[quote=Crya]
The thing is, I'm only willing to kill the geth because it's the only option. If the destroy ending would have caused all of the quarians' suits to malfunction, killing them all, but sparing the geth, I would still choose destroy. The control is what the Illusive Man wanted, and Synthesis is what Saren wanted. Both crazy, deluded men. I don't really want their visions carried out, not with all the unknown consequences.[/quote]

The Illusive man was just that: deluded. Shepard is not. Saren didn't want synthesis, he wanted servitude in return for survival. While I agree that both Control and Synthesis leave way too many loose threads and what-ifs (which I think is truly the greatest weakness of the ending sequence), I find it hard to justify genocide based on things that [i]might[/i] go wrong.

[quote]But I have to say, if any race was to get wiped out, it would be the geth. They just gained consciousness. They have no culture, music, art, government, history, etc. etc. yet. Killing them doesn't leave as big of a hole in the galaxy as killing, say, the asari would.
[/quote]

This is basically just cultural elitism. While a culture may be defined by the creations of the individuals within, we're not talking about the price of wiping out a culture: we're talking about exterminating a living race. Even just talking about culture itself, why does a society's longevity give it a greater right to live to life than any other society. It can't just be because "Well the Geth are the new kids on the block anyway, no one will miss them."