87 réponses à ce sujet

[krimesh]

@ Stuff: ah, funny I didn't note them. You take them as evidence that there is something even more powerful than the Reapers? I don't know. The Reapers seem quite absolute. Maybe the cycle is simply something they belief to be important and eternal in itself, and thus regard it as their duty to upkeep it?

I just can't imagine the Reapers bowing to some other entity, not with the lines we got from them up till now. Servants wouldn't be THAT confident, would they?

[Annihilator27]

Harbinger? De facto leader It seems.

[Anacronian Stryx]

Bioware freely admits to borrow a lot of the inspiration for Mass Effect from the Cthulhu mythos, So if we look into that mythos for inspiration then the Reapers would be The great old ones, And all of them were Gods they had no leader, Cthulhu would fight them frequently and none of them would care at all for any humans only for the effect they could have on them, I think that even though we see the Reapers gathered at the end of ME2 there is no real reason to believe they are a unified front, After all Harbinger seemed to be the only one in charge of the collectors, Sovereign pretty much worked alone.



By the way i found this quote about the great old ones by accident.



Great Old Ones are intentionally dormant. To account for this, it is possible that the Universe experiences cosmic cycles, similar to the natural seasons which occur on Earth. Just as some animals hibernate during the winter, so too must the Great Old Ones rest in a death-like sleep during the present cosmic cycle If this is so, the Great Old Ones are currently trapped by powerful cosmic forces and must remain so until such time as the planets are in a certain alignment... or "the stars are right"—the event upon which they may be released and can revel once more across the cosmos...



Stars are right.. hmmm Haestrom dark energy build-up.

[krimesh]

^^

On the other hand, in Retribution Grayson is controlled by the Reapers. The plural is always used. So they do cooperate. I doubt that they do not work together in wiping out life, and building new Reapers. Still, I support your view that they have no leader. I assume that the Reapers are developed enough to cooperate constructively without requiring a leader.

[Anacronian Stryx]

krimesh wrote...

^^
On the other hand, in Retribution Grayson is controlled by the Reapers. The plural is always used. So they do cooperate. I doubt that they do not work together in wiping out life, and building new Reapers. Still, I support your view that they have no leader. I assume that the Reapers are developed enough to cooperate constructively without requiring a leader.

Grayson have no true concept of what is controlling him, He hears many voices and therefore suspects there are more than one controlling him, But the many voices could be the many voices of one reaper. We are each a nation.. and all that.

[krimesh]

It's not just what Grayson thinks. In the hole book the Reapers are always in plural. In the games there is nothing that suggests that the Reapers are not working together. The fact that Sovereign and Harbinger act alone, is explained by the other Reapers still sleeping, while the two of them stand guard. Yet another indication of trust and cooperation between the Reapers.

Maybe there are different opinions and even conflicts among the Reapers, but up till now there has been nothing I am aware off to suggest that.

Modifié par krimesh, 24 septembre 2010 - 09:39 .

[008Zulu]

krimesh wrote...
I don't know. Wouldn't we have seen the Reapers hanging around a relay at the end of ME2, then? Maybe the Reapers can jump to the Citadel on their own, if it is activated. Anyway, if you want to send a bomb to the other side, you'd have to figure out how relays work, which apparently is very difficult. Also, you'd have to eventually activate the citadel, and would that not let the Reapers in?

The impression I got was that they are coming the "old fashioned" way, using their own FTL drives. But based on how far outside of the galaxy they are, it'd take them close to 1,000 years, and thats if they were able to maintain FTL for that long. All the other species have to discharge their buildup in a sufficently sized planet, if the Reapers don't have to do, then I guess we will see them in a thousand years.

If the Reapers know they can't use the Citadel Relay, then you might be able to open it, sneak a bomb through and seal it before they have a chance to use it. But yeah, figuring out would be tough. Also it is likely the Citadel Relay would require a Reaper IFF in order to safetly use it. Maybe not, the Reapers planned on no one figuring out that he Citadel is a relay in much the same way the figured out no one could make it safetly through the Omega Relay and on to the Collector base.

[Doctor_Jackstraw]

i wonder if all the reapers are even bad or if it'll turn out that the reapers aren't bad it's just "you should join our club"

[Kappa Neko]

Tyrael02 wrote...

krimesh wrote...
I am aware that there seem to be a lot of people who feel that the
Reapers need more explanation. I am rather certain that there will be
*some* of that in ME3 (albeit maybe not as much as some would like),
but at the moment I for one am quite satisfied with what we have so far
for the following reasons:

Both, Sovereign and Harbinger are not
very subtle in expressing their superiority to the races of the galaxy.
In ME1 Sovereign states calmly that the races of the galaxy will be
reaped, just as it has happened many times before. What for? Well,
think of what humans do today. Domesticated animals are bred, fed,
killed and processed. Colonies of genetically altered bacteria or algae
are left to evolve in controlled environments to produce chemicals we
need. Letting sapient biological life expand quickly through a network
of relays, so that it may multiply and evolve faster, to subsequently
harvest it for whatever raw material the Reapers gain from it, is
basically just the same thing on a larger scale.
So, as far as ME1
is concerned, the Reapers' activities are not that mysterious. They are
harvesting the galaxy periodically for resources organic life is good
at providing.

In ME2 Shepard finds out that at least part of
what the Reapers harvest, are the organic life-forms themselves. It
also becomes evident what they are need for: apparently organic life is
a basic ingredient for Reaper-construction. While Sovereign was quite
cold and was treating organic life like cattle not really worth it's
notice, Harbinger with this "Salvation through destruction" thing, did
add it's own moral to the picture (at least that's my interpretation of
it): while the Reapers are superior to chaotic organic life, they are
benevolent in so far that they are willing to grant the enlightenment
they themselves possess to species who fit some sort of criteria: and
they do this by turning them into Reapers.

Tyrael02 wrote...
in
his explicit explanation of the reapers, Sovereign says they are
eternal, either having always been as far as we can conceive an
eternity of existence, or are eternal now that they have been
born/created/been brought into existence as a sentient race.
Consequently, and without the extra information we need, this implies
that the reapers have achieved a state of being that requires no
further input of resources or anything that will maintain of improve
their so-called perfect state of existance. This does not solve any
speculation or provide any insight into why they have left technology
that is obviously rediculously advanced for beings that are infitely
inferior. your examples on humans manipulating other species for
resources is innaplicable, because we are not eternal, as reapers so
claim, and we are not machines; there is a distinct and obvious line
between utter destruction and manipulating a race for resources....
everything the reapers have ever done, according to information we have
from ME1 and ME2 indicates that they assault the milky way to destroy
organic life, the reason is entirely speculation at this point. Fish do
no understand us because they are not sentient beings capable of
calculus.... we can understand what the reapers will do to organic life
but fish do not... there is no sentient quality to the defiance of
cattle who do not want to be herded. The only thing I can say in the
face of all this is that being machines implies a creator, or some rise
to sentience similar to the geth. And there may not be a reaper leader,
but they are obviously co-operating with Harbinger to destroy humanity
when the reaper army amasses on the galactic horizon.

So
you don't think that there can be some form of sentient existence that
can say their equivalent of "They are not even capable of calculus!"
about us? Humans always think that they are precious, unique sentient
beings, just because they are the only ones capable of voicing their
petty emotions, which they always do.

The hole point of my
having-sex remarks was to illustrate that our own existence is quite
pointless, and basically just a habit (unless we invent a purpose for
ourselves, that is). The Reapers promote chaotic biological life to
being Reapers. Thus they impose order and purpose on the galaxy. Just
what eternal, almighty entities usually do.

lol you
are missing out on the entire point of  the mass effect/reaper plot
line if thats what you really think. Humans are pointless? not to
humans.... and that is the point, please don't speak about evolution or
physiology or anatomy or anything biology related because that is
besides the point. Objectively, we are trying to evaluate the nature of
the Reapers, not the "importance" of the human race. The former is
deduced using facts we have so far, as this forum has been trying to if
you haven't noticed, and the latter is irrelevant to anyone or anything
but us as a species, also if you haven't noticed..... which in itself
propels the entire mass effect story from the POV of humanity.... just
throwing that out there. And yes, humans are special,  we are superior,
relative to other non sentient species,  specifically because of our
ability to voice our opinions AND because of calculus and physics; it
implies a grasp of the fundamental laws of the universe.... isn't that
obvious? The same applies to any other race in the ME universe relative
to their homeworlds, and also the reason why they want to and will
stand united agaisnt the reapers...

The story paints the
reapers as evil yes, that is true, and it does so without explaining
what they really are in their entirety, but what they do flies in the
face of every fundamental force that drives the evolution and the
progression of any sentient species. Given that, I'd hate them too as a
Human. OR Turian. OR Asari, and so on. Assimilating a species doesn't
impose order on them any more than utterly destroying them does. Thats
part of the theatrical potency of mass effect; organics realize that
what reapers do does not impose order, but destroys what they are.
You're missing the ENTIRE point dude

Ok, I hope I got the quotation right.... and sorry for making such a long quote!
I'm with krimesh! If he's missing the entire point, then I'm missing it, too. I
might not be sure exactly  if destroying all life is putting order to
things in general, but it IS to the reapers. I don't know which krimesh
meant. To me the beauty of the reaper storyline IS that the reapers are
us humans on a big scale. That's the irony of the plot! The reapers are
as smug as we are ourselves. They think that all organic life is stupid
and worthless just as we don't give a thought about killing a fly.
Colonialism is EXACTLY what we did with Africans, Native peoples and
Asians. We took everything from them, made them slaves or just killed
them. But because killing people is a harsh thing to do white people
came up with an ideology that would excuse their crualties, free them
from their guilt: the racial hierarchy. All races except for the white
race are savage and therefore not really people.  Even if acknowledged
as human, they were believed to be forever stuck in their dumb state of
mind. Unless white people enlightended them. So Native people, for
example, were forced into boarding schools to "educate" them, to make
them useful. Saving them from eternal barbarism, and damnnation, having had the  "wrong" religion. So the salvation theme the reapers voice is
their excuse for mass murder IMO. So I guess even machines need an
excuse for what they do. Maybe they're just mocking us, I don't know.
Reapers "transform" people into reaper material. As such they become
something bettter. In that sense reapers are doing us a favor. Come on,
this DOES sound very familiar now, doesn't it?! Yes, cows can't resist
but how does that make a difference? Is torturing and murdering
animals any less bad because they can't tell you how they feel about
it? This is exactly the reason why imperialism worked out so
well............
The reapers must have been built by somebody. That
race was proabably as flawed as us humans. So that legacy of domination
lives on in the reapers. They are the ultimate symbol of the
destructive nature of human beings!!! We constantly feel the need to
control everything. Control nature, control or dogs, control each
other. Slaughterhouses = feeding animals into a machine that extracts their essance and feeds them to us. Hello?!
If humans were as big and powerul as the reapers they'd do the same thing, sacrifice all organic life for their own good.
This
is all very sad when you think about it. Here we are so outraged about
what the reapers have been doing for ages, but we fail to see that
we're just looking into the mirror....
I don't know if I should laugh out loud or cry.

[jimmyjoefro]

I haven't really ever gotten the feeling there's a hierarchy of Reapers. Importance may vary, obviously Sovereign being critical to their return, but they have back up plans (Collectors) that Harbinger seems to be handling.

I don't think the galaxy has much of a chance to beat the Reapers head on. Cerberus does have possession of that massive canon that destroyed the one Reaper, had been studying the derelict Reaper, and, in my game, they have the Collector's ship (which probably makes Cerberus the most dangerous threat to non-humans in the galaxy as well as the most important organization in aiding their survival against the Reapers). But it would still take a galactic fleet of billions, judging by the numbers of the Reapers, to even contemplate a direct assault.

I do think Klencory is going come into play. It may be vital.


I think a couple of the main points of ME3 will be:

1. Taking out the Illusive Man since he will definitely not share the knowledge and weapons technology gained from studying the previously mentioned items.

2. Finding Kumun Shol and help him with the crypts of the beings of light on Klencory.

Modifié par jimmyjoefro, 25 septembre 2010 - 04:24 .

[belwin]

PWENER wrote...

No seriously, it's Harbinger.

Nah,
the reaper leader assumed control of Harbinger so he could assume control of you while he was assumed controlled while you control someone else.

refer to this picture for clarity:



in all seriousness, i think the UN analogy makes more sense.

Modifié par belwin, 25 septembre 2010 - 04:22 .

[Anacronian Stryx]

I guess the ting is that you don't have to kill all the Reapers.. just a couple so they'll think "Hell I'm not having none of that dying from a filthy organic flea - I'll just go back to dark space and see what will happen, After all i have plenty of time while organic maggots die out by themselves all the time"

Modifié par Anacronian Stryx, 25 septembre 2010 - 04:55 .

[vehzeel]

I hope we get the chance to turn the Reapers against each other.