106 réponses à ce sujet

[adam_grif]

2-3 years? Are you saying the Reapers are stationed in the Andromeda Galaxy or something now?

Of course not, if they were there it would have been closer to 100 years. 12 ly/d takes 22.3 years to cross the 100,000 ly that is our Galaxy. Andromeda is ~2,500,000 ly away.



We can assume all sorts of crazy FTL speeds that let the reapers cross the galaxy in days but there is no suppot for this in cannon, and assuming that they can get here in the blink of an eye without the relay has some problems of its own (addressed below).

Also just my opinion, but the Reapers didn't look like they were extremely far away as they had a fairly large view of the Galaxy. At best I'd say they were out 50,000 lightyears if that. Look I'm not an Astronomy Major or Physics Major so I'm not going to try and analyze a breif 10 second movie clip showing the Reaper Fleet to predict their distance from the nearest star. Besides I doubt the Artists making it were trying to be scientifically accurate anyways. So trying to base anything off of that could be huge waste of time. Heck that clip only shows some 300 Reapers, and most people would assume there's way more then 300 Reapers.

Since we can see the entire galaxy in the frame and we know the approximate size of the galaxy, it's possible to get preliminary estimates of how far away they are. Estimates, with huge margins for error, but better than nothing. There's some slack in this, and also since we don't know precisely the speed at which they travel, we have to guess at that part too.



Finally, it's completely plausible that they activated at the end of ME1, NOT at the end of ME2, chronologically. The 2-3 years figure would then put them at showing up ~3-6 months after the end of ME2.



But really, there are some issues that need to be addressed either way. If they reapers could simply fly here without any issues,and it takes them a couple of years to get here, then the point of the first game is basically invalidated. The Rachni and Geth and Soveriegn's century-spanning plan to re-open the citadel is hugely stupid. Why would they have sat in Dark Space for over a thousand years if it's a 2 year trip to get back here? They would have shown up en massse long before humanity joined the galactic stage.



If they did start flying back during the Rachni war or what have you, then what was the point of ME1? If you had lost, and Saren had succeeded and re-opened the Citadel... nobody would have come through, because they would have moved away from the other-end of the Citadel-Relay thousands of years ago. And then Sovereign would have just gone down under sustained fire from the fleet anyway.

However I believe the Devs stated that Mass Effect 3 is set to take place almost right after Mass Effect 2.

I don't recall any statements to that effect.

Heck that clip only shows some 300 Reapers, and most people would assume there's way more then 300 Reapers.

I would be surprised if there turned out to be even that many Reapers. I personally think it's going to be < 100, otherwise there's no way there can be any sort of military victory in ME3. If there's thousands of them or something, they will have to pull some sort of facepalm inducing deus ex machina to defeat them. If it's only like 50 reapers, the galaxy can fight them off if they unite with all of their militaries. Most of the major powers have some sort of advantage:



- Alliance has Javelin missile system.

- Turians have Thanix guns

- Batarians were deploying their huge space-based mirrors, possibly for laser weapons (lasers ignore the barriers, which are the biggest problem with fighting the reapers).

- Quarians have largest known fleet in the galaxy.

- The Geth have been studying the Old Machines, and have far greater numbers than previously thought.



Since ME3 seems to be headed towards a DA:O style gather-the-armies-for-final-confrontation thing going on for it, military victory against <100 reapers seems to be most likely. We did NOT see even that many Reapers in the final cutscene of ME2, and this "oh god there's millions of them" thing is just assumptions and guesswork on the part of fans. We've never had any indication that there are countless millions of them or anything.

[Shadowomega23]

Slidell505 wrote...

MerrickShep wrote...

Slidell505 wrote...

KalosCast wrote...

dark energy
just... dark energy

Dark energy just tears the univers apart. It pulls dark matter condences. In theory, at least. But the ME univers has no problem taking a dumb on science. FTL is proof of that.

ME is like 200 years ahead of today, I'm sure there is a way.


The Reapers are the most advanced beings in the Galaxy... I believe they will  get there as fast as possible. If they constructed the Relays they probably made some hidden ones maybe at some planets core on the edge of the galaxy.

There isn't time slows down significantly for anything traveling near light speed. Making it impossible to even hit light speed. And that's been proven in Hadron Collider.

That is true but one thing you forgot. This is fiction fact goes out the window a little bit. Plus there might very be a way we can not come up with due to our current level of tech.

adam_grif wrote...

2-3 years? Are you saying the Reapers are stationed in the Andromeda Galaxy or something now?

Of course not, if they were there it would have been closer to 100 years. 12 ly/d takes 22.3 years to cross the 100,000 ly that is our Galaxy. Andromeda is ~2,500,000 ly away.

We can assume all sorts of crazy FTL speeds that let the reapers cross the galaxy in days but there is no suppot for this in cannon, and assuming that they can get here in the blink of an eye without the relay has some problems of its own (addressed below).

Also just my opinion, but the Reapers didn't look like they were extremely far away as they had a fairly large view of the Galaxy. At best I'd say they were out 50,000 lightyears if that. Look I'm not an Astronomy Major or Physics Major so I'm not going to try and analyze a breif 10 second movie clip showing the Reaper Fleet to predict their distance from the nearest star. Besides I doubt the Artists making it were trying to be scientifically accurate anyways. So trying to base anything off of that could be huge waste of time. Heck that clip only shows some 300 Reapers, and most people would assume there's way more then 300 Reapers.

Since we can see the entire galaxy in the frame and we know the approximate size of the galaxy, it's possible to get preliminary estimates of how far away they are. Estimates, with huge margins for error, but better than nothing. There's some slack in this, and also since we don't know precisely the speed at which they travel, we have to guess at that part too.

Finally, it's completely plausible that they activated at the end of ME1, NOT at the end of ME2, chronologically. The 2-3 years figure would then put them at showing up ~3-6 months after the end of ME2.

But really, there are some issues that need to be addressed either way. If they reapers could simply fly here without any issues,and it takes them a couple of years to get here, then the point of the first game is basically invalidated. The Rachni and Geth and Soveriegn's century-spanning plan to re-open the citadel is hugely stupid. Why would they have sat in Dark Space for over a thousand years if it's a 2 year trip to get back here? They would have shown up en massse long before humanity joined the galactic stage.

If they did start flying back during the Rachni war or what have you, then what was the point of ME1? If you had lost, and Saren had succeeded and re-opened the Citadel... nobody would have come through, because they would have moved away from the other-end of the Citadel-Relay thousands of years ago. And then Sovereign would have just gone down under sustained fire from the fleet anyway.

However I believe the Devs stated that Mass Effect 3 is set to take place almost right after Mass Effect 2.

I don't recall any statements to that effect.

Heck that clip only shows some 300 Reapers, and most people would assume there's way more then 300 Reapers.

I would be surprised if there turned out to be even that many Reapers. I personally think it's going to be

- Alliance has Javelin missile system.
- Turians have Thanix guns
- Batarians were deploying their huge space-based mirrors, possibly for laser weapons (lasers ignore the barriers, which are the biggest problem with fighting the reapers).
- Quarians have largest known fleet in the galaxy.
- The Geth have been studying the Old Machines, and have far greater numbers than previously thought.

Since ME3 seems to be headed towards a DA:O style gather-the-armies-for-final-confrontation thing going on for it, military victory against <100 reapers seems to be most likely. We did NOT see even that many Reapers in the final cutscene of ME2, and this "oh god there's millions of them" thing is just assumptions and guesswork on the part of fans. We've never had any indication that there are countless millions of them or anything.

Actually I have a theory on this about the Rachni wars was a test of those who found the Citidel to see whom could have what it takes to be the dominate race in the galaxy. Also could have been an attempt to destroy at least one of the races that found it as well. It is likely that only one civilaztion might have found the Citadel at a time, and this might well be the first where multiple speices call it home. Third war also can cause tech advances during the war and after there are population booms as the soldiers return home from war. Maybe Sovereign was hoping for a good bumber crop cause from the total size of one Species in citidel space is still smaller then that of the total Prothean Empire.

Modifié par Shadowomega23, 09 juin 2010 - 05:29 .

[xmatt9736]

 All in one minivan, like Mexicans.

SPOILERS**

They are turned away by zealous Border Patrol agents before they reach the citadel and the game ends abruptly. Roll credits.

Modifié par xmatt9736, 09 juin 2010 - 05:45 .

[Revan312]

All this science talk about FTL and the elephant in the room isn't addressed, time dilation. (Actually the real elephant is that FTL without an Alcubierre drive or subluminal tubes is impossible, but whatever)

Firstly I just want to point out why FTL is impossible which is because as you increase speeds towards lightspeed the amount of energy required increases exponentially. At true lightspeed the amount of power needed to propel any volume of mass, any, is infinite.

With that out of the way, another problem is what I said before, time dilation. By the time we reach 90% of the speed of light, for each day on board lets say a ship, two and a quarter days pass for a stationary observer respective to the ship. As we start tacking on nines to our velocity, time dilation becomes ever more extreme. At 0.999999 the speed of light, almost two years pass to the stationary observer for every ship's day. If we continue to accelerate to 0.99999999999999 c, for every day on board, nearly twenty thousand years pass for the observer at rest.

It's theorized that going faster than lightspeed, like say 2 x the speed of light (which is impossible), it would cause time to actually begin reversing at a certain point in the scale towards faster speeds.

But this is a game and although everything in it is completely unrealistic concerning FTL and the Mass Relays, I like to think of the relays as subluminal tubes and just let the rest go. Hopefully though the Reapers find a way to get here without using FTL because that would just be a bad plot/story when considering their entire plan from ME1...

Modifié par Revan312, 09 juin 2010 - 06:28 .

[Bluko]

adam_grif wrote...

Finally, it's completely plausible that they activated at the end of ME1, NOT at the end of ME2, chronologically. The 2-3 years figure would then put them at showing up ~3-6 months after the end of ME2.

Eh maybe. But why is Harbinger at the front of the pack and just "waking up". I doubt  he was controlling the Collectors while flying through Dark Space for the past 2 years. And then what was the point of making the human Reaper?

adam_grif wrote...
But really, there are some issues that need to be addressed either way. If they reapers could simply fly here without any issues,and it takes them a couple of years to get here, then the point of the first game is basically invalidated. The Rachni and Geth and Soveriegn's century-spanning plan to re-open the citadel is hugely stupid. Why would they have sat in Dark Space for over a thousand years if it's a 2 year trip to get back here? They would have shown up en massse long before humanity joined the galactic stage.

If they did start flying back during the Rachni war or what have you, then what was the point of ME1? If you had lost, and Saren had succeeded and re-opened the Citadel... nobody would have come through, because they would have moved away from the other-end of the Citadel-Relay thousands of years ago. And then Sovereign would have just gone down under sustained fire from the fleet anyway.

True enough. That's why I've always assumed if the Reapers can't use the Citadel to "warp in" it must take them hundreds or thousands of years to get here. This is what I first thought to be the case. Perhaps it is wrong to assume they can travel at FTL speeds thru Darkspace. They certainly didn't look to be traveling at FTL speeds at the end cinematic, so it may very well take them hundreds or thousands of years to reach the Galaxy.

The only problem with that is it's been implied we'll need allies to fight the Reapers in some upcoming space battle very soon.

adam_grif wrote...

However I believe the Devs stated that Mass Effect 3 is set to take place almost right after Mass Effect 2.

I don't recall any statements to that effect.

www.youtube.com/watch

While Casey doesn't directly say ME3 occurs right after ME2, I think it can be supposed that ME3 takes place shortly after ME2 as he says DLC is to be the bridge between the two games.

adam_grif wrote...

Since ME3 seems to be headed towards a DA:O style gather-the-armies-for-final-confrontation thing going on for it, military victory against <100 reapers seems to be most likely. We did NOT see even that many Reapers in the final cutscene of ME2, and this "oh god there's millions of them" thing is just assumptions and guesswork on the part of fans. We've never had any indication that there are countless millions of them or anything.

There's at least 295 Reapers in the cinematic. I think it's also fair to assume the Reapers make at least one Reaper per cycle. And since they've been around for at least 37 million years... there should at least be 740 of them give or take a few.

Also again Sovereign said their numbers "would darken the sky of every world". To me that implies there has be at least a thousands of them. Case in point trying to fight the Reapers head on in any sort of battle just seems foolish.

Ugh I really hope ME3 is not just DA:O in space. Dragon Age wasn't as great as everyone cracked it up to be. Sorry, but Baldur's Gate and the Forgotten Realms are just much better in terms of Fantasy worlds. Too bad Bioware lost the rights, otherwise Dragon Age probably could have been something better.

I mean sure everyone in the Galaxy could just band together in a fleet and beat the Reapers. Sure that's fine and we have a nice heoric ending. Yet to me that seems too convient. No other civilization has ever managed to beat the Reapers, not even the Protheans could and they were arguably more advanced then us. Also the Reapers have existed since before any of us. They've had millions of years to plan for this sort of stuff. I really doubt any fleet we could muster could actually defeat all the Reapers, it just isn't logical.

There should be a way to defeat the Reapers, but it shouldn't come from fighting them head on. I mean the Reapers are suppose to be this invincible armada that has crushed thousands of civilizations. We humans are great and all sure, but we aren't that amazing. For us and the rest of the Galaxy to just beat them in pure combat seems to easy. I mean if it's that simple why were the Reapers really ever a threat?

I mean there probably will be some sort of epic space battle in ME3, but ultimately I hope defeating the Reapers is achieved through some other method. Something hopefully surprising and somewhat original.

Modifié par Bluko, 09 juin 2010 - 06:23 .

[Fiery Phoenix]

So, what you guys are asking is how long it will take the Reapers to get to the galaxy, it would seem. Well, obviously, that can't be done unless we know the values of a) the Reapers' distance to the galaxy in that clip and how fast exactly the Reapers are traveling. Any speculation on either part wouldn't lead to any satisfying results.

For what it's worth, if anyone has the full picture of that particular scene, I might, MIIGHT be able to break out the current distance of the galaxy from the Reapers by "estimating" the angular diameter of the galaxy from their perspective. It'd still involve speculation, but I can try. I'd need some time, though.

Modifié par FieryPhoenix7, 09 juin 2010 - 06:47 .

[adam_grif]

All this science talk about FTL and the elephant in the room isn't addressed, time dilation. (Actually the real elephant is that FTL without an Alcubierre drive or subluminal tubes is impossible, but whatever)

Psssh, FTL even with those things is impossibly. Alcubierre drives specifically are an amalgamation of fringe physical phenomena bootstrapped together in a desparate attempt to find loopholes in physics that permit FTL, and they still have huge problems, like gargantuan enery requirements, naked singularities being necessary for their construction and so on.

Inb4 "LOL ANYTHINGS POSSIBLE".

Eh maybe. But why is Harbinger at the front of the pack and just "waking up". I doubt he was controlling the Collectors while flying through Dark Space for the past 2 years. And then what was the point of making the human Reaper?

What was the point of making the human Reaper anyway? Were they planning on taking the citadel by force AGAIN, only this time without a sneak attack via The Conduit and an Armada of Geth ships helping them, against now tighter security?

And how were they going to get enough humans? Their sneak attacks on colonies couldn't last forever, and if they tried to target Earth they'd get anihilated because cruiser level firepower can destroy the Collector ship in 2 hits. And there is only ONE ship.

While Casey doesn't directly say ME3 occurs right after ME2, I think it can be supposed that ME3 takes place shortly after ME2 as he says DLC is to be the bridge between the two games.

I don't really see any major problems with a 1-2 years gap between games, especially if part of that gap is covered via DLC.

There's at least 295 Reapers in the cinematic

Where did that number come from?

And weren't you just saying how the cutscene can't necessarily be representitive of story elements?

Also again Sovereign said their numbers "would darken the sky of every world". To me that implies there has be at least a thousands of them. Case in point trying to fight the Reapers head on in any sort of battle just seems foolish.

Sovereign said a lot of things, amongst them about how we couldn't win and how our destruction was inevitable etc. Taken at face value, "darken the skies of every world" may just mean "we will wipe you all out". Obviously they can't mean literally darken the skies, unless there's tens of millions of them standing shoulder to shoulder in orbit for kicks. And they can't mean "every world at once", since we know for a fact that it took years for the Protheans to be wiped out (enough time to construct huge underground facilities, after realizing the thread and working out what was happening). Also, there was enough time for that civlization to build the galaxy's biggest railgun to kill a Reaper, huge construction efforts like that don't happen overnight.

Sovereign likes to wax poeticially about destroying us all, so I don't think this can be used to get any sort of reliable estimate.

And since they've been around for at least 37 million years... there should at least be 740 of them give or take a few.

1 per cycle is obvious bunk because they never got the Protheans. We have 1 cycle of extinction we know about, and it didn't result in a Reaper. So 100% rate can't possibly be true.

Ugh I really hope ME3 is not just DA:O in space. Dragon Age wasn't as great as everyone cracked it up to be. Sorry, but Baldur's Gate and the Forgotten Realms are just much better in terms of Fantasy worlds. Too bad Bioware lost the rights, otherwise Dragon Age probably could have been something better.

DA:O's quality is irrelevant, we're only discussing it at all to compare the structure of the story. In fact, DA:O and ME2 are the same if you sub out "armies" for "squadmates" and "darkspawn invasion" for "collector threat". It's functionally equivelant aside from this. There's nothing innately wrong about it either.

Yet to me that seems too convient. No other civilization has ever managed to beat the Reapers, not even the Protheans could and they were arguably more advanced then us.

The Protheans didn't have access to reverse engineered reaper main guns, and did not have the advantage of being warned early. Sovereign's attack failing gives the Citadel races time to prepare and experience dealing with Reapers. We have also had much more time to develop than is typical, since the culling was supposed to come at least several decades ago, and possibly as far back as the Rachni wars.

Then there's the increased inter-species tension and resultant military buildups that it caused. The Protheans ruled the galaxy unchalleneged, and would thus not have any obvious reasons for why they should have a significant military. It's likely that they didn't. Finally, the other cycles all featured the Reaper fleet jumping in unannounced, siezing the heart of galactic politics, and shutting down the Relay network. Without this advantage, they face united, organized military resistance instead of fractured, confused and disorginized bands of warships.

If Bioware wants a direct fight, there's nothing that can't be easily and logically explained away like this.

Also the Reapers have existed since before any of us. They've had millions of years to plan for this sort of stuff. I really doubt any fleet we could muster could actually defeat all the Reapers, it just isn't logical.

Millions of years of complacency and technological stagnation. They haven't changed noticably in 37 million years, and they've been so careless that they didn't even notice the gradual changes that were happening to the Keepers to put a stop to it.

There should be a way to defeat the Reapers, but it shouldn't come from fighting them head on

Totally disagree. Finding some ancient superweapon or developing the magical "make the problem go away" device is humungously cliche, and is a sign of sloppy storytelling. Not that ME hasn't already had it's share of that...

Modifié par adam_grif, 09 juin 2010 - 07:04 .

[ShamieGTX]

KalosCast wrote...

bobobo878 wrote...

Maybe they'll cannibalize one of their own and use it's parts to build a mass relay.

Surfing thorugh a warp gate via the bones of your dead comrade in order to kick the ass of someone who's thwarted your plans for years now is possibly the most  death  metal thing in the universe.

Fix'd

[ShamieGTX]

Prol3 wrote...

Mister Mida wrote...

Prol3 wrote...

If I remember correctly aren't all relays connected to at least two other relays, and if that's so, when Sovereign intended to open the relay in the Citadel there had to have been one out in dark space by where the Reapers were waiting. I doubt Sovereign just cruised his way back into the galaxy so I'm assuming he used the relay out in dark space to travel to another one already in the galaxy. Maybe it's the one that is connected to the Omega 4 relay, the one at the center of the galaxy.

Sovereign stayed behind after the Reapers killed off the Protheans. He never had to re-enter the Milky Way.

Well even though Sovereign did stay in the galaxy he still needed the relay within the Citadel which means there has to be another relay out in dark space. Maybe I missed something else but that still means there is a relay out there that may be connected to somewhere else within the galaxy.

talking about the Relays....not entirely, Only Primary Relays are connected to a Second one these include the Citadel Relays, (The Citadel itself and the Relay to get there) the Omega 4 Relay & Charon Relays are Primaries
the other Relays interconnect with the other Relays at will....as long as the desired destination's relay is active

[adam_grif]

What are you getting at? There has to be a relay in dark space otherwise they can't get FROM darkspace to the Citadel and vice versa.

[Revan312]

adam_grif wrote...

All this science talk about FTL and the elephant in the room isn't addressed, time dilation. (Actually the real elephant is that FTL without an Alcubierre drive or subluminal tubes is impossible, but whatever)

Psssh, FTL even with those things is impossibly. Alcubierre drives specifically are an amalgamation of fringe physical phenomena bootstrapped together in a desparate attempt to find loopholes in physics that permit FTL, and they still have huge problems, like gargantuan enery requirements, naked singularities being necessary for their construction and so on.

They are phyically possible, they don't break the laws at all, they just require, like you said, massive energy for the drive (or should I say space eater/creator bubble) to work.  But they're still, within the realm of physics, possible. 

I'm trying to make the point that this subject is kind of redundent as tons of physics laws are already broken within ME and any discussion about the amount of time it might take them at this or this speed is meaningless.  They're going to make whatever fantasy technology or plot device they want to for the Reapers to get here...

Modifié par Revan312, 09 juin 2010 - 07:20 .

[adam_grif]

They are phyically possible, they don't break the laws at all,

Currently. I do recall not too long ago an article that factored in some QM stuff that the original author never bothered to and found that exceeding C with the drive will result in the entire setup exploding spectacularly. And then, just given the really bootstrapped nature of the device in general, future theoretical understandings of physics precluding them from working properly is very likely.



Remember, perpetual motion machines weren't always considered impossibly by physics

[Revan312]

adam_grif wrote...

They are phyically possible, they don't break the laws at all,

Currently. I do recall not too long ago an article that factored in some QM stuff that the original author never bothered to and found that exceeding C with the drive will result in the entire setup exploding spectacularly. And then, just given the really bootstrapped nature of the device in general, future theoretical understandings of physics precluding them from working properly is very likely.

Remember, perpetual motion machines weren't always considered impossibly by physics

Oh I'm not arguing that, they could very well be impossible, they aren't proven without a doubt as being impossible, but it is likely they will be.

But anything other than Alcubierre, wormholes or superluminal tubes (I said subluminal above, I meant superluminal) atm is pointless as everything else has been disproven completely...

Modifié par Revan312, 09 juin 2010 - 07:34 .

[KalosCast]

Revan312 wrote...

adam_grif wrote...

They are phyically possible, they don't break the laws at all,

Currently. I do recall not too long ago an article that factored in some QM stuff that the original author never bothered to and found that exceeding C with the drive will result in the entire setup exploding spectacularly. And then, just given the really bootstrapped nature of the device in general, future theoretical understandings of physics precluding them from working properly is very likely.

Remember, perpetual motion machines weren't always considered impossibly by physics

Oh I'm not arguing that, they could very well be impossible, they aren't proven without a doubt as being impossible, but it is likely they will be.

But anything other than Alcubierre, wormholes or superluminal tubes (I said subluminal above, I meant superluminal) atm is pointless as everything else has been disproven completely...

Hence why it's science fiction and not "Transmissions from Admiral Hackett's Funtime Future Machine." Sometimes you just have to make concessions because the alternative would be really boring.

Modifié par KalosCast, 09 juin 2010 - 07:36 .

[Revan312]

KalosCast wrote...

Hence why it's science fiction and not "Transmissions from Admiral Hackett's Funtime Future Machine." Sometimes you just have to make concessions because the alternative would be really boring.

Indeed, or why it's not called an actual attempt at staying believable. I'd argue though that Science fiction should at least try to stay true to life as some amazing stories concerning things like time dilation and realistic technology have been made but alas, almost none of it does...  tis a sad state of affairs:crying:

Modifié par Revan312, 09 juin 2010 - 07:43 .

[adam_grif]

Time dilation doesn't even apply to the use of Wormholes and Alcubierre drive since C is never exceeded or even approached locaclly. With MEverse specifically, Relativity has clearly gone out the window completely so that they don't factor it in isn't really all that jarring.

[Bluko]

I think for the sake of these threads integrity I'm going to have to abstain from making my case here any further. Just getting to be a wee bit much lately.

adam_grif wrote...

What was the point of making the human Reaper anyway? Were they planning on taking the citadel by force AGAIN, only this time without a sneak attack via The Conduit and an Armada of Geth ships helping them, against now tighter security?

And how were they going to get enough humans? Their sneak attacks on colonies couldn't last forever, and if they tried to target Earth they'd get anihilated because cruiser level firepower can destroy the Collector ship in 2 hits. And there is only ONE ship.

Yeah to be honest I never really understood what the point was either. I mean Sovereign already screwed up, is a new Reaper by itself going to do any better? I guess you could say the Reapers thought that they might be able to get away with it, but yeah... It was probably more about studying humans then anything else.

Namely I think the Human Reaper was there for the shock factor and to confirm that Reapers are made from Organics.

adam_grif wrote...

There's at least 295 Reapers in the cinematic

Where did that number come from?

And weren't you just saying how the cutscene can't necessarily be representitive of story elements?

The Mass Effect Wiki. But I'm not going to count them myself. I'd say it at least confirms the idea that there are hundreds of Reapers coming.

adam_grif wrote...

Sovereign said a lot of things, amongst them about how we couldn't win and how our destruction was inevitable etc. Taken at face value, "darken the skies of every world" may just mean "we will wipe you all out". Obviously they can't mean literally darken the skies, unless there's tens of millions of them standing shoulder to shoulder in orbit for kicks. And they can't mean "every world at once", since we know for a fact that it took years for the Protheans to be wiped out (enough time to construct huge underground facilities, after realizing the thread and working out what was happening). Also, there was enough time for that civlization to build the galaxy's biggest railgun to kill a Reaper, huge construction efforts like that don't happen overnight.

Sovereign likes to wax poeticially about destroying us all, so I don't think this can be used to get any sort of reliable estimate.

I believe Sovereign was being at least somewhat truthful though. I don't see why there wouldn't be say thousands of Reapers.The Protheans were probably a unique case of Reaper failure. Also I imagine some species might have had the numbers to make several Reapers. All we know is that there is at least a few hundred Reapers, which is still a serious threat.

adam_grif wrote...

DA:O's quality is irrelevant, we're only discussing it at all to compare the structure of the story. In fact, DA:O and ME2 are the same if you sub out "armies" for "squadmates" and "darkspawn invasion" for "collector threat". It's functionally equivelant aside from this. There's nothing innately wrong about it either.

Yeah, but having the same plot element of "building an army/building a fleet" in two games made by the same company, at around the same time. I mean sure it works, but it seems a bit uncreative. You'd think two different games should/would have two different stories. I just don't want Mass Effect 3 to be Dragon Age in space. Even if you don't think it's a bad thing, some might see it way, especially reviewers. Which is why I hope Bioware will avoid doing that.

adam_grif wrote...
The Protheans didn't have access to reverse engineered reaper main guns, and did not have the advantage of being warned early. Sovereign's attack failing gives the Citadel races time to prepare and experience dealing with Reapers. We have also had much more time to develop than is typical, since the culling was supposed to come at least several decades ago, and possibly as far back as the Rachni wars.

We've had time to prepare, but it's obvious the galaxy as a whole isn't prepared for the Reapers. Lots of Thanix Cannons alone aren't going to let us beat a fleet of essentially what are super Dreadnoughts. Not to mention Reapers still have pretty powerful shields, or at least more powerful versions then we do on most ships.

adam_grif wrote...

There should be a way to defeat the Reapers, but it shouldn't come from fighting them head on

Totally disagree. Finding some ancient superweapon or developing the magical "make the problem go away" device is humungously cliche, and is a sign of sloppy storytelling. Not that ME hasn't already had it's share of that...

How is mustering an army any less cliche then finding a secret weapon/trick to defeat the "Enemy"?

In Star Wars: ROTJ the rag tag Rebel Fleet attacked the superior Imperial Fleet and won.
In the Lord of the Rings: ROTK the various people of Middle Earth fought together and defeated Sauron's army.
In the Matrix: Revolutions the people of Zion mobilize to hold off against the Machines.

Seems like a pretty typical occurence to me.

Of course at the same time in those movies there was a Hero(s) who performed some feat/trick that allowed them to win. (Shield Generator on Endor destroyed, Frodo destroyed the RIng, Neo reboots Matrix)

Seeing as how Mass Effect is somewhat similair in scope to those Movies, I'm sure Shepard will peform some sort of feat/trick that let's us ultimately beat the Reapers despite the odds against us.



Well suffice to say adam_grif I think we have vastly
different opinions in regards to how we think ME3 is going to play out.
Ultimately nobody here really knows what's going to happen in Mass
Effect 3, as much as we all like to think we have it figured out.
Probably a good thing though since if Mass Effect 3 turned out exactly
as someone here on this board imagined it, we'd all probably be a bit
let down. I really doubt anybody predicted we were going to be working
with Cerberus in ME2,so who knows what ME3 will hold in store for us.

[Fiery Phoenix]

For the second time, anyone has a full picture of the scene where the Reapers are heading towards the Milky Way?

[PnXMarcin1PL]

Remember. Reapers are far more advanced than any race in the Milky Way. You remember 36 million year old derelict reaper ? They might be as old or older so for me, they definetly own appropiate technology to survive and traver quickly in the dark space.

[Mk001]

Ecael wrote...

Bluko wrote...

Even without the Relays it only takes roughly 22 years for a ship to traverse the entire diameter of the Galaxy. That's assuming they don't have to refuel or anything. Which the Reapers probably don't have to due to their powerful element zero cores.

We're going to stop the Reapers by taking away all their Fuel Depots at the last minute, leaving them stranded in the intergalactic space near the Citadel.



"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"

Sounds like a plan.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Okay, so I just did a simple but baselessly speculative calculation to find the distance of the Reapers from the Milky Way in the cutscene at the end of the game. This is the picture I used (ignore the 'dismissed'):

http://img85.imagesh.../dismissedk.jpg

This picture is 11 inches wide. I assumed the view of the galaxy fills a window of a hypothetical ship where an observer stands exactly 48 inches away from the window (this is more or less arbitrary, and it's the distance at which the galaxy appears to completely fill the window on an average spaceship). Dividing 48 by 11 yields 4.36 inches, which is the angular distance of the galaxy. Since th galaxy in question is the Milky Way, which is 100,000 ly wide, this gives a distance of 436,000 ly to the galaxy. That is, with all these wild assumptions I'm making, the average Reaper ship would be 436,000 light-years away from the Milky Way at the moment of the cutscene.

Now, if we assume the Reapers are traveling at 12 ly/day, which is apparently the average FTL speed in ME, then it would take them exactly 99.5 years to enter the Milky Way. Note that this is a serious assumption in and of itself; I'm sure the Reapers are traveling much faster than that, given their exceptional technology, so give or take.

So, yes, 100 years. I know my scenario isn't exactly the best, but there you go. Also remember, 100 years is nothing when it comes to astronomical distances. No matter how large the galaxy appears in that picture, it's 436,000 ly away. This is just a consequence of the insanely big scales we're dealing with. You might as well consider that to be the defining feature of space.

[onelifecrisis]

Slidell505 wrote...

The Milkyway is around 100000 thousand l y across. That's trillions and trillions of miles. To put Trillion in layman's terms, 1 million seconds is 12 days. 1 billion seconds is 31 years, 259 days. 1 trillion seconds is 31,688 Years, 269 Days. So yeah... to see the whole galaxy from arm to arm they'd need to be very far away.

Maybe it was a wide-angle lens.

[Mercedes-Benz]

Heck that clip only shows some 300 Reapers, and most people would assume there's way more then 300 Reapers.

My theory on their numbers is the following:

Lets say that the number of space-faring/advanced races before each Reaper invasion was on average 50, then lets assume the first Reaper invasion happened a billion years ago, and since a Reaper invasion occurs every 50000 years, that means there should be around 20000 Reapers (1000000000:50000=20000).

Modifié par Mercedes-Benz, 09 juin 2010 - 12:42 .

[Aniki_21]

There are always a few plot holes in every story. Not much you can do about that.

[Vaenier]

1. Plot hole. They will magically appear at the beginning of ME3 and are never given a reason why.
2. Worm hole. They form a wormhole by collapsing the dieing star of Tali's recruit mission. Instant route.
3. Bioware retcons. They say the Reapers are capable of traveling several hundred thousand lightyears on normal FTL with no issues, erasing two whole games of history, and throwing out any logic that might have existed.
4. Epic fail: They suddenly make another citadel appear and use that, instead of using it two games ago...

So many good options...

Modifié par Vaenier, 09 juin 2010 - 01:29 .