93 réponses à ce sujet

[marshalleck]

Just because you didn't see them using orbital bombardment in the 10 minutes of trailers we've seen so far doesn't mean they never do it at all. Landing on planets, orbital bombardment, husks, etc...all tools in the toolbox, fit for a specific purpose. They aren't a one-trick pony.

Modifié par marshalleck, 07 juin 2011 - 06:43 .

[BadgerladDK]

They work on cycles of thousands of years, not millions. By that logic, their interest would be only in wiping out high level life, as it'd take far too long for new useful life to pop up from a planet that was left as a crater. Even 50k years seems on the short side assuming they'd leave apes and other mammals for new intelligence to develop from, with cro-magnon man existing about 30-40k years ago.

So that'd leave only 10k years to go from glass parking lot planet to primitive man for the next cycle,assuming 30-40k from primitive man to ftl travel again. So yeah, nuking the site from orbit isn't always the solution.

As for why the cycle matters at all, now that's a good question. For all we know, it could be for some kind of machine-lulz, but I sort of doubt it, hillarious as it'd be.

In the end, all we can know for sure is this: Reapers gonna reap.

Modifié par Larg_Kellein, 07 juin 2011 - 08:00 .

[Tripedius]

Not to spoil the discussion, but if an answer to a question about logic in the game results in ' there wouldn't be much of a game to play left' that is probably the answer to that question.

If you want some logic however, they don't bomb planets during the attack cause they want to harvest the people, tech and resources. They might however bomb the planet when all that is done, to wipe away any evidence that that particular civilization existed.

[Dragoncloud]

Blech reading further into the topic other people have already put forth my points ah well...




No evidence is procured that the reapers did that, maybe its just evidence that through the millions of years of the appearance of life there have been species at war, or species that shot life to hell on planets just for fun (like dolphins do..).

(as evidenced by one of the earlier links, one of the planets bombarded had iron age sentience on it, which is hardly advanced enough, unless iron age is already cutting it close to the cycle time)



-> Humans aren't a threath Shepard is, and somehow they dont even want Shepard death as they keep her/him locked up for 2 days in a med bay till the reapers are supposed to arrive. (then again who knows what happened while you were out <<...)

As for harvesting technology, the Reapers are far beyond the technology of the current galactic state of the art, even far beyond the Prothean's level. What use would they have of these comparative flint-tipped spears when they have access to far greater gizmos?

Seeing as how they want you to follow the path they set out for you maybe at times, the 'organic' way of thinking offers new insights into technology or opens new upgrades for the reapers as a whole that are compatible with their existing structure as it is all based on the same technology. (aka, organic life is just a big lab full of monkeys randomly smashing type writers). Allowing civilisations to live too long might either allow them to diverge too greatly or might cause them to evovle to a point where they can put up too much resistance. (the monkeys flinging their dung).


The whole grey goo, reproductive thing, might just be a way to 'honor' a civilisation that has provided the reapers with something valuable by making the species one of them.

[vytis]

There's perfectly good logic there.
Company is milking the success of ME1 to make maney. Gameplay, making sense and other fluff are secondary to IMPROVED SHOOTING! KINECT! and MORE SHOOTING!

[Ronnocloki]

My personal thoughts on the matter run something like this. The reapers view the galaxy as something like a garden the case of the vast majority of planets they trim off the advanced species as opposed to say glassing the place, whatever their ultimate purpose is it's clear that some level of interaction with the harvested species is important so they don't outright destroy them.
Orbital bombardment is likely reserved for high priority targets that pose either significant resistance or don't offer sufficient rewards for a full scale invasion. Palaven would be an example of the former while the Yahg homeworld would fit the latter category
Earth on the other hand falls between the two extremes. It is clear that the reapers are interested in humanity, and Earths military is designed for precise retalitory strikes against pirates not slugfests with dreadnaughts.

[jamesp81]

Vengeful Nature wrote...

Ghost Warrior wrote...

sp0ck 06 wrote...

I don't think their goal is necessarily the utter destruction of planets, but rather the systematic extermination of "advanced" life forms. Thus hitting Earth with a gravity bomb would not be in the Reapers interests. By destroying everything they remove the ability for new life to evolve, rendering the Reapers' own existence irrelevant

I think you got it.

But we know they've done the same thing to other civilisations. It's not like all the civilisations we see come from the same planets. Lifebearing planets seem to be relatively common enough to produce many many cycles as it is.

jamesp81 wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

Even a fleet of conventional dreadnoughts could pound earth cities to dust with their main guns fairly quickly

If all the reapers wanted to do was kill stuff, the whole set up with relays and cycles would be pretty pointless.

Why ramming things at FTL isn't a standard part of Mass Effect warfare is difficult to explain, however.

Probably cost.  An FTL drive is very expensive, and it might judged not cost effective to use weaponized FTL drives as large anti-ship missiles.

It doesn't need to be faster than light. Even a small fraction of lightspeed is devestating. See the "Newton is the deadliest SOB in space" thing from ME2.

I was addressing the question asked that specifically was about why FTL missiles aren't used.  Again, it's probably too costly to use a mass effect drive as a weapon.

As for sublight weapons, lots of Mass Effect's weapons already operate on kinetic energy.  An Alliance dreadnought's main gun can throw a projectile at apporximately 4000 km/s, which is not relativistic velocity, but is still enough to get someone's attention.

The Thanix Cannon description from ME2 claims that it's projectile moves at relativistic speeds.  It certainly disemboweled the collector cruiser plenty fast.

[Yakko77]

The Reapers seem to rely on fear and intimidation as a tactic and what better way to do that than take you miles long death ray shooting self and land right on top of those you want to conquer.

[jamesp81]

Wulfram wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...

Probably cost.  An FTL drive is very expensive, and it might judged not cost effective to use weaponized FTL drives as large anti-ship missiles.

Taking out a Dreadnought with something like the Normandy's shuttle seems like a good trade to me.

Maybe.  But it wouldn't make for good storytelling, so it ain't happening.

Hell, if Star Trek did the sensible thing, they'd transport explosives inside enemy ships once their shields were disabled.  They also wouldn't bother with those dangerous anti-matter reactors.  The transporter system itself converts matter to energy; just use that as the power source.  You could literally run the ship on your trash.

If you absolutely have to have a rational explanation....

Maybe FTL travel is kind of like Vanguard Shepard's biotic charge ability.  His biotic field lets him 'phase through' solid objects in his path.  So maybe flinging a heavy anti ship missile with an FTL drive at a target would not work, due to the phasing effect.

Modifié par jamesp81, 08 juin 2011 - 05:01 .

[jamesp81]

Vengeful Nature wrote...

All Dead wrote...

You don't really care about the answer; you just want to nitpick.

Can we keep this civil, please?

It's not nitpicking, the entire Reaper thing hangs on this issue. It linked into why they're doing what they're doing.

In answer to your and other's questions, why wouldn't they be immortal? These are self-sustaining, mechanical machines. They are far beyond the technology level of current galactic civilisation, so I wouldn't expect wear and tear to be an issue.

As for the grey goo stuff, I'm not alone in saying that it doesn't make sense. There have been many threads about that issue. It's probably better to go to those in this case.

I disagree with all these premises at their core.

1) Nothing that lives is immortal.  They are also not "self sustaining".  This would be a perpetual motion machine.  However advanced the Reapers are, they are still bound by things like Thermodynamics.  Also, the Reapers are not completely machine.  ME2 tells you directly that they are part machine part organic (but they appear to be a lot more machine than organic).

2) Wear tear is always an issue.  Nothing has ever been built that will not eventually require some form of maintenance.  Harbinger's over-sized ass is not exempt from this.

3) The goo stuff hasn't yet been explained.  It's part of their process to make new Reapers, but that's all we know.  And hell, maybe it won't get explained at all.

[jamesp81]

KainrycKarr wrote...

I'm pretty sure Sovereign tells us as much in ME1, and the Termina-Human Reaper is a pretty big clue as well.

Either way, it's pretty safe to assume that whatever it is they're doing, it's more complex and long-term than just nuking the hell out of everything, which is what you're suggesting.

Which is all very fortunate for us, since that gives the goodguys time to find a way to kill the bastards while there's still an Earht left to save.

[jamesp81]

Larg_Kellein wrote...

They work on cycles of thousands of years, not millions. By that logic, their interest would be only in wiping out high level life, as it'd take far too long for new useful life to pop up from a planet that was left as a crater. Even 50k years seems on the short side assuming they'd leave apes and other mammals for new intelligence to develop from, with cro-magnon man existing about 30-40k years ago.

So that'd leave only 10k years to go from glass parking lot planet to primitive man for the next cycle,assuming 30-40k from primitive man to ftl travel again. So yeah, nuking the site from orbit isn't always the solution.

As for why the cycle matters at all, now that's a good question. For all we know, it could be for some kind of machine-lulz, but I sort of doubt it, hillarious as it'd be.

In the end, all we can know for sure is this: Reapers gonna reap.

They only harvest species that have achieved significant space flight.  For example, if the Reapers came tomorrow, odds are they'd just ignore Earth of 2011.  They'd save us for the next round.

[this isnt my name]

These are some weak arguments agiasnt the OPS point "oh we dont know if it was a reaper atack", please do we need to have harbinger make a list of every palent attacked or something before people accept the reapers orbitall wrecked civilisations.

OP I think its just becuase they need to twist this as much as possible so that shepard wins. If the reapers used logic ME1 would have been the end of the series.

[CroGamer002]

They don't need organics just for reproduction.

They need energy as well and they lost it a lot after failure of Sovereign in ME1, failure of Collectors in ME2 and destruction of Alpha Relay in Arrival.

[WizenSlinky0]

Bombing planets into lifelessness goes against the "efficiency" part of their existence. When their entire plan relies on the element of surprise even the hint of life possibly surviving on a planet to come back and bite them in the bottom in 50k years, is something they can't allow. So if a population has expanded their technology enough, fought enough wars, they will have ways of dealing with orbital bombardment for at least part of their population or military staff.

The better question is probably why they don't *start* with a volley of bombardment and then land to finish the job. Simply bombing until you think they're all dead is not efficient. Nor does it leave enough of a planet left to return to life within the normal cycle systems. We can't say exactly why they perpetuate such a cycle..but it's obvious their goal is not just to kill everything. Or else there would be no cycle.

They WANT to leave planets in a state that life can evolve again. They also, for some reason, collect all the technology of a race. We don't know if they just want to make sure it's not still on the planet or if they use it for some purpose. If they use it, then they also don't want to have to bomb out the planet, as it would remove all traces of resources and technology they may need.

Until we know the reasoning why the reapers have the cycle we can't know if orbital bombardment is a viable option for them that they just aren't choosing to use.

[Vengeful Nature]

jamesp81 wrote...

I was addressing the question asked that specifically was about why FTL missiles aren't used.  Again, it's probably too costly to use a mass effect drive as a weapon.

As for sublight weapons, lots of Mass Effect's weapons already operate on kinetic energy.  An Alliance dreadnought's main gun can throw a projectile at apporximately 4000 km/s, which is not relativistic velocity, but is still enough to get someone's attention.

The Thanix Cannon description from ME2 claims that it's projectile moves at relativistic speeds.  It certainly disemboweled the collector cruiser plenty fast.

Yes but, again, you don't need your RKV travelling at FTL velocities. A basketball going 1% the speed of light (this is relativistic velocity, FYI) will hit with kiloton force. As you yourself mention, every dreadnought has a gun that can accelerate a projectile to relativistic velocity (relativistic just means going fast enough to experience relativistic effects, which can be a small fraction of the speed of light). With that in mind, the Reapers have easy access to these weapons because they are far more advanced, by millions of years, than the current state of the art. Pounding a planet's surface to dust would be as easy as flipping a light switch for them.

Compare this with the risk of taking the time to land on a planet. Your very vulnerable, hell, you may even lose some of your Reaper friends. Is this, as someone mentions in a later post, the pinnacle of machine efficiency? Think of it in a cost-benefit way. It doesn't add up.

Unless they want something. As I said, we don't know what they want yet. The Soylent Green theory is shaky at best, and husks are pointless if you can do what I have described above. This is my concern.

Modifié par Vengeful Nature, 08 juin 2011 - 10:40 .

[Vengeful Nature]

jamesp81 wrote...

I disagree with all these premises at their core.

1) Nothing that lives is immortal.  They are also not "self sustaining".  This would be a perpetual motion machine.  However advanced the Reapers are, they are still bound by things like Thermodynamics.  Also, the Reapers are not completely machine.  ME2 tells you directly that they are part machine part organic (but they appear to be a lot more machine than organic).

2) Wear tear is always an issue.  Nothing has ever been built that will not eventually require some form of maintenance.  Harbinger's over-sized ass is not exempt from this.

3) The goo stuff hasn't yet been explained.  It's part of their process to make new Reapers, but that's all we know.  And hell, maybe it won't get explained at all.

I disagree. These things almost certainly have access to all sorts of highly advanced self-repairing kit. For one, they probably have access to nanotechnology, which can be used in this way. They are millions of years more advanced than us, I don't think they have to have a service and MOT every year. The Reapers being part organic is a retcon, and you yourself rightly state that the grey goo isn't explained. It's highly likely that these apparently semi-organic components do not make up the majority of these massive dreadnought-sized machines.

[Vengeful Nature]

Yakko77 wrote...

The Reapers seem to rely on fear and intimidation as a tactic and what better way to do that than take you miles long death ray shooting self and land right on top of those you want to conquer.

This doesn't make sense. Do you have to see something to be scared of it? If anything, the prospect of virtually indestructible AI dreadnoughts millions of years old, responsible for countless instances of galaxy-wide genocide, hanging hundreds of thousands of kilometers away in space, bombarding Earth with complete impunity, gives me more shivers than the things turning up and squatting over our cities for no apparent reason. That's what attracted me to the Reaper part of the ME universe in the first place: the sheer, cold, machine-efficient and impersonal nature of the things.

[GnusmasTHX]

I agree, troll.

[Vengeful Nature]

WizenSlinky0 wrote...

Bombing planets into lifelessness goes against the "efficiency" part of their existence. When their entire plan relies on the element of surprise even the hint of life possibly surviving on a planet to come back and bite them in the bottom in 50k years, is something they can't allow. So if a population has expanded their technology enough, fought enough wars, they will have ways of dealing with orbital bombardment for at least part of their population or military staff.

The better question is probably why they don't *start* with a volley of bombardment and then land to finish the job. Simply bombing until you think they're all dead is not efficient. Nor does it leave enough of a planet left to return to life within the normal cycle systems. We can't say exactly why they perpetuate such a cycle..but it's obvious their goal is not just to kill everything. Or else there would be no cycle.

They WANT to leave planets in a state that life can evolve again. They also, for some reason, collect all the technology of a race. We don't know if they just want to make sure it's not still on the planet or if they use it for some purpose. If they use it, then they also don't want to have to bomb out the planet, as it would remove all traces of resources and technology they may need.

Until we know the reasoning why the reapers have the cycle we can't know if orbital bombardment is a viable option for them that they just aren't choosing to use.

Highlighted for truth. This is a concession I would be happy with, and would still make far more sense than what they are doing in ME3. This is efficient enough to be worthy of the Reapers, even if it still has problems.

As to your last point, my concern is that after ME2, nothing will make sense because the Reapers will be a jumple of incoherent and messy plot holes and wasted opportunities.

GnusmasTHX wrote...

I agree, troll.

Look, chief, you can either contribute to the topic or not comment at all. Nothing about what I have said is anywhere near trolling. Others seem to be able to bring up good points, even if I disagree with them. Which I will concede.

Thankyou for your time.

Modifié par Vengeful Nature, 08 juin 2011 - 10:56 .

[mcneil_1]

For some not so weird reason the Reapers remind me of the Tyranids from 40K

[Pride Demon]

I believe they do bombard the planet... AFTER they have harvested everything on it...
The bombarding is not to kill the population, it's to hide trace of their passage: to harvest they need to land (as to broadcast indoctrination signals better and destroy ground troops without loosing too many subjects maybe), and their landing obviously leaves remarkable traces (artifacts, scorched earth like on Eden Prime, who knows what else) and they don't what subsequent races figuring out all that destruction is from the same source...

You may say "but orbital bombardment is a pretty lampant sign in and of itself", but then again everyone can do orbital bombardment as long as they have dreadnoughts (the Turians did on many Krogan worlds during the rebellions), so if another race sees the destroyed world I doubt they'll go "OMG! Sentient starships definitely came from outer space and harvested/crushed everything! We are doomed, doomed me tells ya!", they'll just think some other extinct race from long time ago warred with the inhabitants of that planet and used dreadnoughts to annihilate a colony (scorched earth response they call it)...

Some time ago I theorized that's probably the reason Feros is intact: by the time the Reapers came, all the Protheans there where already dead and part of the Thorian, since no one was there the Reapers had no need to land, and so they had no need to bomb the sh*t out of the planet to hide evidence... They just moved on...

As for "why" they actually do what they do I have a theory, but saying it would derail the topic, and it's just speculation anyway, so it doesn't matter...

Just my two cents...

[BadgerladDK]

jamesp81 wrote...

Larg_Kellein wrote...

They work on cycles of thousands of years, not millions. By that logic, their interest would be only in wiping out high level life, as it'd take far too long for new useful life to pop up from a planet that was left as a crater. Even 50k years seems on the short side assuming they'd leave apes and other mammals for new intelligence to develop from, with cro-magnon man existing about 30-40k years ago.

So that'd leave only 10k years to go from glass parking lot planet to primitive man for the next cycle,assuming 30-40k from primitive man to ftl travel again. So yeah, nuking the site from orbit isn't always the solution.

As for why the cycle matters at all, now that's a good question. For all we know, it could be for some kind of machine-lulz, but I sort of doubt it, hillarious as it'd be.

In the end, all we can know for sure is this: Reapers gonna reap.

They only harvest species that have achieved significant space flight.  For example, if the Reapers came tomorrow, odds are they'd just ignore Earth of 2011.  They'd save us for the next round.

Yeah, I believe I said as much... However, we'd more likely be candidates for destruction without harvesting, as we'd likely be "over ripe" for harvesting in another 50k years of uninterrupted development.

[LGTX]

As I believe habitable planets are in a minority in the Mass Effect universe, so it would be stupid for the Reapers to just roll in and torch their fertile crop lands right after the harvest. Their method of reaping simply ensures that once they leave the planet, they leave it in a state that will allow new lifeforms to breed and develop.

[KiraTsukasa]

Vengeful Nature wrote...

KiraTsukasa wrote...

Vengeful Nature wrote...

Found those links I was looking for. The planets of Aphras, Etamis, Bothros, Joab and Tosal Nym all appear to have suffered from RKV bombardment.

And yet there is no evidence that the Reapers were the culprits on any of these planets.

I'll concede that, but it's heavily hinted at. The fact that the same death crops up across the galaxy for 4 different spacefaring civilisations was clearly meant as an allusion to previous Reaper activity. What's the saying? Something about 2 being a coincidence, 3 being a clue, or something?

This is a process that has been going on for millions of years, if not longer. The Protheans weren't the first race in the galaxy. What's to say that another civilization didn't do it? Five planets have been bombarded from orbit, must be the Reapers. That's like saying five buildings blew up, must be Al-Qaeda.