Wasn't that the original plot conclusion for the original games? Thought I heard once it was supposed to come down to the player realizing the reapers were destroying all spacefaring life every 50k years cus of it. The player would have had to decide between destroying the reapers and letting them kill everyone as its ending, but I think a lot of that got leaked partway through development?

Maybe that was someone speculating to me but it seems plausible seeing how much of a shit show the ending of 3 was