what happened in Mass Effect 3 kind of just happened the way it happened. It explains EVERYTHING.

@AndrewB said:

a complete fabrication bred from false interpretations and ignoring facts.

You could say the same thing about the Indoctrination Theory.

This is getting fucking ridiculous.

and here i thought the indoctrination stuff was bad conspiracy theorising ... this is so much worse

@Jaytow said:

@selbie: Na, way too much points to indoctrination, that stuff was obviously put in on purpose to create debate.

I haven't seen anything in the theory that makes it any more plausible than the "it all happened" point of view. Where the theory really falls flat is that it also raises more questions than the actual game's ending does and thereby undermines its own purpose as an explanation in the first place.

Simply put, Bioware needs to clarify some of the events that they failed to explain in the first place. All of these theories are just derived from assumptions and arbitrary linkages.

The question this theory raises that I have yet to see answered is the one about the Normandy. At the end of the final cut scene we see that Joker and the Normandy are trying to get the hell away from the Crucible as fast as they can. This never made sense to me. The last time we saw the Normandy it was engaged in the battle over Earth waiting for Shepherd to activate the Crucible and save the day by killing all the reapers. How did they go from that to getting the hell out of there. Clearly Joker, or more likely EDI, know something that Shepherd does not.

Anyone else find that weird?

Jesus christ, this is almost as dumb as the indoctrination theory. Well maybe a little dumber.

Firstly, they state that's it's never been finished by anyone before.

Secondly, they'd have never built one if there was no Reaper threat. The Reapers were the ones that initiated hostilities.

It's like sticking a pin in an air mattress just -sssssss- the sound of that terrible theory deflating.

People keep trying to give Bioware WAAAAAAYYY too much credit.

Even if any of these theories were true, the ending is still broken and shitty because it was unclear that any of this happened. In order to effectively have a twist like this, to ask these questions, the audience needs to BE AWARE OF IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. If you want to leave the audience with a question like, "Is Deckard a Replicant?" the plot still needs closure. You can leave that one question dangling, but you'd have to explain everything else so it still feels like a proper ending.

Bioware wrote a piece of shit ending. Accept it and move on.

@wmaustin55 said:

This is getting fucking ridiculous.

I think that we're already past the Fucking Ridiculous phase.

I always love posts like "this is fucking rediculous." So much insight and thought, I love it. Also, every debunking question you guys aske has been asked on that thread I linked, and the author answered them all. Not gonna copy pasta anything. Y'all seem like "adults", go find your answers.

@Psycho_Rich said:

The question this theory raises that I have yet to see answered is the one about the Normandy. At the end of the final cut scene we see that Joker and the Normandy are trying to get the hell away from the Crucible as fast as they can. This never made sense to me. The last time we saw the Normandy it was engaged in the battle over Earth waiting for Shepherd to activate the Crucible and save the day by killing all the reapers. How did they go from that to getting the hell out of there. Clearly Joker, or more likely EDI, know something that Shepherd does not.

Anyone else find that weird?

They were probably left the area along with all Galactic Alliance fleets once the Crucible activated. No one knew exactly what it would do, so when it started to do something they figured it was time for them to high-tail it out of there before they're caught in any blast.

If they waited until the energy sphere or the energy beam, they'd have even more incentive to evacuate Sol space.

I find it funny that every one of these theories creates more plot holes and logic gaps than the ending they're trying to rationalize by orders of magnitude.

Why don't the Reapers just hang out in the galaxy and educate everyone about the truth behind the crucible? Even if they can't hang out for some mysterious SCIENCE reason, why do they show up and immediately start blowing everyone up? They could easily just say, "Hey yo, we're nice future robots we come in peace dawgs. Let's talk about this Crucible and why you shouldn't build it." And after it's been activated, why does it proceed to absolutely fail to kill anyone except for some Reapers if you went Red. Fuck, even Shepard who was bleeding everywhere and at ground-zero manages to survive Red.

@Psycho_Rich said:

Anyone else find that weird?

Nah, made sense to me. The Reapers broke off the attack to stop Shepard from reaching the Citadel. What the Normandy was doing during that time is unknown. Maybe it was still pursuing and fighting Reapers, maybe it was aiding in retrieving survivors (would explain how your squad members end up back on-board), or maybe it was hanging out in stealth mode acting as a go-between for military communications.

Whatever it WAS doing, I see nothing strange with Joker making a run for it. The giant super weapon that nobody knows what it does just let out a massive wave of energy. Yeah, I think my first instinct would be to get outta the frickin' way too. The Normandy is one of the Alliance's most advanced ships; going down in a blaze of glory might be poetic and all, but it certainly isn't practical.

So, yeah. Run for it Joker! GET TO THE CHOPPA!!

@selbie said:

@AndrewB said:

a complete fabrication bred from false interpretations and ignoring facts.

You could say the same thing about the Indoctrination Theory.

Something like your previous interpretation?

@Wrighteous86 said:

People keep trying to give Bioware WAAAAAAYYY too much credit.

Even if any of these theories were true, the ending is still broken and shitty because it was unclear that any of this happened. In order to effectively have a twist like this, to ask these questions, the audience needs to BE AWARE OF IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. If you want to leave the audience with a question like, "Is Deckard a Replicant?" the plot still needs closure. You can leave that one question dangling, but you'd have to explain everything else so it still feels like a proper ending.

Bioware wrote a piece of shit ending. Accept it and move on.

Exactly what I keep thinking. I would love for the Indoctrination theory to be correct, but it is way too smart.

It's probably just a poorly conceived ending.