Mass Effect 3 - Why You Should SABOTAGE THE GENOPHAGE CURE 

Next Big Dan video, "Why you should join the Reapers and keep the cycle going".

I could never betray Wrex

With Wreav in charge, sure he seems out of his mind. With Wrex however there's hope for a Krogan redemption. They deserve a second chance. Also betraying Wrex just feels so... wrong. This just shows how great Bioware was at writing characters.

I played Mass Effect trilogy some times but I never could betray Wrex. (Yes, he was alive in my every gameplay) He’s my favourite Krogan and he’s such a badass😂 I should go… and play this game once again 😁😂

In French, the Renegade path is called Pragmatic. Which is interesting because that choice is pragmatically the best, even if it doesnt fit with many people's values.

Its only ethical to sabotage if it's not Wrex in charge

If I'm not mistaken, the cutscene with Garrus plays out differently when Wrex is alive and you're forced to kill him for discovering the sabotage. I don't remember exactly but Garrus calls out Shepard for sabotaging the cure and killing Wrex

I don’t think I would ever choose this option. I love Mordin, but him being willing to sacrifice his own life to try and end the genocide he helped to put into action on two occasions, seems like a good end for him to me. Even though it hurt me on every one of my playthroughs.

Thanks to the Leviathan DLC, there is a way to keep Wrex alive. But you have to be very very careful that you never go to the Normandy via docking bay.

If Wrex is dead sabotaging the cure makes more sense tbh, since the Krogan under Wreav would definitely go back to their old ways and you get both Salarian and Krogan support.

This is probably the video where I go “you’ve gone too far, Dan.”

Holy shit the hottest take yet. I agree with most of the renegade decisions being put in Sheps position tbh. You can't afford to have fast breeding brutal warlords or telepathic bugs risking galactic extinction right after the reaper war. The Citadel races while flawed are actually open to dialogue most of the time.

I love these videos. It makes me laugh that I think about if Big Dan ever sent me an invite to a wedding or birthday party or something it would read something like "Why you should come to my wedding and kick over the whole buffet table!"

If Wrex is alive, cure it, if not let it stand. Kogan can grow and change, Wrex proves that. His brother isn't the same. He would seek war at the first chance.

I remember on one of my earliest playthroughs, ME1 was an Xbox exclusive, so playstation players got Wreave by default. During this mission I got curious and sabotaged the cure. During the vehicle ride with Wreave and Eve I could barely cope with my guilt of betraying Eve, but those scenes with Mordin riddled me with guilt. Once I realized the only way to stop Mordin was to shoot him, I felt so horrible that I didn't even finish the mission smh I restarted and took the paragon route ever since 😌

We need more people like Garrus in our lives, someone with whom we can share our deepest darkest secrets, someone who would always have our backs, someone who would be with you till the end.

Man, Dan is much more evil than I thought. Edit: Assuming Wreav is in power, and Eve is dead, then I would probably have second thoughts about curing the geophage.

With Eve and Wrex alive, Grunt is the future of the Krogan and he's not driven by hatred, simply by living. That living may involve putting himself in absurdly dangerous situations, but that's what makes it fun. If Wrex or Eve aren't around then convincing Mordin to join you in sabotage is the best route.

The confrontation with Mordin is too good not to experience. A good story, good performances, aren't always about everyone holding hands. The later confrontation with Wrex is also excellent, and there's one or two good conversations with Garrus around the topic too if you sabotage the cure. On the bridge of the Normandy Garrus does the mental mathematics and figures out that Mordin must have been killed by Shepard and it's a great moment!

Imagine an ME game set in a future predicated on curing the Genophage. Krogan have overrun the galaxy. You lead a rag tag group of resistance fighters trying to overthrow the new Krogan Empire. Put your Sheppard's sentimentality over Wrex (and Grunt) aside and see the bigger picture.

There is one point on this debate that is always ignored, and that is the absurd Krogan reproduction rate without genophage. Each Krogan can live for 1000 years on average without considering premature death. And each Krogan female can lay 1000 fertile eggs PER YEAR. If we consider the krogans able to reproduce for 500 years from age 100 (its probably even more) and they have kids every 10 years, then starting from 1 million krogans we get something like this: Year 1: 1M/2 *1000 =500M babies Year 100: 5 billion babies + 500M adults able to reproduce (the year 1 generation) Year 200: 500M*1000*10/2=2500 billion babies + 5 billion adults Year 300: 2.5 * 10^13 adults, I'll stop here. This means that even if the krogans were the most peaceful specie in the universe, genophage would have to be implemented for the sake of the galaxy, so someone truly roleplaying the game as a commander acting for the common good can't have any justification to cure the genophage. It would be the end of the world.

Almost 100k subs!! I remember watching you when Mass Effect LE came out a couple years ago. With already a few playthroughs, I learned a lot from you from your vids!

I also want to add that in addition to using the Yagh to blackball the Delatrass, you can also leverage the murals you find in the underground of Tuchanka, as well as the surviving greenery you find when you leave there. You could have Allers do three things as far as leveraging this information. 1. Have her release the call with the Delatrass uncut. 2. Release the audio logs to do with the salarians uplifting the Yagh. 3. Try to interest the Asari in studying the ruins alongside the Krogan and teaching them Archeology after the war is over, with Liara and any of her contacts in the discipline still alive. Liara would know EXACTLY what academic buttons to push and Allers would know what political ones to push. This could have a bunch of effects on war assets, such as... 1. The Delatrass is replaced by someone more sympathetic to the Krogan, her replacement becomes a war asset. 2. The Krogan are given more medical support, with long term measures like cryogenically freezing genetic samples of newly fertile warriors so that another population drop doesn't endanger the species and/or there are almost certainly krogan left to fight if the Yagh make it off their world. 3. Members of the Asari government allow scientists, commandos and biotics to travel to Tuchanka in search of places to propagate those plants to. Several Asari become pregnant with Krogan partners as a result, reducing Asari troops on the ground, but increasing mid game medical support, which has the knock on effect of adding a few points to other species' ground troops. If Wrex withdraws their support, this small core group of asari/krogan families joins the crucible project or Citadel Security, raising their war asset values. 4. Members of the Salarian union turn against the anti Krogan faction, resulting in some salarians joining the crucible project or alliance ground troops, by the end of the war, these Salarians are admitted into the Alliance Military as a reward for service and given Earth Citizenship. Scientists and engineers of all stripes protest, points are deducted from the Salarian union and rerouted to the Alliance and Krogan categories.

The best decision, I guess, is to kill Wrex in Virmire, let Wreav take over and have both krogan and salarian assets during the reaper war and final battle as well as ensuring no wars will be no second krogan rebellion

Agreed. The game very much wants you to think that curing the genophage is the right call, but honestly I have little doubt that within a few hundred years, the Morgan will be back to their usual antics. Two people is not enough for a cultural renaissance

“No apologies for winning…” I love Mordin! 😊

I am so happy that I've found your channel and can watch you walk all along these paths, so I don't need to xD It breaks my heart every time, but I love your Videos

I will sacrifice Dalatrass in an infinite loop than killing Wrex even just once. He's the big bro to my Shep's 'lil sis'.

Big Dan's next video: Why you SHOULD shoot the Catalyst at the end of Mass Effect 3

NOTE: Only do this if Wreav is leader of krogan

I did my first renegade playthrough and was prepared to go this route but when the time came in ME1 i just couldn't kill Wrex.

The whole Genophage cure thing kinda made me disappoint with how Paragon vs Renegade was handled in ME3, and this scenario in particular definitely saw the shift towards a traditional "Good vs Evil" alignment system. I would've loved to see Renegade dialogue where you still cure the Genophage, all while being an absolute jerk to the Dalatrass.

ive always thought a sabotage is the right choice. i love wrex and eve but two krogans are not enough to reform all of krogan society. its just not a realistic expectation.

I've always wondered how the Krogan would be so much of a threat, since they have an utterly devastated industry. What ships would they be use to invade?

Big Dan always coming with the fashion. Interesting color combos, making those weird glasses look cool, makes me want to start a new game.

even if wrex and eve cant stop another uprising, measures can be taken without the genophage, such as denying the krogan access to a fleet, no ships, no interplanatry uprising, the genophage can even be threatend to be remade to pressure the new korgran leadership, backstabbing the krogan is simply unnecessary. You also did not mention that its not just eve and wrex who want a new direction, its heavily implied that among all korgan females wrex's ideaology is very popular. All that said, this can make sense for a super renedage shepard, and what I often like to do on runs where I plan it cure it is all the stress on shepard makes them consider, but mordin saying he made a mistake it reafirms shepards morals and only adds to mordins sendoff.

Well I sabotaged all life in the galaxy by walking away from the star child

My last playthrough on the ME trilogy was almost purely to explore this decision and all the options surrounding it, that meant the premeditated murdering of Wrex in ME1, the event that originally caused me to replay ME1 when I first played it back in the day (I hadn't allocated any points in my character's skills up until Virmire, and was confused why I couldn't pick a dialogue option to stop myself from killing him) It was a bizarre experience coming at it from that perspective, but I was really curious what saving Mordin would be like, as well as an alliance with the Salarians, who are admittedly one of my favourite alien species in the franchise and never liked that the Dalatras didn't want to align her people with your cause over the genophage issue, but it makes total sense from their perspective. Anyway, I felt like it was a fun alternative to the usual save wrex & save cure play through, I'm just saddened we don't have more scenes revolving around the Salarian alliance after the fact.

Ok, I never comment on videos but, the cut away clip to Mac "playing both sides" @7min30secs just got you another subscriber. Cheers Big Dan!

I've played every class of character and made it through ME2 with no loss of team members but I've never explored the outcomes of every decision. Nor was I able to enter into the final ME3 battle with every possible Allie. But I loved this game so much. It gave me countless hours of entertainment. Can't wait for the next iteration.

Frankly Sabotage is rapidly became my favourite Canon. IF ME4 will allow save transfers i will go with it. Not only is more dramatic (i'm all for MOAR drama) but makes more -sense. Shepard is failing under the resposability, also he needs to save Earth by deploying a giant space weapon.. he needs the krogan only to get the Turians but Krogans numbers (circa 1bl) are not what will save earth or the galaxy, the Turian Fleet is.. And the Salarian offer MORE space assets. Is a pity the game is trash when it comes to war assets.. Ground troops more important than Fleets? in a space war? Is a pity that in my OG playthrough I REACHED the shroud (mordin dead in me2, data erased, Wix unaware of the sabotage, Wrex alive but angry with S.) I stalled and stalled, told NotMordin to get out, reached the Renegade prompt... and chickened out xD GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH should have shoot HIM!

While Dan does make some decent points, I honestly could never do this to my boi Wrex or have Mordin live with his guilt. Sentencing the Krogan to a slow and inevitable extinction like this just feels too harsh imo.

Big Dan almost on that BIG 100K duuuudee!!

Sometimes you have to ignore the forest to care for a tree

I will never betray the greatest video game character of all time. Wrex is my boy. Now and always.

I actually did this on my first playthrough. Helped I didn’t form an attachment to Wrex in ME1 before I had him executed.

To me "I made a mistake" is one of most iconic lines coming from Mordin

If Wrex died in the first game and the cure data is destroyed in the 2nd game, sabotaging the cure in 3 seems like the only logical plan in the long run.

I don't know if ME4 is only a couple years or a couple centuries from ME3, but for myself issues with the Krogan come down to this: 1) What Wrex was doing, was working. And with Eve at his side as his queen, it would cement the slow humble build of the Krogan. The Genophage cure undoes all of that. 2) Wrex is already over a thousand, and Nakmor Drack from Andromeda is breaking down at 1400, so one could guess Wrex has 2 - 3 good centuries in him left. When he goes, will he have good people to listen and keep their word? Or will they go hog wild and start talking vengeance the moment he drops. And that is considering Wrex's rule stays peaceful the whole time. 3) I would think someone like Grunt could take over and keep things in order. But would he care? He's a Krogan supersoldier, he loves war, would he care about Wrex's beliefs? But then I remember that 9/10 I give the Rachni Queen a second chance, and remember that like with the Rachni, the universe is a different place, has more species. If the Krogan go back on their world, they will face a united galaxy post reaper war, and I don't know if they can handle those odds.

me roleplaying as shepard who was kinda influenced by his time with Cerberus and wants max support for earth + to avoid another rise of the krogan, esp after the reaper war with a weakened galaxy, as shep stated .

IMO I think the Krogan are actually ready for Wrex's solutions, while the Krogan respect strength and fighting Wrex's push for peace doesnt mean there wont be a need for strength and soldiers especially in the coming years as the warlike clans will try and fight Urdnot for control. Plus Wrex and Eve are smart and would do the utmost to ensure the next ruler holds their values

do a video on what happens if you dont rescue the students at grissom academy. very very sad ending with jack when you reach the cerberus base i believe

If Wreave is in control i highly recommend sabotaging the cure BUT in my playthrough i have Wrex and Eve alive they're peaceful and i personally see Wrex as my best friend my brother I think that even if a new Krogan leader came along the Krogan would remember the good times Wrex brought We'll have to see what happens to the cured Krogan in ME4 It's very easy to keep Wrex and Eve alive

After not playing video games since Tony hawk 2, I was given an Xbox 360 and Mass Effect 1 and 2 a couple months ago. Couple weeks ago I found Mass Effect 3 at a goodwill. My old Xbox 360 can't connect to the Internet so I can't do any DLC. Yet. After going through the series once, I'm doing it again and I'm at part 1 currently. I'm finding it really hard to betray rex, I recovered his family armor and everything so far. Been avoiding Vimire. I want the solarians and krogans. I want the prothians and Tali's people. I want the green ending. Still finding it hard to betray Rex and putting it off.

I do it in every playtrough. The krogan are not ready

8:01 always makes me laugh because Shepards mouth moves during his lines in this scene even though you're listening to a recording

Congrats on 100k!!

Almost can envision a war that has humans & krogan on the same side

There a glich to keep wrex alove and in the lengedsry edition you keep the war assets l. Heres how When you done meeting the asari on the ciidel start the levistan or citadel dlc then jsut return to nornandy from the dlc and you will never get the scen of killing wrex so he lives and shows up st the final battle downside he eont be in the citdel dlc and wont shiw up at the slide shows at the end but is in wverything else hes included in after the “cure”

5:10 Do you have to select the paragon line to save Mordin? Does the renegade one do something different?

ultimately with the genophage mission it comes down to whether Wrex survives Mass Effect 1 or not

What happens in ME 1 on virmire if your only team is Ashley kaidan and tali so not doing therum and not recruiting wrex and garrus

Wrex is just a good buddy. I just can't Mordon too but Wrex he is very smart and compassionate than other Krogan. I just love the outcomes though so many to discover!!! 😀 I only started playing mass effect in late 2019-2020 on 360. When legendary came out oh boy lots to discover!! ❤️👌 Also your videos are amazing thank you!!! 😊

So I'm running a ME rpg game run on 5e, and have watched alot of your videos and I'm wondering if you would propose any ideas of just bullet point ideas on worlds if you want to help because they are about to leave this planet with their own choice of going anywhere so I want to make at least a safety net of ideas for worlds they would come to. Any ideas would be awesome 👌 and if not it is cool I can find my own way 😀 just wanted to throw a line for ideas 🤙

Wrex is my friend and I will not doom his race.

Congrats on 100k subs!

Have you tried warning Wrex and the others about the plot sabotage the cure but still go through with it? Does it keep Wrex from needing to be killed in the Citadel and still having full Krogan support?

If you play with the happy ending mod, and are planning for the future of the galaxy - you MUST maintain the genophage. The Krogan are who they are - they overpopulate and conquer.

What if you only make neutral choices in Mass effect 1,2and 3?

That decision is fixed at the end if you choose control the reapers or syntesis, cause if krogans were about to do something like a rebelion shepard could stop them with reapers easily, and in the green option everything is basically perfect, so no problem with the krogans in any possible way

Reason: MORDIN MADE THEM A STEAK!

So what if the krogan spaceships are destroyed? Or the Galaxy won't provide them weapons and ammo. Are krogan really such a big problem if they can't leave their planet?

Big Dan chose violence with this video LOL

"I made him a steak!!" 🤣 Man cracks me everytime.

On what must have been my 15th playthrough of the series I had to kill Wrex in ME1 and not keep Maelon's data just so I could for the first time not cure the Genophage, but damn if it wasn't tough killing Wrex even though I didn't have to.

Hello, Big Dan Gaming! Please please please make a video about what haappens if in draogn age origins, at the end of the game when you defend denerim, you do not have enough companions to defend the city gates? for example, if you killed some of your freinds, or asked to leave. what happens if you don't have enough companions to spare for defending the city gates and take them all with you (alistair and the dog if you are Cousland)

Unfortunately for me killing Rex is the only why to ensure the the galaxy will be safe after the reapers.

Politically, this makes the most sense. Tuchanka is a failed state like Somalia. What little power Wrex holds is not nearly enough to deal with the ramifications of curing the genophage and a massive population boom. Will Wrex mandate Krogans to use protection? Organize schools, teach sex ed? Show ways of nonviolence? Even if Wrex stays in power, which is a big if, he doesn't wield enough power, and will eventually die from natural causes, followed by a power vacuum. Eventually, it's the Krogan Rebellions all over again, with death on a massive scale. Wrex and Mordin are great people, but they are biased. Can't see the bigger picture. Their deaths are tragic, but necessary. As a leader, hard choices have to be made sometimes, like on Vermire. The only way the genophage may be cured is through careful implementation, first laying the groundwork, then curing the disease. It's like telling Nazi Germany after WWII to have at it on their own.

If you take control ending then reapers would be the force that could stop krogan rebelion 10 times simultaneously

Of course you should. Even in my Paragon runs i make an exception with the genophage. A lot of people say "Nooo but with Wrex and Eve in charge" because of course they get emotional. Like, guys, you hope for a cultural revolution with... like two people. Two leaders, but they're not the only ones. You see two good individuals and you would risk another war because of it. With a species that nuked their own planet, and not just a few bombs, like humans, no, they literally nuked every meter of their planet. "bruh it's because genophage is destroying their culture !!" If only this was the case, but y'know what i told you about nuking their own planet ? It happened even before salarians met them. They were already destroying everything. It's in their nature, and it's purely logical. Their biology and way of thinking are suited to Tuchanka. I mean, some people are very, very, VERY optimistic i guess. It's so optimistic and hypothetical it's not even hope at this point, and i'm unsure if i want to risk another war for it. With their INSANE reproduction rates, your cultural revolution will have to be REALLY FAST. Otherwise, another disaster is bound to happen. But hey, at least we were morally right, i guess. And it's not only about their culture. Wrex is in power because he capitalize on females. Guess what will happen with a cure ? Every clan will be able to breed their own armies and tell Wrex to just eat shit. The genophage was the rational thing to do. Better than pure genocide, it's forced birth control. Of course, it goes against many people values, but being morally right won't do shit when Krogans will start an uprising one more time. Curing the Genophage isn't a paragon decision, it's, at most, a stupid one x_x

Very good, keep it up

I have to admit, I have sabotaged the genophage because wreav as in charge. The guys just too violent for me to cure the genophage. I could never do wrex dirty like that tho

100k subs soon Big Dan !!!!!!

next big dan video: why you should get garrus grunt thane and tali killed on the suicide mission

Halfdan is back.

Someone told me that of You do leviathan first and then sabotage wrex Will be indocrinated and won’t turn on you. I never test it

Can you make a upgrade about how yo get the perfect ending

This is why I'm a little baffled when folks say every dialogue/action option in each game is essentially the same but shepherd becomes a different color. Of course the Main reaper plot remains fairly concrete but many side characters stories can change drastically from a simple change as far back as ME1

I always sabotage the cure. I'm even going to on my current Paragon playthrough. Because The opposite is just stupid, short term "Let's make Wrex happy"-bullshit that doesn't think any sorts of steps ahead.

The way I like to play it is I will not tell anyone about the Salarian deal, even going so far as to point a gun at Mordin to try to stop him. However, Shepard never brings it upon themselves to pull the trigger on a friend and crewmate, and the genophage is reluctantly cured. It seems like a great moment of self-doubt from a character who is normally so sure of their actions.

I prefer to cure the genophage and pursue the control ending with Wrex surviving. That way, I have Wrex alive to keep the Krogan in check and if that is not enough, sending a him a few reapers as as backup can certainly help.

yes i know this video is ages old but a younger me (like 4 or 5 years ago me) would've thought killing Wrex Tricking Wreav and sabotaging the the genophage was the best option at the expense of my empathy for the krogans. was wrong

I could never betray Uncle Urdnot like that. Wrex is one of the most loyal companions to Shepard if you don't screw him over

You must be a monster to betray the krokant like that

yeah, I sabo'd on my first run, and every run thereafter, I understand why the Salarians did what they did, and I completely agree with their assessment of the Krogan as a species. In my view, the aftermath of the cure is a Krogan dominated galaxy, and I just can't have that.

Why you should WHAT?!?

For those who wanna try this path out without betraying Wrex, probably the best way is to just skip recruiting him in ME1. If you didn't recruit him, Wreav will still took the lead in ME2. I imagine he's probably just go merc-ing out there throughout the trilogy and get all the girls, not caring about Tuchanka and the threat of the Reapers in the meanwhile XD.

Has Big Dan given us a vid yet where you bork up the major race decisions like the genophage cure, the Rachni, and the Quarian/Geth? Would they even let Shepard near Earth for an end game or just quietly toss the Commander out the airlock? lol. Gauntlet thrown, Big Dan.

I wonder if the Cure decision will be cannon in ME 4

I am in fact on my 2nd play-through of the Legendary, trying to be "bad" - trying being the operative word, I am as usual finding that I am not very good at being Evil.