Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[Aotrs Commander]

Do we know they haven't thought it through? There is a middle ground between THOUSAND YEAR DARK AGE and No Mass Relays, No Problem! I'm waiting to see if the extended DLC explains the difficulty that arises in the transition between Mass Relay technology and post-Mass Relay technology. I'd be pretty happy with:

"It was a tough decade. We lost a lot of people. Entire colonies starved. But with the new Relay Drive, we could explore the galaxy, unconstrained by the Mass Relays, etc, etc."

Real life analogue: You could say the very same thing about post-WWII Europe and Japan. Japan and Germany were basically reduced to rubble. Fast forward 60 years and visiting Japan and Germany, you can't tell much of a difference. Given enough time and space and peace, the ravages of war won't last. That's not to downplay how hard it was to survive in post-WWII and many people did suffer and die.

For the record, I have never said I believed in a thousand year dark age, which would be just as stupid. But you could easily be looking at a veritable galaxy-wide mass extinction, depending on how many colonies can survive completely without space transport routes, potentially for years to decades, and at the very least a catastrophy in loss of life almost if not as bad again as that already inflicted by the Reapers. It's not something that should be handwaved away, for the sake of some "artisitic/philosophical" point at one end of the scale, or Bay-sposions on the other.

It sounds like you're conflating in-universe vs. out-of universe here. I don't think anyone other than the pants-on-head crazy conspiracy dudes IN UNIVERSE would advocate blowing up the Mass Relays, even if they are linked to the Reapers.

That prior statement was entirely directed out of universe. I was - perhaps not very clearly, I'll grant you - saying that the basic concept that the mass relays needed to destroyed because they were a crutch to galactic development is risible (and, for that matter, in my opinion HAS no artistic merit), as it, even indirectly, and in passing, suggests that some philosophical goal of self-reliance is more important that people's lives, or at the very, very least, that said philosphical meanderings are more important to the writers than the established world-building, which is in my eyes a completely unforgivable sin.

That is of course, assuming they didn't do it just to have some pointless explosions, which is equally as silly, as there was plenty enough stuff to blow up without resorting to the really REALLY tired old cliche of "it's The End, everything must be asploded."

Out of universe, as an artistic statement, it makes sense as I've previously stated. The Catalyst blows up the mass relays, because they said so. That's how the developers decided to have the Catalyst work and the player can't just say to the developer "No, Mass Relays don't work that way." The developer and creator of the Universe has the ultimate last word.

Actually, they don't get the last word. They get to say "it happens this way" and then I get to say "that's pants-on-head-crapping-stupid."