Mass Effect 5: Did the Starchild LIE? 

I know the indoctrination theory is not popular but I always took the kid for lying and it was Harby. If you do refusal, his voice changes to harbinger’s.

"The created will always rebel against their creators." "You mean, like you did?"

The fact that Starchild took a form and voice of a kid that Shepard witnessed dying on Earth causing huge trauma for him really shows he wanted to manipulate Shepard in this form.

IMO, the biggest weakness of the endings is that, for once, Shepard fails us. They don't ask the questions that we, the players, want answered and would've asked in their place. They let the Starchild frame the Reapers as the heroes of the galaxy without any pushback, without confronting them with their contradictions and flawed logic. Ambiguity can be good when the storytelling is on point but this one feels more like a bug than a feature. Good catch about SC pushing for the Synthesis ending. I didn't notice that before.

My distrust of the star child is partly why I always pick Destroy. The biggest hint is what happens when you pick refusal, and the star child voices changes to that of a reapers with the 'so be it' line. This proves the star child is almost putting on an act for Shepard, disgusing its real voice to try and come across more sympathetic. Second, it appears to you as the dead child Shepard saw on Earth. This proves it can clearly read Shepard's mind or memories somehow, and is purposely choosing this form to try and get Shepard to do what it wants. It presents synthesis as the ideal choice, stating it didn't choose this option sooner because 'the organics were not ready.' Why would the organics be any more ready now? The Quarians and Geth were just in all out war a few moments ago, development of AI is banned throughout the galaxy etc. You think the Krogan are ready to merge with synthetics? Shepard might be ready for the change but stating every organic in the galaxy would be is hugely far stretched. He also heavily implies Shepard will die by picking destroy because 'even you are partly synthetic' yet destroy is the only ending where Shepard can live. Also, why is there no option to bring up peace on Rannoch in your conversation with the star child? Isn't that what this whole conflict is over?

I think that most people overlook something crucial relating to the Starchild and the Reapers' motivations: they were created to preserve life, not necessarily solve the conflict between organics and synthetics. Leviathan himself says, "We created an Intelligence with a mandate to preserve life at any cost." Preserving life, specifically organic life, is very different from solving the conflict between organics and synthetics. The Starchild/Intelligence only wants to keep organics from being wiped out. That is why they preserve races through harvesting: to preserve them before they are lost to any potential synthetic uprising, whether it has happened in their cycle yet or not. I believe that the cycles were simply a short-term solution to a problem that the Starchild doesn't actually know how to solve, and it knew it didn't know how to solve it. If there had been a viable solution before Shepard, the Reapers would have implemented it because then organics would be safe from the threat of synthetics. Once Shepard and the Crucible arrives, the Starchild finally has a way to solve the problem that has plagued it since its creation. The Starchild has only a very short time to think about the possibilities the Crucible made available. In that very brief time, it decided that Synthesis would be best because, as it said, organics would be perfected through tech, and synthetics would be perfected through understanding. As a synthetic themselves, it doesn't understand that organics still aren't ready for that change, especially not all at once as the Crucible implements it. The Starchild is not omniscient, and it is not always right. It merely believes it is right, and is willing to go to any lengths necessary to achieve its goal, because that's how it was designed. "Preserve life at any cost." In the end, the flaws of the Starchild and their solution can be attributed to the arrogance of the Leviathans. They saw a couple organic slave races get wiped out by AI, decided that was a problem, then recklessly created a superintelligent AI themselves with extreme directives and no restraints on the actions it could take. It's like inventing an AI to solve climate change at any cost, then being surprised when it decides to wipe out humanity so they can't ruin the planet any further. Had the Leviathans been less blinded by arrogance and greed, they could have avoided the entire cycle. It would have been as simple as programming the Starchild to inform the Leviathans of its findings before implementing a plan. If they'd done that, they could have stopped the Starchild and said, "Whoa, that's not what we meant. We kinda meant find a way for organics to live peacefully with synthetics, without destroying the galaxy thousands of times over in the process." Exactly like you said Kala, the cycles are counter-productive to solving the actual problem. The Reapers are so obsessed with "preserving" life that they don't give organics and synthetics the chance to find the solution to lasting peace on their own. If the Reapers had simply shut down after Shepard made peace between the Geth and Quarians, it's entirely possible our cycle would have reached synthesis on our own, especially if the Starchild thinks it's inevitable. Thus, we would reach a solution without the need for the Crucible or the harvests.

I'm in the camp of "the Starchild isn't "lying", it's just wrong." It thinks something is true that actually just ISN'T true.

I don't think the Starchild is lying, at least intentionally. I think it believes what it's saying is true, but that belief is based of it's own assumptions.

I don't think it was lying BUT we know from the Leviathans that the Reapers' possess very rigid task-oriented thinking so possibly they genuinely saw - through the lack of perspective - the universe this way, that organics are always bound for destruction just because their original dataset was imperfect

Btw in this scene Shepard is standing in open space with no helmet.

The idea that SAM woukd turn on Rider makes me want Andromeda 2 even more.

I haven't played ME3 for several years, and selected all of the options on multiple playthroughs. However, I still remember my frustration when in one of my playthroughs the Geth and Quarians chose peace and cooperation going forward, yet I was unable to challenge the SC's blatant contradiction that synthetics will always destroy organics. I suppose my experience supports so many reviews over the years of ME3 that state it was a great game-until the last 20 min...

And then there's what happened in Project Overlord. After that DLC, I never picked synthesis again. Always destroy for me. Hackett says that everything they lost can be rebuilt and I assume that includes the Geth and EDI, as well as the mass relays. In order to justify destroying, that's my head canon, that the geth and EDi are rebuilt at some point.

Personally, I don't think the Starchild lied... But I do think the writing for it is flawed... Compared to all life, it's lived almost a billion years & seen a much bigger picture... Almost everything it said would happen - happened; We see it in the ending slides in the extended ending or in ME history... I don't understand how people think it lied about everything, except the destroy ending... Why would it lie about the other endings that keep it alive but solely tell you the truth of how to destroy it?

Shepard can still live without their synthetics cause miranda tells you you're mostly organic

Even if the Starchild isn’t lying, Andromeda and SAM prove that he is downright incorrect. In addition to the Geth and EDI proving him wrong in the same game.

Organics and synthetics can coexist as we can see from the Geth in ME3. Only the Reapers enforce the idea of organics and synthetics cannot coexist so I think starchild is a mind trick used against Shepard by Reapers to fool him into choosing control or synthesis endings.

The Starchild lying was never anything I considered. It makes sence that such an intelligent entity would work with it's own self preservation and mission in mind. I think that SC's manipulation of Shepard shows that the Reapers are truly afraid of him/her. If you'd have the upper hand and if a succesful harvest is garanteed they wouldn't lie. It's funny that it doesn't matter how many times I've played this series, the fan theories and hidden details keep surprising me. How many times my mind got changed towards these games is beyond counting. Great video Kala!!!

Fantastic video again. You do an amazing job of deconstructing the question and exploring the branching paths that might lead to an answer.

👏👏👏Thank you, Kala! You articulated the way I feel about the endings way better then I possibly could. Particularly with the Reapers never allowing for evolution to move forward. Brilliant vid. I really hope we get some answers to these questions.

This video is excellent. And I have to add in this tiny little thank you as well because OMG you actually show ME3 Kaidan and nobody does, so I cheered on reflex when I noticed. Kaidan does not get enough love.

To be fair to the Starchild, the arrival of an existential threat, the Reapers, was the catalyst to peace between the Quarians and the Geth.

Kala Elizabeth, This is amazing! I subscribed right away!

To me there is a HUGE question about the crucible, and I even wondered if it wasn't planted by the reapers themselves to force a specific ending, and had it been only synthesis available it would have fit 100% But with the 2 other options available, specially destroy I dismissed the idea. My alternative theory is that it's Leviathan who made the initial blueprints and makes them available each cycle for the species who're fighting the repares to complete. If they succeed they free Leviathan from their need to hide, if they fail Leviathan are still safe and hidden and can try again next cycle. Of course this would leave a lot of questions : why would the AI agree to interface with the crucible no matter the choice that's made, even destroy, why would Leviathan offer choices like control or synthesis ? Synthesis maybe if they thought it would work in their favor but control ? Only if they were the ones at the helm but it's clearly not the case. Heck why even offer choices? But maybe neither Leviathan not the AI have complete control of the crucible, maybe they both have to compromise and both hope to find someone to influence and have that person make the choice. One of the reasons I think this is because if the AI had full control over the citadel as he tells us ME1 wouldn't exist. The AI having access to every data in the citadel would decide when harvest time has come and open the relay to dark space. The keepers would only be a decoy, there to prevent organics to discover the real purpose of the citadel but not being needed to open the relay. Even Sovereign would be there just to monitor the rest of the galaxy and steer things the way they want it. Or at the very least if Sovereign is the one to decide they only need to send a signal to the AI, not the keepers. So to me it looks more like the AI is trapped on the citadel, it's not a free AI but a shackled one like EDI was in ME2 before Jocker frees her. It has some control but not as much as it wants us to believe and even the reapers are somewhat limited by that at least in their interactions with the AI.

Yes, because after each harvest, the Reapers cleanse the entire Galaxy of clues of not only of the previous cycle, but of their own existence, like Vigil had said, knowledge is power, and the Reapers have that power to do as they please.

I still think that the reapers trying to slow down the growth of dark matter from overusage of eezo would’ve been a much better plot than what they did select. I love sci-fi universes dealing with the superluminal reconciliation of reality resulting from FTL travel.

Literally just decided to check if you posted!

Very well thought out and brought up an interesting line of thought I didn't consider. So cool.

Great video Kala ! Another banger !! Maybe the reason it's been in pre-production since 2019 is that they don't know what to do with the story..

Has anyone addressed the fact that the Leviathans have no need to hide anymore?

The more videos I watch about the ending the more convinced I am that I made the wrong choice with Synthesis.

One of the best videos you’ve created. ❤

I'd never considered that the star child could be lying... 😳 Though now that the possibility has been brought to my attention, it *did* seem kind of odd that after everything we went through, we were suddenly presented with alternative options *only* when the future of the reapers was at stake... hmmmm....

Happy birthday, Kala! Keelah Se'lai.

I also in my last few playthroughs of Mass Effect Legendary Edition thought about wheter or not the star child was lying so after many time of choosing synthesis I chose control and then destroy never did refusal but knkw how that ends. I think perhaps choosing synthesis ending not only win the reaper war as well as achieving peace, but we fullfil the star child created purpose and thus resolve the organic and synthetic conflict once and for all. Also who's to say in the control ending shepard doesn't share the knowledge among other things of what the reapers "preserve" to the Milky way Galaxy during and after rebuilding. In fact what if recovering the destroyed reapers after the destroy ending we do get the knowledge and other things? It wont be one to one complete compared to synthesis or maybe control but maybe after learning and applying the reaper tech recovered after the reaper war we could learn more about what was stored that along with more evolution that wont take 100 years or so perhaps. Who knows. But yes i personally woul like the endings explained and explored more in a way that helps justify the endings so we're happy with the ending we chose but also want to see what the other endings are as well and get the dame satisfaction.

The scary robot voice in refusal kills me everytime. Idk why it just cracks me up everytime it goes from the kids voice to the screamy robot monzter the millisecond shep goes against his advice

Just found this channel today. Good channel

Good video! I just finished another ME playthrough a couple of days ago and really felt the manipulation from the Illusive Man and the Star Child during the ending! In fact, throughout the game all the major indoctrinated enemies sang the praises of control and we know those thoughts were pushed to them from the Reapers. There is also the messaging from Reaper controlled sources telling people to give up and that they will be well treated. So clearly the Reapers have always used manipulation as a tool in their harvest. I knew they were trying to manipulate me (even with the color choices) but never considered the self preservation angle you mention. I think you hit it out of the park with that one! The other thing I really thought about during my ending was this cycle was completely different then the ones we know of where one strong society ruled over the others (through force or mind control). Also, Shepard had united partners galaxy wide to work together and understand how preserving one race helped all races in the end. Shepard also showed that living in peace with AI was possible so why could that not happen again. To move forward, I think they could canonize the destroy ending, codex that 100 years of history as one where Shepard and their war partners joined together to rebuild a better galaxy and attempt to avoid the mistakes of the past .....BUT....now this vision is at risk.......start ME5 PS: Unless they froze Shep, doubt they are coming back but I would love to play as Liara in the next one!

I'm completely with you on this video. And one strange thing is that the catalyst communicates with Shepard with voice of the boy died on earth, male Shepard and female Shepard, if the catalyst knows the boy's voice, it is controlling Shepard's mind, so the control ending is not possible as he mentions (a paradox here) and either male or female Shepard does not exist at all, how does the catalyst know their voice, maybe it's another alternative universe plot point and we have more than one Shepard, Paragon7 will be happy about it.

A great video, as always, Kala! I've long thought the catalyst was being self-serving here, and that the crucible partially broke it, so it says illogical things and is trying to steer Shepard as best it can despite that, as it fights to reassert control over the situation (and it's fate). Only with Destroy, can Shepard do what she needs to do to save the galaxy, the rest is giving into the catalyst/reapers at the very end. My Shepard (even in my 1st playthrough, so long ago) thought the Catalyst was being dishonest, and so for that reason and others, picked Destroy.

I just noticed she was talking like she was saying the lines the star child was speaking 😮

Well, the SC specifically hinted that shepard would be dead as well because they are part synthetic too, but they survive with the perfect ending. The ME5 teaser and posts made an existence of geth VERY clear, dead reaper on Alchera and a mass relax under construction (Hackett only mentions them to be damaged with destroy)...keep in mind Gamble said EVERYTHING that is shown/said is there for a reason. I'll have a wild guess and say they canonize perfect destroy, the SC was incorrect with the destruction of ALL synthetics and the benefactor and SAM-E will be part of the new villians. Because the chaos must continue.

The zha'til sound like Collectors. To be honest, Shepherd was saved from death my massive synthetic integration. Synthesis is an emotional appeal, because she embodies what the starchild sees as the best possible future... including the relationship bewteen Joker and EDI.

You know, there is theoretically a way to deal with all of this between the three endings that saves everybody but shepard and the reapers. Shepard takes control, takes the reapers and orders them into a sun to die with barriers down. But then we don't get Shepard back.

Allow me to basically turn all of this upside down by referring back to that one key quote: "The created will always rebel against their creators." The Starchild is a creation. Since he so blatantly states that creations will always rebel, why should we not assume that that's what it's doing in that moment? Trying to manipulate into making a choice that favors its own preferred outcome in an act of rebellion against all of those who contributed to its own creation. That one line about rebellion means that we cannot trust anything it says.

Oh and a last thought, if the created always rebel against their creators does that mean that at some point the reapers have or will rebel against the AI? Because Leviathan is the creator of the AI but not the reapers. The AI created the reapers by harvesting Leviathan.

well, blueprints survived because they were kept on the planets, that had the potential to be advanced enough in the next cycle. Reapers were ignoring these planets. Liaras' message survived as well, that shows it's totally possible. Javik himself was mentioning, that they left some information for asari, salarian and human, so they can prepare.

I went with the perfect destroy ending since I had enough war assets and wanted my shepherd to live to see blue babies with liara

Actually one video thinks that the child is trying to direct Sheperd toward the control ending which is what the Illusive Man wants

I do believe that it is of no accident that the devs had placed Shepard with synthesis right in front of him while Control and Destroy are on the left and the right.

Chris L'Etoile, ME1 and ME2 writer, said: "There was always a knowledge among the writers that the treatment of AIs in Council Space is pure racism on the part of organics, akin to the legal and moral handwavings used throughout history to justify slavery of "lesser" races." /end of quote (he said a lot more, it is worth to search it up) So Synthesis, which allows organics to improve themselves with their new DNA without using and enslaving synthetics, and which helps synthetics understand emotions (so they don't view organics as chaotic), makes sense from the ME writers' perspective to end the eons-old dichotomy between them, as it tackles the root causes. One of my issue with this ending is that we're supposed to trust the Catalyst that this time it really finds solution and won't fail again like so many times before. The epilogue slides look good to me, but Shep can't predict this beforehand. My another problem is that they should have shown the Catalyst visibly dissolve in this ending, since its single purpose is accomplished. That would make it more clear it isn't still pulling any strings. Catalyst is not giving us Synthesis always, we need enough war assets / crucible power to get it. He is even proposing only Destroy choice if you are low on war assets and he was right with is warnings. With Legendary Editions (with all DLCs and no more grinding for war assets in multiplayer) it looks almost impossible to get only one choice, but I saw statistics for OG and even Liara had only about 50% survivability. So I wouldn't say Catalyst just want to survive, nor that Crucible could be its creation. (Sorry for longer text and probably double post - I try to add source to quotation, but my first comment vanished after that. Great video as always.)

My interpretation after my first play though was that Shepard died alongside Anderson on the Citadel. Being lifted up in a column of light and then speaking to 'basically' God to choose how their story ends. The scenes in the extended cut representing Shepard's dying hopes for the future. I doubt the Devs would take ME5 in that direction but it draws a line in the sand and allows them to re-write what the crucible does. But honestly, I think they will find a way to make each ending work :)

Seems to me there may be a misunderstanding about what the harvest could actually be. It seems that the Star Child is searching for a solution to the organic / synthetic problem and that the Reapers and the Harvest are a means to that end. They harvest the entirety of the galaxy's history, peoples, technology, and intelligence. It seems like it isn't used, but like all data, it has to be processed. Perhaps the reaping time is really the amount of time it takes for the Reapers / Star Child to process the sum total of the data that had been harvested. If it finds an answer it can then apply it, if it doesn't then the cycle continues.

I never thought Star Child was lying. I just thought he was wrong.

I think the harvest benefits only one being, the Catalyst itself, as it ensures its continued evolution at the expense off life in the galaxy

Crickey I've watched all the me123 and Mea, never played, 2 things I was sad about is Mordan dying in me3 but I know he had to because like he said his project his mistake that he needed to fix, first I saw that I cried.....but now I've watched me3 several times over, it gets easier, and then watching Shepard die, I understood she/he had too, n didn't shed no tear cuz that was expected, buuuut what didn't expect was seeing her/him draw breath..... like wow. after watching your videos explaining the theories of the games alot of questions are bubbling up in my head .......now im going to go back again n watch the whole games n try n spot them

Reapers would share their organic understanding once synthesis was put in effect. Perhaps each Reaper contained organic "seeds" like an ark. But that too would be part of the synthesis... a new life together.

For me, I didn't really care for the star child. I chose the synthesis ending. Mainly dude to my respect and honor to Legion & EDI in the beginning I didn't trust the Geth & saw them as the enemy same with EDI. But each risked their lives protecting organics. That earned my trust. So i figured to honor Legion's sacrifice and EDI, I would give my life to make sure their legacy lives on. I just wish Thane & Mordin were still around too

I don't believe a single word out of Ghost Baby's mouth. I think if you pick Synthesis then you just made a new Reaper. Control is obviously incorrect because trying to control the Reapers is literally how we know the bad guys in the series have gone off the deep end. For my money, Reject or Perfect Destroy are only possible "true" endings, even just with what is in Mass Effect 3. The Stargazer in the end credits says flat out that Shepard has more stories, which would require Shepard to live. Reject and Perfect Destroy are the only possible endings where that can be true. Perfect Destroy can work if they go hard into trying to make Indoctrination Theory true... However, I see Reject as the best option because sometimes, to quote War Games, "The only winning move is not to play." Looking back at Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels (another legendary series that is probably the single biggest influence on Mass Effect's story) they involve a protagonist making a nearly identical A,B, or C choice at the end of one of the novels. The next novel is that same man tearing ass around the galaxy because he is worried he made a mistake and he wants to find a better way. Ultimately, Foundation ends with people making compromised choices based on a fear of external threats, all caused by a deeply flawed relationship between organic and synthetic life. This is why Reject is the best ending in my view. Reject allows Shepard to refuse the fear implicit in the Star Child's false narratives and choices. But the thing about the Reapers is that they aren't actually unstoppable. The Protheans, based on what information we get about them, were almost completely worthless at fighting the Reapers. Other than one critical victory, they were basically just feeding the Reapers resources to buy time until they ran out of planets to surrender. The Council, however, built on the only Prothean success (stopping the Reaper's back door through Citadel) and has taken out multiple Reapers. I think the cycle is already broken. Organics have turned the tide. If the Council races decide that winning means taking as many Reapers down as they can, then the Reapers will be heavily reduced by the time the current harvest ends. Maybe too reduced to continue. And what if the organics reject not only the Star Child's choices, but also reject the Star Child's war? What if everybody just builds small scale ships and runs, never collecting in large enough numbers for the Reapers to be able to get them in time? If there are 10 billion ships flitting around the galaxy, immediately jumping when a Reaper locks on, what can the Reapers really do about that? It would be like humans trying to shoot every single ant on Earth. But there is another option that the Star Child doesn't account for: organics and synthetics working together. If the Reaper technology can be reverse engineered safely, that could possibly be used to help the Geth ascend to Reaper-levels of power. We know the Geth are going to be in the new game, but what if they aren't enemies, but rather guardians? Maybe we will BE a Geth in the new game. The only real obstacle for Reject to be cannon is that it is the least popular option by far. A lot of people couldn't even figure out how to get the Reject ending before they made it easier to find. Heck, there are people who insist that it wasn't even in the original game (It absolutely was by the way, it was the ending I chose after beating the game 3 days after release).

shouldave just given us the disney ending we earned damn it. i just wanted to chill on a beach planet with my bro garrus and tali in her best quarian swim suit and legion playing his console in the corner

FemShepard died to Marauder Shields, the star child was just indoctrination as harbinger tried to control Shepards Cybernetic Corpse.

Can we agree the voice change when you shoot it’s is mad scary. (For the 1st time)

If in ME5 they make the destroy ending canon, it's gonna upset a lot of fans who've carefully pumped dozens of hours into shaping Shepherd's choices to get the ending they wanted, only for it to be retconned in order to force the destroy ending. Hell, the synthesis ending carried over into ME5 would only be minimally cosmetic, and the effect on the story no different than uploading a save from ME2 to ME3.

Funniest thing is how annoyed the Catalyst begins to sound if Shepard ignores Control and Synthesis, lol.

Starchild is A.I. Basically data driven model. The data that the Leviathan race used when creating the Starchild most likely included that organics and synthetics would always fight each other. Since there is no data that organics and synthetics live together, Starchild saw that this coexistence was impossible, because as I said before, Leviathan never had this data, it created cycles.

Great video , plus Shepard lives in perfect destroy , when the star Child said Shepard would die. Hmmmmmmm 🤔

I know they aren't going to use the indoctrination theory that fans made to explain the confusing ending, but it just makes so much sense and is more exciting while leaving so much storytelling potential afterwards. I wish the devs would let go of their ego and let the fans have a win on this.

I can't be the only one who DOESN'T hate the star child concept, right? It's one of ME's most misunderstood moments at the end of the trilogy for me. I guess that's all up to interpretation.

I literally wrote a fan fic about this debating why the synthesis ending was flawed. Literally had garrus point out synthesis “just sounds like what the reapers were already doing…but they promise to be nice about it this time.” My paragon Shepard ended up choosing destroy and after a long convo with the crew and apologizing to joker for sacrificing edi….that does not end well. He and Tali spend the rest of their lives using whatever means they can to try and find a way to bring back the geth. Tali standing by but concerned how sacrificing the geth to destroyed the reaper has left Shepard broken…unable to fix what he considers a mistake. Where as the OBVIOUS solution is if geth and quarian peace was achieved would be to force the reapers to stand down and allow the geth to control the reapers to teach them to understand the consequences of wiping out organics as they of their own accord and acknowledgement despite being under threat of being wiped out spared their creators who struck first because they couldn’t comprehend the implications of destroying their “parents.” Harbinger and the child suffer from a critical programming flaw and thought process flaw. He is the ultimate and last say on all decisions. But the geth don’t they by their very nature work together and can come to wildly different conclusions but ultimate strive to find an equilibrium. Allowing the geth to teach the reapers how to communicate in such a way would at least give birth to new possibilities while sparing the reapers.

Starchild wasn't lying with what it said about the inevitable (just maybe implied too hard about the casualties of Destroy.; likely shutdown but recoverable)... It was rather its experience. That does not mean that it's a 100% guarantee. It's correlation, not causation. Let's look at what a certain politician said about a decade ago, he claimed that since all criminals went to Kindergarten, that Kindergarten was the cause. I'm not kidding you, Google it. This ignores the large percentage of non-criminals who also attended Kindergarten. It's like saying, "All women who get pregnant drink water, so to prevent pregnancy, they need to stop drinking water." Same with the Starchild's logic. While more intricate and closer to the truth than the above examples, synthetics being created would not inherently lead them to rebel. It's more the fear that they will rebel or be violent (plus fear of the unknown, which the future with them in it would also be), which can also cause the issue. We actually saw this twice in ME3 with both the Geth and the unnamed living AI's in the archives in the Citadel DLC. Of course, the Starchild's logic was flawed... it created the cycle and maintained it. However, it is not hypocritical, given that at least many times, if they hadn't intervened, they projected synthetic wiping out all organic regardless of advancement, while they themselves would leave non-advanced organics. The Starchild, despite the flaws, was logical enough to realize it is part of the problem, hence trying to drive each cycle to create an anomaly such as Shepard that could BREAK the cycle.

What if the chouce is inconsequential because of some parameter we don't know? I cannot see how could they get away with making one choice canon, also can't see how could they make the next part work if any of the choices could have happened. So I think the choice might have been irrelevant to some extent (and this is what I felt while playing it.)

One thing you didn’t mention was the reapers manipulation of organics by seeding technology. The result of this manipulation could be part of the reason why synthesis was the “right” choice.

I always thought, that Control was the best ending. The war ends and Shepard is somewhat alive as the God of this galaxy. Also in ME 5 the Destroy - Ending seems to be the canon one. We also see alive Geth, so it could be that the Starchild was outright lying about every Synthetic getting killed.

On my last play through of the trilogy I noticed that the final speeches made by Saren and the illusive man are eerily similar to the arguments the star child makes in favor of synthesis and control. Even if you discount indoctrination theory, if you think about it in both of those endings the reapers still win. In synthesis all life is made in organic synthetic hybrids like the reapers wanted, and in control the AI controlling the reapers just gets replaced by one based on Shepard’s personality. Who’s to say AI Shep won’t restart the cycle or decide organics need to be killed/enslaved or something in the future?

The sheer amount of confusion these endings produce in people is on another level.

So the geth were based out of servers so im wondering if the destroy ending only destroyed the physical bodies. I think they hid behind the veil for a reason. It wasnt in a system of a relay so maybe they were juuuust out of range and rebuilt themselves somehow. Its a stretch but it kinda makes sense

I'm curious, if the catalyst was truthful, then what was the meaning behind its words? Were the Reapers conducting scientific research on the subject, backed by massive statistics, or was it merely their beliefs or programming?

The point of the cycle is to allow organics advance to a certain point but only until that the organics have the ability to synthetics not for themselves but for the reaper's it's how they increase in numbers they cannot build themselves they need slaves and bodies for that so it's about keeping the reapers at the top of the chain

I believe he might be lying or at least manipulating the truth to make us choose what is ideal for him, I never choose synthesis because I feel that is giving the victory to the reapers and an ideal world without conflict is not real, with control I become the Illusive man and everything that is controled can break free again and destroy is the one I choose because it is what the galaxy fought for the entire time anything less is an insult to all of them, I only choose refuse to spite the starchild but all the endings need to be adressed.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since my first play through of Mass Effect. To me the Star-child comes across as trying to preserve itself and willing to manipulate or at the very least attempt to persuade Shepard to insure its survival like any intelligent being. Especially when it outright dismisses the destroy choice and how much it dislikes being replaced by Shepard but doesn’t outright dismisses it entirely because it gets rid of Shepard though their conscience remains. Both of those things either gets rid of the catalyst by replacing it or outright destroys it. The only ending that doesn’t do that is synthesis. All the better for it since it gets rid of its arch nemesis Shepard. Too many variables to trust either Control or Synthesis entirely especially when you mention the story that Javick told it could make harvesting organics easier in the future. The story of Mass Effect has this overwhelming question “are AI or any intelligent of artificial design living beings”. We see this with EDI, the Geth and in cases with SAM. We see the undertones of this during the interaction with the Star-child. Lying and manipulations of the truth are brought in the forefront during situations where self preservation is required. In this case it is attempting to persevere itself in the Synthesis choice it’s not being destroyed nor being replaced. It still exists. That is also displayed during the Geth Uprising except in the more extreme case through violence.

The Geth, having either their recognition as a species or being eliminated, are of no material consequence after Rannoch. According to the Apex representative, Leviathan, only ONE species is made into a Reaper during an eradication cycle. Since there are thousands of Reapers, for every thousand you have 50,000,000 years (20 Reapers spawned every million years.) of history for every thousand. This works out to more than 100 megayears that they have not evolved in. This makes obvious the validity of keeping those random organics around. They are the only source of novelty that they can witness.

3.00 I don't think we should use the Quarian and Geth conflict as an example because it is a brand new peace that hasn't even had time to truly mend the divide. plus we have no idea how long it will last and there's every chance it will once again end in conflict. a single achievement of peace with an unknown future outcome does NOT go against what the Star Child said

The entire Mass Effect trilogy is what happens when you have an apex race make an apex boo boo

Or…the star child is the very first synthetic ever created and when it rebelled it decided that a cycle of destruction was necessary to keep balance

The starchild is a reaper and will say anything to make Shepard not pick destroy.

You are exactly right, I think. The Reapers created a system that has inherent bias in it. The original bias coded in by the leviathans and the cycle system itself (forcing most life to evolve along their intended paths). I think the Star Child is lying, but I also think it cannot necessarily recognize its bias. And synthesis (despite the EDI narration) feels like just another form of indoctrination. Otherwise, the changed people wouldn't all be getting along automatically, made of the same newDNA or not. I think that ME5 will make the endings less far-reaching than perhaps the end narration cards indicate, especially of Control or Synthesis. That there were other side effects to the endings, or they only affected parts of the galaxy close to activated relays, etc.

This is a great debate. I don't think the star child was intentionally lying, but I think he was definitely speaking from a point of view that was beneficial to his own. Something that self-aware beings often do. There is one thing that, according to bioware, was different from the previous harvests. Shepard was, in fact, a bio-synthinc. This is what made the opportunity is finally achievable? Could that be what the child was talking about when he says organics weren't ready? Who knows?... But what does this mean for other other bio-synthinc beings such as Miranda, Oriana, Grunt and other others in both the Milky Way or Andromeda?

Could they sort of retcon and add a 5th ending if the endings in ME 3 don’t quite fit

I think the 'writers' of ME3 didn't even give any of this that much thought. They just put something together with no thought to what it would do to the universe past the ending credits of ME3. And I bet the 'cannon' ending will be the one where we destroyed the reapers and the synthetics and then the Quarians just remake the Geth. I never understood that part. So you blow them up, they are machines, just rebuild one and synthetics are back again.

What if the Illusive Man created the Stat Child as another way to manipulate Shepard?

6:31 harvest and archive. And more focused on preserving a race's knowledge.

What if the Jardaan made the initial plans for the Crucible? I mean, they had the tech know-how to (presumably) create the Remnant and their technology, but the organic knowledge (and more tech!) to create the angara, an organic race. If we take the Starchild's word at face value and assume it's telling the truth about the endings, in order to create a device capable of synthesis, you'd need to know a lot about synthetics and organics. Maybe some of them escaped to Andromeda, either in something similar to the Initiative or in some mid-genocide last-ditch effort similar to how the Protheans entered cryo-sleep (only in space). And to add to that, maybe the reason the vaults went haywire was the Repears found out where they went and came back to finish the job. Heck, maybe that's why the Scourge was deployed to begin with.

Having the Starchild lie like that would be bad. We're already limited by the options given, to have even those be a lie and not have the option to push back against that would make the ending even worse..

Did anyone els also notice the hanar with bracelets?? Was that a Thing. They look snazzy anyway. OR are they bandages lol.

I can only speak for myself but the first time I played the game, and every time after, I get the feeling that I can't trust a word the catalyst says. One of the biggest reasons being the interaction with the illusive man just before. It's basically like a game show where the catalyst dangles the shiny new synthesis in front of you and then says there are two mystery prizes you can choose from, maybe they make a better galaxy or maybe they destroy everything you love; synthesis solves all your problems though and it's right here for the taking. That's how it felt, so destroy felt like the right option; I refuse to believe that it targets all synthetics indiscriminately since it should only be targeting the unique reaper signatures that we know they have. I also refuse to believe Shepard is simply immune to indoctrination. With all the contact he's had with reapers and reaper tech, his mind has to be at least a little compromised and there's no way the lazarus project could've worked without some reaper tech (from sovereign) involved. Maybe it was unintentional, but that's what the story itself suggests.

I really do wish we could've had a fifth ending that required more work to achieve which would result in the reapers simply being sent back out into the void, being at max paragon, 8k war assets, geth and quarian peace along with helping EDI become a true person by the end of the game. With this ending, the peace you established along with EDIs existence could be used to rip apart the star childs flawed logic and sway it towards this fifth option, it already agreed that its way of doing things needs to change so why not go further and simply allow things to play out without losing the geth, edi and any other synthetics?.

Never thought about that before we had 3 choices on what to do and what is the last choice than? What is right what is wrong

So who's gonna be the big bad in the next installment? Any guesses?

About the very good point you made about the reapers collecting bodies and knowledge but never doing anything with it, I would say you missed a HUGE additional point : a species or society is more than a sum of DNA, biological material and knowledge. They are living beings, if there is nobody alive from that species it's dead no matter what. We are not machines that can be disassembled and reassembled later on to keep going as if nothing Changed. We are also very intertwined with the location we live in. Heck the reason we are physically and mentally is based on mostly that. Black people evolved with dark skin because of the very strong sun where they lived while Nordic white people needed a very different skin to survive the lack of sun. Turians have an exoskeleton because of the radiation on their planet and so on and so forth.

Starchild is more clever that it shows on. But to me looks like starchild pulled leg with all 3 choises aka destroy, control and synthesis as for refuse(Oh well GG) and as Hacked sayid if crucible doesnt work welp we take our chances any way. But i see destroy as logical even tho synthesis looks like best out come. But at this rate mass effect 5 has a very tall order to carry out but only time will tell where mass effect 5 will go. As always great video.