Quote Originally Posted by Erloas View Post
You're missing a lot if you are only counting the last cut scenes as the end of all the story arcs. So many of the big side plots are wrapped up before you get there. If you saved the Krogan or killed them that is going to be the case no matter which way you handle the Reapers. Finishing the Reapers doesn't change who's in charge of the Council and what that means. You already know the end results, the "ending" that you've helped accomplish across the many conflicts in the games by the time you get to the final confrontation with the Reapers at the Crucible. Just like most movies and books, not everything is restated in the last few pages/minutes because they don't need to be. You're choice to control the reapers or cause the singularity doesn't change whether or not you killed the Rachni.
Thing is, blowing up the mass relays, which happens in every scenario, renders pretty much all of that completely irrelevant in the short term. In all three scenarios the current iteration of galactic civilization is shattered. The choices you made won't matter because people will have to decide everything again decades later when society finally recovers from having it's primary communication links obliterated. Destroying the Mass Relays is an apocalyptic event from the perspective of everyone living in the galaxy.

And this was all tacitly admitted in that, at least in the initial construction, the only 'after the end' shot was of a handful of characters stepping off the Normandy in an unknown location. The ending overrode choices made by the player, and that's one of the reasons people found it so upsetting.