Two things: this will be fairly short, and will contain major spoilers for both mass Effect 3 and the Leviathan DLC. You have been warned.
Now, this is something I've wanted to share for a bit, now, ever since completing the Mass Effect trilogy for the umpteenth time. I played through with relatively the same choices, only I played through with Mass Effect's 3 DLC pieces (all of which are great), and I want to talk a little bit about Leviathan, because contrary to what people say about it, it does in a way somewhat affect the ending of Mass Effect 3, and it does finally make the existence of the Reapers and the explanation given by the starchild somewhat satisfying.
Hear me out. The Leviathan DLC establishes that the starchild (Catalyst) was an artificial construct created by the Leviathans to oversee relations between organic and synthetic life. To this end, the Catalyst determined that the best way to do this would be to turn the Leviathans into Reapers and harvest civilizations, essentially creating a sort of "perfect evolution" in the form of a Reaper. This was what the Catalyst concluded was the best way to stop conflict between organic and synthetic life. Yes, the logic is flawed, but the main issue people have is they believe the Catalyst to be omnipotent or god-like. In reality, the Catalyst was programmed to think a certain way, and perceive certain things a certain way, in order to better carry out its function. With this in mind, it is easy to see the mistakes and failures in logic as errors in programming of the Catalyst that were caught too late by the Leviathans to stop.
So, in essence, the Reapers were created by an artificial intelligence whose parameters dictated that the best way to keep organics and synthetics from conflicting would be to merge them and preserve them in a perfect form. The logic here is flawed, but since we know that the Catalyst was CONSTRUCTED, these flaws are more acceptable.
Hopefully that makes sense. But for me, it made the explanation for the Reapers' existence much more satisfying and much more sensible, and I think I understand it now. I hope I've gotten my point across. I felt like sharing.
Please, post your thoughts on this if you feel like it. Or don't. Whichever you prefer. Good day!
