#me3le

And for the record, I actually did like a lot of the things the EC added to the endings as well as the Leviathan (or the idea of it anyway), mainly the slide show closure for the characters, the voice over narrations (Hackett's in particular is my personal favorite), and Liara's time capsule thing playing a part. Those were all great ideas, but since IMO, Bioware didn't address the core problems (mainly the Starchild and his ridiculous choices), those great ideas currently are still mired by poor execution IMO.

My attempted rewrite here strips away what I personally thought didn't work in the canon portrayal of the endings (mainly, the starchild, Synthesis ending option, and Control ending option) and attempts to focus more on player choice and TMS, whether in victory or defeat.

All of this is largely modeled after ME2 suicide mission structure, and just like ME2 suicide mission (even if Shepard and her friends survive, the Reapers are still coming) even the "best" ending has lingering problems and issues.

With all of that said, this is how I would have framed the final moments depending on choices (I made slight adjustments to the TMS (Total Military Strength) requirements for the LE version only):

MAX TMS Destroy Ending Reframing: (8000 or higher score)

Shepard is at the console (only moderately injured in this scenario, pretty bad but not life threatening due to cybernetic implants), opens up the arms of the Citadel and primes the Crucible to fire. Anderson (who is still critically injured no matter what) says Shepard did good and he is proud of her (My shep was female). Anderson dies as Shepard thanks him for saying that (basically, I'd keep this moment intact because it was great). The scene fades to black as the "I'm Proud of You" theme playing in the background comes to a close.

Then cue victory cut where the Crucible fires, destroys JUST the Reapers across the galaxy. Hackett voice over plays where we see the slide show of our choices while reflecting on the immense cost of victory and how long it will take for everything to get back on track and how this future will be one that many never get to see as we see a brief flashes of all key characters who have died since this started on Eden Prime from the person left on Virmire, Wrex (if applicable), Navigator Pressly (as a reminder of the SR-1 Normandy Crew), Mordin (if Genophage cured), Whomever died to save the Salarian Councilor (Thane/Kirrahe), Legion, and Anderson.

Mass Relays sustain moderate damage but are still intact if still temporarily inoperable. The Hackett voice over reminds us that the Leviathan, the entity that created the Reapers in the first place, is still a threat and on the horizon but feels that the galaxy may can still come together and face them if necessary.

Shepard is aboard the Normandy in front of the memorial wall with her friends standing next to her love interest. She puts Anderson's name on the wall and hugs love interest. Cut to credits.

MIDRANGE TMS Destroy Ending Reframing (4500-7999):

The part with Anderson is largely the same, but in this scenario Shepard is critically injured and dies next to him right after Anderson tells her he's proud (She says "Thank you sir" and succumbs to her injuries right next to him) as the scene fades to black.

The next scene shows the Crucible firing, but it isn't built/calibrated right due to lack of people and resources (it also took some damage since there wasn't a strong enough military force guarding it). The Crucible destroys all synthetic life along with the Reapers, Mass relays heavily damaged but still intact, though organics will be in the dark ages for quite some time until the relay network is repaired.

Hackett voice over and similar slides show idea mentioned above (but also adds EDI and any other crew members that might not have survived to this point to it) including looming potential threat of Leviathan and is not quite sure the galaxy will be able to oppose them anytime soon, but for now the United galaxy has won the day. Love interest puts Shepard name on memorial wall, cut to credits.

LOW TMS Destroy Ending Reframing (Anything 4499 or below Hey, these ARE Reapers we're dealing with lol):

No "I'm proud of you" speech from Anderson as he and Shepard die immediately from their injuries after the final confrontation with TIM. In the next scene, the Crucible fails to fire at all, we see a desperate struggle ON SCREEN of all our allied forces dying to the Reaper threat in a desperate final stand. Reapers win. Liara's capsule thing plays warning the next cycle about both the Reapers and Leviathan. The next cycle is much better prepared since Liara made sure to include "every linguistics program she could find" to assure that the next cycle could possibly better UNDERSTAND the warning (something the Protheans failed to do thanks to their arrogant supremacy regarding "primitive" ways of communication) and they're able to modify the crucible to destroy both the Reapers and Leviathan and ensure they're gone for good.

No Starchild bullshit, no forced choices that don't line up with the story we just experienced, just endings where player choice takes effect and ties everything together whether in victory or defeat while still leaving room to tell any potential new stories in the Milky Way and giving everyone the chance to have the sort of ending that best reflects their Shepard.

None of these outcomes are "perfect" or "happy" (and with ME, that's exactly how they should be), but I'd still like to think there's something here that a lot of people could at least get behind. The idea here wasn't to railroad anyone into a "Shepard lives" or "Shepard dies" ending either.

The bottom line is that regardless of one's personal preferences on that matter, having more variety in the ending options increases replay value and THAT was my primary aim. I don't understand the "Shepard should have....." anything really because every Shepard is played by a different person and what works for one person and their interpretation of Shepard may not work for someone else's Shepard and ME has always been about shaping one's own destiny with their choices so I wanted to focus on preserving that idea.

Anyway, what do you guys/gals think? And thanks for reading this if you did!

EDIT:

And before I'm bombarded with comments saying that I just want Shepard to live let me just say that no not quite. Mass Effect 2 did the best job in the trilogy considering player choice in the matter. I've played that game multiple times and achieved all three possible outcomes (everyone surviving, some surviving, or all dying) and found each outcome equally compelling and well executed for different reasons.