Was Mass Effect 3’s ending foreshadowed in Mass Effect 1?

REDUCE SPEED NOW, SPOILERS AHEAD.

Did BioWare plan Mass Effect 3’s controversial ending all along? Turns out, they might have.

Following a tip over on Reddit, Rock Paper Shotgun’s John Walker went back to the first Mass Effect, to confirm that the description of a planet hinted at things that were to come. Which it did, kind of.

Klencory, found in the Newton System inside the Kepler Verge, is described as:

“… a rock and ice planet with an atmosphere composed of chlorine and argon. The frozen surface is mainly composed of potassium with deposits of iron.

Klencory is famously claimed by the eccentric volus billionare Kumum Shol. He claims that a vision of a higher being told him to seek on Klencory the “lost crypts of beings of light”. These entities were supposedly created at the dawn of time to protect organic life from synthetic “machine devils”.

Shol has been excavating on Klencory’s toxic surface for two decades, at great expense. No government has valued the world enough to evict his small army of mercenaries.”

Is this actually describing some kind of artificial intelligence trying to warn people about the Reapers? I guess that depends on how desperately you want to love BioWare again.

Interestingly enough, somebody over on the BioWare forums called it two years ago already. User HunterX2, who forgot how to spell and grammar in his excitement, wrote:

“Do you think this ancients “beigns” will play a role in ME3? I sure hopse so, that would be awesome, ofcourse some people who have seen this too much (maybe star trek fans? i heard one guy saying such a thing) wont like this idea maybe, i know it would be pretty awesome since then it means that the reapers are the devil like ones while the other ancient ones are sealed and are he ones who can really help shepard against the reapers without costing too much death in the coming war ,”

He wasn’t the only person blessed with a vision of the future, though. A bit further down the page, user screwoffreg has some ideas of his own.

“There are two endings I wouldn’t like for ME 3. One being a random GOD LIKE force that saves the Galaxy or another being that to defeat the Reapers, everyone has to become a primitivst and destroy the Relays, Citadel, etc. Both would make me pretty unhappy as those endings have been done to death.”

Ha. Ha.