The Destroy/Control endings? I guess that works. I can figure that one out. But Synthesis? Who's idea what that? That makes no sense. You're going to fuse machines with organics and make a "new DNA"? What is that supposed to mean, huh? How exactly are you differentiating synthetic and organic life? Are you going to fabricate something, put carbon in it, and call it a day? Plus we've already established in the series that there are at two different DNA structures in the galaxy, so your "new DNA" isn't going to mean anything. And what's up with the "created hate the creators" schtick? Didn't I JUST SOLVE A WAR BETWEEN SOME CREATED AND SOME CREATORS?!. Kish mein touchess. Terrible. The fact that the writing was fine for the vast majority of the game and then it goes belly up in the last five minutes just shows me that someone made a 180 at the last second and didn't think things through.

It very much feels like this ending and explanation of the Catalyst/Reapers and so forth was shoehorned in at some point very near the end of development. The different endings don't even have different cutscenes beyond the colour of the energy coming from the Crucitadel (and a couple Reapers falling over in the Destroy branch); it just feels horribly rushed. I can't remember where exactly, but I'm pretty sure I remember something being mentioned about dark matter or energy or whatever being related to the Catalyst at some point, making it seem like it'd all somehow tie back in to the stuff with Haestrom from Tali's recruitment mission in ME2 and genuinely lead to some real endings based on choices made through the trilogy and so forth. Unfortunately, this was either a red herring or something ended up getting completely switched out towards the end for some reason with seemingly great haste and references in the script were missed.

When I first finished I was very undecided about how I felt about the ending, but thinking about it more over the past day I've really come to feel disappointed. The rest of the game was fabulous, but the ending was definitely a complete letdown; I almost want to replay with as few assets as possible to see if there's a decent ending that involves the Reapers destroying the fleets and whatnot before Shepard even reaches Earth, so I can pretend that's how it all ended.