114 réponses à ce sujet

[Crusherix]

Reapers build mass effect fields, and make sure humanoids use them... your theory don't really add up since it is the reapers own technology that are destroying the stars then.

[Archontor]

Crusherix wrote...

Reapers build mass effect fields, and make sure humanoids use them... your theory don't really add up since it is the reapers own technology that are destroying the stars then.

 i stated quite clearly that they are testing us to see wether we can be trusted with star destroying capabilities

[Archontor]

wepeel_ wrote...

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...


All explanations here seem extremely unlikely. Supernovas going off in the milky way (especially at the rate of a lone star here and there) shouldn't bother the reapers in the least. They aren't even in the galaxy. If it did bother them, a race with that kind of resources should be able to come up with a better, more educating solution than butchering everyone for "not being worthy".

Besides, assuming there is a correlation between mass effect fields and dark energy buildup in stars, consider the mass effect fields created by the mass relays, which were created by the reapers to begin with.

That the reapers' mass exterminations are actually attempts to save other species from a "greater threat" is equally unlikely - if their methods aren't evidence of that, consider that they've been around for more than 30 million years. Clearly whatever they're trying to save us from doesn't seem to happen often enough to warrant a 50,000-year eradication cycle.

yor right the idea of one or two stars dos'nt worry them but the fact that people are willing to destroy such prescious resources is more of a psychological threat that or if we were to stretch further than 1percent of the galaxy then we might prove to be more of a threat and so this whole system is basicaly just preventative meassures after all if it is the galaxy you litterally cannot be too careful

It still makes little sense though. As you may know, the reapers attempted to start their assault before the events in ME1, which was well before anyone was aware of a star going bad - and even when the quarians discovered this in ME2, it was uncertain what caused it. So you can't say there has been a willingness to destroy stars in that manner, and the usage of mass effect fields certainly hasn't been with such an intention.

ive read the prequal novel and the only mention of any reapers is sovereign right at the end also just because we dont know what caused it does'nt mean someone did'nt cause it

The point is that if the beings in the galaxy aren't aware that using mass effect field has that kind of effect, they can hardly be held accountable for it - especially when the reapers have left them a communication system completely dependant on the mass effect itself.

*Spoilers*

As for the reapers, the reason Sovereign bothered with controlling Dr Qian and Saren - a process which took around 20 years - was that it due to the actions of the protheans couldn't enable the citadel the usual way to bring the reaper fleet in - if that had been possible, the extinction event would have started well ahead of the events in ME1. That means the reapers would have eradicated all advanced life in the galaxy before anyone alive there figured out anything odd was happening to the stars, which means your theory is not correct.

Well just because not many people know dosent mean the reapers wont hold us responsible second...

SPOILERS BIG HUMMER SIZED SPOILERS READ AT YOUR PERIL

it's possible that due to the damadge the prothean's caused  soverign was trying to open the citadel to make sure the reapers could get in quickly because he detected a disturbance in the forece..er stars that could have been caused at some point over the centuries that the current species have been spaceborn

[IllusionOfLife]

 I think the most realistic theory here is that the Reapers simply harvest these species to further their own existence. As has been pointed out by numerous people, the thinly veiled metaphor for environmentalism theory ("punish them for destroying the galaxy") is a no go because the Reapers knowingly allow them to use this hazardous technology, in fact the plan on it. They are not the keepers of the universe, they are Reapers, and as their namesake suggests, they sow the seeds of technological advancement and reap the harvest of said technology to help build their species.

[wepeel_]

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...


All explanations here seem extremely unlikely. Supernovas going off in the milky way (especially at the rate of a lone star here and there) shouldn't bother the reapers in the least. They aren't even in the galaxy. If it did bother them, a race with that kind of resources should be able to come up with a better, more educating solution than butchering everyone for "not being worthy".

Besides, assuming there is a correlation between mass effect fields and dark energy buildup in stars, consider the mass effect fields created by the mass relays, which were created by the reapers to begin with.

That the reapers' mass exterminations are actually attempts to save other species from a "greater threat" is equally unlikely - if their methods aren't evidence of that, consider that they've been around for more than 30 million years. Clearly whatever they're trying to save us from doesn't seem to happen often enough to warrant a 50,000-year eradication cycle.

yor right the idea of one or two stars dos'nt worry them but the fact that people are willing to destroy such prescious resources is more of a psychological threat that or if we were to stretch further than 1percent of the galaxy then we might prove to be more of a threat and so this whole system is basicaly just preventative meassures after all if it is the galaxy you litterally cannot be too careful

It still makes little sense though. As you may know, the reapers attempted to start their assault before the events in ME1, which was well before anyone was aware of a star going bad - and even when the quarians discovered this in ME2, it was uncertain what caused it. So you can't say there has been a willingness to destroy stars in that manner, and the usage of mass effect fields certainly hasn't been with such an intention.

ive read the prequal novel and the only mention of any reapers is sovereign right at the end also just because we dont know what caused it does'nt mean someone did'nt cause it

The point is that if the beings in the galaxy aren't aware that using mass effect field has that kind of effect, they can hardly be held accountable for it - especially when the reapers have left them a communication system completely dependant on the mass effect itself.

*Spoilers*

As for the reapers, the reason Sovereign bothered with controlling Dr Qian and Saren - a process which took around 20 years - was that it due to the actions of the protheans couldn't enable the citadel the usual way to bring the reaper fleet in - if that had been possible, the extinction event would have started well ahead of the events in ME1. That means the reapers would have eradicated all advanced life in the galaxy before anyone alive there figured out anything odd was happening to the stars, which means your theory is not correct.

Well just because not many people know dosent mean the reapers wont hold us responsible

..But your own theory stated that it was about "the fact that people are willing to destroy such prescious resources" -- if those people don't know that they are destroying something, then that can't be true now can it.

Archontor wrote...
SPOILERS BIG HUMMER SIZED SPOILERS READ AT YOUR PERIL

it's possible that due to the damadge the prothean's caused  soverign was trying to open the citadel to make sure the reapers could get in quickly because he detected a disturbance in the forece..er stars that could have been caused at some point over the centuries that the current species have been spaceborn

Uh.. well, if they wanted to test the citadel, it seems likely that they would have done so much earlier in the 50,000 years between the eradication of the protheans and now, not basically seconds before it was time to actually move back in. And those disturbances would be extremely predictable anyway. A species develops space flight, finds a mass relay, uses it, and that's that, mass effect fields in action. What else can they do? Like Sovereign states, they left the relays to make sure civilizations would develop along the paths the reapers desired.

[Archontor]

wepeel_ wrote...

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...

Archontor wrote...

wepeel_ wrote...


All explanations here seem extremely unlikely. Supernovas going off in the milky way (especially at the rate of a lone star here and there) shouldn't bother the reapers in the least. They aren't even in the galaxy. If it did bother them, a race with that kind of resources should be able to come up with a better, more educating solution than butchering everyone for "not being worthy".

Besides, assuming there is a correlation between mass effect fields and dark energy buildup in stars, consider the mass effect fields created by the mass relays, which were created by the reapers to begin with.

That the reapers' mass exterminations are actually attempts to save other species from a "greater threat" is equally unlikely - if their methods aren't evidence of that, consider that they've been around for more than 30 million years. Clearly whatever they're trying to save us from doesn't seem to happen often enough to warrant a 50,000-year eradication cycle.

yor right the idea of one or two stars dos'nt worry them but the fact that people are willing to destroy such prescious resources is more of a psychological threat that or if we were to stretch further than 1percent of the galaxy then we might prove to be more of a threat and so this whole system is basicaly just preventative meassures after all if it is the galaxy you litterally cannot be too careful

It still makes little sense though. As you may know, the reapers attempted to start their assault before the events in ME1, which was well before anyone was aware of a star going bad - and even when the quarians discovered this in ME2, it was uncertain what caused it. So you can't say there has been a willingness to destroy stars in that manner, and the usage of mass effect fields certainly hasn't been with such an intention.

ive read the prequal novel and the only mention of any reapers is sovereign right at the end also just because we dont know what caused it does'nt mean someone did'nt cause it

The point is that if the beings in the galaxy aren't aware that using mass effect field has that kind of effect, they can hardly be held accountable for it - especially when the reapers have left them a communication system completely dependant on the mass effect itself.

*Spoilers*

As for the reapers, the reason Sovereign bothered with controlling Dr Qian and Saren - a process which took around 20 years - was that it due to the actions of the protheans couldn't enable the citadel the usual way to bring the reaper fleet in - if that had been possible, the extinction event would have started well ahead of the events in ME1. That means the reapers would have eradicated all advanced life in the galaxy before anyone alive there figured out anything odd was happening to the stars, which means your theory is not correct.

Well just because not many people know dosent mean the reapers wont hold us responsible

..But your own theory stated that it was about "the fact that people are willing to destroy such prescious resources" -- if those people don't know that they are destroying something, then that can't be true now can it.

Archontor wrote...
SPOILERS BIG HUMMER SIZED SPOILERS READ AT YOUR PERIL

it's possible that due to the damadge the prothean's caused  soverign was trying to open the citadel to make sure the reapers could get in quickly because he detected a disturbance in the forece..er stars that could have been caused at some point over the centuries that the current species have been spaceborn

Uh.. well, if they wanted to test the citadel, it seems likely that they would have done so much earlier in the 50,000 years between the eradication of the protheans and now, not basically seconds before it was time to actually move back in. And those disturbances would be extremely predictable anyway. A species develops space flight, finds a mass relay, uses it, and that's that, mass effect fields in action. What else can they do? Like Sovereign states, they left the relays to make sure civilizations would develop along the paths the reapers desired.

sorry i was rather unclear when i say open the citadel i mean to get the reapers through rapidly to eradicate everything two the technology and such were kept as similar as possible to keep the only varriable the species themselves and their culture

[Archontor]

IllusionOfLife wrote...

 I think the most realistic theory here is that the Reapers simply harvest these species to further their own existence. As has been pointed out by numerous people, the thinly veiled metaphor for environmentalism theory ("punish them for destroying the galaxy") is a no go because the Reapers knowingly allow them to use this hazardous technology, in fact the plan on it. They are not the keepers of the universe, they are Reapers, and as their namesake suggests, they sow the seeds of technological advancement and reap the harvest of said technology to help build their species.

ok first off it was not a thinly veiled metaphor for environmentalism i just got an idea nad wanted to share it thus the thread evolved secondly they give them this hazardous technology because at the moment we cannot do much damadge but given time to spread and colonise which we most likely will then we become a threat or it's possible that by destroying a star ,one of the most usefull and permanent resources in the galaxy we have shown how we opperate and the reapers consider it to be wrong

[vehzeel]

I wonder if the Reapers are dependent on consuming biotic life-forms. To create biotics, you must expose them to the rare element eezo. The best way to expose as many races as possible to eezo, is to let them travel with the help of the relays. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the number of human biotics increasing? Why should other races differ? So I think that when a certain amount of biotics wander the stars, the Reapers harvest their "crops".

When the Reapers find a race with potential, they "invite them to the elite club".

[IllusionOfLife]

Archontor wrote...

they give them this hazardous technology because at the moment we cannot do much damadge but given time to spread and colonise which we most likely will then we become a threat or it's possible that by destroying a star ,one of the most usefull and permanent resources in the galaxy we have shown how we opperate and the reapers consider it to be wrong

Eh, it's an interesting idea, but I'm still not buying it. The Reapers have made it clear that they do not regard organic life as being valuable beyond their inevitable harvest, so why then, would the Reapers benevolently entrust them this technology to improve their own existence knowing full well that this technology is causing damage to the universe? It simply doesn't make sense.

Your theory requires the assumption that the Reapers are deity beings which give freely these gifts to the galaxy, and I simply don't buy that. From everything we know about the Reapers, especially considering Sovereign's speech in ME1, it's clear to me that they view organic life as nothing more than a crop to be harvested. They give their technology to organic life in order to procreate and further their own existence; they are not entrusting organic life with this technology simply to help us progress.

[durasteel]

The Reapers' creators were a race trying to achieve immortality.  This was a kind of religious event, under the direction of the High Priests (queue RUSH, 2112... "And the meek shall inherit the Earth.")

Every member of the society who was deemed worthy was processed.  First an imprint of their thought patterns was taken and rendered as a program, then their physical form was rendered into sludge that was used as building material for an arc of souls, which housed the programs.  The programs formed a collective intelligence to control the animated arc, which took the form of a vast starship shaped like a cuttlefish.

The Priests, being who they were, left out a few details when they presented this plan to the masses.  First, the mental encoding of the personality, or "capturing the soul" was not entirely faithful.  Initially, the Priests simply wanted to ensure that the beliefs of the programs would be doctrinally pure and in accordance with the accepted dogma of the High Priests.  Of course, this dogma focused increasingly on the need to defer to the High Priests in all matters.

Also, there was the matter of control of the physical Reaper itself.  Sure, they advertised the control via the collective intelligence of the digitized souls, but the truth is that each Reaper would be governed promarily by the digitized mentality of a High Priest, while the others became reduced to the status of subroutines.  Since they were, quite literally, programmed to follow the High Priest in all things, there was no real need to form a consensus (as with the Geth.)

Thus the Reapers may truthfully say that they created themselves, because they are the digital souls of a species housed within that species' mechanical body, made from the collective stuff of  the species itself.

The encoding process, however, left each digital soul with absolute belief in all of the dogma of the Reaper religion.  This included the principal of salvation through destruction, immortality of  the digital soul withing the vessel of the Reaper.  Even the High Priests, who typically did not in life believe their own dogma, were encoded with it indelibly imprinted on their digital souls.  This is what created the 50,000 year cycle. 

If a species is worthy, the Reapers will bestow upon it the blessing of immortality, encoding individual personalities (with the added blessing of the Reaper dogma hard-coded in) and creating from their raw materials a shell to act as an arc for their souls.

In Mass Effect 3, it will become apparent that trying to wage war against the reapers is a losing proposition.  Shepard will, with the assistance of the Geth and the Rachni, code and deliver a virus that will strip away the dogma of Reaper religion, allowing for the first time the self-determination of the encoded digital personalities housed within the Reapers.  In a TRON-like revolution, they will bypass the Master Control Programs (High Priests.)  There will be civil war among the Reapers, with the "free" Reapers ultimately defeating and destroying the "dogmatic" Reapers, with the assistance of the younger, mortal races of the galaxy.

Freed from the dogma of the High Priests, the remaining Reapers will pass beyond the Milky Way for the last time, having outgrown the galaxy and with an eternity of time stretching before them in which to explore the greater mysteries of the universe.

Oh, and there will be peace between the Quarian and Geth races, and Shepard will build Tali a cottage on the Quarian home-world.  Or die, depending on the player's choices.

We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill our hallowed halls
We are the Priests of  the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls

If you've never listened to RUSH, you should.

Modifié par durasteel, 14 septembre 2010 - 10:52 .

[Narosian]

wepeel_ wrote...

The point is that if the beings in the galaxy aren't aware that using mass effect field has that kind of effect, they can hardly be held accountable for it - especially when the reapers have left them a communication system completely dependant on the mass effect itself.

actually as someone else pointed out they can still be held accountable.  If you commit a crime but dont know what you did was wrong its still a crime, ignorance isnt a valid excuse.  Taking something from the bible, if you commit a sin but don't know its a sin, that doesn't mean your not accountable for it.

[Mir5]

durasteel,

any species or entity that has full comprehension on physics and genetics would've long since abandoned superstitious fairytales about souls and such.

[Archontor]

IllusionOfLife wrote...

Archontor wrote...

they give them this hazardous technology because at the moment we cannot do much damadge but given time to spread and colonise which we most likely will then we become a threat or it's possible that by destroying a star ,one of the most usefull and permanent resources in the galaxy we have shown how we opperate and the reapers consider it to be wrong

Eh, it's an interesting idea, but I'm still not buying it. The Reapers have made it clear that they do not regard organic life as being valuable beyond their inevitable harvest, so why then, would the Reapers benevolently entrust them this technology to improve their own existence knowing full well that this technology is causing damage to the universe? It simply doesn't make sense.

Your theory requires the assumption that the Reapers are deity beings which give freely these gifts to the galaxy, and I simply don't buy that. From everything we know about the Reapers, especially considering Sovereign's speech in ME1, it's clear to me that they view organic life as nothing more than a crop to be harvested. They give their technology to organic life in order to procreate and further their own existence; they are not entrusting organic life with this technology simply to help us progress.

well they give technology to us so what ever they want from us must have to do with that as the only genetic  material they gather is from relatively un altered humans therfore it's possible that if we prove we wont blow up a star system (or 5 8ths of one) then they use us as intellectual slaves (i.e a think tank) or perhaps at that point the deem us worthy of performing their equivalent of menial labour

[Archontor]

Mir5 wrote...

durasteel,
any species or entity that has full comprehension on physics and genetics would've long since abandoned superstitious fairytales about souls and such.

whilst there is corroborating evidence on earth today yor statement was slightly insulting to theists and whilst i agree the moderators may not

[jimmyjoefro]

I took "salvation through destruction" to mean that, in their view, the only way for the species to last forever is to be consumed into the consciousness a Reaper.

[HazelrahFiver]

silhouette80 wrote...

This is totally speculative on my part so here's what I think. Let's say at some point in the very distant past there was an advanced species (proto-Reapers) which discovered ways to utilize dark energy. Their ultimate creation is the mass relay, and over the course of hundreds or thousands of years they begin to pepper the galaxy with these things. All is going well until one day they realize that using the mass relays will at some point in the distant future destroy the galaxy because of the buildup of dark energy. So what are their options?

Can they destroy a mass relay? As far as we know, they can't be destroyed (remember the Mu relay withstanding a supernova blast). But what if they can be destroyed, but the consequence would be catastrophic chain reaction that would destroy the galaxy instantly. So, proto-Reapers begin the process of technological singularity (ie reaperhood) by becoming immortal vessels, literally. As machines, they deduce that to save future civilizations from the impending doom of the galaxy they should be remade in their image, thereby saving the "cream of the crop" of sentience.

Anyways, that's just one theory of what might be going on.

This fits nicely with the theory I have been floating.  The Reapers continue the cycle that Soveriegn mentioned in the hope that a new species will develop a specific technology.  This tech would be something that is desperately needed to sustain and save all life, including organic.  That would fit the criteria of the Reapers considering themselves saviors.  Also, implementing your theory, if their primary hope is that someone finds a way to dismantle the mass relays (or whatever deadly thing caused the star to die in ME2 due to dark energy) it would make sense that they need to continue the forementioned cycle.

Also, the reason they may see humanity as such a threat becomes somewhat obvious.  They are worried about organic life causing the destruction of everything, and humanity is quite good at causing destruction.  The Reapers took one look at our war advancements, at how we could easily decimate our own planet in the blink of an eye, and understood we might be the ones to bring about the full destruction.  Thus, this makes Shepard so very important to eliminate, giving reason to him being the main character that we all play.  He's not only human, but he's culling the Reaper plans and likely bringing about the end of everything.  Shepard is the apocalypse in their view.

[Zan51]

I want to know how, if the galaxy has been populated over and over and wiped every 50,000 years when they are all at a space faring and resource hunting level, Shepard can still go surveying planets and get so many resources from all over. It should all be used up by now!



And before anyone says they regenerate, no they don't. For instance, we are due to run out of Helium in 25 years and it will then be gone from Earth forever. As for new solar systems being made, I think they take a lot longer than 50,000 years to happen!



All of which adds to this discussion by pointing out that the resources ARE being used up and cannot be replenished in any short time span. Which kinda makes thewhole idea of the Reapers as guardians of the galaxy/Universes resources kinda defunct since they are encouraging us to use them each cycle by leaving the Mass Relays and citadel for us.



I do think Vehzeel's idea about the Reapers perhaps needing Biotics, and there being more Human biotics nowadays, plus nearly all Asari are biotics, is a good argument, though.

[HazelrahFiver]

Zan51 wrote...

And before anyone says they regenerate, no they don't. For instance, we are due to run out of Helium in 25 years and it will then be gone from Earth forever. As for new solar systems being made, I think they take a lot longer than 50,000 years to happen!

While I can't actually argue with your point, I do have to say that we don't know for sure of what you have written here.  We may or may not run out of a certain mineral, but our intelligence and knowledge base is barely a scratch on the surface of what really goes on in the universe.  50,000 years from now gold may be growing on trees, the oceans could be filled with glass, and oxygen could be entirely replaced by helium.  We can't know with even 1% of certainty if a mineral can be truly used up or not.

[Nimander]

I ... do not think there is going to be some grand 'The Reapers are good in a way' thing. This is not a 1990s Iron Age book, it's basically a reconstruction of classic science fiction pulp. The Reapers are evil. Mecha-Cthulhu comes here to reproduce. I'll be really disappointed if they take some other tact.



As for the stars, I don't think it's due to Mass Effect fields in some sort of environmentalism / side effect way. I think another set of minions to the reapers (some of the Geth maybe?) were experimenting. See, how I envision it is at some point, some star is going to collapse into a black hole, and this is going to be used with some sort of Reaper Tech to temporarily warp space, creating a temporary Mass Conduit to Dark Space. Temporary Relay. Instant Reaper Arrival.

[Shadowomega23]

My theory, its the old to protect you from yourselves. Organics are chaos and Unpredicible and will cause destruction if left uncheck. The reapers seem to be from the Skuttlefish empire 20 million years or more and there are serveral planets that show major orbital bombardment around that time period. It is likely the skuttlefish empire factured Idealicly and one side was on the lossing end of the fight. They in last ditch effort to save themselves end up daming themselves to what we know as the reapers. The ended up havesting their own race and then released they have no way to continue, over time programming and even traits of those assimialted into a reaper started coming out (ghost in the machine type thing) and the reapers came up with a plan that end up getting one side wanted all along to be a dominating force in the galaxy, and a way to replicate their new species. Just my Theory on it.

[Whereto]

I just think the reapers want resources that take time to develop and harvest so they sleep and let us do their work till they need those resources for one thing or another. Maybe they are fighting a war over a couple galaxy and harvest many galaxy's to continue there war effort

[Archontor]

Nimander wrote...

I ... do not think there is going to be some grand 'The Reapers are good in a way' thing. This is not a 1990s Iron Age book, it's basically a reconstruction of classic science fiction pulp. The Reapers are evil. Mecha-Cthulhu comes here to reproduce. I'll be really disappointed if they take some other tact.

As for the stars, I don't think it's due to Mass Effect fields in some sort of environmentalism / side effect way. I think another set of minions to the reapers (some of the Geth maybe?) were experimenting. See, how I envision it is at some point, some star is going to collapse into a black hole, and this is going to be used with some sort of Reaper Tech to temporarily warp space, creating a temporary Mass Conduit to Dark Space. Temporary Relay. Instant Reaper Arrival.

i dont think using mass effect feilds in general has star destroying consequences but i do think  the star was directly damadged by non-reaper spescies for research purposes or due to a wide variety of other possiblities like some convoluted terrorist plot or the dumping of some illeagal device or material

Modifié par Archontor, 15 septembre 2010 - 09:23 .

[GnusmasTHX]

Seeing as how they're the largest contributors to global warm-... Err, dark energy excess and deliberately guide other races into using mass effect technology, it would seem counterproductive.

[Archontor]

GnusmasTHX wrote...

Seeing as how they're the largest contributors to global warm-... Err, dark energy excess and deliberately guide other races into using mass effect technology, it would seem counterproductive.

i posted just above me a reason why this theory is not a global warming allegory

[FouCapitan]

We're a farm to them, plain and simple. The Reapers use the galaxy as their own personal resource and reproduction stock. They believe they are the ultimate be all, end all of existence. They are haughty, stuck up robots with deserved superiority complex.

When Sovereign says we are "fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding." he says so in the same notion that you wouldn't expect a sandwich to understand why you're going to devour it.

They're "protecting" us from what they deem a pointless existence. Nothing more.

Modifié par FouCapitan, 15 septembre 2010 - 09:49 .