The Vostok Anomaly, future ME2 DLC / the start of ME3, the newly opened Prothean Chamber and realistically fighting the Reapers:
Anyway, I had somewhat of an epiphany while I was half asleep the other day, and I think I can make some more sense of Bioware's little teasers from before ME3 was announced, namely the dot code thingies.
The first one was the atomic weight of iron, 55.845. A lot of people took this to be a reference to one of Bioware's other games, Shattered Steel, and in a way this makes a certain amount of sense, as in this game humanity is on the verge of extinction and must fight back against an alien menace, which fits nicely with the idea of the Reapers attacking Earth in ME3. However, another way of putting 55.845 is that it is the atomic mass of iron = Mass Effect. I’m not sure if that has been mentioned before, as most places at the time just said 'atomic weight' and didn’t seem to mention the hint to ME3 of 'atomic mass' instead. Either way this particular hint no longer seems important now.
The second one was a temperature, -128.5 Degrees Fahrenheit, which was the lowest recorded temperature on Earth, taken at Lake Vostok in Antarctica. At the time most places reported that this may be an allusion to the Vostok system in the Maroon Sea cluster in Mass Effect, or to the first manned space flight which was the result of the Soviet Vostok Program. However I think there is a far more interesting possibility!
I’m not a conspiracy theorist myself, but I do enjoy reading about them and conspiracy theories do often make an excellent basis or plot point for a story. Now, you may or may not know that there is something called the Vostok Anomaly, supposedly a huge magnetic anomaly or Mass Concentration at the bottom of Lake Vostok in Antarctica. This is a huge sub glacial lake which fills a rift valley miles under the Antarctic ice, and many scientists think there may be forms of life under here which are as yet undiscovered since the lake has been covered by a vast ice sheet for aeons, but have thus far been unable to send a probe down into the lake for fear of contaminating it.
There are some stories about a supposed 'incident' at McMurdo base in Antarctica and s subsequent US Government cover-up. Some people think its to do with aliens, or that people were infected with some kind of hitherto unknown virus originating from secret drilling of the lake, others that this is where the lost city of Atlantis lies buried and one of the more 'out there' theories ios that there is some kind of secret **** base hidden there... (Why is the word N a z i filtered? >.>)
Whether there is any truth in any of these theories, who knows. They certainly make for an interesting story though! I think there is a possibility that this may be worked into the story of Mass Effect 3 and the reapers however...
Remember at the end of Lair of the Shadow Broker, where Liara explains that the Broker had an interest in the Protheans and that that he believed they may have had 'other plans' besides the Conduit and Ilos? Well this is where I had my epiphany whilst half asleep a few days ago; considering Humanities unusual genetic diversity compared with other galactic species and the fact that the Protheans had a base on Mars, evidently to examine early human development, what if the 'Vostok Anomaly' appears in ME3 in the form of another secret Prothean base? This makes sense, as if you read the codex entry for Mars, it mentioned that satellites near Promethei Planum started picking up strange 'magnetic field shifts' which turned out to be the ruins of a Prothean research base. All of a sudden the supposed 'magnetic anomaly' at Lake Vostok and the magnetic anomalies of the Mars Prothean base start sounding very similar don’t they?
What if, aware that the Reapers would soon return and that humanities unique genetic diversity and other attributes made them a likely candidate to be the next great pan galactic civilisation and thus the next target for the Reapers, the Protheans constructed another base underneath the Antarctic ice sheet, and hid in their details of other 'anti Reaper' projects that they may have been working on, hoping that when ready, humanity would discover this base and use the information within?
But wait, there’s more! I think I have an idea of either what the next DLC will be or perhaps what will be part of the story of ME3. Remember recently that there was a Cerberus News update about scientists at the Prothean Ruins on Mars had recently opened an unexplored chamber? What if the computers in this newly opened chamber activated a beacon pointing to the location of the Vostok anomaly and instructions on how to activate this other Prothean Facility? Personally I think this would make for either some amazingly cool DLC to bridge the gap between ME2 and ME3 or a cool plot point to put in near the start of ME3.
But if this is the case, how would it help stop the reapers? What could the Protheans have discovered? Well I know a lot of people have said that they wouldn’t like it if the end of ME3 ended with the Reapers being destroyed by some kind of virus, a la independence Day, and I agree this would be hugely anticlimactic. However considering that one Reaper was able to obliterate a large chunk of the Citadel Fleet, I’m afraid there isn’t really any other practical plot device that could be used to destroy the Reaper fleet, which must surely number in the thousands.
That said however if we take the rate of Reaper reproduction to be one every 50,000 years, and the oldest known Reaper to be the 37 Million year old derelict one orbiting Mnemosyne, we come up with an interestingly low number of only 740 for the Reaper fleet, though it is probably substantially higher if we presume the Reapers existed before 37 Million Years ago. (Although there is the possibility, however faint, that the derelict Reaper represents one of the remnants of the battle that may have been fought between the Reapers and their own creators). Even the combined fleets of every space faring race in the known Galaxy would either not be able to defeat such a fleet or would virtually wipe themselves out in the process. Thus presumably Bioware will have to work in some other plot device which makes the Reapers vulnerable.
Of course there is always the possibility that the 'beings of light' or some kind of organic equivalent of the Reapers may be discovered trapped out in Dark Space or even at the center of the galaxy which will aid in the destruction of the Reaper fleet. Remember the planet entry (Klencory) which mentions the myth of there being 'beings of light, created at the dawn of time to protect organic life from synthetic 'machine devils''. This also could be a possible source of help needed to defeat the Reapers along with the rest of the united galactic fleets. However, I still think the most logical and believable solution is unfortunately the idea of a virus being used against the Reapers.
However, I think a more palatable solution may be that after activating the hidden Prothean station at the bottom of Lake Vostok, Shepard has to infiltrate one of more of the Reaper fleet to implant a Prothean engineered virus, which then spreads through the rest of the fleet. However, instead of destroying the Reapers, this virus disables their shields or other defensive capabilities, allowing the united galactic fleets to pummel the Reapers into a mass of glowing shrapnel. This way we have a believable solution to Reaper invincibility, whilst still allowing for a gargantuan space battle and allowing the fleets of the various galactic civilizations to effectively fight back and destroy the now vulnerable Reapers, though the cost in lives and ships would still be huge, allowing for a believable outcome, and perhaps a levelling of the playing field between the various galactic civilizations, necessitating a period of unparalleled galactic peace for the galaxy to rebuild itself.
This way, the Reapers can be defeated believably by the races of the galaxy, without needing to add in some kind of ethereal race of 'super organics' to help, and it also allows the Protheans to give the Reapers one more kick in the nuts before once again being relegated to ancient history.
The Kasumi Reaper:
But wait, there’s more! I have an alternative to this theory using the Kasumi Reaper as seen in Keiji's Greybox memories. Take a look at the screenshot below:
Notice how this Reapers 'arms' look sort of like 'tentacles'? (Well they do to me at least lol). We know Reapers are modelled after the organic species used to build, so which galactic race are we familiar with that has a tentacled appearance?
The Protheans.
Of course you could say the Reaper could be of any species, but this particular theory would work quite well in tying together the Collectors, the lack of a Prothean Reaper and other things. For example, what if the Reapers did construct a Prothean Reaper, but for some reason it was not stable; perhaps the Protean minds forming the Reaper consciousness fought back against what they were becoming, or that a team of Protheans was able to sabotage their species Reaper before it was completed, as Shep did at the end of ME2, which resulted in an enraged Reaper fleet and the utter annihilation of the Protheans.
Now, what if the Vostok anomaly is not a Prothean base hiding some kind of Prothean super weapon of virus, but rather is the remains of the Prothean Reaper itself? Considering that you could say that humanity has been aware of the existence of the Vostok anomaly since the late 20th Century, it is possible that this is the 'incriminating evidence' that 'could implicate the Alliance'. An exploration team drilled into the lake and found the remains of this Reaper. This would be incriminating since the Alliance would have been aware of this vessel for some time, but had not informed or warned the Council, though it may have helped prevent the attack on the Citadel. Or perhaps your mission in ME3 will be to reactivate this Reaper, as it may be that the Protheans that made up this Reapers consciousness did fight back and retained their 'humanity' for lack of a better word and that this is a 'good' Reaper which will help in the fight against the Reaper fleet.
More Likely:
Of course, this is a somewhat more outlandish theory, and I prefer my first one.
It may be that the image of the Reaper in Keiji's greybox memories is simply an image of the underside of Sovereign with the 'arms' spread out; compare the two images below:
Notice the similarity between the light patterns on the under side? To be honest I find it more likely that the Reaper in Keiji's Greybox memories is indeed an underside view of Sovereign with its 'arms' outstretched, and that the incriminating evidence against the Alliance has something to do with Sovereign itself.
Of course, all this is wild speculation based off little evidence, so it could all be the ramblings of a madman.
I did have a pretty cool dream a while ago though which involved the Reapers attacking my home town, and we had to escape by slipping into an alternate reality which existed under the floorboards of the buildings in town. Even in a dream state, the image of a two kilometer long Reaper appearing through a shroud of fog over the hills, the tip of its 'stern' piercing the sky, was still pretty scary and impressive!Anyway, like I said, at this point this is all wild speculation, although I wouldn’t mind of some of the above theories ended up being true, especially the Lake Vostok one, I do love a good mystery! Sorry for the insanely long post, I hope that this has been either entertaining or thought provoking on some way and that you enjoyed reading it. This all reminds me of the wild theories that circulated through the Tomb Raider forums before Tomb Raider Underworld came out. Oddly, a lot of our theories around Natla, Lara's mansions basement and her evil clone actually turned out to be right! Weird! XD
/Discuss
Nozy
Addendum
Snpr247 wrote...
Iron is also a very important element in reference to stars. Once the fusion reaction at the core of a star begins to produce iron it is game over for the star, death by supernova within milliseconds. So, if we are theorizing the farfetched, this could have something to do with the whole haelstrom phenomenon
I didnt know that, most interesting... But how could that be worked into ME3? I never really got the whole Haestrom thing in ME2, there werent any real clues as to what it was all about, perhaps we have to lure the Reaper fleet to a star system and make the sun go supernova using a Prothean superweapon? Maybe the various stars ageing prematurely is part of some Prothean experiment? But then that doesnt really seem like something the Protheans would do, unless they themselves were somehow planning to lure the Reaper fleet into a trap and destroy them by causing the sun in the system they are in to go supernova...
Ok, how about this, after fighting your way back to earth, you activate a secret Prothean base under the ice at Lake Vostok, but you discover it is in fact the detonator for a Prothean super weapon - a dark energy weapon implanted in our Sun. The only way to destroy the Reaper fleet and save the galaxy is to sacrifice the Earth by ordering the galactic fleets and as many humans as possible to retreat out of the Sol system before detonating the dark energy weapon and causing Sol to go supernova, thus destroying the Earth (and maybe sacrificing yourself too) and the entire Reaper fleet in the biggest explosion ever. That would make for a heart breaking finale, though i personally hope they dont destroy the Earth in ME3, as i would prefer a happy ending!
Modifié par JKA_Nozyspy, 20 janvier 2011 - 08:27 .
Retour en haut
