172 réponses à ce sujet

[DarkerDream]

SandTrout wrote...

Over 9000!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Probably a couple hundred. BobSmith's analysis of their tactics seems accurate to me.

Me and my girlfriend just busted laughing when we read that! Awesome!

[Abispa]

I hate math.

[AkiKishi]

Blackbelt749 wrote...

We don't know for sure that they failed once. That was EDI's speculation. That doesn't mean for a fact that it happened.

We know they failed to make a Protheran Reaper for whatever reason. Even if they intended to use the Protheans in that way from the start, it's still once one less Reaper.

[AkiKishi]

JediNg wrote...

They are also very efficient strategies which minimize casualties and energy expenditure.  Just a thought.

True, but if you were actually that good/invulnerable/numerous then it would not be required. It's very like the German tactic in WWII of focusing everything at a single point. The tanks were not better (early WWII) but the tactics were.

If one Reaper death represents a 50k year investment that would make sense. It also means that the Reapers fear death. Common for Immortal things.

[aeetos21]

I read that the geth space where Haestrom resided there were somewhere along the lines of 10,000 geth ships that patrolled the area. Figure if those Ai can come up with that number within, what? A few thousand years? It'd make sense the reapers had at least that many dreadnoughts. Whether this will hold true or not remains to be seen.

[AkiKishi]

CapShepard wrote...

rft wrote...




Alot...

"From the cinematic showing the reaper fleet at the end of Mass Effect 2, there are roughly 295 reapers visible"

http://masseffect.wi...com/wiki/Reaper ("read Trivia")

LOL, can't believe that someone counted them all.

This is what I love about the internet.

[JediNg]

BobSmith101 wrote...

JediNg wrote...

They are also very efficient strategies which minimize casualties and energy expenditure.  Just a thought.

True, but if you were actually that good/invulnerable/numerous then it would not be required. It's very like the German tactic in WWII of focusing everything at a single point. The tanks were not better (early WWII) but the tactics were.

If one Reaper death represents a 50k year investment that would make sense. It also means that the Reapers fear death. Common for Immortal things.

Invulnerable or not, subterfuge and surprise attack = more energy efficient than fighting it out.  Conserving energy = optimum strategy, when conserving energy can be done.  Hence, it is required.

[aeetos21]

@Bob, If you photoshop it and use the stroke option it will outline all of the different reapers (I think) and make it easier to count.

Scratch that, just tried and it didn't work.

Modifié par aeetos21, 09 février 2011 - 08:37 .

[AkiKishi]

JediNg wrote..

Invulnerable or not, subterfuge and surprise attack = more energy efficient than fighting it out.  Conserving energy = optimum strategy, when conserving energy can be done.  Hence, it is required.

Not really what I was getting at. Strategies evolve because they are needed. A race of immortals who can't be shot for example would not worry about cover.Self preservation would not be a part of their psyche.
If you have a horde mentality , then the Reaper strategy is less than optimal. It's in fact a huge time waster.

Horde of 10,000 striking 10 planets at the same time is more efficient than unit of 1,000 striking 10 planets one after the other. This calculates that in both cases you have superiorty.

The only reason not to go with option 1 is that you can't

I totally get what you are saying and on an individual basis it's correct. But not when you scale up into a larger conflict. In fact you can see the "flaw" in Reaper strategy in ME1 when you travel to Illos.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 09 février 2011 - 08:51 .

[JediNg]

BobSmith101 wrote...

JediNg wrote..

Invulnerable or not, subterfuge and surprise attack = more energy efficient than fighting it out.  Conserving energy = optimum strategy, when conserving energy can be done.  Hence, it is required.

Not really what I was getting at. Strategies evolve because they are needed. A race of immortals who can't be shot for example would not worry about cover.Self preservation would not be a part of their psyche.
If you have a horde mentality , then the Reaper strategy is less than optimal. It's in fact a huge time waster.

Horde of 10,000 striking 10 planets at the same time is more efficient than unit of 1,000 striking 10 planets one after the other. This calculates that in both cases you have superiorty.

The only reason not to go with option 1 is that you can't

I totally get what you are saying and on an individual basis it's correct. But not when you scale up into a larger conflict. In fact you can see the "flaw" in Reaper strategy in ME1 when you travel to Illos.

Still disagree.  Expending energy to fight back when you can change conditions in your favour to avoid the whole situation where you need to expend energy is exactly why the reapers use subterfuge and deception to get what they want.  Only because of Shepard are they now required to perform a 'conventional' attack.  Where they have (and they usually do) have the option, the more energy efficient method is preferable.

[Pro_Consul]

JediNg wrote...

Expending energy to fight back when you can change conditions in your favour to avoid the whole situation where you need to expend energy is exactly why the reapers use subterfuge and deception to get what they want.  Only because of Shepard are they now required to perform a 'conventional' attack.  Where they have (and they usually do) have the option, the more energy efficient method is preferable.

There is no way we can know that. At this point, considering how little we know about the Reapers, both yours and Bob's theories are equally possible. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that the Reapers number only in the hundreds, in which case their employment of deceptive tactics may be more intended to minimize risk rather than minimizing energy expenditure. Or they could number in the tens of thousands and/or be so arrogant that risk never factors into their tactical thinking, and its all about efficiency. Or their tactical approach could just be the result of 37+ million years of mental inertia, i.e. the repetition of a method that was meant to deal with more dangerous conditions which existed millions of years ago but which no longer prevail.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 09 février 2011 - 10:24 .

[Katamariguy]

Way too many.

[Quill74Pen]

I just finished my inaugural playthrough of ME2 for the PS3, and the question I came away with in regard to Reaper numbers is, are we certain that each absorbed species results in a single new Reaper?

It sounds like it might take millions, if not tens of millions, of individual humans to be absorbed in order to create one new Reaper. But there are *billions* of humans; if the majority of them were absorbed, with the remainder killed off in battle or civilian losses, you're still looking at more than one new Reaper being conceived from the absorption and transformation of humanity.

Quill74Pen

[AkiKishi]

Quill74Pen wrote...

I just finished my inaugural playthrough of ME2 for the PS3, and the question I came away with in regard to Reaper numbers is, are we certain that each absorbed species results in a single new Reaper?
It sounds like it might take millions, if not tens of millions, of individual humans to be absorbed in order to create one new Reaper. But there are *billions* of humans; if the majority of them were absorbed, with the remainder killed off in battle or civilian losses, you're still looking at more than one new Reaper being conceived from the absorption and transformation of humanity.
Quill74Pen

There is no way to be sure. It could be that each civilisation makes a Reaper and the ammount of goo pumped in either determines it's lifespan, or it's power. It could also be that the goo is like a meal that the Reapers have to consume every 50k years or so and the new Reaper only uses up a fraction of it. The rest is then injected for want of a better term into the other Reapers.

That actually makes a lot of sense in the same way that a Vampire would not want to kill all humans because in doing so they would doom themselves. It's a similiar sort of harvesting mentality.

Thanks for the post, I just came up with a new insight because of it.

Makes them quite similiar to the wraith too (SGA) who sleep between cycles so that populations can rebuild in time for the next feeding.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 09 février 2011 - 11:13 .

[JediNg]

I simply came up with a hypothesis with the least amount of assumptions:

That they do not want to expend energy unnecessarily

That a swift surprise attack expends less energy due to fleets being completely unprepared for such a large, sudden attack.

[Merchant2006]

*Staples lips shut to avoid screaming out dragon ball z quote*

[Tennessee88]

aeetos21 wrote...

I read that the geth space where Haestrom resided there were somewhere along the lines of 10,000 geth ships that patrolled the area. Figure if those Ai can come up with that number within, what? A few thousand years? It'd make sense the reapers had at least that many dreadnoughts. Whether this will hold true or not remains to be seen.

The problem with this logic is that Reapers do not follow that structure in the least. To think of them as a rational, collective, traditional force is to deny everything we know about them. Also look at the technology we have observed so far. Beyond Sovereign's brute force, everything they use is based upon the perversion of that which already exists. In fact it appears as if they do not produce anything directly. There is nothing cultured or without utilitarian value (their utility being reaping) that can be witnessed in the Reapers. No Art, no hints of any thoughts beyond achievement of the cycle, its almost as if they have reverted back to a primal state. 

They seem to act more upon instinct rather than some dogmatic purpose. Do we ever see Reaper's get mad, show fear, or display any evidence that there existence exceeds their wish to uplift a species? Its terrifying to think that the wonderous nature of the Citadel has more in common a spider's web than an architect's creative force. 

[AkiKishi]

They are probably Borg like in that respect, they reap and then assimilate. Dual purpose along with re-production.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 09 février 2011 - 11:46 .

[JediNg]

Merchant2006 wrote...

*Staples lips shut to avoid screaming out dragon ball z quote*

WHAT???  NINE THOUSAND?!?!!

[Tennessee88]

BobSmith101 wrote...

They are probably Borg like in that respect, they reap and then assimilate. Dual purpose along with re-production.

Star Trek references always force me to the wikipedia search. I have always been interested in the idea that we assume ascension=reproduction. I never understood why it was a forgone conclusion that the Reaper's felt the need to reproduce. The words language they use never ventures past a pseudo-Godlike nature. In fact I do not think we can even prove that they understand the concept of "need."

[AkiKishi]

Tennessee88 wrote...
Star Trek references always force me to the wikipedia search. I have always been interested in the idea that we assume ascension=reproduction. I never understood why it was a forgone conclusion that the Reaper's felt the need to reproduce. The words language they use never ventures past a pseudo-Godlike nature. In fact I do not think we can even prove that they understand the concept of "need."

They may still have some vestiges of organic instinct left like the need to survive,reproduce and feed.
They may also have degenerated like you say to the point where they have lost whatever original purpose they had and are now simply repeating a pattern. Although the deviation from the plan and the attack on Earth hints more at an intelligence of some kind.

[Kamagawa]

The last thread on this topic got buried in the forums.



"From the cinematic showing the Reaper fleet at the end of Mass Effect 2, there are roughly 295 Reapers visible"



This quote is from this link: http://masseffect.wi...com/wiki/Reaper



Someone calculated a number in the 10 000 to 100 000 range according to the age of an anomaly on a planet that was caused by a mass effect weapon.



Honestly, They may be so overpowered and/or arrogent that they only need a few thousand to wipe out the galaxy.



Also Virgil said that the Prothean extinction took many years, implying (in my opinion) relatively few overpowered ships.

[Last Vizard]

Ramirez Wolfen wrote...

The number of Reapers is the same as the meaning of life.

The meaning of life is to reproduce then die.....

"Mission pending"

[atheelogos]

BobSmith101 wrote...

CapShepard wrote...

rft wrote...




Alot...

"From the cinematic showing the reaper fleet at the end of Mass Effect 2, there are roughly 295 reapers visible"

http://masseffect.wi...com/wiki/Reaper ("read Trivia")

LOL, can't believe that someone counted them all.

This is what I love about the internet.

[Lord Phoebus]

Another question to ask is how many reapers could reach the Milky Way? If at the end of the 50,000 year cycle they are running low on resources, they may have to eat some of their fellow reapers to gain resources for the journey or send a smaller expeditionary force to gain control and open the citadel relay as opposed to attacking en masse.



Even with a numerical reduction it looks like Bio is going to have to seriously nerf them from their ME status, or pull a major deus ex machina, to give the denizens of the galaxy a chance of fighting back.