87 réponses à ce sujet

[MsFicwriter]

Yes, I know that they are a sentient race of machines that eradicate organic life every 50,000 years. BUT, that still does not explain their ORIGIN. As the turian council member asks in ME1, "Where did the Reapers go? Why did they vanish? How come we've found no trace of their existence?" This puzzles me. I mean, Sovereign says that "we simply...are", but I don't buy that overly-simplistic, quasi-mystic explanation. Here are several reasons why:

1.  Unless the Reapers are akin to (a) god/s, that means that they existed before the universe was even formed. They're MACHINES, and as we humans know, machines are CREATED, DESIGNED and INVENTED. Have you ever seen a computer evolve on its own, without any human intervention? Last time I checked, this didn't happen.

2.  If they are machines, then they have still been proven to be cybernetic--composed of mechanical and organic parts. However, as I said in point one, how did the mechanical parts come into existence? Not by themselves...

3.  What do the Reapers want? To continue existing and repeating the cycle of augmentation and subsequent elimination of all organic life? Sounds like a pretty boring life if your only aim is reproduction. Even the krogan have aims (mostly warlike), but if the Reapers have no other goal besides that, then they're even more boring!

4.  Is each Reaper acting completely independent of all the others, or do the Reapers have a leader/main consciousness that is directing all of them? If a Reaper isn't necessarily bound to its complementary "brothers", then what if a Reaper decides to "go rogue" and NOT attempt to wipe out organic life along with the rest? I say, if there can be rogue geth, there can be rogue Reapers.

5.  Are we ever going to find out the true origin and motive(s) of the Reapers in ME3, or are the producers going to have us "take a leap of faith" and accept the "fact" that the Reapers "simply...are", and we have to defeat them?

I sure hope we get some answers in ME3. Swiss cheese is less porous than Sovereign's explanation.

[bhsvault]

I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering this. I believe that the Reapers were created and they eventually wiped out their creators. The race that created them probably had no idea when to stop with their AI reasearch.

I think this would make a really cool game after ME3.

[adam_grif]

The reapers were obviously built by something since metallic starships don't evolve. Whether an early species transformed themselves into the Reapers, or whether they just built the first ones doesn't really matter. Evolution is the only bootstrapping natural process that gives rise to intelligence, and the universe started with no heavy elements of any kind, so obviously the Reapers can't be older than the stars and novas. That they have huge quantities of Eezo in their construction means there had to have been many supernovas for them to have been built at all.

Sovereign was just talking trash to you.

Modifié par adam_grif, 23 janvier 2011 - 05:17 .

[Gandalf-the-Fabulous]

What I want to know is if the Reapers base the design of new reaper models after species that were either wiped out by them or about to be wiped out then what are those weird squid thingies that the original models were based on?

[Exiled Eagle]

I'd rather not know, I want the origin of the Reapers to be kept a mystery.

[Joram Talid]

i'd love to hear about the creators of the reapers(atleast 37 million years ago).

[kudayta]

adam_grif wrote...

The reapers were obviously built by something since metallic starships don't evolve. Whether an early species transformed themselves into the Reapers, or whether they just built the first ones doesn't really matter. Evolution is the only bootstrapping natural process that gives rise to intelligence, and the universe started with no heavy elements of any kind, so obviously the Reapers can't be older than the stars and novas. That they have huge quantities of Eezo in their construction means there had to have been many supernovas for them to have been built at all.

Sovereign was just talking trash to you.

Get out of my mind!

Seriously, well put sir. 

[Bogsnot1]

They are a mechanised version of The Auditors from Discworld.

[Had-to-say]

What if Reapers were first and biological beings were created by them. No one ever said the natural order had to be biological life first. What if naturally evolving live machines already existed before first biological life existed. The Repears would have no creators.

[Fortlowe]

I would find it more intruiging if the Reapers were exactly what they said they were....First. Really, life as we know it is a series of increasingly complex machinery. Is it so hard to postulate life developing from a fundamentaly different place then the carbon base? Complex, silicon based life would likely resemble machinery to our eyes.

[Spartas Husky]

No idea what the Reapers are. For all we know they might trully be a machine race born out of synthetic and organic material...

[adam_grif]

What if Reapers were first and biological beings were created by them. No one ever said the natural order had to be biological life first.

How could the Reapers be first? They're giant starships with Element Zero cores, an element that does not naturally occur on planets. Without their Eezo cores they would never be able to land on any body with significant gravity, something they can't get into space without. They have giant magnetic cannons that lob molten metal at high speeds. They have huge, pressurized internal spaces that act as nothing but a space for oxygen-breathing species to live inside. They also require organics to reproduce!

It's possible that the first species who ever evolved in the universe (or this galaxy at least) became the Reapers, but there is no way the Reapers in their current form just appeared from nothing, or naturally developed that way.

Is it so hard to postulate life developing from a fundamentaly
different place then the carbon base? Complex, silicon based life would
likely resemble machinery to our eyes.

That's not really the case. Silicon is considered as an alternative to carbon because it has similar properties - the idea is that life functionally similar to organic life could arise using siilicon as a substitute. It would still look very much like organic life, and behave very similarly too.

Modifié par adam_grif, 23 janvier 2011 - 07:36 .

[Fortlowe]

 

Modifié par Fortlowe, 23 janvier 2011 - 08:09 .

[Fortlowe]

 

Modifié par Fortlowe, 23 janvier 2011 - 08:09 .

[marshalleck]

Why did you post this in the No Spoilers forum? People who haven't finished ME1 come into this forum from time to time.

Modifié par marshalleck, 23 janvier 2011 - 08:09 .

[Fortlowe]

We agument our bodies (plastic surgery, lasik surgery). The reapers of cousre did not start out with element Zero cores, but it would seem an elementary addition considering the obvious modular nature of their bodies. Also who says they require organics to reproduce. What we saw in ME2 may not have been reproduction. Reproduction may simply have been a consequence of what the reapers were doing.

Is it so hard to postulate life developing from a fundamentaly
different place then the carbon base? Complex, silicon based life would
likely resemble machinery to our eyes.

That's not really the case. Silicon is considered as an alternative to carbon because it has similar properties - the idea is that life functionally similar to organic life could arise using siilicon as a substitute. It would still look very much like organic life, and behave very similarly too.

http://www.daviddarl...iliconlife.html

Not a substitute, an alternative.

[Joram Talid]

the reapers didn't evolve in the traditional(human) way. fact. no matter how sci-fi you may be, it's just not possible.

[GhostwriterDoF]

It could be that the Reapers are not wholly synthetic machines or organic creatures but a hybrid of both, and that the race that created them somehow found a way to incorporate their own organic matter into their technology, whilst still preserving the essence of their living sentience. Perhaps it was a matter of survival for their race at first, but something went wrong, or it was a matter of progression through their understanding of evolution, or it might have been a desire to become invincible masters of the Universe.

[didymos1120]

GhostwriterDoF wrote...

It could be that the Reapers are not wholly synthetic machines or organic creatures but a hybrid of both [snip]

What "could be"?  They are.  The entire ending of ME2 was about revealing that fact.

[Had-to-say]

DNA is way more infinitely complex than any known Silicon and it is thought to have occured accidentially from primordial mud.

Lets talk.

In a sea with infinite molecular combinations happening in every milisecond over a billion years across the infinite size of the universe with infinite stars it is possible for a episode of 'I Love Lucy' to show up completely natural.

Think about what I just said. What do we know about DNA? Bill Gates has said that DNA is more complex than any computer he could even consider creating. This DNA is an galactic accident?
Reapers could easily happen accidently as some type of electromagnetic sentience that happenend by stardust colliding outside or near a magnetar.

Magnetar are magnetic stars that have the magnetic strength to demagnaetize the very atomic nature of matter and repurpose it in ways we have yet to even consider. These magnetars over 13.7 billion years could deconstruct a star and reassemble it into a natural forming CPU. This is just as logical as accidental DNA. The brigthest minds specualte that DNA has over a billion bits of instruction how is this info stored and programmed. Is it just an accident? What does it mean?


Human beings are way more complex than our known machines.

It is very arrogant of man to think that biolgoical machines(humans or aliens) are the pinnacle of creation. Also consider they may be pure energy forms of life very different from solid matter all together.

I specualte that the Reapers will be similar to how some have suggested but space is infinite and all bets are off. It really is an infinite and unknown frontier.

Keep in mind the devices CPU that allows you to see this post is composed of the same stardust as you and I. In its earliest form as a star we were all one. If you prescribe to that.

Modifié par Had-to-say, 23 janvier 2011 - 08:49 .

[Errationatus]

Fifty million years ago, they were created by a race known as the Saberhagens.

'tis a true thing.

[ScorpSt]

My theory is that the Reapers started out as the first race that evolved in the Milky Way galaxy. They built the Mass Relays and the Citadel. They then reached a time of Evolutionary stagnation. It's possible they became incapable of reproduction by normal means and began cloning themselves.

They then discovered a means of preserving themselves by distilling their organic components and fusing them with technological components. They would manage to maintain their sense of self and live forever in their fused state. They considered it something of a Technological Ascension.

Much later, other races began to evolve. They discovered the Mass Relays and the Citadel as well as all the other technology the first race left behind. The Proto-Reaper(s) watched their evolution and saw that they were headed for the same Evolutionary stagnation they faced. Naturally, they offered to help.

Unfortunately, the other races saw what the first race had done to themselves as barbaric. Disgusted, they turned the Proto-Reaper(s) away. The Proto-Reaper(s) could not understand the newer races refusal to accept their help.

Soon, the newer races began to fear that the Proto-Reaper(s) might try to force them to convert against their will, so they launched a preemptive strike against them. This enraged the Proto-Reapers. They came to the conclusion that pure organics would never understand them.

The Proto-Reaper(s) far outmatched the newer races and they managed to round up the races. They then converted them into new Reapers, but with certain rules implanted in them that would make them bound to the first Reaper(s) agenda, which now was to forcibly convert all sentient races when they reached a certain point in their evolutionary timelines.

By this point, there are plenty of Reapers, so they can afford to be choosy about who they convert (hence, no Prothean Reaper).

Modifié par ScorpSt, 23 janvier 2011 - 09:13 .

[adam_grif]

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/siliconlife.html



Not a substitute, an alternative.

Silicon, like carbon, has 4 spare electrons with which to form bond.It's below carbon on the periodic table for this reason. Nothing about silicon based life makes it in any way "like machinery", which is notably different in that machinery is created "top down" by external things, whereas living organisms bootstrap themselves into existence from a small seed, consuming and producing as they grow. You don't just plant a "computer chip seed" and sprout a computer.



Silicon based life will be very much like Carbon based life for this reason. It's just a different way of achieving approximately the same thing - self replicating systems.

DNA is way more infinitely complex than any known Silicon and it is thought to have occured accidentially from primordial mud.

You can fit your entire genetic code on any modern USB stick. ~720 Megabytes of information is stored in an average human genome. You're also horribly misinformed, given that DNA most certainly did not "occured accidentially from primordial mud". Modern human DNA is the result of billions of years of evolution by natural selection. The original form that life took was inevitably far, far, far, far, far simpler than modern humans, and its genetic code was also far, far, far, far simpler. Actually it probably wasn't even DNA, it would have been RNA.



Research abiogenesis for more details. Here is a good video to start off with.

In a sea with infinite molecular combinations happening in every milisecond over a billion years across the infinite size of the universe with infinite stars it is possible for a episode of 'I Love Lucy' to show up completely naturally.

A few problems - there are only a finite number of stable combination of molecules that occur naturally, the universe is not infinite in size, and there are not an infinite number of stars.

This DNA is an galactic accident?

I'm facepalming so hard right now. Like, really hard. Really really hard. For reals.

Magnetar are magnetic stars that have the magnetic strength to demagnaetize the very atomic nature of matter and repurpose it in ways we have yet to even consider. These magnetars over 13.7 billion years could deconstruct a star and reassemble it into a natural forming CPU. This is just as logical as accidental DNA.

Magnetars are a kind of neutron star, their gravity is unfathomably crushing (condensing more matter than exists in our sun into something approximately 20km across. THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MINUTE) and their magnetic fields are estimated to be a quadrillion times stronger than earth's magnetic field (1, 000, 000, 000, 000x stronger). And you think it's possible that a CPU can form in this? By chance? That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard that wasn't an obvious joke. Even if it did spontaneously form it would get instantly obliterated by by the extreme gravity or rendered inoperable by the insane magnetic fields.



This is like arguing that life could spontaneously form in the middle of a furnace. Why? Even if it could how would it survive?



The rest of your post is more rambling gibberish.

[Had-to-say]

ScorpSt wrote...

My theory is that the Reapers started out as the first race that evolved in the Milky Way galaxy. They built the Mass Relays and the Citadel. They then reached a time of Evolutionary stagnation. It's possible they became incapable of reproduction by normal means and began cloning themselves.

They then discovered a means of preserving themselves by distilling their organic components and fusing them with technological components. They would manage to maintain their sense of self and live forever in their fused state. They considered it something of a Technological Ascension.

Much later, other races began to evolve. They discovered the Mass Relays and the Citadel as well as all the other technology the first race left behind. The Proto-Reaper(s) watched their evolution and saw that they were headed for the same Evolutionary stagnation they faced. Naturally, they offered to help.

Unfortunately, the other races saw what the first race had done to themselves as barbaric. Disgusted, they turned the Proto-Reaper(s) away. The Proto-Reaper(s) could not understand the newer races refusal to accept their help.

Soon, the newer races began to fear that the Proto-Reaper(s) might try to force them to convert against their will, so they launched a preemptive strike against them. This enraged the Proto-Reapers. They came to the conclusion that pure organics would never understand them.

The Proto-Reaper(s) far outmatched the newer races and they managed to round up the races. They then converted them into new Reapers, but with certain rules implanted in them that would make them bound to the first Reaper(s) agenda, which now was to forcibly convert all sentient races when they reached a certain point in their evolutionary timelines.

By this point, there are plenty of Reapers, so they can afford to be choosy about who they convert (hence, no Prothean Reaper).

I love this idea . It is very attractive and hope that it is used.  Machines are biology's creation? But how likely is biology in the universe? 
 
It has been written  that the chances for the universe to expand, for the atom to exist, for the earth to bear life and for humanity to find place is as little as on to a number so big that it would require 244 zeros to write it down.

We are really lucky. But what does that really mean in a infinite universe that is 13.7 billion years old.

This could happen for anything that is not biological. I never realized we humans worship our biology as all that matters.

A self evolving race of natural machines; this 'idea' is uncomfortable for most. Stardust has no preference it will repurpose us all if we don't find a away to manipulate it. Who is to say we will luck up a second time.

[Dexi]

Had-to-say wrote...

DNA is way more infinitely complex than any known Silicon and it is thought to have occured accidentially from primordial mud.

Lets talk.

In a sea with infinite molecular combinations happening in every milisecond over a billion years across the infinite size of the universe with infinite stars it is possible for a episode of 'I Love Lucy' to show up completely natural.

Think about what I just said. What do we know about DNA? Bill Gates has said that DNA is more complex than any computer he could even consider creating. This DNA is an galactic accident?
Reapers could easily happen accidently as some type of electromagnetic sentience that happenend by stardust colliding outside or near a magnetar.

Magnetar are magnetic stars that have the magnetic strength to demagnaetize the very atomic nature of matter and repurpose it in ways we have yet to even consider. These magnetars over 13.7 billion years could deconstruct a star and reassemble it into a natural forming CPU. This is just as logical as accidental DNA. The brigthest minds specualte that DNA has over a billion bits of instruction how is this info stored and programmed. Is it just an accident? What does it mean?


Human beings are way more complex than our known machines.

It is very arrogant of man to think that biolgoical machines(humans or aliens) are the pinnacle of creation. Also consider they may be pure energy forms of life very different from solid matter all together.

I specualte that the Reapers will be similar to how some have suggested but space is infinite and all bets are off. It really is an infinite and unknown frontier.

Keep in mind the devices CPU that allows you to see this post is composed of the same stardust as you and I. In its earliest form as a star we were all one. If you prescribe to that.

You have good points, BUT! They are created by someone, because the way they are constructed, their layout and capabilities have a prechosen purpose. 

They can not really evolve in the same way pure organic creatures evolve, thing also hinted by the fact that they sleep in outer galactic space, where there's absolutely nothing that would permit them to adapt to or take elements and incorporate into them, also, the derelict reaper ( killed 37 million years ago) looks just like any other reaper, as far as we know. 
And if they were an accidental CPU just like we are an accidental DNA, they would still evolve like DNA would evolve... Evolution is driven by needs to live.  I cannot see how indoctrination is a natural result of evolution and need to survive. Reapers are so big they can just ram into anything and destroy. The husks... what quirk in their early lives driven them to adapt in such a manner they can transform postmortem beings into mindless flesh-artificial life?

No... those things have a prechosen purpose, not an evolutional one. They were BUILT with those capabilities. 


And the most logical explanation is that they were constructed by a very early civilization as warfare machines. 
Then they gone rogue, either by a virus or a unexpected quirk in their logical set of calculations ( i.e. their "thinking"), similar to the geth, or a combination of both, and decided that their superiority over organic life gives them the right to end organic life. And they found ok to use that right.
Or something like that.


Just my 2 cents though.