(Spoilers)Mass Effect 2 ruined the Franchise, 3 was continuation of that

[Callos_DeTerran]

But the story is about Shepard and the current cycle. If the issue didn't crop up in the current cycle, if Shepard has seen no evidence of it, than, narratively speaking, it's not an issue.

The issue DOES crop up in the current cycle with the quarians and the Geth, y'know one of the big over-arching story lines? Cause without Shepard intervening and even then they have to do all the right things, the Catalyst is exactly right about the path the Geth/Quarian conflict goes. One side or the other is completely annihilated and if you DO choose the Geth, its a fairy tale to believe the rest of the galaxy is just going to accept the Geth after fighting the Reapers (whom the Geth have aided in the past) and finding out securing their aid killed off the quarians.

You want to talk about being foolish, its Shepard thinking the Geth won't be in a fight for their lives once the other races have caught their breath.

And if you choose quarians and the Geth died? Congrats, every AI able to access the Extranet has shining examples that coexistence is impossible and the only options are either to hide from organics or fight them. Which you already see with the gambling AI. The game flat out tells you that true understanding between synthetics and organics is very difficult if not impossible because what the two desire is so different from one another just at the base level. What a synthetic might view as the most important thing in the world, an organic might not value at all because its meaningless to them and vice versa. Which makes diplomatic relations between the two very difficult when its starting base is basically nonexistent and this is before you go into the very real fear organics have about creating AI and what that means for the world and for them.

The Catalyst at the core of its argument, before you account for Shepard, is not wrong about the cycle it describes because it is panning out as of the start of the trilogy. The big difference is that Shepard can make the Catalyst wrong over the course of the games which, imagine that, is crucial for opening up different endings! Especially Synthesis.

Synthesis was limited, but by War Assets, not Paragon or Renegade. If I'm correct, it was impossible to get without playing multiplayer. If you had no DLC anyways.

You are incorrect. Its entirely possible to get Synthesis without ever touching multiplayer, you just had to make the correct choices and be thorough enough with side quests. Its close, but multiplayer adding to war assets basically existed to make it EASIER to get access to the best endings or as a means to make up the difference for players who (intentionally or not) made some bad choices throughout the trilogy. And I know you can do it because I didn't touch multiplayer until after I finished the main story and I got Synthesis before any DLC was released.