146 réponses à ce sujet

[RyuGuitarFreak]

I don't buy the "second vanguard" idea very well but what you say makes sense. I always had in mind that Arrival was plan B and the Collector's were doing the human reaper just in advance but all the theories and facts in succession shown by you after Shepard make much more sense.

But hell did the reapers travel fast from dark space, huh?

Good job.

Modifié par RyuGuitarFreak, 30 juin 2011 - 06:09 .

[CroGamer002]

dreman9999 wrote...

It's pretty good but there are a few things you missed.

1. The Rachni Wars was a result of Sovergian they to find away to take down the citadel races. This happens after he find out the signal fails.

I don't remember it was stated when Sovy send that signal.

That's why I said it's possible after Rachni Wars.
If anything I would change it to during Rachni Wars.


But if it was stated that Sovy done it before then show me.
I'd like to know that.

2.The Reapers also could of split their fleet. One goingto the alpha relay and the other half still in dark space. Who ever got their first starts the attack.  The fleet in dark space maybe bafind the events in ME2. The fleet going tothe alpha relay may have stated going to the relay since ME1.

Waste of resources and energy and only half of fleet would be in Milky Way.
So if that half of fleet fails to Reap galaxy then others have to go in same route AND galactic civilizations would be preparing this time around.

3.The Arrival event was also a ploy for the reaper to try to indorcinate and control Sheperd. The reapers may have let Dr.Kenson get captured on purpose to attract Sheperd, and used the project Rho as a trap to capture Sheperd.The only thing they did not count on is Sheperds new physicalogy.

There's no prison facility on tat station.
I think they would build one or at least have some sort of stasis thingy to make sure Shepard doesn't escape.

[hwf]

Mesina2: Please provide evidence that this is new kind of Reaper.

It's a Reaper embryo that has a Human shape. Unless there were Humans around in earlier reaping cycles, it's a new kind of Reaper.

hwf: Where's the proof they can get enough Humans from outlying, undefended colonies in the Terminus System?
Mesina2: EDI's assupmtion. Not really an evidence, but I don't see how most advanced A.I. can be dead wrong about it.

EDI only mentions that the embryo has taken several tens of thousands and needs millions more Humans and makes no assumption on availability of these. Please provide evidence that this amount can be gathered from undefended colonies in the Terminus Systems.

Phaedon: I somehow doubt that DNA is used as...motor oil. Think about it. Would it make sense for any of the species to be 'ascended' before the time of their harvest has begun?

Why Humans are processed is a different, exciting topic. It doesn't invalidate the "no plan B" theory.
The Reaper embryo is not going anywhere however; it's in the very early stages of development. A shore party took care of it with hand weapons.
While Shepard "was sleeping" for the two years between ME1 and ME2, as the Illusive Man put it, there have been abductions from colonies and it took the Collectors those two whole years to make the embryo we get to see at the end of ME2.
And why the Reapers do as they do, we don't know. What we do know is that we mean nothing to them and the Arrival DLC essentially confirms their hubris due to their belief that the galaxy's going to fall, regardless of what we do.

hwf: Straight away is key here - starting on day one of the attack on Earth the Collectors would've been busy cleaning out the Earth of Humans.
Mesina2: Now tell me how that ship can get from Omega to Earth without getting shut down by Council forces. Or even retreating Alliance fleets. It's still just 1 ship that Normandy can take down easily.
Mesina2: Reapers are on Earth. Instead of Collectors they got Cerberus and they still got Geth. No big loss, especially if you kept Collector base.

A few Reapers would escort the Collector ship or just clear every relay on the path that the Collector ship takes. Or both.

We don't know if the Reapers "have" Cerberus - according to Casey Hudson Cerberus is against Shepard, which could mean anything. What Cerberus' angle would be is a different topic.
What I've been stating in every post I've made is that taking down the Collectors will give Humanity a fighting chance; no trivial harvesting of Humans due to mass paralysation, transportation and processing by the Collectors who were tailor made for that very purpose by the Reapers.

That alone is reason enough for ME2 to have meaning and it requires no "plan B" or second Vanguard to exist. Also, in ME2 the Reapers are characterized from a bland galaxy wide threat to a type of evil that has it out for Humanity specifically.
So a "no plan B" theory works well.

Mesina2: Illusive Man had no idea why are they abducting only humans, let alone to attack the Earth. Nobody knows why they targeted humanity until they saw Human Reaper.

Exactly, the Illusive Man saw mass abductions from remote Human colonies as a threat that needed investigation.
That was the premise for ME2 and getting Shepard in on it and nothing else - no imminent invasion of either Earth by Collectors or the Citadel by a Human Reaper: The "no plan B" theory holds up well.

Casey Hudson: You see humans being harvested and processed to become fuel for the way Reapers reproduce. This is their reproductive cycle and we're just a part of it. We're nothing to them.
Thrombin: Now, I've just finished playing Arrival before the SM and I noticed that they went to the trouble of changing the dialogue to reflect that you haven't destroyed the Collectors yet and they even changed the hologram of Harbinger to be the Collector boss rather than the Reaper. That and Casey's comment make me even more sure that Arrival happening before the SM does not compromise the plot in any way. The Human Reaper was simply about reproduction. No more, no less.

That's a very nice find - the Collector General addressing Shepard in the Arrival DLC.
It essentially shows that the collecting of Humans isn't for anything but processing Humans into "fuel for the way Reapers reproduce" and that the Reapers have started moving towards the galaxy the moment Sovereign failed.
Just reproduction. We're nothing to them. That's why Harbinger states that "you have failed, we will find another way".

I really like the video in the original post; the third Mass Effect game is going to be played by a lot of folks who haven't played part one or two and they could definitely use some cliff notes on what happened before ME3.

Modifié par hwf, 30 juin 2011 - 06:41 .

[hwf]

I really don't want to do quote-bombs anymore but I feel obligated to defend the question I have posed, way way back!

[CroGamer002]

hwf wrote...

It's a Reaper embryo that has a Human shape. Unless there were Humans around in earlier reaping cycles, it's a new kind of Reaper.

And that proves what?

EDI only mentions that the embryo has taken several tens of thousands and needs millions more Humans and makes no assumption on availability of these. Please provide evidence that this amount can be gathered from undefended colonies in the Terminus Systems.

Freedom Progress is small colony and has population of almost 1 million people.

Also I looked for random human planet in Terminus System's: Aite, 1 540 000.

And with that plague from Omega, they could have attacked colonies that aren't human.
I really wonder how much some Batarian colony, that is not in Batarain Hegemony, has human slaves.

A few Reapers would escort the Collector ship or just clear every relay on the path that the Collector ship takes. Or both.

If they can do that then, why not attack Citadel from start in ME3?
Far better to do that since they can shut down ever Mass Relay and any system communication.

We don't know if the Reapers "have" Cerberus - according to Casey Hudson Cerberus is against Shepard, which could mean anything. What Cerberus' angle would be is a different topic.

Casey also said in one of Earth Demo vids( not sure which) that Illusive Man is behind everything.

What I've been stating in every post I've made is that taking down the
Collectors will give Humanity a fighting chance; no trivial harvesting
of Humans due to mass paralysation, transportation and processing by the
Collectors who were tailor made for that very purpose by the
Reapers.
That alone is reason enough for ME2 to have meaning and it requires no "plan B" or second Vanguard to exist. Also, in ME2 the Reapers are characterized from a bland galaxy wide threat to a type of evil that has it out for Humanity specifically.
So a "no plan B" theory works well.

What's the point of doing 1 Reaper sooner?
They have legion of Reapers that already annihilated big part of Batarian Hegemony, almost entire Alliance and Turian Hierarchy in short time.

How can 1 Reaper, even if it's new kind, can make a difference?

Exactly, the Illusive Man saw mass abductions from remote Human colonies as a threat that needed investigation.
That was the premise for ME2 and getting Shepard in on it and nothing else - no imminent invasion of either Earth by Collectors or the Citadel by a Human Reaper: The "no plan B" theory holds up well.

That makes no sense.

Where the hell is evidence that Collectors would attack Earth?
If Reapers are still needed for that then what's the point?

It's just 1 Reaper to build.
Why would Reapers bother doing that?

[Krimson_Wolf]

Nicely done and well thought out. But like u said we don't know anything till the 6th of March

[Thrombin]

hwf wrote...
That's a very nice find - the Collector General addressing Shepard in the Arrival DLC.

One bit of dialogue that's missing from that video was some question you can ask Hackett about what the Alliance are doing about the collector attacks. Apparently they are reinforcing the larger colonies and evacuating the smaller ones.  However, no ship that ever encountered the Collector vessel has so far ever reported back.

Regards

Julian

[Thrombin]

dreman9999 wrote...
The differance is.
1.Flying to the alpha relay takes time.
2.They maybe detected going via Alpha Relay.
3.Citidel relay is way faster.

Also,the citadel is ages old, used many times for invations. I whould doupt it is fragil.

1. But building the human reaper takes even more time. In the theory that I'm querying, flying to the alpha relay takes a few months but waiting to open the Citadel using the Human Reaper takes several years. What's the advantage in waiting two years to build a reaper that they can use to open the citadel relay to get the Reapers to the Citadel if they can just fly to the alpha relay and get to the Citadel in two months?

2. We know that the Reapers weren't detected even within 2 minutes of reaching the Alpha Relay. As has been mentioned, since they're travelling faster than light towards the Galaxy their emissions won't reach the Galaxy until after they do.

3. Once they reach the Alpha Relay they can travel to anywhere in the Galaxy instantly. 

I believe the Citadel is pretty much indestructible, like the other relays. It's certainly not fragile!

Regards

Julian

[Thrombin]

Parion wrote...

Thrombin wrote...

Yes, but they can take out the Citadel by flying en masse via the Alpha Relay just as easily as they can take out the Citadel coming through it's own Relay. What's the difference?

I'm really not sure they can. At least, not without great dificulty.
If they attack openly then the citadel is going to have enough time to close up, as shown in ME1 where sovereign required saren to prevent exactly this happening.

So here we have two possible scenarios.
Now, the citadel is very important to the reapers, but they're leaving it largely unattended for large stretches of time so it needs to be able to cope not only with everything the lesser races could possibly throw at it but also random stellar events.
In this case it's probable that the citadel's defences are simply too powerful for the reapers to crack.

On the other hand, maybe they didn't make the citadel that sturdy... but then we have to remember it's a mass relay. If the reapers then attack it openly there's a good chance of it's systems being damaged beyond usability, or even the relay itself detonating.
Which would be Bad.

A fleet of reapers from the Alpha Relay would have been just as surprising as Sovereign and just as surprising as whatever the Human Reaper might do.

As soon as the Reapers appear, the Citadel will start closing up and unless the Reapers can get someone inside and get to the controls they're not going to be able to stop it closing whichever way they arrive there.

Either a human reaper or a fleet of reapers will still have the same problems but if the human reaper fails then the secret really will be out of the bag and the Galaxy will definitely be prepared for next time. If the main reaper fleet fail to get into the Citadel in time then they can still take out the fleet clustered around it and then indoctrinate everyone on the Citadel over a period of time. 

It still seems to be a better strategy to attack straight away than wait two years. Which is why I think they must have been too far away to attack sooner than they did.

Regards

Julian 

[hwf]

hwf: It's a Reaper embryo that has a Human shape. Unless there were Humans around in earlier reaping cycles, it's a new kind of Reaper.
Mesina2: And that proves what?

Why would it prove anything? I don't understand this line of questioning. Maybe in ME3 we'll hear more on why Humanity qualifies for ascension into a Reaper.

hwf: Please provide evidence that this amount can be gathered from undefended colonies in the Terminus Systems.
Mesina2: Freedom Progress is small colony and has population of almost 1 million people. Also I looked for random human planet in Terminus System's: Aite, 1540000.
Mesina2: And with that plague from Omega, they could have attacked colonies that aren't human. I really wonder how much some Batarian colony, that is not in Batarain Hegemony, has human slaves.

That's interesting reasoning on the Omega plague, it gives actual meaning to it.

When we start Mass Effect 2, two years have passed since Shepard's death and the Illusive Man mentions that in that time hundreds of thousands have been abducted. At the end of ME2, EDI mentions tens of thousands of all these abductees have been processed into the embryo and millions if not more need to be processed in order to finish it.
With hundreds of thousands getting collected and tens of thousands being actually infused into the embryo and seeing Human corpses just littered all over the Collector Ship and left rotting, I'm thinking not every Human passes the grade.
Good luck proving that the Collectors can grab enough Humans to fill that vague quantity that EDI specifies - "millions, perhaps more".

All the above is irrelevant for the "no plan B" theory, however. It holds up just fine wether or not the embryo gets completed before the Reaper Armada gets to the galaxy.

hwf: A few Reapers would escort the Collector ship or just clear every relay on the path that the Collector ship takes. Or both.
Mesina2: If they can do that then, why not attack Citadel from start in ME3? Far better to do that since they can shut down ever Mass Relay and any system communication.

A "second Vanguard" theory requires the Reapers to want to capture the Citadel before the harvesting begins. While "no plan B" doesn't require anything in this regard.
And I have explained why the Collector ship could do it's thing on Earth when the Reapers have invaded the galaxy.

Mesina2: Casey also said in one of Earth Demo vids( not sure which) that Illusive Man is behind everything.
Mesina2: What's the point of doing 1 Reaper sooner? How can 1 Reaper, even if it's new kind, can make a difference?

Yeah, the Illusive Man - ME3's going to be very interesting.

The "no plan B" theory doesn't require any explanation for that Reaper embryo other then simple reproduction.
If anything they need to know "Will it blend?" - Humans processed into a Reaper. Because that didn't work with the Protheans; they didn't blend.
That's the beauty of "no plan B" - it works in every possible scenario that we can see in ME2; lack of easy to grab Humans and even the scenario where you finish Arrival DLC before taking out the Collector Base.

hwf: Exactly, the Illusive Man saw mass abductions from remote Human colonies as a threat that needed investigation. That was the premise for ME2 and getting Shepard in on it and nothing else - no imminent invasion of either Earth by Collectors or the Citadel by a Human Reaper.
Mesina2: That makes no sense. Where the hell is evidence that Collectors would attack Earth? If Reapers are still needed for that then what's the point? It's just 1 Reaper to build. Why would Reapers bother doing that?

The "no plan B" theory doesn't require Collectors going after Earth or any heavily defended colony. The "second Vanguard" theory however, does.
Again, they're just building a Reaper for reproduction, no need to complicate this.

The "no plan B" theory works well in that you aren't stuck with unknown variables that you have to accept as true in order to make it work - or heavens forbid Schrödinger Time (nice one Dean the Young) because that's just how interactive media like the Mass Effect games work.

[CroGamer002]

I'll make this short.

How does Plan B requires Earth population?


Wouldn't EDI said billions instead of millions at Collector Base?
I really don't see how this argument comes from you.

[Thrombin]

To be fair to Mesina2 it's not inconceivable that they could finish the Reaper without invading Earth as we don't really know how extensive Earth's colonization has been.

Having said that, going by Arrival dialogue, the Alliance had already started mobilising defences because of the Collector attacks. Any more and the other council races would have been called in as well. Even without realising the reapers are behind it, making that reaper is going to create a massive mobilisation of council forces.

One has to assume that the reapers always intended to arrive in force before that happened!

Regards

Julian

Modifié par Thrombin, 01 juillet 2011 - 08:23 .

[CroGamer002]

^Conduit.

[hwf]

The question I posed was "Could it be that there is no "Plan B" for the Reapers?" and I feel that I've covered any inquiries good enough. Sometimes multiple times.

What is required for plan B is both enough humans and enough time. Both are not clearly defined.
Now the simple "no plan B" works fine with any combination of those two, but it's just theory and shouldn't be taken as gospel or anything.

[Thrombin]

Mesina2 wrote...

^Conduit.

Well I'm all for brevity but you've lost me on that one.  Are you referring to my post or someone else's?  

[ME-ParaShep]

Thrombin wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...
The differance is.
1.Flying to the alpha relay takes time.
2.They maybe detected going via Alpha Relay.
3.Citidel relay is way faster.

Also,the citadel is ages old, used many times for invations. I whould doupt it is fragil.

1. But building the human reaper takes even more time. In the theory that I'm querying, flying to the alpha relay takes a few months but waiting to open the Citadel using the Human Reaper takes several years. What's the advantage in waiting two years to build a reaper that they can use to open the citadel relay to get the Reapers to the Citadel if they can just fly to the alpha relay and get to the Citadel in two months?

2. We know that the Reapers weren't detected even within 2 minutes of reaching the Alpha Relay. As has been mentioned, since they're travelling faster than light towards the Galaxy their emissions won't reach the Galaxy until after they do.

3. Once they reach the Alpha Relay they can travel to anywhere in the Galaxy instantly. 

I believe the Citadel is pretty much indestructible, like the other relays. It's certainly not fragile!

Regards

Julian

Pertaining to the bolded print: However; Alpha Relay was destroyed via the collision of a propelled asteroid. I would wonder what would happen if something similar were to happen to the Citadel. Heck, it might even DENT the Citadel. Theory, but possible.

[Thrombin]

ME-ParaShep wrote...
Pertaining to the bolded print: However; Alpha Relay was destroyed via the collision of a propelled asteroid. I would wonder what would happen if something similar were to happen to the Citadel. Heck, it might even DENT the Citadel. Theory, but possible.

Yes, I'm sure the Reapers could destroy the Citadel if they wanted to but I doubt they want to. It's designed to be the hub of civilization for each cycle so they'd be very reluctant to want to actually destroy it.

By the way, I've just checked the wiki and I don't see any mention of the Citadel Relay being capable of shutting down the Relay Network. It only says that it links to a number of relays.

The first time I heard about this feature was in this thread. Is it supposition or is it confirmed somewhere?

Regards

Julian

[Parion]

Thrombin wrote...
It still seems to be a better strategy to attack straight away than wait two years. Which is why I think they must have been too far away to attack sooner than they did.

Oh, I agree. Waiting for sovereign makes sense as he had a decent chance of claiming the relay, but after his failure the citadel was a complete write-off. There's no way a freshly minted reaper with a single cruiser could achieve what sovereign couldn't, especially after the conduit had been compromised.
I just wanted to point out how important the citadel is.

Thrombin wrote...

The first time I heard about this feature was in this thread. Is it supposition or is it confirmed somewhere?

Whilst not explicitly stated, Vigil implies it when he says;
"The Reapers seized control of the Citadel, and through it the mass relays. Communication and transportation across our empire were crippled. Each star system was isolated, cut off from the others.
Easy prey for the Reaper fleets."

Modifié par Parion, 06 juillet 2011 - 02:00 .

[CroGamer002]

/bump for people who didn't probably seen it.

[Praetor Knight]

Good breakdown.

But why mention Billy Mays?

[CroGamer002]

^I dunno. Ask Squee.

[bucyrus5000]

Mesina2 wrote...

Explaining Reaper plans


Special thanks to Squee913 for voicing this.

Great job on the video!
Strong arguement for the Reaper's actions, still their motivation for exterminating life in the Milky Way eludes me. I also wonder if they do the same to other galaxies.