I'd like to bring this topic back from the dead to explore the possible ramifications of the three bad endings before the new game is announced. Here's what I think happened after the end credits:
- You’re SHEPARD, but you’re clinically brain-dead lying in a bed at Huerta Memorial. Shooting the red pipe caused your body to be blown down to the control room, back across the chasm, and through the room of corpses to the beam which deposited you (still breathing, mind you) amidst the rubble of London. With the Mass Relays destroyed and much of Earth looking like Trafalgar Square, you were transported to Huerta Memorial, which was miraculously spared any real damage when the orbiting Citadel exploded.
-OR-
- Your body has been transported to Huerta Memorial as above, but your consciousness now exists inside the Reaper Consensus (which you have renamed the ‘
because I said so’). Here you are able to make decisions that influence Reaper behavior based on the fact that you grabbed two blue handlebars because TIM told you to. You are using your newfound power to make your Reaper puppets rebuild the mass relays because you want to finally stick it to the idiots on the Council (who all somehow survived) and take your shiny new Reapers on a long delayed full scale invasion of the Terminus Systems.
-OR-
- Your body was completely vaporized due to the fact that you inexplicably decided to complete SAREN'S objective from the first Mass Effect! All that’s left of you is a single piece of chestplate with the N7 logo that was recovered from the rubble in London near the spot where you disappeared into the beam. Experts speculate that your armor was somehow separated from your body due to the molecular deconstruction that preceded your transport to the Citadel. With nothing left of you to bury, the remaining piece of armor is transported to the only section of the Citadel still standing... Huerta Memorial.
-NOW-
- EMILY WONG is reporting from outside Huerta Memorial where an angry half synthetic/half organic lynch mob have gathered to string you up for what they perceive to be crimes against organics. The Krogan have sent envoys to the Citadel to demand that your body be brought to Tuchanka to face trial for curing the genophage, then rendering the entire Krogan race sterile
again by choosing Synthesis. URDNOT WREX has been quoted as saying that you’ll make a good amuse-bouche for KALROS, the Queen of all Thresher Maws. In fact, the only one happy about being spontaneously transformed into a cyborg is a Volus named NIFTU CAL.
- 184,563,297 lawsuits have been filed against you to date for everything from genocide to property damage to copyright infringement.
- Your ship and crew crash landed on a planet only 654 light years from Citadel space. Engineer GREG ADAMS surmises that fuel reserves will hold out just long enough for the Tantalus Drive Core to build momentum to reach 89% of light speed. The good news is that, since we all know that Sir Isaac Newton is the most fuel efficient
son-of-a-you-know-what in space, the ship will continue to drift at that speed indefinitely without fuel. The bad news is that, with the mass relays destroyed, only Matriarch LIARA T’SONI would be alive when the Normandy finally returns to Citadel space... and that’s only if she somehow manages to avoid eating or drinking after the first eleven months. To combat this Adams, T’Soni, & TALI’ZORAH vas NORMANDY repurpose the escape pods to serve as rudimentary stasis pods based upon a prothean design provided by JAVIK.
- Because they were virtually wiped out in the initial Reaper attack, the Batarians never did actually send their committed ships into battle against the Reapers. They now find themselves in possession of the largest fleet in Citadel Space. In recognition of this, the other councillors name BALAK to take the seat vacated by DONNELL UDINA.
- Without the Geth to assist them in acclimatizing themselves to Rannoch, the Quarians suffer through a series of pandemics that all but wipe them off the galactic map. In a last ditch effort to save her species, ADMIRAL X’EN tries to recreate the Geth using second hand parts salvaged from the remnants of the Migrant fleet. The results are not aesthetically pleasing, but her ‘new Geth’ do attain self awareness... right before they break down because there are fewer Quarians to keep them repaired.
- DALATRASS LINRON is stripped of her title after footage of her
in flagrante delicto with a Hanar named ZYMANDIS (soul name: Regards the Works of the Enkindlers in Despair) floods the extranet. Thanks to the testimony of a Spectre named JONDUM BAU, it comes to light that this Zymandis was actually an indoctrinated Reaper agent who almost caused the fall of Kahje. This revelation is a political WMD that vaporizes the entire Linron bloodline and opens the door for DALATRASS NARRA to be named the new leader of the Salarian Union. Former Dalatrass Linron retires to an undisclosed location and spends the rest of her life fleeing the Drell assassins that the Hanar send to exterminate her.
- Spurred on by his new wife, JENNA, CONRAD VERNER volunteers to work as a consultant on the Crucible project where he is re-aquainted with engineer GAVIN HOSSLE. Over coffee the two write out the mission statement for the corporation that will come to be known as Verssle Endeavours on an Alliance napkin. Verssle Endeavours becomes the leading light in harnessing the dark energy necessary to rebuild the Mass Relays. The napkin will later rest under secure glass, right next to Conrad Verner’s statue, in the Smithsonian Institute.
- As a result of her efforts leading the colonists of Zhu’s Hope against the Reapers, SHIALA is approached with commission offers by both the Asari Military and the Human Systems Alliance. She is also informed by the Citadel Council of her Spectre candidacy. In the end, she puts them all aside to begin her new life as an Asari Justicar.