I do not like Mass Effect 3's ending.

I know, very original thesis. To clarify: I do not like the last 5 or so minutes of the ending. I firmly believe that if the Crucible successfully fired after The Illusive Man's death, the story would come to a satisfying conclusion. I will concede that the Crucible initially failing to fire was a great subversion of expectations. However, the writers completely failed to capitalize on this. The Catalyst's appearance was narratively flaccid. Worse, what it went on to say actively cheapened the narrative. It laser focused on one of the series' many themes (the debate over whether machines can be "alive", are moral passengers, and whether they can coexist alongside organic life) and then proceeded to bludgeon it to death, throwing away all the effort that went into developing this theme over three games. Unfortunately, deleting the Catalyst would leave the Reapers without a compelling motive. They would merely be asserting that their goals were beyond the comprehension of organics, which makes for lazy storytelling—especially after 3 whole games and dozens of hours of exposition and plot. The only solid explanation as to their intentions came at the end of Rannoch, and is then never discussed again.

I intend to build a case for what their actual goals could be, based on what information is available in the entire trilogy, except those final 5 minutes. My goal is to reinterpret the Reapers' motivations in the most compelling way possible while changing the least about the events that take place in the series.

An Alternative Interpretation:

The 50,000 year cycle is actually the reproductive cycle of the Reapers. They begin their lives as a mass of inorganic material harvested by indoctrinated slaves and organic material harvested from indoctrinated slaves. This explains the existence of the Human Reaper at the end of ME:2. Upon reaching maturity (and upon the total consumption of any useful inorganic material left in the galaxy), Reapers will travel to dark space to hibernate until the galaxy repopulates.

According to Vigil, the Reapers will use their indoctrinated slaves to pilfer everything of value from the galaxy. Obvious question ensues: what could a Reaper find valuable? They're a machine intelligence—they don't use currency or barter. They don't seek pleasure. The Reapers do not desire dominion for dominion's sake. When they enslaved the Protheans, they eventually got whatever they wanted and left for dark space, leaving their indoctrinated husks behind. If they simply wanted to enslave sapient beings, they likely wouldn't distinguish between FTL-capable and FTL-incapable races. Curiously, there is no indication Reaper invasions get any smaller every cycle. This implies Reapers reproduce in some way.

FTL-capable races are exponentially more productive than FTL-incapable races. One can surmise that in order to create societies spanning thousands of planets and star systems, all FTL-capable races would possess a truly mind-boggling level of mechanization. Enslaving sapient species such as Neolithic humans (or even modern humans) would provide the Reapers with nothing even remotely approximating the resources required to build new reapers. Their organic material wouldn't even be necessary, as they already had enough from their slaves (as evidenced by the fact that they left enormous numbers of Prothean slaves behind to starve to death). It makes sense to ignore FTL-incapable races a means to avoid overhunting organic life, thus ensuring the galaxy is repopulated for the end of the cycle in 50,000 years' time. It's a survival mechanism.

Evaluation:

I believe one of the strongest selling points of my interpretation is that it gives a solid explanation as to what the human reaper at the end of ME:2 was for. When the Prothean survivors on Ilos traveled to the Citadel, they subverted the Reapers' control over the Keepers, preventing their sudden return. This outcome was anticipated by the Reapers, so they left one of their kind—Sovereign—behind to scheme and bring about their return through more direct means. When Shepard killed Sovereign, the Reapers got desperate and turned to the collectors—the few surviving Prothean slaves (fitted with significant cybernetic and genetic modifications to counter the effects of indoctrination)—to build a new Reaper. I believe it was intended to replace Sovereign to begin scheming again. They likely found this to be the most viable option as the council never took the Reaper threat seriously (and were slow to rebuild their fleets), and with Shepard's death, the Reapers were no longer pressed for time. When Shepard destroyed the human Reaper and the collectors, the Reapers were left with only one option: to brute force their way into the galaxy. They couldn't take the citadel to cripple their enemies and learn everything about them. They had to fight the rest of the galaxy on even ground, which eventually culminated in their downfall to the Crucible.

Flaws:

1. My interpretation fails to explain why the Reapers believe their goals to be beyond the comprehension of organic life. I could handwave it away by saying their programming makes them hold it to be axiomatically true, but I feel this is not a satisfying explanation.

2. My interpretation fails to explain why the Reaper on Rannoch made those statements about organics and synthetics. I believe the only way around it is to rewrite the interaction to have the reaper claim that Reapers, organics, and synthetics could never coexist. Reapers not only refuse to cooperate, but are incapable coexisting with organics and synthetics without causing their own destruction. This would create an interesting moral conundrum, as neither side can be satisfied without the destruction of the other. To put it intona predator/prey analogy: are wolves wrong to consume rabbits? Would rabbit be right to demand the destruction of wolves?