NegaDeath wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 19:08:
But it SHOULD have had an effect on the ending. Shepard knows that he'll be stranding his friends on earth if the relays are destroyed. That was one of my first thoughts when the brat gave me the options. If the endings were set up so that red destruction took out all Reaper based tech, and blue control preserved Reaper tech, a LOT more people would stop to consider the "blue" route. Shepard sacrifices his humanity to preserve the shred of galactic unity that remains and allow his surviving friends to go home. Just that one simple change would have made a world of difference. As it is now it seems the red route is by far the most taken.
Of course, the choices you make with your companions will affect which option you personally want to pick, but it doesn't affect which options you are allowed to pick. Lets say you saved the Geth, does that mean that no AI is ever going to cause the eventual destruction of all organic life? And what if you cured the genophage. Does that mean now you can save the mass relays and only destroy the reapers? That's what I mean when I say choices you make with your companions won't necessarily have an effect on the ending. The choices you make with them are personal, and affect one group of people or species. The choice you make with the Catalyst is on a galactic scale, with millions of years of momentum behind it. The available paths are set long before Shepard and co made their impact on the galaxy.