Two things, Luke:

1. Mordin did not create the Genophage. The Genophage was created well over a millennium ago. It was weakening, so Mordin’s task force tweaked it. (Effectively re-neutering the Krogan, so you’re pretty much right.)

2. I managed to barter a peace between the Quarians and the Geth by shouting at the Admirals: “Are you out of your goddamned minds?”
I suspect you need to have made a specific series of choices and have a high enough reputation to pull it off. Legion ends up having to sacrifice himself to disperse his upgrades anyway: “Shepard-Commander, personality dissemination required. This unit will cease to exist. I am sorry.” Also the first time he says “I” instead of “We”. I nearly tore up.
The Geth help the Quarians rebuild Rannoch after that. Some (being pure software) even integrate themselves in the Quarians’ suits.

These two quest chains were the best things about Mass Effect 3.

@ Luke Maciak:

Yes, you can only get enough assets if you play multiplayer, this seriously pissed me off, I made sure to find all assets, do all missions and still had only like 3600 EMS, I could probably get more if I had wiki at that time, but it still wouldn’t be enough, I had to stop playing campaign and play some matches and that is a horrible game design decision.

Of course next thing I found out is that it was a giant fucking waste of my time.

@ Morghan:

I believe I may have reprogrammed them in ME2. I did both choices on two different playthroughs and I don’t remember which choice was my “official paragon Sheppard” and which one was the “renegade bitch fem-Shep”.

@ Iodine:

I think you only survive if you max out your war assets through multiplayer (which makes no sense). I actually did “all” the marked quests (except that optional one on Ranoch because I fucked up and pick the final mission first and then couldn’t go back), helped every jackass on the citadel to find whatever they were looking for via scanning, and then did one final sweep through the galaxy armed with a wiki page that listed locations of all the unmarked assets. I got them all.

Then I felt really, really stupid for doing all of that because it did not matter at all.

The assumption in ME2, if you’re not importing an old char, is that you went all renegade and killed wrex. Initially when I received ME2 stuff was wrong with my previous saves, so I had to start from there. And I am guessing that is sort of the official story, that Shepard was all renegade and killed the council. [minor spoiler] Also if you take the renegade (red) ending in ME3 shepard gets to survive, in an almost off-screen kind of way. Meaning that if they create any more games, they will probably take the stance the Shep killed all synthetics.

There were a whole lot of lead ups to Rannoch, both in ME2 and on the planet before taking down the base, you need something like 3/4 of the decisions made in order to get the option. I had all of them “right” aside from freeing the heretic Geth in ME2, setting them free rather than destroying them makes freeing all the Geth more difficult, so I probably could have made it saving the crew instead of the admiral, but it was the logical choice to take a voice with authority when Tali was the only Quarian leader who seemed to have any sense.

@ Liudvikas:

I probably jumped the gun then. Damn it. Oh well, it didn’t matter anyway considering the ending.

@ Iodine:

Oh wow, I didn’t even think about that. I wonder how many people actually killed Wrex in ME1 though. I mean, even if you are playing renegade, it makes sense to talk him down rather than needlessly waste a team mate like that.

Also on the topic of the Krogan and genophage thing, if you killed Wrex in ME1 (I know, I know it’s wrong) that choice really becomes a non-choice. Basically Wreav, the stand in for Wrex, is such a massive dick that you basically have to cheat them of a cure. Nevertheless it was a very satisfying ending to that arch. And yes everything is bit weird now.

@ Luke Maciak:
Well after that there is a option to convince admirals to stand down. Sort of you’ve got a minute to stand down or you are all dead. If you saved the admiral on rannoch it’s easier as he also approves.

@ Morghan:

How did you manage to get that going? I initially told Legion to go ahead and start the upload, and made Tali get her people on the horn, and talk them down. But the stupid admirals went all Battlestar Galactica on me (LOL, belay that order and blast these fracking toasters!). Tali was freaking out so I was like:

“Legion, bro – stop with all the downloading. My girlfriend is about to have an aneurysm here. I’ma gonna paragon those admirals to stand now, but you have to chill right now!”

Legion wasn’t cool with that, and attempted to choke me like a bitch. :( See if that was Garrus, he would totally be like “All right, Sheppard, do your thang!” Legion did not trust me that way. :/

I saved that dude from the crash too, but he didn’t do shit. Maybe I should have kept giving legion the go-ahead… Then again, I think I accidentally skipped the “fighter base” side mission on Ranoch (accidentally clicked the wrong one without realizing it) so maybe my mojo was not high enough for this.

@ Steve:

Yeah, I agree. ME1 and 2 are kinda weird now, that you know how it ends. Although, it’s kinda funny. I went back and I re-read my review of ME1 and was amazed how much shit I gave Bioware for not explaining Reapers better. Now, years later I wish they left them an ambiguous, unknowable force instead of the star-child bullshit.

Yeah, I tend not to buy ANY game until I get actual reviews from actual players – not some paid-for reviews by the so-called “Gaming press”. I have a PS3 (not on purpose, got one for free) so ME3 is out until they patch out the plethora of bugs that seem to crop up a lot on the PS platform. I don’t play multi-player – ever – and could care less about achievements and trophies. But, even if they patch it, I won’t buy a copy until they fix that dog’s breath of an ending. And as Morghan wrote: ME2 is tainted for me now. I had replayed it at least 3 times and was on another run through (romancing Jack – most poignant romance option in the game IMHO). But stopped and haven’t taken it out of the case since ME3 was vomited forth by Bioware/EA.

Interesting factoid: a local Walmart was selling the PS3 version of ME3 for $29.83 – I saw that about 2 weeks ago. That’s half of what they charged on Mar 6th.