Its been bugging me for years and I really have no one to talk to about this. I want to talk about one of the more, controversial topics of Mass Effect: The Justification of the Genophage.
On forums, the wiki and even in fanfictions, I hear a lot about how the Genophage was wrong and that the Citadel Council should have never used it in the first place. Let's flashback several hundred years in the past to a certain event called the Rachni Wars. Near the end of the Rachni Wars, the Salarians uplifted the Krogan, a violent species that turned their own homeworld to a desolate wasteland, in order to fight the Rachni. Soon after that, the Salarians let the Krogan loose in the galaxy unchecked. Not long after, the Krogan started overpopulating worlds, got greedy and took over more. This started the Krogan Rebellions.
A lot of Mass Effect fans I've been reading about on forums seem to quick to forget the Rebellion ever happen. The Krogan Rebellion caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. The Genophage was used as a last resort option to stop the birth rates of Krogan females as the over population was a big issue.This caused the Krogan population to slowly decrease over the next few centuries to the point of less than one billion remain (if this is not the exact number, please rectify me on this). There are Krogan that want revenge against the Citadel for using the genophage against. In Grunt's loyalty mission, they call the Genophage their Reward/Curse for defeating the Rachni.
Wait, what? Are the Krogan really going to forget why they got in the first place? Or choose to forget to make themselves look like the victims. The Krogan are far from victims. They started the Rebellions and were punished for it. I don't feel sorry for them. It may sound harsh, but its how I feel about this. I do feel bad for all the Krogan mothers who held stillborn children. Krogan like Wrex or Wreav try to justify that the genophage was used unjustly against their people. They are not fooling me.
If the Genophage was not used, the Krogan would have ruled the Galaxy in a dictatorship.
The Genophage was justified. The Krogan fired the first shots and the Citadel used a weapon as a means to defend themselves.
Now, this is how I would have handled the outcome differently. The Salarians should have 'tutored' the Krogan more on Galactic Peace-Keeping more and should have guided them on their journey in the stars. Regarding the Genophage, I think letting it continue on for many years was a mistake. The Salarians and the Council in general should have watched the Krogan more and see that there are some that resented their past like Eve and Wrex (though this took some time) and they deserved a second chance.
In hindsight, the Krogan were a bit hypocritical about how they viewed the genophage. I don't blame them, but its not going to gain sympathy from others as they showed violent behavior countless times, even Wrex admitted this that they needed to change.
To wrap this up, the Genophage was justified in my opinion. There was no way in talking the Krogan down peacefully. I compare it to the Atomic Bombs used in WW2. The Krogan have no one to blame for the Genophage but themselves. The Salarians are partial to the blame though. As I stated earlier, they should have guided the Krogan more in the Galaxy. They could have even gotten a seat on the Council versus the Turians. Who knows?
I hope you like this and don't get too upset. This is just my opinion and I was trying to give an unbiased view on this subject. I should be doing something similar on both the Citadel Council and the Quarian Situation. Stay Tuned.