160 réponses à ce sujet

[Cancer Puppet]

 So we're now being told that the Reapers were less that two and a half years from being able to pour into the galaxy like a swarm of giant squid-locusts WITHOUT Soveriegn's aid, or anyone else's for that matter. So...why did they even bother with the whole "battle of the citadel" thing to begin with. I can understand why Soveriegn started the Rachni war TWO THOUSAND years ago, but for a piddling two more years, why not just wait it out instead of risking failure?

Ow, S#*t! I just hurt myself falling into this massive plot hole...Please, call 911, or better yet, Drew Karpyshyn to write me outta here. Heck, I'd even settle for Alan Wake.

Honestly, no offense is intended to Mac Walters or any of the Bioware writing staff. I just really hope that a plausible explanation for this is provided. Because based on the information we have now this just seems kind of rediculous.

[ADelusiveMan]

The Citadel was Plan A. The Collectors were plan B. Whatever happening in Arrival is Plan C.

As for the other thing you said, it's obvious the Reapers did not see foresee failure, as it did not happen before, at least far as we know.

Modifié par ADelusiveMan, 25 mars 2011 - 12:33 .

[Rivercurse]

They've been hibernating for 50k years and the most commonly banded explanation is so that they can conserve energy to survive until galactic civilisation rebuilds to be harvested again.

Efficient use of limited energy at the start of the cycle is quick transport through the citadel relay and then go nuts with the reapin'.
Non efficient use of the little energy thats left after a 50,000 year wait in dark space would be to fly the ENTIRE fleet at FTL speed for 2 years straight to access the next nearest relay.

I'd imagine that because the former failed, the latter was the only option. And because it was the only option, the Reapers willbe a lot lower on power/energy/stamina etc than they would have been if they had just came through the Citadel as planned.

Edit - In summary, they dont have a lot of energy reserve left at the start of a new cycle, they didnt wanna waste it by forcing a 2KM ship to fly huge intergalactic distances at FTL, as this would leave the resevres dangerously low.

Modifié par Rivercurse, 25 mars 2011 - 12:36 .

[Manic Sheep]

Vigil explains this to you. The reapers are not immortal, they can be killed. Using the Citadel relay would have allowed them to pop in, take out the heart of galactic government and a large portion of the military in one surprise attack with minimal risk, disable relay travel leaving everyone trapped in their own systems and unable to organise any real resistance. Easy pickings. The reapers are old . Better to go for the slower option with less risk. When ME1 comes around Sov is running out of patience.
The fact that they now can’t do this is the only reason anyone has a fighting chance.

Not to mention it probably takes allot of energy to get to here from darkspace. For all we know this could have severely weakened them.
Now they are forced to come here from darkspace on their own and attack head on.

Modifié par Manic Sheep, 25 mars 2011 - 12:44 .

[ralx22]

The citadel is the master relay that controls all the other relays. The reapers wanted to launch a surprise attack by using the citadel to shut down all the relays, which would mean all the solar systems would be cut off from each other. Each system would be on their own without knowing wtf was going on, unable to plan a coordinated attack with the other races due to being unable to communicate with them. Its explained by vigil in more elaborate detail in ME 1.

[Cancer Puppet]

In response to Manic Sheep, ralx22, and to a lesser extent Rivercurse's comments; This "alpha relay" supposedly allows the reapers to jump to any other relay in the galaxy, so since plan A (signalling the citadel) failed, and again, the reaper fleet was so close anyway, why not wait the two years and catch the entire galaxy with it's pants down with the entire reaper fleet, plus the geth, "assume direct control" of the citadel and proceed as per usual?

Edit:
Instead, you've got certain organic forces working to oppose them, because they didn't go with the option that provided total victory. And I don't care how low on juice the reapers are supposed to be after returning, which looking at the ME3 teaser is about 0% lower than normal, there's no way an unprepared and unaware galaxy could stand against their fleet AND the geth.

polite. 

Modifié par Cancer Puppet, 25 mars 2011 - 12:51 .

[Pwener2313]

OP, you failed. FINISH HIM!!!

[Cancer Puppet]

Pwener2313 wrote...

OP, you failed. FINISH HIM!!!

Honestly, this is the last response I get?

[Pwener2313]

Yup

[Almostfaceman]

Cancer Puppet wrote...

In response to Manic Sheep, ralx22, and to a lesser extent Rivercurse's comments; This "alpha relay" supposedly allows the reapers to jump to any other relay in the galaxy, so since plan A (signalling the citadel) failed, and again, the reaper fleet was so close anyway, why not wait the two years and catch the entire galaxy with it's pants down with the entire reaper fleet, plus the geth, "assume direct control" of the citadel and proceed as per usual?

Edit:
Instead, you've got certain organic forces working to oppose them, because they didn't go with the option that provided total victory. And I don't care how low on juice the reapers are supposed to be after returning, which looking at the ME3 teaser is about 0% lower than normal, there's no way an unprepared and unaware galaxy could stand against their fleet AND the geth.

polite. 

You're Monday-morning quarterbacking.

First, the Reaper Sovereign didn't expect to fail.  Reapers win. Alllll the time. And they came super dooper close to winning in ME1.  They preferred to come in through the Citadel, and they damn near succeeded.

Second, I think you're missing the point that the Reapers will still be pulling off a a suprise attack if things don't work out for Shepard.  The Council doesn't believe Shepard and wrote off Sovereign as a "geth ship".  They have not been preparing for two years plus for a Reaper attack.

[Cancer Puppet]

Almostfaceman wrote...

Cancer Puppet wrote...

In response to Manic Sheep, ralx22, and to a lesser extent Rivercurse's comments; This "alpha relay" supposedly allows the reapers to jump to any other relay in the galaxy, so since plan A (signalling the citadel) failed, and again, the reaper fleet was so close anyway, why not wait the two years and catch the entire galaxy with it's pants down with the entire reaper fleet, plus the geth, "assume direct control" of the citadel and proceed as per usual?

Edit:
Instead, you've got certain organic forces working to oppose them, because they didn't go with the option that provided total victory. And I don't care how low on juice the reapers are supposed to be after returning, which looking at the ME3 teaser is about 0% lower than normal, there's no way an unprepared and unaware galaxy could stand against their fleet AND the geth.

polite. 

You're Monday-morning quarterbacking.

First, the Reaper Sovereign didn't expect to fail.  Reapers win. Alllll the time. And they came super dooper close to winning in ME1.  They preferred to come in through the Citadel, and they damn near succeeded.

Second, I think you're missing the point that the Reapers will still be pulling off a a suprise attack if things don't work out for Shepard.  The Council doesn't believe Shepard and wrote off Sovereign as a "geth ship".  They have not been preparing for two years plus for a Reaper attack.

The council hasn't, but clearly cerberus has. And the Quarians don't seem to have written off the reapers, nor have the "true" geth. And I understand that hindsight is 20/20, and I know soverieng wasn't expecting to lose, though should have considered the possibility. All I'm saying is that f it had an option with an overall higher probability of success, then it should (being an AI) have gone with the most statistically favorable tactic.

[Gentleman Moogle]

This also assumes that the Reapers sat around waiting for Sovereign to open the gate in the first place. They might have just started flying towards the Milky Way the day after they realized the mass effect relay hadn't opened, and we're not entirely sure how long ago that was.

There's also a possibility (that I just thought up now) that it's not the entire Reaper race that is flying into the Milky Way, but a smaller expeditionary force sent by the rest to find out what went wrong with Sovereign and to complete Sovereign's mission for him. This force could also have been flying since the first signal didn't get out however-many-years-ago, with the bulk of the Reapers still thousands of years away in Dark Space.

Just a couple thoughts. And if I can come up with said thoughts, I'm sure the Bioware team can come up with even better ones.

[Pwener2313]

I don't think the Reapers are true AI. Sovereign when killed yells "Noooooo". AIs don't do that, and Vigil says that Sovereign may have been "overconfident". AIs don't suffer from that. This may be why they don't consider themselves equal to the Geth. I don't think the Reapers are really AIs....

Modifié par Pwener2313, 25 mars 2011 - 01:15 .

[Almostfaceman]

Cancer Puppet wrote...

The council hasn't, but clearly cerberus has. And the Quarians don't seem to have written off the reapers, nor have the "true" geth. And I understand that hindsight is 20/20, and I know soverieng wasn't expecting to lose, though should have considered the possibility. All I'm saying is that f it had an option with an overall higher probability of success, then it should (being an AI) have gone with the most statistically favorable tactic.

Gentleman Moogle makes some good points but I want to lock on to one thing you said.

"an overall higher probability of success"

None of us has existed for millions of years as the Reapers have.  Let me reiterate - they haven't lost for millions of years.  Probabilities would weigh heavily in their favor in making estimations.  I think, even though you acknowledge it, you're still letting your hindsight cloud this matter.

Modifié par Almostfaceman, 25 mars 2011 - 01:20 .

[Gentleman Moogle]

Pwener2313 wrote...

I don't think the Reapers are true AI. Sovereign when killed yells "Noooooo". AIs don't do that, and Vigil says that Sovereign may have been "overconfident". AIs don't suffer from that. This may be why they don't consider themselves equal to the Geth. I don't think the Reapers are really AIs....

I think it's pretty safe to say by this point that they're NOT true A.I.s, but rather a the collective shared consciousness of whatever races were used to create each individual reaper, probably with a little bit of indoctrination in them so that they fall lock-step in line with the overall reaper plan. They're a blend of Artificial Intelligence and Hyper Hive-Mind intelligence, the way I look at it. 

[Digifi]

I dunno, I think it was summed up by others pretty well. You don't want to waste energy or risk losing reapers in a fair fight, and reaping takes centuries from the sounds of it. So even if they still have enough power for a solid first assault, do they have the longevity to last centuries if they flew in via FTL versus the Citadel? They do have a lot of plans though:

Plan A: signal the Citadel as usual...didn't work because the Protheans modded the Keepers...
Plan B: Rachni so you can get to the Citadel and work Plan A, lookin good and...Krogan whaaa?
Plan C: Geth, with help from a Spectre, gets us back to Plan A, this one has to work...who's the clown with the invisible starship and all-around badass aura?
Plan D: Kill the dude with the invisible starship and turn his species into a new reaper to restart from Plan A... HOW THE EFF IS HE ALIVE?
Plan E: ok, screw elegance, this bastard Shepard is gonna make us work for dinner, in the words of old time table top gamers "I walk up, bust down the door, and kill it"...outcome TBD

[Cancer Puppet]

Gentleman Moogle wrote...

This also assumes that the Reapers sat around waiting for Sovereign to open the gate in the first place. They might have just started flying towards the Milky Way the day after they realized the mass effect relay hadn't opened, and we're not entirely sure how long ago that was.

There's also a possibility (that I just thought up now) that it's not the entire Reaper race that is flying into the Milky Way, but a smaller expeditionary force sent by the rest to find out what went wrong with Sovereign and to complete Sovereign's mission for him. This force could also have been flying since the first signal didn't get out however-many-years-ago, with the bulk of the Reapers still thousands of years away in Dark Space.

Just a couple thoughts. And if I can come up with said thoughts, I'm sure the Bioware team can come up with even better ones.

To counter, it is implied that the reapers know precisely what's going on in the galaxy due to their real-time link with the Collectors. This undermines your arguments.

-polite

[Cancer Puppet]

Digifi wrote...

I dunno, I think it was summed up by others pretty well. You don't want to waste energy or risk losing reapers in a fair fight, and reaping takes centuries from the sounds of it. So even if they still have enough power for a solid first assault, do they have the longevity to last centuries if they flew in via FTL versus the Citadel? They do have a lot of plans though:

Plan A: signal the Citadel as usual...didn't work because the Protheans modded the Keepers...
Plan B: Rachni so you can get to the Citadel and work Plan A, lookin good and...Krogan whaaa?
Plan C: Geth, with help from a Spectre, gets us back to Plan A, this one has to work...who's the clown with the invisible starship and all-around badass aura?
Plan D: Kill the dude with the invisible starship and turn his species into a new reaper to restart from Plan A... HOW THE EFF IS HE ALIVE?
Plan E: ok, screw elegance, this bastard Shepard is gonna make us work for dinner, in the words of old time table top gamers "I walk up, bust down the door, and kill it"...outcome TBD

If conserving energy was an issue, which is pure speculation btw, then what's changed? They're just out of better options? They had better options than the ones they've excersized. I think the energy conservation theory is pretty weak anyway. If one of these things can maintain orbit around a proto-star for 37 million years AFTER it was "killed", then I don't really see it as a problem for the live ones.

And "fair fight" is a taking some liberty there. Sovereign alone killed several ships by itself, while getting it on with the citadel, and only went down becuase Shepard messed up his plans from the inside-out.

Modifié par Cancer Puppet, 25 mars 2011 - 01:32 .

[AiLeO]

Yeah, I don't think that a 2+ year ride in space is going to weaken them much if at all. It took the reapers centuries to finish conquering the Protheans before they slithered back to the darkness. This is still going to be a tough fight.

[Gentleman Moogle]

Cancer Puppet wrote...

Gentleman Moogle wrote...

This also assumes that the Reapers sat around waiting for Sovereign to open the gate in the first place. They might have just started flying towards the Milky Way the day after they realized the mass effect relay hadn't opened, and we're not entirely sure how long ago that was.

There's also a possibility (that I just thought up now) that it's not the entire Reaper race that is flying into the Milky Way, but a smaller expeditionary force sent by the rest to find out what went wrong with Sovereign and to complete Sovereign's mission for him. This force could also have been flying since the first signal didn't get out however-many-years-ago, with the bulk of the Reapers still thousands of years away in Dark Space.

Just a couple thoughts. And if I can come up with said thoughts, I'm sure the Bioware team can come up with even better ones.

To counter, it is implied that the reapers know precisely what's going on in the galaxy due to their real-time link with the Collectors. This undermines your arguments.

-polite

Not necessarily; we have no way of knowing how close a reaper has to be to take control of a Collector. Judging by the fact that the collectors haven't been that active in the galaxy until only recently, a simple theory could be postulated that there is a distance limit, and Harbinger only just crossed over into that threshold in the past couple of years. Which, if we continue on this theoretical path, would suggest that the Reapers had no knowledge of Sovereign's demise until the collectors were activated, which would not preclude either possibility that I suggested. 

Ultimately, we don't have enough data to put all of our money on one theory or another, or to dismiss one theory or another. 

[Pwener2313]

Gentleman Moogle wrote...

Pwener2313 wrote...

I don't think the Reapers are true AI. Sovereign when killed yells "Noooooo". AIs don't do that, and Vigil says that Sovereign may have been "overconfident". AIs don't suffer from that. This may be why they don't consider themselves equal to the Geth. I don't think the Reapers are really AIs....

I think it's pretty safe to say by this point that they're NOT true A.I.s, but rather a the collective shared consciousness of whatever races were used to create each individual reaper, probably with a little bit of indoctrination in them so that they fall lock-step in line with the overall reaper plan. They're a blend of Artificial Intelligence and Hyper Hive-Mind intelligence, the way I look at it. 

Im sorry, but how can goo have a consciousness? People get made into putty and it's alive? That's crazy, BW pulls that and Im losing it. I think that they are some kind of incredibly advanced AI that acts like an organic. I think that the "mind" is separated from the body (vessel) because when zombie Saren is killed (again) it disables Sovereign's functions, but not it's mind (it cried "Nooooo" like I said above), so Im thinking that they are two separate things.

[Pwener2313]

Gentleman Moogle wrote...

Cancer Puppet wrote...

Gentleman Moogle wrote...

This also assumes that the Reapers sat around waiting for Sovereign to open the gate in the first place. They might have just started flying towards the Milky Way the day after they realized the mass effect relay hadn't opened, and we're not entirely sure how long ago that was.

There's also a possibility (that I just thought up now) that it's not the entire Reaper race that is flying into the Milky Way, but a smaller expeditionary force sent by the rest to find out what went wrong with Sovereign and to complete Sovereign's mission for him. This force could also have been flying since the first signal didn't get out however-many-years-ago, with the bulk of the Reapers still thousands of years away in Dark Space.

Just a couple thoughts. And if I can come up with said thoughts, I'm sure the Bioware team can come up with even better ones.

To counter, it is implied that the reapers know precisely what's going on in the galaxy due to their real-time link with the Collectors. This undermines your arguments.

-polite

Not necessarily; we have no way of knowing how close a reaper has to be to take control of a Collector. Judging by the fact that the collectors haven't been that active in the galaxy until only recently, a simple theory could be postulated that there is a distance limit, and Harbinger only just crossed over into that threshold in the past couple of years. Which, if we continue on this theoretical path, would suggest that the Reapers had no knowledge of Sovereign's demise until the collectors were activated, which would not preclude either possibility that I suggested. 

Ultimately, we don't have enough data to put all of our money on one theory or another, or to dismiss one theory or another. 

Actually, the Colllectors have been active for centuries. They have been making deals with loads of people for a very long time looking for species (primarily biotics) to experiment on (likely looking for Reperfication candidates). They were never "activated" as it is said all over the place that they make deals every few years with mercs and other questionable people to abduct others and exchange technology with them.

[Gentleman Moogle]

Pwener2313 wrote...

Gentleman Moogle wrote...

Pwener2313 wrote...

I don't think the Reapers are true AI. Sovereign when killed yells "Noooooo". AIs don't do that, and Vigil says that Sovereign may have been "overconfident". AIs don't suffer from that. This may be why they don't consider themselves equal to the Geth. I don't think the Reapers are really AIs....

I think it's pretty safe to say by this point that they're NOT true A.I.s, but rather a the collective shared consciousness of whatever races were used to create each individual reaper, probably with a little bit of indoctrination in them so that they fall lock-step in line with the overall reaper plan. They're a blend of Artificial Intelligence and Hyper Hive-Mind intelligence, the way I look at it. 

Im sorry, but how can goo have a consciousness? People get made into putty and it's alive? That's crazy, BW pulls that and Im losing it. I think that they are some kind of incredibly advanced AI that acts like an organic. I think that the "mind" is separated from the body (vessel) because when zombie Saren is killed (again) it disables Sovereign's functions, but not it's mind (it cried "Nooooo" like I said above), so Im thinking that they are two separate things.

Well, judging from EDI's 'they use the essence of humanity' comment from ME2, plus Sovereign's comment of 'we are each a nation' from ME1, it suggests that there is more than one 'mind' within a Reaper. I think Legion even mentions something along those lines if you push him enough in his cabin dialogs. Can't remember exactly. But really, this is a soft science-fiction opera, not a hard sci-fi story. Real-world physics and logic has SOME place, but it can be kicked out if need be to make room for story elements that otherwise wouldn't work. 

The goo has to have some kind of purpose; it might be a sort of 'refining the soul' kind of thing, or it might be something completely different. Either way, there's at least SOME organic component to the Reapers, and it's apparently a pretty important one if the Reapers can't be built without it. This suggests something other than pure A.I. is the driving force here. 

[Whatever42]

Pwener2313 wrote...

Im sorry, but how can goo have a consciousness? People get made into putty and it's alive? That's crazy, BW pulls that and Im losing it. I think that they are some kind of incredibly advanced AI that acts like an organic. I think that the "mind" is separated from the body (vessel) because when zombie Saren is killed (again) it disables Sovereign's functions, but not it's mind (it cried "Nooooo" like I said above), so Im thinking that they are two separate things.

They weren't reduced to goo. They were deconstructed by nanobots. The minds of human beings are bascially electrical-chemical patterns stored in a biological computer. Its more than conceivable that we can deconstruct and reconstruct a brain. It's about a million times more imaginable than FTL travel or Star Trek transporter beams.

Modifié par Whatever666343431431654324, 25 mars 2011 - 01:40 .

[jkflipflopDAO]

It's explained in the newest book that the Reapers grow a type of organic quantum communication device in their hosts. They have unlimited range. It's the same thing the Illusive Man uses to talk to you on the Normandy.