It's more meta than that. Popular theory is that really, Shepard (and by extension, the player) is indoctrinated. Nate and I came up with this crazy theory that Bioware planned for us to get into this uproar, to try and figure what's really happening, to find the subtle clues hidden in the endings, to fight off the indoctrination of Harbinger if you will as a whole.

Unlike the rest of the internet, I don't think Bioware is in a state of damage control and I think they planned this from the start. People aren't giving them enough credit. But yeah, I accepted the ending for what it was, despite the various holes and unanswered questions. But analyzing closer and closer, there's definitely more to the ending than what we've seen so far...

Indoctrinated how? With the ultimate goal of destroying the relays? I can get behind the whole indoctrinated thing, just why?

It's definitely a meta mind screw of an ending, just a matter of figuring out why/how.

Everyone's too upset about not getting the ending they wanted to actually focus on the allegorical/metaphoric/whatever implications.

And apparently, at the end of the "destroy Reapers" option, you see Shepard cough and start to wake up in what appears to be London, because there's concrete debris everywhere.

Woah.

That makes an obscene amount of sense. Especially for some Wild Mass Guessing.

I get the feeling that each of the final choices had its own implications; a meta reasoning behind it.

Like the 'destroy the Reapers' one. That's the one you're 'supposed' to do. It's why you played Mass Effect and came into that world, to defeat the Reapers. And what are the Reapers? AI's, synthetics. Like the game itself. So you beat the game. It's over, but, the game's over and 'dead', as are all the synthetics: the Reapers, Geth, and EDI.

I figure the Mass Relays being destroyed is the same meaning/implications of the game ending: it's over. That's it.

Now to work out if the other 'choices' have similar significance.

Right, I definitely chose synthesis because it's what my Shepard would have done. I felt like it was the best way to move forward in the universe, to get rid of the conflict of organic versus synthetics all together. And I definitely didn't want to destroy ALL synthetics because I pretty much wiped out the Quarians and didn't want to make that seem trivial by also destroying the Geth.

And I agree about destroying the mass relays too: it pretty much ends the story, unless we jump forward pretty far into the future. In a way, destroying the relays in itself will have a massive and profound impact on the universe. Meta.

I guess everything will become clear once Bioware says what they have to say.

In my version I figured Shepard wouldn't let all the synthetics die; he spent too long convincing EDI and Legion they were alive and, again in mine, the Geth were helping the Quarians rebuild Rannoch. Peace had been made, couldn't let that go to waste.

And even with the Relays gone, life still goes on. Yes, the galaxy's military and political might was in Earth's orbit, but the Krogans had Tuchanka and the Quarians Rannoch. With the reapers gone life wasn't just over for the whole galaxy.

Maybe we'd all feel better if we'd seen the Normandy land on Earth instead instead of, well, whatever happened to the Normandy.

It's meta. Really meta.

In my ending, Shep took control of the Reapers. It felt like the logical thing to do. To save organic life, my Shepard takes control of the Reapers, thereby saving the Reapers from this vicious cycle as well.

What my strategy guide tells me, is that that only happens if you have a high enough Galactic Readiness rating by doing multiplayer etc.

The Catalyst is a lying little rat! When he tells Shepard that destroying the Reapers will destroy the Geth so the Shepard won't destroy the Reapers! It's a lieee....

...and that's how I'm gonna sleep at night.